to the rug.
The Great God Jehovah was dead. And I was the only witness. Or so I thought.
The door creaked open.
'So,' a pleasant, familiar male voice chirped. 'The little storm god finally blows Himself away. No more fires on the mountaintops for Him.' Emil Zacharias sauntered in to peer over the chair.
'Enjoy it while you can, Zack. You're next.'
'Now, why should that be?' He sat on the edge of the chair. 'This old dried prune here was my younger brother. Little Thor slash Allah slash Yahveh slash Storm of Wrath. He tricked me with his lies. Took the Earth from me! Then he had the nerve to slander me, calling me the Prince of Lies without bothering to mention who the King was.'
'You're no better,' I said, stooping to pick up the suicide weapon. It looked remarkably like a Colt .45 Peacemaker. God had tried to make men equal. Colonel Colt had finally gotten even for that.
'Oh, I'm not half as bad as he was.' Zacharias jerked a thumb at the hollow thing beside him. 'I was never a war god. Sure, I may have asked for a few blood sacrifices here and there-what God hasn't? Besides, I was no worse than
'
Another shot rang out. Rang in, rather, from beyond the door. Emil collapsed at the feet of his brother.
A wisp of smoke curled up from the barrel of a gun. A gun in the hand of Ann Perrine. She smiled dreamily, then let out a long, slow breath.
'So mote it be,' she muttered.
'Thanks, angel,' I said, gingerly disarming her. 'You just solved a mystery for me.'
'What mystery? Zacharias hired you to kill god. There he is. Dead.'
'Just dandy,' I said. 'Only I didn't do it.'
'So what?' She looked at me with a gaze that penetrated even deeper than that of God's. And she glowed with a radiant beauty that made me forget that a race of human women had ever existed.
I tried not to let it interfere with my thinking.
'I figured something was screwy the way you were so anxious to help a nutty old man rub out God. Your crazy hand-waving whenever we got in a jam was even stranger, but it all makes sense now. My first clue was when Zack wanted out of the contract. I wanted to know why.'
'And you've uncovered the reason?' She stepped over to the scene of the crimes, her translucently white gown flowing around her like a cloud.
Emil stared up with lifeless eyes, a dark red rose blooming from his chest where the bullet had hit. God looked like a vandalized plaster statue.
She shook her head with a bitter little smile.
'You finessed Zack into coming to me with the offer,' I said. 'You convinced him that he could bump off his brother and return himself to power.'
'Emil was a trifle drunk at the time. The Dionysian side, you know.' She sat on the right arm of the chair, her back to me. All I could see were the golden waves of her hair trailing across her back.
'What he didn't realize,' I continued, 'was that they were more than brothers. They were dual aspects of the same principal.'
'They both dismissed it as a Manichaean heresy.'
'Their mistake, apparently. Especially when they're up against someone who doesn't believe in heresy. Or sin. Or guilt. You only believe in the Wheel.'
She laughed, tossing her head back. After a moment, she turned to stare at me. 'They were part of the Wheel, though,' she said in answer to a question I hadn't even asked. 'Every year they battled for my favors. They were my Kings and my Lovers...'
