The F Word (Mythklok, Chapter 78)
Title: The F Word (Mythklok, Chapter 78)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Gaming, a story, and a few departures.
Warnings: Nothing much. Maybe I should have added a sex scene?
Notes: After jump.
Mythklok: it's a floor wax and a dessert topping.
Last time: we learned that wings may be annoying and clutter is bad.
I haven't bored you with my dolls for a while. Here you go.
“Monstah!”
The sweet little eyes batted up at him over a pile of well-loved plush toys.
“You saw a monster?” asked Charles, yawning and quietly sliding over to sit on the edge of the bed so as not to disturb Ganesh, who was dozing nearby.
“Uh-huh!”
“Big monster?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Or little monster?”
“Uh-huh!”
“The monster was big and little?” asked Charles, the tiniest bit of prosecuting attorney creeping into his fatherly concern.
There was much nodding, and then the solemn raising of two small fingers.
“Ah, two monsters. Well, that'll do it.” He brought Elias up against his knees and put a hand through the perpetually tangled brown hair. “How about we do this? How would you - all you guys - like to get a piece of pie with Daddy now?”
There was a fury of nodding, to the extent that a plush toy or two were dislodged from the pile in Elias' small arms. Charles grabbed the errant toys, and, after grabbing his eyeglasses, led his son out to the kitchen. They then spent several minutes setting up everything just right, so no only he and Elias got their slices, but there were bits laid out for the rest of the menagerie. This was something that had been puzzling him. Since he was quite small, Elias had bedded down with his two favorite friends, Lelefun and Wunge. But just lately, he didn't seem to be able to doze off without half of FAO Schwarz arrayed around him.
And for the last few weeks, the boy had been waking and coming into his fathers' bedroom pretty much nightly, with reports of scary dreams. Charles didn't mind this - on the contrary, Elias was a little heat machine, so it made it terribly comfortable with winter approaching (although Ganesh had rather stared down his notion to tuck Elias into the foot of their bed to keep their toes warm, elephant gods, as it happened, being afflicted with chronically cold toes).
But Charles had managed rock musicians much too long to let the manifestation of a new eccentricity pass without notice, even if it was in a toddler instead of a bass guitarist. It could indeed be a series of bad dreams. Or it could be prophetic dreams. Or it could be … well, Charles recognized that he was probably the single poorest being on earth to explore such a concept as feelings, but he had a gleaning the answer lie somewhere along that road.
And, face it, he wouldn't really need to talk to Elias about the f-word stuff, as the kid just didn't know that many words yet.
Elias had gotten the table properly set, “An fo Lelefun, an fo Wunge, an fo Walligader, an fo Wockty...” But then the boy came up with one more empty plate than there were soft creatures. “Don't think we need this one,” Charles told him.
“Uh-huh!” Elias insisted.
Charles took the little plate and considered it. “You wanna wake up Baap?” he asked.
A head shake.
“Welllll. Who is it for? The monster?”
A determined head shake.
“Ok, baby, Daddy is a bit stupid. Will you just tell Daddy?”
Elias bit a lip, and then whispered something.
“What was that.”
“Pwate fo Kam.”
Eureka. It was like a jolt of electricity pounded through him. He was father of the year! Yes, Elias missed his tutor. Of course! The craftiest, most brilliant of the angels....
Elias choked a very tiny sob.
“Oh. Shit,” said Charles, abruptly pulling his teary-eyed son into his lap. “It's all right. It's OK. Daddy is gonna fix this. Right? 'Cause, that's what daddys do!” Substitute another tutor? No, probably not. What did the best dad in the world do? Wake up Ganesh to see what he said? No, wait, that was admitting defeat. He bounced Elias, rubbing the sweet spot on his back. “Hey, I know! We'll go visit Kam. Would you like that? We'll see Kam and Jyoti! Would that be fun?”
“Uh-huh.” The tears appeared to be subsiding, and now he was getting a sticky hug. Yes, problem solved. Though it was causing much mucus production. He leaned over and snatched a Kleenex out of the box. “OK, blow for me.” Elias snorted into the tissue, making the crockery on the table all rattle.
“You ready to go back to bed?”
The little eyes suddenly became bleary pools again. Charles' heart seized. Now what? “Da bie Dada!” Elias remarked, waving at the set places. “Gonna eat da nana cweem!”
“Oh, yeah, we gotta do something about this pie! OK, you start here,” he said, setting down Elias before a particularly large chunk of banana crème. Charles blinked in astonishment. His son had actually made him neglect a table laden with pie! The wonders of parenthood.
Ganesh stretched out on the living room couch, popping off his shoes, and draping his bare feet over one arm. He peered into the image on the electronic pad. Just pixels, he reminded himself.
It was a funeral pyre. Arrayed around the coffin were various hooded personnel mixed in with dignitaries. And in front, the members of Dethklok, looking fucking bloody miserable.
Including the saddest man in the world: Nathan Explosion. Ganesh's eyes kept being drawn back to the big man's face. He looked older. And utterly drained of hope.
“Fucking morbid.”
Ganesh stretched around to see Charles hovering over him.
“You never talk about this time,” Ganesh pointed out.
“Of course we never talk about that time! Fucking awful time.”
“Even your boys thought you were dead.”
“Human doctors are idiots. They're not hard to fool.”
“No,” said Ganesh, sitting up. “But, you had to leave your boys....”
“They were fine!” Charles snapped.
Ganesh blinked thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “I thought they nearly bankrupted the organization?”
“Everything was fine. It was all fine. Anyway. I had to leave. I knew it was him. I don't know how I knew, but I just knew.”
“He had actually changed his Court Form?”
Charles nodded. He was not in his winged form, but had he been, Ganesh suspected his wings would have sagged. “I don't know. We never change our Court Forms. Never. It's unheard of.”
“You don't talk about it.”
“I don't wanna talk about it! It's a disaster for us to try and talk about this stuff.”
“But you were the one who's been so insistent on declarations of love,” Ganesh teased.
“That's different!”
“How so?”
“If I'm gonna make an asshole of myself,” declared Charles, crossing his arms, “then so are you!”
Ganesh chuckled, and Charles suddenly found himself pulled down in the couch into many, many pairs of arms. “I love you I love you I love you,” Ganesh said, “Truly, madly, deeply, and with the greatest amount of assholery. There, is that an adequate declaration?”
“Maybe,” pouted Charles.
“WILL YOU GUYS QUIT DOING THAT IN PUBLIC!” thundered Nathan.
“Doing what?” grumbled Charles.
“Oh, don't worry Nathan!” Ganesh assured the singer. “I was only going to give him a very quick blow job and then set him back.”
“Oh, all right. Then that's.... Wait, THAT'S NOT GOOD, IN FACT, THAT'S BAD! Don't talk about blow jobs! And now you're making me talk about blow jobs!”
“We could chat about feelings,” laughed Ganesh.
“THAT'S EVEN WORSE!”
“Look, Nathan,” said Charles, extricating himself from many godly hands to stand up. “You know how many times I've had to pick my way through a dozen groupies just to find you somewhere in the mess?”
“So?” asked Nathan.
“Well! It's.... It's.... It's.... It's disrespectful! Of women!”
“Uh. What?” said Nathan.
“What?” repeated Ganesh, sitting up.
“The girls wanna be here,” rumbled Nathan.
“They don't know what they want!” said Charles. “They've been confused! By the patriarchy.”
“The what?” laughed Ganesh. “Sariel. Have you been talking to Breagan again?”
“What's the patriarchy?” asked Nathan. “Do they play speed metal?”
“I have to raise a son in this environment!” Charles raved. “What is he gonna think?”
“That sexual congress is natural and beautiful,” sighed Ganesh.
“Whaddya mean this environment?” asked Nathan. “I heard it's getting pretty fucking crowded in your bedroom lately, if you know what I mean!”
“What?” said Charles. “It's just a sex god. And sometimes a death metal musician!”
“You know,” said Ganesh, “I wouldn't really characterize my role as 'sex god.' Although the notion is rather flattering.”
“If you were gonna stop foolin' around, you were gonna take me to see.... You know....” Nathan trailed off.
“OK,” said Charles. “You ready?”
“What? Right now? Why are you rushing me!” whined Nathan.
Charles and Ganesh grinned at one another.
“A million billion years ago, earth was invaded by the evil space tyrant, PORKU!” intoned the deep-voiced narrator.
“Is there gonna be Facebones on this?” Nathan whispered to Charles as they and a few dozen others sat in folding chairs, watching the scratchy film unspool in the middle of the dreary conference room.
“Uh, I don't think so Nathan,” Charles told him.
“That's too bad. I fucking love Facebones.”
“In those days, earth was known as Oiiiiiiiiiink.”
“I'm bored,” said Nathan.
“We can go for ice cream afterwards.”
“Porku trapped the souls of 75 billion people, using only propylene glycol and maple syrup.”
“Cool. 'Cause I'm getting HUNGRY.”
“These souls were delivered by space Deloreans and gathered around hog farms, where they were blasted apart by mighty volcanos!”
“Ooo. That was pretty cool!” said Nathan, pointing at all the explosions now happening onscreen.
“Yes, that is pretty cool.”
“And that is how the Bacans were created!”
“Could we go out and maybe get an omelette or something instead of ice cream?” Nathan suggested.
“Nathan, didn't you wanna talk first?”
“Talk about what?” asked the singer. The film had ended, and the lights were turned on to reveal a rather anonymous looking meeting room.
“Talk to her,” said Charles, gesturing up to the podium.
“Talk to who?” asked Nathan. He peered up to the stage, as his eyes slowly adjusted to the light. There was a rather severe looking woman taking the podium. She wore no makeup, and her dark hair was fixed at the nape of her neck in a tight bun.
“Haf you learned da truth about hok vat?” she intoned.
“Holy shit,” said Nathan. “Lavona?”
“Ve vill send around da muditers, to scan you for Bacans!”
“Chaaaaarles. Can we get those omelettes. Noooow?”
Nathan paused outside the building. It was one of the ugliest in west Lost Angeles. Which was itself not the most beautiful of metropolitan areas.
“You were tracking her, weren't you?” Nathan demanded.
Charles sighed. “I'd like to tell you that I was. Actually, I spotted her when Boon and I went to talk to Rikki Kixx.” The two men began to walk away from the building. “He's gotten big into Baconology. I mean, literally, big.”
“We gotta get her out of there! That religion is batshit!”
“I think it's more hog shit. But, yeah.”
“We gotta help her! We should get her out.”
“Nathan,” sighed Charles, “she wants to be there. Even you gotta admit, she has a tendency to follow … charismatic leaders.”
“Charles!”
“Nathan! You never even told me why the fuck you wanted to see her. She tried to....” Charles pulled Nathan around the corner so the two men stood in an alleyway, away from the street. “She tried to fucking rape you! And maybe kill you! Now, I have one job, and that's protecting your ass, whether or not you wanna be protected! I showed her to you, you know what I know, you know she's OK. I need some answers if you want anything else,” he concluded, poking Nathan in the chest with an index finger.
Nathan glowered, and Charles glowered back. And so they stood for a while.
“Look. It was like.... I can't explain it. It was like... Up on the roof? With the building burning down and all around us? We SHARED A MOMENT.” Nathan looked wistful. “I mean,” he continued, “before she kneed me and Toki hit her with a bottle.”
“You shared a moment?”
“Don't say it like that! Geez. It sounds stupid when you say it like that,” Nathan complained.
“OK. OK. Tell me some way to say it where it doesn't sound stupid!”
“Don't be a prick for once Charles. I mean, you got someone. You got two now! And you got the kid.”
Charles paused, his expression softening. “Nathan. Is this about Boon?”
“You got a kid,” Nathan muttered, suddenly finding something very interesting on the ground to toe with his boot.
“You could have a kid. I mean, some day. You'd probably be better at it than I am.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. Sure. I suck.”
“You don't suck!”
“You have no fucking clue. They cry, and you don't have any fucking idea. Or you wanna do something, and they need to go potty, or they suddenly have to be in your lap. And the worst thing is: he likes me! Even though I'm the worst father in the fucking universe.” And then he let out a long breath, having no fucking clue why he'd just told this to Nathan Explosion, of all people.
But he pressed on, regardless. “Boon misses Kam, Nathan. The guy has been caring for Boon since we got him. But Kam's been busy, up at Ganesh's place, since he adopted the baby. And I didn't even notice. I don't know how such a big thing could slip by me. An obvious thing!” The wind was chill, even in the alleyway, and he pulled his coat tighter around himself.
Nathan was scowling at him. “So. He was upset. And you figured it out?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“So. Everything's cool?”
“Well....”
“So is there any way to get her out of there?”
Charles blinked at the sudden conversational lurch, but quickly recovered.. “Look, Nathan, like I said. She wants to be there. We could physically transport her somewhere, but convincing her to give up Baconology, that's something different.”
“Why don't we take her to your kid?”
“Uh. What?”
“Boon could do the thing where he says your name and you get to start over!”
“Where you get to.... What? Nathan, that's not how it works!”
“Why not?”
“Boon doesn't have magical powers!”
“Uh. Yes he does,” said Nathan.
Charles stood regarding his lead singer.
“Checkmate huh?” grinned Nathan.
“Yeah. Look. Lemme think about this one, OK?” asked Charles.
“OK,” said Nathan, grinning in triumph.
“Just promise me, Nathan,” said Charles as they returned to the street. “Don't do anything until I give the OK!”
“WOULD I DO THAT?” asked Nathan.
Charles sighed.
“You talked to your kids?” Charles asked Raziel as they Walked towards Ganesh's residence.
“I've threatened severe pie restrictions,” laughed Raziel. Charles' frown only deepened. “Look, even if they don't listen to me, they listen to your kid. Don't worry.”
“That's my job,” said Charles.
“Hello, everyone,” said Kam as the all arrived in the living room. He was smiling, as he was always smiling, but really looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
“KAM!” squealed Elias, who immediately went to glomp the Cherub.
“Well look at you, Boonie!” said Kam. His smile broadened as he lifted up the child. “You've gotten HUGE! You're big as a Seraph!”
“I hope not,” sighed Charles, regarding his weeping son and feeling excessively guilty all over again.
“Have you slept at all the past month?” asked Wotan, as his own children held fast to his great hands.
“Teething,” sighed Kam.
“That will do it,” smiled Ganesh.
“A little whiskey, that's what works!” laughed Wotan.
“Wotan!” said Raziel.
“Not for the child, for him!” said Wotan.
“Would you like to see him?” Kam asked Elias as he set him down. The boy nodded. “All right, you come with me to get him.”
Charles noticed Ganesh had collapsed into one of the couches without even bothering to take off his coat. Charles sat down next to him. “I miss being up here,” Ganesh said to no one in particular.
“We could come back up sometimes.”
“I do not think that a good idea, not with our little disruption,” Ganesh smiled.
“Oooooo!” said the twins, who suddenly rushed over to surround Kam. With Elias pattering at his heels, the Cherub had returned, cradling a dark-haired infant, who was peering curiously at the assembled crowd.
Abby stuck out her arms. “No,” Elias told her. “Siddown da baby!” Abby then wriggled up onto one of the couches, and Kam carefully place the infant in the dark-haired girl's arms.
“Was Boon ever that small?” Charles asked Ganesh. Ganesh was rubbing a hand down his back, just where his wings would be, and Charles found he had no motivation to get up.
“Yes, in fact, he was.”
“Pway?” asked Liam, who was holding out an alphabet block towards the baby.
“No, no bwock,” Elias told him.
“No, I fear he cannot read yet, Master Liam,” Kam told him.
Raziel, who was also hovering nearby, said, “You guys could sing to him. He might like that.”
“Sind? Uh-huh, Mummy!” said Liam. He looked up at his sister, and they both started to sing, “Twinkle twinkle liddle staw....”
Charles jerked forward, absolutely mesmerized. The children had the voices of children, but unlike any other tiny children, they sang in perfect harmony, and perfectly in key. Jyoti smiled and began to contentedly suck a thumb. Elias' eyes grew as wide as saucers as he listened to his cousins.
“That's … astonishing,” said Ganesh when they finished.
“Isn't that cool?” asked Raziel. “I can't carry a tune in a bucket!”
“I had never heard such a thing,” Kam admitted.
“Been able to do it since before they were born,” laughed Wotan, beaming with pride.
After a time, the children began playing on the floor, Jyoti sitting rather contentedly in their midst.
“Anybody for a cigar?” Wotan asked Charles, waving a fragrant cuban at him. Charles slid his eyes around to Ganesh, who grinned and shrugged. Charles followed the broad-shouldered Norse god and his stogies outside to a patio. To Charles' surprise, Wotan first stopped and muttered an incantation. “To keep the chill off,” he explained. Charles accepted a light, but asked no more about it, and they smoked in silence for a time.
“Would be interested a story?” Wotan asked.
“From you?” asked Charles, suddenly jerked from his reverie. “Definitely. Is this an oldie?”
“No, more middling, as far as we're concerned. And I have only just recently been made aware of it.”
Charles exhaled. The tobacco was intoxicating. Such a rich feeling in his lungs.
Wotan was eyeing him shrewdly. Charles hopped up to sit on the balustrade. “OK,” he said. “Let's hear it.”
So many colors.
Colors everywhere. Beautiful colors. Vibrant crazy.
Maren, lying on her back beneath the tree, looked up into the dappled sun, staring between her fingers.
The others couldn't see the sweet colors. How could that be? Why could that be?
They said she was slightly mad.
What did they know?
“Can you hear the colors, Maren?”
How had he gotten there? Lovely man, beautiful man. Skin so white it was blue, like ice on a lovely mountain lake, yellowy-green hair, her peacock parrot man, couldn't be just one.
“Hear the colors? You're crazier than me! My lovely man. My parrot peacock man.”
“Come here. Just here,” he instructed, getting up on his knees. He held out white hands - chalk white bone white milk white cream white - and she took them up.
“Just close your eyes. Just relax.”
And she batted her eyes closed and thought of rainbows and sherbet and lovely ribbons.
It was like an ache in her heart. A place she didn't know she had inside. A shape that didn't exist.
Her eyes jerked open, and the lovely place was gone. She felt cold. She reached out her hands again. She hadn't ever known she needed it before.
“Would you like to hear it again, Maren? Would you like to hear the angels sing?”
Wings were flapping. Green and gold. Green and gold.
Uriah frowned. Powers. He had never trusted them. And why hadn't this one Court Formed? Gaudy idiot. Reminded him of Sariel. The little traitor.
“Humans,” the angel was musing. “So frail. So fragile.”
“You didn't break her, did you?” Uriah grumped.
“I don't understand. What was the point?”
This one, he would have to be taken care of. Too curious. Yes, very like Sariel. “You were given your orders. Yours is not to question. Yours is to follow.”
“What of the babe? What of Anja?”
“The point is not the babe, but beyond that,” grumbled Uriah, who immediately regretted being so forward. Yes, like Sariel. Maybe he would have a bit of fun getting this little Power bastard out of the way. No one could begrudge him a bit of fun.
“Maren is sweet.”
“Some things should not be sweet. They are not meant to be.”
And Uriah eyed the Power, its strange parroty wings flapping, imagining now. Green and gold. Green and gold. Green and gold.
And red.
Charles flinched.
Ashes from the cigar had burnt his hand. He hurriedly tapped it on the porch railing, and watched the glowing flakes fall.
“This was from our friends? The, uh, collectors?” he asked.
Wotan nodded at him.
“Norwegian again?”
“A mixture. Angelic as well.”
“So Ganesh was right.”
“Apparently.”
Charles took a drag on his sadly neglected cigar. Too many questions. “I need.... I need to think this one over.”
Wotan nodded. “I am going to repeat the incantation. After that, this conversation did not happen. It will have been erased. You will remember?”
“Oh, fuck yeah, I'll remember,” said Charles, biting his lip. “One thing, is there anyone else who knows?”
“My lady wife. Who translated much of this. And her father.”
Charles frowned. “Phan.... Oh! You don't think...?”
Wotan shrugged. “Anything is possible. There have been significant recent additions to his population. We are making inquiries.”
“OK.”
Wotan repeated his charm, and the two headed back inside, where it had gotten a bit noisier. While the children played on the floor, Raziel chatted with Ganesh. And Kam, sprawled on one of the couches, snored like a rattling chainsaw.
“I think I'm gonna send down one of my people to help out,” laughed Raziel.
“Were we like this?” Charles asked, standing over the dozing Cherub.
“Yeah, you guys were exactly like that,” said Raziel. “But, you got better. Well. A little better.”
“This is sweet!”
“I've been at this a long time, darlin'.”
Charles looked around at the various monitors and high tech security equipment Breagan had set up around her temporary living area in Mordhaus. “Ganesh was right,” he said approvingly. “You are even more paranoid than me.”
Breagan laughed. “Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment,” she said, playfully batting away his finger from one of her keyboards. “But here is what I wanted to show ya,” she said, pointing to a monitor.
Charles squinted. It looked familiar. And then he noticed the smoking foundation of what used to be a rather large dwelling. “The Dunkelhoff manor! How the hell did you find a camera out there?”
“We're not the only sorts as are paranoid. I'm thinking the Dunklehoffs had it installed. Originally at least. Keep watchin'.”
As they stared at the screen, Charles became aware of some movement. Black shapes.
“Those aren't deer,” he said, hunching over towards the screen.
“The camera doesn't pick up magical traces, but I believe they're human,” said Breagan. Charles looked at her questioningly. “Further, I believe them to be military men.”
“That was quick,” said Charles.
“Right quick, but a bit too slow,” said Breagan.
“Are we ready?” asked Raziel, who had just burst into the room along with Ganesh, who was trailing along with Elias.
“Mmmm,” grumbled Charles.
“C'mon, Sariel! You promised!”
“Can't you guys just go without me?” he asked. “I'm not the gaming type.”
“Aw! Don't be a stick in the mud!”
“I would consider it a personal favor,” said Breagan.
Charles eyed the red haired goddess. “OK, you give me some more time on your monitors when we finish?”
“As much time as you wish, darlin',” she laughed.
“Told you he was paranoid,” sighed Ganesh.
“I am Skwisgaar! I am tall and terribly handsome!”
“Yeah, that's a real stretch for you, uh, 'Skwisgaar.'”
“I'm Nathan! I'm big and metal and awesome!”
“I don't remember Nathan bouncing up and down on his toes so much.”
“Come along now, Sariel. Let us get into the spirit of things.”
“Yeah, be a sport, Sariel. Besides, Breagan requested that we test out the microphones!”
There was a heavy virtual sigh. The Skwisgaar and Nathan avatars stood patiently waiting, occasionally blinking their eyes in a realistic fashion.
The dreadlocked avatar frowned. “I am Pickles the drummer. I am cool.”
Skwisgaar and Nathan stared a moment more across the electronic landscape.
“Uh. Dude.”
Nathan produced a rather un-metal giggle. “I wanna punch something! Let's go look for something to punch!” said the lead singer, bounding off.
“She makes a rather enthusiastic Nathan,” Skwisgaar confided to Pickles.
“This is fucking weird,” grumbled Pickles.
“Wouldn't Pickles be rather tickled by the unusual and exotic?”
“I dunno. Maybe I shoulda played Toki.”
“You will be fine. Now, let us ams finds the lavabuzzle fields!” Skwisgaar chuckled.
“You better not let him hear you say that,” warned Pickles, wishing for a virtual cigarette. Could you get virtual lung cancer? he wondered.
He had to admit, the landscape was incredible. They were now walking through some kind of spooky canyon. The real Nathan would have liked it: there were rotting corpses of horrible monsters here and there. Presumably, in normal game play, you would have spent some time defeating them, but Breagan had wanted them to hasten along to test out the lava field, where apparently they were having persistent problems with bugs. Not crawling bugs, though Nathan would have probably liked that as well, but rather glitches in the game play.
The game itself appeared stunning. He could not only see the defeated monsters, he could smell the decaying tissue, as he could hear the gravel softly crunching under his feet and feel the light breeze on his face. He could see why, as Breagan suspected, the military had developed an interest in the virtual reality technology, although he couldn't work out why they might have employed such a clumsy way to steal it.
Uriah, he reminded himself with a mental sigh.
“Hey guys I can see the lava field!” sang Nathan.
“Nathan, you gotta quit that fucking skipping!” groused Pickles.
“You're Pickles, you're supposed to be cool!” giggled Nathan, oddly taking up Pickles by the arm.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Now, our task is to proceed with all haste through that bubbling lava field,” explained Skwisgaar.
“Is there a point to all this?” asked Pickles.
“I'm not gonna answer unless you play!” Nathan teased.
“Is there a fucking point to this? Dude,” asked Pickles.
“To get to the other side!” said Nathan. “I wish I'd brought a scrunchie for my hair,” he said, fussing with his long black tresses.
“Nathan would not wear a scrunchie,” said Pickles as Nathan tucked his hair into a quick topknot.
“All right, let us away!” said Skwisgaar, who began to stride gracefully among the molten lava pools and bubbling lava geysers.
“Cool! Awesome! Metal!” announced Nathan, bouncing after him.
“OW! Gods damn it!” screamed Pickles. “That hurt!” He was hopping up and down after he had set his foot too close to a lava geyser and gotten splashed.
“It is supposed to be realistic,” Skwisgaar told him.
“This is why I fucking hate long hair! I can't see anything with all these fucking braids hanging in my face,” Pickles groused. “How the hell does he get anything done all day?”
“What does Pickles have to do?” giggled Nathan.
“Wish I could fucking fly across this shit,” said Pickles, as he once again narrowly avoided being splashed with bubbling lava.
“Have you tried your power ups?” suggested Skwisgaar, who was shielding himself from a lava waterfall with his guitar.
“Hey, that's an idea,” said Pickles. He stood trying to push up nonexistent eyeglasses for a moment, trying to recall what Breagan had told him, and then shouted, “Metal Octo-Power!”
The world started spinning.
“Whoa!” he screamed, abruptly sounding quite Pickles-like. He found himself wishing he had tried out this stunt somewhere the gameplay was not lined with molten lava. But he steeled himself (which was not easy, as his avatar currently had no bones) and set himself flying in the general direction of the end of the lava field. And, he hoped, safety.
He ended up somehow colliding with a rock. Thinking quickly, he wrapped his tentacles around it, and the crazy forward motion was arrested. And then, just as abruptly, the power up evidently ended, and he was back to Pickles form, clinging, on his belly, to a rocky outcropping at the end of the lava field.
“That was impressive!” called Skwisgaar, who was still in the middle of the field.
“Do that again!” yelled Nathan.
“Absofuckinglutely not,” Pickles yelled back. “Dudes.” He awkwardly scrambled to a sitting position. He seemed no worse for wear, though he still felt a bit of vertigo, which was bizarre, as he didn't think he had ever experienced vertigo before.
“Shall we try out our power ups as well?” inquired Skwisgaar.
“Sure! That would be a brutal thing to do!”
“All rightie,” said Skwisgaar, taking his Gibson Explorer in hand. He windmilled a chord, while shouting, “METAL GUITAR POWER!”
The hot lava began to bubble, and suddenly, there were lava fountains drizzling in the middle of several of the pools.
“That might not have been a great idea,” taunted Pickles, safe on his rock outcropping.
But the the lava fountains began to sparkle, and then suddenly they coalesced into lovely curvaceous female forms, who all darted around Skwisgaar.
“Lave nymphs?” asked Nathan. “Is there even such a thing?”
“This game is targeted at adolescent males,” laughed Skwisgaar. The nymphs flitted around him, giggling, and then began to kiss him.
“Why the hell does he rate lava nymphs! Why didn't I get octo-nymphs?” wailed Pickles.
“Because this game is rated PG,” Nathan reminded him.
“Well, thank you, you are terribly lovely as well!” Skwisgaar told the giggling nymphs. “Oh, is that for me?” he asked, as one of them as they presented him with a silver amulet of some kind. “I don't suppose you also have it in gold? That rather goes better with this outfit.”
“Shaddap, Skwisgaar,” said Nathan. “It's a power up!'
“Well, just the tiniest bit tacky,” whispered Skwisgaar, as a giggling lava nymph slipped the amulet over his head. “I'll have to chat with Breagan about that. Oh, yes, thank you kindly!” he added as the nymphs blew him little kisses. And then they all slipped back into the pools.
“Yeah, well, you DUDES are still stuck in the middle of the fucking lava!” Pickles yelled at them.
“Not for long!” vowed Nathan. He stood, hands on hips. “All right, get ready, you fuckers. BRUTAL METAL VOICE!” And then he screamed a great rock and roll scream. It was definitely brutal, every bit as awesome as Roger Daltry's Won't Get Fooled Again scream, and as electric as Paul McCartney's scream from Hey Jude, as deranged as Joe Cocker's scream from With a Little Help from My Friends. It echoed for a long time down the canyon.
And then then there was silence. The lava had stopped bubbling, because there was not more lava. It had all been turned to dust by Nathan's awesome metal scream.
“That was so cool!” gushed Nathan. “I've always wanted to be able to sing.”
“That wasn't exactly singing,” snarked Pickles as he met up with them on the far side of what had once been a lava field.
“Well, that was satisfying, if unproductive,” said Skwisgaar.
“We beat the lava field!” protested Nathan. “It was so cool!”
“Yes, but Breagan had requested we search out programming bugs in this area. We don't seem to have encoutered any,” said Skwisgaar.
“Maybe now!” said Nathan. “Do you hear? They're playing boss music!”
“Well, this will be interesting,” said Skwisgaar.
“Hey, where's my sword?” asked Nathan, looking at the disappointing weapon that had appeared in his hand.
“This is a death metal game. You get a microphone,” laughed Pickles.
“Oh, wait! There he is! Emerging from the fire swamp!” said Skwisgaar, pointing off in the distance.
It was indeed a terrifying boss that now towered over them, scowling viciously through oddly glassy eyes.
And wearing a bright red tie.
“THAT ISN'T FUNNY!” declared Pickles. But his comment was lost on his fellow warriors, who had literally fallen to their virtual knees with helpless laughter. “Breagan thinks this is funny! But it's not!” he fumed.
“It's a boss!” hooted Nathan, slapping Pickles on the back.
But then the fire swamp boss had doffed his red tie and began to swing it like a lasso. It whipped out and caught Skwisgaar, who was still chuckling, but the ankle, and then swung him up overhead.
“SARIEL! Help me!” he screamed.
“Who's laughing now,” grumbled Pickles.
“SARIEL!”
“I'm Pickles,” Pickles pointed out.
“Look, here's what we'll do,” said Nathan, suddenly making an aside to Pickles.
“Oh, no, I'm even worse flying in this state than I usually am!” protested Pickles.
“SHHHH!”
“Will YOU two PLEASE hurry UP?” gasped Skwisgaar, as he swung helplessly overhead.
“Octo-Pickles power,” muttered Pickles. And then he was in his cephalopod form, flying at the terrible boss. He managed to grab on to the head, where he managed to get several tentacles around the monster's eyeglasses and pull them off. The boss grabbed for them, in the process, letting the red tie and Skwisgaar slip from his claws. OctoPickles wriggled free.
“AWESOME METAL VOICE!” thundered Nathan, who then toppled the blinded monster with a rather throaty growl. Skwisgaar, who had somehow landed on his feet, grabbed off the red tie, and soon had the boss around the throat with it where, with a great tug, he managed to break its neck.
'Hey, now we finally know how to defeat you!” said Nathan, as Pickles returned to his human form. He glanced at the giant eyeglasses in his hands, and tossed them away.
“OK, what now?” asked Pickles. “I got stuff to do in reality today.”
“Where does your job ever have to do with reality?” giggled Nathan. “You know, that frown does not look good on Pickles!”
“Oh, look here!” said Skwisgaar. The dead boss had begun to tremble, as if in a Ganesh-induced earthquake. And then it wavered, and became insubstantial.
And soon there was nothing left but a small box.
“This is all we get after all that! Lame. Dude,” said Pickles.
“Hey, it's got a keyhole!” said Nathan. “Try your amulet, Skwisgaar.”
“Oh, I believe you're right. Well, it wasn't terribly appealing anyway,” said Skwisgaar. He slotted his magic amulet into the box's keyhole, where of course it fit perfectly.
Sweeping music began.
“This is gonna be good!” said Nathan.
And then, everywhere, stars.
“Ooo, pretty!” gushed Nathan.
It was one of the lava nymphs, only many times larger than those beings had appeared back at the lava pits.
She looked at them.
“Crozier knows,” she said, in a voice that echoed everywhere.
The players exchanged a nervous virtual glance.
“About what?” said Pickles. “Crozier knows about what?”
“Crozier knows about the Old Ones,” said the Nymph.
And then with a great shower of glitter, she was gone.
“Skwisgaar has left the game,” said a voice. And then there were two of them standing there. Pickles tore off his own glasses. He was Charles, back in Mordhaus. Ganesh was standing, holding Breagan, who had been observing them, by the shoulders. Sitting beside her, with Elias playing quietly in his lap, was a very confused looking Kevin the video game dude.
Charles looked to the side, where Raziel had just removed her own VR glasses.
“I was wrong,” Breagan was telling Ganesh. She looked heartbroken. “Oh, twas my ego. I was so wrong.”
“Breagan,” said Charles.
She looked up at him. She was blinking back tears. “I thought the military sorts wanted it for the virtual reality. Ain't that.”
“It's a prophecy machine!” said Raziel.
“I need to go. Now,” said Ganesh, tossing aside his VR glasses and striding out of the room.
“Not without me you're not,” said Charles, tearing after him.
“Then keep up.”
“Raziel. You'll watch Boon? Please?” Charles called over his shoulder.
“I'll bring him up to visit his cousins,” said Raziel. “You'll like that?” she asked Elias.
“Uh-huh!”
And Charles was off.
Ganesh wasn't careful. He just appeared at the rental car desk. The attendant frowned, but probably put it down to a hangover. Charles didn't bother to quarrel over who got to drive. He had never much cared for right-hand drive anyway.
You couldn't Spirit Walk to where the Old Ones had their cottage. Neither of them had been able to figure it out, and even Wotan had been puzzled by it. “Some old magic, I'll reckon,” he had told them. And they had let it go at that. But it meant more delay. Ganesh was weaving in and out of traffic, and then off the motorway, to the lonely highway, pulling up in the dark, off the side road, you wouldn't think you were there, but then suddenly, you were in sight of the Old Ones' great cottage.
Only today, tonight....
Ganesh stopped the car, and Charles was out.
There was no smoking foundation. There had never been a foundation. At least, there was no sign of one. No giant-sized elephant house, no garden, not even really a drive, just the end of the road.
Charles looked back at Ganesh, who was leaning against the rental car.
“Did they leave before the army got here?” Charles asked.
“Perhaps,” said Ganesh. “Or perhaps … they were never here at all.”
“Of course there were here! You were here! Twice! I was here. Our kids were here!”
“I wouldn't be so certain.”
“We have photos.”
“Do we?” Charles stared at Ganesh, who reached into his coat pocket for his phone. He thumbed something, and passed it to Charles.
“Blurry photos,” said Charles, browsing through the onscreen stack. He recognized a glimpse of his son, and images of the other children. But there were no Old Ones, and no trace of their house could be detected.
“I thought it was a malfunction in the camera mechanism, but Lady Raziel experienced exactly the same phenomenon,” Ganesh told him.
Charles cradled the phone in his hands. “It's not possible. Boon rode on their back.” He heard the intake of breath, and watched as Ganesh, back against the car, slid down to a crouch, head in hands. He walked over, and then sat down next to Ganesh. He tentatively reached out a hand, and then rubbed it on Ganesh's shaking back, up and down.
Ganesh, tear-streaked face, was now looking at him. “Sariel,” he whispered. “Are you trying to rub my wings?”
“Uh. Maybe,” said Charles, suddenly self-consciously withdrawing his hand. And then he felt himself enveloped in a multi-armed embrace.
“All rightie,” said Ganesh, pulling him up and opening the car door. “We need to get back.”
“Can I drive?”
“Right hand drive? Certainly not! Go! Scoot into the passenger seat like a good angel.”
Charles jumped into the passenger side and then skillfully slid over behind the wheel. “You left the keys!” he said, firing up the car.
“Sariel!”
“Better get in, I'm not sure I can stop it!” Ganesh leapt into the car after Charles. Before he could even secure the doors, they were off in a squeal of tires.
Charles felt Ganesh reaching over for something beside the tub. He turned his head, wriggling into a bit more comfortable position against the elephant god. Really, in the warm water like this, sitting between Ganesh's long legs, there really was no uncomfortable position. Ganesh had grabbed a joint and was fishing for his lighter.
“Is this a no smoking room?” Charles muttered. After they had dumped the rental car they had neither one felt quite like going home, and so ended up with no luggage in a rather expensive suite at a swank London hotel. It had one of those old fashioned clawfoot bathtubs, one you could fill up and water would go all the way up to your chest.
“This isn't a cigarette,” said Ganesh, offering it to Charles.
“That isn't from Pickles is it?”
“It is, in fact.”
“Ganesh...”
“We are nowhere near Boon, and I feel I need this right now.”
Charles shrugged and took a drag, making himself comfortable on Ganesh's chest.
“I am an idiot,” sighed Ganesh, a hand stroking Charles' stomach.
“How so?”
“The Old Ones. I had so much I needed to know! My origins. My purpose.”
“And, how do you know they woulda given you a straight answer?” asked Charles, roach gripped between his teeth.
“Well. That's fair. It is simply that, I have heard so many conflicting stories....”
“My mom and dad were tricked into having me to kill the Creator,” snapped Charles, twisting partially around. “You see how that one worked out?”
Ganesh sighed, watching smoke billow. “It would have been good to know. For Boon.”
“Boon gets to be what he wants. I'm damn well not having it dictated by a buncha imaginary elephants.”
“I don't think they were imaginary. Perhaps they were curious about us. As curious as we were about them....”
Charles wriggled some more. “Ganesh, I gotta talk to you about something. Wotan had a bit more of the notebook for me.”
“Yes? The, er, gentlemen we tidied up for?”
“Something unexpected. SomeONE unexpected.”
Ganesh tightened his grip around Charles. “I don't think I have to ask who.”
“I can't think straight-”
“You won't need to. We'll think it through. Both of us.”
Charles shifted uncomfortably. “Anyway, we gotta get back,” he choked, his eyes getting a bit blurry. “I wanna talk to Breagan.”
“Sariel. You realize, don't you, you will not be able to speak to Breagan?”
“What? Why the hell not? She works for me!”
Charles looked around the room. All of the security equipment, the various hard drives and monitors, were still there, still throbbing with life.
There was a single yellow sticky note on the largest monitor. “S. For keeping watch. With my compliments. -B.”
“She's gone?” said Charles.
“Yeah, right after you dudes split, Big B said she needed to go out for some smokes,” said Kevin. “Which was kinda weird, because, you know, she doesn't smoke!”
“But the game....”
“She left all her notes and everything! We're good for a release!” said Kevin. Charles nodded, and Kevin wafted out of the room.
“It's what she does, Sariel,” said Ganesh.
“Leave without fucking notice?” asked Charles, annoyed that his eyes were wet.
“Yes.”
Charles was silent for a moment. “I could find her. You know. I can do stuff like that.”
“Perhaps,” said Ganesh. “Or, perhaps not. Do you reckon what you intend to do with her game?” he asked. Charles looked at him sadly. “I imagine we'll need to keep it under lock and key?”
Charles stared at the security monitor for a long moment. “No,” he said finally. And then more determinedly, “No.”
Ganesh cocked his head.
“We're gonna.... We're gonna distribute it. To everybody. For free. I mean, give it away. Give it away.”
“Really?” asked Ganesh, his lovely eyes narrowing. “Even with the prophetic component?”
“Good! That's good. We'll pack it with the new album. Uriah wanted to control it? OK. See how he likes it when there's a prophet on every street corner.”
“My man of the people,” smiled Ganesh. He suddenly frowned and grabbed a vibrating phone from his jacket pocket. “Raziel! Yes! Does he need to say night-night? Oh. He didn't- Oh! Artistic differences? Well. Wait one moment, we'll straighten this out.” Ganesh set the phone down on a table. “Er. I guess our young artist has been adding his own special flair to the halls of Valhalla. One wall in particular.”
“Oh, crap, another mural?” asked Charles. “I thought we talked with him.”
“Well, he is two. He probably has more or less the attention span of Nathan Explosion. At any rate, according to Raziel, Wotan is excited about the work, but has some suggestions regarding the, er, stylistic components.” Ganesh hit the speaker button on his phone.
“Cwassika an tiwed, Wunky Wote!” came Elias's voice.
“I'm just not in the mood for modern nonsense!” boomed Wotan's voice.
“Uhhh, my kid doesn't like working in classical style, Wotan,” supplied Charles.
“But it served for millennia!”
“Da cwishay, Wunky Wote!”
“It is a bit overdone, sweetie,” said Raziel's voice.
“But it's my damned wall!” protested Wotan.
“What about Social Realism as an approach, Uncle?” asked Ganesh.
“Uh-huh!” came Elias. “An Diego Ribbewa!”
“He is awfully fond of Diego Rivera.”
“Hrmpf. Well. Won't show me with two faces or any of that bull crap, will he?”
“Oh, no,” assured Ganesh. “It is on the contrary, quite heroic, in its way.”
“That might be all right then. All right, have it your way, Boon! Temperamental artists!”
“Uh-huh! Bidchure fo Wunky!” agreed Elias.
“I think you will be pleased,” said Ganesh.
“You guys wanna come up and see?” asked Raziel over the phone.
Ganesh searched Charles' face. Charles looked around the room, at all the blinking monitors. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I'd like that,” said Charles.
“We'll be right there,” said Ganesh.
“Did you aschk Charlesch about thisch?”
“He wasn't in his office. AS USUAL.”
William Murderface frowned at Nathan Explosion. The two stood on the tarmac at Mordhaus' heliport. A Dethcopter, blades already whirling, stood awaiting them.
“Come on, this is what you used to do, right?” asked Nathan. “When you were, you know, a COOL DEMON.”
“I will have you know, I am schtill a demon. And I did not schteal schtuff. I guarded grave schites.”
“Same difference,” said Nathan. “And this is not even as complicated as stealing a thing. People guard things. This is a person. Nobody thinks you're going to steal a person! So, there's no alarms and shit!”
“I do not think Charlesch would approve of keeping her at Mordhausch!” said Murderface.
“That's why this plan is awesome! Because, it is an AWESOME PLAN. Dick will keep her at CARPATHIANS.”
“And then what?”
“That's the NEXT PHASE! But, we can't discuss PHASE TWO yet, because we'll get all confused with PHASE ONE and then it won't work out and it will be BAD. AND BAD IS NOT AWESOME.”
“Wellllll,” said Murderface, who thought about it, though not too hard. “I guessch I am a little bored.”
“Cool, dude. Come on!” said Nathan, clapping Murderface on the back. And the two men walked towards the waiting helicopter.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Gaming, a story, and a few departures.
Warnings: Nothing much. Maybe I should have added a sex scene?
Notes: After jump.
Mythklok: it's a floor wax and a dessert topping.
Last time: we learned that wings may be annoying and clutter is bad.
I haven't bored you with my dolls for a while. Here you go.
“Monstah!”
The sweet little eyes batted up at him over a pile of well-loved plush toys.
“You saw a monster?” asked Charles, yawning and quietly sliding over to sit on the edge of the bed so as not to disturb Ganesh, who was dozing nearby.
“Uh-huh!”
“Big monster?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Or little monster?”
“Uh-huh!”
“The monster was big and little?” asked Charles, the tiniest bit of prosecuting attorney creeping into his fatherly concern.
There was much nodding, and then the solemn raising of two small fingers.
“Ah, two monsters. Well, that'll do it.” He brought Elias up against his knees and put a hand through the perpetually tangled brown hair. “How about we do this? How would you - all you guys - like to get a piece of pie with Daddy now?”
There was a fury of nodding, to the extent that a plush toy or two were dislodged from the pile in Elias' small arms. Charles grabbed the errant toys, and, after grabbing his eyeglasses, led his son out to the kitchen. They then spent several minutes setting up everything just right, so no only he and Elias got their slices, but there were bits laid out for the rest of the menagerie. This was something that had been puzzling him. Since he was quite small, Elias had bedded down with his two favorite friends, Lelefun and Wunge. But just lately, he didn't seem to be able to doze off without half of FAO Schwarz arrayed around him.
And for the last few weeks, the boy had been waking and coming into his fathers' bedroom pretty much nightly, with reports of scary dreams. Charles didn't mind this - on the contrary, Elias was a little heat machine, so it made it terribly comfortable with winter approaching (although Ganesh had rather stared down his notion to tuck Elias into the foot of their bed to keep their toes warm, elephant gods, as it happened, being afflicted with chronically cold toes).
But Charles had managed rock musicians much too long to let the manifestation of a new eccentricity pass without notice, even if it was in a toddler instead of a bass guitarist. It could indeed be a series of bad dreams. Or it could be prophetic dreams. Or it could be … well, Charles recognized that he was probably the single poorest being on earth to explore such a concept as feelings, but he had a gleaning the answer lie somewhere along that road.
And, face it, he wouldn't really need to talk to Elias about the f-word stuff, as the kid just didn't know that many words yet.
Elias had gotten the table properly set, “An fo Lelefun, an fo Wunge, an fo Walligader, an fo Wockty...” But then the boy came up with one more empty plate than there were soft creatures. “Don't think we need this one,” Charles told him.
“Uh-huh!” Elias insisted.
Charles took the little plate and considered it. “You wanna wake up Baap?” he asked.
A head shake.
“Welllll. Who is it for? The monster?”
A determined head shake.
“Ok, baby, Daddy is a bit stupid. Will you just tell Daddy?”
Elias bit a lip, and then whispered something.
“What was that.”
“Pwate fo Kam.”
Eureka. It was like a jolt of electricity pounded through him. He was father of the year! Yes, Elias missed his tutor. Of course! The craftiest, most brilliant of the angels....
Elias choked a very tiny sob.
“Oh. Shit,” said Charles, abruptly pulling his teary-eyed son into his lap. “It's all right. It's OK. Daddy is gonna fix this. Right? 'Cause, that's what daddys do!” Substitute another tutor? No, probably not. What did the best dad in the world do? Wake up Ganesh to see what he said? No, wait, that was admitting defeat. He bounced Elias, rubbing the sweet spot on his back. “Hey, I know! We'll go visit Kam. Would you like that? We'll see Kam and Jyoti! Would that be fun?”
“Uh-huh.” The tears appeared to be subsiding, and now he was getting a sticky hug. Yes, problem solved. Though it was causing much mucus production. He leaned over and snatched a Kleenex out of the box. “OK, blow for me.” Elias snorted into the tissue, making the crockery on the table all rattle.
“You ready to go back to bed?”
The little eyes suddenly became bleary pools again. Charles' heart seized. Now what? “Da bie Dada!” Elias remarked, waving at the set places. “Gonna eat da nana cweem!”
“Oh, yeah, we gotta do something about this pie! OK, you start here,” he said, setting down Elias before a particularly large chunk of banana crème. Charles blinked in astonishment. His son had actually made him neglect a table laden with pie! The wonders of parenthood.
Ganesh stretched out on the living room couch, popping off his shoes, and draping his bare feet over one arm. He peered into the image on the electronic pad. Just pixels, he reminded himself.
It was a funeral pyre. Arrayed around the coffin were various hooded personnel mixed in with dignitaries. And in front, the members of Dethklok, looking fucking bloody miserable.
Including the saddest man in the world: Nathan Explosion. Ganesh's eyes kept being drawn back to the big man's face. He looked older. And utterly drained of hope.
“Fucking morbid.”
Ganesh stretched around to see Charles hovering over him.
“You never talk about this time,” Ganesh pointed out.
“Of course we never talk about that time! Fucking awful time.”
“Even your boys thought you were dead.”
“Human doctors are idiots. They're not hard to fool.”
“No,” said Ganesh, sitting up. “But, you had to leave your boys....”
“They were fine!” Charles snapped.
Ganesh blinked thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “I thought they nearly bankrupted the organization?”
“Everything was fine. It was all fine. Anyway. I had to leave. I knew it was him. I don't know how I knew, but I just knew.”
“He had actually changed his Court Form?”
Charles nodded. He was not in his winged form, but had he been, Ganesh suspected his wings would have sagged. “I don't know. We never change our Court Forms. Never. It's unheard of.”
“You don't talk about it.”
“I don't wanna talk about it! It's a disaster for us to try and talk about this stuff.”
“But you were the one who's been so insistent on declarations of love,” Ganesh teased.
“That's different!”
“How so?”
“If I'm gonna make an asshole of myself,” declared Charles, crossing his arms, “then so are you!”
Ganesh chuckled, and Charles suddenly found himself pulled down in the couch into many, many pairs of arms. “I love you I love you I love you,” Ganesh said, “Truly, madly, deeply, and with the greatest amount of assholery. There, is that an adequate declaration?”
“Maybe,” pouted Charles.
“WILL YOU GUYS QUIT DOING THAT IN PUBLIC!” thundered Nathan.
“Doing what?” grumbled Charles.
“Oh, don't worry Nathan!” Ganesh assured the singer. “I was only going to give him a very quick blow job and then set him back.”
“Oh, all right. Then that's.... Wait, THAT'S NOT GOOD, IN FACT, THAT'S BAD! Don't talk about blow jobs! And now you're making me talk about blow jobs!”
“We could chat about feelings,” laughed Ganesh.
“THAT'S EVEN WORSE!”
“Look, Nathan,” said Charles, extricating himself from many godly hands to stand up. “You know how many times I've had to pick my way through a dozen groupies just to find you somewhere in the mess?”
“So?” asked Nathan.
“Well! It's.... It's.... It's.... It's disrespectful! Of women!”
“Uh. What?” said Nathan.
“What?” repeated Ganesh, sitting up.
“The girls wanna be here,” rumbled Nathan.
“They don't know what they want!” said Charles. “They've been confused! By the patriarchy.”
“The what?” laughed Ganesh. “Sariel. Have you been talking to Breagan again?”
“What's the patriarchy?” asked Nathan. “Do they play speed metal?”
“I have to raise a son in this environment!” Charles raved. “What is he gonna think?”
“That sexual congress is natural and beautiful,” sighed Ganesh.
“Whaddya mean this environment?” asked Nathan. “I heard it's getting pretty fucking crowded in your bedroom lately, if you know what I mean!”
“What?” said Charles. “It's just a sex god. And sometimes a death metal musician!”
“You know,” said Ganesh, “I wouldn't really characterize my role as 'sex god.' Although the notion is rather flattering.”
“If you were gonna stop foolin' around, you were gonna take me to see.... You know....” Nathan trailed off.
“OK,” said Charles. “You ready?”
“What? Right now? Why are you rushing me!” whined Nathan.
Charles and Ganesh grinned at one another.
“A million billion years ago, earth was invaded by the evil space tyrant, PORKU!” intoned the deep-voiced narrator.
“Is there gonna be Facebones on this?” Nathan whispered to Charles as they and a few dozen others sat in folding chairs, watching the scratchy film unspool in the middle of the dreary conference room.
“Uh, I don't think so Nathan,” Charles told him.
“That's too bad. I fucking love Facebones.”
“In those days, earth was known as Oiiiiiiiiiink.”
“I'm bored,” said Nathan.
“We can go for ice cream afterwards.”
“Porku trapped the souls of 75 billion people, using only propylene glycol and maple syrup.”
“Cool. 'Cause I'm getting HUNGRY.”
“These souls were delivered by space Deloreans and gathered around hog farms, where they were blasted apart by mighty volcanos!”
“Ooo. That was pretty cool!” said Nathan, pointing at all the explosions now happening onscreen.
“Yes, that is pretty cool.”
“And that is how the Bacans were created!”
“Could we go out and maybe get an omelette or something instead of ice cream?” Nathan suggested.
“Nathan, didn't you wanna talk first?”
“Talk about what?” asked the singer. The film had ended, and the lights were turned on to reveal a rather anonymous looking meeting room.
“Talk to her,” said Charles, gesturing up to the podium.
“Talk to who?” asked Nathan. He peered up to the stage, as his eyes slowly adjusted to the light. There was a rather severe looking woman taking the podium. She wore no makeup, and her dark hair was fixed at the nape of her neck in a tight bun.
“Haf you learned da truth about hok vat?” she intoned.
“Holy shit,” said Nathan. “Lavona?”
“Ve vill send around da muditers, to scan you for Bacans!”
“Chaaaaarles. Can we get those omelettes. Noooow?”
Nathan paused outside the building. It was one of the ugliest in west Lost Angeles. Which was itself not the most beautiful of metropolitan areas.
“You were tracking her, weren't you?” Nathan demanded.
Charles sighed. “I'd like to tell you that I was. Actually, I spotted her when Boon and I went to talk to Rikki Kixx.” The two men began to walk away from the building. “He's gotten big into Baconology. I mean, literally, big.”
“We gotta get her out of there! That religion is batshit!”
“I think it's more hog shit. But, yeah.”
“We gotta help her! We should get her out.”
“Nathan,” sighed Charles, “she wants to be there. Even you gotta admit, she has a tendency to follow … charismatic leaders.”
“Charles!”
“Nathan! You never even told me why the fuck you wanted to see her. She tried to....” Charles pulled Nathan around the corner so the two men stood in an alleyway, away from the street. “She tried to fucking rape you! And maybe kill you! Now, I have one job, and that's protecting your ass, whether or not you wanna be protected! I showed her to you, you know what I know, you know she's OK. I need some answers if you want anything else,” he concluded, poking Nathan in the chest with an index finger.
Nathan glowered, and Charles glowered back. And so they stood for a while.
“Look. It was like.... I can't explain it. It was like... Up on the roof? With the building burning down and all around us? We SHARED A MOMENT.” Nathan looked wistful. “I mean,” he continued, “before she kneed me and Toki hit her with a bottle.”
“You shared a moment?”
“Don't say it like that! Geez. It sounds stupid when you say it like that,” Nathan complained.
“OK. OK. Tell me some way to say it where it doesn't sound stupid!”
“Don't be a prick for once Charles. I mean, you got someone. You got two now! And you got the kid.”
Charles paused, his expression softening. “Nathan. Is this about Boon?”
“You got a kid,” Nathan muttered, suddenly finding something very interesting on the ground to toe with his boot.
“You could have a kid. I mean, some day. You'd probably be better at it than I am.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. Sure. I suck.”
“You don't suck!”
“You have no fucking clue. They cry, and you don't have any fucking idea. Or you wanna do something, and they need to go potty, or they suddenly have to be in your lap. And the worst thing is: he likes me! Even though I'm the worst father in the fucking universe.” And then he let out a long breath, having no fucking clue why he'd just told this to Nathan Explosion, of all people.
But he pressed on, regardless. “Boon misses Kam, Nathan. The guy has been caring for Boon since we got him. But Kam's been busy, up at Ganesh's place, since he adopted the baby. And I didn't even notice. I don't know how such a big thing could slip by me. An obvious thing!” The wind was chill, even in the alleyway, and he pulled his coat tighter around himself.
Nathan was scowling at him. “So. He was upset. And you figured it out?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“So. Everything's cool?”
“Well....”
“So is there any way to get her out of there?”
Charles blinked at the sudden conversational lurch, but quickly recovered.. “Look, Nathan, like I said. She wants to be there. We could physically transport her somewhere, but convincing her to give up Baconology, that's something different.”
“Why don't we take her to your kid?”
“Uh. What?”
“Boon could do the thing where he says your name and you get to start over!”
“Where you get to.... What? Nathan, that's not how it works!”
“Why not?”
“Boon doesn't have magical powers!”
“Uh. Yes he does,” said Nathan.
Charles stood regarding his lead singer.
“Checkmate huh?” grinned Nathan.
“Yeah. Look. Lemme think about this one, OK?” asked Charles.
“OK,” said Nathan, grinning in triumph.
“Just promise me, Nathan,” said Charles as they returned to the street. “Don't do anything until I give the OK!”
“WOULD I DO THAT?” asked Nathan.
Charles sighed.
“You talked to your kids?” Charles asked Raziel as they Walked towards Ganesh's residence.
“I've threatened severe pie restrictions,” laughed Raziel. Charles' frown only deepened. “Look, even if they don't listen to me, they listen to your kid. Don't worry.”
“That's my job,” said Charles.
“Hello, everyone,” said Kam as the all arrived in the living room. He was smiling, as he was always smiling, but really looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
“KAM!” squealed Elias, who immediately went to glomp the Cherub.
“Well look at you, Boonie!” said Kam. His smile broadened as he lifted up the child. “You've gotten HUGE! You're big as a Seraph!”
“I hope not,” sighed Charles, regarding his weeping son and feeling excessively guilty all over again.
“Have you slept at all the past month?” asked Wotan, as his own children held fast to his great hands.
“Teething,” sighed Kam.
“That will do it,” smiled Ganesh.
“A little whiskey, that's what works!” laughed Wotan.
“Wotan!” said Raziel.
“Not for the child, for him!” said Wotan.
“Would you like to see him?” Kam asked Elias as he set him down. The boy nodded. “All right, you come with me to get him.”
Charles noticed Ganesh had collapsed into one of the couches without even bothering to take off his coat. Charles sat down next to him. “I miss being up here,” Ganesh said to no one in particular.
“We could come back up sometimes.”
“I do not think that a good idea, not with our little disruption,” Ganesh smiled.
“Oooooo!” said the twins, who suddenly rushed over to surround Kam. With Elias pattering at his heels, the Cherub had returned, cradling a dark-haired infant, who was peering curiously at the assembled crowd.
Abby stuck out her arms. “No,” Elias told her. “Siddown da baby!” Abby then wriggled up onto one of the couches, and Kam carefully place the infant in the dark-haired girl's arms.
“Was Boon ever that small?” Charles asked Ganesh. Ganesh was rubbing a hand down his back, just where his wings would be, and Charles found he had no motivation to get up.
“Yes, in fact, he was.”
“Pway?” asked Liam, who was holding out an alphabet block towards the baby.
“No, no bwock,” Elias told him.
“No, I fear he cannot read yet, Master Liam,” Kam told him.
Raziel, who was also hovering nearby, said, “You guys could sing to him. He might like that.”
“Sind? Uh-huh, Mummy!” said Liam. He looked up at his sister, and they both started to sing, “Twinkle twinkle liddle staw....”
Charles jerked forward, absolutely mesmerized. The children had the voices of children, but unlike any other tiny children, they sang in perfect harmony, and perfectly in key. Jyoti smiled and began to contentedly suck a thumb. Elias' eyes grew as wide as saucers as he listened to his cousins.
“That's … astonishing,” said Ganesh when they finished.
“Isn't that cool?” asked Raziel. “I can't carry a tune in a bucket!”
“I had never heard such a thing,” Kam admitted.
“Been able to do it since before they were born,” laughed Wotan, beaming with pride.
After a time, the children began playing on the floor, Jyoti sitting rather contentedly in their midst.
“Anybody for a cigar?” Wotan asked Charles, waving a fragrant cuban at him. Charles slid his eyes around to Ganesh, who grinned and shrugged. Charles followed the broad-shouldered Norse god and his stogies outside to a patio. To Charles' surprise, Wotan first stopped and muttered an incantation. “To keep the chill off,” he explained. Charles accepted a light, but asked no more about it, and they smoked in silence for a time.
“Would be interested a story?” Wotan asked.
“From you?” asked Charles, suddenly jerked from his reverie. “Definitely. Is this an oldie?”
“No, more middling, as far as we're concerned. And I have only just recently been made aware of it.”
Charles exhaled. The tobacco was intoxicating. Such a rich feeling in his lungs.
Wotan was eyeing him shrewdly. Charles hopped up to sit on the balustrade. “OK,” he said. “Let's hear it.”
So many colors.
Colors everywhere. Beautiful colors. Vibrant crazy.
Maren, lying on her back beneath the tree, looked up into the dappled sun, staring between her fingers.
The others couldn't see the sweet colors. How could that be? Why could that be?
They said she was slightly mad.
What did they know?
“Can you hear the colors, Maren?”
How had he gotten there? Lovely man, beautiful man. Skin so white it was blue, like ice on a lovely mountain lake, yellowy-green hair, her peacock parrot man, couldn't be just one.
“Hear the colors? You're crazier than me! My lovely man. My parrot peacock man.”
“Come here. Just here,” he instructed, getting up on his knees. He held out white hands - chalk white bone white milk white cream white - and she took them up.
“Just close your eyes. Just relax.”
And she batted her eyes closed and thought of rainbows and sherbet and lovely ribbons.
It was like an ache in her heart. A place she didn't know she had inside. A shape that didn't exist.
Her eyes jerked open, and the lovely place was gone. She felt cold. She reached out her hands again. She hadn't ever known she needed it before.
“Would you like to hear it again, Maren? Would you like to hear the angels sing?”
Wings were flapping. Green and gold. Green and gold.
Uriah frowned. Powers. He had never trusted them. And why hadn't this one Court Formed? Gaudy idiot. Reminded him of Sariel. The little traitor.
“Humans,” the angel was musing. “So frail. So fragile.”
“You didn't break her, did you?” Uriah grumped.
“I don't understand. What was the point?”
This one, he would have to be taken care of. Too curious. Yes, very like Sariel. “You were given your orders. Yours is not to question. Yours is to follow.”
“What of the babe? What of Anja?”
“The point is not the babe, but beyond that,” grumbled Uriah, who immediately regretted being so forward. Yes, like Sariel. Maybe he would have a bit of fun getting this little Power bastard out of the way. No one could begrudge him a bit of fun.
“Maren is sweet.”
“Some things should not be sweet. They are not meant to be.”
And Uriah eyed the Power, its strange parroty wings flapping, imagining now. Green and gold. Green and gold. Green and gold.
And red.
Charles flinched.
Ashes from the cigar had burnt his hand. He hurriedly tapped it on the porch railing, and watched the glowing flakes fall.
“This was from our friends? The, uh, collectors?” he asked.
Wotan nodded at him.
“Norwegian again?”
“A mixture. Angelic as well.”
“So Ganesh was right.”
“Apparently.”
Charles took a drag on his sadly neglected cigar. Too many questions. “I need.... I need to think this one over.”
Wotan nodded. “I am going to repeat the incantation. After that, this conversation did not happen. It will have been erased. You will remember?”
“Oh, fuck yeah, I'll remember,” said Charles, biting his lip. “One thing, is there anyone else who knows?”
“My lady wife. Who translated much of this. And her father.”
Charles frowned. “Phan.... Oh! You don't think...?”
Wotan shrugged. “Anything is possible. There have been significant recent additions to his population. We are making inquiries.”
“OK.”
Wotan repeated his charm, and the two headed back inside, where it had gotten a bit noisier. While the children played on the floor, Raziel chatted with Ganesh. And Kam, sprawled on one of the couches, snored like a rattling chainsaw.
“I think I'm gonna send down one of my people to help out,” laughed Raziel.
“Were we like this?” Charles asked, standing over the dozing Cherub.
“Yeah, you guys were exactly like that,” said Raziel. “But, you got better. Well. A little better.”
“This is sweet!”
“I've been at this a long time, darlin'.”
Charles looked around at the various monitors and high tech security equipment Breagan had set up around her temporary living area in Mordhaus. “Ganesh was right,” he said approvingly. “You are even more paranoid than me.”
Breagan laughed. “Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment,” she said, playfully batting away his finger from one of her keyboards. “But here is what I wanted to show ya,” she said, pointing to a monitor.
Charles squinted. It looked familiar. And then he noticed the smoking foundation of what used to be a rather large dwelling. “The Dunkelhoff manor! How the hell did you find a camera out there?”
“We're not the only sorts as are paranoid. I'm thinking the Dunklehoffs had it installed. Originally at least. Keep watchin'.”
As they stared at the screen, Charles became aware of some movement. Black shapes.
“Those aren't deer,” he said, hunching over towards the screen.
“The camera doesn't pick up magical traces, but I believe they're human,” said Breagan. Charles looked at her questioningly. “Further, I believe them to be military men.”
“That was quick,” said Charles.
“Right quick, but a bit too slow,” said Breagan.
“Are we ready?” asked Raziel, who had just burst into the room along with Ganesh, who was trailing along with Elias.
“Mmmm,” grumbled Charles.
“C'mon, Sariel! You promised!”
“Can't you guys just go without me?” he asked. “I'm not the gaming type.”
“Aw! Don't be a stick in the mud!”
“I would consider it a personal favor,” said Breagan.
Charles eyed the red haired goddess. “OK, you give me some more time on your monitors when we finish?”
“As much time as you wish, darlin',” she laughed.
“Told you he was paranoid,” sighed Ganesh.
“I am Skwisgaar! I am tall and terribly handsome!”
“Yeah, that's a real stretch for you, uh, 'Skwisgaar.'”
“I'm Nathan! I'm big and metal and awesome!”
“I don't remember Nathan bouncing up and down on his toes so much.”
“Come along now, Sariel. Let us get into the spirit of things.”
“Yeah, be a sport, Sariel. Besides, Breagan requested that we test out the microphones!”
There was a heavy virtual sigh. The Skwisgaar and Nathan avatars stood patiently waiting, occasionally blinking their eyes in a realistic fashion.
The dreadlocked avatar frowned. “I am Pickles the drummer. I am cool.”
Skwisgaar and Nathan stared a moment more across the electronic landscape.
“Uh. Dude.”
Nathan produced a rather un-metal giggle. “I wanna punch something! Let's go look for something to punch!” said the lead singer, bounding off.
“She makes a rather enthusiastic Nathan,” Skwisgaar confided to Pickles.
“This is fucking weird,” grumbled Pickles.
“Wouldn't Pickles be rather tickled by the unusual and exotic?”
“I dunno. Maybe I shoulda played Toki.”
“You will be fine. Now, let us ams finds the lavabuzzle fields!” Skwisgaar chuckled.
“You better not let him hear you say that,” warned Pickles, wishing for a virtual cigarette. Could you get virtual lung cancer? he wondered.
He had to admit, the landscape was incredible. They were now walking through some kind of spooky canyon. The real Nathan would have liked it: there were rotting corpses of horrible monsters here and there. Presumably, in normal game play, you would have spent some time defeating them, but Breagan had wanted them to hasten along to test out the lava field, where apparently they were having persistent problems with bugs. Not crawling bugs, though Nathan would have probably liked that as well, but rather glitches in the game play.
The game itself appeared stunning. He could not only see the defeated monsters, he could smell the decaying tissue, as he could hear the gravel softly crunching under his feet and feel the light breeze on his face. He could see why, as Breagan suspected, the military had developed an interest in the virtual reality technology, although he couldn't work out why they might have employed such a clumsy way to steal it.
Uriah, he reminded himself with a mental sigh.
“Hey guys I can see the lava field!” sang Nathan.
“Nathan, you gotta quit that fucking skipping!” groused Pickles.
“You're Pickles, you're supposed to be cool!” giggled Nathan, oddly taking up Pickles by the arm.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Now, our task is to proceed with all haste through that bubbling lava field,” explained Skwisgaar.
“Is there a point to all this?” asked Pickles.
“I'm not gonna answer unless you play!” Nathan teased.
“Is there a fucking point to this? Dude,” asked Pickles.
“To get to the other side!” said Nathan. “I wish I'd brought a scrunchie for my hair,” he said, fussing with his long black tresses.
“Nathan would not wear a scrunchie,” said Pickles as Nathan tucked his hair into a quick topknot.
“All right, let us away!” said Skwisgaar, who began to stride gracefully among the molten lava pools and bubbling lava geysers.
“Cool! Awesome! Metal!” announced Nathan, bouncing after him.
“OW! Gods damn it!” screamed Pickles. “That hurt!” He was hopping up and down after he had set his foot too close to a lava geyser and gotten splashed.
“It is supposed to be realistic,” Skwisgaar told him.
“This is why I fucking hate long hair! I can't see anything with all these fucking braids hanging in my face,” Pickles groused. “How the hell does he get anything done all day?”
“What does Pickles have to do?” giggled Nathan.
“Wish I could fucking fly across this shit,” said Pickles, as he once again narrowly avoided being splashed with bubbling lava.
“Have you tried your power ups?” suggested Skwisgaar, who was shielding himself from a lava waterfall with his guitar.
“Hey, that's an idea,” said Pickles. He stood trying to push up nonexistent eyeglasses for a moment, trying to recall what Breagan had told him, and then shouted, “Metal Octo-Power!”
The world started spinning.
“Whoa!” he screamed, abruptly sounding quite Pickles-like. He found himself wishing he had tried out this stunt somewhere the gameplay was not lined with molten lava. But he steeled himself (which was not easy, as his avatar currently had no bones) and set himself flying in the general direction of the end of the lava field. And, he hoped, safety.
He ended up somehow colliding with a rock. Thinking quickly, he wrapped his tentacles around it, and the crazy forward motion was arrested. And then, just as abruptly, the power up evidently ended, and he was back to Pickles form, clinging, on his belly, to a rocky outcropping at the end of the lava field.
“That was impressive!” called Skwisgaar, who was still in the middle of the field.
“Do that again!” yelled Nathan.
“Absofuckinglutely not,” Pickles yelled back. “Dudes.” He awkwardly scrambled to a sitting position. He seemed no worse for wear, though he still felt a bit of vertigo, which was bizarre, as he didn't think he had ever experienced vertigo before.
“Shall we try out our power ups as well?” inquired Skwisgaar.
“Sure! That would be a brutal thing to do!”
“All rightie,” said Skwisgaar, taking his Gibson Explorer in hand. He windmilled a chord, while shouting, “METAL GUITAR POWER!”
The hot lava began to bubble, and suddenly, there were lava fountains drizzling in the middle of several of the pools.
“That might not have been a great idea,” taunted Pickles, safe on his rock outcropping.
But the the lava fountains began to sparkle, and then suddenly they coalesced into lovely curvaceous female forms, who all darted around Skwisgaar.
“Lave nymphs?” asked Nathan. “Is there even such a thing?”
“This game is targeted at adolescent males,” laughed Skwisgaar. The nymphs flitted around him, giggling, and then began to kiss him.
“Why the hell does he rate lava nymphs! Why didn't I get octo-nymphs?” wailed Pickles.
“Because this game is rated PG,” Nathan reminded him.
“Well, thank you, you are terribly lovely as well!” Skwisgaar told the giggling nymphs. “Oh, is that for me?” he asked, as one of them as they presented him with a silver amulet of some kind. “I don't suppose you also have it in gold? That rather goes better with this outfit.”
“Shaddap, Skwisgaar,” said Nathan. “It's a power up!'
“Well, just the tiniest bit tacky,” whispered Skwisgaar, as a giggling lava nymph slipped the amulet over his head. “I'll have to chat with Breagan about that. Oh, yes, thank you kindly!” he added as the nymphs blew him little kisses. And then they all slipped back into the pools.
“Yeah, well, you DUDES are still stuck in the middle of the fucking lava!” Pickles yelled at them.
“Not for long!” vowed Nathan. He stood, hands on hips. “All right, get ready, you fuckers. BRUTAL METAL VOICE!” And then he screamed a great rock and roll scream. It was definitely brutal, every bit as awesome as Roger Daltry's Won't Get Fooled Again scream, and as electric as Paul McCartney's scream from Hey Jude, as deranged as Joe Cocker's scream from With a Little Help from My Friends. It echoed for a long time down the canyon.
And then then there was silence. The lava had stopped bubbling, because there was not more lava. It had all been turned to dust by Nathan's awesome metal scream.
“That was so cool!” gushed Nathan. “I've always wanted to be able to sing.”
“That wasn't exactly singing,” snarked Pickles as he met up with them on the far side of what had once been a lava field.
“Well, that was satisfying, if unproductive,” said Skwisgaar.
“We beat the lava field!” protested Nathan. “It was so cool!”
“Yes, but Breagan had requested we search out programming bugs in this area. We don't seem to have encoutered any,” said Skwisgaar.
“Maybe now!” said Nathan. “Do you hear? They're playing boss music!”
“Well, this will be interesting,” said Skwisgaar.
“Hey, where's my sword?” asked Nathan, looking at the disappointing weapon that had appeared in his hand.
“This is a death metal game. You get a microphone,” laughed Pickles.
“Oh, wait! There he is! Emerging from the fire swamp!” said Skwisgaar, pointing off in the distance.
It was indeed a terrifying boss that now towered over them, scowling viciously through oddly glassy eyes.
And wearing a bright red tie.
“THAT ISN'T FUNNY!” declared Pickles. But his comment was lost on his fellow warriors, who had literally fallen to their virtual knees with helpless laughter. “Breagan thinks this is funny! But it's not!” he fumed.
“It's a boss!” hooted Nathan, slapping Pickles on the back.
But then the fire swamp boss had doffed his red tie and began to swing it like a lasso. It whipped out and caught Skwisgaar, who was still chuckling, but the ankle, and then swung him up overhead.
“SARIEL! Help me!” he screamed.
“Who's laughing now,” grumbled Pickles.
“SARIEL!”
“I'm Pickles,” Pickles pointed out.
“Look, here's what we'll do,” said Nathan, suddenly making an aside to Pickles.
“Oh, no, I'm even worse flying in this state than I usually am!” protested Pickles.
“SHHHH!”
“Will YOU two PLEASE hurry UP?” gasped Skwisgaar, as he swung helplessly overhead.
“Octo-Pickles power,” muttered Pickles. And then he was in his cephalopod form, flying at the terrible boss. He managed to grab on to the head, where he managed to get several tentacles around the monster's eyeglasses and pull them off. The boss grabbed for them, in the process, letting the red tie and Skwisgaar slip from his claws. OctoPickles wriggled free.
“AWESOME METAL VOICE!” thundered Nathan, who then toppled the blinded monster with a rather throaty growl. Skwisgaar, who had somehow landed on his feet, grabbed off the red tie, and soon had the boss around the throat with it where, with a great tug, he managed to break its neck.
'Hey, now we finally know how to defeat you!” said Nathan, as Pickles returned to his human form. He glanced at the giant eyeglasses in his hands, and tossed them away.
“OK, what now?” asked Pickles. “I got stuff to do in reality today.”
“Where does your job ever have to do with reality?” giggled Nathan. “You know, that frown does not look good on Pickles!”
“Oh, look here!” said Skwisgaar. The dead boss had begun to tremble, as if in a Ganesh-induced earthquake. And then it wavered, and became insubstantial.
And soon there was nothing left but a small box.
“This is all we get after all that! Lame. Dude,” said Pickles.
“Hey, it's got a keyhole!” said Nathan. “Try your amulet, Skwisgaar.”
“Oh, I believe you're right. Well, it wasn't terribly appealing anyway,” said Skwisgaar. He slotted his magic amulet into the box's keyhole, where of course it fit perfectly.
Sweeping music began.
“This is gonna be good!” said Nathan.
And then, everywhere, stars.
“Ooo, pretty!” gushed Nathan.
It was one of the lava nymphs, only many times larger than those beings had appeared back at the lava pits.
She looked at them.
“Crozier knows,” she said, in a voice that echoed everywhere.
The players exchanged a nervous virtual glance.
“About what?” said Pickles. “Crozier knows about what?”
“Crozier knows about the Old Ones,” said the Nymph.
And then with a great shower of glitter, she was gone.
“Skwisgaar has left the game,” said a voice. And then there were two of them standing there. Pickles tore off his own glasses. He was Charles, back in Mordhaus. Ganesh was standing, holding Breagan, who had been observing them, by the shoulders. Sitting beside her, with Elias playing quietly in his lap, was a very confused looking Kevin the video game dude.
Charles looked to the side, where Raziel had just removed her own VR glasses.
“I was wrong,” Breagan was telling Ganesh. She looked heartbroken. “Oh, twas my ego. I was so wrong.”
“Breagan,” said Charles.
She looked up at him. She was blinking back tears. “I thought the military sorts wanted it for the virtual reality. Ain't that.”
“It's a prophecy machine!” said Raziel.
“I need to go. Now,” said Ganesh, tossing aside his VR glasses and striding out of the room.
“Not without me you're not,” said Charles, tearing after him.
“Then keep up.”
“Raziel. You'll watch Boon? Please?” Charles called over his shoulder.
“I'll bring him up to visit his cousins,” said Raziel. “You'll like that?” she asked Elias.
“Uh-huh!”
And Charles was off.
Ganesh wasn't careful. He just appeared at the rental car desk. The attendant frowned, but probably put it down to a hangover. Charles didn't bother to quarrel over who got to drive. He had never much cared for right-hand drive anyway.
You couldn't Spirit Walk to where the Old Ones had their cottage. Neither of them had been able to figure it out, and even Wotan had been puzzled by it. “Some old magic, I'll reckon,” he had told them. And they had let it go at that. But it meant more delay. Ganesh was weaving in and out of traffic, and then off the motorway, to the lonely highway, pulling up in the dark, off the side road, you wouldn't think you were there, but then suddenly, you were in sight of the Old Ones' great cottage.
Only today, tonight....
Ganesh stopped the car, and Charles was out.
There was no smoking foundation. There had never been a foundation. At least, there was no sign of one. No giant-sized elephant house, no garden, not even really a drive, just the end of the road.
Charles looked back at Ganesh, who was leaning against the rental car.
“Did they leave before the army got here?” Charles asked.
“Perhaps,” said Ganesh. “Or perhaps … they were never here at all.”
“Of course there were here! You were here! Twice! I was here. Our kids were here!”
“I wouldn't be so certain.”
“We have photos.”
“Do we?” Charles stared at Ganesh, who reached into his coat pocket for his phone. He thumbed something, and passed it to Charles.
“Blurry photos,” said Charles, browsing through the onscreen stack. He recognized a glimpse of his son, and images of the other children. But there were no Old Ones, and no trace of their house could be detected.
“I thought it was a malfunction in the camera mechanism, but Lady Raziel experienced exactly the same phenomenon,” Ganesh told him.
Charles cradled the phone in his hands. “It's not possible. Boon rode on their back.” He heard the intake of breath, and watched as Ganesh, back against the car, slid down to a crouch, head in hands. He walked over, and then sat down next to Ganesh. He tentatively reached out a hand, and then rubbed it on Ganesh's shaking back, up and down.
Ganesh, tear-streaked face, was now looking at him. “Sariel,” he whispered. “Are you trying to rub my wings?”
“Uh. Maybe,” said Charles, suddenly self-consciously withdrawing his hand. And then he felt himself enveloped in a multi-armed embrace.
“All rightie,” said Ganesh, pulling him up and opening the car door. “We need to get back.”
“Can I drive?”
“Right hand drive? Certainly not! Go! Scoot into the passenger seat like a good angel.”
Charles jumped into the passenger side and then skillfully slid over behind the wheel. “You left the keys!” he said, firing up the car.
“Sariel!”
“Better get in, I'm not sure I can stop it!” Ganesh leapt into the car after Charles. Before he could even secure the doors, they were off in a squeal of tires.
Charles felt Ganesh reaching over for something beside the tub. He turned his head, wriggling into a bit more comfortable position against the elephant god. Really, in the warm water like this, sitting between Ganesh's long legs, there really was no uncomfortable position. Ganesh had grabbed a joint and was fishing for his lighter.
“Is this a no smoking room?” Charles muttered. After they had dumped the rental car they had neither one felt quite like going home, and so ended up with no luggage in a rather expensive suite at a swank London hotel. It had one of those old fashioned clawfoot bathtubs, one you could fill up and water would go all the way up to your chest.
“This isn't a cigarette,” said Ganesh, offering it to Charles.
“That isn't from Pickles is it?”
“It is, in fact.”
“Ganesh...”
“We are nowhere near Boon, and I feel I need this right now.”
Charles shrugged and took a drag, making himself comfortable on Ganesh's chest.
“I am an idiot,” sighed Ganesh, a hand stroking Charles' stomach.
“How so?”
“The Old Ones. I had so much I needed to know! My origins. My purpose.”
“And, how do you know they woulda given you a straight answer?” asked Charles, roach gripped between his teeth.
“Well. That's fair. It is simply that, I have heard so many conflicting stories....”
“My mom and dad were tricked into having me to kill the Creator,” snapped Charles, twisting partially around. “You see how that one worked out?”
Ganesh sighed, watching smoke billow. “It would have been good to know. For Boon.”
“Boon gets to be what he wants. I'm damn well not having it dictated by a buncha imaginary elephants.”
“I don't think they were imaginary. Perhaps they were curious about us. As curious as we were about them....”
Charles wriggled some more. “Ganesh, I gotta talk to you about something. Wotan had a bit more of the notebook for me.”
“Yes? The, er, gentlemen we tidied up for?”
“Something unexpected. SomeONE unexpected.”
Ganesh tightened his grip around Charles. “I don't think I have to ask who.”
“I can't think straight-”
“You won't need to. We'll think it through. Both of us.”
Charles shifted uncomfortably. “Anyway, we gotta get back,” he choked, his eyes getting a bit blurry. “I wanna talk to Breagan.”
“Sariel. You realize, don't you, you will not be able to speak to Breagan?”
“What? Why the hell not? She works for me!”
Charles looked around the room. All of the security equipment, the various hard drives and monitors, were still there, still throbbing with life.
There was a single yellow sticky note on the largest monitor. “S. For keeping watch. With my compliments. -B.”
“She's gone?” said Charles.
“Yeah, right after you dudes split, Big B said she needed to go out for some smokes,” said Kevin. “Which was kinda weird, because, you know, she doesn't smoke!”
“But the game....”
“She left all her notes and everything! We're good for a release!” said Kevin. Charles nodded, and Kevin wafted out of the room.
“It's what she does, Sariel,” said Ganesh.
“Leave without fucking notice?” asked Charles, annoyed that his eyes were wet.
“Yes.”
Charles was silent for a moment. “I could find her. You know. I can do stuff like that.”
“Perhaps,” said Ganesh. “Or, perhaps not. Do you reckon what you intend to do with her game?” he asked. Charles looked at him sadly. “I imagine we'll need to keep it under lock and key?”
Charles stared at the security monitor for a long moment. “No,” he said finally. And then more determinedly, “No.”
Ganesh cocked his head.
“We're gonna.... We're gonna distribute it. To everybody. For free. I mean, give it away. Give it away.”
“Really?” asked Ganesh, his lovely eyes narrowing. “Even with the prophetic component?”
“Good! That's good. We'll pack it with the new album. Uriah wanted to control it? OK. See how he likes it when there's a prophet on every street corner.”
“My man of the people,” smiled Ganesh. He suddenly frowned and grabbed a vibrating phone from his jacket pocket. “Raziel! Yes! Does he need to say night-night? Oh. He didn't- Oh! Artistic differences? Well. Wait one moment, we'll straighten this out.” Ganesh set the phone down on a table. “Er. I guess our young artist has been adding his own special flair to the halls of Valhalla. One wall in particular.”
“Oh, crap, another mural?” asked Charles. “I thought we talked with him.”
“Well, he is two. He probably has more or less the attention span of Nathan Explosion. At any rate, according to Raziel, Wotan is excited about the work, but has some suggestions regarding the, er, stylistic components.” Ganesh hit the speaker button on his phone.
“Cwassika an tiwed, Wunky Wote!” came Elias's voice.
“I'm just not in the mood for modern nonsense!” boomed Wotan's voice.
“Uhhh, my kid doesn't like working in classical style, Wotan,” supplied Charles.
“But it served for millennia!”
“Da cwishay, Wunky Wote!”
“It is a bit overdone, sweetie,” said Raziel's voice.
“But it's my damned wall!” protested Wotan.
“What about Social Realism as an approach, Uncle?” asked Ganesh.
“Uh-huh!” came Elias. “An Diego Ribbewa!”
“He is awfully fond of Diego Rivera.”
“Hrmpf. Well. Won't show me with two faces or any of that bull crap, will he?”
“Oh, no,” assured Ganesh. “It is on the contrary, quite heroic, in its way.”
“That might be all right then. All right, have it your way, Boon! Temperamental artists!”
“Uh-huh! Bidchure fo Wunky!” agreed Elias.
“I think you will be pleased,” said Ganesh.
“You guys wanna come up and see?” asked Raziel over the phone.
Ganesh searched Charles' face. Charles looked around the room, at all the blinking monitors. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I'd like that,” said Charles.
“We'll be right there,” said Ganesh.
“Did you aschk Charlesch about thisch?”
“He wasn't in his office. AS USUAL.”
William Murderface frowned at Nathan Explosion. The two stood on the tarmac at Mordhaus' heliport. A Dethcopter, blades already whirling, stood awaiting them.
“Come on, this is what you used to do, right?” asked Nathan. “When you were, you know, a COOL DEMON.”
“I will have you know, I am schtill a demon. And I did not schteal schtuff. I guarded grave schites.”
“Same difference,” said Nathan. “And this is not even as complicated as stealing a thing. People guard things. This is a person. Nobody thinks you're going to steal a person! So, there's no alarms and shit!”
“I do not think Charlesch would approve of keeping her at Mordhausch!” said Murderface.
“That's why this plan is awesome! Because, it is an AWESOME PLAN. Dick will keep her at CARPATHIANS.”
“And then what?”
“That's the NEXT PHASE! But, we can't discuss PHASE TWO yet, because we'll get all confused with PHASE ONE and then it won't work out and it will be BAD. AND BAD IS NOT AWESOME.”
“Wellllll,” said Murderface, who thought about it, though not too hard. “I guessch I am a little bored.”
“Cool, dude. Come on!” said Nathan, clapping Murderface on the back. And the two men walked towards the waiting helicopter.