He hummed. “A god can take a day off, a month, a millennium. Time away from the weight and responsibility of his power.”
“Are you taking time away?” My thoughts snail crawled, while the sunset light slipped away. Soft gray twilight surrounded us, shot through with glints of silver going gold.
“Yes, I am. Vacationing,” he added, in case I wasn’t following along. “There are rules to such a thing.”
I waited for him to explain. When it felt like time had stretched too far, I asked: “Am I a part of those rules?”
He made a considering sound. “No. But you may be a reason I bend them. I am a very old god, Brogan Gauge. Older than a great many of the gods. I am one of theoriginals.”
He said that last word as if it chopped more wood and carried more water than other words.
“I was there at the creation. I will be there standing at the end. My perspective reaches across all existence, beyond, and beyond even that. It affords me things other gods may not possess.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There are rules that cannot be broken, and there are rules that only I, or one such as I, can bend enough that I can appear to be here, on your dreaming, on your death, even though I am at my leisure, vacationing.”
The gold lights were growing, warming.
“But why? Why come to me now?”
“So that we may have this conversation. You interest me.”
We strolled through the silver and gray and gold, silent awhile. My thoughts gathered, slowly, but not as slowly as before.
“You only noticed me because I’ve been not-dead for so long.”
“Not entirely true. There are many souls who spend their lives not-dead. There are many creatures and beings who breathe through an endless count of days, yet never live them. You interest me for what you are, Brogan Gauge. What you can be.”
“What can I be?”
“In the hands of some, a weapon. In the hands of others, a balm.”
“What does that mean?”
“There are those who would use you. Use you and Lula. Not for the thing that you have become—not-dead, as you called it—but for what you have always been: a lightning rod for god power.”
Even in this nowhere state, his words zinged through me, like fire finding oxygen.
“You can sense god power, and there will be a day when you use god power. Because of this, you were targeted, found, attacked.” He inclined his head. “You wandered and were found again.”
“By a god,” I said, catching on. A memory flashed, wings, a galaxy turning, biker boots and tattoos. “Cupid found us. And…and now I’m dead.”
“You are very much not dead,” he said, offended. “Nor will you become so until I have decided thus.”
“But this isn’t living. I’m not alive. Is this a…a dream?”
“Think of it as a pause.” He extended his long, boney finger and pressed an imaginary button. “If we ring the bell, will the doorway to death open?” He curved his hand at his ear as if listening. “No. No one is home. No one to let you in. Ah, well. A pity.” From the gleam in his eye, this situation was delighting him.
“Life has her powers,” Death said, “and I have mine. You will not die until your death agrees with me.” He leaned toward me until his mouth was a breath away from my ear and whispered, “Today, your death does not agree with me.”
Every inch of my spirit, soul, body, whatever I was, froze and shivered.
“Does Cupid want me dead?”
Death pulled back and stood in front of me. “Cupid is, all things considered, whollyadequateas a god.”
He made it sound like a grand compliment. Maybe from him it was.
