Sell you a Bridge chapter 287

June 14th 2016 The Street of Gods 9:00 AM EDT

We  stopped when we reached the dark stone temple we'd been heading to.  Eddie said his goodbyes and hugged Sindella goodbye before leaving.  While he was more than happy to help a friend out of a jam, the homeless  god wasn't a big fan of intruding on the domains of others. Assaults  weren't Eddie's thing from what the others said, he was more reactive  than proactive, preferring to leave others in peace if they did the same  to him. I didn't exactly push, I didn't know him too well, and the  memory of his razor shredding those parademons, while striking, was  deeply unsettling. His casual absent expression had never changed as he  butchered them, seemingly in a world of his own while tearing through  their ranks.

As we stopped outside the temple though, I  felt a deep and unpleasant sense of deja vu from deep in my gut.  Everyone turned to look at me in concern as I froze in place, staring at  the squat stone building. Zee put a hand on my shoulder. "You ok baby?  Whats wrong?" Her tone let me know that she could at least feel the  discomfort and fear churning in my stomach through our bond, even if she  had no clue what was causing it. Hell, even if I had no clue what was  causing it.

Despite all of that, I stared up at the  building with shaking hands and sweaty palms. It seemed so familiar to  me, not the place itself, but the feeling I got from it. I'd felt this  before, felt it in my bones, and whatever it was scared the shit out of  me. It scared me more than Darkseid had by far. I really hoped this  wasn't Neron, because if it was, then I had met him before, and he was  more dangerous than the god of tyranny by far.

That seemed  wrong though. I knew a bit about Neron. He was a devil. Not the same  kind as me, but based on what I could find on him from my sources  (hacking abilities were the gift that never stopped giving) he mostly  dealt in subterfuge and obfuscation. He was strong, sure, but he was  strong in ways that I should counter. With my new godhood and my domain I  should be able to at least hold Neron off long enough for the others to  retrieve Kit and her boyfriend. But this feeling I was getting now was  different. It was like looking at the gallows as I was marched up the  steps. Death that I couldn't avoid.

The strangest part was  that I couldn't remember where I'd felt this before, but that in itself  was a hint. There weren't too many things I didn't remember. Things  from before I had my powers and a few experiences my mind hadn't really  been equipped to deal with when I saw them. It certainly narrowed down  the list. It took me a minute to put that all into words. "No. I sense  something. Something bad. Something I don't think is Neron. Darkseid  wasn't the only thing pulling strings here. It's weird though, I feel  like I've come into contact with it before, but I don't recognize..."

My  eyes snapped open as I finally placed the sensation of creeping evil.  "The swamp!" Everyone jumped as I bellowed a random phrase in mid  sentence and I winced a bit. "Sorry, I just figured out where I felt  this before. During the ritual that made you guys elves, there was this  sort of weird infectious darkness in Slaughter Swamp. It got burned away  in the ritual using the belt and girdle and their holy energy, but  before that happened the sensation was a lot like that temple. Kind of  this slow crawl of spiritual decay. Not sure why it's scaring me so bad,  that swamp never did anything to us."

Now that I'd  noticed it, I was absolutely sure that I was right though. This  sensation was exactly like the dark energy in the swamp. Guess the  Nightside had some of that old fashioned Gotham evil brewing after all.  Weirdly, that almost made me feel better. Almost. I'd been out of my  depth since I got here, but I could handle Gotham problems. Having  identified the problem I could force myself to calm down, rationalize it  away. But no matter how much I forced myself to breathe and move past  it, I couldn't shake the gnawing dread in my gut. This was a bad place.  Bad things were here.

Zee gave my shoulder a squeeze.  "Breathe, love. You don't have to justify yourself to us. If you have a  bad feeling then we'll be careful. We're here now, but we don't need to  rush. A little stakeout, some info gathering. Can't hurt to learn more  about the enemy before we head in there right? Maybe we can identify  whats bothering you. We can at least try to find out what god lives in  there, right?"

She turned to Taylor imploringly, and the  big detective nodded seriously. "Definitely. This place isn't anywhere I  recognize. It looks old, but I've never seen or heard of it. This place  has to have been built around when St. Jude's was, and St. Jude's is  the oldest church around. The Street of Gods isn't exactly known for its  stability and safety. Even the gods here get bounced out pretty  regularly. Maybe not like yearly or anything, but any deity still around  after a few centuries has to be a serious customer."

He  was right, the church was worn in a way that implied extreme age,  despite being relatively well kept otherwise. He turned to John. "What  do you think, Junior? You know the Street better than I do. Can you  think of anything at all you might have heard about a place like this?  Doesn't need to be overt. Even rumors could be useful if we can get more  than one or two of them. If not we can check in with the neighbors, see  if they've heard anything."

John shook his head, assuring  us that he had no idea who the temple belonged to, and rather than just  attack without the information, we decided to ask around before going  in. Now that I was here, this felt less like an urgent destination and  more like a waiting trap. I could sense thew time limit for the lie that  it was, a sharp reminder that other people weren't the only ones who  could lie to me, and that my ability didn't work nearly as well on self  deception. I hadn't picked up on that until I figured it out for myself,  and while it was nice to have confirmation, that wasn't as useful as it  could be given the conditions.

We split up into groups,  Drea, Zee and I heading to one temple with Sindella while John, Taylor,  and Tommy headed for another. Suzie went with Jim, Artemis, and Wally  and I was confident enough in the distribution of power that I didn't  worry too much about ambushes or anything. What followed was a long and  slow process of gathering information from any local sources.

We  couldn't just stroll up and demand to talk to gods, not without making  our presence far too obvious. While several of us were full or partial  deities, announcing that would be as good as sending up a warning flare  to the beings in the mysterious temple about our presence. New gods  weren't so common that tongues wouldn't wag when they appeared,  especially so many of them at once.

So we talked to  priests, and supplicants, and any number of passersby, and I got to use a  part of my skillset I hadn't really ever put to work before. Ninjas  weren't just assassins, they were spies and sneaks, I had some small bit  of information gathering skill from that first ninja package, and I'd  never really needed to use it. This particular environment was a bit  more free range than most, and I was able to flit about, speaking to the  locals and wheedling away little bits of news here and there.

Putting  them all together into a cohesive whole was much easier with my  enhanced mind, especially with John, Tommy, and Taylor to share the  information with. Flamboyant and over-the-top as the three of them could  be, they WERE detectives and they had instincts for this kind of thing.  After several rounds of info gathering and meeting back up, we managed  to put together an incredibly sparse amount of information about what  exactly was in temple, and how long it had been here.

Or,  as the case may be, hadn't been here. The thing hadn't actually been  seen in anyone's lifetime. The aura around the temple made it clear it  was still occupied, and sometimes brash idiots tried to move in on the  territory and were never heard from again, but no one had ever seen the  being the temple belonged to personally. Some people thought it was like  the lamentation, a hideous monstrosity that couldn't show its face for  fear of terrorizing others. Some though it was so beautiful it would  destroy the minds of watchers.

Most thought it was asleep  or something, as torpor wasn't an unknown among older gods, whose  timescale was so long a few centuries seemed like a quick nap. There was  no name for the being, no sign or designation other than a crude symbol  scratched on the stone near the entrance, one so vague and worn down it  was barely recognizable anyway, so it hardly mattered in the grand  scheme of things.

We did learn a few things that were  useful from all this though. Firstly that Neron hadn't been here long.  He was subtle about coming and going, but not, like, magic subtle, just  not announcing his presence with big fiery wings. The locals had seen a  man entering and exiting lately. Secondly, Kit and her boyfriend WERE  here. They had gone in three days ago, and hadn't come out since. I  cursed internally that we'd gotten so close to beating them here, but  there was no point in second guessing.

It  would have been easy to accidentally get hurt or worse rushing things.  Plus if we had shown up on the street before I called mom, Gojo might  not have shown up to stop Darkseid, which would have been...bad. We'd  made it, and we'd at least tried to learn more. Granted, we hadn't  identified any secret passages that led to the heart of the temple or  rumors of the dark god's horrifying weakness, but since this wasn't a  video game that was to be expected, we'd confirmed they were here at  least, so going in there wasn't a waste of time.

Armoring  up and summoning Tartarus, I turned to the others. "Alright, seems like  its about time to bite the bullet." I paused, armoring down and  reaching into my jacket to check on my gun, which was thankfully loaded.  I refilled it before bed, and the bullets had been in the clip long  enough to have attuned to the thing at least partially. It wouldn't be  as effective as against Darkseid, but I'd take what I could get. "Sorry,  as I was saying, we're ready to head in. Zee, Sindella, Jim, we could  use the toughest shield you can manage, I want to go in there as  prepared as possible."

They  nodded and started working on spell construction, putting together a  layered barrier that I suspected they'd been working on during their  spare time, because it came together pretty damn quickly for something  off the cuff. When that was done, we ascended the steps of the squat,  dark stone building. It was time to find out what the hell this was all  about, who was pulling the strings and why. Maybe they had some grudge,  maybe they just wanted my power, who knew. As we climbed the steps we  passed the worn symbol carved into the stone at the front, and I looked  at it curiously. It was hardly my first time seeing something like that,  but it didn't ring a bell in this context. After all, how many ancient  dark gods used a bat as their symbol of power?