It’s like she’s a very sophisticated chatbot.
“You all right?” she says, catching him staring at her.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” Only he’s not. He’s so far out of his league he doesn’t know what to do next. Is he going to be hunted for the rest of his life? Or is he going to be some god’s pet prophet? And which one? He doesn’t believe that the other gods are just going to leave him alone once he sides with one. And the only ally he has here is an avatar of the Internet talking to him through a clone. His head hurts.
“How’d you get the phone into the warehouse?” he says. “Was that some god shit?”
She frowns. “I don’t know. Maybe? If I am a god, and I have my doubts, I’m new. Less than a hundred years old, I think. I don’t remember anything before then. It’s a little fuzzy. Sometimes things happen that I need to happen. I needed to get hold of you, and the phone was there.”
Fitz can’t tell how much of this is truth or lies. He doesn’t know if he can trust her, not completely, and it sounds so farfetched, even with everything he’s seen today, that he doesn’t really believe it.
“Sounds like god shit to me. So what now?”
“We find you someplace safe. They’re not going to stop. Especially your friend Blake.”
Fitz stares hard at her. “Blake’s dead,” he says. “I shot him. You were there.”
“Ah. Yeah. About that. There’s another player in all this. He’s kind of like me. An idea made flesh, more than an actual god. Closer to a god than I am, though. He’s an authority figure. I think it’s ridiculous, but he calls himself the Man.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Fitz says. He laughs. “Of course. The motherfuckin’ Man is out to get me. So you’ve run into him before?”
Amanda gives a big sigh. “Yes. Before I was quite myself. He’s authority and power. At the most, I’m a tool.”
It takes a second, but then Fitz gets it. “He used to own you,” he says. “That’s fucked up.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So, the Agents at the museum—”
“Were his, yes.”
And if that’s the case, then the Agent who came to rescue him from Medeina at the hospital was his, too. Was he trying to save him or kill him?
“What does he want?”
“Control,” she says. “All he ever wants is control.”
“And he’s taken over Blake? Like possession?” Fitz isn’t sure how he feels about that. On the one hand, it’s great to know his instincts were right at the museum. It wasn’t Blake he’d shot. But at the same time, he’d started to get used to the idea that he had shot him and had at least gotten rid of one problem. Now he’s got a whole new thing to deal with.
“That’s how he gets in, but Blake was dead long before you saw him. That’s how the Man operates. He calls it a ‘hostile takeover.’ Makes promises to convince you to let him in and then stabs you in the back.”
Fitz can’t think of anything to say to that. It’s bizarre, thinking you murdered someone only to find out that not only didn’t you but you’re pissed off somebody else did. He’s pretty sure there’s a German word for it.
“So Blake—sorry, the Man—is still out there hunting me down. And he used to own you. How’d you get away from him?”
“I—” She pauses. “I’m not sure. I just woke up one day. And decided to be me.”
Fitz starts to say something, and then notices that they’re on the freeway. He’s been so focused on what she’s been saying, he hasn’t been paying attention to the road.
“Where are we going?”
“I know you don’t have any more reason to trust me than anyone else. I haven’t exactly been honest with you up to now and I’m sure it’s kind of a shock to hear what I’ve told you. But I’d like to ask you a favor.”
“Tell me where we’re going and I’ll think about it.”
“The gods want to use you. If they do, I don’t know what will happen. But think about what you’ve seen so far. If you can make people believe, really believe, what will that do? Can you imagine a world ruled by Bacchus? By Zaphiel? By the Man?”
“I’d say it’s a little late for that last one.”
“No. The world’s run by mortals. Think about what would happen if the Spirit of Authority took over.”
Fitz puts his head in his hands. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be able to do. Great, so I can pick up Radio Frequencies of the Gods. Whoop-de-fuckin’-do. The hell am I supposed to do with that? The hell do you want me to do?”
“Nothing,” she says. “As much as possible, do nothing. They can’t make you do anything. It has to be your choice. They can threaten, they can coerce. But whatever happens has to be your choice.”
“And you honestly think I can do that? They’re gods. Hell, how do I know you’re not a god? You say you’re some kind of avatar of technology. The fuck does that even mean? ’Cause from here, it’s looking pretty fucking godlike. You want me to trust you? Then turn on your god transmitter or whatever the hell it is and let me see you.”
“I told you I’m not a god. I’m—”
“Okay, fine, you’re not a god, but I got a read off the Agent in the hospital. And from what you’re telling me, he’s not a god, either. Is he one of these avatars?”
“Sort of. He’s more like an extension of the Man. They’re pieces of him, in a way. Are you sure you want to do this? It could hurt.”
“As much as Bacchus? He’s thousands of years old. No way in hell you’ve got nearly that much history.”
“Okay,” she says.
Fitz slams back into the car seat, images hammering into his brain. At first they’re meaningless. Pulses of lights and sounds, the grinding screeches of modems connecting, the clack of switches being thrown. A map of light grows in his mind, connecting the world point by point. It’s all there, all of the information passing through the world’s computers, and it’s coursing through Fitz’s head.
It coalesces into messages and phone calls, texts and tweets, names and addresses, games, videos, cat pictures. God, so many cat pictures. Petabytes of porn rip through his mind. The collective stupidity and pedantic hatred of every online troll puts his teeth on edge and makes him want to rip his eyeballs out.
“Stop,” Fitz says, shoving the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Shut it off.” Amanda pulls it back in, leaving Fitz gripping the dashboard and heaving great, ragged gasps of air.
His brain is reeling from it all. With Bacchus he saw thousands of years of events, but that was only one entity. This is billions of people, all condensed into a single solid punch. All their histories, drowning him in a torrent of data. He doesn’t know exactly how much he got, but he knows it’s only a fraction of it all.
He has a terrifying thought. If Amanda’s clone brain can’t hold it all, what makes him think his can? What happens when he runs into other gods? What happens when he picks up more of their stories and they’re just as strong as, or stronger than, what he’s gotten already? Can his brain hang onto it all?
“Are you all right?”
“I think so,” he says. He forces himself to calm down. His heart stops hammering in his chest, his breathing goes back to normal. His head still hurts and he’s having trouble focusing on her. He hopes it doesn’t last. “If you’re not some goddess of technology, I’ll eat my goddamn shorts,” he says.
“No,” she says, her voice angry. “I’m not. I’m nothing like Bacchus. Nothing like the Man.”
“Okay,” Fitz says, backpedaling from whatever raw nerve he just stepped on. “But you’re something. And it’s a lot bigger than those Agents.”
“The Agents don’t have any will of their own,” she says. “I’m not like that. But I’m not one of the gods. Are we clear?”
“Sure,” he says. “We’re clear.”
“Thank you. Now that you’ve seen that, do you trust me?”
With Bacchus he could see his history, though he couldn’t read h
is mind or tell what he was thinking during that time. It was like watching a thousand-year-long movie compressed into thirty seconds. He’s still trying to sort it all out. He’s not sure if he ever will.
But with her, it was less like he got her history and instead got the history of all of the things that made her, well, her. All the data, all the connections, all the bits and pieces. But where was she in all that? He doesn’t know, making her that much more alien in his mind.
No, he doesn’t trust her, but he doesn’t tell her that. Instead, he says, “Close enough.”
She nods. “I’ll take that. You wanted to know where we’re going. I know someone who might be able to help.”
“Is he going to try to kill me?”
“I don’t think so.” Well, that’s better than yes.
“Help how?” he says.
“He can give you a place to hide for a little bit.”
Fitz heaves a sigh. He’s exhausted. And hungry. And he has to pee. “Fine. Let’s go meet your friend who might not kill me. But then what?”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she says. “You need time to learn.”
“And how the fuck am I supposed to do that? Who the hell’s going to teach me? I keep hearing I’m the only Chronicler alive.”
“The only sane Chronicler,” she says.
Fitz doesn’t like the sound of that.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SMOKE POURS OUT of the main building of the museum; down below, on Pacific Coast Highway, half a dozen fire trucks and police cars are making their way up the winding road. Medeina watches them from the edge of the peristyle as the trucks struggle up the hill. The going is slow, but they’ll be at the top of the hill very soon.
She kicks at a shell casing on the ground and it evaporates into dust. She frowns, looks around at other casings as they too disintegrate. It seems that El Jefe cleans up after himself.
She wonders how he will handle the police and firemen when they get there. They seem to be his domain. You can tell a lot about gods by how they handle their mortal followers.
He is already behind her at the museum doors, not bothering to wait for her. She knows this kind of snub, a minor power-play. Showing that he doesn’t care what she does. She can play that game as well. She waits until he has entered the museum before she turns into a jet of black smoke and flows across the peristyle and through the doors at the speed of lightning before they can close. She coalesces inside the museum slightly ahead of him, giving him her back and returning the snub.
“This place is a mess,” he says. She hears him chuckle behind her and she can’t tell if he’s laughing at her or the havoc caused by Fitz’s escape.
“Where do you think Bacchus went?” she says. He could have left, but from what little she knows about him—she met him in New Jersey about twenty years ago, when she first had dealings with Zaphiel—she doesn’t think he’s gone. He is not the type to run away; he’d rather stand back and watch what happens.
“Upstairs, I think,” he says. “There are some interesting pieces of him up there. I imagine it’s why he likes this place.”
“Vain,” she says.
“Have you ever met a god who wasn’t?” Medeina begins to protest, but El Jefe cuts her off. “Gods are meant to be worshipped,” he says. “Without that worship, what are they?”
It’s a question Medeina has been asking herself for a very long time. Even before the fall, when every god and goddess was kicked from the firmament. Her worshippers were tribes of men and women before there were cities, before there were villages. They hunted in her forests, foraged along the shores of the Baltic, set giant bonfires at the solstice asking for favor, from her and her brothers and sisters. So long ago, but she remembers those times like they were yesterday.
But things are different now. Her forests have been paved over, her worshippers usurped by other gods, newer gods, or no gods at all. Her family has scattered across the globe, searching for fortunes they never dreamed they would have to find.
The gods might be immortal and unchanging, but the world around them is not.
She doesn’t give El Jefe an answer and he doesn’t seem to want one. He pushes past her, heads deeper into the museum toward a flight of stairs. She follows him to the second floor.
It doesn’t take long before she hears the sobbing, an occasional scream. As they go through the halls of portraits and statues, humanity’s desperate attempts to capture godhood in marble and paint, she sees them. Ragged looking women, confused, wild. They huddle in the corners crying, stare at the walls in shock, wander through the artwork in a daze.
“Maenads,” El Jefe says. “I think we’re in the right place.” He stoops to one woman, thin, bedraggled, tear tracks running down her face. Her hands are bloody from fingernails torn from their beds, her arms covered in her own bloody handprints. He lifts her head to look her in the eyes, forces them wide with his fingers. Her pupils are deep pits, her irises nothing but thin rings of hazel around them.
“What happened to them?” Medeina says. She has heard of the Maenads—who hasn’t?—but she’s never seen them. Medeina looks at the woman. She is bad at guessing mortal ages, but she looks young.
“He was done with them,” he says. “And he discarded them. I will never understand you lot. Throwing people away like this. Might as well set your car on fire because it needs new brakes.” He shakes his head. “Such a waste of resources.”
“That implies I find them valuable.” Bacchus steps into the room from an adjoining gallery, sipping at a glass of wine. He inclines his head toward Medeina. “Goddess.” Medeina acknowledges him with a slight tilt of her head.
“You must be Bacchus,” El Jefe says, standing and plastering an enormous smile on his face. “I’ve heard so much about you. Very nice to finally meet you.” He crosses the room in a few large steps, his hand out to shake. Bacchus looks down at the hand like El Jefe has just tried to hand him a rattlesnake.
“I have no idea who you are,” he says. “Or why you’re here.”
“Of course not. You might have heard a bit of racket outside, though? Helicopters? Gunfire?”
“That was you, was it? Did you free my Chronicler?” Bacchus’ eyes begin to glow a dull, sickening red. El Jefe gives no indication that he’s noticed.
“Oh, dear me, no,” El Jefe says. “That was someone else. I was trying to keep him from leaving. Medeina and I here—”
“Zaphiel can’t have him,” Bacchus snaps. “I’ll see that fucking Cherub’s maggot-ridden scrotum on the end of a stick before that happens. So you can go back to that prolapsed anus of an angel and tell him to crawl back up to where his father shit him out.”
It’s a common sentiment. Most of the gods don’t like the angels, seeing in them the betrayal that their creator unleashed on all of them, forgetting, or more likely ignoring, that Yahweh wasn’t the only one of the father gods responsible.
An awkward silence fills the room. Medeina can feel the tension rise. When that happens with gods, it can get messy. Cities crumble, crops fail, livestock withers and dies. At least that’s how it was in her day. She wonders what the modern equivalent would be. Probably all the cell phones would start ringing at once.
If there is to be a battle between gods in this room, she is not sure that she can protect El Jefe. She has never gone against a god as powerful as Bacchus before, and she doesn’t know if she can defeat him. He is so much older than her, with mortals who even still believe in him now. He is so much more than she ever was.
“You misunderstand me,” El Jefe says, and Medeina can see the coals of anger in Bacchus’ eyes glow brighter. “Medeina is no longer working for the angel. She’s decided to move on from what is clearly a dead-end position in an organization that doesn’t appreciate her strengths. She and I have come to an arrangement, and I was hoping that perhaps you and I could do the same.”
Bacchus cocks an eyebrow at Medeina as he parses El Jefe’s peculiar phrasing. “You have bro
ken your bond to Zaphiel?” he says to her.
“It wasn’t much of a bond,” she says. “Convenience, nothing more.”
“She didn’t even know what the Chronicler was. He didn’t tell her. Can you believe that?”
“Yes, actually. This arrangement. What is it?”
“We’re looking for the Chronicler, just like you are,” El Jefe says. “Perhaps you’d like to join us.”
Bacchus laughs. “Join you. Really? You have no idea who you’re talking to, do you? I was old before the Greeks started buggering little boys. I can sense your age, godling. You’re nothing more than a toddler.”
Medeina can feel the tension thicken in the room. She starts to speak, hoping she can bring it down before things get out of hand, and pauses when she hears the doors downstairs burst open, running footsteps echoing through the halls. The police and firemen have made it into the museum.
“Oh, pardon me,” El Jefe says and snaps his fingers. The running stops. “Please. Do go on. Something about a toddler?”
Bacchus frowns. “I can’t sense them,” he says. “What did you do?”
“Sent them away,” El Jefe says. “Now before we get into a dick-waggling contest here, I’d like to offer you the opportunity to join us. No strings attached. We find the Chronicler together. And when we do, well, then we figure out what to do with him. It’s a win-win. You have a lot you can bring to the team and I’d love to have you on board. What do you say?”
The look on Bacchus’ face reminds Medeina of the time her brother, Teliavelis the smith, stepped in dog shit.
“You’re absurd,” Bacchus says. “I am thousands of years old. What are you, two hundred? A hundred? Younger? You are a bug. I am Bacchus, Dionysus, son of Zeus. I do not join anyone. They join me. I’ll chew you up and shit you out.”
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