Chapter 3

Ophois appeared at my side the moment we rounded a corner and got out of the cop's sight.

"Some help you were, mutt." I gave him a light cuff to the ear.

He just turned to me with a, 'Who, me?' expression.

"Thanks for getting me out of there, Alice," I said, turning to her. "That could have been real trouble if I'd been stuck." I'd only been good and truly in jail once, and it'd taken a call to James to get me out. It never felt good to owe a favour to another god.

"Don't mention it." She was walking beside me now with an almost skip in her step, playing the role of a sixteen year old ditz to the hilt. "I can remember more when I'm with you, and I don't want to lose that now. Who knows when the next time I find someone like you will be."

"With the way things are going right now, I wouldn't give it very good odds."

The trudge back home was quiet enough. Mott Haven wasn't exactly the best place to live, but I'd grown accustomed to it a long time ago.

My home was on E one-thirty-seventh street, in the projects.

The place was a massive red brick structure, looking exactly like what you'd expect from a government building. It was made to last forever with no maintenance, not be comfortable.

There were elevators, but they only worked half the time. The three story walk up to my apartment was slow and tedious.

I waved to a couple of people on the way. I'd been living here for twenty years, and I knew most of the residents. Some were good, some not so much. All in all the place was a decent enough community, but I couldn't afford to get too well known.

A god was not what you wanted on community council. It tended to bring our whole 'not ageing' thing a little too front and centre.

Room three-ninety-three. The numbers were stencilled on the door with spray paint. My hallway was better lit than Wep's had been, but that was only because it had to conform to the government standards.

My lock always stuck. It took a good minute and a half just to get the damn thing to let go of my key, likely so much as let us in.

"Welcome to the O'Toole Hilton." I swept my hand dramaticly forward as I flicked on a light.

Yeah, it didn't exactly live up to the name.

A junky little one bedroom apartment, my living room was scattered with takeout boxes and newspapers that spread in a pile from the little black and white TV I had sitting in the corner. The only real piece of furniture in here was a moth eaten sofa. It was a dull plaid colour that had likely been fashionable in the early seventies.

I didn't care. It was home.

Coming from a person who'd been born in little more than a shack on the ocean, any place could be home. I'd lived in crumbling cottages, churches, even decent little town houses. But right now this was home. And that was all that mattered.

"Make yourself comfortable." I shrugged off my jacket and threw it in the general direction of the closet. I'd gotten good little parlour tricks like that years ago, it caught on the coat hanger without even a thought.

"Looks good to me." She flopped down on the couch as the springs creaked under her. A moment later she was rustling through the magazines and junk mail that had piled up.

I rolled my eyes and walked into the kitchen, making sure to flick on the light as soon as I stepped in. I wasn't planning on turning it back off.

I didn't exactly have much in here, but it felt odd to have a woman, no matter how young she may seem, sitting in my living room and not offer her anything.

"You want some coffee?" Was all I could think of.

"Yeah, sure. Make it black and as strong as it'll come." I couldn't see her, but her voice carried from the other room.

Truth be told, I never really liked coffee. But this was America after all, I don't think it's possible to live here and not drink it at least occasionally.

It took me a good five minutes to even get it started. I had a coffee machine, but it was made when Reagan was still in power. That had likely been the last time I'd used it too.

"Okay," I was out in the main room again, navigating around the couch with two full cups of what looked to be for all intents and purposes toxic black sludge. The stuff was so strong that it practically turned green when the light hit it just so.

She took it without comment, knocking half of the cup back in a single gulp.

She'd flicked on my old TV. I didn't watch it often. I never much cared for the whole moving pictures thing. Call me old fashioned - and I am - but I'd never really got used to the television. I don't have a problem with the phone, car, or any of that, but the TV just never interested me unless I'm chowing down junk food with Wep.

She had it tuned to a local news channel. An announcer with a heavy Bronx accent was rattling off the sports scores.

"With what the cop mentioned about all the people disappearing," Alice said, "I thought we might be able to pick up something on the news."

I shook my head. "I doubt it. I'm surprised the cop even noticed. We tend to keep a pretty low profile. It would be bad mojo for us if it were ever to show up on the news."

The reporter continued on for a good fifteen minutes. He covered everything from stock prices to the latest construction. There was hardly a sad story to be heard. It was like this was the good news hour and everything was sunshine and tulips.

And speaking of news, I'd best get on the squawk box and start relaying what's been going on to the other gods.

I had to find out how many of us were still around in any event, and this was as good a way as any other I could think of.

Like most other people in the world, I had a little black book of phone numbers. Mine, however, was more like the things you might write a comic book about. I had the numbers of everyone from Alaunus to Zeus. Hell, if people knew who Allen and Zack really were I could get rich off the sightseeing tours alone.

Not sure who to call I just started with the A's and moved from there.

Dialling Alaunus's number, all I got on the other end was a never ending ring.

Okay... next in my list was Ankou's. Alvin's phone was no better. A machine picked up after a little while, but his soft tones didn't make me feel any better when he asked me to leave a message after the beep.

"Hey, Alvin, it's Robert," I said to the machine, trying to keep my voice chipper. "Something weird is going on." I wasn't sure just how much I wanted to say. "How many of the old friends have you seen recently? Give me a call when you get this."

The first guy to pick up was Anubis, his number was a long distance call. He was more a friend of Wep's than mine, but we knew each other well enough. He was out of our normal circles though, he still had a fair number of believers.

I put that down to his whole 'black jackal' image being more marketable to the kids these days.

He sounded sleepy, like I'd just woken him from a nap.

"Hey, An. It's Robert." Right now I was just happy that anyone had picked up.

"Oh, hey, Robert. What's on, mate?" he yawned.

I couldn't even get another word out before Ophois scrambled onto my lap and barked right into the receiver.

"Ophois?" Anubis didn't sound half asleep anymore. "What's Ophois doing with you, Robert?"

I had the push the dog back down. He only left with a growl at the back of his throat.

"An, things are getting weird. Have you seen any of the old guard lately? I was just over to see Wep, our normal get together, and he wasn't there."

"What?" The other god's voice had turned suspicious. "Wepawet doesn't go anywhere without Ophois. Anywhere. That would be like me walking around without Lenpw."

"Yeah, yeah. I know," I tried to push forward, "His apartment was empty, and I found Ophois fending for himself out in the alley."

"That's not possible." His tone was final.

I just rolled my eyes. "I know. But that's what happened. You know I couldn't separate the two of them. But all the same, Ophois is right here beside me and Wep is nowhere to be seen."

"Fine." I heard something crash on his end as he moved around. It sounded like a lamp that had been foolish enough to get tangled in the phone cord. "Bloody! You just stay where you are, Robert. I'll come down as soon as I can and deal with you and Ophois."

The tone of his voice did not make me want to argue. Anubis may not be a major god anymore, but he was still head and shoulders above me. Pissing off someone like him would not be good for my long term outlook. One of the facts about being immortal, we have a long time to get our revenge for being wronged.

"It'll take me at least a day to get down there," I heard more scuffling in the background.

"Still in Australia?" I asked.

"What's it to you? I like it here." His reply was short and clipped.

"Nothing, nothing. I'll see you in a few days then?"

His voice was like ice when he spoke. "Don't let anything happen to Ophois. I knew Wepawet before your Christian religion was so much as a verse in a book. You'll regret it if you had anything to do with this."

I didn't even get another word out before his phone clicked down.

"Yeah. It was nice talking to you too."

Well, Anubis was one of the few gods I knew who didn't live in New York, most of us were around here.

"Problems with your friend?" Alice looked over at me as the news went to commercial.

"Yeah, I wouldn't exactly call Anubis a friend. He and Wepawet go way back, but I've never really known him."

Another ten calls and I was starting to get a picture.

I hadn't even worked my way through the Bs yet and it was already plain to see that power had everything to do with this. The big boys were sitting pretty, even the mid level gods with only a few thousand believers were just fine. It was only the small-fry with a couple hundred or less who'd dropped out of the picture.

And yours truly had a couple hundred believers on the dot.

None of the gods could have been gone all that long. Most of the phone lines were still connected, so that would limit their disappearance to no more than a month or so. The fact that no one had noticed, not even the other gods... that meant even more.

I'd been on the phone for a good hour now. Falling back to the sofa, I took a sip of cold coffee before making a face.

"Bloody hell, this stuff is even worse after it's set up."

Alice shrugged without ever even turning to me. "I've had worse. It's better than the stuff they used to make fifty years ago."

"So you're starting to remember things now?"

She finally turned her head. I could see the stress in her body, like a spring about to leap.

"Kinda. Bits and pieces. Nothing important. It's like I can remember all the worthless day-to-day of my life for the last fifty years but nothing real, nothing important. Like how you can remember what you had for breakfast, but not where you left your keys."

I rolled my eyes. "Well, isn't that convenient. Not only do you show up when things start going strange, but you have perfectly selective amnesia, and," I couldn't keep the venom from my voice, "I just happen to be the only one who can cure you of it." I snorted and turned back to my coffee. "Don't you bloody well try to have sex with me. For all my luck you probably really are sixteen and I'll have the pedo squad knocking down my door in a matter of minutes."

"What, and you think I want to be here?" Her voice was level, but it had fallen to a tone that chilled the air. "I've got the whole world to explore and you think I want to be in a dirty little apartment in the ass end of New York? God but you have an ego. I'm not here for you, I've here for myself. You want to make the best of this? I'll help with your little investigation until I remember what the hell's going on. After that I'm out of here."

Well, she had a bit more fiest than I expected.

The evening pretty much went downhill from there.

Three more cups of coffee and we were both wired. Her because she seemed to like the stuff, me because I didn't feel like going to sleep while the shadows could eat me.

You know, a dream like that would qualify as a pretty good acid trip. Too bad that stuff had no effect on me.

Speaking of trippy, Alice was playing with her top hat as she watched whatever was on TV now. It was some type of sitcom, but I think she was paying about as much attention to it as I was.

Her hat flickered with colour every now and then as I heard her whisper out a word or two. It wasn't nearly as impressive as what she'd been doing in the park.

"How do you do those illusions, anyway?" I put the phone down and stretched my back.

She started for a moment before looking up at me.

"Hmm? I learned it a long time ago... from my parents, I think."

"Yeah? But how does it work?"

She shrugged. "It's all about just making people see what they want to see. There's more to it than that... but I just seem to do it, I can't even remember how most of the time. Here," She handed me the hat. "Take a look. Do you see anything strange about it?"

I turned it upside down and ran my fingers around both the inside and out.

"Nope. Just a normal top hat, though with a bit of wear."

She smiled as she took it back from me.

"And who would you expect to wear a hat like this?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, someone going to a formal party?"

She cocked an eyebrow at me, "And?"

"A magician?"

"Exactly." She angled the hat away from me and waved her hand over it. "It's what you'd expect someone like a magician to wear. It's what you'd expect to be magic."

I snorted. "Lady, I've seen a lot of things over the years that people thought were magic. Trust me, after you've seen a supposedly magic horse liver or cow spleen, the whole enchanted item thing gets old really quick."

She laughed. "Yeah, I could imagine that." Her nose wrinkled. "But here," She kept the inside of the hat angled away from me, "You saw what I did earlier today, I'm doing the same thing now."

I shrugged and waited. The expression on her face had changed now, she was happy, excited. I'll admit it was a bit contagious.

A few moments later I began to see just the barest of coloured light play across her face.

"What do you see now?" Her voice had changed to one of a trained showman, it was steady and confident.

"Same thing you did before. The hat's warming up."

Her smile grew.

"Do you know what's really happening?"

I shook my head.

"Absolutely nothing."

It took everything I had not to roll my eyes. "Okay, then what am I seeing?"

"Exactly what you want to see. It's all an illusion. Illusions are all I can do. There's nothing really here, it's all just in your head. You'll see what you want to see. I can guide it, help it along, but you're the one doing all the work."

I closed my eyes for a moment before looking back to her. The coloured lights were still growing stronger, playing across her face.

"Okay, wiseguy, if you just told me all this, shouldn't you have broken the spell?"

She shook her head.

"Nope," She was practically bubbling over with laughter now, "It's all in your head. I got you to see it, that's all I need. Once you believe it, it takes on a life of its own. Sure you could quash it with some effort, but that's beyond most people. Folks like having things to believe in."

"Even gods?"

She shrugged. "Even gods."

"Now," she twisted the hat around so I could see the inside of it. There didn't seem to be anything in there but random flashes of light, "Once the illusion is set up I have more control."

Setting the hat down, she brought the lights together above it, forming shapes and figures.

"It's still nothing but illusion, Robert."

A moment later the image of a brick appeared.

"You can see it, but it's not really there." She passed her hand through the stone like it was fog. "However, do you remember if you left the door to the kitchen open?"

"Huh? No." It was behind me, I twisted around to take a look. I didn't usually close it, but right now it was shut.

"And that's where the power really comes in. The brick was meaningless because you knew it wasn't real. You saw me create it out of nothing. The door, however..."

Standing up, I went to look at the kitchen door, careful not to touch it.

It was just a plain wooden door, it didn't look out of place at all. I reached forward to touch it and felt its pitted wooden surface.

"Now you're just playing with me. I must have closed it. You can't touch an illusion."

She'd walked up to stand beside me.

"No, you can't."

And with that she gave me a hard shove forward.

She wasn't big, but then again I wasn't ready for the push. I only stumbled forward a step, but it was enough to send me facefirst into the kitchen.

The door vanished the moment I put weight on it.

"Gah!" I almost fell flat on my face.

Turning, I could see the door, sitting open. The way I always left it.

"Nice trick." I picked myself up off the ground and tried to brush some of the dirt from my jacket. "What does it mean?"

"If the attacks on you have been anything like the spot back in the alley, then they're all illusion."

"How are you so certain the super-glue back in the alley was an illusion?"

She glared at me for a moment. "I'm a professional. I work with illusion for a living. I know when I see another person's illusion. Or more to the point, didn't see it. It never existed to me until you pointed it out."

"Then how did it catch me?"

She shrugged. "You were already worried about creeping shadows. That was all that was needed to ensnare you."

"Wonderful." I sat back on the couch, closing my eyes. "So I'm up against someone who can make anything I fear?"

"In a way." She snapped her fingers with the sound of a striking match, an instant later there was a flame hovering in her palm. "You see that?" I nodded. "Good."

She snuffed it out with a clench of her fist.

"Turn around." She grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me about. "I'm going to do exactly the same thing, except you won't see it or hear it."

"Sure, but..."

"Shush."

Her hands came off my shoulder and I could feel her moving behind me.

"Alright, turn around." She commanded.

Okay. I turned.

She was holding out one hand, palm up. There was nothing in it.

"Am I supposed to be seeing something?" I asked.

Her smile grew. "Nope. I did exactly the same thing as before, but you don't know I did it, have no evidence and no one else to suggest it, so the illusion isn't there."

"So what, I just don't believe and it has no power? That's kind of easy to defeat."

She shook her head. "Not so quick. Even if you don't believe, all that's needed is some small, dark corner of your mind. You may believe and not even realize. That's all it takes. A smear of makeup, the scent of a particular flower, all that's needed is the slightest doubt and you'll be trapped."

"Wonderful. So a zen monk would be able to waltz right past, but as for me, no dice."

She'd already gone back to flipping through the TV channels. "Something like that. If you can recognize it as an illusion you won't have a problem. If not..."

"So this is where knowing all the different gods and all the freaky things they can do is not a benefit?"

"Yep. Pretty much." The next channel she hit was a game show. "Got anymore coffee?"

Well, that was a bit of an underwhelming case.

I was still annoyed that Alice and the minor god had slipped away.

It had been easy enough to follow them at first, but they managed to get away from me when they crossed the bridge. Damn, was this city big.

It was no matter anyway. I'd managed to get a couple of names out of one of my marks a few days ago. He'd given me the address of this god before finally slipping away.

It was here in Mott Haven, on the second floor of a massive projects building. The god had been old and frail. The exact type I should be happy to dispatch, but they just weren't fulfilling anymore.

Oh well. One less name on my list.

Walking out the front door, there were a couple of kids playing catch on the grass next to the sidewalk. I smiled at them as I walked past.

I kept flipping through my address book. I wasn't even calling people anymore. I already had a rough idea on who was still around given their power level.

It was depressing.

One name attracted my attention as I skimmed past it.

Manton. Otherwise known as Marty.

He was round about the same level as I was, and he even lived just the next building over.

I hadn't spoken to him in years. He was a Slavic god, and the two of us didn't have much in common.

Hell, there wouldn't be a better time to call. I was starting to get good at these, 'Hey, just checking to see if you're dead yet' conversations.

I dialled the number and his phone just kept ringing.

Hanging up, I turned to Alice, "Feel like going for a walk?"

Who knows, I was walking right into the path of the person who seemed to be killing off gods. Maybe I'm adventurous, maybe deep down I just have a death wish.

It was at least ten o'clock now. The sun was well down and the street lamps had come on. The other building was just next door, but to get to it we had to follow an endless maze of sidewalks around the rusted chain link fences.

There were a bunch of kids playing catch outside the front door.

Heh, cute. I guess it's a good thing when you can let your kids play outside in the evening and not have to worry about them getting brutally murdered.

Up the stairs, I had to double check my book to get his apartment number. I'd only ever been here once, and that was a long time ago. Call it stereotypical, but an Irish god like me didn't tend to spend too much time with continentals like him.

Ophois and Alice trailed along behind me as I wandered up the hallway. This building was no better than mine. The place was more or less made of poured concrete with florescent lights set in the ceiling behind steel grills. It could almost double for a jail if not for the occasional poster or potted plant sent out here and there. At least there was less graffiti than there used to be.

I pull up in front of Marty's room, two-eighty-one.

A hard knock on the door got me no response. Not that I was expecting much.

Okay, on to plan B.

A quick glance up and down the hallway revealed no one coming our way. I pulled a credit card from my pocket and slid it into the crack next to the door. It wasn't even my credit card - I didn't have any - I'd found it in the trash years ago.

Alice watched me as Ophois sat his fat dog butt down and waited.

"What are you doing?" Alice's voice was a whisper.

I rolled my eyes as I continued working away. "What does it look like? I want in."

"You know how to pick a lock?"

I laughed under my breath. "It's not exactly picking. This is the poor man's equivalent of a skeleton key."

Thankfully, whoever had last been through the door hadn't slid the deadbolt into place. That was good news for me. The only way I'd ever get past something like that would be to bust the door down, and I really didn't feel like trying that trick twice in one day.

It took me a good ten minutes and no small amount of cursing as I worked away. Every time I felt like I was about to make it the freaking spring had to slip against the edge of the card, letting the lock fall back into place.

The smell that came over me as I pushed the door open was that of baking bread.

It was dark in there, dark as sin. I flicked the nearby light switch, but nothing seemed to happen.

Alice poked me a moment later. She held a globe of light in her hand.

"The darkness is an illusion. I'm not powerful enough to dispel it, but my light can at least counter some of it."

I noticed that she flicked on every light switch we passed as we walked in. It didn't make any obvious difference.

Marty's apartment was a step up from mine. He had the full family model.

No one in the main room, nor the kitchen. That just left the bedrooms.

I was careful to keep a lookout for not only bodies, but also piles of clothes laying haphazard on the ground.

In the master bedroom. Nada, nothing. The place was a little better decked out than mine, he actually had a decent bed.

I was just about to give up when I poked my nose in the guest bedroom, Alice's ball of light throwing crazy shadows from behind me.

This room was black as sin, just as bad as all the others. The windows were covered over with what looked like soot, and the was place looked, even under Alice's light, almost faded to black and white.

I nearly turned to walk out when the light reflected off of something pale white.

Ophois began growling.

"Marty?" I stepped forward, trying to keep as much distance between myself and whatever it was in the room.

All I got for my trouble was a pained grown.

Two strides forward and I could see him. He'd remade this bedroom into some kind of parlour. His aged and frail body was reclined back into an old easy chair. His eyes were open, but they didn't track me.

"Marty?" I snapped my fingers in front of him but didn't get any response. With any human my first instinct would have been to check for a pulse. That wasn't much good with a god.

I wasn't quite brave enough to touch him. Ophois solved that problem for me. A moment later the dog was up with his front paws on the chair, nose rooting around to get a good scent from the god.

"Ophois! Down, get down!" I tried to shove him away, but backed up when he turned to me and snarled.

"A well trained one you've got there, Robert," Alice whispered from behind me.

Ophois huffed.

We must have done some good, for a moment later Marty began to move.

The actions were subtle at first, but they grew. At first nothing more than the twitch of an eye, then the flick of a finger, but soon enough his mouth started to tremble. All this time his gaze had never moved to track us.

"Who's there?" I could barely make out his voice. It was soft and distant, sounding like the skitter of leaves over the ground in autumn.

Marty's body hardly seemed to move. I could only just see the slightest motion to his lips when he'd spoken.

"It's Robert, Robert O'Toole." I knelt by his side. I wasn't exactly sure how to apply first aid to a fellow god.

"Robert..." He drifted off for a long moment, "Yes, I remember you. We were made about the same time, weren't we? It doesn't seem so long ago now. Only a few hundred years. Only a handful of lifetimes."

"Yeah, yeah, sure." I was running my hands up and down his body now, looking for any obvious sign of trauma.

Touching another god was not exactly a pleasant experience. It felt like we were both positively charged, like magnets, like there was a field around us the repelled, pushed us back.

That, and it was just plain creepy.

Okay, I wasn't a doctor, but there was nothing obvious on him. He didn't have any huge gaping holes torn in him or missing limbs.

"What's going on, Marty? What's wrong." I tried to catch his eye, but he steadfastly stared off into the middle distance. I wasn't even sure he was blinking.

"Do you remember the day you were made, Robert?"

I laughed. That was a hard thing to forget.

"Yeah, sure. Waking up on a cold stone slab in the middle of a church fifty years after you've died is one of those things that sticks in your mind."

He laughed, a quiet wheeze that barely escaped him.

"Fifty years? It took me over a hundred to collect enough believers to be made. And less than a decade for them to dwindle to almost none."

He took a deep breath, it sounded like the insides of his lungs were dry as sand, rustling as they rubbed together. "Do you know what I was while I was alive, Robert? I was a confessor for the church. I took those I was given and I made them confess to their crimes, their heretical beliefs. I was the best of my kind in generations. That was why I was made. I supported my Catholic church and they sainted me. I did everything my cardinal asked of me. If he wanted a man to be a heretic I made him confess to it. If he wanted that man's wife, mother, or son to be a heretic I would make him confess to that as well."

"I was an artist of the knife and the hot steel. I confessed more than four-hundred people in my life. Every single one of those handed to me, no exception if they were man, woman, or child. They all confessed in the end. I was perfect."

"Do you know what the odds were that every one of them was a heretic? God, Robert, I lived in one of the most devout parts of the country, in a time that the church was both loved and feared. The chances of not one of them being a true believer, and I still drew a confession from their lips... And it was all for nothing. Do you know that I met Him?"

I paused when Marty spoke that word. He put enough power behind that one word to make the walls tremble.

"Him?"

He nodded ever so slightly.

"I met him, Robert, I met the one Lord." His face was fighting between a radiant smile and a pained scowl. "It was only years after I'd been made. I had no use for the land that I had lived in while I was alive. No one believed I was who I claimed to be, and the local gods were worse than useless. I travelled south, to the holy land."

"The Lord doesn't spend much time there anymore, but I tracked him down, I wouldn't let him escape me. I'd spent my entire life serving the Lord as best I knew how, following the wishes of those above me in the church, as they must be his will. I had been promised that I would be with my Lord in death, that I would ascend to heaven. I could not allow him to escape me now. I'd been brought back to this world for a purpose, I believed it in the depths of my heart, I had to find my Lord in this new life and serve him."

"And find him I did, after years of searching. It could have even been decades, the years run together so... but I found him. He was in a small village a few miles out of Jerusalem, so tiny it didn't even have a name."

"I'd expected to find him in a palace of light, in fortune everlasting. He was laying face up on the ground of the village common, in the shade of a fig tree."

"It wasn't even a pretty common. The town was poor and there was only just enough to go around. He looked no better and no worse than the average person I'd seen on the road. He looked like every man, like he was of us, not above us."

"I knew it was him when I approached. I'd been warned many a time by the gods who had directed me to him that I should stay away. They had refused to tell me why, even to hint beyond the vague fact that there was more to the universe than I knew."

"But I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it, Robert. I'd spent my entire life serving him, I had to know his plan for me, why I'd been brought back, brought to life everlasting."

"I didn't know what to do as I approached him. He never acknowledged my presence as he lay there, staring up into the cloudless sky."

"I came to him with my head bowed, my palms and forehead all but on the ground. It was never spoken in the church how one should approach God, how one should speak to him when he is present on the very earth itself."

" 'My Lord.' Those were the only words from my lips. I could say nothing else. It took me a long time to realize that he did not respond to me, didn't acknowledge me in the slightest."

"I spoke louder now, 'My Lord, please, I must speak to you.' It took long moments before his head turned to me."

"I cannot repeat the words of God, for even now I know that to be blasphemy, but... he was unlike anything I'd ever expected."

"His form, his manner... he was so as like mortal man as to be indistinguishable. The only way I could know my Lord was by his power, by the force that pushed at me like a tidal wave through the very air itself."

"And he did not even know who I was."

"I had spent my life in service to him, one of his greatest tools, so I thought, and he didn't even know who I was."

"I told him of my name, my many deeds I'd performed back home. His only response was mild surprise."

"I could see in his eyes that people like me coming to him was a common occurrence. He humoured me, spoke pleasantly, treated me kindly in all ways, but in the end he cast me away with little more than a 'thank-you'."

I was silent for a moment in the darkened room with Marty. I'd never met God. I'd never had the courage to seek him out. It hadn't been long after I'd been made either, back in Ireland, that I'd thought to seek out God, the one I'd worshipped, the one who had in a roundabout way brought me back from the void.

"What happened, Marty? What happened after you spoke to God?" I could hardly whisper the words, my voice was as weak as his.

"What does one do after being cast aside by He who one has devoted his entire life too? No," He shook his head, "I did more than that. I devoted not only my entire life, but years there after being made."

"It would have been glorious to be accepted into his fold, to be accept in to heaven by his very hand. It would have even been easier to be condemned by him, to be told that I had not listened to him truly in life."

"He did neither. I was not even so much as a highlight of his day. He hardly acknowledged me, cared not for who I was or what I had done in his name. I had tortured and killed for him, Robert, I had done most terrible things in his name, to make him proud of me."

"I had done so much, sacrificed so many, and he had hardly even opened his eyes to see me."

"One should never meet their God, oh dear Robert. That was what the lesser gods had been warning me of."

"I had found my Lord, and he was most powerful, more so than I could ever imagine, I was but a mout flickering in the air before him."

Marty's voice fell even further now.

"I passed another man as I left that day. At first I thought nothing of it, but then I felt the faintest of pressures as we passed in the street. He was another god."

"I couldn't help myself. I turned and ran back to watch clandestinely. I did not presume to listen to the words of God that were handed to another, but I watched them speak."

"For the six days I sat there. I did not eat and I did not sleep. Not a drop of water passed my lips, and I felt none the worse for it."

"And in that time my Lord never once moved from his place under that fig tree. Hardly ever did his eyes move from the cloudless sky."

"Seventy-two men and women came to him, near all on bent knee. They prayed to him, spoke to him, sang of his glory. Not one of them received anything more than I had."

"He acknowledged them all, spoke briefly, then cast them aside as nothing more than chaff."

"That was when I left. I never looked back. God is still my Lord and my saviour, but I could not bear to look upon him again."

"I wandered the land for many years after that. Not only did I find gods elder than I, but I also found those younger. I told those who seeked the Lord, any Lord, that they should not do so. For I had learned, by first hand or not, that it was not only my Lord who was as I'd seen. All the great lords of all the great schools. They were beyond us. Even as gods we could not be one with our God."

"When passage to the new world happened upon me I took it. I wandered here as well. The only thing of value I believe I've done since I was made has been here in the new world. I've dug graves."

"I sent so many to their deaths, I've not only dug graves for their number, but countless more."

"I felt the call we all did, fifty years ago. That was when I came here, to this city. I hadn't the slightest why I came, but now I think I do."

"What?" I broke in, "What are you talking about, Marty?"

"The answer." He smiled now, relaxed and full. "Why we are gods, why we are here." He took a deep breath, letting it out slow and calmly. "We are here to die. The Rational convinced me of that."

Okay, I'll bite. "Who or what is 'The Rational'?"

He took a deep breath, his lungs sounding wet and soft. It was a long time before he spoke.

"A man, just a man, nothing more. He was the only one to see us, gods, for what we are. We're no great people lording above others, we're just as petty and vain as any. He was the only one who in all my long years to be able to tell me why I'm here, why I was made. To die."

He coughed, a sticky sound, like the will to live was draining from him with each breath. "I spent my entire mortal life serving a Lord who never knew I existed, and never cared once he did. I spent much of my immortal life seeking him out only to be disgraced by his presence. It's been centuries and I haven't a purpose, a meaning. Every day is like the last, every moment like all those to come. That is no longer."

"There is no heaven for us, Robert, and no hell either waiting for me. We haven't a soul to be saved. Everything we have is given to us by our believers."

He smiled. It wasn't a pretty sight.

"I'm going to die, Robert. It's the one thing I can do to make the world a better place. It's the only thing any of us can do after so many long years of our petty bickering."

I reached forward to him, to try and shake some sense into the man before he did anything rash.

I didn't make it.

One moment he was there, the next he was gone. The clothes and blankets that had been around him fell together into the void his body had left.

"Marty?" The breath caught in my throat, "Manton!" There was nothing left of the god.

I backed away. My hand had brushed the seat where he had been seconds before. Not even the warmth of his body remained.

I closed my eyes for a moment to collect my thoughts, when I reopened them there was nothing to see.

"Alice?" My heart beat faster at the thought of being trapped in this unnatural darkness. "What happened to the light?"

She didn't say anything, but from the blackness beside me I could hear crying.

I groped blindly in the darkness for the hem of her coat. It took me a few swipes to find it, and when I did I held on for dear life.

She was shaking.

"Alice?"

She didn't say a word.

I pulled her close to me and cast out my free hand to grope my way back to the door we'd closed behind us.

I could hear Ophois' claws clicking on the floor to my right.