by R. E. Vance
Holy shit! I tried to scream, throwing up my hand in victory. I was right! I mouthed as Grinner walked in. What can I say? Celebrate every victory you can … Trust me, they are few and far between.
Even in this silent room I could smell him.
“Answers,” he said, his voice somehow penetrating his spell, “so many answers, but never the right questions.” As he walked past me, he sniffed before grabbing my arm and spinning me round and round. I felt sympathy for my clothes in the tumble dryer, and swore at that moment to always hang them up.
Spin, spin, spin—I saw the others floating around. Some of them had managed to latch on to one another, only making them larger objects in motion. Round, round and around—I saw Grinner go to my desk and look through my papers. He stopped at the form that Joseph had written his name on.
“Joseph,” he said to no one in particular. “Of all the names the Universe has bestowed upon you, Joseph is by far the most human.” He paused and cocked his head. “The stench of mortality has finally taken you. Perhaps Joseph is a fitting name to have been your last.”
Round and around—and I saw Judith about three yards away, rolling her eyes vertically in opposition to my horizontal spin.
Round and around—Grinner opened the top drawer, a look of delight spreading his grin even wider as he saw the box. “How simple the mortal mind is. What is plain is discarded as worthless? And to think the gods chose you as their pets.”
Round, round—Judith was no longer across the room, but right next to me. I don’t know if she was trying to help, or just wanted to get me killed, but either way, she pushed me in the direction of Grinner with a force that must have been backed by a bit of poltergeist fury. I was flying right toward him and did the only thing I could do—I stuck out my leg. The result was a roundhouse kick that would have had Bruce Lee eating his heart out. I connected with Grinner’s friggin’ smile, knocking him on his ass. Hard.
He dropped the box.
Wait a minute, he dropped the box! As if my realization had made it happen, we all came crashing down to the ground at the same time.
I grabbed the plain-looking thing and tossed it to Sandy with a “Catch!” She caught it in the air with her mouth and ran off on all fours like a Labrador at the park.
She leaped outside, and I had just enough time to see her hand the box to Penemue—he must have flown down from the hole formerly known as Joseph’s room—and him unfurl his wings before ten tons of invisible earth took me to the ground.
Well, at least the world had stopped spinning. Thank the GoneGods for small miracles.
↔
It happened so fast. Penemue couldn’t have been more than a few feet off the ground before Grinner trotted past me and pointed to the sky. Penemue fell hard, his wings outstretched but weighed to the ground, and Grinner picked up the box where it had fallen. I tried to push against the invisible force that held me down, but I only managed to move my head around and survey the room. Every one of us was lying flat, even Judith, like we were under a blanket made of lead.
I looked over at Grinner’s face and could see age lines starting to form around his lips. He was burning through time, and if I pushed him a bit more, I might send him into a rage, let him burn himself out. Of course, I ran the risk that he’d burn himself out by lifting a mountain and dropping it on our heads.
“You!” I screamed out. “Yeah, you! Cheshire cat!”
Grinner looked down at me and, with a light skip, came over. He held the box in front of my face and said, “Cat? I am no cat … but the beasts please me. They shall be welcome in my new kingdom.”
“Ahh, screw you! New kingdom, my ass … You’re just a two-bit, worthless Other that the gods decided to leave behind. Maybe if you were worthy, they would have taken you with them.”
He pushed down his index finger like one would flick ash off a cigarette, and the force that held me down doubled.
I couldn’t breathe, feeling the strain as my innards flattened out and vied for space in my torso. I pushed against the massive, invisible weight. Come on, you Fanatic, the clock is ticking. “Is … that … all … you … got?” I grunted as I pushed myself up.
He redoubled the force and I crumpled to my knees. I fought it and could actually see the strain on his face. I was resisting. But then he lifted his hands over his head, the box plummeting straight to the ground and landing, miraculously, in one piece. Grinner gave it no notice; he looked like he was literally pulling down the sky.
I fell flat on my back.
“But an answer I shall give,” he said, grinning. His eyes betrayed surprise at how much of a fight I managed to put up against him. He displayed the same shock a lion might when coming up against a particularly feisty lamb. “For I am here to answer the second question each one of you asked when you finally understood that your gods were really gone. But before I do, there is something I need from you. I need you to dream.”
“Like I said, screw …” I tried to finish the sentence but suddenly I was very tired. Very, very tired.
He was sucking out the oxygen. I tried taking shallow breaths, slowing my heart down, but it was impossible. There wasn’t enough air to keep me awake. I started to fade.
↔
There is this girl whom I love very much. Every time I sleep, she rescues me from the darkness that chases me, and tonight is no different. Except whereas she is usually happy to see me, this time she greets me with a frantic concern.
“Wake up!” she screams. “You have to wake up!”
↔
“Huh?” I said, opening my eyes, fighting the fatigue.
“She waits,” Grinner hissed. “Go to her.”
So tired, I … I …
↔
“Oh, hello, Bella,” I say as my wife comes into view once more. “It’s so good to—”
But Bella does not let me finish.
“Wake up!” she screams again. “Wake up! Wake up!”
↔
“WAKE!” a thunderous voice screamed from outside my hotel, and with it the air returned to normal.
I woke to see Grinner no longer concerned about me, his head turned to the hotel entrance. Whoever was outside must have scared the bejesus out of him because for the first time since I’d met the Fanatic, he wasn’t smiling.
“You? You are gone,” Grinner said, his concentration broken just enough that I was able to stand. It still felt like my collarless black jacket was made of ball bearings.
Standing just beyond the threshold of the reception was a young black man with a military buzz cut. He was maybe in his early twenties and wore jeans and a simple white, button-up short-sleeve shirt. “I am here,” he said.
“To fill the Void,” Grinner said, his tone implying an answer rather than a question.
The young man shook his head. “It is no longer our world to meddle with.”
“No,” Grinner retorted. “That is why they left. To start again and to let us start again.”
“That is not so,” the young man said, his eyes beginning to glow.
I grabbed the box and put it in my pocket. I stood, only for the world to spin around. After being denied oxygen for some time, even the most ineffective bat swings to the head can do some damage. As the world grayed out, I saw the two major-league Others face off in what must have been one of the most epic battles this world has ever seen.
Too bad I didn’t get to see any of it.
Spiteful Angels
“Jean,” Bella says in a hurried voice, “you shouldn’t be here. Not like this.”
I can hear her voice, hear her breathing, but in the enveloping gloom, I can’t see her. Which can mean only one thing—I failed to outrun the darkness. “Why not? This is the end, right?” I say. “My last dream of you before I go.”
“I don’t know.” Her tone is softer now.
“I do.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re here. I always knew that in the end—my end—you’d be here to help me go ove
r to the other side. Not like how I wasn’t there for you.” I can’t finish the thought—how I wasn’t there for her as she bled on a cold, strange concrete floor.
“Oh, hush. You were there. Believe me—it was you I saw before my end,” she says. “And if this is your end, then I am glad to have found you. There is nowhere else I’d rather be.”
I feel the warmth of her as she draws in closer, and I lean into it. I know she is just a dream but I am so happy to be with her.
Silence. But in the black, it is not just silence. It is the absence of sound. And I have never been very good with the absence of sound.
“So, what do we talk about? I mean, how does one spend their last moments alive?”
The darkness is pierced by a chuckle. “I don’t know. Remembering the good times, I suppose.”
“Ahh, the good times? So many to choose from. Do you have anything particular in mind?”
“Yeah,” she says, “I do … but since you’re the one dying, why don’t you go first?”
“OK,” I say, “how about your thighs locked around mine. Like that time on the beach—”
“Jean!” she says, a hand lightly hitting my chest. “It’s always about sex with you. I was thinking of something a little more … sweet.”
“Like what?” It is strange how this feels so much like the old times and—dream or not—I can’t think of a better way to clock out than this. “OK, you go first.”
“You’ll just think it’s silly.”
“Bella,” I say, “I’m dying because a creature with a Cheshire cat smile has literally sucked the air out the room because he wants some plain-looking box an old man gave me. I don’t think there’s anything you could say or do at this point that I’d think was silly.” I am surprised at how calm I am. If I had known dying would be so easy, I would have tried it a long time ago.
“OK,” she says, “… watching TV.”
“I’m about to kick the bucket and the only memory you want to share with me is watching TV? I was expecting something like maybe the first time I told you that I loved you or when I proposed. Is there a particular show you have in mind? Because if it’s Sex and the City I’m outta here.”
“No, silly,” she laughs. “Those were grand moments that punctuated our lives. The special moments. But they’re not what I miss the most. I miss being with you, lying on a couch and doing nothing. I miss being bored next to you. I miss hearing you breathe and feeling the warmth of your body. I miss watching TV.”
“Oh,” I say, noticing a light off in the distance. It looks like the evening’s first star, a pinprick in the blanket of night. I ignore it. “I miss that, too.”
“Look,” she says, pointing at the dot of light, “it looks like this isn’t the end, after all.”
“Are you sure it’s not the light at the end of the tunnel?” I say as the dot grows larger. It gets closer and closer until I am, quite literally, hit by light.
↔
Light getting shot into your brain makes gulping a cold Slurpee feel like a reasonable thing to do.
I barely opened my eyes to see Marty hissing about an inch away from my nose. Then I focused on the rest of her. Medusa was sitting at my side, a hand over my head. Judging by how warm my skull was, she burned a bit of time to save me.
“How long?” I asked, the words catching in my throat.
“You were out for an hour,” she said.
“No, not that. How long did you burn to wake me up?”
Medusa turned away, not answering. I guess it’d gotten around how much I don’t like time spent on me.
“How long?” I repeated, immediately regretting the harshness of my tone.
“About a day,” she said, still not looking at me.
I grunted. Partly because I was still in pain, partly because my hotel was destroyed, but mostly because I hated time being wasted on me. Immortal creatures who no longer have forever should save their time for things that matter. Like living—not helping a stupid hotelier with his headache.
Medusa hunched away, and from the glare Marty gave me I figured I’d hurt her feelings. Great job, Jean, she was just trying to help.
I started to formulate my apology, but couldn’t think of anything to say other than, “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a bit grumpy, given everything that happened. Seriously. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”
She turned to face me, but Marty looked away. I guess my apology wasn’t acceptable to everyone.
“How is everyone else?” I asked, rubbing my head.
Medusa smiled at me, but her snakes continued to scowl. “They’re all fine. As far as we can tell, there was only one fatality—the Unicorn.” She looked down when she mentioned Joseph. “But other than him, everyone is OK. You were hurt the worst.” As she said the last words, she put up her hand to touch my head.
I winced at her touch, but was thankful to have someone looking after me and so I leaned into it a bit too much. Hey, can you blame me? I was in a lot of pain and my world was crumbling and she was being really, really nice to me.
I looked around my hotel. The mess Grinner had made was amplified by the presence of the police, who were bagging and tagging just about everything. Hell, a couple of pixies in Barbie-sized police uniforms were bagging my phone. Talk about thoroughness. It bordered on comical, and I might have started laughing had a gurney not appeared, carting out a body. Joseph’s body. I watched with silent anger as they took him away.
I would get this smiling Fanatic if it was the last thing I did.
“Joseph,” I muttered to myself as they carted his body off. Turning to Medusa I asked, “Was anyone else hurt?”
She batted her eyes at me and said, “So sensitive … Everyone’s OK. Penemue is hiding in his loft, I think because he doesn’t want to bump into his former adversary Michael. The HuMan hoodlums have made themselves scarce and Werewolf Sandy has given her statement and left. Everyone is in good physical health, although they are devastated by what happened to the Unicorn.” Medusa’s own eyes glistened at the mention of Joseph. “You know, I met him once. A long, long time ago …”
“What happened?” I found myself asking, wanting to know more about the Other I had spent less than a day with. I wanted to honor Joseph’s memory, know everything about him.
“Well …” she started when a thunderous voice spoke.
“Miss Gorgon, I’ll take it from here,” the voice boomed from just outside.
Medusa immediately stood to attention. Then, looking down at me, she said, “Ahh, I got to go do police stuff. There are a lot of things to report, and I haven’t seen a mess like this since Atlantis started to sink.” Hurt still glistened in her eyes. “Maybe I can tell you the story about the Unicorn the next time I see you?”
“That would be nice,” I said.
“Then coffee?” she asked. Before I could say anything, she smiled and said, “Great, I’ll call you.” With that she left; I endured another scowl from Marty and she was gone.
Hellelujah—I got a date with a gorgon.
↔
The archangel hunched down to fit through the One Spire Hotel’s front door—not that there was much left of it—and crossed the threshold.
As he entered, police officers of all species saluted him with hands, claws, talons and tails. He crossed the room and, seeing me still on the ground, knelt in front of me. By the GoneGods, he was huge. Like André-the-Giant-crouching-in-front-of-a-newborn-baby kind of huge.
“What happened here?” he demanded.
There was something in the way he asked that made me realize he had no clue. Like I mentioned earlier, angels—arch- or regular—aren’t very tactful. Michael spoke like someone who had just come onto the scene, despite having a good hour or so to investigate and figure things out. I mentally tallied my tenants: Sandy, Judith, CaCa, Astarte and Penemue—what did any of them really know? Joseph had stayed at the hotel and was killed. As for other Others—the ones who lived nearby—they mu
st have just seen some powerful Others destroying the street. So who did that leave? EightBall? To him it would’ve just looked like two Others that got into a fight. Just another reason why Others didn’t belong.
But then again, what did I really know? Some Other that looked like my PopPop showed up with a box right before some wacko iced him? That wasn’t much to go on.
“I don’t really know …” I began. I told him everything I had learned about Joseph, the weird Grinner guy and what I had seen of the fight before I passed out.
Michael took it all in, listening to every word I said with preternatural concentration. When I finished telling him all I knew, he looked at me for a long time—and for a second I feared that he knew I had left out the part about the mysterious box Joseph had given me that Grinner so obviously wanted, and that was currently in my pocket. I mean, Michael didn’t look at me so much as look in me, like he was solving some puzzle that was written on my soul. At least, that’s what it felt like to me to be stared at so intently by the archangel. Judging from the scowl that eventually crept onto his face, I doubt he got the answer he was looking for.
“So … the Unicorn and this—what did you call him?”
“Grinner.”
“Yes, this Grinner—just showed up at your place. Why? What connects you to them?”
I sighed. “Honestly, I have no clue!”
“Liar!” Michael boomed, and the whole room shook. “After centuries of being a hidden legend, the Unicorn chooses to resurface in your hotel of all places and you have no idea why? You are hiding something, human. And I want to know what!”
“Hiding? Liar? You’ve got to be kidding me! Why would I lie? What could I possibly be hiding? I have zero idea why Joseph came to my hotel and even less of an idea why anyone would hurt him. I swear to you. I don’t know.”