Last God Standing (16 page)

“Lots of people feel that way, Herb,” Holiday said. “Hell, with the way things are going in the world, who can blame them? Not much evidence for a caring supreme being when so much suffering goes unchallenged is there?”

“Nope. It’s like asking intelligent adults to pay their taxes and regulate their blood sugar while pledging allegiance to the Tooth Fairy.”

“Herbert… you’re insulting my guest.”

“That’s alright, Barb. I get the feeling Herb and I are cut from the same cloth despite our differences. Though I’ll admit I’ve never quite understood – when you calculate the odds that all of this could happen by accident…”

“‘Accident’ is a word people use to explain a universe that doesn’t give a shit.”

“Herbert!”

“Herb makes a valid point, Barbara,” Holiday said. “But I’ve never understood what atheists offer in place of Divine Will.”

Herb cracked open a litebeer and extended it toward Holiday.

“Heineken. I offer Heineken. You a drinkin’ man, Rev?”

“Owen and I will be doing some serious bible study in the dining room, Herbert,” Barbara said. “We’d appreciate a little privacy.”

“Bible study? Doc… five minutes alone with Barbara and Jesus would open a kosher whorehouse!”

Barbara took a long breath, exhaled it slowly. The muscles of her face twitched. Then…

Here it comes.

…she smiled. “I forgive you, Herbert.”

“You what?”

“Owen has been helping me understand the importance of forgiveness in maintaining a healthy emotional resume.”

“Doc, you sure you came to the right house?”

“Oh, I’m sure about that, Herb. And it’s not so much ‘Bible study’. I practice a stripped down approach to religious instruction that incorporates a mélange of contemporary spiritual modalities, re-evaluation of traditional belief systems and relevant scientific theory where appropriate. Even the most devout believers should stay open to plain old common sense.”

Barbara was nodding her head, her eyes darting back and forth between Herb and Holiday like a middle schoolgirl looking for a place to barge into an adult conversation.

“Owen has a PhD!”

“Well,” Herb said. “I guess we all have our crosses to bear. One of mine is a mild addiction to Viagra, so, if you’ll excuse us. Evenin’, Barbara-Jean. Padre.”

Herb and Missy Tang disappered down the stairs leading into the basement. Barbara and Holiday went into the dining room, my mother giggling as she shut the door behind them.

“I have got to get a life.”

I snatched a box of Mother Butter’s Pancake Mix out of the pantry, opened the refrigerator door and stared at the half empty gallon of milk where it sat on its shelf.

Drink that, you’ll spend the rest of the night on the toilet.

“Lactose intolerance,” I whispered to the clockwork universe. “Nice incarnation, Yahweh.”

I grabbed the Lactaid.

Alone. Dejected. I mixed my ingredients. My headache was back. I wondered if Surabhi was thinking about me, then chided myself for wondering. I stared into the thickening batter, hoping for glimpses of prophesy in its lumpy, whole grain goodness.

And I began to plan my escape.

“Shall I CONFIRM YOUR RESERVATION, Lando?”

I’d found a fare that would deplete my savings but allow me to get to London by midnight the next day. The irony of the life into which I’d incarnated myself had never felt more pressing: I could have Reset myself to London or summoned an angel and demanded transport. But I’d sworn off any powers not directly involved with protecting the mortal continuum. The Covenant prohibited the mortal me from using those powers for personal benefit. Now that decision was biting me in the most mortal portion of my anatomy.

I was about to push “Confirm” when Yuri’s face flashed across my mobile’s screen.

“I have news.”

“What’s up? I’m at work.”

Yuri laughed. “Not for much longer.”

“She’s not answering, Yuri.”

“Who?”

“Surabhi.”

“Aahhh women. Can’t live with ’em, can’t dismember the bodies and use ’em for fertilizer.”

Monday morning. I’d spent the rest of my weekend regretting the pancake binge and preparing for a gig. During the Moloke Massacre I’d promised to call Goldie Kiebler back and promptly forgotten all about her. She’d left me a message:

“Since you never called me back I should tell you to go shit in a lake. But my sonofabitch analyst tells me I have a thing for unattainable men thanks to my asshole father, so of course I’m also turned on by men who don’t return my calls. So… I’m hosting an Up and Comer Showdown next Wednesday night. We haven’t had you in for a while so you should come. You sonofabitch.”

I called Goldie back to apologize and thanked her for the shot. Then I spent the rest of the night staring at my computer screen. Apparently there wasn’t a joke or pithy observation to be had for love or the two hundred dollars Goldie paid her “Up and Comers”.

“What are you doing today?” Yuri said. “Please say you’re available for a lunch meeting with me and Jeff.”

“Who’s Jeff?”

“Jeff Corroder? Head of Dream Lever Productions? My boss for the last three years? I swear… you never listen.”

“Don’t start, Yuri.”

“I mean part of this whole BFF thing involves us keeping connected. You know, actually being friends? I’m just sayin’. So. Lunch? Jeff watched your gig at the Improv on YouTube. He thinks you’ve got potential.”

“Really?”

“I thought a little validation from On High might pep you up. Jeff’s into it. I pitched you as ‘The Bastard Gay Lovechild of George Carlin and Chris Rock: Quirky observational humor with a take no prisoners urban flava’. The perfect blend for a late night reality talk show host.”

“I hate when you speak pitch lingo.”

“I know. So… you down with becoming a star?”

You’re telling me you’re as good as Chaplin? Cosby?

Here it was: the chance to prove Magnus wrong. I could silence my detractors without flash-frying a city to do it.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m down.”

I was helping an irate customer when the angel Moroni walked through the wall and pulled Cooper & Sons out of local time.

“Well!”
Moroni boomed.
“Gabriel said I was wrong but I bet him Donny Osmond’s temple garments you’d still be here!”

Moroni passed through my customer’s stilled form like the insufferable wraith he was. He had borrowed the body of a stout, white-skinned westerner with a bulbous nose and rampant rosacia. His hair was a dense silver wave atop his huge head. Whoever Moroni was wearing was wearing a sky blue T-shirt with the message, “Jesus Was a Mormon!” emblazoned in white cloud letters across the chest.

“It has been far too long, Lord – even as we Deathless enumerate the passing of
time’s tedious tread – since last I lay eyes upon thy ineffable radiance.”

“Moroni… I’m busy.”

“Praise be to thee, oh industrious Father of Hosts! Oh Hosannah! Hosannah in the highest!”

“Moroni, please. Keep your Voice down.”

From the angels to the archangels, from the Seraphim to the Cherubim and all the Orders in between: the two most annoying individuals had found me within the space of two weeks.

“Hosannah! O Mighty One! Hail, Divine Fellow! Well met in all reverence and sobriety!”

Moroni talked. Once Joseph Smith’s subconscious tapped into the Eshuum and summoned forth a divine response it had been all Moroni could do to keep his ethereal trap shut long enough to manifest himself on Earth and spread the word via angelic visitation among Smith’s followers.

“I come on a mission of great urgency, Lord of Lords,”
he rumbled.
“Indeed, in matters pertaining to thy most devoted harbingers, things are rotten in the state of…”

“What’s wrong, Moroni?”

Moroni nodded, his borrowed jowls flapping.

“It’s the Archangel Gabriel, Lord! He has trespassed…”

“He has what?”

“Ahhh,”
Moroni stammered.
“Gabriel hath trodden... ahhhhhh…”

Moroni’s right eyelid drooped, then fluttered open and shut.

“Gaaah…”
he said.
“Gaahhhh…”

The angel’s co-opted head began to shake back and forth, up and down, his right eye fluttering faster and faster.

“Gaaaaahhhhhhhh…”

“Moroni? What’s wrong with you?”

But a recollection from my old Life was stabbing through.

“‘All the world’s a stage!’”
Moroni blurted.
“‘And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts!’
As You Like It
!
(Act Two, Scene Seven)!”

“Damn.”

Some angels were subject to a condition known as the Slip. It was the heavenly version of Tourette’s Syndrome. In the worst cases, the Slip resulted in the disintegration of their ethereal bodies. In milder and far more irritating cases like Moroni’s it meant that an already infuriating inability to shut up was exacerbated by incessant quotations, inappropriate or misleading information, and random snatches of poetry and/or rhyming verse. Moroni had Slipped into a Shakespeare tangent, complete with footnotes.

“‘The world is grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch!’
King Richard III
(Act One, Scene Three)!”

I stepped out from behind the Customer Service counter, slicing through the cold winds of temporal diversion streaming off Moroni’s aura.

“Moroni! Pull yourself together!”

Joseph Smith’s guardian angel smiled goofily, his eyes rolling in their sockets. I grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him until they rolled toward me.

“‘Through the forest have I come, But Athenian found I none, on whose eyes I might approve this flower’s force…’”

“Here and now, Moroni!”

Moroni clenched his jaws tightly. Whatever was happening must have been of sufficient severity for him to keep his mouth shut even for a moment.

“You mentioned Gabriel. What’s he done?”

“‘The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on. And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood!’
King Henry VI
(Act
Two, Scene
Two)!”

“What does that mean, Moroni?”

“My Lord, even the lowliest creature can become a threat if his existence is threatened.”

“No! I know what it means. I mean what does that have to do with Gabriel?”

“‘For the rain it raineth every day!’
The Taming of the Shrew
(Act
Five,
Scene…)”

“Moroni, you’ve got thirty seconds to tell me what’s happened to Gabriel or I will banish you to the far ends of the continuum. Now pull your head out of whoever’s butt that is and tell me what’s happened.”

“Gabriel! He’s… he hath… he’s
Fallen!”

“What?”

Only one major angel had Fallen since the beginning of my Administration. And everyone knew how that worked out. If Gabriel was placing innocents at risk because of me…

“Where?”

“In Africa.”

“When?”

“He has been in Possession of a human soul for nearly three days. But…”

“Take me to him.”

“But Lord,
are you not already there?”

“Just do it, Moroni.”

And then I was in Africa.

Moroni was an idiot, but I had to admit, he was much more efficient at flitting than Gabriel. I still threw up, but only a little and it was mostly in my mouth. I swallowed bitterness, shook my head to dispel the negligible nausea that attended even efficient transspatial travel, and took in my surroundings.

I was in a small, hot classroom with dirt floors. Thirteen young African girls, all dressed in black vests, white short-sleeved shirts and gray slacks were staring at me as if I’d just appeared out of thin air. Which of course, I had.

“Well, if it isn’t the Man of the Millennium.”

The speaker was an old man wearing a black, short-sleeved shirt, dusty slacks, and the white collar of a priest. His skin was the color of worn ebony, his hair a salt and pepper cap of curls framing a face that had probably once been kind. But that kindness had been twisted by a hawkish, familiar arrogance.

“Gabriel.”

The old minister laughed. A searing radiance burned in his eyes. Each blink sliced across my vision like the downward stroke of a fresh razor.

“After your demonstration in Rome I decided to follow your example,” Gabriel said, using the minister’s voice. “Why should you have all the fun?”

“Gabriel. Let him go.”

Gabriel laughed. “I’ve considered your command, Lord, and take great pleasure in replying… no.”

The old clergyman grinned, his back ramrod straight, his lips quivering with the same lust I’d only seen on Lucifer’s face: the lethal ecstasy of acute reality intoxication.

“I understand,” Gabriel said. “Only now, as I stand entombed within this decaying flesh, do I begin to grasp the reason for your abandonment. I’m free. Free to decide my fate, instead of languishing in service to a failed god.”

“Gabriel...” I was trying to ignore the sound of the minister’s soul: Gabriel’s possession was stretching it to its limits. “You’ve got to let him go before it’s too late.”

Gabriel laughed. “Let him go? Why would I let him go? Look at what I can do.”

Gabriel gestured. Several students and their desks rose into the air. None of them seemed to comprehend what was happening. They sat, stunned, floating ten feet above the dirt floor.

“Gabriel! Stop!”

“I can feel the world, Lord. I have no intention of stopping.”

Pain exploded in my midsection… a red, stabbing shriek. The flaming blade of an angelic sword burst from my chest, dazzling my eyes with golden fire.

“Gabriel spoke truly. You’ve rejected your function.”

The walls of the little classroom shuddered. Plaster fell from cracks that spread like gangrene across the ceiling. It was another familiar Voice, more powerful even than Gabriel’s. My attacker was one of the Seraphim – the Burning Ones – in the body of a fourteen year-old girl, tall, her hair cornrowed, her eyes blazing.

“Seraphiel.”

“I am.”

Several other girls surrounded me, each of them gripping a shining weapon. They made way for the old priest to approach.

“You think only I discerned your dereliction of duty? You’ve become even less than your enemies imagine. I am not alone.”

The children spoke with many voices. “We are… Legion.”

They were all possessed, burning alive, each small body thrumming with angelic might. Moroni stood behind them, his borrowed face filled with anxiety.

“‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions!’ –
The Taming of the Shrew
(Act
Four, Scene–)”

“Quiet, slave,” Gabriel snapped. “Your betrayal will be rewarded soon enough.

Moroni clapped his hands over his mouth.

As a developing fetus, I had woven enough subtle protections into my DNA to ensure that I was fairly resistant to spiritual attack. But I was physically vulnerable: I could be killed by a fall from a sufficiently lofty curb if I wasn’t careful. I extinguished the flaming blade and let the Aspect that had been champing at the bit of my self-control shoulder its way into reality.

Stormface was wreathed with crawlers of lightning, its face a perpetual snarl, knotted like a bunched fist and partially obscured by blackbellied thunderclouds. It was born from the racial memories of faded stormgods like Shango and Lir. Recognizably “infantile”, Stormface was the Aspect that once terrified superstitious goat herders and genocidal kings alike, a giant floating baby head with nightmare eyes and a sun in its mouth.

“Abomination!”

Light struck the bodies of the possessed children. Every one of them glowed like a newborn star, their skeletons and circulatory systems pulsing visibly through their school uniforms. Then the Fallen angels inhabiting them were violently ejected.

“Fool!” Seraphiel, still in the body of the tall schoolgirl, cried. “You said he was powerless!”

The old priest fell to his hands and knees, his body wracked by shudders. A shimmering distortion rose up from him, drawing back from him like a shadow, dispelled by the light from Stormface’s attack. When he looked up at his students his face was clear, and stained with tears.

“Run, children! Get out!”

The girls ran, some screaming, others laughing, from the classroom. The old man’s shuddering increased, then stopped abruptly as Gabriel’s malice rose up through the floor and entered him again.

“He’s one of them, Seraphiel!” the old man snarled. “He’s mortal. He can’t defeat both of us!”

The face of Seraphiel’s young host remained impassive. It was a measure of Seraphiel’s skill that he still held her despite Stormface’s interdiction. The girl would perceive Seraphiel’s presence as a violation, aware at every moment that her will was not her own. Only one of the Seraphim could so completely dominate a human soul.

“Look at him, Seraphiel,” Gabriel snarled. “He is human. He bends, as a shadow stretches beneath the noonday sun. He will age and fall beneath Death’s driving whip. But an angel soars where he wills. For us there is no Death. And we can use mortal bodies!”

Seraphiel hummed, a judge considering a complex argument.