Paradise Lost Boxed Set

by R. E. Vance

  “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 adrenalin-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 and with big, frightened eyes asked, “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, and crammed 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, with human cops 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 Mabel, 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—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 anyone she didn’t show restraint toward. 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, pointing at me, said, “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 for 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, where 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 and said, “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 and said, “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 that 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 of them 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 it’s 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 said pulling out a tiny silver bell from his wings.
<
br />   “Is that my bell?”

  “It is a magical bell owned by many over the millennia it has been in existence. 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 that ..?”

  “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.”

  Penemue rolled his eyes. “How it is that you humans were His favorite, I will never understand.” Then looking at Sinbad, his gaze softening, said, “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.”