Accidental God -- Section 06

[I'm getting serious about selling Fat Tony. A solid amount of query letters are out there now, and I'll give some time for responses before I turn out more, but for now I think I have a chance to focus on Accidental God again. Over 13,000 words in, and I have some sense of where it's going--but it's hard. It's always hard.

[Your enthusiasm is much appreciated. Cheer me on, complain when I don't give you more. Let's get this book written.]

    Luther walked the half-mile from Atty’s apartment to his own, pushed through his ennui and up the stairs. He never used the elevator--not that he needed the exercise, exactly--but he wanted to stay connected to human beings. Feel more of what they felt, and sometimes that meant walking up stairs. For some reason, on this particular day, it felt like a stupid waste. Why try to stay connected to people that he couldn't do anything for?
    No. That was not the way he was going to start thinking. Wings or no wings, there was a lot he could do for the people around him, and he was going to do it. He unlocked his door and strode into his apartment with fresh resolve.
    Looking around at his worn furniture and bare walls, the unemployed archangel realized it would have been better to walk OUT of his apartment with resolve. This place was the LaBrea Tar Pits of resolution. How had his apartment become so useless? A little thought and Luther realized that it had been decades since he'd done anything with his living quarters. His former boss had slipped from city to city, never really establishing himself, never really doing GOOD anywhere, until they'd washed up in Seven Cities. Luther hadn't even been sure they'd be staying, and one apartment is the same as another with your eyes closed, so why bother fixing the place up?
    And now, here he was, a victim of his own indifference. He could imagine worse places to live, but those mostly involved raw sewage or perky young men selling security systems. This apartment wasn’t so much terrible as it was insignificant. Bland. Nothing too broken, but nothing repaired. What WAS the stain on the carpet, anyway? He had never bothered to figure it out.
    And he wasn’t going go figure it out now. Five minutes was all it took to dump his laundry in the washing machine—washer and dryer were a must for Luther—and he was back out the door and trotting down the stairs, cell phone in hand. Whom to call? Maybe a better question, what gods were in town? As happy as Atty was with Chuck, the man was a minor god and not someone who could afford the power to take on any more angels than he already had. There was Rochelle and Rachel, the twins over on the east side, but from all Luther had ever heard, their angels were all women. Tumble-dry Thomas, the Little Saint, Amazing Grace, Bob the Repair Guy--altogether, there were dozens of minor gods in the city, and while any one of them might be happy to have Luther join up, they didn’t have power to spare. It wouldn’t be fair for Luther to ask.
    No, it was time to swallow pride and ask one of the Big Eight. Sure, he’d be lucky to be hired on as a Seraphim, but wings are wings, right? Yeah, that’s what he’d keep telling himself. He scrolled through his phonebook and found the number for Raephene. He walked out the front door of his building—not his building for much longer he decided—and made the call.
    “Hey, this is Rae.” Her voice was rich and alto—and tired.
    “Rae? This is Luther.”
    “Hiya, Luther. How’s things with Heartbroken Hal?”
    Luther had never liked the nickname for his former employer, but he had to admit it was accurate. “Actually, that’s why I was calling. I’m not with Harold anymore.”
    Rae laughed. “No kidding. Seems like there’s a lot of that going around.”
    Luther stopped walking. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
    “You’re not? Hang on. Were you calling me, hoping for a job?”
    “I thought you could maybe put a word in with Forgotten Zed, and I wasn’t expecting much, but why are you laughing? Cut that out.”
    “I’m sorry, Luther. I wasn’t meaning to be rude, and really, it isn’t funny at all, but I guess you haven’t heard yet. See, I’m out of work, too.”
    “Oh,” said Luther. “No, I hadn’t heard. Why did he let you go?”
    “Because he’s dead.”
    Luther’s stomach felt hollow. “Can’t be.”
    “Oh, he can. He is.”
    “Dead dead?”
    “I’ve seen road kill that looked more likely to hop up and run around.”
    Luther swallowed and started walking again. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he had the vague sense that getting his legs moving would jumpstart his brain. “How did it happen?”
    “A bullet.”
    “That’s impossible.”
    Rae laughed again, a hint of despair to it. “Believe me, it doesn’t seem real to me either. I mean, he was Forgotten Zed. He was one of the big eight. A god. God’s don’t die, not from a gun, not from a train.”
    “Do you know who did it?”
    “You mean, who inherited all that power? No. No idea. The Fifth Agency sent some people over to take a look, but since that first night, I’m out of the loop. We all are. None of us here have been told anything. You know how the Agency is about us angels, anyway.”
    “Don’t I. If you’re not an angel of death, they don’t want to talk to you, and if you are, they still don’t want to talk to you.”
    “Exactly. And an angel without wings? They’re not big fans of do-gooders in the first place, and now we’re do-gooders without any do.”
    They fell silent. Luther didn’t know what to say. This was a lot bigger than a few angels without work—bigger than a lot of angels without work. Forgotten Zed was one of the oldest gods, with thousands of years of prayers and faith and worship making him into the kind of force that could crack the earth and call down fire and storm, and all that before breakfast. Now that power had passed onto someone else, someone who was willing to kill to get it. Luther didn’t like to think what kind of god that person would make.
    “You still there?” asked Rae.
    “Yeah, I’m here.”
    “You think Heartbroken would take both of us?”
    Luther snorted. “The man hasn’t performed a real miracle in a decade. His temple is a shambles. One of his replacements for me has a decent heart in him, but if I couldn’t get Harold straightened out, I doubt he can manage.”
    “Luther,” laughed Rae, “I think that’s the least humble speech I’ve ever heard from you.”
    Luther rubbed at his face with the heel of his hand. “I didn’t mean it that way. Just trying to be realistic. Sure, he could take us back, but what power would he have to spare? If we want work, it’s got to be somewhere else.” He stopped and looked around at where he was. “Rae, I’m in front of a Thai restaurant on Broad. Lunch and talk?”
    “Why not. Nothing better to do with my day.”
    “Thanks.”
    “I didn’t mean it that way, Luther. Lunch sounds great. Thai For First?”
    “That’s the place. How soon can you make it?”
    “Twenty.”
    “I’ll get us a table.”
    “See you soon, Luther.”
    She hung up and Luther looked around. The sun was bright, and a pigeon wandered around next to a garbage can. Cars went by, black and red and some kind of ugly orange, and a heavy beat floated down form the open window of an upstairs apartment. It was a normal day.
    It was a terrible day.
    Luther put his phone in his pocket and walked into the restaurant.

Accidental God -- Section 05

[Over 12,000 words for this story, and it's starting to take shape in my head. As in, I'm getting a general picture of what the ending might be, and some of the stuff in between. I still need to learn more about Luther, so I suppose that's what the next section will be, which makes me happy. I like our unemployed archangel.

[This section was fun to write. I set myself the challenge of writing a believable small child. They're so hard to get right, so mostly authors avoid them. If I do okay, why don't you all send my chocolate.]


    Bradley wandered. It wasn’t a new feeling—it was kind of a default activity, something to do after losing a job or a girlfriend or a sense of purpose. In fact, a lost sense of purpose was probably the one he was most familiar with. He made his way toward his usual wandering spots, but none of them appealed. The D’Arte Board Gallery, always a good place to kill an hour (or at least maim a few minutes), was surprisingly unappealing, and Fifth City Park was too crowded. Not even a veggie burger from The Rice Pattie could tempt him.
    In fact, Bradley realized he hadn’t, in fact, lost a sense of purpose. Inexplicably, he was walking somewhere with a hint of determination. More than a hint. He had the full-on flavor of determination in his mouth, the scent of usefulness leading him onward.
    Fifteen minutes and a few turns later, and Bradley was in front of the apartment building that held his sister, her husband, and their two children. On second thought, probably not the husband, since he had a regular job with regular hours, but Clara was almost certainly there. And, from the faint sound of screaming coming through the ground floor windows, at least the smaller of the children definitely was there.
    And not sounding good. Bradley walked faster, jogged up the five steps to the front door, and buzzed. It was a few seconds before his sister’s voice crackled through the speaker—along with a heavy dose of crying baby.
    “Yes?”
    “It’s Bradley.”
    “Thank goodness! Get in here.”
    There was an angry buzz at the door, and Bradley bumped it open with his hip. By the time he was in the hall, the door to Clara’s apartment was already opening, letting out the crying and a hefty dose of three-year-old shouting as well.
    Clara was dressed for the day, but her brown hair had been abandoned somewhere between shower and brush. JoBeth, the ten-month-old, was clinging to her shoulder, and the t-shirt that must have been clean that morning was now smeared with baby-snot and some variety of pureed food. Bradley’s sister looked frazzled.
    “Poopy diaper or crying baby?” she asked.
    “Do I have to choose?”
    “Please, Bradley?”
    That purpose inside Bradley swelled up, moved his mouth, and made the decision for him. “Crying baby.”
    “Really?” said his sister. “Thank you! As bad as she is right now, when I tried to put her down to change Erica, JoBeth freaked.”
    “Worse than this?”
    “Way worse. I don’t know what’s wrong. After I get this diaper changed, we’re calling the doctor. Please take her? 32Maybe a change of scenery will help her.”
    “So I’m scenery now?”
    “The best kind of scenery. Scenery that loves her.” Clara leaned her side toward Bradley. “Here, JB. It’s Uncle Brad. You like Uncle Brad.”
    Bradley held out his hands to take his niece, and the purpose that had been building in him shot down his arms like a cat after yarn, not that Bradley had ever owned a cat. Down his arms, through his hands, and through the air to JoBeth. By the time Bradley’s hands took her weight under the arm, she had stopped crying. Before he had his niece against his shoulder, she was asleep.
    Except for the whir of the stove fan in the kitchen, everything was quiet. Erica had stopped shouting and was staring up at Bradley. Clara’s mouth was open. Somewhere upstairs a dog barked.
    Bradley tucked his chin and looked down at the sleeping baby.
    “Guess I make for good scenery,” he said.
    “Guess so,” agreed Clara. “Want to come in? Not much else is clean, but there’s enough empty couch to sit on.”
    “You always do that,” said Bradley.
    “Do what?”
    “Say your place is messy, when it’s practically clean enough for a furniture photo-op.” He walked in, past the kitchen, and looked at the living room. “Oh.”
    “I told you it was messy,” said Clara. “I didn’t finish laundry day, we still haven’t weeded out all the unnecessary toys Mom gave Erica for Christmas, and Ted has decided to start doing weight lifting.”
    “So those free weights in the corner are his?”
    “‘Free weights.’ Why do men call them ‘free weights?’ They cost enough, and they certainly don’t free up any space in the apartment.”
    “Come on,” said Bradley, sitting on the one corner of the couch that wasn’t covered in unfolded—yet fresh scented—clothing. “You know you’ll like how he looks after a month or two with those.”
    “I like how my husband looks just fine right now,” said Clara, grabbing an unusually silent Erica and laying her down on a diaper changing pad. “Besides, the last thing I need right now is the temptation to get another one of these. I don’t know how people handle three children at once. Sure, it’s a fair fight for the moment, but as soon as they outnumber us, I think the battle will be over.”
    “Didn’t you want more kids?”
    “Absolutely. Just not yet. Quit moving your legs, squirt—don’t touch! Yucky. This is a two wiper, at least. It’s dried on.”
    “Ah, family,” said Bradley. “It’s all about sharing.” JoBeth was warm against his chest, and he could feel something…off inside her. Wrong. If she were a rose, her thorns would be too large—but they were shrinking. The wrong inside her was fading, and she felt peaceful against his shoulder. “Looks like this one is doing better.”
    “I don’t know what you did,” said Clara, strapping on the new diaper and sealing up the old one with a grimace. “Whatever it was, thank you.”
    “Not sure I did anything. She’s just a good kid.”
    “She is,” agreed his sister, picking up her older child and setting her on her feet. “Go find Boobles, squirt.”
    “Oh!” said Erica, her eyes bright. “I put Boobles in the big little blanket.” Then she was gone, her diaper waggling behind her.
    “That’s a good kid, too,” said Bradley.
    “She is. Easier to think that when they’re not shouting at me, though, I’ll admit that. Seriously, thanks for coming Brad. I don’t know how you knew, but thank you.”
    Bradley shrugged but then froze when JoBeth stirred on his shoulder. “It just seemed,” he said in a quieter voice, “just seemed like I needed to be here.”
    Clara smiled at him. “Mom never understood that about you. She kept wanting you to be Dad, but Dad never listened to his heart the way you do.”
    “He did, too.”
    “When?”
    “That time with the thing, when we were at that place.”
    Clara laughed. “Exactly.”
    “Of course, Dad had a lot more steady jobs than I’ve ever had.”
    Clara raised her eyebrows and nodded in agreement. “If by ‘a lot more’ you mean ‘one job until he died,’ then yes, he did. And now I’m off to seal this thing in five layers of plastic before I send it to a landfill to store its stink for future generations.”
    “That is a powerful one,” Bradley agreed.
    Clara walked into the kitchen. “You see the phone?” she called back. “I think it’s on the couch somewhere. I’d rather not use any cell minutes wading my way through the doctor’s automated menu.”
    Bradley glanced down at JoBeth again. The wrong was almost entirely faded. “Not sure you need to,” he called back. “I think she’s doing better.”
    “Here it is,” said Clara, showing up at the door to the living room, phone in hand. “You think so? I should probably check in just to be sure. How’s her forehead?”
    Bradley felt it with the inside of his wrist. “Warm.”
    “How warm?”
    “Normal warm. Babies are a little hotter than grownups, right?”
    His sister walked over and felt with her own wrist. “No fever.”
    “Nice,” said Bradley. Then he noticed Clara was staring at him. “What’s up?” he asked.
    “I think that’s my question. You look different.”
    “It’s because I lost my job.”
    “That’s not it, though I find that slightly amusing. What happened?”
    “I fed peanuts to a guy with a peanut allergy.”
    “Really?”
    “Not exactly, but that’s how it ended up. Anaphylactic shock isn’t pretty.”
    “He okay?”
    “No idea. Off to the hospital he went, but he didn’t look good.”
    “Eek.” Clara sat down on the floor and started folding clothes. “But that’s not it. That’s not why you look different.”
    “I had a bagel this morning. Never underestimate the power of a good bagel.”
    “Oh, believe me, I don’t, but that’s still not it either.”
    “You sure?”
    “I’m sure.”
    “Maybe I’m in love.”
    “Are you?”
    “No. Well, maybe. No.”
    Clara wrinkled her nose. “Darn it. It would be good for you.”
    Erica ran back into the room holding a stuffed dog tightly by the neck. “Boobles wants food,” she said, leaning in earnestly to announce this two inches from her mother’s face.
    “What kind of food does Boobles want?” asked Clara with weighted tones.
    “Chocolate.”
    “Not chocolate.”
    “Cereal.”
    “What kind of cereal?”
    “Ummm…red.”
    “Red cereal?”
    “Red cereal.”
    “Did you mean oatmeal with raspberries?”
    Erica nodded solemnly.
    “We’re out of raspberries,” said Clara. “What about blue cereal? With blueberries?”
    The three-year-old’s eyes got wide and she nodded even wider.
    Clara pushed up to her feet, leaving a small pile of folded laundry and an even larger pile of the unfolded variety. “I’ll make that right away. You want any?” she asked, looking at Bradley.
    “I had a bagel.”
    “Of course,” said his sister. “This is me, not underestimating its power. Heck, you probably won’t even be hungry by tomorrow, which is good, because Ted doesn’t like to share my lasagna.”
    “Were you going to invite me?” asked Bradley.
    “Momma’s making zanya!” said Erica, excited.
    “We were,” said Clara.
    “Keep in mind,” said Bradley, “even bagels have their limits. What time?”
    “Ted thinks he’ll be back by six, so any time after five-thirty would be perfect. Earlier and you can help cook, later and I yell at you for not setting the table.”
    “Got it. Five-thirty.”
    Clara disappeared into the kitchen again, leaving Erica staring intently at her uncle.
    “What’s up, Eri-berry?”
    “You look funny.”
    “Is that what Boobles thinks?”
    Erica and Boobles nodded together.
    “Maybe you’ve just never seen me in the morning before.”
    She looked puzzled. “What?” she asked, her voice rising to a squeak.
    “Morning light is different than evening light.”
    “What?”
    Bradley tried a different approach. “Do you like Boobles?”
    That got a nod.
    “Does he eat his own vomit?”
    “Bradley!” Clara’s voice prodded at him from the kitchen.
    “What’s a vomit?” asked his niece.
    “Ask your mother.”
    A blueberry flew out of the kitchen and smacked Bradley on the cheek. He picked it up off the dish towel where it landed and popped it into his mouth. “It’s a kind of dog food. Very nutritious.”
    “Come to the table!” called Clara. Boobles and Erica scampered away, and Bradley settled back into the couch, resting. Not that he was tired. He wasn’t, even waking up when he did. He just felt…content. This was a good home.
    “Someday,” he sighed to himself and looked out the windows. Sunlight painted a pile of sheets with squares of light so bright they hurt to look at. JoBeth, dense and warm on his shoulder, made him think of sleep. The wrong inside her was entirely gone, leaving a rich red of rose petals. Clara and Erica talked in the kitchen, and for a moment Bradley could feel the world spinning beneath him.
    It was perfect.
    Then a shadow flicked across the window and Bradley was instantly tense. He didn’t know why, but the arm supporting JB against his chest was rigid, his jaw clenched. It was time to go.
    Before he knew what he was doing, Bradley found himself in the kitchen, tipping his niece into Clara’s arms.
    “You leaving?”
    “I think I need to. She’ll be okay now.”
    “She will, huh?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay, Doctor Shupack. Any other skills you’ve learned recently besides medicine?”
    “Nope,” he said, opening the apartment door. “Though I’ve considered whittling.”
    “Sounds stimulating,” said Clara, following him. “Don’t you have class this semester?”
    “January. I got into the program for Winter Semester.”
    “So, with no job, what’s the plan until then?”
    “I was thinking I’d start a new religion. Care to join?”
    “Hah,” she said. “Not unless your religion involves chocolate. Otherwise I’ll stick with the one I’ve got.”
    “I’ll bring it up with the faithful,” he said.
    “How many do you have?”
    “As soon as you join? One.”
    “Let me know how it works out for you,” said Clara, smiling. “Brad—whatever you did for JoBeth—thanks again.”
    He smiled back. “No problem.” He waved as he pushed backwards through the building’s front door.
    As it swung shut behind him, his eyes were up, darting around. Where was that shadow? What was it? Whatever the case, that same purpose that had led him to JoBeth was leading him away again, which probably meant two things.
    One, the shadow was probably dangerous. And two, it was probably following Bradley.

Accidental God -- Section 04

[Here's hoping I'm getting back into the swing of this story. Here's more of Tuck and Paul.]

    "I've always wondered why so many gods hang out in Seven Cities," said Paul. "It's not like it's a vacation spot, or something like that. No Mai Tai's on soft sands, or anything even close. Personally, I'd pick someplace with more museums."
    "More museums?" said Tuck. "You never even pay attention to art. You couldn't tell a Serat from a Cezanne."
    "That's true," agreed Paul, pushing open the door to the medical examiner's office. It was in one of the smaller tall buildings downtown, underneath other city offices and one of the police precinct offices, and already it smelled of everything sterile.
    "So if you don't like art, why a place with more museums?"
    Paul paused and grinned at his partner, pulling off his sunglasses. "I was just messing with you. I'd take the beaches."
    Tuck slipped his own sunglasses into his jacket. “That was funny,” he said.
    “Thank you,” said Paul. “That means a lot, coming from you. Some day, I might even get a laugh.”
    “That would be amazing,” said Tuck.
    “I know,” said Paul.
    Tuck adjusted the heavy, oversized duffel bag on his shoulder and moved past his partner, walking up to the security guard sitting at the desk.
    "Can I help you?" asked the man. He was round but solid, and didn't look like the sort of person who had much patience for being patient, so Tuck just pointed back to his partner and waited. Paul walked up, straightening his tie and smiling.
    "Hello, sir." He glanced at the name on the solid man's tag. "Roger Grimes? Mr. Grimes, we have someone we needed to see."
    The guard reached for his phone. "What's the extension?"
    "Extension? Oh, sorry. No, we're not looking for someone who works here. The person we need is dead."
    The guard's eyebrows weighed heavy over his eyes. "A relative?"
    "Goodness, I hope not," said Paul. "As best we can tell, the man is old enough to be my father, and I'd hate to think that my mother was lying all these years." He glanced over at Tuck. "Do I look Spanish to you?"
    Tuck considered it. "It's possible," he said. "Castilian, perhaps. Do you feel Spanish?"
    Paul looked thoughtful. "I don't think so. How do you tell if you feel Spanish?"
    Round and solid stood up, his hand heavy on his holster. "All right, funny guys. We're done here."
    "I love that," said Paul. "You know, when they talk in first-person plural, as if they could somehow read our thoughts?"
    Tuck glanced at the security guard carefully. "CAN he read our thoughts? He doesn't look like the type, but I didn't check him."
    "Nah," said Paul. "Don't worry about it. I've got this." He reached into his jacket and the security guard's gun came out of its holster. "Whoa, easy," said Paul. "Just getting my ID. I'm sorry we were joking around, but we don't mean you any harm. Look, I'll pull it out--really slowly--with my thumb and pointer finger. Is that okay? We're all okay, right? See, Tuck, I can do the first-person plural thing, too."
    "Sounds like you practiced that," said Tuck.
    "I have. Thought I'd be a nurse when I was younger."
    "Really?"
    "Messing with you again, Tuck."
    Tuck nodded, acknowledging the point, and Paul pulled out his wallet. Then, his wallet in his hand, he worked his magic.
    This was another reason that Tuck was happy to partner up with Paul. Every wizard has his own strengths and weaknesses. Tuck's strength was--well, it was easier to say that it wasn't in the way of working with people. Enchantment, illusion, glamour, they just weren't his forte, or his interest. Paul, however, loved people. He loved how they thought, he loved meeting new people, and he loved convincing them of things that couldn't possibly be true, messing with their heads, and burying them in a world of illusion.
    "There," said Paul. "Does that make things easier?"
    Mr. Grimes sat down in his chair, blinking. Now it was his eyelids that were heavy, and then his arms sagged and the gun dropped to the floor. Then he was snoring.
    "Impressive," said Tuck, sliding the duffel bag around to hang at his back. "I don't think I've seen you do that before."
    "You're not the only one who can read a book," said Paul. "Want me to show you how I do it?" He turned the wallet toward his partner, but Tuck reached out and closed it in his partner's hand. "Fine," said Paul, smiling. "I'll show you another time. Your turn."
    Tuck was already pulling his phone out of his pocket. A few button pushes pulled up his CPS program. It wasn't a Global Positioning System, it was a Corpse Positioning System. He'd worked out the software with some help from an Indian Guru and one of the three wizards who had led a certain software giant to virtual world dominance--and Tuck meant that in the literal sense of virtual. The little CPS program wasn't much, but Tuck found it useful on far more occasions than he was quite happy about.
    “This way,” he said, nodding down the hall. Paul fell in step and they made their way down the hall, floored with the same kind of synthetic composite used for hospitals and newer art studios: easy to mop, no cracks anywhere. They passed a few doors, an open office, and a confused look from a woman walking out with a sack lunch. Paul waved at her with the kind of natural smile that Tuck could never manage, and they turned down another hallway.
    "This place makes me think about death," said Tuck.
    "Really?" said Paul. "Why could that be?"
    “Sarcasm,” said Tuck. “Clever.”
    “Okay, Grim Reaper. Tell me why this place makes you think about death.”
    Tuck adjusted the bag on his shoulder again, grimacing. “Heavy,” he grunted. “It makes me think about death for all the normal reasons.”
    Paul blinked at him then laughed. “Crazy.”
    “Who?”
    “I am. I expected something deep. Unusual at least. Odd perhaps? Instead I just get ‘the normal reasons.’”
    “Aren’t you wondering what it makes me think?”
    “Beyond wonder, Tuck. I am officially beyond wonder.”
    “We go to such lengths to avoid death, but it does catch us all in the end.”
    “We who?”
    “We as a species. Humans.”
    “And demons,” added Paul.
    “Them, too.”
    “And gods, apparently.
    “That’s what I was really wondering about,” said Tuck. “All the security around this one god. Did he know someone was coming for him? He was a god. It’s not like any schmo on the street could pull a gun on him and have it count for anything. I’m still puzzling over how our assassin managed it at all.”
    “I thought you said it was a special bullet,” said Paul.
    “It was.”
    “And that’s not enough?”
    “Shouldn’t be. Not for a god.”
    “Even with the rotten wood?”
    “Even then. That bullet might have been enough for your upper-tier demon, say, or an archangel, or even a garbage collector.”
    Paul shuddered. “We are never fighting one of them again. Ever.”
    Tuck stopped in front of a door. “Agreed. And that bullet shouldn’t have been able to kill a god. They’re the real major league. As far as I know, there are only two people out there harder to kill than a god.”
    “Seriously? Two people?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who could possibly be—never mind. Is this the place?”
    Tuck nodded, putting away his cell phone and leaning in toward the electronic keypad that controlled the lock. He warmed up his fingertips then gently started tickling the underside of the little box.
    “That spell is so ridiculous,” said Paul.
    “But effective,” said Tuck.
    “That wasn’t a criticism,” said his partner. “I think it’s fine. Amusing even. But still ridiculous.”
    The keypad gave a brief electronic squeak that sounded remarkably like a giggle, and the lock clicked open.
    “See?” said Paul, reaching out to pull the door open. “Ridiculous, and it never gets old. Oh, crap!”
    The part of Tuck’s mind that wasn’t busy lurching sideways had to agree. A vaguely human form sliced through the space where Tuck had been a moment before. Tuck was fast enough to avoid the reaching claws that brushed past his face and took his breath along with them, but the thick tail—was the thing a lizard?—hit him heavily on the chest, launching Tuck backwards down the hall. One short flight later, and Tuck’s fall was cushioned by the contents of his duffel bag. He hoped vaguely that nothing in the bag was broken, but he had more pressing concerns.
    One pressing concern, really. It was around five-feet tall, not counting the tail, human in shape but covered in gray and red scales, and clinging to the wall using holds it had carved with its own claws—through brick and metal. That was disturbing, but not quite as much as the thing’s face. Human in shape, but where there should have been eyes, there was smooth skin; instead of a nose, parallel slits, flaring.
    It wasn’t moving for the moment, but Tuck knew that wouldn’t last. Gasping for breath, he forced his body to move, falling onto his side away from the duffel bag and trying to crawl and reach into his suit coat at the same time. Tuck’s fingers closed around the handle of his Desert Eagle, but not before he heard the roar of Paul’s Benelli M4, a shotgun that, against all probability, Paul kept hidden under his suit coat. A spray of metal darts buried themselves in the masonry where, disappointingly, the thing was no longer clinging. Tuck wrenched his pistol from its holster and rolled onto his back, aiming where the creature was clinging on the ceiling—no, back on the wall—other side of the duffel bag—ceiling again. Tuck tried to slow his breathing to get a clear shot, but even his reflexes weren’t up to it. It was a psychotic ping pong ball.
    Then the creature made the mistake of leaping straight at Paul. If Tuck had had the time, he would have smiled at that. Paul had three things he really liked in this world: people, talk radio, and guns. Those things hardly ever mix in positive ways, no matter what the combination is, but for Paul they blended together in some kind of Zen-like harmony. His affection for all three was an empty cup filled to overflowing.
    So if you’re not a person, and you’re not a talk radio host, and you’re flying through the air at Paul with really nasty, long claws, and Paul has a gun—something’s getting shot.
    Tuck sagged back onto the floor, letting his gun rest on the composite. “That was disgusting.”
    Paul looked around at the remains of the creature with satisfaction. “Yes,” he said. “It was.”
    “Do we charge our clients for dry cleaning?” asked Tuck, wrinkling his nose at his suit.
    “We should, shouldn’t we,” agreed his partner. “I’ll have Alice write it into future contracts. What do we do about the people who are going to start showing up very, very soon?”
    Tuck climbed up to his feet, adjusting his grip on his massively oversized handgun and walking toward the door that had held such an unpleasant surprise. “Can you make this room disappear for a few minutes?”
    Paul shrugged. “No problem. Now?”
    “Not now,” said Tuck. He leaped forward, gun at eye-level, and launched three fifty-caliber bullets into the room, two to chest, one to the head.
    Paul jumped, bringing his shotgun to bear on the door, then letting it drop. “What was that?! Do you realize how much energy I put into each one of those bullets? It’s like bleeding out my eyeballs! And you know what else? When you shoot, you’re supposed to be shooting AT something.”
    “I was,” said Tuck, holstering his gun. “Those things always come in two’s.”
    Paul walked over and looked at the mess in the room. “Matched set, huh?”
    “His an hers, maybe.”
    “That one’s a girl?”
    “Sure,” said Tuck. “Why not.”
    “What ARE they?”
    Tuck moved back over to the duffel bag and heaved it up onto his shoulder. “Make the room disappear first, explanations after.”
    Paul’s shotgun evaporated under his suit coat and he pulled a rumpled thread out of his back pocket.
    “What’s that?” asked Tuck, curious.
    “Used dental floss. Nobody wants to look at used dental floss.”
    “Nice.” Tuck pushed into the room as Paul hung the floss from the door frame. The duffel bag went onto one of two stainless steel tables and Tuck looked at the wall of small doors leading to refrigerated shelves. Paul joined him.
    “Any question about which drawer is our guy?”
    “The scarred and twisted door gives it away, doesn’t it,” said Tuck. “They’re a kind of energy leech. Ipthakorians.”
    “The creatures?”
    “Yes.”
    “Crazy. So they come after a dead guy who was a god.”
    “I suppose it would be a tempting target. Even the residual energy was enough to bring in a pair.” Tuck sniffed. “You want to get the door?”
    “I think it will take both of us,” said Paul. “That thing is seriously twisted.”
    Two minutes of heaving was enough to get the door open and the corpse pulled out on its tray. Paul twitched down the sheet.
    “He wasn’t a pretty one, was he.”
    “Let’s see what our friend thinks,” said Tuck. He unzipped the duffel bag and sat the man inside it up. The man was still in his pajamas—trains, which Tuck hadn’t expected on a forty-year-old—and his eyes were wild above the duct tape that sealed his mouth.
    “He looks upset,” said Paul.
    “I landed on him pretty hard,” said Tuck.
    “That must be it. So, Mr. Security, is this the guy who bribed you? Feel free to just nod.”
    They waited. From outside the door there were sounds of yelling and someone ran by the door.
    “He’s not nodding,” said Paul.
    “Not shaking his head, either,” said Tuck. “Maybe it’s the wrong question.”
    “Good thought. Should we take off the tape?”
    “He might call for help.”
    Paul thought for a moment. “Turn him to look at that Ipthawhatever.”
    “Ipthakorian.”
    “Just turn him.”
    The man’s eyes got even wider, which surprised Tuck, considering what size they had been.
    “You’d think,” mused Tuck, “that he’d never seen anything like this before.”
    “Probably hadn’t,” said Paul. “I can’t imagine that things like this would go after a full-fledged god.”
    “Not a chance. So do we say anything about it? Threaten this guy?”
    “Not necessary. He’s not going to be shouting out for anybody. Are you, Mr. Security?”
    That got a definite head shake. Tuck pulled off the tape.
    “It wasn’t him,” said the guard, adjusting his arms, taped behind his back. “I saw that guy once, but it was a lady who arranged it all.”
    “A lady?” asked Paul.
    That got a nod. “A looker. Like she was his business manager or something. He just sat in the back and acted serious.”
    Tuck glanced over at the body. “He does look like a serious person.”
    “Like you,” said Paul.
    “How like me?” asked Tuck.
    “I’m just saying.”
    “Saying what?”
    “That he’s serious and….”
    “And what?”
    Paul blinked. “Never mind. Mr. Security.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Paul waved his hand back and forth in front of his face. “I’m not a sir. Look over here.”
    “You want me to describe her?”
    “Why would I want that?”
    The security guard stared.
    “That’s perfect,” said Paul. “Keep looking this way and imagine the face of the woman. Remember the color of her eyes, how her hair moved when she turned, what she smelled like.”
    “Peaches,” said Mr. Security, his eyes distant. “She smelled like peaches.”
    “Perfect,” murmured Paul. “Keep that in mind. Keep that exactly…in…your…mind.”
    Then Paul surged forward, planted his hand on the guard’s face, and slammed him backwards onto the table. Where the man’s head had been, suspended in the air, hung the glowing memory of a face.
    “That her?” asked Tuck.
    “That’s her,” said Paul.
    “So now we go find this woman.”
    “Just one problem,” said Paul. “She’s dead, too.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Not kidding.”
    “Interesting. I’m starting to sense a pattern.” Tuck looked at his partner’s face. “You thinking about something?”
    Paul nodded. “If those Ickthiwickthies—”
    “Ipthakorians.”
    “If they came after this body, they’ll go after the woman, too, won’t they.”
    “Almost certainly.”
    “And any other corpses in the line?”
    “If there are more.”
    “What about a new god who isn’t settled in his powers yet?”
    “Once again,” said Tuck, “it’s almost certain.”
    “Huh,” said Paul. “Sucks to be him. Of course, we’re just going to kill him anyway.”
    Tuck simply shrugged. When you try to steal the powers of a god, you have to expect a few problems to come with the package.
    “Should we do something with Mr. Security?” he asked.
    “Leave him,” said Paul, looking down at the unconscious man. “Let him bear the shame of choo-choo pajamas.”

Accidental God -- Section 03

[I like these characters. Also, for some reason when writing for adults, I feel more free to explore tangents of all varieties. Different writing gives different opportunities, I suppose.]

    "Rise and shine," said Atty, pushing open the curtains in his Washington Avenue condo. Luther blinked up at the ceiling from his bed on the couch. The ceiling was lined with track lighting and painted in the kind of pristine white most people expected from an angel. Atty liked the pomp and circumstance of the job and it showed all through his apartment--except for the collection of board games, the one over on the wall, lined up in a rainbow pattern of color.
    "I still don't get the board games," said Luther. "I've never even seen you play one."
    "Not yet," said Atty, "but you never know."
    "Never know what?"
    The angel dropped into the cream, overstuffed chair across from the couch, brushing back his freshly showered hair with one hand. "I keep having this dream," said Atty. "I don't know that I'd call it 'prophecy' or anything like that. It's just a dream." He smiled and bobbed his brown eyebrows. "You're giving me that look, Luther."
    "Which look?" Luther tried to wipe the skepticism off his face. It wasn't that he didn't believe in prophecy--he certainly did--but it was never a gift he'd had, and, to be frank, he'd always been a bit jealous of those angels and mortals who had it. Not that Luther would know what to do with prophecy, even if he'd had the opportunity. LUTHER, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR JOB ON YOUR BIRTHDAY.  Yeah, maybe prophecy wasn't such a great thing anyway. "Sorry," he said. "Tell me about your dream."
    "No," said Atty, pulling out his smart phone and scrolling through menus. "It's not your birthday anymore, so I don't have to be nice to you."
    Luther pulled his arms out from under the cream-colored blanket that had buried him all night--who made blankets with this much 'poof' to them? Children could be lost in this blanket for months. It was downright homicidal. He rubbed his hands over his face and felt the same lack of energy he'd felt since yesterday. The feeling like he was missing a limb or two, or that he'd forgotten how to walk.
    "I'm sorry, Atty, for looking like that. Can you forgive me this once? It would be very angelic of you."
    Atty rolled his eyes. "Fine, you putz, I'll tell you, even though you pulled out the 'angelic' card."
    "Sorry about that, too," said Luther.
    "No, you're not."
    "No, I'm not."
    "Thought so."
    "The dream"
    "Right. I keep having this dream that I have a god over to visit, and he's brought a date, and it is AWKWARD."
    "Bad first date?" asked Luther.
    "You have no idea. You know I'm not the most sensitive guy around--I mean, I do my best, but even I admit that I'm a surface dweller, and the deeper movements of social interaction are like the earthworms beneath my feet."
    "Earthworms?"
    "Moles, then. Or hobgoblins."
    Luther found himself laughing. "You're not very complimentary of the subtleties of society."
    Atty waved his hand dismissively and tapped on the screen of his phone. "I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I know I'm naturally a bit superficial, and I've come to accept that. I try to dig deeper, but it's like trying to scuba dive without a mask, and I can only hold my breath so long. It's not easy for me. Anyway, the point was that--in my dream--things aren't going well for our little godling, and I look over at the wall, and I say, 'Anyone for Monopoly?' So I keep board games."
    Luther blinked at him. "When you say 'godling,' you don't mean it's a child? Because we haven't had any child gods for centuries."
    Atty's eyebrows ducked down in concentration, he stopped messing with his phone, and he finally looked up. "No, he wasn't a child. Young, sure, though most gods look young, but...I don't know...out of his teens at least. But that's funny. I've always thought of him as 'the godling,' and never really figured out why." He shrugged and slipped his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. "Something to figure out later. I need to head out. Spare key is on the table by the front door. You going to be good for food? I'm not much of a shopper."
    Luther sat up, shoving the immense pile of a blanket onto one end of the couch and leaning back into the thick cushioning on the other. "I'll be fine," he said. "Probably head back home, or find a bagel or something. What time is it, anyway?"
    "Around six."
    "Six? What are you up for?"
    "I do morning services at the temple. Didn't I tell you that? Chuck isn't a particularly intense god, but he is very insistent that morning supplicants get the same attention as the people who wake up at reasonable times of day. And, as a matter of fact, I've discovered that I like it. You might be wearing off on me, Luther."
    "Passing the torch to the new generation," said the ex-archangel. "I'm proud of you."
    Atty stood up and looked down at his friend, his face suddenly serious. "Thank you," he said. "That means a lot to me."
    Luther blinked up at him and smiled. "Sure," he said.
    Neither moved for a while, then Atty sighed and looked at his watch. "Time to go. Hey, I'm sorry about your job. You really can stay here as long as you want. That offer stands. We can even get a bed for the study."
    Luther shook his head. "Home is home, and I've god plenty of money saved up. Never been much of one for vacations, so it's not like I'm short."
    "Come on, Luther. You know I wasn't talking about the money."
    Luther tried to smile, and it wasn't working too well. "I know. I'll be okay, though. I'll get through this. Maybe it IS time for a vacation. I might take things too seriously sometimes."
    Atty snorted. "You think?"
    Luther glared, then looked back at someplace through the wall. "I will get through this, Atty. I'll find work. Someone worthwhile must need an angel. And even if there's nobody, I'd be pathetic not to learn at least one thing from mortals over the last two-thousand years: you don't need wings to do good." He looked up at his friend. Atty still looked concerned, an emotion that looked foreign on the angel’s face.
    "Eat something," said Atty.
    "I will," said Luther.
    "I'm serious," said his friend. "Everyone feels better with a full stomach, even angels."
    "Get going."
    "Right."
    Luther felt the change before he saw it, a pulse through the air that smelled like hot soup on a cold morning and sounded like a street singer who just found his real voice, and it was beautiful. Wings of light, almost too bright to look at, spread out from Atty's back like opening the gates to a small, sweet heaven, and then his friend waved, and then he was gone, and Luther was alone.
    He reached up absently and wiped the tears away from the side of his nose. "Chuck seems like a nice god," he said to himself. Then he stood up to find a tissue and to search out that bagel place he'd seen on the corner.


    There was only one stool empty at the bagel place, along the counter that lined the street-side window. Bradley was floored by the number of people there, eating bagels. It was like there was a world over the rainbow he'd never known before, but instead of being populated by the Lollipop Guild and moving scarecrows, it was full of fit people in everything from suits to abbreviated jogging outfits that made Bradley slightly embarrassed to not look at, or at least only out of the corner of his eye. Everyone felt somehow artsy, like they must discuss modern sculpture for fun and listen to music that was ugly on purpose. Fortunately, the older guy next to the empty stool looked more real and less like he'd been fed from his birth on organic bean sprouts.
    "Hey," said Bradley, walking up to the man.
    "Good morning."
    "This stool taken?"
    The man shook his head. "Please." He took a bite from what looked like a cinnamon-sugar bagel, and Bradley decided his guess had been right on the money: a real human being, who probably had never had membership in a gym. Not that the guy was much out of shape. He looked healthy enough, but like he did real work for real people. Gray hair, blue eyes, a little scruff. His clothes looked slept in, but not homeless. Still, was the guy okay?
    Bradley sat down and addressed his own bagel sandwich. Roast beef, veggie cream cheese, and the same cluster of vegetation that the lady in front of him had ordered on her extra-healthy-everything bagel. Somehow, it had seemed expected, and the lady behind the counter had looked at him with those hazel eyes that demanded vegetables on EVERYTHING. True, Bradley might have been projecting just a little--a snowball of insecurity that had started its downhill roll the moment Olivia walked back into her apartment and closed the door--but he ordered the vegetables. Better safe than ridiculed by the bagel crowd.
    Bradley took a bite and glanced at his neighbor again. The guy looked worn out. Too clean to be homeless, unless homeless was a new thing for him, but that wasn't the vibe Bradley was getting. Just discouraged. Did the guy need a friend? He seemed pretty self-contained, misery closing around him like that egg-crate foam that blocks out sound and makes it hot and hard to breathe.
    Normally Bradley wasn't exactly a social person. He wasn't opposed to people, not in general, but he was usually happier with a good book than with a good friend. In fact, he had a book with him--some mystery that he'd found in a twenty-five-cent box outside Under-Written Books. He had no idea what it was about, but the cover had a cob of corn crossed with a pistol, and that guaranteed that, if not good, the book would at least be wonderfully terrible.
    But, surprisingly, the book stayed in his jacket pocket where he kept it (always available for emergencies), and Bradley looked back to his neighbor.
    "You okay?" he asked.
    The man looked at him--bright blue eyes--then back to the remaining third of his bagel. He smiled, seeming genuinely amused by something. "Not particularly, but thank you for asking." The man's voice was a rich bass, like a radio announcer. That seemed likely to be the end of the conversation, but something in Bradley nudged his mouth back open.
    "Want to talk about it?" he asked. "It's not that I want to pry, but you just seem--I don't know. I mean, I lost my job last night, and that was after I accidentally sent a guy to the hospital, and I don't even know if he's okay, so I'm not exactly someone who's good at advice or anything, but it's just that sometimes saying what's crappy about life makes it better. And besides, you'll finish your bagel and walk out of here, and I'll eat this overstuffed monstrosity, and then I'll leave, and we'll never see each other again. So what do you have to lose?"
    The older man looked back over at him, still smiling. "You're a funny kid," he said.
    "I'd say I'm more witty," said Bradley. "I'm not usually 'ha-ha' funny."
    "What's your name?" asked the man.
    "Bradley."
    "I'm Luther."
    They shook hands.
    "You're right," said Luther, spinning the remains of his bagel on his napkin on the counter. "I just found it funny that YOU were the one telling ME to talk about my life. Bit backwards for me."
    "How's that?" asked Bradley, when it looked like Luther wasn't going to add anything.
    Luther breathed in, a long sigh through his nose. "I lost my job yesterday, too. I was in counseling, of a sort, for a lot of years. And now...I'm not."
    Bradley looked out the window at the lightening world. Who knew the sun rose this early? "That stinks," he said. "I mean, it does stink, right? I don't know if you quit or retired or--I didn't want to assume."
    "Don't worry," said Luther, smiling again. "It does stink."
    They sat in silence for a while, and Bradley worked at his bagel. The crisp veggies were surprisingly pleasant, along with the salty-sweet roast beef. Luther finished his bagel and took a pull at an insulated cup.
    "Coffee?" asked Bradley.
    "Hot chocolate. Never had much need for coffee."
    "Oh, you're one of those natural early risers, aren't you."
    "Something like that," said Luther. "You?"
    "Oh, I've always been more of the vampire type."
    Luther glanced at him sharply.
    "Not...a real vampire," said Bradley, confused by the reaction. Luther didn’t seem nuts. "I just meant awake at night, asleep during the day. I mean, there aren't really...vampires."
    "Of course not," said Luther, turning back to his hot chocolate. "So what gets you out this morning?"
    Bradley shrugged. "No idea. I woke up, felt good, and here I am, answering the siren call of the bagel."
    "She is a cruel temptress," agreed Luther. "What was your work?"
    "Waiter. For all of four hours. I'm a student, too. Graphic design program."
    "Cool," said Luther. "Artist."
    "Or something," said Bradley. "I mean, I draw well enough, but it's the relationships between things that I like best. Seeing the way the world fits together, then putting those pieces together in miniature. Making thought into reality. I guess that's what I like best."
    "And graphic design is the place to do that?"
    "I don't know," said Bradley, shaking his head. "It's the next thing, I guess. I mostly just wander around, bumping into life and falling down, then getting up and wandering in a new direction. It drives my mother nuts. She worries."
    "That's what mothers are best at," said Luther.
    "At worrying?"
    "No," said the man, shaking his gray hair. "At loving. Worry is just a part of that. So no more work as a waiter, huh?"
    "Guess not," said Bradley, "though, to tell the truth, I think they should have fired the chef, not me. Guy asked for no peanuts but had an allergic reaction to something anyway."
    "Easier to find a new waiter than a new chef," said Luther. "What's next?"
    "No idea," said Bradley. "What's next for you?"
    "No idea."
    They sat in silence for a while. Bradley looked down at his bagel and decided he wasn't much hungry. Instead he felt restless. It was time to move, to go, to walk someplace, though he didn't know where. He wrapped up his bagel in the broad sheet of paper they served it on and stuffed his leftover napkins into a pocket.
    "Heading out?" asked Luther.
    "Yeah," said Bradley, looking out at the slanted morning sunlight. "It's time to go."
    "Where?"
    "I'm not sure." Bradley laughed, standing up off his stool. "Does that sound crazy?"
    "In my kind of work?" said Luther. "No. Not crazy. It was nice to meet you, Bradley."
    "Good to meet you, too, Luther. See you around."


    Luther watched as the young man pushed open the door to the bagel shop, the bell ringing over his head. The ex-archangel narrowed his eyes in thought. There was something about Bradley. He didn't know what, but it was something. The boy reminded him of an egg.
    Luther wondered what was about to hatch.

Accidental God -- Section 02

[Again, I'm sorry for switching projects on you, but this is a risk I take as an author, putting stuff up as I write it, and a risk you take reading it.

[The fact is, not everything I write will work. Not all ideas will stick. But I do enjoy writing it, and I want it out there for you to enjoy as well. So I'll keep at it if you'll hang in there with me.

[Actually, I'll keep at it, with or without you--but it's so much more fun with you.]

    Bradley woke up the next morning without a job or a headache.
    He wasn't too surprised about the job--he'd been there, after all, when his boss looked at him and said YOU'RE FIRED, so he'd realized that, after a good sleep, he'd still be fired. Bradley had a solid grip on reality that way.
    It was the complete lack of headache that he found disturbing. Bradley suffered from the less common variety of sleep apnea where on occasion, in the middle of sleep, a person stops breathing. That, actually, is the normal variety of sleep apnea, but Bradley was different because he was skinny, and sleep apnea is more common among the oversized.
    So, with his skinny sleep apnea, Bradley hardly ever felt rested when he woke up. Add to that the bizarre tendency his nose had to dry out and clog up within thirty minutes of falling asleep, and Bradley almost always woke up with a headache.
    But not this morning. He sniffed experimentally. Clear nose. He narrowed his eyes at the ceiling, extremely suspicious of this feeling. It was mellow. It was peaceful. It was calm and relaxed.
    It was very, very weird.
    He looked over at his clock: 5:30. Seriously? He just went to bed five hours ago, after consoling himself by spending money he didn't really have on ice cream he didn't particularly want to eat, but hey, it's not every day you get fired, right? And now, here he was, awake at an hour normally reserved for garbage collectors and the terminally insane individuals known commonly as 'joggers.' Why?
    Bradley rolled out of bed--still no headache--walked into the bathroom--even still, no headache. He looked in the mirror and proceeded to pretty much ignore himself, as usual. (See yourself there enough times and, honestly, there aren't too many surprises.) Instead of any kind of general perusal, he kept his focus on his nose.
    Still looked like his nose. Felt like his nose. He'd never been to any kind of doctor about it, to see if there were any convenient way to widen the inside, so it looked essentially the way it looked nine years ago when his body steadied out at age seventeen. His nose, the very same nose, and he could breathe through it.
    "My Kleenex budget is going to go down," muttered Bradley. Then, deciding it was the only sensible thing to do at five-thirty in the morning, he took a shower and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that said 'Not My Problem' in broad, apathetic letters. He still hadn't decided if that meant that nothing in the world were his problem, or if the girl who had given it to him was making a statement. Whatever way that went, she'd broken up with him three weeks later, and now, after a year-and-a-half, he was still broken-up-with. Such is life. He tried to be philosophical about it.
    Breakfast. That was a problem. Since Bradley was used to working late when he had to, and staying up even later when he didn't, he hadn't bought any real kind of breakfast food for years. He'd never had much of a relationship with oatmeal anyway, so it had been a revelation for him when he realized he could skip straight to lunch.
    But even after a long shower and more time than usual spent on his hair--a full thirty seconds with a stiff brush--the clock on the bathroom wall hadn't even made it to six o'clock yet. Bradley decided it was a lazy clock and wondered what to do about breakfast. It seemed wrong to eat lunch for breakfast. There was something about eleven-thirty that made pizza or ramen seem reasonable. Then it was like he had SKIPPED breakfast, not like he was replacing it with some kind of blasphemous dinner food. But you couldn't do that before six. You had to eat eggs, or Malt-O-Meal, or pancakes. At the very least, you had to go with bagels. What time did the place on Washington open?
    He decided it was worth a try and grabbed a jacket. He didn't think he'd need it, but September in Seven Cities could be unpredictable, and rain is rain: fun to feel on your hair and face, not so fun soaking through your shirt and down into your underpants.
    Bradley locked the door to his studio apartment behind him and jogged down the stairs. Feeling the chill coming up from below, he decided the jacket had been a good idea, and he pulled it on, nodding good morning to his neighbor.
    His neighbor in jogging leggings. His neighbor in one of those jackets that says ‘I’m so gorgeous I don’t even have to take off anything to prove it.’ Well, Bradley knew she wasn’t beautiful in the usual kind of beautiful. She was fit—obviously fit—but also a bit rounder than was exactly fashionable. Okay, a lot rounder, but Bradley didn’t mind. He didn’t have anything against skinny girls, but if he had his pick, he’d pick—well, he’d pick his neighbor.
    “Hey, Olivia.”
    She paused with her keys in her door. “Bradley?”
    “What’s up?” he said.
    Olivia looked down at her watch—a big, sporty thing that looked like it should be under water—then back up. “Bradley?”
    He glanced up at the ceiling and laughed, a little more nervously than he’d intended. “Come on. It’s not like I’ve NEVER been awake this early.”
    “Really?” asked Olivia, leaving her keys in the lock and crossing her arms. “When was the last time?”
    “It was just…like…yeah.” He stopped and Olivia smiled. Cool. “Been jogging?”
    “Absolutely,” said his neighbor. “Every day.”
    “Wow. That’s—wow.”
    “That’s what?” asked Olivia, her eyes narrowing.
    “No,” said Bradley. “I mean, jogging is cool.”
    She bobbed her eyebrows and turned back to her keys. That was too fast. There was supposed to be more talking. Shouldn’t there be more talking? Ask her about her work—did she work? Was she in school? She liked music—all kinds of music; he’d heard it through the floor on his nights off. He could talk about that. Or food. He had to eat, she had to eat, so that was something they had in common. All kinds of things to talk about.
    Bradley’s mouth opened and closed and opened again. Olivia pushed the door in and followed it.
    “See you later, Bradley.”
    “Nice apartment—I mean, sure, see you.”
    Olivia waved and closed the door.
    “I like your style,” whispered Bradley to the wood. “When I get a job, let’s go out for dinner. Or a bagel. Do you read books?” He sighed. “Because I read lots of books.”
    Bradley pulled on his jacket, put his hands in his pockets, and walked down three more flights of stairs to find a bagel.


    “Why are we doing this again?” asked Tuck.
    “Is that a serious question?” asked his partner, Paul.
    Tuck thought about it. He was, in general, thoughtful. At least, he liked to think of himself that way. Sure, he wasn’t Nietzsche, or Calvin, or Bertrand Russell—though he’d been reading Russell, on and off, and had a few bones to pick with him—but Tuck was, at the end of the day, a man who considered his thoughts carefully, and his words even more so.
    So when Paul asked if it were a serious question, Tuck stood up from where he was crouched next to the body of a dead god, and he thought about it. Paul was looking at the angle of the shot, tracing back possible trajectories, so he didn’t notice his partner’s thoughtfulness until he turned around and the two almost collided.
    “Tuck!” Paul stepped back and raised his hands, exasperated. “Why do you DO that?”
    “Yes,” said Tuck.
    “Yes what?”
    “Yes, it was a serious question.”
    Paul rubbed at an eyebrow. “Then here’s a serious answer: because it’s our job.”
    “No,” said Tuck, crouching back down next to the body. “That’s not why.”
    “We got hired,” said Paul, walking over to where the bullet was lodged in the penthouse wall. “We’re getting paid. It definitely is our job.”
    “But we’ve turned down jobs before.”
    “But we didn’t turn down this one.”
    “But we could have.”
    “But we didn’t”
    “But—”
    “Shut up,” said Paul. “Come look at this.”
    Tuck took one last look at the body and sighed. It’s true, he hadn’t thought very much of this particular god—didn’t think much of any of them, in fact; Tuck looked to the big-G God and tended to ignore the little-g variety the way he ignored the celebrities with their lives splattered all over the tabloids—but he didn’t know that the man had deserved this. Fifteen-hundred years of divinity, and soon his temple would be the same size as pretty much everyone else’s: seven-by-three, and six feet down. He blew his breath out through flapping lips and stood up to join his partner next to the wall.
    “Do you see what I see?” asked Paul.
    “A fine example of post-impressionism,” said Tuck. “Notice the vivid yet unnatural colors and the distinctive brush strokes.”
    Paul stared at him. Tuck raised his eyebrows.
    “Seriously?” asked Paul.
    “Seriously. The bullet hole in the middle makes the tragedy of this night even deeper.”
    “I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking or not,” said Paul. “After seven years of working together, I still can’t tell if you’re joking. Now look at the bullet.”
    Tuck leaned in close, sighing again at the frayed hole in the canvas. “Traces of copper and a tungsten penetrator. Armor-piercing rounds.”
    Paul nodded. “One to take the window, the second for the kill. Think you can get anything from this?”
    “It’s possible,” said Tuck, “though if these are mass produced rounds, that doesn’t seem likely.”
    “Mass produced rounds? To kill a god?”
    “A valid point, though I still think the god’s security is our best bet. One of them has to be dirty.”
    Paul laughed like nothing was funny. “Of course one of them is dirty—at least one—but better to have more leads to follow than none. Besides, a lot of target shooters like to do their own ammunition custom, so I figure it’s an even bet we might get something specific from it.”
    Tuck shrugged and pulled off his glove. “It’s worth a shot,” he said.
    “Did you do that on purpose?” asked Paul.
    “Do what?”
    “That whole, ‘It’s worth a shot’ bit? With the bullet?”
    “What about it?”
    “Seven years,” muttered Paul, turning and walking away. “Seven years, and even now.”
    Tuck didn’t quite smile, looked back to the bullet, and put his hand into his inside suit-pocket. It came back out with his small, leather toolkit. He undid the snap and let it unfold into his left hand. Tuck ignored the lock-picks, thimbles, hearing aid from an Angry Old Man, and almost all the other odds and ends, and instead reached for a piece of chalk that had only ever been used by children. This kind of magic needed complete confidence, and no one has confidence like a five-year-old girl.
    With an inward apology to the artist, Tuck made his marks around hole, laying down the proper symbols to block outside influences and emotions and resonances within the chalk and magic framework. As usual, he finished it all off with his googly-eyed emoticon: (O.o). He smiled, reminding himself of his own lack of wisdom and how very, very much he had to learn—and nothing said that for Tuck like a pair of googly-eyes.
    He slipped the chalk back into his kit, tucked it all away into his suit, and concentrated. After a minute the sweat began to form on his forehead, but he ignored it. After two minutes Tuck admitted to himself that the suit would absolutely need dry cleaning, no way around it. After five minutes that felt like half a marathon, he stepped away from the painting, found an end-table made entirely of glass, and sat down hard enough to draw uncomfortable popping sounds from the furniture.
    “Whoa there,” said Paul. “You all right?”
    Tuck thought, and then nodded. “Will be.”
    “Get what we need?”
    “Answer my question first,” said Tuck.
    “Which question was that?” asked Paul, exasperated.
    “Why are we doing this? And don’t say ‘because it’s our job.’ That’s a dodge, not an answer.”
    Paul sat down on a chair that was a bizarre combination of steel and expensive dead animal. Tuck watched as his partner seemed to actually give thought to the question. Suddenly Tuck felt a surge of gratitude. It was good to work with a partner like this—a partner who moved ahead when Tuck might pull back, but who had a heart and a brain behind his action. Also, the fact that Paul was willing to wear matching suits never ceased to amaze. Two grown men, walking around the city in matched black suits with matched sunglasses. Could Tuck ever find a better partner?
    “We’re doing it,” said Paul, “because no man deserves to die like this.” Tuck agreed, but stayed still and silent. “And we’re doing it because it’s our job—and I know you told me not to say that, but it’s still a good reason, and I like making money, and you have your uses for it, too, so just keep quiet and let me say the third thing.” Paul took a deep breath, stretching his back, then slumped forward. “We’re also doing it because someone has just stolen the power of a god—and not just any god, but one who had hundreds and thousands of years to gather faith from his faithful, and who, by all accounts, handed out far less in miracles than he ever took in. In other words, someone just snatched away some serious mojo, and that, in the wrong hands, is enough to keep me up at night.”
    “You never have trouble sleeping,” said Tuck.
    “It was a metaphor.”
    “No, it wasn’t.”
    “Yes, it was.”
    “No. A metaphor is an analogy between two objects or ideas. If anything, your comment was hyperbole, which IS often confused with metaphor, but—”
    “Tuck.”
    “Yes, Paul?”
    “Did I answer your question?”
    Tuck thought. “Yes, you did.”
    “Excellent. Do you agree?”
    “Also, you used ‘mojo’ imprecisely as well—”
    “Stop, Tuck. Job or not, someone should be keeping track of where all that godly power has gone, don’t you think? And who better than us?”
    “No one,” said Tuck.
    “Exactly. Now what did you find?”
    “I found three things. First, that bullet wasn’t a normal bullet.”
    “That was already obvious,” said Paul.
    “Yes, but it was less normal than we had supposed. It is interlaced with, as best I can tell, bone, lead, salt, sulfur, and wood.”
    “Wood?”
    “Rowan.”
    “But doesn’t rowan have to do with protection?”
    “It was rotten.”
    “Aha,” said Paul.
    Tuck nodded. “Also, we’re looking for a man who is able, meticulous, extremely ambitious, an extraordinary shot, and fond of Twinkies.”
    Paul looked at him sideways. “Was that a…about the Twink…never mind. Anything else we should know about this man?”
    “Yes,” said Tuck. “He’s also dead.”

Accidental God -- Section 01

[Writing has been a struggle. Really, really hard. Not an excuse, just a fact. Okay, maybe a little bit of an excuse. Anyway.

[Since moving ahead with Lord of the Manor has been so hard, I decided to work on something else--ANYTHING to get me writing. Do not be alarmed: I am not abandoning LoTM. I know much of where it's going and what I want it to be. However, I was so stuck that I needed to slip around my block sideways.

[So. Here's the first section of Accidental God, which I already posted (but for which you probably need a refresher), AND the second section! 2,500 words to the second section, so you know I'm not trying to short-change you.

[I hope you enjoy! I'm going to sleep.]

    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 & 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 Baernson 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. Baernson 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 Seven Cities, Wisconsin.
    Bjorn Baernson 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 Baernson 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 archangels."
    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 worth 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 Seven Cities 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.