Table of Contents

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23 * - New 11/30/2007
Epilogue * - New 11/30/2007

Extra Chapter that you should only read if you're really bored, because it has nothing to do with the story, but I needed another 1300 words. * - New 11/30/2007

IT'S OVER!!! IT'S OVER!!! IT'S OVER!!! IT'S OVER!!! AND I DID IT!

Extra Bonus Chapter

Hep, Ares, and Scroat Go to The DMV!

Or!

Ares Wigs Out and Kills A Lot of People One More Time!

Or! Dear god, the story is over and I still have to write 1300 some words!!!


One fine Saturday morning, Hep, Ares and Scroat woke up unusually early. They had to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew the tabs on Scroat’s motorcycle. This was because Scroat is a total slacker, and didn’t renew his tabs on the internet before the deadline.

You might be surprised to learn that gods would have an internet connection, but they do. Where else would they find the information they want about motorcycles and pictures of boobs for free?

After a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, waffles, orange juice and chorizo breakfast burritos, they went out to Ares car. It was a 1965 Ford Falcon station wagon, painted matte black, dropped two inches with red rims and white walled tires. He called it the Battle Wagon, and it was as apt a name as any.

The 302 V8 roared to life, and Ares tore out of the driveway as though the Furies were after him (the ones from Hades, not the fine American Made Plymouth automobiles). They reached the stop sign at the end of the street in record time.

Turning right, Ares narrowly avoided rear ending a slow ass cell phone talking jerk in an ugly SUV. Ares roared around him, which was illegal because it was a no passing zone. He gave the sports utility vehicle pilot a bird flipping the likes of which had never been seen in this part of the world. Ares stomped the gas pedal to the floor, and the Ford Falcon station wagon named the Battle Wagon charged forward with all the might of a 1960’s vintage station wagon. Which is a lot, if you did not know.

They quickly approached a stoplight, which had just turned yellow. Ares continued even though safety and legality required him to stop. The light turned red seconds before Ares entered the intersection, and had there been a red light camera, his ass would have been ticketed.

Not that Ares worried about tickets. As a god of war, he had a particularly effective method of getting out of tickets. The method was going to court and appealing them, if you must know. It never failed.

The Ford Falcon station wagon nearly caught air as Ares piloted it into the parking lot of the Department of Motor Vehicles. They were half an hour early, and the line was already eight hundred people deep.

A curious fact about lines at the DMV that you might be interested to know: no where else in the world is the line guaranteed to grow exponentially in length between the time you pull into the parking lot and the time you actually get into line.

They got in line behind two thousand six hundred and four people, who had all waited until the last minute to get their tabs renewed, except for the one shit headed little weasel who was there to get his driver’s permit and was too dumb to clearly state what he was there for to the receptionist, thus guaranteeing everyone else an even longer wait. Man, everybody hates that kid, and I don’t know why they don’t just shoot them on sight. I mean, if you can’t tell the receptionist why you’re there, then you shouldn’t be driving a damn car anyway.

Thirty minutes late, the staff opened the front door, and immediately put on their “I don’t really care what you need because I’m just counting seconds here, and you’re going to hang out until I’m good and ready to let you go” faces.

Somehow, the clock slowed down. Ares was certain that Chaos was lurking somewhere, but no, that’s just how it goes at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Nearby, some dipshit who brought their kid with wasn’t quick enough with the pacifier and their bratty kid started shrieking and didn’t let up for the next hour and a half.

Which is how long it took for Ares, Hep and Scroat to reach the front desk at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

“Yes?” the entirely disinterested and unusually hostile woman behind the counter asked.

“I need to renew my tabs,” Scroat said politely. Note that he didn’t even use the word “Fuck” once, when it would be expected of him to say something like “I need some fucking tabs for my fucking motorcycles so I can go out and get some sweet young ass on my bike in order to fuck!”

“Your number is three H two B thirty nine. Please have a seat and someone will be with you shortly,” the Department of Motor Vehicles receptionist said to Scroat.

The number currently on display on the board was one A one A eleven.

The three gods sat down, and waited with the force and intensity that only three gods named Ares, Hep and Scroat can display when waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles for Scroat to get tabs because the stupid shit was too lazy to get on the internet and renew his tabs that way.

As the stupidity of the conversations occurring around them increased, along with the number of smelly people who probably shouldn’t be allowed within three hundred feet of a new or used car of any marque and of course the waves of crying babies, Ares began to twitch and shift around in his seat.

The number on the board had increased by one. The clock said only five minutes had passed, but Ares knew that in the real world, it had been fourteen hours since they sat in the uncomfortable molded plastic chairs that are only ever seen at a Department of Motor Vehicles on a Saturday.

Somebody bumped the back of Ares head, which annoyed him quite a bit. He remembered to keep his cool, and that they were in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, where the basic rules of not being nasty or stupid no longer apply.

And this would have all been well and good if a dumb ass wearing sweatpants hadn’t spilled his coffee all over Ares new leather pants and started laughing. That might have even been ok if the kid next to Ares hadn’t picked that moment to blow chunks on Ares freshly shined boots.

But now, alas, now people had to die.

“GRAAAAAH!!” Ares bellowed and leapt out of his chair. He grabbed the guy who’d spilled coffee on him and ran with him, directing the sweatpants wearing mouth breather’s head directly into the cinder block walls of the sturdily built Department of Motor Vehicles. His head made a huge gooshy mess, kind of reminiscient of grey pudding with hunks of white chocolate and horse hair in it.

Not satisfied, Ares ran at the stupid kid who couldn’t simply communicate that he was there for a driver’s permit test, picked him up, and threw the kid with all of his godly might at the fricking number sign that didn’t ever change. It exploded it a great, sparky shower of glass and electronic bit. Oh, and lots of blood and gore. Yep, that was one dead kid who should have been on the road anyway.

Then Ares leapt over the counter, and grabbed the surly employees. He did them all a favor by injuring them severely enough that they got to stay home on disability for the rest of their natural, flavored gelatin dessert eating lives. He then plucked a single tab for the new year from one of the surly former Department of Motor Vehicles employee’s desks and returned to where Hep and Scroat were sitting, staring at him in shock.

“Let’s go,” Ares said, and stomped towards the door. Even the dumbest of the smelly mouth breathing people was smart enough to get the hell out of Ares’ way. Ares stuck his arm out and walked directly through the door, ripping it from its frame.

“Fucking people just fucking piss me off,” Ares said when Hep and Scroat caught up to him.

“Fuck!” Scroat said in agreement.

And everyone who Ares hadn’t killed lived more or less happily ever after.

Epilogue

The party at Bacchus’ home in Olympus went on for centuries. Or it lasted for mere seconds. Time in the realms of the divine doesn’t mean much.

It was universally agreed, however, that the bacchanal was one of the wildest ever thrown. Enough liquor was consumed to paralyze entire armies. The mess the festive gods created was immense. None of them, including Bacchus, were worried about it in the slightest. In fact, as the party went on, it became a game to make the biggest mess possible of Bacchus’ home. Cleanliness and Godliness, in this particular instance, were nowhere near each other.

The reason, of course, was that Tim was responsible for cleanup of the divine wreckage. Between the gods, they had decided that the most suitable punishment for Tim was to be Bacchus’ custodial staff forever.

Among the marble columns and delicately sculpted busts, intricately woven tapestries, and finely painted portraits, the gods discarded food, drinks, containers and a variety of substances too unpleasant to discuss here.

As Tim wandered around the party, he frequently had to duck flying bottles and other significantly less pleasant things the revelers threw at him.

At one point, Scroat stumbled up to him, and slurred “Bucket. Fuck.”

Tim looked at Scroat and said “What did you say?”

Whereupon, Scroat unloaded the entire contents of his stomach on Tim.

“I said Bucket,” Scroat said, and staggered off to find another drink.

***

The surviving True Believers, now without a leader, quickly realized they’d been had. They released the people Tim had imprisoned, and went back to their regularly scheduled lives. Many of them found new self-help and new age scams to devote their lives and earnings to, and lived as happily as they could.

Just as no one had really noticed Tim’s rise to power, no one really noticed his removal from power. People continued to watch NASCAR and buy lottery tickets, and only a few retirees bothered to watch the President’s televised address when he and the Vice President returned to the White House.

The New Paradigm compound in Washington D.C. was razed, and several strip malls and luxury condominiums were built in its place. Any and all vacancies were quickly filled, and abandoned again when the next new, hot thing came along.

***

The pagans, for their part, continued sacrificing to all the gods who Tim had killed, slowly bringing them back from wherever they had been. They had managed to find a convenient list in Tim’s compound, so all they had to do was go through the list.

Of course, it wasn’t quite that easy. Making sacrifices to a variety of gods requires a lot of work (both research and labor) and funding (sacrificial costs add up quickly). Fortunately, their fund-raising car washes were generally well-attended and kept the gods in beer and skittles. At least, long enough for them to return. After that, many of them were on their own again.

***

It took Tim months to clean up after the blow-out party Bacchus had thrown. He had spent countless hours gathering garbage, scrubbing walls, removing stains from art, scrubbing the ceiling, scraping gooey bits out of corners, putting out fires, cleaning up soot from the fires, and so on.

After all of his back-breaking labor was complete, he stood at one end of Bacchus’ home and admired the work he’d done. He was fairly certain the house had never looked better.

“The house has never looked better,” Bacchus said, coming up from behind him. He clapped Tim on the shoulder. “And good thing, too, I’m having some of the boys over tonight for a humdinger of a bash. I suggest you rest up.”

***

“Where the hell did we leave the bikes?” Scroat asked Hep.

“In an abandoned shed somewhere in the deserts of New Mexico,” Hep said.

“Oh, good, I was worried they were going to be hard to get to again,” Scroat said.

“Nope, easy as pie,” Hep said.

When they got to the shed, they found the bikes were quite dusty, but otherwise exactly as they’d left them. The motors came to life immediately, and Hep and Scroat rode like hell to get home.

***

The Hamburglar, Princess and Robot toys went on to have another outrageous and hilarious adventure. However, that’s another fucking story.

Chapter 23

“Hi Guys,” Ahayuta said from behind them. Hep and the others turned around, shocked.

“How the hell did you guys get in here?” Hep asked.

“Our translucent friend here helped us find our way,” Ahayuta said, pointing to a partially see-through person. It was Dan! “We were able to duck into the tower here while you guys were distracting the goons outside.”

“Dan, what the hell were you doing in the city drains?” Sarah asked.

“Trying to find my way back out, of course,” Dan said. “The funny thing about being a new ghost is that you have to figure out how to move around without the benefit of friction. I wound up underground somehow before I got the hang of it.”

“Right,” Hep said. “Ok, so, where do you think Tim is at in here?” he asked the group.

“Why don’t we check the room over there marked ‘Temple’?” Heitsi asked in reply.

Across the room was, indeed, a pair of large, ornate doors with a rather ostentatious sign declaring, for anyone who was interested to read, that this was the Temple.

“So, is it Tim’s Temple, or the Temple of Tim?” Hep asked.

The group walked over to the doors and opened them. The interior of the temple appeared to be the bastard child of a corporate boardroom and mega-church. There were several long tables arranged so those sitting at them would all be able to turn and see the stage. The chairs at the tables were plush leather, and the tables themselves were some kind of dark wood, polished to a high gloss.

At the front of the room was the stage. At the back of the stage, several banners were hung, declaring that this was, indeed, the New Paradigm. There was also a podium, a table with a briefcase on it, and a sturdy wooden chair.

Strapped into the wooden chair was Pan. Near the podium, Tim was waiting with his hands held behind his back. And in the plush leather chairs surrounding the tables were a couple hundred True Believers in gold colored track suits. They all turned to face Hep and the rest of the crew, and stood up.

“Welcome!” Tim called from the front of the room. “I was beginning to worry that you weren’t going to find us in here, and that we’d have to come looking for you.”

“Let Pan go,” Hep said to Tim.

“Let him go? After all the trouble I’ve gone through just to catch him again? I think not, you silly man.” Tim said, and chuckled. “No, in fact, I’ve only been waiting until you were here to kill him.”

“Why are you doing all this?” Hep asked.

“Well, partly it’s the challenge of the thing, and partly to remake the world as I see fit, but mainly I’m doing it for the power rush and the chicks,” Tim said. “Now, is there anything you’d like to say before I kill Pan here?”

At that moment, Hep had a revelation that he wished would have occurred much, much sooner. This whole mess could have been prevented if it had.

“Fuck it. Kill him!” Hep said.

“What?” the rest of the group, and Pan, asked. Tim smiled cruelly and turned to Pan.

That’s when the toys made their move. The Hamburglar, Princess and Robot leapt out of the briefcase, charged across the table and leapt on to Tim’s back. Hep and the rest of the group couldn’t believe they’d just seen that. Tim struggled vainly to brush the toys off of him, but they clung tenaciously to him.

Tim remembered he had more important things to worry about, and hurried to the pick up the wand of the god-killing machine. The toys clambered around on Tim, doing a great job of annoying the hell of out him.

Hamburglar reached Tim’s shoulder, and crawled out onto his face. Tim swatted at him, to no avail.

“Fuck you, shithead,” Hamburglar said.

Tim reached out to touch Pan with the wand. At that moment, Hamburglar shoved his hand up Tim’s nose, grabbed onto whatever he could, and pulled as hard as he could.

“Gaaaaah!” Tim yelled, and dropped the wand. He reached with both hands to grab the toy. Hamburglar chose that moment to shove his other hand into Tim’s other nostril and grab on.

From the back of the room, the gods, Sarah and Chris saw Tim apparently trying to pull an action figure out of his nose and screaming hysterically. Tim’s cries got the attention of the True Believers, who turned away from Hep and the others to see what was happening to Tim.

Hep saw the opportunity and said “NOW!”

The gods, Chris and Sarah ran down into the group of True Believers, catching them by surprised. Hep, meanwhile, vanished and reappeared on the stage behind Pan. He got to work on freeing Pan from his bonds. Tim continued to stagger around the stage, fighting off the toys who had proven their ability to be very, very annoying.

“Fuck it, kill him?” Pan asked Hep. Hep grunted as he untied the last knot binding Pan.

“I’ll explain it later,” Hep said. “Let’s get him.”

Hep and Pan rushed Tim, tackling him and dragging him over to the chair. They quickly bound him, and stuffed a rag in his mouth. The three toys moved and sat on Tim’s shoulders, looking up at Hep and Pan. The Hamburglar idly wiped his hands on Tim’s jacket.

“Can you guys keep him entertained for a few minutes?” Hep asked the toys.

“You bet your fucking ass we can,” the Princess said.

“Good deal,” Hep said. He and Pan joined the fray between the True Believers and the gods.

The toys looked up at Tim, and discussed among themselves the myriad opportunities for mischief that could be wrought up him. Hamburglar stood up and walked over to Tim’s ear. He flicked Tim’s ear lobe.

Tim made a mildly annoyed sound. Hamburglar looked back at the others, grinned, and turned back to Tim’s ear. He bit into Tim’s earlobe, pulled back and shook his head.

This time Tim made a significantly more panicked noise. Hamburglar let go, and walked back to the other two, smiling.

“Oh, this is going to be fun,” he said.

While the toys took out their plastic rage on Tim, the other gods took out their frustration on the gold clad True Believers. For their part, the True Believers didn’t know whether they wanted to fight or run. There were embarrassingly few exits for the Temple, however, so even those who wanted to run had to stay in the room.

Ares and Sekhmet quickly grew bored with killing fish in a barrel, and so devised various challenges to test each other’s skill and creativity in doling out death and destruction. Sekhmet tore out the throat of a True Believer and used the blood that gushed out to make a giant Tic-Tac-Toe board on the floor on the room.

“So do you want to play headless or disemboweled?” she asked Ares.

“Headless, definitely,” he said. “Shall we flip for the first move?”

“Oh yes,” Sekhmet said.

Ares grabbed a nearby True Believer, and told Sekhmet to call it.

“Heads,” she said.

Ares flung the True Believer into the air. He bounced off the ceiling and came crashing down on to the floor, landing head first.

“Yes!” Sekhmet said. She caught one of the True Believers and made quick work of disemboweling him. She tossed the body onto the upper left corner of the tic-tac-toe board.

Ares, for his turn, beheaded one of the True Believers and tossed the carcass onto the center square.

The game continued, and ended in a draw.

“Should we play again?” Sekhmet asked.

“Nah, tic-tac-toe isn’t really my thing anyway,” Ares replied.

“Chess?” she asked. Ares looked around at the room and the True Believers. The True Believers were reaching new heights of panic

“Nah, none of these people will be able to sit still long enough,” Ares said. Suddenly he brightened a bit. He turned and grabbed a nearby True Believer who had been standing stationary, screaming in horror at the mess around him. Without blinking an eye, Ares popped the True Believer’s head off. He held it up in front of him.

“Bowling?” he asked?

“Oh! I love bowling!” Sekhmet said.

Thor had made his way to the stage, and saw the machine Tim used to kill gods. He crushed it with one blow of his hammer, destroying it completely.

He looked over at Tim, and saw the toys had made what looked like a human chain off the top of Tim’s head. The last toy on the chain, Robot, was poking Tim in the eye.

Thor walked away chuckling to himself.

Soon the fight had ended, and Hep and the rest of the gods made their way to the stage. Well, the rest of the gods except for Ares and Sekhmet.

Sekhmet and Ares were playing volleyball with the head of a former True Believer.

The gods gathered around Tim.

“So what should we do with this guy?” Thor asked.

“I say we kill him!” Ares called from where he was. Answering the question had distracted him, and he missed the head as it flew towards him.

“Yes! I win!” Sekhmet said as the head rolled around on the floor.

“Kill him? That’s hardly a divine punishment,” Thoth said. “We gotta make him push a rock up a hill for all eternity, or hold the universe together with his nostril hairs, or make him work for the postal service or something.”

Pan smiled and said, “I’ve got a good idea.”

***

A small group of pagans were gathered around the fire pit in a public campground. They had reserved several neighboring campsites to make sure they wouldn’t be disturbed by other campers. They had learned through hard experience that nothing freaked out a group of normal folks like stumbling upon a bunch of people in white robes chanting in a circle around a bonfire. Especially when one of them is mostly transparent and wearing a ceremonial mask that looks like a cross between a tree and an Aardvark. And extra especially when with them are a motley crew of deities in their true forms.

The pagans had brought with them epic quantities of wine, grapes, bread, cheese and other delicious foods.

Hephaestus stepped forward and said “We dedicate this sacrifice to Bacchus.”

With that, the pagans and deities threw the majority of the food and wine into the fire. It smelled wonderful.

A few minutes after the last of the food had burned away, a stout man in a toga appeared next to Hephaestus.

“Hey Hep, what did I miss?” Bacchus asked.

Hep clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Just the usual, Bacchus.”

“That much, huh?” Baccus said. “Well, seems like I probably owe you a drink. Let’s go back to my place and get tore up, everyone!”

The gods cheered, and one by one disappeared.

“Are you coming, Dan?” Hephaestus asked. He turned to go.

“Damn straight!” Dan said. “Bye, guys!” he said to the pagans.

With that, Hephaestus and Dan vanished, leaving Sarah, Chris and the other pagans staring in disbelief.

“I guess we finally did it right,” Chris said to Sarah.

“I guess so,” she replied.

With that, it began to rain, and the pagans ran for cover under a nearby gazebo. Soon the rain became a torrential downpour, and even under the cover of the gazebo the pagans got soaked.

“Did all of that really happen?” one of the other pagans asked Sarah.

“It sure did,” she said.

“Kind of makes you wonder if the universe is in good hands,” the pagan said.

Sarah laughed for a long time. Slowly, she recovered from her laughter, and wiped tears out of her eyes.

“The universe is in terrible hands,” she said, “but I think it’ll be ok. Things have a way of working out.”

Chapter 22

With some effort, Heitsi pushed aside the cover at the top of the ladder. He climbed up and looked around in mild shock. Instead of being outside Tim’s tower, they were in a computer room. He walked around a bit as the others climbed out of the manhole in the floor. He didn’t have to go very far before he saw a banner congratulating the New Paradigm’s I.T. staff on the completion of a search and analysis tool of some sort.

At least they were in the compound.

Thor was the last to climb into the room, and he shut the manhole behind him. They all spent a moment looking around.

“Where the fuck are we?” Scroat asked Heitsi.

“Well, somewhere in the New Paradigm’s compound, anyway.” Heitsi said. “Let’s try to find a map.”

They rifled through folders, and searched every available surface looking for a map or diagram of the compound. They had nearly given up when Pan said “Hey guys, look here!”

Mounted on the wall by a door was a map of the New Paradigm compound, a long with an arrow pointing to a dot, which was labeled “You are here.”

“How convenient,” Thor said. Pan grabbed the map and pulled it off of the wall. It brought a few good-sized chunks of drywall with it.

The group heard a door open behind them. They turned to see a young woman wearing a green track suit walk into the room. She looked at them. They looked at her.

“How do you do?” Scroat asked, and bowed slightly.

The True Believer screamed, and ran back out the door she’d just come through.

“Well, there went the element of surprise,” Ares said as the door wheezed shut behind the True Believer. He walked towards the door, as did the others in the group. Chris and Sarah stayed towards the back of the group.

Seconds later, the door slammed open again, and burly True Believers charged, single file, into the room. Ares grabbed the first True Believer through the door and threw him into a rack of expensive-looking computer equipment across the room.

The bottleneck caused by the doorway worked to the gods advantage, as they only had to contend with one or two True Believers at once. The overly eager True Believers continued their assault, and so wound up getting individually beaten up by Ares or Thor.

After a few minutes, Ares became impatient and charged through the door into the group of True Believers outside. He was difficult to see in the crowd of track suit wearing thugs, but every now and then the crew in the computer room would see a flash of black leather among the track suits, usually immediately before they heard a gurgling scream or saw a headless body flying across the room.

Showing a complete lack of strategic intelligence, the True Believers continued their attempts to get into the computer room and overpower the gods, regardless of the slaughter happening in their midst and the bottleneck that made their strategy impossible anyway.

As each True Believer entered the room, Thor would grab him by the collar and deliver a smoking right hook to the head. Scroat and Pan then moved the unconscious True Believers to one side of the room to keep them from piling up in Thor’s way.

Once the smarter True Believers had run away, and the others were rendered unable to stop them, the crew left the computer room, and consulted the map. Ares joined them, looking delighted to be there.

“What’s next, guys?” he asked, practically bouncing from foot to foot.

Pan, Hep and Heitsi decided it would probably be best if they stayed indoors as much as they could. So far, the confined areas seemed to work to their advantage. Hep hoped the True Believers would be dumb enough to continue with the unarmed frontal assaults. A few minutes later he realized that the True Believers’ lack of weapons meant that Tim wanted to kill them himself; he’d just sent the True Believers to collect them. That meant that the rest of the True Believers would almost definitely be unarmed.

Sweet, he thought.

Sarah opened the door from the room they were in to the hallway a crack, and peered out. She couldn’t see anyone, so she opened the door further, stuck her head out and looked up and down the hallway.

The hallway curved gradually, and had grey carpeting and white walls. Cold, fluorescent lighting made the hallway feel institutional (which, really, it was). Every twenty feet there was a framed motivational poster, encouraging the True Believers to Think Win-Win and informing them that A Winning Attitude Guarantees Success. Sarah would have liked to add Read A Book as one of the posters.

The hallway appeared safe and empty for the time being, so they left the room and made their way down the hall. They walked quietly, keeping an ear out for the sound of more thugs in track suits. For the most part, all they heard were the fluorescent lights humming, and their own footsteps. There was a potted plant placed approximately every one hundred feet, presumably to cheer the place up a bit.

Hep couldn’t figure out how all the True Believers looked so darn eager and cheerful all the time, working in an environment like this. He’d seen prisons that were less oppressive. Hep was willing to concede, however, that he might be a little biased against the organization and their design decisions since Tim was trying to hunt them down and kill them. All the same, the buildings seemed more like they were intended to keep the True Believers in line and conforming than to get them to produce excellent (if misguided) work.

It might explain why they were consistently easy to defeat. They all tried to do what everyone else was doing, with no defined leader unless Tim happened to be around. Sheep have never been renowned for their fighting skills.

According to the map they had swiped, the only way to the next building closer to Tim’s tower was to go outside. They arrived at an outer door, and Heitsi took a peek outside.

“I think I know where all the people are,” he said. Hep took a look as well. He stood back and thought for a minute.

“Ok, I’ll take Sarah and Dan into the next building. You guys can easily fight your way across to the other door,” Hep said. He looked at Ares, “Only do what’s necessary to get to the other building.”

Ares sulked.

Hep continued, “It’s ok, you’ll be able to do plenty of smiting when we’re closer to our goal.”

Ares brightened a little bit, and agreed to just get across to the other building with the others.

Hep grabbed Sarah and Chris, and they disappeared. At that moment, Heitsi threw open the door, and they ran out to meet the True Believers. They fought hard and fast, simply trying to knock the True Believers out of the way. Their progress increased significantly when Ares grabbed one of the True Believers and started yanking limbs off of him and tossing them at the people in their way.

Once they were across to the other building, Ares tossed the remaining bits of the True Believer over his shoulder. The people behind him got out of the way, and the True Believer remnants hit the ground with a juicy smack. Ares strolled into the building behind the rest of the gods.

He looked at Hep and said, “See? Nothing more than was absolutely necessary.”

They walked down the hall, noticing that this building was also curiously empty of people. Apparently word of their arrival spread quickly.

Hep saw a room marked “Tracking” and had to go inside. In the room were maps of the different states and countries around the world, with numbered push pins stuck in various places. Presumably, the pins marked the locations of other gods.

Hep and Scroat made quick work of tearing the maps off the walls, while Thor, or more specifically, Mjolnir, his hammer, decimated the computers.

“I suddenly feel so much better,” Hep said.

“Yeah, me too. We gotta wreck shit more often,” Scroat said.

They left the room and got back to the serious business of finding their way to Tim. The interior of this building was identical to the previous building, and if they hadn’t known better they could have easily confused the two.

The group made it to the other side of the building, and again Heitsi checked out side to see if anyone was there.

Of course, there were a great many people there. Significantly more than there had been previously, in fact. He closed the door and turned to tell them.

That’s when the lights turned out and the fire sprinklers opened and poured dirty, stagnant, smelly water poured out onto them

“Oh, that’s nice,” Thoth said.

“They’re trying to get us to panic and rush outside. Everyone stay mellow,” Hep said. “We’ll do this just like last time. Sarah and Chris, get over here.”

Hep grabbed onto Sarah and Chris and said, “Ok, go!” He vanished, not that anyone could see him in the dark anyway. Heitsi opened the door and they rushed outside. The True Believers closed in on them. Thor and Ares cleared a path in front, but more True Believers fell in to replace those who’d been pushed out of the way.

Four of them grabbed Pan, who had been at the back, and dragged him off. The gods couldn’t hear him yell over the din of the crowd. They rushed into the next building, which was dark and flooded, but the sprinklers had at least stopped running.

Scroat pulled out a lighter, and they quickly noticed that Pan wasn’t with them.

“Fuck! Those bastards grabbed Pan!” Scroat said.

“That guy really has to learn some self-defense, “ Hep muttered to himself.

He cleared his throat and said, “We gotta keep moving. We’ll get to Tim before Tim gets to Pan.”

Scroat shut his lighter, and they sloshed their way through the dark hallway. They were careful not to trip over the potted plants every 100 feet, but every so often someone would stumble over something in the dark.

Heitsi and Hep first saw the light approaching them. Seconds later a group of True Believers came out of the dark and rushed towards them.

“Aw, fuck,” Scroat said, and the fight began. Ares, being who he was, charged into the fray, swinging wildly. Soon he’d managed to knock out the lights the True Believers were carrying, and the scuffle continued in the dark.

“Son of a bitch!” Scroat yelled as he took the hardest punch he’d been dealt in centuries to the left cheek.

“Aw, hell, sorry Scroat,” Ares said.

The group of True Believers was actually pretty small, and soon the fight ended. They didn’t hear anyone sloshing away, so Scroat took out his lighter and they took a look around. There weren’t any True Believers lurking in the dark, thankfully.

Hep looked closely at Scroat and said, “Damn, Scroat, that’s one ugly bruise you’re developing there.”

“Oooo, yeah, sorry about that Scroat. Good thing you’ve got a harder head than these goofy mortals,” Ares said. “Imagine if I’d hit one of them that hard! Ker-splat!”

The group walked the rest of the way to the other side of the building, and once again found the door to the outside and the next building. This time, when Heitsi grabbed the door know, he hissed in pain and pulled his hand back.

“What’s wrong?” Thoth asked.

“Hot! The damn door is burning hot!” Heitsi said.

Hep took off his shirt and wrapped his hand with it. He grabbed the door knob and opened the door a tiny bit. Flames slipped in to through the crack in the door. Hep quickly shut the door again.

“That complicates things a little bit,” Hep said. He thought for a moment. “Which of the other doors should we use?”

“Well, there’s an exit about two hundred feet behind us,” Heitsi said. “We’ll have to fight through a lot more of the True Believers to reach the next building, though.”

“You know, maybe we shouldn’t bother with the other building. Maybe we should just fight our way through the crowd to Tim’s tower,” Hep said.

“Yes!” Ares said. “I’m ready. Let’s go, let’s go. Now!” The rest of the group heard him sloshing away in the dark. “Come on, you guys!”

“You guys are nuts,” Thoth said.

“Yeah, we are. Have you got a better idea?” Hep asked.

“Well, no. I expect they’ve already figured out a way to keep us good and trapped in the next building.” Thoth said.

“Come on you guys!” they heard Ares yelling in the distance. “This door isn’t hot at all!”

At the door, Heitsi asked, “Hep, are you sure?”

“Yes! He’s sure! Let me out there!” Ares yelled.

“Yes, Heitsi, let’s go,” Hep said.

“All right. Been nice knowing you,” Heitsi said, and opened the door.

The True Believers had expected the gods to leave through that door (it was the only one that wasn’t currently burning), and had expected them to come out fighting. No one, however, expects a bloodthirsty Ares to come blasting out the door, killing five people before anyone has had a chance to catch their breath. Thor was immediately behind him, and cut a huge swath of destruction before him as he swung Mjolnir through the crowd of True Believers. Thoth, Scroat, Hep, Sarah and Chris were close behind. The intial group of True Believers moved backwards quickly in reflexive response to the carnage in front of them.

Sarah and Chris teamed up to take care of each other, while Hep and Scroat each took on the True Believers as they came.

Ares, meanwhile, actively chased down the True Believers who were smart enough to run like hell away from him.

“Hey, come back! There’s something I want to show you!” he yelled, and cackled wildly. He caught one of the True Believers in a headlock. The man he caught immediately began scrabbling at Ares arm, attempting to free himself. With his free hand, Ares pulled the struggling man’s head off and let the body drop. Without missing a beat, he turned and bludgeoned a nearby True Believer with the head.

“Did you all see how I did that?” Ares yelled at the people attempting to flee. “Aw, you guys don’t appreciate a good trick,” he said. He chased after the True Believers again.

The True Believers were also giving Thor a wide berth. Rather than chase them down, however, Thor threw his hammer at them. It bashed it’s way through the crowd, sending track suited thugs flying to land in a bloody heap before returning to Thor’s hand.

Sarah and Chris were surrounded by a throng of True Believers, all attempting to capture them. The pair fought back to back, barely holding off their attackers. One of the larger True Believers pulled his arm back to hit Sarah, and was stunned when his arm was yanked from it’s socket.

He turned, mystified, to look at the hole where his arm had just been, then looked up to see Ares grinning crazily at him, holding his arm by the stump.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Ares asked. He then wound up and slapped the True Believer with his own hand.

“Stop hitting yourself,” Ares said, and hit him again with the arm. “Why are you hitting yourself?”

The spectacle Ares was making gave Scroat and Hep and opportunity to get over to to Sarah and Chris and fight off the crown who’d gathered around them.

“Pick on the weak ones, will ya?” Hep asked before sending a True Believer flying. “Not on my watch.”

Scroat had latched on to a particularly large True Believer and sunk his teeth into the man’s ear. The man screamed hysterically, and yelled “Get him off of me, get him off of me!” before Scroat managed to bite the rest of the way through his ear.

Scroat spit the chunk of ear into the big True Believer’s face and said “Damn, man, you could grow fucking potatoes in there. Take some pride in yourself, man.” He wiped the blood off of his mouth. This was just too much for the big man, and he fainted.

Scroat looked down at him with disdain. “You fucking pansy,” he said.

Thoth and Heitsi were also fighting back to back. For the most part, the True Believers stayed out of range, just keeping the gods from moving too far, but every now and then, one of them would step in and attempt to hit Thoth or Heitsi. These attempts were met with immediate and harsh retaliation. Before long, the True Believers had figured out that the two gods were probably best left alone. They maintained the ring around them, keeping them from moving, but no longer attacking.

The True Believers had their attention so focused on Thoth and Heitsi that they didn’t notice Ares stomping towards them until he’d grabbed two of the thugs’ heads and smashed them into each other. He dropped the two limp bodies and raised his hands over his head in a gesture of victory.

“Two birds with half the work!” Ares yelled, before grabbing the next person and viciously head-butting him. For most people, a headbutt is a risky attack. There’s always the possibility that one will knock himself out. Ares, however, had no worries about getting knocked out by headbutting anyone. He could have headbutted Fort Knox and come out the victor. Fortunately for Fort Knox, it had not pissed off Ares. At least, not enough for Ares to take a personal interest in teaching Fort Knox a lesson.

The group had made enough progress to get around the corner of the building, and they could see Tim’s tower in the distance.

They could also see several thousand more True Believers waiting for them.

“Just how many of these fuckers are there?” Scroat asked.

The army of True Believers surged forward, and even Ares began having a hard time keeping up with the wave of attackers. The gods, still fighting, quickly became separated from one another by the sheer number of True Believers forcing their way forward.

Soon the crowd around each of the gods was so dense that they could barely move, and they were swept along with the crowd around them.

Hep, in desperation, remembered the sacrifices in his garage. He thought, I really need some help, here as hard as he could.

A low roar, like distant thunder, soon became audible. It grew louder and louder, until it overwhelmed the noise of the army of True Believers. From the sky, a chicken went into a power-dive, and slammed into the True Believers surrounding Hep. The force of the chicken’s attack drove them back, and Hep had a bit of room to move around again. He immediately went on the offensive, punching and shoving anyone he could reach.

The chicken, for it’s part, leapt up and clawed and pecked at the True Believers.

Elsewhere in the crowd, a host of strange objects attacked other True Believers. The shock of the attack by inanimate objects could not be understated. The army had been shocked when Ares burst forth earlier, but unexpected as that had been, nobody, anywhere, ever, has anticipated being attacked by a foaming case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Furthermore, defending oneself against an animated case of beer is difficult enough, but even more so when the individual beers leave the case and attack on their own.

If you had asked him, the True Believer fighting off the case of beer, and losing, would have told you that it was like being punched by twenty four angry, flying fists of frothy goodness.

The True Believers, decidedly unable to believe what was happening to them, quickly lost discipline and the group began to loosen, making it possible for all the gods, as well as Sarah and Chris, to resume fighting their way to Tim’s tower.

“Nice trick, Hep!” Ares yelled over the chaos around him.

“Thanks,” Hep yelled back. “I’m here every Tuesday. Be sure to tip your waitress.”

Newly enraged by the True Believers who, until the sacrifices had arrived, had the upper hand, Ares quickly began to viciously attack everyone around him. He punched clear through two True Believer’s skulls, and commented, “Ask Chuck Norris if he can do that.”

Sarah and Chris found the True Believers were largely ignoring them. This was because the True Believers were more worried about being attacked by a carving of Hep made out of apples that was wielding a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it.

Thoth and Scroat had an easy time shoving their way through the crowd, as the panic of the True Believers escalated. Thor shook his head as he saw three or four of the True Believers trying to fend off a large pepperoni pizza. He wasn’t surprised about the pizza attacking them so much as the fact that the pizza was winning.

“Truly, pizza is the king of foods,” Thor said to himself. He then turned at hurled his hammer towards a group of True Believers who had regained their composure and were advancing on him. Mjolnir thumped off of their skulls, emitting a surprisingly musical sound upon each strike. It was better than wind chimes.

The group moved closer and closer to Tim’s Tower. They redoubled their efforts, and the sacrifices continued attacking without tiring.

Ares had caught a smaller True Believer, and was swinging him by the legs like a baseball bat. The result frustrated Ares. Though he was clearly winning and gaining ground, it was because the other True Believers kept backing away. It’s no fun to bludgeon someone with one of their friends if the one you’re trying to hit keeps moving out of range.

Heitsi watched Ares for a moment with an amused detachment, then went back to the business at hand. In his case, the business at hand was braining everyone within reach with a heavy rock.

One of the True Believers, who had actually been trying to get the hell out of there, wound up facing off with a flying basket of fruit. He tried pushing the basket to one side, which resulted in a very annoyed basket of fruit. The True Believer caught a mushy apple in the forehead before he remembered to defend himself. A variety of other fruits and cheeses attacked him repeatedly, striking then pulling back to strike again.

This particular True Believer did get away from the fray, but had nightmares about attacking fruit for the rest of his life, and would break into a cold sweat every time he had to go into the produce section of the grocery store.

Soon the crew were only ten feet from the front door of Tim’s tower. The guard, who was still really only there as a public relations officer, had held his ground this long, but when the case of Pabst Blue Ribbon swooped towards his head, he took off running and never looked back.

Ares and Thor conjured another burst of energy and blasted their way through the remaining True Believers blocking them from the entrance to the tower. Within seconds, Thor had opened the door and held it open for the others. The sacrifices kept the True Believers from trying to rush the gods (and Chris and Sarah) as they went into the tower. Once inside, Heitsi and Scroat barred the door to keep out any True Believers who managed to get past the Pabst Blue Ribbon of Doom.

“Well, that was fun,” Ares said as they caught their breath in the entryway of the tower.

Chapter 21

Hep, Scroat, Pan, Ares, Thoth, Sekhmet, Ahayuta, Thor, Chris and Sarah left the hotel first thing the next morning. They had decided that they would be less likely to draw attention to themselves if they paddled down to the drain opening during the day. Six inflatable rafts in Washington D.C. in the middle of the night might seem kind of suspicious, especially given how close they would be to several Naval installations, and various landmarks of historical importance.

So, instead, they slept, got up early, had a hearty breakfast in the hotel’s little cafe, and left the hotel around 7:30 in the morning. Each of the gods carried a rolled up and deflated raft, except for Pan who carried the pump to inflate the boats. Chris and Sarah were in charge of carrying the maps and headlamps.

The group walked a couple of blocks to the nearest bus stop. They only had to wait a few minutes for the bus that would take them to a park a couple miles north of the Arlington National Cemetery. Their journey got off to a bad start when the bus driver insisted that he would only accept exact change for their fares.

“Aw, come on, man, just keep the change. I can live with out it,” Hep said, still holding the cash out to the driver.

“I can only accept exact change, sir,” the driver said.

“But I’m willing to give you more than the total fare!” Hep said, exasperated.

“Exact change only, sir,” the driver said, stone-faced.

“Fine,” Hep said, and turned to the rest of the group. “Have any of you guys got change?”

They all shook their heads. Hep groaned, and got back off of the bus. He set down the raft he’d been carrying, and walked quickly back to the hotel. The bus departed as he walked. According to the bus schedule posted at the stop, there would be another bus in forty five minutes.

In the hotel, Hep asked the clerk at the front desk if she could make change for him. He put twenty dollars on the counter, and the clerk returned with a roll of quarters.

“Here you are, sir,” she said brightly. “Have a great day!”

“Thank you,” Hep said, and left the hotel for the second time that morning. He hustled back to the rest of the group.

Back at the bus stop, the gods (and pagans) fidgeted as they waited for the next bus. For the most part, they were men (and women) of action, and didn’t cotton to loitering. Thoth, for his part, took out his journal and wrote in it, while the others attempted to occupy themselves by bragging about feats of strength, past conquests, and drunken hijinks.

Hep, who had heard most of these stories before, several times, sat on the bench and tried not to fall asleep as they waited. He nodded several times, jerking awake when he realized he was dozing off. Who knew that listening to Sekhmet explain the intricacies of popping an enemy’s eye out of its socket could be so soothing? Hep finally fell asleep, and didn’t wake until Scroat elbowed him in the side.

The next bus arrived, and this time they all were able to get on the bus without difficulty. The driver was the same fellow, but gave no indication that he recognized any of them. The bus was mostly empty, and they made their way to the very back seats. The seats were in pretty rough shape, with plenty of tears, writing on them, and chewing gum ground in in a few places. One of the other passengers had incredibly bad body odor, and every now and then the aroma of this upstanding example of transportation responsibility would waft back and make the group’s eyes water.

The ride wasn’t much more interesting than sitting at the bus stop was. They stopped every block, it seemed, to let on or drop off a surprising variety of colorful characters. Every time they thought they had seen, smelled or heard the worst that humanity had to offer, another jerk would get on the bus and prove that when it comes to the depth of inanity and lack of taste, humanity has the greater majority of species massively out gunned.

The bus began to fill up, and the wide variety of bad smells overwhelmed Hep. He spent a solid twenty minutes of the ride trying to cover his nose discretely, before giving up and covering his nose overtly. He was pretty sure no one would notice or care anyway.

Hep and the rest of the crew in the back of the bus got a minor thrill when the bus hit a large bump at speed, and they were momentarily lifted out of their seats.

“I haven’t had that happen since elementary school,” Chris commented.

At the next stop, a disheveled man reeking of alcohol got on the bus. He wasn’t ready for it when the bus jerked forward and started rolling, and to keep from falling he stumbled continuously down the aisle until he landed in Pan’s lap.

“Gah!” Pan exclaimed, and roughly helped the drunk up again and into a seat.

“Why are we on the bus again?” he asked Hep.

“Because we don’t own a van,” Hep said.

“Oh, right,” Pan said.

Several stops later, they were getting close to their destination. The group gathered up the rafts, pump and backpacks, and when the bus stopped they quickly exited and walked away from the bus stop. Only when they were clear of the bus and its denizens did they feel safe taking a deep breath through the nose again. After a few deep breaths and a stretch they walked the few remaining blocks to the park where they would launch their boats. After sitting on the bus for so long, walking felt absolutely wonderful, and they quickly arrived at their destination. They crossed the street and walked into the park.

The “park” was really just a couple of gazebos, a couple of unhealthy looking trees and a lot of grass with some sidewalks running through it. There were a few benches here and there for those who, for some entirely unexplicable reason, wanted to hang around for a bit. At night, these benches were prized by the local homeless community, but the rest of the time they went ignored by the general population.

There were a few other people walking around in the park, but no one paid any attention to the determined looking group of odd people carrying uninflated boats to the water’s edge. So far, it appeared their strategy for slipping through unnoticed was working particularly well. No one had asked them yet today what they were going to do with all these boats.

“So what are you fellas going to do with all of them boats?” a nosy park user asked from behind them.

Hep turned to the gentleman asking the question. “We’re just playing hooky from work and going out for a paddle, this morning,” Hep said.

This seemed to satisfy the latest interrogator, and he wandered off to do whatever it is nosy people who hang out in parks do.

Meanwhile, the crew got to work on unrolling boats and assembling the crummy plastic paddles that came with the boats. Pan got started on inflating the first raft. He was winded before the boat was even half inflated, and by the time it was full and ready to go he was ready to lay down on the grass and wheeze for a few minutes. Pan handed the pump to Scroat, and proceeded to lay down on the grass, where he covered his eyes with his left arm and wheezed for five minutes or so.

Scroat found himself similarly afflicted when he’d finished inflating the boat he’d started. He passed the pump to Thor, and the cycle continued. Chris inflated the last boat, and joined the gods on the grass for a wheeze.

Once everyone felt rested enough to continue, they sat up and decided how to man the boats. After some debate, they agreed that Hep, Scroat, Pan and Heitsi would lead in one of the four person rafts. The second four person boat would carry Thoth, Sarah and Chris. Ares, Thor, Sekhmet and Ahayuta would each take one of the two person boats.

Sarah suggested they eat before they launch the boats, since the time and place of their next meal was uncertain at best. Luckily, there was a fast food joint within easy walking distance. Pan and Chris went, and brought back cheeseburgers and French fries for everyone. Chris distributed the food, and they ate quickly, without talking apart from someone asking for ketchup or a napkin occasionally.

After eating they began the awkward process of loading into the boats. There wasn’t a beach, just a short drop into the shallow, murky water at the edge of the grass. Chris hopped into the water to hold the boats in place as the rest loaded in to them. First up was Ares. Pan pushed the boat down into the water, where Chris caught it. He stood at the front of the boat, holding it parallel to the shore. Ares stepped into the raft, and it spun as he shifted his weight. The boat moved to quickly for Chris to react, and Ares fell into the water, cursing at great length. He splashed about and sputtered until he got his feet under him and stood up in the water.

Chris struggled to get the raft under control again as the crew still on the shore laughed at Ares. His temper flared, and Chris was lucky not to find himself holding his own skull. As it was, Ares grabbed hold of the raft and climbed in to it, bringing a lot of water with him. He squelched around a bit to get comfortable, then reached for the paddles. He paddled the boat a few feet away and turned to watch everyone else get into their boats with his arms crossed.

“OK, well, we know that method doesn’t work,” Sarah said. “Chris, maybe you should stand opposite the shore, and hold the boat against the edge of the water.”

Pan pushed another boat into the water, and Ahayuta stepped into it while Chris held the boat steady as Sarah had suggested. This technique worked out much better. He paddled over near Ares and waited.

Sekhmet pushed her own boat into the water, and stepped lightly into the boat from the shore. She fumbled with the paddles briefly, but quickly got the hang of using them and joined Ahayuta and Ares.

Thor was the last to get his own boat. He pushed the little raft in to the water, and stepped confidently into the boat. He grabbed the paddles and rowed powerfully over to the rest of the gods.

“Maybe we should have put him in the lead boat,” Pan said, noting Thor’s comfort with the boat.

Pan and Scroat pushed one of the bigger, four person rafts into the water. Heitsi, Pan and Scroat stepped into the boat one at a time, then Thoth and Sarah helped Hep into the boat. It was cramped, but it seemed like the boat was stable enough with four of them in it. They each took a paddle, and rowed over to the group of boats nearby.

Finally, Sarah and Thoth pushed the last boat into the water, and they stepped into it. Chris climbed in behind them, and the joined the rest of the group. Chris dragged a lot of water into the boat with him, and Thoth and Sarah were soon uncomfortably damp.

“Ok, which way from here, big man?” Ahayuta asked Hep.

Hep pointed, and said “Downstream, south. It’ll be probably a mile or two until we hit Arlington National Cemetery, and the entrance to the drains will be opposite the cemetery.”

They began to paddle, Hep’s boat led and the rest fell in to position behind them. The weather really was perfect for a day out on the water. The wind was calm, and the waves were very small, which made the paddling easy.

Ares stuggled with the flimsy paddles, and every few stroke he’d have to correct his direction to stay together with the group. Thor attempted to demonstrate the proper technique, but Ares brushed him off and continued struggling with his boat.

They passed by a few other little parks, and a lot of urban areas. So far as they could tell, no one had even looked twice at them, except for a little boy in one of the parks who waved enthusiastically to them. Most of the group waved back as they floated by.

As they got closer to their destination, the wind picked up, and the water quickly became choppy. They struggled through the waves, and soon Heitsi was able to see their entrance into the drains. Clouds gathered over them as they navigated the rubber boats towards the large pipe. Just before they entered the drains, the clouds opened and began pouring down rain upon them.

“Well that ought to make navigating the drains a little more interesting,” Heitsi commented.

In single file, they paddled into the inky black darkness of the city drains. Inside the tunnel, they put on their headlamps, and switched them on.

Chapter 20

Heitsi was surprisingly tall, dark skinned, and moved about with the confidence and ease that only those who have died and been resurrected many many times can match. He smiled a lot, and gave the distinct impression that he knew the exact location of every creature and item in the room seconds after entering.

Hep was glad Heitsi came, because they had a lot of warriors on their side, but not many great hunters.

The gods gathered in the hotel room Sarah and Chris were staying in. They arrived over the next couple of days. Heitsi, Thor and Ares arrived the first day, Sekhmet, Thoth and Ahayuta the next.

Sarah had, at the last minute, managed to procure several maps of the drains and sewers that ran under the city and, most importantly, under the New Paradigm compound.

Hep, Heitsi and Thoth pored over the maps, trying to choose the best route to get into Tim’s compound with a wrecking crew of nine gods and a few pagans. They were pleased to find that there were several major drains that ran directly under the compound, and that they wouldn’t have to travel through any sewer lines to get there. Sewers would be disgusting and dangerous, due to the build up of methane and other fun, noxious gasses and diseases, not to mention the general ickiness of raw sewage. Drains, on the other hand, contained relatively clean water (not that any of them would want to drink it), relatively good air, and overall would be a much preferable subterranean route. Plus it would be easier to get an inflatable raft into the cities drains than into the sewage system.

They decided the best entrance into the drains would be across from the Arlington National Cemetary. Hep figured they could launch the rafts further up the river, and paddle right into the drains without attracting too much attention to themselves. After that, all they’d have to do is navigate through the drains until they reached the New Paradigm compound.

The first challenge, therefore, was getting enough inflatable rafts to carry all of them. Sarah, Hep, Scroat and Ares left the hotel to visit the local mega-store to see what they had in the way of inflatable boats. They crammed into a taxi and rode to the first store.

Apparently they chose the wrong day to try and save the world, because the store was crammed full of people all trying to reach and purchase the hottest bargains of the day. As they tried to find the sporting goods section, their irritation with the other patrons of the particular establishment they were in grew and grew. They had to stop walking every two steps to wait for someone to look at whatever bauble had caught their eye and forced them to stop, along with their shopping cart, in the middle of the aisle and preventing any other shoppers from getting through.

Eventually, two steps at a time, they made it to the sporting goods section. There was one two-person inflatable boat still on the shelf. Hep grabbed it, and they made the long, slow, annoying trek back to the cash registers. There, the cashier wanted to see ID before they could pay for their purchase.

“What are you talking about? I’m paying cash. Why do you need ID if I’m paying cash?” Hep asked.

“Store policy, sir,” the cashier said. “Rafts are a controlled item, for the sake of national security.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hep said, as he dug out his wallet. He found his driver’s license and presented it to the cashier.

The cashier barely looked at the id, didn’t look at Hep at all, and rang up the raft. Hep paid cash, as he’d said he would.

“Have a nice day, sir,” the cashier said with a fake, sunny smile.

“Yeah, right,” Hep said. They left the store and found another taxi to take them to the next mega-mart. When they arrived, Scroat waited outside with their first purchase, while Sarah, Hep and Ares went inside.

The second store, if anything, was more crowded than the first. Once more they shuffled through the store, past the lingerie, past the big screen televisions, past the children’s clothing and automotive essentials, and finally reached the sporting goods section. By the time they arrived, Ares’ left eye was twitching uncontrollably.

“Are you ok?” Sarah asked.

“Fine,” Ares said. “Just fine, thank you.” He rolled his head back and forth to stretch his neck, and continued to twitch.

This store had one two person raft, and also a four person inflatable boat. Hep and Ares each took a box, and they trudged at an excruciatingly slow pace back to the cash registers in the front of the store.

They waited in line for a solid ten minutes, before they finally were able to check out. This cashier did not ask them for identification, but looked at the three of them and their two rubber rafts with almost comical suspicion. She took Hep’s cash, and used an antibiotic lotion on her hands immediately after putting the cash in the drawer. She did not tell them to have a nice day.

Outside, they found a taxi yet again and went to another, hopefully final, superstore.

Scroat, once again, waited outside with the boats while Sarah, Ares and Hep went in to try and find at least one more raft. This store was significantly less busy, so the three of them felt somewhat relieved.

At least, until some guy wearing a Ford truck baseball cap and a NASCAR t-shirt decided they were walking too slow, and kept bumping into Ares’ ankles with his cart. Ares turned and, with uncharacteristic restraint, asked him to kindly be careful with his cart.

The man stared defiantly at Ares and told him to kindly move himself and his slow-assed friends the fuck out of his way.

Ares’ eye began to twitch again. He looked around the immediate area, saw there weren’t many people around, and quickly stepped around the cart.

“Say hi to Dale Earnhardt for me,” Ares hissed as he grabbed the man’s head and twisted until his neck snapped. Ares stuffed the guy’s body into the cart, covered it with a couple of shirts from a nearby rack, and pushed the cart to the back of the men’s clothing section. Ares suddenly felt much better.

“What?” Ares asked when he saw Hep and Sarah staring at him.

They finally reached the sporting goods department, and there was another four-person boat, and two two-person boats. They grabbed all three boats and walked to the checkouts.

Only one register was open, and they had to wait in line for several minutes. Ares made irritated noises, and rocked back and forth on his heels while they waited. They finally reached the cashier, who scanned their boats. The four-person boat wouldn’t scan, and the cashier told them he’d have to call the sporting goods manager for a price check.

Unfortunately, just as the cashier reached for the phone, the person behind Ares bumped him, rather hard, with a cart.

“GYAAAAAH!” Ares bellowed. He turned, grabbed the front of the cart, and shoved it towards the shopper who had bumped him with tremendous force. The shopper, and all the people in line toppled over like dominoes. He turned back, and the first thing he saw was the cashier staring at him in shock.

Ares bellowed again, and grabbed the cashier by the head. He lifted upwards, violently, pulling the cashier’s head off, along with a bit of spinal column. The rent-a-cop who had been watching the doors came running over, and Ares threw the cashier’s head at him with all his might. The cop ran into it face first, and fell over, unconscious.

Hep grabbed the rafts and Sarah’s arm and made for the exit while Ares continued his rampage.

Once outside, Hep said to Scroat, “Cab!”

“What?” Scroat asked, standing up from the bench he’d been sitting on. A tremendous crashing noise came from inside the store, as well as several screams.

“Cab, now!” Hep said.

Scroat tried to hail a cab, and finally caught the attention of a cabbie just as Ares came out the doors, dusting himself off.

“Fucking rude fucking people. No one has any class anymore,” Ares muttered under his breath as he left the store.

The cab pulled up to the sidewalk and the four of them piled in. Hep told him the cross streets they needed to get to, and the taxi pulled away from the curb.

“What do you need all those rafts those for?” the driver asked conversationally.

“Haven’t you and your buddies ever gotten a bunch of inflatable rafts, filled them with cooking oil and lime jello and had a romp with your special lady friends before?” Scroat asked in return.

The cabbie didn’t talk any more for the rest of the drive. Ares, whose mood had improved significantly, started to hum “Putting on the Ritz.”

Hep kept expecting to see the flashing lights of a police car appear behind them any moment. Their exit from the last store hadn’t exactly been incognito, thanks to Ares’ freak out. He suddenly remembered why he didn’t hang out with Ares more often, entirely apart from having caught Ares boning Aphrodite on several, separate occasions.

The taxi stopped at the intersection Hep had specified, and they all got out of the cab. Hep paid the driver, and gave him a twenty dollar tip.

“Have a good day,” Hep said to the cabbie, who muttered something incomprehensible in reply.

Hep, Scroat and Ares each carried two of the boats the block and a half back to the hotel. Once there, they got to work taking the rafts out of the boxes. After they’d gotten all the rafts out of their boxes, and taken a look at the instruction sheets (which read “inflate rafts”), Hep realized something horrible: they forgot to get a pump in order to fill the rafts.

“Pan,” Hep said, “You’re going to the store.”

Pan left the hotel, muttering under his breath about certain people who should have remembered to get a damn pump while they were at the damn store the first damn time.

There was an outdoors and camping supply store a few blocks away from the hotel, so Pan just walked instead of getting a cab. Apart from a mild annoyance about having to go to get a pump, Pan was in a pretty good mood. The evening weather was nice, and there were plenty of pretty girls around to look at.

Pan walked with his hands in his pockets, mostly watching the sidewalk in front of him, but looking up every now and then to smile at passing women. He couldn’t help it, even if he was supposed to be keeping a low profile. He was simply a natural ladies man.

In fact, Pan was pretty frustrated. He hadn’t gotten any loving since this whole mess started. Sarah seemed impervious to his charms, which had been enticing at first, but now just annoyed him. Sometimes a horny old goat needs to get laid.

Unfortunately, the hectic schedule of avoiding death and plotting revenge took up pretty much all of Pan’s time, so he hadn’t been able to get out and find a nice girl to share a lovely hour or two with before returning to more important matters.

He arrived at the camping goods store, and went inside to find a pump. He explained to the clerk what he was looking for, and the clerk showed him to the pumps.

“You know, those cheap-o rafts aren’t really good for much. They’ll probably spring a leak after five uses,” the clerk said.

“That’s ok,” Pan said. “I’m just planning to fill the boat up with baby oil and hop in it with my special lady friend anyway.”

The clerk was mildly shocked, but then laughed. “Ok, whatever you want to do, it’s none of my business anyway.”

Pan paid and left with his pump. He didn’t bother with a bag, and just carried the pump under one arm.

Just outside the store, Pan walked past a bus stop. A curvy, dark haired woman with glasses sitting on the bench stared at Pan as he approached. She wore a light blue, form-fitting sweater that showed a lot of cleavage, dark slacks, and fuck-me heels.

When Pan drew even with her, she smiled at him and asked “Need any help inflating something?”

Pan smiled her and said “Inflation is never the problem, just finding a place to put it once it’s blown up.”

The woman stood and moved closer to Pan. She put a hand on his chest.

“I bet I could find a place to put your toy,” she said. “Follow me.”

She walked ahead of Pan, swaying her hips. He followed, transfixed by her figure and the promise of hot, naughty sex, unable to believe his luck. Pan was suddenly very glad Hep had forgotten to get a pump when they bought the boats. Every now and then, running errands came with perks.

The woman led Pan down a nearby alley. The alley was extremely dark, but reasonably clean. There was no decaying garbage, homeless people or obvious rats or roaches. Really, Pan had fucked in much nastier places. The woman turned around to face him.

“Put that down,” she told Pan, pointing at the pump, “and come here.”

Pan set the box holding the pump down where he stood, and walked over to the mysterious beauty seducing him in an alley. She took his hands and put them on her breasts. She stepped forward and kissed Pan deeply, pressing her hips against him. Pan groaned, and buried his face in her neck, reveling in the smell of her.

She reached down and began to stroke him through his jeans. Pan moved his hands to her butt and picked her up. He carried her over to the closest wall, and pressed her up against it. She wrapped her legs around him as he buried his face in her cleavage. She tugged at his belt, attempting to undress him. Pan couldn’t believe how much better this day was turning out. It had certainly had a shitty start, but things were looking up. Way up.

Suddenly, he was blinded by approaching headlights, and he heard the roar of a large engine, then tires screeching. Pan looked, and saw a van come to a halt at the end of the alley. A group of track suit wearing thugs jumped out of the van.

“Shit!” Pan said, and dropped the woman he had been holding. He grabbed the box for the pump, and bolted the other direction down the alley.

“Hurry up, you shit heads, he’s going to get away,” the woman yelled at the True Believers charging towards Pan. Her yell inspired Pan to run that much faster, and the True Believers had to run as fast as they could just to keep pace with Pan.

Pan reached the end of the alley and looked to the left and the right. Which way was better? He decided that either way was better than waiting for the angry gorillas in track suits to catch up with him and do whatever it was they were going to do to him. Pan ran to the right.

Pan ran as though Zeus himself was throwing lightning bolts at his ass. He was in no hurry to experience Tim’s special brand of hospitality for the divine again. Especially since it seemed that he, Hep and Scroat had pissed Tim right the hell off.

He ventured a look back, and saw that the True Believers were a lot closer to him that he would have liked. He didn’t think they were catching up to him, but he definitely was not out running them. Pan hoped his endurance would last longer than theirs. He was suddenly very glad he hadn’t spent any more energy on the girl in the alley.

Pan suddenly darted to the left, dodging traffic as he ran across the street. The tactic worked, in that it significantly slowed down the True Believing thugs chasing him. In fact, one of them bounced off the hood of a Cadillac. Two of the True Believers stopped to help their friend, which meant only one True Believer was still chasing him. Pan ducked into a doorway, and waited, watching, for the final True Believer to reach him.

The True Believer pounded down the sidewalk in Pan’s direction. When he was too close to stop in time, Pan swung his arm and decked the True Believer in the face. The thug fell over backwards. He landed hard on the sidewalk and rolled from side to side holding his face.

Pan took advantage of the situation and ran on. Pretty soon, he was well away from all the True Believers, and he was able to slow down and walk again. He walked back to the hotel, keeping his head down and watching the street and everyone passing by as closely as he could. He chose a circuitous route back to the hotel, to improve his chances of noticing anyone following. His heart sped up every time he saw a van. None stopped, however, and he made it back to the hotel unscathed, if rather sweaty and worn-out.

“What happened to you?” Hep asked when Pan walked into the hotel room. Pan tossed the pump he’d bought to Hep. Hep caught it easily, and started opening the box as Pan talked.

“A hot piece of ass with four angry, True Believer brothers,” Pan said, as he went to the sink. He stuck his head under the faucet, and drank at great length.

“Man, that sucked,” he said. “I haven’t run like that since the last time I was in Texas.”

“What happened when you were in Texas?” Chris asked.

“Same thing, only that time I managed to score with the farmer’s daughter before her brothers ran me out of town,” Pan said, and winked.

Chapter 19

Zeus was waiting for them when the golden chairs reached Olympus.

“Man, no one’s ever going to believe you when you tell them how you got out of that mess,” Zeus said.

“Hi dad,” Hep said. “How’s it going around here?”

“The same as always,” Zeus said.

Olympus, overall, is kind of the trailer park of the divine world: petty family drama, sex between relatives, sex between non-relatives, lots of drunkenness, violence and general tasteless misbehavior.

Scroat felt right at home.

The four of them went into Zeus’s home. Hep and Pan looked around, somewhat nervously, expecting to see Hera. Zeus saw them.

“Don’t worry, she’s not home right now,” he said.

***

The six inch tall Hamburglar looked around the corner, making sure the coast was clear before he and the two others who had made it this far moved into the open. The other two action figures with him were a red-haired princess from a popular animated movie, and a comically happy robot.

There were no big people in the hallway, so the three action figures darted across to the nearest doorway, where they hid again. They had learned mere minutes after leaving the cell they had been locked in that the big people did not like moving action figures. Two others, another princess and a swamp creature of some sort, had paid for that lesson.

Now they stuck to the walls and moved cautiously. The Hamburglar knew their enemy’s name was Tim, and what Tim looked like, but he had no idea where Tim was right now. They listened carefully to the big people’s conversations waiting for some information that would take them to Tim.

Dan had explained a great deal to them before he was taken away, and the action figures knew that they had to do whatever they could to stop this Tim. As such, they did their best to sabotage any of the big people’s equipment they could reach.

The True Believers had jokingly called the strange breakages the work of gremlins. Had they realized they weren’t too far off, the True Believers probably would have freaked right the hell out.

Across the hall was an open door. Hamburglar checked the hall again, and the three of them ran into the open room.

“We don’t know how they got out sir. We had the entire building surrounded and observed. We checked inside the building, and didn’t find anything. As far as we can tell, they just vanished,” a big person said into a telephone.

“We checked that sir,” the big person said in a mildly annoyed voice. “No, sir, that isn’t… Yes, sir.” He hung the phone up.

“Look sharp. Tim is coming down here,” the first big person said to the other big person in the room.

The actions figures hearts, if they’d had any, would have leapt into their throats. They weren’t going to have to hunt Tim down. He was conveniently coming to them. What luck!

A few minutes later, the action figures saw a pair of perfectly polished shoes enter the room, carrying a big person in a neatly pressed black suit. It was Tim. They watched, and couldn’t believe their good fortune when he set down a soft leather briefcase. The three of them scrambled over to it and climbed into it while Tim yelled at the other big people in the room for being incompetent.

The three toys agreed that Tim really was a total fucker. They waited in his briefcase, and soon enough he picked up the case, and the hidden toys, and left the room.

***

Sarah and Dan were currently freaking right the fuck out. They’d heard the commotion outside the bar when Hep, Scroat and Pan had left and put two and two together. They’d dropped some money on the table and ran out the door, following the True Believers who’d followed the three gods. They watched as the True Believers surrounded the abandoned warehouse, and left when the helicopter launched the grenades into the building, before they were seen.

As far as they knew, Hep, Scroat and Pan were either dead, or imprisoned by the True Believers and would be dead shortly.

***
“Nope, you guys are on your own on this one,” Zeus said.

Hep, Scroat and Pan had spent the last several hours trying to convince Zeus to gather the gods still in Olympus to help overthrow Tim. He hadn’t budged on his position even a little. They had explained to him that Tim, unlike other newcomers to the world of divinity, had found a way to kill Gods and was doing so in an exceptionally efficient and ruthless manner.

It didn’t matter.

“He can’t get here,” Zeus said, “because I won’t let him. What happens outside of Olympus is hardly my concern nowadays. If things get really bad out there, you’re always welcome to come stay in Olympus. Now, what do you say we have a bite to eat?”

Hep looked at Scroat and Pan, who looked back at him and shrugged.

“Sure, why not?” Hep said. “Afterwards, we’ll have to get back down there, though.”

***

Sarah and Dan were sitting on the couch in their hotel room, each lost in thought, when they heard trumpets call and the ceiling started to glow. They were astounded as three golden chairs descended and landed on the floor in front of them.

“Ground floor. Housewares, Lingerie, Mopey Pagans,” Scroat said. He, Hep, and Pan stood from the chairs. The chairs lifted again, and soon the room was entirely back to normal.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” Hep asked.

Sarah jumped off the couch and ran to them. She leapt at Hep to hug him with such enthusiasm that he fell over backwards, with her on top of him.

“Watch out, that’s how Hercules was born,” Scroat cracked.

“What happened to you guys?” Sarah asked as she and Pan helped Hep up off the floor.
“It’s a long story,” Hep said.

“How on earth did you get out of that building?” Chris asked.

Hep looked at Scroat, who appeared worried that his sterling reputation was about to be sullied.

“Scroat made it rain angry squids,” Hep said.

“I don’t remember that part,” Sarah said.

“Oh, yeah, squids everywhere. They were mighty pissed off, too. If there’s one thing a squid hates it’s some jerk in a tracksuit making too much noise,” Pan said. “That kind of thing drives those oogy little bastards right up the wall.”

“What about the grenades?” Chris said.

“What grenades?” Hep said. “Clearly, you’re confused.”

“But,” Chris started.

“Confused,” Hep said distinctly.

“Um, yeah, I must have been confused. What with all the squids flying everywhere…” Chris trailed off.

Scroat watched this entire conversation with a look of mild disbelief.

“Yeah, uh, that’s one of my favorite tricks,” he said. “The old ‘torrential squid downpour’ gets them every time.”

“Well, that was a fun story,” Sarah said. “So what really happened?”

“Hep’s dad bailed us out,” Scroat said. “Personally, I thought Zeus should have smote a few of those fuckers with some well placed lightning, but I guess he’s gone soft in his old age. Instead, we just got to ride the luxury elevators to Olympus and have lunch. Luckily for us, Hera was out shopping, or whatever it is that high-ranking goddesses do to avoid their boorish husbands. Otherwise, I expect lunch would have been a lot more like a trailer park family reunion.”

Chris looked entirely baffled, while Sarah giggled a little bit at the thought of an ancient Greek trailer park.

“So has Heitsi shown up yet?” Hep asked.

Sarah and Chris looked a little guilty.

“Well, it has only been a few hours since you guys left, and we’ve been kind of pre-occupied,” Sarah said.

“Well, fuck, you guys. We’re only trying to save the world here, don’t feel pressured at all to get some fucking results,” Scroat said.

“Fuck you, Scroat,” Chris said.

Hep looked directly at Chris.

“Well? You want to get cracking on this?” Hep asked.

“Ok, Ok, I’m going,” Chris said. He got off the couch, put his shoes on and left to find something to sacrifice to Heitsi.

***

The Hamburglar, Princess and Robot rode in Tim’s briefcase for the rest of the day. Apparently, he was a busy, busy guy. God. Whatever.

Eventually he returned to his quarters and set down his briefcase. Hamburglar popped his head up out of the briefcase and watched Tim as he took off his suit jacket and shoes. Once Tim had left the room, he gestured to the other two action figures and they all crawled out of the briefcase. The three of them ran and hid under an ornate coffee table.

From their position under the coffee table, they had a pretty good view of Tim’s entire dwelling. They couldn’t see into his bedroom, but it was a short run to that doorway, and there were some lovely, leafy plants to hide in flanking the door.

“This ought to work,” Hamburglar said.

“Fuckin’ A,” Princess said.

The three of them retreated further under the coffee table as Tim emerged from his bedroom. They watched him prepare something to eat, select a book from his large collection, and sit down at a rolltop desk to read and eat.

The three action figures waited and watched Tim, looking at him with revulsion and hatred. They hadn’t figured out exactly what they were going to do to him, but they were agreed that, one way or another, it would not be nice. Not nice at all. Fuckin’ A.

After several hours, Tim finally rose from his desk, put his dishes in his kitchen, turned off the lights, and went into his bedroom.

The Hamburglar ran to one of the plants, and peered into Tim’s bedroom. There was a king sized bed with what looked like fine linens, a dressing table, and several full length mirrors.

There were also a shocking number of motivational posters on the walls. “Action: It only takes a single thought to move the world,” read one, while another said, “Winners must have definite goals and a burning desire to achieve them.”

Fucking lame, Hamburglar thought.

Chapter 18

A terrible roar rose from the crowd of True Believers as Hep, Scroat and Pan turned and ran.

“I guess someone followed us, huh?” Pan said as they ran. He and Scroat half-carried Hep so he could keep up with them.

“Gee, do you fucking think?” Scroat answered.

Improbable though it was, the three of them were able to slightly out run the True Believers. They sprinted forward until they were a solid city block ahead of the screaming masses behind them. They turned right suddenly, and ran as fast as they could to the first alley. They leapt into the alley and paused.

They could hear the yells of the approaching True Believers, and a few seconds later they could hear their feet as they ran. Shortly, they saw the True Believers running past the alley they were hiding in. None of the True Believers seemed to notice the alley.

“Are we actually going to get away with this?” Pan asked.

Almost as if to answer Pan’s question, one of the True Believers turned and looked down the alley. He saw the three gods.

He yelled, “Hey, they’re over here!” and ran towards Hep, Scroat and Pan. He put his arms out as if he was going to tackle them and bellowed.

When he was close enough, Scroat stepped forward and punched him in the jaw. The True Believer fell like rotten tree. Pan clapped Scroat on the back, and the three turned to run again because the rest of the True Believers had overcome the mob’s inertia and charged down the alleyway.

Scroat and Pan nearly picked Hep up off the ground as they ran. Pan and Scroat knocked over garbage cans and any other obstacles they could get their hands on as they ran past to trip up the True Believers. Several of the True Believers did stumble, but it only slowed the mob down a little bit.

They emerged from the far side of the alley, turned left and kept running.

“What the hell did you and Bacchus do to Tim to get him all interested in us, anyway,” Scroat asked Pan.

“I don’t know,” Pan said. “I think he was just jealous because we didn’t invite him to our party. Or that we were getting all the hot girls, and he wasn’t. It seems like he only really attracts the track-suit-wearing power-whore types, anyway.”

“Yeah, right,” Scroat said. “Did you fuckers tell him that Santa Claus isn’t real?”

“Well, we might have let that slip, I don’t know,” Pan said. “We were pretty drunk at the time. Had you ever been to one of Bacchus’s parties?”

“Yeah, a while back,” Scroat said. He pointed at another alleyway. “Go down there!”

They ducked into the alley just in time for the first bunch of True Believers to see them. The far end of the alley was blocked by a fence, so Pan and Scroat let go of Hep, and all three of them started trying to open the doors along the walls of the alley. About halfway down the alley, Hep found one that would open.

“Here’s one!” he yelled to Scroat and Pan. They ran over and went through the door Hep was holding open. One of the quicker True Believers had just come around the corner.

“Fuck!” Hep said. He went through the door and slammed it shut behind him. He turned the deadbolt and backed away from the door. Seconds later, the door started shaking, and someone started pounding on the door.

It looked like they were in an abandoned warehouse. The space they were in was lit from the street lamps outside, and Exit signs over the other doors. There didn’t appear to be anything in the cavernous space, unless it was in the shadows.

“Quick, check the other doors and make sure they’re locked,” Hep said. They went around to the rest of the doors, and they were, indeed, locked.

The pounding on the back door continued, and soon they heard someone pounding on the other doors as well. The noise echoed in the open space. After a few minutes, the pounding on the back door slowed into a single, solid boom every few seconds.

“They’re trying to break the door down,” Hep said, almost amused. A few minutes after that, they heard a helicopter, and saw its’ searchlight illuminating the building. Every few seconds the bright light would sweep over a window, illuminating the space they were in. It was, indeed, entirely empty. There wasn’t so much as a garbage can in the building.

Suddenly they couldn’t see the spotlight anymore, and the noise from the helicopter got louder and louder. The walls of the building seemed to vibrate with the sound, along with the racket from the True Believers pounding on all the doors.

The noise from the helicopter got significantly louder, and light shone in from an opening in the ceiling. They saw a pair of men peering down into the space below, shining flashlights around the interior of the building.

“They’re on the roof,” Hep exclaimed. He expected them to toss a rope through the opening, and shimmy down to the floor. Instead, they slammed the door on the roof shut, and a few moments later the noise from the helicopter increased, then began to diminish.

The pounding on the doors, if anything, had increased in intensity, but the strong old steel hinges and frames weren’t about to let go.

Suddenly the pounding stopped. Hep, Scroat and Pan looked around in wonder.

“What the fuck?” Scroat asked.

Outside, they heard a voice over a megaphone.

“Gentlemen, please come out quietly. This building is condemned anyway, so we’re more than happy to blow it up with you in it. You have two minutes,” the voice said. The pounding on the doors resumed after the voice stopped speaking. The helicopter approached again, and circled outside the top of the building, shining its spotlight in the windows.

“Holy shit!” Scroat exclaimed.

“We’ve gotta find a way out of here,” Hep said, and started pacing the floor of the warehouse, looking for an opening that they perhaps hadn’t seen before. Every door had someone on the outside pounding on it. All the windows were out of reach, and there was nothing to climb in order to get to them.

“We are so fucked,” Pan said.

“What now?” Scroat asked Pan.

“Well, we can’t go out there, because they’re going to kill us. And we can’t stay in here because, hey, they’re going to kill us,” Hep said. “Have you got any bright ideas? Because now would be a good time for one.”

“Well, if we stay in here, we’ll get killed but we’ll end up back home,” Scroat said.

“Yeah, but we’ll have to wait for these bodies to deteriorate before we can come back incarnate again. By then, Tim will have killed everyone else we like, and all our stuff will be gone for sure.”

“You’re worried about your stuff right now?” Pan asked.

“No, but panicking never helped anyone. Lighten up,” Hep said.

“We are so fucked,” Pan said.

Hep’s mind raced. He couldn’t pop out and bring Pan and Scroat with him, because they were also gods and it just doesn’t work that way. They could bust through one of the doors and try to fight their way out, but it was likely they’d be overwhelmed.

The pounding on the doors ceased. They heard the voice on the megaphone again.

“Gentlemen, you have ten seconds,” the voice said.

“Holy shit!” Scroat said.

“Nine”

“Hep, we gotta do something,” Pan said.

“Eight”

“So do something. I can’t think of a damn thing!” Hep said.

“Seven”

They heard a trumpet call, and the ceiling began to glow with a warm, divine light.

“Six”

Three golden chairs dropped from the ceiling, suspended by ivy vines. The chairs were plush and very ornate. They landed softly on the floor near Hep, Scroat and Pan.

“Five”

“Well? Get on a chair!” Hep said, and hustled over to one of the chairs. Pan and Scroat did likewise.

“Four”

The chairs lifted Hep, Scroat and Pan out of the building, and away from danger. They were able to look down on the crowds below, the helicopter. They saw a man in the helicopter lean out one of the doors and launch several grenades into the building through the windows. They saw the flashes of the explosives, and then shifted from the mortal plain to the divine.

Still moving upwards, Scroat looked over at Hep and said, “Man, no one is ever going to buy this.”

Hep replied, “Yeah, Deus ex Machina is always a disappointing end to a story. But it works pretty well when you need to get your ass out of an inescapable situation.” He laughed.

“So what are we going to tell people when they ask how we got out of this predicament,” Scroat asked.

“Whatever the hell we want. We’re gods. If you want, you could say you rained angry, diseased squids upon them,” Hep said.