There are a hundred names for the beings that destroyed the world.

  The monotheists; Christians, Jews and those few Muslims left after their doomed Jihads; called them False Gods, Pretender Gods or Demons. Buddhists and Atheists referred to them as Ascended Beings. The Hindus were the most comfortable of the major religions with the Resurgent world and thought of them as different avatars of Vishnu. In casual conversation they were alternately called Ancient Ones, Eldritch Ones, Old Ones, Old Gods, and Resurgent Gods among other things. The US Government used the noncontroversial Class One Entity, or COE, to refer to any magical creature with pretensions of godhood. There were other beings of comparable power, such as the Fey, Archdemons and Necromancers, but those made no pretentions at godhood.

  That was the only thing that really united all the so-called gods that had reappeared after the Surge, the claim of divinity. Otherwise, the Resurgent Gods were as diverse as the different parts of the world they sprang from and varied in power and influence, shape and size, personality and temperament. Also, despite their claims otherwise they lacked the omnipotent power of the monotheistic god and could be killed.

  What concerned me, and what I knew from personal experience, was that they were as vicious and callous as they were powerful. While they often took human form they also manifested as elemental forces of nature or embodiments of the deep human psyche and had as much concern for human life as you or I would a bug.

  What do you do to a bug once you notice it? You smash it. If you were feeling lenient you might scoop it up with a newspaper and move it outside in a fit of mercy. But how many people were merciful towards bugs?

  I had it even worse than your average person. I was an American. We were not just ordinary bugs. We were dangerous bugs that could kill someone if they weren’t careful. There was never any mercy for a black widow that you found in your closet, only a swift appointment with the bottom of a shoe.

  As the elves dragged me deeper into Frau Wyrd’s lair I could practically feel that shoe bottom descending towards my tiny, mortal body.

  They pushed me into a handsome room, with wood panels on the floor and ceiling and chandeliers hanging overhead. Engravings of dark wood surrounded the doorways and hung from the walls, an effect that made the room especially Old World European. In contrast, the ranks of chairs that stood in neat ranks on the floor looked like they had been taken out of an office circa 1950 or so, as did the arrangement of tables in the front.

  The room looked exactly as it had in the pictures that I’d seen of the Nuremburg trails where twenty-four Nazis were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Not what I had expected from a deity of the pre-Christian Germanic Tribes. I had thought that there would be more skulls and animal furs.

  The elves didn’t bother to address this discrepancy, they just threw me to the floor and stalked out. The doors closed with a slam, and I was alone; or so it seemed.

  I leapt to my feet and whirled around, looking for the danger that I was lurked behind me and I saw… nothing. Just wood paneled walls and cheap furniture. I moved cautiously around the room, looking for a weapon or way to escape.

  The doors were all locked and as were the windows. I thought about smashing through one of the windows, but that only would have led me into the air thirty feet over the Palace’s grounds where I could see many elves and armed men patrolling. There were no weapons either, unless I wanted to try beating an armed elf to death with a chair (and that seemed impractical outside of a WWF match). The only thing of interest that I noticed was that one of the dark wood carvings hanging on the wall was in fact a full crucifix.

  Unusual.

  The Old Gods generally hated the monotheistic religions that had supplanted them on the world stage and consigned them to memory and myth. They called the god of the Christians the “White God” and saved a special loathing for his worshippers. Across Europe, churches had been destroyed or repurposed into new temples when they retook their power. They had defiled Crucifixes, sacrificed priests on pagan alters and drove those Christians that remained faithful into hiding. If a cathedral still stood in Europe, it was only because it had been changed into a place to worship an pagan deity. To find a crucifix in the very heart of an Old God’s power was… odd.

  I was examining that misplaced crucifix when a voice reverberated out of the air around me. I mean that in its literal sense. The voice did not come from any direction but instead seemed like it came from everywhere all at once.

  “You know what this place is.” It was a clear statement and not a question. The voice already knew that I knew.

  “Yes,” I croaked after some effort, my mouth was dry and useless with fear. I had faced gods before; but that was as part of a whole army against relatively weak Amerindian gods. I was now alone, unarmed and under the direct gaze of the Teutonic Goddess of Fate and Destiny. Like an ant under a magnifying glass.

  “Here, two dozen evil men, some of them believers, met their Fate at the hands of judges and tribunals. Other men who had thought they could usurp my godhood and determine Fate by themselves. Little did they know; that they were merely puppets, acting out the roles that Fate had decided for them just as it had decided for the men they thought they judged. I have kept this room exactly the same to remind myself of mankind’s hubris. To remind them that there was a time that they had forgotten us and to remind them of their folly in doing so.”

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  “As fascinating as your interior decorating choices are, it still does not explain why I am here.” My voice was cracking even as I forced out my false bravado. I was terrified but I was determined to die as I had lived, with a smart mouth.

  “Even now, you dare to mock Fate?” wondered the voice with more interest than anger. “Truly, mankind has fallen from the days when they gave submission to the gods. And you ‘Americans’ are the worst. Monkeys with delusions of grandeur. Soon, you too shall know your place in the world.”

  “You are spending a lot of time talking to this ignorant ape. You must have something better to do, so I’ll just show myself out.” I moved towards the door, though I really didn’t expect to make it there.

  “Stop!” commanded the voice. The harsh bark of command didn’t stop me but the air in front of me seemed to have solidified into concrete and I couldn’t push through it at all. “You dare tempt Fate?”

  “I have nothing to lose, sweetheart, and I have better things to than talk to a disembodied voice.”

  The voice did not respond to me directly but I found my attention drawn unerringly to the center of the room. It is hard to describe. Like a dog trying to describe a helicopter or a cat a television, I can tell you what I experienced, but not what I saw. It was as if a mist, a mist made out of individual particles of light, streamed from every corner of the big room. Drawn to the center where it formed a tornado that reached through time and space without leaving the room. It’s here where I really don’t even have the words to describe what happened, my very memory of the event was fuzzy even before it ended. My brain could only record kaleidoscope of images and sensations that make no sense to it. The next thing that I could comprehend clearly was Frau Wyrd, the Teutonic embodiment of Fate, standing in front of me.

  A lot of other European pantheons divided their personification of fate amongst three individuals. Sometimes described as three old women and sometimes amongst three women described as the Maid, the Mother and the Crone. Frau Wyrd seemed to have all three of these aspects. Depending on the angle and the lighting, her face either had the smooth skin and youthful glow of a teenager, or the fullness of middle age or the wizened wrinkles of the geriatric. Her hair remained a bone white curtain that fell down her back to the floor no matter what her face looked like. She wore a formless, grey garment that was more vapor than fabric. All of that was creepy enough, but her eyes were absolutely terrifying. They were two empty pools of black that seemed to reach back into eternity, like two holes poked into the fabric of reality.

  I’ll admit it. I was scared. My breathing stuttered and halted in my throat and a cold sweat drenched my face and forehead. I knew without a doubt that if the being in front of me wanted me dead that there was absolutely nothing that I could do about it.

  Frau Wyrd cocked her head at me and the ghost of a smile flickered across her changing lips. “Not so insolent now, I see.” It was only then that I noticed that her lips did not move when she talked and her voice still seemed to come from everywhere, or maybe it was just in my head. “Normally, I would think nothing of cutting the thread of one such as you; an unbeliever, and apostate.”

  Her hands came out from under her formless robe, one holding a set of rusty shears and the other the end of a thread that disappeared back into her mist-like clothing. She brought those shears close to the thread, so that they were just barely touching.

  My heart stop beating. For a second that stretched into infinity my heart ceased thundering in my chest and blood stopped flowing through my veins.

  “But that is not your Doom.” She pulled the shears away and my heart resumed its terrified patter. “You still have a role to play and your Destiny is not to die here. One such as you, can be useful to me.”

  “Useful,” I croaked, the concept was so ludicrous that it overwhelmed my fear, “How can I be useful?”

  “Useful is on overstatement. I will instead say that will be vexing to my enemies.” Her eyelids narrowed over those two pits of night. “Your Doom is to be a walking nuisance to my kind, after spending a short time with you it is apparent why.”

  “So… you stole me away from Wotan and brought me here because I’m annoying?” Many people, including Kris (Ok, especially Kris), had told me that I was especially annoying. But to think that I was so irritating that I had literally drawn the attention of the gods was making my head spin. “Why not just let Wotan keep me then?”

  “He would have used you against his enemies and I want to use you against my enemies.” Her eyelids narrowed over the pits of nothingness that served as her eyes. “But you make a point, maybe presenting you as a gift to my brother would be better?”

  “Le me be annoy your enemies,” I said, the abrupt turnaround from looking death in the eye to seeing a glimmer of hope had left me lightheaded. “I’m great at that! Let me go, and I’ll harass another deity. That way I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “If you were to touch my hair that would be the last thing you would ever do,” hissed Frau Wyrd as one hand shot up to protectively caress her ivory tresses. Apparently even the Goddess of Fate could be a little vain.

  “I meant that I would no longer be vexing you with my presence.” It seemed like the more old fashioned I spoke the better she understood me. “Instead, I will be vexing someone else. And you will be rid of me.”

  “Yes…” mused the goddess, “but that doesn’t mean you will be vexing one of my enemies. You are headed south, into the lands of my sister Volla and I have no quarrel with her.” She meditatively stroked her chin. “I think I will send you to Ermen’s lands instead. I do despise that simpleton.”

  Crap. I had been trying to avoid Ermen’s domain. Even among beings that treated humans as if they were bugs to be crushed Ermen stood out as particularly genocidal. If other Old Gods were the kid with the magnifying glass burning ants he was an exterminator with a backpack full of pesticide. I’m not sure what Frau Wyrd thought I could do to inconvenience him. Maybe he would hate me a bit more than he hated everyone else just before he smote me?

  “Ermen kills most humans he encounters. I thought you said that it was not my Doom to die.”

  “Not by my hand. Perhaps Ermen will be the one to kill you?” Frau Wyrd made a flicking gesture with her hand as if that were an unimportant detail. “I only care that you might irritate him first.”

  “But… but… I would be so much more irritating if you…”

  “Yes… I think that is what I will do,” she said to herself, it was obvious that she had stopped listening to anything I had to say. I was a curiosity to be examined nothing more. “Retainers!” The doors slammed back open and a quartet of elves marched in. “Take him over the northern frontier and then release him.” With that final command the goddess disappeared into a vortex of fractured space-time that threatened to drive me insane.

  “Wait, you bitch! What about Kris? At least give her back to me!” I struggled against the elves as I raved. Trying to pull away from their iron grips and rush back to the center of the room where I had last seen Frau Wyrd. “What did you do with her you bastards! What did you do!”

  The last thing I remembered was the flat of an elven blade smacking me behind the ear and an inexorable slide into blackness.