“You would like to what?” asked Lucifer.
“I would like...” said Lubbers. Fucking fuckety fuck! “...to dedicate my life to Jesus Christ.”
“Mr. President, would you pray for our brother Dirk?”
Babcock nodded. “I would be honored.”
Lubbers reluctantly sat down, trying to hide the revulsion that was boiling up from his gut. Lucifer held out his hands and the three of them joined together in a circle. The president led the prayer, thanking Jesus for accepting a degenerate sinner like Lubbers into the Kingdom, with Lucifer interjecting the occasional Amen! or Preach it, brother!
Lubbers, for his part, was having none of it. He was acting a part, pure and simple. If accepting Jesus into your heart was the price for admission to this club, then he would pretend to do that. While Babcock prayed, he was going over budget numbers in his head, stopping to mutter “Amen” whenever the president paused. At some point, though, he started to worry that they weren’t buying his act, that they could tell he was just going through the motions. I need to accept somebody into my heart, thought Lubbers. Not Jesus, but somebody. Otherwise they’re going to know.
The first image that popped into Lubbers’s head was that of Nixon shaking hands with Elvis. Nixon was out of the question, of course. He’d rather have Jesus in his heart than Nixon. So, Elvis then.
“Elvis,” Lubbers mouthed. “Come into my heart.” And as soon as he said it, a profound feeling of peace came over him.
“Wow,” Lubbers said, opening his eyes. Travis and Lucifer were staring expectantly at him. Evidently the prayer was over.
“How do you feel?” asked President Babcock.
Lubbers smiled crookedly at him. “Man,” he said, “I feel great. Whattaya say we take care of business?”
TWENTY
Mercury watched from a crack in the utility room closet as his double was escorted through the planeport by security. “Poor bastard,” he muttered. “I hope they’re not too hard on me.”
The only thing that had saved him the first time around was the mysterious appearance of the battered and unconscious Gamaliel in the planeport. He still wasn’t sure who had actually captured Gamaliel and brought him to the planeport, but he hadn’t complained about them giving him credit for it. Hopefully whoever had caught him last time would catch him again this time around. Otherwise, past-Mercury was going to be in a lot of trouble, with no “tokens of goodwill” to help balance the scales. They’d lock him up for a couple hundred years at least. Uzziel would never assign him to retrieve the missing Attaché Case of Famine, which meant that he would never be captured by Tiamat’s agents and brought to Finch’s facility in Kenya, which meant that he would never fly the anti-bomb to the moon and be transported to the post-Apocalyptic future, which meant that he would not now be here in a utility closet, watching himself be marched down the concourse by cherubim with flaming swords.
He shook his head. That sort of thinking could drive a cherub crazy. He couldn’t worry about what would or wouldn’t happen to the other Mercury and how that would affect him in the present. Or the future, or whatever it was. The important thing was that he was now a step ahead of Tiamat and Finch: he knew what they were up to, and now that the other Mercury was in custody, he could slip back down to the Mundane Plane and intercept the glass apple before Christine ever found it. He’d deliver the anti-bomb to the authorities and then tell them about Wormwood, saving the Earth and Heaven. Not bad for a day’s work.
But not quite yet. He had to wait for Perp to get back to help him get out of the planeport safely. At this point, while he wasn’t technically wanted anymore, security still might stop him, thinking he’d escaped. Then they’d have two Mercurys in custody, which would be extremely difficult to explain—especially to the other Mercury.
After another three hours, he began to worry. What was taking Perp so long? Presumably, he’d have taken the Megiddo portal, which meant that he should have returned a good hour before the other Mercury turned himself in. The flight from the Megiddo portal to the Azores and back from the Middle East would take about eight hours. That was about a four-hour flight each way. But it had been almost eleven hours now since Perp had left.
Finally, the door opened, and an exhausted-looking Perp fluttered inside and closed the door behind him.
“Demon dogs, Perp!” exclaimed Mercury. “What the hell took you so long? I thought I was going to have to come out of the closet on my own. Er, you know what I mean.”
“You know,” replied Perp irritably, “I do have a job to do around here. When I disappear for half the day, things get backed up. Put this on.” He had somehow pulled a tan fedora from his swaddling clothes.
“A fedora?” asked Mercury distastefully. “What am I, hipster cherub now?”
“It’s to hide your hair. I got you a security escort back to the Megiddo portal. If anybody asks, your name is Todd. Microwave a smelly sponge to kill bacteria.”
Mercury donned the fedora. He grinned broadly and held out his hand to Perp. “Hey there, guy,” he oozed. “I’m Todd, the hipster cherub.”
“Cut it out,” Perp growled. “Just keep your head down.”
“Can do, chief!” said Mercury, adjusting the hat.
“I don’t know why I put up with this crap,” grumbled Perp, peering out the cracked door. “OK, let’s go.”
He led Mercury back out onto the concourse toward a pair of waiting security guards.
“What kind of music does Todd like?” asked Mercury. “He strikes me as a Maroon 5 fan.”
“Shut up, Mercury,” hissed Perp. “I mean it.”
Mercury trailed after him in silence. When they reached the guards, Perp said, “This is the VIA I was telling you about.”
The guards nodded sternly at him and regarded Mercury.
“I’m Todd!” exclaimed Mercury. “I wear this hat because it’s ironic.”
“Let’s go,” said one of the guards. “Stay close.”
Mercury touched the brim of his hat and nodded toward Perp. “Thanks, Perp,” he said, and they trudged off down the concourse toward the Megiddo portal.
“Good luck,” said Perp. “A vinegar and salt solution can help relieve pain associated with a bladder infection.” He added, in a whisper, “I hope you’re not batshit crazy.”
The guards got Mercury safely to the portal. He thanked them for their service and then blinked out of existence, reappearing on a rocky outcropping in the Jezreel Valley. Megiddo. This was supposed to have been the location of the final battle between good and evil. Man, had that plan ever gone off track.
Mercury ditched the ridiculous hat and took off again, this time due south toward Kenya. The sun was already rising in the east, which meant that in only a few hours, Christine and Horace Finch would reach Mount Mbutuokoti, where the glass apple was hidden. Mercury needed to get to it first. Perp had taken longer than expected, but he should still have time to get to the apple before they crested the top of the mountain. He could get in and out without them ever seeing him.
Soaring high above the clouds, Mercury pushed top speed at around three hundred miles per hour all the way to sub-Saharan Africa. Once he was above Kenya, he sank below the cloud layer and looked for the distinctive shape of Mount Mbutuokoti. He had never been there but knew roughly where it was, and Christine had described it as a near-perfect cone, rising some two thousand feet above the plain.
As expected, it wasn’t difficult to spot. Mbutuokoti stuck out incongruously from the flat plain surrounding it. As Mercury descended toward the plateau at its peak, his heart jumped. A few hundred feet directly below him, a group of people were ascending the rocky slope of the mountain. There were maybe a dozen tall, dark-skinned, nearly naked men and two light-skinned people wearing Western clothing. One of them was short, squat, and male, the other a thin female with brown hair. Christine.
If they thought to look up, they’d see him soaring above them, but they were intent on keeping their footing on the treacherous terrain
. Mercury flew silently over their heads, landing softly on the plateau. He had only a few minutes to find the glass apple before the group reached the summit. Unfortunately, all he knew was that Christine found the apple in a cave accessible from one of the fissures in the mountain. There were dozens of fissures big enough for Christine to have climbed into—and some of them would be too tight for someone of Mercury’s size. Best to just start with the largest ones and work his way down through the smaller ones.
As he approached one of the fissures, something hard struck him on the back of the head, knocking him to his knees and almost causing him to fall into the crevice. Stars danced in front of his eyes and pain shot through his skull. What the hell?
Dazed, he turned in the direction from which the projectile had come. Standing maybe thirty feet away, with a fist-sized rock in his hand, was a tall, muscular angel with an evil grin on his face. Gamaliel.
“Hey, Merc,” said Gamaliel. “Catch!”
Gamaliel wound up like a major league baseball pitcher and hurled the rock at Mercury. Mercury rolled so the rock glanced more or less harmlessly off his left shoulder.
“Gamaliel. What the hell are you doing here?” Mercury stammered.
“I have interests in the area,” said Gamaliel, bending to pick up another rock. “I patrol the region, looking for suspicious characters. Heads up!” He pitched another rock at Mercury. Mercury flattened himself against the ground, and the rock sailed over his head.
“I’ll let you know if I see anybody suspicious,” said Mercury, pulling himself to his feet.
“Hey, you’re quick!” said Gamaliel, picking up another rock. There seemed to be an endless supply at his feet. “Not quick enough though!” He hurled the rock.
This time Mercury couldn’t get out of the way. He held his hands in front of his face, and the rock smacked into his right wrist. He heard a bone break. Grunting in pain, Mercury grabbed his wrist and turned his back to Gamaliel. He stumbled away, trying to get some distance between himself and Gamaliel’s throwing arm.
“Coward,” Mercury growled. “Sneaking up on a guy...”
A rock smacked him in the back, thumping the wind out of his lungs and nearly knocking him over. Gamaliel wasn’t going to give him a chance to catch his breath. He had caught Mercury off guard, and he wasn’t going to give up the advantage. He’d keep pummeling Mercury until he was a bloody remnant of a cherub.8 Mercury stumbled a few more steps and was struck again, this time in the right shoulder. He fell to his knees. Another rock knocked him forward onto his palms. He winced as pain shot through his right arm. Angel bones heal quickly, but not that quickly.
“Damn it, Gamaliel,” Mercury muttered. “I can’t believe you’re going to make me do this.” He fell flat on his stomach, unmoving.
Gamaliel stepped closer. “Give up, Merc? I can keep this up all day, you know.”
Mercury said nothing.
Gamaliel wound up and hurled another rock, hitting Mercury squarely in the small of his back. The pain was nearly unbearable. Mercury couldn’t be certain, but he suspected Gamaliel had broken his spine. Still he didn’t make a sound.
Gamaliel stepped closer. Now he was only a few feet away. “Give up?”
Mercury didn’t move.
Gamaliel stepped up to Mercury and kicked him hard in the side. Mercury winced but didn’t make a sound.
“Come on, Merc,” Gamaliel chided, kneeling down next to him. “I was just getting—”
Mercury turned to face Gamaliel, bringing his left hand up from underneath him. His fist was full of sand.
The sand hit Gamaliel squarely in the eyes. “Gaaaahhh!” he yelled, stumbling backward. “You bastard!”
“I didn’t want to have to do it, you asshole,” grumbled Mercury. “It’s like the oldest action movie cliché ever. Throw sand in the bad guy’s face when he comes in close to gloat. Don’t think I feel good about it, because I don’t!”
As he spoke, he managed to get to his feet. His spine was bruised but not broken. He staggered toward the edge of the plateau, which was now only about fifty feet away. If he could get to the edge, he might have a chance to get away and regroup.
Gamaliel was stumbling toward him, trying to rub the sand out of his eyes. The two angels moved in a sort of slow-motion parody of a chase sequence, getting ever closer to the edge of the plateau.
As he neared the edge, Mercury heard voices from the far side of the plateau. Men speaking in a strange tribal tongue. Then what sounded like a goat bleating, followed by a woman’s voice. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but he would know that voice anywhere. Christine. The expedition had reached the summit.
Mercury reached the brink of the plateau. Looking back, he saw that Gamaliel had picked up another rock—this one nearly the size of his head. He hoisted the rock over his shoulder as he blinked the sand out of his eyes. Mercury leaped off the edge.
The rock face fell away at a sharp angle, allowing Mercury to use minimal energy to keep himself aloft, skimming just a few feet above the slope. Glancing back, he saw Gamaliel hurling the rock. Fortunately, it was too large for Gamaliel to throw with much force; it arced through the air toward Mercury, and he dodged it without much difficulty.
Gamaliel cursed and took off after Mercury. He knew that he had to catch him before Mercury had recovered from his pummeling. Once Mercury was back to full health, Gamaliel would have a hard time beating him.
Mercury soared down the slope until he reached the plain below, touched down briefly, and then shot into the air again. His back and wrist still ached, but he could fly at close to full speed for as long as he needed to in order to keep Gamaliel at bay. As he rose above the plain, something whizzed past his ear. Another rock? He turned to see Gamaliel coming toward him from below. He had something small and bluish-white in his right palm. It seemed to be growing as Mercury watched.
Mercury changed course just in time to dodge the projectile, which turned out to be a baseball-sized ball of ice. Gamaliel was pulling moisture out of the air and freezing it into hailstones! Mercury had experimented with controlling the weather for a while but had never had much luck with it. He’d be no match for Gamaliel in an ice-ball fight.
Rather than engage Gamaliel, he darted back and forth at random, trying to keep distance between them while dodging the onslaught of hailstones. Occasionally he would fly close enough to the plateau to catch a glimpse of Christine and the men, who seemed to be engaged in some sort of ritual involving a goat. After a few minutes of evading Gamaliel’s volleys, the aches in his wrist and back had nearly subsided. If he was going to have any chance of retrieving the anti-bomb, he was going to have to go on the offensive.
Changing tacks abruptly, he soared directly toward Gamaliel. Gamaliel hurled an ice ball as he approached, but Mercury managed to deflect it with his right arm. Before Gamaliel could form another, Mercury’s shoulder slammed into his stomach.
Gamaliel brought both of his fists down hard on Mercury’s back. Mercury cried out in pain but held tight to Gamaliel’s midsection, squeezing until he heard ribs crack. Gamaliel howled.
The two angels tumbled through the sky above the Kenyan plain, locked tightly together, neither able to seize an advantage. Dark clouds had begun to gather as a result of Gamaliel’s unnatural hailstorm, natural forces doing their best to change their behavior to accommodate the supernatural occurrences. The clouds seemed to darken further in response to the celestial struggle. Thunder rumbled in the distance and a spattering of rain began to fall. This was the downside to screwing with the weather: if you gave weather ideas, it tended to run with them. A few miraculous hailstones were about to snowball into a full-on thunderstorm.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mercury caught a glimpse of something glowing bright yellow on the top of Mbutuokoti. A fire?
Suddenly Mercury realized how he was going to end the stalemate. Christine had said that the tribesmen had been burning a goat carcass when the mountaintop had been struck by lightning
. He remembered Christine’s vivid description of a flaming goat head flying through the air and landing inches in front of her.
Mercury broke free of Gamaliel’s grasp and darted in the direction of the mountain. Gamaliel cursed and followed him. Mercury soared over the flaming pyre, stopping when he was even with the far edge of the plateau. He spun around to face Gamaliel, who was clearly puzzled at Mercury’s tactics. By stopping in midair, it seemed as if Mercury was deliberately skewing the odds in Gamaliel’s favor. But Gamaliel was a cherub of action, and he wasted little time deliberating on Mercury’s mistake. He paused some two hundred feet directly above the pyre, a ball of ice growing rapidly in his palm. Lightning flashed in the distance, followed quickly by a loud clap of thunder.
Gamaliel wound up and hurled another fastball.
TWENTY-ONE
President Babcock had wanted to call several of his advisors and cabinet members into the Oval Office to discuss their next steps against the BIOs, but Lucifer was cool on the idea. He claimed that he had reason to believe that the federal government was riddled with BIO spies.
“How do you know?” asked Lubbers.
“Simple,” said Lucifer. “Some of the spies are double agents, working for me. In fact, I am here because of certain information I have learned from these spies.”
“You have spies in our government?” demanded Babcock, suddenly angry. “Who? What information?”
“You misunderstand me,” said Lucifer. “And frankly, you’re missing the point. The spies don’t belong to me. The BIOs have spent decades, if not centuries, infiltrating your government. Some of them are human, some of them are BIOs. We are fortunate that some of these spies sympathize with my cause and have been feeding me information. But I only know a handful of them. I have no way of knowing what other members of your government are BIO spies. And truth be told, some of the agents who have revealed themselves to me could very well be triple agents, providing information about me to their bosses, or intentionally providing me with faulty intelligence. Espionage, as you know, can be exasperatingly complicated. So you understand my reluctance to reveal my plan to your advisors.”
Mercury Rests Page 15