Paradise Lost Boxed Set

by R. E. Vance

“But …”

  The truth was, deep down, I didn’t want to save the whole world. I just wanted to save us. Her and me. But that was the selfish part of me that my time with Bella had tempered.

  She had made me want to be a better man, and now I was reaping the consequences of it.

  Bella looked at Penemue. “Help him find a way back to me. Do you understand? You owe us both. Help him! Promise me.”

  Penemue nodded. “I promise.”

  She turned to me. “As for you, we have already found our way back to each other twice before. Now I ask you to do so one more time. Find me again. Promise me that you will find me again.”

  “I … I …”

  “Say it,” she said. “Please.”

  “I promise.”

  “Then it is done.”

  “No,” I started. “It’s not done. We have to talk about—”

  But before I could say anything else, she took my hands and pulled me in close. “I love you, Jean-Luc Matthias, only missing the Mark. Now and forever. In this life and the next.” She kissed my forehead. As she did, I felt myself falling into a peaceful sleep.

  ***A Brief Interlude***

  As Penemue pulls Jean’s sleeping body out of Hell, he contemplates how he can keep two promises that directly contradict each other. On the one hand, he owes his life to EightBall … a life that the boy plans to end.

  On the other hand, he has promised to help reunite two souls he dearly loves. How can he do so if he is dead?

  At the exit of Hell, he contemplates his dilemma until a thought occurs to him: How does one find another entrance back into Heaven? Through research, study … knowledge.

  And where can such knowledge be found?

  “Why, in a library, of course,” he whispers to himself.

  Summoning the last of his hellish powers, he flies to the heart of his Grand Library. There the Pearl of Wisdom still resides. Through his will and desire, he pulls in all the knowledge ever conceived, just as he once did so long ago when the gods first threw him out of Hell.

  It takes time and energy, but when it is done, Penemue holds an object no larger than a marble. Within its glass walls resides everything ever known from the moment of creation until the moment the gods left.

  “Something in here will guide you back to your Bella,” he says to a sleeping Jean, placing the pearl in the human’s pocket.

  Part XX

  Earth

  For Whom the Bella Toils

  I woke up somewhere above Paradise Lot’s downtown. I was in Penemue’s arms, the last place I wanted to be, heading toward the Millennium Hotel, the last place I wanted to go. Neither of us looked at each other as he flew us home. Neither of us spoke or even acknowledged the bleakness of what was happening.

  I was going home to be without Bella.

  He was going home to die.

  ↔

  I’m not sure what I expected upon returning home to my Bella-less existence. What I can tell you is precisely what I didn’t expect: two dead fae witches—one young, one old, presumably from burning time—on my lawn. And not just dead; one had been riddled with bullet holes and the other had a dagger sticking out of her neck. Both were just lying there for everyone to see, and given how their green blood was still flowing from their yet-to-contort-from-rigor-mortis bodies, they hadn’t been there long.

  In other words, the bodies were still, as the saying goes, warm. If that wasn’t enough, bullet shells littered the lawn all around the Apache warbird, a helicopter that belonged to my former employer, Mr. Cain from Memnock Securities. An employer who, I might add, was now dead and lying in a pool of his own red blood in a lighthouse on the island I’d just left.

  I’m no detective, but everything screamed guilty, á la moi. Hell, even Detective Steve (the local Paradise Lot investigator, somewhat of a buffoon and the youngest of the Billy Goats Gruff) would point his cloven-hoofed fingers at me.

  Something needed to be done about the bodies and the overwhelming evidence, or I was looking at life in prison with no chance of finding a way back to Bella … unless of course the local prisons expanded their library resources.

  I was just starting to form a plan (that mostly involved finding Marc, kicking his ass and making him clean his mess up) when I heard the unmistakable whoomp, whoomp of an angel flying.

  From the proverbial heavens above, Michael—as in, archangel-cum-Paradise Lot’s police chief—descended to the lawn. He had Judith in his arms and a scowl on his face.

  Judith, not seeing Bella by my side, did something I never expected … she burst into tears. She didn’t know Bella had chosen to stay behind. All she knew was that Bella wasn’t here. And that was enough.

  Without saying a word, Judith rushed into the hotel. I thought about going after her, but I had a murder conviction to face.

  Looking up at the towering archangel, I didn’t even bother with the usual, “Michael, I can explain.” Instead, I simply presented the scene like a magician might reveal that the lady he’d sawed in two was actually in two pieces.

  He looked at the scene and said in an uncharacteristic manner, “The Erlking’s wives came here for revenge. This was self-defense, although in the eyes of mortal law that will translate into years of investigations, litigations and, given the human’s propensity for enjoying tragedy, a made-for-TV movie.”

  A joke? Was Michael, the original boy scout and archangel created before humor was invented, making a joke?

  Looking down at me, the police chief added, “I cannot have you so encumbered.” And burning a bit of time, literally made this crime scene disappear.

  “What the holy—?”

  “One pass!” he boomed, the personality I knew and detested coming back full force. “One!”

  He downgraded his voice from the wrath of God to the wrath of James Earl Jones. “For what you did for the children, and what you sacrificed in the process.”

  Turning to Penemue, who stood uncharacteristically quiet, Michael punched the twice-fallen angel square in the nose. A spurt of fluorescent angel blood sparkled around his face like a blossoming firework as Penemue went down with a momentous thud, all eight feet of him falling to the ground.

  “You have broken so many laws, I cannot begin to contain my—” But the archangel stopped mid-tirade and took a deep breath that betrayed his obvious penchant for yoga. With a somewhat calm, almost even breath, he said, “Given no permanent harm came of your little reopening of Hell, your role in saving the children and the fact that your actions righted a great wrong by returning Medusa to us … I shall give you one pass, too.”

  So Michael was going to let us go, but what was more revealing was how he’d perceived our respective crimes. I got a pass for saving the kids, but Penemue needed to literally resurrect someone to receive his Get Out of Jail Free card for opening Hell.

  Angelic priorities. Go figure.

  “Jean,” Michael said, “we must speak.”

  “OK,” I said, “but first I need to—” I was going to say, “Stop Penemue from doing something stupid,” but the angel had already gone inside.

  I started after him when Michael grabbed my shoulder, forcing me to turn around.

  ↔

  “The children are safe, but that is about all that is right with the world. Already the humans are talking about setting up camps to contain the Others. And the Others are not making this easy. Small factions are taking up arms. They are preparing for battle. Another war is unavoidable.”

  “And?” I said.

  Michael gave me a curious look, as if he didn’t understand my meaning. And I guess that made sense. Before, I was the guy in the muck of it. I was the one who stuck his nose in the middle of all the shit and rummaged around, looking for some semblance of a solution. He wasn’t used to the new and improved, I don’t care version of me.

  “Let me spell this out,” I said. “Why are you telling me?”

  “Because you are … you,” he said, as if that explained everything.
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br />   “And me, being me, is done with all of this. I’m going to my cabin up north to do nothing, see nothing, hear nothing.” I gestured like the three wise monkeys.

  “But—”

  “But nothing, Michael. I’m done. I have given literally everything I have to give and I’m done.”

  “And your promise,” Michael said, “to Bella?”

  Hearing her name broke the seal I had so carefully placed over my heart on the way home. With a cry of rage, I screamed, “I owe her nothing! She broke her promise to me. Not once—twice. She left me twice. And why? For them. For the Others. Don’t you see? She left me, choosing death over a lifetime with me for them … And now you want me to help? Why? So that I can endure more misery. More pain.” I pounded my chest. “I can’t feel any more pain. I can’t do this anymore.” My voice wobbled under the weight of my own words. “I just can’t.”

  And, falling to my knees, I broke down with the hurt of a broken heart.

  Michael came to my side. Placing a heavy, comforting hand on my back, he let me mourn before saying, “You are right, Human Jean. You have endured more than most. We cannot ask more of you. I only pray that you will find it in your heart to keep your promise.”

  “The only promise I intend to keep is searching for a way back to her.”

  If Michael understood what I meant, he made no indication of it. “Very well, my friend …”

  Did he just call me his friend? I thought the angel hated me.

  “… I shall ask no more of you. Come to me should you mend enough to help again.” He stood and unfurled his wings. “Before I take my leave, know that Medusa recovers at St. Mercy’s Hospital. She is a shell of who she once was. You should check in on her, if you can.”

  And with that, Michael took to the sky.

  Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye

  After a long moment, I managed to pull myself up. I had one more thing to do … talk Penemue out of suicide. I went into the hotel, where I saw Judith standing by the turnstile door with a bag in hand. She looked at her phone with impatience.

  “Five minutes away, my ass,” she said. Actually she swore. Miss Never-Say-A-Bad-Word swore. She was hurting. I understood.

  Not wanting to get into a fight with her, I made my way to the elevator. Penemue’s room was on the seventh floor, and presumably he was there.

  But on the way over, Judith looked back at me with her typical You failed again eyes and something inside me broke. I could stand her hating me, her leaving. All that was fine. But blaming me for Bella not returning … that was too much.

  “I begged her to come home,” I said. “I even tried to force her. But in the end, she—”

  “Chose them over us,” Judith said in a soft voice. “I heard your little meltdown.”

  I was so taken aback by the softness in her voice that my brain froze. It simply could not compute such kindness from her.

  Now Judith turned to face me. “You might not be able to keep your promise, but if my daughter has sacrificed herself for them … then what I must do is clear. I’m going to Mission to volunteer. I’m going to do what I can to help.”

  The Mission. An old Victorian-era mansion that, before the gods left, was where people of many different faiths held events … Bar Mitzvahs, mass, prayer, Diwali. It was dubbed the Mission because so many used its hallowed halls. After the gods left, it was turned into a community center with programs to help the downtrodden Others.

  “Good for you,” I said, and meant it.

  “You know, Jean,” Judith said, tilting her head back as she tried to use gravity to hold in her tears, “Bella loves you. She has ever since you used to sneak into our house in the middle of night. And in Hell, I saw that love coming through again. She loves you more than anything.”

  “Loves me enough to leave me.”

  “When Bella was a little girl, our house was filled with all sorts of strays and hurt animals.” Judith chuckled. “And not just animals—insects, lizards, frogs. Hell, she once came home with a bee whose wings had been torn off by a praying mantis. She also came home with that mantis … it had lost a leg in the fight. She took care of both equally, and cried for two days when the bee died. The praying mantis lived with us for a year before it, too, passed. Anything and everything broken found its way into our house.

  “Bella isn’t capable of just loving. She has to help. It is her nature, though where she got that, I will never know. But do you know what?” Judith turned to me, and as soon as she lowered her head, a cascade of tears broke free. “With all that love in her heart, she loved you the most.”

  I shrugged. “I guess I just wanted to experience that love, you know …” I gestured to the empty space next to me.

  “I know this is hard to hear, but leaving you doesn’t diminish her love, Jean. It accentuates it.”

  “How?” I asked, seeing the taxi pull up.

  “Because she knows you are strong enough to endure anything. And she also knew that she could never fully give herself to you with so many broken around.”

  ↔

  Judith left, and the only thought I had was that I, too, was broken. Taking the elevator up to Penemue’s room, I found the angel on his knees with EightBall sitting in front of him, his horrible nail-bat in hand.

  ↔

  What do you say when someone is determined to kill another, and the would-be victim is determined to let them? Stop? Hold on? Let’s put a pin in the whole murder thing and circle back after a good night’s sleep?

  I didn’t pay nearly enough attention in Psych 101 to unpack this, so I opted for a hard stare and let their brains fill in the blanks.

  EightBall sat cold as ice, but Penemue … Penemue spoke. “I know what you’re going to say.”

  Good, so they are filling in the blanks.

  “That this is a waste. That I can serve more with life than without.”

  I’m more eloquent than I thought.

  “That I cared for this boy. That I love him.”

  I am good!

  “But it is because of that love that I will allow him to do this.”

  What? Wait.

  “I love you, EightBall. More than you can imagine. I love you, and if this act will bring you peace, then so be it.”

  “But it won’t bring him peace.”

  “Perhaps.” Penemue sighed. “But that is not certain—”

  “No, no. Murder, death … those never bring peace. Trust me, kid—they don’t. I should know.”

  “Actually,” Penemue said, “I have studied countless human souls. Revenge, murder—they can bring some peace.”

  “No—”

  “Yes, they can. It is a common human platitude that murder is wrong. Revenge is wrong. Turn the other cheek and all that.” Penemue chuckled at this. “But that is only true of some. Most, even. But not all. Not all humans find death wrong. Not all humans are plagued by their revenge. Some find a final peace afterward. Some go on to live quiet, good lives.”

  “No. No, you’re just a quitter. You’re sick of this life and you want out.” I pointed an accusatory finger at Penemue. “And you’re too much of a coward to do it yourself.”

  “Believe me, Human Jean, I do not want to die. I never wanted to die. I have accepted the possibility, but I have never sought it. And, if I believed that this boy would further hurt himself by killing me, I would not allow it, instead orchestrating a scenario in which death would find me by other hands. But I know this human’s soul—”

  “Up until the point the gods left. Up until he was eight years old. You don’t know him. He’s a man now, and you don’t know what will become of him after.” I gestured as though I was swinging a bat, stealing a glance at EightBall. The boy hadn’t moved since I entered, just staring at Penemue like he was trying to unravel a puzzle.

  “I know enough about him and humans to know that should my death bring him peace, it will have to be by his hand. And I have enough uncertainty in his future to also know that this will most likely heal him.�
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  “But not 100% certainty?”

  “No, that number eludes me.”

  “Then—”

  Penemue raised a hand from where he knelt before the boy his parents called Newton. “Jean … in the heart of Optimus Prime, where the AllSpark would reside, I left you something.”

  “Optimus? What? Are you referring to my Transformers toy?”

  “The very same. In his chestplate is the heart of all knowledge. Knowledge that will help you find your way back to Bella. Take it to the angel Chamuel—he will know how to use the item.”

  I stopped, my heart thudding at the thought. Shaking my head, I said, “And you? What about you?”

  “Should I survive, I will also aid you … But should today be my last, then Chamuel. He will know what to do.”

  “And what, that’s it? Let’s leave it here and, game over? Or what?”

  “Yes, all that can be said has been said. All that can be done has been done.”

  “How profound.”

  “I was not trying to be profound.”

  “You weren’t trying to be profound? Weren’t trying to be profound! Fuck it and fuck the two of you,” I cried out. “I’m done. I’m done, do you hear me? I just lost Bella for the second time. Medusa is a shell of who she used to be. I’m exhausted and I still have the stench of Hell on me. I’m done. I just can’t bring myself to care anymore.”

  Looking at Penemue, I said, “If you don’t want me to get involved, fine. I won’t. And as for you, kid, I’m done with you, too. I’m going to bed and when I wake up, I’m having a leisurely breakfast before I come back to this room. Either I’m going to find you two all patched up and friends again, or a splatted Penemue on the floor. I sincerely hope it’s the former, but if you decide to go the route of splat, you better be gone, EightBall. Because I swear to the GoneGods, if I ever see you again, you’ll be another stain beneath my boot.”