False Gods Read online

  False Gods

  Nazri Noor

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  FALSE GODS

  First edition. February 20, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Nazri Noor.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 979-8-6145-0494-6

  1

  The pain inside me was unbearable. Imagine snakes slithering around in your belly, every tumble through your bowels creating another horrible, twisting contraction that makes your innards reverberate with sour agony. Imagine a throat full of acid, your own body blazing on the inside, but drenched with cold sweat on the surface.

  Now roll it around in broken glass. Dump some kerosene on it. Set it on fire.

  I writhed, I wriggled, my clothes stained clear through with sweat. My insides were burning. I was dying. I had to be dying. But through the tears, I caught a glimpse of a dark shape moving towards me, the bulk of his body blocking most of the light.

  Florian, sweet, foolish Florian. My dearest friend. I reached out to him, my last, my only hope, as my chest and my stomach churned like fire.

  “Florian,” I groaned. “Please. I’m dying.”

  He nudged me with his foot. “Quit with the dramatics, will you? Just a little flying sickness. That’s all.” He nudged me with his other foot.

  I groaned again, slapping his leg away. “Stop it. Hey, quit it. I’m sick.”

  “Obviously.” He looked around my hut, the one I’d built with my own two hands in Artemis’s domicile, and he frowned. “Looks like you’ve been sick all over the place.”

  I waved a hand around our general vicinity. “I got most of it in that bucket over there. Don’t judge me. Raziel didn’t tell me that this was a side effect of sprouting wings and flying for the very first time. How the hell was I supposed to know?”

  “Listen. Buddy. It was your first time, that’s all. You got overexcited and exerted yourself a little too much. I’m sure next time’s going to be better.”

  “There’s not going to be a next time,” I grumbled, my forearm pushed over my mouth.

  Florian gave me a bright smile, the kind you make when you’re trying to be a great, supportive friend, which he was. “But don’t you remember the joy of the flight? You couldn’t stop talking about it the whole drive back to Valero. You had the time of your life.” He looped his finger around in a long curlicue through the air. “All those barrel rolls you did.”

  My stomach gurgled. “Oh my God. Stop. You’re going to make me hurl.”

  He shrugged. “I’m just trying to help. Speaking of, what do you need me to do for you?”

  My forearm slid up to my brow, which was drenched with cold sweat. My lashes fluttered as I tried to focus on Florian’s face. “Here’s how you can help. Tell Priscilla I’ll miss her. Tell Artemis I’m sorry I ate all her snacks. And tell Raziel – ”

  Florian frowned at me, but he bent closer anyway, curious.

  “Tell Raziel that he’s a fucking asshole.”

  Florian sighed. “Listen. You’re not going to die. Probably. Also, I can’t believe you got into her snacks. I’m pretty sure Artemis is going to be super pissed about that. You know how she gets about junk food.”

  Snacky Yum-Yums, specifically, these cheesy, puffy snacks that the goddess of the hunt seemed to be so fond of. The gods of ancient myth complained all the time about how the world had changed, how they weren’t nearly as powerful now that mankind no longer worshipped at their temples or even believed they existed. But they sure as hell weren’t complaining about modern luxuries.

  Artemis loved – fucking loved her Snacky Yum-Yums, and Dionysus was happiest when he was running his night club, which was well and good, because it meant that he wasn’t going around razing the countryside with his maenads in bloody berserk frenzies. And Apollo? Apollo was just horny. Super horny. But let’s not get into that.

  What mattered the most were my insides, and making sure they remained my insides, because I’d spend the past day or so examining my outsides and checking that they didn’t have bits of my internal organs stuck in them. I covered my mouth as another spasm threatened to make things rocket out of me in a flurry of chunks. Raziel was going to get it from me next time I saw him. He was gonna get it good.

  Something creaked. It was the door to my hut, light spilling in as it swung open, and I lifted my hands to shield my eyes, exactly like a vampire. Everything hurt, and even just the touch of sunlight on my eyeballs was like being beaten in the head with a baseball bat. I dug my fingers into my sweaty temples, willing my headache away. I promised myself that I was going to find where Raziel kept all his precious designer clothes. Note to self: bring kerosene, and a box of matches.

  The sudden intrusion of light faded as heavy feet plodded towards me. I focused on the threshold, smiling when I saw Priscilla the gorilla shutting the door behind her. She shambled to my bed, dressed in her pink apron, her lips arranged into the world’s most endearing smile.

  A spasm went up from my stomach and I twisted in the sheets again. It didn’t happen very often, but whenever I felt really sick, or in pain, part of me just really wanted my mom to be around, to wipe the damp strands of hair off of my forehead, to pat me on the back of my hand and tell me things were going to be okay. In a strange and unexpected kind of way, it felt like Priscilla was filling that role, just the tiniest bit.

  “Ook,” she grunted, holding out her hands. “Ook, ook.”

  It was a freshly split coconut, its milky white juices sloshing tantalizingly in its half shell. I licked my lips at the sight of it, pushing myself off the bed carefully.

  “Can I – should I even be drinking this?”

  “Ook,” Priscilla repeated, pushing the coconut into my hands. Its shell was smooth and cool against my skin, like she’d taken the time to soak it in a river – or, more likely, retrieved it from one of the refrigerators Artemis had us haul into the domicile. Priscilla lifted her hand to her lips, mimicking sipping from a bowl.

  Florian nodded. “You know, coconut water is actually really well known for its nutrients and its hydrating properties. You need to replace all those fluids you’ve been losing. Gotta get those electrolytes, and coconuts have a ton of them.”

  Priscilla nudged her head at him. “Ook,” she said, in a way that sounded vaguely like “This guy knows what’s up.”

  So I took the coconut, sipping slowly, at first, then downing its contents over the course of a delicious, refreshing half minute. The fire burning in my body was dying a slow and tasty death. I rubbed my forearm across my chin, wiping off the stray drops of juice that had spilled there, then gave a long, happy sigh.

  I grinned at Priscilla gratefully. “You know, that does hit the spot. I feel a little better.”

  “Great,” Florian said. “Now get up. We’ve got work to do.”

  My muscles drooped, and I fell immediately back into bed, one hand still clutching an empty coconut. “But I’m tired,” I said, drawing out the word, whining at the ceiling.

  “No. Mason Albrecht, we have a commitment. We need to go see Beatrice Rex about a purse.”

  My nose wrinkled. “Screw Beatrice.”

  Florian sighed. “Hah. I wish.”

  I looked at him and giggled – which, in retrospect, was a weird thing for me to do. I had to chalk it up to my illness. “Somebody’s got a crush.”

  It was hard to really tell in the dimness of the hut, but I was pretty sure Florian was blushing. “That’s not – you’re being a child. Little brat. Priscilla. Plan B.”

  “Ook.”

  I made my body as heavy as I could, clutching the underside of my mattress as Priscilla cracked her knuckles and approached me. “Plan B? What the hell is Plan B?”


  All the strength left in my body plus whatever extra power my nephilim blood gave me did jack squat. Priscilla picked me up like a rag doll, throwing me over her back like a bundle of wet spaghetti. My stomach connected with her massive shoulder as I landed there and I very nearly spewed again.

  “Put me down,” I yelled. “If this is Plan B, I don’t even want to know what Plan A was. Priscilla, come on, put me – ”

  “We have a commitment, and we’re going to keep it,” Florian interrupted sternly. “We need to sell wine to Dionysus so you can afford your damn invisibility thong, but we need Beatrice to lend us a magic purse to transport the wine in the first place. This is all about you, Mace.”

  “Couldn’t this wait until tomorrow?” I placed both my hands like a visor over my eyes as Priscilla kicked my door open, carrying me out into the sunshine of Artemis’s domicile. “You’re only in a rush because you want to see lover girl again.”

  The green of Florian’s eyes went so much darker. “Priscilla.”

  “Ook?”

  “River.”

  My fingers clawed for purchase, digging into Priscilla’s hide, desperately clenching for dear life. I always knew that she was no ordinary gorilla, but the strength she demonstrated that day really sealed it for me. Priscilla hurled me like a sack of lumpy potatoes, and the wind whistled in my ears as I sailed through the air. It was just like flying, which made my stomach burble all over again.

  I made myself another promise, just before my face hit the water. Next time I saw Raziel, I was going to shave his fucking head.

  2

  Okay, to be fair, getting dunked in the river just outside my hut did me a world of good. Or it could have been the incredible power of that little coconut and its naturally occurring electrolytes. Long story short, giving myself a good scrub, toweling off nice and dry, and running a comb through my hair for good measure actually did make me feel a lot better.

  Sometimes you just need an extra nudge to get off your butt and do something about your situation. That, or get thrown in a river by a gorilla in a pink apron.

  Artemis was nowhere to be found when Florian and I were making our way out of the domicile, which probably meant that she was secreted in one of the many wooden structures she’d made me put up since we started construction.

  She’d designated a bunch of buildings and named them things. “Here’s the clubhouse, and that’s – I guess that’s the toolshed.” But for the most part, the structures were just places for her to stuff her alarmingly useless collection of human junk.

  And junk food, too. One shed was packed to overflowing with chocolate snack cakes, but the holy grail was the tiny hut where Artemis kept all the Snacky Yum-Yums. I gulped as we walked past it, making a mental note to replenish her supply as soon as possible. Don’t ask why I developed a craving for cheesy puffs while I was hurling my guts out. It probably didn’t help me recover any faster.

  “You go first,” Florian said, gesturing at the shimmering portal in the domicile’s nexus, a large, green doorway in the shape of a leaf.

  “Happily,” I said, passing through, no longer as nervous as I once was of interdimensional travel.

  I just had a fussy stomach, I guess. I puked my guts out the first few times I experienced teleportation, and entering the domiciles of supernatural entities always made me feel a little queasy. Looking back, I should have known that flying would have had a similarly nauseating effect. I thought I was pretty fit when it came to physical stuff, but supernatural methods of transportation tended to expose a surprisingly delicate other side to my constitution.

  But it was still Raziel’s fault, damn it.

  The ambient warmth and humid heat of Artemis’s home fell away as Florian and I entered the actual reality of Valero, California, right where the goddess’s tether was situated. Gods liked to keep multiple doorways to their realms, and the one we used just happened to be located in the Nicola Arboretum, tied to a small, mossy statue of a fox.

  I sipped in the fragrant, verdant air of the botanical gardens, relishing the satisfaction of stretching my arms as far as they could go. Yeah, that was the ticket. Nothing like a good stretch. Granted, it wasn’t as satisfying as that time I got to stretch my wings, but I wasn’t kidding when I said I wasn’t sure about flying ever again.

  And those wings conveniently vanished when I landed back on terra firma, receding back under the sigils on my skin. They could stay hidden, as far as I cared, at least until I learned how to fly without needing an air sickness bag strapped to my face.

  “We should just walk it,” Florian said.

  I nodded in agreement. “Great idea. Nice day for it, anyway.”

  We were getting a decent stipend from Artemis for our work. Nothing life-changing, but just enough for me and Florian to save up a little for some luxuries here and there. Priscilla kept us nice and fed, so that was a bonus, but us boys knew that we weren’t out of the woods yet as far as finances went. If hoofing it to Silk Road meant that we could save on a little chunk of change, then so be it. Not the shortest walk, but I figured a little exercise and fresh air would be good for me.

  “Tell me again why we’re off to see your girlfriend,” I said, managing to keep my smirk mostly to myself.

  “It’s – she’s not my girlfriend,” Florian said, blushing. With a deep tan, moss-green eyes, and hair in tight curls like tendrils and vines, his features clearly took subtle cues from the less human half of his physiology. That included his height, too, and it was fun pushing his buttons, seeing this six-foot something slab of meat get all flushed and flustered. “I just think she’s cute, and it’s fun to flirt with her. And why am I even talking to you about this, anyway? Like I said, she agreed to lend us her purse.”

  I cleared my throat, kicking at a pebble, suddenly feeling playful and cocky now that I wasn’t two coughs away from turning my body inside out. “Lend us her purse. Is this some sort of euphemism for something? Is that how you kids talk nowadays?”

  “Mason, I swear. Plan B was us being nice. We could have gone all the way to Plan C.”

  I cocked an eyebrow, studying his face. “And what was Plan C?”

  Florian’s eyes narrowed into slits. “You don’t want to know. Now stop teasing me. Beatrice’s purse is like one of those, whatchamacallit, bottomless bags.”

  “Hmm?” I snapped my fingers in understanding. “Oh, I’ve heard about those. They’ve got a little dimension hidden on the inside. You can put tons of stuff in them and they never get heavy.”

  “Or bulge up, or anything,” he said. “Right. And since we don’t exactly drive and neither of us is up to paying for a service to haul fifty jars of wine all the way to Dionysus, I figured we could borrow the purse and save ourselves a ton of effort.”

  I nodded at him and grinned. “Very smart, Florian. I’m impressed. How’d you know she had one of those sitting around?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t, but it’s the nature of her business. Enchanted tailoring and stuff. She was bound to have one somewhere in her shop. Turns out she has several, and she’s willing to lend us this one for free.”

  “And how’d you swing that?”

  The corner of Florian’s mouth hiked up into a little grin, and he winked. “A gentleman never tells.”

  I scoffed as we went down another block, cutting into a side road sandwiched between a pair of residential buildings tall enough to keep the street shadowy, dim, and cool. I lifted my head, noting how both of them seemed so sparse, their apartments either empty or with curtains drawn across the windows.

  “Huh,” Florian said, spotting the same thing. “Everybody must be at work.”

  Just then, the fluttering of wings far too large to belong to any bird came from somewhere behind me, followed by the clicking of heels on asphalt.

  “Hah,” I said, chuckling. “Not everybody. Look who’s come to visit. About time you turned up, you huge, feathery jerk.” I cracked my knuckles. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
>
  I pivoted on my heels, my feet spread apart and my shoulders wide in what I strongly believed to be an intimidating stance as I turned to face Raziel, my chin raised for good measure. Then I stopped dead.

  Raziel and I were pretty much about the same height, and I’d expected to turn around to look directly into his smug, all-knowing face. I wasn’t expecting for my head to be level with the massive and frankly terrifying pectoral muscles of a seven-foot-tall slab of angel beef.

  “Oh, shit,” I muttered, lifting my eyes, wondering where the hell this humongous angel’s neck ended and where his body began.

  “Mr. Albrecht,” came a lilting voice from somewhere behind the wall of muscle, definitely not spoken by the angel bouncer himself. “It’s been a while.”

  Ah, nuts. I knew that voice.

  The huge angel took one enormous step to his side, his shadow dispersing as he lumbered off, revealing the source of the smarmy voice: a woman with a pen in one hand and a clipboard in the other. She smiled at me, and it was the most condescending, patronizing expression anyone could form with a pair of lips.

  “Mr. Albrecht,” said Sadriel, the angel of order. “How lovely to meet you again.”

  3

  I locked eyes with Florian for a moment, and I knew he could read exactly what I was thinking just from the look on my face. Evading these jerks, making it so no one could find my nephilim soul flaring like a beacon on the map? That was the whole point of seeing Beatrice in the first place, and of selling the first batch of Florian’s brews to Dionysus.

  My hands bunched into fists, and my teeth clenched. This was why I left the Boneyard, too. Florian was sticking his neck out for me, putting my needs ahead of his own just so I could be sure I wasn’t being stalked by this flavor of supernatural or that at every turn. I glared back at Sadriel, hardly able to keep my temper under control despite the fact that she was flanked by four extremely large and extremely protein-obsessed bodyguards.