The Labyrinth Index (Laundry Files, #9)

by Charles Stross

The presidency was originally modeled on the eighteenth-century British king-emperor’s powers, which can in turn be traced back to the Roman imperial cult—the genius of the emperor, in the original meaning of the word ‘genius,’ referred to his power as a begetter and supervisory spirit, a godlike being. So we’re talking about someone who is revered as an emperor by over three hundred million people…” He trailed off, lost in thought. “It’s not news to me that the President of the United States is important.” I nudged him. “But why make everybody forget him?” “Because it creates a god-sized occult power vacuum. They’re building a machine to awaken—to call—his replacement, and it’s a lot easier to install a new deity if the old one has gone missing.” “This is that Sleeper business again, isn’t it? Schiller’s patron?” Dr. Armstrong sighed, so deeply that it almost came out as a groan. “I wish it were! There are many sleeping gods. The one the Nazgûl are trying to immanentize is … well, it’s another class-six entity, like the PM. Or rather, like the puppeteer pulling the strings behind the PM’s face—the one who hasn’t fully arrived yet, but is busy building His nest and incubating His eggs. It’s. Whatever—gender is meaningless in this case. We

This is a mid-book discussion. I don't think Stross has gone here before, with belief translating into occult power; this is more the territory of "American Gods" and other fantasy work. (Sorry for the bad editing.)