51

Boy. Talk about a big bunch of nothing! There I was, all bent over and scrunched up expecting the Midnight of the Gods, or at least the little ones getting their pants pulled down and their holy heinies spanked, and all I got was a headache that left me nostalgic for my hangover.

"Nobody is doing anything," I whined.

"There's plenty going on. You don't see it because you can't listen in. The Shayir and the Godoroth are really upset."

I did note a certain restlessness on the sidelines, reflected by the squared-off boss gods, who, I now suspected, were supposed to shake hands and make up. And I noted that Imara sort of drifted slowly throughout the midfield confrontation. She got smaller as she moved. And she assumed a whole new look.

Interesting. Very interesting.

"Cat. You keeping an eye on your mom?"

"Huh? Why?"

I pointed. "That's her there. Sliding over to her boyfriend. She's been changing her looks as she goes." I assumed she was disguising herself on levels seen only by gods, too.

"Oh. She looks a lot younger."

"She sure does. She's turning herself into a dead ringer for you." I kicked the cherub. I wanted him to stop whining long enough to get a good look at this transformation, too. "You got any thoughts about this, Cat?"

My suspicion was that Cat might not be as big a secret as she thought. I had a hunch she might be just another angle in a carefully managed escape maneuver.

Cat's eyes narrowed. She glared at her mother. She glared at me. She didn't have to be told that I suspected the worst. We both knew that gods and goddesses don't cling to any wordly code of conduct.

Cat said, "Maybe we ought to leave."

"That might have been a good idea a while ago. Before anybody knew we were here. But now? How far could we run? Could we run fast enough?"

"Nothing is settled here. The deadline still hasn't come." But she climbed to her feet and grabbed up her little buddy, plainly interested in quick relocation.

I got up myself. The whole situation had me thinking, which, according to some, doesn't happen all that often.

And according to the Dead Man, not often enough.

"Cat. The world was here before the coming of the gods. Right?"

"Yes. Of course it was. Why?"

Because, then, these were not really gods in the way I had been taught to think of gods. Even the gods I had been told were the one and only real and they're-gonna-send-all-them-infidels-to-burn-in-hell gods just belonged to the same bunch of transdimensional refugees. Or fugitives?

"Cat, did these gods come here by choice?"

"What?"

"It occurs to me they might be exiles. Thrown out of the old home for bad behavior or just excessive stupidity."

"No. None of them want to go back. That's what the fighting is all about."

"Maybe." I had some thoughts that included suspicions of setups. I surveyed the audience. More gods had settled into their earthly forms. I saw some really big names. Out here, though, they just looked luckier than bunches like the Godoroth and Shayir. Probably had better publicity wazoos.

What I didn't see anymore was a goddess named Imara. What I didn't see was a redhead maybe called Adeth hanging out with raggedy-ass jungle gods. I did see Shinrise the Destroyer—or maybe Bogge the Sucker—standing around stupidly now, looking like he had just lost something.

The ranks of the Godoroth and Shayir seemed short handed on females.

I checked some of the more successful gangs but couldn't tell if they had gone shorthanded, too. They just looked more prosperous. A supply of believers surely helped, but maybe also a knack for drawing power from beyond this reality.

Maybe gods are like sausages and politics and should not be examined closely.

I always expect the worst. That means I can be pleasantly surprised sometimes. This didn't seem to be one of those times. Circumstances appeared to support my most cynical suspicions.

There were thousands of gods there, though most were hangers-on, many even smaller than Fourteen.

The cherub seemed to have settled down. Maybe he realized that nobody was paying him any attention. I knew I was invisible but still felt naked to every divine eye.

There was some subtle movement out there, and tension rising. The hair on my arms tingled.

52

There was big anger in the air again, much worse than before. Fourteen whimpered. Something had happened. The crowd around Lang and Imar were all in a rage.

"We need to leave now," Cat said. Her voice squeaked. "A ruling was handed down. The Shayir and Godoroth refuse to accept it."

Holding hands, in step, each laboring under the weight of a garbage-mouthed curse, we headed for our horses. "Explain," I squeaked. My throat was tight, too. I noticed Magodor drifting through the mob. She seemed intent on tracking us. I wondered why.

"Because of their behavior in town, the senior gods have banished the Godoroth and the Shayir from the Street of the Gods and TunFaire."

"And our boys won't go quietly?"

"Imar and Lang pretty much said, ‘Stick it in your ear!' "

"Can they do that?" Of course they could. Anybody can tell anybody anything, anytime. The tricky part is surviving the aftermath.

"There may be a confrontation."

Oh. "Uh-oh."

"And this is definitely the wrong place for that. This is where the gods originally arrived. It takes a lot longer than ten thousand years for wounds like that to heal. The walls here are tissue."

Which might explain why the little guys thought they could thumb their noses, except that I didn't credit them with sense enough to consider that subtle an angle.

"Keep hiking, girl. Runt, you stop sniveling or I'll kick you out of here."

Fourteen sneered. He wasn't afraid of any mortal. I was too busy staying in step with Cat to follow up.

I glanced back. I didn't see Magodor anymore. I did see a whirlwind of black paper chips and a mist of golden light around Lang, who raised his left fist and pumped his thumb in and out of his clenched fingers in a classic obscene gesture directed at the big boys. Then he struck suddenly right-handed, swinging a sword of lightning at Imar's throat. Just as suddenly, you had Jorken streaking around, the ugly guys looking for throats to crush, Imar flailing around with his own lightning. Trog went berserk with his hammer. Torbit, Quilraq, and others went wild. Black Mona galloped in with her hounds, her weapons flying everywhere.

"Hang on, Cat. Just a second." I watched as the fray disappeared inside a cloud of dust, then a light storm as those incredibly brilliant pops began ripping the fabric of reality. In seconds it began to snow. And Cat and I were moving again, faster than ever.

"Why did you stop?"

"Wanted to make sure I'd seen something right."

"What?"

"None of the females are in that mess, except Black Mona. And she's got more hair on her ass than anybody but Trog." Not even Magodor was involved. Maybe especially not even Magodor. What's an end of the world dustup without a Destroyer?