“Something wrong?” asked Rosenquist.
“No,” said Phil. “Everything’s great.”
“Good to hear it.” He glanced down at his cup. “Hey, didn’t I give you the red mug?”
“I don’t know, Van. Did you?”
Rosenquist’s smile fell. “Did you switch mugs?”
“I might have. I wasn’t really paying attention when I refilled-”
Rosenquist poured his coffee on the floor and peered into the cup.
“Something wrong, Van?”
The boss threw his mug aside. Beads of sweat poured down Rosenquist’s face. He released Phil and grabbed his chest.
“Van, just stay calm. I’ll get a doctor.”
Rosenquist lurched forward. Phil moved to catch the toppling executive. Rosenquist was heavier than Phil expected and they ended up on the floor together, the boss on top. Phil had trouble breathing, and it wasn’t just the weight bearing down on him. The pair of hands wrapped around his throat had something to do with it, too. Phil gasped for a few strangled gulps of air as he stared into Rosenquist’s bloodshot, twitching eyes.
Rosenquist’s body went stiff as he sucked in one last strained breath. He collapsed. Phil rolled Rosenquist to one side and caught his breath. Rosenquist wasn’t breathing, and his face was frozen into a ghastly rictus. Phil had never seen a rictus before, but he was pretty sure this qualified.
The next few minutes were a blur. He remembered alerting the secretary, who called the paramedics. They arrived quickly, but by then it was obviously too late. Phil sat in a chair in the lobby, trying to figure out what had happened.
A heart attack at that particular moment in time seemed unfortunate. A lousy bit of luck. He wondered, several times, if this would hurt his chance for promotion. Then he felt guilty that he was thinking like that while a man had just died.
He kept wondering. Was it luck?
Or was it Lucky?
Phil left work early so he could beat Teri home. He found Lucky sitting on the sofa, watching television. It seemed as if that was all Lucky did with his free time. Phil had come to realize that gods, for all their awesome power, were deprived of the one thing that made life worth living.
A time limit.
Silently, Phil turned off the TV and sat across from Lucky.
“I was watching that,” said Lucky.
Phil took a moment to compose his thoughts. He didn’t have long before Teri walked through that door.
“My boss died today.”
“Sorry to hear that, buddy.”
Phil held up his hand, and a surprised expression crossed Lucky’s face.
“Did you kill him?”
Lucky sat up. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not judging,” said Phil. “I just need to know. Did you kill him?”
“I don’t kill people.”
Phil sucked in a long breath.
“You can tell me the truth.”
Lucky tossed out a chuckle, but when Phil didn’t join in, the god frowned.
“I’m only going to say this once more, buddy.” Lucky removed his sunglasses and looked Phil in the eye. “I. Don’t. Kill. People.” He reached for the remote. “It’s not my thing.”
He turned on the television. Phil rose and pushed the OFF button on the set.
“I’m not saying you killed him intentionally. But maybe you got him by accident.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Been a long time since I killed anybody by accident.” He laughed as if telling a joke, but Phil couldn’t tell.
“All right, all right. Something obviously has you on edge, Phil. Sit and we’ll get this straightened out.”
Phil did most of the talking. He described the incident at the office in rapid detail, partly because he wanted to get this sorted before Teri walked through the door, partly because his mind was racing. He mentioned the spotted red animals that kept popping up. Not everywhere, all the time. Not always in obvious ways. But still there, still haunting him from the corner of his eye.
“Is that it?” asked Lucky in his usual offhand manner. This once, it came off as dismissive. “This is all perfectly normal, Phil. Happens all the time. It’s called central cog syndrome. You’re still adjusting to the benefits of divine favor. And right now, you’re starting to feel like the whole universe revolves around you.”
Phil didn’t like the sound of that, and it must have shown on his face.
“Don’t sweat it,” said Lucky. “Your ego isn’t getting out of control. You’re just trying to figure things out. Now, I might have no small influence on the way your life is going, but I’m not all-powerful. You and me, we’re just a couple of guys in the grand scheme of things. We don’t rule the universe. Things are going to happen. Good things and bad things that have absolutely nothing to do with either of us.”
Phil’s doubts softened.
“You’ve had people die in your life before I moved in, right?” asked Lucky.
Phil nodded.
“And you’ve had weird luck before, too, right?”
He nodded again.
“So there you have it.”
“But what about the animals?”
“That might have something to do with me.” Phil thought he noticed a guilty glint in Lucky’s eyes, but he couldn’t be sure as Lucky had put his sunglasses back on. “But I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
Teri came through the door.
“Hi.” She gave him a hug and noticed his distant response. “Something wrong?”
“One of my bosses died.”
“Oh, that’s horrible.” She hugged him tighter. “Want to talk about it?”
His head resting on her shoulder, he studied Lucky, who was back to watching television. He didn’t think Lucky was telling him everything, but he didn’t want to press it. If Lucky was right, if this was all in Phil’s imagination, then sharing his concerns with Teri would just get her worked up again. She’d finally gotten comfortable with this arrangement.
Lucky had a point. It was absurd to believe that everything around him had something to do with a grand cosmic conspiracy. Had he really gone that far around the bend that the lives and deaths of others seemed only to be omens meant for his own interpretation?
Thinking about it made him feel a bit embarrassed.
Teri came as a much-needed distraction from his thoughts. “Are you sure everything is okay?” she asked.
“It’s fine. Just a weird day.” He forced a smile. “But I’m sure it’s nothing.”
15
Syph might have vanished, but her influence remained. Bonnie still had the unpleasant dreams and still felt as if she were walking around with an anvil strapped to her head, weighing her down, making her sluggish. The effects were diminished and her resistance to it was growing, but she still could sense the impending approach of crippling depression.
She took a shower. The hot water wasn’t working. She had some burned toast. She had to eat it dry because her butter had gone rancid. Then she drove to Lucky’s house and rang the doorbell.
Teri answered the door.
“Hi,” said Bonnie. “I’m sorry to bother you, but can I speak to Lucky?”
“I don’t think he came home last night, actually,” said Teri.
“Oh.”
Teri waited for Bonnie to say something else, but Bonnie had trouble slogging through her thoughts. She hadn’t developed a contingency plan. She hadn’t developed much of a plan at all.
“Can I help you with something?” asked Teri.
“I’m Bonnie. Bonnie Weinstein. You don’t know me, but my goddess is stalking your god. And she’s ruining my life. And I just wanted to talk to him because… well, I don’t really have a clear reason for that. But I didn’t have any better ideas, so I thought I’d give it a shot.”
Bonnie glanced over Teri’s shoulder and noticed Quetzal-coatl sitting on Teri’s sofa.
“How many gods do you have living here?”
“Just two,” said Teri.
“And they get along?” asked Bonnie.