Last God Standing (13 page)

How could I have been so stupid?

I should have seen Dionysus’ attack coming. Hadn’t I noticed a glimmer of cloaked divinity shimmering around him when he sent over that damned wine? Hadn’t I sensed that something was amiss seconds before I took that first sip? As I replayed the events of what would come to be known as the Moloke Massacre, I swore to myself that I had. Now that everything had gone down the toilet I could see all the signs of an imminent attack.

Stupidstupidstupistupidstupidstupid…

But I missed the signs: I was too busy trying to impress Surabhi’s parents.

“You got it, Pinocchio.”

Connie was sitting astride a huge black horse in the middle of my bedroom. The horse’s eyes shone bright red in the shadows of my shuttered sanctum sanctorum. I had drawn the curtains against the possibility of sunlight when I’d arrived home near dawn. The black horse’s mane swirled like ink in dark water, a roiling curtain of shadow. Its hooves shone like molten silver, and they left smoking prints across the carpet. There was something weird about the creature, apart from its size and obvious supernatural nature, but from the depths of my hangover I couldn’t quite figure it out. It glared redly at me, clearly disgusted. And it wasn’t the only one.

“Please, Connie… no lecture.”

“
Oh
really? After the wine-drenched gangbang you and Dionysus subjected me to last night? I’ve got a right to rip you a new one, mister.”

“Connie–”

“In light of the potential disruption of the Plan and threat to human emotional development I’d say you’ve ignored me enough, Lando Cooper.”

“Connie, I know you’re my conscience–”

“Transitory
conscience…”

“Anyway it’s perfectly within your purview to bust my chops, Connie, but–”

“You really screwed the pooch last night, kid.”

Connie hopped down from the spectral black horse. For some reason she was wearing a Wonder Woman costume, complete with silver bracelets and magic lasso.
“Both your lives are pretty much in the crapper.”

“Please,” I groaned, wincing at the sparks from the horse’s hooves. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Alright. The other pantheons are rumbling. In light of recent events, there’s been talk of a general uprising.”

“What recent events?”

“The
powers are concerned about the disappearances. Zeus is gone, same for
the
Morrigan. And now Dionysus. And to make matters worse… Gabriel has suffered some kind of breakdown.”

“What?”

“Yup,”
Connie grunted.
“He was last spotted fluttering around Venice Beach, ghoststalking a bunch of homeless meth addicts. When someone asked him why he was doing that, he said… and I’m quoting here…
‘Everything’s gone to Hell, Heaven is an illusion and the Emperor has no robes’.”

“Gabriel’s an Archangel, Connie. All that bowing and scraping… He should get a life.”

“Don’t even joke about such things,”
Connie hissed.
“The
powers are afraid you’ve launched some kind of covert assault on the pantheons. It’s typical god behavior: taking the random ticking of a clockwork universe and making it all about you, but there you have it.”

“Wait a minute. The Morrigan was dragged into the Underworld by Hannibal! She volunteered to help me!”

“And she hasn’t been seen since.”

“She’s a goddess, Connie! She still has most of her personal powers. She’s probably just regenerating somewhere in Ireland.”

Connie shook her head.
“She isn’t in Ireland, or any of the Underworlds. And neither she nor her host have been seen in Boston. All traces of the Morrigan’s power have been removed from our continuity.”

“And the other gods are blaming me for her disappearance?”

“Yup. They suspect you of stealing divinity. They think you may be murdering passé gods and hoarding their powers to stave off your own looming redundancy.”

“But I retired voluntarily. According to you, Yahweh acknowledged his ‘looming redundancy’ during the industrial revolution.”

The black horse whinnied. In the confines of my room it sounded like a haunted eighteen wheeler firestripping its airbrakes. I knew my parents couldn’t hear it – no strictly mortal ears can eavesdrop on a divine pow-wow – but the subtle sound was unsettling in the Saturday morning silence.

Downstairs, Herb was preparing one of his Fitness Breakfasts for himself and Missy Tang. My mother was out on her weekly mani-pedi-run. She never missed a Saturday at the local nail salon, where she enjoyed making the lives of the Korean shopgirls particularly disappointing.

Since Herb’s return, I’d sensed an upswing in the animosity between my parents. Their war of wills was nearing some kind of breaking point. The tension on the Cooper Plantation was as thick as drywall. All things considered, I didn’t need any more weirdness pushing my personal applecart into oncoming traffic.

“What’s with the horse? And why is it eating my comforter?”

Connie rolled her eyes.

“Lando this is Sleipnir. Odin’s magical steed. During your little pissing contest with Dionysus I decided to get some fresh air. I ran into Frigga over Norway… you know, the Queen of the Norse Gods? Anyway, she invited me down for a few rounds of Texas
hold
’em with Pele of the Polynesians, Ratri, the Hindu Avatar of Night, and Athena of the Greeks. I won Sleipnir off Frigga on a bluff. Boy was she pissed. Right, Shleppy?”

Sleipnir whinnied again, his eight hooves pounding the floor until every window in the house shook.

“Hey!” Herb yelled. “Turn down that damn ghetto blaster!”

“Athena told me about the uprising. The Greeks are furious of course. Ares is howling for your head, especially now that Dionysus has been whacked.”

“Surabhi’s gone. My parents are driving me nuts. Everything’s gone wrong and now those idiots think I’m a murderer. Connie… I don’t know what to do.”

Connie leaped up onto Sleipnir’s broad back.
“You
know
what to do: do the right thing.”

“But what is the right thing, Connie? How do I fix all this?”

“Think
like a mortal, Lando. Accept your limitations and figure it out.”

Outside, the brightness of the July morning faded. I heard the rumble of a stormfront closing in as the sunlight fled before the storm’s onrushing shadow.

“I could fix it, you know. I could just go up to the attic, fire up the Shell and–”

“No! You gave up the Divine to live as mortals live. That’s a
one-way ticket. Now you’ve got to solve your problems the way humans have been solving theirs since they climbed out of the trees.”

“Yeah? And how is that?”

“Simple, Pinocchio. One step at a time.”

There was another thundering whinny, followed by more shouting from my father. Then goddess and godly steed vanished into the shadows.

“One step at a time.”

I glared at my mobile, trying to will Surabhi’s number to appear. The message indicator stared back at me, untroubled. Against Connie’s admonitions I found my mind wending its way back to the object that sat at the bottom of my Northwestern footlocker in the attic directly above my head. With direct access to the Eshuum’s infinite potential I could fix everything.

“It couldn’t hurt. Just this once.”

I expected a swift rebuke from Connie.

All I got was silence.

I love comic books. The colors, the drama, the outlandish costumes; the idea that any average joe or jane, when pushed to his or her limits by unforeseen circumstances can, simply by the application of will, the advent of science gone awry or genetic mutation, gain power and save the world. It’s utterly ridiculous, completely asinine, and unforgivably juvenile.

I love comic books.

In real life, there are rules, laws, speed limits that cannot be broken. But in comic book stories, there are no limits. You say there’s a supervillain threatening a planet of benign humanoids on the far side of the galaxy? No problem, conquering the speed of light is child’s play for Superman, who can simply fly into space, punch out the bad guy and be back in Metropolis before lunch.

In my post-retirement reality, getting across the planet required careful planning and the aid of at least one other supernatural being, preferably an angel. Once, before I decanted myself into human form, I could bridge planetary distances between the minds of my believers: if enough of my faithful were in China, I could be in China, instantly. If a worshipper climbed to the top of Mount Everest I could accompany her to the summit. Technically, the old me could be everywhere or anywhere, as long as one believer was waiting at the journey’s end.

This brings up a number of questions of the “Does a falling tree make a noise if there’s no one in the forest to hear it?” variety. Trust me, it’s complicated. The point I’m making here, is that there are no free lunches in this universe, even for immortals. No energy without waste, no acceleration without an attendant build-up of inertia, no effect without cause: even gods have limits.

But superheroes don’t.

Every year, I looked forward to Chicago FantaCon: the biggest yearly comicbook-sciencefiction convention in the Midwest. Buying Surabhi’s ring had left me seriously strapped for cash, but I’d saved a meager amount on the side, enough to scarf up a few back issues and the odd, affordable rarity.

The creators of my current favorite title,
From Here to Alternity
, were scheduled to sign copies of the hot new
Alternity
graphic novel at this year’s FantaCon. The new book was being released in conjunction with
From Here to Alternity 3D: The Movie
, later that summer. The producers had shown an early trailer at the San Diego ComiCon a week earlier and were scheduled to premier an even more detailed trailer at FantaCon. It was going to be an event of epic proportions – a Ten on the Geek Richter Scale. I’d picked up my copy the first day they’d gone on sale and had kept it wrapped in airtight plastic for nearly a year.

But superheroes were a million light years away from my personal microcosm. I’d haunted my room, replaying the Moloke Massacre with a deepening sense of doom. My conversation with Connie only complicated matters. Finally, tired of finding no answers, I grabbed my copy of
Alternity
and caught the train downtown to meet the only other god who might understand.

“Dude,” Yuri said when I answered my mobile. “Where you at?”

I was at the front entrance of the Downtown Hyatt Regency, shuffling along in a long line with hundreds of people dressed as their favorite heroes or villains; various wizards young and old, and practically every character from the
Star Wars
films. A few people dressed as the original Lando Calrissian passed me as they made their way up the line. My depression only deepened: Billy Dee Williams’ acting talent had made the odds of my attempts at humanity being taken seriously smaller than the odds for Darth Vader becoming head of the NAACP.

“I’ll meet you at the usual spot,” Yuri said.

Our usual meeting place was at Superninja Go! Go! Go! a popular Chicago shop specializing in Japanese anime. Yuri thought comicbooks were dumb, but he collected “adult” Hentai animation with a disturbing joie de vivre. He possessed a staggering collection of Japanese cartoon porn; more planet-sodomizing satanic overlords and omni-tentacled sex demons than you could shake a crucifix at.

Superninja Go! Go! Go! was usually one of the most popular kiosks at FantaCon, but that morning it was virtually empty, no doubt due to the ever-deepening recession: only children with wealthy parents or childless single adult misanthropes could afford to blow hard earned cash on four-color adolescent power fantasies. Yuri was animatedly debating the genesis of his favorite Japanese import with Ken Takahashi, the owner of Superninja Go! Go! Go!

“I’m telling you, it was called
Ninja Sexforce
!”

“No!” Takahashi thundered. “You’re unbelievably wrong!”

Ken Takahashi sat behind his mobile counter, a small, breakfast link of a man, bearded, with an unruly mop of thinning black hair tied back into a ponytail. For some reason he always wore shades, even inside on cloudy days. He was wearing a faded red, white and blue T-shirt featuring an animestyle rendering of a superheroic Barack Obama battling a giant evil robot Dick Cheney. Takahashi appeared to be about fifty years old, his tummy round as a bowling ball. He also happened to be the Buddha.

“When
Science Sexteam Snatchaman
first premiered in the States in 1989 the American distributor changed the name of the show to
Supersex Bang Bang Fight Club
,” Takahashi rumbled. “The Sexteam Snatchaman team characters were ludicrously renamed Ninja Sexforce.
Ninja Sexforce: Battle of the Bukkakki Beast
came about in the late Nineties. Different distributor, same characters… but it was the horrifically censored, incredibly sucky redo!”

“Ah for Christ’s sake!” Yuri cried. “
Ninja Sexforce
is a classic!”

“It’s utter crap, Kalashnikov. And when did you start smoking?”

“Sorry. Acid reflux.”

“What’s up, guys?”

“Lando!”

I browsed some of the familiar titles while Yuri continued his losing battle, trying to lose myself in the stacks and racks. But there were too many colorful reminders of my dilemma. Takahashi said he was hungry and invited us to join him for lunch.

We left SNGGG and headed out onto the main floor of the convention center. Around us milled hundreds of vampires, werewolves and aliens of every conceivable stripe. A lithe black woman dressed as Storm from the X-Men comics sauntered toward us. Her eyes flicked past me with a quickness I’d come to expect from beautiful women; just as I had come to expect what happened next. When the supermodel’s gaze settled on Yuri, she gasped, her eyes widening as if she’d recognized the avatar of her deepest carnal desire. My fatally handsome friend had that effect on a lot of people.

The supermodel grinned as she subtly altered her course to collide with us, her face becoming even more painfully aroused the more she ogled Yuri. Conventions like FantaCon sometimes hire local models to dress up in revealing costumes. The proximity of so much unattainable beauty kept the fanboys overstimulated and looking to spend money to burn off their frustration.

“Storm” could have graced the covers of magazines, caused sensations on international runways. Tall, blessed with legs that Artemis would have killed for, the supermodel had short, snow white hair and startling blue-green eyes. Enchanted by Yuri’s usual mojo, she didn’t see the trio of hobbits that tumbled into the aisle a few feet in front of us. The costumed little people were singing a drinking song warning of the dangers of Mirkwood and the glories of Lothlorien as they turned up the aisle, heading in the opposite direction with swords and staffs waving. The highstepping supermodel was so busy checking out Yuri’s package that she didn’t notice when her cape snagged the lead hobbit’s shortsword. A nanosecond later she was jerked backward off her feet. She went down hard and took the entire quest for the One Ring with her.

Yuri was at her side in a flash. He helped her up, made certain she was uninjured (she wasn’t) and gave her his card. When she limped away, she was still smiling. Everybody ignored the hobbits.

We went to lunch.

“You’re not into it this year,” Yuri said, over Subway footlongs. We were seated in the shadow of a giant, inflated Wolfman. Yuri was “wolfing” down his roast beef sandwich as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

“When did you start eating meat?” Takahashi growled over his salad.

“Who me?” Yuri said. The pleasure with which he was devouring his sandwich was vaguely disgusting. “Oh… I don’t know. Been off the meat wagon for a few weeks I guess.”

I was picking listlessly at my vegan meatball parm. I’d filled him in on the past few days’ events leading up to the fight with Dionysus and the rift with Surabhi. Now, I was regretting my decision to show up at FantaCon. All the bright colors and crazy costumes only made me feel worse.

Maybe Magnus is right. Maybe you are a loser.

“Usually by this point I’m ready to shove a phony lightsaber down your throat just to shut you up,” Yuri said. “You look like your favorite hamster just exploded.”

Yuri uttered a gentle hiccup.

“Whew! Meatlock in the lower GI! Gotta hit the head, boys. More room out than in!”

As my friend and agent set off toward the restrooms, Takahashi leaned backward and belched appreciatively.

“You’re troubled, Yahweh. What’s wrong?”

We’d met once or twice a year to compare notes and discuss the latest divine happenings. But the former Buddha was the best listener of all the gods I’d ever known.

“Do you think it was worth it?”

“What?”

“The Covenant. Giving up immortality. Was it worth it?”

Takahashi chewed his way around the question. He habitually chewed each mouthful forty times before swallowing, so I waited while he chewed. And chewed.

“Sometimes sharing a meal with you is Hell.”

“Second thoughts, Yahweh?”

“Constantly.”

Takahashi grinned. “Not me.”

“Really?”

“Yup. Glad we did it.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Life,” I said. “It’s so… so…”

Frowning, Takahashi speared an olive and tossed it over his shoulder. The olive bounced off the cowl of a nearby Batman. The elderly Caped Crusader never noticed.

“Messy, yes?”

“Messy,” I agreed, sliding my sandwich away from me. “It’s all so… unpredictable.”

“Yeah! I love it!”

“Even the crappy parts?”

“Come on, Yahweh. You’re forgetting what it was like before. Sure, we had some limited power over the human soul, but nothing they couldn’t overcome with education and a little travel. All we really had – besides the magic and eternal life stuff – was each other: you, me, and a million other defunct gods giving each other the finger across endless battlefields of dead believers. It was interesting for the first few centuries, but after a while it got pretty damn dull. This?”

Takahashi gestured, his arms opening as if to embrace the hotel, the Wolfman and the bustle of activity around us. “This is so much better.”

Takahashi grabbed my forearm with his right hand. His enthusiasm was crushing, even painful. I remembered Baron Samedi, his still potent black magic, and found myself wondering how much of his true strength the Buddha had carried with him into his Embodiment.

“We’re real, my friend. We’re here, not just Jungian concepts empowered by a cold multiverse with an existential crisis. We exist, Yahweh! What’s better than that?”

“Well… order, for one thing,” I said. “Control.”

“Control is an illusion dreamed up by fundamentalists to minimize their own humanity. Get over it.”

“But when we were… you know… Us… we were on top. We were Gods, Primal Forces. We had real power.”

Takahashi reached under his Superninja Go! Go! Go! T-shirt and rubbed his round belly. “Power, huh? You didn’t even know your own history until some drunks wrote it down and called it the Old Testament. Before that you were just another Nameless proto-deity smiting horny goat herders.”

“At least I was happy,” I replied. “Sort of.”

“Don’t kid yourself, ’Weh. You were so schizo back then: ‘Angry and Punishing’ one minute, ‘Kind and Benevolent’ the next. Half the time you couldn’t decide if you were coming or going: ‘Honor thy Mother and thy Father’/‘The Sins of the Father shall visit his sons for seven times seven generations!’ / ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ / ‘Slaughter thine enemies in my name!’ Hey, watch this.”

Takahashi belched stupendously, and a paunchy, middle-aged fanboy wearing a Spider-Man mask who happened to be passing our table at that moment, stopped and stared at us through his mirrored eyeholes.

“I haven’t spoken to my daughter in three months,” the fanboy said. “She called me a selfish prick because I treat my wife like rotten garbage.”

Takahashi grinned and kicked my shin under the table. “Is that so?”

“Yes!” Spider-fan cried happily. “And I just realized that she’s right. I really am a dick!”

Takahashi smiled and shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

Spider-fan spun on his heel and made for the escalator, removing his mask and tossing it into a nearby trashcan as he ran for the nearest exit.

“You were just like that guy, ’Weh. Back then you didn’t know your ass from a hole in the ground. And the whole Jesus thing…!”

“Alright, there’s no need to bring that up.”

“That poor bastard!”

“Very funny.”

“But it is funny, Yahweh. Think of the power they gave us. They slaughtered millions in our Names, and what did it all amount to? iPods in China, my friend. iPods in China.”

“I hate when you get cryptic.”

“Look, my friend, the Covenant? It was the only logical choice. It’s inevitable that they’ll eventually step out of their thought caves and take responsibility for themselves. They burned through thousands of gods getting to this point. We just happened along at the end of the ride.”

Takahashi farted.

“
Childhood’s End
, buddy.”

“What’s that?”

“A great book by Arthur C Clarke. It’s about a race of super-advanced aliens that forces the human race into maturity through non-violent invasion. No more wars, no more poverty, violence, crime, capitalism. Everybody’s needs get met simply to ensure the survival of the species. Pretty heady stuff for a hairless ape.”

Takahashi: he was always so completely himself, seemingly without worry or care or regret. How did he do it?

“I accept what is, that’s how. I’m the Embodiment of the Middle Path, remember?”

“Hey! You just read my mind!”

“Dude, I read your face. You’re not that complicated.”

“Things sure seem complicated.”

“That’s because life, real life, is change. And change is constant. Everything’s in motion. You. Me. Good times, bad times… they come and they go. And that, old friend, is a mercy. The minute you accept that you’ll be a happy little cog in our great big clockwork universe.”

“But what if I don’t want to accept it? What if I tweak things, just a little?”

Takahashi’s face grew still as the Face on Mars.

“Then by the terms of the Covenant, I’d be duty bound to stop you.”

“Stop him from what?”

Yuri plopped himself into his chair, his eyes flickering back and forth between Takahashi and me.

“Stop him from buying that shitty
Action Comics
#2 that Phil Lortman at Uber Comix is trying to pass off as ‘mint’ condition,” Takahashi said, lying effortlessly.

“Comicbook geeks,” Yuri snarled. “You should all be killed. Hey, did I tell you I sold a TV show?”

“Congratulations,” Takahashi said. “What’s the show?”

“The working title is,
The Lateside
: a late night talk-advice infotainment’.”

“Late night talk-advice infotainment?”

“Yup. In every episode the audience gets to watch the guests explain their life challenges. You know; money problems, sex problems, relationship troubles, sex problems…”

“You said sex problems twice.”

“Yeah. Anyway, our host offers some meaningful advice, slings a little comic wisdom around, then we move on to the musical guest. What do you think?”

“Sounds terrible.”

“I know. It’ll make fifty million dollars in syndication.”

Yuri finished his sandwich with one monstrous bite, his eyes glazing with satisfaction as they met mine.

“I still have some work to do, but I was thinking… maybe you could host it.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You’re funny… when push comes to shove. You have a kind of global, boy-next-door charm: innocuous, non-threatening, pleasant-looking enough without being particularly handsome…”

“You don’t care about my feelings at all, do you?”

“Nope. Look, you’re pleasantly regular with a keen comic sensibility. Believe me, that could smooth over any lumps with those idiots who still have a problem with ‘ethnics’ on television. The question is: are you up for becoming the next Jerry Springer?”

Over by the entrance, a noisy group of Trekkies came into the food court. One of them was dressed like Captain Kirk, while his friend, a dark-skinned, bald man, was decked out as Mister Spock complete with pointy ears. The dark brown Trekkie, an Indian or Pakistani, didn’t seem to care that the Spock ears obviously belonged to a white Vulcan. He looked like a deeply tanned elf in the early stages of vitiligo.

“You’ll have time to think about it. I still have to do a treatment, but a major network is into it and Jeff loves the idea so much he’s having the contracts drawn up so Dream Lever Productions can produce the pilot.”