The assassin watched the locusts descend on the town from a distance. That was the signal. They quietly pushed the school house window open and crawled inside. Typically, the assassin code strictly forbade anything to do with children. Though you would occasionally have a young princeling witness their parent’s death and wear vengeance, but that was an outlier. Harming a child in any way would make the assassin sick to their stomach, but stealing from them? That was more of a moral gray area. They slipped over the sill and into the school house.

The children were all asleep. The assassin wished their job allowed afternoon naps. Maybe they’d bring that up at the next union meeting. The teacher was also sleeping at her desk, and gods, she looked like she deserved a nap too. She looked like she was in her early twenties, aside from the dark circles and frazzled hair.

The assassin moved carefully through the sleeping children to the bookshelf. Amazing, they thought, trained with some of the best assassins in the world and here they were, stealing a children’s book from children. Fence had clearly descended into madness, but it was a special kind of unhinged that stole from kids.

Their eyes peered through the titles. It was a mix of old classics like ‘Pirates of the Stars’ and ‘Ranger Danger: Adventures in the Wild’ and new books like ‘Fungus is a Fun Guy but Don’t Eat Him’ and ‘Don’t Put that Thing Up There!’ Apparently kids these days needed a book to tell them not to eat on the ground.

The assassin found the book and slipped it out of the shelf. ‘Goodnight, Little Gods’ read the title. They flipped through it. It was a standard bedtime story. The protagonist fought valiantly against the villainous bedtime, all the while saying goodnight to various little gods. The book must have been written some centuries ago. Very small gods could be summoned into the world, but there haven’t been any capital G Gods since the New Gods left. They were depicted in all sorts of ways, rendered in colored pencil. Some wore robes and jewel encrusted crowns, some were abstract shapes, but they all looked very friendly. One of them looked like a cow, and although it was smiling, the assassin knew those sharp teeth anywhere. “Muudrach,” the assassin mouthed. They shut the book and tucked it under their cape. They didn’t know what Fence was going to do with this book, but fusing childhood books with occult practices was never a comforting idea.

They spun, and found a kid staring at them. The assassin was still, a hundred thoughts racing at once. The young boy looked at them with bleary eyes.

“Uhhh…?” he said sleepily. The assassin could work with this.

“You’re dreaming,” they whispered, quietly making their way back to the window. “Go back to sleep.” They shut the window, turned, and ran. They prayed that the kid wouldn’t recognize their voice. Then remembered who the only god in town was and cut their prayer short. They’d have to visit Muudrach’s priest.

The assassin slid along the alley wall, but they didn’t know why. Everyone was too busy looking at the locust swarm over by the toymaker’s house to notice. They kicked at rock, revealing a thin tunnel and slipped inside. The tunnel had once been a vent for the bakery, but there wasn’t much baking going on now.

It was hot and humid as the assassin squeezed down. Part of why black was so stylish was because it hid the sweat stains. They landed in a pile of wet grime. Apparently this was Muudrach’s moldy of moldies. Real purified sanctum here.

“Ah, do come in my dear assassin,” Fence’s voice echoed.

The assassin paused. It was never a good sign when your boss knew you were there. It was even worse when they described you as ‘dear’. They had disregarded every other red flag so far, why start here? The assassin would start to pack up their knives as soon as they got home.

“Locusts of Abaddon, huh?” said the assassin, casually strolling into the new temple of Muudrach. “I thought those bugs were waiting for the apocalyptic apocalypse to be released?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Fence was kneeling in front of a small iron oven, shirtless and half covered locusts. “Who says the apocalypse isn’t coming? Besides, I bribed them with something ‘sweet’,” he smiled up at them.

If Fence could see the assassin’s face, he would’ve seen their eyes rolling into infinity. Who was he trying to be clever for? They asked themself. It was obvious what he did with the baker, why could these evil masterminds say what they meant? They supposed they wouldn’t be megalomaniacs if they didn’t think themselves clever. If jokes were what Fence wanted, the assassin could oblige.

“I got you your toddler’s book. What? Was the first grade too complicated?”

He chuckled. The assassin hoped they bought themself another few hours before Fence’s inevitable betrayal.

“All part of the ritual my dear,” he grinned. That last word made their skin crawl. “We’re almost ready to bring Him here.” He took the book and eagerly flipped through it.

“Oh yes, the Master will be very pleased. He’s been asking for this book. I’m going to become his First Among Equals, but you’ll be Second Among Equals!”

The assassin tried to puzzle through that math then thought better of it. Fence sat cross legged in front of the oven. His voice went from cult leader soothing to babysitter sweet.

“Once upon a time, there was a little boy who couldn’t get to sleep,” he read while smiling to himself.

The assassin just stood there. The change was so jarring that they briefly pawed at the knife hidden up their sleeve. It was generally considered bad form for an assassin to kill their patron before the last possible moment. It had to be just before they pulled that end of the world lever. Too soon, and you’d have to worry about your reputation, too late and you didn’t have to worry about anything anymore. But stab your boss at the right time, and you could convince some idiot heroes that you were secretly good this whole time.

“You do want to see the Master, don’t you?!” roared Fence. His sudden mood shift caught the assassin off guard.

“O-of course!” they sputtered. “All hail the Master’s return. Wailing and gnashing to the non believers!”

Fence glared at them. “Great!” he smiled, his mood pirouetting again. The assassin resolved to not be in his line of sight for the next mood swing. They slowly edged out of the temple.

“Wait!” called Fence. “I have one more task for you.”

The assassin put their hands up. “Oh that’s ok, I do have a lot more to do today. And my grandmother’s really sick, so I think I should be going-“

“What if I paid you ten talents of gold?”

The assassin paused. Did he say talents? You knew you made it when a measurement was brought out of retirement. They did some quick math in their head. Seven hundred pounds of gold. They’d inflate an entire economy with that kind of pay. Common sense was bowled over by uncommon greed.

The assassin sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

“Very simple,” he beamed. “Bring me the wizards so that we may feed our Master.”

They tried to ignore the ‘we’ part of that sentence. “Why the wizards? There’s a ton of yokels who can’t set you on fire with their mind!”

His eyes glazed over. “Why feed a god muffin when you can give Him cupcakes?”

“So you want them alive?”

“Alive and fresh.”

The assassin hated that he put so much emphasis on the r in fresh. It was a particular kind of crazy that compared sacrificial victims to food, and unfortunately it was the only kind of crazy that paid this obscenely well.

He stuck his hand out palm up. The assassin watched it as it began to redden. The skin started to peel and bubble. The assassin struggled to keep from gagging. Boiling to the surface was gold. Pure, shining gold.

“A down payment from the Master,” he whispered. as he poured it in their hands. The assassin would have much preferred literal blood spattered gold over whatever this was. It was a hefty sum, and they shuddered to think where the rest would come out.

The glassy look returned to Fence’s eyes. “Tomorrow, we celebrate the birth of a New God.”

A better assassin might have said something ominous and threatening like ‘I’ll bring the party favors’ or ‘the cake will be to die for’. But no one could be that cool and that nauseous at the same time. The assassin held out the gold at arms lengths, and tried to keep their lunch down.