by R. E. Vance
It was eight in the evening, which meant I had roughly nine hours until sunrise. “Good,” I said. “I have enough time.”
“For what?”
“To say goodbye.”
Putting Affairs in Order
It took some convincing to get Miral and Michael to give me a few hours to put my affairs in order. What eventually won me my freedom was pointing out that a chief of police and a head of St. Mercy Hospital would have to make a few phone calls before going on the lam. It was, after all, protocol. That was something that neither Michael nor Miral had considered. In Heaven, they acted only when under direct order by You-Know-Who. Here on Earth there were no direct commands, booming voices or divine inspiration—only protocols and rules.
Angels understand rules. They get order. But what they don’t understand is bureaucracy. That is something uniquely human. There were papers to fill out, requests to be made, people to be informed before they could leave. And I, being a human hotel owner, would have similar, albeit less demanding, requirements. They saw the wisdom in that and, in the end, settled on meeting up three hours before dawn. The minimum amount of time necessary to get a head start on Grinner. And just enough time for all three of us to locate and fill out all the necessary paperwork.
↔
I could no longer protect my guests, but I could make things a little bit better, if only by a single degree.
First up—settle my debt with the fairies. At the “Coping with Mortality” seminar, I had asked them for a favor, which they’d agreed to do for the lofty price of seven vials of glitter and two bottles of Elmer’s Glue. Since I had neither on me, I asked Miral if I could raid the children’s ward. Glue they had, but sadly no glitter—so eight clown noses and a rainbow afro wig later, the fairies agreed to my revised payment terms and handed me what they found.
Now on to the next thing … Fun, fun, fun!
↔
Over the arched door of the Palisade hung a crudely drawn picture of a creature with pointy ears and dull fangs. The face had an X over it, and poor, nearly illegible letters read, No Others Allowed.
From the phone booth across the street I called the arcade.
“Whaaat?” answered a vile voice I recognized as the HuMan kid who had hit me with the baseball bat.
OK, Jean, it was now or never. In an uneven, gruff voice I said, “EightBall. Now!”
“Yeah, who the hell is this?” BallSack asked.
“This is the shit-kicker that’s gonna make an example out of you if you don’t get me that shit-ball leader of yours on the phone. Now!” The words flowed awkwardly out of me and I finally understood what it felt like to be Steve from the Billy Goats Gruff. Difference was, I got my tough-guy vernacular from CSI, whereas he got his from old Dick Tracy comics. I vowed that if I survived this, I’d buy him all the seasons of CSI.
My gambit must have worked, because BallSack’s voice faltered before he said, “Ahh … ahh … Ahh’m gettin’ him. Hold on.” From the receiver I could hear some scrambling before another voice came on.
“Ah, hello?”
In my best sultry accent I said, “Hi there, lover …” I sprinkled in a bit of Parisian for good measure.
“Who is this?”
“Oh, come on … you know who this is. I’m that Other who makes dreams come true.”
“Why, you little—”
“Hold on, lover. You can act tough for them. And maybe you can act tough for me later. I’m a bad, bad girl and I need a spanking from a big, tough guy who will set me straight.” My cheeks were red with embarrassment. This would not be one of those stories I planned on telling anyone. Ever. “Will you set me straight? Huh, will you, lover?” I added for good measure.
“Well, ahhh, damn right, I will!” he said. I got to hand it to the kid, given how little blood was flowing to that tiny brain of his, he was doing OK. Just when I thought I had him, he asked, “Why?” His tone carried with it more mental power than a hopped-up horny teenager should have.
“Protection,” I said without hesitation. “My gifts, for you making sure your friends leave me alone.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said, “How often?”
“As many times as you want it for as long as you want it. It is a straight-up deal. My body for your muscle. Simple.”
There was a silence as he contemplated it for a while. Then there was a heavy swallow on the other end before he said, “Fine. Where?”
“Good,” I said. “The hotel.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he said, and hung up.
↔
Given how the conversation went, I gave it 50/50 that he’d come out alone. He was too calm, too collected, and for a moment I thought he really hated Others enough to turn down a succubus. Not a simple feat—I should know.
But then he popped out alone and I knew teenage hormones had won the day. He probably figured he could have his cake and eat it—quite literally—by having an unbelievable night, followed by some Other-bashing.
He looked down the street and, before he could get his bearings, I put a pillowcase over his head. I then produced a piece of lead pipe and pressed it hard against his back, hoping the cool metal feel would give him the impression I had a gun.
“I just want to talk,” I said. “Ten minutes, then I’ll let you go.”
“Screw you, man!” he hissed.
“Look, don’t make me gag you.” I dug the lead pipe into his back and, twisting his arm, forced him to walk.
Asal trotted forward, pulling a rickshaw.
I smiled. “Asal, my friend, if you would be so kind.”
↔
It took Asal nearly half an hour to trot over to where we were going. That’s a long time to sit next to someone handcuffed and blindfolded. Not exactly ideal for facilitating conversation, but I think we did well, all things considered. EightBall swore at me and I ignored him. I’ve known marriages less civil.
Once we arrived, I pulled EightBall out. He resisted, tried to make a break for it, but the blind can only make it so far before running into something hard, like a wall.
“Come on,” I said, helping him up and opening the front door of the abandoned building. “This way.”
I led EightBall upstairs and into a burned-up room. The moonlight streamed through a hole in the roof. With the darkness hiding the details of destruction, the husk of a room was actually quite beautiful. I let him go. Again he tried to run, this time tripping over some rubble before falling to the ground with a whoop. I pulled off his hood.
“You son of a bitch, I’m going to—” He started looking around, but as soon as he recognized where we were, he stopped. With confused eyes, he asked, “Why the hell did you take me here?”
“Astarte told me to give you what you really want, and since she’s older than sin, and a damn-near goddess of desire, I figured her advice was pretty sound. But what does someone like you want?”
I stepped behind EightBall and pulled at the chain linking the handcuffs. He resisted, but from that angle, the strain on his wrists got him on his feet pretty damn quick.
“I tried to think what a punk kid like you would want. I mean, really want,” I said. “What does someone who grew up on the streets want? Peace? A vacation? Nah, that’s not it. Maybe a brand-new gun or knife. If I asked you, you’d probably say something macho like a minute alone with me in a locked room.”
“That’s exactly what I want,” he growled, crooking his neck back to meet my gaze. His eyes burned with a fresh fury, and I knew if I released him, he’d go at me with everything he had.
“Maybe,” I said, pretending his hate didn’t bother me. “I have no doubt that you desire my blood, but I don’t think it’s what you really want, deep down.”
I sat him on a chair and sat facing him on another. A coffee table was all that stood between us. “I struggled for a while with an answer. For a long time I couldn’t come up with anything. Until, that is, I realized that you are exactly like me.”
“I
’m nothing like you! Other-lover,” he spat.
“Both of our parents were killed by Others. Both of us have hated them for a long, long time. I had all the lines down pat. ‘They don’t belong here. This is our home, not theirs!’ And ‘Why should I care that they were evicted from their home without so much as a warning? Too bad for them! Screw ’em, right?’ ”
EightBall nodded, smiling at the thought.
“Only difference is, I was wrong,” I said. “Something I realized about six years ago. And, given our age difference, it’ll be something you’ll realize in about eleven years, but by then you will have caused a lot of hurt. And not just to them.” I put a book down on the table. “Believe it or not, I’m trying to help you, kid.”
“What’s that?”
“A book,” I said. “It was inspired by something that Penemue told me about.”
“That pigeon?”
“Yeah, that pigeon,” I said. I took off my collarless jacket and placed it on the back of my chair. Then I unlocked his handcuffs. As I’d expected, he immediately went for me, so I kicked the back of his knee, forcing him to sit back down on the chair. I put a heavy hand on his shoulder and said, “You see, I know what I really, deep down in my core, want. I want to belong. To somewhere. To someone. And I figure that’s what you want, too. This book is where you belong. Take a look inside, and if you still want to stab me, I won’t stop you. Not this time.” I removed my hand from his shoulder and took a step back.
“So, I look at your stupid book and then I get my free shot. That’s the deal, right?”
“If you still want it, then yeah, kid, that’s the deal.”
EightBall picked up the photo album, each page displaying a single picture. It was skillfully rendered with elegant calligraphy ordaining the book’s margins. I gotta give the fairies their due credit—they were not well-equipped to live in the GoneGod World, but they sure knew design. The book was beautiful.
He thumbed through it. Fast at first, skipping over the photos he didn’t recognize, but then he slowed down when he got to a picture of a young girl, no older than eight. She still had her whole life in front of her, but looked enough like who she would become that EightBall recognized her. He slowed, his hands gently touching the surface of her face. The next image was of the girl’s father, the two of them at the local grocery store in what was now Paradise Lot’s downtown. The young father owned the place, and his daughter, no older than ten in this picture, proudly helped him stack the shelves, smiles on both their faces. The next photo was of the same bright-eyed little girl, now twelve, dancing ballet, her grace unhindered by the black-and-white gloss of the photograph. Next she was playing the piano, then she was standing onstage, having won second place in a father-daughter foot race. Then a photo of proud parents, standing by a young lady who wore a blue graduation dress and a glowing smile. Then the young woman at Christmas, sitting by her aging father, who wore an oxygen tank but still managed to smile, happy to be surrounded by his family.
EightBall wiped away a tear as he turned the page to that same young woman, walking down the aisle, as an old man in a wheelchair clapped in the front. Then her hand was out as a nervous young man put a ring on his new wife’s hand. Then the same woman, older now, holding her protruding belly. Page after page of the young couple preparing the baby’s room, getting ready for the new addition to the family, until the pictures showed the proud mother holding her newborn in her arms. More tears of joy as she held the fragile little creature.
The last picture in the book was of a young EightBall—Newton—standing with his mother and father, holding a plaque of his own: first place in the piano recital. He smiled, two front teeth missing, as proud parents each put a hand on his shoulders. And then, abruptly, the book ended, several blank pages remaining to be filled.
Tears streamed down his face as he looked up at me and asked, “How … how did you get this?”
“Fairies. They dug through this wreckage and found the photos and put it together. Not bad for a bunch of talking gnats. Man, I will say one thing about those guys—they will do just about anything for glitter.”
I waited to see if his tears would turn to rage—after all, I’d made a deal with the kid—but there was no fight left in him. He sat there leafing through the book, turning to the earlier pages he had skipped over.
“Newton,” I said, “I know you blame them for your loss, but even you have to see how they no more wanted to hurt your family than come to Paradise Lot in the first place. They’re outcasts, just like you and me, without a home, most of them without their families.” I put my collarless jacket back on. “I have to go. I can’t protect them anymore. And I know that the book doesn’t go very far toward returning what you’ve lost, but maybe it will go far enough for you to let go of your hate for them.”
And with that, I left him to his tears and confusion, praying that those pictures were enough.
On the Road Again
I had no idea if my little conversation with EightBall would work. All I could do was hope. Hell, seems like hope and faith was all I got. Funny that I found both after the gods left. So after leaving EightBall, I asked Asal to drop me off at my last destination before I had to leave.
I asked him to take me home.
↔
I walked into the destroyed foyer of my hotelfor what would probably be the last time. I climbed the stairs of the One Spire Hotel and opened the loft door above. In the corner sat Penemue, books thrown about, his hay bed in tatters and a bottle of Drambuie in his hand. He was crying, cuddling his bottle as he tried to coax comfort from its hallowed contents.
When he saw me, his eyes glistened, lit by angelic tears. “I was so afraid. I always believed I would face my death with bravery, honor even, but in the end I was so very, very afraid. I am sorry for betraying you, Human Jean,” he said with a drunken hiccup. “But I am most sorry for breaking my promise.”
“You never promised me anything.”
“No, no—not to you, dear Human Jean. You are not the only one who makes sacred promises. I broke a promise I made to myself before the Earth was formed and when the sky still burned red. When He cast me into the pits of fire and brimstone, I swore that I would never ask Him for anything. Never again.” Penemue tried to stand, but drunk as he was, all he managed to do was fall on his back. His wings spread out and contracted, like he was trying to fly. He looked like an overturned turtle. I offered him my hand and as I righted him, he said, “But today, Jean, I prayed. I begged. I pleaded with Him to let you live, and here you are. He listened. He heard me.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said, pulling with all my weight to get the angel to sit up. He managed to get himself half-erect and with my help was able to rest his back on the wall. From the corner of the room, I took the pitcher of water and poured him a glass. “Here, drink this.”
“You live. He must have listened.”
“Actually, I think it is Michael you have to thank. Michael tricked Grinner into leaving me alone. For a little while, anyway. I don’t know if that was His work.” With the last phrase, I pointed up.
Penemue’s face went grave. “Of course that is. He sent His emissary. An asshole, yes, but His emissary nonetheless!”
I shrugged. “Maybe, but that doesn’t matter anymore. The box? Did you figure out what it was? Not that that matters anymore either.”
Penemue perked up, not hearing my last remark. “What is it not?” he exclaimed, hands and wings both outstretched in excitement. The tips of his wings knocked bits of drywall off behind him. He lowered the wings and, controlling his volume, picked up a discarded Drambuie bottle and cradled it like it was the box—man, this was one drunk angel. “I have never, ever, ever, ever held anything with so much history before. Truly unique! Singular in the significance imbued within its making—”
“And?” I interrupted.
Gesturing for me to draw closer, he whispered, “It is Pandora’s Box! I know, I know, shocked me, too.” He n
odded in mock, drunken surprise.
“Pandora’s Box? As in the container from which all sin sprang forth—”
“Its contents emptied, leaving behind only Hope. Yes, the very same. But it is not only that … It is also the Ark of the Covenant, and Pharaoh’s Vial, and the Wineskin that once held the Blood of Kvasir, otherwise known as the Mead of—”
“Poetry?”
“You know it?”
“I’m familiar with the legend,” I sighed.
“In days gone by, it was the last cup from which Jesus drank, the first goblet which ever held Ambrosia and the bowl from which an asp bit Cleopatra’s hand as she reached for a fig in its basin! It is all those things and more. Whoever constructed the box itself— and I suspect that it was Joseph—did so by taking little pieces from all those items and putting it together into one place.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Why else! To contain something of extreme significance.”
“But it’s so small,” I said, holding up my hands with enough space to hold a Rubik’s Cube.
“Bahhh!” the angel dismissed me. “Mortals always think in size, size, size. ‘Bigger is better.’ A thousand angels once danced on the head of a pin. How do you think we did that? By getting a really, really big pin? NO! Size, cosmically speaking, doesn’t matter. Only space. And even the smallest of spaces can hold the vastest of universes. That box, with all the significance it possesses, can hold a thousand universes and still have room to spare.”
“Big enough for a heaven?” I asked.
“Heavens,” Penemue retorted, “and hells and purgatories and a thousand other dimensions that your kind have yet to perceive.”