Pantheon 00 - Age of Godpunk (9 page)

By day’s end our complement of avatars had been whittled down to twenty-six. All anyone could talk about, though, was my three-in-one coup. It was as brassy and audacious a move as anyone could recall.

“I was right about you,” Bill Gad said to me in the bar that evening. “You really are my main competition this time around. And I know what I’m talking about, being as I’ve won this contest a fair few times.”

“So have I.”

“But not lately. Past century or so, you’ve been off your game, spider. I’ve not been getting the contender vibe off of you that I’d come to expect. Not ’til now. What it is, is it’s a good match of rider and horse. You’re in synch, the two of you. Simpatico. When that happens, that’s when things start to cook.”

O
N MY WAY
to my room, I had an encounter with Solveig. She appeared to be having trouble with the ice dispensing machine in the corridor, although I quickly realised she’d been lying in wait for me.

“Can you help?” she pleaded, holding up one of the small tin buckets that could be found in every room. “I’ve put a quarter in, but this push chute thing doesn’t seem to be working.”

“Help yourself,” I told her, swanning past.

“It probably needs a man’s touch.”

“You’ve got that already, haven’t you?”

“Anansi...”

Something about the way she said the name – the sudden croaky tenderness in her voice – halted me in my tracks.

I turned. “Yes?”

Her head was bent to one side. She was toying with a lock of her silver-blonde hair. A small smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Aren’t we too old to be like this with each other?”

“What do you mean?”

Anansi knew full well what she meant.
Ignore her, Dion. Move on
.

“To pretend there’s no connection between us,” Solveig said. “To be aloof. That’s how children behave in the playground. The boy loves the girl but cannot show it, so he punches her and runs away.”

“I haven’t punched anyone.”

“We’ve been close before. So close.” She moved towards me, as if to illustrate her point. “You’ve not resisted me in the past.”

I knew a little of Anansi’s history with Loki and the run-ins they’d had at previous contests. “The past is past,” I said. “Mistakes were made.”

Too right they were
, said Anansi.

“Was it a mistake? That night in San Francisco? 1962, I believe it was. We were drawn to each other. You were so passionate, so intense.”

You didn’t have a dick then
, Anansi said, and I relayed the remark to her.

“Details, details,” she replied airily.

“And he was a married man,” I said. “Anansi’s avatar, I mean. That’s how you caught him out. His wife phoned the hotel room in the morning, you picked up, and all you did was say, ‘Hello,’ and it was game over. This time I don’t have a wife, so you’re not going to get me that way, and thanks to Reynard your little surprise package isn’t a surprise any more. That particular cat is out of the bag.”

Solveig was right in front of me now. Her perfume was heady, her allure undeniable.

“Are you so sure?”

“I am.”

So am I
. But Anansi sounded far less adamant than I did.

All at once her hand was cupping my crotch. My breath caught. I stiffened, in more ways than one.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” she whispered in my ear.

It does. It does. Oh, it does
.

“I swear I won’t embarrass you, Anansi. Or Dion, if I may call you that. No one would ever have to know. It would be our secret. Your room. Now. I’ll do anything you desire. Anything.”

Anything...?

“For old times’ sake. We’ll keep the lights low. I’m very skilled. You won’t notice any difference.”

Oh, Dion, we could, couldn’t we? Look at her. She’s so lovely. All we have to do is half-close our eyes and it would be like being with a normal woman, just about. Come on, what harm can it do?

Fortunately, when it comes to one’s baser urges, I am made of sterner stuff than that.

“I was wrong, Loki,” I said, yanking her hand away by the wrist. “I am married. Or at least, Anansi is.”

“To silly old Aso, who’d be none the wiser.”

“Aso would find out. She always finds out. Anansi’s infidelities always end up biting him on the backside.”

“I could do that to you if you like,” Solveig purred.

“No. You’ve tried your best, son of Odin, half-brother of Thor,” I said, “but your best isn’t good enough.”

I strode off to my room, very pleased with myself, although Anansi was less than satisfied and kept grumbling discontentedly.

I was even more pleased with myself after a swift search of the room turned up a tiny infrared camera and wireless transmitter which had been inserted into a corner crevice, up where the cork wall tiles met the Artexed ceiling. The camera’s lens was pointed straight at the bed, and I had no doubt who had installed it or why.

“She broke in,” I said.

Solveig? How?

“Vintage hotel. No key cards. Old-fashioned door latches like these aren’t too hard to force with a credit card or a slim jim.” Hark at me, the man who’s rubbed shoulders with more than his fair share of cat burglars and carjackers.

Devious bitch
, said Anansi.

“And if she’d had her way, we’d have been on YouTube before you know it. Every avatar with a laptop would have been watching us over breakfast. Dion Yeboah
in flagrante
with a shemale. Chances are she’d also send it as an email attachment to my colleagues in chambers. I’d never live it down. My career would be in tatters.”

Not to mention our hopes of victory.

“She’ll get what’s coming to her,” I vowed. “Just you wait.”

But still... It might have been memorable. Just as a one-off
.

“We don’t think that way, Anansi. Not if we’re here to win.”

I was minded to crush the camera underfoot and present Solveig with the remnants, but decided instead to keep it. I lodged it in a drawer. It might come in handy.

D
AY TWO OF
the contest was crueller than day one. This was the natural order of things, according to Anansi. As the ranks of competitors thinned and the tension mounted, the trickery took on a nastier, more vindictive edge.

So Hershele Ostropoler, the Ukrainian Yiddish analogue of Mullah Nasruddin and Till Eulenspiegel, had his turkey bacon rashers at breakfast replaced by the real thing when he wasn’t looking. He wolfed down several mouthfuls of pig-flesh before the substitution was revealed. Given that his avatar was a Hasidic Jew, it was hardly surprising that he dashed straight out of the restaurant in search of the nearest toilet to throw up in.

Someone, evidently inspired by my casual remark outside Reynard’s room, placed a live rattlesnake in the bed of the Korean woman who was acting as vector for Gumiho, the Nine-Tailed Fox. The woman was lucky, in as much as the snake only snuggled up against her leg for warmth and wasn’t prompted to bite her. She was too terrified to set foot inside the Friendly Inn again, however, and excused herself from the contest.

A razor blade was embedded in the bar of soap used by San Martin Txiki from the Basque region. His hands were badly lacerated when he washed them.

Păcală, whose name literally translates from the Romanian as ‘self-deluder,’ woke up from a drunken stupor to find himself cocooned from head to ankle in cling film. So much of the stuff had been wrapped around him – and the bed he was on – that he couldn’t move a muscle, although his captor had at least been generous enough to leave his nose uncovered to allow him to breathe. A chambermaid found him and cut him free, but not in time to prevent him voiding a full-to-bursting bladder all over himself and the mattress.

Someone stole the laptop belonging to the Norwegian Askeladden, or “Ash Lad,” and downloaded child pornography onto it. The young man had no alternative but to destroy the computer and pray that no one in authority traced the download to his IP address.

The Joke Shop Jamboree attendees became unnerved by the change in atmosphere. Several of them closed down their trade stands, gathered up their belongings, and headed home. They weren’t quite sure why they did this, but one man within my earshot said, “Doesn’t feel right any more. I’ve stopped having a good time.” Another seemed to think the living-theatre actors – for that was what everyone assumed we were, by now – were taking things too far. “Nothing against performance art,” he said, “but, I don’t know, these dudes... Feels like they’ve got a mean streak in ’em.”

I bided my time that day, watching as the others busily cat-and-moused. Why sully my hands? I noticed Gad doing much the same, and Set, and Loki. The second-stringers could scratch and scrabble amongst themselves all they liked. We top guns were holding back, keeping our powder dry. Let them do the dirty work for us, after which we could pick off the survivors, if there were any.

As evening fell, attention coalesced around a four-way poker game between Gwydion, Huehuecoyotl, Eshu and Hermes. I had long since stopped bothering to learn the avatars’ real names. It was hardly worth the effort, and superfluous to my needs. Hermes I think was called Apostolis, but the rest could have been Larry, Curly and Moe for all I cared. I had no interest in them as people, only as rivals, obstacles to be got out of the way.

Now, poker is all about bluff and nerve, everyone knows that. So really it’s the perfect game for tricksters. Throw in the fact that all four participants were cheating madly, and each was aware that his opponents were cheating madly, and the stage was set for some of the most devious, unsporting card play ever.

Moreover, the stakes weren’t money, or gambling chips, or even matchsticks. These four were playing for punishments. Whoever lost a hand had to accept a punch from all three others. There was no limit to how hard the blows could be, nor where they could land, and they were to be taken without flinching or shying away, otherwise the recipient was disqualified.

So it was a test of physical endurance as well as a battle of chance and skill. The players sat with increasing numbers of bruises, blood dripping from facial injuries, eyes swelling shut, lips puffing up, loosened teeth, through round after gruelling round. Fresh decks of cards had to be cracked open to replace ones that were too blood-smeared to be usable. The baize on the table became more and more liberally dotted with dark brown stains.

The rest of us looked on from the sidelines. It was a grim, but fascinating spectacle. We were in a private room, well away from the main body of the hotel, so the sound of fists smacking flesh, the cries of pain, even the occasional involuntary massed gasp from the audience wouldn’t draw any unwelcome attention.

After an hour, Gwydion and Eshu were fighting to stay conscious. Gwydion’s co-ordination was off, so an attempt to introduce a queen of diamonds from up his sleeve into his hand was clumsy and he was spotted doing it. “Saw that!” exclaimed Huehuecoyotl, and because he had been caught in the act, Gwydion’s hand was forfeit, with the consequence that it was again his turn to get hit.

Eshu and Hermes both delivered solid punches to his midriff, but it was a devastating roundhouse from the Peruvian that finally put paid to the Welshman’s involvement in the contest. Gwydion crumpled to the floor, and no amount of face-patting or limb-shaking could revive him. He was out cold and out of contention.

The remaining three resumed play. The level of card-sharping and sleight of hand in the game was phenomenal. Nothing else could account for the extraordinary number of flushes, full houses and four-of-a-kinds that cropped up, well above the statistical average. Sometimes it appeared there must be six kings in any given deck and even more aces. In any reputable gaming joint, this lot would have been turfed out on their ears long ago.

Eshu was next to go. One moment he was sitting there, cards fanned, head bobbing a little but otherwise essentially steady. Next moment, he was slumped face first on the table, burbling incoherently into the baize. Set and the Monkey King carried him off to a corner.

Which left only Hermes and Huehuecoyotl. Greek and Peruvian glared at each other, steely-eyed. The knuckles of their punching hands were red raw. Hermes’s nose appeared to be broken. A gash in Huehuecoyotl’s brow bled profusely.

Hermes lost, then Huehuecoyotl, then Hermes again.

The room had the metallic, meaty reek of a butcher’s shop.

Trembling, Hermes laid down his next hand. A flush, all clubs, but not high. He knew it was no good.

Silently, triumphantly, Huehuecoyotl trumped it with four tens.

Nobody thought Hermes would be able to carry on after the swingeing chop to the neck that Huehuecoyotl gave him. But the young Greek struggled to his feet, wheezingly retook his seat, and began shuffling the cards once more. He dealt, and with the swaying slowness of punchdrunk boxers, the two of them examined their hands, discarded a couple of cards, and drew substitutes from the pool. Each then gazed across the table to see what move his opponent would make.

“Call it,” said Hermes.

“You call it,” Huehuecoyotl replied.

If I’d been a betting man I would have laid a wager on the Peruvian to win outright. He seemed sturdier than the Greek, in body and in temperament. He looked like he could withstand hardship far longer and with greater equanimity than the slightly built youngster facing him.

But I was wrong. Hermes laid out a royal flush, to which Huehuecoyotl was able to respond with a mere full house, aces over nines.

Hermes rose and crossed over to dish out the penalty.

Huehuecoyotl, however, held up his palms in surrender. “Enough. No more.” His face was half masked in his own blood. “I give in. You have won.”

He stood up and managed three tottering steps towards the door before his legs collapsed under him.

Hermes was rewarded with a round of applause from the avatar onlookers.

“So this is us now,” said Gad, looking round the room. “All that’s left. We’re down to the final eight.”