Nessa put her hands on her hips and glared at him.
“Bastard,” she said. “Besides, it was self-defense. You going to disallow us self-defense now?”
“No,” John said. “Your self-defense actions aren’t why I’m here.”
“Okay, so why are you here, Lorenzi?” Ken asked.
“I’m looking for allies,” John said. “The 99 Gods are enough of a hazard to trigger my mission, and I must oppose them.”
“Your mission?” Nessa said, sneering at him. “Your crazy magic is the last thing I want to get involved with. I don’t need you. Scram. Go away.”
Ken relaxed, so he waited. Nessa unballed her fists and turned to the side. “I apologize,” she said, as John expected. “I’m not anyone to complain about hypocrisy. You want allies? Well, we’re looking for allies as well.”
“Good,” John said. She had been like this the last time they had met, all bluster and rough edges. And apologies. He had hoped she had recovered, but apparently not, or at least not fully. “Wonderful. So, what I’d like you two to do is…”
Nessa turned back, teeth clenched. “I didn’t say we’d follow your orders.” Her voice held a glacier of ice. So much for letting her verbally abuse him until she calmed down and apologized.
“Why not?” John said, and smiled at her. “I’ve got centuries of experience, ample resources, and the knowledge you need. I’m…”
“Forget it,” Nessa said. “If you want to ally with us, you do so as our follower.” Ken put his hand on Nessa’s shoulder and stepped forward.
“You can’t be serious,” John said.
“Lorenzi, you don’t understand the modern world,” Ken said. “That’s obvious from the other times we’ve dealt with each other. It would be crazy for us to follow your lead. You’d just get us killed.”
“Well, I’m not following you,” John said. They were serious about this. He bit his cheek for a moment to bleed off anger. “You’re kids.”
Ken shook his head. “I’m over forty years old. I haven’t been a kid in a very long time. The fact you think we’re kids shows the problems we have with you.”
“I can support you so you don’t need to go scheming for money,” John said. “That’s not your strength.”
“I’m sure we can find someone to back us, even if it takes us a few tries,” Ken said.
“By the time you find someone able to face down people like you two, it would be too late.” He paused, searching for the right words. “Besides, how long will you be able to restrain yourselves from meddling with some normal’s mind and stealing the money?” John said. “Which would get me annoyed with you, if you recall our previous conversations. Which God did you confront? Miami?”
“I was right,” Nessa said, to Ken. “He’s been spying on us.” She turned to John. “No way are we letting you own us.”
“I’ll give you the money, dammit!” John said. These two Telepaths hadn’t gotten any easier to deal with over the years. “The 99 Gods problem is a serious one. You two whippersnappers don’t stand a chance. The Gods are improving, and quickly. They’ve got a lot of room to grow and they weren’t created with their skills mastered. Eventually, they’re going to get powerful enough to swat you like flies, and neither of you have much room for improvement with your tricks. They don’t work that way.”
“Says you,” Ken said.
“Says me, who’s dealt with hundreds of powerful Telepaths in my long career.”
“So what does your cabal of religious hermits who set you on your anti-magician path say about the Gods?” Ken said.
He had mentioned his origins to them before, to get them to behave. “Truthfully, I don’t know,” John said, letting his real worries show through. “They vanished. It could be the Ecumenists disbanded or passed on. When they set me on my way, centuries ago, they said someday a miracle was coming that would obviate all magic, allowing me to retire. When the 99 Gods first appeared, I’d thought the Gods were the miracle, but because of their actions I’ve changed my mind. It’s possible they also thought the Gods were the answer they’d been promised, and they disbanded. It’s something I need to look into.”
“We do need the backing,” Ken said, giving his partner a sidelong glance. Nessa hissed. “We’re not working for you, though, Lorenzi. We’ll take the donation.”
“I still don’t trust him,” Nessa said. “I don’t want his filthy money.”
“Think of it as a bargain,” John said. “You agree not to pester rich people and go to work on what you want to work on with this problem, and I’ll back you monetarily.”
Ken and Nessa looked at each other. “Fuck you,” Nessa said. “No deal.”
“I’ll agree to listen to what you suggest,” John said. These two idiots would get themselves killed no matter what he did. This wasn’t worth the time or the effort.
Nessa snorted. “I heard that last bit in your mind.”
“Prove me wrong,” John said.
“Fuck you,” Ken said. Metal groaned and concrete grumbled nearby, from Ken’s anger, his subconscious telekinesis letting loose.
Ken backed away, but Nessa stayed. She chewed on her lip for a moment, and reached into the obscure attached purse she wore around her waist. She brought out lipstick and offered it to John. “Let’s make a deal. You buy this from us. You go away. That I can live with.”
John wondered if this was another piece of Nessa’s insanity showing through, but he changed his mind when Epharis and Jurgen started screaming at him through the screwy iPatch about the contents of the lipstick case.
“What’s inside that?”
“Take it. Look at it,” Nessa said. “Consider it a test of your honor. We want half a million dollars for it.”
John grabbed the lipstick, tense and angry at the insult. ‘A test of your honor’ indeed! The instant he touched the lipstick, his unconscious magic staged an earthquake in his mind. He froze in place, feeling all the years of his old and out of shape mortal body.
“I must apologize to you both,” John said. “I appear to have underestimated you.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Ken said.
John sighed. “You did good, taking this piece of Miami from him in combat. The half a million is yours.”
“Okay, a million then,” Nessa said.
John exhaled slowly and counted to ten. “You try my patience.”
“You try ours,” Ken said. He turned to his wife. “Nessa, I think we’ve screwed with him enough.”
“Alright, fine, Ken,” Nessa said. “You deal with the fucking financial details. I’m going to go talk to the dogs and cats.” She stalked off, radiating anger, got in their rental car, and lay down in the back seat.
“Stress from dealing with the Gods?” John said.
“Oh, and certain old farts who are too big for their ample britches,” Ken said. He took a deep breath and lowered his head to John’s level, and his voice to a whisper. “You’re in grave danger, John. You’re not going to last more than another week or two. The only way you’re going to survive is to forget your mission and free your magic. Become a true magician again.”
John shivered. He knew about Ken’s hunches, and how often they turned out to be correct. “You can’t be serious. If I free my magic, I’ll become evil. An enemy. Becoming a magician again will destroy my soul.”
“I know, but think,” Ken said. “Either you choose to become a freed magician, and fight the bad Gods, or some bad God is going to grab you, take over your mind, and force you to become their flunky freed magician. No matter what happens, you’re going to be a freed magician. It’s inevitable.”
John’s stomach sank, and he again wished his body had been younger when this crisis came. “I’ll pray. That’s all I can promise.”
“I understand. I’d rather you were evil and on our side than opposing us.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” John said. “Evil corrupted magicians aren’t on anyone’s side, often not even th
eir own.”
“That’s not a worry. You’ve lived for over a thousand years, a thousand years of fighting off the voices I keep hearing you complain about,” Ken said, and he smiled. “You’re far too strong for the voices to corrupt you and turn you insane. The evil? Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, I’m not sure I’ll care, or even be able to tell the difference.”
John nodded. Ken wasn’t a nice guy, although he did try. “As I said, I will pray.” He chewed on his snowy moustache for a moment. “My ample gut tells me you’re right, though.”
“Good. Don’t tell Nessa until afterwards,” Ken said. John nodded, and refrained from saying he was old, not stupid. “Now, what I want is money in the bank, in our names, no strings, so we can move it…”
John’s mind negotiated on automatic as he repressed Ken’s comments about becoming a magician, and he examined what he had in his hand: a piece of a God. By extrapolation, a distant piece of God Almighty himself.
Beautiful. Captivating. Dangerous.
But what could he do with a piece of a God? The possibilities seemed endless, and fatal.
Part 2
Tyranny of the Mind
“During the last century or so, again, while witchcraft has been extensively believed in, the witch has degenerated into a very vulgar and poverty stricken sort of conjuring woman. Take our New York city witches, for instance. They live in cheap and dirty streets that smell bad; their houses are in the same style, infected with a strong odor of cabbage, onions, washing-day, old dinners, and other merely sublunary smells. Their rooms are very ill furnished, and often beset with washtubs, swill-pails, mops and soiled clothes ; their personal appearance is commonly unclean, homely, vulgar, coarse, and ignorant, and often rummy. Their fee is a quarter or half of a dollar.” – P.T. Barnum, Humbugs of the World
Two weeks later…
“It almost sounds to me like you expected the 99 Gods.”
19. (Atlanta)
“I’ll have the Haruhi Suzumiya decaf,” Dana said to the barista, and smiled. The cute Hispanic boy, no older than seventeen, smiled back and walked off. He hadn’t taken Atlanta’s order, but, then again, Atlanta had decided not to bother.
“Ordering a Haruhi decaf is like ordering a vodka tonic without the vodka, you know,” Atlanta said, studying her chief of staff while they waited. The Anime Café had changed their menu again, and she had a sneaky suspicion she had prompted the change, along with the rest of the 99 Gods. The Haruhi character reminded Atlanta of some of the 99, a neurotic over caffeinated teen girl with unconscious godlike effects on everyone around her.
“You mean the menu item names aren’t total gibberish?” Dana said.
Atlanta let Dana’s absurd comment pass with nothing more than a nod. The Café was off today, diminished and less effective at calming her nerves. She didn’t spot any of the Indigo here, but given their tricks, that might be because they weren’t interested in being spotted.
The Indigo had invited her here to meet and accept their appointed liaison, which the Indigo leadership, chaotic as always, had interpreted as a request for two liaisons. “You’re implying more,” Dana said, focusing for a moment on a newly painted fingernail. Dana had been the recent recipient of a lecture on grooming; as a God’s COS, her clothes, hair, nails and face needed to be perfect when she was out in public being Atlanta’s representative. Dana hadn’t been shabby, but still... “You’re implying meaning. Such as the menu item ‘Rei’, for coffee-flavored milk. A person?” Atlanta nodded. “Not exactly the world’s most willful person, either, I suspect. And the ‘Utena’, the cayenne cappuccino. Is this named for a sexpot or a hardcase?”
“The latter, though you could argue both.” Atlanta blinked and turned to the voice, and saw, finally, two of the Indigo, both in their crazy ignore-me dark gray silk cloaks. The voice belonged to the Café’s owner and proprietor, Lara Minor. Standing next to her was one of the few black Indigo members, a nameless women who radiated competence and unflappability over severe PTSD. That is, a standard member of the Indigo.
“Have a seat, they’re yours,” Atlanta said. “You two are my liaisons?” They both nodded. “You are?”
“Dr. Velma Horton,” the medium-toned woman said. She looked to be in her forties, with dark and experienced eyes, well-straightened hair, and an ample but athletic figure. “To your worries, no, I’m not an attempted insult.” Atlanta hadn’t let her worries move past one of her background mental tracks, but, well, Indigo. “I had to lobby hard to get myself appointed to the position.”
Hero worship, then, not tokenism. Atlanta shrugged. “Lara, I’m more surprised at you getting caught up in this.” She was, if Atlanta had things correctly pegged, a member of the inner circle of the leadership cabal or however the Indigo referred to such things. As an inner circle member, instead of competence and PTSD, she radiated psych ward and unearthly heroism. She also needed lessons in grooming, especially around the eyes. There were times when Atlanta wondered why anyone would ever let white women near eye makeup.
Lara turned and studied the tiled ceiling, and the various pens, pencils, forks and knives stuck into it, thrown from below. “I’m thinking of renaming our largest straight java the ‘Atlanta’,” she said.
“Retiring your signature drink, the Son Goku?” Atlanta said, and stopped her thanks for the support comment before she said it. “You’re equating me with Goku?” She had always thought Goku overpowered and overblown for a hero. “I do have a blue energy blast I can direct from the palm of my hand, though.” She raised her hand and palm at Lara, who paled. “Want a demonstration?” Lara shook her head ‘no’, quick.
“I would call the blue helix more of a nerve overload than an energy blast,” Dana said, again missing the conversational context. “Boss here needed some powerful non-lethal attacks, and the blue helix is one of the better ones we’ve come up with.” Especially since, if Atlanta doubled the usual energy levels of the helix, the blast would kill a mortal.
“I’m afraid we’re all going to have a bunch to learn,” Dr. Horton said. She watched the byplay between her putative Indigo boss and Atlanta with muted alarm mixed with disgust.
“So, what kind of doctor are you?” Atlanta asked. Someone here needed to keep up the proper social appearances.
“ER, at Athens Regional,” Dr. Horton said. “It’s one of the reasons we’re doing two liaisons. At least until things get too hot for any of us to maintain a normal career, I’m still going to be doing my shifts.” To Atlanta’s senses, Dr. Horton wasn’t one of Indigo’s top people at the funky unnatural, but she did have the greasy aura Atlanta had tentatively associated with whatever trick the Indigo people used to know more about people and situations than they should.
Dana, after studying Lara for over a minute, finally spoke. “You rank Dr. Horton, and you’re older than she is, but you look like you’re my age,” Dana said. Uh huh, there she went, again. Lara and Dr. Horton would have to get used to her. “Yes?”
“Yes,” Lara said. By appearance, Lara was a young white twenty-something and a gym rat, who liked to wear sandals on her feet and flipped up sunglasses on her pageboy-length artificially colored blonde to brown to dark blue rainbow hair. Atlanta knew better. “I’d rather not have to lie to you about such strangenesses…so please don’t ask. I can say I’ve been to Hell and back, though.”
“Hell?” Dana said. She turned to Atlanta. “You said your creators told you there is no heaven or hell, just God Almighty and his absence. Ms. Minor didn’t mean her comment figuratively, either. What’s going on?”
“Strangeness,” Atlanta said, echoing Lara. “You are correct about the Host’s comment. I believe my friends here have a different viewpoint on the question, though.”
“Kinda sorta,” Lara said. She waved over the barista, who delivered Dana’s coffee. The barista had lost track of the table, likely due to Lara and Dr. Horton’s presence. “Though we’re a bit miffed the Angelic Host didn’t mention Hell. The place is b
ad news, and the things that make it here from Hell are potentially one of the greater dangers you Gods will ever face.”
“Don’t look at me,” Atlanta said, to Dana, who was looking at her, shocked. “I can’t explain what I barely understand, and have no evidence of.”
“Uh huh,” Lara said. “Man, do I know that reaction.” One of the ways Atlanta knew Lara was what she implied she was had to do with her word choices. Lara talked like a Boomer, even when talking about Anime and Manga. Especially when talking about Anime and Manga. “You know Dante, correct?” Lara asked Dana.
Dana nodded.
“When did Dante write his stuff? The 14th Century?”
“Late 13th, early 14th,” Dana said. “Why?”
“Ever take a look at any maps of the world from back then?” Lara said. “Or any descriptions of medieval cosmology?”
“They’re all nonsense,” Dana said. “What does that have to do with…” Her voice trailed off as she got it. At best, Dante had been allegorical.
“I’m sure he had the place described to him second or third hand,” Lara said. “To give you a better sense for the place, so did Lovecraft and Geiger.”
“Uh, okay,” Dana said. Not believing a word.
“You’re not going to get any theories from them on it, either,” Atlanta said. “Their unifying cult dogma says it all: ‘Faith isn’t enough, belief isn’t enough, theory isn’t enough, truth isn’t enough, facts aren’t enough. Give me the data and let me make my own damned opinions.’ It sounds insane, but when you’ve experienced what they apparently have, their way of looking at things is a necessary and rational coping mechanism.”
“We are not a cult,” Lara said, arch, and thrust forward. Her large oval sunglasses fell down her face and down her nose, cocked to the left. She removed them and twirled them around in her fingers, half-blushing.
“The data suggests otherwise,” Atlanta said. She liked yanking the chain of the Indigo leadership. They reacted so well. She was glad, though, that she had never been through whatever they had, whatever made them the way they were.
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