It’d all seemed so simple. Steal a truck, wait for the right opportunity, and then crush Teri Robinson under his bumper. He’d picked Teri rather than Phil because she was a woman, and that had made her less threatening in his mind. Irrational, he knew, especially since his weapon of choice was a twenty-ton vehicle. But this would be his first human sacrifice to Gorgoz. He’d slaughtered a small menagerie in his dark god’s name, but humans were a big step. Still, when the order came down, he was ready for it. This was his chance to prove himself to Gorgoz, to rise up in the ranks.
And he’d blown it.
But he was safe. Nobody had seen him. Except maybe Teri, and it was a fleeting glance at best. She’d see him again. And next time, there would be no miracles to save her.
“Hello, bug.”
He jumped at the voice.
The spotted rat on his sofa stared at him.
Bruce knelt. “Master, I have failed you.”
“Yes, you have.”
“It won’t happen again,” said Bruce.
“No, it won’t.”
The scampering of dozens of tiny rodent feet filled the room. And Bruce knew the time had come to pay the piper. He regretted that it was going to end like this, struck down before he even had a chance to rise up in the ranks, before he’d gotten his chance to at least get something worthwhile from all the blood he’d spilled in Gorgoz’s name. But, honestly, he wasn’t surprised.
The swarm of squirrels, rats, and one ravenous, red-speckled wombat pounced on him and devoured him, and Bruce’s career in Gorgoz’s temple came to a bloody end.
12
“I challenge,” said Lucky.
“You challenge?” Quick tapped the table with his clawed fingertips. “But it’s a word. S-O-M-B-R-E-R-O. A wide-brimmed hat.”
“I know what it is,” said Lucky. “But it’s not an English word and the rules say very clearly that all words must be in English.”
“No, the rules say words must appear in the dictionary.”
“So I challenge. Check the dictionary.”
Quick picked up the pocket dictionary resting beside the Scrabble board and flipped through to the S section.
“Is it in there?” asked Lucky with a wry grin.
“No, it’s not,” replied Quick, “but that’s not fair. The page is missing. Just like every other page that would contain every other word that you’ve challenged.”
“It’s not my fault the only dictionary we could find was defective.”
“Then whose fault is it?”
“Hey, it’s just my nature. I can’t help it.” Lucky laid out all his tiles, reading as he went. “Z-E-O-L-I-T-E.”
“That’s not a word,” said Quick.
“Do you challenge?”
“What’s it mean?”
“Do you challenge?” asked Lucky.
“You don’t know what it means, do you? You just laid out the tiles at random, didn’t you?”
“I know what it means,” replied Lucky after a moment’s hesitation. “Do you know what it means?”
“Why don’t you tell me then?” asked Quick.
“Why don’t you tell me?” said Lucky.
“Just admit it. You don’t know what it means.”
“Okay, so I don’t. But I don’t have to know. That’s not in the rules.”
The gods stared at each other across the coffee table of honor.
Lucky smiled. “Do you challenge or not?”
Quick scooped up the dictionary and flipped through it. He slammed the book onto the table. “I hate playing games of chance with you.”
“Scrabble is not a game of chance. It is a game of skill with an element of chance. There’s a difference. And don’t be such a sore loser. Come on. You’re due! Nobody wins all the time. Not even me. I think I saw an old copy of Clue in the closet.”
“Don’t you need three for Clue?”
Phil walked through the front door.
“Phil will join us,” said Quick. “Won’t you, Phil?”
“Uh, sure,” said Phil. “What are we doing?”
“Playing Clue.” Lucky bounded to the other room to get the game.
“It’s been forever since I played that game,” said Phil.
Quick shook his head.
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
“You have a little something there.” Quick pointed to a spot of white bird crap on Phil’s shoulder.
“You should see my car.”
“Uh-hmm.” Quick grinned. “Let me guess. For the most part everything was going great today, but sometimes, odd moments of improbable bad luck hit you out of nowhere.”
Phil nodded. “How’d you know?”
“The universe is a chaotic place by nature. Gods of fortune can curb that, even bend it in the favor of their followers, but they can’t completely prevent bad things from happening.”
Lucky returned with the game and started setting it up.
“Want to explain about entropic balance?” asked Quick. “You’re the luck god.”
“It’s not that complicated,” said Lucky as he laid out the miniature pewter murder weapons. “In the old days, we usually just ignored it and all that ill fortune gathered up in a giant clump of negative karma hanging over our followers’ heads. Eventually, it would fall and fall hard. Whammo, a lifetime of delayed entropy would hit them all at once.” He punched his fist into his palm. “The results… not very pretty.
“But you don’t have to worry about that anymore,” said Lucky. “We eventually figured out that if we allowed small bits of random chaos into our followers’ daily lives we could defuse the big whammy. Entropy isn’t picky. It just doesn’t like being ignored. So a few odd misfortunes here, a little bizarre luck there, and everything works itself out just fine.”
“I didn’t think you had to worry about stuff like that,” said Phil. “I thought you just did whatever you wanted.”
“Oh, we have rules we have to follow, too,” said Quick.
“Are you allowed to admit that in front of me?” Phil asked. “Isn’t there some kind of rule against it?”
Lucky and Quick chuckled.
“Some gods think we should present an all-powerful image to mortals all the time,” said Lucky. “But they’re humorless pricks.”
Phil laughed. He was becoming used to this. Not just talking with gods and living with gods, but actually liking them despite himself. But Lucky and Quick weren’t immortals as he knew them. They weren’t aloof or terrifying or wrathful. They were just a couple of working stiffs scraping by with a handful of followers and hoping to get ahead. Even if he would have preferred not having a reformed Aztec sun god sleeping on his sofa, he could relate.
They picked their pawns, and Lucky won the roll to see who would go first.
“Imagine that,” mumbled Quick.
“Oh don’t be such a spoilsport.”
Lucky picked up the die just as the front door opened. Teri stepped in, a little disheveled and with a slightly dazed expression.
“Teri, what’s wrong?” asked Phil.
“There was an accident.”
Quick threw a glare at Lucky, who stared nonchalantly at the die in his hand.
“What happened?” Phil asked. “Are you hurt?”
“No, there were some injuries, but nothing serious. I got hit by a truck. It was a real mess. I could’ve been killed.” She absorbed the thought. “I should’ve been killed.”
Phil put his arm around her and guided her to the sofa. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Lucky’s car saved my life.”
Quick cleared his throat while Lucky straightened out the line of miniature murder weapons.
Teri gave a brief account of her accident. She mentioned the strange speckled pigeons at the end.
“That’s weird,” said Phil. “I was attacked by spotted birds today, too.”
“Are we going to play this game or not?” asked Lucky. “This murder isn’t going to solve its
elf. Didn’t a great mortal once remark that justice delayed is justice denied?”
“I got it.” Phil snapped his fingers and pointed to his god. “This is all because of you.”
“These things happen,” said Lucky. “I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by overanalyzing random events like this.”
Quick grunted.”—Says the luck god.”
Lucky’s smile faded. “Well, now, I can explain—”
“It’s more of that entropic rebalancing, isn’t it?” Phil said. “The pressure valve to keep the really bad stuff from happening.”
“Yes! Karmic necessity. No big thing. A little inconvenient, sure, but not really a problem.”
“Getting run over by a truck is not an inconvenience,” said Quick.
“Hey, I’m thirsty,” said Lucky. “Anybody else thirsty?”
“I could use a soda,” said Phil.
“One soda, coming up!” Lucky grabbed Quick by the wing. “Want to help me with this one, buddy?”
“Help you grab a soda? Does that really require two gods?”
“Excuse us.” Lucky pulled Quick into the kitchen.
“Will you cut it out?” whispered Lucky as he grabbed a beverage.
“They need to know,” said Quick.
“They’re my followers. That’s for me to decide. So why don’t you mind your own business?”
Quick flapped his wings in exasperation.
Lucky poked the serpent god in the chest. “If you find it too hard to shut up, you’re always free to find another place to crash.”
Quick snarled. “You’re an asshole.”
Lucky’s ears fluttered. “All part of my charm.”
They returned to the living room.
“One soda for my newest follower,” announced Lucky boisterously. He tossed the can to Phil.
“I was just explaining how it works,” said Phil. “The way that weird things have to happen to keep chaos in check. It’s not going to always be like this, is it?”
“Oh no,” said Lucky. “It’ll balance itself out eventually, and you can trust that while you’re under my influence even vicious squirrels and nasty birds are little more than an inconvenience.”
Quick bit his lip hard enough that his fangs drew blood.
“So are we going to play or not?” asked Lucky. “If I recall correctly, I’m first. And I think I will try to solve the crime.”
“You haven’t even eliminated any suspects yet,” said Phil.
“Can’t hurt to take a guess, can it? I think it was Professor Plum in the conservatory with the lead pipe.” Lucky opened the envelope and spread out the cards for everyone to see. “Must be my lucky day.”
Quick sighed. “This is why I only play checkers with gods of fortune.”
13
“Are you sure this is the right place?” asked Bonnie.
“I’m sure,” said Syph.
Bonnie studied the house across the street. It was nice but unremarkable. difficult to imagine that a god called it home.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“How do you know he’s in there?” asked Bonnie.
“I just know.”
“Okay then. Do you want me to go in with you or do you think you can handle it on your own?”
Syph slouched in her seat.
“I can go in with you if you want,” said Bonnie.
Syph sighed, and the rearview mirror fell off. Bonnie had long since moved past commenting on things like this. She’d almost stopped noticing them. She waited for Syph to say or do anything, but the goddess just sat there.
“What’s wrong?” asked Bonnie.
“I can’t do it.”
“What?”
“I’ve changed my mind. I can’t go in there.”
Bonnie tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
“Do you want to stay a goddess of heartbreak forever?”
“No.”
“Well, the first step to changing that is to confront the lousy bastard whose rejection turned you into… this.”
“I guess that makes sense,” said Syph quietly.
“You’re damn right it makes sense. This guy rejected you. He treated you like crap. You, the goddess of love!”
“He wasn’t as bad as all that. Really, it was more my fault than his.”
Overwhelming gloom filled the car. Even knowing it was a foreign despair forcing itself upon her didn’t help Bonnie resist entirely. She rolled down her windows in hopes of letting the negativity escape.
“You have to stop doing this to yourself. And to me. And to people like me. Being divine doesn’t give you the right to go around destroying people’s lives.”
Syph raised her eyebrows questioningly.
“So maybe it does,” admitted Bonnie. “You can keep doing this until the end of time, jumping from mortal to mortal, crushing hopes and joy one victim at a time. We can’t stop you. I know I certainly can’t. But you keep saying you’re sorry about this. That doesn’t mean anything. Not unless you try to prevent it.”
Syph said nothing. Bonnie wrung the wheel, trying to read the inscrutable goddess.
“What if he doesn’t like me?” asked Syph softly.
“Do you care if he likes you?”
“I don’t know. Should I? Is it wrong that I care what he thinks?”
“You were dumped. It’s not weird to have mixed feelings. You resent him for rejecting you, but you also want him back because you weren’t ready for it. And maybe underneath that, you feel like because he rejected you that you have something to prove by showing him he made a mistake. And if you can get him to take you back it’ll be vindication, show that you are worth something.”
“You seem to be an expert on this,” said Syph.
“No more than anyone else,” replied Bonnie. “We mortals have to deal with this a lot. Most of us anyway.”
“How sad for you. To have your short lives burdened by such complications.”
“Yeah, it sucks,” agreed Bonnie.
She surrendered to the ennui and just slumped in defeat. She didn’t even cry. Not because she wasn’t terminally depressed. But it was such an overwhelming hopelessness that she just felt numb.
“So if I go in there and talk to him, it’ll make me feel better?” asked Syph.
“Yes, it will.” Bonnie half-smiled. “Absolutely, it will. Maybe.” She tried looking Syph in the face and lying to her, but she couldn’t. Whether this was due to her honest nature or the draining effects of the goddess wasn’t clear. It took energy to lie. Energy Bonnie didn’t have.
“Probably not,” said Bonnie. “Some people will tell you that it’s good for closure, but I think they’re fooling themselves. It’s not like you’re going to knock on that door and have a twenty-minute discussion that’ll fix all your problems. Usually, the conversation is either ugly or awkward or both and you walk away feeling worse about yourself or just pissed off at the whole world.”
“Then why do it?” asked Syph.
Bonnie thought about it a moment.
“Because you have two choices. Choice number one: get over it and move on with your life. That’s the healthy thing to do, the best way to handle it. Considering that you’ve been nursing this depression for a few thousand years, I don’t think that’s an option.”
Syph lowered her head as ice formed on the dashboard.
“Odin’s missing eye,” grumbled Bonnie. It was hard enough keeping herself from giving up, but the goddess of tragedy was even more easily discouraged. And when Syph felt down, that negativity transferred to Bonnie. It was a vicious cycle.
“Oh, for Olympus’s sake, snap out of it.” She smacked Syph on the shoulder. “Go up and knock on that door and confront this guy. It probably won’t make you feel better, but it’s just something you have to do. Don’t you think two thousand years of misery are enough? This isn’t unrequited love anymore. It’s not even unhealthy obsession. It’s just pathetic.”
&
nbsp; “No mortal has ever dared talk to me this way.” Syph’s face reddened.
“Does it make you mad?” asked Bonnie. “Does it piss you off? Good. That means that you’re not an entirely lost cause. Now get in there and give this god some of that divine wrath everyone is always talking about.”
“I would, but he has company.”
Syph pointed to a car pulling into the house’s driveway. Bonnie ducked down, though she wasn’t sure why.
“You don’t have to worry,” said Syph. “I’ve made the car invisible.”
Janet exited the car and rang the doorbell. The door was answered by a raccoon.
Syph ducked. “Get down.”
Bonnie did so. “I thought you made us invisible.”
“It doesn’t work on other gods.”
Bonnie raised her head just enough to see the raccoon. “Wait a minute. You’re not telling me that… that’s the god that broke your heart?”
“Yes,” said Syph.
“That god?”
“Yes.”
“With the fuzzy tail and loudest Hawaiian shirt I have ever seen? The god who is wearing sunglasses even though it’s eight in the evening.”
“Yes.”
“The god who stands maybe three feet tall at—”
“Yes,” said Syph. “That god!”
Lucky took Janet’s hand and placed his muzzle against it.
“What was that?” asked Syph. “Was that a kiss?”
“I don’t think raccoons have lips capable of kissing,” said Bonnie. “That seemed like more of a nuzzle.”
He said something, and Janet laughed.
“Are they flirting?” asked Syph.
Janet knelt down and playfully ruffled the fur on his head.
“She is flirting with him.” Syph didn’t shout, but only because she spoke through clenched teeth. “Is this a date?”
“It looks like a date,” said Bonnie as Lucky and Janet climbed into her car.
Bonnie started her car.
“What are you doing?” asked Syph.
“I’m following them,” replied Bonnie, still slouching behind her wheel somewhat.
“Why?”
“Because…”
Something was different about Syph now. Maybe it was jealousy. Or rage. Or maybe just unpleasant discomfort from seeing the object of her obsession getting on with his life before her. Whatever it was, it was better than the constant ennui radiating from her. Either way, Bonnie was worried that if she told Syph any of this it might go away.
A Lee Martinez Page 10