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American Gods (American Gods #1) Page 68
Author: Neil Gaiman

"And now you're driving for the opposition."

"If you want to call them that. It depends where you're standing. The way I figure it, I'm driving for the winning team."

"But you and Wednesday, you were from the same, you're both-"

"Norse pantheon. We're both from the Norse pantheon. Is that what you're trying to say?"

"Yeah."

"So?"

Shadow hesitated. "You must have been friends. Once."

"No. We were never friends. I'm not sorry he's dead. He was just holding the rest of us back. With him gone, the rest of them are going to have to face up to the facts: it's change or die, evolve or perish. He's gone. War's over."

Shadow looked at him, puzzled. "You aren't that stupid," he said. "You were always so sharp. Wednesday's death isn't going to end anything. It's just pushed all of the ones who were on the fence over the edge."

"Mixing metaphors, Shadow. Bad habit."

"Whatever," said Shadow. "It's still true. Jesus. His death did in an instant what he'd spent the last few months trying to do. It united them. It gave them something to believe in."

"Perhaps." Loki shrugged. "As far as I know, the thinking on this side of the fence was that with the troublemaker out of the way, the trouble would also be gone. It's not any of my business, though. I just drive."

"So tell me," said Shadow, "why does everyone care about me? They act like I'm important. Why does it matter what I do?"

"Damned if I know. You were important to us because you were important to Wednesday. As for the why of it…I guess it's just another one of life's little mysteries."

"I'm tired of mysteries."

"Yeah? I think they add a kind of zest to the world. Like salt in a stew."

"So you're their driver. You drive for all of them?"

"Whoever needs me," said Loki. "It's a living."

He raised his wristwatch to his face, pressed a button: the dial glowed a gentle blue, which illuminated his face, giving it a haunting, haunted appearance. "Five to midnight. Time," said Loki. "You coming?"

Shadow took a deep breath. "I'm coming," he said.

They walked down the dark motel corridor until they reached room 5.

Loki took a box of matches from his pocket and thumb-nailed a match into flame. The momentary flare hurt Shadow's eyes. A candle wick flickered and caught. And another. Loki lit a new match, and continued to light the candle stubs: they were on the windowsills and on the headboard of the bed and on the sink in the corner of the room.

The bed had been hauled from its position against the wall into the middle of the motel room, leaving a few feet of space between the bed and the wall on each side. There were sheets draped over the bed, old motel sheets, moth-holed and stained. On top of the sheets lay Wednesday, perfectly still.

He was dressed in the pale suit he had been wearing when he was shot. The right side of his face was untouched, perfect, unmarred by blood. The left side of his face was a ragged mess, and the left shoulder and front of the suit was spattered with dark spots. His hands were at his side's. The expression on that wreck of a face was far from peaceful: it looked hurt-a soul-hurt, a real down-deep hurt, filled with hatred and anger and raw craziness. And, on some level, it looked satisfied.

Shadow imagined Mr. Jacquel's practiced hands smoothing that hatred and pain away, rebuilding a face for Wednesday with mortician's wax and makeup, giving him a final peace and dignity that even death had denied him.

Still, the body seemed no smaller in death. And it still smelled faintly of Jack Daniel's.

The wind from the plains was rising: he could hear it howling around the old motel at the imaginary center of America. The candles on the windowsill guttered and flickered.

He could hear footsteps in the hallway. Someone knocked on a door, called "Hurry up please, it's time," and they began to shuffle in, heads lowered.

Town came in first, followed by Media and Mr. Nancy and Czernobog. Last of all came the fat kid: he had fresh red bruises on his face, and his lips were moving all the time, as if he were reciting some words to himself, but he was making no sound. Shadow found himself feeling sorry for him.

Informally, without a word being spoken, they ranged themselves about the body, each an arm's length away from the next. The atmosphere in the room was religious-deeply religious, in a way that Shadow had never previously experienced. There was no sound but the howling of the wind and the crackling of the candles.

"We are come together, here in this godless place," said Loki, "to pass on the body of this individual to those who will dispose of it properly according to the rites. If anyone would like to say something, say it now."

"Not me," said Town. "I never properly met the guy. And this whole thing makes me feel uncomfortable."

Czernobog said, "These actions will have consequences. You know that? This can only be the start of it all."

The fat kid started to giggle, a high-pitched, girlish noise. He said, "Okay. Okay, I've got it." And then, all on one note, he recited:

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…"

And then he broke off, his brow creasing. He said, "Shit. I used to know the whole thing," and he rubbed his temples and made a face and was quiet.

And then they were all looking at Shadow. The wind was screaming now. He didn't know what to say. He said, "This whole thing is pitiful. Half of you killed him or had a hand in his death. Now you're giving us his body. Great. He was an irascible old f**k but I drank his mead and I'm still working for him. That's all."

Media said, "In a world where people die every day, I think the important thing to remember is that for each moment of sorrow we get when people leave this world there's a corresponding moment of joy when a new baby comes into this world. That first wail is-well, it's magic, isn't it? Perhaps it's a hard thing to say, but joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies. That's how well they go together. I think we should all take a moment to meditate on that."

And Mr. Nancy cleared his throat and said, "So. I got to say it, because nobody else here will. We are at the center of this place: a land that has no time for gods, and here at the center it has less time for us than anywhere. It is a no-man's-land, a place of truce, and we observe our truces, here. We have no choice. So. You give us the body of our friend. We accept it. You will pay for this, murder for murder, blood for blood."

Town said, "Whatever. You could save yourselves a lot of time and effort by going home and shooting yourselves in the heads. Cut out the middleman."

"Fuck you," said Czernobog. "Fuck you and f**k your mother and f**k the f**king horse you f**king rode in on. You will not even die in battle. No warrior will taste your blood. No one alive will take your life. You will die a soft, poor death. You will die with a kiss on your lips and a lie in your heart."

"Leave it, old man," said Town.

"The blood-dimmed tide is loose," said the fat kid. "I think that comes next."

The wind howled.

"Okay," said Loki. "He's yours. We're done. Take the old bastard away."

He made a gesture with his fingers, and Town, Media, and the fat kid left the room. He smiled at Shadow. "Call no man happy, huh, kid?" he said. And then he, too, walked away.

"What happens now?" asked Shadow.

"Now we wrap him up," said Anansi. "And we take him away from here."

They wrapped the body in the motel sheets, wrapped it well in its impromptu shroud, so there was no body to be seen, and they could carry it. The two old men walked to each end of the body, but Shadow said, "Let me see something," and he bent his knees and slipped his arms around the white-sheeted figure, pushed him up and over his shoulder. He straightened his knees, until he was standing, more or less easily. "Okay," he said. "I've got him. Let's put him into the back of the car."

Czernobog looked as if he were about to argue, but he closed his mouth. He spat on his forefinger and thumb and began to snuff the candles between his fingertips. Shadow could hear them fizz as he walked from the darkening room.

Wednesday was heavy, but Shadow could cope, if he walked steadily. He had no choice. Wednesday's words were in his head with every step he took along the corridor, and he could taste the sour-sweetness of mead in the back of his throat. You protect me. You transport me from place to place. You run errands. In an emergency, but only in an emergency, you hurt people who need to be hurt. In the unlikely event of my death, you will hold my vigil…

Mr. Nancy opened the motel lobby door for him, then hurried over and opened the back of the bus. The other four were already standing by their Humvee, watching them as if they could not wait to be off. Loki had put his driver's cap back on. The cold wind tugged at Shadow as he walked, whipped at the sheets.

He placed Wednesday down as gently as he could in the back of the bus.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. Town stood there with his hand out. He was holding something.

"Here," said Mr. Town, "Mister World wanted you to have this."

It was a glass eye. There was a hairline crack down the middle of it, and a tiny chip gone from the front.

"We found it in the Masonic Hall, when we were cleaning up. Keep it for luck. God knows you'll need it."

Shadow closed his hand around the eye. He wished he could come back with something smart and sharp, but Town was already back at the Humvee, and climbing up into the car; and Shadow still couldn't think of anything clever to say.

They drove east. Dawn found them in Princeton, Missouri. Shadow had not slept yet.

Nancy said, "Anywhere you want us to drop you? If I were you, I'd rustle up some ID and head for Canada. Or Mexico."

"I'm sticking with you guys," said Shadow. "It's what Wednesday would have wanted."

"You aren't working for him anymore. He's dead. Once we drop his body off, you are free to go."

"And do what?"

"Keep out of the way, while the war is on," said Nancy. He flipped his turn signal, and took a left.

"Hide yourself, for a little time," said Czernobog. "Then, when this is over, you will come back to me, and I will finish the whole thing."

Shadow said, "Where are we taking the body?"

"Virginia. There's a tree," said Nancy.

"A world tree," said Czernobog with gloomy satisfaction. "We had one in my part of the world. But ours grew under the world, not above it."

"We put him at the foot of the tree," said Nancy. "We leave him there. We let you go. We drive south. There's a battle. Blood is shed. Many die. The world changes, a little."

"You don't want me at your battle? I'm pretty big. I'm good in a fight."

Nancy turned his head to Shadow and smiled-the first real smile Shadow had seen on Mr. Nancy's face since he had rescued Shadow from the Lumber County Jail. "Most of this battle will be fought in a place you cannot go, and you cannot touch."

"In the hearts and the minds of the people," said Czernobog. "Like at the big roundabout."

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