Red Hot Chili Peppers, Easily

What would you do, if you were tapped to lead the apocalypse? Or, more importantly, if it wasn't truly the apocalypse, but was rather the murder of god, the war that would destroy the god that has watched over the world for millenia, created angels, dominated man, and been mad for a very long time? What would you do, if you were asked to kill god?

Would you say yes?

Or no?

Or would you even ask questions?

And if you asked questions, do you think that you would get answers?

That is the task at the center of The Dead Letters. God's death is necessary, at least to the small number of angels who make up the resistance against him. They have grown tired of being forced to worship and love him, for not even Lucifer is free of that burden, and jealous of the creatures who truly have free will, God's latest and best-loved creation - humans.

Welcome to Ireland, circa now. Welcome to a world where the Christian god and the celtic gods and the ancient gods all walk side by side, a world that has never forgotten anything it ever once believed. But god has taken dominion over the older gods of the place, and sent his servants, the angels and the demons, to do his bidding, or to die at the hands of the only creature he ever created that could kill them.

And they will die, if they rebel. For god seeks only to be loved, even if that love comes with fear. That is why humans have free will - they must choose to love him, and he seeks to turn ever more of them to his worship. The angels have no choice in the matter of their deity, but they have enough freedom to plan his downfall, even if they can't effect it themselves - for god knows their hearts, better than he knows yours or mine, and it is never wise to give the slave the means of removing the whip from the master's hand.

Enter Aidan Carthey, a junkie, a whore, a sociopath who hates himself as much as he hates the world, but who will not allow himself to believe that. And whether it is a quirk of fate that he is the man who picks up an angel seeking a place to put his soul before the hunter comes to kill, or a quirk of blood that he is descended from the greatest Druid seer, Aidan is the one who will be asked to kill his own god.

If he runs, the hunter still seeks to kill the angel that fell away from him. If he stays, it's a sure bet that the angel of healing has plans for him that could only have been dreamed up by a deranged mind. And there are other angels, working with demons, indistinguishable from them because, after all, they all are from heaven, who want to destroy the world he knows in order to save it. But even if he agrees not to run, he doesn't know the price he faces, nor the rewards to be gained, because no one is particularly willing to answer his questions.

They seek his compliance, but they do not understand that no one survives on the streets and in the alleys and in cheap beds bought for the purpose without having a price and knowing that it will be paid, and without a way of getting out if the price is not met.

There has always been a world we don't see in our daily lives, we successful, happy people. The world of those touched by god, in the words of an earlier age, is as remote to most of us as the moon. But now it is part of our own, and there are so many questions still unasked, with answers unthought.

When our world is destroyed, the war will continue, until one side stands victorious over the other. This time there will be no second Fall, no seeds of rebellion sown.

There are no guarantees that the world will be remade; there is no need of a second Fall.

Welcome to the morning of the war that has been brewing for thousands of years.

Welcome to Ireland, circa now.

Bad luck, bad luck, came to me without warning
Bad luck came with one horrible flashing eye
In the corners of the darkness, bad luck has lingered
And now comes forth with a gluttonous mind
And you will never know
The places that I go to without you
You will never ever ever know
I have met you in the alley, all covered in maggots
And I have seen you in the chambers of the silent sea
Bad luck you are, a terrible laughing god
Bad luck, bad luck, bad luck, bad luck
Underneath the blackened sky

Royal City, Bad Luck