Chapter 20

Heitsi was surprisingly tall, dark skinned, and moved about with the confidence and ease that only those who have died and been resurrected many many times can match. He smiled a lot, and gave the distinct impression that he knew the exact location of every creature and item in the room seconds after entering.

Hep was glad Heitsi came, because they had a lot of warriors on their side, but not many great hunters.

The gods gathered in the hotel room Sarah and Chris were staying in. They arrived over the next couple of days. Heitsi, Thor and Ares arrived the first day, Sekhmet, Thoth and Ahayuta the next.

Sarah had, at the last minute, managed to procure several maps of the drains and sewers that ran under the city and, most importantly, under the New Paradigm compound.

Hep, Heitsi and Thoth pored over the maps, trying to choose the best route to get into Tim’s compound with a wrecking crew of nine gods and a few pagans. They were pleased to find that there were several major drains that ran directly under the compound, and that they wouldn’t have to travel through any sewer lines to get there. Sewers would be disgusting and dangerous, due to the build up of methane and other fun, noxious gasses and diseases, not to mention the general ickiness of raw sewage. Drains, on the other hand, contained relatively clean water (not that any of them would want to drink it), relatively good air, and overall would be a much preferable subterranean route. Plus it would be easier to get an inflatable raft into the cities drains than into the sewage system.

They decided the best entrance into the drains would be across from the Arlington National Cemetary. Hep figured they could launch the rafts further up the river, and paddle right into the drains without attracting too much attention to themselves. After that, all they’d have to do is navigate through the drains until they reached the New Paradigm compound.

The first challenge, therefore, was getting enough inflatable rafts to carry all of them. Sarah, Hep, Scroat and Ares left the hotel to visit the local mega-store to see what they had in the way of inflatable boats. They crammed into a taxi and rode to the first store.

Apparently they chose the wrong day to try and save the world, because the store was crammed full of people all trying to reach and purchase the hottest bargains of the day. As they tried to find the sporting goods section, their irritation with the other patrons of the particular establishment they were in grew and grew. They had to stop walking every two steps to wait for someone to look at whatever bauble had caught their eye and forced them to stop, along with their shopping cart, in the middle of the aisle and preventing any other shoppers from getting through.

Eventually, two steps at a time, they made it to the sporting goods section. There was one two-person inflatable boat still on the shelf. Hep grabbed it, and they made the long, slow, annoying trek back to the cash registers. There, the cashier wanted to see ID before they could pay for their purchase.

“What are you talking about? I’m paying cash. Why do you need ID if I’m paying cash?” Hep asked.

“Store policy, sir,” the cashier said. “Rafts are a controlled item, for the sake of national security.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hep said, as he dug out his wallet. He found his driver’s license and presented it to the cashier.

The cashier barely looked at the id, didn’t look at Hep at all, and rang up the raft. Hep paid cash, as he’d said he would.

“Have a nice day, sir,” the cashier said with a fake, sunny smile.

“Yeah, right,” Hep said. They left the store and found another taxi to take them to the next mega-mart. When they arrived, Scroat waited outside with their first purchase, while Sarah, Hep and Ares went inside.

The second store, if anything, was more crowded than the first. Once more they shuffled through the store, past the lingerie, past the big screen televisions, past the children’s clothing and automotive essentials, and finally reached the sporting goods section. By the time they arrived, Ares’ left eye was twitching uncontrollably.

“Are you ok?” Sarah asked.

“Fine,” Ares said. “Just fine, thank you.” He rolled his head back and forth to stretch his neck, and continued to twitch.

This store had one two person raft, and also a four person inflatable boat. Hep and Ares each took a box, and they trudged at an excruciatingly slow pace back to the cash registers in the front of the store.

They waited in line for a solid ten minutes, before they finally were able to check out. This cashier did not ask them for identification, but looked at the three of them and their two rubber rafts with almost comical suspicion. She took Hep’s cash, and used an antibiotic lotion on her hands immediately after putting the cash in the drawer. She did not tell them to have a nice day.

Outside, they found a taxi yet again and went to another, hopefully final, superstore.

Scroat, once again, waited outside with the boats while Sarah, Ares and Hep went in to try and find at least one more raft. This store was significantly less busy, so the three of them felt somewhat relieved.

At least, until some guy wearing a Ford truck baseball cap and a NASCAR t-shirt decided they were walking too slow, and kept bumping into Ares’ ankles with his cart. Ares turned and, with uncharacteristic restraint, asked him to kindly be careful with his cart.

The man stared defiantly at Ares and told him to kindly move himself and his slow-assed friends the fuck out of his way.

Ares’ eye began to twitch again. He looked around the immediate area, saw there weren’t many people around, and quickly stepped around the cart.

“Say hi to Dale Earnhardt for me,” Ares hissed as he grabbed the man’s head and twisted until his neck snapped. Ares stuffed the guy’s body into the cart, covered it with a couple of shirts from a nearby rack, and pushed the cart to the back of the men’s clothing section. Ares suddenly felt much better.

“What?” Ares asked when he saw Hep and Sarah staring at him.

They finally reached the sporting goods department, and there was another four-person boat, and two two-person boats. They grabbed all three boats and walked to the checkouts.

Only one register was open, and they had to wait in line for several minutes. Ares made irritated noises, and rocked back and forth on his heels while they waited. They finally reached the cashier, who scanned their boats. The four-person boat wouldn’t scan, and the cashier told them he’d have to call the sporting goods manager for a price check.

Unfortunately, just as the cashier reached for the phone, the person behind Ares bumped him, rather hard, with a cart.

“GYAAAAAH!” Ares bellowed. He turned, grabbed the front of the cart, and shoved it towards the shopper who had bumped him with tremendous force. The shopper, and all the people in line toppled over like dominoes. He turned back, and the first thing he saw was the cashier staring at him in shock.

Ares bellowed again, and grabbed the cashier by the head. He lifted upwards, violently, pulling the cashier’s head off, along with a bit of spinal column. The rent-a-cop who had been watching the doors came running over, and Ares threw the cashier’s head at him with all his might. The cop ran into it face first, and fell over, unconscious.

Hep grabbed the rafts and Sarah’s arm and made for the exit while Ares continued his rampage.

Once outside, Hep said to Scroat, “Cab!”

“What?” Scroat asked, standing up from the bench he’d been sitting on. A tremendous crashing noise came from inside the store, as well as several screams.

“Cab, now!” Hep said.

Scroat tried to hail a cab, and finally caught the attention of a cabbie just as Ares came out the doors, dusting himself off.

“Fucking rude fucking people. No one has any class anymore,” Ares muttered under his breath as he left the store.

The cab pulled up to the sidewalk and the four of them piled in. Hep told him the cross streets they needed to get to, and the taxi pulled away from the curb.

“What do you need all those rafts those for?” the driver asked conversationally.

“Haven’t you and your buddies ever gotten a bunch of inflatable rafts, filled them with cooking oil and lime jello and had a romp with your special lady friends before?” Scroat asked in return.

The cabbie didn’t talk any more for the rest of the drive. Ares, whose mood had improved significantly, started to hum “Putting on the Ritz.”

Hep kept expecting to see the flashing lights of a police car appear behind them any moment. Their exit from the last store hadn’t exactly been incognito, thanks to Ares’ freak out. He suddenly remembered why he didn’t hang out with Ares more often, entirely apart from having caught Ares boning Aphrodite on several, separate occasions.

The taxi stopped at the intersection Hep had specified, and they all got out of the cab. Hep paid the driver, and gave him a twenty dollar tip.

“Have a good day,” Hep said to the cabbie, who muttered something incomprehensible in reply.

Hep, Scroat and Ares each carried two of the boats the block and a half back to the hotel. Once there, they got to work taking the rafts out of the boxes. After they’d gotten all the rafts out of their boxes, and taken a look at the instruction sheets (which read “inflate rafts”), Hep realized something horrible: they forgot to get a pump in order to fill the rafts.

“Pan,” Hep said, “You’re going to the store.”

Pan left the hotel, muttering under his breath about certain people who should have remembered to get a damn pump while they were at the damn store the first damn time.

There was an outdoors and camping supply store a few blocks away from the hotel, so Pan just walked instead of getting a cab. Apart from a mild annoyance about having to go to get a pump, Pan was in a pretty good mood. The evening weather was nice, and there were plenty of pretty girls around to look at.

Pan walked with his hands in his pockets, mostly watching the sidewalk in front of him, but looking up every now and then to smile at passing women. He couldn’t help it, even if he was supposed to be keeping a low profile. He was simply a natural ladies man.

In fact, Pan was pretty frustrated. He hadn’t gotten any loving since this whole mess started. Sarah seemed impervious to his charms, which had been enticing at first, but now just annoyed him. Sometimes a horny old goat needs to get laid.

Unfortunately, the hectic schedule of avoiding death and plotting revenge took up pretty much all of Pan’s time, so he hadn’t been able to get out and find a nice girl to share a lovely hour or two with before returning to more important matters.

He arrived at the camping goods store, and went inside to find a pump. He explained to the clerk what he was looking for, and the clerk showed him to the pumps.

“You know, those cheap-o rafts aren’t really good for much. They’ll probably spring a leak after five uses,” the clerk said.

“That’s ok,” Pan said. “I’m just planning to fill the boat up with baby oil and hop in it with my special lady friend anyway.”

The clerk was mildly shocked, but then laughed. “Ok, whatever you want to do, it’s none of my business anyway.”

Pan paid and left with his pump. He didn’t bother with a bag, and just carried the pump under one arm.

Just outside the store, Pan walked past a bus stop. A curvy, dark haired woman with glasses sitting on the bench stared at Pan as he approached. She wore a light blue, form-fitting sweater that showed a lot of cleavage, dark slacks, and fuck-me heels.

When Pan drew even with her, she smiled at him and asked “Need any help inflating something?”

Pan smiled her and said “Inflation is never the problem, just finding a place to put it once it’s blown up.”

The woman stood and moved closer to Pan. She put a hand on his chest.

“I bet I could find a place to put your toy,” she said. “Follow me.”

She walked ahead of Pan, swaying her hips. He followed, transfixed by her figure and the promise of hot, naughty sex, unable to believe his luck. Pan was suddenly very glad Hep had forgotten to get a pump when they bought the boats. Every now and then, running errands came with perks.

The woman led Pan down a nearby alley. The alley was extremely dark, but reasonably clean. There was no decaying garbage, homeless people or obvious rats or roaches. Really, Pan had fucked in much nastier places. The woman turned around to face him.

“Put that down,” she told Pan, pointing at the pump, “and come here.”

Pan set the box holding the pump down where he stood, and walked over to the mysterious beauty seducing him in an alley. She took his hands and put them on her breasts. She stepped forward and kissed Pan deeply, pressing her hips against him. Pan groaned, and buried his face in her neck, reveling in the smell of her.

She reached down and began to stroke him through his jeans. Pan moved his hands to her butt and picked her up. He carried her over to the closest wall, and pressed her up against it. She wrapped her legs around him as he buried his face in her cleavage. She tugged at his belt, attempting to undress him. Pan couldn’t believe how much better this day was turning out. It had certainly had a shitty start, but things were looking up. Way up.

Suddenly, he was blinded by approaching headlights, and he heard the roar of a large engine, then tires screeching. Pan looked, and saw a van come to a halt at the end of the alley. A group of track suit wearing thugs jumped out of the van.

“Shit!” Pan said, and dropped the woman he had been holding. He grabbed the box for the pump, and bolted the other direction down the alley.

“Hurry up, you shit heads, he’s going to get away,” the woman yelled at the True Believers charging towards Pan. Her yell inspired Pan to run that much faster, and the True Believers had to run as fast as they could just to keep pace with Pan.

Pan reached the end of the alley and looked to the left and the right. Which way was better? He decided that either way was better than waiting for the angry gorillas in track suits to catch up with him and do whatever it was they were going to do to him. Pan ran to the right.

Pan ran as though Zeus himself was throwing lightning bolts at his ass. He was in no hurry to experience Tim’s special brand of hospitality for the divine again. Especially since it seemed that he, Hep and Scroat had pissed Tim right the hell off.

He ventured a look back, and saw that the True Believers were a lot closer to him that he would have liked. He didn’t think they were catching up to him, but he definitely was not out running them. Pan hoped his endurance would last longer than theirs. He was suddenly very glad he hadn’t spent any more energy on the girl in the alley.

Pan suddenly darted to the left, dodging traffic as he ran across the street. The tactic worked, in that it significantly slowed down the True Believing thugs chasing him. In fact, one of them bounced off the hood of a Cadillac. Two of the True Believers stopped to help their friend, which meant only one True Believer was still chasing him. Pan ducked into a doorway, and waited, watching, for the final True Believer to reach him.

The True Believer pounded down the sidewalk in Pan’s direction. When he was too close to stop in time, Pan swung his arm and decked the True Believer in the face. The thug fell over backwards. He landed hard on the sidewalk and rolled from side to side holding his face.

Pan took advantage of the situation and ran on. Pretty soon, he was well away from all the True Believers, and he was able to slow down and walk again. He walked back to the hotel, keeping his head down and watching the street and everyone passing by as closely as he could. He chose a circuitous route back to the hotel, to improve his chances of noticing anyone following. His heart sped up every time he saw a van. None stopped, however, and he made it back to the hotel unscathed, if rather sweaty and worn-out.

“What happened to you?” Hep asked when Pan walked into the hotel room. Pan tossed the pump he’d bought to Hep. Hep caught it easily, and started opening the box as Pan talked.

“A hot piece of ass with four angry, True Believer brothers,” Pan said, as he went to the sink. He stuck his head under the faucet, and drank at great length.

“Man, that sucked,” he said. “I haven’t run like that since the last time I was in Texas.”

“What happened when you were in Texas?” Chris asked.

“Same thing, only that time I managed to score with the farmer’s daughter before her brothers ran me out of town,” Pan said, and winked.