Accidental God -- Section 01

[I know, I should probably be writing City of Dreams. But things are gradually getting worse for Perry, and I can't face it right now. I'll get there, because it's always darkest just before I figure out how to make things better and we get to the hopeful ending--but I can't face the darkness at the moment. Andrew = Wimp.

[So instead, I've started writing the story that my second Bulwar-Lytton contest entry was crying out to become. I don't know yet if this will be a keeper--so many first chapters dead end into...dead ends--but I want to make this one work. Here goes. Introducing Bradley and Luther.]


It started with curry.
Technically it started three months before that, when Marius Toombs began planning to kill a god. It's not a project to be taken lightly, but Marius had a serious mind and a great deal of determination--not to mention the financial backing of a rather shadowy multi-national corporation. Bribes were handed out the way a scary man in a dark van hands out suckers at an elementary school. The right security detail was inattentive at the right time (or the wrong time, depending on your point of view), and Mr. Toombs pulled the trigger on his specially made PL-38 Upton and Greck Long-Ranged Rifle, affectionately called 'Godkiller' by those in the know. Not many were in the know, and Marius Toombs was one of those few.
Unfortunately--at least, as far as Mr. Toombs was concerned--he wasn't the only one interested in obtaining divine powers. No god is ever more vulnerable than when, in a manner of speaking, he or she is fresh out of the cocoon. As Marius turned away from his astonishingly accurate shot--a shot that would have been greatly admired by marksmen the world over, if they'd had a chance to watch it, with the occasional quibble from the more uptight regarding Mr. Toombs' language after his shot--as he turned away, Marius was met by his attractive and oh-so-supportive assistant, Ms. Sweeps.
Ms. Sweeps had a knife. Mr. Toombs had a nasty surprise.
Ms. Sweeps--Veronica, not that it matters much--enjoyed the glow of new divinity for approximately forty-five seconds, before the brutally efficient Bjorn Baernson caught up to her. To be fair, Bjorn wasn't the only one after Ms. Sweeps. Several men were after her in a romantic sense, though they were destined for disappointment. Three others HAD been after her in much the same manner as Mr. Baernson, but they, tragically, were slightly slower on the draw, mildly inattentive when walking down dark alleys, and at the bottom of a river, in that order.
Surely, one would think that 'enough is enough.' The powers of a god had already changed hands three times in one night. Bjorn Baerson should have been able to head home, lie down in bed in his cheap apartment for the last time, and drift into pleasant dreams of a life of luxury and celebrity, all that is due to a god.
Mr. Baerson did travel home to his apartment. He did lie down. He did not, however, drift into pleasant dreams. Instead, the poison kicked in. The poison, which had been expertly administered by Rodrigo Malena, was of a sort that, for a well-settled god, one who had had a week or two to settle into some fuller flourishing of divine glory, would have been insignificant. A god of a few years standing wouldn't have felt even a twinge. The established gods, millennia in the making, could perhaps have traced the source of the poison and fried Rodrigo Malena where he sat, looking forward with relish to the curry he had ordered at THAI FOR FIRST, a twenty-four hour Thai restaurant in the upper-east side of New London, New Jersey, Confederated Colonies of America.
Bjorn Baerson was not an established god. He was, in fact, not much of a god at all yet, and shortly after the poison began its work, he was no longer a god at all.
It was mentioned that it started with curry. Rodrigo Malena's curry, to be more precise. Senor Malena enjoyed Thai food in its many varieties, but he always ordered with care. Rodrigo suffered from a common enough ailment: severe peanut allergy. He had narrowly avoided death on his thirteenth birthday, again when in his late twenties, and since then hadn't taken any chances. When he ordered Thai food, he asked twice--three times--four times, and the chef's feelings be darned--if there were any peanuts or peanut oils in the curries he ordered. Because Senor Malena did love curry. It wasn't a dish for every day, but it was a dish for special occasions. Rodrigo had decided, after a brief time spent considering, that becoming a god was a special occasion.
His curry was delivered by a man with a curious name. At twenty-eight, Practicality Bradley Shupak was a perpetual student and a brand-new waiter. He had never had a job he enjoyed enough to convince him to escape from round after round of undergraduate and graduate programs. The shoe department of a second-rate department store had dropped him into part-time work blending fruity things, which in turn had thrown him into work as second-assistant cleaner for a minor temple for a god who never visited. Finally, deciding he didn't want much more in the way of student debt as he started into a new graduate program in graphic design, Bradley (as he preferred to be called) had applied for a job at THAI FOR FIRST. He hadn't expected much in the way of pay--and he didn't get it, so that was good--but he'd heard that tips were more than adequate. He'd done his time in the kitchen, memorizing the menu and scrubbing his way to waiting on tables. He’d even complimented the manager on how beautiful his children were, which they weren’t. Finally, his day had come.
Two hours into his very first shift, Practicality Bradley Shupak told Rodrigo Malena that Bradley would be his server for the night. Senor Malena was in a festive mood, so he only checked twice that there would be no peanuts in the curry. Bradley had no allergies to speak of, but he had seen anaphylactic shock once in his life and had no desire to inflict that on anyone, so he was very clear with the chef. The chef, on the other hand, was not particularly clear. He had an unfortunate addiction to online gaming, one that took what few hours he had to dedicate to sleep and dedicated them to something else entirely.
It wasn't much of a mistake. Just a bit of peanut oil where there shouldn't have been, and it was covered by the rich blend of other flavors that went into the curry, so the chef wasn't too concerned. Besides, he was close to the level cap with his third character and anxious for his shift to end.
So Bradley served the curry to the content Rodrigo Malena. In his small and penultimate resting place, Bjorn Baerson took his last breath, and Senor Malena felt the vigor of the divine rush into his body and blood, like the flush of new love, or the buzz of the really strong cough medication they keep behind the pharmacy counter. His day had come, thought Rodrigo, and he took his first bite of his last meal.


Archangel Luthaenicat sat in the cafe and stared at the pepper shaker in front of him. He wasn't happy about it. That pepper shaker--cheep plastic, dented on the top, seven holes clogged--it seemed to represent the life he was guaranteed to have. That pepper shaker was his future.
"So," said his friend, Atrucat, also an angel. "What's next, Luther? There's got to be someone who needs angels."
Luther sighed, and the sigh brought his attention down to his expanded waistline. It wasn't much of a belly, but it was more than he'd had two-hundred years ago. Somehow he was sure it was part of why he was let go. Not a big part, but still.
Luther looked up at Atty. "No one who I want to work for. Bigelow has an open spot, I hear."
Atty cringed, bushy blond eyebrows almost hiding his eyes entirely. "Down in Atlanta? That would be bad enough, living anyplace south of the Delaware, but to do it working for Bigelow? An angel has to have standards. But," and here his friend looked hesitant, "what about a job as a regular old angel? Or even a seraphim? For some of the major gods, I hear even that level work ends up having decent perks. And an angel out of work is...." Atty shrugged, and Luther silently agreed with him. What's an angel without a god to serve?
Not that they were always pinnacles of virtue, the gods. Take his last boss, for example. Spent so much time in the party scene, he'd started to hemorrhage serious followers like a popped water balloon loses water. And without the serious followers, godly resources start to decline, and then you feel you have to cut corners, let a really experienced angel go so you can pick up two other angels on the cheep. Luther sighed again.
"Hey," said Atty. "Don't sweat it. "It's not like he was worthy hanging in there for anyway. He couldn't even remember your birthday."
"Yeah," said Luther. "Happy birthday to me. Go find a new job. You know, my hair is gray now?"
"It's silver, man. That's too shiny for gray."
"Forget it, Atty. This is gray. Dull, flat, non-radiant gray. I'm past my prime. Washed up. Washed out. An archangel with fallen arches."
Atty blinked at him. "Dude, was that a joke? 'Cause I know a good podiatrist--"
"Yes," said Luther. "Joke."
"Right," said Atty, nodding. "He is a good podiatrist, though. And you are way too depressing for me. Tell you what: I'm ordering cake. We need to celebrate your birthday the way birthdays were meant to be celebrated. Excuse me," he said, catching the eye of the passing waitress. "It's my friend's birthday. Could we get a cake?"
"No cake," said the waitress. Luther looked at her and could see from the way she stood that she had sore feet. Sore feet, sore back, probably a bra that was too tight and, to top it all off, she'd put on a little weight as well. Five miracles came to mind just off the top of his head, the sort of thing that, twelve hours ago, he could have done without thinking, all to make her life easier. Instead he sat there and accepted the inevitable as it came out of her mouth: no cake.
"There must be something," said Atty. "Muffins? Anything cake-like?"
"We have pancakes," said the waitress.
"With blueberries? That would be kind of like cake."
"Just pancakes."
"Whipped cream?"
"Just pancakes."
"I'll take the pancakes," said Luther. "Pancakes will be fine."
The waitress nodded and wandered off.
Atty looked at Luther and shook his head. "You’re caving in, dude. You're buckling under. This isn't like you. Was working for this guy seriously that bad?"
Luther looked out the window at New London at night, wet with rain and freckled with lights. "Didn't use to be. I don't know what happened to him. He had a good run for five-hundred years or so, but that fell apart, and then we all started to slide."
"What happened?" asked Atty.
"A woman."
"Ah," said his friend. "One of those."
"She was a real looker," said Luther. "The kind that you never see, even when you're a god. She knew it, though. Used him, lost him, and left him in pieces."
"I've seen it," said Atty. "Like shards of safety glass, all over the floor. Like they were designed to break apart and never get back together."
Luther nodded. "That was pretty much it. I tried to keep him together, but you know I don't get romance."
"Which of us does?" Atty picked up the pepper shaker and rolled it between his hands. "One of the only things we'll never figure out. That's what we get for being born from the sun and the moon."
Luther snorted. "Melanicus says he fell in love once. I think he was faking."
"The guy's a poser."
They sat in silence and Luther mused, mulled, turned his future over and over in his mind. Maybe life as a seraphim wouldn't be too bad. Sure, not half the responsibility he'd had before, but it was better than no work at all. At least with one of the more major gods he'd have people to care for, miracles to perform, something to offer to the world.
On his own he was just Luther. A wingless angel.
"Pancakes," said the waitress, dropping them on the table in front of him.