by R. E. Vance
“And pray tell,” I said, exaggerating the vowels, “what does your research reveal?”
“That you are screwed,” Astarte purred, grabbing my crotch. “And not in the good way.”
I flinched and pulled her hand away. “What’s going on here? Someone give me some answers. Who were those guys? No, scratch that … let’s start from the beginning. Who—rather, what is … ahh, was Joseph?”
“The Unicorn. But you knew that already,” Penemue said, slurring his words.
“Yes, but I thought unicorns were white horses with a single horn?”
“Oh, my poor misinformed mortal friend,” Penemue said with an admonishing smile. “There is, was and will always be only one Unicorn. And now he is dead, he truly is a myth.” Penemue put a hand over his heart.
“A legend,” Astarte chimed in, a hand over her own heart.
“A fable,” Penemue finished, taking a large swig of Drambuie.
Astarte walked over and put a hand on his shoulder, before taking the bottle from him and taking a drink herself.
Now it made sense why all the Others reacted to him the way they did. He was a singularity in their worlds and this one. Being truly unique, he belonged to no tradition or species other than his own. He didn’t belong to some clan, have some historical beef or hold allegiance to any group over another. If anyone had a chance to unite all the different kinds of Others, it was him.
“And as for being a white horse,” Astarte continued, “Joseph was whatever we needed him to be. Tell me, who did you see when you saw him? A friend? A parent? Perhaps a lover? You saw whoever you needed to see. Whoever brought you the most comfort. Perhaps if you saw him at another time in your life, he would have appeared as someone else.”
An emotional chameleon, I thought. “Who did you see?” I asked.
“Light,” Penemue said. “Just light.” His eyes grew distant at the memory as a warm, content smile crept on his face. Even in death, Joseph still offered comfort to the fallen angel.
“And you?” I said to the succubus.
She gave me a sly little smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said as she pretended to zip up her lips with an erotic gesture of her fingers and a hint of tongue. Hellelujah, Jean—focus.
“OK,” I said, “what about the Other who saved me? What is he?”
Astarte shot Penemue a look and said, “He is not an Other. He was a human.”
“But he burned time,” I said. “Humans can’t do that.”
“Hence the ‘was,’ ” Penemue said. “Besides, some humans can—rather could—possess magic. Harry Potter for one.”
“Fiction,” I said.
“Harry Dresden, for another.”
“Again, fiction.”
“I would have cried more for his death than my own … Both Harrys are very real, I assure you.”
Dealing with Others hurt my head. “So, what? He’s a ghost like Judith?”
“Something like that, but I fear it is a bit more complicated. You see, he is not a ghost, but rather the Ghost. As in the first human who chose not to ‘shuffle off his mortal coil,’ but to stick around.”
“The Ghost?” I repeated, unable to keep out the skepticism in my voice.
“You’re still not getting it, Jean. He was a human and now he is the Ghost. Before the gods left, he was the conduit between them and mortals. He is Isimud, Zaqar, Turms, Hermes and the Holy Ghost.”
“The what?”
Penemue ignored me. “Tell me, Jean … Who do you think was responsible for telling the world that the gods left?”
↔
“So, what? That guy who saved us was also the guy responsible for the gods’ broadcasting system to us? ‘This is GBS—this just in …’ ” I said.
“You mock, but how did they communicate to you?” Penemue asked.
“I guess I never really thought about it before,” I said, my head spinning with the meaning of it all.
OK, I get how the gods couldn’t just broadcast their leaving on Facebook, but still, an actual living breathing conduit who was still on Earth? And what’s more, at my hotel, saving my ass from some Fanatic? Hellelujah, this night could not get any weirder.
“So what do we know about him?” I said, looking from Penemue to Astarte. She was sitting on Penemue’s bale of hay and even though she wore the same teddy from earlier, she somehow had an innocent-farm-girl look to her. All your fantasy needs in one neat little succubus’s body.
“Nothing,” Astarte said, jarring me from my thoughts. Who knew that standing up after sitting in hay could be so tantalizing? So many stray straws being drawn out of so many wondrous, mysterious places.
“Ahem … Except,” Penemue said, “that the Unicorn engaged with this ex-human. And that he came to your aid with magic far more powerful than either of us have. And for the Unicorn to reveal himself means that he was on a mission of great import. And we know that whatever that mission was, it failed. No matter how important your quest may be, death has a way of ending things.”
“OK, so what I’m gathering is that, although you know who Buzzcut is, you don’t know what his involvement is in any of this. I don’t suppose you know a bit more about that freak who killed Joseph …?”
“That is not for mortal knowledge,” Astarte snapped with such a godly authority that I felt shame for wanting to know.
In her domain that would have ended the conversation. But down here, well, the tune of “I was once a goddess” was sung a lot in Paradise Lot.
“Don’t give me that crap! He came in here and blew up my hotel. My home! Our home! He killed the most decent Other that any of us has ever known. A totally unique, one-of-a-kind life extinguished by that asshole and you fall back on your ‘It’s not for mortal knowledge’ crap. If you haven’t noticed, we’re all mortal now and if …” As I got into Astarte’s face, there was a part of me that wanted to rip off her clothes and have the angriest sex ever known to mortal or Other. I started breathing hard, sweating as I came to. “GoneGodDamn succubus,” I cried out.
I stepped back and caught my breath, immediately feeling more in control once I was a few feet away from her. I looked over at the sex-goddess and saw real fear in her eyes. But not of Grinner. She was afraid of me. And she was defending herself the only way she knew how. “OK,” I said, forcing myself to take deep breaths, “OK … I’m sorry. But there are no more mortals and immortals. There’s only us and we’re all going to die. So please, tell me … what is he?”
Penemue grunted, throwing back his papers on the table. “Ahhh, how can one know what any of us really are?”
“Stop stalling. And none of your typical cryptic shit. What is he?” I demanded. “Tell me.”
Penemue adjusted his armless glasses and flattened out his tweed vest before standing up straight and looking over at me.
“Don’t …” Astarte started, but Penemue put up a hand.
“He is right, Astarte,” Penemue interrupted, “the rules have changed. We are all mortal now.”
Penemue crumpled up a piece of paper and dropped it. It fell like most things do—down. “When the gods made this world they needed to be able to communicate with certain immutable principles—the Laws of Nature, if you will. Whereas there are many laws that govern nature, there are only five Laws that are essential for life. They are known as the First Laws—Energy, Life, Death, Time and Gravity. Each is necessary for this universe to possess life and they exist with or without gods. Energy is the force that allows motion, growth and change. Life and Death are the principles of renewal—they are the Laws that allow the world to keep evolving, ensuring each generation slightly improves on its predecessor. In theory, at least. Are you following me?”
I nodded.
“Then there is Time, through which all must make passage. Relative or not, Time moves us ever forward. Finally, there is Gravity. Gravity keeps the world together, it moves the Earth around the Sun. The Sun around the Milky Way. Our galaxy within the Universe. Gravity, some of
us theorize, was the first of these Laws, for it is what originally paved the way for the existence of all. Without it, we would all be wandering atoms of motion, never attached, never together. Never alive.
“These five First Laws were needed to make all that is, and therefore the gods needed to negotiate with them in order to shape the world in the ways they wished. But how does one, even a god, communicate with a First Law?”
“Avatars,” I said, the word catching in my throat. No wonder Astarte was frightened. Grinner was the Avatar of a friggin’ First Law.
“Exactly,” Penemue said. “You are astute … for a human that is.”
“The gods created avatars for the First Laws so that they could speak to the principles and negotiate with them for certain concessions. They asked Life and Death to not touch the denizens, they asked Time to leave their dominions be, they asked Energy to imbue them with miraculous powers and they asked Gravity to allow their realms and this one to coexist, theirs invisible to this one.”
“So it was because of Gravity that Heaven and Hell were invisible to humans?”
“Partly, yes. And partly for other reasons that even we,” he pointed at Astarte, “are not privileged to know.”
“So this Grinner guy is the Avatar of Gravity?”
“Indeed, Human Jean-Luc, he is.”
↔
“Because gravity still works, Grinner doesn’t burn through time like you guys do when you use your magic,” I said, mulling through the logic of what it meant that your god was still around. Unlike Penemue and Astarte, whose gods abandoned them, gravity was still here. Otherwise we’d all be floating away to oblivion.
“Yes and no,” Penemue said. “He is a creature like any other Other. But unlike myself or the succubus, he has so much power that he is as close to immortal as any of us could ever hope to be. Because his source of power still remains, there is a theory that he can renew himself, given enough time.”
“You shouldn’t have told him,” Astarte said to Penemue. “There will be repercussions.”
“Perhaps,” Penemue said. “But, I have paid for giving humans knowledge in the past and I suspect I will again. But if he is to have a chance against his foe, he must know who his foe is.”
“His only chance is to run. That is the only chance any of us have.” She turned to me. “Run, foolish human. Run. Gravity does not have the ability to track you. Run, and pray that old age takes you before he does. That is what I plan to do.” She lifted the hatch to leave.
“What does he want?” I asked.
Astarte turned from the hatch and said, “What do any of us want? Either for the world to return to what it once was or for it all to end.” And with that, Astarte left.
“What’s with her?” I said.
“After this night, things will have to change, yet again,” Penemue sighed, speaking with a softness that he rarely displayed. “Change has come again. We are ancient beings used to the world being static. This constant revolution, it disturbs us.”
Of course, I thought. Others spent eternities in one place, doing one thing. I’d met valkyrie who had stood guard duty at the halls of Valhalla on century-long shifts, fairies who’d hosted parties that lasted thousands of years and a giant who had slept for an entire eon, only to wake up, see the world was as it was and go right back to sleep. Dealing with change was not high on their set of life skills.
I nodded and pointed at the little box. “And that?” I asked.
He picked it up and looked at it closely. “A box,” he said without a hint of irony.
“And …?” I pressed.
“And nothing. It is a plain wooden box.”
“Grinner, ahh, I mean the Avatar of Gravity really wanted it. He almost killed me to get it. It must be magic or something.”
Penemue snorted. It was an angel’s version of belly-wrenching laugher, but to me it looked like he was sniffing in copious amounts of phlegm. “Magical item? What are we doing here? Playing Dungeons & Dragons? Items are not magic. They are only meaningful. Magic comes from you.”
“Meaningful?” I asked, more confused than ever.
“When you possess something meaningful to you, truly meaningful to you, it will naturally accept magic with very limited amounts of time needed to be spent. Think of it like driving. Going uphill you will have to use a lot of gas, but downhill you will use very little. The same is with a meaningful object. They will do for you what you need with almost no time burned. The question is not, What can this box do? The question is, Why is this box meaningful? I suspect that once-upon-a-time, this box held something of great significance. Perhaps Joseph and—what did you call him?—Grinner wished to use its meaningful history so that it could hold something else of significance, but what do I know? Sadly, this box is meaningless to me.”
“But if you knew its history, could you use it?”
“Perhaps. It depends on if it means anything to me.” The angel adjusted his armless glasses and held the item closer to himself.
“Is there any way to find out?” I asked, hopeful.
“Of course, in time, perhaps I could figure it out,” he said, pointing at his massive stack of books.
I smiled—it wasn’t every day that the celestial librarian you need is living in your attic. “Hop to it.”
Placing the box back on the table, Penemue walked over to the stack of books and picked up one that was lying on the very top. It started to glow. “Internet,” he said, showing me his iPad. “Best place to start.”
“But where did you get—”
“I stole it from Tommy Fisher, forty-two years old, married just before the GrandExodus and who made out with his bride-to-be’s sister on their wedding night. Karma,” he said, smiling as his taloned, oversized fingers surfed the Net, leaving me to realize that divine justice was also not a thing of the past.
“Fine,” I said, “Internet, books, whatever. Also, one more thing—do your research somewhere else. I don’t want you here in case he comes back.”
The angel looked at me over the rim of his glasses. “I seriously doubt that—”
“Please,” I said.
“Very well, I shall sit on the turret of the National Library,” Penemue sighed. Then, lifting the iPad, he pointed at the Wi-Fi symbol and said, “I can get two bars from up there.”
Chapter 4
The Question Is an Answer
After receiving the hodgepodge of oh-so-not-confusing information from Penemue and Astarte, I headed to the reception, hoping that there would be some other clues as to what was going on and what my next steps could be. Right now I was grasping at straws and was desperate for anything. Anything at all. I was fairly certain that this was the calm before the storm.
EightBall and the rest of HuMans would be off somewhere licking their wounds, probably more scared than ever. They’d be planning their next attack, and after last night, I was pretty sure that they’d rule out a head-on assault. A group like that lacked inspiration and, like everything else they did, stole their ideas from what was around them. I would bet my entire collection of G1 Transformers that they would probably be inspired by the explosion and that they were online looking up how to make homemade Molotov cocktails. That’s exactly what I would be doing in their shoes.
Not that there was much of a hotel left to blow up. Still, there was no chance of them backing down. No way. Not after last night—not kids like them. If the hotel wasn’t here, they’d hunt down whoever was, which meant that every Other they saw in the foyer was in danger. Penemue, Astarte, Judith, Sandy … Oh, hell. Whatever they were planning, it was coming and coming soon.
But still, that wasn’t my real problem. I was equipped to handle punk kids. What I wasn’t equipped to handle was a pissed-off archangel, and what I really, really wasn’t equipped to handle was the anthropomorphic representation of gravity. Hellelujah!
There was nothing downstairs that was of use. Turned-over chairs, blown-out windows, broken glass. Even my desk was splintered
apart. Other than the super bell over my front door, the only thing that remained intact was my phone, which was in a plastic Evidence bag, thanks to an enthusiastic pixie officer. It blinked with a message. Somehow I suspected it wasn’t someone calling to reserve the room.
Unwrapping it, I clicked checked my voicemail.
Beep. “Jean—are you OK? Michael came by and told me what happened to Joseph. The sanctimonious bastard even implied you had something to do with it. I know you didn’t. I have faith in you. Bella had faith in you. The loss of Joseph will be felt throughout Paradise Lot. There will be a lot of grieving, angry Others. We’ll have to handle this carefully, otherwise we will have a riot on our hands. I’ve called an emergency meeting with some of the locals. I think we can contain this, but we really need a miracle. I don’t suppose they left any behind, do you? Call me. Or better yet, come by.” Beeeep.
Ohh, frig, Miral was right. I hadn’t even considered how Joseph’s death would be taken by the Others. Shit—their Unicorn was gone, killed in a human-run hotel. Whatever she did, she’d have to handle the news of Joseph’s death very carefully.
I had to go to Miral, but first I needed answers. Something, anything was better than turning up empty-handed. Maybe Penemue would figure out what the box was, or … Oh come on, Jean. When did you become so useless? What does your training tell you to do?
My choices seemed simple enough. Go to bed or find this Ghost guy, and seeing how I didn’t have a chance in Hell of falling asleep with all this going on, I decided to look for the gods’ broadcasting system.
I turned inside to get my stuff, when I saw Astarte standing at the entrance. She had a suitcase in hand. “I’m going to be staying with some … ahh, friends for a while,” she said. “Not that it matters. Seems like your dream of a haven for Others is dead anyway.”
I nodded, looking over at Astarte as she headed for the door. The ship was sinking and she was doing the smart thing—getting off. “OK,” I said. “Good luck.”