The Mythniks Saga

by Paul Neuhaus

  As the little army of animated dead charged down the corridor, I looked around for anything I could use as a weapon. We were past the section of hall where Medusa kept eight by ten glossies of her sexual conquests. Where we stood, there was no adornment. Only two more of the tables bearing comical stuffed monkeys. Amusing but useless. I wasn’t feeling my most confident at that moment. I thought that a bunch of guys in armor with swords might have the advantage. Medusa, apparently, didn’t feel that way. She gave another blood-curdling scream and charged away from me toward the interlopers.

  “Fuck,” I said. I had no idea what I was gonna do.

  The only thing I could think of was to turn and run out the back, but not because I was afraid. I wanted to go around the house and get the drop on the two living people standing on the front lawn. If they were somehow controlling the skeletons, taking them out of commission might solve the problem. It was a faint hope, but I clung to it as I flung open the French doors and ran around the side of the gorgeous in-ground swimming pool. Medusa’s property was big for L.A., but at last I came to a white picket fence separating the backyard from the side. I brought the structure down with a couple of strong kicks and scrambled over it. I could hear the sound of serious battle from inside the home. How could Medusa hope to take on combatants who had edged weapons and were not susceptible to her particular curse? The woman was strange, but I was as determined as I could be to make sure she didn’t lose her life at the hands of those monsters. Monsters who, let’s face it, were probably sent after me.

  When I rounded the corner of the house, I saw who the skeleton wranglers were. Taylor Chriss and Samoa Joe. I hadn’t been as stealthy as I should have been, so both of them turned to me as soon as I appeared. Their expressions confirmed they’d come for me rather than Medusa. Or, more specifically, they’d come for the pithos. If they wanted it that badly, they could have it. I skidded to a stop, throwing up sod, and pulled the lid off the jug. I’m a good judge of character and I could tell the pithos would be happy to have them both. Samoa Joe looked like he’d been around the block a time or two when it came to evil behavior. And at least some of Chriss’ transgressions were a matter of public record. He used his fellow congregants as slave labor on his autos and homes, and he allowed the Church of Reciprocity to audition his wives. Neither man was anything close to a saint. The suction from within the pithos began and my targets threw up their hands as the pull laid into them.

  But then a pull laid into me.

  My arms were nearly wrenched out of their sockets as the pithos was torn from my grip. The jug flew through the air diagonally and to the right. My eyes went in that direction in response to the theft. Standing near the sidewalk was Nicos Nephus, AKA Prometheus. He now had my pithos. He tucked it under his arm (being careful not to get in the path of the suction) and raised his free hand. The pithos’s lid came out of my grip and crossed the space between he and I. He caught it and slapped it onto the jug.

  Rather than panic about the pithos, my brain prioritized differently than I expected. I ran forward, kicked Samoa Joe hard in the stomach and, as he doubled over, I reached into his shoulder holster to withdraw his gun. Weapon in hand, I spun to my right and, as fast as I could, I re-entered Medusa’s mansion. I didn’t have far to go before I encountered the tangle of combatants. It was the lady of the house and three of the skeletons. One of the invaders was in a heap on the floor. Medusa had somehow robbed it of its animation. I bobbed and wove with the rhythms of the fight and, in more or less short order, I put a bullet into each of the remaining undead skulls. There was no brain inside the skulls, but having their heads utterly destroyed killed the monsters. As soon as the skeletons were dead, Medusa banged into the wall behind her and slid down it, leaving a trail of green blood. Some of the black and whites of her former amorous partners were dislodged. One of them hit her in the head.

  I rushed forward and bent over her. She’d been slashed in many places and her life was leaking out of her. Her breathing was shallow and growing shallower. “Medusa,” I said, my tone a mixture of sternness and pity. “Come on. We’ve got to get you out of here. We’ve got to get you help.”

  She kept her eyes closed, still aware enough to know that looking at me would turn me to stone. “It was a good run,” she said. “A good, long run.” Then a pitiful, sputtering breath leaked out of her and I knew she was gone. As I dropped her lifeless hand, I realized anger had taken me over. I was in a reckless rage. I cared about one thing and one thing only.

  When I went through the front door again, I saw Taylor Chriss and Samoa Joe getting into an Aston Martin Valkyrie. A three point two-million-dollar automobile. They both looked at me briefly but didn’t seem particularly interested as they shut the doors and Chriss fired the engine. Meanwhile, Nephus stood exactly where I’d left him. He was waiting for me, holding my pithos. His eyes were misty. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry about Medusa. It’s a waste, really.”

  He seemed completely sincere, but that didn’t stop me from raising Samoa Joe’s pistol and firing it at him. Both bullets burst into flame and disintegrated about halfway to the target. I weighed whether I should rush him. He was huge man, but that wouldn’t have mattered if he didn’t know how to fight. I took a split second to gauge my chances of success and concluded I probably wouldn’t emerge from the encounter alive. He had another power on his side beyond his strength and whatever martial skill he might’ve had. Magic.

  Prometheus had noted my decision as it played out on my face. “I don’t want to kill you. The world needs you just as it needed Medusa. Just as it needs what you’ve been carrying around with you all these thousands of years.” With that, he put the pithos in front of himself and crushed it between his two giant hands the same way one might crush a melon. Or a skull. For a second time in a brief span, I saw the Evils fly away to the four winds and I heard Hope scream.

  Prometheus looked at me and smiled like a little kid. He held up his right hand and showed me it was bleeding. “I cut my hand,” he said.

  I didn’t know what to do. Behind the cult leader, the Aston Martin pulled out and went off down Sunset Boulevard. He turned to watch it go, then he turned to look at me. He opened his mouth to speak again, but he was interrupted.

  Pegasus landed to my right with a great rush of wind and a whinny. The sudden appearance of the mythical horse caught Prometheus and I both off-guard. I looked over and saw Petey was riding him. The man took only a second to assess the situation before dismounting and saying to me, “Watch my ride.” He then took two steps toward the Titan with his fists clenched. “You bothering my friend?” he said.

  I tried to intervene—mostly to save the rapper’s life—but the intervention wasn’t necessary.

  Prometheus nodded and smiled. “You keep good company, Pandora.” He turned his eyes to Petey. “I liked your last album—despite what the critics said. You haven’t gone soft, you’ve just grown up.”

  “Who the fuck’re you?” Petey said.

  “Call me Nicos. It’s what I go by now.” Prometheus looked around my would-be savior and said, “You’re going to come after me, aren’t you? It’s how you’re wired.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t,” I answered.

  He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Because there’s no way you can beat me and because, now that I’ve accomplished everything, I set out to do—and those things’re irreversible—I’m harmless.”

  “You’ve accomplished everything you wanted to do?”

  He looked around briefly and took a deep breath of pine-scented air. “Yes. The world is as it should be again, and the pithos is no more. The natural order can slowly rebuild itself. I get to experience something few men ever experience: satisfaction.”

  “What if people don’t like the changes you’ve wrought?”

  He shrugged again. “What choice do they have? They’ll get used to it.” He paused and looked down at his bloody hand. “Pandora, I’m asking you nicely: Do
n’t come after me. Right now, the last thing I want to do is kill you. Don’t make me.”

  He gave us each a nod and turned toward the street. By the time he reached it, he’d disappeared.

  6

  The Last Heroine

  Petey and I stood there for a long time, neither one of us speaking. Finally, he said, “Who was that guy?”

  “Prometheus.”

  “The fire dude?!”

  “Yeah. The fire dude.”

  “He had a whole Bond villain thing going.”

  “I know. How’d you find me?”

  He flicked a thumb over his shoulder. “I didn’t. I said to the horse, ‘Take me to Dora’, and damned if he didn’t. That ain’t no ordinary horse.”

  I smiled slightly and backed up to stand next to Pegasus. He nuzzled me with his snout and gave a snort of recognition and affection. “No. He’s smarter and more loyal than most of the people I know. Where’s Chad? Is he okay?”

  “Yeah, he’s fine. I dropped him at his house just in case I needed to give you an airlift outta here. I didn’t know if Peg could carry three people at once.”

  “‘Peg’?”

  “Yeah, I started calling him that. He doesn’t seem to mind. Who’s house is this?”

  I looked around at the mansion and the grounds and remembered the lady of the house was lying inside in a pool of her own blood. “Medusa. It belongs to Medusa.”

  “The snake hair lady?!”

  “Yeah. The snake hair lady. She’s dead now.”

  He noticed I wasn’t happy about that outcome and his tone softened. “That’s too bad. I never met a snake hair lady. You gonna go after Prometheus? Like he said?”

  I shrugged. “I dunno, Petey. I might. Then again, there’s at least an equal chance I might crawl into a bed and never get out.”

  “You need me to airlift you out?”

  I smiled at him. The fact that he’d come was not to be undervalued. “No, I’ve got the Firebird.”

  “You’re at El’s house, right? Do you mind if me’n Chad come over there tonight? I can’t help feeling there’re stories to be exchanged.”

  I shrugged. “Do whatever you want. I won’t be there. I’ve got things to do.”

  “Do you need help?” Petey came around to Pegasus’ left side and mounted him.

  I thought for a minute. “I have no idea,” I answered honestly.

  Petey looked as though he were trying to think of something else helpful to say but couldn’t. He gave me a little salute and took to the air.

  I sat in the Pontiac for a good while going over where I was at. Medusa hadn’t told me what the hierophant was or where I could find it. (And I wasn’t even sure it’d be of any use to me). I did have one last option as far as the weird statue with a spirit inside, but it was a drastic option and I wasn’t too keen on following through. Petey’s question about whether I was going after Prometheus was, I suppose, a valid one. I had developed a reputation of late for heroics. A reputation that no longer meshed well with my persona as “Power Dora”. Also, if I acted at all, it would’ve been out of revenge. I searched inside myself, but my need for vengeance was tiny at best. It just seemed so pointless. Maybe Prometheus was right. Maybe we would get used to the changes and get on with our lives. Nothing he’d done so far (with one exception) precluded me from getting on with my life the way I’d planned to from inside Pan’s pinecone.

  At that exact moment in time, my priority had to be Hope. Based on prior experience, I knew having her home shattered wasn’t fatal to her. She’d be out in the world somewhere and I had to find her. I doubted seriously she’d return to Vasquez Rocks. I’d found her there the last time, and she’d kept the Evils corralled until I could recapture them. But the world of last month was very different than the world of today and corralling Evils seemed like a fool’s errand. Then again, maybe I was projecting my own attitude onto Hope. She was, after all, the optimistic one. I pulled out of my parking spot at the right time. Police cars and ambulances were just arriving. One of Medusa’s neighbors must’ve called nine one one. These particular first responders were in for quite a shock when they entered the house.

  I drove down Sunset Boulevard wracking my brain for a fruitful destination.

  I took Sunset all the way down to where it dead-ends into the Pacific Coast Highway. Point of fact, I wasn’t too far from the Tonga Lei Lounge and the remnants of my trailer. I parked, got out, and walked down to the beach where I sat down on a rock and watched the surf. I wasn’t there long when a voice next to me said, “What next?”

  I turned, and it was Hope in little girl mode. Little toga. Little sandals. Blonde ringlets. I didn’t answer her question. Instead, I said, “Hope!” and hugged her to me. The fact she was safe and that I wouldn’t have to go on a long, difficult hunt for her was a huge relief to me. I scooted over so she could share my rock. “Are you okay?” I said.

  She nodded, although she looked around at the big, wide world with trepidation. “I’m okay,” she replied. “But I think I have reverse claustrophobia. I feel really weird being out in the open like this.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have any more magic jugs laying around, would you?”

  “Sorry. I’m fresh out.”

  The little girl drew her knees up to herself and hugged them to her body. “What does this mean for us?” she said.

  “I think it means we’re out of the hero business.”

  “Is that what it means? Are we going to just let all of this stand?”

  “At the moment, I’m fresh out of ideas. If we were a chess piece, I’d feel like we’d just been taken off the board.”

  She turned her head, so she could give me a sidelong look. One of her little eyebrows went up. “That doesn’t sound like the Dora I know. The Dora I know would find Prometheus and kick him in the teeth until he put everything back where it belonged.”

  I nodded. “And then what? Back onto the old treadmill? I’ve been in rat-in-a-cage mode for years now. All because I felt penned in by circumstances, I not only couldn’t control but didn’t like very much. Chalk up whatever… heroine qualities I had to the desperation I felt. I don’t think I should be that Dora anymore.”

  She had to process that for a moment. “I understand,” she said. “Does that mean I’m not going to have you in my life anymore?”

  I was shocked she’d come to that conclusion. After the Vasquez Incident, we’d decided we were sisters, and, as far as I was concerned, that was as true now as it’d been then. “Don’t be fucking crazy,” I said. “I’d sooner cut off one of my legs.”

  I bumped her with my shoulder, and she bumped back. We sat looking at the ocean until the sun got too hot.

  We left the beach to get something to eat. First, we had to stop at Target to get Hope some proper clothes. We got stopped a couple of times by moms who lost their shit over Hope’s good looks. One of them was a talent agent who gave us her card. If Hope ever got tired of being an anthropomorphic concept, she could clean up in commercials. Some of the looky loos wanted to know why my little companion was dressed the way she was. I told them it was for the Harvest Carnival. None of them seemed to be thrown by the fact it wasn’t fall.

  After we each got a couple of decent outfits and Hope changed into one of hers, we stopped at a Norm’s and had breakfast in the middle of the day. “You know,” Hope said. “This is the first time I’ve ever eaten food.”

  That was amazing to me. “Seriously?! What do you think?”

  “It feels completely natural. It feels like I’ve been doing it my whole life. Of course, trying each one of the foods is a new experience. Everything I’ve ever heard people say about bacon is one hundred-percent true. In fact, if anything, I’d say they were underselling it.”

  “I know, right?!” I said, taking a piece of bacon off her plate and quickly eating it.

  “Hey! No fair!” She picked up a blueberry and threw it at my head. It bounced off
my nose, so I grabbed a banana slice off my own plate and whipped it her. Thanks to some maple syrup, it adhered to her right cheek. She started to frisbee a piece of toast at me, but we were stopped by our waitress.

  “Cut it out! What were you, raised in a barn?” the server said.

  We both cast our eyes down and muttered apologies.

  When we got back to Elijah’s house, Hope and I both had one of those gigantic rainbow lollipops. They were ridiculously huge, and we’d never finish them all, but I’d always wanted to get one and never had the guts.

  Everyone was enchanted with Hope in her physical form, particularly El, and Keri and Ty who’d known her as nothing more than a disembodied voice. Ty was there along with Chad and Petey. Apparently, my partner and I had arrived just in time for Petey’s little pow wow.

  “I thought you weren’t gonna make it,” the M.C. said.

  “I thought I wasn’t too, but Hope showed up, so I ended up not having to look for her. What’d I miss?”

  They all looked at one another and muttered negatives. El said, “None of us are experts in the field with the possible exception of Ty and he’s blind. He doesn’t care what the world looks like.”

  “It’s true,” Ty affirmed.

  “Now we understand all the Evils are loose again, and we’re wondering what kinda world we’ve got to raise our kids in,” Petey added.

  “Well,” I said, taking a lick of my sucker. “You’ve got the world I had when I was a child. It’s a little less populated with wonders, but otherwise it’s the same. Beautiful scenery, scary monsters. And I don’t mean the Bowie album.”