* Author : Louis Evans * Narrator : C. L. Clark * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh * Discuss on Forums Previously published by GigaNotoSaurus Content warning for torture/bodily harm Rated R Miss Bulletproof Comes Out of Retirement by Louis Evans Miss Bulletproof comes home and there’s a god sitting at her kitchen table talking to her kids. “Did you like my presents, children?” says the god. “It was I who got you those gifts, those funny little things, including that long and slithery one, which you both found so amusing.” The children had not found the Malayan pit viper to be amusing; they had found it to be terrifying, and shrieked so loudly in the middle of the night that they had almost awakened Miss Bulletproof’s wife, which, well, that would be bad. And the kids — quite reasonably — had kept on screaming until Miss Bulletproof came sleepily into the room, allowed the pit viper to shatter its fangs on her palm, and then crushed its skull with her trademark efficiency, which she has come these days to regard as maternal rather than professional. Miss Bulletproof sees the god at her kitchen table talking to her kids and she sees red, in that order. In those days when Miss Bulletproof worked for gods and did their bidding, she would have gotten up in that smug m**********r’s face and given him a piece of her f*****g mind, not sparing the obscenities. But now Miss Bulletproof is a mama, and her two beautiful kids are in the room, looking at her with trust and terror in that classic high-proof childhood cocktail of feeling, and she knows she has to set a good example. So she gets right up in the god’s face, between it and her children, and she says, “Listen, you piece of shit, don’t you ever come into my house like that or I’ll break your f*****g fingers off one by one.” Good examples are important. Kids gotta learn that even gods don’t pull shit at Miss Bulletproof’s table. “Blessings upon your home,” says the god, and its skinny face breaks out into a shit-eating grin. Gods are like that. “Kids,” says Miss Bulletproof, “get back to your room.” Rosalie goes back to the room, quick and quiet like Miss Bulletproof taught her. She’s a smart girl. Alice leaves, but Miss Bulletproof sees her peeking her head around the kitchen door. She’s a smart girl too, but in a different way. Miss Bulletproof worries about Alice. “What a lovely abode,” says the god. Its name is Once Cut Twice Sorry; Miss Bulletproof did odd jobs for it once or twice. All gods are bastards and this one is no exception. “And where is your charming wife?” it asks. “She’s taking a nap.” “Ah,” says the god. It frowns. Gods don’t admit it when they’re scared but they do get scared, oh yes. “Perhaps we’d better talk quietly.” “Perhaps you’d better f*****g go.” “Be reasonable, Miss Bulletproof. You don’t want me to keep blessing your house.” Once Cut Twice Sorry is a god of lessons learned the hard way: of the child’s hand on the stove, the sharp knife in the bottom of the drawer. The Lego brick half-buried in the rug. Miss Bulletproof has eaten pint-sized deities like Once Cut for breakfast ever since she was a little girl. But she is a mama now with a mama’s perspective, and she can see that Once Cut could make things difficult for her daughters and their mothers. “What do you want?”