The Mythniks Saga

by Paul Neuhaus

  Medea cocked an eyebrow and smiled. “Not one of her biological sisters.”

  Constantinides looked at his watch. It was all black to match his outfit (actually, he fit right in in Medea’s apartment). “Come on, stop speaking in riddles. The Jets are playing the Patriots in twenty minutes.”

  Medea sighed and said to me, “You should really bone up on your Hollywood history. Medusa had a whole career before becoming Gloria Mae. She was huge in the silent era as ‘Simone Geller’. She and her ’sibling’ Honoria. They were put together by their director as the poor man’s Gish sisters. Medusa was immortal. Honoria was not. Medusa has been a patron of her longtime partner’s family from the nineteen teens all the way up to the present day. She’s put many generations of Honoria’s family through college. I find it sickeningly sentimental, but some people go in for that sort of thing. At any rate, Medusa secreted the hierophant in the home of her old partner. I have every reason to believe it’s still there.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. “What was Honoria Geller’s real last name?”

  “Hornblatt.”

  “And where is the Hornblatt home?”

  “In the Valley. North Hollywood.”

  I turned to Connie. “I have everything I need. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Amen,” he said.

  As we were headed out, I said to Medea, “Say ‘hi’ to the family for me.”

  She didn’t reply. She just flipped me the bird.

  When we got back outside, the little Greek sailing ship amusement park ride thingy was waiting for us. We got in, pulled the metal bar down into our laps and were underway. After a moment, Connie spoke. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

  “Depends on the something, I suppose, but go ahead.”

  He nodded. “What do you think I oughta do? With Amanda, I mean…”

  “What should you do with her? Like do I think you should murder her or something?”

  “No, no. Poor choice of words. I mean, I know you’re her friend more than you are my friend, but I was just wondering what your advice would be. I like her. I like her a lot. But she is wound a little tight. A lot of times, I set her off, and not only did I not expect to set her off, in retrospect, I can’t figure out why.”

  “Can I be frank with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Your problem is you’re dumb.”

  His shoulders sagged. He looked to his left for a moment to take in the pageant of sameness passing on either side of us. “Thanks for the help,” he said, making eye contact with me again.

  “Don’t misunderstand me. It’s not your fault—not entirely, anyway. You’re dumb in the same way every man has been ever in the history of men and women. I’m gonna let you in on a little secret…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Men and women are wired different. They don’t think the same way. A wise man realizes that becoming simpatico with women is a lot like going to a foreign country. Learning the language. Understanding the customs. Can I ask you a direct question and get a straight answer?”

  “Depends on the question, I suppose, but go ahead.”

  “Do you have much experience with women? Before Amanda, I mean.”

  He flushed a little. “No. Not really.”

  “Based on what Amanda’s telling me—which, I concede, might’ve grown in the telling—you say a lot of stupid shit.”

  He adjusted his position, so he could face me. I’d gotten hold of his full attention, which was a good sign. “Stupid how?”

  “You can’t talk to a girl like you talk to your buddies. You can’t say anything too caustic about their appearance. Their height, their weight, their outfit, their breast size, the shape of their ass, their makeup, etcetera. You also can’t say anything too critical of their manner. The way they flirt, the way they fight, the way they sometimes sound like their mothers in certain situations. That one can be a real no-no.”

  “So… There’re a lotta rules I gotta observe…”

  “No, honestly, a lot of it is commonsense. Before you say or do something, think about how you would react if you were the opposite gender. Some of that comes with experience, some of it is fairly intuitive. In your case, I think you’ve built up a backlog of the kind of things that offend Amanda. That’s good information; use it. Don’t be in such a rush to blurt something out all the time. Take that five seconds and think to yourself, ‘Man, she sure did get upset when I said she had small titties. I bet she would react more or less the same way if I said that again’. It’s just like touching a hot stove, but, unlike most people, you haven’t yet learned not to touch the hot stove again. It’s not rocket science when you just slow down.”

  He nodded, drinking in my supposed wisdom. It was hard for me to think of myself as a proper guru when what I was telling him seemed so obvious. “You told Amanda that I should get a pass because I was Greek. Do you believe that, or was that just a thing you say?”

  I had to tread carefully. “I might’ve been angry and combative when I said it, but it does hold a kernel of truth. Still, I don’t think you can use it as an excuse. If you do, soon all you’ll have is the excuse and not a lot else.”

  Unfortunately, he did the unexpected, he turned my own argument back on me. “You’re Greek too, you know?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Alright, alright, don’t be proud of yourself for saying one smart thing. You still have a lot of work to do. So does Amanda for that matter.” We both faced forward again. Just as the fake sailing ship dropped us off at the stairs leading up to the hub, I said, “Here’s a tip for you: Don’t watch the game. Spend that time with Amanda. And, for the love of gods, whatever you do, don’t tell Amanda you’re spending time with her instead of watching the game. Let her figure that out on her own.”

  Connie grinned. “Will you stay down here and always tell me what to do and say?”

  “I dunno. Would I get dental with that?”

  I left Bronson Caves after nightfall. More time had passed than I expected, which meant I’d made a tactical error. The Arae was on me almost immediately—and, again, I made the stupid mistake of not coming armed. She dropped down from directly above and, because of the angle, was unable to rake me with her clawed feet. Instead, it was like having a huge sack of grain knock me off my feet. I hit the dusty ground (the same dusty ground on which I’d been shot in the shoulder about a month before) and heard the Arae’s wings beat as she rose again. If it’d been me, I’d’ve flown in horizontally and scratched with my talons, thus drawing some blood, but I don’t think Arae are known for their tactical thinking. My knowledge of Arae lore was sketchy at best, but I did recall one fun fact: Arae are required to provide their prospective victims with the name of the person seeking vengeance against them. I rubbed the top of my head and came to a seated position. “Hey!” I said. “Get in here! I invoke my right to know the name of my enemy.”

  I could see the winged female silhouetted against the sky. She doubled back and hovered in front of me, just out of reach. She beat her wings hard to stay off the ground and screeched, “Adrestia!”

  That wasn’t exactly a revelation. I knew going in who’d sicced the feathery little bitch on me. Hearing Addie’s name out loud wasn’t the point. Me throwing a rock and beaning the Arae in the noggin was the point.

  The monster flipped end over end once before she slid to a stop in the dust. I was up and on her in an instant. And boy was that a mistake. The Arae managed to get legs up just as I fell on her. She scratched at me with her feet in cyclical motions like she was riding an invisible bicycle. She tore my Kenny Loggins t-shirt to shreds and ripped a few long gashes into my abdomen. It hurt like a motherfucker, but it also made me a whole lot madder than I was before. I pressed down on her legs with my full weight (I was a lot heavier since a) she had hollow bones like a bird and b) I was chunky). Since I had my hands pressing down on her wings, I didn’t have a way to hurt her the way I wanted. Actually, that wasn’t true. I had one weapon at my disposal and
I used it without hesitation. I bit the her on the neck and got the hoped-for reaction. The Arae screamed like a parakeet in extreme distress.

  Desperate, my enemy pushed back with her strong legs and her wings. Her wings in particular had a lot of force behind them, so the creature was able to flip me off of her. I fell to her left side with a mouthful of feathers.

  She tried to use the momentum from the flip to get on top of me, but I kept rolling so she landed on empty ground. I reversed my direction and gave her a brutal kick to the flank. Again, she gave that satisfying birdie scream. I decided to keep going while I was ahead. My first kick had been measured and precise. The next six kicks were quicker, more brutal but also less targeted. Still, they had the desired effect. The Arae dropped onto her belly, breathing hard. I came up onto her back, sitting at the base of her spine with my hands holding down her wrists. I said, “I’m going to pluck you, fry you and eat you, bird whore!”

  My enemy didn’t respond. She had one purpose in life and that was to fuck me up. If she couldn’t do that, she was probably willing to go quietly into that good night. I shouldn’t have hesitated, but I did. She looked fragile and pathetic underneath me. I moved a couple of times to break her neck but stopped each time. Finally, I crossed then uncrossed my eyes and said. “If I promise to let you go, will you leave me alone?”

  The Arae thought for a moment. “I will leave you alone.”

  “You can go back and tell Adrestia you failed.”

  “I will go back. I will tell.”

  With that, I got up off of her, she crawled forward, came to her feet, limped a few steps and took to the air.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t follow my logic all the way to its, well, logical conclusion. If the Arae had only one purpose and was willing to die if she didn’t achieve it, why would she honor her promise to me? What did I expect her to do, go off, settle down and raise a little brood of baby Arae? I’d given her credit for having not only aspirations but a deep inner life. She did not have a deep inner life.

  North Hollywood is not my favorite part of Los Angeles. Every city in the country has its own version of NoHo. Lower middle class. Run down. A lot of fast food and gas stations. Nothing much to excite the senses.

  I stopped at one of those gas stations I mentioned, bought a Mountain Dew and asked the Pakistani gentleman behind the counter. “Babar” was the name on his badge. I tactfully didn’t bring up the elephant of the same name. “There’s a house somewhere nearby… Belonged to a famous actress— “

  “Honoria Hornblatt,” he said in thickly-accented English. “Left at the light. About half a mile and turn right on Mulrooney. 3546.” Instructions dispensed, he went back to reading his Pakistani newspaper.

  I followed Babar’s directions to the letter and had no trouble finding the place. Little wonder Babar knew about it. Honoria’s family were running a little museum out of the house. Four ninety-five to enter, but it being night and all, the museum was closed.

  I parked on the street and knocked on the front door. A small woman with a glass eye and frizzy gray hair answered. “Yes?” she said.

  “Listen,” I said. “I know this is going to sound weird, but I know—that is I knew—Gloria Mae.”

  She scoffed at me and made a comment based on my apparent age (which is probably early thirties). “How could that be possible?” she said. “Surely, Gloria Mae died around the time you were born.” She only had one good eye, but I’m certain she noticed my torn shirt and lacerated belly.

  I squirmed a bit. I didn’t know quite how Medusa had structured the Hornblatt College Fund. I changed tactics. “Is it true that the members of your family were educated by a rich benefactress?”

  “Yes. By Simone Geller and then, later, by the Simone Geller Foundation.” That all made perfect sense. There’d’ve been no reason for Medusa to let the Hornblatt’s know she was a mythological snake lady with the power to turn people to stone.

  “Ah, good. I wanted to ask you about that. I was— “

  She cut me off, one of her eyes focused on me intently while the other, the glass one, stared off aimlessly. “Why did you mention Gloria Mae?”

  “That is a very long story.” I had no intention of outing Medusa even though she was dead. It was an outlandish story and there was no way in hell this modern day Hornblatt would’ve believed me if I’d told her. “When was the last time you had direct contact with the Foundation?”

  The woman shifted her weight from one foot to the other and looked briefly back into her house. She didn’t especially want to be talking to me. “We rarely have direct contact with the Foundation. For years, it was letters; now it’s emails. The occasional phone call when there’s something to be sorted out.”

  “Has anyone ever visited here?”

  “Once in a coon’s age,” she replied. My mind was momentarily fixated on the term “coon’s age” and just what the hell it might mean, but I let it go.

  “How recently would you say?”

  The woman sighed. “Look,” she said. “Is there some point to this? I’ve got dinner and Dancing with the Stars is coming on.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Analise.”

  “Oh, that’s a nice name,” I said and meant it.

  “You’d think so, but high school was hell for me. Everyone pronounced it ‘anal lice’. They said I had butt bugs.”

  I tsked. “Kids are terrible human beings. My name is Dora and I’m asking all these questions for a good reason. Let me cut to the chase: When was the last time someone from the Foundation showed up in person, and did they leave anything?”

  Anal Lice thought for a moment and said, “There was a woman. She brought some papers to sign. I’m gonna say two thousand thirteen or two thousand fourteen. She brought a little trinket. She said it’d belonged to Honoria, so we added it to the museum.”

  I sighed gratefully. We were making some serious progress. “Ah, good. That’s exactly what I’m here for. Can I see that trinket?”

  The Hornblatt scion glared at me with her one good eye. “Museum hours are ten to seven Monday through Friday.” She was shutting the door fast and, for the second time in a week, I jammed my foot in the door. For the second time in a week, I got my foot slammed. Same foot, too.

  Analise looked down at my foot, and said, “What the hell’re you doing?” Then I did something I really didn’t want to do, but I didn’t have any more time to dick around. I punched Analise right in the windpipe. The old lady went stumbling back, clutching at her throat and gasping for air. I entered the foyer and delivered another blow to the side of her head. The quick motion caused Analise’s brain to slosh into the side of her skull and she went out like a light. I drug her over and propped her up against the wall.

  “I am so sorry, Analise, but I’m on a deadline here.” I shut the front door behind me and looked around. To my right was the living room and, fortunately, that’s where the museum resided. It wasn’t much, really. Just some pin-boards with old photos and card tables loaded with ephemera. I flipped on the light and looked around. Next to some costumes and a gingham doll was a little clay figure about an inch and a half long. It was a stylized figure with his legs pressed together and his arms raised above his head. The hands held a ring and a long length of cord was woven through the ring creating a sort of necklace. I grabbed the item, threw the cord over my head and got the fuck out of there.

  When I got to the Pontiac, I didn’t stop to examine the hierophant. That would’ve been a bad idea since I’d just committed assault and battery and probably breaking and entering. Instead, I drove to nearby Glendale before taking a breather.

  Once I was safely nestled in a McDonald’s parking lot, I held the little clay figure in front of me, so I could see it. The workmanship was rough and there were no other details beyond what I already mentioned. If it’d been in a proper museum, the plaque would’ve read, “Generic Dude - Ancient Greece”. Since I’d spent many lifetimes talking to a jug, I didn’t feel we
ird at all addressing the token directly. “Hey… Anybody in there?”

  At first nothing happened, and I thought for a moment I might’ve cold-cocked an old lady for nothing. It wouldn’t have been the first time, but still, that shit is embarrassing. Finally, a sleepy voice answered. It was a man’s voice with a Peloponnesian accent just like Hope’s. It was even the voice of a young boy. “Who is it? Medusa, is that you? Where the hell’ve you been?”

  “No, it’s not Medusa,” I said. “Medusa’s dead. My name is Pandora.”

  “Pandora Pandora?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened to Medusa? Did you kill her?”

  That offended me probably more than it should have. “No, I didn’t kill her. I mean I liked her. Or I liked her as much as you can like someone who’s like Medusa.”

  There was a pause before the disembodied voice replied. “Well, at the very least I’m satisfied you knew Medusa. What’s going on? Where am I? What do you want?”

  “First things first: You are the one they call the hierophant, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I mean that’s what other people call me. I don’t call myself that.”

  “What do you call yourself?”

  “I used to call myself ‘Stavros’, but we came to America and you don’t meet that many Stavroses here. I’ve been going by ‘Steve’. How long was I out of commission? Was it decades? Was it a century? Do we have flying cars?”

  “It was only about five years, and, no, we don’t have flying cars.”

  “Fuck. When is someone gonna get on the stick and build a proper flying car?” He had a little boy’s voice, but he didn’t have Hope’s reticence with profanity.

  “You’re preaching to the choir, Steve, but I don’t wanna get too far off-topic. Is it true you can compel people to do things they don’t wanna do?”

  He sighed. “Yes, I am cursed with that particular skill. I can do it, but I don’t like doing it. It seems kind of ‘rape-y’. In a psychic sense.”