False Gods

by Nazri Noor

  Imperial looked at me down the bridge of her nose. “Oh, we know very well who he is. Mason Albrecht. The nephilim.”

  Beatrice’s gaze switched from Imperial, to me, then back again. “A nefa-what now?”

  Metric took Beatrice’s hand and patted it on the back. “Oh, you didn’t know, did you? The boy is half angel. That’s what makes him different.” She adjusted her monocle, peering closer. I blinked at her, unsure of how to respond. “And I imagine that he’s been after your services so insistently because he means to disguise the aura of his spirit from the rest of the supernatural world. Did I guess correctly, dear heart?”

  I nodded. Beatrice sputtered.

  “Are you serious? All this time, and you didn’t tell me?”

  I shrugged, toeing at the ground. “It never came up.” And truly, it never did. I wasn’t in the habit of going around telling people who and what I was. Who did that? It sounded like a great way to get killed, or captured, or chopped up for parts.

  “I should have charged more,” Beatrice said, stewing. The Fuck-Tons laughed in musical unison.

  “That’s predatory,” I said. “Or discriminatory. One or the other. Maybe both. You should charge me the same as the rest of your clients.”

  She leaned over her counter, one hand flying up to point a finger into my face yet again. I noticed that her palm had left a wet stain in the wood. “I told you, I’m already giving you a discounted rate for the shimmerscale. Listen here, nephyl – nivel – Niflheim.”

  “It’s nephilim,” I growled.

  “I don’t like you,” she growled back.

  “Well, I generally think you’re okay, but right now you’re being kind of a jerk.”

  Imperial reached out this time, patting Beatrice’s hand. “Now, now, the two of you, let’s not be so aggressive with each other.” It was interesting, seeing how the two drag queens had such a calming influence on Beatrice. Each time one of them spoke, she looked at them and listened intently, with all the respect and reverence of a child attending to a grandmother. A really, really big grandmother. Two of them.

  “We’ll absorb the cost of the destroyed handbag,” Metric told Beatrice, all sweet and motherly. “So you won’t have to worry about it again. We can always make another one, sweetie.”

  “That’s true,” Beatrice said softly, her mouth in a pout, her eyes still stabbing daggers into my head.

  “Now,” Metric said. “What was the cost that you agreed upon again?”

  “Ten thousand dollars.” Beatrice folded her arms with all the gravity of a businesswoman who simply, absolutely refused to budge on her final offer.

  “A fair price for something crafted out of shimmerscale,” Imperial said, adjusting her own monocle. “Nephilim, consider this a favor. We will assist Beatrice in creating something suitable for you.”

  I stammered. “I, um. Okay, that’s really nice of you. But that means it’d have to be made out of leather.”

  Beatrice Rex and the Fuck-Tons smiled at me with huge, leering grins. I knew instinctively that not one of them was related to the other, but the family resemblance was striking. It was Beatrice who spoke.

  “What are your thoughts about an enchanted leather thong?”

  20

  The ladies were joking, as it turned out, which was just as well. Nothing against the lifestyle, I mean, but tiny leather panties did not sound very comfortable to me at all. They meant a thong necklace, one of those narrow cords of leather you wore with a pendant around your neck, in this case, sans pendant.

  “I like the direction you’re heading with that,” I said, equal parts relieved and intrigued.

  “Oh, absolutely,” Imperial said. “It simply wouldn’t do to have you wearing it as a belt now, would it? The enchantment must be something that clings to your skin at all times. What if an entity tries to pounce on you in the shower?”

  Metric shuddered. They weren’t exaggerating, either. I’d heard stories. Entities loved to harp on about etiquette when it came to humans approaching them for favors, but they sure as hell were happy enough to show up unannounced whenever they damn well pleased. Dustin Graves would often joke about it happening to him, so much that I had to wonder if they were legitimate complaints rather than actual jokes.

  “A friend told me that Arachne is especially fond of pulling that sort of trick,” I offered. Dustin and Arachne had a special bond, but even then it was kind of creepy, the way she could send her spiders in to visit whenever she wanted.

  “Oh, don’t get me started,” Metric said, waving a hand and visibly shuddering again.

  “Yeah,” Beatrice said, chuckling, her eyes a little distant. “I’ve heard the same.”

  “But that’s how it works, you see,” Imperial said. “The relationships we humans have with the entities, they’re all contractual, all about give and take. The problem is that some of them will feel a sense of entitlement, or maybe even develop a fondness for a particular human. Still, strange as it seems, the risks are well worth it with someone as knowledgable as Arachne.”

  Florian looked between the rest of us, then chimed in. “Is she that spider-woman? Comes from Greek myth? Got too cocky about her weaving skills or something, got cursed.”

  I smiled at him, impressed that he got something right about mythology for once. “That’s the one.”

  “It’s interesting how modern times have shifted the balance of power,” Imperial added. “Arachne was only a woman cursed by the gods, but in a world like ours, where information is so precious, so expensive? Someone who can hear all the secrets holds all the power. And there are very few places in the world that spiders cannot access.”

  That got me thinking. Florian and I hadn’t heard from Belphegor since our run-in at the Amphora, and we had no clues about the next weapon Loki wanted, Mistleteinn. I didn’t very much like the idea of getting in touch with a demon prince to check on that, because the last thing you want is to owe one of the Seven another favor. Gambanteinn’s location was a clue freely given. But maybe, despite all the sinister stories – maybe Arachne could help us.

  “Hypothetically,” I said. “Theoretically. If someone was interested in getting in touch with Arachne for, you know, a communion. How would that someone go about finding the spider-queen?”

  “That’s easy,” Beatrice scoffed, whipping out a piece of paper from under her counter, scrawling out a rudimentary map of the city. She seemed really eager to show off, and I’d given her enough grief that afternoon, so I was happy to let her do her thing.

  Florian and I peered closer, finding that Arachne’s tether in Valero was located in – huh.

  “That’s an alleyway,” I said. “Somewhere in Little China.”

  Metric nodded. “It’s kind of convenient, truth be told. Means you can pick up some fortune cookies on the way.”

  I cocked my head. “Sorry. Fortune cookies?”

  “Don’t you know anything?” Beatrice rolled her eyes. “They’re Arachne’s preferred offerings. You should take a bunch of them with you. Take a whole bag.”

  “I’m new to a lot of this stuff,” I said. “Sorry, damn.”

  “Then you would know to be wary as well in your dealings,” Imperial said. “The entities are not to be trifled with.”

  Metric chuckled. “We know that you’re good buddies with the Greek twins and everything, but that doesn’t mean it’ll always be smooth sailing.” The lens of her monocle flashed just then. See, this was why the Fuck-Tons had a reputation. They knew damn well everything that was happening in the city, for better or for worse.

  Beatrice looked at each of us, her eyebrow cocked. “The Greek twins?” Nobody answered, which filled me with relief. Say what you want about the Fuck-Tons, but they weren’t out to air all of my dirty laundry after all. Just enough of it to be a tease. “Whatever,” Beatrice grumbled, folding up her map and shoving it in my hand.

  The corner of it poked into my palm sharply, and I grimaced. “Um, thanks.”

  �
��Why do you even need to see Arachne, anyway?”

  I gave her the kind of secretive, knowing smirk that I knew would annoy her just a smidge. “We need a little favor.”

  For the billionth time, Beatrice rolled her eyes away from me. “Whatever. Come back when you’ve got money for your leather jockstrap. I promise, I’ll make it extra scratchy.”

  We said our goodbyes to the Fuck-Tons, then headed out of the Black Market, eager to find our way over to Little China.

  Now, before you go wondering why so many entities loved to have their tethers in Valero, of all places, you have to think of them as doorways. Every entity’s domicile is a mansion with multiple doors, each one leading back out into our reality. You could knock, if you wanted, but in most cases, it’d still be up to them to decide whether to let you in.

  It goes without saying that the more powerful and influential supernatural beings maintain tethers in multiple locations. Someone like Loki probably had a worldwide network, at least one in every major city. But someone like Skirnir, who’d been forgotten by both time and his own master? Poor guy didn’t even have a domicile to attach tethers to. Can’t have doors without mansions. At least he had his apartment.

  As instructed, we made sure to swing by for fortune cookies, the most convenient place being a Chinese restaurant called Seven Dragons. I thought that the waitress would be more weirded out by my order of “Thirty fortune cookies, please,” but she very nonchalantly proceeded to bag them up for me, like nothing was amiss. Huh. Maybe everybody specifically came to Seven Dragons to pick up Arachne’s offering pre-communion. The alley with her tether was nearby, anyway.

  It was curious, too, how the alley was set at an angle that kept it shrouded from the sun, all shadowy and cool on the inside. “This must be it,” I said, pointing at one of the walls. Among the graffiti, a single symbol stood out, its lines too precise to fit in with the rest of the tag art. It was an octagon with lines drawn through, forming a small image of a web.

  “Okay,” Florian said, nodding. “I’m ready.”

  I chuckled. “Whoa,” I said. “Hold up. We’ve got to actually commune with her, first.”

  Carver once told me that communing was one of the first things any inductee into the arcane underground learned. Even the most mundane, most nonmagical person who could barely conjure a fireball could still learn to commune with the entities.

  “There are only a few key ingredients,” I explained, finally understanding from the look on Florian’s face why teachers enjoyed the act of teaching. He was rapt in attention, eyes staring intently, mouth hanging open. “You need a circle, an offering, an incantation, and just a single drop of blood.”

  I cleared away most of the debris from a spot in the alley using my shoe, making just enough space for our ritual. Using a piece of chalk, I drew a loose circle into the ground. Both summoning circles and their incantations, Carver explained, could be as simple or as complex as you liked. All that mattered was the intent.

  He’d also shared that an entity might even overlook some of the ingredients in a summoning, depending on how much it liked you. Raziel, for example, seemed happy enough to show up if I yelled really hard, or if I was close enough to being burned alive.

  “Looking good,” Florian said, his hands balled into loose fists at his side as he watched with fixed curiosity.

  “I beg to differ.” A long, mocking yawn filled the alley, and our heads whipped about towards its source. This place was a dead end, which already didn’t bode well, especially when I saw who was standing at the mouth of the alley.

  “You again,” I grumbled.

  “Yes, me again,” said Sadriel, the angel of order.

  21

  I retreated from the summoning circle, Florian instinctively backing away into the alley to join me so we stood shoulder to shoulder. If Sadriel wanted a fight, we were going to take her two on – wait. She was alone. I glanced around hurriedly, making sure that her quicksilver bodyguards weren’t lying in wait, but considering the size of those bastards, there really wasn’t any way of hiding them in such a tight alley, was there?

  “You came alone,” I said, my fists raised just by my face. At my side, Florian’s palms were pointed at the ground. We were standing on filthy cement, sure, but maybe he had some way of penetrating through to the earth if the need arose. “What are you even doing here?”

  Sadriel smiled at us. “I decided to travel light today, Mr. Albrecht. It might seem to you that descending from our celestial offices is just a matter of flapping one’s wings and arriving on terra firma, but I can assure you, it’s quite taxing. And I have to take up the bulk of the work.”

  Her heels clicked as she approached, one hand curling fingers across the bottom of her ever-present clipboard, the other clutching her golden pen. Check that: her deadly, potentially skull-piercing pen. Really puts a new spin on the concept of bullet journaling.

  My feet shifted against the ground as she came closer, my hands up to protect my face. Why was I even assuming a boxer’s stance? The hell was I thinking? I couldn’t reach out and summon the armor I liked so much from the Vestments. Raziel said so. That probably meant that I wouldn’t be able to access the gauntlets, too.

  Sadriel chuckled. “There really is no cause for alarm, gentlemen. You can let your guard down. You have my word. I am only here to observe.” She crouched closer to the ground, adjusting her glasses as she peered at the summoning circle, then wrinkled her nose. “And to offer some advice. This is really very crude, don’t you think?”

  My fists fell to my sides as I broadened my shoulders and lifted my chin in defiance. “Hey. That’s kind of rude. It’s the best I can do.”

  “Is it, now?” Sadriel said, only just concealing her amusement. She smirked to herself, tapping the blunt end of her pen against her cheekbone as her eyes flitted between the summoning circle and my face.

  I frowned. “What?”

  She smiled even wider. “Perhaps you will allow me to make some adjustments, to demonstrate how a perfect circle actually looks.”

  I rolled my eyes. “How is this going to help us with our communion? It’ll work either way.”

  Sadriel dusted off the back of her trousers as she stood up and straightened herself. “It’s the principle of it, Mr. Albrecht. It is part of my territory, after all, my portfolio. Neatness. Precision. Order.”

  My lips pressed together tight as a little idea dawned on me. “Oh, that’s right.” I walked over to the circle, still wary, but kneeling close enough to reach its edge with my hand. “So it’s really going to bother you if I do something to make it even messier, wouldn’t it?” I ran my fingers along the outside of the circle, smudging the chalk. “Does that bother you?”

  Sadriel gasped, her lips parting in horror, her eye twitching. “Please,” she said, gulping. “It’s already so terribly drawn.”

  Frigging angels. I smeared more of the chalk on another bit of the circle, mingling it with the dirt, making its lines all wobbly.

  “No, please,” Sadriel groaned. “It’s so hideous.”

  “Well,” Florian said, tutting. “That’s just uncalled for. A little mean of you, Sadriel.”

  I wish I could more accurately describe the mix of annoyance and triumph that brewed in my chest each time I made the summoning circle more and more imperfect.

  Sadriel breathed deeply. “Mr. Albrecht, there really is no need to be so antagonistic.”

  Oh, no she didn’t. I pushed myself off the ground, my joints popping as I stood up. “That’s a lot of funny talk coming from someone who has, first off, barged into my home, and second, fully attacked me with a squad of buffalo angel goons. And let’s not forget that you got Florian here involved both times.”

  “Then I confess,” Sadriel said. “That wasn’t ideal. But you have to believe me, I really was only gathering data, building up my department’s knowledge base of your capabilities, and even of your personality traits. I know that I am in no position to ask you to trust m
e, Mr. Albrecht, but I am not your enemy.”

  I folded my arms, standing with my feet apart. “You’re going to have to excuse me when I tell you that I find that hard to believe.”

  She pursed her lips, but said nothing. For a moment, she scribbled in her clipboard, the only sound in the alley the scratching of her pen against paper. I caught Florian standing on tiptoe, trying to catch a glimpse of what she was writing. Sadriel raised her pen, and I caught him by the wrist and tugged him away.

  “No way in hell are you going to hurt us, you – ”

  But she didn’t attack. Sadriel thrust her palm towards the ground, fingers splayed out, and a circular pattern of golden light appeared to burn through her clipboard, like it had penetrated paper and wood. It floated at her command, the sigil growing until it was just about the size and shape of the chalk monstrosity I’d drawn myself. The golden lattice of energy fell delicately to the ground, as light as a feather, and there it formed the most beautiful, most geometrically perfect summoning circle.

  “There,” Sadriel said, her smile this time one of satisfaction, and not smugness. “That should serve. Just because any old circle will suffice, doesn’t mean you won’t get a little extra mileage out of a properly crafted one. Arachne will be more likely to lend you her ear when she sees this – well, if I do say so myself – this thing of utter beauty.”

  I still had my arm across Florian’s chest, staring warily at the circle in the dust, waiting for it to turn into a glyph of entrapment like the one Mammon used on me, or an explosive rune, something truly horrible. Yet nothing happened. I raised an eyebrow at Sadriel.

  “What’s the catch, then?” I said.

  “No catch, Mr. Albrecht. Consider this a peace offering. You’ll find that Arachne is as much a fan of patterns and mathematic precision as I am. But alas, that is where our similarities end.”

  I let my arm drop at last, and Florian took the opportunity to trot up to the summoning sigil, marveling at it, the gold reflecting in his eyes. Rubbing the backs of my eyelids, I sighed. We both knew that he was more resilient than your average humanoid, his extensive lifespan and the thickness of his weird not-quite-bark skin giving him a natural toughness, but Florian really needed to be more damn mindful of his mortality.