99 Gods: Betrayer

by Randall Farmer

  They turned off the main road and on to a rattle-inducing pothole dominated side street, which wound widdershins up a steep hill. The road ended at the top without even the benefit of a cul-de-sac circle. Willie parked behind a flatbed truck with its metal flapper things in the back down. Once there had been some construction equipment on the truck, the machinery now off, in use.

  Satan got out of the rental car, retrieved her canes, and hobbled. She felt better than she had in years. The quack doctor’s elixirs had indeed worked, removing most of her stench; the diet and exercises worked more slowly but her body’s natural healing capabilities slowly fixed her spinal column. She ached, though, a different ache than the ones caused by her osteo-dominated curved back. Nor could she walk without the canes for more than a few steps. Yet. At least she stood straighter. Eventually she would be back to walking unaided. Certainly a more pleasant way of becoming functional than fastening her to a rack and breaking her spine, or the other tricks she had used over the years.

  Willie led her around four other trucks and a white unmarked van, leading to a one car driveway barely longer than a car. Said driveway had a rental car in it; beyond the rental was a short path that led to the most incongruous sight Satan had seen in years – a mobile home buried in sod with an ill-made wooden porch in front. She spotted where the construction crews worked, down a graded dirt road leading around to the back of the sod-covered mobile home, where someone had put in four mobile homes along the formerly wooded hillside. Satan found spots for four more dug out of the soil by one of the construction crews. Another crew planted telephone poles, draping cables from one to the next, more than the normal electrical wires. She wondered why they didn’t just entrench the damned things, and decided that had to be something one didn’t do in this benighted corner of Alaska.

  Satan rapped one of her canes on the door. “Come in,” Lorenzi said. “Reed, go open the door for Satan, won’t you.”

  Reed had to be this Reed Matús Telepath Lorenzi had bamboozled into his employ. He opened the door and glowered, unhappy, though when her muted stench hit him he looked relieved. “Have a seat,” Lorenzi said. He held a small computer on his lap, hunting and pecking and moving the mouse around without any skill. At least he used the mouse right side up this time.

  Satan took the place in: American eclectic decorations, open design, woman’s clothing piled in a corner, and a well-stocked computer room in the mobile home’s second bedroom. Several paintings, good quality amateur work, covered the walls, and trusting her hunches Satan clattered over clip clop clip clop to one and bent her head to the side to look at the signature. Ahhh.

  “Nessa? She paints?” Satan licked her teeth and took a deep breath. “She’s damned good for a Telepath.” The bear, a grizzly, looked almost lifelike. Given Nessa’s proclivities, she probably had controlled it, had it pose, and then fed it fifty pounds of beef.

  “I hadn’t realized, either, until I came here,” Lorenzi said. “I think she’s embarrassed. Most of the paintings were piled haphazardly in a closet.”

  “She’s going to kill you for this, Johnny,” Satan said. Nobody with power liked having their lair invaded.

  Lorenzi snorted and closed the lid to his laptop. “I’ll make it worth her while.” Arrogant fool. “I’ve put in enough housing here for her entire crew of bodyguards and my crew.”

  “Which God owns Alaska?” Satan said. She sat down in a worn chair opposite Lorenzi. He offered her something to drink, and obeying her dietician, she asked for fruit juice. Reed fetched.

  “I don’t think any of them do, which is why I’m here,” Lorenzi said. “Have the Gods declared you anathema as well?”

  Satan shrugged.

  “You two might want to take a look at this,” Reed said, looking up from his own tiny laptop computer. Lorenzi waved his right hand at Reed desultorily. The flat screen turned on, not from any Lorenzi magic, but from some gadget in Reed’s hand.

  News feed. “Verona, in public!” Satan said. Verona had kept his head down while she had been in Europe. The screen showed Verona, in his faux-Catholic cassock, addressing a crowd of several hundred or more, she couldn’t tell from the camera angle, from a balcony above. Street scene, most likely.

  “…the lessons you have learned in your school about the past are flawed. The Nazis and Fascists were not the monsters you were taught. Only a few were.” Verona clearly had a good harangue going. He spoke in Italian, which Satan spoke quite well, and the news feed ran an approximate English translation in the banner below. “Your fixation on romantic love is inane and wrong, interfering with the only love you truly need, the love of God. Furthermore, you have turned religious liberty and pluralism into a substitute religion and your Sabbath worship into mindless ogling of televised sports and variety shows. You ask me what else is wrong with the world? I will tell you my opinion. You have forgotten God is the Father of us all, and God puts man above woman for a reason, because women are nothing but temptation to sin. Look at you, all of you! Women should not wear trousers in public. They should veil their hair, as our grandmothers and great-grandmothers all properly understood. No woman should go to university. Why, all of these? Because this makes women into men, mocking our Father in Heaven. Besides, we have enough confusion as it is between men and women, these so called gay people, who engage in a sin that cries to heaven for brutal divine vengeance. We don’t need any more!” Reed shook his head. Lorenzi chuckled. Willie didn’t react, his mind off listening to the infernal voices. Some moment soon he would challenge Lorenzi. Satan had been able to blunt his will on that subject so far, keeping his mind confused. Eventually, though, that would wear off…for instance, the next time she nodded off in one of her naps.

  “Turn that thing off,” Satan said. She glared at Reed until he did. “So Verona’s finally showing a little spine. Good.”

  “Good?” Lorenzi said. “I may not hold the most modern of philosophies, but even I understand how odious his fractured rant must sound to modern ears. I see no good in this.” He sighed. “Dubuque hasn’t gone anywhere near that far, but I can already pick up Verona’s influence on him.”

  “This is good because now people will understand what the stakes are in this game, which is a contest for control over the City of God,” Satan said. “Don’t discount Dubuque’s influence on Verona. He’s definitely a charmer, which this Verona isn’t. Verona isn’t much of a thinker, either. He’s just another tyrant, only far more open about his tyrannical desires. Someday I’m going to have to make him miserable, too.” She tapped her fingers on her chair arm. “This isn’t original to me, Johnny boy, but understand that when venal, shallow, and small men are given unfettered power and authority, by their nature they will do incompetent, stupid, and evil things. This is a lesson you need to relearn as well.”

  Her words earned her a glower. She leaned over to Lorenzi and whispered: “Do me a favor and send Willie and Reed out to inspect the construction.”

  John nodded and did so.

  Satan waited until the two men were out of eavesdropping range, and then crocked reality to make sure none of the local magic crap could serve as a distant ear. “The real reason I’m here is because Willie’s gone over the edge into full evil magician.”

  Lorenzi nodded. “I was afraid you were going to say that. He has the aura of one.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What do you want me to do, Satan? You’ve made it damned clear you consider him yours, not mine. I’m not going to do anything to him without your permission.”

  “Johnny, he fell into evil less than a month after I took him on,” Satan said. “So much for your supposedly ‘evil-proofing’ training.”

  “It’s not evil-proofing, it’s evil resisting,” Lorenzi said. He took a sip of coffee and rubbed his temples. “The training’s not supposed to be perfect, just good enough to last us through the crisis. I’ve done this before, and it worked before, though I will admit I’ve never sponsored more than one a
t any one time. All of my current crop of magicians understands that as soon as the crisis is over, they’re going back to being non-magicians. That’s part of the original agreement. So you messed up Willie? Why?”

  “I didn’t mess him up.”

  “You have a point?”

  Satan nodded. “Yes, I do. Your evil-proofing isn’t worth squat. Loosing these magicians on the world is a bad thing, and I think you need to undo them. Right now. Today. All of them.”

  The phone rang and Lorenzi winced, startled. He answered the phone.

  “Yes?” Pause. “I did it to get you to call me.” Pause. “Yes, I know what time it is over there. Oh, you want the time? Ten fifteen. What’s going on.” Pause. “Yes, I know you’ve been declared anathema. What? Okay, I’ll ask Satan first.” Pause, and sigh. “Here,” Lorenzi said, and handed the phone to Satan. He looked angry.

  “Hello?” Satan said, baffled.

  “It’s me,” the voice on the other end of the line said. The crackle sounded like a bad cell phone connection.

  “Who’s me?” Satan asked. “Pardon me, but my hearing isn’t good, and I don’t recognize your voice.”

  “Nessa. Bais, is that creep into my things?”

  “He redecorated, putting up some of your paintings that were in the closet. Beyond that I’m not sure.”

  “My paintings? Nobody needs to see those horrid things.”

  “They’re quite good, my dear, not horrid at all.”

  Nessa didn’t respond. Satan took the time to think through what she might say to Nessa.

  “I guess beauty is in the eye of the whatever,” Nessa said. “The reason I wanted to talk to you was that what we’ve found out has gotten Ken and I tossed by the 99 Gods. I wouldn’t want Lorenzi playing a trick on you and telling you things that would get you in trouble.”

  How kind! Such a treasure this one was. “Thank you for your worries, but I don’t particularly care if the 99 Gods put me on their hit list. To some degree, their enmity is inevitable, my dear. I just took apart the Seven Suits cabal.” Satan then told Nessa the details of what she had done to the Seven Suits. Lorenzi appreciated the story, practically bouncing up and down in glee. Next, she told Nessa about what she had seen here in Nessa’s Alaska home, especially about the construction. “If you want, I can kick Lorenzi out of this place and take it as my own.”

  “You’re going to mess up Lorenzi?”

  “Actually, no,” Satan said. “Unless he tries to get rid of me. I’m going to help him, at least for the time being.”

  “Good, because I think we’re all about to need all the help we can get. About my place? Take it from the bastard. There’s a bunch of private stuff in a trunk under my bed that I’d appreciate if you didn’t look at, but, yah, kick him out. Do you agree with Lorenzi that when I come back I should return to Eklutna?”

  “Yes. The decision feels right.”

  “Then I will, if I can. Could you give the phone back to Lorenzi, please, Bais? I need to give him a report about what I’ve found so far and ask him for some suggestions.”

  “I shall,” Satan said. She handed the phone back to Lorenzi, who had caught the gist of their conversation and was already packing up his stuff. He sat, put the phone to his ear and started to take notes on a pad of paper, in German – and not on his computer. Technophobe.

  Satan stood, grabbed canes, and hobbled around inspecting Nessa’s place. The sod home had character. Someone not fully sane lived here. For instance, Nessa kept her bathroom supplies in the kitchen; the bathroom was empty of everything save Lorenzi’s crap and toilet paper. The mirror needed cleaning as well.

  She decided to save the inspection of Nessa’s trunk for after Lorenzi left. Likely just a bunch of sex toys or something equivalent, not that Satan minded, having lived for far too long to be bothered by such things. She needed to understand Nessa’s secret heart, though, as she had a big hunch they were about to be close allies, and Satan was wise enough to understand her own foibles, such as the fact she couldn’t resist peeking.

  She did spot a good pair of binoculars. Thus, Nessa had weak clairvoyance and the young woman was still eye-oriented. Still human, a good thing.

  Lorenzi slammed down his cellphone with a muttered curse. Satan hobbled back, clattery clack, and sat back down.

  “So?”

  “They found another set of beings of power, who’ve turned out to be the ones who killed the Ecumenists. These beings of power also killed all but two of the group I sent to investigate the murder of my order, and they have those two as hostages,” Lorenzi said. “Nessa and Ken are stuck in multi-day negotiations to secure the release of these two, and this group of beings of power is being horsy, making ridiculous demands. They have the aura of magicians of my type, but Nessa and Ken have a hypothesis…”

  “Where?”

  “The Caucasus mountains, near Mount E’brus.”

  “Oh, them,” Satan said. Now that she thought about it, it didn’t surprise her much. She had been wondering when those fools would stick their noses into this mess.

  “What do you know of these Watchers, as they name themselves?”

  “Only that they’ve meddled in the affairs of humanity for thousands of years, that they’ve never had enough power and cohesiveness to rule as tyrants, and I never could figure out if they were older than I was or younger. They’ve always hung around that part of Asia. They’re not just magicians, boyo, they’re the first magicians, perhaps the root source of you magicians. They’re nasty to the core.”

  Lorenzi nodded, his eyes unfocused. “Nessa explained about them being nasty; she suspects them of being Supported-style beings to a set of Gods long gone. Hmm. Root source of us magicians? I wonder what they think of me?”

  Satan snorted. “You’re still too self-centered.” She paused, and spoke with a conspiratorial voice. “They too have hunted magicians in the past.”

  “You don’t say.” Lorenzi rubbed his chin.

  Satan nodded. “Their criteria were different than yours, though. They hunted magicians who set themselves up as Gods.”

  “Strange.” Lorenzi chewed the inside of his cheek. “Why are they evil?”

  “Their morality is difficult to understand and describe. Perverts, I’d call them, not evil,” Satan said. “They do evil, though. In quantity.”

  “So then they are the reasons why magicians become evil; they are the infernal voices. And instead of peacefully sleeping under witch mountain, the current supernatural events kicked over their ant hill and they’re more active than ever.”

  Satan nodded. “Smart man, though they aren’t the only source of the infernal voices. They are as loud as they are in order to drown out the worse voices of Hell.” She paused. “Now do you understand why I’m here, with Willie?”

  Lorenzi took a deep breath, sad. “Yes. It is done.”

  In less than a minute, all of Lorenzi’s magicians rushed in, fearing attack. Lorenzi took far longer to explain why he had removed their magic; and in the end, after Willie had been restrained by the other former magicians, Lorenzi dismissed the lot of them and gave them money to fly back home.

  “You’re not done, Johnny,” Satan said, after the last of the former magicians cleared out. They stood watching from the ramshackle porch.

  “That’s all of them. I brought them all with me after they were declared anathema,” Lorenzi said. He sighed. “I didn’t tell them a thing about what Ken and Nessa found, and I’m hoping that removing their ability to do magic removes their anathema status.”

  “That’s not what I mean. You need to undo your own ability to do magic.”

  Lorenzi snorted. “If I could have done that I never would have become a magician hunter. I would have removed my magic and gone on to live a mortal life. Removing my magic can’t be done. I’ve even trained apprentices and had them try to remove my ability to do magic using the same spell I use. They can’t. I’m far too strong. Even after all my oaths and spells on myself, my magic s
till works itself subconsciously, although my oaths keep my subconscious magic in the realm of information. Unless I’m in danger.”

  “Well, that’s a basket of rotten eggs, now isn’t it, Johnny,” Satan said. In all of her years of interacting with Lorenzi, for better or worse, she had never gotten him to admit anything of the sort. Nor did he lie.

  She looked him over as they walked inside and noticed the years his current body carried…and noticed he looked better than the last time she encountered him. He had even lost a little weight.

  “You willing to tell me how you self-resurrect?” she said as she sat in the chair by the window. She had prodded him before on the subject, but he had never before surrendered to her so thoroughly. “This might be a good time for a little self-resurrection.”

  Lorenzi sighed and settled into the sofa, at the end nearest her. “I can’t get rid of my ability to do magic, but I can bind myself. When I freed my ancient binding against consciously using magic – save for my one spell – I bound myself not to resurrect myself.”

  They were under a time limit. Lorenzi’s current body looked like it was on the steep downward slope of life. “Is the binding permanent?” Satan said.

  Lorenzi shrugged. “I think the binding’s permanent, but you have to understand I didn’t think up my self-resurrection ability. I got tricked into doing so, and those tricksters might have something to say about my no longer self-resurrecting. I couldn’t convince them to give their word not to interfere when I last spoke with them.”

  Satan frowned. “You’re talking about the damned dolphins, aren’t you.”

  Lorenzi nodded.

  “Hmph. More rotten eggs for your basket,” Satan said, giving Lorenzi’s arm a squeeze. “I’d offer to help, but they don’t listen to me, either.” Not for centuries.

  “If the two of you are going to shack up, I’m going to go far far away,” Reed said, noticing her eying Lorenzi.