Do you know why gods have priesthoods? It’s so that they can tell their followers the shape of the god. So that the god can maintain identity in a shifting mortal world. Without it, the god becomes shaped by the majority will of its followers. Which in turn twists the god from the shape they desires. It is symbiosis, and can be destructive both for the god and for the followers. Like a turbine spinning out of control.

Chapter 3

There is a central circle that has been destroyed. Whatever significance the individual sigils represented has been swept clear. The body of a young woman is closest to the circle and the others are either around the circle or it appears that they are running from it. Not that doing so did much good. Twelve children cut down, their blood marring the peaceful river bed. Flys have started on the bodies already. This part sucks.

I reach into their pockets. Ignoring the soft sqish, rigor having come and gone, I rifle through their ID. College students it looks like. Fine ASU students out for a little rub and tickle away from their roommates. I pocket the cash. Hey, they’ll never miss it. This gig doesn’t have health insurance and by the time this is through I think I may need whatever cushion I can get. Better than fixing a horse race, that shit always comes at a price. Even if it is just convincing the local criminals you’re not cutting in on their action.

There is a trail of blood leading away. Spatters every few feet, leading up to where a car was parked. Someone walked away from this place.

Normally I’d do a little magic and track this thing down. But this well has sucked down all traces. Instead, I get to wait for the first body to show up.
I should never have answered my phone.

There are times, weeks, when I forget what I am. Torn between the working persona and the family persona. Between the good guy, good date persona and who I really am. When I’m alone in the world for awhile, those masks fall away. They disappear like the temporary illusions they are and all that is left is me. I move with purpose, seeing it all, moving as I will, free from all constraint. Social moores float to the background and the only rules are thin and self imposed. The world dances and I dance with it. Not in counterpoint but as I will it. Every step, every second a brilliant diamond of clarity. Then the power ebbs, flowing away as all power must. And I come crashing down into this mortal meat body. You want to know what it feels like? It is indescribable, what I’ve written here is the description of quantum physics to a chimpanzee. Unless you wield it, become it. How could you ever know.

Chapter 2
2 days ago

My phone rang in the quiet hour before dawn. A voice, solemn and deep, describes a place in the desert. Then it’s gone. Some messenger spirits positively delight in technology, even if they don’t quite grasp that it needs to be turned on to work. I get dressed in cool clothes, the suns up soon and I’d rather not melt. 112 today, a nice normal July day. Looking through the dresser full of odds and ends I find and clip my knife to my pocket. Out my front door and into the cool predawn. I drive an old Chevy truck. What can I say, it was cheap. It’s not like this gig pays much.

I drive east to the Bee line Highway until I’m right near the casino, right on the edge of the place of power, either built there on purpose or someone was lucky or stupid. All that hope and excitement. All that desperation and grinding down of the human spirit. Normally these places seethe with little spirits feeding on the bits and pieces of hope and misery. But this place just tips it all over into the wellspring a couple of miles north. The magical equivalent of dumping chemical runoff into a lake.

Past the casino I turn down a rock strewn road. It twists and turns back beyond the point where civilization mars the landscape. Down into a dry riverbed. Deep gravel lines the sides, you can almost feel the weight of years and water pressing down. In the middle is a cleared out area, a firepit strewn with cheap beer bottles and bodies. Something bad happened here, happened last night. I’d like to say I felt it coming but the truth is, so much bad shit is happening at any one time, it all just melts together. I can see the outline of a failed ritual circle. Failed because if it had done its job these kids would still be alive. This was a holy place once. A place where sky meets earth, where earth meets water. Where the scent of dry timbers burning lingers on the air. But thanks to the casino, darker things lurk near the surface. Still they should have been safe. Just a bunch of college kids who read the wrong sociology book. A little drunk and alot stupid.

Usually they just chant some words they have half translated, scream their frustrations, then fuck in the water shaped gravel. That would have been bad enough, the gods can be a puerile bunch. Maybe the kids would have had a run of good luck, if their performance was pleasing. But some asshole thought that they should sacrifice a animal too.

That bloodletting… I could feel the lurch as something tore itself through the spirit world into ours. What we in the business call a 3rd aetheric to first aetheric transfer, but only among the stuffed shirt set.

This is bad. Something has ripped it’s way through and it is hungry.