Paradise Lost Boxed Set

by R. E. Vance

  I thought about saying something sarcastic or witty—some rebuttal to show my anger—but at that moment I felt no anger, only sorrow. Medusa was gone. Bella was gone. And judging from how the Army was getting into formation around us, life in Paradise Lot was about to get harder. There was no way they’d let this go unpunished. I could feel Paradise Lot devolving from a slum to an island prison. The weight of it all was just too much to bear. I simply couldn’t summon the will to take one last jab at this once-upon-a-time consultant to the gods.

  The BisMark eyed me with disappointment. I guess I wasn’t the fierce, endless warrior he thought I was. So be it … In a sad and twisted way that was a tiny bit of my revenge.

  Hellelu … oh, fuck it. I was done.

  Once More … With Feeling

  I may have been done with Paradise Lot, but Paradise Lot wasn’t done with me.

  There were investigations to be done, arrests to be made … and I was at the center of it all.

  The way I saw it, my options were simple: either the Paradise Lot Police would charge me with resisting arrest and throw me in jail, or the Army would put me in the stockade for going AWOL all those years ago. Or, most likely, I’d get both—which was fine with me. I actually looked forward to a small concrete cell.

  That would be later. Right now I was stuck on the beach as the Army and police went about cleaning up the mess and restoring order. The cops cleared the beach, and the soldiers bagged and tagged everything they could find—which meant a lot of body bags. It also meant removing hundreds upon hundreds of the FrogMan statues that Medusa had left behind in the wake of her destructive flashing. I watched them cart the statues away and thought about how each one had cost her dearly.

  Decades burned to save us all.

  Two soldiers grabbed Medusa. She was gray and stiff, her stone body shining against the morning light. They tilted her back onto a trolley and passed by where I stood, and as they did I saw her face—her two perfect dimples and her wondrous, forever-frozen smile.

  I don’t know why I let the soldiers handle her. Maybe I was too overwhelmed to stop them or just stunned with grief. Whatever it was, my paralysis broke when one soldier let her body fall into a cart with a thud. He wiped his brow, as if to say, “Job well done.” Like she was another piece of heavy cargo to ship, a trivial sculpture to move, and not the Queen of the Gorgons, the police officer, the amazing woman that she was. How dare he? I thought, and flew into a rage, determined to give him two fist-sized dimples of his own.

  Luckily for the soldier, Michael anticipated my reaction. I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. He pulled me behind a nearby flashing police van.

  “Let me go!” I protested.

  The archangel forced me into the back of the van, wrapped his wings around his shoulders like a self-swaddling infant, and squeezed in after me. “They’ll return her as soon as the investigation is complete. It’ll be then that we’ll give her a proper departure.” His voice was soft—a low, comforting hum. “Until then, we must speak.”

  I grunted. “Let me guess. I’m under arrest?”

  Michael shook his head. “No. I recall that I deputized you earlier this day.”

  “What?”

  “At the gala … When this tragedy began, I deputized you.”

  “You did no—”

  Michael’s eyes widened. The air grew heavy. “I understand you may not remember … given the stress of the situation,” he said, and his words seemed to usher an invisible, suppressive fog into the van. “But I did, in fact, deputize you. Understand?”

  I was starting to. Michael, the play-it-by-the-book, follow-every-rule ultimate Boy Scout, was bending a rule by retroactively deputizing me. If he didn’t, then there would be no excuse for what I did. It was the only recourse he had not to arrest me. I would’ve smiled at his little infraction had I not planned to never smile again.

  So it seemed I wasn’t going to be arrested after all. Oh well, at least I still had the stockade to look forward to.

  “OK, you deputized me,” I said. “And I’m no longer deputized. Thank you.”

  “No, you’re still a deputy. Your duty has yet to expire.”

  My head felt like it was going to pop. I rubbed my temples in an effort to calm down just enough to not actually explode. “I don’t know what—”

  “This is an ongoing investigation—an investigation that you’re an instrumental part of. Your duty will expire when this case is closed. Until then …” He handed me a badge. It was a circular gold shield with a safety pin on the back. It looked to me like one of those toy insignias you gave kids to play Cops.

  Michael opened the van door and squeezed out. “I’ll need you in the precinct in the coming days. Until then.” He patted the van’s roof, and the engine roared to life. “Go home.”

  ↔↔

  For the next few days, I sat in my room. I may have been off the hook with Michael, but not with the Army. I was sure they were coming, so I waited, staging battles between WWF stars and green plastic soldiers and eating Cup Noodles.

  The first two days passed, and no one came. I figured that they were watching me, checking if I was up to something like planning another apocalypse or making deals with more skyscraper-sized monsters.

  When they didn’t come on the third day, I decided they were just sloppy. But I had been on national TV, my name was well-known in Paradise Lot … It would just be a matter of time. So I staged more battles and waited. What else was I to do?

  ↔

  On the fifth morning there was a knock on my door, and I thought, Finally! I got to my feet, wrists together, ready for the handcuffs. No one burst through the door. Instead, I heard a cautious voice say, “Ahhh, hello?”

  EightBall.

  I didn’t want to speak to anyone, let alone someone from the hotel. I sat back down, ignoring him.

  The knock came again, louder this time.

  “Go away,” I cried out.

  “Ahhh, there’s something you should see,” he said.

  “Go away,” I repeated.

  “I really think you should see it,” a second voice said. It was squeaky and unsure. Brian. I guess the little fellow stuck around.

  “Go away,” I said again.

  There was murmuring, then I heard something rustle. I looked over to see an iPad slide through the gap under the door. “Just watch, OK?” Brian said. “Oh … and slide it back under when you’re done.” I heard two sets of footsteps walk away.

  I stared at the iPad. Lights and noise emanated from it. I could hear news reports about the “failed” apocalypse. I picked it up, determined to shut it off, and the screen switched to the gala. I saw Medusa in her red dress. It was the footage from before the dinner started. We had just arrived, standing arm in arm, except Medusa wasn’t holding onto me. She was holding onto … nothing.

  Then the lights dimmed and the gala began, just like it had five nights ago, with The BisMark’s, or rather, Pan’s dramatic entrance. Then Atargatis went onstage, bit into the fish, and the earthquake started. In the confusion, the camera panned to my table. I remembered that moment. I was standing on the table, telling everyone to get under—but in the replay I simply wasn’t there.

  I watched the news feed, looking for any sign of myself. Nothing. I watched it again, and a third time. Absolutely nothing, except for one word I yelled on the beach just after Medusa died. “Enough!” A single word that could’ve been cried out by anyone. Whoever edited me out must’ve missed that one word.

  I had been erased. There would be no Army breaking down my door. There would be no court-martialing by a military tribunal. There would be no escape.

  The realization that I wasn’t going to be arrested hit me with crippling anxiety. I had planned on taking myself out of the equation. No better place to do that than behind bars. Being free from incarceration meant that I was still here, in Paradise Lot, in the thick of Other drama. Nothing was going to change for me.

  I paced my room and wrung my
hands. The weight of still being here caused my chest to constrict. My breathing went shallow, and the world started to blur. I was still here.

  I was still here.

  Except, I wasn’t. My body, sure, but my heart left this place when Medusa’s heart stopped beating. It was then that I had a revolutionary thought: I didn’t need to be arrested to get out of Paradise Lot. I could just leave.

  Just pack up and leave. What would I take? A few of my favorite pieces from my 1980s collection and some clothes. I’d leave the rest behind, including my black, collarless jacket. That piece of wardrobe belonged to this place.

  I planned on leaving like a thief in the night. No goodbyes. No explanations. I guessed some of them would come up to see me, but I’d be resolute in my decision. After a few days they’d leave me alone.

  Tonight, I thought.

  I started giggling when my mobile phone rang. The caller ID flashed: Paradise Lot Police. Michael was calling at the exact moment I decided on leaving. This was the complete opposite of an auspicious event. I was beginning to wonder if the Universe was listening in on my plans and was countering them with its own.

  Well, two could play at that game. I ignored my phone.

  It rang again, and this time I rejected the call.

  It rang a third time. Before I could reject it, my phone’s screen lit up as if I answered. A low baritone voice spoke from the phone’s speaker. “Jean.”

  “What? Michael, how are you speaking to me? I didn’t answer my phone.”

  “I know. I burned seven minutes to answer it for you. I need you to come to the station immediately.”

  “No,” I said flatly.

  “You’re my deputy. It’s your duty to—”

  “No,” I repeated.

  Michael sighed, which sounded more like a baritone opera singer warming up. “Hear me, human. Deputy or not, duty or not—what I require of you and what your heart desires are one and the same.”

  I rolled my eyes. More Other esoteric crap. “Fine,” I groaned. “I’m listening.”

  Michael sighed again and told me why he wanted me at the station. Before he could finish, I was grabbing my black collarless jacket and heading for the door.

  ↔↔

  Pan sat in front of me, his hands in handcuffs that were intertwined with the thread from Rumpelstiltskin’s spindle, to prevent him from burning time. Up-close he looked small and weak—a scrawny teenager’s torso on the legs of a goat. His face was youthful, devoid of blemishes or wrinkles.

  He put his hands on the steel table. “I wanted to talk to you … give you a chance to thank me. After all, I was true to my word. No camera recorded you that night.” He winked at me.

  I ignored the bait. “Give it back,” I said. “The time you took. All of it.” Michael had instructed me to finesse Pan. This was me finessing.

  Pan’s smile widened. “Take these cuffs off, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “No more tricks. No more jokes. Give it back.”

  “I can’t. But you know that already. That giant talking pigeon of a police chief already told you that. Time is a one-way thing.”

  It was true. Without the Creation Crystal, time could not be returned to those it was taken from. Michael—and by extension, the entire Otherworld—was looking for another Crystal. But Creation Crystals were what the gods used to form the world. Think of them as funnels that let you focus your magic. A typical Other could make a continent in their image with a single shard, but a god … a god could use the focused energy to build universes. It was believed that they had taken all the Crystals with them. After all, they would need the Crystals to build their new home. But then Pan showed up with a large piece of one and, well, all bets were off.

  Pan laced his fingers together. “So, let me guess—you want to know where I got the Crystal? And you want to know if there’s any more lying about?”

  I said nothing.

  “Would you believe me if I told you that when the gods left, I—the great Pan—decided to retire? My plan was to live the rest of my life in relative peace and quiet. I even got a job as a maître d' at a Michelin star restaurant in the human world. Of course, I was disguised, burning time to pretend I was human. At the rate I was burning, I had seventy-three years left—a human’s lifespan. Good enough for me. Then one day, after a particularly long shift where yours truly hosted the AlwaysMortal elite, I came home to my moderately sized apartment in a reasonably priced neighborhood, and what did I find? A Creation Crystal sitting on my coffee table. There was no note. No explanation. Nothing.” Pan leaned forward. “Do you believe me?”

  I shook my head.

  Pan fell back into his chair in an exasperated huff. “Of course not. I didn’t either. But it’s true. Some Other broke into my apartment and gave me one of the most precious items the universe has ever known. Why? Certainly they knew what they gave me. And what’s more … they knew who I was and what I was capable of.” Pan tried to stand up. His restraints forced him back into the chair. Not that being chained dampened his excitement. “Don’t you see? Whoever left that wanted me to do something big. Really big.”

  “Why would they want that?” I asked.

  “Why else?” He shot me a devilish, Others-will-be-Others smile. “To bring the gods back.”

  ↔

  “Don’t you get it?” Pan said, genuinely confused that I didn’t understand his plan. “I did all this so that they would come back to fix it … They have to. It’s what they’ve always done.”

  “What?” I asked. “Fix this! That’s your plan. Lure them back with a mess? Why? Why? Why!” I couldn’t believe it. The little bastard actually thought he did a good thing.

  “Because I pleased them,” he said. “I did all this … the Beast … the greatest time-heist ever known … to entice them. To amuse them. They have to come back. Wait and see.” He cocked his head to the ceiling, as if gazing up at the gods in the sky. “I always knew how to make them laugh.”

  “So that’s what this was all about … pulling a stunt to grab their attention?”

  Pan giggled. “Yes.”

  “If you were really that good at entertaining them, don’t you think they would’ve taken you with them? You know … for a laugh on their long journey to wherever? But they didn’t, did they? Do you want to know why? Because we … you … displeased them. Whether it was because we didn’t worship enough or worshiped too much … or because we worshiped wrong … whatever it was, they weren’t satisfied. So they left us. And they most certainly left you, too. No tricks will bring them back.”

  “But they always laughed when—”

  I grabbed Pan by the horns, pulled his head close to mine and growled, “They aren’t laughing now. You know why? Because they’re not watching, you stupid selfish fool! You killed so many people. People who’ll never come back. Ever. Others, soldiers, civilians … Medusa …” My voice wavered at her name. “They’re dead because of you.”

  “The gods will come back, and when they do, they’ll make this right. You’ll see,” he said, his devilish grin replaced with a look of uncertainty. “They’ll come back. They have to.”

  “Have you ever considered that maybe … just maybe … it was the great Pan’s silly little tricks that drove them away?”

  Pan winced at the thought. “No—they always laughed.”

  “Laughed? Are you sure? Maybe at first, but soon that laughter became disappointment and frustration. After all, you just admitted that they were always cleaning up your mess.”

  Pan shook his head.

  “And maybe, just maybe, you went too far. Too far … too many messes … maybe that’s why they left. To get away from you.”

  “They loved me,” he said, his voice hesitant.

  “That’s what you say,” I said, leaning in close. I have hated very few in my life. This creature I hated with a burning fire and an unquenchable anger. I hated Pan with all my soul. “They didn’t take you with them. In fact, they did everything to hide th
eir plans from you because they knew that if the great Pan caught a whiff of what they were doing, he’d muck it up for them. No, they didn’t love you. How could they?”

  “No,” he said.

  “As for your little trick … a trick that cost so many … maybe you’re right. The gods are watching, and praising themselves for leaving you behind.”

  “No, they love me. They love me!”

  “No, they don’t. They don’t love any of us.” I let him go, stood and pounded on the door.

  “Pathetic,” I said as it opened. Pan softly sobbed behind me. I left without turning to look at him. I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, he was feeling a fraction of the pain he deserved for what he did.

  ↔

  Michael greeted me in the hall.

  “He’s gone,” I said. “Another Other driven insane by the departure of the gods.”

  Michael nodded. “The gods’ departure has taken its toll on all of us. Sadly, Pan’s nature didn’t arm him well enough for such an event, Deputy Jean.”

  I looked for a hint of irony in Michael’s eyes. There was none. He was dead serious, and I guessed this deputy thing was going to stick around—for as long as I did, anyway. I nodded. “Do you believe him about the Crystal? It fits with what Stewart said before he went all inanimate.”

  The archangel shook his head. “I don’t know. Either way, this doesn’t bode well for the world.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Pan is either lying and somehow he found the Crystal … or there is another Other in the background. One who believes in Chaos.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “What else? To usher back the old world?”