Accidental God 2.0 -- Section 01

[It was time to quit dithering and start writing. So I did. I still don't entirely know what I'm doing, but I hope all the effort I've put into the background will be worthwhile.

[Anyhow, here's the first 2,000-or-so words of the new Accidental God.]

    Bradley was taller than was strictly healthy for someone of his body weight. It wasn't that he was far above average height--since he wasn't--but more that he was unfortunately below on average weight. It didn't help that he tended to buy his jeans large on the (so far) mistaken assumption that this would be the year that he would finally gain weight, flesh out, fill up the body image he had in his head of someone who wasn't quite so scrawny. He imagined that he had a fat person inside him, screaming to get out. So far, the fat person was still safely hidden.
    Bradley was on his way to work, earbuds playing the most recent episode of a podcast that described any number of strange things that a person might find in the world, and Bradley was willing to admit that there were a lot of strange things around. The man holding his elbows close to his side as he walked, as if they were wired there. The woman with an angry face and a nose ring with hair that was carefully and elegantly arranged as, if she were on her way to a swank party and not wearing a leather jacket that came either from Goodwill or a dumpster--or maybe from a fight between the two, the dumpster coming out the winner.
    Then there was Bradley's life, but the podcast wasn't describing his life. It was something about the effects of prolonged exposure to microwaves, and how it compared to being roommates with a demon. Bradley was pretty sure that was all bogus, at least the part about the demons. If living with a demon actually caused cancer, people would know about it. No way the government wouldn't be trying to regulate that. They regulate everything else, and the Theological Relations Department would never give up the chance to keep demons on a tight leash. (Bradley snorted as he thought about what people called the TRD. Crude, obvious, and he still found it funny.)
    Besides, all the bunk about demons being dangerous was prejudice, plain and simple. Bradley had gone to school with a demon, and she'd looked just like everyone else, though slightly hotter, not that she'd thought of him as anything but a friend. Miranda. Why didn't demons or angels get last names? It's like an entire world made up of rock artists--except that there aren't that many angels and demons around.
    The podcast kept going on about the latest studies into demonic radiation, and Bradley tuned it out. The restaurant was ahead--Thai For First--and this was his first night actually talking to customers. Months of wiping tables and washing dishes and figuring out how to cram seventeen plates and nineteen glasses into two oversized beige plastic tubs just so he could haul them back into the kitchen for more washing dishes. Finally, the menu that he'd memorized by the third day out of misplaced ambition and desperate boredom--finally that menu was going to come out of his mouth and lay itself before the waiting ears of the customers as they asked him what HIS favorite dish was, and he'd tell them that it was a burger from Ye Olde Burger Shoppe down the street, extra onions because he wasn't gettin' any anytime soon, and with this fabulous Western US invention called 'fry sauce,' that involved mayonnaise and ketchup, and THAT was his favorite dish.
    No, he wasn't going to actually tell them that, but he kept himself amused with those dreams of petty revenge against a manager and owner that he liked okay and a chef that he couldn't bear to be in a room with for more than ten minutes. He'd timed it once, actually, staying and listening to the round man's angry, nasal, white-guy voice--nothing against white people, seeing as how he was one, but Bradley occasionally dreamed of some day having actual SOUL, and he only knew one white guy with SOUL, and it wasn't the chef--that voice poking into corners of the room as the man reached around his stomach to cook curry that came from a country the chef would never see because, among other things, he simply couldn't be bothered to go anywhere that wasn't Northern Lights, Wisconsin. Sure, the chef had been to New York, done the obligatory time there to convince himself that he had some flavor of culinary credential, then moved back to a place where conservatives at least had a fighting chance against the liberals, thank you very much. He'd tell you about his time in 'the Big Apple.' That's what he always called it, too. 'The Big Apple.' And it was a stinkin' heck-hole, if you know what I mean.
    Bradley didn't. And he'd lasted ten minutes before he found an excuse to get out of the kitchen. He couldn't remember exactly what it had been--it was all a bit hazy--but he was pretty sure he'd said something about picking his nose. Bradley pushed pause on his iPod, pulled out the earbuds, and nodded to the fit man and woman who were walking by, both in casual clothing, both carrying the kind of metallic suitcases that scream 'photography equipment.' Plus, there was the camera around the man's neck. Expensive looking, too. The lady did look kind of artsy, actually, like she occasionally glanced at paintings and dismissed them as the derivative trash that they clearly were. Bradley smiled at her--nice looking, blue eyes, serious--I could like serious, he thought--but she didn't smile back. Bradley shrugged and walked around back, through the smells of exotic spices become all too familiar, and into the alley that led to the domain of the chef. That unbearable chef. That was the door, just closing as someone went back into that kitchen.
    I'm a waiter now, he reminded himself. I hardly have to talk to the man. Drop off orders and pick up food. Occasionally slip through to the staff bathroom. That was it.
    Bradley took a deep breath and started the timer on his watch.

    Marius Tombs strode out ahead of his assistant. He hardly noticed her anymore, actually. Once it was clear she had no interest romantically, Mr. Tombs had let it go. He was a killer, certainly, but not a jerk, and when a girl said 'no,' to Mr. Tombs that meant 'no.' Women were, in general, a hassle, a pleasant distraction, and background noise, in that order. Miss Sweeps was too professional to qualify as the first, had seemed a possibility for the second, but had quickly faded to the third.
    Mr. Tombs dismissed the scrawny boy with the iPod with a flick of his eyes. Twenty-somethings. Useless. They didn't have any purpose. By the time Marius had reached twenty-four, he had already gained a reputation for brutality, gathered in every flavor of barroom, backroom, garage, basement, and warehouse fight he could beat, bet, or bribe his way into. After consideration, he'd decided that the reputation wasn't one he'd appreciated, so he'd changed his name, changed his home, changed his friends (if you could call any of the sickos who followed him 'friends'), and found a man in the Sierra Nevadas who knew how to shoot, among other things. Thirteen years later, and Marius had a new reputation. A quieter one. One he was happy with.
    They walked down to the corner, turned, down two buildings, into a tall apartment building--Marius held the door for Miss Sweeps--and up the elevator to the top floor. An older woman shared the ride with them for most of the way. She was hunched, leaning forward precariously with a bag of groceries clutched behind her back, balancing her. Mr. Tombs had smiled at her. She'd glared back. He wasn't sure what to make of that, since he'd been working on his smile in the mirror. He knew he didn't have it quite right yet, but he wasn't sure why. It frustrated him. He liked to be the best at whatever he chose to do, and smiling shouldn't be any different than shooting a gun or crushing a jaw. Correct principles, properly applied, and the job is taken care of. The woman glared and Mr. Tombs looked away, clenching his teeth.
    She left at the eighth floor, and Mr. Tombs and Miss Sweeps on the twelfth. Veronica--that was her name, though Mr. Tombs fount it easier to think of her as Miss Sweeps--pulled out the key that opened the door to an apartment rented in the name of Chester Uggles. It was a small joke that Marius did for his own benefit, making up ridiculous names for the fictional people he created. Chester Uggles had actually been a struggling actor, hired over the phone and paid in cash left on his pillow--Mr. Tombs loved the little details--who had rented the apartment from a bored office staffer who had a hard time mustering even a smile for a name as absurd as Chester Uggles. Marius knew because he'd been watching the process, at a distance, two weeks ago. The actor signed the contract, took the keys, put them on his nightstand, and woke up the next morning to find the rest of his payment. Mr. Tombs assumed that the man was suitably terrified and adequately paid to keep him from ever sharing anything about this with his priest, let alone the police. Anyway, Marius had found the man's priest, and so he could take care of that, too, if necessary.
    Miss Sweeps unlocked the door and stepped into the apartment, the case she carried banging into the door. That bothered Mr. Tombs. It betrayed a certain carelessness of movement, a lack of awareness of one's own body, that was wasteful. Unskilled. He breathed out quietly, the closest he came to a sigh. He wouldn't be working with her much longer. He could last one hour more.
    The door closed behind him and Mr. Tombs set down his case, throwing the deadbolt as Miss Sweeps flicked on the lights and checked the curtains. An unnecessary precaution, but one that Marius appreciated. She might not be as coordinated as was ideal, but she was thorough, and when you're killing a god, thoroughness is important.
    "Tonight's the night, Marius," said his assistant. Mr. Tombs pulled out his smile and put it back on his face. Why, oh why, did she insist on the use of first names? Perhaps if they were involved in some sort of physical or romantic relationship, first names might be appropriate, but this was business.
    "It is indeed, Miss Sweeps," he replied, picking up his case and moving over to the table that they'd carefully positioned and fixed to the wooden floor with screws and brackets, directly beneath a large window. The window screen lay in the corner, ready to be replaced, alongside a carpet that could easily roll out to cover the holes in the floor. "Tonight is the last night we work together. May I say in advance that I have appreciated the thoroughness with which you do your work."
    "Of course, Marius. It's what I'm paid for. My employers wanted you to have the best, and nothing less."
    "Regardless, Miss Sweeps, I appreciate it."
    "In that case, you're welcome."
    They smiled at each other, and apparently Mr. Tombs' smile was more accurate than his previous attempt in the elevator. Miss Sweeps seemed genuinely gratified by his thanks. Marius knew he was a sociopath--that had been clear, in retrospect, from his early experiments with ants and magnifying glasses--but he could still appreciate some social niceties, and gratitude was one he could especially identify with. It was so clean and clear. You do something, and all I have to do to offer you positive reinforcement and trigger a small burst of endorphins in your system is give up two simple words. It was, to borrow a hated business phrase, a 'win-win' situation.
    "Shall we get started?"
    "Of course."
    It wasn't many minutes before the suitcases were opened, the contents removed and assembled, settled into brackets on the table. The rifle, on a gyroscopic stabilizer, bolted to the table, aimed at the window, the bullets in their magazine, ready to be loaded. Miss Sweeps held the spotters scope in her hand, a luxury Mr. Tombs didn't usually have in his line of work. It wasn't a complicated setup--no more complicated than usual--but it was satisfying. Marius realized he was still wearing his camera around his neck and fought back an absurd urge to take a picture to commemorate the occasion. Instead he put it on the table next to his rifle.
    "Well then," he said. "Tea?"
    "Yes, thank you," said Miss Sweeps.