99 Gods: War

by Randall Farmer

  Epharis shut off the water, said a short prayer to the Goddess, and sprinkled some of her herbs on the bathtub water. The air filled with scents that triggered John’s ancient memories, of many a scry bowl in the past.

  The surface of the water darkened.

  “Breathe on the water, Mr. Lorenzi,” Epharis said, whispering.

  John did as she asked. Faces appeared in the water.

  “We can speak, can’t we?” Reed asked, his voice a very quiet whisper.

  “Yes, of course,” John said.

  “Is this real?”

  “It’s real to us, but you couldn’t take a picture of it,” Epharis said. “Each of us will see something different, because this…oh. With a Telepath involved, we’ll each be seeing the same thing, won’t we?”

  “The benefit of having a Telepath around,” John said, studying the bathtub water. “Hmm. That’s Nessa and Ken.”

  They lay together, asleep on a bed, spooning each other. “Sleeping in the daytime and married,” Reed said.

  Behind them, Jurgen hissed. With his height, he managed a good view even from the back of the small crowd around the bathtub. He wasn’t used to Telepaths and how they could move beyond the utterly subtle to the somewhat overt.

  “Married?” John said.

  “Yes.”

  “Now that’s interesting,” John said. Last he had checked Ken had been married to someone else. “Veddy veddy interesting.”

  Both Mr. Peters and Reed gave him pointed looks. He must have let slip something archaic. “They’re exhausted, half insane and half terrified,” Reed said, worry in his voice. Anything that could terrify Nessa and Ken would be able to scare Reed almost to death. John sympathized with a grunt.

  “They ran into a God,” Mr. Peters said, his voice high pitched from incipient panic. He, too, must have a bad history with Telepaths. “It’s all through their minds and experiences.” Hmm. Peters was indeed a top-end Seer. Seers gained insights, and at times stray thoughts, across great distances, as opposed to the Sybils, who gained them across time. There were differences and details between the talents of each individual Seer and Sybil, but the simple explanation kept things easy for John to remember.

  “I’m not sure which one, but considering they’re down in the Keys, it was mostly likely Miami,” John said. “I’d pity Miami, but he’s one of the bad ones I’m most worried about.”

  “Ken and, uh, Nessa are that strong?” Reed said.

  “Yes.”

  “Those two scare the crap out of me, especially if they’re working together, not separately,” Epharis said. Everyone in the bathroom grunted agreement.

  “Understandable, as they wouldn’t sign on for my training, and never learned how to internalize their pneuma. In your terminology, they could hook you by accident in an instant with their Telepathic auras,” John said. “All of you.”

  “Vanessa was trained in the manner you describe,” Epharis said, almost as if she was speaking from experience. John shuddered at the thought. “I have no idea if she kept those skills after she became Nessa.”

  “Later,” John said. Ignoring the Indigo’s crazy pronouncements was a learned and necessary talent. He moved his gaze to a different part of the scry surface. “Atlanta, Portland, and two God-enhanced mortals. The two Gods are not physically together, but they each have the other’s hopped up mortal.” There was another God off to the side.

  “How are you picking up on that, Mr. Lorenzi?” Epharis asked.

  John shrugged.

  “So your so-called oath-blocked magic does react to my Craft,” Epharis said. “Someday Jurgen and I might want to run some experiments on you, about this. It isn’t what I would have predicted, based on our current hypothesis network.”

  John didn’t answer. Pigs would need to fly before he would let these crazies experiment on him. Their whole ‘codify the supernatural’ project bothered him a lot.

  “Is it safe for me to pick up their emotions?” Reed asked.

  “I’d stay away from the Gods if I were you,” John said. “The hopped up mortals should be fine.”

  “Okay,” Reed said. “The guy’s wary, at a military level. The woman is… Hell!”

  The woman turned from what she was doing, paperwork at a desk, looked at Reed and John, smiled, and waved her hand. Her picture and Atlanta’s picture vanished.

  “We’ve been rumbled,” John said.

  “Do we need to run?” Jurgen and Gwydion said, together.

  “No,” Epharis said. “Hush, you two.”

  “She picked us up and scanned us back,” Reed said. “She’s trouble. She’s in Vanessa’s league.”

  “Oh ho. I’ve met her before,” John said. “You’re right that she’s trouble. She’s got a genius level intellect, I think.”

  Reed grunted. “Before she blocked us, I got the feeling of exhaustion and, well, arcane practice.”

  “Atlanta’s training her in divine tricks.”

  “So, oh stupendous and glorious Hammer of Witches, what does it all mean?” Reed said. “What’s with the two Territorial Gods being our allies against the other Gods? Have you already made a deal with them?”

  “No. Along with the woman with Atlanta, who’s named Dana, I’ve also dealt with Portland. Separately,” John said. “Portland viewed me with suspicion, as she managed to suss out the fact I’ve got wieldable magic.” He paused and studied the scry bowl.

  “I’m not sure I like the implications of you having Gods on your side,” Epharis said. “That implies sides or factions among the Gods. A divine civil war would be apocalyptic and Armageddon-ish, and could explain some of the worst of my premonitions.”

  “Well, I don’t like the idea that Atlanta’s my ally. I’d thought her one of my enemies. She’s been killing thugs in job lots.”

  “Huh,” Epharis said. “Okay, here’s my price to you for involving me in this: don’t mess with Atlanta as an enemy unless we give the word. Our Georgia people are attempting to befriend her, and making progress.”

  “Delectable,” John said, unconvinced. “I’ll agree.”

  “How about the last one, there?” Reed said. “She looks familiar. Who is she?”

  “That’s Celebrity, one of the Practical Gods,” Jurgen said, from the back of the bathroom.

  “It’s her divine power making you think she’s familiar,” Epharis said. “She’s not one of the public ones.”

  “Now wait just a second,” Reed said. “What’s up with a God with a name like that not being out in public?”

  “She must be an airhead,” John said. “Doesn’t she look like an airhead to you?” Celebrity had blonde frizzy hair, big wide-open eyes, overly reddened lips and a bright smile on her face. She yammered with a group of women, mortals who would occasionally pop into the scry tub ‘picture’ for a moment before fading.

  “John, John, John,” Reed said, and shook his head. “Your old prejudices are showing.”

  “Perhaps,” John said, growling. All his prejudices were old. How could they be otherwise? “But why else would she be an ally?”

  Epharis snorted. “Old man, you’re just upset because your only divine allies are woman Gods.”

  “Yes,” John said. “Profoundly disturbed. Worried that we could scry out so few allies.” His distant backers, The Ecumenist Order, hadn’t shown up and he had expected his religious sponsors to be on his side. Nor had any of the other known Telepaths shown. Surely Joan D’Ark would be opposing the Gods; no matter what, they had to be impinging on what she thought of as her turf. Worse, One Mind, a cooperative multigenerational group of Telepaths located in interior China, hadn’t shown. He had been counting on them. “I assumed you blocked all your people, Epharis?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “I’m picking up something from Celebrity,” Reed said.

  “Do tell.”

  “She doesn’t like being a God,” Reed said.

  Typical. “As I said, she’s an airhead.”

 
; “No, I don’t think so,” Reed said. “We’ll need to talk to her.”

  “Fine, that’s your job,” John said. Hollywood culture disgusted him. He would rather have Hollywood as his enemy than fine upstanding Gods like Dubuque after him. “Next, we need to see who our powered enemies are.”

  Epharis dropped different herbs into the scrying bathtub, and their shared hallucination changed.

  The tub filled with thousands of faces.

  “Sheee-it,” Reed said. “We baaaad.”

  “We dehhhhhhd,” Jurgen said.

  John only nodded.

  17. (Atlanta)

  “It’s good you came to visit me,” Boise said. “I hope you don’t mind the rustic surroundings. I’ve found my need for creature comforts to be an atavism. As a somewhat divine being neither rain, snow, cold or heat bother me. Why then bother with shelter?”

  Atlanta didn’t quite believe Boise. She and Dana had found him within a hundred miles of his namesake city, in the Boise National Forest. She doubted he had been here long; for one thing, the closest Idaho village on the maps was named ‘Atlanta’. That couldn’t be a coincidence. The terrain here gave her the creeps: large lumpy mountains covered with tall narrow pine trees, grassy valleys below, and no feeling of people or civilization. Being out here brought out the Marine in her. A place like this invited snipers and roadside IEDs.

  “Just habit, I guess,” Atlanta said. “I…”

  Boise floated cross-legged, three feet above the overlook he now called home. Pine trees towered to the rear over the rocky meadow, and too damned many critters made small noises under the brush. “No need to give me the talk,” Boise said. “I’ve been eavesdropping on you. You’re an incredible bundle of contradictions, you know.”

  Atlanta glowered.

  “Glad it isn’t just me,” Dana said. She had taken an instant liking to the crusty old God.

  Atlanta glowered some more.

  “I’d think the prophet in the wilderness shtick would invite worshippers,” Atlanta said. Boise had been a typical ugly old white guy, but he had let his white hair and beard grow long. Well, more like ten years’ worth of long rather than the few weeks he had been doing the prophet in the wilds shtick. He had been clean-shaven during Apotheosis.

  “I give them boils if they even think about worshipping me,” Boise said. “No worthy God among us will accept worshippers of any variety, and those who do will cull themselves out of the pot.”

  Atlanta raised an eyebrow.

  “Come, sit down, both of you,” Boise said. “The rock’s quite comfortable here, nice and warm in the noonday sun.”

  “You’re implying the Gods are mortal, Boise?” Dana asked. Dana hadn’t heard Montreal’s talk on the subject.

  “We’re immortal if we take care of ourselves. But God – the real thing, not us twerps – is a jealous God. Those of us who allow worshippers will face God’s wrath, sooner rather than later.” He smiled at Dana. “It’s possible your companion is God’s wrath, so I’d watch your Ps and Qs, Dana.”

  “You approve of what I do?” Atlanta asked. No roadside bombs yet, although some bird somewhere decided to trill happily and loudly. Idiot bird.

  “Well, then, now that’s a different question, isn’t it,” Boise said. “I’m not sure I can say whether I approve or not. It’s not something I would do. I do approve of your grand tour, though. You do show more initiative than most. I’m not sure you need to be so showy about those you pass ultimate judgment upon.” He meant the few Atlanta had decorated the light posts with, like the career murderer in the city of Montreal.

  “It’s a warning to others.”

  “Your actions coarsen society,” Boise said. He had fleas. Real ones. That took the scruffy prophet in the wilderness way too far, Atlanta decided. “I don’t think society needs any help with that.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Atlanta said. She originally feared all the Gods would be against her, and the only people supporting her thug killings would be the hard-nosed mortals. She had found, though, that she didn’t care what the mortals thought as much as she once had – point to Montreal – and she did care more about what the other Gods thought. Probably something their creators built into her. Enough of the Gods she met approved tacitly of the thug killing, but none thought her post-mortem displays appropriate. She found herself persuaded. “Do you have any opinions on the course chosen by the Seven Suits and Miami?”

  “Well, you are direct, now aren’t you,” Boise said. He held humor in his eyes.

  “Only when she’s getting pressed,” Dana said. “Which is most of the time.”

  Boise turned his likely artificially wizened face to the sun. “Trouble, thy name is woman. Don’t take this wrong, but…” here it comes, Atlanta decided “I could be convinced the Angelic Host made a mistake by making so many woman Gods. It does make me wonder whether they told us the complete truth about their plans for us. North American Goddesses and European Goddesses? I can see reasons for them, even though there are so few important women in religious history.” About sixty percent of the North American and European Gods were women, Atlanta knew. She didn’t care a fig about religious history. “But they also made a few Goddesses in the Middle East. This was stupid on their part. Nobody’s going to listen to those Goddesses. The simple existence of so-called Islamic Goddesses has already caused problems among the Islamic Gods, who find they are being ignored simply because there are women among their ranks.”

  “You’re a bit of a sexist yourself, Pops,” Dana said. Boise laughed. “Besides, don’t they call themselves Djinni, not Gods?”

  “Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” Boise said. He tossed a small rock across the meadow and hit a pine tree about four hundred feet away, a scraped area in the center of the trunk, about three feet off the ground. Not the first time he had tossed a rock at the tree. He eyed Dana. “You want to know a secret?”

  “What?” Dana said.

  “You’re impossible.”

  Atlanta smiled. “I believe the verdict’s unanimous.” Dana glowered at both of them.

  “I’m not talking about her personality,” Boise said, a smile itching around his moustache and beard. “Working from first principles, we Gods shouldn’t be able to loan our willpower so simply to others. It should take a lot more work and be far more indirect, or involve actual objects.”

  “Then your theory’s wrong,” Dana said.

  “Certainly. But how? I’m positive I identified the right first principles behind us. The only implication is that there’s more than us in the picture. Other actors who work at the same level of power we do, actors far beyond your mystically sensitive friends, Atlanta, and the crazy Telepaths. Somehow, the capabilities of these unknowns are interacting with ours, making certain things easier and, most likely, certain other things more difficult. Only…where are they? Who are they? Why don’t we know about them? What’s their game? Why didn’t the Angelic Host tell us about them?”

  “The Host did say you weren’t alone,” Dana said. Boise nodded. “I may have met one of these peers of yours, though,” Dana said. Boise raised a bushy eyebrow. “A John Lorenzi, a self-style magician hunter. He had God-like power, but it was different.”

  “I heard he’s a fraud and a poser.”

  “If you trust my borrowed tricks, he’s far more than a poser.”

  “Oh now that’s very interesting,” Boise said. “So my logic was right and we do have peers, eh?” He licked his lips and spat. “As usual, disturbing news.”

  “What’s your angle, Boise?” Atlanta asked. “Your goals?”

  “Well, I’m after the sinners too,” Boise said. “I don’t know yet how I’m going to bother them, but it won’t be killing. Especially since I’m after the oath breakers, false witnesses, people who use their political power to arrange for sexual partners, and that crowd. Right now, I’m compiling a list.” He tapped his forehead.

  “The more power mortals hold, the cleaner they need to be,
and it’s our job to keep them clean,” Atlanta said. “Sounds good to me. Mind if I join you, back down south, once you decide your angle and your selection criteria?”

  “No, I don’t mind at all,” Boise said.

  “You’re both appalling,” Dana said. “What about the right to privacy?”

  “What right to privacy?”

  “How can we be anything but the slaves of you Gods if you don’t respect our right to privacy?” Dana said.

  “I call myself a prophet, but there’s no getting around the fact God has loaned us some of His power and some of His divine prestige, and the fact He’s expecting us to use it for good, Dana,” Boise said. “To better humanity. That’s a higher calling than laws.”

  “I can understand the point of stopping violent criminals, but oath breakers? That’s not even against the law,” Dana said. “I think what you’re doing is wrong. Inhuman.”

  “Well, tough,” Boise said. “Portland may have given you power, but you’ve still got the mortal attitudes and outlooks. Civilization is based on oaths, overt and implied. In my mind, the backstabbers of the world don’t have any right to privacy at all.” He turned to Atlanta. “You need to make sure the rest of us can tell you and Miami apart, my dear. The others? Let’s see what happens. I’m not as worried about them as you are.”

  “You’re not joining us? You’re not going to help us even against the Suits, despite what they’re doing to some of the businesses in your territory?” Atlanta said. “They shut down a Fortune 50 corporation right in your backyard, Hernandez Industries, for no known reason. If we Territorials aren’t careful, the Seven Suits are going to destroy American capitalism right before our eyes!”

  “I’m not going to do a thing,” Boise said. “I’ve had no contact with the Suits, nor do I wish it. I know my limits, and nothing in my shop teacher and wrestling coach background gives me any knowledge of big business or finance.

  “Now off with you. I’ve got sinners to identify.”

  Dubuque’s headquarters bothered Atlanta as she and Dana approached. It felt off. She examined it closely and realized the building, and most everything inside, were divine creations. Damn. His ease at such reality creation bothered Atlanta; that willpower skill still gave her fits. A lone divine flunky stepped forward to greet them after they landed, a good-looking young blond man in his twenties, borged up with a cheap Vietnamese wearable computer that hung too much behind the ubiquitous fake glasses.