The mortals hesitated.
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead by now. Well, probably not by now. But you’d be on your way to dead, and you’d know it.” He tried to smile pleasantly, but it only came across as hungry and menacing, the best he could manage.
They sat. Gorgoz took a seat in the chair beside the sofa. His charred form blackened the upholstery. Claws had sprung from his fingertips and a touch of slime dripped from his pores.
“Never really was very good at the mortal-disguise business.”
In a flash, he sat before them in his true form, a seven-foot-tall, lanky god wrapped in a tattered bathrobe.
“You’re probably wondering why you’re not dead yet.”
They nodded.
“Oh, sure. I could kill you right now. Allow your useless god to project and then slay you right in front of him. And yes, it would be worth a laugh.”
He gazed dreamily into the distance and smiled wistfully.
“No, no. Everyone keeps insisting this is a more civilized age. And I can play along. Sure, I can. Rather than kill you, I’ve decided to show you that even I can be… reasonable.”
He leaned forward and interlaced his fingers.
“How would you like to renounce your god and take me on as your new lord and master? Hmmm? Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
An awkward moment of silence filled the room.
“Oh, don’t all speak up all at once.” Gorgoz heaved a sigh. “I get it. You are all”—he made air quotes—” nice people. You’re not the kinds of mortals to normally sign up with a god of chaos and death. And normally, such as you are beneath my notice. But I’m adaptable. And I want you to join my team.”
There was another quiet moment.
“Any questions?” asked Gorgoz. “Any questions at all? I promise I won’t bite your heads off.” He leaned back and studied his claws. “I usually like to start with the limbs.”
Janet said, “Why us?”
“A fair question. And I’ll give you an honest answer. I’ve killed or had killed a few hundred of Lucky’s followers over the centuries. And I could devour you all now, and it would amuse me. But I came upon an idea that would amuse me more. Why slay you when I can steal you away?
“I know what you’re thinking. What’s the catch? What do you have to do to convince me of your sincerity? And here’s the best part.” Gorgoz cleared his throat and smiled. “All I’m asking in return is absolutely nothing. That’s right. Not a drop of spilled blood or a single dime. Not a prayer or an inconvenient, arbitrary behavioral inhibition. Not a single act of tribute. You won’t have to do a thing different than how you’re living your life now and in return, you shall have my favor. Your enemies shall perish. Wealth will fall into your laps. And every desire you could ever ask for will be yours until your weak mortal bodies finally succumb to their inevitable frailty. And all you have to do is renounce your god and proclaim me as your new lord.”
Gorgoz spread his hands, palms out, in a wide, welcoming gesture. His toothy grin was anything but reassuring.
“Oh, I know what’s going through your troubled mortal minds. How can you possibly trust me? To which I reply…”
He threw back his head and cackled.
“You can’t. I could be lying. I most probably am. This could all be some twisted game I’m playing where I’m just trying to screw with Lucky by getting you to abandon him. Then I’ll devour you anyway because… well, I’d be lying if I didn’t say it sounded like it would be worth a giggle. But all of that is hardly relevant. What should allow you to make this decision, all you truly need to know, is that you don’t really have a choice. It’s the slim hope that I’ll keep my word versus the absolute certainty that I will kill you if you refuse.”
A clap of thunder rattled the house.
“Ah, excellent. My demonstration has arrived. Come along. You must see this. I think you’ll find it enlightening.”
The locusts flew away. The vipers disappeared. And the shark/bear creature lumbered to one side as Gorgoz exited the front door. Several Divine Affairs automobiles had blocked off the street. The agents stood at the ready. One of them shouted into a megaphone.
“Gorgoz, you are instructed to surrender for disciplinary action.”
“I was hoping they’d be watching,” said Gorgoz with a smile.
Thick clouds roiled overhead. A bolt of lightning struck the front yard and a tall, broad-shouldered, redheaded god stood in its wake.
“Thor,” remarked Gorgoz, “how long has it been?”
“Not nearly long enough,” replied Thor.
The clouds churned, swirling into a funnel that touched down beside the god of thunder. A red-faced deity with the face of a leopard stepped from the howling winds. He carried a bag over his shoulder.
“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” said Gorgoz.
“Fujin!” When the deity spoke, a gale blasted from his lungs, stripping the leaves from a tree and then uprooting it. He covered his mouth and winced. “Sorry!”
Fujin’s shadow stretched out from his feet and expanded to three dimensions. This god was a living darkness.
Gorgoz scowled. “Oh, Og, don’t tell me they tamed you, too?”
“Times have changed,” said Ogbunabali. “We’ve come to see that you finally change with them.”
“This is what it’s come to?” asked Gorgoz. “We’re not only allowing mortals to skitter about unchallenged, we’re even enforcing their rules?”
“It’s not like that,” said Thor, unbuttoning his double-breasted suit. He pulled out his hammer, a massive weapon that crackled with electricity. “We don’t boss the mortals around, and they don’t boss us. It’s a partnership. It always has been.”
“Some of us just figured it out sooner than others!” shouted Fujin, stripping half the grass off the lawn.
“It doesn’t have to go down like this,” said Ogbunabali.
“No, it doesn’t,” replied Gorgoz. “Join me. It’s time for us to rise up and show these—”
“Enough talk.” Thor hurled his hammer. It collided with Gorgoz, knocking him off his feet. The hammer swerved upward, carrying Gorgoz with it. It soared upward a mile, reversed, then came crashing to earth, all within the blink of an eye. Gorgoz was driven into the ground with a deafening thunderclap. The shock wave knocked several cars over. Underground pipes burst, spewing geysers into the air.
The gods advanced on the smoking crater in the front lawn.
“That was a little much, don’t you think?” asked Og.
“He wanted to do it the hard way,” said Thor.
The ground rumbled. Coughing, Gorgoz climbed up to the pit’s edge. Half of his teeth were missing, and he spit up a glob of black slime.
“Not bad, not bad. Nice to see you have a little fight left in you.
“Do yourself a favor and stay down, Gorg. I don’t relish beating the snot out of you.” Thor raised his hammer. “Maybe I relish it a little.”
He brought it down on Gorgoz’s skull. Or tried to. But Gorgoz caught Thor’s wrist. The gods struggled for a moment, and then, with a grin and a twist, Gorgoz forced Thor to his knees.
Gorgoz wrenched the hammer free, grabbed Thor by the throat, and with a whirl like a discus thrower, hurled the god of thunder into the atmosphere.
“I was aiming for Australia,” said Gorgoz, “but I think I overshot.”
He released the hammer quivering in his grasp. It shot into the sky, chasing after its owner.
Fujin opened his bag of winds. They swept Gorgoz in a screaming vortex, shredding his robes and freezing his flesh. The temperature dropped. Frost formed on everything, killing all the nearby plants. Gorgoz was pulled into Fujin’s bag. The lord of winds threw it down on the ground and started kicking it.
He stopped mid-kick as Ogbunabali watched with disapproval.
“It’s not fancy!” said Fujin. “But it gets the job done!”
The shadowy death god joined Fujin in a fresh r
ound of kicks and punches. They kept at it until Gorgoz’s shouts died down. The bag still rustled and wriggled, but no more than was expected with the winds trapped inside.
“That was easier than I expected,” said Og.
“I knew he was all talk!” roared Fujin.
Gorgoz’s claw tore through the sack. He shredded it, freeing himself and the winds. They howled, slipping from Fujin’s efforts to recapture them. One picked up a car and smashed it into a house across the street. Another tore off the sidewalk and playfully set it down in a giant stack that promptly fell over onto several Affairs agents.
Fujin ran after the rogue zephyrs. He bellowed orders that the winds ignored as they worked their way down the street, wreaking gleeful havoc.
“Go ahead, Og,” said Gorgoz. “Take your shot.”
Ogbunabali stepped back. “No, thanks. I’m good.”
Gorgoz adjusted his robe and shook his head. “What’s happened to you? Mortals used to shit their pants at your name. I remember when you slaughtered whole villages just because you were bored.
“These mortals have robbed you of all your power, Og. I, on the other hand, have been supping on a steady diet of greed, avarice, cruelty, and human sacrifice.” Gorgoz chuckled. “I especially love the human sacrifice.”
Ogbunabali said, “You know that this can’t end well. You don’t think you can stand against the hosts of the heavens.”
“I did pretty well this time, didn’t I?”
“We underestimated you. It won’t happen again.”
“No.” Gorgoz chuckled. “It won’t.”
He walked back toward the house. When his back was to Ogbunabali, Og drew a scimitar of darkness from his own shadowy form.
Gorgoz didn’t bother to turn around. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”
Og rethought his course of action. He set aside his weapon and checked on the agents.
“I trust I’ve made my point,” said Gorgoz to Teri, Phil, and Janet. “There is no one in this world or beyond who can stop me from destroying you. I’ll give you some time to think about it. But when next we meet, I’ll expect an answer.” He threw off his robe, revealing himself as a giant, spotted, skeletal dragon. He spread his skeletal wings and rose in the air.
“Be seeing you.”
With one powerful flap, he shot skyward. The air reverberated with a shrill scream. He was gone in an instant. His various beasts vanished in clouds of acrid smoke, leaving a stench behind.
Lucky’s projection rematerialized.
“Oh thank me, you kids are still okay,” he said. He took in the destruction around the neighborhood, the uprooted trees and mortals in disarray, the crater in the lawn and the broken street. A mischievous gust twirled an upended automobile like a top.
“Stop that right now and get back here!” shouted Fujin as he chased after it.
Teri, Phil, and Janet went back into the house and stood around the living room. No one said a word. They didn’t even look at each other. Phil gave Teri a hug, but it was a fragile, uncertain gesture.
22
Teri and Phil didn’t talk about it.
Janet left. They didn’t ask where she was going. They spoke with several agents. They couldn’t recall the details of the conversation other than some vague reassurances that Divine Affairs was “on top of the situation” and that everything “would be resolved shortly.” Then the agents left, too.
And Teri and Phil, very deliberately, didn’t talk about it. They didn’t talk about Lucky, still lost somewhere in the collective unconscious. They didn’t talk about the wreckage just outside their front door. They didn’t talk about Gorgoz’s offer. They exchanged maybe twenty words over the next few hours on no topic more uncomfortable than their favorite flavor of Hot Pockets. They were watching television when Phil finally dared to say something.
“We can’t take the offer,” he said.
“I know,” she replied.
Another twenty minutes passed without another uttered word. They even had the TV on mute. They watched the actors go about their business without really caring.
“We can’t take it,” Teri said.
“I know,” he agreed. He paused. “We can’t.”
This was how it went for another two hours. One of them would remark that they couldn’t take Gorgoz’s offer, and the other would agree. But there would be a pause between the first observation and the second. And it would be longer every time.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is all my fault.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s mine.”
“If I hadn’t brought it up in the first place…”
“Yes, but if I hadn’t changed my mind…”
“You’re right,” he said with a forced smile. “It is your fault.”
She wanted to laugh, but snorted. “And they say chivalry is dead.”
He kissed her forehead.
“We’re screwed, baby.”
“Yeah,” she said. “We’re screwed. We can’t take the offer.”
“No, we can’t. We can’t trust him to hold up his end of the deal. He even admitted it.”
“Even if he did,” said Teri, “I couldn’t live with myself. Any favor we’d get from him would’ve been paid for by someone else’s blood. Somewhere.”
The favor of Gorgoz didn’t come without a price. He was a god of death and chaos, and there had to be consequences to taking him on. Things they couldn’t conceive of. Gods were a deceptive bunch. Lucky had lied by omission, but at least he hadn’t been out to screw them. Not like Gorgoz most likely was.
Teri went to the bathroom.
Phil paced around the coffee table a few times.
“Damn.”
He ran outside before he could think too much about this.
“I know you’re out here!” he shouted. “I know you’re watching! Show yourself!”
A red spotted pigeon with blue eyes settled on the uprooted tree on Phil’s lawn.
“No need to shout,” the bird said with Gorgoz’s voice. “So have you come to a decision?”
“It’s a deal,” Phil said, “but only for me.”
The pigeon cackled. “Lovely. Selling out your friends to spare yourself. How delightfully self-serving. You’ll go far in my organization.”
“No,” said Phil. “You take me, but you leave them out of this. You leave them alone, never bother them again.”
The pigeon cocked its head and fluffed up its breast. “You dare dictate terms to me?”
“None of this is their fault. This is all because of me. We wouldn’t even know Lucky if I hadn’t brought this up in the first place. I started this. I have to finish it.”
“How noble.” The pigeon took a moment to preen its wings. “You’re an eager and shortsighted mortal, Mr. Robinson. I like that in a follower.”
Phil glanced at the front door. He couldn’t have much time left.
“Do we have a deal then?” asked Phil.
Teri opened the front door. “What are you doing out here?”
“Do we have a deal?”
The pigeon chuckled. “We have a deal.”
A tremor shook the earth as the pigeon grew into a giant bat.
“Oh no,” said Teri. “What did you do, Phil? What did you do, you idiot?”
The bat folded its wings around Phil.
“Everything will be okay now,” said Phil.
“You son of a bitch,” she said. “Don’t you dare pull that noble sacrifice bullshit!”
The bat launched itself into the sky, leaving the cold chuckle of Gorgoz hanging over the backyard for a long time.
23
By the time Lucky and Quick managed to navigate their way out of the collective unconscious, it was early morning. They floated in Lucky’s globe of flying light and landed on the front porch of Phil and Teri’s house. Neither god remarked on the destruction in the neighborhood or the dirty looks the mortals threw their way.
“Hey, kids,” said Lucky as he threw open the door. “
Great news! I think we finally have a handle on this thing.”
The living room was in disarray. Several boxes had been brought in and torn open, their contents spilled across the floor. Old photos and random scraps of paper, stuffed animals, and other odds and ends occupied most of the space around the couch and coffee table.
Teri was curled up on the couch, snoring.
“Has she been drinking?” asked Quick.
Lucky righted the bottle of scotch tipped over on the coffee table. Half the scotch was spilled in a puddle on the carpet.
“Teri, Teri.” Lucky shook her gently. “Wake up. It’s okay now. I’m back.”
She opened her eyes halfway and dimly focused on him.
“This is all your fault,” she mumbled.
“I know, and I’m going to fix it.”
She laughed uncontrollably. “Fix it? Fix it! You can’t fix anything!” Her laughter turned desperate, almost delirious, as tears ran down her face. “You’re the god of prosperity. How could you have screwed it all up so completely?”
“I know you’re upset but there’s no need to get personal.”
“He’s gone! Phil’s gone! And it’s all your fault!”
She pushed Lucky away and turned her back to him.
“Go away. You can’t do anything else to us.”
“I’m sure he’ll come back,” said Lucky. “Mortals can be rash, but I’m sure he’ll realize how much he loves you.”
Quick shoved Lucky aside. “Geez, you are an insensitive idiot sometimes.”
“I was trying to be comforting.”
“You really don’t know these people at all. Phil isn’t the kind of guy to run off like this. He’s not that selfish. He’s also not that stupid. He knows that wherever he runs, Gorgoz would still find him.”
“He took the deal,” said Teri, mumbling into the sofa cushions. “That goddamn moron took Gorgoz’s deal. I should’ve known.” She rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “He always was a sexist bastard, opening doors and paying for dates. That should’ve been my first clue. I bet he couldn’t wait to do his alpha male protector bit when he finally had the chance. What does he think I am? A helpless princess who can’t fend for herself? It’s insulting.”
A Lee Martinez Page 19