PARADISE LOST: BOOKS 1 THROUGH 4

RAMY VANCE

KEEP EVOLVING STUDIOS

Keep Evolving Series © Copyright <<2018>> Ramy Vance

Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

For more information, email: ramy@paradise-lot.com

A Keep Evolving Production

Vellum flower icon Created with Vellum

Join the GoneGod Damned! to get a

FREE AUDIOBOOK

Click the link - Ramy Vance’s House of the GoneGod Damned!

See you inside!

Hot GoneGod Diggity Damn!

PART I

IN THE BEGINNING …

“ ‘Trap the bogeyman,’ she said. ‘Steal his bell,’ she said. And what do I do? I listen to her,” I muttered to myself as I laced beads onto a long piece of thread.

“I listen to my dead wife—who speaks to me in my dreams, by the way. That’s normal—when she tells me to hang out in a dark, scary park with a Mug Me Here sign on my back, because … what? … I’m still pussy-whipped?”

I chuckled at the thought as I laced the last of the ceramic trinkets, then walked the thread around three nearby trees to form my own Bermuda’s Triangle of yarn. A cat’s cradle—if the cat were the size of an elephant. “Pussy-whipped from beyond the grave.”

I carefully placed my Cabbage Patch Kid that I got from my—ehem—collection in the middle of the triangle. Hey, don’t judge me … I love old toys and the Cabbage Patch Kid is a classic. “Open your hearts to a Cabbage Patch Kid … each sold separately,” I hummed as I worked.

I shook my head. “I need help.”

Then I pulled out a blue quilt from my baby days and covered the toy with it. Once my trap was set, I pressed play on a Sony Walkman I’d hooked up to a little portable speaker and I climbed up a nearby tree.

The Cabbage Patch cries rang out in the night.

“Here I am,” I muttered to myself again—or maybe I was complaining to my dead wife just in case she was listening—“a grown man sitting in a tree, literally waiting for the bogeyman to show up because she told me to do it. I didn’t really listen to her when she was alive, so why start now?”

I felt a pang of guilt whenever I thought about Bella in such a callous way. She was the love of life, my soulmate—if such a thing exists—and she was gone forever. I loved her and her being dead hadn’t changed that one bit.

And the fact that I dreamed of her every night proved that, too. Right? I mean, why else would my dreams be filled with her?

Not because I couldn’t let go. I can let go. I’m well adjusted.

Seriously.

But even I couldn’t deny that dangling from a tree, in the dark, broadcasting a toy baby’s cries, was case in point to the contrary. Still in love, yes. Well adjusted? Hardly.

Certifiably insane? Most likely.

At least the “bogeyman” part didn’t make me crazy. He’s real—thank the GoneGods.

And not just him—they’re all real. Legends, fables, mythical creatures—all of ’em, real as you and me. And all currently living amongst us ever since the gods decided to pack up and leave, closing their heavens and hells and forcing their “Other” creations onto Earth—the only remaining plane of existence they left open in this universe.

As if Earth didn’t have enough problems with just humans, we now have to add on the divine complications that elves, trolls, oni demons, dragons and all the other Others brought with them. You name it, we got it!

I listened as my Sony Walkman cried on a loop. The recording was OK, given that I got it from a YouTube video and had to really work some cross-generational technical hook-ups, but it worked in the end.

Not the best baby crying in the world, but good enough for the mission, at least.

If only the bogeyman would show up. Where the hell was he? I knew the guy hung out around these parts and my source told me that he frequently cut through the park at night on his way to what he referred to as a “gathering.” It was night, and this was the park, so why wasn’t he gathering?

Then again, my source could be wrong. He was, after all, a drunk fallen angel who lived in my attic. Still, it was quite literally in Penemue’s nature to know things—

Bells. Chiming in a chaotic rhythm, like a dozen nearby churches ringing their Sunday bells a few hours premature.

The chiming drew closer and my heart sped as I waited for the bogeyman to appear. I had one chance to get this guy in my trap or suffer the consequences. And according to my source, this particular bogeyman travelled with a shelleycoat … and pissing off a shelleycoat had all kinds of nasty, bad-for-your-health consequences.

Legend has it that shelleycoats dealt with those who crossed their path by getting the offender so lost and confused that they would literally die of starvation as they wandered aimlessly, looking for the path back home. Even Hansel and Gretel, those clever bastards.

Stories of bodies lying dead only a few feet away from a clearing or a road littered the shelleycoat’s past. And I was determined not to add my own to the shelleycoat’s present.

The chiming grew louder and I heard him say with a heavy Scottish brogue, “What’s this? A wee lad lost in the park?”

So he was a Scottish bogeyman. Cheers, mate.

The shelleycoat took three steps closer to my Cabbage Patch doll. Another step and he’d be in my trap … and then—Wham! Bam! Pow! Holy shelleycoat trap, Batman!

But the shelleycoat didn’t take that last step. Instead, he looked around. And around.

Until his eyes fixed on me.

Hell … Hell-le-lujah.

↔

When I was a kid, my PopPop used to tell me all sorts of stories about the bogeyman. The bogeyman, he’d say, would get me if I didn’t sleep, didn’t finish my dinner, didn’t do my chores. Sheesh. Talk about fear-based parenting.

Still, despite all the stories, I was never really afraid of the bogeyman. I knew that my PopPop, as grandfather-old as he was, would always save me, after all.

But my PopPop wasn’t here now, dangling from this tree in the dark, following my dead wife’s instructions, and I felt old childish fears overrun my soul as I dropped down from the tree to face the bogeyman alone.

“What do ye want, mortal?” the shelleycoat said.

On the ground, I got a good glimpse at his coat. It was covered with all sorts of bells, from tiny silver ones all the way up to town-crier brass carillons. He was also considerably shorter than I was, and at five foot ten, I’m not particularly tall (or short)—and not even remotely as handsome—with a crooked nose that was Pinocchio I-didn’t-eat-the-children long.

Oh, fun.

“We’re all mortal now,” I said, stepping forward as I tried to push him into my trap.

I’m pretty strong. I mean, I’m not Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson strong, but I’d probably hold my own against Vin Diesel or Chris Hemsworth. But despite putting everything I had into that shove, I didn’t move the ugly bastard an inch.

Grinning, he backhand slapped me. I went flying across the ground, my body rolling over dry autumn leaves that crackled as loudly as my bones did. Ouch.

The shelleycoat took three steps toward me, reaching a bell-jangling arm down as he grabbed my ankle, then swung me like a five-iron. I went flying, this time in the direction of my Cabbage Patch doll/Sony Walkman trap.

Landing beside the old Walkman, I put it out of its misery, thankful that at least the damn baby’s crying was over.

Looked like it might be time for my own crying.

“What do ye want?” the bogeyman asked, taking long strides in my direction.

Still on my butt, I pushed my feet against the ground as I crab-walked away from him.

“A bell,” I said.

“A … bell, you say?” He did a little shimmy that sent all his bells a-ringing and a-ranging. “I got plenty o’ these, but they be mine, not yours. Not anyone’s to take. Mine,” he growled with Gollum-esque rage.

“I know,” I said, shuffling away. “That’s why I did this.”

I waited until he took another step, then I pulled at the yarn threads I’d laid earlier. A fence-like structure swung up around him. It was no higher than the shelleycoat’s ankles and literally made of thread and beads, but it did the trick.

The shelleycoat stopped dead in his tracks, looking down at a barrier that a kitten could tear through in two seconds flat. But the shelleycoat was no kitten; he was a bogeyman of legend, a monster of old … and those kinds of creatures had rules. And one of the rules, explained to me long ago by my good ol’ PopPop, was that no shelleycoat can ever cross over a line made from thread and ceramic—hence the beads.

These days, jails weren’t just iron bars. Glass to hold dwarves, bird cages for sprites …

And beaded thread for bogeymen.

“No,” he growled. “Explain the meaning of this! I have done ye and yours no harm. I nae deserve this.”

I lifted a placating hand. “And I’ll let you go in a minute, I promise. But I needed to get your attention first.”

“Fer what?”

“Like I said—a bell. Specifically, the …”

I thought back to my dream and searched for the word that Bella had used. I should have been able to recall it without a second thought—after all, Bella wasn’t actually my dead wife, but a figment of my imagination. A manifestation of my broken mind that was unable to accept that she was really gone. The name of the bell wasn’t something she told me about—it was something I knew about and had forgotten. And for some reason that I can’t quite put together, my subconscious decided I needed this damn bell and sent Bella to deliver the message.

I hummed for a couple seconds longer as I searched for the bell’s name before finally remembering it.

“Ismick. The Bell of Ismick.”

“That bell is mine,” he said. I half-expected his nose to grow longer, but it was true.

“I know, but given that you’re trapped and I really don’t have anywhere to be, I thought—”

“Thief!” he shrieked, pointing a green finger at me. As he did, his sleeve-bells chimed their accusations in agreement.

I mimicked being wounded—“Oh, such harsh accusations! However will I look at myself in the mirror again?”—before saying, “Don’t worry, Ugly. I’m no thief. I offer you an exchange.” I pulled out three obsidian bells from my pocket. “My guy says these were the very bells that were sewn to David’s saddle.”

“David?”

“As in David and Goliath.”

“They … they be real?” He held out a quivering, bell-chiming hand.

I threw him one of them. “You tell me.”

The shelleycoat bogeyman examined the bell like an appraiser might a gem, before nodding. “Very well,” he said, plucking a copper-colored bell from his coat. “This bell for all three.”

“And how do I know you’re not tricking me? I mean, a bell is a bell to me. Swear you’re giving me the right one.”

He sighed, grumbling some ancient fae curse under his breath.

“Swear it,” I repeated, “or I won’t let you go.”

Swearing, oaths, promises … those were the currency of Others. Once a pledge was given, the creature had to follow through or suffer some wrath from their gods. Of course, with the gods gone, divine wrath was in short supply, but most Others still took their ancient ways seriously. I wasn’t about to remind him of his new GoneGod World rights.

Luckily, this shelleycoat was no different. He growled before plucking another bell off his coat, this time a silver one with black runes etched into it, and tossed it to me. “I swear that be the bell ye are looking for.”

“Very well,” I said, tossing him the remaining two bells and cutting the thread barrier, thus setting the bogeyman free.

↔

I prepared myself for another attack, but once free, the shelleycoat made no indication that he held a grudge. Instead, he turned his attention entirely to his newfound treasures and hung his new bells on his coat, then started down the park’s path—most likely toward his gathering, whatever that was.

Strangely touched that the creature wasn’t really that bad a guy after all, no matter how ugly he was, I scooped up my Cabbage Patch Kid and said to it, “I’m gonna have to tell PopPop about this one.”

Great. Now I was heeding my dead wife’s advice, trading bells with the bogeyman like they were Pokémon, and asking a doll to pass a message to my long-passed father.

I shook my head as I collected the quilt and the Walkman, but quickly turned my thoughts back to the bell at hand.

I still didn’t know what the damn thing did.

I followed the jingling bogeyman out of the park before speaking; I figured the walk would help him with any anger issues he might have over me trapping him.

Once onto the main road, I matched stride with him. “Sorry about what I did to you back there. But you understand why I did it, right? I mean, you know the legend?”

He nodded. “A shelleycoat will never give up one of his bells without being trapped.”

“Yeah, like a leprechaun. You gotta trap them if you want the pot of gold.”

“I be no leprechaun,” he said, his bells ringing in fury as he turned to face me.

I lifted my hands up in surrender. “I never said you were. I’m just saying that I had to trap you to get the bell. Otherwise, you know …”

He nodded in understanding. “I would have turned ye around so that no map in this world or any other would have helped ye find home.”

“And I like home,” I said. “That’s where my toys are.”

If he thought I was funny, he made no indication of it. Instead, he doubled his pace as he walked to his gathering.

“So,” I said, trotting to catch up, “what does the bell do?”

“Ye don’t know?” he asked with an admonishing shake of his head.

“No. All I know is that someone I trust said I needed it. But I don’t know why.”

“And I suppose that ye will not leave my side until I tell ye.”

“My wife always said she’d inscribe the word ‘tenacious’ on my tombstone.”

He chuckled at this. “Yer wife is a wise woman.”

“Was,” I corrected him.

At this he turned, his face softening. The look wasn’t pity, but more of understanding. So, you’ve lost too, the look said.

“Read the inscription on the bell, ring it three times next to each ear, then hang it above the threshold of your abode,” he said before continuing on his way.

Others, with their cryptic answers, I thought. I chased after him, not wanting to let this go.

“Abode?” I said. “Who says ‘abode’ anymore? It didn’t even rhyme! And, you didn’t answer my question … What does it do?”

The bogyman sighed. “ ‘Do’? Humans always want things to do things, when sometimes things are just things.”

“Ahhh, I get it. It doesn’t do anything. Well, that makes sense.”

The shelleycoat shook his head in frustration—or maybe his way of saying no, or both. Probably both. The book on Other body language hadn’t had enough time to be written.

“Human, the bell does something. Hang it above your abode—um, I mean, home’s threshold and see.” He stopped at a main door entrance to what was obviously someone’s home and rang the doorbell.

“I really would love to know what it does before I hang it any—”

My words stopped dead in their tracks and I stared at the figure who opened the door.

He—I only call him a he because he lacked any of the curves normally associated with a she—was tall, easily seven feet … and without a face. No eyes or mouth or nose or ears.

Just a taut-skinned surface … like the face of a drum. A creepy, animated drum on a humanoid body.

Having no eyes, however, didn’t stop him from looking in our direction. I shivered, making the bell in my hand tinkle.

“Slenderman?” I muttered. “I thought he was an urban legend.”

“Aren’t we all?” the shelleycoat said with a wry smile. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a poker game to attend.” And with that, the bogeyman went inside.

So that was the gathering he was going to—poker with other bogeymen. Sounds like a hoot.

Fan-friggin’-tastic, I thought as I held the little bell in my hands. Now why do I need this, Bella?

She didn’t reply. After all, Bella was dead.

↔

↔↔↔

↔

Later that night—

I’ve had the same dream every night since they left. I’m running from a devouring darkness that rushes over the world like a tidal wave of emptiness. I run on charred earth, unsure if the darkness or the fear will get me first. In the distance, I can just make out a pinprick of light. If I can get to it, I’ll be safe.

My legs burn and my lungs heave. I run and run toward the light, but before I reach it, the world stops. Not like a ledge or a shore—the world just stops. Null and void. And I know, in that way you do in dreams, that I’m standing at the end of everything.

I turn around. If I’m going to die, I want to see it coming. The darkness slows down as the rushing wave breaks into a creeping black fog. It knows I’m trapped. It’s savoring my terror.

Just before the darkness envelops me, a burning light grows from the Void.

Like the darkness, it blinds.

I am surrounded by light and dark until a hand reaches from the burning halo and pulls me somewhere else.

That’s when the dreams differ, because every night she takes me somewhere new.

↔

Tonight, we walk on a sandy beach that reminds me of where I proposed to her. This is more secluded, though; there’s no other sign of life. An imperfect memory of a place made perfect by time and imagination.

I’m in linen shorts and little else. Bella is in the same sleeveless sundress she wears during all our nightly rendezvous. It’s the dress she wore the night we got engaged, the one she wore when we drove up to PopPop’s cabin for what would pass as our honeymoon.

The dress she was wearing the day the Others killed her.

The hem remains dry, despite her being ankle-deep in the ocean. She’s standing next to me, so close that we could hold hands. But we never do. Even though I want it more than anything, we never touch. I don’t know why.

“Hi, Bella,” I say. She doesn’t look at me, her eyes fixed on the cloudless blue sky. “I thought you hated saltwater. What was it you used to say? ‘Salt’s a preservative and I don’t like the thought of anything preserving me.’ ”

“Dust to dust,” she says, still staring at the same spot in the sky. A single cumulus cloud has crept in from beyond the horizon.

“Yeah, yeah—‘dust to dust.’ Mummify me, I say. I want to be this beautiful forever.”

“I stand by my words,” she chuckles, looking at me for the first time that night. “I wanted life to use me up, and when it was done with me, I wanted to fade away into whatever came next.”

“And did you?”

“Nothing comes next. You know that.”

Yeah, I do. Everyone knows that Heaven is closed and Hell doesn’t exist.

“So what are you? A ghost, haunting my dreams?” I ask. The words come out bitter and angry.

Her mood darkens, and in a distant voice she says, “Ghosts aren’t real. Not anymore.”

“Well, they kind of are,” I say. “Have you spoken to your mother recently?”

A smile creeps across her face as she shoots me her You better behave look.

“Be nice. You promised.”

“That I did. And speaking of promises, I got the bell,” I say.

She gives me a chuckle. “I knew you would.”

“Say, now that I’ve got it, what does it do?”

“You didn’t hang it up yet?”

“I was kind of in a hurry to get here and see you,” I say, kicking some sand into the water.

“You’re sweet,” she says, giving me that look, which—when she was flesh and bones—would have led somewhere special and warm and … heavenly. But given she’s not flesh and bones, but a figment of my imagination, I have to settle for that look. Another cold shower for me… “Hang it up and see,” she says. “Trust me, it’ll make your life that little bit easier when you do.”

“I could use a little bit easier,” I say, reaching out my hand.

She doesn’t take it. Instead, her smile fades as she looks at the horizon again. The lone cloud has been replaced by a gray, ominous skyline. She points. “There’s somewhere you need to be.”

I hear the distant roll of thunder as the wind picks up.

“There is nowhere I want to be,” I say, raising my voice so she can hear me over the wind.

A fork of lightning strikes the sand beside us as a gale-force wind blows in from the sea, far too fast to be natural. The once-blue sky is now blanketed in grays.

“I didn’t say it was somewhere you wanted to be. There is somewhere you need to be,” she says, flattening the wrinkles of her impossibly dry dress against her thigh.

“I don’t want this to end. Not yet.”

“Oh Jean, I don’t want you to go, either.” She captures me with her intense, cerulean-blue eyes and a serious tone I’ve seldom heard her use. “Jean, there’s a storm coming. The thing about storms is that they always end. Remember that, and remember your promise.”

I nod. My promise. A promise I made to the dream of my dead wife one lonely night in the middle of nowhere. A promise that I would go to Paradise Lot and help Others. A promise I plan to keep.

The storm is getting stronger. I need to wake up. “Will you be back?” I ask her this every time I have to leave.

“Whenever you sleep,” she always replies, smiling. “Someone has to save you from your dreams.”

I know she will. She always does.

“In this life and the next,” I say, just before my body jolts as the real world comes into focus.

↔↔↔

My mobile phone was ringing.

I glanced at the clock. Three in the morning. Only one person would call me at this time: Penemue.

OF ANGELS AND MEN

I parked in front of the Paradise Lot Police Station. I had been summoned there—if such a lofty term could be applied to being roused from a perfect dream at such a GoneGodless hour—to bail out a certain guest of mine. My head throbbed from lack of sleep. I hated being woken up; I hated being taken away from Bella.

From outside, the station looked like any other: red-brick building; a boring, backlit sign with the name in big blue letters; a flex-face shield above the door. Typical—until you went inside.

The first indication that the Paradise Lot Police Station—and, by extension, the world—had changed was the unceremoniously enlarged entrance. Doors previously wide enough to accommodate three humans standing shoulder to shoulder could now fit an elephant.

The next indication that it wasn’t your typical cops’ HQ was who manned the front desk: Medusa. As in, turn-you-to-stone lady of legend and friggin’ Queen of the Gorgons Medusa. As I walked in, at least seven of her thirty or so snake dreadlocks looked up. “Jean,” she said, putting just enough of a French twist in my name so that it almost sounded like ‘John’ and didn’t sound anything close to ‘Jean,’ as in the word that usually follows Levis.

Medusa didn’t take her eyes off the computer screen. “Tell me, what brings you here at …”—one of the snakes looked at the clock on the wall—“three in the morning?”

“Same old, same old,” I said. She giggled and pulled out a form for me. I avoided eye contact as I took it from her. I wasn’t afraid she’d turn me to stone—she could, if she was willing to burn through a couple years of her life—it was just that some habits die harder than others. It didn’t matter that in this brave new GoneGod World she no longer guarded the Golden Fleece, or that she, like all cops, had taken a vow to serve and protect. Nor did it matter that she was mortal, with all the insecurities, doubts and fears that entailed …

She was still friggin’ Medusa.

Her giggles faded, and a shy hand took the signed form back. A few taps on a keyboard later, a hurt voice said, “Officer Steve will be with you in a moment.”

I got the feeling one of her snakes was eyeing me, which was confirmed by a disdainful hiss. I reminded myself that humans didn’t look at her out of the same superstitious habit as me. Hell, most Others probably avoided looking at her for the same damn reason. Medusa, like all Others, was newly mortal—thirteen years, to be exact—and I guess she had gone through all the existential angst any teenager did. After all, wasn’t not being seen the basis of countless teenage vampire novels?

Oh, hell …

I forced myself to look up. Medusa worked with her head down, but a large green snake stemming from the top of her skull edged forward. Its forked tongue flicked a couple inches from my face. Partly because I was still half-asleep and partly because the snake genuinely looked like it was smiling, I petted it on the head.

Medusa looked up immediately, and my heart fluttered in fear as our eyes connected.

I did not turn to stone.

And really looking at her for the first time, I noted that the Medusa of legend had a bad rep. She wasn’t hideous—hell, she wasn’t even plain. High cheekbones housed perfect little dimples on a kind face.

Unused to eye contact, she turned away with a bashful flutter—and that’s when I noticed she possessed a more-than-ample, perfectly formed bosom heaving seductively with every breath.

Medusa was hot!

Hot enough that any serious suitor would consider a bath of snakes just to get used to scaly skin crawling all over them. Plus, Astarte, the succubus who lived in my hotel, had informed me that between the sheets, the snakes were quite the erotic apparatus—for both parties.

“Oooh,” Medusa said, shivering at my touch, “Marty likes you.”

“Marty?” I asked, retracting my hand. “You named him?”

“Only the mains,” she said. “This is Johnny, Alfie, Rocky, Jimmy, Cory, Georgie, and you’ve already met Marty. What, don’t you name yours?”

“What? My hair?”

“No, silly,” she said, her eyes sliding down my torso.

“Oh! Oh … Ahh, I suppose I did, once. Well, not me, but my wife. I mean …” I stuttered, feeling my face burn red.

Medusa broke my awkward stammering by touching my sleeve. “I like your jacket.”

There was something about my jacket. It existed in that sweet spot of representing different things for different people. It was black and collarless. To some, I looked like a hipster priest, my white t-shirt acting as the clerical collar. Others saw me as a sort of fashionable monk, back from years in the mountains. Astarte said the jacket reminded her of an ancient demon called the Judge who separated the righteous from the wicked—and then burned the righteous. Sounded like a great guy.

Medusa looked at me expectantly. Oh, hell … I suddenly felt like I was back in junior high. What should I do? Maybe I should compliment something about her? Perhaps one of her snakes? If so, which one? And if I picked one, would the others be offended? And would they be venomous?

The switchboard beeped, and I was literally saved by the bell. Her snakes hissed at the computer as she buzzed me through to the back.

“Officer Steve will meet you through there,” she said, disappointed.

Just before entering, I turned to say goodbye. I was met by a head full of snakes, all of which simultaneously winked at me.

Hellelujah!

↔

Officer Steve met me at the door, shifting from four legs to two and standing erect before me with an ease that implied every creature could do so. Being one of the Billy Goat Gruff brothers, Officer Steve had a cubicle shaped more like a stable than an office space.

Serious, efficient, smart and diligent, the Gruff brothers made perfect cops, despite looking like your typical—albeit very large—goat. Officer Steve was the youngest and thus smallest Gruff, which meant he was the size of a lion.

“Hi, Steve,” I started, but he lifted a hoof, indicating that he needed a minute. Then his hoof fanned out into fingerlike appendages, which he put into his overcoat to search for a pen in pockets not designed for hooves.

As he fumbled in his pockets, I surveyed the room and was greeted by the hustle and bustle of Paradise Lot’s Police Station. Just like any human station, this one was filled with angry cops and even angrier cops. Except here, the average beat cop had fangs. An annoyed valkyrie led a cuffed dark elf to an interrogation room, and a despondent three-headed cerberus booked several stoned fairies. A minotaur detective with a pinstriped tie sat in his nipple-high fuzzy cubicle, filling out paperwork. Several broken pencils littered his desk, all destroyed by powerful hands more used to war hammers than No. 2 lead pencils.

When the gods left with only a “Thank you for believing in us, but it’s not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck,” Others were forced from their homes to live on the mortal plane. Some fought this change, but most Others accepted their new lot in life, trying to make the best out of a bad situation. Paradise Lot Police Station was an example of them trying. The station was filled with legends attempting to fix the problem created by our mutual gods. But even legends have limitations, and these guys had been utterly defeated, not by mortal combat but by a far more formidable foe: human bureaucracy.

Officer Steve finally managed to pull out his pen. Clicking it awake, he asked, “Jean-Luc Matthias?”

“Oh come on, Steve. We spoke less than an hour ago on the phone. What’s more, we’ve met over a dozen times before.” Then adjusting my gaze on the Billy Goat Gruff, added, “I’ve asked you a million times: please just call me Jean.” What I didn’t add was that my mom had named me Jean-Luc because she loved Star Trek, and as much as I love Captain Picard, I didn’t love being compared to the bald bard.

The Gruff gave me a blank look, his pen hovering over his clipboard as he waited for my answer.

“Yes, yes—I’m Jean-Luc Matthias,” I said, annoyed, doing my best to iron out my frustration as I reminded myself that the Gruffs were just doing their best in the GoneGod World.

The Gruffs, more diligent than most, studied human customs, determined to fit in as best they could. But since they were creatures of story, they preferred tales to dry explanation, finding particular comfort in the legends of Sherlock Holmes. Hence the London Fog overcoats, heavy wool hats and smokeless pipes. At least they were trying.

Officer Steve ticked a box and handed me a form to fill out.

“What happened this time?” I asked as I printed my information on the sheet.

“Fighting, I’m afraid,” the Gruff brayed in a British accent. Damn Sherlock.

“Again?” I said, surprised. Penemue was an arrogant pain in the ass, but a fighter he was not.

“Indeed, but this time it is a bit more serious. You see, your feathered friend was engaging in fisticuffs outside the Palisade.”

“What?” I said. “What the hell was he doing there?”

“Not a clue. But he’s been roughed up pretty bad. When we arrived on the scene, three HuMans were pinning him to the ground like a butterfly on display. They’re all locked up now.”

Damn, this was far more serious than his usual drunk antics. The HuMans were a gang of Other-hating wannabe badasses. If you imagined the illegitimate children of Nazis and nutbar survivalists, you’d just be scratching the surface of the kind of scum these guys were. And the Palisade served as their headquarters. No sane Other would come within five blocks of the place. But then again, Penemue was suffering from something he called “Mortal Madness.” I guess in that way he wasn’t really so different from the rest of us.

I shook my head. “Damn,” I said aloud. “Where is he?”

“This way, sir,” the Gruff brayed, reverting to four legs.

We took four steps before an ominous voice bellowed, “Hold—I wish to speak with the human.” Only one creature possessed a voice made from thunder … the archangel Michael.

Hellelujah! It had to be him.

EVEN ANGELS HAVE THEIR WICKED SCHEMES

After the GrandExodus and the initial years of fighting subsided, Michael retired from his role as archangel, Advocate of Man, Slayer of the Great Dragon and Leader of the Host of God to begin his career as a police officer in Paradise Lot. We’d had our run-ins in the past, and he didn’t like how I ran the One Spire Hotel. He didn’t approve of the kinds of Others I let in and how willing I was to ignore some of their more questionable ways. There was a time, early on, when he visited the hotel daily, citing some violation or other that I was ignoring. It wasn’t until I countered with “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” that I finally got the archangel to leave me alone. Since then, he only came around when there was a complaint.

Still, despite him being such a hard-ass, I had to hand it to the archangel: he could have been a demigod here—what with all the denominations of Christianity vying for him to be the head of their various churches—but instead he chose to enter the police force in one of the slummiest, dirtiest parts of the world, insisting on starting as a beat cop before quickly working his way up the ranks. For that, if nothing else, I respected him.

The archangel strode into the main area, each movement exuding strength, each gesture demanding respect. By the GoneGods, he was power incarnate. “Human Jean-Luc,” he didn’t so much say as boomed. He was addressing me by my species, which meant that whatever he had to show me mattered; using one’s species as a prefix added a formal twist to any conversation. It was like using “Mister” or “Missus,” and was a habit employed by many Others. I, for one, welcomed the habit, finding it useful for avoiding embarrassing situations like confusing gnomes for dwarves, harpies for valkyries or elves for vulcans—not that I’d ever met a vulcan … yet.

“Look, if it has to do with Penemue, I—”

“No, Human Jean-Luc. My business with you this evening has nothing to do with the fallen angel or his debauched ways,” the archangel bellowed, each word landing like a hammer. “Come. Follow me and all shall be made clear.”

↔

Michael led me to his office, its door widened to accommodate his massive size. Head to toe, the chief of police was eleven feet tall and built as if Mr. Olympia were carved out of granite. He walked in, sat on the steel frame that acted as his chair and gestured for me to take the seat opposite him. He started fumbling with his desk drawers, his massive fingers struggling to flip through files.

As I waited for Police Chief Michael to find whatever it was he wanted to show me, I noted that on his office wall hung various awards and one framed newspaper clipping from the local rag. The clipping showed an unimpressed Michael accepting a plaque, the headline reading, “Archangel Climbs Police Ranks at Record Speed.” Well, with such a colorful résumé, there wasn’t ever really any doubt, was there, that he’d shoot up the ranks of the local PD.

Still, to display so many awards was quite prideful and very unangelic. I pointed to the awards. “Pride goeth before a fall.”

Michael stopped fiddling and looked behind him. “Indeed,” he sighed with recognition. He raised the tips of one of his multiple pairs of wings so I could no longer see the display from where I sat. “But I have been told these things make me more … more … human.”

“A worthy quality?” I asked, knowing how he felt.

“A useful one,” he said, finally getting out the folder and slamming his drawers shut. He settled on the steel-frame chair, then, looking past me and out of the window, said, “Your car registration will soon expire. Be sure to renew it lest I be forced to impound it.”

I looked behind me and through the window at my 1969 Plymouth Road Runner. He could read the registration sticker although it sat a hundred feet away in a dimly lit parking lot at night? Hellelujah.

“Did you really call me in here to talk about my car?” In my mind, I debated the possibility of that being the case. After all, he was an Other cop and registrations were exactly the kind of bureaucratic plight they took very seriously. Right up there with sorting the recycling and paying overdue library book fines.

“No, human. There is this … ahh … poster I wish to show you,” he said, the word poster stumbling out of his lips. He fumbled with a folder before his angelic dexterity won the day and he managed to pull out a flyer. It read:

In today’s confusing mortal world,

Others of all species are welcome to attend

COPING WITH MORTALITY

We’ll answer pestering questions like:

“Why Is Sleep Important?”

and

“Headaches—Biological Inconvenience or Wrath of an Angry Demon?”

and many, many more!

“So?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. I looked over at the clock ticking on the wall. Three-thirty a.m. If I could get home in an hour, I could hang out with Bella for another three hours before my day started. “What does that have to do with me?”

“The address.”

I looked down at the address. One Spire Hotel, followed by a date and time. I did a double take, rubbing my eyes again. Damn, Jean-Luc, wake up. “Holy crap,” I said, my brain finally confirming what I had read. “This is for tomorrow. I mean, tonight. This is supposed to start in like fifteen hours.” I failed to hide my surprise.

“Indeed,” Michael muttered. “And crap is anything but holy,” he added, folding his arms over his chest as he waited for my explanation.

“Well, hell—it’s a seminar to help Others cope with mortality. It’s a good thing. The kind of service Paradise Lot needs. And if you’re going to stop it from happening because of some ridiculous minor infraction, you’re being … being … really anal,” I said. What I failed to add was that I had no idea such things happened in Paradise Lot, let alone in my hotel. That was exactly the kind of thing the archangel would latch on to.

Michael waved his hands dismissively. “Where would one get a flyer such as this?”

“I don’t know.” I really didn’t. “Various help centers, the hospital—anywhere public service announcements are made. Hell, a police station should be handing out stacks of them.” My voice dripped with sarcasm, which I hoped sufficiently hid the fact that I honestly didn’t know.

My gambit seemed to work. Michael announced to no one in particular, “I am satisfied with your answer.” He opened a second folder and removed a single photograph. Then he threw the folder’s remains in front of me, scattering photographs displaying scenes of carnage in a glossy finish. I hadn’t seen this kind of gore since I left the Army.

The photos were of three humanoid creatures impaled into the side of a building, pressed so forcefully against the wall that they hung to it like macabre graffiti. Bits of bone stuck out where the flesh could not stretch enough to accommodate their new form. If it hadn’t been so horrific, I might have thought this some comical rendition of a three-dimensional creature being flattened by a rolling pin. Their bodies were mangled so badly it was impossible for me to tell what kind of creatures they were, but given that their blood was bright yellow, I ruled out human.

I leafed through the photos, one after another. Something about them bugged me. Sure, there were the mangled bodies, but whatever had killed them did so by slamming them against a wall with such force that it flattened them, though the red-brick structure on which they hung was completely unaffected. You’d think there would be some cracks in the wall, some crumbled stone—anything.

“What could have done this?” I asked.

Michael shook his head. “We are not sure. All we do know is that time was burned to do it, which means that either this was some ancient grudge settled or we have a—”

“Fanatic on our hands,” I finished.

The archangel nodded.

“How much time?” I asked.

“Again, it is hard to tell. If I were to use such force, I would burn through a month, perhaps six weeks.”

“A month!” I said in surprise. When the gods had left, ejecting their OnceImmortal subjects into the mortal plane, they effectively cut them off from their source of magic. Every Other had only a certain amount of time to live. Others could trade in some of that time to tap into their once-upon-a-time limitless magic. The more powerful you were, the more time you had, but still … rational Others didn’t use magic, choosing to preserve the precious little time they had left. Can you blame them? Eighty years, for a creature that has known thousands of years of life, is precious little time indeed.

But then there were the Fanatics—Others so unhinged by mortality that they burned through time in a suicidal rampage without consideration or care. The result was catastrophic. During the Nine Year War, a Fanatic valkyrie took on an entire platoon on her own, aging with every swing of her golden ax. The result? Seventy human soldiers slain before she was too old to lift her weapon.

“A month is not a ‘grudge,’ ancient or not,” I said. “Why give your enemy the satisfaction of knowing they took so much time from you? No, this has Fanatic written all over it.”

Michael nodded. “Still, of all the tortures I have witnessed, not even the Devil killed with such brutality.”

“The Devil doesn’t exist. Not anymore,” I said, handing him back the photographs.

“So you keep telling me,” Michael boomed. “But I’ve met the demon, and I can assure you he’s real. Anyway, the victims were cynocephaly. In your travels, have you ever met any?”

“Humanoid bodies, dogs’ heads,” I confirmed. Michael nodded. “Yeah, I knew a few just after the war. They served as guards when Bella and I … you know. But I haven’t seen a cynocephalus in years. Why?”

“Because we also found this at the crime scene,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. He handed me the photo he had removed.

This one wasn’t of a crime scene. It was an old black-and-white photo of Bella, standing with the Ambassador. They were both smiling and so filled with hope that their mission of peace would work. Although I had never seen this photograph before, I knew when and where it had been taken. They were standing in front of old machinery that would have made a 1950’s Frankenstein set director drool with envy. Ancient lab equipment that was more alchemy than scientific, clunky mechanical gears meshed together and sparks of electrical current jumping from antenna to antenna—not that you could see the electricity moving in the photo. I just knew because I’d been there once, helplessly watching Bella’s death from behind a steel door.

Hellelujah. I wanted to be reminded of that place as much as I wanted to be drawn and quartered. Actually, I would have preferred the drawn-and-quartered option. At least that one included a foreseeable end to the pain.

Instinctively, I reached up and grabbed the fake silver chain with a twist tie wrapped around it. I rubbed the plastic between my fingers as I held the image for a long time, staring at the unwavering smile she wore no matter how bad it got. I guess that was why the Ambassador chose her—he needed a human counterpart to help his mission to broker peace between humans and Others, and Bella was, well … Let’s just say that few humans were as kind and as good as she was.

“Have you seen this photograph before?”

“No …” I said, having to clear my throat. It stung to see her so happy when, in just a few short months, she would be dead. “How did you get this?”

Michael studied my face as if looking for some hint of a lie. He must have found none, because he said, “It probably means nothing. After all, Bella and the—”

“One of these guys had it?” I rose from my seat.

Michael nodded. “We have no way of knowing who originally possessed the photograph. We suspect it belonged to one of the victims, who most likely knew her during her time as a diplomat.”

I nodded. “Like I said: some were guards, but no one I ever got close to.”

“Very well, Human Jean-Luc,” he said, standing. “I thank you for your time.”

“What, so that’s it? You found a photo of my wife—my Bella—and a flyer with my hotel address on it, and now it’s just, ‘Thank you for your time,’ boom-boom, thunder-thunder? Come on. You’ve got to give me more than this.”

“We’ll keep you posted if anything comes up. In the meantime, should you remember anything, please do give us a call.” He handed me one of his cards.

“I have your number,” I said, leaving the card on his desk. “Just tell me if the hotel is in danger. I have guests and—”

“We do not believe so,” Michael interrupted. “We believe this is retribution for the cynocephaly failing to protect the Ambassador. But like I said, this is an ongoing investigation. We will keep you posted.”

I gave Michael my best Oh, really? look, to which he answered, “I promise.” A promise from an Other was as good as gold, and a promise from an archangel was even better.

I nodded and made to leave, pausing at the door.

“Yes?” Michael bellowed. “Did you forget something?”

“The photograph. Can I have it?”

“It is evidence,” he said. But when I didn’t move, he sighed and added, “After the investigation is closed I will see what I can do. But for now, I believe you have a drunk angel needing your bail money.”

DO CAGED ANGELS SING?

I stepped out of Chief of Police Michael’s office, my heart fluttering with anguish. Bella was the last person I expected to see at 4:00 a.m. in a police station, and I was struggling not to break down. But it was more than that. Someone had a picture of Bella. It drove me crazy thinking that some nutbar would be looking at her, thinking about her. I supposed the photo could have belonged to one of the cynocephaly. Hell, it was even likely. The now-expired Ambassador was something of a celebrity amongst Others and his picture hung on many walls, like a velvet painting of Elvis. The Ambassador had done much good before some Fanatics set off an explosion that ended his life, and there were many Others who still remembered him for trying.

However, if the photo of my Bella belonged to the killer, that meant he could have been part of the plot that ended her life and the Ambassador’s all those years ago. After Bella died, I tried tracking down the group responsible, but all leads went cold. In the end, after spending three years on the hunt, all I had was a river of blood—I was no closer to finding her killers. A part of me really hoped that the photo belonged to those elusive Fanatics and that our paths would finally cross. I would relish a second chance at avenging the murder of my dead wife.

But that probably would not come to pass—I’d spent all my second chances when Bella took me back. Twice. The first time was when I returned from my stint in the Army. And the second, well … that was when she began haunting my dreams. Hallucination or not, Bella saved me.

I would have to put aside all thoughts of payback. That was the old me. The new me was about helping Others. And right now, an Other was waiting for me to bail him out of jail.

Back in the main area, I approached Officer Steve. “OK, you can take me to Penemue now.”

The Billy Goat Gruff stood on his hind legs and pulled out his clipboard. “Jean-Luc Matthias?”

↔

Penemue sat in the drunk tank, expounding on the glory days of immortality lost, which was—according to him—another symptom of Mortal Madness. That, I had been expecting. What I did not expect were the half-dozen HuMan gang members sitting in the tank with him.

Penemue, unlike Michael, was just an angel (it’s funny how natural those words were—just an angel, like that wasn’t special enough), which meant he was only eight feet tall and had one pair of wings to Michael’s three. He was well built, with the physique of a finely tuned bodybuilder, although these days Penemue was looking more like Homer Simpson than Arnold Schwarzenegger—if, that was, Homer had long, beautiful blond hair and wore a tweed vest.

When we walked in, the leader of the HuMans perked up. “Come on, Officer. Let us go … We weren’t fighting. Cross my heart,” he said, making a little X over his chest.

Their leader was a boy of eighteen affectionately known as EightBall. He had all the tell-tale sign of the HuMans: shaved head covered in tattoos of symbols that once meant something—the cross, the Star of David, the crescent moon, the Wheel of the Dharma, the nine-pointed star and a half-dozen other symbols from dead or dying religions. As for his name, my guess was that it had something to do with the vertical infinity symbol tattooed right between his eyes. In the right light, it kind of looked like the number 8. To those with a limited imagination, his dark complexion combined with the tattoo made his head look like an eight ball.

“We weren’t fighting. We were having a disagreement, that’s all,” EightBall repeated.

Penemue sighed. “The boy is correct. We were merely having a disagreement as to whether or not I should exist. A debate that has raged on since long before the GrandExodus, although for less literal reasons.”

Officer Steve ignored this, pulling out keys and unlocking the cell. “I formally discharge Angel Penemue into your care.”

Before he could open the cell door, EightBall reached out and grabbed Officer Steve’s hoof. “How come the pigeon gets out and we don’t?”

“Because,” Officer Steve said, withdrawing his hoof and pulling at the door, “the telephone numbers you provided either did not work or the person answering refused to come and collect you.”

“Awww, come on, Baa Baa Black Sheep,” EightBall said. Several of his fellow gang members chuckled at the insult. “We’re just a bunch of poor kids abandoned by our parents, out looking for love in all the wrong places. Show us some love, Mutton, and let us out.”

At EightBall’s words, Penemue turned to the boy. “Not abandoned, young human. Orphaned. I tried to tell you: your mother and father would have never done such a thing … Do you know why they named you Newton, young human? It is because—”

But before Penemue could finish, EightBall—whose real name was apparently Newton—punched him square in the nose, sending little streams of light bleeding out his nostrils.

So that was why they were fighting—Penemue was doing his thing. Angels were created with a single purpose in mind—their one true “thing”—and Penemue’s thing was knowing all that had been written. That included the abstract, metaphorical writing of one’s deeds on one’s soul. And with Penemue’s perfect memory, it meant he could tell you everything about yourself with an eerie precision: your parents, your extended family and all your relatives going back to the beginning of time. Sadly, Penemue’s thing tended to freak the hell out of people.

The youngest Billy Goat Gruff produced a billy club from out of only the GoneGods knew where and in a stern voice bleated, “That’s enough out of you hooligans. One more peep and I’ll lock you up and throw away the key.” Clearly the Sherlock that Steve studied was more Victorian than modern.

The gang burst out into laughter before settling down. “Look here, Copper,” EightBall said between chuckles, “he started it.”

Penemue nodded. “Indeed I did. My apologies, young Human New—ahhh … EightBall.”

Officer Steve huffed and opened the cell. Penemue, still stinking drunk, stumbled out. “Let’s try and have a week where I don’t see you in there. Think you can manage it?” the Gruff said, temporarily abandoning his Victorian English vernacular. I had to admit, I was impressed by how natural he sounded. He sounded like a cop; in the right light, he even looked like a cop … until he got on all fours and trotted away, reminding everyone he was a large goat.

“Come on, you giant lug,” I said, trying to lead Penemue away. The angel used his wings to help balance himself, feathered tips pressing against the police station’s linoleum floor.

“Hey, Priest,” EightBall said before we could leave. I looked over as the young boy gestured for me to come close.

I should have walked away, ignored the kid, but instead I tugged at my collarless jacket and said, “Priest? I’m no priest. But I think you know that already.”

“Yeah, we do,” EightBall said, gesturing for me to lean in closer. He looked around to see if Officer Steve was listening. “We know all about what you do, Priest. We know where you and the pigeon live. And we know how much you love them freaks. The boys and I used to turn a blind eye to you insulting the human race by helping out those rejects, but no longer. Pigeon got us fired up and now we’re going to fire you up. Soon as we get out of here, we’re coming and we’re going to rain holy, righteous hell on you and your hotel.”

I sighed as if bored. Only two things got through to a kid like him: fear and respect. And since respect took time, I went for fear. “Fine … but will you do me a favor?” I said in a steady, even tone. EightBall looked at me curiously. “When you come, just make sure you take me down first. I don’t want any of your blood on my hands, and if I see you hurting someone living under my roof, well then …” My voice trailed off, letting his imagination finish the thought.

EightBall looked at me, confused, a hint of fear touching his eyes. For a moment I thought maybe that was enough, that him seeing how deadly serious I was, how unafraid I was, would deter him from attacking. Like I said, I knew his type. EightBall’s eyes hardened. “OK, old man,” he said, nodding slowly, “I can do that for you. You go down first.” He backed away from the bars, rejoining his gang on the bench.

Hellelujah—so much for a peaceful resolution.

TRAINS, PLANES, AUTOMOBILES AND WINGS

Getting Penemue into the back seat of my old Plymouth was damn near impossible. In the end, I had to rest him on his stomach. It wasn’t far to the hotel and we could have walked it, but have you ever tried to act as a crutch for an eight-foot-tall, four-hundred-pound angel? The last time I tried, I nearly passed out from the effort, even though Penemue used his wings as crutches.

The arches of his wings jutted out the driver’s-side back-seat window, while his taloned feet hung out the passenger’s. It wasn’t the best I could do, just the best I was willing to do. The angel had, after all, woken me from a very pleasant dream.

“Drambuie,” he said as I pulled out of the police station parking lot.

Drambuie was a sickly sweet honey whiskey and the only thing the fallen angel drank, claiming it was the closest thing mortals had to Ambrosia. If you’ve ever had a Drambuie hangover, you’ll know that the last thing you’d ever want to drink was Ambrosia. I honked at no one in particular as I hit a speed bump way too fast. The angel groaned, and I smiled at my overdeveloped sense of passive aggression. Like I said: pleasant dream.

“I think you’ve had quite enough of that stuff for one night,” I said, taking a fast turn. Another groan from him. Another smile from me.

Penemue lifted one of his wings, pulled at a little canteen of Drambuie and began downing it. Seeing that turned my passive aggression to aggressive aggression. I reached into the back, yanked the canteen from his grimy claws and threw it out the window. “Hey,” he protested. “I was drinking that.”

“Yes, you were,” I growled. “And what good did that do you? I’m bailing your ass out of jail at four in the morning, we got a gang of testosterone-jacked teenagers who want to turn you into a pincushion of light—and you want to drink some more. What’s wrong with you?”

“The same thing that is wrong with all of us: Mortal Madness! For which death is the only known cure.”

“Shut it.”

“Indeed,” he said. A hand popped out from the back with another canteen in it. “Drink?”

“Drink? What? Where did you get that from?” I said, grabbing the second canteen and throwing it out the window.

“I have more than one wing, Human Jean-Luc,” Penemue said matter-of-factly. “And layer after layer of feathers. I could stay dry in a tsunami. Did it once in a river of blood—”

“Penemue!” I barked. “Are you even listening to me?” From my rearview mirror I could see the angel’s face turn toward me. Our eyes met in the glass.

“Jean, please. I hear you. All of Paradise Lot hears you.”

“Why!”

“I wanted to play pool,” Penemue said. “Figured I’d be good at the angles.”

That was too much. I pulled the car to the side and threw the gear into Park. I turned to face the fallen angel. “I supported you when you were homeless. I covered for you when the cops came round, looking for all the library books you stole. I lied for you when your makeshift distillery blew up and I took care of you when you sprained your wing playing Santa Claus and got stuck in a chimney.”

“Saint Nick. And it was an industrial shoot. And I was trying to escape a pack of guard dogs with a taste for the divine.”

“Whatever!” I shouted. “The point is, you were laid up for three months while I fed, watered and Drambuied you. I think I’ve earned enough credit to know why! Why would you mess with them? Why would you go to the HuMans’ headquarters? Why? Why? Why!”

“Because …” Penemue hesitated. “Because I wanted to apologize.”

“To who?”

“To Newton. EightBall, I mean.”

I had expected a lot of clever answers from the angel, but the thought that he’d apologize to anyone for anything left me flabbergasted. Eventually I asked, “For what?”

“For what?” Penemue echoed. “Let’s see … Perhaps I wanted to apologize for burning down his house. Or perhaps it was because I felt guilty for stealing his future and turning him into an orphan. Or perhaps I wanted to say sorry for killing his parents.”

That last comment shut me up. The two of us drove in silence until the angel eventually broke it. “Killing his parents, Jean-Luc. Even for a human, you are daft. During the GrandExodus, I fell on his home and killed his parents. For that, I felt I at least owed him an apology, even if it is thirteen years too late.”

So that was what this was all about. Others were just as shocked by the gods leaving, so much so that most didn’t show up in the best of moods. In Australia, scores of bunyips came out of the sea. In Japan, yūrei descended Mount Fuji. Giants wandered out of Stonehenge, and in Oxford, angry dwarves walked out of some poor guy’s chimney. And those were the nicer arrivals. Sadly, in most places Others showed up in a more Biblical fashion.

Volcanoes spewed dragons and tornadoes were filled with shrieking banshees. Oceans boiled and skies turned blood-red. In Paris, the earth opened up, swallowing the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile as ghouls and orcs streamed out in droves, attacking everything and anything unlucky enough to have been nearby. In Greece, minotaurs leveled the Parthenon. In China, the Jade Emperor’s army wiped out entire villages before their rage finally subsided.

And as for Paradise Lot? Well, the sky opened up and legions of angels fell onto my city like comets. One of those comets killed PopPop, making me an orphan. Another comet did the same to EightBall.

More fluorescent tears streamed down Penemue’s face as he spoke. “When I was ejected from Heaven, I fell—and not for the first time, mind you—onto this cursed city … and right onto the apartment building where young Human Newton’s parents resided. I didn’t mean to, but as anyone who has fallen can tell you, one does not always have control over one’s trajectory.” He spoke the last sentence with a pompous air, trying to hide his shame.

“For days, I stood out on the Palisade,” Penemue continued, “trying to work up the courage to speak to the young boy. When I saw him this evening, laughing with his friends, I thought to myself that today would be the day I apologized—but before I could say anything, the gang of boys just attacked, and … Well, you know the rest.”

I didn’t know what to say. Penemue’s guilt for accidentally killing EightBall’s parents was consuming him. This was not the kind of guilt that went away with a confession or even self-destruction. Believe me, I know. This kind of guilt stalked you, nipping away at your heels little by little, until you were driven mad. And there was nothing I could say or do to console my friend.

Penemue looked up and said, “Did you know that young Human Newton was considered a child prodigy? At the age of eight he could play the entire Fifth Symphony with nary an error. His parents were so proud that they saved every penny they could to encourage his talent. Who knows what he could have accomplished had I not stolen his future from him?”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “It’s theirs.” I jerked my head at the car roof, indicating the gods. “For leaving. For the way they left.”

“Perhaps …” he said, his voice drifting off. “But I do have wings, and had I been just a little bit faster or more aware, I might have fallen elsewhere.” And with that fell more fluorescent tears, until the twice-fallen angel fell once more into sleep.

LUST OR LOVE

We drove home, a soft snore emanating from the back seat. After hearing Penemue’s confession, I knew the EightBall problem wasn’t going away. Beyond the little annoyance that the HuMans were a violent group of Otherphobes who would start targeting the One Spire Hotel, this was an issue of penance for the twice-fallen angel. How could he blame himself for their death? It wasn’t his fault that he’d been evicted from Hell without warning. And it wasn’t his fault that his entry to the mortal realm happened to be over Paradise Lot. But those were rational arguments for a much larger problem, and as one who has more blood on his hands than a thousand good deeds could wash off, when it came to seeking redemption, rationality was not the nail on which you hung your coat.

Redemption relies on being forgiven, and I seriously doubted that EightBall would ever forgive Penemue. Even if he did, Penemue would never forgive himself. Although I felt for my friend’s plight, I had a more practical issue to deal with: EightBall would come for him, and soon. Penemue was a fallen angel with a massive amount of power, both physical and magical; I knew he would suffer a thousand strikes and still not be tempted to lift a finger against a human. This was his way. This was the way of so many Others hated by my fear-mongering species. He might even welcome the attack, seeing it as a blood-for-blood kind of deal—like I said, redemption wasn’t rational. But Penemue was only one of the Others who lived at One Spire Hotel, and what he did put them in danger as well. His confession, although noble, was also selfish.

I nervously thumbed the industrial, heavy-plastic twist tie I’d coiled around a plain silver chain I always wore. Other than being designed to hold together electric wires in all temperatures, there was nothing special about it except that once upon a time I had used it as an engagement ring when I proposed to Bella. At seventeen, I was in a hurry and didn’t have any money to buy a real ring. That night I knew it was now or never, so I raided the house until I found the twist tie. Then I got down on one knee on a beach near Paradise Lot and proposed. Lucky for me, Bella thought the twist tie was the most romantic thing ever. I don’t know why and don’t care. All I know is I was damn lucky to have found Bella. I had to hand it to the twist-tie makers: they knew how to build something to last. I touched the final tangible symbol I had of Bella as I thought about Penemue’s current dilemma. I had always found cruising a great way to clear my head. But even after taking the really long way home, I had nothing. I circled the block three times, then parked in front of my hotel and left the slumbering angel in the car; no point in attempting to carry his celestial ass. Besides, the thought of trying to get him inside made my already-sore head throb.

As I walked into the lobby, I briefly considered hanging the bell I got from the bogeyman above my front door, but decided against it. I was exhausted and as curious as I was as to what the bell did, I was more curious about my bed. With a whoop, I sat behind the second-hand IKEA desk that served as my reception. I’d make it upstairs in a minute. After a rest. And as for whatever was to happen next, I would deal with it—not only to protect my friend, but also the other Others living in my hotel. After all, I had once made a promise to this girl I love very much.

I surveyed my desk. Bills, bills, bills and more bills. Electricity, water, gas, unpaid taxes—hell, one of them was a garbage-collection bill for unnatural biowaste left in a dumpster by the demigod CaCa who lived in my basement. There was a particularly vile letter from the landlord stating, in no uncertain terms, that he’d “rain holy hell” on my ass if I missed another rent payment. Well, screw him … He was a racist, or rather an Otherist, and I was the only human stubborn or stupid enough to take on this place. Given his limited options, I knew he would always choose to rent to a late-paying human over a prompt, responsible Other. Before Hell was shut down, there was a special kind of place for assholes like him.

Speaking of Hell and assholes, what happened to all the human souls that didn’t return after the GrandExodus? Not a single human had returned. Ghosts and ghouls came in legions, but the actual Heaven and Hell occupants—not one came back. Why? No one knows. There are two theories as to what happened to them: either they were taken with the gods or they were extinguished. But whenever you start to think about why the gods did what they did, questions only lead to more questions. Screw it—I didn’t have time to engage in a solo philosophical debate. With my growing debt, there was a real chance I couldn’t keep this place open for another month, let alone the rest of the year. Unless I found a way to pay off some of these bills and create a steady flow of income, I was sunk. Bella, damn it—how did you manage to keep this place above water?

“Ahem,” a voice said behind me. I didn’t need to turn around to know it was Judith, my once-human, now-poltergeist mother-in-law. I had once joked with Bella that if anyone hated me enough to come back from the dead to haunt me, it would have been her mom. Seems the joke was on me, because that’s exactly what she did. After the GrandExodus happened and the magic ceased, Judith rematerialized. Suddenly all those moments when I’d go cold for no reason or socks went missing from the wash made sense.

“Judith, I’m sorry if I woke you,” I said, “but it’s five in the morning, so if this can wait …”

The ghost gave me a disapproving look. “It’s doing it again,” she interrupted, her voice dripping with disdain.

I didn’t need clarification—she was referring to Astarte, the succubus who lived in Room 5. For the uninitiated, a succubus is a creature that feeds off of sex, literally sucking your life’s energy out of you. Like a vampire, but with orgasms. Lots of orgasms. Of course, these days she no longer fed directly from sexual energy—but that didn’t mean she still didn’t get what she needed from sex. She used her talents to earn money, which she used in turn to purchase what she needed to survive: food, water, shelter. Lingerie. As far as Astarte was concerned, very little had changed in this new GoneGod World.

Judith sucked air through her ectoplasmic teeth. “All that groaning, it is simply unnatural.” Bold words from a woman who floated.

“Fine, fine,” I said. “I’ll talk to her.”

“Please see that you do,” Judith said, turning to drift upstairs.

↔

Judith watched from her door as I knocked on the door to Room 5. From inside, I could hear moaning and groaning as several voices continued their nightly pleasure, undisturbed by my knock. I banged on the door again, louder this time. The voices stopped for a moment; there was a rustling pause, then the moaning quickly reached its previous crescendo.

“Astarte!” I yelled.

Before I could knock again, the Other opened the door. When she saw me, she leaned against its frame as if presenting herself to me. She wore a nightgown accentuating lean, small hips which subtly suggested that if you were horizontal and near them, all would be right with the world. Lush brunette tresses rested perfectly on her shoulders. She wore an elegant, lacy tank top just transparent enough that a hint of her dark nipples peeked through from atop her small, perfect, perky breasts.

I looked past her and saw several writhing bodies, all intertwined in the ecstasy embrace she was hosting. She closed the door just enough so that I could no longer see the bodies, but wide enough that I could hear all the bliss going on inside. From within, a distant voice said, “Astarte, where are …?” The voice drew in a breath before slowly exhaling with a flesh-filled “Oh …”

Astarte gave me a knowing smile as I tried to focus on her. She pulled out a cigarette from only the GoneGods knew where and placed it between ruby lips—lips that could do a lot more than hold a cigarette. Lips that most men would sell their left foot to have on theirs. Fire from her lighter illuminated rosy cheeks that bracketed her sensual nature with a false sense of innocence.

There was nothing innocent about Astarte.

“No smoking inside, Astarte. You know that,” I said, doing my best to not look at the A-cup angel’s breasts. I reminded myself that there was no evidence that she was actually a she. And without the tell-tale signs of gender, this Other skirted the edges of male-female perfectly. Breasts that may or may not exist underneath a loosely fitting nightshirt. A long, sensual neck with enough bulge to it that it might be an Adam’s apple—but then again, might not. Arms that were muscular but tender, hair that was lush but somehow masculine. Not that being androgynous did anything to diminish this Other, who was wildly tantalizing. I had no doubt there were many who saw Astarte as male, female and Other, and reminded myself that I only saw Astarte as a she because, well … I like boobs. There, I said it.

“Yes?” Astarte said, taking a long drag on her cigarette.

“Come on,” I said, “you know the rules. Put it out.”

“Oh my, Jean—always with the rules.” She let out a sensuous puff of white smoke that just made you wish you were in her cloud of heaven. I shot her a look that said it wasn’t working; I was lying. She opened the door just wide enough for me to see four other bodies all writhing and reeling, and dropped her cigarette into a lipstick-stained wineglass. “Happy?” she asked as she blocked my view again.

I nodded. “There’s been a complaint about the …” But before I could say “noise,” a loud groan bellowed out of the room, making my point for me.

Astarte chuckled. “I told her she could join,” she said, looking at Judith behind me. “One without legs could be an interesting … asset.”

Judith snorted with disgust and floated through the door.

Astarte chuckled and then, looking me up and down, gave me a disapproving stare. “You look like hell.”

“Headache and Penemue,” I said. I didn’t need to say more.

“What has that devil done now?” Astarte chuckled, her posture too perfect. When she stood, her back arched just enough to push out her breasts, accentuating them so that any sane human wondered exactly what they must look like underneath that delicate sheath of lace. But it was more than that. The way she held herself made every article of scanty clothing hang on her in a way that pronounced every curve, every dimple, every bump, driving her admirers to a maddening frenzy of lust. She did not light a cigarette—she ignited it. She did not brush back her hair—she sculpted it. She did not smile at you—she inflamed you.

Everything about her screamed desire, and by the GoneGods, I was not immune. I looked at her and wanted nothing more than to embrace her for a few perfect moments of unbridled ecstasy. But that was just it: it wasn’t love—it was lust. It wasn’t passion she inspired, but desire. And if you could see her in that light, then you could see that the way she held herself—the way she gestured, walked, spoke—was an unnatural lie designed to capture her quarry. She was a predator, and your desire was her prey.

Still, she was beautiful.

“Picked a fight with the HuMans,” I said in answer to Astarte’s question, figuring it was best to warn my guests of what might come.

“Oh, darling,” she sighed. “Is it serious?” The words slipped off her tongue with a hint of a Parisian accent coloring her voice. I doubted she had ever spent any time in France and I was pretty sure her accent was the side effect of me once confessing a particular love for the way French women spoke. The introduction of the accent had been subtle, and if it weren’t for my experience with Others, I might have never noticed. Still, despite noticing, I found the accent a nice touch to her seductive dance. Hearing her speak aroused me in ways that made me doubt my loyalty to the dream of my wife.

I nodded.

“What are you going to do about it?” she said, her tone demanding. Once upon a time, Astarte had been a demigoddess, worshipped by thousands, lusted after by more. She was used to getting her way, commanding people to do her will. Some habits die hard.

I thought about telling her to shove it and deal with her own battles. That I was done fighting her battles for her. But I could see that her forcefulness came from fear. After living thousands of years immune to hurt, your fear that some kids with a baseball bat would come knocking on your door took on a completely different nuance. It wasn’t her fault that Penemue got drunk and did what he did. And it wasn’t her fault that she was a lover, not a fighter.

“You could offer them a freebie?” I joked.

Astarte laughed at the suggestion. I mean, really laughed, clutching her stomach, her cheeks turning rosy red. Her laughter seemed to turn off the sultry sex goddess and leave a vulnerable, beautiful, real woman in its place. I don’t think she’d ever looked as lovely as she did at that moment.

“Oh, Human Jean,” she said, “you are a delight. An evening with me would change them forever, but I fear that I am not what they want.”

“What? Do you think they’d turn you down?”

She gave me a look that a thousand cold showers couldn’t reverse. “No one turns me down,” she said. “But after … Well, that’s another story.”

Astarte was right. She wasn’t what they wanted, and once the blood was rerouted back to their big heads, they would resume their path of carnage.

I nodded. “Well, I’ll figure something out. Until then, will you keep it down?”

“Cross my heart,” she said, crossing something far too low to be a heart. “Now if you don’t mind, I really must say goodnight. Unless of course you want to join …” She pushed the door open, revealing a tangle of bodies that would have required an autopsy to figure out where one stopped and another began.

“Thanks,” I said, summoning all the willpower I had, “but lust isn’t what I need right now.”

Astarte glared at me before opening the door wider, revealing the full glory of the orgy inside. “Why not?” the succubus said in a harsh tone. “You say it like there is something wrong with Lust. What would you prefer? Love?” She laughed at the word. “I could never be so cruel. Love is not the doe-eyed virgin you believe her to be. Love is always hungry. Love is always wanting. Love is not rational. Love does not compromise. And Love is not happy simply possessing you. She wants to own you. Control you. Be you. The first murder was committed because of Love. And I promise you that the last of your kind will die for her.

“Love is the single-minded hunter who consumes her prey, sucking it of all its worth, and then seeks another. Love is only happy when you are on your knees, begging her to stay. And Love will walk away, leaving you to your self-pity just to feel your ‘need.’

“Love is addiction, leaving you always wanting more.

“Love is a disease for which there is no cure.

“But Lust … Lust is the tender paramour that wants nothing more of you than what you are now. Lust does not seek some idealized fictional version of yourself, nor does she try to mold you into that false creation.

“Lust is present, Lust is attentive and Lust is now.

“And when now is over, Lust moves on, harming you no more than a pleasant memory harms a child.

“But most importantly,” Astarte said, pulling out an envelope of money from only the GoneGods knew where, “Lust pays your bills. Now tell me, Human Jean: what’s so wrong about Lust?”

“Well,” I said, feeling myself blush, “when you put it that way …”

THE HEAD OF THE PIN IS CROWDED

Given the fun, fun, fun of the last four hours, I decided that a couple hours of sleep would be a good idea. I lay down under my duvet—extra-fluffy—and closed my eyes, thinking that being bone-tired was all I needed to fall asleep. Stupid. Like sleep would come to me now. Sure, the woman of my dreams, both literally and figuratively, was waiting for me once I drew back the curtain of night, but come on! After an evening of dealing with Penemue and the imminent threat of the HuMans, appeasing my tyrannical ghost of a mother-in-law and summoning every ounce of self-restraint to not join an orgy with a succubus I knew would have rocked my world with fifty shades of rainbow, every fluid, hormone and muscle was revving at maximum, and nothing short of a baseball bat to the head would put me under. And I doubted even that would work.

So I did what I did every night I couldn’t sleep: I played with myself. No, not like that. Among my many quirks, I collect old toys. I have almost the entire collection of the original Transformers, a bunch of He-Mans, some GoBots, an Etch A Sketch, an entire village of Smurfs and a bunch of other toys that went extinct as soon as your phone let you fling around angry birds. Tonight, I staged a battle between Voltron and the G.I. Joes, letting my subconscious mull over all my problems while the Red Lion flanked Snake Eyes.

As Red Lion pounced, I thought about the HuMans and Penemue, about my bills and complaints about the noise. I thought about everything that was wrong—except the one thing that was really bothering me. You see, dealing with the Others who lived in the One Spire Hotel was like being a stage manager for the cast of The Muppet Show, and over the years I’d gotten used to that. As for those pictures that Michael showed me—well, I’d seen worse. Much, much worse.

So why were the Defenders of the Universe and Joes at each other’s throats? Because of Bella. I hated seeing her there, with her wide, hopeful smile as she stood next to that damned Ambassador.

Questions swam in my head. Where had the photo come from? Why was it in Paradise Lot? Did it have anything to do with her death? What did it have to do with me? And what the hell was up with that flyer? “What is ‘Coping with Mortality’ anyway?” I cried out loud, the last question spilling out of me.

A flicker came from the right eye of my Castle Grayskull just before its little plastic drawbridge lowered and a three-inch-tall golden fairy walked out, rubbing her eyes.

“Sorry I woke you, TinkerBelle,” I said to the golden fairy.

I had no idea if her real name was TinkerBelle, and since she couldn’t speak, she had no way of telling me. But in the six years we’d lived together, she’d never once complained. She either was unaware of Peter Pan, or saw the name as a compliment. As for why I named her TinkerBelle … Well, how many three-inch-tall golden fairies do you know?

Her dragonfly wings fluttered and she flew until she was close enough to me that I could see her annoyed face—which I suspect was the point.

By way of an apology, I said, “Penemue got arrested again.”

Tink gave me a knowing look that said she knew that wasn’t everything. A look that said, And …

“OK, OK.” I lifted my hands up in front of me in a defensive stance. “When I was at the police station, the archangel Michael showed me some pictures.”

Tink did two flips in front of me before fluttering up to my face and jutting out her arms in a bodybuilder’s stance, puffing out her cheeks.

“Yeah, him.”

Tink never left the hotel, staying out of sight whenever an Other came around. But it was more than being shy that kept her hidden. As far as I understood—and I admit I didn’t know much—TinkerBelle was a legend of a legend. A myth of a myth. To Others, Tink was as unbelievable as Medusa, Loch Ness and Bigfoot had once been to humans. And I was the only living creature that knew of her existence. I had met Tink at the lowest moment of my life, and I probably wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for her immense capacity to forgive. I owed the fairy a lot; I would see myself die from a hundred thousand paper cuts before I let any harm come to this fable of a fable.

Tink gestured, So what?

“Well … one of the photos was of Bella.”

Tink’s eyes widened in surprise. She pointed toward her wrist before taking a picture with an imaginary camera.

“When was it taken?” I guessed, and Tink nodded. “The day she died.”

Concern painted her golden face. Her eyes narrowed and she shrugged, pointing at me and then at her own head.

“How do I know?” I asked. Again, Tink nodded. Hey, what can I say? After years of playing charades with the fairy, I was pretty good.

I told Tink all about the photo and how I recognized the place from its background—modern equipment surrounded by ancient gears and apparatus, like she was standing in an updated version of Dr. Frankenstein’s lab. Bella died in that place exactly one year after the Ambassador came to this very hotel and convinced her to join him on his crusade of peace. The devil and his promises.

Tink listened, but it wasn’t until I mentioned the “Keep Evolving” flyer that she put up a hand, gesturing for me to repeat myself. “Yeah, he showed me this ad for a seminar that I’m supposedly throwing at the hotel.”

And are you? she gestured. Don’t ask me how she did it or how I guessed it—sometimes I think she cheated and burned a bit of time to telepathically give me the answer.

“No,” I exclaimed.

She shrugged, rolling her eyes.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said.

Her hand hit her forehead in a Duh! gesture, and her wings stopped fluttering and started flapping. Like birds’ wings. Or angel wings.

“How could I be so stupid?” I said. There was only one creature brazen enough to organize an event at my hotel without informing me. Angel Miral. “You’re a genius!” I said.

Tink blew on the backs of her fingernails before wiping them on her chest. She whisked off toward the left turret of Castle Grayskull, pulling the drawbridge back up as she entered her home. With a flicker, the castle went dark.

“Goodnight, Tink,” I said, putting on my collarless black jacket and heading for the door.

I was off to confront Miral. I had always been told angels were supposed to offer humans comfort and care, but to me they were all just a pain in the ass.

WHITE WINGS, WHITE COAT

Miral worked at St. Mercy Hospital, a twenty-minute walk from the hotel. I would have driven there, but Penemue was still snoring away in the back seat of my car. Better to walk. Besides, dawn was nearly here, and with the light, Paradise Lot came to life.

↔

Paradise Lot was located on an island roughly half the size of Manhattan. Although once upon a time an affluent human city, given how violently the Others appeared over its skies, the island quickly became an unofficial refugee camp for Others. After the war, humans upgraded Paradise Lot from an unofficial Ellis Island of sorts to an official Ellis Island-cum-refugee-camp-cum-Gaza Strip where all the Others got official-looking documents that did not allow them to travel, vote, own land or legally marry. They could, however, use the ID to pay taxes.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Yeah, right. More like, We welcome all you OnceImmortal creatures of myth and legend. We give you the least of what we have to offer. Please do not ask for more.

Any way you cut it, Paradise Lot was a slum. The only difference was that in this slum, winos had angel wings and the homeless slept in discarded lamps.

That said, for those who could afford it, Paradise Lot did have the kind of establishments that appealed to Others and their particular tastes. The Stalker Steakhouse, for example, was a restaurant that catered to werewolves and other Others who liked to actually hunt their meals. Then there was the Red Rooster, an extremely impractical place to go unless you knew how to perch. For culture, you could watch an Eleven play at Adawin’s Playhouse—that is, if you had the time to spare. The average play lasted three weeks and made Japanese kabuki seem like the latest Fast & Furious movie on fast-forward.

And then there were the Others’ places of worship. Churches, mosques and synagogues, as well as temples, shrines and sanctuaries of the ancient or forgotten, were open day and night, welcoming all practitioners if they were willing to dedicate themselves to the single purpose of praying the gods back.

The gods had yet to answer, and in that way, not much was different between the GoneGod World and its silent past.

↔

I got to the hospital and walked into the emergency room, where Miral worked. It was, as always, filled with a nice cross-section of Paradise Lot’s inhabitants. Fairies, pixies, gargoyles and a nymph with both arms badly broken. They all vied for attention from the understaffed, overworked nurses and doctors.

The average Other wasn’t very good at standing in line, as evidenced by how they crowded some poor fairy receptionist who kept insisting they fill out a form first. Unfortunately, the average Other wasn’t very good at filling out forms, either, as most of them only knew how to read or write in an obscure language only their kin could read.

And then there were the Onces.

Onces were the ones who, once upon a time, were somebody—or something. They were the dukes and duchesses, the princes and princesses of Olympus, Tartarus, Hades and the several dozen other realms that once upon a time meant something. And now that they were lowly commoners, just as mortal as the next guy, well—they didn’t take kindly to being asked to sign their name. Some laws of nature were all too true: the higher you are, the harder you fall.

“I am Asal of the Vanir,” cried out a half-man, half-donkey. The fairy receptionist stared at the onocentaur, evidently unimpressed. The Once snorted, continuing nonetheless. “Yes, the very Asal of the Vanir who stood against the invading Aesir.”

The receptionist, still unimpressed, handed his human half a form and said in a detached voice, “And I am Elsvir, the Reception-Desk Fairy who once stood against an invading horde of asses who think they’re better than everyone else. Next!”

Asal stomped his hooves and brayed, “Well, I never … If it wasn’t for me, you would be speaking orc garble, eating babies for lunch and enjoying the obsessive drumming those deformed Northerners never seem to get enough of.” The onocentaur shuddered at the thought. “As a reward for my deeds, the All Father assigned me to be Kvasir’s steed. For nearly a century I carried Kvasir, the wisest of all men, on my back before—”

“The form,” the receptionist said.

“But I drank from the Mead of Poetry.”

“Next.”

Normally I’d leave a Once to his rants and inevitable humiliation, but Asal looked so sad, his donkey ears drooping, his human face downtrodden as he stared at the form. Besides, he held the paper upside down.

I grabbed it from him and said, “Here, let me do it.” Sometimes it really sucks that there’s no Heaven, because if there was, I’d get a palace for sure.

He looked down at me—which wasn’t difficult, given that he was basically a horse—and said, “Finally, a mortal who understands protocol.”

“Indee-ed,” I said, stretching out the word to an unnatural length. Sarcasm.

“Yes, indeed!” the onocentaur responded with much enthusiasm. Sarcasm was wasted on Others. “The name is Asal of—”

“Of the Vanir. Yes, I’ve heard.”

“So you know of my deeds.”

The gleam in his eye was positively palpable, and I’m a sucker for a pathetic smile. I nodded. Why not? It probably made his week.

He hee-hawed, dug his hind hooves into the carpet and bowed, right leg tucked behind his left foot in an elegant bow. “Young master …?”

“Jean.”

“Jean … I am forever in your debt. Should ever you need the services of Asal, the great Ass of Kvasir, all you must do is call out my name.”

“Thanks,” I said, pointing at the form, “but right now the only service I need from you is to answer a few standard questions.”

↔

I had just finished Asal’s form when the room went quiet. Ever been to a party when suddenly all the noise stopped and someone broke the silence with “An angel passes by”? Well, it’s more literal than you’d think. An angel did pass by. Rather, walked in. Miral entered the waiting room, every step bearing a dancer’s polish. Her dovelike wings hunched over her shoulders, forming a doctor’s coat, tiny linoleum name tag with the words Resident on Call pinned to them. As soon as she entered, all the waiting Others ran up to her, hands—and claws, tentacles, etc.—outstretched. Miral ignored them all, looking over the crowd—not hard to do, as she was seven feet tall—and called out, “Sparkles. Miss Rainbow Sparkles, of Coca-Cola?” A sickly-looking pixie fluttered up from her seat, gripping her stomach as she flew over to Miral.

“Miral,” I said, chasing after her, “I need to speak with you.”

She did not turn around as she headed to her office. “Need, Jean, is very much a matter of perspective. Is your need greater than theirs?” she asked, pointing to the overrun waiting room. Her voice came out even and steady, every word spoken with a refinement that mirrored her grace of movement.

“But—”

“But nothing,” Miral said, extending her hand for the sickly pixie to rest on. “My experience is that need is often mistaken for want. What I want is more time. What I need is more help.” And with that, Miral turned on her heel and left the waiting room to examine the pixie, and me to reflect on my shame. Damn, the angel was good.

↔

After being shamed by Miral, I decided I would give her a bit of what she needed by helping. I clicked a pen and, standing in the middle of the waiting room, announced, “OK, I’ll fill out forms.” For the briefest of moments, I felt what it must be like to be Mick Jagger. The Others didn’t just come over—they rushed me, each shoving their form in my face, begging to be first. I literally had to stand on a chair to get out of the crowd. Then, summoning my most commanding voice, I said, “One at a time.”

That had as much effect as telling a group of seagulls not to eat the discarded bread. The rush only got more overwhelming, and it didn’t stop until I yelled, “I will only help those who are quiet … and sitting!” For good measure, I pushed through the crowd and went over to the only Other who had not rushed me—a satyr with a nasty gash on his head.

The Others obeyed. Literally. Every one of them went quiet, sitting down not on an empty chair but exactly where they had been standing.

“On the chairs.”

A whirlwind of wings, feet and hooves filled the room as the Others played a version of musical chairs.

Hellelujah!

When they were quiet and more or less patient, I went around filling out forms. Most of them were complaining about stomach cramps and headaches. Some complained of fatigue. Truth was, most of these Others weren’t really sick—they were just bad at being mortal. They still tried to live by the same rules that had governed them for thousands of years, and this new world was so cumbersome with all the things they had to remember. Things like eating, hydrating, sleeping. And shitting. You’d be surprised how many Others suffered from self-imposed constipation pains simply because they couldn’t live with the daily indignity of a morning poo.

I must have filled out two dozen forms when Miral walked in and announced, “Fellow Fallen, those of you who have swollen stomachs and aching heads, please follow my associate to the mess hall and bathrooms.” Half the Others left. “Those of you with dry tongues, please head over to the water fountain and drink. And those of you with blurry vision, go home and sleep.”

The room cleared out, leaving behind the nymph with the broken arms and the satyr with the nasty head wound, both of whom went off with other doctors, leaving me alone with Miral.

“I do that twice a night,” she said with a cunning smile, and led me to her office.

↔

For the second time today, I sat across a desk from an angel. “Thanks, Miral,” I started. “I won’t take much of your time. I just wanted to ask you—”

“Jean, what would you say if I told you I have a way to solve all your problems?”

I blinked twice. “I’d probably tell you that you’re spending way too much time watching infomercials.”

“No, silly,” she said, pulling out a flyer with the words “Keep Evolving” on it. The same damn flyer they had found at the crime scene.

“Aha! I knew you were behind this!” I cried out, proud of my detective skills, then remembered it was really Tink who had figured it out.

Still, Miral didn’t have to know that. She rolled her eyes, pulling a manila folder out of her desk drawer and opening it in front of me. I was hesitant to look. The last time an angel gave me a manila anything, I didn’t like what I’d seen. This was no different; in it was a bunch of empty boxes to be filled out for the OIF—the Other Integration Fund.

“Oh, great. More forms,” I said, closing the folder.

She opened it up again. “They are accepting another round of applications. And I know your bills are mounting up. This will save you.”

The OIF was a government-run initiative. A human government initiative, which meant a lot of hoops to jump through and a lot of paperwork to fill out, with a shit-ton of measurables and deliverables. Not to mention milestones and action plans. I’d danced with them once before and all I got in the end were sore feet. Miral, like so many Others, didn’t get human bureaucracy. It seems that Heaven didn’t really have paperwork.

“I told you, I already tried with the OIF. They pulled the funding as soon as Bella … you know …”

“Yes, because all you did was offer Others a place to sleep. Bella, she offered seminars, talks, classes. You barely offer clean sheets.”

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.

“Don’t you see?” Miral continued. “This is a second chance. If the One Spire combines forces with St. Mercy Hospital, throwing weekly seminars on coping with mortality, the OIF will reinstate your funding.”

“I don’t know,” I said. It would be great to get a bit of cash coming in. As it stood, I was barely making ends meet. I shook my head. “I’ve been down this path before and—”

“You’re already doing it. I’ve called the OIF. They said that all you need to do is throw one seminar a week. That will be enough to gain access to the funding.” She pointed at the flyer. “We have a full house.”

“Resistance is futile,” I said in my best Borg voice.

“Resistance is pointless,” she said, evidently not a Star Trek fan. “I’ve taken care of everything. All you have to do is set up and—”

“Don’t say it,” I said.

“Bake cookies.”

“I hate baking,” I protested.

“Think of it as penance. Now tell me, what did you want to see me about?”

BLESSED BE HE

I told Miral about Michael and finding the flyer. I also found myself telling her about Penemue and the HuMans, about Judith and Astarte and the damn headache I’d had since waking up that morning. Hell, there must be something about women with wings—they can always get me talking. Once I started, I opened up to the angel, telling her about every pain, problem and pathetic thought rattling around in that empty canister I called my skull. It felt good to get it all off my chest, and with every word I spoke, I felt my burdens lifting.

I told her everything except about my dreams of Bella. Some things were private, damn it, and angel of mercy or not, she did not have full reign over all that occupied my mind.

After I finished unburdening myself, I went silent, expecting, hoping, praying for some kind of ancient, divine wisdom that would cure all. But she didn’t say a word. She just stared at me for a long, long time before finally standing up, walking over to her cupboard and offering me a Tylenol.

“This is for your headache,” she said.

I took the pill and said, “The murders? Any thoughts on that?”

“Either it is a Fanatic, or her killer returns. Only time will reveal which.”

“Time. You’re the once-captain of God’s army and a being older than solid objects, and all you can tell me is ‘Be patient’?”

“Indeed. And it gets better than that. For the rest of your problems I recommend faith,” Miral said as she ushered me out her door.

“Faith in what?” I said. “They’re gone, remember?”

“Even when they were here, faith was never about them. It was always about having faith in yourself,” Miral said, giving me a knowing smile.

“So that’s it? Faith and patience?”

“Yes.” Then, as if as an afterthought, she added, “Oh, and let the cookie dough sit for at least half an hour. That way the cookies will come out all the more fluffy.”

↔

I left Miral’s office, annoyed at having no more answers to any of my problems, and headed into the reception area, where I was greeted by a low, reverent murmuring.

“It is he—the Form Filler.”

“Do you think he will come to our aid?”

“Approach with caution.”

“Do not make eye contact.”

“Beware his mighty pen.”

“Be humble. And remember to SIT!”

Several Others approached, heads hanging low, eyes averted, clipboards outstretched.

A blue-tinged jinni at the head of the line rushed over. He knelt before me and said in a reverent voice, “O wise and wondrous Form Filler, if you should bless us this early summer morning, we would ever be in your debt. I shall whisper your name in seashells and cast them into the ocean so that all the creatures of the beneath will know your name.”

A garden gnome no taller than six inches scurried up the wall, his tiny climbing spikes dotting its surface. When he was at eye level he said, “And I shall enter the beehive in the central park and slay the pollen lovers’ queen in thy name.”

And with that, all the Others offered me various honors. It wasn’t until an ahuizotl barked, “And I shall offer a human sacrifice!” that I intervened.

“No, no, no! There’ll be no seashell throwing, no bee slaying and certainly no human sacrifices.” I pointed at the Aztec demon dog to emphasize how serious I was about not killing people. The dog lowered his head in embarrassment and frustration, partly because I refused his gift, but mostly because he didn’t have an excuse to rip a human apart.

I looked at my watch—7:00 a.m. I was exhausted, overworked and in desperate need of baking four dozen chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies. I simply didn’t have time for this. “Hellelujah,” I muttered, grabbing the jinni’s clipboard.

↔

I must have gotten through eight more clipboards when the lights flickered. Just outside the sliding glass doors of the reception, I saw an Other standing there, staring at me with uncomfortable intensity. His arms were longer than normal, as were his neck, fingers and teeth. Hell, everything was just a bit too big, too long, too prominent for what could have passed as an otherwise normal human frame.

Our eyes met. He smiled, the edges of his lips almost literally touching his eyes. Massive, blocky teeth reflected the hospital’s fluorescent lights, and I got an eerie the-better-to-eat-you-with sense from this Other.

A popobawa hung upside down from the ceiling, and I noticed it was writing its own name in the correct place on a form. “You,” I said, looking into the horizontal slits it called eyes. The thing focused on me, and the slits rotated until they were vertical. I shuddered. “Can you write?” I asked.

“Yes,” it clicked.

“English, I mean.”

“Yes.” It blinked. Well, not blinked so much as rotated the slits that were its eyes another three hundred and sixty degrees.

“Good, you are the new … Master Form Filler.” I handed over the clipboard in an exaggerated, ceremonial passing-of-the-mantle that resembled a half-hearted signing of the cross followed by what probably looked like me chasing away an invisible bee. The creature beamed. I don’t mean “smiled,” “danced with joy” or “clicked in glorious triumph.” I mean it actually emanated light like a firefly.

“I shall not fail thee, O Great Master of Master Form Filler.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, handing him my pen. “May the ink flow ever freely.”

↔

I approached the sliding doors. Up close, I noticed it wasn’t just this new Other’s physical features that made him odd—it was his smell, too. Over the years, I’ve learned that humans as a species have a distinct smell. The same is true of Others. Each species has its unique scent; to describe a human smell over an Other without experiencing it is like explaining color to the blind. Humans, with our pheromones and sweat glands, our stomach acids and diets, smell human. Which is to say, mortal. Others, although thirteen years’ mortal, had yet to have those biological processes permeate them on a cellular level. There was no mistaking an angel’s smell. Or any other Other, for that matter.

But this Other—this “Grinner”—he didn’t just smell human. He smelled very human. As if he over-sweated, over-ate, over-shat. His pheromones were double-timing to get maximum effect. More didn’t mean better or worse. He just smelled wrong.

The automatic doors didn’t slide open, which could mean only one thing. This grinning Other was burning time. The thing about magic is that it doesn’t play nicely with modern technology. Burn time in front of a computer and it will shut down. Lights will flicker and TVs will go on the fritz. And automatic doors won’t open. You know how the old pacemakers couldn’t be near microwaves? Same concept here. And the stronger the magic, the more time burned, the bigger the problem for the electronics. I’ve seen airplane navigation systems fail, hospital main and backup generators cease and radios shut off.

I gripped at the sliding doors and tried to force them apart. They wouldn’t budge.

“Human,” this Grinner guy hissed, his voice holding a serpentlike quality.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I said, pulling at the door.

He sniffed through the glass and grinned so wide that his eyes actually moved inward to make room for the edges of his smile. “Yes … indeed,” he said, backing away from the door. When he got about ten feet away, the automatic doors finally budged, opening at a maddeningly slow pace.

I pulled at them, squeezing through, and said, “Hey, you … I want to ask you something.” But in the moment I took my eyes off him to squeeze through the door, he vanished. As in, into thin air. And in the early morning light, I could have sworn I saw the half-moon crescent of a Cheshire cat smile fade away.

BEING HUMAN IS EASY … IF YOU HAVE THE CASH

I didn’t like what happened in the parking lot with that strange Other so willing to burn time, but what was I going to do? Using magic wasn’t a crime. Yet. I guess I could call Michael and tell him I saw someone suspicious, but even then, what would I say? “That Cheshire cat gave me the heebie-jeebies”? I had no idea if this guy was related to the homicides or not, but something in my guts said he was. As I walked home, I imagined what that conversation with Michael would go like:

“Human Jean, what did you see?”

“An Other.”

“An Other?”

“Yes, an Other …”

Awkward silence.

“And?”

“And, ahhh, he looked menacing.”

“How so?”

“Well, he smiled.”

“Smiled?”

“Yeah, but it was a really, really creepy smile.”

“Oh, a creepy smile, you say. Well then, that does it! Guilty! Thank you, Human Jean. Once again, you have saved the day. Oh, by the way, here is the Key to the City.”

No way was I going through that. And what’s more, it was racial profiling—rather, Other profiling—assuming that this guy was guilty of some crime simply because of the way he looked. It was like arresting a guy because he had a beard. There was enough of that going around with everyone assuming vampires were evil, ogres stupid and angels good, and I wasn’t going to be a part of it.

Luckily, I had two Others older than most mountains living in my hotel. If one of them told me an Other like that was not to be trusted, well then …

My thoughts were stopped dead in their tracks by the sight of an old man who stood right next to my 1969 Plymouth Road Runner. He was eyeing Penemue’s taloned feet with unnatural concern. He looked as if he were trying to glean something about the essence of the being to whom the feet belonged, before nodding in approval and then touching their soles, causing the slumbering angel to stir and withdraw his feet into the back seat of the car. Either the old man possessed an unhealthy foot fetish or he was one of the gutsiest pranksters in the world to dare tickle the feet of a sleeping fallen angel.

Either way, I couldn’t just stand there. “Hey,” I said, walking up to him. “Leave him alone.”

The old man caught my gaze with his hazel eyes, and what hit me next was something that I struggled to understand. Warmth. Comfort. Peace. But even that was an oversimplification of what happened, because warmth implies temperature—it was so much more than that. I read somewhere the best sleep of our entire lives happens when we are in the womb. Growing in the belly of our mothers was where we experienced the deepest, most all-encompassing sleep we will ever have. Think about it: we’re in a perfectly dark room that is at the ideal temperature for our developing body. We are constantly being fed while we rest, in blissful ignorance of all the troubles of the world. The soft heartbeat of the person who loves us more than life itself is constantly beating in the background, reassuring us that all is well. All is safe.

And that was what I felt standing before the old man. Or rather, I should say, the old Other.

My military training kicked in as I reminded myself that this creature was manipulating my emotions with some serious kind of mojo. Hell, if this Other kept it up—given how old he already was—he’d turn to dust before my very eyes. If, that was, I still stood to witness it. Summoning all my will, I did what I was trained to do in such situations: counter whatever was happening with the opposite. In the once-upon-a-time world of magic, opposites negated one another, and it was a matter of whoever had the stronger will that won. I flooded my mind with images of PopPop’s funeral, the horrors I’d seen while being a soldier in the war and Bella’s body being ripped apart.

Popping out of his spell, I growled through gritted teeth, “You stop that right now.”

I reached out to throttle him, but a giant, clawed hand restrained my arm. “He can’t help it.”

I swung around to see Penemue awake and holding me back. The previous night he had been all banged up—bloody nose, black eye, torn vest. And although his tweed vest was still torn, the rest of him was healed. He looked as good as new. Better than new, because somehow the years of self-abuse were washed away and he looked more like his former self.

“He can’t help it,” Penemue repeated, eyeing the old man. I noticed that Penemue’s blue iris glistened behind an unescaped tear. “It is his nature. His innate ability.” The angel let me go and, putting a fist over his heart, bowed. “I thought you left with … them.”

“No,” the old man said. “I am no god. I am, however, a traveler seeking shelter.” Turning to me, the old man lowered his head slightly. “I understand your establishment is friendly to me and my kind.”

I nodded and from the corner of my eye I saw Penemue wipe away a milky-white tear. Speaking in a language I did not understand, he said something in a low tone. The old man turned to face Penemue, who immediately dropped to his knees, bowing his head in a gesture of contrition. The old man gave him a knowing smile and touched his head.

Penemue stood and, putting a fist over his heart, turned to me and did something he never even came close to doing in the four years we’d known each other. He apologized. “My dear human friend, for all the trouble I have caused you, I am sorry. It seems that we have a very special guest staying with us tonight. Please afford him all the hospitalities you have shown me.” With that, he unfurled his wings and said, “I shall be up in the attic contemplating my sins should either of you require anything of me.” Penemue took to the sky, leaving me alone with the old man.

Hellelujah!

↔

“Sorry about that,” I said, not really sure what I was sorry for. The drunk angel? Yelling at him outside? I suspect I was apologizing for a lot more. I took him over to the mess that passed as the hotel’s welcome desk. “We’ve got some issues here in Paradise Lot to work out, and …” I clicked a ballpoint pen open and handed him a check-in form.

“You’ve been hurt.” Something about his tone told me he wasn’t talking about bruises or broken bones. And, equally, there was something soothing about his words. Like he understood my pain and was sure that all would work out in the end.

“Stop it,” I said, looking at him. Out from the corners of his eyes crawled deep, wise wrinkles that must have been forged by a lifetime of laughter and tears. His heavy-set, hazel eyes rested under a silver brow, and he gave off an air of confidence that simultaneously conveyed strength and compassion. He wore a subtle smile that said he’d had more good times than bad ones, and his callused hands told me he knew what a hard day’s work felt like. Everything about this man was comforting and strong. Even his smell made me feel safe and secure. He smelled like … like … Old Spice and cigars?

Holy crap, this man smelled like my grandfather, PopPop. Hell, everything about him screamed PopPop, from the way he waved his hands, to his hunched shoulders that, for PopPop at least, were a result of gravity and arthritis slowly pushing down his spine.

PopPop had always been my inspiration, someone who I desperately wanted to be when I was growing up. When he died, I cried for seven days straight, ready to die myself from misery—probably would have had Bella not been there to feed me. And now, this man—this Other—stood before me, reminding me of PopPop in the most visceral of ways.

Except he wasn’t PopPop. He just looked like him, smelled like him. Felt like him.

“Stop making me feel better,” I said. “It is not real. Innate ability or not, I don’t like feeling manipulated.”

“As you wish,” he said, and his eyes began to glow.

“What are you doing?” I said as my irritability returned.

“Preventing myself from making you feel better.”

“How?” I said.

It wasn’t just his eyes that glowed—his whole body became bioluminescent. “How else? Magic.”

“What?” I said. “Are you burning time?”

He nodded. “A bit. It is the only way to stop making you feel better. As the angel mentioned, I cannot help who I am. My presence has always had a calming effect on those near me. I can no more change that part of me than you could change the color of your eyes.”

“Well, stop that!”

“What?”

“Stop burning time,” I ordered.

“But earlier …”

“It’s fine,” I sighed, still not happy with being made to feel happy. “I’ll deal with it. Just don’t burn any more time.”

“As you wish,” the old man said, and his skin stopped glowing.

“Thank you.”

Immediately the feeling of my PopPop came back, and I felt … better. Safe. Almost content. I had heard of Others like this one before—Others who were the equivalent of emotional chameleons, camouflaging themselves in your feelings and desires to help or protect them. This innate ability was something they had little control over, which meant I had to be careful around him. After all, you never see the knife in your back coming from the ones you love. But still, judging from Penemue’s reaction and considering who the angel was, I suspected this Other’s intentions were less than nefarious, if not outright good. I reminded myself of something Bella used to say: one can survive without trust. But living means having faith in others and Others. Damn you, Bella.

“OK—fine,” I said, fighting back a smile. “Mister …?” I said, tapping the form.

“Joseph. Just Joseph. ‘Mister’ was my father.” He laughed at his joke. When I did not join him, he frowned and said, “Oh well, I am very funny in Valhalla.”

“I’m sure you are, Joseph,” I said, writing down his name as I suppressed a chuckle. “I’m sure you are.”

I handed over the room key, and Joseph eyed me suspiciously. “Aren’t you going to ask me more questions?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“My purpose for staying—”

“None of my business,” I said.

“A deposit?”

“You’ll pay when you check out. Or you won’t. I figure those who can afford to pay, do. Those who can’t—well, I’m just happy to offer them a few nights here.”

“Are you really?” he asked.

“No,” I mused, “but I made this promise, and …” I stopped fighting the mojo again.

He nodded like he understood. “How about what kind of Other I am?”

“No,” I said.

“Oh,” the Other said, widening his eyes. “Why not? In my short time as a mortal, it seems the question most asked by humans.”

“It’s like asking what your religion is—or was—or how much money you got in your bank account or if you’re straight or gay. Leaves too much room for profiling, and I’d rather judge you on what I see than on what I believe.”

Joseph nodded, slowly eyeing me up and down. A small smile crept over his face, and he said in a slow and deliberate tone, “When I heard of your little haven, I didn’t believe it. But now … like you said—what you see …” He stood there for a long moment, not moving, like he was trying to unravel something he didn’t understand.

“Well,” I said, breaking the silence, “if that’s it, I’ll be …”

“Your name?”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Your name—you never told me your name.”

“Oh, right. Jean,” I said, straightening my collarless jacket. “Jean-Luc Matthias.”

“Ahh,” he said, smiling, “you’re just missing the ‘Mark.’ ” Again, he chuckled at his own joke.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“John, Luke, Matthew and Mark.”

“Oh yeah—right,” I said. “My mom was a devout Catholic and apparently the day I was born she wanted to spread the good news.” I lifted my hands in a half-hearted gesture of Surprise!

“And did she? Spread the news, that is?”

“No. She died giving birth to me, kind of killing the good-news aspect and any faith I might have had, and …” As the words came out of my mouth, I put down my pen in frustration. His mojo was loosening my lips, and I hated it. “I’ve only told that story to one other person, and she’s dead. Your innate ability, or whatever it is, is throwing me off. I just met you. I don’t even know if I trust you. So what do you say we call it quits on the questions?”

“I am sorry,” he said, his expression momentarily sad. But as quickly as his smile left his face, it returned. “Would it help if I told you a secret?”

“Not really,” I said, still annoyed at falling under his spell yet again.

“But it would make us even.” He gave me a hopeful look.

I sighed. “OK, fine.” I’d played these kinds of games with Others before. Secrets, riddles, Guess My Name … it always ended the same. They’d say something ridiculous and look at you like they had just laid out the secrets of the universe.

He produced from his pocket a plain wooden box no bigger than a Rubik’s Cube. He opened it and showed me its hollowed, empty innards. “I stole this three thousand years ago, always planning on giving it back. But then they left, and now there is no one to give it back to.”

See? Told you. I gave him the same expression one gives a cat when presented with a dead bird.

“Don’t you want to know what it is?”

“It’s a box,” I said.

“Yes … and no.” He paused, waiting expectantly.

“OK, fine—what is it?” I said.

“A lot of things, and nothing at all,” he replied with a deadly serious expression. Oh brother, give me a break! A smile crept on his face, and he started laughing. “It’s a box. Just a box. You should have seen your face. ‘A lot of things, and nothing at all …’ Really, Mr. Matthias, lighten up.”

“Oh?” I said, returning his smile.

“But I will tell you this: the box has belonged to some very interesting mortals over the ages. Pharaohs, prophets, would-be gods. And all of them thought that if they could just fill it up with the right kind of—what did you call it?—mojo, they’d change the world. Not always for the better, mind you.” He handed me the box.

I examined the plain wooden thing that looked like it was constructed by the slow kid in wood shop. It hadn’t even been sanded down, and slivers of wood splintered from its edges. Holding it, I felt nothing. I tried to hand it back, but he refused.

“No, you keep it,” he said. “Maybe you will be able to do more good with it than they ever managed to.”

“I can’t accept this,” I said.

“Please, I insist.”

What I didn’t say was But it’s a piece of useless crap, opting for a more cordial, but empty “Thank you.” I opened my top drawer and put it inside.

He smiled. “Think nothing of it. Should the fates smile upon us, maybe we will find time for me to regale you with tales about those who thought they could change the world with a plain wooden box.”

“I’d like that,” I found myself saying. What was strange was that—mojo or not—I meant it. I really wanted to hear this odd creature’s stories.

Damn, it was proving very difficult not to like this Other.

HOME IS WHERE YOUR HEART IS

The One Spire Hotel was seven rooms, plus an attic and cellar. Currently five guests resided here—six if you included the fairy that lived in Castle Grayskull. In less than twenty-four hours, my world went from crushing debt, a prostitute succubus’s constant orgies, a pissed-off ghost of a mother-in-law and drunk fallen angel, to all of the above plus a Fanatical Other in town, homicidal gangbangers hell-bent on destroying my hotel, a soothing Other that—despite Penemue’s reaction to him—I didn’t fully trust and a pissed-off archangel of a cop.

And I would go on a monthlong trek to the Himalayas with all of them if it meant I didn’t have to bake.

I hated baking.

No matter how hard I mixed, how vigorously I beat or how committed I was to stirring, my batter was still lumpier than the poxes on a Capulet’s ass. Despite carefully measuring, no two cookies were the same size, and in spite of my precise timing, every single batch of the chocolate-chip-and-macadamia-nut cookies came out rock-hard. And what’s more, it took me the whole day to whip up the monstrosity of cookie hell I planned on feeding my guests.

Welcome to mortality. Lesson one: not all cookies were created equal.

↔

After the cookies were baked, I put on my collarless black coat and set about to make the One Spire Hotel’s little dining room suitable for a seminar, which meant covering the three tables with freshly laundered sheets and lining up all the chairs to face the front.

As my pièce de résistance, I displayed my burnt cookies on two silver trays and placed an old metal music stand in front of the room to act as a speaker’s podium.

Then I took a step back and surveyed what “making the most of what I got” meant. Insufficient lighting, a cramped space and burnt cookies.

Way to make them feel wanted, Jean.

“What did you expect me to do?” I found myself saying to a yet-to-arrive Miral. “Lay out fresh flowers, maybe put on a little Kenny G in the background for musical accompaniment? Remember, I didn’t want to do this in the first place.” I was practicing. If you knew Miral, you would, too.

“Actually, this exceeds all expectation,” Miral said as she walked in, her flawlessly white wings wrapped around her shoulders like a superhero’s cape. Little rain droplets ran down her wings like water off a duck’s back. “Not a hard feat when you have none.”

I swear to the GoneGods that I was a man of extreme military training who was always acutely aware of my surroundings. At any given time, I could size up a room, tell you how many exits there were, the number of possible combatants, where the surveillance equipment was hidden, and I had abnormally wide peripheral vision. None of my alarms—internal or otherwise—went off. “How the hell did you do that?”

“Hell,” she said, raising an eyebrow, “is exactly why I learned to do that.”

She surveyed the room while practicing mortal techniques at diplomacy. In other words, compliment the good things, gloss over the bad. She didn’t do a good job. I guess when you had the word of God on your side, tact wasn’t one of the skills you needed to develop. “Not exactly the heavenly halls, but I guess you tried. Given who you are and what you are capable of, I should be happy that you remembered the cookies.” She picked one up, bit into it and spit it out. “Or perhaps not,” she said, scowling.

I looked at my watch. Five minutes until the time on the flyer. Five minutes, and so far it was just me and Miral. Not that that meant anything; the concept of time was one of the many things Others struggled with.

“Have faith,” she said, taking her place behind the podium.

“You already said that.”

“Then,” she said, with a smile, “you should listen,” and nodded to someone standing behind me.

I wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes, but in walked my mother-in-law and current poltergeist Judith, side by side with Penemue. Judith gave me her requisite scowl but didn’t say anything. Once upon a time she was a staunch Catholic—I guess being in the presence of a couple angels resulted in best behavior. She held the arm of an unusually sober and well-groomed Penemue, who guided her to seats in the front. He nodded at Miral with an unearthly reverence and sat next to Judith. I got to hand it to the big guy, I don’t know if I could be so cordial with the one who stood at the gates of Heaven while I was being cast down to the pits of Hell. Then again, the gods leaving meant that Miral was an outcast, too, and I suspected his nod carried with it a silent empathy for her.

The front doorbell rang and a familiar hand touched my shoulder. I turned to see a rough-looking woman of about five-foot-nothing, wearing an old Victorian dress with a hat that had lost so much of its vibrant color that it was practically sepia. She looked like an old photo.

She folded her Victorian umbrella that was so filled with holes it was more a showpiece than anything of use and, pulling out a handkerchief, wiped away some of the rain from her brow.

“Sandy,” I said. “Good of you to join us.”

“Jean, there is not much time, and we must dispense with pleasantries,” Sandy barked. But when she saw Miral across the room, her tone became far more affable. She walked over to greet her. “Miral, darling—how are you?”

Once upon a time, when Bella ran the One Spire Hotel with a hell of a lot more success than I did, Miral and Sandy were her first employees. Both had moved on to bigger and brighter things—Miral using her preternatural brain to complete medical school in three years, and Sandy using her cooking skills and former werewolf nature to open the Stalker Steakhouse. As the two conversed, looking over the place, I couldn’t help but feel self-conscious. There was no doubt that I was barely holding Bella’s dream together.

When the pleasantries that she apparently did not have time for ended, Sandy returned to me and in a curt voice said, “Is my cell ready?” As a once-upon-a-time werewolf, Sandy had never got used to the fact that she no longer transformed with the moon. I guess after years of running on all fours for three days a month, she couldn’t let go. So once a month Sandy came to the One Spire Hotel to be locked away in the basement, where she sat, not changing. I had to admire the little woman—she’d been locking herself up every full moon for over three hundred years because she wanted to make sure she wouldn’t hurt anyone, and she wasn’t going to stop now.

“Everything is ready down there. Even got the combination lock like you asked. But, Sandy, you don’t need to lock yourself up. Not anymore …” I started.

The teeny-tiny woman snarled, “Not a word, Jean. I am here to be locked away. It is, after all, that time of the month.”

“Tell me about it, girl,” Astarte chimed as she shuffled past us into the room.

“Sex slave of Satan!” Sandy barked.

“My my, we are in a mood,” the succubus said without missing a beat, sending the former werewolf out of the room and down into the cellar. “Give me the Black Death over a Victorian prude any day. At least the dying screw like it’s their last day on Earth,” Astarte said, following Sandy with her eyes.

↔

I watched from behind my makeshift desk as a flight of fairies, a frustration of dwarves and a hodgepodge of goblins walked in, followed by a kitchen of trolls, a charge of ogres, a quarry of gargoyles and a dust of pixies.

There was barely enough space for the nearly three dozen Others. Hell, if it hadn’t been for the fairies and pixies hovering mid-air and the goblins hanging from the ceiling lamps, the event would have had to turn Others away. The seminar began with the more mundane subjects: the importance of eating regularly, drinking and sleeping enough and shitting daily. Many of the Others nodded in agreement, asking questions like “How do you know when you’re full?” and “Which bodily fluids are acceptable to excrete in public and which aren’t?”

This was followed by the slightly more complex concepts of money and time, how to read time and count money, and the basics of social etiquette, like not cutting in line and why being late is bad. Like I said, pretty straightforward stuff.

This went on for a couple hours—you’d be surprised how many details there were to cover, things I pretty much just did without ever stopping to think about them—and all was drawing to a close when one particularly big-eyed pixie asked Miral what happened to Others when they died.

In the years I had known Miral, I’d never seen her flustered. Not once. Not even close—until that night. “Well, ummm, I suppose … the prevalent theory is that nothing happens,” she floundered. Then, as if needing to clarify herself, she repeated the key word: “Nothing.” Angels suck at tact.

“What do you mean, nothing?” The pixie sparkled, a dark azure and crimson purple dust emanating from her being.

“I mean that when you die it all just kind of goes black,” Miral said. “Like sleeping, except you never wake up.” She forced a smile.

“But I only have a thousand years,” mourned the pixie.

“A thousand years—I only have eight hundred and sixty-three,” cried a gargoyle.

“Sleep is death,” lamented a fairy who vowed never to sleep again.

The frustration of dwarves started jumping up and down in place—their version of public protest—while the goblins flung big mounds of green mucus at one another.

“Calm down,” Miral pleaded, “calm down!” But even her angelic countenance wasn’t enough to soothe this crowd. Death, whether imminent or a ways away, was terrifying. But suddenly needing to face mortality when thirteen years ago you were once-upon-a-time immortal … That was several dozen shades of dark, scary shit.

Things were getting out of control, and I was considering throwing them out, starting with the dwarves, when a soft voice pierced the clamor. “Death is the door through which we must all walk, one by one,” it said in barely a whisper.

As if feeling the words rather than hearing them, everyone immediately calmed down and listened.

“Death is final and forever, and it is the only experience that each and every one of us shall share. The sooner we all accept this, the better we shall respect the time we have,” Joseph said, cool and even.

The crowd not only calmed down, but they also bowed. Even Miral and Penemue lowered their heads in reverence. One of the dilemmas that faced Other unification was that one type did not necessarily respect another. With long memories and tens of thousands of years of history, each type of Other had at one point or another gone to war. It seemed that no two types did not have some kind of historical beef. And yet, everyone in this room regarded Joseph with equal reverence. I’d never seen anything like this before. Innate ability or not, magic or not, this Other had some serious cred.

I wished Bella was here—she would have been floored.

“Death,” Joseph continued, “is the bridge that ties the AlwaysMortal humans and the OnceImmortal Others. Death is what binds us together, our only shared experience. For that reason, if nothing else, death should not be feared, but embraced.”

↔

The rest of the evening wrapped up with each and every Other insisting on meeting Joseph before leaving. The dwarves smiled, the goblins climbed, the pixies sprinkled him with their dust. The fairies sang to him and the trolls offered him rancid meat, which he humbly accepted. Hell, not a single Other left until they got a chance to show their respect. Even Penemue saluted Joseph before leaving, and Judith—well, let’s just say she didn’t scowl at me as she left. She didn’t smile either, but I’ll take whatever little victory I can get. And it was then I realized what it was that I wanted—what it was that all of us want. And I knew I had figured out what EightBall wanted, too. Excited, I ran over to the fairies and asked them for a favor. They listened intently and replied that they were happy to help for seven vials of glitter and two bottles of Elmer’s Glue. A steep price, but one I was willing to pay. They agreed and left.

I turned to my now-empty breakfast room and saw that Astarte, Miral and Joseph still remained. Astarte approached him and, for the first time I knew of, didn’t try to seduce the Other, but rather spoke to him in a quiet voice. I don’t know what they said to each other that night and I suspect I never will, but whatever it was, when Astarte left the room I could sense in her a feeling of hope. Seeing Astarte, I remembered the smiling Other outside the hospital, but tonight was such a wonderful evening that my questions could wait until the morning.

Miral was the last to leave. She bowed deeply to Joseph, thanking him over and over. I tried to catch her attention, but as with Astarte, the emotional experience of meeting Joseph had obviously taken its toll.

Alone, I turned to the Other and, before I could stop my mouth, I said, “What are you?”

“I thought you deemed it rude to ask.”

“I do, but did you see what you did here tonight? Seriously, I have to know … what are you?”

Joseph laughed. “How easily we break our principles, claiming that necessity deems it acceptable.”

“As much as I love your quotable wisdom, I’ve got to know,” I said.

“I’ll tell you what: I’ll give you three guesses. That way you will not be breaking your own vow to never ask.”

“And if I get it?”

“Then you’ll know.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you won’t.”

“Oh, come on!” I protested. “OK, fine, but if I don’t get it, then you’ve got to tell me.”

The Other shrugged. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get there.”

“OK, fine. Let’s see … You’re unique. But we knew that much already. Perhaps you’re a legend?” Joseph’s eyes lit up at that. “There are stories of humans who were chosen to perform great deeds for the gods. Hercules, Achilles, Benkei … and let’s not forget the prophets who got to visit all the various heavens and hells … Human?” I hazarded.

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

I considered who he could be. My second guess was that he was a god who had chosen not to leave. I couldn’t ask; I didn’t know how. How do you ask a being responsible for creation itself what they are? The thought hung at the edge of my lips, begging to get out.

“No,” he said. “I’m not that either. But we established that with the angel already.”

“But I didn’t say anything.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t have to. Your hesitation said it for you.” He put up his index finger, indicating one last guess.

I racked my brain for some commonality that Others shared, whether in their myths or legends, but nothing came to mind. My thoughts went on like this for a long time. So long that I was beginning to feel rude for keeping him awake, even though Joseph still had the same patient look on his face. All I really knew about him was that all Others respected him and that he was always cordial to everyone. I finally settled on “A dragon using a glamor in order to look human, maybe? Or a shape shifter?”

“Which is it? A dragon or a shape shifter?”

“A shape-shifting dragon,” I offered.

“Cheeky,” he said, shaking his head.

“Damn it!” I said. “Fine, but that middle guess didn’t count. You’ve got to give me one more. Please.”

Joseph chuckled. “This is why I so love human beings. Always demanding what is fair and bargaining for it. Fine. One more guess—but I suggest you sleep on it.”

“But—”

“But nothing, Jean,” he said with a soft smile as he headed upstairs.

On the landing below his, I bid him goodnight. He walked to the base of the next set of stairs. The lights flickered and Joseph looked at them with concern.

“It’s just the rain,” I said. “Messes with the electrics of this old building. I can’t afford to get it all fixed up.”

He sniffed the air. “There’s a storm coming,” he said, continuing up the stairs. “Thing about storms is, one way or another, they always end. You would do well to remember that.”

“You know,” I said, shaking my head, “you’re the second person today to say that to me.”

“Sounds like you know some very wise people. Have a good night, Jean-Luc Matthias, who is just missing the Mark,” he said, laughing again at his own joke. “A good night, indeed.”

“Goodnight,” I returned, although the comment hung empty, shallow after a night of so much good. But I was exhausted and too lazy to think of anything more to say. Had I known that Joseph would be dead in less than three hours, I might have tried harder.

JUST WHEN IT WAS ALL GOING SO WELL

For the first time in a very, very long time, I went to bed excited—not only to see Bella, but to wake up the next morning. Whatever was happening in Paradise Lot—Fanatic, gangs of HuMan Otherphobes, bills, orgies and pissed-off mother-in-laws—I actually felt hope for the morning. Dawn would come, and with it things could get better. Much, much better. I was energized. Happy even, and I didn’t think sleep would come easy.

I was wrong. On all counts.

I closed my eyes, sleep taking me before my head even touched the pillow. The darkness came rolling in, a tidal wave of nothing, and—like every night—I ran. But this time there was less terror and more excitement to see Bella. My wife may be dead and the memory of her may haunt my dreams, but a piece of her was that memory, and that memory, like Bella, wanted the world to heal. I needed to tell her that someone had finally arrived with enough respect, kindness and wisdom to be the glue to hold us all together.

I ran to the edge of everything, where Bella always saved me moments before the darkness came. That night she took me not to the beach where I had proposed or the cottage where we first made love, but to our first apartment. And not the happy move-in days. Marriage is hard, and we were mac-and-cheese poor, and this was the apartment we moved into after PopPop died. It was also the apartment I left her alone in when I joined the Army.

Typically, my brain would guide us to happy places, and on an eve when I was particularly happy, I just assumed I’d go somewhere happy. But then again, misery is a habit and my brain was probably compensating. Stupid brain!

“You look well,” she started, looking around at the apartment before finally settling her gaze on me. “Chipper, even.”

“I feel good,” I said, sitting on our two-person sofa—if the two people were toddlers.

“Does it have to do with that new guest? Joseph?” I wasn’t surprised that she knew his name or sensed that my peace came from his presence. After all, she was my delusion. Therefore, it stood to reason that she knew everything I did.

I nodded. “He has a wisdom to him. The Others listen to him. Humans listen. I really feel he can change things for us. For the better.”

She gave me her poor-naive-Jean look. “I hope you’re right, but please, don’t pin your hopes on him. Remember, we’ve been here before.”

“Sheesh,” I said, “I thought I was the negative one. Where are we, the Bizarro World?”

She chuckled. “Trust the Unicorn, but don’t put all your hope in him.”

“Unicorn?” Then it hit me. In order to be loved by all, Joseph needed to be a legend of legend—like TinkerBelle—which meant he needed to be an Other who appeared in all traditions. A unicorn was one of them. “A unicorn! Of course … Why didn’t I think of that?”

She stepped toward me, her hand outstretched, but with every step she took, the farther away she got. The room began to stretch out, elongating, pulling her away. Still, she strode toward me, but it was like she was on one of those super-long moving walkways you see at airports. Bella was walking against the roll and losing.

I stepped forward to close the gap, but I too was being pulled away from her. “What’s happening?” I asked.

“I’m sorry,” Bella said, putting her hand over her lips. “I had hoped for more time.” She blew me a kiss—you know, that cute thing you do with your lover—and I did my part by pretending to catch it. Except instead of it being a mime, my entire body was hit by the shockwave of her kiss, knocking me clear out of my bed.

↔

I woke up on the floor, all my toys shaking as a slow-moving waterfall of dust fell from my ceiling. Tink was out of her castle, flying over to me, a look of worry on her face. “What … What happened?” I said, my mind still waking up.

Tink pointed upstairs and then folded her body into a cannonball before exploding out her arms and legs in all directions. She followed this up by whirling around, gesturing for me to leave my room. The look she gave me told me we were under attack.

Hellelujah!

↔

I made my way to the outer hall. The second floor was completely untouched. For a moment I thought that maybe, just maybe, there had been no explosion. But the shockwaves alone told me I was lying to myself. I ran upstairs, where Astarte met me on the landing and pointed to Joseph’s room. I took a moment to prepare myself for what was beyond the threshold and opened the door.

There is something decidedly unbelievable about explosions. Not that I didn’t believe in them. I did. The GoneGods knew I’d survived more than my fair share of them. But still, through all the explosions I’d had the misfortune of being near, I just couldn’t get used to them.

First of all, there is the sheer chaos caused by a bomb. The scattering of debris, whole objects broken into smaller pieces along unnatural lines in the most unnatural places. I’d seen a car blown in two, its hood upside down in a trench only a yard from the strip of road it had been driving along, its trunk hanging in a tree like a deformed metal bird’s nest. And that was a car. A soulless, unfeeling hunk of metal.

I’d also seen what happens to a body, human and Other, when it was caught in a blast. One moment there was a whole being, and the next moment its foot was several yards away, sole on the ground, stump pointing upwards, while the toes faced away from the blast as if the foot were trying to run away and had simply forgotten to take the rest of the body with it. A wing in the hands of an angel, her other wing flapping futilely as she tried to get off the ground. The suspended entrails of a yeti hanging from cedar branches like poorly hung Christmas decorations, the yeti regarding it with a look of admiration that seemed to say, “Look at what I made.”

I’d seen all that and worse, and still I wasn’t prepared for what waited behind the door.

↔

The room was empty, its bed, side table, closet and chest of drawers all missing, presumably littering the road out front. From the threshold, I could see the bathroom sink embedded in the building across the street. The outer wall had been blown out in a nearly perfect square that did not encroach on the floors above or below. The explosion should have torn holes into the inner walls, damaging the hallway and adjacent rooms, but as far as I could tell, the only damaged area was in the room. It looked like someone had taken a giant vacuum cleaner and sucked everything out.

What’s more, the area where the bathroom once was should have been covered in water, its pipes still spouting. But from the mouths of broken pipes water gushed up only an inch before hitting some invisible shield and spreading out like it was pouring onto glass from a garden hose. It defied physics.

I tried to cross the threshold, but instead hit an invisible barrier at the door. I pushed, but I didn’t have the strength to get through. Then I realized that everything was being held together by a force field in the room, like a balloon inflated in a box. In the middle lay Joseph, his arms over his chest as if swaddled by an invisible blanket. “Joseph,” I cried out, banging against the force field. “Joseph!”

The old man turned his head slightly. Upon seeing me, he smiled before a look of pain ran across his face, his lips curling. He took a deep breath and mouthed one word.

Push.

I didn’t need to be told twice. I pushed with all my might. The force field didn’t budge. Astarte and four scantily-clad bodies came to my aid, and our combined effort caused the wall to move, but it wasn’t until Judith joined in that we finally caused it to pop.

Water started spouting everywhere. I yelled at Judith to go to the basement and turn it off. She gave me her typical derisive look and headed downstairs. As soon as that was taken care of, I stepped farther into the room. Then, turning to Astarte and her guests—noticing for the first time that they were all humans—I said, “You got to get out of here. Out the back door and, please, call for help.” As five naked bodies ran out the door, I added, “And for the love of the GoneGods, put on some shoes.”

Then I ran over to Joseph. Little droplets of rainbow-colored blood trickled out of his eyes and from his lips, but still the Other smiled. In a voice far too casual for what had just happened, he said, “Sorry about that, Jean. Magic is so much easier to turn on than off. But I think I did it. Didn’t I? The hotel, the Others, they are all right, yes? Did I manage to contain it?” He coughed.

I put my hand against his chest and nodded. “Yes. No other part of the hotel was touched,” I said. “Because of you, no one was hurt, Joseph. You did it.” I looked down at him and saw that his arms were pressed so tight against his chest that his ribs were compressed to make space for his forearms. His legs were mangled, broken in several places and pushing up against his torso. His neck was also pushed against his body, like a turtle trying to get back in its shell. The features of his face were flat and tight; blood dripped from the corners of his eyes and into the tributaries of his wrinkles. He looked like he had just been pulled out of the belly of a snake, after every part of him had been crushed within the serpent’s contracting muscles.

“Good,” Joseph said, and even though it caused him great pain, he managed a chuckle. “You still have one last guess.”

I couldn’t believe he wanted to play our stupid little game at a time like this. “Forget about that,” I said. “Can you heal yourself? Spend a bit of time so that you can have some more here? With us. With me,” I said through the glassy, shimmering lens of trapped tears.

He shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ll have to use your guess now. I doubt I’ll be here to answer you tomorrow.”

“Oh, come on!” I said. “There’s got to be something you can do. Maybe I could do something.” I looked at his injuries but was hesitant to touch him, lest I make them worse.

“Yes, there is … You can guess. Have you had time to think about it?”

“Yes,” I said, frustration pouring out of me. “A unicorn. You’re a unicorn.”

Joseph smiled. “Good guess. How did you know?”

“It came to me in a dream.”

Joseph nodded. “Your dreams are very wise. You should always listen to them.”

A tear finally escaped, its stream running hot down my cheek. I clamped my eyes shut. “Who did this, Joseph?” Struggling to keep my rage caged up inside, I asked again, “Who?”

“It has finally arrived, Jean-Luc,” he rasped. “The storm. It is finally here.”

PART II

PROLOGUE

There is this girl whom I love very much. That is what I say to her the day I propose, getting down on one knee and handing her a twist tie. I’m only seventeen and it seems like a romantic gesture. Besides, it is all I can afford. She accepts it with far too much enthusiasm, jumping up and down on the sandy beach.

We are bound together; we are forever.

“Do you love me?” she asks as we fall to the sandy floor.

There is no ceremony, no formality, just a frantic rush to get our clothes off. She gets on top of me and I slide into her with no resistance, and as her warmth envelops me, I say, “Yes,” panting between thrusts. “You know that.”

“I do,” she says. “But tell me.”

“I love you.”

“No,” she says, our bodies no longer moving, “not like that.” Her eyes lock onto mine and I am drowning in their beauty.

“How, then?”

“Tell me,” she repeats. “Really tell me.”

I smile, pushing myself up. I want to be deeper within her. I want to be a part of her. “OK,” I say. “In this life and the next, I will love you forever.” Cheesy, corny or whatever else you want to call it, I mean every word.

“I love you, too,” she says, riding me, our bodies pulsing faster and faster, two teenagers in love, galloping into the future together.

That night we make love for the first time. Don’t get me wrong—we have known each other before, but that night is different. Her soft, firm breasts are delights I’ve experienced before, but that night they are ecstasy. Her nipples are attentive to my touch, hardening as my fingers caress them. Her warm body against mine is familiar, but somehow new. Renewed. She kisses me, but unlike the thousand kisses that have come before, her lips are electric.

↔

Our love is condemned by her mother, Judith. She hates the idea of her precious daughter marrying so young. Even more than that, she hates the idea of her precious Bella marrying me. She refuses to sign the papers that will let us marry before we’re eighteen. That’s OK. We have our whole lives, and eighteen isn’t that far away. Bella will be seventeen in two months and I will celebrate my eighteenth birthday with the ringing of the New Year.

My PopPop, on the other hand, is happy for us, and even though Judith has forbidden Bella to come over, PopPop never tells.

Not that we have to keep up the charade long. Judith dies without warning. Bella finds her curled up on the bathroom floor, clutching her knees like a newborn. A heart attack. Just one of those things. God’s will. Nobody’s fault. Fate. Destiny. Pick your poison. Whatever it is, Judith is dead.

Through tears and frustration, we realize we are free to marry early, but we choose to respect her mother’s wishes. We wait until Bella’s eighteenth birthday. It is a sad ceremony; a large black-and-white picture sitting in the first row is a poor substitute for a mother. As my bride-to-be says her vows through tear-filled eyes, I think I would give almost anything to have Judith here to make my Bella happy.

Be careful what you wish for.

↔

Bella and I are looking for places to go in the city that we can afford, when PopPop comes into the kitchen. He’s looking at us, a devilish smile veiled behind wisps of steam.

“There are two bundles of wood in the trunk of the car. It’s cold up by the lake and without electricity or a bathroom, and you’ll have to use a flashlight at night …”

At first we’re confused, but then we notice the keys to my PopPop’s old Plymouth Road Runner sitting on a map to his cabin.

“Newlyweds should save their money for important things, like good wine,” he says with a wink.

So we go up north to spend our honeymoon in a cabin without heat or electricity. That night, we make love in the living room, as close to the fireplace as possible, neither of us feeling the cold.

↔

It’s midnight when it happens.

First we hear the message:

“Thank you for believing in us, but it’s not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck.”

The voice I hear is soft and calm. Reassuring but firm. And from its tone, I get this strong feeling that whatever has been done cannot be undone.

Bella and I look at each other, confusion painted on our faces.

“Did you hear that?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know,” I say, pulling her in close. I put my hand under her shirt and cup her bare breast. “And I don’t care.”

“But …”

“But nothing,” I say, pulling off her shirt.

She lets me, but she’s still thinking about the voice. “Don’t you think it’s weird?” she says.

I suppose if I weren’t a teenager with raging hormones, I would think it strange. But there are perfect, perky nipples reflecting the embers of the fire. And I am very badly in love. I pull back the wool blanket and run soft kisses down her torso, murmuring, “What’s weird? Tell me about it.”

“The voice …” she says, her own voice trailing off as my tongue finds her special spot. “It was so …”

The thought is lost and we are together again.

↔

After making love for a second time, we are content. Our bodies exhausted, we fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. But not for long. An explosion wakes us.

Not just an explosion, but a cascade of detonations erupting all around us. They do not come from the road or the nearby town—the sound comes from the sky.

Naked, we run outside and look up. The sky is filled with fire rolling through the night like a river bursting through a dam. And from the flames fall what look like meteors. A hundred thousand comets fall from above and ignite the world around us.

Isolated in the woods, we do not know that the Others are arriving, and that everything we once knew and loved is being ripped away from us with their arrival. All we know is our world is burning.

I guess, in a sense, that is all we need to know.

↔

We drive home on empty country roads, more out of curiosity than fear. We are young. We are in love. We are immortal. Sure, the sky is on fire, but how will that hurt us?

Without warning something hits the Plymouth, causing me to lose control. I twist the wheel against the spin and pump the brakes. We slide to a stop, facing the opposite direction. That’s when we see it.

A monster. There is no other word for it—not in those first days, at least. The monster has a woman’s body, naked breasts heaving in the moonlight. Her head is covered with a hundred squirming tendrils, each ending with the head of a snake, and her legs—oh God, she has no legs! Did I run her over and sever them from her body?

But then she rears up and shoots into the sky. Her body stops at least nine feet above the ground. It looks like she is standing on top of a podium. The podium moves as she lowers her body, and it is then we see that her torso ends where the body of a giant snake begins. Medusa, I think, and it turns out I’m not far off. I will later learn that we’ve just met a far less famous member of the gorgon race.

The creature looks at us. Fear fills her eyes. What the hell does she have to be afraid of? She’s the monster.

Bella opens the door, pulling out the flashlight. I grab her arm. “Don’t,” I say, but she ignores me and steps outside.

She approaches the monster like one might an angry dog, palms out, tone steady, eyes locked. “We’re not going to hurt you,” she says. “We just want to help.” Even back then, Bella was always so kind. So good.

The gorgon’s features soften. Then she starts to cry. What the hell? Monsters cry?

Bella continues to speak softly, offering the gorgon a granola bar. The creature takes it with care before devouring it greedily. “Where did you come from?” Bella asks, but before the monster can answer, we hear a shot, followed by the roar of a pickup truck. Without hesitation or looking behind her, the gorgon slithers into the forest.

The pickup truck stops next to us and the driver steps out, rifle in hand. Two more men get out the back and a third darts out of the passenger-side door. All but the driver chase after the monster.

“What’s happening?” I ask.

“Didn’t you hear?” the driver says. “We’re being invaded.”

“By who?”

“Aliens, the news says. But I say they’re demons. This is the End of Days and the angels’ trumpets are sounding, boy!” And with that, he’s off. Shots can be heard, but Bella and I do not stick around to see what’s going on.

It will be two days later when I will pick up a local paper and see the driver of the truck and his friends standing around the gorgon’s dead body. They’ve strung her upside down from a tree like a fisherman might a shark. They smile, thumbs out, beers in hand, the headline reading: “Local Heroes Kill Snake Lady, Save Town.”

↔

We get back to the city and head home. Not that there is a home to greet us; PopPop’s house is one of the hundreds hit.

Please. Please don’t be home, I pray.

But there are no gods left to answer my prayers. PopPop is dead. And when the local Army starts recruiting, I join, leaving Bella alone in the crappy apartment we rented in the worst part of town.

↔

There is this girl whom I love very much. Eventually an uneasy peace settles throughout the city and, as a result, soldiers are sent home.

I am so happy to be discharged because, like I said, there is this girl and on the day I proposed to her, I promised that in this life and the next I would love her forever. I plan to make good on that promise.

↔

She meets me at the airport and takes me home. Only thing is that home isn’t home. It is this old three-story building with seven rooms, an attic and a cellar.

“Welcome to the One Spire Hotel,” she says with a grand gesture as we walk into its tiny foyer. The room is filled with desperate Others, broken by the GoneGod World. Each one of them has been mortally wounded by the loss of their home. A wound, Bella tells me, that will eventually kill them all.

“Poetic way of looking at it,” I say.

They look up when Bella enters the room. An angel, better dressed than most, sees me and comes over. “Jean-Luc Matthias, I presume? I am Miral, former captain of the Lord’s army and now assistant to the human called Bella. Welcome home.” The angel extends her hand, but I do not take it. I might have left the Army, but the Army has yet to leave me.

“Jean,” Bella admonishes, “honestly.” She apologizes to the angel Miral, who takes it with grace and kindness.

“There is a problem with tonight’s event,” Miral says to Bella, pulling her aside. They go off to discuss what needs to be done.

A shorter woman wearing an old Victorian dress comes into the room. She pokes my side and says, “The name is Sandy. I am a werewolf. Treat me like you did the angel and I will rip out your throat.” Sandy extends a hand and, a little bit afraid of the five-foot-nothing woman, I shake it. She nods and whispers, “Your wife’s the real angel, helping so many Others by giving them hope. You better not muck it up. Otherwise, I’ll—”

“Rip out my throat?” I offer.

Sandy nods her head. “Glad we understand each other.”

Bella returns and informs Sandy that the caterers have cancelled. Sandy offers to rip out their throats, but Bella says she has a solution. She hands me an apron. We need four dozen chocolate-chip-and-macadamia-nut cookies.

“But I just got back,” I say.

Bella shoots me her best So what? look and says, “Don’t burn them,” a bit of anger in her voice. As she walks away, Miral looks back at me, a devilish smile touching her lips.

“I hate baking,” I protest feebly. “Could this day get any worse?”

“Oh,” Bella says, “that reminds me. Remember my mother, Judith? Well, she’s back …”

“What?”

“Welcome back,” Bella says, and trots off to deal with some crisis or other.

↔

Days turn into weeks, and even though I do not trust the Others, I am inspired by how much they love Bella. Paradise Lot is filled with hope, and it is mostly because of my wife.

As for me, I am happy just to be with Bella. I’ve even made an uneasy peace with Judith—or rather, we don’t speak, which is an improvement.

Everything is going smoothly. I want this to last forever. But it seems that the Devil has other plans for us.

UNLEASH THE DOGS OF WAR

There weren’t many cops walking the streets of Paradise Lot, and when something big happened—like let’s say an explosion in the only human-run hotel—they still didn’t come running. There was just too much baggage in a place like Paradise Lot: too many ancient beefs spanning millennia, too many creatures with claws and fangs, and too many once-upon-a-times with enough time on their hands to turn you into a pillar of salt. Given that, I figured I had half an hour before anyone official-looking turned up.

A lot can happen in half an hour.

Penemue and Astarte knelt by Joseph’s body, both offering prayers from their respective ancient traditions. Penemue hummed as golden tears flowed from his face, and Astarte washed the body with a cloth, using the pools of water from pipes that no longer gushed. I guessed Judith must have found the main—at least one thing had improved. Both of them were just as devastated by the loss of Joseph as I was. I couldn’t watch anymore, and looked around the blown-out room. One of the problems of this GoneGod World was that you could no longer blame some silent entity, saying something meaningless like “He works in mysterious ways,” or “Joseph was called for a higher purpose.”

But there were no signs and no clues. No one to make sense of this for me. All that remained was a room with two Others paying respects to an empty, soulless body.

Judging from the way the explosion happened, time was burned. A lot of it. This ruled out EightBall, and ruled in my Fanatic theory. There was only one body in the room, which meant the Fanatic was still breathing, and the one thing I’d learned from dealing with Fanatics was that once they started, they didn’t stop until they were dead—which usually meant a lot more explosions.

I looked over the angel’s shoulder at Joseph. His features were slowly returning now that his body was no longer being crushed down by the Fanatic’s magic. I forced myself to look at his hollow, empty eyes. His arms were folded over the same double-breasted suit he had worn earlier today, his coat pockets turned inside out and empty. Whatever happened here was more than revenge or a fight. The Fanatic was looking for something, something that Joseph owned or left behind …

Just as the thought entered my mind, the lights flickered.

“He’s still here.”

“Who?” Penemue said, but without answering him I ran out the door and down the stairs, sure that when I got into the reception I’d be met by that friggin’ unnatural smile.

The last thing I expected was a bat to the back of the head.

↔

Whoever took a swing at my skull wasn’t very experienced. For one thing, if you’re looking to knock a person out, you have to hit the point where the skull meets the neck. A good hit will take someone down, and if the angle is just right, you have a good chance of permanently paralyzing them. If you’re looking to kill the guy, aim for the crown, angling your swing downward. That’s the most likely way to get enough impact to crush the skull, and even then, you’ve got to go at it repeatedly to actually break through to the brain.

All that to say that the skull is friggin’ hard, and few are harder than mine. So when I was hit flat on the back of my head, all it did was knock me down, sending shooting stars across my vision and giving me a mind-numbing headache. I turned to see a scruffy HuMan holding the bat.

“Batter up!” He chuckled at his pun through crooked teeth.

“Good one,” a voice said. “Looks like someone ruined your hotel.”

I looked up to see EightBall and several more HuMans, laughing as they surrounded a less-than-pleased Judith; she must have come across the HuMans on her way up from the basement. They should have been in jail for at least another two nights.

The kid, as if reading my mind, pointed to my attacker. “BallSack’s mom bailed us out. Guess not everyone’s given up on us yet.”

Little opportunistic bastards—when the explosion happened, I guess they decided to take advantage of the situation. Hell, they were probably planning on taking responsibility for it, a nice little press release sent out by the HuMans Weekly newsletter.

“EightBall,” I said, getting to my feet. BallSack took another swing at the back of my thigh, but I stepped to the side. The kid missed, the momentum causing him to fall forward. Ignoring him, I locked eyes with EightBall. “I know you’re not going to believe me, but your timing couldn’t be worse.”

“I should have suspected,” Judith said in an unforgiving tone, “that you would know miscreants such as these. I warned my daughter not to marry a man like you.”

“Really, Judith,” I said. “Now?”

EightBall and his three thug friends started laughing. “Daughter? Married? Don’t tell me you married this ghost’s daughter? What is she? A white sheet with the eyes cut out?”

“You would be safer not to speak of my Bella in such terms,” Judith growled as the chair from behind my desk flew right at one of the thugs standing next to EightBall. It hit him square on the head, knocking him hard to the ground. Way to go, Judith! Got to hand it to her: when she’s pissed, she’s dangerous.

Things started to shake around the room. Judith was about to go into a tantrum and that would cost her time. A whole bunch of it. As much as I wanted to spend less of it with her, I couldn’t let her burn herself out.

“Judith,” I said, “please calm down. Time, remember? We talked about this.”

She met my eyes, fury in hers, and for a moment I thought she was too far gone in her poltergeist’s rage to calm herself down, but then my mother-in-law took a deep breath and the room stopped rattling.

BallSack got to his feet and tried for another swing at me. This time I was ready for it, planning on taking the brunt of the blow on my side. But instead of swinging, he let the bat drop. I turned to see a petite woman in an old Victorian dress—complete with bonnet and all—leap into the fray, her teeth flashing red as they sank into his side. Sandy! Her bite was definitely worse than her bark.

Everyone looked down at the five-foot-nothing doily of fury, and I took the opportunity to punch EightBall square in the nose—I can be just as opportunistic as the next guy. He went down, but got right back up, pulling a switchblade from only the GoneGods knew where, and lunged at me at the exact moment when reality decided to go out the window.

↔

Have you ever worried that gravity will suddenly disappear, causing you to float off to oblivion?

Yeah, me neither. Until the moment when EightBall lunged at me, blade in hand, and the air in the room lost all of its weight, causing me to feel naked even though I was fully dressed.

The practical effect of suddenly losing gravity was that EightBall’s feet lifted off the ground, the momentum of his attack propelling him forward at a pace so slow that it would have embarrassed a turtle. EightBall flailed his arms wildly as he tried to gain balance in a room where up and down became abstract concepts. He looked like a man falling sideways, his face a hodgepodge of confusion, shock and fear.

Not that I blamed him. We all wore looks of surprise as our feet left the ground. The rest of us had been standing relatively still, so the effect on us was that of simple levitation. We looked like a bunch of astronauts floating in a low-gravity environment—except that, as far as I knew, the One Spire Hotel had not teleported to the moon.

At least we were all breathing normally. Thank the GoneGods for small miracles.

EightBall hit the wall on the other side of the room with a silent thud as the kid mouthed, What the hell? All of us tried to scream, but we were on Mute, our mouths contorted in shock as nothing came out. Sandy’s neck was outstretched as her lips formed an o from which no howl emerged. And I’m ashamed to admit it, but I joined right in with the silent chorus of horror.

I guess Hollywood got it right: no one can hear you scream in space.

Only Judith was calm. Having no feet to speak of, she was used to floating around, so I guess not much changed for her. Despite the obvious panic we were all in, she still managed to give me a look that clearly blamed me for everything that was going on. To her, I was a criminal, so why not add Broke the laws of physics to my Rolodex of felonies?

“Human,” spoke a voice, breaking the silence, and flat-soled heels clicked on the ground. “Yes … indeed.”

↔

Holy shit! I tried to scream, throwing up my hand in victory. I was right! I mouthed as Grinner walked in. What can I say? Celebrate every victory you can … Trust me, they are few and far between.

Even in this silent room I could smell him.

“Answers,” he said, his voice somehow penetrating his spell, “so many answers, but never the right questions.” As he walked past me, he sniffed before grabbing my arm and spinning me round and round. I felt sympathy for my clothes in the tumble dryer, and swore at that moment to always hang them up.

Spin, spin, spin; I saw the others floating around. Some of them had managed to latch on to one another, only making them larger objects in motion. Round, round and around; I saw Grinner go to my desk and look through my papers. He stopped at the form that Joseph had written his name on.

“Joseph,” he said to no one in particular. “Of all the names the universe has bestowed upon you, Joseph is by far the most human.” He paused and cocked his head. “The stench of mortality has finally taken you. Perhaps Joseph is a fitting name to have been your last.”

Round and around—and I saw Judith about three yards away, rolling her eyes vertically in opposition to my horizontal spin.

Round and around; Grinner opened the top drawer, a look of delight spreading his grin even wider as he saw the box. “How simple the mortal mind is. What is plain is discarded as worthless? And to think the gods chose you as their pets.”

Round, round; Judith was no longer across the room, but right next to me. I don’t know if she was trying to help, or just wanted to get me killed, but either way, she pushed me in the direction of Grinner with a force that must have been backed by a bit of poltergeist fury. I was flying right toward him and did the only thing I could do: I stuck out my leg. The result was a roundhouse kick that would have had Bruce Lee eating his heart out. I connected with Grinner’s friggin’ smile, knocking him on his ass. Hard.

He dropped the box.

Wait a minute, he dropped the box! As if my realization had made it happen, we all came crashing down to the ground at the same time.

I grabbed the plain-looking thing and tossed it to Sandy with a “Catch!”

She caught it in the air with her mouth and ran off on all fours like a Labrador at the park.

She leaped outside, and I had just enough time to see her hand the box to Penemue—he must have flown down from the hole formerly known as Joseph’s room—who unfurled his wings before ten tons of invisible earth took me to the ground.

Well, at least the world had stopped spinning. Thank the GoneGods for small miracles.

↔

It happened so fast. Penemue couldn’t have been more than a few feet off the ground before Grinner trotted past me and pointed to the sky. Penemue fell hard, his wings outstretched but weighed to the ground, and Grinner picked up the box where it had fallen. I tried to push against the invisible force that held me down, but I only managed to move my head around and survey the room. Every one of us was lying flat, even Judith, like we were under a blanket made of lead.

I looked over at Grinner’s face and could see age lines starting to form around his lips. He was burning through time, and if I pushed him a bit more, I might send him into a rage, let him burn himself out. Of course, I ran the risk that he’d burn himself out by lifting a mountain and dropping it on our heads.

“You!” I screamed out. “Yeah, you! Cheshire cat!”

Grinner looked down at me and, with a light skip, came over. He held the box in front of my face. “Cat? I am no cat … but the beasts please me. They shall be welcome in my new kingdom.”

“Ahh, screw you! New kingdom, my ass … You’re just a two-bit, worthless Other that the gods decided to leave behind. Maybe if you were worthy, they would have taken you with them.”

He pushed down his index finger like one would flick ash off a cigarette, and the force holding me down doubled.

I couldn’t breathe, feeling the strain as my innards flattened out and vied for space in my torso. I pushed against the massive, invisible weight. Come on, you Fanatic, the clock is ticking. “Is … that … all … you … got?” I grunted as I pushed myself up.

He redoubled the force and I crumpled to my knees. I fought it and could actually see the strain on his face. I was resisting. But then he lifted his hands over his head, the box plummeting straight to the ground and landing, miraculously, in one piece. Grinner gave it no notice; he looked like he was literally pulling down the sky.

I fell flat on my back.

“But an answer I shall give,” he said, grinning. His eyes betrayed surprise at how much of a fight I had managed to put up against him. He displayed the same shock a lion might when coming up against a particularly feisty lamb. “For I am here to answer the second question each one of you asked when you finally understood that your gods were really gone. But before I do, there is something I need from you. I need you to dream.”

“Like I said, screw …” I tried to finish the sentence, but suddenly I was very tired. Very, very tired.

He was sucking out the oxygen. I tried taking shallow breaths, slowing my heart down, but it was impossible. There wasn’t enough air to keep me awake. I started to fade.

↔

There is this girl whom I love very much. Every time I sleep, she rescues me from the darkness that chases me, and tonight is no different. Except whereas she is usually happy to see me, this time she greets me with a frantic concern.

“Wake up!” she screams. “You have to wake up!”

↔

“Huh?” I said, opening my eyes, fighting the fatigue.

“She waits,” Grinner hissed. “Go to her.”

So tired, I … I …

↔

“Oh, hello, Bella,” I say as my wife comes into view once more. “It’s so good to—”

But Bella does not let me finish.

“Wake up!” she screams again. “Wake up! Wake up!”

↔

“WAKE!” a thunderous voice screamed from outside my hotel, and with it the air returned to normal.

I woke to see Grinner no longer concerned about me, his head turned to the hotel entrance. Whoever was outside must have scared the bejesus out of him, because for the first time since I’d met the Fanatic, he wasn’t smiling.

“You? You are gone,” Grinner said, his concentration broken just enough that I was able to stand. It still felt like my collarless black jacket was made of ball bearings.

Standing just beyond the threshold of the reception was a young black man with a military buzz cut. He was maybe in his early twenties and wore jeans and a simple white, button-up short-sleeve shirt. “I am here,” he said.

“To fill the Void,” Grinner said, his tone implying an answer rather than a question.

The young man shook his head. “It is no longer our world to meddle with.”

“No,” Grinner retorted. “That is why they left. To start again and to let us start again.”

“That is not so,” the young man said, his eyes beginning to glow.

I grabbed the box and put it in my pocket. I stood, only for the world to spin around. After being denied oxygen for some time, even the most ineffective bat swings to the head can do some damage. As the world grayed out, I saw the two major-league Others facing off in what must have been one of the most epic battles this world has ever seen.

Too bad I didn’t get to see any of it.

SPITEFUL ANGELS

“Jean,” Bella says in a hurried voice, “you shouldn’t be here. Not like this.”

I can hear her voice, hear her breathing, but in the enveloping gloom, I can’t see her. Which can mean only one thing: I failed to outrun the darkness. “Why not? This is the end, right?” I say. “My last dream of you before I go.”

“I don’t know.” Her tone is softer now.

“I do.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re here. I always knew that in the end—my end—you’d be here to help me go over to the other side. Not like how I wasn’t there for you.” I can’t finish the thought—how I wasn’t there for her as she bled on a cold, strange concrete floor.

“Oh, hush. You were there. Believe me, it was you I saw before my end,” she says. “And if this is your end, then I am glad to have found you. There is nowhere else I’d rather be.”

I feel the warmth of her as she draws in closer, and I lean into it. I know she is just a dream, but I am so happy to be with her.

Silence. But in the black, it is not just silence. It is the absence of sound. And I have never been very good with the absence of sound.

“So, what do we talk about? I mean, how does one spend their last moments alive?”

The darkness is pierced by a chuckle. “I don’t know. Remembering the good times, I suppose.”

“Ahh, the good times? So many to choose from. Do you have anything particular in mind?”

“Yeah,” she says, “I do … But since you’re the one dying, why don’t you go first?”

“OK,” I say, “how about your thighs locked around mine? Like that time on the beach—”

“Jean!” she says, a hand lightly hitting my chest. “It’s always about sex with you. I was thinking of something a little more … sweet.”

“Like what?” It is strange how this feels so much like the old times and—dream or not—I can’t think of a better way to clock out than this. “OK, you go first.”

“You’ll just think it’s silly.”

“Bella,” I say, “I’m dying because a creature with a Cheshire cat smile has literally sucked the air out the room because he wants some plain-looking box an old man gave me. I don’t think there’s anything you could say or do at this point that I’d think was silly.” I am surprised at how calm I am. If I had known dying would be so easy, I would have tried it a long time ago.

“OK,” she says, “… watching TV.”

“I’m about to kick the bucket and the only memory you want to share with me is watching TV? I was expecting something like maybe the first time I told you that I loved you or when I proposed. Is there a particular show you have in mind? Because if it’s Sex and the City I’m outta here.”

“No, silly,” she laughs. “Those were grand moments that punctuated our lives. The special moments. But they’re not what I miss the most. I miss being with you, lying on a couch and doing nothing. I miss being bored next to you. I miss hearing you breathe and feeling the warmth of your body. I miss watching TV.”

“Oh,” I say, noticing a light off in the distance. It looks like the evening’s first star, a pinprick in the blanket of night. I ignore it. “I miss that, too.”

“Look,” she says, pointing at the dot of light, “it looks like this isn’t the end, after all.”

“Are you sure it’s not the light at the end of the tunnel?” I say as the dot grows larger. It gets closer and closer until I am, quite literally, hit by light.

↔

Light getting shot into your brain makes gulping a cold Slurpee feel like a reasonable thing to do.

I barely opened my eyes to see Marty hissing about an inch away from my nose. Then I focused on the rest of her. Medusa was sitting at my side, a hand over my head. Judging by how warm my skull was, she had burned a bit of time to save me.

“How long?” I asked, the words catching in my throat.

“You were out for an hour,” she said.

“No, not that. How long did you burn to wake me up?”

Medusa turned away, not answering. I guess it’d gotten around how much I don’t like time spent on me.

“How long?” I repeated, immediately regretting the harshness of my tone.

“About a day,” she said, still not looking at me.

I grunted. Partly because I was still in pain, partly because my hotel was destroyed, but mostly because I hated time being wasted on me. Immortal creatures who no longer have forever should save their time for things that matter. Like living—not helping a stupid hotelier with his headache.

Medusa hunched away, and from the glare Marty gave me, I figured I’d hurt her feelings. Great job, Jean. She was just trying to help.

I started to formulate my apology, but couldn’t think of anything to say other than, “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a bit grumpy, given everything that happened. Seriously. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

She turned to face me, but Marty looked away. I guess my apology wasn’t acceptable to everyone.

“How is everyone else?” I asked, rubbing my head.

Medusa smiled at me, but her snakes continued to scowl. “They’re all fine. As far as we can tell, there was only one fatality—the Unicorn.” She looked down when she mentioned Joseph. “But other than him, everyone is OK. You were hurt the worst.” As she said the last words, she put up her hand to touch my head.

I winced at her touch, but was thankful to have someone looking after me, so I leaned into it a bit too much. Hey, can you blame me? I was in a lot of pain and my world was crumbling and she was being really, really nice to me.

I looked around my hotel. The mess Grinner had made was amplified by the presence of the police, who were bagging and tagging just about everything. Hell, a couple of pixies in Barbie-sized police uniforms were bagging my phone. Talk about thoroughness. It bordered on comical, and I might have started laughing had a gurney not appeared, carting out a body. Joseph’s body. I watched with silent anger as they took him away.

I would get this smiling Fanatic if it was the last thing I did.

“Joseph,” I muttered to myself as they carted his body off. Turning to Medusa I asked, “Was anyone else hurt?”

She batted her eyes at me. “So sensitive … Everyone’s OK. Penemue is hiding in his loft, I think because he doesn’t want to bump into his former adversary Michael. The HuMan hoodlums have made themselves scarce and Werewolf Sandy has given her statement and left. Everyone is in good physical health, although they are devastated by what happened to the Unicorn.” Medusa’s own eyes glistened at the mention of Joseph. “You know, I met him once. A long, long time ago …”

“What happened?” I found myself asking, wanting to know more about the Other I had spent less than a day with. I wanted to honor Joseph’s memory, know everything about him.

“Well …” she started—when a thunderous voice spoke.

“Miss Gorgon, I’ll take it from here,” the voice boomed from just outside.

Medusa immediately stood to attention. Then, looking down at me, she said, “Ahh, I got to go do police stuff. There are a lot of things to report, and I haven’t seen a mess like this since Atlantis started to sink.” Hurt still glistened in her eyes. “Maybe I can tell you the story about the Unicorn the next time I see you?”

“That would be nice,” I said.

“Over coffee?” she asked. Before I could say anything, she smiled and said, “Great, I’ll call you.” With that, she left; I endured another scowl from Marty as she disappeared around the corner.

Hellelujah—I got a date with a gorgon.

↔

The archangel hunched down to fit through the One Spire Hotel’s front door—not that there was much left of it—and crossed the threshold.

As he entered, police officers of all species saluted him with hands, claws, talons and tails. He crossed the room and, seeing me still on the ground, knelt in front of me. By the GoneGods, he was huge. Like André-the-Giant-crouching-in-front-of-a-newborn-baby kind of huge.

“What happened here?” he demanded.

There was something in the way he asked that made me realize he had no clue. Like I mentioned earlier, angels—arch- or regular—aren’t very tactful. Michael spoke like someone who had just come onto the scene, despite having a good hour or so to investigate and figure things out. I mentally tallied my tenants: Sandy, Judith, CaCa, Astarte and Penemue—what did any of them really know? Joseph had stayed at the hotel and was killed. As for other Others—the ones who lived nearby—they must have just seen some powerful Others destroying the street. So who did that leave? EightBall? To him it would’ve just looked like two Others that got into a fight. Just another reason why Others didn’t belong.

But then again, what did I really know? Some Other that looked like my PopPop showed up with a box right before some wacko iced him? That wasn’t much to go on.

“I don’t really know …” I began. I told him everything I had learned about Joseph, the weird Grinner guy and what I had seen of the fight before I passed out.

Michael took it all in, listening to every word I said with preternatural concentration. When I finished telling him all I knew, he looked at me for a long time—and for a second I feared that he knew I had left out the part about the mysterious box Joseph had given me that Grinner so obviously wanted, and that was currently in my pocket. I mean, Michael didn’t look at me so much as look in me, like he was solving some puzzle that was written on my soul. At least, that’s what it felt like to be stared at so intently by the archangel. Judging from the scowl that eventually crept onto his face, I doubt he got the answer he was looking for.

“So … the Unicorn and this—what did you call him?”

“Grinner.”

“Yes, this Grinner—just showed up at your place. Why? What connects you to them?”

I sighed. “Honestly, I have no clue!”

“Liar!” Michael boomed, and the whole room shook. “After centuries of being a hidden legend, the Unicorn chooses to resurface in your hotel of all places and you have no idea why? You are hiding something, human. And I want to know what!”

“Hiding? Liar? You’ve got to be kidding me! Why would I lie? What could I possibly be hiding? I have zero idea why Joseph came to my hotel and even less of an idea why anyone would hurt him. I swear to you, I don’t know.”

Michael huffed, dissatisfied. “Does this have anything to do with our conversation this morning?”

“Again—I don’t know. Maybe? I have no evidence that what happened is connected, but then again, there’s nothing saying that it isn’t.”

“Are you sure?” he said, staring me down with his angelic eyes. I swear to the GoneGods, I could see flames flicker in them.

“Look, Michael, you know more than me. Frankly, I don’t see where you get off being all alpha-angel on me. Weren’t you the guy who told me that a Fanatic was in town? Weren’t you the guy who drew a connection between that chump and my hotel?” His look didn’t lighten up, and I found myself getting more defensive. “What do I really know? I mean, up until today I didn’t even know unicorns existed …”

Michael closed his eyes in utter frustration when I mentioned the Unicorn. He took in a deep breath before poking a taloned finger on my chest. Through gritted carnivorous teeth, he said, “If I find out that you have anything, anything at all, to do with this, I swear to—”

“God?” I offered.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. In school they said it was because I had a problem with authority. The Army said the same thing. Bella thought it was because of my fragile ego. Penemue thinks it’s because my skin is too sensitive. Astarte offers sexual suppression as the reason. Whatever it is, I don’t like being poked. I hate it.

Still … I really wish I hadn’t said what I said.

Michael roared, if you could call it a roar. I mean, I’d heard lions roar. I’d even heard a raging bull-dragon roar. But what Michael did was something much, much more. He broadcasted his ire; he pronounced his anger. He trumpeted.

He grabbed me and took to the sky, taking my front-door frame with him. I didn’t know what was happening until I was high enough that they’d only be able to identify my body with dental records. I’d tussled with angels before and I knew that if you hit the sweet spot where the wing met the body, they’d go down. I’d taken down one or two using that technique, but even if Michael stood perfectly still, exposing the area with a big red X on it, and I had a missile launcher, I seriously doubted I could take him down. There was a reason why Michael was Michael.

“YOU INSOLENT LITTLE TALKING MONKEY,” he boomed. “WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THAT TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT? TELL ME!”

I was terrified, but had enough sense left in me to remember that he was an angel of the highest orders. And you didn’t get that way by being a renegade. Now that his god was gone, the only orders Michael had to follow were of the kind that said dropping a human from three hundred feet in the air was illegal.

“I already told you I don’t know! Now put me down,” I said, pretending I wasn’t crapping myself. “You and I both know you’re not going to kill me.”

“Oath-Breaker,” he whispered. “Other-Slayer. Do not presume that I am unaware of who you are. The path to redemption is long and filled with peril. You are correct that I will not drop you. But that does not stop me from telling your Army commanders where their precious little AWOL soldier went. What is the statute of limitations on desertion? Do you know, Oath-Breaker? Or maybe I don’t tell them where you are, but rather inform some of the less tame Others where you are. There are many who would like nothing more than vengeance against the once-great Exterminator. Tell me, how long do you think you will survive without an army to protect you? You have forty-eight hours to tell me who is responsible for the death of the Unicorn.”

My face drained of all color. After Bella died, I had re-enlisted for a while before things got really bad. At the time, humans were no longer at war with Others, but Special Forces were put in place as a countermeasure against the “less-agreeable” Others. Black-ops kind of thing—take out this terror cell, assassinate this uppity Other. Typical stuff we humans have always done to protect our interests. Only thing was, after a few missions I couldn’t stomach it anymore and just left. Didn’t tell Command—hell, they thought I was dead anyway—didn’t even bother to get my stuff. I just left. That’s a pretty serious offense, but at the time, I couldn’t have cared less. I thought I had kept my secret pretty well, but if Michael knew, who else did? I was scared. Terrified.

But then it hit me … Michael must have known for a while—probably figured it out not long after I got back that second time. Maybe got suspicious when I never changed the name on the lease from Bella’s to mine, or stopped signing for things in my full name or used Penemue’s name on the utility bills and car registration. And despite knowing, he still hadn’t turned me in. I needed to know why.

But more importantly, I needed to call his bluff.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “You’ve got to get better at threatening! You’re the original Boy Scout. You don’t break rules or even bend them … for whatever reason, you haven’t told the Army yet, and you’re not going to tell on me now.”

Michael smiled. And not a happy kind of smile. More like a Got you! kind of smile. I mean, I’d seen the Devil smile and it scared me, but this took “intimidating smile” to a whole new level. My body literally curled up, trying to get into the fetal position and die.

But Michael wouldn’t let me off so easy. “You are correct, human. Yes, I must now obey mortal laws. But they are not the highest order. There are principles that negate their necessity. The path of redemption, for example, cancels the need to obey many mortal laws, and I, as a guardian of such principles, must give those who have proven themselves worthy a chance to do so unimpeded. That is why I have never told the mortal armed forces where you hide. Yet, if you should encumber this investigation, then I shall consider you to have strayed from the path and, therefore, no longer exempt.”

A subtle pulse of luminosity passed through his eyes. “As for my other threat—do you know which principle is one rung lower than redemption, but still above mortal law? Righteous revenge. I am sure there are many Others that qualify, do you not think?”

I gulped. He had me there. During my fighting days, I had killed just as much out of pleasure as necessity, and his moral compass would not twitch one bit by helping some Other get revenge on me over some of the terrible things I’d done.

But I was surprised to see that my—what did he call it?—path of redemption offered me some leeway with him. Seems I’d been doing some things right … not that it would do me any good now.

The shock of his threats was so all-encompassing that I didn’t notice that the whole time we were speaking, he was lowering us. He dropped me, and I yelped as I fell all of three feet before tumbling ungraciously on my ass smack-dab in the middle of the PD’s investigation.

“Jean-Luc Matthias, should any information concerning the events that transpired last night come to mind, please call the number on this card.” He dropped a business card with Michael Arch, Chief of Police written on it in bold letters. “Thank you for your cooperation. Let’s wrap it up, boys.”

The Billy Goats Gruff bleated, and the eldest said without a hint of irony or suggestion, “Let’s go graze Miss Dolly’s backyard.”

Hellelujah—I was absolutely, totally and unequivocally screwed.

EVEN ANGELS HAVE WICKED SCHEMES

With Michael gone, the police wrapped up their investigation and left. I headed to my room and tapped on Castle Grayskull, nervous that one of the cops might have accidentally found the hiding fairy. She was, after all, a myth of a myth, and finding her would be like finding the back door to Narnia.

“Tink?” I said. “Tink … are you OK?”

At first there was nothing, but then the left eye of the turret flickered and the three-inch-tall golden fairy popped out. She hit me square in the nose. I don’t know if a punch from a Lego-size fist should hurt, but it did. My eyes were watering.

“What did you do that for?” I asked.

She shook a fist at me.

“Look, Tink, I had no idea this was going to happen or how to stop this.”

A pang of guilt hit me; earlier, my instincts had told me that Grinner was bad news and I ignored them. In another life, I would have never let it go, especially not to bake some cookies for Miral’s event.

“It’s not like I asked for this. I didn’t ask Joseph to move in here—I didn’t pick a fight with that maniac. So you can be as angry at me as you like, but for once, this isn’t my fault.”

Tink fluttered around the room twice and then pointed up at Joseph’s room. Being here, hiding in Castle Grayskull, she didn’t know what had happened to Joseph.

I looked down and shook my head. “He didn’t make it.”

Tink buzzed round and around at speeds I’d never seen her go, before finally settling in on the turret of her home. The fairy was crying.

“Oh, Tink …” I started, but she turned away.

I took a step forward and she looked up at me as golden streams ran down her cheeks. Then she put her head on her knees again, and her tiny shoulders started bobbing with wails of abandonment. I never knew silent cries could be so deafening.

“I’m sorry, Tink. I liked the guy a lot, too, and …”

But it was no use. TinkerBelle was too far into her own grief for me to reach her.

Confused and grief-stricken myself, I left the room and headed to the only place I knew that I could get any answers.

↔

I passed by Judith’s room on the way up to Penemue. A pang of guilt and anger shot through me as I walked past the floor where Joseph had once been, knowing that if I opened his door, all I’d find would be an empty cavity. The box weighed heavy in my pocket.

“Jean,” came my mother-in-law’s shrill, authoritative voice, “I was going to ask a favor from you.”

“Sure,” I said resignedly.

“Find that smiling asshole and kick him in the nuts for me.”

“OK,” I said with a weak smile. “Cross my heart.”

I knocked on Astarte’s door. She opened it, still in her teddy from earlier. She looked me up and down before saying, “Believe it or not, I’m not in the mood.”

I didn’t say anything, just gestured for her to follow me, and we went to Penemue’s loft.

↔

“First of all,” I started, my voice dripping with sarcasm, “let me thank you for your help earlier. While I was getting my ass kicked downstairs, it was really comforting knowing that I had two demigods upstairs hiding.”

“How,” Astarte started, “do you know we did nothing?”

“Because while I was getting pounded down there, I didn’t see a winged angel or a succubus in a teddy coming to my rescue. Would it have killed you to use a bit of time to help?”

Astarte rolled her eyes, and I turned to face Penemue, who had his nose buried in some ancient leather-bound tome. “And what do you have to say for yourself?” I asked the angel.

Penemue put the book down on a stack. It had been some time since I had been in his room and it was pretty much exactly as I remembered it. There was an angled roof, the peak running along the center of the room. It was only under the apex that Penemue could stand upright. At one end lay the straw bed we’d made for him. It was literally a bale of hay held in an old, empty sandbox we’d stolen from an abandoned playground. An ad hoc solution, but how would you make a bed for an eight-foot-tall, four-hundred-pound angel? At the far end was the stoop where he flew in—when he wasn’t too drunk to fly—and it had the same stained-glass window I installed four years ago. There was a bucket filled with half-empty bottles of Drambuie, and the rest of the room was filled with books stacked from floor to ceiling. Where he got them all, I didn’t know, nor did I want to. I suspected there were several libraries in Paradise Lot with open windows and missing books.

Penemue took a swig of Drambuie. “If you remember,” he said proudly, “I came down only to have the ex-werewolf throw something at me, presumably for me to whisk away. A task, mind you, I attempted before I was rudely pinned to the ground by burned time.”

“You mean this?” I said, pulling out the box and throwing it to him.

“Yes,” he hiccuped.

“What is it?”

Penemue put down the box and said, “There are other questions that need answering. Questions I am currently researching.”

“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 that 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 having 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 upon 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, pretending 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 for 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 the skepticism out of 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? 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 she’d been wearing 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 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 governing nature, there are only five Laws 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 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, 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 had 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. 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. “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, she left.

“What’s with her?” I said.

“After this night, things will have to change yet again,” Penemue sighed, speaking with a softness he rarely displayed. “Change has come once more. We are ancient beings, used to a static world. 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 lasting 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?”

Penemue 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 laughter, but to me it sounded 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 true of 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 meant 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 isn’t every day 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 the one laid 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 rims 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. “I can get two bars from up there.”

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 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, desperate for anything. Anything at all. I was fairly certain this was the calm before the storm.

EightBall and the rest of the 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 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 be inspired by the explosion and that they were online, looking up how to make 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.

There was nothing downstairs of use. Turned-over chairs, blown-out windows, broken glass. Even my desk was splintered apart. One thing that was intact was the damn bell. It was lying on the floor, not a scratch on it. What the hell was this thing made of, and can I be made of it, too? I wondered.

I looked over at my phone, which, thanks to an enthusiastic pixie officer, was in a plastic evidence bag. It was chipped but still working, as evidenced by the fact that it was currently blinking. I had a message. Somehow I suspected it wasn’t someone calling to reserve the room.

Unwrapping it, I 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.

Oh, 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 her as she headed for the door. The ship was sinking and she was doing the smart thing: getting off. “OK,” I said. “Good luck.”

She paused at the door. “You know the origin of ‘Good luck’?”

I shook my head, not really in the mood for another Other lesson.

Astarte didn’t take the hint. “The original expression was ‘May God give you luck.’ ”

“Really?” I said, continuing my Sisyphean task of shuffling around the rubble.

“Yes, but the problem with that was the god’s luck was often more a curse than a boon. So it evolved into ‘May God give you good luck’ and then to just ‘Good luck.’ That was the last thing they said to us when they left. ‘Good luck.’ I think they were mocking us.” Her eyes took on a distant look as she recalled some ancient memory. “I never liked the expression. It implies that you don’t have control over your fate. That was the lie the gods tried to convince mortals of … that what happens to you is destiny, out of your hands, the will of the gods. But it was always in mortal hands. Always.”

I nodded. I didn’t know what to say.

“Having luck means you have no control. But you always have some control. Even if it is only to run or to fight.” She looked over at me, her deep azure eyes locking with mine.

At that moment, a car pulled up to the front of the hotel and its passenger-side door opened. “Jean,” she started, “I’m sorry. It’s just that—”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” I interrupted.

She looked at me with mournful, sad, vulnerable eyes, and for the first time since meeting her I actually got to see what she looked like. I mean, really looked like, when you took away all the yearning and lust. Deep down, she was just like everyone else. Then the veil was thrown up again as she tossed back her head and laughed, shaking away all the vulnerability and bringing back the want of her with it. “Look at me, so serious … Really, Jean, mortality has made you such a drag. Listen here, lover: if you survive this, you look me up. We’ll have a drink or ten, and laugh about when the world almost ended for a second time.”

“Sounds good to me, Astarte,” I said. “Sounds really good to me.”

“Yes,” she said, getting into the car, “it really does, doesn’t it?”

↔

With the slamming of the car door, Astarte—my only paying customer—was gone. Not that it mattered. However this was to end, it wouldn’t be with the One Spire Hotel staying open for business. I went inside and saw that my desk had been turned right-side up and there was an envelope on it. Inside, a note read, I’m not really the apocalyptic kind of gal. May you make your own good luck. Damn, even her handwriting was sexy. I shook the envelope and a stack of hundreds fell out—easily a room’s rent for a year. Hell, two years, even.

I know that seeing that money should have made me happy. It was enough to pay off the landlord and keep all the other friggin’ bills at bay for a while. But it really pissed me off. It pissed me off that there was a hole in my hotel. It pissed me off that after all I’d been through, I’d have to shut down and break my promise to Bella. And it pissed me off that the caring, sweet, literally one-of-a-kind Joseph was dead.

But what really pissed me off more than anything else—what really boiled my blood, turning my anger into pure, unadulterated rage—was that the bastard responsible for all of it was still smiling.

EVERYTHING LEAVES BEHIND A SCENT

After Bella died, I joined Special Forces for a couple years. Those were the darkest days of my life and I am not proud of anything I did while obeying orders. It took a while for me to wake up, but I did. I woke up in the middle of what would be my last mission, when Headquarters thought I’d been burned to a crisp by dragon fire. They were wrong and that’s when I went AWOL, leaving the killing and fighting behind. But I still had all the gear they had sent with me. And because I was Special Forces, that was some pretty significant stuff—stuff I’d dragged halfway across the world. Stuff that, if they had known I was still alive, they would have hunted me down years ago to get back. Stuff that was going to be useful now. Most of it I had left in PopPop’s cabin, where I lived during the years between leaving the Army and coming back home, but I did bring a few things with me to Paradise Lot.

I still had the chest piece of my battle suit, an Army-issue flashlight, my Swiss Army knife and my hunting sword. The sword wasn’t Army issue; I had got it off of an Other I took down in a particularly bloody battle, and because I was the scourge of the OnceImmortals, the Army let me keep it. It was eighteen inches long and curved downward, the last third of the blade about twice the width of the rest of it. The single edge ended four inches from the tip, where it met another razor-sharp edge, turning the last four inches into a double-edge knife. As it was intended to be a one-handed weapon, the hilt was not quite long enough to accommodate both my hands. The blade was engraved with an intricately decorated mural depicting an ancient hunt. I asked Penemue one night about the image, and he—drunk and facedown in his bale of hay—looked up long enough to say, “Young Human Jean, this is the Earl King’s hunting sword. The one he carries with him on the Great Hunt. To possess it can mean only one thing: you are the one to have brought down the great King. Not bad for a social worker. He was a legend and an epic asshole. With the gods gone, he would have been hell-bent on taking over this world. Still, he did have his loyal minions …” Then he put his finger over his lips and pretended to zip them up.

I thought about that as I tied the scabbard around my waist and sheathed the sword. Then, placing my backpack on the driest section of pipe I could find, I took a deep breath and clambered out of the sewers.

↔

Tracking magic is easy. Hell, you could download novelty apps to your phone that work pretty well. All you have to do is find time.

Seems that magic not only speeds up one’s biological clock, aging the user proportionally to the amount and strength of the magic, but it also screws with your watch. The faster the second hand spins, the closer you are to magic. Simple.

Since my cell phone was one of those flippy kinds from the previous century and completely un-app-able, I went to my toy shelf and pulled out my Mickey Mouse wristwatch. It would do just fine.

I left my room and checked the second hand. It was going slightly faster. I walked into Joseph’s blown-out room. The site was still as it had been—pipes flattened and the far wall missing. The only difference was that Joseph’s body had been taken to the morgue. I shook my head as renewed anger welled up inside me. Looking at the watch again, I saw it spin around at nearly double speed.

Good. This would be easier than I’d thought.

↔

One last thing to do before I could begin the hunt. I knocked on Judith’s door. Light seeped out from the crack at the bottom and although she had no feet, the base darkened. She didn’t open the door.

“Judith,” I said, “I’m going out and I don’t want you here alone, just in case that guy comes back. I think you should go home.” There was a rustling, and I heard a click from inside. The light went off. “I know you hate it there. I do, too. Too many things to remind you of Bella, but it’s not safe here.”

Even with the closed door between us, I could still feel the awkward silence.

“Look, I just want you to be safe. Astarte is gone. Penemue is drunk and … Listen, I know you hate me. I know you think this is all my fault. That I’ve screwed up again. That’s fine, but I promised Bella I’d take care of you and …”

The door clicked open and Judith floated in front of me. She was wearing her Sunday hat and carrying a packed bag. She glided by me with hardly a look, but when she got to the top of the stairs, she stopped. “You’re going after him, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “Not directly, but I figure I can find out where he’s staying or something about him. A weakness, maybe. Anything that will help me take him down.”

“OK,” she said. She started to move again and stopped. I could see she was having a raging debate with herself, and the side she wasn’t rooting for had just lost. She shook her head and, with a sigh, looked at me. “I don’t blame you. For Bella. I know you did everything you could to save her.”

It was an old pain. A scene I’ve replayed over and over in my head. The attack, the confusion. Bella lying there, me locked out, too late to get to her. As kind and unexpected as Judith’s words were, it didn’t matter. I blamed myself. “I wasn’t fast enough.”

Judith rolled her eyes. “Always looking to argue with me.” Her voice lacked its usual ire. “No one would have been fast enough. I saw the footage—I know what you tried to do. And if I don’t see you again, then I just want you to know that I don’t blame you.”

“Thank you,” I said. Things were evolving between us. This might even have been a new chapter for us. Too bad it was likely to be a very, very short chapter for me.

“Now, what happened at this hotel and to Joseph,” she said, the shrill quality of her voice returning, “I absolutely blame you for what happened here. Really, Jean. There’s only one way to make this right. Kick that smiling bastard right in the teeth.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “That’s exactly what I plan to do.”

↔

Armed with my Mickey Mouse watch, I tapped on Castle Grayskull’s front door. “Tink, it’s time to go.”

She came out in a flash and shook her head in protest.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I’m not taking you with me.”

She gave me a concerned look and cocked her hand like a pistol, mimicking a shootout.

“No, no—nothing like that. I’m not going guns blazing. This is a recon mission, and that’s all. No engagement.” I didn’t know what it was about talking to Tink, but my old military vocabulary always snuck out whenever I wanted to get her to do anything she wasn’t interested in.

She gave me a skeptical look, to which I crossed my heart and said, “Swear to the GoneGods.”

She nodded and buzzed around, seemingly convinced. That was the thing about Others: they took swears, oaths and promises very seriously. I guess in some ways we were pretty similar.

“But still,” I said, “I don’t want to just leave you behind, in case he—or anyone else, for that matter—comes back. We need to hide you.”

Tink fluttered around, a golden tail of dust following her. She buzzed around my head three times and, like a comet, shot into Castle Grayskull. She popped out a couple seconds later wearing Man-At-Arms’s helmet and carrying He-Man’s sword. She saluted me, buzzed around three more times and grabbed an old velvet pouch I used to hold my dice. She handed it to me, gesturing for me to put it around my neck.

“No, Tink. It could be dangerous. We’ve got to hide you in the spot we talked about. The drainpipe of the church, and you climb to the top. When I’m back, I’ll hit the pipe twice and you come down. Remember?”

She nodded, then tried to push through my fingers again.

“It’s too dangerous.”

She fluttered into my face and wagged a finger at me. I’d seen that look before; Tink was coming, and that was that. Truth was, I was glad to have some company, and swore to myself that I’d hide her before engaging anyone.

“OK.” I softened. “OK, but first sign of trouble, we hide the pouch and you with it. Agreed?”

She nodded once and dove into the pouch. I put it around my neck right next to my silver necklace with the plastic twist tie, and with a whoop the pouch went flat. I didn’t know how she did it. Burned time, I suspected. When I asked, she insisted that she didn’t, miming that there was a hole in my chest where my heart should be. Thanks, Tink—way to make me feel good about myself.

With Tink in tow, I dressed, opting to leave behind my collarless black jacket and instead wear my old leather jacket and jeans. I started putting on my old Army-issue, steel-tip boots and then thought better of it. Where I was going, I’d need my knee-high rubber boots.

I grabbed my old Army-issue canvas bag, prayed I wouldn’t have to open it and headed out the door.

↔

I didn’t want to risk being seen, so I decided to use the one advantage I had in getting around this city: my own personal tour guide in the sewers below. I headed to the basement and lifted the drainage grille in the center of the floor. Being in frequent use, it lifted easily enough and I climbed down.

I made a lot of noise when entering CaCa’s domain. The last time I came in here I had scared the lumbering, gentle beast half to death, and with a knee-jerk reaction he employed one of his natural defences, though there was very little natural about it. Think of a skunk’s spray, then imagine it hanging in the air like a squid’s black ink cloud. Now replace both spray and ink with what CaCa was famous for. It crusted within seconds, simultaneously blinding, nauseating and encumbering me. There were not enough baths in the world to get that stuff off, and I never, ever wanted to go through that again.

“Hi,” I cried out in an exaggeratedly friendly tone. “It’s me—Jean,” I added, just in case. “From upstairs.”

There was a clamoring as I looked down the man-sized sewage drain. I couldn’t see anything, and as for smell—well, there was only one thing I could smell. I turned on my flashlight and saw a river of human and Other waste that was thankfully only ankle-high.

I held my breath and spoke loudly again. “Hey CaCa, are you down here?” He might be out, painting another one of his masterpieces from his vantage point below. But then my flashlight caught a stirring, and I focused on where the movement came from. Perfectly blended with the sludgy browns and grays of the pipe behind him, two eyes opened, a piece of something yuk falling into the muck below. A grunt was followed by a hand that removed itself from the background as CaCa breached forth from where he had, quite literally, stuck himself. It looked like someone emerging from mud, if not for the smell.

CaCa separated himself from the wall and raised a hand in a sort of wave. From the way he did it, I knew he was mimicking something he’d seen humans do. The wave was as unnatural to him as my presence here was to me. Still, not wanting to discourage him, I waved back. He smiled and, as his lips parted, little bits of solid waste fell from them.

Hellelujah. We can only be what we are, I thought, and wondered if I was as repulsive to him as he was to me. I didn’t think so, because even though he literally wore a shit-eating grin, I sensed he was genuinely happy to see me. He gestured for me to follow as he lumbered away from the cellar-grate entrance.

↔

CaCa led me to a drier—and considerably less fragrant—open chamber adjacent to the pipe I had entered by. It was large, about three times the size of the breakfast room I had used for the “Coping with Mortality” seminar. In it were two dozen erect easels, each holding a canvas. I walked around the room and saw Paradise Lot—not for what it was, but for what it could be. Pictures of humans and Others walking hand in hand, children playing in clean streets, vibrant businesses catering to all species. Each was rendered at a level that would have made Norman Rockwell turn green with envy, for CaCa captured hope in ways that I doubted any mortal-born could. These paintings were the end of one possible path we could all take. And even though I really wanted to share in CaCa’s view of a brighter tomorrow, I knew all too well that there were darker, more likely futures for Paradise Lot.

“I love them,” I said to a smiling, proud CaCa. He raised his hands like an old man dismissing a compliment, as if he were saying, These old things? A hobby, nothing more.

Such humility. CaCa was the best among us, and his reward was to be tucked away, forever below, all because of the way he looked—well, and smelled. And yet he was still so hopeful, though not for himself; I noticed that no painting depicted him walking in the sunlight above. That hope was solely for his fellow Others and humans.

CaCa disappeared behind his latest painting. I started to go around, but he gestured for me to stay on the other side of the aisle. I guessed that whatever he was working on was not quite ready.

“CaCa,” I said, “I need your help.”

He looked around from his painting with an inhumanly wide smile on his face in an imitation of Grinner.

“Yes. I’m looking for him. He killed the Unicorn.”

CaCa’s smile immediately disappeared.

“I also need to find the man who fought that grinning Other. Can you help me?”

He shrugged.

“That’s OK,” I said. “I have this.”

I showed him my watch, the second hand running slightly faster than normal. CaCa understood.

“I don’t want to wander the streets above, in case Grinner is out there. And besides, he’s not who I’m looking for. I want to talk to that other guy—the one who saved me. I figure that if he burned time, he’ll be relatively easy to find.” I pointed at my Mickey Mouse watch. “Can you take me around?”

Without hesitation, CaCa stepped out from behind his canvas, smoothing his rumpled chest with his hands. With an unnatural speed, he drew a crescent on his chest that reminded me of a knight’s banner. It was of a unicorn and human standing on a crown. Apparently this was his way of saying that he was in.

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL OF SHIT

Using the sewers was a fast way to travel around Paradise Lot. We walked under the city, the second hand of my Mickey Mouse watch revving up bit by bit as we progressed through the tunnels. And then we found it, in the heart of the city; Mickey went crazy, his tiny arm spinning round and around with such fury I thought he’d fall apart. From the sidewalk’s drainage grate across the street, I could see the building where one of the most powerful Others the world has ever known was holding out.

There was only one thing to do: watch and wait.

We were just on the outskirts of Paradise Lot and, although technically a human part of town, this area was still close enough to the center that most of the humans had moved out. And it showed. The adjacent houses were falling apart, several of them boarded up or with broken windows. It was an old story. Once upon a time, families lived in this neighborhood, their kids playing together as the community thrived. Then the wrong type of neighbors started showing up. Real estate prices dropped and crime rates rose until it was “Bye-bye, families” … Only difference was, now humans discriminated against Others—as in, with a capital o—instead of just others.

All the buildings on the street showed neglect—all except one. It was an old brick building, three stories high, with two blooming rose bushes and an old sycamore tree in the front yard.

I watched for hours, boredom taking its toll. At one point, my chest started to stir as Tink poked her head out of her hiding place. “Don’t,” I whispered. “We’re not alone.”

But the fairy pushed out nonetheless, looking down the pipe to where CaCa stood, enthralled as he drew his latest masterpiece. How he had found the right materials and colors in the patch of sewer where we were standing, I didn’t know, nor did I want to. But you know what? It didn’t matter when I looked over at the mural CaCa had drawn using the raw materials common to sewers. Despite his tools, what he drew was beautiful. There was a park with children running, flying kites, playing ball. Their parents were there, picnickers laughing, drinking, being merry, each with CaCa’s signature joy on their face. But they weren’t just human picnickers—there were Others, too. Standing next to each other, happy, each tolerant of the other’s ways. A perfect scene of serenity.

And then I saw him, on a hill watching over the serene scene: Joseph. Except not my Joseph, who reminded me of my PopPop, or Penemue’s, who looked like light—but a roly-poly man with a Buddha belly, smiling down on all of us.

“Holy shit,” I said, turning to CaCa. “This is amazing.”

The demigod put a hand over his chest with a shrug that said, What? This old thing?

“Yeah, this! So is that what he looks like to you? Joseph, I mean,” I said, pointing to the happy man on the hill.

CaCa shook his head, making a hugging motion.

“Oh,” I said with sudden comprehension, “that is how he looks to most people.”

CaCa nodded.

So that was it—he didn’t depict Joseph as his own personal comfort, but searched for a figure that gave comfort to the greatest number of beings, Other and human alike. And seeing that happy man on the hill, well, it worked for me. I could buy into this symbol of Joseph.

I don’t know if it was seeing the picture of a future denied us by the Unicorn’s death or if it was simple boredom, but I just couldn’t sit around and wait any longer. I walked over to a more remote part of the pipe and removed the old dice pouch around my neck, placing it on a bit of brick that jutted out. Tink poked out her head and started to gesture that she was coming with me, when I whispered, “You promised.”

I turned to CaCa. “Thank you, I can take it from here.” Then, as an afterthought, I added, “CaCa, if you don’t see me back at the One Spire Hotel by tomorrow, I want you to come back here and take this pouch to Miral. Make sure she, and no one else, gets it.”

He looked at the brick ledge and nodded. Then he began lumbering back down the pipe.

“Thank you,” I whispered, and looked up at the manhole that separated me from the world above.

↔

The grate slid open easier than I had expected and I popped into the alleyway behind the little house without making a sound. Luckily for me, the grate was in between a parked van and an old SUV. Unless someone was standing right there, no one would have seen me getting out of the sewers.

The back door was about twenty feet away, and I used the sycamore tree as cover as I slunk up the stoop. Whether or not he lived there, someone did.

OK—remember the plan. Get in, see who’s here, gather intelligence. Do not engage.

I looked up and down the street. Empty. OK, it was now or never. In the Army, one of the skills I particularly excelled at was sneaking around. Not to beat my own drum, but I was uncannily light on my feet. Bella joked that it was because I was part cat. After the Army, when I retreated to the mountainside, I used to practice this skill by taking down game with only my hunting sword, which meant I had to be less than ten feet away before the animal saw me. How good was I? Let’s put it this way: I never went vegetarian in those mountains.

I employed my best skills, taking great care to get to that back door. Just as my hand touched its handle, it opened. What was worse, my phone started to ring at that exact moment, professing to the world that I had forgotten to put it on silent.

“Aren’t you going to answer that, Jean-Luc Matthias?” the Ghost asked.

↔

I picked up the phone, and a frantic Penemue said, “I figured out what the box is. Where are you?”

I shot a quick glance up at the street sign, before returning my gaze to the Ghost. “Bread Street,” I said. “I’m with him.”

“Who?”

“You know … the Ghost.” Then, still looking at him, I asked, “You are the Ghost, right?”

He smiled, waving a hand. “Please, of all the names I once had, the Ghost is the least inviting. Call me Hermes.” And with that he opened the door wide, gesturing for me to enter.

“I gotta go,” I said, hanging up before the angel could protest.

“You seem upset to see me,” Hermes said, his smile touching the corners of his aged eyes. The person—or rather, Ghost—who stood before me was an elderly man, well into his sixties, not the young man who had saved me last night. But there was no mistaking him; he wore the same white shirt, black pants and buzz cut, which was now more gray than black. The elderly man shuffled into the room, taking strides that his body simply was no longer designed to take. He wasn’t used to being old and still moved as he had in his youth. “Did I ruin your surprise?”

“I really put a lot of thought into coming here. You could have at least had the decency to pretend you were surprised to see me,” I said.

He chuckled. “I do not believe that traveling through the sewers was for me.”

“True,” I said, nodding.

“That was wise. Thus the only wasted theatrics were in approaching my home like a thief in the night, instead of the welcome guest that you are.”

He led me to his living room, a sparsely decorated space with two couches, a throw rug on wood-paneled flooring and an open liquor cabinet. Unframed photographs were taped to the walls—him fishing up north, him in a military uniform, him with some girl. All of them showed a young man who, as far as I knew, could have been photographed yesterday. Gardening gloves and a small hand rake sat on a coffee table, dirt still clinging to them. It was your typical bachelor pad: sparsely furnished, a half-hearted attempt at decoration, except for the candelabrum sitting in the corner. There must have been fifty candles of various sizes and shapes, all lit.

He examined the candles, relighting one that had extinguished, and went over to the liquor cabinet, pulling out two glasses and a bottle of wine. “Drink?”

“No thanks,” I said. “How did you know it was me and not … you know, Gravity’s rejected son?”

He gestured at the candelabrum. “I have my own ways of hiding from him. Now, an enterprising human … Well, that is much harder to hide from.” Hermes looked at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. “So you’ve figured out that you are up against a First Law,” he said. He poured himself a glass and lifted it toward me before taking a sip. “The Fallen One told you?” It was more a statement than a question.

“We’re all the fallen now,” I said.

He took a seat a little too quickly. The youthful thump rather than the careful lowering that an old man would do caused him to groan. He took another sip and said, “Touché. We are, indeed. Fallen and blessed. Are you sure that you do not want a drink?”

I shook my head.

“Too bad. When you reach my age, you learn to slow down and enjoy the finer things in life,” he said, not masking his bitterness. “I do pray that Joseph was right about you and that my sacrifice was not in vain.”

What do you say to someone who literally aged fifty years in an hour just to save your ass? Thank him? Skirt the issue? Offer to help him with the gardening? All I could do was lower my head and apologize. I looked at my hands and saw more blood on them.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he said.

“Have we met before?” I said, looking back up at him. I tried to imagine him without the liver spots or wrinkles. I tried to see him as he once was and remembered nothing.

“I don’t expect you would. I was … in the background. But we have met. More than once. We never spoke though, even on that long, turbulent plane ride to Helsinki.”

Helsinki? I had been there only once, as a guard for the Ambassador and Bella on one of their failed diplomatic missions. I had never liked flying, and when the plane was tossed around like a leaf in a hurricane, I threw up—several times. I was convinced that some demigod once worshipped for weather was trying to kill us all. I was supposed to be the soldier, the one calm in the face of death, and yet I was falling apart. Like I said earlier: I want to see death coming, and falling out the sky in a metal cage didn’t cut it.

And all the while, Bella and the Ambassador had laughed at me, both cool as cucumbers. “What’s the matter, Jean?” the Ambassador said. “Scared of a little wind?”

“Easy for you to say,” I said. “You have wings.”

“Ahh, yes—that is true. And moreover, should we fall from the sky, I am strong enough to save at least one of you. But only one. Tell me, Jean, who should I save? You, Bella or someone else?” He gestured to the half dozen or so fellow passengers.

“The one who has the most worth,” I said without hesitation.

The Ambassador chuckled. “That is a soldier’s answer. But we are diplomats now. Answer me as that. Who do I save?”

“I don’t know,” I said between dry heaves.

The Ambassador opened the question to the floor. “Come on—someone must know the answer. Who do I save?”

A couple of people jokingly said, “Me, please.”

Another said, “If you save him, he’ll barf on your shoes in thanks.” Another laugh.

Then, from the back of the plane a voice said, “No one. Not even yourself.”

“Indeed,” the Ambassador said, snapping his blunted fingers. “To save one over another is to value one life over another. And in this brave new world, no one life, no matter their species, role or purpose, should be considered more valuable than any other. That includes my own.”

“So do nothing?” I snorted with derision.

“I never said that. But as a leader, it is incumbent on me to save everyone or die trying.”

Lost in the memory, I refocused on Hermes. “It was you on the plane. The one who answered the Ambassador’s question.”

He nodded. “He was a great Other.”

“Was he?” I asked.

He met my uncertainty with his own certainty and nodded. “He was. And so was your wife. Not a great Other, but a great creature—a great human being.” He poured himself a second glass. “You do not have to drink, but you do have to join me in a toast. To Bella.” He handed me the glass.

I could drink to her. We clinked. “You knew her?”

“Worked with her. She was such a special human,” he said, taking another sip. I could have sworn when he started drinking it, the glass was filled with white wine, but now it was a crimson red.

“And you’re in town to meet Joseph?” I asked.

Hermes nodded.

“And the cynocephaly? Were they here for Joseph as well?”

“Guards who knew both the Ambassador and Bella,” Hermes said. “They were to meet us in town and resume their role as guardians while we continued their work.”

“And what was their work, exactly?”

“All in good time,” Hermes said.

“All in good time? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I have yet to assess your character and deem you worthy of knowing.”

I felt the rage within me rising. “My character,” I said. “My character? You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re the guy who comes into my town, destroys my hotel, and I’m the one being judged?” Hermes met my gaze with an even demeanor, which only served to anger me more. “So Penemue guessed right. You are the messenger.”

“The messenger,” Hermes said absently. “Yes, I suppose you could call me that.”

“You’re the guy responsible for that doozy of a message … What was it? ‘Thank you for believing in us, but it is not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck.’ You could have given us a little more, don’t you think?”

Again he nodded, casual and relaxed, as if I was asking him if he was the one who cooked dinner or brought the dessert.

“Of all the arrogant Others I’ve met … Our world changed in an instant, thousands died, and all you could give us were those three short sentences.”

“What did you expect me to say?”

“An explanation. A reason. Some guidance.”

“Really,” he said, pointing at me. “And tell me, had I spoken page after page of instructions, would you have listened?”

“Maybe not me, but others might have.”

“Really? And what would have happened when one group interpreted my words one way and another group understood them another way?” he said, bitterness rising in his voice. “I’ll tell you: exactly what happened every time they gave me the task of sending you mortals a message. More misinterpretation. More war. More death. No matter what I said, no matter how I consoled you, tried to guide you, you humans have an incredible ability to hear exactly what you want to hear and then kill anyone who understands differently. Well, no more. If this was to be the last message I was to give the mortal realm, then let it be clear for once.”

“And was it?”

Hermes shook with rage. “I don’t know,” he yelled, “you tell me. In all the fighting, all the killing, did any of it have to do with how the message was received? Or was it just human nature’s unwillingness to share? You know, Joseph told me all about you … about your desire to redeem yourself, your promise to Bella … He told me about how you want to fix some of the things you broke. Clean some of the blood off your hands.” Hermes drew in close, his face less than an inch from mine. “But you are not the only one with blood on your hands. Try eons fighting over misinterpreted messages, centuries of killing for words misheard, and then you will truly understand what it means to have blood on your hands.”

Hermes stood up and poured himself a second drink. Taking a large gulp, he turned to me and said in a calm voice, “But we’re really not here to talk about me. This meeting is about you and the girl whom you promised to love forever. In this life and the next.”

↔

“How do you know those words?” I demanded. “That’s what I said to her the night I proposed.”

Hermes ignored me. “When the gods left and kicked out their denizens from their realms, it was like …”—he searched for the simile—“like kicking out your family, turning off the lights and locking up the mansion.”

“So?”

“Look, when the gods created humans and Others, they gave both of us immortality. For humans it was the afterlife. For Others it was endless life. And when they left, they took that immortality away from everyone. And that was OK, at least by Bella’s estimation. At least it was equal to all. But what wasn’t fair was forcing us all to live together. For so much change … But if the Void could be reopened, for both humans and Others, then we’d have more space. And what’s more, it wouldn’t be about Others coming to Earth, it would also be about humans going to the Void. Equal—even.

“So, Bella was seeking a way to reopen the Void. She figured if we get into that space and start again—this time without the gods to control us—well then, we’d be masters of our own destinies. And with that, things would get better.”

I was stunned. I had always known she was working on a secret mission, but I had assumed it was diplomatic in nature. I figured it was something like trying to find a territory where the Others could make their own nation—I just never assumed that that nation would be on another plane of existence.

“Did she?” I asked, the words stumbling out of my lips. “Did she find a way back?”

“I was hoping you knew the answer to that.”

I shook my head. “All I know is that my wife is dead because a bunch of Others tried to play God.”

Hermes looked down, hope draining from him. “You are right, Human Jean. We did try to play God. I am sorry for your loss.”

“Oh, you’re sorry for my loss. OK, then. All is forgiven. Are you friggin’ crazy?” I screamed. “You’ve got to give me more than that. What happened? Tell me something! Anything!”

His eyes softened. “Yes. She failed and that failure came at the cost of her life. Still, she found something. A clue as to where the Void is and how to get there. That’s why Joseph contacted me, but before we could meet, the Avatar of Gravity showed up.” His voice was distant. “That’s why I saved you. Because I hoped you knew something. But you don’t, and I lost all that time believing in something that doesn’t matter anymore. The mission is over. Failed. Done. Their once-upon-a-time divine purpose is lost. It simply doesn’t matter anymore. We tried to right the world, fix what was broken, and we lost.”

“What about the Avatar? He clearly thinks there’s hope.”

Hermes shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I believe he followed the Unicorn in town for the same reason I saved you: in the hope that the Void had been found. Once he learns that such hope is false, he too will disappear.”

“Not good enough,” I said. “He killed Joseph. He hurt a lot of people. We can’t just let this go.”

Hermes laughed. “Why not? For justice? What justice is left in this world? Peace is all we can hope for. Leave him be and he will leave you be. Nothing matters anymore. Now go. Leave me to live what little time I have left to tend my garden.”

I looked over at this supercharged Ghost, and in him I saw utter defeat. I’d seen it before, in the eyes of soldiers who, either from fear or exhaustion, believed there was a bullet out there just for them. And like a self-fulfilling prophecy, those guys never lasted long. Then I thought of Bella and the mission she had been on. How damn important it was. How much she believed in Others and this Ambassador. How determined she was to help. I couldn’t let this all fade away. If not for me, then for Bella.

Our eyes connected. Even though I was looking at a face that was more than sixty years old, his eyes were still those of a young man. They had yet to soften from years of experience and understanding, still holding the hardness and determination of youth. There I saw the glint of empathy. He knew Bella. He knew me. And he knew how much we loved each other. How I would end my life without a millisecond of hesitation if it meant she could breathe for another hour. That’s what we meant to each other, and everyone who knew us knew that.

I stood to take my leave as the pain still burned inside me. I thought about telling him about my dreams. About Bella. And how Grinner knew about them. That might mean something. Then again, it might not. I looked over at the old, defeated Ghost and knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Like I said before, I’d seen that look. He was done—no point in adding to his anguish. Still, before leaving I wanted to let him know that although his fight was over, mine was not.

“It does matter,” I said, offering him my hand. “It matters to me.”

He didn’t take my hand. Like I said: defeated. Fine, I’d leave him to his relative peace.

I headed for the door, when the chandelier lights flickered. Shock painted his face and in haste he ran over to his candles. They were all still lit and yet, somehow, Grinner had found us.

The old man’s eyes darted around the room before he took a deep breath and, resigned that escape was not an option, said, “It will not matter to you for much longer.”

BETRAYAL CAN BE SWEET

The lights flickered as Hermes stood too fast for his old, brittle bones to handle. “Damn,” he winced as he lit more candles. “I don’t understand. I just don’t understand. The candles, they are not working.”

“Just tell him what you told me,” I said, drawing my sword. “That it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Hermes ignored me, still looking at his candles.

There were two points of entry into this room. Others were into “grand entrances” and, given the kind of personality Grinner had, I was pretty sure he’d come through the front door. I stood next to it, readying my sword. If I could time it just right, I might be able to impale him before he even got in.

That plan went out the window when the building started to shake. He wasn’t coming in the front door, or any door for that matter. He was simply going to use Hermes’s house to crush us.

Struggling to keep my balance, I yelled over to the demigod, “Do something!”

He returned my gaze with bitter, frustrated eyes. “I have already wasted enough time on you.”

The baseboards were beginning to crack. I looked out the window and saw Grinner standing in the middle of the street, looking as youthful as he did the day I first met him in the parking lot of St. Mercy Hospital. Holy crap, this Other had hardly aged at all, with only light wrinkles and a few strands of white hair to show for his epic battle with Hermes.

Grinner lifted his hands up in the air, and I was no longer looking directly at him from the first-floor window … I was looking down at him from the first-floor window. He was levitating the whole house. Grinner wrenched his hands apart, and the floor on which I stood crumbled away. I grabbed on to the window ledge, my feet dangling beneath me as I hung from the floating home.

Hermes had been smarter or slower than me, because he didn’t grab on to anything when the building lifted. He just sat on his wood-panel floor, which did not budge, clutching on to those damn candles, which were no longer lit. Meanwhile, my flooring did move. A lot.

As the building hovered about fifteen feet above the ground, I prepared to let go. My plan: fall into a roll and use that momentum to charge Grinner with sword in hand. If I timed it right, I’d be able to cut off his head before he did anything else.

That was the plan, at least. But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Grinner pushed down with the palm of his hand just when I was about to make my move, dropping the house flat and cracking open the ground—and Hermes and I were together swallowed by the Earth.

↔

We tumbled into the sinkhole Grinner had created, and I gracefully hit my head on every loose piece of furniture, debris and floor as I fell, conveniently missing carpets and pillows on the way. Hey, at least I was being consistent. Above me, the low-hanging chandelier was compressed against the ceiling. Grinner had flattened the building on top of us. I tried to imagine what it looked like from the outside—a building perfectly flat, the rubble on the smooth, level surface a comical jigsaw puzzle of brick and mortar, roof tiling and chimney. To the unsuspecting pedestrian, it would have looked intentional.

Hermes sat in the corner, still kneeling by the candles, gathering them around him like some goblin hoarding gold, even though he knew there was no escape. If only to hold on to them one more minute. He quickly put the unlit candles in pockets, leaving behind the few that had somehow managed to keep their flame. He held the candles in his hands, under his armpits, one in his mouth.

“Come on,” I yelled, the words sending a jolt of pain through my head. I was looking around the collapsed room for an escape.

Hermes looked up at me, managing a smile despite the candle he bit into, and said, in a muffled voice, “Uh, coming …” But it was too late.

As the words left his mouth, a section of the ceiling crumbled and Grinner slowly lowered himself inside, sealing the hole he had made behind him.

↔

“How did you find us?” Hermes asked, still clutching his candles.

I was less concerned with how he found us and more concerned with escape. I stood to face Grinner, my head still spinning, when the room went heavy—as in, the opposite of being-on-the-moon heavy—and I dropped to my knees.

Grinner hissed, “How else? The fallen angel betrayed you.”

Penemue. That’s why he was so insistent on knowing where I was.

Grinner turned to Hermes and, in an exaggerated show, blew out one of the candles that remained lit. Once he’d done that, his smile widened, pushing his eyes out to the sides of his head and making him look like a crazed deer. “You almost made it. Almost escaped. But how can a OnceMortal defeat one such as I? Still, to be so close must make you bitter.” Then, turning to me, he said, “What is the mortal expression? ‘Close only counts in …’ ” Grinner snapped his fingers, gesturing for Hermes to complete his thought.

“Horseshoes and hand grenades,” I muttered.

“That is correct. Horseshoes and hand grenades. You cannot blame me for not remembering. Despite all these years of being mortal, there are so many of your mundane objects I have yet to learn about.” As he said the word mortal, he brushed the arms of his black overcoat as one might try to clean dirt off one’s self, and now he was holding the box—he must have taken it from Penemue. Grinner looked over at me. “But that is all about to change.”

“How?” Hermes asked. “The Ambassador and Bella—they failed.”

The Avatar of Gravity’s smile widened further. “You are half-right. The Ambassador did fail, but the human known as Bella … she did not,” he said, tossing me Joseph’s box.

I grunted as I caught it; it felt as heavy as a bowling ball. “What do you want from me?” I asked, my head hurting way too much to think of anything obnoxious to say.

Grinner chuckled. “A kiss, and nothing more.”

PART III

PROLOGUE

There is this girl whom I love very much. I’ve only been back with her for less than a year when the Devil walks through our front door and offers Bella a job. These days, the Devil calls himself the Ambassador, because he has dedicated his life in this new GoneGod World to brokering peace between humans and Others. He’s still too large, too red, too self-assured and too sulfurous-smelling for me—a stinking rose by another name.

Paradise Lot is doing well, the Ambassador says, but there are still many pockets of the world where the species fight. Even here, there are frequent attacks by Fanatics and by roving gangs of Other-haters. There is still much good to be done.

The Ambassador’s plan is to travel the world and broker peace deals, acting as a conduit between the species. But he needs a human counterpart. “Bella, I need a human who loves Others and whom Others love back,” he says, taking her hand in his massive red paws. “And yes, before you say anything, He was right. It is about love. Will you help?”

Before she can answer, I scream out, “You’re the Devil!”

“Only by reputation,” he says, smiling. “I assure you that when the gods left, I abandoned my wicked ways. After all, the Devil can only exist when there is a god to oppose.”

That night, Bella and I fight over her decision to accept the Ambassador’s offer. It starts the way all our fights do: electrified silence revved so high that the slightest movement will ignite the room.

“It is a chance,” she says. The spark.

“He’s the Devil,” I retort.

“Was the Devil. Was! People change. Others change. You did!” she yells.

Now I know she’s wrong. I haven’t changed. I’ve just chosen her over my nature. I am better because she wants me to be better. But make no mistake: no Bella, and I’m back in the Army, pointing my rifle at any Other who looks at me funny. I don’t say that to her. I don’t say that because I don’t want to tarnish myself in her eyes.

Instead, I say, “First of all, I’m human. Second, I haven’t spent the last several thousand years hell-bent on corrupting the human soul. And third, I’m not the friggin’ Devil! He doesn’t want to help, he wants to control, dominate. Rule. You must see that.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Her arms are akimbo, a stance I’ve seen many times.

She will spend the rest of the argument like that—a statue that no clever retort, no witty reply, no concrete argument will move. As soon as I see her in that position, I know I’ve lost. But I don’t care. I’m angry. I may not win this fight, but come hell or high water, I’m going to get my licks in before it’s over.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“Because I do. I have a feeling.”

“A feeling? A feeling! Are you honestly telling me that you’ll take it on faith that the Devil has changed?”

“Yes! I am. And do you know why? Because I have to! If we don’t believe that we can change, that the Devil can change, then we’re doomed. And I’d rather live in a world where I believe the Devil is good and be wrong, than not give him a chance and be right.”

Bella is resolute. An insurmountable force that cannot be overcome by guns, bombs, philosophy or debate. I know when I’ve lost, and I give in.

“OK,” I say, defeated. “But I’m going to be by your side. Always.”

What else can I do?

↔

The Ambassador takes Bella on mission after diplomatic mission. We hardly see each other and I am tired of baking cookies. I protest, and as a reward for my complaints, I get a job—I am now Bella’s official bodyguard. I spend my days either training or on guard duty, bored out of my skull. Still … I am with Bella.

Helsinki, Tokyo, Geneva, Rio—sometimes I think we spend more time on planes than on the ground.

I do my best to be a good husband. An understanding husband. But I want my wife back, and the few evenings we have together are spent fighting over the little things that don’t really matter. By the GoneGods, I am so stupid. We should be spending this time making love, holding each other, cooking, cleaning or the thousand other mundane things that couples do just to be near each other.

She doesn’t talk about her work, partly because it is top secret, and partly because she knows I am jealous. Jealous of how important she is, and how useless I am. I am so stupid.

One day she comes home so excited that she can barely string her thoughts together. “There is a way,” she tells me, “to make everything right again. We found it.” She’s buzzing with excitement.

“Found what?” I ask.

My words bring her to reality and she focuses on me for the first time since coming home to the underground Army barracks that is our latest base of operations. “It,” she says, drawing me close. I can feel her breath on my cheek as she whispers that word, “It.” Teeth tease my earlobe. Soft lips kiss my cheek. “It,” she repeats in my ear as she undresses me. “It.” She takes me on the cold, concrete floor between the gray, galvanized bunk beds.

It.

↔

My memories fast-forward.

Lights flash as the alarm relentlessly rings throughout the facility. My first thought is of Bella. Make sure she’s safe.

The wall’s warning lights blink crimson red from the light shield rotating within the heavy-duty, military-grade casing. An engineer announces that the reactor is overheating.

“Damn Eastern European technology,” complains another engineer. “I told them the reactor was too small to handle the power that dam produces.”

The first one yells that the coolant system is down and he is unable to get it back online. The other curses and tells the first to warn the others to get above and to run. Then he asks me to help twist the giant metal wheel in order to cut off as much hydro power as possible. That, he says, should slow the whole thing down and give us a chance to escape.

“Escape?” I ask. “Why would we need to do that?”

“Because,” he says with an expression far too calm for the sirens and chaos he’s speaking over, “the whole thing is going to blow. Now, twist!”

That’s all I need to hear. My hands latch on to the comically large metal wheel. I use every ounce of strength I have in me to get the wheel to turn. I need it to turn. I need the valve to close. I need more time. Time to save Bella. I breathe a sigh of relief when it finally moves. Inch by inch it turns, and when we manage to twist it twice around, the engineer says, “That should do it.”

He heads upstairs, and I yell after him, “Where are you going?”

“Out of here,” he says. “And so should you.”

But instead of listening—instead of running up—I run down.

Down toward Bella.

↔

She is at the bottom level. Why did they need to hold their meeting so deep? I curse as I descend stairwell after endless stairwell.

Down, down, down—I run until I get to the bunker. I look through the reinforced metal door, through the portal window a bit too small for a cat to pass. I see Bella, the Ambassador and several Others running about, gathering materials.

The door is locked. I pound on it. “Bella!” I scream. “Bella!”

In the chaos, she looks up at me, our eyes locking, slowing down the world. That’s what happens every time we look at each other. Everything slows down. Sounds are muted, backgrounds are blurred—all I can see is her. And despite the panic, that is what happens now.

She gives me her best It’s going to be OK smile.

But that’s my role. I’m here to save her. I gesture for her to open the door. To let me in. But she doesn’t move. She just stands there, looking at me with that damn smile of hers.

“Hurry!” I scream.

She blows me a kiss as two cloaked Others I’ve never seen before grab her and throw her to the ground. She does not resist. One of them pulls out a long, curved blade from dark, heavy robes. What are they? Monks? Priests? Satanist bastards? I don’t care. I cry out, pounding on the door. I pull out my pistol and shoot at the window, but its reinforced glass does not shatter. I push at the door, praying, begging, pleading to every GoneGod to come back and let me in.

Save my Bella. Please. I’ll do anything. Be anything. I forfeit my life for her. I give you my soul. Just save my Bella.

For a moment I actually believe that the GoneGods hear my cry, because the Ambassador approaches the two cloaked figures and stands by their side. He is a massive creature, twice the size of a minotaur and three times the weight of a baby elephant. He could crush them under his heel. He is, after all, the once-upon-a-time Devil. But his hulking red body does nothing to help Bella. His horned head does not attack, nor do his cloven feet kick at them. Only his spiked tail swings—a dog excited for the coming meal.

One of the robed figures strikes, piercing her body, the knife slamming down on her. As one carves, the other cloaked figure calmly puts his hand into her now-open belly and begins pulling out her innards and neatly stacking them by her head. Meanwhile, the first takes out a smaller blade and with a smooth motion gouges out her eyes and places them on top of the pyramid of flesh and blood, organs and guts. The robed figures appear to be chanting as they do so.

“BASTARDS!” I cry out. But I am hollow. The same as my Bella.

A third figure draws in near and, judging from his appearance and the white coat he wears, I know that he is human. He lifts a giant glass decanter over Bella as another human in a lab coat focuses a light through the glass and onto her lifeless body. The scientists nod at each other and say something I cannot hear to the cloaked figures and the Ambassador.

The Ambassador nods, then, looking up, notices me for the first time. His face softens and his shoulders hunch. I am so sorry, he mouths. I am so sorry.

I am slamming my hands on the door, but all I manage to do is cut my knuckles. “I’ll kill you!” I scream through the blood-tinted window. “I swear to the GoneGods, I will kill you!”

Hands pull my shoulders away, too strong to be human, but when I turn, I see a human soldier. Before I can react, a needle pierces my neck, and my body goes limp. Fading into unconsciousness, I feel the soldier hoist me onto his shoulder. He runs at an inhuman speed up the stairs, where a helicopter waits for us. He throws my body in and slaps the helicopter’s metal body with the palm of his hand. The metal bird takes off into the air, and the last thing I see before passing out is the soldier running back inside as the dam begins to collapse.

There is a booming sound and, just as the engineer promised, the whole thing explodes.

A FIGHT FOR LIFE AND LIFE

I was pulled back to the present with Grinner’s hiss: “A simple kiss is all I require …”

Things just went from weird to outright bizarre. Here I was, trapped with Hermes—as in, the messenger demigod who, by the way, was also Mercury, Isimud, Zaqar, Turms and the friggin’ Holy Ghost—because the Avatar of Gravity thought he could reopen all the heavens and hells that were closed when the gods collectively got bored with us and left. In the process, this Avatar—who looked more like a zombie version of the Cheshire cat—flattened a bunch of half-dogs, half-humans, destroyed my hotel and killed its most honored guest—who just so happened to be the one and only Unicorn in existence. And why did he do all that? Apparently because he wanted a kiss … from me!

When the gods left, I knew things would get weird, but really, come on!

“I’m flattered,” I said, trying to let him down as gently as possible, “but you’re really not my type.”

Grinner threw back his head in laughter. “Not between you and me. No … I wish for you to embrace the one known as Bella.”

OK, I guess I was wrong—things can get weirder.

“You know Bella is dead,” I said.

The Avatar took a seat on the half-decimated couch near Hermes. “Mortal poets have oft noted that sleep resembles death.” Grinner picked up a miraculously unbroken wineglass and opened a fresh bottle he pulled from his jacket like a friggin’ magician. He sniffed it before pouring himself a glass. With that same stupid smile of his, he looked over at me and said, “They have also observed that death may be undone by a kiss. Your fairy tales and lore speak of such wisdom.”

“But the human Bella failed. She is no more,” Hermes said.

“Ahhh, that was the mistake made by the self-named Ambassador. He failed to understand that death done must also be undone. Something that can be rectified by a kiss.” He looked over at me. “To think, so much pain and so many dead, and all because you forgot to kiss your loved one goodnight.”

A kiss? How could all this be about a kiss?

Penemue’s words came back to me: it is not about the box—it is the significance of the box that matters. Perhaps the same would be true of certain mortal acts. Your first step, your first word. All milestones along the road that ultimately ends in death. And as for a kiss—that is the first clause in a contract forged between two people in love. Or lust, I could hear Astarte say. Whether it is a mother kissing a child, or a lovers’ embrace—that simple act means so much to us. And our stories are filled with it: Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Frog Prince, The Princess Bride—all of their problems were solved by a kiss.

But one problem remained: there was no Bella.

“OK,” I said, puckering my lips and making smacking noises, “there, I kissed Bella. Can we go now?”

Grinner laughed. Again. I swear to the GoneGods, this guy was always in a good mood and I hated him for it. I much preferred those sulky doom-and-gloom villains.

He plucked the box from my weighted hands, replacing it with his empty wineglass, which I let fall to the floor with a satisfying crash.

“Tell me, Human Jean, when you meet Bella in your dreams, can you touch?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking—”

The Avatar of Gravity lifted his hand and the world got very heavy, causing me to hunch over more. The sudden movement sent a shock of pain through my head. “You dream of her every night, do you not?” he said. “And when you do, can you touch?”

Hermes shot me a look. “What? Bella lives?” He stood up from where he knelt, against the gravity, shock on his face. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“First of all,” I said, sticking up three heavy fingers, “Bella is dead. I saw her heart plucked from her body. And yes, I do dream of her. Every night. But I’m pretty sure I’m crazy. To answer your second question, Hermes: you never asked. And I’d like to make one last point”—I lowered two of the three fingers, leaving the middle one at attention—“it’s none of your damn business.”

Hermes rolled his eyes and turned back to Grinner. “So it wasn’t a failure?”

“What? You two know each other?” But before either could answer my question, I said, “Let me guess, you’re both part of the same ‘We Once Were Sort-Of Gods’ club?”

They ignored me, their gazes fixed on each other. “If the bridge worked, then we can restore the Void,” Hermes said.

“We?” Grinner said, grinning (obviously). Then, to Hermes he said, “Life and death—to think that only a breath divides them. I am afraid that I need those with more than a few breaths left to aid me.”

Hermes grew angry at his words, but quickly looked down, the fight in him gone. Only a day ago he was a man in his early twenties. But he had burned through so much time to save me that now he was little more than an old man, defeated and weak, too scared to do anything but pray for a peaceful death.

I forced myself to think. I am under three stories of compressed brick and mortar and flattened furniture, I told myself, with an incredibly powerful freak who wants me to go to sleep and make out with the dream of my dead wife, in order to … what? Complete some ritual? My head throbbed and I was suffering from the worst hangover of my life. Man, I would have killed for an aspirin.

Still, I had to admit, I’d been in worse situations. At least this wasn’t Christmas Day dinner with my mother-in-law. Thank the GoneGods for small miracles.

OK, so what could I do? I was in too much pain to fight, which left me with only one remaining asset: my affable personality.

“You’re mortal, too,” I said, giving Grinner my best Don’t bullshit a bullshitter look.

Grinner’s smile faltered. If I pissed him off, maybe he’d make a mistake. He might just squash us like bugs, but given the stalemate we were in, that would be an improvement.

“Mortal, mortal, mortal, mortal,” I sang to the melody of the Batman TV series theme song.

“Don’t call me that!” he said. He was no longer smiling. Moreover, his lips were pursed. Hellelujah! You know, with his mouth shut, he almost looked human. Hell, at that moment he might have been. But then that unnatural smile returned as he regained composure, putting him back firmly into the Other category. “The Earth’s atmosphere is filled with little tiny spheres that bounce around but are still connected to one another. Atoms, I believe you call them. You mortals have even named them: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen. Tell me, what will happen when I push together the atoms called oxygen and hydrogen?”

As he spoke he waved one hand over the box and it disappeared—probably to the same place that wineglass had been. He then lifted his pinkie finger and the air around me became very wet. I couldn’t breathe. This Fanatic was waterboarding me. In midair. Frig! Grinner lowered his pinkie and the water fell to the ground. “Are we done with your little game?”

“Mor-taaal,” I sang, but before he could turn air into water, I yelped, “I’m done, I’m done. Promise.”

Grinner nodded. “Now that the pleasantries are over, let us return to the subject at hand. Life and death are different stages of all mortals’ lives. On and off. Alive and dead. But what can be turned off can be turned on. What can die can live again. Through me.” His smile widened with those last words, as Hermes shuddered under the weight of Grinner’s gravitational push. “Human Jean, have you considered my request?”

“I would,” I said, “but again, no body, no Bella, so—”

“No, Jean,” Hermes said, his eyes wide with excitement, “Bella is alive. And in the Void. The Avatar plans to bring the Void down to Earth and reunite her with you.”

Grinner clapped. “Indeed, I do!” he said, overjoyed.

“By the GoneGods, it worked,” Hermes muttered to himself. Then, looking up, he cried out, “It worked. I can’t believe it. It worked!” Tears were streaming down his cheeks.

“What worked?” I asked.

“The experiment … Don’t you see?” He dropped to a kneel before me and took my hands in his. His words tumbled out of him: “The experiment was to get back into the existing plane that once was Heaven. Get back inside and turn on the lights, so to speak. The only thing that could get back inside was a human soul. But when Bella died, we couldn’t find any of the empty dimensions. That’s why we thought it failed.”

“I don’t understand. If he can bring down the Void, then he should do it already. Why do you need me or Bella?”

“Hermes,” Grinner said, sipping from a new wineglass—damn, this guy could open for David Copperfield—“please enlighten the mortal.”

“Others—creatures like us,” he said, pointing at Grinner, “we can travel between planes of existence, but only if we are invited. Only souls, human souls, can get in uninvited. And once in, they could—potentially—invite the rest of us in.” Hermes stood up, free of the Avatar’s gravity, and raised his hands to the sky. “And it worked. Don’t you see? She didn’t fail. Her soul lives on. She lives. Bella lives!” Tears streamed from the messenger demigod’s face.

What? Bella was alive? All these years, all our nightly rendezvous, I had always believed I was just suffering from the happy hallucinations of a man who couldn’t let go of the only person he truly loved. I was being told there was nothing to let go of, she’d just gone somewhere else. And this Grinner—this Fanatic who could will the powers of gravity like someone commanding his legs to move or his eyes to open—was offering me a way back to her. So we could be together again. It was damn tempting. We could find some place to call our own and live the life we were meant to live. Our own little version of Heaven.

Together.

Forever.

Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?

But I also knew that if it sounded too good to be true, it probably was. Grinner wanted to be a god, and by reopening the Void, he would succeed. But that was not Bella’s vision—to put a guy like him back on the throne—and even though he was the only contender right now, I seriously doubted that the Avatar of Gravity was going to be one of those benevolent, validating gods. He was more of the touchy-feely, I’m-going-to-hurt-you-if-you-don’t-obey type of gods.

No. Getting Bella back meant that the world would burn because of us. For us.

Still—with Bella in my arms … would we feel those flames?

There was one more thing to consider: my promise. It wasn’t made to the dream of her, like I had always thought. It was made to her—the real Bella. I promised to take care of Others, protect them and help them grow and be whole in this GoneGod World.

Now, I know that it was ridiculous to be thinking about that when Bella was only a kiss away. I mean, come on, Jean—break your promise already. Be together. Be happy. I might have considered that when I believed the promise was made to a figment of the imagination of a delusional, schizophrenic hotelier. But my promise was made to Bella’s living soul, and I could no more break a promise made to her than I could move to the moon.

“What … what do you get out of this?” I asked Grinner.

The creature’s smile became wider and wider. “Why, to help, of course. And be appropriately rewarded for such help.”

“Rewarded? How?”

“How else? Godhood.”

Just what I thought. I shook my head and said the hardest word I’d ever had to say: “No.”

If Heaven were to reopen, then it had to be done by someone else. Someone like Miral or Michael. Hell, even CaCa would be a better candidate. And if they didn’t have the power to do it, they would find someone who did. Someone they trusted. Someone we knew wouldn’t oppress the world for an ego trip.

At my refusal, I had expected Grinner to stop smiling, but instead his grin widened until the edges of his lips touched each other at the back of his skull. Then he gestured at Hermes, as if his lips were stretched too far to explain himself. Maybe they were.

Hermes looked around nervously before whispering, “There are other ways. More painful ways. A kiss is best because it creates an emotional bridge between the two of you. But a less stable bridge could be created if he were to torture you in front of her, or …” His voice trailed off.

“Or?” I said.

Hermes hesitated, casting a glance over at Grinner before continuing his line of thought, as if he didn’t want to give the maniac any ideas. The expression on Grinner’s face clearly said that he had considered everything.

Hermes finally said, “Or he could simply kill you in front of her. Seeing you die will stir enough emotion to create the bridge. It might not last, but he only needs a few minutes to bind the Void.”

“Oh?” I said. So celibacy wasn’t an option. “Wh—where?” I managed, gripping my head and trying to keep my brains from rattling around in all that empty space.

Hermes had the same question, because he immediately asked, “Which existence is she in?”

“When the gods came together to create their realms, they made so many. Nirvana, Fólkvangr, Otherworld, Elysium … Heaven,” Grinner said. “And, in time, perhaps a hell or two.”

Hermes’ eyes widened and, taking my hand in his, he said, “Heaven … that is the largest of all realms.” As he spoke, he handed me a bit of broken wax, careful not to let Grinner see.

I quickly slid it into my jacket pocket, unsure how Hermes expected a little chunk of candle to help me.

Hermes said to me, “Bella was the best of us. That is why she was chosen.”

“Chosen,” I said. “You mean sacrificed.”

Standing, Hermes gave me a guilty look. “Yes, sacrificed. And for that I am truly sorry. But don’t you see? She lives. That is why this creature is here now. To find Bella. Things can be made right again.”

“And when they are made right”—Grinner’s smile widened once more as he gulped the last of the wine down—“I shall be the Alpha in a universe without an Omega. I shall be all and, through me, all shall be.”

“Indeed,” Hermes said, his back to Grinner. “Jean, would you be so kind as to do me a small favor?”

“Sure,” I grunted.

“RUN!” he screamed. Then he turned and unleashed the hell-holy blue flames of Tartarus on the Avatar of Gravity.

RUN, LOLA, RUN

Flames of blue and red and orange and white consumed Grinner, encircling him in a hundred thousand shades of heat. He lifted a hand and the flames rushed against an invisible force field. The fire no longer touched him.

But at least he wasn’t smiling anymore.

I wasn’t a creature of magic, and being in that hot box was overwhelming—I now know how a turkey feels in an oven. I took a step back, searching for a way out. Directly above me hung the compressed remains of the building. Three stories of rubble flattened to three inches thick. But a structure like this was never meant to be. There had to be a weak spot.

My hand ran over the ceiling, and for the first time in my life I was actually annoyed not to get a splinter or paper cut. I thrust my hand at the scabbard on my hip, thanking the GoneGods that I hadn’t lost it in the fall. Drawing my sword, I thrust it into the mulch, digging for something to pull at. Again and again I stabbed until—clink—the tip hit a piece of loose metal. Using my blade, I pried out a bit of chandelier and pulled.

I leveraged my weight and anger, and forced the unsure ceiling to collapse in on itself, and some of it on me. There was a hole above. And what’s more, enough debris that I could climb up.

I looked back at the battle that raged with the fury of Revelations, Ragnarök and Armageddon all wrapped in one, and marvelled at how contained and focused it was, given the kinds of energy being hurled about. Perhaps if I waited, Grinner would stumble just long enough for me to grab Hermes and the two of us could make a run for it. Besides, I enjoyed seeing Grinner sweat.

I noticed that Hermes also allowed himself to burn, the wax from his candles melting around him, forming a shield against the flames and Grinner’s counterattacks. Hermes was a tank, the wax his steel shell, his flames the nozzle of his gun.

“Give him hell!” I screamed. And I immediately regretted it because it made me feel like someone had turned on a blender inside my head.

It did have a bit of an effect, though—Grinner turned in my direction and momentarily lowered his shield, which caused a bit of flame to get through and burn him. He yelped and I put a notch in the “win” column for Hermes. But another part of me grimaced; although it had so far shown a resilience that defied, well, gravity, there was no way in Hell Joseph’s box could survive this flaming deluge.

And just when I thought Hermes had Grinner on the ropes, the wannabe Alpha god threw his wineglass at Hermes’s feet—a seemingly ineffectual, impotent gesture, given the holy-fire fury that Hermes shot at the maniacal Avatar of Gravity. Shards of wafer-thin glass landed at Hermes’s feet, and that was when I knew with increasing horror what Grinner was about to do. Gravity ceased. No, not ceased … reversed.

But because Hermes was covered with his magical wax, he was unaffected by the reversal of gravity, as tiny, razor-sharp pieces of glass flew up, slicing him on the way. Then gravity restarted, cranked up so high that the same shards plummeted back down, cutting up the old man all the more. A thousand little lacerations smaller than paper cuts covered his body, each blooming with tiny crimson bubbles of blood.

Hermes healed himself in the light of the fire, his eyes widening as he realized the stakes at hand. It was a war of attrition—first one to burn out loses—and time was not on Hermes’ side. The once-old man turned ancient as his hand remained outstretched, a heat hotter than the sun engulfing Grinner.

I crouched and readied my sword. But the heat was too much and I didn’t have magic to protect me long enough to get close.

Hermes looked over and saw what I was thinking. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Don’t, you fool,” redoubling his efforts as renewed magic flowed out of his outstretched hand. “Get out of here and find Bella. She’ll know what to do.” He was determined to hold Grinner at bay long enough for me to get away. This final sacrifice would kill him.

Frustrated, I sheathed my hunting sword and scampered up the hole, clinging to the fallen debris, using whatever my hands and feet could find as leverage.

As I scrambled out, I allowed myself to quickly look back. What I saw was Hermes’ frozen body, his hand still out, held up as if by rigor mortis. And somehow, his magic persisted. Perhaps it was the remnants of his soul pushing forth, perhaps the will of his life continuing past death, I don’t know. Whatever it was, his body deflated as he pushed out beyond life, until he was nothing more than bone. And still he fought on until that bone finally turned to dust.

It would be seconds before Grinner broke free.

I got through the rubble and outside. The sewer grate I had climbed out of was still open. I jumped in, allowing human and Other refuse to break my fall. My head throbbed as I landed, the impact cracking several ribs. I wheezed and, as I stood, my leg sent thunderbolts of agony through me. On top of the broken ribs, I had also twisted my ankle.

But none of that compared to the pain in my head. A haze of fireflies swarmed my vision, blinding me with pain and light.

Get up, Jean! Come on, I thought. Every time I tried to move, my head throbbed as if my skull were the leather surface of a bass drum.

So this is how it ends, I thought. Not with a bang, but with a whimper of blinding pain.

Damn it! I didn’t mind going down, but I hated the idea that it was Joseph’s and Hermes’s megalo-I-wanna-be-a-god-maniacal killer who was responsible.

As these thoughts ran through my head, Bella blurred into sight. She reached out for me, her embrace stretching across the impossible expanse, and still she could not draw close enough. This was the end and she was too far away to comfort me. Then, as if the danger were over and everything were suddenly OK, she gave me her You were worried about nothing, silly smile and a hand reached out for me and pulled.

I focused on my rescuer and saw a big, fecal-infested arm that smelled to high Heaven. I held on to this limb that felt like sun-baked waste and cried out, “CaCa! You’re an angel!”

CaCa helped me up as TinkerBelle floated past. “Tink,” I said. “You’re not hid—” But the thought was cut off by what felt like someone shoving a cattle prod through my ear and into my brain.

Tink shook her head. She understood what I wanted to say. But when she looked over at CaCa with understanding eyes, I got it. Tink was hidden away from the world, just as much an exile as CaCa, but not because she was ugly—because she was beauty incarnate. But unlike CaCa, who suffered scorn, the petty villagers chasing him away with their pitchforks, those very same petty villagers wanted to possess Tink. Own her. Enslave her.

CaCa and Tink exchanged glances, speaking some silent language, both nodding simultaneously. Then Tink pulled out her little wand and a puff of fairy dust floated past my nose. With a deep inhale, I sucked in the dust, and in an instant all the pain and dizziness went away. My head felt perfectly fine. Better than fine. Free and clear. Hell yeah! Fairy dust—Tylenol should patent the stuff!

CaCa put his hand around my ankle, forming a cast made from GoneGods-knew-what. Not just any cast, but something warm and healing and comforting. Once you got past the smell.

I looked over at the two Others who were putting themselves into harm’s way for me—not only healing me, but giving me a second chance. A second chance that I swore not to throw away. “Thank you,” I said to both of them, “but you’ve done enough. More than enough. I need you both to hide. Now.”

But my words came too late. As I uttered them, the road above peeled back like the lid on a sardine can.

Standing not fifty feet above us was Grinner.

↔

CaCa immediately released his terra-firma-squid attack on Grinner, which resulted in a cloud of dark, pungent smoke filling the room. The cloud also got me and I started to curse CaCa—until I saw what he was really doing. He was hiding Tink, who fluttered away and down the sewage pipes at an ungodly speed. Go, CaCa! I would have to start paying him for his paintings.

Grinner’s face convulsed as the smell reached him, his maddeningly wide smile turning into a frown of disgust and indignation. He pushed his hands together, forcing the cloud to compress into a sphere slightly bigger than a bowling ball, then dropped it toward CaCa.

But he didn’t just drop it. He put a bit of force behind it, and the ball fell like a comet of shit, hitting poor, gentle, kind CaCa square on the head. The globe of poo tore through him, obliterating his skull and spine as it hit the ground with a giant splat. All that remained were arms and legs with no body in the middle.

“No!” I screamed. I turned to face Grinner, who stood on the street above. His damned smile no longer touched his eyes, but actually went past them, pushing those soulless orbs in his skull inside and closer together.

My first instinct was to charge him. I still had my sword. My head no longer throbbed, and even though my ankle was still busted, I had CaCa’s cast of shit holding it in place. My head was clear and I could think well enough to know that a head-on confrontation would only mean my death and much, much worse for Paradise Lot and the GoneGod World.

No—get away. Regroup. Plan. Lay a trap. Get a gun—a really, really big gun. Do whatever it takes to even the odds. CaCa’s name would have to be added to what I owed the Avatar of Gravity, to settle at a later time of my choosing.

If there was a later. I ran down the pipe, but with every few yards of ground gained, he lifted more asphalt as he calmly walked on the street above. It must have been quite a scene, watching the asphalt peel back like that.

“Stop,” he hissed.

“No,” I said, turning around to give him my middle finger. Then I resumed my “Mortal, Mortal, Mortal” song, this time to the tune of the Gummi Bears theme. I wondered why he didn’t simply stop me—push me down or take away gravity altogether. But he just kept peeling back the road as he followed me down the pipes.

I took a turn to the right, away from the chasm he was creating, and down a pipe. I was trying to increase the distance between Grinner and me. It was working, because it took him some time to get around the hole he had made and reach the other side. But still, he was on asphalt and I was literally sloshing through shit.

Then, as if my prayers molded reality, I saw hope. I saw salvation.

A city utility entrance stood before me, its door wide open.

REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED AS A BANQUET

I ran into the utility entrance, closing the door behind me. From the door’s porthole-sized window I saw the road above tear open. Judging from the angle at which the asphalt ripped away, I suspected that Grinner didn’t know where I was. Still, he wasn’t stupid, and even though I had managed to escape, it was only a matter of time until he found me.

I turned to survey the room. There were a few pressure gauges and a couple of turned-off computers, their black screens reflecting me in their emptiness. I looked like hell. Well, at least how I looked and felt were consistent. The room had a little metallic bridge under which the river of shit streamed by. There were several pipes with various labels on them, including one that read City Water. There were also a few small turbines and a bunch of lab equipment, as well as a table with discarded beakers and vials.

I was in the city’s access point, where officials measured the chemical levels of the sewer and water systems. That is, until Paradise Lot became overrun by Others, and city officials decided their tax dollars were best spent somewhere with a voting population. Now it was an abandoned building, used by really poor Others who resided rent- (and utilities) free.

Above me were some of the roughest, ugliest residents of Paradise Lot, the kind that hated strangers almost as much as they hated humans they knew. Being both, I rated a special sort of ire. But they were all that stood between me and the outside, where, if I did make it out in one piece, the Avatar of Gravity was waiting to capture, torture and eventually kill me.

Fire, meet frying pan.

Frying pan, meet fire.

Hellelujah!

↔

I opened the door leading upstairs. Whoever lived below was watching the carnage above, but there were plenty of Others that hung out in the darkened halls of Paradise Lot Municipality. The One Spire Hotel was smack-dab in the middle of a slum—I have no illusions to the contrary—but there had always been a spark to it, a bit of life. The wino angels sang, the pan-handling gargoyles thanked you as you passed by. The poor and downtrodden may not have made eye contact, but there was always a shift in their body language that acknowledged your presence. But these Others were something else altogether. They watched as I passed by, their eyes filled with abandoned hate.

These were the Others who truly had nothing, the real have-nots of the GoneGod World. They seemed to just sit around, counting the minutes as they waited for sweet oblivion. I looked down the hall and wondered how many lived here. A hundred? A thousand? How many of them had lived full, happy lives before the GrandExodus? I’d seen poor, and I’d seen desperate. But this was a whole new level of destitute. And here I was, naive and idealistic, believing I was living the worst of it, when there were many so much worse off than me.

If I lived through this, I’d come back here and do something to help. I didn’t know what—but something.

Two valkyrie loitered by an open doorway. When they saw me, their eyes lit up in surprise and one of them ducked into the room. I knew if I walked down that hall, I’d be in for trouble.

Best to find another exit, I thought, but before I could go back to where I had come from, the valkyrie emerged, followed quickly by an uppity harpy.

“You!” the harpy shrilled. “What in Tartarus are you doing here?”

↔

I considered putting up a fight. Probably would have won, too. But given what was waiting for me outside, I thought I’d let this play out in here first.

The two valkyrie escorted me to a dim room that once upon a time had belonged to a middle-management employee and they forced me to sit in a plush chair opposite an old office desk.

The harpy hopped onto the bureau and announced, “Hear ye, hear ye! Bow before the great Yara-Uno, Master of the Concrete River, Guardian of the Hallowed Halls of City Municipality.”

Two candles were lit, illuminating a bulbous red creature whom I hadn’t noticed in the chair opposite me. He was about three feet high, fire-engine red, bald, with two pencil-thin appendages sticking out from where his ears should have been.

“Holy crap, you’re a friggin’ Yara-Ma-Yha-Who,” I muttered as I stared at the Australian red vampire in awe. Unlike your typical vampire, this guy had no teeth; instead, octopus-like suckers protruded from the palms of his hands. Legend had it the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who gobbled up his victims, sucking on them like hard candy for a day or two before spitting them out whole and healthy, if not wet and somewhat traumatized. I’d seen all sorts of demons and monsters, but I’d never seen one of these before; I had been sure that, among the thousands of pages we were forced to study about all the different kinds of Others, the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who wasn’t real. I mean, come on, he looked like a giant red thumb with limbs. “I thought you were just a legend,” I said.

The Yara-Ma-Yha-Who smiled. “I am a legend,” he said in an Australian accent. “You the reason why the First Law is tearing up the streets above?”

I nodded.

“And he is here, why?”

“He thinks he can reopen Heaven.” Why lie? They’d eventually find out. Hell, the way Grinner flapped his mouth, I was kind of surprised word hadn’t gotten around yet.

The red devil shifted in his seat. “Which one?”

“Not sure,” I answered. “He listed like five of them. And something about how he was the new ‘god of gods’ …”

The Yara-Ma-Yha-Who nodded. “Doesn’t matter,” he grunted, opening a drawer, pulling out a piece of paper, and tossing it over to me. “You him?”

I picked up the page and saw a sketch of Joseph at the “Coping with Mortality” seminar. Miral stood behind him and to his left was little old me, another pair of eyes watching Joseph as he spoke. From the overly optimistic smile I wore (not to mention the distinct smell of shit), this drawing had to be CaCa’s work.

I pointed at myself in the sketch.

“And you were there when he died?” the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who said, pulling out a metal knitting needle and brandishing it like a fencing sword.

I gulped, looking at the needle and imagining a death by a thousand pokes. I shook my head.

“Then you are a friend of the One Made from Refuse and Archiver of the Lot. A friend of his is a friend of ours! I am Yara-Uno, the first of my kind and the last of my race.”

May the GoneGod bless your soul, dear sweet CaCa, I silently prayed. That’s twice today that you’ve saved me!

The little red thumb stood on his chair, extending his wafer-thin arm at me in an awkward handshake, a wide smile on his face revealing thousands of suckers in his gums. Then his expression went very grave. “Tell me, the Unicorn killer—that him outside?”

I nodded, a gesture he imitated. Yara-Uno’s nod turned into a sway as he put the weight of his little body on each leg. The change in his demeanor seemed to act as a signal because, without a word, the harpy leapt off the desk and left the room. Yara-Uno continued his odd oscillation for a few more seconds before fixing his eyes on mine. “Thanks be to you, human, for you have brought our enemy to our home. This is a truly appreciated gift.”

↔

Then things happened much faster than I thought possible. I mean, I’d been in the Army, I’d been in Special Forces, I was used to getting prepared for battle at a moment’s notice—still, I’d never seen troops prepare as fast as they did. There must have been a hundred Others, all armed to the teeth: helmets made out of paint cans and buckets, body armor fashioned from sheet metal and chicken wire, and weapons that were bats with nails, kitchen knives with door handles as hilts and a whole hodgepodge of common items taken to their deadly extreme. Hell, one gargoyle had an old Christmas-tree stand as a shield and a candlestick with fashioned razor blades as a mace. A valkyrie wielded a short sword, a minotaur a war hammer. There were Others who, given how deadly their equipment looked, I figured were once-upon-a-time warriors of Other worlds.

And within seconds, a makeshift army of mythical creatures stood at the ready, Yara-Uno their commander.

By the GoneGods above and below—all this time I had arrogantly thought we’d won the war against the Others because they were too weak and incapable to stand up to human brutality. But seeing this makeshift army standing shoulder to shoulder, I suddenly understood that the only reason we “won” was because most of them did not want to fight.

But give them a cause—a true cause like avenging the death of the One and Only Unicorn—and you’d see a whole new kind of enemy. I only prayed that humans would never do anything to unify them against us, because if we did, we’d surely lose.

“Now,” Yara-Uno said, “tell us about our enemy.”

There was a chance to take down Grinner. So here I stood with my brothers- and sisters-in-arms—more like my brothers- and sisters-in-wings and horns and other appendages.

“OK, people,” I said, looking into the crowd. “Ahh, not people, but creatures.” Not a good start to a pep talk. I cleared my throat and began again. “The thing outside killed the Unicorn.” This drew a reaction from the crowd; dwarves punched the floor, valkyrie threw their heads back and shrieked, minotaurs snorted. Every Other in the room jeered in their own special way. “That freak killed Joseph because he wants to be the new head honcho. Something Joseph died trying to stop. Something we’re going to finish.”

I told them about the gravity and air attacks I’d seen, Grinner’s desire to rule Heaven and everything else I knew about him. Once I was done, I waited with a dramatic pause before throwing my hands up in the air and crying out, “For Joseph! For the Unicorn!”

The crowd erupted in snorts and cheers and cries. “Good speech,” Yara-Uno said. “Not as good as mine … but good enough.” He gestured to the troops of Others who were working themselves up into a battle frenzy.

A distraught pixie fluttered in and whispered something in Yara-Uno’s ear. The red vampire listened, then lifted his scrawny arms in the air to silence the crowd. “He’s outside and he suspects we hide the human.”

“Took him long enough,” I said, drawing my own sword.

Yara-Uno shook his head. “No. You stay here.”

“What? This is as much my fight as yours,” I said through gritted teeth.

“With that?” he said, gesturing toward my leg. He had a point. “Besides, your smell will distract me.”

“Fine,” I said, “but if you start to lose—”

“Lose?” he said, pulling out his knitting needle. “Yara-Uno never loses.”

↔

“You killed the Unicorn,” Yara-Uno said with an eerie calm as he walked out the front door.

I watched from the third floor, where I could fling rocks at Grinner from my balcony seat. From above, I could see the top of Grinner’s head. He wore that wide-rimmed fedora of his, and from this vantage I could see that the top of his hat was unnaturally sucked in, tightly hugging his skull.

“You spilled his blood and now he is no more,” Yara-Uno announced in an even tone as he circled Grinner, forcing him to turn his back to the building. A solid tactic. Pretty good for a thumb.

Grinner didn’t seem to notice or care about the Others watching. “I am here for the human.” His gaze never left the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who.

“You … killed … the … Unicorn,” Yara-Uno repeated slowly, each word carrying with it his full ire. “You spilled his blood and now he is no more.”

“It was painful for me to kill one such as the Unicorn,” Grinner said. “He was a good creature that would have served me well in my new kingdom. But he refused and therefore had to be crushed.”

“Sure, sure,” the red devil said. “He stood in your way—Yara-Uno understands. But myth says you crushed his innards. Fable says you tortured him. Legend says he died on his back!” This last point drew some protest from the crowd. To most Others, dying on your feet was a noble death. One allowed a defeated foe to die standing up, or on the back of their horse. But a prone death—that was a coward’s death, and to force one such as Joseph to lie there being tortured … that was an unacceptable insult.

Grinner shrugged. “Feet, back or knees. All will bow to me.”

From the corner of my eye, I could see a ghoul and valkyrie flanking the Avatar of Gravity. Fairies fluttered about with staffs in hand. The crowd was near explosion. The minotaur snorted, and with it the crowd erupted in jeers and taunts. For the first time, Grinner seemed to notice the crowd. Turning around, he addressed them: “Servants of the OnceGods, serve me now and I shall return you all to the realms you once belonged to. I shall give you life anew. And all for the price of obedience. A fair exchange, think you not?”

“I serve no one,” Yara-Uno said. “Not anymore.”

“You will bow to me,” Grinner said, turning to the red devil, his hand lifting above his head. But before he could employ his gravity trick, Yara-Uno let out his war cry.

Dragons roar, centaurs stomp, banshees shriek—and each one of their battle cries strikes terror into the hearts of their enemies. But a Yara-Ma-Yha-Who’s battle cry? It came out as a short “WAAN, WAAN, WAAN!” If I wasn’t on Yara-Uno’s side, I would have laughed. This was the creature facing off against Grinner? Why couldn’t it have been a wakwak or a hill giant? At least they had war cries I could respect.

Seems that my lack of fear was out of ignorance, because the crowd all backed away in terror. It was as if the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who’s battle cry was akin to the kraken rising from the deep or an archangel’s trumpet sounding the End of Days. Even Grinner’s smile wavered.

With the WAAN, WAAN, WAAN!, the valkyrie lobbed his homemade arrows and the pixies shot their pool balls from their bra and tensor-bandage slings. Grinner took the hits with a whoop, dropping down to his knees.

“Hell, yeah!” I shouted, throwing a cue ball at his head. “You’re going down!”

“Ahh, Human Jean, how kind of you to join us,” Grinner said as he turned off gravity. The pool balls and homemade arrows floated up in the air before they started to circle him. After that, nothing else got through, each new volley adding to the meteor belt orbiting around Grinner. Then the Avatar of Gravity fanned his fingers in the direction of the crowd, each gesture sending a torrent of shrapnel shooting back up at us like bullets fired from a cannon.

I gotta watch my mouth, I thought. I ducked into the building and away from Grinner’s counterattack.

“You! Spilled! His! Blood!” I heard, and chancing a look outside, I saw the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who’s gaping orifice of a mouth stretch open, as his tiny, hair-thin legs propelled him forward at a supernatural speed. He dived into Grinner’s zero gravity, his arms outstretched like Superman’s big red thumb. Yara-Uno’s left hand held the needle, and I thought he was trying to stab Grinner. Apparently Grinner thought the same thing, but only had time to put up a small gravity shield to block the attack. Like I said, the little bugger was fast. But Yara-Uno wasn’t trying to stab him.

He wanted to slap him.

Yara-Uno’s right hand flashed up and slapped Grinner’s cheek. With a sharp smacking sound, his palm connected as he cried out, “You spilled his blood! And now I spill yours!”

Way to go, little guy!

In zero gravity everything floats, even little red Australian vampires. As Yara-Uno floated up, his octopus-like suckers latched on to Grinner’s cheek, making Grinner look like he was holding a big, red balloon in his teeth. Grinner shuddered as Yara-Uno’s eyes brightened and his mouth widened. Don’t get me wrong, Yara-Uno already had a big mouth, but it somehow fit his little red face. The smile that spread on his face was unnatural. He looked like … Grinner. Apparently, when the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who sucked your blood, he got a little bit more of you than red and white cells.

He got Grinner’s powers.

“You spilled his blood …” Yara-Uno repeated.

“How can this be?” Grinner said as he, too, started floating.

The two of them rose up into the sky. They must have gotten a hundred feet up when Yara-Uno’s face returned to normal. He was shutting off his new powers.

“… and now I spill yours!” Yara-Uno shouted one last time as they fell.

A valkyrie dove out the window and caught Yara-Uno as Grinner fell to the Earth with a shattering BOOM!, and I could see from Yara-Uno’s approving look that he’d left the last bit of juice to increase gravity and give Grinner a big, crater-causing taste of his own medicine.

The minotaur and centaur didn’t hesitate. They charged Grinner as the pixies slung more pool balls. The minotaur brought down his hammer and the centaur stomped Grinner with his hooves. They were winning, literally trampling him flat.

Then the Earth shook. Slabs of asphalt tore from the ground, slamming into the creatures over and over. The minotaur managed to roll out of the way, but the centaur was crushed.

The army of Others, seeing the death of their comrade, now understood what and who they were up against. They also knew it was now or never. Everyone charged, each of them glowing, shining, a halo of rage encompassing them—they were all burning time. A lot of it.

But Grinner was no longer caught off-guard and he swatted them down like flies as he continued to hurl down debris. Bodies flew up, only to be squished down again. Grinner was pulling no punches, and I suspected that mercy and forgiveness were quite low on his godly priorities. The road beneath me ran rainbow with blood as goblins bled green, orcs gray, pixies yellow and centaurs purple.

I couldn’t just watch anymore as Grinner turned these poor creatures to mulch.

One of the things that made me good at killing Others was that I could use their physiological weaknesses against them. Angels were strong except where their wings met their bodies. Fairies were fast, but couldn’t fly against the wind. Minotaurs were sturdy, but damn near blind. Grinner, too, had to have a weakness. I remembered the way he smiled and how that friggin’ grin of his would touch his eyes and move them. They always shifted left or right, never up or down. And given how good he was at countering ground attacks, I figured his eyesight was excellent for scanning the horizon but not so great at seeing attacks from above. The harpy who had escorted me to the top floor shot her bow, missing yet again. In her latest attempt, the arrow flew straight up into the air, not getting anywhere close to Grinner. I whistled to the creature and pointed at the top of Grinner’s head, miming the gist of my plan. Thank you, TinkerBelle, for all those years of practice!

The harpy swished into the air, grabbing me by the shoulders and moving to drop me on that damned Grinner’s head. The minotaur saw what we were up to and charged with war hammer in hand, coordinating his attack with the drop.

This was going to hurt.

The harpy dropped me and, sword in hand, I fell. Falling is easy. Timing my sword’s swing while falling is not. I pulled back my arm, getting ready to strike at Grinner’s head, just as the minotaur drew back his war hammer for a body smash. If we had hit, it would have been a synchronized slash and smash that would have divided Grinner in two.

But we didn’t hit.

We weren’t even close.

At the last minute, gravity ceased, stopping my fall right out of reach of Grinner’s head, while it increased a thousand-fold for the minotaur. He collapsed to the ground, crippled under his own weight.

This was new. I’d seen Grinner do both, but never at once. He looked up at me and, with an admonishing finger wag, said, “Tut, tut, tut—we can’t have you falling and hurting that precious head of yours.” Then the freak blew me a kiss and, still looking up at me, grabbed the minotaur by his left horn.

As far as I could tell, it was more out of malice than any tactical gain that he crushed the minotaur’s horn, turning it to dust that hung in the air. The minotaur howled. To the ancient Greek monster, losing a horn was the worst of all possible fates. When we would fight a troop of Others, we’d always try to find a minotaur in their midst and shoot at his horns. This would drive the beast into a berserking fury. Berserking meant not thinking. And not thinking, when up against a trained and coordinated Army, meant easy pickings for us. Like I said, I was good at what I did.

The minotaur swung wildly. There was nothing he could do and Grinner knew it. With a cackle, he propelled the mighty humanoid bull through the air and into the building across the way.

Grinner turned to me. “Now you.”

The air got heavy and I dropped to the ground, pinned under tons of atmospheric pressure. I was a goner and knew it.

Then I heard a terrifyingly sweet voice from above. “Cease! Leave the human alone!”

Hellelujah! The archangel Michael had arrived.

LIFE FROM ABOVE

“Leave the Human Jean alone!” trumpeted Michael as he descended from the sky. The Billy Goats Gruff were also there, surrounding Grinner, each staying over thirty feet away.

“What concern is it of yours?” Grinner asked. He took a step toward the largest of the Gruffs, who in turn took a step back, keeping the distance between them equal. At first, I thought the distance was arbitrary, but then I looked around at the carnage that surrounded Grinner. Nothing really extended beyond those thirty feet, with the impact of his destruction lessening the farther away it got from him. I felt stupid—how had I not noticed that before?

“I have vowed to uphold the law on this plane of existence,” Michael said.

“Human law,” came Grinner’s reply, with disdain on the word human.

Michael shook his head. “Mortal law.”

“Why,” Grinner said, pointing at the archangel, “do you insist on protecting a mistake? Does your god still command it, or is it sentimentality that compels you?”

“It is neither,” Michael said, but did not offer his reasons.

“Tell me, Archangel Michael, did He tell you He was leaving? Or did He just go, leaving you behind like so much unwanted garbage?”

Michael just stared at the Avatar of Gravity, his face betraying nothing.

“I see,” said Grinner, then his eyes flickered as if he remembered something and he spoke in a language I did not understand. But to say this was a language would be incorrect, because human language has structure, cadence, and a flow to it. It is why we can distinguish the babbling of a baby from a language we do not speak—there is a certain rhythm to the words. There was no rhyme or reason to the sounds that Grinner uttered, but nonetheless Michael nodded and responded in the same alien language.

Tongues—the indecipherable language of the gods.

I watched in awe as two beings born at the dawn of time conferred in their shared non-language. Grinner nodded, then pointed to the sky and, again speaking in tongues, said something that shocked Michael. From his reaction, it was something he clearly did not want to hear, because the archangel trumpeted the command to attack and the Billy Goats Gruff began slinging stones at Grinner. The first few hit him before he could manipulate the gravity around him, but then he changed their trajectory, shooting the stones back at the Gruffs. The largest Gruff, Magnus, charged, and Grinner sent him flying straight up. The other two Gruffs also attacked—and all the while Michael watched without comment or action.

With the Gruffs attacking Grinner, Gravity’s Avatar was no longer paying attention to the fact that he was slowly crushing me to death. I had maybe five minutes before I passed out. Another ten minutes and I would never wake up again. And all the while Michael was doing nothing, letting the Gruffs continue their tactics that only served to keep Grinner’s mind off of me and on them.

Then it hit me: Michael most likely knew I was the key to Grinner’s plan. From his reaction to their little chat, I was sure that Grinner explained all that had happened, offering him the same deal he did Joseph and the Others that fought him before Michael arrived. Serve me as you did your OnceGods and I will restore all. But Michael could not accept the ascension of another being besides his God. That was against his nature and what the first Fall was all about. But even though he wasn’t powerful enough to stop Grinner, he still knew that without me, the bridge would be lost forever. Michael was a force of good and he could not outright kill me. But he could allow me to be killed, and that was exactly what he was doing now.

I’ve been told that close to the end you see your entire history flash before your eyes. Here, under that suffocating weight, I was as close to the end as I had ever been. I thought about what Hermes had done—his sacrifice. I thought about Bella and the Ambassador, and all those wasted years I had spent angry and distant. I thought about my promise to her.

But then the more mundane memories entered my mind. I thought about the One Spire Hotel and its collage of guests. I thought about Paradise Lot and its insane collection of shops and temples and restaurants. St. Mercy Hospital and Miral’s attempt to do good. I thought about mortal pain—hunger, lack of sleep, thirst and how bad Others were at being mortal and how abysmally terrible they were at filling out forms. What was that Once’s name? I wrote it on that first form I filled out … Asal, the Ass of Kvasir? He was so grateful, said all I had to do was call out his name and he’d be there. Swore it. An Other’s vow. And oh how seriously Others took their vows. Their promises. It was an unbreakable oath … almost magical in nature …

“Asal,” I whispered.

Nothing happened.

“Asal!” I cried out.

Michael looked at me curiously, perhaps wondering why my last word would be that of a strange onocentaur whose name never made the history books.

“Asal!” I said once more.

“Yes,” a voice brayed. “You called?”

↔

From friggin’ nowhere, I heard the trot of hooves on asphalt as Asal appeared. “Human Jean, how shall I be of service?” He stood right outside Grinner’s radius of effect.

“You big beautiful talking donkey! Get me out of here,” I said.

Asal dug his hooves in the ground. “As you command!” He walked into my personal waterfall of gravity, the weight of the air pushing him down as he entered. His knees buckled, his back strained, but like any stubborn donkey built to shoulder heavy burdens, he stood strong and continued walking. Step by step, he got closer, until he was able to reach down, picking me up and putting me on his back. I worried that my added weight would bring him down, but he was too stubborn to fall. He took heavy step after heavy step until he got out of Grinner’s sphere of influence. Outside and free, he trotted away.

As glad as I was to be pulled out of the fray, I really wished some Other with a bit more speed had come to my rescue. Asal’s donkey legs carried on much like a donkey did—slow and stubborn.

I looked over at Michael and yelled out, “Your plan to do nothing didn’t work. Now it’s time to do something!”

Michael nodded at me, respect in his eyes. “You are resilient. Perhaps even worthy of the redemption you seek.” Then he turned to Grinner, who was dealing with the Gruffs’ annoying distraction. He was slowly winning, with only Hunter, the eldest of the Gruffs, still standing.

Michael spread out his wings—his primary wings spanned twice the length of a city bus. His two smaller sets of wings swathed his body, and with that done, he wrapped his primary set over his shoulders. It looked like he was clamping on armor. Enveloped by his own wings, he propped the tips of the large wings under his chin. Then his hair made way for the layer of feathers that rested underneath, forming a helmet. No, not a helmet—this was more like a second skull. I doubted there was a gun with a high enough caliber to scratch its surface.

Michael stepped into Grinner’s radius. Step by step, the archangel drew closer, wading through that immense weight as if it were the shallow end of a pool. Grinner saw the archangel’s approach and, with a push, knocked the Steve Gruff down on his goat tail.

Then he turned his full attention on Michael, straining as he called down more and more weight. But still Michael moved forward, an outstretched hand reaching for Grinner’s neck. Grinner took a step backward, calling down even more weight. Michael faltered, and I thought for sure he’d collapse. But then he stretched out his third, lower wings and, using them as crutches, took another step forward.

Grinner hissed and said, “Have it your way!” as he put his two hands together. This gesture caused the air to literally compress, and it hardened into a block of oxygen and hydrogen, nitrogen and every other gas in the atmosphere, turning them into a substance as solid as stone and as transparent as glass. It fell right on Michael’s head, and I thought for sure the archangel would be crushed to a pulp … but he wasn’t.

He just stood in the impossibly dense solid air, surrounded by a halo of light apparently shielding him from the pressure and the weight inside Grinner’s crushing sphere. I could see the strain. There was no doubt he was burning through time—a wildfire of years, stripping away what he had left.

The strain on Michael’s face was palpable, and for the first time in all the years of war and battle, all the encounters I’d had with angels of all hierarchies, I saw an angel sweat. I thought that wasn’t possible, that somehow they were created without sweat glands. But he did. Little beads of sweat formed on his forehead, then became streams that ran down his face. It was both humbling and terrifying to see the archangel Michael sweat. It made him look so weak. So mortal. So human.

I knew that Michael could die. But still, he was putting up some kind of fight, because Grinner’s own face was strained as he concentrated on dealing with the archangel, all his attention on the sphere he had conjured.

I had to do something. I had to help. “Quick, Asal—take me to the edge.”

Asal faithfully did as I asked, and when we were close, I dismounted. Cautiously I took a step forward and came up against the hardened air. I felt around; any structure that so recklessly compacted would have a weakness, a point where the compression was uneven. I’d seen it with stones compressed for asphalt, with structures compressed by the deep sea—I’d even seen it with my overbaked cookies. And it had worked with the ceiling. The pressure had to be uneven, and there was no way Grinner was concentrating on that. All I had to do was find the weak spot and exploit it.

My hands ran across the smooth and solid transparent surface. It was perfect. I guessed when you employed the entirety of gravity, it would be even and—

My hand ran across a slight ripple, a scratch thinner than a hair that disrupted the smooth surface. It was hardly anything, but it would have to do. I pulled out my hunting sword and struck down on the fracture. Nothing. I hit again and my blade reverberated against the surface like an aluminum baseball bat hitting a giant gong. No, no! This wasn’t working and I could see Michael starting to fail. His knees shook and the sweat was stained with particles of light. Damn it! No. I thrust my hunting sword point-first into the hairline crack and … it stuck.

Hot GoneGodDamn! It stuck. I pushed, but it didn’t budge. I doubled my efforts, crying out with all the strength I could summon, and although it moved forward a bare fraction of an inch, it was still not enough. Then the minotaur with the now-destroyed horn came forth, dusting off bits of the building Grinner had thrown him into. “Master Human,” he snorted. “Let us … together.”

“Asal, take a step back,” I said as I knelt to hold the blade steady, and the one-horned minotaur readied himself to swing. He pulled back and rocketed forth his mighty war hammer, connecting perfectly with the end of the hilt. Once, twice, thrice, the bull struck. Four, five, six—it was working, but too slowly to be of use. “This is hopeless,” I said, looking over at Grinner, who still focused his power on containing the archangel.

“No, not hopeless. Let Yara-Uno be of assistance,” said the Australian vampire.

In the hole that my blade created, Yara-Uno inserted the needle-sharp point of his fencing sword. He hung there, ineffectual and limp. I was about to pull it out and resume the attack with the sword when the minotaur put a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and he shook his head. Yara-Uno pulled out the needle and closed his eyes, lifting it in line with his nose. Then he began humming—well, not humming so much as vibrating. The Earth beneath us shook and bits of rubble started lifting from the ground.

Without warning, Yara-Uno opened his eyes, which were now two white disks, more headlights than eyes, and yelled, “I am Yara-Uno, the last of the great Ma-Yha-Who clan, and I summon the strength of all my ancestors and their ancestors before them. I summon my bloodline from the dawn of time and before. I summon all of them for one last strike!”

I swear to all that I know to be true, in whatever universe the GoneGods were, they felt this little guy’s cry. Yara-Uno thrust his needle’s tip into the hole and beyond, and with a whopping crackle, the atmosphere cracked.

And splintered.

With a burst of energy, the solid air shattered.

The minotaur must have sensed that the thing would fly apart, because he shielded me and Yara-Uno from the blast as invisible shards of atmosphere pierced his back before turning into harmless, effervescent air. I could see the life leaving him—one more soul going nowhere—and as it did, I said the only words I knew to comfort him.

“You fought well. The angel is free.”

The beast smiled as his eyes glazed over. Then his face took on the expressionless indifference of death.

Michael, now free, did not hesitate. He leaped forward with unearthly speed and grabbed Grinner by the throat. I thought he was about to snap the Other’s neck or smash him against the ground. Punch him in the teeth, rip his head off. I could see that part of the archangel wished to do so, but another part of him, the part that made Michael Michael, hesitated. He grimaced as the battle raged within him. Suddenly the archangel pulled Grinner’s face in close and whispered something in his ear. Then he let the maniac go.

Grinner nodded, looked around and then disappeared.

“What’s wrong with you?!” I screamed. “You had him, and you just let him go!”

“I swore an oath long ago that I should never harm a First Law. It was part of the covenant between the Highest Order of Angels and Nature,” Michael said, surveying the carnage. All around us were hurt Others. Yara-Uno, ever the leader, was organizing the less hurt to tend to the mortally wounded.

And Michael let him go! Rage overcame me, and now it was my turn to poke a finger at the archangel’s chest. “The old oaths don’t matter anymore!” I growled. “Not since they left.”

The archangel dismissed me. He was an angel of the highest order, and a little thing like his god abandoning him wasn’t going to stop him from being who he was. I guess I understood; it was all he had left. It was all any of us really ever had. “I upheld my vow and will live with the consequences of doing so. What I have done is to grant us time to prepare and give you an opportunity to run.”

“Run?! I will never—”

But before I could finish the sentence, the great angel dropped to one knee and, breathing heavily, vomited a mixture of food and light. From where I stood, I could see the angel had several broken ribs. I felt my own chest; my insides were crunched together from my time in the sphere. I was sure there was some internal bleeding. I calmed down—the next steps could wait. He was right: we needed time to heal, to regroup.

I sat by the angel, happy to be resting, and said in a soft voice, “What did you say to him?”

“I asked him a question,” Michael said, and as he did, he regained a bit of his majesty.

“What, like a riddle?” I asked.

“In a way. I asked him to solve a mystery for me.”

“A mystery.” I couldn’t help it—I burst out laughing. I mean, really, really laughing. I think I must have broken two more ribs as I keeled over and brayed.

At first, Michael looked at me, confused. Then he joined in. Soldier to soldier, he understood. You laugh now because you might not get a chance tomorrow.

We must have been quite the sight—a human and an archangel sharing a joke no one else got. Eventually our laughter died down, and I asked, “You sent that maniac away with a ‘mystery,’ whatever that means, and what happens when he solves it? Do you tell him a joke?”

Michael went solemn. “When he solves it, Human Jean, he will return, and there is nothing I nor any Other can do,” the archangel said.

Hellelujah! Way to kill the mood.

CHOICES, CHOICES

When I was a kid, the circus came to town. Everyone gathered to watch the parade of clowns and jugglers, animals and trainers, daredevils and ringleaders march down the street. I was fascinated by all those exotic creatures making their way down the road. Man oh man, I loved every minute of it. I was only ten at the time. Now my mind went back to that day as we walked down the streets of Paradise Lot. We must have looked like a macabre version of that circus, a funeral procession of horns and hooves, humans and Others, misery and pain.

As we walked, Asal informed me that I was the second human to be carried by him. The first was Kvasir, the human responsible for brokering peace between the Aesir of Asgard and the Vanir. And the reward for his good deeds? He was tricked and killed by dwarves, his blood brewed into the Mead of Poetry.

“You know, Human Jean, if you, too, were to meet a similar fate, that would mean that my carrying you now foreshadows your death. How poetic!” Asal was way too excited by the prospect of my death.

Yara-Uno looked over at me as we made our way down the street, and in a downtrodden voice said, “I did not win this night.”

“Hey, you’re still breathing. That means you didn’t lose either,” I said.

Yara-Uno shook his head. “I failed to avenge the Unicorn.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “Maybe revenge isn’t what the Unicorn would have wanted. Maybe he was after something else altogether. He came to Paradise Lot to make things better for everyone. Maybe that’s how you can honor him.”

“As the one who was by his side as he died, tell me the truth: is that truly what he would have wanted?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking back to the brief moments I had spent with Joseph. He was all about peace. About feeling good and taking care of others. “Yes,” I repeated.

Yara-Uno considered my reply. “Then I shall honor the Unicorn as he wished to be honored. I shall make this place better for everyone.” Looking over at me, he said in a triumphant voice, “And Yara-Uno never loses.”

Our procession of doom and gloom eventually ended at St. Mercy Hospital, where Miral divided the wounded that needed treatment from the dying that needed comfort.

Miral was Paradise Lot’s true angel that night, and for as long as I live, I will be grateful to her for all she did.

↔

The fairy receptionist took me to my own room, courtesy of Michael, who insisted that we have a private place to speak. The receptionist gave me some painkillers—finally!—and a towel, reminding me that I was still covered with now-dried sewage. “Try to flush the solid pieces down the toilet,” she said, pointing at the shower.

Fine by me. I peeled off CaCa’s cast, though my ankle immediately ached with the desire to get back into its warm embrace. I stripped off my clothes, setting my collarless jacket, with Hermes’ parting gift of wax safe inside it, on the counter, and hopped in the shower. The warm water felt good. As it cascaded over me, I had time to clear my head and think.

This Grinner guy wasn’t going down easily, if at all. Half of Paradise Lot had attacked him with swords and magic, and they barely got any licks in.

“No more time,” I said to the tiles on the bathroom wall. “Burning time isn’t going to kill him.” Trouble was, if a whole army burning time didn’t hurt him, then what would? It was then I made a resolution that I wouldn’t let another Other waste a minute of time on Grinner. Whatever the solution was going to be, it would have to be done without magic.

I was still in the shower when Miral burst in. “How long have you been dreaming of her?”

“Hey!” I screamed. “I’m naked!”

“Oh please, I’ve seen your kind naked before. Now answer me—how long?”

“Shouldn’t you be taking care of the wounded?” I said, wrapping a towel around myself while trying to turn off the water.

“I have stabilized those who needed it, and there are nurses and other doctors. And don’t change the subject!”

“How do you know about Bella?” I started, while trying to shimmy into my underwear under my towel.

“The Avatar of Gravity told me all,” Michael said as he walked in. “Of all the humans to be crucial for the restarting of the world, I would never have thought—you? As for the end of the world … that I would have wholeheartedly predicted.” Michael smirked. He was making a joke, or at least trying to. Michael had many strengths; humor wasn’t one of them.

“How long?” Miral repeated, pacing the room.

“Six years,” I said, managing to put on my pants. My shirt, however, was behind Miral. It would have to wait.

“And you never thought to tell me?” she asked.

“Tell you? Tell you! Why is everyone suddenly interested in my dreams? OK, yes, I’ve dreamt of her every night since I went AWOL. But I thought she was just a dream. My dream. A hallucination of someone barely holding it together. I thought I was crazy, but you know what, if being crazy meant seeing her, I just figured sanity was overrated. You know?”

“Human Jean, if you think that excuses—”

“I don’t care! Bella is alive,” I said, lifting my hand. “She’s alive,” I repeated, the sound draining out of me as I said the words out loud. “That means we can be together again.” My heart contracted with each word, like it was trying to push out every drop of blood. Bella is alive and we can be together again.

Miral stopped pacing and gave me a look that would melt a puppy’s heart. I swear, these angels and their expressions. But she said nothing, the words failing to leave her lips. We stared at each other for a long time before Michael finally broke the silence with words that came out uncharacteristically soft.

“I am afraid not. She is dead.”

“But in the Void. She’s alive in the Void.”

“No, it is not her that lives, but her soul. Once the soul leaves the body …” He sighed, shaking his head. “Death is a one-way valve. Once you cross the threshold, there is no way back.”

“But there has to be a way to bring her back.”

“No, Human Jean, there is none.”

“Then send me to her,” I said. “Please.”

Again the angels gave me that look of sympathy, only this time it was more like that of a mother trying to fix her child’s first real boo-boo. How do they do that?

“No, Jean,” Miral said, her voice infinitely soft. “When the gods left, they took with them the path for souls to follow. Whereas death to Others means the ceasing of existence, death to your kind now means that your soul wanders aimlessly until the nothing of Beyond erases it. I am sorry, but your death will not reunite you with her.”

“But,” I said, “there has to be a way.”

“Perhaps,” Miral said. “We would need time to consult other Others to find a way. But with the Avatar of Gravity desperate to have you, I fear that time is not on our side.”

“That is why we must hide the human,” Michael said to Miral, and I got the impression he was recalling a recent conversation of theirs. “While the Avatar is occupied, we must use this opportunity to run.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, looking up at the archangel, “why didn’t you kill him? I mean, your hands were around his neck.”

“I already told you—”

“ ‘I vowed never to harm a First Law,’ ” I said in a mocking baritone. “OK, fine—but what did you say to him to make him go away?”

My sarcasm was either missed or ignored, because Michael nodded with pride, walked over to the room’s window and pulled back the curtains, revealing the night sky. Even with the light of the room and the lights of Paradise Lot, I could still see stars floating above. Michael looked out at them and said, “After God and the gods left, many of the stars’ orbits changed. This galaxy does not follow the same paths as it once did.”

This I already knew. Hell, everyone knew it, with whole new sciences popping up to explain what happened. AstroMetaPhysics, they called it, and some of humanity and Others’ top minds were working on the reason why—and getting nowhere, I might add. I never much cared for the new science. What was the point? The oceans still had tides, the world still had seasons. So what if the stars didn’t follow the same orbits they once did? In truth, the only practical effect this change had on my life was that the Sunday paper’s Astrology Fortune Telling page no longer printed the typical “Fortune finds you” or “Ask and the answer will be yes,” but rather essays on what the new GoneGod World had in store for me. And it was rarely good.

Michael sighed and continued. “I asked him to explain to me the Natural Law that would allow for such a difference. In other words, I bought us time.”

“For what?”

“To hide you.”

“Do you know how many Others died today because of that—that creature? I’m not hiding.”

Michael leaned over, looking straight down at me. “Yes, you are. Do you understand how many more are at risk because of you? He will level this city to find you. The only way to save Paradise Lot is for you to not be here. That, or …” He drew a finger across his neck.

“There will be none of that,” Miral cut in. “We will do what we have always done: protect humans. Protect that human.” She pointed at me.

Michael grunted, shrugging his shoulders. “Very well, then … it is settled. You run. You hide,” his voice drummed, giving me a look that, I swear, said, Like all cowardly humans do. But then again, I might have been oversensitive.

I shook my head. “No.”

“He will come for you again.”

“Then keep sending him away with riddle after riddle. I bet you we could come up with thousands of them. What has four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Michael said calmly.

“Man. What is black and white and red all over?”

“I said”—Michael was speaking a bit more slowly now, pronouncing each word—“it doesn’t work like that.”

“A newspaper … How about this one? Thirty white horses on a red hill: first they champ—”

“I said!”

“—then they stamp—”

“It doesn’t!”

“—then they stand still.”

“Work that way!” Michael bellowed. The room shook, and not in the metaphorical sense. It actually shook. “I am the Archangel Michael, Captain of the Host, Guardian of the Faith and First amongst all angels. I am the Angel of Mercy and Bringer of Rain. I am the Slayer of Heretics and the Protector of Nations. And despite my lofty position in the angelic hierarchy, I am allowed to formally request anything from a First Law once and only once.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You mean to say, with all your power you can only speak to him once?”

“No, that is not what I said. I can only formally address them once, be it a request or a question. With Time, I asked him not to touch the divine. With Death, I requested that God and gods have dominion over souls. With Energy, I asked that she never cease to flourish in the celestial domains. But with Gravity, God spoke to Gravity directly and what He asked of the First Law, none of us know.” Michael stood up and took a sip of his coffee, looked at the cup and grimaced. I guess they didn’t have homebrew in Heaven. He looked down at me. “And I wasted the only question that Gravity’s Avatar was divinely bound to answer, in order to save you. I would think that after such a sacrifice, you would owe me a little respect.”

That did it—this angel thought I owed him my life because he’d used up some once-upon-a-time favor for me. To Hell with that! He’d been willing to let me die to end this little problem. And now he wanted my gratitude? “Owe you? Owe you! I owe you nothing! You would have gladly let him kill me.”

“A means to an end.”

“A means to an end? A means to an end! Is that how the gods saw us? Little mortal pawns, a means to get what they wanted? And what exactly did they want from us? What? You don’t know, do you? You were never privy to their private little plans … Maybe, just maybe, if we were not treated like stepping stones to get to some unknown ends, we would have been more grateful and had a little bit more … what was the word you used? Respect?”

I expected Michael to lose his temper, bellow at me in that mind-thumping voice of his or take me for another flight in the sky, but instead the archangel just nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Truly, you have earned that from me.” And with that, he put a fist over his heart and took a step back.

I fought the urge to say, Now that’s more like it, opting for the less confrontational, “Even if I run, won’t he level the city anyway, believing that I’m hiding?”

“I will tell him you are gone,” Michael said.

“So?” I asked, but I knew the answer: this celestial Boy Scout couldn’t lie. If he told Grinner I’m gone, it would be because I’m gone. “Fine,” I said, “but there has to be another way. He might leave Paradise Lot alone, but won’t he just go from city to city looking for me? Isn’t running just transferring the problem to somewhere else?”

Miral nodded. “Indeed, Jean. But the alternative is worse. He must not find you. Have faith that we will hide you well, and pray that when the Avatar of Gravity tears this world apart to find you, he leaves enough of it intact for us to survive. That is the best any of us can hope for.”

“That can’t be the solution,” I said. “There has to be another way!”

But even Miral’s eyes were downcast, and I could see that two of the oldest and strongest creatures to walk this world agreed—the only hope for humanity and Others to survive was for me to run. Or die.

“Then kill me,” I said. “Kill me and be done with it. Show my carcass to Grinner and he’ll have to stop.”

Michael and Miral exchanged a glance. “Yes,” Michael agreed. “That would be a cleaner solution, and one we have considered. But Bella lives in the Void, which means there is a way back. To kill you now without—”

“Without trying to find it yourself,” I hissed. “You’re just as bad as he is.”

“No, Human Jean,” Miral said, coming to my side and taking my hand in hers. “No—we do not wish to become gods or God. We do not seek dominion over humanity or Others. We merely want life to be better for all. I want to fulfill Bella’s destiny, save my friend and see her again. Imagine, Jean, if we could connect again with the Void, turn on the lights to our Father’s mansion—then we would be whole again and the worlds would be safe. That is all we seek. I swear it on the very essence of my being, Michael and I only want to go home. And in going home, we wish to reunite you with Bella.”

“Is … is there a way back?”

Miral shook her head. “I don’t know. We do not have the power—not at the level that Gravity’s Avatar possesses. But there are beings out there whom we may consult, and other items that may be available to us … We both have faith that, in time, a way home will be revealed.”

“Faith.” I shook my head. In the past, I never had much faith, but it was all I had right now.

“Here,” Michael said, handing me the photo of Bella. “I took this from Evidence.”

“But the case isn’t closed yet,” I said.

“We know who the murderer is. That is enough.”

I looked at the picture. There I was again, looking down at Bella as she smiled and shook the hand of the Other that would betray her. I wondered whether, if she had known his plan, she would have told the Ambassador to fuck off. Probably not. Knowing Bella, she would have held out for some hope that he’d change his mind or that things would go differently. Or maybe she would have had faith that he would succeed. Damn you, Bella. Your optimism is a real pain in my ass.

I stepped to the counter and slipped the photo into my jacket pocket, the breast opposite the one holding the candle. Didn’t want to get wax on my Bella.

“OK,” I whispered. “OK. How long do I have?”

Michael stepped back to the window and looked to the heavens above. “He will need to observe the night sky for a full cycle to fully be able to answer my question. We have until dawn.”

It was eight in the evening, which meant I had roughly nine hours until sunrise. “Good,” I said. “I have enough time.”

“For what?”

“To say goodbye.”

PUTTING AFFAIRS IN ORDER

It took some convincing to get Miral and Michael to give me a few hours to put my affairs in order. What eventually won me my freedom was pointing out that a chief of police and a head of St. Mercy Hospital would have to make a few phone calls before going on the lam. It was, after all, protocol. That was something that neither Michael nor Miral had considered. In Heaven, they acted only when under direct order by You-Know-Who. Here on Earth there were no direct commands, booming voices or divine inspiration—only protocol and rules.

Angels understand rules. They get order. But what they don’t understand is bureaucracy. That is something uniquely human. There were papers to fill out, requests to be made, people to be informed before they could leave. And I, being a human hotel owner, would have similar, albeit less demanding, requirements. They saw the wisdom in that and, in the end, settled on meeting up three hours before dawn—the minimum amount of time necessary to get a head start on Grinner. And just enough time for all three of us to locate and fill out all the necessary paperwork.

↔

I could no longer protect my guests, but I could make things a little bit better, if only by a single degree.

First up: settle my debt with the fairies. At the “Coping with Mortality” seminar, I had asked them for a favor, which they’d agreed to do for the lofty price of seven vials of glitter and two bottles of Elmer’s Glue. Since I had neither on me, I asked Miral if I could raid the children’s ward. Glue they had, but sadly no glitter—so eight clown noses and a rainbow afro wig later, the fairies agreed to my revised payment terms and handed me what they found.

Now on to the next thing … Fun, fun, fun!

↔

Over the arched door of the Palisade hung a crudely drawn picture of a creature with pointy ears and dull fangs. The face had an X over it, and poor, nearly illegible letters read, No Others Allowed.

From the phone booth across the street I called the arcade.

“Whaaat?” answered a vile voice I recognized as the HuMan kid who had hit me with the baseball bat.

OK, Jean, it’s now or never. In an uneven, gruff voice I said, “EightBall. Now!”

“Yeah, who the hell is this?” BallSack asked.

“This is the shit-kicker that’s gonna make an example out of you if you don’t get me that shit-ball leader of yours on the phone. Now!” The words flowed awkwardly out of me and I finally understood what it felt like to be Steve from the Billy Goats Gruff. Difference was, I got my tough-guy vernacular from CSI, whereas he got his from old Dick Tracy comics. I vowed that if I survived this, I’d buy him all the seasons of CSI.

My gambit must have worked, because BallSack’s voice faltered before he said, “Ahh … ahh … Ahh’m gettin’ him. Hold on.” From the receiver I could hear some scrambling before another voice came on.

“Ah, hello?”

In my best sultry accent I said, “Hi there, lover …” I sprinkled in a bit of Parisian for good measure.

“Who is this?”

“Oh, come on … you know who this is. I’m that Other who makes dreams come true.”

“Why, you little—”

“Hold on, lover. You can act tough for them. And maybe you can act tough for me later. I’m a bad, bad girl and I need a spanking from a big, tough guy who will set me straight.” My cheeks were red with embarrassment. This would not be one of those stories I planned on telling anyone. Ever. “Will you set me straight? Huh, will you, lover?” I added for good measure.

“Well, ahhh, damn right, I will!” he said. I had to hand it to the kid: given how little blood was flowing to that tiny brain of his, he was doing OK. Just when I thought I had him, he asked, “Why?” His tone carried with it more mental power than a hopped-up horny teenager should have.

“Protection,” I said without hesitation. “My gifts, for you making sure your friends leave me alone.”

“Oh yeah?” he said. “How often?”

“As many times as you want it, for as long as you want it. It’s a straight-up deal: my body for your muscle. Simple.”

There was a silence as he contemplated it for a while. Then there was a heavy swallow on the other end before he said, “Fine. Where?”

“Good,” I said. “The hotel.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he said, and hung up.

↔

Given how the conversation went, I gave it 50/50 that he’d come out alone. He was too calm, too collected, and for a moment I thought he really hated Others enough to turn down a succubus. Not a simple feat—I should know.

But then he popped out alone and I knew teenage hormones had won the day. He probably figured he could have his cake and eat it—quite literally—by having an unbelievable night, followed by some Other-bashing.

He looked down the street and, before he could get his bearings, I put a pillowcase over his head. I then produced a piece of lead pipe and pressed it hard against his back, hoping the cool metal feel would give him the impression I had a gun.

“I just want to talk,” I said. “Ten minutes, then I’ll let you go.”

“Screw you, man!” he hissed.

“Look, don’t make me gag you.” I dug the lead pipe into his back and, twisting his arm, forced him to walk.

Asal trotted forward, pulling a rickshaw.

I smiled. “Asal, my friend, if you would be so kind.”

↔

It took Asal nearly half an hour to trot over to where we were going. That’s a long time to sit next to someone handcuffed and blindfolded. Not exactly ideal for facilitating conversation, but I think we did well, all things considered. EightBall swore at me and I ignored him. I’ve known marriages less civil.

Once we arrived, I pulled EightBall out. He resisted, tried to make a break for it, but the blind can only make it so far before running into something hard, like a wall.

“Come on,” I said, helping him up and opening the front door of the abandoned building. “This way.”

I led EightBall upstairs and into a burned-up room. The moonlight streamed through a hole in the roof. With the darkness hiding the details of destruction, the husk of a room was actually quite beautiful. I let him go. Again he tried to run, this time tripping over some rubble before falling to the ground with a whoop. I pulled off his hood.

“You son of a bitch, I’m going to—” He started looking around, but as soon as he recognized where we were, he stopped. With confused eyes, he asked, “Why the hell did you take me here?”

“Astarte told me to give you what you really want, and since she’s older than sin, and a damn-near goddess of desire, I figured her advice was pretty sound. But what does someone like you want?”

I stepped behind EightBall and pulled at the chain linking the handcuffs. He resisted, but from that angle, the strain on his wrists got him on his feet pretty damn quick.

“I tried to think what a punk kid like you would want. I mean, really want,” I said. “What does someone who grew up on the streets want? Peace? A vacation? Nah, that’s not it. Maybe a brand-new gun or knife. If I asked you, you’d probably say something macho like a minute alone with me in a locked room.”

“That’s exactly what I want,” he growled, crooking his neck back to meet my gaze. His eyes burned with a fresh fury, and I knew if I released him, he’d go at me with everything he had.

“Maybe,” I said, pretending his hate didn’t bother me. “I have no doubt that you desire my blood, but I don’t think it’s what you really want, deep down.”

I sat him on a chair and sat facing him on another. A coffee table was all that stood between us. “I struggled for a while with an answer. For a long time I couldn’t come up with anything. Until, that is, I realized that you are exactly like me.”

“I’m nothing like you, Other-lover,” he spat.

“Both of our parents were killed by Others. Both of us have hated them for a long, long time. I had all the lines down pat. ‘They don’t belong here. This is our home, not theirs!’ And ‘Why should I care that they were evicted from their home without so much as a warning? Too bad for them! Screw ’em, right?’ ”

EightBall nodded, smiling at the thought.

“Only difference is, I was wrong,” I said. “Something I realized about six years ago. And, given our age difference, it’ll be something you’ll realize in about eleven years, but by then you will have caused a lot of hurt. And not just to them.” I put a book down on the table. “Believe it or not, I’m trying to help you, kid.”

“What’s that?”

“A book,” I said. “It was inspired by something that Penemue told me about.”

“That pigeon?”

“Yeah, that pigeon,” I said. I took off my collarless jacket and placed it on the back of my chair. Then I unlocked his handcuffs. As I’d expected, he immediately went for me, so I kicked the back of his knee, forcing him to sit back down on the chair. I put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “You see, I know what I really, deep down in my core, want. I want to belong. To somewhere. To someone. And I figure that’s what you want, too. This book is where you belong. Take a look inside, and if you still want to stab me, I won’t stop you. Not this time.” I removed my hand from his shoulder and took a step back.

“So, I look at your stupid book and then I get my free shot. That’s the deal, right?”

“If you still want it, then yeah, kid, that’s the deal.”

EightBall picked up the photo album, each page displaying a single picture. It was skillfully rendered, with elegant calligraphy ordaining the book’s margins. I had to give the fairies their due credit—they weren’t well-equipped to live in the GoneGod World, but they sure knew design. The book was beautiful.

He thumbed through it. Fast at first, skipping over the photos he didn’t recognize, but then he slowed down when he got to a picture of a young girl, no older than eight. She still had her whole life in front of her, but looked enough like who she would become that EightBall recognized her. He slowed, his hands gently touching the surface of her face. The next image was of the girl’s father, the two of them at the local grocery store in what was now Paradise Lot’s downtown. The young father owned the place, and his daughter, no older than ten in this picture, proudly helped him stack the shelves, smiles on both their faces. The next photo was of the same bright-eyed little girl, now twelve, dancing ballet, her grace unhindered by the black-and-white gloss of the photograph. Next she was playing the piano, then she was standing onstage, having won second place in a father-daughter foot race. Then a photo of proud parents, standing by a young lady who wore a blue graduation dress and a glowing smile. Then the young woman at Christmas, sitting by her aging father, who wore an oxygen tank but still managed to smile, happy to be surrounded by his family.

EightBall wiped away a tear as he turned the page to that same young woman walking down the aisle as an old man in a wheelchair clapped in the front. Then her hand was out as a nervous young man put a ring on his new wife’s hand. Then the same woman, older now, holding her protruding belly. Page after page of the young couple preparing the baby’s room, getting ready for the new addition to the family, until the pictures showed the proud mother holding her newborn in her arms. More tears of joy as she held the fragile little creature.

The last picture in the book was of a young EightBall—Newton—standing with his mother and father, holding a plaque of his own: first place in the piano recital. He smiled, two front teeth missing, as proud parents each put a hand on his shoulders. And then, abruptly, the book ended, several blank pages remaining to be filled.

Tears streamed down his face as he looked up at me. “How … how did you get this?”

“Fairies. They dug through this wreckage and found the photos and put it together. Not bad for a bunch of talking gnats. Man, I will say one thing about those guys—they will do just about anything for glitter.”

I waited to see if his tears would turn to rage—after all, I’d made a deal with the kid—but there was no fight left in him. He sat there leafing through the book, turning to the earlier pages he had skipped over.

“Newton,” I said, “I know you blame them for your loss, but even you have to see how they no more wanted to hurt your family than come to Paradise Lot in the first place. They’re outcasts, just like you and me, without a home, most of them without their families.” I put my collarless jacket back on. “I have to go. I can’t protect them anymore. And I know that the book doesn’t go very far toward returning what you’ve lost, but maybe it will go far enough for you to let go of your hate for them.”

And with that, I left him to his tears and confusion, praying that those pictures were enough.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

I had no idea if my little conversation with EightBall would work. All I could do was hope. Hell, it seemed like hope and faith was all I had. Funny that I found both after the gods left. So after leaving EightBall, I asked Asal to drop me off at my last destination before I had to leave.

I asked him to take me home.

↔

I walked into the destroyed foyer of my hotel for what would probably be the last time. I climbed the stairs of the One Spire Hotel and opened the loft door above. In the corner sat Penemue, books thrown about, his hay bed in tatters and a bottle of Drambuie in his hand. He was crying, cuddling his bottle as he tried to coax comfort from its hallowed contents.

When he saw me, his eyes glistened, lit by angelic tears. “I was so afraid. I always believed I would face my death with bravery, honor even, but in the end I was so very, very afraid. I am sorry for betraying you, Human Jean,” he said with a drunken hiccup. “But I am most sorry for breaking my promise.”

“You never promised me anything.”

“No, no—not to you, dear Human Jean. You are not the only one who makes sacred promises. I broke a promise I made to myself before the Earth was formed and when the sky still burned red. When He cast me into the pits of fire and brimstone, I swore that I would never ask Him for anything. Never again.” Penemue tried to stand, but drunk as he was, all he managed to do was fall on his back. His wings spread out and contracted, like he was trying to fly. He looked like an overturned turtle. I offered him my hand and as I righted him, he said, “But today, Jean, I prayed. I begged. I pleaded with Him to let you live, and here you are. He listened. He heard me.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said, pulling with all my weight to get the angel to sit up. He managed to get himself half-erect and with my help was able to rest his back on the wall. From the corner of the room, I took the pitcher of water and poured him a glass. “Here, drink this.”

“You live. He must have listened.”

“Actually, I think it’s Michael you have to thank. Michael tricked Grinner into leaving me alone. For a little while, anyway. I don’t know if that was His work.” With the last phrase, I pointed up.

Penemue’s face went grave. “Of course that is. He sent His emissary. An asshole, yes, but His emissary nonetheless!”

I shrugged. “Maybe, but that doesn’t matter anymore. The box? Did you figure out what it was? Not that that matters anymore, either.”

Penemue perked up, not hearing my last remark. “What is it not?” he exclaimed, hands and wings both outstretched in excitement. The tips of his wings knocked bits of drywall off the wall behind him. He lowered the wings and, controlling his volume, picked up a discarded Drambuie bottle and cradled it like it was the box. Man, this was one drunk angel. “I have never, ever, ever, ever held anything with so much history before. Truly unique! Singular in the significance imbued within its making—”

“And?” I interrupted.

Gesturing for me to draw closer, he whispered, “It is Pandora’s Box! I know, I know, shocked me, too.” He nodded in mock, drunken surprise.

“Pandora’s Box? As in, the container from which all sin sprang forth—”

—its contents emptied, leaving behind only Hope. Yes, the very same. But it is not only that … It is also the Ark of the Covenant, and Pharaoh’s Vial, and the Wineskin that once held the Blood of Kvasir, otherwise known as the Mead of—”

“Poetry?”

“You know it?”

“I’m familiar with the legend,” I sighed.

“In days gone by, it was the last cup from which Jesus drank, the first goblet which ever held Ambrosia and the bowl from which an asp bit Cleopatra’s hand as she reached for a fig in its basin! It is all those things and more. Whoever constructed the box itself—and I suspect that it was Joseph—did so by taking little pieces from all those items and putting them together into one place.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Why else! To contain something of extreme significance.”

“But it’s so small,” I said, holding up my hands with enough space to hold a Rubik’s Cube.

“Bahhh!” the angel dismissed me. “Mortals always think in size, size, size. ‘Bigger is better.’ A thousand angels once danced on the head of a pin. How do you think we did that? By getting a really, really big pin? No! Size, cosmically speaking, doesn’t matter. Only space. And even the smallest of spaces can hold the vastest of universes. That box, with all the significance it possesses, can hold a thousand universes and still have room to spare.”

“Big enough for a heaven?” I asked.

“Heavens,” Penemue retorted, “and hells and purgatories and a thousand other dimensions that your kind have yet to perceive.”

“I see,” I said. So that was Joseph’s plan. And that was why Grinner needed it. And considering what it was, now I suspected it would take a lot more than a little Hermes fire to destroy it, meaning Grinner was still in the game. Now all he had left to do was fill the box, which was exactly where Bella and I came into play.

So I told the twice-fallen angel about Grinner, Hermes and the fight in Paradise Lot. About Michael and Miral. And about Bella. My dreams and how my wife existed in another realm. And about the kiss, and how it creeped me out.

“Bella’s soul is not lost,” Penemue said to himself. “A bit of joy can be found in every terrible situation.”

“Yes … yes, it can.”

“Human Jean, the only way the Avatar of Gravity will be able to make the connection between Heaven and Earth tangible is by extracting it from you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Our magic works by making abstract concepts real. Gravity is a Law, so the gods created an avatar with whom they could negotiate. Turning the abstract into the real. Your connection with Bella—your dreams—that is an abstract bridge built by your love. Grinner wishes to make that real. He wants to rip your connection to her out of you and turn it into a bridge that Others can use.”

“And if he does, what will happen to my connection to her? To my dreams?”

“They will no longer be a part of you.”

“You mean, I’ll stop loving her?”

“No, that is beyond our magic. What I mean is that your love will no longer be enough for you both to find each other, to speak across worlds.” Penemue drew heavily on the Drambuie. “Without it, she will truly be lost to you.”

I looked at the angel, who stared back at me with heavy, swollen eyes that glistened with the light of trapped tears. This twice-fallen angel had lived in the One Spire Hotel for six years and in that time he had been a colossal pain in the butt, but he was always my friend. What I had to do next would be the hardest thing I’d ever done.

“Do you know why I fell the first time?” he asked.

I had heard the story before, but before I could answer, Penemue said, “Enoch, the judge of the Fallen, wrote that my sin was that I taught humans how to read and write …” His eyes went distant as he recalled the judgment against him. “You see, by his estimation, humans weren’t supposed to have that knowledge because … well, because you guys weren’t smart enough. The fear was that you’d write down a false idea and, like the Golden Calf, worship it. An idea is far more dangerous than a statue, no matter how big or golden it is.

“But I didn’t think so little of humans. I thought that if they could only have a chance to record their thoughts and learn from their ancestors, in time their ideas would evolve into something worthy. That’s why I taught you how to read and write, how to make paper and brew ink.” The angel sighed, drawing heavily on his bottle before continuing. “I knew I would be punished, but I did not believe I would be cast from Heaven. I thought my sin was great enough that He would grant me death—true death. And despite believing that, I did it anyway, because I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“Penemue, you’re punishing yourself when there’s no need,” I started.

The Fallen lifted a hand, asking me to let him finish. “I was willing to die for what I believed. I was willing to face the abyss for the knowledge I granted you. But when I was asked to lay my life down for what really matters, for my friend, my resolve faded away into nothing and I told him all. I am a coward, Human Jean. A worthless, pathetic coward.”

“Enough,” I said. “You got scared. You chose to live over dying. I will never, ever hold that against you.”

Penemue’s eye cracked open and he looked at me, confused. “Dear Human Jean, I tell you this not because I am seeking your forgiveness, but because I want you to understand who it is you fight for. I was once willing to die for my cause, but for a friend, I betrayed you the first chance I got. I do not deserve your protection or your care. None of us do. You need to understand that in the days to come. We are not worth it. None of us are. So, should the Avatar of Gravity extract the connection from you and make the bridge real, then let him win. This world and its paltry occupants are not worth you losing Bella again.” From behind a stack of books, he pulled out another bottle of Drambuie and opened it with a twist of his pointy fingers.

“Maybe, but then again, maybe your second chance isn’t up yet. None of ours is. And maybe if I give this world a bit more time, then they will be worth saving,” I said.

“Jean the optimist. When did this happen?” Penemue said, handing me the bottle.

“It was always there, just buried deep. Really deep.” I sighed, taking the bottle. “Look, I have to go, but before I do, there’s one last favor I need from you.”

“Of course,” he roared with a sudden excitement. “I owe you for my betrayal and am eager to work off the debt.”

“For all the years I helped you stand when you fell—yes, you owe me. For all the times I saved you from that mouth of yours—yes, you owe me. But for saving yourself from Grinner—for that, you owe me nothing. Understand? I free you of that debt.”

The angel nodded. “Very well, then. A favor for a friend.”

“Yes, a favor for a friend,” I said, a lump catching in my throat. I handed him two envelopes.

Penemue sat up, his massive shoulders hunched over in defeat as he took the paper from my hand. “What are these?”

“One is instructions to you, the other is for someone else.”

Penemue read the notes and looked up at me. His voice trembled as he spoke. “But … but this is suicide.”

“Maybe, but we’re all going to die one day. Might as well die for something worthwhile.” I raised the bottle of Drambuie. “This is it, old friend. Time to say goodbye. What do you say—one more for the road?”

↔

Penemue and I downed a shot of Drambuie, and I left the big guy alone in his sorrow and headed to my room. It always amazed me how the world might be ending and yet your room would look exactly as you’d left it. You’d think it would have faced the same whirlwind that you did, but my things all just sat there, unmoved and untouched. I hung up my collarless black jacket on the coat rack.

My junktiques sat on their shelves and Castle Grayskull sat empty on my chest of drawers.

Damn.

I had hoped that Tink would have made it back by now. I was sure she had escaped; I saw her light flutter down the tunnel. Where was she? My only hope was that she was too scared to come home, afraid that Grinner would be here. But there was a big difference between knowing and hoping.

The part of me that lived with and cared for Tink for the last six years had to believe that she was alive and well, hiding somewhere safe. That she hadn’t been crushed by some random rock or become lost in tunnels filled with Others that would like nothing more than to own a true myth. To believe anything else would be too much for me to bear after a day of so much loss.

And it was hope that led me to leave behind a bit of the candle that Hermes gave me. I figured a creature as old and unique as Tink would know what to do with it, and if I couldn’t keep her safe, well, at least I could give her something to help.

I also left a recording on my old Dictaphone, telling her that I probably wasn’t coming back and if she needed sanctuary, it was Miral whom I trusted above everyone else. It was up to Tink if she was going to entrust herself to another guardian or not. I couldn’t make that decision for her.

“I’m sorry, Tink,” I said, “but I can’t keep you safe. Not anymore.” As I spoke those last words, warm tears fell down my cheeks.

I closed the little drawbridge on Castle Grayskull and headed out the door.

↔

The clock on the dashboard flashed 2:00 a.m. Good—that meant three hours and change before dawn, just enough time for me to get on the road.

Convincing Michael to let me go had been quite the feat. He wanted to get on the run right away. I had to swear on every GoneGod and living soul I knew, vow up and down, and absolutely promise to come back at least three hours before dawn, and even then he let me go with great protest. The thing about oaths and Others is that they are always making these grand gestures, spoken in archaic chant, that are absolutely binding. Before the GrandExodus, to break an oath meant death. “Cross my heart and hope to die” was quite literal. Magic, karma, chutzpah—call it what you will, but the universe always got even with them, and as a result, making and keeping a promise was a very serious business, indeed. I get that. Really, I do.

Unfortunately for Michael, my promise was made with my fingers crossed behind my back. I don’t know how that cosmically works and I doubted that, pre-GrandExodus, you could get out of it that easily, but still, that’s what I did. Didn’t make me feel any better, but I couldn’t keep my promise to him when it went against another, higher promise I had made earlier. To Bella.

You see, Michael was right. Miral was right. Hell, even Tink was right. There was no hope in fighting an enemy like Grinner. I had to run.

But they were wrong about one thing—it wasn’t Bella’s dream to reopen the Void and send the Others packing. She wanted us all to live together. Here on Earth and in Heaven. That was why she had helped the Ambassador. She believed he was the key to peace in this life and the next.

I knew that Michael and Miral meant well and that they wanted to help. But after a while, even they would be tempted. There would be some shaman or prophet or Other who had a key or chalice or talisman that would find Bella and Heaven. And then what? Another experiment, another grand scheme, another maniacal, wannabe god. If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, what’s the road to Heaven paved with?

And even if they did find a way back to their Heaven, I didn’t think it would solve anything. I’d gotten to know their kind and, well, they don’t play well with Others. Reopening the Void would lead to a war between Others, which meant more rainbow blood painting the roads.

No, I couldn’t let that happen. That wasn’t what Bella wanted.

Besides, I had other plans in mind. I might not be able to beat Grinner in a fight, but there was more than one way to skin that proverbial cat. I had an ace up my sleeve—a long shot, but far more tempting than spending a life on the run with Michael and Miral. As much as I hated not keeping my word, this was something I needed to do on my own. They were adults a couple thousand times over—they’d get over it.

As for the other detail … well, like I’d said to Penemue, this was it: one last favor.

I turned the ignition in my PopPop’s old 1969 Plymouth Road Runner and took to the road. It felt good to be in the driver’s seat. Soon the city was out of view and highway lights were exchanged for stars. I looked at the clock—just an hour to go before dawn. Right about now, Penemue was delivering a map to Grinner with a big X and the words Come and get me scrawled in red.

PART IV

PROLOGUE

There is this girl whom I love very much. She is killed, and I go on a rampage of hate and destruction, accepting every mission they hand me. As long as I get to kill Others, I don’t care where I am, who I kill. My grief chases me, but as long as I am slaying Others, I am able to outrun it. For a while, at least. But I am in a losing race and I will soon learn that there is no one in this world—or any other—who is fast enough to outrun grief.

Mine will catch me while doing an extermination mission on a remote island in northern Scotland. Recon says there are Fanatics planning a suicide mission. Doesn’t matter to me. We get to the island and I glance at my watch. The minute hand is spinning, the second hand is moving so fast it’s invisible. Magic. On a hillside there’s a cave, and an Other is burning time to hide. I point and we get into position. We don’t know what we’re up against. We should investigate. Plan. Prepare.

Instead, I throw in a grenade.

What comes out isn’t a terrorist cell or a group of Fanatics, but a single golden dragon. It always amazes me that no matter what kind of face an Other has—humanoid, elongated, animalistic—you can always tell when they’re scared. This dragon is terrified.

It charges from the mouth of the cave, a breath of flame climbing ahead as claws strike out. It manages to take out half of my team before it takes to the sky. It’s trying to get away.

Without hesitation, I aim my rifle at the scale right over its heart—a dragon’s weak spot—and from this distance I have a one-in-a-thousand chance to hit. Today must be my birthday, because a moment after my rifle thunders, the dragon drops. What’s left of my team rushes at it, and I note that the titanium-reinforced bullet has ripped through its hardened scales at exactly the right place. Or wrong place, depending on where you stand.

My bullet broke through its golden scales, but didn’t reach its heart. The hurt dragon is far from dead. Its eyes glow as it attacks with a blazing speed that is amplified by burned time. It swipes down, sending me and two other soldiers flying as it bites down on a fourth. A thistle bush breaks my fall, my armor saving me from an evening of pulling out needles. As for my two comrades, they aren’t as lucky, both of their bodies splattering against unforgiving rock. The dragon turns to run away.

My team is dead. I am alone on the island with a pissed-off, injured dragon. I know I should call for backup. For evac. But it can’t fly, which means I can track it down. Find it. Kill it. I put down my rifle and leave behind some bulky high-powered equipment, taking only my hunting sword with me. Today will be a good day to die.

I track it to some rocks by the sea, where it is cleaning its wound, trying to remove the bullet so it can burn some time and heal itself. When I walk onto the beach, it looks at me, surprised, clearly not expecting me to have pursued it. It eyes me, then scans the empty hillside, glances back at me and my sword, shakes its head and turns back to the sea to continue cleaning its wound.

I charge and it looks at me with more genuine surprise. I slash down on its reinforced scales, but my sword bounces off them without effect. That’s fine. That’s what I want. It turns too late to swipe, and I roll, swinging again. The dragon snorts, assuming I cannot hurt it and, no longer on high alert, swipes again, leaving an opening for me to tumble past its front claws and thrust my hunting sword into the hole left by my bullet. I know my blade is long enough to pierce its heart. I push and, in the second I have before it turns to crush me, I manage to nick the chamber wall of its heart.

It rears up with a roar, throwing me nearly ten yards away, where this time there are no bushes to break my fall. I must have hit my head because, for the first time since she died, I see her.

Bella. Standing there on the beach, hand outstretched.

“Silly Jean,” she says, as if I have simply fallen and scraped my knee. “You should be helping, not hunting.”

Behind her I can see the dragon getting up. Sure, it’s dying, but dying isn’t dead. All it needs to do is stomp on me or bite my head off.

Kill your killer—not a bad end for a warrior.

“Bella,” I say, reaching my hand out to her, “I’ve missed you.”

“Jean, why are you doing this?”

“Because they hurt you.”

“The dragon did not hurt me,” she scolds.

“No, but other Others—”

“Other Others are not that Other,” she says, pointing at the dragon. “Stop punishing them for something they did not do. And stop punishing yourself.”

The dragon is stumbling over to me, determined to enact its revenge by dining on my guts.

Bella looks over her shoulder. “Jean, I need something from you.”

“Anything,” I find myself saying. Anything.

“Promise me that if you live, you’ll help them. Promise.”

“But …” I start to say, but Bella holds up a hand.

“Promise me,” she repeats, tears streaming from her eyes.

And I know that, dream or not, real or not, I cannot deny her anything. I nod.

“Say it,” she says.

The dragon is on me, its massive skull eclipsing Bella’s body—this is it.

“Say it!”

“I … I promise,” I say.

What does it matter? I am about to die. Here and now.

A light shines off the dragon’s eyes and it opens its mouth, ready to breathe out its last bit of hate on me, when Bella turns around so suddenly that the dragon takes a step back.

It sees her, I think. How?

I can’t hear what she says; all I know is that they are discussing my fate. Eventually the dragon nods and walks away, making it about fifty yards before it collapses from its wounds.

Darkness follows.

↔

I regain consciousness in the dark of night. A soft flicker of light catches my eye and, in the distance, I see the body of the dragon illuminated by the star-filled night. It is dead.

The dragon never came over, never spoke with Bella. It must have been a dream, I think.

A soft glow of gold sits on the creature’s neck. Walking over, I see, for the first time, Tinkerbelle, sitting there crying. When I approach, Tink does not run or hide, she just sits in that spot, hugging the dragon with an abandoned grief.

Seeing Tink there, her grief, the dream of Bella … it all just washes over me. Tink will later tell me the dragon’s fury and fear was not for itself, but for the little fairy it once protected. But now, all I see is a crying little golden myth. I am stunned and shamed by her misery—it is so pure, so perfect, so complete.

I think back to all my time with Bella, all her hopes and dreams. I have not honored Bella with who I have become, and for the first time since she died, I let myself feel her loss. At first only gentle tears come, but soon they give way to a pain far more powerful, until my grief pours out of me in such a violent torrent that I think it will actually suffocate me. I don’t just cry—I scream. I bellow. I wrench off my armor.

After what feels like an eternity, I eventually gain enough composure to stand. The radio clicks. HQ wants to know what’s happening. I throw it to the ground and then stomp on it. Let them think we’re all dead. Everyone else is—what’s one more dead soldier going to change?

That’s when I go AWOL, hiding in my PopPop’s old cabin. It takes a year, but eventually an uneasy peace is brokered between humans and Others.

That’s when I return to Paradise Lot in order to fulfill Bella’s dream.

MEMORIES

The road to the cabin was winding, and to get onto the property you needed to climb a steep hill. The Road Runner struggled, and I had to push the accelerator all the way down to get her old wheels over the crescent.

This was the same hill Grinner would have to climb when he came, assuming he didn’t fly. Since I’d never seen his feet leave the ground—at least, not by his own will—I guessed flying wasn’t among his modes of transport. That and because he was the Avatar of Gravity, I figured he was a feet-on-the-ground kind of guy. I supposed he could make his way through the thick treeline or cross the lake, but I doubted that, too. The forest was too dirty for his clean, pleated trousers and the lake required hiring a boat or walking on water. Gravity could do a lot, but that trick required a different kind of magic. But the biggest proof I had that he’d use the main path was that he wasn’t afraid of me. This soon-to-be god saw my defiance as an annoyance that had to be dealt with, not a problem with the potential to undo him. Everything I knew about Grinner told me he’d be coming through the front door. As I climbed over the hill’s zenith, I made a mental note to put some sensors in the brush. I’d know when he passed this point, at least.

The cabin was still there, standing alone on the hill’s plain. It was a lone structure, one story high and made completely of pinewood. There were two bedrooms—one on each side of the cabin—no electricity, a kitchenette with a gas stove and running water that was installed about thirty years ago, when PopPop fitted a pump from the lake. As for a bathroom—well, that was what the trees were for.

I parked by the old woodshed and walked up the steps, opening the unlocked door. What was the point of locking it? Someone could spend all day kicking down the door without a soul to stop them. Inside I noted that, either by luck or because the cabin was so far off the beaten path, no one had found it since I last visited it all those years back. I walked onto its old, uneven floor. A green two-seat sofa sat in front of the fireplace. The floor creaked as I pulled back the sofa and threw aside the tatty orange rug that it rested on. Beneath it was a false floor I had built. It opened with a pop, dust flying up into the air, and I stuck my arm down the hole, feeling for the old gray-green canvas sack.

It was right where I’d left it. With a strained pull, I lifted out my old military bag from its hiding place. It was heavy, about as long as a ski bag and eight times the width. I pulled back its heavy-duty zipper, opening its mouth as wide as it would go. And there it all was. All my old military stuff that I had stashed in the cabin when I naively believed I would never need it again. Weapons specifically designed to kill Others. They felt familiar in my hands, muscle memory taking over as I held them. Old friends.

Old addictions.

I checked my rifle and went through my bag of tricks. Once more into the fray … Into the last good fight I’ll ever know, I thought as I inventoried the content.

The way Grinner burned through time, he believed it was infinite, so the plan was simple: rain holy Hell on him and wear him out. Of course, my plan also required me not getting flattened in the meantime. No plan was perfect and, besides, it was a good day to die.

I grabbed my bag and started distributing its contents in the cottage and surrounding lands. When the fight started, the more options I had, the better off I’d be. Then I sheathed my hunting sword and pulled out my trusted rifle, preparing myself for the next part of my plan. I had to get more information, and there was only one person I knew who could tell me what I wanted to know.

I needed to take a nap.

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF ME

The darkness came for me the way it always did, its tendrils reaching out like some gruesome, undefined monster. I wanted to run, to run like I had every night for the last six years, but tonight I let the darkness envelop me.

It hit me like a rush of air from a fan suddenly turned on and then I was in it, completely consumed by its nothingness. For a moment I was alone, until she came for me like she did every night—a light in the endless Void, an angel floating down from nowhere, her presence chasing away both darkness and fear.

“Hi, Jean,” she said, her tone soft and careful. “I suspect you have a few questions for me.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking up at her blinding light. “A couple. But I think I’ve figured out a lot of it already.”

“Fine. But first, where would you like to be?”

“Excuse me?”

She rolled her eyes, tempering the gesture with a playful smile. “Oh come, Jean. We’re about to have a fight.” She stood arms akimbo as she gave me her mocking It’s time to get serious look. It was the look she always gave me when trying to lighten the mood before we were about to have a hard conversation. “Jean, we might as well do it somewhere beautiful. Where would you like to go?”

I looked at her blankly, still not sure what she meant.

She swallowed hard, as if pushing back her frustration, and in a controlled, even tone she said, “Do you remember where we met? Just outside that diner you used to work at?” In the darkness, a glass-and-steel door appeared with a neon yellow sign above it that read: Jack’s Diner.

“Jim’s Diner,” I corrected, “not Jack’s.”

“Ahhh, that’s right. Jim’s Diner.” The sign above the door morphed from Jack’s to Jim’s, keeping the same neon-yellow shine. “You were a busboy, weren’t you? My mom took me out to dinner as a treat for getting a perfect report card or winning a spelling bee or whatever it was. Even then, she hated the way you looked at me.” Bella flattened her dress, nervously pressing out wrinkles in the fabric. “We could go there. Or we could go to our first apartment. That hole-in-the-wall just off of—”

“Where I proposed,” I interrupted. “I want to go there.”

“We went there last night,” she protested, but I held resolute.

“So what?” I said. “You asked me where I wanted to go and I want to go there.”

“OK, fine. You were always such a creature of habit.”

Then, from the darkness, mists bloomed from a thousand flower buds that I did not know were there. Maybe the unblossomed pods were hidden in the darkness, or maybe they had never been there and Bella somehow, magically, made them appear. Whatever it was, wisps of smoke billowed out as the Void filled around us with a translucent smoke. Then we were standing on a cloud, cool fog shifting in an effervescent dance beneath our feet. The haze had a pleasant smell that I couldn’t quite place. Something safe and pure, like when PopPop used to bake apple pie, or the strong leather smell of his car. Perhaps it was one of those. Perhaps both.

Slowly the smell changed, bringing with it tinges of salt and water and … I smelled the ocean. More than that—I could hear the waves lapping against the shore just in front of me. More out of instinct than anything else, I took a step forward, forgetting that I was suspended in the darkness, floating in nothing. I was surprised when my feet caught on to earth. I shuffled them. It felt like I was standing on sand. I looked down, expecting to see cool white wisps still dancing around my feet, but instead I saw hardened vapor that congealed into a white, sandy beach.

A light that had not been there before shined above me and I looked up, blinded by the sudden appearance of the sun. As my eyes adjusted, I looked around and saw that we were on the beach and Bella was no longer haloed by light. She was wearing her white sundress, the one with lilies. There were so many little details that were different from how I remembered them. The boats off the shore. The treeline behind us. A tiny shell that dug into my knee when I bent down to propose to her. And why not? It had been fourteen years since we last stood on this beach. In real life, that is. In my dreams, we visited this place often. Still, it had been so long since either of us had been here, our memories of this place were bound to be a bit off. Trouble was, the beach we were standing on wasn’t the recollection of my imperfect memory—it was hers.

All this time when she took me to places to have our nightly chats, I’d believed they were my memories that took us there. She was my dream, after all, so it made sense that we would go to places I remembered and loved. But we never went anywhere from my memories. We were always going to the places she knew, in the way she remembered them.

As if sensing my realization, she said, “Before I learned how to do that, I thought we had failed. After all, I was meant to be in Heaven, but instead I was lost in a place that transcended emptiness.” She chuckled at the thought.

“But you didn’t fail, did you?”

She shook her head. “I remember what the Ambassador told me. Why did the angels rebel?”

“Pride?”

“Envy. They envied our free will. It was a power they wished to have for themselves. But what is free will? After all, didn’t the angels rebel? How could they have done that without free will? It got me thinking … and I realized that free will isn’t just the ability to do whatever we want. It is also the ability to shape the world around us. Mold it into what we want it to be. That’s a lot more literal in a place like this.”

She lifted her hand, and from it sprung forth the twist tie I had used to propose. I felt around my neck—my own twist tie was still coiled around the chain. She smiled, tossing it to me. In the palm of my hand, I looked closely at the tiny piece of plastic that my seventeen-year-old self had used in lieu of an engagement ring. At the time, I thought it proved me insurmountably romantic to propose with such a thing. Bella came over and showed me her own ring finger. She still wore her twist tie. Then she touched the thin band in my hand and it felt almost like her finger pressed on my palm. But as in all my dreams, we never actually touched. I guess that was just another rule of this place. She rolled the twist tie on the palm of my hand and turned it into a silver ring, which she put on her own finger alongside her own twist tie.

“In this life and the next,” she said, looking at the two rings. Bella sighed and turned her attention to the sky above. “I think that is why they took all the human souls with them when they left. Because they knew that any human soul in Heaven or Hell would understand that and would bend the Void to their will.”

“I … I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head, drawing in closer to her.

“When the gods created the world, they gave everyone immortality. Others were granted endless life and humans were imbued with souls. In other words, we were all given essentially the same thing: eternal life. But the two kinds of immortalities drew on different wells of power. When the gods left, they effectively turned off the lights for all the other planes. Others, despite all their abilities, did not possess the right kind of power to turn the lights back on. But a human soul, that is a different thing altogether.”

I nodded, slowly understanding what Bella was saying. “Souls are the On switch to this place?”

“Not just the On switch. They’re like a million nuclear power stations all running at full capacity. Watch!”

She flicked her hand, and in an instant the beach turned into the apartment where we first lived, then PopPop’s cabin, the airplane on which we’d ridden with the Ambassador, the hard concrete floor where we made love the night before she died. She was cycling through all the places that, once upon a time, meant something to us.

“They are all our memories,” I said.

She nodded. “And not just memories. Watch!”

With a wave of her hand, she brought forth a light show that made Fantasia seem like a child playing with flashlights. Meteors shot up as swirls of rainbow-colored imagery shone bright in the sky. The spectacular illuminations danced around us as she transformed the empty Void into her canvas, filled by her imagination. I giggled at the sight.

“And it’s not just lights. I can make things, too. Imagine playing with these!”

Optimus Prime, Voltron and an army of Smurfs manifested themselves before me. Each was life-size and looked so real I thought they were standing right there. And it wasn’t some 3-D animation like what we got in the movies—these beings had a realism to them that made those renditions seem like a child’s drawings. Whatever she was doing, she wasn’t drawing or sculpting these creatures. She was creating them. All that was left was to breathe life into their husks.

“This is what the Others must do when they burn time. Except here, time is infinite,” my Bella said, and as the words left her lips, her creations faded away. I looked over at her, as she breathed heavily from the exertion of creating. “I’m still learning to hold the creations. Right now I can form them, but I can’t keep them. Perhaps in time I will be able to keep them around longer—or forever. But for now, the only things I seem able to manifest with any permanence are the constructs that I make from memories. The easiest ones to build are the memories that mattered most. The times I was most happy and in love”—she took me to PopPop’s cabin—“or happiest.” Suddenly we were in our first apartment, standing in front of the couch we used to cuddle on while watching TV.

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? I thought you hated that couch.”

She laughed, her eyes brightening. “I know, I know! But I loved being near you. And it was our love that allowed me to be tethered enough to the mortal realm to find you. It was our love that allowed me to eventually find you in your dreams. And perhaps it will be our love that will find a way for us to be together again.”

“So, am I here?” I asked. She had stopped the memories outside Jim’s Diner, and I bent down to touch the ground, expecting concrete from the road, but my hand went through the surface, touching nothing.

“No.”

“Are you here?” I asked, trying to comprehend what this place was. She no longer wore her sundress—the one with lilies—but jeans and the V-neck sweater I had bought her for her birthday.

“Yes, this place is as real as anywhere I’ve ever been. You are as real to me as ever before,” she said.

Tears welled up within me. All these years believing she wasn’t real, believing it was my guilt and pain that caused my nightly dream of her. So much wasted time. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” I asked, knowing I should be angry. But I was so happy. Bella still existed.

“Oh Jean, I am so sorry for not telling you. I thought I was doing what was best for you. You were doing so well, you even seemed happy at times. I thought this was my role—to be your guardian angel, helping you through all the hardships you faced. Telling you would have only caused you more pain and it would have stopped you from doing all the good you’ve done. I didn’t want you to spend years looking for a way to me, when you could have spent that time doing good that matters.”

“But this matters,” I said.

She shot me her best You know what I mean look and said with a smile, “I did what I thought was right, just like you’ve done so many times in the past. And I am sorry that my decisions have caused you pain. Still cause you pain. I love you, Jean, in this life and the next.”

I did know what she meant. I really did. After all, it was our love that had got us through the really hard times, it was our love that had allowed us to find each other even when we were worlds apart and it was our love that Grinner had wished to capture in order to reopen Heaven. “In this life and the next,” I said. “I love you, too.”

She smiled, closing her eyes, causing a single tear to escape and fall on my outstretched hand. I could have sworn I felt it. “Jean, we don’t have much time. He is coming, and whatever happens next, you cannot let him find me.”

“But we could be together.”

“In a world that would be in flames.”

“And would that be so bad?”

“Yes,” she said, her face drained of joy. “Yes, it would be.”

“So what do we do?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice flat. “What do we do every time we have a fight?”

I shrugged. “We go for a walk. Cool off … But it’s not like there’s anywhere we can go here.”

“Oh”—Bella’s lips curled up—“but that’s where you’re wrong.”

↔

Bella snapped her fingers and the world transformed around us. We were in the cabin, then in her childhood bedroom. Next we were in my house, followed by the downtown bakery where we used to go and get ice cream after school. Over the next couple of hours, we visited a past filled by us. I could not begin to understand the emotions stirring within me. Joy, anger, hate, elation, contentment, chaos—they all swirled around as she took me on a tour of her personal Heaven. A heaven filled only with memories of us. The one emotion that tempered all that I felt, that kept them from boiling over and wasting the little time we had left, was love.

Still, there was one memory we did not visit—one that held more pain than I have ever known before. I knew that if I were to win against Grinner, I needed to know as much as I could. I had to understand what happened the night she died. I wanted to visit that place as much as I wanted a threesome with Judith and the Devil, but I had to know everything if I was going to live through the night.

“What happened that day?” I asked.

“Do you really want to know?” Her intangible hand on my cheek.

“I have to,” I said.

Withdrawing her wraithlike hand from my face, Bella gave me her You asked for it look. With downcast eyes, she took us to the room where it all happened. The room where Bella was killed.

↔

What she showed me next happened too fast to be natural, like watching a movie on fast-forward. But more than being too fast, she was showing me a memory. A memory that felt as ever-present as anything I could recall for myself.

Every gesture took on a supernatural speed, every movement finished as quickly as it started. My eyes struggled to catch it all. And just like in my dreams, everything that happened felt as though it were happening now.

↔

We stand in a room where several human scientists analyze data on a computer. They are excited, pointing to spikes on the screen. The Ambassador stands by a large black orb. At first I think it is a three-dimensional hologram of some distant solar system, but the machinery that complements the high-tech computers and sensors is far too low-tech to have been built in this century, or the ten before it. Out-of-date apparatus intermingles with modern tech. Ancient gears feed data into tablet computers. Vintage pulleys suspend a mixture of cauldrons and high-grade beakers. Supercomputers sit on workbenches made from timeworn oak tables.

There is some mumbling and I see Bella, my beautiful Bella, walk into the room. The Ambassador points at the black spot on a large monitor. He smiles, his silent lips mouthing, There it is. Bella returns his smile.

Two hooded figures draw in close; they are the two bastard Others who ripped Bella apart. Who will rip her apart. They are in the room. Everyone is calm.

The Ambassador stretches out his red palm into the darkness, fanning his fingers. He closes his eyes, and his facial features and neck muscles strain as if he is trying to lift something heavy. Little specks of gray salt his goatee and his lush black hair recedes, if only a fraction of an inch. He is burning time. Lots of it.

↔

“Da Vinci’s laboratory,” Bella said, pausing the memory. “His laboratory held a lot of significance, and therefore power. We gathered much of his equipment and set it up to complement more modern equipment. It took years for the Ambassador and his team to figure out how to get it all to work together, but once they did, we were able to use it to find this place. To find Heaven.” Before I could say anything, Bella turned the memory back on.

↔

The Ambassador smiles, proud of his achievement. His find. The black sphere rotates, then stops, a tiny gray speck of dust at its center. He points and everyone starts clapping, cheering and hugging. Even Bella wraps her arms around the Ambassador’s big red devilish neck. They have found it. They have found Heaven.

The two hooded figures nod at each other, seemingly pleased as well. But before celebrations can turn into the next phase of work, the room shakes. Waterfalls of dirt and cement are shaken loose by the explosion above. Red lights start flashing, and even though this memory is silent, I remember the sound of the sirens.

An argument breaks out between several of the scientists and the Ambassador. The two hooded figures point at the Devil, obviously insisting on something. They point at one of the scientists, who shakes his head, fear painted on his face. More yelling follows as another explosion rips through the complex, causing all the lights to shut off. With a flicker, the lights return. Everyone is visibly relieved that the sphere is still there.

There is more discussion and Bella raises her hand, silencing the room. Everyone is quiet, looking at her with both horror and admiration. The Ambassador mouths, Are you sure? Bella nods. The Ambassador’s shoulders slump as he addresses the two hooded Others. Everyone bustles into motion, gathering materials.

And this is the moment when Bella turns and sees me standing at the door, desperately trying to open it. This is when she gives me that smile that says it will be OK. This is when she blows me our final kiss.

And this is when the two hooded figures descend on her, ripping her apart with their sacred blades.

↔

“Enough!” I cried out. “Enough.”

Bella froze the image before the blade penetrated her skin. “There was no time. The explosions threatened to shut the whole thing down, and if we lost Heaven it would be over forever. That’s why I volunteered—”

“Volunteered?” I cut in, staring at her through tear-filled eyes.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “It was now or lose Heaven forever. I didn’t have time to think—”

“You left me!” I screamed in anger, in hurt and in the thousand nameless emotions running through me.

“I had to. Don’t you see what was at stake? We could have fixed everything. Made it better. Imagine a world where everyone was free to come and go to Heaven as they pleased. But someone had to get in there. Someone had to volunteer to turn the lights back on.”

“But why did it have to be you?” I asked, my heart pounding so hard in my chest, it felt as though it were beating itself to death.

The look she gave me told me her answer. It had to be her, because she was the only one who cared enough to sacrifice herself to make the lives of Others better. It had to be her, because she believed that a brighter future came because of those who fought for it. It had to be her, because she was the only one brave enough to take the leap of faith.

I looked back at the frozen image of Bella the moment before she died. Instinctively I reached for the blade, but my hand went through it. I was just as helpless now as I had been then. But I could see a detail that had escaped me every time I replayed that night in my head.

Reflected in the blade was an unmistakable grin.

Oh, Bella …

THANKS FOR MAKING ME A FIGHTER

There is this girl whom I love very much, and I once left her for four years while I fought a war against lost creatures who no longer had any place they could call home. Years were lost to my hate and fear and anger. When I returned, that girl took me back without hesitation or judgment, and I learned how powerful true love could be. And when I lost her again, I gave in to that same hate and fear and anger, until she found a way back from the Void to save my soul once again.

I could have been angry that she volunteered to leave me. I could have spent the last few hours before that bastard Grinner showed up, yelling, sulking, accusing and crying. I would have, except a long, long time ago I had promised to love her in this life and the next. Well, we were standing in the next and I planned to keep my promise.

Besides, too much time had been lost already.

↔

I wished I could have held Bella that night, but instead all we could do was stare at each other, standing dangerously close but never actually touching. I never knew so much joy could also hurt so badly. How does one heart have room for both?

Unsure how to fill the little time we had left, I settled for telling her my plan. If we were to be together, it meant surviving this night. Perhaps if we talked it through, some insight would surface that could make all the difference. And once I got rid of Grinner, we could be together, if only in my dreams. As I spoke, neither of us noticed that the once-blue sky was starting to fill with clouds.

She listened, a frown on her face, and said, “It is a good plan. As good as any, I suppose.”

“What?” I asked. “You don’t think it can work?”

“I didn’t say that. I have faith in you, Jean. I always have. But please remember: once you defeat him, you’ll still have a long life to live. No matter what happens, promise me you’ll live that life.”

“Another promise?” I said.

Those wide eyes stared at me, and it was all I could do from reaching out my hand to her face. “Yes, Jean. Did you hang the shelleycoat’s bell?”

I shook my head. “I forgot.”

“When you do, whatever happens is part of our path.”

“What path?”

A single raindrop fell on my face. She looked up. “He’s coming.”

I wanted to ask her again about our path, but I knew we didn’t have time. I nodded, looking up with her and watching as heavy gray clouds grew in the sky. “I’m ready.”

Beep.

“Jean,” Bella said, raising her voice over the wind, “be careful.”

I shot her my best I’m too good to fail look. “In this life and the next …”

Beep. Beep.

“I will love you forever.”

Beep. Beep.

“See you soon.”

↔

Beep, beep, beep …

I woke up with a jolt, my alarm ringing. The clock read midnight and I thought how fitting it was that he should breach the perimeter at that exact moment.

Hellelujah! Grinner was here.

↔

“Human Jean!” a voice called from outside. “Come out and play.”

My heart raced as I stood up. Before this moment, I had been ready to die to take this guy down, but now, knowing that Bella was truly alive and that there was some hope for us to be together, I wasn’t so sure.

I picked up the remote control and stepped outside, expecting the same serene surroundings I had always known. Instead, I was greeted by something else entirely.

In front of my cabin, the forest hung in the air, a hundred trees suspended to make a wall of wood and earth. Grinner took a step forward and the wall followed him. Thirty feet, I thought. So he had me trapped, because either I charged forward and tried to break through a wall of wood, or I jumped in a lake. Literally. Maybe that’s where the expression came from.

But where it came from didn’t change the fact that Grinner was boxing me in. That was fine; I wasn’t planning to run anyway.

The bastard stood in the foreground, his maniacal smile pushing out his eyes. “It is funny how the old ways still matter. When Michael asked me his question, I had to answer it. It was, after all, ordained that I must. There was so much ordained when the gods were here. So much protocol, so many rules. But that is all changing now.” He pointed to the ground, then at me. “By now you are aware that I can only influence the environment immediately around me. That, too, was ordained. A … precaution the gods put in place when creating me. They always made sure that when I spoke to them, I was at least five fathoms away. It was much less threatening that way. I may only influence so far, but Gravity is so much more than fifty feet. I am not the embodiment of a principle in which all the universe is connected, as so many think. I am its shadow, bound by rules that are slowly eroding. Just like the orbit of the stars that the archangel asked me to map out, so too are the rules that confine us all.”

“Blah, blah, blah …” I interrupted. “Brave new GoneGod World, everything has changed. Boo-hoo. What’s your point?”

Scorn colored his face. “Indeed, everything has changed. But what has been done can be undone. By now you must know that my words are no lie. Bella lives, and I am the path back to her. I am also the path back to the Void. To things returning to what they once were.” He pointed to the sky. “And all I need is a kiss between two mortals deeply in love. Let me draw Heaven in close. Once it is here, you will be able to touch your beloved. Embrace her so that I might be able to find the Heaven in which she now resides.” He pulled a plain-looking box from his pocket.

“You killed her!” I said, reliving the memory of his dagger piercing her chest.

He nodded. “A necessity. Only a human soul can enter Heaven uninvited. And only Bella was brave enough to try.”

“That’s my Bella.”

“Come, embrace her. And by doing so, embrace the new world I offer.”

It was tempting. I could have Bella back. But having some Other like him in charge was simply too high a price. Bella and I might not have seen eye to eye on many things, but we both agreed on this … now that the gods were gone, it was up to us mortals to find our way. They might have left behind a mess of lost creatures to find their way, but it was our mess and I wasn’t about to take the easy way out by letting the whole charade of gods and mortals start again.

“No,” I said, pushing the big red button on my remote control.

↔

My two sentry guns had been set high enough in the treeline so he couldn’t affect them. They flared to life, and their shots rang out like a thousand thunderclaps, each sending out a bullet flying at supersonic speed. But not a single bullet touched him. Not one. I knew his gravitational power could send the bullets flying off course, but it was the way he blocked the bullets that was unnerving. He was picking up tiny stones, pebbles and rocks, causing them to orbit around him like some twisted version of Saturn’s rings. Bullets ricocheted off the stones before joining their twisted orbit, except that the bullets were imbued with so much kinetic energy, they looped around him several times faster than the other debris.

The son of a bitch was showing off.

And that was OK—I wasn’t trying to kill him with a bullet. That would have been too easy. My tactics were blunter. The ferocity of the sentry guns forced him to move just a few feet farther down the path, and by varying the intensity of each gun, I was able to maneuver him to where I wanted. Just another step and … there! You see, the way I figured it was that Grinner was prepared for a sideways attack and even one from above. But from below …

I hit another button, setting off several mines I had buried beneath the spot where he now stood. The earth shattered upward, sweeping Grinner off his feet. He fell with a whoop, flat on his back. The thing about these land mines is that they explode upward, leaving the ground on which they rested virtually untouched. That meant there could be several layers of them, and it was a good way to lure an invading army into believing they were safe. Let their sweepers destroy the top row, only to have them walk on the field and set off the second row. Those were dirty tactics, and it was exactly what I did.

The second row of mines went off, tearing at Grinner’s back as bullets from the sentry guns managed to get through his defenses. He was literally being torn apart, piece by piece. I tore at him, bits of him flopping away only to get further shredded by mines and bullets. And still he moved.

Explosions rang from all around us as I rained holy Hell on the bastard’s head. I was going to tear him apart, if that was what it took. I was going to—

Suddenly everything went silent. And I don’t mean quiet. I mean sound ceased to exist. Even the vibrations of the guns and mines stopped, and at that moment the world went completely still. At first I thought Grinner had removed all the gravity, like he had done at the One Spire Hotel, but a quick look around proved that was not the case. The guns still rattled, empty shells falling to the side, and as dirt burst up in the air with each mine explosion, I was still able to move about normally.

With each bullet that ripped through Grinner’s body, bits of blood sprayed out. Unlike most Others, who bled different colors, Grinner bled in the same crimson red as humans; it made the scene all the more sickening to watch. I was thankful for the lack of sound. Somehow watching all this on Mute made it more bearable. I prepared my next few tricks, expecting Grinner to do something, anything, but he did not.

The last layer of mines exploded as the sentry guns ran through their final thread of bullets. Grinner lay in pieces, bits of him strewn throughout the field. Judith had asked me to kick him in the balls, but I guessed this would have to do.

I noticed that his hand rested not ten feet from me, ripped away by a mine blast. Grinner was finally dead. I had won. After all that power and magic, in the end all it took was the brute, blunt force of a whole lot of land mines to take down the Avatar of Gravity.

And still the world was silent.

If living in a mute world was the price to pay for having rid it of this evil, false god, then so be it. Bella and I would just have to learn sign language.

I put down the remote control and the other weapons I had thankfully not needed, and withdrew my hunting sword from its sheath. I wanted a piece of his heart, assuming that he had a heart and I could find it in this mess.

The first time he did this, back in the hotel, I had no idea what was happening, but I’d had some time to think about it. Grinner was so powerful that even sound could not escape his pull—just like a black hole—and that was why I needed to stop him. A force such as his did not nourish, it did not enlighten—it pulled at you, never letting you go, ensuring you never became what you were destined to be.

Then I heard a crackle. “Good show,” Grinner said. “I knew you were a worthy opponent.”

“GoneGodDamn it!” I said, looking for the source of the voice.

In the center of the mess lay a single black sphere, no larger than marble. It shot up. Bits of Grinner started to rise, orbiting the tiny ball. Bits of flesh and blood, bone and nail all circled that center point. I even noticed a few of Grinner’s abnormally large teeth joining the orbit.

The voice spoke again. “What is it you humans say? Earth to earth …”

Droplets of blood joined into larger bodies, uniting to form larger parts of him. Organs were spawning—lungs, stomach, heart. And around them the skeleton began to take shape.

“Ashes to ashes …”

A thin filament of skin gathered around the organs and bones, like a jigsaw puzzle being constructed in 3-D.

“Dust to dust.”

Damn it, I thought, using my hunting sword to pierce his hand, which still rested by me. I held it up and looked at it. He might be piecing himself together from the tiny shreds I had reduced his body to, but by the GoneGods, I was keeping his hand. Petty, I know.

Within moments Grinner was fully formed, only his hand missing. He smiled. I could feel him using his magic, but I was too far away to be affected.

“You and I are not that different,” he said, pointing his stump at me.

Looking at the speared hand, I grunted, “I am nothing like you,” then backed away slowly. I needed to get back to my porch and use my last trick.

“Yes, you are. There is a piece within all of us that holds us together. For me, it is my core. For you, it is Bella.”

“Don’t say her name!” I spat out, still inching backward. Letting him think I was afraid. Just a few more steps and …

“I picked her precisely because she was your core. I knew that if we lost her, you would always be the map back to her. In a way, her ascension happened because of you.”

“Bastard!” I said, the heel of my foot touching the base of the cabin’s stairs. I turned and started up them. There were only five steps and I could clear them in two strides. I just had to be faster than him and make sure I stayed out of the thirty-foot radius.

Grinner’s hand twitched on the tip of my sword. “Shit,” I cried out, and threw the blade down to the ground. “Come on! You’ve got to be kidding me.”

But it was too late—the hand freed itself from the sword and pulled me off the stoop, somehow holding me down. Apparently, a First Law’s hand didn’t need to be attached to a body to work.

So. Totally. Unfair.

Grinner stepped closer. His force pinned me down again and this time he wasn’t messing around. He crushed my ankle, bones compressed by tons of pressure, until all that remained was a sack of purple skin filled with powdered bone. I screamed in pain.

“It is because of you that we are here,” Grinner said. “Yes, she loved you. Loves you still. But what you felt for her was so beyond love. It was an attraction that could traverse solar systems. A connection that could defy even Time. Truly, amongst the human race, you are one of a kind.”

“Screw you,” I grunted.

“There is something I need of you.”

“Let me guess … a kiss?”

Grinner laughed. “A kiss, a touch—they are all the same. What I need is the attraction that you have for the human called Bella. Don’t you see? You are a magnet which can draw close only one person.”

“What? You don’t like my affable personality?” I couldn’t get up, but maybe I could move sideways. I inched forward, my fingers stretching to my felled blade. Just a few more inches. “And if I refuse?” I said, trying to buy myself some more time.

“By now you know that a kiss is just a—how do you mortals put it?—a formality. All I need is for you both to join in emotion. Her witnessing your death is enough. But I do not wish to make a martyr out of you. Don’t you understand? It is you whom she loves …” His voice trailed off and he began swaying, as if dancing to music that only he could hear. His eyes closed and he hugged himself dearly. “And she loves you so, so much. No matter what comes next, you can take comfort in that certainty, Jean.” His disembodied hand pointed a finger at me, so close it could poke my eye out. Then he pointed another finger to the sky, twirling it as one might when selecting a song from a jukebox—and all the while he swayed, entranced by the soundless music. “Yes … there. I feel it. She worries for you. Worries that you have failed and are now dead. Somewhere beyond, your love cries in fear for you,” he said, drifting off again, his arms outstretched to the sky—and the hand pinning me down zoomed up and reattached itself to his stump. I tried moving, but by now his gravity was weighing me down.

“Hey, Cheshire cat,” I said, but he didn’t hear me. It was more than that—the way he swayed, he was concentrating so deeply that I sincerely doubted anything short of a nuclear bomb would break his trance. Since I didn’t have one of those on hand, I looked around for another weapon. All I had left was my hunting sword, which lay a few feet away. In agony, I began crawling toward it again.

Inch by inch, I drew closer to my sword. Finally the tips of my fingers touched its hilt. Just a bit farther and …

“It requires a lot of energy to summon Heaven. A lot of time must be burned. To search for the Void without knowing where it is would be suicide. But with you here … Ah, yes!” Grinner said, his finger fixated on a specific point in the sky. “There you are!”

Then something happened that I’d never seen before. The sky got darker. I don’t mean that it became overcast and the light of fewer stars was reaching Earth. I mean the sky literally started to blot out. First the moon disappeared, then the light from bright stars, then the most distant stars extinguished.

Gemini’s brightest, as well as Castor and Pollux, were reduced from reflective diamonds in the sky to pinpricks in a heavy wool blanket, until they disappeared altogether. The stars of Hydra and Leo flickered out like dying bulbs.

One by one, I watched the night sky disappear until all that remained were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter, shining in a belt across the sky. Grinner left those four planets in the night sky, and they were the only real sources of light left.

“The doorway to the Void requires a ladder,” he hummed as he swayed in his trance. “But for a ladder to exist, it must be hinged both above and below.”

He pointed up to the four planets and then, with a violent gesture, pulled down, falling to his knees as he touched the ground with his hands. The four stars ceased being spots of light in the sky, morphing into beams of illumination. Hell, not beams—that conjures up images of lasers and Buck Rogers. I’m talking more like columns of light that extended from their source in the Heavens all the way down to the cleared-out field in front of PopPop’s cabin. Hellelujah—if I lived to be ten thousand years old, I seriously doubted I’d ever see anything as beautiful as this again.

“Don’t you see?” Grinner panted, and suddenly I could see him aging. Back in Paradise Lot, he had seemed to possess an inexhaustible amount of energy, but now—now he was out of breath. I guess bringing down Heaven can really take its toll on a guy. “I do this to give us all a chance at a new beginning.” He grinned.

The columns of light moved across the Earth and gathered closer to Grinner—not like the planets’ beams were twisting in his direction, but as if the planets were actually being pulled closer together across light-years of space—as he exerted his gravitational will with a growing ferocity. I could see flecks of gray appearing, adding texture to his jet-black hair as shallow but noticeable wrinkles began crawling out from the corners of his eyes.

The four columns converged onto Grinner, four spotlights that entered him, turning his body into a transparent shell. Now I could see what the inner workings of true magic looked like. It was a universe within a universe, a thousand galaxies orbiting his heart. But unlike the heart of our Milky Way, his was black and void, a force of absence. The stars from our night sky ran into that black heart, losing their effervescence as soon as they touched it.

And Grinner grew.

The stars themselves nourished him, and he grew.

First, he grew to twice the size of a human.

Then he was a hill giant, then a stone giant.

A dragon.

And still he grew, and all the while I watched the process unfold far too fast to be natural—an odd scene viewed through the lens of a camera that filmed only in fast-forward.

“Truly, Human Jean, you must now understand that no matter how hard you resist me, the new world will be,” Grinner bellowed, pulling Joseph’s box from his pocket.

The air got thick, and with every breath I took, I felt as though I were sucking in honey, and still I crawled forward, toward my final trick.

Grinner looked to the sky, which was now filled with a darkness that was not the absence of light, but an entity in and of itself. “Look there,” he said, pointing up. “That is where your Bella is. Just one embrace. One connection and the bridge will be established, and I will be able to hold it here forever and for everyone.”

And from the Void that hung in the air like a black balloon, I could see Bella’s face against its cusp. She looked down at me, less than a hundred feet away, anguish in her eyes. When we saw each other, my heart lurched and I felt something being drawn out of me, like a long breath slowly released. Gray wisps of smoke were filtering out of my chest, and when I looked up at Bella, I saw the same wisps emanating from her, toward Joseph’s box.

“You see?” Grinner cackled. “The connection wants to be free. Embrace her, let it go and save the world!”

“It’s now or never,” I muttered to myself, getting on my one good foot. The sack that was once my right foot wiggled from my ankle, each swing sending blinding pain through my body. I screamed. Taking deep breaths, I hopped up the cabin’s steps, each jump agony, and managed to collapse just in front of the door, where my ace card awaited me.

I pulled out a .50-caliber Beowulf that I had rubbed with the candle wax Hermes gave me. I remembered how the candles had protected him, hiding his magic from the world around him. I had mulled that over in my mind ever since. Why else would he have thought to give me that piece of wax? If the wax could shield me from magic, maybe it negated magic altogether. It was a gamble, but it was all I had.

I loaded the bullet into the magazine and slid the bolt home. Then I prepared to shoot, figuring the heat of the shot would melt the wax and burn its power long enough and strong enough that Grinner would not be able to block it with his gravitational tricks. Taking aim, I said a silent prayer to the GoneGods.

You left us here with so many problems. Let this bullet put an end to one of them.

I pulled the trigger.

THE DEEPENING

What happened next took less than a second, and yet I was able to perceive it as if in slow motion. The shot rang through the silence with a rippling sound and pierced the gravitational bubble surrounding Grinner with a thud. He must have felt his sphere being breached, because he looked in my direction. I saw him fan out his fingers, seeking to stop the bullet, but just as I had hoped, the wax shielded the lead missile from his powers. Understanding what was happening, he tried to lift a stone to block the bullet’s approach. A good plan … if only he had thought of it a millisecond earlier.

The bullet ripped into Grinner, shredding apart a body that was created to be Gravity incarnate. From the wound a torrent of darkness billowed out, like black air escaping a pierced balloon. I tried to dodge the Void, but I was too slow. It enveloped me, wisps grabbing at me with relentless power, and suddenly I was no longer at my cabin in the woods. I was no longer on Earth.

I was no longer here.

I was nowhere.

↔

What happened next came in degrees. First the chaos of the darkness’s approach immediately ceased and I found myself standing at a crossroad, a single light hanging overhead. The gloom was so heavy I could not see more than ten feet away, four paths leading from me into the eternity beyond. I was in the Void and Bella did not come to save me. I was alone. Slowly, inch by inch, the ten feet of visibility became nine, then eight, until the emptiness was less than five feet away. I couldn’t stand it, the claustrophobic approach, like being boxed into a room that was shrinking. And with every inch taken away, I was closer to the Void’s embrace.

Screw that! If I was going to die, I wanted to have a hand in it, not wait for it to take me away slowly but surely. I took a step forward, down the path that was straight ahead. Then another, until finally I stepped into the darkness itself.

What I felt was damn near impossible to describe. It was a sensation I had never experienced before and prayed I never would again. I entered heavy air, a lukewarm aura—like walking into a wall of water—and then all at once it was like being a thousand feet beneath the surface, the pressure of the depth crushing me under its immense weight. I was floating in the Void and I suddenly had the thought that I was back in my mother’s womb, the amniotic fluid hugging me tight, suspending me in the darkness where up and down, left and right no longer mattered. All that did matter was simply being. I even found myself curling up into the fetal position. I was suspended in nothing.

And that is exactly where I was: in nothing. I don’t mean peace or tranquility or any other kind of Zen bullshit. I mean nothing. A complete and total, all-consuming emptiness. Darkness, sure. But this was more than darkness, because even if you stood in a pitch-black room with a blindfold, you still wouldn’t come close to what I mean. And the silence—I can only say for sure that it did not come from the absence of sound, because that would imply that sound exists somewhere else. No sound existed here. It never had and it never would.

In the Void, I wasn’t floating—that would imply that I was some kind of corporeal form. I was not there. Rather, my body was not. Only my consciousness, and that, I’ve learned, was not enough to negate the nothing.

I felt that if I stayed in this place too long I would die, not out of hunger or thirst, but because my body would eventually be absorbed by the nothing, my heart’s vibrations syncing with my new surroundings, joining the perfect harmony of the Void. I could feel that already happening, my mind losing so many memories.

This was not like the Void I had been in with Bella in my dreams. There, I suspected, I was just a visitor. Like being in a movie, except I could walk around the set, watch what was going on, but not actually be able to touch anything. Certainly this was true every time I tried to embrace Bella, draw her close. We were together, but not. And although she wasn’t a hallucination, she was a hologram of herself. Where I was with Bella had felt like a dream.

This place felt real.

And I was suddenly gripped with a suffocating terror that I was dead and this was all that was left. Lonely, empty, lost—these words didn’t even come close to how I felt. It was as if there was absolutely nothing in the universe but my consciousness—it was awful. Already I could feel the utter lack of anything piercing my mind, crushing me under its overwhelming absence.

But then … well, remember how this all started? Me running from the darkness and her saving me. Perhaps we had come full circle, because from the emptiness of nothing, she came. And without doing or saying anything, by the simple act of being there, she saved me from a broken mind and a lost soul.

Some things never change.

From out of the darkness Bella appeared. Not in my dreams, not a hallucination, but Bella made of flesh and blood. Bella, my wife, my best friend, my lover. My soulmate.

Bella, oh how I would have died a thousand times for you.

The joy of seeing her there and the overwhelming nothingness of this place made me forget everything. Grinner, Earth, the Others, the GoneGods. But no emptiness could ever make me forget Bella. “Oh, my love,” I said, “I am so happy to see you.”

↔

“You have to go back,” she said, denying me as I approached her.

I was so desperate to be in her arms. “I don’t want to go back,” I said. “I want to be here with you.”

She shook her head. “That is this place talking. It was how I felt when I first arrived. But you are not dead. Not like me.” Her voice was calm, soothing.

“No,” I said, “but this time I don’t have to wake up. We can be together forever here.”

Bella gave me her You know that’s not true look. “Jean, don’t you remember what’s happening?”

“Remember?” I said, the word slapping me as I spoke it. Remember what? What else was there to remember? But like the opposite of waking up from a dream and it slowly fading away into oblivion, her words brought it back. Vague images, until all I saw were Joseph and Penemue, Tink and CaCa, the destruction of the One Spire Hotel and the devastation of Paradise Lot. All of it slowly trickled back into my consciousness. It was terrifying. I was seeking the embrace of the one who had soothed my nightmares a thousand times before, but with each new memory, a chasm grew between us.

“I’m not dead?” I said, as the memories of what was happening flooded back into me.

“No,” Bella said. “Not yet. But the longer you stay here, the harder it will be for your soul to find its way back.”

“Would that be so bad?” I reached out my hand, determined to hold her before the divide grew too far. “We’d be together.”

Bella didn’t reach out for me. She did not take my hand in hers, instead rejecting me with a look of pain in her eyes. A single tear ran down her cheek. She shook her head and said, “Look, the darkness is already changing. You have to go back.”

“I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

“Remember the beach, the mountainside, your toys that I brought to life?”

I nodded.

“I’m not alone. They’re memories, but they are also real. I will learn to make those constructs more permanent. I’m getting better at filling the Void. And as I get better, I’m going to fill this place with things that remind me of you. Of us. Jean, I may be alone, but I am not lonely. This world is my canvas and already I have made so many wondrous paintings. And there's so much here to see and learn. There are pillars that tell stories that haven't happened yet. You and I are on one of them."

"What does our pillar say?"

A sad smile touched her lips. "That's a story for another time."

“I won’t leave you.”

“You’re not leaving me,” she said, giving me her I love you forever look. “You can’t.”

“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you.”

Bella touched my cheek with her hand and I just wanted to melt into her warmth. “I don’t want you to leave, either. But there you have to stop him.”

“Why?”

She gave me her Listen carefully look. “I’ve been searching Heaven … well, this Heaven, and I found something terrifying. The gods, their departure—it’s not what you think. It’s not what any of us think. We got it wrong. The gods didn’t leave because they wanted to. They left because—”

A strong force pulled at me and I felt as if I was caught in a net and being yanked away from the very place I wanted to be. So this is what a fish must feel like when its being reeled in.

I turned to see Grinner, his hand outstretched toward me, his face straining with concerted effort. He was trying to bring me back to Earth, with Heaven in tow.

Bella floated after me. “You have to stop him.”

“How?” I asked, genuinely wondering who my dead wife thought I was. Superman? Hulk? A god with unimaginable power?

She looked down through the portal and at Grinner, who continued to hold on to Heaven. “He’s weaker than he has ever been. He needs to build the bridge and enter this realm before he can be whole again. If there was ever a chance, now is it.”

“Maybe … but he’s still so strong and I’ve run out of tricks.”

“You have. But I haven’t.”

She pulled off the silver ring she had made in our dream and threw it to me. I caught it—and unlike all the times before, I actually felt the hard, cool metal in my hand.

“Remember your promise, Jean. And remember how much I love you. I’m beginning to understand that what exists between us can make anything possible—even what you most hope for.”

What I most hoped for. I knew exactly what that was, the thing that seemed crazy to want: to bring her back. To have Bella alive and by my side once more. For her to live a full life—with me.

“What I most hope for—”

“I know, Jean,” she said. “It’s what I most hope for, too.”

And from beyond the chasm, she blew me a kiss that hit me like a physical force, jarring me to life in the world beyond the Void. With a gasp, I was back at the cabin, on Earth and without Bella.

↔

Bella’s kiss had blown me back into the world. I looked up and saw the window from where Bella had thrown me out of Heaven. It was a shimmering, glossy black hole, as if someone had ripped open the sky. Bella’s face appeared at the threshold and her hand slammed against the inside of the portal, her palms flush against its barrier as if she were pressing against glass. She could not cross over. Like Michael said, death is the only one-way valve from which there is no return. But Michael was only mortal now, just like the rest of us, and he wasn’t all-knowing. Orpheus had nearly brought Eurydice back from Hell—if only he hadn’t looked back. Who was to say that I couldn’t bring my Bella back from Heaven?

Even now, her words rang in my ears. “What exists between us can make anything possible,” she had said. “Even what you most hope for.”

I wouldn’t be Orpheus; I loved Bella too much to look back.

And there was a way. We knew that Joseph’s box was powerful enough to hold the connection. Hell, it had already drawn it out of us. With it, I could get back to Bella—and who knew what was possible from there? So, new plan. Get Joseph’s box and kill Grinner, and not necessarily in that order.

Simple. I mean, how hard could it be to kill a god?

↔

“Oath-Breaker!” Grinner screamed, drawing my attention away from Heaven’s window. I looked behind me to see Penemue flapping directly above Grinner, exactly thirty feet away.

The cavalry had arrived, and from the way he flopped about in the sky, I was pretty sure the cavalry was drunk.

“Hellelujah!” I cried out.

“Tell me, Fallen,” Grinner said, “have you come to repent for your sins, or are you here to witness the ascension of your new god?”

The angel grinned, removing those rimless glasses of his and tucking them into the small pocket in his tweed vest. “In Hell, I was a hero,” he said. “For my sin gave humans the capacity to sin from eternity to eternity. Why corrupt a single soul when you can damn them all? Perfect strategy, don’t you think?

“In Hell, Belial built me a vast library and Mulciber a palace. They showered me with gifts and riches, praise and accolades. Even the Morning Star consulted me when contemplating the more subtle aspects of sin. All the while I nodded and imparted my knowledge, because if any of them were to suspect that I taught humans wisdom not out of malice but out of admiration, and, dare I say it, love, they would cast me out—and then where would I go? Better to survive in Hell than wither elsewhere, I thought. Well, I am tired of surviving.”

Penemue cast a glance at me. “What was it you said? ‘We’re all going to die. Might as well die for something worthwhile.’ Very well, then.”

From out of nowhere two daggers appeared, their hilts attached to a chain that bubbled out of his skin and wrapped around his forearms. He threw them down at Grinner, and both pierced his back as the fallen angel yanked on the chains and pulled upward. Grinner rose, wriggling like a fish caught on a hook. All this time I had thought of Penemue as a celestial librarian, never once imagining he had a few tricks literally up his sleeve. GoneGodDamn—Penemue was a badass!

Penemue took to the sky and I noted that his chains were over thirty feet long. He was keeping his distance. The angel pulled up, but Grinner quickly anchored himself to the ground. Penemue’s arms and wings struggled to get enough power to lift him.

He yanked again, rope-thick veins straining to provide enough blood to his massive muscles, but the huge Grinner did not move. I doubted he even burned time to hold himself to the ground, his newly made, massive body enough to anchor him down. But he was in pain. I could tell from his faltering smile.

Grinner reached for the blades, but Penemue had planned his shot well. There was no way a body of human design could reach those meat hooks stuck in its own back.

“I see that a leopard does not change its spots, just as a Fallen cannot do anything but fall!”

With this last word, Grinner spread apart his hands and tried to force Penemue down. The angel was outside of Grinner’s thirty-foot sphere of influence, and Grinner couldn’t get a hold on him. But he wasn’t trying to pull down the fallen angel—he was focusing his powers on the chains from which he hung. Penemue must have anticipated this, because he was flapping his wings for all he was worth, the air beneath him stirring up the earth and ground below. Leaves and loose twigs were to be expected, but the torrent of his wings was pulling up the roots of full-grown trees, their tendrils popping up from beneath the ground. Man, oh man, I’d seen jet engines throw less air around.

Penemue fought Grinner, his strength slowly failing him. But he wasn’t the only one who suffered from exhaustion. Grinner was also sweating, his face straining, skin thickening as he struggled to hold the Void while fighting the angel. He was burning too much time dealing with Penemue while trying to maintain his grip on Heaven.

The monster was aging, which meant that he could be killed, too.

But just when I thought we had a chance, Grinner pulled down Penemue. The angel hit the ground with a splat, his wings still sprawled out before him. Crap.

I stood, expecting to feel like Hell, but instead I felt whole, strong. My foot was still a sack of powdered bone, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t feel it. I was … young. No—that wasn’t the right word for it. I was more. I felt like I was going to live, if not forever, then damn near close to it. Thousands upon thousands of years pulsed through my body and I knew that whatever Bella had packed into that kiss, she’d thrown in a whole truckload of time with it, too. I was—for this moment, at least—like an Other.

Bella’s words ran through my mind: “Imagine playing with these!” Well, that’s exactly what I did.

Summoning the well of time within me, I conjured Optimus, Star Scream and every Dinobot ever made. I brought forth Voltron, G.I. Joe and an army of Smurfs. They were all three stories high and as heavy as mountains. I summoned a squadron of Robotech’s Veritech fighters. They were all at least thirty feet tall, and the ground shook as each one took a step.

And then my army of giant 1980’s toys opened up a can of whoop-ass on Grinner.

Grinner fought them off just as he had done with the Others in Paradise Lot. But unlike that battle, when he’d fought a bunch of Others who did their best to coordinate their attacks, he now fought dozens of creatures that shared one mind. When he swatted down Megatron, Snake Eyes was right there to slash him with his sword. When he tossed away He-Man, WilyKat scratched him with his claws. I even threw in a Care Bear Stare for good measure.

And each of his counterattacks aged him. His shaggy dark hair became shot with gray, receded back to his ears and kept pulling back farther. He simply could not fight so many while holding on to Heaven. And what was worse—for him, at least—was every time he destroyed one of my toys, I made two more.

I had never burned time before, so I really wasn’t prepared for what it felt like. It was like emptying air out of your lungs. After a while, there wasn’t any air left to blow out. Whatever Bella had given me was temporary. But it was enough.

“What exists between us can make anything possible.” I was beginning to understand the immensity of what she had meant. All this from a single kiss.

When the last second of the extra time given to me burned out, I looked over at Grinner, who now panted heavily with exertion, sweat dripping from his brow. He dropped to one knee and I knew he was nearly beat. All that was needed was to push him over the edge.

I hopped over to Penemue, who slowly rose from the crater his body had made from his fall. “Those hooks,” I said, “do they detach?”

Penemue nodded, threaded out one of his chains and handed it to me. I pulled out my hunting sword and, taking his grappling hook, hopped closer to Grinner. He tried to turn, but before he could, I threw the hook into him, its jagged edge connecting with his back. Then I pulled with all my worth. It had the desired effect—I was on him. Let him remove or increase gravity, I was attached now.

I pulled back my sword arm and stabbed, piercing my twelve-inch blade into where Grinner’s heart would be. He whimpered, but as soon as I withdrew my sword, he healed his wound. I had fought a lot of Others and, unlike the legends, you didn’t need a silver bullet to kill a werewolf, or garlic to end a vampire. Sure, those things helped, but at the end of the day, they were made of flesh and blood. Sometimes all you need to kill a monster is brute force. I stabbed and stabbed and stabbed, and with each chunk I carved out of him, Grinner healed, burning a bit of time as he did. He countered by crushing me with gravity. It felt like my chest was being constricted under the force of a powerful python, but I didn’t care. I just wanted this guy dead. I fought through the pain, striking him again and again with my blade.

What was healing a slash worth? A minute? What about cutting off a finger, or slitting a throat? An hour? Maybe a day? What was my plan, anyway? To force him to burn through a hundred million years, one stab wound at a time? This was the very definition of insanity, but if I stopped, he would heal himself and we would be right back where we started, a First Law with a god complex seeking to oppress the world. I couldn’t let that happen.

But he was burning more than an hour of life. He was going through thousands of years in the blink of an eye, such was the energy required to hold the Void. Even so, this would take hours and I was so very tired and my body so constricted. My muscles would fail me long before his time burned out.

“You fool!” he cried. “I give you the chance to be reunited with her, your one true love!”

“No,” I said, continuing to press my advantage. “Not like this!”

Already I was failing. I wanted desperately to see Grinner falter even slightly, but exhaustion was overwhelming me. My arms burned, each swing weaker than the last. I couldn’t win.

Then I saw her, staring from the window, her hand on the glass that separated us. She gave me that same smile she did the day she died. The one that said, It will all be OK.

No, it won’t. I can’t.

She smiled, her lips curled into an uneven line of both joy and fear. Do it, she mouthed. Please.

“No,” I said. Then, summoning six years of frustration and anger, loss and anguish, I screamed it. “NO!”

But I had made a promise. To protect them and to love her. In this life and the next.

I knew what I had to do.

I spun around and grabbed at the box that still rested in Grinner’s hands, bringing my good foot down in an arching swoop. As I did so, I took a moment to look up one last time at the Void, saw Bella’s distant soul smile with pride.

I smashed down the cube that had once contained the bridge between Bella and me, and with more ease than should have been possible, I destroyed Pandora’s Box.

↔

The little plain wooden cube splintered into a thousand pieces, tearing apart far too easily for something that would change my life forever. But then again, what did I expect? Sometimes it is the simplest acts that have the most profound effects.

With Joseph’s box destroyed, a new kind of darkness came over me. It was neither the Void nor one of Grinner’s tricks, nor was it my dreams.

I was dying.

I looked up and saw Bella there, the window from where she watched slowly fading away.

“The Void, it is closing. Without the box, I can no longer hold on to it,” Grinner said, now white-haired and grizzled. He was still burning time, but what he was doing to make that happen I was not sure. Truth be told, in that moment I didn’t care. Heaven was closed and no amount of time or power could get it back. Despite what she had said about our love, Bella was gone. All over again, just like when she’d died that night. If he used his time to crush me, so be it. I was alone and it hurt me to know that I would never see her again. Death sounded pretty good.

“I …” he muttered, wrinkling and stooping more with every syllable. “I … was created to speak to the gods. I gave them permission to exist, I opened their realms. I am the reason why all that is, is. And they left me here to die by Time’s hand.”

“Join the club,” I said, my vision blurring all the more.

He looked at me as tributaries of wrinkles poured from the sides of his eyes like dry tears, the eyes themselves bursting red with capillaries. “Mortality—how do you bear it?”

How do I bear it? How does one bear the march of time, knowing that each moment spent will never return? How do you accept that the breath just breathed takes you one step closer to the Void? How do you accept that an end is coming and no amount of power or wealth or talent will ever save you from it? How do you live knowing you are going to die?

I had no idea, and my ignorance suddenly felt very funny to me. A laugh escaped me and my sides split in agonizing pain at the effort. “One day at a time,” I said. “One day at a time.”

I coughed and noticed that the blood that trickled from my mouth flowed slowly, which meant my heart no longer pumped hard enough for my blood to reach my head. That or I had simply run out of blood. I guess that’s what you get when someone cracks your ribs. I was getting cold. As my vision faded, I knew that my last breath quickly approached.

I looked up one last time and said in a weak voice, “In this life and the next.” I think I stretched out my arm, my hand reaching for her, but I can’t be sure. The world was fast disappearing.

Grinner nodded at my words and said, “One day at a time.” His nose and stubbled chin grew prominent, his body withering as he spoke. I noticed that he was getting smaller, too. “One hour at a time,” he said, his eyes widening as if he finally got the punchline to the esoteric joke that was life. “One minute at a time.”

Angels say that your soul leaves your body like a waft of smoke floating away from a recently extinguished candle, but that isn’t true. Like the tearing of fabric or the shearing of skin, your soul rips away from you. It is solid and unmistakable. There is no confusion, no questioning. When you die, you know it. And on that day, just outside my PopPop’s cabin in the woods, I died; my soul, although it did not possess eyes with which to see or ears with which to hear, ascended to Heaven and to Bella. I guess I didn’t need the box after all.

I could sense Bella drawing close to me as I was carried up in the mists and toward the Void. She was only a few feet away. Only a little farther and I would be with her. Soon, my soul screamed, soon!

But before I could be with her again, I was drawn back into my body like dust being sucked into the mouth of a vacuum. I was no longer separate, but one with my corporeal self, and the window—oh, the window—it was all but gone.

I looked at the fading portal where Bella watched, staring down at me, her smile widening until it touched her eyes. Live well, she mouthed as she touched the barrier between our worlds one last time.

And then she was gone.

“What? What did you do?” I said to Grinner, whose hand rested on my body, knowing it was him who brought me back—the scorpion’s strike taking its final revenge.

But Grinner’s eyes held no malice. No hate. With a calm voice speaking from straight lips, he said, “At the dawn of time, the gods spoke to me once, requesting only one thing from me. Do you know what it was?”

I shook my head, pain reverberating through my body.

“ ‘When it ends, keep them all together.’ I wonder if they knew the weight of the burden they bestowed upon me.”

“Oh,” I said, because I could think of nothing else to say.

“Human Jean, my brothers and sisters … they are coming, and they are far worse than I,” Grinner said. Then, with a raspy chuckle, his maniacal, now toothless grin returned. “Now it is for you to keep them all together.” His body started to shrink faster, all parts of him pulled into the core that was his center. Gravity was imploding, and like a balloon being deflated, he withered, his features flattening and contracting, becoming less human, then less alive. Then less of anything.

All that remained was a tiny effervescent sphere, no larger than a marble, on the ground next to me.

As my body convulsed and quivered, I did not have time to contemplate the meaning of his final words. Exhaustion and the weight of grief for having truly lost Bella overcame me.

“In this life and the next,” I said one last time, as my own darkness flowed over me and I faded away into an oblivion of my own.

PARADISE LOST … NOW BACK TO PARADISE LOT

True pain is so much worse than death. True pain is the destruction of all that you are and the belief that no matter how much time passes, no matter how many pills are consumed, Band-Aids applied, counselling sessions attended, nothing will make you completely you again. True pain is living without hope. And the night Bella did not save me in my dreams was the night I learned what true pain truly was.

I would have died after that. Just shut down. Refused to think, because to think would be to think of Bella. Refused to feel, because to feel would be to feel Bella. I would have died after that. A passive death that can be achieved only from not moving, not eating, not sleeping. The slow suicide of a broken heart. I would have died after that. And I would have been happy.

But I didn’t because of the damned angel who never left my side, forcing me to eat and to drink. Taking care of me every waking minute of every waking day as my mind slowly restarted. I have vague memories of strong hands gently spoon-feeding me soup, and water trickling down my throat. Of being lifted and cleaned, of being put to bed, of being woken up. Oh, how I hated the angel who would not let me die.

↔

I don’t know how long that went on for. Days, perhaps weeks. But it was some time later—much later—when the sun shone through my cabin window and onto my face that I finally woke from my catatonic spell. My first words were an echo of what my soul demanded. My voice came out hoarse and dry, weak from lack of use.

“I want to die.”

Penemue grunted as he looked up from his book. He had been reading to me. Then, as if he hadn’t heard me, he continued reading, his voice coming out slow and deep:

“O Progeny of Heav'n, Empyreal Thrones,

With reason hath deep silence and demurr

Seis’d us, though undismaid: long is the way

And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”

Milton in baritone. Looking up from the text, Penemue said in a soft tone, his voice lost in some distant memory, “Surprisingly accurate for one who has never lost as we have.”

And with those words I understood. He saw us as one and the same. I may not have fallen, but like the angel who now nursed me back to health, I had also rejected Heaven and lost everything.

Not that any of that mattered.

“I said, I want to die.” I spoke with more force now, my body slowly waking up. I knew what I was saying was filled with self-pity, but I didn’t care. I wanted to die and, by the GoneGods, I was in a sharing mood.

Penemue, having returned to the epic poem, did not look up, merely countering in a low voice, “We all want to die when the light that once warmed us is taken away. Now, do you mind?” His words lacked sympathy, while at the same time expressing a depth of empathy beyond anything I had felt before.

Penemue continued reading.

↔

On the fifth morning since my first words, I tried to stand, careful to hop on my good foot. That was when I first noticed that the ball of powdered bone that once was my right foot was again whole and filled out. But I had seen Grinner flatten it, had hopped with it, had felt the pain, even after he brought me back. I looked up at Penemue, who sat there smirking, Drambuie in one hand, book in the other.

“Did you …” I started.

“Indeed, Human Jean. I couldn’t have my charge continue the rest of his miserable life as a hobbled wretch of a man. Misery, I find, is so much better spent when you can pace.”

I put my foot down to test it and it hurt like the blue blazes of Tartarus as it touched the ground.

“I conserved some time by healing you up to the point where your own biology could do the rest. I recommend ice, elevation and rest.”

“This doesn’t change anything,” I said.

“All I do is waste time.” Penemue put down his book, leaning forward in the chair. “After the Fall, I spent all my time reading and brooding, barely a sober moment in between. Since the GrandExodus, I have spent all my time reading and brooding, barely a sober moment in between. And now, I wait for you to heal so that we can return to Paradise Lot, where I may continue to spend my time reading and brooding, with barely a sober moment in between.”

“What’s your point?”

The fallen angel rolled his eyes. “My point, dear Human Jean, is that you are wasting my time by not letting me read and brood. Now, if you don’t mind,” Penemue said, taking a long drag of his Drambuie. “Besides, you have a promise to keep.”

My promise. By the GoneGods, why did that matter anymore? Why did anything matter anymore? I would never see my Bella again. I would never dream of her or touch her, share a secret or joke. I would never see her again, and it was all my choice. My promise was made to a woman just as gone as the gods. It wasn’t like any of the Others kept their once-sacred covenants. Why should I be held to higher standards?

“Not sure I do.”

Penemue lifted an eyebrow this.

“I’ll never see her again,” I said, hoping the fallen angel was smart enough to connect the dots.

“Probably not, with that attitude,” Penemue agreed. “But then again, it has been my experience that there is rarely only one way to get to a destination. After all, one could walk, run or fly.” He gave his wings a little flap at the last word. “Bella is still there.”

I gave him a blank look, to which Penemue sighed with a false patience. “My point, dear Human Jean, is that she got there using an entirely different method than the First Law did. My point is that if there are two ways to Heaven, then perhaps there is a third. My point is that if there is a will, there is a way.”

He showed me the book he was reading: An Advanced Understanding of Quantum Physics.

“But really, my point is that if I am ever going to find a way back into Heaven before my body is old and brittle, I must have time to concentrate.”

Penemue, like everyone else, was looking for Heaven. Why? To be a god? To get his immortality back? To help me? Why? Why?

“Why?” I asked him.

“Why what?” he said, looking at me from his book.

“Why are you searching for Heaven?”

He must have sensed my cynicism. Dismissing it with a gesture, he said, “We’re all going to die. Might as well die doing something worthwhile.”

“Penemue,” I said.

His eyes rose from the book, lidded and impatient.

“You know the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.”

One of his wings flitted—was that a pipe down gesture? “Jean, please don’t. That tale is not even about Heaven.”

I hobbled closer. “But is it real?”

He blinked at me. “Jean …”

“Is it?”

“Orpheus had the protection of the gods.”

I stared at him, and he stared up at me. “If I tell you, will you get back in bed and let me read?”

I nodded.

“Yes, Human Jean. Their story—just like their love—was absolutely real.”

↔

A few more weeks passed, and every day Penemue read aloud, refusing to leave my side. Every night I dreamed of Bella. But unlike before, these dreams were empty, a poor conjuring of a lonely man. And then, one night I did not dream of her at all. She was fading away and all that was left was my promise.

My promise. My godless damned promise … Why did that matter anymore? Why did any of it matter?

But it did. And all the time in the world to wallow in self-pity wasn’t going to change that. What was it the angel had said? We’re all going to die. Might as well die doing something worthwhile.

And there is this girl whom I love very much …

And there is this girl whom I love very much …

↔

We packed up the cabin, forgetting to lock it as I had done so many times before. My foot still ached, so Penemue offered to drive, his massive body fitting in the driver’s seat only because he stuck one wingtip out the window, the other encroaching onto the passenger’s side.

Angels are not very good drivers. The car lurched forward as his massive foot hit both the clutch and brake at once. He ground the gears and, as he did, my heart thumped. He’d burn out the clutch if he wasn’t careful. Hell, he might even blow out the whole transmission.

“Stop,” I said, opening my door. “I’ll drive.” As we switched seats, I could have sworn I saw the bastard smirk.

I hobbled into the driver’s seat and revved the engine with my good foot. It felt good to be behind the wheel. Fine, I thought, I’ll get us home. Perhaps being a dead man pretending to be alive didn’t have to be all bad.

↔

We drove all the way to the One Spire Hotel. The building was still in tatters, police tape still strung up outside. What did I expect? After all, we were in Paradise Lot. It’s not like the place ceased being a slum because I killed one Fanatical wannabe god.

Penemue sighed, stretched out his wings and said in his baritone voice, “I have been sober far too long. If memory serves me right, there is a fresh bottle of Drambuie in the hay.”

But before leaving, he walked over to me and handed me an effervescent sphere the size of a marble.

The once-great Avatar of Gravity.

“A trophy for you,” he said, and took to the sky.

↔

I walked in and found the broom. This mess of a room was my front door; even though I didn’t have a hotel anymore, I still had my pride. I’d clean this place up. Start rebuilding it one brick at a time and see what would happen. We all have to pick the hills we’re willing to die on, and this hill was better than most.

I heard the hotel’s door open and I turned to see Newton, a.k.a. EightBall, leader of a gang of HuMans that got their kicks from terrorizing Others.

“If you’re here to cause problems …” I started, but judging by the sheepish way he looked around the place, I doubted he was here to start a fight. His clothes were torn and he looked like he’d just spent the last few nights on the streets. He had bruises and cuts that were a few days old and dry blood was splattered down the front of his shirt.

“This place really had a number done on it,” he said.

“Yeah.” I was exhausted from the drive up and not in the mood for chitchat.

“Do you think you’ll be up and running soon?”

“Given that it’s city ordinance that rented rooms have four walls, I seriously doubt it.”

“Too bad,” he said, not moving from where he stood. He reminded me of, well, me, when I wanted something from PopPop, but was too proud to bring it up.

I stopped sweeping and looked at him for who he was. A kid. Before, he at least had his anger, and that anger gave him purpose. But now … he looked lost. “What happened?” I asked.

“Me and the gang had us a … falling-out over our Other policy, and now that I’m freelance I was thinking maybe you got a job for me.”

“Kid, do I look like I have a hotel, let alone a job for you?”

EightBall didn’t say anything. Just kept staring at me with wanting eyes.

“Fine,” I said, handing him the broom. “You can start by helping clean up. I can’t pay you, but you can sleep in one of the rooms upstairs for free.”

EightBall took the broom with a little too much attitude and started at the floor. He stopped mid-sweep and looked up at me. “Fine, but I don’t do windows,” he said, trying to save face.

“What windows?”

He looked at the broken glass all around us, shrugged and got back to sweeping.

↔

Walking into my bedroom filled me with dread. Although it had survived the chaos of the previous days relatively untouched, it also carried with it the memories of a life now lost. My vintage toys still sat on the shelves, unmoved. Tink’s castle remained empty; the note and candle wax I had left for her were exactly where I had left them. I don’t know why, but I placed what was left of Grinner in the hollowed-out eye of Castle Grayskull, using Hermes’s wax to hold it in place. I figured it was as good a resting place as any. I also put the picture of Bella that Michael gave me on the shelf—my little shrine to remind me how I lost her for a second time.

But the worst part of my intact room was my unmade bed. That was where I used to dream of Bella. It being exactly where I left it and my knowing that she would not be there to greet me filled my heart with a deep, restless sorrow. I wished, with every fiber of my being, that my room had been destroyed and with it some of the memories that haunted me now.

Looking around, I tried to find any change and noted one difference. Someone had been in my room and taken one single item—my collarless black jacket. I was sure I had hung it up before leaving, but the coat hanger was empty.

Frustrated, I looked around the room for it. Truth was, I was mad. It was my connection to the One Spire Hotel, the symbol of my promise. And I looked really good in it. By the GoneGods, I loved that jacket!

I lumbered about my room looking for it. Maybe under the bed? Or in the bathroom?

There was a knock at my door. I opened it to see Astarte standing there, wearing tight red leather.

“Hello, lover,” she said with that subtle Parisian accent. “Aren’t you going to invite an old friend in?”

I opened the door wide.

She surveyed the room like one might look around their childhood home years later. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“It’s exactly the same as when you saw it last.” I walked over to my chair, noticing that my foot still ached. “How did you know I was back?”

“Do you honestly think a god-killer could come back into Paradise Lot without everyone talking about it? You are somewhat of a celebrity now.”

“So, what?” I said, pouring two whiskeys. Penemue wasn’t the only one who had a stash. “Are you moving back in?”

“Oh, honey,” she said, the words trickling off her tongue. “I am not moving in. You are moving out.”

↔

It took some persuading on Astarte’s part to get me out. But Astarte, being a mistress of lust and desire, eventually wore out my resistance. Truth be told, I never stood a chance. I doubt Astarte was ever denied anything she had her heart set on.

“Come now, it is not even the witching hour and all I ask for is an escort,” she said, leaning against my door. “I won’t bite. Not unless you ask.”

↔

We walked to the East End, past churches, temples and shrines that eventually gave way to taverns, bars and the seedier clubs that offered many off-menu items. I doubt there was a single vice in Heaven or Hell that wasn’t on tap here.

At the heart of Paradise Lot is a hill and on that hill is the Millennium Hotel, a once-upon-a-time castle–turned–chic boutique guest house that used to charge an entrance fee just to walk into the foyer. The building was circular, looking more like a rook from a chessboard than a hotel. It stood at the crossroads of Paradise Lot, a small courtyard surrounding the five-story building like a moat.

Astarte started up the stairs and I stopped her. “Hold up, the building will be filled with squatters and—”

“Oh, pishposh,” she interrupted. “The building is empty and has been for some days now. No one in Paradise Lot would dare disturb it.” She pulled out a key and unlocked the turnstile door at the front.

“How do you know?” I asked.

Astarte ignored my question, leading me inside. She walked to a side door that apparently acted as the utility room. She pulled down on a heavy metal breaker and the inside of the hotel lit up, dusty lamps casting soft embers in a room misty with dust motes.

↔

The Millennium Hotel had an incredible reception, its central dominance huge and inviting, with a large circular desk sitting in the middle. I followed Astarte’s eyes, looking up, and saw that the interior was empty, each floor landing looking out into the epicenter of the building. There was an elegantly crafted wrought-iron guardrail on each floor that depicted the scene of an elaborate copper garden. From these guardrails, one could look all the way down to the reception area or all the way up to the giant stained-glass window that made up the Millennium Hotel’s roof. The window depicted an unfolding lily, each pane white, yellow or clear, and it reminded me of the flowers on Bella’s sundress.

The hollowed center was large enough for Penemue to spread his wings and fly to the seventh floor unhindered. And for those without wings, a stairwell zigzagged along the floors, leading all the way to the top.

“We didn’t have time to clean it all up, and dwarves make the most appalling maids. All they wanted to do was polish the marble and stone.”

I looked down and noted that, indeed, the marble floors were immaculately clean, even if the rest of the place could have used some work.

“But it’s a start,” she said, walking into the center of the foyer and pointing up.

“A start for what?” I asked.

“For a second chance.” She handed me my collarless black jacket. It had been dry-cleaned and was still covered in cellophane wrap. “Remember the humans you saved that night in your hotel?”

I nodded. “The naked ones.”

She smiled. “They are my … ah … most loyal customers. I told them that if they wanted to continue our little romps, they had to come back to the One Spire Hotel. And since that place blew up, we needed somewhere new. Well, voilà. Somewhere new.”

“Hah,” I said, looking at the succubus with marvel and awe. “But you’re forgetting one thing: you’re my only paying tenant. I couldn’t possibly afford the rent.”

“Humans will do so much for pleasure. I will take care of rent. And you take care of this place. A fair exchange, don’t you think?”

“This place is huge. I’ll never—”

“I hear you have an employee. Given that your line of business is helping Others, I’m not sure I approve of your choice, but who am I to judge?”

“What, you mean EightBall? How do you know about that?”

The succubus smiled again. “I have my ways.”

“Penemue.”

“As I said: my ways.”

I looked over the hotel and thought to myself that there was no way I could ever manage such a grand place. Astarte was a succubus of near-godlike status. She had temples, shrines and luxurious brothels built in her name. She also had minions. Thousands of them. All I had was a drunken angel, a prima-donna succubus, a poltergeist mother-in-law and a former gangbanger human. There was no way. I couldn’t do this. I just couldn’t.

“I can’t—” I started.

“It’s too late. The lease is already in your name.”

“But—”

“But nothing, Jean,” Astarte said, coming in close to me. “It is done. The lease is in your name, the hotel will need work, but right now you have so much goodwill in the Other communities that I’m sure they will help for a fraction of their normal price. Besides, how expensive is glitter anyway?” She winked at me.

“How did you manage this, Astarte?” I asked in wonder, looking around.

“Never underestimate the power of lust.” She strolled over to me as she spoke, her lips dangerously close to mine. I could feel my own lust stirring in me and she knew it. Before I could turn away, Astarte walked over to the reception desk—a real desk, unlike the IKEA marvel I had at the One Spire Hotel. “Speaking of lust, I hear you have a date with a certain snake lady.”

“What?”

“Medusa. She knows you’re back in town. You better call her.”

“But—”

“Again with the ‘but’ … But nothing, Jean. You better call, lest she do to you what she did to her last boyfriend.”

“I’m not her boyfriend.”

“I know, lover—just let her down easy, OK? Medusa and I are old friends and I would hate to see her hurt.”

“I’ll do my best.” I was still surveying the massive room. There was much potential, so much good we could do for Paradise Lot. “Thank you,” I said to Astarte.

The succubus nodded. “You have quite the reputation, Jean. The Others know what you did for Joseph and how you killed the Avatar of Gravity. Already your story is being turned from current event into legend. This will both aid and hinder you in the days to come. Play your hand wisely and— Where did this come from?” she interrupted herself, showing me a framed picture resting on the reception desk. “I didn’t order this.”

I picked it up, removing the fabric covering from its square frame. Underneath was an image of two silhouetted figures watching the sunrise from atop a hill. The larger figure was an undefined, hulking man, the other a three-inch-tall fairy that sat on the first’s shoulders. And although you couldn’t see their faces, you just knew those two were very happy, having found companionship and joy in each other.

CaCa and TinkerBelle! I guessed the pile of poo survived after all. And why not? When you live in the very substance you were made of, regeneration must be pretty much a matter of course.

I was so happy I actually did a little dance right there in the foyer.

“Get a hold of yourself,” a voice said from behind. “There’s a lot of work still to be done.”

Miral walked in with her characteristic grace, examining the hotel entrance. “This place is much nicer than One Spire Hotel. What will you call it?” Behind her hovered Judith, surveying her new surroundings with her typical judgmental look.

“The Two Spire Hotel,” I said.

Judith snorted. “You must be joking.”

I just shrugged in response.

“Oh, Human Jean,” tutted Miral, “you are nothing if not—”

“Tenacious?”

“I was going to say static. Anyway, how do you plan on paying for this place?”

“The rent’s free,” I said, pointing at a sultry Astarte, who eyed the angel with a lustful, predatory gaze. By the GoneGods, Miral and Astarte together would be a sight erotic enough to coax the gods themselves to return.

“Rent may be free,” Miral said, “but bills are not. Keeping this place open will cost you four times what it cost for the One Spire Hotel.”

Damn, everything was happening so fast that I hadn’t considered that. The angel was right: electricity, gas, heat—this place was so huge, it would cost a small fortune to run. I had a sudden urge to go around and turn off all the lights.

Miral gave me an uncharacteristically devilish smile. “Don’t worry. I have a solution for all your problems. Funding is still open, and in a place like this we can throw twice as many seminars. Three times, even. We can do this. If, that is, you are willing to—”

“Don’t say it!”

“—bake.”

“Arrgh!”

I hated baking, but I loved Bella more.

Before I could answer, a baritone voice bellowed in from the stairwell, “Of course he will.”

Penemue walked into the foyer, taking Miral’s hand in his. “Ahhh, Miral … of all the unFallen, you, my dear, are the only one I can stomach.” He kissed her hand in an exaggerated motion. “Dear Human Jean will bake your cookies, conduct your seminars and take in our lost brethren without a peep of protest from his lips or a hint of grumble in his heart.”

“How can you be so sure?” Miral asked, her smile touching her eyes.

“Because he has motivations compelling him to do distasteful tasks that stem from the most base and vile of human emotions … love.”

At that, Astarte rolled her eyes.

I looked around and saw the picture of Tink and CaCa again, back where I had placed it. I thought about Bella and how proud she would be of this place, and I nodded. Why fight it? Penemue was right: might as well die doing something worthwhile.

“And why will you do it?” Penemue said, pressing the issue.

“You know why,” I said.

“I do, but they do not. Please indulge us. Why will you do it?”

“Because I made a promise,” I said, the words catching in my throat.

“And what promise was that?” Penemue asked, a hand cupped behind his ear.

I cleared my throat. “I made a promise to help Others.”

“That’s not a promise,” Penemue bellowed, his hands flaring out in an arch. “You would never hear Hamlet merely say, ‘I need to get that guy who killed my father,’ or Othello say, ‘I’m jealous!’ A true promise requires flair, theatrics. Passion!”

“Really?” I said. “And how does one make a good promise?”

Penemue gave me a dismissive gesture as if he were bored by the whole thing. “You choose your words. Ye, thee, vow, sweareth …”

“Fine,” I said, unwrapping my collarless black jacket and putting it on. It felt good. Right. Then, not wanting to disappoint my audience, I walked into the middle of the large room and summoned all my high-school Shakespeare training—which was none—by raising my hand before me.

In a deep and resolute voice, I declared, “My name is Jean-Luc Matthias and my doors shall forever be open to the lost and frightened, the poor and homeless. And as for those with evil in their hearts? Beware! For the Human Jean-Luc stands watch.

“How was that?” I asked two angels, a ghost and a succubus.

Penemue nodded. “Now that is more like it.”

↔

We hung out in the Millennium Hotel’s foyer for quite a while, but it seems that sleep takes mortals and the once-divine creatures alike.

Miral was the first to leave, giving me a knowing hug that said three things: The days to come will be hard … I believe in you … and I will be there to help you. I don’t know how one can get so much from a hug, but in that moment shared with Miral, I did.

I guess hugging an angel really does speak volumes.

Once Miral was gone, Judith narrowed her eyes and scanned the remaining lot of us. Then, without so much as a word, she pulled out a room key from her purse and glided upstairs. Evidently she knew I’d take on this monstrosity of hospitality before I did.

Astarte, taking this as a good chance to escape, also made her way upstairs, muttering something about there being just enough time to have one last orgy before bed. I’m not sure if she was kidding.

And as for Penemue? He gave me a wink, unfurled his wings and flew straight up the Millennium Hotel’s hollow middle and onto the seventh-floor landing.

All alone now, I gazed around the main floor of my new hotel, fearful of how I was going to handle all this yet hopeful I’d find a way.

And there was one more thing to do before I’d go looking for that ‘way.’ Hang the shelleycoat’s bell over the hotel’s door. “Our path,” Bella had called it. I performed the little ritual that the shelleycoat and Bella had told me to do and hung the damn thing over the hotel’s turnstile door so that the bell would chime with every flap of its spinning door.

Turning to my desk, I wondered how long I’d have to wait to see what it actually did.

Almost as soon as I finished the thought, the bell rang. Ding. Guess I wouldn’t have to wait long.

Ding.

Ding … and with the third ding I heard the word ‘gargoyle’ chime in my ear. So that’s what it did … it told me what kind of Other was entering my hotel.

That said, what I saw when I turned around didn’t look like any gargoyle I’d ever seen before.

I stood dumbfounded as I stared at this humanoid creature. The gargoyle stood nine feet tall, was entirely composed of diamonds … and was completely naked (complete with a diamond-studded representation of his gender—yep, his). He walked in, each step he took sounding exactly like what you’d expect diamond on marble to sound like.

“Human Jean-Luc Matthias?” he said, his lips barely moving as he spoke.

“Call me Jean, please … and, please don’t take this the wrong way, but are those diamonds real?”

“Indeed. My master crafted me from the purest diamonds to be found in this plane of existence.”

“Master?”

“Again—indeed. I’m a gargoyle, Human Jean-Luc Matthias. The first, I believe. My master made me as perfect as one not blessed with divinity can be. He chose diamonds for their beauty and unyielding nature.”

“Got it,” I said. Truth was, I’m not sure I understood any of it, but after thirteen years of dealing with Others, you tended to just nod and agree. Easier that way. Shaking off a yawn, I asked, “So tell me, what are you doing here at”—I looked at my Mickey Mouse watch—“three in the morning?”

“Actually, I arrived much earlier, but saw you were entertaining guests. Two angels, a succubus and a spectre, to be precise. You seemed to be celebrating, and I did not wish to disturb your revelries.”

“So you waited outside?”

The diamond gargoyle nodded in one of the most awkward displays of body language I’ve ever seen. Seems this animated statue was able to move certain parts of himself while the rest of him remained completely still. That doesn’t sound that weird until you’ve experienced it. An entire body completely still, except for a nearly imperceptible nod. Creepy.

And what’s more, the diamond edges on his cheeks caught the light in that millimeter movement, shooting miasmas right into my eyes. Part of me wondered if the creature knew of the facets of its jewelled cheek and did it on purpose.

“How long were you outside?”

“Four hours, but I was prepared to wait until dawn if necessary.”

“Why only dawn? Why not until tomorrow afternoon, or Tuesday?” I mocked.

He didn’t catch my sarcasm. “I would have been prepared to do so, but the sun’s first light would have reflected off my skin, thus announcing my presence regardless.”

“Ahh, I see. So, how may I help you, Gargoyle …?” I paused, waiting for him to tell me his name.

Seems that gargoyles don’t take hints. At least this one didn’t. No name was forthcoming. “Human Jean-Luc Matthias, my master wishes to rent this hotel to throw a party.”

“I don’t do parties—” I started, but before I could list the reasons why, Bella’s words rang in my mind: “Whatever happens is part of our path.” I had hung the shelleycoat’s bell, and in had walked this diamond-studded gargoyle.

She had been trying to tell me something that night before I fought Grinner, but she hadn’t had enough time. “What exists between us can make anything possible,” she had said. “Even what you most hope for.”

Penemue had mentioned there might be a third way to Heaven. And he had confirmed the truth of Orpheus and Eurydice’s tale. Jean, you fool. Pandora’s Box had been one connection, but it wasn’t the only way for us to find the bridge. That was what Bella had been trying to tell me.

“In this life and the next,” I whispered. In this life—and the next.

I stared at the shelleycoat’s bell hanging over the door, and then returned my gaze to the gargoyle. I was about to say yes, but the gargoyle handed me a piece of paper with a dollar sign with several numbers attached. I must have read the sum seven times before clearing my throat and saying, “I don’t do parties often, but I’m always happy to accommodate. What kind of party are we talking about, anyway?”

“A party to end all parties, Human Jean-Luc Matthias,” he said, extending his hand to shake mine.

Oh, if only I had known how literal this creature was being and that in taking his hand I was agreeing to help him end the world, I might have asked for a higher deposit…

KEEP EVOLVING

PART V

IN THE BEGINNING …

Tomorrow—

Things are what they are, and Azzah does what she must to survive.

But surviving isn’t easy anymore. And living is even harder. Azzah must work for the humans—the AlwaysMortals—in order to do either. Sure, they provide her with food and shelter, doctors and something called a pension, but Azzah is no longer free to come and go as she pleases, roam all the worlds as she once did. Instead, she is chained by what the AlwaysMortals call a job.

Azzah’s job is helping the humans drill deep into the ocean floor for oil. Humans are more obsessed with the black muck than dwarves are with gems and jewels. They seem to always be fighting each other to get more. Well, what does Azzah care? She is well paid—or so she is told—and her job has benefits. Something the humans call dental. Azzah is not sure what dental is, but the gleam of satisfaction humans get in their eyes when they talk about it leads her to believe that dental is a thing of great value.

↔

“There she blows,” cries out the AlwaysMortal known as George as Azzah breaks the ocean’s surface. The humans nearby laugh at his joke. Even though George has explained it many times, Azzah does not know why the humans find this funny. The expression, George once told her, was used by humans who hunted whales. When they spotted a whale surfacing for air, a geyser of water blowing out of its spout, they would yell out, “There she blows!” What followed was a hunt in which these AlwaysMortals would spear the whale, forcing it to remain surfaced, and eventually kill it. How referencing the death of a whale is considered humor, Azzah does not know.

“Because,” George has explained, “you’re not a whale.”

No, she isn’t. She is a myarid. A sea-jinni. Of course, she would be honored to be a whale. Azzah has never met a whale she did not like. Amongst all of creation, whales are well known for their kindness and wisdom. And as for humor? It is well documented in all the once-upon-a-time heavens and hells that whales are amongst the funniest creatures in existence. Their knack for unusual observations told with perfect timing makes them wonderful entertainers. Not like these AlwaysMortals. Not like George.

Still, despite his insensitive joke, Azzah likes George. He speaks to her as an equal, unlike so many humans who treat her like a trained seal. One day Azzah will again explain to George why his joke is not funny, but not today. Today she is working.

Azzah doesn’t like working for humans, but what else can she do? Survival isn’t easy in this new GoneGod World. When Azzah was immortal, she spent her days doing as she pleased, swimming the vast oceans of both the mortal plane and her home world, the emerald cities of Qa, without hunger or fatigue, without fear of being hurt and without fear of death. But now … now is different. Now she gets hungry. She gets tired. And when she is hurt—which has only happened once, when she broke her arm while trying to fix one of the humans’ ridiculous underwater drills—she cannot pray to her gods to be healed instantaneously. Now, she needs a “doctor.” And as for death? Sadly, that is a very real threat these days.

For her, the GrandExodus happened while she was already on Earth, roaming the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean on one of her frequent trips. It started with the voice of Hermes, the messenger of her god, in her head. “Thank you for believing in us,” he said, “but it is not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck.” At first she didn’t know what to think. Rarely did the gods speak directly to myarids, and in her thousands of years, Poseidon—the myarids’ god—had only spoken to her twice. Once was when they were at war with the ifrit. The second time was when he opened the waterways between this world and Irem Emad.

After Hermes delivered his message, she could no longer feel her home.

It was the mortals’ season of autumn, which meant her sisters would have been attending the Celestial Solace. She only needed to think of them and be connected instantly. She tried to summon a portal, open up the pathway back to Qa, but it was simply not there. Fine, she thought. If I cannot go to them, then I shall summon them to me. But as soon as she began to manipulate the currents she needed for her summoning spell, she felt a deep sensation of decay. She was aging. That much was sure. And as if by instinct born not at the beginning of life but at that very moment, she knew that every second she spent on magic was a minute less of her life.

She knew this as she knew she now needed food to eat, water to drink and air to breathe.

Azzah was dying. Not immediately, but slowly, from a terrible disease called aging. And the use of magic hastened that process until one day she would use all the time she had and be no more. Azzah wasn’t afraid to die, but she was no fool, either. She would save her time and use it only when absolutely necessary.

Scared to use magic and even more scared of no longer being connected, Azzah emerged from the depths and saw the destruction that the gods’ departure had created. It would not be long until she learned what everyone else knew. The gods had left, closing all the heavens and hells when they did, and with that closing they had given their once loyal servants a choice: Stay and perish, or go to the only plane of existence left. Earth.

And what of her family? She learned from the kelpies that they had not left. They were myarids, and they had done what any member of her tribe would do: stay behind to fight for their home. Brandishing weapons of war—tridents, nets, spears and harpoons—they’d fought the enclosing darkness. But how does one fight the dying of the light and expect to survive? It is like trying to tame a tornado with a paper fan.

Azzah, who was never given the choice of whether to stay and die, or run and survive, now lives on the mortal plane. Every day spent is one day closer to the end. Death by time. She would rather have died fighting an impossible battle than live like this.

Azzah hands the foreman her sensor, and he plugs it into something called a laptop. Readings pop up on the screen. “Strong currents down there?” he asks.

“Nothing I cannot handle,” Azzah says.

“I suppose not, you being a mermaid and all,” he says with a wink.

“I’m not a mermaid, I’m a—”

“Myarid. I know, I know. Sheesh, Azzah, lighten up. I was just joking,” George says as he continues evaluating the readings. Again, she doesn’t get the joke. A part of her understands why the AlwaysMortals think of her as a mermaid. Both myarids and mermaids have dorsal lower bodies and humanoid upper bodies. But unlike a mermaid, Azzah can spend her entire life underwater, never needing a breath of air. Of course, she can also spend her entire life above water as well. She would like to see a mermaid do that. Mermaids are slow and weak, choosing to run from a great white shark rather than fight. Great whites swim away from her; she doubts there is a creature beneath the ocean’s surface as strong as herself.

Except, that is, another myarid—not that there are many of them left.

Azzah shakes her head. To think a myarid is the same as a mermaid is to think a lion is the same as a kitten.

“Ahhh, Azzah,” George says in a distracted voice, looking at the sky above her. “Could you submerge a bit? You’re … you’re … too high.”

Azzah looks over to see several of the male variety staring at her. None make eye contact, all their gazes directed below. She looks down and sees that, while distracted in thought, she’s pushed her torso above water so her wet breasts glisten in the late-afternoon sun. That is another thing she will never understand: humans and their love of breasts.

Several of the men groan as she lowers her body so only her head is above water.

“Thanks,” George says with a kind smile. He returns to the readings. His brow furrows and concern creeps onto his face. “Hey, what’s this?” He tilts the screen so Azzah can see it. Amongst the blips and beeps, curved lines and numbers, there is an anomaly. One of the drill lines is under immense pressure, but unlike the typical problems of strong currents or large creatures bumping against it, the sensors indicate that the drill is being pulled into the earth. That should not happen.

“I will investigate,” Azzah says.

George hands her a commlink. It is a small earbud designed to withstand massive amounts of pressure. It had to be, for Azzah refuses to wear a pressurized suit when diving to the ocean floor. “Be careful.”

Azzah scowls. “Why do you always say that to me? There is nothing below that can hurt me.”

“Hey, do you know what would happen to me if I went that deep without a whole lot of stuff to protect me? If the cold didn’t kill me first, then the pressure would crush me like a tin can. And if by a miracle that didn’t get me, I’d get eaten by a shark or a giant squid or something.”

“I have told you many times, Human George, and I will tell you again: giant squids do not like the taste of human flesh.”

“Still,” George says, his eyes softening as he looks at Azzah, “be careful.”

Azzah glares in frustration before submerging.

↔

“Hey”—Azzah’s commlink buzzes to life with George’s voice—“how’s it going down there?”

“I am here.”

“Where?”

“At the bottom.”

“What? How?” George fumbles. “You’ve been gone for less than … four minutes. Are you telling me you swam seven thousand feet in less than four minutes?”

“Yes,” Azzah says flatly.

“That’s amazing!”

“No, it isn’t,” Azzah says. “I’ve seen myarids who could traverse the strongest—”

“Azzah—”

“Yes?”

“Just let me be amazed.”

“Very well, Human George. Be amazed.”

There is a pause before the commlink buzzes. “Thank you. OK, what do you see down there?”

The drill is three meters in circumference, and Azzah circles it several times, examining the floor and entry point, looking for whatever could be pulling at it. Everything seems perfectly normal. She swims to the tethers holding the drill in place. Again, normal.

She clicks on her commlink. “I do not see anything unusual.”

“OK, probably just a faulty sensor,” George says. Then, after a long pause, the commlink crackles. “Say—while you’re down there, I don’t suppose you could do me a favor? I, ahh, got this date and it would be really cool if I could give her a seashell from so deep.”

“A seashell?”

“Yeah—or a rock … anything that looks, you know, cool.”

“Something cool?” Azzah asks. “Below, everything is cool, if not cold. But once it surfaces, it will most likely become surface temperature and—”

“Something pretty. I meant something pretty.”

“Pretty? I think I understand. It is part of your courting ritual … like when one of my kind presents the desired myarid a slain great white as a way of expressing their desire to mate. I can help you with that.”

“Oh gosh, please don’t kill a shark. I was thinking a lot smaller.”

“Like the aforementioned seashell?”

“Yeah, like that.”

“And that impresses the females of your species.”

“I sure hope so.”

“Your females do not expect very much. Very well, Human George. I shall bring you a seashell.”

“Thanks.”

Azzah clicks off the commlink and searches the seabed for a desirable shell. At this depth, simple things like shells are not commonplace, but Azzah assumes she could capture a spider crab and strip it of its shell. That should please the human George.

Azzah hunts. She sees a large rock just beyond the drill’s tethers. Underneath the rock will surely be her intended prey. She grabs at it, seeking to turn it over. The rock is unusually heavy. Perhaps it is a piece of something much bigger. But the scans of this area show that there should be no large rock bed beneath. It doesn’t make sense that she can’t lift this rock. She tries again, this time summoning all her strength. The rock moves, but not from her efforts … It is moving under its own power.

She realizes that it is not a rock at all, but something else entirely, shooting straight up from the ocean bed. It is … it is … By the GoneGods, Azzah does not believe what she is seeing. Surely they would have taken her with them, she thinks.

“George,” Azzah says on the commlink, but before she can say more, she is distracted by a giant hand emerging from the ocean floor.

“Azzah, you OK? You sound worried. You never sound worried.”

George’s voice brings her back. “George,” she says, her voice low, “listen to me very carefully. Everyone needs to evacuate the rig.”

“Evacuate?”

“Now, George. Now.” She looks at the moving rock and thinks of her family, how they fought the darkness for their home. How they fought for each other.

How they died standing up, against insurmountable odds, for the ones they loved. With honor.

“What’s going on down—”

“George,” Azzah interrupts, “you are the one AlwaysMortal who always treated me with kindness and respect. You are my friend and the closest person I have to family in the GoneGod World. For that, I will fight for you. Give you time. Now, please … don’t make my sacrifice be in vain. Take the helicopter, save as many as you can. Run. Run and live.”

George starts to protest, but before he can say anything, Azzah cuts the commlink and looks at the hand.

How does one fight the “dying of the light” and hope to survive? The answer is that one doesn’t. But sometimes you fight even when there is no hope, because … well … because some things are worth dying for. And there is no greater death than dying for your home. For your friends. For your family. Azzah knows this, just as her tribe once did.

She burns time. A lot of it. It does not matter; this will all be over in a few minutes. She can only hope that those minutes are enough time for George to find safety. Azzah burns time and summons her trident. She raises it above her head and cries out in rage.

How could they have been so careless as to leave her behind? It is the last question that crosses her mind as she attacks the creature emerging from the ocean floor.

A NEST OF SEXY VIPERS

Twelve Hours Earlier—

“Hold on, let me ask her,” I said, looking over at my date. I held up two fingers, and she nodded. “OK, make that two of the same.”

“Two scoops of bananarama ice cream in a waffle cone—sprinkles and marshmallows,” the hobgoblin screamed to the back.

“No, no, no,” I said. “Two single scoops.”

The hobgoblin nodded with an expression of complete understanding. “Two single scoops of bananarama ice cream in a single cone.”

“No … two single scoops, one per cone,” I said, summoning every ounce of my not-so-infinite patience. Remember, Jean, I told myself, they’re new to all this. After all, how many ice cream parlors were there in the UnSeelie Court, anyway? I held up two fingers in hope that the gesture would clarify my point.

It didn’t. The hobgoblin looked at me as if I was the one confused. “That’s what I said. Two single scoops in a cone.” And before I could protest, he handed me a waffle cone with two scoops.

“Fine,” I said, taking the cone and handing it to my date. “Can I have another of the same?”

“Two scoops of bananarama ice cream—sprinkles and marshmallows? Did you want that in one cone or two?” the hobgoblin said with a grin that exposed three rows of serrated teeth.

Cheeky little bastard.

↔

My date thanked me, saying Jean with just enough of a French pronunciation to distinguish it from John. So many people pronounced my name Jean as in jeans, but she said my name perfectly and I hated myself for how much I loved hearing my name come from her lips.

Which made me a very conflicted man. After all, I still believed I could bring my dead wife back from Heaven.

As we left the ice cream parlor and went for a walk on the Promenade, I looked over at Medusa—as in Queen of the Gorgons, snakes-for-dreadlocks Medusa—and thought, I shouldn’t be on a date. Not today. And if I was honest with myself … not ever.

The reason I shouldn’t be here today was because tonight was the gala. It was some big dinner being hosted by some big kahuna Other called The BisMark. Not that I ever heard of him. But when I told the drunk fallen angel who lives in my hotel that The BisMark wanted to use my hotel, the angel furled his wings in tight and said in a voice that was equal parts admiration and fear, “What? The gods didn’t take him with them?” So it was that kind of big kahuna. Not that I really cared; as long as the check didn’t bounce, I was happy.

Given that The BisMark was throwing his event at the Millennium Hotel—my hotel—I should have been busy, but The BisMark didn’t trust my “poorly-trained” staff, opting to bring in his own. Seems this BisMark was particular and didn’t want me and my ilk mucking things up. Hell, he paid me extra to stay out of his way. We weren’t permitted in the kitchen, we couldn’t help with the decorating … we weren’t even allowed to clean the guest rooms, each one being turned down by his army of gargoyle servants.

Who was I to complain? I had a full hotel at full rates and no work. Still, I was going crazy not being allowed to do anything. Getting out would be good for me—and Medusa knew it, too.

She walked into the foyer of the Millennium Hotel wearing a long sun dress with roses on it, looked at the gargoyles who were preparing everything and said, “Let’s go.” To my credit, I did protest, but she folded her arms over her chest and gave me an I won’t take no for an answer look, and I knew I was stuck.

The reason why I should have never been on a date with her, ever, was I still missed my wife. The fact that Bella had been dead and gone for seven years didn’t change that much. I knew I should move on, but I just wasn’t ready. Maybe I would be one day, maybe not. The point was—I wasn’t ready today.

The real, deep down reason I’d agreed to host the party was because I had this crazy belief that all of this was part of our story—Bella and me. Our way of finding a path back to each other. The last time I’d seen her in Heaven (long, long story), she’d made me to agree to whatever would happen as soon as I hung a shelleycoat’s bell in my hotel doorway. Lo and behold, a diamond-studded gargoyle walked in and wanted to hold a party.

If this was the first step on the path to bringing Bella back, who was I to say no?

It wasn’t fair to Medusa, but the flesh is weak, and that, coupled with the undeniable fact that I liked Medusa—and wanted to get to know her in the biblical sense—spelled disaster.

And so there I was, strolling with Medusa on Paradise Lot’s Promenade, eating ice cream … having a good time.

↔

To the casual observer, Paradise Lot’s Promenade still had all the features of a holiday beachfront: an ice cream parlor, an arcade and bowling alley, a few seaside cafés and restaurants, and an old Ferris wheel that should have been decommissioned a decade ago. It was a straight line of beach with a strip of road that separated the sand from the buildings, and there was nothing particularly unique about the Promenade except that it belonged to Paradise Lot. Which meant that, although it was a fully-developed vacation spot, it missed the only thing that made promenades promenades: vacationers. Once-upon-a-time humans had come from all over the world to visit Paradise Lot’s oceanfront, but nowadays you hardly ever saw a bipedal AlwaysMortal here. Paradise Lot was where the Others lived. Not all of them, of course, but this was probably the only city on Earth that had an Other-majority population, and even after fourteen years of cohabiting on this tiny blue planet, my species still avoided Others-only neighborhoods.

Which wasn’t to say that Medusa and I were alone. The beach was filled with sunbathing lizard people, kappa and tláloc, who had permanently set up camp here.

Medusa took my arm and pulled me in close so I could smell her vanilla conditioner. It was strange to smell it, given she had no hair, and I suspected that it was more like vanilla-scented leather relaxant for her snakes. She was a petite girl, standing about five foot nothing, which meant that I was almost a head taller than her. I felt tall. I rarely felt tall, especially not when my best friend was an eight-foot fallen angel.

We walked on the sun-baked beach in relative silence, both licking away at our ice cream cones in a losing battle to eat them before the sun did. Medusa had an unfair advantage, as her snakes partook in the occasional lick on their mistress’s behalf.

We reached the water and Medusa touched the sleeve of my black collarless jacket. “Why do you always wear this thing?”

I looked up at the cloudless sky with its blistering hot sun and said, “I guess I misinterpreted the day.”

She giggled. “No, silly. Why do you always wear this jacket?”

I didn’t tell her that it was my hotelier uniform that I wore every day. Nor did I mention that I really didn’t have much in the way of a wardrobe. And I certainly didn’t tell her the truth: that I was on this date out of a sense of duty, and that this jacket was my uniform. Wearing it made things a little less blurry. For me, at least. Instead I shrugged and said, “Habit.” I looked up at the relentlessly bright sun and sighed. “I guess some habits are bad for you.” I took it off and slung it over my forearm.

Medusa giggled.

“Aren’t you hot?” I asked. It was a stupid question, given that she was wearing a light sundress and little else. And as if to answer my question, she looked up at the sky. Immediately one of her snakes moved so its shadow would cover Medusa’s eyes. Medusa did what she always did: she smiled.

Ahh … Medusa. She wasn’t what you’d expect if you read the legends about her. Sure, she had a head full of snakes, but she wasn’t a scary, hideous monster. She was one of the friendliest Others to come to this planet since the gods left. And she was far from hideous. Quite the opposite—she was beautiful: rosy cheeks, charming dimples, cute freckles on her cheeks that accentuated her infectious smile. And her body—well, ahhh—she looked like she’d been sculpted. Sensual curves in all the right places, a bosom that sat firm in her low-cut dress … Medusa was hot. My eyes must have lingered a little too long, because one viper on her head hissed at me with ice-cream-colored lips.

“Marty, be nice,” she said, petting the snake. “Actually, the tongue-flicking cools me down.”

“Really?” I asked.

“No,” she laughed, pulling out lip gloss from a chic Hello Kitty purse. “But you deserved that for staring. Want some?”

“Ahh, sorry,” I said, taking the gloss as I willed myself not to blush.

↔

We ate our ice creams in silence, looking out at the water. I didn’t know what Medusa was thinking about, but from the way her snakes eyed me—all thirty of them—I knew she wasn’t contemplating the beauty of the ocean. Medusa slowly and not-so-subtly edged her way closer to me, millimeter by millimeter. She started to yawn, then stopped mid-inhale. Crap, she was going for the whole “I’m tired,” throw-your-arm-up-and-over-your-date’s-shoulders maneuver. An oldie but a classic, and the same move I’d used the first time I kissed Bella. Of course, we were fourteen at the time, and it was more of an awkward pressing of the lips than an actual kiss, but hey—it counts! For a fourteen-year-old, I’d been suave.

Medusa wasn’t a teenager—she was older than agriculture. But in another, very real sense, she was fourteen. It had been fourteen years since she’d gotten kicked out of her home, and fourteen years since she was forced to live on Earth and play by human rules. In the time I’d known her, she’d been the bubble-gum-chewing teenager, then the modern woman who followed all the glossy magazines’ advice and—now—the cutesy-chic, fun-loving young lady. With each evolution, she improved upon herself as she tried to figure out who she was in this GoneGod World.

In other words, she was doing her best to be mortal. Aren’t we all?

She pretended to yawn, more committed this time, and threw up her arms. I countered with a yawn of my own, also throwing up my hand and blocking the descent of her arm with a countermove I call Kara-Date-O. If she noticed, she didn’t show it.

I felt terrible. Medusa was a perfectly delightful gorgon, and here I was treating this date like an episode of Prison Break.

Medusa nodded and asked, “Is something wrong?”

I stared off into the distance and touched the twisty-tie wrapped around a silver necklace I wore. The tie was what I’d used to propose to Bella all those years ago, wrapping it around her finger and promising that one day I’d buy her a real ring—when I could afford one. The little piece of industrial plastic was the last sentimental thing I owned that had belonged to her. Bella—she was, is and always will be the best part of me.

I knew I should move on. Hell, Bella’s last words to me were, “Live well.” And I might have been able to, had I not discovered that Bella still existed, stuck all alone in the once-upon-a-time Heaven. The angel Penemue—my best friend and the only one who knew that Heaven was not, in fact, completely empty—was looking for a way back to her. And I couldn’t stop hearing her words ringing in my ears: “There’s a pillar here with our story written on it.”

Our story. Which meant a future still existed for Bella and me.

Sure, the odds of finding a way into Heaven were one in a billion, but it was still possible and I couldn’t fully give my heart to another knowing that.

And Medusa deserved better. She was a sweet girl who wanted what every love song and romantic movie promised: a partner to share your one life with. I prayed she’d find it—it just wouldn’t be with me.

At least, that’s how I saw it.

“I’m thinking about tonight,” I lied.

She nodded. “You know,” she said, her voice lingering, “I was at his last gala. We sunk Atlantis.”

“Excuse me?” I said, wondering if this was some Other expression like, “We raised the roof” or “We brought the house down.”

“Don’t worry—The BisMark is a serious guy. I’m sure tonight will go smoothly. He’s organized tons of events for the gods, and nothing went wrong. Better than that—they were boring events. Lots of speeches, proclamations—official stuff, really. Atlantis was a special case. Promise.” Medusa’s lips pursed in a way that showed she wasn’t really promising anything.

“Sure … I feel reassured,” I lied. “Now, back up to the part where you sunk Atlantis?”

“It was a wedding, you know. That’s why we were gathered in Atlantis—to celebrate the union between Poseidon and …” She playfully patted my forearm. “Look at me talking about ancient history. I must be boring you.”

“Are you kidding?” I said, turning to face her. “What happened?”

“We had a party. Things got out of control. Atlantis was sunk.”

“That’s it?” I said. “A city disappears and you sum it up in three sentences. You got to give me more than that.”

“OK Jean, I tell you what—you can ask me three questions.”

“Great!”

Medusa lifted a finger. “In exchange for you granting me a request.”

I pulled away, hoping that her request didn’t involve a bottle of wine and satin sheets.

She must have seen my doubt, because she quickly added, “A PG-13 request.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.” She crossed her heart, her finger accidentally—tantalizingly—tugging one of her straps. “Whoops,” she said, pulling her strap back up.

I gulped. “Fine, done.”

“Great,” she beamed. “What do you want to know?”

“OK—Poseidon sunk Atlantis, you already told me that. Why?”

“Loki,” she said. “The damn trickster said something he shouldn’t have.”

“And?”

“And … nothing. Back then tricksters were always messing with gods, Others and mortals alike. Loki said something he shouldn’t have, Poseidon got angry, threw his typical temper tantrum and sunk Atlantis.”

“Argh,” I said. She was being coy. I gave her a look that said You’re holding back on me.

She smirked. “Poseidon was the groom. He was very drunk, and Loki—well, Loki always knew how to push his buttons.”

“He was the groom? Who was his bride?” I asked.

Medusa’s smile temporarily disappeared before her eyes flickered with a realization. “Ah, ah, ah …” she said, wagging her finger. “And to answer your third question: yes, he was the groom.”

“No—wait a minute. I only asked two questions.”

Medusa held up three fingers. “I believe your first question was, ‘Why did Poseidon sink Atlantis?’ And I answered Loki.” She lowered a finger. “Then you asked, ‘And?,’ to which I added pertinent details about Poseidon’s character. As for your last question—you wasted it by asking if Poseidon was the groom, even though I had clearly told you he was.”

“You’re devious,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and pretending to pout.

“I am not,” Medusa said, playfully punching my arm with such force that it knocked me over. Man, even playing, man oh man she could punch! I’d hate to be in a real fight with her.

“Ow,” I laughed, grabbing my arm.

She giggled in embarrassment and leaned over to offer me a hand. When she did, her purse fell, its contents spilling on the beach. Keys, lip gloss, lip moisturizer, skin moisturizer, nail polish, leather relaxant—presumably for the snakes—a Hello Kitty wallet, phone and …

“What’s this?” I asked as I picked up a small, hand-carved, wooden-winged horse.

Before I could say or do anything, Marty’s scaly jaws snatched the trinket out of my hand and put it in Medusa’s purse.

“It’s nothing,” Medusa said, snapping her purse shut. She looked across at the sun that was beginning its slow descent beneath the horizon. “It’s getting late. We should go,” she said, her grin returning. “But first … my request.”

I groaned and eyed her suspiciously. “Fine, but I reserve the right to do something equally evil to you.”

“Deal.” She stuck out her hand.

I took it. “Very well, then—spill it. What do you want?”

“Invite me to the gala. I know you can have a plus-one, and I’d like to go.”

“Oh,” I chuckled. “So that’s it. All of this was so you could get an invite to the gala?” I might have been offended had I not been the cool guy with connections. I was so rarely the cool guy.

“Did it work?” She batted her eyelids at me.

I thought about how the gala would be another date. Our third date, to be specific. Given the kind of advice she was reading, third dates were the no-holds-barred dates. Medusa and her thirty snakes knew a lot of holds and … Stop it! I growled to myself.

I didn’t want to lead her on any more than I already had. Saying no now would go a long way to ending the crush. OK Jean, let her down easy. Tell her that you can’t bring anyone. Be kind, but firm. Medusa touched my arm, felt the fabric of my coat that hung on my forearm between her thumb and forefinger. Whatever happens next, Jean, don’t invite her. Medusa looked at me expectantly, her eyes as well as the eyes of all thirty of her snakes staring at me. It wouldn’t be fair, Jean—she doesn’t know human customs. She’ll take this date seriously. Marty got in close, scowling at me as I hesitated.

“Well,” I started. Better now than later, I thought. “It’s pretty full, and …”

“Yes?” Medusa held her breath, her eyes locked on mine. Hell, thirty pairs of snake eyes were locked on me.

I should tell her that now is not a good time. No, what I should really tell her is that there will never be a good time and that we should just be friends. I should point out that going arm-in-arm to the gala would send the wrong message to everyone, including us. Then a polite kiss on the cheek—that should send the right message that I wasn’t interested. You know, let the gorgon down easy with a clear signal that has been documented over and over again by every teenage glossy magazine in existence. Medusa would get the hint—of that much I was sure.

But instead of following my well-thought-out plan, I ran my hands through my hair and stammered, “Sure … I can get you in.” Crap!

“Yes!” Medusa said with far too much enthusiasm given that I was right in front of her. All thirty of her snakes hissed simultaneously.

“Of course, I’ll be working, but—”

“Don’t worry, Jean. I’m not a demanding date,” she said, giving me a hug. And with that, I had a date. Again.

Oh well, I thought. Maybe I can let her down easy at our wedding.

Hellelujah!

DE-EVOLUTION AND THE MANICURE

We watched the sun set, and then I took Medusa home to get ready for the gala and went back to the hotel. Even though my date with Medusa ended with me screwing up, I was in a pretty good mood. Things were, for once, going my way. I had just booked the hotel’s first major gig; the typical Other drama that usually filled my life was at an all-time low; and ever since I took out the god-wannabe who killed the unicorn Joseph, my reputation in Paradise Lot had been at its best.

If only Bella were here to see it all. She’d be proud. Someday, maybe. And if sounding delusional about my dead wife was bad, then I didn’t want to be right. After all, I had talked to her in my dreams. And Penemue had told me that the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice was real.

Anyway, despite the GrandExodus having happened fourteen years ago, the world seemed to be doing alright. It certainly hadn’t descended into the chaotic hell promised by Fox News. In fact, if you really boiled it down, things were pretty much as they had been before. Good guys and bad guys and everyone in between. I’ve known evil angels and good devils, murderous pixies and empathetic ghouls. But mostly I’ve met lost Others trying to find their place in the GoneGod World.

Paradise Lot was still a slum for the OnceImmortals, and they were being exploited as cheap labor—but at least they were getting employed. Across the bridge, the mainland-employed Others worked ridiculous hours for minimal pay doing all sorts of menial jobs: pixies cleaning houses, genies scrubbing windows, fairies washing dishes.

And even though they did the jobs no humans wanted, they were still being crapped on for stealing work from the AlwaysMortals. I’ve never seen a human wake up at three a.m. to get on a bus and drive for four hours before reaching farmlands, only to return late that night exhausted and sore. Hecatonchires did that every day, using their fifty arms to pick apples or peaches or whatever crop was too expensive for them to actually buy—while human farmers paid them a fraction of the minimum wage.

Despite all that, I still couldn’t help but feel hope. In only fourteen years, humans had progressed from fighting Others to being wary of them. Wariness is a big step up from distrust and hatred, and a hell of a lot better than fear.

Being wary isn’t enough to stop commerce, and that was what made me hopeful. Affluent humans had started employing particular Others as more than just cheap labor or maids. They were starting to see the specific and unusual skills these creatures possessed. Of course, they never dirtied the hems of their pants by actually coming to Paradise Lot to employ these Others. They didn’t need to—not with the Internet.

Minotaurs were particularly good blacksmiths. Fairies loved glitter, and although they’d bling anything you asked them to for free, they were often paid by rich kids to do something special for their phone cases, backpacks or jeans. Leprechauns were accomplished tattoo artists and pixies were incredible seamstresses.

And then there were the dwarves who could dig better than cranes. I never thought I’d see the day when a construction company asked for dwarven help, but it happened. A construction company sent their head guy over to ask for structural advice over some large government bid. By the end of the “consultation,” the engineer hired the whole dwarven crew. I should know—a dwarf’s key negotiation technique is to stare down their opponent. Not a great strategy when dealing with a French engineer. I advocated on their behalf and, although I’m no corporate negotiator, got them a hell of a lot more than the three tons of coal and two tons of gravel they were asking for.

Finally, there were the artists. Elves danced, satyrs piped, kelpies pontificated and cyclops prophesized—each of them slowly becoming YouTube stars, one view at a time. Amongst them was CaCa, a former resident of mine who was literally the god of refuse (the really smelly kind). CaCa was an incredible artist. With a bit of help from EightBall, we were able to set him up with a website and a PayPal account. About once a week I addressed a package to some exotic destination. By the sheer volume he was moving, he must’ve been doing well—but still, he lived in the sewers. Go figure.

All in all, Others were proving their worth, and it felt good to see it all evolving in the right direction. It was just going to take time.

I drove home with an unfamiliar feeling of happiness. I had to admit, at first it was uncomfortable, then I realized what it was and let it wash over me. But as soon as I arrived, the feeling drained away like someone had ripped the bottom off a bathtub.

Hellelujah! I really, really wished I had never left the hotel in the first place.

↔

My typically empty hotel driveway was filled with Others who gathered to catch a glimpse of the biggest event—to them, at least—since they became mortal. The human fanfare was considerably less with a few local journalists mulling about.

From the gate I could see both sides of the hotel’s turnstile entrance decorated with enough balloons to lift a city bus. Two velvet ropes lined either side of a red carpet, holding back the gawkers that pressed on both sides with their cameras ready. Several gargoyle security guards stood at attention and, despite being made of rock, wore black suits, sunglasses and those funny earpiece things.

I’m not much for crowds, so I reversed to the back entrance, expecting that the kitchen entrance would be a quiet way into the hotel. Instead I found a flashing squad car, an angry woman and … Penemue.

GoneGodDamn it!

↔

I’d like to say I was surprised when I saw a squad car with a horse trailer attached to it, but I wasn’t. Generally, when Penemue was up to no good, the police were involved. For a fallen angel who had been kicked out of Heaven and Hell, you’d think he’d have learned how not to get caught.

What did surprise me was the Honda Civic that was also parked in the narrow driveway. A human woman in a suit with ’80s shoulder pads and bright red lipstick was yelling at the angel Penemue and a teenage boy who went by the name “EightBall.”

“They’re the ones who vandalized my shop—who else could it be?” She held up a stack of flyers for the two police officers to see. One of them was Officer Steve, the youngest of the Billy Goats Gruff. (Yes, they’re real. I was just as surprised as the next guy.) He wore a Dick Tracy coat and hat and had a toothpick in his mouth. The cop stereotype he was currently sporting was a step up from the London Fog overcoat and wool hat he used to wear in his Sherlock Holmes phase. As a fairy tale creature, Steve learned from stories. I guess he was working his way up the cop-cliché spectrum. Personally, I could hardly wait for when he got into Miami Vice.

Officer Steve was standing next to another cop whom I didn’t recognize, partly because he was new and partly because he was human.

“Here, look at this!” The woman pulled out a sheet from the stack of flyers and showed it to the human officer. “They did it.”

EightBall raised his hands up in an I surrender gesture. “I’m just a human,” he said, as if that was all the defense he needed.

The woman spun on the teenage boy and flung several flyers at him. “I sincerely doubt that you are human at all.” Her right hand, now free of flyers, whirled at the tattoos on EightBall’s face. They were his tags and the tell-tale sign of the HuMans, a gang of Other-haters. Think of them as progressive Neo-Nazis who didn’t discriminate against race, religion or ethnicity—as long as you were human. The kid still had all the signs of the gang: his bald head covered with religious symbols like yin and yang, the Wheel of the Dharma, the Star of David and a vertical infinity sign on his forehead that, coupled with his dark complexion, made his head look like an eight ball. Sort of.

Up until a year ago, EightBall had been the HuMans’ local chapter leader. Then he met the drunk angel at his side, who—for reasons of his own—helped him see the error of his ways. That said, Penemue was a fallen angel, which meant that, although EightBall had been saved from gang life, he had not been saved from mischief.

The cop lifted his hands in a calm down gesture. “Ma’am, without witnesses we can’t just—”

“Don’t ‘ma’am’ me,” the woman shot back. “As a member of our race, I thought—”

“ ‘Race’?” the human cop said, lifting an eyebrow.

“Yes, race … As a human, I thought you of all people would understand.”

“All I know is that you have one thousand flyers with the wrong logo on them. Sounds like a printer mistake, not vandalism.”

She leaned in close and read the human cop’s name tag. “Like I told you, Officer Conner—when I got the flyers, they were fine. Then that one comes into my shop. And when he leaves, all the flyers have changed.” She pointed an accusing finger at Penemue, who adjusted his tweed vest before yawning.

“Changed?”

“Yes, changed!”

“How?” the human officer asked.

“I don’t know … magic?”

“Ma’am … you do know how magic works for Others? Since the gods left, Others have a finite time on the mortal plane. Every time they use their magic, they spend that time. In other words, they literally shorten their lives. Changing a thousand flyers would have cost the angel”—he looked over at the Gruff—“I don’t know—how long?”

Officer Steve looked at him pensively, pulled out his toothpick and sneered. “For that ace-high stack of flyers, see, I’d guess me a nickel.”

“A nickel?” the human officer asked. “What are we talking? Minutes, days, weeks?”

Officer Steve eyed the flyers. “Days, see …”

“Five days? Five days is a lot of time to spend on a bunch of flyers.”

“Miss Webb,” Penemue chimed in, “if I was going to spend all that time on you, I would have invited you for a drink. Perhaps a little bit more than a drink.” The angel winked.

“Oh hush, demon,” she said, turning to Penemue with Hell’s fury in her eyes. The woman, who was in her early fifties, looked like she should be going to Sunday Mass, not yelling at eight-foot-tall angels. She poked a finger at Penemue’s tweed vest. “I know all about you and why you fell. You went against God’s will by teaching us the knowledge of writing—”

“Without which, might I also point out,” Penemue said, “you would not have been able to make those flyers in the first place.”

“Poppycock! Don’t give me that.” She went toe-to-toe with Penemue, but given her height, she only came up to the middle button of his finely pressed shirt. “You have a second chance to atone for your sins. And it’s a second chance that I’m trying to help you people achieve—”

“ ‘People,’ ” the angel Penemue interrupted. He unfurled his wings and stretched them out. From tip to tip they were longer than a bus. “I very much doubt that I am a human. Now this young man, despite the numerous tattoos littering his face, is indeed a human.” He nodded at EightBall. “A punk, perhaps, but most certainly a member of your Homo sapiens race.”

“Now this is exactly what I’m talking about,” she said, turning to the police officer. “Are you going to help, or are you going to just stand there?”

The human cop smiled with about as much sincerity as a shark apologizing for eating a school of guppies. “I understand, Miss Webb, but I’m not in charge here. He is.” He nodded at Officer Steve, who shifted from four legs to two with such natural ease that it made me wonder why everyone wasn’t both bi- and quadrupedal at the same time. Pulling out his toothpick with an exaggerated flair, he pointed the wet end at Penemue and EightBall. “We know it was you, see! So why don’t you do us all a favor and fess up.”

“You see what I mean,” Miss Webb said to no one in particular. “Officer Conner, you must see how they are unfit to run things.”

That’s when I got out of my car. I was fine with her yelling at them on my property—the GoneGods know they probably deserved it. It was the way the word “they” rolled off her tongue, like Others were less than humans, like it was her charity that allowed them to live on this good green Earth … it boiled my blood. “Look here,” I started. “I don’t know who you think you are—”

Miss Webb shot me a look that would have frozen a tidal wave. “You! Jean-Luc?” She spoke my name like she knew me, but staring at the five-foot-nothing ball of anger, I figured that it was a combination of having heard about me (after all, there were only a handful of humans that lived and worked in Paradise Lot) and her fury in the situation making her put in more familiarity than she had meant. I was wrong about that, just as I was going to be wrong about so much more before this night was over.

“First of all, call me Jean … I only go by Jean-Luc when captaining my starship, and right now ...” I let the last words linger as I gestured behind me, showing off my non-existent Starship Enterprise. I shouldn’t be so mean, but I hated my name: Jean-Luc Matthias. Especially in the GoneGod World, where my name screamed Christianity—as in John, Luke, Matthew … (and before you say it, I know, I know, I’m missing the Mark.)

She gave me a dry look that said my name wasn’t the issue. “You own this place? He lives here. Then it is your responsibility, Jean, to control him.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, giving her an exaggerated salute. Officer Conner suppressed a grin.

The lady rolled her eyes. “Come on, dear. You of all people must understand what it takes to help these creatures.” She turned to Penemue, who had folded his wings. “Do you hear me? Help! That’s what I want to do! Help!” She gave me a practiced smile. Up close, she looked familiar, like we had met before … But then again, I knew her type well. She was one of those humans who were “trying to help” by forcing their beliefs, ways and traditions on Others—the I know what’s best for you type that cannot see anything but the narrow worldview they hold.

“And what do you want me to do, Miss … Miss …?”

She eyed me in confusion and said, “Sally,” like I should have known her name.

Penemue pointed at the lady. “Sally Webb, daughter of missionaries Paul and Emily Webb. No known siblings save …” Crap, Penemue was doing his thing. Once upon a time he knew everything that was written, including all that was on a person’s soul. Of course, that all ended when the gods left, but he still knew things about anyone born pre-GrandExodus. And not just you—he knew all about your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents … all the way back to the Cro-Magnon that spawned your particular line.

“Oh hush,” Sally said. She swept back a strand of hair that fell over her face and gave me a disappointed look that would have made Judith—my poltergeist of a mother-in-law—proud. “And as for what I want you to do, well, I had hoped that us being the only two human-run businesses in Paradise Lot that we would be fast friends.

“As I was saying, I run the salon down the way, and it would be good if we found a way to work together.” She handed me a card that read, “Being Human Salon.”

Frig … Miss Webb ran the local branch of a chain of cosmetic surgery hack shops that mutilated Others to look more human. It was the kind of place that sought to snuff out what made these wondrous creatures unique, pushing them through some sort of cookie-cutter process. File those talons, clip those feathers, paste back those ears. For a small fee, they’d do a little nip and tuck—you know, the small stuff like removing those troublesome wings or ditching those horns. In other words, they were Operation Smile’s sadistic cousin.

As far as I was concerned, Being Human Salon was the worst of humanity “trying to help.”

“So, it was your shop that had that monstrosity of construction going on for months.” I pointed down the hill toward where her salon was.

“Yes,” she nodded. “I do apologize for the inconvenience. There was much to be done to get the shop up and running.”

“I’m sure.”

“Regardless, you and I should work together, seeing how we are the—”

“—only human-run businesses in the city.” I did my best not to hide my anger, which is to say, not at all. Through gritted teeth I growled, “Agreed, but as the only human business owner in Paradise Lot, I’m not sure how I can be of service to you. I do offer a special Homo sapiens rate that you’re welcome to partake in—that is if you can prove that you are human.”

“Burn,” EightBall said.

“Be quiet,” Officer Conner and I said in unison.

The corner of Sally’s lips curled. “Fine, I can see I will get no help from either of you. And I guess I’ll just have to file an official complaint with the city. Good day, gentlemen.” She shoved the pile of flyers at me before getting in her car and driving off.

Several of the advertisements flew about, littering my backyard. I looked at the top sheet and saw what all the fuss was about. Top and center was the Christian fish symbol. Except the fish had legs and the outline was made from a DNA helix. Beneath, it read, “Keep Evolving.”

Hellelujah!

↔

As soon as Sally was out of view, Officer Steve reverted back to four legs. “That dame rubs me the wrong way, see …”

I nodded. “Yeah, me too … Say, did you get those CSI DVDs I sent you?”

“I did, see, but I can’t stomach that show. Too dramatic.” He pulled out his toothpick and gestured to the human cop that it was time to leave.

Officer Steve sauntered to the horse trailer as Officer Conner looked at me. “You know, this isn’t going away. People like her will put up a stink. I won’t be surprised if I’m back soon to make sure everything’s on the up and up.” He looked over at Officer Steve, said, “Sorry, but he’s rubbing off on me. Officer Conner. John Conner.” He offered me his hand.

“As in humanity’s last hope against the rise of the machines?”

He didn’t even crack a smile. “Haven’t heard that one before.”

“I guess you haven’t.” I took his hand. His grip was firm, and for the first time I really looked at him. Typical beat cop uniform, piercing blue-gray eyes, and the kind of chiseled jaw that makes it on the cover of Harlequin Romance novels. “Jean,” I said.

“I know. Heard all about you from Captain Michael. And if half of what he says is true, then I’m sure we’ll be meeting again. And real soon, too.” He nodded at Penemue. “You all have a good night.”

↔

As soon as the cruiser was out of sight, I looked over at EightBall. The boy, who may or may not have had his seventeenth birthday, wore the same black, collarless jacket as me, which, given that he worked for the hotel, made it look like the hotel had a dress code. We did not. Seeing it on someone else made me realize that I looked like a hipster priest, high-end chauffeur, Shaolin monk, Kato from The Green Hornet … take your pick—that style was stereotypical to them all. Had to admit, I liked it.

What I didn’t like was that I had no idea where EightBall had gotten his jacket. He certainly didn’t buy it with the salary of free room and board and the very occasional smile that I paid him with. Hey—don’t judge me, it was all I could afford. Given his colorful past, I didn’t want to know. I suspected some starkly naked mannequin somewhere.

Petty theft aside, the kid worked pretty hard, atoning in his own small way for all the brutal beatings he subjected Others to during his angry days. At least that was the case. For the last couple months, he’d been acting out—coming to work late, doing a shoddy job and generally acting how I’d expect someone who was underpaid by a hundred percent to act.

And it all stemmed from his budding friendship with Penemue, the fallen angel who lived in the attic of the Millennium Hotel.

I snarled at the kid, “I leave you in charge for a few hours, and this is what happens.” I gave him my best I’m not angry, I’m disappointed look. Given what people have told me about the look, I’m pretty sure I just looked angry.

“But, but …” he stammered, helplessly pointing at Penemue, who had pulled out a bottle of Drambuie from only the GoneGods knew where. Popping the cap, he took a long, hard swig before offering it to EightBall.

“No, I don’t think so,” I said, glaring at Penemue. The angel rolled his eyes and took another sip from his bottle. I turned to EightBall. “No excuses. He’s an angel from Hell. He’s meant to tempt you. And you’re meant to resist him. Haven’t you read the Bible?”

EightBall shook his head to my rhetorical question.

“To be fair, the young human did deny me three times.” The angel’s eyes widened in an exaggerated expression. “Just like Jesus did the Devil.”

“After which the Devil took the hint and didn’t try to tempt Jesus a fourth time. Besides, that’s not the point,” I growled. “The point is that this is the biggest event this place has ever had—”

“An event to which the lad and I are not invited.”

It was true—the criteria you had to meet to get invited evidently did not include living in the hotel. Guests had a plus-one, but no one I knew was interested in taking a drunk angel or a former Other-hater to the party. As for the succubus Astarte who lived in my hotel, she could have gotten a date in the three heartbeats it took to direct blood south, but had little interest in attending.

“Not the point,” I glared at the angel.

“You were invited. Your mother-in-law was invited—”

“An invitation she declined,” I said.

“Indeed. Where is Judith, anyway?” He was referring to Bella’s mother, who helped run the hotel. She ran the reception and … oh, yeah … she’s a poltergeist. Apparently, her disdain for me was so great that when it was time to shuffle off this good green Earth, she chose to stick around and haunt me. When the gods left a year later, taking their magic with them, she manifested as a bona fide, legless, floating ghost who still wore the same Sunday dress she was buried in. Whatever problems you may have with your mother-in-law, thank the GoneGods she’s not an apparition. Hellelujah!

“Out,” I said.

“Out?” Penemue said. “But she never leaves.”

It was true. Judith was one of those prim and proper ladies that wouldn’t be caught dead wearing white after Labor Day, knew that Port must always be served to the person on your left and that milk must be poured into a teacup before the actual tea (or is it the other way around?). So when the gods left and she returned as a ghost, her pride and sensibilities went into overload. It just wasn’t ladylike to float around everywhere. She rarely left the hotel, let alone the city. But a few days ago she’d left for the mainland.

I pursed my lips. “We have a lot of work to do, and I don’t have time for this. Now, go get a broom and sweep up these flyers.”

EightBall stood up and saluted me sarcastically before running inside to get the broom.

“I’m glad you two are getting along now,” I said.

“Swimmingly. He’s teaching me how to be hardcore and for-real.” Penemue offered me a fist bump, to which I dutifully obliged. “Apparently, being tangible does not make one real, and one cannot be hardcore without first being for-real. Next he’s going to teach me something called the Harlem Shake.”

“You know he’s making fun of you.”

Penemue looked down at me. “Of course he is. But, my dear Human Jean, I have been alive since nearly the dawn of time. I can no more be offended by his actions than you could challenge a toddler for candy. Besides, the boy is teaching me things about—”

“You still haven’t told him.”

Penemue put a hand on my shoulder. The weight of his massive talon rested heavy on me. “I try, but the boy is so happy, asking me question after question about his mother and father … The timing has never been right.”

“So don’t.”

“Don’t what?” The angel took another swig from his Drambuie.

“Don’t tell him.”

“But Human Jean …”

“Look,” I said, interrupting him, “I know that you think that you owe him something, and you do. But you’re paying him by telling him about his family. That’s a lot more than most of us get.”

“Jean … I could always tell you about—”

“That’s not what I want. You know that. But the kid—he wants it. He wants to know where he came from, and you’re giving him that. That’s payment enough.”

“Stories do not undo what I’ve done.”

“What you did was an accident. You had no more control over where you fell to Earth than EightBall’s parents did over being home at that moment. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t his parents’ fault. It was theirs.” I pointed to the dimming sky.

“I know, I know. But the boy hungers for his family’s history, and that history will be incomplete without the knowledge of their demise.”

“And if he tries to kill you because he’s an angry kid? If you remember, just a year ago he was the leader of the HuMans. And if you also remember, that gang doesn’t exactly like—”

“Pigeons?” he said, pointing at himself.

“I was going to say ‘Others.’ My point is, the kid is finally on the right path. Because of you. You could ruin that, and for what? Fessing up to something you had no control over?”

“Indeed,” Penemue said. “Very well, Human Jean, I shall take your counsel under advisement. As always, I thank you.” Which was Penemue-speak for, “I’ll do what I want.”

“But—”

At that moment EightBall came out with a broom and a garbage bin. He was followed by Stewart, the head servant and leader of the quarry of gargoyles who were presently running my hotel. “Mr. Matthias, my master requests your presence,” the gargoyle said.

Hellelujah!

WHICH IS HEAVIER—A TON OF STONE OR A TON OF PEACOCK FEATHERS?

The gargoyle led me through my hotel and toward the servant’s elevator, where he pushed the penthouse suite button. As we rode up, I stared at the massive, imposing figure and wondered what type of gargoyle he was and as curious as I was, I didn’t feel it would be politically correct to ask him.

The thing about gargoyles: they’re not all stone dragons or demons, and few of them spent their time perched on steeples. In North America, tribes carved these grotesque creatures from wood. Mayan cultures slip cast theirs from gold. Ehecatl, the Aztec god of wind, formed his gargoyles from clouds.

Usually the material and the design hinted at the type of tradition the gargoyle was from, but the gargoyle in the elevator didn’t look familiar. He did not possess the elongated noses and dragonesque faces found in Eastern Europe, nor the wide mouth and doglike features of Chinese and Japanese carvings. And none of his engravings were reminiscent of North American tribal totems.

He was unlike anything I had seen before. For one, he looked like he was constructed from diamonds, his skin reflecting light that projected glittering rainbows. For another, he looked like a man—a normal, well-proportioned, athletically built, nine-foot-tall man. He wore no clothing, carved or otherwise, and his—ahem—male parts did not exactly hang out, but rather stuck to him like he was wearing invisible tighty-whities.

And as far as I knew, gargoyles were always created with one purpose in mind: to serve the He, She or It that gave them life. Of all the creatures most scarred by the gods’ leaving, gargoyles topped the list. How would you feel if you were created for a single purpose and then abandoned by that very same creator without a word of explanation?

The elevator doors opened directly into the penthouse of the Millennium Hotel, where he gestured for me to enter first.

I wondered why I didn’t take the suite for myself, instead of the smallest room in the hotel. My room was on the first floor, which meant that I was closer to the reception. I had once told Miral that the first floor meant I could survive jumping out the window. She’d thought I was joking. I wasn’t. After the last fourteen years, being able to jump out of your window and live wasn’t just a plus, it was damn near a necessity.

Besides, I lacked the imagination, time and money to fill the massive rooms of the penthouse with much. All my Earthly possessions could fit into three suitcases, and two of them would be filled with 1980s classic toys.

Austere living, I could hear Penemue say. Like a monk. I thought of it more like a goldfish. Except that instead of growing to fit my bowl, I had gotten a bowl that fit my size.

I walked into the penthouse and saw that The BisMark had decorated the flat to his tastes. Whereas once it was luxuriously furnished with the best that IKEA had to offer, it was now filled with items that were far more expensive than anything I could ever hope to afford.

The walls were covered with paintings that no mortal hand had created, while the shelves bore urns that no human potter had spun. In the middle of the room sat a grand, gold desk that looked as though it had been carved with a thousand tiny carpenter’s tools. Statues littered the room: two komainu—those ancient Japanese lion-dogs—guarded the elevator door, a stone giant in knight’s armor kept vigil by the window and a silver half-man, half-goat satyr with a gold crown stood behind the desk.

“Mr. Matthias, I presume.”

“Yes,” I said, my attention drawn to the back of a large leather chair.

“Thank you, Stewart,” the voice continued.

The diamond gargoyle bowed and left.

“The BisMark, I presume?” I said, fully aware that “The” was not a title, but rather this creature’s first name. Hey, when you’re singular in nature and older than sin, you get to have a few indulgences.

“Indeed,” the voice said. Even though it was The BisMark’s event, I had yet to meet the legendary creature. All bookings and negotiations had been done through Stewart and his gargoyle servants. “So good of you to join me,” the voice purred. I swear, all that was missing from this image was him petting a white, blue-eyed Persian cat. “I wanted to thank you for allowing us to use your premises.”

“Oh, please. It’s not every day that a guest rents a place from you and brings his own staff.”

“Indeed. But my gargoyles are better suited to my needs than your staff of … what? A drunken angel, a human boy and a rather judgmental ghost.”

I couldn’t argue with him—he had my staff pegged. “True.”

“Besides, it works out better this way, does it not?”

“I suppose,” I said, still staring at the back of his chair. The fine leather exterior was starting to annoy me. “Ahh … sorry, but could you turn around? I’m not used to speaking to the back of a chair.”

The BisMark chuckled. “I apologize—I forget mortal protocol.” He swiveled his chair around. What greeted me was an Other unlike any Other I’d ever seen before, and I was pretty sure I’d seen them all. When I was in the Army, they gave us access to an online directory called The Definitive Guide to Otherterrestrial Kinds and Types, or DGOKT, an unwieldy acronym my fellow soldiers pronounced “Docked.”

The DGOKT was filled with every kind of Other documented by legend, myth, fable or encounter, citing original documentation, primary sources and a whole slew of academic information that made the fact that angels and demons now walked amongst us … boring. It was so long that it made the Encyclopedia Britannica seem like a pamphlet by comparison. Quickly, the Army realized that no soldier would ever read the whole damn thing, so they made a deck of cards—well, actually, several decks of cards. As in, enough cards to supply a Las Vegas casino. They gave you the basics: names, powers, weaknesses, key references and threat levels. That was more my speed, and it was something I spent hours upon hours studying.

But the guy in front of me wasn’t in the cards. He was basically human—two eyes, one thin, noble nose with two slightly upturned nostrils, two unassuming ears and a light smirk that reminded me of an IRS agent when he catches you fiddling with your return. But that’s where the human ran out and the Other came in. For one thing, his hair was a bright yellow, with streaks of pink that spiked up like a character in Dragon Ball Z, and, for another, his face was entirely covered in matted peacock feathers that looked more painted-on than pluckable. He wore rimless, rose-tinted glasses that balanced on his nose as if by magic. Considering how famous this creature was, I couldn’t believe we had missed … him? … her?

As if reading my mind, he said, “Him, I believe. Not that gender really applies to me. I am … how do you say it … singular in my existence. There will never be a Mrs. BisMark with whom I would fornicate, nor do I particularly have the desire. The company of Others is more of a means to an end than a necessity.

“No, Mr. Matthias, I am alone—unique. And I exist for a particular purpose, which I execute with uncommon efficiency.”

“And what is that?” I asked.

BisMark shrugged. “I suppose you could think of me as the Master of Celestial Logistics and the Enforcer of Divine Practicalities.”

“Practicalities?” I asked. The DGOKT might not know who or what this creature was, but I did. You see, the DGOKT was compiled by humans, for humans. Sure, those humans were top researchers—experts in mythology, religion, ancient languages and even more ancient history; biologists and botanists; animal behavior scientists and xenologists—but I had access to something—or rather, someone—that they could never dream of knowing. Penemue. Give him enough Drambuie and he’d start spewing out everything he knew. He loved to be heard, loved to lecture and, for reasons I’d never quite understood, loved me. And all that love translated into me having access to a database of archaic knowledge. Granted, it was drunk, often surly and occasionally over-emotional knowledge, but knowledge nonetheless.

When The BisMark booked the hotel, I went straight up to the seventh floor and asked him all about my latest client. Penemue just raised an eyebrow before sighing, putting down his bottle and leaning in close as he soberly told me that this BisMark was responsible for more in creation than any divine being. Not because he created anything—that was firmly in the god domain—but because he consulted on how things should be created.

He used terms like “the Superior Diplomat” and “the Master Logistician,” before saying three very scary words: “Very Powerful Other.” And here he was, sitting in front of me. Yay!

“Indeed,” The BisMark said. “The gods are … excuse me … were a fickle bunch. So much bickering, so many conflicts. They needed one such as me to administer their inevitable cooperation as they governed this world.” He looked at me over his rimless glasses. “As with many great empires, the design may be the work of one, but the actualization takes many.”

“So,” I said, “if you are the grand consultant, did they consult you when they left? Surely that must have been a logistical nightmare, getting so many of them to cooperate.”

The BisMark’s face drained of all expression, and I gulped. Great, Jean—piss off your customer. He may be the Grand Consultant, but you are the Grand Jackass.

The BisMark stared at me for what felt like a week before breaking his stone-cold gaze with an understated grin. “ ‘Grand Consultant.’ I like that. No, I fear the one feat they did not consult me on also turned out to be their most meaningful one. I do admit: my feelings, as muted as they are, were hurt.” He stood up, revealing the rest of his body, which was covered in the same peacock-style feathers. “But that is moot. Now we must look to the future. A future that is fraught with danger unless we can get humans and Others to trust one another.”

“And is that what you’re here to do? Is that what all the hubbub and the camera crews are about? You’re going to show the humans all over the world that Others can have fun?”

“In a way,” he said. “If I can bring out the … humanity of Others, that will go a long way toward showing the world that we are not so different.”

“ ‘If you prick me, do I not bleed?’ ”

“Indeed.” He caught my gaze with his crystalline eyes. Looking into them was like staring into a kaleidoscope—his irises a thousand colorful squares, triangles and trapezoids, each mote a different shade of amber and maroon, gold and crimson. “I know your reputation, as well as how you defeated the Gadubia.”

“The what?”

“The Avatar of Gravity,” The BisMark sighed. “What a tragic case. Seems his mortality took its toll on his once immortal mind … Unfortunate, really.” He spoke casually about the death of an entity that was more powerful than most gods, if not more so.

“I didn’t know he had a name,” I said, not sure what else to say. A year ago, this Gadubia had almost killed me … but not before doing something that every Other thought impossible. He called down Heaven. As in, literally pulled the divine void down to Earth, and for the briefest of moments Heaven and Earth were connected. Then I killed him. Not because I wanted to, but because the Avatar of Gravity was trying to ascend to godhood, and if he succeeded, a lot of people and Others would suffer. I couldn’t let that happen, so I carved out his heart, hacking him apart as he ran out of time with which to heal himself.

“Few do. Very few,” The BisMark said. “In fact, you and I may be the only living creatures on this plane of existence who know his name.”

“So why tell me?” I asked.

“Because the secrets once held as sacred are out of fashion. Why keep a secret if keeping that secret serves no purpose? Honor … old promises. No, Mr. Matthias, the world has changed and so must we.”

“That’s not what he said. He wanted the world to return to what it once was, except with him as the bully at the helm.”

The BisMark nodded. “I would have expected no less from him. Ever since the day I created him, he was always so arrogant.”

“You created him?” His claim shocked me. In my years of living with Others, the Avatar of Gravity was the toughest thing I’d ever faced off against. If it weren’t for my military training, the use of some of their equipment that I “borrowed,” plus a whole bunch of luck, he would have killed me and razed Paradise Lot to the ground. And here was the guy who made him, talking as if the Avatar of Gravity was a toddler who had thrown a hissy fit. “I thought the gods made him,” I said, putting a little extra spin on “the gods.” I wanted to see if he’d react to their mention.

“No, Mr. Matthias,” he said casually. “The gods needed a way to communicate with the Laws of Nature, and it was I who arranged the creation of avatars. It was my energy, my efforts and my magic that infused them with life, and it was I who devised the rules under which they were governed. In all practicality, it was I who created him.”

This made me very uneasy. After all, it had been less than a year since I’d fought the Avatar and won. A fight that only I walked away from. Now with The BisMark in front of me, I couldn’t help but wonder if he chose my hotel to get close to the human who had killed his creation. Thoughts of being strangled by feather-covered hands ran through my mind. Gulp.

If The BisMark noticed my discomfort, he didn’t make any indication of it. “As for your observation that he was a bully … Indeed, he was. Brute force was his tool, but then again, if your power was the maintenance of bodies in motion, brute force might have been your preferred modus operandi, too.

“It is no accident that I picked your hotel for my gala. You have a reputation and you are well respected in the Other community. They regard you as the fierce, endless warrior who would fight to his last breath to protect them.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“It is true, Mr. Matthias—you have quite the reputation. You successfully killed one of the most powerful creatures in creation and you have proven your compassion for Otherkind again and again.” He gently grabbed my wrist and lifted it, looking me up and down like someone might examine a coat at a high-end store. “You are a puzzle I have yet to solve, Mr. Matthias, and after an eternity of knowing everything, I do like to be challenged.”

“Thank you? I think,” I said, taking back my arm.

“Oh, please. Of all the human virtues, misplaced modesty is the least attractive. Speaking of human virtues …” He handed me a bill of sale. It was made out to the SakanaSama Mori Shipping Company, and above a number that exceeded the sum of every penny I’d ever earned was written, “Full delivery of live cargo.”

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It seems I have a human problem that requires a human touch. Stewart will fill you in on the details shortly. Of course, we’ll compensate you appropriately. And as a thank-you for providing me with your services, I shall, in turn, offer you a favor …”

“And what’s that?”

“The limelight, Mr. Matthias. I shall shield you from it. There are a lot of cameras projecting images to many, many people tonight. I suspect some of those people will recognize you. People who had previously assumed you were dead.”

This stopped me cold, and not because he was going to protect me from the “limelight.” I didn’t know what he thought was going on outside, because there were exactly two local news vans from no-name stations. I doubted even the studio cameramen watched what they were filming. The world wasn’t paying attention to this dinner, and any Army surveillance that was going on would be done on automatic recording, only to be reviewed by some low-level grunt should something of interest happen. Certainly no one who knew me would be watching … and even if they were, whatever view they caught of me would be dismissed as a “That looks like him, but he was burned to ashes six years ago” afterthought. They would most likely assume I was a ghost, not that I was hiding. I was safe—as safe as could be.

What stopped me cold was that he knew about my past. About leaving the Army and going AWOL. That was supposed to be a secret. A secret that only my inner circle was aware of …

“Don’t worry, Mr. Matthias. Your secret is safe with me.” He stuck out his feather-covered hand. I shook it. “Thank you again. That will be all,” The BisMark said.

I bowed with a scowl that came off more as confusion than anything else and walked out. At the door, I turned to take one last look at the Other. His back was already turned. I wasn’t sure what else to say … if there was anything else to say.

Bella used to say that you could only run from your past for so long before it caught up with you. As I looked at the back of The BisMark’s chair, I wondered if this was the moment mine finally had.

But there was nothing to do about that now. Just get through this evening, I thought. Figure out what is to be done, if anything, after the gala is over. Even as I thought it, I knew my plan was foolish, but at that moment I honestly didn’t know what else to do. As I turned to take my leave, I could have sworn that the satyr statue standing by The BisMark’s desk winked at me.

STAR WARS AIN’T JUST FOR HUMANS

Meeting The BisMark completely put me on edge. It was one thing to have the eccentric consultant to the gods throw a party at my hotel. It was another thing altogether that he was the creator of the very creature I’d killed. There was no doubt that he chose my place because he wanted to observe me up close. But did that observation include a lust for revenge?

The BisMark didn’t strike me as the vengeful type. He was far too practical for that. Whatever was going on between us, I didn’t feel like I was in immediate danger. Still, I’d have to be on my guard.

The elevator pinged on the ground floor, and its metal mirror doors opened. I was immediately greeted by EightBall, who grinned as though he’d just seen something naughty.

“Oh, what now?”

“What else?” he beamed. “Astarte.”

↔

I walked into the foyer of the Millennium Hotel and marveled at the grand entrance. From the outside, the hotel looked like the rook piece of a chess set—that is, if the piece were seven stories high and covered with windows. From the inside, the foyer was an open cylinder with an empty, hollowed-out center wide enough that someone could fly all the way up or fall all the way down. Others did. Penemue flew to his room on the seventh floor. Judith had been known to float down, and a nihant—a spider the size of a pony—once attached its webbing to the round stained-glass ceiling and lowered itself down.

Each floor of the Millennium Hotel looked out onto the center, separated from the empty middle by a carved copper railing that depicted a lush garden scene, its subject matter getting progressively darker the higher you went. At the beginning of the railing people took hikes, had picnics and danced around maypoles. At the middle, stags banged heads and bears fished for salmon or destroyed bee hives. By the time you got to the seventh floor you saw forest fires, unmarked graves and battlefields.

At the center of the foyer was a grand oak circular check-in desk. And to think that a year ago I had used an old fold-out poker table for a reception!

The ground floor was marble and made up entirely of the kind of stuff you expected to find in an upscale, once-upon-a-time boutique hotel. Reception, of course, but also seats on the edges where people could look out at the ground floor while waiting for friends to visit them at the hotel, or their travel partners to finally come down after a shower or nap or whatever people did in hotel rooms before going out. And because the hotel was situated on a hill, you got quite the view: the city and ocean beyond. The only functional part of the main floor was near the back, where you’d find the kitchen and a narrow stairwell that went down to three basement levels dug deep into the hill. The first level was a grand ballroom at least two stories in height and, although just beneath the foyer, actually much bigger. Seems that whoever built the hotel dug into the hill to give it a bit more space. Scratch that—a lot more space. The floor was huge … certainly big enough to host a party filled with mythical creatures of all shapes and sizes. The last two levels were a combination of utility rooms, storage and access to Paradise Lot’s massive underground sewer network.

Whatever you had to say about the Millennium Hotel, there was no denying that it was grand—and way, way, waaay out of my league. It was located in the heart of the city. It had next to no value, and because of a certain succubus trading favors, I got to run it rent-free. Of course, rent was one thing, but unless Astarte started courting the whole municipality of Paradise Lot, I was still on the hook for electricity and gas, not to mention general upkeep. Those bills alone were killing me.

But none of that was what I marveled at. What stunned me was that the hotel was actually full—valkyries, jinn, banshees, centaurs and a few dozen other Others strewn about the hotel lobby. Representatives of every pantheon, every religion and every culture, of every heaven, hell or plane of existence in between mingled as they waited for The BisMark’s dinner to start.

↔

I scanned the foyer for Astarte until I finally saw her sitting on one of the couches near the hotel’s entrance. She wore a cherry red blouse and tight leather pants, which for a succubus was akin to wearing a burka. She was quietly typing away on a laptop. There was no moaning or groaning going on anywhere.

“She’s not doing anything,” I muttered to myself.

“It’s not what she is doing—it’s who she is that’s the problem.” I turned to see a short human male with a receding hairline and circular, gold-rimmed glasses standing behind me. He wore what I initially mistook as a bathrobe until I took a closer look. It was a Jedi cloak, and not some store knock-off or homemade deal. It looked like the real thing. Well, the movie thing. “That’s Anakin Skywalker’s costume, right?”

“Yeah, one of the originals used in Episode III—resized for me. It cost me an arm and a leg, but worth it, don’t you think?” He blushed and stuck out his hand. “I’m the, ahhh, I’m a minister in the Jedi faith. A Jedi Master, actually. It’s an online thing. Really, all I do is manage the newsletter.” He looked around and leaned in close. “They asked me to represent the Jedi faith. I tried to explain to them that being a Jedi wasn’t a real religion, but the guy on the phone said that worshipping the Force was what all religions did. He also said that he admired the way my faith had modernized itself by updating painted murals and stained-glass windows to movies.”

I held in a laugh. “You’re kidding.”

“No,” the short man shook his head. “I wish I was. Also, I think they’re happy with me because I’m the only human religious figure that actually showed up. Apparently, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope and the Dalai Lama all turned down the event due to religious differences. I guess most religions kind of fall apart without Heaven or Hell.”

It was true. Fourteen years later, many religious leaders were still scrambling to consolidate their doctrine with the absence of the gods. On the one hand, they had irrefutable proof that they were right, that the gods did exist and that their worship was necessary. On the other hand, what was religion without gods to actually worship? Most religions spent their time ignoring Others and pretending the gods never left, or insisting that if they engaged in deeper religious fervor they could pray the gods back. Either way, I could see how coming to The BisMark’s gala sent mixed messages to their followers.

Whatever the case, there was a Jedi minister in my hotel. Yippie! “Man oh man …” I said, bowing reverently. “It’s good to have you, Master …”

“Greg. Just Greg.”

“Not tonight. Master Greg, how may I be of service?” I bowed slightly as I put a fist over my heart in a Jedi salute.

Greg looked at the front door nervously. “It’s not me that needs help. Actually, I wanted to warn you. It’s about Astarte. She is—I mean, was—an Assyrian goddess.”

“Goddess?”

“Well, kind of … A long time ago she was worshipped as a goddess, even though she never quite made the cut. And before you ask, I have no idea what the cut-off point was. But that’s not why I’m here … it’s about Atargatis.” He paused as if all was clear. My blank look showed him that I had no idea what he was talking about. I hadn’t looked at the guest list, and even if I had, the name did not ring a bell. “They’re sisters,” he added.

“I know who Atargatis is,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “She’s the ancient Assyrian goddess of fertility—well, demigoddess now. She’s the Other who cradled civilization until it was mature enough to survive on its own. But I didn’t know she was coming …”

“Oh, yeah!” Greg said with an enthusiastic nod. “She’s the guest of honor. After the Pope said no, The BisMark invited Atargatis.”

“Are you sure she’s Astarte’s sister? Same pantheon, yes, but does that make them sisters? I mean, can a succubus have a sibling?”

“Yes and no,” he said. “They are of the same pantheon from the old world. A religion that declined four centuries before Christ … There are references to them being sisters.”

“References?”

He looked around sheepishly. “Ever heard of the Grimoire of Metatron? Not to be confused with the Book of Enoch.”

I shook my head.

“It was written by the angel Metatron.”

“Megatron?”

Greg let out a giggle. “Ahem …”—he blushed—“Metatron, the great watcher. He created this chart of the gods. It has all the gods in it and their relationships with each other, as well as their relationships with certain mortals of significance. You know … like Hercules and Jesus. I have a copy at my apartment and I’m trying to make it more user-friendly. You know, so that humans can use it. It’s kind of a passion project of mine.”

“Oh …” I said. I liked this guy. Star Wars fan, Jedi Master and Other historian—what wasn’t to like?

“So, if you live in Paradise Lot, how come I’ve never seen you around before?”

“I live in the Ladder.” His tone went reverent, almost embarrassed. “I’m pretty much the only person living there, now that the humans are mostly gone.”

The Ladder was the only skyscraper in Paradise Lot. Once upon a time, it was premium real estate. I’d have to add filthy rich to Greg’s list. “So you didn’t head for the hills like most humans?”

“No way,” Greg said. “And leave all this? How awesome is it to be living amongst all these magical creatures? If I wasn’t living here already, I would have moved here in a heartbeat.”

I really, really liked this Greg. “OK … so Astarte and Atargatis are mortal enemies?”

“Immortal enemies,” Greg snickered.

“And you think they’re going to have a big fight unless I can keep them apart.”

“I don’t think—I know, because that big diamond-looking guy asked for my help.”

“Really? How?”

Greg turned beet-red. “He asked me to use the Force.”

“You’re kidding.”

Greg shook his head. “I know! They think it’s a real thing. And what’s more, he thinks I don’t have to burn time to do it.”

“Well,” I laughed, “he’s half right.”

“Again—I know!” Greg adjusted his glasses. “I tried to explain to him that it wasn’t a real thing, but he insisted. Talked about how the ancient Greeks used pneumatics and how the Tibetan Buddhist monks cultivated rLung. Besides, the Jedi Church believes that there is one all-powerful force that binds all things in the universe together. We also accept people from all walks of life, from all over the universe as members of our religion. That includes Others.”

This was rich—but oddly believable. In my years of dealing with Others, they gave into every kind of questionable practice: crystals, ch’i, feng shui, numerology, miracles … and now the Force. And why not? After an eternity of seeing all those things work in the various heavens and hells, why wouldn’t they also work on Earth?

Besides, a religion that preaches that everyone is equal and welcome … that’s a beautiful thing.

I burst out laughing.

“So I figured,” Greg said in between chuckles, “since I don’t have the Force, what I could do was warn you.”

“OK,” I said. “Thanks. I’ll try, but she’s not very good at following instructions. And she’s already pretty annoyed for not having been invited.”

Greg gave me a look that said, What choice do you have? Then he pulled out his phone, which looked more like the tricorder from Star Trek. “You better hurry. Atargatis’ flight just landed.”

“How do you know?”

“How else?” he chuckled, showing me his phone. “Twitter.”

Hellelujah! Tweeting Others—I’d seen it all. “Alright,” I sighed, “I’ll go up and talk to her.”

YES, THE INTERNET IS JUST FOR PORN

Before the GrandExodus, Astarte was nearly a goddess, her followers granting her power and sustenance through sexual worship. Now that the gods were gone and Astarte was mortal, she had to find her sustenance from other, more mundane sources. Anyone with a 101 understanding of economics could tell you that you could exchange money for food, water and shelter. Astarte traded sex for money, which in turn she used to buy food, water and shelter. Of all the Others I’d met after the gods left, few had adjusted as well as Astarte.

The succubus was on a laptop, staring at the screen with the intensity of one in deep, deep concentration. “Astarte,” I said.

She ignored me, but her companion—an overweight human in light blue khakis and a plaid short-sleeved button-up shirt—looked up. “Hi,” he said, offering me his hand. “I’m Brian.”

I ignored him. “Astarte,” I repeated, and again she ignored me. Astarte had lived in my hotel for six years, and over that time I’d gotten to know her quite well. When she ignored you, she did so to tantalize you. Like telling someone you have a secret and then going silent. Except with nipples.

So what do you do when you can’t get a succubus to speak? Ignore her back. “Brian,” I said, “what are you two doing?”

Before he could say anything, Astarte raised a finger, pointed at Brian, then held it up to her lips. The man went silent.

I leaned in close, blocking his view of Astarte. “Brian, stay with me. What are you two doing?”

“Ahhh …” Brian started.

He tried to lean to the left to look at Astarte. I also leaned to the left to block his view, and then I snapped my fingers in his face. “She might be able to give you all the pleasure in the world. I, on the other hand, am more about pain. Spill it. What are you two doing?”

Brian gulped. “She’s, ummm, watching something.” From the way the word something lingered on his lips, I knew that whatever she was watching was probably inappropriate behind closed doors, let alone in the crowded lobby of a boutique hotel.

“Great,” I sighed, “and how exactly do you know Astarte?” I knew exactly how he knew Astarte.

“Ahhh,” he said, his cheeks turning rosy red, “I work for WordPress. She was having trouble with her website, and …”

“So you came down to personally service her?”

Brian blushed. “It was only a bus ride away.”

“Jean,” Astarte said.

“Ah, ah, ah … I’m not talking to you,” I said, not taking my eyes off Brian.

“Servant,” Astarte said, “get back to work.”

“Hey, I already told you: I’m not your servant.”

“Really?” Astarte moaned. By the GoneGods, she was good.

Brian gulped. “I’ll get back to work.”

“Good,” she said. “Now Jean, answer me this: Why do you disturb my servant?” Her voice had a hint of a Parisian accent. Astarte had never been to Paris, or anywhere in France for that matter, but nonetheless spoke with an accent because once I told her that French women were sexy.

“So you’re talking to me now?” I turned to Astarte. “I tell you what, I’ll stop disturbing you if you tell me what you’re up to.”

“Have you heard of this?” She tilted the screen to reveal a Google search bar.

“Google? Yes, I’ve heard of it,” I said. I glanced over at Greg, who pointed at his phone and mouthed, She’s in a taxi.

“This is power—this is knowledge, and to have it so readily available …”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice draining. “The gala is about to start, and all non-gala guests should really be in their rooms.”

Astarte ignored me as she continued marveling at her laptop’s screen. “You know, back in ancient Assyria we used oracles, but they were rarely accurate. There was a legend of a book whose pages knew all. All you had to do was ask. The ritual of asking was terribly complex and fraught with peril—”

“Astarte—”

“—one mispronounced ‘Om’ or unlit candle, and then—boom!” She looked up at me as she mouthed an explosion, and I immediately thought of an orgasm. Everything about Astarte made me think about orgasms and bodies and getting wet and steamy. And let’s not forget sticky. She stretched out her leg, her skirt falling away to reveal skin that went all the way up to her … Ahem … Jean, get a hold of yourself. I looked at that perfect skin and reminded myself that those legs did not necessarily end where I thought they did. You see, there was no evidence that Astarte was a “she.” I only thought of her as that because, well … that’s what I like. I reminded myself that there were many humans and Others out there who saw her as a “she,” “he,” “it” and everything in between. Still, knowing that did little to tame my raging libido.

“Astarte,” I repeated, “you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing in public. Are you and Brian, you know …”

“Fornicating? Jean, we are two creatures sitting together exploring the vastness of the World Wide Web.”

“And?”

“And what, Jean?” she said, her lips ready to devour me. “What am I doing? You told me not to host any parties and I’m obeying. You told me to dress appropriately, and look at me—I look like I’m going to Sunday Mass.”

“Well,” I muttered, “not exactly …”

“And still that is not good enough for you. Here I am, innocently doing some research with my servant Brian. What, pray tell, do you or anyone else have to complain about?”

I looked over at Greg, who held up his mobile phone. “She’s getting close,” he called out.

“OK, Astarte. What research are you doing, exactly?”

“Nothing offensive. Just this.” She clicked through her browser tabs. And there it was … website after website of porn. And not some plain soft-core nudie pics. We’re talking bondage sites, domination sites, humiliation sites, “Is that even possible?” sites. “You humans have all these tools at your fingertips, and this is what you choose to offer each other.” She stopped on one frozen image and clicked play. Immediately there was the moaning and the groaning of four—no, five people doing something that must have required hours of rigorous training. “Look at this! It’s hardly satisfying.”

“Astarte, turn that down!” I grabbed the top of her laptop and shut the screen. The sound abruptly stopped. “You can’t do that here.”

“Do what?” she asked, genuinely confused.

“Watch that here.”

“Why not?”

I sighed and massaged my temples. “It’s not appropriate.”

“Says who?”

I gave her a look that said, You know exactly who.

“Oh, Jean … you humans find so much to be offended by. It’s just sex. And most of it”—she opened up the screen again—“isn’t even that. It’s fantasy. Fetish. None of it’s real. Like going to a banquet and eating pictures of food. But now that I understand the power of the … the …”

“Internet,” Brian chimed in.

“Yes—Internet. Through it I shall bring the world a feast. Real, tantalizing, soul-electrifying food.” She looked up at me and, seeing the blank expression on my face, added, “By food, I mean sex.”

“I know what you mean! But you can’t do that here. Please. Go to your room.”

“But this Internet is slow in my room.”

“The Wi-Fi doesn’t quite reach the third floor,” Brian said. “But if I get a booster, I’m sure …”

“Fine, fine—I’ll buy you a booster. Get you a second line. Do whatever you need, if you’ll just go to your room.”

Astarte looked up at me. “Whatever I desire?”

“Yes … I mean, no. Within reason.”

“Fine. I require an expansion to my room.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I require that you give me the two adjacent rooms so that I may do with them as I please.”

“You want another room?”

“Rooms,” she said, holding up two fingers in a V sign.

I looked over at Greg. He held up five of his own fingers and mimed that she was in a car.

“Fine, fine. Two more rooms.”

“Promise.”

“Ahhh … Yes! Promise.”

“Good.” Astarte picked up her laptop and stood, her shoulder brushing against mine as she passed by. “Come Brian, let us retire to my chambers. I shall be more comfortable there, no longer confined to these conservative clothes.” She pulled at her blouse, outlining a hint of a nipple.

Brian jumped to attention, silently thanking me for forcing us up to her room.

Hellelujah!

↔

I followed Astarte as far as the reception desk. Another few feet and she’d be at the elevators.

“Mr. Jean,” said a cold, emotionless voice. I looked up to see Stewart’s diamond exterior glistening under the lobby lights. “I have the details necessary for the errand required of you.” The gargoyle held out a piece of paper.

“Ahhh,” I said, still watching Astarte as she went to the elevator. “Can this wait a minute?”

“Mr. Matthias,” he said, “concerning the human matter that requires your immediate attention …”

Astarte was calling the elevator. Good. “Yes,” I said, looking up at the creature. “But something else requires even more immediate attention. Can this wait a minute?”

“No, Mr. Matthias, a minute is too long.” Other than his lips, the creature did not move. I mean, literally did not move. He did not blink and there were no awkward twitches or facial expressions. His body did not even slightly sway where it stood. No hairs subtly moved on a light breeze. Nothing. Not even the almost imperceptible movements caused by the flow of blood. That thing we don’t see, but sense, that tells us that the being before us is alive. Nothing about him gave me any sense that he was alive. “The main course has yet to arrive. The kitchen staff will need it in hand within the next three hours if they are to have time to prepare it.”

“As I told you on the phone, we don’t do food, but I have the number for a great caterer. Former werewolf, Victorian bred. Does a mean steak.” I looked over to see Astarte. For a moment I lost her in the crowd, but then I caught those sensual, smooth legs standing next to a large winged creature who might have been an angel, then again might not have been. She touched the creature’s chest and it shuddered with anticipation. Evidently she had gotten distracted. “Astarte,” I said in a loud voice.

She looked over at me and said in a voice that carried throughout the room, “A meal for after the gala, Jean.” I swear to the GoneGods that she must have burned a bit of time as she delivered those words, because every eye went to her, all of them momentarily more excited for after the gala than the gala itself.

Everyone, that is, except Stewart, whose unblinking eyes didn’t waver from me. “Steak, Mr. Matthias? But the main course is to be fish. And a very special type of fish, indeed. Holy Carp from Urfa,” he said in his calm, stone voice.

“Holy what from where now?” I gestured for Astarte to go upstairs. I’m really good at charades—long story involving a three-inch-tall gold fairy that used to live in my Castle Grayskull—and Astarte got my meaning. She rolled her eyes, blew the winged creature a kiss and went back to the elevator.

“Holy Carp from Urfa,” he said, as if that clarified everything.

“Fine. Holy foreign fish,” I said, glancing over at Greg, who nervously held his phone in his hand. Astarte was at the elevator, its doors opening. With a sigh of relief, I saw her step in. I looked up at the gargoyle. “What is the problem, Mr. Stewart? And be specific.”

“Stewart, Mr. Matthias. It is a derivation from the word ‘steward,’ as in a king’s steward. And, as The BisMark has already informed you, we have a human problem. It seems the fish that are to be tonight’s dinner have yet to arrive. They are stuck at the Paradise Lot harbor.”

“And?”

“And I need you to retrieve them, Mr. Matthias.”

“Me? What do I know about docks?”

“Again, Mr. Matthias, the delivery company has informed me that the fish are stuck at the port because of a human problem. You are a human and thus are best suited to deal with human problems. You will, of course, be fully compensated.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But I really don’t have time to …” From the corner of my eye I saw Greg waving at me as he pointed to the turnstile door. I looked over and saw a woman in an expensive white business suit walking through the front door, causing the little silverbell that I hung over it to ring as the glass pivoted. The bell is magical and always told me what creature the person entering was. Given that the GoneGod World was filled with all sorts of Others, it was a very useful thing to have.

Plus, my Bella had told me to hang it. “Whatever happens, that’s our path.” So here I was, following our path. About to go get some divine fish from the Paradise Lot harbor because a gargoyle had walked in when I hung the bell and asked me to host this gala. If this was all a heavenly joke, I hoped Bella was amused.

The words “Assyrian demigod” rang in my ear. I turned—we all turned—to stare. She wore a very large, elegant white hat and big black sunglasses. Curvy-hipped and ample-bosomed, she was beautiful, and everything about her exuded femininity: her graceful walk, her aura of being serious yet caring, responsible yet loving. She exuded confidence. She didn’t walk in like she owned the place—she walked in like she knew how to fix it.

An entourage of seven children followed her: three boys in fine suits and four girls in floral dresses. Each was immaculately groomed, and there wasn’t a hint of rebellion in any of them. There was something eerily conformist about her brood, their cool, serious composure complemented by intelligent, all-seeing eyes. It was as if they knew what naughtiness meant, but would never, ever consider being so. Despite that, my mind conjured the twins from The Shining—redrum, redrum, REDRUM!

EightBall followed behind her, encumbered with enough suitcases to clothe an army.

“Time, Mr. Matthias,” Stewart said, putting a heavy stone hand on my shoulder. “None of us have the time we once did. But as you pointed out, the hall is prepared, everything is in place. All that remains is that the fish arrive, alive and fresh, so that we may dine on them at precisely midnight.”

“Yes, OK,” I said, looking over at the elevator. “I’ll go now—”

I turned just as a voice screamed, “Ahhhh! You!” with a Parisian accent.

Hellelujah!

SIBLING RIVALRY, SORORAL BONDS AND CAT FIGHTS

Astarte’s scream reverberated throughout the hotel. Her cry was as shocking and as loud as a thunderclap on a clear day. I nearly leapt out of my skin. I knew a fight was imminent, but Stewart either didn’t hear or didn’t care because he remained as still as ever.

I started toward Astarte, but I was unable to move because a very large, very hard hand held me back. “Mr. Matthias,” Stewart said, “as you can see, obtaining the fish is paramount to us, and it is my understanding that you are competent in such matters. More than competent.”

“Fine, fine,” I said, breaking free of his grasp as I ran towards Astarte, hoping against hope that I would be able to intercept her before she got to Atargatis.

I sprinted to the entrance. At just under six feet tall, I had a slightly longer than average stride, but it still wasn’t long enough. Astarte pounced like a cat on its prey. My last hope was to lunge at Astarte and grab her midair, but even on my best day I doubt I could have succeeded, and today was far from my best day.

“You bitch!” Astarte tackled her sister.

Atargatis, whose last facial expression had been somewhat affable, met Astarte’s attack with a yelp, and the two of them started wrestling on the ground.

↔

Have you ever watched a succubus and a fertility demigoddess wrestle? Me neither, until now. But I can say this: After watching the two of them, I never wanted to see it again. Not because it was particularly violent or harsh, or because I have a moral objection to a catfight. I never wanted to see them fight again because I don’t think my hormones could handle it. Loose-fitting clothes tugged and pulled, revealing a hint of breast which vanished before anything but your imagination could conjure back the image. Heaving breath inhaled and exhaled as rigid bodies tensed and lunged, two of the most alluring bodies on the planet.

Yelps of pain—or was it ecstasy?—filled the lobby.

Everything they did reminded me of sex. Hell, judging by the reaction of everyone else in the Millennium Hotel, I was not alone. Every creature, be it a he, she or it, human or Other, stared with gaping mouths and shifted uncomfortably.

Despite years of Army training not to be tricked, seduced or stunned by Others, I couldn’t move. Sure, the sexual allure of the scene stunned me, but it was more than that. I was under some kind of spell. Hell, everyone in the hotel was under some kind of spell. No one moved to separate them.

As Astarte mounted her sister, I saw a hint of a smile that told me she knew exactly how everyone was reacting to their little familial spat.

I doubt I would have moved until they stopped, had it not been for one of Atargatis’ children pulling on the lapel of my collarless jacket. “Excuse me, mister,” a soft voice said. “You work here, right? Could you please help my mom? We would,” the little girl said, gesturing to her brothers and sisters, who all stared at me with the same pleading, innocent eyes, “but we are forbidden to harm our aunt.” The little girl who spoke to me was the tallest and probably the oldest of the brood, a child who looked no older than nine. She stared up at me with big, concerned baby-blue eyes that simultaneously pleaded for help and commanded me to act. That was enough to jar me back to reality.

I grabbed Astarte and pulled her off Atargatis. “EightBall,” I yelled. “EightBall!” The boy eventually looked up. “Help me get them apart.”

“Oh, yeah,” EightBall said, shaking his head. “Right.” He dropped the bags he was carrying, took a second to adjust his pants and grabbed Atargatis.

“Unhand me, you whelp,” Atargatis barked.

“Don’t you insult the boy,” Astarte shot back as she tried to break free from my grasp. “You traitorous, self-righteous bitch.”

“Mongrel? Cur!” Atargatis screamed. “That is rich coming from a whoremonger.”

Astarte stopped thrashing and in a cool, even voice said, “A bitch is a dog used for breeding.” She looked at Atargatis’ children. “And that is all you have done in the seventeen thousand years since you hit puberty.”

“I will smite you where you stand, little sister,” Atargatis said, redoubling her thrashing. To EightBall’s credit, he held on tight. Atargatis, realizing that she couldn’t break free, used her left foot to pop the high heel off her right foot and shot it across the room at Astarte.

At the last possible second, the succubus ducked. The heel of the shoe hit me on the forehead, and my eyes watered from the blinding pain. I saw stars before a little stream of blood trickled down my face. “Ow!” I said. I summoned my most authoritative voice and yelled, “You two! Cut it out now!”

Maybe it was my wound, or maybe the fight had gone out of them, but both sisters stopped thrashing. Atargatis took a deep breath and resumed calm with an unnatural speed. “Dear human, I apologize for my sister’s behavior. Now, if you could kindly tell your servant—”

“Employee,” I cut in.

“Yes, employee … If you could tell him to let me go, I promise I will not resume my attempts at ending my dear sister’s life.”

“And you, Astarte?” I asked, still holding her tight.

Astarte stopped moving. “She started it.”

I nodded to EightBall, who eased his grip before letting go. Seeing that Atargatis was true to her word, I let Astarte go. She adjusted her blouse with a huff. “Good thing you intervened, Human Jean. Another moment and I would have disemboweled my dear, sweet sister.”

“Astarte …” I said in a warning tone.

“Please, it is this boy who should be thanked. One more second, and I would have had your head on a silver platter.”

“Ladies,” I repeated, gesturing for EightBall to be ready.

“As if,” Astarte said. “I was the huntress.”

“And I was a goddess of war.”

“More like a bitch of war.”

“And what did you hunt, whore? Helpless mortals who would throw you a bone just so they could tell their friends they biblically knew the Great Whore of Babylon?”

“How dare you? When I bedded mortals, I changed history. I was Cleopatra. I was Helen of Troy, and the mortal desire for me launched a thousand ships.”

“Hah, you were barely a memory to them, forgotten as soon as they expelled their lust. I, on the other hand, created legacies,” Atargatis said. “My children and my children’s children have been a part of every great god and mortal this world and any other have seen.”

“And yet he left you behind.” By the way she said he, I knew she was talking about someone specific.

Atargatis’ eyes went cold. I swear to the GoneGods, my heart skipped a beat or two as her lips curled. In a low, rolling growl, Atargatis said, “You do not speak his name.”

“Whose name?” Astarte sneered. “Poseidon? Poseidon … Poseidon. Poseidon!”

“Whore!” Atargatis lunged at Astarte.

I grabbed Astarte, and EightBall held on to Atargatis. We were right back to where we started. From the corner of my eye, I saw Stewart approaching. He held a piece of paper in his hand. “The details, Mr. Matthias.”

“Ahhh, as you can see, I’m busy.”

“Mr. Matthias, must I stress again the importance of—”

“Getting the fish,” I said, grunting as I bear-hugged the succubus, trying to lift her off her feet. She heeled my shin and I nearly dropped her. Lucky for me, Greg helped by grabbing her legs.

“Mr. Matthias,” Stewart repeated. He appeared to not notice the fight that was going on. Hell, maybe he didn’t.

“Yes, yes,” I said, pulling Astarte away. “If you don’t mind, can you put it in my coat pocket?”

Stewart stepped forward and, amidst Astarte’s thrashing, put the paper in my pocket. “Mr. Matthias, we need the fish no later than eleven-thirty. That should be enough time to prepare them for precisely—”

“Midnight. Got it.” As soon as those words left my lips, Stewart looked up and for the first time acknowledged Astarte. “Ahhh, Astarte,” he said. “It has been a long while. How are you?”

“Oh, go choke on a bone,” she yelled at Stewart.

“Indeed,” he said, stoic as ever.

COME DRIVE WITH ME …

I managed to drag Astarte, kicking and screaming, out the back. Once outside, I carried the succubus toward my car.

“Let me go,” she screamed.

“Not until you calm down.” Holding her with one arm, I fumbled for my keys and eventually got the passenger door open. I threw her in and closed the door. Astarte tried to open it, but I held it shut. Locking the door, I slid over the hood and got in just in time to grab Astarte before she could get out. One-handed, I started the car and drove off.

Once we gained a bit of speed, I let her go. She immediately grabbed at the door. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said in a calm voice. “Even at this slow speed, falling from a moving car on the gravel will hurt.”

Astarte looked at the ground that crawled past at twenty miles per hour, considered my words and slammed the door shut. “Fine. I’ll kill her when we get home.”

“Could you wait until after the gala?” I asked. “I don’t want a negative review on TripAdvisor.”

“TripAdvisor?”

“You know, that thing called the Internet.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice distant, “I’ve heard of it.” She went silent.

“So,” I said once we were on the main road, headed towards the dock, “you have a sister?”

Astarte snorted—man, even her snorts were sexy. “Sadly, yes. We control much of our own destinies, but have little control over who is in our family.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Before the one called Christ was born,” she said in a completely literal way.

“And …”

“And what, Jean?” Her voice was angry.

“Well, what happened between you two that made you hold a two-thousand-year-old grudge?”

“Five thousand … and it’s not for mortals to know.”

“Really? I thought we were all mortal now.”

Astarte seemed to consider this before saying, “We all have our roles to play, Human Jean. And in the early days of faith, there were certain expectations that I did not meet.”

“And?”

“And nothing. We have hated each other ever since.”

“Oh, come on! There has to be something! Not meeting expectations warrants a cold shoulder, maybe a catty remark. It is not acceptable when talking about one of the greatest fights I’ve ever seen.”

Astarte smirked. “We were a sight to behold, were we not?”

“Yes. Oh, by the GoneGods, yes.” I tried to put the images out of my mind. “So … those seven creepy kids are your nephews and nieces.”

Astarte nodded. “You mean Edgar, Maggie, Lily, Judy, Simon, Tommy and Bob.”

“You know their names? I thought you hadn’t spoken in forever?”

“Just because their mother and I are fighting doesn’t mean the children must suffer. Besides, they were born before our troubles. And before you ask—yes, their names were changed post-GrandExodus so they could better fit in. All of them, except Bob. His name seems to be easy for the human tongue to pronounce.”

I couldn’t tell if Astarte was joking or not, and before I could ask, Astarte went stone cold as renewed anger bubbled inside her. “I haven’t seen my sister in thousands of years, and now she waltzes into my home, a guest of The BisMark … and for what? To insult me further? And what am I to do? Nothing? This is The BisMark’s doing. He is still angry at me for what I did, and now he enacts his revenge by mocking me with his silly gala. I must get into that party.” Astarte turned away from the window and looked at me. “You must get me into that party.”

“I can’t. You know that.”

“But you are allowed a date. A plus-one …” She leaned over and put a hand on my chest. Even though I knew she was using me, my heart still skipped a beat. What’s that old Bill Withers song? “Use Me”? I knew exactly what he meant.

Except I wasn’t Bill Withers and I hated being used. I gulped. “The BisMark doesn’t strike me as the dramatic type, but if it is as you say it is, then he’s using you and your sister to add drama to the event. Don’t. Besides, I can’t take you. I have a date.”

Astarte huffed. “Who?” Her voice carried both shock that I had a date and puzzlement that I was capable of denying her. Being a succubus and the figurehead of the largest and oldest sex cult, she was not used to being denied. Hell, I haven’t lived thousands of years as the diva that everyone wanted to please, and I hate to be rejected.

“You know who,” I said.

“Medusa? That serpentine prude? Come now, you can do better than her,” Astarte said, her lips dangerously close to me. I could feel her soft breath on the nape of my neck.

“Prude?” I asked, pulling away. “How can you say that after—you know—what happened?” I was talking about the night the ex-god Dionysus got all of Paradise Lot drunk on magical Ambrosia. One thing had led to another, but before Medusa and I could—you know—engage, Astarte walked in and … well, one thing led to another for them. I left to try and figure out what was going on, leaving behind two of the most beautiful creatures I have ever known—to engage.

“Hah,” Astarte scoffed. “As soon as you left, she said she could not let me pleasure her because it would be a betrayal to the one she loves. Like I said: prude.”

“Oh,” I said. “I thought—”

“Of course you did.”

“But you didn’t say anything to correct me.”

“What does it matter? I figured that’s what held you back—her prudish, inexperienced nature. Certainly, knowing that she has engaged in a night with me … a night where I taught her the true art of lovemaking … would make you more attracted. Was I wrong?”

Astarte was wrong, but not about the attraction part. It was the holding back part that she missed. Turned out not to be true. And here I was, holding on to their little romp as an excuse to turn her down. A kind of “Get out of jail, you slept with the succubus” card, to be played as necessary. I knew it was unfair given what had happened, but I figured it was a tangible enough excuse for Medusa to understand why I didn’t want to date her, and a hell of a lot easier to explain than the truth, at least.

OK, now I felt like a jerk.

“Medusa didn’t say anything either.”

“Would you have believed her?”

“No, probably not. But that doesn’t change anything about the gala. I have a date. And besides,” I said, “even if I didn’t have a date, I wouldn’t take you. I need this to go smoothly. In case you hadn’t noticed, the hotel is struggling.”

“I’ll behave.”

“I can’t risk another outburst like that—no matter what you promise.”

“But lover,” she said, a hint of that Parisian accent in her voice, “I haven’t promised you anything … yet.”

I rolled my eyes. “Stop it.”

Astarte huffed and sat back in the passenger seat with a whoop. “As always, human, you resist my touch. I do not understand it. I have had gods fall to their knees before me, and yet you …” Astarte’s voice went shrill. “You have the stink of love on you. That is why you resist me. Tell me, AlwaysMortal, are you in love with the Queen of the Gorgons?”

I shook my head. “We went on one date.”

She sniffed me again. “No, no, no … you definitely have the stink of love on you. Don’t tell me you are still in love with that dead wife of yours.” Astarte’s voice trailed off before she went silent.

“Don’t talk about Bella in that way,” I growled.

“You can’t be! She has been dead seven years now. Even the most sentimental of your kind forgets after seven years.”

“Don’t!” I yelled, jerking the car to the side of the road. “Don’t you ever talk about her like that again!” I stared at the succubus. “Understand? Understand?!” The fury in me rose as I held her gaze, and even her heart-melting freckles and erotic allure did little to put out the flame. I could tell she was trying. The diverted gaze, the suggestive frown that said if I were to take her right here and now, we’d have the greatest angry sex known to man, animal or Other. But I didn’t care. Her callous mention of Bella infuriated me.

Yes, Bella had been dead for seven years, but up until a year ago I had thought she was gone, gone. As in, turn off the lights, goodbye forever, no soul, no afterlife. Nothing. With the gods gone, Heaven and Hell were now closed. But then this creature, this First Law came, and I discovered that Bella wasn’t gone, gone. She was in the void left behind by the gods. Alone forever. And me, I was here on Earth with absolutely no way to get to her except something she’d said about a pillar in Heaven with our story on it, and a bell I’d hung over my hotel’s front door.

Astarte’s gaze softened. No, that’s not right … it lessened. The creature that stared back at me was less succubus now and more … human. Her facade dropped, and I knew that the person in the car with me at that very moment wasn’t the demigoddess of lust, but a being who cared for me. “I’m sorry,” Astarte said. “I didn’t mean to be so harsh. It’s just that you will never see her again. You know that, don’t you?” Despite being a diva and a huge pain in my ass, she was my friend.

There was that word again: “Will.” You will never see her again. You will not be with her again. She will never return. For seven years I’d known it to be true, but still, how could I just turn it off? Everything I had been, was and would be was because of her. Hell, the fact that I even stuck around Paradise Lot to run that GoneGodDamned hotel was because of her and the promise I’d made to her to help Others.

And now … now I had hope. I would never tell anyone, but I felt deeply and unequivocally that Astarte was wrong. I will see Bella again, I thought, and as I thought it, I knew it was true. I wouldn’t just see her when I died, but before then. I would find a way to her, or to bring her back to me.

I just needed to follow our path—wherever it led me.

Astarte took my hand in hers, not in a This is going to lead to sex kind of way, but more in a I am your friend gesture. “You are still young. You are in very good health. Why not enjoy what time you have left? Bella, from everything you have told me about her, will understand. She will even welcome it.”

That was true … her last words to me were, “Live well,” and being with someone like Medusa would be living well. But with this hope, this certainty living inside me? “I can’t,” I said. “I just can’t.”

“Very well,” Astarte said, her lips warm and inviting. “But should the day come when you can, know that Bella will rejoice. As will I. Bella and I do not have much in common, but we both want you to be happy.”

I fumbled with the twist tie on my necklace. “I know you’re right,” I said. “You’re a good friend. A difficult, troublesome pain in my ass. But a good friend, nonetheless.”

“I am,” Astarte agreed. “A friend who will do much to help you. And a friend who asks for little in return.”

“I’m not taking you to the gala.”

“By the GoneGods!” she said, every ounce of her succubus nature returning with a flood of passion and desire. “All that sentiment wasted for nothing!”

“I like you, too,” I said, putting the car in Drive.

“Human,” Astarte growled, “I shall never understand you.”

HAIRY MEN, FISH AND FLIGHT … AS IN, RUN AWAY

We pulled up to the docks just before ten. The sun had long set, the only light coming from the Moon hanging high in the sky. Several barges swayed lazily in the evening tide. Once they had been part of a vibrant trade that ran through Paradise Lot, but ever since the Others moved in, the port was rarely used and felt abandoned.

Across the bay lay the Promenade where Medusa and I had walked on our date. Once upon a time, it had been lit by the lights of restaurants and the amusement park; now, only the campfires of several homeless Others illuminated the beach. It made me sad to see the decline of Paradise Lot, a city so aptly named because it had once served as a beacon of trade and tourism. Now it was a slum, all because most humans didn’t know how to coexist with creatures they used to read about in fairy tales.

I guess some of us just couldn’t handle fantasy becoming tangible.

I pulled into a long concrete driveway that paralleled the water. No chains locked the large mesh gate and no guard stopped us from rolling in. I drove slowly along the loading bay area, looking for the SakanaSama Mori.

“What are we doing here?” Astarte said, still sulking.

“We’re picking something up for the gala.”

“The gala I can’t go to,” the succubus pouted. Sexily.

The docks curved, and as soon as I turned the bend, I saw a delivery van with a bat-like creature called a popobawa sitting behind the wheel, his little horns sticking out of the sides of his brown cap. Right in front of the van stood a very large and very, very hairy man. He was well-built, about six feet tall, and he wore a leather thong, old Roman-style shin guards and nothing else. Nothing, that is, if you discounted the carpet on his chest. Seriously, the guy’s chest was more Velcro than hair, and I got an image of him falling on a shag rug and getting stuck. He reminded me of Sean Connery in Zardoz.

Apparently, when Stewart said they had a human problem, he was being quite literal. Whoever that man was, he didn’t want the van to leave the dock. I’d seen this before—well, not this exactly. I’d never seen a grown man in a thong snarling at a van like a hyped-up Doberman Pinscher, but I’d seen human beings challenge Others because they fit some preconceived notion of what a demon looked like. Racial profiling—or rather, Other profiling. If I had a penny for every beating humans justified because poor creatures had horns like the Devil, I’d vacation in a penny arcade. Just because a satyr has cloven feet, or an ooak has antlers, or a fire dragon has red skin, doesn’t mean they’re devils. But humans are humans, and we’re quick to judge you by the color of your skin or the bone protruding from your skull.

Thing was, I knew the popobawa. I’d met him at the St. Mercy Hospital when I was helping Others complete check-in forms. Most Others weren’t illiterate, they just didn’t speak a language you could input in Microsoft Office, and dealing with hospital bureaucracy can be overwhelming. I’d helped fill out countless forms until I met the popobawa and, in a moment of inspired genius, declared him the Master Form Filler. Since then, Miral told me he was coming in twice a week, helping conquer human bureaucracy one form at a time. I knew this creature to be kind and good-natured. Given that, I suspected that the hairy man was picking on the popobawa because the Other reminded him of something that, once upon a time, slighted him in some way or other.

He was bullying the popobawa, and the one thing I hated more than anything else was a bully.

“Stay here,” I said as I got out of the car, slamming the door behind me.

Astarte didn’t move as she stared at the man with an expression that was an equal mix of shock and desire.

“You—Zardoz reject!” I cried out. The crazed man didn’t turn around, just continued crouching before the van, growling. “Leave him alone. He’s just trying to do his job.”

The popobawa rolled down his window a crack. “Master of Master Form Filler. You’re here to save me?” he gulped as he held out the simple Bic pen I’d given him all that time ago.

“Yes,” I said.

“Thank you, Master of Master Form Filler. Thank you!” he yelped, and closed his window.

“You,” I repeated, putting a hand on his shoulder, “you leave him—”

I’d trained in the Army, I’d done several tours with a special forces unit created to deal with unruly Others of all shapes and sizes … In my killing days, I’d taken down everything from a dust of rebel pixies armed with box cutters to a bona fide, fully grown fire-breathing dragon. Not to toot my own horn, but I was fast, strong and experienced.

Not that any of that helped me on the dock.

The second my hand touched his shoulder, and before I even knew what was happening, he threw me in the ocean.

↔

Getting dunked in the cold, bottomless ocean without warning sucks. I don’t recommend it. Luckily for me, there were several large tires used as boat bumpers that I was able to use to climb back onto the dock. Of course, it meant dragging myself up over algae-covered rubber, but that was preferable to freezing to death. Still, as I felt the mushy green sea slime cover my clothes, I cringed. I was wearing my collarless jacket, my hotelier jacket. My favorite jacket. Hell, my only jacket.

As my head cleared the dock, I saw Astarte standing five feet away from the hairy man. “Why are you here?” she asked.

He gave the succubus a taunting sneer as he held out his hand. A golden necklace hung from his fingers, a little pendant bobbing at the end. When Astarte saw it, she fell to her knees, hands covering her lips as she held back her shock. “How did you get that?”

He stood still, the necklace dangling from his outstretched hand.

“You shouldn’t have it,” Astarte said, her tone a mixture of anger and misery. “It’s not yours.”

The hairy man did nothing.

“It’s not yours,” she repeated, this time her tone pure anger. “IT’S NOT YOURS!” Astarte leapt at the man, her hand snatching the necklace with preternatural speed. As soon as she had the necklace, he slammed down his massive fist, aiming to crush her under its weight. She tumbled out of the way, and he followed her with a backhanded swing. The succubus ducked and, with gymnastic agility, somersaulted away.

She was about ten feet away from him, and I thought she would take the distance between them to flee. Instead, she stood, put on the necklace and rolled the pendant between thumb and finger. “You shouldn’t have taken this,” she said, and I noted a slight glow behind her eyes. She was burning time. She started humming before leaping toward him. For a moment I thought she was going to match strength for strength, but at the last second she slid between his legs and kicked the back of his knee. He went down, bellowing in agony. For any normal human, that would have been a broken knee followed by months of physiotherapy and years of getting used to a cane … but this guy just shook it off and attacked her again. Astarte did a backflip that would have put a Cirque du Soleil acrobat to shame, and as she arched back, her foot connected with his chin. Again—a devastating blow, but he took it like a playful slap between lovers. With lightning-fast reflexes, he grabbed her ankle and lifted her up. Upside down, Astarte punched his groin. The man doubled over. Hell, every man within a thousand miles would’ve doubled over. But this guy had the highest tolerance for pain I’d ever seen. The hairy man reached down with his other hand to grab her arm and pulled, wringing her out like a wet towel.

I pulled myself onto the dock and made my way over to my car. Thankfully, I had left my keys in the ignition. Otherwise they might have sunk to the bottom of the ocean. “Hey!” I cried out. “You ruined my jacket!”

“Really?” Astarte yelled out.

“Oh … and put down the lady.” I got in the car and gunned the ignition. By way of an answer, he whirled around and grinned with blood-stained teeth and murderous eyes.

“Fine. Have it your way!” I screamed out my window as I floored my classic 1969 Plymouth Road Runner. The car jerked forward like a sprinter hearing the starter pistol, then settled for a slow but gradual increase in speed. I will say something about my old car: she may not have a fast start, but once she gets going, she has momentum. And a steel shell. Let’s not forget the steel shell.

I hit the guy head on, his massive body tumbling over the car and cracking its windshield. “Crap!” I slammed on the brakes and stuck my head out the window. Astarte spiraled out on the ground. I put the car in Drive, got close to her and pulled her into the passenger side of the car. “Are you OK?” I said, looking in my rear-view mirror. He was dusting himself off, completely unhurt. I pointed at the Master Form Filler and yelled, “Go, go … GO!”

The popobawa didn’t need to be told twice. He put his van into Drive and floored it, its metal underbelly sparking as it hit an ignored speed bump.

I followed suit, flooring the Plymouth again. The wheels screeched, but the car didn’t move. I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw the hairy man lifting her back wheels off the ground. We weren’t going anywhere. “Crap,” I said. “He’s like the Terminator.”

“The Terminator?” Astarte said, looking out the back window.

“Yeah—you know, ‘I’ll be back’…” I searched the glove compartment for anything to use as a weapon. All I found were some old manuals and a screwdriver. Discarding the manuals, I leaned out the window and tossed the screwdriver at his head. The guy ducked, but in doing so he got low enough for the back wheels to touch the ground. I floored her again, and with a steel-grinding crunch she lurched forward. I looked out the rear-view mirror again and saw that he stood there with my fender in his hand. “Damn,” I said. “That was an original piece.”

Astarte stuck her hand out the window, one finger erect. “Screw you, Enkidu!” she cried out as my poor Road Runner slammed onto the onramp of the adjacent road.

FAMILY FEUD: GODS EDITION

We got back on the highway, following the delivery van with the big bright letters—Earthly Needs. It had one of those enlarged pictures on its side … You know, the picture of the friendly delivery guy that just braved wind, rain, sleet and snow to deliver your package like he was born to do that and nothing else. Except this van didn’t have a human on it. Rather, it was a picture of the popobawa, glowing like a firefly. The soft, halo-like radiance was what passed as a smile for his species. He was handing an angel a package, and the caption said, “Delivering Your Earthly Needs.” Beneath that was a signature: Form Filler. So the little guy had been true to his word—he did change his name.

As we drove I glanced over at Astarte, who hadn’t said a word the entire ride. Instead, she sat on the passenger seat, hugging her knees to her chest. I had thought about telling her to buckle up, but the truth was, I had never seen Astarte like that before. She was always confident, sure of herself. But the Astarte that sat beside me was nervous and … what? Scared?

I wanted answers, because, well, I’d promised to help Others, and Astarte was exactly the kind of creature I swore to protect. But it was more than that. Astarte was my friend. We’d been living together for almost six years. Six tantalizing years of me resisting her temptation. Six years of her tempting me because that’s what succubi do. But those six years were more than a cat-and-mouse game of sexual urges. Truth was, the more I got to know her, the easier it was not to be tempted by her ways. Not because she became less attractive—by the GoneGods, the opposite was true. It was because we were friends. She took care of me, the latest manifestation being that she got me the Millennium Hotel rent-free. And I took care of her, too, as best I could. And now some beast of a man was in town, hurting my friend. I wouldn’t stand for that. I wanted to find out who he was and why he was after her. I wanted to put a boot to his face and make sure he never lifted a hand against her. But in order to do that, I needed Astarte to talk.

If I was being honest with myself, there was one more reason why I needed an answer from her now, and not later. The gala was tonight, and as much as I hated that being a factor in my need to know now, I couldn’t deny that money was excruciatingly tight, and The BisMark was paying me—a lot. I had already received the deposit, but it was the after-everything-is-done fee that he still held over my head. I needed tonight to go well.

So here I was, stuck between wanting to help my friend and wanting to help myself. Both meant asking the same questions, but only one of them needed to be asked now, before the gala. “Who was that hairy man?” I said. Sometimes I hate myself.

“WildMan,” she said absently.

“Wild what?”

“He is the WildMan,” she moaned, as if that explained everything.

“OK, fine. Again with my question: Who is the WildMan?”

“Who do you think?” she shot back, angry to be taken out of whatever memory she was replaying in her head.

“A former lover?”

She rolled the pendant between her fingers. “I guess you could call him that …” Her voice trailed off.

“And?”

“And what, Jean? You want to know what he was doing at the dock? You want to know if he is going to crash the party, and you want to know how dangerous he really is, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That pretty much sums it up.”

“OK—here are your answers. I don’t know what he was doing at the dock. He’s not going to crash the party, and he is very, very dangerous.”

I believed her on two of those points. “How do you know he’s not going to barge into the hotel and beat the crap out of you again? I might not be there to save you next time.”

“Firstly—oh, please, I saved you. Secondly, he won’t enter my home. If he wants to attack me, he will draw me out.”

“How do you know?”

Astarte straightened up, a bit of her confidence returning. Then she drew an electrifying finger along my cheek and down my neck. “Trust me, lover. It is an Other thing.” She was back.

I’d heard that before—Others with their rituals and rules. Protocol that made up the social contract of Heaven and Hell. But the problem was that Heaven and Hell were no more, and although Others still held on to their old ways, it was only a matter of time before some of them realized that they didn’t need to. Not anymore, at least. But saying that to an Other who believed without a doubt that the old ways still protected her was akin to convincing a wall to be a door. You needed time and a sledgehammer to get it to open.

“Fine,” I said, pulling away from her touch. “But if he crashes the party, it’s on you.”

“Sure thing, lover,” she said, sitting back in her seat. “So … what’s for dinner?” She nodded at the delivery van in front of us.

“I don’t know what you’re eating, but as for the partygoers, some kind of special fish from somewhere far away—O-something. I can’t remember—”

“Urfa?” Astarte said, her voice surprised.

“Yeah. That’s right. Where is Urfa, anyway?”

“Somewhere very, very far away,” she said in a distant voice of her own.

↔

We pulled up to the back entrance of the Millennium Hotel just before eleven-thirty. Stewart and four stone gargoyles immediately started unpacking the van.

I went to the back and watched the gargoyles airlift coolers bigger than them, lightly flapping their wings as they did so. I don’t care how special gargoyles are … they shouldn’t be able to fly. Not with all that weight. They were either burning a bit of time or they fell under the same rule as a bumblebee—as in, if a bumblebee knew it shouldn’t be able to fly, it wouldn’t. I wasn’t about to tell these mythical creatures that stone couldn’t levitate. One particularly large gargoyle picked up two coolers at once, lifting them with unnatural ease. He had a long slash across his face, made by some sword that hit him during an ancient battle. Judging by the rest of ScarFace’s carvings, I guessed he was made around the time the French were building Notre-Dame.

I walked up to Stewart, who stood like a statue, evidently surveying the procession. “Excuse me, Stewart,” I said. The diamond gargoyle turned his head slightly downward. “I think we have a problem.”

“Are the fish in the containers?” he asked.

“Yes, but … ahh, fish?”

“Yes, live fish for the feast.”

“I guess so—I didn’t look inside. But that’s not why I’m here. We might have a problem.”

“The fish are here. There is no problem.” His head twisted up again as the gargoyles went inside.

“Yes, Stewart, we do. The human issue that you had me deal with … turns out, he wasn’t human, not in the technical sense. But whatever he was, he wasn’t happy with us bringing the fish here.” Stewart did not move. “Ahhh, Stew, did you hear me?”

“I did,” he said, not blinking, not moving, nothing. “Oh, yes,” Stewart said with an uncharacteristic intonation, which is to say, not completely flat. “I forget that humans need facial cues when speaking.” He moved his eyebrows, expressing mild curiosity.

“Great. I’m glad you heard me. What are we going to do about this … problem?”

“I fail to see what the problem is.”

“He might try to crash the party.”

“Crash?”

“Ruin. Ruin the party.”

“He will not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because his time has passed and he cannot hurt us,” he said, as if that explained everything. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to attend to the final preparations.” And with that, the diamond gargoyle went inside.

I followed him. He needed to understand that the WildMan was a problem. But before I could say another word, Stewart lifted a hand and two sentry gargoyle statues—who I hadn’t even notice perched on the wall—animated and closed the back door behind us. Now it made sense why Stewart wasn’t worried—not only did The BisMark bring his own staff, he had security, too.

Fine, if he wasn’t worried, then I wouldn’t be, either. It was their party, after all. What did I care, as long as I got paid? Whoever this WildMan was, he wasn’t going to be a problem tonight. He was, however, still a problem. He attacked my friend, and I wasn’t about to let that go.

I was thinking about how I was going to get Astarte to open up and tell me who that guy was when I was stopped cold … No, that’s not right … I was stopped hot by the shimmering beauty who strolled down the service stairwell and toward me.

“Hi there!” Medusa—holy crap … She was early. “I was looking all over for you. I made the mistake of walking in there.” She gestured toward the kitchen. “I’ve never been shooed away by a gargoyle before.” She strolled down the stairs in a beautiful red dress, silk shawl, high heels and a shiny gold necklace. Her snakes were wrapped in gold and silver chains that ended at their heads in crowns of jade and sapphire stones. She wasn’t just stunning. She was perfection.

And that was who I had to let down easy.

Hellelujah!

↔

Medusa followed me to my room—which, to be honest, had I not come in late and wetter than a fish in a monsoon and colder than a naked lizard in the Arctic, I would have protested at. But I did not have the upper hand on that one and, well, Medusa could be quite insistent.

My room was a large bedroom and a small living room with a kitchenette and an en suite bathroom. Impersonal hotel artwork that I couldn’t bother to take down hung on the walls, giving the room an I’m not here for long feel. Sturdy, built-for-wear-and-tear hotel furniture sat unimpressively around the room.

“Have a seat,” I said, pointing to a loveseat. Taking off my jacket, I walked into the bathroom and ran it under warm water as I wiped away as much algae as I could. The result was a marginally clearer and significantly wetter jacket. I draped it over the register and cranked the heat up to full blast.

I walked into the bedroom and began searching my closet for anything to wear. I mean, anything. I didn’t have a thing to wear other than a white T-shirt. I was really counting on that jacket. Hellelujah!

“Who are these beings?” Medusa asked. I popped my head out of the bedroom and saw that she was standing at the far end of the living room, by my shelves with the 1980s toys. I had them all—Transformers, Voltron, WWF dolls, He-Man, G.I. Joes, GoBots, Smurfs … Besides my coat, those toys were the only things I owned. She held a well-loved, original Generation 1 1984 Optimus Prime in her hands.

“Careful with that,” I said, “his left hand is loose.”

She looked at the blue fist and pushed it deeper into its socket. “These idols do not remind me of any of the GoneGods. Are they abstract representations?”

“Idols?” I chuckled. “No, they’re not idols. They’re toys.”

Marty hissed and stuck his head through the gate of Castle Grayskull before coming out of the turrets, where he was met by He-Man. He-Man didn’t move, partly because he was face-to-face with a snake whose head was bigger than him, but mostly because he was made out of plastic. “Toys.” Her tone was colored with confusion. “But what about this shrine? This is a place of reverence, lined up so that each can clearly be seen and can see.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I worship them … I just like them. A lot. Play with them,” I said bashfully, “but worship …”

“Would you sell them?”

“No way!” I said with embarrassing vigor.

“And they enrich your life?”

“Yes.”

“And they comfort you?”

I found myself nodding. When I was a kid, PopPop was always working. Not that he neglected me, it was just that times were hard and he was a single grandfather, raising the kid his daughter died giving birth to. And even though money was tight, he always managed to get me the latest toy. I don’t know how he did it, but he did. Now that I was an adult, I spent every spare penny on completing my collection. And not just to have it sit on a shelf. I always hated those collectors who kept a Veritech fighter in its original plastic or hid an original Spock doll in a glass case. They were meant to be played with, and, damn it, a man in his late thirties can enjoy them just as much as a kid. How many sleepless nights have I spent sitting on my floor staging battles between Voltron and the Joes? Yeah, if I were honest, they did offer me some comfort. Or at least a way to distract myself when my mind was too cluttered to do anything useful like sleep.

“Then they are your new gods.”

I thought about her words for a moment. True, they comforted me, I valued them, but they did not give my life meaning or purpose, and for that reason, if nothing else, that disqualified them as my gods. “They make me happy, sure … but they don’t define who I am,” I said.

“They don’t? Then how do you define yourself?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I subscribe to Popeye’s philosophy of life: ‘I am what I am and that’s all that I am.’ ” I threw on my best old sea-mariner accent, which basically meant pronouncing “I am” as “I yam.”

“Who is Popeye?” Medusa asked, running her hand along the shelf.

“Just a guy I knew,” I said. “Obsessed with spinach, tattoo of an anchor on his forearm.”

“Oh … sounds like an interesting fellow,” she said in a dreamy, distracted voice. “You know, when I was young and immortal, my only desire was for the humans to make a statue of me so they could visit it when in need of comfort. That was my highest aspiration.”

“And what happened?” I asked.

“I found out it was more fun to turn them into statues.”

“Really?”

Medusa let out a heartfelt laugh. “No, of course not. You know, the myth of the ugly Medusa turning people to stone is the equivalent of your modern-day tabloid.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

There was silence. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought of that joke when standing in line at the local grocery store. It was funnier in my head. But it’s partly true. I wasn’t the monster in the cave that mythology made me out to be. It was a vicious lie told about me by Athena.”

“Athena the goddess?”

“Yes. She was angry at me for something I did,” Medusa said from the living room as I rummaged through old boxes in my closet, looking for something to wear.

“And what was that?” I pulled out the only thing I had that might be appropriate for tonight and looked at it with a mournful groan.

“Following my heart.” I popped my head out of the bedroom to see a forlorn Medusa cradling Optimus Prime in her hand. Before I could say anything, she said, “I’m sorry. This event is hard for me. I know I tricked you into inviting me, and although this is a date, I’m not here for you. I’m here to apologize to an old, old friend whom I hurt. What is that mortal expression? ‘Bury the hatchet.’ ”

So that was it. And all this time I thought she was here for me. “Does this have to do with Poseidon again?”

Medusa looked over at me and nodded.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head, placing a finger under her right eye as she held back a tear. “Maybe afterwards. If I talk about it now, I’ll ruin my makeup.” She forced a smile, and her dimples tucked in with brave pride. “Besides, if I start crying, then my snakes will start crying, too … Do you know how hard it was to put mascara on sixty eyes? It took hours.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Jean, are all humans as gullible as you?” she chuckled.

“Only the good ones,” I said, popping out of my bedroom in a fresh white T-shirt tucked into blue jeans and an old vest that I once upon a time wore to the prom. “Ta-da?” I said in a deflated tone.

“No jacket?”

I shook my head.

“You’re kidding me. You own only one jacket?”

I pursed my lips in self-admonishment. “Well, I have a leather jacket, and let’s not forget my fire-engine-red snow jacket, but I doubt either is appropriate.”

“Here, give it to me,” she said, as her eyes started to glow. “I will dry it.”

“No,” I said with a little too much vigor. “No,” I repeated, calmer the second time around. “Please don’t burn time. Especially not for me.”

“But Jean, your jacket is wet, and you can’t go down there in just a T-shirt.”

“I know,” I sighed. She was right. “Come on, I have an idea.”

LIGHTS, CAMERA, SPYING

I knocked on Astarte’s door. From behind it I heard some shuffling, before an unsure nasal voice said, “Yes?”

Brian.

“Open up,” I said. “It’s Jean.”

“Ahhh, Astarte’s not here,” Brian said, and I could actually hear him swallow.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” he said in an uncertain voice that told me he knew exactly where she was.

“Look, I need to borrow something. I’m sure Astarte will be fine with it. Please open up.”

“No.”

“Brian,” I said in a threatening tone.

I actually heard a gulp through the door. “No, she’ll get mad at me.”

“I’ll get mad at you,” I said.

“So?” he said, clearly weighing the consequences of angering a human hotelier versus a tantalizing, make your dreams come true succubus. I was losing.

“Come on, Brian … open up right now, or I’ll—”

“Huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your door down,” said a sultry voice with a hint of a Parisian accent. “Really, Jean, you can be quite dramatic sometimes.” Astarte sauntered past me and opened her door.

I prepared for the worst—or best, depending on your perspective. Astarte regularly hosted orgies and her room was a cornucopia of dildos, sex swings and PCP. I figured we’d be walking into a jungle of silicon, inviting throw pillows and shisha pipes lit with apple tobacco that may or may not be spiked with certain sensory-enhancing drugs. Hell, I wouldn’t have been surprised if we walked in to see a river of honey and a fountain of milk.

But we didn’t walk into the ultimate geisha den—we walked into a well-lit, cold computer lab. There were desktops, laptops, tablets and a heavy-duty camera that pointed—pointedly—at the bed. Webcams, HiDef digital cameras and just about every kind of lens you could imagine. I doubt someone could move an inch here without having every spasm, twitch or jerk recorded.

And then there were monitors. Monitors that displayed every kind of fantasy I’d ever had and didn’t know I had. Orgies, sure, but other, harder stuff that made Fifty Shades of Grey seem like a children’s book. People tied upside down, right-side up and sideways. Bodies plugged into bodies as mouths curled in unsmiling joy.

The noise that greeted us was an orchestra of moans, groans and elation—homages to gods now long gone—and the ever faithful, classic exclamations of “I’m coming!”

Brian sat in the middle, wearing a headset that covered his eyes. His hands were out in the air like he was cupping something right in front of him.

I turned to Medusa, feeling my face flush with the remaining blood. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “If you want to wait outside, maybe that would be best.”

Medusa looked at the screens as though she didn’t hear me. Astarte heard me. “Don’t be such a prude, Jean,” she said, approaching Medusa. Marty met Astarte, but instead of giving her his typical hiss, he curled around her hand, his serpentine expression clearly one of familiar, old joy. “Medusa and I are old … friends. Remember?” The last word hung in the air.

Now it was Medusa’s turn to be embarrassed. “That was a long time ago,” she said quickly. She was thinking of the night she spent in Astarte’s room. I knew from Astarte that nothing had happened, but Medusa didn’t know that I knew. Then, looking at me, she said, “When I was younger and in my … ahhh … experimental years,” evidently talking about an incident that happened pre-Jean, and possibly pre-Christ.

“Honey, when your experimental years are over, so are you,” Astarte said, pointing at me like she was deciding what kind of cone she wanted for her ice cream.

“What is this place?” Medusa asked. “It reminds me of the Hall of Mirrors.”

“Better. It’s the window to all knowledge. And it’s what the humans worship now.”

“Of course,” Medusa said, obviously following the conversation better than I was.

“Through these portals I will start my empire anew.”

“Empire?” I asked. Her eyes met mine, and I gave her my best Yeah, right look. “And how will you do that?”

“By making a … a … It Support!” Astarte turned to Brian. “What am I building?”

“Not ‘it’ support—IT Support. I. T. And you’re building a website. With a landing page.”

“Yes—a website. I shall do all this with a website.”

I rolled my eyes. “OK, Zuckerberg.” I looked over at the monitors. “What’s that?” I pointed at one of the screens.

Brian turned it off. “Nothing.”

“No … turn that back on.” Brian hesitated and looked over at Astarte. I hooked my forefinger under his chin and brought his gaze up to mine. “Now!”

He gulped and flipped a switch. The screen flickered to life, and an image of the hotel lobby popped up. Others were walking in, being guided downstairs to the gala by the gargoyle ushers. “That’s happening now,” I muttered, before the realization of what was going on dawned on me. I turned to Astarte. “You put up hidden cameras in the hotel?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then how are we watching what’s going on downstairs?”

“I didn’t put up the cameras. IT Support did.”

“Because,” I barked, “you told him to!”

I turned on the human IT Support and in a guttural tone of pure rage growled, “Her, I get. As an Other, her moral compass is all over the place. But you, Brian … you know better. How many cameras?” Brian hesitated. “How many?”

“Two.”

“Two,” I repeated.

“Hundred.”

“Two hundred hidden cameras in my hotel!” There were seven floors with eleven rooms on each. There was a lobby, a kitchen, a utility room and a banquet hall. In total, eighty-one separate places. Even if some of the larger areas had a couple cameras, that still didn’t break a hundred. “Where?” I asked.

“Where?” Brian gulped. “Everywhere, really.”

“And where is everywhere, exactly?”

“All the rooms.”

“All seventy-seven guest rooms?”

Brian nodded.

“My room?” Brian nodded again. “The bathrooms?” Brian gulped before nodding.

I took a deep breath, then another one, before counting to ten and reminding myself that killing an Other—as ridiculous as she was—would get me in jail. “OK,” I said, keeping my tone as even as I could. “After the gala is over and all the guests leave, you are to take down each and every camera.”

“But Jean,” Astarte protested, “my empire needs eyes.”

“Each and every one.” I met Astarte’s stare. “Each and every one,” I repeated. “Understood?”

“But—”

“Understood?”

Brian and Astarte nodded.

“Good. Until then, you are not to watch any of them.”

“I guess I should turn off the recording,” Brian said.

“I guess so,” I said. “Good. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to borrow some evening attire.”

SHAKE IT, BABY!

Astarte clothed me in a bright white tuxedo with black-rimmed lapels and glittery, Wizard of Oz-style, ruby red shoes. Apparently it was the only clothing that she had in my size, not that she let me see what else she had. But as soon as I got into the gala dining room, I realized that I was a sore thumb in a sea of even sorer thumbs.

The Millennium Hotel’s ballroom was brimming with Others, each dressed like they’d just returned from Burning Man. Dwarves wore fluorescent faux fur, valkyries were draped in purple satin, minotaurs had golden horns, fairies trailed glitter, angels wore floating halos, demons dripped blood. They were a swirl of color, creed and chaos.

Other aromas filled the room. Smells that each species coveted, but to a human nose were overwhelming and confusing. Frankincense and burnt wood, lavender and peat, vanilla and hay—the perfumes and colognes of the Other world.

And the room! By the GoneGods, I had no idea that this space could look so golden. Fake Roman columns pretended to prop up the ceiling. Immaculate silk tablecloths covered dining tables set with silver plates, crystal glasses and intricate centerpieces that looked like crystallized spheres encrusted in silver and gold. A giant amethyst vat the size of a witch’s cauldron sat at the center of the stage for the podium. It was truly beautiful, and although it was on the other side of the room, I swore I could hear it hum.

As for the room itself, gilded chairs were thoughtfully positioned around it to provide an unobstructed view. Little bubble machines blew out bubbles, and the sound of ocean waves wafted about the room. Every detail pointed to one theme: “Under the Sea,” and I felt like I was walking into a room whose decorating committee was composed of Ariel, SpongeBob SquarePants and Aquaman.

“Look”—Medusa pointed at the stage, at the statue of a man in a toga holding a trident and wearing a crown with an apple-sized ruby—“that’s actually Poseidon’s crown and trident.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? Poseidon carried that thing with him everywhere he went. I’m surprised he didn’t take it with him. As for the crown—I gave him that ruby. Actually, I gave him three, but I guess there was only room for two in his bags.” She forced a chuckle.

“Wow,” I said, staring at the stone marvel and wondering how the hell they got something so big and heavy into the ballroom without damaging anything. Even the lamps had been replaced with illuminated crystals that hung on the walls.

“Oooh, my!” Medusa said, pointing up at the chandelier that looked like frozen lightning, each electric tip piercing into a diamond of light.

“Those lightbulbs are magnificent,” I said.

Medusa giggled. “They’re not lightbulbs, silly. They’re stars.”

“Excuse me … Did you say ‘stars,’ as in celestial bodies that hang in the sky?”

Medusa giggled. “Yes, stars. As in big gaseous orbs not dissimilar from Earth’s sun.”

“And how did he manage to make a chandelier from stars?”

“How else? Magic,” she mused. Then, as if lightbulbs made from stars were only mildly interesting, she pointed to the far end of the room. “Oh, look. We’re on TV.” She pointed at the three TV cameras from local stations set up in the back. Apparently the party of the year was to be televised. Locally.

The TV cameras made me a bit nervous, but The BisMark said he’d shield me, and I believed him. Besides, I figured the risk of an old Army buddy recognizing me was quite low. I was supposed to have been burned to a crisp by dragon fire, not hanging out in a white tuxedo in the middle of an Others’ party.

Danger aside, I hated this. I was many things, but a gala attendee I was not. I pulled at my cummerbund in discomfort.

“What’s wrong?” Medusa asked.

“I hate these things.”

“You’re just nervous,” she said, fishing in her purse. She pulled out a pack of gum. “I always have one of these when I’m nervous. I find that chewing calms me down.”

She popped out the gum and put it in my mouth, her fingers delicately lingering on my lips a little too long as our eyes locked. By the GoneGods, her hazel eyes were beautiful. But as was our habit, we both turned away, embarrassed, trying to think of something sexually neutral to say. She found it by handing me the rest of the pack. “For later,” she said.

“Thanks.” I chewed on the spearmint gum, and I had to admit, the cool flavor was comforting, but it didn’t fix what I wanted fixed. I stared down at the ridiculous ruby red shoes Astarte gave me and clicked the heels.

“What are you doing?” Medusa giggled.

“Trying to get home.”

“It won’t work,” said a polished voice. “I’ve been clicking my heels since I arrived onto this plane of existence. Medusa, how are you?” Miral approached Medusa with a grace that would have made a prima ballerina assoluta look awkward and clumsy in comparison. The angel Miral was seven feet tall and stunning. A truly beautiful being in every way. Over the last few years, Miral had dedicated her life to helping Others and now ran the St. Mercy’s Hospital with selfless dedication. Of all the Others I had known, Miral possessed the most humanity, and for that alone I owed a lot to the angel.

She leaned in to kiss Medusa on the cheek. Marty got between them and took the kiss on his scaly green head. “Marty! Behave,” admonished Medusa. “Sorry about that. How are you, Miral?”

“I’m well. Surprised to have been invited to the gala, but honored nonetheless.”

“I know what you mean. I was so pleased that Jean invited me.”

“Indeed.” Miral glared at me. The former captain of Heaven’s army, Miral was one of the first Others I met in Paradise Lot. At the time she had been working for Bella, and she knew me well. She also knew whom my heart still belonged to.

I gave Miral my best Sorry, I know I screwed up look and said, “Where’s your plus-one?”

“Right here,” said a deep male voice. I looked over to see a beautiful man with a chiseled jaw walk in and put his hand on the small of Miral’s back. Officer Conner wore a traditional black tuxedo that made him look like James Bond—only sexier.

“Officer Conner,” I said. “Nice to see you … again.”

“I thought that if we were to have a new human policeman, he should know what Paradise Lot was really about,” Miral said.

“Indeed,” I echoed. “And Michael. Where is he?” I was referring to the archangel Michael and the current police chief.

“That bore. All he’ll do is brood and lament and, if I’m really lucky, bellow. No, thank you. I’m here to have fun.”

“Have you been to one of these before?”

Miral nodded. “Six thousand years ago. When we—”

“Atlantis?”

“I see she told you. Not my proudest moment. You be good, Jean. Medusa isn’t as worldly wise as the rest of us.”

“And you are?” I said, eyeing Conner.

“Ohh Jean, he’s here to do some good. Besides, have you seen those eyes? You could get lost in them.” Miral gave me a devilish grin and, extending her arm, took Conner to their table.

↔

Astarte walked in with Greg on her arm. He still wore his Jedi cloak and had the biggest smile on his face. So Astarte found a date. I was a bit surprised that it was Greg—especially after that warning he gave me—but seeing how he beamed ear-to-ear, I knew what had happened. It’s what always happens with Astarte.

Greg gave me a sheepish look as he passed by me. “You know I stayed home on prom night, but I’m not at home anymore. The Force is with me!”

I had to give it to Greg—he went from a geek to all of this. I was happy for my fellow nerd. I thought about what Miral said and looked over at Medusa. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. I wasn’t throwing anything tonight.

The lights went dark, and the ushers guided us to our table. Then, with a flash and a bang, the room went black before a pinpoint of light appeared on the stage. A zip-line was shot in its center as controlled white flares blazed up. With a “Woop! Woop!” a figure zipped across the ballroom and jumped on the stage as hundreds of pixies riding hummingbirds flitted after him, each emitting a smoke trail of a different color.

The BisMark performed an acrobatic tumble and popped up, his hands in the air. He was dressed in the same suit he’d worn before, and his peacock feathers shone in the light. “Wooow!” he cried out to the elation of the crowd. “How is everyone on this night?” He addressed the crowd with a showmanship that was the opposite of the reserved, coldly logical creature I met earlier. I guess when he said that he was here to put on a show, he meant it.

The crowd erupted, and suddenly I felt like I had no business being in the middle of this. I just couldn’t share the elation they were feeling.

Still, I doubted that my glum nature could spoil this atmosphere. The BisMark lifted his palms in the air, calming the audience. The room went silent. They waited for him to speak. “What an entrance,” he said. “Give it up for the pixie troop!” The crowd clapped. “Other oh Other, this used to be so much easier when I could use magic!” The crowd laughed, and it wasn’t just a giggle. The minotaur next to me fell over in guffaws. “Still, things aren’t so bad. I mean, we have so much, don’t we? A place to live, good food to eat, fine wine to drink. And glitter,” he said, pointing at the fairies. “Lots and lots of glitter!

“But seriously, folks, it hasn’t been all glitter and joy, has it? We were once immortals, and now … well, now we’re inflicted with the worst disease of all: life.” The crowd chuckled. Then The BisMark looked at the cameras and said in a solemn, empathetic voice, “But mortality hasn’t been inflicted on us alone. We would do well to remember that all heavens and hells are gone, and now death means exactly the same thing to us, human or not. It is the same end for us all.”

The crowd went into a mournful silence that The BisMark broke by clapping his hands. “But that’s not why we’re here tonight, is it? We’re not here to mourn what we have lost.” He raised a hand in the air and pointed up to the sky. “We’re here for one reason and one reason only. To point to the heavens and say, ‘You may be gone, but LIFE STILL GOES ON!’ ” Everyone cheered. “Is that all you got? Those are elations of the ones who still despair, but we DO … NOT … DESPAIR. Not anymore. I want each and every one of you to scream to the heavens so loudly that they hear us. Tell them … Let them know that they may have left, but LIFE STILL GOES ON!”

To say that the crowd exploded in cheers would be to say that erupting volcanoes bubbled lava or raging hurricanes gusted wind.

“WE ARE WHOLE.”

The crowd ceased being a collection of individual voices, instead merging together into one final, powerful, unified agreement. Life did go on! And everyone here knew it.

“And if any of them were to return on bent knee and beg us to take them back, let them know what we will say: ‘It … is … too … late! We … are … happy … without … you!’ ”

Sparklers erupted and light flashed across the room as dwarves stomped in place, fairies did aerial backflips, cerberuses shook their multiple heads from side to side and frantically wagged their tails. And gargoyles … well, gargoyles stood perfectly still.

As if conjured from thin air, dozens upon dozens of plates covered with silver domes were flown in by a squadron of gargoyles. The gargoyle with the massive scar across its face flew to our table and put down a plate before Medusa. Then he winked at her and the gorgon blushed.

“What was that?”

“Old flame,” she giggled. I gave her a look and her eyes widened. “What! You know the legends … Me and statues are a thing!” And with that, her two perfect dimples dug themselves into her cheeks, and this time she gave me a wink. It melted my heart to see her so giggly and happy—her happiness was infectious.

On some invisible cue, the gargoyles lifted the domes, releasing torrents of steam that shot up and hit the ceiling with an inaudible crash. I looked down at my plate and saw a well-seasoned carp. Then a fish tank was wheeled onstage with a single snow-colored carp in it.

The audience gasped. The BisMark, the master showman, let the gasp turn to silence before whispering into the mic, “Family … We are all family. Man, woman, angel and demon—we’re all family now, and that’s what tonight is all about.” Then, raising his hands in the air like a conductor commanding the orchestra to bring home the intensity, he cried out, “Atargatis! Atargatis, where are you?”

The crowd stood as she entered, trading their unabashed revelry for reserved, respectful clapping—like they were suddenly transported from rock ’n’ roll to some lifetime achievement award, an award given to someone they all greatly respected. I scanned the room, looking for Astarte. If she wanted to ruin her sister’s night, now would be the time to do it. But Astarte clapped like everyone else, her eyes locked on her older sister as she strolled across the ballroom.

Atargatis had changed into a flowing white dress. Her seven children followed, holding the trailing cloth off the ground. She got onto the stage, and the children fanned out around her, each perfectly still as they raised the hem of her dress’s tail like the tail of a white peacock.

“Which one’s Bob?” I had meant it as a joke, but Medusa and four of her snakes pointed at the creepy-looking boy at the end.

The BisMark took Atargatis’ hand and led her to a table that stood just left of Poseidon’s statue. A throne-sized chair waited for her.

A sniffle underlined the gentle clatter of palm on palm, hoof on hoof, scaly talon on scaly talon. I turned to see Medusa wipe away a tear. I tilted my head and whispered, “What’s wrong?” I put a hand on her shoulder and drew her close, waiting for an answer.

Medusa nuzzled to me, putting a lot of her weight on me before pulling out a tissue. “Seeing her brings back so many memories.”

“Memories?” I asked.

“Later,” she said. “I’ll explain everything after dinner.”

“OK,” I said, wondering what kinds of memories the sight of Atargatis brought back for the generally bubbly gorgon.

The BisMark lifted his hand, asking for the crowd’s silence. The crowd went still. He pulled out the chair and put a platter in front of Atargatis. “This fish is the first of the children you had with the god of the oceans, Poseidon. From it, millions upon millions of fish have come forth to nourish the world for thousands of years.” He pointed at the tank. “The dish before you—before all of you—represents what you have given us. It is a symbol of the time when the immortals first helped the mortals in their bid to thrive rather than just survive.”

He faced the crowd. “It was Atargatis’ generosity that first cradled civilization, allowing it to bloom under her guidance, and I can think of no better way to celebrate tonight than to thank her for all she has done. My darling, it is because of you that the first villages formed, the first trades began, the first signs of civilization were born. This—all of this—is because of you, and there could be no better way to celebrate you than this symbolic eating of the fish.” The BisMark took a step back, clapping with a humble fervor. He bowed.

Atargatis thanked him with a nod and ceremoniously picked up a fork and knife and pierced the carp’s belly. Lifting its flesh so we could all see, she smiled and bit down on the steaming morsel.

The crowd clapped, hooted, stomped and jumped. And that was why it took us all a moment to realize that the ground trembled.

And rumbled.

And shook.

Celebration or not, Paradise Lot was having an earthquake.

Hellelujah!

END OF PART 1

PART VI

PROLOGUE

Five Thousand Years Ago—

The world is young.

The gods reign over humanity using fear and superstition, miracles and curses. And even though the methods are effective, they know that fear only works on the ignorant and superstition on the weak. As for miracles and curses … those are the tools that lesser gods use.

As humans evolve, the gods learn that with time, such tools will be harder to use. They know that they will need to find new methods to control the AlwaysMortals. But that will come later. Now … now their rule is absolute.

Among their ranks is a young succubus who, although not yet a god, stands on the threshold of godhood. Unlike her kin, she needs not employ archaic tools or arbitrary rules to keep her followers faithful. Her ways are more direct and far more pleasurable.

Humans and Others alike are always welcome to indulge in the most obscure of pleasures in Astarte’s temple. Nothing is taboo in Astarte’s world, nothing is off-limits … and how the mortals flock to her!

Couples embrace, lovers entwine, orgies commence. Soon the line between life and ecstasy blurs as delighted lips cry out her name in lustful pleasure. And with every homage paid to the godling of lust, her powers grow.

↔

Astarte has hosted god and Other, human and monster in harmonious engagement. All who walk through her doors enter with the quickened heartbeat of anticipation. All, except one. Astarte’s sister, Atargatis, the goddess of fertility and love, mother to the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, does not approve of Astarte’s ways. Atargatis believes that the secretion of fluids should be reserved for procreation and for expression of love. Pleasure is neither, and neither is lust. But does Astarte care? Let her prude of a sister believe what she wants—this is Astarte’s temple.

Atargatis stands at the door of her temple. “Astarte,” she says in her usual condescending tone. “Let me in. Now.”

In the past, to hear her name uttered with such contempt would have sent Astarte into a fit of rage. Such is the power her sister has over her.

But Astarte is not angered by her sister’s curt tone. She is delighted. One of her acolytes arrived earlier this day to warn her of Atargatis’s approach, but he also informed her as to why Atargatis is visiting after nearly two centuries of silence—information that Astarte rewarded, as she rewards everything that pleases her: with lust.

“Atargatis,” Astarte says, suppressing her joy. She opens her temple doors wide and gestures for Atargatis to enter. The goddess of fertility instructs her children to stay outside. Then, pulling her arms in tight around her lest she accidentally touch a body in the throes of desire, she enters.

“Your family needs you,” Atargatis says. No preamble, no pleasantries. No foreplay. Just straight to the point. But that is Atargatis’ way. She is a blunt instrument, a functional being. She knows not the subtleties that enrich life with so much delight.

“Do they?”

“Indeed,” Atargatis mutters. “It seems your little parties have caught the attention of The BisMark.”

Astarte allows the corners of her lips to curl ever so slightly. “Have they?” the succubus moans, and with her moan the temple trembles in anticipation, swelling with the impending climax to which so many are near. But not yet. Astarte wants to prolong her pleasure, and thus her acolytes must contend with being close … oh so very close.

“As you know, Chaos and Nature are at war. We worship Chaos, but the Greek gods with their Hellenistic ways gain power every day. And they have just allied with Nature.”

“Bahh … Nature is a foolish principle that cannot hold power over the humans. It is too—”

“Predictable?”

“I was going to say boring, but predictable is a suitable word.”

“Stupid little thing,” Atargatis snorts. “Do you honestly think that the humans don’t want boring and predictable? They do! How else can they grow their crops and tend to their needs?” She looks around the cornucopia of entwined bodies. “Their other needs. Their needs that actually help them survive. Maybe you would see that, if your mind wasn’t so clouded with … with—”

“Orgasms? Many, multiple, continuous orgasms?”

Atargatis cringes. “Have you not noticed that humans love predictability? Need it, even. They are slowly finding ways to control their environment and shape it to their will. They are learning and, in learning, weaning themselves off our teats.”

“Yours, maybe. My tits are still very much in demand.”

Again Atargatis cringes at her sister’s crudeness. “There is little doubt that Nature will eventually win.”

Astarte growls. “Do not utter such blasphemy in my—”

“Nature will win, and we will lose our reign …”

This is not how the conversation is meant to go. Atargatis was coming to tell Astarte that her temple has garnered her so much worship, it has guaranteed her family’s reign. She is here to tell her that Astarte is to be the new head of the family, that …

Damn it! Her acolyte lied. The bastard did not want to displease her and thus said what she wanted to hear. Why? Surely he knew he would be punished. But a moment of pleasure in this place is worth a lifetime of pain. Astarte knows this. She shouldn’t have been so stupid! She’ll deal with him later. For now she must concentrate on her sister, make sure she does not best her.

“Sister … we are at war, and—” Atargatis stops speaking, distracted by a pixie who has just mounted a minotaur. Astarte follows her glance to the tiny face, the unsmiling expression of joy. “How—?” Atargatis starts.

“I honestly don’t know,” Astarte says.

Atargatis laughs, and so does Astarte. It has been a long, long time since the sisters shared anything, and even though both are too proud to admit it, there is a sense of warmth in their smiles.

But it is short-lived. Atargatis shakes her head, and when it stops moving, her smile is gone. In a soft, nurturing voice, Atargatis says, “We are losing. Our time is coming to an end, and soon, too. You do not understand this because you are sheltered in your temple, surrounded by creatures who will not say or do anything to displease you. But I promise: before the end of this century, we will all lose our god status. Unless …” She lets the word linger.

“Unless?” Astarte asks, narrowing her eyes. Unless what? Obviously her sister needs her to do something. But what? Seduce a great power? Throw an orgy as a lure to kill rival gods? What?

Astarte may have a troubled relationship with her sister, but she will not allow the family to fade into obscurity. Her sororal bond is too great to let petty rivalry stop her from doing her duty.

“Unless,” Atargatis starts again, “you marry one of the Greek gods.”

“What?!” Astarte growls. “Marry? I am … I am THIS!” She gestures to the throne of bodies lying all around her. “I am lust—I am pleasure!”

“And that is exactly why he wants to have you.”

“Who?”

“Poseidon.”

“Poseidon?” The name rolls off her tongue. “Poseidon!” This time she spits out his name like venom. “That whore?”

“Careful,” Atargatis warns.

“No, I will not be careful.” Astarte can feel her anger rising. “You slept with him. You made the beasts under the sea with him. You marry him.”

“You are speaking about the father of your nephews and nieces,” Atargatis says.

“Exactly,” Astarte says, throwing her arms in the air. “He bedded you, and from that union came all those … those fish!”

“My children.”

“Fish, sister. Good for eating—”

“Shut up.”

“A little bit of lemon, maybe some cumin. Perhaps I should send some acolytes to fetch me some dinner.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Atargatis knows that Astarte would never do what she has threatened. The fish are sacred and, therefore, protected. For an AlmostGod to eat one would mean the end of the mortal world. Even Astarte is not petty enough to kill all life on Earth just to hurt her sister.

Astarte knows she has gone too far. She bows her head in contrition.

“You are right … My children are fish. Sacred fish,” Atargatis mutters, “but fish nonetheless.” She forces a smile.

Astarte is grateful that her sister has chosen not to escalate the fight. But still, there is the matter of Poseidon. In a soft voice, the succubus says, “He has slept with every being in this world and every other world … and now he wants to marry me? Have him come here and I’ll give him the greatest night—no, century—of his life.”

“I already offered that. He wants to marry you,” Atargatis repeats.

“He wants to possess me.”

Atargatis nods. There is no point in pretending that this is anything other than what it is.

“I don’t want to be possessed. I cannot be possessed! You marry him!” Astarte cries out again.

“I cannot. I already told you that he wants you.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then Chaos loses, and the world will belong to Nature. We will lose our god status, and the Greeks will rule the world until the next age.”

Astarte doesn’t know what to say, and for the first time in a long, long while she is stunned silent by knowledge that is not carnal in nature.

Atargatis sees this and, before her sister can answer, says, “Astarte, we are dying.”

“There must be something else we can do.”

Atargatis nods. “We have consulted the oracles. You are our best hope.”

“But not our only hope?”

Atargatis’ lips purse, and Astarte knows that they have other plans—plans her sister doesn’t trust her with. Fine, let the bitch of fertility have her secrets. Astarte has her temple, her followers, and her lust. What more does she need?

As if reading her mind, Atargatis says, “We will lose everything we have, unless we do something.”

“We? We! You mean me! Am I to bend over for the fish-smelling bastard? And for what? To keep you in power?”

Atargatis doesn’t say anything, simply averting her gaze downward. It is a subtle movement, but Astarte knows her sister well enough to know she feels guilt. Astarte understands guilt—not because she has ever felt it herself, but because so many of her lovers are overcome by the emotion the second after they find the release they came for. Astarte knows guilt can cut deeper than any sword.

But Astarte also knows that Atargatis would never ask anything of her unless it was absolutely necessary. She knows her sister does not lie. Do nothing and never become a god, or marry Poseidon and ascend. Over all of them. Isn’t becoming a god what she has worked for all this time?

“Fine,” Astarte says. “I … I will do it.”

Atargatis does something that she has not done in over two hundred years. She reaches out and touches her sister. It is a simple gesture, but sometimes the simplest of gestures can have the most profound effect. Now it is Astarte who feels guilty.

“Tell me,” Astarte asks, “what would you have done had I refused?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

The goddess of fertility nods. “You are my sister,” she says, as if that explains all. “I will make sure everything is prepared for your union.” And with that, Atargatis leaves Astarte’s temple.

Astarte can hardly believe what has happened. Her emotions go from disbelief to sadness, until they finally settle on rage. In a low-toned growl, Astarte calls for the damned acolyte who lied to her.

Tormenting him will go a long way to making her feel better.

↔

It has been decided that Astarte’s wedding will take place in Atlantis on the summer solstice, eighty-six years from now. There is much to prepare and little time to do it—not that Astarte will have anything to do with the preparations. As her sister said, all she has to do is show up.

Fine, Astarte thinks. Eighty-six years are all that is left before she is betrothed to … to him. She knows the time will pass in the blink of an eye. That is why she must make the most of it. For the first forty years, Astarte spends her time possessing others. Not with marriage, but with the type of desire that is often confused for love.

She pretends to need them, to make them feel more special than the thousands of beings who have known her bed. In feeling special, they feel worthy. And in feeling worthy, they somehow feel as though what they share with Astarte is more than lust.

It is companionship. Respect. Perhaps even love.

That is when Astarte breaks them with indifference. Oh, how they pine, wail and plead. They try to storm the gates, demand an audience with the succubus. She denies them until their lamentations grow tiresome.

Then she meets them in the courtyard and says, “How pathetic you have become,” before turning away. For some, this blow is so severe that they die—either by a broken heart, or by their own hand.

Others shrivel away into obscurity, living out the rest of their days broken and miserable, dreaming of the past that, if they could see it clearly, offered nothing more than pleasure. They, too, are meaningless.

The strong among them find a way to move on, and in moving on do great things; for they are free of the need for Love and, being free, their minds are no longer distracted.

One such man is a young king named Gilgamesh. From the moment Astarte takes him to her bed, she knows he is strong. A bull, not only between the sheets but also in mind. A fortitude unlike any human she has ever known.

For a time, Astarte and Gilgamesh bed nightly, and after every moan-inducing, knee-wobbling encounter, Gilgamesh sips from his wine before he stands to leave. Most beg to stay the night, hoping that the succubus will grant them access once more to her garden of pleasures. But not the young king.

“Where do you always go?” Astarte asks one night, dismissing the three sirens she had called to join in the night’s festivities. She knows that she should not ask; breaking him requires disinterest. But Astarte needs to know how it is that this man—no, this king—can leave her so readily.

“To work,” he says.

“Work?” she scoffs. “You are king. Is it not your privilege to have others do the work for you? Besides, what work does a king have? Does he till the soil? Does he knead the bread? Tell me, young Gilgamesh, what is your work?”

Gilgamesh ties his robe before allowing himself another moment in her bed. “I must study.”

“Study?” Astarte runs her finger along his chest as desire flares in her. Once more into the breach, she thinks. “Tell me, what does a king study? Philosophy? History? Or perhaps it is the pleasure of religion that interests the young king?” Her hand has found its way under his robe and she feels his engorged member in her palm.

Gilgamesh pulls her hand away. “No … those disciplines, although important, are not practical to the everyman. My interests lie in the sciences, agriculture and the trades.”

Astarte should be offended that he rejects her advances. But she is not. This … this man-king is different. Interesting. “The trades—does the king want to be a blacksmith, or perhaps a carpenter?”

“No,” Gilgamesh says without hesitation. “But I need to understand these things if my schools are to be a success.”

“Schools?”

“Yes—think about it.” The glint in his eyes shows a zest for life. It also betrays his naïveté. “How do farmers learn to cultivate soil, masons to chisel stone, apothecaries to prepare medicines? Apprenticeship. But this system is old. Archaic. It means that tradesmen are only as good as their masters. And whereas many masters are worthy, their knowledge is incomplete. But if a tradesman were to learn from many masters, from a school, he would truly conquer his discipline. This would advance my kingdom to unimaginable heights. And that is why I must study.”

“I see …” Astarte says. Gilgamesh is satisfied that his lover understands, but what he does not know is that Astarte understands far more than he. This is what Atargatis warned her of—humans who innovate, learn and grow and, in doing so, break their dependence on the gods. Gilgamesh is a king with an entire empire under his control. The success of his lofty ideals would mean the loss of so much for Astarte and her kin.

Astarte knows that she should kill this man. That would certainly slow human progress. Maybe even stop it. Then the gods allied to Chaos would be less threatened.

Perhaps they would reign supreme—at least for a little while longer.

Perhaps they would reign long enough that she wouldn’t have to marry Poseidon.

But Gilgamesh … he is different. Intelligent and strong, bright-eyed and beautiful. And what a lover. Astarte cannot bring herself to take the life of a man who has brought her higher than most gods.

That is not who she is.

She could tell her siblings about his plans. But again, that is not who she is. Besides, it will only be a matter of time until they find out about him.

Astarte neither kills nor tattles. She is a succubus, a godling of lust. A tamer of men. A conqueror of spirits. What she can do is crush his spirit. Perhaps then he will abandon his plans and just live. That is in her nature. That is who she is.

Astarte laughs. It is a cruel laugh filled with mockery and ire.

Gilgamesh’s smile fades and his eyes narrow. “What?”

“Foolish, petty man,” Astarte says. “You honestly think that you can train your fellow humans to be more than they are? That is no more possible than teaching an ant how to count or a dog how to drive a cart. Ridiculous.”

“But …”—Gilgamesh stands up—“my studies show—”

“ ‘Studies’? That is not life, nor is it experience. Study. Teach. Build your school. And fail.”

Astarte feels the young man’s heart cry out in pain. But it does not break.

Nor does the king within him break. Instead, the king stands up and says, “Over the years I’ve seen you crush your lovers, and I always knew it would only be a matter of time before it was my turn. I admit, I had hoped I would be special. That I would be the one to escape your cruelty. But I guess in the end, no man can escape his fate …” He stands. “Thank you, Mistress Astarte. You have taught me much.”

And with that, he leaves.

Astarte knows there will be no lamenting at the gate, no begging to return. Gilgamesh is gone … and for the first time in Astarte’s long, long life, she wishes she had not been who she is.

THE EARTH SHOOK, THE STARS FELL

As soon as Atargatis pierced the carp with her trident-shaped fork and took that first ceremonial bite, the world started to tremble.

At first, I thought it was just another one of The BisMark’s tricks. Burn a bit of time and make the ground shake—you know, to give his party a little oomph. After all, it was being televised. But from the way The BisMark’s eyes widened, he was just as surprised as everyone else. Even Stewart—the ever-still gargoyle—looked around in confusion.

Everything went quiet, and I figured that the Others were either thinking what I was thinking, or they were waiting for it all to be over. After all, how long does an earthquake last? A few seconds. Half a minute at most. But when it didn’t show any signs of slowing down, I knew panic would set in.

Human panic is easy to identify: we scream, we run, we cry and, sometimes when the threat is big enough, we stand perfectly still wearing a useless expression of fear. That’s how humans react. Others, on the other hand, do not have the same telltale signs, and soon the Others started to engage in their own brand of panic. The ballroom was filled with shrieks, barks, roars and groans, as well as stomping, violent head-shaking, chest pounding and a variety of other gestures that added to the general mayhem in the room.

My heart thudded with anxiety as my senses became overrun by their fear.

Medusa put a hand on my shoulder. “Does this happen often?” She wore a brave smile, but I could tell from her snakes’ hissing that they were just as freaked out as everyone else. Which meant that Medusa was freaked out—except unlike her serpentine appendages, she managed to hold herself together.

Seeing her calmed me, too. More than calmed me—I regained myself, the panic almost leaving me entirely. Only one person has ever been able to bring me back to my senses like Medusa did: Bella. GoneGodDamn it!

“Does this happen a lot? Earthquakes, I mean,” she asked again.

“No,” I said. “As far as I know, the last time Paradise Lot had an earthquake was when the Others came.” I looked up and saw the diamond chandelier rattle and shake, its huge structure bobbing back and forth like the pendulum of a doomsday clock ticking to the rhythm of the rumbling earth. The only problem was that the hinge on which it hung wasn't designed to handle both its weight and a heavy sway, and it was only a matter of seconds before it came loose.

“Crap,” I muttered.

I got up on the table and, in as loud a voice as I could muster, screamed, “The chandelier! It’s coming down!” No one seemed to hear me, so I shouted again, this time trying to get the attention of people I knew. “Miral! Conner! The chandelier—it’s coming down. Everyone needs to get under the table.”

“What?” Miral said, cupping her ear to hear me in the chaos.

“The chandelier!” I pointed at the swinging crystals.

Miral got it and wasted no time, gathering the Others around her, gesturing for them to take cover. As for Conner, considering he was new to Paradise Lot, the guy was all pro. Calm and confident, he’d gotten the idea before me and was already directing Others to get down. I looked over at The BisMark, thinking that maybe he could make an announcement. At first, I thought it would be difficult to get his attention, but he was staring right at me, a calm, curious smile on his face. I pointed up at the chandelier and mouthed, Warn everyone.

The BisMark nodded, but his gaze made me think that he was contemplating something else; he seemed completely unfazed by the shaking ground beneath him. How long does an earthquake last, anyway? I didn’t have time to think about that now.

The BisMark turned his head and narrowed his gaze as if in deep thought. Then, as though a switch went on somewhere in the back of his head, his eyes lit up. “Folks, folks—seems the gods have heard us after all. Now, I’m not one to cower, but it does appear that my beautiful chandelier is about to come down. I have no idea where or on whom, so I suggest that everybody get under their tables.” He spoke in a calm, even voice that cut through the mounting chaos.

His voice overpowered the panic, unraveling it like a loose thread undoes a wool sweater. The crowd slowly calmed down until they stopped screaming altogether. Every single eye trained on BisMark just before they all dropped to their knees, like they were about to start some prayer to the Mecca that was BisMark. But instead of prostrating themselves, they shuffled under their tables. Others of all shapes and sizes crawled for safety, camera crews deserted their equipment, even the staff of stone waiters left the room, lest the chandelier crush them.

“That means you, Grimlo and Milton!” The BisMark pointed to a dwarf and a cyclops who stood defiantly. “I know you two are some of the toughest Others this world or any other has ever known, but that chandelier light is hotter than the flames of Tartarus, encased in a shell harder than the Great Gold Wyrm’s scales. Make no mistake, it’s about to rain down on this place like fire and brimstone.” He carried on as if he was narrating a play rather than actually trying to save lives.

The dwarf huffed and the cyclops blinked angrily, but both got under their tables without further protest. I was just about to jump down myself when I noticed that The BisMark hadn’t moved. “Come on,” I yelled. “You too.”

“Me?” he said, his hands on his chest. With an exaggerated look of indignity, he shook his head. “Oh, not me. I’m not in danger. There is nothing in this realm or in any other that can hurt me.”

“Oh, give me a break,” I said. I’d seen this before—grand creatures of Valhalla or Tartarus believing that they were invincible because, when the gods were here and they were immortal, nothing could harm them. They forgot the one fundamental change in this GoneGod World: everyone dies.

I ran from table to table toward the stage. By the GoneGods, I’d wrestle this feathered peacock to the ground if I had to. But when I tried to tackle him, it was like hitting a big redwood, or the side of a cliff. Immovable. And I don’t mean that I couldn’t budge him. There was always some give, even when wrestling a giant beast far stronger than me. I mean he did not move. There was no compression of skin, no ruffling of one of his peacock feathers on that ridiculous suit of his. “Really, Mr. Matthias. I already told you: nothing in the mortal realm can hurt me.”

“All the same,” I grunted, “I think you should get down.”

It was at that moment that the chandelier let loose from the ceiling and, just as my luck would have it, swung to the stage. The whole thing came shooting our way.

“Again, Mr. Matthias,” he said. “As I mentioned earlier, those stars will not hurt me. Nothing will. Nothing can.” He swirled around to place his body between me and the stars. I watched the bits of crystal shoot across the room like a meteor shower of fire.

“Ohhh, crap!” I yelled, trying to free myself from The BisMark’s grip and get to cover. But he held me, smiling like he didn’t have a care in the world. Streaks of orange and yellow, red and blue flew past us, and not a single shooting star touched him. I watched in horror as a tiny fleck of flame flew between The BisMark’s earlobe and neck, missing him by no more than a millimeter, and landed right on my forehead. It felt like I’d been stung by a bee—a bee with a stinger dipped in sulphuric acid and lava. “Ahhh!” I screamed.

“You should have taken your own advice and gotten under a table, Mr. Matthias,” he said, licking his finger and rubbing the boiling pinprick on my head. The heat immediately subsided and with it, the earth finally stopped shaking.

↔

The chandelier falling seemed to be the earthquake’s cue to stop. Little streams of smoke billowed from where the stars had fallen, littering every inch of the stage. Every inch, except where The BisMark stood. Behind us was a shadow perfectly outlined by little black pocks of fiery heat. I guess he was right: he really didn’t have anything to worry about.

He picked up one of the smoldering meteorites. He tossed it to me and I yelped—in a very manly way—as it touched my flesh. But it wasn’t hot to the touch. Warm, yes, but far from the heat that had burned my forehead.

“Thing about stars,” The BisMark said. “Once they fall, they lose their sizzle.”

“Stars?” So Medusa was right. I looked around at the black motes on my stage and muttered to myself, “Falling stars just ruined my stage … and why not? An angel lives in my attic and my girlfriend has a head of snakes.”

“Indeed,” The BisMark sighed, bringing me back to the present. “That chandelier, as you called it, took me over three hundred thousand years to collect and design. And now … gone in the blink of an eye. Such is the way of this mortal world, is it not? Very well, then, I shall adapt. That is what I have done and that is what I will always do.” The BisMark looked at me curiously. “As for you, Mr. Matthias. That was very brave of you. Foolish, but brave nonetheless.” He moved, and I watched as his shadow followed him, leaving behind another silhouette of clean, unmarred stage. “Of course, please bill us for the damage.”

He strolled over to Atargatis, who was composing herself as her seven creepy kids helped her up. Bob picked up the partially eaten fish off the floor like he was picking up his dead hamster. Little solemn tears rolled down his cheeks. His sister consoled him as she, too, cried. A lot of emotion for a ruined dinner, but who knew with these Others? I guess for immortal children, it was perfectly OK to cry over spilled milk.

Astarte stood close to the stage without saying or doing anything, her expression equal parts curiosity and concern. I considered a running interception in case she tried to get at Atargatis again, but I could see from her downtrodden gaze that she wasn’t going to attack.

“OK,” I said, “I’ll assess the damage.” I had no idea how to do it, but I figured I’d employ the crew of dwarves to fix it up and charge The BisMark double.

“Very good, Mr. Matthias. You do that. But in the meantime …” The BisMark snapped his fingers. Stewart suddenly animated, turning the mics back on. The BisMark tapped his mic; three muffled cracks echoed across the ballroom, punctuating his first three words. “Well, well, well … looks like we brought the sky down! But this is not the first time that the earth shook or the sky fell, and we’re still here. We are still here!” He wagged an admonishing finger up at the heavens. “Try as you might, you will not ruin this night!”   

The audience slowly emerged from under the tables, silent until a storm giant started to clap thunder. “That’s right,” The BisMark said, pointing at the storm giant. “Bring the rain. Bring the lightning. Bring the hurricane. We’ll ride through it all. Won’t we, Jean? Please join me in giving thanks to my hero, who gallantly risked life and limb to protect me!” He stepped back, pointing at me before clapping himself.

The audience hooted and whooped at me while I tried to shield my face. It was one thing to be hanging out in the background, hiding from the cameras. It was another thing altogether being in the center of the stage. Turning my back to the audience, I whispered, “What are you doing? The cameras.”

“Oh, come on. I’ll burn a bit of time to blur out your face. Promise.” The BisMark’s eyes illuminated, and I wondered if this was a trick to lure me in and then very publicly turn me out. If the Army found me, I would be court-martialed. That was serious jail time. But I was comforted by one undeniable fact about Others: They didn’t believe in mortal justice. It was one of the hardest things for them to accept in this GoneGod World, and whenever they got a chance, they exercised their own brand of divine retribution. If they had beef with someone, they never called the police or sued you. They performed some ancient ritual that usually involved chanting, incense and blood. Lots of blood. If The BisMark wanted to take me down, he’d do something much more elaborate. He was that type—just look at his suit.

Still, The BisMark was different, and maybe, just maybe, his special brand of justice was indeed mortal justice. I had played into his hands by jumping on stage and standing in front of everyone. And so I had a dilemma: I either trusted BisMark, or I didn’t. Not that it made any difference; the cameras were trained on me and there was nothing to do but hope BisMark was true to his word.

And as if reading my mind, The BisMark whispered, “Don’t worry … I will be true to my word.”

“OK,” I said. “I’m going to believe that you are. Besides, I can’t worry about that now. We have to cancel the gala, send everyone home. That was an unnatural earthquake, and—”

“Cancel? Why? Things are going great. After all, it’s not a party unless Nature or Chaos takes notice. It’s just their way of saying, ‘Hi.’ ”

“Nature? Chaos?”

The BisMark shook his head. “Oh Human Jean, you have much to learn. That earthquake wasn’t a bad thing. It was a boon.”

“For who? I don’t think that—”

But before I could finish, he spun me around and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, OnceImmortals and AlwaysMortals, let me present to you our human friend who risked life and limb—and a few strands of his hair—to make sure that yours truly was safe. He put my life before his, and if that doesn’t make him a hero, then I don’t know what does. Unlike Hercules, he’s not half a god. Unlike Odysseus, he hasn’t been cursed. Unlike Benkei, he doesn’t have a destiny to fulfill. He is just an ordinary, regular human. But he is a human who cares.” The BisMark lifted a single finger up. “Give it up for the human who cares!”

The Others went friggin’ crazy. And I don’t mean the usual stomping and grunting, hopping and cheering. I mean that every single Other hooted and screamed. I know that most of it was for The BisMark, with less than ten percent of it for me, but that ten percent was enough. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my skin felt tight. Their screams chased away the air, and I couldn’t breathe. I started to go dizzy and I felt like I was going to faint. The BisMark grabbed my wrist and lifted it up in a victory dance. But he might as well have blindfolded me and spun me ’round and ’round. My heart raced as my vision blurred, the crowd turning into a hazy, macabre scene of cheers and jeers. I was going to pass out, and—I swear by the GoneGods—The BisMark knew it. He wanted me to pass out, and a voice that was more inspiration than anything else spoke harshly within me: This is my moment. Mine! And you’re stealing it.

The voice was crushing, and I knew that in a second or two I’d fall to my knees and pass out. Then what? Get carried away? Taken to my room? Left alone. That wouldn’t be so bad.

You always hated being the center of attention, echoed another, softer voice—this time not from my mind, but from somewhere much deeper. You would be happy if the world left you all alone, my people-hating Jean …

“The whole world,” I whispered, “but not you. Never you.” And then I saw her. Bella, standing in the crowd. She was not clapping or cheering. Just giving me that playful look of hers—a look that said, “Buck up, Jean, it’ll be over soon.” The apparition I knew to be a dream folded her arms over her chest. In this life and the next, I mouthed.

I knew that she wasn’t there. She was the mirage I needed in order to find balance. And it worked; just thinking of Bella equalized me, and suddenly I was fine. Oh, my Bella—you could always save me. I sighed and, calmed, looked over at The BisMark. He was grinning from ear to ear, loving the elation the Others bestowed upon us.

He looked at me and smiled.

I smiled back, and for a split second his lips betrayed confusion. He patted me on the back and bowed in my direction, hands clasped together in reverent thanks. Then in a low, respectful voice he said, “Jean, amongst your species, you truly are one of a kind.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

Hellelujah!

APOCALYPSES AREN’T JUST THE END OF THE WORLD—THEY’RE A MINDSET

The crowd eventually died down and I was ushered off stage by Stewart, who exhibited about as much emotion as a toaster. Clearly I had had my moment in the spotlight, and it was time to give it back. That was fine by me.

Besides, I had something far more important to attend to: Astarte was gone. I didn’t like the way she had lurked near the stage, staring at her sister with that odd look of hers, but sometime between the crowd erupting and me getting off stage, she had disappeared. Atargatis sat at the table, holding back tears as her seven children stood around her, solemnly watching their mother’s despair.

Either she was upset over her moment being stolen, or Astarte had managed to get in a quick jab before disappearing. Maybe it was both. Either way, it was clear that her evening was ruined.

At least that was how I saw it. Just once I’d like to be able to read situations concerning Others correctly. Had I read this one, I would have done something. Anything. Instead, I went back to my table, completely unaware of what was coming.

↔

Music I didn’t recognize pumped through the speakers as the stone gargoyles cleared the tables, the chairs and the spilled dinner. Others from all walks of life started dancing in their own quirky way. A cèilidh jig, a do-si-do, a pako-pako and a dozen other dance styles mixed on one dance floor.  

At least twerking hadn’t caught on. Thank the GoneGods for small miracles.

Awkward and staged, more than one Other pandered to the cameras, and I was starting to understand what The BisMark was up to. He wanted to show the human world their vulnerabilities, their weaknesses. If we were to get along, the humans needed to see the Others not as powerful creatures of myth or the tangible reminder of the GoneGods, but as fragile beings … just as lost as everyone else.

The thing about Others: many of them may walk on two feet, but their gait wasn’t human. Maybe it was their bulk or extra appendages, or the fact that most of them lived a near eternity in places far more pleasant, or far hotter than Earth—whatever it was, you could always tell an Other was an Other by the way they walked. And so when they attempted human dances, it came out clumsy, awkward and somewhat humorous. Sure, the average home viewer would laugh at a dust devil doing the Macarena dance, but laughing at it would dull the monster’s teeth and make its claws less fearsome.

You can’t be afraid when you’re laughing. The two emotions simply can’t occupy the same space.

And once the laughter fades, most humans will step up and teach that very same dust devil how it’s done. Not that there’s anything right about the Macarena.

I wasn’t sure if this tactic would work, but I had to give it to The BisMark: at least he was trying.

↔

I scanned the room, looking for Greg. Maybe he’d know where Astarte was. But he was gone too, which probably meant that the two of them went upstairs to start another awkward dance of their own. And with Brian in the room, Astarte was about to be the centerpiece of a nerd-vana.

So that was one problem solved. I hoped. Sex doesn’t have the habit of solving a lot of problems. It was more of a defer-to-a-later-time kind of animal. Very well then—one problem deferred and a dozen more to deal with. If—and the jury was still out on this one—The BisMark was right and the earthquake was a good sign, or simply some Other burning a bit of time for fun, then I didn’t have to worry about the fact that the ground shook. Still, my experience taught me that an act of nature was rarely an act of nature when Others were around.

But until the problem presented itself, there was nothing I could do about it. So, yet another problem was deferred, which meant that the problems I had left were still numerous and demanding. I had Sally and her Being Human Salon to deal with and, despite Stewart’s assurance the WildMan wasn’t going to crash the party, I doubted the gargoyle knew what they were up against. I swear that his chest hair alone could stop bullets. Regardless of whether or not he crashed the party, he attacked my friend, and I wasn’t going to let that go. Sooner or later we were going to have words. More than words.

And then, of course, there were Penemue and EightBall, and the bills of this place, and the ruined carpet, and my ugly mug that could be recognized by the past that I’d been hiding from for the last six years.

My head spun. I walked over to my table and sat down, thinking about how all I really wanted to do was to go upstairs and stage a reenactment of Gulliver’s Travels with the Smurfs and Grendizer.

I was so consumed with everything going on that I didn’t notice a snake popping out from under the table until it was almost at eye level with me. “Holy moly!” I jerked to my feet.

“Marty! Be nice,” a voice admonished. Medusa’s mocha-colored face peered out from under the tablecloth. She looked worried. “Is it over?”

I lifted the tablecloth and saw her sitting there, petting a few of her snakes. She had a bottle of wine and two glasses. But this wasn’t some kind of seduction. She wasn’t luring me under the table for some alone time. She was worried. “Hey, Jean. I was wondering when you’d show up,” she started, and I got the sense that she wanted to say something else but was holding back.

“Sorry,” I said. “I should’ve gotten you right away. It’s safe to come out.”

Medusa chuckled. “Are you sure?”

“I think so.” I looked back at what the Others interpreted as dance and shook my head. “Then again …”

“Come down here. It’s peaceful.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me under.

Beneath the canopy the barrage of noises dulled, if only slightly, and I was grateful for the reprieve. The carpet beneath us was comfortable enough, and the table under which we sat had been designed for Others, which meant that it was larger than your average banquet hall table, and we had a lot of space to move around under there. Soft light filtering through the white silk tablecloth illuminated the table’s underbelly, and even though we could hear the bumping and the thumping of the music outside, we were somehow shielded from it. It was like when I was a kid and I’d build forts PopPop wasn’t allowed into unless invited.

I liked it here. And I liked not being alone. Especially when my company was wearing such a tantalizing low-cut dress and had a smile that could make puppies swoon.

“That was very brave,” she said, her eyes gleaming with more than just a crush.

“Stupid,” I reassured her. “Very, very stupid.”

“But you saved a lot of Others from getting hurt. That was brave …” Her voice trailed off and her look of concern returned. It was more than concern. She looked afraid.

“More stupid than brave,” I assured her.

“True,” she said, her voice distracted. Distant. She gave Marty a pat on the head. She handed me her glass of wine and gestured for me to take a sip. “Tell me what it tastes like to you.”

I tasted it. It was bitter. Not just bitter—it tasted like acid. I spat it out. “It’s sour.”

Her eyes widened like she hadn’t wanted me to confirm that the wine was sour, like she had wanted me to tell her that the wine was fine and that it was her Other taste buds making it sour. She shook her head and a trembling lip accompanied her worried expression. “Exactly. I believe we’re all in grave danger.”

“That’s a bit of an overreaction to one bad bottle of wine.”

“Is it?” she said. Marty stretched out from under the tablecloth and came back with another bottle of wine. “Try this one.”

I put the bottle to my lips. The wine tasted like battery acid fermented in spoiled grapes. “Yuck … it’s awful.”

“Exactly!” Medusa said. “It absolutely is. Think about it, Jean. That earthquake was unnatural. It lasted far too long.” Medusa paused. “And that’s not all. The sky fell, Jean.” She pointed up past the table’s ceiling to the spot where the chandelier no longer hung.

“OK, fine. Stars fell. So what?”

“So the sky literally fell right after the earthquake. And now the wine is sour …” Medusa shuddered. “The last time I drank sour wine after an earthquake, a city was leveled by hellfire.”

“Oh, come on—don’t tell me that there was sour wine in Atlantis.”

“Not Atlantis … Sodom.”

“Oh,” I said, and followed it up with a decisive and firm, “Crap.”

“You’ve got to believe me, Jean,” Medusa said. “These are signs. I’m sure of it.”

“OK. Let’s say I buy into your signs theory. What are these signs of?”

“What do you think? The end of the world.”

↔

Medusa’s somber expression told me that she wasn’t joking. She believed that the earthquake, the fallen chandelier and the sour wine all pointed to the end of the world. I looked over at the Queen of the Gorgons as she absently petted Marty. Her lower lip was cutely caught between her teeth, and she had a pouting expression as she worried about the world ending. Again.

But that was just the problem. Others had lost their homes. And I don’t care what kind of creature you are—suddenly losing everything you own is one of the most traumatic experiences you could ever live through. It isn’t just about living in a new place. It’s about losing the place which had once made you feel safe. Lose that, and it won’t matter where you end up—you’ll never feel safe again. There was never a study done to confirm this, but I suspect that most of the Others had some form of post-traumatic stress disorder, being constantly worried about the next tragedy and when it was going to strike them.

When you live in constant fear, it’s easy to see signs that aren’t there. And when you are a creature born of magic, it’s even easier to see earthquakes, chandeliers and sour wine as signs of bad things to come …

I took Medusa’s hand in mine. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” she said, her voice firm and full of dread.

“OK, let’s rationalize this. You said these are signs, but I’m sure there’s a natural explanation for every one of them. Let’s take it step by step. The wine—The BisMark ordered all the food from one source. It stands to reason that we didn’t just get a bad bottle, but a bad batch. Also, do we even know that the wine is sour? Maybe this is some weird troll wine that’s meant to taste like sulfuric acid mixed in brimstone.”

“Brimstone doesn’t taste like this,” she said in all seriousness.

“It was a joke. But can we at least entertain the theory that the wine was either meant to taste like that, or that the supplier sent us a bad case of it?”

Medusa hesitated before nodding.

“OK—now the earthquake. You know how much The BisMark wants to make his party a big deal. He even told me that the world would be watching. Have you seen how many cameras are out there? Exactly two. The world doesn’t care about his party, and it must drive him crazy. So why not add a little oomph by making the world shake? He’s this all-powerful Other, right? He can afford to spend a year or two shaking things up.”

“You think it was magic?”

I nodded. “I think it was The BisMark’s magic. Or one of his gargoyles was trying to please its master. I mean, it could be that, couldn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

“And as for the chandelier actually being stars … I figure that he’s just boasting. What if it’s just really, really expensive crystals imbued with a ton of time?”

Medusa shook her head. “That’s where you’re wrong. They really are stars.”

“No way can that be true.”

“Yes, they are … How do you think the gods paid The BisMark? With gold? No. A guy like that was paid with the most valuable commodity the gods traded in: stars.”

I narrowed my eyes, skeptical. “Not actual stars.”

“Yes—actual stars.”

I shook my head. “You’re serious, aren’t you? OK, but what did they pay him for?”

“For organizing the world. Think about it … Do you know how many gods, demigods and AlmostGods there are? And they all have dominion over the same things: fertility, crops, sun, war, life, death … the list goes on. Can you imagine the pandemonium that would’ve happened if God A chose winter for the crops to grow, and God B chose summer? And what about the gods who wanted perpetual winter or summer, or a planet where it rained frogs all the time? Nothing would get done, and the world would be torn apart. Hence the definitions—fertility meant the same thing to all the gods because The BisMark defined it so.”

“Do you mean the Laws of Nature?”

Medusa nodded. “Yes. And someone had to negotiate the parameters under which they could operate. Hence The BisMark. But the Laws of Nature are only one aspect of it all. You have the other, less tangible stuff …” She let the word stuff hang in the air like it was self-explanatory. It was not self-explanatory.

“Like what?”  

“Miracles. Holy symbols. Stuff like that.”

I stared blankly at Medusa.

“The gods get their power from worshippers. They get worshipped by providing. If there are limits to how much they can give the mortals when constricted by the Laws of Nature, then they are left to obtain them through other means.”

“Like impressing us. Hence, miracles.”

She snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “Exactly! But if the gods flooded the world with miracles, then all sorts of unnatural stuff would occur, and the world would once again be thrust into chaos. So The BisMark defined the parameters of miracles. How many? How long? How powerful? Who could be the avatars? Could the gods appear in person, or did they have to use agents? You know … parameters.”

“Regulating miracles, huh? Like the Trade Commission.”

“Oh, no. The BisMark did not concern himself with trade. The gods could do as they pleased.”

“Never mind,” I said, shaking my head. “OK, so The BisMark was the Master of Logistics, and he was paid in stars. Fast forward to now—what did this BisMark fellow do? Accidentally set off an apocalypse?”

Medusa shrugged. “Maybe? It’s not like the gods took their apocalypses with them.”

The magnitude of what she said hit me. It was one thing to have an all-powerful being attack you, but it was an altogether different thing to be faced with what these so-called responsible gods might have left behind without first dismantling it—their weapons of mass destruction, or rather, “apocalypses of total destruction.” I looked over at a clearly concerned Medusa. “How do you accidentally set off a world-ending event?”

“Who knows? There are literally thousands of ways to annoy the gods. It has to be something big, though. Something the gods would have taken as a personal offense.”

“Like what? Making fun of Zeus’s beard?”

Medusa’s eyes widened. “Zeus would have struck you down, but no—he wouldn’t have ended the world over that. It would have to be something else, like desecrating holy ground, or—”

“Oh, come on … if it were that simple, the world would’ve ended a hundred times already.”

“True. But you have to distinguish between actually ending the world and only threatening to. Gods used to threaten that all the time, only to turn around and stop the calamity before it destroyed everything. Think about it … the Great Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Black Death, the numerous famines that wiped out millions. All calamities that could’ve ended the world were it not for divine intervention. The way they saw it, a near-apocalypse once a century or so kept you mortals in line.”

“Except there hasn’t been one in like a thousand years.”

“Really?” Medusa eyed me as if questioning how intelligent I was. “What about the Great Plague? The Irish Potato Famine? The World Wars? Global warming?”

“Those aren’t apocalypses!”

“Plague, Pestilence, Famine, War … sounds like the four horsemen to me. But the reason why you see it differently is because human ingenuity got you out of it. No divine intervention needed to avert the end-of-the-world stuff when you had science to counteract the effects. I’m sure that’s part of the reason the gods left—they could no longer threaten humans with apocalypses—” Medusa started when razor-sharp talons appeared under the tablecloth’s hem.

“Jean?” a voice said.

Miral.

“Under here,” I said.

Miral lifted the tablecloth and peered under, letting in a draft. Then, completely ignoring home-fort protocol, she crouched and got under the table. “Cozy,” Miral said.

“Medusa is scared that an apocalypse is about to happen,” I said way too defensively.

Medusa handed Miral a glass. “The wine is sour.”

The angel sucked in her breath. She took a sip. “This is bad … It tastes like Sodom,” she muttered under her breath.

“Guys,” I said. “It’s just wine.”

Miral ignored me and looked at Medusa. “Which pantheons have these signs?”

“Oh, it’s been a long time since I studied these … Judeo-Christian traditions, Nordic …” Medusa’s eyes widened as some realization dawned on her.

“Please don’t say it …” Miral said.

“Assyrian.”

“No,” Miral said, and crossed herself.

Another hand came down on the tablecloth and drew it back. This time it was Conner’s face that appeared. “Ahhh, Miral. Are you guys OK?”

“Just enjoying our fort,” I said.

“OK. Well, then. I understand that you guys have different approaches to parties … but I’m pretty sure we’re meant to dance.” He looked behind him. “At least I think that’s dancing.”

“Not now, John,” Miral said, pulling the tablecloth down.

“ ‘John’?” I asked. “Not ‘Officer Conner,’ or ‘Human John’—just plain ‘John,’ huh?”

“Oh, shush,” Miral admonished. “If you must know, I plan on using this human to better understand your culture.”

“So you’re using him?”

“Yes,” Miral said, without sarcasm or guile. “I doubt he minds.” And she was right. I couldn’t imagine a soul in this world or any other that would mind being used by Miral.

“You know, I can hear you,” John said.

“Hey, buddy,” I said with a devilish smile. “Come on in. I’ve officially invited you into our fort.”

“Jean, don’t—” Miral started, but it was too late. In a flash, John crawled under.

“So what’s going on?” he asked, his blue-gray eyes catching the soft light underneath.

“The girls were just about to tell me how the world is going to end.”

“Not with a bang, but a whimper.” The Hollow Men—nice! I liked this guy.

Miral sighed. “Silly mortals. It will not end with a bang or a whimper. It will end in screams, as we are all devoured by the beast from beneath.”

“Oh?” I said. “Not a T.S. Eliot fan? Besides, last I heard, signs went out of fashion when the gods left.”

“Jean,” Medusa said, “signs of the end of the world are universal. Earthquakes, plagues, meteor showers, volcanic eruptions, floods, locusts. Those are the overt ones. Then there are the subtler ones—things like a man born with two different color eyes, or the perfect Red Heifer. Signs, big or small, are just as deadly. And there are only seven signs to the end of the world. We’ve just had three.”

“Earthquake, sky falling, sour wine,” I confirmed.

“Good job.” Miral’s expression was completely devoid of sarcasm, which somehow made her compliment worse.

“So … what? We wait for the other signs?” Conner asked. He was either taking this way too seriously or trying to impress his date.

“There are two ways to avert an apocalypse,” Miral said. “Beg the gods for forgiveness or stop the other signs from happening.”

“I guess we should focus on the latter,” I said.

Miral rolled her eyes at me. “This is serious, Jean. First of all, we need to know what set this off … We must figure out which tradition has been offended, so that we can counter the—”

And as if in answer to Miral’s question, we heard a cry. “Get off me, you ungrateful whelps!”

We all popped out from under the table to see Atargatis being attacked by her seven children. Their faces were no longer human, their eyes widening as their jaws opened to reveal row after row of sharklike teeth.

“Oh no,” Medusa said. “Another sign. Matricide.”

MOMMA’S GOTTA DIE

Atargatis’ scream was somewhere between the utter terror of being eaten by monsters and the complete frustration with your child for just drawing all over your expensive ottoman. “Get off me, you ungrateful whelps,” she cried out again as she pried off the youngest girl and threw her across the room. The child hit the opposite wall with a thud, dropped to her knees and then stood up like she had just fallen off her tricycle. Turning to the other six, Atargatis yelled, “What are you doing? It is forbidden for us to fight one another.”

“Mater-what?” I asked Medusa.

“Matricide—children turning on their parents.”

“That’s a sign?”

Medusa and Miral nodded, and seeing the little girl attack her mom, I understood that we weren’t talking about teenagers acting out.

The girl—who looked like she was four—jumped onto a table, pointed at her mother and in a toddler’s tiny voice said, “But Mommy, you ate our brother. That was naughty.” She wagged her finger, and immediately the other six did the same. “Naughty,” she repeated.

“Naughty,” the children chanted through their shark teeth. “Naughty, naughty, NAUGHTY!”

“But Maggie! I didn’t know,” Atargatis pleaded. “I was tricked. Mommy would never hurt one of her children. Mommy would never hurt one from the Pool of Urfa.”

I grabbed Medusa’s hand to get her attention. “Those kids—how tough are they?”

“They’re Tiamat spawn.”

I gestured in confusion.

“Tough. Very, very tough.”

There was a growl, and I turned to see Maggie skipping like a schoolgirl across the stage. “You’ve been very naughty, Mommy,” she taunted. “Our big sister is coming. She feels your betrayal. She’s going to eat us all.”

Medusa and Miral both sucked in hard at the mention of the big sister—whoever she was. I, on the other hand, had no idea who or what they were talking about. And I didn’t care. Whatever offense had occurred here, whatever Other drama was going on, we needed to discuss it. Like adults. Adults with serrated teeth and razor-sharp claws, but adults nonetheless.

Atargatis cried out, “It wasn’t me. It must have been Astarte. She’s the one who did this. She’s the one who killed your brother.” But little Maggie didn’t listen. Without a running start, she somersaulted three times—I swear she was showing off—before leaping into the air. She was going for a roundhouse kick, and judging by the air she got, she’d connect with Atargatis’ face.  

Luckily for Atargatis, I’d figured the little girl was going to try something like that, so while they were having their family tiff, I was busy chiseling one of those oversized, crystallized bubbles off the centerpiece. I took aim, but Medusa grabbed my arm.

“Don’t!” she said.

“I can’t just let that thing eat one of my guests,” I answered, and turned back to the stage. As soon as Maggie was off the ground, I lobbed the bowling ball-sized bubble at her head. It struck true, knocking her to the ground, her body spasming twice before she passed out.

“Strike! Oh yeah!” I cried out triumphantly. Medusa caught my eye and shook her head. “Sorry,” I said, and I leapt on the stage.

Again.

↔

Of course, knocking out one of them only meant that there were six more to deal with, and since I just took out their little demon sister, it meant that some of their attention would be on me. Scratch that—a lot of their attention would be on me. Immediately Edgar and Lily attacked, Edgar lifting his leg unnaturally high and roundhouse kicking me in the face with far more force than a six-year-old should have. To make matters worse, Lily slid under me and knocked the backs of my knees. As a result, I folded in on myself and dropped.

“Oww!” I screamed out. I was fighting little ninjas. The thing was, I was pretty good in a fight. My training kicked in, and I grabbed Lily’s ankle and pulled, throwing her off the stage. Because I had gracefully fallen on my stomach, I couldn’t use my legs against Edgar, but I had another weapon that was harder than the sole of my shoe: my head. I got up, connecting my forehead with Edgar’s chin. There was a deafening crunch, and the boy staggered back.

He looked at me with dead, hollow eyes and pulled out a loosened shark tooth. Tossing it to the ground, he lifted his arms in a fighting stance, and extended one hand out, palm up. With a gesture that would have given Bruce Lee chills, he beckoned me to attack.

I lifted up a finger. “One second.” I looked over at Atargatis, who was fending off a couple of her children, and I yelled, “I don’t suppose you can give your kids a time-out?”

Atargatis gave me an exasperated look as she peeled off Judy and kicked her in the stomach.

“I didn’t think so,” I said. “Fine, let’s do this.”

I’m fast. I mean, really fast. Back in my Army days, I’d dismantle and reassemble a rifle faster than you could say “Boo.” We’d play these games where I’d have to get a coin out of the CO’s hand, the nimble man who claimed to have trained in the Shaolin Temple in the Shaoshi Mountain region. I always got his coin. He never got mine. I’m not showing off here. I’m just saying, I’m fast.

Edgar was faster. The boy was a blur, and it took all my concentration just to counter his attack. As hard as I tried I could not get a shot in, and after blocking kick after kick, punch after punch, I was getting tired. It felt like one of those old Street Fighter arcade games. Sure, you could just spend the game blocking, but every hit knocked off just that little bit of energy until—KAPOW—you were out. K.O.! Game Over! Insert Quarter to Try Again.

I needed to do something against Edgar; I needed leverage. Under the hail of his kicks and punches, I looked around me, trying to find something or someone to help me deal with Karate Kid here. That’s when I noticed that none of the Others in the audience moved. They just watched as Atargatis and I fought her maniac children, not one of them lifting a finger. OK, I get the average fairy or harpy: Don’t get involved, watch from a distance with a morbid curiosity, silently thanking the GoneGods that it’s not you. But Miral? She was the Captain of the Lord’s army, and one hell of a fighter. And Medusa guarded the Golden Fleece, so she had to be tough. She had a crush on me and, according to those magazines she read, modern chivalry was a two-way street. But she—like everyone else—didn’t move.

GoneGodDamn it! Fine.

And then there was The BisMark—wasn’t this ruining his party? He watched with that creepy, beautiful smile of his like someone surveying an orgy and deciding which group they were going to join. Stewart, for what it was worth, wore an unusual amount of concern on his face given that he was a statue.

Edgar’s attacks pushed me farther onto the stage until I was right next to that ridiculous statue of Poseidon. Once my back was against it, I put my hands down. Edgar must have thought I was drained. It took him a second to wind up his next attack. He kicked high, and I ducked. His foot connected with the statue’s thigh and it teetered. I did a roundhouse kick of my own to wobble the statue on its feet, hoping that if I angled my blow just right it would fall over on Edgar.

That’s when Stewart reanimated, moving toward the statue to stabilize it. As soon as he got involved, Edgar launched at him. He jumped up and kicked Stewart’s face, but the gargoyle didn’t flinch—he just took his free hand, grabbed Edgar by the wrist and lifted him clean off the ground. The kid flailed about, like in one of those cartoons where the cat holds the mouse by the tail.

Two down, five to go.

That gave me an idea. I kicked the statue of Poseidon again. Stewart, who was busy holding Edgar, did his best to stabilize the statue, but without two hands, he couldn’t. He twitched, and one of his gargoyle minions came to life. It went to keep the statue steady, and once it entered the fray, the third eldest boy—Simon, I believe—attacked it. It reacted exactly as Stewart did, grabbing the kid and encasing him in a stone bear-hug.

I kicked Poseidon three more times, and one by one the gargoyles held the attackers down while protecting the statue. They were all down except for … I felt the rush of wind as Lily came up behind me, fist raised in the air. Just as she was about to punch my face, a whirl of white cloth came down as Conner wrapped her up in a tablecloth and held her tight.

“Thanks,” I said. “But I had it under control.”

“Sure you did,” Conner said, straining to hold her.

↔

Six of the seven kids were accounted for; only Bob was missing. I scanned the room but couldn’t find him. Either he saw what happened to his siblings and cut his losses, or he was hiding, waiting for the right moment to strike. Given how the other six behaved, I was pretty sure it was the latter.

But worrying about Bob would have to wait.

I scanned the crowd of Others. They were staring up at the stage, their faces shocked or surprised or wearing the type of casual, devilish grin you get when you see someone accidentally get groined with a baseball. That look that said, Funny and Glad it wasn’t me. Some show of unity, if you ask me. Not that I could read their faces—after all, what does morbid curiosity look like on a banshee’s face?

“What the hell is wrong with all of you?” I screamed at the crowd of Others. I helped Atargatis to her feet. “Did you enjoy the show?” I knew I shouldn’t be yelling at them—especially with the cameras rolling—but I couldn’t help it. Doing nothing is always worse than doing the wrong thing, and their apathy boiled my blood. “She could’ve been killed.” I glared at them. Given the force behind my words, I expected that at least a few of them would have been ashamed. Downcast eyes, shaking heads. Some sign that my words were reaching them.

What I did not expect was the open look of shock everyone gave me. And by everyone, I mean everyone. Every single Other looked at me like I had just strangled a puppy. Even Miral and Medusa stared at me in abject horror.

“What?” I asked, but my question was only met with eerie, uncomfortable silence. The only noise in the room was the crinkling of Atargatis’ dress as she stood, and the occasional protest from one of her children, who were still being firmly held by Stewart and his gargoyles.

Atargatis wiped away a tear and straightened her dress. Somewhat composed, she turned to the audience and in a solemn, sorrowful voice said, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know. Please believe me. I didn’t know.” As the words left her lips, she got down on her knees and prostrated herself before them. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Her words were muffled between her sobs.

The audience didn’t move. Not a single Other showed any sign of forgiveness or compassion to the former goddess of fertility.

“What am I missing here?” I asked, reaching down to her side.

Her eyes widened as if she were recalling something temporarily displaced, an ancient memory or some long-forgotten fact. Whatever it was, it terrified her. “I didn’t mean to offend her. I didn’t.” She grabbed my wrist. “You have to believe me, I didn’t mean to.”

I took her hand in mine and did my best to reassure her. I had no idea what she was talking about, but whoever she didn’t mean to offend clearly scared the hell out of her. “Who?” I asked. “Who are you talking about?”

“I have summoned Tiamat.”

With the last word, the entire audience gasped. Well, they did whatever qualified as a gasp. Dwarves stomped a foot, fairies released little puffs of glitter, valkyries made a noise similar to that of a crow’s caw. Miral, the Angel of Light and the former Captain in the Lord’s army, prayed. And Medusa sucked in a deep breath while Marty hissed, glaring up at me with a serpentine expression that said, You’re screwed now.

COMING STRAIGHT FROM THE UNDERGROUND

The BisMark walked over to us with his usual princely demeanor. He approached Stewart and ran his hand along the gargoyle’s diamond chest. Then he put his hand on the leg of Poseidon’s statue and in a forlorn tone said, “So many sacrifices. So many hurt.” He shook his head as if chasing away a depressing thought and turned to the audience. “This isn’t the first time this has happened. We have sent Tiamat back to the depths before. And I promise you this … We will do so again.”

“Sent what back to where?” I asked. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but if someone doesn’t start talking soon, I’m going to release my own Tiamat.”

“Jean.” Miral looked at me with the same angelic pity that you’d give a puppy about to be put down. Medusa, on the other hand, was doing something a bit more practical. She was on the phone. Since I was gargoyle-encumbered on the stage, I was eye level with the seven-foot-tall angel, who still stood on the main floor. Miral started up, “Please be serious. We must figure this out, and it—”

I pointed at the angel. “If you say this doesn’t concern me, I swear to the GoneGods, I’ll scream.”

“Oh no, Human Jean. This very much concerns you,” The BisMark said, and without a warning, one of Stewart’s gargoyles jumped on my back. You know that expression “monkey on your back”? I never understood it until that moment. I tried to move, but the gargoyle was heavy and cumbersome. All I managed was to hobble around—there was no way I could run, throw a punch or do anything useful. Hell, pouring myself a cup of coffee would’ve been a challenge. I tried to shake him off, but his grip was solid. It was like thrashing about with a backpack full of rocks. Every swing rattled my spine, and if I continued doing it, I would throw out my back.

“Get off me, you garden gnome!” I screamed.

“Hey,” cried out an actual gnome in the audience.

“Sorry,” I said, trying to pry off the gargoyle. The damn thing wouldn’t budge. I wasn’t sure what to do next. Tickle him? Do gargoyles even have a ticklish spot? “Get this thing off me, BisMark. Now.”

Conner stepped forward. As soon as he did, another gargoyle jumped on him, this time wrapping its arms around his legs. “What the—” he said. “Unhand me.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” The BisMark said. “You see, you’ve stepped in the middle of a … family dispute. Until I’m positive you have nothing to do with this, I can’t let you go.”

“Family dispute?” I said. “I don’t know what you think we’ve done, but—” The BisMark raised a hand to silence me, a very stately gesture that in the days of old brought most Others to their knees lest they offended the great consultant—but I wasn’t an Other, and I wouldn’t have known this guy from Adam (well, maybe from Adam, but you get my meaning), and I wasn’t about to shut up because some guy in a peacock-feathered suit told me to.

I shuffled over to him, groaning with each painstaking, gargoyle-heavy step, and put my finger right in his face. “If you shush me one more time, I’ll—” But before I could finish, a small, cold granite hand covered my mouth, muffling my protests.

The BisMark looked at me and sighed. “For a human who doesn’t relish the spotlight, the gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.”

“Mmmm, mmmm,” I said in retort. No one could understand what I was saying, but I swear by the GoneGods that it was the sweetest comeback in history.

Conner dragged the gargoyle two steps closer to The BisMark and poked a finger at the Other’s peacock-feathered chest. “I’m an officer with the Paradise Lot Police. Assaulting me is a criminal offense. Now, tell your minion to unhand me. As for Jean, you can keep him until we get this whole thing sorted out …” Conner looked over at me and shrugged by way of apology. I nodded in understanding.

“I know who you are,” The BisMark said, “but I’m afraid there are higher laws being obeyed here. I’m sure the police chief will understand.” Then, turning his back on Conner, he addressed the audience. “As I said, this is not the first time we have returned her to the depths. We must prepare, and I ask each one of you to do your individual rites. We have one chance at this, my fellow Others, and it will be a logistical nightmare. Lucky for you, logistics is just my thing.”

Atargatis backed away. “This isn’t my fault.” As soon as she spoke, another gargoyle bear-hugged her. Seeing it on someone else showed me how ridiculous this whole thing was. She was being embraced by stone. “I was tricked,” she said.

“By whom?” The BisMark asked.

Atargatis’ eyes were wild with fear and anger, then they narrowed in thought. With spiteful hatred, she spat out, “My sister. She’s always hated me. It must’ve been her.”

“Then we must make sure that your sister joins us.” With a nod, BisMark signaled the remaining three gargoyles, who took to the air and left the room. “Tiamat will only return to the depths if all the offending parties are present, will it not?” Atargatis looked away. “Will it not?” The BisMark repeated, more sternly.

Atargatis nodded.

“Very well.” The BisMark strode over to Stewart, who still held on to the children, and with a gentle hand on his servant’s shoulder said, “Everyone … prepare yourselves for what’s coming. You’ll find everything you need here.” He pointed at the centerpieces. They were made of crystals, gold, herbs, incense, objects of various shapes and sizes that were obviously religious symbols. The centerpieces weren’t gaudy decorations, but rather celestial care-packages filled with all your altar needs.

Then, in a stage whisper that everyone could hear, The BisMark said, “And you … if it’s determined that your negligence contributed to her summoning, will you do what you must?”

Stewart nodded, and his diamond face twisted into an expression of deep contemplation. “Yes, I think so. My gargoyles and I will climb the sacrificial altar with pride.”

The audience gasped in admiration.

“And with honor, my friend. Pride and honor,” The BisMark said, stepping off the stage.  

It was a touching scene between two entities who clearly respected and admired one another. I would have been quite moved by this had it not been for two words that Stewart said.

“Altar” … and “sacrificial.”

But there was another part to this equation—the part that only comes up when those who die do so unwillingly. Offering: the act of giving another’s life—against their will—so that others may live. In the early days when the gods had just left, many Others made offerings, hoping that if they did enough of it, the gods would come back. Beheadings, stakings, burnings—all done in the name of some absent god who wasn’t listening.

Offerings weren’t as good as sacrifices. But under the right conditions, they worked. And the more blood, the more screaming, the more terror, the better. Also, the Other performing the offering had to spend a lot of time to get it right. It cost life—on both sides of the aisle.

Marty was right … I was screwed.

Hellelujah!

DO YOU EVEN REALIZE THE SACRIFICES I’VE MADE FOR YOU?

The word “sacrifice” means different things to different people. Before the gods left, humans usually meant it in the context of time. The ambitious sacrificed leisure for their careers, lovers sacrificed hours of precious time indulging their partner’s opera obsessions and parents sacrificed sleep for their hungry infants.

Sometimes a human makes the ultimate sacrifice—a firefighter willingly steps into the flames that could consume him, a police officer takes a bullet in the line of duty, a soldier fights until she cannot. But none of those brave souls wake up thinking that today would be the day they died. None of them walk into danger knowing that they’ll never walk out … For hope is always there, whispering that, although death is near, it won’t take them. Not this day.

Sometimes hope lies.

To Others, “sacrifice” is something far more literal. It means giving up everything so that others might live. It means knowing that whatever comes next, they won’t be there to see it. Sacrifice is cruel, swift and final.

And it only counts if you do so willingly.

So when The BisMark asked if Stewart would sacrifice himself should the need arise, he was referring to the ritual killing of his servant. And when Stewart said he would willingly offer himself up, he meant it.  

It was starting to make sense now. The fight, why the other Others didn’t get involved, why Medusa tried to hold me back. Whatever was happening between Atargatis and her kids was some sort of sacred dispute that, if you got involved, meant you tied your fate to her. If Atargatis was innocent, then so were you. But if she was guilty, then you were guilty too, and that was punishable by death. That’s why The BisMark wanted Conner and me shackled. He blamed Atargatis for whatever was going on, and when Conner and I helped the poor Assyrian, we were protecting her, which made us guilty. It also explained why he wanted Astarte here … she could have framed her sister. If enough of those involved were offered up, it could work.

Whatever was going on, if The BisMark had his way, it would ultimately culminate in a sacrifice—as in the Temple of Doom, the ripping-out-the-heart kind of sacrifice—to appease the gods.

But the gods were gone. The Others were just following some broken script. I understood that some cultural habits die hard, but this wasn’t like circumcision or not eating pork. Others’ lives were on the line. My life was on the line.

I could point out that sacrifice and sacrificial offerings were archaic practices that were old school centuries before the gods left. I could argue that with the gods being gone the whole point of it was moot. I could also mention that sacrifice—human, animal or Other—was illegal. But seeing how the room burst into a flurry of activity as the Others organized themselves for the sacrificial ceremony, I realized that my words would fall on deaf ears. And to think that three hours ago my biggest problem was letting Medusa down without hurting her feelings. Hellelujah!

I scanned the crowd, hoping that good ol’ Miral would have a plan. After all, her date was just as screwed as I was. But I couldn’t find her anywhere. I mean, how easy was it for a seven-foot-tall, model-gorgeous angel with dove-white wings to disappear in an open ballroom? Somehow the angel had managed to do it. Medusa, on the other hand, sat at our table, looking up at me with an expression that simultaneously conveyed annoyance at her ruined date and concern that my getting offered up made her prospects for another date unlikely. OK, I’m being harsh. But she was just sitting at our table, nervously fumbling with her phone while all her snakes drooped down over her shoulders.  

Atargatis quietly sobbed as her gargoyle sat attached to her like some well-crafted giant turtle shell. She was apparently resigned to her—our—fate. Officer Conner, on the other hand, was considerably less resigned and was trying to pry off his gargoyle boot with a knife and fork.

“It’s no use,” I started to say, but the words came out muffled. Damn gargoyle. I remembered how, when I was a kid and some bully covered my mouth with his palm, I licked it and the kid recoiled in disgust. I licked the stone hand. The gargoyle didn’t recoil. He didn’t even seem to register my committed tongue action. All I got was a mouthful of granite.

“Does this always happen?” Conner asked.

“Yes,” I said, but it came out, “Yeshhh.” “Yeshhh, it awways daaaz.”

“Remind me next time I’m invited to one of these shindigs to politely decline,” he said.

“Meaaa, twww,” I agreed.

↔

The hubbub of preparations continued. The BisMark came over—calm, confident and completely unfazed by the fact that three dozen or so species were preparing to rip out my guts.

He gestured to the crowd. “Look at them. How they scramble to prepare for an event that hasn’t occurred in millennia. One ritualistic sacrifice and you’d think they’re preparing for Christmas.”

“Yah kunt duh tis,” I said.

“Excuse me?” The BisMark said. “Oh, how rude of me. Gargoyle, remove your hand from the human’s mouth.”

The gargoyle did as instructed, and I repeated, “You can’t do this.”

“But we have to,” The BisMark said. “Atargatis ate one of the Holy Carp of Urfa.”

“So what?” I asked.

The BisMark’s eyes narrowed before a playful smile appeared. “You don’t know what’s going on, do you?”

“Sadly, no.”

“The Holy Carp of Urfa … they’re no ordinary carp. They’re her spawn. Her first children. The first carp to ever come into this world. The bread of flesh that your species first farmed from the rivers and the seas. Entire fishing villages grew around their appearance—fishing villages that became towns that became cities. They’re the spark that allowed the rosebud of civilization to blossom.”

“Again … so what?” I said.

He leaned in close so no one could hear him. “So … when the world was young and the Others of power fought for followers, this was the carp that Atargatis birthed into the world. But when the humans did not immediately bow down, she placed a powerful boon over the first of her children—a constant reminder of what she did for your species. Eat the fish of the sea and live, but eat one of the Holy Carp of Urfa … and die.”

He appeared to stifle a small smile. “One of those sacred fish has been eaten, and now an old curse is rebirthed.”

“OK, I get it. She had a bad fillet of fish. What’s the game here, BisMark? I’ve seen your kind make a bid for power, but sacrificing a bunch of innocent people to get it—that’s overkill and ridiculous.”

“This is about more than just bad fish … It’s about the End of Days. You see, when Astarte’s clan were trying to ascend to godhood, they put an apocalyptic protocol in place. When they failed to become gods, that same protocol was incorporated into other pantheons.”

“Incorporated?”

“Yes, think of it as a hostile takeover. They were downgraded and their assets were transferred into the new holding company. In this case, companies. After all, why waste such valuable resources like world-ending monsters?”

“Yes, why waste such a thing?”

“Sarcasm?”

I nodded.

“Good—I’m becoming more human every day,” The BisMark said. “If I may continue, Tiamat has many names. In Norse tradition, she is Ragnarök. In Christianity, she is the Four Horsemen. The Beast, the End of Days … Tiamat was an early way for the gods to end the world. And now she’s been awoken. Now she approaches.” The BisMark examined his fingernails as he spoke. “Rather silly of them to leave her behind, considering that the gods are the only bloodless way to stop her.” He eyed me. “Well, almost bloodless.”

“‘Tiamat’?” I asked.

The BisMark sighed and leaned in close. In a whisper, he said, “Big fish, lots of tentacles. Relentless hunger. That is what approaches.”

“Great! You released the kraken.”

“The kraken?” he said. “The kraken isn’t real.”

I rolled my eyes. “We’re kind of splitting hairs here.”

“Perhaps.” He leaned back and stretched out his arms with a lazy, exaggerated yawn. “Regardless, when we present you and Atargatis and everyone else involved in this horrible offense, it should send her back to the deep.”

“It won’t work.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“For one thing, sacrificing anything is illegal. For another, you’re sacrificing us to gods who are gone. But the real reason is, it will serve nothing.”

The BisMark laughed. “The answer to your protests is one and the same. Yes, the gods are gone, but the AlmostGods still walk amongst us. And one of their oldest and most sacred rules has been violated.”

“Once—Almost—Gone—it doesn’t matter. You’re sacrificing us for no reason.”

“First of all, Mr. Matthias, because you’re not willing to submit, we cannot sacrifice you.”

“Good.”

“That is why we submit your life as an offering, in hopes that it will appease Tiamat.”

“And the difference being …?”

“Sacrifice is willing, whereas an offering is generally not. Also, let me remind you that your death will save the world.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please. If I had a penny every time I’ve heard that—”

“You would not have much money.” The BisMark smirked. “Please Jean, enough posturing.”

“Fine, enough posturing. What’s your plan?”

“My plan? Why, to send Tiamat back.”

“No … your real plan. Why did you summon her in the first place?”

He looked at me, confused. Then his confusion turned to amusement. “You think I did it.”

“If it looks like a peacock, squawks like a peacock, then it must be an egotistical, power-hungry Other, hellbent on bringing the world to its knees.”

“I see,” BisMark said. “Very well. I’m guilty … You caught me.” He held up his hands in surrender. Trouble with Others is that they don’t have the same intonations and facial expressions as humans, and I honestly couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or serious.

“So what’s the plan? Save the world and be a hero?”

“I wouldn’t say that was my plan, but if you insist.”

“And let me guess … this will only work if you offer the guilty, right?”

The BisMark nodded.

“So that’s why you’ve orchestrated it so everyone but you is guilty. I’ll even bet you don’t know exactly who did what, right? So you’re just going to offer up everyone? Even your faithful servant, Stewart.”

The BisMark nodded. “His negligence allowed the fish to be switched. As for who actually switched the fish … It was you and the succubus who retrieved it from the dock. You could’ve done it. Or Astarte. Or both of you.”

So that was it—offer up a half a dozen people for sacrifice and hope to get all the guilty ones in the mix. If a few innocents get caught up … so be it. The BisMark was living up to his reputation: cool, calculating, logical.

Bella, I thought to myself, is this part of our story, too?

I glanced over at Atargatis. She was devastated. She had just eaten her own child. Accident or not, that could play hell on the mind of any parent. And even though my human mind couldn’t comprehend how anyone could get upset over a fish, I did understand what it felt like losing a loved one, a member of your family. I had said goodbye to too many of my own. She was grieving. She wouldn’t run. She would welcome punishment because that’s what the grieving do … blame themselves for something they have no control over. With my limited movement, I shrugged toward the devastated Atargatis. “You know damn well that I’m innocent, don’t you? So is Astarte, and so is her sister.”

The BisMark shrugged. “Perhaps this was all an accident. Perhaps the guilty person or persons”—he tapped me on the forehead—“knew of the curse on the Sacred Carp, but assumed that in this GoneGod World, eating it would have no effect … Or perhaps their purpose was something else entirely.”

I snorted. “Someone accidentally set off an apocalypse? Now I’ve heard it all.”

“The gods left, but they didn’t take their little toys with them. Any number of foolish mortals or Others could have set it off. After all, the curse is well-documented.” He spoke like we were playing a game of Clue and not actually considering executing five people.

“So if I accidentally ate the carp, but knew nothing about the curse, I wouldn’t have summoned Tiamat?”

BisMark nodded. “A mistake doesn’t set off an apocalypse. It must be purposeful.”

“So ignorance is an excuse.”

“Indeed.”

“I didn’t know. Neither did she.” I nodded at Atargatis.

“Perhaps. But then again, you could be lying. The mere fact that Tiamat is approaching tells me that someone knew. Someone did this on purpose. Since you and the others could be lying, it’s best we offer you all up. I’m—what do you humans call it?—hedging my bets.” The BisMark spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. He wanted to broadcast our little conversation, assure them that this was not how the world ended. In Other logic, he was being perfectly reasonable. Offer up four lives in the hope that the apocalypse would be averted.  

“It could’ve been you. Or Atargatis, or Astarte …” He scanned the room. “Or that gorgon you came in with. Offer you all up, and if it works, then the problem is solved. If not, switch to Plan B. But rest assured, Jean, I intend to keep the offering to a minimum number of kills … That’s why that human will not be part of the ritual.” He pointed at Officer Conner.

“Thanks,” Conner said with less sarcasm that I would have liked.

“Hold on … Medusa?” I said. “What the hell does she have to do with anything?”

“History, dear Jean. She has just as much reason to incriminate Atargatis as Astarte. More so, if we take certain events into account.”

“If you hurt so much as a hair—rather, a snake—on her head …” I started before the gargoyle’s hand rudely covered my mouth again.

I started to thrash about, determined to get out of the gargoyle’s stone grip and throttle The BisMark. It was one thing to threaten me, Astarte, Conner and Atargatis. But Medusa was an innocent creature who had nothing to do with this. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

The BisMark watched me struggle and said in a loud voice, “And as for it being illegal to sacrifice you, consider this. Once your governments attack Tiamat—which I’m sure they will—they will fail. Seeing that it’s hopeless, don’t you think they’ll fall to their knees and beg whomever they can find to save them? I’m the only one who can. Do you really think they’ll get too fussed over a few insignificant souls being offered up when it means saving the world?”

As if on cue, a voice bellowed from the back of the ballroom, “There will be no offerings!”

Everyone’s attention shifted to the archangel-turned-police-chief, Michael, just stepping in.

Hellelujah!

↔

Medusa stood up and went directly to her boss’s side. “Captain Michael,” she said, her words sounding natural yet somehow strange, as if she had called him by the title he once held: archangel. “There is some terrible misunderstanding. Jean couldn’t be involved in this. He has no knowledge of the old ways.” Captain Michael walked in with several officers in tow, including Officer Steve, the youngest of the Billy Goats Gruff.

Hey, I thought, ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law. Of course, I didn’t say it out loud. Part of me believed that ignorance of celestial, divine or esoteric law was very much an excuse. I sat back, trying to get comfortable with the gargoyle still clutching to me and letting the scene play itself out.

“He’s guilty,” The BisMark said. “He protected the offender.”

At this Atargatis stood up with an angry, accusing finger. “I was tricked. And I’m beginning to think that I was tricked by you. You always hated me and my family.”

The BisMark raised an eyebrow. “If I hated you, why would I invite you as my guest of honor? Why not simply let you fade into obscurity?”

“You bast—”

“Enough,” Michael trumpeted. Everyone turned toward the archangel, and I could have sworn I saw The BisMark shudder in momentary fear. “You two can settle your little ancient quibble after.”

“After?” The BisMark said with mocking scorn, evidently forgetting he was afraid of Michael. “There will be no after. Not for her. The Beast must be satisfied, the guilty offered up.” For the first time this evening, The BisMark looked worried.

Medusa shuddered at this and, addressing the crowd, yelled out, “Jean is not guilty! He’s innocent, and I will not—” She took a step forward, but before she could get any closer, a heavy, angelic hand fell on her shoulder.

“Medusa,” Michael said, “no one will be offered.” He took a step forward. Every eye was on him. The BisMark scowled as he met the archangel’s gaze. “Such offerings, necessary or not, are the old way—”

“It’s been used in the new world, and quite successfully—” The BisMark started.

“No,” Michael interrupted. “There will be no appeasement through blood. Tiamat shall be sent back by other means.”

“But Tiamat comes to consume us!” cried out a particularly nervous gnome. At this, the audience whined and muttered words like beast, death, appease, kill.

They stood in front of each other. Michael was a head taller than The BisMark, who—I swear to the GoneGods—grew as they continued their debate. Michael wore a look I knew well because I’d seen it before. His eyes were heavy but distant. It was the look he got when searching for some faint, ancient memory. Only thing was, for Michael, searching his memories meant going through hundreds of thousands of years. An easy task if you were willing to burn a little time to do it, but doing it au naturel meant hard concentration and frequent disappointment. Evidently, whatever Michael was looking for was important enough to pay for with a couple hours of his life.

The BisMark gazed into the archangel’s eyes with unnatural confidence. The entire room watched them go at it with the same intensity that the crowd had watched Astarte and Atargatis wrestle.

We all waited for a flinch, a flicker—any sign of weakness. A good strategy on their part, the eyes being the window to the soul and all, but experience had taught me that, whereas the eyes were great mood indicators, the hands were better. A finger will twitch before an eye softens; a hand will clench before a gaze diverts.

Michael’s hands were steady, relaxed, his talons hanging loosely at his side. The BisMark’s hands were also calm, his feathery exterior steady, except … except the feathers didn’t go all the way to his otherwise human hands. They stopped at the first knuckle, replaced by brown, almost goatlike fur. And what’s more, although his hands hung loose and free, his pinkie twitched.

“Other means will be very costly to me,” The BisMark finally said.

Michael nodded.

“Very well, but only if you agree to incarcerate all involved, in case an offering becomes necessary”—Michael stirred, but The BisMark held up his hand—“should other means fail and the need arises. Or would you rather Tiamat consume the world?”

Michael groaned, which, coming from an archangel, sounded more like the low rumbling of a jet engine. “Very well …”

“But Miiichael,” Medusa protested. “He’s innocent. I know he is!”

“There is one more condition. After, we must conduct a trial, and should they be found guilty, mortal—human—punishment will be inflicted on them.”

Michael gestured to Officer Steve, who strolled over to Atargatis. “And these two humans,” The BisMark pointed at me.

“He’s not guilty. He has no idea what’s going on,” Medusa said.

“Perhaps that’s true of your human officer”—The BisMark gestured, and the gargoyle immediately let Conner go—“but the hotelier … he has quite the history of hating Others.”

Michael thought about it for a long moment before finally conceding. “Very well. Take him in.”

“And his date,” The BisMark said, pointing at Medusa. Michael’s eyes widened, but The BisMark quieted him with one word. “History.” Michael considered this before nodding in agreement.

With that, the Gruff went around arresting us all.

The BisMark nodded with approval. “You’re far more agreeable now that your god is gone. Very well, Archangel Michael. I shall do what is required of me. Tiamat approaches and I must prepare. Now, if you please.” He gestured to all of us.

“Go,” Michael said.

“What? You’re letting him go?” I burst in, getting close.

Michael shot me a look that would have stopped an avalanche. Then, turning his attention to The BisMark, he bore down a finger on his chest. “Once that imminent danger is dealt with, you will submit to a full investigation—”

The BisMark waved a dismissive hand, cutting Michael off. “Of course.”

“Release Conner,” Michael said. Then, gesturing at me, “And cuff him.”

“Hold on—don’t you have to tell me what I’m charged with? As far as I can tell, you’re arresting me for delivering the wrong fish.”  

“You’re correct, Human Jean. You’re charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction,” Michael said.

“Holy—” I started. Michael shot me a look. “—guacamole,” I finished. “Come on, that’s what you charge terrorists with. You know me, I’m no terrorist. I’m a hotelier. And a bad one at that.”

Michael nodded. “Your actions—”

“Alleged actions,” I corrected.

“Alleged actions released the Beast—a creature far, far more powerful than any nuclear bomb. Even if it was an accident or an act committed out of ignorance, you’re an accessory, a fact that will be taken into account during your trial.”

“Trial?”

“If it comes to that … yes. We must first conduct an investigation.” Michael spoke with the enthusiasm of an angel forced to sign his fifty-six thousand and seven hundredth benediction.  

“Look,” I said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you know damn well that I had nothing to do with this. What’s more, you know that if a big bad monster is coming to town, I’m exactly the guy you need on the street, helping. This is lunacy.”

Michael sighed. Well, sighed might not be the right word. Being an archangel of the highest order, his deep baritone voice made James Earl Jones sound like a pipsqueak going through puberty. What came out of Michael was more like a bass drum that shook the entire room. “Rules must be followed.”

“Rules!” I yelled, then abruptly stopped. Michael was the original Boy Scout. And by original, I mean the very first one. Ever. He followed rules to the letter of the law, never wavering, never questioning. He would have arrested God if he caught Him with His hand in the cookie jar. Hell, he’d even arrest himself if he found a probable cause. Nothing I could say or do would change that, so I saved my breath. If I was going to get out of this, talking was not the way.

Steve made his way forward, and I saw The BisMark standing offstage with Stewart. Evidently, the two of them were scheming their master plan to stop the Beast, or whatever that monster was. Since it was coming out of the ocean, I personally thought it was the kraken.

I looked over at Medusa. She was already in cuffs, her snakes covering her face in shame.

Officer Steve approached me, shifting from four legs to two with an unnatural grace. “Mr. Jean-Luc Matthias?”

“Seriously, Steve. We just spoke a few hours ago.” The giant goat stared at me expectantly. “Yes,” I sighed, “I’m Jean-Luc Matthias.”

Officer Steve pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “Jean-Luc Matthias, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a—”

I saw a blur of movement from the corner of my eye, and it gave me an idea. “Just a minute,” I said. The BisMark stood near the edge of the stage, where Atargatis was being read her rights. Officer Steve put up a hoof to stop me, but I said, “You. Peacock Man.”

The BisMark looked down at me over the rims of his glasses.

“I want to speak to you.”

“Jean-Luc Matthias, you’re under arrest—” Steve continued.

I shuffled out of Officer Steve’s grip, twisting my wrists before he could cuff me. I took a step forward, and his hooved hand grabbed my shoulder. I didn’t resist. I was close enough to The BisMark for what I needed to say. “You have this whole thing figured out,” I said. “This apocalypse, this Tiamat. Even Michael is behaving exactly like you need him to. Your plan is near perfect … but you forgot one thing.”

“Forgot?” The BisMark said, lifting an eyebrow. “Please, indulge me. What did I forget?”

“Bob,” I said.

BOB’S BACK, BABY!

“Bob?”

“Yeah, Bob,” I said, kicking up. I let myself fall—not backward, but forward—so that my belly hugged the stage floor. It hurt like hell to have so much crashing down on me. Bob jumped on the stage, claw hand out—he was going for my abdomen—but instead of slashing me like he intended, he raked the gargoyle across its back. Way to go, Bob! Of course, had I not been fast enough, I’m pretty sure he would have disemboweled me, in which case it would have been, Bad Bob! Bad!

The stone creature actually winced in pain, let go of me and turned to grapple with Bob.

With no gargoyle on my back, I rolled away. I wasn’t sure what to do next. I could try to free Atargatis or attack The BisMark, but since everything was happening so fast, I decided on the default option: run.

I tried to get offstage, but The BisMark stepped in my way. He didn’t attack. I guess doing so would sully him. Instead, he just blocked my path. I tried to get around him, but every time I slid to one side he mimicked me perfectly, down to the twitches of my hands and my facial expressions. He was flawless. It was like trying to outrun your mirror image in a room full of mirrors … I swear to the GoneGods, at one point his face even started resembling my own, like he was becoming me.

I took a step back, and he stepped forward. It was then that I understood what he was trying to do: back me up so one of the gargoyles could grab me.

I couldn’t let that happen, and if he wasn’t going to get involved by attacking me, I’d just have to make him. But again, he anticipated my moves perfectly. I took a swing at him, and he dodged like someone who didn’t have a care in the world. He just kept moving in front of me. We weren’t fighting, we were dancing—synchronized swimmers swirling in the currents of air.

I needed to get out.   

But whatever I needed didn’t matter. I was losing ... That was, until the lights went out.

↔

Every sound, every light, every bit of ambient hum created by everything that runs on electricity shut down, and the ballroom went dark, with the only light being a soft effervescent glow from the table’s centerpieces and the strange crystal vat sitting on the stage. This was my chance. I rolled to the side, and The BisMark, either distracted by the sudden darkness or unable to mimic me without actually seeing me, didn’t follow. I tumbled off the stage, hitting the ground with a clank and an “Ow!”

I pushed through the darkness, dimly lit by the candle centerpieces. In the faint glow I caught a glimpse of Medusa, who stood in handcuffs off to the side. When our eyes met, I mouthed I’m sorry, hoping that the small gesture would make up for our ruined date. She smiled, her dimples catching the soft light. Hellelujah!

I also saw Michael, who stood motionless, his hand around Medusa’s arm. He just watched, not letting me go, but not trying to capture me, either. Instead he boomed out one misplaced word: “Deputy!” I would have assumed he was yelling at one of his officers, except he was looking right at me. Then Michael did something I never saw him do before and I would never see him do again.

He winked.

At me.

I didn’t have time to think about that now and thanked the GoneGods that he wasn’t getting involved. In the past, Michael had chosen inaction when dealing with me. He once described it as letting fate decide what to do. It spurred me to run. Whatever my role in all this was, being locked up in a cell wasn’t it.

I made my way to the main hall when another gargoyle—how many friggin’ gargoyles were there?—leapt to grab me. ScarFace.

At the last second I managed to duck, and ScarFace flew over me. I thought I had cleared him, but his hand reached back and latched on to my wrist. Crap! I was caught. I felt myself being lifted off the ground when I heard a smash. Penemue slammed a chair over ScarFace’s back. The gargoyle hit the ground. It was down, but it would be a matter of seconds until it got back up. “I guess I’m in it now,” the angel said with a huff.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said. We bounded for the hall’s double doors, when they burst open.

Penemue and I tumbled through, and the doors slammed shut behind us. I turned to see EightBall and Astarte pushing a heavy delivery luggage cart to block the door.

“Come on,” I yelled. “That won’t hold them for long.”

We ran upstairs to the main foyer. “Split up,” I yelled, heading for the back. I couldn’t outrun the average Other, so I needed to get to my car. “I’ll meet you at the front gate.”

Astarte and EightBall ran to the front door (the words succubus and human rang in my ear as they passed under the little bell), while Penemue followed me out back. The plan was to get to the kitchen, then sneak out the back door. But before we could get across the lobby floor, Others started appearing from the service stairwell, blocking our way.

A large, gaseous, off-white humanoid creature lumbered toward us. It looked more like the Michelin Man than anything I’d ever seen. White puffs of smoke bellowed out of pinprick-sized holes all over its body. It ran—or rather, bounced—toward us. As it got closer, the Others who had been following it turned to run back downstairs.

“Out the front?” I said.

“Yeah, out the front,” agreed the angel. We both turned on our heels toward the front entrance.

“What the hell is that?” I cried out.

“A fugu-monster.”

“What’s that?” We slammed against the door, pushing it. We were almost outside.   

“Think of it like the puffer fish of the demon world. It blows itself up to—”

POP!

The explosion blew out the door and sent us flying. Lucky for me, The BisMark’s excessive amounts of ceremonial balloons broke my fall like rapidly popping bubble wrap.

The balloons lay limp beneath me, never to inflate again. Unfortunately, balloons and fugu-monsters weren’t made of the same kind of rubber. The fugu-monster, now deflated, stood above me with a wicked smile on its face. It started sucking in air again, puffing itself up.

A LOT OF HOT AIR

While the fugu-monster inflated to a critical mass, my hands ran along the gravel, feeling for a sharp stone. As much as I enjoyed being blasted out of my own hotel, I wasn’t going to let this fugu-monster blow itself up all over me again. I slashed its stomach, and from the thin cut I made, the fugu-monster started hissing as it slowly deflated.

It looked down at the gash, embarrassed. Then, placing its pointer finger and thumb together, it pinched closed the hole with its two fingers and started reinflating itself.

“Cheater!” I yelled as I ran down the hill.

Astarte and EightBall were already halfway there, running toward the fence that bordered the highway. Penemue and I followed. Ever try to run downhill? I don’t mean walk downhill, or even hop. I mean a full-on run. After a while momentum takes over, and the strides that on a flat surface would have you running full-on begin to slow you down. You need to either keep up the momentum, fall or jump. I jumped. I must have cleared eight feet, and I landed with all the grace of a cat. But then gravity took over, and I tumbled down until I hit the mesh of the fence. I hate gravity. I really, really hate gravity.

Astarte was right in front of me. She pulled out her knife and slashed at the chicken wire, prying it open. EightBall, with his nimble and agile eighteen-year-old body, crawled through, careful to look both ways before popping out onto the highway. Astarte followed, but I couldn’t leave Penemue to fend off the gargoyles.

I turned to see Penemue halfway down the hill. He was trying to take to the sky but couldn’t, because he was being wrestled down by two stone gargoyles—and one of them was ScarFace. Every time he pulled one off, the other jumped on him. One he could handle, but two were proving too much for the angel.

“Go on,” I said to Astarte. I rushed up the hill and threw a billiard ball-sized rock at ScarFace. It hit him without effect, but he did look over at me. “Your mamma is a sun-baked mud,” I cried out. A bit lame, but it worked. ScarFace let go of Penemue and flew at me. Rather, he shot over to me, far faster than five hundred pounds of rock should be able to. He was burning time, a lot of it. Judging by how fast he was coming at me, he didn’t know what he was doing or didn’t care. The Doberman-sized gargoyle didn’t have an inch of soft flesh. At the speed he was moving, I was more likely to survive being hit by a bus.   

I backed away to the fence hole, and just as ScarFace was about to squash me, I let myself fall. He zipped by, crashing through the fence and onto the highway. At this time of night there were few cars on the road, but there were trucks—large, Optimus Prime-sized, long-haul vehicles going forty miles an hour. The gargoyle hit a front grille, and with the screeching of steel on stone, he skidded across the asphalt, shooting up sparks and losing one foot on the way. At first I thought I’d killed him. Well, not me, but the truck that so conveniently met his trajectory. A pang of remorse rushed through me. There had been enough death in the fourteen years since the Others arrived, and I didn’t want to see any more of these unique creatures go down, not even one who was trying to kill me.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the gargoyle stood up. Relief quickly turned to dread as he hobbled toward me. He encountered his foot along the way and stepped into it. I could hear the grating of stone on stone as the smell of charcoal rose in the air. His ankle glowed red, and I realized that he was welding himself together. Great, I was fighting the gargoyle version of the T-1000.

↔

I started across the four-lane highway, hoping to put some distance between me and ScarFace before he healed himself, when Penemue fell on the road, grabbed me and took to the sky. “Human Jean,” he said, “I fear that we’re—what’s the expression? Screwed.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s it.”

“We can’t outrun all of them and we can’t fight them.”

“There must be a way out.”

“We must hide, but in order to hide, we first have to get out of their line of sight.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I know how the game is played.” Flying would be no use—we were exposed up here—so I scanned the ground looking for somewhere we could duck into. “Oh, crap. Look!” I pointed to the ground.

Astarte and EightBall stood in front of the Being Human Salon with their hands in the air. Miss Sally Webb stood in front of them, holding a gun pointed at Astarte’s head.

Hellelujah!

↔

“What the heck is going on?” Sally shrieked at me as Penemue lowered us down. She was wearing silk pajamas and big fluffy pink sandals, a purse slung over her shoulder. “It wasn’t enough that your guests ruined my flyers—now you show up at … at … midnight! Were you going to sneak up on me like thieves in the night and turn me into a frog? Stars above, if it wasn’t for my alarm system—”

“Miss Webb,” I said, getting out of Penemue’s arms. I put up my palms in an I come in peace gesture. “There’s been a situation at my hotel, and we could really, really use your help.”

“Help? If you think that you’re going to win me over by coming here at this ungodly hour and—” Sally looked behind us. From her vantage point she could see an angry mob of Others clambering down the hill toward us. Some of them literally had pitchforks and torches, and I suddenly knew exactly how Frankenstein’s monster felt.

“Oh, heck,” Sally muttered.

“Ahhh, Miss Webb,” I started. “I don’t know what—”

“Oh hush,” she said in a stern schoolteacher voice. “Get inside.” She eyed Penemue and Astarte, then added, “All of you.”

Hellelujah!

HAIRDRESSER’S GOT A GUN

Miss Webb held open the door, and the four of us ran inside the Being Human Salon and into a large waiting room. It was filled with all the stuff Miss Webb thought made us human. Mannequins with scarves and long press-on nails. Lipstick tubes and row after row of moisturizers. Wigs of all colors and sizes fitted on plastic heads. And on the walls, posters that said things like “Non-invasive teeth filing: Get rid of those fangs!” and “Turn your wings into a fashionable cape!” and “Extreme waxing for all your furry needs!”  

A stone flew through her front window, shattering the glass. “If you don’t mind, please take a step away from the front door. I’m told this can be quite dramatic,” she said, almost offhandedly.

She pulled out what looked like a box with several buttons on each side, a big red button sitting under a plastic lid right on top. She flipped up the lid and pushed down on the button. What happened next wasn’t dramatic, per se. It was downright shocking, thrilling and terrifying. Metal shutters fell over the windows as steel bars appeared from the floor, locking the front door. Emergency lights turned on, and we were no longer standing in the foyer of a beauty salon. We were in a cell, with no way in or out that I could see.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Panic button,” she said, turning on a monitor behind the reception desk.

She walked behind her desk and tapped the screen of her iPad. Images from her security cameras popped up. “Ah, Mr. Angel … I’d cover your ears.” Just as she finished saying it, a siren sounded, shooting out a piercing screech that made me cry out in pain. Astarte and EightBall winced, but what it did to Penemue … The angel fell to his knees, pressing the palms of his hands hard against his ears. He growled in agony, and I think he would have screamed if he could. His body went into near shutdown. Whatever the frequency of the siren, it was devastating to angels.

I rushed Sally and grabbed for the box. But the woman, who must have been well into her fifties, moved away with a dancer’s grace and countered my lunge with a move that would have made the most skilled aikido masters green with envy. “Oh, Mr. Matthias, please. The noise will pass. Don’t worry, it is not fatal. Just give it a moment.” She looked over at Penemue. “He is, after all, quite a big boy.”

Sally was true to her word—the noise did stop, and Penemue, dripping sweat, stood with a growl. Sally fished around in her purse and threw him a pack of wet wipes. “There,” she told us with a smile, “that should hold them. For a while, at least.” We all looked at the unassuming Sally Webb standing nonchalantly in her pajamas and big slippers. “What?” she asked. “It’s my security system. Don’t you have one, Mr. Matthias?”

“Nothing like that.”

She shrugged. “If you wish to install one, I can get you a deal.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but no thanks. I don’t need it.”

She pushed a button, and one of the slats on her window opened. “Really?”

I looked out at the angry mob of minotaurs, centaurs, giants, ogres and trolls outside, and shrugged. “Well, maybe.”

EightBall and Penemue, their bodies tense, scanned the room for escape routes. Astarte, on the other hand, wore a confused expression as she looked around like someone tracking a buzzing bee. “What?” she said. “How?”

“How what?” I asked.

She lifted a finger, gesturing for me to hold on, and continued looking around the room. “Brian, what is this? Some form of telepathy? Are you a wizard?” She paused. “Uh-huh … I’ve never heard of Bluetooth magic before …”

Bluetooth? I looked at Astarte. She was wearing a little wireless earpiece. Brian, that smart bastard—he’d given her a direct line to him. I pulled out the earpiece and put it on.

“Hey,” Astarte said, “you stole his voice.”

“You’ve been mortal all these years and you don’t know Bluetooth? I’m a Luddite, and even I know what it is.” I put my finger on the earpiece. “Brian, where are you?”

I heard the shuffling of flesh against leather as his voice crackled in. “I’m hiding in Astarte’s closet,” he whispered.

“And where is everyone?”

There was a pause. “Most of them are outside. Some are still in the banquet hall.”

“How do you know that? You’re in Astarte’s closet.”

“The cameras,” he said. “I’m jacked in.”

“Brian,” I murmured, “you geeky genius!”

“I’m … I’m not in trouble?” he whispered.

“No … Well, yes. Maybe,” I said. “I guess yesterday’s mischief is today’s savior. OK—look, I’m going to hand you over to …” I scanned the room and decided on EightBall. I figured he had the best chance to deal with technology, being young and human. “Let him know if anything changes,” I said, and threw the earpiece to EightBall.

“That’s mine,” Astarte said.

“And you’ll get it back,” I said, peering out the window. “If we survive this.” There was an electric buzzing sound coming from the window that reminded me of one of those bug zappers.

“Good. Now that that’s done, Mr. Matthias,” Sally said, folding her arms, “I believe you owe me an explanation.”  

↔

Something—or rather, some Other—slammed hard against the front door of the Being Human Salon with a thud that was followed by the unmistakable buzz of an electric current and a doglike yelp. Its cry was so loud that I covered my ears and cringed in sympathy. If Sally felt any sympathy, her expression didn’t betray it. She just stared across at me, her eyes stone-cold. She reminded me of Stewart.

“Well,” Sally said.

“Well …” I started, “I don’t want to get overly complicated, but it seems that someone …”—I looked over at Astarte—“accidentally started an apocalypse.”

“Calamity,” said Astarte. “It is not an apocalypse—yet. And don’t look at me, human. Despite being mortal, I happen to love my life and would do nothing to jeopardize it. If I wanted to hurt my sister, I could do it many other ways, none of which would involve my home being consumed by my rampaging niece. If anything, I tried to stop the whole damn thing.”

“The thing coming is Astarte’s niece?” Sally raised an eyebrow in my direction.

“Hey,” I said, lifting my hands up, “I’m just as surprised as you are.”

“And what a fish tale it will be,” Penemue mused, picking at his wings and pulling out a bottle of Drambuie. “Good—I knew I had one on me.”

Sally took two decisive strides toward the angel. “So long as you’re a guest on my premises, you will not consume that poison.” She held out a hand.

“But …” Penemue protested.

Sally stood with hand on hip, waiting. The angel groaned and gave her the bottle. I was impressed … I’d tried the stern “Hand it over” routine with Penemue dozens of times and it never worked, but Sally only had to yell at the angel and he was already compliant. I thought to ask her for some pointers—if she didn’t kill me first, that was.

“Very well, then. I believe Mr. Matthias was discussing the upcoming calamity?” Sally spoke with a clarity of understanding that was far more than any layperson should have.

I shook my head. “You say ‘poe-tay-toe,’ I say ‘apocalypse.’ And regardless, this … this Beast thingie that’s coming to Paradise Lot to destroy everything … if we don’t find a way to stop it, we’re all going to—”

Another Other, having learned from the first Other, slammed something large and wooden against the entrance. The steel door took the blow with a reverberating clang.  

Sally rolled her eyes with impatience. “Die?” she offered.

I nodded.

“So,” Miss Webb said, turning to Astarte, “you were once a goddess of Mesopotamia, Assyria … Babylon—you must know a way to stop this?”

Astarte shrugged. “All those who caused the calamity can be offered up in appeasement. Sadly, we don’t know who is responsible.”

“And even if we did … we can’t send them to their execution without a trial first,” I said.

Astarte rolled her eyes. “Then there is divine intervention, but there’s not a lot of divine lying about. Of course, we could try to derail it, end the calamity before it grows into something bigger.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like a full-blown, world-ending apocalypse. And before you ask, I have no idea how to stop it. In theory, if we stop the last signs from happening, the apocalypse won’t happen.”

“Signs?” Sally asked. “What do you mean, signs?”

“So far,” I said, “we’ve had an earthquake, the sky fell, we’ve drunk sour wine … Oh, and matricide. Let’s not forget matricide. There will be three more signs before Tiamat shows up.”

Sally tilted her head. “Tiamat?”

“Kraken,” I said. “They’ve unleashed the kraken.”

“OK,” Sally said with far less expression than one facing a raging monster should show.

“If the signs occur before dawn, then Tiamat will appear,” Astarte said.

“And if they don’t?” I asked.

“She will return to the deep.”

EightBall sighed in relief before looking over at Penemue, who wore the same expression of dread on his face. Taking his cue from the angel, EightBall’s face resumed its look of fear.

“And these other signs,” Sally said, “what are they?”

“Only three signs remain: the Blood Moon, the Rising of the Beast and the Rain of Frogs.”

“Frogs? As in Kermit?” I asked.

“If this Kermit is as fierce as a lion and as graceful as a gazelle and as merciless as all-consuming fire.”

“He mostly likes to sing.”

“Then, no … not like Kermit.” Astarte looked down, and all guile, all seduction, drained from her face. She nodded and pressed her hands against her thigh, and for a moment I didn’t see the demigoddess of lust or the queen of desire. I saw Astarte as who she really was: just a person doing her best to survive in a world without answers or meaning. She was scared. Very, very scared. “Back when the Assyrian pantheon ruled the Fertile Crescent, before humans learned the secrets of language—back then, you were brutes, not to be guided but dominated. We gave you knowledge. Civilization, culture, technology. We gave you enough so that you could understand the rules we imposed on you. They were mostly arbitrary rules put there to simultaneously tempt you and remind you we were there … And if any mortal broke them, the results would be catastrophic. What can I say? In those early days, we were petty gods.”

“What kinds of rules?” I asked.

“Things like, ‘Anyone who drinks from this sacred pool will go blind,’ or, ‘A curse on he who spills blood on the temple floor, a curse that shall pass from child to child for a thousand generations.’ When these rules were broken, we came down upon you with great plagues, terrible afflictions. The promises of death and destruction were our tools … and we always repaid human disobedience in kind,” Astarte said. “And still, humans tested us. Like children testing boundaries, they drank from where they should not, ate from what was forbidden. Desecrated what was sacred. It didn’t matter how many of them suffered boils or went blind or were cursed. Mortals always tested us. That was when my sister came up with the Pool of Urfa—”

There was a large bang against the window, but despite something being flung at it with the force of a cannonball, the window held. Sally’s gaze didn’t waver.

“You were saying …?” I prompted Astarte.

“Yes … the Pool was to be filled with Atargatis’ children. After all, it was she who gave birth to the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky.” Astarte shot me a look. “Less metaphorical than you’d think. We placed the first of her children there and threatened humanity with the End of Days should a single carp be harmed. Appease us before the Seventh Sign, or the last of the plagues will be unleashed. They usually fell to their knees and begged for forgiveness after the earthquake. And they always thanked her for saving them. My sister would arrange an offense to happen about once a generation.”

So that was it … Control humanity by threatening to destroy them, and when you benevolently didn’t, humanity would thank you by prostrating themselves with even more fervor. A divine Stockholm syndrome—I’m sure the psychologists would have a field day.

“And if they didn’t appease her?”

“Then they got this.” Astarte gestured around her. “But she always turned Tiamat back before everything got destroyed. She wanted power, but she wasn’t crazy.”

“Not before some destruction occurred,” Penemue chimed in. “The Great Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Black Death—”

“Penemue, you’re not helping.” I turned back to Astarte. “So why can’t your sister turn this Tiamat back now?”

“Because …” she whispered. “Because she ate the fish. She broke her own law. And that’s the thing about divine laws … they applied to everyone, even AlmostGods.” A tear escaped the succubus’s eye. What was that look that Marty had given me? You’re screwed now. He was right. A former goddess accidentally set off her own apocalypse, thus rendering her—the only Other who could have stopped this—useless. And if The BisMark was right, then the only other way to stop it was to offer up the guilty for sacrifice.

“So let me get this straight. Atargatis can’t stop her own apocalypse?”

Astarte nodded.   

There was another crash, and the room shook. “Don’t worry,” Sally said. “Those walls are designed to handle three minotaur charges.”

“Who comes up with that? Three minotaur charges?” I asked.

“It’s no different than measuring a car’s engine with horsepower.”

Another crash; this one caused me to lose my balance. “It’s different. Oh so very, very different. Is there anything we can do?” I asked Astarte. “And don’t say ‘Offer ourselves up.’ I’d like to leave that option as our last resort.”

Astarte shook her head, her gaze distant. “Nothing. There’s nothing we can do.”

“Don’t give me that,” I said. “We could fight the monster.”

“Yeah,” EightBall said with misplaced enthusiasm. Everyone looked at him, and he shrank back to the computer.

“Ever seen Godzilla?” Penemue said. “Think bigger.”

“Then no,” EightBall muttered.

“ ‘No’ is right,” Penemue concurred.

Another three crashes shook the room, one after another. Boom, boom. Boom! They were getting more zealous with their efforts. “Fine,” I said over the explosions of body on steel, “but we have jets and missiles and—” My words were cut off, not from another explosion, but from the absence of noise.

The world outside had gone quiet. We heard no scuffling or scraping. No cries from angry Others. No slamming against the walls or banging against the doors. Just silence … silence that was cut by a trumpet’s blast.

It reverberated through the air, electrifying it with a commanding presence that demanded attention. It didn’t come from a single source, but rather shimmied the air all around us, like a thousand trumpets sounding in a thousand places at once. The announcement of the apocalypse, in surround sound. “Is that it?” I asked Penemue.

The angel shook his head. “No, it’s not Michael’s trumpet—” And then Penemue said a word I had never once heard him utter in the seven years I’d known him. “Shit.” Shit …?

The world went quiet. Too quiet.

EightBall, still shaking from the sound of the trumpet, looked at me with hopeful eyes and asked, “I don’t suppose they went away?” He was terrified, and I had to remind myself that EightBall was still a kid. A scared kid who no more wanted to be caught up in this end-of-the-Earth crap than any of us. “We’re going to be OK now, aren’t we?” He was looking for reassurance. Reassurance I couldn’t give him.

Penemue put an arm around the boy and shook his head. “No, they are there, planning their next move. But I promise you this: whatever happens this night, you will be safe. I owe you that much.”

EightBall let out a sigh of relief, before his expression changed and he looked up at Penemue. “ ‘Owe’ me?”

“Penemue … now is not the time for paved roads and good intentions …” I started, but a thought dawned on me. Michael didn’t stop us from escaping, but he also didn’t stop the Others from chasing us. He was stuck between the metaphorical rock of human law and the hard place of celestial ways. For Michael, everything fell into a hierarchy, but every now and then, he faced a conflict he couldn’t resolve. In this case it was arresting us on suspicion of committing a terrorist act—or an apocalyptic one. Celestial law demanded the divine offenders be brought to Others’ justice.

“EightBall, any updates from Brian?”

EightBall was standing by Sally’s fancy iPad that acted as the shop’s register. “Here—look for yourself.”

“You can do that?” I asked, walking over.

“Man, there’s almost nothing you can’t do with a little bit of Wi-Fi and an iPad.”

“Magic,” Astarte said.

“No, Wozniak the Wizard,” I said. Astarte eyed me as if we were saying the same thing, and I conceded with a nod. “Sure … magic.”  

I stared at the iPad. The screen flashed to the hotel foyer—empty, save for the damaged floor and the destroyed desk that would cost me a fortune to replace. It went to the kitchen, showed a still-boiling pot that some gargoyle had forgotten to turn off. Then it flashed to the banquet hall. Again—empty, with only the carnage of the broken tables and chairs remaining. Even the stage was empty. Wherever The BisMark was, he’d taken his decor with him. “OK,” I said, “they’re not there. Then where is he blowing the trumpet from?”

“I don’t know.” Brian’s face appeared against a backdrop of hanging leather outfits, garter belts and lingerie. He adjusted his glasses. “But no one has been in the common areas for some time now.”

The screen blacked out before calling up the penthouse. It was still over-decorated with vases, paintings and artifacts that I’d seen when I was up there earlier today. Everything was just as before. Everything except the statue of the satyr that had been standing behind The BisMark’s desk. That was the only thing missing. “OK, so wherever he is, he left in a hurry and only took the statue. Are you sure you didn’t hear or see anything as to where they went?”

The screen flickered back to Brian, who was shaking his head. “Nothing. Sorry.”

“That’s—” I started, when the trumpet blew for a second time.

“Citizens of the world,” The BisMark’s voice said, booming over the speakers that were installed at the hotel. Even though his voice was distant, it sounded confident and serious. “I address you today because a great calamity is approaching the shores of Paradise Lot.” The BisMark’s face appeared on the screen, his peacock feathers no longer the audacious greens and blues, but rather more somber charcoal grays. The center strip between his lapels was a powerful shade of red, and his posture was very … presidential. I don’t have another word to describe it. He looked like he was giving the State of the Union Address.

“This event has many names,” The BisMark continued. “Ragnarök, Kali Yuga, the coming of Tzitzimitl … Revelation.”

“Holy crap,” Brian’s voice crackled in. “This guy is everywhere. Look.” The screen flicked to every major network—CNN, BBC, FOX, NHK—all of which were broadcasting the same feed of The BisMark speaking.

“The gods didn’t see it fit to take their weapons of mass destruction with them, nor did they switch them off so that they could no longer harm us after their departure. Rather, they chose to irresponsibly leave them—or her—behind.

“It started with an earthquake—the one you felt this evening—and it will end with this.” The BisMark extended his hand outward, and an image of massive amounts of water being disturbed filled the screen. Four aircraft carriers struggled to keep up with the disturbance. In the wake of the parting water they looked tiny, their combined length less than half of the ripples. A single tentacle rose from the water and swatted at the carriers, smashing the first one in half and capsizing the second one. The other two immediately slowed down.

The scene turned back to The BisMark. “The creature that approaches will end the world, starting with Paradise Lot.” He paused, letting the magnitude of his words sink in. “But it can be stopped … I can stop it. I was there when the gods created the protocols, and I know how to access the safety switches. They’re switches that I built in myself, at the dawn of time, to avoid such an event as this.

“Tiamat will arrive at dawn. It will be then that I will send her back to the deep. That I swear to you all. Until then, I ask three things of you: be patient, be brave, be diligent. The gods tried to end the world before and failed. This will be no different.

“Life will go on.

“Life will always go on.

“Thank you!”

And with that, the screen went blank. There was a moment of calm as we absorbed everything we’d just seen and heard. Then there was a screech outside, and the Others resumed their attack on Sally’s salon.

END OF PART 2

PART VII

PROLOGUE

Ten Years Later—

Astarte sits on her throne.

Before her, entwined bodies pulsate with the rush of passion. Gods and humans, Others and mortals are equal in Astarte’s temple, for equality can be measured by ambition, and everyone here has but one: pleasure.

Their ambition is fulfilled. This much is made obvious by the smells of sweat and lust overpowering the temple.

Astarte ignores the carnage of pleasure around her. Usually she would lead the festivities, but today her mind is elsewhere, distracted by memories of lovers past.

She shakes her head. It is not like her to think of before when now is so tantalizing. She needs to do something special to bring her mind to the present. Extra spice for her lustful endeavors.

As if the First Laws of Nature and Chaos hear her, an attendant approaches with news of visitors. It seems the three gorgon sisters stand at the temple door.

Mmm, gorgons … with all those appendages. This will be a wonderful night, indeed.

Astarte claps her hands in three rapid successions and her attendants begin the preparations for an exquisite orgy.

Rising from her throne, she goes to the temple gates to greet her visitors.

↔

Medusa slithers into the temple with her two sisters, Stheno and Euryale, and from the fury in their eyes, Astarte knows why they are here: jealousy. This is the second most common reason why people come.

The first is desire.

They are here because one of them has a lover visiting Astarte’s temple without them. From the rage in her eyes, Astarte knows that it is Medusa who was wronged. And her anger is focused on Astarte. The problem is, Astarte has been with so many humans, Others and gods, that she doesn’t know who they are jealous of. Nor does she care. She will deal with them as she has dealt with so many—by turning their anger into desire …

“You.” Medusa points at Astarte. The succubus prepares for the usual tirade of You thief, you whore, how dare you tempt him, how dare you take him away from me. But the gorgon says none of those things. Instead she hisses, “He doesn’t love you.”

“He loves her,” says Stheno, Medusa’s eldest sister.

“He has always loved her,” hisses Euryale.

Love? What does love have to do with a place like this? For reasons Astarte cannot place, her mind immediately goes to Gilgamesh. It has been ten years since the young king left her temple, and in that time no amount of exquisite, multiple and crescendoing orgasms have erased the memory of him. She hears that his kingdom is growing. She also hears that although he reigns over the most enlightened kingdom ever devised, he is a cruel, petty man, treating all those who oppose him with brutal finality.

Medusa’s snakes hiss in unison as she repeats, “He doesn’t love you. He loves me. Me! You’re an interim wife to be used and disposed of. Nothing more. He’ll come back to me—you’ll see. And when I’m elevated to godhood, I’ll devote all my time and power to destroying you.”

Oh, Astarte thinks, this is about Poseidon. “No need for that,” the succubus says. “Have him.”

The gorgon’s eyes narrow in confusion as several of her snakes turn their heads to see her reaction. Before she can say anything, Astarte speaks. “I don’t want him. Never did, and based on the company he keeps, I doubt I ever will. So please, take him.” She lets the words sink in before offering her final blow. “If, that is, he’ll have you.”

Medusa’s face turns red with rage, then green with envy as she screams so loud that the temple shakes under her power. Gorgons are not to be taken lightly. If they had the mind for it, they could turn Astarte and everyone else in the temple into stone. Astarte is fairly confident that she will not do so. After all, it would displease Poseidon.

But Astarte is only fairly confident, so she turns her gaze to the ground. Seeing her fear, Medusa’s lips curl upward. “You’re right,” she says. “He doesn’t want me now. But that will change. You’ll see. Come, sisters … let’s leave this loveless shell to her pathetic followers.”

Astarte watches as the three gorgons leave. This is yet another example of how love blinds you, she thinks, before her mind returns to Gilgamesh.

↔

Uruk is a great city. Magnificent ziggurats accentuate the city streets; temple towers reach for the clouds like little hands trying to catch smoke. The city is protected by the highest and strongest wall the world has ever known, while the orchards and fields surrounding the wall pronounce the peace and the goodwill other kingdoms have toward them.

But that is not what makes the city great.

Uruk is great for much less tangible and progressive reasons. Agriculture is sustained through the regular crop rotations to ensure that the land is always fertile. Gaming is regulated so that the animals have time to replenish their populations. The streets are kept clean to prevent the spread of disease. Trade is carefully monitored to avoid monopolies.

It is said that Uruk is impervious to drought or famine, that neither disease nor war can shake its foundation. It is the closest thing the humans have to immortality; as long as the gods leave the Kingdom of Uruk to its ways, it shall last forever.

Its secret is education. The Uruk schools and universities have amassed all the knowledge the human world has to offer, and they impart that knowledge to all the artisans and philosophers, teachers and doctors that pass through their halls. The best and the brightest are cultivated here, and once matured, they use their knowledge for the betterment of the city.

There is no doubt that this kingdom is the greatest the mortal world has ever seen.

At the heart of it: Gilgamesh, Uruk’s wise ruler.

But wisdom does not mean benevolence, and Gilgamesh is feared by his people. His quest for knowledge carries with it the burden of a cold and unreasonable justice.

Astarte walks into the gated city. She sees mortals going about their daily lives with downtrodden eyes. They are constantly moving, lest they draw the attention of Gilgamesh’s elite guard.

Astarte feels guilt over these people’s suffering. If only she had not tortured Gilgamesh so, perhaps he would have done what he did with peace in his heart.

She walks along the city’s pristine streets and is drawn to a small back alleyway, where several men and women burn incense as they pray. They are praying to her sister, begging Atargatis to save them from Gilgamesh. This is dangerous; there is a chance her sister will hear. After all, if Astarte was drawn to them, her sister will be, too.

Atargatis does not come. Instead, it is Gilgamesh’s feared guards who enter. Seeing the icons and smelling the incense, they act swiftly and without mercy, cutting down every one of the zealots without so much as a thought.

This is bad, Astarte knows, for to spill blood on sacred ground is to ensure the gods will hear you, and Astarte knows that her sister will answer their prayers.

Gilgamesh has never been in greater danger than he is now.

↔

Astarte wonders if she should help the wayward king. After all, his own people prayed for his death. Perhaps she should remain neutral. But she hasn’t so far, has she? Was it not her cruelty that made him the monster he is today? Perhaps if she had not been who she is, she could have guided the king, helped him become something more, something good.

Astarte does not know what to do. It has been so many years since she has seen him. Maybe she does not desire the man, but rather the memory of the man. She must know. Reaching into the well of unlimited magic, Astarte summons Gilgamesh. It takes several minutes, but in the distance Astarte can hear a horse-drawn carriage approach.

The carriage speeds toward the city center. Astarte turns herself into a little girl and stands in the road. The horses nearly trample her as they pass, and a voice from within the carriage calls for a halt. Astarte watches as the door swings out, and from it emerges Gilgamesh. But he is not the doe-eyed, naïve boy Astarte once knew and loved, but rather a man with premature crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and deep thought wrinkles across his brow. Although he is older, he is not old. This man, this king, stands stronger than ever.

Astarte will never admit this, not even to herself, but seeing her former lover causes her heart to stand still, if only for a moment.

He reaches his hand to the little girl, not knowing that she is Astarte, and asks if she is hurt. The girl shakes her head. That alone is common decency, hardly enough to show if Gilgamesh is a good man who has fallen to evil or just an evil man. He bends down, asks her if she is frightened. The girl nods. He tells her that fear is but the mind trying to protect the body. It is nothing to be ashamed of.

“Do you understand?” he asks. Again the girl nods. He removes a necklace and puts it around her neck. There is an insignia pendant attached it. “I’m sorry,” he says, “for frightening you so. Take this pendant … Wear it, so all know that you are now and forever under my personal protection.”

He stands, calling the driver before him. Then, without warning or hesitation, he punches the driver so hard that he is thrown several meters back. “Stand up,” the king says. “Next time you run through my streets, remember to take care.”

And with that, Astarte knows that he is a good man fallen to evil ways. Astarte returns to her normal form, no longer disguised as a little girl. She rolls the pendant he gave her between her fingers as she makes up her mind.

She will help this wayward king.

↔

Atargatis’ vengeance comes in the form of a man. But not any man—a beast, coming in from the west. He is unkempt and wild. He approaches the city of Uruk, terrorizing the local farmers as he calls out their great king for a one-on-one battle. It is only a matter of time until Gilgamesh answers his call. And then he will surely die.

Astarte, drawn by the power of this WildMan, goes to the fields where he has taken shelter. He lives with the animals, suckling from their teats, grazing in their meadows and eating their flesh. He is both lamb and lion. His name is Enkidu, and he is the Avatar of Chaos. Well, one of them, at least. Chaos has many guises, and the gods call upon them when needed.

Atargatis called forth Enkidu because he is the opposite of Gilgamesh. Whereas Gilgamesh is educated, Enkidu only knows what his instincts and senses tell him. Whereas Gilgamesh calculates, Enkidu acts. Whereas Gilgamesh is civilized, Enkidu is tempestuous.

And what better way to destroy civilization than to send a devastating, unstoppable storm?

Gilgamesh will not be able to defeat Enkidu with reason. And the king, despite having studied the art of war, will not be able to devise a plan that will overcome Enkidu’s chaotic nature. Of this much, Astarte is sure.

But Gilgamesh can defeat any civilized man.

And Astarte is, after all, the great tamer of men.

↔

Three days and three nights is the time it takes Astarte to tame Enkidu. Once done, Astarte slips away. She knows that her seduction has only dimmed this WildMan’s fire, not extinguished it. She also knows that if Gilgamesh is to strike, it is now. Tonight, if possible.

With limitless time to burn, she whisks away to where the king sleeps.

Seeing him sleeping there, she slides on top of him, straddling him under her powerful, experienced thighs. What is that old expression? “Fun habits never die.” Gilgamesh stirs as Astarte nibbles on his ear, and he wakes to her lips on his.

“What? Is this a dream?” the king asks in the haze of slow waking.

“No, but it can be.” Astarte’s nature takes over as she seeks to have him. What harm can an hour or two of delay be? she thinks.

Gilgamesh takes her into his arms before waking fully, but then reason and caution return to him, and he pushes the succubus off. “You left me,” he says with prideful scorn. “You don’t get to return so easily.”

He is so strong, Astarte thinks. She pats the bed next to her. “Not even if I’ve come to save your life?”

“Bahh … Nothing can kill me.” Gilgamesh stands and robes himself.

“Oh, lover … Don’t cover the best part of you.”

“What do you want, succubus?” His words may have spewed from his lips, but try as he might, Gilgamesh cannot hide the desire in them.

Astarte’s lips curl. “My sister wants you dead. My family wants you dead. And by association, so should I. But I don’t, and for the immortal life of me, I cannot understand why.” Then it comes out in a torrent of information: Chaos and Nature’s war, his role in ushering in the New Ways, Enkidu and the prayers that Gilgamesh’s people have made against their king. Everything, save two little details: her betrothal to Poseidon and her seduction of Enkidu. Why cloud his mind with thoughts of other men?

Gilgamesh takes this all in, showing neither fear nor anger. “And where is this WildMan now?”

“Sleeping in the fields beyond the north wall.”

“You say he is at his weakest.”

Astarte gets to her knees on Gilgamesh’s bed and crouches. She is almost eye to eye with the standing king. “Yes. Take out your army, cut him down and end this threat.”

“No,” Gilgamesh says.

“But tonight is your best chance. To do nothing means death.”

“But, oh dear Astarte, I plan on doing much more than nothing.”

↔

Gilgamesh’s plan is simple: meet Enkidu in the field for a one-on-one battle—but not before setting a few traps to slow him down. After all, Gilgamesh is a man who uses calculation and study as his sword and shield. The right plan can destroy the world, should it be designed correctly.

Astarte, on the other hand, knows that even in Enkidu’s tamed state, despite Gilgamesh’s tricks, he will be nearly impossible to defeat.

But Gilgamesh, twenty years older than the man she knew and a thousand times more stubborn, confident and resolute, says she cannot argue against him. “If I cannot fight the gods’ assassin and win, then what will stop them from attacking me again and again?” It is true—if he hides behind his army, he will show himself as weak, and Atargatis will send assassin after assassin. But if he wins and manages to kill the WildMan, then she will have to think about her next move. And in the world of gods and immortality, contemplation and calculation can take years. Often a lifetime, in mortal terms.

Gilgamesh is right.

Still, Astarte is not comforted. She vows that, should the WildMan start winning, she will intervene—not with seduction, but with a dagger.

↔

It is dawn. Gilgamesh stands with his back to the sun. “Enkidu,” he says, like a father to a waking child. “Enkidu, come … Wake up. You have a job to do.”

Enkidu stirs, rubbing his eyes lazily. Seeing his enemy before him, he is immediately alert—a sleeping mongrel turned attack dog. Enkidu readies himself, but Gilgamesh raises a hand. “Wait,” he says. “Surely you would like a minute to wake up, before we start. Perhaps stretch, take a piss … Do whatever you need to be comfortable. After all, I don’t want the legends to say that I unfairly attacked you.” The king’s voice is soft, caring and so full of concern that even Astarte wonders if Gilgamesh is sincere.

The WildMan narrows his eyes in confusion. Angling his gaze does little to unravel the mystery before him. And so Enkidu does what he was made to do: he attacks. But he lacks the ferocity he once possessed, his fury dulled by Astarte’s embrace.

Gilgamesh tilts his head, and the sun hits Enkidu’s eyes, blinding him just enough for the king to connect his fist with the WildMan’s nose. It splits open and blood pours out of it. A normal man would have fallen, the fight taken out of him as tears blurred his vision. But Enkidu returns Gilgamesh’s blow with his own, hitting the king on the collarbone with a crackling effect.

The king screams, pivots to one side. Enkidu sees this as an attempt to retreat and takes a step forward—and he realizes that a metal spike has gone through his foot. Gilgamesh tricked him; he maneuvered him into one of his many traps.

Enkidu steps off the spike and grapples with the king. Gilgamesh is strong. Enkidu is stronger. The two of them tumble on the earth and wrestle until Enkidu rolls onto a bed of glass—Gilgamesh’s second trap. The only problem is that the king rolls onto it, too.

Both warriors scream in pain as their skin is sliced, but Gilgamesh is a modern man who wears leather armor that protects him from most of the shards. Enkidu, on the other hand, is not. His naked body, although weathered by the elements and hardened by the sun, does not fare as well. The WildMan is hurt badly, his body a pincushion of blood.

And still he fights.

Staggering forward, he swings wildly at Gilgamesh, but his fists do not find their target. Drip by drip, the WildMan loses blood. As though life is literally flowing out of him, he falls to one knee.

Gilgamesh takes Enkidu by the hair, and the WildMan barely struggles. All that remains is for Gilgamesh to take his life.

He does not draw his knife to slit Enkidu’s throat, nor does he bring his heel close to crush his skull. Instead, he gently puts the man on the grass and starts to dab his cuts with a salve he brought for his own wounds.

Enkidu is confused. Is this a trick? Some act of final cruelty to lull him into a false sense of security, only to take his life? But Gilgamesh is not acting out of cruelty or malice—rather, out of respect.

“Come now,” the king says through bloodstained lips. “Any man who can make me bleed deserves my respect.”

Astarte is awed and confused. “But he’s your assassin.”

“Was,” Gilgamesh says. “No more.” Gilgamesh extends a hand.

Enkidu hesitates before taking Gilgamesh’s hand—the WildMan of Chaos and the King of Reason standing, bloodied face to bloodied face.

Astarte is amazed by the wisdom and the compassion of the man. She once led him astray, but he has found his way back to himself.

And with that, Astarte vows never to hurt him again. She will stand by his side and help him build a kingdom worthy of his legacy. She will not marry Poseidon. She will not ensure that her kin remain gods. What would be the point? Gilgamesh and his ways are inevitable—to fight what is coming would be akin to fighting the tide or the wind. If her kin want to hold on to their dying legacy, so be it. But they will have to do so without her.

She is with Gilgamesh now. That is where she belongs. That is who she is.

JEDI ARE NOT THE ONLY 1980S TROUPES

The attack on the Being Human Salon reminded me of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. Of course, we weren’t the three little piggies—they lived on the south side of Paradise Lot—and as for the mob outside, they weren’t the big bad wolf, either. They weren’t even a wolf pack working together to hunt us down. They were far worse.

Still, we did manage to run into the only brick house in Paradise Lot.

Sally’s reinforced salon was the brick house, and it withstood everything they threw at us. For the moment, at least, we were safe.

The Others pounded and banged on the armor-plated walls of the salon.

Bang!—a minotaur threw his weight against the wall.

Boom!—a valkyrie dropped a dumpster on the roof from an unGoneGodly height.

Buzz!—a dozen pixies, no bigger than hummingbirds, crammed into a crack in the wall, their wings whizzing.

The combined noise was terrifying. For the most part, everyone managed to keep calm. Most of us had been in a situation like this before. I had spent years in the Army; Astarte had faced more assaults on her temples than most Others; and Penemue … well, he used to live in Hell. Literally. I was worried about EightBall, but he was monitoring the security cameras and constantly updating us as to what was going on outside. Even when it was obvious and unnecessary.

BAM!—something big and strong thudded against the exterior of the salon, and EightBall looked up nervously.

“Ahhh … A giant just punched the wall. A big one, too.”

It was not necessary to know what was hitting us. And as for informing us that we’d been hit, the reverberations shaking the ground told us everything we needed to know. But at least the kid was doing something. And the one thing I learned when facing insurmountable odds was it was always good to be doing something, even if that something served no real purpose.

Bang!

“A white, hairy monster just threw a dumpster at us.”

“Wendigo,” Penemue said.

“What?” EightBall wore a confused expression.

“The only white, hairy beast is a wendigo. They’re the only beasts strong enough to throw a dumpster.”

“OK, fine. A wendigo just threw a dumpster at us.” The kid got back a bit of his defiance as he scowled at the angel. Then another explosion sounded from outside and his worried look repainted his face. “Will it hold?” he asked nervously.

“It will hold,” I reassured him, looking at Sally for reassurance myself.

Penemue walked over to EightBall. “It will hold,” he said. The twice-fallen angel was determined to keep the boy safe; he felt he owed him. “This does remind me of the assault on Heaven. Few know this, but the walls of the Great Hall were laced with steel. They were designed to withstand an assault of archangels. It stands to reason that these reinforced steel walls should do the same against the lesser creatures of ancient Greek, Mesopotamian and Sumerian cultures.”

I narrowed my eyes at Penemue and mouthed, Really?

The angel shrugged. Evidently, it was not beneath angels to tell little white lies to calm the nerves of terrified teenagers.

Sally nodded. “The angel is right. It will hold.” She spoke in a calm, even tone, and unlike Penemue who had been trying to make EightBall feel better, Sally wasn’t. She fully believed that her walls would hold.

Of all the people in this room, she was the one I couldn’t figure out. She was calmer than the rest of us. She was tough, sure, but I’d seen plenty of tough and resolved people crumble under less than this. She was completely without fear, which meant that either she had an unwavering faith in her security system—something only a fool would believe in without question—or she knew something I didn’t. That, or she was batshit crazy. Never underestimate insanity—it can be quite useful in the right situations.

Sally picked up her control panel and pushed a few buttons, which caused an air elemental who was trying to find a way in to yelp in pain. A few more pushes were followed by more cries.

“Besides,” Penemue said, “they only want Astarte and Jean. You and I are relatively safe. We may get trampled in their attempt to capture them, but we’re not actually under any threat of direct attack.”

I thought about what Penemue said. Had this been a human mob, I might not have agreed with him. Humans tend to get carried away in the frenzy of the moment, ripping away at whatever and whoever is in their way.

Others weren’t like that. I’d seen a squadron of hsigo flying monkeys carry out rescue missions without killing a single soldier in the raid. In my time in the Army, I’d faced Others whose orders were to attack human soldiers and only human soldiers. The result was a surgical strike with zero civilian casualties. Of course, I’d also been there when the objective was mayhem and carnage—a “kill ’em all” order issued by some demon commander or Fanatic or Other driven insane by the world it now lived in.

Those were rare. But when they did happen, humans were sure to broadcast the carnage all over the news.

There was a clacking against the ground that sounded like some Other was trying to dig up the cement sidewalk in front of the salon. EightBall looked at the screen in horror, and this time he didn’t try to report what kind of Other was doing what. Instead, he gulped and asked, “So we are safe?” It was clear from the way he hit the word we he was referring to himself and Penemue, and not Astarte and me.

Penemue peered through the metal slits in the shutters. “As long as we are not too close to those two”—he pointed at us—“we should be safe. The trouble is, I spotted a couple minotaurs and a centaur outside. They are inclined to trample. And as for that dragoon … it tends to wag its spike-riddled tail when mauling. So there’s that to worry about …”

“Penemue,” I said.

The angel groaned. “My apologies. It is just that I am without my bottle, and the world is always so much bleaker without my bottle.”

“Bleaker?” Astarte made the word sound as if it were an invitation rather than the unhappy word that it actually was. “Your world is bleaker? Mine is positively shattering, and you complain that you do not have a bottle while describing our evisceration?”

“Indeed.” Penemue held up an imaginary bottle.

“You would let us be eviscerated and do nothing to help?” Astarte pushed out her lips as she pouted. She took a stride toward the angel and ran a finger down his tweed vest before stopping at the bottom button, her finger swirling around the cross-indented brown fasten. EightBall gulped and adjusted his pants.

I gulped and adjusted my pants.

Sally gulped and adjusted her pants.

But Penemue just looked down at the succubus with passionless eyes. “Indeed.”

Astarte’s lips tucked back in as a look of utter rage painted her expression. “What … the … hell … is … going … on!” She stamped her foot with each word. “My old Champion attacks me. An angel of dubious morals rejects me, and the human who was supposed to be my date leaves me! I am Astarte. I am not to be treated in such a way.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Guys … we don’t have time—”

“You are but a succubus,” Penemue thundered. “My mistress is liquid and sweet and numbing.”

“Guys,” I repeated.

Astarte rolled her eyes, her tantrum building up momentum. “I am the great Succubus of Palmyra, the demigoddess of lust of Assyria. I am what desire yearns for … I am what passion burns with … I am the unquenchable thirst, the satiated hunger. I am lust! And I will not be denied … not by you or—”

As Astarte’s outburst grew, I calmly walked over to Sally. “May I?” I pointed at the remote control.

“Of course,” she said with a wicked smile. “By all means.” She flipped up the top and I pushed the red button. The siren shrieked, forcing all of us to cover our ears. Of course, the effect was worse on Penemue, but I needed everyone’s attention. And given all the grief that twice-fallen angel had given me over the years, I relished the minute’s bit of payback—even if it made my own ears ring in agony.

The siren stopped, and we all groaned. The world went silent; even the mob outside went quiet.

I let the ringing in my ears settle before speaking in a calm and measured tone. “As much as we would like to indulge our little insecurities, we can’t. We do not have that luxury.” I waited to let the words sink in. “Now that we’re all done fighting, can we please return to the apocalypse at hand? What are we going to do about it?”

“We are doing it now,” Penemue cut in. “We are doing the only thing we can. We are running.”

Sally and I both shot Penemue a look.

The angel held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “It is poor form to execute the messenger. Besides, I only speak the truth. Tiamat comes, and the only one who could stop her is guilty of raising her—”

“Giving up is not an option,” I said.

Astarte stepped forward. “I fear the angel may be right. Running is your best chance of survival. The fifth sign—the Blood Moon—will appear just before dawn.” She looked over at the clock. “We have less than six hours to stop the unstoppable. But running … You can gain a lot of ground in six hours.”

“I’m not running,” I said.

“I know,” Astarte sighed. “We’ve had this conversation before, when the Avatar of Gravity appeared. It seems that you’d rather die fighting for this slum than live a coward.”

“If I remember correctly, the last time some Other tried to destroy Paradise Lot, you got in a car and drove off.”

Astarte sighed. “Yes, I did. But this time is different. This is a family affair.” She fiddled with the pendant.

“OK. So we stay and fight. But what are we going to do? I don’t even understand what we’re up against. Back at the gala, just before the kids tried to kill their mommy, one of them referred to Tiamat as her sister. When she said it, I thought of it more as a ‘Monsters Unite’ expression of solidarity. But she was being literal, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” Astarte said. “Tiamat is my niece.”

“Your sister birthed that thing?” I thought about the size of a monster that was capable of destroying a city, not to mention the world. “But she must be”—I spread my arms—“ginormous.”

“She didn’t come out that size. She grew.”

“And the carp?”

“Also my sister’s children.” Astarte rolled her eyes. “You mortals think so organically. Remember, back when the world was young we had access to unlimited wells of time. And my sister was the goddess of fertility and agriculture. She birthed most of what you humans eat to survive.”

“Did she really?” I asked.

Astarte shrugged. “That’s what you humans once believed. Isn’t that enough?”

I looked over at Penemue, who nodded in agreement. “She’s telling the truth.”

It was my turn to shrug. “Fine … Let’s gloss over the fact that everything I’ve ever eaten is your sister’s great-great-great-grandchild. The carp. Let me get this straight … When Atargatis ate the carp, she was actually eating her child?”

“Not exactly. She ate the symbol of her child. One of the Holy Carp of Urfa.”

“Overkill, don’t you think?”

“We were a young pantheon of gods … We wanted to secure our power and did so by having grand gestures for little offenses.”

“I see.” Really, I didn’t. “And you didn’t think to mention any of this earlier?”

“I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“Really?” I asked.

“My sister has so many children; you can’t keep track of them all. I mean, do you know what it’s like to be an aunt to thousands of birds, animals and fish, not to mention some of the other, stranger creatures my sister bore? And I’m the slut … bah …” Astarte waved her hand dismissively. “Besides, she was tricked. She would’ve never willingly eaten one of her offspring.”

“But Tiamat knows and is coming to spank its mommy?” Sally asked.

“Yes. Tiamat is wrath. It’s the old way of settling anger and punishing mortals for their digressions. A long, long time ago, we placed a protection over the first generation of Atargatis’ children. Should any be hurt, Tiamat would enact revenge. She comes because she senses such a transgression has taken place. Tiamat comes because her family has been wronged, but I doubt she knows—or cares—who hurt it. She simply does what her nature dictates. Tiamat comes to punish.”

“And why can’t you stop it?” Sally asked.

“Because,” Astarte said with a heavy sigh, “a long, long time ago, I defied Atargatis and she stripped me of my powers.”

“And others in your pantheon?”

“Gone or dead. My sister and I are the last of the Assyrian pantheon.”

Silence filled the room as we all mulled over Astarte’s words. There was something wrong here. Atargatis’ reaction was too over the top given what had happened. Sure, she didn’t expect to eat one of her sacred carp and summon Tiamat, but she also acted like she couldn’t summon Tiamat. Her reaction was the difference between accidentally hitting someone while driving a car versus being responsible for hitting them with a car while being in the backseat. The former was a bad mistake, but the latter wasn’t possible. “OK, but why was Atargatis surprised?”

“Because she was tricked.”

I shook my head. “She was surprised by Tiamat coming in the first place. She even said, ‘This shouldn’t happen. Not anymore.’ Why would she say that?”

“Because we aren’t gods, and only gods can summon Tiamat.”

“But you could summon her, too … once upon a time.”

“Yes, but it’s been a long time since we had that power.”

“For thousands of years you had power. What happened?”

“Let’s just say that a long, long time ago, we picked the wrong side and lost.”

What she said was perfectly clear in its simplicity—they were once in power, and then they weren’t. “When did you lose?” I asked.

“Why does it matter?”

“It does. Please. When did you cease being gods?”

“We were never really gods. Just powerful, well-worshipped Others up for …” She searched for the word. “Promotion. But to answer your question, we lost our chance four thousand years—”

“Ahhh … so a really long time ago,” I interrupted.

“—before Christ.”

“Oh, so a really, really long time ago?” I paused as I formulated my thoughts. There was too much old stuff going on here—stuff that, if I understood the rules correctly, should no longer be allowed to happen. “What would’ve happened if someone ate the fish a hundred years ago? Or a thousand years ago? Fifteen years ago?”

Astarte shrugged. “Nothing.”

“And why is that?”

“Because,” Penemue chimed in, “there was always a god to stop her. To reverse the summoning before anyone could notice.”

“And now that the gods are gone,” Sally said, “there’s no one to override the command.”

“I don’t believe that. There’s always someone to override a command,” I said.

“How? They’re all gone,” Sally said. “Do you honestly think that there’s some Other sitting in his or her living room, watching this all unfold, completely unaware that they have the … the what? Authority to stop this?”

I snapped my fingers. “Bingo.” It was true. After the gods left, the world went into chaos. Creatures that were once charged with guarding shrines, protecting items of immense magical power, and trusted with knowledge of how the universe was made—they were suddenly thrust onto Earth. They were stripped of their titles and their responsibilities, forced to be like everyone else: mortal. They might have held onto their pride for a few years … but fourteen years is a long time to be like everyone else. Most Others lived fondly in the past, but no longer held on to any of their past responsibilities.

But it was more than that. With their gods gone, many rose in rank without realizing it. Celestial beings were governed by hierarchy. When the top slots emptied, you moved up. That was how they ordered their world. There had existed a clear chain of command, defined and divinely ordained in every pantheon. That meant that some Other out there had all kinds of authority they didn’t know about because they didn’t know what section of the pyramid above them had collapsed.

Penemue nodded. “The human Jean is correct. There is someone, but without the right documents, we cannot know who that Other is.”

“What kind of docs?” I asked.

“The celestial library, for one. Or perhaps a—”

“Grimoire of Metatron?”

“Yes, the Grimoire would help. It does map out various celestial hierarchies and …” Penemue narrowed his eyes as a realization dawned on him. “How do you know about the Grimoire of Metatron? I certainly never mentioned it to you before. I know—I have a perfect memory.”

“No …” I grinned. “No, you most certainly never did.”

↔

I sprinted over to the computer. “Greg,” I said.

“Greg?” Penemue asked. “Who’s Greg?”

“Yeah, that little Jedi wannabe—”

“And my date,” Astarte said.

“And Astarte’s date—left around when everything kicked off. And that after he got all excited about the ceremony, the guest of honor and the whole hubbub. He kept talking about how this was not only the event of the year, but of the century. What did he say? The first true feast, not only since the gods left. He knew something was coming.” I snapped my fingers at EightBall. “Ask Brian if there’s any footage of Greg before and after the earthquake.”

“On it, boss,” the kid said with a salute.

“He knew Astarte and Atargatis were sisters. And I’m willing to guess that he knew there’d be trouble, too.”

“Here’s the last footage of Greg right before the earthquake,” EightBall said, handing me the iPad. On it was a very nervous Greg walking into the kitchen.

“Either he knew something was up and went to the kitchen to confirm it, or … he had something to do with it. Either way, he has answers.”

“Are you saying that Greg did this?”

“No, he couldn’t have done this alone. He didn’t have the influence to have Atargatis be the guest of honor, nor that the main course be carp. This stinks of The BisMark … But even a master logician needs minions. And Greg definitely gives me that minion vibe.”

“OK, so we find my wayward date. He could be anywhere in the city, trembling in fear,” Astarte said, before muttering, “Such a shame—he could’ve been trembling under me in ecstasy.”

Sally rolled her eyes. “Oh please.”

“Sure, he could be anywhere,” I said. “But where would you go when the world was ending and there was no chance of escape?”

“Home,” EightBall sighed.

“Exactly. Home … That’s where we’ll find him. And I know exactly where he lives. He told me just after he warned me about you and your sister.”

Astarte shrugged. “Knowing where he is doesn’t help … not when that is outside, waiting for us.”

“Maybe, but I’ve got a plan.”

↔

I’ve never claimed to be a master strategist. At best, I’m a brawler. So when I suggested a plan straight out of The Dukes of Hazzard, I figured everyone was going to laugh at me. They didn’t. Well, not all of them, at least.

The plan was simple: disguise Sally as Astarte and EightBall as me, and have Penemue fly off with them in his arms. Astarte and Penemue both thought the plan was a stroke of genius. Sally, EightBall and IT support were another story.

“That’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard,” Sally said.

“It’ll work.”

“How do you know?”

“Because these are the same guys who thought the Trojan Horse was genius, fell for a wolf in sheep’s clothing and read Little Red Riding Hood like it was some sort of cautionary tale.”

To me, it was a no-brainer. Get the other three out safe and sound, and stay behind to deal with the mess. I figured the worst that could happen was our ruse immediately being sniffed out, and the Others wouldn’t go chasing after the glimmer that wasn’t Astarte and me. They’d know that we were still inside, and we’d be in exactly the same place we were before I decided to invoke the Ghost of 1980s TV Troupe Past. But even if that was the case, we’d still be better off. EightBall and Penemue would be safe. Sally, too—not that she factored too much in my calculations.

So I started going about looking for the right fashion accessories to get this done, when Sally put a hand on my wrist and said one word.

“No.”

COOKIES AND MOPEDS

“No.”

Sally walked over to me, and her eyes locked with mine. I’m not a tall guy. Depending on my shoes, I might break five-eight. When I need to, I can be intimidating. I’ve stared down dragons and had metaphorical pissing contests with archangels. I know how to use my stare, and it is mighty.

But looking down at the five-foot-nothing salon purveyor proved to be one of the tougher tests of will I’ve engaged in. “No,” she repeated. “No.”

“What’s your plan? Sit here and what … wait?” I didn’t look away. Rule number one when trying to convince a strong personality to go along with your halfcocked plan: exude certainty, convince them that you’re one hundred percent sure of what you’re doing. Anything less, and they’ll feel your uncertainty and dig in their heels.

Sally didn’t say anything; she was stonewalling. That would have been fine with me, but we needed Sally to cooperate if the plan was going to work. She needed to play the part of Astarte. She also needed to teach me how to get the Being Human Salon defenses back online just in case our plan didn’t work.

“What’s your plan?” I repeated, throwing as much force into my voice as I could. “And what exactly is your objection? You afraid they’ll get you? You already know it’s not you they want. It’s us. Maybe it’s that you can’t stand the idea of dressing like an Other. Well, let me tell you something ... That Other may be a sex-crazed succubus, but at least she accepts others the way they are. That makes her way more human than you.”

I shouldn’t have been riling her up. I shouldn’t get her mad. Angry people don’t think straight. They dig in, and I needed her to cooperate. But the trouble was that I was angry—angry at the situation outside, angry that some Other with obscure plans was trying to destroy the world.

Angry that I was, yet again, in the middle of it.

Sally didn’t act angry. She didn’t even raise her voice. “No,” was all she said before turning and walking into her office in the back.

Normally when someone wasn’t on board with some harebrained scheme, I’d either go on without them or abandon the plan altogether. I couldn’t do either. This was the best plan we had, and as for going on without her, that wouldn’t work for two reasons. One, we needed her, and two, she had the remote control to her completely over-the-top security system, for whose completely over-the-topness I was at this very moment thanking the GoneGods.

I could force the remote control out of her hands, but that wasn’t my style. I was her guest, and the last thing I was going to do was rob the lady in her own home. So I followed her to the back office, hoping I’d come up with something that would convince her to play along.

↔

It turned out I didn’t have to say anything. As soon as we were alone in her office she raised a hand, silencing me before I could speak. “If this threat is as big as you say, the Army will be sending in troops,” Sally said. “We’ll wait until they get here.”

I took a deep breath, calming myself. Then I shook my head. “The Army will only make things worse. Believe me—I know.”

She nodded. She’d seen enough of how the Army dealt with Others to know I was right. “Still,” she said. “What are you going to do about it? Go off and—”

“Get that damn book from Greg. Find out what he knows. But more importantly, find out who can stop Tiamat.”

“It won’t work.”

“Maybe … But that’s not all we can do. We’ll find a way to stop the last of the signs from culminating and—”

Sally snorted. “That’s like trying to battle a sandstorm with a butter knife.”

“I’d rather do that than sit here and do nothing. Look, I get that you don’t like me. I don’t particularly like you, either. But you have to see how this plan is our only hope. You won’t be in any more danger than you are now, and I’ll be free to help instead of trapped in here with you. Besides, what do you care what happens to me?”

She narrowed her eyes and angled her head. “Of course I care what happens to you.” There was softness in her voice, but also confusion on her face.

I took a step back. I was absolutely at a loss as to why Sally cared. I ran my hand through my hair, took a step back, tried to figure out what was going on—and for the first time since entering in her office, I looked around. I mean, actually looked around. We were in a typical office: a square room with a small desk facing the door, files sitting on shelves behind the desk. Hell, it even smelled like an office. Musky, its walls absorbing the smell of percolated coffee that had seeped into the drywall.

And then there were the walls. There were no plaques of achievement or family photos; they were completely bare except for one small chalkboard on the wall opposite the desk. It was one of those “Today’s Special” menu boards that you might find in any café or restaurant in the world, its black face still stained with white and pink chalk erased long ago. The old board was empty … except for the name of the restaurant at the top: Hot Mama’s Cookies.

The name snapped with memories from long ago, when I was young and Bella was alive and the Others had yet to come.

My PopPop used to take me there for a treat—a reward for my little league team winning, a consolation when we lost. Sometimes I’d go there after school and have a hot chocolate, the only thing I could afford on my meager allowance. When I got older, it was my go-to place for dates with Bella. She loved the chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies. I was happy with an oatmeal cookie, a glass of milk and a chance to see her smile.

That’s why Sally looked so familiar. She was Mama, the woman behind the till—and I didn’t recognize her. Sure, it had been fourteen years since I last saw her, but it was more than that. She was different then. Smiled more, wore an apron over summer dresses—not the dresses and layers of makeup that was her uniform now. Then she was young, now she was worn. And not the worn that comes from the passage of time. It was a worn that betrayed how hard the last fourteen years of her life had been. How much she must have struggled to hold on to something she loved.

When the Others came, she lost her business, her community, everything. I guess we all dealt with loss in our own way. And here I was, judging her. Sure, her mission was horrible and evil, but she had her reasons. Human reasons. In my own mission to help Others and to keep my promise, I forgot that it wasn’t just Others who had lost so much. Humans lost, too.

Sally lost, too.

“Mama?”

The older woman’s hard look all but disappeared. It was as if hearing that old name somehow melted away the hate and anger that had colored so much of her last fourteen years. She didn’t acknowledge what I called her, but I could sense that something had suddenly become very different between us. She put both hands flat on the desk and took in a deep breath. “You’re dead set on this ridiculous plan, aren’t you?” Sally’s words jarred me back to the present.

I nodded. “I have to do something,” I muttered. “I can’t let this happen. I need to at least try to save my city … my hotel, my business, my home.”

“And if I don’t agree?”

“I’d find another way out of here and over to Greg’s. One way or another, I’m going,” I said. “And this plan, as ridiculous as it sounds, is our best bet. I know … I’ve lived amongst the Others for years now. I know how they think.”

“OK,” she sighed. “All right … Let’s say this works and they all disperse. What next? Are you going to walk the eight miles to Greg’s apartment?”

“We’ll run,” I said, but I couldn’t deny she was right. It would take us a couple hours to get there, and then what? We had six hours, and that would waste a full third of the time we had left. For the first time, I felt the magnitude of what we were facing. Maybe, if we had more time … But we didn’t. We were screwed, but still—I had to do something. I looked away.

Sally stared at me for what felt like an eternity before shaking her head in what I thought was going to be a renewed protest. Instead, she simply sighed. “Fine.” She shook her head and slammed a fist on her desk. “Fine,” she repeated. “But if you get killed, I will not accept an iota of blame. Do you hear me?”

I nodded.

“And you are most certainly not going to run eight miles.”

↔

While Sally and I had been debating the merits of my plan, the others were dipping into Sally’s accessory supplies—supplies I apparently owed her a full price for, should we survive the calamity. I witnessed the transformation of Astarte from a sex goddess and Queen of Lust into an evangelist in pajamas and fluffy slippers. “I’ll need better shoes,” she said, and Sally pointed to the back of the store.

Sally’s transformation was a bit more dramatic. She cursed me as she put on leather pants, a PVC tank top, and slicked back her hair to mimic Astarte’s androgynous hairstyle. It was ironic that despite disguising herself as an Other—something she hated—Sally looked good. OK, “good” might have been a stretch.

She must have liked the way she looked, because she kept eyeing herself in the mirror. Like Astarte always said, “Leather is liberating.”

EightBall and I exchanged his hotel uniform for my white tux. Then we covered his facial tattoos with the Being Human’s makeup stock. We also found a wig of brown hair that, with liberally applied glue, looked decent enough on EightBall’s shaved head.

“Do I really have to wear this?” he groaned. “I look like a fool.”

“Yes, you do.” I patted him on the shoulder and pulled out the Bluetooth earpiece. Putting it in my ear, I looked in the mirror. It felt good to be out of the tuxedo shop’s reject and back in my hotel uniform. EightBall’s collarless black jacket was a bit tight, but after what I had been in, I’d take tight over blindingly white.

With the two of them ready, it was time for the grand exit. Astarte leaned in close. “Medusa would’ve loved this.”

Crap. Medusa. In all the excitement, I’d forgotten about her. Again. “Yeah,” I agreed. “She would. OK, you guys ready?”

Penemue nodded, and with hardly any effort picked up Sally in his massive arms. For a moment, they looked like a Harlequin Romance novel cover. As was evident by her blush, Sally must have realized this. Penemue shifted her to one arm and put another arm around EightBall. “Both of you, hold on. I’ll need a running start for this to work.”

Penemue charged, and at the last possible moment I pushed a button on Sally’s control panel and the reinforced door opened up. The angel burst through, knocking over a valkyrie and a dwarf before taking to the sky. By the GoneGods, he had power. Astarte, looking like Sally, cried out, “Stay out of my salon, you filthy world breakers!” I pushed another button, which immediately slammed the front door, locking us in.

“Hey,” the dwarf cried out, “they’re escaping.”

“After them!” cried a minotaur. And with that, the mob of Others chased after the flying angel.

I jumped over the desk and looked at the security monitors. The Others were running after them. Holy guacamole, it worked.

“I can’t believe it—your stupid plan worked,” Brian sighed.

“Hey!” I said, “never underestimate the ’80s. Never!”

Hellelujah!

HAIRY MEN, BULLS AND THE PREDATOR THREE

With the coast clear, I grabbed the iPad and put it into one of the salon’s gaudy handbags. I also grabbed Sally’s keys and opened a trap door that led to a small underground garage where a moderately fast and highly fuel-efficient pink Vespa was parked.

A small ramp led up to an aluminum gate. Behind that was the main street. I pushed the little red button on the remote control that was strapped to the front panel, and the metal gate rolled up.

I got on and Astarte slipped on behind me, her thin arms wrapping around my waist. She pushed herself in close, or pulled me back into her—either way, I felt the small of my back slot into her pelvis region like we were two Tetris pieces meant to be together. This was Astarte’s thing: to make everything about sex, no matter what else was going on. Even though I was used to Astarte’s thing, these little moves still got to me. But can you blame me? I still had a pulse—not that that mattered to Astarte. If anyone could bring back the dead in a fit of raging desire, it was her. All that having a pulse meant was that I had little to no chance in not being affected by her thing.

I twisted back the throttle. It puttered forward. “Shadowfax,” I cried out, “show me the meaning of haste!” And with that we were on our only-slightly-faster-than-jogging way.

As soon as we got out of the garage, a giant taloned claw swiped at us. A chimera was waiting for us. I guess my little Dukes of Hazzard scheme didn’t work as well as I had hoped.

Hellelujah!

↔

Chimeras have three heads—one of a lion, one a dragon and the last a ram—as well as bat wings and a scorpion’s tail. With the exception of the ram, they were a hodgepodge of predatory animals. But a ram was deadly in its own right. Rams, after all, could crush a human’s chest with a single head-butt, and were excellent climbers as well. Don’t discount the ram. After all, it was the ram’s head on this chimera that slammed against a parked car, flipping it thirty feet in front of us and right in my path.

I swerved to the right, narrowly missing the rolling car. “Holy—”

“—shit,” Astarte finished.

I stopped the bike and stared back at not one, but three chimeras—that’s nine heads, for anyone counting—all galloping in our direction.

But the other thing about chimeras—the part of their hunter makeup that wasn’t rooted in mortal animals—was their skin. They were made from a creature that I have never seen because, as legend has it, they’re invisible. As in, permanently not visible. Chimeras’ skin was made from that unseen creature, making them excellent at camouflage. And I don’t mean the kind of camouflage that comes from fatigue colorings that hide you from plane or satellite surveillance. Nor am I referring to chameleon-style camouflage. I’m talking Predator, shimmers-of-disturbed-air-style camouflage. A chimera could be right in front of you and you wouldn’t know it was there. Hell, you could witness a chimera disappear right before your eyes, know the exact spot where they vanished, and you’d still struggle to know exactly where they were. After all, they could have moved.

There is only one way to fight a chimera: run.

I gunned the moped for all it was worth, willing its meager 50cc engine to find speed it did not know it had. I prayed, not to the GoneGods—I’d never pray to them again—but to the Honda manufacturers that on the day this pink Shadowfax of a moped was made, the engineer was bored and put a little extra oomph in the engine. I looked behind me and saw nothing, but I heard the pitter-patter of leathered feet on asphalt behind us, and I prayed that that same engineer had put a whole lot of extra oomph in the engine.

And still it puttered on. The hair raised on the back of my neck as the pitter-patter grew from a canter to a full-on gallop. I was terrified—so terrified that I almost didn’t notice the little red button in the middle of Sally’s dashboard. What was up with this woman and little red buttons?

I pushed it and—boom!—the moped sputtered, then spat and burst into life. We went from barely breaking forty miles an hour to hitting almost eighty. Man oh man, this thing was fast. I thought we’d be in the clear—after all, how many Others can actually run eighty miles an hour and sustain it for long?—when I heard Astarte yelp in pain. She clenched me tighter and screamed, “Swerve.” I guess the chimeras had cheetah legs.

I swerved. The bike turned to the right and then the left, and had it not been for my military training, I would have wiped out. But we had been taught how to do a controlled swerve, and I just managed to keep the vehicle upright.

Hellelujah!

“What’s going on?” I cried out.

“They’re right behind us,” she yelled and, pulling out a long knife from only the GoneGods knew where, threw it to our left. The blade stuck in midair as I heard the simultaneous cry of pain from a lion, dragon and ram. “There’s still two more,” she yelled out.

“OK,” I said, “I’ll keep swerving.” Except I knew that this strategy wasn’t a good one. It would only be a matter of time before one of the chimeras got in a well-timed swipe, or I lost control of the moped. Not a sustainable strategy at all.

We needed to stop and fight.

I looked for a place where we could get our backs against a wall. Stand up and fight these things. But I heard another yelp, followed by a bone-crunching squeal. In the rear-view mirror, I saw the WildMan standing there—he was wrestling with thin air … and winning. Then he toppled over as he was tackled by an invisible creature; the third chimera had stopped pursuing us to help its friend.

I stopped the bike and thought about going back to help the WildMan.

“No,” Astarte said. “Just go. He can handle himself.”

“But—”

“Just go!” she screamed, using every ounce of majesty in her. I felt compelled to go, and I pulled back on the moped’s throttle.

↔

We sped along the street past the other shop fronts, most of which now catered to Other needs: the Perked Café, the Stalker Steak House, an elven theatre, a church where the Others were trying to pray the gods back.

“Who is that guy?” I had to yell to be heard over the rush of air. Even at the low speed that was Shadowfax’s maximum, it was hard to be heard.

“Who?” Astarte said, as if we had not just been attacked by three chimeras and saved by a man in a red spandex speedo. She laced her hands around the lower part of my stomach, and every time the moped hit a bump in the road, they brushed against my groin, causing my pants to tighten ever so slightly. I lifted her hands up to my chest, and now they were rubbing against my nipples with skin-hardening accuracy. GoneGodDamn it, I thought. I resigned myself to the sad fact that there was nowhere Astarte could touch me without it turning me on.

I groaned and repeated my question. “Don’t play games. He shows up at the docks, then again here. Who is he? And don’t say a former lover. That’s a given. I want to know what he has to do with all this.”

I felt Astarte shrug and put her lips against my ear. “Je ne sais pas.” The word came out soft, hardly a whisper. I guess the succubus could seduce the wind when she needed to.

“Come on, be serious.”

“I am. He is my former lover.” One of her hands unlaced and presented itself in front of me. The pendant that he had taunted her with at the dock flapped in the wind. “But that particular lover died a long, long time ago, so it cannot be him. Not unless …” Her voice trailed off. “Unless things are more dire than either you or I could imagine.”

“Dire? How so?” But Astarte did not answer. I gripped hard on the brakes and jumped off the bike. “We don’t have much time, and that creature has something to do with all of this. I need to know and you need to tell me. Now!”

At first Astarte took her typical defiant stance, like she was going to tell me I had no right to question her or demand knowledge not meant for mortal ears. But Astarte and I had played that song and dance enough times in the past that she knew she couldn’t get away with it. We were not negotiating another room at the Millennium Hotel. We weren’t arguing about her need to keep the moans and groans of her latest orgy down so that the other guests could sleep. We were talking about the end of everything. And she knew she had lost the right to silence when she agreed to help me out, or let me help her—which amounted to the same thing, in this case.

She nodded. “Man,” she said. “That creature is as human as you are and as human as I am not. His name is Enkidu and our story is a long one. But do not worry, Jean.” She dismounted the moped like she had been straddling it to exhaustion and walked over to me. “I have ways of telling you that are far more efficient than words.” Before I could protest, she kissed me.

The kiss wasn’t sensual, nor was it particularly passionate. It certainly didn’t arouse me. And then images—no, more like memories—started swimming in my head. Astarte was talking to me, using some form of Other communication.

My mind filled with present images—memories that were not my own, but felt as though they were happening now: I see two men, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, being attacked by a creature they call the Bull of Heaven. They pierce its flesh with sword and spear, deflecting its attacks with shield and agility, but it’s not enough. How can two men fight such a powerful creature with only mortal weapons?

Eventually, the Bull of Heaven wears them down and, victorious, stands over Gilgamesh with a gaping mouth, about to consume its prize. Astarte appears, running into the forest with unnatural speed. She pulls Enkidu and Gilgamesh back and the Bull pursues. It is faster than her, and she is encumbered by two large warriors who are so exhausted they cannot even get to their feet to walk away, let alone run. Astarte turns to fight the Bull, but there is no hope. She cannot win. She knows this. Enkidu knows this. But she is not going to let the Bull take her companions. She lifts her arms up in a fighter’s stance. But before she can swing her sword, Enkidu uses the last of his strength to push her out of the way. Then, standing in front of the beast, he stretches out his arms and cries out, “Enough.” Enough. He is surrendering.

One moment he is standing there, the next he is consumed by the great Bull, who, satisfied with the sacrifice, saunters into the forest. The last thing I see and feel is Astarte holding a wounded Gilgamesh as she cries in utter abandonment.

They say that eighty percent of a conversation is done through gestures and body language. Astarte’s kiss was more like a conversation on overload, because the flashes of knowledge didn’t just show me things … they made me feel them, as well. I smelled everything she smelled, felt everything she felt, experienced every emotion she had experienced, exactly as she had experienced it. So when Gilgamesh fell, I felt her fear, knew how devastated she would be to lose him. Astarte, the being who expounded passionately about lust, was in love. Mind-numbing, all-consuming love. I knew what that felt like: It was a feeling I had for Bella … have for Bella. And it was a feeling that I was starting to feel for Medusa, too.

What Astarte felt for that once-upon-a-time king was no less.

The next real emotion that came was when Enkidu stepped into the mouth of the Bull. There I felt another kind of love: a love for a friend, a companion. It was another kind of love I knew. I had felt that kind of love before, too. For PopPop, for Miral and TinkerBelle and CaCa and Sandy. Even for Judith. It was the love you reserved for your family. And what I felt at that moment was powerful.

The memories stopped and I wiped away tears from my eyes. All this from a kiss … I shuddered and tried to step forward, except my legs wouldn’t work. In the crushing tsunami of memories, I had fallen to my knees and didn’t even know it. Astarte extended a hand to help me up.

“My sister wanted Gilgamesh dead. The Bull of Heaven was my sister’s last attempt to kill him,” Astarte said. “Enkidu willingly sacrificed himself to save Gilgamesh. Such a sacrifice does not come easily, for when the Bull consumes you, it feasts on your soul for eternity. He should not be here.”

My head still swam with her memories and I sought to make sense of it all, just as she did. “When the gods left, wouldn’t that negate his punishment? Or at very least stop the magics that held him?”

Astarte considered this. “I suppose that’s possible, but it doesn’t explain why he wasn’t released when the gods left. The gods have been gone for fourteen years, and he has only come to me now.”

“Maybe he got out right away, but he only sought to come out of hiding now, when he sensed what was happening. Or maybe The BisMark’s plan to use the Sacred Carp of Urfa somehow set a release mechanism. Either way, he appeared because of what’s going on.”

“Perhaps, but even so … What’s his purpose? To kill me?”

“Maybe. Maybe thousands of years in the belly of the Bull drove him crazy. But I’ve been replaying what happened at the dock over and over in my head—I’m not entirely sure he was trying to kill you.” Astarte shrugged. “I don’t deny he’s violent, but think about it: he didn’t just attack you—he was trying to stop the popobawa from driving away with the fish. He knew that a sacred carp was in the van.”

Astarte considered this, a pained expression on her face. “Oh, how he must have suffered.”

“And just now … he didn’t attack us. He took down the chimeras. He saved us,” I said.

She looked back from where we came. Enkidu was nowhere in sight.

“Either way …” I said, rubbing my temples. My head hurt from trying to reason out what was happening. Gods and logic didn’t always go hand in hand, and I simply didn’t feel smart enough to put myself in celestial shoes and figure this out. “The mission stays the same.”

Astarte nodded and walked over to the bike. She threw a leg over the seat, straddling the moped as if she were preparing for the ride of her life. With a sly smile, she patted the seat in front of her. “Let’s go,” she said. I sat in front of her and touched my lips. I could still feel her kiss. I wondered, if she could do all that with just a peck on the lips, what she could do when she used her whole body.

Hellelujah!

↔

We rode out of the city core and headed toward the eyesore in the distance. The skyscraper stood two miles to the west, about a mile from the ocean’s Promenade. Before the gods left, the building was seen as Paradise Lot’s attempt to claim major city status. Of course, one skyscraper didn’t do it, but it was a start. The city council, on advice from some Swedish architectural firm, approved the Ladder, a building aptly named because it looked like—well, like a ladder, with every third floor acting as the next rung up.

Of course, it was a ladder going to nowhere. I thought of the story of Jacob’s Ladder. He tried to create a stairway to Heaven, but like so many stories in the Old Testament, it ended badly for those who tried to climb it. With so many Others wanting to return home, I have often wondered if it was a last cruel joke performed by the now absent gods.

We drove down the empty street and up to the front door, its glass entrance locked.

Behind it sat the same popobawa who drove the delivery truck. I couldn’t hide my shock as I pressed the buzzer and waved at the bat-like creature.

The door buzzed open, and the popobawa rushed over to grab my hand. “Oh … oh!” he said. “It’s the form filler! He’s here. He’s here! Twice you grace my presence! Twice I see you.” His fish-eyes twisted around, the horizontal slips becoming vertical as his mouth pincers clicked in what I assumed was an expression of joy. Then he looked at Astarte and stopped. “How may I be of service to the Master of Master Form Filler and the Mistress Popobawa?”

“Mistress Popobawa?” I looked over at Astarte, who stared down at the little bat-like creature like he was the only creature on the planet. I was guessing that Mistress Popobawa was doing her thing—Astarte was the Queen of Lust to any and all creatures on the planet. That meant she looked like whoever and whatever you needed her to. To me, Astarte was a sultry, sexy woman with a hint of a Parisian accent. To the popobawa, she was a winged creature of immeasurable, albeit leathery, beauty.

To each their own, I guess. I shook away the thought and continued, “Do you work here?”

“Yes,” he nodded.

“And you have a delivery company?”

“Yes, Master of Master Form Filler.”

“And you work at the hospital?”

“Of course! That’s my highest honor and my namesake. A name you gave me, Master of Master Form Filler.”

“So you have three full-time jobs?”

“Six,” the humanoid bat clicked. “I also clean the bathrooms of those who live here and wash the dishes for Mistress Sandy. I sort recyclables from non-recyclables in the city dump and dig graves at dawn for the cemetery.”

“Do you like all that work?” I asked.

“Oh no”—he shook his head—“but I have a family to feed.” He pulled out a picture of what I assumed was his apartment. It was filled with a thousand bats, all hanging from his ceiling.

“Interesting,” Astarte moaned.

“These bats are your family?” I asked.

He clapped his hands together and nodded. “After the darkness came and I was forced to leave my home, I was cast out here. I was alone and frightened until I found my adopted family, the AlwaysMortal bats of Earth. They are so kind, so generous … but also so fragile. I take care of them. I feed them bugs, lots of bugs. Bugs are expensive.” So that was it—this little guy came to the mortal plane and saw the typical bat as a member of his kin. And he worked six crappy jobs that most humans wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, and some of them have leathery wings and sonar.

“What about the truck driving? How did you get that job?” I asked.

“Humans do not enjoy entering the city. But I live here. I go to the docks, the loading bays and the bridge, and load my van with the goods that the humans do not wish to deliver personally.”

“That job you did today … Who hired you?”

“Jedi Master Greg! He told me about the gala and the fish.”

“See, I told you … Greg has ‘minion’ written all over him,” I said, looking over at Astarte. I turned back to Master Form Filler. “Is Jedi Master Greg home?”

↔

The elevator was one of those sleek, personal elevators that only serviced the top floor. With a bing it opened up onto Greg’s living room. Before we could even exit the damn thing, I heard a nerdy voice call out, “It took you long enough.”

Greg.

We entered a living room that made me feel like I had died and gone to Heaven. Well, my kind of heaven. It was filled with classic arcade games—Pac-Man, Digger, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong. He even had an original Street Fighter arcade. The walls were covered with posters of The Terminator, Alien, The Abyss, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and, of course, Star Wars. Glass cases displayed mint condition Transformers, Smurfs, He-Man and G.I. Joe figures, all complete with every accessory. His collection made mine look quaint by comparison. Then there were comic books. Shelf after shelf of single-issue comics that made me drool just looking at them.

He also had collectibles. The big stuff … Ramirez’s katana from Highlander, a life-size figure of the Terminator and a rancor—the giant, reptilian monster from Return of the Jedi; the statue was a life-size sixteen-foot-tall replica and up close the beast looked like the illogical child of a lion and a potato—this guy’s apartment was huge—complete with claws and a short, thorny tail. The only variation was that a red ruby sat on the over-pronounced ridges of the rancor’s nostril slits. Star Wars bling? Who knew what these rich kids were up to these days?

I thought of Medusa and her idols theory. Greg, like me, took comfort in those statues and what they meant to us when we were growing up. But unlike me, where every toy I had was played with, Greg displayed everything behind polished glass. “Not idols,” I muttered. “Trophies.”

“Excuse me?” Astarte said.

I shook my head. “Nothing … Look.” I pointed beyond the Valhalla of geekery to the balcony where Greg stood.

He was still in his Star Wars robe and held a straight, silver trumpet. For an instrument that heralded the End of Days, it looked remarkably like the ones football fans like to blow. He fiddled with it. “Can you believe it? He let me blow it. You must have heard it. He let me herald what’s to come. I’m the Nostradamus comet heralding the coming of the Destroyer … I’m the Silver Surfer announcing the arrival of Galactus.” He dropped the trumpet and pointed to the sea.

Paradise Lot was built on an island the shape of a teardrop, roughly seventy by thirty miles; most of the population lived in the swelling bulb of the tear. The Promenade sat on the outer curve of the swell. Standing on the top floor of the Ladder, I could see almost the whole city, its light springing up from the host of buildings that rarely broke five stories—a thousand tiny beams that came from the windows of living rooms, bedrooms and kitchens all over the city. And sitting in each light was a living, breathing creature—be it human or Other. The sight was breathtaking, and the thought that this soft glow was the amalgamation of so much life was awe-inspiring …

But all of that was completely overshadowed by the massive mountain of water that lumbered toward Paradise Lot. Given that we were a couple miles away, whatever was big enough to churn the water the way it did was friggin’ huge.

“Look,” Greg said, “she’s coming. She’ll be here in a few hours, and then … Man oh man, Godzilla’s got nothing on her.” He giggled when he saw us.

“What’s going on here, Greg?” I asked.

“Why, I lured you here to distract you, of course. The way the boss figured it, you were our only real threat and I had to get you away from the beach to keep you away.”

“See? Minion,” I said to Astarte.

“Let me guess: you’re here for the Grimoire. The one I said I had. You want to know who’s next in line to stop Tiamat, right?”

I said nothing.

“Right?”

I pursed my lips and nodded.

Greg jumped up in joy. “I knew it. I told my boss that you’d take the bait. He said it should be something less subtle. That you were probably too stupid to get it. But I held my ground, and I was right!”

“And why do you want to distract me?” I asked. “Astarte I get, but me?”

“Because the boss planned this whole thing out but figured you were the wildcard in all this. You know, because of what you did the last time someone tried to destroy Paradise Lot. You’re the city’s Champion and, well, he got nervous that you’d foil his plans.”

“Foil his plans,” I muttered, hitting my hand against my forehead. Where were we? In an episode of Scooby-Doo?

“Yeah, foil … That’s why he chose your hotel and all these theatrics. Personally, I think he should have just done it all somewhere else far, far away from you. I mean, come on, picking your place is kind of setting you up. It becomes a whole ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ kind of deal.” Greg shrugged. “But then again, what do I know? I’ve only been around for three or so decades … These guys, they’ve damn near lived forever.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever … Fine, you got me. I’m here.” I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Now what?”

“Now we wait until the boss finishes up.”

“You keep mentioning a boss … Who’s that?” Astarte asked. She was edging forward, trying to get herself in position to pull him down.

“Who else? The Emperor.” Greg let the word hang in the air before cracking up. “Just kidding.”

“Why, Greg?” I asked, stepping onto the balcony.

“Why not?”

Astarte moved to his side, and as she drew near, he pulled something out of his pocket with a dramatic whoomp! “Step back,” he said. A red streak of light shot up. He held up a toy lightsaber.

“You’ve got to be joking,” I said.

He laughed and turned off the lightsaber. “Yeah, I am. But you should’ve seen the look on her face! Oh, come on. Lighten up. It’s only the end of the world!”

“Greg, why?” I repeated. “I thought you were a Jedi.”

“Bah, Jedi are lame. Now, the Sith! They’re much more interesting.”

“Sure, Greg,” I said. “But even the Sith didn’t want to destroy all life. They just wanted to rule it. Why did you do this? Why did you switch out the fish?”

“And abandon our date?” Astarte added.

Greg laughed. “Oh, honey …” His voice dripped contempt. “You’re not as spellbinding as you think you are.”

Astarte growled, and Greg leapt onto the railing of the balcony and precariously balanced on its ledge. “This is the part where I say, ‘Take another step and I’ll jump.’ ”

He wobbled with one foot on the edge. “Did you really come all this way just to get your hand on the Grimoire?” He pointed at his bookshelves. “OK—go on, then. It’s in the back. I didn’t even bother to hide it. Nothing can stop her now.” He pointed behind him to the mountain of water that approached.

The giant bulb of water was still a fair distance off the shore and still it towered at such a height as to make the Ladder seem like a modest apartment building instead of the skyscraper it was. I had seen images of Tiamat’s approach on Sally’s iPad; I thought I had a handle on the enormity of the creature, but actually seeing how it pushed up the water as it came toward us made me realize that television did not do it justice—even in HD.

Waving his toy lightsaber, he pointed at me. “Five more hours to go. I think my master and I are doing pretty good.”

“You have a master?” I asked.

“In a way. My master is an Other and therefore isn’t used to the mortal world. That gives me certain”—Greg paused as he searched for the word—“advantages. My master might be using me, but I’m using my master right back.” Greg cocked a devilish grin.

“Humph,” Astarte snorted. “Tell that damned BisMark that—”

Greg held up a hand. “BisMark?”

“Yes,” Astarte jeered, “tell your master that—”

Greg broke out into chortles. “BisMark, my master? He’s a pompous ass. No, my master is someone a lot more …” He searched for the word before finally settling on, “fun.” Then he sneered, exposing straight, white teeth that could only be achieved by someone who spent a lot of money at the dentist’s. Damn rich kid.

He pointed his toy sword at Astarte with one hand as he fumbled with something under his robe. “There are more villains than your imagination can conjure,” he said. “You know, when the gods took off, they left behind all their toys. Tiamat, sure … But also Ragnarök, the Beast. Even the Bull is in hiding somewhere in the mountains of Palmyra. So many toys to pick from, but my master chose Tiamat because of you. You are so desperate to know who’s behind this … Look in the mirror, sister. This is all in your honor.”

Astarte put her hands against her chest. “I’m not your sister …” she moaned, then her voice dropped as she pulled at the top button of Sally’s shirt. “Not unless you want me to be.”

Greg groaned, momentarily distracted, before shaking his head. He clipped the still-lit lightsaber to his belt. Then he pulled out a slingshot from under his robe. “My master told me you’d try to distract me.” He loaded his slingshot with a rock. I took a step forward and he held out a finger. “Ah, ah, ah … Seems I’ve run out of time,” he said, looking at his wristwatch. “Before I go … I got one question for you, Jean. Can you fly?”

“No,” I said, confused.

“Good.” He shot the stone from his sling. It flew past my head and into his living room, where it hit the strange rancor statue in the chest. “Damn it,” he sulked, “I practiced to get that right.”

“Practiced what?” I said, edging forward. Astarte, who had also been edging toward Greg, was now looking behind her at the rancor statue. She wore a perplexed look on her face. “Practiced what?” I repeated.

Astarte shrieked, “Stop him! He must not hit the statue!”

“What?” I said, taking my gaze off Greg and looking at Astarte. Her eyes were wide open as she reached for Greg, but it was too late. Greg had managed to fire off another stone—this time it knocked off the weird red gem on the rancor’s head.

I lunged at Greg, but he leaned back and fell off his balcony. I got to the edge and watched as the light from his red lightsaber twirled down like a spinning glow stick, except instead of plummeting forty-seven stories down, he stopped. From the glow of his Sith weapon, I could see that he had been caught by the arms of an unlikely savior—ScarFace.

Red reflected off gray stone and a pair of powerful wings as ScarFace carried Greg higher and higher until it was parallel with me.

“Time,” Greg yelled. “You’ve got to spend it to make it!” ScarFace flapped his stone wings twice and slowly flew in the direction of the beach.

“He’s getting away,” I yelled. “Astarte—grab the sling.”

“Yes, Jean,” Astarte whispered. “He’s getting away. But we, unfortunately, have bigger problems to contend with.”

There was a low growl behind me. I turned around to see the rancor no longer had that strange gem on its head. That, and the rancor was no longer a statue.

The rancor lowered its head, a growl of aggression reverberating from it.

Hellelujah!

SOME FICTION AIN’T FICTION

I always assumed Star Wars was pure fiction. The sights, the spectacle—a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away—were just part of the imagination of a certain George Lucas. But here was an Other that looked exactly like the rancor beast from Return of the Jedi. Makes sense; a universe as rich as that galaxy far, far away could never be purely fiction.

“So,” I said to Astarte, “we doing this?” I raised my fists up as the rancor tramped onto the balcony.

“No, Jean,” she said, touching the nape of her neck and pulling at her collar. “You are.” She gave me a tantalizing kiss on the forehead that was far too distracting given that there was a monster galumphing toward us.

She pushed me in the direction of the rancor.

“What are you doing?” I said, stumbling a step in the direction of the rancor. I had just enough time to turn and see Astarte perch herself on the balcony railing. GoneGodDamn she was fast.

“I think you’re right,” she said. “He is here to help.” She held out the pendant that she had taken from the WildMan at the dock and howled. I don’t mean that she cupped her hands and mimicked a wolf. I mean she actually howled, summoning some ancient voice within and letting loose a cry that demanded the world’s attention. The rancor stopped and stared in awe at the succubus. Hell, even the moon stared down in wonderment at Astarte. It felt as though everything stopped, and for as long as Astarte cried out, there was nothing for the world and all its inhabitants to do but listen.

When she stopped, the world sputtered for a moment before starting up again, returning to its usual scheduled programming—which generally meant it went back to trying to kill me.

The rancor let out a low, rumbling growl. I turned to face it just as it tried to rake one of its massive claws across my chest. The good news about this thing was it was as dumb as a rock and almost as slow. I easily dodged its claw and, feeling for a moment like Luke Skywalker in Jabba’s rancor pit, ducked between its legs and ran inside. If I was going to have a chance at beating this thing, I needed a weapon.

And Greg had weapons. Lots of them.

↔

It took the creature a moment to wipe the look of confusion off its face, turn around, and follow me into the center of the room. I dodged it when it swung at me for a second time, its claws breaking the case with the Highlander sword in it.

I grabbed the sword and, pulling it from its sheath, stood to face the rancor. In my best Sean Connery voice, I said, “There can be only one.”

The rancor apparently agreed, because as soon as those words left my lips, it rose to its full height and tried to snatch me up so it could chomp on me like a midnight snack, get pieces of me stuck between its molars and probably use my femur as a toothpick later. But I pivoted left and stabbed the creature in its side. The blade must have been sharp, because I barely had to put any force behind it. The rancor released a howl of pain. I was feeling smug until it backhanded me in the gut, throwing me across the room and back onto the balcony beneath Astarte’s perch.

At least I managed to hold on to the sword.

“Will you please help?” I said, getting to my feet.

Astarte bit her lower lip in an expression that was not appropriate for fighting a monster. “I am helping.”

“Oh yeah? How?”

“Live for a few more minutes and you’ll see.”

She pulled out two more daggers from the GoneGods knew where. We charged the creature together. I fought side by side with guys in the Army for years, and never was an attack coordinated so perfectly. The creature lumbered forward. Astarte tumbled in one direction and I in the other. We slashed at its Achilles tendons, Astarte severing the left one and I the right.

The rancor crashed to the ground like a felled Redwood and slid across the marble to the balcony railing. Astarte casually followed it, as if she didn’t have a fear in the world. The rancor stood up laboriously, flexing its injured legs until the tendons somehow repaired themselves.

“It’s a golem,” Astarte said. “It can heal any wound you give it.”

The rancor grunted and focused its beady little eyes on me with bestial hatred. Then it lunged. “Then how do we kill it?” I cried over its growls and grunts, dodging left and right.

“A lot of damage.”

“What are you doing?” I asked, using the rancor’s distraction to stab it in the chest. It lurched in pain, and I thought I had it, but then it extended its front claw and picked me up like I weighed nothing at all. It drew me close enough that I could feel the heat of its breath, a thick strand of its saliva glazing EightBall’s collarless jacket.

I was sure that in another second I would be a headless corpse, but then Astarte came crashing down on it, plunging two blades into its horny back. She stabbed the creature over and over until it staggered, finally dropping me.

“My daggers have been dipped in poison, they should kill—”

Before Astarte could finish, the creature, which had been stumbling about the room knocking over priceless memorabilia, shook off the pain and the poison. It huffed and puffed and snarled once again.

“I guess it walked it off,” I said, pushing Astarte out of the way. The rancor took a swipe at me with its huge claws. At the last second, I jumped on top of the Pac-Man arcade machine, pushed off its control panel, landed astride its shoulders and sank the sword between two armor plates, deep into the nape of its neck.

The rancor swung around, swatting me off its shoulders like a troublesome mosquito, and tumbled into the hodgepodge of comics and toys.

I watched it, expecting it to collapse in death throes. I’d put down dragons, dropped minotaurs—I even sent the archangel Raphael plummeting to the earth with a catastrophic effect. I was able to do those things not because I was super-strong or because I had some super power, but because I could instinctively sense Others’ weak spots.

But this rancor—it had no weak spot. The sword should have dropped it, but instead of dying like a good boy, it incorporated my sword into its being. I watched the Highlander sword turn a stony gray, then a marble white. The rancor turned around, and the sword hilt stuck out of its back like a part of its body.

The rancor lurched up and bellowed a cry of triumph before landing on its feet again, knocking me into a glass case that held a life-size figure of Arnold Schwarzenegger, à la Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Arnold and I toppled over one another, and I ended up facing him, his red, robotic eye staring down at me judgmentally. “I know, I know,” I said, pushing the figure off me.

I’d just about gotten to my feet when the rancor stepped on me, pinning me to the ground with its elephantine three-toed hoof. I grabbed its two lower tusks and pushed, trying to force its jaw closed, but the creature’s weight was too much. There weren’t enough bench presses in the world that would have given me the strength to keep this up for long—not that I had done many bench presses.

And that was when things got interesting.

Someone jumped on the rancor’s back.

Two massive hands grabbed its upper jaw, mindless of its row of jagged teeth, and pulled. Our combined effort was enough for us to get the damn thing off me. With one final grunt, my rescuer twisted the creature’s head back until its jaw practically ripped from its skull. The rancor dropped for all of three seconds before we heard the bones start repairing themselves.

At least it wasn’t on me anymore. A hairy hand helped me to my feet before getting on all fours and growling at the healing rancor. Enkidu, from the harbor, was standing in Greg’s living room. WildMan and rancor charged at one another, massive bodies slamming together with a thunderous roar.

Astarte pulled me away from Arnold and looked over at Enkidu. She played with the neck of her blouse and moaned, “See, I told you I was helping.”

“What …” I said as I sat up, “are you talking about?”

“Watch,” she said, pointing at WildMan, who somersaulted over to the rancor before leaping onto its back. He clenched his hands into fists and bore down on the beast with the force of a sledgehammer. The rancor’s head hit the floor, shaking the apartment. Enkidu bore down on it again.

And again. And again.

Each blow crushed its skull with immense power. Bones crackled and teeth shattered, until all that was left was a flat surface of skin, ground bone and blood.

Enkidu panted with exertion, happy that he had defeated the creature before his strength left him. Dismounting, he turned to us and threw back his head, howling in triumph. Then he looked at us, expecting our gazes to be on him.

Our gazes weren’t on him. They were on something behind him, on the floor.

He turned to see the rancor’s skull reassembling itself like an inflating balloon.

Enkidu sighed.

“OK,” I said to the miraculously intact case of Smurfs. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.” I picked up the Highlander sword and charged.

Stupid. I might as well have announced my attack. The rancor turned and knocked me over. I slid across the marble floor toward the apartment door. It opened, and there stood the frantic, out-of-breath popobawa doorman. “Master of Master Form Filler, a strange human came up without permission and …” The popobawa stopped dead in his tracks as the rancor descended on him. “Oh my!” he cried out, releasing his sonar screech before running out the door.

Great, now I was practically deaf. “Thanks, popobawa,” I muttered, barely hearing myself.

↔

Before I could clear the ringing in my ears, the rancor picked me up and threw me into Greg’s massive comic book collection.

Marvel and DC Comics flew everywhere, a hurricane of sharp colors and chiseled jaws flapping across the modern museum that was his living room. I groaned, peeling myself out of the shattered shelves, the magazines sliding around me. I wanted to take a step forward—rejoin the fight—but my legs failed me and I fell on my rump, my back resting against the imprint of my body. Everything hurt.

The rancor fought against Enkidu and Astarte, both of them striking it down with blows that would have felled a normal creature. Hell, Enkidu’s punches were so powerful and Astarte’s strikes so accurate that no human, animal, Other or god could have withstood them. But the rancor kept healing itself, and I knew that eventually Astarte and Enkidu would fall from exhaustion. By the GoneGods, I was already there.

How could Greg control something so primal and powerful? How did it end up in his living room, as part of his collection of 1980s geekery? Sure, the Big Bad—his emperor in waiting, his “master”—could’ve given him the creature as a gift, but for what? To slow us down? To act as his bodyguard? What?

And how did he control it? It was a statue. A statue, until he took out his slingshot and …

Holy crap. The ruby!

I crawled around, my eyes searching the floor. But amongst all the comics and toys and posters and action heroes, it was nowhere to be found. I dug through the piles of expensive stuff until … until … There it was. Just lying on the ground right next to The Mighty Thor #293.

I picked the ruby up, and immediately my fingers turned gray and my hand lost all sensation. It fell asleep, past pins and needles, past numbness—it turned into a lifeless lump at the end of my forearm. I waved it around experimentally, watching it swing stiffly about like a truncheon, no longer under my control.

What was most disturbing about the sensation was that turning to stone didn’t hurt. I didn’t want to think what would have happened if I had held the jewel with my fist. I suspect it would have involved a chisel and a few missing fingers for good ol’ Jean.

I searched Greg’s cornucopia of geekery for something to pop the gem out of my hand and finally settled on a Dr. Who sonic screwdriver. Of course, it wasn’t a real sonic screwdriver, but it did the trick—the gem popped out of my hand and onto the floor. Lines of red and blue veins crawled from my forearm as my stoney gray hand slowly returned to normal. I’d like to tell you that it felt like pins and needles, but it was more like nails and spikes. Ouch! OK—so bare skin wasn’t an option. I grabbed an old issue of Thor, scooped up the ruby, wrapped it in between the pages and did something the rancor didn’t expect.

I charged.

Throwing my whole weight at it, I managed to knock it off Astarte. It reared up. “Strike a pose,” I said, jumping on its chest and slamming the edge of Thor against its forehead. As soon as the jewel touched flesh, it froze. Concrete gray spread from the funneled pages, like I was pouring liquid stone into the rancor’s being. First its head grayed, then its neck, then its limbs, too, becoming hard, unmoving, permanent stone.

In another second, the rancor was a sculpture once more.

“What the hell is this thing?” I shouted.

Astarte walked over to the frozen rancor and examined the crystal without touching either. “It’s an Eye of the Gorgon. It has to be. I know of no other talisman that turns flesh to stone.”

“Eye of the Gorgon … As in, Medusa.”

“Of course, Jean. Who do you think your girlfriend was? She was one of the most powerful Others the world has ever known, and this crystal was one of her many, many weapons.”

“Huh?” I guess I’d always seen Medusa as the sweet girl doing her best to be mortal. I mean, how was I to know that the girl with the Hello Kitty purse was a fierce warrior? “How is it that Greg has this crystal?” I asked. “Shouldn’t it be with Medusa? Or better yet, lost in the void when the gods left?”

Astarte shrugged.

“OK—just another piece of the puzzle … which leads me to my next question,” I said, carefully trying to balance the gem on the rancor’s head. The ridges of its nostrils and brow made it hard to do, but I didn’t dare let it fall off. “Will it hold?”

“If enough time has been spent on it … yes. But these talismans are created for a specific purpose. The Eyes of the Gorgon only have one function: flesh-to-stone.” She shook her head.

“And?”

“It costs you too much. Even I, when time and magic were unlimited, rarely used them. It takes a bit of you with it, storing it for later use.”

“Like a battery.”

She nodded. “Like a battery—except the energy it takes comes from within you, and no rest or food will replenish you.”

“I got it,” I said, still holding the gem to the rancor’s forehead, but this solution wasn’t going to last forever.

Astarte sensed my dilemma, because she reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like a tensor bandage, except these weren’t for ankle injuries. She wrapped the self-adhering elastic around the rancor’s head, firmly fixing the gem to its skull.

“No,” she said as she worked, “I don’t think you understand. Whoever gave this talisman to Greg has spent a lot of time on it. Years … and for what? So he could lay a little trap. It doesn’t make sense. It’s irrational to give up so much time for so little gain.”

The first thing that went through my mind was: A Fanatic. In the GoneGod World, there were Others with big enough chips on their shoulders to spend all the time they had on accomplishing whatever they wanted. Often Fanatics were about pure destruction. The gods were gone, and they couldn’t cope with this new world. Better to burn out than to fade away—that kind of thing.

But Fanatics tended to be the walk-in-the-room-and-blow-yourself-up type. Whoever imbued this stone with power and gave it to a human was far more calculating.

There was a low growl. I turned just in time to see a fist smash me right in the nose.

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE CHAOS

A second massive fist came down. I sidestepped and tumbled, clutching my nose. Enkidu turned to follow me. But before he could get into the leaping position again, Astarte punched him hard in the face, driving him to his knees.

He smiled. Blood—red blood—spurted out of his nose, trickling over his lips and gathering in the cracks of his teeth. He stood erect now, and I saw that although he was an imposing figure, he was a whole head shorter than me. For a creature who had just spent several thousand years in the belly of a celestial bull, he still looked human. Hell, he smelled human. He even bled human.

Others, with their many quirks, did none of those things. Even those who could metamorphose and disguise themselves, under heavy scrutiny could never pass off as mortal humans. It was something in their gait, their smell, their mannerisms that always made them look different. They could fool you for a while, but eventually you figured them out.

Then there was the issue of their blood. Goblins bled green, orcs bled gray, pixies bled yellow and angels bled light. Of the seven thousand-plus species identified so far, not a single Other bled red—and yet this manlike being did.

I took a step back. We squared off, breathing hard, considering our next move.

“Enough!” Astarte cried out. “Enough,” she repeated. “Enkidu, enough.” Enkidu focused his attention on the succubus. “Do you remember me?” Astarte put a hand out.

The WildMan gave out a low, guttural warning, at which I advanced. Astarte lifted a hand, signaling me to stop. To wait.

“Enkidu,” Astarte said, her voice firmer, “it has been a long, long time. Do you remember me?” He growled. “I made you his equal.” Astarte put a hand on his shoulder, and Enkidu’s anger left him. She outstretched a hand, and the man whose fists felt like they were made of brick took it.

“Astarte,” I said, stepping toward them. I grabbed Astarte’s arm. Enkidu growled. I let go. “Astarte—now’s not the time.”

She looked over at the clock on the wall. “We have four hours until dawn, and this will not take long. Now is exactly the time, Human Jean.” Astarte took Enkidu’s hand in hers and, without guile or seduction, led the man away from me and into Greg’s bedroom.

Hellelujah!

↔

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 wished 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 trying 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 had gathered on the shore, different groups performing various homages to the great beast: ogres prostrating themselves, jinn dervishes dancing, sirens shrieking at the moon, Ahkiyyini’s children beating 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 spanning millennia?

The Army tried to break them up, but in the end, all they could really do was to set up a perimeter 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 toward 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’s 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 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 from him. 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 like 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 something, and 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 a 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, filtered 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 on The BisMark being 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 allied with 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.

“Safe mode,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

I snapped my fingers. “The world … it’s trying to reboot in safe mode. It’s trying to return to its previous settings, when champions like Enkidu were commonplace and apocalypses were a real threat.”

“I don’t think so,” Brian’s voice chimed in from the iPad speakers. “Safe mode isn’t about returning to previous settings. It’s about returning to factory settings. As in, when-it-was-first-created settings. If anything, the world is still up for grabs … Nature and Chaos both have an equal opportunity to become the world’s operating system.”

“Windows versus Apple,” I said.

“And one computer to run it all. The world.”

“ ‘Apple,’ ‘Windows’ … ‘computer’?” Astarte wore a puzzled look. “I think you humans are delirious with fear. Here, I have a cure … Let me rest your mind and—” She started disrobing.

“No need,” I said. “Brian and I know exactly what we’re talking about.” And just then, a last-ditch plan occurred to me. I looked at the clock; just over two hours left until dawn. Plenty of time for my plan, with just enough time that if it didn’t work, I could die in a fireball of regret. I turned to the others. “I have a plan.”

“And what, pray tell, is that?” Astarte asked.

“Actually, I got the idea from IT support,” I mused. “We’re going to have to reboot the system in safe mode.”

JAIL ISN’T THE BEST PLACE FOR A THIRD DATE

I called up the popobawa and told him what I needed from him. It involved taking some “stuff” from Master Greg’s apartment and delivering it back to him at the beach. The popobawa dutifully agreed and immediately took down everything we needed with uncanny speed.

With that done, I looked around the room full of geekery, “borrowed” his Highlander sword, the slingshot and a couple issues of Batman (hey—like I said: borrowed. If we survived the night, I’d give it all back; cross my heart) and struck off to the last place we needed to go to get some answers.

Jail.

↔

Navigating the blocked streets in search of open routes to the jail, we passed by the south bridge that led to the mainland. At the mouth of the bridge, atop erected barricades, stood two human sentries. Bullhorns rang out, commanding the Others to back away or be shot.

Searchlights beamed up and panic filled the streets as Others loaded with all their belongings headed to the bridges in hopes of surviving. For the second time in fifteen years, they were being forced to leave their homes. I couldn’t suppress the anger that filled my soul. These once divine beings had been through so much, that to go through this again … I couldn’t finish the thought.

This time it was worse. At least when the gods left, they gave them a chance to escape the darkness, a place to run to. Their new, less celestial, human caretakers were not as kind.

Little drones no larger than Frisbees hovered over the crowd. At first, I had no idea what they were, but then I saw the digital clocks they displayed and I knew exactly what the Army was doing.

They were checking if Others were burning time.

When Others burn time, clocks speed up. The Army was using the drones to monitor the crowd, to make sure these frightened creatures didn’t use their natural talents to leap off the island and to safety. It was a cruel declawing, and it made me sick to my stomach.

Humanity at its best, and I couldn’t be more angry. But I’d have to apologize for my fellow humans in my own way later. Now, I needed to get to the jail in the slim hope that we’d find a way to send Tiamat back to the deep.

↔

We eventually managed to weave our way through the streets to the Paradise Lot Police Station parking lot. Usually the place was a hub of Other activity, with centaur beat cops starting or finishing shifts, valkyrie and Gruff detectives bringing in handcuffed mythological creatures of every kind, religion and legend. But now the parking lot was empty.

Astarte and I got out of the van and I told the popobawa what I needed him to do. Without hesitation, he saluted me and said, “Your will shall be done, Master of Master Form Filler.”

With the little guy gone, Astarte and I headed to the back entrance. Sure, the police station might’ve been mostly abandoned, but we were still wanted fugitives; I didn’t want to risk running into the one cop who decided to do paperwork on the night Tiamat arrived. Lucky for me, after bailing Penemue out of the drunk tank countless times, I knew my way around the station.

The back entrance was open, but Medusa’s reception desk was empty. We walked right in, down the corridor and to the cells, which were usually empty. I’d guessed the police weren’t bothering bringing anyone back here.

A lone occupant sat in a cell: a harmonica-playing satyr.

And in the adjacent cell, Medusa and Atargatis, arm in arm. They were both laughing, tears streaming down their cheeks.

↔

“Oooh, a jailbreak—just like in The Baby-Sitters Club,” Medusa giggled, dabbing the corners of her eyes.

I eyed the gorgon with my best This is serious look.

“Just kidding,” she said, and pinched her lips closed with her fingers, quite literally suppressing a smile.

Marty hissed. I hissed back. He gave me a look, and I rolled my eyes; I really didn’t have time for this. “Fine,” I muttered. “How are you doing, Medusa?”

“Good,” she nodded. “We had a good chat, didn’t we?”

Atargatis nodded and squeezed Medusa’s hand. “A very good chat.”

“Look,” I said, “we only have a couple hours left, and we need to get Atargatis out of here. She’s the only one who can stop her child from destroying the world.”

Atargatis shook her head. “There’s nothing I can do. There’s no god to provide intervention, and—”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, clapping my hands impatiently. “Things are different now.”

As if making my point, the back door smashed open and Enkidu came running in. Astarte raised a hand, instructing him to calm himself.

I pointed at Enkidu. “The old ways are coming back, which means you’re all the divine intervention we need.”

Atargatis’ eyes widened as she looked at Enkidu. The satyr stopped playing his harmonica and groaned, saying to me, “Wait a minute. You gonna stop the end of the world?”

“Yeah,” I said, with a bit too much optimism given our predicament.

“Oh?” The satyr looked disappointed. “I was looking forward to it all ending,” he muttered.

Atargatis ignored the fatalistic satyr. “When … when did Enkidu return?”

Astarte stepped forward. “I don’t know how long he’s been wandering in the mortal world. I suspect since the gods left. But when the fish of Urfa were delivered, he was drawn to them. To me. That is why he came to the docks. He tried to stop us from delivering the fish. He tried to stop all of this.”

“Then he’s not of Chaos.”

Enkidu growled.

Astarte put a calming hand on his shoulder. “I suspect he’s of both worlds. For now, at least.”

“Don’t you see? You can stop this. You’re the authority that we need,” I said.

“But I ate the fish,” Atargatis said. “I am the offender.”

“Yes,” I said, “but you can assign a champion or avatar or whatever you guys do when hiring representation. That person could speak on your behalf.”

Atargatis tilted her head to one side as she contemplated my idea. “You are right, Jean … except for one thing. Creating a champion takes years. Champions must be cultivated, and then they must go through several trials by fire. You don’t just wave a wand and poof, ‘You’re a champion, you’re a champion … You’re a champion!’ ” Atargatis waved her hands around, “knighting” the air.

A solemn silence fell over us. Then the satyr chimed in. “You know, I always thought it’d be a big guy who ended the world. But who am I to complain? I’m just happy to go down in flames.”

“Most likely you’ll be eaten,” I said.

“Six in one hand, half a dozen in the other. An apocalypse is an apocalypse.”

I glared at the satyr, who lowered his head and resumed playing his harmonica.

“No, that’s not true at all.” Medusa’s eyes widened as a wicked smile crawled across her face. “I think I know how to stop this,” she hissed.

APOCALYPSES AND CHILDREN, CHILDREN AND APOCALYPSES

Ever heard the expression, “You’ve got to start an apocalypse to stop an apocalypse?” Me neither, but apparently that was the plan. The gods were hierarchy-driven—that extended to gods, to pantheons and apparently to apocalypses, too.

Medusa told us her plan, and despite my best judgment, I let my date out of jail in order to do exactly that.

Start the End of Days.

Again.

Medusa told me where the keys were kept, and I unlocked the cell. Leaving the rest behind, Medusa and I wandered into the empty precinct and into the police chief’s—a.k.a. Archangel Michael’s—office. It had your typical look: awards and diplomas on the wall, a framed newspaper article with the headline “Angel Climbs Police Ranks at Record Speed,” a desk with mounds of paperwork. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except the desk chair.

Built for an angel over ten feet high who weighed more than an elephant, the desk chair had a frame of soldered steel with reinforced beams that did their best to hold Michael’s immense weight—and still you could see the dips and the bends where it was losing.

And this was the guy we were about to steal from.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” I said.

“What else would you have us do?” Medusa said. “Let Paradise Lot be consumed by Tiamat?”

“No, of course not. But why not ask Michael—”

Before I could finish the sentence, Medusa and all thirty snakes rolled their eyes.

“It was just a thought,” I said.

Medusa turned, walked up to the back wall and started checking every inch of its surface, her snakes coiling and slithering. Occasionally a snake’s head banged against the dry plaster, looking for the false panel where Michael hid his safe.

“Astarte and Enkidu—do they have a lot of history together?” I said.

“History,” Medusa chuckled, lightly knocking along the wall. “How casually humans use that word. Enkidu, Gilgamesh and Astarte—their friendship was a historic event whose ripples are still felt today. When Enkidu died, I thought Astarte would die of a broken heart. And when Gilgamesh died … she nearly did. Poor thing spent one hundred years mourning him. When she finally emerged from her misery, she was never quite the same.”

I understood that. When Bella died, I thought I would die, too. Every part of me just stopped. I became a walking, breathing zombie, numb to everything and everyone around me. It took years for my heart to beat again, and even then, a part of me never found its way back to life. Even having seen her in Heaven. Even despite her promise that we would meet again—somehow, somewhere.

I believed her, but “somehow and somewhere” just didn’t have the immediacy that humans are designed to crave. I needed and wanted Bella now, here. Not talking to me through a shelleycoat’s bell, and not sending me off through hints and my undying faith in her to face Tiamat and save the world.

But what else could I do? I loved her, even if she wasn’t by my side.

I shook my head. “I thought Astarte despised love. You should’ve heard the speech she gave me about love versus lust. It was quite dramatic.”

Medusa stopped fiddling with the wall and faced me. “I’m sure she forgot that lust is a choice, but love … Love strikes without warning or mercy.” Her gaze lingered on me for a moment, then she looked down and turned back to the wall.

After a few more knocks, Medusa put her hand against the wall and pushed. The false panel that I swear by the GoneGods I would have never found in a thousand years opened. Divine craftsmanship, indeed! The panel revealed a safe that, unlike the paneling that hid it, was of human make. Medusa’s snakes pressed their tiny heads against the cold steel, and Marty put his mouth around the turnstile lock.

“Enkidu—he’s human, right?” I asked.

Medusa nodded.

Click, click, click to the right. Stop.

“If he died … how’s he back?”

“Because he was a Champion of Chaos, his soul didn’t go to any of the heavens or hells. It went to Chaos, and as you already know, the gods took neither Chaos nor Nature with them.”

I nodded. That fit with everything I’d uncovered so far. “Astarte thinks that some Others are trying to bring Chaos back as the dominant principle.”

Medusa stopped moving and considered this. “I guess that explains why it was possible to summon Tiamat in the first place.” She shrugged before going back to the safe.

Click, click, click to the left. Stop.

“She blames The BisMark.”

“Makes sense.”

A gear clacked, fell into place, and the safe opened.

Medusa pulled open the safe door. Inside lay paperwork, a passport, a gold watch and a trumpet case. I walked up and took out the case, opening it with shaking hands.

“So this is it?”

Medusa nodded. “The Fourth Trumpet that Michael never got to blow when the world ended.”

“Hellelujah,” I said, holding the silver instrument. It had no valves or slides, no decorations or carvings; it was a simple piece of metal that ended in an unobtrusive cone.

“I told you I was an end-of-the-world kind of gal! Let’s go.” Medusa started out of the room.

I grabbed her arm. “Astarte thinks it was The BisMark. So did I. So much so that I was blinded to other possibilities.”

“Possibilities? Like what?”

I ignored her question. “It’s just that he’s too smart and powerful to do something so reckless.”

Medusa looked down at my hand, then up at me.

I let go of her arm. “At first I thought it might be some third, unknown player, but that doesn’t make any sense. Too many variables. Too big of a risk that something could go horribly wrong.

“Still … it might have been a mistake. Maybe someone who knew about the curse but thought that in the GoneGod World, it wouldn’t summon Tiamat. Remember, fifteen years ago eating the Holy Carp of Urfa wouldn’t have done anything. It was only after the gods left that the old ways started to return.”

Medusa’s face flushed.

I walked over to Medusa and took her hand in mine. In the softest voice I could muster, I asked, “What did The BisMark mean when he told Michael that you had to be arrested because of ‘history’?”

“You think it was me?”

“I saw the Grimoire of Metatron—”

“And?” She crossed her arms.

“It established motive.”

“Motive?”

I gulped, but went on. “And what happened in Atlantis—Atargatis marrying Poseidon … Poseidon going crazy with jealousy over you … It was more than that. According to the Grimoire, you and Poseidon were together. That was, until the day he married Atargatis.”

“That wasn’t my fault. I already told you it was that damn trickster, Loki. When The BisMark arranged the marriage with Astarte and she didn’t show up, I was sure that Poseidon would return to me. But then Atargatis stepped in, and I was devastated. So I ran out on the balcony. King Laomedon followed to comfort me. Loki—that trickster bastard—told Poseidon I was sleeping with King Laomedon, that I had been for some time. Poseidon flew into a rage. He stormed the palace and found us talking. That’s when he slammed his trident onto the ground, cracking the earth beneath, and sank Atlantis.”

“Yes, but that didn’t change the fact that you hated Atargatis for taking Poseidon away from you.” I kept pushing. “And that’s not all. You insisted on coming to the gala. You were in the kitchen when you found me. You had an opportunity to switch the fish.”

“So that’s it? Even mortal law would find that circumstantial,” she hissed.

“And Greg … he had one of the Eyes of the Gorgon. A talisman you created.”

“I don’t own the Eyes, and haven’t for a long time. I gave them to Poseidon. He put them in his crown.”

“Greg said he was working for his master, but denied it was The BisMark. He also said that his master doesn’t know everything, and that being an AlwaysMortal gave him certain advantages. Also, you knew ScarFace, and—”

“And what, Jean?” Her eyes glistened with tears that swelled but would not fall. “And what?”

I paused and softened my voice. “I don’t think you meant to summon Tiamat.”

Medusa cocked her head to one side, glaring at me. “And what about the part where I had Atargatis eat her own child? Was that an accident, too?”

“You were in love with Poseidon.”

“What else?”

“Medusa—” I started.

“No, don’t get soft on me now. You were all ‘tough guy,’ talking about apocalypses and accidents. So tell me, what else did you read?”

“That you had a child with him.”

Medusa shuddered as all thirty of her snakes hissed at me. I thought the gorgon was going to slap me or scream or something. But she only stared at me with an expression that betrayed nothing.

“It stands to reason that you were bitter he chose Astarte over you. And that you were even more insulted when Astarte didn’t show up and he agreed to marry Atargatis.”

“Anything else?” she said in a cold, even voice. “I’d like to get all the evidence against me before I start defending myself.”

“The rivalry between you and Atargatis. It went on for centuries, with Poseidon going back and forth between the two of you. That’s a lot of bad blood, enough to drive anyone mad with jealousy.”

“So I tricked her into eating her own child? Do you think I would inflict such pain on another for a grudge that’s thousands of years old?” For the first time since presenting my—what I was starting to think of as stupid—theory, Medusa’s eyes glistened with sadness.

And in typical Jean fashion, I soldiered on. “What about the Eye of the Gorgon?”

“I had three.” Medusa wiped away a single tear that had escaped. “Two forged by my sisters and one by me. I gave all of them to Poseidon as a gift. He set them in his crown. His crown—might I add—had only one gem on it at the gala.

“But here’s the thing about your theory. Maybe, just maybe, The BisMark got the crown from Poseidon before he left, and maybe, just maybe, he pried off two of them and gave one to Greg, leaving one on the crown for whatever plans he had for it later.”

She paused before taking a deep breath and continuing. “You know, that legend seems to confuse this fact a lot.” She rubbed the palms of her hands against her dress as if trying to rub out some invisible stain. “I did have a child, Chrysaor. Not that his bastard of a father ever acknowledged him.”

I thought back to the beach and the wooden trinket that fell out of her purse. She was so quick to take it back, like it was the most precious thing in the world. “The wooden horse from the beach. That was his,” I said.

She nodded. “A pegasus. The only privilege he got for having an Other as a mother, and even that was eventually taken from him. When his pegasus died, he cried for three days straight, looking up at me with devastated eyes. He was alone, with a freak for a mother. The pegasus was his best friend. I carved him that toy so he’d never forget his heritage, and he carried it everywhere.”

“Where is he now?”

Medusa’s voice went cold. “He was mortal—Athena’s punishment for my affair with Poseidon. Actually, Athena gave me a choice: give up my son and become a god, or raise him as a mortal.

“That was my punishment for being young and naïve … for letting a god seduce me with his sweet talk and divine powers. A child born of a gorgon and a god should have lived forever. But Athena made him human … and just like any other human, he grew old and died.” She sat down on Michael’s oversized chair.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. I walked over to her and put my hand on her shoulder. I don’t know what I was going for. A hug to comfort her, a shoulder to cry on. But Medusa stood up and drew her shawl over her shoulders.

“He lived well. A good, long, happy life. That’s all a mother really wants for her child, and he had it.” She wiped away her tears and her face went rigid. She looked up at me. “You know, I haven’t said his name in over two thousand years. It feels good to say it. To remember him.”

“Sounds like he was a great kid.”

“A great kid, a great man. He was my boy, and I’ll love him until my last breath.”

“I know you will. He was lucky to have had you.” I put a hand on Medusa’s shoulder, and this time she didn’t shrug it off. I was wrong about her. So dead wrong that I hated myself for being so stupid. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you know why I was so desperate to be invited to the gala? I wanted to apologize to Atargatis. Bury the hatchet, so to speak—start fresh as two mortal Others. That’s why.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling foolish.

She huffed out a groan of frustration and threw her arms in the air. “It would have been so much easier if I was guilty. Then you could go on with your life without me. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Finding a way to not like me anymore.”

“I … I,” I stammered. “I do like you.”

“And that’s a problem?”

“It is.”

“Because of Bella.”

I nodded.

“I’m not asking you to let go of her. I just want you to find a bit of space in your heart for me, too. Is that a possibility? Because if it is not, I’ll leave you alone. Cross my heart.”

“I don’t know,” I said. I think that was the first honest thing I’d said to her since we met.

“When you do know, you know where to find me.” She started for the door. She gave me a sad smile before walking out of Michael’s office.

I watched her walk down the hall—the Queen of the Gorgons, who had a bigger heart than that of anyone I knew. A heart that chose me. And here I was, treating it like some curse rather than the amazing privilege that it was. There were no two ways about it—I was an idiot.

“I’m sorry!” I called after her.

“I know,” she said, without looking back.

“I still don’t think it’s The BisMark.”

“I know,” she repeated.

“Are you still mad at me?”

“Yes,” she said, and I heard her walk out of the back entrance, the door slamming behind her.

“Harsh, bro,” I heard Brian’s voice say in my ear.

“Brian,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

“OK.”

I turned off the lights in Michael’s office and scurried after her.

Hellelujah!

TRUMPETS, TRUMPETS, TRUMPETS

We got back to the others, who were still waiting at the back entrance. Astarte leaned against a squad car in all kinds of wrong ways, casually tossing car keys in her hand and making the simple act seem like tantalizing foreplay. And it was working—Enkidu was crouched on the hood of the car, his head resting on Astarte’s shoulder, watching the keys go up and down, up and down … and drooling.

Atargatis, on the other hand, was already in the car, sitting—like the debutante she was—completely unimpressed by the scene and eager to get going. As soon as I emerged, Astarte tossed me the keys. “What?” she moaned. “I don’t drive.”

“Fine,” I said.

Medusa got in the passenger side while Astarte and Enkidu squeezed in the back with Atargatis. Everyone was silent.

“So,” I said, breaking the tension with an easy question, “who’s going to blow the horn?”

“Me!” Atargatis and Astarte said in unison.

“You bitch!” I couldn’t see which one yelled it out, and they both sounded so similar. It didn’t really matter; they were both thinking it.

“You always steal my glory.”

“And you always shirk your responsibility. Even if I gave you the trumpet—which I’ll never do—you’d probably discard it to have a romp on the beach!”

“Sex on the beach is undignified—too much sand! And secondly, you know damn well why I didn’t show up.”

“Why? Because of him?” Atargatis pointed at Enkidu.

“Yes. And Gilgamesh.”

“That human? Why? He was nothing but a mortal. We could’ve been gods!”

“Because—”

“Because what?”

“Because I LOVED HIM!”

Atargatis stopped speaking, gobsmacked by her sister’s confession.

“I loved him. I knew that if the Assyrian pantheon ascended, Chaos would rule and he would be lost.”

“You’re … you’re serious,” Atargatis murmured.

Astarte nodded.

Atargatis smirked. “The Queen of Lust, the great succubus Astarte, loved?”

“Yes,” Astarte said, her voice carrying a hint of shame in the confession. “And it almost killed me.”

Atargatis took a deep breath. “This really must be the end. Astarte loved.”

“If you’re just going to make fun of me, I’m going to—”

“No,” Atargatis said, her tone soft, understanding. “No, sister. I’m not going to make fun of you. You know that I’ve had many children in my life. I’ve loved every single one of them. Even the little bastards who tried to kill me earlier today. Even Tiamat, who seeks to devour me. I’ve loved each and every one of them, and I’ll tell you that love is a burden. It always comes at a cost, and it always brings pain.”

“I know,” Astarte nodded. “That’s why I’ll never love again. Not when—”

“You misunderstand me, little sister,” Atargatis said. “Love’s price is high, but its rewards are even higher. For pain is what happens when you live. Life without pain is not life at all. It’s animated death.” Atargatis took Astarte’s hand in hers. “Sister—you loved. You lived.”

The two beings embraced in sororal affection.

Then Atargatis withdrew and in a stern voice said, “I’m still angry at you. Should we live through this night, we’ll have words. Hard words. Painful, costly ones.”

Astarte nodded, and although I couldn’t quite see her face in the rearview mirror, I thought I heard gentle sniffles. The car went silent.

“Wonderful to see you two bonding, but it still doesn’t answer my question,” I piped in. “Who’s blowing the horn?” I piped in. Hey—there was an all-consuming monster on its way to my home. Can you blame me for getting to the point?

“Jean,” Medusa admonished with a chuckle.

“Me,” the two sisters said in unison.

“I don’t think it should be either of you.”

“Why not?” Astarte shot back. “It’s our pantheon, our beast.”

“Exactly,” I said. “If I understand everything correctly, you two are of the old way. Chaos’s way. But this monster has emerged in a new era, which has yet to ally with either Nature or Chaos. Didn’t you say that Enkidu was of both worlds? He should blow the horn.”

“It should be a human. The world needs a new champion,” Medusa said, not looking at me. “And since there’s only one person who fits that description, I think it should be Jean.”

“Champion?” I said, putting my hand on my chest. “You think I’m a champion?”

“No … I think you are a human. And barely one at that.” I caught the hint of a smile.

“OK—human I am. But that doesn’t mean I should be the one to blow it.”

Atargatis eyed me. “Enkidu was once our champion. He is of the old world. But you … you’re a derivative of nothing.”

“So a derivative of nothing is better than something?” I offered.

The sisters nodded.

“You’re a human of this era,” Astarte said.

“Personally I think I’ve been stuck in the ’80s, but if you say I’m a human of this era then so be it,” I said, and put the car in Drive. “Sometimes I really hate being human,” I muttered as we drove toward the monster that wanted to eat my city and everything in it.

↔

We got to the beach just as the pale light of dawn began to creep in. By my estimation, we had less than half an hour until the sun’s light hid the moon from the sky. Which meant that the fabled Blood Moon could happen any minute.

The Army had set up barricades that made getting close to the Promenade damn near impossible. I parked the car several blocks away and got out, looking around for the delivery van, but I didn’t see it. Either the popobawa was still stubbornly weaving his van through crowded backstreets, or he was just as stuck as we were. Either way, we had to keep moving, and our only option was by foot.

I led the way, and the succubus, the demigoddess of fertility, the WildMan and the gorgon walked behind me. And given that I still had Astarte’s ruby red shoes on, that made me Dorothy in this twisted entourage from The Wizard of Oz.

The beachfront was packed with creatures born of the old world. They waited for the approach of a being that their gods promised would appear at the world’s end. This was the end they expected—not the GrandExodus that they’d received.

And so they waited to welcome the death they’d been denied.

We were at the edge of the crowd, the barricades no more than fifty feet in front of us, but with everyone standing shoulder to shoulder, it might well have been on the other side of the ocean. I started to push past all the tentacles, talons and wings that blocked my way, slowly making progress. Enkidu, on the other hand, got to the front by literally climbing over Others with preternatural agility.

I pushed on, hoping to get to the front so that I could at least see the beach, when a hand grabbed mine. Medusa. I pulled her in close and, in a hurried whisper, asked, “Can you see The BisMark through all this?” I asked, leaning in close to hear her over the murmur of the crowd.

She nodded, but her eyes were closed. Marty, on the other hand, stood erect on her head, his serpentine body stretching three feet straight up.

“Oh,” I said. “Neat trick.”

Medusa smiled. “Michael is with several officers—Steve and his brothers, Officer Valk and … ohhhh … Conner is there. What a handsome—”

“Focus.”

“Not as handsome as you, but probably much nicer—”

“Again … focus,” I said. “And sorry. Again. Really … really sorry.”

Medusa blushed. “Yeah, I know you are. The BisMark is near the water. Michael and the others are standing by his side, as well as that diamond gargoyle.”

“Stewart.”

“And that’s not all. There are several Army vehicles with what looks like boxes on them.”

“Those are RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile launchers used for surface-to-air combat. I guess they think Tiamat is big enough to be considered an aerial threat.” I looked up at the skyline above the Promenade and saw several soldiers with RPGs standing on the rooftops of the buildings nearest to the spot. Whatever The BisMark had planned, the Army clearly didn’t trust him entirely. They had a Plan B that came in the form of explosive rockets. Even though I was damn near positive The BisMark was behind all this, I was rooting for him to have a way to stop this thing. That was, of course, if our little plan failed.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Yeah. The BisMark has set up one of those portable stages. It’s pretty fancy. I doubt he just had it lying around.”

“More evidence against him,” I said.

“That’s not all … It’s decorated almost exactly like it was at the gala. The table off to the side, the speakers, the fake Roman columns and the Poseidon statue, except instead of facing the audience, it’s looking out at the sea. Also, he brought along that giant crystal vat he had on the stage. It’s got wires coming out of it, and Greg is busy typing away on a laptop.”

“OK,” I said, slinging the trumpet on my back. “I guess I better get to it while they’re all distracted. Anything else I should know before I blow this thing?”

Medusa opened her eyes. “Yes … One more thing, Jean.”

She hesitated.

“What?” I asked.

“Ahh … I don’t know how—”

“Just out with it.”

She leaned in and kissed me. A firm, passionate kiss that sent a shockwave of electricity through my spine. She broke away, her face hovering an inch from mine. “If this is the end, then I want at least one last kiss.”

“Medusa …” I said.

“You letting me down easy is going to have to wait.” Her eyes softened. “Until then, we better get to it. Look up.” She pointed up at the moon. A thin crescent of red grew, slowly turning the face of the moon to blood red.

“Great,” I said. “This is it, then. Wish me luck!”

Medusa’s two little dimples appeared on her cheeks as she put on a brave smile and for a split second, I thought to myself that this could be it. Last kiss, last goodbye … last everything. Bella’s last words to me ran through my head: Live well. And given that I probably only had a few minutes left, I figured I’d listen to her. I wrapped my free hand on the small of Medusa’s back and drew her in close and tight, pressing my lips against hers. Her mouth was soft and delightful, her lip gloss scenting our kiss with vanilla as we embraced.

And so we kissed like it was our last day on Earth, because it very well might have been.

After a second that felt like an eternity, we separated.

“There,” I said. “Now we’re even.”

She blushed, and I turned to get into position.

↔

I looked for a place with a better view and found exactly what I was looking for. You see, Others came in all shapes and sizes: from pixies the size of hummingbirds to dragons the size of buses. Then there were hill giants—whose massive bulk made elephants look like puppies—which were perfect for climbing on.

Thing about hill giants, they didn’t get their name because they were the size of hills. They got it because they had a reputation for falling asleep for such long periods of time that moss and grass started growing all over them. That is to say, they weren’t disturbed by smaller creatures climbing them; so when I clambered up a hill giant’s back and he grabbed me, I was quite surprised.

“Fee-fi-fo—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Look, I don’t have time for this.” I put the horn to my lips and blew hard and true—right in the giant’s face.

The sound was tremendous, sending a shockwave that knocked the giant back. He would have crushed several Others had not Medusa and Astarte herded the crowd away from him.

The giant dropped me. As I fell, I looked up at the moon. The bloody crescent still crept along its face. Just before I hit the ground, I blew the horn again, this time pointing it straight up at the sky.

The announcement echoed across the horizon like a series of cannon blasts. The sky clouded over; lightning crackled, arcs of brilliant illumination painting the sky.

And still the moon bled; the clouds were unable to cover its halo.

I drew in a breath and pursed my lips against the trumpet’s silver mouthpiece. I was about to blow again when time stopped.

I don’t mean that everything slowed down or that a moment felt like an eternity. I mean that time literally stopped. The escaping crowd halted, fixed in place like statues of fleeing bodies. Bolts of lightning froze, their energy still illuminating the sky as they hung motionless in the air. The mountain of water that approached no longer came closer but rather stood sentinel in the ocean, a foreboding structure imprisoned by time that no longer marched forward.

And I, awake in a moment that did not progress, could not move to blow the horn again.

A deep voice spoke as a translucent, ghostlike vision of Michael appeared before me. “Think well, human,” it said, “before you blow again.”

I tried to move my lips to speak, but could not … and still my voice came out. “Michael, what are you doing?”

The specter shook its head and motioned to the beach. There hovered the real archangel Michael, his wings spread out longer than two city buses, concern painted on his face. He was coming for me, but whatever stopped time had frozen him as well. Next to him was The BisMark, a look of shock on his face, his hand pointed in my direction.

“I’m not Michael,” Michael’s ghost said, “but I’m like Michael. For between us is only an iota of difference.”

Somehow, I didn’t think the archangel’s shade was using the term as an expression. It was much more literal. “What are you?” I asked. “His shadow?” It shook its head. “A projection? A shade? … An effigy?”

It nodded.

“OK—an effigy … Then what’s happening now?”

“An intervention,” the effigy said.

“An intervention? I don’t understand.”

“This trumpet holds the essence of creation itself. It can unmake, just as it once made. It’s up to the bearer to decide. When it was created, the universe demanded that whoever should use the trumpet’s power be given time to consider.”

“Like a safety lock?” I asked.

“A moment to reflect.”

“Are you trying to stop me from blowing it?”

The effigy shook its head. “No, that’s not for me to decide. I’m only here to help you choose if it’s what you want to do. Truly.”

“If I blow it, then we’ll stop the kraken—I mean, Tiamat.”

“Blowing the horn should send Tiamat back to the depths. But it’s also the signal for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to ride.”

“Four Horsemen of the Christian Apocalypse,” I added.

“So, you’ll be trading one end for another.”

“True, but I’m willing to bet that Michael could stop the horsemen. Much easier to deal with that than …” I couldn’t move, but if I could, I would have pointed to the mountain of water.

“Perhaps. But there are other consequences you have not considered.”

“Like what?”

“The first time the gods ended the world, it was done by water. Because of the defiance of one amongst men, the world survived.”

“Noah.”

“God promised that in exchange for worship, the world would never end by water again.”

“I know the story.” It felt strange talking to an effigy of Michael while I was caught, motionless, in midair. I must have looked like a photograph of someone falling, instead of a living, breathing human.

“Indeed. But what you don’t know is that Noah did not immediately accept his promise. He said that there were too many other, more devastating ways to end the world. He refused the terms. For forty days and nights the mortal and the divine negotiated, until finally it was agreed that, should the world end again, it wouldn’t simply be this plane of existence, but others as well.”

“Heaven,” I murmured. “That was the deal? End this place and end yours as well? A mutual agreement of destruction? A cold war?”

The effigy nodded. “Noah meant it as a deterrent. If the horn is blown, Michael may be able to protect this place, but there is no one and nothing to stop all the heavens and hells from being erased as well.”

“But Heaven is already gone.”

“No, Heaven is closed. Barred off, so that no souls can enter. And Heaven is not empty.”

Then I understood what the effigy was saying. This second apocalypse … this end … had one side effect that not one of us had been aware of. Heaven would be destroyed, which might be fine if the big guy was still on the throne—he could do something, create another place, protect his denizens—but the gods were gone. All of them. And Heaven was unprotected, nearly empty save for one single soul who remained there: Bella.

Blowing the horn would mean her destruction.

“So that’s why Michael never used the trumpet himself. Not for Bella, but because he couldn’t destroy his home—even if he could never go back to it.”

The effigy nodded. “What will you do? Time—or rather, the lack of it—is running low.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t kill her … no matter the cost.”

“Very well,” the effigy said with a soft, understanding smile.

“You know,” I said, expecting time to resume and for me to hit the ground, “you’re much nicer than the real—”

Just then, time resumed. In the split second that it moved forward, powerful angelic arms grabbed me.

“—Michael.”

Hellelujah!

↔

Michael ripped the trumpet out of my hands. “What are you doing, human?” Michael ripped the trumpet out of my hands.

“You could’ve blown it and stopped this. And before you say it—you could’ve stopped the horsemen, too. Right? Right? But you didn’t, because it would’ve destroyed Heaven.”

Michael did something I’d never known the archangel to do before: he averted his eyes in shame.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

The archangel nodded, then dropped back down onto the beach. I looked up and saw that the Blood Moon was complete. Whatever window we had to stop the fifth sign had passed.

I nodded at the mountain of water. “What do we do now?”

“We,” Michael said, reverting to his usual self, “do nothing. The BisMark will deal with the Beast … and as for you—Officer Conner, cuff him.”

“What?” I said. Conner forced me to my knees. “Again!”

CRYSTALS ARE MORE THAN JUST PRETTY

Handcuffed for the second time today, I knelt on the beach and helplessly watched the mountain of water stop a mile from the shore. There was a hush over the crowd as the world filled with the sounds of rushing water pouring off the creature. A huge bulbous mound of flesh stood perfectly still in the sea, but before I could get a good look at it, a nervous-sounding human soldier cried out, “Fire!”

What followed was a barrage fire of machine guns and missiles. Bullet after bullet, missile after missile hit Tiamat. In all my years in the Army, I’d never seen so much firepower thrown at one thing in one go. Nothing could withstand that. Nothing.

“Come on,” I said to Conner. “Let me go.”

“I have my—”

“—orders.” I shook my head and stared at missile after missile pummeling Tiamat’s body. Hell, we all did.

Eventually the fire stopped, and just like in every monster movie you’ve ever seen, the mound of flesh was completely unmarred. The Army’s best little tricks did nothing to hurt it.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Tiamat rose out of the water. Apparently, that mound wasn’t all of her—it was just her back. What came out was skyscraper-tall, with a mouth that could eat a Boeing 747 like a cocktail wiener and tentacles as thick as four-lane tunnels.

Huge, friggin’ terrifying show-off! Gulp.

The BisMark ran up to the Poseidon statue and yanked out the trident. Then, returning to where he had been standing, he placed one hand on the crystal vat and with the other pointed the trident at the creature in the ocean.

The BisMark began his assault on Tiamat.

What happened did not have a visual element to it. There wasn’t any lightning that shot forth, no red beam of energy that struck the beast. There was no sound, no thunder, no crackling. And still we could feel the battle that raged on. Tiamat staggered back then lurched forward, her tentacles thrashing out of the water. Sweat dripped from The BisMark’s brow. With a force of will I’d never seen before, he cried out—a dragon’s roar, a minotaur’s cry, a banshee’s shriek—“You shall not pass!” Then he turned to me and winked. Show-off!

I saw bits of gray start to creep up his face. The BisMark was using magic—lots of it. “Not enough time,” he said, turning his head to the crowd. “I need more time. Will you help me, my gods’ rejects, my fatherless children? My friends of the old world and the new?”

The crowd went silent. Then a centaur stepped forward, put his hand on the crystal and said, “A year for you.”

The BisMark grunted in approval and thrust up the trident with renewed vigor. A minotaur offered six months, an ogre two years. Time flowed through Poseidon’s pointed trident, out toward Tiamat. The beast slowed, and with that, Others stepped forward, each offering a bit of their lifespan. Life exchanged to protect their new, mortal home.

↔

With over a thousand years offered, The BisMark continued to hold Tiamat in place until—miraculously—the crown on the beast’s head turned a stony gray. Just like the rancor, she slowly turned to stone.

The BisMark fell to his knees. “There—that should hold her.”

The crowd cheered, the Army boys cheered, and I could almost hear the world breathe a collective sigh of relief. The threat was over.

The BisMark turned to the TV cameras manned by human beings either too brave or too stupid to run, and—pointing the trident’s tines at Tiamat—cried out, “Behind me is the symbol that will remind us that together”—he pointed at the Army, many of whom still trained their weapons at the monstrous statue—“we can overcome any calamity, any problem … any threat that faces this world. Together!” And in true showmanship fashion, he grabbed the arms of the platoon’s commanding officer and the archangel Michael and raised them both in triumph.

As people cheered, I sat back and thought that this must have been the plan all along … to bring the world down to its knees and then save the day. Prove that Others were worth something, while solidifying his own hero status. And what’s more, he froze Tiamat into some sort of twisted Statue of Liberty that would stand as a constant reminder of what he did.

I had to hand it to him: his plan was brilliant—even for a master strategist.

The stakes were high, but I had to admit, if he played the rest of his hand well, Others could get a fair shake in this human-run world. Hell, the commander was already pulling him aside to discuss what to do next. Bad guy or not, maybe sometimes evil is worth doing.

I was on the verge of letting it go, throwing myself at Michael’s mercy and hoping that whatever punishment the Paradise Lot Police Chief saw fit wouldn’t be too severe when I heard a crack!

And slabs of stone flew off one of Tiamat’s tentacles.

Hellelujah!

CALAMARI, ANYONE?

The tentacle whipped down onto the beach, crushing two military vehicles under its weight. Michael reacted with preternatural speed, managing to pull several of the soldiers standing nearby to safety, but even the archangel wasn’t fast enough to save the drivers. If we survived this, there would be a human memorial for those fallen soldiers, and there would be hell to pay.

A second tentacle began to shake off its stony encasement as Others on the shoreline started running. Soldiers opened fire, but all they managed to do was help Tiamat shed her stony skin. Michael and the Gruffs were busy saving as many lives as they could, while The BisMark looked up at Tiamat in shock and fear. He put his hand on the crystal and raised the trident once more. A bolt of energy shot out at the creature, and the two tentacles shuddered before freezing once more. But unlike the first time when he froze the creature, this time Tiamat shook, her solidification uncertain.

The BisMark wasn’t showing off this time; he actually breathed hard as he exerted his energy, time taking its toll on him. Luckily, he had over a thousand years of donated time from the Others to spare.

Yet I knew it wouldn’t hold.

The BisMark put a hand on Greg’s shoulder, his human Padawan clearly just as shocked as everyone else, and murmured, “Get to the helicopter.” He pointed at the metal bird that had brought in the oil rig workers.

“I don’t know how to fly the damn thing,” Greg said.

The BisMark shut his eyes. A flash of illumination coursed behind the closed lids. “You do now.”

“I don’t— Whoa. I can fly,” Greg said, and he scampered off.

Stewart picked up the crystal vat, and the two of them headed to their escape. Hell, no! They were cutting and running. Not like this!

“Conner,” I yelled. “Let me go!”

Conner looked back at me, his gun out, completely unsure what to do next. “No.”

“Come on—look over there. The BisMark is making a run for it. Let me go. Let me help!”

Conner got down next to me. I could see the debate running through his head as his blue, crystalline eyes contracted. With a groan, he uncuffed me.

Free, I put my forefinger and thumb in my mouth and whistled. The popobawa, who was parked on the road off the beach, opened his back door and pulled the gem off the rancor’s head before he ran like a bat out of hell.

The rancor shook off flakes of stone and turned to flesh. Then it looked right at me, snarled and leapt out of the van. I ran to The BisMark, tumbling past him so that he would be between the rancor and me. Reacting swiftly, The BisMark backhanded the creature, causing it to fly fifty feet before it crashed unconscious on the sand. Hell, The BisMark was strong. It had taken three of us to bring that creature down, and we’d barely managed to do it.

Still, the rancor did what I wanted it to do: distract the great strategist long enough for me to get to my feet and charge.

The BisMark turned to grab me. I dodged him and rolled toward my intended target. The BisMark must have realized what I was going for, because he screamed—for the first time in real panic—as I threw my body against the statue of Poseidon.

The statue wobbled back and forth. Its stone crown teetered and fell off Poseidon’s head and onto the ground, the red ruby—Eye of the Gorgon—glittering in the crimson moonlight.

The way I figured it, the statue of Poseidon wasn’t a memorial, but actually Poseidon himself. A crazy theory, I know. After all, the gods were gone. Except, a few months back, I’d met a god. Dionysus, the god of revelry, had remained on Earth, throwing out the theory that all the gods left. If he stayed behind, perhaps other gods had, too.

And maybe, just maybe, one of the gods stayed behind against his will. Captured and held prisoner until just the right moment. From all the legends I’d heard about The BisMark, if anyone had the power to capture a god, it was him.

The once-upon-a-time statue of Poseidon shook, bits of stone raining off him in whirls of dust as he turned to flesh. But whoever emerged from the statue was not the god of the oceans and the seas—but rather a man-looking Other who was covered from head to toe in peacock feathers.

A creature who looked exactly like The BisMark.

The two BisMarks looked at each other in mutual shock until the original BisMark broke the tension with a devilish smile. “Oh darn,” he said in a cool, casual tone. “You caught me.”

END OF PART THREE

PART VIII

PROLOGUE

Gilgamesh’s Last Days—

Once-upon-a-time, were you to ask Astarte if she could love anyone, let alone a mortal, she would have laughed.

Yet Astarte has loved not one but two mortals—Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The three of them have formed a bond that could not be severed by sword, guile or magic.

Of course, Atargatis sent other assassins to kill Gilgamesh—Enkidu was not the last. But between the three of them, no warrior’s blade pierced Gilgamesh’s heart, no thief’s poison passed his lips.

Nothing could hurt him. And nothing could hurt them. Astarte, Gilgamesh and Enkidu—the inseparable rulers of Uruk. Together they pursued knowledge, worshipping the gentler, more humane principle of Nature.

The Assyrian valley experienced a rare peace that thrived for many years until Atargatis, still angry from being dethroned, sent her most powerful Champion to dispose of the wayward king. The creature has many names: the Beast, the Four Horsemen, the Bull of Heaven. Astarte knows this monster by another name, the name given to her by her mother—Tiamat.

Tiamat was birthed to punish mortals who offended the gods of Chaos. It was the being to consume all, and it would have if not for Enkidu’s sacrifice. His death sacrifice saved both Gilgamesh and his city from ruin. But sacrifice comes with a steep price: death.

Astarte hates death for its cruel indifference. Over time, she and Gilgamesh have learned to find happiness without their beloved friend.

One evening, forty-seven years after Astarte first met Gilgamesh and eleven years after Enkidu died, the Queen of Lust feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. She knows who is coming.

The balcony window is open, and despite it being midsummer there is chill in the air.

“You missed your wedding,” a voice says in the shadows.

Astarte says nothing, does nothing. She just waits for the voice to speak again.

“You’ve changed. I must admit, had circumstances been different, I would’ve loved this new you. But as we stand here—in his bedroom—the sight of you … new or old … disgusts me.”

“Are you here to try and kill my husband again, my dear sister Atargatis?”

“No … the Bull of Heaven was our last failure. Chaos will not send another Champion. Not after that foolish Enkidu sacrificed himself. We are fallen gods now,” Atargatis grits her teeth, “and forever.”

“What of Poseidon and that union?” Astarte asks, and she knows the answer from the way her sister’s shoulders slump.

“You didn’t come, so I stood in your place. Not that doing so has changed what we are to become.”

Astarte touches the pendant that Gilgamesh gave her once-upon-a-time. “We lost long before any of this started, sister.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“And what of Gilgamesh? Will you try to kill him again?”

Atargatis brims with hate. “Let time have him,” she says, “and let uncertainty have you. That’s my curse upon you. That’s how I shall punish you.”

Astarte does not understand what Atargatis means by “uncertainty.” It will be years until she does. And with the dawning of her sister’s curse, Astarte will hate her sister more than ever.

↔

Many years pass. Gilgamesh is old now. His body is frail yet his spirit is as strong as ever. Oh, how Astarte loves him. Gilgamesh invites her to join him by the fire. He sips from his wine.

“Have I lived a meaningful life?” he asks.

Astarte nods. “More so than most humans.”

“Have I made a difference?”

“More so than most humans.”

“Have I been loved?”

Again Astarte nods. “Your people love their king.”

“They do not know me any more than I know the gods.” A dribble of wine stains his white beard deep crimson. “Have I been loved?” he asks again.

“Yes,” Astarte says. “I have loved you. And Enkidu—he, too, loved you.”

“Good,” Gilgamesh says, putting his glass on the table.

There is a long silence before Astarte works up the courage to ask what is in her heart. She looks into the fire and says quietly, “Have I been loved?”

Gilgamesh does not answer. His silence cuts her deeply. Still, she is Astarte, the demigoddess of lust, the queen of succubi and the wife to the greatest king the world has ever known. She is not one to give up easily. With a more determined tone she asks, “Do you love me?”

Still there is silence, and what was once hurt is now anger. She turns to face him, seeking to ask the question again, but is stopped by what she sees.

Her king, her lover, her husband—is dead.

Such is the way of mortals, she thinks. A single tear runs down her cheek.

↔

The death of Gilgamesh is felt everywhere in the world. Kings and princes, creatures of magic and gods offer their respect and their condolences. But respect and condolence do not bring one back from the dead, nor do they soothe the grief of those left behind.

With pity in their eyes and sincerity in their hearts, each and every one of them tells Astarte what a great man he is … was. They touch her shoulder and tell her all the right things a grieving widow needs to hear. None of it makes her feel any better. With every praise, every kindness, an ache stabs her heart that was once impervious to pain.

The priests perform their rites: incense is burned, prayers are chanted, the body is wrapped in a shroud and placed within the stone coffin sitting in the center of a grand catacomb. Here Gilgamesh shall lay, until his body turns to dust.

He will not be alone. Astarte shall sit by his side. Forever, if need be. After all, her body does not need food or water, sleep or shelter.

And so, with the fortitude of a god and the constitution of one deeply in love, she sits.

↔

Astarte kneels by Gilgamesh’s grave, mourning. She knows that she is not waiting for anything. There is nothing to wait for.

A long time has passed since he died. Her lover, her husband. Her friend. Now that he is dead, he will never come back. She knows that. The First Laws will not allow it.

She sits and curses the memories that crowd her mind. She wishes that they were not so strong, so vivid. It’s no use. It’s the way of her kind—to remember every detail, every smell, every touch, every taste, every sound. That is what tortures her. She relives the tightening of her throat and the racing of her heart she felt when they embraced. She recalls, again and again, the joy she knew when seeing him wake in the morning—a waking that will never happen again.

Every memory comes exactly as before, with no possibility to mend a mistake, no hope to right a wrong. No chance to forget her husband whom she loved so much. All she can do is sit by his grave and mourn—alone forever.

Years and years go by. Still, the humans come to offer their respect to Gilgamesh. They burn incense he cannot smell, bestow gifts he cannot use, leave gold he cannot spend.

None of them speak to her, mistaking the demigoddess for a statue.

↔

One night, Astarte hears the thud of falling bodies—the tomb’s guards dropping unconscious. Magic, she thinks. Then she sees the creature that walks into the tomb and knows she is wrong. It was not magic that felled them. It was poison.

Astarte does not look up from her eternal vigil. She does not move, her hand resting on cold stone—worn and warm from her touch.

The figure approaches and hisses, “Astarte.”

Medusa, Astarte knows, although she does nothing to acknowledge the gorgon’s presence.

“Astarte, I’ve come to …” Medusa’s voice trails off.

There is movement in the tomb as the gorgon slithers about, touching things. Gilgamesh’s things. Astarte considers reprimanding Medusa, considers telling her to keep her scaly hands off her lover’s possessions. But what is the point? Her lover is dead. What does he need his things for anyway? Let the gorgon fiddle with them. Let her touch things that are not hers. Let her steal the whole damn tomb! It does not matter!

Not anymore.

The gorgon does not take anything. Instead, she lights a candle and puts it on Gilgamesh’s tomb. Then she gets on her knees and folds her hands in the way humans do when praying.

Kneeling beside her, Astarte can see that Medusa is crying. Still, she does not move, does not speak. She does nothing but rest her hand on her lover’s stone casket.

After a moment, Medusa wipes away her tears and stands. “He’s dead,” she says. Astarte knows she is not talking about her Gilgamesh. She is talking about someone else.

“He’s dead,” the gorgon repeats. “Just like Athena said. ‘Live as a human. Die as a human.’ And now, my little boy … my Chrysaor is dead.”

Medusa turns to leave the tomb and, as if unsure that she wants to go on, stops at the threshold that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. Then, taking a single step, she stands with one foot on the side of life and the other on the side of death, and says, “I’ve always believed that we had nothing in common. But death has proven me a fool.”

With that, she steps outside.

↔

Astarte continues to kneel by the grave of the man she loved. It has been years since the gorgon visited. She has been still for so long, she does not know if she is alive. Those who visit her lover’s tomb think her a lifeless totem built to honor their dead king. In a way they are right.

Her finger constantly caresses the cold stone. Not that the mortals see this. They are so distracted by the ostentatious tributes in this room that they do not see the only tribute that matters: her devotion to Gilgamesh.

His acolytes bring him gifts to honor their once great king. Even after many years, they still cry with genuine misery as they approach the tomb with their paltry offerings.

There is no doubt—they love him as Astarte loves him. Or rather, loved him. For how can one love a corpse? They cannot. She knows this. Just like her, they love the memory of him. But unlike her, they will die—and with their death, their memories of him will die, too. Soon all who once knew him will be gone. And with their passing, her beloved Gilgamesh will be forgotten.

To be forgotten is to die again.

Astarte will not forget, but nor will she love again. To do so would be her death, and that is something she will not abide. She rises and takes the pendant that Gilgamesh once gave her … oh, so long ago … and places it on his tomb. Love, she thinks, is pain. Love is torture. Love is something I shall never allow myself to feel again.

Now lust, on the other hand …

WHAT THE WHAT?

My life isn’t that exciting. I swear. Usually my days are filled with running the hotel and dispelling the daily drama that seems to follow Others around. Occasionally I have to teach the virtue of dental hygiene or the necessity of wearing clothes—especially when they happen to be giants with epic appendages flapping about. There are also times when I have to deal with Internet scams, having conversations that go like this:

“No, Penemue, the prince of Nigeria has not bequeathed you a small fortune.”

“Are you sure, Human Jean? The Queen of Sheba was a personal friend of mine. Perhaps she left me something in her will …”

I’ve also brainstormed ways to merge their cultures with our own. I’ve helped minotaurs string up mazes made of bed sheets just so they could feel at home. I’ve ordered doll furniture and built birdhouses for pixies. I’ve stapled eggshell cartons and mattresses to bedroom walls just so that banshees could scream in peace.

I’ve ordered brass lamps for genies.

There is no end to Others’ eccentricities—and why should there be? They are, after all, refugees on Earth, their cultures older than agriculture and as plentiful as grains of sand on a beach. And although swaddling seven-foot-tall mummies so they can get some sleep may sound strange, it’s pretty harmless stuff when you get down to it.

Then I have days like today.

In the past twenty-four hours, a cosmetic company called Being Human threatened to close my business, my hotel was nearly destroyed by an apocalypse accidentally set off by a peacock-feathered asshole of an Other, my date was arrested and I myself was a fugitive from the law. I’d also been beaten up by a balloon demon, a rancor, a giant and an extremely hairy man.

And let’s not forget the giant, squid-like creature in the ocean.

At least I’d managed to get out of that bright white tuxedo that would have been embarrassing to wear at a 1950s “Under the Sea” dance.

But now I stood before not one, but two peacock-feathered pompous BisMarks—and that was something I could not forgive. I didn’t like either of them, and two was two too many.

The BisMarks stood face-to-face, identical in every way, except that the previously frozen one was dressed like Poseidon—a toga, a coral crown and shell decor. The other BisMark wore his peacock-feathered suit with the unapologetic dignity of a used car salesman—which is to say, guiltily.

The Poseidon BisMark growled at his impersonator. “You!” he cawed. Hell, even the human soldiers who had no idea what was going on startled at Real BisMark’s bark.

Fake BisMark put an innocent hand on his chest. “Who, me?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “The old impersonation routine. Come on! That’s the biggest cliché in the book.”

Fake BisMark narrowed his gaze at me. “Bold words, coming from the guy who used the same trick to get out of the salon.” He was referring to Astarte and me switching clothes with Sally and EightBall to trick the Others into pursuing the wrong offenders.

“Touché,” I conceded.

For a moment I thought that Fake BisMark was going to play to the end by pulling the old “I’m The Real BisMark,” “No, I am” quarrel. He didn’t. Staring at the two identical Others, I knew that there could be no mistaking who was real and who was not. The BisMark—the real The BisMark—exuded an aura of authority, confidence and, what’s more, responsibility.

The fake one had confidence, sure, but he lacked that intangible quality of authority that was innate to Real BisMark.

Fake BisMark must have known he had lost. He snapped his fingers, and cloven feet appeared, then a bushy tail. Slowly he transformed into a bad Halloween-costume version of the Devil. A satyr.

Or rather, the satyr—Pan. He was just as all the stories described him. Half-goat, half-human—all boy. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Endymion, Jitterbug Perfume and the epic Disney cartoon series Gargoyles—they all got it right. And why not? With an ego like Pan’s, he probably played muse to those writers just to inspire their desire to write about him.

When the gods left, we all expected Pan to make an appearance sooner or later. From everything we knew about him, Pan was the one Other bound to cause mischief. Governments monitored all the media channels and the Internet, examining every audacious act, looking for the trickster Other. He never appeared, and it was assumed that he had died during the GrandExodus, the darkness of the closing heavens and hells consuming him before he could escape.

Apparently, we were wrong.

Pan strutted around the stage with an arrogant showmanship, indulging the crowd. He wanted to be the center of attention—needed to be. Seeing the joy he got from having the eyes of the world on him, I knew that there was simply no way that he could have spent the last few thousand years of his life in hiding. The only mystery that remained was why it took him so long to reveal himself in the GoneGod World.

“You!” Real BisMark cried out again, this time the word carrying far more than a simple accusation. It was also a question demanding to know what this whole thing was about.

“Time,” Pan said, twirling Poseidon’s trident like a baton. “This is the greatest time heist of all history.” He pointed the trident at the crowd. “I must have gotten—what? Five thousand years? Maybe ten.”

“And how much time did you spend doing all this?” I asked.

“Hey!” he said in mock hurt, “you’ve got to spend time to get time. If you must know, I spent no time freezing Tiamat.” He stuck his hand in the crystal vat and pulled out an apple-sized red ruby.

“The third Eye of the Gorgon,” I said.

Medusa nodded.

“I didn’t have to spend much time. The Eye of the Gorgon took care of most of that and what magic I did need to use … well, I used theirs,” Pan said, pointing Poseidon’s trident at the crowd.

The BisMark shook his head. “What exactly do you plan to do with her?”

We all looked at Tiamat, who stood frozen a mile off the shoreline of Paradise Lot.

“Her … She shall remain there, a reminder to the world that the great Pan still exists. From now until the end of time, humans and Others alike will stare at the monster and know that Pan is the only real god now.”

“Except,” The BisMark said, “you’ll have to continue holding the creature, hour after hour, to keep her in a state of suspended animation. Is that your plan? Stay on this beach forever?”

“No,” Greg said, pulling back his hood like some cheesy villain. “Not as long as I have this.” He pointed at the crystal vat. “You see, that crystal … it’s a Creation Crystal, and it’s hooked up to a generator and laptop. The Crystal is an amplifier, and as long as it channels time through the Eye of the Gorgon, she will remain frozen. It’s what holds her. I have encrypted the laptop so that only I know the password. So … here’s the deal. You keep giving us time, and we’ll use half of it to keep her still. Stop giving us time and … well, crack goes Tiamat.”

So that was the play. Steal a bunch of time from the Others, then blackmail them for more. “Can that work?” I asked. I reached in my pocket, but Pan pointed the trident at me. “Relax, O great and powerful Pan. If I’m going to die, I want to smell minty fresh.” I held up one of the sticks of gum Medusa gave me before unwrapping it and biting down.

The BisMark shook his head in disgust. “Vain human.”

“That’s me.” I gave him a big, gum-filled grin. “Now, if you don’t mind answering this vain human’s question— Will what Pan says work?”

The BisMark nodded, and Pan danced at this like he had just won the game. Then he patted the crystal vat. “Seeing how this is a Creation Crystal, I’ll be able to fuse my being with that time. At this rate, I’ll live forever.”

Atargatis’ eyes brimmed with anguish. “And what about my daughter? My champion?”

“What, her?” Pan pointed at Tiamat. “She’ll stay like that, unless you want me to … you know …” He made a cutting gesture.

Atargatis shook her head and started crying. Astarte stepped forward and put a comforting hand on her sister’s shoulder, hugging her with a tenderness I’d rarely seen the succubus exhibit before.

“You betrayed me,” The BisMark said to Stewart, evidently more upset by the fact that he had been crossed than by the giant frozen monster in the water. Priorities—we all got ’em.

“I did,” Stewart said, with all the enthusiasm of a house plant.

“For what?”

“When the gods left, everyone was freed—except me. Why? Because my master happened to be the one god that was never a god at all.”

The BisMark’s eyes crackled with fury. “So you sought to destroy the world?”

Stewart looked back at Tiamat. “The Crystal will hold her for as long as the gems are upon it. For as long as the bearer wishes it, the beast will remain stone.”

“Do you really think I will allow you to leave here and be free? That will never happen. Not after this. As for you …” The BisMark sneered at Pan. “There are no amused gods to protect you. No places for you to slither under. You’ll be dealt with by the appropriate measures of the GoneGod World. Mortal law.”

“No … No! … NO!” Pan said, with what seemed like genuine lamentation. That was until his cries turned from anguish to mockery. His eyes were glowing again. “Alas … how can I live with myself? Oh … yes. I can. See that helicopter over there? My co-conspirators and I are going to board it. Don’t interfere, or the human Greg will turn off the machine and free the beast.”

“What about me?” Michael said. “Do you think I’ll let you go?”

Pan snickered. “Of course not. But I now possess five thousand years I didn’t have before. How many of those do I have to burn to hold you down for a few minutes? A year? Two at the most.” Pan’s eyes pulsed with electrical illumination, and from the sand emerged a giant hand which grabbed the archangel. “There … As for you, young whippersnappers—” Pan pointed at the Army, and with a flick of his wrist turned their weapons into giant bananas, complete with the fair trade stickers.

While Pan was distracted by his little magic tricks, I whispered to The BisMark, “What do you need to hold Tiamat yourself?”

“The Eye, and Poseidon’s trident. If I were to possess both, I could hold her for a short while.”

“What’s a short while?”

“An hour, maybe two.”

That would have to do. I couldn’t let Pan escape and continue to take time that wasn’t his, nor could I let that monster run rampant. We did have one advantage that Pan hadn’t considered: the world was allied neither to Nature nor Chaos; in this ambiguous state, Tiamat could be turned back. I was sure.

I just didn’t know how.

The way I saw it, although a couple hours wasn’t a lot of time, it was a lot of motivation for one of these older-than-sin creatures to find a way. So before Pan could turn his attention to anyone else, I leapt. The plan was to knock him over and to kick him in his goat testicles. Then, once he was down, to keep him down. I landed, and Stewart lifted one of his damned diamond hands. One of his gargoyles charged at me. It was the good ol’ ScarFace.

“Not this again!” I cried out. I ducked, the gargoyle’s hands grabbing at nothing. Pan, Greg and Stewart ran toward the helicopter, Greg clutching his laptop.

I drove into the sand and, using the sleeve of my jacket, cupped up the gem that had been responsible for stonifying The BisMark. Then I spit out the gum and squished it on the gem.

ScarFace swooped down and grabbed me. Hell, I wanted him to, because as soon as his stone hands were on me, I attached the gum-covered gem to his forehead.

What happened next was better than I expected.

The thing about the Others’ talismans was that, under the right conditions, they always had the opposite effect. The prince turned into a frog, the frog into a prince. An instant two-way evolution.

Others can evolve at will. Before you get all technical and say that’s not evolution, I challenge you to this: Weren’t we all some version of frog before we evolved into royalty?

ScarFace turned to a creature of flesh and blood, with taut muscles, searing breath and a huge scar across his face.

After thousands of years of being stone, flesh must have felt strange and foreign to him. My hand grabbing his arm, the feeling of the sand beneath his feet, the light cool breeze that came in from the ocean—all so new, so overwhelming. It was more than that; he had never sensed his heart beating within his chest, or what the blinking of an eye felt like. He had never known what a breath was, the cool air that filled the nostrils and the throat as air expanded the chest.

“Weird, isn’t it?” I said, and added pain to his new experiences with a headbutt. ScarFace screamed in agony and dropped me, clutching his nose.

Before ScarFace could get up, I scraped the gem off his face with my jacket’s sleeve. He turned back to stone, still holding on to his aching nose.

Greg jumped into the helicopter, switching on the propeller as Pan and Stewart jumped in the back. The helicopter started to lift.

Amongst the many things I took from Greg’s apartment was the slingshot he used to awaken the rancor. I pulled it out, quickly loading it with the gem—still sticky with gum—took careful aim and waited until the helicopter was about fifteen feet off the ground.

Then I let the gem loose.

My shot rang true. The gem hit Greg square on his cheek. The little Sith wannabe turned to stone, and his toy helicopter came tumbling down … Pan, Stewart and all.

IT’S RAINING FROGS! HELLELUJAH!

Michael was one of the most powerful beings in existence. As much time as Pan put into the giant hand, it wasn’t enough. The archangel broke free and with preternatural speed launched at the falling helicopter. In one seamless move, he stopped it from careening into the beach. Once it was safe on the ground, he tore the hull apart and grabbed Pan, disarming him from Poseidon’s trident. Pulling out a spindle, he wrapped a thread around Pan—once, twice, three times—before the trickster satyr could so much as think about burning more time.

I ran over and pulled a stone Greg out of the helicopter. I thought about unfreezing him, but then thought better of it. The little guy looked good in gray.

Two minotaur cops rushed over and pinned down Stewart and, before you could say “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” all three bad guys were detained.

“There,” the police chief said, handing Pan over to an officer. “That should hold him.”

“Sure,” I said, looking at my own handiwork. “But it looks to me like you only tied him up with thread. At least I turned mine to stone.”

Michael grunted. He did that a lot. “It’s a thread from Rumpelstiltskin’s spindle. Others can’t burn time when tied with it.”

“Rapunzel is real? Never mind. Don’t answer that.” I pointed at Tiamat, who stood frozen on the shore of Paradise Lot. “What do we do about that?”

Michael sighed, which sounded like a semi-truck downshifting. “I honestly don’t know.”

The BisMark put his hands over the Crystal. It glowed under his power. “I can use this. But not for long.”

“Good. We only need magic to hold it long enough for us to dismantle Tiamat, piece by piece.”

Atargatis shuddered. “My girl.”

“Your girl,” The BisMark said dispassionately, “will kill us all … including you.” He looked hard at her, his stare charged with warning and accusation. It was a look I knew well. It was a warning and a threat. Don’t stand in our way, or else …

And it was a look that was not lost on Atargatis. She nodded.

“Good,” The BisMark said.

“OK—that’s all fine and dandy,” I said, “but how do you plan on doing that? The creature is as big as the Statue of Liberty.”

Michael huffed. “Bigger, I suspect. But you forget how good your kind is at destroying things.” He nodded over his shoulder at the beach, where a group of scared soldiers trembled, holding the giant bananas like they would their guns. “They just have to find new weapons, which shouldn’t take long. There are whole stockades just over the bridge.”

All this time Michael knew that the Army had amassed just over the bridge, and still he stayed. I guess that’s what made him Michael: he lived and worked in Paradise Lot, upholding mortal law to show the human world that Others were nothing to fear. He also knew that if he failed, the humans wouldn’t hesitate to invade the island. I had to hand it to Michael—as much as I personally did not like the archangel, he gave a damn. And that, if nothing else, earned him my respect long ago.

On the beach, those of the media who had returned were filming the frozen Tiamat and giving their take on what was happening. I cringed at all the “theories” they threw around. Whatever they said, I doubted it would help the Others’ situation.

Stewart, Pan and Greg sat handcuffed, several of Michael’s police officers standing over them with pointed shotguns and itchy trigger fingers. Conner and the other police officers were pushing back the crowds, which had turned into an angry mob that wanted nothing more than to tear the time thief apart.

From the corner of my eye I saw Enkidu. He crouched on all fours at the edge where the man-made concrete sidewalk met the god-made sandy beach. The rancor sat next to him, panting. Evidently, Enkidu earned the rancor’s loyalty when he pummeled the creature. Enkidu’s cold eyes stared at the unfolding scene, and I got the feeling that he was trying to assess whose side he was on in all of this.

“Jean!” Medusa came up to me and took my hand. “I saw what you did. So brave.” She squeezed it, and several of her snakes patted my head with theirs. Only Marty gave me his usual distrustful stare.

“How’s it going, Marty?” I said. The snake stuck a forked tongue out at me.

“Medusa,” Michael said, “you’re not where you’re supposed to be.”

Medusa turned away. “I’m sorry, Captain. You’re not going to fire me, are you?”

“We’ll determine your fate later,” the archangel pronounced. “As will we decide the fate of the fugitive you’re holding onto. For now, we have bigger problems to address.”

“Great,” Medusa muttered. “I’m going to get fired!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me …” I started, then caught myself. Michael wasn’t going to overlook the fact that I ran away from the law and broke Medusa out from jail. If we were lucky, he’d exercise discretion by giving us the minimum punishment possible, which would come later … And later might not come at all if we didn’t figure out a way to get rid of Tiamat. “Fine, we’ll deal with my fate later,” I said in a mocking tone. “Do we have enough time to hold Tiamat for a few hours? With all the chaos at the bridges, it’ll be some time until the cavalry arrives.”

“They’ve already been called in,” Michael said.

I followed his eyes to a weary commander nervously speaking into a walkie-talkie. “Super-hearing?” I asked.

Michael grinned. “Super-hearing. And speaking of super-hearing, your pocket is buzzing.”

“Huh?” I looked down. Sure enough, my pants pocket was vibrating and a muffled blue light emanated from it. I pulled out the Bluetooth earpiece and stuck it in my ear.

“Ahhh, Jean …” Brian’s voice said.

“Hey, Brian,” I said, touching the earpiece. “Is this important? I’m kind of busy here.”

“I know. I’ve been watching the news. Umm … I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s something you forgot.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Frogs.”

“Excuse me?”

Brian’s voice hesitated. “The seventh sign … We’ve only had six. The earthquake, the sky falling, the sour wine, the matricide, the Blood Moon and Tiamat appearing. Six. According to the Grimoire of Metatron, there are seven. In other words—frogs.”

“GoneGodDamn,” I said. As if to punctuate my sentence, a trident flew out of the water and landed in the sand before us.

Atargatis pointed at the water. “It seems my daughter is the least of your worries. It’s my grandchildren who are of concern now.”

“Grandchildren?”

“Yes,” Atargatis said, pulling the weapon out of the ground. “Grandchildren.”

She pointed at the shoreline, where hundreds of humanoid creatures with bulbous heads, big round impassioned eyes and scaly green skin emerged from the ocean, armed with tridents, barnacle-laced swords, shell-covered whips, nets and a whole host of underwater weaponry. And as they marched forth, they croaked—it was their battle cry.

Hey, apparently everyone gets a battle cry, even frogs.

“Oh, great,” I sighed. “FrogMen.”

↔

The FrogMen—a.k.a. Astarte’s great-nieces and -nephews—poured out of the ocean in a platoon-like fashion, with one objective in their minds.

Save Momma.

Although they did not fall like raindrops from the sky, they were just as plentiful and just as wet. I was a fool to think that the frogs would literally fall from the sky—just like I was a fool to assume that they would be normal-sized frogs.

Regardless, the Seventh Sign poured out from the ocean.

Forming row after row and standing shoulder to shoulder, the FrogMen advanced. I’d seen this tactical formation before, mostly in Civil War reenactments. The basic strategy was that when a soldier on the front line fell, someone in the row behind replaced him. A great strategy, if you didn’t care about suffering heavy casualties. And given the sheer number of FrogMen emerging from the ocean, I was guessing “heavy casualties” was quite low on their list of concerns.

“They’re going to try to destroy the Crystal and free Tiamat,” I said, meeting the front line of the FrogMen together with Michael, Astarte and Atargatis. We stood between them and the Creation Crystal. The BisMark was behind us, one hand on the Crystal that kept Tiamat frozen and the other holding Poseidon’s trident.

The FrogMen advanced, and the four of us attacked. Michael dealt the first blow, unfurling his wings and swatting a dozen FrogMen away like flies. Astarte and Atargatis used a combination of acrobatics and brute strength to push back the advancing lines. I pulled out the Highlander sword and charged at the nearest FrogMan. The damn creature leapt right over me—ever play the game Leap Frog as a kid?—and went for the Crystal. I managed to grab him by his hind leg and yank him down. He plopped to the ground. Just as I was about to squash his face, another FrogMan jumped on my back, knocking me over.

Eating a mouthful of sand, I turned around and saw that Michael, Astarte and Atargatis were faring marginally better than me. There were simply too many FrogMen, and already several of them were at the Crystal. The BisMark fought them off, doing that weird thing of his where he couldn’t be touched. He swung Poseidon’s trident, and for the first time I understood what it meant to “smite” someone. The FrogMen felled by the GoneGod’s trident didn’t simply die—they disintegrated, their wart-covered green flesh turning to dust as soon as the weapon touched their skin. It reminded me of a child popping soap bubbles. And as he fought, his left hand never let go of the Crystal. The BisMark was magnificent.

But as magnificent as The BisMark was, as agile and vicious as the Assyrian sisters were and as powerful as Michael was, we had no hope of winning this battle. Not when it was just the four of us. So I did what years of Army training told me to do when the situation looked hopeless.

Retreat.

Retreat and regroup.

I ran to the Army, still standing around holding oversized bananas, and got in front of their commander. “Come on!” I barked, mustering my old command cadence. “Organize your men and defend that Crystal!”

The commander stared at the invading army without blinking, evidently unfazed by my old military voice. Either I’d lost the touch or my touch wasn’t strong enough to break through his shock. And given his wide-open eyes and gaping mouth, my bet was on the latter. An invading army of soldiers ready and willing to die for their cause was one thing. He had trained for that. But a monster looming in the background, waiting to eat them whole while they stood with only bananas for weapons—that was something they’d never trained for. Hell, I doubted there was a crisis military think tank in the world that could have anticipated this scenario for OPT.

This was every human’s worst nightmare: monsters, and being helpless.

Except they weren’t helpless. Not with all those artillery weapons at their disposal.

“Come on,” I growled, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Pan didn’t disable those Humvees. Give the order. Attack!”

The commander’s eyes flickered from the FrogMen to me, his stupefied gaze faltering as his training kicked in.

“We’ve got to fight these guys,” I repeated.

“Fight? Against that?” His voice wavered before it found some steel. “Fight, you say. For what? To save their city?”

It was the way he said their city, with all the belief that the Others’ city was not his city. It was not a place for which he would lay his life on the line. Not for an Other’s home. Not for Paradise Lot.

Fine. If he wasn’t going to fight for them, maybe he’d fight for himself.

“It’s not for them,” I said. “You really think that creature is going to stop after destroying Paradise Lot? Don’t you get it? Everything is at stake.”

“We’ll deal with that later. Once it’s done here, we’ll drop a bomb on its head.” He whistled and raised his hand in the air. “Fall back, boys!”

“No, you can’t! You’re condemning them to death. If we—”

“ ‘If’ nothing,” the commander said. “Let them die. They never belonged here in the first place.”

The soldiers began retreating. I could see on many of their faces that their commander’s decision didn’t sit well with them. But they were scared, and orders were always the easiest excuse for running.

This We’ll Defend. The motto of the United States Army. Apparently, they weren’t thinking of Others when they came up with that one.

↔

As the Army pulled back, Michael and the other Others were slowly being overwhelmed. This was not a battle we were going to win.

So, I thought, this is it. I turned to face the invading FrogMen. There were thousands of them. All armored and carrying swords, tridents, nets and whips. They were endless.

It would have been easy to falsely believe we could persevere. After all, we had an archangel on our side. But even an archangel gets tired, and as far as I could tell, these guys were limitless.

A silence grew over the invading army as they sized up the ragtag band that stood at my side. A thousand versus … seven.

From their ranks rose a FrogMan a head taller than the rest. He dripped with water and algae. Barnacles littered the parts of his body not covered by armor made from seashells. He looked at us, pointing his trident at the Creation Crystal.

The gesture was obvious: Reverse the spell and meet your fate, or face us in battle and meet your fate.

So be it, I thought. I’d rather try and fail than let Kermit’s evil brother win. I pointed my own sword at the creature and shook my head. I swear to you, the frog smiled. He didn’t come all this way to chat.

The FrogMen’s leader raised his trident above his head and croaked. What followed was a deafening chorus of Ribbits! as a thousand leaping frogs bounded forwards with one thought in mind: Free Momma.

So, I thought, this is how it all ends for me. So be it. This is as good a way to die as any.

I charged into the fray and struck down the first FrogMan who got in my way.

Swinging my sword in a fluid arc, I cut down two more.

I needed to clear a path in all this chaos to get to the Crystal and help the Others defend it. Chances were, by the time I got to it, it’d be too late.

And that’s when the cavalry arrived.

ON A PRAYER AND WING—WELL, TWO WINGS

Miral descended, followed by Penemue with EightBall in his arms, a host of valkyrie and a legion of other angels. Fairies and pixies adorned with thimbles and syringes glittered the sky around them. And that was just Paradise Lot’s air force.

Land forces emerged from the streets. Wraiths, ifrits and jinn flowed to the beach, creating a fiery mist that shrouded centaurs, giants and goblins. Harpies, wendigo and orcs lumbered out of the alleyways, brandishing homemade weapons.

Then I heard an ominous “WAAN, WAAN, WAAN!”

I swear to the GoneGods, the battle stopped for a moment as the FrogMen trembled in fear at the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who’s battle cry—something I’ll never understand. You see, the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who is a four-foot-nothing, red Australian vampire with wafer-thin arms that make him look like one of those inflatable balloon men in front of used car dealerships. Yet his battle cry inspired fear in all Others—and I’d seen the little guy in action before. He was fierce!

The Yara-Ma-Yha-Who appeared on the back of a galloping sphinx, waving his signature knitting needles for swords. He nodded at me before joining the fight, his terrible battle cry booming ahead of him.

From above came the churning of air from Penemue’s wings. “We really must stop meeting like this,” he said.

“Like what?” I ducked under a FrogMan’s trident.

“You in the middle of a fight you can’t win, and me showing up at the last minute to save you.” Penemue picked up a FrogMan and tossed it away like a rag doll.

“I don’t see it that way.”

“Oh? And how exactly do you see it?”

I punched a FrogMan right in his cartilage-lined jaw, and he toppled head over feet. “I see it as me saving you and you, last minute, deciding to help. How did you convince them to come, anyway?” I motioned at the army of Others joining the fray.

“Not me—Miral. The Army wasn’t letting them out anyway, which meant that there was a fairly large congregation at the bridge. You know how angels love congregations? She merely pointed out how embarrassing it would be for a human to save Paradise Lot—twice—and suggested that should they join the fight, they could claim their part in the impending victory. In other words, she appealed to their pride. You know how they say, ‘Pride goeth before destruction.’ ”

“Ah-ha … and what about EightBall?” I asked, nodding at the kid.

Penemue landed next to me, putting down EightBall, who shakily held a baseball bat in his hands. “He insisted on coming.”

EightBall gulped. “I’m starting to regret some of my life choices.”

“Stay next to me, and we’ll survive this. I promise,” Penemue said.

EightBall forced a smile. “Just like you promised me a PlayStation?”

“You must have known I was drunk when I promised that.”

“You’re always drunk.”

“Indeed.”

“And Sally?” I asked.

“You think I’d bring her to this? She already fears us. I dropped her off at the hotel. Figured it was the safest place for her to be, given everyone was here.”

“Oh, great,” I said, dodging a FrogMan’s trident.

“Indeed.” Penemue turned to an approaching pair of FrogMen. He burned a bit of time and released two daggers attached to metal chains that extended out from his forearm. I’d seen him do it before; it was the same weapon he used when he rebelled in Heaven, and it was damn cool seeing it again.

“Shall we?” he asked, and without waiting for my answer he threw his daggers at the FrogMen and flung his arms back. The two creatures flew in the air before splatting on the pavement a couple hundred feet behind him.

“Whoa,” EightBall muttered.

“ ‘Whoa,’ indeed,” I echoed.

I heard a pistol shot and looked over to see a human soldier in a shooting stance and pointing his gun at the FrogMen. He fired another shot. And a third. I guess seeing creatures of lore and legend attack the FrogMen must have woken something in him. He reloaded his magazine and continued firing. Other soldiers joined him one by one until the entire division decided that retreating was not an option. And before I could swing my sword again, humans and Others were fighting side by side.

↔

Others and humans fought side by side against an invading army of FrogMen. In the fourteen years since the GrandExodus, I had never seen the two fight against a common enemy—usually their common enemy was each other—and it would’ve filled me with a warm and fuzzy feeling if my legs didn’t feel like jello and my muscles didn’t burn with the hot fires of Tartarus.

Into the fray came several humans from the oil rig. They wielded unusual weapons—pipe wrenches, drill bits, flare guns. One particularly short man sprang on top of a FrogMan and beat him with the sharp end of a claw hammer. He screamed, “Azzah was my friend. MY FRIEND!”

We cut them down one after another until the beach was covered in the bile-colored, sea-foam blood of FrogMen. But it wasn’t just their blood that stained the sand. Others of all walks of life also bled, which meant that the earth was stained with every color of the rainbow and a hundred shades in-between.

I was beginning to think that we could win this one. It would cost us dearly, but we could win. And just as hope rose in me, one of Tiamat’s tentacles broke free, shaking off slates of stone like a duck shakes off water.

The tentacle slammed down, knocking dozens of FrogMen and Others alike, and with it my hope that the tables had turned. A FrogMan army we could handle, but the earth-shattering power of the Tiamat was well beyond anything we could ever hope to stop.

Tiamat smashed her free tentacle down a second time, then a third. Each crash caused us to lose our footing and fall as mounds of sand flew up and dispersed, filling the air with a mist of granular powder.

The BisMark doubled his efforts. Slowly, the tentacle froze. Tiamat must have realized what he was doing because she crashed her massive appendage on top of him. He would have been lost, except he had that weird “Nothing can hurt me” thing going on. At the last minute the tentacle slipped to the side, striking the ground next to The BisMark, right where Stewart and Greg kneeled, turning the sand red with blood and sparkling with diamond dust … So much for the Sith and his gargoyle partner.

A FrogMan came at me. I struck him hard on the head. He wasn’t getting up again. His friends, on the other hand, turned on me. I never knew the croaks of a frog could be so terrifying. I was overrun by them. I swung and slashed, ducked and jabbed … Still, there was no way I could keep this up for long. It was only a matter of time before fatigue would put me out of the fight—put us all out.

Just when I thought I was done for, the FrogMan standing before me turned to stone. Then another, and a couple more.

Medusa appeared next to me, daggers at her sides. With a hissing roar she called to the FrogMen. They answered. A troop of them turned on her, charging with the coordinated efficiency of a well-trained unit. Not that their training did any good. Her lips curled upward as her snakes faced the advancing FrogMen and—FLASH!—turned twenty of them to stone. Medusa whirled around, speed and grace in every step. Again, her snakes hissed. Another FLASH! and sixty more froze where they stood.

Knowing that she was burning through time too fast, Medusa drew her daggers and strode through the FrogMen, slicing and slashing. A FrogMan crept up behind her. Before he could strike, Marty flicked around and bit him. Whatever venom the snake used was fast-acting and powerful—the FrogMan fell to his knees, frothy bile spilling over his lips.

And still the FrogMen came.

The BisMark cut through them, using the trident to impale, eviscerate and destroy a dozen FrogMen per attack. Michael blew his mighty trumpet, and a hundred FrogMen turned tail and fled back into the ocean. The Yara-Ma-Yha-Who bit FrogMan after FrogMan, cutting through them like a knife through jelly. Miral’s bright sword came down, splitting them in halves and quarters. Officer Steve reverted from four legs to two, headbutting three FrogMen at once. Officer Conner stood by his side, firing from his shotgun at their bellies.

Valkyries and bunyips, sara-hebi and banshees … each of them fought for their home.

And still the FrogMen came.

The citizens of Paradise Lot fought with their very souls, their very beings. I doubted a single one of them would have fought harder for the heavens and the hells that were once their homes.

And still the FrogMen came.

We all knew that no matter how hard we fought, we would never truly be able to take down Tiamat. Not until she had destroyed our home. But this was the home we were willing to die for, and so we fought on.

And still more FrogMen came.

↔

I thought it couldn’t get any worse. It did.

A giant tentacle struck the crystal vat and the laptop, destroying both. Without the talisman holding her in place, it was only a matter of moments until she was free to destroy us all.

Not that I could do anything about it. I had my own FrogMen to contend with—hundreds of them. Swing after swing, slash after slash, I took down as many enemies as I could, but I was losing. I wouldn’t be good for much longer. What else was I going to do?

I resolved to fight until I could no longer lift my sword. A FrogMan came up behind me and stabbed its slimy, barnacle-laced sword in my back. I screamed in pain. Medusa rushed to my side, her daggers severing first the FrogMan’s arm from his body and then his head.

“Jean, are you OK?” she asked, and spun her face to the oncoming hordes, flashing her gorgon time. The shoreline lit up. A hundred FrogMen turned to stone as wrinkles lined her once youthful face.

“Stop,” I said. “You’ll run out of time. You’ll die.”

She put a hand over my wound. Her eyes glowed white, and my pain and fatigue left me.

“Stop,” I said. “Please. Don’t waste your time on me.”

Medusa smiled. “Oh, Jean,” she said. “In another life, I would have given you all my time.”

“In another life?” I said.

Medusa nodded. “You know what Chry said to me when he died? My little boy was an old man, still being held by his loving mother who hadn’t aged a day in his whole life. I cried and begged all the forces I knew not to take him from me. You know what he said to me? ‘I spent my time well.’ I think I’d like to do the same.” She smiled, her gorgeous dimples digging into her olive cheeks. “Just promise to bring me flowers. That would make me very happy. Very happy indeed.”

And before I could stop her, she stood. The wondrous, selfless Medusa looked back at me long enough to wink at me before she walked toward her chosen fate. Flash after flash shot forth, each one freezing hundreds upon hundreds of FrogMen. More came from the ocean’s depths, yet as soon as their heads surfaced, Medusa let out another flash and they froze in the water, stone lily pads that would forever be a testament of her sacrifice. And still more came, meeting the same fate until she built a wall of stone FrogMen that blocked their advance.

Singlehandedly, Medusa stopped Tiamat’s army.

↔

Medusa, old and feeble, fell to her knees.

I came to her side and held her tight. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Did I stop them?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, tears falling from my cheeks to hers.

“Good. Help me up.” I nodded and pulled the Queen of the Gorgons to her feet. “Thank you. I think I have just enough time left.”

She closed her eyes, and a soft white glow appeared beneath her lids. She burned through the last of her time and turned herself young. Not like she was when she came to the GoneGod World, but young like she must have been before there were gorgons and angels, when the world was new and still trying to figure out what it would be. Her snakes left her, slithering down her body as lush, black curly hair grew in their place. Her dress was no longer the gown she’d worn to the gala but a beautiful flowing toga from an era long gone. She looked so young, so vibrant. So hopeful. “Human Jean,” she said, capturing me with deep brown eyes. “I do hope you’ll keep your promise and bring me flowers.”

“I promise,” I said, crying now. “I will.”

“Good.” She smiled, and with an outstretched hand pointing to the sea, she burned the final dregs of her time. There was one last flash, and Medusa’s skin turned hard and solid.

Medusa—the beauty-magazine obsessed, nail-polished happy gorgon with two perfect, smile-induced dimples—turned herself into stone.

And as life left her, I became consumed with a misery I had felt only once before. A sadness that I vowed, then and there, to never feel again.

I got to my feet, leaving my sword by Medusa’s stone body, and walked over to Tiamat. I didn’t care if the FrogMen attacked … By the GoneGods, I wished they would. I wished they would end my pain … I didn’t care if one of the beast’s tentacles crushed me. I just didn’t care. Not anymore.

I was done. This was it. I was ready to die.

Yet even in my misery, I knew I couldn’t just let Paradise Lot fall. There were too many left. Penemue, EightBall, Miral … Astarte, TinkerBelle, CaCa … Hell, even Judith. There was one last thing to try, one last attempt—with it, I would have my wish for death granted.

I approached Tiamat and cried out the one word I’d heard Enkidu cry out when Astarte kissed me and shared her memories. The word he had used when he begged the Bull of Heaven not to destroy all he loved.

Enough.

Enough, enough …

“ENOUGH!”

WORST … DAY … EVER

“Enough!” I screamed.

I wasn’t just screaming the word—I was screaming my anguish. “Enough!” I cried out again and again. Each time I uttered the word, I released pieces of me that were overflowing with grief and misery. This wasn’t the fleeting misery that sometimes strikes the heart, only to be lessened by the morning. This was the misery that would stay with me for the rest of my days, never dulling, never subsiding, never diminishing. My soul was crying, and it would cry for as long as I drew breath. Of that I was sure. And now—all these years later—I can say that I was right.

I walked toward Tiamat, who had freed another tentacle from The BisMark’s spell. I figured that I was worthy enough to beg for her to stop. After all, I had fought with Astarte, and I had defended Atargatis—according to Other law, that made me their champion. And using Astarte’s memories from her kiss, I knew that champions were allowed to sacrifice themselves for their masters. Atargatis may have been out of the running, but Paradise Lot and all the mythical creatures that lived within its limits were not. There may not have been one creature powerful enough to send Tiamat back, but the champion of hundreds of them … that was another story.

And judging from how her loose limbs no longer attacked the beach, I knew I had figured right.

“Take me,” I said.

Tiamat’s free tentacles recoiled and then stretched out, like she was considering my sacrifice. She struck the beach with each arm. Thuwamp! Thuwamp! Thuwamp! Each strike sent sand up into the air.

I walked through the haze of beach and stood underneath one of her arms. It was about to fall on the earth and with its mighty sweep crush me to nothing. It swung down, and I cried out, “Can’t you hear me? Enough! Take me!” The tentacle froze inches from my face, hovering in the air as if deliberating whether to kill the puny human or accept the offering.

Astarte came up behind me, Enkidu by her side. “Jean, what are you doing?” Her words were heavy with anguish. “She consumes you and you’ll stay within her, never dying, never aging—alone forever.”

Enkidu looked from Astarte to me and then back to Astarte, and as he did, he wore a look of confusion. It seemed to me that he didn’t comprehend what I was doing, but he was more confused by why Astarte cared.

“I know,” I said. I pointed at Tiamat. “She understands that I accept all this. I am sacrificing myself … fully, completely. I am going to end all this now.”

“No,” Astarte said. “We need you.”

“You don’t. Not anymore. And what’s more, I want to.” I was surprised by how calm I was … how certain. I wanted this to end. But moreover, I wanted to end.

“But—”

I put a hand on Astarte’s cheek and let hot tears run over my fingers. “I can’t do this anymore. Don’t you see? I just can’t.” I looked up at Tiamat and cried out, “Come on … take me.”

The FrogMen, who still numbered in the thousands, stopped climbing over Medusa’s wall, watching the deliberation. Tiamat’s tentacle hovered until it eventually lowered next to me, finally resting on the beach with a heavy thump. I hoisted myself up and onto the tentacle and waited for it to carry me to Tiamat’s mouth for an eternity of suffering.

↔

I thought Tiamat would toss me into her mouth like a peanut. Instead, the creature—the world-breaker, the ender of all—lifted me to her eye and looked at me, her black pupil larger than a hot air balloon. If it weren’t for the hard shell of cornea over her eye, I might have been able to walk into that dark tunnel.

She stared at me, and I at her. What’s that expression about eyes again? The windows to the soul. I cannot tell you how or why, but I did see into Tiamat’s soul. Of that much I’m sure. Looking into the essence of her being, I saw confusion—just like in so many Others and humans. She was confused by the gods’ reckless abandonment of their children. I also saw duty to fulfill certain promises, even if those promises were made before the world had fully formed.

And I saw remorse.

“It’s OK,” I said. “I’m ready.”

Tiamat seemed to hesitate at my admission to being ready to die. How could anyone ever be ready for that?

“Come on,” I said impatiently. “Enough stalling. Let’s do this.”

Again, she didn’t move. In anger and fear, I cried out, “What are you waiting for? Come on! What do you want, a confession? Fine! My name is Jean-Luc Matthias, and here’s my confession: I could’ve saved her. If only I’d been faster, smarter, better, I could’ve saved her.” I pointed at Medusa and at the sky. “I could’ve saved them both. But I wasn’t good enough. And because of me, the world suffers for their loss.”

I looked down at the denizens of Paradise Lot and the city that lay beyond. A city that was a paltry excuse for paradise, but it was all we had.

My eyes swept over the creatures who fought for this land. I saw Miral and Penemue, EightBall and Michael, the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who and The BisMark. And Medusa, her lifeless stone figure standing proudly on the sandy beach, one hand outstretched. Medusa, who sacrificed herself to save me. All I could think of was that there was more blood on my hands, more death for which I was responsible.

“Even if I’m wrong, even if Bella was here instead of me, and her presence didn’t change much, it would’ve changed one thing: Medusa wouldn’t have died trying to save me. It might seem like a little thing to you, but that’s everything to me. She’d be alive. But because of me, she’s dead.”

The tentacle moved toward Tiamat’s mouth, and what met me was an open maw that looked more like a tunnel than a throat. In the early dawn, only the first three steps were illuminated. I stepped in, expecting a hard surface, but under my weight my foot sunk down a few inches, driving home the fact that this was no tunnel, no cave, but the soft insides of a monster who planned to digest me for an eternity.

I took a step inside, the slime and mucus from Tiamat’s mouth seeping through my shoes. From what little light lit my way, I knew I only needed to take another few steps before the slope of her throat would grow too steep and I’d slide in—the worst water slide imaginable.

From the beach I heard Astarte cry out, “Stop!” At first, I assumed that she meant for me to stop. But when powerful hands pulled me out of the monster’s mouth and back into the light, I knew I was wrong.

Enkidu had somehow clambered up Tiamat’s body to get to me before I could be swallowed. The speed with which he had reached me was unnatural. Impossible, even. He grabbed me and threw me out of Tiamat and to the earth several hundred feet below, thus trading one form of death for another.

Except death from falling would not come, because angelic arms caught me as I fell. Miral had saved me.

“No,” I said. “Let me go.” I scrambled back toward Tiamat, back toward Enkidu, back toward the champion who sacrificed himself not once, but twice. I was determined to save him. I was determined to meet my end. But how could I do either when I had no magic to burn, no time to spare? I possessed neither wings to carry me nor legs powerful enough for me to leap up and do what I intended.

All I could do was stare helplessly at Enkidu, who sat crouched on the lips of Tiamat. He gave me that wild grin of his. I cried out, “What you are doing? This was my choice. You have no right to—”

But it was too late. Without hesitation or fear, Enkidu jumped into Tiamat, and into whatever fate which would meet him beyond.

Miral lowered us to the beach, where we watched Tiamat reel back in pain. The Earth-ending monster shook and twisted, cried and roared, and although I didn’t understand what was happening at the time, Atargatis would tell me later that, just as the children of Assyria were forbidden to hurt their deities, so too was Tiamat forbidden to hurt one of Chaos’s avatars. And Enkidu was exactly that: an avatar of Chaos who was once upon a time sent to kill a king who chose reason and science over miracles and curses. To do so was an offense punishable by death. Except, what could kill Tiamat but Tiamat? Such was the battle that took place, a near-invincible creature trying to kill itself. It could not. Tiamat pulled back into the ocean, struggling with what she had consumed, and sank underwater in a rush of waves and bubbles and whirlpools that gradually dissipated.

Astarte and Atargatis watched Tiamat submerge, united in their grief over losing someone they loved. They just weren’t crying for the same creature.

“What happened?” I asked.

Astarte wrapped her arms around herself. “Enkidu chose.”

↔↔

With their mother gone, the army of FrogMen retreated to the depths below the water. The apocalypse retreated, the End of Days was not to be. We won, and I couldn’t have been more miserable.

I trudged to where The BisMark stood over the head of Stewart. Apparently being smashed into a thousand pieces did not kill a gargoyle.

Stewart’s eyes followed my approach. “I was promised,” Stewart’s head said as soon as I was close.

“What?” I said. “What were you promised? Who promised you?”

“Free the Tiamat and dream …” he said, his diamond eyes distant.

“Who promised you?” I asked. “Pan?”

Stewart scoffed, displaying more emotion than I had seen from him the entire evening. “Pan is but a pawn.”

“Then who? Who promised you? Chaos? Is it trying to return?” The BisMark asked, his voice filled with the first sign of fear since I’d known him.

Diamond eyes trained on me, and a devilish smile crossed Stewart’s face. “Chaos is a concept no more interested in power than a star is interested in shining. It is what it is. No, he’s not Chaos. He’s so much more …” His voice trailed off and he turned solid. Whatever little life animating Stewart left him, and he became what I always believed him to be—a statue, and nothing more. Well, the head of a statue, at least.

I picked up Stewart’s head. “Is he dead?”

“In a way … He has turned himself from a being into a non-being,” The BisMark said.

“So that’s it. A cryptic message about impending doom, and we’re done? No more questioning him about what happened and why?”

“We can try—but my experience with gargoyles is that once they turn solid, they can only wake if they want to wake. After all, how do you torture a statue?” The BisMark said, with far more cheer than the situation warranted. He pointed at the cameras and bowed. “Come, stand tall. We are heroes now, and the world needs us to be strong. If you are broken, be so in private. But here and now, be the champion this world so desperately needs—”

“No.”

“Be the hero you are meant to be.”

“No,” I said again, turning my back on the cameras—not that it mattered. I was seen, and there was no way around that now. “I am no hero. No ‘champion.’ And if you think the world will see us as heroes after all this, then you’re a fool. There will be repercussions. Life will get much harder for Others.”

The BisMark nodded in understanding. But if he understood my point about life getting more difficult or how I was no hero, he didn’t let on. “Perhaps. But we’re at the point of crisis. History has taught us that true change can only be effected when the world is in chaos. Whether it shall be for better or worse remains to be seen.”

“If you believe that this could lead to something better, then you’re definitely a fool. Life was hard enough without—”

But before I could finish my sentence, Astarte ran up to The BisMark with supernatural speed and slapped him across the face. “You bastard!” she cried. “Twice you’ve hurt me. Twice.” She sought to strike him again, but Atargatis came to her sister’s side, pulling her away from the peacock-suited being.

The BisMark dabbed at a droplet of blood beading at the corner of his lips.

“I thought you said nothing could hurt you,” I said.

“No … I said I’d never allow anything to hurt me.” He nodded at Astarte. “She was destined to be a goddess, but sacrificed her position for something—or rather, someone—she believed in. And now she has sacrificed again. Just as you have sacrificed again. Take care of her, Jean. She’ll need you in the days to come, and you’ll need her for what’s coming. Before all this is over, you’ll both sacrifice once more.”

I thought about saying something sarcastic or witty—some rebuttal to show my anger—but at that moment I felt no anger, only sorrow. Medusa was gone. Bella was gone. And judging from how the Army was getting into formation around us, life in Paradise Lot was about to get harder. There was no way they’d let this go unpunished. I could feel Paradise Lot devolving from a slum to an island prison. The weight of it all was just too much to bear. I simply couldn’t summon the will to take one last jab at this once-upon-a-time consultant to the gods.

The BisMark eyed me with disappointment. I guess I wasn’t the fierce, endless warrior he thought I was. So be it … In a sad and twisted way, that was a tiny bit of my revenge.

Hellelu … oh, fuck it. I was done.

ONCE MORE … WITH FEELING

I may have been done with Paradise Lot, but Paradise Lot wasn’t done with me.

There were investigations to be done, arrests to be made … and I was at the center of it all.

The way I saw it, my options were simple: either the Paradise Lot Police would charge me with resisting arrest and throw me in jail, or the Army would put me in the stockade for going AWOL all those years ago. Or, most likely, I’d get both—which was fine with me. I actually looked forward to a small concrete cell.

That would be later. Right now I was stuck on the beach as the Army and police went about cleaning up the mess and restoring order. The cops cleared the beach, and the soldiers bagged and tagged everything they could find—which meant a lot of body bags. It also meant removing hundreds upon hundreds of the FrogMan statues that Medusa had left behind in the wake of her destructive flashing. I watched them cart the statues away and thought about how each one had cost her dearly.

Decades burned to save us all.

Two soldiers grabbed Medusa. She was gray and stiff, her stone body shining against the morning light. They tilted her back onto a trolley and passed by where I stood, and as they did I saw her face—her two perfect dimples and her wondrous, forever-frozen smile.

I don’t know why I let the soldiers handle her. Maybe I was too overwhelmed to stop them or just stunned with grief. Whatever it was, my paralysis broke when one soldier let her body fall into a cart with a thud. He wiped his brow, as if to say, “Job well done.” Like she was another piece of heavy cargo to ship, a trivial sculpture to move, and not the Queen of the Gorgons, the police officer, the amazing woman that she was. How dare he? I thought, and flew into a rage, determined to give him two fist-sized dimples of his own.

Luckily for the soldier, Michael anticipated my reaction. I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. He pulled me behind a nearby flashing police van.

“Let me go!” I protested.

The archangel forced me into the back of the van, wrapped his wings around his shoulders like a self-swaddling infant, and squeezed in after me. “They’ll return her as soon as the investigation is complete. It’ll be then that we’ll give her a proper departure.” His voice was soft—a low, comforting hum. “Until then, we must speak.”

I grunted. “Let me guess. I’m under arrest?”

Michael shook his head. “No. I recall that I deputized you earlier this day.”

“What?”

“At the gala … When this tragedy began, I deputized you.”

“You did no—”

Michael’s eyes widened. The air grew heavy. “I understand you may not remember … given the stress of the situation,” he said, and his words seemed to usher an invisible, suppressive fog into the van. “But I did, in fact, deputize you. Understand?”

I was starting to. Michael, the play-it-by-the-book, follow-every-rule ultimate Boy Scout, was bending a rule by retroactively deputizing me. If he didn’t, then there would be no excuse for what I did. It was the only recourse he had not to arrest me. I would’ve smiled at his little infraction had I not planned to never smile again.

So it seemed I wasn’t going to be arrested after all. Oh well, at least I still had the stockade to look forward to.

“OK, you deputized me,” I said. “And I’m no longer deputized. Thank you.”

“No, you’re still a deputy. Your duty has yet to expire.”

My head felt like it was going to pop. I rubbed my temples in an effort to calm down just enough to not actually explode. “I don’t know what—”

“This is an ongoing investigation—an investigation that you’re an instrumental part of. Your duty will expire when this case is closed. Until then …” He handed me a badge. It was a circular gold shield with a safety pin on the back. It looked to me like one of those toy insignias you gave kids to play Cops.

Michael opened the van door and squeezed out. “I’ll need you in the precinct in the coming days. Until then.” He patted the van’s roof, and the engine roared to life. “Go home.”

↔↔

For the next few days, I sat in my room. I may have been off the hook with Michael, but not with the Army. I was sure they were coming, so I waited, staging battles between WWF stars and green plastic soldiers and eating Cup Noodles.

The first two days passed, and no one came. I figured that they were watching me, checking if I was up to something like planning another apocalypse or making deals with more skyscraper-sized monsters.

When they didn’t come on the third day, I decided they were just sloppy. But I had been on national TV, my name was well-known in Paradise Lot … It would just be a matter of time. So I staged more battles and waited. What else was I to do?

↔

On the fifth morning there was a knock on my door, and I thought, Finally! I got to my feet, wrists together, ready for the handcuffs. No one burst through the door. Instead, I heard a cautious voice say, “Ahhh, hello?”

EightBall.

I didn’t want to speak to anyone, let alone someone from the hotel. I sat back down, ignoring him.

The knock came again, louder this time.

“Go away,” I cried out.

“Ahhh, there’s something you should see,” he said.

“Go away,” I repeated.

“I really think you should see it,” a second voice said. It was squeaky and unsure. Brian. I guess the little fellow stuck around.

“Go away,” I said again.

There was murmuring, then I heard something rustle. I looked over to see an iPad slide through the gap under the door. “Just watch, OK?” Brian said. “Oh … and slide it back under when you’re done.” I heard two sets of footsteps walk away.

I stared at the iPad. Lights and noise emanated from it. I could hear news reports about the “failed” apocalypse. I picked it up, determined to shut it off, and the screen switched to the gala. I saw Medusa in her red dress. It was the footage from before the dinner started. We had just arrived, standing arm in arm, except Medusa wasn’t holding onto me. She was holding onto … nothing.

Then the lights dimmed and the gala began, just like it had five nights ago, with The BisMark’s, or rather, Pan’s dramatic entrance. Then Atargatis went onstage, bit into the fish, and the earthquake started. In the confusion, the camera panned to my table. I remembered that moment. I was standing on the table, telling everyone to get under—but in the replay I simply wasn’t there.

I watched the news feed, looking for any sign of myself. Nothing. I watched it again, and a third time. Absolutely nothing, except for one word I yelled on the beach just after Medusa died. “Enough!” A single word that could’ve been cried out by anyone. Whoever edited me out must’ve missed that one word.

I had been erased. There would be no Army breaking down my door. There would be no court-martialing by a military tribunal. There would be no escape.

The realization that I wasn’t going to be arrested hit me with crippling anxiety. I had planned on taking myself out of the equation. No better place to do that than behind bars. Being free from incarceration meant that I was still here, in Paradise Lot, in the thick of Other drama. Nothing was going to change for me.

I paced my room and wrung my hands. The weight of still being here caused my chest to constrict. My breathing went shallow, and the world started to blur. I was still here.

I was still here.

Except, I wasn’t. My body, sure, but my heart left this place when Medusa’s heart stopped beating. It was then that I had a revolutionary thought: I didn’t need to be arrested to get out of Paradise Lot. I could just leave.

Just pack up and leave. What would I take? A few of my favorite pieces from my 1980s collection and some clothes. I’d leave the rest behind, including my black, collarless jacket. That piece of wardrobe belonged to this place.

I planned on leaving like a thief in the night. No goodbyes. No explanations. I guessed some of them would come up to see me, but I’d be resolute in my decision. After a few days they’d leave me alone.

Tonight, I thought.

I started giggling when my mobile phone rang. The caller ID flashed: Paradise Lot Police. Michael was calling at the exact moment I decided on leaving. This was the complete opposite of an auspicious event. I was beginning to wonder if the Universe was listening in on my plans and was countering them with its own.

Well, two could play at that game. I ignored my phone.

It rang again, and this time I rejected the call.

It rang a third time. Before I could reject it, my phone’s screen lit up as if I answered. A low baritone voice spoke from the phone’s speaker. “Jean.”

“What? Michael, how are you speaking to me? I didn’t answer my phone.”

“I know. I burned seven minutes to answer it for you. I need you to come to the station immediately.”

“No,” I said flatly.

“You’re my deputy. It’s your duty to—”

“No,” I repeated.

Michael sighed, which sounded more like a baritone opera singer warming up. “Hear me, human. Deputy or not, duty or not—what I require of you and what your heart desires are one and the same.”

I rolled my eyes. More Other esoteric crap. “Fine,” I groaned. “I’m listening.”

Michael sighed again and told me why he wanted me at the station. Before he could finish, I was grabbing my black collarless jacket and heading for the door.

↔↔

Pan sat in front of me, his hands in handcuffs that were intertwined with the thread from Rumpelstiltskin’s spindle, to prevent him from burning time. Up-close he looked small and weak—a scrawny teenager’s torso on the legs of a goat. His face was youthful, devoid of blemishes or wrinkles.

He put his hands on the steel table. “I wanted to talk to you … give you a chance to thank me. After all, I was true to my word. No camera recorded you that night.” He winked at me.

I ignored the bait. “Give it back,” I said. “The time you took. All of it.” Michael had instructed me to finesse Pan. This was me finessing.

Pan’s smile widened. “Take these cuffs off, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“No more tricks. No more jokes. Give it back.”

“I can’t. But you know that already. That giant talking pigeon of a police chief already told you that. Time is a one-way thing.”

It was true. Without the Creation Crystal, time could not be returned to those it was taken from. Michael—and by extension, the entire Otherworld—was looking for another Crystal. But Creation Crystals were what the gods used to form the world. Think of them as funnels that let you focus your magic. A typical Other could make a continent in their image with a single shard, but a god … a god could use the focused energy to build universes. It was believed that they had taken all the Crystals with them. After all, they would need the Crystals to build their new home. But then Pan showed up with a large piece of one and, well, all bets were off.

Pan laced his fingers together. “So, let me guess—you want to know where I got the Crystal? And you want to know if there’s any more lying about?”

I said nothing.

“Would you believe me if I told you that when the gods left, I—the great Pan—decided to retire? My plan was to live the rest of my life in relative peace and quiet. I even got a job as a maître d' at a Michelin star restaurant in the human world. Of course, I was disguised, burning time to pretend I was human. At the rate I was burning, I had seventy-three years left—a human’s lifespan. Good enough for me. Then one day, after a particularly long shift where yours truly hosted the AlwaysMortal elite, I came home to my moderately sized apartment in a reasonably priced neighborhood, and what did I find? A Creation Crystal sitting on my coffee table. There was no note. No explanation. Nothing.” Pan leaned forward. “Do you believe me?”

I shook my head.

Pan fell back into his chair in an exasperated huff. “Of course not. I didn’t either. But it’s true. Some Other broke into my apartment and gave me one of the most precious items the universe has ever known. Why? Certainly they knew what they gave me. And what’s more … they knew who I was and what I was capable of.” Pan tried to stand up. His restraints forced him back into the chair. Not that being chained dampened his excitement. “Don’t you see? Whoever left that wanted me to do something big. Really big.”

“Why would they want that?” I asked.

“Why else?” He shot me a devilish, Others-will-be-Others smile. “To bring the gods back.”

↔

“Don’t you get it?” Pan said, genuinely confused that I didn’t understand his plan. “I did all this so that they would come back to fix it … They have to. It’s what they’ve always done.”

“What?” I asked. “Fix this! That’s your plan. Lure them back with a mess? Why? Why? Why!” I couldn’t believe it. The little bastard actually thought he did a good thing.

“Because I pleased them,” he said. “I did all this … the Beast … the greatest time-heist ever known … to entice them. To amuse them. They have to come back. Wait and see.” He cocked his head to the ceiling, as if gazing up at the gods in the sky. “I always knew how to make them laugh.”

“So that’s what this was all about … pulling a stunt to grab their attention?”

Pan giggled. “Yes.”

“If you were really that good at entertaining them, don’t you think they would’ve taken you with them? You know … for a laugh on their long journey to wherever? But they didn’t, did they? Do you want to know why? Because we … you … displeased them. Whether it was because we didn’t worship enough or worshiped too much … or because we worshiped wrong … whatever it was, they weren’t satisfied. So they left us. And they most certainly left you, too. No tricks will bring them back.”

“But they always laughed when—”

I grabbed Pan by the horns, pulled his head close to mine and growled, “They aren’t laughing now. You know why? Because they’re not watching, you stupid selfish fool! You killed so many people. People who’ll never come back. Ever. Others, soldiers, civilians … Medusa …” My voice wavered at her name. “They’re dead because of you.”

“The gods will come back, and when they do, they’ll make this right. You’ll see,” he said, his devilish grin replaced with a look of uncertainty. “They’ll come back. They have to.”

“Have you ever considered that maybe … just maybe … it was the great Pan’s silly little tricks that drove them away?”

Pan winced at the thought. “No—they always laughed.”

“Laughed? Are you sure? Maybe at first, but soon that laughter became disappointment and frustration. After all, you just admitted that they were always cleaning up your mess.”

Pan shook his head.

“And maybe, just maybe, you went too far. Too far … too many messes … maybe that’s why they left. To get away from you.”

“They loved me,” he said, his voice hesitant.

“That’s what you say,” I said, leaning in close. I have hated very few in my life. This creature I hated with a burning fire and an unquenchable anger. I hated Pan with all my soul. “They didn’t take you with them. In fact, they did everything to hide their plans from you because they knew that if the great Pan caught a whiff of what they were doing, he’d muck it up for them. No, they didn’t love you. How could they?”

“No,” he said.

“As for your little trick … a trick that cost so many … maybe you’re right. The gods are watching, and praising themselves for leaving you behind.”

“No, they love me. They love me!”

“No, they don’t. They don’t love any of us.” I let him go, stood and pounded on the door.

“Pathetic,” I said as it opened. Pan softly sobbed behind me. I left without turning to look at him. I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, he was feeling a fraction of the pain he deserved for what he did.

↔

Michael greeted me in the hall.

“He’s gone,” I said. “Another Other driven insane by the departure of the gods.”

Michael nodded. “The gods’ departure has taken its toll on all of us. Sadly, Pan’s nature didn’t arm him well enough for such an event, Deputy Jean.”

I looked for a hint of irony in Michael’s eyes. There was none. He was dead serious, and I guessed this deputy thing was going to stick around—for as long as I did, anyway. I nodded. “Do you believe him about the Crystal? It fits with what Stewart said before he went all inanimate.”

The archangel shook his head. “I don’t know. Either way, this doesn’t bode well for the world.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Pan is either lying and somehow he found the Crystal … or there is another Other in the background. One who believes in Chaos.”

“For what purpose?”

“What else? To usher back the old world?”

Michael’s lips curled in what I believed was admiration. Or suspicion. It was always unclear with the archangel. “You know about that?” he said.

“I just know what I’ve been told.”

Michael shrugged. “Maybe the goal is to bring Chaos back. Or maybe it’s something else.”

“Like what?”

“Chaos and Nature are not diametrical opposites—they’re two points on a continuum. There’s much that a knowledgeable Other could do to gain power, become a god …”

“Or bring the gods back?”

“Perhaps. Whatever the end game is … this player doesn’t mind causing destruction. Quite the opposite. The question is—what do we do now?”

“That’s easy,” I said, walking away. “You figure out this Other’s plan.”

“And how, Human Jean, do I do that?”

“Think about it. This creature has immense knowledge. He understands how everything works. How many creatures in existence today have that knowledge?”

“Not many,” Michael conceded.

I paused at the door to the main area of the police station. “Exactly. Not many. You’re one of them—just ask yourself what you’d do.” And with that I left the archangel police chief to ponder how exactly he’d ascend to godhood, should he so desire.

↔↔

I walked into the main office area of the police station, determined to get out of there as fast as I could, when I saw yet another person in the parade of “Let’s ruin Jean’s day.”

Sally.

The once-upon-a-time baker sat at the desk of a valkyrie detective, probably giving a statement about how I ruined her shop. Or maybe she still held a grudge about the flyers.

“Jean,” she called when she saw me. It had been a hell of a week, and the last thing I wanted to do was get into another debate with someone else who didn’t like me, so I decided to just walk on without saying anything to her. But then she said the only six words that could have stopped me. “Chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies.”

“What?” I said, turning to face her.

“Chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies … those were Bella’s favorite, weren’t they?”

I nodded.

Sally wasn’t wearing her business suit or her overly conservative pajamas. She wore a pastel-blue Sunday dress with a yellow cardigan. She looked soft, almost pleasant. “You two were so in love,” she said. “I could see it every time you came up to order those damn chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies. You’d be at the till, stealing looks at her while waiting for me to bring you your cookies. It was so endearing that sometimes I took extra-long just to watch you grow impatient. You know, to make that return to her all the sweeter.” Sally’s gaze went distant, as if she were inside the memory instead of recalling it.

“I remember,” I said.

“When I heard about Bella’s death and what you were doing, I decided that I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing. I wanted to help my own way.”

I could see that she did, and even though she was Mama from Hot Mama’s Cookies, I couldn’t get past her methods. “By cutting Others up to look more human? There are better ways to help.”

She shook her head. “Perhaps, but like I said, ‘My own way.’ ” She held my gaze, secure in the belief that what she was doing was right. “I dropped my case against you. I will, however, file an insurance claim and use the money to rebuild my salon. This time with more security, too.”

I shrugged. “Do what you have to do.” I turned to walk out of the station.

“You know, they’ll be the death of you.”

I stopped at the door, where police portraits hung on the wall. Valkyries, minotaurs, the Gruff Brothers … all serving in blue. In the middle of them was a photo of Medusa wearing her olive-tanned grin, dimples in her cheeks. I kissed my middle and forefinger and touched them to her lips. “They already have,” I said, and walked out the door.

↔

I got back to the hotel, where I found Astarte, Penemue, EightBall and Atargatis waiting for me in the foyer. I pretended not to see them. It was my I-Don’t-Care Day, and if any of them had a problem with that … well, I just didn’t care.

I was walking past them when a sultry voice that did not have a hint of a Parisian accent said, “Medusa. The Army returned her body. The funeral is at dusk.” Astarte trembled as she spoke.

Hearing Medusa’s name was akin to getting slammed in the head with a baseball bat. Believe me, I know. Before I had time to think, my childish anger took over. “So?” I spouted.

I expected Astarte to say something in response. Her head just dropped, an expression of pain on her face. That was like getting hit with a second swing.

I tried to ignore her hurt and walk to my room. It was all I could do not to lose myself.

As soon as my back was to her, Astarte whispered, “Jean … Where are you going? We need you.”

“Not now,” I said.

“But we’ll be late.”

I turned around and saw genuine concern. No, not concern … confusion. Astarte was hurting, and that hurt confused her.

Not that I cared. “Late?” I growled. “For what? To say goodbye?”

A tear escaped when Astarte shook her head. “She hated being late.”

“She doesn’t hate anything now,” I said.

“I don’t understand, and no one is telling me anything.” Astarte was crying now. “You all look at me like all I care for is sex. I am what I am, but sex is not all I care for … I cared for Medusa. She was my friend. I’ve known her longer than I’ve known most beings, certainly longer than I’ve known mortality. And now she’s gone and she’s never coming back. Ever. I’ll never see her smile again. I’ll never hear her laugh. I’ll—”

“Oh, stop with the pity party,” I shot back. “Or should I say, pity orgy. You’ll never see her smile, you’ll never hear her laugh? You act like you’re the one who died.”

“I did!” the succubus cried out. “I did,” she whispered. “I’m the one who suffers, not her. She goes to sleep. She doesn’t care what happens to us. She doesn’t know where she is … what happened to her. No thinking, no worrying. No fear. No sadness—”

“No joy. No smiling, no laughing. Dying doesn’t make you the lucky one,” I snapped.

Atargatis walked over to Astarte and put an arm around her shoulder. “That’s quite enough, Jean,” she scolded. “Now get ready. And don’t dilly-dally. We’ll be waiting for you down here.” Atargatis pulled her younger sister away, dabbing her cheeks with a handkerchief.

↔

I walked into my room and slammed the door behind me. As soon as it closed, I punched the wall over and over again until there was a hole in the drywall and blood on the off-white paint. “GoneGodDamn it!” I cried out. “Damn it!”

I slumped to the floor and started rubbing my temples. “Just a few more hours,” I said. “A few more, and I would’ve been gone.” I closed my eyes, the pressure of the lids forcing more tears down my cheeks. “I would’ve been gone.”

I sat there for a long time, trying to summon the strength to open my eyes. Opening them would mean standing up. And standing up would mean leaving my room and going to the saddest place I could imagine … Medusa’s funeral.

I couldn’t go there. Not now. Not ever.

Not again.

Those two little words ran through me with such force that my heart skipped a beat.

So that’s what this was all about. Not again. I couldn’t say goodbye to the only person I’d loved since Bella died.

Not again.

My heart squeezed hard in my chest, compressing as if it was trying to push out every drop of blood it held.

Not again.

I stood, an eerie calm coming over me.

Not again.

I grabbed my suitcase and threw in my clothes. I didn’t have that many—they hardly took any space—so I dumped in as many of my toys as would fit, not caring if I scuffed them. Then I flipped the lid closed and zipped it shut.

I was leaving. I was going to duck out the back, get in my car and take off. That was my plan, a plan interrupted by a very distinct and menacing hiss. “What the …?” I said, turning. On the floor sat a very large green viper. “Marty … what are you doing here?” I pushed the snake away.

Marty hissed again and slithered up a lamp so he could be eye-level with me again. Have you ever seen a snake frown? Its face doesn’t change expression—it looks as scaly and as menacing as ever—but you can feel its sadness. Marty’s pain was like heat blowing from a furnace. He was miserable. He was hurting just as bad as I was, probably more. He had lost someone he was part of, and being without Medusa must’ve felt like a part of his being was missing.

I knew the feeling. I’d had a part of me ripped away more than once.

He hissed and looked at me, then at my packed suitcase.

“I’m going away,” I said.

He flicked his tongue.

“I’m not going the funeral. I can’t. I can’t say goodbye. Not today. Not ever.”

Marty coiled around the lamp base and shook his head at the door.

“No,” I said. “I’m not abandoning them.”

Marty hissed again and looked up at the ceiling, just as Pan had at the police station.

“This is different. The gods left without warning … I’m—”

Then I got it. I was just as bad as they were. I was walking away without saying goodbye. And what’s more, I was leaving without paying my respects to Medusa. This was to be her very last party, her final farewell. Marty’s harsh, lipless expression drove it home. She would’ve wanted me there. After all, I owed her one more date.

So I decided to go, to say goodbye to her—and with that, say goodbye to Paradise Lot.

“OK,” I said. Playing Charades with Marty was harder than with TinkerBelle. “I’ll go. I owe her that much. But after the funeral, I’m leaving. Nothing short of a disaster is going to change that.”

Marty’s forked tongue licked his dry, lipless mouth.

“What about you?” I asked.

He turned to Castle Grayskull.

“Sure,” I said. “The castle’s yours. But if a three-inch-tall golden fairy wants it back, you’ll have to move out.”

↔↔

The Army had returned Medusa’s statue to the beach.

Later I learned that Michael and The BisMark had engaged in some serious negotiations with the human authorities to make sure they returned her to where she belonged. They argued that her presence would cool Others’ tempers. And judging by the hubbub of activity that surrounded her stone body, they were right.

Medusa was seen as the gorgon who sacrificed her life to save Paradise Lot. Her statue would become a Mecca for Others … a symbol of bravery, sacrifice and the new GoneGod world in which we all now lived. More—she was a comfort to all who saw her, just like she always wanted to be. Careful what you wish for, I thought, looking at her gray immobile face.

Marty and I hung back as Others approached her one by one. Minotaurs grabbed their horns and brayed, centaurs dug their hooves in the sand and bowed, fairies sprinkled glitter, angels sang hymns.

Atargatis came with her seven children—all having traded human faces for their sharklike appearance—and touched Medusa before saying a prayer in a language I didn’t understand. The BisMark placed his hands on her knees. Miral kissed her feet, wiping angelic tears on her ankles. Penemue and EightBall poured out Drambuie by her statue while Michael and the Gruff Brothers saluted her.

Then it was Astarte’s turn. The succubus pulled Gilgamesh’s pendant from her pocket as she stumbled to her once-upon-a-time friend, and placed it on the pedestal. As soon as the pendant left her hand she collapsed to her knees, letting out a mournful cry that broke all the hearts that heard it. Atargatis helped her up, gently guiding her back to where Penemue, EightBall and I stood. As soon as she was next to me, she reached out for my hands, not with the usual sexual overtone, but for comfort. I squeezed her hands in mine, watching the entirety of Paradise Lot pay respects to once alive, always wonderful Medusa.

What commenced after was a cacophony of Other religious fever.

Prayers, chants, incense, drumming, dancing and lamenting filled the beach with mayhem. And yet it all blended together into something truly beautiful and special, like overlapping children’s games independent in practice but harmonious in nature. An aura of meaning rose from this unhappy event.

At least that’s how I saw it. The gaggle of human reporters that trained their cameras on the event would probably have their own, fear-mongering interpretation.

Eventually the crowd thinned, and still Marty and I hung back. I couldn’t go to her. Not now, not with all these Others around. It was too much—getting any closer would break me. I was sure she’d understand. I hoped she would.

↔↔

I returned to the Millennium Hotel, walked into its grand foyer, said goodnight to my sad entourage and walked upstairs, thinking about the next stage of my life—a life of simplicity up in the wilderness. I considered leaving in the night. Why wait for the morning? If I left right now, I’d get to my PopPop’s cabin by dawn.

I opened my door. The soft light from the hall illuminated my suitcase. Maybe, I thought, a little earlier if I hurry.

“Hello, Jean. It’s been awhile.” The voice sounded like fingernails scraping across a blackboard.

I didn’t look to see who spoke. I didn’t need to. I would’ve recognized that raspy voice anywhere. “Turn on the light,” I said, walking in, berating myself for being so naïve. The Army may not have known I still lived, but she would.

“No need for the light.”

“Not everyone is as comfortable with the dark as you,” I said.

“True.” I heard a click of the tongue against the palate, and the bedside lamp turned on. What sat next to the lamp was an aigamuchab, one of the aigamuxa Others from the Okavango River region. She looked like a human female except for one startling detail—she had no eyes, her forehead fused with her cheeks. Her eyes were instead on the soles of her feet. Not that she needed eyes to see—she relied on clicking and echolocation.

This aigamuchab wasn’t any typical Other. She was General Shouf, the first Other to join the humans in their war against Others before we settled into this uneasy peace.

She was a fierce warrior, ruthless against all life, be it once-upon-a-time mythical or AlwaysMortal. And she was my former commander.

Her hand rested on the light switch and, now illuminated, I could see her eyeless face cocked in my direction. “It’s been too long, Jean,” she rasped.

“That depends on your perspective. How did you—”

“One word. One simple word: ‘Enough.’ Seems the Other who protects you has also failed you.”

“And, what? You’re here to arrest me?” I asked.

“No,” Shouf shook her head, the lamp light running across her smooth forehead. “I’m here to imprison you.”

“I don’t hunt Others. Not anymore.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“And after the events of the past week, I’m finished helping them, too.”

“Always so dramatic, Jean,” her words scraped out of her.

“Didn’t you hear me? I’m finished.”

“You’re not finished.”

“Yes, I am. Arrest me if you want, either way … I’m done.”

“I’m not going to arrest you. As for being done,” she leaned forward, her eyeless face reflecting the lamplight. “You’re just getting started.”

(Not) The End

↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔

Continue reading BOOK 3: CrystalDreams.

Jean used to think the apocalypse was the worst thing that could happen … boy, was he wrong.

When a six-year-old girl stomps her way into Jean’s hotel lobby claiming to be Sinbad the Pirate on an important mission, Jean is drawn into a complex plot designed to fuel hatred between humans and Others. At the heart of it is a power-struggle between a racist politician, an activist ex-god and an infamous arms dealer by the name of Mr. Cain (yup—that Cain).

Scroll down to read a sample … or CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING

**

****

**

CRYSTALDREAMS

Monsters are real.

Little Sarah has known that monsters are real ever since two of them stole her from her bed and took her to this place.

Now she lays on a metal bunk bed with a mattress that doesn’t even have a sheet. The mattress is stained and old and she can feel its springs on her back, her arms, her legs. Even her head.

She’s locked in a room with only three solid walls—the fourth is made of metal bars and a metal door. There is a toilet in the room, too, that isn’t private at all. And that’s a problem, because there are eight kids in the room with her, and they all stare when she goes. Sarah hates to be watched when she goes.

But her bed and the terrible room that’s not really a room isn’t the worst thing about this place—not even the other kids watching her when she goes. Not by a long shot.

The worst thing is the missing wall that has bars that stops her from getting out. She doesn’t know the word for the kind of room she’s in … why would she? She’s only six. If she were older, she’d know she is in a prison cell. She’d also know that it’s normal for the prison cell to look out into the central area, which in this case is a courtyard.

And, lastly, if she were just a bit older, she’d know that the monsters lurking in the courtyard are anything but normal.

Monsters … yuk!

When Sarah was really little, she used to be afraid of monsters that weren’t real. You know—the ones that live under your bed or in your closet. Those monsters aren’t really scary, because as soon as Daddy turned on the lights they would disappear.

But these monsters are different—nothing chases them away. Instead they lurk about in plain view—big and hairy, fierce and loud—and every time you forgot they were there, they would screech or moan or growl or bang.

No two monsters are the same. Some have big bodies with small heads. Others have big heads and small bodies. Some don’t have heads at all. Then there are the horns, claws, arms, legs, wings and tails.

The monsters scare her—and Sarah doesn’t scare easily. So if she’s scared … the other kids must really, really, really be scared.

↔

Across the courtyard there are other three-walled rooms with more children. From her own cell she can see at least twenty other rooms, each with—what?—four or five kids. Every day new children arrive; in the three days she has been in this place, she’s counted at least eleven new kids.

Her own cell had eight kids, but now it has nine. A new kid arrived this morning.

He’s three, maybe four, and he’s the youngest child that she’s seen here. He’s holding a doll. A dog’s head on a human body … no, that’s not quite right. Dogs have shorter snouts, smaller ears. The doll’s head is something that looks like a dog, but isn’t. Sarah knows this because she’s been to the zoo many times with her mommy and daddy, and seen many things that looked like dogs but weren’t. Hyenas, wolves … jackals.

The new boy sits on the floor and cries. He’s terrified, Sarah can tell. The only thing he’s said since he arrived is his name.

Something big and fierce howls and the boy cries louder, almost mimicking the monster.

Sarah shakes her head. If he doesn’t calm down soon, he’ll be in full tantrum mode.

“It’ll be OK, Ewwiot,” she says. His name is Elliot, but ever since Sarah lost her top two baby teeth, she’s had trouble pronouncing certain words. Elliot comes out as Ewwiot and Sarah really wishes her grown-up teeth would hurry up and come out. “You’ll be OK. I promise.”

But Elliot—Ewwiot—will not be consoled. He’s doing that crying thing where he holds his breath for so long that Sarah actually thinks he might pass out. Then the breath comes, followed by a wail so loud that even the monsters stop their clamoring and clanking.

Sarah looks around at the other kids. None of them move to help the newcomer. Fine, she thinks.

Jumping down from the bunk bed, she grabs Ewwiot and pulls him under the metal slate that juts out of the wall and acts as their bed. Underneath its canopy, she holds him tight and, whispering, she tells little Ewwiot the story her mother always told her when she was scared. A story about a hero—her hero, Sarah’s hero—who is always brave, no matter how many monsters howl in the night.

Her hero is a sailor. A warrior. A fierce being whom Sarah dreamed about a thousand times before the BadThings took her here, and a million times since she arrived. She knows her hero isn’t some made-up story. Her hero—Sinbad—is real. And Sinbad hears her anguish. Sinbad knows where she is.

Sinbad will save her.

She tells the story of Sinbad exactly as her mother told her so many times before. When she is done, Ewwiot is calm, drifting off into his own dreams of Sinbad, resting his little head on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Ewwiot,” she soothes. “Sinbad is coming. I promise.”

As if to debate little Sarah’s reassurance, a monster shrieks, waking up Ewwiot. In his sleep he forgot his surroundings, and when it dawns on him that he is not home, safe in his own bed, he starts to cry again.

Sarah curses the monsters and issues a silent howl of her own.

Yes, monsters are real.

But so are heroes.

And her hero is coming.

Sinbad is coming.

Chapter 2

Not All Entrepreneurs Are Created Equal

“Jean,” the voice on the other end of my mobile phone shattered. “Are you listening?”

“Yeah, sure,” I half-lied. Truth was I was staring at the TV over the bar, half-listening to that as well.

“There is an unidentified Other lurking about in the Compounds,” the voice shattered. I don’t know how this creature did it, but her voice sounded like she was pulverizing porcelain every time she uttered a word. “I need you to investigate. Can you handle that?”

I nodded, forgetting that the person on the other end of the phone couldn’t hear a nod. Not that I really cared. If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t be on the phone with this creature. Not ever. I wouldn’t be coerced into going to the Compounds—a human-only suburb of Paradise Lot—no matter how frightened the locals claimed to be at one thing or the other. In fact, if I really had any druthers at all, I wouldn’t be on the phone at this bar waiting for an Other I had no interest in speaking with and a man I had no business meeting with. But here I was, druthers-less and miserable.

“Jean … the unidentified Other? Will you take care of it?” The voice on the other end sounded more like nails scraping against a chalkboard than actual words, and I had to hold my phone a few inches from my ear. But I had spoken to this particular Other, with that shattering voice of hers, plenty of times. I understood her loud and clear.

Still, I didn’t answer.

“I own you, Jean,” the creature said. “Comply and stay free. Obstruct and I will happily escort you to the stockade myself.”

I didn’t answer.

“Do you understand?”

I understood perfectly. But still, I said nothing.

When the gods left, forcing their denizens—the Others—onto Earth, the world was thrown into chaos. Initially humans hunted Others, and me being a hot-headed young man at the time, I was one of the first to enlist in the fight. And I was good. Very good. Killing came naturally to me, and killing Others was my specialty. During my time in the Army I garnered a reputation for being one of the humans’ most fearsome soldiers.

But the trouble with anger is that it is usually built on a house of cards. It can’t stand up on its own for very long. Eventually I learned that the Others no more asked to come to Earth than we invited them. They were forced on us, just as we were forced on them. Eventually I lost the heart to keep fighting. During a mission where my squad was wiped out by a fire-breathing dragon, I went AWOL, choosing absence without leave. The Army assumed I was charcoaled and I was declared KIA—killed in action. For six years I was dead to them, until the world was almost consumed by an apocalypse.

Long story short, I got involved, General Shouf caught wind that I was still alive and here we were: she was blackmailing me into being part of her covert operations.

Hellelujah!

“Do you understand?” she repeated.

I grunted in the affirmative.

“I need a clear answer, soldier.”

“I’m no soldier,” I said.

“You’re my soldier until I say otherwise. Will you take care of it, soldier?”

I hesitated, but a person’s dignity can only hold out for so long. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, General. I will take care of it.”

“And what will you be taking care of?”

I took a sip of my beer, but now the taste felt flat. “Some rampaging Other is disturbing the villagers. You want me to deal with it.”

“Unidentified Other,” General Shouf groaned. “Not rampaging, as of yet.”

“Whatever. Why not send some of the Diamond Dogs out for a hunt? Ever since the war dried up, they must be dying for action.” The Diamond Dogs were her elite squad of hunters, a group of humans and Others alike. There were some bad dudes in there, a group I wouldn’t want to tangle with—not even if the fate of the world depended on it. And that’s a lot, coming from a guy who stared down the friggin’ Kraken.

“No Diamond Dogs on this one. You know why. Some things must be unofficial,” her voice cracked. “Very well, then. The next time the Unidentified Other is sighted, I will contact you. I expect your immediate response.”

The phone line clicked off.

“I’ll be waiting with bated breath,” I said to the dead line.

I needed another drink. Or four. I put the phone down and pointed at the TV. “Can you turn that up?” The cyclops, who wore a stained sleeveless undershirt he must have sown from a super king–size bed sheet, picked up the remote and upped the volume without turning around. Cyclopes—they may only have one eye, but in my experience, there is very little they don’t see.

On the screen, a debate raged between three bigwigs. In the aftermath of the near apocalypse, there were a lot of debates as to what to do about the “Other problem.” I might not have taken notice, except the three debating were some of the loudest voices on the issue. And the one at the center of it all was the very man I was at the bar to meet: Mr. Cain. That’s right, Cain, as in the first murderer of man, brother of Abel, first son of Adam … and currently one of the biggest and richest businessmen in the world. Seems that the powers-that-be accidently cursed him with immortality—because even though he supposedly died at the ripe old age of 730, Death still would not take him, fearing that the Mark of Cain would fall upon her sevenfold. Rather than risking getting cursed herself, Death granted Cain immortality and he used his thousands upon thousands of years of experience to develop weapons that were particularly effective against Others. He founded Memnock Securities, and anyone who bought stock in them when the gods left would be very rich today.

I checked my Mickey Mouse watch again. “Man, I really hope this isn’t a live broadcast,” I muttered.

“Fear,” Mr. Cain said from the TV, “lets evil men control good people. And fear clouds our judgment, human and Other alike. We must take fear out of the equation if we are to have any meaningful discussions.”

The Other sitting next to Mr. Cain rolled her eyes—all six of them—but before she could say anything, Mr. Cain raised a hand and said, “Let me finish … I’ve lived for a long, long time and I know enough about humans and Others to know that you must take fear off the table before you can have a conversation. That’s what my weapons do—they even the field for humans who do not have claws or wings or the ability to burn time. A level field means less fear on the humans’ part. Less fear on the humans’ part increases their willingness to have a conversation.”

The six-eyed Other beside Mr. Cain finally broke in. “And what about increasing Others’ fear?” This was none other than Colel Cab, a centipede-like creature the size a Highland coo. Of all the Others to be banished to Earth when the gods left, Colel Cab was amongst the strangest. Colel Cab was technically a god—to insects. Apparently there is even a bit of divinity in bees, ants and silverfish.

Still, despite Colel Cab being the insects’ god, she was not invited to leave with the rest of the gods during the GrandExodus. I guess the other gods saw the god of insects as still being an insect. And why would you want to take a mosquito or cockroach with you to your new home?

You’d think Colel Cab would have a grudge on her shoulder, but amongst all the Others on Earth, she was one of the greatest advocates to equality and smooth integration. She was a fierce advocate of something she called Living Rights—the lofty idea that any sentient being deserved to be treated with respect and given the opportunity to thrive. It was her version of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness—and my fellow humans hated her for throwing our own ideologies in our face. Go us!

“We Others did not ask for this to happen,” Colel Cab continued. “We did not wish for the gods to leave. Nor did we request that they abandon us on Earth as helpless refugees.”

“Helpless? Give me a break,” chimed in Mr. Yew, the current frontrunner for the next presidential election. “What do Others like you have to be afraid of? Let me remind you that one of your Other ‘friends’ almost destroyed life as we know it. Something has to be done to bring these wayward creatures under control.”

For dramatic effect, the TV switched to an image of Tiamat, that behemoth Kraken, that apocalyptic monster from the Assyrian pantheon that almost destroyed the world three weeks ago. Tiamat was the kind of menacingly huge that made Godzilla look like a pacified Chihuahua—and there she was on the TV, lumbering toward Paradise Lot’s beach front in full HD. She almost destroyed the world. Almost. But because of the efforts and sacrifices of many brave Others, she failed. Not that Mr. Yew would mention that, of course. Such facts do not garner applause or play well on the local news.

Colel Cab snapped a look at Mr. Yew that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. All six of her eyes blinked in frustration before she took a deep breath and crossed her four sets of arms. With a heavy sigh she said, “The majority of Others are moderates, no more interested in destroying the world than you or I. This is, after all, as much our home as yours.”

The crowd behind the cameras booed and Mr. Yew raised a hand to quiet them down. “Perhaps, but the majority of these so-called ‘moderates’ aren’t doing diddly-squat to help with those who are hell-bent on destroying humanity. And as for this being your home … oh, please. This is our home—and you are our guests.”

The audience applauded loudly at this last. Mr. Yew leaned back with a smug smile, not bothering to quiet the crowd this time as he let them cheer. When they finally calmed down, he lifted a finger and said, “Let me point out one more thing: a human can’t use magic.”

“Magic comes at a great cost to us, Mr. Yew,” Colel Cab objected. “You know that. Every time an Other uses magic they must burn through their allotted time. In other words, magic shortens our lives. The more we use it, the less natural breath we have to breathe. It is not something we do lightly.”

“Still, there’s enough wacko Others out there willing to burn through all their time to cause a little chaos. Even if that’s less than one percent of your population, we still must take action and defend ourselves.” Mr. Yew adjusted his tie. “Look, folks, we must figure this out. We simply must, and I’ll tell you this—our current government doesn’t know what it’s doing, and neither do the so-called ‘moderate’ Others. And, as I said before, we humans can not burn time to use magic; we don’t have claws or wings or extra eyes. All we have is our ingenuity, intelligence and, if I am perfectly honest, Mr. Cain’s weapons—”

“Deterrents, not weapons.”

“You say that, Mr. Cain,” Colel Cab broke it, “but when you are building prisons designed to hold Others and not humans, you’re implicitly saying we”—the giant centipede touched her chest in a gesture that showed she represented all Others—“are more dangerous than humans.”

“I don’t have to imply it. I’ll outright say it,” Mr. Yew said. “Others are more dangerous than humans, period. That’s why we need the jail built as soon as possible.”

I took another swig of beer. The jail—it seemed like the only thing people talked about these days. It was to be built on Hawar Island, a two-hundred-acre speck in the ocean just off of Paradise Lot, with lead and iron walls specially designed to counter the strengths and powers of Others.

Still, in my opinion, an Other-only jail came with a whole slew of other problems, from unjust incarceration all the way down to forced detentions. And that I was completely against.

Back on the screen, Mr. Cain raised a hand. “Please, Mr. Yew, the question was directed at me. I’d like a chance to answer without interruption.”

Mr. Yew looked hard at Mr. Cain, and it seemed to me he was considering firing back. But instead he gritted his teeth and gestured for Mr. Cain to continue—a very presidential move done by a very unpresidential man.

“Colel Cab is correct. My company, Memnock Securities, has been commissioned to build an Other-only jail. We’re doing so because Others, unlike humans, can burn time and escape most facilities. We need a way to keep offenders in. The Hawar Jail isn’t operational yet, but when it is, it will act as a further deterrent—”

Mr. Yew rolled his eyes. “Deterrents, weapons … security apparatus. Call it what you want. My point remains the same. They hobble wayward Others and that, if you don’t mind me saying, is a good thing.” There was applause from the unseen audience behind the cameras. Mr. Yew turned his attention to the screen, ignoring the Others beside him now. “And one more thing—let me remind you once again that less than a month ago, a monster almost destroyed an entire city on its way to our homes. We must defend ourselves—and it starts with neutering their abilities. We must—”

“Neuter?” Colel Cab spat out. “How dare you use a word fit for dogs and—”

“Big words for a creature with pincers for a mouth!”

“How dare you? How—”

“Please, please!” Mr. Cain cut in. “We must keep this civil if we are to get anywhere—”

At that exact moment, the TV went mute.

“Hey, I was watching that,” I said to the cyclops behind the bar, who just pointed behind me.

“It’s such drivel,” a voice said behind me. I swiveled to see Mr. Cain staring up at the TV, remote in hand. “And I swear, sometimes I think all I do is debate myself. Security apparatus, weapons … Others and humans getting along. How do we do it? How can we bring peace between our races?”

Despite having lived since the dawn of humanity, Mr. Cain still had a youthful zeal to him. He wore a blue suit with a red striped tie and stylish glasses with a thick black frame to them. If I didn’t know how old he actually was, I would have placed him in his late thirties, maybe early forties. Behind him stood an Other named BisMark who, in stark contrast to Mr. Cain’s attire, wore his trademark suit made up entirely from peacock feathers.

Not that I had any right to judge. I was wearing black jeans, a white T-shirt and a black collarless jacket that somehow made me look like a priest, hipster-monk and valet all rolled into one.

“Our races?” I repeated.

“Yes, ours.” Mr. Cain pointed at me, then himself. “And theirs.” He gestured around the room. “We share the playground now, and as much as humans would like to bully Others around, there are too many Others with way too much power for that to be a realistic option.”

“And I guess you’re helping that conversation with your … your …”

“Apparatuses. I like the ring to that word, don’t you? Like I said—we must remove fear from the equation in order for there to be a conversation. Right now humans are very afraid.” He stuck out his hand. “Mr. Jean-Luc Matthias, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Please, call me Jean. My starship is in the shop.” I looked at the man’s hand for a long moment before taking it into mine. “And as for this meeting being a pleasure … is it, Mr. Cain? Is it really?”

“Oh, yes,” Cain said, grinning. “More than you can know.”

CRYSTALDREAMS

PART IX

IN THE BEGINNING …

Monsters are real.

Little Sarah has known that monsters are real ever since two of them stole her from her bed and took her to this place.

Now she lays on a metal bunk bed with a mattress that doesn’t even have a sheet. The mattress is stained and old and she can feel its springs on her back, her arms, her legs. Even her head.

She’s locked in a room with only three solid walls—the fourth is made of metal bars and a metal door. There is a toilet in the room, too, that isn’t private at all. And that’s a problem, because there are eight kids in the room with her, and they all stare when she goes. Sarah hates to be watched when she goes.

But her bed and the terrible room that’s not really a room isn’t the worst thing about this place—not even the other kids watching her when she goes. Not by a long shot.

The worst thing is the missing wall that has bars that stops her from getting out. She doesn’t know the word for the kind of room she’s in … why would she? She’s only six. If she were older, she’d know she is in a prison cell. She’d also know that it’s normal for the prison cell to look out into the central area, which in this case is a courtyard.

And, lastly, if she were just a bit older, she’d know that the monsters lurking in the courtyard are anything but normal.

Monsters … yuk!

When Sarah was really little, she used to be afraid of monsters that weren’t real. You know—the ones that live under your bed or in your closet. Those monsters aren’t really scary, because as soon as Daddy turned on the lights they would disappear.

But these monsters are different—nothing chases them away. Instead they lurk about in plain view—big and hairy, fierce and loud—and every time you forgot they were there, they would screech or moan or growl or bang.

No two monsters are the same. Some have big bodies with small heads. Others have big heads and small bodies. Some don’t have heads at all. Then there are the horns, claws, arms, legs, wings and tails.

The monsters scare her—and Sarah doesn’t scare easily. So if she’s scared … the other kids must really, really, really be scared.

↔

Across the courtyard there are other three-walled rooms with more children. From her own cell she can see at least twenty other rooms, each with—what?—four or five kids. Every day new children arrive; in the three days she has been in this place, she’s counted at least eleven new kids.

Her own cell had eight kids, but now it has nine. A new kid arrived this morning.

He’s three, maybe four, and he’s the youngest child that she’s seen here. He’s holding a doll. A dog’s head on a human body … no, that’s not quite right. Dogs have shorter snouts, smaller ears. The doll’s head is something that looks like a dog, but isn’t. Sarah knows this because she’s been to the zoo many times with her mommy and daddy, and seen many things that looked like dogs but weren’t. Hyenas, wolves … jackals.

The new boy sits on the floor and cries. He’s terrified, Sarah can tell. The only thing he’s said since he arrived is his name.

Something big and fierce howls and the boy cries louder, almost mimicking the monster.

Sarah shakes her head. If he doesn’t calm down soon, he’ll be in full tantrum mode.

“It’ll be OK, Ewwiot,” she says. His name is Elliot, but ever since Sarah lost her top two baby teeth, she’s had trouble pronouncing certain words. Elliot comes out as Ewwiot and Sarah really wishes her grown-up teeth would hurry up and come out. “You’ll be OK. I promise.”

But Elliot—Ewwiot—will not be consoled. He’s doing that crying thing where he holds his breath for so long that Sarah actually thinks he might pass out. Then the breath comes, followed by a wail so loud that even the monsters stop their clamoring and clanking.

Sarah looks around at the other kids. None of them move to help the newcomer. Fine, she thinks.

Jumping down from the bunk bed, she grabs Ewwiot and pulls him under the metal slate that juts out of the wall and acts as their bed. Underneath its canopy, she holds him tight and, whispering, she tells little Ewwiot the story her mother always told her when she was scared. A story about a hero—her hero, Sarah’s hero—who is always brave, no matter how many monsters howl in the night.

Her hero is a sailor. A warrior. A fierce being whom Sarah dreamed about a thousand times before the BadThings took her here, and a million times since she arrived. She knows her hero isn’t some made-up story. Her hero—Sinbad—is real. And Sinbad hears her anguish. Sinbad knows where she is.

Sinbad will save her.

She tells the story of Sinbad exactly as her mother told her so many times before. When she is done, Ewwiot is calm, drifting off into his own dreams of Sinbad, resting his little head on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Ewwiot,” she soothes. “Sinbad is coming. I promise.”

As if to debate little Sarah’s reassurance, a monster shrieks, waking up Ewwiot. In his sleep he forgot his surroundings, and when it dawns on him that he is not home, safe in his own bed, he starts to cry again.

Sarah curses the monsters and issues a silent howl of her own.

Yes, monsters are real.

But so are heroes.

And her hero is coming.

Sinbad is coming.

NOT ALL ENTREPRENEURS ARE CREATED EQUAL

“Jean,” the voice on the other end of my mobile phone shattered. “Are you listening?”

“Yeah, sure,” I half-lied. Truth was, I was staring at the TV over the bar, half-listening to that as well.

“There is an unidentified Other lurking about in the Compounds,” the voice shattered. I don’t know how this creature did it, but her voice sounded like she was pulverizing porcelain every time she uttered a word. “I need you to investigate. Can you handle that?”

I nodded, forgetting that the person on the other end of the phone couldn’t hear a nod. Not that I really cared; if I had my druthers, I wouldn’t be on the phone with this creature. Not ever. I wouldn’t be coerced into going to the Compounds—a human-only suburb of Paradise Lot—no matter how frightened the locals claimed to be of one thing or the other. In fact, if I really had any druthers at all, I wouldn’t be on the phone at this bar waiting for an Other I had no interest in speaking with and a man I had no business meeting with. But here I was, druthers-less and miserable.

“Jean … the unidentified Other? Will you take care of it?” The voice on the other end sounded more like nails scraping against a chalkboard than actual words, and I had to hold my phone a few inches from my ear. But I had spoken to this particular Other, with that shattering voice of hers, plenty of times. I understood her loud and clear.

Still, I didn’t answer.

“I own you, Jean,” the creature said. “Comply and stay free. Obstruct, and I will happily escort you to the stockade myself.”

I didn’t answer.

“Do you understand?”

I understood perfectly. But still, I said nothing.

When the gods left, forcing their denizens—the Others—onto Earth, the world was thrown into chaos. Initially humans hunted Others, and being a hot-headed young man, I was one of the first to enlist in the fight. And I was good. Very good. Killing came naturally to me, and killing Others was my specialty. During my time in the Army, I garnered a reputation for being one of the humans’ most fearsome soldiers.

But the trouble with anger is that it’s usually built on a house of cards. It can’t stand up on its own for very long. Eventually I learned that the Others no more asked to come to Earth than we invited them. They were forced on us, just as we were forced on them. Eventually I lost the heart to keep fighting. During a mission where my squad was wiped out by a fire-breathing dragon, I went AWOL, choosing absence without leave. The Army assumed I was charcoaled and I was declared KIA—killed in action. For six years I was dead to them, until the world was almost consumed by an apocalypse.

Long story short, I got involved, General Shouf caught wind that I was still alive and here we were: she was blackmailing me into being part of her covert operations.

Hellelujah!

“Do you understand?” she repeated.

I grunted in affirmation.

“I need a clear answer, soldier.”

“I’m no soldier.”

“You’re my soldier until I say otherwise. Will you take care of it, soldier?”

I hesitated, but a person’s dignity can only hold out for so long. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, General. I will take care of it.”

“And what will you be taking care of?”

I took a sip of my beer, which now felt flat. “Some rampaging Other is disturbing the villagers. You want me to deal with it.”

“Unidentified Other,” General Shouf groaned. “Not rampaging, as of yet.”

“Whatever. Why not send some of the Diamond Dogs out for a hunt? Ever since the war dried up, they must be dying for action.” The Diamond Dogs were her elite squad of hunters, a group of humans and Others alike. There were some bad dudes in there, a group I wouldn’t want to tangle with—not even if the fate of the world depended on it. And that’s a lot, coming from a guy who stared down the friggin’ Kraken.

“No Diamond Dogs on this one. You know why. Some things must be unofficial,” her voice cracked. “Very well, then. The next time the Unidentified Other is sighted, I will contact you. I expect your immediate response.”

The phone line clicked off.

“I’ll be waiting with bated breath,” I said to the dead line.

I needed another drink. Or four. I put the phone down and pointed at the TV. “Can you turn that up?”

The cyclops, who wore a stained, sleeveless undershirt he must have sewn from a super-king-sized bed sheet, picked up the remote and upped the volume without turning around. Cyclopes—they may only have one eye, but in my experience, there’s very little they don’t see.

On the screen, a debate raged between three bigwigs. In the aftermath of the near apocalypse, there were a lot of debates as to what to do about the “Other problem.” I might not have taken notice, except the three debating were some of the loudest voices on the issue. And the one at the center of it all was the very man I was at the bar to meet: Mr. Cain. That’s right, Cain, as in the first murderer of man, brother of Abel, first son of Adam … and currently one of the biggest and richest businessmen in the world. Seems that the powers-that-be accidently cursed him with immortality—because even though he supposedly died at the ripe old age of 730, Death still would not take him, fearing that the Mark of Cain would fall upon her sevenfold. Rather than risking getting cursed herself, Death granted Cain immortality, and he used his thousands upon thousands of years of experience to develop weapons that were particularly effective against Others. He founded Memnock Securities, and anyone who’d bought stock in them when the gods left would be very rich today.

I checked my Mickey Mouse watch again. “Man, I really hope this isn’t a live broadcast,” I muttered.

“Fear,” Mr. Cain said from the TV, “lets evil men control good people. And fear clouds our judgment, human and Other alike. We must take fear out of the equation if we are to have any meaningful discussions.”

The Other sitting next to Mr. Cain rolled her eyes—all six of them—but before she could say anything, Mr. Cain raised a hand. “Let me finish … I’ve lived for a long, long time and I know enough about humans and Others to know that you must take fear off the table before you can have a conversation. That’s what my weapons do—they even the field for humans who do not have claws or wings or the ability to burn time. A level field means less fear on the humans’ part. Less fear on the humans’ part increases their willingness to have a conversation.”

The six-eyed Other beside Mr. Cain finally broke in. “And what about increasing Others’ fear?” This was none other than Colel Cab, a centipede-like creature the size a Highland coo. Of all the Others to be banished to Earth when the gods left, Colel Cab was amongst the strangest. She was technically a god—to insects. Apparently there is even a bit of divinity in bees, ants and silverfish.

Still, despite Colel Cab being the insects’ god, she was not invited to leave with the rest of the gods during the GrandExodus. I guess the other gods saw the god of insects as still just an insect. And why would you want to take a mosquito or cockroach with you to your new home?

You’d think Colel Cab would carry a grudge, but amongst all the Others on Earth, she was one of the greatest advocates for equality and smooth integration. She was a fierce advocate of something she called Living Rights, the lofty idea that any sentient being deserved to be treated with respect and given the opportunity to thrive. It was her version of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness—and my fellow humans hated her for throwing our own ideologies in our faces. Go us!

“We Others did not ask for this to happen,” Colel Cab continued. “We did not wish for the gods to leave. Nor did we request that they abandon us on Earth as helpless refugees.”

“Helpless? Give me a break,” chimed in Mr. Yew, the current frontrunner for the next presidential election. “What do Others like you have to be afraid of? Let me remind you that one of your Other ‘friends’ almost destroyed life as we know it. Something has to be done to bring these wayward creatures under control.”

For dramatic effect, the TV switched to an image of Tiamat, that behemoth Kraken, that apocalyptic monster from the Assyrian pantheon who almost destroyed the world three weeks ago. Tiamat was the kind of menacingly huge that made Godzilla look like a pacified Chihuahua—and there she was on the TV, lumbering toward Paradise Lot’s beach front in full HD. She almost destroyed the world. Almost. But because of the efforts and sacrifices of many brave Others, she failed. Not that Mr. Yew would mention that, of course. Such facts didn’t garner applause or play well on the local news.

Colel Cab snapped a look at Mr. Yew that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. All six of her eyes blinked in frustration before she took a deep breath and crossed her four sets of arms. With a heavy sigh, she said, “The majority of Others are moderates, no more interested in destroying the world than you or me. This is, after all, as much our home as yours.”

The crowd behind the cameras booed, and Mr. Yew raised a hand to quiet them down. “Perhaps, but the majority of these so-called ‘moderates’ aren’t doing diddly-squat to help with those who are hell-bent on destroying humanity. And as for this being your home … Oh, please. This is our home, and you are our guests.”

The audience applauded loudly at this last. Mr. Yew leaned back with a smug smile, not bothering to quiet the crowd this time as he let them cheer. When they finally calmed down, he lifted a finger. “Let me point out one more thing: a human can’t use magic.”

“Magic comes at a great cost to us, Mr. Yew,” Colel Cab objected. “You know that. Every time an Other uses magic, they must burn through their allotted time. In other words, magic shortens our lives. The more we use it, the less natural breath we have to breathe. It is not something we do lightly.”

“Still, there’s enough wacko Others out there willing to burn through all their time to cause a little chaos. Even if that’s less than one percent of your population, we still must take action and defend ourselves.” Mr. Yew adjusted his tie. “Look folks, we must figure this out. We simply must, and I’ll tell you this—our current government doesn’t know what it’s doing, and neither do the so-called ‘moderate’ Others. And as I said before, we humans cannot burn time to use magic; we don’t have claws or wings or extra eyes. All we have is our ingenuity, intelligence and, being perfectly honest, Mr. Cain’s weapons—”

“Deterrents, not weapons.”

“You say that, Mr. Cain,” Colel Cab broke it, “but when you are building prisons designed to hold Others and not humans, you’re implicitly saying we”—the giant centipede touched her chest in a gesture to show she represented all Others—“are more dangerous than humans.”

“I don’t have to imply it. I’ll outright say it,” Mr. Yew said. “Others are more dangerous than humans, period. That’s why we need the jail built as soon as possible.”

I took another swig of beer. The jail—it seemed like the only thing people talked about these days. It was to be built on Hawar Island, a two-hundred-acre speck in the ocean just off of Paradise Lot, with lead and iron walls specially designed to counter the strengths and powers of Others.

Still, in my opinion, an Other-only jail came with a whole slew of other problems, from unjust incarceration all the way down to forced detentions. And that I was completely against.

Back on the screen, Mr. Cain raised a hand. “Please Mr. Yew, the question was directed at me. I’d like a chance to answer without interruption.”

Mr. Yew looked hard at Mr. Cain, and it seemed he was considering firing back. But instead he gritted his teeth and gestured for Mr. Cain to continue—a very presidential move for a very un-presidential man.

“Colel Cab is correct. My company, Memnock Securities, has been commissioned to build an Other-only jail. We’re doing so because Others, unlike humans, can burn time and escape most facilities. We need a way to keep offenders in. The Hawar Jail isn’t operational yet, but when it is, it will act as a further deterrent—”

Mr. Yew rolled his eyes. “Deterrents, weapons … security apparatus. Call it what you want. My point remains the same: they hobble wayward Others. And that, if you don’t mind me saying, is a good thing.” There was applause from the unseen audience behind the cameras. Mr. Yew turned his attention to the screen, ignoring the Others beside him. “And one more thing. Let me remind you once again that less than a month ago, a monster almost destroyed an entire city on its way to our homes. We must defend ourselves, and it starts with neutering their abilities. We must—”

“Neuter?” Colel Cab spat out. “How dare you use a word fit for dogs and—”

“Big words for a creature with pincers for a mouth!”

“How dare you? How—”

“Please, please!” Mr. Cain cut in. “We must keep this civil if we are to get anywhere—”

At that exact moment, the TV went mute.

“Hey, I was watching that,” I said to the cyclops behind the bar, who just pointed over my shoulder.

“It’s such drivel,” a voice said behind me. I swiveled to see Mr. Cain staring up at the TV, remote in hand. “And I swear, sometimes I think all I do is debate myself. Security apparatus, weapons … Others and humans getting along. How do we do it? How can we bring peace between our races?”

Despite having lived since the dawn of humanity, Mr. Cain still had a youthful zeal to him. He wore a blue suit with a red-striped tie and stylish glasses with thick black frames. If I didn’t know how old he actually was, I would have placed him in his late thirties, maybe early forties. Behind him stood an Other named BisMark who, in stark contrast to Mr. Cain’s attire, wore his trademark suit made up entirely from peacock feathers.

Not that I had any right to judge. I was wearing black jeans, a white T-shirt and a black collarless jacket that somehow made me look like a priest, hipster-monk and valet all rolled into one.

“Our races?” I repeated.

“Yes, ours.” Mr. Cain pointed at me, then himself. “And theirs.” He gestured around the room. “We share the playground now, and as much as humans would like to bully Others around, there are too many Others with way too much power for that to be a realistic option.”

“And I guess you’re helping that conversation with your … your …”

“Apparatuses. I like the ring to that word, don’t you? Like I said, we must remove fear from the equation to allow for a conversation. Right now, humans are very afraid.” He stuck out his hand. “Mr. Jean-Luc Matthias, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Please, call me Jean. My starship is in the shop.” I looked at the man’s hand for a long moment before taking it into mine. “And as for this meeting being a pleasure … Is it, Mr. Cain? Is it really?”

“Oh, yes,” Cain said, grinning. “More than you can know.”

REFUSING OFFERS YOU CAN’T REFUSE

The Other Place.

How appropriate that we were meeting at the one pub in Paradise Lot friendly to both humans and Others. Most establishments in Paradise Lot catered to one variety of Others. The Perched Café was an angel-only venue that had no seats, only perches designed for angels’ eagle-like feet. The Stalker Steak House was a diner where Others could hunt their prey before eating it. It was run by Sandy, a former Victorian werewolf who, despite being human now, still liked to track down her dinner. And the list went on: Ali’s Cave had little shelves for genies to place their lamps. The Maze was a popular place for minotaurs who felt more at home with confusing layouts. And the Birdhouse was exactly that—a birdhouse big enough for a couple dozen or so pixies to sit around comfortably.

In contrast to those, The Other Place had seats of various sizes and shapes, from Barbie furniture all the way up to custom-made, reinforced, steel-framed seats strong enough to support an elephant. As long as you were willing to move things around, you could always find a seat designed for your species’ butt.

The walls were decorated with all manner of seemingly random stuff. Specially designed bowls with three indents to keep the heads of a cerberus from fighting. Satyrs, pixies and other nature-loving Others enjoyed the moss that grew on another wall. Sheets of metal and stones hung from heavy-duty bolts in the ceiling—home sweet home for dwarves. Hell, even the floor had mirrors for nymphs and muses to gaze lovingly at their own reflections. And above the bar—just far enough to mask the smell, thankfully—a mural painted by our resident artist, CaCa, depicted a multiplicity of Others and humans living side by side in Paradise Lot.

The Other Place was a hodgepodge of decorations that at first gave off a chaotic feeling—until, that is, you realized every part of it had been carefully chosen for one purpose and one purpose only: to make everyone and everyOther feel welcome. The only thing missing from the hodgepodge of imagery were religious symbols. There were no crosses, crescent moons, Dharma Wheels or icons of any kind at the Other Place.

That afternoon, the pub was practically empty. The only other occupants were the owner and two patrons: a passed-out genie draped from his lamp like a deflated balloon, and a down-on-his-luck erawan who lightly trumpeted between the sips of beer with mint leaves that he drank through one of his three snouts.

We pulled together three human-sized chairs and sat around a small wooden table at the far end of the bar. The cyclops brought over our drinks without asking what we wanted.

“Thank you, Milton. This is exactly what I would have ordered,” Mr. Cain said, sipping what looked like a Shirley Temple. Looking at me, he added, “Cyclopes … they’re a bit psychic.”

I looked up at the one-eyed giant handing me an apple martini. One sip, and I had to agree with Mr. Cain. I thought I’d wanted another beer, but after tasting the cool, dry apple-flavored drink, this was exactly what I wanted.

“Thank you,” I said to the cyclops. “Milton, is it?”

The cyclops blinked, presumably in the affirmative.

“Did you know,” Mr. Cain said before the bartender could slip away, “that cyclopes are the only creatures who knew the gods were departing? Isn’t that right, Milton?” Mr. Cain gave the cyclops a curious grin.

The cyclops blinked.

“Not that they told anyone,” Mr. Cain continued. “You see, once upon a time, even before I was born, they asked Athena for the gift of prophesy. They offered one of their eyes by way of exchange. But Athena, being the devilish little god that she was, only gave cyclopes the ability to see their own deaths. Imagine knowing for thousands of years how and when it will all end. And, given that the gods leaving was the harbinger of cyclopes’ mortality, Milton must have known the gods would leave. He must have.” Mr. Cain kept his gaze on the cyclops, not quite ready to let him go just yet. “I am sorry, good creature, but I just wish we’d had had a little heads-up. I’m sure this is a sentiment my fellow guests share.”

BisMark’s expression did not change. I, on the other hand, found this Mr. Cain asshole pretty damn rude. Even if cyclopes knew that the world was going to end, what good would it have done anyone to tell us? I knew the cyclops myth; Athena’s curse also included a clever little caveat that prevented anyone from believing those she’d cursed. So even if Milton had told someone, chances were he would have been ignored.

“First of all, seeing your death doesn’t mean you know all the circumstances surrounding it,” I chimed in. “Secondly, there’s Athena’s curse to contend with and—”

Before I could continue, Mr. Cain held out his hand and bowed in contrition toward Milton. “My sincerest apologies—I was rude. I know of the curse. You could never have convinced us of their abandonment”—Mr. Cain pointed to the sky—“and it was wrong of me to insinuate otherwise. Friends?” The first son of Adam held out his hand, and the cyclops looked at it for a long moment before taking it in his. “Friends,” Mr. Cain sighed in relief. “Again, so sorry.”

Milton nodded, blinked twice and returned to his bar.

“And my apologies to you, Mr. Matthias. I just get so frustrated at the trouble the gods caused that I sometimes don’t know who to direct my anger at. Anger is a terrible affliction … and my own has gotten me in trouble in the past,” Mr. Cain chuckled.

I took another sip from my apple martini. “OK,” I said, looking at BisMark and wondering even more why I was here. “Now what?”

“Jean-Luc Matthias. John, Luke, Matthew—only missing the Mark.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not like I haven’t heard that one a thousand times before.”

“I knew them all, you know. John, Luke, Matthew and Mark. The authors, I mean. John was concessionary, Luke a rule monger, Matthew a historian … and Mark—he was the most enigmatic of them all.”

“Good to know. Now, if this little stroll down memory lane is over …” I made a get on with it gesture. Sure, now I was the one being rude, but I really wasn’t in the mood for banter—repartee, as General Shouf had put it. Truth was, I wasn’t really in the mood for much these days.

“Fallen Fruit, Jean,” Mr. Cain said. “BisMark told me you were a man of action, but I had expected a little foreplay, at least. Very well, then. Let’s get to it. Tell me … why are you here?”

“This is ‘getting to it’?”

“Indulge me.”

“OK … because BisMark asked me to come down and hear what you have to say.” I nodded at the peacock-feathered creature, who returned the gesture with a nod of his own. BisMark was, once upon a time, the master logistician to the gods. Think of him as a lawyer, consultant and logistics master to the Divine. He brokered deals between pantheons and, as I understood it, helped shape the modern world. When the gods left, they didn’t take him with them, and that came as a shock to pretty much every Other who knew him. If it was a shock to BisMark too, he made no indication of it.

There was no doubt that BisMark was one of the most powerful Others in the world today, but despite that power, he didn’t seem to want to be in charge of anything. He was happy to take a backseat role in politics and history, a backseat role that he was now embracing in his mortal form by working for Mr. Cain and only the GoneGods knew who else.

Mr. Cain nodded at my answer. “You could have ignored BisMark’s request.”

“I could have.”

“But you didn’t. Why not?”

“Because when the world almost ended for a second time—”

“Three weeks ago,” Mr. Cain laughed, evidently finding more levity in the situation than either BisMark or me.

“Yes, three weeks ago. BisMark risked his own life and burned a considerable amount of his own time to help. I owe him a sit-down.”

BisMark lifted his Escubac and tonic in acknowledgment. “Like I said to you before, Mr. Cain … Sacrifice. We must do so to achieve our goals.”

Sacrifice. The word grated my very soul and infused me with a bubbling rage that took all my self-control not to let out. One of the sacrifices he was referring to was the death of Medusa—my friend, my almost-lover and one of the brightest and best Others I’d ever known. But I did not sacrifice her … I lost her. She sacrificed herself so that we could all live.

Just like my Bella had done. A few years ago, my wife had sacrificed herself for a greater cause, allowing herself to be killed to find a way into Heaven—to allow us all to have afterlives. That was where she was now, waiting for me to find a way to her.

I took a deep breath and let it go. Others have their own vernacular for these kinds of things; I wasn’t about to get into a semantics debate with a being that helped usher in language itself.

Mr. Cain must have sensed my irritation. “Yes … I heard about your loss. I am truly sorry for your pain. I know what it means to lose someone you love.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Mr. Cain returned my gaze with a conciliatory smile. “I loved my brother, Mr. Matthias. It was because of love—and the uncontrollable fury often born of it—that I lashed out against him in a moment of passion. But that is a very old story, indeed. I am here to speak to you about the future. Say what you will, Mr. Matthias, but you came here because you were curious what the head of the world’s largest security company would want with a hotelier such as yourself.”

“Maybe.”

“Like you, Mr. Matthias, I was born mortal. And as a mortal, I sinned—a sin so great that I was cursed to live forever. Humans are not meant to live forever, and so those years were … less than pleasant. And what did I do with those thousands of years? I wallowed. I bathed in bottomless pools of self-pity. The more time given, it seems, the more time wasted. And waste, I did—so, so much time.”

Mr. Cain adjusted the cuffs of his shirt, fiddling with his cufflinks. On them was the Memnock Securities logo: three circles that made the points of a triangle, with adjoining lines connecting them.

Except there were diamonds in place of the three circles. I guess that was a luxury you could afford when you were as rich as Mr. Cain.

Gathering himself again, he placed the palms of his hands flat on the table and sighed. “And now that the gods are gone, it seems that their curses are also gone. I am mortal again. Mr. Matthias, I have done harm … and I wish to repent for those sins before I leave this Earth.”

Repenting for sins was something I understood. The GoneGods knew I had many of my own.

“OK,” I said.

He looked up at the TV, now playing a baseball game. Both teams were entirely composed of humans; Others had yet to earn the right to play mortal sports. “I meant what I said at the debate, Mr. Matthias. My apparatuses were created to remove the element of fear so that a discussion could begin. It is my hope that this discussion will lead to peace. But given Mr. Yew’s inclinations, peace will be hard-earned.”

“And your thoughts on this are …?” I said, turning to BisMark.

“Like I said to you on the beach: we are at the point of crisis, and history has taught us that true change can only be affected when the world is in chaos. Whether it shall be—”

“—for better or worse remains to be seen,” I cut in. I remembered his words perfectly. I didn’t know if I bought it then, but hearing Mr. Yew’s approach—Other registration, neutering, fear, hate—I was beginning to see BisMark’s point. The only thing was, I couldn’t see the better route. The path to worse, on the other hand, was clear as day to me. “OK Mr. Cain, I’m curious. And despite my overwhelming desire to retire from this crazy life, I made a promise that I would do my best to help. I’m listening.”

“Excellent,” Mr. Cain said, rubbing his hands together. “I knew you’d see it my way.”

“I don’t see anything. I’m just willing to listen.”

“Here.” He wrote something on a napkin and passed it over to me. “I want to offer you this.”

I turned the napkin over and took a look at one of the biggest numbers I’d ever seen written down, with a big, heartily scrawled dollar sign in front of it. I scoffed before regaining composure. “In exchange for …?”

“Your consultancy.”

“He’s your consultant,” I said, pointing at BisMark.

“He’s my Other consultant. I need a human one, too. And my understanding is that your background in the military—”

I shot BisMark a look and the Other raised both hands up in defense. “I didn’t say anything to Mr. Cain. But the man is resourceful. Money can make anyone resourceful.”

Mr. Cain waved a hand. “Don’t you worry about that. Your past is your past.”

“Just like yours?”

“Just like mine. Future, Mr. Matthias. Future. I need someone to liaise between—” He gestured to us and then around the bar.

I nodded. “I’ve heard that a lot lately. Seems there’s a lot of people who need me to ‘liaise.’ ”

“Living Rights—it is more than a catchphrase, Mr. Matthias. When the prison is built, we’ll need someone to ensure that the Others interned there will be respected and properly cared for.”

“You make it sound like they’re going into an old-folks home. It’s a prison. What rights do they have?”

“All of them,” Mr. Cain said, excitement causing his voice to rise. “At least that is my hope. Yes, it is a prison. Yes, they will be there against their will. But we will make every effort to treat them with respect and care.”

The first son of Adam slammed his fist on the table, and from the passion with which he spoke, I got the sense that he meant what he said. This wasn’t just lip service.

Mr. Cain unclenched his fist and adjusted the cuffs of his shirt again. “Will you, Mr. Matthias? Will you?”

I sighed. “What about you, BisMark? Are you a part of this?”

The BisMark turned the napkin around. His expression did not change when he looked at the figure. “No, I fear,” he said. “My attentions are needed elsewhere. We will not meet again for a long time.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To facilitate.”

“To facilitate … and then what?”

BisMark’s face betrayed nothing.

“More Other-related consulting?”

Still nothing.

“Off to find the gods?” I smirked.

BisMark said nothing—but I swear to the GoneGods, the green in his peacock feathers flared two shades darker. Then again, maybe I just imagined it … Either way, I was getting nowhere with him.

I turned to Mr. Cain. “OK, so it’s just you and me.” I looked at the napkin again and thought about all the bills I had to pay just to keep the hotel afloat—then there were all the programs I was running—but if I was honest with myself, that wasn’t the real reason why the money was appealing. The truth was the last few weeks had taken the fight out of me. As much as I wanted to help, I just didn’t know if I had the will to do so. The money he was offering me could go a long way in setting something up so that if I left, I wasn’t just abandoning my post.

Still … that much money meant there would be strings attached—and I wasn’t a very good puppet. “I’ll think about it.”

Mr. Cain clapped his hands and grinned. I guess a businessman such as himself interpreted “I’ll think about it” as an enthusiastic “Yes.” Given what he was offering me, he might just be right.

The brother of Abel stuck out his hand. “Great. I look forward to hearing from you.”

I looked at the extended hand that, once upon a time, was guilty of the first murder and wondered if there was enough time in the world to wash it clean. Then I looked at my own stained hands and knew that there wasn’t.

I took his hand and shook it.

↔

After we shook hands, Mr. Cain paid the bill and he and BisMark left me alone to finish my apple martini.

I stared at the napkin for what felt like forty days and forty nights, mulling over the offer. This was money. Real money. And despite owning the only functioning hotel in Paradise Lot, I was broke, broke, broke.

Others were amazing at many things, but finances weren’t one of them. Hell, for most of them, money was worthless. You couldn’t eat it, you couldn’t plant it and it didn’t do anything magical like turn into a flying carpet or light things up or cure any ailments you might have. It was paper. Of course, money could buy bus tickets, which could be interpreted as a substitute for a flying carpet. Money paid your electricity bills, which kept the lights on, as well as your doctors’ bills, which kept you healthy.

Money wasn’t magic. But it was a way to buy all the things magic used to do for you.

Not that Others understood that. They still placed value in things that were inherently magical … like actual flying carpets, magic lamps and vials of health. I once had an ifrit try to pay for a room with—well, ahem, what succubi prefer to pay with. When I refused, she looked dejected and pulled out a spoon. Once upon a time, whenever that spoon went into an empty bowl, it always came up with whatever food you desired. But with the gods gone, it was just a spoon.

In the end, I let her keep the spoon and have the room for the night.

The ifrit stayed for three months.

I’m a sucker, I know. But you should have seen how she cradled that spoon in her hand, like it was the most precious thing she owned. And maybe it was. She was so lost, I couldn’t turn her away. Besides, that particular transaction had a happy ending; eventually the ifrit found work and a place to live. When she left my hotel, she was independent, happy and looking forward to her new career as a grocer’s assistant. The day she moved out she handed me an envelope which contained the spoon and a note that read: Maybe one day the spoon will work again. And when it does, you’ll see why I loved it so much.

Best feeling in the world, to have helped her on her way.

And, in a world where being OnceImmortal made you a refugee, there was no shortage of Others in need. Best feeling in the world was hardly the appropriate prize for helping one creature.

There was one more thing to take into account: good feelings don’t pay the bills.

Mr. Cain’s offer could.

As I ruminated over good feelings, something that elicited the exact opposite of good feelings happened: my phone buzzed. I flipped open to a text message that read:

Looking forward to seeing you later tonight. We got quite the showing. Let’s meet at dusk—and don’t forget the cookies!

–George

“That’s today,” I muttered to myself, less a question than an admonishment for allowing it to slip my mind. George was a new friend. Our bond was formed over mutual experience: he, too, lost a friend during the almost-apocalypse. His loss was a myarid—a sea-jinni—of considerable power, Azzah. She sacrificed her life to save George’s.

I considered not texting back, but then I thought about how much the ceremony meant to George. He deserved more than depressed-me, so I mustered my best give a damn attitude and texted back:

OK, I’ll be there, but my cookies will not.

Not much, I know. But at least I fought off the urge to drown my phone in drink.

The message was whisked away with a zoop! sound—which I’m pretty sure was the noise Internet pixies made when they delivered messages through cyberspace—and waited for a reply.

Not ten seconds later I received:

We invited you for your cookies. ;)

I chuckled to myself and wrote:

Then you’ve obviously never had them.

LOL … cookies or not, looking forward to seeing you later my friend.

↔

I put away my phone and called Milton over. I considered my next words carefully before realizing the temptation was too great. I sighed, giving in: “Mr. Cain was right, wasn’t he? You did know they were leaving?” He might have clammed up with Mr. Cain, but I was the guy who stopped two apocalypses, and was considered a champion to Others … Maybe, just maybe, he’d answer me.

Milton’s eyelids snapped shut. They opened three seconds later, his large green irises glaring down at me.

Champion or not, I wasn’t going to get an answer.

“OK, OK,” I said, hand up in mock surrender. “Can’t blame me for trying. On another note, since you can read my mind, what drink do I want now?” I held a finger up to my forehead. I wanted to get drunk and forget. I knew it was only a temporary reprieve, but it was something.

He didn’t move. Or blink.

“Come on. You’re not sore I asked you about the gods, are you?”

He shook his head.

“So … drink?” I held the image of a whisky in my mind’s eye, presumably in the same spot as Milton’s real eye.

He didn’t move.

I dropped my finger. “What’s the problem? I’d like a drink.”

He shook his head.

“I … don’t want a drink?” I asked, suddenly unsure of what I wanted.

He blinked.

“Because … it won’t help how I’m feeling.”

Another blink.

“I should leave.”

Yet again, he blinked. I swear, this cyclops was a one-note creature.

I thought about it. He was right: I did want to leave. Go for a long walk home to clear my head and think about things. Things like how if I was honest with myself, I mean really honest, then there was only one real reason I wanted Mr. Cain’s money.

It was my ticket out of Paradise Lot.

↔

I left the Other Place and headed home—if you could call a seven-story hotel in the center of town “home.” I lived (and worked) in the Millennium Hotel, a once-upon-a-time boutique hotel that stood on a hill. It was cylindrically shaped, and from a distance looked like the rook from a chess board. The Millennium Hotel, and its residents, were my world.

And right now I hated it.

Ever since the near-apocalypse, I just couldn’t bring myself to really care.

Seeing Medusa die nearly killed me. Figuratively speaking, of course. She was the second person I loved and watched die because of the Others and this new GoneGod World—and frankly, I felt cursed.

Don’t get me wrong. I never blamed the Others for what happened to Medusa, or to Bella, who died six years after the gods left.

I blamed the gods.

They shouldn’t have left. And if they had to, if for some GoneGodDamn reason they had no choice, then they should have done it without so much hurt or confusion. They were friggin’ gods, after all. They could have done something, anything to make the transition smoother. But they didn’t—and because of their careless departure, Others and people died.

Others and people whom I loved.

It had been three weeks since Medusa’s death. Three weeks in which I’d learned to empathize with zombies. Move, eat, groan—and don’t feel.

I was numb. And I didn’t think there was anything that could be done to reanimate myself. I wanted out. Add to the equation that my former Army commander was blackmailing me, and I desperately wanted out.

As I walked up the hill toward the Millennium Hotel, I was conflicted; an internal battle raged with no clear winner in sight. I needed to do what I always did when faced with questions that didn’t have answers: I needed to get up to my room and stage a battle between my 1980s vintage toys. And since the dilemma I faced was a big one, the battle I would stage would need to be between … who? Voltron and WWF stars. Maybe Transformers and GI Joe versus Smurfs and He-Man?

I was already planning the battle as I pushed on the turnstile front door of the hotel. A little bell chimed with each hit of one of the door-flaps. The bell was magical in nature and attuned to my ear, telling me what kind of species rang it. Given I was walking through my own door, I heard the word human after each chime. Chime—human. Then human number two—and with three humans, I was in.

What waited for me in the lobby of my hotel made me wish to the high heavens that I had taken Mr. Cain’s offer and left with him then and there.

DESPITE POPULAR BELIEF, SINBAD’S A GIRL

“Sinbad! My name is Sinbad. Sinbad. Sinbad!”

Ah crap, not today, I thought as I walked through the turnstile into the lobby of the Millienium Hotel. As each door-flap rang the bell that hung above the entrance, the thought “For whom the bells toll!” sang in my head.

The hotel lobby was a grand, expansive cylinder that soared all the way up the seven stories of the hotel. Each floor looked out into the middle, with only a brass railing to stop someone from falling down its center. The space was sparsely furnished: only a few couches near the glass walls and a large, circular oak desk in the center of the room.

Usually my hotel was empty, with the occasional (unpaid) guest meandering about. Today, however, an eight-foot-tall angel lay flat on the ground as what looked like a six-year-old dressed in a Halloween pirate costume bounced up and down on his chest. Her face was surprisingly menacing as she screamed the name Sinbad down at her angelic prey. They were both covered in sudsy water, like someone had dumped a bubble bath on their heads and—judging from the angel’s own scowl and the little girl who was going tantrum-nuclear on his chest—neither of them were happy.

The angel, Penemue, was sprawled on his back, wings spread like some poorly laid feather carpet. Penemue was one of my longstanding, unpaying guests. He was a drunk and an arrogant bastard, but that tweed-vest-wearing angel was my best friend, which meant I knew him well enough to know that he deserved any beat down he was getting. Still, by all practical reasoning, Penemue should have easily been able to lift a six-year-old off him, pirate or no. She was, after all, literally a third his size and an eighth his weight. But amazingly enough, from the strain on his face, I could see that Penemue was helpless against this girl. That meant she was either burning time to keep him down, or she was much, much, much stronger than she looked.

Behind them stood EightBall—a former HuMan gang member and now my assistant—laughing hysterically.

I’ll be honest, I considered just stepping over them and leaving; but, sighing heavily, I decided against it. This scene was unusual—even for Penemue.

“What the hell is going on here?” I growled.

Without hesitation, the girl pointed at Penemue. “He started it.”

“I did not,” Penemue protested.

“Yes, you did!” She looked at me with pleading, desperate eyes, like she needed me to believe it was Penemue who started it and not her. “Cross my heart, mister. Just ask the guy with the eight on his head.” She pointed another accusatory finger to the tattoo on EightBall’s forehead.

Despite his name, it wasn’t a tattoo of an eight. It was a vertical infinity sign that, because of EightBall’s perfectly round head and dark complexion, made his head look like an 8-Ball.

Why EightBall even had a tattoo on his forehead was a long story. The short of it: HuMan gang members liked to shave their heads and cover them with tattoos of religious symbols that—since the gods left—few, if any, still worshipped. Crosses, crescents, the Wheel of the Dharma, Yin and Yang … you get the picture. And since EightBall was, once upon a time, Paradise Lot’s local chapter leader, his head was covered with more symbols than most.

But these days the teenager wore his hair short and neat—his past buried under tight black curls that covered most of the tattoos. Only the eight remained visible.

“OK,” I said, leaning in close. “But will you get off the angel’s chest so we can discuss this in a civil manner?”

“Not until he apologizes,” the girl sniffed. “It’s only proper.”

Despite Penemue’s predicament, his face was defiant. Getting an apology out of him would be damn near impossible, I could tell. “I merely asked what kind of Other you are,” the pinned angel said. “I’ve never encountered your kind before.”

“Other what?” she said—as if the term didn’t mean anything to her.

Penemue sighed in exasperation. “What kind of mythical creature are you?”

“I’m a girl.”

“No, you’re not,” Penemue said.

“I’m Sinbad.”

“Again … no, you are not.”

“Yes, I am. I am Sinbad the sailor.”

“Sinbad is a fictitious character who never lived.”

“I! AM! SINBAD!” the little creature screamed. She punctuated every word with a hard stomp on his chest, knocking the breath out of him.

I just stared. This was what the fight was about?

Penemue coughed. “OK, if you are Sinbad, where is your ship?”

“In the water.”

“And where is the water?”

“Out there,” she said, waving in the general direction of outside.

“Port? Starboard? Where?”

“ ‘Starboard,’ ” the little girl giggled. “Mr. Angel, you talk funny.”

“I do not,” Penemue protested.

“You do too.”

“I do not—”

Sinbad stomped down hard on his chest again. “YOU! DO! TOO!”

“OK, OK, I talk funny,” the flattened angel said. “Ha. Ha. There, happy?”

Sinbad giggled.

As I tried desperately to see the humor in the situation, three tiny chimes sounded behind me, announcing a possible new arrival. I turned to see a poltergeist pushing through the turnstile door.

The bell rang out the word ghost, but what it should have said was the Devil.

Oh, crap … Judith, I thought, as the ghost of my mother-in-law, back from her all-too-short holiday in Australia (I wish that was a joke, but it’s not) entered the lobby.

Judith took in the scene before her in one glance. She glared at me. “Really, Jean,” she said with her usual scorn, “I don’t know why I expected things to be different when clearly nothing will ever change around here.”

I forced a smile. “Welcome back.”

“Humph. ‘Welcome back’ indeed.”

The five-foot-nothing poltergeist floated over to me. From the waist up, Judith looked like a woman on her way to church: a nicely pressed Sunday dress with a pretty floral pattern; a respectable hat with all the appropriate bobby pins holding any potentially loose strands of hair at bay; even a petite yet elegant purse strapped around her shoulder, which matched her yellow cardigan.

From the waist down, however, was another story. Judith had no legs, instead floating, well … exactly as you’d expect a ghost to float. Judith died before the gods left, but instead of going into the proverbial light, she decided to stick around and haunt the poor soul who married her daughter—me. Things would go missing all the time, I’d feel cold or anxious for no reason and, on more than one occasion, I’d wake up in a cold sweat.

Then the gods left, taking most of the world’s magic with them. The result? Judith could no longer remain invisible and, manifesting in that same gaudy dress we buried her in, she came back to life. Problem was, we thought she was dead, so we sold her house. Having nowhere else to live, she moved in with her daughter Bella and her son-in-law, moi.

That was fourteen years ago; now, with Bella dead and forever gone, I was the one stuck taking care of dear ol’ Mother-in-law.

But not just my mother-in-law. There was also the alcoholic angel, Penemue; the teenage ex-gangbanger, EightBall; and a whole host of other Others that needed my special brand of care.

I’d like to say that dealing with the two fighting Others (or one Other and an actual pirate, if this girl was to be believed) and a judgmental ghost of a mother-in-law while being late for a meeting was unusual—but if I was being honest, this was a fairly typical day.

I knew I should ask about her holiday, try some sort of small talk, but honestly, I didn’t care. I was so overwhelmed, on sensory overload, that Welcome back was just about all I could manage. Her being back was just one more thing to make my already miserable life more … well, miserable. So instead I stood there like some kind of breathing rock.

She ignored me and floated toward Penemue and the girl. “And what is going on here?”

Finally my brain’s gridlock thawed. I spun around and said to Judith’s back, “Good to see you’ve returned refreshed and relaxed.”

Judith took a moment to look at me over her shoulder and scowl before pointing at Penemue. “Seems the angel is misbehaving. Again. Not that I would expect anything else from an angel from Hell.”

The girl’s cheeks turned bright red when Judith said Hell. Her eyes grew large and she whispered to no one in particular, “She said a bad word.”

EightBall nodded, suppressing a giggle.

“Young lady, it is only a swear word when used as blasphemy. The angel you are currently standing on did indeed reside in Hell.”

Cheeks burning brighter, the girl giggled at the word.

“I repeat: what is going on here?”

“Judith,” I said, “I’m handling it.”

“I can see that. Now if you don’t mind”—she floated close to the three of them—“what is going on?”

“Well, as you can see—” Penemue said.

“I wasn’t asking you. I was asking her.”

“Burn,” EightBall muttered.

Judith turned her fury on EightBall. “That’s enough out of you, mister.”

EightBall nervously rubbed the part of his head where his Yin Yang tattoo was buried—something he did whenever he was nervous.

“And as for you, young lady—explain yourself.”

The girl’s finger went back to pointing at Penemue. “He started it. He said I wasn’t Sinbad. But I am.”

“Are you, now?”

“I am. And I am here on a very, very important mission.”

“And what mission is that?”

The girl looked around before whispering, “It’s a secret.”

“OK,” Judith whispered back with uncharacteristic softness, “it is. But I tell you what: why don’t you remove yourself from the angel? The young gentleman over there will get you a towel and perhaps a change of clothes, then we can go down to the kitchen for some hot chocolate.” She looked up at EightBall. “You can handle all that, can you not?”

“Change of clothes?”

“One of your horrible rock ‘n’ roll T-shirts should suffice. Will that be a problem?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good. Now Sinbad, would you like some hot chocolate?”

Sinbad licked her lips. “Yes, please,” she squealed—with way too much enthusiasm for someone who was supposed to be a tough, burly sailor.

“Good, now run along. I’ll be down shortly.”

Sinbad giggled again. She hopped off Penemue and took the bewildered EightBall’s hand, disappearing into the bowels of my hotel for hot chocolate.

↔

With Sinbad gone, Penemue peeled himself off the ground and straighten his tweed vest. Standing his full eight feet, his gorgeous blond hair cascading around his shoulders, he looked every inch the angel you would expect. He was a big guy, and not just because he was taller than any NBA player who’d ever graced the court. He was wide, too. Not fat—more like a bodybuilder who turned to lifting beers instead of weights, which is to say wide arms, solid build, and a reasonably pronounced gut straining the buttons on his vest. He reminded me of a happily married Fabio.

“Empty Hell, that little girl is strong,” he said, pulling a bottle of Drambuie from some hidden pocket in his wings. “Thank you, Judith.”

Judith eyed the bottle. “Things haven’t changed one bit around here, have they?”

“No, ma’am,” Penemue said, echoing EightBall’s vernacular. “Drambuie is still the closest thing you humans have to Ambrosia.”

Judith pursed her lips. Penemue returned the gesture by tipping his bottle in her direction before taking a long, hard swig. “Hum,” she said. “I’ll take your word for it. Now, since you and your sidekick, Newton—”

“EightBall,” Penemue corrected.

“Hm, yes … EightBall.” Judith sighed and removed her hat. “Penemue, my dear fallen angel, would you do me the favor of collecting my bags and taking them up to my room? It has been a long trip and I must freshen up.”

Penemue saluted her and started for the door to get her bags. At the turnstile, he turned, giving me a look that over the years I’d come to know intimately. I have something to tell you and you’re not going to like it, that look said, usually accompanied by a confession to some shenanigan or other he’d gotten up to—like picking a fight with Other-hating gangs or ruining the flyers the Being Human Salon had printed.

But he must have decided not to further ruin my already ruined day, because he shook his head and went outside.

I turned for the stairs, desperately seeking to get to my room, when Judith blocked my path and said, “And Jean, if you would be so kind as to give me a few minutes when—”

“Judith, as much as I’d looove to hear you lecture me about my many, many, maaany failings, I’m just not in the mood right now. So if you don’t mind, let’s defer your disappointment to a later time and date.”

With that, I started up the stairs, fully expecting Judith to lecture me despite my particularly refined speech about my mood and suggested deferment. But instead, Judith said two words that I hadn’t heard her say in the twenty-plus years I’d had the displeasure of knowing her. And given how rough and tumble those years were, I never dreamed I would hear her say those two little words even after a thousand-plus more. Especially to me—her nemesis, her enemy … her son-in-law.

“I’m sorry.”

“Excuse me?” I said. Part of me thought I had died and gone to Heaven—not that Heaven existed anymore.

Judith held her hat over her chest and lowered her gaze before repeating herself. “I’m sorry, Jean.”

I must be hearing her wrong, I thought. Those damn bells muddled my hearing.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated a third time—and I swear to the GoneGods I almost fainted.

MOTHER-IN-LEER

Judith and I went over to the couches near the windows. Because the Millennium Hotel was situated on a hill, we got a pretty decent view of Paradise Lot. The city wasn’t a particularly big one, nor was it vertically inclined, with only the occasional building standing over five stories. We did have one skyscraper that stood near the shoreline, but outside of that, the only hill on this island was the hill we sat on now.

I didn’t dare look over at Judith; I was still trying to figure out the catch, trying to figure out what she could have done to me that warranted an apology.

Neither of us knowing what to say, we sat in painful, awkward silence.

I mean really awkward silence. It had me missing those damn bells all over again. Even though I knew Judith was beside me, I couldn’t hear her breathing, nor did she smell of anything. I guess when you’re a ghost, breath and body odor aren’t high on the list of haves. There was an eerie quiet, with only my own breath breaking the silence. I was considering trying to stop breathing altogether when Judith finally spoke.

“So … Penemue and EightBall are getting along. I take it the angel hasn’t told the boy what he did?”

Her words were from left field, which meant that she was just as uncomfortable with the silence as I was. OK—so at least there was some sort of common ground.

“No,” I said. “Not yet. But Penemue is determined to do so. He’s just finding the courage.”

“He shouldn’t. The boy is so well-adjusted now. He’s no longer part of that awful gang. He smiles, helps out, he’s grown his hair out to cover those nasty tattoos—most of them, anyway. He’s almost a pleasure to be around.” I looked over at Judith and saw her smiling. “Telling him will only cause harm.”

I nodded in agreement. Still, I was hesitant. Judith was seeing this in black and white, and this new GoneGod World was anything but black and white. “The guilt he feels for what he did to EightBall’s parents … it’s tearing Penemue apart.”

“Killing them was an accident. When the gods left and he was ejected from Hell, he had no control over where he fell. It was purely coincidence that he fell on EightBall’s family home. The angel is not to blame.”

“Blame and guilt go hand in hand, Judith. Think about it: if you’re driving your car and someone jumps out in front of it, no matter how much it was their fault or how hard you tried to avoid them, you still feel guilty and blame yourself.” As I said this, I wondered how this conversation had taken such a philosophical turn.

Judith tsked. “Oh, please. As much as the angel boils my blood, in this instance he does not deserve such blame or guilt.”

“Maybe, but—”

“And what about the greater good?” Judith cut in, her voice rising—as did the couch. Being a fairly new poltergeist, she didn’t have much control over her ghostly powers … which meant her emotions could turn into a telekinetic rage which usually resulted in furniture (and yours truly) thrown about, a lot of broken glass and—during one of the more terrifying temper tantrums—a desk turned into kindling. “He tells the boy and, what? Lets him enact revenge? Will the angel sit passively while the boy maims or kills him? What? What? Tell me—what?”

I grabbed Judith’s hand. “Deep breaths, Judith. Calm yourself. You have to calm down. You’ll burn through way too much time if you lose control again.”

I held her gaze. After a long moment, she nodded and took several deep breaths. The couch settled down and my feet felt the blessed floor again.

I continued, “For all we know, Penemue will never gather the courage to tell him. Besides, I doubt you wanted to speak to me about Penemue. What’s really going on?”

She looked up at me, anger bubbling, and for a moment I thought that she was going to direct that rage at me. Another tirade about how I wasn’t good enough for Bella, or maybe how I was to blame for her death. That particular rant was one of my favorites.

But instead, Judith’s eyes softened. With a deep sigh, she said, “You’re right. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”

I inhaled a long breath through my nose. “So you mentioned. But I still don’t know what you’re apologizing for.”

“Your loss.”

“My what?”

“Medusa. I know you cared for her deeply, and even if that care was only a fraction of what it was for Bella, I know you must be suffering because of it. I know how deeply you love and … and I’m sorry. It’s hard enough losing one person we love, but two … I cannot imagine what you must be feeling now.”

“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my hands together for something to do.

Judith sighed and patted my knee. “It’s OK, you know.”

“What is?”

“To have had feelings for her. Bella wouldn’t be angry. She would have wanted you to be happy.”

I rubbed the old twist tie that was wrapped around a silver necklace I wore. It was the ring I proposed to Bella with, all those years ago on a beach not far from here. A twist tie from a discarded loaf of bread from the local bakery—the only thing I could afford at the time and the most romantic gesture my seventeen-year-old mind could come up with.

Touching my necklace only reminded me how much being in Paradise Lot hurt. I wanted to get away from this place. I wanted to get away from the pain.

After a long moment of silence, I managed to squeeze out, “I know,” past the massive lump in my throat.

“Good,” Judith said, standing up. Or rather, floating up.

Judith started to float away when I called out after her, “It’s Bella. It was always Bella. It will always be Bella.” The words came out of me before I could stop them. “Medusa was my chance to find a bit of happiness again. A chance to maybe even love again. And even though I was hesitant, I wanted to give her a chance. Give us a chance. But when all is said and done, it would have been selfish of me to try, because I would have never given myself completely to her. I couldn’t. In this life and the next, I will forever love Bella. I just want you to know that.”

“I know. I’ve always known. Doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a little bit of happiness. Bella would have wanted that for you. As do I.”

Having Judith be so kind to me was overwhelming and had I not been so numb, I might have burst into tears. Hugged her, even. But in my muted state, the only emotional outpouring was a single tear which I shyly wiped away before Judith could see.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

“For this talk … and earlier, too,” I said. “How did you do that? Deal with that weird girl so effectively?”

“You forget, Jean … I have experience dealing with stubborn little girls.” She floated toward the stairwell. “Speaking of stubborn little girls, perhaps I should return to them before they get into any real trouble. Besides, I could use a hot chocolate right about now. If there is any powder left. I fear that my unattended kettle in my kitchenette is in danger of little girl fingers and the boil. Care to join me?”

Judith apologizing to me was one thing. But Judith drinking something fun and unhealthy … and inviting me along?

I suddenly wasn’t sure if the world had, indeed, ended three weeks ago.

Hellelujah!

↔

We walked up the stairs to what I expected to be a scene of carnage, chaos and calamity (forgive the alliteration, but I find that pessimism is best served with rhythm). Instead, I found something completely unexpected.

Penemue and EightBall stood in front of the TV as “Gangnam Style” flashed on the screen. Apparently EightBall was teaching them the recent dance fad as they watched the music video. Sinbad and EightBall were dancing in rhythm, their bodies bouncing up and down as they pretended to ride a horse. Penemue, on the other hand, looked like he was being dragged by wrist chains.

Seeing us enter, Penemue stopped to take a swig of—was that tea? Holy crap, it was. Penemue was drinking tea … not Drambuie. Not whisky. Not alcohol. Tea.

That settled it: the world had ended.

When Sinbad saw Judith, she ran up to her. “I’m dancing ‘Gangnam Style’!”

“Are you, now?” Judith said.

“I am. Want to dance with me?”

“No,” Judith said in a that’s final tone. “But what I will do is read you a story. Do you have one in mind?”

Sinbad cheered, then “Gangnam Style”-d her way to a coffee table with several books on it, before settling on Super Duck. Book in hand, she guided Judith to the sofa you’d probably see in almost every hotel room in the world. There the little girl handed Judith a children’s book that I can only assume was Bella’s when she was a kid.

“Here,” Sinbad said. “Read me this one.”

For a moment I thought that Judith would admonish the child for being so forceful, but instead the ghost simply smiled. “As you wish.”

I hadn’t heard those words from Judith since before Bella died. It was her way of complying with her daughter’s wishes and one of the most endearing interactions between them. “As you wish,” from The Princess Bride—an expression that, to Judith, meant complete and total love.

Sinbad may have just shown up, but already she was changing everyone’s hearts. As I looked at this strange mix, I didn’t see a hodgepodge of species forced to live together because of terrible circumstances—I saw the beginnings of a family. A weird, twisted family with a ghost for a grandma, a disheveled former angel from Hell as a dad, an ex-gangbanging, tattoo-covered teenager with violent tendencies as an older brother and a little whatever-she-was in a pirate’s costume as a younger sister.

It was … nice. I could feel my numbness start to ebb, if only slightly. This strange scene was the peace that Bella wanted. That Medusa wanted. Hell, that I wanted.

They all looked up at me and I was greeted with four matching smiles.

“Judith is going to read me a story now,” Sinbad said.

“That’s not what we agreed,” Judith admonished.

“Oh, yeah—she’s going to teach me how to read so I can read the story to her.”

“That’s right.”

“Yeah! I’m learning my letters.”

“And I’m learning that gyrating the body in certain ways makes me cool as Hell,” Penemue mused. “Having lived there, I can tell you that Hell is not cool. Hell is the damn opposite of that.”

“Language,” Judith scolded.

“Language, indeed.” Penemue turned around and winked at Sinbad. “Did you know that I taught humanity how to read?”

“You did?” Sinbad asked with unabashed sincerity.

“I did. It was a long, long time ago. Before you were born, before anyone in this room was born, I gave humanity the first inclination toward language. And then I went to Hell.”

“Wow,” Sinbad said. “That was really nice of you, Mr. Angel.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Oh, please,” Judith growled. “He may have given humanity the written word, but that does not excuse him for being a giant pain in our—”

“Language!” EightBall, Penemue and I sang in chorus.

“—butt. I was going to say ‘butt,’ ” she chuckled.

FAIRIES, SNAKES, ANGELS AND—ARRGH!

The next few hours were so tranquil that I didn’t even ask the burning questions of who this Sinbad was and where she came from. That could wait until the morning.

Bedtime rolled around and Sinbad went up to Judith’s room, where the ghost promised her pajamas and another story. Penemue returned to his attic room and EightBall said he was turning in early because he wanted to get to the lawn before the afternoon sun got too hot. Hellelujah! I don’t think I ever saw the boy mow a lawn, let alone get up early.

But who was I to complain?

I went to my room, still fully planning to stage a battle with my vintage figurines. I found that playing helped a lot in calming my mind and getting me to a place where I could make rational, clear decisions. I had a lot to consider: Cain’s offer, Shouf blackmailing me, Paradise Lot and the Millennium Hotel. The bills were stacking up higher than ever and the daily Other drama wasn’t getting any better. Not to mention Judith’s odd behavior, the weird Other that looked like a little girl but claimed to be a fictional pirate and my own desire to get out, tempered by the truly incredible time I just had with the very same people who usually drove me crazy.

I honestly didn’t know where to begin. So I looked forward to an hour or two of indulgent play.

Except that when I got into my room, I found half my toys on the floor, the other half knocked over, teetering for dear life.

A snake coiled around Castle Grayskull—one of my signature pieces—and a three-inch-tall golden fairy was flitting around the snake, batting it on the head with He-Man’s battle axe.

“Tink! Marty! What the hell are you two doing?” I ran over to the castle and pulled Marty the snake off the toy replica, grabbing the battle axe out of Tink’s hand at the same time. “Seriously, what are you two doing?” I barked.

Tink flew at Marty, who snapped at her as she whizzed by.

“Stop it. Both of you!”

Marty coiled around my arm, lifting himself up so that he was about three inches away from my face. Then he did what he always does when he sees me: he hissed. He was one of Medusa’s snakes—her lead one, from what I could tell—and when we were dating, Marty did everything in his power to make things uncomfortable for me.

But when Medusa died, Marty moved in with me. I don’t know why, and I never asked. I guessed that he wanted to be with someone else who also cared for the person who had always been, quite literally, a part of him.

As for Tink—that’s a long story. To sum up in five simple, terrible sentences: I killed her guardian. She needed a guardian. I became her guardian. She lived with me for many years. Then she found another guardian: a demigod named CaCa.

From what I could gather, Tink was unique. Think of her as what the Loch Ness was to us before the gods left. Most Others believed Tink to be a legend, a myth, and if they were to discover that she was real, many would seek to possess her.

For six years Tink lived with me, finding a comfortable enough home in Castle Grayskull after I filled it with dolls’ furniture.

And as for her name? I dubbed her “TinkerBelle” after the only other fairy I knew at the time. She never complained. Not that she could. She couldn’t speak—but in the time we’d lived together, we had both learned how to play Charades with eerie accuracy.

“First of all, Marty: I told you all about Tink when you moved in. Castle Grayskull is hers, if she wants it back.” I pointed at Tink. “And as for you—what happened? I thought you were living with CaCa now.”

She mimed that they had a fight and then buzzed around angrily. She landed on one of Castle Grayskull’s turrets, folding her legs and resting her head on her fist.

“OK, so you two had a fight. That happens. Couples fight.”

Oh—I should mention CaCa was also her boyfriend.

Tink shrugged and then gestured that she needed a break.

“But he loves you.”

She laced her hands and in an exaggerated motion pulled them close to her chest, a big fake smile on her face. Then she grimaced.

“You’re wrong. Love is enough.”

Taking to the air, she wiped her hands together—our symbol for I don’t want to talk about it—and pointed at Marty.

“Medusa’s snake.”

Marty hissed.

“And my friend,” I added.

Marty hissed again.

Tink’s eyes filled with tears, but I cut her off.

“Please, Tink. I can’t go down that road. Not today. I’m too … too. I just too.” I wiped my own hands together.

Tink nodded, wiping her eyes, and landed in front of Marty. In front of him, she mimed her condolences for his loss. Marty lowered his head in a pose that must mean sadness in snake-speak, then closed his eyes before nudging her with the crown of his head. The three-inch fairy patted him on the crown and hugged him.

Grief and empathy—it can bond even the staunchest enemies.

“Tink,” I said as she swayed back and forth on Marty, “you staying long?”

She grimaced in my direction and I raised my hands up in mock surrender.

“You can stay as long as you want. I’m just checking.”

Marty hissed, to which Tink scowled, ending their temporary truce.

“Guys, guys—”

But before I could put on my UN Peacekeeper hat again, my phone rang.

Actually, it trumpeted its custom ring that I programmed it to do when a certain archangel called: Michael.

“Hellelujah!” I cursed.

THAT’S CAPTAIN ARCHANGEL TO YOU

I left Tink and Marty to figure it out, fairly confident that they would adhere to the Don’t eat, don’t disintegrate anyone with magical fairy dust rules.

I looked at the screen, still flashing Chief Michael. Once upon a time the archangel was one of the highest authorities in the universe. He had been the celestial enforcer, divine judge and wrathful executor all wrapped into one ten-foot-tall, six-winged, over-powered super being. When the gods left, he gave up all those lofty titles in exchange for Paradise Lot’s police chief.

I sighed as I clicked Answer and put the phone to my ear.

“Jean-Luc,” Michael said with an ominous boom.

“Michael,” I echoed back, less ominous and even less boom-y.

Michael paused, probably considering whether it was worth his time to tell me to stop joking around. I heard a heavy sigh that sounded more like a truck downshifting before he bellowed, “You are needed.”

“OK,” I said. “But I have other plans.” That was a half-truth. I was kind of on call with General Shouf and her Unidentified Other. Plus I had to bake for a memorial that I didn’t want to go to and—

“Jean-Luc. Need I remind you that—”

“Let me guess: I owe you? Join the club.”

“I was going to say that the world is in a precarious balance. We are teetering on the edge and should we fall, the humans will wage war against Others. A war that cannot be ignored. A war in which none of us can be neutral. Even you.”

“Way to go for the jugular,” I said.

“JEAN-LUC.”

Michael’s thunderous voice had a way of making everything sound grave and perilous. I once heard him tell a child that “Vegetables make you big and strong. You want to be big and strong, do you not?” I swear that kid took one look at Michael then downed his plate of broccoli like his life depended on it. Then he asked for seconds. Somewhere out there was a mother begging her child to stop with the vegetables.

Still, for Michael there was grave and perilous and then there was This is the end, prepare your soul. The way Michael sounded on the phone right now, I was pretty sure we were dealing with the latter.

“OK,” I sighed. “What’s up?”

“There has been a kidnapping. A human child.”

“Jesus—”

“Blasphemy!”

“Jesus … wouldn’t approve,” I pivoted. “We can all agree on that, can’t we?”

Silence—if you can call heavy breathing that sounded like a Humvee idling “silence.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Please continue.”

“A child has been kidnapped. We don’t know much yet, but we are fairly confident that an Other of considerable power is behind this.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the child was asleep in a household imbued with Memnock Securities’ latest technology. Bypassing such security requires power.”

“Or a hacker.”

“And a hacker. It is likely the kidnappers employed both magical and technological measures to obtain the child.”

This was serious. A child being kidnapped was always a big deal, but if the kidnapper was an Other, that made things all the more complicated.

And then it hit me—Shouf’s rampaging Other. South side of the island. There was a connection there.

Still, what could I do? Shouf hadn’t called, so the creature must already be gone, and I was home and tired. “Michael, I get that this is a big deal, but I’m not qualified. I’m a hotelier. A bad one, at that.” Guilt bubbled up in me as I tried to get out of helping, but really I was just so tired of it all.

Michael must have sensed this, because he said, “This isn’t you. Normally I would be begging you to stay out of this, Human Jean-Luc. What is ailing you?”

Oh, great. Now Michael was worried about me. Couldn’t I wallow in peace? “Don’t you have detectives who can handle this?” I tried.

“It was in a human-only compound on the south side of Paradise Lot. My Other detectives will not be welcome there. And the only human detective we have on staff is a rookie. We need someone with experience and knowledge of Other modus operandi.”

“Oh.”

“Besides, you are a Paradise Lot officer. I deputized you, remember?”

GoneGodDamn it!

I did remember. When that near-apocalypse turned my world upside down, amongst the many topsy-turvy things it did to me, Michael—going completely against his play-it-by-the-book nature—deputized me. There was no getting out of this. Not now. Still, I could investigate the situation without contacting Shouf. Some intel, then I could pacify the Other general.

“Mainland police have already been dispatched to the scene. They’re throwing about all kinds of theories, but they have no solid leads. Not as of yet.” Michael paused. “They don’t have Other experience, Jean-Luc. They’re scared. If we don’t handle this properly, this will be another reason for the humans to fear us. Another reason for them to hate us.”

“Yeah, I got you. What do you need me to do?” I asked reluctantly.

“Officer Conner is waiting for you with further instructions. Pick him up at the St. Mercy Hospital—and do try to be more detective and less Jean-Luc.”

I paused. “Michael, did you just make a joke?” First Judith and now Michael. The world really did end.

There was a long pause before Michael’s voice boomed, “Yes. Tried and evidently failed. GoneGodSpeed, Jean-Luc. GoneGodSpeed.” Michael clicked off the phone, leaving me staring at the blank screen. Marty and Tink looked at me, both shaking their head.

“Crap,” I said. “I gotta get out of here.”

Tink took to the air and rubbed her forefinger and thumb together as she mock-swooned—the universal gesture for the world’s smallest violin. She was right. I was acting like a brat. A child was in trouble and I could help.

Come on, Jean, I thought, your misery will be waiting for you when you get home. But first, the child.

I guess while I was doing my best to not co-exist with Michael, Tink and Marty had figured out a way to co-exist in Castle Grayskull. How? I have no idea, but I had to hand it to them, their conflict-resolution skills were way better honed than mine. So with a nod in their direction and a silent sigh to myself, I went down to my 1969 Plymouth Road Runner—an old steel bucket that’s been in the shop so many times, it was a wonder that it ran at all. I patted her leather dashboard and groaned, “Once more into the fray, into the last good fight I’ll ever know,” and put her into Drive.

↔

Officer Conner was leaning against the wall of the St. Mercy Hospital, wearing a plain blue long-sleeve shirt and jeans—and despite his casual appearance, he looked like he was posing for a photo shoot: chiseled jaw, melting blue eyes, abs you could play ping pong on … He was gorgeous. A fact that was accentuated by the person whose hand he held.

Or rather, the angel.

Standing much too close to be merely friends was the angel Miral, a being of grace and beauty like few others (and Others) on Earth. She wasn’t just model beautiful … she was beautiful-beautiful. As in, the word beautiful would lobby to have Miral as its spokesperson.

Miral put a hand on Conner’s shoulder, gesturing for him to give us a minute. Then she walked over to the driver’s side window and knelt. Even on her knees, she was still a couple inches taller than I was sitting down. The Road Runner may sit low, but it wasn’t that low.

“Human Jean,” she said. “I tried your recipe. My cookies came out a lot softer and tastier than yours.”

“Don’t rub it in, Miral.”

She gave me a surprisingly devilish smile. “Very well, I shan’t.” She tapped her taloned fingers on the car window’s ledge before she replaced her smile with a look of concern. “Conner told me what happened. No doubt you know how serious this is.”

“I know … a kidnapping Other, and on the heels of a near-apocalypse, no less. The gravity of the situation isn’t lost on me.”

She nodded. “I’m leaving town.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

She gave me a look that said, Now is not the time.

“Fine, I’ll bite … Oh, where art thou flittering to, great Angel of Mercy?”

“Humans and their humor. You know, your kind are not very funny. Whales, on the other hand … they are hilarious—”

“Where are you going?”

“To the mainland. They are debating a proposal put forth by Mr. Yew. A test to determine Other intelligence and capacities.”

“What, like an IQ test?”

“Exactly like an IQ test, with questions that are only fair to ask of other humans. You cannot ask the average Other whether or not it is acceptable to shake hands at the beginning of an encounter when most Others don’t have hands.” She raised her talons by way of example. “And social constructs such as money? Equally unfair. Not without proper education first.”

“OK,” I said. “What does that have to do with you?”

“I have been invited to challenge this proposal.” She shook her head. “This is very dangerous for us. If such a test becomes mandatory, our position in the world will diminish and it will take generations to return from that.”

“Why? It’s just a test. Let them have their test and just ignore it.”

“For a man of so many abilities, I am constantly astounded by how ignorant you can be.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tell me, how do the authorities judge human capacity now? Through similar tests. Fail them and the government can determine you incompetent. They can put you in the care of the state, make major decisions for you such as where you live and what you are allowed to do. Make no mistake, this is the first step to crippling us as a whole.”

My jaw dropped open. Miral was right, and I hadn’t immediately been able to see through my human privilege for what this was. Throughout history, humans always tried to assert their superiority over other cultures and races. Certainly the Nazis were the most pronounced example, but there were plenty of others. The colonists’ treatment of Native Americans, Dutch missionaries in Malaysia, the temporary ban on Muslims and Mexicans entering the U.S. … hell, pre–World War II Japanese in both China and Korea. Terrible black marks on human history. Black marks you’d think were severe enough that we’d have learned our lesson.

Sadly, you’d be wrong.

And these new tests—they were no more than a thinly veiled attempt by my kind to assert their will over Others. A justification for further sanctions of the formerly divine.

I pursed my lips and nodded. “I’ll do my best. But if an Other is behind this, there’s very little I can do about it.”

Miral sighed. “I know.” She stood up and gestured for Conner to come over. The man strolled over like he was working a catwalk. GoneGodDamn, he was good looking! As soon as he was close, Miral took his hand in hers and said to me, “Take care of him for me. He is your responsibility when I am gone.”

“Miral,” Conner interjected, “I can take care of myself.”

“I know.” She chuckled and pulled him in close for an intense, knee-wobbling kiss that made me blush and look away. “Now, you two get to work. I’ll see you in a few days.”

MEN IN LOVE AND MEN IN UNIFORM

When Paradise Lot became an Ellis Island of sorts for Others, the humans who had already been living here got scared, then nervous and finally—angry. Doing what humans always do, they bundled nervous, scared and angry into one neat little package of Otherphobia. Otherphobia comes in many sizes and shapes, from mild distrust all the way to Other-hating gangs like the HuMans.

And somewhere in the middle were the Compounds.

These gated communities had everything a self-respecting human could need: supermarkets, coffee shops, a small mall where one could buy brand-name clothes and, of course, walls. Big, high walls with sensors and all kinds of anti-Other security apparatus to keep the Others out and the humans in.

To me it felt more like the humans built themselves a prison. Still, so many were readily willing to trade freedom for safety, and even though I hated Compounds and everything they stood for, I couldn’t judge my fellow humans too harshly. Fear is a powerful motivator and Others, with all their abilities and strange looks, could be fearsome. Everyone has the right to feel secure in their own homes—even Otherists. I just wished that one could feel safe because there was nothing to fear and not because they slept behind guarded walls.

One day, maybe. But not today. And judging by the debate on the TV at the Other Place, not for a long time.

Conner and I drove to the south side of the island, where the majority of the human-only Compounds were built. You see, Paradise Lot was an island city, with the landmass being the shape of a drop of water—or a tear, for those of us more romantically inclined. The half where the tear swelled was where the majority of Paradise Lot’s residents lived. In other words, it was where the Others lived.

The tear’s tail, on the other hand—or rather, the human hand—was where the humans lived. To the south, in the more arid part of the island and right next to a big four-lane bridge to the mainland—a.k.a., their escape route.

We drove mostly in silence for a while. But I’d had enough awkward silence for one evening, so I said, “You and Miral. That’s a thing.”

Awkward noise—much better.

From the corner of my eye I saw Conner shrug. Hell, he even did that sexily.

“Oh, come on … don’t be all cool with me. I know you know you’re a good-looking guy.”

“I’m good looking?”

“Like you didn’t know. Look, I get it. You’ve been around the block, had your share of heart break and breaking hearts. You’re all Rico Suave playing it cool, but even you can’t be cool, given the circumstances.”

“And what circumstances are those?”

“You’re dating an angel. A friggin’ angel! And not just any angel … we’re talking Miral here. Captain of the Lord’s Army, hot as hell—”

“Jean,” Conner admonished. “Behave.”

“Believe me you—I am behaving. I could get a lot worse. Trust me.”

“I know. Miral warned me.”

“Oh yeah? So you two talk about me? What else did she say?”

“That you want to help, but your nature is in conflict. That you've been pushed too far and that even though outwardly you appear to be fine, inside you are drowning with sorrow. That you may do something stupid because you don’t really care about yourself or your own safety. That you might get lost. Again. Like you were when the Others first came.”

Besides being good looking, apparently he was open and direct. Surely another reason why Miral liked him.

“So all happy stuff, huh?” I said.

Conner chuckled. “And that you were a good man.”

“She only says that because she doesn’t know me very well.” This was a lie, of course. Of all the Others in Paradise Lot, I suspected that Miral knew me the best—even better than Penemue, and he’d read the Book of Souls. She was there when I returned from the Army and reunited with Bella. She was there when Bella died. And she was there when I opened the hotel, trying to fulfill Bella’s wish.

She was also there during these past weeks. Miral made up any ridiculous excuse she could to come see me. Things like needing my advice on curtains, or a copy of my chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookie recipe. Pretty flimsy excuses, given that every time I baked those cookies, they came out charred and hard as rocks.

“She thinks you and I could be friends. The GoneGods know I could use one here. Everything is so …”

“Yeah, you’re right. It is all so …” I said. “And you can come to me and I’ll do my best to make so, less so. But you know what else friends do? They dish! So what’s the dish?”

“The dish?”

“You know: the skinny, low-down, the deal.”

“Ahhh, I see.” Conner sighed. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

I shook my head slowly from side to side, grinning. “Uh-uh.”

“It’s … complicated.”

“No shit, it’s complicated. You’re dating an angel.”

“So I’ve noticed. I like her and I believe she likes me back, but I’m not trying to think too far ahead on this one. It would be easy for me to fall head over heels for her, and …”

“Yeah, I get it: Miral’s no dummy. She knows that, too. She’ll be careful with you.”

“Yep. And that’s part of the problem. Her being careful and me being careful means that we’re two people who are seeing each other and being careful. Not exactly a recipe for progress.”

I nodded.

“Sooner or later, one of us is going to have to stop being careful—and by the GoneGods, that terrifies me.”

“OK,” I said. “So what are you going to do?”

“Stop being careful, I suppose. Valentine’s Day is coming. I’m putting it all on the line. I have a bottle of champagne if it goes well and bottle of whisky if it doesn’t.”

“I see. Should it go the way of whisky, give me a call. I’ll happily come over to commiserate.”

Conner put a hand on my shoulder and chuckled. “Will do. I could use your comfort. Besides, you think I’m good looking. I’ll need to hear that. A lot.”

“Can do, buddy. Can do.”

↔

We drove to the south side of Paradise Lot, about forty minutes from the hospital. Paradise Lot had two bridges leading to the mainland. When the gods left, a disproportionate number of Others emerged from their various heavens or hells onto this island, so it was only natural that they wound up settling here. And given how most of the world treated Others, it was also only natural that Paradise Lot became a beacon, beckoning for Others to immigrate.

No one knows what made Paradise Lot special—not that that stopped the hundreds of theories printed in academic periodicals, published in books or written up in magazines spanning from the prestigious New Yorker all the way down to the smutty National Enquirer. Some of my favorites claimed that Paradise Lot was a waypoint, a kind of inter-dimensional bus station where all the planes of existence met up. Another was that all the prophets throughout mankind visited Paradise Lot at least once in their lives. Other theories prescribed historical and mythical significant to the island, claiming it to be the Garden of Eden, Irim Emad and Stonehenge all wrapped into one.

One thing that contributed to the theories was that the southern half was nearly a desert. I don’t mean “desert” like rolling sand dunes or an oceanless beach. I mean that kind of desert where the ground was hard and stony and dry—when it shouldn’t be. We got rain. Hell, we even got the occasional white Christmas (but mostly we celebrated brown Christmases). Still, we weren’t a dry island, nor were we close enough to the equator to be a desert. And yet the southern half of the island was. Geologists and meteorologists said it was because of a hard bedrock layer about eight feet beneath the surface. The bed of rocks prevented underground springs from nourishing the land and stopped rain water from seeping in so that any significant plants could grow.

But the conspiracy theories ignored geologists and meteorologists. The conspiracy theorists took Paradise Lot’s odd geography as further evidence for their what-makes-this-island-special theories.

Personally, I doubted any of the theories were right. And even if one of them was, so what? Did it change the fact that Paradise Lot was the only place on Earth where Others were the majority population? No, it didn’t.

We reached a point on the road where turning left took us south and going straight would loop us back up north. We were going to turn south—except a military checkpoint had been set up at the T-intersection. I slowed the car down and some grunt in a uniform tapped the window with the back of his flashlight.

I counted to three and then lowered my window.

“License and ID,” the grunt said.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me: license and ID.” He flashed his light into the car, first on my face then Conner’s. Then he held out a Time Burned and Magic Counter (TBM for short) and examined its little screen, checking if time was being burned. Once upon a time, Others were immortal, and as such had access to infinite wells of magic. But when the gods left, one thing happened to all the mythical creatures that showed up on Earth: they became mortal. In other words, they had a finite amount of time to live. They weren't, however, stripped of their magic. Others could still use those GoneGodGiven talents, but whenever they did, they lost a little life.

Think of it as trading time for magic. A fireball might cost an Other a day of life; a guise, two. And something really big like stopping time or armoring yourself with impenetrable skin—that could cost months, if not years.

A funny side effect of burning time: it makes any nearby clock go faster. And that was exactly what the TBMs checked for—sped-up time.

My guess was that the grunt was checking if we’d hid an invisible Other in the backseat or if we were a pair of minotaurs or banshees in disguise. As I pulled out my wallet to show him the deputy badge that Michael had given me, a dog sniffed the car and another grunt walked around us with a TBM of his own.

“We’re here on police business,” I said.

The grunt ignored me, holding the counter steady while his buddy made the rounds. After what felt like five minutes, the other grunt gave the all-clear and the first grunt gave me the biggest, friendliest smile you could imagine. A complete one-eighty from how he was a second ago.

“You can never be too careful,” he said, visibly breathing a sigh of relief. “With all their magic and crap … you never know what you’re going to have to deal with.”

“I guess not,” I growled. “You just never know.”

Conner put a calming hand on my forearm and leaned in to get a better look at the grunt. “What’s going on here? You’re not with the police, are you?”

“Us?” He used the back of his flashlight to push up his helmet. “Heck no. We’re Army, just helping out. Given what’s happened, the communities down yonder are understandably on edge; we thought we’d set up here and give them a little extra peace of mind. Not that you can have that, given the circumstances. You heard about the little girl?”

“We did,” Conner confirmed. “We’re here to investigate.”

“That’s good. Real good. Way we figure it, some friggin’ Other is roleplaying some ancient kidnapping myth. You know they used to do that, kidnap children.”

The grunt was right, unfortunately. There were plenty of myths that involved some monster or demon kidnapping children. Most of that stuff was lies, but some of the legends were true. Changelings and popobawas did steal children. But I couldn’t believe that any Other in his or her right mind would try something like that these days, given the current political climate and their new mortality.

I decided to go the diplomatic route on this debate. “You know, humans kidnap children, too.” I put as much sarcasm as I could in my voice. There—diplomacy at its best.

The grunt narrowed his eyes and nodded. “Yeah, maybe. But not like this. No way.”

“Like what?”

He turned to the south before turning back. “When you get there, you’ll see exactly what I mean. No human could do that. No way, no how and no sir.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said, putting the Road Runner back into Drive.

And I really hoped we would.

THE MONSTER UNDER YOUR BED

There were a half-dozen Compounds on the south side of the island, each named after something that was meant to help you forget that we were in a desert only a handful of miles away from a city filled with creatures who, once upon a time, were only seen in picture books. Names like Miami Park, Tropical Escape, The Palm Grove, to name a few.

The Compound we were going to was called Northern Lights. Not that one could ever see the actual Northern Lights from here.

Driving up was surreal, even for me: like approaching a super-max prison, built in the future and on another planet. The homes were surrounded by fifty-foot-high walls (tall enough to keep out most giants), with nets that extended another thirty feet above that. The nets leaned inward, forming a mesh dome designed to let sunlight in and keep flyers—like angels, valkyrie and dragons—out. Turrets and cameras were spread out every sixty feet, complete with night vision, sonar and motion and heat detectors.

And that was just the security in plain sight. Herbs, metals, incantations and symbols of power also lined the walls, each designed to counter offensive and illusionary magic. There was no screwing around here, and any Other that wanted in would have to be crazy or super powerful to try.

We pulled up to the gate and showed the attendant our badges. He examined them closely and gestured for us to drive in, his only words to us being, “Last house on the right, about three miles down that way.” He pointed down a long empty road.

“Thanks,” I said.

↔

We rolled in at a whopping speed of ten miles an hour, driving over speed bumps and past street signs that read Children at Play. We drove past an Olympic-size pool and tennis courts and a gym, a bowling alley and a cinema—even a friggin’ Starbucks.

They had everything they could possibly need, right behind impossibly high walls with security apparatus intended to keep Others out. Apparatus, might I add, designed and built by Mr. Cain and his Memnock Securities Company. Hellelujah!

“Woo … so this is how the other half lives?” Conner whistled.

“More like the half a percent,” I said.

The Compound was completely empty, which wasn’t surprising given it was ten in the evening on a Wednesday. Family tended to sleep early in places like this. Early to bed, early to rise—with parents taking on their kids’ rhythms just to stay on top of everything.

We rolled on, past houses three stories high and filled with more bedrooms that a Scottish clan would need for a reunion, until we got to the house we were looking for.

A mailbox out front read The Logans, and on the front lawn were mainland cops and forensic experts in white plastic coveralls.

“Great,” I said. “When was this called in?”

“Three hours ago, but like Michael said, the mainland cops were on it almost immediately.”

“How? It takes an hour or so just to get here.”

Conner pursed his lips.

“Come on, Conner. What are you not telling me?”

“They’re not mainland cops.”

“But Michael said—”

“Yeah, that’s what Michael thinks, because that’s what he was told. I was up on the mainland myself, at the bar with some old cop buddies, and they told me that they had a special unit to deal with … you know.”

“Others?”

Conner nodded. “They’re set up here, operating out of a couple of these houses.”

“In this Compound?”

“No. They’re set up in another Compound. The Igloo.”

I ran my hands through my hair. “OK, let’s see what we can find out.”

↔

As soon as I got out, I could see that they weren’t just a special unit. They were special units—complete with their own mobile labs, dogs, investigators and just about every toy found in a CSI wet dream. We were immediately greeted by a little balding man in a sports jacket and khakis whose body language told us in no uncertain terms that we weren't to cross onto the lawn's threshold.

“ID,” he said, holding his palm out.

We pulled out our badges. From where we were standing I could see Mr. and Mrs. Logan hanging out in blankets, talking to two plain-clothed officers who were diligently taking notes.

“Mr. Matthias, Mr. Conner, your assistance is appreciated, but unnecessary. We got this covered.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said.

He handed our badges back to us. “Thank you, but no thank you.”

“Listen, I have a lot of experience with Others. I could determine if an Other is behind this or not.”

“An Other is,” he said with a blank expression.

“How do you know?”

“We know.”

“And what about the Logans? What did they see?”

“Enough.”

“Security cameras?” I asked.

“I can’t answer that.”

“But—”

“Please, Mr. Matthias, it’s been a long night and it’s only going to get longer. Like I said, we don’t—”

“Yeah, yeah, but could we at least interview the Logans?”

“No.”

I glared down at the little man, but he held neither anger nor hate in his eyes. He was just a professional doing his job—and right now his job meant keeping us away from the scene.

“But—”

“Again, no.”

Now I could see the Logans being escorted to a car.

“Where are you taking them?” I asked.

“To an undisclosed location under our protection.”

“Just two questions. That’s all I need to ask.”

“No.”

“Look, I didn’t want to do this, but we have jurisdiction here. We’re part of the Paradise Lot police. And since we’re in Paradise Lot … well, you’re a detective. Draw your own conclusions.”

He smirked at that. “Good one,” he said in a tone that made me actually think he meant it. “But still, no. Your jurisdiction is based on district compliance. This district and all the surrounding Compounds unanimously voted to be placed under mainland jurisdiction. Or didn’t you get the memo?”

From the expression on his face, I could tell he was—again—just telling me things as they were. No anger, no frustration … just the facts, ma’am. And I also learned that the southern Compounds were more fearful of Others than I’d previously thought. Seems the humans not only didn’t trust Others, but they also didn’t trust Other police.

What a brave new GoneGod World we lived in.

I shook my head. “OK, I get it. Nothing I can say to convince you to let me in and, you know, investigate?”

“Sadly, no. There is nothing you can say. Not now, at least. Like I said, your assistance is appreciated, but unnecessary. We’ll share our findings with the Paradise Lot Precinct when relevant.”

“And when would that be?”

“When relevant.”

“Great. Thanks for nothing.”

The little bald cop shook his head and sighed. “No hard feelings. It is what it is. They don’t want the Paradise Lot Police involved.”

“I get it. It is what it is. Only trouble is that what it is isn’t right.”

“You won’t get an argument from me,” he said, and with that went back to his investigation.

↔

As soon as he’d walked far enough away, I said, “Can you get a load of this? I mean, shut out without as much as a chance to interview—” I turned to face Conner, except that Conner wasn’t there. Seems that during my dead-end chat with the bald cop, he’d walked over to the sidelines and was now speaking with two of the journalists who had diligently filmed the house for the evening news.

I watched him talk for what seemed like forever, but was probably only ten minutes. When he returned, pad in hand, I asked, “What did you find out?”

“Nothing much, just that some Others got through all the Compound’s defenses without being heard or seen. They went in through the girl’s bedroom window and took her. The dad came out to see a van driving off, but by the time he realized his girl was gone, it was too late.”

“Why do they think it was an Other? A van is a very human vehicle.”

“Because of the security cameras. They were inactive. Shut down, either manually or by magic. Given that they see no forced entry, they are holding to the latter theory.”

“But look there.” I pointed at a large tower clock face that stood on the side of the road. Compounds like these had several of them, all plugged into central security and designed to go off should they speed up for any unauthorized burning of time. “The clock hasn’t sped up. It’s on time.”

“I know. Theory is that they burned time to hide the fact that they burned time.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t work like that. We tried that in the Army and found that burning time to stop clocks from spinning only made them spin faster. They’d know that, if only they asked.”

“Maybe, but what about those holes?” He pointed to the ground in front of her window. There were several holes—each about two inches wide—leading up from the curb.

“I don’t know of any Other with spikes as feet. And I know them all, Conner.”

Conner nodded. “But that’s you. These guys have a completely different theory. A wrong one … but that won’t matter once this plays on the news.”

He was right: wrong theories said enough times became an alternative fact; and once they were out there, it took a hell of a lot of reasoning and proof to reverse the damage the lies did.

“OK,” I said. “What about the dad? You said he came out before checking on the girl? Why?”

Conner nodded. “That was the weird part. He said he saw a shadow of someone walking outside, but when he went to investigate, there was no one there. Just the van driving off.”

“What’s weird about that?”

“The shadow wasn’t opposite a window,” Conner said. “It was by the bedroom door, no light to cast it. But he was half-asleep. People dream up all kinds of stuff when they’re half-asleep.”

“That’s true … most of the time. Still, I’d like to get a look inside. Just to be sure.”

↔

We got back in my Road Runner and drove behind the bowling alley, where we waited several hours for the police to finish what they were doing. I told Conner what I needed him to do, but not why. He resisted at first, but in the end he agreed, citing Miral as the reason.

At around 3 a.m., the last of the cops left after having taped up the entire area. I guess with the house empty, they decided there was no point in leaving anyone behind. That said, you could bet your bottom dollar that the Compound itself was on high alert—extra security at the gates and every one of Memnock Securities’ systems set to their most sensitive settings.

Not that this affected us. Conner and I got out of the Road Runner and crawled under the tape and then into the Logans’ house through the girl’s window. The first thing to greet us was a sign over the bed that read Sarah’s Room in big, sparkly letters. So that was the little girl’s name. It was dark and exactly what you would expect from a little girl’s room except for one thing: she was obsessed with pirates. There were pictures of ships and pirate hooks and pictures of people with eye-patches everywhere. Dolls had eye patches and toy swashbuckler swords. Captain Jack Sparrow hung on her wall, and her bed sheet had a manga image of a motley crew with the words Monkey D. Luffy written on it.

Sinbad? I wondered, thinking back to the girl I’d found standing atop Penemue in the Millennium Hotel that evening. But then I shook my head; that girl wasn’t a human. She was most definitely an Other.

I gestured for Conner to sit on a chair near her room and he dutifully lifted his feet up. Then I laid down on Sarah’s bed, my legs folded up so that I fit in its tiny frame … and waited.

We stayed like that for an hour at least, until what I was waiting for finally happened. It started with a shadow moving along the wall. Only thing about this shadow was there was no light source to cast it. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, you’d mistake him for a crinkle in your sheets or a trick of light—but I knew better. I threw my hand out, grabbed the top of his head and yanked him up onto the bed, twisting around so that he was under me. He silently struggled, but I held him tight.

Up close the monster looked like a disembodied shadow, his wide-open eyes the color of the pillow case his head lay on. For all intents and purposes, this creature was a shadow. A tangible, very real shadow that could perform all kinds of mischief.

I pulled out my flashlight and shone it to the side of his head. The creature looked at the light with abject fear on his face.

“What the—?” Conner started.

“Conner, meet the monster-under-your-bed. Monster-under-your-bed, meet your worst nightmare: Me.”

The monster gulped.

“These things are real?” Conner said.

“Unfortunately.” I shone the light so that the monster-under-your-bed saw it. Then, in a nonchalant voice like I had all the time in the world, I said, “Did you know that the average human will eat eight spiders in their lifetime? Seems the little critters crawl into our mouths when we’re asleep, thinking they’re in some warm, moist cave. Then snap—” I shut my mouth and swallowed. “Same is true here. The average human also has a monster living under their bed. The military knows all about these guys, but we didn’t do anything about it. Want to know why? ’Cause like the spider, they are mostly harmless. Besides, how much harm could a creature like you do when a flashlight is as deadly to you as a shotgun?”

I hovered the flashlight over the creature’s head. It gulped visibly, which to a creature like this meant that a golf-ball-sized shadow travelled down his neck.

“My associate and I are going to ask you a few questions, and we expect your one-hundred-percent cooperation. Cooperate and we’ll go easy on you. Don’t cooperate and …” I let the beam of the flashlight approach the edge of his shadowed face.

The monster nodded.

“Where’s the girl?”

“I don’t know,” it said … well, wrote on the pillow. Monsters-under-your-bed can’t talk, and instead rely on manipulating their shadowy umbra to communicate. This monster opened its mouth wide, and the letters I don’t know scrawled across the white pillow case on which it lay. Talking to shadows is creepy.

“Really?” I turned off the light and put the unlit lens on his forehead. “Nothing I can do to jog that memory of yours?”

“Jean,” Conner said in a cautionary tone.

“What? Do you honestly think anyone’s going to miss a monster like him? Besides,” I said, turning back to the shadow, “I’ve never seen one of your kind bleed before. If humans bleed red and angels bleed light … what do you bleed? Drips of darkness? Like oil drained from a carburetor?” I felt an old darkness of my own coming out when I spoke. An anger that I hadn’t felt since my days in the Army, when I was known as the Scourge of Others. There was a part of me that really wanted to turn on the flashlight and see what he bled. And that part of me was something that I’d spent years suppressing, burying deep within me.

It was coming out.

I remembered what Miral told Conner about how I may be lost. Again.

I don’t know! scrawled across the open space of his mouth—this time he added I SWEAR! in all caps, and I could feel him shivering in fear under me.

“What do you know?”

They came.

“Who?”

I don’t know.

“What did they look like?”

The monster gulped again and said, I don’t know. I didn’t recognize their kind. They’re not like any Other I’ve ever seen before.

“OK,” I said, getting off the bed, still holding the flashlight on him. “Show me.”

↔

Amongst the few talents that monsters-under-your-bed have is the ability to manipulate their bodies into shapes and sizes that defy the realm of possibility. And they do it without magic. Not a second of time was burned, which was incredible given what he was showing us.

The first creature he cast—if I could use such a word to describe the weirdest game of shadow puppets I’ve ever played—was that of no Other I’d ever seen before. And I knew most of them. When I was in the Army, we were given cards with Others on them: DGOKT (pronounced “docked”). I had them all and I memorized every one. I obsessed over those cards, flipping through them until there wasn’t a single (known) Other I couldn’t tell you about from sight. What the monster cast wasn’t in the cards. Not by a long shot.

The creature looked more like a ball with spikes. Monster-under-your-bed showed it roll in (I guess that explained the holes in the garden) and then transform into what looked like a standing turtle, its back plate covered in the same spikes as when it was a ball. It stood over little Sarah. She stirred and it put its hand over her face and a puff of smoke came out of its wrist.

It had sedated her.

Then it carried her over to the window where another creature waited, its head sticking through the window. Except that wasn’t its head. Or rather, I should say, that wasn’t only its head. Sure, there were two eyes, a nose and a mouth—but it also had a giant hand coming out of the crown of its head. The spiked creature gave Sarah to the head-hand, and the creatures both left.

Next, the monster-under-your-bed shadow-puppeted his attempts to wake the parents. But a creature that is all shadow and no voice can’t just jump up on the bed and yell, “They took your Sarah! Wake up!” Monsters-under-your-bed have to rely on making the sleeper feel uncomfortable. It’s that certain je ne sais quoi feeling that you’re being watched when there’s no one around. It takes a while to rouse someone from bed when all you’ve got is a feeling. Not that the little monster didn’t try. We could see from the way it frantically moved around the room that it desperately wanted her parents to wake up.

So this being was her friend. And what’s more, he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

“OK,” I said. “Can you give us anything, anything at all as to where they went? Who they were?”

Shadowy words appeared on the wall: They put her in a van.

“OK.”

The van was covered in red dirt.

“The south of the island is bone dry, with plenty of red dirt going around. All that tells me is that they did some off-roading down there.” I cocked a thumb farther south.

“We could send out a helicopter or some flying harpies to scan the area and look for a van,” Conner suggested.

“That’s not a bad idea … But there’s about forty square miles and they had plenty of time to find cover.”

You don’t understand. They were covered in red dirt and then there’s this, the monster-under-your-bed scrawled, then transformed into a tiny arrow no bigger than the cursor on your computer. The arrow travelled down the wall. He went slowly so that we didn’t lose him, then stopped right in front of a tiny bead on the floor.

“Did they leave that behind?”

The monster-under-your-bed instantly pantomimed a mini-image of the spiked turtle monster, then rolled onto its back, which showed that it too was covered in dirt and shrubs and all kinds of stuff you find outside—probably collected from all its rolling around in ball form. A shadowy version of the tiny bead fell from its shell.

Except when I picked up the real thing, I realized something: it wasn’t a bead, at all.

“Holy crap … I know where they took her.”

↔

As we headed for the window, the monster-under-your-bed formed four words on the glass pane in front of us:

She is my friend.

His face appeared, and he was crying; teardrops of white tore little rips in his cheek, exposing the glass on which he rested. That night, I learned that tears erase shadows.

The only friend I have in the world. Please bring my friend back. Please.

“We’ll try,” I said and climbed out the window.

OCCULTISTS AND THEIR TRAINED ABOMINATIONS

The Tree. Yet another theory as to why the majority of Others wound up in Paradise Lot.

You see, the south of Paradise Lot is almost entirely hard rock, covered in sunbaked dirt and the kinds of poisonous critters you find in a desert. The only plant life is tiny, dried out shrubs that, although abundant, grow no more than a foot off the ground.

Then there’s the Tree. A single sycamore-like tree grows in the middle of the desert, standing twenty feet high, with a canopy that stretches forty feet wide. The Tree is central to many theories as to why the Others were drawn to Paradise Lot. After all, it shouldn’t exist—just like the Others.

Some have theorized that it is the original Yule Tree from the humans’ Christmas traditions, others that it is the Yggdrasil—an immense mythical tree that connects the nine worlds in Norse cosmology. But the obvious and most popular theory is that it is the Tree from the Garden of Eden, and the south of Paradise Lot is scorched earth because when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree, amongst their many, many punishments was that the land was to be guarded by an angel with a huge sword of friggin’ fire. Take that less literally and more metaphorically, and you can interpret it to mean that a once vibrant and lush land was turned into a desert, everything burned to a cinder except, of course, the Tree of Life and Death.

Whatever you believe, I’ve been to the Tree and it is just that: a tree. Still, one cannot deny there’s something special about it; despite very little rain and no underground streams anyone is aware of, it thrives. More than thrives—it actually bears fruit.

Pomegranates.

And that little bead on Sarah’s bedroom floor was one of the fruit seeds from a pomegranate. That, plus the red dirt that was everywhere—and, well, I wasn’t a detective, but I wasn’t an idiot, either. There was only one place on the island where one would accidently trek in both.

If we were lucky, we’d get there and the weird Others would still be mulling about. If we were really lucky, they’d be holding her in some shack near the tree, preforming whatever ritual they were into. And if we were extremely lucky, maybe we could save the girl right then and there. It still wouldn’t stop the world from crying “Other foul,” but it would go a long way toward damage control.

But then again … there were fifty shades of unlucky that could be waiting for us that I didn’t want to think about.

I floored my Road Runner, willing it to go faster than ever before. Conner was on the phone, describing to Michael in detail what we’d discovered.

“Enough with the chit-chat,” I said. “And tell that brute to get down here.”

As if in answer to my command, a large moonlit shadow flew over our car and I saw that Michael was above us, phone in hand.

We sped down the road, Michael soaring above. “Why is he keeping pace with us?” I growled. “Go on ahead!”

Conner held up a finger, nodded and pulled out his police pad and jotted something down. “Affirmative,” he said, and clicked his phone off.

With that, Michael shot forth with a mini-sonic boom that rattled our car so much that I nearly lost control. “Holy …”—I remembered Michael’s super hearing and downgraded what I was going to say to—“… sugar. I didn’t think he could move that fast.” I slammed down on the Road Runner’s pedal. I was already flooring it, so we didn’t go any faster, but it felt good to stomp on something.

Conner reviewed his notes and said, “Michael says there’s a side road to the Tree.”

“What’s wrong with the main road?”

“Could be guarded.”

“And the side road won’t be?”

Conner smiled. “Not this one.”

↔

Without much warning, he told me to swing to the left. I did so without hesitation and suddenly we were zooming down a dirt road, the smooth highway rumble replaced by a thousand little stones catching in my tires’ threads and pinging! off my car’s bottom cascade.

“Are you sure this is what he meant?”

“Yeah, head to that hill. It should be on the other side.”

“OK,” I said. “But there’s something we really should be considering.”

“What’s that?”

“Michael’s probably already there.”

“So? We’re his backup,” Conner said, checking his sidearm before holstering it.

“Exactly. We’re his backup. Are we really heading into a situation for which Michael requires backup?”

Conner finally got it and his eyes widened. “Shit, you’re right. Let’s hope we’re just here to bag and tag what he finds.”

“Amen, brother.” I pointed my old Plymouth 1969 Road Runner at the hill and whispered a silent prayer to the GoneGods that these were, indeed, merely cowboy antics.

↔

We drove around to the back of the hill, where a small metal gate sat locked with a keypad combination. Waaay too fancy tech for what looked like an abandoned mine. Conner jumped out and ran to the lock, typing in the number that Michael had given him.

“What’s this?” I asked, rolling down my window.

“An Army throughway. Think of it as a parking lot … for tanks. It was abandoned a few years back.”

“When the Others came?”

Conner hit the last number and jiggled the lock loose. “Actually, when the war stopped … Not that it really ever did. The Army moved out most of its equipment, abandoned what was no longer useful and moved on. I guess they figured it was best to be on the other side of the bridge, rather than waterlocked with the Others.” He swung the gate wide open and got into the car. “Either way, it’s got several exits. Like a gopher hole. Number 9 will take us out near the Tree.”

We drove off the unkempt dirt road into a descending tunnel that was surprisingly well kept. I rolled the car onto the ramp. About twenty meters down was a large metal door. On its face was a triangle with three circles at each point: Memnock Securities’ logo. Conner jumped out again and typed in another code. The door rolled open and we continued down the tunnel.

Seems Mr. Cain built more than home security systems—he was a military contractor as well. Made sense. The military was always outsourcing tech from private companies. Usually it was done on the tender system, where several companies bid. Win that bid and you and your company were set for life.

And Mr. Cain was at the center of it all, it seemed. Which meant that if I took the job, I’d also be at the center of it all. Extrapolate that a year or two down the line and Mr. Cain’s offer—as big a number as it was—was only the tip of the iceberg.

I shook my head and shivered.

“What?” Conner asked.

“Nothing. Any word from Michael?”

“No, nothing.” He held up his phone. “No signal down here, anyway.”

“Not surprising. These tunnels are made from reinforced iron and lead. Perfect for keeping most magic out, but plays hell on cellphone reception.”

“Sounds like you’ve been in one of these before.”

I nodded. “This isn’t my first bunker.”

We carried on. The tunnel was surprisingly long and given our speed, I figured we’d gone about one hundred meters before I could see the end in sight. Another fifty or so meters to go. I took it slow because the tunnel was quite narrow. I figured that if I drove perfectly centered, both Conner and I would have the chance to swing our doors wide and not hit the sides. But only barely.

“And we’re sure that these kidnappers didn’t find this tunnel?”

“Apparently not. The whole area is set up with an alarm—motion sensors, pathway sensors and your standard anti-theft systems. All those alarms go straight to the Paradise Lot Precinct. We’d know if there was a break-in—” Conner’s words were cut off when I slammed the brakes.

Ahead of us, the tunnel was blocked by a group of Others. In front were three figures dressed in dark brown cloaks that made them look like B-movie occultists.

One had a bone face and antlers, kind of like someone took a petrified skull and put bull moose antlers on it. He was an ijiraq—an Inuit Other, famous for kidnapping children.

The next Other could have been confused for a human toddler, if you were looking at him from the back. If you were looking at his face, then there was no confusing him for a toddler, human or otherwise. He had long canine teeth and hollow, deathly black eyes: a tiyanak—a Filipino vampire who impersonated human children, waiting for hapless Samaritans to pick him up. Once in their arms, the tiyanak would eat said hapless adult. Tiyanaks, like ijiraqs, were also famous for kidnapping children.

Two bad Others known for kidnapping kids … this was just getting better and better.

The last one lowered her hood, exposing her face. Judging from her lush brown hair, toothy (yet evil) smile, rosy cheeks and the tiara that she wore on her head, I was pretty sure she was human.

“Stop there,” the human said, her button nose flaring its nostrils as she held up her hand in the universal gesture for Stop.

“So, presumably she’s the hacker?” I said to Conner.

“Presumably so,” Conner agreed, quietly pulling out his gun. Making sure to move as little as possible, he carefully chambered a bullet with a barely audible click.

Standing right behind these three were two Others unlike any I’d seen in DGOKT. One of them was definitely from the monster-under-your-bed’s shadow theatre: a large, upright turtle-esque being with spikes on his back and a pig’s nose. He looked like Bowser from Mario Bros.—if, that was, Bowser were nine feet tall, complete with fangs and talons for hands. Vampire Bowser, maybe?

The other creature didn’t feature in the shadow theatre. It was the size of a baby elephant, but it looked like some kind of shark, with six little feet much too small to carry such bulk.

“Those two behind them … you know what kind they are?” Conner asked.

“Not a clue,” I said. “Not a friggin’ clue.”

Evil-and-Cute held both hands out in front of her, pushing her left and right pointer fingers and her thumbs together, she formed a diamond with the empty space between her hands. “This doesn’t have to end badly for you.”

I rolled down my window; since the Road Runner didn’t have electric windows, I had to crank it up and down. I used the motion to shield pulling out my own weapon—a hunting sword about a foot in length that I kept under my seat whenever I went out on official business for either Michael or Shouf. It was a sword I took off the Erlking when I defeated him in a battle back in my rampaging days. It was a balanced weapon, with ancient carvings up its sides that—under the right circumstances and with the appropriate amount of burned time—told the story of every creature it ever slew.

Window down and sword in hand, I called out, “Oh yeah? What constitutes a good ending in your book?”

“A painless death,” she said.

“And a bad ending?”

She smirked. “A painful death.”

“Got it. One second—let me confer with my partner here.” I rolled up the window, taking more exaggerated rolls of the shoulder.

“So,” I said when the window was up, “we taking the deal?”

In answer, Conner lifted his gun and shot at them, shattering my windshield.

“I guess not,” I said and threw my car in Reverse.

↔

As we rolled backward and up, the three poorly dressed Occultists all made that diamond shape with their hands. As if that were the cue, the spiked creature turned into a big spiked ball and started rolling up the path after us. Behind him, the shark-like creature scurried up the ramp, its shark tail swaying back and forth like it was in the ocean, chasing after a school of krill.

Which was, as you’d guess, terrifying.

“Hellelujah!” I cursed, still steering the car.

“We got one chance,” Conner said as he emptied his clip at the creatures. “You’re not going to like it.”

“I know what you’re going to say, and the answer is no.”

“Stop the car, block their path and I’ll shut the door on them.”

“No.”

“You have to.”

“But my car!”

“But our lives!” Conner slapped in another clip and resumed shooting at the things. The bullets hit true, and although the creatures were taking damage, neither bled nor slowed down. I suspected that killing them would literally mean ripping them apart, one bullet hole at a time.

“My car,” I repeated.

“What did Miral say?”

“To take care of you.”

“And you don’t want to get her mad.”

“No,” I groaned. “I don’t. But you owe me.”

I slammed the car into Drive and threw my door open. Conner threw his open too, and the two of us barrel-rolled out and ran up the slope. I turned to watch my car barrel into the two creatures with a heavy thud, knocking them both to the ground.

Then they crawled over it. Well, the shark crawled over it. The spiked ball rolled over it, nine-inch nails digging deep into my beautiful car’s body.

“You bastards!” I called out as I ran.

We made it to the door, the shark creature gaining on us, the spiked ball falling behind. We got past the door and Conner started hitting the keypad. The spiked ball had gotten caught in my Road Runner’s frame and it was—momentarily—restrained.

“Go Road Runner,” I cried out in triumph. “That’s my girl!”

The shark creature, on the other hand, was nearly on us. Conner hit the last number and the door started to close. I readied my sword, but that proved unnecessary; just as its head crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut, cutting it into two over-sized pieces of shark steak.

“What the—?” I said as its head flopped about like a … well, a fish out of water. The head stopped flopping suddenly, then it bubbled and hissed and turned into foam.

“GoneGodDamn it!” I said as my phone started ringing the Star Wars’ “Imperial March.” General Shouf’s ring tone.

“What?” Conner asked, his gun still trained on the foam as it liquefied and started to roll down the hill.

I ignored him, but I couldn’t ignore the phone call.

“What was that?” Conner asked, pointing at what was now a water stain on the concrete. “Do you know what that was?”

I nodded as I answered the phone. “The unidentified Other is an anomaly,” I said to both Conner and General Shouf on the phone. “And I found it.”

End of Part 1

EPILOGUE TO PART ONE

Day 5—

She surveys the rusty panopticon. From the central inspection house, she can see forty-seven children in the circular prison—several locked within their cells.

Forty-seven children in just seven days. One hundred sixty-eight hours … Her apostles have done well. Very well, indeed. She doubts that there is a god in the Universe that could have accomplished what she has done in just seven days. Yes, there are myths surrounding the Creation of the world—supposedly, it only took seven days. But in the unformed era, before there was a sun and moon by which to measure time, a day could have been a very long time indeed. Billions of days by current standards. Hundreds of billions of hours.

But what she has achieved will be complete in just 168 hours. One hundred sixty-eight. No other god could move so quickly. Not like her. For she is a queen, a mother … and soon-to-be god.

Not just a god—the God of gods.

She surveys her Creations … creatures that are as unique as the angels. And each just as beautiful. For not only does she create faster than any other god, but her Creations are more … perfect: for her Creations are not bound by the parameters set forth by the Laws of Nature or Chaos.

Yet another reason why she is better than the absent gods.

O, how the absent gods made mistakes! The first was that they chose to sit in their heavens and hells and watch the humans from a distance, letting them indulge in their “free will.” What they should have done was walk amongst the petty beings—stand with them and remind them who their god is and what it means to defy him.

That is one error she will not make.

Their second mistake was that they wanted to be loved. She does not have such a base desire.

Their third mistake? They did not understand that any true god’s rule must rest on three pillars: wisdom, commerce, and war. Each must be cultivated, adapted and metamorphosed with the times … for none of these principles are static. They evolve. So, too, must the gods who govern over such principles.

Of course, ascension will not be easy. They will come as they always come. But she will be ready. Her apostles and Creations will fight and die for her. And if they fail? No matter.

She possesses the Crystal.

She possesses the will.

But most importantly, she possesses belief.

No, it is more than that. Much more.

She is Belief.

PART X

PROLOGUE TO PART TWO

THEN—

I am covered in blood.

Not my own, thank the GoneGods. I am covered in the blood of the half dozen Others that were hiding in some abandoned shack in the middle of some bullshit town on the Eastern seaboard. How Intelligence finds these nests, I’ll never know.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. The blood is a milky mixture of green—spewed from the necks of three goblins—yellow from the harpy and light from the angel that tried to jump me when I walked in. Doesn’t anyone bleed red anymore? I guess not, I think as I wipe blood the color of pus from behind my ear.

My commlink buzzes. It’s my CO. I touch the plastic outer shell in my ear and his voice comes flooding in. “Soldier Matthias. Status?” he asks.

“Nest clear,” I say.

“Survey.”

Survey: the command given when the CO wants to get a closer look at what happened. Basically it means walking around and letting the frontal camera record everything so the boys on base can analyze the data.

I comply. I have to. They’re my orders.

Living it is one thing. The adrenaline kicks in and everything happens so fast you barely have time to register. But surveying … that’s something else entirely. I have to look at the dead bodies, examine their wounds—wounds I inflicted. I have to take it all in and relive what happened—except this time it’s in slow motion, with my CO occasionally ordering me to “Pause,” “Zoom in,” “Pan back” and a whole slew of other commands that turns me into a human drone.

There are five bodies: three on the ground, one on the couch and one draped over the table where I flipped the goblin and impaled it with a poker that I grabbed from the fireplace.

“Damn, Jean,” my CO says. “You don’t mess around.”

“No sir, I do not.”

But the truth is, even I am shocked by the brutality of the scene. There is killing, then there is over-kill—and I would have to be drinking a hell of a lot of my own Kool-Aid not to know the difference. These creatures didn’t just die. They were obliterated.

By me.

I can just feel Bella’s disappointment oozing in from the great beyond. She’s upset that I am destroying rather than helping. Bella … always the bleeding heart liberal.

You know, I dream about her. Every night. And every night she says the same thing:

“Help them, Jean. Help the Others.”

But I never listen. Why should I? Bella is dead and the dreams are just the delusions of a soldier crushed by the loss of his wife. And besides … they’re the ones who killed her. Others. And I will not stop until I have punished each and every one of them.

↔

When I return to base a detachment is waiting for me. I have new orders. I am to fly to some military installation in Norway’s northern fjords.

“Can I shower first?” I ask.

The grunt who handed me the orders shakes his head. “No sir, they need you there ASAP.” He points at the plane waiting on the tarmac. “There’s a bathroom on board where you can wash up.”

“Bathroom or cupboard with a sink?” I grumble.

“Cupboard with a sink,” the grunt says without a hint of irony.

↔

They fly me to the fjords where a team of officers are waiting on the tarmac … and that’s when I see her: an Other, standing front and center. This creature is an aigamuchab, one of the aigamuxa from the Okavango River region. I know this because of her tell-tale characteristics of an unusually wide forehead above an unusual absence of eyes. This kind of Other is deadly, with a natural ability list as long as my arm: echolocation, supernatural speed and strength, serrated teeth, diamond-sharp nails, skin thick enough to withstand a shot from a 9mm at point-blank range—to list a few. Oh, and let’s not forget the eyeballs on the soles of their feet. It is said that if an aigamuchab looks at you through their “feet-eyes” they can see right into your soul and know your deepest secrets.

This creature is terrifying, but that’s not why I’m scared. It’s what she’s wearing that makes my heart leap into my throat.

The aigamuchab is in military garb with not one, but two stars on her shoulders. A General. Except there is no way she’s a General, not for the human Army. She must be burning time to maintain her disguise, and for some reason I can see her for what she truly is.

Why the other human soldiers don’t, I’m not sure. I suspect that her magic has a limited area effect and I’m outside her circle of influence. If she’s been disguised as a General for long, she may have become sloppy.

Drawing my gun, I order the other humans to get down. Then I fire.

I’m a great shot and that particular move is something I’ve done a thousand times before. My bullet should have hit her between her eyes, if they were on her head. But they aren’t, and it doesn’t. The gun doesn’t even fire—it’s then that I realize that my hand and pistol are covered in webbing … webbing that has come right out of her hand.

I’m fast, but she’s faster.

“Stand down,” barks a human Corporeal. “General Shouf is one of us.”

“You’re under her spell,” I say.

“No, Human Jean. No magic here,” the creature says, her voice sounding more like shattering glass than words. “Check your watch.”

I take a split second to glance at my Disney wrist, just shy of the webbing’s reach. Mickey Mouse’s second hand is ticking along normally.

“OK, no magic. Still—”

“Me against my brother, my brother and I against my cousin. My cousin and I against the world,” she says. It is an Arab proverb, and one that encapsulates the fight humans are having against Others quite nicely.

“We’re not brothers. Or cousins.”

“Not true,” she grates. “I am closer to you than you are to them.” She points at the other humans around her.

“Oh? How so?”

“Because whereas they only pretend, you and I, Human Jean, are the true killers here.”

↔

“The Scourge of Others … is that not what they call you?” the aigamuchab asks, tracing her hands against a Braille-covered page.

“Some,” I say. “Others call me Jean or Jean. My wife called me ‘Sugar Pops.’ I have a lot of nicknames.” I am still getting used to the situation. Apparently, this aigamuchab really is a two-star General. She told me, the half dozen officers standing next to her told me—hell, I was even given a dossier signed by the President himself that told me.

I still don’t believe it.

Seems the aigamuchab—her name is Shouf—is a defector, fighting on behalf of the humans. She has helped gather intelligence, been active in the field for quite a while and is responsible for more kills than me—which is quite the claim. What’s more, she’s in charge of Intelligence. So this whole time, she’s the reason I get sent to nests in the middle of nowhere.

Shouf clicks twice, this creepy echolocation trick she does with her tongue that irritates me to no end, and gives me a devilish grin. “You’ll get used to me. I promise.” She traces her fingers across the page some more, flips it and smiles. “You’ll do, Jean. You’ll do just fine.”

I yawn and stretch out my arms, trying to act nonchalant. “And what exactly will I do?”

“Kill, Jean. Why else would we call you here?”

I think about this for a moment. She’s right. Killing is the only reason I go anywhere.

↔

I’m taken to a small stadium and stripped of my automatic weapons, only allowed my hunting sword.

The gate at the far end of the field lifts and an Other I have never seen before lumbers out. “What the hell?” I say to the viewing booth from which I am being watched. “What is that?”

“What do you think it is?” Shouf grates.

“Look,” I say, the irony of the word not lost on me. “When I go on a mission, I’m at least briefed as to the Others’ powers and abilities. Also—”

“We don’t know what his powers are, Human Jean. He is … unique.”

The Other loping my way is vaguely human-shaped—the “vague” part on account of its three legs, which it moves on like a man with crutches, and seven beefy arms. Despite its awkward mobility, it’s damn fast and as soon as it is close, it takes a swing at me. Good, I was expecting that. I dodge and stab it in the chest. It does not scream in pain, nor does it flinch. Instead it grabs me with three of its arms and the four others punch me in unison, sending me flying back several feet.

“You’ll have to try harder than that,” Shouf calls down, chuckling. “It is impervious to pain.”

“Now you tell me.”

“And since it does not have the typical, expected physiology, you cannot assume a chest blow will pierce its heart.”

“How do I kill it?”

Shouf ignores my question, turning to the other officers in the peanut gallery. But I can still hear the bitch. “It is also impervious to direct magic. It cannot be levitated or frozen. There is no fireball that will burn it or magic missile that will penetrate its skin. Moreover, it does not feel fear, it is perfectly obedient and it has no remorse. The perfect Other-killer. Even more so, as you can see, than Mr. Matthias down there.”

I would have taken offense to the comment, except I’m too busy dodging this perfect Other-killer’s attacks. In a particularly stupid move on my part, I try to pull out my sword. It manages to grab me with all seven of its arms and begins to squeeze.

“Ahhh!” I cry out.

“Shall I end the exercise?” Shouf asks.

I shake my head. She clicks to see what I am trying to do. “Clever, Mr. Matthias. Unlikely to work—but clever, nonetheless.”

“I’d like to see that for myself,” I say, hitting the word see hard.

She clicks twice in response.

With my hand clamped to my side, I strain to reach my sword. I figure that severe damage will kill it, and from this angle I should be able to carve a good piece off the creature. Looking at it in its nine eyes, I say, “By the GoneGods, you are one ugly sonnuvabitch.” And then I have my weapon, and I’m digging my sword deep into its abdomen and slicing. I’m trying to write my name in its chest. The thing doesn’t even wince. It doesn’t move. Just holds me in its iron grip. “I would hate to meet your mother, because whatever made you must be a real piece of work,” I say as I finish carving the letter C.

I survey my handiwork. Hellelujah—I didn’t expect my whole name would fit on the bastard’s chest.

The monstrous Other narrows its multiple eyes, tilting its head to the side. Then it starts to bubble. I don’t mean metaphorically, like it’s bubbling with anger or rage. I mean it literally starts to bubble. Its head dissolves into a thick, mucus-like foam and runs down its front. I feel its arms break off me and I breathe freely again. Slowly, bit by bit, the creature bubbles down until it’s nothing more than a puddle on the ground.

I am left standing in the liquid, sword in hand. I look expectantly up at the booth.

“Very good, Mr. Matthias,” Shouf says.

“Thanks, I guess?”

Shouf clicks twice in the direction of the puddle and turning to the other generals, grates. “Seems this one had yet to fully form, wouldn’t you agree, Jean?”

“Sure, whatever you say,” I agree, looking at the foam as it slowly fizzles away in the cold Norwegian air.

ANOMALIES AND SLEEPING ANGELS

On Day Three—

NOW—

“I said, I found your anomalies,” I growled into the phone. “You could have told me, Shouf.”

“Would that have made you more eager to help?” General Shouf’s grating voice calmly replied.

“No, but—”

“But nothing, Jean. The truth is that I did not know. I only suspected.”

“Whatever,” I said. “We need an evac right away.”

“Evac?” Conner said. He had climbed to the top of the small hill which housed the gate. He was looking off into the distance, toward the Tree.

“Negative. This is a non-sanctioned mission.”

“OK,” I said, running my fingers through my hair. This was bad. Very bad. The Memnock Securities’ steel door would only hold them for so long, and given that they somehow broke into the underground security facility, I was pretty sure they were equally adept at breaking out. “At least call for backup. Local PD.”

There was silence on the line.

“Anonymous phone call,” I said desperately.

There was a long pause before Shouf grated, “Very well,” and hung up.

I looked up at Conner, who was pointing at the Tree. “I think I see Michael,” he said.

“How far?”

“Not far. He’s under the Tree’s canopy, maybe three hundred yards from here.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Nothing. It looks like he’s kneeling.”

“Kneeling?”

Suddenly, the gate started to open—great, the Occultists broke out a lot quicker than I’d hoped. Luckily for me, only the ijiraq came out. Good, I could handle a charging ijiraq.

“Conner, get to Michael. Now!”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be right behind you,” I said, pointing my sword at the ijiraq.

↔

The ijiraq stomped toward me, antlers down, looking to impale me. Thing about that is, ijirait don’t have eyes on the top of their heads. If they did, this one would see that not only did I have my sword in one hand, I also had a flashlight in the other.

I waited until he was almost upon me, then I dropped the flashlight on the ground with the barrel perpendicular to his feet. This was a heavy-duty flashlight made from reinforced steel; once his hoof stepped on it, he lost balance. He went barreling past me, falling flat on his face. I jumped on his back. I wanted to bury my blade in the back of his skull—that would be something he wouldn’t get up from—but instead, I hit him with the hilt of my sword. The blow was hard and perfectly placed, knocking him out instantly. I wasn’t quite satisfied, so I bore the hilt down on him several more times, screaming in rage as I did.

It felt good to let go. Kinda like the old days.

I would have continued doing so had I not heard a gunshot. I turned to see the tiyanak right behind me. He had been about to jump on me, but Conner had managed to deliver a bullet right into his shoulder. That wouldn’t keep him down for long, but the shot was good enough to cause him to fall.

Idiot! I told myself. Could’ve gotten killed, and for what? Letting my old rage consume myself, after everything I’d done to change for Bella?

I got off the ijiraq’s back and ran after Conner toward the Tree and Michael.

↔↔↔

I stood out in the middle of nowhere, under the behemoth canopy of some ancient pomegranate tree that should not be able to grow in this arid climate. I was bleeding and gasping for breath, and so was Conner. But the worst thing about our situation was what we found when we reached the archangel Michael who, from all outward appearances, had seemed perfectly fine.

Perfectly fine—if you considered kneeling, eyes wide open as he stared at the tree with his mouth ajar in a completely catatonic state “perfectly fine.”

Even on his knees, Michael was bigger than me.

“Come on, big guy,” I said. “We need you to wake up.”

Michael muttered words under his breath that no mortal had ever spoken. And that’s not just me speaking in hyperbole. Had I not heard it before, I wouldn’t have recognized the language, but in the fourteen years since the gods left I’d been exposed to a whole bunch of stuff I wished I didn’t know. And the language he spoke was the one used to create the universe—the language only truly divine creatures were allowed to speak: Tongues.

From what I’d been told, if you were not truly divine, utter a couple words in Tongues and your head would explode. Literally. But knowing that little tidbit of information wasn’t going to help me now.

Now I needed Michael to wake up. I needed him to come to his senses so he could airlift Conner and me out of here and away from certain doom.

“Come on, Michael, wake up.” I looked back in the direction we’d come and saw, off in the distance, that the tiyanak was standing again. He had his hand over the wound from Conner’s bullet. I’d seen the move before; he was burning time to heal himself.

Then the tiyanak knelt by the ijiraq, and a few seconds later the bag of bones stood up, evidently healed as well. The cloaked woman and the spiked turtle came out of the tunnel and joined them. Then the four of them ambled toward us as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

Great. A creature unlike any I’d ever seen before and three seriously overpowered Occultists were meandering our way. Why “meander”? Because even though I stood next to an archangel, one of the most powerful creatures on the planet, they were apparently completely unafraid of us.

Another couple minutes and they would be upon us. This situation couldn’t get any worse.

“I’m out of bullets,” Conner said.

OK, so the situation could get worse.

“Hellelujah,” I muttered. I pulled out my phone and dialed the only being I could think of that might be able to help: Penemue.

The twice-fallen angel answered on the third ring with a “No, no, no!”

“Penemue!” I yelled into the phone.

“Jean, is this important?” he slurred. “EightBall and I are competing for Master of the Universe. Seems that’s the title the winner of FIFA—”

“Penemue!” I shouted. “I’m in the middle of the desert, being hunted by creatures that turn to foam when killed. My car is wrecked, I’m hurt and Michael is kneeling in front of me, speaking in Tongues.”

“So … important,” he slurred. “Where are you?”

“At the Tree.”

Penemue went quiet. I heard a window open and then a rush of air filled the phone. My own personal rescue team. “How long do I have?” Penemue asked, yelling to be heard over the wind.

“Not long. They’re meandering. Menacingly.”

Conner was piling up the largest rocks he could find. I had to hand it to the guy—he wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

“No good,” Penemue yelled. “It will take me at least ten minutes to get to you. What’s wrong with Michael?”

“I don’t know. We found him this way.”

“Kneeling and speaking in Tongues?” Penemue confirmed.

“Yeah-huh.”

“There is only one situation in which the archangel would ever kneel and speak in Tongues. When he is before his god.”

“The gods are gone!”

“I know that. You know that. But whatever happened to Michael makes him think otherwise.”

“So what do I do?”

“Make him question his faith.”

“Excuse me? What will that do?”

“Jean, neither of us has the time for me to explain.”

They were much closer now. Conner lifted his left knee, went into a pitcher’s stance and threw his first rock at Vampire Bowser. It hit him square in the chest. That rock must have been going at least seventy miles an hour. The guy had an arm on him … not that it did us any good. The rock bounced off Bowser with a muffled thud.

Conner lined up another shot, this time at the woman. The rock flew true and should have hit her in the face, but at the last second, she tilted her head to the side and it flew on, landing on the desert floor behind her in a cloud of dust. She smirked; even though I was pretty sure I was going to die, I couldn’t help but admire her style.

“OK,” I said, looking at Michael. “Question his faith. How do I do that?”

“Just be you,” Penemue said. The phone clicked off.

“Conner,” I said, “I’m going to need a couple minutes. Think you can distract them?”

Conner lined up another shot. “I’ll do my best.”

“Good.” I circled Michael, patting him on the back. I whispered into his ear, “They left you behind.”

No response. Just more Tongues.

“The great archangel Michael reduced to a mortal after so many eons of faithful service … and yet you still bow down? Pathetic. What’s wrong with you? You deserve more. You are more. Get up. Get up!” I punched the angel as hard as I could, square in the nose.

He didn’t even flinch.

This wasn’t working. Clearly, bruising his ego wasn’t going to get us anywhere, and there was no way I could actually bruise his face. Michael was the original Boy Scout—the do-good-for-good’s-sake kind of guy. He would never choose ego over what he thought was right. Never.

I needed to switch strategies.

I thought of what Penemue said: “Just be you.” What was being me? I gritted my teeth—and then it just came out: “I’m angry,” I said. “Angry that I lost both Bella and Medusa. Angry that my future with either of them was stolen … and for what? To satisfy some god wannabe?

“But I’m not just angry at the world or the universe or even the GoneGods. I’m more of a tangible kind of guy … I’m angry with you, Michael. I’m angry at Miral and Penemue and Judith and Astarte and every Other on this planet. You have the power, you have the knowledge … and they still died. And why? Because when you boil it all down, Others like you are just as human as the rest of us. Pathetic, petty and frightened. You’re not worthy. None of you are.”

I turned to face the four creatures who were finally upon us. Conner had given up throwing rocks, using the back of his empty gun as a hammer against the ijiraq, but it merely toyed with him like a cat does a mouse. The tiyanak and spiked turtle watched with devilish smiles on their faces.

The woman, on the other hand, was focused on me.

“You couldn’t save them,” I said, turning back to Michael. At that moment, something inside me snapped. Mr. Cain’s money was a way out, but it wasn’t the only way. “And I guess you can’t save me, either.”

I held out my sword, hilt side pointing at the lead occultist, Evil-and-Cute, blade pointing at my heart.

She narrowed her eyes in suspicious curiosity. “What’s this?”

“I can’t win. There’s no escape for us—that much is perfectly obvious. So I’m going for the ‘non-bad’ ending.” I got on my knees. “Just make it quick.”

“So you give up.”

“I do.”

“Jean,” Conner growled. “What are you doing?” He kicked sand in the tiyanak’s tiny eyes, who merely curled his lower lip and pouted in response before grinning, exposing his serrated teeth. “We gotta keep fighting.”

“No,” I said, “we don’t. I’m tired, Conner. I’m so tired … and I want out.”

“So, what? You’re just going to let her kill you? That’s suicide.”

“I don’t care.” My own words shocked me, but they were true: I really didn’t care.

Evil-and-Cute cackled. “A man who accepts his fate. How evolved of you,” she said, her hand reaching out for the hilt of my sword. “Very well, then. Fast and painless … that is my promise to you.”

“Good.”

Her fingers touched the hilt of my sword. I didn’t move. There was no trick here, no last-second Aha! twist-the-sword-around-and-chop-off-her-head. Even if I wanted to, I seriously doubted I could. She was fast. Unnaturally fast.

She must have been skeptical, too, because she was cautious at first. But when she saw that I wasn’t going to move, she grabbed the sword.

I let go. “Fast and painless.”

“My promise to you,” she said.

“Jean!” Conner said. He threw his pistol at her in a last-ditch effort to save me. It was a good shot. Conner was really trying to save me. But it wasn’t going to work, because whether this lady was a human or an Other didn’t matter. She had power. Or natural abilities. Whatever it was, she dodged the gun that rocketed her way like a throwing star without even looking in Conner’s direction.

She raised her arm.

And that was when Michael woke up.

ANGELS IN THE SKY, POLICE ON THE GROUND AND GHOSTS IN THE NIGHT

Ever been lifted off the ground by a tornado?

I have. It hurts like hell.

Michael grabbed me and Conner with such speed and force that it was literally like being picked up by a whirlwind, and the three of us took to the sky with such unimaginable speeds that the g-force knocked both Conner and me out like a light.

↔

When we came to, we were still in the air, flying away from the Tree.

“Where are you going?” I yelled over the rush of wind. “They’re down there!”

Michael, whose chief super sense was hearing, winced.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

To which Conner cupped his ears and said, “What?”

I formed a funnel over my lips and was about to yell when Michael cut in.

“Stop. I am still sensitive to whatever caused my catatonic state.” His booming baritone voice cut through the rushing wind with ease and I was beginning to understand why he thundered when he spoke. “As for them getting away, do not worry: I see them, but I also see reinforcements on their way. Humans—there.” He pointed to what, from this height, looked like a trail of four ants scurrying to the Tree. Then he pointed farther into the distance to something my human eyes couldn’t see. “And Others—there. The three Gruffs are on the way, as are several other Others from the Paradise Lot PD.” He sighed. “But as for myself, I cannot go back down. I have also forbidden other angels as well. Whatever form of defense they have, angels seem particularly susceptible.”

“No kidding. You were on your knees speaking Tongues.”

Michael gave me a look that told me he’d had no idea he was kneeling or even muttering. “I wasn’t unconscious?”

“No.”

“And … Tongues? You are sure?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I’ve heard you speak it before … when you asked the Avatar of Gravity a question.”

He nodded. “The answer to a mystery.”

“Whatever. Point is, once you hear that language, you don’t tend to forget it.”

Conner said something I couldn’t hear over the wind. He pointed at me aggressively. I cupped my ears and Conner gestured in exasperation before giving me the finger.

“I think he’s mad at me.”

Michael nodded. “He says you were reckless down there. That what you did was akin to committing suicide.” Conner started up again and Michael paused to listen. “He also says that you are lucky I woke up when I did.”

“So he’s mad, huh?”

“He has used several expletives that I do not approve of, including three blasphemies.” Both Conner and I gave Michael a Seriously? look, to which Michael shrugged. “I shall overlook them, given the situation.”

“OK, but you tell Conner that I was not committing suicide and that I knew my little stunt would wake you up.” I lied. Truth was, I had no idea. And if I was really, really being honest, not only did I have no idea it would work, a big part of me didn’t care one way or another. I waited and Michael said nothing. “Come on … tell him.”

But Michael didn’t say anything, just squinted down at the spot near the Tree. Then he did something I’d never seen the archangel do: he rubbed his eyes.

“What?” I said. Conner sensed the same thing, because I could see him mouth the same question.

“I don’t … don’t know,” Michael said. He nodded in the direction of the Tree. “They are loading something into a missile launcher—”

We heard a muffled pop! and from right under the Tree’s canopy, a cloud of dust billowed up. A trail of smoke rose from it and started our way.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I screamed. “An RPG!?”

Michael turned around, putting his back to the missile. “I should be able to sustain the missile; my wings are powerful enough to endure the impact. Still, it will jostle us, so hold on.”

“No, Michael,” I started. “Don’t let it hit you. These guys know how to take down an angel.”

But my warning came too late—the missile hit him square in the back. Michael, archangel and probably the most powerful being on the planet, winced in pain as a cloud of dust enveloped us. Then the big guy closed his eyes and gravity took him—with us still in his arms.

Hellelujah!

↔

During the war, I was part of the team that took down the archangel Gabriel. “Team” isn’t the right word … more like "army.” A squad of fighter jets, two warships and countless ground-to-air units all coordinated their efforts to finally end the archangel’s life. And even then, I think we would have lost had Gabriel not been so concerned with not killing us. Not a single soldier lost his or her life that day. Not a-one. And yet we had to throw enough explosives at the archangel to level Mount Everest.

So when Michael turned to take the impact of one missile, he did so with all the confidence in the world that it would bounce off him or, if it did explode, the shrapnel wouldn’t pierce his skin.

What he wasn’t counting on was that the occultists were packing something a little extra in their arsenal.

It hit him in the center of his back, but unlike your typical missile head which explodes with a loud, unmistakable BANG!, this one made a barely audible popping sound and a cloud of dust shrouded us. Michael inhaled the particles, coughed twice, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he dropped like a stone.

We fell. And fell. I was sure we were done for … Until I saw hope. Working as fast as I could, I unbuckled my belt and reattached it over Michael’s oversized-pants belt loops. I yelled for Conner to do the same. He couldn’t hear me, but he saw what I was doing and mimicked my actions. I tugged my belt to make sure it was secure. It wasn’t the best catch, but it was better than nothing.

“HOLD ON!” I said and braced myself for impact.

Or rather … non-impact. Michael’s falling body suddenly stopped in midair and Conner and I flew out of Michael’s arms. We both held on, which helped, but the g-force was too strong for Conner and he let go. His belt caught, which stopped his fall long enough for me to grab onto his arm.

I pulled him to me as we were slowly lowered to the ground right in front of the human police convoy.

“Thanks,” I said to Penemue, who loomed above Michael’s body, flapping with all his might.

Penemue stirred as he lowered us to the ground. “Ironic,” he said, “that it is I who stops Michael from falling.”

↔

I’d like to say that the human convoy took one look at us—a policeman, a deputized human hotelier and two angels—and that they got out of their cars and asked how we were doing, if we were OK, or, if they were heartless, demanded to know what was going on.

But apparently the special unit assigned to Paradise Lot was more than heartless. They got out of their vehicles with guns drawn and anti-angel nets out.

“Stand down!” cried out a bald cop who got out of the lead car’s passenger side. He wore wire glasses and a short-sleeved plaid shirt that he buttoned all the way to the top. From the way he held himself, he was clearly the guy in charge of this entourage.

“Don’t you mean ‘flap down’?” Penemue mused.

The cop didn’t hesitate. He gave an inaudible order and three anti-angel nets came flying our way. The thing about these nets: they’re made of steel thread twice the thickness of the fishing lines used for sharks; they’re also seared so that they embed themselves in the skin. Oh, and they’re electrified. Perfect for hunting angels.

But on humans, the voltage and constricting nature of the net was more likely to kill us than just subdue us. Luckily, I was ready for their overreaction. As soon as I saw the order, I pulled at my belt buckle. Conner and I fell with a thud, and by the time we were standing again we had a half-dozen guns trained on us.

“What the hell are you doing?” I growled. “That’s Michael—Paradise Lot’s police chief.”

The bald cop squinted his eyes. “Seems like your ‘chief’ is asleep,” he sneered.

“He was hit by the kidnappers, you idiot. They’re still by the Tree. We need to get there before they escape.”

The bald cop gave more inaudible orders and the twelve officers divided up—eight on the angels and four on us. Clearly they had no intention of going to the Tree anytime soon.

As they approached, Conner pulled out his badge. “I’m Paradise Lot PD and I’m ordering you to stand down.”

“ ‘Ordering’?” the bald cop barked. “You are not in a position to order anyone.”

I knew his type—and I knew we were sunk.

Conner was slower to accept the situation. “Didn’t you hear what he said? The kidnappers are at the Tree and—”

“And how do I know that you’re not the kidnappers? Or some stinking Other in disguise? How do I know that as soon as I turn my back you won’t burn time to turn me into a frog or a pillar of salt? Hmm?”

“Common misconception,” Penemue said, his voice uneven under the electrical current of the net currently sunk into his flesh. “Lot’s wife was never turned into a pillar of salt; it was dust that mixed with her salt-filled tears. But that’s a lot of words to explain, and would really cut into the drama of the situation. That’s why the early writers decided not to include—”

One of the cops tasered him before he could finish.

“Hey,” I said, “don’t you—” But before I could finish, I met the same fate as Penemue.

“You dare detain our chief?” a voice brayed.

Magnus, eldest of the Brothers Gruff and one of the most powerful known Others. He was Paradise Lot’s lead detective and probably could have been police chief if he wasn’t ill-tempered, poorly mannered, totally arrogant and prone to extreme violence.

Standing next to him were his younger brothers, Hunter and Steve. And behind him were a half-dozen Other cops in the Paradise Lot PD. Not that the humans considered them real cops.

“Free our captain—now!” The way he said captain didn’t help the situation at all. It sounded tribal, primal; exactly the kind of word you would expect from an old-world Other hell-bent on causing chaos.

“Magnus,” I said, lifting my hands in front of me. “This situation requires calm. Please, everybody—let’s all take a deep breath.”

“Yeah,” the bald cop said. “Let’s.” He pulled out a customized shotgun designed to permanently put Others down—buckshot filled with silver, iron and a whole host of other herbs, minerals and metals lethal to Others. He cocked the shotgun and smiled, exposing a row of crooked teeth.

“There’s no need for that,” Conner said. “They’re fellow officers of the law.”

“The law?” Baldy said. “Others and the law. That’s rich.”

Another two officers pulled out their pistols.

“Yes, the law,” a voice behind us bellowed. We all turned to see that Michael had finally come to. The archangel, obviously still woozy from whatever hit him, stood, glancing at the net enveloping him as if it were an annoying cobweb. I had watched Penemue try and fail to break free, and he was a big guy. Strong, too. I’d seen him lift an eighteen-foot pine tree like he was moving a child’s bike. But he couldn’t break through the netting. Michael, on the other hand, ripped it apart like so much thread.

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t thank the GoneGods that Michael is on our side.

Michael staggered over to the bald cop. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yeah,” Baldy said, and I had to hand it to him: the guy wasn’t scared. Or maybe he was just too dumb to know he should be. “I’ve seen your dossier.”

“Then you must know that I and my fellow officers”—he gestured around him—“are not here to harm you.”

Baldy squinted his eyes again. “The dossier says you are on our side.” He considered this, then, rubbing his head with the hand not holding the shotgun, he sighed. “You’ve got to understand we were just responding to a call.”

“I know. And what’s more, I wish to commend you. You and yours are true professionals.” Michael extended his hand. “Officer … I’m sorry, but I do not know your name.”

“Officer O’Donnell. But my boys call me O’D.” He spit out the toothpick he had been chewing on and replaced it with a fresh, unmangled one.

Magnus snorted and stomped his right foot in protest. “Are you serious, Michael? You extend your hand to these humans who have shown you utter disrespect?”

“I DO,” Michael thundered, extending his wings. This caused everyone there to stare at him in awe: the Other cops, the human convoy, Conner and me—even Penemue wore an expression of reverence. “And what is more, these human cops acted exactly as they should. They did not know our intent. Nor do they know these men.” He pointed at Conner and me.

“Michael,” Magnus said.

“And what is more, we are here to help them. Not the other way around. Now let us give them our full cooperation. Do you understand?” Michael gave Magnus a look that could evaporate Lake Erie.

Magnus averted his gaze, pausing for a long second, then nodded.

“Good,” Michael said. “Very good, indeed.”

I started to say, ‘Hellelujah,’ when O’D cut me off with a “Hoorah!”

Got to hand it to marines—ex, or current. They’re pretty damn cool.

REGROUP, REASSESS … RETREAT?

The cops—Others and humans—got back into the vehicles and sped toward the Tree. Only the angels stayed behind. We couldn’t risk whatever happened to Michael also happening to Penemue—which meant that a fallen angel was standing around in the desert with the very archangel who kicked him out of Heaven. Awkwaaard!

I couldn’t think about that now. Instead, I was riding in the lead vehicle, hoping that the three occultists and their monster were arrogant enough or stupid enough to stick around for Round Two. Except Round Two would be against fourteen humans armed with anti-Other weaponry and a dozen powerful Others.

How do you like them apples, Vampire Bowser?

(I may have still been bitter about what that bastard did to my Road Runner.)

But they weren’t arrogant, unfortunately, and they certainly weren’t stupid. When we got to the Tree, there was no trace of them. Not a single sign of where they’d gone, or even that they’d been there at all.

Hunter, the middle Gruff, wasn’t named “Hunter” because it sounded cool. Well, he wasn’t named Hunter just because it sounded cool. He was named so because there arguably wasn’t a better tracker on the planet. And yet he found no trace of them either. The only footprints were Connor’s and mine, plus the two basketball-sized potholes made by Michael’s knees.

The humans pulled out all sorts of equipment trying to measure for burnt time, but nothing showed. No time was burnt. Not a single damn second.

It just didn’t feel right. I looked at my own magic tracker, my Mickey Mouse watch. Whenever Mickey was near magic, his second hand spun around like he was lining up for a cartoon baseball pitch.

Mickey’s second hand did seem slightly off. I started to count the seconds, trying to match my count to the second hand. And that’s when I saw it—the second counter went marginally faster than my count. Magic had been burnt … but very little. Certainly not enough to cover four people’s tracks.

I thought about telling the cops what I’d discovered, but they’d just dismiss my watch as broken, or say my counting was off. After all, their own equipment showed nothing abnormal—and they had the latest tech from Memnock Securities.

↔

Bored and feeling useless, I went over to Baldy. “Give me something to do,” I said.

“You qualified?” There was no condescension in his voice. It was just a question.

I thought about giving my full rank and title, and would have enjoyed watching his eyebrows raise, but running from your past meant keeping secrets. I settled with, “Back in the Army I was certified as a Class Two Engineer.”

“Geek Squad,” he muttered, unimpressed, and pulled out a metal detector. “Then you know your way around this.” He handed me the device and pointed at the Tree. “See if our troublemakers dropped anything by the Tree that goes beep.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, just happy to have something to do.

↔

I took my metal detector and joined the rest in the investigation. I had to hand it to the human cops: they were thorough, professional and tenacious. And they were a close-knit crew that knew how to work together, seamlessly augmenting each other’s investigations. Exactly the kind of people I’d wanted on my team back when I was in the Army. I was beginning to think I could like these guys.

If only they weren’t Other-hating AlwaysMortals.

This thought stopped me in my tracks. Did I really just refer to other humans as AlwaysMortals—and, what’s more, in a derogatory way? That was something I’d have to talk to my shrink about. Surely I’d need to find a shrink after all this crap.

I wiped my brow. This day was taking its toll on me. Sure, I’d just got into a fight with three overpowered occultists and their pet monsters. But what really hurt was that I lost my precious 1969 Road Runner. Yes, it was a car, but it was a car my PopPop gave me, damn it. A car that had seen me through thick and thin, a car that I owned pre-Others, pre-apocalypses, pre–my-life-in-constant-turmoil.

I loved that car. Just another thing I loved that the GoneGod World took from me.

If that wasn’t enough, I was still a deputy in the Paradise Lot police force, I was still being blackmailed by my former commanding officer and I was still the owner of a hotel that was costing me more money to run than most money laundering operations “cleaned” in a month.

This wasn’t the first time I’d been neck-deep in the muck while fighting the good fight—but this was the first time I was tired of the good fight. Bella, Medusa, PopPop … years of anguish. I’d paid my dues, and as far as I was concerned, the good fight could go on without me for a while.

It had been easy to give up and give in to Evil-and-Cute’s sword. Mr. Cain’s offer was looking more and more appealing, and I might have dropped my metal detector right then and there if it wasn’t for the tears in the monster-under-your-bed’s eyes and the missing kid who didn’t deserve what was happening to her. That I couldn’t ignore. That I couldn’t walk away from … yet.

But the minute she was safe and sound in her parents’ arms … that was a different story altogether.

↔

I was circling the Tree, looking for metal, when Conner came up to me. “Jean,” he said. “We need to talk.”

I continued my sweep. “So talk.”

“Why haven’t you told anyone about the bubbling monster?”

I gave Conner a look that asked that question right back at him.

He put up his hands. “Hey, don’t look at me. I have no idea what I saw. I’m new. But you recognized it. Or at least, you recognized how it died. You’ve seen creatures die like that before, haven’t you?”

I nodded. “Back when I was in the Army.”

Conner sighed, running his fingers through his still-perfectly-coiffed hair. Man, what kind of gel did he use to withstand that g-force wind? I didn’t even want to imagine what my own hair looked like.

“Why haven’t you told anyone?” he asked. “Level with me.”

I shrugged. “They won’t believe me.”

“Us.”

“Whatever. They’d assume we were under some kind of spell or something.”

“But we weren’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because of that phone call you took—another thing you failed to mention. What’s going on?”

I stopped scanning and looked up at the rookie cop. His crystalline eyes bore down on me like he was gazing into my soul. I thought about telling him about Shouf blackmailing me and the monsters she was trying to create. Monsters that always died exactly like that shark-anomaly did. But that only would lead to more questions—questions I didn’t have answers to. Questions that would distract from the mission. Questions like, What are the anomalies? Who’s making them? And what connection do they have with the kidnapping? All important questions that needed answering, but right now the only questions I cared about were, Where did those occultists take the kid? and How do I find them before they cause her any harm?

But that didn’t help Conner any. “I … I need more time,” I said. “Please.”

Conner stared at me for a long, hard moment, obviously debating whether he should report what he saw to Michael. Possibly tell on me, too. Finally, he nodded. “Miral said you were one of the good guys. If she trusts you, then so do I. OK, Jean … you’ll get more time from me. But the clock’s ticking. You better share something with me sooner rather than later.”

I nodded. “As soon as I know where those friggin’ Dungeons & Dragons rejects took the kid, you’ll be the first to know.”

“OK, Jean. But don’t make a fool out of Miral. And don’t make a fool out of me.”

“I won’t. Promise.” I crossed my heart, making a promise I honestly wasn’t sure I could keep.

Conner didn’t move.

“What?” I said. “I crossed my heart and everything.”

“There’s something else.”

I groaned. “There always is. Out with it.”

Conner sighed. “I’m worried about you.”

I groaned again, louder. “Conner, really? Look, you’re great, but we’ve had exactly four conversations. Our relationship isn’t exactly at the I’m-worried-about-you stage. Slow down. Waaay down.”

Conner nodded, cool and relaxed, like he’d anticipated my reaction. “Oh, believe me, I would. But Miral made me promise I’d look after you—”

“Hey, she made me promise the same thing about you. She double-promised us! The sneaky, conniving angel of Heaven.”

“I know,” he smirked. “But I’ve gotten to know her quite well over the last few weeks. I think, although her words were the same, she wants us to look out for different things for each other. She knows that I’m a newbie when it comes to all this Other stuff. I’m out-gunned and out-classed here. But you … you know exactly how to handle yourself. So when she told you to look out for me, she wanted you to make sure I came back in one piece.”

Conner was smart enough to know he was out of his league. Didn’t mean he couldn’t get there eventually. And he was mature enough to admit it. I could respect that. “OK,” I said. “I’m here to keep you safe. What are you here for?”

“For your soul.”

“My soul.” I looked up at the officer, expecting a smirk, a “Just kidding,” any indication that he was having fun. He was dating an angel, after all. But his concerned eyes told me otherwise. “Conner, I don’t know what you’re talking about. For one thing, souls aren’t important anymore. Not since … you know.” I twiddled my fingers goodbye at the sky.

Conner held out his hands. “Hold on, hear me out first. I know you think souls aren’t important, but that’s where you’re wrong. Your soul might not go anywhere after you’re gone, but it’s still part of you. And it is the part of you that holds in all the good and bad you’ve done. It is what will be weighed after you are gone.”

“For no reason,” I said, starting to rescan the earth.

“Again, I disagree. I think that it is more important than ever to lead good lives. Heaven and Hell, they were second chances of a sort. And as far as I’m concerned, they belonged to the ‘good enough’ and I’m glad to see them gone.”

“ ‘Good enough’?”

“Before, I just had to be ‘good enough’ to get to Heaven. Which means that most people did the bare minimum to get their ticket in, you know? But now, there is no ‘good enough.’ ”

“Yeah … and no one to punish you if you get your hand stuck in the proverbial cookie jar. People are free to do as they please, for better or worse.”

Conner nodded. “Possibly, and some will take advantage of that. But let’s be honest: before the gods left, most of us didn’t really put Heaven and Hell into our day-to-day calculations. We just went about our business, doing exactly as we pleased, vaguely aware of the rules. When we stopped to think about it, those of us who believed would say a prayer and hope we were ‘good enough’ to get in. And those of us who didn’t believe just shrugged and said, ‘I’m a good guy. I do my part for the planet, I’m nice to my neighbors. If there is a Heaven, I’m sure I’m good enough to get in.’ But nowadays it’s something else. There is no Heaven. No Hell. Nothing. ‘Good enough’ has to be replaced with ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’—and that is a much more honest question by which we should live.”

“Except that most people don’t take the time to ask that question of themselves. Ever.”

“True,” Conner admitted. “But those who do take the time will be faced with a much harsher mirror. ‘Good enough’ is no longer good enough. You are either good or bad. And it’s not a static answer. Bad people can do good things and good people can do bad things. The best that any of us can hope for is that at the end of the day, we are—on balance—good and bad. Jean … Miral has told me many stories about you. Perhaps more than was her right to share. And what I see is a man who was bad but did good things. Now, that very same man is good but does bad things.”

I stopped scanning, holding the metal detector over the base of the Tree, right near where Michael had been kneeling. I was feeling judged. I suddenly got the urge to punch Conner in his perfectly chiseled jaw. “Conner,” I said through gritted teeth, “as flattered as I am that I’m part of your and Miral’s pillow talk, I need you to either get to your point or stop talking. And frankly, given the little rant I just had to listen to, I’m really hoping you’ll choose the latter.”

“You enjoyed it.”

“What?” I said.

“Stabbing the shark head. Bashing the ijiraq’s skull in.”

“Come on—they deserved it.”

“Did the monster-under-your-bed deserve it? You terrified the poor creature.”

“To get him to talk. Which, by the way, brought us here. Remember that?”

“Maybe, but he was willing to help. You didn’t need to be so brutal with him. He would have told us everything we needed to know without all the threats and—”

“Are you friggin’ kidding me?” I shouted. “We are dealing with creatures with immense powers. Creatures who, might I add, don’t play by human rules. Ever tried to negotiate with a dwarf? It’s a staring contest that takes hours. How about a fairy? You have to give them buckets of glitter just to get them to listen. They don’t understand human culture—”

“So what? That gives you the right to beat them up just so you can get them to listen faster?”

I stopped. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

“I know that’s not what you meant, but you said it, and that’s the first step down a bad path. What path is that? A bad man doing bad things. I don’t want to see you going down that path—not again. Neither does Miral.”

I knew exactly what he was referring to. Back when the gods left and the Others first came, I joined the Army and went into full rampage mode. Then I came home because I thought I was done with the hate.

Miral saw me then.

Then Bella died and the berserker in me came right back. I re-enlisted and who I became made rampage-mode me seem like a diplomat. I was a force that terrified Death itself (seriously—I met the angel once and she told me exactly how terrifying I was). But eventually my hate and rage subsided again and I came home.

Miral was there for that, too.

Of all the creatures I knew, Miral was there for me every step of the way. Firm, merciful … and good. Despite all I did, she was always there for me. I loved that angel. Really, I did.

“Miral doesn’t want me to go down that path. That why she told you to look after me?”

Conner nodded. “A good man can do bad things. That’s life. But a bad man doing bad things? That’s evil.”

“And you honestly think I have the capacity to do evil?”

“You did. Once.”

“I did once!” I screamed, suddenly conscious of many eyes on us. I didn’t care. “I did. Once. And I stopped and tried everything in my power to only do good things, and what did that get me? A dead wife. A dead girlfriend. And more trouble than I can bear. So before you judge me, maybe … just maybe you should walk a few steps in my shoes.”

“You’re right.” He pulled out his wallet. “Here.” He handed me a worn photo of a young Conner standing next to a pretty blonde. They were holding a little boy between them, he kissing the kid’s right cheek and she the kid’s left. The kid, in the middle, was laughing. “His name was Jack. She was Rebecca. We took that on his third birthday. He never saw his fourth.”

Conner took the photo back, took a long, hard look at it and put it back in his wallet. “Good people do bad things, I get that. Believe me, I do.” He let out a long breath and left me to my scanning.

I walked up to the Tree, trying to ignore the people still staring.

Good people do bad things. Bad people do good things. But a bad man doing bad things … Was I bad when I fought in the Army? That was a question I had asked myself many times, always coming up with the same answer: yes.

Yes, I was.

↔

I leaned against the Tree, using it to balance myself, while I tried to process Conner’s words. As if I wasn’t feeling bad enough, my phone rang and as I looked at it, I saw the name George softly glowing on the dark algae-green background of the screen’s LCD.

Crap. With everything going on, I had forgotten all about the memorial. I flipped open my old phone and answered with a dejected, “Hi, George.”

“Jean,” the voice on the other end said. “Where were you? We missed you last night.”

I groaned and pinched the bridged of my nose with my forefinger and thumb. “I’m sorry, George,” I said. “It’s been one of those years.”

“I know the feeling … but we would’ve loved to have had you. There were three myarids there—” George paused, his voice quivering slightly. He cleared his throat. “You know, Azzah always thought she was the only one left. During the GrandExodus, her family was wiped out and she was sure she was alone. But there were three of them. Three. All from distant clans … But still. She was so lonely …” His voice trembled. “It really is too bad she didn’t get to meet them. She would have been so happy.”

“Yeah, she would have been. But she wasn’t lonely. You were her friend, George. That much we know.”

He let out the long sigh of a man trying to put a cap on his emotions. Clearing his throat for a second time, he said, “The myarids know what you did. And who you lost, too. They wanted to pay you honor or something myarid-ish in thanks to their fallen Azzah.”

“I don’t know what I did for her—or anyone, for that manner.”

“In their eyes, you avenged her death. That’s a big deal to them. Meeting you would be an honor to them … and not meeting you would be an insult. These guys don’t really do half measures.”

“OK, OK,” I said, not really feeling like I did anything but make things worse. “I’ll make sure that happens.”

George chuckled. “Do … but be careful. The last time Azzah honored me for something I did, she threw a full-grown manta ray on the oil rig floor. That thing flayed around and eventually flopped into the water … but not before it scared the bejeezus out of us. And when I told Azzah that throwing live fish was a cultural faux pas, she just gave me a disappointed look and said that she was giving me the honor of killing the damn thing. I tell you … Others.”

“Others,” I echoed. “What’s perfectly acceptable to them is damn near deadly to us.”

“Anyway … we should catch up for a coffee sometime. You know, just to chat.”

“Yeah,” I said in a noncommittal tone.

“Where are you, anyway?”

“Long, terrible, Other-filled story.”

“Huh. Been there. You take care of yourself.”

“You too, George. You too.” And with that, I heard the click of the phone hanging up.

↔

I was so lost in my guilt over both what Conner said and letting down George that I completely forgot I had the scanner in hand. I moved about—and it beeped.

I glanced over at the screen and saw that it had detected metal to the left. I moved it slowly along the Tree’s trunk, the device gradually beeping louder and louder until I found what it had detected.

Embedded in the wood was the RPG’s firing cap.

↔

When a missile fires from a handheld launcher, the person—or Other—firing the damn thing needs to brace themselves for a ton of blowback. If you’re not in the proper stance, the shock of a missile travelling up at speeds near the sound barrier will send you flying back. As a result, the average missile launcher has all kinds of safety measures so that you don’t pull that trigger unless you’re absolutely ready: safety locks, a key … and a firing cap.

Seems that the occultists dropped the cap and it was caught in the missile’s blowback. That kind of force can send a three-ounce piece of metal flying off like a bullet—and that’s exactly what happened. Except instead of flying off into the desert, it got caught in the Tree.

I wiggled it out and into an evidence bag when Officer O’D came over. “That’s state property.”

“It’s evidence for an ongoing investigation in Paradise Lot,” I retorted.

By now, the crew of humans and Others who had spent the better part of three hours looking for something, anything, to tell us where the occultists went were just happy for a clue. They all gathered around us as Baldy and I held our pissing contest.

“That’s right,” Officer O’D said. “An investigation headed by us. You heard your ‘captain.’ ” He air-quoted the word captain. “Now hand it over.”

“What, this?” I threw it at Hunter, whose cartilage hoof fanned out into a hand and caught it. “Give it to that guy.” I arbitrarily pointed at the closest human cop next to him. Hunter brayed in protest. “He’s right: our captain would want us to hand it over to their ‘captain.’ ” Now it was my turn to air-quote.

The middle Gruff stomped his foot, but complied.

“There,” I said. “Happy?”

Baldy narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what your play is, but it’s not funny. Not funny at all.”

“No, sir,” I said, saluting him melodramatically. “Just damn immature.”

CAPS, CAPTAINS AND CAINS

The place was clean. So clean that the human cops must have thought we made up the whole thing. Except for the firing cap. That, at the very least, proved that something had happened here. After all, firing caps from friggin’ RPGs don’t just show up anywhere.

Case in point: RPG firing cap = RPG missile.

I handed the metal detector back to Baldy. He took it with a grunt. “This was a waste of time,” he snarled.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll be able to pull something off of that cap.”

“Perhaps. But that doesn’t help that little girl today, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Back at his car, O’D put away the last of his equipment and turned to me. “You boys find anything, you be sure to call us.”

“Likewise,” I said—but from the way he shifted the toothpick in his mouth, I realized that likewise was never going to happen.

O’D stuck out a hand. “You take care of yourself.”

I shook his hand. “Likewise.”

“Humph,” he grunted, and got in his car.

We watched them speed off back to their headquarters, spinning a trail of dust in their wake. As soon as they were out of sight, I turned to Hunter. “Did you get a good whiff?”

“I did,” he brayed.

“Good. Then let’s get to it.”

↔

Michael and Penemue stayed back, afraid that whatever mojo that brought the archangel to his knees was still there. Nobody said it aloud, but we all knew: whatever took a creature like Michael down would have had to be tailor-made for angels. And if it paralyzed Michael, then only the GoneGods knew what it would do to a lesser angel like Penemue.

But after a thorough investigation, both by O’D’s technology-based equipment and Paradise Lot PD’s team of experienced Other detectives, we were fairly confident that whatever was here was just that: was here.

So we gave Michael the all-clear and he appeared literally two seconds later. GoneGodDamn, he was fast. And right behind him was Penemue. I guess the two angels hung out together for the entire four hours we investigated the Tree. Made me wonder what kind of small talk they engaged in. Judging by Penemue’s steady gait, he hadn’t had the time to grab some Drambuie before he came to our rescue, which was a relief. For me, at least.

As soon as we debriefed Michael, Hunter went about doing his Gruff thing: first he sniffed the air, then the ground, his snout sucking in dust and dirt, pebbles and twigs. There was a lot sniffing, snorting and moving about, and the whole thing kinda grossed me out.

“So,” I said to Penemue, “good talk with Michael?”

“Oh, the best,” he said, eyeing the archangel, who was on the other side of the Tree. “He told me that of all the angels he threw out of Heaven, I was his favorite.”

“Really?”

“No. Not really.”

“So I guess it’s not water under the bridge, huh?”

“Not at all. The water is still very much festering under the bridge—stagnant, full of algae and the perfect breeding ground for mosquitos.” Penemue put a hand on my shoulder. “We need to speak.”

“About what?”

“Our little guest.”

“OK … what’s up with Sinbad, the little girl sailor?”

“Not here, and not with super-hearing angels in earshot.”

Michael turned to us and Penemue waved at him, giving him an exaggerated smile. I followed suit, to which Michael grumpily went back to his own investigation.

Hunter circled the Tree three times before he did something with more grace than I thought possible for a goat: he started climbing it. “Don’t bother,” Conner called out. “O’D’s crew were up and down that thing with all kinds of sensors. The only thing on the Tree was the firing cap—”

“Here,” Hunter said. “I found something.”

We couldn’t see him through the dense canopy of the Tree. “What is it?” Michael bellowed.

“I don’t know. It’s the size of a six-sided die. I guess that’s why the humans missed it, but … hold on, let me remove it from its spot.”

“Ahh, Hunter …” I said. “How did you know it was there? Did you smell it?”

“Yes. The tiyanak’s scent, which was on the cap, is also on this little box. As well as a human scent.” He took an audible sniff. “I smell female pheromones and—”

“Don’t touch it!” I yelled out, but too late—before I could finish my warning, there was a loud explosion and Hunter was thrown several dozen meters from the Tree. The explosion knocked us all to the ground. If it hadn’t been for Penemue’s preternatural speed, and his shielding me with his wings, I would have been toast.

When the dust literally settled, I saw Michael had done the same for Conner. The other cops seemed to be OK, either because they were far from the Tree or were made of tough enough stuff to withstand the blast.

What didn’t survive was the Tree, which was now on fire.

“Oh boy,” I said. “The tourist board is going to be pissed.”

Michael must have burnt a little bit of time, because the Tree suddenly extinguished itself. Once the smoke settled, I saw that although its central branches were burnt out and missing, the Tree miraculously still stood. I guess you didn’t grow up in the desert without learning how to handle the heat.

I looked at my watch. Mickey’s second hand was spinning like crazy. “What was that thing?”

Michael stretched out his fingers and closed his eyes.

“You’re not going to start with the Tongues again, are you?”

He ignored me. Fanning out all six of his wings, he whirled around in the dust and debris. “Burnt time. Whatever was in the Tree suppressed the magic. Think of it like an air purifier, gathering all the magic into its filter.”

“OK,” I said. “So we’re dealing with a new kind of bad guy. One that knows how to use magic and hide it. And is really, really good at blowing things up.” I turned to Michael. “Have you ever heard of a magic purifier before?”

Michael shook his head. “Have you? Back when you were a soldier.”

“No, but I’ve been out of the game for a long time now. New tech is invented all the time.”

Michael nodded.

“And there’s only one guy I know who knows his way around magic and tech. Cain, as in Mr., and given it was one of his facilities they were hiding out in, I can’t imagine he’d turn down an interview.”

“Indeed,” Michael said.

“I’d like to call him down to the precinct, and if you don’t mind”—I pointed at Penemue—“I’d like Penemue to watch.”

“Penemue?” Michael asked.

“Yeah, you know … ‘cause of his thing.”

Luckily, the situation was too serious for anyone to be tempted to turn that into a dirty joke.

DO THAT THANG YOU DO SO WELL

An angel’s “thing.” Before the gods left, every angel had one. Michael was a judge, jury and executioner. He could balance your deeds and know, without question, whether you were Good or Evil.

Miral’s “thing” was healing, and it was said that of all the angels, she was the only one who possessed the ability to bring someone back from the dead. Lazarus and the Big JC could both attest to that.

And then there was Penemue—his “thing” was knowing the written word. As in, absolutely anything written, ever, in any capacity. Including what was written on your soul—or rather, he saw what was there, once upon a time. After the gods left, all the angels lost their “thing.”

Luckily, Penemue had a perfect memory. All angels do. Penemue could take one look at you and know everything about you and all your ancestors, all the way back to Adam and Eve themselves. Farther, if need be. Because he knew so much about you, he also knew all your ticks, your telltale signs, the nervous gestures you make when excited, the slight shifts in demeanor when you lie. He was better than any lie detector ever made.

That skill went for both humans and Others. Anyone who’d been around for more than fourteen years could not easily lie to Penemue—and given the way he hit the bottle, I suspected that extended to himself, too. The angel always knew when he wasn’t completely honest with himself … And with all the good and bad he had done in his long life, I guess such brutal honesty is hard to live with. Drown it in a bottle. Mute it with a drunken haze.

That was why I could never judge him or his drunken antics. Walk a mile in his shoes? No. I’d have to live a thousand years in his head before I could begin to understand him.

Still … his “thing” was useful. And I wanted him there when Mr. Cain was interviewed.

↔

Mr. Cain came in without question, entourage or lawyer. He showed up within the hour and sat across from Michael and Conner, while Penemue and I stood behind a one-way mirror. Conner had a small microphone so that I could feed him questions. And Michael—well, Michael would hear a fart in a hurricane, so he didn’t need anything. All I had to do was whisper.

“Michael,” Mr. Cain said. “It’s been awhile.”

“Indeed,” Michael said.

“I believe the last time we spoke you were doling out You Know Who’s punishment.”

Michael nodded.

“I don’t suppose I’ve been forgiven?” Mr. Cain asked, a curious smile painting his lips.

“Not that I am aware,” Michael said in all seriousness.

“No, not that I know of, either.” Mr. Cain pulled at his shirt cufflinks. The same ones as before, with the Memnock logo on them.

“Mr. Cain,” Conner interjected. “Do you know why we summoned you here today?”

“ ‘Summoned’? What a curious word … to summon means to conjure out of thin air. I believe I drove here of my own accord.”

“Mr. Cain,” Conner said in a warning tone.

“Yes, I know why you’ve summoned me here. There has been a breach in the abandoned military installations near the Tree. Our systems alerted us of it this morning.”

“And you didn’t call to inform us?”

“Oh, but we did. A member of my staff called as soon as we understood what was going on. I believe it was because of that phone call that your detectives were able to be on the scene within the hour.”

That revelation struck me as odd. I had assumed it was General Shouf who called the Paradise Lot PD. Either Mr. Cain was lying—which would be foolish, given how easy it would be to verify this—or General Shouf didn’t call, despite promising to. Again, not likely. Shouf was many things, but a liar wasn’t one of them. Especially not over something like a telephone call.

Which left only two choices: either Paradise Lot PD got two phone calls, one from Mr. Cain’s staff and another from Shouf, or Shouf was the member of his staff he was referring to. “Can we verify if there were one or two phone calls alerting the precinct about the trouble at the Tree?” I asked the goblin technician in the room with us.

The goblin saluted me and picked up a phone. “Uh-huh, uh-huh … OK, understood.” The goblin hung up and turned to me. “Just the one phone call, sir.”

“Mr. Cain,” Conner continued, “how would someone get into your facilities?”

“We don’t know.”

“Cain,” Michael said in an admonishing tone.

Mr. Cain shot Michael a look that could shatter glass, but probably had no effect on the archangel. “I am not the child you met all those years ago, Michael. You can say that thousands of years of wandering the world matures a man, can you not? We do not know how they managed to break in. Our security systems are supposed to be unhackable—multilayered encryption and algorithms that I doubt even He could crack.” He pointed up at the ceiling, to which Michael growled in a warning tone. Mr. Cain ignored this. “And as for our walls? They are impenetrable. Reinforced flexi-steel designed to withstand a ten-megaton bomb. They are also lined with lead, iron and a whole host of other goodies that even you, Michael, could not smash your way through.”

“Could it be an inside job?”

“I cannot imagine anyone in my organization contributing to such a thing. Each member of the team is scrutinized: background checks, personality profiles, monthly psyche evaluations … We are extremely thorough. Extremely.”

“But someone could have been turned.”

“No, I also doubt that very seriously. And even if they could, our internal security is extensive. We would have picked up the inexcusable behavior.”

“What about a shapeshifter? Changelings and tiyanaks are so accomplished at mimicking their victims, it’s not uncommon for them to forget they are not who they’re impersonating.”

Mr. Cain gave Conner an incredulous look. “Do you honestly think that Memnock Securities can be breached by a … shapeshifter? If we were that vulnerable, we would have never—”

“But you are vulnerable. That much is clear.”

Mr. Cain stopped and considered this. “Yes. We are.” He pulled out an envelope from his pocket. “Please give this to your investigators.”

“What is it?”

“A list of recent systems failures. So far, five of our security systems have been compromised.”

“That you know of.”

“Yes … that we know of. Of the five, one is the military facility and one is the Northern Lights Compound. All are detailed in here.”

“Paradise Lot sites?”

“I wish.” Mr. Cain sighed. “We’ve only had two breaches on the island. The rest are on the mainland, I fear.”

“And you’re giving this to us … why?” Conner asked. “Why not give it to the mainland police, or the Army or any number of organizations better equipped to investigate this?”

Mr. Cain ignored Conner, instead giving Michael a hard, uncompromising look before continuing in a steady voice. “Because, despite my reputation, I do want to help both human- and Otherkind. My security systems offer humanity a sense of safety. They install my systems, which they believe will protect them from wayward Others.”

I put my mouth to the mic. “So you want us to handle this discreetly? Why, to protect your bottom line?”

Connor repeated my question.

Mr. Cain shook his head. “I lose money on every home security system we install. We do so because my systems need to be affordable, and to truly install the systems that offer the kind of protection we do would cost nearly triple what we charge. No, we do not make money off of customer sales. All our income is derived from military contracts.”

Michael folded his arms across his chest. “Really?”

“Yes,” Mr. Cain said, his nostrils flaring with anger. “Really.”

“And why would you take a loss?” Conner asked.

“Because we make humans feel safe. Do you know how they would behave if they did not feel safe? Others would be attacked, maimed or worse all the time by small-minded wannabe militia roving your streets.”

“Like the HuMans?” Conner asked.

“Worse. Right now, that gang of Other-hating thugs is mostly comprised of kids. I’m talking politicians campaigning on anti-Other policies. I’m talking fascism, except instead of being aimed at Blacks, Latinos, Asians or Arabs, their guns would be pointed at harpies, nasnās and angels.” He looked at Michael pointedly with that last word.

I turned to Penemue, wanting to get a sense of what he was saying. The twice-fallen angel nodded. “He’s telling the truth. He does want to help.”

“If you say so,” I said.

Conner nodded. “Admirable. So you want us to … what? Investigate in silence?”

“I want you to stop chaos from hitting the streets, Officer. I want you to see the Greater Good, instead of just the good.”

“You want us to lie,” Michael said.

“I want you to serve and protect. Surely that is worth an omission or two.”

Michael considered this. Being the original Boy Scout, lying did not come easily to the archangel. Actually, it didn’t come at all. But Michael, like all angels, obeyed a hierarchy of laws, with lying being pretty high up the ranks. Luckily it was just after outright carnage. Michael nodded. “Yes … yes, it is.”

Mr. Cain looked pleased. “Then if there are no further questions, I’d like to get back to my own investigations. I will share everything I find with you, and I do hope you will extend me the same courtesy.”

“If advantageous, then gladly,” Conner said. But I noticed Michael didn’t seem to share in this opinion.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less. But know that you will have full access to me and mine. Now, if there is nothing else …” Mr. Cain started to stand.

“One more thing,” I said. “Ask him if he recognizes this.” And I described the symbol that the occultists formed with their hands just before attacking.

Conner listened. Then, pressing his forefingers and thumbs together, he made a diamond shape with the empty space between his hands. Mr. Cain’s eyes widened for just a split second before he grabbed his cufflinks and his facial expression returned to neutral.

“Do you recognize this?” Conner asked.

“Yes,” Cain said, “I do. It is the sign that some harmless activists used when protesting a recent speech of mine. I dismissed it as one of those symbols that might have meant something once upon a time, like an Anonymous mask or Green Peace sign. Why?”

“It seems,” Michael said, “these activists are not as harmless as you assumed.”

↔

Mr. Cain pulled out a dossier from his briefcase and spread it out on the table. “Here,” he said. “Right now, you know very little, so I show you this to aid in your investigation. Consider it a courtesy. A courtesy I hope, as I have said, that you will give me in return.”

Michael raised an eyebrow before saying, “No.”

Mr. Cain lifted an eyebrow. “Oh? Your officer here said otherwise not one minute ago.”

“I cannot agree to those terms. What I will agree to is this: we promise to deal with the threat with the least possible damage to Memnock Securities, its reputation or its staff. We will do so not because I care about you or your company, but in the interest of the public’s peace of mind. That is the best you will get from us.”

Mr. Cain eyed the archangel for a long while before nodding. “Fallen fruit, Michael … Father always said you weren’t much of compromiser. But he also said you were fair. Very well, then—shall we?”

And with that, Mr. Cain went over the compromised locations: the military base and the Compound, which we were already familiar with, and three households, all situated on the mainland. With that done, he stood up, bidding Michael “Godspeed.” Michael dutifully nodded and bid the first child of man—and first murderer of man—farewell, instructing Conner to see him out of the building.

Michael came into the back with the envelope. Inside were the three addresses. He handed one case to me, the other to Penemue and retained the third for himself. We examined each and traded files until we’d read all three.

Each case file had the same three details: 1) the disabling of the security systems; 2) a break-in that seemingly did not use magic or computer hacking; and 3) children taken without so much as a peep. There were no fingerprints, signs of break-in or reports of children crying, screaming or making a peep of any kind. What’s more, there were no witnesses. It was as if in each case the perpetrators just walked right in.

Or the kids just walked out.

These three cases also shared a distinct difference from the security breach at the Compound—the disappearance of Sarah—where the kidnappers actually left a bit of a mess behind. But there were two things that made that particular case special: 1) by all indications, Sarah was the first kid to go missing; and 2) the monster-under-your-bed woke up her dad. If the kidnappers had had more time, they might have cleaned up after themselves—or maybe they were quick learners and adapted appropriately. But generally, teams like theirs were not so quick to adapt. They’d spent too much time preparing; to adapt so quickly would upgrade them to supervillain status—and I prayed to the GoneGods that it was that little shadow monster who mucked things up, and there wasn’t some other puzzle piece I was missing.

I put down my file and turned to Penemue. “Well, what do you think?”

He put down his own file, although he’d probably committed the whole lot to memory by now. “The writing style is atrocious and very sparse in detail. Where is the gravitas, the oomph that makes the words jump from the page?”

“Not the documents, idiot … Mr. Cain?”

“As far as I can tell”—Penemue hesitated—“he is not lying.”

“But …?” I asked.

“But there is something else going on.”

“Like what? Maybe he’s nervous. If his tech is hackable, he has a lot to lose.”

“True … but there is more to it.”

“Like what?”

“He believed what he was saying completely.”

To this, Michael groaned in that all-bass way of his that shook the room.

“So?” I asked, obviously missing something.

“So,” Penemue said, “when a human is involved in something, even marginally, they usually have some sort of self-doubt. Mr. Cain had none. He completely believes that this is not his technology’s fault and that his company has nothing to do with it. The thought that someone in his organization could betray him was completely dismissed without even a second thought. Even”—Penemue whistled and pointed up, refusing to say the name—“doubted His angels from time to time.”

“Indeed,” Michael bellowed. “Humans are incapable of experiencing anything without a part of them doubting. Even if it is only a single cell in their body, something in them will always doubt. That is the essence of faith.”

“What? To doubt?”

“To believe despite doubt,” Michael corrected me.

“OK … so no doubt. But he’s not exactly human, is he? I mean, no human lives for thousands of years. Maybe what you are interpreting as a lack of doubt is actually just one super old dude’s ways of communicating.”

“Perhaps,” Penemue mused.

“Either way, we’re not scratching him off the list. But I think we can agree that we need to explore other leads.”

Michael nodded. “Human Jean-Luc is correct. We will continue to pursue Mr. Cain, but we must also look into the mainland disappearances. I suggest that you and Conner go there. And as for Angel Penemue—we thank you for your time.”

“Actually,” I cut in, “I was kind of hoping Penemue would join us on the mainland. His talents could prove quite useful.”

“And what of his other ‘talents’?” Michael asked.

“Oh Michael, I will be on my best behavior.” Penemue held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

SAILORS, JACKALS, SUCCUBAE AND PASSPORTS

We left the precinct and headed home on foot.

Paradise Lot’s Downtown wasn’t very large, with only a Main Street and a few tributaries sprouting off the main core. I guess when you didn’t have a lot of money to spend, cafés and restaurants didn’t exactly spring up all over the place. Still, there were some staples that catered to specific clientele: the Perched Café and the Steak Stalker House; Adawin’s Playhouse and the Maze Cave; apothecaries equally stocked with Advil and St. John’s Wort; supermarkets with broccoli and bales of hay; clothing shops with super-XXXL all the way down to super-XXXS—complete with tailors to put in holes for non-human appendages such as wings and tails; and then, of course, charity shops filled with worn-out home goods, donated by humans who thought the occasional Goodwill bag would satisfy their civic duty to the Earth’s unfortunate refugees.

I sighed in dejected remorse as Penemue and I walked down the main strip. Penemue pulled a brown-bagged bottle that I was sure was Drambuie from only the GoneGods knew where and took a long, hard pull. He sighed in relief. “Oh, sweet mother of—”

“BLASPHEMY,” I boomed.

Penemue chuckled. “Indeed. But the best moments in life have a little blasphemy in them, and I swear to the GoneGods that this is one of those moments. I thought I was going to pass out from sobriety.” He took another swig and offered me the bottle.

I declined as usual and said, “OK—spill it.”

“I will. But first, tell me everything that transpired at the Tree. Everything. I sense knowing what happened there will greatly help my understanding.”

I looked up at the angel and considered this. He was a OnceImmortal being filled with knowledge both ancient and forbidden. “OK,” I said.

And then I told him everything. Absolutely everything. When I finished, the angel looked down at me and nodded. “Makes perfect sense.”

“Does it now?” I said. “OK then, sensitize me.”

“Very well … where should I start? Ah yes, our little pirate friend. She is quite the handful. Energetic, feisty, playful and completely not real.”

“Excuse me?”

“She’s not real, Jean. As in, she is a figment of an imagination.”

“Our imagination?”

“No, not our imagination. An imagination. Somewhere in this world, someone is dreaming of our Sinbad, and that dream is so vivid that the little sailor manifested in the flesh. Well, sort of in the flesh. I haven’t seen that kind of magic since the Garden.”

“What garden?”

“The Garden, Jean, where Mr. Cain’s parents originated from. You see, amongst the many gifts given to young Adam and slightly younger Eve was the ability to manifest everything their overactive yet sheltered minds could come up with. And thank all that is good and holy for that … Angels are many things, but creative we are not. Without Adam and Eve, so much of what we take for granted would never have come into being. Almonds, platypuses, blue jays and mangos … to name a few. I mean, can you imagine a world without mangos?”

I shook my head. A world without mangos would be sadder than the one we had now. That was for sure. “But then they ate the forbidden fruit which gave them the knowledge of Good and Evil, and they were kicked out. I know, I’ve read the story.”

“Indeed, Human Jean. But what your story doesn’t tell you is why they were kicked out.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Because they could not be trusted to create anymore. Imagine what the human mind would conjure with the knowledge of Good and Evil! They spent one day in the Garden with that knowledge and they created all sorts of things we can never take back.”

“Like what?”

“What would you create with that knowledge?”

I thought about it … and my mind kept going to things that were already detrimental to us: abuse, power-hungry maniacs, famine because neighboring countries didn’t share, disease-covered blankets, war. But the more I thought about it, the more my mind went to things that didn’t exist that were evil: alien slavers, crippling viruses, pools of fire, Terminator-like mosquitos who sucked us dry, pianos falling from the sky, rampaging Teletubbies. The list went on and on.

I nodded in understanding.

“Imagine what would have come into existence if they had eaten from the Tree of Life and Death. Two concepts that most gods did not understand fully … in the hands of the human imagination. Who knows what life and death would look and feel like now.” Penemue took another swig. “The Garden was the only time that I am aware of in which humans were allowed to create unencumbered. That is, until now.”

“I don’t understand. You think Sinbad was created?” I said, stopping mid-stride.

“Indeed.”

My mind immediately jumped to the anomalies. But those anomalies did not think … not really. They more reacted than acted—followed orders and fought without fear, direction or understanding. Like machines. Complex, ugly, magical machines, sure … but machines nonetheless. Sinbad was nothing like them. She had heart, she thought and fought and she experienced emotions typical of any little girl.

“GoneGodDamn,” I said. “I assumed she was a shapeshifter, taking on the form and emotions of a human child. It would have never occurred to me that she was anything else. Especially imagination.”

“It hasn’t even occurred to her, I don’t think. She thinks she is a little girl and she believes that she is Sinbad the Sailor. Question her on where she came from, how she got here, and, well, you’ve seen the results.” He lifted up his neck and exposed a bruise from his earlier altercation. “But ask her why she is here and where she is going? That is something she is all too happy to talk about.”

“And what’s that?”

“She’s on a rescue mission, Jean. It seems her little dreamer has manifested Sinbad to save her.”

I gave Penemue a Spell it out for me look.

“In other words, Sinbad is the product of a child’s imagination—one obsessed with pirates.”

“That’s basically all of them, Penemue.”

“Indeed, Jean. Indeed.”

Hellelujah!

↔

“The idea that Sinbad was actually created by some scared child to save him- or herself doesn’t make sense,” I said. “For one thing, it means that whoever is kidnapping children is exposing them to something that allows their dreams or subconscious to come to life. That is a lot of power to give children. And what’s more, if someone was doing this, how? Humans can’t burn time, nor can we access magic.”

Penemue shrugged. “I don’t know. I doubt even Michael knows. I fear the knowledge of exactly how Adam and Eve were able to create is one of the best-guarded secrets in history.”

“Sure, except … maybe Mr. Cain’s parents told him how it was done before he—you know.” I slid my finger across my throat.

“Abel was bludgeoned to death,” Penemue corrected. “And I sincerely doubt that they told Cain. They wouldn’t know. It was just something Adam and Eve could do, and then they couldn’t. At best, they could have given him a vague recollection of their time in the Garden.”

“Are you sure? He’s a smart guy. He could have gleaned some stuff from their stories and pieced the puzzle together himself. Remember, he had literally centuries to do so.”

“Again, I doubt it,” Penemue said, taking another swig. “You don’t know what it was like back then. Superstition and paranoia abounded. No way Cain would have been allowed to live forever if there was a one-percent chance that he would replicate Creation itself.”

“OK … I hear you. And what’s more, I want Mr. Cain to be innocent, as much as I dislike the guy. For one thing, the world needs someone like him, who’s trying to bring peace between us. And for another …”

“Yes?” Penemue gave me a look that said Come on, you can’t clam up just when the conversation is getting good.

“For another … I need to believe that redemption is possible.” I was referring to the hope that I could cleanse my own sordid past, of course, but what I left out was that I wanted to be able to take the ticket that Mr. Cain had offered me. I could never take it from the hands of a bad man. I could, however, take it from—to borrow Conner’s words—a good man who did bad things.

“Me too, Jean,” Penemue said, looking at his own stained hands. “Me too.”

“OK—but I’ve got one more question for you. How did Sinbad find us?”

“Ahh, that was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. Apparently she’d been walking around downtown asking if anyone saw a little girl named Sarah. On her quest, she encountered strange Others—Others who stalked into the hotel and, well, started rampaging. They attacked me and she attacked them, cutting off their heads and—”

“They turned to water and foam.”

“But not the bubble-bath stuff—more like toxic-sludge kind of froth.”

“Anomalies.”

“Exactly.”

“More Creation stuff?” I asked.

“Creation stuff? Your ability to articulate the nuances of the situation astounds me.”

“Indeed,” I said in a posh English accent. “And let me simplify the situation a wee bit more.”

“English and Scottish do not mix,” Penemue said.

I ignored the angel. “What is painfully apparent is that someone is getting into the Creation game. What’s more … whomever created those anomalies also created Sinbad. Who, and how?”

“Who would be another Other aspiring to become a god,” Penemue said.

“He would have to be very powerful, wouldn’t he? Or she?”

“And that’s just the thing: no one—not even Michael—can create. There is not a single human or Other on this planet powerful enough to do so.”

“OK, next question, then. How?”

“Again … that knowledge is gone. No one on Earth has the know-how. And even if they did, they couldn’t do it. Not without …” Penemue’s thoughts trailed off as he considered his next words.

“Not without …?” I coaxed.

“Not without understanding what it is to create,” Penemue said, his voice distant. “And that knowledge does not come easily.”

“Oh great,” I said. “Well, it’s not like there are any gods around to ask about the ins and outs of Creation.”

“Actually”—Penemue drew out the word—“there was a committee.”

“Excuse me?”

“A committee—and not all gods, too. There were nineteen of us on it.”

“ ‘Us’?” I felt like I was having one of those surreal moments robots have when they become self-aware and realize that they’re essentially nuts and bolts.

“Others. Mostly angels, but we had to expand the committee when we encountered certain issues.”

“Like what?” I did my best to sound as nonchalant as I could.

“Well, like eyebrows, for example.”

“Eyebrows?” I eyed Penemue’s bottle of Drambuie to see how much of its contents he’d drained. Not that much.

“Eyebrows keep sweat out of your eyes, as well as serving other practical functions. But angels don’t sweat, so we had no idea they were necessary. The first versions of … well … humans were constantly tripping over things because they’d get sweat in their eyes. So we outsourced that particular design element to a hobgoblin named Hajib Al-Eayn. Industrious fellow. Sweated like crazy, and he had the bushiest eyebrows you could imagine. Eventually he was promoted to be in charge of all body hair.”

“Let me start off my cross-examination with a ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ and conclude with a ‘Whatever happened to being made in His image?’ Don’t tell me you’re an evolutionist?”

“I am,” Penemue said in a matter-of-fact tone. “As are you, Jean.”

I nodded. Before the gods left, reconciling the sanctified and the irreverent was easy, with me falling into the irreverent-all-the-way camp. But after they left with their final message and the mass migration of Others to Earth, well, denying that gods existed was damn near impossible. We could no longer reconcile things like the existence of miracles, evolution versus creation, and our purpose in the universe without taking them into account.

At least, you’d think so.

Truth was, most people didn’t really change their opinions. They were either atheists or religious or spiritual or whatever overlap they could come up with in the engram of the sacred and profane.

I believed in science. Always had, always would. And my belief was that evolution was responsible for the way humans were, and the gods … well, they kind of tried to take credit.

Penemue shook his head and pulled out a second bottle. When I refused, he pushed it on me. “Take a sip. Trust me.”

I did.

“As for your first question: nineteen Others designed humans. Or rather, we designed the ultimate version of you. Secondly: evolution is real. We just created the ideal human blueprint. Then we let Nature and Chaos do their thing.”

“And let me guess … this version of us”—I gestured at myself like a model displaying a car—“isn’t the best version?”

“Oh no,” Penemue said without a hint of sarcasm. “Not even close. You guys have a long, looong way to go. No, the notion that God created man in His image is a … miscommunication. First of all, it doesn’t take women into account. You and I both know that the female version of the evolved monkey”—he pointed at me and I bowed, accepting the title on behalf of my fellow Homo sapiens—“is far closer to the divine than their brutish, often smelly male human counterpart. Second, the translation ‘in His image’ is wrong. It is ‘to be in His image’ or, if you take the progressive form, ‘to become in His image.’ ”

“I never heard that version before,” I said. “I mean, I know about the ‘iota of difference’ debate, but ‘is’ versus ‘to be’ or ‘to become’ … that’s completely new to me.”

“I know,” Penemue said. “I never heard that point being debated, either. Would have been interesting to hear it, though.” He took another gulp and then insisted I do the same. Then, in an exaggerated tone, he said, “Anyhooo … we designed the ultimate human. The perfect physical specimen who carried within them the ideal emotional and mental states. Someone who would be strong, brave and always capable of doing what is right.”

“Dr. Who?”

“Yes, Human Jean,” Penemue said with an exasperated sigh. “We designed Dr. Who.”

“Sorry, couldn’t resist. So when was this ‘ultimate human’ going to come about?”

“Oh … never. It was a state to aspire to, not a possibility. And that was the point of this blueprint: to keep you constantly improving, in every sense of the word.”

“Keep evolving.”

“Indeed,” the angel concurred. Penemue stumbled, his joints over-lubricated by his constant suckling of Drambuie.

“So, the perfect being, huh? And you, in all your once-sober glory, were a part of designing it?”

“Indeed.”

“And what in the GoneGods’ name were you in charge of?”

“The soul, mostly. Oh, and the liver. I was inspired to create that after a chance encounter with the designer for the catfish—water’s little filters.”

I suppressed an ironic laugh and shook my head. “OK—what did you do exactly?”

“With what?”

“The soul? You’re bringing this up for a reason, so what is it?”

Penemue hesitated. “I … I can’t tell you.”

“Oh, come on! Divine secrets are no more. Just spill it.”

“I can’t. I’m bound by Divine Law never to speak about what I know.”

I said nothing.

“I signed a divine non-disclosure agreement. To tell you what I know would cause my head to explode. And I don’t mean that figuratively. I can only speak of it in broad terms and—”

“Don’t give me that crap. The gods are gone! Your Celestial NDA is null and void. It’s got to be!”

“In theory, yes … but the person I signed the agreement with is still on Earth.”

“Who?”

“Archangel Michael.”

“Ah, I see—and given what a stickler Michael is, there’s no way I’m going to get permission to know what you know.”

“Indeed.”

“Crap. OK … broadly speaking, then. How does your knowledge of the soul’s design help us now?”

“I believe what I know will help uncover this current evil’s ultimate plan.”

“But you can’t tell me. And the one guy who can free you to tell me, won’t.”

“Indeed. But despair not—I know a guy. One of the nineteen. Of all the beings on Earth, he would have the most knowledge as to what creation is. He is also the one who will most likely be free to speak.”

“And he’s in Paradise Lot?”

“Metatron. Yes, he’s on the lower east side.”

“Megatron? He lives in Paradise Lot?” I put an exaggerated look of fanboy excitement on my face.

“Megatron? No … Metatron. He’s a Virtue, a divider and a fixer of boundaries. Instrumental skills when designing humans.”

“So, not Megatron. Bummer.”

“Human Jean, I do not know this Megatron of whom you speak. Is he also an angel?”

“No, more of a gun.”

Penemue gave me a blank stare. “You are referring to one of your toys, aren’t you?”

“More of a collector’s item.”

“So a toy.”

“Yep, a toy.”

“Very well, then. If you are finished bringing unnecessary levity to the situation, shall we go find Metatron?”

I nodded. “Sure. What was this Metatron in charge of, anyway?”

“Everything,” Penemue said. “Think of him as the project manager of the universe.”

ELEVATORS AND ANGELS

Penemue and I made our way to the east side of the island—something that would have been much easier with my Road Runner, a fact which made me groan in misery with every mile traveled. Yet another thing that Paradise Lot had taken from me.

We finally made it to Metatron’s building after two bus rides and a short yet embarrassing flight in which Penemue cradled me in his arms as if I were some bride being escorted over the threshold. It was one of those rundown, subsidized apartment complexes—a drab, unkempt exterior that lacked all personality or vibrancy, ceilings made of asbestos (all the rage in the ’70s, like “cancerous popcorn” was fashionable in any era).

“Are you sure this guy will know something?” I said. It was easy to doubt a person’s wisdom or capabilities when they lived in a building like this.

Penemue pulled out his bottle and took a deep swig. “He’ll know something.” We took three steps up to the building’s glass door entrance. Once inside, we found our way into a narrow hallway with graffiti so old its random streaks of red and blue and black were fading back into white. And to think, this creature once inhabited the highest echelons of Heaven.

Halfway down the hall was an elevator. I called it down and opened the accordion metal door, but the second I stepped in, I knew there was no way Penemue would be able to fit inside by himself, let alone beside me. “What floor does he live on?”

“Nineteen,” the twice-fallen angel groaned as he headed for the stairwell. “Nineteen Others consulted on the creation of man … He lives on the nineteenth floor …” Penemue shook his head. “Nineteen is a big number for Metatron.”

↔

I could have been an asshole and taken the elevator up to the ninetieth floor and waited for Penemue at the top. I could have even exercised my obnoxious muscle to the max and gone up ten flights, met him on the stairwell to cheer him on, before getting back into the elevator and riding up the next nine flights. The GoneGods knew that Penemue had annoyed me enough over the years—a bit of payback would be well-deserved. But in the end, I decided that annoying an eight-foot-tall angel before meeting another angel who was pretty much responsible for creation itself was a bad idea.

Besides, he was my friend. So I sucked it up and walked with him, sans elevator.

We meandered our way up the first six flights of more graffiti, broken beer bottles and discarded needles and—“Arrgh!” I exclaimed—used condoms. On the seventh floor we paused to take a breather, which resulted in me catching my breath and Penemue topping up his energy with another shot of honey-rich Drambuie, before climbing another three flights.

After that we pretty much stopped every ten steps or so as I cursed myself for not going the asshole’s route and taking the damn elevator.

But eventually we made it all the way up. Key word there: eventually.

“You know,” Penemue said between breaths, “going down is a lot easier. Take it from someone who has fallen. A lot.”

I would have laughed, except there was no breath in me with which to do so. Once my heart slowed down to a brisk jog, I nodded to the angel. We opened the door leading onto the nineteenth-floor landing and trudged to Metatron’s door. Penemue started to knock, but stopped, his fist hovering centimeters from the door.

“Jean,” he said, “whatever happens inside, do me a favor.”

“What’s that?” I asked, sucking in a deep breath. I noticed the elevator was right by Metatron’s door. Regret filled my pumping heart.

“Don’t look this guy in the eye. Trust me.”

“Really?”

“Really,” the angel said, and knocked on the door. There was a sudden noise on the other side and then the door burst open.

As in, exploded outward. Splinters and the force of the explosion threw us against the opposite wall. As I hit the wall with a lung-emptying thud, I guessed looking this guy in the eye was the least of my problems.

Hellelujah!

↔

Crunched up and in pain, my back against the wall, I looked past the splintered threshold to see—you guessed it—Evil-and-Cute. She strolled out into the dusty hall and stood over the angel. She held a curved short sword, an ancient acinaces blade, in one hand—

—and Metatron’s friggin’ head in the other.

Judging by the sheer enormity of his eyes, which took up over half his face, I got what Penemue meant … You’ve heard the expression “all forehead”? Well, he was “all eye.” Even dead, those massive orbs stared at me with such intensity that it felt like he was deconstructing my soul.

Evil-and-Cute sneered at me, turned and tossed Metatron’s head out the window like she was throwing a tantrum, or displaying her strength—or both.

It smashed through the glass like a bowling ball. With it gone, she cocked her head back to look at me over her shoulder. “Jean,” she said. “You’re here.” There was no surprise in her voice, no “Oh, you caught me in the middle of a murder!” It was all, I’ve been expecting you. And then it hit me: she’d been waiting for me to show up. She even knew exactly when to set off the explosion and blow the door up to knock us off our feet.

Which meant that someone had been watching us from the hallway.

I had exactly three seconds to react, which was about two seconds behind Penemue, who grabbed me by my shoulder and threw me bodily at Evil-and-Cute—as if I were some kind of weapon and not his best friend—before wrapping himself in his wings. Bullets ripped from both sides of the hallway; I guess these guys didn’t care about getting caught in the crossfire.

I’d seen Penemue’s wings shield him from lightning strikes, blades and a particularly angry nasnās’s fists, so I figured bullets wouldn’t do much. Fortunately, I was right. The little lead projectiles hit his wings with no effect and ricocheted everywhere—including the room I was now in.

I took a quick look around the studio flat and smashed through the bathroom door, jumping into the tub. Evidently Evil-and-Cute had the same idea and, given she was faster than me, she’d got there first. I was lying on top of her, our faces inches apart.

“I don’t suppose this is the part where we kiss?” I drawled.

She sneered up at me. “How is it that you can engage in mirth when your death is so close, Jean?”

“The closer death is, the more important it is to laugh,” I said—and I meant it. “And death is always close.” I meant that, too.

She nodded, and the room went silent. Evidently Evil-and-Cute’s minions had finally realized bullets weren’t going to do diddly-shit to a friggin’ angel.

I could feel her take a breath to speak. “Then perhaps it is time I told you a joke … What did the bee say to the annoying man?”

She pushed me off her with super-human strength, hard enough to literally throw me against the ceiling. I fell down, raining asbestos particles with me, but instead of landing on her (comparably) soft body, she got up with preternatural speed and I hit the porcelain tub. Hard.

“Buzz off!” she cackled.

“Ow,” I said, sitting up. “I don’t think you know what a joke is, lady.”

Before I could get to my feet, she kicked me in the forehead, forcing me back into the tub.

“No fair,” I groaned. I planned my escape this time by kicking my feet over the edge like a pole-vaulter, my fist ready to punch her where it could land. Except my fist flew through empty air; Evil-and-Cute was already out of the room.

I heard a yelp and a smash from out in the hall. Penemue growled, then yelled, “Jean, get into the living room. Now!”

I leapt out of the room, expecting to see Evil-and-Cute and her gang of minions closing in, but instead, Penemue dive-tackled me and the two of us went tumbling through the living room and out the shattered window.

Hellelujah!

↔

When we made it out of the window, he swooped down and I saw two more anomalies with limbs that weren’t arms, legs, wings or pincers, but looked more like digger equipment and shovels. They had Metatron’s head in their hands, raising it up to us in a taunting manner. Penemue didn’t stop; he just flew as fast and as hard as he could, heading directly for tree cover.

↔

We flew for ten minutes before Penemue set down on a patch of green a couple blocks away from Paradise Lot’s downtown. On the ground, my feet wobbly and refusing to cooperate, I turned to Penemue and said, “They were waiting for us.”

“Perhaps it was a coincidence. We happened to stumble upon them interrogating Metatron—”

“No. They’re following me. Keeping tabs. And when they saw us speaking, they knew you’d bring up the committee and lead me to Metatron’s apartment.”

“Are you sure?” Penemue took a quick sip of Drambuie from a bottle that miraculously hadn’t shattered in the explosion. “A bit cocky of you, in my opinion.”

“Think about it. The desert, the anomalies coming to the hotel—it’s all connected. They want me out of the picture.”

“Why?”

“Remember Pan, that sadistic satyr asshole? He chose the Millennium Hotel because I was the guy who killed the Avatar of Gravity. He called me a hero of this world … a player that must be dealt with. I’ve stopped two apocalypses, my wife briefly reopened Heaven, I killed a creature that by all accounts was a god and I was the Scourge of Others. Whether deserved or not, these baddies think I’m a major player. And …”

“And what?”

“And what do you do when you’re being hunted?”

“I’ve never been hunted,” Penemue said.

“Well, I have. And the only way not to be hunted … is to hunt.”

“Profound,” Penemue said with all the sincerity of a feather duster. “But the last I checked, you don’t know where they are.”

“True, but you’re forgetting the ace up our sleeve.” I took Penemue’s bottle and downed a big gulp. The sickly-sweet liquor went down heavy. “Yuk—how can you drink this stuff?”

Penemue took back the bottle with a more for me gesture. “You were saying something about an ace up one’s garments?”

“Sleeve. And not an ace—a pirate.”

Penemue took another large gulp of Drambuie. “Argh,” he agreed.

↔

“She’s drawn to them. She has to be.”

I sat on the grass as Penemue leaned against a tree.

“To other anomalies,” Penemue agreed, “most certainly. She senses them, as they must sense her. Difference is, she is sentient and seeks them out. They are mindless monsters that only do their master’s bidding. What’s more, she is connected to whomever created her. The closer she gets to said creator, the more she will be able to sense and find him. Or her.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive,” Penemue said, pulling out his phone and looking at it.

I ran my hand through my hair. “OK … we’ll need to tell Conner to get an extra ticket.”

“Done.”

“What? When?”

“Just now,” he said. “Would have done it sooner, but … well, one can text, walk and talk at the same time. Flying and texting, however, is something I do not recommend.”

“And he agreed?”

At that moment Penemue’s phone beeped. He frowned down at the screen. “No, he does not agree. Hold on …” He typed something in and hit send. About six seconds later his phone beeped. “There, done.”

“What did you write?”

“I typed ‘Miral,’ ‘remember what,’ ‘have faith,’ ‘Jean’ and ‘in’ … But not in that order.”

I groaned. This so-called “faith” in me was beginning to wear thin, I was sure, but it seemed to work for Conner. Either he really did have faith in me, or Miral had him wrapped around her little finger. I suspected it was a bit of both.

Penemue put his phone away. “The bigger issue is that we cannot tell Conner about Sinbad.”

“Why not?”

“Because right now we’re throwing darts in the dark. Everything we’ve got are half-theories and far-fetched hypotheses.”

“So?”

“So, if we tell him that we believe Sinbad was created by human will, he might tell Miral … or worse, Michael.” Penemue drained the rest of his bottle and tossed it in a nearby trash can before wiping his mouth with the tip of his wing. “Creation is not something humans should be able to do, and the very notion will make both Michael and Miral rather uncomfortable. They’ll want to get involved—and not in a save-the-children kind of way. Trust me … there are certain buttons you don’t push with angels of their ilk. Human-driven creation is at the top of the list.”

I nodded. Penemue was right; Conner might be able to keep a secret from Michael, but Miral was a different story altogether. Right now, she would only serve to slow the investigation down. I didn’t care about creation or what humans should or should not be able to do. All I cared about was getting those kids home as quickly as possible … and maybe taking Cain up on his offer.

“OK,” I said. “We’ll do our best not to tell him.”

“He’ll play along,” Penemue said. “For a while.”

“There’s still one more problem … two grown men and an angel traveling with an undocumented little girl is bound to raise some eyebrows.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“Why not?”

“I know another guy who knows a guy … I can get some documents for Sinbad lickety-split.” Penemue winked at me. “Uncle Jean.”

And before I could protest, he took to the sky.

↔

With Penemue gone, I pulled out my phone and called General Shouf. She answered on the first ring with a grating, “Jean … where have you been?”

“Hello to you, too,” I said. “And how long have you been working for Mr. Cain?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Working for Mr. Cain—how long?”

General Shouf’s breathing on the other end of the line sounded more like beer bottles shattering than actual breaths. General Shouf was an aigamuchab, and aigamuxa were incapable of lying. That was possibly the only reason the Army trusted her: simply ask her every now and then if she was planning to betray the human Army and she was bound to tell the truth, no matter how damning it was to her. But even though she was incapable of lying, she could omit certain facts. From how long she paused, I knew she was carefully considering her answer.

“A year now,” she finally answered. “Except to say that I am working for him is a gross exaggeration. If anything, he works for me … sells to me. I am in charge of Army procurement.”

So that was the connection. I scolded myself for not seeing it earlier. Of course General Shouf would be in charge of commissioning anti-Other weapons. As an Other herself, she had a unique insight into what made them tick. And what’s more, she couldn’t lie to protect her kind.

“And let me guess … the anomaly program. That was one of your more recent ‘procurements’?”

“Yes,” she shattered.

“And that program … what, went missing? Was stolen? Lead scientist kidnapped?”

“Decommissioned. After you left the unit. And then the team simply disbanded. No stolen data or lost scientists.”

“After I left the unit?”

“This is old news, Jean. We haven’t experimented with anomalies since you killed them all. You are the reason the project failed.”

“But someone is obviously trying to replicate the program. Someone got the specs and is experimenting again.”

Shouf let out a deep breath like pennies pouring into a glass jar. “Yes, but we do not know how. Our inquiries tell us that the files have not been accessed since you were on the program.”

“And so when you called the Paradise Lot PD last night, you did so as a Memnock Securities employee?”

“I merely informed their headquarters of the breach and that they should get an armed response there ASAP. Perfect camouflage, as those facilities used to be under my command. It was only natural that I would be alerted and concerned.”

“I see. OK, but what is the connection to the missing kids?”

“Kids?” she chimed, and I was surprised to hear confusion in her tone.

“Yes, kids … as in, human children who are missing.”

“I know of no connection,” she shattered. She paused. “Nor do I know of how there could be a connection. Anomalies are created and driven by a combination of magic and technology. Children are worthless little beings which have less than a nineteen-percent chance of growing into something useful.”

“Someone,” I corrected. “Someone useful. OK, one last question: does Mr. Cain know that you are blackmailing me into your service?”

“No.”

That answer took me back. I was sure they were connected. “Don’t lie.”

“You know I cannot.”

“Does he know we have been in contact?” I asked.

“Not from me.”

“That doesn’t answer my question … Does he know we’ve been in contact?”

“I do not know. He is a man of considerable means and he may very well have found out. After all, I doubt the sudden appearance of the anomalies has escaped his attention. If he does know, it is because you are either under his surveillance or by other means altogether.”

“Got it.”

“Jean … the anomalies. Tell me if—”

I hung up the phone and continued down the road to my home.

↔

So this was it. Shouf was blackmailing me, Michael was forcing me to be an active member of Paradise Lot PD and Mr. Cain wanted to hire me. Two of the three players were unaware of each other, and one—a certain Mr. Cain—was aware of everyone.

He knew I had been behind the glass during his interrogation—that was why he looked at it when adjusting his cufflinks. He was aware that I had taken note of them at the Other Place; by making such a show of them in the mirror, he was doing so not for his own vanity, but as a message to me. I know you’re there, it said. And from how he reacted, he approved. He may be a shrewd businessman, capable of questionable practices, but I believed him when he said he wanted to make things better. Somehow, my presence behind the glass was part of that plan.

And as for Shouf … it couldn’t have been a coincidence that Mr. Cain approached me only weeks after Shouf put me on her radar. Shouf was right—Cain knew about the anomalies, he knew I’d worked on the program once upon a time and he knew I was well equipped to deal with it now.

Hire me outright to help with both situations, or trust that the natural politics of Paradise Lot would force me into the center of it. Either way, he had his head of human security on the case. This case was starting to feel like the longest and most painful job interview in history.

As I headed to the hotel, I went through my mental checklist, comforted by the thought that my day—hell, my week—simply could not get worse. There were a few things I needed to do before our trip to the mainland. A few Others I needed to speak to.

You know what they say: “The road to hell is paved with optimism.”

Well, maybe they don’t. But I do.

As that thought finished rattling around in my brain, a powerful clawed hand grabbed me by the shoulder and dragged me into an alleyway.

“Hellelu—!”

But that was all I could get out before I was promptly and unceremoniously thrown against the wall.

JACKAL-GUARDS AND EYES AND GHOSTS AND SUCCUBAE AND HARLEQUIN ROMANCE COVER MODELS

I hit the bricks with a thud, wincing in pain. When my eyes opened, they focused on a dog’s head. Not a dog … a jackal. This was one of Anubis’s guards. Half-jackal, half-human, these guys were rare—only seven were known to have survived the GrandExodus—and they were powerful. This one wore a trench coat, but under it I could see the traditional ancient Egyptian garb: white skirt, vest and large pendant in the shape of an eye around his neck.

“Human,” he sniffed. “You are human. But you have their stink on you. All over.” He drew in a deep breath and his eyes went red with rage. “Where is he? Where is the boy?!” he howled.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I groaned, still winded.

But the way he snarled, menacing canine teeth bared, I realized he wasn’t into listening to reason. I swung my arm down hard on the joint of his elbow. The blow forced his arms to lower and as soon as my feet were on the ground again, I kicked. Hard. And right in the—to coin a British expression—bullocks.

The creature, whose lower half thankfully had the same anatomy as a man, yelped in pain and let me go. I started to pivot away, not wanting to be sandwiched between him and the wall, when he grabbed me and, with more strength than I imagined possible in such a skinny body, threw me thirty feet farther into the alley and against a chicken wire fence with barbed wire at the top. This one took a bit longer to recover from, but by the time I’d dragged myself off the ground I’d confirmed my fears: no easy way to continue.

So I turned to fight.

The jackal-guard crossed his arms so that his right hand rested on his left shoulder, his left hand on his right shoulder. Then he approached me slowly, his teeth bared. “I am Aau. Before the gods left, I was guard of the Fifth Hour. Now I am guard of the boy across the way: Elliot. I watch over him, protect him. This is my vow. You and yours stole the boy last night. I will return him to his home, where he can continue his games of picking up things and putting them down, where he proudly soils his pants and waits for his mother to change him. Where he can smile at me from across the way.”

He pointed up at a window on the third floor, where a child’s drawing was taped. I could just see from here that it was a rudimentary picture of the jackal-guard himself. I looked at the window directly opposite and saw an incense burner with Egyptian carvings hanging in the window frame. So that was what was going on. This jackal-guard—Aau—lived across the alley from Elliot, another kidnapped kid. Being a creature whose instincts were to defend, he saw the boy as his to protect.

And I had the stink of the kidnapper all over me.

“Listen to me,” I said, holding up my hands. “I have nothing to do with his disappearance. I am investigating a kidnapping myself. A girl named Sarah. She was taken two days ago—”

Aau took a deep breath. “LIAR!” he howled. Before I could say anything else, he removed his scythe from his belt and charged.

Hellelujah!

↔

I tried to duck under Aau’s scythe and get behind him, but the damn jackal-guard anticipated that I’d do exactly that. Guy was good at his job, I’ll give him that. Using his other hand, he grabbed my neck and threw me against the wire fence. Again.

The fence jingled as my back slammed against it—a far too subtle sound, given how much it hurt. I winced, but got up to face the jackal-guard as quickly as I could. I guessed he’d try to stab me or, worse, decapitate me with his scythe. I was getting ready to tumble out of the way when the creature of Anubis did something I didn’t expect: he pulled off the amulet he’d been wearing and tossed it at me.

Figuring it to be a harmless necklace, I caught it midair—and that was when the world around me started to fade …

… and was replaced by another world altogether.

No, world was not the right word for it.

Time. That’s what changed. Whatever he did to me caused the present to dissolve and the past to burst through the floodgates.

First I was transported to my childhood, when my PopPop took care of me. I was in the kitchen—I had gotten into a fight at school and PopPop was scolding me. I got angry and told him to go away. I screamed that he was not my father, just a sad old man who couldn’t even save his own daughter—my mother—from dying. And as I screamed at him, I did not feel my own rage, but rather his pain at my words. Sure, they were just careless words uttered by an angry kid, but they hurt him deeply. As I continued to yell them, I wished to all the GoneGods I could stop my younger self from being such a hurtful brat. But I couldn’t stop myself. Instead, I was forced to endure my PopPop’s pain.

Time shifted and I began to feel all the pain I caused Bella when we were dating. Again, little stupid stuff done by an insensitive boyfriend and, later, an insensitive husband. I also felt Judith and her anxiety over our relationship. I felt how she wanted nothing but the best for Bella and how, in her (correct) estimation, I was far from the best.

But all that was the pain I caused others when the gods were still around.

After they left was another story altogether.

As time progressed yet again, I realized that my little episodes with PopPop, Bella and Judith were only the warm-up to what was to come.

What came next can only be described as a thousand deaths, all experienced by the Others I hunted and killed in the first years they arrived. My first kill was that of a golem whom my unit had cornered in an abandoned building near where we had been deployed. We trapped it on the third floor and since I was the newbie, it was my job to go inside and end the poor creature’s life.

As I walked into the room, it hunkered in a corner. I felt its heart race. I knew its confusion and endured its fury at being cornered.

Inside, and face to face with it, I could sense its fear turn into resolve and then malice. If it was going to die this day, then maybe it could take one of the cruel humans with it. I felt it embolden. As it charged at me, I pulled my rifle’s trigger and it went down. I felt that, too.

As it bled out, I felt its regret; I felt it wish that it had tried to talk to a human. And as the last of its life went out of it, I felt its sadness as it uttered a curse at the gods for being so callous as to abandon their creations.

That was the first kill I made. There were more to come—hundreds—and with each pull of my trigger or swing of my sword, I first felt their fear, their anger, their confusion and, finally, their pain.

A thousand deaths all experienced in rapid succession. Even though my body was unharmed, feeling all that pain, all that fear … I could do nothing but fall to my knees and pray that either this ended, or I did. Either way, I would have done anything for this to be over.

↔

I did not end. Instead the images and pain slowly subsided and, when the montage of my own personal hell finally finished, I looked up at him through tear-soaked eyes. “What …? What did you do to me?”

“The Eye of Fire. It forces you to relive the suffering you caused your victims exactly as they experienced it. Human, you have caused many much pain. However, you did not take the boy who lives across the alleyway.

“But you smell like the creatures who took him. Creatures unlike any I have seen or smelled before. I fought them off, but there were too many. I killed two and upon their deaths, they dissolved into a puddle right where you now kneel. On the third, I used the Eye, but the Eye did not work on it. So I killed it, and it too dissolved. It felt no remorse. No pain. No guilt. Either it was an innocent, or it was not …”

“Not what?”

“Not anything.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, wobbling to my feet.

“Not anything,” the jackal-guard repeated. “Not alive, not dead. Nothing.”

“I’ve heard,” I said, rubbing my temple. My head was woozy from whatever he did to me, and I think it was affecting my ability to understand. But I did understand one thing: this Other, he knew something about the kidnapped kids. In fact, he’d just confirmed that these cultists didn’t just kidnap Sarah, but there were other children that we didn’t know about. I would deal with whatever this jackal-guard and strange Eye thing did to me later. For now, I needed to focus on what he knew.

“Only that which has no soul can resist the Eye. A husk, a hollow creature. Whatever these beings are, they are—”

“Anomalies.”

He looked down at me curiously, his head tilting to one side like a dog. It was almost cute. Almost.

“Never mind,” I said, finally finding my feet and standing. “Hollow creatures. I’m with you now. Question is … how do we find them and kill ’em?”

↔

Aau and I exchanged numbers—an odd thing to do with someone who’d just bared your soul with the use of jewelry—and agreed to keep each other current on our investigations. The way I saw it, I could use a creature like Aau’s help getting into any hold-up that these hollow beings had.

With that done, I had direction to my investigation. It wasn’t one little child who was gone. It was children—and that -ren made things much, much worse for whoever was behind this.

↔

Back at the hotel, I nursed my eye with some ice I got from the hotel’s oversized, understocked kitchen. I went up to EightBall’s room and knocked.

“Come in,” EightBall said.

I walked in to see that EightBall had traded his usual PlayStation controller for a book, which he was reading with Sinbad as Judith hovered about drinking from a Batman mug.

I looked at her and then the cup and then back at her, and smiled. “Holy hot piping tea, Batman,” I exclaimed.

“Oh please,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It was all the boy had. Besides, I like the Batman.”

“No, you don’t,” Sinbad said, pointing an accusing finger at Judith. “First of all, it’s ‘Batman,’ not ‘the Batman.’ Right, EightBall?”

EightBall nodded. “Right.”

“And also, you said that if Jean wasn’t such a kid himself, maybe EightBall here would have a proper role model to look up to. Didn’t she, EightBall?”

EightBall dutifully nodded to this, too.

“Tattletale,” Judith said, and she stuck out a playful tongue.

Sinbad giggled and gave me a big smile. “Hi, Mr. Jean. Welcome home!” With that done, she went back to her book.

“Hey, Sinbad,” I said. “I hear you’re on an important mission.”

“You betcha!” she said. “I’m looking for Sarah, but I can’t feel her right now. She’s gone. So I’m waiting until I feel her again and then I’ll be off to find her.”

“OK,” I said. “That sounds like a good plan.” I figured as much. The occultists knew we were looking for them; they would be doing whatever they could to hide themselves and the children. That included standard forensics as well as magical tricks. Line a wall with the right combination of metals, herbs and minerals, and there wasn’t enough time on Earth that could be burnt to find them. Whatever they lined their walls with also prevented Sinbad from being able to sense Sarah.

But, much like a TBM counter, you could work around it. My watch spun faster if it was simply near magic—even hours later. I figured that Sinbad’s connection to Sarah worked the same way. Get her close enough to wherever Sarah was, or maybe just near one of the occultists, and she’d be able to pick up the trail.

“Hey, Sinbad,” I said, crouching near her. “How about you and I go look for Sarah? Maybe if we get close enough to her, you’ll be able to feel her again.”

Sinbad considered this and nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.” Without hesitation, she leapt off the chair and into my arms.

“Whoa, little one,” I said, putting her down. “We’ll go soon, I promise. But first, we’ve got to get ready.”

“But I’m ready now.”

I eyed her.

“O-kayyy,” she said in an exaggerated tone. “I’ll go … just in case.” Sinbad leapt up from her seat and ran to the bathroom.

As soon as Sinbad closed the door, Judith floated over to me. “Where are you taking her?” She used her typical judgmental tone I had hoped she’d left behind in Australia. Apparently not.

“You know why she’s here?” I asked.

Judith nodded. “Penemue told me his theory, but—”

“It’s not just Sarah. There are at least three more kids that we know of … and I suspect that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

“But—”

“That’s at least five kids who are scared and alone, probably more, and Sinbad over there may be our only connection to finding them.”

“Yes, but—”

“The other kids were all on the mainland. I’m going to investigate, but I need to take her with me just in case she can sense anything.”

We heard a flush, a short burst of water from the faucet and then Sinbad came out of the bathroom. “All done,” she announced.

Judith floated down to her and gave her a big hug. “Good girl.” Judith adjusted Sinbad’s hat. “You and Mr. Jean are going on an adventure. It’s going to be fun, and it’s going to be safe.” She looked up at me, fire and fear in her eyes. “Safe. You’re going to find Sarah and then you and I are going to have tea together.”

“High-noon tea,” Sinbad giggled.

“You bet ya,” Judith said, pinching her nose. “You know, you remind me of my little girl. She was just as brave and smart as you.”

“That’s good,” Sinbad said before her little eyes widened with an idea. “Hey, maybe your little girl could join us on our adventure? It could be a party.”

Judith sighed and hugged Sinbad again. “Maybe next time, little one. Maybe next time.”

↔

Prying Sinbad from Judith’s arms proved difficult. Seems that having a feisty little girl in the ghost of my mother-in-law’s life again was bringing out long-suppressed issues. Still, it was good seeing the softer side of Judith. She could be a gentle soul—when she wasn’t hell-bent on making my life miserable, of course.

“I’ll take care of her,” I reassured Judith as we all shuffled out onto the floor landing.

From the railing, Sinbad spotted Penemue standing in the lobby. Without a second thought, she leapt over the railing and fell straight down the seven stories until Penemue caught her. “Yippie!” Sinbad said.

“Sinbad!” Judith had rushed to the railing, but she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Sinbad safe in Penemue’s arms.

She turned to me with a look that could have melted steel.

I shrugged. “See? Safe.”

↔

Penemue called up to me, still holding Sinbad. “Conner called the hotel lobby. Our flight is in three hours and he’s on his way to pick us up.”

“Did you get her ID?”

“Yep.” He pulled it from a fold in his wings and handed it to Sinbad. “That’s you,” he said in an exaggerated kid’s tone.

“Good … just one more thing to do before we go,” I said and walked down to the third floor, where I knocked on Astarte’s door.

↔

The succubus opened her door dressed in electrical tape. At least, I think it was electrical tape—it was hard to tell. All I knew was what I saw: black strips of adhesives barely covering the essential parts of her model-thin body. I took a double-take, then a triple-, every cell in my body surging with desire.

But then I did what I always do when Astarte throws my hormones into overdrive: I reminded myself that Astarte wasn’t a she. Not necessarily. Being a succubus and demigoddess of lust, Astarte was the embodiment of desire to every creature who roamed the GoneGod World. That meant that depending on your desires, Astarte was a she, a he or an it. Somewhere out there, she looked like a big pile of tentacles—that was what makara creatures were into—suckers and all. I know this because she told me.

She tells me waaay too much.

Before the gods left, Astarte lived off energy collected from, well, sex—and a lot of it. Now that the gods were gone, she used sex to get money, which bought her food, shelter and, evidently, black electrical tape. In other words, the only complication the gods’ departure caused in Astarte’s life was the occasional grocery shopping trip.

“Yes, Jean?” Her voice carried with it a hint of a Parisian accent because, once upon a time, I made the mistake of telling her I had a thing for French women.

“Hi, Astarte,” I stammered. “I’m sorry to disturb, but, uh, I really …” I looked past her into her room, where instead of the typical orgy, I saw a chair sitting in front of a green screen. There were several cameras pointed at it, and behind a computer screen sat Brian—Astarte’s IT support—his jacket surreptitiously draped over his lap. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Empire building,” Astarte said.

“Astarte’s weekly blog,” Brian jumped in, banging away on his keyboard. Once upon a time, Brian used to work for some ultra-elite tech firm doing something quite high-end—although what exactly that was, I never found out. All I knew was that Brian wasn’t just a super-geek—he was the king of all super-geeks, hacker-extraordinaire, and currently employed by Astarte, who paid him next to nothing. Still, her benefits package was hard to beat.

“And the green background?” I asked.

“So we can superimpose any image we like there. You know … CGI stuff.”

“And what exactly are you superimposing?”

At this question, Brian giggled. “Fans send in videos of themselves, you know, doing stuff. And we put it in the background to give the illusion that they’re doing it in Astarte’s presence.”

“Computer-graphical sex?” I asked, looking at Astarte.

“Yes,” she said, exasperated. “I couldn’t be everywhere at once … until now.” She closed the door behind her and grabbed my gaping jaw with her other hand. “Now, how can I help you?”

↔

I told her everything. Mr. Cain, the anomalies, the kids … I even gave her the locations of the kidnappings. Every little detail I could think of, I shared, not because Astarte was some super-powered detective or because she was my confidant. I told her because she was a creature quite literally older than sin, and her network of horny, sex-crazed followers was multitudinous. One of them was bound to know something.

I hoped.

“OK,” she said, taking it all in. “I will see what I can unearth.”

“Good. And put Brian on it, too.”

“Very well,” Astarte said. She turned but paused, her Otherly mind considering something. “You know, Jean, anyone—or anyOther—who kidnaps children could be doing so for only one reason …”

“Really? Which is …?”

Astarte looked at me. “They are trying to tap into ancient power.”

“What? Like a sacrifice?”

She shook her head. “That may be how they unleash the power once they have it, but no. A child is pure, innocent. And that is power.”

“Why?”

“Because they have a capacity for faith that no human adult could ever hope to achieve. Think about what Matthew 17:20 says …” She ran her hand along my jacket and plucked a piece of lint off it, holding it in front of my face. “ ‘If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move.’ ” She blew the lint out of her fingers. “ ‘Nothing will be impossible to you.’ Do you know any adult capable of such faith? Even I cannot get such total devotion—and I offer my followers eternity captured in a single, climax-induced moment.”

I gulped.

Astarte gave me a look that said she knew exactly how to offer me eternity, then shrugged. We’d done this dance enough for her to know I wasn’t about to succumb. She turned to her room, pausing at the door again. “There’s one more thing, Jean … In my many years as Queen of Lust, I have only denied five creatures from entering my temple.” By the way Astarte said the word temple, I gathered she didn’t just mean where she used to live. “Four were creatures of vilest order, too debase to mention here. The fifth … was Cain.”

“He couldn’t have been that bad.”

“The Devil was always welcome in my temple.”

“Oh … OK, fine. But that was then. This is now. People change.”

“Perhaps,” Astarte said. “But by how much?”

Before I could answer, the bell above the turnstile door rang as the word Human chimed in my ear. Astarte looked down at the foyer and with a groan full of desire, uttered, “Now, he is a man I would never deny.” I looked down to see Conner standing in the foyer in a baseball cap and pilot sunglasses.

“We going?” Conner called up to me.

“You are going,” Astarte whispered to me. “And I will soon be com—”

“Yes, we’re going!” I screamed. “We’re going.”

Hellelujah!

KIDS AND PLANES AND BUSES

Conner drove us to the airport in a squad car, into the back of which Penemue scrunched with all the expertise of one who has squeezed into the back of many squad cars. Once settled, Sinbad joined him.

As Sinbad got in, Conner shot me a look that said, What’s up with the kid?

I shrugged in response.

“Really?” Conner said.

“Really,” I said, opening the passenger side door, and got in.

“So,” Conner said, adjusting his rearview mirror to get a better look at her, “what’s your name, little girl?”

Sinbad blushed.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“No,” she giggled, digging her face into Penemue’s wings. We heard more muffled giggling.

“She’s my cousin,” I added with a bit too much enthusiasm.

Conner gave me a sideways glance. “Your cousin have a name?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Which is …?”

“Sinbad.”

“Sinbad?”

“Sinbad Matthias.”

“Sinbad … Matthias?”

“What can I say? Her parents were obsessed with One Thousand and One Arabian Nights.”

“Uh-huh,” Conner said. “And your cousin’s parents … where are they now?”

“On the mainland.”

“And you’re taking her home?”

Penemue leaned forward and laced his taloned fingers through the squad car divide. “Conner,” he said, “the fewer questions, the smoother this will go.”

“OK,” Conner said, shaking his head. “Smooth it is, then.”

↔

Once upon a time, the Paradise Lot airport serviced flights from almost every country in the world. It even boasted that every major airline had a VIP lounge within its massive complex. With forty-six departure and arrival gates, it was one of the biggest airports in the world … once upon a time. These days, Paradise Lot’s airport was a very different story.

Walking into its massive main hall, one saw closed check-in counters, unserviced money exchanges, car rental agencies and empty bookstores. Seems that when the Others came, commerce left—and in a hurry, because none of them even bothered to take down their signs. Enterprise, HSBC, Barnes & Noble, Thomas Cook and a whole host of famous brands still lit up the hall, except that their signs and advertisements were from fourteen years ago. This place was a time capsule the size of three football stadiums. This would be the perfect venue for a zombie movie.

A lone oni—the Japanese equivalent of a devil—was busy waxing the floor. “Excuse me,” Conner said. “Domestic flights?”

The oni looked lazily up and gave us the desolate smile of one marooned on an island who’s finally seen a person who isn’t a mirage. “Over … over there,” she said, narrowing her eyes like she wasn’t sure if we were real or not.

“Thank you,” Conner said.

Penemue pulled out another bottle and handed it to the oni. “Better than sake,” he said, “and perfect to pass the time.”

↔

We walked over to the check-in counter, which was manned by a human dressed in a white shirt and a baby-blue vest. His badge, shaped like a bird’s wing, read Matt. Conner handed him our tickets.

“Roundtrip to the mainland,” Matt said, eyebrows raised. “We don’t get many of those. Usually they’re one-way. Luggage?”

“Just carry-ons,” Conner said.

Matt nodded. He banged away at his computer and printed out four tickets. Pointing to the left, he said, “You’re gate A4. Security is that way. Please be sure to get to your gate at least thirty minutes before takeoff.”

Tickets in hand, we walked over to security—which was obscenely far away, given that the airport was basically empty—where the same guy who printed out our boarding passes waited for us. Only this time he wore an official-looking border control uniform with a badge that read Matthew.

“Passports and tickets,” he said.

“Understaffed?” I asked.

“Not really,” Matt/Matthew said without a hint of humor.

Conner went through first without any questions asked, just a cursory examination of his passport and a very efficient stamping of his passport.

“Have a safe flight, sir,” Matthew said, handing over his boarding pass and passport.

Penemue was next. The angel handed over his passport and ticket, just like Conner had done. Matthew looked at the passport and then up at Penemue. “Species?”

That question always boiled my blood. As far as I was concerned, you had no more right to ask an Other their species than you did to ask a human their race, religion or yearly salary.

Penemue, on the other hand, took it in stride. “Angel,” he said. “Fallen.”

The security guy looked at Penemue and gulped. “Fallen?”

“Well, there are many types of angels. On one level there are seraphim, cherubs and angels, but then there are subclasses that include powers, thrones and dominions. I was of the power variety, but since my fall, I was demoted to that of the standard angel variety. Seems that Hell doesn’t care for hierarchies. You’re either damned or you’re not. But given I was an angel from Hell when the gods left, I suppose I still am. ‘Once damned, always damned,’ my tormentors used to say. All that leads to the conclusion that I am an angel, fallen.”

Matthew wasn’t sure if he should laugh, cry, run or call for backup.

“I see that I have confused you,” Penemue said. “Let me extrapolate by way of example. One is not simply Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or whatever. They are, to name a few: Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Mormon, Shia, Sunni, Sufi … I am simply giving you my subclass to aid with your inquiries.”

“But those are religions. I asked for your species.”

“To you,” Penemue said. “But to us Others, religious sub-denominations matter a great deal. You see, according to Buddhism, I am but a reincarnated soul born in this body. In other words, I’m one of you. But to a Catholic, I am very much a bad enchilada. After all, it was us fallen angels who kept you from stealing the metaphorical cookies in the allegorical jars. Your religion, and specifically sub-denomination, is crucial to how you will react to an angel like me. Do you understand me now?”

Matthew shook his head in confusion.

“Never mind,” Penemue sighed. “Just put down ‘angel.’ ”

“OK.” He gulped and stamped Penemue’s passport.

I was next. I handed over my passport and ticket. “Human, annoyed,” I said.

↔

We passed security and entered yet another massive, empty hall with more abandoned shops and service providers. The only difference was that this part of the airport was designed to entertain people waiting around for their planes. This gave the place a sense of ominous abandonment. Every step we took echoed, empty sounds that resonated in the dead space of a once-upon-a-time airport.

Our gate was to the right. Fluorescent lights lit the way. Penemue pointed to our left, where the hall eventually faded into darkness which neither the lights above us nor my human eyes could see past. I guess they’d only lit up the parts of the airport we needed to walk through. Made sense, in that eerie, come-what-may sort of way.

“Reminds me of when they left,” Penemue said. “Except the darkness chased us.”

I had heard the stories. First came their message: “Thank you for believing in us, but it’s not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck.” Then came the darkness. Others had two choices: wait until the darkness overcame them, or run as fast as they could and stay in the light. Eventually, however, the light ended in a circular window that they could jump through and down to Earth.

Of course, the windows didn’t lead to some meadow where humans waited for Others with open arms and welcoming smiles. In most cases, Others fell from the sky, were spouted from volcanos or emerged from the ocean with no clue where they were and even less of an idea as to why.

I shivered, staring at the darkness.

“Let’s go,” Conner said, pointing to the right.

We walked into this surreal scene, taking about eight steps before the light we had been standing under turned off, and the new set of lights we were standing under turned on. Seems the airport’s darkness wasn’t going to chase us so much as spotlight us as we went along.

I guess in these hard times, one saved in any way they could.

We took five steps forward, but the lights above did not turn on. “Hey,” I yelled. “Keep up!”

There was a short pause during which we stood in the dark, then the lights directly above us turned on. From the distance came a bored voice. “Sorry!”

“This is scary,” Sinbad said, grabbing Penemue’s leg.

“Nothing to fear, child,” the twice-fallen angel said with a smile. “Want a ride?” He spread his left wing at a forty-five-degree slope and gestured for her to climb up.

Relieved, Sinbad scurried up his wing and onto his shoulders.

I elbowed Conner. “Don’t know about you, but I’m jealous. I want a ride.”

Conner shrugged and said in a very matter-of-fact tone, “Miral has wings too, you know.”

“Indeed she does,” I said. “Indeed she does.”

↔

As soon as we got to our gate, the large flat-screen TV turned on, evidently for our amusement while we waited to board. I guess they were going to keep up the airport aura until we were off the ground, and then everything would shut off again. Until then, we were forced to watch the news.

Mr. Yew filled the screen, his dyed-golden hair spattered with streaks of iron. He held up a large bound report with a very official-looking seal on it. “Over seventy Others were tested, and none of them—let me repeat that—none of them passed. Not a-one. Well, that’s not true. One did, sort of, but the angel—and I’m not saying that in a what-a-beauty kind of way. She is in fact an angel, as in a flying pigeon kind of person.” He paused as the audience laughed at this.

Pigeons … just one of the colorful euphemisms that humans used to talk down to angels. One day the term would go the way of a lot of colorful expressions used to keep people down. But humanity was going to have to evolve quite a bit first, and a lot of other issues would have to be settled before any rights groups would take on the crusade of PC Other terminology.

“Anyway, she refused to take the test, so maybe—maybe—she might have passed.” Mr. Yew shrugged. “Maybe. But we’ll never know, because she didn’t cooperate. Besides …”

“Can we shut this off? Or at least put it on mute?” I shouted, my voice echoing in the halls. I looked back at Matthew—he’d taken off his security uniform and was back to being “Matt”—who stood at the departure gate waiting for boarding time. He ignored me.

“… and that’s the point, isn’t it? Others don’t cooperate. They refuse to do things that are in their own interests. I’m telling you, folks, we have to deal with these Others before they …”

I stood up and walked to the TV. “Either someone turns this crap off or I will turn it off for you.” I cocked my fist at the screen. Matt looked up from his computer and at me, but did his hand move to a remote control? No siree, Bob. I tapped on the protective glass which the TV hid behind. Loudly.

“… like eat our dogs while observing some sick tradition that …”

I cocked my fist at Mr. Yew’s face. I was going to smash the TV and live out a fantasy of mine: to punch this asshole in the face.

“Don’t,” Conner said, but judging how he didn’t stand to stop me, I knew his heart wasn’t in it. Sinbad and Penemue, on the other hand, didn’t even try to hide their amusement, giggling like two kids who’d just heard their parents swear for the first time.

“Look, maybe you can stomach this hatred, but I can’t.” I raised my voice further. “Change the channel or turn it off or—”

The TV went on mute.

I took in a sigh of relief. I really didn’t want to fly with broken glass in my fist. Assuming, that was, that Matthew the lone security guard let me board. I went back to my seat, Conner’s eyes trailing me as I sat.

“What?” I asked.

“You know what.”

I stuck out my hand and pointed at myself in an exaggerated “Me, Tarzan” kind of way. “Good man,” I grunted. I pointed at the TV. “Bad thing.”

Conner eyed me with all the humor of a dwarf on coal (which is to say, very seriously—dwarves don’t mess around when it comes to their coal). “Debatable,” he said. Then he pulled out the files and asked, “So what’s the plan, good man?”

I took Mr. Cain’s papers from him. Three households … four kids. Two were in the suburbs, near a national park, and one was more central. We read the files again, even though we practically had them memorized by then. Better than watching that friggin’ TV.

Conner flipped through them, then scratched his head. “Something’s not quite right. It’s one thing that there are no clues. We’ve already established that these guys are using some major-league mojo to cover their tracks. But the one thing they can’t cover up is the kidnappings themselves. You can’t magically make a child not be kidnapped. Still, there’s no outcry, no moral outrage … no media frenzy.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t bug me. There’s no connection between them yet. The mainland police don’t have the Memnock Securities link yet. As far as anyone is concerned, there are at least three separate cases of missing children.”

Conner gave me an incredulous look. “You’re kidding, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Boy oh boy,” he said, running his hands through his perfectly sculpted black locks. “You’ve been living in Paradise Lot way too long.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that Paradise Lot is a rough place. A lot has to happen to get on the news. But this is mainland stuff. One missing child and we’re talking photos on milk cartons, midnight vigils, outrage in the media. Everyone is a suspect—parents, teachers, neighbors—and it doesn’t calm down until either the kid is found or …” He stopped, not wanting or needing to say the obvious.

Conner was right. I had been living in Paradise Lot for way too long. Fights, disappearances, murders—they were commonplace in the slums of my city. And since Others were second-class citizens, no one really took note. But kids from the mainland … crap.

I looked at Conner. “Someone is suppressing this.”

He nodded. “Who and why?”

“Someone who doesn’t want this out there because they know it will create chaos. There are too many fingers pointing at guilty Others. With four missing kids … Shit, Conner, that could restart the war between the species. How could I have missed this?”

Conner nodded again. “So who could that be? A good Samaritan with an eye on the future and a lot of pull?”

I shook my head. “Perhaps, but I’m too much of a cynic to believe that. I think it’s more of a holding back than sweeping under the rug. Someone knows that they can make some major moves with this kind of fear-mongering. No, this isn’t a protect lives kind of thing. Whoever is suppressing this is biding his time and waiting for exactly the right moment to use this.”

“ ‘Biding his time’? Sounds like you know who’s guilty.”

I pointed at the TV, where Mr. Yew was still spewing muted vitriol.

“I don’t. But if I had money, I’d put it all on that horse.”

↔

“Think about it,” I said. “He waits until just before the vote, and then this comes out? He’s the only candidate talking about tests and IDs and tagging and worse. Who is everyone going to vote for? The candidates who are talking about moderation, reason and being rational? Or the guy who has been consistent in his message all along: ‘Get these Others in check’?”

Conner groaned.

“And you said it yourself,” I said. “Kids get airplay like no one else. More than mass graves, serial killers and a new kind of cancer making its rounds combined.”

“So, what? He kidnapped them?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “Too much at stake for him to be a part of this. I think he’s just taking advantage of the situation. I mean, whatever happens, he’s won, right? Also, I’m just saying I would bet on him. I don’t actually know anything. For all I know, he’s off happily campaigning his Other-hating policies, completely unaware that some occultist group is kidnapping children. Maybe because it’s an election year, missing kids isn’t quite newsworthy. Maybe there’s someone behind the scenes doing very bad things. Maybe every journalist who wants to report on this has been murdered. Maybe the newspapers ran out of friggin’ ink.”

“The Internet doesn’t have ink,” Penemue interjected, drinking from a bottle of Drambuie that he’d somehow snuck through security.

“I know that,” I said, a bit too defensively. “But my point stands. Someone is suppressing this. I bet it’s him. But that’s the problem with bets—they’re guesses, mostly, based on nothing but a feeling. But right or wrong, one thing I’m sure of: once Mr. Yew over there finds out … he’ll have a field day.”

Conner shook his head. “But if we get the kids home before the election, he—”

“He’ll just point out that this happened and can happen again,” I said. “I’m afraid this is a done deal.”

“So how do we keep this under wraps?” Conner asked.

“I don’t think we can … I think that—”

“A monster,” Penemue said, balancing his bottle of Drambuie on his wing. He stretched his feathered platter out to where Conner and I could reach the bottle. “Drink?” the angel offered.

Conner shook his head, but I surprised myself by taking the bottle. “Sure,” I said, and downed a gulp. “And also, excuse me?”

“A monster. You need something bigger than kidnappings. Something Mr. Yew can twist to his advantage.” He glanced at the Drambuie as I took a second drink. “If you’re done with the bottle …”

“Yeah, sure … but a monster is just another Other problem that he can use,” I said, laying the bottle on his wing. “We’re at square one.”

Penemue retraced his wing and reclaimed his bottle. “Oh, Human Jean … you assume all monsters have claws or wings. But that is not what humans truly fear—not when there are far more monsters that can do far worse than maim or kill.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what?” I asked.

“Hit a human’s wallet. Take their money. That will get their attention, kidnapped children or not. A recession would be good. A depression? Even better. Hawks and warmongers do not do well when people are concerned with losing their houses.”

I groaned. I was a shitty hotelier, not an economist, but that was neither here nor there. “OK,” I said. “I’ll pray to the GoneGods for a recession, but barring that, I will focus on the only thing I have any power over.” I lifted up the files as Exhibit A.

“Right,” Conner said. From the way he took the papers from me, he had tuned out Penemue’s little economic espionage theory and was back to more practical matters. “Seems that two of the kids were siblings and, according to the report, they had just gotten home from nursery. Why don’t you and the angel take this one? Start with the nursery and work back from there. I’ll take the other two. They’re right next to where I’m headed, anyway.”

“Why the nursery? Walking in with an angel might not be the best strategy.”

“True, but I’m also going to stop by my old precinct. A couple of cops down there still owe me a favor. They won’t talk if anyone else is around. Also, you’re the one with the kid.” He nodded in Sinbad’s direction, who sat under the muted TV, watching it like she was looking for clues. “Unless, of course, you’re going to drop the kid off with your … who was it again? Cousin?”

“OK … nursery it is,” I sighed. “Nursery it is. But still, we need to—”

“Ohhh, look!” Sinbad cried, pointing at the screen. “That’s a very pretty angel.”

We looked up to see Colel Cab, the bug god who had been debating Mr. Yew and Mr. Cain earlier on the Other Place’s TV—a time that already felt like an eternity away. She was standing on stage with a whole host of Others and humans behind her, each dressed in the formalwear of various religions from the past: a Catholic in traditional robes, an Imam in black robes, a rabbi in a tallit, a Buddhist monk in a civara, a Hindu archaka in dhoti, a whole host of religious figures from various faiths, denominations and orders. Everyone who, once upon a time, was responsible for congregations of any kind was there. Hell, there was even a woman in a smart gray suit that could have been a Scientologist.

Amongst them stood one Other: Miral, Conner’s girlfriend. She was wearing white robes synonymous with angels. Robes that fed into human stereotypes of angels. You know, big wings, white robes, hands outstretched in a welcoming manner. The only thing missing was a halo.

“Holy shit,” Conner said, standing, and then he covered his potty mouth with a blush. “Sorry.”

“Hey, Matt. Can you turn it up?” I asked.

Matt gave me an exasperated shrug, like he was waaay too busy to deal with demanding customers, and fumbled with the remote.

Little white lines appeared on the screen like reverse dominos, ticking up the volume, and we heard Colel Cab speaking. “Friends, fellow inhabitants of this good green Earth, thank you for taking the time to hear us. We are the United Front of Religions, an organization composed of leaders of religions that once held the tenants of the gods close to heart.” Colel Cab held two of her hands out, gesturing to those standing around her. “The gods may be gone, but the morals they demanded of us, the goodness they preached, those still reside in each and every one of our hearts.” She bowed solemnly before continuing. “We do not ask that anyone pick among the mantras of faith—those days are gone. But we do ask that we continue to live good lives, together and with peace in our hearts. That is why we are standing united today with one message to you all: Please reject Mr. Yew and his sermons of hate.”

Everyone on stage nodded, and the mics picked up several “Hear, hears!” and “Amens!”.

“And to that end, we have asked Angel Miral to speak to both humans and Others alike.”

She stood aside to let Miral take the podium. As soon as she stood before the mic, Miral bowed. Deeply. The humans on the stage all followed, and for a brief moment Miral was the iris of an open-handed flower, each petal connected to her radiant center.

“Please, please,” she said. “I thank you for your respect, but really, it is I who should bow to you, Colel Cab. You united us here on this stage. Your tireless efforts have done so much to bring peace between Others and humans. And for that and so much more I cannot articulate right now …”

Miral took a step back from the podium and knelt before Colel Cab in a gesture of fealty strikingly similar to the way Michael had knelt at the Tree.

“Holy …” I turned to Conner. “Did you know about this?”

The cop shook his head. “I knew she was meeting Colel Cab after the debate at the testing center, but this is so … so …”

“Not Miral?” I offered.

“Not Miral,” he agreed.

Colel Cab put one of her hands on the kneeling angel’s cheek and gently guided her back to her feet, where Miral wiped away a tear from her eye before resuming her speech. “Dear Others, dear humans who know of my role in the worship you once held so close to your hearts … I have a message for you today. Reject Mr. Yew and his candidacy of hate. Protest at his gatherings, send letters to your representatives. Let the world know that we will not tolerate his disgusting fear-mongering. Please … I urge each and every one of you to do so.” Miral looked at Colel Cab, her lips quivering as she spoke. “And also, believe in Colel Cab and her message of peace and love. We need someone to unite humans and others alike, and Colel Cab … she is the one who can bring us all together!” She raised a victorious hand in the air and everyone on stage did the same, hands united together.

The crowd behind the camera erupted in applause. Colel Cab returned to the podium, but the TV went mute again, and an announcement came over the airport’s PA system: “Passengers boarding flight number LT0306, please have your tickets and passports ready to show.”

Conner didn’t move, just watching as Miral silently clapped at Colel Cab’s words. I, on the other hand, looked over at Penemue. The angel held Sinbad’s hand, with two passports out and ready.

Is this normal? I mouthed to the angel.

Ohhh, no, he mouthed back, wearing an expression I have only seen him wear twice before. Fear.

I got where he was coming from. It wasn’t that Miral was with Colel Cab or even that she supported the bug god. Miral was one of the purest beings on the planet, dedicated to making things better for all its inhabitants. In her brief years as a mortal, she’d run a soup kitchen, worked at the hotel, headed up the Paradise Lot hospital and led several battalions into war, all with one purpose in mind: to make things better.

But bowing to another? First of all, she was an angel of the highest order—and angels of the non-fallen variety bow to one being and one being only (and I’m sure you can guess who). Secondly, Miral was stubborn, rigid and wholly unimpressible (which I mean in the best way possible, of course). In the fourteen years I’d known her, she’d never been enthralled, star-struck or impressed by anyone or anyOther around. She was an army of one, and that army bowed to no one.

To see her on her knees before a creature that no one had ever heard of was simply not her. It was possible she was up to something … but what? I couldn’t guess. And judging from Penemue’s apprehension, he had no idea, either.

There was nothing to do about this now. We had to get to the mainland and find those kids. But as I handed Matt—now “Matthew” once again—my ticket and passport, one phrase ran over and over in my head like ticker tape.

This is bad … This is really, really bad.

End of Part 2

EPILOGUE TO PART TWO

Over the next few weeks, General Shouf throws more and more of these “anomaly” creatures at me. And each fight ends the same: with them eventually turning into foam, with or without my help.

Finally, Shouf utters the words I’ve been waiting for: “The program is being scrapped.”

“Good,” I say.

The part of her forehead that would have been the eyebrows—if she had brows or eyes—lifts, and she gives what passes as her version of confusion. “You’re happy? I am surprised. I would have figured you to want the program to continue, succeed even. You are, after all, a man who indulges in carnage and chaos.”

I shrug. “I can dish out carnage and chaos just fine on my own. I want something that guarantees our side victory. But after seeing those guys in action, I realized that all you made was cannon fodder. We don’t need cannon fodder. Plenty of grunts for that—human and Other. We need warriors.”

“Like you?”

“Like me.”

Now it is her turn to shrug. She runs her hands along the Brailled documents on her table. But her eyeless face is still looking at me. No—she can’t see. But her forehead plate is faced in my direction and it gives the illusion that she’s looking at me.

I turn to leave.

“I did not dismiss you.”

“No, you didn’t,” I say and continue to the door. Insubordination in the Army is an art form that hinges on two things: being needed and no witnesses. As for the latter, we were alone. And for the former—I am the Scourge, the Great Other Slayer. The Army will always need me. Much more than they need her, especially after her failed experiment.

She doesn’t say a word until my hand is on the door handle. Then she asks me the only thing I am curious about. “Don’t you want to know why the program failed?”

I do. GoneGodDammit, but I do. I sigh and turn around. She clicks, sending out her echolocation field, and senses that I am now facing her. She smiles. Little power games played by petty creatures older than sin. My kind of gal. “They lacked what the gods gave all creatures when they made them.”

“What’s that? A soul?” I offer.

“No … a sense of self.”

I roll my eyes, bored. “Speak plainly. I’m not in the mood for Other enigmatic bullshit. I had my fill in this morning’s training exercise.”

“OK,” she grates. “I will. When you were a baby, your mind inchoate and barren, there was only one thought that you believed in with all that you were. That you existed.”

“What? I think, therefore I am? Oh, please, don’t get all Descartes with me.”

“Thinking implies logic, reason. As a child, you have neither. But you do have a sense of self. You know that you are. You get hungry, tired, cold, uncomfortable. Move over, you can be comforted, held by your mother or father.”

She pauses at this. Undoubtedly she knows that my mother died bringing me into this world. And as for my father … well, I wouldn’t know him from Adam, nor would I want to. She clicks, and I guess that she is trying to sense if the thought bothers me on any level. Raised heartbeat, quickened breath. I doubt I give her any of those tell-tale signs. Then again, I might. It is very difficult for a human to sense a change in his own rhythms, no matter what this Other says about self.

She clicks twice more before continuing. “On a very primal, very instinctual level, those things tell you that you are.”

“OK,” I say. “So babies, instinctually, know they exist. Big woop.”

“It is the same for Others. Whether born or created, each and every creature that lives has that very same instinct. You could say that this instinct is the one common factor amongst us all.”

I shake my head, not buying it. “Are you telling me that they didn’t know on an instinctual level that they were alive? What? A kind of fucked-up Descartes where ‘I don’t believe, therefore I am not’? Bullshit, if you ask me.”

“Belief is power, Jean. You will do well to remember that.”

“Sure,” I say, heading out the door. “Belief is power and right now I believe that you are full of shit.”

↔

Just as General Shouf said, the program is scrapped and I am returned to Special Operations, doing what I do best: killing Others.

But upon my return, not everything is the same. For one thing, we just got in the new shipment of toys we were promised, and boy, oh, boy, they are beauts. For another, General Shouf is assigned as our CO. That comes as a surprise. An Other heading the unit trained and equipped to kill Others? It has “sabotage” written all over it, if you ask me. But nobody ever asks me.

Except it actually works, because unlike our former CO who showed compassion from time to time, General Shouf shows none. We are never given a stand-down order. We are never told to abandon the mission or change tacks. The only command Shouf ever gives is the kill order.

An order I follow with all the zeal that my body, will and soul possess.

PART XI

PROLOGUE TO PART THREE

Her name is not TinkerBelle.

Not that she can tell her human guardian that. She cannot speak it out loud, and to mime her name is far beyond her current skill at Charades. She could write it down—after all, she has taught herself the human spoken language, and she estimates that it would be a matter of days, if not hours, to teach herself how to write the language as well. But then the human would know her name, and he may foolishly try to utter it aloud.

What is in a name?

Everything.

This fairy’s name is the embodiment of Creation itself. To hear it is to know true beauty. And few creatures have the fortitude to know such a thing without being … transformed. The last god to speak her name was Izanami-no-Mikoto, and as a result her children became the mountains, rivers and forests of Japan.

That is what is in her name.

If the human Jean were to speak her name without time to burn or magic to protect him, he would … he would … TinkerBelle isn’t quite sure what would happen to the man. Before the gods left, a mortal would have been transformed into the Northern Lights, metamorphosed into a shooting star or burst into an entire constellation. But now? Now she does not know, and it is best not to take a chance. Not with her guardian, at least.

↔

In the old world, before the gods left, she was called by a secondary, less powerful name: Houlm.

But that was the old world. In this GoneGod world she has adopted another, powerless name: TinkerBelle—or “Tink” for short.

A new name for a new world.

In the four months she and her new guardian have spent together, she has grown to like the name almost as much as she likes the man.

The human Jean has taken her to some wooden construct in the middle of a vast forest. There they stay far away from humanity. The human hunts and fishes and forages, always making sure that there is plenty of food to eat and wood to feed the fireplace.

He also makes sure she is comfortable, building her a bed and chair that are just the right size.

He is taking care of her, as he should. He is, after all, her guardian now.

↔

TinkerBelle watches the human closely, trying to determine if he is a worthy guardian. It does not take her long to see what kind of man he is … after all, she knows of what he dreams.

When the gods created life, they made humans from clay, jinn from smokeless fire, dwarves from stone, and angels from light. Every creature that walks this Earth has its corresponding element from which they were fashioned. But she is different. She was made from the essence of Creation itself: dreams.

Being of dreams, she knows dreams. All of them.

And this Jean, he constantly dreams. Night after night, he is visited by the apparition that is his dead wife. Jean believes that he is losing his mind, a weak mortal so overcome by grief that he manifests the memories of his lost love via his dreams. He is wrong—not that TinkerBelle will ever tell him. His dreams are his to interpret as he chooses.

Every night, she watches Jean and Bella as they stroll along the beach, she in her yellow dress. Tink cannot hear what they say, for dreams are visual, and her innate abilities do not produce sound. But from what she sees, she knows that this man loves this woman more than anything in the world. This man knows love.

That is rare … especially for a human.

↔

Eleven moons pass. Jean tells her that he must go to town and buy supplies. He will be gone two hours, maybe three. TinkerBelle, bored of her surroundings and interested in seeing a bit more of this strange GoneGod world, signs that she wishes to come.

Jean refuses, stating that it is too dangerous. TinkerBelle is not used to being denied. She flies about the cabin at great speeds until she finds a small leather pouch. She gestures for him to put it around his neck. Once he does, she climbs inside.

“This is no good,” he says. “Humans don’t wear leather pouches with three-inch-tall people in them. Someone will notice this, Tink—”

With a whoomp, she burrows herself in the hole in his chest—the one caused by the death of his wife. She is encased by the vast emptiness that once held his love. No, it is not a physical hole, but a spiritual one. If that emptiness were not there, Tink would not be able to merge with Jean. That is not how her power works. She is Dream—and Dream, like water, fills the empty spaces more solid substances cannot.

“Oh,” he says, rubbing his chest. “So that’s what we’re doing these days?”

↔

They drive to the small town that is no more than a grocery store, a hardware deposit, a diner and a post office that sit on opposite corners of a crosswalk. Tink knows because when she is a part of him, burrowed as she is now in the hole in his soul, she can see what he sees, hear what he hears. Up and down the road a few houses line the streets, and in the far distance she sees a yellow sign with two children walking, silhouettes frozen in mid-stride.

There is a phone booth in front of the grocery store and Jean stops by its accordion door, his hand on the handle. He keeps it there for a long time before he sighs, drops his hand from its door and goes into the store instead.

There is a faint movement in Jean’s peripheral vision, a shimmer that gleams in front of the diner’s window across the way. Jean doesn’t notice it, but TinkerBelle does—and it makes her heart beat with fear.

She uses Jean’s vision to catch another glimpse, his hearing to try and confirm what she thinks she saw … but it is no good. The human is oblivious to the danger. Once he is in the store, the glimmer is nowhere to be seen.

↔

He walks through aisle after aisle, picking up supplies as he goes, and ends at the checkout where a young woman picks up item after item and runs it under a red light that caresses the goods’ surface with a beep.

As they walk out of the store, TinkerBelle intently uses all of Jean’s senses to confirm if the glimmer she saw is what she believes it to be. Thankfully Jean takes his time, pausing by the phone booth again. Once again he debates entering, until finally his hand slides the door open and he mutters, “Oh, hell,” as he digs out coins from his pocket.

He dials a number and within the empty chamber of Jean’s heart, TinkerBelle hears the overwhelming clamour of bells that fill the confined space. For a moment her senses are overwhelmed; she covers her ears and closes her eyes to hold out the sound. It finally stops with a comparatively softer voice that says, “Hello?”

“Hi,” Jean says. “It’s me.”

There is silence on the other end.

“I’m … I’m up North.”

More silence.

“I’m done.”

“With what?”

Jean sighs and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “You know with what.”

Silence.

“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? You were always such a hard-ass, Miral!” TinkerBelle can feel Jean’s heart speed up as the walls around her thump with growing intensity. “Fine. I’m done with the fighting, the hunting. The killing.”

“It just doesn’t end with a declaration,” the voice says.

“I know,” he says, his own voice quivering.

“What has changed? You were done once before. What makes you so sure that you won’t go back to the Army, Jean?”

“Because I made a promise to Bella. To help Others and be something … something good in this world. I plan on keeping my promise to her.”

There is a long silence before Miral says, “If you want to help, then come home. There is plenty for you to do here.”

Jean hangs up the phone and TinkerBelle can feel warm tears caress his cheeks. He wipes them away and with blurry vision goes to the car. The blurry vision is no good, no good at all. TinkerBelle cannot be on the lookout for the glimmer now. She cannot confirm her fears.

But then she hears it: a short, high-pitched whistle that no human lips could make. Jean, if he noticed it at all, would assume it a bird, but TinkerBelle knows better. She knows that only one creature can make such a piercing sound: a banshee.

↔

So a banshee is hunting them, TinkerBelle thinks. The banshees are powerful, determined hunters who become obsessed with their prey. And it is stalking her … no, that is not right. The banshee could not possibly know about her existence. If it did, it would not come alone, but gather its tribe to hunt her. The mere fact that it is a sole banshee means that it does not hunt her—it hunts her guardian: the human Jean.

TinkerBelle considers this for a long time. Jean is (or was) the Scourge of Others. To claim his head would be a considerable prize indeed. Somehow this banshee must have gotten Jean’s scent and tracked him up to these woods.

TinkerBelle considers telling Jean. After all, he is a formidable warrior and her guardian. But she decides better of it. The human is healing, still fragile from years of violence. To fight now, before he has found his soul again … that would be detrimental to his rebirth.

And besides, it is only one banshee. Its tactic will most likely be to sneak up on Jean in the night and slit his throat as he sleeps.

Such is the way of cowards.

↔

Jean assumes that strength comes from size, but he assumes wrong. TinkerBelle may only be three inches tall, but she is mighty.

The banshee sneaks in through the woods, seeking to take down the great Scourge of Others. Another fifty feet and he will be at the cabin’s door.

TinkerBelle meets him before he breaks the forest line. Although the banshee has never seen a creature like TinkerBelle before, she can tell that he knows he is looking at the fairy made from dreams. He behaves like most creatures do when they meet TinkerBelle for the first time: reverent at first, humbled by her beauty; but reverence turns to desire and desire turns into a need to possess. To own her.

The banshee reaches for her—but before his claws are able to get close, she whispers her name.

The banshee falls to the ground, tears of joy streaming from his face, and his body begins to transform into perfectly formed cherry blossoms, as if freshly fallen from their branches, that will now reside in the middle of the forest until they eventually decay away.

Even with the gods gone, my name still holds power, she thinks with satisfaction. She returns to the cabin where the human Jean still lightly snores, completely unaware that his charge just saved his life.

↔

The next day the human packs his things into his precious car. With a gesture, he invites TinkerBelle to join him again. With a whoomp, she complies.

Putting his car into Drive, he slowly makes his way up the dirt path, passing near where the forest line meets his property. He spots the colorful heap of cherry blossoms. “Oh, hey,” he says, curiosity coloring his voice. “I didn’t know cherry blossoms could grow up here.”

NEXT BEE NURSERIES, NAPPIES AND DIRTY PIXIES

Matthew had scanned our tickets, re-examined our passports and let us on the plane—so when I saw that our pilot was some overweight man in his sixties, I was severely disappointed.

As we walked on, the overweight pilot gave us a half-hearted welcome. He wore the expression of a man who had done a ton of wrong and was being punished with the Paradise Lot route. Next to him was a stewardess who had either just gotten out of jail for murdering her neighbors and their damn yapping poodle, or was still serving time and this was her punishment. Either way, she did nothing to make the skies any friendlier, just glared in our general direction. The pair of them looked like they were one “What do you mean ‘there are no more pop tarts’?” away from going kamikaze with the plane.

I gulped as we walked on. There are two things I hate more than anything: flying and baking. I hate them so much that I honestly think I would prefer a root canal followed by a full-body wax while marathoning Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise on fast-forward.

When Penemue walked on, our captain gave the angel one look and said with all the expression of a sleeping bulldog, “Can’t you fly?”

“I can,” Penemue said, “but the inflight service is lousy.”

Our captain narrowed his eyes and then burst into laughter. He shrugged at the stewardess and said, “It ain’t much better here.” To which the stewardess nodded in un-mirthful and un-ironic agreement.

↔

The plane rattled as it took to the air, and I held my chest as my heart tried to break through my ribcage. We got to cruising altitude, and as much as I tried to reassure myself that the worst was over and that we’d be on the ground again in less than two hours, I just couldn’t calm down. I was beginning to resolve myself to one hundred and twenty minutes of living in an anxious haze when Penemue offered me an alternative kind of haze—a drunken one.

Four hard pulls later from his blessed bottle of Drambuie, my heart had slowed down. My head started to swim with a false sense of accomplishment.

Sinbad was sitting on her seat watching some inflight movie, her face equal parts intense concentration and amusement. She was enthralled in that way only kids can seem to muster, all of her senses engaged on the screen. I envied her.

Penemue was sitting two seats over, uncomfortable in the tight confinements of the plane and sipping on a second bottle of Drambuie. I guess he snuck in more than one. Not surprising in the least, and at that moment I was perfectly accepting of his drinking problem. I could’ve given the inebriated angel a friggin’ kiss.

Conner’s head popped up from the seat in front of me. “Settled?”

I shook my head. It felt like the plane was spinning loop-the-loops.

He didn’t seem to notice my discomfort. “What the hell is wrong with Miral?”

Of all the questions he could have asked, that was the one I didn’t want to explore. Not when we needed to focus on finding those kids—and certainly not when we were basically in a building that had been set on its side and flung into the sky.

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Wrong reaction on my part.

A thin sheen of frustration-induced moisture glazed Conner’s crystalline eyes. He was angry with me, and he had good reason. In the forty-eight hours we’d been working together, I’d lied to him. Lots.

In my defense, they weren’t lies so much as glaring omissions that I purposefully hid from him. Further in my defense, I omitted not because I didn’t trust him, but because I didn’t trust his bond with Miral. I figured a man like him was used to having the upper hand in a relationship with a mortal. But when you were dating an angel, that was another story altogether. He was guaranteed to tell her everything, whether in the form of a full report or casual, accidental pillow-talk. In other words: anything I told him, she was bound to find out.

That was why I hid the fact that I was being blackmailed by my former commanding officer, General Shouf. Miral wouldn’t like that. But if I didn’t tell him about General Shouf, then I couldn’t tell him that I’d fought those friggin’ monsters before … that they were a military experiment gone wrong, and that the reason they turned to foam when they were killed instead of just becoming a corpse on the ground like everyone else was because they weren’t actually monsters at all. They weren’t anything, really, except a mixture of cells and magic; animated creatures that didn’t come from the Black Lagoon, but rather Black Ops.

I also omitted that Mr. Cain, our prime suspect, had offered me a job with a salary that had more zeroes in it than a ZIP code had numbers.

All of that was somehow justifiable. After all, being blackmailed, job offers and military secrets were, in a way, my own damn business. Not his. But what I also didn’t tell him was that I was fairly sure Sinbad had more in common with the monsters than a six-year-old girl in a pirate’s costume.

Sinbad needed to be a secret because, unlike the monsters, Sinbad was a thinking, considerate creature who exhibited free will. And that was something Miral absolutely could not find out about.

When the gods left, they took the power of creation with them. That was the common belief, anyway. But if creation was in fact still possible … well, let’s just say that angels got very testy around that subject. As in, Sodom-and-Gomorrah testy. She’d see this as a much greater threat to the world than a bunch of kidnapped kids. Creation was god business.

I didn’t give a frig about gods or their business before, and now that they were gone, I cared even less. There were children taken from their families, their homes, and being held captive by the stuff of their nightmares. That was all I cared about. Period.

So I made up some half-baked story about her being my cousin that he knew was a lie. And he knew I knew he knew it was lie. But we all played pretend, because he also knew I had my reasons and because Miral told him to trust me.

But just before we got on the plane, Miral was on her knees paying homage to another creature. And that freaked him out. Hell, it freaked me out, too, because angels don’t bow to anyone or anything except, you know, the big-guy-no-longer-in-the-sky.

Conner wanted to know what was wrong with her. I may have kept information from him and given him false information in its place, but this was the one thing I didn’t have a clue about.

“Conner. I don’t know,” I repeated.

“Bullshit,” he said.

“No, really. Not a clue.” I met his eyes and held them. I cared for Miral. After Bella died, Miral was the only creature who took care of me without pity. Making excuses to come over and look after me, always finding reasons to keep me busy … If it wasn’t for Miral, I would have collapsed under my own grief. I loved that angel, and I owed her everything. “I swear to you, Conner. If I had any idea, I’d tell you.”

“Like you’ve told me so much already?” Conner growled.

“I have my reasons.”

“I don’t care about your damn reasons,” he said, gripping the back of his chair.

“Look,” I said, “she’s OK. Whatever is happening to her, she can take care of herself. Once we’re back, we’ll grab her and find out what’s happening.”

Conner closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Promise,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Promise,” he echoed. “Miral told me about your promises. She said you take them very seriously.”

“I do.”

“Then promise.”

“Conner—”

“Promise, Matthias. Promise me that you’ll figure out what’s wrong with Miral. Promise me that you’ll help her. Promise.”

“OK—I promise.”

“Good … because I’ll hold you to this one.” He let himself slip back into his chair, his brown hair submerging behind the seat in front of me.

“You won’t have to,” I said. “I didn’t make the promise for you. I made it for Miral.”

I heard a loud grunt, and we fell into silence for the rest of the flight.

↔

The mainland was a heavy dose of culture shock for us Paradise Lotters. For one thing, it was lit up, filled with open shops and bustling movement. We were in an airport—as in a real, living, well-used human transportation facility, complete with actual humans to transport.

It was like landing on another planet.

Conner was right: I had lived in Paradise Lot so long I’d started to think panhandling genies and drunken angels were normal. I forgot all about a world whose inhabitants didn’t have talons or wings or eons of memories coursing through their bodies. I forgot all about the human world, its—our—distinctly human ways.

Coffee shops, clothing stores and duty-free shops stood open, each inviting us to enter with advertisements that showed beautiful humans enjoying chocolate, looking amazing in their fashionable clothing or happily sipping their hot beverages.

Humans. Doing human things.

And not a single image was of the fantastical creatures that now walked among us. It was as if they wanted to forget all about the Others. But that just wouldn’t work. Forgetting about Others felt like listening to classical music played on a banjo. Where were the horns and the timpani and the pizzicato strings? The dynamics? The harmony?

Sure, everything was clean and well-maintained. Sure, there was order. And sure, things were simpler. But with only one kind of species represented here (and, to be honest, only the white version of that species), the whole thing felt soulless. At least, that’s how I saw it.

I felt empty walking through that airport. I’d been on the ground for less than ten minutes, and I already missed home.

From all the looks we got, the humans weren’t used to Others, either. Penemue got a lot of curious looks; some people even stopped to snap photos of him. Some tried to do so on the sly, but most just pulled out their phones and took a picture. But to mistake this for some kind of celebrity/paparazzi scenario would be a gross miscalculation of the situation. To them, Penemue was a freak, and they wanted photographic evidence of that freak—his feelings be damned.

To Penemue’s credit, he took it in stride, walking to the bus lane and pretending not to notice. Who did notice—and wasn’t sure how to handle it—was Sinbad. Her childlike mind both adored and hated the attention; I could sense her internal debate as to whether this was a good or a bad thing.

We got on a bus, the standard Greyhound monstrosity, and headed into the city. As we rolled toward our destination, we rode in silence. In fact, most of the bus’s occupants rode in silence. The only real noise, beside the occasional cough or seat-adjustment, came from the back, where four teenage boys giggled and fought and wrestled and did what typical teenage boys do when given a respite from parental supervision.

Unfortunately, to the typical teenager this also included provoking. Bullying. One of the kids threw a piece of popcorn our way and muttered under his breath, “Damn pigeon.”

Sinbad’s ears perked up. She tilted her head to one side before it hit her that they were calling Penemue a pigeon, and not in a nice way.

The kid, who was being egged on by his friends, decided to upgrade the popcorn to a bottle cap. He flung the aluminum cap at Penemue, except it never hit its intended target. It didn’t even get close. Sinbad caught it and threw it right back at the kid, with far more speed and force. The bottle cap hit the kid in the eye with a thud, followed by an “Owww!”

The kid was about to complain loudly, probably planning to blame Penemue, when Sinbad leapt over the seats and onto his chest. “Listen here, Mr. Bully,” the little warrior admonished, “you shouldn’t pick on anyone, even if they are much more bigger than you and could probably send you flying up into a tree before you could say ‘Boo.’ Also, just because Mr. Penemue has wings doesn’t make him a pigeon. It makes him an angel, which is a lot more than I can say about you or your friends, you, you … talking monkey.”

When her little speech was through, there was a pause—and then the kid’s friends burst into laughter. Sinbad got off the kid and meandered back to Penemue, where she climbed onto the angel’s lap. “Stupid bully,” she said, resting her head against his chest.

Penemue stroked her hair. “Stupid bully, indeed,” he agreed.

Conner gave me a look. “Your cousin, huh?”

I shrugged. “What can I say? We’re a righteous bunch.”

PIXIES, MONSTERS AND INVULNERABLE SAILORS

Once we were downtown, we divided up the files and agreed on a place to meet come nightfall. Conner leaned over to be at eye level with Sinbad. “Take care of these guys for me, will ya?”

Sinbad swooned. The guy was a heartthrob to everybody, I guess. “Sure will,” she said in earnest.

He winked at her. “Good.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “You make sure you and your cousin don’t do anything newsworthy. Last thing we need.”

I looked to Penemue and Sinbad and said in a falsely cheerful voice, “Today’s word is ‘stealth,’ kids.”

“Har-de-har,” he said. “Miral told me you were funny. I don’t think she knows what funny is.”

And with that, Conner hailed a taxi and was off.

↔

As I’ve mentioned before, I was a terrible hotel manager, so needless to say, I didn’t have a lot of money. And judging from the complete lack of checks sent to me, I gathered that being a deputy for the Paradise Lot police was more of a volunteer position. Although I’ll admit, they did pay for the flight—I’ll give them that much.

That meant we couldn’t take a leaf from Conner’s book—taxis were out. So I called up a map on my phone; we’d have to take a bus, again.

As soon as Penemue realized that I was trying to figure out which bus we needed, he grabbed Sinbad and me and took to the sky.

“Weee!” Sinbad said.

“Penemue—what are you doing? They’ll see!” I gestured to the already gathering crowd of onlookers who had turned their heads to the sky.

“It’s not like they couldn’t already see the gigantic wings attached to my back,” he said. “Besides, a little awe might melt their hearts. I’m building bridges.”

“More like sowing terror,” I said, but the twice-fallen angel wouldn’t listen. The way he saw it, better to be chased through the streets by an angry human mob than have to ride the bus again.

“Weee!” Sinbad squealed again.

↔

A little voice perked up from Penemue’s pocket: “In two hundred meters, turn right.” And a split second later, it said, “Turn right now.” Sounded like we were flying at about two hundred meters a second. Sure beat the bus.

Three minutes later, we landed on the front porch of the Next Bee Nursery. Children were immediately at the window, banging against the glass and pointing and screaming in joy at the giant angel before them. I had to hand it to them: not one of them cried in fear.

A petite woman in a pleated green skirt came running out. “No, no, no … You’re not meant to come until next Tuesday.”

“Next Tuesday?” I asked.

“Yes, I hired you for next Tuesday.” She looked behind us. “Now, where’s the centaur?”

“Centaur?”

“Yes,” she said, pulling off her thin, gold-rimmed glasses. “What else are the children going to ride?”

I lowered my head and said, “Umm … ma’am, I think you got us confused with—”

“You’re from the Paradise Lot Other Circus, aren’t you? You’re here to put on a show for the kids—but like I said, it’s not until next Tuesday.”

I shook my head. Other Circus? Now I’d heard it all. “We’re not with the circus.”

“Although we could be,” Penemue said, smiling knowingly at Sinbad. “I’m quite the acrobat, and Jean here has been known to breathe fire.”

The middle-aged caregiver narrowed her eyes and looked Penemue up and down. Then, surprisingly, she giggled. Which was weird. Don’t get me wrong, Penemue is a good-looking angel, and being a former Fallen, he also had that bad-boy look to him. But in all the interactions I’d seen with him and humans, no one ever actually giggled—well, besides Sinbad, but she didn’t count. This human, however, giggled like she’d just met James friggin’ Dean. It didn’t help that Penemue winked at her, either.

“Oh my, you’re not with the circus? Then who are you?” She looked down and saw Sinbad. “Oh no, don’t tell me—you’re parents! But we don’t have any new intakes. Not this week. Are you here for a tour or—”

“No, ma’am,” I said, holding out my Paradise Lot badge. “We’re not parents.” Penemue nudged me. “Or, at least we’re not here as parents. Ahhh, her mom is busy, and … I know it’s very unprofessional of me, but I couldn’t get a babysitter last-minute. The reason we’re here is because we’re investigating …” I leaned in close and whispered, afraid one of the kids might be listening. “Michael and Susie.”

“Michael and …” Her eyes grew wide, all traces of the giggles gone. “Oh, yes … but I was already interviewed by the police. I told them—”

“Yes,” Penemue interrupted. “But we’re Special Investigations. And if you don’t mind, we’ll just need a moment or two of your time.”

“Special Investigations,” she said, fanning herself. “How mysterious! Of course, uh, come in.”

“And my kid, ma’am?” I said.

“Please, drop the ma’am. It’s Ms. Reynolds.” She glanced at Penemue here and added with emphasis: “Mizz Reynolds. I’m the purveyor of this little palace of pandemonium. And as for this dear, she can play with the other children if she likes?” She bent over and tapped Sinbad’s nose. “What’s your name?”

“Sinbad.”

“Oh my, yes it is! I should have recognized you right away, Sinbad.” She turned to the window of onlookers. “Looks like we have a celebrity here. Everyone say, ‘Hi, Sinbad.’ ”

In unison, a chorus of “Hiiiii, Sinbad!” followed.

“We’re just about to start story time. Would you like to join us?”

Sinbad nodded. “Yes I would. Very, very much!”

↔

We walked inside, and the dozen or so children crowding the window squirmed for their places in a semicircle on the carpet. A plump woman with a huge, inviting smile corralled a few stragglers and then, taking her place on a stool, began reading to them. Sinbad, without prompt or cue, joined the others in the semicircle.

The woman held out a big, colorful picture of a pig. “What noise does a pig make, children?”

A chorus of “Oink, oink, oink!” erupted.

The woman smiled. “And what about this one?”

“Woof, woof, woof!”

“Excellent! What about this one?”

“Keyaa, keyaa, keyaa!”

Keyaa? I looked over at the woman on the stool and saw she held a picture of a banshee.

Ms. Reynolds saw my look and nodded. “Here at the Next Bee Nursery, we like to equip our children with everything they need to know. That’s why we teach all the noises that Others make.” She spoke firmly, clearly confident in her role of bettering the world.

“Yeah,” I said, “but don’t you think you’re giving mixed messages when the previous two images are that of a pig and a dog?”

“Oh, don’t be so hard,” Penemue said, giving her another devilish smile. “Others, humans, animals … we all must share this world, must we not?”

Ms. Reynolds blushed, nodding gravely. “Yes, we must.”

“Excellent. Now if you don’t mind, we do have a few questions we’d like to ask you,” Penemue said, gesturing to her office. “Just out of curiosity, kids,” Penemue called to the semicircle as we passed. “What sound does an angel make?”

Without hesitation, the children cried out “Whoomp, whoomp, whoomp!” as they flapped their arms like wings.

“At least they didn’t coo,” I said.

↔

Ms. Reynolds took us into a small office wallpapered from floor to ceiling with children’s drawings. Many of the drawings were of normal kids’ stuff—their house, their family, the occasional helicopter or airplane. But the vast majority of them were of Ms. Reynolds in various poses, holding flowers or the children’s hands—and always smiling. Seemed the kids loved, to borrow her alliteration, the purveyor of this little palace of pandemonium.

“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Ms. Reynolds,” I said once the door closed, shutting out the sounds of children’s “Moo, moo, moos!” and “Ribbit, ribbit, ribbits!”

“My pleasure.” She picked up a bowl of what looked like potpourri from her desk and tilted it our way. “Lilac petal?”

I gave her a blank stare. “Lilac petal?”

She smiled. “Much healthier than candy, and just as tasty.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Penemue said, plucking one from the bowl and tossing it unceremoniously into his mouth.

“No thanks,” I said. “Ms. Reynolds, we’re investigating the disappearance of two children, both of whom attended this nursery.”

Ms. Reynolds shook her head darkly. “Such a tragedy. I never would have thought such a thing would be possible in this day and age.”

“What can you tell me about the kids? Michael and …” I pulled out my folder.

“Susie,” Ms. Reynolds offered. “Bright smiles. Always played well with the other kids. Michael has the biggest chipmunk cheeks you’ll ever see, and as for Susie … impossibly long black curls and eyes bluer than the sky.” She pulled out a group photo. “They’re the two five-year-olds hugging each other. On the right.”

I looked at the photo: twenty smiling faces, Ms. Reynolds standing in the middle. In the corner were a boy and a girl, their arms around one another as they smiled for the camera. Ms. Reynolds was right—Michael was basically a human chipmunk, and Susie’s hair was the envy of sirens.

Ms. Reynolds wiped away a tear as she stared at the photo in my hand. “In all my years as a childcare professional, I have never seen two siblings get on as well as those two. Wherever they are, I hope they’re together.”

I nodded and handed back the photo. “What can you tell me about their disappearance?”

“Just what I told the police.” She paused and looked at Penemue. “The mainland police,” she corrected herself. “They were picked up by the family’s pixie nanny and went home just like they do every day. When she went to wake them up from their nap, they were both missing.”

Ms. Reynolds plucked out three lilac petals in succession, downing them one after the other. Her hand shook nervously. “An investigation followed and, well, there’s just no trace of the kids. Nothing on the security cameras or the home monitors. It’s like they just vanished.”

“And the nanny. Was she arrested?”

“Initially, but she was let go the next day. Seems the parents eventually vouched for her. It was one thing to hold her without evidence. After all, she’s an Other. But it was another thing altogether to hold her when the parents of the kidnapped children insisted she was innocent. Seems those busy parents were more liberal than I had previously given them credit for. Besides, if she had done it—and I just can’t imagine she did—she would have run. I mean, the police have no clue where the kids are … Surely she would have disappeared with them.”

I nodded.

“I swear,” Ms. Reynolds continued, almost absentmindedly, “that tiny little pixie was the best thing that ever happened to those kids. For one thing, she took excellent care of them. Always bringing them here on time and picking them up. And the washing, bedtime routine, diapers … I have no idea how that four-inch-tall hummingbird of a lady did it, but she did. In the eighteen months she’s been taking care of them, things have gotten …” She paused.

“Please, Ms. Reynolds,” Penemue said softly. “Any details will help.”

She nodded. “Yeah, sure. It’s just that Michael and Susie’s parents were the ambitious type. Coming home really late, waking up early. Not that I’m here to judge, but they were always too busy for the twins. Then along comes Mable.”

“The pixie nanny?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Ms. Reynolds nodded, “and within a couple weeks you’d swear those kids were different people. Well-behaved, kind, loving. Whatever that pixie did for them, it was good.”

“Why would they need a nanny if they were in daycare?” Penemue asked.

“Half-days, and it is important for children to socialize with other children. Can’t do that if you’re cooped up at home all day.”

“Indeed. Although being cooped up with the right kind of company can be socialization in its own right,” Penemue said with a secretive grin.

Ms. Reynolds gave Penemue a playful slap on the hand as she turned bright red. “You’re so bad!”

Penemue held up two fingers. “Twice fallen, ma’am. Twice.”

“Anyway,” I jumped in before Ms. Reynolds jumped Penemue. “Where is Mable now?”

“Mable …” Ms. Reynolds said, not taking her eyes off Penemue. Then she seemed to remember where she was and who she was talking to, because she shook her head and said in a hurried tone, “Oh yes, Mable … she lives out by the Briar Hill Barn. In a birdhouse behind the gazebo.”

She started to write down the address when my phone rang. I looked at the screen. Astarte. “Sorry,” I said, answering it.

“Take your time.” Penemue shot Ms. Reynolds a sly look. “You were saying?”

“Behave,” I muttered to Penemue, and stepped out of the office to answer the phone. “Astarte, what’s up?”

“News, Jean. Lots of it.” The way the words came out of her, you’d think she was planning a carnal evening of sin and not reporting information about a kidnapping.

“Astarte,” I admonished. “Just get to it.”

“Oh, Jean—you are such a bore.” Without further sexiness, she told me all that her informant had uncovered, ending with, “Has my informant done well?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, smiling.

“Very well. I shall reward it appropriately.”

“ ‘It’?” I asked, knowing full well what an appropriate reward was in Astarte’s world.

“Yes—my informant is a naiad. Few know this, but naiads are neither female nor male—they are both. But what it lacks in gender conformity, it makes up with—”

“Thank you, Astarte,” I cut her off. “Do give it my regards.” I hung up the phone.

Whatever it was, it deserved all the rewards in the world.

“Good call?” Penemue asked when I stepped back inside.

“Very good call,” I said, still smiling. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Reynolds. If you think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to contact us.” I handed the caretaker a piece of paper with my number on it. “And as for Mable—do you have a number for her, as well?”

Ms. Reynolds folded the paper and put it in her lapel pocket. Then, shaking her head, she said, “No … it’s not as if they make pixie-size telephones. But I’m quite confident she’ll be home.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“When they arrested Mable, the police were quite rough with her. She’s pretty banged up. I can’t imagine she’ll be doing anything but resting.”

“Oh …” I sighed. “GoneGodDammit.”

EVER BEEN PUNCHED BY A PIXIE?

As we left Ms. Reynolds’ office, parents were showing up to pick up their little ones. I looked at my Mickey Mouse watch: three o’clock. I guessed that was what constituted a “full day” when you were still potty training.

Chaos ensued as little boys and girls fumbled to put on their jackets and mulled about in search of matching shoes. There was some pushing and shoving, some misplaced bags and lunch pails, but all in all the chaos cleared up pretty quickly. The world was made right again as soon as each kid was holding onto their mom or dad’s hand.

I heard giggling or complaining or the telling of some nonsensical story about their day as the children were escorted home. In that one moment, all the kids of the Next Bees Nursery shared the common experience of being happy. They were happy to be with their parents. Happy to be going home where their toys and bed and the comfort of being somewhere familiar waited for them. What a thought …

I never knew my dad. As far I knew, he was some wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am who left and didn’t even know he’d knocked up my mom. And as for my mom? She died giving me life. Bled out because of some undiagnosed, severe form of pre-eclampsia called HELLP syndrome. I got to spend exactly two days with her before she left this world.

PopPop—my grandfather, and the man who raised me—told me that her last words as the endless night took her from me were: “My life for his … fair deal. More than fair.” He told me she smiled as she exhaled one last time, rigor mortis pausing her look of contentment for all time. After all, she got to hold her child … if only for a little while.

That was the last time she saw me. I, on the other hand, was a little kid, inchoate and barely conscious. In a very real way, I never got to meet my mom at all.

As I saw those kids walk away, hand in hand with their moms and dads, three things ran through my mind that made my soul burn with rage. The first was what I would give to be with my mom, if only for a minute. The second was that there were children out there who were crying for their moms right now—and I would do whatever it took to get them home.

As for the last thought, my mind went back to what Conner said to me in the desert: “Sometimes bad men do good things, and good men do bad things. Which one will you be?”

Which one was I? I honestly wasn’t sure. But it didn’t matter. Whether I was good or bad, one thing was for damn sure: everyone who played a role in those kids’ disappearance was going to die. I’d make sure of it.

“Daddy,” Sinbad said, running over to Penemue and wrapping her arms around the angel’s legs. She looked up at the massive creature and tried winking, but it just looked like exaggerated blinking.

Many of the parents were staring at him. They were already uneasy to have an angel walking amongst them, but an angel with a kid? One mom tilted her head to another and said softly, “Daddy?”

“I think you mean him, don’t you?” Penemue said, pushing her over to me. He glanced around apologetically. “The kid is playing around. She does so because Uncle Penemue here spoils her, while this fellow”—he cocked a thumb my direction—“gets to do all the responsible parenting.”

“I see,” Ms. Reynolds said with a knowing smile. “Police partners can get pretty close. And with Mom out of the picture …” She gave us a big approving smile, like she wanted us to know that she accepted our “alternative lifestyle.”

“Sadly, no,” Penemue said. “We are but friends. He is in a relationship with his past. I, on the other hand, am free as the proverbial bird. Perhaps I could come back some time and we could—”

“Inappropriate conduct,” I said.

“Nonsense,” Penemue said. “Inappropriate conduct comes after dinner.”

↔

As soon as we were outside, I pointed toward the address Ms. Reynolds gave us.

“You’re in a hurry,” Penemue said.

“I am,” I said. “Seems a certain little pixie has been a bad, bad girl.”

“Will she get time-out?” Sinbad asked.

Hellelujah!

↔

We arrived at the pixie-nanny’s address just as the sun was setting. Except that it wasn’t an address at all, but a series of complicated instructions that started with Go to the park and ended with Find the giant oak tree near the gazebo.

After walking around the park—a park bigger than Paradise Lot’s entire downtown—we eventually found the spot Ms. Reynolds had been referring to. And there, hanging off one of the giant oak’s lower branches, swayed one of the most elaborate dollhouses I’d ever seen. It looked like an old Victorian mansion, complete with a thatched roof, two sets of balconies wrapping around its two stories and an attic big enough for a couple tomcats to take a nap.

Little lights shone through one of the house’s windows. I noticed that an electric cable came out of the chimney, interlaced through the chain and crawled up the tree all the way to the top, where several solar panels rested. Talk about “off the grid.”

I peered through the lit window and saw what looked like Barbie laying on an appropriately sized leather couch. She was reading on a Kindle that lay on its side.

Pulling back, I knocked on the front door, which constituted flicking the wooden panel with my pinkie finger. I heard a groan and a few moments of rustling from inside, and then the door opened.

“Yes?” said a clearly exhausted pixie.

Standing, she was barely five inches high, with very pretty eyes, high cheekbones and pointy ears. She looked like a female Vulcan doll. Her hair was short, styled in that chic, spikey look that oozed confidence and somehow conveyed the message of “I’m beautiful, serious and fun—if, that is, you can handle me.” She wore jeans and a T-shirt, which I recognized as Barbie accessories because I’m a—ahem—serious toy collector. All in all, she looked like a woman ready to take this world by storm. A woman smaller than a rolling pin, granted, but hey—so many amazing things come in small, pixie-size packages. Don’t judge a book by its cover and all that.

Everything about her would have told me she was one very capable pixie, except for one thing: she was badly beat up. Her arm was in a sling, and I could see large horizontal bruises up and down her exposed skin. I was fairly certain I knew what could make bruises like that: rubber bands. Hold a pixie’s arm down and stretch a rubber band over her arm, pinning it at both ends so that the band was taut, pull it up and let it go. Snap, it slashes across her arm, creating welts that, if done to a human, you’d need a crow bar to replicate.

Ms. Reynolds said that the cops didn’t exercise restraint when interviewing the pixie. But this kind of technique goes beyond getting carried away during interrogation. It was torture, plain and simple.

“Mable?” I asked.

She nodded, scanning with wide eyes from my face to Penemue’s to Sinbad’s. She was clearly terrified that we were here to administer round two.

“Would you mind joining us at the gazebo? We have some questions about Michael and Susie.” I showed her my badge.

Mable gulped. “Let me turn off my Kindle,” she said, and closed the door.

↔

Mable jumped down from her bird house and made her way to the gazebo faster than the rest of us could. Putting things into scale, that little feat was the equivalent of me jumping off a five-story building and running a 5K … uphill. She did it with one hand in a sling and without losing breath.

These creatures are amazing, and should be respected and held in awe, not tortured, I thought with a heavy sigh. But then I remembered why we were here and the little piece of information that Astarte’s informant had told her, and my skin went cold.

A park bench sat in the middle of the gazebo. Sinbad and I sat, but Penemue, his frame far too large to fit comfortably on it, opted to stand. Mable, on the other hand, crawled up the table’s leg and sat cross-legged at the center of the table.

“So,” I started. “Let me start off by saying that what those policemen did to you … I do not approve and I will never resort to such tactics. I just want to be clear about that from the outset.”

Mable looked at her bruises and breathed a sigh of relief.

“But I won’t tolerate lies, either.” I pointed to Penemue. “Do you know who he is?”

The pixie looked up at the twice-fallen angel and shook her head.

“His name is Penemue, and he is the angel responsible for giving humanity the written word, among other things.”

“Oh …” she said, clarity filling her eyes. “Just like Prometheus, Mātariśvan … Grandmother Spider.”

I gave Mable a blank look.

“He is the angel who gave humans the forbidden knowledge of the written word. He is a traitor to his God and a champion for humans … But he’s not the only one who defied the gods to help humans. Every pantheon has at least one.” Mable nodded at Penemue with respect.

“I started it,” said Penemue. “The rest are cheap copycats.”

“OK, fine. Traitor, champion,” I echoed. “Do you know what his thing is?”

Mable shook her head.

“He always knows when you’re lying.” I threw as much gravitas into the statement as I could, trying to let the full weight of the implication hang over her.

It would have worked, too, had it not been for Sinbad, whose eyes widened as she stared at Penemue with newfound respect. “Like Santa Claus,” she murmured.

Mable burst out laughing. “Or a lie detector,” she said, and pretty soon both of them were giggling away.

I slammed my hand on the table, causing Mable to fly up two inches in the air. Not my intention at all; thankfully Mable wasn’t hurt. Sinbad gave me a shocked look, but at least they had both stopped laughing. “This is serious,” I said. “Very serious.” I gave Sinbad my best Stop talking look, to which the little pirate put her head down on the table and pouted.

“OK,” I said. “Michael and Susie. What happened?”

“I already told the police. I took them home from the nursery and put them to bed. Then I went about making their lunch. When I went to wake them up, they were gone.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Mable confirmed.

“And you didn’t hear or see anything?”

“No, nothing.”

I looked at Penemue, who nodded.

“So they just disappeared?”

“Yes.”

I fixed Mable with a no-nonsense stare. “They weren’t taken to … oh, I don’t know … produce more tears to sell on the black market?”

↔

When Astarte called, she said one thing to me: a pixie from the mainland was selling tears on the black market. Tears, especially children’s, were a once-upon-a-time powerful ingredient in many spells, incantations and wards. With the gods gone, such things were less and less common, since many Others were unwilling to burn time to actually make the magic work.

But there were enough Others who held onto the tradition of those enchantments, finding comfort not in the effects of the magic, but simply by having them there. Think of it like hanging a mezuzah on the doorpost or putting cookies out for Santa. Traditions. Comfort. Most Others created tears by mixing the right amount of salt and minerals into distilled water. But many Others were purists, willing to pay a premium for the real thing.

St. John’s wort for health, acacia for protection, sarsaparilla root for sexual vitality … these were just a few of the things you could get from Paradise Lot’s apothecaries. But on the black market, you got the harder-to-come-by ingredients: Dracaena draco for psychic protection, Kotochul eggs for empathy spells and—the rarest item—children’s tears, used for a number of potions both good and bad.

And Mable was one of the leading suppliers.

But when I confronted Mable about the tears, she didn’t give me a look of guilt, but one of confusion. “Tears? Yes, I collect their tears when they cry … but I don’t make them cry. I would never do that. Never!”

“Maybe,” I said. “But then again, maybe you saw how lucrative tears were and you decided to up production. Michael, Susie … a few others, too. A lot of money to be made.”

“You think I would hurt children for money?” She looked at me like I’d just killed her puppy and was laughing. “What kind of monster are you?” She wiped away tears as they formed in her eyes.

“Oooh, poor pixie,” Sinbad said. The little pirate gently stroked Mable’s back and gave me an admonishing look. “Leave her alone.”

“First of all, I can’t. And secondly”—I looked back at Mabel—“why do you do it?”

Mable looked up at me with tear-filled eyes. “Do you know what it’s like to live here? I wake up at five to get everything ready: lunch, diaper station, coloring table, paints, everything. Then I take the children to daycare or the park or the zoo or wherever they’re scheduled to go. We play, I feed them, change them, we play some more, I put them down for naps, I feed them some more and we play. Then the parents come home just in time to tuck them in. That’s when I go about cleaning the house and preparing dinner for the adults. I feed them … but they don’t play.” Mable grimaced at that. “When I was working for them, I was at their home until ten every night. Seven days a week. I don’t get any time to go outside and gambol.”

“Gamble?”

“Gam-bol,” Penemue corrected me. “Pixie thing, lots of frolicking in nature …” He nodded at Mable. “Go on.”

“I don’t even get paid minimum wage. They always pay me under the table. Except it’s never actually under the table. They leave an envelope of money on the side table by the front door.”

“So you sell tears?”

“It’s good money,” she said, nervously sniffing the flower on the table. “Besides, half of what I make from their tears is put into a fund for their college education. An ISA account.”

“An ISA?”

“Yeah,” the pixie said. “A non-taxable account. Each kid is allowed four thousand a year. So far, their accounts are full. Then I put twenty-five percent into my own ISA account, and twenty-five percent supplements my own income.”

“Wait, you have a tax-free account?” I didn’t even have a tax-free account. I was jealous.

The pixie nodded.

“So if life is so terrible here, why not move to Paradise Lot?”

“I started in Paradise Lot, but there’s not a lot of work there. The best I could get was washing dishes. At least here I get to play with children. I like children. They don’t care what kind of species you are. All they care about is here and now. I can do here and now. Besides, I love to gambol—and there aren’t many parks in Paradise Lot. At least here I get a couple hours of gamboling each night.” Suddenly she put her hands up to her chest, spinning around three times on the picnic table. “It’s not so bad here.”

“OK,” I said to the nanny-slash-financial-planner. “But the tears. It’s gotta stop.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s illegal.”

The pixie looked at me gravely. “No, it’s not. I checked. There is no law against selling tears.”

“But you’re selling them on the black market.”

“Only because supermarkets won’t stock them. If they would, I’d distribute there!”

My head hurt. “Are you sure it’s not illegal?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t know anything about the kidnappings?”

“No.”

I looked at Penemue. “Do we believe her?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Penemue stuck out a finger and the pixie shook it. “We most certainly do.”

“OK …” I looked down at the Barbie-sized creature and narrowed my eyes. “I guess we believe you.”

Mable put her good hand on her chest earnestly. “I would never hurt the children. Never. If there is anything I can do to help, anything at all, please … I miss my Michael and Susie.”

“One last thing,” I said, touching Sinbad’s shoulder. She was still pouting. “Do you feel anything?” I asked Sinbad.

The little warrior girl huffed, not saying anything.

“I’m sorry I yelled, Sinbad, but this is serious. Do you feel Sarah on her? Maybe they’ve met before? Come on—this is important. For Sarah.”

“For Sarah,” Sinbad echoed, nodding. Narrowing her eyes, she outstretched her fingers. “Nooo …” she said. “But I feel the bad thing. It hurt Mable, too.”

So the bad thing—or rather, the occultist—did have something to do with Michael and Susie. All connected. Crap. “Anything else?” I asked Sinbad.

Sinbad nodded. “Yes. I feel … love. She’s so full of it, just like my Sarah.”

The pixie reached out and touched Sinbad’s forefinger. “You’re a very special little girl, aren’t you? You’re some little girl’s guardian?”

“I’m her hero,” Sinbad said matter-of-factly.

“Yes, you are,” Mable said. “But can I ask something of you, Sinbad? Can you be Michael and Susie’s hero, too? They need help, just like Sarah.”

Sinbad considered this. “They’re missing. Just like Sarah?”

Mable nodded.

“They need someone to rescue them and take them home. Just like Sarah?”

“Yes,” Mable said, still holding onto Sinbad’s finger. The pixie had spent less than five minutes with the pirate warrior little girl, and she understood right away what Sinbad was. The intuition on this creature was incredible. “Bring them home,” Mable said. “Please.”

Sinbad nodded. “OK. I will be their hero, too.”

“Thank you,” Mable said.

It was a touching moment. I felt the genuine love and fear that Mable harbored for the children in her care. She loved them, that much was clear.

“OK,” I said, standing. I looked down at Mable, one last burning question plaguing me. “You were a nanny?”

“The best,” she said with pride.

“I’ve got to ask. How the hell did you change diapers?”

“Pullies and picture books,” she said, as if that was all I needed to know.

In a way, it was.

MONSTER VS. PIRATE (HINT: PITY THE MONSTER)

We escorted Mable back to her birdhouse and made our way out of the park. Only, it was full dark now and finding our way out was as clear-cut as coming in—which is to say, confusing as hell. So I suggested we walk down to the stream and follow it out. It was the long way out, but there was something I wanted to check, and the long way out was the best way to do it.

Sinbad skipped in front of us and Penemue sighed. “Well, that was a dead end.”

“Not entirely,” I said. “We know that the kidnappings are connected. It’s no longer a theory. That’s something.”

I took a look around. We were in an essentially empty park, at night and alone. Pulling out my phone, I sent a text message to Astarte telling her what we’d encountered and asking if Brian was around to do a little spy work for us.

“Not a whole lot of something,” Penemue said. “What are you doing?”

“Searching for more leads. And to your earlier point—true, it’s not a whole lot of something. But we also know that someone wanted us to find out about the black market tears. That wasn’t a coincidence, either.”

“How do you mean?”

“Remember at the airport, when I said I thought someone was suppressing the news, holding it back to get maximum airplay from the fact that Others were kidnapping children?”

Penemue nodded.

“I’m starting to think it’s more complicated than that. What do Sarah, Elliot, Michael and Susie’s kidnappings all have in common?”

Penemue considered this. “If you exclude Elliott, then it is that they were all kidnapped from homes with Memnock Securities systems.”

“True. But if you don’t exclude Elliot, what does that leave us with?”

Penemue shook his head. “They’re all under eight …”

“And?”

The twice-fallen angel sighed. “I don’t know … they all are humans with human parents and—” He stopped.

“You’re starting to see it, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “They all have Other friends or caretakers.”

“Exactly. Sarah was friendly with the monster-under-your-bed. Michael and Susie had a pixie nanny. And Elliot was actually being protected by his jackal-guard neighbor. Each and every one of them had relationships with Others. How much do you want to bet that when Conner gets back from the other two households, there’ll be evidence of other Others?”

Penemue nodded. “Scapegoats?”

“Scapegoats.”

“Empty Hell,” Penemue said.

“Indeed,” I echoed, chuckling at Penemue’s slurring.

↔

We continued walking along the stream toward the park’s border. Sinbad skipped ahead of us, singing an old nursery rhyme as she did:

“Ring-a-round the rosie,

A pocket full of posies,

Ashes! Ashes!

We all fall down.”

“Funny thing about that poem,” Penemue started.

“It’s about the Black Death,” I said. “I know. Posies to hide the smell … ‘we all fall down,’ i.e., ‘we all die.’ ”

“Indeed,” Penemue said. “But what I was going to say was that the rhyme was written by Plague himself.”

“Plague?”

“Yes, one of the four horsemen. Quite a literate fellow. But I guess when you’re always bedridden, reading is your only escape.”

“Uh-huh,” I said skeptically. “And let me guess, War plays the drums, Pestilence is a painter and Death is an accomplished bagpiper?”

Penemue smirked. “Too far?”

I shook my head. “You almost had me. It was the bedridden part that got you, though.”

“I shall strike that from my next attempt,” he said with a chuckle, then pointed at Sinbad. “Look at her. She skips and plays in the moment … so pure and innocent. She lives as a child should. Not like …”

“Don’t say it.”

“EightBall.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” I said, just like I’d told him a thousand times before. “You had no control over where you fell.”

Penemue sighed and pulled out his bottle of Drambuie. He went to take a swig, then stopped and did something I’d never seen him do in the eight years I’d known him: he walked over to a garbage can and threw it away. Pausing, I saw actual tears streaming down his face. The thing about angel tears—they’re made of light. In the darkness of the park, they lit up his face.

Little streams of fluorescence fell down his cheeks. Sinbad turned around and, seeing Penemue upset, ran up to him and hugged his legs. “What’s wrong, Mr. Penemue? Are you homesick?”

“No, my dear …” The angel flicked away some tears that looked like little comets flying from his fingers and into the stream. “Just lamenting past failings. Something I did and cannot undo.”

“What did you do?” Sinbad asked, looking up from where she hugged him.

“He didn’t do anything,” I said.

“I did,” Penemue cut in, looking at me. “I stole from him. You saw those kids, Jean. How happy they were when their parents picked them up. I stole that from him.”

“Penemue,” I said, “you had no control over where or how you fell. When the gods left, they forced you out of Hell so quickly, you just fell.”

“Right on EightBall’s parents. I killed them both.”

“The gods killed them both. You were just their bullet.”

“Did you mean to hurt Mr. EightBall’s parents?” Sinbad asked.

“By the GoneGods, no. But it doesn’t change the fact that I did.” Penemue turned to me, his tear-lit eyes imploring. “I have to tell him.”

“Don’t. He won’t understand.”

“I have to, Jean. The guilt. It’s slowly killing me.”

“And if EightBall quickly kills you?”

“Then come what may,” Penemue said.

Sinbad’s gaze went from Penemue to me, then back to Penemue. “But it was an accident. Mr. EightBall will understand. He has to.”

Penemue smiled kindly. “You think so, kiddo?”

“Oh, he will!” Sinbad said with all the earnestness and honesty of a child who has yet to be marred by the ambiguity of forgiveness and arbitrary cruelty of life. “You’re the bestest angel I’ve ever known. He’ll understand. You’ll see. Just tell him what happened and how you’re sorry and—”

Sinbad stopped talking—and not in the way that people normally do, where they either trail off or they get cut off—before she jumped in the air and away from us.

But to call what Sinbad did a “jump” would be a disservice to what she actually did. It was more like she bounded or leapt—or any other word used when a creature takes to the air without actually flying. At first I thought it was one of her cute little games, but then I looked in the direction where she vaulted and saw someone whom I simultaneously wanted to see and hoped to never see again.

Evil-and-Cute.

↔

My job in the Army was to track down Others and stop them from doing bad things before they had the chance. If I did my job well, you’d never hear about it. It was only when I failed that the newspapers printed headlines like Fundamentalist Harpy Suicide-Bombs Café or Homicidal Fae Gang Kills Seven in Sleepy Western Town.

I am proud to say that while I was active, those kinds of headlines were few and far between. I am less proud of what I did to keep those kinds of things out of the papers. Whether I was a good or bad man in those days, I don’t know. All I do know is that some of the things I did in the name of saving lives were unambiguously evil.

But that was then, and this was now. And now I needed to use some of my special skills to flush out a baddie. In this case … a very cute, take-home-to-meet-mom kind of baddie, but a baddie nonetheless.

Only trouble is, baddies don’t like to come out and play. Not unless they’re sure they can win. And so there was one technique I used time and time again to get them to come for me: I went on vacation.

If you were a high target such as myself, holidays were the ideal place for the baddies to track you down and kill you. You were away from your fellow soldiers, alone in some desolate location, presumably unarmed, unlikely to be on guard and more likely to be tipsy from all the piña coladas you were undoubtedly guzzling down.

I can’t tell you how many Others I killed while wearing a Hawaiian T-shirt and sandals. Let’s just say that tropical retreats no longer hold any appeal for me.

But how do you tell a baddie that you’re on holiday? That’s easier than you’d believe. Simply let the right people know.

In this case, we knew that Memnock Securities was being breached—presumably hacked. Evil-and-Cute called me by name in the desert, which meant that she knew me, knew what I was capable of, and was quite tech-savvy. The occultists were watching me. Or, at the very least, watching out for me. I couldn’t go on holiday at the present—not exactly ideal when you’re the sole runner of a hotel buried in debt and currently being blackmailed by a mad-scientist general—but I could take an unarmed excursion to the mainland, away from all my Other allies and home turf advantage. Away from my weapons.

But why would I be a target?

Not to sound arrogant, but a colorful career in the Army such as mine, coupled with stopping two world-ending events, gets you a reputation. So if a baddie were up to no good and knew I was on the trail, eliminating me would be high on their priority list. And since this particular baddie was a very powerful and arrogant opponent, it was only a matter of time until she tracked me down.

At least that was my theory, and the only way to test it was to be relatively alone. Oh, and ask my technologically adept IT support, Brian, to post a message that I was walking in the park. We had discussed where to post the message and in the end decided on the most effective place possible: Facebook (or as I like to call it: VoluntarySurveillance Book). That’s why I insisted on the walk by the stream. It was dark, which meant most human residents wouldn’t be out in a park. The meandering nature of our walk gave the illusion of being unprepared and the appearance of being lost made us all the more enticing.

I knew my lure would work. So it would be here on the mainland, by a stream in a park that I chose to make my stand.

Or so I thought.

↔

Sinbad vaulted at Evil-and-Cute, daggers in hand, and given the speed and ferocity with which the pirate flew, I worried she would cut down the occultist before we could ask her where the children were being held. My fears, however, were short-lived: Evil-and-Cute drew back her fist and punched Sinbad square in the chest.

Sinbad tumbled back, taking the blow in stride and finding her feet with a grace that would make any superhero green with envy. “ShouldNotBes,” she growled. “I feel Sarah on you. Where is she? Where?” Sinbad held her daggers to her side, readying to attack again.

“Sarah?” Evil-and-Cute cocked her head to one side and looked at Sinbad curiously. Then a flash of recognition painted her face. “You … I recognize you. You are the little girl in Cell Block Seven. The one with the defiant eyes. They told us this could happen. An unfortunate side effect of little children’s belief. They manifest what they know and … Sarah, was it?”

Sinbad let out a low guttural growl at her charge’s name.

Evil-and-Cute smirked. “Sarah must have manifested you. She is one of our better believers. We shall have to break her of her belief in you.” Her words came out in a buzz, like a bee trapped between two panes of glass. Evil-and-Cute adjusted her tiara as she spoke. Evidently this villain was more concerned whether her crown was perfectly straight than about battling the manifested hero of a kidnapped little girl.

The occultist touched forefinger and thumb together, forming a diamond shape around her chest.

“You don’t touch her!” Sinbad screamed, shooting forward faster than any professional sprinter could hope to achieve. The little warrior pirate was fierce. Except this time her attack was met by a giant pincer that materialized from the darkness, clamping on her head and suspending her in midair.

Penemue drew out two chained meathooks of his own from his wrists—his weapons of choice, more a part of him than actual weapons. But before he could move, another pincer snared him by his wings.

The creature that grabbed Penemue and Sinbad held them both up in the air. Evil-and-Cute stood by its side, smirking that enticing, evil smirk of hers.

The anatomy of this anomaly took first prize in the contest of weird. It looked more like a distorted, twisted version of a Tonka crane than an actual monster, with two crane-like pincers jutting straight up from its shoulders.

“So, you found me,” I said, trying to sound as bored as I could. “How convenient.”

“Not on your knees anymore, Jean? How brave, given that there is no one around to save you.” She twirled around twice, arms spread out, to emphasize that we were, in fact, alone. We were in the middle of a park, and although houses lined the park’s perimeter, they were far enough in the distance that we could not be seen through the veil of night.

“No matter—I will still keep my promise. Your death will be quick and painless.” Evil-and-Cute lifted my sword from under her cloak and tossed it to me. “Unless, of course, you want to fight.”

“Jeez … thanks,” I said. I left the sword where it lay, surreptitiously pulling out a little something extra from my coat pocket, which I’d brought along just in case we ran into these guys again. I twisted open the top of the plain-looking jar and poured its contents into my hand. To the uninitiated eye, it looked like Play-Doh with a wick jutting out of it.

“What is that?” Evil-and-Cute asked.

“Oh, this? Just a little something I kept from my Army days. See, we always had to travel about from city to city, country to country, and we couldn’t always get military flights. Which meant that we often flew commercial. Coach, never business class. The Army was cheap that way.” I tossed the glob of clay from hand to hand. “But that posed another problem: how do we get our weapons in and out of airport security? We couldn’t exactly check them in, and since I was the guy who usually traveled incognito, the Army came up with all sorts of weapons that would pass unnoticed through airport security.” I caught the glob and held it in one hand. “Where are the kids?”

Evil-and-Cute laughed.

“OK, let’s start with something easier: why are you here? Just to pick a fight with me in the park?” I lit the wick and it started sizzling as a small flicker crawled down the string.

“Oh, Jean—arrogance does not become you. You are but a bonus in our plans. But make no mistake: me being here has very little to do with you.” She spread her fingers together again, forming a diamond in the empty space between her fingers. “We are about to enter the next phase of our conquest.”

“And what’s that?”

“Terror.”

As if on cue, we heard screaming from the houses just beyond the park. A whole lot of it.

Evil-and-Cute smirked. I threw the glob right at her. She dodged it, using her preternatural speed—but speed can only transport you in one direction. And besides, I was aiming behind her; I didn’t want to get Penemue and Sinbad with that stuff. As soon as the glob was about two feet past her, it burst out into a million little pieces that flew at her from all directions.

Several of them hit her.

I swept the sword from the grass and plunged it into Tonka’s head. Using my full weight, I pushed down, gutting the anomaly from forehead to navel. It shrieked in pain and released Penemue and Sinbad before bursting into foam that slowly seeped into the stream next to us, frothing the water’s surface.

The two of them jumped to their feet and came to my side. Now it was three against one, but the odds still weren’t great. Not with the kind of abilities Evil-and-Cute had shown in the desert. But they were still odds I was willing to gamble with. Even gam-bol with.

“Where are the children?” I pointed the tip of my sword at her.

Evil-and-Cute ignored my question, curiously rubbing some of the pink, mucus-like goo between her fingers. “What is this stuff?”

I smirked. “Play-Doh with a firecracker in the middle. I wanted to make you sweat. The way I figure it, you’re somehow controlling these creatures. If I distracted you, that meant that it wouldn’t be able react, either.” I pointed at the foam. “One monster down … one to go.”

Still rubbing the Play-Doh between her fingers, she sniffed it. “Clever.” She cupped a hand to her ear and listened to the screaming in the distance. The screams were getting louder. “But you’re not going to fight me.”

“Oh yeah? How do you figure?”

“Because there are monsters wreaking havoc over there.” She pointed toward the screaming. “And you are a hero, are you not?”

I growled.

“Go on,” Evil-and-Cute said. “Save them. I’ll find you again. And soon … I promise.”

We heard another scream, then two more—all from different houses. We could stay and fight her, or help those who were in trouble, but we couldn’t do both. And as for the divide-and-conquer tactic—no way could any one or two of us take her down. I seriously doubted three of us could, either. No, we needed to stick together and save those people.

Another scream. Kidnapped children and now Others terrifying the villagers—this wasn’t going to go well on a global scale. In terms of helping with that, going after the anomalies was a more immediate concern. After all, the kidnappings had yet to enter the news.

“Damn it,” I growled. “Let’s go.”

“But Mr. Jean,” Sinbad protested.

“Don’t worry—we’ll be back for her. Promise. Now let’s go help some terrified humans.”

As much as I wanted to throw down with Evil-and-Cute and fight until we were both bloody and screaming, I knew there was a bigger “bloody-and-screaming” that needed to be dealt with first. The anomalies were roaming the streets of a quiet suburb on the mainland, and if we didn’t deal with them quickly there would be hell to pay. Tensions between humans and Others were at an all-time high. All we needed was one roaming monster killing someone’s grandmother for us to teeter over the edge.

Not that there was anything we could do to stop it. I was pretty sure that dealing with the monsters or not, kidnapping or not, we were all going to fall down into more distrust, more hatred. That wasn’t what I was afraid of. No, what made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention was the thought that we were headed for another war. And as much as I wanted out, that was something I couldn’t turn my back on.

I’d seen war. I knew what it could do.

And I could play a part, however small, in stopping it.

SAVE US, SINBAD, ANGEL AND … WEIRD GUY IN A BLACK JACKET?

As I ran into the backyard of an otherwise typical two-story suburban home, I was hit by a smell so familiar in its simplicity, so commonplace, and yet so unusual in its effect. It was like walking into a kitchen and getting a whiff of your favorite pie cooling on the window sill, except the smell wasn’t of a fresh pie, but of pie that once was. Somehow the soft aroma of cooling pie crust and apple filling also carried with it a very real sense that the pie was now gone. That I was too late to have partaken in its gooey, bready goodness. And with that smell came a dampening sense of loss, regret and frustration.

I hadn’t even seen whatever anomaly waited for us, and yet it had already disarmed me somehow. With a smell.

From the back garden, I could see it lurking, its shadow cast on the wall. But I wasn’t close enough to make out a form or figure. I couldn’t tell how many claws it had, if it had sharp teeth, or what other nasty weapons it carried. I couldn’t even tell you if it was a bludgeoner, a stabber or a slasher. All I did know, besides the disarming odor it gave off, was that it was utterly terrifying. I knew because no one who was simply just scared screamed like that. No one.

There was more screaming in the street. I gestured for Penemue to go there. “Sinbad and I will join you after we deal with whatever’s inside.” Penemue nodded and took to the sky as Sinbad and I burst through the back door.

Inside, we saw that the kitchen had two doors: one to the dining room and the other to a hallway that led to the living room and a stairwell.

I put a finger over my lips as I pointed to the living room. A side lamp or other nightlight from within the living room cast a large shadow on the hallway wall, and from the shape of the shadow, I couldn’t tell you what kind of monster it was. Damn anomalies. Not wanting to lose the element of surprise, I crawled into the living room from the hallway while Sinbad made her way around to the other side from the dining room entrance.

Another scream cut through the otherwise silent night and I braced myself for what was waiting inside. But bracing yourself for some terrible horror and actually facing it are two different things entirely, and I would argue that there is no point in trying to mentally prepare yourself for facing off against a monster. I say that because no amount of mental preparation, training or years of therapy could have prepared me for what I saw.

The huge monster sat cross-legged in the center of the room. Except to call this creature a monster would be a gross understatement. She was what nightmares were made of, the embodiment of evil and the source of all pain and anguish in the world … if I were her big brother.

She wasn’t a monster. She was my baby sister.

That’s the only way I can describe the feeling that washed over me when I saw the creature. But there were several problems with that: One, I didn’t have a sister. Two, even if I did, I doubted she would be eleven feet tall, with a hideously disfigured face that made the Swamp Thing a serious contender for Miss Universe. Her skin was made up of broken Legos, snapped train sets and half-burnt doll heads whose eyes peered out like macabre warts.

Huddled on the coach was an elderly woman tightly hugging a shawl around herself. Evidently this woman also saw this monster as her baby sister, because she cried out in fear and frustration, “You broke my horsey on purpose. I know you did!”

I knew exactly how she felt, except my rage and anger was because the monster had pulled off all my GI Joes’ arms.

Baby Sis didn’t try to hurt the woman on the coach, nor did she make a move against me when she saw me enter. She just sat there, mashing her hands into the carpet and flailing about just like a ten-month-old would.

“What the sugar?” Sinbad said.

Baby Sis saw Sinbad and threw her weight forward, crawling over to Sinbad with all the grace and care of a bull in heat. Her massive weight shredded the coffee table into kindling and the La-Z-Boy between them was nearly flattened as Baby Sis made her way to the pirate warrior.

“Look out!” I said, snapping out of my horror just in time to grab Baby Sis’s leg. I might as well have tried to stop an elephant. The bulk of her leg threw me forward, the thousand little melted doll faces suddenly animated and biting at me.

I pulled away and drew my sword, but it was too late. Sinbad had already taken out her daggers and thrust them into Baby Sis’s eyes. She twisted until she literally ripped the anomaly’s head in half. Baby Sis went down with a yelp, turning to foam that I was sure would ruin this poor woman’s floor.

As Baby Sis fizzled away, both the elderly woman and I cried out in anguish. I was devastated to see Baby Sis go, angry at myself for ever being mad at her and bargaining with the GoneGods that if they brought her back, I’d let her rip all the GI Joe arms she liked. I was mourning her death, near paralyzed with grief … until the last of her body turned to bubbles. Then I realized what she was and felt nothing.

Monsters were one thing. But this creature, something that toyed with my nightmares and made me simultaneously hate and love, was another thing altogether. This was getting weird—but I knew that before this would end, it would only get weirder.

“Ma’am,” I said to the elderly woman, “are you OK?”

She looked at the puddle and nodded. “I had a little sister once,” she said. “Died from a heart attack years ago. I loved her.” She looked up at me and pointed at the bubbling puddle. “What was that?”

I tried to think of something to say to explain this away, but there was nothing believable to say but the truth. I could have said something like a hallucination or a government experiment gone wrong, but she’d see right through that. Anyone would. In this new GoneGod World, there was only one thing that could cause something like what we just experienced.

I sighed. “Magic,” I said. “And I’m sorry that you had to go through that, ma’am. I really wish—”

My words were cut off by another scream from the street.

Hellelujah!

↔

I instructed the old woman to go upstairs and lock herself in the bathroom. She gave me a defiant look that I didn’t know how to interpret, but nodded and tramped upstairs.

Sinbad and I hurried out to the front. Penemue was standing in a puddle of foam, wrestling a second anomaly which looked like a spider with a clown’s head. Talk about hitting two phobias in one proverbial nightmare.

The angel produced two grappling hooks from his forearms that dangled on chains from the lower parts of his wrists. Think of Spider-Man, but trade out the webbing with chains and the sticky end of the web with menacing meathooks.

Using the hook ends, Penemue stabbed deep into the clown’s eyes and smashed the monster’s head hard against the pavement, where it splashed into the dissolving corpse of its comrade, adding its own foam to the mess.

“How many?” I asked.

Penemue was breathing hard. “I’ve killed three so far. You?”

“One,” I said. “But it was a doozy.”

“Hey,” Sinbad admonished.

“Sorry. She killed one. And it was a doozy.”

Sinbad nodded with satisfaction.

“OK.” I scanned the streets. “I’m guessing there’s more?”

A scream from up the street answered my question, and another cry of terror from a block over concurred.

“Dammit,” I growled. “There are too many of them in too many locations for us to effectively deal with them all. We need to gather them into one place if we’re going to be of any use.”

“What are you suggesting?” Penemue asked. “Invite them to a jamboree?”

I looked down at Sinbad and thought about the kind of power that had created her. Then my mind went to the Baby Sis and the Spider Clown, the Tonka and the Vampire Bowser. They were the stuff of nightmares, sure. But not just any kind of nightmare. Children’s nightmares.

And what do you do when you want to calm an upset child?

“Yeah,” I said to Penemue. “A jamboree. That’s exactly what we’ll do.”

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO ROUND AND ROUND

When I was a little kid, I used to have a recurring nightmare.

It would always start with a woman’s voice in the next room. Sometimes she sang, other times she talked to herself or called for me. A voice I had never heard before, but a voice I knew all the same.

My mother’s.

In my nightmare, I would go to the voice, knowing she was on the other side of the door or just beyond the hill or in the next room. I would run to her, desperately wishing to meet the woman I never knew yet loved so dearly.

But no matter how fast I ran, no matter how hard I tried, I was always too late. I would miss her, if only by a second. Those nights were the worst … for as much pain as I had in my life, nothing compared to the complete sorrow that greeted me in those empty spaces.

I would wake with cries of terror. No—not terror, for I was not afraid. I was angry, alone, abandoned … sad. I would wail, followed by long gasps of anguish in which I would try to scream, but my own breath would catch in the impossible task of expressing how I felt.

There is no pain so complete like that of an abandoned child. I knew that then, and I still know that now.

My PopPop would run into the room and hold me until the pain receded enough for me to fall back to sleep. He always sang me the same song—a little tune he’d made up that will never win any awards, but to me was the greatest song ever written. A song that evoked comfort and love. A song that eased my soul and calmed the storm in my heart. “Hi Jean,” he called it.

I needed to chase away the nightmares, and I only knew one way to do so.

I stood on a nearby car, cupped my hands over my mouth and sang. I sang my PopPop’s song, and hearing the words echo through the night, I felt what I had felt all those years ago when I was a child: comfort.

“Hi Jean, come out and play with me,

Under the apple tree.

Bring your dollies three.

Under the rainbow and through the cellar door …”

“What are you doing?” Penemue asked.

“What do you think I’m doing? I’m singing.”

“Hardly … and why?” the angel asked.

I looked down at Sinbad, who stared up at me, mesmerized and still, her lips copying the words I had just sung. I pointed at her. “That’s why.” And cupping my hands again, I sang:

“We’ll be fri-i-ends …

Forever more.”

Sinbad crawled up onto the car’s roof with me. “Can I sing?”

“Of course,” I said. “Do you want to use your name, instead?”

She nodded with all the vigor of a child being offered her favorite ice cream. “Yes, please!”

“OK,” I said. “On three … one, two, three.”

“Hi Sinbad, come out and play with me.

Bring your dollies three…”

Our voices echoed in the night, bouncing off houses which were starting to turn on the lights, one by one. Light—another way to chase away nightmares.

“Under the rainbow.”

Two anomalies made their way onto the main street, emerging from humans’ backyards.

“And through the cellar door,

We’ll be fri-i-ends forever more!”

Sinbad giggled at this. With her elation, I saw three more anomalies lumber onto the main road. Penemue pointed behind us, where another two monsters approached.

On “more,” the little warrior pirate and I leapt off the car and, together with the twice-fallen angel, charged at the monsters creeping from the dark. One by one, the three of us hacked and slashed and cut down until all seven anomalies were nothing but foam on the street and bad memories in our hearts. I never felt such rage before—and that’s saying something. I was cutting down my demons. Literally.

Once the seven creatures were nothing more than puddles on the asphalt, we stopped, all three of us breathing hard—but now only our labored breaths could be heard. The screaming had stopped.

Sinbad stood near a hedge by the house where she had dispatched Baby Sis. She surveyed her work with satisfaction, as if she were born to destroy nightmares. Which, I had to admit, she probably was. She waved at Penemue, who was covered with the viscous liquid of the vanquished, and said, “Did I do good, Mr. Penemue? Did I—”

Sinbad’s words were cut off by two spikes that pierced the little warrior pirate’s chest.

↔

The ShouldNotBe took another of its spiked hands and stabbed into Sinbad’s stomach so deeply that a solid foot of sharpened exoskeleton penetrated out of her back. The pirate slumped on the needles, her eyes wide with shock, as her tongue hung lifeless out of the side of her mouth.

Penemue and I both screamed “No!” as we ran to her, too late to save the little warrior.

Except that we didn’t make it three steps before Sinbad’s eyes blinked back to life and she giggled, “Just kidding,” like a kid who’d been playing dead.

The ShouldNotBe must have also been shocked by her resurrection, because it stood perfectly still as Sinbad took out her dual daggers and chopped the creature’s head clear off its neck.

We ran to Sinbad’s side. She sat with the spikes still through her body. If she was in pain, she made no indication of it, except to say, “I’m stuck, guys.”

“But … you’re OK?” Penemue asked, hesitant to hug her lest he disturb the needles.

“Yeah,” she said, looking at her impaled abdomen. “But I can’t walk around like this. It would be weird, don’t you think?”

“Indeed,” Penemue said, holding back tears. “Indeed it would.”

I examined the wound. Just because Sinbad wasn’t in any obvious pain, didn’t mean she wasn’t in danger. I’d been around enough adrenaline-pumped soldiers to know that pain could kick in later—much later—and given she had two three-inch-wide needles in her, I figured it was only a matter of time before she started screaming her little head off. I didn’t have much field medical training, but I knew enough that it was best not to remove shrapnel from a body without having the proper equipment nearby. This posed another problem: we couldn’t move her without getting the spikes out, and I doubted we could cut off the ShouldNotBe’s arms without jostling her body about.

But in the end my concerns proved moot on two fronts. First, the anomaly started doing its bubbling, foamy thing, which included the spike-hands dissolving in and around Sinbad. With those no longer there, her abdomen closed up almost immediately, with no sign that she’d just been stuck with something as wide as a baseball bat. Neat trick.

“Eww,” Sinbad said, wiping the foam off her. “This is gross.” She looked up at Penemue with big, frightened eyes. “Do you think this gook will wash out of my costume? I don’t want it to stain.” She looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“I’m sure it will,” Penemue said, chuckling despite the situation. “Don’t you think, Jean?”

“Huh?” I stared at her in amazement. I shook my head and looked at Mickey Mouse. His second hand continued its usual procession, neither speeding up or slowing down. One second, two … perfectly normal.

“Don’t you think, Jean?” Penemue repeated with more urgency in his voice.

I looked at the angel, who nodded pointedly toward Sinbad. The little warrior’s eyes were welling with tears. “Ahhh, yes. For sure. No stain—promise.”

“Phew,” Sinbad said, and giggled like she hadn’t just been on the verge of tears or killed a monster or been impaled like a friggin’ pincushion.

In our little exchange—in which two of us were worried about grievous, mortal wounds while the other one was worried about her wardrobe—none of us noticed the two nervous cops who had driven up just in time to see a little girl decapitate a monster and survive being impaled. They stopped the squad car and jumped out, unsure what to make of the scene, just as the anomaly finished melting away. Now they pulled out their guns and pointed them at us, a bit hesitantly.

“Put … put your hands up,” the younger cop said.

A perfect ending to a perfect day.

DONUTS, COPS AND RUBBER BANDS

The cops who appeared on the scene were responding to a series of strange phone calls in which weird creatures with fairly broad descriptions were terrorizing the neighborhood. No two calls were the same—because no two anomalies were the same.

All they really had to go on was an undeniable conclusion: some weirdos were causing chaos.

So when they saw an angel covered in foam, a strange little girl with giant needles coming out of her chest and a human in a black jacket, they naturally decided the weirdos causing chaos were us. After all, a creature was a creature. The average human couldn’t distinguish an angel from a harpy, a hobgoblin from a gnome or a dwarf from a severely short man.

An Other was an Other. That word said it all: other. As in, not human. Not of this world. Not welcome.

Despite believing we were the cause of the phone calls, however, they saw enough of what was happening to realize the story wasn’t as cut and dry as three weirdoes causing mischief in the streets. And when I—clearly the only human in the trio—showed them my Paradise Lot badge, they breathed a sigh of cautious relief. Until, that was, they interviewed the elderly woman in the nearby house. Her testimony left them more confused than ever; they couldn’t tell if the point of the elderly woman’s story was that we saved her or killed her sister. Since there was no body, and the elderly woman insisted we did in fact save her, they split the difference and arrested us for disturbing the peace with the promise that they’d let us go “once this was all cleared up.”

We accepted our fate, cramming into the back seat of the squad car to be whisked off to jail.

Hellelujah!

↔

At the mainland precinct, we were treated with the same misgivings. The human cops were completely unsure how you booked an angel, a human and a little girl who could do things no little girl should be able to do. This wasn’t an Other-friendly place. After all, at least one of these cops thought holding down a five-inch-tall pixie and torturing her with rubber bands was acceptable behavior in the eyes of the law.

Whatever they did to Mable, they’d do worse to an angel if given half the chance. Their Otherist rage might even spill over to me. That was fine … We were adults; we knew the score when we agreed to investigate on the mainland. But Sinbad—she was the one I worried about. Sure, she was a four-foot-nothing warrior manifested from the mind of a distressed little girl, but she was created to fight monsters, not cops. Her mind probably wouldn’t understand that these guys saw her as an Other, and that any aggression they committed toward her was because they were petty and small and scared. Sinbad might not have the empathy or understanding that she needed to show restraint.

And may the GoneGods help them if she didn’t show restraint. That image of this girl, impaled by needles as tall as her, decapitating a giant monster, was proof alone of that.

Sinbad, in cuffs, crawled up to Penemue, who scooped her into his arms like a gorilla protecting his infant.

The two cops took us to the booking desk, where a burly old man with crow’s feet and a hard forehead took one look at us and pointed at me. “Main holding.” Then he looked at Sinbad and raised a curious eyebrow.

“Other,” one of the cops said.

“No, she isn’t,” I said.

The second cop shook his head. “She’s an Other. You saw what happened.”

“And what was that?” I asked.

He made a gesture of two swords through the chest. “She took those lances like they were paper cuts.”

“What lances?”

“From that preying mantis Other … just before she cut its head off and—” He stopped speaking, just shaking his head.

I nodded. “Yeah, I think what you saw and what you think you saw are two different things.”

The second cop started up again when the first one nudged him and pointed at Sinbad’s chest. Her wound was fully healed. But that wasn’t what stopped them from piping up. It was her costume—there were no holes where the lances had pierced her. Her shirt wasn’t torn. There weren’t even wrinkles in her costume.

I pulled the two cops in close, leaning in so that the one with the flat forehead couldn’t hear us. “There isn’t a scratch on her. You don’t want it getting around that you two are hallucinating that this little—and quite ordinary—girl is doing things that no girl should do. Look, I get you’ve got to book us. I get that things have to be sorted out. But keep us together. Keep her calm. Despite the complete lack of evidence, you and I both know what she’s capable of. You don’t want to make her angry. I promise you that.”

The cops looked at Sinbad, who cuddled up hard into Penemue chest, and nodded. “Book ’em together,” the older one said. “Until we sort out who they are and what they’re doing here, might as well be civil.”

“Thank you,” I said.

↔

It’d been a while since I’d seen the inside of a jail cell. Not as long as I’d like it to have been, but I had managed to avoid arrest for the better part of the past year. Thank the GoneGods for small accomplishments.

Inside, we sat on the familiar stiff beds bolted into the ground, with dirtied white walls and a seatless toilet. Sinbad didn’t seem to care; this was another part of the adventure. As for Penemue, I doubted there was a weekend that went by without him winding up in jail for one reason or another.

Sinbad paced the room, the adrenaline of the evening slowly wearing off and giving way to the inevitable exhaustion that would follow. Eventually she yawned, and without asking permission—and certainly without embarrassment or caution—she crawled into Penemue’s arms and promptly fell asleep.

The angel accepted her without hesitation and cradled her in his massive arms, using one of his wings as a giant, extra-soft, angel-feathered duvet. Within seconds the little warrior pirate was softly snoring in his embrace.

He looked down at her with genuine affection and untempered love. I knew the twice-fallen angel well enough to know that Sinbad was family to him now. And the angel would stop at nothing to help family.

The adrenaline was wearing off for me, too. I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes.

After a long silence, during which I may or may not have fallen asleep, I heard a loud, audible sigh that preceded Penemue’s voice. “Jean, are you awake?”

“I am now,” I said, not opening my eyes.

“Tell me, Jean … in our modern family, if you are the dad, what does that make me?”

“Excuse me?” I said, cracking one eyelid to peer at Penemue. “We’ve only been in jail for an hour. A bit soon for you to start looking for a wife in here, don’t you think?

He gave me a look that said he was serious. He really wanted to know what an Other–human family would look like.

I shrugged. “The dad, too, I guess.”

“Ahhh, but that implies I’m male.”

“No need to imply. I’ve seen you without your pants on. Unfortunately,” I groaned.

“Really? When?”

“You were blind stinking drunk.”

“Sounds like me.”

“And you lost your keys. You thought it would be easier to find them if you took your pants off.”

“Ahhh, those pants. I’m sure they have a secret pocket. I keep losing things in them.”

“And your underwear?”

“Super-special magic pocket.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“But just because my parts somewhat resemble yours doesn’t make me male.”

“How do you figure?”

“For one, I cannot reproduce. Not since the first Fall,” he said.

“So? Plenty of males can’t reproduce … and plenty more shouldn’t. Doesn’t make you less male.”

“For another, my physiology barely matches a human’s.”

“Cows have four stomachs. You still have bulls.”

“I have wings.”

“Roosters.”

“I have talons.”

“Again—roosters.”

“I’ve been to Hell.”

“Uh … New Jersey?”

We both laughed. It wasn’t the first time we had spent the night in jail together, and I doubted it would be the last.

“OK—so I’d be her dad, too. I can live with that.” Penemue gave her a snuggle that said that was exactly what he planned on being.

“Hellelujah,” I said.

Penemue grimaced at me. Leaning in close, he put a hand on my knee. “Human Jean, how long have we known each other?”

“Years. Why?”

“I need to tell you something very important. You’re not going to like it.”

“Go on,” I said, wary of where this was going.

“You say ‘Hellelujah.’ A lot.”

“So?”

“So, you’re trying to be clever by saying ‘Hellelujah’ instead of ‘Hallelujah.’ It’s a mildly clever wordplay in which you reference the inferno.”

“Again, so?”

Penemue sighed. “The original Hebrew word means ‘praise or glory to God.’ Allelu means ‘praise or glory’ and jah is part of the tetragrammaton YHWH, generally seen as Yahweh or Jehovah, depending on your understanding of the word. But here’s the rub: ancient Hebrew had no vowels in their written language until the Masoretes decided they needed to put them there in the form of spots under the original written letters.”

“Uh-huh,” I said blankly.

“So it’s entirely conceivable that ancient Hebrew speakers pronounced ‘Hallelujah’ as ‘Hellelujah.’ Or that the two words were interchangeable depending on region, dialect and general preference. In other words, from an ancient Hebrew perspective, there is no distinction between the two words, thus making your intended reverse meaning … meaningless.”

I paused at this. What Penemue was telling me was that it was possible ancient Hebrew speakers would have pronounced “Hallelujah” as “Hellelujah,” but then again—maybe not. It wasn’t like there were many ancient Hebrew speakers around. Well, with the exception of the angel in the cell with me right now.

“So … how did they pronounce the word back then?” I asked.

Penemue sighed. “I suggest you retire your catchphrase and replace it with something more … accurate.”

“But I like—”

“Move on, Jean. Move on.”

“OK, fine. What do you suggest?”

“It is your catchphrase.”

“Mr. Cain used ‘Fallen Fruit.’ ”

“It’s good, but it’s his … given his pedigree and all. Maybe yours should be something like ‘GoneGodDamn’ or ‘Forgotten Heaven.’ Perhaps ‘Empty Hell’? Pick one and don’t look back.” And with that, Penemue nestled Sinbad under his wing and leaned against the wall.

Hellelu—ahh, I mean … Empty Hell? I’ll get back to you on that.

↔

An hour or so later, Sinbad stirred in Penemue arms, digging her face into his tweed jacket. “She’s healed,” I said. “I haven’t seen someone close their wound like that. Ever.”

“I told you—she’s special.”

“There’s special and then there’s special,” I said. “And she didn’t burn any time to heal herself.” I held up Mickey Mouse for Penemue to examine.

The angel nodded. “I know. But none of that concerns me as much as this.” He stretched out his wing and showed me Sinbad.

I examined what looked like a perfectly ordinary little girl who, for all we knew, was coming home from a costume party. Her pirate’s costume that was perfectly unharmed. “Her shirt?” I said. “It’s not ripped. That’s what got the cops to let us stay together. No time may have been burned, but magic is definitely at play.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple. Her clothes look brand new, not something she has worn for several days, not to mention had several fights in, too. I mean, I couldn’t get my wings that white with bleach. Her shirt looks like it just came out of the wrapper.”

I leaned in to take a closer look. Penemue was absolutely right: her shirt, pants, vest, scarf—all looked brand new. “OK, I’ll bite. How is this possible?”

“It’s not,” Penemue said. “Not unless her costume isn’t a costume at all.”

“What is it if not a costume?”

“Her skin,” Penemue said. “The little girl who dreamt Sinbad to life doesn’t see her as someone in a costume. She dreams of her as a whole thing—costume and all. What’s more, in Sarah’s dreams, Sinbad cannot be hurt. Her clothes cannot be ripped. She cannot get sick, cannot grow older. Sinbad is and always will be exactly as Sarah sees her. Don’t you see what that means?”

I touched the cloth of her costume. It felt like cotton to me. “That she’ll save a lot on dry cleaning?”

“Seriously.”

“That she’s immortal.”

“No—that she is static. She’ll never grow up, she’ll never change.”

Penemue said that last statement like it was supposed to mean something. But whatever point the angel was trying to make was lost on me. “So?”

He sighed. “I knew this would come up.” He pulled out a tiny silver bell from his wings.

“Is that my bell?”

I knew it was. Penemue held the bell Bella had asked me to retrieve from the shelleycoat. The one she’d told me to hang over the door of the Millennium Hotel. “When you do,” she’d said the last time I saw her in Heaven, “whatever happens is part of our path.”

And Penemue had taken it, brought it here. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

“It is a magical bell owned by many over the millennia it has been in existence,” he said. “I took it because I wanted you to hear something. If you will, please ring it over her now.”

I snatched my bell back with a grimace and placed it over Sinbad, ringing it lightly in hopes it wouldn’t wake her up. I heard nothing. I rang it again, more forcefully now, and although Sinbad stirred, no words rang in my ear.

Only the sounds of the bell’s chime and her light snoring.

“What the …?”

“When you got that little precious item, I attuned it to my ears as well. I, too, hear nothing when it rings.”

“Why?”

“Because she is not something classifiable as she is wholly and completely unique.”

“Enough with the cryptic crap,” I said my voice ringing louder than the bell. Sinbad stirred, but thankfully didn’t wake. Holding a gentle hand over her ear, I whispered, “Just spill it. I’m exhausted and I need you to explain this to me like I’m a human or something and not a creature with centuries of life experience.”

What I didn’t say was: “I want you to explain every detail of this to me because I believe it’s what Bella wants. It’s part of my path back to her.” Because even though I trusted the twice-fallen angel completely, I still felt a little mad revealing as much to anyone. Even Penemue.

Penemue rolled his eyes. “How it is that you humans were His favorite, I will never understand.” Then he looked at Sinbad and his gaze softened. “If my theory is correct, then she is exactly like we Others once were before the GrandExodus. Living, but static.”

I shook my head. “Still not following you.”

“Others were created—and once created, we lived in this static state where we never aged. Disease and most wounds didn’t do permanent damage to us, and death didn’t come easily. But then the gods left and we started to age, we became susceptible to disease, we can be hurt and we can die. We will die. Whether from an accident or a fight or simply old age is moot. But Sinbad—she is like what we were before. Created and imbued with everything she needs to live forever.”

“Provided that Sarah dreams of her.”

“Exactly. It begs the question, though. Did the gods leave … or did they simply stop dreaming of us?”

“You say ‘potato,’ I say, ‘Who cares?’ They left, and in the process made you mortal. They knew that would happen. They chose to let their creations die.”

“Yes, but—”

Penemue’s words were cut off by a very sleepy Sinbad. “Mr. Jean,” Sinbad yawned. “What are you doing?”

I gazed into those big blue, innocent, tired eyes before realizing that I still held onto her shirt.

“Nothing, kiddo,” I said. “I’m just making sure your costume isn’t stained.”

“Is it?” she asked.

“No, it isn’t. Not one little bit.”

“Good.” She yawned again and turned over, pushing her face into Penemue’s chest.

I stared at the girl whose head Penemue had rung Bella’s bell over. No species, no classification. And I knew with certainty I’d rarely felt: whatever else happened, I had to help this little pirate until the end.

That was what Bella wanted.

↔

I waited until Sinbad’s breathing fell into the steady rhythm of sleep before I asked the question that had bothered me since this whole thing began. “OK—created or not,” I said, “someone is using children’s nightmares to build an army. Why?”

“Why children or why an army?” Penemue asked. “I can answer the former … but as for the latter, I have no idea.”

“OK, answer the former.”

“Children believe.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Yes, it is,” he said, gently brushing a loose strand of hair from Sinbad’s face. The warrior pirate stirred slightly before nestling back into the angel. “Children are not marred by age. They have yet to experience real disappointment, and they accept things as they are and it is always good. For something to be bad in the eyes of a child, well, that is something they must be taught.”

I shook my head. “I’m not buying it. What about getting burned? Or not liking broccoli?”

“Both taught,” Penemue said. “Fire is beautiful and mysterious and wondrous, until they get burned. In other words, experience teaches them that fire hurts. And as for broccoli … little kids will eat it up until they learn that there are other, tastier foods. It is only when they are able to make that comparison that broccoli starts to taste bad. Believe me, I know.”

“Oh yeah? How do you know?” I asked, trying to throw as much sarcasm in as I could muster. “Let me guess, you were the angel in charge of creating human taste buds?”

“No … but I did help design innocence.”

“What?”

“Come now, dear Human Jean … you didn’t think that humans were born innocent, only to grow and mar themselves in time? If that were true, then all creation would be the same. Angels, fairies and all manner of Others, too, should start off innocent. After all, they have yet to do anything that might mar them. But that is not the case. Many Others were created out of evil. Or hunger, or anger, or jealousy. Very few of us started completely innocent. But humans were to be different. That was what the gods ordained—a being in this universe free to choose good or evil or any of the thousand shades in-between. But in order to do so, humans need to start out innocent. Think of it as the white canvas on which their story shall be painted. I helped create that,” Penemue said, neither boastful nor shameful. It was a simple matter of fact. I was sitting with the angel who had counseled that all humans be born innocent.

“What about nature versus nurture?” I asked.

“Indeed. Both nature and nurture paint the human’s soul. But neither do so much as to stop a human from choosing right over wrong, evil over good … and every nuance of morality in between. That is the true difference between humans and Others. Humans walk a path of the righteous or the marred. Others start on either path and go against their nature to become something else.”

“Like you did when you chose to defy divine ordinance?”

“Yes, exactly like that. I was created good—an angel of Heaven. And when I chose to do something ordained as wrong, I plucked myself off one path and quite literally fell onto another.”

“But you taught humanity the secrets of the written word. Surely that was a good thing.”

Penemue considered this. “Perhaps. But doing so defied my purpose.”

“A good man doing a bad thing,” I muttered.

“That is one way to look at it. From another perspective, I was a bad angel doing a good thing. But from my perspective, I was neither good nor bad … I was a creature who did what I believed to be right.”

I let his words sink into my being. Sitting before me was one of the most tortured souls I’d ever encountered. A twice-fallen angel, a drunk, a scholar, a being who loved his neighbors with more intensity and depth than I could ever grasp … and he was my best friend of many years.

“OK,” I said. “And the children … they are innocent?”

“Yes,” Penemue said. “Innocent, and thus free to believe with all their being. As they age, they will start to doubt, but until they grow up, they will continue to believe. Distort that belief, force it into the world of nightmares, and—”

“And you create monsters that look like broken toys and baby sisters.”

Penemue gestured to the sleeping Sinbad in his arms. “And indomitable heroes.”

I smiled. “Indomitable, for sure.”

Penemue shrugged and shifted his weight. “How did you know the singing would draw them to you?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t. I just knew they were the stuff nightmares were made of—literally. And I did what I always did when facing my own nightmares … I sang.”

Penemue’s eyes glistened with the soft glow of near-tears. “You, Human Jean, will never cease to amaze me.”

“As will you,” I said.

YOU HAD ME AT HELLO

The buzzer to the main door cut through the air and the large metal door to our wing of the prison opened up. Conner walked in and slid into the cell with us. Sinbad woke up, looked at him and smiled before falling back to sleep.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “The nursery was a dead end, we were attacked by deadly non-Other monsters and Penemue says he is not male.”

“I can’t reproduce,” Penemue chimed in.

Conner frowned. “Yeah, I know. Angels can’t procreate ever since the first Fall. But plenty of males can’t reproduce. Doesn’t make you less of a male.”

“Oh, brother,” I said, hitting my forehead. “Can we move on, please?”

Conner looked at us, then Sinbad, then back at us. “Ahhh, I see. I think you would be called Dad, too.”

Penemue snapped his fingers and pointed at the Adonis-shaped cop. “I can honestly say I completely understand what Miral sees in you. Quick-witted, empathetic and kind. Damn near perfect. You don’t happen to have a vice or two hidden away, do you? You know, to make you more approachable? That would graduate you from damn near perfect to fully-fledged perfect.”

At that, Conner snorted. “Only one vice I can think of.” He gave the guard at the door a thumbs-up. Another buzzer sounded, this one waking up Sinbad, and the steel bar door slid open. “I’m a sucker when it comes to helping my friends, no matter how stupid they are.”

↔

Conner led us out into the main area of the station which, unlike the Paradise Lot PD, was solely comprised of humans. He waved at the two cops who arrested us, a friendly motion that simultaneously said, Thank you and I owe you one. The two cops nodded back, a professional gesture that said, You owe us a lot more than one, and eyed us suspiciously—Penemue in particular—as we left the very Homo sapien-precinct.

Outside, Conner nodded toward an old camper van, complete with wood side paneling, a tiny single element cooker and extra antennae to pick up the local TV stations. “Get in,” he said, sliding the door open.

“Hold on,” I said. “We have a lot to cover and the police are exactly who we need to—”

Conner gave me a look that would have made Astarte hold her breath. “Not now. Not here. Get in.”

We piled in the van that he got from only the GoneGods knew where and took off down the street.

↔

As soon as we were on the road, I looked around the interior. The old camper van had shag carpet and a bobblehead bulldog stuck to the dashboard control panel—a dashboard control panel mostly for show rather than actual use, such as controlling the nonexistent air conditioning. In-between the driver and passenger seats was a large doll that looked like the elephant version of a Pound Puppy.

In the back where Penemue and Sinbad sat was a tiny kitchenette, an old black-and-white travel TV—complete with a rabbit-ear antenna, two bucket seats and a short mattress that even I would have to hug my knees to fit.

“Nice ride,” I said, pulling down the sun visor. A bunch of sticker books slid from where they had been precariously tucked.

“Put those back,” Conner snapped.

I gathered up the half-used sticker sheets and did my best to put them back, pushing the visor up as high as I could to hold them all in.

Conner sighed. “Sorry. This is the old family camper van and those stickers were my kid’s prized possession. For some reason he thought they were hidden up there and, well, I’ve never had the heart to move them.”

“No need to apologize,” I said. “I shouldn’t have been snooping.”

Conner downshifted on a hill and groaned. “I haven’t used this thing in years. It took quite a bit of coaxing to get it to start up. I guess this old thing still has a bit of life left in her after all.”

“I like it,” Sinbad called from the mattress, where she sat cross-legged.

“As do I.” Penemue swayed in a seat too small for his ample frame as the old van bounced around on frail suspension not used to carrying the angel’s weight. “But it does beg the question … where are we going and why are we in this van?”

“We’re going home,” Conner said. “Back to Paradise Lot.”

“Like hell we are,” I said. “Those maniacs are still on the loose. I had them—”

“We’ve been recalled.”

“By who?” I asked.

“Michael.”

I audibly rolled my eyes—which is to say, I rolled them and groaned.

Conner took the meaning. “If it was just Michael, I’d ignore him. But things have changed. It’s way too dangerous for us to stay—”

“Dangerous? For who?”

“For Penemue,” Conner said. “And for your ‘cousin.’ I heard all about what she can and cannot do.”

“What are you talking about? Look, we need a day, maybe two. I drew them out once and—”

“You have no idea, do you?” Conner cut in. He adjusted his mirror to get a look at Penemue and then Sinbad. When he saw that none of us had any clue as to what he was talking about, he groaned. “OK … Penemue, can you turn on the little TV?”

Penemue reached for the old rotary-style controls. “Indeed … but which channel?”

“Any of them.”

Penemue hit the switch. A raspy voice filled the van that gradually came into audible focus as Penemue fine-tuned into the station. As he did, Conner put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to want to see this.”

I got into the back, where the little ten-inch TV showed a chaotic scene of cops bursting into a house. It only took a second before the cameras focused on a kid’s bedroom with a giant pirate poster hanging above the bed.

“Hey, that’s a pirate,” Sinbad cooed. “Like me!”

Penemue and I watched in horror as the cops tore through the darkened room until they pulled out a very frightened monster-under-your-bed using heavy-duty flashlights. The scene cut to a SWAT team who had trapped a hill troll using a net made of cables. Then I watched a very frightened pixie—“Hey, that’s Mable!” I exclaimed—carried into a police station inside a birdcage. With each arrest, the headline that flashed across the bottom of the screen read the same thing:

KIDNAPPING RING OF OTHERS BROUGHT DOWN BY POLICE

Another cut and we were in Paradise Lot where a team of cops—led by none other than O’D Baldy himself—burst through an apartment door, where they were met by Aau the jackal-guard. But unlike the previous arrests, Aau did not stand there and let the police take him in. Instead, he picked up and threw one cop across the room before grabbing O’D by the neck and tossing him into the cameraman.

Static snow filled the screen.

The anchorwoman returned to the screen and told us the “DogMan” had escaped. I cringed at the term DogMan, wondering if she any concept of how degrading such a title was for a creature who, once upon a time, protected the friggin’ sun from being extinguished by the enemies of light. Fugitive or no, Aau had saved the world from extinction more times than the total sum of days that human anchorwoman had lived.

I watched in growing horror as the screen played its symphony of mothers crying and arrested Others, as the news reported about more and more missing children. Kids, not only from Paradise Lot or the nearby mainland, but all over the world. Each kidnapped child connected by one thing: they all were friendly with Others.

Talk about the boogieman getting airtime.

The news praised the police while condemning the Others. They talked about vigils that would be held until the children were safely returned. Fear-mongers cried that it was too late, while the hopefuls insisted that Others were more inclined to enslave and abuse than actually kill. And the cacophony of anger and outrage was accented by sound bites from Mr. Yew and his proposed tagging policies on Others. He also praised Mr. Cain and the timely opening of his prison. To his credit, Mr. Cain noted that all the Others associated with the disappearances would be held in the prison and that he and his team of expert interrogators would continue to interview the suspects. I had to hand it to him—he was the only person in the forty-minute horror show that did not assume the Others were guilty. A lone voice of near reason.

The other thing I noted was that not one Other was interviewed and, besides cautiously worded interviews by Mr. Cain, no alternative views offered.

Others—as in, all of them—were guilty.

Such were the sounds of humans preparing for war.

“And it gets worse,” Conner said as he drove the van. “There are Other beatings and hate crimes happening all over the country. Hell, the world. I’ve never seen it so bad. It’s like everyone was waiting for an excuse and as soon as the kidnapping story broke, humans pointed their sticks and guns at Others without a second thought.”

“Ego non baptizo te in nómine Patris, et in nomine Diaboli,” Penemue muttered.

Sinbad and I gave the twice-fallen angel a blank look. Even Conner shrugged and said, “Excusez-moi?”

“ ‘I baptize you, not in the name of the Father, but in the name of the Devil.’ Such is the fate of those who wish to purify themselves from what they fear, instead of making peace with it. It is what Captain Ahab did before his rage and desire to destroy those whom he blamed for his woes consumed him. Except that the white whale never hurt him—it was his fear. And now the humans are doing the same thing, seeking to eradicate what they fear rather than trying to understand it.” Penemue sighed and did something I have never seen him do before. He crossed himself. “I must get back to Paradise Lot.”

“We all have to,” Conner agreed. “It will be safest there.”

“No, you misunderstand,” Penemue said. “This could very well be the beginning of the end, and I must tell EightBall of what I did to his parents before—”

“Penemue,” I growled. “Now is not the time.”

“I fear that you are wrong. Now may be the only time,” Penemue said, adjusting the TV’s rabbit ears so that we got a clearer image of two cops violently shoving a terrified wendigo into a police van. The human onlookers cheered the cops on. A single tear escaped the angel’s eye. “It is so much easier to destroy than to understand.”

Sinbad went over to Penemue and hugged him. “It will be OK, Mr. Penemue. You just wait and see, everything will turn out just fine in the end.”

Penemue hugged that little warrior pirate for all he was worth.

I knew I shouldn’t have done so, but I left the EightBall comment alone. There were bigger things to deal with at that moment. I turned to Conner. “The plan? Assuming you have one.”

Conner put on his blinker and turned down a narrow alleyway. “Right now, those two are in real danger. We need to get them home. At least in Paradise Lot, they’ll blend in.”

“It’s kind of like taking a chicken away from the den of wolves and placing him in a slaughter house,” I said.

“But won’t everyone be happy when all the bad guys are caught?” Sinbad asked.

I shook my head. “They’re not arresting the bad guys, kiddo. We all know the monster, troll and pixie have nothing to do with the disappearances. And besides, it will only be a matter of time until everyone starts thinking, 'If it happened once, it can happen again.’ Even if we caught the kidnappers red-handed, it wouldn’t stop what’s coming. Hell, even if the kidnappers turned out to be humans who were hell-bent on framing Others and we had irrefutable evidence to that effect—even that wouldn’t stop ’em. No … war is coming. We just have to brace ourselves for it and hope that we’re still in one piece when the dust settles.”

Penemue reached into the feathery folds of a wing, fishing for a bottle of Drambuie, but his hand came back empty. He had destroyed the last of his bottles in the park. He sighed. “Human Jean … always the optimist.”

“That’s not all,” Conner said.

“What?” Penemue asked. “More good news?”

“Miral. She’s gone.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean she’s with Colel Cab and she won’t answer my calls, return my texts … Even her email has an auto responder that says, ‘I will be away from my desk for an indeterminate amount of time and cannot be reached.’ She’s gone.” Conner slammed his fist against the wheel. “If there was ever a time that you needed to tell me what’s up, Matthias, it’s now.”

I nodded. Despite Penemue’s protests, we spent the rest of the ride telling Conner everything. We told him about Sinbad being created, why we thought the children were being kidnapped and how this defied all kinds of divine laws. There was no point in hiding anything. We were headed for war and Conner needed to take a side. He couldn’t do that unless he knew everything. And that’s exactly what I told him. Everything. Everything I knew, and I everything I didn’t know and still needed to find out.

“Someone is messing with creation …” Conner mulled over this revelation as he drove. “What does this have to do with Miral?”

Penemue shrugged. “She would be—pardon the expression—hell-bent on destroying anything or anyone who played with such concepts. Any angel would.”

Conner looked at him in the rear-view mirror. “Except you.”

“Indeed. Let me clarify: any non-fallen angel would. Us Fallen have immunized ourselves from certain hang-ups that our former employment once upon a time demanded of us. Whatever Miral is doing, it has nothing to do with this creation problem.”

“But it’s got to be connected.”

“Possibly,” I said. “Remember back at the Tree? Michael was paralyzed in the same stance that Miral was in, on a single bended knee.”

“But Michael believed he was talking to God,” Penemue said. “No one else could get him to fall to one knee. Miral knew full well who she was speaking to. She even said her name out loud.”

“So?” I asked.

“Let me explain it to you this way: angels do not bow to anyone but God.”

“Does that go for both Fallen and non-fallen?” Conner asked.

Penemue narrowed his eyes. “For someone who works in Paradise Lot, you must brush up on your history. The angels fell twice … and both times had everything to do with bowing.”

“Pride,” Conner said.

“That’s the second, more famous Fall: pride when Satan refused to bow to man,” I said, familiar with the story. There had been many a drunken night when Penemue told me the story. “The first Fall was because some angels—Penemue amongst them—decided to take it upon themselves to train the humans, giving them secret knowledge.”

Penemue nodded. “In other words, the first Fall was because some of us bowed too deeply to humans—metaphorically speaking, of course. The second Fall was because many angels refused to bow to humans at all. Two Falls, both because of our confused bowing etiquette.”

Conner ran his hand through his perfectly sculpted hair and groaned. “OK, fine … two Falls, bowing … but you just admitted that angels have bowed to humans before.”

“Humm … yes, but that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, as they say. And given all the confusion of who we could bow to and why and when … Well, let’s just say that after the Great War between Heaven and Hell, both God and the Devil agreed that angels were to never bow again, except—in the case of the non-fallen—to the big-guy-in-the-sky.” Penemue pointed up, before placing his hands together much in the same fashion basketball stars do when making a particularly difficult shot.

“So Miral wouldn’t bow.”

“I don’t think you are fully grasping this,” Penemue said. “Miral cannot bow … emphasis on the not. It is more likely that you will sprout wings and fly than for Miral to be able to get on bended knee before anyone who is not—” Penemue whistled and pointed up again.

“I don’t understand.”

“Physically she has the ability to bow,” I said. “But there is a part of her that won’t let herself bow to others. Which means that either something else is compelling her to bow, or the part of her that won’t let her bow to anyone is being suppressed or removed.”

“Forgive me for being dense, but I want to make sure I’m understanding you correctly. You’re saying that angels can’t bow to anyone but the Big Guy who was once in the sky? That just doesn’t make sense.”

“It does,” Sinbad said. In all our discussion, the little pirate warrior had been listening so quietly that we all but forgot she was there. “It’s like this … I could never do anything to hurt Sarah. I would rather die before I did so. And I know there are things that you would never do, even though you could. Like turn your backs on your friends.” She pointed at Conner, then at Penemue. “Or forgive yourself for EightBall’s parents, even though it’s not your fault. Or you, Mr. Jean—you’d never leave Paradise Lot, no matter how badly being there hurts you. We all have things we cannot do, even if every part of our being wants to. And if we are forced to do it … then we cease being who we are.”

And that was it. The simplistic way Sinbad put it summed up exactly what was happening—not just with Miral, but with all of us.

None of us said anything for a long minute before Conner eventually groaned, “OK, I think I get it. So what do we do about it?”

And therein lay the crux. What do we do about it?

I knew now that there was nothing we could do to stop what was coming. Even if the world were to wake up to the news that all these crimes were committed by humans dressed as Others, that irrefutable evidence proved no Other was involved in a single disappearance and that it was just a big hoax, war was coming.

There were too many images of angry, fearsome Others and crying mothers to reverse that.

Fine … let war come, I thought.

And Sinbad was right. As much as I’d like to leave, doing so—especially now—would be to lose who I was. Who I am. I made a promise to Bella that I would help Others. I also told Medusa that I would always try to be a source of comfort for the world. Yeah, I could physically leave, go up north and wait until humans and Others tired of war and the world resettled into an uneasy peace, but that wasn’t who I was.

So then it was time to place myself where I could do the most good. I looked at my options. I could join Michael and help keep Paradise Lot under control, or I could take Mr. Cain’s offer and be in a position to help ease human fears. I could rejoin General Shouf—after all, there would be many Others who weren’t going to accept the human’s persecution lying down. Fanatics would be on the rise. As many of them as I could keep out of the news, the better.

Three choices … three different lives. None of them were good choices, but in the end, I’d have to settle on one of them. In the end. But all I wanted was peace. And if that peace was not possible for the world, then what was so wrong if I could just have a little piece of it for myself?

Peace. I mulled the word over and over in my head. If I were to have peace, then there was only one way for me to get it. As much as those three choices each had their good and friggin’ terrible points, there was one factor that made my decision for me: I needed to help Sinbad find those kids and get them home. Therefore, any choice I made needed to give me the freedom to keep searching for them.

I made my choice with a grunt just as Conner pulled the van to a stop. I slid the door open. “We’ve got to get home,” I said. “But first, I have a phone call I need to make.”

“What are you doing?” Conner asked.

“Taking up an offer I should have never refused.”

Once I was out of earshot of the van, I took out my old mobile phone and dialed the only number I knew would help me find what I was looking for. It rang once, then twice, but before it could ring a third time the phone clicked and I knew my call had been answered.

Before the person at the other end could say anything, I spoke. “Yes,” I said, my voice straining under the weight of what that word implied. “My answer is yes. I will work for you.”

End of Part 3

EPILOGUE TO PART THREE

Jean thinks TinkerBelle left to be with her new guardian CaCa. In this, he is only half right.

The half in which he is wrong is in thinking she left because when Jean could no longer see Bella in his dreams, a great sadness overcame him. But it is deeper than that. He no longer dreams, but rather sleeps the sleep only the dead are capable of … it is a sleep of eternal darkness, and to TinkerBelle, Jean’s slumber is death. Every night, when he closes his eyes, he dies. And it is only by some miracle that he wakes in the morning.

TinkerBelle loves her guardian in the way only dreamers can love. To experience his death, night after night, is torture. That is the other half of why she left.

Then, one night, she feels it. She senses him again. Far away in the Millennium Hotel, her guardian slumbers … and he dreams. It is dark and far away, barely a whisper in the vast universe of night, but it is unmistakable.

He dreams.

But his dreams are not the pleasant meanderings he once experienced nightly with his Bella. These are tortured nightmares. His slumber is not pleasant, and that is why TinkerBelle returns.

Maybe, just maybe, she can help him.

PART XII

PROLOGUE TO PART FOUR

Juliet Matthias is big and round and uncomfortable and happy.

She waddles into the room where her father bites down on toast like he is ripping into the flesh of some freshly killed prey. In a way, he is—albeit his prey is from the local bakery, and the flesh is more flour and yeast and melted butter, not sinew and blood.

She giggles as she joins him at the kitchen table. “I’m pretty sure it’s dead, Dad. You don’t need to worry about the toast getting away.”

“You laugh too much, young lady,” he says, pointing his toast at her accusatorially. Andrew Matthias is a hard man. Always has been, always will be. His lips curl down into a scornful grimace, but after a few moments they turn up into a big, bright smile. “Damn it! I thought I could hold it that time.”

“You’re not a very good scowler,” Juliet says. “Try as you might, there will always be a very happy man in there.” She stands, grabbing her belly for balance, and kisses him on the forehead.

“Maybe,” he says. “But this happy man is going to church, and he is very unhappy you won’t join him.”

“Come on, Dad,” Juliet says. “You know how I feel about organized religion.”

“Ever been to a sermon led by Pastor Gerry? I’d say it’s poorly-organized religion, at best.

“Oh, ha-ha, Dad.”

“OK, OK … but why not come so I can keep an eye on you?” Andrew points at her belly. “Both of you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’re two weeks late. It could come any minute.”

“He,” she corrects. “The baby is a he. And if he does decide to come out today, I’ll be ready.”

He growls—his way of saying that he doubts her optimism.

She rolls her eyes and shrugs in the way she’s done since she was very little. “The bag is in the car, your work number is by the phone. I’ll take it easy. If … if anything happens, I’ll call you immediately.”

The aged father eyes his daughter for a long, hard moment before nodding. “OK.”

Juliet leans against the cupboard to take a respite from the weight of the he. Rubbing her belly, she softly sings, “Hi Jean, come out and play with me …”

Her father looks at her as he pours coffee into a thermos. “That song again?”

Juliet ignores him. “Under the apple tree.”

He puts on his boots and laces them up. “You’re sure it’s a boy, huh?”

Juliet nods as she sings, “Bring your dollies three.”

“OK,” Andrew says, chuckling. “But that song ain’t gonna get you to the Grammys.”

Juliet smiles. “Under the rainbow and through the cellar door. We’ll be fri-i-ends, forever more.”

Andrew applauds and Juliet bows as far as her massive belly lets her. He blows her a kiss before leaving for church. Andrew does not know that this will be the last time he will see his daughter healthy and standing. If he did, he might have given her a hug with that kiss and then held her for a long, long time.

↔

Andrew Matthias wishes his daughter would contact the child-to-be’s father. After all, it is only right that the boy—if it is a boy—has a father; it is only right that his daughter has help raising the child. But Juliet Matthias is as stubborn as a mule and as strong as the Queen of Sheba herself. She will not budge. During their last fight, she’d pointed to her belly and proclaimed that, “His father is no one of consequence and Jean-Luc is better off without him.”

“So,” Andrew had said, raising his hands in the air in surrender. Something he did whenever he knew he was in a fight he could not win. “You’ve given him a name?”

Juliet’s smile stretched from ear to ear. “I have. Jean-Luc Matthias. Has a nice ring to it. Of course, Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were taken, so I thought I’d reorder it a bit. Oh, and drop the Mark,” she giggles.

He thinks about that all the way home from church, during which Pastor Gerry droned on and on about how one with a grain of faith could move a mountain. Andrew is also considering what to do for the rest of his day off. Maybe some gardening, perhaps take Juliet out to Hot Mama’s Cookies for a—

His thoughts are cut off by the ambulance in his driveway.

↔

“The baby is fine, but there were … complications,” the doctor tells Andrew, “with your daughter.”

“Will Juliet be all right?” Andrew asks.

The doctor, a serious woman with a thin nose and rimless glasses, does not shake her head or nod. She just looks at him with a neutral expression and says, “She’s lost a lot of blood. We’ve set up a transfusion, but you have to understand that even with the transfusion and round-the-clock care, we cannot guarantee recovery.”

It is shock that prevents Andrew from breaking down here and now.

“We will, of course, do our very best for your daughter,” the doctor says.

Andrew takes in several deep breaths to keep his composure. “Can I see her?”

↔

A nurse takes him to the post-natal ward to see his daughter. He stops at the door when he spots her: Juliet has several tubes coming out of her. One is filling her with blood, another with oxygen and yet a third with saline solution. There are other tubes, but Andrew is unable to guess what they are for. Juliet is pale; she looks weak, but despite it all, she is smiling. That’s his Juliet—the world could be ending and she would still wear that smile of hers.

She holds a little baby in her arms … a bald, pink thing with closed eyes and a nose so small Andrew doubts it can draw in enough oxygen through such tiny passageways.

“Look, Dad,” she says. “A boy … just like I told you he would be.”

“Yes, you did,” Andrew says, coming into the room and kissing her on the forehead for the second time today.

↔

The doctors try to take little Jean-Luc away, put him with the other babies whose mothers are too sick to care for them, but Juliet will not allow this. Stubborn as a mule, strong as the Queen of Sheba. “You need to focus on healing,” her doctor says.

But Juliet shakes her head. She will hold on to her son for as long as possible.

“I’ll be here,” Andrew says to the doctor. “Right here in this chair, helping out.”

The doctor purses her lips.

“Please,” Andrew says. “Please.”

The doctor doesn’t like it, but eventually she gives in. Similar to Andrew, she is smart enough to know when she’s in a losing battle.

↔

It is the middle of the night and Andrew is asleep in a cramped hospital chair. He wakes to his daughter singing. “Hi Jean, come out and play with me …”

She is pale as a ghost. Her lips quiver as she sings. And still, she smiles.

“Are you OK?” Andrew asks.

“My life for his. Fair deal. More than fair,” she says, and then, gently kissing his head, she continues singing. “Under the apple tree, bring your dollies three. Under the—”

Her voice stops abruptly, and in its place the equipment she is attached to begins an incessant beeping. Nurses quickly followed by doctors rush inside and rip Jean-Luc from her arms. They hand the sleeping baby to Andrew and tell him to leave the room.

He looks back at what will be the last time he will see his daughter alive.

Alone and stricken with grief that can only be spawned from losing a child, Andrew paces the hallway with little Jean-Luc in his arms. “Please, God,” he repeats over and over again, bargaining, praying, pleading and threatening the God he was told that, if he faithfully worshipped, would hear him.

When the doctor comes out of the room, removing her mask and revealing passionless, emotionless lips, Andrew knows that his God did not hear him.

Not at all.

↔

“And the boy’s father?” the nurse asks.

Andrew Matthias, father of Juliet Matthias, grandfather of Jean-Luc Matthias, shakes his head and wipes away several large tears that no amount of willpower could hold within. “She never told me who the father was. After a thousand fights, I stopped asking.”

The nurse nods. “So, then, you’re the guardian.”

“Yes … I guess I am.”

The nurse jots down a few notes before leaving the room. “If you need anything,” she says at the door, “just buzz.”

Andrew nods. As the nurse leaves, she hears the mourning grandfather sing:

“Hi Jean, come out and play with me,

Under the apple tree …”

PREPARATIONS, HELP AND HOPE … NAH, JUST KIDDING!

Mr. Cain’s office wasn’t what you’d expect to find in a maximum-security prison. Once upon a time, Hawar Island was a giant lighthouse that acted as a beacon for sailors to make their way up and down the eastern coast. It was the largest lighthouse ever built, its lamp casting a light that could be seen all along the eastern shoreline. And until sonar and radar made it obsolete, its lights helped thousands of ships navigate the waters that divided Paradise Lot from the mainland, saving them from crashing into the rock bed and coral mountains that sprung from the depths.

Mr. Cain took the lantern room as his office, and I had to admit: it was way cool. For one thing, it was completely surrounded by windows. Its old wooden floors had been replaced with marble on which fine silk Persian rugs lay. An immaculate oak wood desk with numerous lacquered panels sat at the north end. Clearly Mr. Cain had full control of the entire area from there.

But beyond control, he also had style. An antique mobile liquor cabinet sat within easy reach of the desk; four coin-operated brass telescopes stood sentry in the circular room—one for each point on the compass (and, presumably, no longer needing coins to operate); the spiral stairwell opened up by the eastern telescope; and in the center, where the lamp once stood, was a detailed model of not only the prison, but also Paradise Lot.

I walked over the model and found the Millennium Hotel standing proud on the hill in the center of downtown Paradise Lot.

“Wow,” I said. “Detailed.” I lightly touched the piece that represented my hotel. It toppled over, rolling down the hill before replica trees acted as a net and stopped it from going farther.

“Fallen fruit,” Mr. Cain said, hurrying over to rescue the fallen hotel. “It’s a model of Paradise Lot. Nothing is glued down. The city is constantly changing, so I found it easier to have everything ready to move or be replaced as needed.” He carefully placed the hotel back on its hill and gestured to the leather seats in front of his desk. “Why not have a seat?”

“OK,” I said, silently admonishing myself for being a klutz on my first day. Without another word, I walked over to one of the two leather seats (which had to have been more expensive than everything I owned combined) and sat down, its soft leather welcoming my weary frame with a whoosh.

Everything about this room projected a sense of wealth and its owner’s overwhelming desire for you to know it. I ran my finger over the smooth surface of Mr. Cain’s desk. Two rapiers were pinned to its front, and just underneath was a large emblem of a tree with a snake coiled around its trunk. The Adam-and-Eve family crest, I guessed.

Mr. Cain went over to the liquor cabinet and poured two neat Scotches in crystal glasses so fragile I feared I’d crush them if I wasn’t careful with my grip. “Thank you,” I said.

“Let us skip the niceties, Mr. Matthias, and allow me to start. We here at Memnock Securities are a state-of-the-art facility, with multiple layers of defense—and offense, if necessary. Besides our standard anti-assault, anti-magic protocols, we also have some … extras. Little things like surface-to-air missiles, sea nets and electrified shores.”

“Electrified shores?”

“The rock bed that surrounds the island isn’t made of rocks. It’s a highly conductive material made to look like rocks. Anyone trying to get on or off the island can be electrocuted. Should I choose to activate it.” He nodded to his desk, where the activation codes to that particular “extra” no doubt hid.

“Oh,” I said. “Good to know.”

He lifted his glass in my direction as he leaned on his desk. Evidently he wasn’t going back to his own chair—more of a throne, really. I guess he wanted me to feel like his equal, his friend. Buddies who were about to embark on a lucrative business venture together.

“So,” he said, “what changed your mind?”

“Changed my mind?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “I never made up my mind to change it in the first place.”

“Yes, you did.” His grin touched his eyes. “After thousands of years observing my fellow humans, I’ve learned to read them quite accurately, Mr. Matthias. You may have been debating taking my offer, but make no mistake—eventually that debate would have ended in your refusal.”

I thought about that day at the Other Place and how impressed I was by his proposed salary. I really was tempted, but still, he was right: hemming and hawing as I was, I probably would have turned him down. Eventually. And with great discord in my heart.

“So, what changed your mind?” he repeated.

“What’s coming,” I said, giving it to him straight. There was no point in pretending that things were different than they were.

“And what exactly is coming?”

“War,” I said.

Mr. Cain nodded, and I noticed he didn’t even attempt to refute my claim.

“A lot of innocent Others are going to be coming here. Guilty by virtue of not being human. So I thought about my options and where I could do the most good, and every road pointed to Memnock. Most of those Others will wind up in this prison, and I wanted to make sure that they were treated right.”

“The innocent ones, you mean?”

“The guilty as well,” I said. “Just because they are convicted of a human crime doesn’t mean they even understand what they did wrong. There’s going to be a lot of pain … a lot of struggle … and I figured you needed someone more empathetic to their ways to be here to keep you and your guards on the straight and narrow.”

He leaned forward and clinked his glass against mine. “Exactly why I approached you in the first place.”

“I know. And since we’re starting this thing together, I need to come clean on something.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, sipping from his glass.

“I was helping Paradise Lot PD investigate the kidnappings. I was behind the glass mirror when Officer Conner and Captain Michael were interviewing you. I heard what you said, about keeping this out of the news, about suppressing the fear. I tried. And I failed.”

“We failed,” he said, the word we coming out hard and sudden. “We failed … try as I might to figure out how those—those villains got past our security systems, I just couldn’t do it. There was no way, and yet somehow they did.”

Now it was my turn to nod. “Stopping this wasn’t possible. But maybe making this less painless will be.”

Mr. Cain shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s gone too far for that as well. There will be a lot of pain. A lot of suffering. The humans will demand we employ … um, advanced … interrogation methods. They will demand results, even if those results are fabricated. I fear humanity will trade comfort for the truth—that is how far things have gone.”

“I won’t go along with torture,” I growled.

“Nor will I. But there are other ways to extract information other than waterboarding. Sleep deprivation, playing on specific Other fears … magic.”

I didn’t like what he was saying, but I didn’t interrupt. I’d seen the news; everything I’d seen on that little TV told me that things were too far gone now. The best I could do was to minimize such techniques as much as possible.

Mr. Cain sensed my hesitation, but he also knew that I didn’t really have a choice. He continued, “Minimal torture. That is the best you and I can hope for … and that is what you and I must work toward.”

“Humph.” I shook my head. “And one more thing: I will need flexibility. I haven’t given up on the kids. I will continue my investigation from here and may need to leave to pursue a lead.”

“Absolutely. And what’s more, our facilities are at your disposal.”

“Thank you,” I said.

We settled into an awkward silence before Mr. Cain sighed, downed the rest of his Scotch and slammed his glass on the table. “Damn it,” he said. “I had hoped that things would not get to this point.” He walked over and grabbed the bottle from the cabinet. He brought it back with him and topped up my glass—which was to say, filled the tumbler I had only sipped at to the brim. Then, filling his own glass, he picked it up and said, “A toast—to Hope. She’s a fickle bitch, so willing to spread her goodwill over us all even when she knows that the promises she offers will never be fulfilled. And what do we do? We believe her, because to not believe in Hope is to sacrifice the part of us that is our humanity.” He raised his glass and I did the same, then the two of us downed our drinks in one harsh gulp that burned all the way down to my stomach.

↔

Mr. Cain walked to the eastern window. “See that over there?” He gestured toward a building that looked more like a gray concrete apartment yet to be painted than a prison. “The guards’ living quarters. We will, over time, make that place more pleasant to look at, but for now it will have to do. Like I said, I had hoped it would never come to this. And if it ever did, I hoped it would be years until my prison needed to be opened. But we must play with the hand we are dealt, mustn’t we?”

He gestured for me to follow him to the western window, where a three-story building longer than ten football fields stretched out into an O shape. If it wasn’t gray, its roof covered with vents and chimneys and generators and four massive clock faces that stood on each point of the compass, I might have thought I was looking at the largest field track in the world.

“That is the prison. Sadly, we had to build over the original structure, an old Panopticon-style prison that, once upon a time, was the very definition of ‘unescapable.’ But Others have special needs—as I’m sure you know, being a host of their kind yourself. This new prison’s walls are designed to suppress the burning of time. Those clocks you see are designed to be particularly sensitive to magic. And, of course, we have other countermeasures. Shall we take a tour of the facilities?” Mr. Cain started toward the stairwell.

I followed, mulling over his words. “You said ‘countermeasures’ to magic. What do you mean?”

“Seems that burning time has some very physical properties that no one anticipated.” Our footsteps rang on the metal stairwell as we descended. “Magic, like most Laws of Nature, must obey certain protocols. Remove them and you remove the ability to use it.”

“Like what? Going to outer space to escape gravity?”

“Exactly like that. To carry the metaphor further, our protocols instantly get you to the moon.”

“Rocket ships to the profane.”

“Hah,” Mr. Cain chuckled. “I like that. ‘Rocket ships to the profane.’ I must use that the next time I meet the president and have to reassure him that our facility does, in fact, counter magic. It seems, Mr. Matthias, that you are already worth the investment.”

NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I’M IN …

We walked down the metal staircase. Every step Mr. Cain made with his hard, leather-soled, very expensive and extremely well-cared-for loafers shot out a high-pitched ring that echoed up and down the narrow descent. I accompanied Mr. Cain’s rings with my own muted clangs made from soft, leather-soled, very cheap, but extremely comfortable shoes that I got pre-broken in at a thrift shop in Paradise Lot. Our mismatched reverberations sounded our descent as we wound our way down the impossibly long stairwell of the once-upon-a-time lighthouse.

Mr. Cain, ever the host, asked me if I had everything I needed. I nodded, which was stupid of me. Unless Mr. Cain had eyes in the back of his head—and I was 98% sure he didn’t—there was no way for him to see my response. “Yes,” I said, several seconds too late for his question. “I had several hours until your ride came to pick me up.”

“Ahhh, yes. I sent you my favorite carrier … the Apache warbird—the Humvee of helicopters.”

Again I nodded, but this time I was quicker to respond. “No kidding,” I said. “Back when I was in the Army, they taught me how to fly those things. I was terrible, though.” We fell back into silence, and me being me, I broke it with, “That Apache has some serious firepower. I noticed you kept the chain gun in place.”

“And missile launchers,” Mr. Cain was quick to add.

“Yeah … a lot for a repurposed transportation vehicle, don’t you think?”

Mr. Cain stopped and turned to face me, looking up from three steps below. “ ‘Repurposed’? ‘Repurposed’? Fallen fruit, Jean … what a sad way to see things. That ‘repurposed transportation vehicle,’ as you call it, once ruled the skies. Just because its fighting days are behind it does not mean we don’t remember its glory days. Honestly, Jean, you think that the Apache helicopter sees itself as ‘repurposed’? Or does it still dream of fancy flights and dog fights from its glory days?”

“It’s a machine. Pretty sure it doesn’t think anything.”

Mr. Cain shrugged. “Perhaps. But as my father always said, ‘Just because your best days are behind you doesn’t mean your best deeds are, too.’ ”

Oh, wow—the original dad advice from the very first father. You’d think after thousands of generations of dads, they’d get more sophisticated with their platitudes, but I guess not everything evolves. “Yeah,” I said, “I take your point. My PopPop used to say something similar, except his was: ‘Getting older just means you’ve got to work harder at doing your best.’ I think he was talking about his back, though. He was a carpenter, and the table saw wreaked havoc on his spine.”

Mr. Cain eyed me for a long moment before letting out a short, controlled but warm chuckle. “I think I would have liked your PopPop. Sounds like he had a saying for everything, just like my father.” Mr. Cain turned to resume his descent, and I followed.

↔

The stairwell was one of those tightly circular monstrosities. The spiral was tight—tight enough that, as I walked down the winding shaft, I had to stoop so my head didn’t hit the steps now acting as my ceiling. We walked down ninety steps or so and reached a metal landing with a door. I had to crouch to fit through its frame, which meant the door was really small, because—let’s be honest—I’m average as far as height is concerned.

Once through the door, we entered another stairwell and continued our downward climb. I tried to gauge how far down this thing went, but because of its cramped, coiling nature, I couldn’t see down the center to make any guestimate.

“And your affairs?” Mr. Cain asked, breaking our footsteps’ ringing and clanging with the soft tones of his voice. “I trust that your hotel will be looked after and that you have informed the necessary friends and family of your new situation?”

I took two more steps, the jagged metal of the staircase pushing through the soles of my shoes and massaging the bottoms of my feet with their unyielding hardness. “I don’t think there will be much need for a hotel—not with what’s coming. As for friends and family? I told everyone that needed telling. Lots of phone calls. Expensive, long-distance phone calls.”

“We’ll take care of that for you. Just send me the bill.” He reached a second landing and pulled on the heavy metal door. Beneath the landing was a third staircase that wound its way down into the earth—except unlike the two landings above, the stairwell was blocked by a metal trapdoor with a digital padlock. “Think of it as a signing bonus,” Mr. Cain added.

“What?” I said, eyeing the trapdoor. “Oh, my phone bill. Thanks.”

“No bother.” Mr. Cain rested his hand on the door, waiting for me to join him.

“So,” I said, taking the last few steps in three easy strides, “have you decided on a name for this place, yet?”

He yanked hard on the door and it opened silently on well-oiled hinges. “Oh yes,” he said with an eerie smile that touched his eyes. “Welcome to … The Garden.”

↔

The metal door opened up into a rectangular, closed room big enough to house all the rides of Coney Island and still have room for a driving range and a half-dozen batting cages. Although we were in a roofed area, the courtyard—if you could call a large, rolling field that—was filled with such a diverse range of foliage it would have made botanical gardens the world over green with envy. I don’t know my plants, so I won’t pretend that I recognized any of them. All I can say is that there were trees and bushes and flowers and generally greenish stuff that made it clear they came from multiple climate zones. All flourishing together, without the sun.

“Empty Hell,” I said, using Penemue’s phrase because I couldn’t think of what else to say.

Mr. Cain smiled at my flabbergastedness. “Everything here is designed not only to suppress magic, but also to give our occupants something beautiful to look at as they pass their unburnable time. After all, happy prisoners are less likely to riot.”

“Yeah, but … how does everything grow so … so—”

“Perfectly? Let’s just say you have to use magic to suppress magic. Our Other security—mages, warlocks, witches and shamans—each burn three minutes of time per day. That, coupled with several efficiently placed talismans, maintains this place. And before you ask, they are well compensated for the minutes they give up.” He lifted both arms in the air, as if presenting this place as a gift to me. “I did warn you by saying ‘Welcome to the Garden.’ ”

“Yeah, the Garden. But I figured you were being ironic.” I looked at Adam’s eldest son. “I take it irony isn’t your thing? Also … ‘old prison,’ huh?”

Mr. Cain chuckled. “Our prison is not the old prison, Mr. Matthias. The Garden is built above the old structure. Directly above, in fact.”

I mentally stored that little tidbit away in the same place I’d stored an image of that padlocked trapdoor out in the stairwell. “Sure,” I said, “but it seems a bit dishonest to call this place a prison.”

“Oh, but it is,” said the first murderer of man as he pointed to the walls. My gaze followed his finger.

I had been so distracted by the spectacle before me that I didn’t notice the prison cells lining the walls of this vast room. Given that the roof was at least five stories high, I would have expected five balcony landings with evenly spaced cells lined up in a neat row. But that wasn’t the case.

Not at all.

Each cell was uniquely sized, from that of a cat kennel all the way up to a double-decker bus. They were color-coded, more for decoration than any kind of indicator that I could make sense of; if it weren’t for the bars, I would have thought I was looking at a live construct of a giant Tetris game. Most of the cells were empty, except for the few dozen or so closest to the stairwell.

Mr. Cain saw my gaze rest on those prisoners. “Our first occupants. All from the kidnapping debacle. Only thirty-seven so far, but I fear that they are just the beginning.”

I walked over to the barred rooms, my feet crunching on neatly raked gravel. Immediately in front of me was a black cell roughly as big as a compact car. From the way the lights were set up, I knew it held the monster-under-your-bed. Next to his cell was a soft pink one about a quarter of the size of the dollhouse we visited in the park. Inside was a small mattress the size of a cigarette pack, on which sat a crying pixie. “Hi there, Mable,” I said.

The little pixie, her arm still in a sling, looked at me with big betrayed eyes before giving me her back. I left the little creature to her grief.

Cell after cell was filled like a macabre zoo, made all the more ridiculous by its wacky color scheme. No amount of happy-go-lucky colors like periwinkle or cyan could lessen the misery of the scene. I saw the hill troll from the news report, his massive lumbering body hunched over in sadness and frustration as he sat on a bed made of cold steel. There were other Others there, too, who hadn’t made international news—a qalupalik in a giant fish tank, a namahage and three krampuses who mulled about in neighboring cells, each flogging themselves with their own tails.

Others of all shapes and sizes occupied cell after cell, each one of them falsely accused of kidnapping a child and imprisoned without the right to a fair trial. Guilty without the means to prove innocence. Before I could ask Mr. Cain what evidence each one of them had against them, I saw someone who made me take three steps back.

In a standard human-sized cell sat Ms. Reynolds. She wore bright orange overalls typical of women’s prisons. “What the …?”

Ms. Reynolds gave me a forlorn look, like she couldn’t believe that I was seeing her in such dire straits. A single tear escaped her eye and rolled down her face. “Oh, Mr. Matthias. I really had hoped we wouldn’t meet like this.”

I turned to Mr. Cain. “I think there’s been a mistake … She’s human.”

Mr. Cain shook his head. “Shapeshifter. Changeling, to be specific.”

“But … but …” I turned to Ms. Reynolds, my eyes asking for confirmation.

The former children’s caregiver gave me a forlorn nod. “I burnt ten years and spent a lot of money on plastic surgery to become Ms. Reynolds. The humans would have never trusted a daycare run by one of the fae, but Ms. Reynolds … everyone loved Ms. Reynolds.”

I couldn’t believe it; her appearance was so human. Her smells, her mannerisms all screamed “human.” Eccentric, overly happy human, but human nonetheless. I ran over our encounter in my head and realized that her appearance was perfect, but some of her mannerisms were not. For one thing, she was completely undisturbed by an angel landing at her front door. For another, she immediately welcomed Penemue and me as the co-adoptive parents of a human child. And then there were the lilac petals … a popular candy for the fae. How could I have missed that?

But despite the deception, there wasn’t a part of me that believed she had anything to do with the kidnappings. A silent rage grew in me as I thought about the community she had faithfully served for so many years—a community of parents whose children she had cared for.

How quickly we turn our backs on those we claimed to trust only days before. I felt an old familiar feeling for my fellow humans bubble within me: shame.

I walked over to Ms. Reynolds’ cell and put my hand through the bars. Mr. Cain shifted his weight, but I cast a warning glance over my shoulder before turning back to Ms. Reynolds. “I am sorry for what my people have done to you. You do not deserve this, and I promise I will make this right.”

She took my hand in hers, wrapping her fingers tight around mine. “Thank you,” she said. Then, letting go of my hand, she hugged herself, her arms not long enough or strong enough to offer her much comfort. She nodded at me. “I know you will try, Mr. Matthias. And for all our sakes, I hope you succeed.”

NEW LIVING QUARTERS AND EMPTY CHEST CAVITIES

Mr. Cain took me to the prison staff dormitory, where I would be staying whenever I was on the island. Several vending machines lined the far wall, and when I started to dig out some change to buy myself a coke, Mr. Cain put his hand on my forearm. “No need. They’re all free.”

I gave him an I’m impressed head nod and pushed the button. A cold red can clunked its way down to the trapdoor. “Want one?”

He put his hands on his waistline and shook his head. “Side effect of mortality. You’ve got to watch what you eat.”

I snapped the tab, its carbon escaping with a hiss. “Good thing I’m not gonna live forever.” I took a big, satisfying gulp to drive my point home.

A large man the size of the vending machine came over and, in a voice that would have given Michael a run for the Most Bassy category, said, “Evening, Mr. Cain.” Up close, I realized I was wrong—he was several inches taller than the vending machine. Based on the bulk he carried under his short-sleeve, blue button-up shirt, he weighed just as much.

“Ah, just the man I was looking for.” Mr. Cain gestured up at the giant. “This young gentleman has the very unironic name of Bear. Bear, please make the acquaintance of Mr. Matthias, our newest recruit—and your boss, I’m afraid. He’ll be heading Prisoner Relations, which puts him one rung above the Head of Guards.” He tapped Bear’s chest in consolation.

“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” Bear downshifted. From his voice and mannerisms, I placed him as a farm boy turned marine. I served with many of those types. Hard workers, used to being up at the crack of dawn and pulling long days, tough as nails—if the nails were encrusted in diamond shielding.

“Corps man?” I asked.

“Hoo-rah!” Bear bawled.

“Pleasure to meet you, Bear,” I said, reaching out for a shake. He took my hand, and it was like being shaken by a paint can mixer.

Mr. Cain gave us a casual salute. “Now gentlemen, if you will excuse me. Bear here will show you around and take you to your quarters. As for myself, I shall return to the lighthouse, where further business requires my attention.”

With a nod and a final handshake, Mr. Cain bid us goodnight, leaving me with the biggest human I’d ever encountered.

↔

First thing’s first—Bear showed me around the staff facilities. The building had everything you’d expect on a luxurious cruise ship: lower floors were filled with rec halls, game rooms, a gym and pool. The main lobby housed the cafeteria; it was there that guards and staff meandered about. I guess with only thirty-seven prisoners, they weren’t very busy.

But then Bear showed me one more room before our tour ended. It was a circular space big enough for one person to man the swivel chair at its center. A beefy guard currently sat in the chair, his eyes glued to hundreds of screens, which completely encased him, showing the operator every inch of the prison.

“The FishBowl,” Bear said. More unironic naming. Mr. Cain really needed to work on his nomenclature. “This place is rigged with the latest security: cameras, sensors, infrared light, weight-sensitive flooring … and this.” He pointed to the bottom right-hand corner of each screen. A tiny round-faced clock sat on each screen. “TBM counters—hundreds of them. And each sensor is rigged up to an alarm that will alert us as to exactly where the problem is.”

He handed me a watch that looked more like a silver cigarette case than something you wore on your wrist. “Billy,” he said to the man in the operator’s chair, “show him. Time and weight.”

Billy nodded, his eyes never leaving the screens. With the flick of a switch, he set off an alarm in some distant corner of the prison. Immediately my watch lit up with a banner scrolling the words, Time being burned. Unusually light weight detected. The upper two-thirds of the screen displayed a map to the sector in question and several lights on its side flashed red.

“The whole team’s been alerted,” Bear said. “Push that and count to three.”

I pushed the button on the side Bear was indicating and the screen turned from a map to security camera footage of the area in question. As instructed, I counted; just as I muttered “Three,” several guards in full riot gear entered the room on my watch’s screen. Batons at the ready, they used sensors to efficiently scan the area. With nothing found, they turned the sensors on each other.

“As you know,” Bear said, “a lot of Others can cloak themselves. Invisibility, camouflage, shapeshifting. The guards are trained to scan themselves just in case a would-be escapee tries to disguise itself as one of us.”

“So the ‘clock a guard over the head and put on his uniform’ routine is out, huh?”

Bear’s lips did the exact opposite of smiling.

“So much for 1980s TV tropes,” I muttered to myself.

Bear ignored me and gave Billy a signal. “Let ’em know.” Billy pushed a big red button and my watch went silent, but I could still see the guards on the FishBowl screen. The guards made their annoyance known with a simple and colorful game of Charades that they directed at the security cameras.

“OK,” I said. “Air-tight security.”

“The best. The watch’s interface will tell you everything you need to know. It is shockproof, waterproof and bulletproof.” Bear gave me a look that told me he wasn’t kidding. “You must keep that on you at all times,” he said. “For your own safety,” he added when I did not immediately clamp it on.

I begrudgingly took off my Mickey Mouse watch and put it in my pocket before dutifully wrapping the new tech monstrosity’s rubber fastening around my wrist. I tightened the strap and Bear touched the screen. The strap tightened even more, with a click, until I was sure it was in danger of cutting off my circulation. “For your own safety,” he echoed.

I didn’t need Bear to tell me that the watch was permanently strapped on and that removing it would require a code or security override. The clamping sound and the presence of its large face reminded me of one thing I almost forgot in the luxury of the Garden and the staff dorm.

I was in a maximum-security prison.

I could have complained, made some noise about the watch being locked on me, even pulled the “I’m your boss” card, but I knew it would get me nowhere. Besides, if I was going to be this guy’s boss, I couldn’t let him know he’d gotten to me. So instead, I did what any good boss would do when establishing a pecking order.

I yawned.

Bear took the hint with a grizzly “This way,” holding the door open for me.

↔

I was escorted to a small apartment, where I was happy to find all my stuff waiting for me. The place was far better stocked than my bedroom at the Millennium Hotel. The living room was complete with a fully loaded fridge, a large flat-screen TV, a PlayStation and Netflix. Boy oh boy … talk about luxury.

A comfy couch faced the TV, an immaculate coffee table between them. To one side was my bedroom, and I didn’t have to go inside to know a king-sized bed waited for me. Another door led to a bathroom, and just beyond, by the window, sat a large oak dining table.

My bags, which I was sure had been thoroughly scanned, searched, dismantled and reassembled, sat on the table in a kind of presentation that said, “Our service stops just before actually unpacking for you.” They had, however, embarrassingly laid out each one of my toys—only a couple Transformers and a handful of He-Mans (He-Men?)—side by side. I’d also brought an old Atari and one of those handheld single-game units: Pac-Man. And Castle Grayskull, of course.

As soon as we walked in, Marty stuck his head out of the toy castle and hissed at Bear. The massive security guard looked down at Marty, unimpressed, and said, “That thing scared the bejeezus out of the security. You really must warn us when you have exotic animals in your luggage.”

I smiled, remembering what happened. I had been there. A guard named Jim—a scrawny fellow who was six pounds away from being a bona fide skeleton—opened Castle Grayskull, exposing Marty in full viper glory. The guy dropped the toy castle and backed away, his hand fumbling for his belt taser and failing to find it. That, if nothing else, told me these guys weren’t ready to handle Others. After all, as far as they knew, he was just a snake. And even if they did understand he was an Other … well, as far as Others go, Marty was pretty tame. But that would be dealt with later. For now I just wanted to get on with my day, or night, or early morning … or whatever time it was. Hard to tell when your new living quarters are underground.

Seeing Bear’s stare of disapproval, I put my hand out. Marty slithered up it. “What? Marty, here?” I said. “He’s harmless. His poison glands were removed—the serpentine equivalent of neutering.”

Marty stopped crawling up my arm to hiss at me, then slithered his way up and onto my shoulder, where he sat on me like a Predator’s shoulder gun. “He’s harmless,” I repeated. “Seriously. The most dangerous thing he’s ever done was bruise Jim’s ego.”

Bear chuckled at that and leaned in close to pet Marty on the head with fingers thicker than rubber stoppers. Marty hissed, then licked Bear’s palm with his forked tongue—a gesture that was either a kiss of friendship or marking Bear for death … With Marty, you really couldn’t be sure. “And Jim’s pants,” Bear chuckled. “Let’s not forget that casualty.” I gave Bear a forced laugh that the overgrown human took as genuine. “We’re not allowed pets, and I haven’t told Mr. Cain about him—yet.” His tone told me this was a warning. Then he smiled, something occurring to him, and said, “I don’t think Mr. Cain will like having a snake here. You know … this being in the Garden and all. Too … ahhh—”

“Foreboding?” I offered.

“I was going to go with too much obvious symbolism, but whatever floats your boat. You have a good night, Mr. Matthias. And welcome to the team.”

“Thanks, Bear,” I said with a casual salute.

Bear returned the gesture and left me to my new room. I looked at my watch: ten to midnight. Good … plenty of time, then.

↔

I took a look around my room before doing the first thing any justifiably paranoid person would do in my situation. I scanned for bugs.

I pulled out my Atari and Pac-Man and pretended to set it up. Of course, setting up a 1977 Atari on a Smart Full-HD LED TV was damn near impossible. It was like trying to get a car’s window roller to work on the Starship Enterprise. It just wouldn’t work. Not without some serious fiddling.

So I fiddled, got frustrated and took the device apart, careful not to expose the two tiny transistors that, once combined with Pac-Man’s innards, would act as your standard homemade bug detector. Feigning frustration with the Atari, I picked up Pac-Man, and under the guise of changing its battery, put in the two transistors. Then I played Pac-Man as I casually walked around the room and looked for hidden cameras, mics or any other kind of electronic surveillance equipment.

I didn’t find any.

But there was the issue of my watch—my watch, not the unwieldy one Billy gave me—and, of course, magic. I pulled out my Mickey Mouse watch and scanned the room. Again, nothing. Then I searched every nook and cranny for one of the magic suppressors, like what we found at the Tree. Again, nothing.

OK—no magic surveillance here, either.

I was beginning to think that maybe this Mr. Cain was on the up-and-up, when I looked at my wrist watch.

The thing had three little holes, spaced apart so that each imprint made the three points of a triangle—Memnock Securities’ logo. On a hunch, I held Mickey Mouse close to it and noticed that it spun around slightly faster than it should.

So I wasn’t being paranoid, after all. Well, that was fine with me.

I wrapped my hand, wrist and new hi-tech watch in a plastic bag and went into the shower. It was a luxurious bathroom, complete with marble walls and not one, but two shower heads—you know, just in case you had company. I turned both showers on and waited for the room to steam up before I thumped my chest three times.

With a whoomp, TinkerBell emerged from my chest. GoneGodDamn, it felt weird whenever she did that. She fluttered around three times, stretching as she did so. In the six years I’d lived with Tink, we’d gotten exceptionally good at Charades. Given that I was pretty sure the watch had a mic on it, too, I gestured, Did you see all that?

Tink nodded. Marty slid into the bathroom and hissed up at the fairy. Tink put her thumb on her nose and taunted the snake with a wiggle of her fingers. The gesture would have been quaint in the 1950s. It was absolutely adorable now.

Marty did what Marty always does. He hissed.

Guys … play nice, I signed. Turning to Tink, I mimed, See anything else? Something I missed?

Tink gave me a devilish smile, nodding with big exaggerated head bobs.

I gave her a curious look. She mimed walking down a winding staircase, opening a heavy trapdoor and pointing down.

Did you see something? I asked, holding my fingers to my eyes and then pointing down. Like I said—we are exceptionally good at Charades.

She shook her head and then cupped her hands over her ears.

So she heard something. What? I shrugged.

She spun around three times, then curled into a fetal position that she held in mid-flight. Then she balled up two fists and held them against her eyes like she was crying.

Crying … as in children crying.

GoneGodDamn it! my mind screamed as a fury I have rarely felt before consumed me.

I was right.

I friggin’ hate being right.

FLASHBACKS AND RETRO CAMPER VANS

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AGO—

Twenty-four hours ago I was sitting in a camper van watching Others being hunted for crimes they did not commit. Penemue and I had been staring at the little black-and-white TV in Conner’s van in growing horror for a time that felt eternal. Sinbad watched the screen in confusion. We might have stayed like that for a long time had it not been for Sinbad, who looked up at me with her big brown, innocent eyes and said, “They’re hunting Others when they should be hunting ShouldNotBes.”

“Yeah, kid,” I said in a tone that was as dejected and sad as I felt. No point in lying to her. “They’re hunting the wrong kind of …” I paused. My mind, which had been rolling over everything that was happening, snagged on something. Others of all walks of life were being brought down … the only thing that bound them together? They were friends with children who lived in homes that were being protected by Memnock Securities. Friends and—

I looked up. “Conner, do you still have the case files?”

“Yeah, but we’ve been over them a bunch of times. There’s nothing there.”

“OK, but what about the security specs. Do you have those?”

Conner pulled them out of a backpack sitting on the floor space between the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat and handed the file to me.

I flipped through them, searching, until … “Son of a bitch,” I muttered out loud.

Sinbad blushed bright red. She pointed at me, hand over her mouth. “He said a …” She mouthed “dirty word.”

“A canine mother?” Penemue said. “What’s wrong with taking about female dogs and their offspring? It seems like a perfectly acceptable word to me.”

I eyed the angel. “It is, in the right context. Which wasn’t how I used it.” I gave the little warrior pirate a consolatory head nod. “I’m sorry, Sinbad. Seems that Uncle Jean here has a potty mouth.”

Sinbad blushed again, but whether it was because she was unused to being apologized to or because I used the word potty, I honestly couldn’t tell you.

“Conner,” I said, handing the specs back to him as he drove, “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, but all this time I think we’ve been looking at the kidnappings backward. We thought it was these occultist freaks hacking into Memnock Securities and finding vulnerable children to kidnap, right? But what are the odds that all these kids have Other friends and were being guarded by Memnock Securities?”

“I dunno,” Conner said. “Pretty slim?”

“Perhaps,” Penemue said. “But given the sheer number of Others and the tolerant levels of children, I don’t find it that surprising.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But still … let’s assume that the average, intolerant parent wouldn’t want their children to have an Other friend. So these kids would have to have kept their friendships secret. With the exception of Mable’s kids, and Aau, all these kids did exactly that. They had secret friends.”

“So?” Conner said. “All that tells me is that these Others were predators, grooming the kids. Doesn’t exactly help their case.”

“Empty Hell, Conner,” Penemue said. “The average Other is not like that. Especially not pixies, hill trolls and monsters-under-your-bed. Those are particularly peaceful creatures who would never harm a child.”

“Sure … I didn’t mean it like that.” Conner gave the angel an apologetic nod in the rear-view.

“Right,” I said. “We know that most of them are innocent. And yet all their kids were kidnapped. How did the occultists find them?”

“The Memnock Securities hacks.”

“Exactly. Read those specs—one of the first selling points is the detection of Others. Those kids were kidnapped because they knew Others. The occultists not only disabled the system to take the children, they also used the system to find kids with Other friends so they could set them up down the line. Thousands of homes use those security systems—but only forty-seven kidnappings, all with Other friends in the background. Memnock Securities’ specs would tell them exactly that. In other words, this is the very definition of ‘two birds, one computer-hacked stone.’ We need to get into Memnock Securities and see what their systems see to figure out how the occultists are vetting their victims.”

“But Mr. Cain said his systems weren’t tampered with—remember the interrogation room? We even had Penemue over there do his lie detector thing on him. He was telling the truth. His systems weren’t hacked.”

“No,” I said, pointing at Penemue, “he said he did not believe his systems were tampered with.”

Penemue nodded.

“So?” Conner asked.

“So, knowing something and believing something are completely different things. And based on everything that’s going on—the kidnapped kids, Michael at the Tree, Miral with Colel Cab—that’s just too many people going against their beliefs for me to, well, believe. I’m starting to believe that someone is hacking their beliefs. In other words … the Big Bad out there is making them believe in things that they would normally never believe.”

Sinbad’s innocent eyes drooped down, and I could see she was thinking about her Sarah. Penemue and Conner had taken my theory in silence, but Sinbad’s eyes glossed over with tears and her lower lip began to quiver. She let out a mournful groan that only children confronted with the realization that Santa isn’t real or that Spot isn’t going to come home from the vet can make. “No,” she said, a tear finally escaping. “Do you mean Sarah wouldn’t normally believe in me?” The words came out hard and unsteady and as soon as she got out her greatest fear, she broke down into sobs.

Penemue scooped her up in his oversized arms and cradled her. In a tone brimming with infinite empathy, he said, “Oh no, my dear. Sarah very much believes in you. It is the monsters—the ShouldNotBes—that are born of manipulated belief. You, my dear warrior pirate, are something else entirely. You are her hero. Now and forever. She believes in you despite being forced to believe in monsters.”

Sinbad rubbed her face against the twice-fallen angel’s tweed vest, darkening the brown-green crossed pattern with her tears. “Promise?” she quivered.

“Promise.”

She wiped away more tears and balled her two little hands into fists of unforgiving steel. “Then we have to get her back and right away so she stops making those darn ShouldNotBes.”

“Amen,” Penemue said.

“Amen,” I echoed.

“That’s all fine and dandy,” Conner said, “but what’s the plan?”

“Memnock Securities. They’re the key.”

“You think Mr. Cain is a part of this?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But then again, they could be manipulating him just like the others. Either way, we have to get in there and back trace the occultists’ hack or uncover his involvement.”

“And how do we do that? It’s not like we can hack into their systems. We’d need—”

“IT Support,” I interrupted, looking at the little black-and-white TV, on which a helicopter took an aerial shot of a certain prison. “I don’t know much about computers, but I do know this: they are at their most vulnerable at their core. We need to get into the prison and hack into their systems.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

“Oh,” I said, “I have an in.”

NOW—

Now I was standing over a very unconscious Billy, his limp body duct taped to his swivel chair in the FishBowl. Marty sat on his lap. The poor kid had no idea that when his new boss decided to visit him in the middle of the night, it wasn’t for a surprise performance review.

UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUSES AND PICKLOCKS

As part of my preparation for what I was now calling Assault on the Garden: Operation WeedKiller, I had called Brian and given him the lowdown on what I had in mind. He whistled and said that hacking into Memnock Securities was way above his pay grade. Even when Astarte moaned that she’d reward him by making his wildest dreams seem tame in comparison to what she had in mind, the little guy gulped but stood his ground. An external hack simply was not possible.

An internal hack, however … that was another story altogether, he said. He gave me instructions on how to set up a USB flash drive hack, which amounted to buying one, downloading some files he sent me and plugging it in—the very definition of plug and play. I’d seen enough movies to know exactly what he was talking about, and whereas I wasn’t nearly as cool as Tom Cruise in just about every Mission: Impossible movie, I was a bit taller than him (not a difficult feat), so that had to compensate for something.

But as I crawled around the FishBowl looking for a USB port to plug the damn thing into, I was beginning to realize that Memnock Securities had also seen Mission: Impossible (when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all) and, fearing a Tom Cruise impersonator breaking into their facilities, got rid of all their ports. There was nowhere to plug or friggin’ play.

Best laid plans of mice and men and all that jazz. I was going to have to improvise.

Luckily, I had planned for just that. I had done my research on this place and knew that Mable the pixie would be here. But Ms. Reynolds, the Other changeling who wanted nothing more than to live among the humans in peace, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise. You see, both pixies and changelings are fae. But whereas pixies are the fun, frolicking kind, changelings are not. They are born and bred to be warriors, and their specialty?

Infiltration.

Think of them as sleeper agents who specialize in sabotage. Legend has it that fae would kidnap children (often human, but Others were on the menu, too) and replace them with a changeling. This imposter would pretend to be your child, metamorphosing themselves every now and then to give the impression of a child growing. Then, when the timing was right—BAM!—the changeling would be activated to cause whatever chaos they were there to cause.

Despite her pedigree, Ms. Reynolds was a kind, sweet lady—not that it mattered. All humankind knew was that a changeling lived among them, their children were disappearing and she ran a daycare, of all things.

It wasn’t fair to her—or any changeling or Other who rejected their pedigree. Everyone got a second chance to be something else in this GoneGod World. It was probably the only consolation prize we got when the gods left and threw our worlds into chaos.

I needed Ms. Reynolds to know that was not how I thought of her, so when I reached out to take her empty hand, mine was not. In it was a simple holly leaf that I’d originally intended to give to Mable. But given what holly leaves represent to the fae’s warrior class, Ms. Reynolds was a far better choice. To the average guard in this place, the leaf would pass as nothing important, merely—given it was a holly leaf—something related to presents or goodwill or any other benevolent crap humans think of when looking at a Christmas wreath. But to the fae, the holly leaf carries a very specific message: Prepare for war.

Think of it as the fairies’ opposite of the olive branch. Ms. Reynolds would see that leaf and know I was planning something. And if that something happened to take the form of letting all the Others escape so they could send the guards on a wild goose chase? So be it.

Leaning over the unconscious guard, I muddled my way through all the commands on the console and managed to replicate the drill that Billy had created just hours before.

The alarm set off and I watched numerous guards get ready. They didn’t move very fast, probably dismissing this as another drill. I sent them to the opposite end of the island and as soon as I was sure they’d all gotten the message, I turned off the security apparatus to the lighthouse and did a few more annoying things to keep them distracted as I made my way to the stairwell.

If everything went according to plan, I’d have at least twenty minutes to investigate. Give or take.

I turned to implement phase two—just as Bear came in, presumably to help Billy coordinate the team. He looked from Billy’s passed-out body to me, and then, without a moment’s hesitation, grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bear growled.

I tried to speak through his chokehold, but all that came out was a groan, presumably from a very red face. Bear eased his grip, which meant that his chokehold was downgraded from vise to noose. I lifted up my hand and looked at my watch: twenty past midnight. Then I held up a finger and said through a tight throat, “Just wait one minute.”

“Wait? Wait for—” he started before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out on the ground, releasing me from his death grip.

“For Marty’s lick,” I said, rubbing my throat, “to take effect.” In his haste to take me down, he hadn’t seen Marty coiled beside Billy’s body.

I patted Bear on the head. “Good boy. You’ll wake up sometime next week, and then we can go foraging for berries and fishing for salmon.” Bear’s unconscious body groaned as he settled into his poisonous sleep. “I’ve been wanting to say that to you all evening,” I said, stepping over his body.

“OK, Marty,” I said. “Keep them busy.”

Marty hissed and hit the keyboard with his nose. Another alarm sounded on the south side of the prison and confused guards turned around and headed toward the new noise.

And then I did one last thing that I was sure would keep the guards busy all night: I opened the Others’ cells.

All of them.

↔

I made my way over to the stairwell and hid behind the open steel door. I figured Mr. Cain would be leaving his quarters to assist the first ever alarm at the Garden that wasn’t a drill, and I wanted to be there when it happened. One minute passed, then two—and sure enough, Mr. Cain came running out of the tower. I waited until he was out of sight, then silently closed the heavy steel door.

I quickly moved to the locked trapdoor and, huddling at the digital padlock on the ground, I did what any good cat burglar would do when encountering a half-inch of solid steel: I ignored it. I didn’t have a tool sharp enough to get through that lock—and as for liquid nitrogen or a blow torch, I was pretty sure that only worked in the movies.

Besides, it didn’t matter. When trying to get through a locked door, regular or trap, you never went for the lock itself. You found the more vulnerable part of the door: the hinges.

The hinges were made of five-inch-long, half-inch-thick pivot rods, both sides welded shut to hold them in. But the pivot rods inside the hinges were loose—they had to be, otherwise there’d be no hinge on which they could pivot.

I tapped my chest twice and Tink came out. I pointed at the hinges and told her to do her thing—which in this case was to take a tiny vial of olive oil and pour it all around the caps. Thick human fingers would never be able to reach those places, but tiny fairy hands are another story, and she managed to get the lubricant in all the right places fairly quickly.

Then I handed her a rock-sculpting chisel that was roughly the same length as her body. The fairy carried it like it was made of Styrofoam—damn, ounce-for-ounce, Tink was strong—and dug the chisel into the weak point where the metal met the pivot rod. Then we both pulled. And pushed. Shimmied and dug. It took a solid three minutes of muscle-straining effort, but we managed to pull off the cap. Then Tink poured more olive oil lubricant into the space in the newly made, small hole. We needed to get the pivot rods out of the hinge joints. Once those rods were out, we could pull the door open. Another three minutes—three minutes I didn’t have—and we finally popped the pivot rod out. We did the exact same thing on the other hinge, and with a pop! we managed to get the damn metal trapdoor open.

I gestured for Tink to get back into my chest and made my way downstairs, only pausing for a second to look at my Memnock watch. The guards were still running around on Marty’s wild goose chase, but now there was another element in play. The Others, under Ms. Reynolds’ command, were causing havoc. I watched as the changeling tripped a lone guard into the troll’s cell, who tied the guard up using vines. Mable distracted two guards, sending them on another chase, while the krampuses subdued a guard with solid whacks of their tails.

OK, so that was under control. I started downstairs again, checking Mickey as I did so. His arms moved at a completely normal speed.

I ran down the metal stairs, cringing every time my shoes caused a particularly loud clang, until I made it to the bottom where an open door waited for me. I walked through and into a large, empty metal room with nothing in it but dust accumulated from what looked like years of neglect.

“What the frig, Tink?” I muttered under my breath. “There’s nothing here.”

My footsteps chimed with each step I took into the metal room, but there was something wrong with the sound. My steps should have echoed in the empty chamber, unobstructed sound bouncing off metal before hitting more metal. Instead, my footsteps echoed like I was in a large cavern or cave.

Before I could figure out what was happening, my watch buzzed and Mr. Cain’s face popped up on the screen. “Jean,” he said, “what are you doing?”

“What you hired me to do,” I said. “Testing for vulnerabilities and making sure you and your team aren’t violating anyone’s living rights.”

“In an abandoned basement.”

“A locked basement beneath the Garden.”

“What is so strange about that? The Garden was built above an old prison. It makes perfect sense that there would be a basement level. You would know that if you read the island’s schematics. And before you ask—it is locked because it’s dangerous down there. Load of good that padlock did against the likes of you.”

I looked around me. As far as I could tell, I was in an empty room that did not lead to any abandoned prison. But before I could say or ask anything, Mr. Cain jumped in, apparently keen to put all my doubts to rest. “The section you are in was originally designed to be a storage unit. Hasn’t been used in years. You’re basically walking on rust. Access to the old prison was closed off by a sheet of metal welded to the far wall. Check out the edges … you’ll see what I mean.”

I walked over to wall opposite the stairwell and touched the edge where the far wall and the adjacent walls met. The edge was rough, and upon close examination I could see that someone had, indeed, welded a piece of sheet metal there. “OK,” I said, “so you don’t want anyone in the old prison. Still, this seems like overkill. Why all the precautions?”

“Overkill? Overkill!” Mr. Cain yelled. “We did it because should there be a prison break—much like what is going on right now, because of you—we didn’t want a prisoner getting down there and into the old prison. They could literally fortify their position down there and it would be a fight to get them out. Again, something you’d know if you bothered to ask.”

Suddenly l felt like a fool.

“The deception, the covert operation … Really, Jean. Are such theatrics necessary?”

I ran my hands against the old corroded walls. Solid metal. No matter what Mr. Cain said, I knew what I was looking for had to be here. Tink’s instincts were never wrong.

I desperately wanted to ask Tink, get some additional insight into things that my own senses weren’t seeing or hearing or smelling, but I couldn’t risk bringing her out. Not here, not like this. The average human might not know who or what she was, but Mr. Cain wasn’t your average human. And I wasn’t convinced we were alone down here, either.

“Come on, Jean,” Mr. Cain’s voice chimed from the watch. “This is ridiculous. I’m sending guards to fetch you. Let’s discuss this as civilized—”

“You’re not sending anyone,” I growled, touching the screen. The image of a hill troll popped up. He was holding a guard in each hand, using them as human shields as several other guards surrounded him. Luckily for the hill troll, he had managed to get his back to the wall. The guards weren’t going to be able to do much against him unless he slipped up. I sent up a silent prayer that he could hold on just a little bit longer. “Are you really going to divert valuable resources at such a crucial time just to get me out of an empty room? Unless, of course, this isn’t an empty room at all.”

Mr. Cain paused, his eyes flickering for just a second. “No, I suppose not.” He sounded uncharacteristically hesitant. Had I shaken him somehow?

There was a cry behind him as the hill troll let out a growl. He turned, his own watch’s camera tilted in the direction of the cry, and I saw two guards chasing after a qalupalik scampering along the ceiling.

Cain looked down at me, his face close. “Jean, I am very disappointed. There was so much we could have done together. Now I fear our relationship will have to be terminated.” Another scream. “If you will excuse me,” he said, and the screen flickered off.

Wasting no time, I scanned up and down the metal box. It was like someone took a storage container and just shoved it in the ground. This place served no practical value, not for the old prison that used to sit on this island—certainly not for the modern one, either. My instincts screamed at me that I was missing something crucial, but instincts couldn’t tell me exactly where to look.

I walked to the far wall, pulling out my hunter’s sword and holding it in front of me. The far wall was like the other three: solid and uncompromising. So I did what I always did when I was facing a dead end. I closed my eyes.

And listened.

The room went silent, the only sounds a soft hum from the generators above and my own heartbeat. One minute passed. I kept my eyes closed. Another. Standing as still as I could, I listened.

Then I heard it. A faint tick. Only thing was, we were in an empty room. No clocks, no creatures, nothing. So that tick was either the natural sounds of a container held underground … or something else.

I waited another minute and the tick came back, a little more audible this time. Silence again for another minute before I heard it one last time. All three ticks were coming from in front of me and to the right. Without warning, I threw my sword in the direction of the tick, tossing it so its blade spun and would cover the most area with its edge. It didn’t hit the far wall like it should have. It didn’t hit anything.

I opened my eyes to see the blade suspended in midair.

“Nothing here, huh?” I said.

“Indeed,” a voice ticked as the glamour dissolved, revealing the last five people I’d ever expected to be in the same room together, let alone in the basement of a prison.

COUNCIL … TO THE SIDEBAR

The room that had just been an empty metal box transformed before my eyes, now decorated in old tapestries that lined the walls with ancient scripts I doubted any human scholar could read. Ritualistic candles burned and a large Persian rug covered the floor, its fabric displaying the scene of the insect god Colel Cab leading her denizens of ants, bees, flies, mosquitos and a thousand other species I couldn’t name up a hill, presumably to a better life.

And standing on that carpet was presidential front-runner Mr. Yew, along with Mr. Cain and Colel Cab, the bug god herself. Each one of them stood in embroidered circles above the rug’s depicted mountain. Circles that overlapped. Circles that made up Memnock Securities’ logo.

Colel Cab was closest to me—a creature who stood two heads taller than me, her three pairs of eyes each blinking in a sequence that started with the lowest pair and gradually worked its way up. She folded four pairs of her arms over her scaly exoskeleton. Colel Cab held my sword in her hard pincers.

Mr. Cain and Mr. Yew, however, were not in the same stance, but stood still, their arms at their sides, looking more recently-turned-into-zombies than actually alive. Neither of them looked at me, both staring down at the ground immediately in front of them. I glanced at my Memnock watch. Mere minutes had passed since I’d spoken to Mr. Cain. How had he gotten here? And what had happened to him?

Beside them stood Miral, brandishing her own sword—a sword, might I add, that was pointed at me in a less-than-friendly manner. Despite her menacing stance, her face contained no malice or hate, nor even recognition.

But that wasn’t the strangest thing in the room. Not by a long shot. That prize was reserved for Penemue, who was pinned to the wall like a butterfly on display—his wings outstretched as nine-inch nails held him in place.

“Oh, Penemue,” I said. “How the hell did you get here?”

“Kidnapped.”

“When?”

“In Paradise Lot. Just before you left and right after I told EightBall that I … you know.”

That was right—before my Assault on the Garden, we met at the Millennium Hotel to prepare. Despite my objections, Penemue told EightBall about accidently killing his parents and, well, let’s just say the conversation didn’t go well. And now he was pinned to a wall. All in all, a bad day for this twice-fallen angel.

“One last question—why?”

“Remember Metatron? Apparently they couldn’t get the answers they needed from his severed head. Funny how that works. So I was next in line … Too bad I can’t tell them anything because, you know …”

“The Celestial NDA?”

“Celestial NDA. I can’t tell her about my contribution to human creation.”

Colel Cab interrupted our little reunion. “You don’t need to tell me. I already know. You see, dear Human Jean, the twice-fallen angel knows how to bind a soul to a body.”

↔

“Ah, yes. And without a soul, your monsters are mindless anomalies.” I looked over at Mr. Cain and Mr. Yew. “And let me guess, these two are the most important pieces of your world-domination puzzle?”

“Indeed. But let us not dwell on such things. For now, let me welcome you, Human Jean, to the true Garden,” Colel Cab said, unfolding her bottom set of hands in a welcoming gesture. The two pairs above did the same, following the same delayed sequence as her eyes. Pair by pair, the hands outstretched to me before folding again. Only the upper pair of arms remained unfolded, those thin, hard-shelled, three-fingered hands reaching out to me like we were old friends, reuniting us with a hug. Of course, the open, unfolded set of arms also held my sword, but in a non-threatening, Come over here, big fellow—it’s been a while kind of way.

And as we embraced, that’s exactly how she felt to me … like an old friend, someone I’d missed very dearly and was excited to see again—which wasn’t right. For one thing, I had never met this Colel Cab before, and for another, it was clear she was behind the kidnapping. Judging from the chamber we were standing in and the basically unconscious Mr. Yew and Mr. Cain, she was also behind a hell of a lot more.

But despite all that, I liked this creature. Respected her, even. I knew enough to know she was responsible for some nasty stuff … but I felt like there was a reasonable explanation and as soon as she shared it with me, all would be right with the world.

GoneGodDamn—another empath, I groaned to myself.

Empaths were Others who could naturally adjust your feelings toward them, usually in a favorable direction. They didn’t have to burn time to do so; simply being near them was enough. Almost all creatures have empathic abilities to some degree: angels inspire calmness and faith, ifrit give you a sense of dread and horror … hell, even little Cupid—yeah, he’s real and works at the Paradise Lot First National Bank—made you feel all gushy and happy inside. But empaths—they pushed your emotions. Guided you to unnatural feelings of calm or love or joy or lust or anger … whatever emotion they stood for.

I didn’t move; I didn’t speak. I just focused on the feeling, countering it with the only tool humans have to deal with emotions: cold, hard logic.

I went over what I knew. First of all, this empath brought forth emotions that I hadn’t felt only moments ago—feelings of welcome, safety, joy. Ten minutes ago, I was stressed out, alone and very much upset.

So I did what you always do when encountering an empath: focus on the emotions I should be feeling. And right now, the emotion I should have felt was anger. I thought about my friend, pinned up to a wall like some insect on display; I focused on Miral—the purest being I’d ever met—and how the same lunatic who was trying to manipulate me was controlling her; I thought about Medusa and how she didn’t deserve to die … not the way she did.

And I thought about Bella and how the GoneGod World took her from me, too.

I focused on all the crap that happened because of the gods leaving—but still, feelings of trust and goodwill bubbled inside me.

And then it hit me … that was exactly what Colel Cab focused on: the sense that if only we obeyed her, we could fix our broken world. I’d been around enough wannabe gods to know where this would lead. You don’t fix anything by putting all your faith in one being. You have to believe in yourself and believe in the other, and treat both with equal respect. That was the field on which unity and healing could grow.

So I stopped focusing on the injustices of this new world and started in on the injustices of the world before. The world that was cruel and hard and unforgiving and existed when the gods still sat on their lofty thrones in the sky. And there was one injustice that always burned my soul when I thought about it: my mom’s death, and how unfair it was that she was taken from me before I could meet her.

I thought of all the nights she wasn’t there to console me. All the mornings that we didn’t sit together and share a meal or a conversation. I thought about how painful it was seeing the other kids with their moms and dads, and how I had neither … and an old, primal rage grew in me that pushed out any goodwill Colel Cab tried to falsely instill in me.

Colel Cab must have been taken aback by my ability to resist her, because she tilted her head to one side, all three pairs of eyes narrowing as she examined me more closely. “Interesting,” she muttered, and then, waving away the thought as if it meant nothing, said, “You are not surprised to see me. Tell me, Jean, how did you know you would find me here?”

“I didn’t. You were just my best guess.”

Colel Cab gave me a curious look.

“What? You want to know where you went wrong so that you can improve for the next time? Learn from your mistakes and all that? You can’t honestly be looking for a performance review.”

“Indulge me.”

“Michael. And Miral. Whatever your magic is based on, it is crippling to angels. Well, most of them, at least.” I gestured pointedly at Penemue. “Seeing Miral with the same glazed-over look Michael had at the Tree—and bowing to you? I knew you were involved. You had to be. What I didn’t know was whether you were the head honcho, or just another pawn in this game.”

“Very good. But do you know what I am involved in, exactly?”

“You mean, other than kidnapping children to create an army of monsters? No, not really.”

“Peace,” she clicked. “That is my aim. But I’ll get to that in a minute. First, let me commend you on finding this place. We had veiled it, but your power of perception is extraordinary.”

I looked at my watch, where only a moment ago I had been speaking to Mr. Cain. Now the man who stood before me was in no condition to speak. He stood, head down, shoulders hunched, looking like a man who slept standing up.

Colel Cab cast a gaze at Mr. Cain and smirked, her smile touching all six eyes. “Ahhh, Mr. Cain … he was an”—Colel Cab paused as she considered her next word—“interesting case. It is no accident that he built this place in the image of the Garden. He wants to be worthy of this place, like his father once was. But the difference is that there will be no one to cast him away. Not this time.

“Even that was not enough to satisfy him, however. You see, before you stands a man who says he is determined to make up for centuries of evil. Truly it is what he believes his mission to be … But when you strip away all the platitudes and self-deluding lies about what he really wants, you are left with the truth.”

“Oh? And what’s that?” I asked.

“That he wants an apology. An apology for being marked and cast away. For being discarded. He wants to feel worthy. To be worthy. But with the gods gone, there is no one to apologize to him—and that is why he sought you out. If the gods aren’t there to forgive him, then perhaps another human who is also on a quest for redemption can. He sees you as a brother-in-arms, of sorts. The Brotherhood of the Damned, perhaps. Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it?”

“And so, what … you turned him into a zombie or some kind of insect drone who does your bidding?”

“Oh, no,” Colel Cab said, clicking in confusion. “No, no, no … I merely gave him the ability to believe in himself. The version of him”—Colel Cab pointed up, presumably toward the lighthouse tower where I had talked to the anomaly version, the Sinbad version of Mr. Cain—“the one you interact with … it is his ideal self. A human devoid of regret, one who is confident and strong. Once I showed Mr. Cain how to believe in himself … well, the rest is history. And let me assure you, Jean, the Cain you know is far more pleasant than the Cain who is standing behind me.”

I nodded. “So I’ve heard. What about him?” I pointed at the sleep-standing Mr. Yew. “Is he part of your plan, too?”

“Him? Yes, of course. A man who despises Others like no human I have ever met, and although he is a man of money, he could never place himself in a position to rule. Mr. Yew suffers from a frustrating lack of charisma. But Mr. Yew’s ideal self … that is another man, altogether. He is charismatic, decisive, a master diplomat. Mr. Yew’s ideal self has a real chance of becoming president. And with his hateful policies in place, it is only a matter of time until the whole thing …” Colel Cab made an explosive gesture with her bottom pair of arms, and then gestured the rising flames with her other three pairs of arms in such a way that, I had to admit—I was green with envy at her Charades skills.

“OK,” I said. “So you have a prison and a president. What’s next?”

Colel Cab’s exoskeletal lips curled upward as she walked over to me, her arms held up to her sides. She threw my sword down with such force that the blade stuck into the metal floor. I thought about going for it, but that would have been a mistake. Grabbing the sword meant starting a fight. And given that both Colel Cab and Miral were more than capable warriors, that was a fight I wouldn’t win.

Colel Cab watched for a long moment before nodding in approval at my restraint. “Do you know what a complete god is?”

I rolled my eyes at her Bad Guy monologuing. “Enlighten me.”

“There are five pillars to any god who is to rule supreme: wisdom, commerce, agriculture, fertility and war. These are the five mortal needs required for worship. Wisdom to guide the human in their earthly ways; commerce, because within each human lies greed and ambition, and commerce allows the human soul to explore both; agriculture and fertility because … well, because humans are guided by their basest needs: food and sex; and, finally, war … because as much as you humans talk about peace, the truth is you are only comfortable with a stick in your hand.” She held up five fingers on each of her left hands. “A successful god must provide its denizens with all five pillars.”

Colel Cab pointed at a spot on the Persian carpet beneath our feet that depicted several farmers tilling a field. “Agriculture and fertility are taken care of, their principles such an integrated part of modern man that I need not tend to it. But the other three pillars? That is another matter, entirely. Meet Commerce”—her bottom right hand pointed at Mr. Cain—“meet War”—her middle right hand pointed at Mr. Yew—“and meet Wisdom.” Her two upper right hands pointed at herself.

“You see, Human Jean, the gods made two mistakes when ruling this world. The first was sitting in their heavens and watching as the humans went about their business, letting them indulge in their free will. That is one error I do not plan to make.

“The other mistake was wanting to be loved. I do not have any such needs.”

“Better to be feared than loved?” Penemue chimed in from his forced perch on the wall. “Or are you going to hit me with some other platitude that power-hungry megalomaniacs like to spout?”

“Actually, it is better to simply be worshipped. Loved, feared, hated, respected—these are emotions that can be manipulated and changed over time. But worship—that is far less malleable. Already I have worshippers of many kinds. Behold, a handful of them stand in this very room. In time my worship base will grow and, with it, so too will my power.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah …” I said. “Worshippers grow your flock, expand your congregation … You know, most people are content with a few extra likes on their Facebook page.”

To this Penemue snickered, grimacing from the strain.

“Strange that you laugh at the notion,” Colel Cab said, pointing at Penemue. “When your only desire is to be loved. The boy … EightBall, is it? His rejection of you weighs so heavily on your heart. It makes you weak. And what of the freak, Sinbad? She is your comrade in arms, a being who, like you were once, is stripped of free will, determined to save a girl that she cannot save. Do you find solace in her own infeasible quest? Her love has done much for you, don’t you think? I think without her, EightBall’s rejection of your revelation would have ended you.”

“Oh, come on,” I said. “Enough with the armchair psychology bullshit. Next you’re going to say some crap like, ‘You just need to take a swim in Lake You,’ or ‘You’ve built your emotional prison and it’s time to fire the warden.’ Give me a friggin’ break. Either kill us or let us go … Do anything but subject us to this psychobabble.”

Colel Cab took my words in stride. If they affected her in any way, she didn’t show it. Instead she hummed before closing two sets of her eyes, her uppermost still intently focused on me.

“And as for you, Mr. Matthias … When Mr. Cain brought you here, I thought it a mistake. After all, you were a wild card over which I had no influence or control. But Mr. Cain’s ideal self insisted, believing that your presence offered a certain kind of legitimacy to this place.” She gestured around her. “He felt that Others would accept the need of a prison, if their hero—their human pet who so often risks his life for them—was a part of it. Watching you, I see that Mr. Cain was right. You are an uncompromising force, and yet … despite being so stubborn and angry, there is so much doubt in you.”

She closed her final pair of eyes. “Resilient, determined, capable … and yet so full of doubt. You were planning on leaving, on removing yourself from the”—she paused as she reached deeper into me, pulling my thought from me like one unravelling a ball of yarn—“constant, daily Other drama. Being pulled every which way by beings wiser, more powerful and more determined than you are. Bella. Medusa. Surely, if you weren’t caught up in this event, you would have left. How interesting …”

I looked over at Penemue, who eyed me with confusion. “Don’t be ridiculous,” the angel said. “The human would never leave us. He made an oath. I was there.”

“An oath that he is willing to break,” Colel Cab said.

Oaths are something Others take very seriously. If promises were stocks and bonds, then Others would hold an AAA rating. If one of these formerly divine creatures ever made you a promise, you could pretty much guarantee that they’d do it, or die trying. Promises made by humans, on the other hand, probably didn’t even qualify for “junk” status.

Still, one of the reasons why I earned the respect of so many Others was because I kept my promises. The day I got the keys to the Millennium Hotel, I made a promise, an oath, to help Others. But with everything that’d happened … I was willing to break it.

“Is this true?” Penemue whispered.

I nodded and Penemue grimaced in physical pain at the thought.

“It’s not like I would have done it,” I said, taking a step toward the angel. Miral lifted her sword, stopping me from getting any closer. “I was just considering it.”

“More than considering it,” Colel Cab said. “Planning it. Preparing for it. Your departure, I fear, was imminent.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I growled. “It was just a luxurious fantasy I indulged in at my lowest.” I never took my eyes from Penemue, but the beaten angel did not meet my gaze. “Come on, Penemue,” I said. “You’ve got to admit I’ve been through the wringer. The hotel, getting beat up on a near daily basis … Bella … Medusa. I’ve done my bit. I have sacrificed, bled and nearly died for you and your kind. I have lost more than I had to give. I deserve peace!” I shouted. “And if not peace, then distance.”

My body shook with rage. I took several deep breaths just to stop myself from attacking everyone in this room and committing suicide via stupidity. I looked at Miral, who stared down at me with disconnected, dispassionate eyes—two words that no one could have ever used to describe this angel’s gaze until today. Mr. Cain and Mr. Yew stood perfectly still. I saw Colel Cab watching me, a slight smile of triumph on her lips.

I pulled my sword out of the metal floor with a grunt and a growl, then readied myself for the attack—but before I actually took a step toward Colel Cab, I stopped.

This wasn’t me … to lose control in a life-and-death situation like this. I was trained well enough to know that anger was the last emotion you needed at a time like this. You had to think, stay focused. Bide your time and find an opening to exploit. Get the other guy to lose it, let him do something stupid.

The bitch was toying with my emotions, influencing me with her innate ability.

She was manipulating me.

And she was manipulating Penemue … pulling out his own grief and fear. Fear that he would be alone again in a world without any friend on whose shoulder to cry.

I took several deep breaths and closed my eyes. “Remember the time I pulled you out of that industrial chimney at that abandoned factory?” I said to Penemue. “You were drunk, of course, and wearing a red Santa suit that was black with soot.” I chuckled.

Penemue didn’t say anything, but he did look up.

I continued, “I had to get a blow torch and a hacksaw. It took me four hours to get you out and when I did you poured out your sack, full of toys you got from only the GoneGods knew where. Do you remember what you said to me?”

Penemue was silent, his face illuminated with tears.

I kept talking. “You said that you were trying to bring cheer to the hotel. And when I pointed out that this wasn’t some orphanage or poor-folks home with nine kids, you just stared down at the pile of toys and … and what did you say, Penemue?”

He snorted. “ ‘Pile it over there and they will come.’ ”

“That’s right. ‘Pile it over there and they will come.’ ” I let out a laugh that turned into a chortle. Penemue joined me. Wiping away tears, I said, “Even if I left, I would always come back for you. No matter what chimney you get stuck in, you can always count on me to get you out. That is a promise.”

Penemue nodded his head.

Colel Cab tisked at us, the sound coming out more like the crack of a whip than a mild admonishment. “Small victory between friends. Hardly worth the celebration.” She gave us a dismissive gesture.

That pissed me off. I got up and charged at the puppet master, but before I could get close to her, a wing stretched out and knocked me to the ground. Miral pointed her sword at me in warning, her face expressing neither malice or joy, comprehension or life. But she protected the monster nonetheless.

“Come on, Miral,” I said. “This isn’t you. Help me.”

“She won’t,” Colel Cab said. “I have taken away her fear and her doubt, and she is … grateful.”

I turned to the pinned Penemue. “I don’t get it. If Mr. Cain and Mr. Yew manifested a separate version of their ideal selves … or rather, airbrushed, more perfect copies of themselves … how come Miral is one and the same?”

“Because”—Penemue flashed me a smile—“we angels are the most perfect versions of ourselves.” Even in his weakened state, he was still obnoxious. Then Penemue grimaced in pain. “Tell me, considering how your rescue is going so well … Are you alone?”

“Nah,” I said. “The cavalry is coming.” But I couldn’t pull off the lie. In my heart I knew that I had come on a hunch and, well—sometimes hunches work out, but you aren’t prepared to follow through.

Colel Cab must have felt my doubt, because she smirked at my words. Damn.

If Penemue knew I was full of it, he didn’t make any indication. He just nodded and said, “Tell me … did the boy come to my rescue?”

I shook my head.

Penemue sighed, ending with a groan of pain. “The path to forgiveness is long.”

“And narrow,” I said. “But Sinbad … she’ll be happy to see you.”

Penemue flashed me a wicked smile and dropped two blades from his wrists. “As I will her,” he said. “As I will her.”

Colel Cab stared between us and suddenly clapped her hands. At first, all four pairs clapped together in that slow, rhythmic way that people do when trying to get a crowd to join in. Then the four pairs of palms broke from the synced rhythm and for a moment Colel Cab sounded like her own crowd.

“Very well played, Jean. Very well played, indeed. But I feel your doubt. I know no one is coming. You are alone … But even alone, you are a formidable foe. Capable of fighting with brawn, mind and emotion. Amazing.

“But in the end, you are only human.”

She lifted a hand and the door behind me opened. Behind the door I heard a woman’s voice singing, “Oh, Jean … come out and play with me …”

“And humans,” Colel Cab said, “are creatures motived by one undeniable impulse.”

“Bring your dollies, three …”

“Desire,” Colel Cab clicked.

Through the open door was not a room worthy of the underground basement, but a tree standing in an open field, a vast sky streaked with orange and red and blue from a setting sun framing it in the background. Even though it was far off in the distance, I could see red, shiny apples hanging from its branches. Without hesitation, I dropped my sword and walked toward the tree.

“Climb up my apple tree …”

Underneath the tree sat a woman.

“Slide down the rain barrel …”

A woman I had only seen in pictures.

“Into my cellar door …”

A woman I so desperately wished to meet.

“And we’ll be jolly fri-i-ends …”

“Mom?” I said.

“Forever more.”

CRYSTALDREAMS

I don’t know how many times I had this same dream as a kid … but the last time I had it was just before the gods left. It seems that with their departure, so went the dreams of my mother. I wondered more than once if that was because she got to go with them.

I never asked Penemue if my theory—if you can call the wishful thinking of an orphaned child a “theory”—was right, because there was no answer he could give me that would offer me solace. Either she was trying to reach me from beyond the grave and any chance of us connecting, as it were, was lost when the gods left, or I was just a kid with an overactive imagination.

That, my friends, is what you call a lose-lose.

But now I was walking toward that same apple tree from my dreams, toward a woman who did not disappear the closer I got. A woman who looked up at me as I drew nearer.

I had only ever seen my mother in pictures. Frozen, lifeless stills in which her smile never changed, her eyes always looked the same. A picture is something, but it is far from everything; and your face, even when you are trying to be perfectly still, makes subtle movements of life—an eye twitches, a smile changes from a grin to one of genuine joy with the slight upturn of your lips, your cheeks change hues based on the blush of an embarrassing thought or just because the room got a little warmer. All teeny-tiny changes that we barely register on a conscious level, but they’re there. And they tell us that you’re alive.

My mother’s eyes flickered when she saw me coming. She wore the same expression I was probably wearing—one of utter shock and anticipation and love and dread and fear and a thousand other emotions that all have a thousand nuances leading to one thing: joy.

She stood and a single tear fell down her cheek. “You came,” she said.

You came. In the hundred million times I’d tried to imagine what her voice sounded like, I never came close. How could I? It was sweet and soft, and filled with infinite love—for me. My heart swelled as I felt something I’d never felt before. True, unbridled, uncompromising and unconditional love.

You came. Those two simple words almost brought me to my knees. I think they would have, too, had I not been so desperate to get to her. I was so afraid that she was an apparition, that I’d get closer and she’d disappear. I walked on, each step more hurried than the last, and as my feet treaded on impossibly soft grass, I got closer and closer still.

She stretched out her arms and embraced me. I hugged her back and cried. “You’re real. You’re real. And you’re here.”

She held me tight, then pushed me back so she could get a good look at my face. Her hands cupped my cheek as her thumbs wiped away tears. “Oh, Jean-Luc, I tried to come to you a thousand times before. I did, but the rules—there are so many, and death is—”

“A one-way door,” I said, echoing old words told to me by a being older than time itself. “I know. But how are you here now?”

“I … I don’t know,” she said. “I just am.” She pulled me in close and kissed my forehead. “I am so sorry I missed your life, my little Jean-Luc. How I wish I could have been there to pick you up when you fell, to clean your scraped knees and sing you lullabies. How I wish I could have been your mother when you needed me. But I had to leave …”

“You tried to stay,” I said. “PopPop told me you tried to stay.”

“I did. But in the end, my body wasn’t able to heal itself and my soul was forced to move on. I am sorry. So very, very sorry.”

“I know.”

She guided me to sit under the tree. Some apples had fallen. She picked one up and, wiping it on her shirt, she bit into it. “Let me get it started for you,” she said, handing me the apple.

I took it and bit off a piece of its moist flesh.

“You know, I never got to do that for you, either. Start an apple for you … or mash up bananas or drive you to baseball practice or—”

“I didn’t play baseball,” I said. “I didn’t play any sports growing up, actually. I was kind of a loner as a kid.”

She gave me an admonishing look that was somehow also forgiving. A look only mothers can give that I was finally receiving for the first time.

“There is so much I’d like to ask you,” I said. “Things like … what is your favorite color, book, music, what do you like to eat … The stuff that you know when you know someone. I don’t know you at all.”

“You will,” she said, touching my cheek with her impossibly comforting hand. “And for the record: green, Cannery Row, country music when I’m sad, rock ’n’ roll when I’m happy. As for what I like to eat …” She plucked an apple from my hand and took a deep bite into it. “I was never a fussy eater,” she said with a mouthful of juicy apple, and I laughed.

She handed it back and I took it, taking a bite of my own. Then, running her fingers through my hair, she said, “Never mind all that. We’re together now. And we have an eternity to get to know each other.”

Hellelujah … an eternity to get to know each other. That sounded nice. Real nice. It was the escape I was looking for. More, because I was with the one person I’d wanted to meet as soon as I’d understood that the world had mothers. She was the one thing that I never forgave God or the gods or fate or nature or whatever you put your stock into for taking her from me.

“Yes, we are,” I said.

But then I saw something from the corner of my eye: a light that pierced the soft hues of sunset. I turned to look at it and saw a golden glow. My mother followed my gaze, but if she saw the light, her expression didn’t change.

“Where would you like to start?” she asked.

Where do we start? The light shone brighter now, its glow all-consuming. I didn’t know where to start, but I knew where it had to end.

In finding those kids.

I shook my head. In the overwhelming sight of her, I had forgotten about the children who were sitting captive somewhere. They, too, were missing their moms and dads. “I’m going to have to go,” I said, regret in my voice. “I have to help the children … and Penemue … and the Others.” With each expression of the people who needed me said aloud, I became more and more conscious of where I was and of the undeniable fact that this wasn’t real.

My mother—and she was my mother, that much I am sure—shook her head. “No, you don’t need to go. You can stay here and dream. Your friends will be OK. The children will be saved. Your promises will be kept.”

“By who?”

“By you, silly. Can’t you feel him? Or rather, can’t you feel yourself?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mom.” I got another thrill just saying that word to someone finally: Mom.

“Yes, you do,” my mother said, putting her hand over my heart. I felt two heavy thumps and then my heart went still. No, that’s not quite right … all of me went still. I was breathing, still alive, but every part of me was calm and I understood that being in this place gave me something that I had never had before. A soul at peace.

“Feel yourself,” my mom said. “Feel where you are. Feel who you are.”

I closed my eyes, reached within myself and did as my mother asked. I focused inward and I don’t know how, whether it was instinct or emotion or some ancient knowledge that humans once possessed but had long forgotten, but I did feel myself. And not in a touchy-feely kind of way. I sensed myself. And what I found was that although I sat under this tree in a field at a dusk that I knew would never turn to full night, I also felt myself in another place, too.

The other me was standing in the dorm room of the Garden. The more I thought about him, the more whole he became. He both existed and I was creating him at the same time. I do not have any other words to describe it other than to say that as long as I could feel him, he was to be. Lose that feeling and, well, he would fade away as if he never was.

The me under the tree knew of his existence, but the OtherMe had no idea where I was or what I was doing.

The OtherMe only knew himself.

As confusing as this sounds, OtherMe was me, and at the same time, wasn’t me at all. He lacked certain parts: my fear, doubt, anger, selfishness—all the parts of me that held me back or stopped me from doing the right thing. The parts of me that somehow made me lesser. It was like someone had taken all that I was and sifted out any blemishes, any stains that prevented me from being all I could be.

“What the …?” I started.

“Jean-Luc.” My mother sang out my name as a warning not to swear. Then she straightened her dress and smiled. “Don’t you understand? That other person … that’s you. You free of doubt, second-guessing or anxiety. He is the You who will do what your heart knows to be right. The OtherYou who will carry your burden so that you don’t have to anymore. You can rest here with me without guilt or fear.”

“For how long?”

“For as long as you like.”

“But …”

“You’ve had so much pain, Jean-Luc … so much suffering. You’re free now. Free and happy.” Her voice was a lullaby, and I started to feel so tired. So very tired.

“Maybe just a little while,” I yawned. “But then I have to go help my friends and—”

I was about to fall asleep when I felt something burst out of my chest with a whoomp that took my breath away.

↔

Tink came charging out of my chest, her fist in front of her—and she punched my mother square in the nose.

“Tink!” I yelled. “What the hell?!” I grabbed at the three-inch-tall golden fairy, but she was too fast.

She whirled out of my reach and mimed, What the hell are you doing? OK, she more mouthed it with a few explicit gestures, but I got her meaning.

“What?” I said, looking down at my mom, who held her nose and stared up at the fairy with a combination of delight and horror. “You hit my mom!”

Tink pointed at the woman standing next to me and made a gesture that said this woman wasn’t my mother.

“Yes, she is!” I insisted. “Sorry, Mom, that fairy over there is—”

“Houlm?” my mom said, her eyes widening. “I thought she was only a story, but … but …”

“Houlm?” I said. “What …? I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s Tink. She’s my friend.”

But before I could say anything, my mother turned around and climbed up the tree, her legs and arms bending unnaturally, making her look more bug-like than human.

“What the fuck?” I said, and the reality of where I was and what was happening came crashing in.

That woman wasn’t my mom. She was a construct. A dream and nothing more. Colel Cab had manipulated my emotions … again.

My mother—or rather, the nightmare of my mother—crawled over a middle branch and leapt at Tink, her arms outstretched. It was a stupid move; Tink could have easily flown out of the way, but the little fairy didn’t. Instead Tink let the nightmare catch her and the two of them came tumbling down to the earth together.

“Yes!” cried out my mom. “Yes, yes, yes! I have the Houlm. Do you know what this means? I no longer need that obnoxious angel. The Houlm is made of dream … she can bind souls with constructs.” My NotMom’s eyes widened as a realization dawned on her. “She can make souls!”

I looked at Tink, whose body was held by NotMom. “Can you do all that?” I asked.

Tink nodded, then gestured that I cover my ears. I had spent enough time with Tink to know when to obey, and I covered my ears so hard I’m surprised I didn’t burst my own eardrums.

Then Tink spoke. Or at least, I think she spoke—her lips moved, and NotMom winced in pain at whatever she said.

In an instant I saw the skies melt and the tree burn, its ashes carried away by a wind I could not feel. The burning tree transformed into a large crystal of rainbow colors roughly the size of Conner’s camper, its shards muted by the dreary, neon-lit room we stood in. A split-second later and the entire field transformed into cold, hard concrete and the distant horizon curved into a circular room, its outer edge made almost entirely of prison cells from a Panopticon-style prison.

And in those cells … were children. Dozens of them, huddled against back walls as they cowered away from the monsters their fear and imaginations created. Seven or eight anomalies stood around us, as well as two occultists, the ijiraq and tiyanak. Evil-and-Cute was nowhere in sight, but I was sure she’d be along as soon as the alarms went off.

Reality had returned, except for one thing: I could still feel the OtherMe. Oh, boy … a world with one me was bad enough, but two of me? We were going to rain hell on this place.

When Colel Cab cast her Crystal dream on me, I had seen an empty field with a single apple tree in the distance. Now that the illusion was shattered, I saw this place for what it really was: a circular prison with the Crystal in the center. I was in the old prison under the Garden.

I turned to the door through which I’d entered. Through it I saw Miral, Mr. Cain and Mr. Yew standing where they had been, their expressions unchanged. Colel Cab, on the other hand, wore an expression of pain as three of her six eyes bled.

“You are a singularity that should not be!” Colel Cab pointed at Tink. “You little fairy piece of dust! When I am done with you, no dream ever dreamt will ease your pain.”

Behind her sat my hunting sword. I made a step through the door for it, but Miral blocked my way. So that was a no-go.

Colel Cab pointed at Tink. “Get her.”

“Ah, ah, ah, ah …” I said, wagging a finger. “You want her, you’ll have to get through me.” I gestured for Tink to rejoin me in my chest, which she did with a whoomp.

“That,” Colel Cab said, pointing at me, “will not be a problem. Miral—rip her out of him and bring her to me.”

I took a step back. “Sure, you could do that. But first, I’d like to draw something to your attention. You see, all those attacks from your occultists … I was so convinced that they were after me. First they came to the hotel, then the desert, Metatron’s apartment, the park on the mainland. But that was just my arrogance talking. It was never about me. It was about him.”

I pointed at Penemue, who strained his head to see me through the open door. He gave me a the Devil knows wink.

“You see, unlike Metatron and the other committee members who helped with creation, Penemue actually had the secret to permanence. The ability to create something that wouldn’t eventually fizzle away when you stopped believing in it. You could never be a god unless you could actually create things that moved and thought, loved and hated. Lived. As you are, you’re just some hack with toy automatons that you need to terrorize children to make.

“I was arrogant. I was stupid. Well, I’m sick of being stupid.” I pulled out the last contingency I had on me—a toy walkie-talkie with a range no more than a couple miles. I clicked the plastic speak button. “Operation WeedKiller is a go.”

There was a rumble from above.

“You are alone. I felt it,” Colel Cab said.

“No …” I said. “You felt my doubt. You see … Penemue told me about your empathic abilities. You can sense what we’re feeling, but you don’t know what we’re thinking. And since I’m always just a hair’s breadth away from crumbling into the fetal position with doubt, I figured that as long as I focused on that, you wouldn’t be able to sense anything. So I just thought about all the times my friends let me down. All the failed missions. I thought about how I couldn’t save them … Bella and Medusa … and, well, you felt the rest.”

“But your doubt was complete. Total. How?”

“Part of being human,” I sneered, “is that we have an uncanny ability to lie to ourselves very convincingly.”

What I didn’t tell Colel Cab was that the trouble with being human is that we always think it’s about us. That somehow we are the center of the universe, the hero of our own story, the driving force behind what we do.

I thought that because I had General Shouf, Mr. Cain and Michael all banging down my door for me to serve them, that I was the catalyst for all this. That they wanted to either stop me or hire me to stop what was coming. How stupidly arrogant of me. This wasn’t about me. It never was … and it probably never will be. I was a bit player in the drama unfolding between creatures older than most stars—and petty humans only fight for dominance of the little green-and-blue planet called Earth.

But did that mean they were after Penemue? Not necessarily. Not until you took into account how the angel Metatron was murdered in his apartment. Penemue described him as creation’s project manager. Penemue had also said that—not including my strung-up friend—there were eighteen other Others who worked on making humans. That was the other thing I asked Astarte to investigate: where the other Others were. Astarte’s network of sex-hungry acolytes revealed that six of the nineteen were dead. Metatron, of course, but also Hajib Al-Eayn, the hobgoblin in charge of hair; Abathar Muzania, the angel responsible for measuring souls; Uzziel, the angel who imbued humans with creativity; Phanuel, the angel who taught humans how to hope; and Go’an, an ifrit who designed the human digestive system. All of them were directly responsible for creating humans.

All of them dead.

All of them would have known that Penemue was the guy who figured out how to bind a soul to a human body.

Not that I told Colel Cab any of that. Right now, I was enjoying watching her little plan crumble. And before you could say “Another god wannabe loser bites the dust,” explosions erupted on the island.

“Hellelu—” I started.

“Jean-Luc,” admonished Penemue.

“Oh, yeah … sorry, I forgot. What I meant to say was, Empty Hell!”

End of Part 4

EPILOGUE TO PART FOUR

Juliet Matthias rubs her belly, not knowing that today will be the day her son is born. Nor does she know that before her precious little man will turn three days old, she will be dead, ripped from his life forever.

An opaque future is the kindest gift that the gods gave humanity.

She sings to her yet-to-be-born child and dreams of his future. She wants her little Jean-Luc to be ordinary. Unremarkable. Mediocre.

For a person with unusual talents, exceptional intelligence or great beauty is rarely a happy one. But one who is neither great nor small, exceptional nor dull, leads a simple, joyous life. And Juliet only has one wish for her son: that he is happy.

Oh, how her wishes will go unheeded … for although Jean-Luc will grow to not be particularly intelligent or strong or beautiful, his life will be far from simple.

And all because he will possess one quality in far greater abundance than almost all of his fellow human counterparts: empathy.

PART XIII

PROLOGUE TO PART FIVE

Penemue stands on the edge of Creation.

He is waiting for the rest of the committee to come. He has spent many hours in Heaven’s library. By the standard in which God’s newest Creation will measure time, he has been working for three and a half centuries straight, and—finally!—he has figured out the question that the committee asked of him: How do you bind a soul and body together?

Previous attempts have failed unquestionably. The soul, an ethereal being, does not want to be tied down by something as cumbersome and restricting as a physical body. After all, when you are a being free to go anywhere, be in any time and experience whatever you wish … why confine yourself with mortal flesh?

Every soul tied to the body has eventually broken free, killing the body as it does so. And this is unacceptable. After all, God insists this new being, this human, must be of both flesh and spirit.

And Penemue has finally figured out how. Sure, it took almost two hundred million of what God has deemed “minutes”—but Penemue has done it.

He sees Metatron approaching in the distance—a massive creature of immeasurable power, as well as the lead angel on the project.

Before the angel can land on the perch, Penemue says, “I know how to do it.”

Each of Metatron’s faces raises one skeptical eyebrow. “How?”

“Creatures of flesh—creatures like you and I—are bound to each other, forced to interact through our words. But spirits … they are free. Too free.”

“Too free?”

“Yes. That is why we must make them aware that their physical body gives them something that simply being a spirit cannot. The flesh anchors them—limiting them to see and know only other beings of flesh. So we must bind them with the only tether they will be grateful to have.”

“And that is?” Metatron asks, his voice growing with impatience.

“Love,” Penemue says. “It is the only shackle any creature is happy to bear.”

BRINGING THE BOOM

DAY 6—

Two Days Earlier—

After our little camper van pow-wow, we drove home, mostly in silence. There wasn’t anything else to say. We all knew what we needed to do; discussing it more would only lead to more uncertainty. More fear. And the world was already full of that.

It took us six hours to get back. Six. Conner and I took turns driving as Penemue and Sinbad played cards or slept. Eventually we made our way to the bridge, and showing the guards our Paradise Lot badges and the giant angel in the back, they were more than happy to let us through.

Once we were back on the island, I asked Conner to drop me off at the one and only place I could think of where I’d get some answers: Paradise Lot Police Station.

↔

The common area of the precinct was devoid of its usual hustle and bustle. Instead, in a strange tableau I was sure I’d never witness again, all the officers sat or stood like statues, watching a TV that had been wheeled to the room’s center. The volume was on max and we all watched in horror as the humans continued their march to war. On the news, images of Mr. Yew standing behind various podiums, a flag always strategically placed behind him, spewing words like “terrorists,” “fanatics,” “ban,” “registry,” “torture” and “incarcerate.”

Colel Cab also came on repeatedly, her insectile face somehow conveying innocence as she pleaded for calm. News anchors narrated as cameras went into the homes of the accused Others. They were fairly typical Other homes—poor, untidy and without much decoration, the homes of the underprivileged and systemically oppressed—but that’s not what the media focused on.

Just like humans, Others have their different cultures and practices. When reporters pulled out rotting lamb chops from the fridge as an example of the Other Aau’s savagery, they failed to mention that the meal was a jackal-guard delicacy, that the Other wasn’t simply letting the meat rot, but was in the course of a complicated process of fermenting the flesh with various herbs and spices and patiently waiting for the meal to ripen. When they opened up Mable’s birdhouse and pulled out statues made from bird bones, they claimed it was shamanism or some kind of witchcraft, completely glossing over the fact that pixies do not kill the birds to collect their bones, but collect the fallen aviary bones from the wild, then construct them as a homage to the dead bird—a common art form practiced by the fae, in many ways the equivalent to human taxidermy or pottery.

The reporters’ traditional vocabulary (words like “alleged” and “possible involvement”) had been upgraded to “guilty” and “irrefutably guilty,” and the meaning was clear—innocent or not, these Others were going to hang.

The room was sullen and silent, heads downcast in disbelief as they watched their already bleak world turning bleaker. Watching the Others in their silent vigil made me think of patients receiving the diagnosis of cancer—at first, the shock of it silences them. But few take terrible news quietly … soon their silence would turn to pleading, bargaining—and then anger.

And that would be when the flashpoint happened.

Michael stood in the middle of the room, his massive shoulders hunched as he watched. I walked over to him and lifted a hand up to his shoulder, which was just within my own limited reach. “Michael,” I said. “We need to talk.”

The archangel turned around and looked down at me, his eyes conveying an emotion I’d never seen in him before: despair. “Oh, Human Jean-Luc,” he boomed. “Please tell me you have good news.”

I shook my head. “No. I’m afraid not. Is there anywhere private we can speak?”

↔

Michael took me to the far edge of the back parking lot. Evidently he didn’t want to betray anything to the precinct, and they might be watching for facial expressions through the window or listening at the door.

Being outside with the archangel made me nervous. The last time I gave him bad news, he shot me up in the air and threatened to drop me because of my involvement in the situation. Of course, he had been greatly upset at the time—after all, his friend and an Other he greatly respected had been killed in my hotel—but that knowledge didn’t calm my beating heart as I looked down at the ground beneath my feet and imagined myself falling with a Bugs Bunny splat.

“What did you uncover?” he asked. Well, more like bellowed.

“Not much. In fact, almost nothing. Except to say that I am pretty sure the jackal-guard, pixie, caretaker and monster-under-your-bed are innocent. Also, whomever is behind this is using Memnock Securities to single out and kidnap children connected to Others in some way. Some of the kids were friends with them, or neighbors, or being looked after by them.”

“OK,” Michael said. “Is that all?”

“Not exactly … I did uncover one more thing that you’re not going to like.”

“What?” Michael asked, his voice devoid of his characteristic thunder and filled with that uncharacteristic despair.

“I’m going to tell you, but you have to promise not to get mad.”

“I cannot make such a vow.”

“OK … then at least ‘vow’ you won’t kill the messenger.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Killing you would be wrong. No matter what you did.”

“Hurt,” I said exasperated. “Vow you won’t hurt the messenger.”

“Very well. I shall inflict no harm upon you. Tell me, Human Jean-Luc. What else have you discovered?”

I told him about how Creation was being messed with and how I was pretty sure the children were being kidnapped to make the anomalies. To Michael’s credit, he didn’t take out his frustration on me—but in hindsight, I should have expanded his promise to include not destroying the two squad cars that happened to be unlucky enough to be parked near us, or that he shouldn’t rip a piece of asphalt the size of a hot tub and fling it at the innocent dumpster behind the precinct. The compounded stone and sand hit the metal can with a crash, drawing out several officers who—upon seeing the rage in Michael’s eyes—promptly went back inside.

“You hid this from me? Why?”

I held my hands up in defense, tensing, ready to jump out of the way of his next rampage. “Because of how you’re behaving right now! I mean, look at what you did. Your anger would have gotten in the way of the investigation. It might have even gotten the kids killed.”

“But you failed to rescue the kids,” Michael pointed out.

“No, I haven’t failed. Not yet. I think I know where they’re being held.”

“Where?” Michael said, spreading his wings. In his blind fury, he was prepared to rush immediately to wherever I told him.

I toyed with sending him to Antarctica to cool off, but then thought better of it. “You can’t go.”

Michael’s wings didn’t retract. “And why is that?”

I gave him a look that said “You know exactly why.” Damn it felt good to be the righteous one in the relationship.

Michael stared down hard at me, his gaze a physical force I had to strain to withstand. Then he nodded and lowered all of his wings. “The control they have over angels.”

“Whatever it is,” I said, “it’s angel kryptonite.”

I expected the archangel not to get the reference, and was pleasantly surprised when he rolled his eyes and grumbled, “Oh, please, kryptonite makes Superman weak. The power they have paralyzes us. Completely different.”

Way to go, Michael. Pretty soon, he’d be watching Buffy. I nodded my approval.

“Very well, Human Jean-Luc, I will stay. For now. Anything else?”

“Yes … one more thing.”

I told him about Miral, after which he ripped out a second slab of asphalt, this time the size of a cathedral window, and crushed it to dust. It drifted away in a haze, and a bastard version of “Dust in the Wind” started running through my head.

“Michael,” I said, my voice calm and steady. “I know what I have to do. And you can’t help me.”

“I can send some officers. Magnus, Hunter—even Steve will be useful in the assault.”

I shook my head. “The humans are terrified of Others already. We don’t want to add fuel to the flames by having the only functioning Other police force go rogue.”

Michael grumbled so deeply that the bass of his voice literally caused pebbles on the ground to vibrate. “You are right.”

“I need you to be ready for the fallout of the rescue. Justified or not, the humans aren’t going to react well to it.”

Michael nodded.

“And there’s one more thing—this will go against your ‘Ultimate Boy Scout’ principles. It’s not just the children that need rescuing. The accused Others need help, too.”

As expected, Michael shook his head. “Mortal law will judge them.”

“Mortal law has already condemned them. You and I know that they are innocent.”

Michael folded his arms over his chest, as resolute as ever. By the GoneGods, how could such a righteous angel be such a righteous asshole?

“Come on, Michael. You know they are dead if we don’t help them. And wasn’t it you who once told me there are laws that supersede mortal law? That the Universe has a hierarchy of right and wrong? Surely, protecting those we know to be innocent is higher in the echelons of morality than what these terrified humans are going to do to them under the false name of justice?”

Michael considered this for a long moment before finally nodding. “I cannot offer them sanctuary … but I can turn a blind eye in the search for them.”

“Good,” I said. “I know someone who’ll protect them …” My voice trailed off as I eyed Michael, one last request on my lips.

“What?” the angel asked, seeing my question.

I kept looking at him.

“I will not harm you, Human Jean-Luc. What is it?”

“I’m going to need an answer,” I said, still staring at him, my gaze never diverting from his.

Michael considered this before nodding. “Very well. I promise to answer you.”

“Good. Now … tell me everything you know about Penemue’s involvement in the Creation of humans.”

↔

Michael told me. Reluctantly, sure, but the archangel was true to his word and told me everything. And suddenly I felt a sense of awe and admiration for the drunken angel. Armed with the knowledge that Michael gave me, I now knew I needed to get back to the hotel and speak to him.

But first, a couple of errands.

↔

Aau’s front door was covered with police tape, but I knew that before coming to his place. I wasn’t here for him. I was here for something that would draw him to me. Jackal-guards have incredible smell—all I needed was to snag something familiar from his place and take it home with me. Eventually he’d catch the scent and, by extension, get the hint.

But what could I bring? I wasn’t sure what to expect as far as jackal-headed Egyptian décor, but what I found was an apartment filled with typical furniture for someone with virtually no income: old stained couches from thrift shops, threadbare carpets from flea markets and a coffee table with one busted leg balancing on a phonebook. I walked into his kitchen. Whereas the rest of his apartment was typical, this room was not. Incense of every type sat half-burnt on every counter space available, piles and piles of herbs and spices filled his cupboards and his refrigerator was filled with large blocks of wax and meat. Nothing useful.

But then I saw what I was looking for: taped to the window where he’d stood his constant vigil, watching Elliot from across the alleyway, was a picture the young boy drew for him. A rudimentary crayon rendition of a dog’s head on a human body, yellow and brown crayon streaks haphazardly filling the crude shapes, giving the picture color.

Crayon and paper held by the boy Aau swore to protect. That scent would be burned into his memory. Peeling the paper from the glass pane, I walked home, holding the picture in the air as I did and silently praying that the jackal-guard would notice it. After all, I was about to pick a fight with someone Aau was quite keen to meet.

↔

As I walked home, I called the next person I needed help from: George.

The former oil-rig foreman answered on the first ring. “Jean, I was just—”

“Sorry to interrupt, but I’m kind of in a hurry … those myriads, do you think their desire to meet me would extend to doing me a favor? A potentially dangerous but important favor?”

George’s voice faulted. “Y … yes,” he said cautiously. “What’s this about, Jean?”

I gave him the CliffsNotes version.

“Holy …” His voice trailed off.

“Guacamole,” I finished for him. “I know. I need their help, and I need your boat. Can I count on you?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good. Thank you, George. Text me when you know.”

↔

Going home is seldom what you expect—not in my world, at least.

I arrived home to the medley of a crying EightBall being restrained by Sinbad as Penemue kneeled about ten feet away from him, his hands in a prayer position as he pleaded with EightBall to listen, just listen. Judith was between them, hands outstretched in both directions as if she were using the Force to keep them apart.

My first couple attempts to get everyone’s attention were fruitless, so I yelled as loud as I could, “What the hell is going on?”

Evidently I had the desired effect, because everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me. EightBall wiped at his tear-swollen face, and Sinbad continued to hold on to his legs, unsure that he’d be placated for long. Judith sighed in what was visible relief at my appearance.

And then I looked at Penemue. His cheeks shone with tear-made light. I knew exactly what had happened.

Before anyone could confirm what I already knew, I heard a sultry Parisian accent speak from the third-floor landing. “Drama … as usual.”

“You’re one to talk,” I growled up at Astarte. “Go to your room and—”

“But I want to watch. The energy, the emotion, makes me so, sooo …” Her voice trailed off, one wandering finger slowly making its way down to—well, thankfully I couldn’t see exactly where behind the landing’s railing. I couldn’t deal with Astarte’s sensual distractions right now.

“No and NO!” I screamed. “Your room. Now.”

Astarte turned away. Just before she could close the door, I yelled, “And tell your IT Support I need to speak to him.” She groaned an amatory little vibration and closed the door.

“Now. You guys,” I said. “What is going on?”

“You knew,” EightBall said to me, wiping away more tears. His voice was empty of anger or accusation. Just truth. “You knew and you didn’t tell me.”

“It was an accident! Mr. Penemue said he was sorry. You have to forgive him. You have to,” Sinbad said, her voice conveying that this was all the justification needed. In her world, accidents were made right by apologies. Man, I wish I lived in her world.

Penemue groaned. “I tried to tell you. A hundred-thousand times, I tried to tell you.”

“You—you don’t say anything to me,” EightBall said, refusing to look back at Penemue. “Not one damn word.” The teenager looked at me, his eyes full of hate now. “You knew.”

“Yes. I did.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“It wasn’t my place to tell.”

“You let me live here, in this place, with the monster who killed my parents.”

At the word monster, Penemue groaned. More light trickled down his face.

“There’s no need for such words,” Judith admonished.

Normally her tone would garner an apology from EightBall, but this time he just looked down at her legless figure and spat out, “Monster, monster, monster … Monster.”

“That’s enough!” Sinbad said. “I already told you it was an accident and—”

EightBall was now turning his anger on everyone. Couldn’t say I blamed him. He glared down at the little girl clinging to his legs. “Shut up, brat. You’re a monster, too.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. Do you think all the normal little girls are strong enough to hold a grown-up like me back? Or wrestle an angel—the same angel that fell from the sky and murdered my parents—like I saw you do a couple days ago? No, you’re a freak. A freak, freak … freak!” EightBall screamed this last word down at Sinbad.

The little warrior pirate burst into tears. Judith immediately floated to her and bent down to pick her up and cradle her.

“That’s enough,” I growled, my gaze hard on EightBall. The teenager evidently felt bad for hurting Sinbad the way he did, because he lowered his head … a momentary reprieve from his onslaught.

“Judith,” I said. “Do you mind taking Sinbad upstairs? We have some stuff we need to work out down here.”

“Of course.” Judith started floating to the elevator, speaking to the little girl in soothing tones. “Do you know what I have in my room, Sinbad? A new story. About a super duck and a red balloon. Would you like me to read it to you?”

“Uh-huh,” Sinbad said in-between sobs.

EightBall watched them go. As soon as they were in the elevator, he turned to me and said, “Consider this my resignation.”

“I would need to pay you for you to be able to resign.”

“Whatever,” the boy sneered.

“Please, Newton … EightBall … if you just let me explain,” Penemue said. “And at the end of it … you are free to kill me. I will not fight you. But please, let me explain.”

“Shut up … pigeon,” EightBall said.

“That’s enough—” I started, but Penemue cut me off.

“No, Jean, it’s quite all right. You’re right, EightBall. I am a pigeon. A drunk. A twice-fallen angel. I am all those things and worse. I do not deserve your love or respect. But for the friendship we once had … I beg you to at least hear me out.” Penemue laced his fingers before him, holding his hands in a prayer gesture.

“Will hearing you out offer you comfort?” EightBall asked.

“Yes,” Penemue admitted.

“Then no, I will not hear you out,” EightBall said, and the teenager walked past Penemue without so much as a glance.

“EightBall … come on, man. You don’t have to be like this,” I said.

But the boy’s retort, which came in the form of a middle finger, told me he was too angry to listen.

The little bell above the turnstile door rang out angrily once, twice, as EightBall pushed his way out of the Millennium Hotel.

↔

As soon as EightBall was out of sight, Penemue wailed. I don’t mean cried out or sobbed. I mean wailed, his lamentation full and total and simply overbearing.

Angels are many things, no two of them being exactly the same—warriors, poets, drunks, police chiefs—but the one thing that they all share is a deep emotion unlike anything humans can ever hope to feel or imagine. If you think of emotions as nerves, then an angel’s body is devoid of skin, each one of their nerves exposed and vulnerable to the world and amplified so that it can feel the gamut. To say that an angel is “sad” is to diminish the thousands of nuances of the emotions they feel, and I knew that what Penemue felt was a sorrow so deep and unique that no language had yet to find a word for it.

And I knew that there was nothing I could do for my friend except simply be there for him. I went over to the grieving angel—even on his knees he was nearly as tall as me. I grabbed my twice-fallen friend and did the only thing I could. I hugged him.

Tight and long and hard. I held him, letting him know that even though his world may be crumbling, I would still be there for him till the end.

We stayed like that for a long time, my jacket and shirt wet with light. But such intense pain cannot be constant; it ebbs and flows like the tide. Eventually, his lessened, if only a little bit, and he was able to finally look up at me.

“He’ll never forgive me, will he?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But time … it has a way of making things—”

“Less?” he asked.

I thought about losing my mother, my grandfather and wife, and how the passage of time affected my grief. “Yes. Less,” I lied.

↔

When Penemue found his footing again, I asked him to the roof—and since I couldn’t fly, I let him pick me up and take me there. Since we moved to the Millennium, this had become our spot. From the top of the Millennium Hotel, we could see all of Paradise Lot and the ocean beyond.

We sat up there for a long while before I finally gathered the courage to ask him what I needed to ask him.

“Michael told me what you did,” I started.

Penemue wiped away some light from his cheeks. “He did, did he? I guess secrets are in short supply in the GoneGod world.”

“I know now that the Occultists … Evil-and-Cute, the anomalies … they were never after me. They were after you. They want to know how you did what you did.”

“Hmm … they want to bind souls to their Creations. How interesting.”

“I don’t think it’s just souls.”

“My question is, where are they getting the souls from? The gods took all of them with them.”

“I don’t know … but does it matter? They want you to tell them and they’re not going to stop coming after you until they find out.”

“So, then, what do you want me to do?”

“Run,” I told him. “Hide.”

“Tell me, Jean … do you know where the children are being kept?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Then you don’t want me to run or hide, do you?”

I shook my head. “But you’re my friend. I can’t ask you to do anything that will put you in danger.”

Penemue’s smile barely touched his eyes. “I know. And yes.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll be your bait.”

↔

There was a silence between us as we sat on the rooftop of the Millennium Hotel, staring at the city lights that shone in the distance.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“They’re going to need you to cooperate. Will you be able to resist them long enough for me to find you?”

The twice-fallen angel shrugged. “I don’t know. They seem very persuasive. Miral was unable to resist their call. And given Mr. Cain’s personality shift, I suspect he couldn’t either. They are both very strong-willed beings. I … well …” He pulled out his trusty bottle of Drambuie and looked at its black-and-gold label. “Not so much.”

“So maybe we change the plan—”

“No,” he said. “I already screwed up one child’s life for falling. I’m not going to let other children suffer because of me.” A single tear of light streamed down Penemue’s face.

“EightBall will get over it,” I said.

“No … no, Jean, he won’t. He may heal, but forgiveness is very different than healing.”

I didn’t say anything. There was no point. We’d been over this a hundred thousand times before. Penemue did not mean to kill EightBall’s parents. It was an accident caused by an event beyond his control. But it happened, and he was there, and no amount of arguing would temper his guilt.

I put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him in for another hug.

I wasn’t great at this whole “hugging” thing, and let me tell you—it was damn difficult to console a being that was over three feet taller and about twenty potato sacks heavier than you. But Penemue took the gesture as it was intended and hugged me back.

“OK,” I said. “So what’s the plan?”

“The plan is easy: go somewhere out in the open, alone, and wait to get captured. Luckily I’ll have this to pass the time.” He took in a long gulp from his bottle.

“Aren’t you worried that what happened to Miral will happen to you? I mean, we know she’s under Colel Cab’s spell. Otherwise Miral wouldn’t have bowed to that bug god. And remember what happened to Michael at the Tree?”

“They’re different.”

“How so?”

“Whatever Colel Cab does to angels is faith-based. She is an empath, and empaths play on creatures’ dominant emotions. For angels, that’s faith.”

“I’m not following,” I said.

“Let me put it this way … you wouldn’t trust someone who’s trying to quit smoking on a tobacco plantation.”

“Tobacco plant-what?” I shook my head. “Are you seriously equating faith with addiction?”

“For angels … yes.” He wiped his mouth and offered me the bottle.

“No, thanks. But you’re going and—must I remind you—you’re an angel.”

“Ahhh, therein lies the rub. I am a fallen angel. Completely different.”

“How so?”

“Because I spent thousands of years in Hell.”

“Again … so?”

“Think of Hell as rehab. I’m no longer addicted to faith.”

“You’re no longer addicted?”

“No. I’ve been clean for nearly an eon,” the twice-fallen angel said. He proceeded to down the rest of his bottle, burbled, and pulled out a fresh bottle from the confines of his wing. Holding it to his ear, he twisted the cap. The plastic cracked open. “Best sound in the world,” Penemue smiled.

“Clearly,” I said.

Penemue took a swig from the fresh bottle and returned it to his wing. Standing, he picked me up with the ease of one lifting an empty suitcase and he glided back down.

We were met on the ground by Astarte’s IT Support: Brian. “Here’s what you asked for,” he said.

“This tracker better work,” I said.

“It will,” Brian said.

“Good.” I turned to Penemue. “I promise I won’t be far behind. Just resist them long enough so that we can get into position.”

“So,” he said, stretching out his wings, “in other words, just be myself.” And with that, he took to the sky.

↔

I walked into my hotel and briefed everyone on the plan—a plan which essentially meant we needed to wait. Wait for Penemue to get out in the open. Wait for Penemue to be captured. Wait for him to be taken wherever these assholes kept their prisoners.

Of course, Brian planted a few seeds to speed up the process. A few Facebook posts and something on Memnock Securities’ system. That should put them in high alert.

Sinbad nodded, Judith tisked and Aau growled in understanding.

With that done, I went up to my room to wait there in peace. Perhaps I could stage a battle or two between WWF wrestlers and Star Trek figurines. I’d always wanted to know who’d win in a fight—Hulk Hogan or Captain Kirk.

I entered my room and was immediately greeted by Marty, who slithered out of Castle Grayskull and up my leg, around my abdomen and onto my shoulder. Tink flittered out a couple seconds later and sat on Marty’s head, riding him up my body. I guess they found peace together after all.

Once they were eye-level, Marty—of course—hissed.

“A fight’s coming,” I said to the fairy and viper. “A big one that will impact Other and human relations for years.”

Tink nodded and Marty hissed again.

“You two coming?”

Tink saluted and Marty bobbed his head up and down.

“Good—we could use all the help we can get.”

There was a knock on my door, sending both Marty and Tink back into Castle Grayskull.

“Yes?” I said.

Without a word or further prompt, Judith walked in—and by walked in, I mean she floated right through the door. And she looked distraught. “EightBall’s gone.”

I nodded.

“He came back for his stuff and left without so much as looking at us,” she said.

“Does he know what’s happening?”

She nodded primly. “Sinbad told him—not that he listened. He just packed everything he owned in a fury, leaving his PlayStation behind.

“Makes sense. The PlayStation was a gift, from Penemue,” I said. “So he knows what Penemue is doing? The danger he is in?”

Judith pursed her lips and nodded.

“And he still left.”

“Without a word,” she said.

“OK. We can’t handle everything at once, I guess. We’ll track him down when we get back. Until then—”

“I’m coming with you,” Judith said.

I paused. Well, that was a surprise. “Excuse me?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t. You’re not a war—”

Judith stood her ground. Er … floated her ground. “We already lost one child to this. I’m not going to lose another.”

“Another child? You mean Sinbad? Believe you me, Sinbad is no child. She’s a badass pirate—”

“She’s a child and I’m coming with you.”

I looked into Judith’s eyes and saw a stubbornness that would not be swayed by a thousand logical arguments, emotional pleas or (attempts at) physical restraints. So I did the only thing I could, and gave her a warning: “It’ll be dangerous.”

She smiled grimly. “I’m dangerous.”

“Yes,” I chuckled, “yes, you are.”

“Good. So we’re in agreement?”

I lifted my hands in defeat.

“Very well, then. We await your signal,” she said, floating back through the door, presumably downstairs to do whatever a poltergeist mother-in-law does when preparing for a fight.

↔

The assault on the prison would have to be well planned. Two teams, entering at my signal, but only once I found exactly where the children were being held.

One team would handle the anomalies; the other team would get the children off the island—that’s where George and the myriads came in. They would be waiting by the shoreline. The myriads would tow the kids over to the George’s boat and help them aboard. Then they would escort them back to Paradise Lot, where Michael and other officers would be there to greet them … and get them home.

One piece of the plan in place.

I looked around the ballroom which only three weeks ago hosted the event that nearly ended the world. Conner, Judith, Sinbad and Aau stood there. A cop, two warriors and a stubborn ghost. Then, of course, there were myself and Penemue. Six against a high-tech prison.

Reasonable odds—if you were the prison.

But then the odds got a whole lot better when Milton the cyclops walked in. He was wearing a traditional Ancient Greece toga—not a bed sheet wrapped around his body like some freshman rushing a fraternity, but the real thing. In his hand he carried a club—and by club, I mean he carved a tree trunk to be roughly the shape of a baseball bat and then drove railroad spikes because getting hit by solid oak just doesn’t hurt enough.

Milton was dressed for war.

“Jean,” Milton said, his eye not blinking.

“Milton? What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help.”

“Help?” I narrowed my eyes. “Help with what?”

Milton blinked twice and in a low tone grumbled, “Freeing the children.”

I ran my hand through my hair in bewilderment. “You know where we’re going?”

He blinked.

“You’ve known all along. Ever since I took that meeting with Mr. Cain.”

Milton paused, then blinked once.

“But you couldn’t tell us because of your curse. You’re going to help us save the children … and it’s going to cost you your life.”

Milton lowered his head slightly and blinked once more.

“Then don’t go. Stay here. Thwart the curse and live. It’s not like Athena is here to actually enforce it. Why come with us when you can live?”

Milton shook his head, blinking twice more. “Because, Jean, those years would be spent living in shame, especially because I know my presence will be of use to you and the children. Besides, I have a rare opportunity here. As you humans say …” He gave me a terrifying grin that I swear to the GoneGods made every hair on my body stand to attention, and patted the bat end of his massive club. “I get to go down swinging.”

↔

With my mini army in place, there was only one person left to call. An actual army.

General Shouf picked up on the first ring.

“I found the anomalies and who’s making them,” I said, cutting to the chase.

“Really?” she crackled. “Jean the Scourge … as good as ever. Where are they?”

“Ah, ah, ah … before that, let’s lay our cards on the table, shall we? This was always about the anomalies, wasn’t it?”

“Cards?” Shouf grated. “Ahh, I see … cards—facts, knowledge. The Scourge does not want to fight in the dark. Not anymore. Very well, then, Jean, I shall lay down this ‘card.’ Yes, it was always about the anomalies. It seems Cain wanted to play God after all. He used his position in Memnock Securities to hack into our systems and download the experiments.”

“When?”

“Years ago.”

“And you didn’t do anything about it?”

“Why would I? Cain—as colorful as his pedigree may be—is human. Humans cannot unlock the secrets of Creation. Your minds are … limited.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said. But Shouf’s comment was the last piece of the puzzle I needed to pull this all together. It seemed that the first son of Adam was indeed playing the Creation game, but needed help doing it. And the top candidate for that was Colel Cab. Colel Cab may have been a bug, but she was the god of bugs. That gave her certain insights that the rest of us didn’t have.

“OK,” I said, satisfied that she was telling the truth. “And finding me? You always knew I wasn’t dead, didn’t you?”

“Indeed. When we retrieved the charred remains of your squadron, something essential was missing.”

“What’s that?”

“Your sword. It was nowhere to be found.”

“So? It could have been lost. Fallen in the sea or carried off by some Other. I could have forgotten it at home that day. There are a thousand reasons why the sword would be missing.”

“If you believe that, then you do not understand what the Earl King’s sword truly is. The weapon will lay by the side of its fallen master until another, more worthy warrior comes along to pick it up.”

“Like Thor’s hammer,” I chuckled.

“Exactly like Thor’s hammer,” Shouf said, but I got the impression that whereas I was talking about the Marvel superhero, she was talking about the actual Thor. As in, god-of-lightning, real-deal Thor.

“OK—so you knew I was alive. Why not find me, then? Instead of waiting like you did.”

“Your human comrades believed you dead. And you wished to be dead. What’s more, you deserved to be dead. But when the anomalies resurfaced, and not from my efforts, I knew that the Scourge was needed once more. That is why I decided to resurrect you.”

“So you found me?”

“Actually, you found me. For at the exact moment that I needed you, I saw the footage on the beach when you fought the Tiamat, saving the world from ruin. Even though I couldn’t see you, I heard you. A single word: ‘Enough,’ uttered by the very man whose help I required. Serendipitous, to say the least. Seems that Fate and Destiny still play a role in this GoneGod world.”

“Fate and Destiny. Yeah, yeah … got it. You know I don’t believe in crap like fate and destiny.”

“No matter—Fate and Destiny do not need your belief. They only need to believe in you.”

“Sure thing, Oprah,” I said. “Next question—you had nothing to do with this little Creationist debacle?”

Shouf was silent.

“I see. You’re using me to clean up your mess.”

She clicked once. An affirmative in her language.

“OK, fine, but after this is done, you and me, we’re going to have a sit down to discuss my de-resurrection.”

Shouf was quiet for a long moment before saying, “I could be persuaded to bury you again.”

“Figuratively, right?”

“Indeed. Killing you would be wrong. I may need you in the future.”

“Yeah … sure.” I could have argued, but I realized this was probably the best deal I was going to get from her. And I was working against the clock here. “OK, Shouf. I know where they are and I’m going in, but before I do, I’m thinking about getting the old band back together.”

“Excuse me?” General Shouf grated. “ ‘Band’?”

Others are terrible with colloquialisms, so I did the mature thing by saying, “I want to go in guns blazing, grab the bull by the horns, and do the do-si-do on their heads.” Hey, if you can’t bring a little levity when preparing to take down a den of literal monsters, then whats the point of living? When there was nothing but silence from the other end of the line, as I knew there would be, I sighed and said, “We need to take them down and I’d like the aid of the old team.”

“Ahh, I see,” she said in an unironic tone. “But I’m afraid that since your involvement is unsanctioned, I can not involve anyone else. Not officially.”

“OK … but these guys we’re going up against have some serious fire power and are run by ex-military personnel. They’re no cake walk.”

“Cake? Seriously, Jean. Don’t think I do not know you are trying to assert your dominance over me by befuddling me with humanity’s ridiculous command of language.”

Got to hand it to General Shouf—she’s no dummy.

“But this ‘cake walk’ you speak of … I shall hazard a guess that it will be a difficult mission. Are we talking Tehran- or Kansas-difficult?”

“Kansas,” I said. “Definitely Kansas.”

“Oh,” she shattered. “This is serious, then.” There was a long pause as she considered her options. “OK, very well. I shall supply you with some … how do you humans put it … off-the-book support. As for personnel, I can only offer you one soldier to aid in your mission.”

“One?”

“Oh, don’t worry, one should be enough. I may not have entered the battlefield in some time, but I assure you I am as lethal as ever.”

“I’m sure you are,” I said. “I’m sure you are.”

You know what they say—don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. Well, I’d like to upgrade that.

Don’t bring a legion of monsters to a Shouf fight.

Empty Hell!

ASSAULT ON THE GARDEN

DAY 7—

When I was planning the assault on the prison twenty-four hours ago, I made certain assumptions about what I would find. I had made those assumptions based on the clues I’d ascertained during my investigation, relying on my military training to fill in the blanks. I am proud to say that one of my assumptions was right: I knew I’d find the Occultists and the children here.

I am also proud to say that one of my hunches was also correct: Colel Cab was part of this (Miral bowing to her kind of tipped me off).

But what absolutely shocked me was how much of this I did not predict.

For one, I had no idea how deeply Miral was under Colel Cab’s spell. Miral didn’t just bow to the bug god—she was completely enthralled by her spell, something I didn’t think was possible to do to the former Captain of God’s Army. The second thing I did not expect were the comatose bodies of both Mr. Cain and Mr. Yew. They were Crystal dreaming … a process that created ideal selves, or design-perfect clones that were an upgrade to the original, that were easily manipulated by Colel Cab. I knew, because I had an OtherMe running around up above—and I could feel him somehow.

And the last thing I didn’t predict was that Colel Cab would have a piece of Creation Crystal the size of a shipping container. Creation Crystal was the most powerful substance on Earth. I’d seen firsthand what a piece of Creation Crystal the size of a witch’s cauldron could do in the hands of a mischievous Other. And this former god had a piece a hundred times bigger.

“So that’s how you’re doing this,” I said, pointing at the gigantic Crystal that was, only moments ago, an apple tree. The Crystal was illuminated by the old prison’s fluorescent lights. “Creation Crystals,” I groaned.

Creation Crystals aren’t magic. They are something much more powerful. Because—end of the day—as impressive as magic is, it cannot create anything that is permanent or lasting. Magic fizzles. Creation does not.

And I should know. I’ve had experience with both magic and Creation before. It was a while back, when the world was about to end—and before you ask, no, I’m not talking about the near-apocalypse that happened three weeks ago. This one happened about a year before. And yes, that was how dangerous the GoneGod world was—an endless parade of apocalypses (apocali? I dunno, there’s usually only one). For this particular apocalypse, I was, sadly, in the muck of it because the Unicorn decided to give me a plain wooden box. Of course, plain wooden boxes are rarely plain wooden boxes … especially when they were the prized possession of a creature older than oceans and so unique as to make a snowflake seem commonplace in their uniqueness. Long story short (and it is a very long story), the physical manifestation of Gravity needed the box to create a bridge with Heaven.

You see, when the gods left, they closed all their heavens and hells … but they did not destroy them. Instead they boarded them up like mansions one payment away from foreclosure.

I fought the Avatar of Gravity, and the end result was that I was momentarily thrown into Heaven where I met my long-deceased wife who was at the time—and as far as I know still is—the sole occupant of the former reward given to good human souls. Talk about traveling in low season. How she got there is another long, painful story … let’s just say that my heart leapt with overwhelming joy to see my Bella again, but we both knew to stay in Heaven with her would mean leaving billions of humans and Others in the hands of a maniac—and neither of us could let that happen. My beautiful, wondrous Bella took one look at me and another look at the god-wannabe sorry-excuse-for-a-law-of-physics and told me to kick his ass.

Then she blew me a kiss that was imbued with a thousand years of life—years that were not mine to own—and I was given the ability to burn time just like Others. Time I burned to kill the Avatar of Gravity.

I knew what it was like to manifest my will and bring my imagination to life. It was awesome, terrifying and temporary. All my Green Lantern–esque constructs fizzled away as soon as I stopped burning time, living on only as a memory. Magic lasts only as long as the caster lets it. Sure, the results could be devastating or terrible, but it will always be temporary.

Creation, on the other hand, was another story. You birthed something with Creation and once it was made, it would live on. It would grow and metamorphose into something else. Something that you perhaps did not intend. And seeing that now, I was beginning to realize what happened to the gods. They created us, imbued us with life and then let us go free. What we became was something even the gods could not predict, and looking around the old prison filled with angels, zombies, children and anomalies, I realized that was true of every life they created. Whether we were creatures of myth or constructs of the profane … what they created and who we were today were two different things.

I friggin’ hate Creation Crystals. With the right knowledge, they can be used to store a specific kind of magic that, when released, is a hundred thousand times more powerful than what was put in. Think of them as the gods’ little amplifiers. When the world almost ended three weeks ago, Pan used a Crystal the size of a witch’s cauldron to steal thousands of years of time from his fellow Others. Oh, and he also used the damn thing to summon Tiamat, a hundred-storey-high kraken sent to end the world.

And now Colel Cab was using a piece of Crystal a hundred times bigger than Pan’s for her own diabolical plans. Helle-friggin’-lujah.

Michael and I had wondered how Pan was able to get the Crystal. They are very hard to come by—read: friggin’ impossible—with most of the stuff having been taken by the gods when they left. Of course, they seemed to have left behind just enough to fuel the ambitions of god wannabes—just typical, if you ask me. Evidently, Colel Cab found the mother lode, too. You’d think the gods would have had the foresight to not leave behind the mythical equivalent of a nuclear arsenal, which means either they were careless or apathetic. Either way, shame on them.

“So,” I said, pointing at the chunk of troublesome rock, “you’re the one who gave Pan the piece he used to cause all that trouble with Tiamat.”

“Pan?” Colel Cab said with genuine confusion. “Why would I give him anything?”

“Chaos is your purpose, is it not?”

“It is. And Pan’s little attempts at it were beneficial, but ultimately unnecessary. I will achieve my Creation with or without him. Although … his actions did necessitate the speedy completion of The Garden.”

Shit, I thought. So if Colel Cab didn’t give Pan the Crystal, that meant someone else had some to pass around. Not good. Not good at all. “Where did you get your piece?” I asked.

“You forget—I was a god. I am a god. The God. The Crystal is mine to use.”

“Not an answer.”

Colel Cab winked all three of her left eyes slyly at me. “Oh, but it is.”

“Whatever. Crystal or no, you’re done.” As if on cue, several more explosions rang out on the surface. “Do you hear that? It’s something all gods face: a reckoning.”

Another set of explosions, this time louder and much closer, rocked the place, sending dust streaming down. The children screamed and I took a second to look in their direction. “Don’t worry kids! You’ll be safe … just as soon as I deal with BugFace here.” I pointed the tip of my sword at Colel Cab. After I left the Army, I swore I’d never enjoy taking another life. But standing in this prison with all those terrorized children—pawns in Colel Cab’s pathetic bid for god-hood—I figured I’d make an exception.

Killing her would be my pleasure.

The prison rocked again, the explosion directly overhead now, and still Colel Cab did not move. Instead, she folded three sets of her arms and smiled. “Perfect,” she said.

I’ll admit—that took me by surprise. “What’s perfect?” I asked.

“This … attack.” She clicked her lips together. “When the humans learn of how the Others organized an assault on a prison lawfully built, they will go insane with anger … and with fear. And fear is opportunity. Those who are afraid will always seek me out. And with the Crystal, I shall turn their fear into dreams … dreams of me leading the world into an endless age of prosperity.”

She clapped all eight of her hands together and moved her body in what I assumed passed as a dance of joy for cow-size insects. “I had thought it would take a decade, perhaps more, to accomplish my goals,” she said. “But you, Mr. Matthias—you have just handed me the world.”

I growled in frustration. She was right. An assault like this would just serve to confirm the humans’ worst fears.

But she was forgetting something essential. Something very, very important.

“The children,” I barked. “Once they see the children, see how the Others came to save them, do you really think anyone will follow you?”

“I do indeed. Except … I ask you one thing: what children?” She snapped her fingers and the two Occultists made that diamond shape with their hands again. Immediately, the anomalies surrounding us animated and started toward the children.

“No!” I cried out and charged at the closest anomaly. I slashed at it, severing its claw arm that looked like it was a distorted toy clamper. The arm fell off, bubbling before it hit the ground.

I pulled out my walkie-talkie and pushed hard on the speak button. “Brian! Brian! I’m at the bottom of the lighthouse. The kids are here and I need back up. Now!”

Brian’s voice crackled in. “Jean? We’re kind of busy up here, too. There’s lots of … ahhh … monsters and stuff.”

Somewhere above, I could feel the OtherMe moving. I could see what he could see, feel what he felt, just as if it were me experiencing it—and in a way, I suppose it was. When he heard the explosions on the prison grounds, when he saw the invading Others coming onto the prison’s shores, he felt no fear, nor did he doubt his skills in fending off the invaders. I would have been afraid … hell, I’d faced enough armies and entered enough battles to know that I always felt fear. Every time I ran once more into the fray, I always doubted if I would be strong enough or fast enough or smart enough to get the job done. But the OtherMe had none of those doubts. He was fierce, fearless—and way cooler than I’d ever be.

But as strong as my connection was with him, he could not feel me. This was a one-way connection, and I knew that both Mr. Cain and Mr. Yew must have been wired to their own OtherMes in the same way. Their ideal selves were running around somewhere, completely unaware and unburdened by the knowledge that their real selves were down here.

I knew OtherMe saw the invading Others as enemies. As I fought my way to the children down here in the prison, I could only hope that he also had my memories and my feelings. That when he saw Judith and Conner, Milton and Aau, General Shouf and Sinbad, he’d know enough of them to trust that they were the side he should be fighting with, not against. Otherwise, they’d have their hands full—more than full—in dealing with, well, me.

But as dangerous as I would be above, there were children’s lives at stake below.

“Now, Brian!” I screamed out, dodging a massive limb that looked like the bones of a puppy’s paw as it swiped at me.

As another explosion shook the old prison’s corrugated walls, the ijiraq Occultist took out his Shaman-style staff and hit me square on the back. I fell hard, the breath knocked out of me. Even in pain and danger I could feel the OtherMe and what he was doing, what he saw …

↔↑↔

Aau, Conner, Sinbad and Judith made their way to the tower and OtherMe met them at the door. He stared at three of his friends and would not let them pass.

“Jean?” Conner said. He had a shotgun in his hand that he lowered when he saw the person he believed to be me. “I thought you were in the basement of the tower! You said the children were down there.”

Sinbad put her hand flat on the ground and closed her eyes. “Sarah … I feel her. She is there!”

“Let’s go,” Conner said, walking to the entrance—but as soon as he came near, OtherMe grabbed the shotgun out of his hands and threw the weapon into the open door of the lighthouse. “Jean—what are you doing?” But before Conner could say anything else, OtherMe pushed him hard, causing him to fall hard on his back.

“Human,” Aau barked. “Stand aside … the boy named Elliot requires my protection.”

OtherMe shook his head and I could feel his confusion. He took a moment to look out at the sea, its water beating the rocks behind the lighthouse. “I … I can’t let you down there,” he said. “I was hired to protect this place. By being here, you’re breaking the law. You’re in violation …” His voice trailed off and for the briefest of moments, I could sense that OtherMe was experiencing doubt. He was no longer sure what his mission was or why he was here. I could feel him search his mind for some memory, some prompt from the past that would explain to him what he was supposed to do.

“What is wrong with you?” Judith said, and even though I was several stories below the surface, currently engaged in mortal combat with an angel, my ghost of a mother-in-law’s judgmental tone still got to me.

Sinbad pointed at OtherMe, her expression that of a child who just realized her mommy left the house and won’t be back for a long while. “That’s not Mr. Matthias,” she said, her voice tinted with fear and frustration. “He’s a ShouldNotBe.”

Judith nodded like she understood exactly what Sinbad meant. Clearly, she thought the RealMe was a ShouldNotBe, as well. Mother-in-laws ... arrgh!

“I …” OtherMe said, doubt growing in him. “I am me.” Not the best comeback, granted, but gimme a break; even my ideal self can’t be witty all the time.

OtherMe banged his head with the heel of his palm twice. Hard. I felt it … but at the same time I didn’t. The pain was real, but it did not slow me down as I fought or make me dizzy. It was more like a memory of pain that I was being forced to relive right now. “I …” OtherMe started, then stopped again.

All of a sudden, all the doubt left him—and he was whole and fearless and fierce once more.

“You are here to help the prison in its day-to-day operations,” a sultry, inviting voice said.

From the corner of OtherMe’s gaze, he saw—or rather, we saw—Evil-and-Cute as she approached, her hands held out in that damn diamond shape. I knew that gesture was her way of focusing her power and helping control the anomalies. I knew this because I simultaneously saw her make the gesture—and felt its effect. It was one of the powers Colel Cab granted to her, a power she had granted all of her Occultists.

She smirked. “You are exactly where you’re supposed to be—unlike these unwanted guests.”

Conner and Sinbad both noticeably gulped as Evil-and-Cute approached. From the way Aau snarled, I suspected he could smell her power. But Judith? My mother-in-law had no clue who this woman was or what she could do.

“Who the hell are you?” Judith sniffed.

“Your worst nightmare,” Evil-and-Cute sneered less ironically than you’d think possible for such a overused line. She touched her tiara with both her pointer fingers before lowering her hands into the diamond gesture.

And that was when I felt the hold that Colel Cab and her Crystal dreams had on the anomalies and ideal-selves that she’d been responsible for creating. OtherMe, who only a second earlier was full of doubt, was suddenly overcome with an unwavering belief that these invaders, these people whom he knew and had real memories and affection for, were here to do harm. More than harm.

They were here to kill.

OtherMe did exactly what I would do when facing off against four enemies: he assessed who was the most dangerous and attacked that one first. In this case, that was Aau.

OtherMe tackled the jackal-guard with all his force, throwing his body into the Egyptian Other on his back.

↔↓↔

Down below, I—as in RealMe—knew that I wouldn’t be able to face off against all these creatures alone. There were seven anomalies and two Occultists. I was out-manned, out-gunned and out-classed (not very original, I know, but hey, if the cliché fits …). If I was going to rescue the children, I needed help. Right now, the only three people who could come to my aid were currently occupied with the ideal version of myself, as well as Evil-and-Cute, a being who seemed to be invulnerable to pain. The only friend I had nearby was Penemue … and he was pinned to a friggin’ wall.

A wall in a room less than forty feet away from me. I looked over at the side room, its door still open, but Colel Cab was gone. So were Mr. Yew and Mr. Cain. I guessed she’d grabbed them whenever she’d decided to exit stage left. Only Miral was there, standing at the doorway, guarding it with her sword out.

I tapped my chest. “Tink, I don’t know if I can do this,” I said. “It’s the Occultists—they’re controlling the anomalies, and I can’t get to the kids in time.”

I felt a whoomp as Tink pulled herself out of my chest and hovered in front of my face. She looked behind me at the anomalies and the Occultists. Quickly, gestured that she could buy me a couple of minutes, but that I should hurry. I nodded and the little fairy flew off at the ijiraq like a bullet, a golden comet lighting the drab prison. She punched the creature right in the temple and it fell over. She immediately whipped around and shot straight up about twenty feet. Then, in Mighty Mouse–fashion, she dive-bombed the tiyanak and it, too, was knocked to the ground.

Both the ijiraq and tiyanak were temporarily out of commission, stunned on the prison’s cold steel floor—which meant their limp hands couldn’t make those damn diamonds, causing the anomalies to stop walking.

But that only lasted a few seconds before the tiyanak shook his head and hissed, “Colel Cab wants the Houlm.” They both stood up, focused on Tink and made the diamonds once more. Immediately the anomalies turned on Tink, each one of them intent on capturing her for their master.

Apparently Miral wasn’t going to join them in Master-wants-Houlm mode, because she just stood at the door’s threshold, sword out, waiting for me to approach.

If I was going to get Penemue, I needed to get through Miral first.

Hellelujah!

↔↑↔

Up above, I felt OtherMe and Aau fight—and not to brag, but boy, oh, boy, was I incredible. Just a couple days earlier, Aau’d thrown me into the alleyway and basically had his way with me before infecting me with his Eye—an experience that just about crippled me—so I’ll admit that a small part of the RealMe was cheering OtherMe on.

OtherMe moved with a fluidity that was unmatched, countering Aau’s every strike like he could predict exactly where each would come from. Even in my prime, I couldn’t have touched OtherMe in a fight. Aau was going down, and from the expression of shock on the jackal-guard’s face, he knew it. And he was surprised. I should have been easy prey for him, but I was quite the opposite. Conner and Sinbad went to Aau’s aid, but before they could get within five feet of me—ahhh, I mean OtherMe—Evil-and-Cute stepped in and did what she was oh-so-good at.

Kicking ass.

She punched Conner. He went down with a thud. With her other hand, she picked up Sinbad and tossed her thirty feet away. The little pirate warrior landed on the asphalt with a tumble, breaking out in a perfect somersault that would have made a Cirque du Soleil acrobat green with envy.

She turned back and yelled, “That’s not fair!”

Evil-and-Cute gave her an obnoxious shrug that was equal parts Too bad and What are you going to do about it?

And just as soon as the fight had begun, it was between Aau and OtherMe. Aau lashed out and OtherMe ducked, getting in a southpaw right jab–left hook combo that sent the beast sprawling across the asphalt. OtherMe approached. From the way he walked, I knew exactly what he was going to do. I’d done it a hundred times before, when I knew I had my opponent. I slowed down and savored the kill. Apparently my ideal self was also an asshole who enjoyed the fight as much as my younger self once did.

I was sick to my stomach. If OtherMe was everything I could become, I didn’t want to be that. Give me flawed, doubtful, afraid Jean any day.

OtherMe took two more steps forward. He was going to drive Aau’s head into the side of the lighthouse and while the jackal-guard was stunned, he would break the ancient beast’s neck, snapping it at the top of the spine.

But before OtherMe could get close enough to Aau to do that, the Earth began to rumble. Little pebbles of loose asphalt and concrete began to shake, vibrate, then lift off the ground and hover in midair. And not just from the area around OtherMe and the decommissioned Others—the little loose stones were being gathered from all around the island, hovering like algae in a churned-up sea.

“What … the … hell … are … you … doing?” Judith cried out as her poltergeistic rage continued to draw in every loose piece of debris it could find, like filings to a magnet.

OtherMe looked at the aging poltergeist and said exactly what I would have in such a situation: “Judith … calm down. Your burning through too much time.”

Judith gave me a smirk and, with a Don’t-tell-me-what-to-do defiance in her voice, screamed, “I have wanted to do this forever!” She pointed at OtherMe and a rush of pebbled fury shot out, hitting him in the chest and throwing him several feet back.

Evil-and-Cute turned toward Judith, but before she could close three feet on my mother-in-law, Judith lifted another hand and threw Evil-and-Cute straight up in the air.

“Yay!” Sinbad cried out in triumph—and busted into the “Gangnam Style” dance.

Conner struggled to his feet and ran over to Judith. “Ma’am,” he said, calling forth the spirit of the ultimate Boy Scout helping an elderly lady cross the street. Michael would’ve been proud. “You’re burning time, ma’am. We thank you for helping, but please … we can take it from here.”

“Good,” Judith said, letting go of the energy she had gathered. A hailstorm of pebbles fell to the Earth, accompanied by the solid thud of Evil-and-Cute falling. Judith sniffed, her rage subsiding into her usual Holier-than-thou-ness. “I don’t want to have to do everything myself.”

Free of Judith’s Comet, OtherMe started to stand. But before he could get to his feet, Aau put a foot on his chest and pulled out the Eye of the Fifth Hour. I thought he was going to put it on OtherMe, like he had done in the alleyway, but he didn’t.

Instead, Aau put it on himself.

A light poured out of the jackal-guard and struck OtherMe square in the chest. I, we, were filled with memories … but not our own. They were Aau’s—his centuries guarding the Fifth Hour for Re, the loss of his brother during the GrandExodus and his years on Earth, miserable and alone … until one day he found purpose again in protecting the young boy across the alleyway. Elliot. We both felt his dedication to protect the child, how he would lay his life down without a moment’s hesitation if it meant getting the boy safely home.

OtherMe staggered back and held his head in his hands. He was sobbing.

Evil-and-Cute got to her feet and made a diamond with her hands. “Kill them. Kill them all and let Colel Cab sort them out.”

But OtherMe didn’t move. He stood there, shaking, cradling his head, ignoring the Occultist.

“What are you doing?” Evil-and-Cute said. “End them!”

Still, OtherMe didn’t move—except to lift his tortured expression up to stare at Aau with equal parts fear, admiration and respect. He—we—knew Aau … and to know a creature like him is to love him.

“KILL THEM!”

But neither of us—not RealMe, not OtherMe—could kill someone we loved.

↔↓↔

Of course, this all happened above at the exact time I was facing off against Miral down in the panopticon. Miral swatted me with her wing, leapt into the air and came down at me with her sword. Even though she was under Colel Cab’s control, a part of her held back. I know this because that move, if done with the ferocity and speed I know Miral to be capable of, would have ended me. But she hesitated—and that hesitation bought me enough time to deflect her blow with my hunter’s sword.

Our blades rang out, echoing on the prison walls. I got to my feet. “Please, Miral. Stop.”

But the angel would not heed my plea. She swung her sword down and I tumbled out of the way. She blocked my attempted escape by outstretching her wings and, as literally as possible for an angel, creating a net with her wings that boxed me in.

Boxed me in with feathery wings—a stupid move on her part. There were a hundred other, far more lethal things she could have done to end this fight. Capturing me with the insides of her wings exposed to my blade wasn’t one of them. She was either toying with me or—

I looked up at the angel’s face. She stared back with vacant eyes, but her lips were pursed together. I had known her long enough to know what that expression meant. It was what she did when all the choices before her were bad ones. It was the way she wore her smile when she knew that whatever was coming next would hurt … and I knew that Colel Cab’s control over her wasn’t complete.

And I knew what she wanted me to do.

“GoneGodDamn you, Miral,” I growled. “Come to your senses! You don’t want to do this.”

Miral didn’t react to me; she didn’t even seem to acknowledge that I had spoke. Instead, she stared at me with the same passive eyes that she wore the entire time we had been in this stalemate. Still—the lips stayed pursed.

Then, without hesitation or warning, she swung her sword at me. I barely had time to get below her arc, her blade missing me by less than an inch. Even with my sword in hand, I was seriously outclassed against the former Captain of the Lord’s Army. I did the only thing that gave me a slight chance. I tackled her.

Like I said—a slight chance.

Wrapping my arms around her waist, I held tightly, pressing my body against hers so that she could slice me in two with her sword. I knew that if she were to use her weapon against me, she’d have to change the angle with which she held it and slash it across my back. But with her wings in the position they were, she also needed to retract her wings. Either move would take a second, maybe two, giving me enough time to do what I had to do if I wanted to survive.

“Forgive me,” I said, tears welling in my eyes as I spoke. And then I did the cruelest thing I have ever done to my friend. It was the only thing you could do when in a life-and-death struggle with an angel.

I hobbled her.

Thrusting my sword up and around and using her body for leverage, I stuck my sword deep into the joint where the wing meets her back … and I twisted.

Miral writhed with pain, letting out a shriek the GoneGods themselves must have heard, wherever they were. Tears of light borne from pain streamed down her face. In her agony, I saw a brief glimmer of the Miral I knew and loved manifest itself on her face. But it was only a brief glimmer; her face went hard again and she narrowed her eyes.

“You dare,” she said.

She didn’t need to say more. The wound I inflicted on Miral wasn’t something she’d recover from. Ever. Sure, years of physiotherapy and perhaps several dozen surgeries preformed by the one or two doctors that specialized in wing reattachment might let her fly again, but she’d never take to the skies with the grace and beauty she once took for granted. Wings and flight—the two facets that make an angel an angel. And I just maimed her in every sense of the already ugly word.

The kind of wound I gave her was the pre-show to delivering the final death blow. It was the crippling move done just before you put down an angel for good. It had to be, because no angel—sane or under the spell of some overpowered Other—would stop until they killed the one who had dared to inflict such a grievous wound. Think of it as an angel’s “rage” ON-switch; from the fury that shone in those tear-glistening eyes, I knew Miral was in full berserker mode. If she could, she would kill me … and not just kill me—she’d make drawing-and-quartering seem like an act of mercy. Given the chance, she would literally tear me to pieces, making sure that I lived—and screamed—for as long as possible.

If she was given the chance. I looked at Miral, still bellowing in agony. I’d have to make my move now, before she regained her senses. A hobbled angel is still an angel—complete with supernatural speed, strength and resolve. I looked at the sword in my hand and thought back to Conner’s words in the desert:

Sometimes a good man does bad things. Something a bad man does good things. Which one are you?

Given what was at stake, I really didn’t know what kind of man I was.

“I’m sorry,” I said, lifting my sword. Luckily, she was already bent down from the hobbling, so her head was in easy reach of my sword’s hilt.

She went down when I hit her, but she wasn’t quite out.

So I hit her again.

And again.

And again—until finally the angel Miral, my friend and confidant, an angel who had treated my wounds both body and soul, lost consciousness.

↔↑↔

OtherMe stood up and shouted, “No! I will not be used by you. Not now, not ever!” Either Aau’s Eye made him more dramatic, or the ideal Jean was a Drama Queen and years of shying away from decisive language made RealMe the passive-aggressive bastard that I was. Either way, when OtherMe spoke, everyone listened.

“What are you doing?” Evil-and-Cute asked, still trying to enforce her will on OtherMe. The mental assault was like having a thousand arrows flung at you all at once, except instead of turning into Evil-and-Cute’s pin cushion (mentally speaking), an image of Captain America’s shield flashed through my mind as OtherMe lifted a mental shield to block her attempt to control him. Even though this was all happening in the confines of his head, and I was experiencing it within my own, I could feel seemingly literal thuds as her arrows failed to penetrate his shield.

After seven volleys of increasing intensity, Evil-and-Cute shrieked, pulling at her hair. Clumps of gorgeous brown strands laced around her fingers. In her attempt to control OtherMe, I could feel her frustration. It wasn’t getting-stuck-in-traffic frustration or the-deli-was-out-of-your-favorite-cheese frustration. This frustration was as literal and intense as the original meaning of the word intended to encapsulate. She was suffering, and it hurt as much as one who held their hand in a bed of blazing hot coals.

“How?” she screamed. “How?”

I had to admit that I wanted to know the same thing. But OtherMe didn’t offer an answer, didn’t even entertain her question. He just smirked at her and said in a calm voice that would have sent chills down Clint Eastwood’s spine, “It’s over.”

GoneGodDamn—I’m friggin’ cool!

His words seemed to shake Evil-and-Cute to her senses. She took a moment to collect herself before a devilish smile crept across her lips. “Oh, no … Jean’s Shadow, it is not over. It is far from over. It has just begun.”

She raised up her hand, her forefingers and thumbs pressing tightly against one another with so much pressure that I could see the wrinkles in her fingers go flush with white. “Up until now, you have been facing children’s nightmares. Now it is time to face mine.”

As she spoke, a dragonfly the length of a friggin’ 747 rose up behind her. Except to call this creature simply a giant dragonfly would be to say that Godzilla was simply an overgrown gecko. You weren’t taking into account his electric breath or supernatural strength (like being a towering beast wasn’t enough). Although I couldn’t yet tell if this DragonFly had either electric breath or superstrength, I could see thousands of little pincers that lined its entire body, each pair of mandibles just mini-versions of the monster’s face.

Hellelujah!

(Sorry, Penemue … but when the catchphrase fits, it fits.)

↔↓↔

I ran through the doorway, over to Penemue and pulled out one of the pins from his wings. It took all my strength, but I managed to wiggle it out. It dropped with a clank.

“Thank you,” he said. “I was getting tired of just hanging around.”

“Seriously?” I said as I struggled with the second nail.

“What, Human Jean? We must find levity in all situations, mustn’t we?”

“I guess. I just wish you’d use actual humor when searching for your friggin’ levity,” I said, still straining to pull out the second nail.

“Touché,” he said.

Clank went the second pin. Now released, he fell down to his knees with a thump. It took all my strength to prop him up.

I pointed at Miral who laid on the ground, groaning from the two wounds I had inflicted on her. “Will she be OK?” I asked.

“In … time,” Penemue responded.

I gestured vaguely to the battle that was raging above. “I can feel me up there. Another me … and he’s way more badass than I am. I can see what he’s seeing … and right now Sinbad, Conner, Judith and OtherMe are getting their asses handed to them.” I looked at Tink, who still buzzed around dodging the anomalies’ attacks. But even from this distance, I could see she was getting tired. “But this me needs help down here, too.”

Penemue looked over at Tink, then me. “You are the Houlm’s guardian?”

“ ‘Houlm’? That word again. What is a Houlm?” I stood, sword in hand.

“Not what. Who,” Penemue said, pointing at Tink. “And Houlm’s identity is a long story for another time. Until then … help the little mythical fairy. I will deal with the other you. After all these years, I’ve gotten very good at dealing with you.”

↔↑↔

As I turned to face the anomalies below, OtherMe stood above, just as determined to meet the approaching carnage with carnage of his own. Before him was Evil-and-Cute and her nightmare DragonFly, but those were far from the only players on the field.

A legion of anomalies poured out of the hatch from the prison below. Given their sheer numbers, I guessed that the children’s nightmares were endless, and that the noise and fear they were currently feeling as they watched monsters chase a poor golden fairy below allowed them to conjure more and more.

Shouf and Milton the cyclops had invaded from the south, coming in on a small motorboat Shouf had borrowed from Army supplies. They had made their way to the stairwell where the anomalies poured out. They stood side-by-side as they battled the monsters, cutting them down almost as fast as they came out and sending a stream of foam back down into the prison at such a speed that the soles of the RealMe’s shoes would soon be slick with monster juice. I guess the two warriors bonded over their unusual eye-situation, because their coordinated efforts were flawless.

If only we could turn off the constant tap of anomalies, I was sure the two of them alone would deal with the impending army.

OtherMe, Sinbad, Aau and Conner, however, weren’t dealing with an army. They were fighting one Occultist and a demon DragonFly. And they were screwed. Aau and Conner tried to knock down Evil-and-Cute, but she was too fast, seeming to anticipate where all their attacks would come from before they could be thrown. I swear it was like she had eyes not only on the back of her head, but everywhere.

DragonFly buzzed forward.

Sinbad, that little fearless warrior, managed to climb the side of the lighthouse, using her daggers as mountaineer’s ice axes. Judith, still drained from her temper tantrum, watched the little girl scale the wall, too tired to protest—but from the expression on her face, I could see she wanted to. When she was high enough, she jumped onto the DragonFly’s back and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed, but with each slash, the beast healed itself—just as she did whenever hurt.

OtherMe was weaponless and confused. His mind told him to help Evil-and-Cute, but his conscience told him to help his friends—the people with whom he had bled in the past. With conscience and mind in conflict, he was lost. Unsure what to do next.

Until, that was, OtherMe saw the one Other that tipped the balance. It came in the form of an angel—a drunk, pain-in-the-ass, arrogant and extremely frustrating angel, but an angel nonetheless.

Penemue burst through the door of the lighthouse, the angel’s massive frame crouching to get across the threshold. He flew straight at the DragonFly with all the force of a bat out of hell (I know, I know … cliché, but for once the cliché does what happened, justice). He hit the DragonFly, forcing the creature back several meters, before turning to the rest and yelling, “Conner, Judith, Aau … Jean needs you below.”

Judith pointed at OtherMe and said, “Jean’s here.”

“No,” Penemue said, dodging the DragonFly’s pincers—all three million of them. “That’s Other Jean. Real Jean is below. Just go … you’ll understand when you get down there.” Then, flapping his massive, dove-like wings, he turned to face the DragonFly. With a voice full of resolve, he pointed at Sinbad and OtherMe and said, “The pirate and I will take care of this thing. You take care of her.”

OtherMe was no longer confused. He knew exactly who the angel meant by “her.”

↔↓↔

I ran into the main area of the prison where Tink continued her annoying buzzing as the Occultists and anomalies were trying to capture her. The three-inch-tall golden fairy panted and heaved in exhaustion. She was slowing down. With each swipe, they were getting closer.

“Tink,” I yelled. “Come back to me.”

The little fairy gave me a thumbs-up and started her way to me. But an anomaly that had a friggin’ tennis racket for a hand—I guess the poor kid dreaming that particular anomaly had been thwacked by one of those—hit Tink square on the back and she went flying, hitting the ground with a thump.

“No!” I cried, and threw my sword like a spear at the Andre Agassi reject. My sword impaled itself in the monster’s head and it started foaming.

Great—one down; only six anomalies, two Occultists and a partridge in a pear tree to go.

I tumbled in Tink’s direction and picked her up. Her wings flickered slightly, but the fairy was out for the count. “Tink … can you merge with me?” I asked.

The battle-weary fairy nodded and I put her to my heart where she went in with a whoomp.

“OK,” I said, picking up my sword. “Who’s next?”

↔↑↔

Up above, I watched OtherMe, Penemue and Sinbad struggle to take down a DragonFly and someone who seemed way too cute to be this vicious. Sinbad was using Penemue’s chains and meathooks as her own personal swing, floating around the DragonFly and taking serious chunks out of it with her daggers. Penemue played his role perfectly, always making sure that he kept the little warrior out of reach of those strange pincers which covered the DragonFly’s body.

OtherMe swung at Evil-and-Cute, who ducked and countered with a punch to the gut, followed by a kick to his shin. I felt the pain, sort of. It was the memory thing again, and even though it was real and intense, it didn’t really affect me in any physical way. I watched in despair as OtherMe fought Evil-and-Cute. Even with his confidence and strength, the ideal version of me was too slow and weak to do any real damage.

↔↓↔

I, on the other far-less-ideal hand, was facing off against my own monsters—the anomalies that were literally children’s nightmares and two Occultists. Like Tink, I focused on the ijiraq and tiyanak, slashing them with my hunting sword. The ijiraq charged and I ducked under his raking claw, turning to do what I had done to him in the desert—cut his Achilles tendon. But instead of cutting through fibrous filament, my blade clacked against metal.

What the hell? A heel guard? I looked up at him. “Really?”

The ijiraq smirked at me—a look that was more his mouth bones cracking in an upward-facing crescent than an actual smile—and, pushing me with his staff, threw me against the Crystal. It was like falling on a thistle bush. I winced in pain as a thousand little shards shredded my skin.

I tried to peel myself off the thing causing me numerous flesh wounds, but I couldn’t. Seemed the Crystal’s thorns were more fishhook than needle, and to get myself off it would take some time. Time I didn’t have. I looked at the ijiraq. “Heel guard. Got an upgrade, huh?”

The ijiraq nodded as he took several steps back. Suddenly falling to all fours, he sought to charge at me. He was going to impale me on the Crystal shard. I looked around the room and saw that the other Occultist, the tiyanak, seeing that I was done for, ordered the anomalies to do as his master bid.

Kill the children.

Monsters lumbered toward the kids in their prison cells. I could hear high-pitched yells—little children crying out for their mommies. I looked at the ijiraq as he prepared to end me and then back at the tiyanak. I knew I only had time to do one thing. I threw the Earl King’s sword at the tiyanak, crying out as the Crystal tore deeper into my skin. My sword twirled through the air as it flew at the demonic toddler, hitting it with an almost inaudible swoosh.

My aim had been straight and true. The blade pierced the tiyanak’s heart. He died before his body hit the ground.

The ijiraq momentarily paused as he watched his fellow Occultist fall. Then he sneered at me and let out a howl that I could have sworn shook the ground. Several children screamed at the ijiraq’s call, and I saw four more anomalies manifest from nothing. I’d faced dragons and angels, First Laws and apocalyptic monsters, and I could say with all confidence that there was nothing more frightening or awe inspiring than a child’s imagination.

The ijiraq galloped toward me. I tried to move, but I was still pinned to the Crystal. Fine, I thought. This is the end. And just like that, I felt a peace come over me. It would hurt, sure, but that pain would be over soon. The others would have to keep fighting the good fight without me. I had done all I could do.

As I closed my eyes and readied myself for death, I said one silent prayer that the others would be able to save the children without me.

I figured I had about three seconds until he hit me. What do you do with your last three seconds? Say a prayer? Make a wish? Count to three?

I did the only thing I could. I conjured the faces of all the people I loved in my head, planning on holding their images and taking them with me to that nothing that was next.

But the nothing that was next didn’t happen. Nothing did.

I opened one of my eyes and saw that the ijiraq lay dead before me. Well, not all of him was in front of me. He was missing his head. It seemed that with all the screaming and me being distracted by the certainty of my own death, I hadn’t heard Aau throw his scythe. It had flown even straighter and truer than my own blade, decapitating the skeletal Other in one fell swoop.

Without either of the Occultists to direct them, the anomalies were wandering around aimlessly. Conner evidently didn’t trust that all the Occultists were dead, because he started shooting the lumbering monsters with his shotgun, which he evidently retrieved before coming down here.

Aau walked up to me, sniffed twice and unceremoniously grabbed me by my belt buckle and underarm. He lifted me up about a half inch and then pulled.

“Wait, wait, WAIT—” I started, but the jackal-guard didn’t wait. In a far more literal way than I’m comfortable with, he ripped me off the Crystal. Like a GoneGodDamn Band-Aid.

My skin sounded like Velcro peeling off a sweater. I fell on my stomach, writhing in pain. It wasn’t that any one wound hurt. It did, of course, but any one wound hurt just about as much as cutting your finger while chopping vegetables. The clincher was the couple hundred wounds that ganged up on my nervous system, took it down a dark alley and beat it into next Tuesday.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, Aau poured what felt like vinegar mixed with fermented lemon over my back. I screamed in pain, thinking of all the things I wanted to do to Aau … when my back suddenly stopped hurting.

I looked up at the jackal-guard, who exposed his canines and said, “Old Egyptian remedy, plus about four minutes of time. Four minutes that you owe me.”

“Uh-huh” was all I managed.

Aau sneered and then joined Conner, who was having a blast while blasting anomaly after anomaly with his shotgun and sending them to Foam City.

↔↑↔

Things above were getting more and more dire, with Evil-and-Cute slowly wearing OtherMe down. Don’t get me wrong—he was doing OK, but this wasn’t a fight he was going to win. Evil-and-Cute knew it, and so did he. But every time OtherMe tried to get away to regroup and try something else, she was there, toying with him in pretty much the same fashion a cat would a mouse. I could feel his frustration, but he did not give up hope. That much I could sense. He kept fighting, hoping that Evil-and-Cute would slip up and give him an opening, or something would happen that would turn the tide of the battle.

Penemue and Sinbad weren’t faring much better with the DragonFly. Every time they did something significant to it—cut off a wing or severely damage one of its compound eyes, for example—it healed itself. From all the “Yippies!” and “Yee-haws!” I knew Sinbad was fairing well. The kid had infinite energy.

But Penemue … he was another story.

↔↓↔

I clicked my wristwatch to see how the recently freed Others were doing. From what I saw, they were still keeping the guards busy—without actually killing any of them, which was a plus. I checked in on Marty in the FishBowl and saw several guards toppled one on top of another. Seemed that a guard would go into the FishBowl to try to get eyes on the situation and Marty would bite them. I counted eleven guards so far.

Empty Hell—Marty was badass!

But as good as that situation was, things down here were looking pretty bleak. I was standing awkwardly next to a teary Conner as he held a wounded and passed-out Miral on the old prison floor.

“Conner,” I said. “She’ll live … but we won’t if we don’t get the kids out of here. Is George in place?”

Conner wiped away a tear and nodded. “The myarids are waiting in the water to ferry over the children and George is on his boat. We just need to get to the south side of the island.”

“Good … I’ve got to find Colel Cab.”

Conner looked up at me, confused.

“Long story,” I sighed, “but she’s the Big Bad behind this whole shit show. And judging from how the fight is going up above, I’ve got to get her to turn off her mojo—otherwise we’re sunk.”

A very angry Aau sniffed around. From the way the jackal-guard’s ears twitched, I could see that he didn’t like this place. Not one bit. Aau pointed to the far end of the prison where a small hatched door stood open—probably used as a repair duct.

“The traitorous bug went over there,” he snarled.

I nodded in confirmation. Aau was an expert tracker, so if he said Colel Cab went through the hatch, there was little doubt in my mind he was right.

Aau stepped toward the repair duct. “I shall join you and—”

“No,” I interrupted, stopping him. “You and Conner free the kids. Get them on George’s boat. After that, come help me—if I’m still alive.” I tried to curl my lips in a way that said I was joking, but my mouth wouldn’t help with the lie and I just gulped in resolve. One way or another, this ended. Today. High noon—except it wasn’t noon, it was three in the morning, and I was more Shane than Eastwood. I didn’t like my chances.

Conner stood up and ripped off one of the tapestries that hung on the walls to cover Miral with. Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Conner loved Miral, there was no doubt about that.

“You sure about this, Matthias?” Conner asked, not taking his eyes off Miral.

“I’ll be OK,” I said, grabbing Conner and forcing eye-contact. “But who’s not going to be OK are those kids if you don’t get your head in the game.”

Conner looked behind me and nodded. “You sure going after BugFace alone is the best strategy?”

“Probably not,” I said. “I need two favors from you, though.”

“What?”

“Can I borrow your pistol?”

Conner unholstered his pistol and handed it to me. “And the other thing?”

“This.” I pulled him in close so that our chests were tight against one another.

“What are you doing?” Conner asked.

“What I have to. Now hold still,” I responded. Then in a hushed whisper I said, “Tink—you’ve got to go, ’cause I honestly don’t know if I’m coming back from this one.” I figured that if I didn’t make it out, at least Tink would escape with Conner. Hell, she could wait until he was asleep, exit his chest and go back to CaCa—and Conner would never know what, or who, he was harboring.

“Come on, Tink,” I repeated. I felt nothing. “Tink. Please! I can’t hold back. And I will if I know you’re with me.”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then I felt that familiar whoomp that always accompanied her leaving my chest, and from the way Conner’s eyes widened, he got a whoomp of his own. We separated and, touching his chest, he asked, “What just happened? Who were you talking to?”

“I can’t—”

“You can’t tell me,” Conner sighed. “I’m gonna need some answers when all this is over, Matthias. About what happened there, too,” he said, nodding over to Miral’s still form. Before I could say anything, he nodded at Aau. The two of them went off to save the children, leaving me to go face Colel Cab alone.

Empty Hell.

↔↓↔

Aau told me that Colel Cab ducked into this place and the jackal-guard wouldn’t be wrong about something like that. He had Krypto AKA Superdog’s nose. Aau’s secret identity: SuperBloodhound (I need to work on my superhero names).

Point is—Colel Cab was down here. I followed, hoping to find her lair. And yes, it would be a lair. Creatures like Colel Cab always had a lair. It came with their trope.

I ran through the hatch and found myself running through one of those tunnels you see in alien movies, and exactly the kind of place I’d imagined the inner workings of a prison to be. Thick pipes wide enough to house small tree trunks lined the walls carrying only the GoneGods knew what, while smaller pipes ran along the ceiling for water and possibly electrical cables—but again, I had no idea. As well-trained as I was, the inner workings of a large building designed to hold hundreds of prisoners just wasn’t in my wheelhouse. (Come to think of it, I don’t know what a wheelhouse is, either.)

This place wasn’t a maze like I’d expected. It was just a straight line. A never-ending tunnel that might as well have been a one-way ticket back to Paradise Lot. I checked my watch, but Mickey’s second hand ticked along at a boring, consistent speed of one per second. No time was being burned here. None I could detect, at least.

There was no way this place was real. It was, like I said, exactly what I would imagine the inner workings of a prison to be—but I admit, I may have just seen Shawshank Redemption one too many times. But in real life, it just didn’t make practical sense. There were too many pipes and not enough stuff that needed piping around. Once you got back electricity, water and exhaust … what more did you need? A pipe for air conditioning, maybe, possibly a gas line for the kitchen, but that was about it.

I checked my Mickey Mouse watch to see if magic was being used, and sure enough, Mickey’s second hand ticked along at a normal pace.

But that didn’t mean magic wasn’t being used. Remembering the little box that filtered magic at the Tree, I stopped looking for Colel Cab and magic, and started looking for what was hiding Colel Cab and her magic. I ran my hands over the wiring and pipes and tubing, and after a few minutes of feeling up useless pipes, I eventually felt it … a little metal box exactly like the one Hunter found on the Tree, hidden by pipe. Once you stopped running and started poking around, they were there.

And not just one—there were dozens of them.

Which meant a lot of burning time was being hidden in this place. Colel Cab knew enough to hide her magic, but never really expected anyone down here. That’s why she didn’t bother to hide the boxes more thoroughly. I considered the design of this place—it was modeled after what I believed a place like this should look like. In other words, Colel Cab tapped into my perceptions and created something that complied with my expectations in order to throw me off the trail. Colel Cab had spent a lot of magic creating this illusion and then hiding it with her little magic filters.

I pulled as many of the boxes as I could find and, remembering how explosive they were, I carefully piled them on the ground. Then I left the tunnel and went back into the main prison area. With the door open, I took aim with Conner’s revolver.

I fired at the pile of magic filters, quick to get out of the mouth of the tunnel. It was tough aiming and diving for cover, and I missed with the first shot, the bullet ricocheting off the pipes. Even as an illusion, this place reacted exactly like an endless metal tunnel would.

I lined up another shot and held my breath. Letting it out, I aimed carefully. As soon as I had the tiny box in the pistol’s boresights, I stopped breathing out and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the box and an explosion rang out and a fireball burst out of the door, singeing my jacket as the flames passed by me.

Looking inside, I saw that just like at the Tree, it spouted out explosive time which pattered out all magic, exposing what this place really was.

A tomb.

↔

The blast ripped a hole into the very fabric of reality. What was peeled back from its tattered shreds was a dreary tunnel that connected the old prison to a large, underground chamber. I walked over to the moth-eaten curtain of illusion and reality, and once I stepped onto the concrete floor of the real world, all the metal piping and tunnel disappeared.

I wished that it would simply be a tunnel with nothing creepy lining the walls, but in the GoneGod world, wishes were rarely answered. And my unanswered wish was particularly creepy, because dozens of bodies lined the walls of the tunnel.

They were under the same spell that Mr. Yew and Mr. Cain were under, and although I didn’t recognize most of them, I knew a few of them. A senator, the mainland mayor, a news reporter I’d seen that day reporting on the missing children … each and every one of them in some sort of catatonic state … all dreaming of a heaven they desired while their other selves, their ideal selves, were being manipulated by Colel Cab.

All told, I saw close to one hundred and ninety people … one hundred and ninety key players that were doing the bug god’s bidding. I walked along, the tunnel getting wider and the bodies getting less and less frequent until it opened up into a chamber larger than a football stadium.

I walked another three hundred feet before I entered the main chamber and saw, at its core, Colel Cab standing there with all four pairs of her arms crossed.

Next to her were Mr. Cain and Mr. Yew—the two most important pawns in her game. All three of them stood next to a large glass terrarium which held a … a …

“What’s that?” I called as I got closer. “Besides taking over the world, you’re also into bee keeping?”

Colel Cab shook her head. “My chief acolyte … a queen bee of the Melipona scutellaris order. She battles your ideal self above.”

“ ‘Chief acolyte’?” I said, “You mean ‘minion.’ ” Then it clicked: the tiara, the ridiculous jokes, the preternatural speed and senses. “You don’t mean to say that Evil-and-Cute is the ideal manifestation of a queen bee?”

“ ‘Evil-and-Cute’?” Colel Cab repeated. Then recognition flashed on her face. “Oh … I see why you have bestowed that title on her. Yes, I mean Evil-and-Cute. She is a queen bee who aspired to be more. More is exactly what I gave her. And she gave me so much in return.”

Evil-and-Cute was a bee that aspired to be human. And I’d thought I’d seen it all. And yet, suddenly things started to make sense. I thought back to what she’d said about how they would now face her nightmare, and how she’d then conjured a dragonfly. Granted, it was a massively terrifying DragonFly, but it was still an odd choice. But dragonflies are one of the few natural predators that bees have, a relentless predator known to go into hives and pull out queen bees just for the hell of it. No wonder she conjured that—I’d be terrified of something known to pull my kind out of bed.

But still … a bee? When there were so many other, more terrifying creatures to turn into your own personal super soldier? And then it occurred to me why Colel Cab used a bee—

“The hive mind,” I said. “You needed something that could control your drones. Otherwise the anomalies would just do their own thing. But with Evil-and-Cute and her hive mind, she could control them for you.”

“Indeed, Mr. Matthias. I tried so many other creatures: empaths like myself, humans with an overwhelming desire for control, even the alpha of a pride of wolves. None of them can exert the control that she has. She is … spectacular.”

“She’s a bee,” I said, feeling that in this case pointing out the obvious was a necessity.

“A queen bee that desired to be more,” she said, patting the glass dome. “You humans … so arrogant. You presume that this world was made for you. Like young children who believe everything they see is theirs, your species indulges in the self-delusion that all this world was made just for you. The heroes of your own story. But the gods did not make this world just for humans. They made it for all manner of mortal creatures.”

“Mayyybe,” I said, drawing out the word in a childish tone. “But then we’d have to start sharing. And you know the two-year-old’s mantra: what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine. What would humans be if we out-grew that?”

Colel Cab chuckled at that, three of her hands pointing at me. “Very funny, Mr. Matthias. But your humor is a poor mask for fear … and I can feel your fear.”

“No,” I said. “That is just my aftershave.” I took a moment to check on OtherMe up on the surface. He was being beaten quite badly … and I knew enough about myself to know that something had to happen—and soon, too—otherwise, he was done.

“Ah,” Colel Cab said, seeing my upward glance, “you are connected to your other self. Even though you do not dream? That must be the power of the Houlm. She is truly one of the most wondrous things this Universe has to offer. When I pull her out of your heart, she will be the final piece of the puzzle to create creatures, this time in my own image. My world will be harmonious, beautiful and at peace. That is something the other gods could never have hoped to achieve.”

“OK … But you’ll have to kill me first. And then capture her. And you have to do all that before my army comes down here and kicks your butt.”

Colel Cab clicked several of her pincers together before making the diamond shape with all four sets of her hands. “Yes, they come indeed. Their forces are amassing against me. Just like they have a thousand times before.”

Her voice was distant, like she was thinking out loud, rather than speaking to anyone in the room. Or perhaps she was recalling some ancient memory. Either way, her gaze went distant as well as she stared at the empty space in front of her, her half-dozen eyes glazing over like one day-dreaming or sleep-walking.

“But this time will be different,” she hummed. “This time I will be the one to ascend to the godhead. I have the Crystal.”

She started to grow. No, not grow, because that implied that she was getting bigger. She wasn’t getting bigger … she was becoming more. More tergites appeared, stretching out her midsection to greater heights.

“I have the will.” And as she extended herself, more arms appeared.

“I have the resolve.” She was a centipede that was becoming a millipede. She grew and grew, until she became whatever was greater than a millipede. Decamillipede?

“But most importantly … I have the belief.”

And with those last words, Colel Cab completed her transformation from a simple eight-legged, eight-armed buglike Other to something that had more arms and legs than I could count.

“So …” I said. “You can do that?”

“I can, Human Jean,” she uttered from a hundred mouths that suddenly sprouted along her body and spoke in chorus. “I can do this and so much more.”

And before I could think of a witty comeback, Colel Cab scampered toward me, her thousand pincer feet clacking against the ground, her thousand hands reaching out to grab me.

↔

Colel Cab slithered across the massive chamber and toward me, using her massive body as a fence to trap me inside. I tried to jump over the decamillipede, but it seemed that the Other not only grew in length, but girth as well. I doubted even Sinbad could clear her without struggle. I thought about hacking through her with my sword, Herculean style, but there was no way I could get through that exoskeleton … and even if I could, she’d just grab me with the rest of her body and rip me from limb to limb.

So I did the only thing you can do when facing a monster of insurmountable strength. I bullshitted.

“Hey, ugly,” I called. “Do you really think you can pull this ‘god’ stuff off? After all … you’re just a bug.”

Colel Cab clacked at me and several of her mouths spoke at once. “But I am a god … and gods create through the manifestation of their belief.” She picked me up. “And my belief is stronger than anything any mere human could hope to conjure.”

“Manifestation of their belief, huh?” I said.

And then the implication of her words hit me … the Crystal allowed beings who had complete, doubt-free belief to create. Creation wasn’t magic—magic was the manifestation of will; Creation was, in Colel Cab’s own words, the manifestation of belief. Colel Cab grew in size and strength because she believed she was already the God. But in order for that to work, she needed to be free of doubt.

There was nothing I could say that would shake her belief, but there was something I could do—or rather, have faith in. I thought of OtherMe, still fighting on against Evil-and-Cute … he was exhausted and outclassed, but still he believed he would win. He was without doubt. I felt him and although I wasn’t him—free of doubt and all I could be—I still understood who he was and what he was about.

I envied OtherMe’s ability to fight without doubt. He believed in himself so completely, and that was something I couldn’t do.

But that was when I understood that belief without doubt was incomplete. It was belief that you held on to despite doubt where true power lay. To believe without doubt was to be delusional.

But belief with doubt … was faith.

And sometimes faith is all you need.

I thought back to all the fights I’d fought, all the times I faced insurmountable odds, all the times I should have died but didn’t. Why? Because I was damn good at what I did. Thing was … I didn’t have faith in a god or gods. I didn’t have faith in a higher power that would come down and save me. But I did have faith in one thing …

I had faith in myself.

I felt OtherMe who fought on without doubt, and realized that I was choosing to fight on because of that faith.

So, seeing the mandibles of Colel Cab closing in on me, I focused on that faith. I held it in my heart, as I struggled to get out of her grip and just as she was about to bear down on me, I felt my strength grow and slowly I was able to peel myself out of her grip.

Colel Cab did not hide her shock as I freed myself. So I dug in a bit more. “Hey, I was thinking about how the gods left and didn’t take you with them. I mean, they did take all the human souls out of all the heavens and hells with them, but … not the god of bugs? Why do you think that is? And then it hit me—to a god, even the god of bugs is still just a bug.”

“Insolent fool!” she said, charging down on me with her decamillipede body.

I lifted my sword and waited for impact. At the last second, I tumbled to one side and thrust my sword into her side. It cut through three of her exoskeleton shields—because I had faith it would. But it was more than that. My sudden rush of strength and my renewed enthusiasm, they rattled Colel Cab. More than rattled her … for the first time this evening she doubted that she would be able to beat me.

So I dug in more. “You know … I defeated the Avatar of Gravity, turned back Tiamat. Did you really think a talking ant could defeat me? Come on!”

Colel Cab swung her tail at me—and I swear to the GoneGods that she shrunk in length and girth as she came at me.

“Children have stories about the things they fear. Witches, wolves, poison … even the Black Plague. Do you know what they say about you? ‘Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.’

“The gods used warriors and philosophers to do their bidding, but you used children. Why? Because you are weak. If you were a real god, you wouldn’t need to prey upon the helpless amongst us—” Before I could finish, Colel Cab writhed in pain, her body shrinking and folding in on itself at a rapid rate now until it finally returned to near her normal size.

“Stop it, stop it … STOP IT!” she screamed.

I ignored her pleas, jumping over her body and rushing toward the queen bee’s terraquarium.

And without really knowing what it would do, I smashed the glass with the hilt of my bug-gory sword and crushed the queen bee under the heel of my shoe.

↔↑↔

As soon as I swatted the dreaming bee, Evil-and-Cute stopped moving. I know this because OtherMe, exhausted and damn near passing out, took a meager swing at her that surprisingly connected. It wasn’t much of a punch, but it sent Evil-and-Cute back on her evil and cute butt.

She was dazed, and with her dreamer dead, it was only a matter of time before Evil-and-Cute faded away. It might just be a matter of minutes until Evil-and-Cute foamed away into obscurity, or maybe she had spent so much time existing that she was a permanent construct who just needed a bit of time to reorient herself once her RealMe was gone. I was left wondering if someone that, to borrow Sinbad’s phrase, ShouldNotBe exists for long enough, maybe that gave them life.

Either way, my philosophical debate became moot, because with the connection gone, so too was her proximity to the Crystal. With that bridge severed, the DragonFly could no longer exist. The monstrous bug started to falter. Evil-and-Cute, realizing she had lost control over the creature, screamed in abject terror.

Its tail started to turn to foam, and as the rest the DragonFly’s body also turned to foam, it drew its attention to Evil-and-Cute and bit her into two neat pieces, which began to foam themselves—just before its mandibles joined the rest of its body in a puddle of foam. Evil-and-Cute was literally washed away by the tidal wave of her nightmare.

The rush of foamy water didn’t only clear the deck of her … the foam also nearly knocked OtherMe into the sea. But at the last second, Sinbad grabbed him, her other arm still holding on to one of Penemue’s chains.

“I got you, Mr. Matthias,” she said with a wink.

Penemue lowered them onto a dry spot.

“Now what?” Sinbad asked.

Penemue pointed at Shouf and Milton, who were still busy cutting down anomaly after anomaly. “Help them?” he offered.

OtherMe nodded and pointed at an anomaly that looked like the Frankenstein’s monster version of a pudgy doll. “Personally, I kinda wanna slay Otis Lee.”

Sinbad and Penemue gave OtherMe a blank look. “You know … Otis Lee from the Cabbage Patch Kids?” he said pointing at the anomaly. More blank looks. “I guess they’re before your time,” OtherMe sighed.

Penemue readjusted his two meathooks and sneered at the army of ShouldNotBes.

“Nothing is before my time.”

↔↓↔

Colel Cab crawled over the smashed glass and her dead queen. “Oh, my queen,” she said in a mournful voice. “You and I would have brought order to this chaos.” She kissed the dead bee with her mandibles and then did something I did not expect.

She ate her.

And I don’t mean in a cannibalistic way. She ate her because if she could no longer be by her side, then at least she could be a part of her. At least, that’s how it looked to me.

She turned to me, her body smaller, the cut I inflicted on her still oozing goo. “This can’t be,” Colel Cab said. She had shriveled to smaller than her normal size … and I guessed that in trying to implement her plan, she had falsely believed herself to be bigger than she really was. With her self-belief stripped away, she was returning to her normal size—which in Colel Cab’s case was not much bigger than a tomcat. Her voice took on the high, shrill voice appropriate for her new size. “You are ruining everything. Everything!”

I almost felt sorry for her. She really believed she was going to save us all … but then again, so did Pan, and so did the Avatar of Gravity. The problem with saviors is they don’t tend to care who they step on to get what they believe we all want. Not that I said anything. Colel Cab was in pain, and even though she did horrific things, a part of me felt for her. A very small, ant-size part of me … but a part of me, nonetheless.

“This can’t be. It can’t be. I am Colel Cab. A god. More than a god. I am She-Who-Came-After and She-Who-Will-Bring-Order-to-the-Chaos.” She tried to bolster herself up, puff out her chest in pride, but she just couldn’t muster it … her doubt was too great. She could never become the god she once believed she was destined to be. Her exoskeletal face wore her defeat. She knew she was done.

“Now what?” I said to the creature, more a rhetorical question than anything else. “Now you tell the world what you tried to do. You free all of those under your spell and we go about putting things in order. You go to jail. Hell, there’s one right above us—”

“No,” she said, her voice sullen and distant. “I will not do any of those things. I may have failed to save the world, but I will not fail at condemning you. This attack, the Others kidnapping the children … all of it will make the world fall to its knees. Pain is coming. Suffering is near. And you are the cause of it, Human Jean. Your hands have blood on them and by the time this ends, your hands will be so stained that not even death will offer you relief,” she spat. Then, looking down at herself, she said, “If I am not everything, then I am nothing.” With one last effort of will, the once-decamillipede, once-millipede, once-centipede did something that showed a resolve I knew very few creatures had: she twisted around and, grabbing her own tail, took a large bite.

Then another. And a third.

“What the—?” I started in her direction, seeking to stop her, but it was too late. Those three bites were the equivalent of me biting off my own foot. And with her hard exoskeleton there was no way to stop the bleeding, no tourniquet I could put around her lower half. She would bleed to death. If, that was, she didn’t eat herself first.

Colel Cab continued to consume her lower half, preforming a harikari of the insect world. As she took one last bite out of her body, I watched the light go out of her eyes and she faded into oblivion.

↔ A BRIEF INTERLUDE ↔

Sarah hears unusual noises from above. Not that unusual noises are actually unusual anymore. Since she came to this place she has heard monsters howl, cry, screech and clamor. She has comforted little boys and girls who wailed and whined. This place … this prison has creaked and groaned, straining under its own weight.

But these noises, the ones happening right now, coming from above, are different. There is shouting that includes actual words. The monsters never speak in actual words.

And there is banging and clanging. She is pretty sure that people are fighting outside, and she knows deep down in her heart that Sinbad has come to save her. What’s more … she believes Sinbad is here.

She gathers the children in her cell and tells them that they are going home today. But she knows that it won’t be so easy. They will need to run. Maybe even hide. So she checks each child’s shoelaces and makes sure they are tied tight. She tucks in any straps, threads, strings or ponytails that the monsters could grab, and she ties Elliot’s doll tight to his body. She doesn’t want him dropping it and then stopping to pick it up. That’s when the monsters get you. She’s seen the movies. She knows the dangers.

Once the children are prepared, she has them wait near the door, ready to run at a moment’s notice.

There is a POP!—it sounds like that noise her dad’s beer makes when she shakes it too hard and he opens it.

POP! POP! POP!

Then the world goes quiet.

“How long?” asks Elliot. He squeezes her hand tight.

“Not long now,” little Sarah reassures him. “Sinbad is here. I know it. I can feel it.”

And POP! breaks the silence.

She knew Sinbad would come. She never doubted it for a minute … and now Sinbad is here.

Sinbad, her hero. Sinbad, her savior.

She is here. She is here.

She is here.

↔

But when the door to Sarah’s cell opens, it is not Sinbad who comes in to save them. It is a man in a police uniform. “Come on, kids,” he says. “You’re safe now.”

He smiles and his blue eyes scan each and every child, surveying if any of them needs to be carried. The children are scared but otherwise unharmed. Trauma is their true injury. And trauma cannot be seen. But they will all recover, that much is certain.

The children smile. A couple of them even cheer. They are all happy that they are going home. They are all happy to be saved.

They are all happy to see their savior: a handsome policeman with striking eyes and a warm smile.

They are all happy except little Sarah. She would have preferred to spend a thousand years in this cell than to be rescued by someone other than Sinbad.

“Let’s go, kids,” the policeman says. “Let’s get you home.”

One by one they shuffle out of the cell, until only little Sarah remains.

“Come on, little girl. We’ve got to get out of here.” He stretches out his hand.

Sarah takes it and, with tears in her eyes, whimpers, “She didn’t come. Sinbad didn’t come.” And perhaps the biggest wound suffered that day was the one a little girl felt when she no longer believed in her hero.

↔

Sinbad and Penemue fight side by side. Their motions are seamless. It is as if they were born to fight together. Near them is Judith who does her disappear–reappear trick and uses her poltergeist rage to blow dozens of monsters away like foamy leaves in the wind.

Yes, it is true that they are burning time. Minutes. And what are a few minutes, even a couple hours, days, when so many children are being saved?

Vampire Bowser suddenly curls into a spiky ball and rolls toward Sinbad. The pirate warrior jumps up onto Penemue’s massive shoulders, and when the monster rolls harmlessly past, she winks at the twice-fallen angel. He doesn’t need to be told what to do.

Without hesitation, he grabs Sinbad and, using his considerable strength, throws her at the balled-up creature. Sinbad must time this perfectly if she is going to get her dagger in-between the monster’s armored plates.

And she does! Her dagger penetrates flesh. He unballs himself and swipes at her. But now he is exposed and it is only a matter of seconds before she dispatches him.

Standing on his massive body, she smiles at Penemue. Then her smile turns to fear and she falls to her knees.

Sinbad is dissolving … just like the monsters do.

“What? What’s happening?” Penemue says, coming to her side.

“Sarah. I can feel her. She is here. And she is … she is safe. We did it. We saved her.” Sinbad sighs in pride and relief. “She doesn’t need me anymore.”

“No,” Penemue says, finally understanding. “Don’t leave me. I need you.” Penemue is crying tears of light.

“Don’t cry, Mr. Penemue. I have to go now. Thank you for helping me save Sarah,” Sinbad says. “And thank you for being my friend.”

And before Penemue can do or say anything, Sinbad turns to foam that seeps between his fingers and mingles with his tears of pure light.

↔ END OF BRIEF INTERLUDE ↔

The fight below might be over, but the fight above still raged on. I could see through the eyes of OtherMe that Cain’s manifested self had joined the fight above. But Milton, Sinbad, Penemue and Shouf had cleared the deck of all anomalies, Evil-and-Cute was gone and the DragonFly was polluting the ocean. OtherMe could not see the children being ferried off the island by Conner, Aau or Judith, nor did he know about the prison or Crystal below.

All he saw was an invading force preforming the most daring jail-heist of all time.

Before anyone could say or do anything, Mr. Cain pushed past them and into the lighthouse. Milton and OtherMe followed.

Mr. Cain ran up the stairs ahead of them and to his desk, where he slammed his hand down on the control panel, activating the prison’s security system. I touched my Memnock watch’s screen and flipped through the camera … several of the children were still on the rocks, Conner and Aau helping lift them into rafts being towed by the myarids. The electrified rocks would kill them if they turned on before they could get off.

“Stop, Mr. Cain,” OtherMe said. “Please. Let’s sort this out before more people get hurt.”

Mr. Cain shook his head. “I knew bringing you here was a mistake.” He pulled a gun on OtherMe as he loaded up his commands. “Come on, come on, come on,” Mr. Cain pleaded with his systems.

That’s when Milton burst in and charged at Mr. Cain.

Mr. Cain emptied his gun on the cyclops, several bullets hitting him in the chest. Two ricocheted off Milton’s nail-filled club, one bursting through the window and the other hitting OtherMe in the shoulder.

OtherMe fell with a yelp. Unlike Sinbad or any of the other dream manifestations, he did not immediately heal. Instead he sat on the floor, his very real, very red blood ruining the carpet.

Milton, on the other hand, was surprisingly chipper for someone with seven bullets in him. He grabbed Mr. Cain and pulled him away from the panel. Mr. Cain pulled one of the rapiers from the front of his desk and stabbed at Milton with its razor-sharp tip. Milton swung his massive war club. Mr. Cain took the brunt of the blow square in the chest. The blow would have felled a bull elephant, but Mr. Cain took it in stride, his chest repairing itself just like Sinbad had done while facing the anomaly on the mainland.

Mr. Cain pulled his rapier from Milton’s chest and thrust it into the cyclops’s stomach. The cyclops cried out in pain and a milky white fluid started to flow out of him.

“I told you that I cannot die,” Mr. Cain whispered to him. “I have the Mark of God … he who tries to hurt me shall be punished seven-fold.”

Mr. Cain pulled out his sword and stuck it into Milton’s shoulder, straight down into his lung, as more milky white cyclops blood flowed from him.

But even though Milton was in pain, he still smiled. He was a cyclops … a creature that knew his death from time immemorial. This was his last moment—and he knew what I was going to do before I did.

Mr. Cain went back to the control panel, seeking to turn on the prison’s automatic defenses. In another minute, everyone and everyOther on the island was going to be up against not anomalies or prison guards, but security apparatus designed to do one thing—kill Others.

Down in the chamber, I turned to the body of Cain—immobile, frozen in his catatonic state as he dreamed of his ideal self above. As long as Cain lived, Mr. Cain above could not be killed. I looked at my watch … it would be several minutes before everyone was safely off the island. Milton didn’t have several minutes. I doubted he’d last several more seconds. I thought back to what Conner said to me in the desert.

Sometimes good people do bad things. Sometimes bad people do good things.

I don’t know which one I was when I drove my sword through Cain’s sleeping heart. Either way, I did what I believed was right.

As Cain died, his ideal self faltered just long enough for Milton to stand one last time and drive down his club onto Mr. Cain’s head.

End of Part 5

EPILOGUE TO PART FIVE

Metatron agrees and tells Penemue to begin the process immediately. Penemue obeys like any good angel and goes about teaching human souls of love, and then promises them that should they agree to be bound within the flesh of the human, they shall experience it completely.

But as he does, Penemue, the Chief Archiver of Heaven, starts to realize something that he suspects God does not want the angels to know. For while angels feel emotion with the intensity that only immortal beings can bare, love is still something that is strange to them.

The love felt by angels is conditional and tied to the worship of God and admiration of His Creations. It is not what the humans have. Their love is unconditional.

What’s more—it can change, evolve. Be different.

Penemue wishes to know this love. When he is certain that even the all-powerful eye of his Creator can’t see him, he imbues his own being with the emotion.

And what he feels is something that he did not expect … for if he had been asked to guess what human love feels like, he would have never guessed … this. It is total, all-consuming, devastating and liberating all at the same time.

“Love is … total.” That is the only word Penemue can find to describe what he feels.

For with his own love within him and human love now a part of him, Penemue finally feels complete.

O woe is Penemue. Little does he know that this completion will cause him so much pain. For not only does it lead him to disobey celestial law and teach humankind the power of the written word, but millennia later, after the gods leave and Penemue is forced to live among the humans he adores, this complete feeling will cause him such incredible pain.

Pain that reaches a crescendo when he watches his friend, the warrior pirate named Sinbad, die.

The pain alone might have ended his life. But he is near the Crystal. That is unfortunate. For angels are not meant to use the Crystal’s power. The last angel to do so built a kingdom of sulfur and brimstone.

And now Penemue builds a Hell of his own.

Except Penemue’s Inferno is not built on pride.

Penemue’s Inferno is built on something else entirely.

For in the twice-fallen angel’s life, he has learned so much about love and pain.

Whereas love binds, pain separates.

Whereas love heals, pain destroys.

And whereas love builds vast citadels of joy that reach up to the heavens, pain creates bottomless pits of despair that go deeper than any abyss in Hell.

And that is exactly what happens. From Penemue’s pain, he births his own personal Hell.

CRYSTALDREAMS

Conner was on the mainland with Tink, Miral and the kids—making arrangements to get them all home. That left Aau, Judith, Shouf and myself (not to mention OtherMe) to do cleanup here. In the hours that followed Mr. Cain’s death, I coordinated the Other prisoners, having them lock up their jailers in their own cells—and quietly locking up the FishBowl, still full of snoozing guards. As soon as we wrapped up here, Michael would send someone to The Garden to let them out.

I worked diligently, ignoring four insane things that I had no idea what I was going to do about:

First—the fallout from this assault was going to be massive. Not only was this prison where the kidnapped kids were being held the whole time, but its creator was dead and there were dozens of comatose adults in the basement of this place. And Colel Cab was also dead. Colel Cab may have been a monster, but over the last few weeks she had been the Others’ spokesperson. Her loss would not serve the Other situation well.

Second—the Others in this prison were fugitives and, given the severity of the situation, would be hunted. They needed to go into hiding, and I sincerely doubted there was anywhere on this good, green Earth where they would be safe.

Third—there was a giant chunk of Crystal beneath Memnock Securities’ prison that, if it were to fall into the wrong hands, would just be another headache to deal with.

And last, but by far not the least, there was another Me walking around, helping get everything in order.

I ran my hands through my hair. This was going to be messy. I would need to deal with everything in its turn.

Pulling out my phone, I called George. As it rang, Judith came up to me. “Jean—I need to show you something.”

“Not now, Judith,” I said as George picked up.

“Jean,” he said, his voice strained with stress and fatigue.

“The kids—they’re safe?”

“On shore now. Conner and Miral are arranging transport to get them home. There’s a lot of them, so it’s going to take a while.”

“OK,” I said. At least one of the problems was being taken care of. “And you—where are you?”

“On my way back to pick up the … you know.”

“Fugitives?”

“Others,” George corrected. “ ‘Fugitive’ implies they are guilty of some crime. You and I know that’s not the case.”

“And the rest of the world?” I asked.

“The rest of the world can go to Hell,” he said, anger rising in his voice.

“Do you know where you are going to take them?”

“Yeah,” George said. “The myarids know of a small, secluded island not too far from here. I’ll take them there for now … until we can find a better solution.”

“Thank you,” I said.

There was a long pause. I could sense that George was trying to hold in some emotions that were desperate to get out. I gave him his space and eventually he let out a long, troubled sigh and said, “Azzah would be proud of me. Fighting the good fight and all.”

“Yes,” I said. “From everything I know about her, yes she would.”

“OK, OK,” he said. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

Good—another problem under control.

Now on to the real issues.

I dialed Michael. He answered before the first ring was rung. I filled him in on everything that happened, and then got to the crux of the issue, telling him about the comatose humans in the chamber.

Michael listened without interrupting. When I was done, he said, “We need to wake them up and get them home.”

“Agreed, but we have another problem that needs to be dealt with first. There is a piece of Creation Crystal here the size of gazebo.”

Michael didn’t say anything and an uncharacteristic silence met me. “We need to get rid of it,” I said.

“We can’t,” Michael said.

“We can’t leave it here.”

“No—we can’t do that either.”

“So what are we going to do about it? If it falls into the wrong hands, we can have another Tiamat or whatever.”

There was another long pause before Michael said, “Very well—I will have it dealt with.”

“How?”

“By going against my instincts and trusting in someone I have always had my doubts in.”

“Who?”

“The less you know, the better.”

“Come on, Michael. After all this, you know I’m on your team.”

“I do not question your loyalty, Jean. I question your ability to stand up to torture when those who wish to possess the Crystal come after you. The less you know, the less you can tell them.”

“Oh … Geez, thanks for looking out for me,” I said sarcastically.

Judith floated up to me. “Jean, you really need to—”

I covered the phone’s mic. “Not now.”

Judith rolled her eyes and went over to console a crying Mable.

“Jean,” Michael’s voice boomed. “Is there anything else?”

I looked around me until I found myself—OtherMe, that is—standing by the shoreline staring out at the ocean. I could feel him looking out into the darkness, contemplating what had just happened, while he tried to make sense of it all. He felt no doubt, no fear—just cold, hard calculations.

“No,” I sighed. “Nothing more that needs your attention. Me, on the other hand, I have to go have a long, hard talk with myself.”

Michael sighed. “I cannot tell if you are serious or not.”

“Oh,” I said. “I am very serious. Very serious, indeed.”

↔

“I’m not sure how to start a conversation with myself,” I said to OtherMe.

OtherMe didn’t turn around, just stared off into the ocean. “What am I?” he asked.

“You’re me—with a couple differences.”

“Yes,” he said. “We have the same memories, don’t we? And in those memories, I remember being so full of doubt. So afraid. But I’m not afraid now. Nor do I have any doubt, even though all my memories tell me that I should. Tell me, are you afraid? Do you have doubts?”

I took a step back. I hadn’t expected a conversation with myself to get so real so fast. But I guess when you’re talking to yourself, there’s no real need for chit-chat. I searched my feelings. Yes, I was overcome with doubt and terrified for what would come next. “Yes,” I said.

“So that settles it—of the two of us, you’re the original.”

“Yes.”

“And what’s gonna become of me?”

“I don’t know. Either you will carry on … or whatever magic created you will fizzle out and you will disappear.”

OtherMe put his hands out in front of him and looked at them for a while. “No, I will not fade away.”

“You’re sure of that, aren’t you?”

He nodded and turned to look at me for the first time. To say it was like looking into a mirror did not come close to what I experienced. OtherMe may have looked like me—but he was distinct. Foreign. Like meeting a long lost twin or your doppelgänger.

I simply did not see myself in him.

He must have felt the same way, because after a long, hard look, he shook his head and said, “I need a name.”

“Excuse me?”

“I am not Jean. You are. I need a name.”

“Just like that? No more self-exploration? No existential crisis?”

“No need. I am who I am, as you are who you are. But given that I am new—I need a name. And given that you are in a very real way my creator, it is only fitting you name me.”

“You are a lot less funny than I am.”

He didn’t say anything, just waited expectantly.

“OK—a name. Let’s see. My whole life people have made the same stupid joke. Jean Matthias. John, Luke, Matthew … only missing the—”

“Marc,” we said in unison.

“Spelled with a C. Mom would have wanted it that way,” I said.

He nodded. “Marc—my name. Very well, then.” He stuck out his hand. “Good to meet you, Jean.”

“You, too, Marc.”

“What now?”

Marc looked toward the helipad where the old Apache warbird sat. “I’m going to fly her back to Paradise Lot. Once I land, I’ll start my new life.”

“You can’t fly a helicopter. You haven’t flown a copter in years—and even then you were a terrible pilot.”

Marc smiled. “You were a terrible pilot. I will be just fine.”

Empty Hell, OtherMe was one cool cucumber.

↔

I left Marc to the Apache. He had agreed to ferry some of the Others back, but most wanted to wait for George and the promise of a safe hiding place. Without many passengers, Marc did what I would have done—with the help of Shouf and a few others, he gathered Milton’s body, promising to give the fallen cyclops a proper burial back home.

As he prepared to leave, I took one last look around. In all this time there were two people I didn’t see—Penemue and Sinbad. Maybe that was what Judith wanted to talk to me about.

I saw her in the distance and walked over to find out if my best friend and very brave little girl survived the battle. As I drew near, I asked, “Sinbad?”

From the way she cast her gaze downward, I knew that Sinbad hadn’t made it.

Tears welled up. Wiping them away, I asked my second question: “Penemue?”

“I’m … not sure.”

“How can you not be sure?” I said.

“Because … Jean, just come with me. There is something you need to see.”

She took me to the other side of the lighthouse, where I saw a shimmering darkness that hung suspended in the air, like some sort of optical illusion. The shimmering portal didn’t make sense. For one thing, I should have been staring at the ocean, not some dark hovering cave. And for another, it constricted and expanded in an unnatural way—like a curtain suspended in place, but still subject to the air around it.

“Penemue?” I asked again.

Judith nodded. “I saw Penemue make this. And then I watched him walk in.”

“Are you sure?”

Judith nodded again.

I examined the portal. I knew enough about these things to know for certain that this was a doorway to somewhere else. A forest, to be precise, but although this place had trees and bushes and earth, it was unlike any forest I’d ever seen before. For one thing, it was impossibly eerie. Eerie is a misused word—I know that now—because “eerie” is something we say to children when we want to tell them a scary story without actually scaring them all that much. But as I stood in front of the portal that led onto a forest path, I suddenly understood what eerie really meant.

When you say “The forest is eerie,” what you are really saying is that you can sense danger but have no idea where or what it is. All you know is that it is real, imminent and terrifying.

And this drab forest was nine shades of eerie.

“What is this place?” I muttered to myself.

“Hell,” I heard a voice from within say.

I immediately went on full alert, my sword out and ready. “Who said that?” I demanded as I looked into the gloom.

In the distance I saw a shadowy figure approach. I couldn’t make out any of this creature’s features other than to say that it was a she and humanoid in shape. As it drew closer it said in a soft voice, “When Sinbad died, Penemue was so overcome by grief that he wanted to punish himself for failing the little warrior pirate. And because the Creation Crystal is so close, he was able to create this place.”

“And what is this place?” I asked.

“Hell, Jean. Penemue’s Hell. Seems he modeled this place after Dante’s epic poem.”

“Dante’s Inferno,” I said. “His favorite poem. It’s about a man named Dante who traversed the nine circles of Hell to retrieve his dead wife.”

“Indeed,” the figured chuckled in a forlorn way. “Penemue’s Inferno.”

She still hung in the shadows, but the more she spoke, the greater a sense I got that I knew her. “Who are you?”

“In the poem, Dante is guided through Hell by the poet Virgil. I guess you can say that’s who I am, Jean. Your Virgil. I’m here to help you get Penemue back.” The figure stepped out of the shadows and for the first time her face was illuminated by the ambient light. I heard Judith gasp as my head swirled with the impossibility of who I saw.

Rubbing my eyes, I took a step forward. “Bella?” I said. “Is that really you?”

PENEMUE’S INFERNO

PART XIV

HELL

EONS AGO—

There is a Book of Life.

And a Book of the Dead.

And many concerning Good and Evil.

The Torah, the Quran, the Bible—to name a few—and the angel Penemue knows each and every one of them.

As well he should … He wrote them all.

Well, he didn’t exactly write them. The twice-fallen angel did not put pen to paper, nor did he outline them or even consult their authors. But he is responsible for the written word.

The written word: his chief achievement … and his greatest sin.

And it for that very sin that the angel Penemue now sits in chains, awaiting his punishment.

↔

The council of angels float above Penemue. Before them sits the Scale of Justice, where each angel will place feathers—evil to the left, good to the right. Penemue’s life, quite literally, hangs in the balance.

Each angel will use their special ability to examine Penemue.

Haniel, the angel of joy and intent, will uncover Penemue’s motives, while the archangel Gabriel will weigh Penemue’s past deeds against his current infraction.

The angels Raguel and Miral will weigh justice against mercy, and the archangel Michael will peer into Penemue’s soul, ensuring that there is only the one sin he should be punished for … and not more.

Unfortunately, there is only the one sin. A great sin—in the eyes of the angels, at least—and Penemue knows that there is nothing he can say or do to help ease this punishment. Resolved, he silently waits for their judgment. And should the judges deem his infraction great enough, they will snuff out his life force without a second thought, and Penemue will cease to be, living on only in the memories of his fellow angels.

Haniel floats next to him and, touching the symbol on her neck—a tattoo that symbolizes all she represents.

She removes it from herself and places it on Penemue’s forehead. The symbol stamps itself on him as though it had always been there.

The transference is complete, and by placing her symbol on him, she becomes him. And in becoming the angel Penemue, she is able to experience his deeds and motivations as if they were her own.

“Good,” Haniel hums. “Now show us why you taught the humans the written words, and pen and paper, when such knowledge has been expressly forbidden to them.” Haniel opens her palm, and from it projects a hologram of the angel Penemue and his past.

“Show us,” she purrs again.

Show us.

↔

Like a blossom, Penemue’s history unfolds. Over the eons, he frequently traveled to Earth to spend time with the mortal creatures known as humans. He descended to learn from them, to see the gods’ prized beings up close.

But it is more than that; Penemue is obsessed with these mortal beings. Why wouldn’t he be? Because of his role in their creation, he is in tune with everything written on their souls. And thus, if a human commits good or evil, their deed is written in the Book of Souls.

A book Penemue knows intimately, as well he should. After all, Penemue is the Book of Souls.

One morning he flies down to the Fertile Crescent, landing by the River Euphrates. He is meeting his friend, a young boy with a particularly bright soul.

The boy waits by the river, intently drawing in the sand with a stick.

When he sees his angel friend, he waves. Then, pointing at the ground, he shows Penemue what he has drawn in the earth: the same symbol over and over again. It is the symbol tattooed on Penemue’s neck—the written representation of the angel’s name.

“Look,” the boy says. “That’s you.”

Penemue looks and, sure enough, the boy has copied the symbol perfectly.

But the boy has done more than copy it. He changed it slightly, adding a line through the center and a crescent over the head. The boy points to his new symbol. “And that is my name.”

Seeing the boy’s writing, Penemue scuffs the earth with his talons and picks him up. In a harsh and rushed tone, he says, “You must never draw that again.”

The boy starts crying.

“Never again. Do you understand me?”

The boy nods.

Penemue puts the boy down and says in a soft voice, “I am sorry. It is just that such symbols are forbidden to humans. The gods do not allow it.”

Through moist tears, the boy bows his head. “I only wanted to draw our names.”

“I know.” Penemue embraces him. “I know, but you mustn’t.”

“Why?”

Penemue does not have an answer. The truth is, he does not know why the gods forbid humans such knowledge.

↔

They spend the morning together and as the sun rises high into the sky, Penemue bids the child farewell.

The boy waves to the angel. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Of course.” Penemue unfurls his wings.

But the boy is still unsure; he upset the angel only hours earlier. Penemue sees his doubt. “I will see you tomorrow. I promise.”

The boy giggles and jumps up, climbing Penemue’s wings until he is level with the angel’s head. Then he gives Penemue the biggest, hardest hug he is capable of.

↔↔↔

Penemue sits in the Celestial Library, doing what he always does: reading.

Humans are writing their deeds into the Book of Souls, though one particularly harsh deed is currently being written. A human father is with his boy. They are walking into a cave far from their village.

The father tells the boy that he saw him by the river with the angel. He asks the boy why the angel was angry with him.

The boy explains as best he can, but alas, he does not fully understand what he did to upset the angel Penemue. All he knows is that it was forbidden.

The father nods and asks his boy to lie down on the hard stone. The boy does so.

Then the father pulls out a hunting knife and—

“Oh my,” Penemue says, flying out of his stoop in Heaven and down to Earth.

↔

The boy from the river is dead, sacrificed to gods who are indifferent to his death. Sacrificed because his father has seen him with an angel and assumed the gods wanted this.

Because he believed his son was marked.

Picking up the boy’s body, Penemue washes him, preparing him for burial. Tears of light stream down the angel’s cheeks as he carefully prepares the grave, and slowly, with the tenderness of one who truly loved the boy, lowers him in.

Standing over his friend’s empty shell of a body, Penemue covers him with sand and rocks. Then, using a bit of magic, he removes his tattoo from his own neck and marks the boy with his name.

“Your name in writing,” Penemue says to the departed boy. “To carry with you in the next world. I am only sorry that I did not give this to you sooner.”

↔

Penemue wonders how it is that the boy’s own father could do such a thing. He reads from the Book of Souls, determined to find a reason.

There is no reason.

No logic.

No sense to the deed.

But from his research, Penemue has gleamed a theory born from thousands of souls, millions of pages of research.

Humans are afraid.

Afraid of the seasons—and how the spring and summer months may not provide another harvest for them to survive another winter.

Afraid of the thunder and lightning—believing them to be the tantrums of angry gods, and wary of the burden they must bear if such a tantrum were directed at them.

Afraid of what they have no control over—famine, drought and disease, certain that such burdens are divine punishment for some misdeed or insult.

Why would they think otherwise? They are ignorant to the natural order of the world.

Of course they are afraid.

And what do humans do when afraid?

Lash out in violence against anything and everything they believe may have caused that fear.

And so Penemue travels to the four corners of the Earth, where he selects a handful of disciples in each location and begins the arduous task of teaching simple creatures the power of language and its written form.

He teaches them so that they will trade superstition for science, destructive emotions for logic—fear for knowledge.

↔

“Enough,” the archangel Michael booms. “His sin has been displayed for all to see. His intent is clear. It is now up to the council to determine his fate. Raguel—judgement.”

The archangel of justice nods solemnly. “Guilty. He had full knowledge of his crime and still committed it willingly.” Raguel sets a handful of feathers on the scale, tipping it toward Penemue’s oblivion. Should the scale tip fully to the left, Penemue will be destroyed. To the right, and he will be absolved and forgiven.

“Gabriel,” Michael summons. “Are his past deeds enough to offset his crime?”

Gabriel shakes her head. “Only his connection to the Book of Souls speaks in his favor. But that is worth just a monogram of weight to offset his sin.” Then Gabriel places several feathers against Penemue, plucking only a single feather from the pile and placing it on the right side of the scale.

“Agreed,” Haniel says. “He knew what he was doing, and did so for sentimental reasons. Sentiment does little to counterweigh Divine Justice.” She, too, places her mound against Penemue, again only taking a single feather to place in his favor.

“Very well, then,” Michael says. “Oblivion shall be—”

“Hold,” Miral says. “Mercy has yet to speak.”

Michael growls at Miral’s intervention. “Very well, then. Miral, Angel of Mercy, how plead you?”

“The angel Penemue defied the gods—there is no doubt of that. But he did so for the only reason that supersedes Divine Justice.”

“And what reason is that?”

“Love, Archangel Michael. Love.” And with that word, Miral places a single feather in his favor, and the scale balances. Such is the power of mercy.

The Scale of Justice. To the left, death. To the right, salvation.

But balanced … that is another matter altogether.

“Very well, then,” Michael bellows. “He lives. But he is not innocent, and thus condemned to the only place suitable for marred angels.” And before Penemue can say a word, Michael floats down until he is level with the rebel angel and kicks him.

Out of Heaven.

And into Hell.

↔↔↔

But that was eons ago. Now the gods are gone.

And with their departure, Penemue has fallen—again. And again.

His first fall was to Hell.

His second was to Earth, the day the gods departed.

↔

Just before his third fall, Penemue lost his dear friend, another child by the name of Sinbad.

Sinbad was more than his friend—she was his second chance. A second chance to help a being in need, undo some of the wrong he’d done, finally do something right … if only for one person.

When she dies, something within the angel breaks. And because, as the fates have it, he stands next to a Creation Crystal, he creates his own hell, his own inferno, so that its flames might punish him from now until forever.

Walking through the portal, Penemue falls once again. And as he does, he wonders if there’s a limit to how many times one can fall without breaking.

As the fiery ground of the hell of his creation rises up to meet him, he thinks he knows the answer, for Penemue believes with every ounce of his being that this time—this fall—will be his last.

PORTALS TO HELL AND DEAD WIVES

“There is this girl whom I love very much.” That was what I said to Bella the day I got down on one knee and, handing her a twist tie—the only ring I could afford at the time—proposed.

“There is this girl whom I love very much.”

Awkward, I know. But the truth was, I was lucky I could say anything. Even on one knee, my leg like a kickstand propping me up, I trembled. So much so, I thought I would fall over and finish my marriage proposal flat on my back.

She looked down at me and said, “Awkward.”

Was that her answer? “Awkward?” Had I blown it because I couldn’t keep my shit together long enough to hand her a damn ring?

But before despair could seep in, she jumped up and down, screaming and stomping her feet and crying out, “Good thing I’m into awkward,” before falling on me and taking me into her with everything she was.

That night I ceased to be who I was … For I was no longer the weird, scrawny seventeen-year-old with an unhealthy obsession with 1980s toys.

I became someone else.

Someone better.

Someone complete.

That night, I became Bella’s—my whole heart and soul.

That night I vowed that I would, in this life and the next, love her forever.

↔

That night was almost fifteen years ago, and time had done absolutely nothing to dampen those feelings or to dull the yearning ache for her that burned within me.

I’d loved her from the day I met her, and I’d loved her just as much every day following—even after she died.

Especially after she died.

So seeing her standing before me, a vision of life and health … I found myself utterly and completely wrecked, overwhelmed with joy that she was there.

And terrified that this was an illusion. “I believe our love can make anything happen,” she had said to me that one, brief time I’d seen her in Heaven. But when she’d said anything, I couldn’t have imagined she meant … this.

Bella stood in a portal that divided two worlds, Earth and Hell.

“Bella, is that you?” I took a step toward the magical rift between our worlds. As I drew nearer to her, I found my steps quickening. Fuck it—if this was an illusion, then I would let it wash over me and hope I died before I saw through the façade.

A few more steps and I’d be by her side.

Bella did not extend her arms toward me. She just stood at the divide like she was standing on the other side of a window pane. Not that I cared; if some kind of glass or shield or whatever separated us, I’d smash through it.

I would smash through anything and everything if it meant feeling her embrace one more time.

A strong hand stopped me as a voice shattered, “No, Jean!” I was thrown back with such force that my body tumbled several feet away from the shimmering portal.

Getting to my feet, I saw that General Shouf had stopped me. Where the hell did she come from? I thought.

But I knew enough about my old commander to realize that nothing the general did was coincidental. Her echolocation abilities alone must have told her about this rift the moment it happened. And being a good soldier, she hadn’t immediately engaged. Instead, she’d done what our training demanded: secure the perimeter, control the controllables, then deal with the fucked-up rift in reality.

What she didn’t plan for was my uncontrollable desire to run into that very same fucked-up rift in reality. My unpredictable nature forced another part of our training to kick in … SSBS: Stop Stupid from Being Stupid.

“What are you doing?” I screamed, scrambling to my feet, determined to get past the aigamuchab and to my wife.

“She’s right,” Bella said. “You can’t join me on this side. Not without first knowing what’s at stake.”

“Bella,” I said, “is that you? Really you?” My voice was desperate and as destroyed as I was, Shouf’s actions jarred me enough for some of my training to kick in.

And my training was all about magic and illusions, and how they could be used to devastating effect.

That person might not be Bella. Hell, for all I knew, that was some nine-armed, praying-mantis-like demon who would literally bite my head off mid-hug.

But that was Bella. Bella!

Training be damned, I thought as I tried to push past General Shouf. I’d rather die to the illusion of her than live another fifty years in this reality.

Bella raised a hand. “Promise me that you won’t come charging through.”

“Bella, I—”

“Promise me.” Her voice was firm, resolute—the tone she used to end any one of our thousand arguments back when she was alive. That voice could command a glacier to swim against the currents, and it stopped me in my tracks.

“I promise.” I no longer struggled against General Shouf.

When Bella was sure that I wouldn’t move again, she rubbed her hands against her thighs like she was trying to flatten the creases in her dress. That was something Bella always did when she was about to say something difficult to hear.

“Yes, it’s me, Jean. It really is.” A tear caught in her eye, reflecting the lights on the prison island.

She sounded like her, she looked like her … All the nervous gestures and tics that make a person who they are.

“Prove it, Specter,” General Shouf said, her voice shattering me back to reality.

“Shouf—” I started, but the aigamuchab lifted a silencing hand.

“This specter could be an illusion feeding off your memories of her. A trap designed to lure you inside.”

“But …” I stopped. The general was right—this could be any number of things, all of them bad.

Only one option good, I thought, looking at Bella.

But whereas I was trained (and that training was kicking in), Judith was not. “It is her,” she said, and the normally stern, hard ghost of my mother-in-law floated uneasily. “That’s my daughter.”

“I have travelled everywhere, and never have I seen such a rift between worlds. Nor have I witnessed the return of one long dead. That is not your daughter, but a construct, an illusion,” General Shouf shattered at Judith.

Judith looked away, unable to bring herself to look at either General Shouf or Bella. She appeared overwhelmed and retreated into herself, silently floating toward and away from the portal, as if caught in the gentle ebb and flow of a current.

Judith didn’t know what to think, and she was waiting for evidence of what I knew she was praying for … That this was, indeed, her daughter Bella.

Bella took General Shouf’s accusations in stride; the only indication that they’d had any effect on her was the continuous rubbing of her hands against her dress. “How?” Bella asked.

“How what?” General Shouf said.

“How can I prove to you that I am who I claim to be, when you will just say I’m feeding off his memories—or all of your memories, for that manner? Anything I say or do will be attributed to that. The only thing I can do is point to the logic of what’s happening here.”

General Shouf, confident I wasn’t going to try anything stupid like jumping through a portal into—quite literally—Hell, turned to face Bella. She folded her arms in the way a teacher does when preparing to hear some bullshit excuse from a student. “Go ahead. What is happening here?”

“The angel Penemue’s grief has created this place”—she gestured around her—“which shouldn’t be possible. I can only assume a Creation Crystal is somewhere nearby.”

Now it was Bella’s turn to fold her arms, mocking the general’s bravado.

I started to speak, but General Shouf lifted another silencing hand. I took it without protest because, manners aside, the aigamuchab was far better equipped to sniff out a trap than I.

“Perhaps, but Creation Crystals are not something about which mortals are aware. Jean is.” She pointed at me. “But his knowledge of such magic only came to him after you died. Which is proof you are feeding off his memories.”

That thought hit me like a ton of bricks. General Shouf was right: I had only recently learned about Creation Crystals when I stopped the apocalyptic monster Tiamat from destroying Paradise Lot.

It was during that encounter I’d learned how the crystals were used by the gods as—for lack of a better word—batteries to power the creation stuff, like heavens and hells and life. You know, the gods’ equivalent of tinkering.

“So, if this is you,” the general continued, “then step through the portal. Reunite with your human mate and live.”

I pointed at Shouf. “I like her argument.” Oh, how I wished my wife would take just a few steps forward. Into our world. Into my arms.

Bella shook her head, staring down at her feet the way she always did when she really wanted something, but knew she couldn’t have it. “I fear that if I step through, I won’t be able to get back inside. This portal may be a one-way valve in … but not out.” She looked at her mom, a tear finally escaping her eyes. “I want nothing more than to step out and give you the biggest, baddest hug ever. But I can’t—not with so much at stake.”

“Oh, honey—” Judith said.

“At stake?” General Shouf shattered, her voice cutting through any hope of a sweet moment happening here. “What is at stake?”

Bella turned to General Shouf, pursing her lips. I knew that look. She had a secret to tell and wasn’t about to spill it … not to the aigamuchab, at least.

General Shouf must have sensed that this would be a dead end, because the Other waved a hand. “More trickery. You claim to be a spirit of this man’s long-departed wife. But spirits are the intact essence of the dead. That can no longer be, for when the gods left, death became final. There are no spirits, no beings to occupy any of the heavens and hells. There’s nothing.”

“True.” She gave the general a wry smile. “But there can be exceptions. Paths in and out that can be accessed with knowledge and …”—she turned to me and gave me the familiar I have a surprise for you look—“I’m going to blow your mind with what I’ve learned up there.”

She pointed to the heavens above.

“Up where?” General Shouf turned to me, her muscles tense as she tried to make peace with what she was seeing and what she knew. “I need information, soldier.”

“It’s a long story.”

“Bullet points, then.”

“Six years ago, with the help of several powerful Others, Bella was trying to locate Heaven—as in, capital-H Heaven. They found where that plane of existence hid, and a particularly powerful Other sent Bella’s soul there.”

My heart literally sank as I said those last words. It was more like they butchered Bella, killing her with all the ceremony of an Aztec human sacrifice. And I had been powerless to stop them. At the time I had thought she was dead, until that same Other who had sacrificed her came back and, through more insanity, temporarily opened up Heaven with Bella in it.

“Heaven?” General Shouf shattered. If she found that little tidbit of information disturbing, she made no show of it, simply asking the one question I’d been asking myself since seeing Bella. “If you are trapped in Heaven, then why are you here?”

Bella shook her head. “I don’t know. All I can say is that I felt a great sorrow rise up before I was drawn here, to this place. I saw the rift, heard Jean’s voice … and well, you know the rest.”

“But you knew that it was the angel Penemue’s construction. How?”

She nodded. “Heaven and Hell have certain rules, and one is that entry can only be granted by a gatekeeper. I think he summoned me here to play that role.”

“Why you?” I asked.

“Heaven and Hell require a human gatekeeper—the capital-H versions, at least. And since I am literally the only human soul left in either domain … voila.” She gave a curtsey before rubbing her hands against her dress in that impatient way.

I gave her a look that said, What’s that about? It was the same look I’d given her a thousand times when searching for an answer to a question neither of us wanted to ask out loud.

Her eyes darted to General Shouf, then me. “Like I said, I’m here to guide you through this place, should you choose to enter.”

“Enter why? To save the fallen angel?” General Shouf scoffed. “The angel has chosen his fate.”

She said it like that was a preposterous idea, risking your life to save someone who’d chosen damnation. It wasn’t something she would ever consider, but then again, she was a heartless, ruthless hunter whose every instinct was for the kill. Saving a life was the very antithesis of what she was created for.

And she didn’t know Penemue. He was my friend—my best friend—and I would happily walk through Hell if it meant helping him.

And given what lay before me, it seemed that was exactly what I was about to do.

So therein lay the crux of the problem: walk into Hell guided by someone who may or may not be who they claim to be, and risk being trapped inside forever.

But my friend was trapped inside, and I’d be damned if I stood around and did nothing.

Plus, Bella was dead. Medusa was dead. Sinbad was gone. Penemue was in Hell. Who did I really have? What did I really have besides the damn hotel? I was in a dark place, and dark places offer up extreme thoughts.

“Yes,” I said. “I have to try.”

“You fool,” the general shattered.

“Maybe,” I said. “But right now, in there is looking a hell of lot better than out here. At least I get to be in there with her.”

“An illusion.”

“Could be,” I said. “But given how crappy my life has been lately, I’d rather be in there with a lie than out here facing the truth.”

“I agree,” Judith said.

I spun toward her. “Really?”

She floated toward the portal, stopping at the threshold. “I’m a poltergeist and stuck living in a hotel with you. Why wouldn’t I?”

Well, at least we were in agreement.

DARK FORESTS AND COLD MOTHER-IN-LAWS

I pushed past General Shouf with enough force to let her know that there wasn’t a force on this Earth or any other that would stop me from stepping through that portal.

The general didn’t try.

She knew when a soldier was lost. Her only hope for me now was that I’d somehow come back from this one on my own.

But stepping toward Bella, I knew there was no coming back. No way. Saving Penemue or not, I would stay in Hell with her. Hell or Heaven—or whatever domain she was in—it didn’t matter, because I would never return to this life or the living again. Not if I could help it.

There is this girl whom I love very much … and I was done being without her.

Stepping toward Bella was one of the perfect moments of my life. My heart pumped with anticipation as I crossed the threshold, my hand trembling as I reached out to her.

What I wouldn’t give for one touch, I thought, remembering the dreams I had about her in the years after she died. Every night I dreamed of her, and they were always the same. I could see her, speak to her, but I could never touch her, because as real as she felt, she wasn’t really there.

But this was different. It had to be. She must have felt the same anticipation I did, because she stepped toward me the second I crossed over, and like two young teenagers about to have their first kiss, we awkwardly embraced, our bodies trembling as we connected.

The awkwardness slid off us as familiarity returned, and like any muscle memory, we fell into the old ways. It was the little things, like how her hand would cup the outside of mine, how I would caress her neck with the tips of my fingers. The smell of her. The taste of her.

I shivered. This was unequivocally my Bella.

“It’s you,” I said, tears blurring my vision. “It’s really you.”

“Yes, my love, it is,” she whispered, and she kissed me the way she did the day I proposed to her all those years ago.

Later, I would muse about how General Shouf clicked her pervy little tongue as she watched our embrace with her echolocation abilities. She was probably building a 3D model of us in her memory for later use.

And then there was Judith, who I knew was fuming at the thought of unworthy Jean touching her daughter.

But right then and there, I didn’t care. No, that’s not right—I didn’t know. I was so consumed by the feel of her that the world around us—both worlds around us—faded away.

I swear to the GoneGods, I would have taken her right then and there. But before my hand could find her more intimate parts, my perfect moment was ruined by one loud, judgmental and unnatural throat-clearing.

“Ahem,” Judith said. “As sweet as this is, it’s not the time.” Evidently I’d woken her from her shock by stepping through the portal, and she had come through herself, floating close to the threshold.

It made sense: Bella was her daughter and the only family Judith had left. If anyone had reason to cross the boundary into Hell, it was Judith.

But that didn’t mean I had to like it.

If I had telekinetic powers, I would have pushed her away, but given I’m just a plain old human, I settled for gritting my teeth and rasping, “Judith, this isn’t exactly the time to—”

“Jean,” Bella said in an admonishing-but-playful tone. “She’s right—we don’t have time. We’re in danger here, and if we’re going to have a chance to save Penemue, we need to move.” She turned, staring off into the distance behind her. “Already he is building permanent constructs. If he gets too far, too deep, we won’t be able to get him out.”

It wasn’t so much her words, but the way she said them that jarred me. There was a deadly seriousness to them, a quality I’d heard only in the most desperate times.

Looking past her for the first time, I took stock of our surroundings. Sure, we were in an eerie forest, but it wasn’t just that. We were standing in a forest filled with trees that looked dead, even though moss-green leaves still clung to their branches. The trunks were enormous, their branches twisted and gnarled, their roots knobby and far-spread, perfect for tripping over in a forest so dense, I couldn’t see more than fifteen feet beyond where we stood.

And it was silent. I don’t mean middle-of-the-night quiet—I mean silent. No rustling of leaves, no chirping of crickets, no random creaking of branches. Nothing. It was like we stood in a picture of a forest rather than an actual one.

“How do you know what Penemue is doing?” I asked.

“I can feel him. Ever since he called me here, I can sense him, and what I know is that he’s constructing his prison as we speak, building it to the perfect specs needed for maximum punishment. If he completes this place, he’ll be lost to us forever.”

“Oh good,” I said. “A time limit.”

“Sacrificing your life for the twice-fallen angel is a fool’s errand,” Shouf said to me.

Bella and I shot her a look as our answer.

“Fools,” General Shouf said.

“Fine … fine!” Judith growled, and I could feel her release a bit of her psychic rage. “Then if there’s a time limit, then let’s get on with it.”

Now that Judith had floated through the portal, her ghostly body had formed legs—which she noticed for the first time. Looking down at the two feet she hadn’t seen since the days the gods left, she said in surprise and joy, “My feet! Look at them. They’re back.” She wiggled ten bare toes.

“I’m surprised they’re not hooved.”

Bella elbowed me gently and said with a chuckle, “Jean, seriously. Be nice.”

If Judith thought my joke was funny, she made no indication of it. She scowled. “I need shoes.”

“Ahhh, no you don’t,” I said, my attention divided between wanting to reach out to Bella and my need for my anti-aphrodisiac of a mother-in-law not to tag along. “You’re not coming, so if you don’t mind …” I pointed at the door. Well, at the floating portal acting as the beaded curtain between Hell and Earth.

“I’m coming,” she said, stomping her foot.

“Hell no,” I said.

“Hell yes,” she said. “In fact, Hell is calling us right now, and—”

“I swear to the GoneGods, Judith, if you don’t step back right now, I will—”

“I am coming!”

“Why, because you want to save Penemue? Last I checked, you put him in your ‘dislike’ bucket with pretty much everyone else you know, so …” I gestured for her to walk back through the portal in a less than gentlemanly way.

“Jean,” Bella said. “Be nice.”

“You know damn well why I’m coming,” she hissed in such a way that I knew nothing short of physically throwing her out of Hell would stop her. “And if you think I’ll stand by and let you—”

“Mother!” Bella rolled her eyes. “I swear to the GoneGods, I thought death would spare me from this constant bickering.”

Which only made Judith double down.

And as if to punctuate her determination, I heard an actual hiss as Marty slithered in, forking his tongue at me as he narrowed disapproving eyes at Bella.

Judith, Bella and I all stared as the snake slid across the ground toward me. I have no idea where Marty came from. He must have slithered down from the lighthouse, where he had been knocking out prison guards with what I hoped was sleep-inducing venom. The portal being big and gloomy and ominous must have drawn the little viper in.

Or maybe, given the time he’d spent wrapped around my arm recently, he had developed a sixth sense for where I was.

Great, my mother-in-law and Medusa’s best friend were here. Talk about a ménage-a-judgmental.

But before I could say anything else, Bella put a hand on my forearm. “Jean,” she said, stepping between us. “Please, Jean.” She reached over and hugged her mother.

As much as I didn’t like Judith, Bella loved her, and seeing them together made me blush with shame. I was so focused on being with my wife that I had almost denied Bella her second-favorite person in the whole world (after me, of course).

I pursed my lips. “It’ll be dangerous.”

Judith nodded, her quick wit slowed as she was overcome by her daughter’s hug. “I don’t care.”

I got it. I didn’t care, either. Danger or not, Hell or not, I was with the one person I wanted to be with. Needed to be with.

Standing at Bella’s side was always the right choice.

I gestured for us to start moving deeper into the forest. As I did, thought to myself, How fitting … my trip to Hell made all the more hellish by my mother-in-law.

↔

We had taken three steps from the portal when General Shouf clicked her tongue twice and shook her head. “This is a fool’s errand,” she said. “But then again, you’ve always been a fool.”

She tossed her gun and a few extra clips through the void. “Now at least you’ll be an armed fool.” She also took off her boots and socks and tossed them to Judith.

I shuddered as she did so, because what makes aigamuchabs aigamuchabs is that their eyes are on the soles of their feet. And if General Shouf ever looked at you through those eyes … let’s just say it gives a whole new meaning to “undressing you with one’s eyes.” The general’s stare was far, far more violating.

“There. Now you have everything you need to die in Hell.” She clicked two more times. “I will call in some favors and keep this island unoccupied for the next forty-eight hours. After that, I suggest you find another exit. Also, Jean”—she pointed to the left of me—“I’d be careful going that way. I sense sentient beasties unhappy about your presence. Best to follow the river in.”

“River?”

“Indeed,” she clicked, pointing away from where the beasts apparently roamed.

Like I said: eerie.

NOT ALL RIVERS FLOW

As we walked toward the river, I stared over at my Bella, watching as she strolled through a forest that would have made the perfect setting for a vampire attack.

Or werewolf.

Or any monster, really.

And I didn’t care.

There she was. Her long, blonde hair cascading down the center of her back … A back that my hands and lips had spent many long, wonderful hours exploring.

I was so happy that if I had died at that moment, I would have done so smiling.

But that’s the problem with elated, unfamiliar joy: you start to wonder if it’ll last, and that thought inevitably leads you down the dark path of how this joy is even possible.

She was here when she shouldn’t be. What’s more, she seemed to know things about Heaven and Hell and the realm of the gods that she shouldn’t. No one should.

How?

I didn’t want to ask, because I didn’t care. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I feared that whatever answer she gave me would break the spell and send reality crashing back in … and that was the last thing I wanted.

We may have been walking in Hell, but that didn’t stop me from walking on the clouds, too.

So whatever questions I had about how this was even possible would have to wait—for a few hours. Or forever. They could wait forever. Right now, all I wanted to do was find a private corner to be with her and be … well, private.

But then my thoughts wandered to Penemue. The twice-fallen needed me—us—and if Bella was right, then we had to hurry.

Fine, being private would have to wait. But I swore by the GoneGods, when this was done, I’d find a way to be with her forever. Whether here or in Heaven or on Earth … I’d find a way. I had to—it was part of our story. Our path.

Bella had told me as much when I’d last seen her. And if there’s anyone whose word you can trust, it’s your wife who ascended to Heaven.

I heard an “Ahem” as Judith stomped past me to get closer to Bella, taking her daughter’s hand in hers just as she had done so many times before. I didn’t mind; as much as I found Judith a perpetual thorn in my ass, she was just as happy as I was … And that, if nothing else, was common ground for the two of us to work from.

Who knows? I thought. Maybe a trip to Hell is exactly what this family needs.

Marty hissed, and I looked at the viper coiled around my arm. Marty was Medusa’s head snake, taking the prime position on the crown of her head. He was the largest of the serpents and Medusa’s favorite. He also loved the gorgon more than anyone, and when she died saving Paradise Lot from a rampaging, apocalyptic monster, Marty nearly died from a broken heart.

He hadn’t approved of Medusa and me dating, not that we went on more than one date. But in the end, he saw how hard I’d fought for the gorgon, saw how much I cared for her and, well, we forged a bond through our mutual love for Medusa.

But common bond or not, he could be just as judgmental as Judith. Marty looked up at me and narrowed his eyes, a snake’s way of saying, “I’m annoyed at you” before he hissed again.

“What?” I said in a hushed voice.

Marty flicked his slitted eyes toward Bella, then back to me.

“What?” I repeated. “She’s my wife. Well, the ghost of her, at least.”

Marty snapped his venomous jaw twice before giving me an expression that could only be described as a lipless scowl. I knew what he was thinking … Marty, as normal looking as he was, wasn’t a normal snake. He had been Medusa’s (as in Queen of the Gorgons, turn-you-to-stone Medusa) head snake for centuries. That little scaly guy had seen things, knew things …

And one of those things was that Medusa and I had kind of been dating.

I was more or less wearing Medusa’s poisonous wingman on my arm. I had to choose my words carefully.

“First of all,” I said under my breath, “Bella had been dead for six years before I started seeing Medusa.” I looked up to see if Bella could hear me. I was fairly sure me seeing someone else years after her death was OK, but then again … why take that chance?

If Bella could hear me, she made no indication of it.

“Secondly,” I whispered, “I really liked Medusa, and her death nearly ended me. But that woman there is my wife. I’m sorry you’re pissed that I’m all googly-eyed for someone else. But again … my wife. She’s back.” As I said those last two words, I looked up at Bella just to confirm she was still there and that this wasn’t some cruel dream.

There she strode, hand in hand with Judith, as alive as one could be in a place like this. To me, she looked incandescent.

“She’s back,” I repeated.

Marty hissed, gave me another scowl and wrapped his body farther around my arm so we didn’t have to make eye contact.

Turns out, you can’t escape judgment in Hell. Who’d have thought?

HOSTILE RIVERS AND RIVER HOSTILES

Sartre famously said, “Hell is other people.” But when Penemue read that, he just shook his head and said, “Interesting fellow. Too bad he’s completely wrong.”

“About?” I had asked. At the time, I was elbow-deep in flour as I tried to bake Bella’s famous chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies.

“About Hell, of course.”

I gave him a strained look, annoyed that he wasn’t helping. Then again, his help probably would have involved the history of flour, nuts and fire.

Penemue closed the book he had been reading. “Hell isn’t about other people. Hell is about being stuck in now.” And with that, he pulled out a bottle of Drambuie from only the GoneGods knew where and started drinking as he meandered out of the kitchen.

That was years ago, and now I was walking in a dark forest, lost and wondering about time. We had walked for what I guessed was an hour before hitting the river’s edge.

But then again, we could have been walking for ten minutes or three hours … I had no idea. Time here didn’t seem to work in any way I understood, and I honestly couldn’t gauge how long our little ramble had taken.

I took a look down at my Mickey Mouse watch and saw that the poor little fellow wasn’t really moving. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t broken—he was just stuck, his second hand clicking forward four seconds before bouncing back to its previous position and committing to four more clicks.

According to Mickey, all that time spent walking took place in the span of four seconds. I tried to look up at the sky and gauge time by the position of the stars. Of course, that only worked so well, but with a few points of reference, I could at least confirm the passage of time. But that proved to be a dead end as well, because the stars didn’t seem to move at all, but rather hung still in the night air.

I was starting to think that it was just part of the design—that we were really in another plane of existence with its own night sky. That the celestial lights above were more decorative than anything else.

But then we got to the river and I realized that time really did stand still in Hell. “Hell is about being stuck in now.” I was starting to understand what the angel meant as I stared at river that flowed forward for exactly four seconds—the same four seconds of Mickey’s second hand—before its low waves and bubbling whitecaps reset and the river flowed those same few feet again.

And again.

And again.

“Hell is being stuck in now.” I snapped my fingers at the river, whose waters didn’t appear remotely appealing. They frothed as though polluted, hued in a strange shade of red. “That’s what the bastard meant.”

Bella nodded as she stared down at the same repetitive flow. “This kind of makes sense,” she said. “This is exactly what I would have done if I were Hell’s architect.”

“How so?” Judith asked.

“Think about it … we’re stuck in the now. Which means that whatever is happening now is how it will always be. Tomorrow, and the day after that, will be exactly like this. And when things will never change—can never change—well, that is when hope is truly lost.”

“And that’s why Hell is now. It’s the only way our celestial torturers could stamp out our hope.” I walked over to Bella and reached for her hand.

She willingly took mine, and things just felt perfect … aside from being in Hell.

“Yeah,” Bella said, “but I think it’s a bit deeper than that.”

“Jean-Luc Matthias being shallow? Well, I never,” Judith said in a mocking tone.

“And Judith being a sarcastic b—”

“Play nice.” Bella retracted her hand, folded her arms over her chest and gave us a look perfected by many second-grade teachers. “And as I was saying, I don’t think the point was to stamp out our hope. I think they constructed it this way to mock it. After all, hope is so ingrained in us. Humans built everything we have on hope. To truly remove it would be to change who we are. But torture, to be truly effective, needs to keep our essence intact. Hence the repetition.”

She looked down-river before adding, “And I’m willing to bet that other places in Hell have longer loops … You know, just to keep things interesting.”

I considered her words and saw the truth in their simplicity. “Hell is now,” I mused. “The Devil was a bastard.”

“He was smart,” Bella corrected. “He understood us better than we understood ourselves.”

“Clever, yes.” I pointed at the river’s looping rush. “Still a bastard.”

Bella smirked and Judith scowled, just like the old days. Then the specter pointed in the direction the river would have flowed if time permitted it to do so. “I’m assuming the entrance is that way. Make sense that water would flow into a village or town, rather than away. At least, that’s how we built our own settlements.”

Bella shrugged. “We can’t assume upstream or downstream.”

“Well, we have to make a choice,” I said. “We can’t sit around here all day if time really is limited. And given what’s at stake, whatever choice we make better be right. What happened in Dante’s Inferno?” Then, rubbing my hands through my hair, added, “I don’t suppose anyone brought their smartphone or a copy of the book?”

Judith scowled again. “In the poem, Dante doesn’t encounter a river until they are inside the cave.”

“So we’re looking for a cave, then.” I stretched my memory back to my own reading of the poem. But that was a long time ago and most of my memories of the epic verse came from Penemue quoting it to me and then correcting all the things the Italian bard got wrong.

So really, I was stretching my memories back to the angel Penemue. Thinking of the old drunken fool made my heart ache; he had his flaws, but if you weighed every wrong he ever committed against the good he did, the scales would tip over and away from a place like this.

I shook my head. No time to get sentimental now. Now, we needed to find him and … and … do whatever it took to get him away from here.

Looking over at Bella, I saw that she had stretched out her hands, fingers folded. “What are you doing?” I asked her.

She lifted a shushing finger. “I’m concentrating.”

I was about to ask, “On what?” but that shush floored me with the tidal wave of memories it brought flooding back. It was the same shush she had used a million times during a million arguments that I’d lost, and hearing it again was heaven.

Bella stretched her hands out. “I was brought here as a guide, but I don’t know much more than you. It’s almost like the position of guide needed to be filled, and I was the only applicant. Still, I might not know where he is or what’s happening, but I can feel him. It was his pain that first called me and it is his pain that beckons to me now.”

“So, what are we doing?” I asked. “Some twisted version of The Wizard of Oz, except instead of the Yellow Brick Road, we’re following the echoes of pain?”

Bella lowered her arms and opened her eyes. Her lips pursed as she suppressed a smile. Then one finger went up—another shush—and she started her pain-finding, tai-chi-esque motions.

“What she ever saw in you,” Judith said, drawing near to me, “I’ll never know.”

I looked down at my no-longer-a-ghost of a mother-in-law and said with a wink, “That’s because I’m wearing clothes … So yep, you never will.”

Judith winced at my crassness and, to my satisfaction, stepped away.

In the game of immaturity, I am unrivaled.

↔

As we stood on the river’s bank near the forest that encroached so close to the water, greedy roots popping out of the soil and disappearing into the water, Bella continued her strange motions for seventy-three river loops (I counted) before she finally pointed in the direction that, for a normal river, would have been upstream. “There,” she said.

As soon as those words left her lips, a growl echoed through the shuddering trees and over the water. “That’s not good,” I whispered as Marty tightened around my forearm.

I’d been right. A prescient tingle ran up my spine just before a three-headed monster the size of Labrador leapt from the tree line. The three heads were a wolf, a lion and a leopard.

Seeing the monster reminded me of another fun tidbit Penemue had shared about Hell. “In the Inferno, Dante’s isn’t beset upon by three separate beasts, but rather one beast with three heads.” I didn’t pay much attention to him then, and seeing that thing now, I really wished I had.

The monster jumped at Bella, its claws raking her extended hand, sending blood gushing from her forearm.

Seeing her in pain sent me into berserker mode, and letting a Rambo-worthy roar, I charged forward and kicked the beast so hard in the ribs that I heard the unmistakable crunch of cracking bone.

The beast fell into the water and writhed in the shallow waves, each head wailing the howls of its species before friggin’ dissolving in the water. Note to self, I thought, do not drink the water.

I rushed over to Bella, who held her arm. Judith was already by her side, ripping the hem of her dress to use as a bandaid. “Are you OK?” was all I managed to say before Marty hissed, his viper’s body leaping off my arm as his fangs dug into the neck of another three-headed beastie.

“Shit,” I yelled as I saw what was coming for us. There was a pack (or was it pride? Or spot?) of these creatures coming at us. They weren’t enormous, but they didn’t need size when they had numbers. “Run,” I yelled, scooping up Marty as we rushed in the direction Bella had pointed.

“Hellelu—ahh, I mean … Empty Hell,” I groaned to myself as we ran.

↔

Bella and Judith ran ahead of me, and even though I had General Shouf’s pistol, I chose not to use it. I only had so many bullets, and if this was what waited for us outside of Hell’s gates, then I could only imagine what waited inside.

Pulling out my hunting sword, I took the rear and chopped down any three-headed monster who got close enough. Fun fact: chop one head off these little beasts and the body dies. I’m guessing they’ve got three heads, one heart.

We followed the river, running as fast as we could while the monsters tracked after us. Based on the pattern they were chasing us in, I knew their tactic immediately. They weren’t trying to run us down—they were trying to tire us out.

It was a common strategy amongst smaller pack hunters. We were larger than they were. Stronger, too. But because they had the numbers, they would most likely overrun us eventually and make a meal off our carcasses. But they’d take heavy losses in doing so. After a few rundowns, well, the herd would thin out so much that they wouldn’t be able to overrun anything anymore.

But slowly wearing their prey down—tiring them out, making them weak, slow, stupid … and, if exhausted enough, forced to give up entirely? Well, that would mean a hell of a lot fewer losses.

We needed a defensible position, somewhere we could make our stand and take down enough of them that they would go off in search of easier prey. At least, that’s what a pack of coyotes would do, and these creatures didn’t really seem like the avenge-their-fallen-comrades type. They would cut their losses rather than continue fighting.

Here was hoping that a drunk, listless Penemue had watched enough Discovery Channel to imbue these guys with a similar pack mentality.

We followed the river for some time until we came upon a low hillside, so jagged and rough as to form a wall. It wasn’t ideal, but given what we were up against, it was better than nothing. “There,” I yelled, pointing at the small enclave near the base of the hill.

“What are we going to do there?” Judith countered. Even out of breath, she managed to sound all kinds of judgmental.

“Mother,” Bella said, grabbing her arm and steering her to the enclave, “listen to Jean. This is what he does. And from what I hear, he’s damn good at it.”

“Awww,” I said. “I’m good?”

“Nothing to be proud of,” Bella said, and my heart sank. It was true: I was damn good at fighting Others. Killing Others. And of all my talents, that was the one thing Bella truly didn’t like me for.

We made it to the enclave. I grabbed Marty by the base of his jaw and ran his fangs along the flat of my sword’s blade. “Sorry about that, little fellow,” I said. “We need your poison.”

Marty hissed. Angrily.

I handed Bella my sword. “A flesh wound should kill these guys now. Judith, watch the hilltop and make sure none of the more enterprising little beasties get the drop from behind.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know … Don’t your scowling powers come with a heat ray?” I said as the little bastards tumbled closer to us. “Just warn us. Now get ready!”

Then, picking up a large rock in each hand, I readied myself for the attack.

One by one, the little raptor-like, three-headed beasties showed up until they formed a perimeter around us. Like coyotes, they kept their distance, with the occasional go-getter dipping in to nip at our heels.

Bella or I would take a swing, but the damn thing would jump back before we could make contact. Swinging—especially with the intent to kill—was tiring.

I was right: Penemue had seen the same documentary as me after all.

On the other hand, Marty was a hell of lot quicker than us, lurching forward with such speed and timing that he managed to take one down as it lunged forward.

“Go Marty!” I said.

Marty hissed approvingly.

Bella eyed me. “Who?”

“The viper,” I said, swinging and missing again. “He’s named Marty.”

“Where did you get a pet viper named Marty?”

“This isn’t really the time,” I said—when would it ever be the right time to explain how I knew Marty?—but added, “He’s a friend of a deceased friend who now lives in Castle Grayskull.”

She didn’t get a chance to question me further—thank the GoneGods—because at that moment, Marty lunged for one of the beasties that was trying to bite Bella and managed to save her. And all at once we were back in the thick of it, with the viper as MVP.

But despite Marty’s success, he only managed to take down one of the little bastards. There were dozens, and they weren’t giving up. I considered pulling out my pistol. As much as I wanted to conserve bullets, being lead-frugal wouldn’t do us much good if we were dead.

I did a quick count of how many rounds I had. Eight clips, eight bullets in each. OK, I thought, pointing my pistol at the lead veloci-three-headed-raptor, let’s make this count.

But before I could pull the trigger, three of the beasts went down with arrows in their sides. The three-headed beast turned around, each of their heads crying out a roar, howl or yelp as another three fell dead.

Then there was a loud cry with an eerie, human quality to it (if that human were immensely powerful and Freddy Krueger scary). That was enough for the little herd of nasties, and the remaining ones ran off.

Scanning the tree line, I looked for our savior, fully aware that we might have upgraded being eaten by a pack of three-headed raptors to being eaten by a huge, three-headed T-Rex.

I caught a glimpse of what—or rather, who—had saved us.

And my heart sank. “Medusa?” I said, pointing at the figure standing at the edge of the tree line.

But before I could say anything else, she dropped back among the trees and was gone.

AHH, SO I WAS KIND OF SEEING THIS GORGON

Was that really Medusa? I had only seen the figure for a second, and she wasn’t like the gorgon I knew. She didn’t look like the girl who used to work for the Paradise Lot police department, the girl who had a Hello Kitty handbag and rouge-painted cheeks.

The girl who had sacrificed herself for the greater good, giving her life so that Paradise Lot wouldn’t be overrun by the murderous, apocalyptic monster Tiamat.

The creature in the trees was feral, covered in mud and dirt, wearing animal skins rather than Gap. She was a huntress, a killer … Still, she had the same olive skin and rosy cheeks as the Medusa I’d known. And then there was the head of snakes. I even saw a snake that looked like Marty on the crown of her head. If that was Medusa, she’d found another Marty, and I was sure the murderous, mythical viper by my side wouldn’t take kindly to that.

Assuming it was Medusa, that is.

I looked over at Marty. The viper scanned the tree line and from the way his head looked around, I knew that he’d seen her, too. Or at least, he also thought he saw her. Just like me.

“Medusa?” Bella came over to my side. She took my hand in hers—her touch was electric—and said, “Doesn’t Medusa live in Paradise Lot?”

“She did,” I said, not taking my eyes off the tree line. “But she died saving us from … Well, saving us,” I sighed. What I didn’t say was that she’d saved Paradise Lot while on a date with me.

That was something both Marty and Judith knew—and I could feel the mutual condemnation wafting from them. But I’d just reunited with my wife and I wasn’t going to blow day one with an awkward, “Ahhh, so I was kind of seeing this gorgon … It’s OK, though. You were dead and I was trying to move on, just like you would have wanted me to. Right?”

I’d take condemnation over that conversational land mine any day.

“I see. And you think you just saw her? Here?” Bella asked.

Still looking out into the forest, I shrugged. “I don’t know. It all happened so fast, it could have been anyone, really.” As the words came out of me, I knew that I didn’t believe them.

“Yeah. You’re probably right. I mean, as weird as this place is, why would she be here?” And from Bella’s tone, neither did she.

Because my nightmare would be having the only two women I ever loved—the two I failed, the two who died because of my failures—in one place at once, I thought.

Worst episode of Three’s Company ever.

↔

I bent down to examine the dead bodies of the three-headed raptors. None of them had died from the darts themselves, the wounds too shallow to have caused too much damage, which meant they’d died from poisoning. And not just any poison. Their bodies were petrified, their skin stone-like. Another tick in the It’s Medusa column.

I pulled out as many darts as I could find and put them in my backpack. They probably had a little venom still on them. That done, I stood up and said, “We should go before more of them come back.”

“Yeah,” Bella said. “We can’t count on our savior coming back when they do, can we?”

I nodded. “Not sure we can count on much here.” I headed toward the stream, and as I did, I saw Judith watching me, wearing a very suspicious and uncharacteristic smile.

↔

We followed the stream for several hours, and all the while my attention was on the trees surrounding us. I’d like to say that I focused there because I was worried about another attack, but that would be a lie.

Well, not a complete lie. I really was worried about what was in the forest. But that wasn’t what preoccupied my thoughts. I knew what I saw. I knew who I saw … and I also knew that what I saw wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be Medusa. She was dead. More than dead … she was a statue standing on Paradise Lot’s shore. It was her last act: turning herself into a statue that would stand forever vigilant, forever guarding the home she’d adopted after the gods left.

I was starting to worry that this place didn’t just throw three-headed raptors at us. It also messed with our minds on a level that was beyond devious. It was entirely possible that this place somehow conjured things that shouldn’t be. And that’s how I saw it.

Whatever was in the forest wasn’t Medusa. It was a construct, a conjuring … an illusion. Something created by my mind. And if I can conjure her, what else can I conjure? I thought, staring at Bella.

Except that stroke of cognitive dissonance was too strong, too unappealing.

Bella’s different, I told myself. She had to be. For one thing, she was the lone occupant in Heaven. I knew that. I also knew that Heaven and Hell were inexorably connected. Opposites. Two sides to the same coin. A yin-yang kind of thing—just to confuse religious traditions.

And since this place was the opposite of Heaven, there was a strong connection between them. That connection could explain how and why she was here.

She was real. Not a construct. Not an illusion.

Before those thoughts could fully consume me, Marty hissed, jarring me out of my own head. Looking down at the forlorn viper who also looked in every direction other than the one we walked, I began to wonder if it was his hopes, his love that had summoned the construct of Medusa.

Maybe all our minds could do that … And if we could, what other fresh hells were coming our way?

I shook my head, resolving myself to one simple thought: Bella looked and felt real. Even if she wasn’t, she felt like she was real to me. And the same thought I had when I’d first stepped through the portal ran through my mind.

I would happily live a lie with her than the truth without her.

Wouldn’t I?

Besides, what were truths and lies? Humans lived in narratives, after all—they were what made our lives feel safe, satisfying, logical. What harm would it do if I chose to believe in the narrative of this Bella being real?

Not a narrative, my mind shot back. She’s real.

We walked along the shore of a river that ran in a loop, the same waves cresting over rocks, the same leaves and sticks floating downstream for several feet before resetting, only to float down the same stretch of water again.

We walked on for what felt like forever, our footsteps the only progress made in this place, until we came upon a cliff face where the stream narrowed into a tiny cave large enough for an oversized goose to swim through.

An oversized goose, or a moderately-sized crocodile.

I would have dismissed the cave as another anomaly in Hell’s landscape except for the strange inscription carved above its mouth: Lasciate ogne speranza, coi ch’intrate.

“I don’t read Latin,” I said, “but I’ve heard Penemue quote that line enough times to know exactly what it means.”

“ ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,’ ” Bella muttered to herself with a sigh both familiar and troubling.

I drew close to her. “What is it?” I asked gently. I knew if I tried to force the issue, she’d clam up and I’d never get it out of her.

“It’s nothing.”

“Come on,” I said. “I know you better than that. You shuddered when you spoke the words, like you used to. That glint in your eyes, the slight fluttering of the eyelids—you only ever did that when you had some bad news that you didn’t know how to tell me.”

Bella pursed her lips like she was trying to suppress a smile. “You know me way too well.”

“In this life and the next,” I said, echoing my words to her from the night I proposed.

“Such knowledge is dangerous.”

“Well, you know what my middle name is?”

“Luc?”

“I was going for ‘Danger,’ but Luc will have to do.”

We chuckled. It felt good to banter with her. It felt more than good. It felt—

“If you two are done with whatever mating ritual this is,” Judith growled, “maybe we can get a move on or something?”

Mothers-in-law … nature’s prophylactic.

“Do what?” I said, turning to her, my cheeks flushing.

“Well, for one thing, Bella needs to share what she knows.”

“I’m not sure that it’s relevant and—”

“Out with it,” Judith said.

I figured it was done. Bella would clam up and we’d have to wait until she was good and ready to tell us. There wasn’t a mental can opener in the world that would get her to talk.

“There is a place with the same inscription in Heaven. What I know is that speranza doesn’t just mean hope … it also means future. I guess because hope can only happen at some point in the future. So really, you can read this as, ‘Abandon all futures, ye who enter.’

“But the place in Heaven, speranza is replaced with the word, praeteritum. The past. There, you must abandon all pasts.”

So much for her clamming up. I guess that was one of the special gems of our marriage.

“So?” Judith pressed.

“So, Mother”—Bella turned to the once-poltergeist—“Heaven is a ridiculously friendly place that is literally rainbows and puffy clouds. Everything there bends to my will like it’s trying to serve me. Make me happy. Everywhere but there … the only place in all of Heaven that scares me. The only place I have never dared to enter.” Bella’s voice trailed off, and I knew there was something else. Another tidbit she wasn’t sharing. But I wasn’t about to press for it. Not when we had the human can opener—Judith—to do the dirty work for me.

But either Judith didn’t pick up that Bella knew more, or wasn’t about to push her luck, because she didn’t say anything. Typical. The one time I wanted her to speak and she kept her mouth shut. But when I wanted her to shut up, it was a tornado of judgement destroying my house of straw, wood and bricks.

Yeah, yeah, I’m mixing The Wizard of Oz with The Three Little Pigs. But get Judith in the mood and she’s the Wicked Witch of the West and the Big Bad Wolf all rolled into one.

“In Dante’s Inferno, that insignia marked Hell’s entrance, right?” I said.

Bella nodded.

“But if that’s the way in, why is it so small?”

“ ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life,’ ” Bella said.

“I thought you said Heaven was a fun place, like being on vacation. That’s pretty dark for someone spending eternity on vacation.”

Bella chuckled. “It’s another quote.”

“From Dante’s Inferno?”

Bella shook her head. “The Bible. Genesis 3:14.”

I raised an eyebrow. “The Bible? I never knew you to be into that, let alone quote it.”

“I’m not. Well, I wasn’t. Just up there, you know … alone, you have a lot of time on your hands. So I started reading everything I could get my hands on: the Quran, the Sutras, the Vedas, Tanach, Mishnah, Talmud and Midrash … the New Testament. Even the Book of Enoch. All of them, really.”

“The Book of Enoch? Is that official canon up there?” I asked.

“It’s all official canon up there,” she said. “There’s a library in Heaven filled with books that you’ve never heard of … and more. It would take an eternity to read them all. Good thing I have that and—”

Before she could finish, I grunted, “Yeah, good thing, huh?” and bent down to examine the hole.

“Jean, I didn’t mean it that way. I was just saying …”

“I get it. Always look on the bright side of your death,” I mockingly sang to the tune in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

I looked up and saw Bella giving me that look she always gave me when she was sorry for how something she did made me feel—but not sorry for actually doing it. And given that she wasn’t sorry for allowing herself to be killed—granted, so she could find a way into Heaven in the hope of reopening the place and saving millions of lives—didn’t change the fact that I was bone-breaking, guts-hanging-out-of-me hurt that she’d chosen the world over me.

I knew that I should have taken the high road, given her a smile and kept on keeping on. But me and high roads don’t really go hand in hand, so I gave her a sarcastic smile, an exaggerated Borat-esque thumbs-up and turned my back on her to examine the tiny archway. We’d have it out soon enough, but I just couldn’t face that with her now. So I chose to face Hell instead.

The hole was big enough for us all to crawl through, but the problem was I couldn’t see what was on the other side. It was a black hole and I had no source of light, no way to see beyond the threshold.

And that was the weird thing: the light. Yeah, we were outside in the dark, and in there was an even darker cave, but you’d still expect some of the outside light to seep into the hole, even if only a couple feet.

But the light just stopped at the edge, like some sort of invisible shield prevented it from entering.

Judith must have noticed it, too, because she stooped next to me with a heavy, banana-looking leaf and scooped some of the water from the stream in it. Then, angling the water’s surface so it caught the light, she projected it into the hole.

No light went in. Don’t get me wrong—the light went in, we just couldn’t see anything beyond the hole itself.

“Holy—” I started.

“Language,” Judith snapped.

“What? I was going to say ‘Holy physics-defying Hell, Batman.’ I mean, what did you think I was going to say? Holy shit? Holy fuck, maybe? I’d never say such vile words.”

“Jean,” Judith growled in that warning tone a tiger gives you just before mauling your eyes out.

“I’m just saying. It was you who assumed I was about to swear.” I lifted my hands in a don’t-shoot-the-messenger way, knowing full well that my mother-in-law had no problem shooting the messenger when said messenger was me.

But instead of another snide remark, Judith—ever the mature one—sighed before pinching the bridge of her nose in exaggerated exasperation (or maybe it was on-point exasperation … I can be pretty annoying) and said, “So light can get inside, but we can’t see it. Which means that we have no idea what’s inside. It could be anything.”

“It could,” Bella agreed. “But what we do know is that’s the entrance, and if we’re going to get Penemue before …”—she paused—“before he is consumed by this place, then we’d better get to it.”

“Yeah.” I narrowed my eyes as I examined my wife; Bella was holding back again. Whatever it was, it was obviously important, but also something she deemed not for us to know. Not yet. Which meant it was either some great danger or distraction, which in turn meant … “Holy shit,” I said, lifting a hand in Judith’s direction to stop her from being the language police. “You’re in danger here, aren’t you?”

↔

Judith eyed me before looking up at her daughter. “What is he talking about, honey?”

“I’m not in danger, Mom.” She gave me that look that said, Shut up.

I ignored it. “Bullshit,” I said. “You’re hiding something … something about this place, and you won’t tell us. That means you’re in danger.”

Bella folded her arms—her opening stance in every fight we’ve ever had. “How do you figure that, genius?”

“Because you’re hiding something—and don’t tell me you’re not. I know you far too well for that waste of time. And the only reason you hide anything is because you think it would be a distraction. But this is what I do …” I said, gesturing to our surroundings. “I’ve been in places like this before. So have you. Well, not like this, but you know, up there.” I pointed to the sky. “Which means that the only reason you won’t tell me everything you know is because you’re worried it’ll distract me. And the only thing that would distract me is something that’s affecting you and not the rest of us.”

Now it was my turn to fold my arms and wait for an answer.

This could go two ways: either she’d keep her arms folded and we’d get into it, or she’d uncross her arms and tell me what was up.

Bella did neither. Instead, she ran her hands through her hair before nervously flattening the sides of her dress. Shit—in Bella’s world that was a DEFCON 1 gesture. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s um … this. If we can’t get Penemue out of here—and soon—I’ll be stuck here, too.”

“What?” Judith and I said together.

I resisted the urge to call “jinx” and silence her for the rest of the trip. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not supposed to be here—I’m supposed to be in Heaven. But I was literally ripped away from my home up there and brought here against my will. As I came here, I knew what had happened, but not because I heard a voice or saw a vision. For lack of a better word, I remembered being here. Like I’d always been here and never up there.

“Every minute I spend here, I forget a bit of Heaven. I don’t know much, but in my time up there, I’ve learned a few things—lots of things—about how Heaven and Hell work. Hell is now. And if I forget what came before—if I can no longer dream of tomorrow—I’ll be stuck here forever.”

Bella stopped rubbing her hands against her dress and looked up at me. “But I knew that telling you as much would make you run through Hell.” She chuckled at the expression. Good ol’ Bella, always up for a smile or laugh no matter how bad things got. “And that’s how you make mistakes. That’s how you get hurt. So …” She let the last word hang.

“So, you didn’t tell me,” I said, nodding in understanding.

“Oh honey.” Judith pursed her lips. “Why were you brought here in the first place?”

Bella shook her head. “I’m not sure, but what I said earlier is my best theory. I am the only viable soul available. Literally. I am the only human soul to occupy any domain anywhere.”

“But you said that you were brought here as our guide.”

Bella nodded, gesturing around us. “I think so. This is, after all, Penemue’s construct. He was obsessed with Dante’s Inferno, Paradise Lost, Spencer’s Faerie Queene, Beowulf … all the epic poems. And they all had narrators and guides, characters whose sole purpose was to explain this place. It’s the only reason I can think of why he’d summon me here.”

“Well, let’s stop dilly-dallying and ask him.” I fell to my knees and crawled through before my rational mind could reason with me.

I’m not sure what I expected on the other side of the hole. I’m guessing fire and brimstone, or tortured beings having their skin slowly peeled back. Demons made of molten lava.

The last thing I expected was this.

PART XV

HELL

Prologue to Part 2—

When the gods left, Penemue was sitting in the Complete Archive—a library containing every tome, every book, every grimoire, every trashy romance novel … hell, even every pamphlet ever written.

The words collected in the Complete Archive represented, perhaps, Penemue’s greatest achievement, second only to the fact that he’d taught humankind how to read and write.

He heard the message the same as everyone else. “Thank you for believing in us, but it is not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck.”

At first, Penemue was confused, believing this message to be a mistake—or, worse, an expression of his insanity.

Then Hell started to rumble as lava seeped up from the ground.

The world around him was, quite literally, falling apart.

In the distance, Penemue could see a pinprick of light and, whether it was part of the message or simple instinct, he knew that the light offered his only chance of escape.

Penemue had a choice: fly toward the light, or be consumed by the fire.

Not much of a choice at all, really.

But his books—millions of pages, hundreds of millions of words—would all be lost if he didn’t do something.

Drawing from the well of magic within, he began encasing them in shells impervious to flame. But as he encased the books, he felt something he had never felt before.

His life was draining out of him.

He was getting older.

He was dying.

Penemue did not need to be told what was happening. The gods were gone, and with them went their magic. To use his powers now meant to use his life force. And with every book he protected he lost—what? A second? Five seconds of life? He wasn’t sure.

And with millions upon millions of books to encase, protecting his life’s work could very well kill him.

Still, he had to do something.

Burning decades of time, Penemue drew out all the words ever written and turned them into a single Word that he whispered into the halls of his crumbling library.

He knew he could not take the Word with him, but at least the fire would not consume it, either. He would find his way back here. He would summon the Word again and he would restore his library.

But that would have to come later. Now, he needed to escape.

Flying toward the light, he flung himself out of the only escape the gods gave him and down to Earth.

ALL PUBLIC LIBRARIES SHOULD LOOK LIKE THIS

Over the years, Penemue got into a lot of trouble. I’m talking constant run-ins with the law, public intoxication—with all the fun, fun, fun that brought with it—and the occasional fight (usually brought on by the bravado of drink). There was hardly a week where I wasn’t pulling him out of the drunk tank or paying for some public vandalism. But even though he had a bed with his name on it at the Paradise Lot Police Station, his revelries were harmless.

Most of them, at least.

Perhaps the most common crime Penemue committed—one carried out nearly daily and for which he was never caught—was breaking into the Paradise Lot Public Library. He’d crawl through an attic window and walk through the halls late at night, reading every book that tickled his fancy.

He was like Beauty and the Beast’s Belle, except less law-abiding and more inebriated.

I often caught him nesting on top of the library, surrounded by borrowed books that he consumed (in his own words) “like the Israelites drank water whenever they stumbled upon an oasis during their forty-year ramble.”

But the Paradise Lot Public Library wasn’t very well stocked. At first. Then the library began getting regular donations. Buckets of books were left at its doorsteps, while anonymous donations were sent to the library. I could never prove it, but I was sure they were Penemue’s doings.

Not that the rebel angel ever admitted to it. Every time I’d ask, he would say the same thing: “Perhaps, finally, the world is waking up to the importance of libraries.”

Perhaps.

Then again, walking around this layer of Hell, I gained an appreciation for Penemue’s love of libraries. Because as much as we expected fire and brimstone, what we weren’t expecting was a palace of books.

Through the crawlspace, the halls we entered were filled with shelves after shelves of books. Thousands. Millions, even.

This place must have contained every book ever written. Then I remembered Penemue’s thing: he had the ability to read everything ever written. And apparently—don’t ask me how this works—the deeds humans do are written on our souls.

Since Penemue had access to all that, he knew everything we had ever done. And everything our parents did, and our grandparents and our great-great-great-grandparents, all the way back to the first humans with the first souls. (And before you ask—no, not Adam and Eve. Apparently our evolution was more complex that two wayward humans in a garden. But that’s another story altogether.)

“Wow,” Bella said.

“Wow indeed,” Judith agreed.

Hell, even Marty hissed in awe. This place was beyond magnificent. Because beyond the sheer volume of books, it was built with meticulous care, every groove, every carving, every laid slab of marble filled with knowledge.

I walked over to the mahogany shelves and touched the carving outlining the shelves and casing. Images of creatures of all kinds covered its surface. The floor was a mural of stars and planets—but not our galaxy. That was but a fleck somewhere in the mess of heavenly bodies. This was a celestial map of the Universe. As in capital-U, all-of-creation Universe.

And right above it hung a sphere. As far as I could tell, it was the only light source in the whole damn place and even though it emanated brightly, it couldn’t have been larger than a marble … and one of those small cat’s eye ones, too.

What’s more, I could look directly at it. Normally when you look at a lightbulb or the sun or even the moon for long enough it becomes uncomfortable, if not downright painful. And when you look away, you take a silhouette of light with you. But this light source was different … it didn’t hurt to stare directly at it, and when you looked away, you didn’t take anything with you.

And there was one more strange thing about that marble (marvel?) of light: several wisps of light seemed to flow into it, not away. Like it was a magnet for other lights, or a gravitational pull that only drew in light. And even though it illuminated this place, it did so only as an afterthought. Its purpose was to draw in light, not give it off. A black hole of lightbulbs, if you will.

All this was just in the main hall, and from where we stood, I could see numerous extensions branching off in multiple directions—wings upon wings filled with more books, more knowledge.

“This place goes on forever,” I said. “I mean, if this place was on Earth, it would be the size of Manhattan.”

Bella nodded. “Space really isn’t an issue in Heaven and Hell. Look …” She pointed to several of the hallways jutting off the main room. They appeared to go on forever.

We walked along the edge for a while, looking down each pathway; they all seemed like endless roads, books lining both sides. At the threshold of each pathway was a symbol that meant nothing to me. They weren’t angelic script or Sanskrit or any other kind of ‘skrit,’ script or language I knew.

“Do these symbols mean anything to you?” I asked.

Bella shook her head.

“Humph, I see.” Something else caught my eye. “Apparently not, but look over here.” I took Bella’s hand and guided her back into the main room and between a row of shelves.

As soon as we were out of Judith’s spotlight, I pulled her in close and kissed her. It was something long overdue and Bella, surprised, leaned into the kiss, cupping the back of my head lest I try to pull away.

I wasn’t going to pull away.

Not ever.

As our lips touched, a flood of emotions almost buckled my knees. The years we’d spent apart. The years of fighting and dying, of loneliness and doubt. It wasn’t just the familiarity of her taste, or that it had been an eternity since we’d last kissed.

It was that, just like the very first time and each time after, kissing her made everything feel possible and right.

“Stop,” Bella said as my hands started to take on a life of their own.

“Stop what?” I said.

Bella giggled. “You know what,” she said between heavy breaths. “We can’t.”

“Why not?” Whatever her reasons, they would have to be damn good. As in, chastity-belt-made-from-adamantium good.

“Because … because we’re in a hurry and—”

As if to help make her case, we heard an “Ahem” from behind us.

I didn’t move; I knew whose chastising voice was about to echo through the halls. It occurred to me my mother-in-law would be perfectly employed as Hell’s librarian.

“If you are done acting like teenagers,” Judith said, “there is something over here that you really should see.”

So much for making out in the library.

↔

Bella and I reluctantly separated and made our way over to Judith. Once we were close enough, Judith grabbed Bella’s hands and guided her to an enclave on the other side of the library. I dutifully—bitterly—followed them to a large wooden structure. It looked like one of the architectural models of a … of a … “What is that?”

“I think,” Judith said, “this is map of Hell. Look here.” She pointed at the base of the model, where a tiny archway stood. On one side of the archway was a massive cave, and on the other, a forest with a tiny river.

“Where we entered,” I said.

Judith nodded. “And look here—we must be in this chamber. On the other side are these tracks.”

“A 3D model of Hell,” I mused.

“Except I don’t think it’s complete. Look—there are only four layers. I thought Dante’s Inferno had nine circles.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head as I stared at the model, “I don’t think there are nine circles in Hell. At least, not in this one.”

“And you know this because …” Judith’s last word came out more like a challenge than a question.

“Because Penemue once told me that Dante was, well … wrong,” I said. “And that the nine circles of Hell not only didn’t reflect the real Hell, which was more of an endless, flat plane of fire and pain—”

“Like Nebraska,” Bella said with a chuckle.

Hearing her laugh after a somewhat inappropriate joke was like a slap to the face. Her wit was always quick and a little naughty … and never anything I’d think of. Nebraska. I barely remembered it was a state, let alone would have used it as the butt of a joke. It had to be her.

The real her.

I resisted the desire to reach over and give her an endless embrace to make up for all our lost time. And from the way Judith stared at her daughter, I knew she had done the same.

“Yeah,” I said, running my hands through my hair, “like Nebraska. Anyhoo, he said that if he were to create an inferno of his own, there would be four circles.” I snapped my fingers as a memory eked its way back into my mind. “And look—these aren’t circles. They’re too wide. They’re more like ovals.”

“Ovals?” Bella stared at the model.

“And what do these ovals consist of?” Judith asked.

I shrugged. I couldn’t remember anything else of use.

“Oh good,” Judith groaned. “Proving your worth yet again, I see.” And before I could think of a retort to her obviously sarcastic comment, she looked around and said, “As pleasant as this place is, I don’t think this is where he is.”

“How do you know?”

“Because all the books are empty.”

“Excuse me?”

“What, you haven’t picked one up yet? Not that I’m surprise. You were never one to feed the mind.”

“Judith, I—”

Bella put a calming hand on my shoulder and gave her mother a look that could stop bullets with shame.

Judith pursed her lips before nodding. “Fine, I’m sorry. But my point remains: the books are empty. Here, look.” She walked over to the nearest shelf and pulled out the first book she found. She opened it, revealing empty pages.

She repeated this with a half-dozen more books that she randomly pulled off the shelves. “See … all empty.”

I nodded in appreciation of Penemue’s twisted psyche. Of course all the books would be blank in his Hell. He loved reading. He loved books. The only thing worse than empty pages was—

Before I could finish the thought, the ground rumbled, the marble beneath our feet turning up.

Something was barreling its way underground … and toward us.

APPARENTLY THE WORMS IN TREMORS WERE AFTER THE BOOKS

“Book worms,” I yelled over the rumbling noise.

“Book what?” Bella cried out.

“Worms. WORMS! This is Penemue’s Hell … What’s the worst thing that could happen to a library? Even one with books filled with blank pages?”

“They get eaten,” Bella said as we ran away from the tunneling monster and toward what I hoped was the exit. “Of course.”

Marty hissed as he wrapped tightly around my arm.

“Must be long-lost cousins of yours,” I said to him.

The viper had just given me an indignant look that said he’d never be related to a dirt-eating, book-consuming worm when the ground beneath us opened up and a giant, teeth-filled mouth came up beneath us.

The force of the blow threw me straight up, and as gravity did its inevitable thing (apparently it worked just the same in Hell as on Earth), I saw both Judith and Bella tumbling down the other side of the mound the giant worm had made.

I pulled out General Shouf’s pistol and pulled the trigger three times, conserving bullets be damned. Each shot bounced off the worm’s exoskeleton … not that I cared. Bella was on the other side of this little impromptu hill, and the last thing I was going to let happen was that worm chasing after her.

I would be the target, and those bullets did exactly what I wanted them to do.

The worm turned toward me and charged.

Running back, I holstered my gun and jumped on some shelves, climbing up the beautifully carved casing like a ladder. On top, I pulled out my sword and had just enough time to leap in the air before the worm came crashing down on the shelves on which I’d stood.

Stupid worm, I thought as I tumbled onto its back. Using my hunting sword, I stabbed deep and hard into its body’s shell. Bullets might have no effect on this thing, but my sword would. It was a memento I’d taken off the dead body of the Erlking, a monstrous creature who lived for the hunt. His sword was his prized weapon, and it had properties to it that no mortal hand could have created. It was perfectly balanced for one thing, and it was sharper than any surgeon’s scalpel. It could scrape the O out of H2O.

My sword tore through several rungs of … what the hell was this stuff? Demon-book-worm guts? It was more like the green goo Slimer hit you with in Ghostbusters.

The worm went down with an anticlimactic thud. As I stood over its dead carcass in full superhero pose, I saw Bella look over at me in wonder and Judith in confused disgust.

“That was … impressive,” Bella said.

“Yes,” Judith agreed, her eyes betraying a touch of fear of little old me. If I’d known seeing something like this would have elicited such a reaction, I would have taken my judgmental mother-in-law with me on all my missions.

“I see why you were so effective at your job,” Bella said, dismantling all the alpha-male bravado my book worm victory had imbued me with.

For years, I served in a special division of the military whose mandate was to hunt Others. The way I saw it, I was helping the world maintain peace by taking down the particularly nasty Others.

Bella hated that about me, believing that peace could never be achieved with a gun. At the time, I’d thought she was naïve. But after she died and I spent a few years wandering the GoneGod World without her, I learned that she was right.

She was always right. And I was ashamed of that part of my life.

But both bravado and shame were short-lived. The earth started to rumble again; I looked toward the library’s entrance and saw three more mouths coming our way. And if there were three, there were more. A lot more.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I yelled.

“This way,” Judith said. “The model showed an exit over here.”

We followed Judith down the center of the library as the worms steadily gained on us. Marty, who’d heroically clung to my arm during my fight with the worm, looked behind us and hissed. Either he was speaking snake and telling me to hurry, or he was mocking the worms, daring them to attack. Either way, the viper wasn’t helping. And I doubted his fangs could pierce those worms’ thick hides.

After a few hundred yards, we made it to a giant door that looked very, very locked.

So, wanting to regain some of my male gusto, I sped up, determined to ram into the door and force it open.

Knowing Penemue, I should have known what would happen next.

As I leapt in the air, shoulder at the ready, the damn door opened on its own. I went flying out of the library and into … whatever this place was.

A BRIEF INTERLUDE

Penemue—

Some forces are beyond even an angel’s control. Things occur that nothing—no force, no magic, no technology—can stop. Or even interfere with.

Attempting to do so would be as futile as trying to stop the tides or prevent the sun from rising.

Certainly, these events are so magnificent, so grand, that they occur in the background of our lives—happenings that mere mortals are unaware of.

One such occurrence happened when Penemue built his own inferno. He built his own private Hell, determined to punish himself for all his failings.

He did so selfishly, allowing his guilt to consume him without a second thought as to how he would affect those around him. Those who loved him. Stepping into his own Hell, Penemue was determined to disappear forever.

But when he feels Jean’s presence on the other side of Hell’s gate, something stirs deep within. He understands that his friend—his brother—will come after him, try to rescue him.

And although the last thing Penemue wants is to be rescued, perhaps he can use his new home and the powers it imbues him with to help his friend.

“Perhaps,” he mutters to himself, “I can undo some of the wrong that was done.”

Perhaps he can bring back those he loved and lost. For here in Hell, the twice-fallen angel has such power.

The power to bring back the dead.

End of Brief Interlude

OUT OF THE LIBRARY AND INTO THE … SCHOOL?

Penemue’s sin was to teach humankind to read and write.

The reason? Because (and I quote) “men were not born for this. Thus with pen and with ink to confirm their faith. Since they were not created, except that, like the angels, they might remain righteous and pure. Nor would death, which destroys everything, have affected them; but by this their knowledge they perish, and by this also its power consumes them.”

A lot of words to describe a simple concept.

Penemue was a less famous Prometheus. He taught us not to make fire, but to make the written word—something of immense power. And because we’re stupid, talking monkeys (the pejoratives demons use when referring to humans), such knowledge corrupted our souls.

But that’s the legend. I’d sometimes asked Penemue about it, and his response was crystal clear: “Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, and I gave humanity fruit from the Tree of Life.”

I, of course, would give him a blank look when he said that to me, at which point he’d roll his eyes and clarify in that way that rubbing mud on your windshield helps you see the road. “The Tree of Life grants immortality to those who eat from it.”

“And?” I said. More and more, our conversations were like teasing dental floss out of a dog’s butt.

Penemue sighed as if I was challenging his infinite patience. I suspect I was. After all, I was his best friend and the one person he spoke to the most. It must have been frustrating not being able to simply make a point, but constantly having to explain, give context and “dumb it down” for me. Then again, he was a drunk asshole, so I figured fate put us together to balance some of the karmic baggage we’d both accumulated over our lifetimes.

With a groan, the twice-fallen explained what he meant. Well, he tried to, at least. “Now that you guys can read and write, your thoughts can live on forever. In other words, your ideas are immortal. Hence the Tree of Life. Get it?”

I nodded. “That was a sin?”

“Oh yes, my dear human Jean. It was one of the biggest no-nos the gods had. Humans were never meant to be immortal. You weren’t designed to be so. What I did was against your very making. And for that sin, I should have been undone, utterly obliterated. By the grace of one angel, I was, instead, condemned to Hell.”

He never did tell me which angel saved him. But from what I knew about angels, that creature must have gone against his or her very nature to let that particular act of rebellion slide.

Angels are all mercy and forgiveness until you break one of God’s laws. Then they’re fire and brimstone, going all Sodom and Gomorrah on your ass. (Funny thing about going Sodom and Gomorrah … that’s the angel’s equivalent of going postal. I guess our species aren’t that different after all.)

I knew this part of Penemue’s past. I’d heard it dozens of times before—when he was tipsy, drunk, hungover, then drunk again. He loved to tell me how all of this was his doing, because—in his words, not mine—“Without the power of the pen, how would humans have been able to develop the sciences necessary to build the world around you? The strength of the cement under your feet evolved from humans incrementally improving on the previous generation’s recipe. My sin paved the way for that cement. For the clothes on your back. For the airplanes in your sky and those precious 1980s toys on your shelves. For all of that, my dear human Jean-Luc Matthias, you are welcome.”

That little speech was usually followed by him passing out.

Penemue always spoke of that part of his past with pride. Something he relished in that if I could do it again, I would sort of way. And not something he lamented or wished was different.

So, when we left the library and entered what can only be described as an open-air classroom, complete with row after row of school desks and a blackboard at the front … I knew there was something he hadn’t told me.

↔

“Where are we?” Judith walked amongst the empty desks. She put her hand on one of them, but her fingers passed right through. She repeated this a couple more times before she sighed. “I thought those days were done.”

Shrugging, I walked over to an empty desk and looked around. Even though we were in a classroom, we were outside. This was one of those open-concept schools, and I would have assumed we were in some ancient village, where so much took place outside because the cost of building structures was far too great given their technology and means, but the desks were modern, the blackboard was too well manufactured and the friggin’ projector at the front had one of those flashing lights in the shape of a dot with waves emanating from it.

I guess the human symbol for Wi-Fi was universal—as in, expanding across universes.

No, we weren’t in the past. We were just in one of those school that mandated students be outside as much as possible. And given how perfect the weather was, why not? This was paradise.

Except it wasn’t; we were in Hell. Penemue’s Hell. So whatever was about to happen next would be dreadful.

Looking beyond the classroom, what surrounded us was nothing less than spectacular. To the north—I think it was north, based on where the sun was, but then again, we were in Hell. Who knew how directions worked here?—lay a mountain with lightning constantly crashing into it. To the south, what looked like an upside-down iceberg hovered in the air. The west housed a constellation of emerald stars, and to the east, a tree.

A giant friggin’ tree that reached up to the heavens. A tree that looked like the love child of a giant redwood and sycamore … if both were the size of the Chrysler Building and Mount Everest put together.

I’d never seen that tree or any tree like it before, but I had heard about it so damn much since the gods left that I would recognize it anywhere.

That was the Tree of Good and Evil.

In other words, the tree from which Adam and Eve ate, thus condemning us to our current mortal coil.

↔

“What the f—” I started, staring at the impossibly huge tree in the distance.

“Language,” Judith admonished.

“—uck,” I said. “As in firetruck.” Then I pointed at the tree and groaned.

“Is that …” Bella started, stepping forward to get a better look.

I nodded.

Judith must have come to the same conclusions as Bella and me, because she just shook her head and did something I’d never seen her do in all the years she’d been dead. She crossed herself—as in spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch, oh God who art in Heaven crossed herself.

“Where are we?” Judith asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But look to the north—that mountaintop is bombarded by lightning. Penemue told me about a place like that once. Mount Olympus. And over there, that floating iceberg-like thing … I’m guessing that’s Niflheim. And there—the Emerald City of Qa. And it’s not just the four points on the compass. If you look between them, there’s the dark forest of Yomi.” As I spoke the words, I could feel my heart racing. My anxiety rose as it dawned on me where we were. I pointed to the other side. “And that lush forest just opposite Yomi has got to be Mag Mell … and that cave is—”

“Jean,” Bella said, touching my hand. Just knowing that she was near immediately calmed the thumping gallop in my chest. “What’s going on? What do you know?”

Taking a deep breath, I cracked my neck. “I don’t know where we are, but wherever it is, we are literally surrounded by all the heavens and hells of every religion ever. We must be. Those places, the descriptions of them, are too precise to be anywhere else.”

“But we’re in Hell,” Bella said in that matter-of-fact tone of hers.

I nodded. “Yes, and those places aren’t the heavens and hells, but representations of them.”

“OK,” Judith said, slowly drawing the word out as she considered this. “So we’re in the middle of all the heavens and hells. Why?”

“I don’t know. But as nice as this place is, it’s not what it seems. Ready yourselves,” I said, putting my hand on my gun.

Marty hissed, and Bella set a heavy tome that she must have grabbed from the library over her chest.

“Maybe we should get out of here,” Judith said. “Just move on.”

I nodded. “Maybe. Nothing seems to be happening here. The trouble is, we need to get to the center of Hell. That’s where Penemue will be. Which way should we go?”

“Anywhere,” Judith whispered. “Anywhere is better than here. Better to move than just stand here.”

I shook my head. “No, there’s got be a clue. Something to help us find the damn angel and—”

But before I could finish the thought, a trumpet sounded. And by trumpet, I mean the kind you’d hear at the end of days. Believe me, I’ve heard it before, and the sound is unmistakable.

The trumpet blew three times before an angel appeared at the front of the classroom.

“Speak of the devil …” I muttered, staring at Penemue.

CLASSROOM OF THE GODS

Penemue stood in front of the blackboard, looking at his watchless wrist in faux-exasperation, as though to say, Do you people know what time it is?

Pulling out a telescopic pointer, he extended it and tapped the blackboard.

“Penemue.” I reached out my hand and took a step in his direction.

If the twice-fallen angel heard me, he made no sign of it. He simply cleared his throat and in a voice that expressed infinite patience being tested, said, “Odin, how kind of you to join us.”

With a flash of smoke, a cloud of—what the hell was that?—ravens appeared in one of the desk seats. The ravens flew off in every direction, leaving behind a youthful figure with what looked like a toy pirate’s patch over his eye. The kid couldn’t have been older than eleven, but despite his youth, I could feel power rippling through him.

“Sorry, Mr. Penemue,” he said. “Loki and Thor were fighting and—”

“Tattletale!” a voice cried out. Two figures—one blond, one with slick black hair—came running up the hill.

“It’s not tattling if it’s true. Besides, I stopped the fight, just as a father must,” Odin said. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Penemue?”

Penemue nodded. “Indeed. They are the fruit of your loins and therefore your responsibility.”

“And with great responsibility comes great power,” said the childlike Odin.

“That is why you’re a god,” Penemue agreed. Looking past the patch-eyed god, the normally drunk angel smiled. “Ahhh, my dear Athena. I didn’t think you’d join us today.”

“I almost didn’t,” said a young lady no older than thirteen. Despite her awkward age, she exhibited a grace I’d only ever seen in Miral—the friggin’ angel. “But in the end, the deliberations were short-lived and, well, I’m glad I made it.”

“So, is Atlantis sunk?”

“No,” groaned a young, shirtless boy who entered carrying a trident. “No underwater cities for me.”

Three more creatures entered—or rather, gods I had encountered in what felt like another life. They were Quetzalcoatl, Baldr and Izanami, three gods from three separate pantheons who shared one quality: they had died. And yes, gods can die, but they don’t die in the conventional sense. About ten years ago, they tried to resurrect themselves to fill the godless void with their presence, and I, with the help of some of my more ancient friends, had stopped them. But that’s another story.

The controversy surrounding these gods’ deaths was that none of their fellow gods had brought them back to life. Instead, they had chosen to lock them away. And seeing them alive, youthful and happy … well, I had expected to see things in Hell that I wouldn’t have expected. But as prepared as I was to be surprised, I wasn’t prepared for them.

The three dead gods—or rather, their youthful representations—walked in with a huff.

“Ahhh, you three,” Penemue said. “Glad you could join us.”

Baldr and Izanami nodded, muttering a half-hearted, “Hello, Mr. Penemue.”

Quetzalcoatl, on the other hand, said nothing.

“Mr. Aztec God, are you too good to be civil, or shall I send you to detention for another eon?”

The birdlike god’s eyes widened. With a chirp, he said, “Hello, Mr. Penemue,” before taking his desk.

“Very good,” Penemue said. He looked around the open-air room. “We’re almost all here. Everyone but ...”

“We’re here,” said two voices in unison.

I turned to see two teenagers with—you’ve got to be kidding me—fig leaves for scantily-clad clothing walking up the hill, hand in hand.

“Adam, Eve—welcome.”

“Sorry we’re late, Mr. Penemue,” Adam said. “We were …” His voice trailed off as a blush painted his face. Eve giggled as the two of them took their seats, never letting go of each other’s hand as they did.

“We’re all here,” Penemue said. “All the gods and two very capable representatives of the human race, together under one roof.” He looked up. “Well, under one sky …” Everyone chuckled. “So, without further delay, let us begin today’s lessons.”

↔

Penemue cleared his throat. “In the beginning …” Booming laughter followed. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. As silly as that statement may be—after all, we all know that before the beginning, there was us—it is a great segue into today’s lecture. In the beginning—the true beginning—there was only us. Gods”—he pointed at the godly pupils—“and their denizens.” He touched himself on the chest.

“But you folks weren’t satisfied with just having us around. You wanted something else. Something more. And as loath as I am to admit that I, an angel of Heaven, wasn’t enough, I know that to be true. We—as in, your denizens—were not enough. You needed another challenge, something more than the creations who didn’t believe in you because they walked amongst you. In other words, you needed something or someone whose only connection to you was through faith. You needed humans.” Penemue pointed at Adam and Eve.

“More specifically, you needed humans with free will. Free to do as they liked, to believe in what they wanted. Believe—and not believe—in what they wanted. You wanted these new creations to come to you honestly. You wanted them to come to you on their own.”

Odin turned around to look at Adam and Eve. “And to be grateful for what we gave them.”

“Fair enough,” Penemue said. “But it didn’t work out that way. Or at least, it’s not working out that way, is it? Does anyone know why?”

The class went silent as they looked to their teacher for answers.

“You all know my thing, right? My special ability granted to me by, well, all of you when you first breathed life into me? For those of you who might not remember”—he gave Baldr a wink—“my thing is knowing all that is written. That means everything put down on paper, parchment, stone or even written in the sand with a stick. I also know everything that is written on the human soul, and what I have read time and time again is that with human free will comes doubt. Doubt is a perfectly natural, healthy aspect of their being. They doubt you because there are so many conflicting messages, pain, suffering—but also joy, triumph and beauty that is both natural, unexplained and crafted by their hands.”

The students looked at Penemue with confusion. Anubis cocked his head in that way dogs do when they’re unsure what to make of something.

By the GoneGods, I was confused, and I had heard this little rant before. Like, hundreds of times before.

Penemue, unperturbed, cleared his throat. “They doubt because they, too, can create. And no, they don’t have magic, but they do have ingenuity, intelligence, science and instinct. They use those abilities—abilities you imbued them with—to make things that never were. Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, airplanes, rockets to the moon … Paradise Lost.” He smiled as he uttered that last one. “They create, they make. They imagine, and then they make those musings into reality. And in doing so, they expand their universe—their knowledge—through sheer will and determination. And they believe they do so on their own.”

“But … but we’re helping,” Athena said.

“Are you?”

“Well …” She considered his question. “The muses are our creation.”

“And they dabble from time to time. But they certainly aren’t responsible for all of humanity’s creations, are they?”

His question was met with silence.

“Are they?” His booming voice demanded an answer.

Many of the gods shook their heads. Only Athena spoke. “No, I suppose not.”

“And as for your direct involvement …” He scanned the classroom before finally pointing at a young god with an elephant’s head. “Ganesha?”

“We don’t do that anymore.”

“Not anymore. You long ago abandoned them to their own devices, and yet you still expect faith. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect you to come to Earth and start walking amongst them. That wouldn’t be good, given some of your less amicable natures. Loki, I’m looking at you.”

Loki giggled. “Yeah, yeah. I would try to enslave them. It’s my thing.”

“Indeed,” Penemue said. “But just because you shouldn’t walk amongst them doesn’t mean you can’t be more present. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share …”

Penemue paused as he let the words sink in.

“Share what?” Anansi asked.

“Share what you know. Share a bit of what you can do.”

“Give them magic,” Zeus boomed as literal lightning bolts rippled out of him.

“No—knowledge. Share some of the secrets of the universe, let them in on some of your divine, God-only-knows knowledge.”

“Why?”

“Faith,” Penemue said.

More confused looks.

“By sharing a bit of your divinity with them, you will be expressing your own faith in them, and that … that is something they will reciprocate in kind.”

And therein lay the crux of Penemue’s argument. Faith is a two-way street, and when you think about it—really think about it—it’s a tough pill to swallow. Faith was always one way: humans to gods. The idea that faith could be two ways, especially in the way Penemue meant it, was something most couldn’t wrap their heads around. Hell, I struggled with it and I’m an atheist. Even after the gods left and there was irrefutable proof that they existed, it didn’t change how I felt, because I never had faith in them before, and that didn’t change after.

“Which leads us to today’s lecture.” Penemue swung the blackboard around, revealing The Importance of Faith written in bold letters.

“Oh brother.” Loki rolled his eyes.

Thor punched his brother in the arm.

“Stop it, you two,” Odin boomed.

“Gentlemen.” Penemue cleared his throat. Loudly. The three Norse gods immediately faced Penemue. “Thank you.”

Whatever—or whoever—Penemue was in this scenario, he clearly had the gods’ respect. Bigly so.

“What the hell is going on?” Bella said, loud enough that everyone in this classroom of the divine should have heard her. No one turned. Whatever was happening, we existed on another plane from which we could watch, but not interact.

“I don’t know,” I said, “but this never happened. I have spent way, waay, wa-aay too much time with Penemue in various states of intoxication, hearing all sorts of stories about Heaven and Hell, the gods and their histories, and this was never even hinted at. This can’t be—”

“It’s a dream,” Judith said.

Bella, Marty and I looked at the once-upon-a-time specter in confusion. “It’s a dream,” she repeated. “Well, a daydream, at least. This is what Penemue wished happened, but didn’t.”

More blank looks from the rest of us.

“Think about it,” Judith said in exasperation. “The gods and humans in one room, being lectured by him. He has their respect rather than their hatred for what he did. And what’s more, they’re all young. And youthful minds are minds that can be shaped. He’s teaching them to be the kinds of gods he wished they were. Instead of what they really were …”

I nodded in agreement; Judith’s theory made perfect sense. Penemue never regretted teaching humans how to read or write, but he did regret what happened afterward: being kicked out of Heaven, his time in Hell. He angered the gods—most of them, at least—and that cost him a lot.

Penemue cleared his throat again, this time giving Baldr an authoritative look before pointing to an empty seat at the front of the class. The heavyset kid stood up in a huff to sit at the front. “Now, where was I?”

“You were explaining the virtues of sharing,” Athena said with all the enthusiasm of the class pet.

“Precisely. All you gods, you literally know the secrets of the universe. You possess immortality and powers beyond human imagination. Sharing some of that knowledge will in no way diminish your status as gods. It will do quite the opposite for—”

“But if we tell the humans too much, they will try to replace us with … with them,” Loki protested, turning around to look at Adam and Eve.

For the first time, the two lovebirds stopped looking at each other, their gazes turning somber as they stared back at Loki.

“We would never,” Eve said. “We just want to know things. Learn things.”

“And once you do, what will you do with that knowledge?” Loki turned to Penemue. “Learn to fly, to manipulate energy? Master the heavens in rockets?”

“We … we …” Adam stammered, unable to find the words.

“And once you master those things, then what?”

“Well, nothing,” Adam said. “Things will just keep on keeping on.”

“But what if you master immortality, too?” Odin said. “Won’t knowledge and immortality make you gods?”

“More than gods!” Athena said. “For they can do things we cannot.”

“Children, children.” Penemue waved his hands in a calming fashion. It wasn’t working.

The class was quickly getting unruly. How, I wondered as I watched the commotion, would one discipline a classroom of out-of-control child-gods?

“Like what?” asked Izanami. “We are gods. Gods!”

“They can have children. We can’t. Yes, we can create. But their way of creation is different than ours. They multiply. They expand. And if their children, too, have knowledge and immortality, they’ll … they’ll breed us out!” Athena shuddered at the thought.

“Breed us out?” Odin stood on his chair. “Never!” And as the raven god cried out, his youthful figure grew until he was a war-scarred, full-grown man.

Well, a full-grown god.

“I will never allow that,” he screamed, scanning the others with his one good eye. There was something different in Odin. Before he’d been a doe-eyed boy, eager to learn. But now that he perceived humanity’s threat, he was more switched on, his one good eye gleaming with the lust of the hunt. “I will never allow that. Never. For before they can multiply, I will … Wait. Who the hell are they?” Odin pointed at us.

So much for being flies on the wall.

EVER BEEN PUNCHED BY A GOD?

Gods don’t punch. They’re more the lightning bolt, whirlwind, shoot-things-out-of-their-hands kind of fighter. Kind of like Raiku in Mortal Kombat, except there’s no arcade screen to shield you and no Play Again? option when you die.

And that’s exactly what was going to happen if we didn’t find a way to stop them. A lightning bolt hit me square in the chest, pushing me onto my back with a heavy thud. But unlike what I expected to happen when hit by a god’s lightning, I didn’t explode into a million little pieces of Jean. Instead, I was able to take it in the same way I could handle being hit by a car.

Which is to say: it hurt, but I’d live.

Maybe.

Normally in a situation like this, I’d go all Jean-Luc Matthias on them and pull some crazy stunt to get out of the situation. Generally it involved a loud boom. But there was nothing around to go boom, and I had Bella and Judith to worry about.

Well, Bella.

I didn’t know what to do, and looking for something, anything to help, my eyes caught Penemue’s. The twice-fallen angel no longer looked like the regal professor of only moments ago. He looked forlorn, wasted, tired. His tweed jacket was torn and his wings were no longer immaculately white; they had more of a dragged-in-the-mud quality.

I’d been in plenty of fights with that angel by my side. As much of a buffoon as he was, he wasn’t a coward; he’d always jumped in by my side in fights. (Plus, he had badass meathooks that came out of his forearms whenever shit got real … And shit was about as real as it could get right now.) But the angel didn’t do anything; he just stared at me with glowing eyes as tears of light streamed down his face.

So much for having an angel on your side.

Angel-less, I drew upon all my military training that taught me how to handle situations like this, and did exactly what it told me to do.

I ran.

But not before grabbing Judith and Bella’s arms, pulling them out of the way of a child-sized Thor hammer flying our way, and—more literally than I would have liked—throwing them down the hill.

↔

The three of us tumbled down the hilltop like Jack and Jill and Jack’s judgmental mother-in-law. If I had a quarter for every time I tumbled down a hill while pursued by overpowered magical creatures, I could make three phone calls in a 1980s phone booth.

We tumbled as the childlike gods ran to the hill’s edge, each daring the others to follow. And that’s when it hit me: they might have been gods, but they were still children. Children who had yet to embrace things like blind violence or mob mentality. Children who, when they fought, didn’t play for keeps. They were still learning to embrace their more violent tendencies.

I could use that. Or rather, Momma Bear tumbling a few feet in front of me could.

“They’re kids,” I said when friction finally won over gravity and our tumbling ceased.

“So?” Bella asked, stumbling to her feet.

“So, we have a mother here.” I pointed at Judith, then up the hill. Thor and Zeus, the bravest of the bunch, were already halfway down. I turned to Judith. “You had years to hone your judgmental, critical, authoritative ways.”

“Hey!” Judith protested.

“That’s a compliment. At least in this context,” I said. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do here. But Penemue is at the top of the hill, and if we can reach him, maybe, just maybe this whole thing will be done. I need you to go all judgmental on their asses.”

“How?”

“By being you.”

Judith scowled at me.

“Exactly … except at them.”

“Fine,” she said. Taking a step past us, she walked to the base of the hill and yelled, “You two! Stop right where you are.”

Full credit to Judith—she was all mother-in-law rage.

Thor and Zeus stopped right in their tracks. The others, spurred by their bravery (and the fact that they were far enough ahead that the others could always turn tail and run if we proved more badass than they suspected), trailed down the hill, stopping at the same point as the two leaders.

“Enough of this. Didn’t your mother teach you manners?”

Good, I thought.

“But we don’t have moms,” Athena said. “We made ourselves.”

“Well, technically I made you when I was swallowed by Metis,” Zeus said.

“That’s not what I meant, you cheeky little monkey, and you know it,” Judith yelled.

“I’m a god,” Zeus muttered. “Not a monkey.”

Judith ignored the pouting god. “So you made yourself, huh? Well then, you should have made yourselves some mothers to teach you the proper way to treat guests.”

“Guests?”

The kids were looking between themselves while they tried to assess exactly who we were.

“Yes. Who do you think we are? Invaders?” Judith asked.

“Titans?” Zeus said.

“Or Frost Giants,” Thor offered.

“Or the Devil,” Eve yelled, pointing at—oh shit … Marty. “That is the Devil, and he is trying to tempt me again. Tempt us all!”

And that was all it took for our little reprieve to come to an abrupt and probably fatal end.

“GoneGodDamn snakes,” I said, pulling Judith and Bella as we continued fleeing from an angry mob of children.

↔

Since we had tumbled down the hill in a southwesterly direction, we had two choices. We could head toward the floating iceberg and—among the ice cracks and glacial gorges touching the earth below it—try to find somewhere to hide, or we could head into the dark forest I was pretty sure was Yomi, the Shinto land of the dead.

Partly because it’s easier to hide in the dark, but mostly because I don’t like the cold, I pointed toward Yomi and charged ahead.

Judith and Bella followed and within a few moments, we were in Yomi’s embrace.

As soon as our feet touched the forest’s foliage, we were enveloped by a dusk-like hue as an eerie sense of danger overcame us.

This place gave me the creeps. Maybe the cold would have been a better way to die.

DARK FORESTS, SKELETONS, STONEWALLS AND GOODBYE KISSES

I’d been to Yomi once before. Well, I hadn’t actually been in Yomi, but rather, a particular chamber inside it. A museum. The Museum.

It seems that when the gods were still being gods, they had this place where they stored all the stuff too destructive for the universe to have easy access to, while at the same time too powerful to destroy. Things like the Golden Fleece, Odin’s Eye and Noah’s Helm … and, of course, the Spear of Longinus—the spear that stabbed Jesus. In other words, a weapon so powerful it could literally kill a god.

The museum also stored some of the most wretched and horrible creatures in existence. The Erlking, a platoon of aqrabuamelu and camazotz, even Gogmagog, all carbon-frozen like Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back. For one reason or another, the gods chose not to kill those creatures, but rather hold them captive—alive and pissed off—forever. Kind of like the Phantom Zone prison that held General Zod. After an eternity flipping around the universe in one of those, no wonder he was so pissed off.

I was there in the Museum, and because of some terrible shit that went down in a story far too long and tragic for me to ever want to relive again, those evil creatures were released into the world.

And even though I hunted down and killed most of those evil fucks, I’d always wondered why the gods chose Yomi as the domain to hold them in.

Running through the dark forest now, I understood. This forest wasn’t just dark and dreary, it was downright filled with all sorts of creepy crawlies just ready to swallow you whole.

Placing the Museum in Yomi was the equivalent of an island prison surrounded by sharks. Except this place didn’t have sharks—it had a gashadokuro, who, within our first twenty yards into the damned place, swiped down at us with a giant, bony fist.

Thankfully, the giant skeleton wasn’t expecting to see three humans and a viper running through his (her? Hard to determine sex when you’re literally looking at a giant, fleshless skeleton) domain. The oversized Skeletor swung down with its open hand like it was trying to high five us, and if it hadn’t been for the unnaturally large cherry blossom tree between us and him, he would have squashed us like bugs, staining the white ridges of his palm red.

“So, not that way,” I said, pushing Bella and Judith to the left and away from the gashadokuro. If the gashadokuro legends were true, then he was rooted in place and wouldn’t be able to follow us.

Of course, those legends were filtered through Penemue’s alcohol-addled mind. My only hope was that the creatures who called this dark place home weren’t frolicking about at the forest’s edge.

We veered to the left before turning sharply right again and deeper into the forest. I took the lead, pistol in hand; right now, the best thing to do was clear the path. Behind us, I could hear the cries of the child-gods as they entered the tree line. They were yelling—mostly at each other—to hurry up and catch the marauders.

“Marauders?” I looked back at Bella. “Seems were in a 1940s western being chased by a posse of black hats … And since we’re the good guys with a noble mission, we’ll be fine.” I gave my wife what I hoped was a reassuring wink before turning to see what fresh hells lay in front of us.

But any effort to reassure her was literally blasted to smithereens. We heard a crackle of electricity followed by a thunderous boom and the unmistakable sound of bones shattering as a femur (or maybe part of a jawbone) fell right in front of us.

Evidently Thor or Zeus hadn’t taken kindly to the poor giant trying to give them a high five.

↔

We must have run about three hundred yards, dodging all kind of mythical Yomi nasties as we went, and every one of them was shocked to see the three of us dashing through.

But these mythical creatures weren’t fools, either. They heard screams, the taunts … the boom. They knew what was happening. And instead of interfering and risking the ire of a band of gods, they followed at a distance, the temptation of seeing us being demolished by gods too great to pass up.

Great, I thought, my death is going to have an audience.

We ran until we reached a cliff face jutting up as far as the eye could see. Only thing was, we were running with our eyes wide open and our goal was to keep running, so there was no way we could head straight into a stone wall. It was as if the damn thing had been camouflaged and only became visible when we were too close to do anything about it.

Given that we could no longer run away and had to abruptly change direction, the gods could gain considerable ground on us. We needed to keep moving.

“Come on,” I said, “let’s follow this until—” But as I spoke, the rock wall angled inward. I turned the other way and watched in horror as the cliff face turned in, too.

And then I realized what was happening. The gods, being gods, were toying with us. They had resurrected the stone curtain in such a way that it literally caught us by surprise. Then they’d turned what seemed to us like a cliff face into a valley. Well, a cul-de-sac-style valley, for this particular unnatural structure terminated in a dead end.

“Humph,” I mused to myself, “a dead end. As in, dead at the end.” Because that’s exactly where we were: at the end. We were going to die at the hands of child-gods in a hell constructed by a twice-fallen angel whom I considered my best friend.

Still considered my best friend, despite everything.

I looked over at Bella, who slowly turned around to face the gods. I was finally going to get what I always wanted: to die by her side. Just like I’d said in my vows. Of course, when I said that in my vows, I had hoped that the end would come when we were both so old that neither of us could stand up without something snapping. I had also hoped that we’d be hanging out and I’d say something witty and funny (as I was prone to do) and we’d literally die laughing.

But I guess beggars can’t be choosers, and this was as good an end as any.

That was the resolve I was feeling. But when I looked into Bella’s eyes, I saw a young woman determined to fight. She picked up a rock in one hand and folded the other into a fist, and I knew my Bella wasn’t ready to go gently into the night; she planned to rage until her last breath.

But didn’t she see that this was a pointless fight. Short of a miracle, there was no way we were getting out of this one alive. She might not have accepted that this was the end, but I had.

So taking a step forward, I did what I had wanted to do from the second I saw her standing within the veil. Yes, we had come together before, but not like this.

I hadn’t slipped my hand around her waist with such need. I hadn’t found the spot at her back where my fingers could urge her forward. I hadn’t shown her this kind of love.

I pulled her in close and kissed her lips that were familiar but somehow new … lips that reminded me of what it was to be happy—really happy. She kissed me right back, as though she’d expected it. Her lips parted, and all at once, we were home. Both of us.

Resolved or not, I decided then and there that this wasn’t the end. We were going to live on, and I was going to get a chance to do that again.

A hundred times more.

And I realized that my despair and my acceptance largely came from being in Hell. Hell was a place without hope, and I was giving in to that, letting its toxicity wrestle away any faith that I could actually win the day.

Bella’s kiss, that cured me of any depression I might have felt. Bella was my hope. She was the thought that kept me going and would keep me going even after death finally managed to dig her finality into me.

But of course, hope is a fickle bitch. Just because you want her to do something doesn’t mean she’s going to come running, and when I heard a childish voice say, “Uwww, gross,” I knew that if I wanted to kiss Bella again, I’d have to kill a god.

SPANKING GODS AND RAGING THORS

I turned to see Zeus and Thor leading the gang through the valley. Gods they may have been, but they were still kids—and kids almost always elect a leader to guide the shenanigans of their little pack. And the kid who most often gets elected? The biggest and baddest of the bunch.

In this case, there were two of them.

Thor walked through first, closely followed by Zeus. Even though they were barely five feet tall, I could feel their power coursing through them. They both had the power of lightning and from the crackle and boom that shattered the gashadokuro, I knew that one of them was at least strong enough to destroy a skeleton giant.

Which made him strong enough to kill me.

We were screwed. But Bella’s kiss had reversed my resolve to accept my fate and go gently into the next life … which in this new godless world was literally nothing.

Still holding onto Bella’s hand, I said, “So this is what the mighty gods are, huh? I have to say, I’m less than impressed.”

“What?” Zeus said, all bravado given he had a Thor standing between us. “You dare.”

“Yeah, yeah … I dare.” I scrunched my face up to convey disappointment and disgust. “Look at you … all of you.” I turned my gaze to the others behind the two alpha gods. “Ganging up on a bunch of helpless humans. And for what? Because we crashed your classroom? Listened in as you got schooled by an angel … a lesser being.” I imbued those last words with as much patronizing gumption as I could muster, channeling my inner Judith as I spoke.

“Jean,” Bella whispered, “what are you doing? They’re going to—”

“They’re going to do nothing,” I said, cutting Bella off with a growl. “Well, Thor and Baby Zeus might try something, but then again …” I let the last words trail off. In case you were wondering, this wasn’t my first playground tussle.

Thor lifted his hammer as currents of energy danced on the lodestone’s surface. “You pathetic human … you …”

“Uh, uh, uh, uh.” I lifted a scolding finger. “I’m not done, you sniveling, pathetic, whimpering excuse for a god.”

I heard a chuckle from the back; Loki covered his mouth like he was trying to capture the giggle before it escaped. He failed, and Thor turned around with a growl. “Loki, you shut up!”

His rebuke was punctuated by Odin’s fist slamming hard into the trickster’s arm. “Yeah, shut it, kid.”

“Look, guys,” I said, pulling his attention back to me. “I know that you’ve got the power of lightning and that you could literally smite me with a thought, but what would that prove? That you can cheat. That you can kill a lesser being. That you’re a bully.”

“I am no bully,” the god of lightning growled through gritted teeth as he threw back his long blond locks in a not-unlike-Fabio manner. He was entering full seduction mode, and I could feel him puffing up his appeal with a bit of magic. A charisma boost. Cheater …

Cheater or not, both Judith and Bella groaned their approval.

“Really?” I said, looking at my wife.

“What? He’s hot.”

“And a kid … and trying to kill us.” I turned back to the Norse god. “Then prove it. Fight me fair.”

“What?” Thor cocked his head like a confused golden retriever. “How could I possibly do that? I am a god and you are … are—”

“The human who’s going to put you over my bent knee and spank you the way your one-eyed daddy should have long ago.” More chuckles from behind, and this time Loki let out a howl that the gates of Tartarus couldn’t have held back.

Thor’s acne-free cheeks blushed in embarrassment as his gorgeous blue eyes crackled with unbridled electric fury. “You son of—”

“Language,” Odin cried from behind.

Thor threw his fists to his sides as he stomped like a frustrated toddler. “Odin,” he droned before getting hold of himself and pointing his hammer at me. “Enough of this. Now you die.”

“Again … no,” I said. “Now we fight fair.”

Thor stomped his foot before letting out an exasperated, “How?”

“You put down that hammer, you don’t use your magic … and we see who’s the tough guy. I mean, come on, this should be an easy fight. You are Thor. Impossibly strong, fast, cunning …”

At that last word, I heard Loki heckle, “Hardly.”

Now it was my turn to laugh and I let out a loud, soul-wrenching, exaggerated laugh guaranteed to frustrate any bully. I abruptly ended my laugh before lifting my fist in the air. I said in an exaggerated, I could be a character in Dragon Ball Z tone, “You may be the lightning, but I brought the thunder.” I pounded my fist on my open palm.

“Really?” Bella groaned.

“Really,” I said to her with a wink.

“Very well, knave,” Thor said. “I shall—”

“Knave … good word.”

“Excuse me?” Thor’s lips pursed as his anger grew.

“I said, ‘Knave … good word.’ Didn’t think you had the academic acumen to pull out a word like that.” I flashed him an exaggerated I’m impressed smile. “Now, do we have a deal?”

Thor dropped his hammer and cracked his knuckles. “That we do, human. That we do.”

↔

I pulled out my pistol and handed it and Marty over to Bella. I said to the viper, “Take care of her,” before embellishing a stretch as part of my taunting.

Thor watched in silent fury. Good.

Most people think you have to be bigger or stronger or faster than your opponent to win a fight. Not true. Sure, being those things helps, but they’re in no way the deciding factors. A lot of fights are won because one of you is better at getting into the other’s head. Get in there—infuriate your adversary—and they’ll do the losing for you.

They’ll do something stupid in a fight and if you’re able to capitalize on the opening they’re bound to give you, then bada bing, bada boom … you win.

That’s why a lot of prize fights are preceded by months of bravado thrown about. That’s why Muhammad Ali, Conor McGregor and Bruce Lee always had choice words before a fight.

It was all part of the mental battle that often decides the winner before a single punch is thrown.

From what I’d heard from those who had met Thor, he was a hothead to begin with. But as a kid, he was positively easy to infuriate.

And from what I’d heard from more than one reliable source, I’m a tenth-degree black belt at infuriating.

I knew I had gotten into Thor’s head when he charged at me, head tucked down like a bull trying to impale a matador.

And like a matador, I waited until the last second to move out of the way and trip him up. The blond god tumbled across the floor like a tumbleweed in a hurricane before getting to his feet and charging again, his arms out in an effort to tackle me.

I thought about using the same trick, but having him tumble again and again was no way to win a fight, so I waited until he was nearly on me before pivoting out of the way, grabbing his wrist as he passed me.

In a normal fight, I would use the other guy’s motion to twist them around and as soon as they did a 180, I’d hit them hard in the nose. The combined momentum of their swivel and my fist was usually enough to knock them out.

But fighting a god is not normal, even if it was the teenage version, and instead of being able to draw Thor in a circle, he kept going, pulling me along with him.

GoneGodDamn he was strong. I was using my full weight and barely managed to slow him down, let alone turn him around.

Thor must had realized his advantage, because he suddenly stopped running and jumped back about three feet before kicking me in the behind … as in, literally.

I went down with a thud. The kid was fast. Too fast given his bulk and—

“No fair,” I shouted, channeling my inner schoolyard kid. “You used magic.”

“Did not,” Thor said, but from the way his eyes darted around, I knew he was lying.

Thankfully so did his brother, who immediately shouted, “You did, Brother. I know what you can and cannot do, and that little reverse jump requires the grace of a gazelle. You are no gazelle.”

“But … but …” Thor stammered.

“But nothing,” Odin boomed. “You cheated.”

“So what? He’s just a human,” he said, like my Homo sapien-ness was all the excuse he needed.

“A promise is a promise.” Odin clapped his hand twice before he growled, “No magic.”

A blue-and-orange wave emanated out of Odin’s hand and washed over Thor, who tried to swat it away like one might after being hit by an ocean swell.

When the wave passed over him, he let out another exasperated groan. “Not my magic.”

“No cheating,” Odin said, and that was when it hit me what had just happened. Daddy (who was, oddly enough, the same age as Thor) had just stripped him of his magic.

Finally … a fair fight.

↔

But even without magic, Thor was still a god. And that little swivel-fail on my part reminded him of that fact. Instead of charging me, he simply lifted his fists and approached.

Oh yay …

FIGHTING GODLY POWER WITH GODLY POWER

Our little square-off started out simple enough … I jab, jab, jabbed, finishing my combo with an upper hook. Thor didn’t even try to dodge my blows, happily taking them (literally) on the chin. Then, with a bloodless smile—showing me exactly how much damage I didn’t do—he hit me back. I tried to move out of the way of his fist, but he faked me out (cheeky little lightning bastard) and swung round so his left fist connected with my jaw.

Thor might have been a kid, but he hit like a Mack truck.

I saw stars as I went down, my head spinning at a speed that would rival a fidget spinner. As I fell, I heard Bella scream, followed by a sucking sound that I was fairly sure was Judith expressing her disapproval.

“Ouch,” I said, grabbing my jaw. By some miracle it wasn’t broken, thank the GoneGods—well, maybe the gods in front of me—for small miracles.

I got to my feet. Slowly. I lifted my fists, determined not to get hit again. There was no way I was going to win against this kid by trying to match him punch for punch. And from the way he held himself, I knew that trying to tire him out wasn’t going to work, either. Also, he was smiling, which meant he knew he had me, so goading him also wouldn’t work anymore.

If I was going to win, I needed a miracle, and just as I was lamenting that miracles were in short supply these days (especially in Hell), he leapt into the air with his fist pointed downward and straight at my head. I managed to tumble out of the way, his fist driving hard into the ground. I swear I heard the earth say “Ouch” under the weight of his punch.

“No fair—he’s using magic again,” I said, because I couldn’t believe anyone was strong enough to crack stone with their fists and not be burning time.

But looking into Odin’s one good eye, I saw the god shake his head. “No magic … on my honor. But Thor is a god and, well, gods are strong.” As if to prove his point, Odin gave me a little flex of his own.

“Shit.” I looked at the gaggle of children and added, “Sorry.” There are some lines that should never be crossed, and swearing in front of kids is one of them.

I turned to face Thor again. “I don’t suppose we could settle this with a game of rock-paper-scissors?”

Thor laughed, his perfect smile portraying unnatural kindness and good humor given he was literally trying to kill me. “Human, you amuse me. And after I ground your bones into the ground beneath our feet, I shall have my bard sing a hymn in your honor. You will die well this day. That I swear.” Then, doing his little leaping in the air trick again, added, “For, after all, those who die at the hands of Thor shall be rewarded by Valhalla.”

I was about to tumble out of the way when I saw him shift his angle; he was expecting me to move and was preparing appropriately. So I did the only thing I could think of, given that I had about a nanosecond left to live. I looked at Bella and smiled. I was about to die and there was nothing I could do about it. The only thing I did have control over was what I saw before my last breath, and looking at Bella was a good way to go.

The best way to go.

Thor came down on me, confused that I wasn’t moving. Seeing that he was about to win, he adjusted himself appropriately. His fist was aimed right at my skull, and the split second before he was about to come down on my head, a loud bell rang.

I mean, a really loud bell.

Thor twisted his body so that he didn’t touch me, and because he was moving at such incredible speeds, his little twist caused him to fall flat on his butt. He got up in a huff and stamped his foot in anger. “Not fair.”

Loki came running to the front. “Totally fair. I was timing you, and that was the end of round one.”

“What? There are rounds?” I said as the trickster god pulled a boxer’s stool that he’d manifested from thin air and gestured for me to sit down on.

↔

“I want nothing more than to see my brother taken down by a human,” Loki whispered as he crouched before me. “But since you are weak and pathetic, I doubt you are the human to do it.”

“Geez, thanks,” I said as I felt a hand on my shoulder. Bella was standing by my side with a brave—albeit forced—smile on her face. Turning back to Loki, I added, “I don’t know if you’ve considered a career in motivational speaking, but—”

“Human, you talk too much. And if you want to live, you must listen.” Loki looked over his shoulder, making sure no one was eavesdropping on our little conversation. “My brother, he has been stripped of magic, but the truth is made from magic. So, as hobbled as he is, he still possesses great power. There is no way you can defeat him with your hands. But with that great power comes—”

“Great responsibility?” I offered.

Loki looked at me in confusion before shaking his head. “Great vulnerability. It is the law of our worlds. With every ability comes a weakness, and you must exploit that if you are to survive this day.”

“How?”

Loki chuckled. “My brother is many things, but a poker player he will never be. He has a tell—you always know where his attack will come from by where his little finger on his right hand points. That is how you can avoid being hit. But as for knocking him down, there is only one weapon in all of creation that can hurt him. Mjolnir.”

I looked over at Thor’s hammer sitting on the ground. “I thought we couldn’t use magic.”

“Indeed, but there was nothing said about weapons.”

The trickster god was right, and suddenly I really wished I had my gun again. Then again, I doubted a bullet would do much against the God of Thunder. I considered the hammer again. “Don’t I have to be worthy to pick it up?”

Loki gave me a strange and slightly indignant look. “Excuse me?”

“What, Marvel Universe rules don’t apply here?”

There was another ding and Loki stood, offering me his hand to help me to my feet. “Marvel Universe? I marvel at the wonders of the universe all the time, Human, and if you ever wish to marvel again, then use the hammer.”

I nodded. Loki had just given me my ticket to life: the hammer. More specifically, Thor’s hammer. Looking over at the brutal weapon sitting at the edge of ring, I knew that if I could get to it, then, well … how would Stan Lee put it?

Excelsior!

↔

Thor’s next attack started earnestly enough; he rushed into the center of the ring and tried to hit me with a left jab. But Loki’s tell was perfect, and I was able to dodge out of the way.

Another jab, uppercut and haymaker, each with his right pinky telling me exactly where his fist was going. And with every miss, Thor was getting more and more furious, gradually working himself up into the berserker rage that Vikings were so famous for.

I knew that if I went for the hammer too soon, he’d beat me to it and—remembering there wasn’t a weapon clause in this fight—would pick it up and tenderize my already mushy, soft body.

But given how he was huffing and puffing, maybe exhausting him was an option after all. Then Thor went for a kidney shot, his pinky pointing to the right, but at the last second he kicked, the sole of his foot connecting with my stomach and sending me flying backward.

Thor smiled, any frustration gone from his face. And any exhaustion that had been painting his face was gone, too. Lifting his pinky, he wiggled it. “I see my brother told you about my little finger.”

I turned to Loki, who doubled over in laughter.

“The same trick worked with the Frost Giants,” Thor said, walking over to me with his palm open.

Given that the breath had been knocked out of me, I did little to get out of the way. I mean, I tried, but alas, both will and flesh were weak. As he spun me round and round over his head, I relished the brief rest I got before he threw me against the mountain’s face.

He walked over to me like he had all the time in the world. “Despite what the myths say, Loki and I are brothers. Yes, we have our differences, but he is still my brother. He would never betray me, especially not to a human, and—”

But before the Norse god could finish whatever ode he was singing to his loyal brother, there was a mighty thunderous crack as Bella picked up his hammer and slammed it into his chest.

Thor might have been the God of Lightning, but Bella was the thunder.

FRIGHTENING GODS WITH OLD FLAMES

Bella hit Thor square in the chest and sent the god flying back against the other side of the valley wall with a thunderous boom. I know my wife … she’s strong, but not that strong. Seems that even though Loki was lying about the tell, he wasn’t kidding about the hammer. So much for brotherly love.

And so much for us, too. As soon as Thor hit the wall, the other gods turned on us, pointing accusatory fingers. “Not fair. You cheated.”

“Did not,” I said in a tone that was bit too childish for my liking. I guess they were rubbing off on me. “There was nothing in the rules about weapons. That was fair and square.”

“The rules were implied,” Zeus boomed.

“Were they?” Judith cut in, her voice dripping with condescension. “Just like they were implied all the times you seduced women, pretending to be their husbands?”

Athena laughed.

“Oh no, you don’t get a pass, young lady,” Judith said. “Not after you were so nasty to Medusa. You know what you did.”

Athena held her head down in shame.

Then Judith pointed at the others. “What about you, Loki? When you broke your promise to Thiazi, a promise that got that poor giant burnt to death. And where were the rules when you two gave in to temptation, hmph? Adam, Eve? Were you two following the rules when you ate from the Tree of Good and Evil and condemned all of humanity to an eternity of … of this? I don’t think so.”

Holy mythology, Batman, I thought. Judith really knew her stuff. I mean, I knew a lot about myth, fables and legends, but that was because my job—well, former job—demanded it. You couldn’t hunt down creatures of myth without knowing their backgrounds. Well, you could, but knowing that a hobgoblin could not deny the allure of a good riddle or that a wendigo was terrified of fire tended to give you an edge in a life-or-death fight.

But Judith? All this time I thought she was just an ignorant, head-in-the-sand, judgmental mother-in-law who hated the new order of things. Now I had to upgrade her to a knowledgeable, judgmental mother-in-law who hated the new order of things.

Still, judging by the way the gods diverted their gazes, looking at the ground and kicking their feet in the dirt in the collective shame of all the times they’d broken the rules for their own gain, Judith’s chiding was working. Good Judith!

And from the way her lips slightly curled at the edges, she knew it, too. And then she did the classic mistake when trying to save yourself from an ass-whooping: she pushed it too far. “So if none of you follow the rules, why should we?”

I didn’t immediately see the mistake in those words until Athena’s eyes perked up. Up until that point, she had been folding her arms across her chest as her head hung low, but as soon as Judith’s last rebuke left her lips, the damn Goddess of Wisdom looked up at us and said the three words that changed everything. “Because we’re gods.”

That was the only excuse they needed, and as soon as those words left her lips, the gaggle of kids all ceased being ashamed as crackles of power coursed through them.

So much for “Go Judith.”

↔

The little gang of pint-sized gods charged us as one, each of their undersized bodies sizzling with magic far too great to come in such small packages. I pulled out my sword, Bella readied Thor’s hammer and Marty hissed. Judith glared at the charging gods, lifting her fist to the ready.

This was it—we were going to go down swinging (and scowling). As far as ends go, this wasn’t horrible … I mean, how many of us get to check out fighting a god? Or even a group of ankle-biter gods?

That was respectable, too.

And just as they were about to descend on us, I heard several swooshes followed by childish exclamations of “Ow!” as several of them slapped their necks like swatting at flies. Not that I knew what happened, or cared. Right now, I was considering cutting off one of Shiva’s arms.

But just as Shiva was about to swing down on me, she face-planted on the ground and—fell asleep?

“What the—?” I started when Zeus, Baldr, Anguta, Nanook and Eve all simultaneously dropped. Their sudden fall was followed by another mighty swing of Thor’s hammer that sent Enlil and Chinnamasta flying.

“No fair, no fair, no fair! You are—” Athena yelled before slapping her own neck and promptly passing out.

The other gods, seeing their friends drop like flies, stopped their advance and began slowly backing away. Then Anubis growled, “What kind of magic is this?”

“Whatever it is,” Adam said, “we better get out of here.”

“Isis,” Odin said, “take us home.”

The Egyptian god nodded as whirlwinds of energy emanated from the ground, lifting the slumbering gods and whisking them away from where they were to … to, well, presumably their home. And in a flash, we were alone.

I didn’t know what happened. We had been saved by a miracle or divine intervention or karma or whatever else you call it when the impossible happens.

But the trouble with miracles, divine intervention and karma is that they were principles in short supply these days. And we were in Hell, which made them particularly rare. Whatever had saved us was something else. Something more ethereal, something—

Marty hissed. Looking behind me for the first time since the gods had tucked their tails between their legs and ran, I saw exactly what had saved us.

It wasn’t divine intervention or karma, but it was a miracle of sorts. For standing in a grotto in the cliff face’s wall stood Medusa, her bow at the ready. She had what I was sure was a poison-tipped arrow pointed right at us.

Well, not us. Following the tip to its intended target, I saw exactly who Medusa meant to fell with her next arrow. Bella.

PART XVI

EARTH

Conner returns from the prison island with the children. Their ship is guided into the harbor by three myarids who guard the vessel with all their power. There isn’t a force on Earth that can hurt them as long as they are on the ship.

But the same isn’t true once they dock. On land, so much can harm them. So Conner does something that he knows will cost him his badge: he calls the Paradise Lot Police Station and summons every officer he can find to the dock.

On arrival, they are greeted by the archangel Michael, the Billy Goats Gruff, valkyrie, centaurs and troll officers. Human officers, too.

Miral, the angel of Heaven-turned-doctor, stands on the boat’s deck holding Conner’s hand. His grip is warm, and given the great ordeal she has gone through, his hand shouldn’t be as comforting as it is. But holding him and standing next to him brings her peace, and it is at that moment she finally admits something to herself she has longed denied. She loves Conner. She loves him in the only way an angel knows how—completely, utterly, with every fiber of her being.

One by one the children are taken off the boat, and one by one, Miral treats the children. Yes, she is hurt, but she is also a doctor who took a solemn oath to aid those in need. She will put aside her own pain until the last of the children are treated.

The process is long and arduous, but none of the children are seriously hurt. Their wounds run deeper than any cut, for all these children now know that there are monsters in the world. So many horrible monsters.

One by one, the parents are called. And one by one, Miral is there to reunite the children with their families.

Each embrace is different, and each embrace is the same.

Different words are used, different tears cried. The tightness of the hugs vary, and the number of kisses.

But they are all the same; each parent is overcome with relief and love.

Miral watches the humans with their offspring, and she rubs her own belly. At that moment, she does not feel joy. Another, much uglier emotion fills her heart—jealousy.

The gods … her God … denied Others the ability to have offspring of their own. This was part of the gift bestowed upon her kind when the gods departed.

Mortality and infertility.

In other words, a slow and final death.

Miral sends off the last of the children. As she closes her office, she wonders how it is that the gods were so cruel.

↔

But Miral is an angel. What’s more, she is a soldier of Heaven. Her self-pity is short-lived, and with the last of the children reunited with their parents, she turns to the archangel Michael to discuss more immediate issues.

Michael was her commander when they were soldiers in Heaven. Now that Heaven is closed and they are both mortal, Michael has become something else to Miral. He has become a friend.

“My archangel Michael,” Miral says in her formal manner reserved for the gravest matters.

“My angel Miral,” Michael responds.

“The kidnapping of the human children will not go unanswered, and our greatest fear is upon us. War is here.”

Michael nods.

“We are faced with a choice: fight for the humans or fight for the Others.” She looks at Conner as she speaks. The human stands on the dock, wrapped in a blanket. She knows that if she has to choose, she will choose him. Not the Others. Not the humans. Only him.

Michael sighs. “True, but the advent of war will be slow. We have time.”

“We have time,” Miral agrees. “But the choice will remain the same. Humans or Others?”

Michael clenches his fists before unfurling his wings, the angel’s way of expressing great frustration. Miral watches with envy as his magnificent wings span several yards in each direction. She has been hobbled; without significant care, she will never fly again.

Not that Michael knows this. All he knows is his own anger. After several seconds with his wings outstretched, he wraps them around himself. “Both. We fight for both.”

“How?”

“By following His word.”

“He is gone. So is His word.”

Michael growls. “Our God may no longer be with us, but His word lives on. We fight for both with love in our hearts for both humans and Others. Equally. And that love will guide us in every decision we make.”

“You wait for love to guide you. See where that gets you. I, on the other hand, would rather prepare.”

Michael growls again, his voice like the rolling thunder of a thousand lightning strikes. “Careful.”

“No, I will not be admonished by you for speaking my mind. Such lofty principles may have once guided us, but they do not now. Now we must follow another tenant, another set of laws—our own. I will prepare for what is coming. So should you. And when the drums of war finally beat at our doorstep, I will fight. But I will not fight for both humans or Others. I will not fight for both. I will fight for myself.”

Michael watches as Miral turns on her heel, walking away before he can answer. She is angel. And angels do what their hearts dictate. And few hearts are purer than hers.

As soon as her anger is tempered by time and rest and a chance to heal, she will change her mind. Of this Michael is sure.

But seeing her walk away, his uncertainty wavers and is replaced by cautious hope.

↔

That night, Conner washes Miral, dabbing her wounded wings with hot, wet towels and disinfectant. He dresses her wounds as best he can, and when she asks how deep Jean’s blade went, he lies, telling her that it’s little more than a flesh wound.

The truth is, Conner can see bone. He knows that nothing short of a miracle will let her fly again.

She knows he is lying, too, and she loves him all the more for it.

As exhausted as they both are, that night they make love for the first time. They have known each other before, but this is the first time Miral envelops him with everything in her heart. Completely, totally, entirely.

After their lovemaking is complete, they lie together, holding one another in silent joy. She knows that she shouldn’t be so happy. War is coming. Her wings are now a useless carcass that she is condemned to carry (We all have our crosses to bear, she silently mocks). Tomorrow is not filled with hope. Tomorrow is filled with dread.

Still, she is joyous. She is happy. She is at peace.

Because of him. Because of her Conner.

As sleep takes them both, Miral thinks of the love that those parents and children shared on the dock. She rubs her belly, silently wishing that she and Conner could be blessed, too.

To be so would be Heaven.

MARC’S STORY—PART 1

The three forms of Hecate watch as the human who killed their husband lands a helicopter on the field in front of his lair. They lurk as the fiend helps two fae creatures depart from the metal dragon before walking into a castle lacking a moat, a drawbridge—even lacking turrets manned by archers or mages. Rather, his castle has a glass door that turns around and around, letting anyone inside, be they friend or enemy.

Such arrogance. The thought imbues all three of their minds at once, for even though Hecate is of three bodies, she is of one mind, one soul … one heart.

Once upon a time, Hecate was the goddess of the hunt. The protector, the predator of night. Each of her forms represents a different phase of the moon, and thus a different kind of hunt.

Her first form—the physical representation of the new moon—is a woman of impossible brightness, whose very shape is hidden within the shifting light of her being. She is the youngest of the three, and perhaps the most innocent. Pointing at this fiend’s castle (what did the human who helped them find the fiend call it … a hotel?) she says to her other selves, “Such bravado. Does this human truly believe himself so strong, so invulnerable that he needs no walls of stone to keep his enemies out?”

The laelapses by her side growl, exposing teeth far too sharp and long for their otherwise doglike appearance.

Hecate’s second form, who represents the half-moon, lifts her sword, its crescent blade’s tip following the human as he walks inside. “Careful, his frail form is deceiving. He is, after all, the one who dispatched our Erlking.”

As soon as the words leave her lips, the three forms remember what this human did to their king, their husband. They recall how he engaged in one-on-one battle with the Erlking and how, with a stroke of impossible will, managed to fell the demigod.

Perhaps his arrogance is well deserved, they think. For one capable of ending one such as the Erlking is certainly a creature of great power.

But then they recall the battle and know that the human defeated the Erlking partly with skill, partly with power … but mostly with luck. Their king—their husband—underestimated this human, believing the talking monkeys to be weak and easy prey. He let the human get close, let his guard down. It wasn’t the human who defeated the Erlking … the Erlking defeated himself, allowing his arrogance and pride to dictate the course of battle.

“You old fool,” the third form whispers. She is the spirit of the fading moon, a creature of impossible darkness whose form is hidden by the shadows that ebb and flow around her.

Hecate, in all her forms, is a spirit now lost in this GoneGod World. Once a goddess, they were worshipped as the protectors of the home. They were the deity of the wild hunt, a spirit as revered and powerful as Athena herself. But then they did something foolish, something that has ended many lives and, in truth, will eventually be the end of them.

They fell in love.

Not with a god, but with a lesser creature of great power. The King of Elves, the Lord of the Hunt … the Erlking.

Oh, if only it had been lust or passion, instead of the burning altar of love, things would have been easier. Better. But Hecate’s heart yearned for this immortal elf and, sacrificing their godhood, they became creatures of the hunt, forever destined to stand by his side on the Wild Hunt.

But then the gods left, and they were all four made mortal. What’s more, this human monster ended their husband’s life before his allotted time in this GoneGod World had expired, denying them a mortal lifetime together.

“You old fool,” she repeats, and as the words escape her lips, so does a single tear.

Lifting her finger to her cheek, she captures the tear before flicking it away in disgust.

“You old fool,” she repeats a third time, her voice no longer sad, but filled with enough rage to rival a hurricane. “You allowed this lesser being to kill you. And this night, my three forms shall avenge you. For this night, the hunt begins.”

The three forms look at each other, nodding in unison, before the fading moon lifts her hands in the air. “Let the hunt begin with darkness.”

OTHERME IS YUMMY

Marc flies the Apache helicopter into Paradise Lot and is amazed when no one says or does anything. The military helicopter’s radio is silent. Nor does any Other take to the sky to see who or what is flying the damn thing. Silence is all that greets him.

Silence and apathy.

“This is a contradiction I will never understand,” he mutters to himself.

Over the rushing of the helicopter blades, he hears someone cry out the words, “Excuse me?”

Turning, he looks at the Others he is ferrying—a changeling, a pixie and a monster-under-your-bed. Searching Jean’s memories, he knows all three to be innocent victims in the little drama that just unfolded. He also knows that even though they have been rescued from the prison, their troubles are just beginning.

“What did you say?” repeats the changeling.

Marc shakes his head. “I was simply commenting on the contradiction that is common to all life—humans and Others alike.”

“And what’s that?” the changeling asks.

“The fact that we are on the brink of war. And despite that, I fly a warbird here and no one seems to care.”

The three Others look around, confirming Marc’s observation. No Others in the sky, no human squawks on the radio. “Why do you think that is?” the changeling asks.

“Because everyone thinks it’s someone else’s responsibility to investigate. Worse, they convince themselves that someone else is investigating. But when it’s always someone else’s responsibility, then it becomes no one’s responsibility.” As the words come out of him, he remembers his Popup— No, that isn’t right. Jean’s PopPop said the same words. He said the same expression over and over again throughout their—Jean’s—childhood. Maybe that is why Jean … and now Marc … will always investigate. They were raised never to trust that others would take responsibility. Marc shakes his head in disgust. “I will never understand such apathy.”

“I don’t know,” the changeling beams, “I’m kind of grateful that no one is pursuing us. It’s a change of pace.” She sighs in the exaggerated way common to the fae.

“I disagree,” Marc says, quiet enough that the rush of the helicopter blades buries his words. “For it is apathy that led us here. The apathy of humans, of Others … and of the gods.”

↔

Marc pilots the Apache to the only field he can think of that is large enough to house such a monstrous metal bird: the gardens of the Millennium Hotel. He lands the bird and once the blades settle, he exits the cockpit.

The Others are already standing on the field. They look at him with expectant eyes. He knows that they believe him to be their guardian (yet more shirking of responsibility), and so they stand around like mindless drones, awaiting their next order.

Marc would like nothing more than to set them free so that he may—what? Start living a life that isn’t his? Forge ahead as Marc Matthias, anomaly-cum-human? He isn’t sure what that future would look like for him.

So, he follows the old script of his upbringing. He also remembers the words he—rather, Jean—once uttered: “My name is Jean-Luc Matthias and my doors shall forever be open to the lost and frightened, the poor and homeless. And as for those with evil in their hearts? Beware! For the human Jean-Luc stands watch.”

Well he is Marc Matthias, and although those words were uttered by his other self, they are still his words.

He gestures for them to enter the hotel.

“You will stay here until we find a safe house.”

The three Others breathe a simultaneous sigh of relief as they follow their strange savior into the hotel well known for welcoming Others in need.

LUST IS ENOUGH

Marc enters the hotel. With memories he knows are not his own, he finds keys for the three fugitive Others. They will all stay in one room near an exit; should the authorities come, they will have an escape route. He explains this and watches as they climb the central stairwell outlining the foyer.

As they climb the spiraling stairs, he notes the carving on the first balcony’s guardrail—an intricate portrait depicting a great hunt. Searching Jean’s memories, he tries to find a thought about the mural, but uncovers nothing. Seems Jean never thought much of the stairwell’s carving.

Marc’s thoughts, on the other hand, go to perhaps his greatest battle … the day he took down the Erlking and claimed his hunting sword as his own. Yes, it was Jean’s body that delivered the final blow, but it was Marc’s determination, confidence and willpower that won the day.

Jean’s other self isn’t sure why he thought of that day. Perhaps because he knows that the essence of him is what won that day for Jean. He knows that whatever he is, he represents the relentless warrior residing within Jean’s quirky bones. For Marc is the undoubting, unwavering, sure part of Jean. And the part of the Jean that stayed with his other self—the part that is full of doubt and questioning—isn’t in him. Marc wonders if freedom from such things is a boon or a curse.

And not knowing, he wishes to test himself in renewed battles to see what he is capable of when free of Jean’s doubt.

The Others scamper up to their room, happy to have found a sanctuary. They have deluded themselves into believing they’re safe. They are anything but … and their stay here is only a reprieve from the coming storm. Marc will have to find them another shelter, train them to stay hidden, perhaps find a network that hides the wayward and unjustly pursued.

And what if such a network doesn’t exist?

Marc shakes his head, making his way behind the mahogany desk that acts as a reception. He briefly pauses beside the desk, reminding himself that he may not be Jean, but he is from Jean, which in some strange way grants him ownership of this place.

Walking around the circular reception, he hesitates in front of the chair. It is marred by time and neglect, tears and stains, does not belong in such a grand place. This magnificent desk deserves a regal, plush leather chair. Something with gravitas. Searching his memories, he knows he retrieved this chair from a dumpster, its previous owner abandoning it for reasons only the GoneGods know.

He just hopes it’s not because someone peed on it. Then he remembers scrubbing the damn thing—rather, he remembers Jean scrubbing the damn thing—and sits down.

Shaking his head, Marc wonders how long Jean’s memories will take their toll on him. “Until I create enough of my own,” he muses, confident that in time, the duality of his being will fade. It must … or he will lose his mind.

Letting out a long sigh, he forces his mind to focus on other, more tangible problems. What to do with the fae? They can’t stay here for long, nor can he turn them away. But there is nowhere for them to go, and he considers building them a network.

But a network comprised of different Others from different pantheons will be difficult. For one thing, they do not trust each other. Ironic that the fae are wary of the Norse, when both fae and Norse are hunted by the same enemy.

Too much distrust. Too many simply concerned with their own survival. Marc shudders at the realization that without cohesion—without unity—nothing will improve. And no one will survive.

Well, no Other will survive.

The humans have banded together against a common enemy: mythical creatures created by their once-upon-a-time gods. And even though the humans were created by the same gods as the Others—which, in a way, makes these mythical creatures their brothers and sisters, or at least long-lost cousins—they didn’t care. As far as humans were concerned, this was their Earth and these invaders didn’t belong.

“The one upshot to war,” Marc mutters to himself, “is at least the Others will have to band together.” Then, setting his feet atop the mahogany desk, he adds, “Unity.”

“Unity,” a sultry voice calls from the third-floor landing. “I’m all about unity.”

↔

Marc doesn’t need to look up to know who’s speaking. It’s Astarte, the succubus who lives in his—rather, Jean’s—hotel. She is a creature who, before the gods left, drew her nourishment from sex. Now that the gods are gone, she trades sex for money, which in turn she uses for shelter, food and other amenities.

Not much has changed for her, Marc thinks, rising to his feet.

“Something is different about you, lover,” Astarte says.

Marc starts up the stairs, drawn to the demi-god of lust. She is like a siren, and her presence is her song.

“You walk with more … swagger.”

Marc doesn’t say anything, continuing up the stairs toward Astarte. When he finally makes it to the third-floor landing, he looks into her deep brown eyes and—

How strange, he thinks, I remember her eyes to be blue. Not brown, but …

It takes him a long second to realize what is happening. Astarte is a creature of desire and she takes on the traits most desired by those lusting after her. Bella had blue eyes and so Jean desires that color.

But Marc … Marc’s preference is brown. Why? He’ll have to consider this later, and takes comfort that there are some differences between him and his other self.

Then, seeing her sultry, slender body, her perky, small breasts and her impossibly exquisite lips—all traits he remembers her having—he realizes that his taste in women may not be all that different than Jean’s.

“Unity,” Marc says. “There are two fae who need to find a sanctuary, and I fear this hotel is not it.”

“ ‘Unity?’ ‘Sanctuary?’ ‘Fear this hotel is not it?’ It seems more than your gait has changed. What happened on that island?” Astarte looks her friend over, her beautiful brown eyes softening with concern, and for a moment Marc doesn’t see her as a creature of desire, but as the friend she is.

Then he notices her tongue ring and his mind is drawn to everything else she can do with her mouth.

“Much happened there,” Marc says simply, seeing no reason to rehash the past. What was done was done. Training his eyes on Astarte, he points to the upper floors. “And all that matters now is helping the fae upstairs. They are wanted by the authorities. Well, they will be wanted as soon as anyone of power realizes what happened.”

Astarte tilts her head in confusion, like someone trying to recall an old memory or place a face not seen for a long, long time. “You still care, so it is still you, but you are so ...” She lets the words trail off into an unspoken oblivion as she pulls out a cigarette and lighter from the GoneGods know where.

Marc notices her hesitation as she strikes the flame and draws its heat toward the exposed tobacco. Then he remembers that in a situation like this, Jean would normally say something like, “No smoking” or, “You know the rules.” But seeing the succubus ignite the cigarette is so sensual that he cannot bring himself to mimic his other self’s pedantic ways.

Astarte, seeing that he will not protest, lights the cigarette before saying, “There are people—well, Others—I know who might be able to protect them. I can ask them, if you like?”

“And they will help in exchange for …?”

“What is due to them.” Astarte curls a lip. “And what is due is always the same when dealing with me.” As if accentuating her words, a moan echoes from inside her room, and Marc knows that there are several people receiving their “due” right now.

Seeing Marc’s interest, Astarte says, “I owe you rent. I have an envelope of money, as per usual. There is also a bonus payment inside, if you like.” She touches his chest, a nimble finger finding its way beneath the collar of his shirt.

Marc does not draw away. Astarte, surprised by his lack of withdrawal, goads him with, “Unless, of course, you still prefer love over lust?”

“Love?” Marc pronounces the word as though it’s from a foreign tongue. As he does so, he searches his memories—or rather, Jean’s memories—for all the times love has betrayed him. There was Bella, of course, but as different as Marc is from Jean, even he cannot deny the taste of that emotion when it comes to him.

Then there was Medusa. That wasn’t love—not yet, at least. That was the potential of love. The promise of love. And that promise was broken the day she sacrificed herself for the good of others.

Astarte is right, he muses. Love has cost my other self much. Pushing the door a bit wider to see more of the writhing bodies inside, he shakes his head. “I don’t have a problem with lust …”

Astarte raises a curious, igniting eyebrow. “Who are you?”

“I am exactly who I need to be.”

“Then, Human Jean-Luc Matthias, perhaps just this once you will give lust a chance.” Astarte steps closer to the human she still believes to be Jean, allowing her impossibly perfect body to brush up against his. As she does so, she widens the door even more to reveal several bodies in the throes of passion. “Perhaps, just this once, lust is what you need?”

Normally a human—or an Other, even—would be distraught, unsure of who or what to focus on: the demi-goddess of lust or the pile of bodies promising incredible passion? But Marc knows exactly what he wants as he removes his jacket.

With a smile that would stop a charging bull, Marc pushes past the succubus. “Yes, perhaps it is.”

This is a start, he muses as he slowly undresses. The start to me making memories of my own.

SEX ISN’T THE ONLY GAME WE’LL PLAY TONIGHT

When the fucking is done—because that’s exactly what it was—Marc sits up on the bed, looking at the mess of flesh vying for their places on the mattress. Soft snores accompany the bodies that have not fully detached, still exhausted by the evening’s festivities. And although Marc has known these figures, he looks at them for the first time, realizing that not everyone in the mix is human. Rubbing his eyes, he notes that, in fact, only one is. Well, two if Marc is human—something he’s not entirely sure of.

Hints of sunlight stream through the open window as Marc stands. Only he and Astarte are awake. She, because this is her lot in life and such connections only serve to energize her.

But how it is that Marc stands, neither are sure. Certainly no human should be so spry—not after the experiences of the night before.

“Who are you?” Astarte lights another cigarette without hesitation this time.

“I already told you,” Marc says. “I am who I need to be.”

Astarte sways her head back and forth. “I’ve now gotten a taste of what Jean has so often complained about … the cryptic answers of Others.” She points the cherry of her cigarette at Marc, an invitation to continue speaking.

Marc chuckles. It is true that Jean often lamented Others’ propensity for obfuscating their answers. It drove him mad with frustration. But Marc does not find the opaqueness of speech nearly as bothersome. He doesn’t, because he sees something Jean never did: the truth is rarely one thing, and trying to encapsulate it in a single statement is impossible.

Others may speak in riddles, but their turns of phrase carry far more truth than any direct statement could.

Seeing that, he repeats his answer. “I am who I need to be.”

“And who you need to be is one separate from Jean?” Astarte answers. She is the demigoddess of lust, and this is not her first riddle.

“Separating from Jean. He and I are still one, but with every experience, every breath, every evening like this”—he points at the mattress littered with sleeping bodies—“I am becoming something else. I …” He smiles as he thinks about Penemue, the fallen drunk of an angel. What would he say about Marc’s constantly changing state? Ahh, yes, that’s right … “I keep evolving,” Marc says with a grin.

Astarte nods. “And where is Jean now?”

Marc shrugs. “Still on the island, I suspect. Still questioning every move he makes as he desperately tries to do what’s right.”

“And you? Do you struggle? Are you desperate to do what’s right?”

“Partly. I’m just as compelled to do what’s right, but I have yet to understand why. But as for the struggle, the desperation … I feel none of that.”

“No,” Astarte says, dropping her cigarette in a half-drunk glass of wine. The cherry hisses to silence and with a final puff of smoke, turns to ash. “You are not conflicted, are you? You are—”

But before she can finish her thought, the world goes dark.

The rising sun is no more.

↔

“What the …?” Marc starts as his instincts—or rather, Jean’s instincts—kick in. There is no way this is natural.

Gazing over the bodies on the bed, the creatures passed out, Marc considers if any of them could have done this. Perhaps as some playful ploy to enhance round two. Darken this room so that the participants must feel their way around the room. But everyone is so exhausted that the possibility of another round is impossible to fathom, even for Marc, who has never felt better in his—albeit short—life.

No, whatever has caused this is not coming from this room. It is coming from elsewhere.

Astarte and Marc stand in the pitch black of her room. All he can hear is Astarte fumbling for something before he hears a spark followed by a flame that illuminates her face.

A face, Marc notes, painted with concern. She, too, must have sensed the unnaturalness of this and drawn the same conclusion.

They are under attack.

The other thing Marc notices is that although Astarte’s lighter shows her face, it does so in a dampened, almost muted fashion. What’s more, it shows little else, the rest of the room just as dark as before she was able to create a light source. Whatever magic dampens the light of the rising sun, it also stops any other light from shining bright or reaching far.

“What is happening?” Astarte says. She adds, “Whoever is doing this is burning through a hell of lot of time. They have to be, because darkness magic like this is costly.”

Marc nods in agreement—not that Astarte can see this—as he searches his mind, or rather Jean’s, for some clue as to what this is. Already he feels his connection with his other self severing; drawing upon the other’s memories is becoming harder and harder to do.

But some things are hard to forget. Marc recalls a single, terrifying memory of a time Jean encountered this kind of magic. It was during a hunt.

No, not a hunt, for that implies Jean was the hunter. It was when he was being hunted by a creature so fearsome that the gods themselves once tried to lock him away. But that is another story. What Marc recalls is the fear that Jean felt as the creature—the … Erlking—cast similar magic to impede Jean’s attempts to escape.

But how did that battle end? With Jean victorious. Of that much Marc is certain. Jean defeated the Erlking, taking his hunting sword as a trophy. So whoever is casting this magic is either using a trick out of his playbook, or the Erlking wasn’t as dead as Jean thought him to be.

Either way, Marc cannot indulge in any more recollections, for the room fills with the low bass hum of growling dogs.

HOUNDS, HUNTRESSES AND HATE

Marc may be blind, but he is far from helpless. He listens for the coming attack.

He hears the soft padding of the laelaps’s feet as it moves along the hotel room’s carpet. Then there is an almost imperceptible crouching sound, followed by nothing. Marc knows the creature is in the air, leaping at one of its intended targets, but he cannot tell who …

Will the beast attack him or Astarte? Or perhaps someone on the bed? There is no way to tell, but rather than be paralyzed by doubt or second-guessing, Marc charges toward Astarte. Pushing her down, he simultaneously kicks behind him while throwing his arm into a backhanded swing.

His foot flies wildly through empty air, but his hand connects with fur and teeth, knocking the doglike creature to the side.

No longer seeing Astarte, Marc says, “Get on the bed, form a perimeter and get ready.”

She doesn’t speak, but the rustling movement tells him that Astarte is doing exactly that. As soon as she is on the bed, several of the once writhing bodies begin to stir. A deep, baritone voice that Marc only heard grunt the night before asks, “What’s going on?”

In response, a howl sounds as two more clawed feet enter the room. He also hears the first laelaps stir. Marc’s blow was heavy enough to stun it, but from the way it growled, he knows that the creature is not out of the fight.

Three of them, he thinks. Three. And from the way they move, he doubts they are as blind as him. Or if they are, then the dark doesn’t hinder them.

Closing his eyes—as useless as they are now—Marc crouches, trying to determine which way the door is. He knows that if his back is to the bed, the door is to his left. He is sure that this is the Erlking or one of his many followers attacking. Or perhaps it is another Other wishing to claim the Erlking’s status as the greatest hunter of all by felling the one who killed the Elf King.

But I’m not the one who killed him, he thinks, knowing such a pathetic defense will not serve him in this battle.

Deserved or not, this is his fight, and if he can’t get out of the room, then the innocents behind him will be punished for something his other self did a long, long time ago.

Focusing on where he thinks the doorway must be, he thrusts his body forward. But the doorway is small, and as he throws his body through its narrow pathway, his shoulder hits the doorframe with a bone-crunching thud; he hears his collarbone crack. Grimacing in pain, he fumbles out the door when two of the doglike beast charge at him.

He tries to get of the way, but blind as he is, it’s luck of the draw whether feinting right or left will do anything. Marc chooses right. A poor choice; one of the dogs slams into him as another clamps down on his wrist with crushing force.

Much to his surprise, Marc does not scream. Despite the enormity of the pain, he makes little show of it. This is so unlike Jean who, having suffered lesser injuries in the past, would have screamed like a fresh baby just out of the womb.

The second dog still clamps onto him, and before the first can leap away from Marc to resume its attack, he grabs it and does the only thing he can think of. He runs for the floor’s railing and throws himself over the edge.

↔

Falling into darkness is far more terrifying than falling with light. With light, one can see the approaching ground, ready themselves for the inevitable impact. But in the dark, the hard ground can come at any moment, and even though the fall is brief and the ground is near, Marc feels fear for the first time since coming into existence.

He’s not afraid of the pain. He knew what this fall would cost him before he tumbled over the edge.

What he fears is the uncertainty. That is what grips his soul—should he have one. And with every nanosecond he spends falling, he wonders if this will be the moment of impact. When it is not, his fear cycles back. Will this be the moment of impact?

Will this be it?

Will this be it?

Until it finally is. Marc feels relief as the breath is knocked out of him and the familiar pain of his body hitting marble washes over him. He relishes that; he would gladly jump off a hundred buildings than deal with that uncertainty again.

That, and Marc is no fool. During the fall, Marc twisted his body so that the laelaps would hit the ground first, his bony body acting as a cushion to his fall.

The laelaps that had bitten his wrist detached during the fall, and with a whimpering yelp, hit the ground several feet away. But the one Marc gripped made no noise as it hit the ground.

Well, no noise came from its fang-filled lips. There was a splattering sound, accented by the crushing of bones and flesh as its body flattened under the weight of Marc’s own.

“One down, two hurt, and I’m just getting started,” Marc says as he gets to his feet. He tries to access just how injured he is: his wrist, his shoulder, bruises from the fall. Feeling around, he looks for any more punctures on his body. He knows that the adrenaline of battle would hide any wounds. He can’t feel anything—just the soft, gushy mess of the laelaps’s body caking his own.

As he considers his next move, Marc hears a scream followed by a blinding light filling the room.

↔↔↔

Hecate’s new moon form sends her hounds into the hotel and up the stairwell. Despite being made of light, her sister’s magic is so complete that New Moon finds it difficult to see. She knows that she must end the foul human quickly, for with every passing second that her other self maintains the magic, she too ages.

And thus death draws nearer. How ironic, she thinks, if this day we manage to end the human, only to die of old age in our efforts.

She puts the thought out of her mind; her hounds will make short work of this human. With his death, they will finally be able to move on and find their place in this GoneGod World.

Her hounds are just as blind as their prey, but they are Hecate’s. They are used to hunting in such conditions, and long ago learned to use the less deceptive sense of smell when seeking out their prey.

She hears them in the room, feels their rage as they attack the human and one other inside. Perhaps this will be a swift victory. Then, from the door bursts forth the human, one of the hounds in his arms. Another clamps down on his wrist as the three tumble over the edge of the stairwell and falls to the ground below. With a deafening thud, she watches as one of her loyal beasts is crushed into oblivion.

Bastard, she thinks.

Illuminating the hotel, she blinds the human and reveals her location. Then, pulling out a mace made from the very star that hung on Orion’s belt, she charges forth.

NEW MOON, NO MOON

Marc turns to see a hooded figure standing before him. Despite the impossible, blinding brightness, he’s able to focus on the center of the halo, as if part of this creature’s magic is to be able to see her face even as the rest of the world is denied to him.

And the face he sees? It’s unmistakable. Marc recognizes that face, but he doesn’t know where from. Her features would be marvelous—high cheekbones, kind eyes, beautiful and inviting lips—if they weren’t contorted in fury and anger. Marc searches Jean-Luc’s memories, trying to find any clue as to who she may be. But he knows that he has never met her before. She is a new player, but still someone from his past; how he knows this, he is not sure. She is someone he has never met, and yet she is entirely familiar.

Despite being blinded, he senses her hand in motion. A second, somehow even brighter light appears over her head, and Mark knows that she wields a weapon. He does not stand still to figure out what kind of weapon; now is the time to move.

Making his way to the stairwell behind the elevators, Marc heads downstairs. One flight down is an exit outside, and he figures if he can only get to the helicopter, he can use the heavy, mounted gun to level the playing field. He may not be able to see his target, but when you’re spraying your surroundings with heavy shells, all you really have to do is get close.

But before he can make it outside, another one of those damn dogs jumps on his back. How many are there? Marc wonders as he tumbles down the second flight of stairs into the dining hall below.

↔

Marc knows that he needs to get outside—out in the open—if he wants a chance at surviving the night. But a monstrous hound stands between him and the closest exit. To escape from any other place would require running through the basement of Jean’s hotel, in the dark, moving while using only his hands to feel around and the memories of another man to guide his path.

Marc doesn’t like the odds of success. The only other alternative is to stand his ground and fight the hound, so he tilts his head to listen for it.

It is behind him and to the left, about ten steps up. Given the angle of the stairwell’s descent and the three yards between them, he is sure the hound will cease to pursue him on foot, instead leaping from its vantage point onto his back.

Of course, he has no way of knowing this. He is not facing the hound and even if he was, his sight is oppressed by this magical darkness. But Marc is sure that he is right.

The hellhound’s location, its next move … Marc simply knows. Just as he also knows that these hellhounds can see in the dark.

And he knows that sight in such circumstances isn’t always an advantage.

Marc takes three more steps. Instead of continuing to run as the hound would expect, he pushes himself to the left, hugging the wall as tightly as he can.

He times it perfectly. The hellhound leaps past him, and because it leapt with the ferociousness intended to knock the human over, it sails past him, knocking itself against the wall.

Marc knows he has two seconds before the hellhound shakes off any injuries it might have sustained and continues its pursuit.

Jean-Luc would run. He would head out the door and try to make it to the helicopter. He would regroup and plan his next move.

But Marc is not Jean-Luc. Last night proved that—and so does his next move.

Leaping from where he stood, he lands hard on the hellhound’s back. How he knew where the hound was, he is not sure. Perhaps he heard where it crashed and aimed for that point. Or maybe his eyes are adjusting enough to the dark to make out the shadows within the shadows.

Or maybe he just knew.

Whatever it was that guided him did so with uncanny accuracy. Marc’s bare feet land on the back of the hellhound’s neck and with a bone-chilling crunch, he hears the beast’s neck snap.

Then he feels it flail around in its death throes. It is dying, but based on its injury, it will be hours before the mercy of death finally takes it. Until then, it will suffer.

“Good,” Marc whispers, walking up the stairs. “I will leave you to your pain. Just one more difference between me and Jean-Luc.”

PART XVII

HELL

Prologue to Part 3—

Penemue fell.

And as he did, he felt an odd sensation of familiarity wash over him.

This wasn’t the first time he’d fallen, and he suspected it wouldn’t be the last.

Still this time was different. This time he did not fall to another divine place made only for gods and their denizens—this time he fell to the mortal plane of Earth. A plane of existence not meant for celestial beings.

So, this is how the world ends … not with a bang or a whimper, but with a fall, he mused to himself.

Penemue fell with his back to the ground, unable to see where he was going. Knowing that the impact would hurt but not kill him, he sought to stop his fall, or at the very least, slow it down. Spreading his wings, Penemue tried to adjust his fall. But he was going too fast and his wings folded up on him, transforming his body from a falling rock to a shooting arrow.

Down, down, down he fell. An angel in freefall—how undignified.

The angel tried to turn himself around. At the very least, he could get into a skydiver’s pose and slow his descent, but he was going too fast to do even that.

Perhaps if he could retract his wings, then—

But all his efforts were in vain, for the distance between the portal from where he resided in Hell and where he’d end up on Earth was shorter than he thought possible.

This was confirmed when his body crashed into an apartment building.

↔

“Oh God,” Penemue muttered to himself as he assessed what had happened.

The building. He hadn’t just crashed through it—he had totaled it, reducing the once tall structure to rubble. His body contained just enough mass to act as an unexploded missile.

His first thought was of his own body. How hurt was he? He touched his side; several broken ribs—oh, and then there was the steel rebar piercing his abdomen. With a grunt that sounded more like a roar, he pulled himself up, and burning a bit a time—seven hours, to be exact—he healed himself just enough to turn his wounds from critical to severe.

The rest would have to heal naturally. He didn’t dare to lose more time; he had already lost so much protecting his library.

Standing—if you could call the agony required to be upright “standing”—he assessed his surroundings. There were no human bodies (or pieces of them) to be seen. That was good. It meant that few humans had been hurt in his fall.

And if he was really lucky, perhaps he had hurt no humans in his fall.

But then Penemue heard a whimper, and knew that he had not been lucky.

Not lucky at all.

↔

Staggering around the corner, the twice-fallen angel saw something that would haunt him to his last days.

A little boy whimpered as he clung to the hand of his dead mother. Penemue searched his mind for this child’s Book of Souls. He was cut off from the writing, but remembered what had been written on the boy’s soul in his first six years.

His name was Newton.

He was damn near a child prodigy, able to play the piano better than most angels.

He had a wonderful, loving mother who, seeing the hand that he clutched onto, was no longer able to take care of him.

“No,” Penemue said as he removed the slab covering her body. In doing so, he saw that he had not just killed Newton’s mother, but his father, too. This good man lay next his wife, his skull cracked open by the falling rubble.

Penemue tried to revive them, to burn some time to bring either of them back. But his fall had ended their lives, and all the time in the world would not bring them back.

He did not have that kind of power.

No one short of a god did.

After he’d carried the young boy from the ruins, he placed them both under an oak tree that stood in front of their once home. Then he cradled the child as Newton lamented the loss of his mother, his father … his home.

↔

It will be years before Penemue sees the boy again. His childhood name may have been Newton, but after years of living on the streets without the guidance of his parents, the boy has renamed himself EightBall.

This boy, this EightBall, is a thug, a gang leader and an Other-hating human.

He is, by all accounts, a monster …

A monster that Penemue created.

And of all the things this twice-fallen angel has done, robbing this boy of his parents and future is what he regrets most.

TEARFUL SERPENTS

Medusa’s arrow pointed at Bella, and I could sense hesitation in her as she considered unlatching her fingers from the bow’s string. Even though I had no doubt that the being who stood in the rock-face grotto was Medusa, she wasn’t the same cutesy, bubble gum-chewing gorgon from Paradise Lot.

This being was far more feral—more tortured. As though the few months of death she had endured had turned her into the fearsome beast before us.

Then again, we were in Penemue’s inferno, so she might have been a construct just like the child-gods we’d faced off against.

But real or not, her arrows would kill Bella just as dead.

“No, don’t!” I put myself between Bella and the gorgon’s dart.

Medusa gave me a confused look, like she didn’t quite understand what or why I had placed myself between her and Bella. But despite her confusion, her bow quivered slightly before she bellowed a mighty scream.

I’d heard that scream once before, when she faced off against Tiamat. It was her war cry and what she had yelled before mummifying a platoon of advancing FrogMen. Her eyes lit up just as they had done on the beach that day. She was getting ready to turn us to stone.

“Look away!” I said. “Whatever you do, whatever happens, don’t look at her.” And not taking my own advice, I continued to hold the gorgon’s gaze with my own.

I truly didn’t know who I was looking at. Was she the Medusa I knew from before? The Paradise Lot beat cop? The caring, loving Medusa? It didn’t look like her. The woman—well, gorgon—standing in the rock-face grotto was more worn, angrier.

But then again, dying and spending some time in Hell just might do that to you.

The person I was staring at was anything but carefree. She wore clothes that she must have scavenged from only the GoneGods knew where, and her normally olive-colored skin was pale, as if her face hadn’t seen the sun in an eternity. She was skinnier, too; her cheekbones were more pronounced, her collarbones protruding out from the rags otherwise covering her shoulders.

And her snakes … they were there. There was even a viper that looked suspiciously like Marty sitting on the crown of her head. But the serpents I knew from Paradise Lot, the ones that both liked and hated me, were alive and filled with personality. They had a will of their own. The way the snakes writhed and wiggled on her head was unnatural, as if they had been programmed to look alive, but weren’t. They reminded me of those autotropic mannequins you saw at Epcot.

Not that I had much time to really look at them. Medusa’s hum continued to grow in its aggressiveness as her eyes lit up with a fiery energy that could have frightened the sun. She was getting ready to turn us all to stone.

Taking a step forward, I did the only thing I could think of when faced when meeting an old friend I’d never expected to see again. I smiled. She might be trying to kill us, but it was still good to see her.

Damn good.

And since I had already consigned myself to dying at the hands of adolescent gods, being turned to stone by someone I actually cared for was a step up in the demise category.

Besides, I didn’t think she actually wanted to kill us. If she did, she would have hit us with a poisonous arrow when we weren’t looking.

“Hi,” I said.

Medusa tilted her head in confusion. Like she wasn’t used to having someone look at her without utter fear on their face. I supposed that was true … before the gods left. Before the GoneGod World and Paradise Lot.

Before me.

In the rush of seeing Medusa and her threatening to petrify us, I forgot about Marty. But of everyone who had never expected to see Medusa again, it was him … And of everyone who would be floored by seeing her, it was the viper.

Marty slithered up my leg and torso until he sat on my shoulder, and staring up at his former host, he hissed—a viper’s way of saying hello. And then I saw something that answered a question I never knew to ask: can snakes cry?

Marty’s eyes welled up as he looked at his former host, his friend ... the one person he loved more than life itself.

And as soon as Medusa saw her former main snake, the gorgon closed her own eyes, and the energy that had been building began to dissipate as she slowly released it into the air around her.

Lifting my hand, I gave her a gentle wave. “Hi,” I said. “It’s good to see you again. Really good.”

Medusa let her bow drop and the stringed construct fell to the earth below. A wail of pain found its way out of her, and she lifted a hand to her mouth as if she was trying to catch her pain and swallow it once more.

But the thing about pain … once you acknowledge it, let it show, there isn’t a force on Earth, Hell or Heaven that can bottle it back up. Medusa let out a cry that broke my heart in a way far more literal than should have been possible.

She cried, and as she did, those strange snakes fell away from her skull, dropping to the ground like the lifeless creations that they were. And Medusa didn’t move, just touched her now bald head and cried harder for yet another thing she had lost. Sure, those snakes might have been a lie, but they were her lie, and after so much suffering, sometimes we need to take comfort in whatever we can … even a lie.

She stood twenty feet above us, so there was nothing I could do but watch. And mourn.

There she was, another person who died because I wasn’t fast enough, strong enough, smart enough to stop the danger before it hit them. Another one of my failures brought back from death, and I was beginning to wonder if Penemue’s Hell wasn’t just for him.

Whether Medusa was real or just another construct of Hell, it didn’t matter ... the creature before us was in pain. Real, uncompromising, unforgiving pain.

Helpless, I approached the cliff face and said the only words I could find. “I’m sorry …” But my words were drowned out by her lamentations.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated over and over again. “I’m so, so sorry.”

WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER FIGHT OVER ME?

We stood like that for a long time, me touching the rock face and repeating words that I had said a thousand times before to the memory of her, while she stood several feet above me, wailing in pain.

And in that time, I never turned to see what Bella or Judith were doing. I was too consumed by the desire to make up for yet another one of my failures. Too consumed by the self-pity I felt in knowing that I never could.

But as is true of all pain, eventually it ebbs enough that we can move on, and as Medusa’s tears died down, my apologies were finally able to float up to her perch.

Whether it was what I said, or the fact that it was me who spoke … or that after all this time in Hell, someone finally recognized her pain, Medusa stopped crying. Wiping away tears, she looked down at me as I stood with my own tear-filled eyes repeating words that I meant from the core of my soul.

Medusa shook her head and pursed her lips. She dropped to the ground, falling the twenty feet as if she had hopped down the last couple steps of a stairwell.

As soon as she was on the ground, Marty leapt from my shoulder and onto her, his forked tongue licking her cheeks as the once immortal snake hissed in a manner that could only be described as extreme joy.

Medusa cradled her former main viper like she might a child, stroking the serpent with a gentle caress that simultaneously expressed great affection and sadness. And as she did, she just stared at us, her eyes strafing over to Bella, then Judith and finally to me.

When her eyes were on me, her lips curled almost imperceptibly, a slight smile meeting her cheeks. No that’s not right—it wasn’t a smile. It was relief. Like she finally saw something that brought her comfort and that comfort was … well, me.

And I knew in that moment, without a doubt, that this was the real Medusa.

Her relief disappeared when her eyes fell once more on Judith, her face returning to a cold, expressionless state. And as for Bella … I believe the expression was “throwing shade.” Her lips would purse before her eyes narrowed, like she was assessing her enemy.

Yes, her emotions were subtle, but they were definitely there. And it kind of made sense, too. Medusa had a major crush on me. Not that I understood why; a catch I am not, but for whatever reason, she was into me. I know because Astarte told me (spicing up her words with all sorts of serpentine references about how Medusa’s snakes augmented the pleasure of, well … I’m blushing just thinking about it).

But I always rejected her advances because I wasn’t ready to date. No, that’s not exactly true. It was because I really liked her, too, and could see it going somewhere with her, but then I’d think of Bella and that just froze me. I had promised to love Bella in this life and next, and even though she was gone, I didn’t know how to move on.

So I’d always make up an excuse not to date Medusa.

Until one day I ran out of those excuses and acquiesced. I agreed to go on a date. One single date. A date on which she died. Casanova hasn’t got anything on me.

But now here she stood. Alive … as was my wife. And we were in Hell.

Together.

With my mother-in-law.

Seriously, Hell really sucks.

But Medusa wasn’t whole. Not like Bella. There was something seriously off about her. She was suffering from some form of PTSD, and given that she was preternatural huntress with incredible magical abilities, that made her dangerous.

My only hope was that my military training, combined with my history and knowledge of Medusa, would allowed me to perceive what was going on in her head before she went all stab-stab, turn-you-to-stone crazy on us.

I also prayed that Bella and Judith didn’t notice the ire in her gaze. And if they did, they wouldn’t have any idea what it was about.

Not that Bella was the jealous type. She knew that I was like a dog chasing a car … if I ever caught one, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. But we had just been reunited, and the last thing I wanted to do was diminish that reunion in any way.

The intricacies of this situation were like a spider’s webbing—every tiny movement would send vibrations through the whole thing.

Holding onto the hope that my relationship with Medusa would miraculously fly under the radar, I left Medusa by the cliff face with Marty. As I walked over to my wife and mother-in-law, I thought about how Judith knew about my one disastrous date with Medusa. But I figured that even she knew better than to bring it up.

Judith hated me, but she wasn’t evil. At least, I didn’t think so.

I walked over slowly, considering what to say. Something about how we needed to keep moving. How Medusa should come with us, and how she saved us, when Bella said, “So, you and the gorgon, huh?”

So much for flying under the radar.

↔

I shot Judith a look, but my mother-in-law threw up her hands like someone surrendering. “I didn’t say a word.”

“She didn’t need to,” Bella said, her face oddly unreadable. I had no idea if she was mad or understanding or …

“Um,” I started—the opening gambit of anyone who’s just realized that their hope of getting away with something is just self-delusion.

Before I could say another word, Judith glided away. Given she had legs again, it was more a shuffle, but it still had that creepy, ghostly quality to it.

“So you were saying ‘Um’ …” Bella said, folding her arms across her chest.

“Yeah, um … well, you know. You were gone and we went on a date.”

“I see,” Bella said, her arms still firmly folded over her chest. “And …”

“And nothing. It was just one date.”

“And …?” Her voice trailed off as she gave me verbal cues to continue talking. Which wasn’t a good idea. Bad things happened when I spoke. Very bad things.

Still, the gaze that met me clearly said there was no escaping this one. “And it ended with the world almost ending … again.”

Bella lifted an eyebrow.

“Tiamat. You know, the angry rampaging monster kind of thing. Seems that the gods may be gone, but their apocalypses aren’t.”

“I see,” Bella said, her arms still locked together. “And …”

“And the date ended with … well … with her getting killed.” As the words left my lips, I felt a pang of grief that I had previously locked away, hidden in a cupboard of my mind that I never opened. Saying it out loud, and to Bella, made it real again. “She died saving Paradise Lot,” I said. “She died a hero.”

I can’t tell you the number of times I came home from some mission where a friend died, or someone I cared about had been horribly hurt. And no matter the circumstances, no matter how much Bella didn’t approve of what we’d been doing, she would always give me a hug and gentle kiss on my forehead. She’d give me that look of incomprehensible compassion that always helped me heal.

But this time, Bella just gave Medusa a look that could fell a flock of doves, making it perfectly clear that peace wasn’t on the menu. She said in a cold voice that I had never known Bella to use before, “Good.”

Then as if catching herself, her eyes widened in shock. “I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t mean to think it. This place. This place is messing with me.” There was genuine fear in her voice.

I reached out for her, but Bella shook her head and walked past me and over to her mother. She gave the once poltergeist a hug.

Empty Hell …

↔

So, I had one dead wife who was in Heaven but was now in Hell with me and acting weird. And one dead girlfriend who, when she died, somehow wound up in Hell (even though that shouldn’t be possible) with a severe case of PTSD.

Night was falling and as we set up camp, I thought about how all I wanted to do since coming to this place was wait for the moment Judith fell asleep so that I could pull Bella aside and, well, to quote Ella Fitzgerald … make whoopee.

But seeing the two of them in this place took all the whoopee-ness out of me.

Ahh, make whoopee. I smirked to myself. By the GoneGods, I really needed to update my dirty vernacular. But the truth was, my doggiest self was PG-13 at best. One of the reasons Bella loved me—or at least, that’s what she’d said.

What was on the cards was making peace with everyone, because if we were going to survive Hell, we needed to work together.

Summoning my inner therapist, I said, “So, there’s a lot of feeling going on here.” And then I immediately regretted my opening. “A lot of elephants in this valley of a room. And as much as I’d like to address them …”—that’s a great thing to say. It’s not like they both don’t know me, and therefore know I’d rather have multiple, simultaneous root canals than group therapy—“we’re in Hell and Hell isn’t the best place to explore ourselves, is it?”

Both Medusa and Bella shot me the same look—one that could have tripped up an army of charging dwarves. And given that Medusa was poisonous and Bella still had Thor’s hammer, I wasn’t exactly happy being on the other side of that gaze. Still, at least we were establishing common ground.

Not that I was managing things better. But I had no idea what I would make this better. A group hug? A pow-wow where we could all explore our feelings?

Neither spoke, and to fill the silence, I decided to keep digging myself a hole. “So as much I’d like to take the time to figure this out, we really have to keep moving.”

Their gazes upgraded from death-inspiring ire to full-blown apocalyptic rage.

“Ahh,” I stammered, “what I mean to say is—”

“What he’s trying to say, ever so eloquently,” Judith butted in, “is that as much of a catch as he is”—she put just enough emphasis on the word catch to show how she really felt—“now is not the time to work out whatever issues you both are experiencing. And the truth is, I don’t think this has anything to do with Jean, anyway. Come on, girls—he does have his charms …”

“Thank you,” I said.

She lifted an I’m not done finger. “But they are far and few between. Both of you could do better, yet you’re hung up on him. Him? Why?” She caught both their eyes, strobing between the two before continuing. “Because we’re in Hell. A pig with a tie is a gentleman suitor here. But it’s more than that … I think this place is playing with our emotions, exaggerating them. Bringing out the uglier, more homicidal parts of us.” Both Medusa and Bella looked down at her last comment. “So maybe, just maybe, this has nothing to do with him and everything to do with this place manipulating your feelings. Is that at all possible, girls?”

Medusa bit her lower lip in thought and Bella rubbed her hand against the side of her hip … their telltale signs of being deep in thought. After a long pause, they both nodded.

“Good,” Judith said. “Because a catch this man is not. Now come along girls, let bygones be bygones. I think an apology is in order.”

Medusa was the first to stand up. She walked over to Bella and said, “I’m sorry.” They were the first words the gorgon had spoken, and still fragile from everything that had happened, a tear rolled down her cheek.

“Oh honey,” Bella said, pulling her in for a hug. “No, I’m sorry. I overreacted. This place is … awful. Simply awful. I can’t imagine what you must have gone through being here.” That was much more in line with the Bella I knew. “And my mother is right. Like she said, he does have his charms. As few and far between as they are.”

Ouch.

“Now you can thank me,” Judith said with a smirk.

ABANDONED CLASSROOMS AND FRESH HELLS

We rested for a few hours before moving. How long exactly, I have no idea—it wasn’t like there were any moving stars to judge by. But it was long enough to catch a catnap several yards away from Bella.

Being in Hell sucked, but being in Hell like this sucked the big one and I thought, not for the first time, that this may be Penemue’s inferno, but he sure had spent some time customizing it just for me. Thanks, buddy!

Somewhat rested and more frustrated than ever, we left Yomi’s dark forest with nary a creature in sight. I guess after seeing a bunch of gods run away from little ole us, no one dared to mess with us. Thank the GoneGods (and adolescent ones) for small miracles.

↔

They say criminals always return to the scene of the crime. We weren’t criminals, but I did kind of feel like a burglar sneaking around in someone else’s house.

A house we shouldn’t have been in … But then again, neither should its owner.

And as for the crime scene, we went back to the classroom. Of course, we didn’t just run up the hill all cocky and brazen. We weren’t that stupid. We sent Marty up first, figuring if anyone could slither in unnoticed, it would be him.

All the while, thoughts of Star Trek, disposable characters and red uniforms ran through my head, but I kept all that to myself.

When Marty (and the other snakes) were a part of Medusa, she could see through their eyes as if they were her own. Seems that ability extended beyond attachment and Medusa could see through the viper’s eyes as if they were still attached. And even though the gorgon didn’t say as much, I was pretty sure that was how she found us … through Marty’s eyes.

Thank the GoneGods for small miracles.

So, using the serpent as a drone, we hid at the base of the hill and waited for a report. The way Medusa’s expression changed when Marty got to the classroom told us all we needed to know.

No one was there.

And no one would ever be there again.

↔

Penemue’s classroom was destroyed, the desks broken, chairs smashed to kindling, the blackboard ripped to shreds with talon-like claw marks piercing the wood. Even the ground had been turned up, with powerful ridges running deep through the ground.

There was nothing about this place that resembled the classroom it had once been.

“What happened here?” Judith said more than asked. “Seems those spoiled little monsters took out their frustration on defenseless furniture when they couldn’t have their way with us.”

“I don’t think so.” I shook my head. “I don’t think they came back here at all.”

Judith lifted a curious eyebrow that was part What do you mean? and part You always have to be so contradictory.

I ignored the look and continued staring at the carnage. “There are no tracks leading back up the mountain. Plenty going down, but none coming up.”

Medusa nodded in agreement, and given that she was one of the legendary huntresses of myth, I figured I had gotten that one right.

“Not all of them walk,” Judith pointed out. “Maybe some of them flew up here or teleported or did whatever gods do to get around.”

Now who’s being contrary? I thought. “Maybe,” I shrugged. “But look at the claw marks on the blackboard. They’re four distinct marks, just like Penemue’s talon-hands. And the ground—similar marks of four that match Penemue’s feet.”

Sifting through the debris, I imagined how the scene had unfolded. The children chased after us as Penemue called after them, begging them to stop—to assess—to use reason. But his cries were to no avail and the kids just booked it after us, embracing their more godly and destructive instincts.

Even Adam and Eve had chased after us—so much for their humanity kicking in—which left Penemue all alone in his classroom.

A classroom he’d built for one purpose: to educate the gods on how to treat humans. He was trying to mold their young minds and create a different relationship between humans and gods. A more enlightened one.

And less likely to end up with the gods abandoning us all.

But despite all his efforts (and despite his mind and desire actually creating this place), when put to the test, it all went to hell, figuratively speaking.

So alone and having failed, Penemue destroyed this place. He—

As I ran through the scenario, I saw exactly what I had been looking for: broken glass. Picking it up, I sniffed the shards and smelled exactly what I had expected: Drambuie.

Penemue once told me that Drambuie was the closest thing mortals had to ambrosia.

He also told me that he drank when he wanted to destroy it all. That he was an introspective drunk who knew that drinking was a form of slow suicide. A self-destruction that wasn’t a countdown from ten, but a version of Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.

Well, Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine Bottles of Drambuie on the Wall. He wanted to see how far down he needed to get before his heart finally broke. “Why not?” he slurred while on a particularly terrible bender. “My heart has already figuratively broken. It’s only a matter of time until the old beating lump in my chest catches up with a more literal breakage.”

He must have said that to me during a hundred different nights while I helped the huge lug into the haystack he called a bed.

Literal breakage …

But no matter how much he drank, he was never violent. Don’t get me wrong … he had the capacity for violence. But only for a cause. Only when doing what he thought was right.

And smelling it here and now told me everything I needed to know. He had gone on a bender that culminated in the destruction of this place.

Which really worried me, because Penemue, in as much pain as he was, was never violent.

Seeing this place so thoroughly destroyed gave me shivers. The Penemue I knew would never do something like this, no matter how upset he was. No matter how drunk.

This destruction was something different. It was like he was giving up, embracing the hell he had condemned himself to. My only hope was that this carnage got whatever pent-up aggression he had out of him, that he was all out of destruction.

Medusa bent over to pick up a piece of desk. “So much sadness,” she said. “So much rage.” But from the way her voice trailed off, I knew she wasn’t just talking about Penemue. She was talking about herself, too.

The gorgon was one of the strongest people I’d ever met, but the person who stood in front of me was so broken that I couldn’t think of a way to fix her again. I suddenly found myself wishing I had some magical formula, something I could say or do that would make her whole again. Some key to unlock—

“What happened to you?” Bella asked, her eyes trained on the bald gorgon.

So, I guess we were going for the direct route.

Medusa didn’t say anything, looking away.

Bella approached Medusa, and with a gentle guiding hand on her chin, looked her in the eyes … the stone-turning, statue-making eyes. “Seriously, Jean here tells me you died. But here you are. What happened to you? How did you get here?”

Medusa shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, you must know something,” Bella said, her voice forceful, almost demanding. “And you’re not doing us any favors by holding back. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in Hell and we need to get out. Anything you can tell us to help with that …” She let the words hang.

The gorgon tried to look away and Bella did something I didn’t think she was capable of … she held Medusa’s chin so she couldn’t look away.

“Bella,” I said, “you’re being too—”

“No,” Bella said, lifting a silencing hand. “I need to know. We need to know. What happened? How the hell did you get to Hell?”

“I … I …” Medusa started, pulling away. From the way Bella moved, I could see that she tried to keep her hold on the gorgon, but couldn’t.

Marty hissed, crawling up Medusa’s arm and giving Bella a look that clearly, and in no uncertain terms, said, Back off, bitch.

But Bella didn’t. “Come on! We need to know. How the fuck are you here?”

“Bella,” Judith said, “please. Now is not the time.”

“Now is exactly the time. Now is the only time. If you haven’t noticed, we’re stuck in now. And this … this Other knows shit we don’t. Now tell us, how did you get here?” Bella hand settled on Thor’s hammer like she was deciding whether or not to unsling the weapon and … what? Charge at Medusa?

I didn’t know if this was some kind of jealous ploy or if Bella was overwhelmed by the stress of this place, but this was getting serious.

“Bella,” I said, stepping between them, “stop this. Now. Whatever you’re trying to do, this isn’t the way.”

“Oh look, Jean-Luc Matthias the hero. Stepping in to save the damsel in distress. Look at you.”

“What?” I said, feeling a rage of my own coursing through me.

“Big man. Trying to save the world, but can’t even keep his date alive. You couldn’t keep me alive. I died because of you. I died. I died. I died!” Fury flashed in Bella’s eyes as she grabbed the hammer’s hilt. She only needed to turn it around and it would be in her hands and—

Medusa stepped between us, grabbing Bella’s forearms so she couldn’t move, and yelled, “You don’t touch him. He tried to save me. To save us all. That’s all he does.”

“What does he do? Fail?” Bella said, trying to break free.

I felt my own anger rush through me, and reaching for the two women, I sought to get between them. But before I was able to take two steps in their direction, I felt a kinetic blast shoot across the plane and push me back a dozen feet.

Looking up, I saw Judith had used her poltergeist rage to push me back. I guess she may have lost her specter façade, but not her ghostly powers. “You don’t touch my little girl,” my mother-in-law screamed. “You don’t get to ever touch her again.”

“You bitch.” I picked up a piece of rock and threw it at her. I was aiming for her head and if she hadn’t let out another blast of kinetic energy, I would have hit her square in the eyes.

“Don’t you hurt my mother!” Bella broke away from Medusa and pulled out the hammer.

Fine, I thought with spiteful rage, I guess it’s time to have a good ol’ family argument.

FAMILY FIGHTS, PAIN AND (A MODICUM) OF GAIN

Without a second thought, I got to my feet and tackled Judith. I wanted to throw her down the friggin’ hill, smash her head into the cold, hard earth, feel my hands around her neck.

But before I could wrap my fingers around her pudgy, wrinkled neck, a hand pulled me back. Turning, I saw that Bella had hoisted me off Judith. “You ungrateful bitch,” I spat. “You would pick her over me?”

“I’d … I’d … I’d pick”—Bella looked around, her gaze settling on the splintered leg of one of the desks—“this piece of wood over you. At least this knows when to shut up.” She tossed it at me like a spear.

“How dare you—” I started, but Bella wasn’t done, throwing Thor’s hammer at me. The flat part of its top smacked my chest like a cannonball and it took everything I had not to pass out from the pain.

But unlike Thor’s hammer in the movies, the thing didn’t fly back to her hand. Instead, it lay before me like a … well, a big hammer lies on the ground.

I picked it up, ready to smash Bella’s pretty little face with it, when Medusa quite literally beat me to the punch. She socked Bella in the side of the face with a balled fist. “You leave him alone.”

Before the gorgon could cock her fist back for another blow, Judith jumped on Medusa’s back and—oh crap—bit her ear. My mother-in-law was getting all Mike Tyson on her. Go Judith!

No wait, that’s not what I meant. Medusa was on my side.

But Medusa left me. Just like Bella. They both left me, choosing death over me.

Just like my mother.

And PopPop …

And everyone I’d ever loved.

An incredible emptiness consumed my soul, and I had one prevailing thought running through my head over and over and over again.

End my pain by first ending theirs.

I was going to kill them all, and then I was going to kill myself.

↔

Hoisting the hammer over my head, I slammed it down on the ground. I had expected the damn thing to emit a shockwave of energy that would send everyone flying.

Instead, it just hit the earth with a heavy thud, sans shockwave or energy or any effect at all.

That wasn’t entirely true. The three of them stopped fighting long enough to look at me with disgust before continuing to pummel each other.

OK, so shock and awe wasn’t going to work.

What about a good ol’-fashioned bludgeoning? Grabbing Thor’s hammer again, I formulated a plan: hit each one of them with the damn thing. So, not much of plan, but a plan nonetheless. The only question was who I should hit first.

Just as I was about to play a quick game of Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe, I felt a sharp pain in my right calf. Looking down, I saw Marty had bit me. I stomped down on the serpent. “There’s a reason why the Bible explicitly gives humans permission to crush serpents beneath our heel,” I said. “It’s because you guys are so … so …” But before I could say anything else, the world started to spin and I fell to the ground.

So this was how I’d die … taken down by a devious, poisonous viper I’d thought was my friend. Figures. Friends—when they weren’t letting you down, they were trying to kill you.

The last thing I saw from my horizontal position was Marty biting Bella, then Judith. Oh good, I thought. At least they’re going down, too.

↔

But I didn’t die, as evidenced by the pounding headache I felt when I woke up only the GoneGods knew how much later.

With a groan, I got myself somewhat vertical and saw that Marty had indeed knocked out Bella and Judith … and Medusa. All four of us were in various stages of head-throbbery, groaning as we found a way back to our feet.

My head hurt, my stomach hurt … Hell, all of me hurt. But I wasn’t angry. Well, I was a little bit angry at Marty for biting me, but the homicidal rage that had consumed me minutes earlier was gone.

And that’s when it hit me that I had almost killed the two people I loved most in the world … and Judith. I almost took Thor’s hammer and bludgeoned them to death, while fully planning to kill myself afterward.

“What the … Ow.” I grabbed my head in pain at the effort of speaking. That’s when I realized that Marty had not only knocked us out, but also managed to drag us all down the hill. How strong was that viper?

“Yeah,” Bella said, giving me that look she had when she was sorry but wasn’t quite ready to say it yet.

Judith set two fingers at the bridge of her nose. “I wanted to kill you all.” Then, looking at me, added, “Not terribly unusual when it comes to you. But Bella …” She stopped as the thought of hurting her daughter flooded her with emotion.

“Yeah,” I said, “I was right there with you.” I figured misery loved company, and me admitting that I also wanted to kill Bella would ease her guilt. But from the look Judith shot me, I realized that wasn’t the case. She just got angrier.

“What happened?” Bella asked.

“This place,” Medusa said. “That’s what happened.” The Queen of Gorgons’ eyes misted over as she held Marty lovingly in her arms, stroking the viper’s head like one would a cat … a hairless, scaly cat.

“What do you mean?” Bella asked.

Medusa looked up at Bella with apologetic eyes. “That place up there possesses the echoes of Penemue’s anger. Those echoes washed over us, amplifying our own anger—not the angel’s. I was angry at you for …” She paused, as if deciding whether to continue speaking before letting out a heavy sigh. With renewed resolve in her heart, she continued, “I was angry at you for having Jean’s heart. I was angry at Judith for protecting you. And I was angry at you …”—she looked at me, holding my gaze—“for not looking at me the way you look at her.”

Yeah, it was all starting to make sense. This place fed off our bad feelings, bringing them to the surface and exaggerating them to epic proportions. But it had to be our own anger, our own miseries. Not someone else’s. If we simply felt Penemue’s rage at his students, that wouldn’t have had much impact. After all, we can only get so angry at things that just don’t matter as much to us …

But our own angry? That was something that could really torture us and that’s exactly what happened. We all got angry at each other for reasons that, in some twisted way, made sense to us.

Medusa at Bella, for having my heart.

Judith at me, for having Bella.

Bella at Medusa, out of misplaced jealousy.

And finally, me at both Medusa and Bella, for leaving me. It didn’t matter why they left … all that mattered was that they did. And I wanted to kill them for it.

I was embarrassed by my own feelings and where they took me, and I wanted Marty to bite me again—this time with some kind of amnesia-inducing venom.

But that wasn’t going to happen and I would have to live on knowing that deep down within me, I resented them for dying.

If only I could afford a shrink …

No one spoke for a long time. We just sat, silent and distant as we wallowed in our own shame.

I don’t know how long we would have stayed that way had Medusa not spoken again. “You were right to be angry with me, Bella,” she said. “But not for my time with Jean, as short as it was.”

“I was never—” Bella started, but Medusa lifted a hand.

“No, please. No more lies. No more hidden truths. You were angry, but you need not be. It’s you. It was always you.” Medusa sighed. “You know, as I breathed my last, part of me was relieved to be free of you. Free of these feeling that I knew would never be returned. I think that is why I so willing burnt so much time on the beach that day.

“And when I finally turned to stone, I felt a sense of peace that I believed would be forever. I don’t know how long I was gone, but I heard a voice—a familiar one—say, ‘Perhaps I can undo some of the wrong that was done.’ And I felt the power pull me.

“It pulled until I was here, lost and alone.”

Looking at Medusa, whose chin struggled not to crumple, I knew that—even after everything she had endured, in life and in Hell—she was speaking from a true, vulnerable place. An incredible thing for anyone.

Which was why I loved her, as well.

Bella nodded. “That’s what I felt, too. But when I arrived here, I wasn’t lost, exactly. I was standing before an open portal, staring at you.” She smiled at me, and for a second, my head stopped hurting. Then she turned back to Medusa. “I arrived at the exact same moment that Jean did. But you … it looked like you’d been here for a while.”

“I have. As best I can tell, it’s been months.”

“How?”

Medusa shook her head. “I don’t know. All I can say is that I had been lost in the forest, forced to forage and hunt. Because there was no sun to judge time by, I have no way to know. But given the number of meals I ate, the number of times I slept … months. Easily.”

“Why?” I said. “Why would Penemue make it so that it felt like months to you and hardly any time for Bella? Even I followed Penemue no more than a few hours after he created this place. From that perspective, it must have felt like you were here far longer than even he was.”

“Not necessarily,” Medusa said. “In terms of hours on Earth, it might have only been a handful, but time here … that could feel endless.”

“Holy sh—”

“Jean,” Judith said in a warning tone.

“—Shredder on a skateboard,” I said. “Not only is Hell perpetually now, but time drags on here?”

The gorgon shook her head. “I have never visited this domain before, but from what I know, time doesn’t progress here. It remains still. The rest of the universe moves forward, but this place does not.”

“So, what? Earth, Heaven and every other place in this universe has time, but not Hell. How does that even work?”

“Well, it is possible—”

“You know what? I don’t need to know. It’ll just make this headache worse. What I really want to know is why he brought you here first, then me.”

“I have something to say about that,” Judith said, lifting her hand like a kid at school. “I saw something that might make sense of all this.”

↔

We all stared at Judith with a collective look of, What is it? that I like to think also carried with it a You didn’t think to mention this earlier? kind of vibe.

She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t think it was important. Besides, I was distracted by my baby girl’s appearance.”

“And?” I said, smug in the fact that I could be the judgmental one.

Another eye roll. “I saw Penemue create the portal and close it, then open it again before closing it a third time. Each time the rip was tiny, a small crack in a curtain, if you will. But then the doorway was opened a third time and it was much bigger. That’s when I got you. That’s when we saw Bella.”

I stared at Judith as I mulled over the implications of what she’d just said. The portal opened and closed three times, which meant that Penemue could open and close it. All this time I thought that he was limited in what he could do, that he had opened it and stepped through, unable to close it behind him. But if he could open and close it at will and he had invited Bella and Medusa to Hell, leaving the door open for us to follow …

“He wants us to save him,” I said.

Bella nodded. “I think you’re right. This is his cry for help.”

“Yeah.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Why couldn’t he binge-eat a tub of Häagen-Dazs like a normal person? I’d be right by his side then.”

“You’re by his side now,” Bella said with genuine pride.

She was right. I was in Hell, trying to save him. If that didn’t scream BFF, I didn’t know what would.

“But,” Bella continued, “we have to get to him soon, because he might stop wanting our help.”

“How so?” Judith asked.

“Think about it. We got so angry at each other up there. Hell grabs you, manipulates your emotions. If he spends long enough in here, well, there might be no coming back from that.”

“Hell is now and now is forever here,” I muttered, getting to my feet. “We better get moving. We have an angel to save and—” But I didn’t get to finish the thought.

I heard Bella say, “What in the GoneGods is that?”

Looking up, I saw a rolling darkness coming in from the horizon.

I guess Penemue wasn’t done destroying after all.

ROLLING DARKNESS, PINPRICKS OF LIGHT AND ALL HOPE BE DAMNED

There are so many accounts of the day the gods left—the GrandExodus—and what it was like to be expelled from the heavens or hells that the Others were in. So many different stories about the pain and confusion that occurred that day. But no matter who you spoke to, no matter what domain they came from or what kind of mythical creature they were, they all shared two crucial and critical elements:

The gods’ final message to everyone. Thank you for believing in us, but it’s not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck.

And the rolling darkness that forced them out of wherever they were and onto Earth.

Seeing the dark, foglike cloud come our way was unmistakable. Penemue was reenacting his own GrandExodus, only with us as the denizens to be expelled.

But when we heard Penemue’s slurred words … “Thank you for trying to save us—I mean, me—but it’s too late. You’re leaving. Best of luck.”

… followed by an unmistakable hiccup …

… it was time to run.

Away from the cloud of darkness and toward whatever pinprick of light Penemue had chosen as our exit.

↔

The direction Penemue was herding us was obvious: away from the mountainside floating in the distance. That was where the dark fog emanated from, and so we ran away. But away meant back down the hill and toward the hells beyond.

Except we were no longer on a hill, no longer standing in the ruins of a destroyed classroom. We were standing ankle-deep in mist … And as soon as I heard the rumble of rolling thunder and saw a flash of lightning beneath our feet, I knew exactly where we were.

On a cloud.

In the middle of a thunderstorm.

Penemue is nothing if not dramatic.

We ran as lightning flashes shot up from the ground, accented by crackles of thunder. And every time I looked over my shoulder, I saw the impending darkness get closer and closer.

And off in the distance was the promised pinprick of light—the portal back home to Earth, where we’d be safe from the doom and gloom of what was behind us.

“Over there,” I said, not that I needed to. On this cloud there was only one place to go, its guiding light as obvious as a blinking neon sign on an empty (albeit electric) highway.

As we ran, my mind raced with the possibilities that lay ahead. We were headed toward the portal home—that much was clear. And I was sure that as soon as Judith and I jumped through, we’d be home again … Maybe in Paradise Lot, maybe somewhere else on the globe, but we’d be on Earth.

But what about Medusa and Bella? Would they also be on Earth, returned from the dead? Could this really be a chance for them to live again?

I had no understanding of Penemue’s powers, but I did know from speaking to him and Miral and Michael—three angels who were privy to knowledge most did not have—that the Creation Crystals were a power that God had forbidden them to use. And angels, being angels, obeyed. Even the fallen ones.

Michael once told me that even the Devil would never defy God by using the power of a Creation Crystal for himself. I guess even the Devil had a line—a line Penemue crossed. In a moment of unimaginable grief, he shed the constrictions of his angel-ness and tapped into the crystal’s powers to create Hell.

As in, literally.

What else could he do? I mean, if he created all this, then certainly he could resurrect the dead, could he not?

My heart thudded in my chest—not with the strain of my full-tilt run, but the anticipation that the two people I loved more than anything else could live again.

“There,” I yelled again. “Through there.” I pointed at the pinprick, egging them on.

They ran. As they did, my mind jumped to the last place it should have … to my friend, the twice-fallen angel, Penemue.

We might be OK—Bella and Medusa might live again—but he would be stuck here forever, reliving the moments of his failure again and again on the endless loop that was Hell.

Jumping through that pinprick of life would mean that I would live on, and so would he—in here. As much as I wanted to be in a world that was filled with Bella and Medusa, I could never live with myself knowing that I hadn’t done everything I could for him.

For my friend.

Not that he was giving me much choice. If that darkness was anything like the one that had expelled the Others from their domains, then the choice was simple:

Jump, and live. Stay, and perish.

My best friend was literally going to kill me if I didn’t do as he demanded.

I got to the portal and saw where we were … back on the island where all this had started. There, General Shouf was still walking away as though we had just gone through.

From the way she turned and looked at me, I realized that it might have been days in here for us, but it was only a few seconds for her. She must have thought we had changed our minds. Not that I had time to deal with the general now.

I turned to help the others through as I watched the rolling darkness approach.

First were Medusa and Marty. Grabbing her hand, I helped her through the portal, my heart thudding with anticipation as she stepped through. The way I figured it, as soon as she touched solid ground, she’d either evaporate into nothing or be whole again.

She hesitated, squeezing my hand.

“Are you sure?” I said.

Medusa nodded. “What choice do I have?” And planting a kiss on my lips, she said, “There,” like she’d just pulled off a bandaid. Then she closed her eyes and stepped through.

As soon as her foot touched the hard concrete of the prison island, her body became rigid as she fell over clutching her head and screaming in pain.

Marty, who was wrapped around her neck, tried to comfort her with continuous hisses, but Medusa was writhing too aggressively to notice her snake. General Shouf went to her side, caring for her as though she were experiencing an epileptic seizure.

And maybe she was. How was I to know?

I sought to step out, to reach for her, but hesitated. Bella and Judith were still running over, and I couldn’t just jump through without knowing they were safe.

Besides, if Medusa were to perish, then so would Bella, and there was no point in me stepping through without her. I couldn’t go on without her.

But Medusa didn’t die. Instead, she stopped writhing as her body gained an effervescence. She lived.

She lived.

And if she lived, then so could Bella.

I grabbed my wife’s hand as she reached the edge, and holding onto her, I helped her step through. As soon as her foot touched the earth, I watched her body writhe as she cried out in the same pain as Medusa.

Judith jumped out to grab her hand and hold her daughter, who was whole and alive in her hands.

I stared through tear-soaked eyes as the two women whom I loved very much stood alive and whole and well.

“Come on.” Bella reached out a hand to me through the narrowing portal. “Come out. Come and live.”

I shook my head, looking over my shoulder at the approaching darkness. “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t leave him here.”

“But Jean,” Bella said, running toward the open portal. Judith immediately got to her feet and held her daughter back from joining me in Hell. It was clear whom Judith sought to protect: Bella over me. I completely agreed with her choice.

This is the part of the movie where everyone’s screaming, “You fool! What are you doing? You have her back. She’s back! Jump through and be happy.”

They’d be right to think that, and they’d be right to label me a fool. An idiot.

But they’d also be wrong. Wrong, because there was no way I could live on knowing that I left Penemue behind. Despite all his faults, all his nutty antics and all the times he drove me crazy … he was one of the good guys. One of the few who tried to make a positive difference, and I couldn’t turn my back on him. Not now.

Not ever.

But it went beyond just simply wanting to help him, even if it meant losing Bella again. I made a promise ... a promise to my dead wife who stood before me, alive and well. I promised to help, no matter what. To do everything in my power to be one of the good guys, and I couldn’t live with her knowing that I’d chosen happiness with her over keeping that promise.

And neither could she. Sure, we’d tell ourselves that it was all we could do. That Penemue was literally giving us the choice to leave and live, or stay and die.

But I knew that not to be true.

Because no matter how far gone the angel was, there was no way he’d kill us. Or kill anyone, for that matter.

The black cloud would stop. It had to. And when it did, that was the moment he’d be forced to face me.

“I’m going back for the angel,” I said.

“Don’t be stupid,” Judith said. “You’ll die.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think Penemue has it in him to kill anyone, let alone his bestest buddy in the whole world,” I said with a wink.

Bella reached out her hand, extending it even farther. Then she stopped as she recognized what I meant to do. If anyone in this world understood sacrifice for the greater good, it was her. And with a nod, she gave me her Go get ’em, Tiger look.

“I’ll be back,” I said (this time without the Arnie accent. I just said it … and meant it). “Do you remember what you said to me the day you died?” I asked, stepping away from the portal. “Live well …”

I blew my Bella a kiss as I stepped back and, with hope that I was right and that the twice-fallen angel would never kill me, I turned and waited for the darkness to wash over me.

End to Part 3

CHAIN GUNS, SHOOTING IN THE DARK AND MISGUIDED TEENAGERS

Marc runs out the door, fumbling in the impossible darkness as he retraces his steps back to the helicopter. It isn’t easy, and he feels fear; every dry leaf’s crunch, every rustle of the wind, every sudden silencing of a cricket’s chirp gives him pause.

He knows there are more hellhounds here. And he also knows that they are but the canine bitches of their powerful masters. The woman of impossible brightness, for one, but there are others, too.

He knows this because she entered the fight as a scout, not a warrior. A warrior would have attacked without hesitation. A warrior would have stalked her prey, not revealing herself until the last possible second.

This creature let him run. And she did not pursue, sending her hellhounds after him instead.

No, she is not alone. Of that much he is sure.

Fumbling to the helicopter, Marc almost knocks himself out cold as he runs into the damn metal beast. The only thing that stopped him was his near perfect memory of where it was.

Perfect, because he found the helicopter after running out of the Millennium Hotel’s back door and straight to it. Near perfect, because he miscalculated the distance and hit its side at almost a full-out run.

GoneGodDamn it, he thinks. Not as precise as I would have liked. And Marc makes a mental note to take better stock of his surroundings next time.

Normally such simple clumsiness would bruise only his ego. But given how badly injured his shoulder is, he couldn’t stop the yelp of pain that just escaped his lips.

A yelp of pain that will betray his location. And almost immediately he hears the footsteps … not from the outside, but from within the hotel itself.

Using his hands as his eyes, he yanks himself into the helicopter’s belly. Searching the bowels beneath the seats, he finds what he is looking for … a chain link of bullets.

Even though he—or rather, Jean-Luc—has never loaded a gun such as this, he quickly runs through the logic of such a device, and without incident manages to load the chain gun.

Then he waits, pointing the gun at the door he just exited.

It does not take long for the scout to exit, her face illuminating several feet around her. She has five hellhounds with her, not that they will be of any use to her.

Unleashing the fury of the chain gun, he cuts down the three hellhounds in front of her before piercing her stomach with three bullets.

He is careful to not kill her. She is an enemy, yes, but she is not the one he must worry about.

The creature falls to the ground, clutching her stomach and screaming in pain. Green blood flows out of her—fae blood. At least now he knows the manner of creatures he fights.

And the nature of their magic.

“Ahhh,” the creature—more a girl than anything else—moans out as she tries to plug the holes within her. Already blood has made its way into her stomach, and she cries tears the color of autumn leaves, grass-green blood painting her lips.

She is afraid, for she knows she is dying. But she is also in awe, for never before has she suffered such an injury. Never before did she think her body capable of producing so much blood.

The pain has yet to register. It will … and soon.

Not that Marc will wait for that. Now he watches the young fae’s face intently until she does exactly what he knew she would.

The fae girl points toward the forest in front of the Millennium Hotel, her hand reaching out for help.

Help from the others.

“Bingo,” Marc whispers to himself as a devilish smile creeps across his face.

Turning the chain gun in the direction she pointed, he releases the full fury of human-made death.

He screams out his war cry as he does so, spraying the darkness with bullets he is sure will hit their mark.

The chain gun clicks empty, the spinning of its rotating barrel the only sound remaining.

And as if releasing the trigger was also the switch to turn off the darkness, the world lights up again with the morning sunlight.

There he sees another fae creature who looks much like the one dying by the hotel, only older.

He also sees a young boy crouched near her, holding his head down even though the bullets are no longer flying.

Marc takes a second to search Jean’s memories before realizing who the boy is … the one called EightBall. The one who is angry at the angel Penemue.

What is he doing here? Marc wonders, but before his mind can come up with any theories, the air before him rips open with a sound similar to fabric ripping.

And hovering over the garden’s floor are Penemue, Jean and … is that Bella?

PART XVIII

EARTH

Marc’s Story—Part 2

EightBall is doing something he hasn’t done in a long, long time.

He’s stalking his prey.

Making his way up through the trees lining the Millennium Hotel, he plans to find a good hiding place and wait for the fucking twice-fallen murderer of his parents to stumble out. It’s only a matter of time before the alcoholic angel gets so drunk that he passes out somewhere outside.

And when he does, EightBall will … well, EightBall will introduce him to something that he made long ago, when he vowed to avenge his parents’ death.

A baseball bat with three nine-inch nails hammered through it.

It took multiple attempts to create this instrument of death—the wood kept splitting—but EightBall stayed patient.

This was how he wanted to avenge them. With the symbol of America’s favorite pastime and one of the only joys he remembers sharing with his dad: baseball. And the vengeance and ire of the nails that, once upon a time, killed a god.

Fitting way for an angel to go down. Very fitting, indeed.

↔

But vengeance isn’t as straightforward as he’d thought.

A helicopter sits on the lawn near the back door. Not far from where EightBall waits, three young women step out of the forest line. They are beautiful, armored, and each carries a bladed weapon; he knows they’ve come to pick a fight.

EightBall considers warning everyone in the hotel, but then he remembers why he’s here. To kill, not save. Still, he likes Jean. The man was kind to him. So was Judith, in her own judgmental way.

And should the hotel have guests, they will probably be innocent too, and—

Before he can decide what to do, the world grows dark. He can’t see a thing, and he knows that no matter how long he stays here, his eyes will never adjust to this absence of light.

He considers fumbling his way to the hotel, calling out for help—when he hears the unmistakable sound of dogs growling as they scamper across the field and … What was that sound? Shattering glass. The dogs are inside.

Unsure what to do next, EightBall stays put and does something he knows is useless.

He prays.

He prays for the darkness to lift. For the dogs to leave this place or be killed, and for himself, EightBall, to be able to crawl away unharmed.

As if by some cruel joke, his prayers are answered. First he hears the thunderous sound of machine-gun fire. Then there is light.

The light reveals one Jean-Luc sitting in the bowels of a helicopter, chain gun in hand, and another Jean-Luc hovering in some sort of magical portal with Penemue. Behind them, a woman he recognizes from somewhere he can’t quite place and …

What the fuck? he thinks, seeing a familiar face. One he thought he’d never see again.

In shock and awe, EightBall only manages to whisper one word to himself. One single, damning word.

“Mom?”

↔↔↔A VERY BRIEF INTERLUDE↔↔↔

Little Newton might have been a young boy when his parents died, but he remembers everything. Up to a point.

He remembers playing near the old oak tree in front of his house. The one where his mom could see him from the kitchen window.

He remembers waving to her from beneath the tree’s canopy as his mom stood in the kitchen, drying dishes.

He remembers what she was wearing the day she died: her floral dress that she wore all the time, even though his father called it her “Sunday dress.” That day wasn’t a Sunday—most days aren’t. Didn’t stop her from wearing it.

And it’s not just what she wore that day that he remembers. He remembers what everyone was wearing: he, his blue V-neck sweater and new red running shoes. His father had on the same sweater, only bigger, and a red tie with a knot so big it almost filled the whole V part.

Dinner was roast beef and mash. Dessert was apple pie with vanilla ice cream and a bowl of cut-up strawberries.

He remembers thinking that if he cleaned his room and asked just right, he might get a second dessert—apple pie with vanilla ice cream and blueberries … his favorite.

Then he remembers the sky turning a strange shade of red, like it did that morning he went fishing with his dad so super early that it was still dark when they got in the car. They drove out of the city, out of Paradise Lot, pulling over on a hill so they could watch the sun rise. Little Newton thought the world was on fire that morning, and the day the gods left, he thought it might be again.

A strange voice rang in his head, both inside and out. It said, “Thank you for believing in us, but it’s not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck.”

Little Newton wasn’t sure what that meant. He’d have to ask Mom about it. And just when he was about to run upstairs to see if she heard the voice, too, the apartment building blew up like it did on those Knight Rider re-runs his dad liked so much.

Except with this explosion, no talking car rolled in to save the day. There was just dust and fire and heat and … and … Where did his mom go? He couldn’t see her at the window. He couldn’t see the window at all.

It took little Newton a few seconds to realize that the window was gone. That the apartment building was gone.

He started to cry.

For his mom. His dad. Anyone.

But none of them came to help him. Running into the rubble, he went to look for them. The place was covered in clouds of dust and dirt, but eventually little Newton found his mom. She lay on the ground, blood all over her. He shook her.

Once.

Twice.

And when he started screaming at her to wake up, desperate for her to wake, that was when his little mind stopped recording.

As a young man, the last thing he remembers of that day is finding his mother dead. Then he remembers waking up under the oak tree, a fireman examining him. He always assumed he passed out and the rescue worker took him there.

What he doesn’t remember is what really happened.

That, as a child, he sat dumbfounded by his mother, who wouldn’t wake up. She wouldn’t wake up and all he could think about was the little bird he found one autumn morning. The poor little thing had a broken wing and Mr. Miller’s nasty cat tried to take advantage of its flightless, frightened state and eat it.

Little Newton had saved the bird from the cat’s claws, but the bird still died.

Just like the day the gods left. He hadn’t gotten to his mom fast enough and then she was gone, too.

He started to cry. Gentle, reserved sobs flowed out of him as he held her hand.

He was alone for a little while, until a strange, huge man with blond hair and dirt-covered wings appeared from around the corner. The man carried little Newton’s dad and placed him next to his mom. He muttered something in a language little Newton didn’t understand.

The huge man was crying and his face was covered in something that made it glow.

Reaching out his hand, the huge man offered little Newton comfort. Young and afraid and grateful that someone was there to take care of him, little Newton ran into the huge man’s arms, cuddling against his massive chest.

Once the huge man had him in his arms, he carried him to the old oak tree. There, the huge man joined him in his tears, cradling him as he repeated over and over again, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Little Newton didn’t know why the man was sorry. Not that he cared. Right then, he embraced the small amount of solace the stranger had to offer.

And as is true of all little kids who have been overcome by more than they can comprehend, eventually little Newton fell asleep. When he woke, a fireman was listening to his heart with one of those flat, cold thingies.

The strange, huge man with dirt-covered wings was gone.

EIGHTBALL AND BATS, DARKNESS AND HELL

That was what happened on the day his parents died.

Not that EightBall remembered ... until now, that is, standing on the front lawn of the Millennium Hotel with his nail-filled baseball bat, looking for revenge for something he doesn’t fully comprehend.

It’s a strange scene before him. First the blackness, then the unrelenting sound of machine-gun fire, followed by light and … Penemue and Jean standing in some open slit in the sky. It’s like they’ve literally torn the air apart to step from one reality into another. They stand with a woman whom EightBall recognizes from the pictures in Judith’s room. Her daughter, was it? Bella.

Not that EightBall really cares who she is; he’s more interested in what’s behind them. He recognizes the dining table, the chairs, the pictures on the light-purple walls. This is a scene from his childhood living room, his parents frozen in what he knows to be their last dinner together. It is an image that permanently resides in his mind: the last moment they were together. The last moment they were alive.

The last moment he felt whole.

“Mom?” EightBall says again. Forgetting the chaos around him, he stands up and approaches the portal. As he does, he sees his father and then himself as a young boy. None of them move; they sit perfectly still, like wax statues.

It is then he realizes that the people behind the twice-fallen angel and hotelier aren’t people at all, but something else entirely.

“What the hell is going on here?” EightBall cries out.

“Hell is exactly what’s going on,” Jean says. “Seems our mutual friend here has made his own personal hell. The grand prize, reliving the day your parents died, kid. A moment he blames himself for. A moment that has become his personal hell.”

Jean gestures behind him, wearing a maniacal smile that belongs on a tortured game show host. “Welcome to your life, EightBall. Penemue has recreated this day so that he can experience it over and over again. On repeat, forever.” Then Jean’s face loses all expression as his shoulders sag. EightBall has seen this expression before, when Jean has been bone-tired, taxed to the point of both physical and mental breakdown.

Bella touches his shoulder and, as if she’s given him strength, Jean stands up straight before saying with a voice full of mockery and sarcasm, “Think of it as a malevolent scene painted by Norman Rockwell’s evil twin. Then animate it and make it real painful.”

EightBall, ignoring Jean’s attempt at levity, points his bat at Penemue. “Is that what you’re doing? Reliving my worst moment … to do what? Make yourself feel better?”

“To punish myself,” the angel says.

“Like anything can make up for what you did,” EightBall growls. “There’s only one kind of punishment and it isn’t that. Reliving that moment over and over again will not redeem you, because the only reason you’re putting yourself through it”—he points with his bat again—“is because you’re a selfish asshole who thinks that somehow the pain makes up for what happened. For what you did.” EightBall’s voice is filled with vicious mockery.

But despite all his anger, EightBall’s words are controlled. Calculated.

Then, feeling his bat, he says, “There is only one kind of justice in this world. And it’s not the voyeuristic crap you’re pulling in there …” EightBall voice trails off as he refocuses behind the angel. Something in the back of EightBall’s mind tumbles to the forefront. An old, locked-away memory finds its way to his consciousness—the day his parents died … the explosion … finding his mother … passing out only to wake up by the oak tree.

All of this and more replays in his head.

It is the more he finds overwhelming, for EightBall remembers more now. He remembers that he didn’t pass out, but instead a huge man found him and took care of him until he fell asleep. And that huge man? “It was you who found me that day. You were the one who carried me out of the building. Who placed me under the oak tree. It was you.”

Penemue nods. He points at the bat. “Is that what you wish for me?”

EightBall doesn’t say anything, only looking at the bat’s pierced wood. Nine-inch nails … how fitting that this type of nail should end an angel of God.

The twice-fallen sighs, understanding his fate. “You know, I have watched over you since that day. I know you don’t remember this, but do you remember that fight you had with the asag? That grotesque demon chased you and your gang of HuMans away, but not before getting your scent. He sought to hunt you down, end the Paradise Lot chapter of the HuMans that night. I intervened because—”

“If you’re trying to get my sympathy, you can shove all the ‘guardian angel’ crap up your celestial ass,” EightBall whispers with scorn.

“I intervened because I could not allow any harm to fall upon you …” EightBall begins to protest again, but Penemue lifts a hand, begging for patience. The boy complies, but only because he is so confused by the scene before them. Seeing his parents, his old home … it’s all so disorientating.

The twice-fallen takes a deep breath to continue. “I intervened because it was not the asag’s right to end you before you had a chance at revenge. You had—have—a right to my life and until that right is claimed, no harm could befall you. I made sure of it. Besides, if he had killed you, then he would have inherited the claim, and being ‘owned’ by an asag is positively dire. Especially if you are a mountain.” The angel chuckles at a joke only he gets.

No one else does.

“Because asag demons like to fornicate with rocks and …” Penemue waves a dismissive hand. “Never mind—I digress. So if that is how you wish to use your claim, then so be it.”

At first, the boy says nothing.

The angel takes a step toward the portal, planning to step into the garden. “Come,” he says to Jean and Bella, “we must leave here before this hell implodes into a very literal nothing.”

“And what?” Jean says. “Go out there and let him bash your brains out? I will not let that—”

“You will not intervene,” Penemue yells. As he does, Hell trembles. The angel softens his voice. “You will not, Jean. I will submit to the boy. I will let him destroy my body with the miserable instrument of destruction he wields. I will do so because there is no other path to peace for him.”

“That is no path to peace,” Bella says.

“Then closure.” The angel touches the once dead human on the cheek. “Now come, before this place consumes us.”

There are more terrifying sounds of the reality being stripped away as they take a step forward. Another two feet and they will be outside. Another step or two and—

But before they can do so, a terrible, thunderous sound precedes a dark elf with a scythe leaping from the forest and onto the lawn. She extends her hand toward the portal and whispers one word. “Back.”

And that word sends forth a gale wind so powerful it knocks the angel and his two companions back into the portal, sewing up the rip in reality and returning the night sky to what it had been before.

DEMONS OF THE PAST HURT, BUT MONSTERS IN THE PRESENT KILL

Marc watches the portal close, trapping Jean, Penemue and Bella in Hell, and he feels something that he knows is not his right to feel: anger at losing Bella. He loves her, will always love her. Now and forever, in this life and the next.

He hits his forehead so hard with the flat of his own palm that he falls backward and away from the chain gun. “No, no, no,” he mutters to himself. “Bella is dead, but even if she wasn’t, she is Jean’s wife, not mine. Not mine. Not mine!” The last words come out as a roar as he wrestles with memories that are not his own.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” EightBall says, confused and not understanding that the suffering man in the body of the helicopter is not Jean.

Two Jeans … one in Hell and one here.

Not sure what to do, EightBall approaches the helicopter, but before he can get close, one of the fae women manifests behind him and, holding him close to her body, sets a blade at his throat.

Up close, Marc sees that she has aged, no longer the youthful beauty he first saw in the garden. She has burned time. Lots of time.

“Jean,” she cries out, holding the boy close to her, “I have come to make you suffer for what you’ve done to my husband.” She looks over at the hotel. “And my sisters. My world.”

Marc barely hears her; his mind is consumed with the vision that just appeared before him.

Bella … alive?

His heart yearns for her, wants to know how it is that she still exists. Searching Jean’s memories, he knows that she lives alone in Heaven. But she wasn’t in Heaven just then. She was with Jean, standing by his side in some sort of magical portal and—

“Human,” Hecate cries out, “are you listening? I am here to take everything from you. I am here to—”

But Marc turns around, giving the elven warrior his back as his mind travels elsewhere.

Bella was with Jean. But Bella is his. His wife? His love? His—

No, those are Jean’s memories, Jean’s experiences. Marc is not Jean. He is someone else. Someone new.

Someone better.

As Marc’s sense of self slowly returns to him, he feels a thud against his back. Looking behind him, he sees a rock that Hecate has thrown at him like some petulant child desperate for attention.

“Jean!” She screams his name so loudly that the moon itself hears her. “Jean, I will have my revenge. I will end you, but not before I take everything from you, just like you did me. Just like you did when you killed the Erlking.”

“Erlking?” He’s so distracted, the name means nothing to him.

A fact that does not escape Hecate. “You do not remember ending the life of one such as he? You do not—”

“Oh yes,” Marc says as he searches Jean’s memories. “The guy whose sword I—Jean took.”

“The Erlking’s hunting sword. A weapon whose blade is so sharp it can draw the blood of a god. I will have that returned after.” She presses her blade closer to EightBall’s neck.

“Please don’t,” EightBall whimpers.

“This boy, he means something to you,” Hecate said. “I have seen the two of you interact over the months that my sisters and I stalked your—”

“Kill the kid,” Marc says, his senses finally returning. “What do I care?” And as the words escape his lips, he knows that he doesn’t care. He wishes to be alone to meditate on himself. What he really desires is to purge himself of his desire for Bella, and to do so will take time. Time to build his own memories. His own thoughts.

Time to build who he is to become.

“What?” Hecate and EightBall say together.

Marc stands, shaking his body as if trying to physically shake loose the memory of Bella. Not his memories—not his wife. He is Marc, not Jean. They are different. He is different, and in order to be different he must accept that he has no one.

“Kill the kid,” Marc repeats. Jean would save the kid, or at least try. But Marc wants to be different. Needs to be different, and to be so means turning his back on everything that Jean would do.

Is this the best way? Marc ponders before slamming the door on his own self-doubt. That is something Jean would do. Ponder, wonder, invite angst while agonizing over every decision he makes. Marc will not do that. Ever.

“Best way or not,” he mutters to himself, “this is my choice.”

Hecate turns her head slightly as she tries to capture Marc’s words. But the human speaks too softly and she cannot hear what is said. “Excuse me?” she says.

Marc flashes her a wicked smile of indifference. “Nothing. Those were just the last vestiges of the part of me that is no more.” Hopping down from the helicopter’s bowels, he heads to the hotel. “Do as you wish with the kid—he’s none of my concern.” Then remembering everything that passed between EightBall and Penemue, says, “He’s no one’s concern now. Isn’t that right, kid? You shunned the only angel who ever loved you and you’re planning to kill him, right? After that, who will you have? No one.” Marc looks at Hecate. “In fact, I take that back. Don’t do what you like … Kill the kid. After he does what he’s planning to do, his life will be over, anyway.”

Hecate presses the blade so hard against EightBall’s throat that a thread of blood trails down to his shirt collar.

“No, please,” EightBall pleads.

“Come on, kid,” Marc says. “Let go. After you kill the angel, you’re done. Jean won’t have you. Judith won’t, either. Your ex-gang members already hate you. You’ll be penniless, friendless, homeless. She’s doing you a favor. Kill him.”

“No!” EightBall repeats. “I don’t want to die.”

“Why not?”

“Because …” EightBall pauses, searching his heart for an answer. But only one answer comes to him. One reason to live. “Because the angel still lives,” he says, his voice dripping with hate.

“So revenge, huh?” Marc meets Hecate’s eyes. “Sound familiar?” Marc shrugs. “Do as you wish. But if you kill him, then you’ll be denying him what you so desire.” He gives them his back, heading inside, but not before he unceremoniously steps over Hecate’s dead sister.

“No,” Hecate growls, knowing that she cannot deny this child what her heart yearns for more than life itself. “No, no. NO!”

Hecate lets EightBall go, charging at Marc. She is an experienced warrior, but nothing in her long, long past prepared her for someone as indifferent as this man.

Lunging forward with her dagger, she knows that she has lost. She has let her rage consume her, and thus she has left herself vulnerable. She will perish at the hands of this man. Just like her husband.

And Marc does not disappoint. With a simple pivot, Marc hits the inside of her elbow with one hand as he guides the tip of her blade with the other. It is a seamless insertion, an artist’s exactness sending the metal right into her heart.

Impaled on her own blade, Hecate feels her lifeblood drain from her, experiencing an emotion she did not expect during her last moments.

She is grateful. Grateful to finally leave this GoneGod World. Grateful to join her sisters and husband in death. Grateful that her pain will soon end.

Marc lets her drop, leaving her to bleed out. Taking a step toward the hotel’s back door, he feel a weak, fumbling hand on him. The boy.

“Thank you, Jean.”

“I am not Jean,” Marc says.

But Marc’s words do not register. EightBall simply looks down at his would-be killer and says, “You knew she’d let me go. That if she saw my desire for revenge, she’d let me go. And that was the only way to save me?”

Marc pauses for a second, mulling over the kid’s question. After a long pause, he nods. “Yeah, I suppose I did.” And with silent disgust, muses that maybe he’s not so different from Jean-Luc, after all.

PART XIX

HELL

Prologue 4

Penemue might have perished in those first years had it not been for the kindness of one mortal.

A human named Bella.

The human, discovering him passed out in an alleyway, pulled Penemue out of the gutter and into her home.

Before the gods left, Penemue knew what was written on the souls of humans. Therefore, he knew in a way that contained no hyperbole or exaggeration that there were few brighter souls that Bella’s.

Seeing her again, Penemue knew that the gods’ GrandExodus had done nothing to dim her soul’s glow.

She offered him a place to sleep in her hotel, a tiny attic to call home. And living with her in the One Spire Hotel, Penemue found a sliver of peace in this new GoneGod World.

Of course, it was not without some static. For one thing, one of the other residents was also an angel, the once-upon-a-time captain of the Lord’s Army and an angel of Heaven.

But the Angel of Heaven and the Angel of Hell did not fight. Maybe once they had been enemies, but here on Earth they were two being suffering the same reality.

Comrades in misery, brethren of fate.

Old grudges did not hold the same credence here.

No, the static did not come from Penemue’s mortal enemy … it came from Bella’s husband. He had been fighting with the human armies against Others and, three years later, returned to help his wife run the hotel.

He was suspicious of Others, and thought Penemue drank too much.

Maybe the angel did, but what else was there to do on Earth? Better to drink and read than just read.

Penemue and Jean quarreled.

They quipped.

And just before it could turn into anything serious, in walked Bella with her indomitable will. A will she used to force peace.

Until, that is, she died.

DYING ISN’T WHAT YOU’D EXPECT

I had always hoped to die by Bella’s side, but I knew that was too much to expect. I was destined to to die alone. Of that much, I was sure.

When I was in the Army, I always expected that an Other would get the best of me on some deserted island—or worse, catch me with my pants down in some two-star hotel room. The best I could have hoped for then was dying on my feet, fighting the good fight to my bitter end (and hopefully with my pants up).

Then Bella died (the first time) and I quit the Army and returned home to fulfill her promise.

During those days, I figured that I’d get electrocuted changing some lightbulb. Or worse, I’d manage to make it to my seventies, when natural causes would catch up with me and I’d die alone in my bedroom, probably staging some battle between G.I. Joes and Smurfs.

But however death eventually found me, I’d always assumed it would be me all by my lonesome, and if I died today, well, then I had figured right.

I turned to face the darkness. It was still several yards away and I guessed I had about thirty seconds before it hit me. Thirty seconds was a long time and I was genuinely lost as to what to do. Let my life flash before my eyes? Remember the good times? Ask forgiveness for my sins?

The answer was simple. I did what I always did when the end seemed near: I thought of Bella.

Except this time, I didn’t have to remember one of the happy times—the simple moments of being together, like watching TV or sitting across from each other sipping on coffee—because before I conjured one of those moments, two perfect arms wrapped around my chest. They held me in an embrace that was so far beyond anything Heaven could hope to give you.

“What are you doing?” I said, the side of me that wanted to protect her seeking to push out her of the portal.

“I’m testing your theory about the angel not killing you,” she said with a chuckle.

The darkness drew closer. We had ten seconds at best.

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to leave.”

“Not on your life.” She rested her head against my back. Heaven. Pure Heaven.

“OK,” I said, looking at a darkness so close that if I reached out I could touch it. “So much for dying alone.” I chuckled.

“Excuse me—” Bella started, but before she could say anything more, the darkness crashed into us … and there was nothing.

↔

A cool rush washed over us like stepping outside on a winter day, and with the cold came the complete lack of air. I guess that’s what the nothing of the void is … nothing. Nothing to latch on to, nothing to see. Nothing to breathe.

But this wasn’t like drowning. There was no thrashing about as we desperately tried to find air. No panic, no flailing that usually came with drowning. Instead, we were calm. At peace. I guess Penemue meant to end us, but he didn’t want us to suffer in our last moments.

Or maybe this was what it was like for all the Others who had let the darkness envelop them—a peaceful goodbye to their homes and gods.

Whichever it was, I knew we had almost no time left. And what little I did have, I decided to spend as best I could. With a kiss.

Our lips met, and Bella folded into me, her mouth pressing against mine. Evidently she’d wanted the same thing.

Embracing her, I knew that we had a few moments left before we passed out and then … well … bye bye birdie. We’d fall unconscious before we slipped into nothing. All in all, not the worst way to go.

Another few seconds and that would be it. Holding her tight, I let sleep overtake us.

As my mind went woozy, I thought of Penemue. He would suffer for our deaths—deaths we chose, and somehow that didn’t seem fair. So using the last of me, I said, “I forgive you.”

I didn’t know if he could hear me, or if the words would do anything to offer him comfort, but it was all I could do.

↔

But we didn’t die. Instead, we woke up in the darkness. A darkness that now had air in it. Flipping open my cellphone and using its screen as light, I saw that Bella was there. Her cheeks, flush with oxygen, bore a perfect pinkish hue.

“So we made it,” she said.

“We did.” And before she could say anything, I kissed her again. I kissed her like I should have done from the first moment I saw her and the hundred moments in between.

Except this time, we had air.

“Humm,” she moaned. “I’ve been waiting for that.”

“Yeah, sorry. I was … you know …”

“Not convinced it was me?”

I nodded.

“I figured. These things can be tricky. Heaven and Hell, and all this other godly stuff.”

“And you weren’t acting like you. Not always,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for one thing, you got jealous about Medusa. That wasn’t you … um, I mean, isn’t you.”

“Hey,” she said, giving me a light tap on my chest. “I just spent the last seven years alone in Heaven and, believe it or not, thinking about you. You can excuse a girl a little out-of-character jealousy.”

“And the distant thoughts. It was like you were somewhere else half the time.”

Bella squeezed my hands before sighing. “Well, yeah. About that …” Her voice trailed off in the way it did when she was about to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.

“Hey, you’re not breaking up with me here. I mean, if you are, you might want to reconsider. I’ll make a scene,” I said, looking around at the nothing we stood in.

She chuckled, but not as hard as I would have liked.

“I was distant because I’m not fully here.”

“What do you mean?” I narrowed my eyes, then poked her on the chest like she’d done me. “You feel like you’re here.”

“My mind … it’s also there.” She pointed up.

“There, there? As in Heaven there?”

She nodded.

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “All I know is that a part of me is still up there. I can feel it, and every now and then I get a glimpse of what I built up there.”

“Built? Feel? Glimpse? So much about that statement is hurting my head.”

This time she chuckled. “Yeah, me too. All I can say is that it’s like I’m both here and up there. Even when I was on Earth, I could feel myself still up in Heaven, floating around in what I had created.”

“All right, I need you to slow down and talk to me like someone who hasn’t spent the last few years dead and alone in a celestial plane generally reserved for the pure of heart.”

Another chuckle. And hearing it made my heart soar.

“OK,” she said, staring at the nothing we were in. “It’s not like we have anything else to do …” Pushing away from me, she floated a few feet off.

I followed, amazed at how easy it was to move around in this place. Yes we were floating, but we could control our movements using the same impulses I’d normally use to command my feet to move.

“Up in Heaven, I could build things using my will. I think it’s the same way that Others use their magic. Will it, and it manifests. Only difference is that I don’t age when I do it.”

I nodded in understanding. A while back Bella had imbued me with the ability to burn time. It was when I learned that she wasn’t dead, dead like everyone else … but her soul had still somehow managed to find Heaven.

At the time, I had been fighting the Avatar of Gravity, an Other of near god-like power. Bella had saved me and with a kiss, she gave me the ability to burn some time. Time which I used to create an army of 1980s toys to take down the Avatar. (Think Ghostbusters, but instead of the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man, I manifested Voltron, the Thundercats, Transformers and just about every other badass from Saturday morning cartoons to kick his butt into oblivion.)

“OK,” I said, “so you’re building stuff. Like what, skyscrapers? You’re not pulling a Trump and putting your name in gold on everything.” I scowled at the garish thought.

“No, silly. But I am building things. Constructs that … Well, it’s hard to explain and doesn’t really matter right now. Let’s just leave it at this: I’m preparing for what I fear is to come.”

“Which is …” I gestured as though I was pulling teeth.

Another chuckle. By the GoneGods, I’d live and die a thousand times just to hear that sound. “I’ve found things up there. Records— No, more than records. History books that talk about the past.”

“History books tend to be about the past.”

“Smartass. And by history, I don’t mean ours. I mean what came before us. I know this will sound crazy, but I don’t think this is the first time the gods left.”

↔

Remember in the old cartoons when Bugs Bunny or Donald Duck heard something unbelievable and their eyes popped out of their skull while their jaws dropped to the ground? I didn’t have a mirror, but I was pretty sure that was exactly how I looked at that moment.

“What do you mean, ‘Not the first time’?”

“Exactly what I said. I think the gods have left before. But that ‘before’ wasn’t like our now, if that makes sense. I think the first time they left was a far more primal time than ours.”

“Primal? Don’t you mean primordial?” I said, giving myself silent grammar kudos.

She pursed her lips, unimpressed. “I mean primal. The only creations they made were basic life and nothing else.”

“So they made the dinosaurs?” Now it was my turn to chuckle.

Bella didn’t laugh. She just shook her head and shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. What I do know is in that first round of their godly experiments, they didn’t create humans or minotaurs or dwarves or onis or … You get the idea. They just made the universe—our universe—and then left.”

“Left to go where? Isn’t the universe everything? Where the hell else is there to go?”

Another shrug. “I don’t know. I’m trying to figure it out. My best guess is that they left and came back literally millions of years later.” She shook her head in frustration. “You don’t understand. There is so much to go through and, well, I need to get back up there so—”

“No,” I said. I would have stomped my foot, but there was no ground to stomp my foot on.

“No?” She seemed genuinely confused.

“No,” I repeated. “You’re not going anywhere. Not without me.”

“Oh.” Her lips curled slightly as my meaning became clear to her. “You might not get the final say on that.”

“Oh yeah? Try me.”

“Look,” she said, drawing in close, “I don’t want to go anywhere without you. Never again. But if I can find a way back up there, I will. With you, great. But I’ll go alone if that’s the only way. I think the gods are planning to come back. Up there, I found this golden pillar … something they called Irim Emad. On it were these carving that—”

But before she could finish, a loud boom preceded a screech. Then we heard Penemue’s voice—if Penemue was pretending to be a pissed off James Earl Jones. “Enough, mortal. Speak not of matters of which you have no understanding!”

I’ve heard that kind of pissed off angel before … Michael and Miral, and a couple others during my Army days. It was the voice angels used when their feathers were being ruffled by us lowly humans speaking of divine matters they felt we had no right to.

I gave Bella’s hand a squeeze as I drew her in close. “Hey there, big guy. Don’t suppose you could show yourself for a chat?”

Nothing.

“Come on. Come on over to this nothing. It’s comfy, and I miss you.”

Still nothing.

“Hey, I know you want us to leave. I tell you what, we’ll do exactly that—leave. But only after we get to see you one more time. You know, to catch up and talk about things like the latest Kanye West … ah, I mean Ye rant, or wax lyrical about what it’s like to be in Hell.”

More nothing.

“OK, but it’s that or we start talking about the gods again. Bella, what were you saying? You found this golden pillar. Irim e-gad?”

“Emad,” Bella corrected.

As soon as she said the word, we heard an audible sigh as a fireplace manifested from thin air.

No fire was lit—nor did it seem as if any fire had ever been lit in it—but a light emanated from the other side.

Getting down on my knees (which was harder than you’d think when floating in nothing) I crawled through, closely followed by Bella. Whatever this was, it was the pathway to the next layer of Hell.

And who knew that the next layer of Hell would be a moderately decorated apartment that looked like a page out of an Ikea catalog?

Empty Hell wasn’t empty. It was the living room of a middle-class, suburban apartment.

EXPLOSIVE FAMILIES AND FAMILIES EXPLODING

Bella and I crawled through the light where, closer, we saw it was a—

Oh brother, I thought to myself, chimney. The entrance to the next layer of Hell is through the chimney. Go figure.

Actually, thinking back through my history with Penemue, it made perfect sense that the entrance was a chimney. Penemue was obsessed with Christmas and Santa Claus. For one thing, he once got a hobo blind stinking drunk just because the guy was overweight and had a big white beard. When I’d found him in the alley, Penemue insisted that the guy was St. Nick. He wasn’t.

At least, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t.

Then there was the time he got stuck in an industrial chimney in an abandoned warehouse because—and I quote—he “wanted to bring gifts to the children.” It took me three hours to get him out of the damn thing. When he finally came tumbling out, it was with a giant red sack filled with gifts that he got from only the GoneGods knew where.

I had pointed out that there were no children in an abandoned warehouse. But he had said, “Build it and they will come,” before insisting we wait there. Sure enough, several hours later families started showing up. One family brought a folding table and some egg nog, and were soon followed by a dozen more families with their own contributions to the potluck.

So, he had planned the little gathering ahead of time and was doing a dry run with the chimney for the kids, only to discover he was too big to fit through. Not that anyone cared; all the families there were down on their luck, and that Christmas … well, that was probably the best Christmas I’ve ever had.

“Damn you, Penemue,” I muttered, looking around the apartment.

The place looked normal enough. A three-bedroom, moderately sized apartment with a few toys strewn about; a bit of mess, but not too bad. In this place, I felt love.

A piano sat at the far end with several family portraits on it. I walked over and picked one of them up. A young boy dressed in a suit and red tie smiled as two proud parents stood next to him, a hand on each shoulder.

I knew that picture—I’d seen it before. Hell, I was the one who found it. This was an apartment from Paradise Lot. But it wasn’t just any apartment … this was EightBall’s place.

This was where the boy grew up.

↔

With a click, the front door unlocked and an eight-year-old EightBall—Newton was his real name—walked in with his mom and dad. The three of them looked elegant, like they’d just come from a party. His mother wore a floral dress, and his father a V-neck sweater and a red tie. Newton had on the same V-neck sweater as his father and a pair of red tennis shoes.

The young boy ran into the living room and I braced myself for the expected surprise when he saw two strangers standing there. But the boy didn’t show any surprise or fear or anything, really.

He didn’t even indicate he knew we were there. All he did was run straight to the piano and start playing.

Here was the boyhood version of the kid I knew so well. Short, cropped hair, a bright smile … there was no mistaking him. Except this kid had never joined the HuMans—a gang hell-bent on terrorizing Others. He’d never gotten their characteristic tattoos all over his face—tattoos of all the different religious symbols that were largely debunked with the gods’ departure. He had yet to be hardened by losing his family, his childhood.

This was EightBall before all that crap happened to him.

“That’s good, honey,” his mom said from the other room. “But practice will have to wait. We have guests tonight, so please go wash up.”

“Sure thing, Mom.” EightBall jumped from the piano bench and ran toward the bathroom.

The family moved about, completely oblivious to our presence. And even though they looked and even smelled alive, they lacked a certain presence that Bella and I had. Looking at them was like looking at a moving photograph; you knew it was based on something that existed, just like you knew that that thing wasn’t the photograph itself.

The table was set, the final plate placed just as the doorbell rang. EightBall ran to the door. From where I stood, I couldn’t see who was there. But as soon as I heard the voice say, “Young Master Newton, how are you this fine day?” I knew exactly who was coming to dinner.

As if punctuating my thoughts, EightBall cried out, “Uncle Penemue!” and the eight-foot-tall, muscular, tweed-wearing angel walked into the living room.

↔

EightBall’s parents greeted Penemue with warmth and love, like they were old friends. “Please sit,” EightBall’s dad said. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Actually, I brought a little something something to the party.” Penemue pulled a bottle of Drambuie from his wings.

He handed the bottle to EightBall’s mom, who appraised it. “Ahhh, Drambuie … the closest thing Earth has to ambrosia.”

Penemue chuckled. “Indeed.”

“Can I have some?” EightBall asked.

“I’m afraid, young Master Newton,” Penemue said, “this is a delight that must wait until your body grows in height and age, and your mind is imbued with enough experience to handle the wonder that is Drambuie.”

“Huh?” the kid said.

EightBall’s dad laughed, patting his son on his head. “That’s Uncle Penemue speak for ‘You’ll have to wait until you grow up.’ ”

“Indeed, young Master Newton. Indeed.”

↔

What followed was a perfectly pleasant dinner with laughter and joy—what came from four people who loved each other sharing a meal. Not that we really saw much of it.

We spent the dinner trying to find a clue as to what was happening, but everywhere we went was a dead end. The front door wouldn’t open to our touch, nor would any windows. We couldn’t interact with our surroundings, which made us helpless to do anything but watch.

“What is this?” Bella asked. “I get that we’re in one of Penemue’s most painful memories, but what is this?”

“I … I don’t know,” I said. “Bella, this would be a perfect time for ‘I’m the guide’ to start guiding.”

Bella shrugged. “Heaven and Hell are built on layers, like an onion. Some layers overlap others and can interact with them. Other layers are just for observing, with no way to actually influence what’s happening.”

I gave Bella a blank look. “You’re talking to us like Others do—a puzzle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in completely useless information.” I tried to smile, to show my comment for the joke it was intended to be, but we were up against a deadline and I wasn’t feeling very funny right now.

“Think of it this way: Heaven and Hell have these cameras that let you peer into other places. Some cameras are just that—a passive, one-way opportunity to observe. But some cameras come with loud speakers so you can talk to the people inside. And others have even more interactivity than that, like—”

“A robot or a drone?” OK—deadline or not, you can always joke about robots and drones.

Except now it was Bella’s turn to be all serious. “Exactly,” she said, without a hint of mirth. “That’s exactly it. And the more powerful you are, the more layers you have access to. The more robots and drones you can control. And if you’re supremely powerful, then you can actually transport yourself into the situation.”

“I see,” I said … and I did. Heaven and Hell were filled with messengers of different degrees and stature. Everything from vague visions to prophets, all the way to archangels delivering the message. Generally, we heard about them when they made their way to Earth, but it made sense that that was how communication worked here, as well.

I guess neither place was really into privacy, either.

“You said supremely powerful beings could do it all, huh?” I asked.

Bella nodded.

“So, if I were a supremely powerful being seeking to torture myself, what would I do?” I muttered as I walked around the room.

“What are you looking for?”

“Dust,” I said, enjoying my own cryptic response. And that’s when I saw it … Right on the edge of the piano near the photographs was a bit of disturbed dust. I knew it hadn’t been us who’d disturbed it, because we couldn’t interact with our surroundings. And as for everyone here—with the except of EightBall—no one had gone near the piano, and he hadn’t touched the surface.

“Bella,” I said, “how do you interact with a layer that you know is there but can’t see?”

“You can’t. Not unless the person in that layer chooses to interact with you … assuming they can.”

“Oh, they can alright.” I stared into empty space next to the piano and muttered, “Come on, big guy—show yourself. I know you’re there.”

Nothing happened.

“Jean, please. Now is not the time to go insane.”

“I’m not. He’s here—right here. Aren’t you, big guy? Come on, show yourself. Please.”

Again nothing.

“Penemue, I’m begging you. Show yourself.”

Still nothing.

“You owe me, you bastard. You owe me. Bella is here, but she’s in danger. And you owe me.” I pointed at Bella. “She’s going to get trapped in here unless we get her out. And apparently we can’t do that unless we get you out of here first.”

Still nothing. So I decided to try another tack: guilt.

“Do you remember what you said to me the day we discovered Bella was trapped in Heaven and the bridge to get in was destroyed? I had no way to get back to her. Do you remember what you said to me? Because I do. I said that I was never going to see her again and you said, ‘Probably not, but then again, it has been my experience that there is rarely only one way to get to a destination. After all, one could walk, run or fly. Bella is still there.’

“And when I gave you a blank look, you said, ‘My point, dear Human Jean, is that she got there using an entirely different method than the First Law did. My point is that if there are two ways to Heaven, then perhaps there is a third. My point is that if there is a will, there is a way. But really, my point is that if I am ever going to find a way back into Heaven before my body is old and brittle, I must have time to concentrate.’ You were reading a book. Something about physics.” I snapped my finger as I tried to remember what it was. “I can’t remember the title. It was …”

A figure manifested, his face covered in tears of light. “An Advanced Understanding of Quantum Physics. A dead end, really. Seems that quantum physics doesn’t really come into play when it comes to Heaven.”

Penemue stood before me, and although he was there, it didn’t feel like him. It was like I was looking at another photograph.

“Penemue,” I said.

The twice—now three-times—fallen angel put up a shushing finger. “Hold on … we’re about to get to the good part.” He pointed at the table where everyone was clearing up.

As soon as the last plate had been taken to the kitchen, EightBall called out, “Can I go outside now?”

“Sure thing, honey. Just stay by the old oak tree where I can see you.”

“OK, Mom,” he said as he ran out the door.

“This is it,” Penemue said. “The moment I took all this happiness away.”

And before I could say anything, there was a loud rumble as the words, “Thank you for believing in us, but it’s not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck,” rang out like a klaxon warning of an imminent nuclear strike.

Then there was an explosion as the apartment around us blew apart into a million little pieces of nothing.

AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, AD INFINITUM

On my first day of boot camp, my drill sergeant yelled, “How does one survive an explosion?”

Me being an idiot and not really getting how things worked there, asked, “How?”

The drill sergeant gave me the biggest shit-eating grin I’ve ever seen (not an easy feat—I’m friends with the demi-god of refuse, a creature literally made from crap) and sent me on the longest run of my life.

When I got back, exhausted and defeated, my drill sergeant asked me if I still wanted to know how one survives an explosion.

I nodded. “Absolutely.”

This time his eyes widened as veins bulged from his forehead, like he was trying to make me explode with his mind (which, if I survived it, would have given me my answer). I was sent on another run and by the time I got back, I discovered that everyone in my platoon knew the answer and were told, under threat of death, not to share it with me.

Over the next few weeks, that drill sergeant asked me every day if I wanted to know the answer, and every day I said “Yes,” thus condemning myself to more running, push-ups and other torturous exercise.

Was I a glutton for punishment? Yes. Was I being a defiant asshole? Yes. But I also really wanted to know the answer.

Despite my obvious aversion to authority, I graduated top of my class and was enlisted straight out of boot camp into Special Forces (which resulted in more training hell).

On my last day, I asked the old drill sergeant, “How does one survive an explosion?”

He gave me that same shit-eating grin he always did. “You pray you don’t, son, because being put back together hurts more than the blue flames of Tartarus.” Then he lifted his pant leg, revealing a wooden stump and a catheter filled with yellow piss.

I’d always thought the old drill sergeant was a bit of wimp. After all, he survived an explosion and came back somewhat whole, and was able to fulfill what I was sure was his lifelong ambition of torturing young cadets.

But when the apartment exploded and my body was torn into a thousand little pieces, I felt nothing. Well, that’s not exactly true … I felt a mild discomfort that was over in a flash as soon as my brain was splattered like a paint-filled balloon.

Then I started to come together, the thousand pieces that made me up slowly crawling back to each other, stitching back together. My brain was the first part of me to become whole, and once it was whole, it became my personal Rosetta Stone of agony, translating the meaning of pain in all sorts of soul-destroying ways.

I have never hurt like I did that day when Penemue’s inferno put me back together. And as soon as I was whole, I did something I’ve never done in my all my days … I got on my knees and prayed to the GoneGods that I’d never feel that pain again.

↔

As soon as I could focus again, I realized that I wasn’t the only thing that was whole again. So was Bella (thank the GoneGods), and so was everything else.

The apartment was whole, as was EightBall’s family. But unlike the obvious torment that painted Bella’s face and mine, they looked perfectly normal.

Well, normal isn’t exactly the word I’d use. They looked whole and human, except for the strange fact that they were moving in reverse. And I don’t mean walking in reverse, or gesturing in that way mimes do when pretending to go back in time.

They were moving in reverse, and it looked like I was watching a film being slowly rewound.

At the point I gained consciousness was the moment when EightBall’s mother closed the door behind young Newton. Except she was opening it and he was running in backward before going to the kitchen, then coming out with his dirty dishes and sitting back down at the dinner table.

Penemue—well, dinner-guest Penemue—took back his bottle of Drambuie, walked backward and out the door. The piano playing, conversations—everything that had just happened reversed like some drawn-out scene from Twin Peaks before everyone got up and left the room. They left the apartment empty again, just like when we first arrived.

I turned to see Penemue. The angel was whole again, and from his own pained expression, I saw that he had experienced it all as well. The explosion, the agonizing re-stitching. The whole ordeal.

But he didn’t only experience it as an observer—dinner-guest Penemue must have felt it, too. The angel was literally doubling up on his punishment.

Once the family was outside again, everything stopped and for a blissful second, nothing moved as the world went silent. No, silent isn’t the right word, because silence implies that there was sound still lurking somewhere.

This was more like the permanent absence of sound. Like we were standing in a place where sound could not be.

Then there was a jerk as everything started again, and time flowed as it was meant to, with seconds ticking forward toward whatever was to come next.

And what came next was EightBall and his family entering the modest apartment, just as they had the first time. As they sat for dinner, I realized what was happening.

We were going to relive this whole damn thing again.

And again.

And again …

This was the heart of Penemue’s inferno, his personal Hell.

Reliving the moment he most regretted again and again in all its pain-filled glory.

↔

“No,” Bella said. “I can’t go through that again.”

I looked over at my wife as her eyes welled up with tears of fear at the coming pain.

Bella was afraid, and seeing that expression was so foreign to me. I’d seen her at her worst. Hell, I’d watched her die, being stabbed to death by blades she knew were coming. She was afraid then and I saw the same look in her eyes now.

She was my Amazonian warrior, my Valkyrie, and seeing her so afraid was so surprising and foreign to me that it pierced the very fabric of my being. The sight of her like that was the most painful thing I’d ever experienced and I’d take a thousand explosions and re-stitchings over seeing her like that for another second.

I rushed over to her and held her tight. “You won’t … you won’t. I promise.” Then, turning to the only person who could stop this pain from happening again, I yelled at the angel, “Stop this. Now.”

His answer was light-filled tears that rolled down his cheeks and a subtle shake of his head.

“Please,” I said, walking over to him. “I’m begging you. Please.”

The angel ignored me, pointing at young Newton. “So much joy stolen by me. He has suffered because of what I did. And so must I.”

“By accident,” I screamed as I watched in horror as the family made their way through dinner. I knew that with every bite, every joke shared, every quip exchanged, we were one second closer to the coming agony. “It was an accident. Not something you did intentially. That has to count for something.”

Penemue just shook his head. “Pain intentially inflicted or not, is still pain.”

“So what? Do you think that reliving this over and over again is penance?”

Penemue just nodded like he was answering a very simply, straightforward question. “It is all I deserve.”

EightBall stood from the table. In a moment he would go outside. In a moment it would happen again.

“Jean-Luc,” Bella said, her voice shaking.

“Bella,” I said, running to her side, “when he goes outside, you follow him. Do you hear me?”

Bella gave me an uncertain nod. “What about you?”

“I’m going to figure this out. But in case I can’t, I want you to be outside by the oak tree. You’ll be safe there. Come back in as soon as it’s over.”

Another uncertain nod.

Good enough, I thought. Turning back to the angel, I considered what to say next.

But as I mulled over my next words, Bella shouted, “I can’t get out.”

Looking over my shoulder, I saw that Bella was trapped inside, some invisible force field keeping her in the house.

“This place is designed to punish,” Penemue said. “Only the constructs can leave. The living”—he gestured at Bella—“and those who were once alive are trapped here. I am so sorry, Human Jean-Luc, but I warned you. You should have left when I asked.”

I heard a low rumbling as the thunder of the coming explosion built momentum. “No, you can stop this.”

“I have already told you, this is my prison. This is my forever.”

A voice echoed in the room—“Thank you for believing in us, but it’s not enough. We’re leaving. Good luck”—as the rumbling grew in intensity.

“No,” I said. “Stop this. Now!”

“I cannot.”

Desperate not to suffer like that again, I grasped for the only straw I saw before me: an unfulfilled promise.

“You owe me,” I said. “You owe me an explanation of my past. Tell me about my father.”

KEEPING SECRETS SECRET

I used to be afraid of Penemue. Well, that wasn’t exactly true … I used to be afraid of his thing.

And no, not that thing.

As is true of all angels, Penemue has a thing, and his is knowing everything that has ever been written … on paper, in stone and on the human soul. That means he knew just about everything there was to know about you—before the gods left, that is.

And given that I was essentially an orphan whose mother died at birth, taking the identity of my father with her, the one person living on this Earth who could tell me about my past was Penemue.

He knew everything there was to know about my mom, including who she was after she met my father—whoever he was—and everything else about her. I wasn’t really a let’s-rehash-the-past kind of guy and I never wanted to know about my dad. I really didn’t. It would open wounds that scarred over long ago, and why complicate my already over-complicated life?

But Penemue was a drunk. Which meant that, at any moment during one of his drunken stupors (and he was inebriated more often than he wasn’t), he could blurt something about my father. So I did what one always does when facing a problem with an Other … I made him promise.

That was the thing about Others: their word was their bond, and that bond was made not of oak, but a substance more powerful than Wolverine’s adamantium. So, one evening as I watched Penemue prepare for yet another bender, I grabbed the bottle out of his hand and said, “You know who my father is, do you not?”

The angel nodded.

“And you could tell me just about everything I’ve ever want to know about him, right?”

Another nod as he reached out for the bottle. “What do you wish to know?”

I held the bottle out of reach. “Nothing.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I wish to know nothing about him. Absolutely nothing.” Then, precariously holding his Drambuie between forefinger and thumb, said, “Promise me that you will never tell me anything about him. Promise me.”

Penemue gave me a curious look before pursing his lips. “Ahh, I see,” he said. “You do not wish me to accidently divulge information about his whereabouts or something more. You wish to—how do you humans put it?—snooker me into silence.”

“Snooker?”

“Outplay, trap, force … snooker,” he said by way of explanation.

“I haven’t heard any humans put it that way—”

“It’s a British expression.”

“Whatever. And yes, I want to ‘snooker’ you into silence. And if this dysfunctional friendship is to continue, then I need to ‘snooker’ you into silence.”

“Even if there are things about your past—and, more specifically, your father—I believe you should know?”

I gave the angel a curious look. Something he believed I should know? What the hell did that mean? Then again, Penemue was an angel, and who knew what angels thought was important? It could be something as simple as my father’s side of the family having a history of bowel cancer, all the way up to my dad being Satan himself. Or something in between.

Wherever the little tidbit Penemue thought I should know about my father lay, I figured I didn’t want to know. Family medical histories and devilish dads were best left buried and gone.

Then again, Penemue could just be drunk, and the thing he believed I should know was that I was part Cherokee or something.

I shook my head. “I don’t care. Whatever it is, I don’t want to know it.”

“Very well, but my honor will not allow me to take that oath.”

I threw my hands up in exasperation.

Penemue lifted a Patience, please finger. “I’m afraid your way is not the best way to go about things, my friend.” He pulled out another bottle from only the GoneGods knew where. “I will not promise never to speak of your father.”

So much for being patient.

Enraged, my mind went through all sorts of threats I could use to get that damn promise out of him, but before I could start down the long litany of “You owe me,” and “I’ll kick you out of the hotel,” Penemue cocked an arrogant smile. “I will, however, promise to never speak of your father lest you ask. That is my solemn oath to you.”

“Unless I ask?”

“Mum’s the word.” He mimed locking his lips with a key, then handed me the key. “And thus I entrust the key to such secrets to you.”

And that was the day I stopped fearing Penemue.

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS … EVEN WHEN IT’S NOT YOUR OWN HOME

Penemue lifted a finger and tapped empty air like he was pushing some invisible button. He might have done exactly that, because as soon as his finger moved for a third time, the rumbling stopped. I looked around to see what was happening.

Bella was still there, her expression downgraded from terrified to just plain scared. And as for EightBall’s family, they were still there. His mother standing by the window watching him play, his father still at the table, gnawing on the T-bone of his steak as he vacuumed up the last scraps of flesh on the bone.

Turning back to the twice-fallen angel, I gave him an expression he must have seen painted on my face a thousand times before: confusion.

Through tear-soaked eyes, he said, “I shall fulfill my oath to you and tell you about your father. But know this: once that is done, we will return to this hell.”

I nodded. “It’s not a hell either Bella or I deserve.”

“Humph,” the angel mused. “So few who have wallowed in Hell’s fiery pits deserved their fate. Even I, when first cast down, knew I did not deserve to be here. This time around, however”—he pointed at the frozen family—“I absolutely deserve to suffer.”

Penemue was right—in a sense. Angel hierarchy and morality were very different than anything humans understood. But I had been around the winged humanoid creatures enough that I knew this much: Penemue had defied God (as in, capital-G God). He had sinned by going directly against his creator—a creator he knew intimately, had met, spoken to, loved—and in doing so, he was condemned to Hell. Given the rules that angels play by, he deserved Hell.

But it went beyond that, because even though Penemue accepted his lot in Hell, I don’t think he ever believed he deserved it. Accepting your fate and deserving it are two different things, and Penemue knew damn well what would happen to him if he got caught teaching humankind how to read and write.

He did it anyway, because he believed what he did was right.

He did it because he chose to love humans over his own kind. And I don’t think he ever regretted it. But love comes with a price. And Penemue’s ability to know everything written on a human’s soul meant that what he felt for us was beyond love. It was something else—something more.

Something that had evolved beyond love.

Keep evolving, I mused. Penemue was always on about how we needed to keep evolving if we had any chance of surviving. Perhaps that was what he had done. His love for us had evolved and now he stood on a branch of the Tree of Life that he had created, alone and praying that others would, in time, join him.

And when that never happened and then the gods left, expelling him from Hell in such a way that he killed several humans he cared for with emotions beyond love … Well, his fault or not, that was something he could never forgive.

As a human—no, that’s not right … As an unevolved human, I would never understand that. I couldn’t, because I hadn’t evolved. He was operating under another set of rules that, no matter how ridiculous I found them, were his own.

Still, I needed to save my friend. Desperately searching for the right words, I stammered, “But you didn’t—”

Penemue lifted a silencing finger, his face briefly flushing with anger before softening again. “My friend, I read your soul long ago. As marred as it is, you care—for me, for Others, for everyone. That is why she loves you”—he nodded at Bella—“and how I know you care for me. But your ability to help can only go so far. I am beyond redemption and thus must apologize to you, my dear Jean-Luc Matthias. Whatever words you wish to say, clever or not, will not change my fate. This moment is but a reprieve as I fulfill a promise to an old friend.”

Penemue touched the gem at his neck before rubbing his hands together in that vigorous way sumo wrestlers do before a match. Opening his palms, I saw a pile of dust that was either the result of the most vigorous case of exfoliation ever … or magic.

He blew the dust, which flowed over Bella and me like a sandstorm. We were transported out of EightBall’s childhood apartment and into a typical suburban street.

So magic, then.

I stared around the somewhat familiar place until it finally dawned on me where we were: the street my mother used to live on before she, well … died having me.

This was her childhood home, the place where PopPop had raised her. But when she died, PopPop couldn’t stand being in that house anymore. And given he was once again raising a little one, he moved us to a smaller house closer to the city. The kind of place where the teenage hell-raiser I became could walk home after a night of fake-ID bar-hopping.

Good ol’ PopPop, always planning ahead.

“Over there,” I said, pointing at the old RoadRunner that I’d eventually inherit from my grandfather. “Do you remember that car?”

Bella came in close. “Yeah.” Her voice sounded dreamy as she recalled the same memories I was. We had both lost our maidenhood on the back seat of that car. Well, Bella lost her maidenhood. I lost my—my … what’s the equivalent of maidenhood for a guy? Knighthood? Misterhood?

Virginityhood. I lost my virginityhood there.

But despite all the familiarity of the scene, there was something not quite right about this place. I had seen a bunch of pictures of this street, and my PopPop had driven by that house a million times as a kid, pointing to the front lawn or window or porch and telling me about some memory of Mom.

Hell, on more than one occasion, we even rang the doorbell and went inside for a tour, where he’d regale me with stories of the mischief my mother got up to. I’m not sure the new owners loved us occasionally barging in, but they never said no. And despite never living there myself, I knew the insides of that place in intimate detail.

But I knew it as the place my mother grew up in. The memories I had of it were hers, not mine.

And yet, standing there, I felt as though I knew the place as if those memories were my own. I felt connected to that house in a way I never had the dozens and dozens of times I’d seen it.

This wasn’t my mother’s house—it was mine.

Mine. But how could that be? I’d never lived here, and despite my PopPop being a great storyteller, he could never imbue me with the sense that it was mine. Not like this.

“What’s going on here?” I asked as the uncanny familiarity washed over me.

Penemue must have known exactly what I was feeling, because he shook his head with a sigh that betrayed a heavy and uncompromising burden. “Do you know what it feels like to read a soul? It is not like reading a book or even watching a movie. To read a soul is to know it. And the only way you can truly know something is to experience it as if it is your own. You are reading this place, feeling it with the same intimacy your mother once felt.”

The impact of what he’d just said washed over me. I wasn’t looking at this house with some detached amusement—I was feeling this place with all the emotional intensity my mother felt. More so, because she had a lifetime to feel this way, and in that lifetime her emotions for this house must have evolved. Changed. Emotions that ebbed and flowed through her until they became a part of who she was. And because they were such a part of her, she probably didn’t even notice them most of the time, the emotions playing in the background like a beating heart.

You know it’s there. You know it beats inside you. But you rarely acknowledge it fully.

But for me—for us—this was new, like suddenly growing a second heart. You couldn’t help but feel it beating inside you at all moments.

“Is this how you feel everything?” I asked.

Penemue nodded. “More so, Human Jean-Luc. You are but a guest here. I have little choice when reading another’s soul. I only need something to happen to take my mind to that person and I am … here.” He gestured to the house.

“So every time you think of EightBall—I mean Newton—you are taken to the moment of his parents’ death.”

A single tear of light rolled down the twice-fallen’s cheek. “Again, more so, because I don’t just feel that moment. I feel all moments, from his birth to the day my connection with the human soul was severed. And … and I also read his parents’ souls and feel their joy and love and … pain. I read it all, simultaneously and constantly. Again and again and again.”

Now the tears flowed freely from him. Seeing my friend’s immense pain, I went to him and gave him a hug. Well, I tried to. He was eight feet tall and built like one of those Engineer Goliaths in the Aliens movies, so my arms didn’t cover much of him.

Luckily, Bella was there to complete the circle.

So this was it was like to be the angel who could read everything. He also felt it. And given that I was almost floored by reading—feeling—my mother’s emotions toward her childhood home, feeling EightBall and his parents’ life all at once must have been awe-inspiring and overwhelming. How the angel managed to do anything when he was so connected to everything, I will never understand. I would go insane.

And suddenly I understood why he was driven to drink. The inebriation must dull this connection.

“You are the strongest being I can imagine,” I said, not so much to comfort him, but because I truly believed it. Believe it.

“Hell is now,” Penemue said. I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that. I could only assume he was referring to the repetition of his hell. How the same few minutes seemed to repeat themselves over and over again. Then again, he might have meant something else—not that I would ask. Now I was learning who my father was, and in doing so, I’d hopefully find a way to break Penemue from his hell.

In other words, I needed to find a way to stop now from happening again.

NOW MAY BE FOREVER, BUT FOREVER ISN’T NOW

Without another word, Penemue walked up to the house and opened the door, only pausing for a brief moment before walking through the threshold.

Bella and I followed. As soon as we got to the door, a wave of emotion hit me with all the force of a hurricane. So that was why Penemue paused. Walking in wasn’t as simple as taking a step—you needed to steel yourself against the emotional impact of this place.

My mother loved this house. No, that wasn’t quite right. She did love this place, but she also hated it, sought comfort here, got into fights with PopPop, cried, laughed … lived, in all the meaning of the word.

And walking in, feeling what she felt for the first time and all at once, was overwhelming.

And beautiful.

And terrifying.

At first I didn’t think I could walk through that door. It was just too much. But Bella—my beautiful, empathetic Bella with a heart the size of the Titanic—took my hand and led me in. She must have felt everything I did, but being who she was, adjusted far more quickly than I could. I guess some people were emotional warriors and, if that’s true, then my Bella was the Queen Sheba of Feelings.

Inside, we walked into a living room with all the furniture I’d grown up with, just in another layout. I knew the house and knew that my mother would be the last door on the right, down a narrow hallway.

At first I didn’t think anyone was home. But then we heard some laughter and, following Penemue’s lead, we walked to the back where I smelled … what was that? Pot?

Looking through the door, I saw my mom wearing a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt and nothing else—argh!—in her bed, lying next to a man … No, he was too young to be a man. She was lying next to a boy who looked uncannily like me. They were sweating, breathing hard as they puffed on their wacky tabacky-filled smokes. They giggled in that post-lovemaking way young lovers do.

I don’t know what hit me first: that my mom was smoking pot (kind of cool), or that she was in bed with a guy who looked like me. A Freudian nightmare combined with the scarring sight of your mom half-naked in bed. Or that the man she was with was my father.

OK, that’s a lie … I know exactly what hit me first: naked Mom. I guess there’s no age limit on being scarred for life by the sight of that.

They were cuddling as they smoked and giggled, and I felt something that genuinely made me happy.

She loved him. She loved my father.

He wasn’t some one-night stand like my PopPop had always told me. Here was a man whom my mother completely, sincerely, totally loved.

And they were happy.

Penemue put a hand on my shoulder. In a voice imbued with respect (hard to manage, given we were the ghostly equivalent of peeping Toms) he said, “They were happy—and to be married. Much like your story with Bella, they were waiting until they were of legal age to elope. Your father had just gotten a job at Mama’s bakery. You know the one?”

I nodded. Bella and I went to Mama’s all the time for chocolate and macadamia nut cookies.

“He was saving up for a wedding ring and the first three months’ rent on a one-bedroom apartment that—”

But before Penemue could finish, we heard screeching tires as a car pulled into the driveway.

The next thing I felt was fear as my mother yelled, “Shit, Dad’s home early. Get out of here. Go … go!”

She frantically waved her hands around as she sprayed the room with air freshener. My father, obviously terrified of PopPop, sprang out of bed. In that classic 1980s movie cliché, he scooped up all his clothing and, with one sock on, threw his clothes out the window before he tumbled out into the night.

I heard the front door open and my PopPop walked through. He was a much younger man then, still in possession of a full head of hair and not yet in possession of a beer belly. “Honey,” he said, “you home?”

“Yeah, Dad,” she said, closing her door.

My PopPop walked through the house. “What’s that smell? You better not be smoking again. I told you, young lady, that if I caught you with that—”

He opened the door to see my mother holding a tampon.

“Dad!” she cried.

“Oh God … Oh God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

My mother raced over to the door and slammed it in his face, crying out, “You have to knock. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

“I know honey. I just … I … I’m so, so sorry.” GoneGodDamn! My mom was badass. Not only was she having a rocking good time, she totally did something I never thought possible growing up.

She got PopPop to apologize.

I started laughing. Thank the GoneGods I was invisible, because I would have woken up the entire neighborhood with my howls.

“Honey,” PopPop said after a couple minutes, “I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you. I’ll make some popcorn and we can curl up on the couch and watch The Merv Griffin Show. What do you say?”

My now-dressed mom opened the door and gave PopPop a big hug. “Yeah, that sounds great.”

↔

“So that’s my dad. Sneaking around, chasing tail.” I ran my hands through my hair.

Bella came up behind me and gave me a tight squeeze. “I guess the apple doesn’t fall from the tree.”

“Yeah, and I guess parents are all scary when it comes to protecting their young. I owe Judith an apology.”

Penemue rubbed his hands in that way he did just before we arrived. “They were in love. Deeply and completely. Love of the young and foolish …”

“Then why wasn’t he around? Why didn’t he know about me?”

“Do you truly wish to know?”

I paused. The past is the past, but now that this doorway had been opened—now that I knew he wasn’t some asshole who knocked up my mom and left—I wanted to know.

I needed to know.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Very well, then.”

Once more, Penemue opened up his palms and blew.

↔

Now we were on the dark street, following my dad as he hopped around, getting dressed as he walked. Finally clothed, he made his way downtown.

As we followed him, I felt one thing permeating the air ... happiness. My father was happy. Happy to be in love. Happy for what the future held. Well, what he believed it held.

Just happy.

We got downtown, where he walked into a restaurant that in present-day Paradise Lot is the Stalker’s Café. In his time, it was called Angels.

He sat at the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender gave him a curious eye and, knowing he wasn’t going to get one, downgraded his drink to a cola.

Three young ladies stood at the bar, all of whom chuckled at his failed attempt. “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said, eyeing the three of them. Let me tell you, they were Holy Guacamole gorgeous. I mean … wow.

Not that my father noticed. I could still feel his love for my mom, and that made me … what? Love him? I don’t know, but I liked my father a hell of lot more than I thought I would should I ever get a chance to meet him.

“No, you can’t,” purred the first lady, who lifted her finger.

As if the bartender had nothing else to do but serve her, he walked over with a beer. She pointed at my father and, throwing caution and the legal drinking age to the wind, handed it to him. “So, young Luke,” she said.

“Luke?” I said. “So that’s my dad’s name. He was a Jedi before there were Jedi.” I couldn’t help but beam with geeky pride.

“Jean-Luc,” Bella whispered. “Your name.”

I nodded with understanding. It wasn’t just that my mom was trying to be clever with the whole “John, Luke, Matthew—only missing the Mark (well, not anymore)” thingy.

She wanted me to carry a bit of my father with me—always.

As soon as I finished speaking, the lady who had handed my father a beer looked right at me. From the way her eyes looked through me, I knew she couldn’t see me. But she responded as if she’d heard me. And there was fear in her eyes.

Her fear was chased away by the other two coming up to her. “Sister,” they said, “you were saying?”

As if remembering herself, her smile returned. “Young Luke, how good it is to meet you.”

My father looked at her in confusion. “How do you know my name?”

“What the fuck?” I said. I didn’t need this conversation to continue to know exactly what was happening. This lady—these ladies … they were Others. It was so damn obvious.

But how could my father know? This was before the gods left. Before the world knew that every kind of mythical creature ever written about (and then some) was real. To my father, this was just some weird, incredibly sexy lady who knew his name.

The existence of Others in the mortal realm before the gods left was bad news. Whatever they wanted with him was bad news. I knew it. Bella knew it. Penemue knew it. These ladies knew it.

Everyone but my father knew it.

“Stop this. Stop this now!” I screamed.

Now all three of the ladies were looking at me—well, through me. They had heard me.

“You stay away from my dad,” I growled. “Do you hear me? Stay away!”

The lips of the one who had been speaking to my father curled into a snarl. “This is none of your concern.” She drew out a ball of thread from her purse and pulled at the thread. Before I could do or say anything, the world around us melted away.

And suddenly Penemue, Bella and I were standing in the empty void that we had been in when the darkness washed over us.

↔

“No—no!” I screamed. “Get me back there, now.”

“I can’t,” Penemue said.

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

“I cannot.”

“You have to. Take me back. Take me back!” I pounded my fists on Penemue’s chest as unexpected tears streamed down my face. “I have to help him. I have to save him.”

But the angel didn’t move. He just accepted my rage and frustration as I begged him over and over to take me back. Bella came to my side, seeking to calm me down, but the angel raised his hand, gesturing for her to step away. “He needs this,” Penemue said. “Let him feel this fully.”

I don’t know how many times I hit him, but I know I raged long enough for my arms to grow tired. And as my fury subsided, Bella came to my side and did what she always did when I was in pain: she made it better.

She pulled me into her embrace, stroking her hand over my hair the way I always imagined my mother would have done if she’d lived. She whispered softly into my ear, and it didn’t even matter what she was saying.

Just the sound of her voice was enough.

Finally calm, I asked, “Why can’t you take us back? I thought you ruled this place.”

“I do,” Penemue said. “But not everything belongs to this domain.”

“But you can read his soul. You know what happened to him?”

“I do not.”

“But surely you know what they said to him.”

The twice-fallen shook his head. “There are magics at play here that are greater than my gifts.”

“So, what? Some fucking Others kidnapped my father to do what? Use him—kill him? What?”

“Again, I do not know.”

“Then tell me what kind of Others they are.”

Another head shake. “I am sorry, Human Jean-Luc Matthias, but I have shared all I know.”

“Then what good are you?” I rasped.

Penemue hung his head low, looking to the emptiness below us in shame.

“This is bullshit.” I stepped away from Bella and Penemue. Walking in the void did nothing to temper my anger. Some GoneGodDamn Others had messed with my family before the gods left. Why? Who? These were answers I so desperately needed. I turned back. “What can you tell me?”

“Only this. After that encounter, your father disappeared, both from your mother’s life and from my ability to read his soul.”

“How?”

“I do not know.”

“Has something like that happened before?”

Penemue nodded. “At times. But only when the gods wish something from the mortals. There have been many like your father, but the famous ones are few. Jesus, Isaiah, Enoch … a few others throughout history.”

“So, what? They gods took my father to be a … what? Prophet?”

“Unlikely,” Penemue said. “Those names I mentioned are the ones who made it into mortal history books. Most who disappear do not. And their purpose is unknown to me.”

“Then who does know?”

Penemue shook his head. “That is not for—”

“Don’t give me that shit. ‘Not for mortal knowledge,’ ” I mocked. “The gods are gone, and that shit doesn’t fly anymore.”

“If you had allowed me to finish,” Penemue said, “I would have said, ‘mortals or Others to know.’ Only the gods may know. And, as you have just observed, they are gone.”

“Jean,” Bella said, “I might be able to shed some light on this. When I was in Heaven, I saw carvings on golden pillars, the ones that I told you about. There were several depictions of humans being lifted from earth by celestial bodies. What Penemue said is true—the gods did take humans to do things for them.”

“Like what?”

“Prophesize and …” Bella hesitated.

“What?”

“Explore.”

↔

“Explore? What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t really know. I’m only going off the carving I saw, but as best I can tell, the gods can’t go everywhere. They need humans—well, more specifically, human souls—to open up certain pathways. There were a bunch of carvings that showed these souls entering domains to other worlds, planes of existence. I really don’t know what to call them.”

“And what happened to them?”

“They disappeared,” she said. “I haven’t had long enough to properly study them all, but as best I can tell, these explorers never come back.”

I looked at the angel. “I don’t suppose you know anything about this?”

“I do not,” Penemue said in a flat tone. “I know nothing about what Bella speaks of … nor have I heard of these golden pillars. You must understand, Jean-Luc, that there were places in Heaven forbidden to us. Now that Bella is alone in Heaven, she has access to rooms in that mansion that no angel or human soul has ever seen.”

“Oh, great. So we don’t know what happened to him, and as best we can tell, he was sent on some one-way ticket out of here. Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!”

“I am sorry,” Penemue said.

“Don’t you ever get sick of apologizing?”

Penemue grimaced at my words. “You are right, Human. I do apologize too much. So indulge me one last apology: this is where we say goodbye. It is time for you to go home and for me to continue my penance.”

The twice-fallen lifted a taloned finger and started ripping a hole in the darkness like tearing a cloth.

“No,” I said.

“We had a deal, Human Jean-Luc—your father’s story before your departure.”

“Yes,” I said, “but that story isn’t over yet. Take me back to my mom. I need to know what happens with her.”

Penemue sighed as he considered my request.

“The story isn’t done. Not until I see that part of it,” I said.

Penemue nodded. “You are correct, Human Jean-Luc Matthias. Your mother’s part in the story hadn’t finished. What do you wish to know about her?” he asked, clearly skeptical about my delay tactics.

Except they weren’t delay tactics. There was more to this story that I wanted to know. “You’re the soul-reader,” I said. “And you know my soul, do you not? So you tell me.”

Penemue tilted his head as if confused. Then a small smile touched the corner of his lips. He nodded. “Very well, my friend. Let us finish this story.”

Rubbing his hands together, he blew one last time.

ANYTHING, EVERYTHING

We were transported back to my mom’s bedroom. Empty tissue boxes were littered about. So were a couple tubs of rotting ice cream buckets. Guess Mom was the cliché, drown-your-sorrows-in-ice-cream kind of gal. But who could blame her? The love of her life was gone.

And all I felt—all we felt—was that sorrow.

I’d like to say that the scene was overwhelming—soul-crushing—terrible, and leave it at that. But I can’t, because it was also familiar.

I drew Bella in close, grateful that my pain had healed. She had come back to me.

My mother would not be so lucky. She would never know what happened to my father. Where he went, or why. For all she knew, he’d gotten cold feet and ran away.

And running away isn’t always just across state lines. Sometimes people take more permanent measures to make sure they can never come back.

There were maps on the walls. Letters and notes to herself. She was trying to find him. Well, she was trying to find him until this day.

My mother walked in from the hallway, holding a 1970s pee stick. Empty Hell, those things were huge back then.

She stared at it intently, waiting for the blue or pink stripe to appear. I could sense her anticipation. There was dread in her emotions, except the dread was not for any one outcome, but for either outcome.

She dreaded being pregnant. And she equally dreaded not being pregnant.

The thing about dread is that it cannot exist without its opposite, and I felt my mother’s hope as well.

Her eyes widened. She frantically grabbed the box to confirm what she was seeing, and the rush of feelings that followed were too complicated to unravel. Hope, fear, joy, sadness—they all mixed together in the kaleidoscope of emotions that make us human.

But there was one thing I could sense above all: peace. She had already accepted the outcome and had chosen to make the most of it.

As if sensing the monumental change that was coming, there was a knock on the door, followed by my PopPop’s voice. “Honey, I got pizza. Want me to bring you a slice?”

My mother didn’t answer, and I could hear PopPop sigh from the other side of the door.

“I ahhh … know this has been a tough few weeks for you, and although I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you, I can guess. A bad breakup. I mean, I don’t know for sure, but when your mom left, I locked myself away, too. So yeah, I’m going to guess it was a breakup.”

There was a pause, followed by another sigh. This was the one he gave whenever he was debating saying or doing something. “You know what got me through it? You did, honey. Seeing you every day. Your smile, your giddiness. Your stubbornness. All of it. You got me through it. And if … if there’s any way I can help you get through this, well, know I’m there for you, whatever it is.”

More silence, but now my mom was crying.

My PopPop stood at the door for a long moment before I heard the shuffling of his feet.

My mother called after him. “Do you mean it?”

“Mean it, honey?”

“You’ll do anything?”

“Of course. Anything.”

“I think you’re going to regret that,” my mom said as a smile so big it touched her eyes painted her face.

↔

There was more crying, some yelling, but my PopPop meant what he said. Anything. And as Penemue guided us through the next few months of my mother’s life, I felt her peace. And her joy.

She always wondered what happened to my father. But she also saw that he hadn’t left her alone at all. There was someone coming to keep her company in his absence.

Me.

↔

“Is that the end of the story you wished to know?”

“Not quite,” I said. “I want to see one last thing. Well, feel one last thing. It was something you’ve told me about before, and I want to feel it for myself.”

“Are you sure? I truly do not know how the human mind will handle such an experience.”

I closed my eyes as I contemplated what I wanted to know—to feel—and then nodded. “Yes … but Bella, you don’t have—”

“We’re in this together,” she said, coming up behind me, “in this life and the next.”

“Very well, then.” Penemue rubbed his hands together and took me to the moment of my mother’s death.

I’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER, I’LL LIKE YOU FOR ALWAYS

Three days after I was born, my mother died. It wasn’t fair and I will forever hate fate or destiny or the gods or the cold, uncaring universe for doing that to me. My mother died and I was robbed all the kisses and cuddles, songs and stories, reprimands and laughs that so many take for granted.

But life is what it is … and I had my PopPop to care for me. And my PopPop had me.

So when Penemue transported us to the hospital on the day she died, I felt pain. Incredible, unrelenting pain that was unlined by one emotion burning so bright it locked away the agony, making it barely an afterthought.

Joy.

Joy for what was coming.

Joy for who was coming.

That was what my mother was feeling above all else, and to say that my heart simply swelled with joy would be like comparing a kitten to a lion, a paper airplane to a jumbo jet. It doesn’t compare, because I was feeling what she was feeling, but I also had my own joy because I could share this with her.

And I felt fear for what was coming.

In brief, I felt every emotion in stereo, and I honestly didn’t know if I could stand much more of it.

Then, with a final and intense release, the pain stopped as the air filled with the wailing of a newborn.

There I was, bloody and screaming for all my worth.

“You’re … you’re perfect,” Bella said, holding me tight and giving my heart one more thing to rejoice for.

And just when I thought there would be no more, that the zenith of this experience had finally peaked, the doctors handed little me over to my mother and I felt the swelling of her heart, as well as the undefined comfort of a newborn meeting his mother for the first time.

It was magnanimous, a feeling that I would carry with me forever.

Mother and child together. All was right with the world.

Then it wasn’t.

The doctors moved around, reading charts, looking at my mother, checking vitals. Not that she noticed—she had me and that was all she saw. All she could experience.

A nurse came to take me away, but my mother refused. “Just to clean him up,” she said. “I’ll bring him right back.”

But from the stolen glance the nurse gave the doctor, we knew this not to be completely true. They needed to clean me up, yes, but they also needed to get my mom some care.

The doctors wheeled my mother to another room and inserted a needle attached to a bag of blood. “A precaution,” they said. “You lost a lot of blood and we want to make sure you’re strong for your baby.”

“Jean-Luc,” my mother said.

“Excuse me?”

“Jean-Luc. I need to be strong for Jean-Luc.”

“Yes,” the doctor said, her smile filled with both joy and sadness. “For Jean-Luc.”

↔

The nurse was true to her word. I was returned. And when the doctor came back, she had my PopPop in tow. My mother noticed the worry in her father’s eyes, the concern that the doctor had when entering. She knew something was wrong.

She didn’t care. She had me.

And there wasn’t a force on this Earth that would take me from her arms again.

But death isn’t a force of this Earth or any other. It’s an immutable law and the thread that binds us all. And when death comes for us, nothing can stop her.

Death came late that night. I guess the cruel bitch thought her delay a kindness, having given my mother a few hours with her child.

Death came as my mother was singing me a lullaby. The last words that she said before embracing the end of her life were, “My life for his. Fair deal. More than fair.”

And what I felt wasn’t fear or anger or the disappointment of being robbed of a lifetime with her son. What I felt was hope … hope that I would grow up strong. Hope that I would be happy.

Hope that I would live well.

Hope that lasted until the end of her last breath.

Hope that was replaced by a nothing so complete I thought I had gone with her to whatever came next.

↔

“So that’s how she died,” I said. I don’t know what I expected to feel. I guess part of me thought I’d be overwhelmed by the experience, that it would bring me to my knees. But it didn’t. What I felt after my mother died was gratitude that I was able to be with her at that last moment, both in body as a baby, and in spirit as the man I had become.

The twice-fallen sighed, tears of light turning his eyes into strobes of empathy. “Is that the end you were looking for? For if it is …” He lifted his hand, opening a portal to the outside.

“No,” I said, “that isn’t the end. Not for me … and not for you.”

YOU DON’T HAVE TO DIE TO COMMIT SUICIDE

“I don’t understand,” Penemue said. “There is no more I can tell you.” As he spoke, the frozen scene of EightBall’s childhood living room manifested around us.

“There is,” I said.

Penemue gave me a curious look as he searched through what he knew of me—both from what he read on my soul before the gods left, and from the years of friendship—to see what my angle was. And from the utter confusion painting his face, I could tell he had no idea what I meant to do.

“But I have told you everything about your father and mother as it pertains to you and—”

“No, you haven’t,” I said. “I still don’t know where he was from or who his family was. And to truly understand him, I also need to know about his father—my grandfather. Then there’s also my father’s father’s father. I’ll need to know their history as well. And if you really think about it, you can’t know someone without understanding their families, too.”

Penemue tilted his head before letting out a rip-roaring laugh that bubbled up from his gut. “I see what you are doing. You have found the loophole in my promise to you. A loophole that will keep us speaking forever.”

“Well, as you saw with my mother, her last hope for me was to live well. You’re not going to deny a dying woman her last wish, are you? I think we should head back to Paradise Lot and spent the next fifty or so years going through everything. Sound good?”

I heard a chuckle from behind me as Bella tried to hold back a laugh.

“Clever human,” Penemue said with genuine mirth on his lips.

“All this time, you Others would obfuscate the point, bend the rules, do my head in. Especially you.” I tried to smile when I said that, but it just wouldn’t come. But I wasn’t trying to be funny; I loved the big lug, and that was all I felt. “I learned from the best,” I finally said.

“So did I. And what I learned from you, my friend, is that some rules are meant to be broken. After all, you have reminded me time and time again that the gods are gone. The rules matter less now. And so I fear I shall break this rule—break my promise to you.” Penemue ripped the rift wider now. “Thank you, but it is time for you to go.”

“But we’re not done,” I said, seeing what he meant to do.

“Yes, we are.”

“Your promise,” I said with desperation.

“Human Jean-Luc Matthias, you of all people know that you cannot win them all.” He turned to Bella. “I do take comfort in one thing: he has you again, and I did that. Perhaps the one good thing I’ve done in my life was returning you to him. I am so happy for that one promise I did not break.”

As he spoke, an invisible force started pushing us out through the portal. From where we stood, I could see where he meant to drop us off: back at the Millennium Hotel … back at the … “What the fuck is he doing?” I cried out.

↔

Instead of the serene, peaceful entrance of my hotel, I saw Marc standing in the hull of the Apache helicopter with smoke bellowing out the barrels of the warbird’s chain gun.

Several dead, doglike creatures—hellhounds—littered my front lawn. Dead hellhounds and a—

“A dead woman?” I yelled at him. “You killed someone? At my hotel?”

My cries woke Marc from whatever stupor he’d been in, because he looked up at me and said, “Jean? What are you … No, where are you?”

“Leaving one hell just to enter another,” I said, and it was then I noticed that Bella and I were still standing in Penemue’s inferno. The twice-fallen was no longer pushing us out; he had stopped, and looking over at him, I realized that the angel was distracted by the same scene that I was. He also stared at the chaos in befuddlement.

But confusion wasn’t all that painted his face. There was something more—something more visceral than simple What the fuckedness on his face. There was also remorse, and that’s when I followed his gaze and saw a very frightened EightBall standing on the lawn.

Behind him stood an elven woman who I don’t even think he noticed. She stared at the strange scene unfolding, but unlike EightBall, there was no fear in her eyes. Just bewilderment.

The young boy of nineteen first looked at Penemue, then past the angel to the house scene behind him. EightBall furrowed his brow, first in confusion, then recognition as he realized what—or rather, who—he was staring at.

“Mom?”

LIKE BATS OUT OF HELL

As soon as EightBall spoke, that strange elven woman lifted her hand like she was greeting us.

Which, as it turned out, was the least friendly greeting ever.

Penemue, Bella and I were thrown back and through the wall of EightBall’s childhood living room. But instead of hitting the wall like normal people—and a normal angel, I guess—we crashed through it and were back in the void.

As we tumbled helplessly through the blackness, I could see Penemue’s islands of creation around us. In front of us (and what we were tumbling away from) was the apartment building and the oak tree outside it. To our left was the mountain where Mr. Penemue’s classroom-of-the-gods stood. Above us, the library full of book worms.

I guessed that when Penemue created the various layers of Hell to torture himself with, he didn’t bother filling up the in-between parts.

But the good thing about this place was it did obey the basic laws of physics, and since we were all pushed back by the same energy source, we were flying out of control together.

So at least we had that going for us.

Another law of physics that Hell apparently adhered to was—and I quote: “flailing, out-of-control bodies in an empty void will continue to flail until something gets in the way.”

I’m pretty sure that was exactly how Isaac Newton put it. Then again …

“Hey, big guy,” I said. “What about some help here? After all, you’re the one with wings.”

But Penemue didn’t move.

“Penemue,” I said, louder this time.

Still nothing.

“I don’t think he’s conscious,” Bella said. “Whatever that invisible force was, it was centered on Penemue. He’s out cold.”

I twisted my head to catch a glimpse of him and saw that his eyes were closed. Hell of a time for a nap. “Fine,” I said. “I think our best bet is to latch onto him.”

“Cirque du Soleil, the inferno version. I like it.” Bella reached out her hand for Penemue.

So did I, but from the way I was twisting and turning, I wasn’t quite close enough to catch him. So employing the breast stroke, I attempted to swim closer to the angel. Funny thing about voids: they don’t really work like water. As hard as I swam, all I really managed to do was look like a tumbling frog.

Bella, on the other hand, did manage to latch onto him. Crawling over his muscular frame, she made her way to me and reached out a hand. She caught and pulled me in, just like she’d done a thousand times before … metaphorically speaking, that is.

We were both on Penemue now, and for the first time since meeting him, I was thankful for his hugeness. Unlike Rose and Jack, this floating board had plenty of room for both us.

“Now what?” Bella asked.

“Simple.” I reached my hand under his wing. “Here’s an old trick I learned in the Army. There’s a spot that angels have, a nerve that if you hit it … just … right.” I found the spot and Penemue’s left wing unfurled. The release was enough to stop our tumbling and instead of somersaulting across the void, we were now coasting.

Yay, physics.

“OK, that’s marginally better,” Bella said.

“Ouch …” I said, my ego bruised that she wasn’t more impressed.

She giggled. “We’re still floating uncontrollably and, last I checked, Hell was still breaking apart.” She pointed at the island that was EightBall’s apartment. It had broken apart into a thousand fractals now floating aimlessly in the void.

“Damn.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

I manipulated my body so that I was holding onto the angel’s lapels, facing him. Then I slapped him. Hard. Probably harder than I needed to, but the guy was putting me through hell (sorry, I had to).

He didn’t flinch. So I hit him again.

Still nothing.

“Third time’s the charm.” I balled my hand into a fist and popped him across the cheek.

Nothing.

Well, not nothing exactly. My fist hurt.

“OK, he’s out,” I said as we tumbled aimlessly. “So, this place is breaking apart, but as soon as he wakes up, he can snap his fingers and put it back together again.”

“Like Humpty Dumpty,” Bella said.

“You mock, but that story took place not too far from here.”

“I’m sure.” She shuffled over to me. “I’m sure it did.”

“True story,” I said. “So that means we have to ride this out. And since he’s out, out, it might take some time. Let’s make the most of it.”

“On him? Kinky.”

Now it was my turn to laugh. “As much as that would put me over the top on the ‘Never have I ever’ drinking game circuit, I think that would be weird. Even for me. But that said, we can at least guide him somewhere useful.”

“Like the library.”

“Yeah, like the library.”

“Great. But it’s all the way over there.” She pointed to the island that was the library.

It was tough to judge exactly how far it was from where we currently were, but if we were walking (and assuming it was the same size as the Library of Congress), then it would take us about half a day to get to it.

But we weren’t walking. We were flying. On an angel with wings.

“Remind me,” I said with a grin, “have you ever windsurfed?”

↔

I taught Bella how to pop out Penemue’s other wing, and using them as sails, we managed to change our trajectory and head toward the library. I figured that since it was our first point of entry into the inferno, it also provided our best chance of finding an exit.

Bella was keen to go back to the library, too, and I assumed it was because she agreed with my logic.

We had just sailed to the library when I heard a groan. Penemue was waking up. “Hey there, big guy,” I said.

“What … what is happening?”

“We’re flying. Well, technically you’re flying and we’re riding you like a surfboard.”

“Flying where—” Penemue started. When he realized that we were about to crash into the library’s wall, he twisted his body, extending his wings out even farther than we’d managed and stopping our momentum dead.

He also hugged both of us so we didn’t fly off him. How thoughtful.

Then, flapping his wings, he took us through one of the open windows, gently placing us down on the library’s floor.

↔

“We must hurry,” he said as Hell shook. “Master Newton is in trouble. The witch who attacked us is of great power and—”

“You mean the elven woman who lifted her hand at us and sent us flying through EightBall’s childhood living room?” I said.

Penemue nodded. “The very same.”

“And you want to get back as soon as possible to save him?” I completely failed to hide my skepticism.

“Indeed.” Penemue guided us to the center of the library.

“So that after you save him, he can bludgeon you to death?”

“Again, indeed.”

“Makes sense.” I slowed down. I knew we needed to get out as quickly as possible, but I wasn’t going to rush out of Hell so I could watch my friend die.

“Hurry, please.”

“Pish posh,” I said.

“Pish posh?” Bella giggled. “Where did that come from?”

“I can be classy.”

Penemue clearly wasn’t enjoying our banter, because he grabbed both of our hands and pulled us along like a mother would her crying children. “It is not just that I wish to save Master Newton. I also wish to save the two of you. In case neither of you have noticed, Hell is coming apart at the seams—”

“See the previous pish posh and add a bah humbug.” And before Bella could say anything, I cocked her a smile and added, “Dickens. I read now.”

“Apparently,” she said with a chuckle.

“And as for you, young man—or rather, ancient angel: don’t worry about EightBall. Marc is there, and he’s pretty badass. The kid will be fine. So, given we’re not actually in a rush, could you please stop Hell from breaking apart? You know, will it or wave a magic wand or just do whatever you angels do when playing with ultimate cosmic powers and stop it.” As if to accentuate my words, Hell shook and a piece of the friggin’ floor cracked open and disappeared. Not in the crumbled-away-to-dust way, either. I’m talking about the got-sucked-into-the-void-and-ceased-to-exist kind of disappearing.

My favorite kind.

Penemue shook his head in that way he did whenever he was about to explain something to me he knew I wouldn’t understand. “The witch who expelled us has great power and as efficient as Marc may be, I doubt even he is capable of besting one such as her. And as for stopping the erosion of this place, I’m afraid I can’t.” Penemue sighed.

“What?” I said, half expecting Bella to harmonize my surprise. But instead, my wife just stood there nodding in comprehension.

Comprehension I sorely lacked.

“When EightBall summoned me,” Penemue said, “I shut down my link here, lest a more nefarious beast use this domain for their own ill gains.”

“English,” I said in anger.

“To paraphrase a common trope found in many science fiction movies, I initiated the self-destruct sequence and am powerless to stop it.”

EXPLODING LIBRARIES AND RUNAWAY WIVES

“Oh joy,” I said. “So your first thought is, ‘Hey, I gotta leave this place and I’m probably never going to come back, so … poof.’ ” I imitated an explosion. “And that irreversible self-destruct sequence—it couldn’t have waited until we got out of here?”

“And risk someone truly evil getting hold of this place?” Penemue shook his head. “As for reversing what I did, I’m afraid destroying a domain such as this one requires a lot of energy and, for lack of a better word, faith. Setting this place to destroy itself has just about drained my magical abilities. That is why I suspect the gods did not destroy their heavens and hells when leaving, choosing instead to shut them down. They were conserving their powers for whatever came next.”

“OK, fine. But there is a way out, right?”

“Yes,” Penemue said.

“And?” I looked around frantically.

“It is the way that you entered by,” Penemue said.

“Then let’s go!” I grabbed Bella’s hand and pulled her in the direction of the entrance.

But Bella resisted, biting her lower lip in that way she did when mulling something over. It was a look I knew well … she was debating with herself.

And that kind of debate usually ended in her doing something I wasn’t going to like.

↔

Bella walked over to Penemue as Hell shook. “Twice-fallen. The Angel Penemue. Architect of the Grand Library and the one who knows all that is written. Answer me this one question in a manner that my limited, mortal mind may know.” She paused. “Are human souls necessary for any of this to exist?”

Bella’s tone was far too formal, given where we were and how well those two knew each other. As she spoke, she drew something in the air with precise hand gestures, outlining an invisible image.

Despite their friendship and familiarity with one another, Penemue’s posture changed. He responded in an equally formal and reverent tone. “Human souls power the celestial domains. Without them, nothing could exist.”

Bella nodded in comprehension. As she did, both of them returned to normal, dropping their formal facades.

“That was weird,” I said.

“Not really.” Penemue eyed Bella with a look that was one part admiration, one part love and two parts fear. “You have mastered ‘the Request.’ ”

“I learned about it, you know, up there.” She pointed skyward.

“The Request?”

“It is a”—Penemue searched for the word—“style of speech that we angels are compelled to answer in a direct and honest manner.”

“And all that hand-waving?”

“She was tracing my name in the air between us,” Penemue said. “Once my name is invoked I am compelled to answer, even if the knowledge requested is forbidden. Where did you learn my name?”

“At the Columns of Creation,” she said.

“Ahhh, of course. With the gods gone, no place is forbidden to mortals.”

“OK, can someone please spell it out for me?” I said.

“Simply put, Bella here knew that I could not answer such a direct question about the inner workings of Heaven unless compelled.”

“What? There’s a way to get you to talk straight?” I slapped my forehead. “And I’m only just learning about this now.”

Bella chuckled before turning to Penemue. “I’ve noticed that Heaven has sections that are falling apart, but seem to repair themselves as soon as I enter. Now I see why.”

Penemue sighed as he searched for the words. “With only one soul inside, Heaven is severely under-staffed.” The twice-fallen chuckled at his own joke. Much to my surprise, given we were in a domain that was literally falling apart, so did Bella.

Talk about inside jokes at a cosmic level.

“I figured,” she said, “because as soon as I’d enter those places, they would start to repair themselves without me doing anything.”

“Ahhh, that is where you are wrong,” Penemue said. “You are doing everything. Your presence—your soul—is what powers that domain. You see, the greatest trick the gods ever performed was offering you an eternal afterlife in exchange for your powers. That was the pact they demanded of each and every soul before granting entry.”

“From what I’ve learned, that makes sense.”

“What makes sense?” I yelled as Hell continued to shake.

“Human souls power the heavens and hells,” Bella explained. “And when we enter one, the gods make us sign a contract of sorts. In exchange for living forever, we help keep the lights on.”

“So?”

“Not ‘so.’ What you mean to ask is ‘and?’ ” Bella said.

“OK, ‘and?’ ” I gestured for them to hurry this little conversation along.

“And what the gods never explained is that they need our souls’ energy to even exist. That is why Heaven is empty—they took all the souls with them. And from what I’ve seen, against their will, too.”

This time the ground shook so hard that I nearly lost my footing. “Fine, the gods didn’t let us read the fine print of their terms and conditions. I get it—bad them. No worse than Apple’s terms and conditions. But still, you’d think the gods would have had higher standards.” I took a breath. “Now that we’ve had our little pow-wow, can we please go?”

Bella ignored me. “I suppose that’s what Hell is … a place for the souls who refused to grant the gods their powers.”

“Very good, Human Bella. That is exactly right. That is also why Hell is now, for if time cannot progress, then one cannot learn.”

“And over the last few centuries, more and more souls were opting for Hell, weren’t they?”

Penemue nodded. “It was a dilemma that truly baffled the gods. Why condemn themselves? Why? They did not understand what was at play and yet somehow, they did. As more and more souls refused to power the heavens above, the gods grew dissatisfied and confused. Then they did something I could not have predicted in a thousand millennia.”

“They left,” Bella whispered.

“Indeed.”

“Yes, indeedie, indeedie,” I said. “Now that that’s done …” I started for the back door, but neither Bella nor Penemue moved.

“What?” I said.

Bella had that look she always gave me whenever she was about to do something that would hurt me.

“What?” I repeated, my voice softer.

But Bella didn’t say anything. She just stared at me as a single tear rolled down her cheek.

“I fear that the human Bella has opted not to return to Earth,” Penemue whispered.

↔

“What the holy fuck does that mean?” I said.

“I need to go back to Heaven. I need to learn more,” she said. A piece of Hell ripped itself away behind her.

“No you don’t,” I said. “You need to come home. With me.” I reached out a hand as my heart beat furiously with fear and anger. Bella was back. She could return to Earth. We could be together. We could be happy.

“Jean,” she said, her hands pushing against the side of her dress as she tried to flatten some wrinkle that wasn’t there, “there is more going on here than we know. The gods … I think they’re planning something that will mean the end to everything. Their departure, it was only part of the crap they had in store for us. They’re coming back—at least, some of them are. And when they do, they’re going to take over this domain and wipe us out. Replace us with other kinds of souls who will be more obedient.”

“And you know this, how?”

“The pillars, the souls sent out to explore other domains. Their limitations and the growing number of souls choosing to be damned. It’s all starting to make sense. They didn’t abandon us—they left to find others to replace us.”

Hell shook again, its fabric of reality nearing the end. “OK, OK, they’re coming back. But that might not be for centuries. Come home. Let’s live out our lives together and—”

“Jean.” She said my name in that way that always managed to make the world stop. She used it whenever I was spiraling, whenever she needed to break through whatever shield I had up. The way she said my name always disarmed me. Just because I was standing in Hell didn’t change that at all. “I have to go back. I have to study. Prepare.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” I said.

“You can’t.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Because someone has to take care of them.”

Penemue had been listening despite all that was going on. “You can’t. You are not a soul yet. You do not have the power to traverse these domains.”

“And she does!” I screamed.

Penemue nodded, tears of light streaming down his cheeks. “I fear I have done you yet another disservice. Hell is now, which limits one’s ability to learn. Bella was losing herself here because she could not progress—grow—evolve. But I broke the cycle of now, and her powers have returned. She can return to Heaven as herself—as the wonderful soul who earned entrance the first time.”

“No, no,” I said, wondering if I could die of a broken heart. “But you’ve done so much already.”

“Not enough. Never enough.”

“And me? What about me?” I said through blinding tears.

“You will go home, take care of the Others and find a way back to me. You have to. We have to find a way back to each other so that, together, we can save the world.”

“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.

“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.”

“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.”

And with that I left the room, praying that the two of them would come to their senses and knowing that there was nothing I could do.

I wondered if Michael would give me a pass on this, too.

FIGHTING YOURSELF HURTS

I headed to my room, wanting nothing more than to crawl into bed. But instead of finding my room empty, Marc was sitting there holding Spock in his hands.

Spock. My Spock.

My Spock that I bought with PopPop when I was twelve. We drove for three hours to find a toy store that sold him, stopping for burgers and shakes both ways! It was one of my favorite pieces, not just because I was a Trekkie, but because of all the memories wrapped up with it.

“I’ve just been through Hell. I lost Bella—again—and my best friend will probably die today.” I cracked my knuckles. “But for reasons I’m sure are completely irrational, seeing Spoke in your hands makes me angrier than the other stuff by a long mile. A long fucking mile!”

And then I did something I wasn’t particularly proud of … I sucker-punched, well, me.

OK, I lied. I was proud I managed to get that shot in. After all, Marc was me, so he should have known exactly what I would do in a situation like that. It was his fault he didn’t anticipate it, and his loss he didn’t think of it first.

Marc went down hard with a thud, but before I could say “Haha,” he was up and on his feet, one fist in my gut.

I keeled over, using my somewhat prone position to push him into the wall. He hit it with a thud and then the two of us really got into it. A proper street brawl, complete with punching, kicking, hair-pulling and name-calling.

“You can’t beat me,” Marc said. “I am the better, stronger version of you.”

That really pissed me off, but he did have a point—I was fighting myself, which meant I needed to do something that I wouldn’t do in a fight. I waited until Marc lifted his leg for a kick, and grabbing the Magic 8-Ball on my shelf, I pounded it into his skull.

Him, being me, assumed I’d never use one of my precious collector’s items as a weapon. But I did, and that’s what threw him off. I pounded the 8-Ball until the plastic cracked and blue dye splattered all over him. Then I pounded him some more, driving its ragged plastic shell into him.

I hit him until his eyes glazed over and I knew I had won. More importantly, he knew I had won.

Breathing heavily, I stood over Marc, having defeated myself. Seeing me beaten was really quite something—humbling and enthralling all at once. It kind of reminded me of Enter the Dragon, when Bruce Lee faces himself in the final scene of the movie. In that story, Bruce Lee has finally learned to make peace with his own demons.

In my story, I just beat the hell out of the asshole in me. And being super mature about it, I kicked my—I mean, his. Ahhh, it’s all so confusing—ass again.

Marc groaned at the last little jab. Looking up at me, the bastard smiled, his normally white teeth framed by blood. He looked downright terrible … and I realized that’s exactly what I looked like when I got my ass kicked. Yikes, I really needed to work on my wounded look.

“Very good,” Marc said, pulling a piece of plastic out of his forehead. “And you have left me with a few wounds that will hopefully scar.”

“Hopefully?”

“So people can distinguish us.” Marc chuckled. “You really did beat me. I didn’t think you could. You’re filled with so much … hesitation. Self-questioning. Doubt. I don’t know how you can function the way you are.”

I took a seat next to his prone body. “You act like doubt is a weakness—”

“It is.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s what guides me. Helps me know that I’m doing the right thing. It’s what makes me … me.” Offering a hand to my fallen self, I helped Marc to a seat on the couch beside me.

Marc shuffled onto the couch and spit out blood on my marble floor. I would say it was gross, but that was exactly what I would have done in his shoes. But seeing it made me realize that I had a lot of bad habits.

I looked at the blood and spittle. I’d have to take a mop to that.

Then turning to my other self, I sighed. “Here’s something I’m not conflicted about: you’re going to have to leave.”

Marc nodded. “I know.”

“And never come back.”

Another nod. “I know … I know. I’ll go.”

“Where?”

“Does it matter?”

I sighed. “No, it doesn’t. But since I doubt you have a destination in mind, I thought I should mention something I found out. About our past. About our dad.”

I told him the story with every detail I could recall. Marc listened intently and when I was finished, he nodded and without a hint of doubt said, “I’ll find him.”

“You’ll try. And whatever comes of it, I don’t want to know.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You speak without doubt. It’s so … unlike you,” Marc said, as if genuinely surprised at my answer.

“I made peace with not having a father long ago. And I have enough pain in my life to not add to it.” As I spoke those last words, my mind drifted to Bella.

By the GoneGods, I’ll find a way back to you, I thought, knowing there was another thing I had no doubt about. I would find a way back to her. In this life or the next, I would.

Looking over at Marc, I put a hand over my throbbing left eye. “Whatever you find out, I don’t want to know.”

Marc gave me another curious look. “Very well … I won’t return. And when I find him, I’ll make no attempts to tell you what I discovered. This I promise. And given that we share so much, you know what those words mean to me. You know how serious I am.”

I nodded, then thought about Penemue and all that had happened. “Amend that. You won’t tell me unless some greater need compels you to.”

“Greater need?”

“Yeah. Being in Hell taught me something about oaths … you need a loophole. You always need a loophole.”

“Humph, Hell was good for you, Jean-Luc. And yes, I agree. I won’t return, nor will I share what I discover unless something greater than the two of us compels me to.”

“Good,” I said with a chuckle. “Right now, I can’t think of what that greater need could be, so I’m confident I’ll never see you again.”

Marc flashed me another blood-filled smile. “I don’t know, there’s so much to fix and so much that could go wrong. Still, my return would constitute something epic. Terrible. Earth-shattering. Sometime like—”

“The gods coming back.” I flashed him a blood-soaked smile of my own.

“Something exactly like that.”

“Good, then we’re in agreement and there’s nothing more to say.” I gestured to the door. But as Marc stood to leave, I knew that there was one more thing to say. And as much as I hated the son of bitch who was, well, me, I owed it to him (and in some mind-bending, existential crisis-causing way, to me) to tell him.

“Marc,” I said, “there is one more thing. And as much as I will hate myself for telling you, I’ll hate myself more for not telling you.”

“Ahh, there’s the conflicted, always-debating-himself Jean-Luc I know and love.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Whatever. Listen, in Hell I found out some shit about my—um, our—father.”

“Different than all the shit you just told me about him?”

“Yes,” I said, “different is one way of putting it.”

And I told him everything I knew.

↔

There was very little ceremony in what happened next. Marc just picked up his jacket and left. No more words shared between us. No more thoughts. Hell, he didn’t even look back at me.

He just walked out of the hotel and toward the grounded warbird. Stepping inside, he clicked on its mighty blades and took to the sky. I wondered where he’d go. And knowing myself, I could guess … because if I ever got exiled from the only place I considered home, I’d probably go back to the only place I knew would still have me.

The Army. My old unit.

Then again, I might go looking for the Others who abducted our father.

But as much as Marc was me and I was him, I couldn’t be sure that was where he’d go.

All I knew was what I needed to do: keep my promise. Stay here and help as best I could. That, and find a way back to Bella. She was out there, alive and well—OK, dead and well.

We could be together again and I’d move Heaven and Hell to find a way.

But thinking about Bella also made me think about Medusa. She was back and from everything I could see, she was broken. I needed to help her, too. Even if that help meant leaving her alone so she could heal without her feelings for me getting in the way.

Shaking my head, my last thought before crawling into bed was of Penemue and EightBall. I truly hoped that they would come to their senses. Part of me wanted to run back to their room and stop whatever horrors might or might not be taking place. But I knew that stupid lug of an angel was determined to let EightBall have his revenge.

Or mercy.

Too exhausted to do anything, I got under the covers. I didn’t even check Optimus to see what Penemue was on about. Either some magical item was in the damn toy, or it wasn’t. Getting up now wouldn’t change that, and I needed to rest because tomorrow … tomorrow would be filled with new challenges. I had two friends—dear friends, whom I loved very much—who were hurting, and I knew I’d do whatever it took to help them back to who they once were.

Entering my room, I took off my shoes and, still wearing clothes with the stink of Hell on them, crawled into bed.

I needed sleep.

More than anything in the world, I needed sleep.

But alas, it seemed that fate had conspired against me. Any hope of sleep was destroyed with a single rap at my door …

PART XXI

CHANGES

Miral walks into Jean’s room. The human is exhausted, ragged, near collapse.

As a doctor, she knows this man needs rest, but as a friend she needs him now more than ever. She wears a new coat that she has bought from a Salvation Army thrift shop; it is several sizes too large for her slender frame.

Jean looks up, sorrow in his eyes as he sees his friend enter. Sorrow … and guilt, for Jean carries the heavy burden of knowing what he did to her. Jean remembers how he hobbled her, thrusting his blade deep into the bone that connects her wings to her back. She will never be able to use her angelic wings to take flight again.

He did it because he had no choice. He had to hurt her or die.

But the lack of choice does nothing to lessen his guilt. As justified as his reasons were for hurting her, they don’t matter. An angel is meant to fly, and to deny her—his friend—such a thing places an immense burden on his heart.

“I’m … I’m so sorry,” he says. “If there was any other way, I’d—”

Miral lifts a silencing hand. She knows his guilt, his remorse … and she has forgiven him. He had no choice, she tells herself. He did the right thing. She has made peace with what he has done. She is no longer angry.

Miral sighs. “Medusa the gorgon rests in the hospital. Already she speaks of rejoining the police force. Her spirit is resilient. You should visit her.”

Jean nods, unsure if that is best thing for him to do, but unwilling to contradict the angel.

Miral takes in a deep breath. Summoning an immense will worthy of Hercules, she holds back a tear. “I am no longer angry, but I have not yet forgiven you. That you must earn by helping me now, Jean-Luc Matthias.”

She has invoked his full name. Miral only uses one’s full name in moments of great need. Jean knows whatever she is mean you can be moreabout to ask of him now is serious. Deadly so.

“Anything,” he says, trying to stand. He is still too weak to do so and the strain taxes his body to the point of collapse.

Miral lets him struggle. Perhaps she is still a little bit angry at him. “You say that now”—the angel holds the coat tight around her, hugging herself as she does so—“but what I have to show you might change your mind.”

“Anything,” Jean repeats, his tone unwavering.

Miral knows he means it with all of his being.

The angel’s eyes light up with more trapped tears. “When I studied to be a doctor, I specialized in the human reproductive system. I did so because I lied to myself and said I wanted to help humans with their most sacred responsibility … children.”

As is Jean’s way when things are serious or dangerous or both, he jokes, “Be fruitful and multiply, huh?” He chuckles at his own joke.

Miral lifts a warning hand. “Not the time.”

Jean nods apologetically. “Sorry.”

“As I was saying, I studied the subject because of a lie. The truth was, I secretly wished to see if there was a way to reverse the gods’ cruelest demand on us when they left: our own inability to have children. Others cannot reproduce and once our lifespan is over, so too will our species die out, never to return.”

“I know,” Jean says solemnly.

“So I studied and prayed and studied some more to see if there was a way for our lineage to continue … if not for all Others, than perhaps for some of us. Do you know what I found?”

Jean shakes his head.

Miral gives him her back, continuing to speak in the same solemn, distant tone. “Nothing. We simply do not have the necessary biological constructs to have children of our own. This is true of angels and elves, dragons and yetis, and every other species of Other. We are all barren, and nothing short of a miracle can change that.”

“And miracles left with the gods,” Jean says. Nothing about his tone betrays anything but absolute seriousness.

“So it seems,” Miral says, removing her coat. “But then again, maybe not.”

Miral turns to reveal her belly. It is ballooned and full, pronounced in a way that can only mean one thing: Miral, the angel of Heaven-turned-doctor, is pregnant. “Jean-Luc Matthias,” she says, her voice overflowing with joy, “it seems that at least one miracle still walks amongst us.”

(Not) The End

Want more GONEGOD WORLD?

Check out our other series … same world, different hero!

Want more GoneGod World? Check out my other series: MORTALITY BITES ((Now available as a Boxed Set - Six books and over 1500+ pages of magic and mayhem, action and humor fill this snarky urban fantasy boxed set.…))

Read on for a sample chapter …

OR

CLICK HERE TO JUMP STRAIGHT INTO MORE GONEGOD WORLD!

*

***

*

MORTALITY BITES

TODAY -

Death was coming. There was nothing the old librarian could do about that.

But he could deny this monster some satisfaction.

“This will not bring the gods back,” the old librarian said. “Nothing will bring them back.”

The monster ran a gloved hand along the old man’s cheek. “Come now, Father Dewey … or is it just David now? You know better than anyone why they left. We disappointed them.”

“We didn’t disappoint them,” David muttered. “The gods … they just left. That’s all. You must see that.”

The monster gave a final tug on the ropes to ensure they were secure before walking past him. “No, you’re wrong. We turned our backs on the old ways. We forgot the fundamental rule when appeasing the gods.” The monster spoke low, absentmindedly as it browsed the library’s rare-items display. It paused at the item it wanted, touching the cool glass with a light, casual finger. The monster’s lips crooked up in satisfaction. “This modern world, with its iPads and unlimited data … has forgotten that this—all of this—is because they willed it. Without the gods, we would be monkeys picking the ticks off each other’s backs.”

With one powerful, angry fist, it shattered the display glass and, pulling the ancient obsidian blade from its stand, the monster caressed its tip. The blade was sharp, eliciting a tiny stream of red blood where it tore into flesh. “Blood. We forgot about blood. It is the essence of true worship.”

Approaching David, it held the blade aloft and muttered ancient, ritualistic words.

“You don’t have to do this. It is not too late to reclaim your humanity,” David said, but he knew his pleas were useless. He’d read the history books; he knew what these old rituals entailed. The fear and suffering of “that which is sacrificed”—him—was part of it. According to the texts, the harder the victim held on to life, the closer attention the gods paid. Mustering the last of his pride, he closed his eyes and went still.

The monster opened its eyes. Lifting the ceremonial knife high above its head, it cried out an ancient incantation that no human ear had heard in over a thousand years.

As the blade punctured his heart, David uttered a silent prayer, not for the gods to intervene—he knew that was useless—but as comfort in his last moments. After all, before he was a librarian, he was once a priest. And old habits? Well, old habits die hard.

Two Days Earlier -

My dorm room door was open, which could mean only one of two things: I was being robbed or my roommate had finally chosen to show up.

The semester didn’t start until tomorrow, but I’d arrived a week early to check out my new living digs. An old habit—necessary when you’re a vampire living in secret among humans. Of course, vampires weren’t a secret any longer.

And I was no longer a creature stalking the night. Though, that said, technically it was night, and I was returning from another one of my scope-it-out strolls.

Remember what I said about old habits?

One of the benefits of arriving early was getting to know the place. The other was having my dorm room all to myself.

Well, until now.

Reassuring myself that the old days of constantly being under attack were over, I walked to the threshold and looked in.

When signing up to live in the dorms, I’d had to check a box asking whether I’d be happy having an Other as a roommate. I’d checked it. I mean, ex-vampire girl here. Who am I to judge, right?

The dorm admissions board had put me on an all-girls floor (although the floors above were full of rowdy boys), and looking inside my room, I could clearly see they had taken me at my word about living with an Other. The person unpacking wasn’t human.

Not by a long shot.

She was a bit taller than me, with pointy ears and an impossibly perfect body. Athletes could work out all day and night and still not come close to the frame and muscle tone of this creature.

Other than that, she looked human enough, although no one would ever mistake her for one. Well, not unless they assumed she was twelve pies short of a baker’s dozen. Humans tended to not stand completely naked in a dorm room with the door wide open. You know, modesty and all that.

It seemed my new roomie had no qualms about baring it all.

I groaned as she unpack her peculiar possessions. Of all the Others I could have been paired with, they had to put me in a room with a member of the fae—specifically, a changeling.

A changeling who was severely messing up the feng shui vibes of our room by stapling Astroturf to our walls. (Astroturf might be the wrong word because this stuff looked like pretty real turf to me—mud, earthworms and all.)

Fae were obsessed with the outdoors; they drew their strength from the natural world. And changelings were of the warrior variety, which meant their homes needed to be of the earth and soil and loam so they could easily heal themselves after a battle, or some hippie crap like that.

Not that it mattered anymore. For one thing, their gods—just like everyone else’s—were gone. So no more glorious battles to heal from and no more magical natural medicine. Besides, her roommate—me—wasn’t fae. I was a human girl. Well, an ex-vampire human girl, but a human girl nonetheless. I definitely wouldn’t appreciate finding worms and fungus on the walls.

In the center of the room, a wheelbarrow held one of those large rolls of Astroturf employed on football pitches. The changeling was using her unnaturally powerful body to unroll the bales and stick them to the walls. Mud was everywhere, and the grass—which, I was tempted to remind her, was meant to be on the ground, horizontal—was falling onto the floor faster than she could put it up. Clearly, this frustrated the process, but she was damn persistent; she just sprayed the walls with water from a misting bottle, trying to get the soil to clump. Drops of dirty water were streaming down the walls and—

No way … was that my brand new Louis Vuitton striped denim blazer on the floor?

I darted in, picking it up and shaking it to get the dirt off.

She turned and gave me the biggest smile, like she hadn’t just destroyed our room with dirt and grass and staples.

“Oh, hello!” she said. “I was wondering when you would make your entrance.”

I’m not sure what my face looked like when she said that, but I bet it was a healthy mix of incredulity and rage.

She didn’t seem to notice, because she stuck out her hand and said with a lilting Irish accent, “I’m Deirdre.”

I looked at her hand, not taking it. Honestly, I was more likely to bite it than shake it.

After a long, awkward moment, she retracted it, peering at her hand as if it had broken down. “The Being Human handbook said that humans greet one another with handshakes, but we did not. Did I do it wrong? Was I meant to wait for you to offer your hand because you were the new one to arrive? Or perhaps—”

Fae—sticklers for protocol. And this one was trying to learn human like an etiquette. “You didn’t do it wrong,” I said. “It’s just that …” I gestured helplessly around me.

“Oh, yes. I got these rolls of grass from something called a ‘hardware store.’ Strange name, given the softness of the grass.” She picked up a handful and took in a deep breath. “Perhaps you could aid me—I’m having trouble getting it to stick to the walls. You wouldn’t happen to have the appropriate adhesive?”

When I shook my head, she handed me the staple gun.

I swear to the GoneGods, I thought about shooting her with it.

But instead, like a good little ex-vampire, I put it on my desk, counted to three and asked, “And why do you want it to stick to the walls?”

“Decoration,” she said. Her hands pointed at the walls, and I couldn’t help but notice her long, slender fingers. Staring down at my own hands, I wondered why the GoneGods hadn’t seen fit to make mine so elegant. I’m big enough to admit it … I was jealous.

“I’m pretty sure we’re not allowed to staple grass to the wall,” I said.

“We’re not?” she said, genuinely confused.

“For one thing, we’re not allowed to put holes in the walls—so that’s a no to the staple gun.” I had to hand it to myself: I was remarkably calm, given how angry I was. “For another, we’re meant to keep our rooms clean. Which means no mud and definitely nothing that can grow mold.”

“But mold isn’t dirty—it’s natural, and the right kinds have many healing properties. Of course, there is poisonous mold. I use them to line my weapons and—”

“That’s a third thing we’re not allowed. Weapons.”

“Not even broadswords?”

She turned away and bent over. I averted my eyes before getting too good a look at her “dark side of the moon,” if you know what I mean. Reaching under her bed, she pulled out a huge broadsword that would have made Braveheart’s claymore seem like a toothpick in comparison. “It’s more ceremonial than for actual battle. That said, I did wield this when facing off against a horde of golems. Funny story—”

“No broadswords. No grass on the wall.”

“You mean no decorations at all? Even my poster?” She pointed her broadsword behind me—barely giving me time to duck out of the way—where a poster of Ryan Reynolds hung, stapled to the wall.

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, swooning. She put a hand on her breast—or her heart, I suppose. “He’s so handsome, he is almost elf-like. One day I will be Mrs. Reynolds …”

I rolled my eyes. Fae. Of their many-faceted quirks, falling in love with an image was probably their strangest. And the love was real. At least, for them. I looked up at the poster in true sympathy. Ryan Reynolds would most likely be filing a restraining order against this changeling at some point in the future.

Then I looked at her perfect naked body and thought, Then again, maybe not.

Either way, that wasn’t my problem right now. My problem was that this changeling was tracking dirt everywhere. “I’m sorry to keep interrupting you,” I said, “but …” I pointed at the floor around me.

She gave me a confused look.

“You’re going to have to clean all this up?” I clarified.

“Really?” she said, her voice full of despair.

“I don’t mind, but humans have rules and—”

“I broke them. First day here and I’m already failing.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “Being mortal is hard,” she said, plopping herself onto her bed and sending up a fresh shower of loose soil.

I felt for her. Really, I did, despite the ruined jacket still in my hand. I was finding mortality hard, too, and I was human … well, I was born human, at least. But that was over three hundred years ago. I’ve only been re-human-ated for four years and I was finding it tough to get my mojo back.

Mojo? That’s a ‘70s term, almost fifty years ago. I really must update my vernacular.

Still, my years as a Highland girl did give me a lot more experience at being human than she had. I sat next to her and put a hand on her shoulder, still acutely aware of her nudity. Damn, even her skin felt like it was manufactured in a lab. “Mortality does bite, Deirdre—but I’m here to help. If you have any mortality questions, just ask me. I’ll steer you right.”

“You will?”

“Cross my heart.” I dropped my jacket back to the floor and made an X on my heart. She looked at me curiously. Before she could ask, I said, “It’s a human expression. Means ‘I promise.’ A slightly old expression. Probably had its heyday thirty years ago, but—”

The changeling wrapped her arms around me and hugged me so tight I struggled to breathe. Damn, she was strong, too. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

I’d never been hugged by a naked fae before. It was nicer than I’d expected.

After a long second, she pulled away and put her hand over her heart—a common fae salute. “Thank you, human girl. In return for your generous offer, I give you my sword arm. This is my pledge to you. This is my …” She loosened her fist and made an X over her heart. “This is my heart-cross to you.”

Oh, yay … I’d only been here for a week and I already got a warrior fae as a protector.

Maybe college wouldn’t be so bad after all.

CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING

Jean’s adventures will continue with The Child - coming soon!

UNTIL THEN…

Want more GONEGOD WORLD?

THE MORTALITY BITES BOXED SET IS OUT!

Check out our other series … same world, different hero!

Want more GoneGod World? Check out my other series: MORTALITY BITES ((Now available as a Boxed Set - Six books and over 1500+ pages of magic and mayhem, action and humor fill this snarky urban fantasy boxed set.…))

Read on for a sample chapter …

OR

CLICK HERE TO JUMP STRAIGHT INTO MORE GONEGOD WORLD!

*

***

*

MORTALITY BITES

TODAY -

Death was coming. There was nothing the old librarian could do about that.

But he could deny this monster some satisfaction.

“This will not bring the gods back,” the old librarian said. “Nothing will bring them back.”

The monster ran a gloved hand along the old man’s cheek. “Come now, Father Dewey … or is it just David now? You know better than anyone why they left. We disappointed them.”

“We didn’t disappoint them,” David muttered. “The gods … they just left. That’s all. You must see that.”

The monster gave a final tug on the ropes to ensure they were secure before walking past him. “No, you’re wrong. We turned our backs on the old ways. We forgot the fundamental rule when appeasing the gods.” The monster spoke low, absentmindedly as it browsed the library’s rare-items display. It paused at the item it wanted, touching the cool glass with a light, casual finger. The monster’s lips crooked up in satisfaction. “This modern world, with its iPads and unlimited data … has forgotten that this—all of this—is because they willed it. Without the gods, we would be monkeys picking the ticks off each other’s backs.”

With one powerful, angry fist, it shattered the display glass and, pulling the ancient obsidian blade from its stand, the monster caressed its tip. The blade was sharp, eliciting a tiny stream of red blood where it tore into flesh. “Blood. We forgot about blood. It is the essence of true worship.”

Approaching David, it held the blade aloft and muttered ancient, ritualistic words.

“You don’t have to do this. It is not too late to reclaim your humanity,” David said, but he knew his pleas were useless. He’d read the history books; he knew what these old rituals entailed. The fear and suffering of “that which is sacrificed”—him—was part of it. According to the texts, the harder the victim held on to life, the closer attention the gods paid. Mustering the last of his pride, he closed his eyes and went still.

The monster opened its eyes. Lifting the ceremonial knife high above its head, it cried out an ancient incantation that no human ear had heard in over a thousand years.

As the blade punctured his heart, David uttered a silent prayer, not for the gods to intervene—he knew that was useless—but as comfort in his last moments. After all, before he was a librarian, he was once a priest. And old habits? Well, old habits die hard.

Two Days Earlier -

My dorm room door was open, which could mean only one of two things: I was being robbed or my roommate had finally chosen to show up.

The semester didn’t start until tomorrow, but I’d arrived a week early to check out my new living digs. An old habit—necessary when you’re a vampire living in secret among humans. Of course, vampires weren’t a secret any longer.

And I was no longer a creature stalking the night. Though, that said, technically it was night, and I was returning from another one of my scope-it-out strolls.

Remember what I said about old habits?

One of the benefits of arriving early was getting to know the place. The other was having my dorm room all to myself.

Well, until now.

Reassuring myself that the old days of constantly being under attack were over, I walked to the threshold and looked in.

When signing up to live in the dorms, I’d had to check a box asking whether I’d be happy having an Other as a roommate. I’d checked it. I mean, ex-vampire girl here. Who am I to judge, right?

The dorm admissions board had put me on an all-girls floor (although the floors above were full of rowdy boys), and looking inside my room, I could clearly see they had taken me at my word about living with an Other. The person unpacking wasn’t human.

Not by a long shot.

She was a bit taller than me, with pointy ears and an impossibly perfect body. Athletes could work out all day and night and still not come close to the frame and muscle tone of this creature.

Other than that, she looked human enough, although no one would ever mistake her for one. Well, not unless they assumed she was twelve pies short of a baker’s dozen. Humans tended to not stand completely naked in a dorm room with the door wide open. You know, modesty and all that.

It seemed my new roomie had no qualms about baring it all.

I groaned as she unpack her peculiar possessions. Of all the Others I could have been paired with, they had to put me in a room with a member of the fae—specifically, a changeling.

A changeling who was severely messing up the feng shui vibes of our room by stapling Astroturf to our walls. (Astroturf might be the wrong word because this stuff looked like pretty real turf to me—mud, earthworms and all.)

Fae were obsessed with the outdoors; they drew their strength from the natural world. And changelings were of the warrior variety, which meant their homes needed to be of the earth and soil and loam so they could easily heal themselves after a battle, or some hippie crap like that.

Not that it mattered anymore. For one thing, their gods—just like everyone else’s—were gone. So no more glorious battles to heal from and no more magical natural medicine. Besides, her roommate—me—wasn’t fae. I was a human girl. Well, an ex-vampire human girl, but a human girl nonetheless. I definitely wouldn’t appreciate finding worms and fungus on the walls.

In the center of the room, a wheelbarrow held one of those large rolls of Astroturf employed on football pitches. The changeling was using her unnaturally powerful body to unroll the bales and stick them to the walls. Mud was everywhere, and the grass—which, I was tempted to remind her, was meant to be on the ground, horizontal—was falling onto the floor faster than she could put it up. Clearly, this frustrated the process, but she was damn persistent; she just sprayed the walls with water from a misting bottle, trying to get the soil to clump. Drops of dirty water were streaming down the walls and—

No way … was that my brand new Louis Vuitton striped denim blazer on the floor?

I darted in, picking it up and shaking it to get the dirt off.

She turned and gave me the biggest smile, like she hadn’t just destroyed our room with dirt and grass and staples.

“Oh, hello!” she said. “I was wondering when you would make your entrance.”

I’m not sure what my face looked like when she said that, but I bet it was a healthy mix of incredulity and rage.

She didn’t seem to notice, because she stuck out her hand and said with a lilting Irish accent, “I’m Deirdre.”

I looked at her hand, not taking it. Honestly, I was more likely to bite it than shake it.

After a long, awkward moment, she retracted it, peering at her hand as if it had broken down. “The Being Human handbook said that humans greet one another with handshakes, but we did not. Did I do it wrong? Was I meant to wait for you to offer your hand because you were the new one to arrive? Or perhaps—”

Fae—sticklers for protocol. And this one was trying to learn human like an etiquette. “You didn’t do it wrong,” I said. “It’s just that …” I gestured helplessly around me.

“Oh, yes. I got these rolls of grass from something called a ‘hardware store.’ Strange name, given the softness of the grass.” She picked up a handful and took in a deep breath. “Perhaps you could aid me—I’m having trouble getting it to stick to the walls. You wouldn’t happen to have the appropriate adhesive?”

When I shook my head, she handed me the staple gun.

I swear to the GoneGods, I thought about shooting her with it.

But instead, like a good little ex-vampire, I put it on my desk, counted to three and asked, “And why do you want it to stick to the walls?”

“Decoration,” she said. Her hands pointed at the walls, and I couldn’t help but notice her long, slender fingers. Staring down at my own hands, I wondered why the GoneGods hadn’t seen fit to make mine so elegant. I’m big enough to admit it … I was jealous.

“I’m pretty sure we’re not allowed to staple grass to the wall,” I said.

“We’re not?” she said, genuinely confused.

“For one thing, we’re not allowed to put holes in the walls—so that’s a no to the staple gun.” I had to hand it to myself: I was remarkably calm, given how angry I was. “For another, we’re meant to keep our rooms clean. Which means no mud and definitely nothing that can grow mold.”

“But mold isn’t dirty—it’s natural, and the right kinds have many healing properties. Of course, there is poisonous mold. I use them to line my weapons and—”

“That’s a third thing we’re not allowed. Weapons.”

“Not even broadswords?”

She turned away and bent over. I averted my eyes before getting too good a look at her “dark side of the moon,” if you know what I mean. Reaching under her bed, she pulled out a huge broadsword that would have made Braveheart’s claymore seem like a toothpick in comparison. “It’s more ceremonial than for actual battle. That said, I did wield this when facing off against a horde of golems. Funny story—”

“No broadswords. No grass on the wall.”

“You mean no decorations at all? Even my poster?” She pointed her broadsword behind me—barely giving me time to duck out of the way—where a poster of Ryan Reynolds hung, stapled to the wall.

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, swooning. She put a hand on her breast—or her heart, I suppose. “He’s so handsome, he is almost elf-like. One day I will be Mrs. Reynolds …”

I rolled my eyes. Fae. Of their many-faceted quirks, falling in love with an image was probably their strangest. And the love was real. At least, for them. I looked up at the poster in true sympathy. Ryan Reynolds would most likely be filing a restraining order against this changeling at some point in the future.

Then I looked at her perfect naked body and thought, Then again, maybe not.

Either way, that wasn’t my problem right now. My problem was that this changeling was tracking dirt everywhere. “I’m sorry to keep interrupting you,” I said, “but …” I pointed at the floor around me.

She gave me a confused look.

“You’re going to have to clean all this up?” I clarified.

“Really?” she said, her voice full of despair.

“I don’t mind, but humans have rules and—”

“I broke them. First day here and I’m already failing.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “Being mortal is hard,” she said, plopping herself onto her bed and sending up a fresh shower of loose soil.

I felt for her. Really, I did, despite the ruined jacket still in my hand. I was finding mortality hard, too, and I was human … well, I was born human, at least. But that was over three hundred years ago. I’ve only been re-human-ated for four years and I was finding it tough to get my mojo back.

Mojo? That’s a ‘70s term, almost fifty years ago. I really must update my vernacular.

Still, my years as a Highland girl did give me a lot more experience at being human than she had. I sat next to her and put a hand on her shoulder, still acutely aware of her nudity. Damn, even her skin felt like it was manufactured in a lab. “Mortality does bite, Deirdre—but I’m here to help. If you have any mortality questions, just ask me. I’ll steer you right.”

“You will?”

“Cross my heart.” I dropped my jacket back to the floor and made an X on my heart. She looked at me curiously. Before she could ask, I said, “It’s a human expression. Means ‘I promise.’ A slightly old expression. Probably had its heyday thirty years ago, but—”

The changeling wrapped her arms around me and hugged me so tight I struggled to breathe. Damn, she was strong, too. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

I’d never been hugged by a naked fae before. It was nicer than I’d expected.

After a long second, she pulled away and put her hand over her heart—a common fae salute. “Thank you, human girl. In return for your generous offer, I give you my sword arm. This is my pledge to you. This is my …” She loosened her fist and made an X over her heart. “This is my heart-cross to you.”

Oh, yay … I’d only been here for a week and I already got a warrior fae as a protector.

Maybe college wouldn’t be so bad after all.

CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Author Bio:

R.E. Vance lives in Edinburgh with his wife, soon to be born child and imaginary dog where he enjoys a beautiful city, whisky and long walks. All he really wants is to quit his job and write stories based in Paradise Lot. All he really hopes for is that his child-to-be is born healthy (ten fingers, ten toes and at least two eyes will do) and that eventually he can can get a real dog so that he can have an excuse to go on even more long walks.

Connect with me -

Email: ramy@paradise-lot.com

Good Reads: readerlinks.com/l/219182

Facebook icon Facebook

Twitter icon Twitter

Instagram icon Instagram

Join the GoneGod Damned! to get a

FREE AUDIOBOOK

Click the link - Ramy Vance’s House of the GoneGod Damned!

See you inside!

Hot GoneGod Diggity Damn!