Prologue
Blue Hills, Massachusetts
Present Day
Thunder crashed, and Anshar pulled a second pillow over his head, groaning. It had been two days since the god, Marduk, and Tess, his Chosen, had completed the amulet ceremony. From that moment on, they hadn’t let up. Not that sex was such a bad thing. It only sucked when you couldn’t have any. It also sucked that the thunder god was so out of control he couldn’t keep his discharges quiet.
Anshar didn’t blame his best-god chum. If Anshar had a woman like Tess, and the ability to pleasure her in bed all day, he’d be out of control too. The problem was, he didn’t…and he couldn’t. Anshar didn’t have a woman, had never had one, and wouldn’t dare to mate, even if he miraculously regained his body someday.
Anshar, the god of the whole sky—which meant he could change meteorological conditions in a blink; make a sunny sky suddenly roil with storm clouds or clear a dense fog with blinding speed—was one of ten gods anxiously scrambling to find the secrets that would make them corporeal again.
Marduk and the wind god Enlil had already achieved physical status. Enlil’s was still tied to being within a hundred yards of Tess or her brother Huxley because of their blood ties, but Marduk’s nontangible tribulations were completely over. Since the amulet ceremony, he could become substantial at will, whenever, wherever. All made possible because Tess was Marduk’s Chosen. And Enlil? Well, he was the lucky bastard who had bedded a babe back in ye olde Merrymount, 1620-ish, and unknowingly knocked the pilgrim up. He then began a direct god-blood line to Tess and Huxley, which was his key to fleshing out.
Hence, Anshar’s second problem of the day. The gods needed to track down all of their living blood descendants to see if more mortals had the power, like Tess, to make them embodied. They were convening in the meeting room—renamed the war room since Dagon, their once good-buddy-god-turned-bad, had reappeared—a large, atrium-like area with comfy chairs in fifteen minutes. They were about to play a friendly game of “Who’d You Screw?”
Each god was to search their brains and remember women from 384 years ago whom they could have impregnated. For some, like ultra-naughty Absu, who the women had swooned over, the number could be vast, and the chances of him remembering names would be slim. Then there was Ishkur, who had remained true to one woman in the early Quincy settlement. He, at least, could render completely accurate information.
Anshar was having none of the god’s bullshit. Everybody assumed, because of his flagrant charm, that Anshar had bedded countless women. Divulging that he was still a virgin was not on his top-ten list of favorite activities. If he went to the meeting and bluffed, his brothers would smell the lie on him and his street cred would drop like Bernie Madoff’s. Not going to chance it.