Gods on Display

BOOK ONE

1

Freya awoke with a dream still vivid in her mind. After crawling out of bed and slipping on her fuzzy white robe, she shuffled into the kitchen, turned on the coffeemaker, and grumbled to herself, How ridiculous! She was referring to the dream, which came across like a surreal tourism TV commercial, its target demographic belonging to deities.

The dream featured a couple depicting Psyche and Eros. Freya knew they were not the actual couple, because she had met them once before, a very long time ago, and the two in the dream looked nothing at all like them; also, Psyche’s butterfly wings and Eros’ swan wings were blatantly fake, appearing flimsy and attached by wire harnesses secured under their arms. The couple moved gracefully through a montage that showed them walking hand-in-hand along the seawall; hiking on a trail through Stanley Park; enjoying a romantic dinner in a posh restaurant; and leaving a shop on Robson Street, laughing about who-knows-what while clutching several shopping bags.

A happy orchestral jingle was playing in the background, along with a rich, androgynous voiceover enthusiastically inviting Freya to join the Fourth International Deity Convention. It was being held in, as the dream commercial said, Vancouver’s stunning downtown West End. The dream ended with the voiceover saying some stupid catchphrase that was already slipping away from Freya’s waking mind as she groggily watched the coffee perk. She tried to recall it: something like, "Super nature! Supernatural!"

So ridiculous, Freya grumbled again. A couple of her cats started meowing. She looked down to see Pyewacket rubbing against her leg. Then Bauer and Ester jumped onto the counter to get her attention. All thirteen of her housecats were impatiently waiting in the kitchen to be fed. All right, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! she said. Good morning, gang! Freya pulled the cream from the fridge and filled three large dishes. Then she poured herself half a cup of coffee, which hadn’t finished perking. Sitting at the deco-style kitchen table, she continued to reflect on her dream, which had also informed her of the dates of the Fourth International Deity Convention. It was going to be held between Good Friday and Easter Monday in the current year 2000. That was less than a week away, which gave Freya very little time to prepare for the occasion. Didn’t we just have a conference 2000 years ago? she asked her cats, but they ignored her. At least she was living in the same city that was hosting the event. And because the dream had revealed details about the convention, she also knew that she lived less than a half-in-hour walk from the actual conference site.

Technically, however, the conference was not really being held in Vancouver, but in a building that existed behind the veil that separated the waking world from the dream world. Vancouver was one of the few earthly locations of the portholes that lead to the conference center. These portholes were expected to open a couple of days before the conference would begin. And, at this particular porthole, the convention building would appear like a mirage of a colossal, exquisite building standing on the green lawns along English Bay’s seawall. The only mortals likely to notice the building were the very young, the very intuitive, the very crazy, and the very drugged. But even their glimpses of this phantom structure would be fleeting.

Today was Freya’s day off, but she decided to go to her workplace to make certain preparations for the coming event. Just an hour after she’d awakened, Freya was out the door of her upscale West Hastings condo, which was housed in a frosty blue glass high-rise that overlooked the yachts in Coal Harbour. It was yet another overcast day in the city, and the weather was mild; a nice day to walk instead of drive. She dressed casually in a navy jacket, fitted jeans, and fashionable grey boots, her long blond hair bouncing as she walked. If she took a leisurely pace, Freya could still make it to work in less than an hour, because getting from one place to another was always a cinch for her kind. Her workplace was a stately mansion nestled in the wealthy neighborhood of Shaughnessy.

While walking, she thought about Asgard and the time she’d decided to leave the realm of the Norse Gods. That was over four hundred years ago, and back then, Asgard was already in a slow but steady state of decay. People’s belief in Norse Gods was being replaced by the worship of a mortal born in Israel. No longer were Freya and the Valkyries flying on horses over battlefields to collect the souls of slain warriors. The living had stopped praying to the Aesir, and in turn, the Valkyries stopped retrieving the dead.

Soon the souls already living in Asgard started leaving, too, either to continue their endless cycle of reincarnation or to search for this elusive new paradise where they thought their descendants might be found. The glittering, golden hall of Valhalla was becoming quiet and dim, and the verdant brilliance of Freya’s meadow was beginning to fade. There were rumors among the Valkyries that Ragnarok was fast approaching. With the souls of all these great heroes departing, how did the gods expect to win the great battle against the Frost Giants?

Asgard was crumbling, and the twilight of the gods had arrived. So, like the souls that once enjoyed the pleasures of her meadow, Freya also decided to leave. She took some valuables, put on her falcon cloak, and flew away in the dead of night. She flew high over several worlds, finding herself in the human plane of Midgard, during the early seventeenth century.

Freya didn’t realize until she arrived that most of the new wars fought on Earth—wars fought in the name of Christianity—were against women. And the Church’s highly profitable business of witch-hunting had become a serious threat to Freya’s life, because entering the human world also made her more susceptible to its rules. Almost immediately after her feet touched the earth, she had to keep them moving, going from one village to another, always running from the witch-hunters. In those days, Europe was no place for a strange, unmarried woman of such beauty. Freya caused suspicion everywhere she went. Every time she moved to a new town, she hoped to find mortals who still praised her pantheon. But not even in Scandinavia could she hear any prayers from men who might long for the Valkyries to lead them into the afterlife. The magic she once possessed was leaving her body like blood dripping from a small but nagging wound. Freya had felt as though the cosmos was trying to erase her from time and space.

Freya had wished she could have returned to her true home in Vanaheim. After all, she was Vanir by nature, not Aesir. And oh, how different the Vanir were from the gluttonous war-hogs of Asgard! They were skilled magicians and the wise keepers of many mysteries. But returning to her clan in Vanaheim was not an option. Technically, she had been a hostage of the Aesir, given by the Vanir as a peace offering between the two pantheons. An attempt to return to Vanaheim would have been a breach in their contract. The last thing she wanted was to be responsible for starting another war between the Aesir and the Vanir, and her presence in any other realm aside from Midgard was at risk of being threatened by the Aesir. So Freya continued to make the most of a bad situation, and stayed in the human world.

She had finally left Europe altogether for the New World in the late nineteenth century, where she became a madam for several different brothels throughout North America. And because of her experiences of living with the rowdy Aesir, she had felt well-suited for the Wild West and her life had started to improve.

As Freya walked across the Burrard Bridge, she reflected on these certain periods of her life. But by the time she reached the opposite side of the bridge, her thoughts were diverted by two young athletic men who ogled her as she passed by.

You’re built like a warhorse, baby! wooed one of the men. And I’d ride you anytime!

Most men usually had the good manners—and the instinct—to keep their desires for Freya to themselves, even when it was obvious. Be careful what you wish for, said Freya. I could crush you.

Gasping, the two young men grabbed each other and laughed as they continued walking the opposite direction. Picking up on her faint Scandinavian accent, one said, "European chicks are so hot!"

In the eyes of countless modern men, this was what the statuesque Norse goddess had been reduced to: a smoking hot chick; the definitive blonde bombshell. Gone were the days of warriors dropping to their knees before her in an act of reverent spiritual love as she prepared them for their journey to another world. Now, she only received the occasional hoots and whistles from idiots with boners. At least when she was at work she still got the worship that she so rightly deserved. Running a sacred-sex palace as the head dominatrix certainly had its benefits. Freya’s clients had a deep reverence for her. She was not only worshipped for her beauty, but for her ability to probe the deepest, darkest waters of their psyches to heal the wounds that lurked there. She had powerful men from all over the globe as her clients: billionaires, gods, major celebrities, and members of royalty.

Freya walked along the tree-lined side-street that led to her workplace. It was the last estate on the east and left side of a secluded cul-de-sac before a small and lovely, but rather lonely, park. The Beaux-Arts mansion itself was on a small sloping hill surrounded by a mossy cobblestone wall that kept it mostly out of view from the street. Using her card-key, Freya passed through the cast-iron gates, and the three big German Shepherds, the largest completely black, followed her up the curved driveway and toward the front stoop. These guard dogs were named after three supernatural wolves: the black one was named Fenris, while the other two were Sköll and Hati. They sat primly at the edge of the expansive front lawn, watching her as she entered the mansion. Once inside, Freya told one of her employees that she didn’t want to be disturbed.

The mansion was called the House of the Valkyries. Freya and her best friend, Lilith, had taken ownership of the mansion in the late 1970s. Including Freya, thirteen women were employed at the House of the Valkyries and none of them were human. Like Freya, eight were Valkyries. And, again like Freya, they had eventually found themselves roaming the human world, stifled and crestfallen. Throughout the years, Freya had managed to reconnect with them, giving them the opportunity to work together, again, while also receiving the worship of men.

As for the other three staff members; two were light elves from Alfheim; the other a woodland fairy, specifically a huldra. The elves had been sent to work for Freya by her brother, the King of Alfheim, a belated thank-you gift for the time she’d given him her pet boar, but truthfully, he’d regarded these elves as nuisances, wanting an excuse to send them away. This suited the two elves just fine, as they had longed to live in the human realm, preferring the company of mortal men over their own kind, which was one of the main reasons they were regarded as nuisances in the first place.

It was only a few months after the elves’ arrival to Earth when the huldra had joined the team. She had been an acquaintance of one of the Valkyries, who had taken a trip to Bergen, Norway in the early 1900s, and discovered the huldra living in the streets. The pretty, barefoot, and utterly strange homeless person had lived her whole life in a small area of forest at the foot of Mount Lovstakken, on the outskirts of one of the city’s boroughs, until it had been bulldozed for a housing project. Where once she had lured city men into her forest for physical satisfaction, this wild creature had now been swallowed by the human world, having no real idea how to behave. The Valkyrie, feeling sympathy, had brought the huldra back to Vancouver and found her a modest apartment near Stanley Park so she could live near a forest. The huldra was given a job at the mansion and taught English by the other members of the house. Ever since, she had remained one of the most popular employees at The House of the Valkyries. Who would have guessed the number of men who desired eldritch girls with long cow tails? The things she would do with that tail were astonishing: flogging customers in the face and chest with it; wrapping it tightly around their erections and yanking it while confronting them on deeply personal issues, first taking them to the brink of madness before bringing them to a state of inner peace and self-acceptance.

But Freya was proud of all her girls, just as she was also proud of the beauty and constant upkeep of the mansion and estate. As she entered the grounds behind the mansion, she was reminded yet again at how lucky she was to have such talented landscapers. Her many cats were lazing in the grass as the sun peered from behind the clouds, and she wished that she could do the same, just relax in her gorgeous backyard and enjoy the view. Freya had originally designed the yard to resemble Fólkvagnr; its lawn spackled with an assortment of small wildflowers. Stone animals, flower gardens, and fountains stood among trimmed hedges. There was also a gazebo. And it was near this gazebo, in the grass, where Freya now noticed what looked like a lemon.

Freya walked across the lawn to discover that the lemon was actually an Easter egg. It was colored an iridescent yellow with fine purple polka dots. Freya smiled, crouched down, and picked it up. The egg was real, and though it looked painted, its colors were actually natural. "Thank you, my liebchen!" Freya said to the air, the way a mortal might casually speak to an angel or familiar ghost. As soon as she stood back up, she noticed another egg nestled in the grass, this one striped pink and green. More eggs were going to show as Easter approached, in the yard, in the kitchen cupboards, beneath the couches. The staff would find them, here and there, long after Easter had ended: annual gifts sent through the universe by the Easter Rabbit himself, who, like the other holiday deities, dwelled in some wondrous and cartoonish country that existed in children’s dreams.

The world might have forgotten the origin of the spring holiday, but the Easter Rabbit still remembered. The name ‘Easter’ was one of the aliases Freya would use whenever she travelled Earth in search of her husband, Od, who often disappeared to explore it without giving her any indication as to when he would return. It had been during one of these searches when Freya had encountered what was now the Easter Rabbit. She had been trekking through the Germanic countryside during an exceptionally long winter. Wherever she walked, however, spring would follow. And as the snow melted and flowers grew in her wake, she had spotted a female bird of spring. It was lying in the snow and freezing to death. So Freya—as Easter—picked up the bird and blew on it. The magic of her warm breath had resuscitated it, but its body was so badly frostbitten that Freya thought it best to make some major alterations to help it endure the winters to come. She turned it into a male hare. Its female reproductive organs remained intact, however, making it a hermaphrodite with the ability to lay magic eggs. Through time, it would evolve into an anthropomorphic rabbit, sometimes appearing as male, other times as female, but always both.

Freya collected the two eggs and gently placed them on steps of the gazebo. It was funny how these lovely little gifts only managed to make her feel sad not because the eggs reminded her of the fact that Easter was no longer in her honor, but because they were mementos of that particular journey which had ended in failure and heartbreak. Freya never did find her beloved Od. And he never came back.

She never really got over her husband. In fact, it was the real reason why she had descended to Earth in the first place, instead of somewhere else, having secretly hoped she would find him in his favorite world, Midgard. Freya still cried her red-gold tears whenever she thought about him. Even as she turned from the gazebo, she sniffed and flicked a red-gold tear from her right eye. In the grass, the tear solidified into a golden nugget the shape of a perfect teardrop.

Freya sighed and shook her head. Today was not a good day to grieve over a man who obviously never loved her, anyway. Today was a day to seek practical information about the upcoming convention. She strolled to the center of the yard, where a large white basin made of stone tiles stood before a long rectangular garden pond. Koi were swimming in the pool, and cherry blossoms floated on the surface. The basin’s leg was over five feet tall, each tile inscribed with the runic alphabet. Beneath it was a small tin pail and a gardening knife. Freya kneeled, grabbed the knife, and stood over the basin. She pushed the blade against the tip of her left index finger, and then smudged her blood on certain tiles along the lip of the basin. Next, she used the pail to collect water from the pool. When the basin was full, she closed her eyes and concentrated on a particular question. Then she finished the ritual by dipping her bloodied index finger into the water and giving it a quick swirl.

Freya looked at her reflection in the rippling water, waiting for a vision that would let her know what to expect from the coming conference. As the water became still, Freya saw the image of a tall, skinny, olive-skinned man with longish hair and a dark beard. He was standing in the main foyer of her mansion, his face haggard yet handsome, a deep gentleness sparkling in his eyes. The image soon faded, leaving Freya certain of only one thing: she would receive a visit from Jesus.

Oh, Christ! Freya thought, as she stared back at her reflection. How was she supposed to react to his visit? It had been so long since she’d last seen him.

Freya and Jesus had first met before his crucifixion and consequent resurrection, during those Lost Years when Jesus had spent most of his time studying abroad and honing his craft from other spiritual masters. Although most of those years were spent in the East, Jesus had made appearances throughout the wild regions now known as Europe, specifically while he had set out to learn about the feminine face of God. He had initially been guided there by his fairy godmother, Brigit.

Brigit would occasionally appear to Jesus in dreams or during his deep states of meditation. It was during one of these visits that she had suggested he spend a few years studying under certain pagan priestesses. During this hidden chapter of his life, Jesus had sought the counsel of a Northern shamanic priestess, or völva, who’d led him on a vision quest. It was on this particular dream journey that he had met Freya, who taught him several practices on the magical art known as seidr. Freya was the divine keeper of this particular brand of magic, which, among its many characteristics, had the ability to resurrect the dead. It was a feminine art, a form of witchcraft that she usually reserved to teach only women, effeminate or two-spirited men, and masterful gods like Odin. She could tell by Jesus’s personality that he would make a good candidate to learn this magic, and because there was an instant chemistry between them, she didn’t hesitate to teach him a few things. Besides, she, like so many other deities, already knew about him, long before he had even been incarnated as a mortal. His celestial mother, after all, was a direct emanation of The One, and the true source of this universe as they knew it.

Since their first meeting, Freya knew they would meet again. She had originally assumed it would be during the Third International Deity Convention, which had taken place during the three days between Jesus’ death and resurrection. But, as it turned out, his death didn’t lead him to the conference. Instead, he had been cast into the depths of Hell during those three days, where every mortal must journey, either in life or in death, in order to confront the uncomfortable contents of their psyche before ascension, a journey even Jesus had to make. So while he was confronting his own fears in the lower realms—incidentally freeing a multitude of lost, enslaved souls in the process—the pagan gods had congregated at the conference. There, they discussed strategies on how to cope with their inevitable decline, which coincided with the rising fame of a mortal who would replace them. For them, Jesus’s crucifixion had marked the very end of the Golden Age and ushered the beginning of the Iron Age: a time which had also been prophesied thirty-three years earlier when Jesus’s birth had coincided with the death of the woodland god Pan.

After Jesus’s resurrection, he had continued to walk the earth. But, having been lifted from the world of suffering, he was also no longer a part of it. Living in the peripherals of the human realm, like so many other numinous beings, he had spent the rest of his mortal years travelling this and other worlds, while hobnobbing with gods and other deities in hopes that they would forgive him in advance for the future damage his legacy would leave. Jesus had considered that period of his life as his retirement years, and it was during that time when he and Freya had become very dear friends. Freya understood that he had never intended to create a religion in his name, or to replace the pagan gods with an image of himself.

But since then, all the suffering she had endured from the Christians had tainted her perceptions of him, and she wasn’t sure if she knew him at all anymore. What did it say about him that he had decided to quietly remain in the heavenly realms until now, while his followers created so much trouble? Sure, Freya understood that a god’s work is best done from the opposite side of the veil, but ever since Jesus had left, he didn’t so much as even make an appearance in one of her dreams to say hello. In that way, he had turned out like the husband who had abandoned her when she had most needed a man’s comfort. Okay, she thought as she stood in her garden, maybe I’m just hurt. Maybe I’m projecting my issues with Od on him. And maybe I’m just nervous about seeing him again.

A cat’s sudden crackling meow distracted Freya from her thoughts. She looked in the cat’s direction to see it gazing up at the solitary dogwood tree, covered in white blossoms. Two large ravens were perched side-by-side on a high branch. They were staring down at Freya, and she knew by the way they scrutinized her that these were not average ravens. She knew them. They were the messengers of Chief Odin. Their names were Huginn and Muginn; Odin’s Thought and Memory. And seeing them confirmed something else about the upcoming conference: she would also be reuniting with the Aesir.

2

Anxious and confused, Angie opened her eyes to find herself alone in a hospital room. For a fleeting moment, while she was in that territory between asleep and awake, she saw three figures looming over her from the left side of her bed: two black men and a very pale, red-headed woman. All three were dressed in black, and all three wore top hats. Angie recognized the woman. She’d been seeing her periodically, in dreams and in drug-induced hallucinations, for as long as she could remember. The woman had kohl outlining her intense green eyes, and almost always wore black dresses and shawls; sometimes a top hat or smart-looking granny-glasses with one lens shaded and one lens removed. She dressed like a witch, Angie often thought, or like her favorite singer, Stevie Nicks. And she regarded this phantom, this figment of her imagination, as her fairy godmother.

She still remembered the first time she’d ever seen her, in a dream when she was about five years old. Her fairy godmother had appeared before her with green moth’s wings attached to her back. When Angie had exclaimed how beautiful the wings looked, the woman had said, Oh, these? Thanks, lassie, but it’s just special effects. You’re the one who gave them to me. It’s your dream, right? Because of her thick Irish accent, Angie had wondered if she was a human-sized leprechaun.

You know, she said, I was once Jesus’s fairy godmother.

To Angie, it sounded like she’d said, "fairy good mudder." Even in her mental dream state, with the wings breathing behind this woman’s back, she found it difficult to believe she could be anyone’s fairy godmother, let alone Jesus’s. For one thing, she had a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. And although Angie didn’t know the exact contents in her glass—aside from the hot chilies that sprang from it—it was obvious by her flushed cheeks, by the way she swayed like a sapling in a subtle breeze, that she was drunk. She failed to uphold the image of those wholesome Disney grannies that Angie had expected from all fairy godmothers; in fact, she looked more like a Disney villain.

"But now I am your fairy godmother, the redhead told her. I’ve been watching you since you were a newborn babe. I’ve built a secret fire around you, and it’ll continue to protect you ‘til the day comes you choose to step out of it. But when that day comes, I’ll still be here to warn you of any danger. All you need is to hear my whistle."

Can I hear it now? Angie asked.

The redheaded woman winked and said, Aw, you sure are cute, kid! So cute I could squeeze the shit right outta ya! Of course you can hear my whistle. She placed two fingers against her painted lips and whistled so sharply that Angie had abruptly woken with a ringing in her ears that lasted several minutes. She’d never again experienced a dream as vivid as that one, but ever since, Angie regarded her fairy godmother as the only true mother she’d ever have.

Having been abandoned as a newborn, Angie never knew her real parents. As a baby, she suffered from violent mood swings, which was why her social workers felt certain her mother must have been a junkie, even though no traces of drugs were found in her body. Because of Angie’s constant wails and thrashing, social services considered her a baby with special needs, and couldn’t find appropriate candidates to adopt her. So she spent her entire childhood in and out of foster homes, until, at sixteen, she decided to make the Downtown Eastside her permanent address. It seemed the obvious destination, considering she had started ditching school and getting high by the time she was twelve. Angie guessed it was on the day she ran away for good, becoming a prostitute to support her addictions, when she’d stepped out of this so-called circle of fire that supposedly protected her.

Because of her high-risk lifestyle, she’d occasionally see her fairy godmother, a fleeting image in the peripherals of her mind, warning her of death. More often, though, she would only hear her high-pitched warning whistle. Sometimes, her fairy godmother shrieked instead of whistled, as though trying to stress the direness of a situation. And the shriek would be so strong that Angie could feel it vibrating throughout her entire body like a cocktail of fear and heavy-metal music. Both the whistle and the shriek were followed by a ringing in her ears. Angie knew that the ringing, and peripheral hallucinations, could be explained by doctors as a symptom of her illnesses, a result of all these drugs. Regardless, she felt certain that her fairy godmother was, at the very least, a legitimate manifestation of her own intuition. Because of the whistling, there were times when she decided not to get into a trick’s car, despite how badly she needed the drug money. It saved her from at least one of the serial killers stalking the Downtown Eastside: most notably, that stinking pig farmer whom all the working girls suspected but all the police ignored. She trusted her fairy godmother like she was real, because she protected her as much as anyone could protect someone as self-destructive as herself.

But there were times when Angie would get so high that the shrill ringing in her ears wasn’t enough to change the course of her actions. And it must have been during one of those times when she’d contracted HIV. She’d been working the streets less than a year when she found out, having been tested by that volunteer nurse in the needle-exchange van. Once she had gotten the news, she knew from that point, there was no turning back. She’d live fast and die young, and so what? She stopped listening to her fairy godmother from then on, even when she came to her soon after the blood test results, as a drug-induced hallucination, saying, It’s okay, girl. It’s all right. You’ll be fine. You’ll figure your shit out.

When Angie woke in the hospital, the sight of her fairy godmother might have taken the edge off her anxiety had it not been for the two men in her company, whom she didn’t recognize at all. There was a young, beautiful black man, his glittery afro sticking out from the bottom of his top hat. Androgynous, he wore purple eye shadow and long false eyelashes; his slender, serpentine torso was exposed beneath an old-fashioned riding jacket. The band of his top hat was purple. He crouched closest to Angie’s bedside, one perfectly groomed eyebrow arched in scrutiny.

Behind him, Angie’s fairy godmother was sitting on the lap of the other man. He was the last person that Angie had noticed before fully waking to realize she was actually alone. And though she had only caught a fleeting glimpse of him, she was able to absorb the full intensity of his image: his handsome, regal face; his high cheekbones and strong jawline. Sitting in that blue plastic chair, he doffed his top hat at her. He was grinning, a cigar clenched between his perfect white teeth with the front gap. He exuded a sexual vitality, a mischievous confidence, which seemed in stark contrast to the other face he seemed to project from various angles, like a holographic mask that was not so much a face as a skull. Like the other man, he wore a black jacket that revealed his beautiful physique, more masculine than the other male’s body. His arm was wrapped around her fairy godmother’s waist.

The vision of the three figures had washed away from Angie’s mind like the tail-end of an epic dream, which was exactly what she was struggling to remember as she found herself thrust into glum reality. That dream! She wanted to hold on to it, but it was fragmenting as she was returning to consciousness.

Resisting the urge to rip the IV from her hand and beginning to panic, Angie started to piece together the incidences that led her to the hospital. Her last waking memory was of getting high with her boyfriend, Lukas. Remembering this helped her figure out she had overdosed.

Angie and Lukas had been partying at Horshack’s. Horshack’s wasn’t the name of the owner, but of the place itself, derived from its original name, the Ho Shack. It was a small, ramshackle, clapboard flophouse near the railroad tracks, rented out by a Jamaican pimp and drug dealer who went by the name of 3D. It was here that 3D sold his drugs, and where hookers sometimes brought their johns.

Horshack’s was also where Angie and Lukas had originally met, over a year ago. Although Angie was just seventeen at the time, and Lukas twenty-three, she’d already been a prostitute for almost a year, a drug addict even longer.

She had immediately noticed him. She had showed up at Horshack’s with another working girl, and he was there, appearing like a vision while sitting in the corner getting high. A gorgeous guy with olive skin and lazy-lidded brown eyes, Lukas had a lean body and long, sinewy arms with tattoos of crucifixes and 50’s pin-up girls. He regarded her unconventional beauty, telling her he liked her crazy hair, a wild mass of thick, nappy curls. When he asked her where she was from, Angie answered in all sincerity, Nowhere, really. She asked him the same question, and he told her cheekily that was the wayward son of a Colombian general and born in Colombia, but, so far, had been living in Canada half his life. They shared a cigarette, and started a romantic courtship that lasted over a week—a couple of gorgeous messes falling in love among the ruins—before deciding to become a legitimate couple.

Horshack’s continued to be a party destination for Lukas and Angie. Occasionally, they would go and try out 3D’s new supply. The flophouse was always busy with the comings and goings of shadowy people, but on the night Angie had overdosed, the only ones were Lukas and 3D. She remembered getting Lukas to jug her with a speedball—injecting her in the jugular for the fastest rush—before letting him inject himself. She remembered 3D blasting his rap and making his usual jokes about taking Angie from Lukas. (Lukas never found this running joke funny, but always forced himself to laugh for the sake of humoring his erratic and dangerous boss.) She remembered lying on the floor next to Lukas; she remembered Lukas draping his arm around her waist.

But then there was a sudden shift in consciousness, a gap in space and time, and she was no longer at Horshack’s. In fact, she wasn’t even a physical person anymore, no longer Angie. She was more like a miasma floating in a murky landscape. At least, that’s how she’d best been able to perceive it: like a toxic cloud of despair. Never had she felt more isolated. But she wasn’t alone: a variety of grotesque demons, both male and female, surrounded her. They taunted and terrified her, circling her in a spastic, unnatural dance. Their faces constantly distorted into exaggerated, vile expressions. They blew macabre kisses, lolling their long, forked tongues and making lewd gestures. Their freakish movements were mocking her, reflecting her profound sense of shame and loneliness. And as they continued to attack her in this place void of space and time, Angie could feel a painful, aggressive surge of violence erupt through her incorporeal body.

Then she noticed an orange glow rippling like firelight behind the demons. From the dim flickering light emerged three elongated shadows joined together: the silhouettes of three tall young women with long hair. The shadow in the middle foreground was willowy. The figure to her left showed the silhouette of a hooked nose, while the figure to her right was plump, curvaceous. All three began rolling their hips from side to side, snapping their fingers in unison: like back-up singers, Angie thought, but back-up singers for whom?

Then a golden light appeared, switched on like a flashlight deep inside her, where she thought her solar plexus might’ve been if she still had a human body. The light was accompanied by a comical, high-pitched honking, like a saxophone being tuned. With the honking came a musical message that she could feel. This is all just another illusion. The message was followed by the revelation that practically everything she’d ever learned about herself in her current incarnation was, as she would’ve said, total fucking bullshit. School had lied to her, society had lied to her, culture had lied to her, religions had lied to her, the media had lied to her, other people’s stories had lied to her, her many foster parents had lied to her, and her diseases—especially her diseases—had all lied to her.

The rhythm of three grooving shadows progressed, and they started singing in a language that Angie could only comprehend through feelings. It was uplifting. The light inside her grew stronger, casting its golden beam through the murk. And the tooting of the saxophone turned into a fully realized riff. The grotesqueries taunting her stopped dancing and started shrieking above the music as the beam of light shone upon them, disintegrating them one by one. And the light kept getting stronger, emerging from the dark cloud of her body to reveal its source: the open mouth of a shiny gold saxophone. The saxophone came through Angie. It was followed by the saxophone player, who just so happened to be Jesus Christ. The top half of his crisp white robe was open, revealing a muscular chest and six-pack abs. And his long feathered hair blew in a breeze that existed solely for that effect. Stepping out of her like she was a giant womb, he played that saxophone with sultry passion—his eyes closed, his body swaying, his hips thrusting, with each new note. She was sure she had never heard that musical riff before, yet it sounded so familiar to her, it felt so personal, like it was her song. It was the greatest sax solo she’d ever heard: better than the sax solo in Careless Whisper; better than the sax solo in Baker Street; it was simply that amazing. She shouted out to him, Wow, Jesus, my man, you really know how to make that saxophone your bitch! And Jesus winked at her, flashing his winning grin, as he performed for her and only her.

The light shining from the mouth of his saxophone illuminated their surroundings, causing the murk to dissipate, along with the three conjoined shadows, which were still singing and snapping their fingers. Now before her was a tropical beach: white sand, turquoise water, palm trees, and a cloudless blue sky. As she watched Jesus manifest this magical landscape with the power of his saxophone-playing abilities, she looked down to see that she had a human body. Angie was adorned in beautiful blue and white robes, just like the Virgin Mother. And, ironically, the Virgin Mother was exactly who she felt like, encompassing an easy air of grace, which had evaded her throughout most of her young life. Enjoying this profound sense of peace, Angie swayed to Jesus’s silky smooth music, following him through the powdery sand like he was the Pied Piper leading her to Paradise.

But instead of leading her to Paradise, he brought her back to this reality where she awoke to find herself in the hospital, the sounds of a beeping heart-monitor and the rain thudding against the paned window that revealed only darkness. Strangely, she could smell cigar smoke, but it didn’t trigger any memory of her three visitors: the vision of them had already receded far into her unconscious. But the memory of Jesus, and of the light, remained.

Later, a nurse told Angie that the drug overdose, combined with a case of pneumonia (unrelated to her HIV status, as she was still in the very early stages of the disease) was responsible for causing respiratory depression. She had already been at the hospital for three days, found unconscious on the sidewalk near the front of St. Paul’s Hospital. When Angie was told this, she thought how the St. Paul’s Hospital must be her true home, because this wasn’t the first time she’d been abandoned at this very hospital. Here was where she’d been abandoned at birth.

As she lay in that hospital room, she couldn’t help but feel like a broken-hearted child, knowing Lukas had also abandoned her here; that he and 3D must have dropped her off in 3D’s car, leaving her stretched on the pavement to become somebody else’s problem. There was no way Lukas would have visited her in the hospital; he had a criminal record. Although Angie understood his reasons for keeping his distance, it didn’t hurt any less. Not even her best friend, Natalie, came to see her, which meant Lukas never even bothered looking for her to tell her the news. And Natalie would’ve been easy to find, because everybody in the Downtown Eastside was easy to find, until, of course, they went missing for good.

When the nurse left Angie alone in that hospital room, she cried. This was surprising, because she could barely remember the last time she’d cried. She didn’t even cry when she was diagnosed with HIV. But it felt good to release all these raw emotions she was sure she had been carrying ever since she left the womb. Maybe that vivid dream had somehow helped her in flushing these residual emotions. Somehow, it had healed her. But, if so, then the dream also left her feeling cheated. It wasn’t fair to experience such bliss just to have it ripped away upon opening her eyes. The dream only seemed to validate her belief that life was too fucking cruel and she really would be better off numbing the pain with whatever means necessary.

If only she could have remembered the vision of her fairy godmother; maybe she could’ve held on to some imaginary thought that she wasn’t abandoned or alone. But not even that chair facing Angie from the front corner of the bed could remind her of her visitors: family members that, aside from her fairy godmother, she never knew existed. They had stayed with her until the nurse entered the room, grumbling in confusion about a cigar smell before realizing Angie was awake. Her paranormal visitors had arrived about half an hour earlier, in time to witness the entire exorcism. It was a performance they had been anticipating.

I’ve got my drink, my woman, and the second best seat in da house, Baron Samedi exclaimed. He was the man Angie had noticed, the one in the skull mask. He had a deep voice and thick Haitian accent. The best seat in the house belongs to you, my darling, he added, slapping his wife’s—Angie’s fairy godmother’s—rump. He pulled the cigar from his mouth and puckered his lips; she kissed him while raking her milky-white hand along his chest.

Although Baron Samedi’s wife had several names, she had revealed none of them to Angie for the sake of keeping her anonymity. But she was commonly known as Brigit. While sitting on the Baron’s lap, she wore her fiery hair in a loose bun tucked inside her top hat, adorned white and muted-purple feathers. Over her piercing green eyes were her special spectacles with the left lens shaded; these eyeglasses helped her to focus simultaneously on both the world of the living and the world of the dead. Pulling her lips from the Baron, she exclaimed, What an excellent day for an exorcism!

"Did you just quote The Exorcist?" asked the beautiful young man in the purple-banded top-hat.

I don’t know, said Brigit. I don’t think so.

What you do mean, you don’t think so?

Well, it’s a common phrase, isn’t it? said Brigit defensively. Like saying, ‘What a lovely day for a picnic.’

"Nuh, see, now I think you just quoted Picnic at Hanging Rock, he said, making a sucking noise. What’s the matter with you, Maman? Why are you talking like you’re trapped in the movies?"

I’m not in the mood for your bitchy banter, boy, Brigit replied. Besides, you’re the one who watches too many movies. The one she was chiding was her and Baron Samedi’s adopted spirit-child, Nibo, a flamboyant male who loved to antagonize his parents, and stir trouble for no other reason but to amuse himself. He often made sexual double entendres where there were no sexual double entrendres to be made. And he was the leader of the Haitian spirit guides known as the Ghede. There was once a time when Nibo had been mortal, and though very few knew the exact nature of his last incarnation, many believed he had been a man who’d died violently in the prime of his youth.

Son, said Baron Samedi, you’ve been acting like a tail-twitching cat all day. Show your Mama some respect. Only I’m allowed to poke and prod her.

Nibo exclaimed, Oooooooo goooooooo! It was his high-spirited way of saying, Oh god!

Brigit was well accustomed to her son and husband stoking the fires of her already fiery temper; they found it constantly amusing to tease her. And although Brigit wasn’t really in the mood for their games, she decided to play along: acting offended, she gasped and, like a Southern belle, exclaimed, Why, how dare you insinuate that I should be treated as nothing more than a sex object! To be poked. To be prodded. You, sir, are nothing but a misogynist!

Why, to accuse a black man of being a misogynist only reinforces negative stereotypes, Baron Samedi replied, speaking in a nasally voice he used whenever he impersonated white people. You, madam, are a total racist.

Stop it, said Nibo. The fact that neither of you bothered to mention issues concerning the LGBT community only proves just how homophobic you both really are! Why, I cannot believe the blatant acts of homophobia I am witnessing right now!

This was a running gag among the three of them: to behave like socially offended, politically correct mortals. As an interracial couple with an adopted gay son who liked to cross-dress, they were already a serious offense to right-wing conservatives, but they liked to also offend, in equal measure, the left-wing liberals. They often succeeded in even offending certain denizens of the spirit worlds, with their lewd comments, raunchy behavior, and profound love of swear words. As guides to the newly departed, they knew that mortals who took themselves too seriously in life often made for obnoxious and difficult clients in death: this was why they delighted in offending those who offended easily. According to Baron Samedi and his family of psychopomps, most mortals really were far too serious, and it prevented them from living life: a problem, ironically, the death gods never suffered from, as they liked to fuck a lot, drink a lot, dance a lot, and laugh all the time.

All right, now, said Brigit, that’s enough ass-fuckery, you two! The cleansing is going to happen any second now.

Mama, check it out, said Nibo. It’s already happening!

Brigit and Baron Samedi leaned forward and scrutinized Angie’s body, as it lay lifeless beneath the crisp white sheets. The only noises were the steady beep of the heart monitor and gentle thud of rain against the window. To a common human, the only visible movement from Angie came from the subtle flutter of her eyelashes. But what could be seen beyond human eyes was Angie’s aura, which rippled with its usual colors of red, yellow, and purple. Now those colors were starting to blend and change into gold.

Brigit sighed. Her one green eye not covered by the shaded half of the spectacles seemed electric. She took off her top hat and leaned even closer toward the bed, feeling both riveted and humbled. "I can feel his presence! Can you feel it?"

Baron Samedi averted his gaze toward the white paneled ceiling, feigning boredom as he took a puff from his cigar. Brigit, my beautiful, banshee baby, you’re sitting very close to my crotch. So if it’s the Holy Spirit you’re referring to, then, yes, I’d hafta say I do feel it. It’s moving swiftly through my trousers and raising the dead. Let us praise sweet Jesus, halle-fucking-lujah!

For fuck’s sake! Brigit chided. Now ain’t the time.

Baron Samedi made a sucking noise with the sexy gap between his two front teeth. I tell you what; I’ll behave, but only if you can keep your panties on over the next few minutes. I know how this Jesus fellow makes you moist.

That’s too crass even for me! snapped Brigit. Bloody hell, he was my godson in his mortal life! If you’re going to behave this way, might I remind you that my present goddaughter is in fact your child from another god? She pointed at Angie.

How can I be reminded of something you never let me forget, said Baron Samedi. Besides, she’s not mine; I only mounted the girl’s papa while he planted his seed. If you’re going to be dat way, then maybe I’ll bring up the time you fucked Old Horny at the Wild Hunt.

Old Horny was Baron Samedi’s name for The Horned God, a stag-headed deity with many names who possessed an alluring masculinity that Wiccan goddesses like Brigit