Paradise Lost Boxed Set

by R. E. Vance

  “That guy has an ego. A know-it-all. It’s going to be more personal than that.”

  “So what could it be?”

  “I don’t know … ‘Master Greg’? ‘Lord Greg’—?”

  “ ‘Darth Greg,’ ” we both said in unison. I typed it in and the little spinning wheel turned before letting me in. Thank the GoneGods for predictable geeks.

  “OK—now show me the room.” I held up the iPad and scanned the room. “Holy moly,” Brian said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I’m thinking you need to fill a suitcase with some of his stuff.”

  “Yeah,” I chuckled. “Rare collector’s item … illustrated … Where, oh, where could you be?” I rummaged through the piles of comic books, knocking off issues of Spiderman, Batman, Atom Boy—it just went on and on. Then I got to the rare stuff—magazines like Valiant Comics, Action Comics, Sinbad, the original King Kong, All-American Comics, illustrated 1001 Arabian Nights, even a mint condition Detective Comics #31 from 1939.

  In the far corner there was one of those flap posters, the kind you’d find at a store with lots of superhero posters. I guess, when you have a huge collection and only limited wall space, that was an ideal solution.

  “The Grimoire,” Brian said. “It’s not a book. It’s a family tree … It should be something more like a scroll or a … Take me over to the poster rack,” Brian said with more authority than I’d ever heard him show before. Then, as if remembering he was a nerd cowering in a closet, he added, “Please.”

  I walked over and started flipping through the posters. Batman, Spiderman, Hulk, Hellboy—he had them all. As I went through them one by one, careful to hold up the eye of the camera to the rack, Brian watched.

  “This is a waste of time,” I said, flipping to the end. “There’s nothing here.”

  “Maybe it’s not a poster or a book.”

  “Then what?”

  “Hold on,” Brian said. “Let me try something else.”

  “What?”

  “Greg is a meticulous guy, right? I mean, no one has a collection like that without cataloging it, taking notes, keeping track of everything they have—which means he has to have files on this Grimoire and what’s going on … So, I hacked into his files.”

  “You can do that?” I asked, looking at the screen. From the way Brian’s eyes moved under the soft glow of his own iPad’s light, I could tell he wasn’t looking at me. He was reading something. Greg’s files.

  “Oh, yeah,” Brian said in a distracted voice. “You can do anything with a little bit of know-how and Wi-Fi.”

  “Wow,” I said. I’d seen an Other build a wall out of trees with the wave of a hand, but I was more impressed by Brian. “That’s a useful skill you got.”

  “Actually, I just forced his computer to restart and booted it in ‘safe mode,’ then asked it to reboot in its previous settings. If you know what you’re doing, safe mode isn’t as safe as most people think, and it definitely wouldn’t have worked if Greg had proper security and—”

  “Brian. Just let me be impressed,” I said.

  “OK.”

  “Did you find anything useful?”

  “Yeah. I did.” A smile appeared from ear to ear. “I found his files.”

  ↔

  What Brian showed me next didn’t look so much as a family tree or an organigram. It was more like a spider web with thousands of little pods that housed names of all the gods in their middle, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of thin threads that went in every which direction. It was an utter mess, and I doubted even the popobawa could make heads or tails of this thing … and he was a creature that actually lived in a web.

  I looked up at the clock. We had just under three hours to figure this out. Even if we did find the next Other in line who could turn back Tiamat, I doubt we’d have enough time to get him or her to the beach before Tiamat started her rampage of world-ending destruction.

  “This is useless,” I said. “I can’t even find Astarte’s name, and—”

  But before I could finish my sentence, the web rotated and Astarte’s name appeared in the center of the screen. Then all the other names and threads faded out. You could still see a bunch of threads—and there were many—coming out of her name, but they were transparent, losing their prior vibrancy.

  “He’s programmed it so that it is useful,” Brian’s voice said. “Look at the top of your screen. See the magnifying glass?”

  I nodded. Then, remembering Brian could only see the Grimoire through the iPad, I said, “Yes.”

  “You can search specific names there. And just to the left of that magnifying glass is where you can enter the specific parameters that you’re interested in … like, let’s say, her family.” Brian paused, obviously typing in something, and from out of Astarte’s name came several threads—one went to Atargatis’ name, and another went to Anu, Baal, Enlil and several other former gods’ names.

  “Dagan,” I said. “I know him … He runs the local grocery store. Lots of fresh grains and vegetables, severely understocked on anything canned. Could he—”

  “I don’t think so,” Brian interrupted. “If you filter the results, you can see the actual power structure between the gods. Dagan is Atargatis’ stepfather. He’s weaker than she is—and if she can’t stop Tiamat, I doubt anyone beneath her can. We need to go up. Not down.”

  “So let’s go up.”

  “No one Assyrian is above Atargatis.”

  “True, but what about beings from other pantheons?”

  Brian went silent and I could hear very faint thuds against the iPad’s glass as he typed away.

  While I waited, I did exactly what they tell you never to do when you don’t know the technology: I started touching buttons. First, I hit Astarte’s name and from it a hundred thousand purple threads grew. I mean, they went everywhere. I looked up at the filter button next to the magnifying glass and saw that it was set on “Relations” with several dates appearing next to it. I guessed that Astarte had “relations” with pretty much every god—and goddess for that matter—that ever existed at one time or another. I filtered it to “Family” and sure enough, a line went up to Atargatis and several lines went sideways and down to the rest of her family. But something else happened—a single gray line went slightly to the right and Gilgamesh’s name appeared. The dates that they were together appeared. I tapped the former king’s name and looked at the filter menu. It had only one option available to it: Family. Then I touched the gray line itself and a single word appeared: Spouse.

  So Astarte had been married. I knew how Astarte felt about Gilgamesh. I felt what she felt when he was about to be struck down. But married? I guess the feelings went even deeper than I thought … Whoever this Gilgamesh was, he must have really been something for Astarte to get married.

  I looked up at the clock: two and half hours—we were running out of time.

  I tapped Atargatis’ name, filtering for Family. Same web, except this time she was at the top and there was a thread that went all the way to Poseidon’s name. I touched that line and it said “Spouse,” with dates that overlapped with Astarte’s marriage to Gilgamesh. But there was another line, too, this one a faded purple; it went to a bubble that encased the name “Enkidu.”

  I put my finger on the faded purple line and the word “Champion” appeared. I touched Enkidu’s name and exactly two lines appeared—one back to Atargatis and another to Astarte; both lines were faded purple. I guessed this guy “championed” around, doing whatever Champions do, for both sisters.

  That gave me an idea and I tapped Poseidon’s name.

  “Crap.”

  “What is it, Brian?”

  “I got some bad news … Seems the cut-off point between god and not god is Atargatis … as in, she was just south of the line. Everyone that would have been ‘up’ is gone. Everyone.”

  “Come on … There’s got to be a way.”

  “No—I can give you the hierarchy of religions. Lik
e, the Greek pantheon is ranked higher than the Assyrian … the Romans above the Greeks, and so on … But an actually being that ranks higher than Atargatis …”

  “What about The BisMark? Or the archangel, Michael?”

  “Powerful beings, sure, but neither of them were gods.”

  To think that in the celestial hierarchy, Atargatis was top of the heap and just beneath the cutoff point of who got to go with the gods and who didn’t—that was astonishing. She almost made it, and because of the succubus in the next room, she just missed the cut. No wonder Atargatis hated Astarte.

  “Keep looking,” I said, and touched Atargatis’ name again. I filtered for Family once more, this time following the gray spousal line to Poseidon’s name. I had a hunch that if Atargatis was top of the heap, maybe someone connected to Poseidon might just about make the “I can send back Tiamat” requisite power levels.

  I touched Poseidon’s name, filtered for Family and the entire Greek pantheon lit up. Then I filtered for Relations, figuring that if a family member wasn’t an option, perhaps someone he had an affair with might be—and then I saw something that made me go cold. All this time I had been so fixated that it was The BisMark who was guilty that I was completely blinded to the possibility that it could be someone else.

  Before I could fully process what I saw, the bedroom door clicked open and Astarte and Enkidu emerged. I had expected her to be disheveled and unkempt, with a thin sheen of hard lovemaking on her body, but she wasn’t. And as for Enkidu, he wasn’t wearing the look of satisfaction from having his wildest fantasies fulfilled, nor did he have the usual look of frustration that so many of Astarte’s lovers had—a look that was born from the knowledge that they had just tasted fleshy heaven and that they would never, ever have enough.

  “Brian … I gotta go,” I said. Turning to Astarte, I pointed at the iPad’s screen. “Says here that Enkidu was both your and Atargatis’ Champion.”

  Astarte nodded, walking over to where I sat. Enkidu followed, curling at her feet. “He was made by Atargatis, but fought for me. It is rare for one to be a Champion for more than one, but it can happen.”

  “And with the Bull of Heaven? He, what … sacrificed himself to save you?”

  “Yes.” She put a hand on Enkidu’s head. “He was worthy. Champion for two gods, brother to a king. He was worthy.” She bent down and gave the WildMan a kiss on the forehead, and despite his cheeks being covered with thick black hair, his blush came through.

  “And this all happened when you were both gods?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And were allied to Chaos.”

  “Yes …”

  Then it occurred to me that the gods who allied with Chaos were no longer gods, while the gods who allied with Nature were gone. The world did not belong to either, and if you applied a god’s logic to it, that meant that the usual cosmic laws were all up in the air. Of course, as humans, we were all about Nature, but this wasn’t our world anymore. We had to share it with Others. Others who allied with Chaos. Others who—once-upon-a-time—were gods.

  “Safe mode,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  I snapped my fingers. “The world … it’s trying to reboot in safe mode. It’s trying to return to its previous settings, when Champions like Enkidu were common place and apocalypses were a real threat.”

  “I don’t think so,” Brian’s voice chimed in from the iPad speakers. “Safe mode isn’t about returning to previous settings. It’s about returning to factory settings. As in, when-it-was-first-created settings. If anything, the world is still up for grabs … Nature and Chaos both have equal opportunity to become the world’s operating system.”

  “Windows versus Apple,” I said.

  “And one computer to run it all. The world.”

  “ ‘Apple,’ ‘Windows’ … ‘computer’?” Astarte wore a puzzled look. “I think you humans are delirious with fear. Here, I have a cure … Let me rest your mind and—” She started disrobing.

  “No need,” I said. “Brian and I know exactly what we’re talking about.” And just then, a last-ditch plan occurred to me. I looked at the clock—just over two hours left until dawn. Plenty of time for my plan, with just enough time that if it didn’t work, I could die in a fireball of regret. I turned to the others and said, “I have a plan.”

  “And what—pray tell—is that?” Astarte asked.

  “Actually, I got the idea from IT support,” I mused. “We’re going to have to reboot the system in safe mode,” I said.

  Jail Isn’t the Best Place for a Third Date

  I called up the popobawa and told him what I needed from him. It involved taking some “stuff” from Master Greg’s apartment, and delivering it back to him at the beach. The popobawa dutifully agreed and immediately took down everything we needed with uncanny speed.

  With that done, I looked around the room full of geekery, “borrowed” his Highlander sword, the slingshot and a couple issues of Batman (hey—like I said: borrowed. If we survived the night, I’d give it all back; cross my heart) and struck off to the last place we needed to go to get some answers.

  Jail.

  ↔

  Navigating the blocked streets in search of open routes to the jail, we passed by the south bridge that led to the mainland. At the mouth of the bridge on erected barricades stood two human sentries. Bullhorns rang out, commanding the Others to back away or be shot.

  Searchlights beamed up and panic filled the streets as Others loaded with all their belongings, headed to the bridges in hopes of surviving. For the second time in fifteen years, they were being forced to leave their homes. I could not suppress the anger that filled my soul. These once divine beings had been through so much that to go through this again … I couldn’t finish the thought.

  This time it was worse. At least when the gods left, they gave them a chance to escape the darkness, a place to run to. Their new, less celestial, human caretakers were not as kind.

  Little drones no larger than Frisbees hovered over the crowd. At first, I had no idea what they were, but then I saw the digital clocks they displayed and I knew exactly what the Army was doing. They were checking if Others were burning time.

  When Others burn time, clocks speed up. The Army was using the drones to monitor the crowd, to make sure these frightened creatures didn’t use their natural talents to leap off the island and to safety. It was a cruel declawing, and it made me sick to my stomach.

  Humanity at its best, and I couldn’t be more angry. But I’d have to apologize for my fellow humans in my own way later. Now, I needed to get to the jail in the slim hope that we’d find a way to send Tiamat back to the deep.

  ↔

  We eventually managed to weave our way through the streets to the Paradise Lot Police Station parking lot. Usually the place was a hub of Other activity, with centaur beat cops starting or finishing shifts, valkyrie and Gruff detectives bringing in handcuffed mythological creatures of every kind, religion and legend. But now the parking lot was empty.

  Astarte and I got out of the van and I told the popobawa what I needed him to do. Without hesitation, he saluted me and said, “Your will shall be done, Master of Master Form Filler.”

  With the little guy gone, Astarte and I headed to the back entrance. Sure, the police station might’ve been mostly abandoned, but we were still wanted fugitives—I didn’t want to risk running into the one cop who decided to do paperwork on the night Tiamat arrived. Lucky for me, after bailing out Penemue from the drunk tank countless times, I knew my way around the station.

  The back entrance was open, but Medusa’s reception desk was empty. We walked right in, down the corridor and to the cells, which were usually empty. I’d guessed the police weren’t bothering bringing anyone back here.

  A lone occupant sat in a cell—a harmonica-playing satyr.

  And in the adjacent cell—Medusa and Atargatis, arm in arm. They were both laughing, tears streaming down their cheeks.

  �
�

  “Oooh, a jailbreak—just like in The Baby-Sitters Club,” Medusa giggled, dabbing the corners of her eyes.

  I eyed the gorgon with my best “This is serious” look.

  “Just kidding,” she said, and pinched her lips closed with her fingers, quite literally suppressing a smile.

  Marty hissed. I hissed back. He gave me a look, and I rolled my eyes—I really didn’t have time for this. “Fine,” I muttered. “How are you doing, Medusa?”

  “Good,” she nodded. “We had a good chat, didn’t we?”

  Atargatis nodded and squeezed Medusa’s hand. “A very good chat.”

  “Look,” I said. “We only have a couple hours left, and we need to get Atargatis out of here. She’s the only one who can stop her child from destroying the world.”

  Atargatis shook her head. “There’s nothing I can do. There’s no god to provide intervention, and—”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, clapping my hands impatiently. “Things are different now.”

  As if making my point, the back door smashed open and Enkidu came running in. Astarte raised a hand, instructing him to calm himself.

  I pointed at Enkidu. “The old ways are coming back, which means, you’re all the divine intervention we need,” I said.

  Atargatis’ eyes widened as she looked at Enkidu. The satyr stopped playing his harmonica and groaned, saying to me, “Wait a minute. You gonna stop the end of the world?”

  “Yeah,” I said, with a bit too much optimism given our predicament.

  “Oh?” The satyr looked disappointed. “I was looking forward to it all ending,” he muttered.