Vitrified Souls
J Simon
The last door was assembled from brightly colored, lacquered masks, all bulging-cheeked and tusk-mouthed and pop-eyed. They looked like decent, stand-up guys. Who wanted to eat my face, admittedly, but given my face-first method of eating most desserts, that was kind of excusable.
“Hey, Iggy!” I said, trying to stuff my head into the fanged maw of one scowling mask. “Take a picture!”
Anthony Eagleton stared at me. He was about the biggest mortal I’d ever seen, with an eyepatch opposite his one good eye (my efforts to bedazzle it with imitation rhinestones, sadly, were yet to be crowned with success). On his back was a rucksack packed with a literally insane number of weird, unlikely, and downright impossible guns.
Iggy gave his head a little shake. “You know how we’ve spent the last two hours fighting our way to the heart of an evil god’s lair, and we’re seconds away from charging guns a-blazin’ into the final battle of good against evil? Yeah? Just checking,” he said. “But no, Sammy, you stop and buy souvenirs, that’s cool.”
“I’m god,” I said dismissively. “I literally can’t lose.”
“Carcinus is a god, too.”
“So what? He lacks style,” I said flatly.
“Do I need to point out that you’re wearing bunny slippers at this very moment?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Iggy grinned. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
I smoothed down the chunky gold plates that crossed my white linen robes from shoulder to hip. Was there anyone out there who still remembered my name, much less worshiped me? I had the mystical power to fall down stairs, like, really hard without getting hurt. Carcinus, on the other hand, employed millions of people to ceaselessly chant his name in his pray-factories. His power was both vast and all too real.
“You ready?” Iggy asked.
“Sure thing,” I lied.
Iggy smiled, reaching over so that we could clink our wedding rings together. I think that means that I owned him, but I decided not to mention it. Mortals have this weird reaction to obviously true statements: The last time I explained my thoughts on marriage to him, Iggy burst into uncontrollable laughter. It was almost as bad as the time I tried to demonstrate the sound of one hand clapping by flapping the lid of a pizza box back and forth.
Iggy put his hand on the door, nodded, and took a deep breath. “All set? GO!”
I burst through the door, Iggy right behind me. I’d insisted on going first, since a god—however minor—is kind of indestructible, whereas mortals explode if they blow out a birthday candle too hard. I think. I generally sneak in and eat the whole cake in advance just to keep Iggy safe. Weird he hasn’t thanked me yet.
We found ourselves in a huge underground chamber that stretched nearly as far as I could see. The vast, three-hundred-foot crab-thing that was Carcinus loomed in the middle distance. Considerably closer was a mob of demons, spirits, and godlings that rushed toward us, drooling and snarling.
Iggy pulled out a gun and started firing immediately, blasting our attackers with incredible speed and accuracy. He looked almost bored as he tossed aside spent guns and pulled out fresh ones. The demons rushed at him, unimpressed—you want to challenge a god with a pathetic metal stick that goes ‘bang’? But something funny happened. When you fire the crystallized tears of saints down a barrel inscribed with runes of ruin and devastation at a substantial fraction of mach three, even a god can be knocked permanently dormant.
“So much for the easy ones,” Iggy announced, tossing the last rifle aside. “Look sharp.”
A small cloud of creepy fireballs swooped toward Iggy, each with a pop-eyed human head at its center making ghastly facial expressions. Yeah, we’d read about these, and we’d come prepared. I lobbed a tub of the special ice cream we’d made to Iggy—nice and minty, and with human faces (well, okay, doll heads) lodged inside. Iggy flung scoops of it at the fireballs. They didn’t seem to know whether they should be offended by, attracted to, or sickened by it. While they floated around in confused circles, Iggy leaped at them with wands in both hands, slashing mystical patterns through the air with deadly speed and accuracy. In moments, all of the fireballs were gone.
“Mine!” I shouted, facing a thing like a tower of gross, slimy eyeballs. The slurping noises alone were spectacularly disturbing. We’d read about this one, too, and I was ready for it. I pranced up to the thing, pulled out a bag of Cheez-Lykes brand imitation-flavor flavored crisps, and blew a double handful of radioactive-orange powder all over it. The eyeballs didn’t seem capable of blinking. Instead, they collapsed to the ground with the grossest sucking-squishing sound in the history of ever.
“See?!” I demanded. “I had to eat sixty bags of Cheez-Lykes so I could collect the powder! It was necessary!”
“Agree to disagree,” Iggy grunted, focused fully on the enormous, headless beast that was trying to crush him. He finally managed to stick a pre-glued teddy-bear head on top of its shoulders. The beast shuddered, its desire to kill suddenly at odds with the vapid “I wuv you!” smile on its face. It fell on its side and twitched.
I found myself facing a triple-jawed ape-like creature that, to judge by the length of her arms, was really good at hugging. I wasn’t sure what she was, and we sure didn’t have anything prepared for her. I weaved from side to side, confident that flinging my hands around at random was pretty much the same thing as knowing kung-fu. I mean, I’m god, right? Just by random chance, I’m sure my flailing fists were doing something super impressive. The problem was, the ape-thing dodged and weaved and stayed just out of reach, almost as if she knew what I was going to do before I did.
“Iggy!” I shouted. “We’ve got a mind-reader!”
“Think deep and sexy thoughts about cake frosting,” he suggested, grappling with what looked like an enormous, rainbow-barfing toad.
“What? Cake frosting isn’t sexy,” I said, distracted. “Well, I mean, it kinds of depends on what you do with it. Which brings up the question: Plastic ponchos in the bedroom… yes, or HELL yes? Tell you what. Let me jot down a couple dozen of these ideas…”
The ape-thing whimpered as I gleefully worked up a variety of ways that I could apply cake frosting to Iggy. I could see it so clearly in my mind. And if you got the kind of frosting that comes with confetti already mixed in…
The mind-reading ape stared dolefully at me and then quite suddenly turned to stone.
“Wait!” I cried. “I didn’t tell you what the little marzipan bananas were for!”
Just like that, the only godling left was a bird-like demon twisted together from freshly dead corpses. It was almost too easy. I feinted left, distracting it. Iggy threw a punch that was intended to miss. The bird-thing snapped at him, and I simply stuck my head into its fanged maw. It was kind of like getting a disturbingly wet, saliva-flavored massage, but it certainly couldn’t eat me. What can I say? There are certain advantages to being a god. While the bird-thing was occupied, Iggy put the Pixie-Breaker to its head and finished it with a single shot.
“Well, I guess this is it,” Iggy said. He gazed up at Carcinus, who rather oddly hadn’t moved, intervened, or done anything as we took out his mob of hench-demons.
“The final battle,” I agreed.
“We don’t really have a chance, do we?” Iggy mused. “The last time we faced Carcinus, he kind of kicked our ass. He was too much for us then, and he’s a damn sight more powerful now. Getting out of here alive… it would take a miracle.”
“I specialize in miracles,” I snarled, then stopped, my jaw dropping. “Iggy! I did it! I sounded badass! Wait. Maybe I should have said, ‘Yowza-yowza, I’m god: I’m made of miracles, bitch!’ Wait. Set me up again. I have a great line about flaming chimp farts that’ll really made you think!”
Iggy smiled crookedly. “What I’m trying to say, while I still can, is that you’ve given me more joy than any one man could possibly deserve. I love you.”
“Thanks!”
Iggy looked at me. Just that. Smiling a little as he waited. I groaned, collapsing limply to the ground.
“Oh, come on! I’m a god! Admitting that I loved a mortal would be embarrassing. Even if he is… kind of…” I flapped my hand. “Well, you know. Somehow, when I look into your eyes, all the annoying mortal things that you do just… don’t matter any more. All right, fine! Savor hearing a god say something crazy, naughty, and downright irresponsible: I love you.”
“Thanks,” he said, winking with his good eye.
I got up. I took a deep breath. My hand crept into his, and we turned at last to face Carcinus himself.
The crab-like shell towered three hundred feet over us. We walked slowly closer and closer to the vast looming thing. I couldn’t shake the feeling that me taking on Carcinus was like a mortal trying to reverse continental drift by kicking the ground real hard. He was just a wee bit more powerful than me, is what I’m saying. On the other hand, Iggy and I weren’t about to stand aside while he drowned the world in pain and suffering. Here we were and here we stood, for better or for worse.
“What the hell…?” Iggy said, looking stunned. As we walked around the great carapace, a vast jagged rift became visible. It wasn’t Carcinus we were looking at: It was a huge, empty shell.
“He shed his skin?” I said dubiously. “Wouldn’t we have noticed if an even bigger crab-god started chowing down on Tokyo?”
“That’s assuming he got bigger,” Iggy pointed out. “Once Carcinus escaped the tainted worship that imprisoned him in this form, he could have become anything. He could be the same size as you and me, now.” He turned in a slow circle, scowling. “He could be anywhere.”
“So what do we do?” I said helplessly.
“We need information, advice… and help,” Iggy slowly said. “We have to go back to the museum.”
I
Iggy and I ambled across one of the many stone pedestrian bridges that arched over the river. Ahead of us was the excitingly chunky tower of the Humanities building. Right next to it was Inhumanities. After a while, you come to expect these things.
The river wound through the heart of the University, accompanied by the winding stretch of parkland that bracketed it on both sides. Everywhere I looked were swaying trees just barely tinged with autumn colors, gently rolling lawns, and students so absorbed in their phones that I could make a game of leapfrogging over them before they knew what was happening (not that I generally made it over them; but then, being that I’m god, I’m presumably perfect, which means that I can’t improve, which means that I can’t learn. Huh. Jumping on students is apparently holy and good!).
“Care to explain this?” Iggy said, holding out a tablet computer. It was showing rather grainy hidden-camera footage of him brushing his teeth.
“Well, a happening god like me deserves more worship! Surely you agree?”
Iggy smiled crookedly. “If it warms your weird little heart, hell, feel free to assume that I do.”
“So. I’m putting together a reality TV show. It’s going to be huge. Just think about it! All of my fans focusing on my show, thinking about it, obsessing over it… it won’t be the same as real worship, but I’ll take it.”
“Sure. Sure. And what about this part?”
The Iggy on the screen bent over to spit out his toothpaste. My voice suddenly cut in, shrieking wildly with laughter.
I glanced at Iggy. “It’s called a ‘laugh track’. It tells stupid people when to chortle. Don’t look at me like that! I tried increasing the drama first, but you didn’t notice the spider I put on your toothbrush.”
Iggy’s eyebrow rose. “You put a rubber spider on my toothbrush?”
“Rubber?” I said blankly.
Iggy was still making spitting noises when we left the river and made our way past various other campus buildings—Physics, Math, Necro—and arrived at Gods, which was housed in the old Necro building. The last time I’d seen it, it had been a super-simple slab about eight stories tall. Now, the whitish stone had started to turn black, it was sprouting hideous gargoyles all over the place, and every part of it rose to a different height, stepping up and down like a million crazed ziggurats desperately trying to mimic an insane architect’s sweatiest nightmare.
“That’s new,” I said, impressed. “Huh. Containing gods changed Gods. Which brings up the question of why containing me hasn’t changed our apartment. There should at least be a waterslide by now. Ooh! Or a fire pole!”
“That…” Iggy raised his eyebrow. “…actually sounds kind of cool. I may have to worship you harder.”
“Ha! I win again!”
“I said harder,” Iggy pointed out. “Since I usually offer you nothing at all, anything would be an improvement. Even this.” Grinning, he quite deliberately burped at me.
“I am going to smite you so hard,” I said, my voice shaking with suppressed laughter.
We went into Gods. The last time I was here, the interior was a typical grid of classrooms with pale white floors and barf-green tiles (and if your barf isn’t green, may I helpfully suggest that you aren’t eating the right kind of candy?). Now, a great chamber stretched for as far as I could see, its labyrinth of shelves packed with the remnants of the weird, the powerful, the formerly mighty. It hadn’t been rebuilt: The gods themselves had caused it to change. I could see the grid of the old classroom pattern still laid out on the floor, in the form of walls about a foot high. As I experimentally kicked one, a youngish man with a distracted expression came to greet us.
“Walter!” I cried. “How many shrines to me have you built lately?”
“Why is that always your first question?” he said wearily.
“The real issue,” Iggy drawled, “is whether you’ve found Carcinus yet.”
Walter sighed. “Not exactly. I’ve been dealing with my own situation. If you’d come with me…?”
Walter led us down an aisle between shelves. Gleaming golden masks glared at us, and there was real power behind their empty eyes. Stone totems smiled obscurely, ready to steal the dreams of anyone who regarded them too closely. Obsidian scarabs cluttered the shelves, somehow moving into weird new configurations every time I looked away. The museum was one of two great repositories of fossilized gods in the entire world, and powers both vast and not-so-dormant surrounded us on all sides. As I watched, a particularly grouchy mask extended a tendril of pure, crushing force toward Iggy. It didn’t even get close: Naturally, the world’s foremost practical gods expert was wearing a pendant he’d fashioned to ward off everyday, low-level threats. The tendril yanked back as if stung, then moved toward Walter, only to find that the world’s foremost theoretical gods expert also wore such a pendant. It jerked back again, then reached toward me. I almost felt sorry for the poor thing as I just stood there, smiling beautifully at the world. Yeah, sorry, but a god doesn’t have to play your little games. Well, unless they involve shooting candy at weirdly mouthy zombies on my phone every night.
We came to Walter’s office. It was neatly ordered and completely devoid of pizza boxes: Some people are very different from me. There was a window overlooking what I can only assume was an exciting and mystical parking lot.
“I’ve been dealing with this,” Walter said grimly, opening a drawer and slamming a plush toy crab onto his desk.
“Happy Dancing Construction Crab-Man!” I cried. “Hey, did you know that his toys poop out tinier plush crabs if you feed them marshmallows?”
“Yeah, I don’t think we need to be giving Carcinus any more attention,” Iggy said darkly. “He’s plenty close to destroying the world without any of your literary pseudo-worship.”
The plush toy seemed to come alive. It stretched, looked around, and grinned as it spotted Iggy.
“So you came,” it squeaked, menacing us with its cute little claws.
“What the hell?” Iggy said blankly. “Carcinus is speaking through one of his avatars… here? I thought we’d given the museum enough protections to ward off that kind of thing.”
“So did I,” Walter said wearily.
“Listen up!” Carcinus insisted in a squeaky little voice. The crab toy paced across the desk, striking a dramatic pose with one foot atop Walter’s keyboard. “There are certain things I require of you. I was mortal, once. I thought that becoming a god would be everything I ever wanted, but I was wrong. Even a god can be contained. Even a god can be… imprisoned. I need more. I need power enough to ensure that no one can ever threaten me again. Believe me, I can pay very well to get what I want. Let’s talk.”
Looking dour, Walter stuffed the plush crab back into the drawer and slammed it closed.
“Let me guess. He wants the Dark Ones?” Iggy asked.
Walter nodded. “No matter how many people he hires to pray for him now, all of his power is new money, so to speak. He wants access to the old gods, avatars of terror and might who’ve been worshiped since the dawn of humanity.”
“I still have nightmares about what it took to collect some of them,” Iggy said mildly. “I’d hate to think what he could do with them.”
“Oh, I’m not going to deal,” Walter said, “but what’ll he do when he figures that out? Carcinus gets kind of stabby when someone gets between him and something he wants.”
Iggy nodded seriously. “Then we’d better deal with him. Given the museum’s defenses, Carcinus can’t be far away. I don’t care how powerful he is, he’s not talking to us from halfway across the world. He’s close. Very close. If we can just find him…” Iggy frowned, thinking hard. “He couldn’t be hiding somewhere inside the museum itself, could he?”
Walter frowned. “I don’t think so.” He picked up a celestiomachy, a device which looked like a pocketwatch that had been designed by a wizard who’d heard about these things called ‘gears’ but wasn’t sure he fully trusted them. Walter studied it, shook it, studied it again. “Nothing. Well, other than the usual madness of the museum.”
“Really?” Iggy said. “Let me have a look.”
I was starting to get bored. Believe me, when god gets bored, every mortal in the area should tremble in fear. The last time I was this bored, I had to climb over Iggy to get at the mints in his pocket, answering his startled ‘Huh?’ with a shouted—’TRUST ME, IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!!’ I looked around, hoping that a passing student had at least dropped a bag of Cheez-Lykes.
Something caught my eye, a huge and imposing figure looming from the shadows. I spun, my hands coming up in what I’m going to assume was a totally awesome kung-fu pose.
“Prepare to be turned into a non-dairy dairy-flavored quasi-quiescent not-yet-but-soon-to-be-frozen snack-treat on a stick!” I snarled.
“Wha?”
“FREEZE, SUCKER!” I bellowed.
The figure stepped out of the shadows. It was a huge norseman, a god like me, and he was carrying a hammer the approximate size and shape of a small automobile slung over one shoulder.
“GROCK!” I yelped, leaping into his arms. “You’re not dormant any more!”
“Grock is mighty!” he announced, thunder crashing around him as he posed majestically. “Grock laughs at those who think they can defeat the GOD of THUNDER!” He paused. “Also, many drunken stinking louts called ‘college students’ performed rituals of worship called ‘drinking games’ by using Grock’s horns to open kegs. But! Their repeated devotions eventually gave Grock the power to wake.” He looked very slightly addled. “As God of Hangovers.”
“That’s real—”
“GROCK WILL DEFEAT ALL HANGOVERS BY SHOUTING MIGHTILY!!!” he bellowed.
“What about Zaram and Echo? Are they awake yet?” I asked eagerly.
Grock’s expression told me all I needed to know. “Many drinking games has Grock invented, to give them power. Someday, one of them will work. Yes. Soon.”
“I’m sure it will,” I said, patting his enormous arm.
Iggy and Walter were still talking about something stupid. You know, saving the world, blah blah blah. Look. If you want the world to be ‘perfect’, or Sammy-licious, as I’ve heard some people (me!) call it, logically you should spend all your time worshiping me. ‘Sammy is mighty’ equals ‘world is perfect’. Trust me! I checked my math three times so you wouldn’t have to. I’m just that considerate!
Instead of getting bogged down in mortal trifles (seriously, if you’re that upset about getting sealed inside a giant banana cream pie while you’re asleep, try complaining in some less dramatic way than asphyxiating half to death, Iggy), I let Grock show me around the museum. Nothing was the way I remembered it. There were still regional collections from all around the world, but Walter had organized things by time period, religion, and general attitude toward humanity (from ‘wish-granting’ to ‘extra-stabby’). Little informational signs were everywhere, though the words had a tendency to run and drip off and leave toothy paper maws that grinned indecently at whoever passed. Not that everything was out to get us: In the India collection, there was a burnished brass statue of a wise old bird wearing a crown that had always felt friendly to me for some reason. I rubbed its polished head for luck, felt a flush of comforting warmth, and smiled. Grock, meanwhile, regaled me with a long, rhyming saga about his attempts to defeat the giant norseman who mockingly appeared in every single reflective surface he looked into. Really.
I’m not sure how, but we ended up back at Walter’s office again. No one was inside any more. There was just the desk, the computer, numerous pads of paper densely filled with arcane scribbles, Walter’s celestiomachy, and a tray containing neatly organized miscellany ranging from paper clips to a lone doorknob. I idly picked up the celestiomachy to see how many of its hands would point at me. I paused, feeling something strange. I turned it over. There, inscribed in lines of force that no mortal could see, was a tiny staring eye—the dark mark that Carcinus had been using to channel his dire power into the museum.
“Oh, cle-ver,” I said. “Putting it in the one place the celestiomachy couldn’t find!”
“Huhn?” Grock asked, trying to scratch his head and accidentally bashing himself in the head with his hammer.
“Trust me. Once I trace this back to its source, things are going to get wildly exciting. All I have to do is—”
“Is Professor Hittenmiller in?” asked a glum voice. Looking up, I found a grey little monk standing in the doorway. Literally grey. Another minor god, then. Given that the museum was more or less full of them, it wasn’t exactly a surprise.
“Sorry, but he’s off throwing bananas at universe-devouring slime-beings in hopes of discovering a new taste sensation. At least, he would be, if he let himself be guided by me. Can I take a message?”
“I’m Saint Augustine,” he said, as if that explained anything.
“A saint? Really?” I said, intrigued. “I have some friends who are saints. They keep sending me on quests to recover their heads from piles of holy lion poop. Frankly, I think they’re having me on. What happened to you? No scars… no stigmata… let me guess: You died from a holy splinter after you tried to eat a piece of the True Cross to keep it out of the hands of pagans?”
Saint Augustine shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter what you think.”
“If you don’t deny, that means I’m right!” I said smugly. “Of course, it’s not really guessing when you’re omniscient. Now, what was I doing? Oh yeah! The celestiomachy!”
“What’s that?” Saint Augustine said curiously, pointing to something just outside the office. Looking up, I saw a bag of Cheez-Lykes that some student must have dropped there. ‘SPICE-POCALYPTIC!!!,’ the lightning-bolt-shaped text screamed. ‘The Alpha and Omega of all snacks! TASTE THEIR CHEEZINESS AND DESPAIR!!!”
“MINE!” I shouted, tossing the celestiomachy back on the desk and pouncing on them.
“You should see the gods I usually have to put up with,” Saint Augustine said thoughtfully. “I can already tell that you’re better than all of them put together.”
“I really am great,” I said around a mouth full of Cheez-Lykes. “Hey, want some super-cool scars to show off to your holier-than-thou saintly friends? Three words: ‘Running with scissors’. Try it!”
“The thing is…”
“GROCK IS BORED!” Grock helpfully bellowed.
“I think I just saw a raven fly past!” I said, pointing in a random direction. “It insulted you, your mother, and your mother’s sampo, Grock! Are you going to stand for that?”
“REVENGE!!!” Grock bellowed, sprinting off into the museum.
“So that’s done with. Now, you were telling me how much better than every other god I am?”
Saint Augustine put his hand on my shoulder. “It may be so,” he admitted. “I cannot yet tell. I have been following the one called ‘Walter’, in case he can help me with my own…”
I spotted Iggy and Walter coming up a nearby aisle. I turned to Saint Augustine… and found myself staring at a glum, grey statue. He’d turned into stone again.
“There you are!” Iggy said amiably. “Well, we couldn’t find any sign of Carcinus in the museum. I figure we should check out Walter’s apartment next. It Carcinus isn’t here, we figure he must be somewhere that Walter spends a lot of time.”
“You’ll be happy to know that, while you were engaging in the usual mortal practices of ‘failure’ and ‘futility’, I was solving the universe,” I said, picking up Walter’s celestiomachy. “While you were wasting your time throwing bananas at squid, I was… uh…”
I stared at the little device. The dark mark wasn’t there any more. Had it been designed to erase itself the moment it was found? I knew Carcinus had the power. I just hadn’t known he had the sophistication.
Iggy glanced at the statue of Saint Augustine. “What the hell’s that, and where did it come from?”
“Oh, that’s nothing. Just another minor godlet. He said I was the bestest god in the history of the universe! Practically!”
Iggy glanced at me. “He’s okay? You’re sure?”
“I’m always sure,” I retorted. “Remember when I threw a non-stop six-hour tantrum because you wouldn’t admit that coffee is gross?”
“I’m entitled to my opinion,” he said guardedly.
“Just like I’m entitled to point out that it’s wrong!” I said brightly. “Anyway, he’s cool. Trust me!”
“Every time you say ‘trust me!’, a piece of my soul dies,” Iggy said lugubriously.
“Easy lesson: If you want to keep your soul intact, trust me all the time always. Then I’ll never have to say it again. Trust me!”
Iggy sighed. “We’ll be checking out your apartment, then,” he told Walter. “You want to give me the address?”
Walter nodded. “Sure,” he said, pulling out his phone. “I’ll send it to you.”
“Nice phone,” I commented.
“I know! Can you believe Doctor Roquefort just gave it to me?” Walter sent the message and put it away. “Anyway, I’d come with you, but I have class.”
“I HAVE COMPELLING PROOF TO THE CONTRARY!” I bellowed, and then laughed like crazy. “Oh, come on! That was funny!”
“Sure it was,” Iggy said supportively. “Anything you say.”
I narrowed my eyes, but I wasn’t completely sure he was making fun of me. To cover all my bases, I decided to give him some intriguing Christmas presents that contained nothing but pictures of me flipping him off. No, that would be too mean. Maybe I’d hand him the pictures while I was wearing fuzzy dinosaur slippers… and nothing else. No, that would be too nice. Maybe I needed to get waffles involved somehow. A true artist strives to strike the perfect balance when she denigrates her husband.
“What’s your position on maple syrup?” I asked judiciously.
Walter headed off to meet his class: Glancing one last time at Saint Augustine, I fell in beside Iggy and we headed toward Walter’s apartment.
* * *
The walk across campus was a lot more exciting than it should have been, thanks to my growing suspicion that all of those scampering squirrels were just a little too cute. What if they were all part of some vast government conspiracy against me?
“—AND YOUR FURRY LITTLE MOTHER, TOO!!!” I shouted, shaking my fist at the nearest fluff-beast.
“I’m not going to ask,” Iggy muttered, “I’m not going to ask…”
We reached Walter’s building. It wasn’t much. Just a rectangular brick structure a mere two stories high. Apparently, his apartment was on the second floor, and he’d even given us the key. It was a little deflating that we didn’t have to be all stealthy and slip past a bunch of evil motorcycle gangs or anything: I did a super-sweet somersault on the front lawn, the kind that secret agents do when they’re avoiding tangles of red laser tripwires, just to make a point.
“I’m really not going to ask,” Iggy muttered. “Well, shall we go in?”
“Just a sec.” I took out my phone and started recording. “Yes, it’s true… your evil twin is your father!!!”
“Huh?”
“For my TV show.” I put my phone away. “Don’t worry, I can dub in an appropriately dramatic reply later. My ‘Iggy’ voice is totally on point. Listen to this!” I dropped my voice an octave. “Arrr, matey. Guns!”
“That’s…” Iggy’s mouth worked. “Super accurate. You will let me watch the show when you’re done, right? And just so you know, my Sammy-worshiping mantra sounds an awful lot like hysterical laughter. Just to clear that up.”
“Are you making fun of me?” I demanded.
“Maybe a little,” Iggy smirked.
“Bah. You think you’re so great at embarrassing me, but I’m god! I can humiliate myself to an infinite extent!” I bragged. I stopped. “Wait.”
Before I could figure out whether or not I’d crushed him completely, I spotted a tall, elegant mortal hurrying down the sidewalk toward us. Time normally does hilarious things to mortals—think ‘if raisins could sing’—but on her, it looked good. Plus, her deep-red clothes were so carefully cut that it was impossible to tell whether they were meant to be a business suit or wizard robes. She was also about the last person I wanted to see just then.
“Doctor Roquefort,” I said sourly.
“That’s Mad Doctor Roquefort,” she said, winking. “I have a reputation to live down to.”
“How did you know we were here?”
“Let’s just say that Professor Hittenmiller tipped me off… whether he meant to or not. Nice phone I gave him, wouldn’t you say?”
Iggy made a face. “Do I still have to be nice to you?” he asked. “What I’m asking is, are you still President of the university?”
“Not… entirely,” she admitted. “I don’t know what the regents were so upset about. I had all of those students brought back to life! And as an extra-special plus, three of them can now talk to dead things, which has to be a real laugh in the butcher’s department. Anyway,” she said, “I resigned. Sort of. Depending on your interpretation of the fine print in the severance contract I signed. My lawyers are still arguing just how much control I have over the university.” She glanced at us. “For example. I definitely have authority over you two. You will accompany me to Necro right now and we’ll go over a few simple little assignments I have for you.”
“Yeah, see, there’s this thing that happens when people order me around,” Iggy said casually, his fingers curling into a fist. “Oops! Happening again, isn’t it? Getting a little twitchy, too. Too bad I’m allergic to authority. Makes me fling my arms around in a weird punching motion, it does.” His enormous biceps twitched. Mad Doctor Roquefort took a pragmatic step backward.
“I’m sure your threats are incredibly terrifying to stupid people,” she said calmly, “but you and I are smarter than that. If you took a swing at me, I could have you suspended and barred from campus… indefinitely. Wouldn’t it be simpler to fall in line and obey? Tell you what. Forget Necro… we can go and talk at Gods. On your home turf, even!”
“No sale,” Iggy growled. “Some crab-faced clown thinks he can haunt my friends. I aim to prove him wrong by delivering a few dozen bullet-shaped arguments to his chelicerae, like, really fast.”
“The thing is—” Mad Doctor Roquefort paused as her phone rang. She checked it, made a face, and put it back in her pocket. “Acting President Benson actually thinks he runs the university,” she said. “Now, Mr. Eagleton, I’ll give you one more chance. Will you come with me willingly… or is this about to get amusing?”
While they argued, I glanced at Roquefort’s phone. So she was butting heads with Acting President Benson, was she? I concentrated, focusing all of my godly omniscience on that name. I took out my own phone and dialed a random series of numbers without really thinking about it.
“Pizza Palace,” said a sprightly voice.
“This isn’t my fault,” I told Iggy. “I operate on a higher mental plane, which means that I can concentrate on the really important things in life without even being aware of it.” I hung up, concentrated again, and dialed another random set of numbers.
“Acting President Benson,” said a mild voice.
“This is Samantha Harrington-Eagleton-Smythe, here with Anthony Eagleton and Doctor Elisa Roquefort,” I told him. “She’s trying to tell us that we can’t go into our friend’s apartment!”
“Well, of course not,” he said reasonably. “You’re to come directly to the administration building. You answer to my authority, not hers.”
“What?” I said, stunned.
“Come to the administration building. Now. That’s an order.”
I looked helplessly at Iggy, who was still arguing with Mad Doctor Roquefort. She was calm, smiling slightly, completely untroubled by his attempts to evade her. How could we beat her… and Benson? Just then, a weird, sassy little thought occurred to me. What if we didn’t beat them? What if we lost?
“All right,” I told Acting President Benson. “We give up. We’ll do exactly as you say.”
“That’s better. Come directly here. That’s an order.”
He hung up, and I waved my hand at Iggy, mouthing ‘Give up. GIVE UP!’. He scowled, but finally obeyed. It made me feel warm and fuzzy, knowing how much he trusted me.
“Fine,” Iggy said shortly to Roquefort. “I guess we’ll do whatever you want, then.”
“Of course you will,” she said, smiling. “There really wasn’t any other decision you could make. Now, if you’ll just come with me…”
“Oh, just one more thing,” I said, beginning to enjoy myself. “We’ve been given directly contradictory orders by you and Acting President Benson. Why don’t the two of you get this sorted out so we can obey the winner?”
Mad Doctor Roquefort scowled, pulling out her phone. It took less than a minute for her to place the call.
“Benson? Roquefort. I don’t appreciate the way you’ve been going around giving orders. Eagleton clearly falls under my— oh, your lawyers say that, do they? Have they considered the zombie accountants I have waiting and ready in their parking lot?”
Mad Doctor Roquefort paced back and forth, her face growing redder and redder as her half of the argument grew steadily louder. I took a cautious step back. She didn’t seem to notice. I took a second, and then a third.
“How the hell did you do that?” Iggy said appreciatively, stepping back alongside me.
“Remember those super-irritating god-slugs we fought in Algeria?” I said. “The more of them we squished, the more we got covered in super-slimy ectoplasm. But then we realized we could just give up and let them fight each other for all our stuff! After three minutes, they were too involved in the battle to notice us sneaking away. This was the same thing, kind of, if you think about it.”
“I like the way you think,” he said appreciatively. I may or may not have glowed with pleasure at the compliment. Maybe literally, given that I’m god. If it were darker out, I could have said for sure.
Iggy and I kept taking little steps backward. Doctor Roquefort strode back and forth, gesticulating wildly, far too involved in her argument to notice. Finally, we ducked behind the building and hurried over to the back door.
“This had better work,” Iggy grumbled, trying the key. The door promptly opened.
“Too bad,” I said. “I have a superior godly technique for getting through doors.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“I sprint as fast as I can and kind of splat face-first into them,” I said with gusto.
Iggy eyed me. “And that works?”
“Well, eventually. Doors break. My face doesn’t. Just give me a week or two and watch out!”
“I should have known,” Iggy said, amused. “Come on.” He led me into the apartment building. The hallway was boring. The stairs were boring. Door number six was boring. Would it kill the landlord to build just one waterslide? Iggy opened the door, and we entered Walter’s apartment. It was kind of halfway between neat and messy, as in, he organized things, but by sorting them into piles on the floor. The general lack of snack foods I found unacceptable and potentially worthy of a smiting.
“Well?” Iggy asked, looking at me.
“I grant you the boon of choosing the manner of your own dying,” I said, which is my default answer when I’ve forgotten what I’m supposed to be doing.
“Fine. This is how I die: You finally go crazy and build a brownie the size of Mount Everest,” he narrated, “which is so big that it generates its own internal heat, resulting in a tragically delicious pseudo-volcanic eruption of molten fudge which turns into the most delectable pyroclastic flow of all time. I’m frozen into place for eternity, a chocolate statue screaming with deliciousness.”
“Someone’s been listening to my podcast!” I said happily.
“So,” he said patiently, looking at me, “has Carcinus been in here or not?”
“Oh! Let me look.”
I closed my eyes. The intrinsic weirdness of godly interference should have been easy to sense, if there was any. Sadly, the place was as boring as it looked, blandly obeying the laws of physics like a chump. All right, there were a few bright sparks of chaos and power where Walter had brought something home from the museum, but they lacked the sure power and dark purpose that tainted everything Carcinus dealt with.
“Nope,” I said. “Nothing.”
“Are you sure?” Iggy said, frowning. “Something about this place feels… off.”
“About time you got here,” someone said. Scowling, Iggy walked over to Walter’s desk, where there were a bunch of newspaper cuttings. One of them had a picture of Happy Dancing Construction Crab-Man… which is to say, Carcinus. The creature in the photograph turned, gazing at us with smug satisfaction.
“Sammy?” Iggy growled. “Didn’t you just say this place was clean?”
“I checked everything! Really! It was boring just a second ago!”
“How I got here doesn’t matter,” the picture of Carcinus said smoothly. “What matters is that I’m here now. Shall we get down to business? I want power. The deepest, darkest, mightiest gods in the museum will do. The two of you could speak to Mr. Hittenmiller on my behalf.”
“Like fun we will,” Iggy snapped, shaking the newspaper clipping. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t wipe my ass with you right now.”
Carcinus smiled at him. “There are… other ways for me to get what I want besides dealing with Mr. Hittenmiller. Sudden earthquakes. Failing dams. Inexplicable droughts. You see, mortals who are truly, deeply desperate will give anything to the god who offers them a hand up. Even their very souls.”
“But you caused all those disasters!” I cried.
Carcinus winked at me. “No. You caused them. By forcing me to do things the long way round. By forcing me to kill millions on my way to extracting the worship of billions. Don’t you think that selling me a mere few gods wouldn’t leave us all better off?”
“Iggy’s fist in your face,” I snapped.
“What?”
“No, see, you’re supposed to screech with evil laughter and dance around shouting—’Ha ha, what could stop me now, my pretties!’ And then I say—”
“I get the picture,” Carcinus said tautly.
“So do I.” Iggy grinned. “Good girl.”
I looked again for dark and weird power. This time, the photograph practically screamed with a nasty sort of energy. There was a trail leading back from it, to… a staring eye inscribed in invisible lines on my own shoulder. Damn it! It was hidden in the one place I was least likely to look… again! I irritably wiped the mark off my shoulder, and the picture instantly stopped moving. Then I realized, if I’d been thinking straight, I could have followed the mark back to its maker and found Carcinus. Oops.
“It’s a mystery how he got in here,” I told Iggy. “I guess we’ll never know. And he made it totally untraceable, too. So clever!”
“Uh-huh,” Iggy said dourly, checking his celestiomachy. “He found a way to follow us, but I don’t think he’d been here before. I think we can clear Walter’s apartment.”
“I’d agree with that.”
“We didn’t find Carcinus in the museum. Which means, if he’s been messing with Walter, it must have been at some third location. We’ll need to check the route Walter uses when he walks to work and back.”
“I guess,” I said unhappily. “Why couldn’t this have been easy? Why couldn’t we stroll into the museum, Walter tells us where Carcinus is, we stick a cocktail umbrella in his eye and laugh all the way to Hawaii?”
“Nothing is ever easy,” Iggy said helpfully. He offered me his arm. “Care for a stroll, m’lady?”
“I’m a god, moron. Offering me your arm like I’m some kind of helpless cripple is the height of bad taste. It would be a lot less offensive if you offered to let me overcome some form of adversity to come with you. Say, if you were continuously punching me in the face!”
Iggy smirked. “I’ll think about it,” he promised. He offered me his arm again. What the hell. I took it. I just didn’t mention the arcane and sexy rituals he was going to have to perform if he wanted to get it back.
* * *
We decided to risk calling Walter to find out what route he took when he walked to the museum. Even if Roquefort was tapping his calls, she was probably too busy to mess with us just now.
“Still looking for Carcinus?” Walter asked. “We might as well do this right—I’ll send a grad student with some of my more sensitive equipment. Let’s see… why don’t you wait for her at the sandstone bridge?”
“And how’ll we know it’s her?” Iggy asked.
“We grab the first person who looks like they just robbed Frankenstein’s lab,” I pointed out. “Either it’s her, or we make a theater student pee her pants in terror. Sounds like a win-win to me!”
“Works for me,” Iggy admitted.
We walked down to the river and ambled through the park, crossing arching stone bridges and staring luridly at ducks (well, one of us did). New thought: If scaring people makes their hair stand on end, would scaring a squirrel poof it into a perfect sphere? I was still trying to sneak up on a squirrel when a student-looking girl strode down the path toward us. She was short and curvy, dark complexioned, and carrying a double armload of weird and electro-zappy machinery, if you know what I mean.
“Hey.” She came to a halt, looking up… and up!… at Iggy’s one-eyed giganticness. “I’m Caia Serrano—”
“Kaya?”
“Close enough. You must be Anthony Eagleton.” She glanced at me. “And you’re a god, right?”
“What gave me away?” I purred. “My elegance and charm?”
“Your overwhelming air of smugness,” she said.
“But I’m so loveable!”
Caia looked me up and down. “I have to admit… you are very interesting. I think I hate you.”
“I’ll give you a cookie if you pray to me,” I said persuasively.
Caia snorted, hands on her hips. “I don’t think so. Gods are worthless. Fascinating, but worthless. You want to show me how great you are? My father died when I was little. I want him back.”
I snorted. “And I want to find an off-brand Yummy Gelatin Dessert that makes a great hair dye without being so tempting that I lick it all off of Iggy’s head before he wakes up.”
“What?” Iggy said, startled.
“I agree,” Caia said. “What?”
“It’s simple,” I said. “Just because you demand something doesn’t mean you deserve to have it. You want someone back from the dead? How about you warm me up with some steaming hot worship before you start demanding the moon?”
“That’s a lovely excuse,” Caia noted, “but it’s still an excuse. Maybe your flurry of demands, distractions and diversions would confuse most people, but I know the truth. You can’t do it.”
“I can, too!” I said heatedly. I started toward her, but Iggy put a hand on my arm and held me back.
“You know,” he told Caia, “it sounds to me like you’re bellowing, ‘GIVE ME A PRESENT, YOU JERK!!!’ Should it really be a surprise that you aren’t getting it?”
“There!” I cried. “That!”
He glanced at me. “Of course, given your comments about off-brand gelatin desserts, I’m starting to realize why we have such an ant problem in our bedroom.”
“Quiet, you!”
“Come on,” Caia sighed, shifting the equipment in her arms. “Let’s get this over with.”
We resumed our walk by the river. I periodically looked for dark godly influences. Caia fiddled with various machines and frowned at their assorted flashing lights. Iggy carried all the equipment that she didn’t need at the moment and smiled inscrutably.
“If it helps any, I’m sorry about your father,” I ventured. “I lost my own father when he rode a dinosaur and exploded. I know how it feels.”
“I don’t need your pity,” she said. “Don’t need it, don’t want it. Also, can I ask you a few hundred questions about what it’s like being a god? Also, I hate you. Also, do you want to come to my birthday party?”
“You’ve realized how awesome I am?” I said, pleased.
“Well. Maybe.” Caia hesitated. “Or maybe I want to make fun of you so I can feel better about myself.”
“Some toys are broken before you play with them,” I muttered.
We crossed another bridge, Caia sneaking glances at me in between fiddling with her equipment. “If you must know,” she said, “after my Dad died… I kind of got obsessed with gods, trying to find one that could bring him back. I read every book, watched every cartoon show, bought every home theology set… you know, the kind where you mix silver nitrate with holy water and—POOF!—a giant glowing head appears and laughs at you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I know. That set was tragic. I could never do better than a pair of disembodied glowing eyebrows.” Caia shrugged. “Gods, as a whole, are fascinating. But useless. They’re intrinsically selfish, always demanding, never giving.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Iggy said speculatively. “Whenever I surprise her with a sufficient quantity of pizza, Sammy gives me a—”
“I’m god, and therefore omniscient,” I hastily interrupted. “I literally can’t be surprised, with pizza or otherwise. I’m just pretending, to make you feel better about yourself.”
Iggy grinned. “So I should stop trying, then?”
“I didn’t say that!”
We reached the turn-off that led to the museum. Unfortunately, we hadn’t spotted a single speck of godly interference along the way. Caia grimaced, but showed us a rambling route that Walter sometimes took through a pretty little neighborhood. In the spring, I expected, there would be a lot of flowers to look at. Now there were jack-o’-lanterns which, while less colorful, were also substantially more delicious.
Iggy groaned. “Sammy… do you have to taste them all?”
“Sammy?” Caia glanced at me, frowning slightly. “Wait. Not Samantha le Dieu?”
“You know my pen name?” I said, pleased.
“I found your book ‘Hunting the Hunter’ in the lost-and-found. I thought it was the cleverest spoof of a horribly written romance novel I’d ever read.”
“Spoof?” I said, blinking.
“Well, it was obviously too awful to be real,” Caia explained. “I mean, the heroine spent fifteen pages monologuing about how soup is a degraded form of food!”
“It is!” I cried. “Soup is a holdover from a backward time when getting water took so much effort that—if any was used in making food—you were damn well going to serve it with the food, too!”
“Yes, but why did she have to stop and explain that to her lover right in the middle of seducing him? And, far more importantly, why did it work?”
“Who wouldn’t be turned on by a woman so confident, she doesn’t need her croutons all yucked up with ick?”
“Focus!” Iggy pleaded.
“THIS IS IMPORTANT, DAMN IT!”
Iggy glared at me, or tried to, anyway. There was a bit of a smirk around the edges. I settled down and obediently looked for any sign of a dark god’s interference. Still nothing. We walked down the street, turned a corner, and passed a fresh set of pretty little houses. Nothing here, either.
“I’m a great writer,” I said sullenly.
Caia snorted. “Tell that to the trees who gave their lives so their corpses could be humiliated bearing your words.”
I glared at her. “Iggy couldn’t stop laughing when he read it. When I asked why, he said it was so sexy, he’d burst into flames from sheer passion if he didn’t douse himself in water somehow. My book kept him laughing until he cried for three hours straight!”
“Is she always this oblivious?” Caia asked Iggy.
“I did laugh for three hours straight,” he said. “That’s gotta be worth something.”
“Maybe.” Caia glanced speculatively at me. “I do feel a certain inexplicable pull toward her. Like that little voice urging you to throw yourself off a cliff. ‘Give in! Be her friend! Have a pajama party!’“ She paused, looking thoughtful. “Then again, assuming that my papers are graded on improvement, starting from a place of true awfulness would get me an amazing grade on every paper thereafter. Hey, Sammy, want to co-author an essay with me?”
“I knew she’d come around,” I said confidently. “I can’t be the only one who thinks that breakfast cereal mascots are sexy!”
We wound our way to the end of the route, but there still wasn’t any sign of godly interference. Not that I expected to find Carcinus hiding in the bushes, waiting to pop out and throw little devil dolls at Walter, but stranger things have happened. Just consider my honeymoon with Iggy.
Caia sighed. “Well, that’s two of them. There’s only one more path that Professor Hittenmiller takes.”
Iggy glanced at her. “How do you know?”
“He calls it ‘walk-and-learn’. I call it ‘who knew a death-march could get even more special, but hey, let’s add homework!’“
We turned and started making our way through a different neighborhood, equally pretty. I glanced at Caia. She loved my writing, or would, if I could just trick her into appreciating my… inventive… use of commas. Maybe if I gave her some of my fuzzy dinosaur slippers?
“But then, seeing you wear them would probably make me jealous enough to start screaming insults at your feet,” I mused.
“What?” Caia asked.
“My book. It’s awesome. Admit it!”
Caia looked amused. “All right, I’ll admit it: The demented machinations of the sprained mind that could produce such monumental dreck is fascinating to me, and I kind of want to be best friends with you… but what was with all the vampires?”
“VAMPIRES ARE SEXY!”
“Yeah. I know. I meant, what was with all the fat vampires?”
“Well, vampires are dangerous,” I explained, “which undoes the sexy. But you can tip the balance back to ‘sexy’ if you make them too slow-moving to actually catch anyone. IT’S A FACT, PEOPLE!”
“There’s a horrible, demented kind of logic to that,” Caia admitted. “But there’s a better way to undo the danger: Have them tragically, forlornly swear off the blood of their true love. Boom! SENSITIVE sexy vampires!”
“Pathetic,” I said. “Who wants a solution that comes organically from inside the story, instead of direct from the hand of god?”
“What? You really think—”
“When the Hand of God is mine, and it’s giving you the finger, YES! Anyway, who wants your kind of vampire? ‘Wahhh, I’m a mopey crying vampire who can’t stop being sad.’ That sounds like a great time,” I said scornfully. “Besides. Fat guys wear belts.”
“And…?”
“Bondage!”
“THERE WASN’T ANY BONDAGE!”
“IT WAS IMPLIED!!!”
Caia turned to Iggy. “Please tell me I was adopted.”
“Were you?” he said, startled.
“It doesn’t matter. I just need something to distract me from the way the world is going right now.”
We came to the street the museum was on. There was still no sign of any godly interference. If Carcinus had been messing with Walter, it hadn’t been on his walks to or from work. I stayed vigilant as we approached the museum, just in case. Well, all right, I spent a little time planning to blow Caia away by mentioning that my book had been favorably reviewed online by six whole people who couldn’t conclusively be proven to be me under different names. Unfortunately, by the time I figured out what I was going to say, Caia had slipped away.
“I guess Carcinus has been hiding somewhere in the museum after all,” Iggy said glumly. “Makes sense. There’s so much weirdness in there, you’d have a hard time separating him out from the crowd.”
“Iggy,” I said urgently, “you think I’m a great writer, don’t you?”
“After I read your book, I couldn’t stop smiling for three days,” he guardedly admitted.
“Ha! That’s worth a mathematically interesting fraction of a kiss! But—” I went up on my toes and he leaned down to meet me. “—I may just let you owe me the balance.”
That done (it took a while), we headed toward the museum to report to Walter.
* * *
It was fascinating to see what the power of the exhibits had done to the museum. The foot-high walls were frequently carved into weird little shrines and temples, but there didn’t seem to be anything in them. Nothing I could see, anyway. Then there were the shelves endlessly packed with the fossilized remains of humanity’s weirdest beliefs. I knew there was a ceiling not far overhead, but a supernatural fume of darkness concealed it, making it look sort of like we were in a warehouse that went on forever.
“WALTER!” Iggy bellowed. “Damn it, where is he?”
Of course, the halls between shelves didn’t connect in any logical way either. We started out near the front door, turned a corner, and were suddenly at the back of the fourth floor. Stone heads watched me with detached, ironic expressions. Who or what did they represent? Who had worshiped them—and for how long? I could feel the nearly-waking power radiating from them, hammering into me like summer’s hottest sun. I walked past, looked away for just an instant—and looked back to find that they’d somehow turned so they were still looking right at me.
“Uh-huh,” I said, unimpressed, walking over to show them a mobile game on my phone. “You’re real good at being creepy, I’ll give you that, but you’ve got some catching up to do. Mortals can do this. If you want to make an impression, you’ll have to be a lot sparklier, naked-er, or covered in pizza toppings. Or all three, depending on whether Iggy ever ponies up some cash to sponsor my latest Great New Idea.”
“A snake stole my wallet,” Iggy said automatically.
We turned another corner and were suddenly back on the ground floor. Before I could stop myself, I walked smack into a smirking god-statue whose skin bristled with countless stone needles, like if a porcupine had gotten it on with Medusa.
“Ow!” I cried as the thing stabbed me in a thousand places at once. “No! Bad deity!”
“Senge-Samir?” Iggy mused. “How’d we beat her last time… bubble wrap?”
I kicked the stupid thing, got her stuck on my foot, scraped her off, got her stuck on my hand, licked her off, and… well, you don’t want to know. I was still swearing when Iggy and I emerged along an outer wall studded with windows.
“Now there’s an idea,” Iggy mused. “Walter would’ve noticed a god of Carcinus’ caliber coming through the front door… but what if he snuck in through a window?”
“It’s worth a look, I guess.”
Iggy moved along the wall, consulting his celestiomachy at intervals. I followed, running my hand over and around each window. Normally, picking out just one god from the madness of the museum was impossible, but the shelves didn’t reach this far. If Carcinus had snuck in from the side…
“Took you long enough to come back,” said a mopey, depressed voice. A grey little monk emerged from the museum proper and came over to me. Iggy was so intent on his work, I’m not sure he even noticed.
“Saint Augustine!” I said, shooting him with finger guns (mortals like this). “There’s my happening dude! Oh. No offense. I’m not miming your gruesome murder and death or anything. That would be stupid!”
“I’m not offended in the least. Anything you do that seems stupid, I assume is actually a brilliant move in a game of N-dimensional chess that no mere demi-god could comprehend.”
“You got that right,” I said, and burped. “Hey, that splinter of the true cross you choked to death on, how big was it? Because I was thinking, if it poked enough holes in your throat, we could go in together on making the world’s weirdest lawn sprinkler!”
“Uh… sure,” Saint Augustine said. He glanced at Iggy. “Have you found what you’re looking for?”
“If you mean an evil god the size of the universe, not quite. As I like to say, ‘Now there’s a spicy meatball… OF DOOM!!!’“ I paused, cocking my head. “That sounded way more badass in my head.”
“You think an evil god the size of the universe crept in through a window?” Saint Augustine asked, sounding marginally more interested.
“Hey, here’s an idea for a cool saintly demise: I could defenestrate you! Unless you think that’s too common? I mean, mortals just can’t stop falling out of windows. You’d think Iggy would stop being surprised when I shouted ‘WATCH OUT!!!’ and tackled him every time he walked past a window at home. Oddly enough, you’d be wrong.”
“Well, not that this hasn’t been enlightening, but I’m wanted elsewhere,” Saint Augustine said glumly. Noting my confusion, he pointed at one of the windows. “You were on that one.”
“Really? I thought—”
“I’m pretty sure. But then, I’m not as smart as you are. Some people, like me, have meat inside their heads. Some have galaxies. It isn’t fair, but then, what is?”
“No, you were right the first time,” I said, pleased. “Take care!”
Saint Augustine walked off into the museum. Iggy was already a third of the way down the wall. I hurriedly followed, checking each window in turn, trying not to miss anything as I caught up to him.
“Who was that?” he said absently.
“Minor god.”
“Friend of yours?”
“You bet! He’s a little mopey, but also sort of hilarious. I kind of want to use him for a Christmas tree. Somehow, hearing him stand there and complain about all of the decorations would make them even better!”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’m not finding anything here. I guess we’d better talk to Walter again.”
Just then, by some peculiar coincidence, we found ourselves right outside of Walter’s office. It sounded like an argument was going on inside.
“—how many times do I have to tell you, I will not sell you the Dark Ones!” Walter cried.
“Fear me!” squeaked the plush doll of Carcinus as it forced its way out of his desk drawer and climbed up to face him. Recognizing Iggy’s grim expression, I hastily placed a call as we went inside.
“Hello? Police? There might be quite a lot a gunfire from Gods real soon. Please don’t send anyone. Routine maintenance.”
I hung up. Iggy nodded. We walked up to Walter’s desk. The Carcinus-doll danced back and forth, menacing us with its cute little claws, a goofy grin stitched beneath its boggling, mis-matched eyes.
“Behold your doom!” it cried, its plush claws squeaking as it waved them back and forth.
“Yeah, you want to be scaring us?” Iggy said pragmatically. “Here’s some advice: Less squeaking, more ichor.”
“Ooh! Ooh! He’d make the perfect topper for our Christmas tree!” I said enthusiastically. “I bet he’d swear at everyone!”
“Isn’t Christmas all about a god who isn’t you?” Iggy said. “Isn’t celebrating it kind of a surrender?”
“I will destroy you,” Carcinus said.
“No, it’s cool, I have a plan to egg on businesses to start the Christmas season earlier and earlier until its wraps around and becomes a year-round phenomenon, thereby losing all specialness and forcing people to seek out something new—” I struck a pose. “—like the Great Samboree!”
“I will destroy you,” Carcinus repeated, a little desperately.
“I do enjoy making Sammy-shaped cookies,” Iggy admitted. “Is it sick that I enjoy biting their heads off even more?”
“I will destroy you!”
“The Great Samboree has something for everyone! Especially if you like giving me stuff. Not so much if you don’t. But who wouldn’t want to give me fuzzy dinosaur slippers? Which brings us back to Christmas, hint hint. Basically, any occasion when I get lots and lots of presents is all right with me.”
“You don’t seem to be taking me seriously,” Carcinus mused. “Perhaps we need to take this to the next level.” The doll suddenly started to swell. Stitches ripped. Slime spilled out, fluff catching fire wherever it touched. It grew bigger and bigger until, finally, a human-sized figure—heaving, slimy and chitinous—stood on Walter’s desk.
“Um…?” Walter said, alarmed.
“You know, replace all that slime with candy, and you’d really have something,” I said cheerfully. “Hey, you know what? I think I know what I’m getting for Christmas!”
“No, I really don’t think you do,” Iggy said.
The Carcinus-thing hopped down from Walter’s desk. Walter looked like he was about to pass out. I don’t know, maybe he’d finally realized that he was a mortal, which essentially means that his entire nervous system was wired together out of rancid taco meat that someone had forgotten to flavor. Good thing, too. Not being flavored, I mean. There are only so many excuses for licking a mortal, and ‘IT’S ALL RIGHT—I’M A GOD!!!’ doesn’t seem to cut it any more.
“I have become weary of asking,” Carcinus slurped. “It is time to take!”
The creature lashed out at Walter with one arm, but pulled up short, baffled by his protective pendant. It was still an avatar of Carcinus, then, not the real thing: A god as powerful as Carcinus himself wouldn’t have been stopped by something so basic.
“You deny me?” the Carcinus-avatar snarled. Angered, it swelled even larger, its carapace parting to reveal writhing masses of maggots.
“Why do dark gods always think we’ll be impressed with bugs?” Iggy said, looking faintly amused. “I mean, sure, they have enough power to slaughter half a continent, but no, throw some goddamn ants at me. Ooh, scary!”
Walter looked pale, but rallied gamely enough. “Maggots eat only death away—not living flesh. They’re actually kind of cute. Like… kittens. Slimy, pallid, writhing kittens.”
“Good move,” I said confidentially. “I totally believe you. Ooh! How much would you give me to eat one?”
“Hear me,” Carcinus said insistently. “Your fate approaches. It cannot be eluded.”
The thing suddenly sprayed maggots at Walter. To his credit, he stood and took it, lips white from being pressed tight together. My eyes widened. Walter’s protective pendant had been knocked askew. As I watched, it came apart and slithered from around his neck.
“Ahhh!” Carcinus drooled. “Now we begin to see results!”
The Carcinus-avatar slurped toward Walter. My reaction was pure instinct. Iggy had a pendant: Walter didn’t… and Iggy could take care of himself about a million times better than Walter could. I sprinted over to Iggy, grabbed the pendant from around his neck, and threw it to Walter. The avatar of Carcinus shied away, baffled again.
“RUN!!!” I cried. Walter sprinted away, whipping out his phone as he left. Frustrated, the crab-maggot-insect thing collapsed into a heap of flesh that clung to Iggy’s legs, well and truly trapping him.
“LET HIM GO!” I cried. “Damn it, Carcinus, I’ve had about enough of you!”
A mouth-like slit opened about halfway down the flesh-pile, ropes of predictably disgusting slime connecting top and bottom.
“No, I don’t think you have,” Carcinus said. “Credit me with not being stupid. If I feared you—if I was truly worried about you—would I play games and give you warnings like I am now, or would I attack from the shadows at the most unexpected moment? Coming to you like this, it’s a kindness. It also means that I do not fear you. You are an annoyance, but that is all.”
I snorted. “Credit me with not being stupid. If we’re really so pathetic and beneath you, why are you wasting so much time and power on us? There’s sure as hell something you want.”
“Of course there is,” Carcinus said. “I was hoping to lock all three of you away, but I’ll settle for you and the giant.”
“What?” I asked.
“My great work must not be interrupted. This is your last chance. I don’t even ask you to join me. Just look the other way, and the rewards will be both numerous and satisfying.”
“No!”
“Then… seeing as I don’t have time for a more perfect solution…”
The flesh-heap suddenly slumped, no longer animate. Iggy made a face, pulling his legs one by one from the mire. Just then, the ground began to rumble, vibrating almost as if from a minor earthquake.
Mad Doctor Roquefort strode into the office, putting her phone away as she arrived. “What’s going on? Why did Professor Hittenmiller just run past me as though someone had played a highly amusing, educational, and flame-based prank on the seat of his pants? Also, what did he mean when he texted his graduate student ‘THE BIG ONE—MY OFFICE—RUN!!!’“
Caia Serrano sprinted into the office, her hair seriously disarrayed. “Where’s Professor Hittenmiller?” she demanded. “I ran to get here, just like he said…”
“Actually, I think he was telling you to run away from here,” Iggy said.
Suddenly, a vast noise thundered through the building, originating from somewhere just outside of it. Then silence fell, so thick I wanted to spread cake frosting on it. (This is significant. I usually spread cake frosting directly on my tongue). Feeling a dire touch of premonition, I opened the office window and stuck my head outside. Something like a vast membrane of black slime surrounded the entire building.
“Shoot it,” I ordered Iggy. He pulled the fairystopper from its holster and happily complied: He fired one thunderous shot after another as Roquefort and Caia shouted and dropped to the floor. The barrier took everything Iggy gave it without shattering, cracking, or changing in any way.
“What the hell?” Iggy said, confused.
“Carcinus means to drown the world in suffering,” I said darkly, “and he’s sealed us away so we can’t stop him.”
“We’ll see about that,” Iggy said grimly, and reached for another gun.