by R. E. Vance
I never thought that seeing a viper attached to a topless gorgon being petted by a half-naked succubus would be such a turn-on because—well—my imagination was frankly not good enough to have ever conceived of such a situation. But it was … and it took every ounce of my willpower not to jump in there and have the night of my life. Instead, the sensible part of my brain kicked in and stopped me.
By the GoneGods, I hate the sensible part of my brain.
“I need to sober up,” I said as I put on my collarless black jacket. I grabbed my cell phone and headed out the door.
“Wait?” moaned a disappointed Medusa. “What about our non-date date?”
Don’t say it Jean. Don’t!.. “Ahh, I’ll call you.” Damn it! I thought as I took one last look at a sight that a thousand ice-cold showers would not temper.
Hellelujah!
Chapter 4
Drunken Dwarves and Frolicking Fairies
I staggered out of 3B and looked down over the railing at a scene that was more appropriate for a rave than a hotel lobby. Dwarves were falling all over themselves, giggling in low baritone guffaws, fairies slow danced as they hovered anywhere from three to ten feet off the ground, each engaged in a drunken back and forth sway like live ornaments hanging on invisible strings. And EightBall did what any drunk teenager does—he dry heaved in a potted plant.
The only creature that looked half OK was Penemue and that was because he had spent his last fourteen years of mortality—and forty thousand years of immortality—drunk off his face.
The angel gave me a thumbs up.
I gave him a half smile back as I tried to walk down the stairs. Who knew that going downstairs would be so difficult?
I stumbled over to Penemue who rubbed EightBall’s back, encouraging him to let it all out. The boy dry-spat into the potted plant and lifted his head when I approached. “Jean-Luc! Did you get some?” He lifted his hand as to high-five me, but lost his balance and fell flat on his back.
“Hello to you, too,” I said, then asked the twice-fallen angel, “What’s going on?”
“The boy and I are talking.”
“Yeah,” EightBall slurred, “Penemue was going to tell me some great and terrible secret that … that … what did it do?”
“Marred my soul. A secret that weights so heavy on my heart I feel it will break me lest I let it go—“
“No Penemue. Now is not the time,” I said.
“Now is the only time we have.”
I shook my head and, pointing an unsteady finger in his face, said, “Don’t you think it’s weird how drunk we all are when none of us have been drinking?”
“Speak for yourself.” Penemue pulled out his bottle of Drambuie.
“No, I need you sober.” I looked at the half empty bottle. “Relatively speaking. What’s going on?”
“We’re drunk.”
“Oh come on …” I said, the words stretching out of me, “You gotta know more than that! You’re the great Penemue. The angel who knows the hearts of man, the fallen one who taught humanity how to read and write, and my best friend.”
Penemue looked down at me as his eyes started to gloss over with tears, “I’m your best friend?”
I nodded. “Yeah, man! I mean angel. Yeah, angel! You are. The bestest friend I ever had.”
“Bestest is not a word.”
“It is to me,” I slurred. “Bestest! I love you, angel.”
“I love you, too, human,” he said hugging me.
EightBall, still lying on the ground like a beached whale, pointed up at us and said, “Hey, what about me? I love you guys, too!”
“And we love you.” The three of us engaged in a three-way hug. Well, we tried to, but given that EightBall was flat on his back, it came out more like fumbled accessories of limbs.
Penemue wiped away a tear and said, “And it is because I love you EightBall that I must inform you that—“
“That he’s buying you a PlayStation,” I interrupted, shaking my head. Then in a stage whisper that I meant to be a whisper-whisper, said, “Now’s not the time. We got to figure out what’s going on.”
Penemue shook his head, “But—“
“A PlayStation Four, right? You’re not going to cheap out and get me a Three are you?” He looked disappointed.
“Of course not … a Four it is,” Penemue confirmed. Then whispering to me, “A four of what?”
“I’ll explain later,” I said standing up and pulling at Penemue’s arm. “Now get up! Something’s wrong.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know … maybe someone spiked the water supply or maybe it’s some government experiment or … or …” I snapped my fingers, “Someone—or rather—someOther is burning time. It’s gotta be that. It’s the only explanation. We got to figure out who’s doing it and how to stop them. Then you can tell EightBall whatever you want.”
Penemue started to protest but when he looked down to see EightBall passed out and snoring the sleep of the drunk, the angel conceded.
↔
After a series of false starts, I eventually managed to command my feet to carry me outside where Penemue, infinitely more coordinated than me, already stood. In front of him were the two genies who were meant to be washing my windows. Instead, they were washing the grass. “Hey,” I started, then thought better of it, “never mind. Where to now, Penemue?”
“There.” The angel pointed straight ahead.
The Millennium Hotel was built on a hill in the center of Paradise Lot, about five blocks from the area’s main street. The hotel was surrounded by a large cast iron fence with the gate opening towards the main street. From the hotel’s doorstep you could see the skyline of buildings and from our vantage point we could see the light show that went on in the city. Streams of blues and yellows, greens and blacks exploded with pleasant notes of inviting music in a kaleidoscope of alluring illuminations and sound.
Whatever was happening, someone was throwing one hell of celebration down there.
“It’s just a party,” I said, shrugging it off. Whatever kind of drunk this was, I found myself caring less and less.
“No, Jean,” Penemue said taking in a deep breath as a purple stream shot in the air and exploded into brilliant fractals of light. For the first time since this strange inebriation washed over us, the angel looked concerned. “If I am right in what I think is happening, this is not just a party. Not by a long shot.”
↔
We tried to run down the hill and out the gate. By tried, I mean that we stumbled and fell, two drunkards ill-equipped to get anywhere fast. Luckily for Penemue he had two wings that he used as crutches to prevent his fall. Unlucky for me, I did not, which meant that I got to the bottom faster than he did in very much a ‘Jack and Jill’ fashion.
We exited the fence and stumbled the five blocks to get to Paradise Lot’s main street, where we found the source of the revelry. It wasn’t hard—all you had to do was follow the meandering crowds of joyous drunks that were also drawn to the same point.
We turned the corner onto the high street, where a jubilant celebration met us. Creatures of all types danced on the street, getting along in harmonious bliss.
No one fought, and that was the most disturbing aspect of all this.
Normally Paradise Lot was filled with creatures of all myths and legends walking about in a bad mood. Lower inhibitions and historical beefs of epic proportions generally resulted in fights. Lots of them. After all, gnomes, giants, genies, ghouls and the thousand other Others that don’t start with the letter ‘G’ rarely—if ever—got along.
Something was very, very wrong. I saw fairies and trolls frolicking, satyrs playing their pan flutes to the uncoordinated dancing styles of yetis, angels dancing the do-si-do with demons and minotaurs square-dancing with mythological mice-like creatures called srk’d on their shoulders. Minotaurs hate mice and hate the rodent’s godlet versions even more.
Everyone was happy.
And at the cen
ter of it all was a very tall man, who was so fat he was almost square. He stood in the road, prancing about with the grace of a ballerina. Images of Santa Clause performing Swan Lake came to mind. He wore a toga that not so much hung on him, but rather was a part of him. Its loose silk fabric flapped about with each movement, as glittering colors flickered around his neck, wrists and ankles, constantly revolving through spectrums of orange, red and sky blue. Upon his head he wore a laurel so fine that it could not have been crafted from the twigs and leaves of any tree born on mortal soil. He carried a fennel staff tipped with a pine-cone in one hand and a green bottle in the other.
“Who’s that?” I garbled.
Penemue both answered my question and called out in one breath. “Dionysus! By the GoneGods—you’re still here!”
The immense man turned and when he saw the twice fallen angel he threw his arms into the air and squealed in a tone more fitting of a drunken sorority pledge. “Penemue!” He leapt forward and hugged the angel.
Penemue is a large creature, standing over eight feet tall and built like Hercules on steroids. Dionysus made Penemue seem like a skinny twerp in comparison, standing ten feet tall and nearly as wide. Up-close I saw the rings that adorned each of his fingers, each one a different ancient Greek letter. His wrists jingled with several brackets and he wore a dozen or so necklaces, each with different stones.
Everything about this ex-god screamed excess. “My angel,” Dionysus said, “how long has it been? I haven’t seen you since Shakespeare in the Park.” From the way he eyed the tweed-clad angel, I got the impression that he wasn’t talking about some modern theater troupe’s rendition, but the real thing.
Or rather, person.
Penemue nodded in agreement, “All’s Well that Ends Well, I believe.”
“Indeed! What did you say? The actor proclaimed, ‘Be check’d for silence,’ and you shouted out—“
“‘But never tax’d for speech!’”
Dionysus threw back his head in laughter, “Penemue, you devil, your mind is a steel trap. Is there nothing you forget?”
“Little,” Penemue confirmed and putting his massive hand on a shoulder that dwarfed his digits. “I heard that you didn’t leave, but I assumed it was just a rumor.”
“Shhh!” Dionysus lifted a finger to his lips. “I’m in hiding. People really must not know that a god stayed behind lest they torture said god for information. After all, I know things.” He tapped the side of his nose.
“I think the secret is out,” I said gesturing to the party that continued around us.
“Shhh,” the god repeated, “just because everyone knows I’m here doesn’t change the fact that it is still a secret.”
I gave the god my best, ‘Oh really,’ look. “I don’t think that’s how secrets work.”
Dionysus eyed me up and down, doing little to hide his annoyance. He scanned the crowd with his little finger. “I suspect, human, that you know very little about how secrets work. True secrets, that is. One might know something—hell, everyone may know the very same thing—but unless there is a will to admit it out in the open, discuss with others and explore its meaning, it remains a secret. And everyone here has vowed not to do that. Even you have taken the oath of silence.”
OK—now I was lost. It wasn’t the first time that I had to muddle through Other logic, and normally I’d just let the issue drop, but tonight I was drunk. As in, know-it-all, if-only-I-ran-things, armchair philosopher drunk. And I was going to let this know-it-all god tell me what a secret was... “I have?” I countered, emphasizing the skepticism in my voice. I folded the arms across my chest, proud of my opening foray.
“Indeed!” Dionysus lifted his staff high in the air.
“But we’re discussing you now.”
“Yes, because we all know that each of us knows the secret. But if we doubted that one of us did not know the secret then … what is the human expression?.. Mum’s the word. “
“But—“
“What? You doubt a god? ... Oh, damn it all to Hades!” He threw a dismissive hand my way. “Baah—you humans think that we gods care if you believe in us or not … such arrogance.”
He raised an eyebrow at Penemue. “I never took you for one to befriend a human.”
“Befriend, live with … love,” Penemue said.
“Oh?” Dionysus raised an eyebrow. “He’s not my type, but for each their own.”
“No,” I protested, “Not like that. But even if it was like that, I’m a hell of a catch. And—hey! We’re not talking about the secret.”
Penemue put a hand over my mouth, “Forgive my friend. I fear drink has gotten the better of him. Let it rest that Jean-Luc is precious to me and I vouch for him on my honor.”
Dionysus chortled, “You have no honor, my dear friend! But very well, if the human is a friend of yours, then he is a friend of mine. Come now! Without further ado, let us dance,” he grabbed Penemue in one arm and me in the other and threw us around like rag-dolls. But despite being man-handled—or rather, god-handled—I was laughing like a child rough-housing with his dad.
I looked over at Penemue who wore the same abandoned smile as I did. After a few minutes of horsing around, Dionysus put us down.
“What are you doing?” Penemue asked in-between drunken giggles.
“What does it look like—dancing!”
“No, not that …” He gestured around him. “All this.”
Dionysus lowered his head and with an expression of mournful anguish, said. “Oh this? Mortal life is so very, very boring. There is no joy here. And not just for me, but for them as well,” he nodded towards the Others that danced in the street. “That is why I have decided to do what the gods should have done before they left. I am ending it all. Except when Dionysus ends the world, he does not use fire and brimstone, he does not drown the world and he does not summon the beast from below. No, he ends it the way it should end. With a party where the entire world passes out … never to wake!”
Dionysus pranced around and the world swayed in pleasant abandonment. I couldn’t help but smile as a new and intensified wave of drunkenness washed over me.
The god of revelry pointed around to the faltering Others that danced in the street and said, “Besides—the end of the world is the only thing that will save you from a nasty hangover … Quite merciful, if I say so myself.”
Chapter 5
What’s a Good Chaser for the End of the World?
“Excuse me,” I said. “Did you say you were going to end the world?”
Dionysus shrugged. “The world is a bit beyond me. But Paradise Lot is not. I shall end this place and all the Others who live here. That will be my gift to thousands of Others who live in misery. A night of joy. A night like it once was … and then an end.”
“You can’t do that,” I slurred.
“Why not? No one is happy here. I mean—look at you. You dress in black like some forlorn priest, you face is devoid of the wrinkles that are the battle scars of excessive laughter and your eyes carry a sadness in them that can only come from someone who has lost everything. Can you honestly tell me that you are happy?”
I was dumbstruck. Truth was—I never really thought about whether or not I was happy. There was work to do, and I did it—joy or not. But being drunk right now was the most fun I’ve had in what felt like forever.
Maybe he was right. End it all. But then again, it might have been the booze talking. Or rather—the lack of booze that ran in my system because the god of wine burnt enough time to get the whole world drunk. Hellelujah! I wished my head would stop swimming so I could think clearly.
“You see,” Dionysus said, taking my silent confusion as consent. “You agree.”
“No …” I said. “No, I don’t.”
“I tell you what—give me one good reason. One absolutely, irrefutable reason why I shouldn’t end this miserable existence and I’ll stop. Until then, I’m partying like it is my last day on earth, because it is!” With the last word
s a rainbow more vibrant that any I’ve ever seen poured out of the rings on his fingers like some grand, impossible fountain.
I looked up at Penemue who, like me, searched for a reason not to destroy Paradise Lot. I could see the same struggle on his face. But still, I found that if I really, really focused on one idea, I would be able to concentrate long enough to find a—
Just as I started to formulate a coherent thought, a lightning bolt struck the lamp post behind us causing it to fall right on Dionysus’s head.
↔
Dionysus fell with a whoop, metal pinning him to the asphalt as little arcs of crisp-blue electricity bounced around him. “Ow,” he said. “This was unexpected.” The fat god pushed against the metal with a grunt, but was unable to budge it. “My dear angel,” he said, “I may need a hand with this.”
Both Penemue and I bent down to help lift the lamp. “I said the angel—what could a puny human do in a situation like this?”
“Thanks … and … you’re welcome,” I groaned as I put all my strength into it.
I’ve seen Penemue lift two bales of hay and fly them up to his lodge like he was carrying empty luggage. I just watched Dionysus throw us about like we were made of paper and I was pretty strong—you know, for a puny human. And still, the three of us couldn’t budge the dame thing.
Maybe we’re just too drunk, I thought looking up at a world that was increasingly becoming less and less focused. “Help,” I yelled out to the party goers. But when I lifted my head, I saw that we were totally alone. In fact, the music had stopped as did all the accompanying partying that came with it. The only life left on the street was a goblet of goblins scurrying down a side street and away from us.