The Road Not Taken I

He stood atop an adjacent building, looking over the apartment with cautious apathy in his eyes. Although reluctant to use his Plan E, there was no doubt in his mind that it would be the most simple solution in his repertoire.

Sure, It would set off a catastrophic consequence across the lower forty-eight, but that was why he had Anthony on the seat of the congress, gaining access to the third highest seat in the legislative branch of the United States government.

Anthony's position would allow him to mitigate any incoming disaster as a result of Plan E, as well as get a sneak peek into the inner workings of the global superpower.

That, however, wasn't a priority in his mind. What he was thinking about was how many Artificial External Soul Bombs could he use successively without destroying a fifth of Los Angeles City.

One was enough to destroy an atrium in Dagon's Island, but would that suffice to kill all the pagan gods that resided within? That was certainly a hypothetical query that would soon be answered within a few minutes.

He took out his smartphone and dialed in a number. The other side picked up almost immediately and, from his vantage point up high, he could see which of the federal agents below answered the call.

"Uh, hello?" The blonde woman answered with hesitation in her voice. "Are you the–"

"Quarter of a million for a simple job." Irwin cut her off. "Are you in or out? Deals off when I cut this call."

Irwin felt bad at first, seeing as there was a chance that he would be ruining a single mother's only source of income and possibly land her in serious jail time. After all, she was only doing this to put food on her three kids' table.

That pity disappeared, however, when Archibald had told him that this agent was infamous for morally dubious, borderline-legal side jobs such as this. He figured $250,000 was enough of an incentive to lose a cushy federal job.

"I, uh, I don't usually do jobs I'm involved in, but… I'm in." Her voice took a steelier tone. " What do you need me to do?"

"Corner of 115th. Parking lot of the drugstore is a blue midsize sedan. Keys are under the wheel of the driver's side door. There's a duffle bag inside of the trunk and a keycard atop it. Pick it up and enter the apartment's elevator. Are you with me so far?"

"Yes."

"Good. Once inside, place the duffel bag at the center of the elevator. Swipe the keycard at the center of the elevator buttons, which will produce the button for the Basement. Press it and leave the elevator before it goes down. Do not, under any circumstances, ride the elevator. Are we clear?"

She hesitated for a moment, head swiveling around as her other hand tapped her thighs. "Uh, yeah. Pretty simple. I can get inside after the shift change… in about half an hour. How about the payment–"

"It'll be in the same car after the completion of the job." Irwin hung up the call as he scanned the blonde agent.

The next step of the plan was to make sure that the Sassuratu died without bringing about the resurrection of Nintur. He checked with Sam about who she was and, frankly, there was no chance in hell that he would win a fight with her.

Woden was a tough fight, but he was merely a fraction of what the true Odin could accomplish. He still wasn't sure what made him become another separate entity from Odin–He guessed that it had something to do with how the worship and lore behind Woden had become different from Odin.

The Lady of the Sacred Mountain had created seven different deities to revive her with full power; Normally, that alone would be sufficient to acknowledge her danger, but her power would be second next to her connections. The Anunnaki would be incredibly difficult to deal with as its loose collection of mythical figures was numerous, even if half of them were not real in this world.

Her so-called children would rally behind her and so would half of the Mesopotamian pantheon, that much Irwin could gurantee. Her mythos was filled with namedrops which could terrify any other hunters from going in alone to stop her, yet that was why Irwin was confident to enter the apartment once more.

Sure, her namedrops were absolutely massive. Enki, Anu, and was even mentioned to be related to Ninurta, who, according to Sam, was a pretty big deal in that pantheon. That's where he got the confidence from because Sam also uncovered that a certain deity was in charge of their religion's underworld and Irwin had an in from her.

"I said, Sir!" Irwin's gloating thoughts were severed by a police officer barring him from entering the premises. Sheets upon sheets of yellow police tape covered the entrance and most of the inner offices of the ground floor; instinct told Irwin that there would be far more patrol cops inside and up of the building.

"Sorry, long ride over." He shook his head and took out a Department of Homeland Security badge. "Seward, Abraham. DHS, Washington Field Office."

Both cops saluted him before the original one asked, "Uh, crime scene's closed for the night, sir. You can go to the precinct–"

"That's alright. Already did. The Night-shift sergeant gave me a go-ahead." He said convincingly, having been taught by Gordon how to professionally bluff 'beat cops'."I'm just gonna have a once-over before I go to bed. Habit of mine. Is that alright?"

He gave them a steely look, with the original cop nodding his head hesitantly. "Good. By the way, if you see a blonde federal agent by the name of Hawley… tell her to contact me at the moment's notice."

"Will do, sir." The other cop began informing his superiors about Irwin's entrance.

As Irwin walked away, he could hear the two being suspicious about his use of the word "federal agent". Correct it maybe in application, he knew that he screwed up by being too formal about it.

A federal agent like himself, who was tired and walking into a crime scene late into the night, would have mentioned Hawley's position informally or, better yet, would have just mentioned her as "Special Agent Hawley".

'Either I'm feeling nervous or this is Danger Sense telling me that my cover's blown. You know what…' He took out his smartphone and texted Gordon to proceed to the second step of the plan. 'Man, I'm having a field day with these plans. Is this my calling? Like some sort of tactical–Oh, we're here.'

He pressed the elevator button, and it opened up to him. He was surprised that it was still working, given that there was a fire, explosion, and earthquake that had occurred within the last forty-eight hours.

"It's a good thing they spared no expense in security." He muttered under his breath as he took out a bypass card, which he scanned on the center of the keypad and gave him access to the button for the Basement. 

Due to Suzianna giving them a run-down of the security within the building, Ash had been able to create a onetime-use makeshift passkey based on Suzianna's own card. To be honest, he didn't know how taking a picture of Suzianna's keycard could allow Ash to recreate the item, but he thought it best to stick with his learned subject.

The elevator dinged and opened its doors, revealing Ninsar and Mamu's back to Irwin. The two were talking animatedly to someone, but halted their conversation once he stepped inside of the chambers.

"How are you here?" Ninsar growled, wiping away a dash of blood off her face.

"Easy enough to answer, sister." Mamu chuckled, "Our sister's betrayal ran deeper than we have ever thought. Our ignorance had led our sister to give away the ritual site"

"Or, more plausible answer, you're just stupid skanks." Irwin shrugged his shoulders with a helpless smile on his face. "How about it? Ignorant sluts or stupid skanks?"

"Insults work best if you have a dagger to play, young man." A deep voice Irwin had not heard before reverberated across the room as a tall man walked out of the shadows. Alongside him was a woman taller than him. They were clearly a couple and from the ceremonial dresses across their body and the crowns on their heads, Irwin guessed that they were mystified monarchs that had gained divine powers after their death.

Behind them, a gangly, hunchbacked man crawled desperately near the regal man; although bearing the physicality and personality of a weaker creature, Irwin knew that wily tricksters liked to pretend that they were weak. He deemed the man dangerous, more so when the regal man petted the hunchbacked man's head as if he was a pet.

Irwin smirked, not at all nervous. A lie, he told himself, because he was a little nervous. Still, he spread his hands and welcomed them.

"Let me guess… you're here for the birthday party!"