Penemue's Inferno

by Ramy Vance

  And it’s not just what she wore that day that he remembers. He remembers what everyone was wearing: he, his blue V-neck sweater and new red running shoes. His father had on the same sweater, only bigger, and a red tie with a knot so big it almost filled the whole V part.

  Dinner was roast beef and mash. Dessert was apple pie with vanilla ice cream and a bowl of cut-up strawberries.

  He remembers thinking that if he cleaned his room and asked just right, he might get a second dessert—apple pie with vanilla ice cream and blueberries … his favorite.

  Then he remembers the sky turning a strange shade of red, like it did that morning he went fishing with his dad so super early that it was still dark when they got in the car. They drove out of the city, out of Paradise Lot, pulling over on a hill so they could watch the sun rise. Little Newton thought the world was on fire that morning, and the day the gods left, he thought it might be again.

  A strange voice rang in his head, both inside and out. It said, “Thank you for believing in us, but it’s not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck.”

  Little Newton wasn’t sure what that meant. He’d have to ask Mom about it. And just when he was about to run upstairs to see if she heard the voice, too, the apartment building blew up like it did on those Knight Rider re-runs his dad liked so much.

  Except with this explosion, no talking car rolled in to save the day. There was just dust and fire and heat and … and … Where did his mom go? He couldn’t see her at the window. He couldn’t see the window at all.

  It took little Newton a few seconds to realize that the window was gone. That the apartment building was gone.

  He started to cry.

  For his mom. His dad. Anyone.

  But none of them came to help him. Running into the rubble, he went to look for them. The place was covered in clouds of dust and dirt, but eventually little Newton found his mom. She lay on the ground, blood all over her. He shook her.

  Once.

  Twice.

  And when he started screaming at her to wake up, desperate for her to wake, that was when his little mind stopped recording.

  As a young man, the last thing he remembers of that day is finding his mother dead. Then he remembers waking up under the oak tree, a fireman examining him. He always assumed he passed out and the rescue worker took him there.

  What he doesn’t remember is what really happened.

  That, as a child, he sat dumbfounded by his mother, who wouldn’t wake up. She wouldn’t wake up and all he could think about was the little bird he found one autumn morning. The poor little thing had a broken wing and Mr. Miller’s nasty cat tried to take advantage of its flightless, frightened state and eat it.

  Little Newton had saved the bird from the cat’s claws, but the bird still died.

  Just like the day the gods left. He hadn’t gotten to his mom fast enough and then she was gone, too.

  He started to cry. Gentle, reserved sobs flowed out of him as he held her hand.

  He was alone for a little while, until a strange, huge man with blond hair and dirt-covered wings appeared from around the corner. The man carried little Newton’s dad and placed him next to his mom. He muttered something in a language little Newton didn’t understand.

  The huge man was crying and his face was covered in something that made it glow.

  Reaching out his hand, the huge man offered little Newton comfort. Young and afraid and grateful that someone was there to take care of him, little Newton ran into the huge man’s arms, cuddling against his massive chest.

  Once the huge man had him in his arms, he carried to him to the old oak tree. There, the huge man joined him in his tears, cradling him as he repeated over and over again, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Little Newton didn’t know why the man was sorry. Not that he cared. Right then, he embraced the small amount of solace the stranger had to offer.

  And as is true of all little kids who have been overcome by more than they can comprehend, eventually little Newton fell asleep. When he woke, a fireman was listening to his heart with one of those flat, cold thingies.

  The strange, huge man with dirt-covered wings was gone.

  EightBall and Bats, Darkness and Hell

  That was what happened on the day his parents died.

  Not that EightBall remembered ... until now, that is, standing on the front lawn of the Millennium Hotel with his nail-filled baseball bat, looking for revenge for something he doesn’t fully comprehend.

  It’s a strange scene before him. First the blackness, then the unrelenting sound of machine-gun fire, followed by light and … Penemue and Jean standing in some open slit in the sky. It’s like they’ve literally torn the air apart to step from one reality into another. They stand with a woman whom EightBall recognizes from the pictures in Judith’s room. Her daughter, was it? Bella.

  Not that EightBall really cares who she is; he’s more interested in what’s behind them. He recognizes the dining table, the chairs, the pictures on the light-purple walls. This is a scene from his childhood living room, his parents frozen in what he knows to be their last dinner together. It is an image that permanently resides in his mind: the last moment they were together. The last moment they were alive.

  The last moment he felt whole.

  “Mom?” EightBall says again. Forgetting the chaos around him, he stands up and approaches the portal. As he does, he sees his father and then himself as a young boy. None of them move; they sit perfectly still, like wax statues.

  It is then he realizes that the people behind the twice-fallen angel and hotelier aren’t people at all, but something else entirely.

  “What the hell is going on here?” EightBall cries out.

  “Hell is exactly what’s going on,” Jean says. “Seems our mutual friend here has made his own personal hell. The grand prize, reliving the day your parents died, kid. A moment he blames himself for. A moment that has become his personal hell.”

  Jean gestures behind him, wearing a maniacal smile that belongs on a tortured game show host. “Welcome to your life, EightBall. Penemue has recreated this day so that he can experience it over and over again. On repeat, forever.” Then Jean’s face loses all expression as his shoulders sag. EightBall has seen this expression before, when Jean has been bone-tired, taxed to the point of both physical and mental breakdown.

  Bella touches his shoulder and, as if she’s given him strength, Jean stands up straight before saying with a voice full of mockery and sarcasm, “Think of it as a malevolent scene painted by Norman Rockwell’s evil twin. Then animate it and make it real painful.”

  EightBall, ignoring Jean’s attempt at levity, points his bat at Penemue. “Is that what you’re doing? Reliving my worst moment … to do what? Make yourself feel better?”

  “To punish myself,” the angel says.

  “Like anything can make up for what you did,” EightBall growls. “There’s only one kind of punishment and it isn’t that. Reliving that moment over and over again will not redeem you, because the only reason you’re putting yourself through it”—he points with his bat again—“is because you’re a selfish asshole who thinks that somehow the pain makes up for what happened. For what you did.” EightBall’s voice is filled with vicious mockery.

  But despite all his anger, EightBall’s words are controlled. Calculated.

  Then, feeling his bat, he says, “There is only one kind of justice in this world. And it’s not the voyeuristic crap you’re pulling in there …” EightBall voice trails off as he refocuses behind the angel. Something in the back of EightBall’s mind tumbles to the forefront. An old, locked-away memory finds its way to his consciousness—the day his parents died … the explosion … finding his mother … passing out only to wake up by the oak tree.

  All of this and more replays in his head.

  It is the more he finds overwhelming, for EightBall remembers more now. He remembers that he didn’t pass out, but instead a huge man found him and took care of him un
til he fell asleep. And that huge man? “It was you who found me that day. You were the one who carried me out of the building. Who placed me under the oak tree. It was you.”

  Penemue nods. He points at the bat. “Is that what you wish for me?”

  EightBall doesn’t say anything, only looking at the bat’s pierced wood. Nine-inch nails … how fitting that this type of nail should end an angel of God.

  The twice-fallen sighs, understanding his fate. “You know, I have watched over you since that day. I know you don’t remember this, but do you remember that fight you had with the asag? That grotesque demon chased you and your gang of HuMans away, but not before getting your scent. He sought to hunt you down, end the Paradise Lot chapter of the HuMans that night. I intervened because—”

  “If you’re trying to get my sympathy, you can shove all the ‘guardian angel’ crap up your celestial ass,” EightBall whispers with scorn.

  “I intervened because I could not allow any harm to fall upon you …” EightBall begins to protest again, but Penemue lifts a hand, begging for patience. The boy complies, but only because he is so confused by the scene before them. Seeing his parents, his old home … it’s all so disorientating.

  The twice-fallen takes a deep breath to continue. “I intervened because it was not the asag’s right to end you before you had a chance at revenge. You had—have—a right to my life and until that right is claimed, no harm could befall you. I made sure of it. Besides, if he had killed you, then he would have inherited the claim, and being ‘owned’ by an asag is positively dire. Especially if you are a mountain.” The angel chuckles at a joke only he gets.

  No one else does.

  “Because asag demons like to fornicate with rocks and …” Penemue waves a dismissive hand. “Never mind—I digress. So if that is how you wish to use your claim, then so be it.”

  At first, the boy says nothing.

  The angel takes a step toward the portal, planning to step into the garden. “Come,” he says to Jean and Bella, “we must leave here before this hell implodes into a very literal nothing.”

  “And what?” Jean says. “Go out there and let him bash your brains out? I will not let that—”

  “You will not intervene,” Penemue yells. As he does, Hell trembles. The angel softens his voice. “You will not, Jean. I will submit to the boy. I will let him destroy my body with the miserable instrument of destruction he wields. I will do so because there is no other path to peace for him.”

  “That is no path to peace,” Bella says.

  “Then closure.” The angel touches the once dead human on the cheek. “Now come, before this place consumes us.”

  There are more terrifying sounds of the reality being stripped away as they take a step forward. Another two feet and they will be outside. Another step or two and—

  But before they can do so, a terrible, thunderous sound precedes a dark elf with a scythe leaping from the forest and onto the lawn. She extends her hand toward the portal and whispers one word. “Back.”

  And that word sends forth a gale wind so powerful it knocks the angel and his two companions back into the portal, sewing up the rip in reality and returning the night sky to what it had been before.

  Demons of the Past Hurt, But Monsters in the Present Kill

  Marc watches the portal close, trapping Jean, Penemue and Bella in Hell, and he feels something that he knows is not his right to feel: anger at losing Bella. He loves her, will always love her. Now and forever, in this life and the next.

  He hits his forehead so hard with the flat of his own palm that he falls backward and away from the chain gun. “No, no, no,” he mutters to himself. “Bella is dead, but even if she wasn’t, she is Jean’s wife, not mine. Not mine. Not mine!” The last words come out as a roar as he wrestles with memories that are not his own.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” EightBall says, confused and not understanding that the suffering man in the body of the helicopter is not Jean.

  Two Jeans … one in Hell and one here.

  Not sure what to do, EightBall approaches the helicopter, but before he can get close, one of the fae women manifests behind him and, holding him close to her body, sets a blade at his throat.

  Up close, Marc sees that she has aged, no longer the youthful beauty he first saw in the garden. She has burned time. Lots of time.

  “Jean,” she cries out, holding the boy close to her, “I have come to make you suffer for what you’ve done to my husband.” She looks over at the hotel. “And my sisters. My world.”

  Marc barely hears her; his mind is consumed with the vision that just appeared before him.

  Bella … alive?

  His heart yearns for her, wants to know how it is that she still exists. Searching Jean’s memories, he knows that she lives alone in Heaven. But she wasn’t in Heaven just then. She was with Jean, standing by his side in some sort of magical portal and—

  “Human,” Hecate cries out, “are you listening? I am here to take everything from you. I am here to—”

  But Marc turns around, giving the elven warrior his back as his mind travels elsewhere.

  Bella was with Jean. But Bella is his. His wife? His love? His—

  No, those are Jean’s memories, Jean’s experiences. Marc is not Jean. He is someone else. Someone new.

  Someone better.

  As Marc’s sense of self slowly returns to him, he feels a thud against his back. Looking behind him, he sees a rock that Hecate has thrown at him like some petulant child desperate for attention.

  “Jean!” She screams his name so loudly that the moon itself hears her. “Jean, I will have my revenge. I will end you, but not before I take everything from you, just like you did me. Just like you did when you killed the Erlking.”

  “Erlking?” He’s so distracted, the name means nothing to him.

  A fact that does not escape Hecate. “You do not remember ending the life of one such as he? You do not—”

  “Oh yes,” Marc says as he searches Jean’s memories. “The guy whose sword I—Jean took.”

  “The Erlking’s hunting sword. A weapon whose blade is so sharp it can draw the blood of a god. I will have that returned after.” She presses her blade closer to EightBall’s neck.

  “Please don’t,” EightBall whimpers.

  “This boy, he means something to you,” Hecate said. “I have seen the two of you interact over the months that my sisters and I stalked your—”

  “Kill the kid,” Marc says, his senses finally returning. “What do I care?” And as the words escape his lips, he knows that he doesn’t care. He wishes to be alone to meditate on himself. What he really desires is to purge himself of his desire for Bella, and to do so will take time. Time to build his own memories. His own thoughts.

  Time to build who he is to become.

  “What?” Hecate and EightBall say together.

  Marc stands, shaking his body as if trying to physically shake loose the memory of Bella. Not his memories—not his wife. He is Marc, not Jean. They are different. He is different, and in order to be different he must accept that he has no one.

  “Kill the kid,” Marc repeats. Jean would save the kid, or at least try. But Marc wants to be different. Needs to be different, and to be so means turning his back on everything that Jean would do.

  Is this the best way? Marc ponders before slamming the door on his own self-doubt. That is something Jean would do. Ponder, wonder, invite angst while agonizing over every decision he makes. Marc will not do that. Ever.

  “Best way or not,” he mutters to himself, “this is my choice.”

  Hecate turns her head slightly as she tries to capture Marc’s words. But the human speaks too softly and she cannot hear what is said. “Excuse me?” she says.

  Marc flashes her a wicked smile of indifference. “Nothing. Those were just the last vestiges of the part of me that is no more.” Hopping down from the helicopter’s bowels, he heads to the hotel. “Do as you wish with the kid
—he’s none of my concern.” Then remembering everything that passed between EightBall and Penemue, says, “He’s no one’s concern now. Isn’t that right, kid? You shunned the only angel who ever loved you and you’re planning to kill him, right? After that, who will you have? No one.” Marc looks at Hecate. “In fact, I take that back. Don’t do what you like … Kill the kid. After he does what he’s planning to do, his life will be over, anyway.”

  Hecate presses the blade so hard against EightBall’s throat that a thread of blood trails down to his shirt collar.

  “No, please,” EightBall pleads.

  “Come on, kid,” Marc says. “Let go. After you kill the angel, you’re done. Jean won’t have you. Judith won’t, either. Your ex-gang members already hate you. You’ll be penniless, friendless, homeless. She’s doing you a favor. Kill him.”

  “No!” EightBall repeats. “I don’t want to die.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because …” EightBall pauses, searching his heart for an answer. But only one answer comes to him. One reason to live. “Because the angel still lives,” he says, his voice dripping with hate.

  “So revenge, huh?” Marc meets Hecate’s eyes. “Sound familiar?” Marc shrugs. “Do as you wish. But if you kill him, then you’ll be denying him what you so desire.” He gives them his back, heading inside, but not before he unceremoniously steps over Hecate’s dead sister.

  “No,” Hecate growls, knowing that she cannot deny this child what her heart yearns for more than life itself. “No, no. NO!”

  Hecate lets EightBall go, charging at Marc. She is an experienced warrior, but nothing in her long, long past prepared her for someone as indifferent as this man.

  Lunging forward with her dagger, she knows that she has lost. She has let her rage consume her, and thus she has left herself vulnerable. She will perish at the hands of this man. Just like her husband.

  And Marc does not disappoint. With a simple pivot, Marc hits the inside of her elbow with one hand as he guides the tip of her blade with the other. It is a seamless insertion, an artist’s exactness sending the metal right into her heart.