“You’re just Nessa-ed out,” Nessa said. “I’m sorry. I can be such a bitch at times.”
Ken laughed. “We interrupting something?” he asked Dave. Hunches. Can’t forget the strength of Ken’s hunches. Dave had never known Ken’s hunches to be wrong.
Never ever.
He had learned the danger of truth the hard way. And some powers he had no intention of crossing. Or revealing.
“My children are expected any minute now,” Dave said. Luckily, although Odysseia twinned Dana, he wasn’t attracted to Odysseia at all and nor did he get hunch storms when he interacted with her, the same way he got them whenever he and Dana got too close. Almost like the parental Odysseia had become part of their extended family.
No, he didn’t want to think about anything along any of those lines, nope, not at all. Not right now.
“Oh, shit. The last thing anyone wants is an over-tired crazy muddy old Nessa to greet them,” Nessa said. “We’ll vanish. We need some sleep as well. And some chocolate. I’m out.”
“I know where there’s some chocolate hidden in the kitchen,” Dave said. He half ran to the kitchen and the overstocked pantry; Nessa followed behind him.
Nessa joined him in the pantry, flicking her eyes back to watch Odysseia, Elorie and Ken, safely back in the entryway. Her eyes lingered on Elorie overly long. “Thanks. I owe you one,” Nessa said, leaning up against him and giving him a hug. She smelled of pine forest and mud. Despite all his shielding, he sensed her mental presence glowing next to him.
She had always treated his mental shields as somewhere between a joke and a challenge. Which is what he now expected, at least from someone he now suspected held the answer to the question of ‘what do the Ha-qodeshim dream of when they’re sleeping?’
He put three chocolate bars in Nessa’s hands. When he touched her he could practically see Opartuth, the Ha-Qodeshim, asleep in her mind, with his own sporadic but powerful Psychic gifts. Now that he knew to ‘look’. “You and the rest of our predatory pod owe me a hell of a lot more than one, luv.”
“A man should carry two stones in his pocket. On one should be inscribed, ‘I am but dust and ashes.’ On the other, ‘For my sake was the world created.’ And he should use each stone as he needs it.” – Rabbi Bunam
The End
Of
99 Gods
Fiction By This Author
Indigo Universe:
Storybook Crazy
99 Gods Trilogy Novels
War
Betrayer
Odysseia
99 Gods Trilogy Supplementary Stories
Tales From The Anime Café (Part One)
Tales From The Anime Café (Part Two)
Transforms Universe:
The Commander Series Novels
Once We Were Human
Now We Are Monsters
All Beasts Together
A Method Truly Sublime
No Sorrow Like Separation
In This Night We Own
All That We Are
The supplementary Commander Series Stories:
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio One
All Conscience Fled (The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Two)
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Three
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Four
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Five
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Six
No Chains Shall Bind Me (The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Seven)
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Eight
The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Nine
Focus
The Cause Series Novels
The Shadow of the Progenitors (coming April 2015)
Author’s Afterword
Thanks to Randy and Margaret Scheers, Michelle and Karl Stembol, Gary and Judy Williams, Alex Farmer, and as always my wife, Marjorie Farmer. Without their help this novel would have never been made.
Cover credit to Shutterstock for various parts of the cover art.
Chapter heading excerpts from The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker (Viking Books, 2011). Despite the latter date of this book’s publication, Mr. Pinker’s shorter works and articles over the past decade and a half profoundly influenced the 99 Gods series. I heartily recommend this book for anyone caught up in the ‘we live in the worst of all possible times’ meme.
I am a traditionally published and epublished author, with two published short stories, one in Analog and the other in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, and the epublished seven book Commander Series (starting with “Once We Were Human”) and 10 other shorter works in the Commander universe.
If you enjoyed this trilogy, you may also want to read “Tales From The Anime Café” (parts one and two), which contains a short novel, four novellas and a novelette about the 99 Gods universe (including useful background information on Nessa and Ken, John Lorenzi, the Indigo group, and Jan’s alternate timeline adventure). In addition, you can find out further information about the background mythos of the 99 Gods trilogy and the Commander Series on http://majortransform.com. Try the Author’s Facebook page for news and comments (www.facebook.com/pages/Randall-Allen-Farmer/106603522801212). Interesting and helpful comments are encouraged. Tell your friends. Post reviews.
Provisional future publishing schedule:
The Shadow of the Progenitors (novel one of The Cause, the continuation of The Commander series): April 2015.
Love and Darkness (novel two of The Cause): July or August 2015
The Forgefires of God (novel three of The Cause): late 2015
…and more to come later!
Randall Allen Farmer
99 Gods: Odysseia Page 71
