Faith

Chapter 1 of Snapdragon

2006-08-24T12:03:00Z

Edwin Howard Armstrong was the inventor of the FM radio. He also invented the regenerative circuit, the super-regenerative circuit, and the super-heterodyne receiver, but FM was his most notable achievement, if only because it was shorter and easier to spell. The Radio Corporation of America, however, fearing the potential threat to their AM Radio empire, conspired to bring down Armstrong’s new FM network and claim the patent on his invention for itself, destroying Armstrong through the courts and leaving him penniless.
Brought to utter ruin, Armstrong jumped to his death from the thirteenth floor of his New York City apartment.
As the inane cackling of the usual hideous agglomeration of bright young breakfast idiots burst from behind the glowing red 6:30 and hurled Snap McKenzie out of a blissfully dreamless sleep and into the freezing murk of a Melbourne winter morning, it was that last fact that brought her some grimly uncharitable satisfaction.
As she bashed blindly at the top of the radio in a frantic search for the kill button, Snap reflected darkly on the flaw in human design that caused people to be dependent either on soul-destroying blather or brain-shredding buzzers to keep them on time. Rolling inelegantly from the mattress, these reflections were quickly replaced by more basic ones on the seeming impossibility of the morning being this cold without actually stopping her heart.
In the kitchen, Snap opened the refrigerator and regarded the contents with the bleakness they deserved. The decision that lay before her was not a pleasant one, yet still it had to be made. Pushing aside the unopened four-year-old bottle of absinthe that she kept for when she wanted to appear Bohemian to herself, she withdrew a half-full green plastic vessel and unscrewed the top with a satisfying psssshhhh. She’d had worse breakfasts, she thought philosophically as the sparklingly clear and eye-achingly icy liquid tingled down her throat.
Some people, she knew, frowned upon the imbibing of carbonated beverages as one’s sole morning meal. But then, Snap reasoned, some people frowned on young women neglecting to polish their lip plates, so you couldn’t just live your life according to people’s frowns. Besides, if anyone could come up with a more effective pre-dawn sugar delivery system, she’d like to hear about it.
Repairing to the bedroom, she yelped as the water struck her skin with Arctic force, yelped again as it turned hot and she realized she’d over-compensated, and finally simply stood there, in the blissful warmth, resisting the urge to collapse against the wall and drool herself to sleep; then whimpered as the hot water ran out and once more her flesh began to goosify, springing forth to apply with some desperation a towel that was threadbare almost to the point of translucency.
Ten minutes later, she scurried from her bedroom, neatly attired in a businesslike blue skirt and matching jacket, and flinging back a thick rope of sopping hair to affix a pearl to her earlobe. As she rushed through the bedroom doorway, her lips were moving frantically. A watcher might have concluded that the effects of the shower had not subsided and her teeth were chattering beyond her control; unless they strained their ears and picked up the low stream of ‘buggerbuggercrapcraplatelatelatebuggerlatelatelate’ flowing from her.
And so, desperately, flustered, dripping and panicked, Snap sprinted awkwardly to the living room, lunged for the remote, crumpled onto the couch, and as the VCR clock snapped over to 7:32, brought the television to sudden, booming life just in time to hear those beautiful words: ‘…so hands on buzzers, and here is your first question.’
Snap panted in relief. She’d made it.

And for the next half hour, that same observer who had speculated on Snaps’ chattering teeth could have watched as the bleary, sleep-deprived eyes burned like hot steel and the timid, downturned mouth transformed into a relentless barking cannon.
‘Belgium.’
‘Carl Perkins.’
‘Tungsten.’
‘Johannesburg.’
‘Vespasian.’
‘Orson Welles.’
‘The okapi.’
At eight, the news was on.

Chapter 1 of Killer Project

2006-08-15T11:50:19Z

The guard’s eyes are so heavy, he doesn’t seem to have the strength to keep them up. Black leaden coins, set so far back in his dogged face that I feel I’m being peered at from the other end of a railway tunnel, they raise themselves to squint at me three or four times, only to sink inexorably back each time to the black and white paper in front of him. He seems to have the idea that if he repeats the exercise often enough, eventually the anchor of his eyes will drop his gaze down to a completely different document, one that will allow him to tell me, with a minimum of ceremony, to fuck off.
It doesn’t work. Eventually, he has to haul the line back up and fix me with a stare that tells me all I will ever need to know about his opinion of me.
‘A book?’ he grunts, disbelievingly.
I resist the squirming instinct fighting for control of my nervous system and try to meet the lead doubloons sizing me up in a manner befitting my professional mission. ‘That’s right,’ I reply, my voice, of its own accord, unnaturally lowering itself to a pitch that my cave-bred hindbrain presumably considers an appropriately masculine way of meeting the guard’s challenge.
‘Why would you want to write a book about something like this?’ he pushes further, his growing distaste evident.
I have no idea how to answer this, but stupidly try anyway. ‘I hope it’ll be an insight…into…’ I flounder. ‘I mean, I think learning about things like- about people like this, will…I mean, it’ll tell us something, I think. There’s a lot to be learned about…this.’
The guard is not remotely impressed, and I don’t blame him. His eyes appear to have been agonizingly relieved of their ponderous weight; they stay implacably focused on me as I search for something else to look at. His voice arrives again, a growl in a uniform.
‘You want to keep dredging up this stuff?’ His gaze hammers mine into submission. ‘You want to keep reminding everyone about it?’ It’s an accusation. He knows where he thinks I belong.
I search for an answer, and find my spine, abandoning apologetic intellectualism for brusque professionalism. ‘Could you please show me in to Mr Braddock now, if it’s not too much trouble?’
It’s a tone designed to make him feel like a minion. He doesn’t fall for it, but nevertheless he knows his job, and nods grudgingly. ‘Come on, then.’ He vanishes from behind his desk and reappears behind the heavy security door to my right as it swings open with an efficient whoosh.
He hands me a lanyard with a pass dangling from it as I step through, and turns his back, leading me at speed up stairs and along corridors, even his walk reinforcing the clear message that if he had his way, he’d leading me in another direction, twisting my arms behind my back and marching me roughly to a cell to keep company with the people I seemed to be so eager to meet.

Governor Adrian Rissini of Glenbourne Prison is younger, and smaller, than I had imagined. Somehow expecting a grizzled, battle-worn bear, ruling his max-security fiefdom with an iron fist, I’m confronted instead by a slender, dark man in his mid-thirties sitting behind his desk with a suggestion of contained restlessness and the smell of efficiency. He seems to be in this place by mistake; he belongs in a stockbroker’s office or on the staff of an MP, not in a prison. He’s looking at me, superiority written on his face and a trace of amusement dancing behind his eyes. In front of him sit two fat files. One of them is all about me; the other, all about the man I’m here to see. He’s placed them with perfect symmetry, as if his desk is a set of scales and he has decided to make a judgment based on who outweighs the other.
I wonder: which do I want to be, heavier or lighter?

bensnovel @ 2005-12-09T11:26:00

2005-12-09T00:26:34Z

Yo!

bensnovel @ 2005-09-14T13:42:00

2005-09-14T03:47:08Z

Television viewers were suddenly treated to the traditional mainstay of live TV, the hasty, clumsy tracking shot that takes in brief and confusing images of walls, ceilings, shoes, cables, and startled sound engineers, as the cameraman spun and frantically tried to focus on whoever it was who had just called across the room, in an echoing, air-splitting voice that demanded immediate attention the same way gravity demands that things go downwards. There was simply no ignoring it.
Standing in the great hall, gazing defiantly at Apollo himself, was Loki, displaying both a flair for choosing dramatic moments, and a small rectangular block of gold.
It was a perfectly ordinary block of gold. It was quite shiny, and looked to have some weight to it. You could probably heave it through a window with some pleasing results, although one would have to question the cost-effectiveness of such a move. It was small enough to fit easily in one hand, which it was doing at this moment. It was, in fact, a very ordinary, though attractive, bit of precious metal.
Certainly not the kind of thing that should be mesmerising everyone present in the way that it was. From all who had sat and stood watching Apollo, gazes of trancelike wonder or naked hunger fixed on the block. Some of the specially invited politicians wiped away flecks of drool that spotted their cheeks.
Power has a smell. It’s a smell rarely identified; very few things on earth contain enough of the stuff to produce a noticeable odour. But those who desire power more than anything, who are attuned to the right frequencies, can occasionally catch a whiff, and home in on the sources of the power they seek. When someone really powerful passes by, others notice. They’ll look up from what they’re doing. They’ll feel a mysterious pull, they’ll feel oddly compelled to take notice, without knowing why. The smell is, every now and then, strong enough to be detected. But never strong enough for anyone to know they’re detecting it.
Today was an exception.
There was so much power glowing within the block of gold that it filled the air, flooded every nostril, curled in invisible tendrils around throats, thrillingly constricting airways, seeped into eyeballs, into pores, electrifying sinews.
Apollo was staring in bewilderment at it. His eyes moved upward to meet Loki’s, and his expression changed from bewilderment to hatred. ‘Where did you get it?’ he snarled.
Loki smiled in a shockingly unpleasant way. ‘From the same place you left it, Lord Apollo.’ The cameras were having a hard time switching back and forth between the two gods. A global audience was rapidly becoming dizzy. ‘You really should be more discriminating in who you associate with, Your Gloriousness. Some of your friends have the most appallingly loose tongues.’
Apollo’s gaze flashed across to his cabal of gods, and focused in on Dionysus, who froze, cup halfway to lips. The golden god roared. ‘DIONYSUS!’ Against all physical laws except those of Apt Effect, fragments of plaster tumbled from the solid gold ceiling.
The god of wine, women and song suddenly found that he had dropped his drink, his girlfriends had very quickly run away, and nobody was singing. He looked, open-mouthed up at Apollo and tried to compose an explanation. ‘Er…you see, Lord, Thor and I were just discussing the Palace and everything, and I just happened to mention the room where—’
Apollo was not interested. ‘Get it!!!!’ he screamed, pointing at Loki, who was still standing, smiling nonchalantly, while all around seemed frozen.
‘Yes, yes, Lord Apollo.’ Dionysus bowed low and turned towards Loki, who uttered one word.
‘Now!’
Next to Dionysus, Thor, who had seemed to be dozing, leaning against the wall, moved like a flash of the lightning he ruled. A huge open hand slammed Dionysus back, and in an instant, the hammer was raised high above him.
Dionysus tried to snicker. ‘Come on, Thor,’ he said. ‘I’m a god too. Your hammer can’t—’
The hammer smashed his head clean off. A shocked silence descended as the body slumped to the floor and into the soup of blood, flesh and crushed bone that had been a head a moment ago. A second later, the whole lot shimmered and evaporated.
‘It is amazing, isn’t it,’ called Loki, ‘what can be done with the Ingot.’ He licked his lips and eyed Apollo. ‘And what can’t be done without it.’
Ellis looked in amazement at God. ‘That’s the Ingot?’
‘Yes,’ said God grimly.
‘Well, that’s pretty unimpressive,’ Ellis said. ‘I was expecting something a bit more spectacular.’ He continued to watch events unfold, oblivious to the wide-eyed stares he was receiving from both God and Satan.
Apollo looked wildly around at the guards lined around the entire hall. ‘Kill him! Take it back!’ he screamed.
The guards looked reluctant, but several of the braver and more stupid ones rushed at Loki, spears raised. The Norse god lazily drew his broad, businesslike sword and in what seemed like one stroke turned half a dozen guards into fifty-odd ex-guards. The hypnotic draw of power faded somewhat for the honoured guests as they were spattered with blood. The more cautious guards, their circumspection rewarded, dropped their weapons and fled.
The studio audience, transfixed, held their breath, not knowing what was to come next, but frightened to move in case they ran into something metallic by accident.
‘It will be no use to you!’ yelled Apollo. ‘I have my followers. I have the power now. I don’t need the Ingot anymore.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Loki. ‘But, my Lord, just think what I shall be able to achieve. Power, glory…and, of course, the destruction of those who oppose me.’
Apollo glowered. ‘You can’t destroy me. Earth is mine. These people are mine. I’m not fading away again.’
‘Of course not,’ Loki replied. ‘Fading away is not what I had in mind. More…extinguishing.’
‘The other gods are with me,’ said Apollo. ‘You can never win.’ He looked for reassurance to his band of henchgods. They looked at the floor and shuffled their feet. They were loyal to Apollo, naturally, but Thor was still quite close to them, and his hammer was still stained with blood. The world seemed to be in a state of suspended animation. The gods faced each other, and the mortals stayed where they were.
Apollo raised his golden sword. ‘Shall it come to this?’ he asked.
Loki grinned. ‘That was always the plan, my Lord.’
Apollo seemed to just float down from the platform to the floor. He stepped over a camera cable, and began a slow, steady walk toward Loki, who stood, relaxed, on the other side of the hall, sword in one hand, Ingot in the other. Thor moved across the room and stopped just behind Loki, hammer up. The other gods took this opportunity to slip out the door and start running.
Up on the platform, God’s eyes were suddenly sparkling. ‘Ellis!’ he said.
Ellis looked over with a start. ‘What?’
‘See if you can—’
Everyone was interrupted by a loud bang. From an inner door a trail of smoke emanated, followed by a man in black carrying a gun. Followed by some more men in black. Both Apollo and Loki froze in shock. The lead man strode confidently up to the platform, and hauled himself up behind the podium. The others shuffled around the hall and took up positions around the walls. Several of them also had guns, which they pointed at the guests and TV crew. One cameraman stepped gingerly away from his equipment, only to be shoved back behind the lens. ‘Keep shooting!’ barked the hood.
The leader of the group looked into camera one, or at least pointed his hood in that direction. “My friends,’ he began. ‘As you have already been told, today is indeed a momentous day. However, the reasons for this are quite different to those which have been told to you. Today is a glorious new beginning, not for a world ruled by false gods, fear, superstition and irrationality, but by reason and the glory of humanity! Today we are all Brethren, and gods perish forever!’
Apollo came to life with a growl. ‘You!’ he snapped. He started walking back toward the platform, still brandishing his sword. ‘How many of you pathetic fools do I have to kill before you get the message?’
Behind him, Loki seemed paralysed for a moment, unsure what to do. Then he sprang forward, raising his own blade. He brought it down on Apollo’s neck—

It's Not Over Till It's Over

2005-09-13T04:17:48Z

While Apollo was making his introductory speech, the eyes of the world on him, behind the temple the Brethren were joined by two of their comrades.
‘Is it done?’ the rearmost brother asked the newcomers. One of them nodded silently, and he turned back to the job at hand.
All the palace guards were deep within the golden compound, maintaining security in the temporary television studio. This meant that the small, shady rear courtyard of Apollo’s palace was deserted apart from the band of black-clad zealots, and a long white car sitting fifty feet away.
Two of the brothers were working away at an insignificant door with electric drills and crowbars. After a few minutes, there was a soft plink, followed by a loud, vibrato clank. The door had fallen upon the paving stones. When it finished echoing, the back door of the white care opened. The brothers immediately parted into two lines that formed a pathway to the doorway and bowed their heads. The two who had just arrived took a second longer to snap into line than the others, but that was understandable. Assassination could be tiring.
Out of the car stepped the most important brother of all, the First Among Equals, the Grand Exalted Master of Rationality, the Mighty and Beloved Leader of the forces of Reason. He wheezed.
‘So here we are.’ He walked between the lines of his underlings. ‘Convenient indeed that our instrument has arranged to broadcast our triumph live around the world. The culture of credulity and fear will this day be struck a cruel blow indeed.’ He turned at the portal. ‘Shall we, gentlemen?’

**********************************************************

As the band struck up and the cameras followed Apollo around the room smiling and shaking the hands of various dignitaries, Ellis raised his head and craned to look at God.
‘What now?’ he hissed.
God swung His head sideways. ‘What do you mean, what now?’ He hissed back.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m not going to do anything! What on earth can I do?’ God snapped irritably.
Ellis gaped. ‘What can you do? You’re God! You must be able to do something!’
‘But I’m not God anymore!’ God retorted. ‘That’s the whole point! That’s why you’re the Messiah, that’s why we’re here. Everyone’s following Apollo now! Even people who followed other gods are following Apollo because the other gods are! I’ve lost my powers. I can’t get back to Heaven, I can’t communicate with my angels. No thunderbolts, no rain of fire, no smiting whatsoever. I’m finished.’ God turned away and stared fiercely at the spectators.
Ellis hung from his chains, looking at God. He couldn’t quite process it. An ancient Greek god was going to kill him. This was going to happen. It was going to happen because the Christian god had decided to make him Messiah and then tell him that He couldn’t do anything to help. Once again, Ellis found himself infuriated by the failure of mythical beings to do their jobs. Apollo was just as bad. He had never heard anything about Apollo being a power-hungry psychopath. Apollo was supposed to be gentle and good and encourage music and art. He had read that in a book somewhere. Apollo was not supposed to kill people and try to take over the world. And Satan wasn’t supposed to get drunk in bars and manage an office block. And God wasn’t supposed to have a roller-skating P.A. And he wasn’t supposed to be Messiah, for pity’s sake! It just made him so…and then he felt the fire again.
God was looking at him again. Satan was too. ‘You can feel it, can’t you?’ whispered the old man. ‘You can feel the Holy Spirit. I gave it to you, use it! You are the Messiah!’
Ellis looked helplessly back at Him. ‘I have been feeling it,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know what to do with it. I can’t…’
‘Breaking the chains would be favourite,’ said Satan. ‘Vaporising the blonde would be a nice follow-up.’
‘Use it, Ellis!’ God’s voice was insistent as Apollo turned from his guests and made his way back to the podium. The music changed. Became slower. Steadier. Pounded. Ellis felt that flame coursing through him, clenched his fists…strained…nothing happened…he remembered the pain of Dionysus’s grip. He looked despairingly at God and Satan. He concentrated hard, but on what he didn’t know. He stared at his chains, willing them to crumble, melt, fall away, but they didn’t. The Spirit welled up inside him, and with nowhere to go, no direction to be pointed in…faded. Ellis slumped. The moment passed. Apollo had returned. The music had stopped.
‘Now, friends, the waiting is over,’ Apollo boomed to the world. From beneath the podium, he drew a stunningly beautiful sword. Nearly as long as a man, perfectly straight, and from handle to tip, gleaming gold. A ruby sun glittered in the hilt. He held it aloft, and breathed long and deep, eyes shut. ‘Now it is,’ he murmured.
Ellis felt something hard crack against the side of his head. He yelped in pain, and looked to the side of the room. A collection of various gods was there, sniggering. Another rock whizzed past his head and smacked against the backdrop. Dionysus was there, of course, still drinking, still hosting an ever-wispier collection of gauzy fabrics draped over young women. Thor was with him, idly twirling his hammer alongside Ganesh, who was, Ellis saw, firing rocks with his trunk. Some other gods were standing by, to whom Ellis had not been introduced, but he did notice that one of them had a the head of an aged and extremely savage vulture, while another was a stern, statuesque woman with an owl on her shoulder, which, as Ellis watched, took off and flew straight for Satan’s head, which it began pecking.
He also noticed a smaller figure, a hint of fur and a flash of red, moving quickly just behind the gods, but his attention was distracted from further examination by the sudden kiss of cold metal on his throat. The sword may have outwardly shone like gold, but there was no doubt that it was very fine and very serious steel. Ellis swallowed, and tried to give up breathing as the edge tickled his flesh.
‘Don’t worry, dear boy,’ Apollo whispered in his ear as he pressed the sword just that little bit harder. ‘I won’t prolong this for any longer than is absolutely necessary to entertain the crowd and cause you unbelievable and unbearable pain.’
To the crowd and the cameras, he yelled, ‘First, the lackey!’ Once more, the earth echoed with cheers. He drew the blade lovingly back across Ellis’s neck like a virtuoso playing the first strains of a violin concerto. A thin line of blood sprang from the skin and dripped down Ellis’s throat. He whimpered, too softly for any but Apollo to hear. The god grinned.
‘Let this be a lesson to you,’ he said. ‘Do not meddle in the affairs of the gods. I now own the world. Everything old is new again. Always remember, those who do not desire power greatly enough—’ the golden eyes flicked contemptuously to God for a moment, ‘—are forever condemned…to lose it.’
The tip of the sword stung Ellis’s cheek, and he felt more blood trickle down his face. Apollo drew back the sword elegantly, preparing for a more dramatic and undoubtedly painful blow, when he was stopped in mid-flourish by a cry from behind the cameras.
‘Apollo!’

A long one

2005-09-08T04:34:42Z

The woman flashed vermilion and looked in every other direction.
‘Come on,’ Satan was saying. ‘We just want to worship close to our Lord. Is Apollo not an accessible god?’
Dionysus mulled this question over, swilling his beer about and casually kissing a slender female who seemed to be wearing a cobweb. He consulted Thor for help. ‘Would you say Apollo is an accessible god, Thor?’
The Viking opened his eyes and blinked. ‘Accessible? Nuh. ‘s not accessible. ‘s the other thing. Tall.’ He shut his eyes.
Dionysus nodded happily. ‘He’s definitely tall. But not accessible, no, no. Nobody sees him without an invitation. He’s terribly busy. Especially today. Public execution.’
‘Execution?’ Ellis almost yelped.
Dionysus giggled. ‘Getting rid of the old man at last. No more monononotheism. Mononononotheism.’ He waved a hand and gave up on the word. ‘No more of that. Freedom for gods!’
‘Freedom for gods!’ cried Thor from the horizontal.
‘And beer!’
‘Beer!’ Thor waggled his horn in the air. The elephant head god raised a silent fist in solidarity. Ellis stared at him. He hadn’t really noticed him before. He recognised him, though, from one of his many books on the path to spirituality.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said.
The god shrugged, and answered in a deep, melodic voice that seemed to be echoing up from the bottom of a canyon. ‘I heard there was a party,’ it replied, and went back to slurping up vodka.
Ellis wanted to say more, but he was distracted by a whisper in his ear. ‘I’m really very uncomfortable,’ Bernadette hissed. ‘These clothes are not appropriate at all.’
Ellis nodded impatiently. ‘I know,’ he whispered back, ‘but do you think you could sort of keep that inside for a bit longer? This is pretty important you know. You do want to re-establish God’s dominion, don’t you? Like we discussed?’
‘Yes,’ Bernadette replied, her mouth still almost pressed against Ellis’s ear, a situation that was causing him a certain amount of peculiar discomfort himself. ‘but I want you to take note that the only reason I’m doing it is because I know this is not really happening.’
‘Fine,’ Ellis said, ‘Then can we—’ he glanced up and stopped. Dionysus was looking at them strangely. Sharply. He stood up, shaking off his harem, and looked down at them intensely.
‘I have seen you before, haven’t I?’ he said. ‘You…’ he pointed at Bernadette. ‘You were dressed differently. And you…’ his eyes flicked to the Devil. ‘I know you…’ Suddenly a huge grin broke out on his face. ‘Oh yes, I know you. Come to worship Apollo, have you?’
Satan stuck his considerable chin out. ‘That’s right,’ he said defiantly. ‘I’ve converted, and I’ve spread the word to these two. So I’m sure Apollo won’t mind seeing such a distinguished visitor.’
Dionysus’s laugh boomed around the forecourt, causing a number of spectators to look up and laugh along at whatever was being laughed at. ‘Distinguished? Not even a god! A god’s hired hand! A jailkeeper! A lapdog, to a god whose power is extinct anyway. Distinguished indeed!’ He stepped down to Satan’s level and eyeballed him from six inches away. ‘I know your game,’ he purred. ‘I know that when we’ve eliminated your stupid, senile god, you’ll wither and fade too. You’ll probably end up mopping floors. Or making hamburgers, maybe? Now that’s a good life, I can tell you. A good way to spend a few centuries.’
Satan didn’t flinch. ‘You’re too confident,’ he said. ‘You know what I can do.’
‘Could do,’ Dionysus corrected. He paused to sip some more beer. ‘We know where the power is now, don’t we? And the glorious thing, the really wonderful thing is, everyone gets to share in it.’ He beamed at them all, as several of his young women returned and got stroking. ‘Except you,’ he added. ‘Obviously.’
‘Share in it?’ snapped Satan. ‘You’re not sharing in anything. You’re Apollo’s lackey.’
‘Agreed,’ Dionysus nodded. ‘But since I’ve got wine, women and song…well, that’s all the sharing I really need.’ He turned and patted the cheek of a particularly stunning redhead at his side. ‘And for a god of my particular inclinations, a little lackeydom is so worth it.’ Satan didn’t reply to this. Ellis and Bernadette stood beside him, looking at the ground. There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. Dionysus continued. ‘It is, I’ll admit, terribly generous of you, though, to come here and make such a lovely giftwrapped parcel of yourself. The execution will go even more swimmingly now. Not only God, but God’s hellish little helper. And, er…’ he looked at Ellis. ‘Why of course! You must be the new Messiah I’ve heard so much about. Care for a drink?’ Ellis continued looking at the ground. ‘No? Your decision, though you should really try giving hedonism a go. You’ll live longer. But, oh well…’ he snapped his fingers. ‘Thor!’
The Norse god sat up, and took a moment to get his bearings. His mighty, divine, incredibly slow brain did, however, manage to grasp the situation. He hauled himself to his feet, and picked up his hammer. Ellis’s eyes were inexorably drawn to it. It was huge. It was shiny. It was, indisputably, nasty.
Satan nudged him. ‘Ellis, do your thing.’
Ellis looked blankly at him. ‘What thing?’
‘The thing.’ Satan turned to Dionysus. ‘There might be more holy power still around here than you think.’ He nudged Ellis again. ‘Your thing. The Messiah thing. Like back at your flat?’
Ellis’s eyes opened wide in comprehension. ‘Oh! That thing.’ He faced Dionysus, and adopted the fiercest expression he could, which would have embarrassed him hugely if he could have seen it. The Greek god watched him with amusement and refilled his cup.
Ellis concentrated, and raised his fists, and for the first time…yes. For the first time since this whole business had started, he could feel what God and Magatha had been on about. He could feel the Holy Spirit. It blazed through him like a fiery liquor, every vein throbbing. Tingles raced up and down his spine, through his hands, along every hair on his head. He was conscious of a swelling inside him. He was getting bigger, he was sure. He began to glow faintly. His eyes flashed, his nostrils flared. He felt as if he were about to launch into the sky and explode like a magnificent firework. His hands opened and closed. A perfect anger burnt inside him. Everything seemed to slow down as he drew his fist back.
And swung.
And suddenly, everything was back to normal. The Holy Spirit retreated and he was once again simply Ellis Dark, puny, unsure, and in a world of pain as Dionysus caught his fist in his own elegant hand, and squeezed.
A gurgle escaped his throat as he felt the bones in his hand crack and buckle. The god’s grip was beyond belief. Cruel and crushing. He dropped to his knees.
Satan made to intervene, but his rescue was interrupted by Thor’s hammer, which crashed into his mighty chest and laid him flat on the steps. He didn’t move. Bernadette screamed. Dionysus smiled seductively at her.
‘I’ll get to you,’ he said. She stared for a second, then turned and ran. Dionysus turned his attention back to Ellis, who was sobbing with pain at his feet.
‘That was fantastic,’ he said. ‘What a great trick!’ He tightened his grip, and Ellis cried out. ‘Messiahs mean nothing any more, you see. All your righteousness won’t do you any good. You should have forgotten about saving the world and just enjoyed what you had. That’s what I do.’ He grinned wider, and twisted. Ellis screamed as his wrist gave way, and the section of the crowd nearest the steps, who had abandoned their own activities for the moment to take in the show, applauded appreciatively. Dionysus sipped his drink with his other hand. ‘Oh, by all the gods, and I’m enjoying it immensely today.’
He finally released Ellis, who collapsed to the ground, clutching at his hand and whimpering, next to the massive, prone body of Satan. He clapped his hands and addressed his fellow gods and female companions. ‘Right now, let’s get these two inside to Apollo. Come on, life can’t be all fun and games, you know.’

*************************************************************

A few blocks away from the temple, the most forlorn angel currently on earth, skated slowly past a comic book shop. Her plaits hung limp and motionless from her head. Even her waistcoat seemed to have lost some of its colour, a sartorial problem peculiar to the supernatural.
The sun was shining, but a chilly wind had come up and was gusting along the street, catching Magatha amidships as she stood on her wheels and gazed aimlessly into the shop window. A muscular-looking angel was soaring out of a cover towards her, with a look of firm-jawed heroism. His angelic fist pointed straight at her, and the words “VENGEFUL ANGEL” blared out to the world. Magatha took this in bleakly. That at this moment she should come across that particular comic was the kind of irritating narrative aptness that she really hated. Not to mention the fact that the comic itself she found absolutely revolting. She toyed with the idea of entering the shop and exposing the proprietor to a terrifying religious vision, but then remembered her current circumstances. She could, she supposed, simply smash the window with a rock. But there didn’t seem to be any rocks nearby. Foiled again.
She didn’t want to be here. Earth made her angry. It was inefficient and untidy. This situation she found particularly aggravating. Her employer was a good god. As gods go, one of the best. He was kind, He was tolerant, He never transformed into livestock and took offensive liberties with women. He had the common decency not to get Himself too involved with human affairs. That all these common little so-called gods should now come crawling out of the rotting woodwork of their grubby little pantheons and challenge him was too much to bear. That it was working was just another testament to the infinite stupidity of the human race, a quality she had often had occasion to notice.
She skated in a slow, mournful circle across the empty street. She wanted to be back home. In Heaven, glorious Heaven, organising files and handling correspondence and intimidating junior cherubs. Overseeing the smooth, efficient, graceful operation of the well-oiled machine that was Paradise under Magatha. Up there, she controlled things. Everything worked as it should, and as she wanted it to. That was what she was there for; that was her whole reason for being. She prided herself on making sure that the Almighty had nothing to worry about. In an administrative sense, anyway. And here He was, in the most worrying position imaginable, and she felt so…powerless. It was a mess. And mess she could not stand.
In such a mournful, contemplative mood, it has to be said that Magatha was not at her most alert. Absorbed in her own gloomy musings, she was fairly oblivious to anything else going on around her in this quiet street. In particular, she did not notice the two dark shadows flitting down the road toward her, darting from parked car to parked car, taking cover for a minute behind each one before moving on to the next. She did not notice them creep softly from their final hiding place, not twenty yards away from her. She did not notice them, crouching, edging nearer as she looked listlessly into store windows. She did not notice the long, thin blades that shimmered out from under their cloaks. She did not notice them rise up behind her and prepare to pounce.
And, with studied and determined nonchalance, she definitely and deliberately did not notice the succession of dull thuds as they hit the pavement at a rate of knots, having been neatly ambushed by Simon, who had emerged from a shop doorway as the pair approached the angel and speedily applied some scientific knees and elbows to some unsuspecting smalls of backs and backs of heads.
Magatha finally turned and noticed something as her partner knelt, removing the unconscious assassins’ outer vestments. ‘Nice work,’ she offered neutrally, as he handed her a black hood.
He nodded. ‘Unfortunately, the fact that I carried the nice work out says some very depressing things about my mental health,’ he muttered, trying to organise his own new costume.
‘Not at all,’ Magatha said, slipping off her skates and depositing them in one of her mysterious pockets. ‘You’re just not used to finally being completely sane.’ She thrust her arms through the black robe, and hoisted the hood over her head. ‘Now, shall we go meet our brothers?’

**************************************************

Around the globe, television sets were being switched on. Except in places where there were no television sets, but it had long ago been made official that these places didn’t really count. Everywhere, families gathered, workers stopped work, the less affluent gathered in front of shop windows in the grand style, people invited friends around and filled bowls with chips in preparation for the latest thing: Execution parties.
Apollo was, as he had promised in yesterday’s dawn service, bringing people together. In towns and villages from Maine to Minsk, people’s sense of community was increasing by the minute, as they congregated to sing songs, offer thanks to the Golden Prince, bow down to the Sun-Lyre, and settle in for a good clean bit of public death, bathed in the merry glow of burning Bibles, Korans, Talmuds, Vedas, and various other holy texts. It was so heartwarming it could make you cry.
The broadcast started right on time, further proof, millions of viewers pointed out to their neighbours, of Apollo’s perfection. The old gods, they said, would probably have started five minutes late and people wouldn’t have been able to set their video recorders with any certitude.
‘The Birth Of Freedom’ announced the shining calligraphy on the screen as a lyre lilted melodically in the background. The title screen faded away to reveal a golden podium standing in front of a thick purple curtain. After a second, the curtain parted, and a global cheer went up that might have attracted the attention of extraterrestrial intelligences. Apollo himself was striding out to stand at the lectern.
He looked straight into the camera, and smiled, that perfect, wonderful smile that his followers all knew so well, the smile that hypnotised and reassured and overjoyed. Apollo’s smile said, all is indeed well. Leave it to me.
After a minute or two of simply smiling, melting hearts and minds everywhere, he finally spoke. ‘My children,’ he said in that warm, sweet, smooth voice that you just had to fall in love with, ‘you have shown admirable devotion and loyalty to me since I resumed my place as your rightful lord and master. This shall not go unrewarded. Your faith merits you the greatest of spiritual recognition. The riches and joy that shall be yours in short order will exceed your wildest dreams. Until now, despite my infinite goodness and generosity, I had been restrained from giving of my greatest to my beloved flock. Hamstrung, held back by the forces of darkness against whom I ever wage war.’
Apollo’s face became solemn and reverent. ‘Until now, righteousness had struggled. Yes, we became ascendant, but the threat was ever there that that dark oppressor who had held so many of you in bondage for millennia would come to wreak destruction again. After all, he is old and crafty, while our glorious new era has only just begun. Yes, it is true that some of our godly colleagues had, wisely, joined us in our quest rather than opposed us—’ here the camera cut quickly to a shot of the elephant head sipping from his bottle. He waved, and may have smiled, though it was hard to tell. ‘—but still that one wicked deity continued to resist us, to fight against the good and the pure rather than embrace it. This evil would have forever remained a threat. However…’
The purple curtains swung apart with a flourish. A boom of tympani crashed through the temple as the camera pulled out.
The platform from before was now three platforms, each with its own set of chains. And in the chains were three men, God, Satan, and Ellis, spreadeagled against the golden backdrop, grimacing with pain and misery. The camera zoomed in on each one in turn to make sure every viewer got the full effect of their despair, before coming back to Apollo.
‘My children, THIS is the day!’ he cried. ‘The day when our new age begins! The day when beauty, art and light overwhelms the savage evil of the church and the cross. The Lord of deceit, and his pathetic lackeys, before you in chains! In minutes they will be no more, and together we can embark on our wonderful new journey.’ He smiled once more, showing those flawless rows of blinding teeth. ‘Under my magnificent yoke, you shall henceforth be in Utopia.’

At the Temple

2005-09-05T23:31:57Z

‘In times gone past,’ Apollo announced, ‘malefactors and enemies of public safety would meet their fate in the public square of the town, where the good citizens could see justice carried out. These days, town squares are less in fashion; however, technology has blessed us today with an even greater ability to demonstrate righteousness to our beloved subjects.’ He gestured to the elaborate television camera set-up behind him. ‘Today, gentlemen, the world is our piazza. The art of public execution is no longer a relic of a distant and happier past. Today, all the good folk of this planet can witness good’s triumph over evil!’
He threw his arms up in a dramatic gesture of victory. His audience, a small and select group of prominent city businessmen and politicians seated in the Great Hall, applauded politely.
The Greek god turned and stepped surely through the maze of cables criss-crossing the floor, to the area in front of the cameras. A large platform had been set up, in front of a massive golden backdrop, depicting a glowing lyre on a background of a huge sun. It hurt the eyes to look directly at it. Just underneath the sun and just above the platform, dead centre, manacles hung from four short chains affixed to the backdrop. A long line of stony-faced, spear-wielding guards was standing against the backdrop, from one end of the platform to the other.
Apollo surveyed all this with satisfaction. A small man in a maroon turtleneck and headphones scurried up to him. ‘About half an hour, my Lord,’ he said, eyes cast down reverently.
Apollo smiled upon him, and tapped the top of his head. ‘Wonderful,’ he murmured. He turned to his esteemed guests. ‘Do feel free to help yourself to refreshments,’ he called. ‘The egg sandwiches, I’m told, are especially divine.’

****************************************************

Out the front of Apollo’s palace, under a bright sun suitable for such a momentous day, a crowd had gathered to watch the proceedings on a big screen set up in the forecourt specially for the occasion. It was a peaceful crowd, love and laughter seemed to be the theme of the day. You wouldn’t have guessed from their merry banter and jovial backslapping that they were all there to watch and celebrate an old man being brutally tortured to death, even less that given the word, any one of them would have cheerfully carried out the deed him or herself. There was more of a tennis final vibe about the place.
The jocularity of the gathering was, indeed, grotesque, but the advantage it carried was that the faithful were fairly oblivious to what was going on. Just there to have a good, clean, sadistic time, they paid not much mind to the activities of others, such as the three who had strolled through the crowd, past the screen, and up to the steps of the palace itself
Guarding, in a loose sense of the word, the steps was a rather unsteady troupe. They had been drinking for some considerable time now, and although they did possess the capability to absorb massive amounts of alcohol without suffering the usual ill effects, they generally rather preferred to use their powers to enhance them.
Ellis recognised one of them as the hedonistic Hellene whom he’d encountered on their last ill-fated visit. Today, his toga was even more precariously attached, and the young women were even more inextricably entangled about his person. He had a large bejewelled golden goblet, which he was alternately swigging from and refilling from a six-pack of beer cans sitting beside him.
One of the others was a man who took up so much space he was probably subject to zoning laws. He was, in fact, even larger than the Devil standing alongside Ellis. He was also swathed in heavy, pungent animal skins, and had incredibly perfect blonde hair cascading from beneath his helmet, which sat at an angle that a man as drunk as he was could well have considered jaunty. A hammer so impractically large as to require an entire hardware department to itself lay on the step next to him. He was drinking from a long, curved horn which had presumably once belonged to an ox the size of caravan.
The third member of the dubious sentry squad was a quiet-looking, well-groomed man who was drinking steadily from a huge vodka bottle through his trunk.
The first two looked up with unfocused eyes as the trio approached them.
Dionysus spoke first, as if half-remembering some ancient law. ‘No…’ he furrowed his brow, and turned to Thor. ‘What was it?’
‘Entry,’ burped the Norseman.
Dionysus turned back to the humans. ‘That’s right,’ he nodded, spilling beer down his toga. ‘No entry.’
Satan cleared his throat. ‘We are here,’ he said politely, ‘to pay tribute to our new and glorious lord, Apollo.’
Dionysus tossed another goblet-full down. ‘That’s nice,’ he replied. ‘He likes it when people do that. I’ll pass it on. Goodbye.’
Nothing happened for several seconds, before Dionysus once more peered at them blearily. ‘Are you still here?’ he asked. ‘Or are you somebody else?’
Satan tried again. ‘We are here, to pay tribute to—’
‘Oh, you’re just the same people,’ said the Greek. ‘How boring.’ He leaned back as one of his entourage began massaging his scalp.
Ellis gave it a go, and got as far as, ‘Look.’ Dionysus sat up and examined him.
‘Haven’t I recognised you before?’ he slurred. ‘Thor, do you recognise him?’ He pointed at Ellis. ‘Or him?’ He pointed at Ellis again.
The Thunder God leaned forward and nearly fell down the steps as he took a good, hard look at Ellis, who was beginning to feel a touch of nerves. He slumped back again. ‘Nup. Never seen ‘fore in life,’ he said economically.
‘You don’t recognise anyone with…without six dead moose draped around them, hahahaha,’ Dionysus cackled.
Thor sighed. ‘I’m sleepy,’ he said, and lay down.
Dionysus was closely eyeing the third member of Ellis’s party. The dark-haired young woman in the baggy jeans and man’s shirt looked even more uncomfortable than she had when she arrived.
‘I know I’ve recognised you before,’ the god said, smiling toothily. ‘How would you like to slip into something diaphanous and get religion?’

Simon

2005-09-02T00:27:22Z

And Simon couldn’t deny it made sense. If freethinkers really pulled together toward a common goal, then maybe that godless utopia would, indeed come about. Not in his lifetime, but he would be part of the chain.
And so, the Brethren became Simon’s sole focus. He read their literature, he studied their precepts, he wore their robes and attended their meetings, where he bobbed and bowed and chanted with the rest of them. He belonged. And he saw that it was good.
But somehow, like a centipede down the back of the neck, something kept nagging at him. Wasn’t there something oddly familiar about the Brethren? It wasn’t just the name. It wasn’t just the hoods. It was the blind obedience. It was the unquestioning acceptance. It was the all-powerful absolute leader. Simon sniffed the wind, and recognised the perfume of the cathedral. But he wouldn’t admit it to himself: after all, they were doing good work. They were disseminating information, they were trying to educate people, they were giving the religious some competition. A couple of Brethren even found themselves in the state legislature, where were terribly well-behaved and followed the leader’s orders. Slowly and, to a lesser extent, surely, the Brethren were rolling back the tide of religious delusion. So Simon pushed away the doubts.
Until he graduated to a higher rank within the brotherhood, and found himself on a covert assignment.
He had always thought that informing, educating, lobbying, protesting were the things you did when you pursued a cause. You got your message out there, one way or another, depending on what it was. Occasionally you’d grapple with riot police, but he personally never even went that far. And the Brethren was not an organisation given to violent protest marches.
But then he was paired up with a brother of many years’ standing, and sent out on a mysterious mission in the dead of night. He didn’t know what they were doing until they reached their destination, and then he threw off his cloak and ran, his dead white face a panting moon in the darkness.
He made an anonymous phone call, but was not taken seriously, and the next morning he was there watching from down the street when the bomb went off and the church went up. He sank miserably to the pavement as he watched the parade of ambulances and fire engines come and go throughout the day. He avoided the newspapers for days, so as to prevent himself finding out how many parishioners hadn’t survived.
It wasn’t his idea of a Good Cause. And Simon Gilchrist was out of the Brethren for good. Although, admittedly, they had made their displeasure at this chillingly clear.

Magatha gaped. ‘So you were one of them?’
Simon nodded and spun the spoon in his coffee. ‘Unfortunately. And that’s why I advise you to take your friends and go somewhere very remote. I don’t know why they’re after you, but I do know what they’re capable of.’
‘So do I,’ said Magatha, remembering her time underground. ‘But don’t you see? This proves I’m telling the truth!’ Simon rolled his eyes. ‘No, no, listen. It’s obvious why these people are after us, isn’t it? They wouldn’t bother chasing down a bunch of lunatics, now would they? Clearly, the only explanation is that I am really an angel, my boss is really God, and Ellis is really the Messiah!’ She smiled encouragingly at Simon, who did not appear to share her enthusiasm.
‘Look…Magatha…I left the Brethren, but I didn’t start believing in fairy tales at that point,’ he said. Her face fell.
‘Can’t you believe in something just this once?’ she pleaded.
‘Don’t take it personally. It’s just that I’ve never met any gods, but I have met schizophrenics, so I’m going by past experience here.’
‘But…’
‘Look, just because I think you’re deluded doesn’t mean I won’t help you,’ Simon said. ‘I know the Brethren, I want to do anything I can to stop them doing whatever they want to do. I’ll help you get out of the city, I’ll find you a place to stay…’
Magatha thumped the formica in anger. Her plaits were almost buzzing. ‘I can’t go anywhere! Apollo’s got God, and who knows what’s happened to Ellis—’
‘Oh yes.’ Simon bit his lip. ‘That Apollo guy.’
Magatha seized on what she saw as an opportunity. ‘Yes, look at him!’ she cried. ‘There’s no rational explanation for that, is there? There must be something supernatural going on. You can’t just shrug off Apollo.’
Simon, in fact, did just that. ‘It’s probably something to do with the Brethren,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’m sure of it. They’ve got their best-looking member, dressed him up in a toga, blow-waved his hair, and there you go.’
‘Oh come on!’ Magatha almost shouted. Other patrons of Gayden’s Gourmet Grill Open 24 Hours turned briefly and with little interest. Interest was hard to summon at such an hour. ‘Everyone’s fallen head over heels for a new god in just a few days! How can you just put that down to a bunch of men in hoods?’
Simon repeated his shrug. ‘I couldn’t say. Maybe they put something in the water.’
‘Then why aren’t you down at that temple kissing the concrete?’
‘I try to avoid drinking water whenever possible,’ Simon sipped his coffee gingerly. ‘Look, I can’t say exactly what’s happened. Mass hysteria, lead poisoning, who knows? The point is, just about everything on earth is more likely than what you’re telling me.’
Magatha went silent. With a thunderous look on her face, she moodily flicked a venerable piece of bacon across the table and glared fiercely at an indeterminate stain on the wall opposite. After a few silent, coffee-drinking minutes, she piped up again. ‘What now?’
Simon swallowed. ‘Good question. Stay here till morning, I guess. I’d rather stay somewhere well-lit and crowded with the Brethren out at night. Unless you think Apollo’s going to smite you here.’
‘No, now he’s got God there’s no need for him to—oh,’ Magatha looked maliciously at him. ‘You’re not serious, are you?’
‘Not really.’ He stretched. ‘You can stay here with me if you like. In the morning I’ll take you back to my house and you can hide out there for a while.’
‘I can’t hide. I’ve got to do something.
‘Hiding is doing something.’ Simon looked around. ‘Whatever happened to your little animatronic friend, by the way?’

The answer to Simon’s question was at this moment slinking around a chilly guard at the entrance to Apollo’s palace, having dashed in the opposite direction, into the building, down a corridor, and through an air vent, while Simon and Magatha were leaping through the window onto the awning two floors down, and rolling awkwardly into the street. He never did have a head for heights.
Tired, cold, and uncomfortable in what he regarded as a ridiculously impractical uniform for the purposes of efficient security provision, said guard was in no mood to notice small, purple, ferret-like creatures insinuating themselves through the deep shadows and noiselessly gliding into the palace lobby.
As Aafghwia crept around the walls of the silent, shining temple, God sat in a tiny windowless cell somewhere below him, slumped against a wall, staring at where he thought he remembered the door to be. The new Messiah was blinking in astonishment and fear at his own fist. God’s secretary was despairingly scratching the tabletop in front of her with a plastic fork. And somewhere in the city, someone else was abroad with blood on their mind.

Nicely, nicely

2005-09-01T04:20:14Z

Magatha stared wildly around the room. ‘He’s got to be here somewhere,’ she muttered, skating frantically from one side of the room to the other.
‘I don’t think there’s anywhere else to look,’ Simon replied. He was standing by the still open door.
‘Then we’ll have to go out and look.’
‘Oh dear. ‘Aafghwia spoke up from atop the sofa. ‘Not sure about that, old girl. Rather large city, if you get my gist. Dark and all that.’
Magatha spun. ‘Well, what do you suggest?’ she snapped. ‘You saw! They’ve got…Him, they’ve got God, and if they’ve got God, they might have…they might have…’
Aafghwia looked at his paws. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly.
Simon stepped forward. ‘OK, look,’ he said. ‘Your friends are in trouble, I see that. But I can’t let this go on. You need help, Magatha. That man…he’s not God. The guy who lives here…he’s not the Messiah. And the other guy…who’s he supposed to be?’
‘Satan.’ Magatha sat down glumly.
‘Ah. Yes. Well, obviously, my theme continues. This whole thing is in your head. You’ve got to get a grip on reality here. There are some very, very dangerous people taking an interest in you, and—’
‘What?’ Magatha was looking at him sharply. ‘What do you know about who’s after us?’
Simon said nothing for a moment, as if pulling together the strands of thought. ‘Well,’ he said, quite loudly, ‘I’ve rescued you twice from people who seemed pretty intent on doing you harm, I just assumed—’
Magatha broke in. If there was one power she retained, it was the ability to read people like books. As an angel, and a highly professional personal assistant, it was fairly ingrained. ‘You didn’t just assume anything. You know something. What is it?’
Simon looked hard at her. ‘Those men in the black hoods?’
‘Yes?’
‘They’re…’ Simon took a deep breath, stopped, and listened. Magatha watched him intently, wondering if further speech was to issue forth in the near future, or if he was just being more than usually succinct.
‘Yes?’ she said, finally. ‘They’re what?’
Simon turned and looked through the open doorway. Footsteps were becoming audible on the edge of hearing.
‘Here,’ he said quietly. Turning, his eyes flicked from Magatha to the window. ‘How high up are we?’

*************************************************

Ellis had always assumed that if there was a Hell, and if he ended up going there (which he did consider a distinct possibility), it would be full of such unutterable horror and nightmarish, mind-twisting suffering that his brain would melt like butter in a microwave, and he would go completely mad. He assumed that was the point: Hell, a dread repository of condemned souls, driven insane by the terrible consequences of their earthly misdeeds and eternally screaming with unending agony.
And yet, as he left Hell and walked once more upon the streets of his home city, not to mention his home dimension, Ellis felt fine.
Well, not fine. He was still pretty much petrified by the thought of what was probably going to happen to him fairly soon at the hands of an angry Greek god. He was also still suffering from the foggy confusion which had accompanied him in a small way even before he became the Messiah and buddied up to Satan.
But the point was that he did not, in fact, feel like a man who had been to Hell and back. He felt reasonably healthy. His mind still worked. Therefore, one of two conclusions could be drawn: either everyone else was mistaken about the nature of Hell, or he had gone insane in a particularly thorough way.
Bernadette was still with them. She had, in fact, fallen asleep, the rhythmic motion of Satan’s shoulder apparently quite soothing.
Ellis himself was exhausted. He didn’t know exactly what time it was, but the deep darkness of the sky told him that it was, one way or another, bedtime. The world, he felt, would probably still be around in the morning to be saved. And he needed his rest, did he not? A tired, cranky Messiah was hardly the image they were going for. When they reached his apartment, he would sink blissfully into the friendly arms of his bed, and in the morning, he would wake, refreshed and energised and ready to die horribly. The last bit, he was sure, would sound better in the morning.
Which is why it was a particularly nasty shock to arrive home to find his front door smashed, seemingly hacked through with some kind of large axe, and hanging precariously by one hinge. Inside, it was chaos. Shattered glass was sprinkled throughout the living room. Pictures had been wrenched from the walls and broken. Photo frames were smashed and the photos shredded. The sofa was overturned. The television screen had been obliterated. Walking into the kitchen, Ellis saw every cupboard open, every dish and cup hurled to the floor. Broken china lay everywhere. The oven door had been pulled from its moorings and thrown against a wall. One large kitchen knife was stuck, upright, into the benchtop. He picked up a dented kettle and stared at it wordlessly, before letting it tumble from his fingers. He walked stiffly back into the living room, where Satan had righted the sofa and placed Bernadette on it.
The Devil watched silently as Ellis shuffled across to the TV stand, and dropped to his knees. He reached underneath and pulled something out.
It was, or had been, a games machine, the one on which Ellis played the games that had been his job before he became the saviour of humanity. Now, it was…nothing. It had been almost split in two, most likely by the same instrument that had crashed through the door. Wires and silicon hung forlornly from the wound. Ellis picked it up and looked at it. He gave a slight pull, and the box separated into two halves. He looked over at Satan and held them up.
‘I guess they had to make sure they broke everything,’ he said. There were tears in his eyes. ‘No stone unturned.’ Satan said nothing. Ellis dropped the bisected gamebox, and picked up instead some small scraps of paper next to him. He brandished these. ‘I think this was a picture of my mother,’ he said. ‘I only ever had the one.’ Satan still said nothing.
It was only when Ellis stood and wandered over to the window, standing before the flapping curtains and gazing out and down at the black hush of the city night, that he spoke up.
‘I’m sorry.’ He walked over and gently put his giant hand on Ellis’s stooped shoulder. ‘We should probably find somewhere else to stay tonight.’
Ellis kept looking out the window. The night breeze was drying up his tears, which suited him. ‘What do you think they were looking for?’ he asked flatly.
‘Looking for? They weren’t looking for anything,’ said Satan. ‘This is a warning. They’re scared of you.’
Ellis laughed. He was close to hysteria. ‘Of </i>me</i>? Why on earth would Apollo be scared of me? I’ve done nothing! My contribution as Messiah so far has been basically to stand around looking stupid saying “what”. Apollo’s got nothing to fear from me.’
‘This wasn’t Apollo.’
‘What?’ Ellis turned away from the window.
Satan strolled around the room. ‘This wasn’t Apollo. Do you think Apollo would have needed to break the door down with an axe? Do you think he’d bother to smash the place up? No, Apollo’s not scared of you. He’s not scared of anyone, anymore. If he was, you’d have come home to a lot worse.’
‘Oh, great. So there’s someone else who wants to kill me.’
‘Which is why we really should go—’ Satan tried, but was cut off.
‘What is going on?’ Ellis suddenly exploded. ‘Why is this happening? Why isn’t God doing something?’ Satan looked about to respond, but didn’t get the chance. ‘Why doesn’t anyone do what they’re supposed to? God’s supposed to be protecting us! He’s supposed to save us, not the other way around! What am I doing here, trying to save God? That’s not my job!’
‘Look—’ the Devil tried again, but Ellis simply turned on him.
‘And you,’ he snapped. ‘You’re just as bad! A Devil, running Hell like an office supplies company. You’re not tormenting people, you’re not inflicting suffering, you might as well be an insurance salesman for all the discord you sow.’ Ellis slammed a fist into the wall. ‘For the love of all that’s good and holy, why won’t anyone DO THEIR JOB?’ He kicked angrily at a piece of wooden frame from a painting that had been broken into pieces and tossed about the room. It spun through the air and out the front doorway. On the sofa, Bernadette stirred, and woke. She half sat up and looked blearily and uncomprehendingly at the scene before her.
Satan, meanwhile, was simply standing and staring at Ellis. His mouth hung open. Ellis, spoiling for a fight, glared back. ‘What’s wrong? Didn’t expect the meek little Messiah to get angry? Thought I’d just stand by quietly and put up with all this supernatural rubbish? Huh?’ His face was red and he was puffing with righteous fury. He wished someone would come along and tap him on the shoulder, tell him to move his car, just so he could send their teeth through the back of their head. For now, he contented himself with shouting at Satan. ‘Well? Is that what you thought?’
Without saying a word, Satan shook his head. Ellis noticed that Bernadette, waking up more fully was now also staring at him. Or rather, at a point just past his right shoulder. This just riled him further.
‘What are you staring at?’
Still silent, Satan raised a hand and pointed slowly at that point past his shoulder that Bernadette continued to stare at.
Ellis looked at the finger, clueless. Gradually, he became aware of something. A certain…sensation. A draught, a strange movement of cool air on his back. From the open window, obviously. Except…it was coming from the wrong side.
The red fading in his face, Ellis turned curiously, and saw what the others had been staring at.
In the wall of his apartment, just where he had punched it in his anger, was a hole A hole as big as his head. A hole through plaster and steel and brick and clear through to the night air outside. Ellis had punched straight through the wall with his bare hand. He slowly, trepidatiously, looked down at that same hand.
It wasn’t even scratched.

*****************************************************

Simon Gilchrist had always been one for causes. He had come to the realisation at an early age that most human beings are, basically, scum. Remarkably stupid scum, at that. Having had this revelation, he was faced with the inevitable choice that all devoted cynics must confront: become paralysed with the hopelessness of it all, or rage against the machine? He chose, in a stylish, detached, ironic sort of way, to rage. He always made sure not to move too fast or shout too loud; he marched with his hands in his pockets and tried to make sarcastic quips about the other protestors whenever possible, but he did march, and there were times when he half-wished that he wasn’t too sardonic to get himself arrested.
It had often seemed to him, when he reflected on the world, that the greatest cause of human misery was irrational belief. Religion and superstition had, he considered, done more than their fair share of ruining the world. On a personal level, he was offended by what he saw as the sheer stupidity of most of these beliefs. And so, it was with a sense of powerful moral purpose that he decided that fighting against the destructive influence of religion would his greatest cause of all. He would devote himself to crossing swords with clerics and introducing the common flock to reality, spreading reason wherever he went. He would, in essence, at all times promote respect for human beings as masters of their own destiny, and strive to expose religious dogma as the absurd, nonsensical myth it was.
And that was how he joined the Brethren. A religious name, apparently. A religious organisation, at first glance. But that was the beauty of it, Simon realised. A totally atheistic organisation proving it could be as solemn and reverent as any church. Play the deluders at their own game. Plus, they wore all black, which suited him right down to the ground.
But the important thing was, they were organised. The whole reason the religious always got the upper hand on unbelievers was organisation. The priests gathered their followers into tight units to do their bidding, spread the word and rule the world, while the atheists merely pottered about individually, making as much progress against the theistic juggernaut as a hummingbird in a tornado.
At least, that’s how the Brethren saw it.

And?

2005-08-22T02:25:30Z

Ellis panted. ‘Why,’ he gasped, ‘is this taking so long? We came down here in just a second.’
Satan heaved himself up over another crag. ‘It’s always a lot easier to get into Hell than to get out.’ He was a little red in the face himself, climbing a mountain with a nun on his back.
Ells thought a few seconds as he fought for footholds. ‘This is one of those things that’s our fault, isn’t it?’
Satan shrugged. ‘Well, I didn’t invent Hell.’
‘I wanted to ask you…what’s the deal with Hell?’
‘The deal?’ The Devil grunted and kept ascending, without looking back.
‘Well, isn’t it supposed to be a place of eternal torment? It seems to basically be a fairly comfortable, mildly tedious office block.’
Satan stopped this time, and turned. ‘Did you hear about the breaks?’
Ellis sighed. ‘Yes, I know about the breaks. But you could hardly call that, sort of, Biblical agony, could you?’
‘Well, why would I want to cause agony to people?’
‘Aren’t you supposed to?’
Satan laid Bernadette gently on the current ledge (the good sister had been conscious this whole time, but was steadfastly refusing to join in the conversation or acknowledge the others’ existence in any way other than occasional angry snorts; possibly in disgust at her inability to wake up back at the convent) and thought for a minute. ‘Well, yes, I guess, technically, but nobody ever asked me. I don’t send them here, that’s upstairs. I’m just the jailkeeper. My sole purpose in life is to do God’s dirty work. But just because the forces of the universe have decreed that my existence is to be a blasted, joyless dirge of despair doesn’t mean I have to take it out on the poor buggers who end up here.’
‘But surely…they deserve it, don’t they?’
‘Weeeeell…yes and no.’
‘Is it—’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘Yes.’
‘For the most part, people get what they think they deserve, you see. And most of the people in Hell…well, they always felt they deserved to go to Hell, but they never really committed to the idea of eternal torment. So, I mainly keep them busy with paperwork. We’ve got a big section devoted to fixing photocopiers.’
Ellis shook his head. ‘But doesn’t that mean the really bad guys get off scot-free…?’
Satan grinned. ‘You’d be amazed how really evil people feel about themselves, once you peel away all the layers and lance their soul. And I didn’t show you all of Hell. There’s a special little bit behind the kitchens…’
‘Oh, fine.’ Ellis looked up toward the summit. ‘Should we keep going?’
‘Yes, yes.’ Satan hauled Bernadette back onto his shoulders, causing her to make yet another in a long line of disgruntled noises. ‘Don’t worry, plenty of time.’
‘You said before that we were needed back immediately!’
Satan waggled his bushy eyebrows. ‘Time in Hell…does not pass as it does in the mortal realm,’ he said mysteriously and with a significant stroking of his chin.
‘Really?’
‘No, not really.’ The Devil deflated for a moment, as if the absence of temporal anomaly in the abode of the Damned was a lasting source of heartache for him. He recovered quickly. ‘So, yeah, we better get cracking.’
And so they climbed. The mountain was suitably black, craggy and menacing, and Ellis found himself forced to reassure Satan on this point several times during the journey up. Never underestimate, he told himself inwardly, the insecurity of the houseproud demon, and was quite proud to have come up with such a pithy saying. He might submit it to the people who made his Quote of the Day desk calendars next year. If he was alive then, of course, which, it had to be said, he almost certainly wouldn’t be, the way things were going. Which brought his mood down a little.
After what seemed like hours, they reached the top of the accursed peak. On the summit, a small, neat wooden door stood, apparently leading nowhere. On it was printed the legend ‘Way Out. No Running.’ On the other side of the mountain to the way they had come, Ellis’s eye was caught by something. He wandered over, and saw a wide escalator, smoothly running from the foot of the mountain up to where he was standing. A dapper little man in a grey morning suit and pointed tail ascended with quiet, efficient speed, stepped off, tipped his hat to Ellis, and pranced off through the door, whereupon he vanished. Ellis stared. And stared some more. He turned to Satan, hollow-eyed and boggling. He gestured voicelessly to the escalator, trying to find words.
‘We…’ he began. ‘There was…all that…and right there…I mean…’
Satan nodded with resignation. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘That’s why it’s called Hell.’

More Even

2005-08-18T02:10:08Z

As darkness sloshed peacefully over the city, and Magatha returned to Ellis’s apartment to find it empty of humans, gods, and demons, a meeting was going on beneath, in a grim, damp place, the kind of place where men could freely wear black hoods without irony.
Several such men were bowing their hoods in front of another man, a man who stood on a platform in the grimy chamber, the hood and the darkness masking the savage, thunderous look on his face. This didn’t matter so much, however, since as soon as he opened his mouth, the deadly wheeze that came out left no doubt as to his mood.
‘I have been to see our functionary,’ he told his audience. The hoods bobbed. ‘His behaviour has become unpredictable and…unacceptable. He believes himself to be in charge. He has murdered members of the Brethren, and worse, he has grossly insulted me, his employer. Therefore, the time has come.’ He paused to draw an unhealthily deep breath. ‘Tomorrow, the final episode of this glorious narrative will be told. Tomorrow, our plan culminates. We go into action, brothers. It is time to save the world.’ He raised his hands. ‘Tomorrow, superstition dies, and humanity will ascend triumphant.’
The assembled hoods raised their hands likewise in response. Their leader eyed them with satisfaction. He had had an unpleasant day, but now, victory wafted to his nostrils. Visions of blood filled his head, and that always made him feel better.

*********************************************************

A bar is a place to go drinking, to meet with friends, and to engage in exercises in potential manslaughter, such as darts. It is also, of course, a place for sinister characters to sit in corners brooding and making plots. Although this last function of bars had become somewhat unfashionable in recent years, along with many other relics of the distant past that were currently coming back into fashion, at least one city bar was doing its bit to revive that particular tradition. In The Antelope And Omnibus Tavern, two distinctly sinister persons in fur and helmets were in the corner, brooding to a moderate extent and making definite plots.
‘If this is played right,’ said Loki, industriously cleaning his fingernails with an evil-looking hunting knife, ‘we could find ourselves in quite a desirable position here.’
‘Yes.’ Thor nodded and downed his fourth beer with a titan gulp.
Loki looked at his hefty partner. Thor was useful. He was big and strong and carried enchanted hardware. He was good-looking and had a certain magnetism. Loki himself could not see the attraction, but then, gods were never that impressed by other gods. And after all this time, the hammer left him, frankly, cold.
But still, he was useful. He would be useful in the current endeavour. He was, in spite of the vanity and drunkenness and astounding, boundless stupidity, an exceedingly powerful god, more powerful than Loki, though Loki did his best to keep that truth from surfacing at the front of the Thunder God’s mind. That power was, of course, inextricably linked to the aforementioned qualities. The hair, the muscles, the hammer. Good PR. Everyone loved Thor. And once Loki had rid himself of obstacles, he would take full advantage of this fact.
For now, though, they were still at the sitting-in-a-bar-contriving-dark-schemes stage, and Thor was getting on his wick mightily.
‘Could you stop drinking just for a minute?’ he snapped. ‘We are actually engaged in rather important matters. If you could listen and take maybe just a little bit of what I say in, it would be enormously helpful.’
‘I am taking it in,’ said Thor, flicking his hair back and looking around for a mirror. ‘Got the plan down pat.’
‘What plan, Thor?’ asked Loki.
‘You know, our plan,’ said Thor, gesturing for more drink. ‘You know, kill, destroy, pillage, loot, and so forth.’
Loki clenched his teeth. ‘That is not the plan, Thor.’
Thor managed a tiny bit of surprise in his voice. ‘Really? It usually is. Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ Loki thought. ‘Well, the kill and destroy part is right, but there’s more to it than that. Can’t you appreciate a little bit of subtlety?’
‘Never liked subtlety. Too hard to spell.’
‘Well, just make the effort this once, will you? Don’t you want to rule the world?’
‘I suppose.’ Thor was, as always when a subject had been harped on for more than thirty seconds, bored.
‘You suppose? Just think of it…the power…’ Thor blinked. ‘The women? The beer?’ Thor understood this better.
‘So what’s the plan? Do I have to go and do more shouting?’
‘You didn’t have to do any in the first place. I don’t know what made you think Apollo would be impressed by that.’
‘People are always impressed by shouting. If you swing your hammer while you shout, they’re even more impressed.’ Thor reached under the table to demonstrate. Loki restrained him.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But Apollo isn’t a normal person, is he? I don’t want you to shout.’
‘What about swinging my hammer?’
‘Well, now, that could come in handy.’ The Thunder God’s eyes lit up. ‘But only when I say so, understand?’
Thor sighed. ‘As you say, Loki.’
‘Good. Now, let me explain—’ He broke off as he noticed a third party intruding on their conversation. The owner of the bar, had arrived at their table, bearing a tray of drinks and expression of ruddy, cheerful inquisitiveness.
‘Hello gents.’
‘Hello,’ Loki looked up at him. A moment passed without movement. He raised his eyebrows. The bartender, as if only just remember what he did for a living, started and put the tray down on the table. He gathered up the empties. He stood there some more. Loki kept staring at him. ‘Anything else?’
‘Nice costumes,’ the man grinned. ‘Are they shooting a movie near here?’
Loki did not grin back. ‘We’re on our way to a party.’
‘Oh,’ the bartender could not seem to summon the power of perception required to convince him to stop grinning. ‘Fancy dress, eh?’
‘No,’ Loki deadpanned. The bartender looked confused for a moment. Loki sustained his grim stare for a few seconds, before breaking into a broad, ‘gotcha’ smile.
The man laughed. ‘Had me going, there!’ he cried, making it clear that this was, indeed, the maddest, merriest day of the whole new year.
Loki chuckled along. ‘I bet we did!’ he returned jocularly. His eyes wandered from the red face down to the man’s chest. ‘Nice necklace,’ he said.
The bartender glanced down at the gold chain around his neck, from which dangled a tiny golden lyre. ‘Oh…yes. Just got it actually. Sign of Apollo.’
‘Yes. Loki gazed at the lyre. ‘So I understand.’
‘Incredible, isn’t it, the way he’s changed all our lives?’ said the bartender contemplatively. ‘So quickly, too. Everything seemed such a mess, and then, boom, he comes along, and…all’s well.’
‘All’s well, indeed.’ Loki showed his teeth. ‘Better get back to work, eh?’
‘Er…’ the man looked straight into the god’s eyes for a second. It seemed to confuse him. ‘Yes.’ A second passed.
‘Now.’ Loki held his gaze until the man turned away and walked back to the bar, shaking his head and trying to clear it of the visions of bloodstained snow that had just entered unbidden. Loki turned back to his companion, who was already starting on the second of the new glasses. ‘Now, let’s get down to business,’ he said.

***********************************************************

‘I don’t understand,’ Ellis was saying yet again. ‘Isn’t it horrible here?’
His new friend, introduced as Graham, thought for a moment. ‘It can be a little dull at times.’
‘Dull?’
‘Oh,’ Graham raised his hand as something occurred to him. ‘And our breaks are limited to five minutes, which can get frustrating sometimes.’
Ellis stared. ‘I just don’t get this. It is hell, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Shouldn’t you be screaming in agony, moaning in torment and so on?’
‘We-e-ell…’ Graham looked doubtful. ‘We do a bit of that sometimes. When someone comes from head office.’
‘Head office? What—oh’ Ellis said with realisation as Graham pointed significantly upward.
‘We’re supposed to keep appearances up, you see. The boss doesn’t want people to think we’re totally devoid of agony and torment here.’
‘So when someone from heaven comes to visit, you…’
‘Scream, moan, clank chains, stuff like that. And sometimes we have to make tea.’
‘But there’s no actual misery here.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ said Graham keen to dispel any misconceptions. ‘The hours are quite long, and then, there’s the breaks…’
‘The breaks, yes, you mentioned them.’ Ellis shook his head. To find out that people had been telling the truth to him all these years had been a big enough shock. To find out that they hadn’t been just compounded it. ‘But look,’ he said, trying to understand, ‘you are in hell. Why are you here?’
‘Oh, I’m a sinner, of course,’ said Graham. ‘Always have been.’
‘You don’t seem too bad to me.’
‘Well, no, but appearances can be deceptive. I’m a terrible sinner. I’m in hell, after all, I’ve clearly done something wrong.’
Ellis could not withstand such watertight logic. He shrugged. ‘Well, it’s nice to know you’re not too unhappy.’ He considered. ‘Although, to tell the truth, it’s a little disappointing to know that this is all some people have got coming to them.’ Ellis was here thinking in particular of certain work colleagues and old schoolmates of his, the thought of whom getting touched up by searing pokers had often given him comfort.
For a few minutes, the pair sat silently at Graham’s cubicle. The fax machine beeped, and a tongue of paper slithered from it. Graham picked it up, read it, screwed it into a ball, and tossed it into his wastepaper basket.
‘Not important?’ asked Ellis.
‘Oh no,’ said Graham. ‘Hardly anything ever is, to tell the truth. Paperwork in Hell is mostly for its own sake, really. It’s not like we actually produce anything here. Well, except for temptation, but that’s Marketing.’
There was more silence while Ellis tried to digest the realities of damnation. It seemed that, were he to be condemned by the powers that be, he would suffer from nothing more than the kind of pointless tedium that, to be honest, he pretty much experienced in his everyday life anyway. Come to think of it, wasn’t that depressing enough?
Graham rolled his tongue divertingly around his mouth. He reached out to his desktop ornament of choice and set the little steel balls clacking against each other. ‘So,’ he said, ‘does she ever speak?’
Ellis looked at Bernadette, who had been sitting beside him the entire time, face grimly set, staring straight ahead, ignoring all around her. ‘Oh yes, on occasion. It’s not necessarily an occasion you look forward to, though,’ he added gloomily.
‘Do you think she’d like some tea?’ Graham was watching her with some concern.
‘She’d probably assume you were trying to poison her.’
Bernadette, in fact, chose this moment to speak up. ‘I would actually like some tea,’ she said firmly, finally turning her head and fixing Ellis with a gimlet eye.
He was taken aback. ‘Oh…I didn’t think you were—’
‘I will have some tea,’ Bernadette cut him off decisively, ‘because I have determined definitively that this is, in fact, nothing but a reasonably vivid dream, and therefore I plan to simply sit tight and relax until I wake up back in the convent.’
The two men looked at her. Graham nodded uncertainly. ‘Right…well, fair enough then. Crystal!’ He called out over the wall of his cubicle to a greyish middle-aged woman trundling by. ‘Could you bring us all some tea, love?’
Crystal gave him a look that indicated that this request was, in its own way, really quite funny, and walked on wordlessly. Graham turned back to his guests and smiled. ‘Yes, right. I’ll go get it, shall I?’ He stood up, but at that moment, Satan arrived.
The Dark One was wearing a heavy overcoat and wearing a black hat that covered most of his face. ‘Right, time for us to go,’ he announced, attempting enthusiasm. ‘Things to do and…etcetera. Thanks for babysitting, Graham. Take your break now.’
‘Er…right,’ said his employee, and set off.
‘Five minutes!’ Satan called after him. Turning back to his travelling companions, he smiled a Satanic smile, which is not as disturbing as it sounds. ‘Shall we?’
Ellis got up and prepared to leave. Sister Bernadette didn’t move. Satan tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Time to go, sister,’ he said gently into her ear.
The nun bit her lip. ‘I have determined definitively—’ she began, before being interrupted. Satan heaved a mighty sigh, scooped her up and tossed her, as before, over his shoulder. The young Sister did not resist. She merely ground her teeth a little more vigorously. ‘I’m going to have to have a bath when I wake up.’

2005-08-16T02:06:00Z

In fact, God had neither struck the temple crowd with Biblical punishment, nor been rent limb from limb by them. He had, in fact, taken shrewd advantage of Satan’s massive puff of smoke to hitch up His robes and bolt up the steps, crouching behind a large potted palm just inside the temple’s main entrance.
The nuns, meanwhile, had likewise taken advantage by running into the crowd. Pragmatic self-preservation had overridden religious modesty and, habits discarded, they were now making their way through the crowd to safety in the guise of a small but devout sect choosing to express their devotion to the new god by means of public displays of sensible underwear.
God did not know this as He hid inside the temple, and, though He felt a little bad about it, He didn’t much care. If a silly gaggle of uptight females was going to rush around sticking its chaste oar in and getting in the way of saving the world, then He couldn’t help feeling they maybe deserved just a little bit of whatever they got. Right now God had better things to worry about than Christians.
Such as, He thought as He peered around the fronds, just how He was going to get out of the mouth of the enemy, between whose teeth he had somehow become stuck. He was in a corner of a wide and opulent entrance hall, whose gold walls, floor and ceiling bounced light off in every direction. In the centre of the circular hall was a huge fountain, crowned by a ten foot statue of Apollo himself, depicted tenderly blessing the humble and puny faithful who were adoringly kneeling before him, tugging at the folds of his solid gold robe. Around him a ring of water jets spurted skywards, toward the hole in the ceiling that let in the sunlight.
The ruckus outside having subsided, the guards had returned to their posts. Two were standing, spears upright, at the doorway through which God had entered. Two more guarded a pair of tall doors, firmly shut, at the opposite end of the hall. A few metres to His right was another man, staring straight ahead at his counterpart on the far wall. The opportunities for escape, He estimated, were not plentiful. And He wasn’t sure how long He could simply hang around behind the pot plant, which was not, He conceded, an ideal hiding place. Sooner or later, someone would look into the corner, and then…God didn’t know what the ‘and then’ was…but He doubted it would be pleasant. He did know that here on Earth, stuck in a corporeal body, His powers were ebbing. He could feel Himself becoming more and more vulnerable, less and less a god, more and more an old man in a silly costume. Given time to think, the full realisation of His position was coming home to him like a handful of pebbles in a sock.
He hadn’t been able to take Himself and Ellis up to Heaven. That was a major development in a very nasty direction. That meant He was stuck here. Earthbound. Only a step away from being—He cringed—human. Worse than that, however, was that this meant Apollo was mighty close to his goal. He had sucked belief from God and pumped it into himself—distributing the offcuts to the various rabble of other ancients—and was now, God could feel, on the brink. He, meanwhile, was on a very different brink, a brink over which He might actually topple as soon as somebody looked into the corner.
He cursed technology. In the old days, it could take centuries for a god to establish him or herself. You had to wait for believers to trek hundreds and thousands of miles, spreading the word town by town, getting up in public squares and shouting at bemused villagers, lugging holy texts on the backs of donkeys and camels, and most importantly, holding edged steel to the throats of surprised non-believers as the myriad benefits of belief in this new and exciting deity were fully explained. Even then, there were limits as to how far the good word could disseminate. You needed ships to really universalise the faith, and if you could handle a rough sea voyage for months on end, you could enjoy the miracle of conversion in wonderful new places. Meet interesting new people, and back them up against a wall with a sword in one hand and a sacrament in the other. Dismantle fascinating new cultures, steal exotic new lands. It could be enormous fun, saving people’s souls. But it took an awfully long time, and by the time you’d finished, another god could well have sprung up, with a fresh outlook on eternity and bigger spears.
These days, however, everyone could get religion in the twinkling of an eye. Apollo didn’t need to send caravans of missionaries across deserts, or ships of conquistadors across oceans. He didn’t need to send his followers to preach in jungles, or put distant cities to flame and blade; although it wouldn’t be surprising if he did, just for fun. No, Apollo’s weapons now were satellites and computers. Without leaving this city, the Greek god had made himself known to the entire world. The new age of information had made religion a global commodity, and as He squatted behind a solid gold palm tree and waited for a spear to be thrust in His face, God thought dark thoughts about microchips.

*************************************************

Elsewhere, Magatha was thinking dark thoughts of her own about her rescuer. The manner in which he had saved her from brutal torture and death at the hands of Norse gods seemed to her intolerable, the way that he drove fast and skilfully away from the scene to safety was incredibly annoying, and now that they had arrived at a small house in a quiet suburban street, his offer of a drink seemed deliberately provocative. She could barely bring herself to accept it without saying some very rude words in her head.
Aafghwia, on the other hand, was apparently determined to conspire with the stranger in getting under her heavenly skin.
‘Lovely place you have here,’ he enthused as he lapped at a saucer of tea that the man in black had provided. ‘Bally homey, what?’
The stranger watched him with some amusement. ‘That really is very impressive,’ he said to Magatha. ‘How do you get it to do that?’
‘I don’t get it to do anything,’ the angel muttered. ‘If I could make it do anything, I wouldn’t make it talk to you.’
‘That hardly seems a fair way to speak to someone who’s saved your life. Twice.’
‘Yes, well.’ Magatha thought a second, but couldn’t come up with anything to add. The man had, after all, pretty much put his finger on the pulse there.
‘Now, since I have done you those two little favours,’ he said, sinking cheerfully into a soft armchair, ‘how would you like to explain to me exactly what you’re mixed up in. You could start with those two land mammals we just left behind if you like.’
‘Why should I tell you anything? I don’t even know your name,’ retorted Magatha, pleased to have found a small acreage of moral high ground.
The man shrugged and leaned back. He tilted his head back and puffed a breath into his hair. He looked back at Magatha. ‘Simon.’
‘Oh.’ Magatha was silenced for a second, but no longer. She returned to the offensive. ‘Well, how about you tell me some things? Like, why do you always seem to be around when I am? It’s a bit convenient you’ve been on the spot twice when I was in trouble, isn’t it?’
‘Convenient for you? Well, yes, I’d say so,’ he smiled.
‘No, seriously,’ said Magatha, warming to her theme, ‘who are you? What’s your deal? I don’t think I can trust you until you fill me in a bit more.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Simon. There was a long pause. He reached down and grabbed a bottle from beside his chair. He took a swig and looked levelly at Magatha, who was a little disoriented.
‘Well?’ she tried.
‘Well what?’
‘Well, what have you got to say?’
‘I already told you, you’re absolutely right. You can’t trust me. See you later.’
Aafghwia perked up from his saucer. ‘Oh dear, are we leaving already? He said, dismayed.
Simon eyed him with admiration. ‘Very clever, really. Amazing,’ he said.
Aafghwia, leapt up onto the arm of the chair Magatha was sitting in. ‘I say, old girl, you don’t really want to go, do you? This seems a terribly nice place to spend a while in, what? I mean, this chap’s a sound egg, I’d say.’
Magatha closed her eyes, indicating the onset of a weasel-induced migraine. ‘I’m sure,’ she said in an overly steady voice, ‘that Mr…that Simon does not want us cluttering up his house and interfering with his life any longer.’
‘Oh, don’t leave on account of me,’ said Simon. ‘I’m enjoying myself enormously. You don’t see enough ventriloquism these days. Do stay a while, kick off your skates, relax a bit.’
Magatha clenched her fists. ‘We really do have to be getting back, though, so if you really are going to refuse to tell us anything about yourself—’
‘Well, fair enough then.’ Simon stood up. ‘Can I give you a lift to wherever you need to be?’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ Magatha got to her feet. ‘We’ll be fine.’
The God of Insects looked downcast. ‘No, really? All that way on foot?’
‘Got a problem?’ growled Magatha down at the ferret.
‘Well, it’s entirely up to you, of course, old girl. Where you lead, I shall follow and all that. But…well, it’s just that it’s such a dashed long way back to the city, you see.’
Magatha emitted a groaning sigh. ‘Fine.’ She turned to Simon. ‘Can you give us a lift back to the city?’
‘Absolutely,’ Simon said. ‘Nice routine you’ve got going there, by the way. Wait here a minute.’ On the way out of the room, he flicked on the television in the corner. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’ Magatha steadfastly refused to do so. Aafghwia wrapped his tail around himself.
When he came back in, having put his coat back on, grabbed his keys and dug a certain object out of his wardrobe and slipped it into his pocket, he found Magatha and Aafghwia staring with dinner plate eyes ate the TV; not that a small weasel’s eyes can really get all that big. He looked at the set.
It appeared to be some sort of news announcement. A tall, ridiculously handsome man with perfect blonde hair and slightly disturbing eyes was addressing the camera. The words ‘victory’, ‘righteousness’, and ‘wicked enemy’ were being especially stressed, with occasional hand gestures to the scene behind him.
That scene involved two hulking guards with broad swords. Between them, swords crossed inches from his neck, was a man, bound hand and foot and apparently being held to the wall by thick straps. Simon recognised the man. It was the old man in the robe he had met earlier, in his first encounter with the lunatics.
His long beard was crowned by a gag, and his eyes as he looked into the camera were tired, agonised, and just about defeated.

2005-08-15T01:30:39Z

Ellis walked alongside the Dark Lord like a zombie. He was finding it difficult to take anything in, most of his brain being occupied with convincing itself that he wasn’t where he thought he was.
Although, to be honest, that wasn’t all that difficult since Satan had switched the fires off. ‘Saves energy,’ he’d explained. ‘I’m sure you get the general idea.’
Ellis had got the general idea, in those first few minutes, although now he was beginning to doubt it. He seemed to be walking through a large, fairly unremarkable office, maybe for an IT company. Or insurance. Fluorescent lighting and sterile white were the main motifs. Most of the people there were seated at their desks, tapping away at computers. A few were gathered around a water cooler. They passed a doorway into a small room where Ellis caught sight of a man kicking a photocopier.
‘That’s Steve,’ Satan said casually, apparently clarifying the whole situation by these two words. ‘Ah, here we are.’
They had come to a large door at one end of the long office. It didn’t entirely fit in with the general décor, being made of a shiny, jet-black wood. The pair of curved silver horns and the stone gargoyle crouching on the doorframe only added to the incongruity, although there was a charming poster of a cat hanging from a tree branch to lighten the mood. Satan swiped a plastic card through a slot in a little blinking box next to the dread portal, and it swung open.
Inside was a wide, luxurious chamber. One wall was a huge window, although it was, seemingly, currently nighttime. A broad desk of the same material as the door stood in front of the window. On one side of the room was a velvet crimson couch, facing a widescreen television set into the opposite wall. Next to the couch was an exquisite antique table, on which rested a lamp and a silver tray bearing a collection of cocktail glasses. This lamp, and another on the desk, were lighting the room in a warm, muted way.
‘My personal workspace,’ Satan said to Ellis, as he unslung Sister Bernadette from his shoulder and laid her on the couch. The two men watched her for a minute, until she began to stir.
The nun groaned, opened her eyes, blinked, and dragged herself into a sort-of sitting position. She looked, disoriented, at Ellis and Satan. ‘What happened?’ She glanced around. ‘Where is this? Am I back at the convent?’
There was a silence as the other two wrestled with the problem of how to approach this. After some lip-chewing, Satan took a breath and plunged in. ‘You are,’ he said in a kind and soothing voice, ‘in Hell.’
Bernadette took this surprisingly well. ‘Yes, well, I’m not having the best day, certainly,’ she said with equanimity. ‘But at least we got away from those awful people at that revolting gold place. Where did you bring us, exactly? Somewhere safe, I assume.’
‘Well…yes, it’s very safe,’ said Satan.
Bernadette was looking out the window. ‘Goodness,’ she exclaimed. ‘I must have slept for hours. It’s nighttime already.’
‘It’s always nighttime here.’
‘What on earth does that mean?’ She looked at Ellis, who shrugged limply to convey just how incapable he was of contributing anything useful at this stage. The nun began to look suspicious. She stood up a little unsteadily. ‘What are you doing with me?’ she demanded in a sharper tone. ‘Tell me now: where are we?’
Satan sighed. ‘In Hell,’ he said once more.
‘Stop that! Who are you, anyway? You were hanging around with those mad people.’
Satan looked at Ellis, who repeated the shrugging act. He turned back to Bernadette. ‘I’m the Devil,’ he said, feeling very silly as the words came out, for some reason.
‘I told you to stop that!’ the Sister snapped back. ‘You’ve kidnapped me, haven’t you?’
‘Kidnapped you? We saved you from that temple mob, remember?’
‘Thank you very much, but that’s no excuse for kidnapping. And now you’re trying to play games with me.’
‘I really am the Devil, you know. I’m not so bad, honest.’
‘Oh, shut up.’ Bernadette made to walk toward the door. Satan shrugged.
‘I suppose you’ll need evidence then.’ For just one instant, the entire room turned a nightmarish shade of red, and the hulking man in the old jacket was replaced by a gigantic horned monster, flapping huge leathery wings and exhaling a fearsome stream of unearthly flame.
Then everything went back to normal. But Sister Bernadette’s eyes were very nearly hanging out of her skull. Her mouth gaped open and vibrated with terrified noiseless gibbers. Her eyes turned desperately to Ellis, imploring him to tell her that what was happening wasn’t happening. Ellis conscientiously dodged her gaze and looked at the pattern of the carpet. It was quite lovely. He also noticed for the first time that he was standing on the edge of a massive tiger skin.
A tear escaped down Bernadette’s cheek. ‘Then…it’s true?’ Ellis quickly nodded without looking up. ‘I am in Hell…Hell.’ She dropped suddenly to her knees and cried to the ceiling. ‘Oh Lord, what have I done to offend thee?’ she shook her clasped hands. ‘What has brought me to this foul punishment?’
Satan rolled his eyes. ‘Come on now, there’s no need for that. Nobody’s punishing you for anything. I just brought you here for safety.’
Bernadette stopped wailing and fixed him with a needling eye. ‘You brought me to Hell,’ she said pointedly, ‘for safety?’
I know what you’re thinking, but it’s really not that bad.’ Satan turned to Ellis. ‘Ellis has known me a while. I’m not as bad as I’m made out to be, am I?’
Ellis snapped to attention with a hunted look. ‘What? Uh, no, no, you’re lovely.’
‘You see?’ The Devil turned back to Bernadette. ‘I’m lovely.’
‘I’m supposed to believe that after what I just saw?’
‘Well, I had to prove to you where we were one way or another. Otherwise you would have just run out and ended up…’
‘Ended up where?’
‘Nowhere, nowhere. Let’s just all relax and sit down and have a drink and think about what to do next, shall we?’
‘If you think I’m going to drink anything here—’
‘Fine. Just…sit down, will you?’
Ellis and Bernadette sat down. There was silence in Hell. In that little part of it, anyway. Satan seated himself behind the desk. He leaned back and looked at the ceiling. He made a popping noise with his mouth. Ellis looked at Bernadette. She was staring, thin-lipped, straight ahead, hands folded in her lap. She was apparently going into some sort of Catholic trance until the ordeal was over. Ellis turned his attention back to the Devil. ‘Well?’
Satan lowered his eyes to Ellis. ‘Well what?’
‘What are we going to do next?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Wait around here, I suppose, until we get the call.’
‘What call?’
‘From God, I guess. He’ll probably get around to ringing here, demanding to know where we are, bossing me about as usual.’ Satan, in his native habitat, seemed to be more than usually glum.
At that moment, there was a knock on the office door; the kind of cosmetic knock that indicates the knocker is about to enter without waiting for a response, which he immediately did.
It was a small, nondescript middle-aged man in a stained tie, who came in and strolled up to Satan’s desk, proffering a sheet of paper. ‘Here, sir,’ he said. ‘Got the—’ He broke off as he noticed the guests on the sofa, and like a tulip shrivelling under a flame, his demeanour changed. He assumed a hunchbacked posture, clutched despairingly at his thinning hair, and shrieked at Satan.
‘O Dark Prince!’ he howled. ‘O most foul and wicked master! I implore you, grant me respite from this everlasting torment! Just one moment’s relief, I beg, from the unspeakable agony which you in your vile, black heart have seen fit to inflict—’
‘It’s all right,’ Satan interrupted. ‘They’re not inspecting.’
The man immediately straightened. ‘Oh.’ He turned to Ellis and the Sister. ‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Was there something you wanted, Alan?’ asked Satan.
‘Yes, yes.’ The man held out the paper once more. ‘Football. This week’s tips are due in Friday.’
The Devil took the sheet. ‘Very good. See you later.’
‘See you.’ Alan gave a friendly nod to the other two as he left.
Ellis shook his head. ‘This is very strange…’
Satan was studying the paper he’d been given. ‘Mm? How so?’
‘Well, this is Hell, you say, but—’
‘It’s complicated.’ Satan made a pre-emptive strike.
Ellis thought for a moment. ‘What happened to God, anyway?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Well, you left Him and the other nuns back there. Why didn’t you bring them with us?’
‘God can’t enter Hell,’ Satan replied absently.
‘Really?’
‘Well, not without a correctly signed and witnessed formal request at least three weeks in advance. Or an emergency order in triplicate, of course.’
‘Oh.’ Ellis opted not to pursue all the lines of inquiry that statement opened up, and instead, ‘Well, what about the nuns?’
‘I was just trying to save you.’ Satan glanced up. At some point during the last few minutes, he had placed a rather silly-looking pince-nez on his nose. ‘I didn’t care much about the nuns. I generally don’t. They do tend to say some pretty nasty things about me, you know.’
‘What about her, then?’
The Devil clucked disapprovingly as he eyed Bernadette. ‘She was standing too close to you. Got caught up. Sorry about that.’ He went back to perusing his options in sporting prognostication. Bernadette, for her part, steadfastly refused to acknowledge that anyone was talking about her, or indeed anything in the world around her at all.
‘Oh.’ Ellis pondered. ‘So you didn’t deliberately…’
‘What?’
‘Nothing, nothing. I just thought that maybe you’d…’
‘Yes?’
He sighed. ‘Nothing. So what do you think happened to them?’
‘Oh, I’m sure they’re fine. God probably hit them with a thunderbolt or a plague of lizards or something, He’s very good at that sort of thing.’
‘Oh.’
‘Unless, of course, they got torn to shreds. That’s always possible too.’
Ellis looked bleakly around Hell’s head office, the plush carpet, the fearsome tiger’s head. The darkly polished walls. The catatonic nun sitting next to him. The Beast circling football teams with an old red Biro at his desk. ‘Yes, I suppose there’s always that,’ he sighed, and slumped backwards.

2005-08-10T03:14:31Z

Ellis’s throat was dry. He swallowed. It felt like drinking a sandpaper milkshake. He looked down at the bunch of papers in his hand. They were covered in scribbled notes, running at a variety of angles across the pages. He wasn’t entirely sure what order the sentences were supposed to run in. He wasn’t entirely sure that it mattered.
The crowd thronging the street in front of the new golden temple was oddly quiet. Low murmurs floated through the air; in some places, people had formed small circles and were chanting softly, holding each other and swaying. The city’s robe industry had apparently been doing a roaring trade. Sandals also were popular; in some cases people had combined them with business suits. Several good citizens were holding books aloft and informing the public of their newfound faith. It didn’t seem to make much difference what the book actually was: Ellis noticed one man wearing a hastily constructed toga over his board shorts waving a geometry textbook.
The traffic in the street was proceeding, albeit not as fast as usual as motorists slowed down to take a good look at the city’s newest and most ancient attraction. Occasionally a car would pull over and the occupants would eagerly run out and join the mob. A few of them acquired robes, but Ellis couldn’t see where from.
He felt a nudge in the small of his back. ‘Go on,’ a voice hissed.
He turned. ‘OK!’ he said. ‘Give me a minute to work up to it, will you?’
God did an impression of an exasperated kettle. ‘Fine, but hurry up!’ He spun around. ‘What are you doing?’
Satan was gazing at the crowd in front of them. ‘Where are they getting all these robes from?’ he asked the air in wonder.
‘Can we please focus on—,’
‘There!’ The Devil pointed. ‘That guy there. He ran into the crowd wearing leather dress shoes, walked through that little bunch in the middle, and when he got to the front, he was wearing sandals. How did that happen?’
‘You know, we have quite an important job to do here. Do you think we could just concentrate?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Satan said, not diverting his gaze one inch. In front of them both, Ellis was making loud huffing noises and rolling his head from side to side.
‘Are you ready?’ asked God.
Ellis bounced up and down on the spot and nodded vigorously. ‘No.’
‘Oh, for—’
‘I don’t see why you can’t do this yourself. You’re the god. I’m not at all qualified…’
‘I told you. This requires a Messiah.’
‘Why? Why can’t you just step up there and tell them all yourself?’
‘Because I’m not that sort of god.
‘Why not?’
‘Because nobody thinks I’m that sort of god. Try to keep up, for pity’s sake.’
Satan looked over. ‘You still here?’ He turned back to the crowd. ‘Thought you’d be up on the steps by now.’
‘I’m just about to.’
‘Oh, good.’
There was a minute or two of absolute silence, during which none of the three moved in any direction.
‘Well?’ God said testily.
‘Well what?’
‘Go on, will you?’
‘I will, I will, I’m just not sure, you know about, er…’
‘It couldn’t be simpler boy! We wrote it all down for you, didn’t we?’
‘Well, yes, but I’m not certain how to—’
‘We made it perfectly plain and simple, all you have to do is say the words.’
‘Yes, I understand, but you see, I can’t quite make out—’
‘We couldn’t have made it any easier!’
‘—seems to be upside down, and in a different language here—’
God lost His patience and took action. He took Ellis by the shoulders, aimed him at the crowd, and pushed. Satan glanced around. ‘Oh good, he’s on his way.’
Ellis staggered forward to the edge of the faithful, and hesitantly stepped in. he walked forward cautiously. Nobody paid him much attention; the bumps and jostles he received seemed to be purely accidental as the devout swayed and milled about, oblivious to one more worshipper in their midst. Nonetheless, as he made his way toward the great gold staircase at the front of the building, he could not quite shrug off the feeling of dog-paddling through a tank of sleeping sharks.
Eventually, he managed to push his way to the front of the throng, and climbed the first four lofty steps. He wasn’t alone on the steps. A few pilgrims had dared make base camp on the heights. A young mini-skirted disciple lay curled up a few feet to his left, sleeping with a blissful smile on her face. A couple of steps above him, someone had actually pitched a small tent, from within which could be heard a muffled group prayer.
Ellis looked out at the mass of humanity in front of him. There was a palpable atmosphere of frantic happiness about them, as if a holy light had entered their bodies and was threatening to wreck the place if they didn’t give in to bliss.
He cleared his throat. History can have known few instances of more useless actions.
He cleared his throat louder.
A believer at the foot of the steps heard him, turned, climbed the steps, gave him a lozenge, and scampered back down. He realised that his current strategy was not going to prove effective.
‘Excuse me,’ he quavered. ‘Everybody? I, er, have some things to say. Hello?’ He chanced a look to his left. God was rolling His eyes on the outskirts of the crowd. In fact, He seemed to have moved to a different position specifically in order that Ellis might see him rolling his eyes. Satan was with him, eating some chips. Ellis took a deep breath. Might as well get it over with.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, squinting at his notes. ‘Today we stand at a pivotal point in the history of our species. Certain forces seek to change the course of our civilisation, and the human race is at a crossword. Crossroads, sorry. On one side, the uplift and advertisement—advancement—of humanity. On the other, a downward spider—spiral—into…into…’ he turned the page upside down and sideways.
‘Annihilation!’ snapped a voice from the edge.
‘Annihilation, yes. Will we allow ourselves to be so easily man…manipulated? Let us not lie down and accept our door, but rather stamp up and fish!’
Having delivered this rousing speech, Ellis could not help but notice that not a single member of the crowd seemed to have heard a word. Or if they had, they did not find it stirring enough to warrant revealing the fact to the world. He looked at God once more. The old man made an urging gesture.
‘Go on.’
Ellis performed a unique shrugging action designed to communicate certain powerful feelings of fear and inadequacy, but ploughed on.
‘Um…OK, there is more, now. Hang on…no…sorry about this, the notes are out of order.’ His apology fell on uncaring ears. Finally he appeared to have himself sorted. ‘Right, now. You ask, what threat? Are we not happy? Is life not gr—’
He was interrupted by a clamour far outstripping what little volume had been able to summon up. Shouting was coming from the far side of the crowd. Looking out, at first Ellis saw only a ripple as members of the crowd shuffled aside to make way for some insistent newcomer approaching the temple from the street.
‘Stop it! Shame! Disgusting!’ The shouts were loud, shrill, and reminiscent to Ellis of some memorable junctures in his childhood schooling. In a few seconds, the crush of people directly in front of him broke open, and the dissenters burst through.
They were nuns. A platoon of them, with righteous fury write large all over their faces. Their leader stepped with grim determination up the golden staircase and shouldered Ellis aside in a most uncharitable manner. She turned to face the crowd and continued shouting.
‘This is all disgusting,’ she shrieked. ‘Idolater and evildoers every one of you! You should be ashamed to have given in to this Satanic trickery!’ Ellis thought he could just make out a protesting ‘Oi!’ from the edge of the crowd. The nun was far from finished, however. ‘Worshipping this false idol, this…this man! Parading your blasphemy in the public square, gilding it and polishing it for your debauched display! You will regret this! Judgment is coming, and let me tell you, you’re doing nothing but speeding it up—’
Where Ellis had failed, this good sister was, to a certain extent, succeeding. That is, she had captured the full attention of the golden temple’s congregation. Where her success was not so certain was that the entire congregation was now facing her, not looking upon her with expressions of revelation, or remorse, or even polite interest, but rather with faces of dark, thunderous, homicidal anger. He didn’t reflect on this development for long, however, because one of the nun’s entourage had caught his eye, and he had seemingly caught hers.
‘You?’ Ellis and Bernadette cried simultaneously.
‘What are you doing here?’ snapped the young nun, while her elder opened a bible and started firing a few choice verses at the heathens.
Ellis felt trapped. What was he doing there? A rather clever answer occurred to him: ‘I’m trying to stop all this.’
‘All what?’
‘All this…this…er, idolatry, you see. Just like you.’
‘Oh yes?’ Bernadette thought for a second, and her face hardened. ‘Well, stop it.’
Ellis, expecting a charming smile to come in handy, found his facial muscles performing an awkward retreat manoeuvre. He grimaced. ‘What? But aren’t we, you know, on the same side?’
‘No. Go away.’ Unnoticed by the two of them, the entire crowd at this point took one step forward, with a loud and disturbing clump.
‘But I…we…you know, I really am trying to put and end to this, like you are.’ Ellis tried that smile again.
‘Well, you’re doing it wrong.’
‘But—’
‘Plus, you’re insane.’
‘But—’
‘And furthermore,’ Sister Bernadette drew herself up to her full lack of height, saw something out of the corner of her eye, and panicked. ‘Stay away from me!’
Ellis looked confused, then saw God and Satan hurrying toward them. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. Really, they’re harmless.’
‘Keep them away!’
Ellis’s companions reached them on the steps. ‘We should probably go now,’ said God urgently.
‘Oh, no, it’s OK,’ said Ellis. ‘The nuns are just giving a speech, and then I’ll keep going with mine…’
Satan grabbed his arm. ‘I think He’s right,’ he said in a steely voice. ‘We really should be going.’ With his other hand, he pointed at the crowd. Ellis and Bernadette both turned to take in what they had previously been oblivious too.
The mass of faithful was now beginning to advance up the steps. The closest worshippers were just a few feet away, glaring at the nuns. The lead nun herself was starting to falter. ‘Er…repent…’ she squeaked. The Bible thudded down the stairs. It was picked up and torn apart. Ellis couldn’t help noticing a glint of metal here and there amongst the mob. It was the sort of thing he was tending to notice these days.
God was talking. ‘OK, now, stay very calm, everyone. Let’s leave in an orderly fashion…’ Everyone took one step up and backwards, the nuns not seeming to care who the robed stranger was, as long as he was telling them what to do and not trying to kill them.
The crowd took one step forward. Ellis felt very much like a man plucked from his quiet home by a giant hand and deposited in a zombie film.
‘Now,’ God said, ‘we are going, at some point, to have to get off these steps. I suggest that on my word, we all turn and run,’ He pointed in the direction He had come from, ‘that way. Agreed?’ Ellis, Satan, Bernadette and the four nuns who had never seen this bizarre old man before all nodded. ‘Right then…one…’ the crowd rustled with anticipation of a holy kill, ‘two…GO!’
All eight of them spun, started running, and stopped. Blocking their path was a line of tall, muscular, gold-clad guards with an array of nasty-looking sharp things that could definitely have your eye out. God spun in the other direction, and found a remarkably similar sight. There was, depressingly and stereotypically, no escape.
‘Bugger,’ He said.
Down the steps of the golden temple sauntered a new figure. He wore a rather loose-fitting toga and was carrying a magnum of champagne, from which he periodically swigged. He was also, in a very profound way, gorgeous. One of the nuns, apparently against her own will, fanned herself and giggled.
God, meanwhile, groaned. ‘Oh hell,’ He said. ‘Not you.’
‘Not who?’ Ellis asked.
‘I,’ said the newcomer, in a slightly unsteady but ineffably charming voice, ‘am Dionysus.’
God gestured wearily. ‘This is Dionysus.’
‘Hello,’ said Dionysus. ‘Would you care for a drink?’ He waggled the bottle at Ellis.
‘No. No, I’m fine,’ Ellis returned.
‘Ah.’ Dionysus took another long draught before speaking further. ‘I have been sent,’ he announced, as a sizeable group of young women apparently materialised out of thin air and began clinging lovingly to various portions of him, ‘by Lord Apollo—’ here the crowd cheered, and several fainted with ecstasy, ‘—to deal with the situation we have,’ he burped, ‘here.’
‘Good’ God snapped. ‘Tell your drones to leave us alone.’
Dionysus stared boozily at Him for a moment, as if waiting for Him to resolve Himself into a single person before addressing the substance of His arguments. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘You have, I’m afraid, totally unmisunderstood the gub of my nist.’
‘What a surprise.’
‘Lord Apollo desires that troublemakers stop making trouble. Therefore, I am afraid that, not to put too fine a…a thingy on it, you are all to be killed.’
Another cheer rose from the throats of the true believers. The eight on the steps were less enthused.
‘All of us?’ quavered Bernadette.
Dionysus looked her up and down while one of his lady friends handed him a bowl of caviar. ‘I might be able to grant stays of execution in certain circumstances,’ he winked. ‘Care for a drink?’ Bernadette went even whiter than she had been, and crossed herself. Dionysus shrugged. ‘Suit yourself, then.’ He waved at the surrounding guards. ‘Try not to be too noisy about it, will you?’ He turned and accompanied his harem back into the temple, fragrant petals appearing from somewhere or other to shower over his head.
The guards lowered their spears and moved in closer, watching their quarry carefully for signs of sudden movement or general oddness. Since working for Apollo, they had learned that whenever anyone was wearing long robes, it paid not to assume too much about what they were capable of.
Ellis whimpered. ‘I knew being a Messiah would turn out badly. I never did like the way the Bible ended.’
‘Don’t worry,’ God muttered. ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘I know you’re an authority figure, but I’m finding that hard to believe,’ said Ellis as a spear tip closed inexorably on him.
‘It’s fine. I don’t like doing it, it’s against all protocol, but I’m taking us up to Heaven.’
‘Heaven?’ Ellis said, bewildered, and there was a sudden blinding flash, following which absolutely nothing had changed. Ellis boggled at God. ‘What happened?’
The Almighty seemed a little confused Himself. ‘I…I don’t know. We should be safe up there now. It always works. It—’
‘Sod it!’ Satan bellowed as several guards drew back for the definitive thrust. ‘No bloody time!’
There was another blinding flash, and a cloud of black smoke. When it cleared, there was a large crack running down the golden steps, two of the guards were on fire, and their captives had disappeared.

Ellis stared at the quiet, drab office in front of him. ‘Where are we?’ he said.
Satan clicked his tongue. ‘Sorry, you’re visitors, of course, I always forget.’ He snapped his fingers. All the cubicles in the office were immediately set alight. The smell of sulphur suddenly assaulted Ellis’s nostrils. Satan looked quizzically at him. ‘Is that better?’
Beside them, Sister Bernadette swooned onto the carpet.

Continued...

2005-08-09T00:45:21Z

Magatha fought the urge to sway back as she met his eyes with hers. The Norse god’s breath was icy and carried the tinge of blood on it. ‘There’s only one Messiah, and you know where he is.’
‘Really.’ Loki reached out and gripped her shoulder. Magatha gritted her teeth and concentrated on hurling him against a wall. It didn’t work. She knew it wouldn’t. Loki wasn’t your average backstreet assailant. ‘Tell me, then, Magatha. What’s God’s most powerful angel doing on Earth?’
Magatha smiled thinly at him. ‘Do you think God’s most powerful angel has to answer your questions?’ She shrugged significantly, and freed herself from the crushing grip. She stood up and turned to skate away. In a blurred instant, Loki had stood, circled in front of her, grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against a wall.
‘I think,’ he said calmly, ‘that when she’s on Earth, even God’s most powerful angel has her vulnerabilities. And I think, that right now, she’s maybe a little more vulnerable than usual…am I right, Magatha?’ He squeezed harder. ‘You can feel it, can’t you, Magatha? We’re growing while you diminish. You can feel your power ebbing away, all that angelic strength draining…you know you’re done for, you and your touchy feely rabble up there. You know Heaven’s going to crumble, Yahweh will be extinguished, and the old Gods will reign again. Unless…’ Loki showed his teeth. ‘Where is the Messiah?’
Magatha growled and shook her head as best she could. Her plaits, flicked Loki’s face, drawing blood and leaving a fierce red line across one cheek that, as she watched, sealed itself and faded into a frosty blue. Loki shook her and spoke again, cheerful as ever.
‘You will now lead me directly to where you are hiding the new Messiah, and we will OH MY GOD GET IT OFF ME GET IT OFF ME GET IT OFF ME!!!!’
A casual listener, not privy to a bird’s-eye view of the scene, might have been surprised by Loki’s apparent wandering from the topic at the hand here, not to mention the extreme vehemence of his bellowed non sequitur. This is simply because such a hypothetical casual listener would not have seen that the moment at which Loki started shouting was the exact moment that Aafghwia, out of nowhere, hurtled through the air and fastened himself jaws first to Loki’s neck.
And that’s unfortunate, because the sight of a Norse deity spinning manically around a city street trying to remove a savage purple talking weasel from his neck is one that can probably be accurately termed ‘once in a lifetime’.
Magatha stared in amazement as the god of insects, snarling and hissing viciously, sunk his fangs into Loki’s flesh, even as his body was swung wildly about with his victim’s efforts to shake him off. It was, to say the least, a side of him she had not before seen.
Loki threw himself against a wall and should have crushed the weasel painfully between god and bricks, but it had no effect on Brian’s indomitable lord of creepy-crawlies, who simply locked his jaws on tighter. Godly blood sprayed the street.
In the recent frenetic sequence of events, Magatha had completely forgotten that Loki was not alone. But now she saw that Thor, who up to now had been standing, still and impassive, like a hairy blonde foothill, gazing stoically into space with a noble expression which suggested that he was thinking about his hair, was making his move. His gigantic hands had moved to his belt and withdrawn the massive hammer that swung there, and slowly but with gathering momentum, he was starting to swing it about his head.
Magatha very clearly foresaw her ferret companion being sent into orbit at a great speed, and took action. She put her head down, pushed off, and skated with some force into certain tender portions of the Thunder god.
A gasp of Nordic pain made itself heard, and the hammer slammed harmlessly into the brickwork. Harmlessly, at least, to all except the bricks, several of which were instantly reduced to dust.
The pain of being struck in the lower regions by the fast-moving plaited head of an angel could never really incapacitate a god of thunder, however. A meaty open palm swatted Magatha sideways, and the hammer came up once more and began rotating. The sun bounced off the silver head and stung the angel’s eyes.
Loki had stopped oscillating and was now standing in one place, slapping energetically at Aafghwia, who was still biting with vim and enthusiasm, moving quickly from one portion of the neck to another, staying just out of reach and managing a vice-like grip with every chomp. This, however, could not go on for long. It was only a couple of seconds before the hammer swung again. This time it would not miss. Aafghwia was finished, and shortly afterward, so was Magatha.
The grey Volkswagen that suddenly screeched around the corner and clipped Thor’s ankle, sending him sprawling, was completely unexpected. So was the voice that yelled, ‘Get in!’
Not even taking the time to think ‘What have I got to lose?’ Magatha obeyed and dived into the passenger seat. As the car accelerated once more, Aafghwia, finally detached, soared through an open rear window and thudded into the upholstery, picking bits of bloodied skin from between his teeth. The Beetle sped with an unhealthy roar around three corners and onto a main road, where it calmed to a steady chug and melded into the traffic.
Magatha saw this as an opportune moment to allow every muscle in her body to relax. She exhaled slowly, for therapeutic purposes, and for the first time glanced sideways.
‘We really must stop meeting like this,’ the man in black said.

Magatha Runs In To Old Friends

2005-08-08T06:37:03Z

Magatha was rolling down a peaceful side-street, purple ferret-god trotting at her side, when the smell caught her nostrils. She pulled up abruptly and sniffed the air. Aafghwia looked up at her quizzically.
‘We should be getting on, what?’ he said. Magatha waved a hand at him impatiently.
‘Smell that?’
‘Smell what?’ The God of Insects raised his own snout and waved it in the air, nostrils twitching. ‘My sense of smell is, I daresay, dashed acute, and I can’t smell anything out of the ordinary. Automobile fumes, cooking, cement, aged animal hides…the usual, don’t you know.’ Aafghwia casually sniffed about on the ground for a few seconds before realising that Magatha was looking at him. ‘What?’
‘Aged animal hides?’ The angel gazed levelly at the weasel.
‘Well, er, yes. Cowhide, bearskin, beaver, nothing spectacular…why do you keep looking at me like that?’
Magatha sighed. ‘Aafghwia…I am sure things are different on Brian, but here on Earth, it is not usual, while strolling along a dirty back alley in the middle of a major industrialised city, to catch a whiff of wild animal skins on the breeze.’
‘Oh…isn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘I’m most dreadfully sorry, old bean. Still rather getting my bearings, you see. Good Lord, who’s that?’
The weasel was staring past Magatha’s left shoulder. She shut her eyes in an expression of inner pain and anticipation of unpleasantness, and turned. Behind her was a small man covered with fur and wearing a helmet and a friendly smile on his head.
The angel rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, it’s just you,’ she said, turning on her heel and skating away for about two feet before she collided with the midriff of Thor, God of Thunder. She sat on the pavement and glowered at the Norsemen. ‘OK, then,’ she muttered, ‘what do you want?’
Loki continued smiling charmingly. ‘Magatha,’ he soothed. ‘So hostile to old comrades.’ Magatha rolled her eyes. ‘We just thought we’d like to say hello. It’s like a big reunion, isn’t it, all the old gang showing up?’
Magatha said nothing. Loki continued.
‘So, my good friend Thor and I were just in the neighbourhood, doing a little job for a friend, and we thought to ourselves: Magatha! Our old pal Magatha, I bet she could help us find what we’re looking for.’
The plaits bobbed as the head snapped up. ‘What?’
Loki crouched on his haunches and put his face very close to hers. ‘We have a very important mission, my angelic friend, and I think you’re going to help us carry it out.’
‘Oh, do you?’ The tone suggested that the sun spontaneously turning into a ball of fried ice cream was considerably more likely.
‘Yes indeed.’ Loki’s voice was in many ways similar to a carnivorous beetle that lives by burrowing into the human brain. It buzzed infuriatingly in your ears but was impossible to quieten. ‘You see, we are, at the present time, in most desperate need of a Messiah, and I believe you happen to know where one could be found.’

bensnovel @ 2005-07-24T03:05:00

2005-07-23T17:05:32Z

There's no update to Faith, I'm just paranoid about losing this journal or something if i don't keep it updated.

The House of Apollo

2005-05-26T15:52:06Z

In the centre of the city was a new building. At least, it seemed to be new. People couldn’t quite remember it being there yesterday, but on the other hand, they couldn’t quite remember it not being there yesterday. There was a little head-scratching over this, and a very few citizens swore that there had actually been a park there before, as recently as last week. Some others theorised that even if there had been a building there before, surely it hadn’t been quite so big, or so gratuitously adorned with gigantic solid gold statues. And it was hard to deny that the towering marble pillars were a little out of keeping with the city’s main motif of brushed concrete and antique scaffolding.
These were, of course, the deranged quibblings of a noisy minority. In a few days the voices of dissent had died away completely, and reason had reasserted itself. Of course the building had been there before. Why, it was one of the city’s oldest buildings. It was one of the world’s oldest buildings. The inhabitants agreed as one that really, they wouldn’t be able to imagine the city without it. The skyline would lack something if it weren’t there, towering over them all. Life just would not be the same without the mass prayers offered at the bottom of the steps every dawn. Not to mention the animal sacrifices. It was things like that, people told each other very loudly in cafés, that made cosmopolitan life so vibrant and colourful.
Inside the building was a room. Well, actually there were a lot of rooms, but there was one room in particular. It was quite a big room. It was also quite an expensive-looking room. In fact, it would not be going too far to describe it as opulent, and many people did so, in loud and slightly nervous tones, when they were called into it.
The first four things that a visitor would notice about it were the walls. They were gold. They weren’t just painted gold, or gold-coloured. They were gold. Covering the walls around the whole perimeter were carvings of the sun that seemed to radiate a golden light in a way that many might say was wondrous, but would be more likely to say was unnerving.
In each corner of the room was a huge, spiky pot plant, reaching almost to the ceiling. These were extremely impressive, all the more so because, rather than the traditional pot plant structure of a pot, a plant, and some dirt, they were made entirely of gold, a substance that very few amateur gardeners have at their disposal. Despite the twin handicaps of being solid gold and there being not a breath of wind in the room, the long pointed fronds of each plant were waving gently from side to side, an effect that was also impressive, although not necessarily in a good way.
Down the centre of the room was a long, narrow carpet, bordered by two lines of sculptures of people in interesting and instructive positions. The sculptures, the carpet, and the floor itself were all gold, and by this time the canny observer would be starting to detect a trend.
At the end of the carpet was a long golden sofa, on which reclined a long golden man. Or at least a long man dressed all in gold, with hair that was, to a ridiculous extent, also golden. If you got close to him, you could see that his eyes were also gold, in a smooth, arrogant face into which grapes were being languorously placed with flagrant disregard for any kind of originality. On either side of him was a tall guard with a long spear, an outfit fitting in with the general colour scheme, and an uncomfortable look on his face.
Apollo looked up from his grapes when the golden doors at the far end of the room opened with a sense of announcement. Through them came two more men, who provided some relief from the monotonous splendour of their surroundings, albeit relief of a distinctly hairy and pungent nature.
One of the men could be to a great degree summed up by the adjective ‘monolithic’. He was clad in an interesting array of furs, most of which apparently originated from very large and sweaty land mammals. He had a large horned helmet under one arm, a hammer swinging from his belt that looked a little bit like one of those inflatable ones you get at a carnival, only more dangerous, and an imposing pair of boots straight from a sword and sorcery epic. The whole barbaric ensemble was incongruously topped off by a sleek, flowing mane of yellow hair, carefully styled in just that precise fashion that automatically annoys everyone who sees it.
The second man was about a third of the size of his companion, with a mess of curly, bright red hair, something swinging at his belt that looked like an old steak knife, and blue eyes that were forever on the move in a face of angular attractiveness. His costume, however, was similar, although the furs seemed more likely to have been taken from a herd of ferrets than buffaloes. Both men hurried up the carpet and saluted the golden man, who tossed a grape into the air and caught it in his mouth in reply.
‘Greetings, Apollo!’ yelled the bigger man, causing the one on the sofa to close his eyes painfully and wipe spit from his forehead.
He looked from one to the other. ‘Thor,’ he said, nodding to the big one. ‘Loki,’ repeating the action to his small comrade.
‘We are here to offer our services, O Apollo!’ Thor boomed, causing both Apollo and his two guards to produce handkerchiefs.
‘Yes, excellent,’ the golden god replied, concentrating on peeling the last grape. There was a long silence while he chewed it, and then clicked his fingers, at which one of his guards took off his helmet and drew a new bunch from it. Apollo licked his lips as he took it and started in. After he’d eaten a few, he looked up to find Thor and Loki still standing there looking awkward. He blinked in surprise. ‘Was there something else?’ he asked politely.
Thor took a deep breath. ‘We are here to offer our—’ he began.
‘Yes, I got that,’ the golden god interrupted. ‘I’m awfully grateful to you, you know. Encourage the establishment of a meaningful dialogue between us and our Norse brothers and so on. Welcome the delegates in a spirit of friendship and cooperation, etc. etc.’ He stopped to flip another grape skywards, and snapped his lips on it as it tumbled down. ‘But,’ he said as he chewed, ‘what exactly do you want from me?’
Thor took another deep breath, and it could have become a very long, saliva-drenched day if Loki had not finally opened his mouth.
‘We were hoping, your Gloriousness,’ he said in a voice that was perfectly charming, and more unpleasant than being spat on by Thor, ‘to be allowed to join the battle to weed out those elements who would deny the ascent of the traditional deities to their rightful place in the universe, and to take our place in the Sacred Coalition.’
‘That’s right!’ yelled Thor, standing stiffly to attention.
Apollo regarded Loki as if he was a slug who had come to the door selling insurance. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘So you’d like to share in the spoils, then?’
Loki took a great interest in examining practically everything in the room except Apollo, and clicked his tongue. ‘Well, obviously, one would appreciate any…appreciation…shown to one in return for loyal service. Not that one would…expect anything.’
‘Not at all,’ Thor boomed.
‘Of course not,’ Apollo purred. ‘Perish the thought. The only thing is,’ he ate a grape, ‘isn’t it somewhat…unusual, for you…’ he looked at the furs distastefully, ‘…people, to come on so pally with us? After all, we’ve had very little to do with the Norse Gods in the past. Climatological differences, you know. That accursed divide between art, culture and philosophy, and…’ he tucked an invisible hair back in place behind his ear, ‘…squatting round fires in wooden huts dressed as cattle.’
‘Ah, yes, well, that is so,’ said Loki, smiling with savage amiability. ‘But we believe that now is the time for all ancient powers to stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight against the common, modern enemy.’
‘Shoulder to shoulder, yes.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes!’
Apollo wiped his face, and then looked at the Norse Gods for a lengthy, thoughtful moment. ‘Tell me,’ he said at the end of it, ‘how are you on Messiahs?’
‘Messiahs?’
Apollo clicked his fingers again, and the guard whipped off his helmet and produced a small picture, which he handed to his master. Apollo flicked it to Loki, who caught it and peered at it, while Thor gazed over his shoulder. It was a picture of a young man with untidy hair and a surprised expression.
The God of Mischief looked up. ‘This is?’ he asked.
Apollo smiled charmingly. ‘This is, it would appear, the new Messiah.’
‘This?’ Loki sounded disbelieving. ‘Standards have slipped, haven’t they?’
‘I’ll say,’ said Thor. ‘Hasn’t even got a beard.’
‘Ye-es,’ Apollo said uncertainly. ‘Nonetheless, I am reliably informed that this is the Chosen One. And since you fellows have so generously offered your services, I’d like you to handle him.’
Loki raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean…crucify him?’
‘Good Lord, no, that wouldn’t do. Remember what happened last time.’ The Greek God closed his eyes delicately, as if pained by the memory. ‘Nothing sends a fellow’s popularity skyrocketing faster than a melodramatic death. No, no. I just want him to disappear. You know, quietly. Before anyone starts to notice him, you know.’
‘Ah,’ Loki nodded, comprehending. Thor lagged behind, but it didn’t seem to matter. ‘Well, of course we shall attend to it. But tell me, your Solar Magnificence, do you really believe that he poses a threat to us? He hardly seems to possess the charisma of his predecessor.’
‘Well, charisma is a funny thing, isn’t it, Loki? When it comes to gods, I mean. After all, people worshipped you.’
‘Ah yes, very true,’ said Loki cordially, a tiny twitch of a vein in his forehead indicating the storing of that you in a mental vault, to be resurrected at an appropriate and probably quite violent moment. ‘But tell me, Your Shining Magnificence, why are you asking us to deal with the matter?’
Apollo looked bored as he picked up a golden cup and swirled the wine within. ‘Those who were initially tasked with this mission proved themselves woefully inadequate, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘And though I have never been one to…socialise with your Northern stock,’ he once more eyed Thor as one eyes rotting fruit, ‘I must admit there is a certain speedy brutality to the way you go about your work that is much to be admired. I feel that in this case an overabundance of intellect may indeed be a hindrance. I don’t want thought, I want death. Swiftly.’
Loki didn’t even blink at the inferences of this speech. ‘Of course,’ he said.
‘And—let me make this quite clear—I do not want to be forced to involve myself personally in the carrying out of the necessaries,’ Apollo looked directly at Loki. ‘It would not be good for my reputation.’
‘Naturally not, my Lord. And…what shall be our reward for the deed?’
The man of gold looked surprised. ‘Why, as you said yourself, Loki dear. To be part of the Sacred Coalition.’
‘And only that?’
The Greek showed his teeth. ‘The time is soon coming, Loki, when being a part of the Coalition will seem a cause for eternal gratitude. Not being part, on the other hand, could be seen as quite a catastrophic career move. You see?’
The sheen of the Viking deity’s own teeth bounced gorgeously off the golden walls. ‘I see perfectly.’
‘Good.’ Apollo sighed. ‘So many loose ends to tie up…these feeble creatures do so get in the way.’ At the end of the room, through the far doorway, movement caught his eye. He peered into the distance. A black figure was standing beyond the portal. ‘And that reminds me…you may go.’
‘Of course, O master of worlds.’ Loki bowed. ‘We shall see you again soon.’
‘We shall not fail you, great Apollo!’ shouted Thor, donning his helmet and performing a clanging salute.
‘Yes, lovely,’ the Greek murmured, not looking at them as the turned and exited. He turned to one of the guards. ‘I believe our partner is paying us a visit also,’ he smiled. ‘Do go and tell him he’s no need to hang about outside…there’s always a warm welcome in the house of Apollo.’

Gods and Sods

2005-05-15T16:54:06Z

The ancient Greek gods were clever people, if ‘people’ was the right word. They realised their time would be finite. They knew their worshippers would move on. And they knew that at that time, they would fade into obscurity. It had happened even before them. To Egyptian gods, Sumerians, and all those anonymous, primitive gods, of rock and tree and beast, that had floated in and out of human consciousness when human consciousness was the very latest thing.
Some of the Greek deities shrugged their shoulders and took the fatalistic approach. Some went to their room and sulked. Others staved off the inevitable with a nice little manoeuvre that wound up getting them a fresh set of worshippers in the shape of the Romans.
But others…others took the long-term view. They saw the future stretching out ahead, and refused to accept it. Chief among these was the golden boy, Apollo. Noble, beautiful and perfect, not to mention cunning and power-hungry, he and his cohorts Took Steps.
Before their worshippers became extinct and he joined the ranks of the mundane, they voluntarily gave up a measure of his power, and placed it into certain objects. Infused various material things with a part of his godliness, the objects thereby immediately becoming sacred relics, and being scattered around the world in obscure and long-forgotten places, as is considered mandatory for sacred relics of any kind. This was all according to plan. If, after the mythology of Greece had passed into the history books, the relics could be recovered, then that small part of their powers could be regained. Not much power, mind you. Just enough to impress a few potential worshippers. And so the power would grow…and more worshippers could be impressed. And more power…until all the former glory was regained.
And once regained, Apollo and his kin did not intend to relinquish it. By whatever means possible, godhood would be maintained. Whether that meant creation…or destruction.

Ellis swallowed. These supernatural beings all seemed to go out of their way to sound ominous all the time.
‘So,’ said Satan, nodding with finality, ‘now you know the rest of the story.’
‘And why you have been…er, chosen,’ said God. ‘Chosen, yes.’
‘Wait, wait,’ said the new Messiah. ‘Why didn’t Apollo and all that lot just hang on to the relics, and when they started to fade, use them to build themselves back up? Why did they let themselves be forced into retirement, and then wait all this time to come back?’
‘Because they could never have held onto them. The world of the ancient gods was a vicious, dangerous place. There’s not an ancient god anywhere that wouldn’t stab another in the back for a bit more power, given the chance. If Apollo had kept the Relics in his chest of drawers up on Olympus, it wouldn’t have been five minutes before Hermes, or Ares, or Artemis, sneaked up, whacked him on the back of the head, and made off with the relics. Knowing these people, they would most likely have put a snake in his bed on the way out.’ God shook His shaggy head. ‘Like children, they are. In any event, they cast the relics to the four winds, they were lost and became merely legends. And after the old religions died out, it obviously took Apollo this long to find them again. It’s pretty hard for a retired god to get a lot done, in a global sense. I’m not sure how he managed it even now. But it doesn’t really matter now…he’s clearly planning to make up for lost time.’
‘And so now, Apollo and his friends are back, and they’re…not nice?’
‘To say the least,’ said God. ‘But the problem’s even worse than that.’
‘You see,’ said Satan, ‘there were a number of relics, but the most important is the Ingot of Chalcis.’
‘Everyone keeps mentioning that. What is it?’
‘It’s an Ingot. From Chalcis.
‘Ah. I see.’
‘It’s just a lump of gold that’s been sitting a hundred feet underground on an island for a couple of thousand years. But it’s most important, because Apollo himself created it, to hold belief.’
Ellis’s expression of totally unintelligent confusion did not change. ‘To hold belief? How can a lump of gold hold belief? How can anything hold belief? Belief isn’t a thing, it’s a…well, it isn’t a thing, anyway.’
Satan exchanged glances with God before replying. ‘It’s…it’s complicated.’
Ellis nodded. He was familiar with this.
‘Anyway, it held the belief in the ancient gods. Or at least a small part of it. And so it was the most treasured Relic of all, because belief, when you’re a god, is what it’s all about. And now that Apollo has recovered the Ingot, he’s got his hands on the belief. But rather than keep it all to himself, he’s…unleashed it.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning he hasn’t just rejuvenated himself, he’s let it run wild.’ Ellis looked like a man desperately trying not to shrug. God sighed.
‘Imagine a pile of salt,’ He said, taking a salt shaker from the table and emptying it into His palm.
‘I don’t have to imagine it, I can see it.’
‘Shut up. Now…I can eat the salt,’ God placed a few grains on his tongue, ‘but with the rest…’ He went to the open window, put his hand to his mouth, and blew. The salt puffed into the air, and fell and swirled away with the wind.
Ellis looked uncertain. ‘So the belief…is like the salt?’
‘Exactly.’
‘So Apollo’s puffed a big pile of belief out of his window.’
‘If you like. The point is, he’s allowed the raw material of godhood to go floating on the breeze, across the Earth. And whenever it strikes some retired god, some nondescript person who doesn’t even remember what they used to be…’
Ellis felt the novel sensation of getting a grasp on something. ‘All those gods will come back!’
God and Satan sat together on the couch and let their silence answer.
‘Well…’ Ellis began, pushing the word ‘inadvisable’ from his mind, ‘is it so bad? I mean, they were all around before, these gods, and we muddled through all right. What’s the worst that could happen?’
God gazed at him. ‘When it comes to angry gods who are determined not to let history repeat, “worst” is a concept I am afraid that you have yet to fully appreciate.’
‘Remember in the street, before?’ said Satan. ‘With the nun?’ Ellis nodded. ‘Try extrapolating that to a worldwide sort of scenario.’
‘Oh.’ Ellis experienced the dull, quiet feeling of fear and hopelessness reaching uncharted levels. ‘So, what do we do?’
God stood up with a glint in His holy eye. ‘We get ourselves a Messiah,’ He said decisively, ‘and we spread the Good news.’

Reconnaissance

2005-04-28T17:19:55Z

‘The other point about insects is that their religious ceremonies are appallingly primitive, you see.’
Magatha remained fixed in position, peering round the corner. ‘Is that so,’ her auto-pilot system replied.
‘Yes,’ Aafghwia weaved figure-eights between her ankles. ‘They’ve never even heard of incense, you see. They don’t make burnt offerings, don’t read from holy books, no human sacrifices—’
‘Do you want human sacrifices?’ said Magatha, still not turning.
Aafghwia paused, confronted by an entirely new question. ‘Well…no. No, I suppose not,’ he said, a trifle wistfully. ‘But, well, after all, it would be nice to be asked, what? I mean…no, naturally, nobody wants human sacrifices, entirely too bloodthirsty. But it would be nice if a chap thought he was worthy of one. Might perk the old spirits up, and so forth.’
‘In your case, I suppose they’d be insect sacrifices.’
‘Ha ha, yes, jolly good,’ said Aafghwia. ‘It would be just a mite tricky, yes, human sacrifices on Brian, because, well, a) your average insect doesn’t have what you might call the wherewithal, in a physical sense, to bring down a human and carry off a thorough sacrifice, and b) there are no actual humans there anyway.’
‘Fascinating,’ replied Magatha, watching the busy street carefully, trying to stay out of sight of passersby, and partitioning off a little portion of her brain specifically for violent pesticide fantasies.
‘We do have exceedingly large crabs,’ said the little purple creature thoughtfully. ‘And of course lots of little ferrety things, that’s where they got the idea for me, don’t you know. But then, an exceedingly large crab may be even more of a challenge to sacrifice than your typical human. A snub-nosed cockroach could get dashed discouraged, hammering away at a fifteen foot crab with no reward for days on end.’
‘Ah!’ Magatha breathed out in excitement. Across and a little down the road from their vantage point in the alley, a grim, stony church stood amongst the two dollar shops. It was not particularly large, nor particularly memorable, but it served a purpose in providing reassurance to people who never attended it that the neighbourhood’s moral fibre was being maintained.
A smallish, but vocal and enthusiastic crowd was approaching it. They were communally carrying a shiny object whose nature could not be determined from a distance, as it rose and fell like a crowd-surfer with the undulations of the mob.
‘There’s always the Ostrich Fly, I suppose. It could probably, at a pinch, manage to sacrifice a giant crab. Or at least a human.’
Magatha’s plaits twitched. The crowd had stopped in front of the church. They fell silent for a moment, and in that moment time seemed to slow. So briefly that afterwards you couldn’t be sure it had really happened, the everyday life of the street appeared to click into slow-motion. People walked with agonising underwater steps, and sound vanished.
Then, in a blink, the moment was over and the air was shattered by a joyous roar emanating from the crowd before the church. A rock was thrown, clunking against the grey cross set into the façade. Several more followed, chipping stone. Magatha stared as picks and axes were produced and the crowd swarmed about the church, hacking and chopping at carvings and gargoyles.
‘But then, insect sacrifices wouldn’t even put the insects out all that much, what? After all, insects dash about massacring each other on a fairly regular basis anyway, would it be such an imposition to ask them to just dedicate the occasional slaughter to their benevolent Lord? Go through the mental motions, if you catch my gist?’
Across the street, chunks of stone crashed to the ground one after another, and billows of grey dust spread over the area. From the periphery, gasps and choking coughs were heard, but the jolly shouting and singing of the crowd overwhelmed it, as the shiny object was brought forth. As they hauled it to a vertical position, Magatha could see it was, in fact, a larger-than-life statue of a gorgeous man in a robe, smiling kindly down and gold all over. A flurry of activity saw it slammed against the front of the church, and then the zealots stepped back. A collective breath was held.
The statue stayed there, affixed by an unknown adhesive. Magatha blinked, and when she opened her eyes, it was clear that the statue had become part of the façade. One more blink, and the world shimmered like a country road on a hot day.
The entire church had assumed the same colour as the statue.
A massive cheer went up from the faithful, who immediately poured in through the church’s now glorious doors.
‘They just have no sense of grandeur, you see. Religion really is bally well wasted on them—’
‘Come on,’ Magatha murmured, spinning and rattling back down the alley. Aafghwia watched her for a second, confused, then gave an odd weaselly sort of shrug, and scampered away after her.

Apollo sends a message

2005-03-22T16:50:37Z

The Great God Apollo raised an exquisite hand to his forehead and made the universal gesture of migraine. His eyes closed in the most pained way possible. The thin, cloaked neophyte in front of him twisted his fingers. If only he had stabbed himself to death with the short straw when he had the chance…
‘So,’ said the god, without opening his eyes, ‘you did, in fact, capture the angel.’
‘Well…’ said the neophyte, apparently bent on self-destruction, ‘not really. You see, angels are an imaginary construct of the superstitious mind, and—,’
Apollo silenced him with the raising of a meaningful finger. ‘Upon capturing the angel, your master saw fit to…torture her?’
‘Uh…yes. For information.’
‘For information…’ the god murmured. ‘Yes, rather than opt for the rather obvious and unoriginal course of killing her while you have the opportunity and she is weak, you torture her for information. Capital. And what information did you acquire from her?’
The neophyte swallowed. His throat seemed to be closing up. He needed a drink. He was sure it had been several decades since he last had one. ‘Well, technically speaking…’
‘Yes?’ Apollo’s golden eyes had opened and he was leaning forward, eager to hear everything the neophyte had to say. ‘Do go on.’
‘Well, sir, we didn’t get any information per se, we…’
‘I see.’ The deity leaned back again on his throne. ‘And how long did you interrogate her for?’
‘Um…’ the scratchy croak was barely audible now, ‘a few…hours.’
‘A few hours, I see.’ The golden eyes shut again, the perfectly formed mouth let out a long, low whistle of breath. ‘Tell me…er…?’
There was a pause while the man caught up with what was expected of him. ‘Xanander, sir.’
There was another pause while Apollo rolled his eyes beneath the lids. ‘Right, well…Xanander…tell me, your master, he thinks he has a plan, does he?’
Xanander paused. Where was this going? ‘…yes?’ he ventured. ‘I believe so, sir, yes.’
‘Yes, and your master…he believes himself to be in control of the situation, does he?’ Apollo raised his hand. ‘No, don’t answer that, of course he does. He is, after all, the master, is he not? That does suggest a certain fixed idea of command.’
Xanander stood uncertainly in front of the throne. Was this a moment to nod? To smile? To speak? He compromised. ‘Er,’ he said.
Apollo smiled. ‘Quite. Now, Xanander, I think it would be fair to say that we’re friends. Are we friends, Xanander?’
The neophyte stared. ‘Er.’
‘Good. So, as a friend, Xanander, I’d like to ask if you would mind carrying a message back to your master for me?’
Xanander relaxed. This, at least, meant he would survive the immediate future. He cleared his throat with some difficulty. ‘It would be an honour, sir, to act as your messenger.’
Apollo pursed his lips. ‘Yes…not sure you quite understand, Xanander, my dear friend.’
Xanander coughed. ‘Understand…sir?’
‘Yes…you see, you won’t be acting as my messenger so much as…my stationery.’
The young man stared in confusion. He coughed again. The gloriously handsome, radiant man before him was gazing down sorrowfully.
Apollo stood up and stepped down to Xanander’s level. He placed a firm hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘You don’t need a drink, Xanander,’ he whispered. ‘I’m ever so sorry.’
The neophyte’s eyes bulged as his throat constricted further and a horrible, horrible realisation dawned. His hands grabbed desperately at his neck as, voiceless, he looked beseechingly at the divine being before him. A faint, choking gasp escaped, as the divine being gave him a gentle push and Neophyte Xanander, AKA Stevie Wells, folded up onto the marble floor.
Apollo stood looking down at the body, shaking his head. ‘I never understood all that talk about not shooting the messenger,’ he said. ‘It’s such a wonderfully effective mode of reply.’ He glanced up at the stone-faced guard standing in the doorway. ‘See that he gets delivered safely, there’s a good fellow.’

Confusion and Strangers

2005-03-20T09:01:52Z

God jumped up, grabbed His prodigal secretary by the shoulders and shook her. ‘Just where the devil have you been?’ He barked
Magatha winced, and delicately removed the old man’s hands from her bruised arms. ‘I need to tell you some things—’ she began, but was cut off by her employer.
‘Who’s that?’ He said, peering suspiciously at the stranger who had entered with Magatha. The tall man contrived to look awkward and oversized behind his shades.
Magatha glanced back. ‘Oh, him. He’s just someone. He helped me get away.’
‘Get away from what?’
‘From the…the things I have to tell you about.’
God glared at the man. ‘Why did you bring him here?’
Magatha sighed. ‘He insisted on seeing me back home.’
The man piped up. ‘Yes…’ he stared at God, who stared right back. ‘Er…may I ask…?’
‘He thinks he’s God,’ said Sister Bernadette acidly. Magatha spun and took her in.
‘Who’s she?’ she demanded, turning back to God, who pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘Magatha, this is Sister Bernadette. Sister Bernadette, this is Magatha, my personal assistant.’
Bernadette backed off further. ‘What?’
‘Excuse me,’ said the man in the black coat. ‘Are you actually a nun?’
Bernadette switched her wariness from Magatha to the stranger. ‘Yes…’
‘OK.’ He seemed to accept this as being in some way in tune with the theme of the day. ‘You say this gentleman thinks he’s God?’
‘Yes,’ Bernadette appeared to be willing to believe this new man was reasonably normal. ‘They’re all completely insane!’
‘Why don’t you believe him?’
The nun blinked at him. The sunglasses gazed calmly back at her as if their owner hadn’t just asked one of the all-time cosmically stupid questions. Her mouth opened one or two times before she managed to actually vocalise. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Why don’t you believe that he’s God?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘You’re a nun. You believe in God. Someone has to be It. Why not him?’
Bernadette shook her head as if trying to dislodge something. ‘I’m sorry…I don’t think I can carry on this conversation right now.’
‘Of course. Never mind.’ A smile fluttered about the man’s lips.
Sister Bernadette nodded with assertive uncertainty. ‘I’m leaving,’ she announced once again.
‘Do you need a lift anywhere?’ said the stranger.
Ellis broke in frantically. ‘Er, we haven’t actually decided if she should leave yet. She’s till very shaken.’
The man turned and eyed him. ‘Sounds like she’s decided,’ he said innocently. ‘Who are you?’
Ellis squirmed inwardly under what seemed a needlessly reasonable and polite gaze. ‘My name’s Ellis Dark,’ he said. ‘I live here.’ He offered a tentative hand. The stranger looked down at it, then shook it, again looking vaguely amused.
‘Pleased to meet you Ellis,’ he said. ‘What’s your place in this little troupe?’
Ellis looked at his feet. ‘I provide…er…accommodation?’ he mumbled.
The man raised his eyebrows. ‘Like a kind of asylum?’
‘I…’
‘He’s the Messiah!’ Magatha snapped. ‘The new one. Happy? Now can you please leave?’
The man’s amused air faded. Concern replaced it. ‘OK,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m going now, and I think the sister is as well.’
But the sister had, instead, marched up to Magatha and was now looking her in the eye with a blazing aspect from a distance of about three inches. ‘What did you say?’ she snapped.
Magatha leaned back. ‘This man is the Messiah,’ she repeated. ‘I thought you were lea—’
She was cut off by a resounding thwack as the nun slapped her, hard, across the face. ‘How dare you?’ she fumed.
The angel’s mouth formed a perfect O as her hand rose disbelievingly to her cheek and felt the spot where the petite hand had left its petite red mark. She goggled at Bernadette in a state of almost catatonic shock. A tiny noise emerged from her, sounding a little like ‘Wha-a…?’
‘How dare you say that?’ the nun shrilled. ‘How…how…how DARE you?’
There was a moment of silent fuming and gaping. Then Magatha underwent some sort of contained thermal reaction. Her plaits stood on end. A low rumble began in the back of her throat. At that moment, God jumped forward and pulled her back.
‘Lovely to have met you both!’ He cried.
Bernadette crossed herself. ‘Lord protect me from these blasphemers and perverts,’ she muttered.
‘Perverts?’ Ellis said. ‘That seems a bit harsh.’
She ignored him. ‘Deliver me from this den of profanity…’
‘Go deliver yourself!’ growled the angel, trying to pull the hem of her waistcoat from the Lord’s loving grasp. ‘I don’t even understand what you’re doing here! When did we start taking in nuns?’
Bernadette’s eyes flashed at her. ‘I was attacked!’ she retorted. ‘I didn’t ask to come up here with all these madmen and evil women. They brought me!’ She pointed, in turn, to Ellis, who tried to look somewhere else, and Satan, who was still on the couch chuckling over the sight of Magatha being slapped by a small woman in a habit.
Magatha looked at the big man, noticing him for the first time. Abruptly, her rage changed course. She shook herself free from God and stormed in his direction. His chuckling ceased as he looked up and met her heat-seeking eyes. She leant over him and poked him in the chest. ‘And you,’ she said, with the kind of disgust generally reserved for the material lining a neglected sewer, ‘where were you last night?’
Satan reacted indignantly. ‘Me? You were the one who left the bar!’
Magatha hissed and she leant in even closer. ‘If you had just listened to me, instead of playing silly buggers, then we wouldn’t even be in this situation. I wouldn’t have been kidnapped by men in hoods and you wouldn’t have gone romping about rescuing people, and we wouldn’t be having all our lives cluttered up with nuns and men in coats getting in our way, and we could get on with it!’ Every stressed syllable was accompanied by another jabbing of the index finger into the hellish sternum. The huge form of the devil tried to shrink further and further into the cushions.
‘You never told me about the Ingot!’ he protested. ‘I didn’t know what was going on!’
Magatha was rapidly reaching the point of steam-emission. ‘That’s-why-you-should-have-LISTENED!’ she reached a thundering crescendo that was interrupted by the voice of God.
‘You were kidnapped?’ he said. ‘The same men in hoods?’
Magatha turned and simmered. ‘I guess so,’ she said, straightening her waistcoat. ‘I don’t know how many hooded gangs there are in this city—’
‘You’d be amazed,’ murmured the man in the black coat softly. Magatha gave him a strange look before continuing.
‘—but I assumed that if two groups of hooded men attack me within twenty-four hours, they’re probably at least affiliated.’
Ellis began to panic. ‘There are men in hoods after us now too?’
‘That’s pretty standard,’ said Satan. ‘Get mixed up in religion, you’ve always got someone in a hood running after you waving a sacrificial dagger. It’s depressingly predictable. Whack a black hood on anyone, they lose all sense of proportion.’ He shot a glance at Sister Bernadette. ‘Present company excepted.’
Ellis collapsed onto the sofa. ‘This gets better all the time, doesn’t,’ he said gloomily. ‘Can I go to bed now?’
There was a moment of silence, broken by a ludicrously upbeat voice. ‘I’m sure we could all do with a nice cup of tea!’ Aafghwia bounded across the living room and into the kitchen. Magatha watched him go, bewildered once more. She looked quizzically at God.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ He said wearily, and turned to Ellis. ‘Now look, boy, no time to sit around moping. We have work to do, you understand? We’re running out of time even faster than I first thought. This planet is in very real danger at this moment.’ Ellis groaned.
The man in the coat leaned over to Bernadette. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re absolutely right. They’re mad. Shall we?’
They stepped through the doorway together. Magatha watched them. ‘About time!’
The man half-turned and tilted his glasses. ‘Glad you’re OK,’ he said. ‘I really do hope you find the help you need someday. Goodbye.’ He accompanied the nun out and closed the door behind him.
God released a relieved sigh. ‘Now that that’s over,’ He said, ‘we can get on with our business, unimpeded—’
‘Sugar?’ a voice trilled from the kitchen.
He grimaced. ‘Relatively unimpeded,’ He corrected. ‘By ignorant humans, anyway.’
‘Yes, God forbid that humans ever be allowed to understand anything,’ said Satan sourly. The others looked at him. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘You do, don’t you?’

Sister Bernadette struggles with recent developments

2005-03-19T18:26:19Z

Sister Bernadette’s teacup rattled on its saucer as she stared, jellylike, at Ellis. ‘Let me out!’
Ellis tried to soothe her. ‘Now, look, we’ve all had a hard morning. If you’ll just take a few minutes to calm down, I’m sure you’ll feel much—’
Bernadette pointed with a trembling finger at the elderly bearded man standing in the kitchen doorway. ‘Say again what you just said!’ she demanded.
He sighed. ‘I’m God.’
The nun looked back at Ellis. ‘Let. Me. Out.’
‘Well, you did ask him his name…’ said Ellis.
‘That’s right. I asked him his name. I didn’t ask him his mental illness.’
Satan stepped forward. ‘Look, we’d like to—’
The teacup smashed on the floor and a shrill scream tore the apartment air. Bernadette had leapt up to squat on the chair she’d been sitting in, gathering her habit about her. ‘What is that?’
‘Please,’ Ellis pleaded, ‘just try to relax and…’ he trailed off as he caught sight of the small purple weasel perched on his bookcase. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘what is that?’
God shut His eyes and wished He had someone to ask to give Him strength. ‘This is Aafghwia,’ He said wearily. ‘Aafghwia, this is Ellis Dark, and this is—’
‘Call me Nick,’ the big man broke in, eyeing the nun warily.
God followed his eyeline. ‘Um…Nick, yes. And of course, as we’ve all just heard, this is Sister Bernadette. The, er, nun.’
The weasel smiled charmingly. ‘Delighted to meet you all,’ it said. Bernadette squealed and fell off the chair. All three men in the room rushed to help her up. In a tangle of heavy black cloth, she slapped them away and somehow, in a rolling, complicated way, managed to flip herself upright again. She waved her finger at them and backed slowly toward the door.
‘You…all of you…you’re all insane,’ she said. ‘I’m leaving. Don’t try to stop me!’
‘What do you think just happened down on the street, sister?’ said Satan.
Bernadette paused in front of the door. ‘I was…attacked. I was mugged.’
‘By who?’ The huge man’s black eyes drilled into her.
‘By…’ she faltered.
‘Go on, tell us.’
The good Sister regained her vestige of composure. ‘It was very stressful for me,’ she said. ‘Clearly, I…saw things.’
‘Clearly,’ said Satan. He sounded vaguely amused. Ellis looked at him.
‘She can’t go back out there!’ he cried. ‘Those…those…they might be waiting for her.’
‘They’re not there,’ said Satan, keeping his eyes on the nun. ‘They have no interest in her. She was a victim of bad timing.’
‘We don’t know that! She’s a nun. They might have a, a…grudge against nuns or something!’
‘They weren’t after her,’ murmured Satan with finality.
‘How do you know?’
Satan turned and looked at his drinking buddy. ‘Because they’re after you,’ he said softly. ‘My Lord.’
Bernadette’s eyes had been darting between the two through this exchange. A certain amount of curiosity was showing on her face. She seemed tempted to ask exactly what they were talking about, especially the last two words the big man had spoken. The images of her assailants were, perhaps, flickering like a horror film in her head. But resolution won out, and as Ellis and Satan locked gazes, she broke in defiantly.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’m going now. Don’t try to stop me.’
‘So leave,’ the devil waved a dismissive hand and sauntered over to sit down on Ellis’s couch.
Ellis reached out hesitantly as if to restrain her, but pulled back without making contact, looking nervous. ‘I really think you should stay here at least a little while longer. Just to calm your nerves.’ He looked at God. ‘Don’t you think?’
The old man seemed distracted. ‘Eh? Oh…yes, absolutely. I don’t know. I’m sure she’ll be…something or other…you didn’t see Magatha at all on your way home?’ He wandered away and joined Satan on the sofa, muttering inaudibly.
Bernadette gritted her teeth. ‘Look here—oh sweet Lord,’ she interrupted herself as she half-turned and looked the grinning ferret in the face. She put a hand to her chest and took a couple of deep breaths. ‘Now look, thank you for helping me out there, with the…the incident and everything. I appreciate it very much, and I assure you that as soon as I get back to my cloisters, I’ll write you a nice note of appreciation. But to be perfectly honest, if I’m out much longer, I’ll be missed, and when you combine this with the fact that I seem to be stuck in a flat full of raving lunatics, you’ll forgive me for wanting to get out of here with all the speed the good Lord above gave me.’ Another deep breath followed this speech, and Sister Bernadette turned around with a distasteful glance at Aafghwia, who waved chirpily, and reached for the doorknob.
At that moment the door burst open into her face, and the little nun reeled backwards into the arms of God. Unfortunately she was unable to fully appreciate the experience, which would no doubt have caused quite a bit of envy amongst her colleagues. She shook herself free with some revulsion and stared at the bizarre couple that had entered: a young woman with the most garish outfit she had ever seen, and a set of seemingly independent plaits, bearing bruises and cuts all over her face and arms; and a tall man in a long black coat and sunglasses. It seemed that she had stepped into the pages of an extremely fashionable graphic novel.

Magatha Runs

2005-03-16T09:46:02Z

In a dark place, Magatha spat an angelic tooth into the hooded face in front of her. The hood sighed. ‘Why bother? Why waste your energy in anger? Why not accept the inevitable?’
‘I live in Heaven. I happen to know that nothing is ever inevitable,’ Magatha said. Her voice was raw and scratchy. It had been a rough night, to say the least, and she was in no way used to being at the mercy of humans. It got on her nerves, quite apart from the pain of the biting shackles, and the kicking, and the blades, and the vile, sour substances that had been poured down her throat at regular intervals. The creepy little hooded men had been scurrying in and out all night, bringing in various tools of interrogation, while the figure in front of her—some sort of chief apparently—hissed questions at her and inflicted pain in ways both innovative and brutally unoriginal.
The head hood crouched in front of her. Deep inside the cloak, Magatha glimpsed the faint outlines of a face. He picked up a bottle from the floor and unscrewed the cap. The angel winced. She knew what was coming. The hood reached out a hand and grabbed her nose. Magatha tried not to breathe: she’d never had to before, but tonight, for some reason, that didn’t work. Eventually she gasped, and the bottle was thrust between her lips. She gurgled and choked as what seemed to be a combination of vinegar and detergent poured down her throat. ‘Now,’ the hood whispered, ‘try again. What is your master up to?’
Magatha coughed, and threw her head forward, trying to strike him. The hood swayed back and clicked its tongue, before suddenly, violently, darting forward. The skull inside the hood crunched into Magatha’s nose. She tasted blood. She bit her lip and pushed her scream back down. It’s not that an angel doesn’t have a high pain threshold. It’s just that by all rights, they shouldn’t ever have to use it.
Fortunately, an angel who’s been around as long as Magatha has also learnt to rely on more than just divinity. For the last six hours or so, under cover of the noise of torture and the funereal lighting scheme, her hands had been working unobtrusively, keeping their movements small and inconspicuous, with the aid of a small file that she kept in a pocket on the inside of her sleeve for just a situation. Not that these situations arose often, but she did have an awful lot of pockets.
After all this time, with a strong wrist and, naturally, heavenly patience, the cuff on her left hand was just about worn through, and at the very moment that the whispering hood’s hand cut into her oesophagus, it clinked open. Magatha smiled at her captor through her choking. He seemed to notice, even in the shadows, and pulled back for a second.
‘What’s in your mind, godbotherer?’
Magatha leaned forward and murmured softly, ‘Don’t let your right hand know…what your left is doing.’
It was all a blur, but in less than a second the angel’s right arm had flashed up and around, the broken shackle had cracked across the hood, and the man had sprawled on the ground. Magatha reached into a larger pocket in her waistcoat and pulled out a surprisingly large hammer. Its head glowed yellow. She slammed it down between her feet and smashed the chain that held her ankles together. She brought it down again and shattered the last few links holding her to the dungeon wall. As the spluttering hood began raising itself back up, it was met by a very heavenly boot right in the mouth, and went back down like a sack of…well, mysterious hooded torturer.
The remnants of her chains clanking erratically, Magatha bolted towards what looked like an exit on the far side of the chamber. She grabbed the stone wall as she passed through the doorway and swung herself around to the left. She found herself looking down a long tunnel, a faint flicker of red light just visible on the end wall. She gritted her teeth and sprinted toward it.
As she neared the end of the corridor, two figures rounded the corner. They both wore the standard black hooded cloaks, and were carrying steaming coffee mugs. Apparently it was Secret Society Break Time. When they caught sight of the fugitive, they stopped and looked at one another. One of them looked frantically around the corridor, and, seemingly at a loss, threw his coffee at Magatha. She dodged with ease, and kicked him in the groin, with feeling. While the other man was staring in confusion at her, she slapped his arm, sending his coffee into his face. As he screamed and clutched at his scalded skin, she grabbed his doubled-over companion by the cloak and rammed his head into his partner’s midriff. They both went down in a painful tangle, and she darted round the corner.
Here Magatha was faced with a variety of doors and tunnels leading in various directions, and absolutely no indication as to which one, if any, might lead to the open air. Behind her and to the sides she began to hear shouting, and then running footsteps, and with a quick chew of her lip, chose a passage to her left that didn’t seem to be transmitting sounds of pursuit at this stage. Immediately her route became even more complicated, as she began zigzagging through the maze at random. As she panted around the stone corridors, she quickly realised that she had utterly no sense of what direction she was heading, no idea where she would even be if she got out, and no plan of action whatsoever.
‘Always the way,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Just when you desperately need an angel to appear, there’s never one around.’
She emerged into a large, round chamber, bare of any furniture or decoration, with a dozen passages radiating from it like bicycle spokes. She stopped and looked around, another completely uninformed decision looming. She sniffed, hoping against hope that a whiff of fresh air might reach her nostrils. She peered around. The room was dimly lit by three purple lights ranged around the wall. Each tunnel looked as black and featureless as all the others.
After a few seconds urgent thought, the noise of the chase once more reached her ears. Magatha hissed with frustration. She pulled two golden dice from her waistcoat and tossed them in the air. She looked down as they rattled on the stones. Nine. She counted from the passage directly in front of her, and made her move.
At that moment, the clamour of the mob roared, and the tunnel she was about to enter erupted with robes, flaming torches, and shiny knives. Magatha skidded, and turned, deciding that when being chased by a homicidal gang of subterranean lunatics, the very best direction to run in was the exact opposite to that which they were coming from. She dashed with all possible speed, on her aching legs, through Door Number Three.
Fifty feet into the passageway the light grew even dimmer, and Magatha quickly found herself running in the dark. She felt her arm scrape painfully against a wall. With her hands outstretched as she ran, she came up against cold stone. Turning to her left, she crashed straight into some more. Crossing her fingers with some discomfort, she spun to the right and found glorious space. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw flame in the background, and ran harder into the black.
Not too many scrapes later, Magatha thanked whoever could hear her as a faint light made its presence felt, illuminating a bend in the passage. Rounding it, she sighed with a kind of proto-relief.
In front of her was the end of a tunnel. Hanging on the wall was a steel ladder, reaching up through a round hole. Beyond the hole were the unmistakable yellow beams of early daylight. With the wild-eyed facial set of triumph, she leapt onto the bottom rung and gripped the sides of the ladder hard. Just as she began her ascent, a hard-fingered hand clamped onto her shoulder.
Not now. Magatha grunted angrily and hurled her head backwards, feeling the satisfying bony crunch and hearing the even more satisfying puppyish whimper as her assailant staggered backward. She felt another hand grab her from the side. She growled, and shook her head violently. Her trusty plaits whipped viciously into an unsuspecting face, and another hapless neophyte of whatever society this was recoiled. Magatha pulled herself up a few rungs.
When the third hand grabbed her waistcoat, she had had just about enough. In one movement, she lid back to the ground and spun, snarling. The hooded figure who had snatched at her, staggered back as she landed square on his sandalled foot. As he did so, his hood fell back. Magatha caught a brief glimpse of a surprisingly young boyish face, with pale eyes blinking at the sight of the fury of heaven. Only a glimpse, though, since it was but the work of a moment to draw back her fist and plant a truly sublime punch in the middle of his face. he reeled backward and fell on top of one of his comrades, himself still recovering from the reverse headbutt.
Magatha nodded with satisfaction and shot up the ladder. Just as she emerged, the short chain still dangling from her ankle was suddenly grabbed and pulled backward. She lurched, nearly fell, and made a dive out onto the surface, skinning her elbows on asphalt. The grip on her broken shackle shifted to her ankle itself, and despite her best efforts, she found herself being dragged despairingly back down… When, suddenly, her arm was also grabbed by someone with a firm grip. The hand on her ankle started to feel less powerful, as the mysterious force from above began hauling her in as efficiently as an ocean trawler. The underground hunter tried valiantly to keep his quarry in his keeping, but found himself sadly overmatched. Magatha felt her ankle come free, and in no time was standing on firm ground, squinting at the light and feeling wobbly. She looked up at her rescuer.
She saw a tall, dark-haired man in a long black coat and sunglasses, eyeing her seriously. ‘You all right?’ he said. Magatha stared at him and performed what passed for a nod. ‘I’m sure that whatever you were doing underground, and whatever made you so desperate to get out of there, and whatever was so desperate to keep you there, are powerful and important secrets,’ the man went on. ‘So I’ll respect what I expect are your wishes by becoming in no way involved. But it’d probably be impolite of me, having dragged you from the earth, not to at least see you get home,’ he looked at the bruises and wounds on Magatha’s visible portions, ‘or possibly to a hospital?’
Magatha was unsure how to respond. Her gratitude to this total stranger was in something of a competition with her urgent desire to leave him and rush to Ellis’s place this very instant. She cast around for a polite and delicate way of thanking somebody for saving your life while simultaneously telling them to leave you alone and running away. She opened her mouth to try. ‘I—’
The hole in the ground chose this moment to bring forth a black hood, quickly followed by a cloak and the man inside it. He clambered nimbly out of the street and stood before Magatha and her new friend. He was quickly followed by a friend of his own. The man in the coat shifted his shades down his nose and stared. He looked across at Magatha. Her mouth was still open from the beginning of her sentence. She flexed her lips a couple of times as if about to speak, but settled on shrugging.
‘So what’s this?’ the man said calmly. ‘Illuminating the sewers, are we?’
‘We’re taking her back down,’ snapped the first, and the second grabbed Magatha’s arm.
‘You could at least have changed into something more modern. You’re not in the Abbey now, you know.’
The one who’d spoken snorted, and stepped back toward the hole. His partner pulled Magatha in the same direction, and she pulled away with a grunt, only to be grabbed again.
The man in the coat sighed with exasperation, and stepped like lightning between the hooded man and the hole. ‘I don’t think,’ he said, sorrowfully lifting his knee hard into the other’s midsection, ‘that, actually, you are.’ The hood went down, and met an elbow on the way up. The zealot inside wheezed in pain, yelped in agony, and screamed in fear as the stranger took hold of his cloak and hurled him down the open manhole. He clucked his tongue and looked up. The man holding Magatha was staring in stunned, paralysed silence. Magatha took advantage of his shock to shake free, lash her lethal plaits across his windpipe, kick him in the stomach, and shove him toward her rescuer, who efficiently pounded the back of his head and sent him stumbling down the same way as his friend.
They stood on the pavement for a moment, the man shaking his head with disgust. ‘These religious types really piss me off,’ he muttered, then looked at Magatha. ‘So what’s your story?’ he asked. ‘Who are you?’
She looked him in the eye and had herself a think. The answer to those questions, she considered, could be quite complicated.

Ganging Up

2005-03-14T14:47:52Z

The instinct of the human male for chivalry is not, as it happens, a particularly strong one. Far more powerful is the instinct to appear chivalrous in public. In practice, both these urges often end up with the same result. These results could be of the positive, romantic variety, resulting in joyous unions and general smiliness in all directions, or of the less positive and more painful type, resulting in the kicking of shins or punching of noses, depending on who you’d offended with your misplaced gallantry. Unfortunately, as Ellis was now discovering, the same instinct could also, at times, result in finding oneself standing next to a trembling nun in the middle of a circle of savage and rather large ancient gods. Although, to be fair, the evolutionary process that had selected the chivalrous impulse as a desirable trait probably hadn’t factored that exact scenario into its equations.
He had rushed madly forward in an attempt to save the young nun now beside him from a grisly death, and was now realising he had no idea how to do this, and was more likely simply going to provide her with some company in mutilation. He gazed numbly at the frankly unbelievable faces snarling at him. Besides the man with the giant dog’s head—something akin to a Doberman, he thought, with a dash of Alsatian and perhaps a hint of every dog you’ve ever crossed the street to avoid—there was also an elegantly dressed, seven-foot-tall woman, or at least a woman’s body, topped off with the features of a gloriously maned lion, along with a broad-shouldered man covered in highly polished and nastily spiked armour and wielding what seemed to be at least fifteen assorted edged weapons.
The fourth member of the gang was something Ellis could not even process. It was sort of like a giant, savage bird…except that it was also exactly like a massive, rearing snake. It was like a crash between a truck full of vultures and an anaconda warehouse. The only way to describe it with any accuracy was to say that it was about eight feet of feathers, scales, fangs and beaks with an excessively unfriendly attitude.
The air was filled with growls, roars, hisses and clanks as the four creatures closed in. Ellis clenched his fists, and it struck him just how small they were. “Stay behind me,” he muttered to the nun.
‘What good will that do?’ she whimpered. Ellis looked behind him. Oh. Yes. Two in front and two behind.
‘Well…’ he said, ‘er…stay close to me then.’
‘Will that be safer?’
‘I don’t know. I thought it was a good thing to say.’ Ellis turned to get a good look at his new companion, but didn’t get to complete his glance. A noise to his left sparked an anonymous muscle into action, and he jerked his head downwards a sliver of a second before the armoured man’s double-headed axe came whistling through the air above it. He tried to leap back, stumbled and fell painfully but fortuitously on the pavement, as a huge broadsword came scything through the region that his stomach had recently occupied. The nun squealed and dropped to the ground beside him.
‘What are you doing?’ Ellis said.
‘I thought we were hitting the deck!’
‘No. I tripped.’
‘Oh, sor—look out!’ Both of them abruptly hurled themselves sideways, in opposite directions, as the feathered head of the snake-bird monster spiked down at them and crashed into the concrete. A splinter of fang ricocheted off Ellis’s cheek, and the beast shrieked like a fighter jet as it reared back up, its broken tooth growing back before their eyes. The lion-woman roared and lunged forward, clawed hands outstretched. Ellis’s stomach lurched. He threw a desperate foot up and somehow connected with the lion’s nose. The slender goddess yowled and rolled past him, grabbing its face. Ellis saw a spiked mace hurtling toward him. He swung his head sideways, feeling the fresh breeze of the swing, and scrambled back to his feet, dodging away out of the reach of the arsenal of steel, but unfortunately straight into the path of the feathered serpent. The snake-bird slithered forward slowly, and Ellis stepped back, mind buzzing with fear, into the midriff of the dogheaded god, who seized him in a steel grip and lifted him off the ground.
Ellis gasped as the huge hands squeezed him. He could feel it was only a matter of seconds before he heard the crunch of bones. The dogman spun him and he found himself looking into its face. The eyes gleamed with predatory joy. The enormous jaws opened, revealing rows and rows of dripping white razors. The thing barked, and Ellis’s head snapped back in the scorching gale as the harsh sound of raw ferocity echoed around the street. The hands squeezed tighter, and Ellis felt the breath leaving him. The teeth curved into an unspeakable canine smile that no man had ever seen on his best friend. The jaws widened and began to close around his neck…
There was a high-pitched scream, and Ellis tried to wrench his head around. He caught sight of the nun cowering on the ground, her habit in disarray. The lion-headed woman was holding her by the hair and raising an extremely wicked stone knife to the heavens. At the same moment Ellis felt the monstrous teeth prick his throat, the lion-goddess swung the blade downward in a vicious curve…
And just then, something exploded. Loudly. And the gang of killer gods stopped what they were doing, and turned, slowly, to look down the road in the direction Ellis had come from. The dog-god’s hands relaxed, and he crashed, spluttering, to the ground. The nun was released, and rolled frantically away from the maned face and the stone dagger. Both humans then looked up to see what was happening.
What they saw was that very special moment: the moment of transfer of terror. The horrifying monsters that had been just about to reduce them so a collection of constituent parts were frozen to the spot, staring at…
A wall of fire had erupted out of the street, licking at the sky and roaring up the walls of the apartment blocks. From out of the furnace stepped another monster. A huge monster. A hulking, towering, mass of red and black, flames flickering around its outline. Two great curved horns thrust upward from the thing’s head. In one hand it held a long three-pointed spear that blazed with dark fire like all the rest. Behind him a tail almost as long as the body lashed and cracked like a whip.
The thing opened a mouth of cosmic blackness, and roared. Ellis looked around in bewilderment, wondering why the street was still deserted in this commotion, and then looked back at the gods, who ere trembling as the roar blasted over them like a hurricane. The beast stomped forward, raised one burning arm and hurled its trident like a javelin. There was a hiss of pierced air, and then a crackling squelch as the three barbed tips went straight through the lion goddess. The knife clattered from her hand, and she screamed a scream to shatter a cathedral. She swayed, inhaled, and crumpled to the ground, before transforming into a cloud of smoke and floating into the early morning sky.
The fiery monster extended its other hand and sent an orb of flame rolling through the air. It struck the armoured god dead in the centre of his breastplate. His armour turned orange with the heat and he yelled with pain, even as he turned tail and bolted, trying to brush the fire from his hair.
The two remaining gods looked with fear into the flaring coals the beast used for eyes, and gave up. The dogheaded gentleman followed his friend’s example, and ran like hell in the other direction, yelping and whining like a kicked Pomeranian. The snake-bird shimmered, rustled, and simply disappeared.
In an instant, the street returned to normal. The flames were gone. Silence returned to her throne. Ellis stood up warily, feeling for broken bones, and looked at the buildings around him. Not so much as a scorch mark. The street was unscathed, which was more than he could say for himself, wincing as pain took advantage of the temporary vacation of fear to make him aware of the multitude of bruises inflicted by the fight.
Satan was in front of him, sauntering casually toward the humans, hands plunged deep into his coat pockets. He kicked away the stone dagger lying in his path.
“All right, Messiah?” he rumbled.
Ellis groaned as each of the dog-god’s finger prints throbbed on his arms. ‘Fine, thanks, yeah. That was you?’
The devil shrugged. ‘The job does bring with it certain talents.’
‘Couldn’t have stepped in a little earlier, could you?’
‘A big part of being the devil is being able to seize the moment of maximum drama,’ the big man said.
Ellis nodded. ‘Yes, that seems sickeningly consistent with the last twenty four hours. Can we go home now?’
‘What about her?’
Ellis looked in the direction he was pointing. The nun was sitting in the road a few metres away, eyes almost as wide open as her mouth, trembling and making the occasional little whimpering noise. ‘I suppose we should…take her in?’ he said.
They walked over to her. ‘Excuse me, miss…er…sister,’ Ellis tried. ‘Would you like to come in and…um…’ The woman didn’t even look at him. Her saucerised eyes remained gazing at where the wall of fire had been. She showed no indication of being aware that anyone was talking to her.
Satan sighed. ‘Can’t wait around in the open for her to pull herself together.’ With that, he scooped the little nun up and slung her over his shoulder. She didn’t seem to notice, as he strode toward Ellis’s building. ‘You coming?’ he said. Ellis shrugged, and followed.
It was five minutes later that the first ‘OH MY GOD!’ came floating out of the third-floor window.