Younger Gods 1: The Younger Gods

by Michael R. Underwood

  “As I suspected. How may we help defend them? Without tracking Esther, that seems the only useful response.”

  Antoinette sighed. “That’s the rub. Since they’re incredibly powerful, the factions that control them do their damnedest to keep the things under wraps. I don’t like our odds of being able to stroll around town and just casually inquire about the five most powerful artifacts in the city. They keep their own company, pretty much.”

  “But they have been warned, yes?” I asked.

  “I put out the word, but I have direct connection to only two of them.”

  “Which?”

  “Brooklyn and Manhattan. And I know people who know the groups in Queens. But that’s it. The Bronx keeps its own company, and I don’t know the folks in Staten Island. But here’s the thing: The Williamsburg Chantry just got totaled.”

  “Oh. As in, this evening?”

  “As in right now. One of my friends is a couple blocks away, and she can hear the fighting.”

  “I’m on my way,” I said, lowering the phone.

  “Wait!”

  I took a breath and raised the receiver again.

  “You’ll never get there in time. It doesn’t sound like the Chantry is winning. This could be another trap.”

  “Certainly. Or we could be needed to assist the reconstruction and triage.”

  “It’s your time. What happened to studying?” Antoinette asked.

  “I have done enough for now. And recent developments have put the scale of the problem into sharp relief. Where should I go?”

  “Take the 7 to the G to Broadway, then go to Hewes Street and head southwest. You won’t be able to miss it. You have a cell?”

  “I am composed of many cells. I lack a mobile telephone.”

  “All right, Captain Particularity. If you want to do any good, you better hurry.”

  “Farewell.” I hung up the phone and grabbed my bag, then quit the dormitory as fast as I could manage without causing alarm.

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  I should have been studying. Or sleeping, readying my mind and body for the next day. The day I’d inevitably come to blows with my elder sister, the woman who had been like a third parent to me, whose power had always eclipsed my own, and who knew me almost as well as I knew myself.

  Instead, I was on the G train.

  In the short time I’d spent living in New York, I’d quickly learned of the reputation of the G train. It was full of weirdos. Being one who fit the description of “weirdo,” this did not faze me. I’d seen youths in sweatclothes and well-worn baseball caps swing and spin about on E trains, display recklessness and athleticism both. I’d seen armless and legless veterans begging for alms on the 6 train.

  The G was just another train. But on that evening, it was packed.

  Life in North Dakota had completely failed to prepare me for the sardine-esque feeling of being in a not-even-standing-room train. I’m told Tokyo is worse, with official transit employees whose job it is to pack people into the trains. I did not envy those workers or commuters, but it did little to assuage my previously-undiagnosed-but-increasingly-emergent claustrophobia.

  I nearly toppled an aged woman as I fought my way out of the train at the Broadway stop, and hurried out of the station into the welcoming cold of the open air. I stopped for a precious few moments to breathe and let the tide of anxiety recede.

  When my heart had ceased pounding like hail on a roof, I moved on.

  As Antoinette had said, it was impossible not to know where to go.

  Along a street of homes in similar styles but varying facades, one building had been reduced to rubble. The wreckage extended across the street. The light of several fire trucks illuminated the street, which was thick with emergency responders and civilians. Several news trucks were parked at the edge of the scene, flanked by a pretty blonde woman talking to over-the-shoulder cameras.

  And me without a way to contact Antoinette directly, as working pay phones were not common in the city.

  I made my way through the unorganized crowd closer to the fire trucks, trying to paint a picture of what had happened. I stepped past the newscasters, withdrawing my presence to try to pass unnoticed.

  Firefighters and EMTs were still shuttling people into ambulances positioned at the edge of the scene. I stepped over the shattered third of a porcelain bathtub and saw a policewoman step out of the flow of people to hail me.

  “Excuse me. I need you to step away.”

  Duplicity was far from my strong suit. Especially extemporaneous duplicity. So I couched my lie within the best truth I had.

  “I think a friend of mine is in there,” I said.

  “Sorry, sir. I need everyone to stay back,” the cop said in a voice that was mostly boredom but had a touch more annoyance than before.

  “May I be of assistance?”

  The cop sat back on her heels, her attention passing from me to watch the whole crowd behind me. “You have any certifications?”

  “No, but—”

  “Sorry, sir. Please step back and let the emergency responders do their job.”

  I stepped back, but continued scanning the crowd, looking for Antoinette. And just in case, for Esther. She was not the sort to stay behind and revel in her work. That was more Father’s style.

  Several minutes went by, and a newscaster appeared in front of me, seeking to shove a microphone down my throat like a mother bird force-feeding its young.

  I stepped back and brushed the microphone away as the woman asked, “Do you live here, sir? Know anyone who lives here?” I lifted the mask I strained to keep over my disdain for inanity and leveled a disapproving gaze at the woman. She wilted under the look and broke off, pouncing on another bystander.

  How could I help? It might be possible to slip behind the building, to climb the fire escape, to travel overland, or just to sneak through the backyards, hoping that everyone was out on the street instead of watching out of their windows.

  I picked my way out of the crowd and looped around the block. Unfortunately, the alleyways were closed with ten-foot-tall gates, topped with wrought-iron barbs that curled out into the street. And at the opposite end of the cross street, it seemed that the fire escapes on the fronts of the buildings were deemed sufficient.

  So my choices were to try to scale the gate with bystanders or to try to evade the notice of hundreds by scaling a fire escape on the block itself.

  Wishing for once that there were fewer police in New York, I considered my options.

  If I could not locate Antoinette, I could summon a local spirit and try to convince it to find her, gather intelligence, or assist the emergency responders.

  Taking another inventory of my borrowed supplies, I despaired at the thought of trying to summon and bind a foreign spirit in an area that had so recently been agitated. The spiritual residue of the conflict was thick in the air. There was a feeling of disruption that it seemed even the civilians could feel, and the spirits would feel it even more intensely.

  From behind me, I heard, “Jake?”

  I whipped around, my heart racing. The tension bled back out as I saw Antoinette, approaching with a cluster of three other women. Two had sturdy builds; another was short and slight but well muscled. They were all wearing multicolored tights, but also wore underwear over the tights in what I took to be a traditional roller-derby style. One was East Asian, one Hispanic, the other black, a cross section of the famous diversity of the city.

  They were also equipped with hard pads on their knees and elbows, as if they were preparing for brightly-colored urban warfare. Each of them carried a bag over her shoulder, and both Antoinette and the slight woman had roller skates slung over the opposite shoulder, the laces tied together.

  This could only be the derby of which she spoke earlier. I’d meant to research it fu
rther, but it was far from the top of my priority list.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. Antoinette looked bruised and sweaty.

  “It’s just practice,” she said.

  “Who’s this guy?” asked one of the sturdy women.

  “Customer at the store. He’s helping me find the bitch who wrecked the place.”

  “You a cop or something?” the slight woman asked.

  “No. But I know the culprit. Antoinette, they won’t let me in to help. I need to help, and they won’t let me do anything.”

  Antoinette sighed. “Let the police handle it. I can make introductions later.”

  “I didn’t come all the way down here just to be a helpless bystander,” I said, my voice firm.

  Antoinette shrugged. “I told you not to come. You wasted your own time.”

  I cracked my knuckles and felt my face go hot. At home, when something went wrong, everyone pitched in. When an Exxeven broke the binding circle three years back, everyone leapt to action, wielding warded blades and gem-laden nets, and shouting incantations to force the being out before it could erode the walls and collapse the house.

  Collapse the house. Had Esther loosed an Exxeven? Once loosed, the Watchers had little desire to return to the depths. If there was one loose in Brooklyn, there would be more deaths tonight.

  “Do you know what caused the collapse? If it’s an Exxeven, and it’s still loose . . .” I said, the hairs on the back of my neck standing at terrified attention. It had taken the whole family to corral the Watcher back into the circle and banish it. I was not up to the task by myself.

  “We . . . should talk about this later,” Antoinette said, an odd tone to her voice.

  I looked up and around, searching for the shadow against black of an Exxeven in the darkness. Millions of people in the city, countless voices to swallow and add to their cacophonous chorus.

  “But what if it’s loose?” I reached into my bag for the jadeite. It would help me distinguish natural from preternatural colors, and perhaps pick out the Watcher if it was lingering nearby to feed upon the chaos.

  Antoinette put a hand on my shoulder and spoke through gritted teeth. “We’ll talk about it later. Go home. The neighborhood takes care of its own.”

  I took a breath, ready to make it clear that I was not going to abandon these people, but as I saw the odd looks from Antoinette’s companions, I realized that they did not know what had happened, likely did not know anything of the occult. She had partitioned her life, perhaps stepping away from her mother’s world, only to be dragged back in by her death and Esther’s arrival.

  I sighed out the breath and nodded.

  “Tomorrow morning. The store?”

  She nodded. “See you later, Jake.”

  The shopkeep returned to her companions and they headed off down the side street, avoiding the chaotic scene.

  I took one look around with the jadeite in hand, just to be sure, then proceeded home, wishing I had brought my schoolwork with me to read on the trains.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  I was up until one finishing the next week’s schoolwork, but as I did not have class until 3 PM on Friday, and that being only a discussion session, which I’d never missed, I trusted that the next day’s schedule would be unduly complicated by schoolwork. I had a shift at the library for my work-study, and then another shift on Saturday, but again, priorities.

  Unfortunately, the resurrection of anxieties I’d hoped to put aside made that night’s nightmares particularly vivid.

  The entire night played over. Thomas and the prom. The evening of laughter and worry.

  But this time, when my father burst into the room with the knife, it was Esther instead. After she plunged the knife into Thomas’s chest, the scene froze, and she turned back to me.

  “Jacob. I know you’re there.”

  I froze.

  The dreamscape faded away, until it was just Esther, the bloody knife, and me.

  “Speak up, little brother. It’s been too long.” She reached out for me, hands draped in the blood of the only outsider I’d ever cared for.

  I stepped back. There was nothing but the two of us and a field of shadow and blackness around us. There was no light, but I could see Esther clear as day.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  Esther took another step forward, her eyes unfocused with the zeal I’d learned was peculiar to my family, not a universality of self-confidence among all people. It had saddened me when I learned that most people lacked that certainty of purpose, but since I’d become one of them, it was also mildly comforting. “It’s time, little brother. The unborn will rise, and we will inherit our place in the new world.”

  I brushed her hand away and stepped back. It couldn’t be. The prophecy had yet to be fulfilled. “It can’t be. The longest branch . . .”

  Esther laughed, then she spoke the words of the prophecy by rote.

  “When the Green tree has grown, its roots spread across the land, the longest branch shall break off and seek new root.”

  Another step. “The scion will replant the branch, and when the rains come, the sea will boil, and the first of the unborn will rise. The Last Age will begin, and the longest branch will bear fruit.”

  We’d all been raised on the prophecy, the far-off promise that the Younger Gods will be born, and they will come to love their aunts and uncles, the Bold, and wipe away the folly of the Timid, their siblings. But I had never expected that I would live to see it.

  She reached her hand out again, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t push her away. She caressed my cheek like she’d done countless times before, pushing hair back and away from my eyes. Her touch was warm, reassuring, terrifying.

  Esther smiled the knowing smile that came so easily when she explained something to one of us. “It’s you, baby brother. The tallest branch. And I am the scion. Don’t you see? We’re doing it right now. The Last Age begins with us. The Younger Gods will wash away humanity, and we will reign among the Bold when they remake the world.” Her voice was excited, nearly ecstatic, full of the wild energy of the spring rite, when Greenes from across the country would gather to preserve the seed.

  I stood to my full height and looked down at Esther. “Even if that is the case, you would have to bring me back. And I’m not going back. The family isn’t right, Esther. We’ve never been right. The world doesn’t want the seas to boil, people don’t want to be wrapped in the embrace of the unborn, don’t want to be their slaves. It’s an eschatological inbred cult. I don’t know how long we’ve been deluding ourselves into thinking we’re important, but the Greenes are just a cluster of sociopaths with delusions of grandeur. The world is not for us, Esther. It’s not ours to inherit. The war is over, the earth is for humanity.”

  I stood tall, looming over Esther. Instigator of the end or not, I was the tallest branch in the family tree, that much was true.

  “Leave, Esther. I can’t let you hurt anyone else.”

  She laughed.

  “And who will stop me? You? I taught you how to fight, how to draw upon the Deeps. A circle of the city’s strongest magi couldn’t stop me, but the shy little bookworm will do it? What are you going to do, quote the family histories at me?”

  “I’m not alone. And with each Heart you take, more of the city will be against you. And next time, you won’t be able to strike with surprise. All of the guardians know you’re here now,” I bluffed. Doubt would not sway her. My confidence was false, but if I could give her even the smallest pause, it could save lives.

  And this was my dream, after all.

  I reached out and changed the setting, turning it into a police station, filled with NYPD officers.

  Esther laughed. “The wolves do not scare me. I will see this city burn, if that’s what is required. And I don’t need you to return to the fold
to plant the seed. There are . . . other interpretations.” Her mouth twisted into a cruel smile, and my confidence vanished.

  But why was she appearing to me in my dream, if not to lure me back? To scare me? To bait me into revealing what I knew? No matter her agenda, my best recourse was to end the dream, cut off the connection.

  But considering that I’d never been able to wake myself from the dreams of prom night, that option seemed far easier thought than done.

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  I awoke with a start, leaping upright in the bed, which meant hammering my forehead into the ceiling.

  “Eleven hells,” I muttered, rubbing my head. These bunks had been made for shorter folk. I could only sit up on the bed if I slouched a half-foot, curling up on myself. I lay back down on the bed, glad I’d not woken Carter. But when I looked over, he was just gone. A late night, perhaps, or a rare evening when he was entertained at the abode of a liaison rather than bringing her here. Whatever the reason, I was thankful. I’d be able to think as I woke.

  The harsh red light of the clock on Carter’s desk showed 5:13. I’d slept far more than usual. A strange sort of gift. But if it took a sorcerous visitation from my sister to sleep through the night, I’d prefer the terrors.

  There’d be no use trying to get back to bed, so I climbed down from the loft and began to put myself together for the day, mind spinning through possibilities. The sky outside was still dark, only the barest hints of blue showing at the edges of the window.

  I made ready, and when I returned to the room from the shower, I saw Carter standing by his closet, wearing green-and-orange brigantine armor with a long black coat over it, in a South Asian style. And among his closet of sports equipment were a bow, arrows, and a spear. Either there were even more sports than I thought, or something was seriously wrong.

  “What is going on?” I asked.