“What appears wrong with me?” the god moaned. “I am the victim of those I took to be my friends. Trusting, I was stabbed in the back, taken sore advantage of, used, discarded, betrayed!”
“Does he always talk so goddamned much?” Brutus asked. “If he does, no wonder someone poisoned him.”
“Oh, woe, woe!” Gonius cried, thrashing about as the poison seeped deeper into him.
“Pay, him no mind,” Tesserax said. “He’ll rise again, once he’s dead, and he’ll be poisoned again, too.”
“Heartless mortal,” Gonius said.
Tesserax leaned over the god and said, “How often have you been poisoned by Hogar?”
“At least ten thousand times!” the giant cried. “Is that not proof of this man’s awful villainy?”
“It is, indeed,” Tesserax said. “And it’s also proof that we need not shed any tears or hold any concern over you.”
“What a cruel world it has become,” Gonius said, “when a god’s own creatures care not for him.”
“Poor, poor dear,” Helena said, reaching out to touch the god’s smooth, waxy face.
But she was too late with her sympathy, for Gonius gasped and shuddered one last time, died swiftly after decrying the state of the world.
“His body’s fading away,” Jessie observed.
Slowly, the great hulk was taking on an obvious transparent tone, the green carpet vaguely visible through it.
“In a few minutes,” Tesserax said, “it will be gone altogether. In the morning, however, Gonius will be back at the breakfast table, screaming at Pearlamon and Hogar. It’s rather a tedious cycle.”
The body winked out of existence.
“Well, I suppose there’s nothing more we can do,” Jessie said.
“Get your sleep,” Tesserax said. “Tomorrow, we begin questioning some locals about this beast we seek.”
On the way back to their bedroom, Helena said, “Now I’m wide awake.”
“I know just what you need,” Jessie said. In the bedroom, he removed his robe. “A sedative.”
Helena grinned and sat on the bed, reached to fluff the pillows, and found a note. “What’s this?” she asked, picking it up. “It’s a note to you,” she answered, without waiting for him.
“A note? On my pillow? What’s it say?” :
She read: “Mr. Jessie Blake—Beware all things maseni. Do not stir in cauldrons that do not concern you. If you persist at this, you will be the next victim of the beast.” She flipped the piece of paper over and looked at the other side, which was blank. “That’s it,” she said.
* * *
Tesserax finished reading the note and blinked his yellow eyes as if he might be able to make the writing disappear. “Well, obviously,” he said at last, “some supernatural creature came into your bedroom while you were in the hall watching Gonius die. Perhaps it phased through the wall, or pryed open a window…. Clearly, however the note was planted, the maseni supernatural community does not want you to work on this case.”
Jessie said, “Gonius was a diversion, then?”
“Probably.”
“We’ll question him.”
“My friend, he would only lie. There appears to be enough at stake to justify lying and even more. Besides, supernaturals who were once gods make the worst subjects for interrogations. They’ve got a natural superiority complex that makes them insufferably rude.”
“But what are we going to do about this?” Helena asked. “Look, Tessie, we have been nearly illegally bitten by vampires and werewolves, momentarily terrorized by a Shambler, paralyzed by a sorcerer—and now we have to worry about being crushed to death by this mountain monster of yours. I will not—”
“Be calm, please,” Tesserax said. “I have told you that the monster destroyed supernaturals as well as flesh-and-blooders. The people who wrote this not do not control it; indeed, they may be its next victims. They are bluffing, trying to frighten you off.”
“I just don’t know,” Helena said.
“Believe me, my friend,” Tesserax said, patting her bare shoulder with six limpid tentacles. “What I say is true. Besides, maseni supernaturals would never break the law; especially, they would never kill anyone. Except for this new beast, of course. But on our world, supernaturals have lived in harmony with flesh-and-blooders for so many centuries that we have no unapproved interracial violence.”