Younger Gods 1: The Younger Gods

by Michael R. Underwood

  I looked to the exits again, hoping help would arrive, wishing against all likelihood that anyone would come, yet paralyzed with fear at what might happen to the people here if it did. Esther would not yield if cornered.

  Stepping back, I nodded to Esther. “We will have to see. Unless you want to draw the attention of the police, you should leave now. We’ll meet again soon enough, I imagine.”

  Esther chuckled. “So confident. It would be lovely to roughhouse like the old days, bring the roof down, but I have things to do. It’s been so lovely speaking with you, brother. Do keep in touch.”

  She raised her hands and snapped, once.

  Ten feet away, the churro-selling woman gasped and grabbed at her throat.

  No. No. Don’t. I hadn’t even seen her craft the working, but it could be nothing else. I didn’t believe in that much coincidence.

  I dashed over to the woman, forgetting Esther, who was doubtless making her escape. I narrowed my eyes to see the threads of Deepness wound tight around the woman’s throat like a noose, and reached out with my will to unravel them. I couldn’t touch her without becoming a suspect but would be one regardless because of my speedy response. I had to look like a Good Samaritan. She was younger than I’d thought, probably less than thirty, but with bags under her eyes that suggested many sleepless nights.

  “Help!” I shouted first, then sank with the woman to the floor, making my will a vise to push open and free her throat, to relieve the pressure crushing her windpipe. I had no time to call upon anything but my own life force, using my breath to summon hers.

  The police would come soon, but normal CPR would do nothing unless I released the pressure. Esther’s working lingered. The Deeps had been tied, self-sustaining. It would last more than long enough to kill the woman, if I knew Esther’s power.

  I opened the woman’s collar, unraveled the tightly-wound scarf, and tried to make as much room for her neck as possible, masking my real purpose, uniting will and motion to pry back the strands of the hex and let her throat bring in air.

  “Get back, sir!” a Hispanic policewoman said, sliding to the ground and taking the choking woman in her arms.

  Miming a slow reaction to the policewoman’s arrival, I tore out a thick strand of the choking braid, releasing some pressure on the woman’s neck.

  A sharp intake of breath told me I’d done it. She would live. The police would get her to the hospital, and they would stimulate breathing long enough for the hex to wither away, unmoored from its source of power.

  I backed away, faded into the crowd, leaving the scene to the policewoman. I didn’t have time to answer questions, did not want to be known to the authorities, even as a Good Samaritan.

  I’d saved at least one life today. Now I had to make sure it hadn’t merely been a short stay of execution.

  As I was about to walk up the steps to the surface, someone shoulder-checked me from the side and steamrolled me into a strangely deserted side passageway.

  I turned to see an older black woman in a patchwork jumble of clothes, a threadbare beanie atop unkempt black-and-silver hair. Her face was pocked with acne scars, but her eyes were clear, intense. She gripped my jacket and held me against the wall with fearsome strength.

  “You’re either really brave, or really stupid. Either way, you’re never going to hurt anyone ever again,” she said, and raised her fist for a knockout punch.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  I raised my hands to protect my face. “Wait! What? How?” the three questions came all at once, any filter between my mind and mouth gone (if there had been much of one to begin with).

  The woman did wait, perhaps as confused by my response as I was by her sudden assault.

  “Who are you?” I said, my voice cracking.

  “Don’t matter who I am. Just matters what you’ve done,” the woman said.

  “I just saved a woman’s life!” I shouted, forgetting our odd privacy.

  My assailant turned, looked back into the central walkway. I looked as well, seeing the stricken vendor’s strained but steady breathing, the second officer standing two paces away, talking into her radio.

  “The woman I was with attacked her, and it was me that stopped it. Who are you, and what do you think I’ve done?”

  The pressure on my chest lessened. Not vanished, just lessened, the wall no longer pressing into the back of my skull.

  “You look too alike to not be related. Who is she to you?” the woman asked.

  “She’s my sister, and I’m trying to stop her.” I spoke as quickly as I could, eager to get my side across and move the situation away from a place that involved me getting pummeled while commuters actively ignored the whole scene.

  Given unresolved threads of institutional racism, you’d think a black woman assaulting a white man would draw a response, but it was as if we were invisible to the main corridor.

  Remembering the Gardener’s portal yesterday, I wondered if this place was exactly as it seemed.

  The woman had said something, but I’d been caught up in my own thoughts.

  “Sorry, what?” I asked.

  The woman’s brows furrowed, eyes narrowing.

  “I said how do I know I can trust you, that you’re not just trying to play me since you were stupid enough to get caught?”

  I saw as she shifted her weight that she had a sawed-off shotgun hung from a cord on her right shoulder, as well as a knife stuffed into her boot.

  Whoever this woman was, she was equipped for more than just random New York muggings. An undercover officer, perhaps? I hadn’t known that NYPD knew of the supernal world.

  “Ah,” I said, not wanting to lose the conversational thread as I pondered. “That’s very fair. Given my familial heritage, there’s not much reason to trust me. But if your contacts in the city are extensive, you’ll know a woman named Antoinette Laroux, daughter of the late Madame Laroux. I’ve been lending her my assistance. I’ve also recently made the acquaintance of one of the Gardeners, and if you know anything about Gardeners, the fact that I am still standing means that I am entirely on your side, assuming your side is the one that would like the earth to keep going as it has.”

  “Not as it has, that’s for damned sure. But I’m on the side of there being an earth.”

  I nodded. “A fair point. But rest assured that I am doing everything I can to ensure the earth continues as is,” I said, holding my hands up by my head.

  The pressure lessened. “Then why didn’t you do anything when you were just talking with her?” the woman said, pointing back to the main room.

  “Because I am afraid of casualties, and Esther is not, save for those that draw the attention of too many authorities all at once. The Deeps are a powerful ally, but deflecting bullets is tremendously taxing even for sorcerers of her skill. We were trying to get more information out of each other, each using the neutral territory to feel the other out. She’d been waiting for me for a while, I imagine. Or has a way of tracking me despite my best efforts.”

  “And what did you find out?” she asked.

  “Not a great deal. She still wants me to rejoin the flock, which I can tell you with great certainty is impossible, but she’s very confident. She indicated that she may go to Queens next to wrest its Heart from the Raksha who reside there, though I’ve been informed by Antoinette that they can handle themselves, that anonymity is their ally.”

  “Two days ago, I’d have said that the magi in Brooklyn could handle themselves, and look how that went,” the woman said.

  “True.” We were silent for a moment, and a thought caught me. “I’m Jacob. And you are?”

  The woman looked me up and down again, then sighed. “Call me Dorothea.”

  I extended a hand for a shake, and Dorothea met it. We shook, and Dorothea released me entirely.

  “May I ask yo
ur disposition within the community? I am new to the city, and am still learning who is who. Mostly over the last couple of days, as it’s become painfully important, but that’s my own fault. I had intended—”

  “I’m with the Broadway Knights,” Dorothea said.

  I waited for further explanation. Deciding none was forthcoming, I asked, “And they are?”

  Another sigh. “We look after the people who fall through the cracks. The homeless, mostly. The cops, even the ones who have a heart and a clue, can’t do much for the homeless population, and there’re a lot of us in the city. Shelters only go so far.”

  “Us?”

  “I can hardly protect them if I’m off living in a rent-controlled studio in Williamsburg, can I?” Dorothea said, chuckling.

  A good point. “I suppose not.”

  Someone walked by the hallway, then turned in to head directly for us. It was Carter.

  “Who are you?” Carter pointed at Dorothea.

  Dorothea settled back into a ready stance, right hand floating down to her belt.

  “Carter, this is Dorothea, one of the Broadway Knights, as I’ve just discovered. Dorothea, this is my roommate, Carter. He’s been helping as well.”

  Carter slowed, exiting prefight intimidation mode. “Hello.” Then to me, “We’re going to be late. Gardener needs us somewhere ASAP. He’s got a bead on Esther.”

  “She was just here,” I said.

  “Then what the hell are you doing here instead of following her?” he asked, voice too loud for the room.

  “That’s my fault,” Dorothea said. “I thought they were together.”

  “Again,” I said, “an understandable mistake. But now we must depart. If the Gardener can track Esther, we must isolate her and force a confrontation, end this before it can escalate further. Care to join us?” I asked in Dorothea’s direction.

  “Don’t think you could stop me.”

  “Excellent. Carter, lead on.”

  And so he did.

  We followed Carter out of the station and proceeded to the east. I’m sure we were quite the sight. Two men and a woman, all of different races, running like the devil was on our heels through Times Square and up toward the Flatiron District.

  To our incredible luck, no police decided to follow us, and crowds parted as we charged across street after street. I suspected that part of each was due to Dorothea’s standing in the Broadway Knights. The city had far more mysteries and supernal layers than I’d expected, though, to be honest, I’d mostly had my head in the sand about it all after my first visit to Threshold Books. To my serious detriment, given how quickly things were unraveling now, partially due to my ignorance.

  This time, my mental digression did not earn me bruised knees or ankles, as I kept pace with Carter.

  “Left!” Carter said as we approached a corner. Except that turning left would involve darting through moving traffic.

  “The light!” I said.

  “Fuck it!” Carter said, and reached out to grab a pole and turn into the street. I blanched, as did Dorothea. But Carter was undaunted. He darted between the slowly moving cars, then hurdled a taxicab, sliding across the far side of the hood, finding his feet, and running on. He looked over his shoulder, then slowed. “Come on!”

  “You’re crazy, kid!” Dorothea said. The light turned yellow, and cars slowed, three stuck in the intersection, bold enough to declare themselves more important than their perpendicular counterparts, even as the opposite side’s lights turned green.

  Dorothea and I jogged across the street, weaving through the halted cars. As we crossed, Carter took off again, taking a long, but not impossible lead.

  Wishing I’d kept in better shape, I found myself flagging behind Dorothea, despite the fact that the woman must have been twenty, possibly thirty years my senior.

  But I was at least four inches taller, much of it in my legs. So I huffed, leaned forward, and pushed myself to catch up.

  Another two blocks later, Carter held up a hand, and we slowed.

  “She’s around the corner. Antoinette and the Gardener are coming in from the other side of the park.”

  “What’s here? How many civilians will there be in the park? And how are they signaling you?”

  Carter chuckled. “The stone is basically a magical headset. It just needed to attune to me for a few hours.”

  “Kind of her to share that earlier,” I said.

  Dorothea put a hand up to her lips, the international sign for “shush.”

  We nodded. Dorothea pointed to Carter, gesturing for him to go first, then told me to head right. She would go left behind Carter. I took it that Dorothea was former military, perhaps former police, judging by her comment about the NYPD. My curiosity began to go off on a tangent, wondering how she’d gotten into the magical world, where her life had taken a turn.

  Carter moved, and I gathered my focus, turning the corner and looking both for Esther and for a path to flank right.

  I walked quickly, trying to be nonchalant. I made my best attempt to affect the hurried self-importance of some New Yorkers I’d seen, where they moved with such surety of purpose that it was clear that they were entirely sure that they were the most important person on the block, and that it was only appropriate for others to clear the way.

  The park was filled with kiosks set up for the holidays, the trees matched by constructs decorated with signs. And there were plenty of civilians. But we might not get another chance. If I could put on the pressure fast enough, perhaps we could isolate her. Or if I could clear the park, quickly.

  I took the gems in hand, and sapped the power, weaving it with my mind, imagining the shape of a large-caliber rifle, the piercing echo of a gunshot, the instant fight-or-flight panic that went with it. I held the power in my hand and the gun appeared. I held the gun up in the air and released the energy in two quick reports.

  The park exploded with reactions—birds scattered, screams of terror leapt unconsciously from park-goers’ mouths, and dozens dropped to the ground in fear.

  Guilt held my heart in a vise, that I was inflicting this trauma upon the innocents in the park, but I desperately needed them to go.

  Esther stood out in the center of the park, the only one around her not to drop to the ice. She turned, eagle eyes searching for the gunman. She found me, her eyes locking on.

  I raised my hands, drawing more power from the gems in my jacket, and the duel began in earnest.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Esther saw me drawing power, and raised a single hand to prepare her defenses. She kept some of her attention cast all around her as the rest of us closed in. With her free hand, she reached out and snapped.

  Her snap resonated in the crisp air like a thunderclap, and it wasn’t long before I saw why. Behind me, a dozen tree spirits unwrapped themselves from their bare, rain-drenched homes. Each was thin, looking almost like a bundle of kindling laid out end-on-end up into the air.

  These trees were not as old as those in Prospect Park, but there were two dozen or more. I’d not counted on Esther being able to summon that many at once. Likely another “gift” reaped from the death of the woman Esther had spoken of.

  But my purpose had not changed. I called the power up, and felt the electricity of potential work its way across my body, up my arms and legs simultaneously, and then out, focused by the tourmaline gem in my hand, arcing like an arrow toward Esther.

  Esther uttered a single phrase in Enochian, and the blast crashed like paint on an invisible wall, a momentary Jackson Pollock of energy that sloughed off and dissipated.

  I reached out for more power, knowing that the tree spirits were coming.

  “Carter! Dorothea! I need backup!”

  Another blast, and a third, each splashing off of Esther’s barrier. But every defense took time, and attention. I j
ust had to last long enough for someone else to get to her.

  The hollow moan of a tree spirit reached my ears, too close for comfort. I turned to see the brown-gray figure swing down a massive branch at me. I rolled out of the way, glad that the spirit was not so powerful to have preternatural speed as well as the strength I suspected. I fired off another blast at Esther as I got to my feet, this one half-aimed, bouncing off the edge of Esther’s shallow convex shield.

  I saw Carter jump into the way of the tree spirits, his sword out and flashing.

  “Move it!” Carter said, and I obeyed. I closed on Esther, firing bolts of power every few steps to keep her attention. Already, my chest heaved with effort, like I was pushing the family tractor out of a mud pit by myself. I didn’t have enough gems to draw upon them alone, so a portion of my will went into each blast.

  I could not last long this way, gems and will against the Deeps.

  Esther started off down the row, making for the covered greenhouse-esque buildings that had been erected for the Winter Village. I only hoped my gun scare had chased enough people off that she wouldn’t be able to hide in the crowd.

  I followed. “Leave the trees!” I said, hoping to bring Carter or Dorothea with me, someone to break the stalemate and finish the fight.

  Rounding the corner, I saw Esther duck into one of the greenhouses. Shouts and the crash of broken glass followed quickly after. I leaned right and made my way to cut her off at the far end of the building, hoping that my flat run could outpace her when slowed by civilians. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that neither of my companions had been able to follow.

  Carter and Dorothea were back-to-back, surrounded by a half-dozen tree spirits. Dorothea unloaded her shotgun into one of the spirits while Carter fended off two more with sword and dagger.

  Looking ahead of me once more, I heard another crash and saw someone roll out into the plaza, where dozens were still skating on the center rink.