Media reports had underestimated the crowding. The streets were so densely packed it took me several attempts to get through, which I finally managed by materialising in on a rooftop. Even then, I was surprised to find others had had the same idea, rugging up with blankets and torches around warm rooftop vents in the biting winter air.
It was after 1 p.m. local time in the dead of night, which only made it more surreal. Light pollution hid the stars in an otherwise clear sky, with only the moon’s baleful glare piercing its yellow blanket. Swollen crowds oozed laboriously through gaps between buildings like clogged luminescent streams, and a roar of voices had replaced the chatter filling the air during my visit with Clara. I expected it would only grow louder.
The atmosphere was intoxicating, less a buzz than a restless exhilaration. It crawled under my skin, buoyed up and twitchy and begging to be released. I could feel the change in the air like a looming shadow, which might have been nerves and the thrill of something entirely new. But I didn’t think so.
The domed tower Tez had shown me poked up close by in an architectural blister. Remembering Lucy’s warning about potential discovery, I skipped under a rooftop eave and emerged as a one-eyed owl. Odin could still be useful as an alibi.
It was too soon; the tower was empty. Mostly. A sextet of uniformed guards patrolled the sanctum of the church below, no doubt hired to keep out the crowds. When all six looked up at me in unison, I realised my mistake.
Not guards.
Above the roof sat the cramped chamber of Tez’s vision. The giant lantern parked in the middle of it made it even more claustrophobic and told me HR had not been involved in any stage of Legba’s decision-making process. Nice view, though.
If not for the angels below, it would have been the perfect spot for a runic snare. Even if they somehow missed it, Papa Legba, with his specialisation in languages, wouldn’t. The circumstances weren’t going to make things easy for me.
Unless I didn’t set it up here. I could build it elsewhere to the right dimensions and warp it in before its targets had a chance to react. My lack of skills wouldn’t hold them for long, but it just needed to last until Legba was out of the picture.
I perched on the roof and considered. A snare could also be the lure I needed for the CMO himself. With any luck, the first trap slamming closed would summon him; his show wasn’t going anywhere without his staff to perform it. While he was distracted breaking it, I could strike. Shame Providence’s internal security wasn’t down this time, or the time loop could have claimed another victim.
Direct use of runes against Legba himself was a no, and I lacked a pantheon-specific weapon. Five separate divine artifacts had passed through my hands over the week, and I’d offloaded all but one to others. Things would have to get messy.
Time was ticking up on me. On a flutter of wings, I made my way to Lucy’s suggested rendezvous point and swept a sharp eye over the sheer crushing numbers.
As always, the angels were easy to spot. A couple of thousand were spaced out around the city, concentrated in areas with greater numbers. A dense cluster surrounded the co-opted Marketing tower. Another serviced the embassy housing Lorenzo and the pope. All in disguise as locals, with absent wings and uncanny faces. Even the crowds sensed they were off.
Lucy’s demons were also in position. They were harder to tell apart. I settled for locating the four lieutenants from the Abyss at their pre-arranged points of entry. They’d been helpfully marked for the purpose with horse-themed piercings in Lucy’s distinctive sense of humour.
The redhead from the Abyss was no longer a redhead, or a child. The small old woman bent hobbled over a zimmer frame, hair cascading over her back, looking not long for the death she was named for. Being a demon, some of it was probably an act. A small filigreed horse swung from her earlobe. A scythe curled around the other. What looked like a hearing aid was pressed into the ear above it, but the way her lips moved revealed it as a listening device of a different kind.
I could tell the angels were sensing me from the way they shifted and scanned the skies. So far they seemed content to observe. As Lucy had promised, they seemed blind to the demons around them.
It’s Loki, I announced into the mind of new ally, as she looked up and around. How many of you are there?
I was a little surprised when she responded in kind. Four thousand, give or take. We’re closing in on the embassy district.
Stay spread out, I recommended, and dropped the angels’ latest positions into her brain. It wouldn’t be all of them, but it was a start.
She stumbled, clutching her head, and a nearby teenager reached out and caught her, placing her hands back on the frame. She gave him a tentative pat on the hand as he hovered for a few more seconds before deciding she would probably survive.
Have your troops shadow them, I advised. They aren’t moving around much; they’re trying to blend in. Badly. Take advantage of it. If Providence’s show begins, attack, distract; do what you can to keep them separated.
And if it doesn’t?
Then I’ll tell you when. I paused. Appearances could be deceiving, but Lucy’s lieutenant was looking awfully frail. Can you really damage them?
The demon grinned. Real teeth, not dentures. Oh, yes. The only thing ever stopping us was the promise of retaliation.
Go wild and don’t hold back, I told her.
And if we need to contact you?
I thought of my latest phone dematerialised in False Odin’s human pocket, and the sporadic likelihood of it existing long enough to find a signal. Ask the pope, I said, and turned my attention elsewhere.
Full-blown gods peppered the crowd, too. More than I’d counted on. A small and typically bored-looking Security contingent were hanging around the embassy. Pakhet stood among them, pointing fingers into the throng. More than a few off-shift Helpdesk staff had joined the crowd, as well as some meant to be at their desks. I supposed Themis was no longer there to breathe over their shoulders.
It was useful, in a sense – the surplus divine energy would help mask my presence, or at least my identity. But I didn’t like the numbers.
Good thing I had Lucy’s army.
That was the outside covered, which only left ground zero itself. Swarming with angels, I’d given the embassy a wide berth. Now, I abused my visitation rights again to make my conveniently undetectable entrance into enemy heartland. If it wasn’t for the whole ‘worshipping’ part, it was something I could see myself getting used to.
Grace sat in the class-unifying staple of hotels everywhere: a plastic chair. It belied the scene around it; a beautiful parlour with carved ceilings and chequered tiles. A papal throne did occupy pride of place at the other end of the room, but was already accounted for by a young redhead by the name of Lorenzo. Or as the world would soon know him, the new messiah.
He looked distinctly uncomfortable in his new position, possibly due to the angel attempting to feed him grapes while a second angel narrated notes at him through a smile made of tooth bleach. No longer in the uniform of the Swiss Guard, he had been dressed in enormous flouncy robes his large form almost disappeared into like a holy burrito. The ensemble was topped off with a heavy embellished cape I could tell a beleaguered team of seamsters had been coerced into making on unrealistic deadlines and more unregulated stimulants than were probably safe for mortal consumption. It had the effect of pinning his arms to his sides, preventing sudden use of the arsenal of weaponry otherwise capable of fitting under it.
Disgusting, isn’t it? said the pope, eyeing me briefly before returning to pretending I didn’t exist. In comparison to Lorenzo, his occupational regalia looked positively understated, which didn’t do much to distract from the bandages wreathing his hand. I spent sixty years backstabbing my way to this position, and all he had to do was be in the right place at the right time. And he didn’t even do that. It was you.
“Again,” announced the angel with the script. “It must be perfect. Project your voice and enunciate for the glory of our Lord.”
Lorenzo glanced at it nervously. He opened his mouth to speak, and the first angel popped a grape into it.
“In all fairness,” I remarked to the pope, “if he can manage that by the time of the announcement, he’ll have performed his first genuine miracle.”
Grace scowled. There’ll be a teleprompter. Worst case, all he needs to do is smile, nod and occasionally raise his eyes to the heavens while smiling some more. The hard part of this job has always been the politics.
Lorenzo frantically swallowed the grape. “I was born in the ashes of the Lord’s holy ruins,” he said, projecting volume, if not enthusiasm. “Forged in the flames of his holy sorrow. I was called to deliver Heaven’s Word to man, that he might know the holy plan. The time has come for –” he clamped his mouth shut, and the first angel retracted the grape pressed to it, “– for reuniting. For peace on Earth under one God, one love, one holy light.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Set’s testicles.”
Legba was huddling with the stray Marketing lineup across from the pope. I spotted Uzume, Gwydion and Bragi. The latter had turned out about as well-adjusted as you’d expect having Odin for a father. I tuned in my hearing, but found the conversation unintelligible. The god of languages wasn’t risking them being overheard.
They won’t tell me much, Grace enlightened me, following my gaze. I’m obsolete now, apparently. Irrelevant. I’m only here to compère, as though the single most important spiritual revelation in living memory amounts to a gaudy awards ceremony. One with only one entrant, at that. What I can say is there’s a ten-act structure, and the Welsh fellow thinks it needs more audience participation. He’s far too into it, if you ask me.
“What about the others?” I prodded, narrowing my eyes as Bragi waved his arms about expressively. Grace’s ability to read the desires of those around him might reveal an exploitable weakness.
Grace shook his head. The beardy one wants his daddy’s approval. The woman wants a sandwich.
I shot him a sceptical look.
Really. I can see the exact one. Skewer through a little olive on the top. And Legba? He’s a blank. Either there’s some exception to how this ability works I don’t know about, or he already has everything he wants. Take your pick.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
I stared at my quarry, metres away and oblivious, and fought the urge to warp in fully. The restlessness had carried through with me in visitation, and it seemed easy enough to swoop in and solve the problem, jeopardising the entire plan in the process. I frowned to myself, even as Legba broke away from his team and sauntered across to the pope.
“You’re needed, old man,” the former called out, grinning from ear to ear. He’d swapped his black suit for a white one, matching his hair and right on theme. “Out the door and to the stage, chop chop. Let the people follow you. You like that, right? How’s that stigmata healing, by the way? You could wave that around while you’re at it. Nothing like seeing a good nail through the hand to get people excited.”
“Oh, piss off, I’m coming.” answered Grace. He rose out of the chair.
My breath caught. “He knows about the rune,” I realised, speaking it aloud for Grace’s benefit. I knew Legba could sense writing, especially the magical kind; it had happened in front of me. With luck he’d think it was Odin meddling, but I was reminded of our last encounter in the office. I had no idea if he’d figured me out, or what he and Odin had been up to together. If indeed it had been anything at all. But awareness of the indelible scar tissue embedded in Grace’s hand couldn’t be good.
Grace’s eyes flicked back towards me for a split second, a critical error. Legba locked onto the motion like a homing missile. His smile widened.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath.
I couldn’t do much about it now, though, and it was time to bring this forward. Grace was right in front of me making his way to the door, but I reached for the naudhiz rune anyway, letting its green ambiance wash over me. I was about to tell him to stay in contact, but hesitated. Maintaining a connection wasn’t exactly difficult, but right now it felt ludicrously easy, even against the looming threat of an imminent drain on the pact.
I hurried to keep up with the pope before he dropped out of visitation range, and experimentally reached out to Tru, purple joining the green already there.
Is it time? my housemate queried.
Instead of replying, I pushed through and found myself standing back in Colstee’s office. The sun had fully set, and Tru was anxiously pacing up and down in front of the large windows, where the lights of the city glinted back from below. A conspicuous dark patch marked the site of the Delivery. Durga and Colstee were sitting at a coffee table in front of the maps and oddly enough seemed to be engaged in enthusiastic conversation about work-life balance, as if the former hadn’t been holding a knife to the latter’s throat only minutes earlier.
I was also still following the pope through the embassy in Rome. Through the doors and into the lamp-lit hallway, accompanied by a substantial angelic escort. Police lights whirled somewhere outside, sending feverish shafts of blue and red splintering through gaps in the shuttered windows.
“It’s time, isn’t it?” Tru prodded me, tapping me on the shoulder when I didn’t immediately respond. “Hey! Tell me! Am I meant to do this or not?”
I found myself breaking into incredulous laughter even as I activated the blue hagalaz rune and a third simultaneous visitation. Vince was dangling his bare toes off the edge of a makeshift pontoon in the middle of open ocean somewhere distant, no visible land in sight in the soft morning light. Lucy and Janus were nowhere to be seen, either.
“Greetings, O’ great Loki,” the occultist said, and beamed at me. He was wearing a black one-piece swimsuit straight out of the 1920s that somehow still managed to make him resemble a stage magician. “I was given to believe you would be handling things with that ratbag tool of the enemy.”
“His name’s Legba,” I clarified, swiping a hand through the pontoon to make sure it was a visitation and not some other rogue miracle gone wrong.
“I mean the pope,” Vince replied. “Between you and me, he doesn’t seem like a very nice person. One has to have some ethical standards in life.”
I looked at the pope a couple of paces ahead of me, and back at Vince. “You don’t say. Where’s Lucy?”
Vince hoisted a thumb towards the ocean floor.
“And I don’t suppose you can –”
He shook his head.
“I want to consult someone about the possibility something’s affecting my powers,” I confessed. “It’s either that or a wider problem, and the timing makes me suspicious.”
“Well, you’re in luck,” Vince said. He stroked his beard. “I’m a licensed therapist, you know. It was how I made money before doing children’s parties. The world is a multi-faceted, complex organism, metaphorically-speaking. Not all of its problems can be solved with assassinations. Oftentimes all people need is a kind ear, a warm heart, and the unsanctified gospels of darkness.”
Tru was tapping me insistently in the office.
“No, it’s not time,” I told him, managing to pull my thoughts straight for a second. “Ask Durga if she’s noticing anything unusual with her magic.”
I added Regina’s orange algiz to the roster of active demon runes while awaiting the answer, expending far less effort to slip past the Singaporean barrier than on past attempts. Pride was on the move, still keeping to parkland, but drawing closer to a wall of towers bordering the edge of the fading greenery. Making her way to a specified rendezvous point provided by the devil.
And she wasn’t alone. Neetu walked beside her, in uniform this time, scouting the overcast path ahead. The officer took a sip from a water flask and hooked it back over her belt, oblivious to the fact I’d suddenly appeared.
The normally bustling city – what I could see of it – seemed largely deserted, with only the occasional grunt of a vehicle in the distance. Before I could get a word in, one rumbled past behind a close copse of wilting trees. Both women froze until the doppler effect tapered off into the distance and Neetu’s hand relaxed above the tightly-bound pouch at her hip.
Lockdowns were obviously still in force, then, and movements restricted. By now the people must have guessed the problem wasn’t really measles and begun to panic. More than already, at least. I guessed Neetu was playing the role of official police escort, and I hadn’t even had to ask this time. I couldn’t help but grin at the personal victory of turning my old pseudo-nemesis completely rogue.
Regina stared at me, waiting for me to make the first acknowledgement.
“Nothing out of the usual,” Durga called towards my vague vicinity across Colstee’s office. “Why, is something wrong?”
“Not as such,” I relayed to Tru to pass on, and turned back to Regina and Neetu. “Tez should be on his way any minute now.”
Regina nudged the police officer, jerking her chin in my direction. Neetu squinted through my chest without focusing on it. “She’s still not including me? After all I’ve done? Pah, I don’t know what I expected.”
“Fine,” I said, creating yet another visitation for her specifically. As long as she was technically a worshipper, it didn’t matter whether she was a demon or not. I could feel myself closing in on the upper limit I could handle while remaining coherent. More than that was neither efficient nor wise, and it was immediately apparent my two selves in close proximity couldn’t perceive each other, a somewhat jarring experience. “I’m here and I’m listening, but conditional hive minds are a new thing for me and there’s a lot riding on this. It’s easier if Regina simply relays it.”
Neetu blinked at me for a few seconds. “Right,” she said eventually. “That makes as much sense as anything else these days.”
“This is why I love you,” I grinned back. “If I hadn’t needed a mortal guinea pig, I would have definitely picked you over Vince. Sorry, Vince,” I quipped to the occultist, who had no idea what I was referring to. “If it’s any consolation, you should see the rest of the world,” I added to Neetu again, and dropped out of the visitation again to prevent getting into the details.
Back to ‘just’ four of me. Five, counting my physical self still settled above Rome, and even that felt accessible, if I only tried.
Multiple simultaneous visitations had been a known gimmick before Providence had made the whole practice obsolete. There had been gods who could handle it; I just hadn’t been one of them. Now, not only could I manage it with barely any extra effort, but the act was largely seamless. It wasn’t perfect – I could process what was happening in every background well enough, but there was a definite sense of a primary focus when it came to interacting beyond autopilot. But it was a nitpick at best.
Regina was still waiting for me to speak. I could see she’d noticed something different about me from the moment I’d dropped in. Hardly a trusting type to begin with, the ever-present distance I’d been working on wearing down had taken one step back. It was in the lines of her face and the single arm folded across her chest. Even Neetu had noticed, and was staring at her with a quizzical expression.
The attention seemed to get to her.
“You’ve gotten a boost,” she said eventually, shifting her weight under the attention. She dropped the arm.
“We should probably hurry,” Neetu reminded her, edging on towards the block of buildings. I stepped forwards, joining her, and the movement was enough to break the tie.
I had multiple questions. “What does that look like from your end of things?” I queried Regina as we walked. “It’s not every day I get to talk shop with a psychic, even in Providence. Almost as if the whole ‘hunting you down’ thing was counter-productive to building rapport.”
The ex-waitress grunted. Her eyes drifted towards Neetu and some of the stress eased out of her shoulders. But only a little. “Everything alive has energy,” she explained, mostly for Neetu’s benefit. “Most people are like candle flames. Plants and trees, not even that much. Occasionally, a torch comes along.” She touched a hand to the centre of her chest, a little self-consciously. “That’s me.”
“Was you,” I corrected her.
Regina ignored me. “The ones who burn like fires are what we call monsters. But it’s very rare to see them.”
I noticed the ‘we’ in her sentence, but didn’t comment on it.
“Gods may as well be flares blazing over the city,” she continued. “It’s impossible not to notice one nearby. There are more of them around than monsters, but best avoided.” She swallowed in a way that made me think the last part had slipped out by force of habit.
“I’ll remember this when it’s time for your first performance review,” I said.
“I told you energy fluctuates,” Regina responded. She pulled at the edges of her gloves. “It’s more obvious with gods. Sometimes they flare up, like someone fed them a fresh power supply.”
“You’re talking about a place of power,” I suggested.
Regina shrugged. “Maybe. There was a god who used to flare up over the ocean. Sometimes it seems random. It’s not like I follow them around taking research notes.”
“Doesn’t have to be a literal place,” I replied, frowning. “Sometimes it’s a set of conditions.”
The notion had also occurred to me. But the conditions, whatever they were – and assuming it was a place of power – eluded me. It wasn’t Rome itself, that was a certainty. Nor was it adversity and revolution, as much as I’d have liked to join Mayari in that arena. I’d done my share of minor deposing, and all it had taken was amusement and spite.
Crowds, maybe. I’d always liked them, but the tableau on display in Rome was a beast of another flavour, comparable only to the Hajj. Which I’d been to on numerous occasions, and noticed nothing more than opportunities to make trouble.
Speaking of Rome, two angels in Swiss Guard uniforms reached out in unison to open the front doors of the embassy. The insulating seal broke, and a roar of voices immediately poured in, buffeting the ears of that particular visitation. Police lights strobed in the foreground in an attempt at crowd control barely larger than the circumference of a spotlight.
Grace didn’t so much as blink. He let the angels usher him forward several metres to a waiting popemobile, a vehicle resembling a disconcertingly clean four-wheel drive someone had squeezed in a clamp. The back half served as a display cabinet for popes and contained yet another throne, a trend which showed no sign of going away. I followed my pope in and squashed in beside him, edging around the front to avoid the pair of angels climbing into the back, before deciding it was easier to take the form of a moth.
I sat on Grace’s head. He smiled and waved at the crowd.
Only one demon lord remained. Still shut in the task manager, Gia was hard to reach. Not impossible, though, and her rune shone out in a faint but steady red beacon. Getting to it was somehow worse than the dimensional leapfrogging for the pocket dimension and felt like I had to turn myself inside-out and into data in the process. But I wormed my way through and eventually popped out the other end in a disconcerted heap.
The world blurred – for that visitation – until I managed to pull myself together. The first thing I saw was raidho in front of my face.
“Need a lift?” Gia asked. She waved the runed palm at me. “I thought you were going to be in contact remotely.”
I took it and stood up. “Slight change of plan. But I think it works out better this way.” As long as I didn’t go near the temple altar again. If it could suck me in physically once, I had to assume it could again. “How’s Mayari?”
Gia swivelled her head towards the back of the temple, where the goddess in question had stopped looking through data and instead sat with her back pressed against the roots of the altar. One hand gripped the haft of the Spear of Destiny, and the other gripped across both knees. She was staring straight ahead, face grim. Still stuck.
“In theory, we could widen a gap in the root tunnel,” I proposed. “Yggdrasil might not like it, but it doesn’t get a choice in the matter. But we can’t do it too soon, or someone will sense the spear coming through.”
“Well, it will need to be soon. We just got a message from Tezca… Teztapcolip –” She tried again. “Vishnu’s on his way.”
Adrenaline surged through all six of my bodies, visitations or otherwise, as I snapped my attention back to Singapore. The leaves of the local trees hung listless in the lack of wind, but there were no signs of a time freeze. Neetu and Regina continued to advance cautiously forward; insects still chirped in the background. Diurnal and nocturnal alike.
“Incoming angry deity,” I warned the pair. Amulet Tez was going to lead him straight to Regina. “If I were you, I’d activate whatever protections you can. Now. Against containment fields, sudden attacks, and basically anything supernatural. Obviously except me. Even better if it works against time manipulation.” I stole a glance up at the buildings in front of us. “The problem with Vishnu is that you can’t see him coming.”
One of the nearest skyscrapers promptly burst into searing white flame.
Regina turned the same face on me she’d worn at our first meeting in the restaurant.
I did my best not to look surprised. “Of course, there are exceptions to everything.”