by Paul Neuhaus
For a long time, Jack didn’t look up, so I just watched him eat. Finally, he said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Might as well.”
“Has El been asking you to get back together with him?”
I sighed. Out of all the conversations I didn’t want to have, that one was high on the list. “Why?”
He pointed with his spoon. “That’s a ‘yes’,” he replied.
“So, what if it’s a ‘yes’? Should it change your opinion of your brother?”
“Yes,” he said emphatically. “You’re damn right it should. He had his shot with you, and he fucked it up. Did you ever see that movie The Last American Virgin?”
I told him I hadn’t.
“It’s a fucking horror show. Long story short, this kid loves this girl from afar and her abusive boyfriend gets her pregnant and abandons her. The kid—our hero—does everything he can to help the girl. He bends over backwards. In the last scene of the movie, he discovers that she’s gotten back together with her abusive boyfriend. ‘The End! Have a good night!’. It’s a gut-punch.”
“Oof. Sounds like a downer.”
“It is. Plus, there’s a moral.”
“There’s a moral?”
“Yeah, and it’s this: don’t be the girl who goes back with her abusive boyfriend after getting tons of help from the last American virgin.”
I crossed then uncrossed my eyes. “Okay. You know what? We’re getting into a whole weird area here. “
El came in right at that moment, oblivious to our conversation. Jack did something that really struck me funny. Not only did he pretend not to be in strange discussion with me, he brightened and made it about Elijah. “How you doing, Tiger? You holding up okay?”
To hide my amusement, I took my hamburger soup off the stove and poured it into a bowl.
The rest of the afternoon was quiet, so I retired back to the office, made the bed and planted myself there with Medea’s diary. After just a few more entries from the latter part of the book, I realized it was definitely hers. There were passages about how she planned to unleash the Titans and set herself up as their leader. After she did that, she planned on completely destroying both the Church of Reciprocity and Acadine. Those entries certainly explained why she had pictures of the Parthenon Restaurant.
Elijah came in and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Do you have everything you need in here?”
“I think so. A place to sleep. Ready access to a bathroom. Did you make sure Cal ate something?”
El smiled and nodded. “If I hadn’t taken matters into my own hands, I think he would’ve stood there all night without even peeing. I gave him a sandwich.”
“He thinks the world of Keri.”
“I would say that I’m worried about that, but it’s pretty far down the priority ladder right now. And the truth is she could do a lot worse in the boyfriend department.”
I looked around him to make sure Calesius couldn’t overhear what I said next. “I agree. Provisionally. When I found Cal in Olympus, he wasn’t in good shape. In fact, he was positively feral. He seems much better now, but let’s watch him for relapses.”
“Oy,” he said with a heavy exhale. He pointed at Medea’s diary. “How’s the research coming?”
“It’s fascinating,” I replied honestly. “Medea was a contemporary of mine, and it’s interesting to see how she lived her life. Especially since I think she and I were diametrically opposed temperament-wise.”
“Not to mention insanity-wise. Do you think it’ll help us at all with our current situation?”
I tried to think of a reassuring answer, but I couldn’t. “As far as our current situation goes, it begins and ends with getting the lotus out of Keri’s system. In terms of anything more than that, I don’t have any answers—and, so far, neither does Medea. Can we make the world back the way it was? I don’t know.”
He folded his arms in front of his chest. “Do you even want to make the world back the way it was?”
“What do you mean?”
“Back when we were together, I lost track of the number of times you said you missed the old world. The world from when you were a little girl. Well, now it’s back.”
I had to ponder that for a moment. I surprised myself with my own surety. “Yeah, this is wrong. This was forcing the return of something who’s time has passed. Remember in Jurassic Park when they brought the dinosaurs back? That seemed like an awesome idea but then, to the surprise of no one, the dinosaurs started eating people. I feel like this might be the same level of bad decision, but we won’t know for sure for a while. I— “
A sound cut me off. The sound of scratching. I knew what it was right away, and I threw my head back and sighed. Elijah was a little behind the curve, but he caught up quickly. “Is that our visitor from Barstow?”
By way of answering him, I got up and went around to the other side of the desk. I opened the curtains and there, hovering and clawing at the glass, was the smiling Arae. I raised my right hand and flipped her a sustained bird. She didn’t react.
“Should we be worried about that thing?”
“No. I don’t guess so. I mean obviously no one should go outside right now, but I don’t think we were planning on that anyway. If I need to do any field work, I’ll confine it to the daylight hours. If she pops up consistently like this, I’ll have to deal with her.”
“Can you take on something like that?”
I closed the curtains and said matter-of-factly, “You’ve seen me fight.”
“I have, yes,” he conceded. “It’s frightening.”
“There’s something we haven’t been thinking about with everything else that’s going on…” I almost hesitated to tell him since I knew he was especially close to the issue.
“What’s that?”
“We left Pegasus at Acadine.”
His reaction surprised me. He flushed. “Yeah. About that…”
I narrowed my eyes, suspicious. “What?”
“I talked to my buddies a while ago. As you do when there’s been a world-changing catastrophe.”
“And?”
“They’re headed up there. They’re gonna try and liberate Pegasus.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. Well. Now I have to go outside.”
He smiled. “No, you don’t.”
“What do mean ‘no I don’t’? They’ll all be killed. Petey will probably be fine, but Chad Kroeger isn’t exactly a man of action.”
He shrugged with his hands still on me. “Maybe not, but, for some reason, I feel like they’re gonna be fine.”
“They’re not gonna be fine. There’re men up there. With weapons. Men that’re a lot more sinister than we used to think they were.”
“Okay, sure, but you know what?”
“What?”
“You can’t put out every single fire there is. I appreciate you feel you need to, but sometimes you have to let things take their course.”
I scowled at him. “You’re remarkably blasé about your friends’ impending demise.”
“Like I say, for some reason, I’m not worried about it. Just promise me you’re not gonna sneak off of the middle of the night.”
“Oh, I’m not gonna sneak off. But if they get themselves killed, it’s on your head.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s on their head. They’re big boys and I trust them. Anyway, I’m gonna leave you to it. I’m tired as fuck. If anything gets weird, wake me instantly. Plus, Jack’s on the couch downstairs.”
I sighed. “There’s not much going on at the moment—except for the Revenge Bird outside my window. I’m a light sleeper. If any bad guys show up, I’ll be up in a flash.”
“Don’t be too quick about it. They have to get to get through Jack first.”
“Gods protect them.”
He nodded and left, shutting the first of the office doors behind him. Once he was gone, I got back into bed and grabbed the diary. I was tired too, but I was compelled to ke
ep reading.
I confined myself to the end of the diary since I figured that material was the most likely to be relevant. In fact, I was kind of working backward from the last page. I got into the part of Medea’s story from right before she’d met me. She was planning her release of the Titans and talked about her alliance with Orpheus—of whom she had a very low opinion. But she needed him. When he finally consummated his relationship with Eurydice, it'd unleash giant magical energies. She talked about how she planned to kill he and his wife after she had what she needed from them. The only thing that kept her from following through was the fact Amanda, Connie and I followed her into the magic pinecone.
Going back still further, I read a few entries that knocked me for a loop. Medea ingratiated herself to Medusa while Orpheus was still living in Medusa’s pool-house. She gave Medusa a sexual lubricant to enhance her lovemaking—and make Orpheus more open to suggestion when he was exposed to it. Medusa, freak that she is, was only too happy to give the stuff a try. I had to hand it to Medea. She was ruthless and efficient. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to get a job done.
Or mostly done, in the case of Medusa. There was something she wanted from the gorgon she never got around to getting. Something she called “The Hierophant”. I’m not gonna lie and tell you I knew what a hierophant was—even though the word is Greek. I had to go to Elijah’s computer to look it up. Turns out a hierophant is, according to Wikipedia, “a person who brings religious congregants into the presence of that which is deemed holy”. One of the cards in the tarot deck is the hierophant. None of that helped me particularly since it didn’t translate into a thing that someone would own. Still, it was more than worth checking out. In fact, with the clock rolling over into the AM and the persistent scratching still at my window, I decided to call it a night and see what I could turn up the next day.
I woke up with the sun and snuck out of bed. It occurred to me that I’d love a shower, but then it also occurred to me all of my clothes’d burned up with the trailer—for real this time. I threw on my dirty outfit from the day before and grabbed Hope. Elijah’s bedroom door was still closed so I tip-toed past it and went down the stairs. I was going to raid the pantry to see if I could find a Powerbar or some other on-the-go-snack, but I was surprised to find Calesius and Keri sitting at the island. Keri looked incredibly pale, but she’d tousled her hair and cut off the Flock of Seagulls point in the front. An undeniably good sign. “Dora!” she said, apparently surprised to see me. Turns out she didn’t remember much from the day before.
“Gods, look at you. Are you okay? Are you feeling any more like yourself?”
The girl had a piece of dry toast and a glass of water in front of her. “I think so,” she replied. “I mean it’s all a blur. Cal tells me I came to your house and stole from you. I don’t remember doing it, but I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be stupid. You were drugged. Speaking of which…” I looked back and forth between the girl and Olympus’ former stable boy.
Keri smiled. “I took a massive, massive shit when I woke up. It didn’t smell right at all.”
Cal grinned too. “It was mostly lotus, I’d wager.”
“Well, this is a great thing to wake up to,” I said. “Truthfully. I need to run some errands. Make some inquiries. Do me a favor…” I turned and spoke mostly to Cal. “Stay inside. At least for today. I’ll try not to be gone long and, hopefully, I’ll come up with some ideas about what we should do next. If there’s anything we can do next.”
The Wiener girl looked at Cal and then turned to me. “Can we come with you?”
I laughed. “Are you out of your goddam mind? Your father would roast me alive. No, you gotta stay here. I don’t think I’ll be into anything too serious, anyway.” I went to the cupboard, grabbed a couple of individually wrapped goodies for the road and said my goodbyes. After I said my goodbyes, I remembered something. “Say,” I said. “You not only took my pinecone, you took my Gene Simmons replica bass guitar. Do you know what happened to it?”
Keri looked at me blankly. “Hand to God, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
My shoulders drooped. “I figured. Don’t worry about it.”
Before we walked out, Hope said, “I’m super-glad you’re doing better, Keri.”
Keri smiled at my jug. “Me too. Thanks, Hope.”
I snuck by Jack on the couch, and I exited the house. Since it was day, there was no sign of the Arae. I went from the house to the Firebird without incident. I had two stops I wanted to make, the first of which was nearby in Santa Monica.
As I drove, I marveled again at the changed landscape. It was as though someone had picked up the whole of Los Angeles and dropped it again in ancient Greece. The sight begged a question: Why? What did swapping the modern world with the ancient really do for Nicos Nephus and the Church of Reciprocity? As near as I could figure, the alteration was nothing but cosmetic. Was it meant as a show of power? If so, so what? Maybe the transformation was a prerequisite for something more heinous down the road. I shook my head to banish thoughts of things I couldn’t predict or control.
After about fifteen minutes on the road, I parked on the street across from T-money’s Pawn. I wasn’t sure if I’d wasted my time coming, but there was only one way to find out. I opened the door and looked inside. Fortunately, Tiresias was there. “Oh,” I said. “Thank gods you’re here. I was afraid you’d run off with the others to free Pegasus.”
The ancient seer sighed. “No. It was agreed a blind man’s not much good on a horse heist. I’m worried though… I haven’t heard from them.”
I sighed too. Getting the update reminded me that I should probably be looking into it; making sure the bronies didn’t wind up dead. I decided to change the subject. “Did you realize the world changed yesterday, Ty?”
He nodded. “It’s like they always say: If one sense shuts down, the others heighten to compensate. I smelled the change. We’re back in the days of our youth, aren’t we?”
“Yeah. Listen, there’s something I wanna ask you about. I got ahold of Medea’s diary…”
“Medea’s diary?! Where’d you get that?”
“Long story.”
“I’m sure.”
“Anyway, it runs from about World War 2 to shortly before her death. There’re some pretty detailed entries on her plans to release the Titans. In one of them, she mentions something called ‘The Hierophant’. Supposedly, it’s in Medusa’s possession. I figured if anybody’d know what it was, it’d be you.”
He shook his head. “‘The Hierophant’? Never heard of it. This is an object? An object Medusa owns?”
“That’s what it says in the diary.”
“I don’t know. Sounds like you should’ve gone straight to Medusa.”
“I thought about it, but I wanted to see if I could go in with some inside dope. As you know, Medusa’s crazier than a shit-house rat.”
“I’ve got nothing off the top of my head. Hold on, though.”
I started to say something, but he was already gone. He went through the beaded curtain into the backroom and was gone for a while. He reemerged finally carrying an absolutely huge book. The thing gave off a cloud of dust when he dropped it on the glass countertop. I moved forward so the counter was between he and I. On closer inspection, the book wasn’t nearly as old as I expected it to be. It was in braille so that meant it couldn’t be any older than, say, eighteen hundreds. “What’s this?” I said.
“It’s one volume from the Codex Sacramentum—the super-rare braille translation.”
“What’s a Codex…” I fumbled over the second word and gave up.
“Sacramentum. It’s a collection of books complied by late nineteenth- and early-twentieth century European occultists. Nobody knows for sure who the authors were, but names like Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Algernon Blackwood, and Aleister Crowley are all in the mix.”
“Crowley is the only one I recognize. Because of Led Zeppelin.”
“
Think of the books as a sort of magical encyclopedia. If your hierophant is a thing, chances are good it’s in this book.”
“Okay. But I gotta ask… Why do you have this?”
The old man smiled. “A lot of people have pawnshops to make a living. I do that, but I also have an ulterior motive. I use the shop to spark new interests. You wouldn’t believe the kooky people who come through here. You wouldn’t believe all the crazy stuff that passes through my hands. A neighborhood guy—also blind—sold me the Codex in the late nineteen sixties. Then, according to rumor, he was torn apart in front of ten witnesses by invisible monsters. I don’t know anything about that, but I did find the books interesting as hell. It was a gateway for me into a whole area I would’ve never heard of otherwise. I fell into researching it, picked up the tarot, etcetera. On another occasion, much more recently, someone came in with the entire first season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on DVD. The rest is history.”
I crinkled my nose. “The books’re kind of cool, I guess. I’m not so sure about the DVDs.”
“To each his own,” Ty replied.
“Sure. Fine. Get to feeling your book already.”
He felt the pages in front of him, flipped back a few, felt those too, flipped back a few more. It was neat watching a guy look blankly ahead and read with his fingertips. After a few more flips, he said, “Ah ha.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Hold on,” Ty replied. “It’s complicated…”
I sighed. “Of course, it is.”
“The hierophant is a statue. A clay statue of a man with a crown with a sun inset into his forehead. Only the statue isn’t really the hierophant.”
“You lost me…”
“The hierophant is an entity. An entity that lives inside the statue.”
From her place on my back, Hope cooed. A creature living inside a clay vessel was definitely a concept she could get her head around. “What does it do?” I said.
