"Do you know who he is?" "Who he really is?" "Shadow Moon." "You're my man now." "You've gotten yourself mixed up in some really weird shit, Shadow." " You shouldn't trust him." " Grimnir." "Don't trust him." "Trying to start a war, Glad-O-War?" "We're at war already, and we're losing." "Who are you?" "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." "What should I believe?" " What's today?" " Wednesday." "Today is my day." "This is all too big." "Too much going on at once." "We should start with a story." " Aw, Jesus, Nancy." " I'm gonna tell you a story." "Haven't got time for a story." "Just do the fucking work, huh?" "Let me tell a goddamned story!" "I got a good one." "Real good..." "Once upon a time..." "See?" "It sounds good already." "You're hooked." "Just get on with it, huh?" "Once upon a time... there was a fucking queen." "She had it all:" "the glory, the power." "Worshippers eager to give and grateful to receive." "Why?" "Because she had the gift of the gift." "The blessing of blessings, hers to bestow." "And her place of worship?" "Oh, that was the place to be." "That was the goddamn shit." "It was good fucking times." "Kings didn't like that." "Kings came one after the other to knock her off her throne." "They didn't last long." "When the queen was done with you... you were gone." "Worse ways to go..." "Clothes and hair change with the times, but this queen, ha ha, she kept the party going." "But the kings, they kept coming after her." "Our queen's power... which is the power of all women, the power of rebirth, and creation... it makes some men kneel in awe and give gifts." "But it makes other men angry." "And you know it:" "Anger gets shit done." "So men did what they do:" "they took from her that power." "Took 'em a long time." "Took them guns and knives and sharp dicks." "But they grabbed the power they were too scared for a queen to have." "They laundered it and gave it to men." "They forced our queen into the back seat." "The remaining flight time to New York's" "John F. Kennedy airport is 11 hours." "So sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight." " Thank you." " Where is the library?" "Where is the library?" "Where is the library?" "Now our queen, she made her peace with change." "She told herself the back seat's got cushions, too." "She told herself she was playing the game by staying in it." "Excuse me." "Do you know where the bathroom is?" "There's one in the back." "I don't see it." "Show me." "Oh." "Where did 30F run off to?" "So long as I'm still alive," "I can adapt." "So you can let everyone back home know where you're going." "I still know what I am." "But America, too, can take issue with a woman of power." "It finds ways of cutting her down." "Of punishing her for her daring to be." "And our girl, after a while, even she forgot there's a queen inside." "ISIS fighters destroyed the ancient temple, a once popular tourist attraction recently denounced by ISIS militants as quote, the necessary destruction of idolatrous structures in accordance with Islamic law." "And there is no end to the cruelty of men threatened by strong women." "So what's a queen to do?" "She gets on her knees." "She takes what she don't want to, and we watch in easy fucking judgment and pretend we'd do a single thing different in her shoes." "Hmm." "I hear they blew up your altar." "Darn." "I have a new one to offer you." "Aren't you the lucky duck?" "Oh!" "Boop." "Okay." "Worship is a volume business." "Whosoever has the most followers wins the game." "Wanna play?" "Life is long when you got regret." "A moment can last forever when you can see how it should have gone." "You get the moral to this story?" "I don't know." "Don't compromise?" "Or, uh... don't cut deals with treacherous motherfuckers." "What?" "No!" "Fuck no!" "Did you get this one off the discount rack?" "Where are you getting in life without some fucking compromise?" "The moral is..." " Get myself a queen." " You goddamn right." "You better get yourself a queen." "'Cause you just went and killed one of theirs." "That's one of mine." "I killed one of mine." "Not anymore." "Not in a long while has he been one of yours." "You separate a head from a body, that is strike fucking one across the bow." "They all ain't going to take that lightly." "Good." "Wait 'til he sees strike two, when I get myself that queen." "What about you?" "Spill blood together, that binds you to him for life." "Yeah, the fuck it does." "Fuck it doesn't." "Now, we have a compact." "Yeah, up to which point you piss me off." "And you've just gone and pissed me off, okay?" "So I think that just violates the terms of our agreement." "What are you so pissed off about?" "You just cut off your friend's head." "Okay, now you're just going to go and get a suit made like you're the goddamn Godfather?" "Who the fuck did you think he was?" "You're getting one, too." "We have to be presentable, where we're going." "Fuck you!" "Okay, I don't even know your name." "Hey, Mr. Wednesday?" "Who I met on a Wednesday?" "I don't think you understand the concept of pissed off." "It's angry." "Oh, I know what pissed off is." "I'm pissed off, so as a pissed off person," "I'm aware." "You're confused." "You got a lot of questions, but you don't know how to ask them." "Do not confuse confusion for anger." "I'm not confused." "I'm very confused." "You're confused." "And you're intrigued." "Your wife came back from the dead, why wouldn't you be?" "If you said you weren't, I'd call you a liar." "A bigger one than I am." "Ha!" "And that's a very big liar." "Mm-hmm." "The terms of our agreement are intact." "You're not angry, Shadow." "But you do have to start getting angry." "Angry... gets shit done." "Try that on for size." "Jeez..." "Is this Wisconsin?" "That's our next stop." "Welcome to Kentucky." "Now be nice to the lady we're visiting, but not too nice." "She might take a fancy to you, and that would not be good." "Why?" "She an ex-girlfriend of yours?" "Not for all the little plastic toys in China." "No, she's..." "She's something else." "We might not be welcome at first." "In the presence of a queen." "Heh, forgot it was Easter." "Well, it is Sunday, 16th of April, seven days after the vernal equinox." "I love Easter." "Oh, many do." "Some for the rabbits, some for the resurrection." "Most think of the food." "All that fucking sugar, huh?" "They don't think of the truth of the day." "And why would they?" "Well, yeah, you could..." "you could call this Easter." "Or we could call it what it really is:" "a pagan ritual, the celebration of the beginning of spring dating back about 12,000 years." "So, when you see children dipping eggs in vinegar the colors of their favorite toys, or when you see the nation's youth fleeing south for copulation, or when they spread their seed over that sinking mass that is the great state of Florida," "they all... without realizing it do it in her name." "Ostara." "Hello!" "Oh, it is a treasure and a treat to welcome you all to my home and on my day, my favorite day of the year." "When all is lavender and dew, reborn and restored." "When we celebrate the earth..." "Hello, Shadow." "Hey." "Do I know you?" "Yes, you do." "And then we move on." "I think it's important for us all to remember what this day is really truly about." "Which is..." "Oh, for Christ's sake." "Praise the Lords, please help yourself and those less fortunate to the buffet." "I got plenty of honey ham." "But for those of you that do not partake of pork..." "That's Easter?" "Because people believe in Easter." "Believing is seeing." "Gods are real if you believe in them." "Gods." "Uh-huh." "Fuck me." "All right, so..." "Hmm?" "That's Jesus Christ." "A Jesus Christ." "Some Jesus Christ." "For every belief, every branch, every denomination they see a different face when they close their eyes to pray." "So who are you?" "Like I said, you wouldn't believe in me if I told you." "Happy Easter, you old fraud." "And a fair Ostara to you." "What the hell are you doing here?" "I'm not here for Christ's sake, I'm here for all our sakes." "You look divine." "How the hell else should I look?" "Say hello to Ostara." "Hey, Ostara." "Oh, he's a blusher." "Wednesday, you brought me a blusher." "Mm-hmm." "And he's pink chocolate." "How perfectly wonderful." "What's he called?" "Shadow Moon." "So..." "How's tricks?" "Asks the tricksiest rabbit I know." "Well, I was hoping to enlist your assistance." "Stop wasting time." "I can't be bothered, so don't you go bothering me about it." "Shadow?" "That's a sweet name." "Now, now, now, now." "Leave him be." "Hmm?" "Why do they call you Shadow, sweetness?" "The way I follow my mama around." "She didn't know what else to call me." "Well, I deal in sugar, Sugar, and you're the sweetest damn thing I've ever seen." "This is the boy that has everyone so upset?" "Aye, you heard?" "Well, I keep my ears pricked up." "Come here, sweet Shadow." "Allow me to impart some wisdom:" "there's far too many secret societies out there." "They have no loyalty and no love." "They range from barely competent to deeply dangerous." "You don't sound like one of us." "I'm not one of you." "Oh, yes you are." "You're as forgotten, and as unloved and as unremembered as any of us." "I'm doing just fine." "Happy Easter." "Christ is risen." "Hello, boys." "Well, you were before these assholes were born." "Until the day that Jesus Christ crawled out of his stinky old grave, folks would paint eggs with dandelions and paprika." "For her to exchange as gifts at the first sign of spring in her name." "Ostara." "Oh, they still do." "They still do." "On my festival days, they still feast on eggs and rabbit and candy and they do it in my name." "Serious question, my dear." "I have no doubt that millions upon millions exchange tokens and observe the rituals of your festival, all down to the hunting of the hidden eggs, but does anybody pray in your name?" "Do they say it in worship?" "Oh, they mouth your name, hmm, but they have no idea what it means." "None whatsoever." "Same every spring." "You do all the work, he gets all the prayers." "What has gotten into you?" "I feel terrible about this." "No." "No!" "It's her day." "You took it." "You crucified her day." "When they started following you, everybody else got burned." "In your name." "Happy fucking Easter." "Uh..." "No..." "A word." "Mm-hmm." "You shut your mouth before I slap it off your goddamn face." "Oh... oh." "How dare you." "How dare you come into my home and uncork all over Jesus of Nazareth, and all the other Jesuses who died on the cross, and even the ones who didn't?" "How dare you!" "These are kind, generous men and they've come to celebrate their day." "My day." "God damn it, our day!" "And you come in here and disrespect them?" "They are gods, for God's sake!" "They're sons of." "They're men who walk the streets." "They shake hands, they take shits." "Oh..." "What I'm doing here is of no concern to them." "This is your day, love." "Always has been, always will be." "Just don't try to tell me that they all worship you." "I know they don't." "I'm not a fool." "No, you're not." "I am." "An old one." "They killed Vulcan." "They killed my friend." "He pledged his allegiance to me, and forged a blade in my honor." "And they killed him for it." "The new gods." "That's why we need you." "That's why we need spring to fight them, to show them who we are." "Oh, they will worship you." "They will... worship you if you make them pray." "They'll pray to Him." "But he's not the goddess of spring." "Shadow, my boy, I need a word with the fair lady here alone." "Help yourself to a drink, two, tops." "Still need you sharp." "You've been avoiding me." "My mistake." "I used the phone." "Worst thing you can do to someone is call them." "I've been occupied." "Yes, you have." "Impressive reach metrics." "Deep penetration." "Total unique impressions is what sells and no-one leaves an impression more unique than you." "You've done well with me." "Very well." "Now..." "It's my turn to do well by you." "I can take care of you." "Hmm." "Hands free, honeypot." "I have no intention of spending the rest of my days feeding your soul from the vagina nebula." "But... if you point that gun in the right direction..." "Hmm." "You're wishing you had no business with me." "But you do." "You owe." "I'm calling it in." "Is this it?" "How'd you find it?" "Shadow's here." "Jesus Christ." "Are they all..." "Jesuses?" "Right, of course, 'cause..." "Jesus is real." "Hmm." "God damn it." "Hmm." "Did you always believe?" "Did I always believe?" "I am belief, Shadow." "I don't know how not to believe." "I don't think I know how to." "And I think maybe I..." "I don't really believe." "You know, I don't really believe any of this." "And maybe everything that's happened so far is just some kind of vivid dream." "And..." "I don't even know if I can believe that." "Even if you don't believe, you cannot travel in any other way than the road your senses show you." "And you must walk that road to the end." "Starve them into submission?" "They used to starve themselves." "40 days, but not out of worship, but out of necessity." "Hunger was an ancient form of prayer, and they've never been hungry." "I mean, they just pluck their food out of the freezer, throw it in the microwave, watch it spin around." "Never once have they had to work for it, give thanks for it, or pray to you for it." "Make them pray." "Let them remind themselves it was a queen that gave them the harvest." "Oh, they'll be hungry but then they'll turn to you, and they will pray to Ostara once again." "She withholds, she returns." "Prayer, reward." "The ancient contract." "Holy shit." "Hold that thought." "Come on." "Oh..." "A dead girl?" "I have a house full of guests and a garage full of caterers and you brought me a dead girl?" "Hi." " You have a lovely home." " Don't stoop." "Somebody tried to raise you with refined manners, dead girl, and failed." "Let me see you." "She doesn't want to be dead." "Dead gets a bad rap." "I don't want her to be dead." "Reason being?" "Selfish reasons." "Can you do that?" "Professional courtesy." "Colleague to colleague?" "You all think I'm like you." "I am not like you." "You, I'm particularly not like." "And that doesn't translate into courtesies owed, professional or otherwise." "A favor, then." "You do owe me that." "Who were you, exactly?" "I was, uh, Laura Moon." "Um, I'm still Laura Moon." "Laura Moon." "Shadow Moon?" "Mmm, we know he's here." "We know who he's here with." "Best he doesn't know I'm here." "Best he don't know who I'm here with." "How do you feel?" "I don't mean existentially, I mean physically." "Sensationally." "Are you in your body, but not of it?" "I'm in my body." "I feel it." "Death hurts." "I mean, mostly that hurt is just absences of things." "I'm thirsty all the time." "Fuckin' parched." "And... cold." "Cold in my bones." "Livin' in her own apocalypse." "Did, um... did Jesus go through his own apocalypse before you brought him back to life?" "Oh, I didn't bring Jesus back to life, no." "He was dreamed back to life on my day." "A very narrow sliver in that Venn diagram." "This is your day." "The vernal equinox, the light of the world." "Rebirth, renewal, resurrection, can you do it?" "I can, I have." "I normally wouldn't." "But today isn't a normally kind of day." "I don't resurrect, I relife." "Life has always been my gift." "To re-gift." "Well, good." "Good, because... as it turns out, I actually have a lot to live for, and it's so close I can feel it." "It's the only thing I can feel, so..." "I would really like to not be dead anymore so that I can feel it fully." "So..." "How does this work?" "How it works is I find out exactly why you are dead and we go from there." "Well, I don't know why this happened." "I mean, I know how, but..." "I don't know why." "Come." "Let me take a look." "Ahh." "I'm starting to get an idea." "Folks have always been curious about that exact moment of death." "As if the difference between one side of that divide and the other could be quantified." "Some believe that you can develop a last image seen off their retinas." "Like a photograph." "Death is usually the last enemy." "Right but not for, uh..." "not for Jesus Christ." "Oh, not for you." "And you're no Jesus Christ." "Are you still working for the man?" "I was." "About that, we have a problem here." "A..." "A problem with me?" "Oh, no." "Not with you, you." "You are perfectly lovely, but you dead, yes, is a problem for me." "Well, no, but you said that you could re-gift the gift, I need the gift." "I need to be alive." "I can't help you with your dead." "You are dead of a different kind." "Fuck." "How am I dead different?" "Laura Moon, you were killed by a god." "I can't interfere with that." "That is a dead without undoing." "Not by my hand, anyway." "Oh, shit." "I have other guests." "Good luck." "I was killed... by a god?" "Which... fucking... god?" "Never saw you look quite so pretty before." "Happy Easter, Easter." "Oh." "And to you." "I could hardly wait to keep our date this lovely Easter morning." "And your heart beat fast as you came through that door." "Um..." "We had a date?" "Standing." " Our Marshmallow Peep show." " Oh." "Candy cream eggs, cellophane grass, bunnies and duckies, we popularized the pagan." "We practically invented brunch." "We built this holiday." "You and me." "We're a couple of swells." "Oh, have you met my sheep?" "Your sheep?" "Which fucking god?" "Me fucking god." "I ran you off the road." "See, here I thought I knocked the gear shift with my shoulder." "All this time, I've been blaming myself." "I guess now I have somebody else to blame, right?" "Ahh!" "That's right, I killed you!" "I killed you fucking dead!" "No!" "You are not a god!" "She said that I was killed by a god." "You are a lot of things, but you are not a god." "Which fucking god?" "I will squeeze them straight out of the sac." "It'll be kind of like shucking peas." "I swear to Jesus." "He's right outside." "Ah..." "You know which god." "Of course I know which god." "I want to hear you fucking say it, so say it." "Wednesday." "Hmm." "Fuck that guy." "Why?" "Why me?" "Why murder me?" "You weren't murdered, you were sacrificed." "Shadow, right?" "So why does Shadow matter?" "He doesn't!" "He's nothing." "He's no-one who just..." "Just happens to be the guy." "When we robbed the casino, did Wednesday fuck up my perfect plan?" "It wasn't a perfect plan." "Didn't account for divine intervention, did you?" "The whole fucking time, the robbery, Shadow going to jail, me dying, act of god?" "Just fucking with us to fuck with us?" "What do you think gods do?" "They do what they've always done:" "they fuck with us." "They fuck with all of us." "Just don't take it personally." "I don't." "He needed your man." "Needed him to be in a place where he had nothing left in the world." "Nothing to lose, 'cause... he already lost everything." "What does Wednesday have to lose?" "They're here." "Is he here?" "Is who here?" "Oh, He with a capital H?" "I've got a gaggle of them inside." "One of them's got a baby dinosaur." "That's not the "he" I was referring to." "The "he" I was referring to was Wednesday." "Oh, he was here, trying to enlist me in some sort of something he was brewing." "What are the ingredients of that brew?" "I dismissed him before hearing him out." "I'm doing peachy." "So why would I help him?" "That's right, a god has to be exotic." "She has to be... a peach." "And Wednesday, well," "I suppose he's a lemon." "You're an old god new again." "That's what we offer." "That's what we represent." "You feel you've been treated unfairly?" "I feel misrepresented in the media." "Put a pillow over that feeling and bear down until it stops kicking." "St. Nick took the same deal you did." "The only reason why you're relevant today is because Easter is a Christian holiday." "Ha." "It's religious Darwinism." "Adapt and survive." "What we have achieved together, you and I, is no small feat." "Now that we're living in an atheist world." "Look at you." "Squawk the squawk." "In your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it, you should be thrilled, overjoyed that anyone believes in anything that doesn't have a screen anymore." "What happens if they all decide that God doesn't exist?" "What if they decide God does exist?" "Whose god?" "They're not all going to choose just one." "Well, it doesn't matter." "Plenty of worship to go around once worship gets redistributed." "We are the distributors." "The platform and the delivery mechanism." "We control the story." "We control the flow." "We are the flow." "What you offer is existential crisis aversion." "Don't look over there, look over here." "Don't listen to that, listen to this." "You provide a product, an innovative distraction and you keep innovating it and you keep providing it." "The beauty of what we do is we only need inspire." "Hmm." "You don't have the juice." "And don't act like your fucking rent boy here is your disciple." "Here's the thing:" "you're old as fuck." "Things are never going back to the way that they were." "The times, they are a changing." "You can't fight progress." "Then why are you here?" "Why do I matter?" "We're here for her." "We're here for my friend." "And you don't matter." "Not really." "Not anymore." "You could have, but..." "People create gods when they wonder why things happen." "Do you know why things happen?" "Because gods make them happen." "You want to know how to make good things happen?" "Be good to your god." "You give a little, you get a little." "The simplicity of that bargain has always been appealing." "That's why you're here and that's precisely why I matter." "You only matter in matters of war." "And there's not going to be a war." "We have the guns." "We have the firepower." "You have the swords and knives and hammers and stone axes." "We fight, we win." "We don't fight, we win." "You die out either way." "You are the passenger pigeons and thylacines." "Nobody cares about you." "It's either going to be a bloodbath, or we'll wait you out and get the whole thing without a fuss." "Don't fight." "I don't have to fight." "I have faith." "I dedicate these deaths to Ostara." "Which deaths?" "Do you have faith, Shadow?" "What are you?" "Do you know me?" "Do you know what I am?" "Do you want to know my name?" "Tell me." "This is what I am called." "I am called Glad-O-War, Grim, Raider, and Third." "I am One-eyed." "I am also called Highest, and True-Guesser." "I am Grimnir, and the Hooded One." "I am All-Father, Gondlir, Wand-bearer." "I have as many names as there are winds." "As many titles as there are ways to die." "My ravens are Huginn and Muninn." "Thought and Memory." "My wolves are Freki and Geri." "My horse is the gallowed." "I am Odin!" "Odin..." "Odin, and you are Ostara of the Dawn." "Show them who you are." "What have you done?" "You wanted a war, Glad-of-War?" "You have one." "Be glad." "It will be the war you die in." "Tell the believers and the non-believers:" "tell them we've taken the spring." "They can have it back when they pray for it." "Do you believe?" "I believe." "What do you believe, Shadow?" "Everything." "I'd like to have a word with my husband." "Excuse me." "Do you know where the bathroom is?" "But you kept me in the dark." "Worshipping, loving, living, dying." "Watching, waiting, burning so bright." "You kept me in the dark."