Yay us, Dave thought. He didn’t want this responsibility, not at all.
“What’s God Almighty’s opinion about all of this?” Betrayer asked.
“We are God Almighty’s apparitions and messengers, and his message now is: this piece of the test has been decided for Gods, mortals and Angels alike,” Dominick said, with his voice-of-thunder. “Live with what you have wrought.” The Archangel radiated Heavenly disgust, and an almost palpable darkness curled around him as smoke.
The medieval Angel spread his hands. “Worship, veneration and prayer to God Almighty is not forbidden.”
That somehow this could have happened chilled Dave.
Betrayer turned to Dave, Elorie and Diana. “No. Don’t ask this of me. I’m not worthy.”
“Someone in my head thinks you are,” Elorie said.
Oh, crap.
As Dave feared, Nessa spoofed in, her astral form appearing between Dominick and Dave, facing Betrayer. “You are so! Quit your pissing and moaning!”
“I think the time is now,” Diana said, whispering. Uh huh. Things were getting well out of hand.
Nessa’s astral form glowed bright enough here to put the moody Angels to shame, truly a Daughter of Light. “Hi, guys and gals,” she said, waving to the Angels. For the first time Dave realized there were women among the Angels. His assumptions, he realized, were coloring his perceptions in this patently unreal place. “I think you need to behave. Or elsies.” She paused. “Not my ‘or elsies’, of course. God’s.”
As Dave tried to understand this place, his mind began to fill with hunches, popcorn style.
“You I do not need to listen to,” Dominick said, looking down his aquiline nose. “So I declare.”
Dominick’s declarations made things real. This place reacted to consensual reality, or was consensual reality.
“Well, then, how about me?”
The Godslayer. Diana had brought her in.
Dave turned to the voice. The Godslayer appeared as a warrior woman in insane clothing, a belt of scalps hanging from her waist, welder’s goggles on her forehead, and of all the crazy things a backpack with a small smokestack to the right side, letting off small puffs of steam every few seconds. She had pistols in her holsters that looked like golden age sci-fi ray guns, save for tiny clouds of steam wafting from them. Behind her stood many of the fallen from the battle, as ghosts. Her consensual reality. Her backing.
The Godslayer locked eyes with Dominick, and they dueled, apprentice Archangel to Archangel. “You must listen to me because I am backed by truth: you are not only cheating, you are corrupt.”
Dominick crossed his arms and his glower deepened. “Speak, then.”
“By making this about her” indicating Betrayer “you are tacitly refusing to acknowledge the true victor in your own artfully rigged contest,” the Godslayer said. “Maria Haller, the former Persona.”
Oh. That’s why he and Elorie were here. That’s why they had the standing to challenge the Host. Maria had indeed won. Her Mission, to defeat the machinations of the Host, did reign supreme.
“Nothing Maria did broke any of your strictures,” Dave said, letting his hunches guide his words, and feeling buoyed by Maria’s now direct support. “She opposed your attempt to take humanity back to the Stone Age, and she won!”
“Honor her,” Elorie said. “Give her her due.”
“I shall not!” Dominick said, turning on them and thundering. “Her Mission was not wrong because it was illegal, it was wrong because it was nonsense.” He turned to the Godslayer. “I have decided. Leave. You have no standing to be here. We won the right to act without other Angelic interference, an agreement you break by simply appearing. Go!”
The Godslayer began to fray, as did the dead behind her. “Diana, it’s ‘holy crap’ time!” the Godslayer said.
Diana muttered a quiet “Shit” and began to pull on Dave’s mind, and, he realized, on Maria, Elorie, and the Godslayer. Dave’s mind frayed, and again he lost track of himself, and of time.
“I think not.” A new voice pulled Dave back from wherever he had gone. He still stood on nothing, in front of far too many Angels. Diana’s spirit form intimately collapsed into his arms, and Elorie gave him an exasperated eyeroll. He answered with a ‘who, me?’ shrug. Nessa’s spirit form grinned, bounced on its toes, and looked over Dave’s shoulder.
Dave turned to the voice. Another Angel had appeared, this one a very distinct five ten or so. He was Hawaiian, wearing board shorts, a loud tropical tourist shirt, a backwards cap on his head through which an unruly tuft of black hair waved forward, and he had surfing tattoos on both his lower and very muscular arms. He wore his inky black hair in a mullet, he had a large soul patch below his wide lower lip, and he wore a silver stud in his right earlobe. He leaned his chin on an oversized sword glowing as white as Dana’s Angelic aura, the sword tip resting on what passed for ground, here.
“Your appearance here, Throne, is illegal,” Dominick said, discommoded and leaning back in surprise. The other Angel’s presence rippled several hunches through Dave’s mind, few germane to the current circumstances. For one, he now understood timelines – timelines worked because they shared oneness, as did this place. The Telepaths borrowed oneness from here when they worked as one. Somehow, this even explained how telekinesis worked and didn’t violate all the laws of thermodynamics – the energy came from the oneness shared from all people, mediated via this place.
Dave knew he would never be able to explain this coherently to anyone…save, perhaps, Nessa.
“Nope,” the surfer Angel said. “This is legal. A mortal called me in. Using the power of the mortals who died in your contest.” ‘Sorry, sucker’, the Angel appended in Dave’s mind. Dave hunched his head forward in shock, and the surfer Angel twinkled at him.
“Surely we can reason this out, Michael,” Dominick said, bowing his head.
Michael? Yikes!
“A wonderful suggestion,” Archangel Michael said. Archangel Dominick visibly relaxed, still unable to wrest his Angelic eyes away from Archangel Michael’s sword. Archangel Michael walked over to Dominick, clapped him on the shoulder, and led him off into the cloud of indistinct Angels. Dave breathed a sigh of relief, one he knew everyone around him shared, God, mortal and Angel alike.
“I am Weeping for Cordoba, and I accept your plea,” the medieval Angel said, turning to Dave and Elorie. Weeping for Cordoba was, Dave realized, of a different angelic faction than Archangel Dominick. “Speak Maria the Persona’s desire.”
Dave let Maria’s words flow through him. He and Elorie spoke as one. “I demand that the factions of Gods, from here on, settle their factional differences through negotiation and nothing else. Without any interference from the Angelic Host, unless the Host is explicitly called upon.”
Weeping for Cordoba bowed, himself relieved. “Done.” He turned back to Betrayer. “You can still be saved and returned to Heaven.”
“Nuh uh,” Nessa said. “We need her.” Weeping for Cordoba frowned.
“Why, Nessa, why?” Betrayer asked. “I am no more.” She paused and shivered. “Betrayer no more. War no more. Atlanta no more. If I stay, I must take and inhabit the name Dubuque gave me. Great Satan. The Antichrist. The anti-savior. Nasty, evil, and rotten. You can’t want this.”
“Awwwh, we’ll love you anyway,” Nessa said, and tugged on her braid as if it was a rope. “So, what was your name? As a human?”
“Angelica Demerest,” Betrayer said, with a bitter chuckle. “Not a good name for an Antichrist.”
“Forget the Antichrist shit,” Nessa said. “Too parochial. Great Satan it is. What was your middle name?”
“Ruth.”
“Well, that’s not going to work either,” Nessa said. “Anyone? Some help here?”
&
nbsp; “Odysseia,” Weeping for Cordoba said. “Means ‘wrathful’.” He preened. “Benefits of a classical education. The name fits her wandering nature as well.”
“I could live with that,” Odysseia, the Great Satan, said. Her words made it so. Dave shivered. “So, is that my Mission as well? Tempting people into sin?”
“No. You are the Enemy, the God who has earned the right to kill Gods,” Weeping for Cordoba said. “God Almighty help us all.”
“I’ll take all the help I can get,” Odysseia said, deadpan.
“God Almighty did help us, though you fools are too blinkered to recognize his mighty hand,” the Godslayer said, walking up to stand beside Odysseia and facing the Host. She was no longer translucent, as solid as Dave had ever seen her. “By our actions we won the backing of the Watchers, the Ha-Qodeshim, the hidden twin Gods behind the Shamans, the Living Gods of Hell, and the rest of Earth’s defeated Angelic Hosts. You overstepped your place, and you must now wear the bridle of your own creation.”
The Angelic Host knelt, abashed. Weeping for Cordoba remained standing.
“Very well,” Weeping for Cordoba said, unsteady. “Odysseia, your Mission is to do as you have done, apparently with the Daughter of Light and her successors’ approval or control. The gist of your Mission will be to protect humanity from the illicit schemes of the other 98 Gods and their minions, and protect the 98 Gods and their minions from the illicit schemes of humanity. You do not have to kill, mind you, but as you can guess, there will be times when you have no other choice. Your days of divine camaraderie are over, though. No God will ever trust you again, or any member of this Host. You will remain outside of our sight.”
“What about everyone else?” Odysseia asked. Dave understood. Without backing, Odysseia would soon become nothing but a powerless myth.
Weeping for Cordoba turned to Nessa, the Godslayer, Dave, Elorie and Diana. “Ask them.”
Nessa laughed. “Odysseia, you are indeed worthy. Stay with us. Be what you need to be.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, uh, right. Uh, how to say it? Ah. War’s Secret Society of War lives on, I guess. I’m your Daughter of Light as well.” Nessa’s glowing astral form reddened in embarrassment. “Do I have that right, Weeping?”
Weeping for Cordoba nodded. “You have not damned your soul, Nessa. Do not regret the death you caused. That bit of tomfoolery had long since forfeited his. Also do not wish your last bits of mental blockage had been removed earlier. Those tricks would not have aided you in any of your prior conflicts, no more than they turned the tide of any of the later ones. They are for your further troubles in the rest of your life. Astral travel and functional conscious hunches will both do you well. We must bow to the force of your will expressed in all your secret actions.”
Dave didn’t know what the Angel meant, but Odysseia did. She looked a bit queasy.
“How is this possible?” Odysseia asked. “How is any of this possible? What’s going on here?”
“Nessa’s interference falls into the ambit of the Ha-qodeshim,” the Godslayer said. “They like you.” She paused and continued, sotto voice. “Perhaps someday they can even learn to like me.”
“Your future interaction with the Ha-qodeshim and their Telepaths is something you will need to negotiate, Odysseia,” Weeping for Cordoba said. “In that I wish you luck. You will need it.”
“I can’t see how this is going to work, Nessa,” Odysseia said. “You don’t like violence.”
“This is a problem?”
“I don’t want you telling me I can’t kill.”
Nessa shrugged. “Then don’t, save as a last resort.”
Odysseia thought for ten seconds, a long time for a God, and then sighed. “I can live with that,” she said. She turned to the Godslayer. “Do you hold my chains as well?”
“Do you remember the first day you came into the Anime Café as a child, and Lara Minor said she swore you were one of them?” the Godslayer said.
“Yes. They never figured out why.”
“Do you remember the young frizzy haired white gal at the table next to where you sat? The one reading Evangelion upside down?”
Odysseia nodded. “She smiled and waved at me, and made me feel welcome.”
“That was me. Being able to see me is the standard way one becomes initiated,” the Godslayer said. “I had a strong hunch that day, one of my strongest ever, that I shouldn’t further interfere with your life. I made sure the rest of the Indigo knew as well.” She smiled. “After Apotheosis, you heard the call again. Now we are here, and I can’t say you’re one of mine, because you’re a God, but I am willing to back you.”
Odysseia nodded. Dave smiled. The backing of an apprentice Warrior Archangel felt appropriate.
“Say, Odysseia,” Nessa said. She had been cocking her head to her left and right and staring at the Godslayer with narrow eyes. She radiated frustration. “Why don’t you come help us clean up? Make your mission more than the Great Satan stuff. Help all of us sons and daughters of the Ha-qodeshim, as well as the Godslayer here and her followers, and Saint Dana and her followers. Like you, we need all the help we can get.” Nessa cocked her head and smiled, almost perky. “Oh, and we did a number on your lair. Hope you don’t mind.”
“A global campus increases not only the complexity of ideas, but their quality. …unless you are a hereditary absolutist monarch, you are unlikely to be persuaded that hereditary absolutist monarchy is the optimal form of government.” – Stephen Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature
“God Almighty, receive us, welcome us back, let us rejoin you”
65. (Odysseia)
Hot damn, Odysseia thought. She decided she could live with whatever restrictions she now endured in her current Practical God incarnation; they didn’t seem to be much after she surprised herself by teleporting from Oklahoma City to her former lair, Nessa and the Godslayer’s astral forms by her side. She hadn’t been able to do this before. She even suspected she could be in more than one place at a time again. To the victor had indeed gone the spoils.
She landed them on the remnants of her lawn, by the remnants of the victorious combatants, who gathered under a well-used and obviously real rather than willpower generated pavilion tent. Many hours had passed since the battle ended, and battery powered lanterns lit the tent from hooks at the corners. She carried the astral forms the last few feet to the tent.
Which led to one of those amazing instances Odysseia found difficult to deal with. “Hi, astral form,” Nessa of the flesh said.
“Hi back, real body,” Nessa’s astral form said. They hugged.
Bob, conscious but still not particularly functional, took one look at this and turned away, shaking and green.
“The bastards gone yet?” Maria said. She had reverted to her true movie star original looks, and Odysseia wondered how the world was going to cope. The latest holder of the unlucky Atlanta territory clearly needed more practice. A lot more practice. Despite her victory in the Mission game. She wondered how the West Coast lefty-at-heart was going to cope with her first encounter with an Alabama High School fishing team. Odysseia wanted to be there, invisible, when that happened.
Odysseia would provide. Teaching appeared to be her lot in life, or at least one of them. A little ‘beep!’ in the back of her mind resolved itself – from the Indigo’s perspective, she wasn’t one of their field agents, not having any of their screwy mortal field-usable abilities, but one of their teachers. She got a mental image of her new Indigo teaching peers, which included the expected Velma and Val, but also to her surprise, Grover and Lara, the craziest of all the Indigo. Who were currently stuck with the Watchers.
“You should be able to tell.”
Maria backed away and conjured up a mirror. Odysseia’s comment had come out more forceful than she had anticipated. Stern taskmistress came easy.
She studied her reflection. Her skin had turned obsidian black, her eyes coal red; she wore a black cloak and s
he radiated menace and wrath.
Odysseia indeed. She approved. Couldn’t forget now that her new backers the dolphins were carnivorous predators, not omnivores.
“They’re gone, that a-way,” Maria said, pointing west, after a few too many moments of work. “Patricia Solis of Portland has custody of the remaining worshipped God projections. She’s already rounded up the remaining Paladins and sent them off to Heaven.”
“We’d better go get diplomatic or Peppermint Pattie’s going to walk off with the world,” Nessa the Astral said.
“Sure,” Nessa the flesh responded.
No, Nessa’s not a God, but like the Ha-qodeshim she does like to play with minds, Odysseia told herself. Firmly. Trying to believe. Not a hundred percent succeeding. She ported the entire crew to Portland’s west coast mansion, a safe distance away from Patricia Solis of Portland. They landed in a bed of red and green coleus. Sunset turned the sky red and little nozzles watered their feet. She didn’t bother to put up a shield.
“We’re back!” Nessa the Astral said.
Patricia walked over, boggled for a moment at the two Nessas, at the Godslayer’s insane warrior Angel Imago, and then turned to Odysseia.
“You,” Patricia said, focusing her immense charisma at her. “Begone. Now.”
“Sorry, Patricia. My Mission allows me to come and go as I please.”
“Okay,” Patricia said. “Please. Go now. You’re political poison.”
“The answer’s still ‘no’.”
“We can no longer be friends.”
“We were never friends,” Odysseia said. If they had been…well, things wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near this messed up. “Get used to me. I’m the official watchman over you Gods. The Host has named me Odysseia, the Great Satan. I’m your nightmare, but I’ll only trouble you if you get out of line.”
99 Gods: Odysseia Page 66
