Wallace

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I can't recall the last time I slept alone or the last time I woke without the gentle pressure of Val's head resting on my shoulder.

I'd little choice, of course. Agamemnon promised me a vehicle, and while it might have been ready last night, I was far too weary to drive.

The bathroom light turned on when I flicked the switch, though I turned on the shower to find there was no hot water. I showered quickly and emerged in a mood not much better than last night.

I gathered up our packs and stepped out into the hall where I found my axe and last night's clothes had been cleaned and mended as necessary.

The hall was empty, and though it was mid-morning, it had the air of a library or a hotel at midnight. Those lucky enough not to have urgent tasks this morning were likely still at rest, particularly since I don't think I was the only one who had trouble sleeping last night.

I thumbed the elevator button, but it remained dark, and I heard no movement in the shaft. The tower had power, but it appeared Agamemnon was rationing it.

The stairs were not hard to find, just a few steps down the hall, and I was thankful we'd not selected rooms higher up in the tower.

I found Agamemnon in his office, leaning against the window that looked down upon the mall, his eyes closed.

"So?"

Agamemnon did not leap up in surprise. He'd heard me coming down the hall.

"There's a whole city of these magic purple guys?" he asked wearily, not bothering to open his eyes.

"Yeah, and two more besides."

"Jesus fuck."

"I'm not sure the fey were the problem here."

Agamemnon opened his eyes and turned to look at me, "Hey motherfucker, they were exactly the problem here. Lady Death was a manageable pain in the ass till you baited them into the city."

I shrugged hopelessly, "You know I didn't mean for this to happen. A pocket zombie apocalypse was not on my list of things to expect coming here."

"Can you do what you said earlier? Turn parts of the crater rim into metal?"

"Sure. Is there much point?"

Agamemnon collapsed into his chair, "No," he replied sourly, "I've talked to Brock. He says that at this rate, the rim will hold for a couple of months. We'll lose most of the suburbs long before then, but the tower'll be safe, and the suburbs are ash anyways."

"Somehow, I doubt you'll be joining me back to the city."

"Fuck no. Everyone's got their own useless opinion about what we should be doing, but the thing we can all agree on is that we can't stay here, and we sure as hell don't want any more of this magic bullshit. By the time the tides roll around, we're gonna be gone."

"You've surveyed some locations?"

"Yeah. As soon as we pick one, we'll start trucking stuff out there. But you still want your vehicle, don't you? Hardly any still in one piece, and the god of patience still wants his fucking ride. As I recall, you were supposed to save the city if you wanted a new car."

"I did. Look around Agamemnon. This was always going to happen. Me and the fey showing up might have kicked things off sooner than expected, but Lady Death was never going to be a manageable pain in the ass forever. Was it bad? Yeah. Did a whole fucking lot of people die? Yeah. Did I absolutely save your ass? Yeah."

"Look buddy, I'm sorry about your girlfriend getting hurt or whatever-"

"How much longer do you think the hotel would have stayed standing if I hadn't taken out those undead fire and lighting gods? Something would have caught fire eventually. Either a little droplet of hellfire would have slipped in under some weatherstripping, or the barrage of lighting would have blown something. Sure, fire suppression would kick in, but those tanks only last so long. Then what? You're fighting a tower fire and an army of undead at the same time. I saved your fucking bacon. And all I expect in return is a vehicle I can drive home."

Agamemnon threw up his hands, "There's a van. I had my people pull the seats and put in a bench."

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The occasional pop of gunfire echoed through the mall as sentries picked off those few undead still shambling about the city, and those I passed in the hall let the noise pass without even raising their heads in interest.

Hardly having eaten the day before, I went looking for breakfast and found Roxxy in what remained of the coffee shop. Noticing me, she perked up, and I took the seat across from her after retrieving some tiny breakfast sandwiches.

"You leaving?" she asked, eyeing the packs I dropped next to my chair.

"Pretty sure Agamemnon wants me gone, not that I blame him, and I need to get back to Val."

Roxxy leaned across the table conspiratorially, "Are you really one of us?"

"A god?"

Roxxy rolled her eyes, and the expression carried with it an air of such overwhelming disdain that I couldn't help but wonder if she practised in the mirror.

"Yeah, right. I'll tell you what, big guy. You tell me what you really are, and I'll tell you about how us gods," she said, using finger quotes, "Got this deal."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"All my powers? Just magic, same as the fey have. Same as plenty of elves, dwarves, and gnomes have."

Roxxy grinned and shook her head, "I knew it. What, did magic make you so crazy big?"

"Nah, I've just got some weird genetics."

"I guess that makes sense," she agreed and glanced at the hand holding my tea, "Six fingers is a kinda lame superpower. So you needing special materials for your powers, was that all BS, or do you really need magic ingredients."

"I really need magic ingredients. Pretty much everything has got at least some magic, though. Now, what about you? How did you get into this deal?"

"Did you know I was the first person to get offered this deal?"

"Do you know you were the first person?" I countered.

"Oh yeah. For a guy handing out god-like powers, he was kind of dweeby. At first, I thought he was just some neck beardy creeper, like Martin, but then he opens up this portal thing under my feet. It dumps me in this little bubble with a big house in it. The sky felt so close that I thought I could reach out and touch the stars. So the guy repeats himself, says he'll give me whatever powers I want. I don't think he'd really worked out the specifics. It seemed like he couldn't decide if he wanted to pretend he was handing out superpowers or god-hood. I still didn't know what the hell was going on, and I wasn't entirely sure if I'd just taken a bad trip. But I'd just started working at the shelter, and I was generally pissed off at all the bullshit, so I said I wanted animal powers. At first, I tried to keep it a secret, but then people start popping up all over the city, saying they're now the god of this or that. Animal powers don't really stand up when you've got half a dozen idiots who're all some version of Thor."

"Did he ask for anything in return? How did he even make you into a god? That doesn't make any sort of sense."

"He said I could do whatever I want with them. He didn't even care. And he explained it, kinda. He was a God, as in capital G. But only in his little tiny pocket world. Anywhere else, he's just a normal guy. He said he was trying to get something's attention."

"Something?"

"Yeah. I talked to him more than once. I think he wanted me to keep my mouth shut about when we first bumped into each other, and he was still working on his Wizard of Oz routine. City was utter chaos by that point. I mean, not like now, but still. Imagine if superheroes suddenly started having slap-fights in the middle of the city. He said it was bound to get noticed eventually and that something would get done about it."

"And he wanted this?" I frowned.

"You know, he described it. Guess he was really hot for this redhead chick on some world he'd been to. He said it was super far from his mini-world, but he really cared for her. It was sweet, in a super dorky way. So he's living his dorky fantasy, but one day, out of the blue, he comes home to find their cottage is gone. Just some green mist floating where it used to be."

I raised my eyebrows, "Sounds kinda familiar."

"It wasn't till I woke up with a big blue planet hanging over my condo that I realized what he was doing. I think another big G God noticed what he was doing- one who doesn't live in a tiny bubble -and slapped him down. And I think that's exactly what he wanted."

"Did you see him again after?"

She shook her head, "He got his. Guess the rest of us are just screwed."

"Did you tell the others?"

She leaned back in her chair, shoulders slumped, "What's the point? I'm only telling you since you seem to sorta know what's going on around here, and I'm tired of keeping this to myself."

"You think he found her?"

"He fucking better have," she snapped, "But I doubt it. Who knows if they sent him to the same place as his girlfriend? I don't even know what this world is supposed to be. From what you've said, it sounds like a big interdimensional garbage dump. Too much of a pain in the ass for the rest of the world? Here, go live on this sucky planet for the rest of your life."

I shrugged. As theories went, it wasn't bad. Every morning a new batch of junk ended up on this rock, just waiting for the tides to come around and grind it all to nothing.

"Once you get yourselves set up, I can arrange something with Caniforma. The level of technology isn't great, but I should be able to send along some creature comforts."

"Thanks. I still don't know what we're supposed to be doing. Hopefully, Martin fucks off on his own. Forget the god of dinosaurs. He's the god of thirst. We don't really need him anyway. Between Brock, Clyde, and myself, we think we can keep ourselves healthy and fed. The others have all these plans, but Thunder and Commerce don't exactly cut it when what you need is food, water, and shelter. And are we going to have to deal with Amora? I still don't know what the deal is with her. Until yesterday I thought she was shacked up with Lady Death."

I shook my head, "I don't think she really cared about her. What she wanted was to head back with the fey once they were done in the city. It just so happened the fey shacked up with Lady Death."

"You're taking her with you? Why?"

"Pelignos, the city the fey came from, has got some issues, to say the least. Amora will fix them. Or the fey will kill her. One of the two."

"Well, I hope it works out. And I hope the little fairy princess is okay," she added, with a small hopeful smile.

"Yeah, me too. Thanks, Roxxy."

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I said my goodbyes where I thought it necessary, though I kept them brief. Or tried to. It took me half an hour to extricate myself from the conversation with Martin once he got started about how he was going to build 'Jurassic Park, except, you know, real, man'. As awkward as it was for me, at least Roxxy would get what she wanted.

And that left Amora, who I found waiting obediently by the white panel van Agamemnon had set aside for me.

I stopped half a dozen paces from where she leaned against the passenger door and put my hands in my pockets.

"Am I going to need a bigger van, or can you work something out with your followers?"

Amora grimaced and looked down at her pink high-heel shoes.

The three-inch heel looked a little out of place in the dingy concrete parking garage.

"It's not going to be a problem," she muttered.

I might have expected a sombre tone, as would be appropriate if her people hadn't made it through the hell Lady Death had rained down, but she looked more sheepish than sad.

"Amora. How many followers do you have?"

She bit her lip and shook her head, "Everybody wants to have a little fling with the god of love. No one ever wants to stay."

"So, none then."

"None that aren't already with one of those other idiots. I guess none of the people who hung out at my club were into me enough to come along with the rest of us. I get the Dorthy treatment and end up buddies with the wicked witch of the west, and they all get to go home and sleep it off."

"So when you said you'd kill your followers..."

"I was bluffing."

"Good. Now, I understand you're really keen to get to Pelignos, but I'm going to need you to do something first."

Amora stiffened and gave me a hesitant look.

"I'm going to need you to go upstairs and get some proper travelling clothes. Miniskirt and heels don't exactly cut it."

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Of course, Amora asked me just what I had planned for her. It was a long drive, and we didn't have a lot to do but talk. But I only supplied her with vague allusions and generally left her unsatisfied. The truth was, I didn't know what I was going to do with her.

My plan, in its entirety, was:

Step 1: Stop the pheromones from affecting the sprites.

Step 2: Deal with Simon.

Step 3: Sprites take control of their future.

I had no idea how I'd manage steps one and two. I knew that I didn't have the manpower to beat Simon in a head-on fight, and besides, I really didn't want to hurt any of his pets. Though they might not give me a choice.

Step one was equally problematic, though I didn't even have bad solutions to that problem.

And step three was relatively easy. The tricky part was keeping it from ending up like the French Revolution. Though I find something profoundly gratifying about slaves rising up to murder their masters, I worried about all the other Vals out there or the fey too poor to own any slaves. They were all benefiting from a horrific society that couldn't be separated from what they were. It was true even for Val, something she readily acknowledged. But there was a difference between letting it happen and making it happen. The first group needed to have all their shit taken away so sprites could finally live like people, but it would probably be wrong to let them all end up on the wrong end of a mob. Probably.

Which is why I had Amora. She would fix it. Somehow.