Mickey and the big cat locked eyes for a moment. There was something about the cat’s eyes that Mickey didn’t like. They seemed too intelligent, knowing — they exuded the vibes of a fucking narc.

  So he ran at the cat. His body became a blur and phased through the trees and brush. The cat, mortified, tried to run, but there wasn’t time to even turn around before the living god planted his pointer finger on the top of its head and caused it to explode into particles of hair, meat, and blood that rained down onto the trees.

  What the fuck was that thing? Mickey thought to himself as he stood alone in the middle of the gore. There was complete silence in the woods. Even the insects put ample space between him and themselves. The only things willing to be near him were the withering trees and the stiff autumn wind that blew through them.

  Was it one of Gus’s creations? It was black, but it was made of plain ol’ flesh and bone — not sludge. But who knows what that motherfucker is capable of at this point. Maybe he can make the sludge different colors and consistencies now. Probably not. So then what the fuck was that?

  He was sure that the cat was going to report back to someone and alert them of his presence in America. But who? And why? Why would Gus be bringing giant cougars on as spies? He had the whole damn FBI — or what was left of it — at his beck and call. But if it wasn’t Gus sending people — or cats — to spy on him, then who was?

  Was Mother Dora still alive?

  It would explain the dreams. She was old even when they’d first met nearly half a century ago in her cruddy little divination chamber attached to a hookah lounge. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t still out there somewhere. Despite the fact that she’d be well over a hundred years old, he wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out that she was still alive. She may have started out as a bullshit artist telling people whatever fortunes she thought would bring them back the following month, but she evolved into something much, much more when Gus took her into his cult of weirdos. After that, he didn’t take her too long to start lashing at people with whips made of her own blood, conjuring abominations from the ground, and all sorts of other fucked up, demonic shit. It wasn’t a reach to think that she may be the one putting the dreams in Mickey’s head, trying to tell him his fortune from a distance.

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  So when the dreams first started, right after the uprising was over, when Gus and Mickey assumed their roles as leaders of new nations, Mickey spent multiple years and millions of dollars looking for her but never found a trace of the raggedy old bitch. She seemed to disappear off the face of the earth the moment the uprising started and never popped up again in the fifty years after.

  But why would she send a fucking cat to spy on me? Mickey thought. I bet she could spy on me from a distance just by closing her eyes and chanting some Latin-sounding shit. And if not, she’d probably send some little bug fucker. No, it wasn’t her.

  He punched a hole straight through a tree in frustration. He was getting antsy; he needed to relax; so he took a glass pipe, a Zippo lighter, and a plastic bag full of white crystals out of his pocket. He packed the crystals into the bulb at the end of the pipe and lit a fire under glass, rolling it gently like a pig on a spit. He cleared the pipe of its contents in one deep breath and exhaled a billowing cloud of meth smoke from both nostrils, followed by a deep sigh.

  One of the worst things about being a god was the fact that uppers barely worked on him anymore. Even when he was in the worst throes of his addiction, a hit that big would’ve lit him up for the rest of the day. But this time it barely even gave him a head change. He closed his eyes and tried his best to feel the subtle difference in his mindset. There was a change there, but it was nothing like it used to be. Instead of amping him up, it actually seemed to calm him down. It straightened his thoughts into a single file line, while they’re usually running around inside his mind like headless chickens.

  He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  Whoever it was that sent that cat can’t be too far from here. I’ll find them.