99 Gods: Odysseia
Page 65
None of the other Indigo combatants remained alive.
Maria weighed odds and put her tactical training to work, training Betrayer herself had given her. Going
Betrayer shivered and bellowed . She had gambled and taught Maria the basics of territorial willpower use, for use in case Betrayer had fallen before the lair-battle had ended. This gamble now backfired.
Maria grabbed the Atlanta territory again; this time Betrayer, her body reformed, let her take possession. Maria raised a second barrier, and a third. The Paladins slowed, but because of the weight of their power they slowed only for a few moments before they abraded Maria’s barriers.
Betrayer’s mind slipped from Maria’s as her hold on the Atlanta territory evaporated. Now she could only sense her fight with Dubuque and Verona. She fought to regenerate her offense and failed. She had almost nothing left.
She had made her willpower fallback for just this moment. Well, gone was gone. Verona and Dubuque continued attacking, their helixes now unstoppable as they slowly ripped apart her Imago. They wouldn’t have to flee now. They had her pinned down and bleeding silver. Another few seconds of this and she would be gone. Dead.
Verona and Dubuque crowed, tasting victory. Despite all they lost in the Betrayer’s lair fight, they had emerged triumphant here.
She had failed. She had nothing left in her arsenal that had more than a few percent chance of success.
His action triggered a memory, an official Nessa as Daughter of Light quote about maps and territory Betrayer had studied until she understood its philosophical meaning. She had come up with a trick based on it, a low odds trick, at least according to the Place of Time. A trick she had tried at the beginning of the fight, one that hadn’t worked.
Nessa’s emotions of the moment, when she spoke the quote, suggested the trick would work now. Betrayer hadn’t understood that until now, a tenth of a second away from her own death.
If this trick worked, she expected the Host to incinerate her. Her gambit was another betrayal, a betrayal of every iota of truth and honor the Angelic Host had pounded into them back during Apotheosis.
Either this or death. Either this or failure. She would do anything to succeed, even if this cost Betrayer her soul and the Host consigned her to oblivion.
Betrayer pushed forward, riding on the Godslayer’s moral certainty. The map is not the territory and a Territorial God is but a map. This left openings for the dishonorable to exploit. Betrayer slipped into Dubuque’s Imago for a moment and put the time she had spent as a captive in Oklahoma City to good use. Still dolphin in thought she struck, biting and gulping down what she sought inside Dubuque. The fight lasted only three milliseconds.
Dubuque flinched at Betrayer’s telepathic sending and her now indigo-glowing body, and in his flinch Betrayer devoured what remained of the reins of his power. Dubuque’s territory became hers, as did Dubuque’s worshipper-derived store of power.
The Host didn’t incinerate her.
She cut loose Dubuque’s City of God worshippers in an instant, knowing they could easily corrupt her. One in twenty would die on the spot from the backlash, and she didn’t care.
The Host still didn’t incinerate her.
“Die!” Betrayer said. In the moment of surprise, in the cusp of instability as Dubuque became something other than a Territorial God, she evaporated him and sent him back to Heaven with over a second remaining on the transport lockdown.
The Host still held back, a pleasant surprise.
Betrayer quick-shifted her thought patterns back to human, as she needed hands for this. She turned on Verona, who reeled from the death of Dubuque and from the utter shock and in some cases death from stroke and cardiac arrest of his worshippers as Dubuque’s loss of his Territory and his passing reverberated through the combined City of God Mission. For a moment Betrayer focused the entire tenebrous store of worshipper power she had stolen from Dubuque…
…raised her hands, and blasted Verona with every helix she knew.
Verona evaporated into a silver vapor that Betrayer pushed bodily into Heaven.
Seventy two milliseconds later the Angelic Host appeared and removed the Oklahoma City territory from the still indigo-glowing Betrayer.
She hovered, a soul, an Imago, a tattered Mission, in the ambit of the currently dim and forbidding Angelic Host, on the margin of Heaven. Their eyes pinned her in place, judging and harsh, as well as dissipating and banishing the indigo glow around her.
“Enough,” Betrayer said, surrendering. Heaven, God, judgment, oblivion, she didn’t know what she had earned but she knew, deep inside, that everything was over for her. She didn’t have a way out, and even if she did, she didn’t have the willpower or the inclination to try.
“We are not happy with you,” her own personal Angel, Weeping for Cordoba, said. His voice echoed through Betrayer’s mind and loosened the bowels of her soul. “You have done both the unwanted and the forbidden. You brought war to Earth against God Almighty’s wishes. You illicitly kept and illegally stole Territory, that of Columbia and Dubuque. You trucked with inhuman Gods who mean humanity nothing good. You repeatedly consorted with Hell, in the end bowing to a Fallen Angel whose power comes from Hell. You lured to you and allied with an organization beholden to the Fallen Gods, an organization who willingly embraces their blight. As Atlanta, you slew another Territorial God; via your machinations as Betrayer another six Gods have fallen. Dubuque, before he fell, named you properly, the Great Satan. We banish you from our sight! You are ended!”
Betrayer counted with difficulty: Lodz, Santa Fe, Dubuque and Verona had fallen on the enemy side; Boise had fallen on the defenders’ side. That left one short – oh. Kay of Progress hadn’t been able to hold herself together after being splattered by the multi-Paladin. In the midst of the combat, Betrayer had missed Progress’s death.
Betrayer knew she didn’t have the divinity to fully understand the metaphorical, allegorical and metaphysical ramifications of ‘the death of Progress’. She wondered if she ever would. Kay’s death felt like it had something to do with the binding of Richard’s feared singularity, though.
She met Weeping for Cordoba’s eyes, expecting this to be her last sight.
Yet she remained. She didn’t respond to the Angel’s sentence of ending, not believing she had the authority to fight it, or even agree with it.
Nothing.
Passive, exhausted, she stayed in the moment and waited for the inevitable end.
64. (Dave)
“My name is Karen Cox Stevens,” the woman said, taking Dave’s hand and shaking it.
After the last of the Paladins fell, and Betrayer’s Lair began to crumble around them, Richard of Orlando had flown the survivors out of the lair and into the rubble of the fight. There was little left of the once well-manicured lawn except isolated chunks of burnt sod covered with clumps of muddy dirt, stained stone, the shattered stick remnants of once pr
oud pines, and bits of twisted metal. Smoke still rose in scattered locations like poison rising from a hidden volcano. The God now lay exhausted at Dave’s feet, silently weeping, a Dana-sized hole in his life Dave shared with him. Elorie stood to Dave’s left and Diana to his right, each holding up the others. Nessa and Ken huddled on the ground, wordlessly, five paces back. Ken held Alana and Nessa held Zach. Bob of Columbia remained a flattened silver pancake. Maria the Persona continued her writhing and moaning, her willpower and her shape in flux as she recovered from the confusing end of the fight and her transitioning into a Territorial God, or something else entirely. She had saved their lives. He didn’t know if her time as a God was over or not. Whatever was going on with her wasn’t good, bad enough for Dave to pick up the emotional backwash of the transition.
“Dave Estrada,” he said, his hand shaky. The last thing he had expected to find on the battlefield were three Indigo women, who hadn’t been part of the group trapped in Betrayer’s lair, walking across the battlefield, dragging extra-large rolling coolers behind them.
“This is Dr. Velma Horton and this is Valerie Marchant,” Karen said, indicating her companions. Horton was African-American while Marchant was palest white, and their shoulder-to-shoulder stance, and handholding, marked them as a pair. “We’re Abe’s ace in the hole. He fell?”
“He and Kara fell while protecting the last of the survivors from the last of the enemy,” Diana said. “As we feared, everyone else fell among the adult combatants.” Meaning every one of the Indigo inner circle that was present.
Dave’s mind continued to whirl, numb, barely able to make his thoughts cohere. Despite the Godslayer’s ‘hero’ accelerated training, battles still threw him, and threw him badly. He wasn’t a warrior. He would never be a warrior. “What can we do to help? Is there anything we can do to help?”
Karen looked around and shrugged. “You know of the Godslayer, much to my surprise,” she said. Dave shrugged. Karen Stevens wasn’t an imposing woman, but he did see the family resemblance. She was definitely Jan’s daughter, shorter and stouter than her mother, and like most of the adult members of the Indigo, eternally thirty in appearance. Not a pushover, though; she was someone who would have triggered a stiff-necked response in him before Elorie grabbed him for the Ecumenist quest. No longer. “You must be one of her experiments.” He shrugged at the snark. She looked him and Elorie over. “Heroes.”
“You have a point here, Cuz?” Diana said, in her argumentative voice. Dave wondered if there was anyone among the current Indigo Diana did get along with.
“We need to call in the Godslayer. She isn’t answering the three of us.”
“The Indigo is dead,” Valerie said. She spoke with the echo-filled ghostly voice of a talented inseer. He had a hunch she was a future-foreteller, another of the Indigo’s oracles, or something similar he hadn’t encountered before. “To us.”
“The Godslayer’s with us, Val,” Diana said. Valerie frowned at her, instantly pissed. “Don’t worry about it too much; this sort of thing happens in times of flux. And, yes, I’m going to help.”
“Could you bring her in now?” Karen said. Dave heard without hearing the appended word ‘bitch’ at the end of Karen’s sentence. “We can’t do any of our miracles without her help.” Healing. Bringing Indigo types back to life, at least those who had died cleanly. Thus the three rolling coolers the women dragged with them, likely filled with bags of blood.
“Back off for a moment,” Diana said, a bit harsh. She turned and grabbed Dave and Elorie’s hands. The harsh vanished from her voice. “We can do this. Let me guide you.”
“Okay,” Elorie said. Dave nodded.
“First, relax your immunities…” Dave did so, and Diana spoke words he wasn’t sure were in any language at all. Diana’s hypnotic words spun in his mind as he lost track of voice and sound. And time.
“Just ducky. Brought in via the power of a Psychic,” the Godslayer said. Dave opened his eyes and saw the Godslayer between the three of them; she was translucent and so ghostlike Dave couldn’t tell what she was wearing. “Diana, your precedents are as always difficult to take.” She stepped away from Dave, Diana and Elorie and turned to Karen, Valerie and Dr. Horton. “You three, come give me a hug. Then go heal.”
They did so. Afterwards, a fresh indigo glow surrounded their bodies. Diana didn’t stop her low growled chanting or let go of Dave’s mind. The Godslayer turned back to Dave, Diana and Elorie. “You three need to go be your style of Heroes.” He hadn’t thought Diana any style of Hero, but he had a hunch the Godslayer and Diana differed on the subject. “Diana, I think it’s ‘holy crap’ time. Call me in when it’s needed.”
Dave didn’t understand. Then his world spun away from him, and he was somewhere else.
He stood on nothing, in a place raw with anger. Elorie and Diana stood with him, each holding one of his hands. He was, terrifyingly, see-through himself. To his right, the world vanished into a seductive yellow-white sunlit mist that called to him, demanding he join it. To his left, the world was dim sunlight suffused nothingness, backed by the sound of distant songbirds, and inhabited by a kneeling Betrayer, a distinct elderly man in medieval dress, and far far too many indistinct others. All Angels.
Neither the Angels nor Betrayer spoke. Betrayer appeared entranced upon the host of Angels. The elderly medieval Angel turned to the three, slowly. “Leave.”
“What’s going on here?” Dave said. This, he realized, was real magic, far more than Lorenzi’s version of magical telekinesis that had once upon a time undone him. The Godslayer had yanked him away from his real body, taken him here, wherever and whatever here was, and thrust him into the games of Gods and Angels. He wanted to scream in terror, or cover up his eyes and melt into a fetal ball.
Uh huh. He took a deep breath, then another, and realized he had closed his eyes, and had knelt down in a crouch. The training – he understood it for once, its tangible effects. His knees were no longer weak. His heart no longer raced like a jet readying for takeoff. He no longer panicked that he didn’t have a heart, and his heart rate anxiety was purely a mental illusion on his part.
Or this breathing business. He wasn’t really breathing. So what? He had preserved his sanity through far worse than this. His vision cleared, he mentally thanked Elorie, and he looked around with a quick glance as he stood tall again. The mist to his right – Heaven. If he gave up, if he relaxed and surrendered, he would go and never return. Heaven was dangerous because it was too good. He slapped down his best mental protections on himself, Elorie, and Diana, and to his surprise, his defense worked. Heaven’s call wasn’t magical, but mental and psychological. Something unnatural he could stop. Elorie and Diana both leaned into him and nestled under his arms, radiating thanks and love.
The Angel pursed his lips and hesitated for a moment before answering Dave. “The God once known of as Betrayer is returning to Heaven.”
Is returning? Hunches flew through Dave’s mind and he gasped. “You’re cheating!” he shouted. Betrayer shook herself out of her trance and looked over at them, puzzled. “You’re trying to trick her into returning to Heaven.”
Betrayer blinked at him and stood. After a pause, she nodded. The medieval Angel smiled and nodded as well, of all things pleased with Dave’s observation, as if Dave had passed some form of test.
“Enough!” One of the indistinct Angels became distinct – Dominick, the Archangel leader of the Angelic Host. Dave flinched, as did Diana and Elorie; Archangel Dominick’s presence held force and anger, worse than his worst encounter with any of the Territorial Gods. “Abomination! Return to your real bodies and leave the spirit world forever!” Dave knew without knowing what the effects of Dominick’s curse would be: to wander the world forever, unab
le to die or be killed, eventually to be aged and beyond decrepit.
“I think not,” Elorie said, amplifying her immunity protections on all of them. Dave knew without knowing that unless the Archangel took back his curse, the instant Elorie relaxed her immunity protections the curse would take effect. “Whatever happened to ‘to the victor goes the spoils’ part of the contest you wove into the God’s Mission?”
Dominick paused, for an instant chagrined. “It remains,” the Archangel said, with a voice of thunder.
“Then I’m still a God?” Betrayer said.
Dominick glared at Dave, Elorie and Diana, a glare promising eternal torment. The Archangel turned to Betrayer and nodded. “If you wish.” The Archangel reminded Dave of a fictional media villain, about to monologue them and convince them he was reasonable.
That had to be one of Maria’s thoughts. Dave put a ‘save our asses!’ in his mind, but Maria didn’t respond. Nor could he afford to relax his projected mental immunities.
Dave gave Elorie’s hand a squeeze and smiled. As with the Watchers, you had to ask the right things and demand the right demands. Her hand shivered in his.
“What sort of God could I be?” Betrayer asked.
“As always, you can only be the God you have earned the right to be,” the medieval Angel said. “Dubuque’s name for you is all you have left, echoing through the Mission of all the Gods, Great Satan.”
“You monsters!” Diana said. “She found a way to stop the Armageddon War! What’s satanic about that?”
“I did horrible and terrible things,” Betrayer said, turning to Diana. “What I did even sickens me.”
“Your victory has remade all of our reality,” the medieval Angel said, to Betrayer. “You have made the world a darker place. By your actions the worship, veneration or even prayer to any of the 99 Gods is now forbidden; and the Gods are now open to lethal punishment for their actions, by you and by the mortals, mortals defined by your and others’ actions as including the Indigo, the Psychics and the Mindbound, but not the Shamans, the full adult Telepaths, or those from other timelines or universes.”