Weird Theology

by Alex Raizman

  Loud bangs erupted from between Athena and himself, and Ryan had to hope the gunmen were shooting at the actual threats. Hell, at this point, I'm fine with them blind firing into the dust. At least the odds are better they'll hit a mummy than me.

  Ryan looked out over the horde of approaching mummies. It was a sea of necrotized flesh, easily a hundred. Maybe more. Ryan took a moment to wipe sweat from his brow before it could stream down into his eyes. How do we fight this many?

  A shout came from behind him and he could only hope that Athena's cry had been elation and not pain. He'd find out soon enough. They were driving him back, leaving him no option but to back away or be surrounded and sliced to ribbons. Soon he'd either find himself back-to-back with Athena again, or back-to-face with Athena's side of the battle, and if it was the latter he'd be cut to pieces.

  Fortunately, when he felt something at his back, it wasn’t a mummy trying to tear open his skull, but Athena, watching the horde approaching from behind him. Great. We might die, but at least we’ll go out looking like something from an action movie. They paused in their assault, and the dust began to disperse a bit to form more mummies in the back lines.

  "Hey, how's it going over there?" Ryan couldn't help but resist a chance to banter in the breather they were being given. It helped distract him from the way his legs were starting to shake with the exertion and kept his mind off how many mummies remained.

  It was a nice distraction from how utterly hopeless things felt.

  "Oh, it's fine. I've always wanted to fight the mummies of lost Ys in the middle of a Texas summer."

  Ryan had to glance over at her. "Was that...was that a joke?"

  He thought he saw a glimmer in her eye for a moment, but then focused back on the horde. "Why aren't they attacking?" Athena asked.

  "You complaining?" But it did bother Ryan too. The way they stood there, eerily still, even as some of the shooters put bullets in them was even more unnatural than the walking dead already were. They should at least try to deal with the shooters.

  "Yes. An opponent doing something unexpected is always bad."

  "Always? What about-" He stopped when, at that moment, they both felt it. A change in probabilities, a twisting of the equations.

  Behind the two hordes of mummies, rising over the sound of intermittent gunfire, a buzzing began. Low at first, but rapidly getting louder and harsher.

  Ryan swallowed hard as he saw a dozen giant insects. They were immense, the size of a small car, with dragonfly wings and wicked stingers on arched tails. Their faces, though, were the most unsettling. They looked like human faces, although they lacked any kind of expression. Among the crowd Ryan saw a face he recognized - the man whose heart they had watched get torn out earlier.

  "Okay, never mind." He raised his sword, wondering how they were going to survive these things. "Something unexpected? Always bad."

  ​The new monsters began to swarm them.

  “Athena! Can you hold off the flying scorpion man face things? I have an idea.” Ryan’s voice was a quarter octave higher than usual, and he took a deep calming breath after the words were out of his mouth.

  “Manticores.” There was an edge to her voice too, although nowhere near as pronounced as the note in Ryan’s.

  “What?” Up to a half octave higher.

  “They’re called manticores.”

  “Oh, good. Now that we have the terminology sorted out, can you hold them off?” Thankfully, his voice didn’t go any higher this time.

  “Yes. Do whatever you’re doing quickly.” She drew her blade, and Ryan tossed her the one he’d been using. She caught it without turning, an offhand grab that Ryan envied.

  “But you-” The manticores were getting closer. Time was drawing short. “Alright, go.” Ryan started manipulating the equations with all the speed he could manage, knowing every second he waited was one that could result in both of their deaths. As he completed each twist of the numbers, he started changing variables governing electron dispersion and static buildup.

  Athena nodded, and first took her sword and threw it. She manipulated her own variables. Ryan couldn’t follow what she was doing – the math looked wrong to him. The end result was apparent, however - the sword began to orbit him, creating a whirling shield around his body as he moved.

  Then the manticores were on her. As Ryan continued his manipulation, he got a chance to see her fight for the first time as an ally, when he wasn’t distracted by the fact that Athena was trying to kill him and Crystal.

  One of the manticores struck at her with a bladed tail, and instead of dodging or parrying she caught it in her free hand and buried the mercurial blade right behind the stinger. Then, when the beast tried to tug the tail away, she let herself be taken with it so she could sever the stinger and use the momentum to propel herself up to another of the monsters.

  This manticore she met feet first, her heels digging into the human eyes on the face. It screeched, and she kicked off to come back down on the first one, the sword lodging itself in its skull. It’s so different than Crystal. Crystal fought with grace and elegance. Watching her move was like watching a dancer in some complicated ballet, winding and twirling. Athena, on the other hand, fought like someone just out to win. She was precise and powerful, and moved with efficiency, no movement that wasn’t strictly necessary.

  Ryan was so impressed, he almost couldn’t tell that she was still hopelessly outnumbered. But the mummies were moving back in, and that impressive stunt had only killed one of the manticores. I have to finish this. As soon as Athena went down, he’d be dead. Some of the mummies were even trying to advance on him, although so far those that got too close to the orbiting sword were faring as well as blades of grass trying to slip past a lawnmower.

  Another round of gunfire erupted from the stores. Ryan caught a glimpse of someone. An older woman, looking like someone’s kindly grandmother, but instead of fresh-baked cookies she had fistfuls of hot lead. The mummies, in their hatred of divine beings, had continued to ignore the ordinary humans nearby, but bullets still proved to be inconvenient for the attacking horde. That’s right, need to make sure I don’t kill the civilians in the process. Fortunately, for what he had planned, they should be fine.

  First move - give Athena a better chance against the manticores. Their primary advantage was flight, so he needed to take that away. He could increase gravity on each of them, but with no idea how strong they were, he could waste time under doing it, and it would have to be one at a time.

  Instead, he assigned direction to every molecule of the air surrounding the entire group, creating a single burst of wind that sucked all the air out from around them. Although the monsters were unnatural and biologically impossible, they still had to obey the laws of physics to a degree, and wings don’t work so well without air to push against. The sudden vacuum turned off all sound in the area and brought the manticores crashing to the Earth.

  Athena gave him curt nod of approval. Now that the manticores couldn’t fly, they could only approach her one at a time, and as a bonus, Ryan didn’t have to worry about them flying over the orbiting sword.

  Second move was to end the fight. While Athena continued to brute-force her way through her attackers - Ryan almost winced in sympathy as she drove a flying knee into one of the manticores’ faces, then reached up and impaled it on its own flailing stinger - Ryan continued to manipulate electron fields and static charges.

  There are some phenomena that are poorly understood by science. Even after acing physics, Ryan didn’t have a grasp of how these equations worked, but it didn’t matter - he reached out and manipulated them, and an instinctive knowledge of what he wanted guided his hand.

  It worked. The hair on the back of his arms stood up as orbs of ball lightning began to streak out of the spinning blade. Each one dove unerringly towards the first target it could find, with the exception of Athena, who Ryan had grounded to keep her clear of the charges. As soon as they met their targets, be it
manticore or mummy or evil sentient dust cloud, they exploded, filling the vacuum with a gas that reeked of sulfur and a ball of blue light. If there had been air in here, the thunderclaps would have been deafening, but instead the entire barrage played out in eerie silence.

  Of course, his Hungers wouldn’t allow something as extravagant as slowing time. He was spent. Ryan fell to one knee, his vision darkening. He held onto consciousness long enough to cut off the flow of current before it could reach the civilians nearby, and then - with a resigned sigh as the expected took over - passed out.

  ◆◆◆

  Bast took a sip from her martini, her green dress shimmering in the sunlight. Moloch swirled his glass of whiskey, before taking another drink, letting the amber liquid run between his yellowed teeth. His suit was already starting to look worn and frayed, as if just being in contact with his flesh was enough to cause the garment wear and tear. Their seats were overlooking the battlefield. Athena was dealing with the last of the mummies of Ys, and the Eschaton was unconscious.

  “We could go into the fight now,” Bast said, although her voice lacked strength and conviction. “Athena will be exhausted, and with the Eschaton passed out…”

  Moloch regarded her. “I don’t get the impression, my dear, that you’re particularly interested in doing so.”

  Bast shook her head. “Enki only wanted the Eschaton distracted. That has been accomplished. I’m not feeling particularly inclined to take extra steps when he treats us like his slaves. Especially not since I completed my task and want my damn reward. You?”

  Moloch shook his head. “I Hunger too much from my exertions today. Although you could help me fill some of that Hunger and then perhaps…” He couldn’t finish, letting out a dusty cough at the disgusted look on Bast’s face.

  “We’d have to be far more desperate than this, Moloch. And really, hunger? You did that all with sacrificial power. Someday, you’ll tell me why you refuse to use the powers of your nanoverse.”

  “Unlikely,” was Moloch’s only retort.

  Bast glanced down again. “The Eschaton is proving more dangerous than we expected. Athena, Ishtar - we knew they would be difficult prey. But this one is…”

  “Clever.” Moloch finished for her. “He’s clever, my dear. I think we need to begin to make preparations.”

  “Preparations? What for?”

  Moloch watched Athena decapitate the final mummy. People began to pour out of the shops around them. Some still had their guns raised, but others were holding their hands in the air. “For if Enki fails in his quest. I do not want to get dragged down with him, and I assume you feel the same?”

  Bast nodded. “A fair point. And for now?”

  “For now, we report our failure to Enki, deal with his wrath, and then prepare for our next move. We’re survivors, you and I. And I think we’ll find others who are interested in survival as well.”

  She grinned. “Then take care of your Hungers. I’ll deal with the brute. He still has information we need, and I’m going to try to get him talking.” She turned on her heels, and headed to the door that lead to her nanoverse. Moloch did the same.

  They both suspected that they shared a thought, and they both would have been right. Enki wasn’t the only one they were willing to throw under the bus if it meant their own survival. Each one would happily sacrifice the other.

  But for now, they were still allies, and could only hope the trigger-happy Texans would finish what they had started.

  Chapter 15

  The Reverend and the Goddess

  ​Reverend Jeremy Howard did not expect to end his day crouched behind a counter in a convenience store, clutching a shotgun. It had started out a fairly normal day. His wife was out of town visiting her sister in Dallas - and thank you, merciful God, for that - so he’d woken up and gone to his office to work on Sunday’s sermon.

  ​Church attendance was at all-time high, something he was grateful for. He just wished it was for a different reason. But with the “Church of Adversity” promoting Satanism and claiming Hellfire was now something to be desired, with this ‘Enki’ on the television claiming to be a pagan god trying to fight the Antichrist, people were scared. After the big fight yesterday between the alleged Antichrist and some of these pagan gods, it would likely be even more packed this coming Sunday. People were scared and confused. Scientists hadn’t been able to give answers, so people were returning to faith.

  ​I believe there will be an Antichrist, the Reverend had written. The Good Book promises us that such things are ahead. That dark times will come. But I do not believe this man is the Antichrist. The Rapture is not upon us, and the End of Times has not yet arrived. It is not for me to know when it will happen, but the Bible lays out a road map for what to expect. Those signs are not present. What we are faced with is a crisis of faith. “I am the Lord, your god, and Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” A commandment so important that the good Lord put it very first on his list. In recent times, in modern times, people have not been putting other gods first. They’ve been putting themselves first, denying the power of the Lord.

  ​Now we have beings that claim to be gods. These are not part of the End Times. This is a test of faith. Can we maintain our belief in a god that is ephemeral, that makes himself known in subtle ways, when there are men and women running around with powers ancient man attributed to the gods?

  ​I believe we can. I know I can. But…

  ​He’d trailed off. There was a commotion outside. Gunfire. Screaming. He’d run to the window.

  ​For a moment, he thought this was the End Times. The dead had risen from their graves and were hunting the living.

  ​He’d gone out to join the chaos, hoping to provide some order. A move that was, perhaps, born of hubris. Of pride in his status as a Community Leader. He’d accomplished nothing but adding another body to the sea of humanity, not until someone had shoved a shotgun into his hand.

  ​The bible said “Thou shalt not kill,” but as far as the Reverend was concerned, if the good Lord had a problem with the destruction of the living dead, He would have made sure that was clear.

  ​In the chaos, a man with a clear voice and righteous determination had been ignored. A man with a clear voice, righteous determination, and a shotgun commanded respect. He’d managed to get a group of people into Jodi’s convenience store, and there they’d holed up as the dead swarmed around them. Then the supposed Antichrist had arrived, with Athena in tow.

  ​The Reverend was not ashamed to admit that his conviction that these weren’t the End Times had faltered. It seemed, for a moment, that these two were at the center of the chaos, perhaps even the ones behind it.

  The duo had dispelled that fear by attacking the monsters that swarmed Granger.

  Now the battle was over, and the man Enki called the Antichrist had fallen. Athena was the only one standing.

  “We should shoot her,” Billy muttered beside the Reverend.

  “Billy! They saved our lives.” Billy had been a member of Reverend Howard’s congregation since he had just been a wee lad, and the Reverend had never seen such an evil gleam in his eyes.

  “The devil has power to take a pleasing shape,” Billy said, “it says so in the damn bible.”

  The Reverend took a deep breath. “Don’t call it the ‘damn’ Bible, Billy. And that wasn’t from the Bible. Shakespeare was a master of wordplay, but he did not write anything that is found in the Bible, nor was he a theologian,” the Reverend countered. “This is not about their shape, it’s about their action.”

  Silas popped up. “How can we trust even that? Maybe they’re just gonna try and give us the Mark of the Beast as soon as we step out.”

  “Then we will refuse it.” Reverend Howard did not see the point to arguing about the Antichrist part right now.

  “Or,” Jodie said, rising from behind the cash register, “we could just let them go. Enough people have died, Reverend. Why not just wait for them to leave?”

/>   “Because,” the Reverend said, finally getting to his feet, “they have saved our lives. The least we could do is thank them.”

  Billy spit on the floor. “I don’t trust them.”

  Nor do I, the Reverend thought. The fact remained that whatever they were, they claimed to be gods. A title that belonged to one being, and one being alone. That made them suspect. “Then keep your gun up, Billy. But don’t you dare pull that trigger, not unless there’s a good reason.”

  And with that, the conversation was over. They stepped out of the convenience store, guns at the ready.

  Athena rolled her eyes and lifted her hands in the air, dropping Ryan’s sword, as the armed men and women approached her. Fantastic weapon. I must see if Ryan will allow me to keep that one. The sword she had put in orbit around Ryan had buried itself in the ground after he’d fallen. Athena knew that these bouts of unconsciousness were a normal part of being a Nascent, but they were so frequent. She didn’t recall her own nascency being so full of fainting spells.

  “I’ve laid aside my arms and yet you still point weapons at me. If you intend to fire, I’d prefer you get to it.” A bluff. Bullets could still kill a god or goddess, although it would take a great deal. When a god used a weapon, like when Bast had shot Týr - and that thought was enough for Athena to clench her hands into fists before she could fight it back - they put a portion of their power into it. Mortals did not have that ability, but their bullets would hurt, and enough would provide the force needed to do her serious injury by striking somewhere vulnerable. Still, humans were at their most dangerous when they were panicked and acting out of that fear. Given time to talk and think, they tended towards something resembling rationality.