“We gotta help Fitz,” Sam says. There had to be a way to do it. Sneak in and grab him? But how? Medeina’s point about how they might not notice she’s here if they’re distracted gives her a thought. “I have a bad idea.”
Medeina smiles at her. “Those are often the best kind.”
“What if we get up close and you distract them, and I grab Fitz and get him the hell out of there?”
“And once you have him?”
“Get him down here, get him into the car, get the hell away? I haven’t really figured out that part, yet.”
“They will pursue you,” Medeina says. “But I may be able to get you some time and distance from them. I will be your distraction and protection as you spirit him away.”
“Do you think it will work?”
Medeina shrugs. “I have done many things that by rights should have never worked. Perhaps you are a hero. Heroes do that sort of thing.”
Well, she did ask. Inside the stairwell Sam looks up. “That’s a lot of steps,” she says. “This could take hours.”
Medeina laughs. “Oh, no,” she says. “Seconds.” She wraps her arms around Sam and suddenly Sam feels lighter, thinner. In a second she and Medeina are wisps of black smoke racing up the steps, bouncing through the turns and corners, taking whole floors in the blink of an eye.
About halfway up, they stop. Sam’s thoughts are scattered, as elusive as the wind she has become, and it takes her a moment to realize why they’ve stopped.
They become solid on the stairs in front of a terrified Jake, hobbling down the steps. He screams when the black smoke appears and after seeing that it’s Sam and Medeina, he doesn’t seem much relieved.
“Oh, Jesus, it’s you.” He sits on a step, his bones creaking, his hands shaking. He’s wheezing from his run.
“What happened?” Sam says. “Did they capture Fitz?”
“Capture? Fuck, the boy walked right into it. Knew it, too.” He explains their plan to try to kill Big, and the discovery that there were more gods here after they got onto the elevator, and then Fitz had this idea that he needed to end it now.
“What was he planning?”
“He didn’t have a plan. He thought he might be able to twist those threads around on one of them until they didn’t exist anymore, but with so many up there? I don’t know. Maybe he’s got a death wish? When I was at my worst, I know I sure as hell did.”
“That doesn’t sound like Fitz,” Sam says. When he’s cornered, he’ll fight. She’s seen it. Saved her life in that motel years ago. But unless he’s cornered, he knows to run the fuck away.
“He did seem a little weird,” Jake says.
“Weird how?”
“Calm. Like real calm.”
“Did he have a plan?”
“Don’t think so,” Jake says. “Maybe he was keeping it under wraps?”
“And why did you run?” Medeina says. “Are you not loyal to your friend?”
“The fuck makes you think he’s my friend? I only just met the guy and he pulled me back into this. Fuck him. If he wants to get himself killed, fine. But I’m not going out that way. Those fuckers’ll screw with your head, tear you apart from the inside. I’m not doing that again.”
“So you ran like a coward,” Medeina says.
“He told me to leave, goddammit.”
“It’s okay,” Sam says. “I get it. This isn’t your fight. But I gotta get Fitz out of there. Can you tell me anything about the top floor?”
“Big marble foyer, double doors in front of the elevator, couple other doors to, I dunno, offices maybe? And then there’s the stairwell. I didn’t exactly stick around to do a thorough look.”
“Hey, any bit helps. I know you don’t owe him anything, but can you do me a favor?”
“If it isn’t ‘getting the fuck out of here,’ then no.”
“As a matter of fact it is. There’s a Corolla parked outside. It’s hotwired; all you have to do is touch the wires under the dashboard. Go out there, get the car ready and wait for us.”
He thinks about it. “I ain’t waitin’ all night.”
“You will wait for as long as you need to,” Medeina says, her voice taking on a strange harmonic that pierces through Sam’s skull.
“Oh, screw you, witch lady,” Jake says. “That shit don’t work on me.” He laughs at Medeina’s shocked expression. “Yeah, that’s another thing you people don’t know about us, huh? All that magic god voice crap. You can’t tell us what to do. Let that sink in for a minute.”
He turns to Sam. “I’ll wait for as long as I can, but if you get out there and I’m not, don’t be surprised.”
“We won’t be long,” she says. She takes Medeina’s hand, pulling her outraged attention away from the burnt-out prophet. “Let’s go. He’ll keep the car running. Might shave off some time and let us get out of here in one piece.”
Medeina narrows her eyes at Jake. “Go, little coward. When your comrades need you, you run.”
“Missy, ain’t nobody ever been there for me. Don’t see how this is me bein’ any different.” He gives Sam a half-hearted salute and Medeina the finger. “I’ll see you downstairs. Good luck.”
He disappears down a few floors before Sam says, “Why did you talk like that?”
“He is a coward who will run away at the slightest hint of trouble,” she says, anger written all over her face.
“The guy’s a burnout and he’s scared. He’s probably got a fuckton of PTSD going on inside of that head. And it’s not like he can talk to too many people about it and get help that’ll actually help. The fact that he’s even alive is impressive.”
Medeina looks down at her and frowns. “You respect him?”
“I understand him,” Sam says. “Which is different. I don’t have to like his choices to be able to accept them. And yes, before you say it, humans are complicated.”
“Humans are complicated,” Medeina says. “You are not like the tribes who worshipped me.”
“Hey,” Sam says, “when this is all over, let’s you and me go someplace. Some forest. Tell me what your life was like. And not that infodump thing you did earlier. I want to hear you tell your stories. You okay with that?”
Medeina smiles, any trace of anger or upset disappearing. “I would like that very much.” She takes Sam’s hand. Sam begins to feel lighter, more insubstantial. “Let us save the Chronicler,” she says before the two of them fade into willowy black smoke.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE GODS IN the room are all staring at Fitz. He’s not sure what to expect, but sitting stock-still with looks of panic on their faces isn’t it.
“Come in, come in!” the Man says. “It’s so good to see you, my boy!” He steps toward Fitz to pull him in for a hug, but Fitz pulls back, ducking under his arms. The Man frowns. “Don’t trust me? I can understand that.”
“I didn’t come looking for you,” Fitz says. No, he didn’t, but he’s here and he’s stuck and he’s just trying to figure out what to do next. Around the room the red threads radiate off the gods, scattering in all directions. Some of them wind in on themselves, knotting in their centers, or around their heads like halos. Zaphiel has knots all along his body, the densest clustered around the burns and gashes left over from his encounter near the airport. The threads are brighter than he’s seen them before, more vivid. He wonders what the knots mean.
“Oh, I know,” the Man says. He points a thumb over his shoulder at Big Money in the corner. “You came looking for him. How were you thinking of killing him? I’m dying to know.”
“I—”
“Wondering how I knew?” He nods at the Amandas in the doorway. “Maybe she told me. She is my daughter, you know.”
Fitz spins around to face Amanda. “The fuck?”
“I didn’t tell him a goddamn thing,” the Amandas say in unison.
“She’s right, she didn’t. I just figured it out, is all. You’re awfully predictable. Getting hold of the old man—Jake, right?
That was inspired. I knew you were going to grab him. He was the only one who could help you figure out what you can do. Have you tried telling a god’s stories, yet? No. No, I don’t think you have.”
“How did you know I was coming here to kill Big? Why not you?”
“Because you didn’t know I was here. He’s the only one who came in through the front door. The rest just sort of appeared. We’re gods, you know. Some of us can do that. As to how I knew you were going to try to kill Big? Well, I know Jake. See, I met him a long time ago when he first caught the attention of some of the other gods. I watched him. Studied him. He’s a very angry man. The only thing he thinks about is killing gods. Well, that and getting high as balls.”
Fitz feels like he’s talking to some B-grade schlock villain. Blake has turned into the Emperor in Star Wars. “‘Everything is proceeding as you have foreseen’?” Fitz says.
“And I’ve found the droids I was looking for,” the Man says, smiling.
“After what they did to him, can you blame him?”
“Not at all. Which is why the same won’t be happening to you. You’ll be working for me, and only me. We’ll have you start small. A few stories here and there, get the public a little more accepting of my reign. Then we’ll go a little wider. Go after the skeptics and the atheists. And then, well, then we do the miracles.”
“Miracles?”
“Yeah,” the Man says. “The stories are great and all, but if people are really gonna get on board, they need something a little more concrete. Not too concrete. Proof denies faith and all, so we need just enough ambiguity to sell it. Between my miracles and your stories, I’ll be set.”
Fitz looks around at the cowed faces. Zaphiel’s in particular has him worried. He figured the angel would be furious, tearing the Man into pieces and flying off with Fitz to chain him in a basement or something.
But he just looks defeated.
The Man follows Fitz’s gaze. “Oh, them? They’re totally on board. I only needed to kill a couple of them. I’ll probably have to kill a few more to get everybody else on board. Of course, I might not have to once they know you’ve signed on to the team.”
The strange sense of calm that came over Fitz in the elevator isn’t gone, but it’s starting to crack. He’s nervous. There’s something else going on here, but he hasn’t figured it out, yet.
“What makes you think I’m on the team?” Fitz says. “From what I understand, I have to agree to do it. I have to make that choice. So far I haven’t signed on to a goddamn thing.”
“Well, I could kill you,” the Man says. “But a guy like you doesn’t happen every day, you know. Hell, I don’t think a guy like you has ever happened before. So I’d really rather you just accepted that it’s really no choice at all.”
Fitz wonders if maybe it wouldn’t be easier. Maybe he should just give in and take his offer. Be his pet prophet. How bad could it be?
Well, for starters, the Man is an asshole. Whatever he wants Fitz to do can’t be good for anybody. And then there’s Jake. How long before the Man burns Fitz out the way those other gods burnt out Jake? Probably a while, but it’s not much better.
And third, he doesn’t have to.
“No,” Fitz says.
Something he’s been mulling ever since they got on the elevator. There’s more that he can do with these threads than he’s been doing. He concentrates on the threads surrounding Big Money, runs along them with his thoughts into the areas where they knot together in his body. But instead of pulling on them, twisting them, or trying to make Big move or dance or anything like that, he thinks one word.
Burn.
A scream erupts from Big as his body is consumed in a haze of green flames. They shoot out of his mouth and nostrils, burst from his ears. He flails, slapping at himself to put out the flames, but they just get higher. He tries changing forms from American Business Tycoon to Saudi Oil Sheikh to Chinese Billionaire to Art World Darling, but none of his shapes can help him.
The Man turns to watch his son burn. The rest of the gods rush away from him as quickly as they can, looks of horror on their faces. Even Amanda is looking a little horrified. Fitz doubts that this is what she was expecting.
He wonders what’s going to happen to the international banking industry once Big’s gone. Probably nothing; it spawned Big Money, not the other way around. When Bacchus died, wine didn’t suddenly cease to exist. A few thousand years ago, Bacchus’ kicking the bucket might have meant something, but now?
Big finally stops moving as his legs disintegrate from underneath him, dropping him to the floor. His arms fall to pieces in huge clumps of ash and flame. The rest of him quickly follows. Soon the flames are nothing but a dim glow dancing on a pile of gray ash. Thin rivulets of golden ichor soak into the carpet.
A long silence fills the room. And then the Man gives Fitz a slow golf clap.
“Nicely done,” he says. “And thank you. He was a whiny little shit. Saved me the trouble. I’ll do better next time.”
“There’s not gonna be a next time,” Fitz says. “I did it to him, I’ll do it to you.” He looks out at the rest of the gods. “I’ll do it to all of you.” He can see the threads running off of the Man in all directions. They’re more complex, more convoluted. He can’t find a knot to grab, so he settles with selecting a handful in his mind and twisting.
The Man laughs. “Oh, I felt that! Kinda tickles.”
Fitz sweeps his awareness through more, grabs huge clumps in his mind. Pulls hard, commands them to burn, to disintegrate, to snap into pieces. The Man frowns.
“Enough of that,” he says, sweeping his arm out in front of him.
Before he can get his hand up, Amanda fires the shotgun, a solid slug of lead hitting him square in the forehead. The round mushrooms and ricochets into the ceiling. The Man doesn’t seem to notice.
A hurricane force wind slams into Fitz, throwing him back out into the hallway. He hits the elevator doors hard and something inside him cracks. His shoulder, still sore from the dislocation in the car accident, pops back out of joint and he screams.
The pain is intense, but Fitz refuses to black out. He’s got to get up, fight back. Part of him wants to run; get down those stairs and as far away as it’s possible to get. But he knows that running’s not an option.
The Amandas pump more rounds into the Man, who just has this look of disappointment on his face, like his dog just peed on the rug. He gestures and their guns fly out of their hands to clatter on the floor behind him. With another sweep of his hands, the two women fly up, pinned to the ceiling.
“Why are you doing this?” he says. “I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye but, come on, we’re in this together. Haven’t I given you everything you’ve asked for?”
“You don’t understand a damn thing about me,” the Amandas say. “You just want to control everything. Whether it wants to be controlled or not.”
He rolls his eyes. “Is this another information wants to be free speech? I thought that was just a phase. Aren’t we over that now?” He sighs. “You know, we’re gonna have to finish this talk another time.”
He pushes his hands down and the Amanadas fall, slamming into the floor with the speed of a bullet, tearing through into the floor below. Fitz can hear a succession of crashes and he wonders just how many floors they’ve gone through.
The Man steps past the holes in the conference room floor and into the hallway, shakes his head as he looks down at Fitz struggling to stand up.
“Look at what you made me do, Fitz,” he says. “You’ve got a dislocated shoulder and, what, busted rib? Maybe a cracked vertebra? I don’t want to kill you. I really don’t. I don’t even want to hurt you. But you make it so hard not to.”
“Fuck you,” Fitz says through gritted teeth. He spits out blood, focuses through the pain, tries to grab the threads surrounding the Man but they dance away from his awareness before he can get hold of them.
“See, here’s something you don’t u
nderstand,” the Man says. He points a thumb behind him at the other gods standing terrified in the doorway. “They know I can destroy them. And from your paltry little demonstration here, they now know you can’t destroy me.”
“Horseshit,” Fitz says. “I saw that look. I had you there.”
“Points for optimism, but no. I have you here on the floor. So whatever you think you can do to me, you can’t. So you’re going to help me remake the world. It’s going to be nice and orderly and full of Me. The trains will run on time, the people will be nice and calm and do what they’re told. The other gods will get in line or I’ll have you write a story about how they ceased to exist and the people will forget they ever did.”
“You’re gonna have to kill me,” Fitz says. Better that than let the Man run things. That’s not a world Fitz is going to help make. The world’s bad enough that it brought the Man into existence in the first place. There’s no way in hell he’s going to help make things worse.
“Actually, no. What I have to do is what I do best. I need to break you. I need you to understand that I am in control. That you have no hope. That everything I say and do goes, and that there is fuck all you can do about it. You can’t win.” He looks at his wristwatch. “In fact, here it comes now. Right on time.”
The stairwell door bursts open and thick black smoke boils out of it, coalescing between Fitz and the Man into Sam and Medeina. The goddess scowls at the Man, her spear materializing out of the smoke and pointed at his face. Sam grabs Fitz and helps him stand. To his credit, he doesn’t scream.
His arm hangs uselessly by his side, and when he breathes it’s like fire in his chest, a sure sign of a broken rib.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Fitz says. “He’s going to fucking kill you.”
“He’ll have to try. We’re getting you the fuck out of here,” Sam says. “Medeina’ll hold him off long enough to get you downstairs.”
“That is a shitty plan,” Fitz says. “He’ll fucking flatten all of us.”
“The cavalry has arrived!” the Man says.
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