by Ramy Vance
Penemue’s Inferno
Ramy Vance
Contents
Untitled
Penemue’s Inferno
Previously in the GoneGod World …
I. Hell
1. Portals to Hell and Dead Wives
2. Dark Forests and Cold Mother-in-Laws
3. Not All Rivers Flow
4. Hostile Rivers and River Hostiles
5. Ahh, So I Was Kind of Seeing This Gorgon
II. Hell
6. All Public Libraries Should Look Like This
7. Apparently the Worms in Tremors Were After the Books
8. A Brief Interlude
9. Out of the Library and Into the … School?
10. Classroom of the Gods
11. Ever Been Punched by a God?
12. Dark Forests, Skeletons, Stonewalls and Goodbye Kisses
13. Spanking Gods and Raging Thors
14. Fighting Godly Power with Godly Power
15. Frightening Gods with Old Flames
III. Earth
16. Marc’s Story—Part 1
17. OtherMe Is Yummy
18. Lust Is Enough
19. Sex Isn’t the Only Game We’ll Play Tonight
20. Hounds, Huntresses and Hate
21. New Moon, No Moon
IV. Hell
22. Tearful Serpents
23. Why Would Anyone Ever Fight Over Me?
24. Abandoned Classrooms and Fresh Hells
25. Family Fights, Pain and (a Modicum) of Gain
26. Rolling Darkness, Pinpricks of Light and All Hope Be Damned
27. Chain Guns, Shooting in the Dark and Misguided Teenagers
V. EARTH
28. ↔↔↔A Very Brief Interlude↔↔↔
29. EightBall and Bats, Darkness and Hell
30. Demons of the Past Hurt, But Monsters in the Present Kill
VI. Hell
31. Dying Isn’t What You’d Expect
32. Explosive Families and Families Exploding
33. Again and Again and Again, Ad Infinitum
34. Keeping Secrets Secret
35. Home Is Where the Heart Is … Even When It’s Not Your Own Home
36. Now May Be Forever, But Forever Isn’t Now
37. Anything, Everything
38. I’ll Love You Forever, I’ll Like You for Always
39. You Don’t Have to Die to Commit Suicide
40. Like Bats Out of Hell
41. Exploding Libraries and Runaway Wives
***A Brief Interlude***
VII. Earth
42. For Whom the Bella Toils
43. Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye
44. Fighting Yourself Hurts
VIII. Changes
Untitled
Contents
Penemue’s Inferno
Ramy Vance
Previously in the GoneGod World …
After saving the children from the island prison, I sought to find my friends, Penemue and Sinbad, and, if I’m being honest, my ghost of a mother-in-law. But instead of seeing any of them, I saw myself. As in, a living, breathing version of me. It seems that after being exposed to the Creation Crystal, a part of me was replicated into this creature.
A creature who looked exactly like me.
Walking over to OtherMe, I said, “I’m not sure how to start a conversation with myself.”
OtherMe didn’t turn around; he 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 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 and found 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 before 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. “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-Luc 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 the 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’ll be just fine.”
Empty Hell, OtherMe was one cool cucumber.
↔
I left Marc by the Apache; he had agreed to ferry some of the Others back. He promised to find them safety, and looking at myself—my OtherMe—I knew he took promises just as seriously as me.
With a handful of the more terrified passengers—the ones I had interacted with before this whole debacle started—Marc took to the sky … but not before gathering Milton’s body. OtherMe must have felt the same gratitude I did toward the fallen cyclops, promising to give him a proper burial back home.
Another unmarked grave to be dug and then forgotten in this GoneGod World. I wouldn’t forget. Neither would Marc—and that had to count for something.
As he prepared to leave, I took one last look around. In all this time, there were two people I hadn’t seen: 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 the very brave little girl had 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 …” She hesitated before stammering, “I’m really not sure.”
“How can you not be sure?” I said, anger bubbling within me. I had already lost so much, and to lose Penemue—to lose my best friend, too—well, that was something I truly felt would tip me over the edge. I’d tipped myself over the edge before, and it wasn’t pretty. For anyone.
>
Great friend I am, I thought as my heart pounded in anticipation. Always thinking about the other guy.
“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 hanging 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 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’re 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 hunting 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 the figure drew closer, she 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. Or rather, re-open this place …”
“And what is this place?” I asked.
“Hell, Jean. Only different. It’s 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?”
Part I
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.
