CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Ugly Little Nightmare Man

 

SLOGUTIS DRIVES THE golf-cart, whistling a jaunty tune. He’s not sure what it is, at first—just an earworm that crawled into his head and laid eggs. Something from an American television show from days past. I Dream of Jeannie? No. Bewitched! That’s the one. Bewitched. Not entirely inappropriate, really.

The golf-cart bounds through the night, away from the farmhouse and toward the distant Barn—a Barn that sits a quarter-mile thattaway, kept separate from the house just in case one of the, erm, ‘residents’ should somehow get free.

Sprinklers wet the grass.

To his left: a lovely pond, the dock painted brick red.

To his right: a springhouse lovingly put together with rocks.

Beneath him, beneath the ground itself and so not visible to the eyes: the temple-mazes, where the gods of the protectorate gather for rituals and where they bring their most beloved cultists for hymns, paeans, chants, odes, invocations, evocations, summonings, banishings, pleasure orgies, mating orgies, blood orgies, birth rites, death rites, first rites, last rites, parties, food, drink, and assorted magic miscellany.

Slogutis hasn’t been down there in a while.

Slogutis isn’t very important.

After all, not all gods are created equal. And the Exile didn’t help matters—it just shook up all the pieces, and now the gameboard looks like a hundred chess sets (and checkers, and Battleship and Scrabble) all smashed together.

Slogutis has always been something of a pawn in this game. He knows it. He’s not particularly happy about it, but he’s found comfort—a cold and slimy comfort, yes, but comfort just the same.

Some gods are primal. They’ve been here since the beginning, or close enough to it—as mankind was born, so too were the gods. No god predates humanity, of course, but fuck, don’t remind them of that. Most of them... ennnh, not a fan of the idea, and many have convinced themselves otherwise.

At the other end of the spectrum are the half-gods, the demi-gods, gods that were once human, or at least, didn’t start out divine.

Beneath them: all the monsters, creatures, slaves, spirits, demons, half-breeds, automatons. Plus your heroes, your avatars, your what-have-yous.

Slogutis isn’t any of those.

He’s firmly fixed in the mushy, gooshy middle—the hazy gauzy nowheresville belonging to the largest bulk of deitydom, the ‘lesser gods.’ They’re gods. Proper gods. But nobody really gives much of a shit about them. Hanuman? Eh. Monkeys; so what. Oh, you’re the god of a tiny island in the Pacific? Well, bully for you, you big fat fish in a tiny fucking pond—don’t swim up-river, or the big gods will eat you. Is the Pacific a pond or a river? Slogutis isn’t sure, and doesn’t much care. Gods of, what, of trees and breezes, of words and friezes, of rainbows and spring flowers and spiders and blah-blah-blah.

Slogutis knew this one old broad—Ament. ‘Greeter of the Dead,’ that was her gig in the old life. The spirits of the dead came to her, and before they officially passed on to their respective Otherworlds, she handed them, like, a piece of bread, a couple coins, and a map. You know what she does now? Same thing, basically. Attendant at Disneyland. Or Disneyworld, whatever. She doesn’t hand out bread, but she gives out tickets and tokens and, sure enough, a stupid fucking map.

Ament really owns the ‘lesser god’ thing.

Thing is, Slogutis shouldn’t really be a lesser god. His dominion isn’t puppy tails or squirrel turds or some obscure emotion like ennui. It’s pain! Anguish! Misery. Core components of the essential human experience. In fact, if you ask him, Slogutis will tell you that they are in fact the very keystone of what it means to be human. Outside birth and death, the only thing a human is guaranteed to experience is pain. Pleasure, maybe. Pain, certainly. Hell, it’s not like he’s got much competition. You’re a storm god, like Shango, you’re in a pretty crowded elevator—explains why he was slinging arrows earlier, talking trash. There’s a lot of sour grapes within given dominions. But who’s Slogutis shouldering out? A few pain spirits? A couple avatars of misery? Or there’s Acheron, who swears he’s a god of pain but really, let’s be honest, he’s the god of the river of pain (uh, big difference).

All that should bump him up the ladder, shouldn’t it?

But it doesn’t. He’s not from a primary pantheon, they say. Nobody worships pain and misery, they claim. Oh, and he’s unpleasant. “Like a tree grub,” that’s how Aphrodite referred to him just last week.

So he’s a nobody.

Except when they need him. Like now.

They shoved him in a golf-cart, told him to bring Cason Cole up to the house. Oh, and, as Aphrodite herself said: “Make him feel it.”

In other words: hurt him. Deep hurt. Pain of many flavors.

Which brings Slogutis happiness, if temporary. Any chance to do what he does best shines a light in an otherwise foggy, depressing existence.

Up ahead, then: the Barn. It’s a big building. Old, technically, though refinished to the point where the only original wood is the floor. The whole thing the color of blood, which Slogutis figured was because... well, blood wouldn’t show, then, would it? But when he suggested that, the other gods just looked at him (again) like he was some kind of freak. “No,” Aphrodite explained, “it’s because American barns are traditionally red.”

Fine. Whatever. She’s so unpleasant. Beautiful, sure, but it’s like putting a dress on a badger. Pretty dress. Nice face. Still a badger.

Right now, the Barn’s pretty empty of residents. Got the crazy bitch—Aphrodite’s own daughter-in-law, used to live with Aphrodite north of the city, but now given a stall. The unicorn (that awful thing). Last week they had a couple Eloko up in the loft cages—horrible little dwarves, pale and hairless, covered in a coat of grassy sprouts. Got tiny little mouths, but their jaws unhinge and open wide enough to gulp down an entire human being. They’re bound and gagged and, blessedly, weren’t allowed to keep their little bells. Love to ring those things. Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling; they ring the bell, someone comes looking. Someone gets eaten.

Slogutis parks the golf cart. He glances in the back, sees another pile of glimmering golden chain. Walks away without it. Pfeh. I don’t need those, he thinks. Human suffering is chain enough for me.

As he heads toward the Barn, he feels her—Psyche. At first it’s just a gentle sweep, an intrusion that’s equivalent to a glance and then, a stare. But then her invisible fingers try to plunge into his pie and he has to quickly slam the psychic doors to keep her out. He lets her have this thought before he does: You can get in those human heads, lady, but you’re not allowed inside this god-mind, thank you very much.

He unlocks the Barn’s side door. Walks into the stable.

He whistles as he works. He can’t whistle very well. Slogutis carries a tune the way a rust-eaten pail carries water. Still, it brings him pleasure.

Ah. There. The... well, he’s not all human, is he? No, no, he’s not. Frightening parentage, that one. He’s already up on his broken legs, standing there, shaking, swaying, sweating. Eyes rimmed in dark circles, lip sniveling. Got his arms wrapped right around his midsection as if he’s cold, and the way he’s shivering, he might be. Feverish.

“You look like a hot mug of puke,” Slogutis says, his own oily arms folding up into one another. “You’re lucky ol’ Nergal didn’t tear off your head and piss into your neckhole, then animate your headless-puppet-piss-soaked body.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“What an attitude. Listen, I’m not the one who thinks he can go around willy-nilly, killing gods like he’s mopping a floor. Actions have consequences.”

“Go fuck yours—”

“Self, yeah, okay. Conversation over, then.” Slogutis affects a haughty tone, and while bowing, says: “Let us begin the delicious torment.”

He reaches into Cason Cole’s body. Finds all the bundles of nerves, then grabs them hard. In Slogutis’ mind, he braids those pain channels together and sends a searing spike of straight-up agony through the braid to every part of Cole’s body. From the tip of his nose to the tip of his dick. Heart probably feels like it’s exploding. Toes probably feel like they’re being eaten by rats.

It shows, too. The poor sumbitch drops like somebody kicked his legs right out from under him. Lands on the side of his hip. He makes this sound through his teeth—a sound Slogutis is pretty familiar with, actually—that goes a little something like this: Nnnnggghhhhhuuuhhh—and then it kind of... melts into a scream.

He hopes Psyche is enjoying the show. He can feel her there, hovering in his mind.

With the prisoner out of action, Slogutis begins undoing the chain.

Whistling again. Doo-doo-dee-doo.

He throws the chain to the floor, opens the stall.

Grabs Cason by the scruff of his shirt, drags him out.

In the back of the Barn, the unicorn stomps and whinnies. Slogutis hears a pile of somethings rattle against the floor, like someone just dumped a bag of rocks on the ground. Given the sudden burning stink, he’s pretty sure the unicorn just voided his—er, her—unicorn bowels. These days the thing shits coal. Literally shits hunks of shiny anthracite. Smells like charred sulfur.

It’s then that Slogutis realizes something, and as it often is with him, by the time he realizes it, it’s far too late. He realizes:

He doesn’t feel Psyche anymore.

Huh.

And then, just as abruptly, his connection with the prisoner is gone. Cut off. Sheared like a piece of rope in a slamming door.

Cason grunts, rolls over.

Starts to stand.

Still shivery, still shaky. And super-pissed.

It times out so, when Cason’s fist clocks Slogutis in his pale, thin-lipped mouth, the minor god of pain and misery figures it out:

Psyche’s not in his head anymore because she’s back in Cason’s.

She’s the slamming door that sheared his rope.

Suddenly he’s being thrown around like a dance partner, and Cason Cole has taken the lead—Slogutis slams into a post, then a stall gate, then another post. Fist breaks his teeth. Slams into the side of his head. His gut. His nuts.

A tiny thought strikes him: The Beast has awakened. If only for a moment.

As Cason picks him and hurls him ten feet toward the back of the Barn, Slogutis reaches out wildly, blindly, a pair of lashing mental ropes that—as he slams against the wooden floor and bowls over, rolling another ten feet—fail to find purchase.

At first.

But then, as Slogutis lays flat, his head smacking dully against the old wood, his psychic lassos seize a pair of minds.

Cason’s.

And Psyche’s.

It’s not easy. It is, in fact, a challenge that requires the uttermost concentration. Slogutis stands, a seed of bitterness blooming fast in his stomach, because once upon a time, this would be a task equivalent to blinking both eyes at the same time—totally natural, without issue. He could let a wave of torture roll over entire armies if he so chose. His power, the power of all the gods, was once nearly infinite. But now, since the Great Usurper seized the throne...

He can’t think about that now. Or he’ll lose at least one, maybe both, of his victims.

Slogutis stands. Sees the wild-haired looney-bird Psyche in her stall. This time, nobody swaddled her in a straitjacket—the Driver said it’d be better if the chain was wound directly around her, and that’s what it is, here. A golden chain wrapped around her body again and again and again. A body now seizing in abject anguish.

The pain god chuckles.

“You... think... you... can stop... me.” He shakes his head. Sweat beads on his grimy brow, his ink-black hair stuck to his forehead. “You’re... less than... me.”

Then he hears something behind him.

The rattle of a chain.

He turns. Sees Cason on the ground, body wracked with spasms.

But he’s got something in one of his hands—a golden chain, death-gripped like an eagle talon holding a serpent.

Where the hell did he get it?

“You... don’t... need that.”

Slogutis twists, sends a psychic knife through the bones of Cason’s wrist: his fingers jerk open, and the chain drops.

And then the floorboards vibrate.

There’s a snort, and—

Something very sharp punches through Slogutis’ chest. Something quite visible, in fact: a unicorn horn. Twisted and black with his own heart’s ichor. The unicorn stomps a hoof, shattering wood.

Then it screams in victory.