by R. E. Vance
With Astarte in the other room doing only the GoneGods knew what, I was left in the destroyed shrine of Greg’s evil lair. Relics from my childhood littered the room, the rancor still frozen with its gem holding it in place.
I rifled through the mess, looking for the Grimoire of Metatron. I told myself that cleaning would help with the search, but the truth was, I couldn’t help it. Even if this stuff belonged to an evil Sith trying to destroy the world, what else was I going to do? I had time to kill and, well, I loved this stuff. I mean, really. Star Wars, Star Trek, He-Man and, by the GoneGods, a first edition Wolverine. This guy had everything. I swore that if I survived this—and Greg didn’t—I’d be back here to do a bit of grave robbing. Well … OK … I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. That’s not who I was—but after seeing this collection, I really, really wish I was.
In the middle of the carnage, I heard a muffled voice from Astarte’s earpiece. I rummaged through the carnage of destroyed memorabilia until I found the earbud. “Hello,” I said as I slid the cool plastic into my ear.
“Jean … where are you?” Brian murmured excitedly.
“We’re at Greg’s …” I looked at his bedroom door. “Investigating. Any word from Penemue and EightBall?”
“They’re fine. I’ve been hacking into security cameras and watching them. You were right … They flew for a few miles before Others caught up with them. As soon as they saw it wasn’t you, they went back to Sally’s place and destroyed it. She’s pissed.”
“Figures.”
“At you.”
I groaned.
“But that’s not why I’m calling. Have you seen what’s going on outside?”
“Brian, I’ve been busy trying not to die. What’s going on?”
“The Others are going mental. Half of them are trying to run away, the other half are at the shore welcoming the damn thing … and it’s not going well for either side.”
“What do you mean?”
“The bridges off the island are blocked—the Army is stopping everyone from leaving. There’s a huge crowd gathering at the beach, and Michael just declared martial law.”
“Hold on,” I said. “I have to see this for myself.” I looked around the room for a TV remote and eventually found a piece of tech that could have piloted the Starship Enterprise. It took me a minute to figure out how to turn the damn thing on—hey, don’t judge, when I was in the military everything came with pictures—and the flat screen flickered to life.
A live feed illuminated the dimly lit room with images of Paradise Lot’s beach. A terrified human reporter from a news station I’d never heard of was talking into the mic as a mountain of water rose behind her. The reporter’s words were cut off by the sound of helicopter blades. Michael flew up to meet it and, using police-issued flashlights, directed the helicopter to a landing spot on the beach. Once it touched the ground, several rig men jumped out of it. One of them carried a laptop and looked out at the sea. The reporter ran up to him. “Can you tell me what happened?”
The man wiped away tears. “We were working same as always when that thing appeared. If it hadn’t been for Azzah, the myarid who was part of our crew, we would’ve been killed. She saved us …” he faltered, “and that monster killed her!” His voice was barely audible over the helicopter’s whooping. He turned to face the ocean. “That monster killed her!” he screamed again.
The man was clearly in pain—having lost someone he cared for to Tiamat’s rage. And if I didn’t figure out something real soon, he wouldn’t be the only one.
The feed cut to the streets of Paradise Lot. Scenes of fighting, rioting and panic streamed on the screen. And not only between Others—the Army shot tear gas at the crowds that tried to escape using the bridges; large nets were set up to stop those who could fly; men and Others in riot gear beat reinforced plastic shields with batons—war drums disguised as crowd control.
And those were just the images of the Others trying to escape the island. Aerial shots showed images of Others who gathered on the shore—different groups performing various homages to the great Beast: ogres prostrated themselves, jinn dervishes danced, sirens shrieked at the moon, Ahkiyyini’s children beat leather drums. They all saw the coming of Tiamat as the return to the old, more familiar world—well, more familiar to them and their preternaturally long memories. I had to remind myself that the modern world, devoid of miracles, monsters and myths, was only a few thousand years old. What did that compare to memories that spanned millenniums?
The Army tried to break them up, but in the end, all they could really do was to set up a parameter to contain their misguided worship. I groaned as I watched trolls pluck chickens and hobgoblins beat the menacing-looking drums—creatures that the average human would see as grotesque, all doing what the average human would perceive as grotesque. Of course, if the shoe was on the other foot, these very same Others would find the average pregame tailgate party equally grotesque. But who was counting?
They were so different in the way they expressed their culture that, if we survived the night, humans were going to be more terrified of Others than ever.
“Why are they blocking the bridges?” Brian asked.
“Think about it. When Tiamat comes, she’s going to destroy Paradise Lot first. A lot of Others are going to die … This is a win-win for them. Thin the Other herd, scare the locals and have even more power than before.” I knew that some general somewhere was thinking, And for my follow-up act, I’ll be handing out disease infested blankets. The thought made me sick with shame for my own species.
“Bastards,” Brian spat. “Aren’t they scared of Tiamat? I mean, she isn’t going to stop at Paradise Lot, is she?”
“Probably not. But who is better suited to fight a creature of magic than other creatures of magic? They probably figure that the best chance they have to kill the damn thing is by letting Michael, Miral and a whole host of powerful Others duke it out. Then, if they fail—where better to drop a big bomb than on Paradise Lot?”
The line went quiet before Brian’s nervous voice crackled in. “Do you really think they’ll do that? Drop a nuclear bomb?”
I sighed. “Only if we lose.”
Brian groaned.
“Look, Brian … We’ve got a small window of time. Astarte mentioned that we have to stop the last signs of the apocalypse from happening. And we need to find out who’s next in charge. But … Greg’s Grimoire of Metatron. I’ve no idea what it looks like.”
“Show me the room,” Brian said.
“How?” Then I remembered the iPad. Taking it out of the bag, I pulled up the Wi-Fi login. “No good, I need a password, and what would a super geek with a lot of money and all the toys use for a password?”
“ ‘Batman’?”
I shook my head. “No, he’s a Star Wars guy. Jedi robe, Minister of the Force …” My voice trailed off as I thought about it. I typed in Jedi Master. The iPad shook as I was denied access. “He was into the whole Star Wars ethos, but said that Jedi’s were lame. It was about the Sith.” I typed in Sith Lord. Again it shook.
“That guy has an ego. A know-it-all. It’s going to be more personal than that.”
“So what could it be?”
“I don’t know … ‘Master Greg’? ‘Lord Greg’—?”
“ ‘Darth Greg,’ ” we both said in unison. I typed it in and the little spinning wheel turned before letting me in. Thank the GoneGods for predictable geeks.
“OK—now show me the room.” I held up the iPad and scanned the room. “Holy moly,” Brian said.
“Tell me about it.”
“I’m thinking you need to fill a suitcase with some of his stuff.”
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Rare collector’s item … illustrated … Where, oh, where could you be?” I rummaged through the piles of comic books, knocking off issues of Spiderman, Batman, Atom Boy—it just went on and on. Then I got to the rare stuff—magazines like Valiant Comics, Action Comics, Sinbad, the original King Kong, All-American
Comics, illustrated 1001 Arabian Nights, even a mint condition Detective Comics #31 from 1939.
In the far corner there was one of those flap posters, the kind you’d find at a store with lots of superhero posters. I guess, when you have a huge collection and only limited wall space, that was an ideal solution.
“The Grimoire,” Brian said. “It’s not a book. It’s a family tree … It should be something more like a scroll or a … Take me over to the poster rack,” Brian said with more authority than I’d ever heard him show before. Then, as if remembering he was a nerd cowering in a closet, he added, “Please.”
I walked over and started flipping through the posters. Batman, Spiderman, Hulk, Hellboy—he had them all. As I went through them one by one, careful to hold up the eye of the camera to the rack, Brian watched.
“This is a waste of time,” I said, flipping to the end. “There’s nothing here.”
“Maybe it’s not a poster or a book.”
“Then what?”
“Hold on,” Brian said. “Let me try something else.”
“What?”
“Greg is a meticulous guy, right? I mean, no one has a collection like that without cataloging it, taking notes, keeping track of everything they have—which means he has to have files on this Grimoire and what’s going on … So, I hacked into his files.”
“You can do that?” I asked, looking at the screen. From the way Brian’s eyes moved under the soft glow of his own iPad’s light, I could tell he wasn’t looking at me. He was reading something. Greg’s files.
“Oh, yeah,” Brian said in a distracted voice. “You can do anything with a little bit of know-how and Wi-Fi.”
“Wow,” I said. I’d seen an Other build a wall out of trees with the wave of a hand, but I was more impressed by Brian. “That’s a useful skill you got.”
“Actually, I just forced his computer to restart and booted it in ‘safe mode,’ then asked it to reboot in its previous settings. If you know what you’re doing, safe mode isn’t as safe as most people think, and it definitely wouldn’t have worked if Greg had proper security and—”
“Brian. Just let me be impressed,” I said.
“OK.”
“Did you find anything useful?”
“Yeah. I did.” A smile appeared from ear to ear. “I found his files.”
↔
What Brian showed me next didn’t look so much as a family tree or an organigram. It was more like a spider web with thousands of little pods that housed names of all the gods in their middle, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of thin threads that went in every which direction. It was an utter mess, and I doubted even the popobawa could make heads or tails of this thing … and he was a creature that actually lived in a web.
I looked up at the clock. We had just under three hours to figure this out. Even if we did find the next Other in line who could turn back Tiamat, I doubt we’d have enough time to get him or her to the beach before Tiamat started her rampage of world-ending destruction.
“This is useless,” I said. “I can’t even find Astarte’s name, and—”
But before I could finish my sentence, the web rotated and Astarte’s name appeared in the center of the screen. Then all the other names and threads faded out. You could still see a bunch of threads—and there were many—coming out of her name, but they were transparent, losing their prior vibrancy.
“He’s programmed it so that it is useful,” Brian’s voice said. “Look at the top of your screen. See the magnifying glass?”
I nodded. Then, remembering Brian could only see the Grimoire through the iPad, I said, “Yes.”
“You can search specific names there. And just to the left of that magnifying glass is where you can enter the specific parameters that you’re interested in … like, let’s say, her family.” Brian paused, obviously typing in something, and from out of Astarte’s name came several threads—one went to Atargatis’ name, and another went to Anu, Baal, Enlil and several other former gods’ names.
“Dagan,” I said. “I know him … He runs the local grocery store. Lots of fresh grains and vegetables, severely understocked on anything canned. Could he—”
“I don’t think so,” Brian interrupted. “If you filter the results, you can see the actual power structure between the gods. Dagan is Atargatis’ stepfather. He’s weaker than she is—and if she can’t stop Tiamat, I doubt anyone beneath her can. We need to go up. Not down.”
“So let’s go up.”
“No one Assyrian is above Atargatis.”
“True, but what about beings from other pantheons?”
Brian went silent and I could hear very faint thuds against the iPad’s glass as he typed away.
While I waited, I did exactly what they tell you never to do when you don’t know the technology: I started touching buttons. First, I hit Astarte’s name and from it a hundred thousand purple threads grew. I mean, they went everywhere. I looked up at the filter button next to the magnifying glass and saw that it was set on “Relations” with several dates appearing next to it. I guessed that Astarte had “relations” with pretty much every god—and goddess for that matter—that ever existed at one time or another. I filtered it to “Family” and sure enough, a line went up to Atargatis and several lines went sideways and down to the rest of her family. But something else happened—a single gray line went slightly to the right and Gilgamesh’s name appeared. The dates that they were together appeared. I tapped the former king’s name and looked at the filter menu. It had only one option available to it: Family. Then I touched the gray line itself and a single word appeared: Spouse.
So Astarte had been married. I knew how Astarte felt about Gilgamesh. I felt what she felt when he was about to be struck down. But married? I guess the feelings went even deeper than I thought … Whoever this Gilgamesh was, he must have really been something for Astarte to get married.
I looked up at the clock: two and half hours—we were running out of time.
I tapped Atargatis’ name, filtering for Family. Same web, except this time she was at the top and there was a thread that went all the way to Poseidon’s name. I touched that line and it said “Spouse,” with dates that overlapped with Astarte’s marriage to Gilgamesh. But there was another line, too, this one a faded purple; it went to a bubble that encased the name “Enkidu.”
I put my finger on the faded purple line and the word “Champion” appeared. I touched Enkidu’s name and exactly two lines appeared—one back to Atargatis and another to Astarte; both lines were faded purple. I guessed this guy “championed” around, doing whatever Champions do, for both sisters.
That gave me an idea and I tapped Poseidon’s name.
“Crap.”
“What is it, Brian?”
“I got some bad news … Seems the cut-off point between god and not god is Atargatis … as in, she was just south of the line. Everyone that would have been ‘up’ is gone. Everyone.”
“Come on … There’s got to be a way.”
“No—I can give you the hierarchy of religions. Like, the Greek pantheon is ranked higher than the Assyrian … the Romans above the Greeks, and so on … But an actually being that ranks higher than Atargatis …”
“What about The BisMark? Or the archangel, Michael?”
“Powerful beings, sure, but neither of them were gods.”
To think that in the celestial hierarchy, Atargatis was top of the heap and just beneath the cutoff point of who got to go with the gods and who didn’t—that was astonishing. She almost made it, and because of the succubus in the next room, she just missed the cut. No wonder Atargatis hated Astarte.
“Keep looking,” I said, and touched Atargatis’ name again. I filtered for Family once more, this time following the gray spousal line to Poseidon’s name. I had a hunch that if Atargatis was top of the heap, maybe someone connected to Poseidon might just about make the “I can send back Tiamat” requisite power levels.
I touched Poseidon’s name, fil
tered for Family and the entire Greek pantheon lit up. Then I filtered for Relations, figuring that if a family member wasn’t an option, perhaps someone he had an affair with might be—and then I saw something that made me go cold. All this time I had been so fixated that it was The BisMark who was guilty that I was completely blinded to the possibility that it could be someone else.
Before I could fully process what I saw, the bedroom door clicked open and Astarte and Enkidu emerged. I had expected her to be disheveled and unkempt, with a thin sheen of hard lovemaking on her body, but she wasn’t. And as for Enkidu, he wasn’t wearing the look of satisfaction from having his wildest fantasies fulfilled, nor did he have the usual look of frustration that so many of Astarte’s lovers had—a look that was born from the knowledge that they had just tasted fleshy heaven and that they would never, ever have enough.
“Brian … I gotta go,” I said. Turning to Astarte, I pointed at the iPad’s screen. “Says here that Enkidu was both your and Atargatis’ Champion.”
Astarte nodded, walking over to where I sat. Enkidu followed, curling at her feet. “He was made by Atargatis, but fought for me. It is rare for one to be a Champion for more than one, but it can happen.”
“And with the Bull of Heaven? He, what … sacrificed himself to save you?”
“Yes.” She put a hand on Enkidu’s head. “He was worthy. Champion for two gods, brother to a king. He was worthy.” She bent down and gave the WildMan a kiss on the forehead, and despite his cheeks being covered with thick black hair, his blush came through.
“And this all happened when you were both gods?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And were allied to Chaos.”
“Yes …”
Then it occurred to me that the gods who allied with Chaos were no longer gods, while the gods who allied with Nature were gone. The world did not belong to either, and if you applied a god’s logic to it, that meant that the usual cosmic laws were all up in the air. Of course, as humans, we were all about Nature, but this wasn’t our world anymore. We had to share it with Others. Others who allied with Chaos. Others who—once-upon-a-time—were gods.