Divine Assistance Read online

  Divine Assistance

  When the Supreme Mother and Supreme Father separated Creation from the Void, they also created the gods, beings of incalculable power who wielded cosmic energies far beyond the petty comprehension of mere mortals. The gods were supposed to preside over Creation with unmatched wisdom and knowledge.

  Well, that was the idea.

  But what is Death – a god of terrible majesty and splendour – supposed to do when his daughter asks for a pony? Is he really supposed to just go out and get a mortal one? Like that’s going to work. It’ll keel over and die in a couple of decades. No, his daughter deserves something better, a pony truly worthy of her divine heritage, which means he’s going to have to get a little bit creative.

  And then there’s Bureaucracy. The Supreme Mother and Supreme Father might have given rise to Creation, but Bureaucracy is the one who has to keep everything running smoothly. But that’s easier said than done when there are hundreds of gods and countless mortals to consider – none of whom understand the importance of filing paperwork in triplicate. Luckily, not even gods can escape the awesome power of divine paperwork.

  And let’s not forget gods like Mayhem, Mischief, and Rabble. Their names speak for themselves. When the three of them take a holiday in the mortal world at the same time, trouble is right around the corner.

  Divine Assistance is a collection of fourteen short stories about the gods and their attempts to manage Creation. There are souls to claim, mortals to woo, and even the occasional city to smite. After all, what’s life without a little divine assistance?

  Divine Assistance

  L. G. Estrella

  The Divine Assistance Series Part One

  Kindle First Edition

  Copyright © May 2017 L. G. Estrella

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Oops

  Epic Battle

  Young Death

  Paperwork

  Kindness

  Sun Strike

  The Pony

  Artistry

  Love is a Battlefield

  Rabblerousers

  Lost Pet

  Creation

  Babysitter

  Attempted Heroism

  About the Author

  More From L. G. Estrella

  Copyright and Disclaimer

  Oops

  Torment appeared high above the city without his usual blaze of divine glory. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to make a suitably awesome impression. He most certainly did. However, there was a time and place for wowing mortals with his divine awesomeness, and now was neither the time nor the place. Today was all about family business. He had to deliver a stern warning to everyone who thought they could get away with flouting the laws that had been laid down by the gods. In other words, he was going to smite this city and reduce it to rubble in a very memorable way. At least, that was the idea.

  Normally, if the gods wanted to smite a city and its people, they wouldn’t have turned to Torment. They would have turned to one of the Greater Gods like Annihilation or to one of Torment’s brothers. Both Wrath and Ruin were wonderfully gifted when it came to crushing cities, and they had both turned smiting the wicked into something close to an art form. Torment? Well, he was more than a bit rusty since obliterating cities and wiping out evildoers en masse wasn’t exactly his forte. On the contrary, his specialty was inflicting centuries of hideously painful and unimaginably horrible torment upon evildoers in the afterlife to ensure mortals would think twice before succumbing to evil.

  Some of his favourite punishments were also the most simple. Hundreds of years ago, he’d come up with the brilliant idea of having one thoroughly unpleasant mortal strain and heave to push a heavy boulder up a hill, only for the boulder to roll down the other side once he’d reached the top. The poor fellow had spent decades doing that in the afterlife, and mortal artists and poets had come up with countless paintings, sculptures, and poems to immortalise his suffering. Needless to say, there had been a significant reduction in the number of mortals walking in the criminal’s proverbial footsteps. More recently, Torment had added a twist to the punishment by exchanging the heavy boulder for a huge, burning-hot lump of coal. The change had brought about a twenty-five per cent increase in suffering, which was really quite impressive, all things considered.

  Another one of his favourites was the sinking ship scenario, a punishment he liked to reserve for unpleasant mortals who’d spent their lives committing acts of villainy around water. As a result, the most common recipients were pirates and other miscreants who’d spent their lives terrorising coastal villages and attacking other ships. Given the number of mortals who chose to indulge in piracy and general nastiness along the coast and on the open sea, one of the best features of the sinking ship scenario was that it allowed him to punish large groups of them at the same time. Space was hardly a problem in the afterlife – Death’s realm was effectively infinite in size – but it was wonderfully efficient, and coming up with too many different punishments would have been so draining from a creative standpoint.

  The sinking ship scenario was very simple. He shackled all of the evildoers to a ship. Their shackles were unbreakable, and the ship had holes in it. Water would come rushing in. However, Torment gave them buckets, so they could try to bail the water out. As long as they worked together, pushing themselves to exhaustion, they could keep just enough water out to keep the ship from sinking. But if any of them slacked off, even for a moment, the ship would fill with water and sink, drowning all of them.

  Since they were in the afterlife, drowning wasn’t about to kill any of them. No, mere death would have been far too merciful for the people who ended up in Torment’s care. After enduring the agony of drowning, they would simply wake up to find themselves right back on the ship as it began to fill with water. They would spend centuries fighting a hopeless, unwinnable battle, and every time they lost, they would experience the horror of drowning. It was fiendishly clever, and Torment honestly thought it was some of his best work.

  Yes, if the gods needed to punish a wicked mortal in the afterlife for a few centuries, then Torment was undoubtedly the god of choice. Nobody did torment better than him. It was even his name. Alas, he was not particularly skilled when it came to destroying cities. It wasn’t a question of power. He wasn’t some weak, newly created god. He’d been around for ages. Smashing a mortal city was easy, but smashing it with flair and style like his brothers was much more difficult. Sadly, he didn’t have a choice in the matter.

  Like all gods, Wrath was entitled to a certain amount of time off. As one of the less essential gods, Wrath didn’t have to go through the same rigmarole as someone like Death. All Wrath had to do was file a few pages of paperwork with Bureaucracy, and he was good to go. The mortal world could survive without him for a week or two, and there were several other gods who could handle his duties while he was away. In contrast, Death got less time off than almost anybody. He also had to file no less than a hundred pages of paperwork – in triplicate – before he could actually take any time off. There were rumours that he should actually have had to file more, but Bureaucracy was his sister. The goddess wasn’t known for taking it easy on anyone, but maybe Death was an exception.

  Torment worked – sort of – for Death, and he couldn’t help but pity the older god. As for Wrath, Torment had a feeling that his brother was living it up at a festival somewhere in the mortal world. His brother would most likely spend his time off in mortal guise, eating, drinking, making merry, and enjoying the company of comely mortal women. Torment could have asked him to cut his holiday short, but he wanted to do the brotherly thing and let Wrath enjoy his time off. Torment also had no desire to be t
he bearer of bad news since Wrath could get a little wrathful when something cut into his holiday time.

  And then there was Ruin. Torment wished Ruin were here to handle this. Nobody destroyed cities with more style and elegance than Ruin except Annihilation. Ruin had even written a book about how to do it – a book that Torment had spent the past hour and a half reading, so he could meet his brother’s exacting standards. If he made a mess of this, Ruin was bound to find out and lecture him. What puzzled Torment was the reason for his brother’s absence. Ruin was ruggedly handsome, even for a god, and that combined with his awesome might was usually enough to win the favour of any mortal woman he pursued. However, he’d heard that the mortal woman Ruin was currently courting was more interested in being a librarian or a poet than in giving Ruin the time of day.

  For all of his many virtues, Ruin had very little experience in dealing with librarians, never mind wooing them, and his grasp of poetry was abysmal. However, he was very persistent, and Torment knew better than to interrupt him when he had his heart set on a mortal. Hopefully, Ruin wouldn’t go running to Muse or Love for help. There was virtually no chance of that not ending in disaster. His brother was sensible enough, but he shuddered to think of what he’d come up with after consulting the goddess of the arts and creativity or the goddess of love and emotion.

  Torment frowned. He was overthinking this. He was a good brother, and as a good brother, he would take care of his family’s business. Sure, he and his brothers might squabble from time to time, but they were gods. What kind of gods would they have been if they didn’t have the occasional argument? When it came down to it, anyone who messed with one of them messed with all of them. Apart from the Supreme Mother and Supreme Father – who were the oldest and mightiest of the gods and the ones who had shaped Creation itself – only one of the Greater Gods could stand up to all three of them without help.

  Both Ruin and Wrath had opted to have their work-related messages forwarded to Torment during their time off from work. When Bureaucracy had sent a message explaining that a mortal city had been scheduled for a thorough smiting due to countless sins and other offences toward the gods, Torment had agreed to handle the matter. He could leave the punishment of wicked mortals in the capable hands of his servants and assistants, destroy the city, and be back in time for a nice, luxurious dinner upon his return. His brothers wouldn’t have to cut their holidays short. They might even owe him a favour.

  So here he was, floating high above the mortal city.

  According to the message he’d received, this city was named Arbat. It was a terrible den of sin and iniquity, and it was full of mortals who loved thumbing their noses at not only the laws laid down by other mortals but also the laws that had been laid down by the gods. The former was an issue for mortals to resolve amongst themselves, but the latter was not something the gods could ignore. After accepting the mission, Torment had made a quick stop at Ruin’s office since Ruin had always been far more organised than Wrath. His faith in his oldest brother had been duly rewarded when he’d discovered a checklist – a document that listed several things Torment could look for to ensure he was smiting the correct city.

  Mortals multiplied quickly, but it wouldn’t do to obliterate the wrong city.

  Hidden from the eyes and other senses of the mortals below him by his divine powers, Torment examined the city and its inhabitants. The thoughts of tens of thousands of mortals reached him, and they were all thoroughly unpleasant. He couldn’t find a single person in the city’s largest marketplace who wasn’t either planning robbery or murder. And some of the things taking place in the alleys below him – to say nothing of what people were thinking – were utterly depraved. It was a miracle that the city’s people hadn’t been wiped out by some virulent venereal disease. This definitely seemed like the right city, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He reached into the folds of his cloak – the garment was made of divine fabric the same colour as freshly spilt blood, and the screaming, agonised faces of the damned routinely appeared on it – and pulled out the checklist Ruin had left behind.

  The first thing to look for was a lack of properly maintained temples. He winced. Poorly maintained temples were definitely a red flag. True, not all of the gods were demanding when it came to temples. Some of them, like Death, didn’t care much either way. Of course, people still built temples and monuments for him. He was Death – and mortals spent a lot of time worrying about their mortality. Other gods, such as the many gods of war, preferred action to flowery words or fine temples. A good battle and a heroic death were worth far more to them than some marble temple although they did like to have at least one good temple in each major city. The people of this city hadn’t merely lapsed in their worship of the gods. They had demolished most of their temples and were busy profaning the remainder in dozens of different ways.

  He moved on to the second and third points of the checklist.

  A certain level of debauchery and lechery was normal in any large mortal settlement. It was simply how some of them were, and mortals needed to be able to love, lust, and desire each other for their species to continue. However, it was not normal – nor was it acceptable – for mortals to engage in carnivals of public debauchery, and it was even less acceptable for them to desecrate temples by using the premises for the aforementioned carnivals of public debauchery. Torment’s eye twitched as he took note of the revellers defiling the high altar of his temple. Even if he hadn’t been about to destroy the city, he’d never use that temple again. He’d burn it to the ground and order another built in its place. And those mortals in Wrath’s temple were lucky that he wasn’t here. If he had been, there was no telling how horrendously painful their deaths would have been.

  And the less he thought about all of the human sacrifice going on, the better. The gods generally frowned on human sacrifice. True, the gods of war enjoyed a good, bloody battle, and dying in their name was considered a glorious way to go, but chaining a helpless mortal to an altar and hacking their heart out with a blunt spoon was another matter entirely. There was nothing heroic or impressive about that. It was weird and blasphemous, and it was precisely the sort of thing that led to a city receiving a thorough smiting.

  Torment could still remember one especially stupid emperor who’d decided that sacrificing children to Death and Life was a great way to win their favour and achieve immortality. To say that Life had been displeased was a massive, massive understatement. Death had likewise been less than impressed by the atrocities the emperor had committed in a bid to stave off the inevitable. Life had turned the plants of the emperor’s garden against him, and after several of his favourite trees had uprooted themselves and ripped him limb from limb, Death had delivered the emperor to Torment. Death’s orders had been simple: punish the emperor and make an example out of him. His fate was to be so horrifying that no mortal would ever repeat his deeds.

  Mortals were currently being sacrificed in at least a dozen different locations throughout the city, three of which were desecrated temples. To make matters worse, they were being sacrificed to the Void Born – foul beings that despised Creation and everything in it. The Void Born were remnants, shadows born from the endless darkness and emptiness that had reigned unchallenged until the Supreme Mother and Supreme Father had unleashed the Flame of Creation and given form to the universe. They dwelt in the Void, hiding in the limitless darkness beyond the light of Creation, and they wanted nothing more than to snuff out all life and to return Creation to the primal darkness and emptiness that had ruled before the Supreme Mother and Supreme Father had awakened. The mortals of this city were trying to open a portal into the Void. Thankfully, these fools didn’t know the correct rituals, but the fact that they were even trying was a crime of the highest order. If that wasn’t bad enough, the one in charge of all the human sacrifice was the king of the city.

  Trying to summon the Void Born into the mortal world was a crime worthy of smiting. Add in everything else Torment had seen,
and it was no wonder this place was scheduled for destruction. He scowled. Given all of the sins they’d committed, he was going to be quite busy in the near future. He’d be surprised if any of the people here didn’t end up in his care once they reached the afterlife.

  Torment had also noticed something else that made him certain he was in the right place. All gods had the power to see into the souls of mortals. As one of the gods involved in the judgement and punishment of mortals in the afterlife, he could see into the souls of mortals with even greater ease and clarity than most of his fellow gods. The city was noticeably bereft of righteous mortals.

  It was standard operating procedure for any city scheduled for a smiting to be issued with a formal breach notice by Bureaucracy. The goddess would outline the various sins and crimes that had been committed and provide the city with a course of action they could take to help avert their destruction. The notice also ensured that the innocent had a chance to escape since each notice used divine power to inspire any mortals who disagreed with the city’s conduct to leave. Wayfarer – one of the Greater Gods – saw to it that those innocent of wrongdoing found ways to leave without being harmed. This minimised the number of innocents caught up in the destruction of the city, which was a relief since smiting innocent mortals could lead to all sorts of complications in the afterlife. The last thing Torment needed was for his boss to get mad. No, that wasn’t right. Nobody – nobody – wanted to make Death mad.

  The final point on the checklist was the one that settled things for Torment. The sheer scope of the villainy that was taking place in the city below him was difficult to put into words. This city was beyond crime riddled. Crime seemed to be woven into its very existence. Left to their own devices, the mortals would most likely wipe themselves out in a few years – a decade at the most. He sighed. There was no doubt about it. He was in the right place.