Bond - The Woken Gods

For Karen Joy Fowler, Kelly Link, and Ursula, three of my favorite tricksters

and

For Amanda Rutter, who kept the faith

THE CITY ASLEEP

Night enfolds the sleeping city, shadows unfurling like wings across deserted streets and empty parks. Many of the painted townhouses stand vacant. In others, people succumb to the insomnia of ordinary worries misbehaving children, unpaid bills, stressful jobs or dream of the extraordinary that has become commonplace: blazes caused by gods, friends vanished into cults, the Societys reassurances that everything is fine. Everything will be just fine, so long as everyone listens. So long as everyone believes them.

Across the city, in a nearly abandoned neighborhood that used to belong to politicians and lobbyists, the gods are awake. In the strange embassies of the seven tricksters willing to live in this place, to risk everything that they are, the inhabitants never sleep. They slept for thousands of years, after all.

The pyramid of Set House rises from a jungle. Milk-white columns front the temple of Hermes House. The black fortress of Loki House juts into a night as dark as its walls. Rough hide slants into the massive teepee of Coyote House. The bright tiers of Tezcatlipoca House stand on barren sand. A sacred grove of thick trees surrounds the ornate shrine of Legba House, situated at the convergence of two wide red-and-black paths. And at the end of the property, the ziggurat of Enki House towers over a marsh.

Broad steps ascend the base and two long ramps extend from the flat surface at the top, where a towering stone temple soars. A man climbs the ramp, deliberately, a small lantern held in one hand to light the way. He has not been invited here. But when he reaches the temples arched entrance, a god with two faces is waiting. He is taken inside, where he shares a secret and asks for help.

He leaves before long. He does not focus on what lies ahead. Instead the past replays itself. He remembers five years ago, the day of the Awakening, when the gods rose from the earth. He remembers the plan the Society put into motion. The gods own magic turned against them, the relics men had gathered while they lay sleeping the only thing that could allow humanity a chance to survive. The doors were sealed, one on this side of the world and the other far away. The Society held its breath.

He is one of them. He held his.

The god they captured was one of the most powerful. She had a lions head, and a warriors heart. They marched her from the Library out onto the green mall of the United States capital, torches blazing along each side. The relic that slew her was a blade, a curving scimitar collected from beneath the ruins of a Babylonian palace. It had been a gift from a god to a king during the first time. The time before the gods vanished, when they ruled over humanity.

The cameras broadcast Sekhmets death around the world, giving humans hope. Gods swarmed the city and watched, some with eyes like many-faceted insects, others with wings and tongues sharp as knives, with glimmering scales and skin hard as armor. They watched Sekhmet, her lions head and warriors heart both still as she lay on the bed of green, green grass. Black blood spilled from the wound at her neck. The torches burned until the oil inside ran dry. She did not move again.

And they knew it was true, gods and men alike. The world above and the world below are denied the gods now. Closed off by the Society. Stuck here in the world between, so long as those doors are shut, gods can be killed. Gods can die.

So the treaty. So this city became the Societys stronghold and the home of the seven tricksters most sympathetic to the humans, the ones who volunteered to deal with the murderers of gods. This is the city where deals are cut. Sometimes in the light, more often in the shadows.

There should be billowing black clouds, the man thinks, thunder and lightning to shatter the silence. The world deserves some sign that the peace is fraying. His hand grips the lanterns handle tightly, as though if he can hold onto the light he might keep it all from unraveling.

He alone sees the storm approaching. He alone knows what tomorrow will bring.

He walks back into the city holding onto the hope he can at least save his daughter.

CHAPTER ONE

At the window, I watch rain that gives every impression it will never ever stop probably because I need it to. Otherwise, Im going to get soaked on my walk home.

My best friend Bree snores softly (which she claims she doesnt do) across the room. I pace and admire her latest sketches, taped around the walls. In them, gods loom like horrors, ghost wings and horns traced inside with hieroglyph shapes. Bree draws them like monsters, and maybe they are.

Theyre inescapable, but we avoid getting up close and personal with them. Sure, we see them in photographs and on TV, even occasionally out and about. But the closest Ive been to a real-life, in-the-weird-flesh god is the length of a city block, traveling up to the Library of Congress for a Tricksters Council meeting. Looking at Brees drawings, knowing what theyre capable of, that suits me fine.

I go back to the window, drum my fingers against the sill. Rain still sluices down in sheets. Finally, finally , it slacks to a minor downpour and the gray light of early morning becomes visible. Itll have to be good enough. I sift through Brees colored grease pencils and select a nice red one with a fat tip. Her corkscrew black curls sprawl messily across her pillow, and one of her hands dangles off the bed.

Shes a deep sleeper, so theres a fair chance she wont wake as I start to write on the pale skin inside her arm: See you at

Her other hand flies up and catches mine. Kyra, you better not have drawn something on my face again, she says.

One time. I did that one time, I say. And you thought it was funny.

That was on the last Day of the Dead. We stayed up late, raiding Brees moms bar. I sketched a skeleton over her passed-out features, and the result was a worthy effort, if far less scary than she could have done on me.

After it came off, I thought it was hilarious, Bree admits, blinking in a half-hearted attempt to shake off sleep. Shes small, curvy, and frequently looks like a work of art herself. This morning, shes in rumpled PJs, a little smear of mascara beneath one eye. You leaving?

Yeah. Better get home. The whole point of staying over was to allow a grand entrance this morning and not to have been alone in our big empty townhouse all night. These days Im never sure when Dad will bother coming home from work and when he wont. He could let me know, but the idea never seems to occur to him.

Turnabout is more than fair play.

Bree holds her arm up and squints. See you at school?

Its like youre a mind reader.

Brees head thuds back onto the pillow. You are predictable.

Take that back. I pull on the cracked brown leather jacket I scored on our shopping expedition at the outdoor market the night before. Dad is guaranteed to hate it.

Bree grunts, tugging the blanket over her head. I slip downstairs and unlatch the door quietly to avoid waking her mom. Heading into the only-slightly-less-insistent rain, Im grateful my new-old jacket is thick. By the time I make it home, the rain has ended but my long brown hair drips, the ends curled into tips like twin question marks. My jeans are soaked.

I shiver as I fumble out my key and fit it in the lock. With great feeling, I slam the door shut behind me. If Dads home, he wont be asleep anymore.

But then I see hes right here, not upstairs in bed.

He sits on the leather couch, a coffee cup in front of him. He wears sweats, but manages to look, as ever, like a scholarly librarian. Which he is. What he cares about most in the world is finding the facts the Society of the Sun needs. Hes more at home at the Library working for them than here.