by R. E. Vance
Hairdresser’s Got a Gun
Miss Webb held open the door, and the four of us ran inside the Being Human Salon and into a large waiting room. It was filled with all the stuff Miss Webb thought made us human. Mannequins with scarves and long press-on nails. Lipstick tubes and row after row of moisturizers. Wigs of all colors and sizes fitted on plastic heads. And on the walls, posters that said things like “Non-invasive teeth filing: Get rid of those fangs!” and “Turn your wings into a fashionable cape!” and “Extreme waxing for all your furry needs!”
A stone flew through her front window, shattering the glass. “If you don’t mind, please take a step away from the front door. I’m told this can be quite dramatic,” she said, almost offhandedly.
She pulled out what looked like a box with several buttons on each side, a big red button sitting under a plastic lid right on top. She flipped up the lid and pushed down on the button. What happened next wasn’t dramatic, per se. It was downright shocking, thrilling and terrifying. Metal shutters fell over the windows as steel bars appeared from the floor, locking the front door. Emergency lights turned on, and we were no longer standing in the foyer of a beauty salon. We were in a cell, with no way in or out that I could see.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Panic button,” she said, turning on a monitor behind the reception desk.
She walked behind her desk and tapped the screen of her iPad. Images from her security cameras popped up. “Ah, Mr. Angel … I’d cover your ears.” Just as she finished saying it, a siren sounded, shooting out a piercing screech that made me cry out in pain. Astarte and EightBall winced, but what it did to Penemue … The angel fell to his knees, pressing the palms of his hands hard against his ears. He growled in agony, and I think he would have screamed if he could. His body went into near shutdown. Whatever the frequency of the siren, it was devastating to angels.
I rushed Sally and grabbed for the box. But the woman, who must have been well into her fifties, moved away with a dancer’s grace and countered my lunge with a move that would have made the most skilled aikido masters green with envy. “Oh, Mr. Matthias, please. The noise will pass. Don’t worry. It is not fatal. Just give it a moment.” She looked over at Penemue. “He is, after all, quite a big boy.”
Sally was true to her word—the noise did stop, and Penemue, dripping sweat, stood with a growl. Sally fished around in her purse and threw him a pack of wet wipes. “There,” she told us with a smile, “that should hold them. For a while, at least.” We all looked at the unassuming Sally Webb standing nonchalantly in her pajamas and big slippers. “What?” she asked. “It’s my security system. Don’t you have one, Mr. Matthias?”
“Nothing like that.”
She shrugged. “If you wish to install one, I can get you a deal.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but no thanks. I don’t need it.”
She pushed a button, and one of the slats on her window opened. “Really?”
I looked out at the angry mob of minotaurs, centaurs, giants, ogres and trolls outside, and shrugged. “Well, maybe.”
EightBall and Penemue, their bodies tense, scanned the room for escape routes. Astarte, on the other hand, wore a confused expression as she looked around like someone tracking a buzzing bee. “What?” she said. “How?”
“How what?” I asked.
She lifted a finger, gesturing for me to hold on, and continued to look around the room. “Brian? What is this? Some form of telepathy? Are you a wizard?” She paused. “Uh-huh … I’ve never heard of Bluetooth magic before …”
Bluetooth? I looked at Astarte. She was wearing a little wireless earpiece. Brian, that smart bastard—he’d given her a direct line to him. I pulled out the earpiece and put it on.
“Hey,” Astarte said, “you stole his voice.”
“You’ve been mortal all these years and you don’t know Bluetooth? I’m a Luddite, and even I know what it is.” I put my finger on the earpiece. “Brian, where are you?”
I heard the shuffling of flesh against leather as his voice crackled in. “I’m hiding in Astarte’s closet,” he whispered.
“And where is everyone?”
There was a pause. “Most of them are outside. Some are still in the banquet hall.”
“How do you know that? You’re in Astarte’s closet.”
“The cameras,” he said. “I’m jacked in.”
“Brian,” I murmured, “you geeky genius!”
“I’m … I’m not in trouble?” he whispered.
“No … Well, yes. Maybe,” I said. “I guess yesterday’s mischief is today’s savior. OK—look, I’m going to hand you over to …” I scanned the room and decided on EightBall. I figured he had the best chance to deal with technology, being young and human. “Let him know if anything changes,” I said, and threw the earpiece to EightBall.
“That’s mine,” Astarte said.
“And you’ll get it back,” I said, peering out the window. “If we survive this.” There was an electric buzzing sound coming from the window that reminded me of one of those bug zappers.
“Good. Now that that’s done, Mr. Matthias,” Sally said, folding her arms, “I believe you owe me an explanation.”
↔
Something, or rather some Other, slammed hard against the front door of the Being Human Salon with a thud that was followed by the unmistakable buzz of an electric current and a doglike yelp. Its cry was so loud that I covered my ears and cringed in sympathy. If Sally felt any sympathy, her expression didn’t betray it. She just stared across at me, her eyes stone-cold. She reminded me of Stewart.
“Well,” Sally said.
“Well …” I started. “I don’t want to get overly complicated, but it seems that someone …”—I looked over at Astarte—“accidentally started an apocalypse.”
“Calamity,” said Astarte. “It is not an apocalypse—yet. And don’t look at me, human. Despite being mortal, I happen to love my life and would do nothing to jeopardize it. If I wanted to hurt my sister, I could do it many other ways, none of which would involve my home being consumed by my rampaging niece. If anything, I tried to stop the whole damn thing.”
“The thing coming is Astarte’s niece?” Sally raised an eyebrow in my direction.
“Hey,” I said, lifting my hands up, “I’m just as surprised as you are.”
“And what a fish tale it will be,” Penemue mused, picking at his wings and pulling out a bottle of Drambuie. “Good—I knew I had one on me.”
Sally took two decisive strides toward the angel. “So long as you’re a guest on my premises, you will not consume that poison.” She held out a hand.
“But …” Penemue protested.
Sally stood with hand on hip, waiting. The angel groaned and gave her the bottle. I was impressed … I’d tried the stern “Hand it over” routine with Penemue dozens of times and it never worked, but Sally only had to yell at the angel and he was already compliant. I thought to ask her for some pointers—if she didn’t kill me first, that was.
“Very well, then. I believe Mr. Matthias was discussing the upcoming calamity?” Sally spoke with the clarity of understanding that was far more than any layperson should have.
I shook my head. “You say ‘poe-tay-toe,’ I say ‘apocalypse.’ And regardless, this … this Beast-thingie that’s coming to Paradise Lot to destroy everything … If we don’t find a way to stop it, we’re all going to—”
Another Other, having learned from the first Other, slammed something large and wooden against the entrance. The steel door took the blow with a reverberating clang.
Sally rolled her eyes with impatience. “Die?” she offered.
I nodded.
“So,” Miss Webb said, turning to Astarte. “You were once a goddess of Mesopotamia, Assyria … Babylon—you must know a way to stop this?”
Astarte shrugged. “All those who caused the calamity can be offered up in appeasement. Sadly, we don’t know who is responsible.”
�
��And even if we did … We can’t send them to their execution without a trial first,” I said.
Astarte rolled her eyes. “Then there is divine intervention, but there’s not a lot of divine lying about. Of course, we could try to derail it, end the calamity before it grows into something bigger.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like a full-blown, world-ending apocalypse. And before you ask, I have no idea how to stop it. In theory, if we stop the last signs from happening, the apocalypse won’t happen.”
“Signs?” Sally asked. “What do you mean, signs?”
“So far,” I said, “we’ve had an earthquake, the sky fell, we’ve drunk sour wine … Oh, and matricide. Let’s not forget matricide. There will be three more signs before Tiamat shows up.”
Sally tilted her head. “Tiamat?”
“Kraken,” I said. “They’ve unleashed the kraken.”
“OK,” Sally said with far less expression than one facing a raging monster should show.
“If the signs occur before dawn, then Tiamat will appear,” Astarte said.
“And if they don’t?” I asked.
“She will return to the deep.”
EightBall sighed in relief before looking over at Penemue, who wore the same expression of dread on his face. Taking his cue from the angel, EightBall’s face resumed its look of fear.
“And these other signs,” Sally said. “What are they?”
“Only three signs remain. The Blood Moon, the Rising of the Beast and the Rain of Frogs.”
“Frogs? As in Kermit?” I asked.
“If this Kermit is as fierce as a lion and as graceful as a gazelle and as merciless as all-consuming fire.”
“He mostly likes to sing.”
“Then, no … not like Kermit.” Astarte looked down, and all guile, all seduction, drained from her face. She nodded and pressed her hands against her thigh, and for a moment I didn’t see the demigoddess of lust or the queen of desire. I saw Astarte as who she really was—just a person doing her best to survive in a world without answers or meaning. She was scared. Very, very scared. “Back when the Assyrian pantheon ruled the Fertile Crescent, before humans learned the secrets of language—back then, you were brutes, not to be guided, but dominated. We gave you knowledge. Civilization, culture, technology. We gave you enough so that you could understand the rules we imposed upon you. They were mostly arbitrary rules put there to simultaneously tempt you and remind you we were there … and if any mortal broke them, the results would be catastrophic. What can I say? In those early days, we were petty gods.”
“What kind of rules?” I asked.
“Things like, ‘Anyone who drinks from this sacred pool will go blind,’ or, ‘A curse on he who spills blood on the temple floor, a curse that shall pass from child to child for a thousand generations.’ When these rules were broken, we came down upon you with great plagues, terrible afflictions. The promise of death and destruction were our tools … and we always repaid human disobedience in kind,” Astarte said. “And still, humans tested us. Like children testing boundaries, they drank from where they should not, ate from what was forbidden. Desecrated what was sacred. It didn’t matter how many of them suffered boils or went blind or were cursed. Mortals always tested us. That was when my sister came up with the Pool of Urfa—”
There was a large bang against the window, but despite something being flung at it with the force of a cannonball, the window held. Sally’s gaze didn’t waver.
“You were saying …?” I prompted Astarte.
“Yes … the Pool was to be filled with Atargatis’ children. After all, it was she who gave birth to the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky.” Astarte shot me a look. “Less metaphorical than you’d think. We placed the first of her children there and threatened humanity with the End of Days should a single carp be harmed. Appease us before the Seventh Sign, or the last of the plagues will be unleashed. They usually fell to their knees and begged for forgiveness after the earthquake. And they always thanked her for saving them. My sister would arrange an offense to happen about once a generation.”
So that was it … Control humanity by threatening to destroy them, and when you benevolently didn’t, humanity would thank you by prostrating themselves with even more fervor. A divine Stockholm syndrome—I’m sure the psychologists would have a field day.
“And if they didn’t appease her?”
“Then they got this,” Astarte gestured around her. “But she always turned Tiamat back before everything got destroyed. She wanted power, but she wasn’t crazy.”
“Not before there was some destruction,” Penemue chimed in. “The Great Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Black Death—”
“Penemue—you’re not helping.” I turned back to Astarte. “So why can’t your sister turn this Tiamat back now?”
“Because …” she whispered. “Because she ate the fish. She broke her own law. And that’s the thing about divine laws … they applied to everyone, even AlmostGods.” A tear escaped the succubus’s eye. What was that look that Marty gave me? You’re screwed now. He was right. A former goddess accidentally set off her own apocalypse, thus rendering her—the only Other that could have stopped this—useless. And if The BisMark was right, then the only other way to stop it was to offer up the guilty for sacrifice.
“So let me get this straight. Atargatis can’t stop her own apocalypse?”
Astarte nodded.
There was another crash, and the room shook. “Don’t worry,” Sally said. “Those walls are designed to handle three minotaur charges.”
“Who comes up with that? Three minotaur charges?” I asked.
“It’s no different than measuring a car’s engine with horsepower.”
Another crash—this one caused me to lose my balance. “It’s different. Oh, so very, very different. Is there anything we can do?” I asked Astarte. “And don’t say ‘Offer ourselves up.’ I’d like to leave that option as our last resort.”
Astarte shook her head, her gaze distant. “Nothing. There’s nothing we can do.”
“Don’t give me that,” I said. “We could fight the monster.”
“Yeah,” EightBall said with misplaced enthusiasm. Everyone looked at him, and he shrunk back to the computer.
“Ever seen Godzilla?” Penemue said. “Think bigger.”
“Then, no,” EightBall muttered.
“ ‘No’ is right,” Penemue concurred.
Another three crashes shook the room. One after another. Boom, boom. Boom! They were getting more zealous with their effort. “Fine,” I said over the explosions of body on steel, “but we have jets and missiles and—” My words were cut off, not from another explosion, but from the absence of noise.
The world outside was quiet. We heard no scuffling or scraping. No cries from angry Others. No slamming against the walls or banging against the doors. Just silence … silence that was cut by a trumpet’s blast.
It reverberated through the air, electrifying it with a commanding presence that demanded attention. It didn’t come from a single source, but rather shimmied the air all around us, like a thousand trumpets sounding in a thousand places at once. The announcement of the apocalypse, in surround sound. “Is that it?” I asked Penemue.
The angel shook his head. “No, it’s not Michael’s trumpet—” And then Penemue said a word I had never once heard him utter in the seven years I’d known him. “Shit.” Shit …?
The world went quiet. Too quiet.
EightBall, still shaking from the sound of the trumpet, looked at me with hopeful eyes and asked, “I don’t suppose they went away?” He was terrified, and I had to remind myself that EightBall was still a kid. A scared kid who no more wanted to be caught up in this end-of-the-Earth crap than any of us. “We’re going to be OK now, aren’t we?” He was looking for reassurance. Reassurance I couldn’t give him.
Penemue put an arm around the boy and shook his head. “No, they are there, planning their next move. But
I promise you this. Whatever happens this night, you will be safe. I owe you that much.”
EightBall let out a sigh of relief, before his expression changed and he looked up at Penemue. “ ‘Owe’ me?”
“Penemue … Now is not the time for paved roads and good intentions …” I started, as a thought dawned on me. Michael didn’t stop us from escaping, but he also didn’t stop the Others from chasing us. He was stuck between the metaphorical rock of human law and the hard place of celestial ways. For Michael, everything fell in a hierarchy, but every now and then, he faced a conflict he couldn’t resolve. In this case it was arresting us on suspicion of committing a terrorist act—or an apocalyptic one. Celestial law demanded the divine offenders to be brought to Others’ justice.
“EightBall … Any updates from Brian?”
EightBall was standing by Sally’s fancy iPad that acted as the shop’s register. “Here—look for yourself.”
“You can do that?” I asked, walking over.
“Man—there’s almost nothing you can’t do with a little bit of Wi-Fi and an iPad.”
“Magic,” Astarte said.
“No … Wozniak the Wizard,” I said. Astarte eyed me as if we were saying the same thing, and I conceded with a nod. “Sure … magic.”
I stared at the iPad. The screen flashed the hotel foyer—empty, save for the damaged floor and the destroyed desk that would cost me a fortune to replace. It went to the kitchen, showed a still-boiling pot that some gargoyle forgot to turn off. Then it flashed to the banquet hall. Again—empty, with only the carnage of the broken tables and chairs remaining. Even the stage was empty. Wherever The BisMark was, he’d taken his decor with him. “OK,” I said, “they’re not there. Then where is he blowing the trumpet from?”
“I don’t know.” Brian’s face appeared, against a backdrop of hanging leather outfits, garter belts and lingerie. He adjusted his glasses. “But no one has been in the common areas for some time now.”
The screen blacked out before calling up the penthouse. It was still over-decorated by vases, paintings and artifacts that I’d seen when I was up there earlier today. Everything was just as before. Everything except the statue of the satyr that was standing behind The BisMark’s desk. That was the only thing missing. “OK—so wherever he is, he left in a hurry and only took the statue. Are you sure you didn’t hear or see anything as to where they went?”