Free Younger Gods 1: The Younger Gods by Michael R. Underwood

Gardener. My mug was white.
    The Gardener took a long sip of his fancy coffee drink, then responded when the server was gone.
    “He’s right. Your sister threatens everything I’ve done here. I will assist your efforts as best I can, but it must be humans who strike her down.”
    “Standing by while others do the work. Not surprising,” I said. My family’s lore did not speak highly of the Gardeners. Even though I’d turned my back on the family, my relationship to the Bold and the Celestials upset, the Gardeners’ neutrality remained aggravating. They could have turned the tide in the war, saved countless lives, countless species.
    They might have been able to prevent the curse that promised that the Younger Gods would unmake the world.
    The Gardener looked straight through me, as if I were an open door or barred window. He turned to Antoinette. “One of my chosen is in possession of the Heart of Manhattan. He is well protected, and if the Greene girl makes a move, I will know, and I will respond as appropriate.”
    Antoinette nodded. Having won the argument with the Gardener due to his lack of response, I was satisfied to listen and let Antoinette coordinate. I looked to Carter, who raised an eyebrow to me, then looked down at his drink.
    “So we go to your chosen, then wait for Esther to show so we can take her out, right?” Carter asked.
    I nodded. A direct plan. Apply all of our force directly against Esther, interrupting her plan. We surround her with numbers, and end the entire matter.
    “No,” the Gardener said. “Go to meet my chosen. The Nephilim will stay with him, and then you two will go to the other communities to warn them. The Staten Island pack and I are not on . . . good terms. Even if we stop the Greene from obtaining the Manhattan Heart, each other Heart she procures will make her all the stronger. And you will need more allies to defeat that abomination.”
    Abomination. That is what he thought of my family, myself doubtless included. But I did not need the Gardener’s approval or affection to stop my sister. Only his assistance.
    I pushed my chair back and stood. “Understood. Good day.” I produced a few crumpled dollars from my pocket and started to sort them out.
    The Gardener leveled a look at me. I stopped, trying to interpret.
    He pointed to the bills. “Put your money away, boy. Go to work.”
    Antoinette and Carter made their goodbyes, working through conversational formulae in soft voices, not privileging me in or inflicting it upon me. Couldn’t tell. Antoinette had been kind to me, but the Gardener’s derision had me on edge.
    I walked back to the door and stepped outside, watching the morning crowds buffeted by late autumn winds.
    The neighborhood was beginning to wake, dancers and actors hurrying by, wearing their mundane costumes as baristas and servers, black on black on black, well manicured, the women’s long and versatile hair loose to serve as a wind break, the men’s broad shoulders framing the inverted triangle that many women and some men at my college have so often mooned over.
    They were the cast of the neighborhood in both roles, morning and night. The Theater District juxtaposed the rugged functionality and hybridity of New York, with steaming vents, dirtied streets, scaffolding and fire escapes, bodegas and posh restaurants, all smashed up next to one another, as if someone had built a city on three times as much land and then squashed it all together to fit onto Manhattan island, each storefront elbowing its neighbors to make room.
    Carter and Antoinette emerged from the café, adjusting their coats. Carter’s armor rattled under his coat, and it seemed odd that no one had noticed or commented. Then again, it was New York, and New Yorkers seemed to take it as a badge of pride that whatever happened, they’d seen worse.

CHAPTER
    ELEVEN
    A fter a short subway trip (that being short for me—used to trips between eastern Queens and Manhattan, as opposed