by Tom Holt
“Bernie. They said I might find you here.”
He looked up, his mouth a perfect O. Mr. Lucifer never set foot in the Hole in the Wall.
“Sorry, I was just …” He pushed the file across the table for Mr. L. to see, but he didn’t even glance at it.
“Just a quick word, if you’ve got a moment.”
“Sure, Mr. L.”
Mr. Lucifer smiled and clicked his fingers. Immediately, the waitress was at his elbow. “Two caramel lattes, please. One with sprinkles.”
“Thank you, Mr—”
“You know, Bernie, it’s about time you started calling me Nick. I mean, we’ve been working together for … how long is it now? Really? And you know how much I rely on you. I don’t think this place would last five minutes without you.”
“Gee, Mr—”
“You single-handedly made up the budget shortfall; you’ve been running all the sideshows and money-spinners; you do all the admin; you keep the section heads from biting each others’ ears off. Most of all, you keep them off my back, for which I am sincerely and profoundly grateful.” He paused while the waitress put the coffees on the table, and dropped three saccharine tablets into the foam on top of his cup from a plastic dispenser, which he put back in his pocket. “You know,” he went on, “when I was a young angel just starting out in this racket, I never for one moment thought I’d end up running this place.”
“Is that right, Mr. L.?”
“Sure is. You know what Lucifer means, son? It’s Latin for ‘Bringer of Light.’ I was a sun god originally. Did you know that? It’s true.”
“Wow.”
“Straight up. I loved working with the sun and the stars. You get the most amazing view from up there.”
“I’ll bet you do. So how did you …?”
Mr. L. shrugged. “They opened this place and needed someone to run it,” he said. “I remember young Jay called me into his office. It’s a big responsibility, he said to me; we need someone we can rely on absolutely. The thing about jobs, he said, is they’re work that’s got to be done, not ways for people to occupy their time doing what they like doing in a congenial environment. He said, we need you in Hell, Nick, so that’s where we’re sending you. Are you OK with that?” There was genuine sadness in Mr. L.’s small red eyes.
“What did you tell him?”
“I said, sure, boss, whatever you think is best.” He sighed. “I didn’t want to come down here, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my career hip-deep in bad people; I’m an angel, for crying out loud, I hate evil. But someone had to take charge down here, and the boss was relying on me, so here I am. And you know what, Bernie? This place kind of grows on you. After you’ve been here a while, like I have, you start to care. I know that sounds crazy—”
Bernie shook his head. “I know just what you mean, Mr. L.”
“I know you do, son. I think you’re the only one who feels about this place the way I do. That’s why, when eventually I call it a day and hang up my pitchfork, I want you to be the one to take my place.”
For a moment Bernie forgot to breathe. Mr. L. had to slap him on the back to get him started again.
“Oh gee, Mr. L. I don’t know what to say.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do.”
“I never really thought of myself as, well, the Dev—” Bernie stopped short. “In charge,” he amended. “Of all this. I’m not sure I’m up to the job.”
“It wouldn’t be for a while. Quite a while. By then …” Mr. L. smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”
“Gee, Mr. L.”
“Good boy. Meanwhile, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.”
Bernie was glowing. In fact, it occurred to Mr. L. that they could turn off Furnace Three and heat the perjurers just by plugging him into the mains. “Sure, Mr. L. Anything.”
“This friend of yours. Jersey something. He works in Catering.”
“Oh, him. What about him?”
“It’s awkward.”
“I’m sorry. What’s he done?”
“Vanished.”
A cold hand closed around Bernie’s heart. “Like, you mean …?”
“Gone. And no record of him leaving the premises. One moment there he was on the CCTV, the next moment, there he wasn’t.” Mr. L. had a serious look on his face. “I was wondering. Do you think you could shed any light on that?”
Just a second or two ago Bernie had almost felt the cushions of the chair in the Big Office engulfing the base of his spine like a marshmallow sea; now he was about to lose it all, because of that hare-brained lunatic Thorpe. “I’m sorry, Mr. L. I’m so sorry. I should’ve told you everything, right from the off, but it all happened so fast, and once he was, like, my responsibility, I didn’t know how to tell you. And I never thought he’d be a problem. You have my word of honour. I guess I felt sorry for him, and the Venturis—”
“He was looking for the—” A spasm twisted Mr. L.’s face. “For the Christmas person. Wasn’t he?”
All Bernie could do was nod.
“He was trying to establish contact with a dangerous subversive, and you thought it’d be all right.”
“I guess I didn’t think at all, Mr. L.”
It was the disappointment in Mr. L.’s eyes that hurt the most. Of course making sinners feel bad was his job, but Bernie had never realised until now just how good he was at it, when he really tried. “And now he’s gone, almost certainly with the Christmas person’s help. You do see what a difficult position this puts us in.”
“Oh yes, Mr. L.”
“Because he escaped from here,” Mr. L. ground remorselessly on. “And I know and you know that you didn’t really mean to help him—you were just being incredibly dumb—but that’s not how it’s going to look, is it?”
“No, Mr. L.”
“It’s going to look like this organisation, which is on pretty damn thin ice as it is, actively helped this desperate fugitive to escape Venturi security and join up with a dangerous subversive with a view to overthrowing the planet’s celestial authorities by force of arms. Well, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
“Bernie.” Mr. L. let out a sigh that carved a passage through his heart like a cheesewire. “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie. Ah well, it’s done now. Question is, what are we going to do to put it right?”
It was as though he’d had his back to the wall, and the firing squad had raised their rifles, and the officer had given the order, and they’d pulled the triggers, and out of the muzzles of their guns had emerged little coloured flags saying JUST KIDDING. The choice of pronoun: we. Implying that, against all the odds and the demands of natural justice, he still had a future with the organisation.
“Gosh, Mr. L., I don’t know. What do you think?”
Mr. L. frowned, his incredibly deep mind swimming through the undercurrents of probability and human nature. “How would it be,” he said, “if you were to send this Thorpe person a message?”
“Mr. L.?”
“Saying you’ve had a chance to think it over and you’ve decided that he was right all along and you want to help and you’ve got valuable tactical information about a weakness in Venturi security which the Christmas person could exploit, but you need to see him face to face to tell him about it.”
Bernie blinked twice. “You think that would work?”
“We can but try.”
“Yes, but will he trust me?”
Mr. L. smiled sadly. “I’m sure he will. You’re the most trust-inspiring person I know, Bernie. Which is why I trusted you.”
“Oh, Mr. L.—”
“So. Agreed?”
“Sure, Mr. L. And thank you. Thank you for giving me another chance. I promise I won’t let you down again.”
“I know you won’t. You’re a good boy. And some day you’ll make a great Father of Lies.”
“You think so? Really?”
“Some day. Now then, how are we going to get this message to him?”
Bernie thought hard, trying to remember something, anything, that might help. “There was this girl with him.”
“That angle’s already being explored.”
“Oh. Well, I can look up and see what shift he was on, ask around, find out if anyone saw anything.”
“Good idea. You do that. If we could find out how he escaped with nobody seeing him, maybe we can figure out where he went. Maybe there’s a trail we could follow, something like that.”
“Absolutely, Mr. L. I’ll get on to it straight away.”
“I know you will, Bernie. I know you will.”
He smiled, got up and walked away, and Bernie sat for a long time on his own, trying to come to terms with it all. The Big Office. Father of Lies. And to have come so close to losing it all, except that Mr. L. was wise, kind and incredibly understanding. Mr. L. had faith in him, when nobody else would give him a chance. In fact, if there was a nicer, better person in the whole of the Universe than Mr. L. …
The waitress was standing over him. He looked up. She gave him the tab for two coffees. He paid it with a broad, happy smile.
Picking up the trail was easier than he’d thought. Because of the incredibly delicate temperature control system, essential when you store so much inflammable material—the Fire Department had done an inspection once and been truly horrified. An accident waiting to happen, they’d said, one stray spark and—it was possible to track Jersey’s last moments in great detail by his body heat signature, pinpointing the exact time he’d left and precisely where from. There was also another reading, highly anomalous. A very cold person had been with him when he vanished.
A very cold person from a very cold place. No need to speculate too deeply there. Rather more intriguing were the unusual energy signatures, with high-spectrum electromagnetic discharge residues, at the place where the two of them had left. Whatever they’d done had altered the molecular structure of a patch of brick wall roughly a metre square, right down to the subatomic level. There were also unaccountable traces of carbonised wood, creosote and tar.
“A fireplace,” Mr. L. said. “The buggers conjured up a fireplace.”
Bernie frowned. “They can do that?”
“Looks like it, doesn’t it.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Think. What goes with a fireplace?”
“Tiles? A fender? A Scandinavian wood-burning stove?”
“A chimney.” Mr. L. looked away, deep in thought. “They got him out up a chimney. Bernie, contact Venturicorp, see if they’ve got any UFO sightings, anything like that.”
They had. A routine skimmer patrol had detected and given chase to an unauthorised flying vehicle with no recorded flight plan, apparently powered by a number of large four-legged animals. It had been too fast for them, and vanished in the general direction of magnetic north.
“Reindeer,” Bernie said weakly. “A sleigh. Oh what fun it is to ride, all that stuff.”
Mr. L. breathed out through his nose. “Well,” he said, “it’s what we expected. Anyhow, it makes your job easier.”
“It does?”
“Sure.” Mr. L. opened a drawer, took out a sheet of paper, an envelope and a pen. “You know where he is. Write him a letter.”
J. Thorpe Esq.,
c/o Santa Claus
The North Pole
“You really think that’ll work?”
Mr. L. scratched his nose. “It’ll get there, that’s for sure,” he said. “Now, either the Christmas person will pass it on unopened, in which case we’ve succeeded, or he’ll open it and read it himself, in which case either he’ll be fooled or he won’t.” He shrugged. “Don’t forget to put a stamp on it.”
“I won’t, Mr. L.”
“And remember, if this goes wrong, it was your idea; you never told me anything about it. You’re completely on your own. Got that?”
“Of course, Mr. L. That goes without saying.”
“Good boy. After all, this isn’t about you or me. It’s about the good name of the organisation. We wouldn’t want anything to reflect badly on the organisation, would we?”
“Perish the thought, Mr. L.”
Bernie left for the nearest postbox, and Mr. Lucifer opened a drawer of his desk, took out a bottle and poured himself a stiff drink. Strictly speaking, the kid had brought it on himself by breaking the rules. He looked at the glass, in whose side he could just make out a distorted reflection of himself. You believe that, glass? Of course you don’t. You believe that I deliberately and callously manipulated that dumb but extremely well-meaning kid into betraying his friend and arguably his entire species just so I’m spared the unpleasantness of having to stand up to the Venturis. What was that, glass? A backbone? Sure, but it’s a bit late now, and besides where would I put it? Probably ruin the line of all my suits. Anyway, I’m supposed to be bad, aren’t I?
He took a sip. As he raised it, the glass looked at him with its round amber eye. It didn’t say anything, but he knew it wasn’t fooled.
36
“This can’t be happening,” the organiser groaned.
Ah, but it was. Five thousand people had turned up for the Ulan Bator Festival, seven days of great music and uninhibited fun amid the grandeur of the wind-scoured steppes. They’d come from five continents, bringing with them enthusiasm, boundless positive energy, goodwill to all Mankind and fleece-lined sleeping bags; no food, because the organisers had undertaken to see to all that. Which they had done. They’d paid a considerable sum of money to a contractor, who had promised to airlift in everything necessary to cater for the discerning multitude: sit-down dinners, finger food, burgers, vegetarian and vegan options. And all would have been well, if it hadn’t been for a freak blizzard. As it was, the tents, stoves, gas bottles and food were sitting in the hold of an Antonov 124 buried under ten metres of snow on the runway at Darkhan. Precious little chance of the perishables going off, with all that free refrigeration, but none of it was going anywhere in a hurry, and meanwhile …
“We’re going to get eaten,” moaned the organiser’s assistant. “Five thousand starving people, and the nearest food is three hundred miles away across the desert. They’re going to rip us into shreds and eat us raw.”
Fortunately, news of the commissariat snafu hadn’t yet leaked out, and the festival-goers were relaxed and happy as “Goin’ Straight” by the Lizard-Headed Women bounced off the flanks of the nearby mountains and reverberated across the empty steppe. In half an hour, though, when the Women finished their set and all the happy, hungry people came spilling out looking for eats, things could well take a turn for the worse.
“Stop whining,” the organiser said. “We’ve still got the Jeep—”
“What’s that got to do with—?”
“—and enough gas for four hundred miles.”
“Good point.”
There was just enough room in the Jeep for the organiser, the organiser’s assistant, the marketing manager, the head of technical operations and the chief steward. The organiser turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. The battery was dead.
“And so,” said the head of technical operations, “are we. In about five minutes.”
“We could walk,” the organiser’s assistant suggested hopefully. “All right, we’ll die of thirst and exposure, but that’s got to be better than being eaten alive. Well, it has,” he added defiantly as the others looked at him.
“Could we order in pizza?” the chief steward suggested. “There’s got to be someone in town who delivers.”
A roar of applause from the main auditorium told them that the Women had finished their act. “Ah well,” the organiser said, “I just hope I choke them, that’s all.”
“Excuse me.”
They looked round and saw a pale-faced young man with a serious look on his face. He didn’t appear to be armed, but they backed away instinctively.
“Excuse me,” the young man repeated, “but would I be right in thinking that there’s been some so
rt of hitch with the catering?”
“Of course not,” the marketing manager snapped. “Everything’s absolutely fine. There is no problem. Go away.”
A window appeared in thin air and a man in a three-piece suit, baseball cap and thick woollen scarf stepped out of it. “That’s one lie,” he said, “and one outburst of anger, so if you’d just put your card in the machine and type in your PIN. Thank you so much. Will you be wanting a receipt?”
He vanished. There was a brief silence. Then the organiser said, “Well, there’s a very slight problem with the food, but nothing that can’t be sorted out, so if you’d like to go back and enjoy the show, we’ll get on with sorting it right now. Um, thank you.”
The young man frowned. “But your plane’s snowed in a thousand miles south of here, and the nearest town’s three hundred miles away, and even if you could get there and back before the riot starts, there isn’t nearly enough food there for all these people, so—”
“Yes, thank you. We know. Everything’s under control, so if you’d just go back to the—”
The young man smiled. “Maybe I can help.”
You ought to get out more, Uncle Gabe had said. Go and have a good time, mix with people your own age, enjoy yourself. To which Kevin had replied that there weren’t any people his own age apart from Dad and Jay and Uncle Ghost, and Uncle Gabe had looked at him, and he’d gone out and booked a ticket for Ulan Bator, mostly because it was a long way away from where he’d been at the time. So far he’d quite enjoyed the music, which was different from what he’d been used to, and the scenery was quite nice and there were interesting people to talk to. Maybe not fun exactly, but better than having your teeth drilled.
Anyway, he’d been sitting on the grass listening to the music when a little voice had spoken in his head. It said, there’s going to be an awful lot of trouble here in a minute or so, unless you do something about it. And then he’d seen a mental image of a snow-covered runway, with the tip of a tail fin poking up out of the deep, crisp and even, and he just knew that all the festival’s food was on board that plane.