The stars were bright in the midnight sky. They shone inconsistently through the canopy of the forest as I hiked to kill someone.

I didn’t dwell on it too much. It wasn’t a very comfortable thought. Instead, I focused on pushing my way through the dense undergrowth, holding branches aside for Val, who was carrying the main bulk of the amplifier on his back.

The resonator was vaguely torpedo-shaped, though more of a box with a rounded top than a tube. At four feet tall, with the straps positioned as they were, it extended over his head, which made navigating the forest difficult. Smooth, gray-white plastic encased the device’s inner workings, a series of circuits designed to produce sympathetic effects that would read etheric ripples and pump them full of additional power. The resonator was only part of the amplifier; there were also seven collapsible nodes, to be set up at the village boundaries, that would reflect the wave back to the resonator rather than let it dissipate into the ether.

You know how dropping a grenade in an enclosed space turns everyone inside into chunky salsa? Same principle.

We were in camo. I had a shimmering white dress packed into my duffel for the mission proper. We were all armed with disruptor pistols and pulsers for the nonlethal option; Markus also had a duffel full of tricks and a rifle slung over his shoulder in case things really went to shit. Each of us carried a hand amplifier—basically a pea shooter compared to the thing on Val’s back, but useful against minor etheric beings. I had a knife in an arm sheath, but I wasn’t thinking about that right now.

In the altered monochrome world of night vision, Markus and Val had glowing eyes, thanks to their ocular implants. My eyes would have looked the same to them, ocular implants being one of the few augments it was possible to do on Veles without building them into the body from the start. Funny how moving to fancy reincarnation technology slows down surgical advances.

“You guys have been at this awhile,” I subvocalized. “You ever regret the stuff you’ve done?”

“No,” Val replied. “Perhaps when I was younger. But I’ve seen what gods do to a civilization. The division, the subjugation, the war. This is justified.”

“She’s just an old lady,” I said. “She didn’t do anything.”

“She doesn’t know she’s done anything,” said Markus, gently. “But she prays every day for that ancestor to protect the village.”

“She is perpetuating a massacre,” said Val. “And by her death, she can end it.”

“For this Torgy fucker,” I said. “The pantheon’s still out there. They’re still going to get eaten.”

“And we will be free to act against them,” said Val. “We can sweep the gods from this world and hand it over to Eifni for uplifting. When the Therians can reincarnate without fear, they’ll be able to truly self-actualize.”

And that was the goal. Eternal life, eternal freedom. I centered myself, took a deep breath, looked ahead. The trees were thinning. We’d be there soon.

“Are you ready?” asked Markus.

I nodded, determined. “Thanks, guys. Let’s kill an ancestor.”

*

The village was reasonably sized for a pre-industrial farming community; less than a hundred people, all told. Seeing it in person was a strange experience, like visiting a location you’d only seen in photographs. Well, I guess that was basically what was happening here, I’d been staring at this place through cameras for months.

I got the shimmering dress out of my duffle and threw it over my camo. We’d not seen evidence of more advanced material science in the surveillance period, so impressive-looking fabric like this should sell the ruse I was a divine agent. We’d argued back and forth over whether I needed a shawl like the villagers wore, but the dress clearly hadn’t been tailored to work with one. The bride at the wedding we’d seen hadn’t worn one either, so we bet that it wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. The dress itself was billowy but left me a deceptive amount of mobility. The things you have to consider when designing a formal dress for combat.

The pulser went up my voluminous sleeve. My disruptor pistol stayed in its holster, disguised by folds in the fabric, which also disguised the slit that would allow me to grab it without hiking up the dress. Markus set off with the barrier poles, guided by directions from the commander, who was watching from the command center. Val planted the resonator in the ground, lining it up with the building we’d determined was their religious center.

“The knife,” he subvocalized.

I drew it without much hesitation and laid the blade against the dome of the resonator. Thousands of years of technological development and Eifni still made their combat knives out of steel. Val typed some commands.

“Linking,” he said. “Hold it still.”

I did. The resonator hummed softly as it created an etheric entanglement with the knife. We were silent otherwise, the night interrupted occasionally by soft conversation between Markus and the commander. Thirty seconds later it was done: whatever happened with the knife would get channeled directly to the resonator. Val released a catch and flipped a small shelf down on the side. I put the knife on the shelf.

“Starting attunement… now,” he said.

This part always fascinated me. I’d made a habit in my pre-Eifni days of, whenever I noticed myself making associations with something, stripping those associations away and looking just at the object. The knife wasn’t a murder weapon, it was just a sharp piece of steel.

But as the attunement process commenced, it became impossible to see it as anything but a murder weapon. I couldn’t point to anything specific about it—because it wasn’t actually physical, it was a sympathetic resonance—but the angles seemed more wicked, the edge sharper, the shape insidious. And yet the process continued. It went beyond pure murder: it was the end of a lineage. The destruction of a people and every tradition they held.

Slaying the past by preventing the future. The exact, calibrated frequency to kill an ancestor god.

It was also quite evil. It made me uncomfortable just to stand near it. But evil, as every godslayer learns, is ultimately a sociological concept. This, more than anything, demonstrates the insidious nature of gods. All cultures want to flourish and grow; all cultures want their past to be remembered. These things are good. And if a god, even a minor one, sets up shop inside that stream of goodness, then a community doing exactly what communities should do will, by no fault of their own, become fodder. The mathematical inverse of good is evil, and both are ultimately just wave functions in etherspace. Our preference for one over the other doesn’t change the math.

It was done.

“Your turn,” said Val.

I placed my hands on the dome of the resonator. We weren’t going to link me up like we did the knife; this was just about etheric camouflage.

“Starting now,” said Val.

Warmth spread through me then: trust, beneficence, hope for the future—that last frequency not much different than Kives’s progressive aspect, perhaps. Subtones of awe, transcendence, beauty. It would make for a good first impression, but more importantly it would mask the aura of the vile knife hidden up my sleeve.

“How does it feel to be an angel?” Val asked.

“Floaty,” I said. “Be right back, gonna visit plague unto the enemies of the Lord.”

He smirked. “Commander, we’re set.”

“Good. Markus has four poles to go. Lilith, you’re cleared to begin.”

And lo, the angel Lilith descended upon the unsuspecting village of what’s-its-name on a mission of woe.

*

I really did like the dress, but I somehow managed the discipline to avoid swishing it around unnecessarily. It wouldn’t do for some farmer out for a midnight piss to see me twirling around in the moonlight. Not very angel-like. Instead I adopted more of a floaty, swaying motion as I walked to get the dress to billow around me. I should wear this kind of thing more often.

It was time to cloak myself. I reached through my comm and flicked a metaphysical switch. Inside my soul, something—shifted. I became smaller, more distant. Less… real, I guess? Even to myself. The world faded a little, and everything took on a dreamlike quality. And I was a dream, too, the half-remembered thought of someone else, to be forgotten on waking, like I was never here. And by the transitive property I wasn’t here now, either.

The villagers hadn’t set a guard. With the pulser up my sleeve, it wouldn’t have been a problem if they had, but it was still one less potential complication. I swayed through the fence gate unchallenged. A threshold, breached. I tried to focus myself, to keep my wits sharp.

In this climate, the ground would never be completely dry. The villagers had dealt with that problem by tossing chaff from their grain over the paths, which over time seemed to have hardened into a fairly solid path. My combat boots—which were visible beneath the hem of my dress; between my newly-acquired aura and the darkness, I was really hoping they went overlooked—rolled right off the path with none of the gross suction that came with mud. “Angel in Combat Boots” sounds like a good name for a band, am I right?

The road was almost a little bouncy, even. My socio instructor always told us cadets that all cultures were highly adapted to their environments, and I could see why. Whatever the technology level, people found solutions to their problems. Problem-solvers everywhere. I nodded to myself through the haze.

I observed their buildings as I passed through them like a ghost, shimmering pearlescent fabric sweeping behind me. Wooden structures, treated with some kind of tar to keep out the rot. The rot was metaphysical, I mused. Rot all around. I was here to cut it out.

I was here for the first time, only I wasn’t here, so did it count? No, I was here. I tried to force myself awake. Needed to focus on the mission, couldn’t get too drifty, like this lovely lovely dress. Maybe a quick spin? No one was here.

No. Needed to focus.

I walked down the path, light, just a wisp of death. Death to gods. They fall, they die. I didn’t sneak; I was a god, or at least the agent of one, or at least I was supposed to be. I had every right to walk down this path in the starlight. I was supposed to be here: that’s what they teach you in infiltration school. Act natural. Or supernatural. I smirked. Let them make the excuses for you. Don’t give them anything to doubt. Like that young man over there. He was going to see me, I knew with that strange dream logic. And it was okay. I wasn’t here, I won’t have been here. I was just a dream.

He saw me, shimmering in the starlight, my eyes glowing a soft violet.

“My—Milady?” he asked in a language I’d never heard before. He seemed to remember something and quickly looked away. No eye contact, right. As befit a woman above his station.

I smiled. Just a dream. There was nothing to fear.

“Come,” I said, holding out my hand.

He did, after hesitating. Who knows how long? I didn’t. Time was just an illusion in the dream world. “Who are you? Have you come for me?”

“Yes,” I said distantly. “I am a messenger of the gods. Close your eyes.”

He did. My pulser was in my hand now. I pressed a chaste, angelic kiss to his forehead, then pulsed him. A targeted ether burst hit him right in the mind-body connection. He collapsed in the dirt. Now he was dreaming too.

I floated gently over his prone body. The clouds parted, revealing the full moon. I liked the way it made my dress shimmer. The elder’s house was ahead, full of people who weren’t her. They didn’t do the whole nuclear family thing here. Extended families, many people to pulse. Can you put sleeping people to sleep? I was going to find out.

“I’m at the target’s house,” I told the team. I opened the door to the elder’s house. In the main room, a family huddled together on matts, deep in sleep. Mom, dad, some children. One of them stirred.

“Sweet dreams,” I told him softly. I raised the pulser and sent him back to sleep. Six more to go.

The pulser was a neat little tool, perfectly shaped to fit in my palm. Reminded me of Star Trek phasers, a thought that nearly made me giggle as I worked my way through the family. When fired it didn’t make any visual effects, just a nice warmth while the trigger was depressed. Click. Click. Night night, Mom. Night night, Dad.

It wasn’t really sleep, was it? More like interruption of consciousness. I was turning people off for a bit. Isn’t that sleep, though?

I needed to come back. You could get lost in the cloak fugue. I had something important to do. The elder, right. Next room. Pulse the husband. Okay, pull it together, Lilith. Time to perform. I turned up the glow on my eyes.

A hand on the elder’s shoulder woke her up.

“Do not be afraid,” I said, channeling my memories of Sunday School. “I come with good tidings.”

I wondered what she thought of me, with the moonlight streaming through the window behind me, wearing a dress unlike anything she’d even seen, eyes glowing violet. Keep your head in the game, Lilith.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My name is... Arwin,” I said beatifically. “I bear a message from the gods.”

“Is this a dream?” she asked.

“Yes and no.” I smiled. Mysterious angel. Remember that. “What is your name?”

“Arguel,” said the elder, sitting up. She turned to her husband, shaking his shoulder. “Nima! Nima! Wake up!”

“He won’t wake,” I said. “This message is for you alone.”

At that she seemed to sharpen. A light sleeper. I hoped she wouldn’t wake up afterward and ruin the mission. Wait, no, that’s not how being dead works. Stay sharp, Lilith.

“Then it’s time?” she asked, touching two fingers to the bridge of her nose. “Gods preserve us.”

I was about to say something else, but that threw me for a fucking loop. Had Kives set us up? No, I wasn’t getting annihilated by an angel right now. A real one, I mean. But this was a classic maneuver, I’d never heard of someone expecting a message from the gods before.

“Oh, uh, no,” I said, wondering what the hell she was talking about. “Different message. Than that one. Come with me to the chapel, and all will be revealed.”

Arguel smiled at me.

“You’re so young,” she said wistfully. “Like my Giri. Does she serve the gods as you do?”

Giri must be dead, I realized. “I am but a messenger. There is much I cannot reveal,” I said. Things were sliding off the rails. That was something that happened in dreams, too. “Come with me.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” said Arguel, taking my hand and climbing strenuously to her feet. “Don’t be nervous on my account.”

“I don’t feel nervous,” I said. I didn’t. I felt distant. I felt ethereal.

“Lilith!” came the commander’s voice. “What the hell is going on?”

“Don’t lie to a grandmother, girl,” said Arguel with a chuckle. “You look like a bachelorette before Stormbreak. Here, help an old woman keep upright.”

I took her arm, mentally signalling the commander that all was okay. We left by the main room. The deception had unraveled but all was okay anyways. That’s how dreams worked. Things just continued.

“That’s my Yani, and her Gurid,” said Arguel as we passed her descendents. “And the little ones, Yis, Vensla, Guryen, Kess, and little Fenrid. He’s such a light sleeper, he’ll be so upset when I tell him an angel visited in his sleep.”

“He’s very cute,” I said. Was that something an angel would say? Nevermind. I was an angel, and I said it. Act supernatural.

“I’ll tell him you said that.” Arguel laughed again. “An angel of Kives. She does love the little ones.”

“They are precious in her sight,” I agreed, grasping at straws. Interesting that she’d pegged me as one of Kives’s. Must be my supernatural perfume. “We go in silence now. Come, dawn approaches.”

In like five hours. But it was the kind of thing angels said. Well, more like the kind of things Lord of the Rings characters said, but if you didn’t grow up on Earth you basically can’t tell the difference. We walked through the village together. I was unhurried, because I knew—again, with that strange dream logic—we’d reach our destination without trouble.

The chapel was built more cylindrically the other buildings. The doors were larger than the ones I’d seen in the domiciles of the village. I opened one for Arguel.

“Someone needs to teach you some pride,” she laughed, but walked inside. Did anyone hear? They did, or they didn’t. Things would happen. That was the world of the dream. I followed and closed the door. I flared my eyes, taking in all the details. Frescos, wooden carvings, a firepit in the middle of the room. For burnt offerings, maybe?

“So what’s all this about, girl?” asked Arguel. “You said it’s not about the Calamity.”

“It is, in a way,” I said, with a distant sinking sensation as I began to suspect what—who—the Calamity must be. “The goddess is mustering all available forces. She asks that your honored ancestor take up arms in defense of her children.”

Arguel touched the bridge of her nose again in that gesture of piety.

“By her will,” she said. “What must I do?”

“Call him,” I said. “Ask him to appear.”

Arguel nodded. “Honored Torgaior! I, your descendent, call upon your name!” She moved to the altar, placing both hands on it. I glided behind her as she repeated the invocation twice more. She continued: “Hear me in this hour of desperation! Our gods call on us to muster against the end of all things! I pray thee listen and appear before me, your honored descendent, in the name of Kives!”

It was done. My comm read a slight uptick in divine energy in the chapel. Torgaior was preparing to appear.

“Your faith has been rewarded,” I said. “He comes.”

Arguel made that pious gesture again. “That this would happen in my time,” she said. She turned to me. “Please,” she said, clutching my arm. “Angel of Kives, I beg you. Fight the Calamity. I’ve had my time. Let my grandchildren grow up in peace.”

“That is all I want,” I said, which was perhaps the most honest thing I’d told her all night.

As my comm shouted warnings that a divine manifestation was imminent, I drew my knife and slit her throat.