by Norris Black
For the third time that day someone stood over my downed body with a sword held high, ready to end my life. At least I think it was only the third time. I wasn't keeping an official count.
I didn't close my eyes, just stared with all the anger I could muster into my executioner's face.
"MRROOWW!" The thunderous yowl shook the entire crater. Lensky, eyes wide, took a step back, a look of shock on his bloodied face.
Louie padded out of the mass of seething tentacles he had disappeared into earlier. He looked like he always had, except for the fact he was ten-feet-tall, and his eyes glowed like a pair of vengeful suns. His black and white fur waved in the air and upon closer inspection you could see it wasn't hair at all, but tiny black and white tentacles, no longer warring with each other, instead moving together in harmony. Behind him, the corpse of the Last God faded, leaving behind nothing but blackened stone to show where it had once lain.
"No!" Lensky’s mournful scream would've been heart-wrenching if I didn't hate the little bastard so much. Instead, I just smiled a bloody smile as he turned and ran.
The movement caught King Louie's attention. The magnificent feline gathered its back legs beneath him and pounced on his fleeing prey, grabbing Lensky’s struggling form between his massive jaws, and shaking his head back and forth violently. I heard the unmistakable crack of a spine snapping. Then something strange happened. A shadowy spectral form was superimposed on Lensky’s struggling body, like something trying to escape from inside him. It was no use. The cat's glowing fangs pinned the wraith as surely as it did the flesh it occupied. With another shake of Louie's head, the specter came apart, evaporating from view as an otherworldly scream shivered the air before it too faded to nothing.
Content his quarry was well and truly vanquished, Louie dropped the lump of torn flesh to the ground and padded over to where I lay spilling the last of my lifeblood onto the crater floor.
The cat who accidentally became a god trilled a note of concern and prodded me with one gigantic paw. I had no strength left to respond. I was just grateful it was all over. Maybe being dead wouldn't be so bad after all, the Fallen knew I could use the rest. Huh, should I be saying 'the Louie' now? That didn't sound right.
With another trill the god cat rested its paw on me, holding me to the ground as he gripped the end of the spear in his teeth. He pulled it free slowly. I expected to feel pain, but there was none. Once free Louie dropped the spear to the side and licked me with that rough tongue of us, literally bathing me from head to toe in divine cat spit. As he did so, my breathing became easier, the blackness crowding my vision to a narrow tunnel eased and then reversed. I placed my hand where the bloody hole in my chest had been to find the skin unbroken.
"Why you wonderful son of a bitch," I said in amazement. Louie gave a satisfied meow that shook the entire crater before trotting over to give Dagda her own saliva bath. The Seraph, now awake, pushed herself into a sitting position and stared into the brilliant eyes of the divine feline.
With one final trill Louie burst into a thousand brilliant lights that soared up and out of the crater and into the night sky.
Dagda and I shared a look from across the crater.
"What in the hells?" Was all she said.
Really, what else was there to say?
Chapter 30
"Here, I picked you up some breakfast."
Dagda set the polystyrene container down on a corner of my office desk and took a seat in one of the two chairs opposite.
The aroma of warm eggs filled the room and my stomach rumbled in response.
"Bacon?"
She shook her head. "No bacon. I remember your preferences."
I slid the container to my side of the desk but didn't open it. Wolfing down food in front of a guest would've been impolite. My stomach lodged a loud protest.
Dagda wore a typical Seraph uniform, sans armor. A pair of golden stripes down the left sleeve showed off her new rank as Swordmaster.
"I see you got the promotion. I was half expecting you'd move down in ranks for consorting with the likes of me."
She shrugged. "When Lensky died, and his entire army collapsed it became pretty clear to my father you were a primary factor in that."
"We both were. How is the old man?"
"As grumpy as ever, but healing. I'm hoping recent events will have opened his eyes a little to some of our internal issues. That we can return the Seraph to their original mandate of protecting the people, not ruling them."
"Good luck with that. My experience is people don't let go of power easily once they've had a taste."
A long silence dragged out; the ticking of a wall clock mixed with street sounds drifting in through the open window behind me. Dagda had become as close a friend to me as I'd ever had, but our view of the organization she was a member of—and whose father ran the whole outfit—was still a point of contention.
"What's with all the people out there today?" She asked, breaking the quiet with a change of subjects. "I don't think I've ever seen the streets so packed."
I reached into my drawer and pulled out a bottle of amber liquid and two glasses, pouring a few inches into one and then into the second after a nod from Dagda in response to my questioning look.
I slid one glass across to her and lifted my own "You haven't heard? It's a new religious holiday. Everyone's out celebrating the ascension of Louie the Eternal."
She nearly spit out the drink she had just taken. "Is that really a thing? Besides, that happened almost a month ago now."
"New cults take a bit of time to get their feet under them."
"Wait, how do they even know about him? You and I were the only ones there to see it, and I don't think either of us have been keen on giving anyone the details on that particular story."
"It's a good question. It reminds me of something Mara talked about, how everyone knew that what had fallen in the Battery was a god, and more specifically that it was known as 'the Last God'. I think maybe power on such a cosmic scale as that... well, it just has a way of making itself known to the populace. Like a broadcast we all pick up simultaneously."
Dagda frowned and sipped her drink. "I'm not sure I like the idea of otherworldly entities being able to simply pop knowledge of themselves into my head without me having any say in the matter. Do you really think that's the case?"
I thought back to riding on the back of a giant wolf through a primordial forest and a daemon trapped in a gun laughing at me when I referred to Crash City as the 'real world'.
I shook my head. "There are other... possibilities. But none you'd be any happier to hear."
We sat in amiable silence for a moment, relishing in the fact no one was actively trying to kill either of us right at the moment. The cheers from the celebration outside wafted in through the window.
Again, it was Dagda who was the first to break the quiet. "There's something that's been bothering me. How did Louie even end up there in the first place? I was there when you locked him inside Mara's apartment. How did he get from there to our meeting with Happy Jack, and then again down in the crater?"
"Yeah, that's been eating at me a bit too. I have a theory, but it involves a cat god working outside linear time in order to ensure his own creation. And honestly, just saying those words out loud gives me a headache, so how about we shelve that conversation for a time when I'm much less sober."
Outside the celebration had hit a fever pitch and chants of Lou-ie! Lou-ie! Lou-ie! could be heard.
"Does it still count as a cult if we know the deity they worship is real?" asked Dagda.
"That's a good question." I raised my glass in a toast. "Here's to his divine furriness, may his ass always be clean."
Dagda burst out laughing and I smiled. It was a good sound, clean. There had been too little of that sort of thing as of late. The smile dropped from my face as my eye caught the empty chair beside her.
"Any luck on your search?" she asked, picking up on my change in humor.
"Nothing but dead ends so far. Most wychs I've reached out to haven't been able to access the wyrd since the corpse of the Last God vanished. There are still a few leads I can chase down though. I will find her."
"What if she's dead?"
"Then I'll bring her body home where it belongs."
"Just promise me you won't do anything dangerous."
"You know me better than that."
"I do, which is why I'm worried." She downed her drink and stood to leave. "I have to get back to the keep, don't let your eggs grow cold." She stood and walked to the door, pausing with her hand on the knob, she turned to meet my eyes. "Gideon, if you need me for anything, you only have to ask."
I raised my glass in a salute, and then she was gone. The newly refurbished office never felt so empty.
I poured my untouched drink back into the bottle before opening the drawer and placing it back inside, setting it down beside a fire-blackened revolver. Through the soot you could make out dozens of tiny intricate sigils etched along the gun's length.
I stared at the weapon for a long minute before sighing heavily and closing the drawer.
Not yet, but soon.
Acknowledgements
This book wouldn't be possible without the enormous amount of support from family and friends.
Special thanks to Julie, Katy and Christopher who suffered through the raw and rough building of the world of Crash City.
About The Author
Norris Black
Norris Black is a Haudenosaunee/mixed-blood author, originally from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory and now living in the city of Belleville, Ontario. When he’s not writing he spends his time learning to speak with machines and taking long walks in dark, spooky woods. The Last God is his debut novel.
The story of Gideon Brown continues in the forthcoming novel:
Wych hunt
Coming Fall, 2021.
Here is a special preview.
Chapter 1
A nightmare chased me down the stairs.
I don't mean a literal nightmare, like I was having a bad dream. In fact, that would've been a vast improvement over my current situation.
No, this thing currently howling for my blood—as I did my best to navigate a rickety and rotting staircase while still running at full tilt—was flesh and bone. And possibly some other things in there as well. Honestly, even if I wasn't trying to keep from breaking my neck, I wouldn't have been too keen on examining it any closer. If it was pulled from an actual nightmare, it was from someone cursed with way more imagination than I've ever had.
"Gideon! Get down!"
I threw myself down the remaining stairs, feeling a breeze above my head as a monstrous paw swiped through the air where my poor noggin had been just a moment before. I bounced to the bottom of the staircase, swearing all the way,
Thunder roared and the murk of the room lit up as if by lightning. Earless and her crew opening fire as soon as I cleared their line of sight.
The nightmare creature roared in response and staggered back under the onslaught; one hairy army raised to protect itself from the lead sleet slicing into it. With a scream of frustration, it turned and ran back up the stairs, turned and disappeared down a darkened hallway of the abandoned house.
As for me, I laid in a puddle of pain on the dusty wooden floor, continuing to swear softly.
"I told you not to wake it up."
"By the Fallen, do you think I intended to?" I accepted Earless's proffered hand and clambered to my feet.
"By the 'who' now?"
"You know what I mean. I'm too bloody old to learn a whole brand-new set of swear words."
The former ganger gave me a lopsided grin as I grumpily dusted myself off.
I couldn't say if curses invoking the name of Louie the Eternal, Crash City's newest deity, had become an actual thing yet or not. Louie the cat—my cat more specifically— ascended to the heavens after knocked into the corpse of the Last God during a battle with an interdimensional nightmare wearing human skin. With that accidental contact the fluffy feline inherited those god's powers and was now likely chasing cosmic mice among the stars.
Or something. I don't pretend to know what divine felines do with their day.
"How many did you see up there?" asked Earless as she reloaded the pump shotgun that was her weapon of choice, hard and lean muscles exposed to view by the sleeveless shirt she wore moving under her sallow skin. She was of average height and I suspected she was somewhere in her mid-thirties, but a rough life had left obvious marks on her. Wide-set eyes and a narrow chin gave her a severe look while a jagged scar tugging on a bottom lip made it appear she was always on the verge of smirk. Except for when she was actually smirking, like now. Earless kept her dirty blonde hair shaved on both sides, as if to better show off the rings of scar tissue around the holes where her used to be. You can probably guess where she got the name from. Gangers aren't exactly inventive types when it comes to nicknames.
"If your answer is anything else other than 'one' I vote we immediately leave and never come back. Maybe light this place on fire first, maybe the whole block. You know, just to be sure." Anton was standing by the front door with one hand on the doorknob and both eyes keeping a careful watch on the darkened hallway at the top of the stairway where the creature had disappeared. The pistol in his left-hand hung at his side and seemingly forgotten.
"That's your answer to everything. Set it on fire and run away." Loretta shouldered a shotgun similar to the one Earless carried, the only difference being the former cultist used shells loaded with some homebrew pellet mix she called rainbow-brites, while the ganger typically opted for slugs to maximize the size of holes she could put in things. As always, Loretta stood at Earless's shoulder, close as a second shadow. The two were an odd pairing but both had been caught up in the hell storm that tore thought this city a year ago—Loretta being duped into participating in a ritual that let lose a brutal entity with aspirations of godhood and Earless losing most of her gang along with her boss Happy Jack in a throwdown with minions controlled by that same entity. Earless had become something of a mentor to the youth with the red hair and round face.
"That's because it's a rational answer. Much better than clomping about spooky hallways of abandoned buildings until something pops out and eats us like our fearless leader over there."
"Hey," I grumbled at Anton. "I have plenty of fear, thank you very much. And I wasn't 'clomping about'. I was being stealthy. How was I to know this thing had the ears of a bat."
Earless snorted. "You're about as stealthy as a boulder rolling down a glass mountain."
"Echolocation?" Loretta awkwardly tucked her shotgun under an armpit and pulled a small, battered notebook from her pocket. "Are you saying this creature has that ability?" A pair of serious brown eyes stared at me as she awaited my reply, her pen poised above the paper.
"You really need to learn what figures of speech are," I said to Loretta before turning to Anton. "I only saw the one. Given the amount of screaming I was doing I'm reasonably certain if there were any others, they'd already be down here with us. So, how about you relax the death grip you have on that poor doorknob before it starts yelping in pain."
Earless peered up the stairs, shotgun at the ready. She was unfazed by the chatter going on around her. That was one of her strongest attributes, she was utterly unflappable. Though sometimes I felt she could do to be a little flappable, at least so the rest of us mere mortals didn't feel so inferior all the time. "Why didn't you wait for us?" she asked.
I shrugged, a little embarrassed. "You were taking too long. You know as well as I that every second we waste dramatically reduces the chance we'll find the wych still alive."
"A few more seconds, and we wouldn't have found you still alive. It's why we have rules. Always wait for the rest of the team and—"
"Let sleeping daemons lie. Yeah, I get it. I wrote those rules."
"Then you shouldn't have any problem following them."
/> I couldn't argue with her logic, so I contented myself with grumbling to myself while reloading the six-shot revolver I kept in a side-holster. I had put all six bullets in the air during my mad dash down a shadowy hallway. Of course, I couldn't say how many hit beast, and how many just added new holes to walls already in rough shape, but either way they hadn't done much other than make it angrier. Still, I like it when I can at least try to shoot monsters trying to kill me. The revolver didn't have the same punching power as the over-under double barrel Boxer .577 I used to cart around, but I quickly grew tired of almost fracturing my wrist from the recoil every time I squeezed off a shot.
"What kind of layout are we dealing with up there?" When it was time for action Earless was all business.
"Hallway runs in a big circle with rooms branching off on both sides. I got about a hundred yards down before tall, dark and toothy popped out of a door to my right like he was a guest at the world's worst surprise birthday party."
"Did you say the hallway runs in a big circle?" Anton's flagrant cowardice had two distinct advantages. The first being it made me feel brave by comparison. But more importantly, he was always calculating risk assessments. That knack had kept us all in one piece on more than one occasion. Well, I guess Earless doesn't isn’t technically all in one piece, but that happened before this crew was put together, so I don't think it counts.
I nodded. "It curves to the left and loops all the way around to the stairwell here."
