GoneGod World: A Paradise Lot Urban Fantasy

by R. E. Vance

  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 on his shoulder. He runs up the stairs at an inhuman speed, where a helicopter is waiting 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.

  Chapter 1

  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 that he could reopen all the heavens and hells that were closed when the gods collectively got bored of 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 said, picking up a miraculously unbroken wine glass and opening 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 there was one problem—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 wine glass, which I let fall to the floor with a satisfying crash.

  “Tell me, Human Jean-Luc, when you meet Bella in your dreams, can you touch?”

  “I don’t know what you are 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 both 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). He looked over at Hermes and 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 Hermes 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 the only asset I had left: 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 Adam West’s Batman 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 wine glass 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 on bringing the Void down to Earth and reuniting 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, kneeling, before me and taking 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 wine glass—damn, this guy could open for David Copperfield. “Please enlighten the mortal.”

  “Others—creatures like us,” he pointed 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 as he spoke the words.

  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 that there was nothing to let go of, that she’d just gone somewhere else. And this Grinner—this Fanatic who could will the powers of gravity like someone could command his legs to move or his eyes to open—was offering me a way back to her. So that 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 GodGone 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-Luc—break your promise already. Be together. Be happy. I might have considered that when I believed that 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 was so wide that the edges of his lips literally touched one another around the back of his skull. “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, then 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 lip touched each other on the back of his head. 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’s 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 in 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.”

  Hermes gave me a guilty look as he stood. “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 again 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-Luc. Would you be so kind as to do me a small favor?”

  “Sure,” I grunted.

  “RUN!” he screamed as he turned and unleashed the hell-holy blue flames of Tartarus on the Avatar of Gravity.

  Chapter 2

  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, like water hitting glass. The fire no longer touched him.

  But at least he was no longer smiling.

  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 was 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 in the mulch, digging for something to pull at. Again and again I stabbed until, clink, the tip hit a piece of metal that was loose from the rest. Us
ing my blade, I pried out a bit of chandelier and pulled.

  I pulled, leveraging 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 marveled at how contained and focused it was, given the kinds of energy being thrown 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 counter attacks. Hermes was a tank, the wax his steel shell, his flames the nozzle of his gun.

  “Give him hell!” I screamed. I immediately regretted it because it made me feel like someone turned on a blender inside my head.

  It did have a bit of an effect, because Grinner turned in my direction, momentarily lowering his shield, which in turn caused a bit of flame to get through and burn him. Grinner yelped and I put a notch in the “win” column for Hermes. 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.

  Just when I thought Hermes had Grinner on the ropes, the wannabe Alpha god threw his wine glass 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 fine, wafer-thin glass landed at Hermes’s feet and that was when I knew with increasing horror what he was about to do. Gravity ceased. No, not ceased … reversed.

  But because Hermes was covered with his magical wax, he was unaffected, leaving only the glass to shoot up. Tiny, razor-sharp pieces of glass flew up, slicing him up 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.