Paradise Lost Boxed Set

by R. E. Vance

  If I was going to win, I needed a miracle, and just as I was lamenting that miracles were in short supply these days (especially in Hell), he leapt into the air with his fist pointed downward and straight at my head. I managed to tumble out of the way, his fist driving hard into the ground. I swear I heard the earth say “Ouch” under the weight of his punch.

  “No fair—he’s using magic again,” I said, because I couldn’t believe anyone was strong enough to crack stone with their fists and not be burning time.

  But looking into Odin’s one good eye, I saw the god shake his head. “No magic … on my honor. But Thor is a god and, well, gods are strong.” As if to prove his point, Odin gave me a little flex of his own.

  “Shit.” I looked at the gaggle of children and added, “Sorry.” There are some lines that should never be crossed, and swearing in front of kids is one of them.

  I turned to face Thor again. “I don’t suppose we could settle this with a game of rock-paper-scissors?”

  Thor laughed, his perfect smile portraying unnatural kindness and good humor given he was literally trying to kill me. “Human, you amuse me. And after I ground your bones into the ground beneath our feet, I shall have my bard sing a hymn in your honor. You will die well this day. That I swear.” Then, doing his little leaping in the air trick again, added, “For, after all, those who die at the hands of Thor shall be rewarded by Valhalla.”

  I was about to tumble out of the way when I saw him shift his angle; he was expecting me to move and was preparing appropriately. So I did the only thing I could think of, given that I had about a nanosecond left to live. I looked at Bella and smiled. I was about to die and there was nothing I could do about it. The only thing I did have control over was what I saw before my last breath, and looking at Bella was a good way to go.

  The best way to go.

  Thor came down on me, confused that I wasn’t moving. Seeing that he was about to win, he adjusted himself appropriately. His fist was aimed right at my skull, and the split second before he was about to come down on my head, a loud bell rang.

  I mean, a really loud bell.

  Thor twisted his body so that he didn’t touch me, and because he was moving at such incredible speeds, his little twist caused him to fall flat on his butt. He got up in a huff and stamped his foot in anger. “Not fair.”

  Loki came running to the front. “Totally fair. I was timing you, and that was the end of round one.”

  “What? There are rounds?” I said as the trickster god pulled a boxer’s stool that he’d manifested from thin air and gestured for me to sit down on.

  ↔

  “I want nothing more than to see my brother taken down by a human,” Loki whispered as he crouched before me. “But since you are weak and pathetic, I doubt you are the human to do it.”

  “Geez, thanks,” I said as I felt a hand on my shoulder. Bella was standing by my side with a brave—albeit forced—smile on her face. Turning back to Loki, I added, “I don’t know if you’ve considered a career in motivational speaking, but—”

  “Human, you talk too much. And if you want to live, you must listen.” Loki looked over his shoulder, making sure no one was eavesdropping on our little conversation. “My brother, he has been stripped of magic, but the truth is made from magic. So, as hobbled as he is, he still possesses great power. There is no way you can defeat him with your hands. But with that great power comes—”

  “Great responsibility?” I offered.

  Loki looked at me in confusion before shaking his head. “Great vulnerability. It is the law of our worlds. With every ability comes a weakness, and you must exploit that if you are to survive this day.”

  “How?”

  Loki chuckled. “My brother is many things, but a poker player he will never be. He has a tell—you always know where his attack will come from by where his little finger on his right hand points. That is how you can avoid being hit. But as for knocking him down, there is only one weapon in all of creation that can hurt him. Mjolnir.”

  I looked over at Thor’s hammer sitting on the ground. “I thought we couldn’t use magic.”

  “Indeed, but there was nothing said about weapons.”

  The trickster god was right, and suddenly I really wished I had my gun again. Then again, I doubted a bullet would do much against the God of Thunder. I considered the hammer again. “Don’t I have to be worthy to pick it up?”

  Loki gave me a strange and slightly indignant look. “Excuse me?”

  “What, Marvel Universe rules don’t apply here?”

  There was another ding and Loki stood, offering me his hand to help me to my feet. “Marvel Universe? I marvel at the wonders of the universe all the time, Human, and if you ever wish to marvel again, then use the hammer.”

  I nodded. Loki had just given me my ticket to life: the hammer. More specifically, Thor’s hammer. Looking over at the brutal weapon sitting at the edge of ring, I knew that if I could get to it, then, well … how would Stan Lee put it?

  Excelsior!

  ↔

  Thor’s next attack started earnestly enough; he rushed into the center of the ring and tried to hit me with a left jab. But Loki’s tell was perfect, and I was able to dodge out of the way.

  Another jab, uppercut and haymaker, each with his right pinky telling me exactly where his fist was going. And with every miss, Thor was getting more and more furious, gradually working himself up into the berserker rage that Vikings were so famous for.

  I knew that if I went for the hammer too soon, he’d beat me to it and—remembering there wasn’t a weapon clause in this fight—would pick it up and tenderize my already mushy, soft body.

  But given how he was huffing and puffing, maybe exhausting him was an option after all. Then Thor went for a kidney shot, his pinky pointing to the right, but at the last second he kicked, the sole of his foot connecting with my stomach and sending me flying backward.

  Thor smiled, any frustration gone from his face. And any exhaustion that had been painting his face was gone, too. Lifting his pinky, he wiggled it. “I see my brother told you about my little finger.”

  I turned to Loki, who doubled over in laughter.

  “The same trick worked with the Frost Giants,” Thor said, walking over to me with his palm open.

  Given that the breath had been knocked out of me, I did little to get out of the way. I mean, I tried, but alas, both will and flesh were weak. As he spun me round and round over his head, I relished the brief rest I got before he threw me against the mountain’s face.

  He walked over to me like he had all the time in the world. “Despite what the myths say, Loki and I are brothers. Yes, we have our differences, but he is still my brother. He would never betray me, especially not to a human, and—”

  But before the Norse god could finish whatever ode he was singing to his loyal brother, there was a mighty thunderous crack as Bella picked up his hammer and slammed it into his chest.

  Thor might have been the God of Lightning, but Bella was the thunder.

  Frightening Gods with Old Flames

  Bella hit Thor square in the chest and sent the god flying back against the other side of the valley wall with a thunderous boom. I know my wife … she’s strong, but not that strong. Seems that even though Loki was lying about the tell, he wasn’t kidding about the hammer. So much for brotherly love.

  And so much for us, too. As soon as Thor hit the wall, the other gods turned on us, pointing accusatory fingers. “Not fair. You cheated.”

  “Did not,” I said in a tone that was bit too childish for my liking. I guess they were rubbing off on me. “There was nothing in the rules about weapons. That was fair and square.”

  “The rules were implied,” Zeus boomed.

  “Were they?” Judith cut in, her voice dripping with condescension. “Just like they were implied all the times you seduced women, pretending to be their husbands?”

  Athena laughed.

  “Oh no, you don’t get a
pass, young lady,” Judith said. “Not after you were so nasty to Medusa. You know what you did.”

  Athena held her head down in shame.

  Then Judith pointed at the others. “What about you, Loki? When you broke your promise to Thiazi, a promise that got that poor giant burnt to death. And where were the rules when you two gave in to temptation, hmph? Adam, Eve? Were you two following the rules when you ate from the Tree of Good and Evil and condemned all of humanity to an eternity of … of this? I don’t think so.”

  Holy mythology, Batman, I thought. Judith really knew her stuff. I mean, I knew a lot about myth, fables and legends, but that was because my job—well, former job—demanded it. You couldn’t hunt down creatures of myth without knowing their backgrounds. Well, you could, but knowing that a hobgoblin could not deny the allure of a good riddle or that a wendigo was terrified of fire tended to give you an edge in a life-or-death fight.

  But Judith? All this time I thought she was just an ignorant, head-in-the-sand, judgmental mother-in-law who hated the new order of things. Now I had to upgrade her to a knowledgeable, judgmental mother-in-law who hated the new order of things.

  Still, judging by the way the gods diverted their gazes, looking at the ground and kicking their feet in the dirt in the collective shame of all the times they’d broken the rules for their own gain, Judith’s chiding was working. Good Judith!

  And from the way her lips slightly curled at the edges, she knew it, too. And then she did the classic mistake when trying to save yourself from an ass-whooping: she pushed it too far. “So if none of you follow the rules, why should we?”

  I didn’t immediately see the mistake in those words until Athena’s eyes perked up. Up until that point, she had been folding her arms across her chest as her head hung low, but as soon as Judith’s last rebuke left her lips, the damn Goddess of Wisdom looked up at us and said the three words that changed everything. “Because we’re gods.”

  That was the only excuse they needed, and as soon as those words left her lips, the gaggle of kids all ceased being ashamed as crackles of power coursed through them.

  So much for “Go Judith.”

  ↔

  The little gang of pint-sized gods charged us as one, each of their undersized bodies sizzling with magic far too great to come in such small packages. I pulled out my sword, Bella readied Thor’s hammer and Marty hissed. Judith glared at the charging gods, lifting her fist to the ready.

  This was it—we were going to go down swinging (and scowling). As far as ends go, this wasn’t horrible … I mean, how many of us get to check out fighting a god? Or even a group of ankle-biter gods?

  That was respectable, too.

  And just as they were about to descend on us, I heard several swooshes followed by childish exclamations of “Ow!” as several of them slapped their necks like swatting at flies. Not that I knew what happened, or cared. Right now, I was considering cutting off one of Shiva’s arms.

  But just as Shiva was about to swing down on me, she face-planted on the ground and—fell asleep?

  “What the—?” I started when Zeus, Baldr, Anguta, Nanook and Eve all simultaneously dropped. Their sudden fall was followed by another mighty swing of Thor’s hammer that sent Enlil and Chinnamasta flying.

  “No fair, no fair, no fair! You are—” Athena yelled before slapping her own neck and promptly passing out.

  The other gods, seeing their friends drop like flies, stopped their advance and began slowly backing away. Then Anubis growled, “What kind of magic is this?”

  “Whatever it is,” Adam said, “we better get out of here.”

  “Isis,” Odin said, “take us home.”

  The Egyptian god nodded as whirlwinds of energy emanated from the ground, lifting the slumbering gods and whisking them away from where they were to … to, well, presumably their home. And in a flash, we were alone.

  I didn’t know what happened. We had been saved by a miracle or divine intervention or karma or whatever else you call it when the impossible happens.

  But the trouble with miracles, divine intervention and karma is that they were principles in short supply these days. And we were in Hell, which made them particularly rare. Whatever had saved us was something else. Something more ethereal, something—

  Marty hissed. Looking behind me for the first time since the gods had tucked their tails between their legs and ran, I saw exactly what had saved us.

  It wasn’t divine intervention or karma, but it was a miracle of sorts. For standing in a grotto in the cliff face’s wall stood Medusa, her bow at the ready. She had what I was sure was a poison-tipped arrow pointed right at us.

  Well, not us. Following the tip to its intended target, I saw exactly who Medusa meant to fell with her next arrow. Bella.

  Part XVI

  Earth

  Conner returns from the prison island with the children. Their ship is guided into the harbor by three myarids who guard the vessel with all their power. There isn’t a force on Earth that can hurt them as long as they are on the ship.

  But the same isn’t true once they dock. On land, so much can harm them. So Conner does something that he knows will cost him his badge: he calls the Paradise Lot Police Station and summons every officer he can find to the dock.

  On arrival, they are greeted by the archangel Michael, the Billy Goats Gruff, valkyrie, centaurs and troll officers. Human officers, too.

  Miral, the angel of Heaven-turned-doctor, stands on the boat’s deck holding Conner’s hand. His grip is warm, and given the great ordeal she has gone through, his hand shouldn’t be as comforting as it is. But holding him and standing next to him brings her peace, and it is at that moment she finally admits something to herself she has longed denied. She loves Conner. She loves him in the only way an angel knows how—completely, utterly, with every fiber of her being.

  One by one the children are taken off the boat, and one by one, Miral treats the children. Yes, she is hurt, but she is also a doctor who took a solemn oath to aid those in need. She will put aside her own pain until the last of the children are treated.

  The process is long and arduous, but none of the children are seriously hurt. Their wounds run deeper than any cut, for all these children now know that there are monsters in the world. So many horrible monsters.

  One by one, the parents are called. And one by one, Miral is there to reunite the children with their families.

  Each embrace is different, and each embrace is the same.

  Different words are used, different tears cried. The tightness of the hugs vary, and the number of kisses.

  But they are all the same; each parent is overcome with relief and love.

  Miral watches the humans with their offspring, and she rubs her own belly. At that moment, she does not feel joy. Another, much uglier emotion fills her heart—jealousy.

  The gods … her God … denied Others the ability to have offspring of their own. This was part of the gift bestowed upon her kind when the gods departed.

  Mortality and infertility.

  In other words, a slow and final death.

  Miral sends off the last of the children. As she closes her office, she wonders how it is that the gods were so cruel.

  ↔

  But Miral is an angel. What’s more, she is a soldier of Heaven. Her self-pity is short-lived, and with the last of the children reunited with their parents, she turns to the archangel Michael to discuss more immediate issues.

  Michael was her commander when they were soldiers in Heaven. Now that Heaven is closed and they are both mortal, Michael has become something else to Miral. He has become a friend.

  “My archangel Michael,” Miral says in her formal manner reserved for the gravest matters.

  “My angel Miral,” Michael responds.

  “The kidnapping of the human children will not go unanswered, and our greatest fear is upon us. War is here.”

  Michael nods.

  “We are faced with a choice: fight for the hum
ans or fight for the Others.” She looks at Conner as she speaks. The human stands on the dock, wrapped in a blanket. She knows that if she has to choose, she will choose him. Not the Others. Not the humans. Only him.

  Michael sighs. “True, but the advent of war will be slow. We have time.”

  “We have time,” Miral agrees. “But the choice will remain the same. Humans or Others?”

  Michael clenches his fists before unfurling his wings, the angel’s way of expressing great frustration. Miral watches with envy as his magnificent wings span several yards in each direction. She has been hobbled; without significant care, she will never fly again.

  Not that Michael knows this. All he knows is his own anger. After several seconds with his wings outstretched, he wraps them around himself. “Both. We fight for both.”

  “How?”

  “By following His word.”

  “He is gone. So is His word.”

  Michael growls. “Our God may no longer be with us, but His word lives on. We fight for both with love in our hearts for both humans and Others. Equally. And that love will guide us in every decision we make.”

  “You wait for love to guide you. See where that gets you. I, on the other hand, would rather prepare.”

  Michael growls again, his voice like the rolling thunder of a thousand lightning strikes. “Careful.”

  “No, I will not be admonished by you for speaking my mind. Such lofty principles may have once guided us, but they do not now. Now we must follow another tenant, another set of laws—our own. I will prepare for what is coming. So should you. And when the drums of war finally beat at our doorstep, I will fight. But I will not fight for both humans or Others. I will not fight for both. I will fight for myself.”