Chapter 1 #2
“What do you really look like?” Alana Catherine inquired. “Show me your true self.”
Tom Hanks hissed at her. “I take orders from no one. I am the Higher Power. The one and only true Higher Power.”
Jennifer chuckled. Again, I almost wet myself. Why wasn’t the Trinity terrified? Did they have no sense of self-preservation?
“Welp,” Jennifer said. “I’m guessin’ that means you’re butt ugly. I’m thinkin’ you might be so ugly that your face would make a freight train take a dirt road.”
Tom Hanks wasn’t sure what to do. Hell, I wasn’t sure what to do. If I took my shot and failed, we were all probably dead. I needed to be top tier sniper accurate, and the timing had to be right. In other words, it couldn’t be now. Not yet. Not unless the Higher Power forced me.
Shitty Ritchie, never one to be left out, joined the ugly game. “If I had a dog as ugly as you, I’d shave his ass and make him walk backward.”
Candy Vargo laughed. Tom Hanks did not.
Jennifer was on a roll. “I’m guessin’ that you must’ve fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.”
“GOOD ONE!” Shitty Ritchie squealed. “And I heard that you’re so ugly that you didn’t just get hit with the ugly stick, you got walloped with the whole forest!”
Jennifer and Shitty Ritchie traded high fives. Alana Catherine just smiled and continued to stare at It. It was growing more furious with each passing insult.
“I am beautiful,” Tom Hanks shouted. “I am the most beautiful and powerful being in the Universe.”
Tom Hanks raised his Tom Hanks’ arms into the air and slashed them down to his sides.
In a flash of multi-colored glittering lightning, he disappeared, and a being that was truly stunning took his place.
It was unclear if the being was male or female.
It had long, shiny golden locks and a face so symmetrically perfect it didn’t seem real.
It was tall and lanky, but muscular at the same time.
It wore an intricately woven cream silk robe.
I didn’t see breasts or an Adam’s Apple. It was truly androgynous.
“Happy?” the Higher Power snarled. “Or maybe… jealous?”
“Neither,” Alana Catherine answered calmly. “There’s nothing to be jealous of.”
The Higher Power screamed in fury. The Universe appeared to scream with It. The sky darkened to inky black and an icy wind picked up.
“Here’s how this is going to work,” It ground out. “I will take one of you. You shall choose. If you deny my request, all three of you will die.” It smiled. Its outer beauty belied a putrid interior.
“No,” Alana Catherine said. “Neither option is acceptable.”
“IT’S NOT AN OPTION,” It shrieked. “It’s a command. I will not be disobeyed.”
“Until now,” Jennifer muttered under her breath.
“Give me the disgusting small one,” It demanded. “No one needs something like that. It’s repulsive.”
“Shitty Ritchie is not repulsive,” the little guy shouted, stomping his foot.
“Wrong,” the Higher Power shot back. “Richard Smith is the most pathetic, revolting, repugnant, vile, loathsome, abhorrent joke of an Immortal who has ever been created.”
“Don’t fall for it,” I warned Shitty Ritchie, still looking for an opening. “It’s trying to piss you off so you go at It. It will then say it killed you in self-defense.”
“Sticks and stones might break your fuckin’ bones, but words will never hurt anything but your feelings,” Candy said in warning to Shitty Ritchie. She could see, as well as the rest of us, that the little dude was about to blow. “You can survive a bruised ego.”
“You will apologize to Shitty Ritchie,” he yelled at the Higher Power. His eyes were wild, and he was beginning to resemble a feral animal who might or might not have been infected with rabies.
The future was not looking bright.
“I will apologize over my dead body,” It bellowed.
Shitty Ritchie laughed. He laughed so hard that I thought he was having a psychotic break. The sounds he made were unhinged.
“Fine,” Shitty Ritchie snapped after pulling his shit back together. “Have it your way.”
It happened so fast I wasn’t even sure that I’d seen it.
With a shriek that sounded like a herd of dying animals, Shitty Ritchie lunged at the Higher Power.
The Higher Power was delighted with the turn of events.
It was going to get exactly what It came for.
The Trinity would be forever broken with the demise of Shitty Ritchie.
But according to the poet, Robert Burns, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
The Higher Power’s plans had just backfired.
Before any of us could dive in and save Shitty Ritchie from his own fury, he opened his mouth wide.
Wider than I’d ever seen a mouth open. So wide, I thought his jaw had come unhinged.
It was open so wide I couldn’t make out the rest of his tiny body. It was all mouth and razor-sharp teeth.
A shrill scream left Shitty Ritchie’s enormous mouth as he grabbed the ethereal-looking Higher Power and ate It. Whole.
To say I was shocked was an understatement. The pure physics of what Shitty Ritchie did made no sense, but I’d seen it with my own eyes.
My gaze shot to Gideon’s. He was as blown away as I was, maybe more. Candy Vargo swallowed her toothpick and coughed it back up.
“What the actual FUCK?” Candy choked out.
Shitty Ritchie was back. He was no longer just a huge freaking mouth. “Shitty Ritchie ate the Higher Power! I am the WINNER!”
“Welp,” Jennifer said, shaking her head and wincing. “That’s one way to get it done.”
No one else knew what to say. There really wasn’t a lot to add.
“Are we done?” I finally asked. “Is it over?”
“Hell, if I know,” Gideon said, obviously not quite able to grasp what we’d just witnessed. I felt the same. Somewhere in this mess, there was a cannibal joke, but I was not going to go there.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get much worse, somehow it did.
The Universe was a bitch. Another being arrived in a blast of dull rainbow glitter.
The magic was similar in color to the Higher Power’s and the Trinity’s, but it lacked something.
We all took a wary step back as another androgynous person crashed our party.
It wasn’t the Higher Power, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
“Wonderful!” the thing bellowed. “I am finally free! Killing the wicked bitch is the greatest gift you could give me! Thank you so very much.” The being bowed in thanks, then looked around in dismay and disgust at the surroundings.
“Who are you?” Alana Catherine asked. “And why are you here?”
“Oh my,” the being said with a laugh that sounded like tinkling bells. “I’m the other part.”
“Of what?” Shitty Ritchie asked, eyeing the creature with distrust.
“Another part of the Higher Power, sillies! There was always meant to be more than one.” The smile on the being turned into a vicious frown. “That bitch caged me billions of years ago, but now that Its gone I’m free to rule the Immortal Universe.”
I was sure that a true Higher Power couldn’t be caged…
“Not so fast,” Candy Vargo said, squinting at the person. “Can you prove what you say?”
The creature didn’t answer, just smiled.
The conversation with Jennifer came roaring back to the front of my brain.
“I think I see something,” Jennifer said cautiously.
I leaned forward. Seeing for Jennifer was very different than it was for the rest of us.
“Talk to me,” I said, feeling trepidation.
Her brow creased in thought. “It’s not clear like Heather’s G-string, or Candy Vargo wanting a ferret farm. It’s vague. Kinda fuzzy.”
“Okay,” I said. “Tell me what you can make out.”
She nodded slowly then spoke. “It’s a person. Can’t rightly tell if it’s a male or a female. It’s strong and angry. It wants revenge.”
“It sounds like the Higher Power,” I pointed out.
“I thought so too, but it’s not,” she said with conviction. “It might be worse.”
“Worse than the Higher Power? What in the hell could be worse than the present Higher Power?”
I stole a glance at Jennifer.
She nodded. Her eyes were huge, and my stomach cramped.
This was the being that she had seen. We needed to get it out of here.
What it didn’t know couldn’t hurt it, but what we didn’t know could hurt us tremendously.
If I could get it to leave, we could regroup and figure out the next step.
The main problem was that this being was a total unknown.
The Higher Power, who was now residing in Shitty Ritchie’s stomach, was a known entity.
Even though It was heinous, we were familiar with It.
This person? Not so much. If Jennifer’s vision was correct, this creature could be worse than the Higher Power.
Fuck.
“You’re going to have to leave,” I said, keeping my voice even and calm. “The replacement for the Higher Power has been found. And you’re not it.”
The eyes of the being narrowed dangerously. “Who is this replacement? I would love to converse. I’m quite sure we’d have so much in common.”
At the same time, I denied knowledge of knowing who the replacement Higher Power was, Shitty Ritchie confirmed that he, Alana Catherine and Jennifer were the new and improved Higher Power.
I wanted to scream.
The being laughed. “Too bad, so sad. I’ve waited too long for this. I am the only Higher Power now.”
As fast as the creature had arrived in the dull rainbow sparkles, it left. But it didn’t leave empty handed. It took Alana Catherine, Jennifer and Shitty Ritchie with it.
I screamed.
Candy Vargo let loose with a string of swear words that would have made Gram freak out. Gideon roared. What was left of the house, cracked and turned to dust.
“What the fuck do we do?” Candy shouted.
“Go after the bastard,” I shouted back.
“But where the hell did it go?” she growled.
That was a question I didn’t have an answer to. But I would find it. I had to.
“We leave immediately,” Gideon ground out. “Candy, Tim, Daisy and me.”
Candy sprinted to the tree line to share the news and retrieve the people Gideon had requested.
“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to hold back my tears.
“To the Higher Power’s plane,” he said flatly. “If that bastard really is the other half of the abomination, that’s where it will go.”
I nodded and swallowed back the primal scream that was marinating in my throat. This wasn’t supposed to happen. When were we going to get even a semblance of a happily ever after?
“Daisy,” Gideon said, staring at me.
“Gideon,” I replied.
He walked over and stood in front of me. “We will find them. I have no intention of losing this fight or our daughter.” More gently, he added, “That goes for Jennifer and Shitty Ritchie, too. I will tear the entire fucking Universe apart if I have to.”
“I’ll be tearing it up by your side,” I promised. “Always.”
I believed him. I had to. We would get them back and they would be whole and fine. It was the only acceptable ending.
Anything was possible. Anything. All I had to do was believe.
I believed.
I believed.
I had to believe.