These three, on the other hand, barely paused for lunch. Every now and then, his crew would get some useful information, then arrive to find the gods had recently left.
Nothing annoyed Tim as much as a moving target.
He told his followers to be extra vigilant, and suggested to many of them that they wear street clothes instead of tracksuits until the gods were caught.
***
Hep, Scroat and Pan had spent the night just inside the entryway to a man-made cave that had been used as a place to age and store beer for a brewery that no longer existed. The entrance was in plain sight in a ditch along a rarely used road on the edge of town. They woke up around noon and spent the majority of the day playing cards by candle light in the dark cave.Around 6 o’clock in the evening, they left the cave to go and meet with Sarah and the rest of the pagans who made up the “Resistance.” They stomped up the side of the ditch, and walked along the sidewalks to get to the agreed meeting place.
“I hope they’ve got some food,” Scroat said. “I’m fucking starving.”
Pan and Hep muttered agreements. They continued walking down the dark city streets, unaware that someone was following them. The person following them looked very much like a person who is trying to look “normal.” As such, they were wearing black leather oxfords, black slacks, a black jacket, white shirt, black tie and, for those who care to know, black braces.
If he’d been trying to fit in with morticians or a blues band, he’d have nailed the look perfectly. Among the jeans & sweatshirt wearing crowd he was a part of, however, he stuck out like a thing that sticks very far out.
He followed the gods all the way to their destination, an old hotel bar. While the gods went inside, the man following them continued walking. He took out his cell phone, opened it, dialed, spoke briefly telling the listener where he was, and hung up again.
He kept walking.
Inside, it was just Sarah and Chris waiting for the three deities. The bar was full of old, dark, wood paneling. The booths were deep red, and dimly lit. The bar itself looked ancient, apart from the gleaming beer taps and lit beer signs. Sarah and Chris each had a drink and were talking conspiratorially, as one can only do in a hotel bar. Chris spotted Hep and the others first, and nodded to them. Sarah turned to look, smiled briefly, then turned back to Chris.
Scroat went to the bar to buy drinks, while Hep and Pan sat down next to Sarah and Chris.
“Hey guys, how’s it going?” Hep asked.
“Well, we’re not dead yet,” Sarah said.
“So, good then,” Hep said, and winked. Scroat returned with the drinks. He set a beer down in front of Hep, and gave Pan a cocktail glass with a pink beverage in it, complete with a little umbrella and a sword with two cherries on it.
“What the hell is this?” Pan asked Scroat.
“A Shirley Temple,” Scroat answered. He turned to Sarah and Chris, while Pan got up to go and get a new drink.
“Ok, so here we are,” Scroat said. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Good will on Earth and peace towards mankind,” Chris said. “Oh, and to take care of this Tim guy.” He turned to Sarah and asked, “Did I miss anything?”
“Nope, I think that about covers it,” Sarah said.
Hep took a drink, then said, “Ok, so how are we going to take care of this Tim guy, as you put it?”
Chris looked mildly shocked.
“You mean you don’t have a plan already?” he asked.
“Nope. My main plan is to keep from getting killed, then to keep you guys from getting killed any more than you have to be, and then seeing what happens,” Hep said.
“Nice,” Scroat said.
“Well, how can we get to Tim?” Sarah asked.
“No idea. We’ve already tried going in to mess with him a bit. It didn’t work out too well,” Hep said.
“Ok, well, maybe this time we could try being a little more discrete in our subversion. Striding into the middle of his compound in plain view might not have been a great plan,” Chris said.
“That’s easy to say now,” Hep said. “At the time, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to go. The morons he has running the place didn’t even notice us at first.”
“Well, they’ll notice your ugly fucking mug now,” Scroat said.
“How do you propose we get in there then?” Hep asked Scroat.
“I don’t know. We could fly in. We could probably bribe a nearby sky-diving school into flying us over the compound,” Scroat said.
“We could go under,” Chris said.
Pan returned from the bar with his drink, “Under where?”
Scroat started to snicker. Hep kicked him under the table.
“Under the compound. There’s got to be drains and sewer lines running out of that place,” Chris said. “We could get right under them and pop out under their noses.”
“Yeah. And their noses will probably run screaming from us if we pop out of a sewer,” Scroat said.
“No, that’s a pretty good idea,” Hep said. “These guys haven’t been too bright about security. I bet we really can get directly under the compound. We could probably pop up right outside of Tim’s tower, if we wanted to.”
“Ok, so how are we going to find our way around the sewers for Operation Thunder From Down Under?” Scroat asked.
“GPS?” Chris suggested.
“Not underground, dumbass,” Sara said. “I bet we could get sewer and drain maps from the city planner’s office though.”
“Don’t you think that information might be a bit restricted? We are in the capitol of the nation, after all.” Chris said.
“Yeah, but you and I look like clean cut, wholesome American kids. They’ll probably give us the maps and an engineer’s assessment of the weak points of all the government buildings in the state if we asked nicely,” Sarah said.
“Especially if Chris here promises to give them head,” Scroat said.
“Fuck you,” Chris said.
“Well, you’ve got the right idea, but the wrong person,” Scroat said.
“Do you really think you can get those maps?” Hep asked Sarah.
“Sure. If I can’t get them, I’m sure one of my student friends could get them for research,” Sarah said.
“This could really work,” Hep said. “Good idea, Chris.”
Hep got up to go order another round of drinks for every one. He felt very enthusiastic about the plan. With luck, it would give them the element of surprise they needed to catch Tim without his army of overly enthusiastic followers.
All they’d need to do now is figure out how to make it work. He had a sneaking suspicion that getting actual maps was going to be pretty damn difficult. Even if they did get the maps with no problems, Tim’s True Believers were everywhere. One of them was bound to be curious about an ordinary citizen who wanted maps of subterranean tunnels. It could draw attention to them.
He didn’t have a better idea, though, for the time being. The bartender gave Hep the drinks, so Hep paid and walked back to the table. Halfway there, he had a brilliant idea.
“We won’t need maps,” Hep said when he reached the table.
“Oh yeah? Why not?” Pan asked.
“Heitsi,” Hep said.
“Heidi?” Chris asked. “Who’s that and what does she have to do with tunnels?”
“Not Heidi, Heitsi. Heitsi-Eibib. He’s all about tunnels. And he likes hunting. He could guide us through the tunnels, I bet,” Hep said.
“Yeah, but when’s the last time anyone saw him?” Scroat asked. “For all we know, he could have been killed by Tim.”
“Probably not, he’s pretty clever. And he’s been known to hide out in graves. I doubt Tim’s folks have been digging up many graves. That’s just bad for PR.” Hep said.
“How are we going to get ahold of him?” Pan asked.
“These two have conveniently volunteered to make a sacrifice to him,” Hep said, gesturing towards Chris and Sarah.
“Wait, wait, we don’t know anything about this Heitsi. What if we piss him off, and he pops out and devours us?” Sarah said.
“He won’t. Heitsi is good people.” Hep said.
“Ok. So what do we sacrifice to him?” Chris asked.
“Whatever you want. Just make sure he gets the message that we need his help,” Hep said.
“I recommend not sacrificing a duck-billed platypus, however,” Pan said.
Everyone paused and looked at Pan.
“What? Have you ever had an annoyed duck-billed platypus appear out of thin air right next to you? It kinda sucks. Those suckers are mean. Probably from eons of getting picked on.” Pan said.
“Right,” Hep said. “Ok, so, uh, no platypuses you guys. But anything else you want should be ok.”
They finished their drinks, and Hep, Scroat and Pan got up to leave.
“Wait a while before you guys leave,” Hep said to Sarah and Chris. “It’ll probably be best for you if you’re not seen with us too much.”
“You mean like how we were all seen together the last time the True Believers ambushed us?” Sarah asked.
“None of those people are talking right now, Sarah,” Pan said. “The ones who could tell on you, never saw you up close because they ran away.”
The trio emerged from the bar. Hep stopped immediately outside the door, and his heart dropped to his feet. Pan and Scroat stumbled to avoid knocking him over, then they saw what he was looking at.
Milling around on the street outside the bar were several hundred True Believers. They had all turned to look and Hep, Scroat and Pan.
“Run!” Hep said.
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