Part-Time Gods

by Rachel Aaron

  I dropped my potato on the floor as it all came together. “You’re a spirit.”

  The wrinkled old woman smiled.

  I sank back down to the couch, not that I had much of a choice. The magic was so heavy now that I could actually feel it pushing my poor dislocated soul around inside me. It was a horrible, unnatural sensation, but I didn’t have the worry to waste on it. I was too busy trying to figure out which spirit I was facing before I said something that got me killed.

  It wasn’t the Empty Wind’s voice. I wasn’t sure how much that mattered, since gods could probably change their voices whenever they wanted to, but there were no dead here, forgotten or otherwise, which I was pretty sure ruled him out.

  It couldn’t be Algonquin. I’d seen the Lady of the Lakes on TV plenty of times, and though she often donned a human form because people freaked out when they realized they were talking to a woman made of water, it was usually pretty obvious. More importantly, she was a Spirit of the Land. That still made her a god compared to a puny mortal like me, but Spirits of the Land were the oldest and smallest spirits. The really big, really dangerous gods were the ones humans made, the Mortal Spirits.

  Unlike Spirits of the Land, the Mortal Spirits weren’t limited to physical structures. They were as big as the human fear of death, as powerful as the ability to love, and they wore as many faces as we gave them. I was certain the thing sitting in front of me wearing the old woman’s body was one of those, but which? There were so many gods these days. Which one would dare to live out here on land the city refused to—

  I stopped, feeling like an idiot. Then I felt terrified, because if I was right, I was in the company of a god that scared me way more than the Shepherd of the Forgotten Dead.

  “You’re the DFZ.”

  “Took you long enough,” the spirit said in a voice that no longer matched the old wrinkled face it spoke from.

  I sank a bit further into the sofa. “Have you been in there the whole time or…”

  “I’m always here,” the city replied, flashing me a smile that looked like the sort a puppet would give if you pulled the right string. “This is just one of my faces. A city has to have a lot, but Dr. Kowalski is one of my favorites. She died ten years ago, but we made a deal that I’d take her soul in as part of mine in exchange for her knowledge. And her help with the garden. I’m terrible with plants.”

  She looked sad about that. I had no idea why a god cared about being a good gardener, but it struck me as important. “So was I actually talking to the doctor?”

  “Oh yes,” the DFZ said. “She was completely in control until just a few moments ago. I was only eavesdropping, but our offer was legitimate. I didn’t order Dr. Kowalski to treat you for free, and I’m not trying to get you in my debt. We both just want to help you recover your magic.”

  She sounded sincere, but as someone who’d grown up in a dragon’s shadow, that statement set off warning bells like nothing else could. “Why?” I asked, clutching the cushions. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re a god. Gods don’t do things for free.”

  “Don’t pen me in with your dragon morals and your anthropology,” the DFZ said angrily. “I’m the DFZ. I do whatever I want! And what I want is for you to succeed.”

  I blinked, more confused than ever. “What?”

  “I want you to win,” the god clarified, sitting up straighter than the stooped old doctor ever could have managed. Her face looked younger, too, her eyes—which were now closer to the orange color of streetlights than anything human—sharp and hungry. “You came to my city to start a new life. You came to be free, to escape the domineering power who wanted to keep you as his amusement. When your father tried to crush you with his magic, you used your cleverness and ingenuity to turn that weapon back on him. You leveraged and hustled and found new ways to hold your own. That makes you one of mine.”

  I flinched at the word mine. “I’m not a possession.”

  “I never said you were. It’s actually the opposite. You’re my person because I’m your city. I can raise whatever buildings I want, but they’re just structures. It’s what lives inside that matters, and for me, that’s you.”

  “That still doesn’t tell me why,” I pressed, voice shaking. Challenging an immortal spirit felt like a really stupid thing to do, but this conversation was throwing up every red flag I had. Whether they were gods, dragons, or people, powerful beings didn’t single you out for favor without expecting something in return. “You said you want me to win, by which I presume you mean beat my dad and get free, but I don’t get why you care.”

  “I care because you are me,” the city said, frustrated. “I’m the spirit of a city. I don’t get to wake up and choose who I’ll be each day. You decide that. You and everyone else who calls me home. You’re the ones who define me, so if I want to change, I have to start with you.”

  I scowled. The face of the woman sitting in the chair now looked even younger than I was, reminding me that the DFZ was not an old god. Unlike the Empty Wind, who was as ancient as the human need to be remembered, the DFZ had only risen from the ashes of Old Detroit eighty years ago, and it hadn’t been born with its spirit, either. It had taken a long time for the idea of the DFZ to come together, decades before people stopped thinking of the city as merely Algonquin’s conquered territory and started seeing it as its own place where anything was possible and everyone was free. The first recorded sighting of the Spirit of the DFZ was only twenty years ago, which meant that I, being twenty-six, might actually be older than she was, which was a strange thing to realize about a god.

  “You said you have to start with me,” I repeated slowly. “What does that entail? What do you need me to do?”

  The spirit’s hands—still Dr. Kowalski’s wrinkled claws, a sharp contrast to her new young face—tightened on the arms of her chair. “You’re not the only one who wants to change herself, Opal Yong-ae. I am the city of dragons and mages, multibillionaires and superscrapers. I’m the richest place in the world, and yet I have the highest murder, child poverty, addiction, and suicide rates on the planet. You had a shootout on top of one of my parking decks just hours ago, and the ambulance wouldn’t even come unless you bribed it.” She shook her head. “You clean my abandoned places, so you know how ugly I can be, but that’s not what I want. I want to be better, to push out the things that make me toxic. If I were any other city, I could just pass laws to fix my problems, but I’m the Detroit Free Zone. I’m defined by my lack of restrictions, but that doesn’t mean I want to be the pit where everyone goes to do their terrible things. I want to be a good city. A place people want to live, not just somewhere they go to do the stuff they can’t get away with anywhere else. But I can’t become that without good people living in me. It’s a catch-22, which is why, whenever I find someone who does match the city I want to become, I do my best to keep them around.”

  I pressed my lips together. There it was. “You want me to stay in the DFZ.”

  The god nodded. “One person in a city of nine million might not seem important, but pile up enough, help them succeed and put down roots, and the city itself will change. I will change. You’re an important part of that process. Honestly, though, I’m here talking to you now because I hope you’ll be even more.”

  Once again, my alarm bells went off. “What does that mean?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like,” she replied. “You’re precisely the sort of person I want to attract to my city: young, driven, entrepreneurial yet unwilling to sell your morals. But I’d be a fool to overlook the fact that you’re also a genetically engineered super-mage with a draw that’s off the charts who might also be a natural-born Shaman.”

  That last part caught me off guard. “What?”

  “Come on,” the god chided, grinning at me. “Do you think everyone can grab magic and shape it at will? I know you have a low opinion of Shamans, but it’s actually incredibly difficult for most people to gather and hold enough magic to cast even a small spel
l without the assistance of a circle. At least, that’s what world-renowned Shaman Dr. Rita Kowalski is frantically telling me.” Her grin grew wider. “Just as there are people who grasp the logic of spellwork intuitively, there are people who just get Shamanic shaping. We won’t know for sure if that includes you until you start practicing, but Dr. Kowalski thinks it looks good. If you can learn to handle the enormous amounts of magic you’re capable of pulling down without killing yourself, it might be very good.”

  For someone who’d been called a failure her whole life, those were heady words. But while I couldn’t stop myself from grinning like one, I wasn’t actually an idiot. “That sounds a lot like a sales pitch.”

  “You are sharp,” the spirit said approvingly. “As expected from the Dragon’s Opal. I want you even more now.”

  “Want me for what?”

  She grinned so wide her face no longer looked human. “My priesthood.”

  I recoiled. “You mean like that blind priest in the Wandering Cathedral?”

  “Nameless is one of mine, yes,” the spirit said. “But I have many others. I think you’d be a fantastic addition, and it would be a good deal for you as well.” Her face grew sly. “I know you’re looking for a way to escape the Dragon of Korea.”

  I went still.

  “I’m very familiar with dragons,” she went on. “I’m full of them, after all. I’ve seen how stubbornly they cling to what they consider theirs. But as powerful as he might be on his own land, we’re a long way from Korea, and Yong is not a god. I am. If you were under my protection, he wouldn’t be able to touch you.”

  I took a shuddering breath. Tonight’s victory with the gold markets had given me hope, but two dollars was a far cry from the hundreds of thousands I owed my dad. I was a damn good Cleaner when the curse wasn’t holding me back, but even at my best, earning enough to pay back my entire debt before the end of the month—a mere three weeks away—was going to be nigh impossible. There was no getting around those hard truths, but the DFZ was offering me a whole new road. As powerful and terrible as my dad was, even the Great Yong couldn’t take a god. The DFZ also wasn’t another dragon, which meant running to her wouldn’t spark a clan war or get me pinned under yet another set of claws. I didn’t particularly want to be a priest, but those were both factors I couldn’t ignore. I was trying to think of something clever I could say that would count as neither a no nor a yes when the DFZ raised her hand.

  “You don’t have to decide now,” she said. “Unlike your father, I have no interest in owning people. I want willing followers I can count on to do their jobs without me having to babysit them, and I’ll let Dr. Kowalski train you no matter what. She’s been bugging me to get her an apprentice since before she died, and having a powerful Shaman who isn’t psycho or corrupt is a win for my city whether you decide to become my priest or not. But do please keep my offer in mind.” She reached out to touch my hand with Dr. Kowalski’s calloused fingers. “I’ve heard you say you hate me sometimes, Opal, but what you don’t know is how much I hate those parts of me, too. We both want to break free of who we were, but unlike you humans, I can’t do it alone. A city is only as good as those who call her home, so I hope you’ll be proud to call me your city someday.”

  That was her best pitch yet. Looking at the DFZ, I could actually see a way out for once. One that didn’t involve dragons or betrayals or once-in-a-lifetime feats of money grubbing. It did, however, require bowing my head to yet another unbeatable power, and while I was feeling a lot more kindly toward the DFZ than toward my father right now, I didn’t know if I could ever do that again.

  “I—”

  “Ah,” the spirit said, covering my mouth with her hand, which smelled faintly of wet pavement. “Not yet. Go home and think about it. When you’re ready, I’ll appear, just like a god should.”

  I couldn’t decide if that was comforting or terrifying, but the spirit in front of me was already vanishing, her gaunt, hungry face crumpling back into the prodigious wrinkles of the old lady gardener.

  “My, my,” Dr. Kowalski said in her creaky, mortal voice. “She hasn’t come on that hard in a while. She must really like you.”

  I nodded absently, staring down at my potato on the floor. “What’s it like?” I asked quietly. “Being hers?”

  “Like most things,” the doctor said as she pushed herself out of her chair. “Little good, little bad. I didn’t get much of a choice, of course. When she made that pitch to me, I was already dead. It was go with her or be lost forever in the black swells of the Sea of Magic, which made the decision pretty easy.” She chuckled, and then her face grew serious. “For what it’s worth, she’s been a good god to me. She’s preserved my knowledge and listened to my advice, and she lets me plant whatever I want here. Like all deities, she demands to be put first, so you won’t be able to have much of a life outside her. But she’s fair, and the work is interesting. You could do a lot worse.”

  She gave me a smile, but I couldn’t work up the energy to return it. Now that the DFZ’s crushing magic had faded, I was suddenly too overwhelmed and exhausted to speak.

  “Go home,” Dr. Kowalski ordered. “There’s a cab waiting at the edge of the woods, and I promise the hike will be shorter this time. Make sure you get at least eight hours of sleep, or your soul might not reattach.”

  The terror of that was enough to finally get me moving. I thanked her and left, picking up my potato and clutching it to my chest like a talisman as I walked out of the house and into the woods, which were now drenched in bright morning sunlight.

  As promised, the walk was much shorter this time. The garden had barely vanished into the trees behind me before I spotted the autocab waiting on the same tiny stretch of pavement where the previous one had dropped me off. Moving in a rush, I stumbled past the clusters of magic monitors and threw myself inside the tiny vehicle, collapsing into the bucket seat as I punched in my address. When we started rolling, I pulled out my phone to check the time and see why Sibyl was so quiet. The answer turned out to be seven a.m. and because my internet was still reconnecting. I could almost feel my AI’s curiosity building to a crescendo as the little connection wheel spun, but I didn’t feel like answering questions, so I went ahead and put her on mute, leaning my head against the cool plastic window as I waited for the cab to take me home.

  Chapter 6

  I woke up much later to the sound of my phone buzzing on my nightstand.

  I reached out groggily, worming my hand through the hazard course of pillows, duvets, and other tassel-covered gewgaws that carpeted my ridiculous new bed. I’d meant to throw it all on the floor, but I’d been so tired when I got home that I’d just collapsed right on top of the pile. I hadn’t even gotten undressed. I must have made it under the covers at some point, though, because I was buried now. That was a state I had no interest in changing as I tugged my phone under the covers with me.

  “’lo?”

  “Where are you?”

  I frowned. That was Nik’s voice, and he sounded…Not panicked—Nik never panicked—but whatever the next step down was. “At home?”

  There was a hiss over the speakers as he let out a sharp breath of relief. “Are you okay?”

  My body felt like I’d been hit by a truck, my eyes were gummy, my head was on fire, and I wanted to sleep for another month. Other than that… “I’m fine,” I said around a giant yawn. “What time is it?”

  “One in the afternoon.”

  Ah, that explained it. I’d only been asleep for five, maybe six hours. That was two short of the eight Dr. Kowalski had ordered and definitely not enough to recover from a full day of Cleaning, a hangover, and an all-nighter. I was about to ask Nik if I could go back to sleep now that he’d verified my status when the almost-panic returned to his voice.

  “What happened last night?

  That woke me up. “You don’t remember?”

  “Not a damn thing,” he said, clearly furious. “Last I remember, the idiot with the bad i
mplants was trying to use you as a hostage. Next thing I know, I’m waking up on my couch with the mother of all headaches.”

  I sank into my pillows with a giddy sigh of relief. He didn’t remember what had happened in the parking lot. Finally, a stroke of luck. Maybe I wasn’t doomed after all! But while I was celebrating my unexpected good fortune, Nik was sounding more and more freaked out.

  “How did I get here?” he demanded. “How did we escape the roof? Why do I feel like I went on a giant bender? I don’t even drink!”

  “That was me, I’m afraid,” I said, trying to sound properly contrite and not as if I’d just dodged a bullet. “I kinda blasted everyone on the roof with magic. You got hit with hard backlash and blacked out, but so did the bad guys.”

  “But not you?”

  “Oh no, I ate it too,” I said. “I’m used to things blowing up on me, though, so I recovered fast. I grabbed you while the others were still down, and we GTFOed.”

  Nik let out another relieved breath. “Thank you.”

  I was really hoping he’d leave it there, but I should have known better. Nik was what my mother would have called “detail oriented.” If something didn’t make sense, he was fundamentally unable to let it go until he’d picked out all the inconsistencies, even for his own miraculous rescue.

  “How did you get us out, though?” he pressed. “I’ve never seen you lift two hundred pounds, so there’s no way you carried me. How did you get me back to my apartment?”

  “You weren’t totally out,” I said, feeding him the truth in carefully sanitized bites. “You could walk if you leaned on me, so I helped you into your car and then drove you back to your place.”