He pushed the button for the fourteenth floor. When the doors opened to the empty office space, Cimil was waiting in a camo tutu.
“You’re late.” She shook a finger at him.
He stepped out. “Am I?”
“I expected you an hour ago.”
He was right. Cimil still had the gift of sight, because they didn’t actually have an appointment. He’d come to dig for information upstairs and took the chance someone might be here on this floor. “I guess your prophetic powers are getting rusty.”
Cimil shrugged. “So, I understand that Sky spilled the beans.”
“She did, though she left out the part about why you are butchering the helpless creatures you are supposed to protect, or why you sent me on a job interview I have no interest in. Is the story of this blast even real?”
“Allow me to answer your question with a very long, drawn-out, confusing tale about fourteen gods who have been alive for over seventy thousand years.” She gestured toward the large windows overlooking downtown to her side. She’d set up a little sitting area with pink fuzzy beanbag chairs. “Get comfortable.”
“I’ll stand, thank you.”
“Suit yourself, Damien Greystone. Get it?” She started to cackle. “You’re a tailor, and I just told you to suit your…”
Damien wasn’t laughing.
“Oh fuck off. That was funny.” Cimil’s face turned stone cold.
“Tell me what the hell is going on. The short version, please.”
“Fine. Fine. But Minky, my unicorn, is disappointed. She says you smell nice, and you should really come sit next to her.” Cimil jerked her head toward the beanbag chairs.
Damien did not see anything. “My apologies for disappointing you. Now please, may we fucking get on with this?” He was losing his patience fast.
Cimil huffed. “All right, here’s the scoop. I meant what I said in my letter. My brethren and I have retired. That was the plan, anyway. But apparently our billions of people-pets are up to their no-good human ways again and still require some supervision. Supernatural Body Parts upstairs is proof of that. We’re gone for a few weeks, and they go into production overdrive.”
Supernatural Body Parts. That’s what SBP stood for? “What is your involvement with them?”
“None,” she said innocently. “Okay, not none. I may have pulled a few strings to get them an office space upstairs, but I swear to gods that I only did it to keep a close eye on them. And man, have they been busy.”
“So you knew what they were doing?”
“Yes, but my hands were tied.”
“You’re a fucking god,” he snarled. “And a powerful one.”
“Time out.” She made a T with her hands. “It’s not so simple, cowboy. The gods are supposed to be retired. Everyone except K’ak, our brother, who took over my role managing the Underworld. He also volunteered to oversee the Uchben, our human army, which is technically supposed to be my job. Anywhoodles, long story longer, he’s already over his head. We need someone to be the old sheriff at the Oh-No-Say-It-Ain’t-So People Corral. We need someone who can run interference.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, as Goddess of Death and War, I can help with the army, but I swore to my love bucket, Roberto, that I was not going back to work. He is very unhappy that I am even speaking to you, which is why we’ve made an agreement. I will work part-time. You will be my right hand.”
“Running the Uchben?” He did not know much about them other than they were more than soldiers. They were the eyes and ears of the gods in the human world, working in many facets.
“No, silly. I need someone who can get things done, fix issues, kill evil people, hunt down rogue immortals, do whatever. I need someone who can act surgically so that the wheels stay on the bus for humankind.”
“So you want me to—”
“Do my dirty work. But my brethren can’t ever know, so you have to keep being a tailor.”
“You want me to deceive the other gods?” Wouldn’t they eventually find out?
“I swore no more interfering, but they don’t understand. While they are off drinking margaritas in Kalamazoo, the world is slowly unraveling.”
“Then why not speak to them? Tell them to come out of retirement.”
“They believe the age of gods is over. No more training wheels. Let humans sink or swim. But I have mortal children, plus a mortal husband. I cannot abandon them and their home like that.”
Damien was not completely buying her story. “Then why not tell me all this to begin with? Why have me running around searching for clues about this fake blast?”
“Oh, I assure you, the blast was real. Just ask MF. But there is no cure. The immortals in the Underworld are never coming back.”
“So you lied to MF?”
“No. No…!” She wagged a bony pale finger in his face. “The blast spared some immortals. Soon the last living vampire will be found. He’s hiding out in South America. But once you find him, he will turn MF if she truly wishes to be immortal again.”
“Me? Find him? I don’t believe I have accepted this role yet. Or fully understand what it entails. Nor have you answered my questions. Why have me hunting down answers for a cure to the blast? Why lie?”
“Because in order to do your job properly, you need to care. Which meant you had to see yourself through the eyes of the creatures you will be helping. You needed a mirror to break your curse.”
“I do not understand.”
“Willamina did not curse you. She was simply telling your future—that you would live on, tormented and feeling afraid to care about anyone ever again.”
“Then how have I remained alive after so long? How does everyone I care for end up dead?”
“You just have really bad luck, but not everyone dies. Your little entourage is full of examples.”
So they were right? “What about Sky’s death?”
“Pet gets the credit for that one. Very nice of you to sew on her wings, by the way.”
“Cimil, how am I still alive?” he growled impatiently.
“Ah! Now there is the fun pickle. Your bloodline was knocked out prematurely by the plague, and when they died, they left their remaining years to you.”
“How is that possible?”
“How do you house two souls in one body? Why does the moon only smell like cheese on Wednesdays? How do baby birds know to fly south for the winter when most skip baby bird kindergarten? The Universe is a mysterious woman, and your kind happens to be very skilled at storing life energy.”
This made no sense. Pure fucking garble! Their bloodline was a genetic anomaly. Wasn’t it?
Cimil went on, “And now comes the kicker. Are you ready for this, Damien? Because it’s a doozy!” Cimil chuckled. “You’re almost out of juice.”
“What?”
“Juice. Oomph. Life light. You’re going to die in two days.”
“I am?” All these years, he’d said he would welcome death. He would run towards the light singing. And now his day was almost here. True peace.
“So you get to choose, Damien. You can die and join the other souls in the great poker hall of the Underworld, or you can pick what’s behind door number two: immortality. For real this time. But just know, if you choose to die, I cannot bring back Sky.”