“Don’t make you what, Eddie?” Christine growled. “Pull one of your so-called ‘miracles’? Go ahead. Make it a big, flashy one. In fact, let me help you out.” In a flash, Christine was standing on top of the table.
“Christine!” gasped Jacob. “What are you doing? Sit down! Unck!”
Eddie nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with Jacob.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” exclaimed Christine. “I am pleased to announce that we have here at Charlie’s Grill today a very special guest. His name is Eddie, and he’s an angel!”
Every eye in the restaurant turned to Christine, and then to Eddie, at whom she was pointing.
“Don’t be shy, Eddie!” Christine bellowed. “Wave to the nice people!”
“Stop, Christine,” Eddie pleaded. “Please stop.”
“Eddie works for something called the Mundane Observation Corps. His job is to remain completely unnoticed by the likes of you fine folks while observing everything you do. Under no circumstances is Eddie allowed to make a giant spectacle of himself. Isn’t that right, Eddie?”
Jacob was now curled up in the fetal position under the table, trying to remain completely still and unseen. “Unck!” he yelled, in spite of himself. Eddie, meanwhile, had gone completely white and sat in his chair, paralyzed.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Christine went on. “Eddie has graciously agreed to perform a miracle for us today! Please put your hands together for the Fabulous Eddie, who will now disappear before your very eyes!”
If Eddie had any illusions about disappearing before, they had vanished. “All right!” he hissed at Christine. “I’ll show you where he is. Just stop this!”
Christine smiled at the expectant crowd. “False alarm,” she said, and hopped down to the floor, giving Eddie a shove and whispering in his ear, “Lead the way, Fabulous Eddie.”
THIRTY
In one hand Lucifer held a lit cigar and in the other a wooden baseball bat. He stood in an unfurnished room with a concrete floor and cinder block walls lit by a single 100-watt lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. In front of him sat a tall figure tied to a chair, his head slumped forward and his silver hair obscuring his face. Presently Lucifer became aware that the figure was mumbling something.
“...ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!”
Mercury’s head whipped upward, and his eyes fixed on Lucifer, standing in the center of the room. A look of profound disappointment swept over his face. “You know,” he said, “I realize this is a small room, but you could put a little effort into it. OK, my turn to hide. I’ll tie you to the chair.”
Lucifer swung the bat at Mercury’s face, knocking out three of his teeth.
“Ow!” Mercury howled, spitting blood on the floor. “What the hell? That hurt! Ow!”
“What, no more smart-ass remarks?” asked Lucifer. “I’m disappointed.”
“Look,” said Mercury, blood pouring down his chin. “I realize that I’m supposed to be the defiant, wise-cracking hero laughing in the face of adversity, but that fucking hurt. I mean, I’ll do my best to play off the whole Hans Gruber thing you’ve got going, but I can’t promise you a consistently high level of witty repartee if you’re going to keep hitting me with a baseball bat. I’m liable to scream like a lovelorn howler monkey next time.”
“Ah, Mercury,” said Lucifer, twirling the bat in his hand and chomping on his cigar. “It’s too bad we met so late. I could use somebody like you on my team.”
“OK,” said Mercury.
Lucifer scowled. “What do you mean, ‘OK’?”
“I mean, ‘OK, I accept.’ You have full dental, right? I may need some work done.”
“I wasn’t actually offering you a job,” said Lucifer.
“Oh,” replied Mercury softly. “Yeah, I knew that.” He strained against the twine that secured his wrists to the back of the chair. It wouldn’t take much energy to weaken the molecular bonds of the twine...
“Don’t even think about it,” warned Lucifer. “You break the twine, I split your skull open.”
Mercury relaxed his arms.
“Nothing personal,” said Lucifer. “I kind of admire your style. Unfortunately, you keep screwing up my plans to wreak untold misery and destruction. So I have to keep you tied up down here for a while.”
“Yeah, I heard about your plan to nuke Heaven. What’s that all about?”
“Oh, just a little something I dreamed up while watching O’Reilly. Going to take out the Eye of Providence and eliminate the source of the energy that sustains the Universe.”
Mercury nodded thoughtfully. “I’m curious, though, if you’ve thought through the ramifications of that,” he said. “You see, you’re not going to believe this, but I just got back from the distant future. I saw how it all ends. There’s this creeping fog that gradually erases all of existence. It’s frankly rather off-putting.”
Lucifer shrugged. “If that’s the way it ends, that’s the way it ends. If God didn’t want me to screw up His creation, maybe He shouldn’t have created me.”
“That seems like a bit of a cop-out,” said Mercury. “I mean, take some responsibility, for Pete’s sake.”
“Responsibility!” growled Lucifer. “Why doesn’t God take some responsibility, if He exists? Why doesn’t He just step down from whatever cloud He’s on and put a stop to my plans? I’ll tell you why: either He doesn’t exist or He doesn’t care. I’m putting an end to the charade, once and for all.”
“I still don’t get it,” said Mercury. “Why devote your life to trying to destroy the world just to prove that there is no God? I mean, you realize that if there is a God, He’s probably having a good laugh at you right now, right? You’ve dedicated your life to Him just as fervently as a religious zealot. Everything you do revolves around a God that you claim doesn’t exist. You don’t find that a little ironic?”
Lucifer snorted. “This is who I am,” he said. “I have an aversion to bullshit and a need to point it out. Hell, you saw what they tried to pull with Job, right?”
Mercury nodded. “Funny you should mention that...”
But Lucifer ignored him. “They set up Job as some kind of role model, as if all you had to do was go along with a few rules and everything would be hunky-dory. ‘Follow these seven easy steps to guaranteed wealth and happiness!’ Well, I called bullshit. It doesn’t work that way, and if Heaven had thought things through rather than patting themselves on the back, they’d have realized that. I was the one who pointed out their mistake, their arrogance. If there was any justice, I’d be recognized as the hero of that story!”
Mercury had to admit that Lucifer had a point. The seraphim could be arrogant, shortsighted micromanagers. Mercury had plenty of run-ins with Heavenly hubris himself. Still, what was the point of trying to blow shit up just to see if you could get away with it? Why not make the best of the situation?
There was a knock on the only door in the room, behind Mercury. “Come in!” Mercury yelled.
Lucifer shot a glare at Mercury and walked around him to the door. There was some whispering and then Lucifer returned. “We have a visitor,” he said.
After him walked a wiry, compact man with a stern expression on his face.
“Cain!” Mercury gasped, blood dripping from his chin.
“You two have met?” asked Lucifer, raising an eyebrow.
Mercury nodded. Cain frowned and shook his head.
“That is, we will meet,” Mercury explained. “In a few thousand years.”
Cain shrugged at Lucifer, clearly puzzled.
“And you acted like you didn’t know me, you bastard,” said Mercury. “All part of your plan, I suppose. Make me come back here and play whatever part I’m supposed to play to make things turn out just the way they did last time.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” insisted Cain.
“Oh, I know you don’t,” said Mercury. “But you will, you infected nutsack.”
“I hate to break this up, whatev
er it is,” Lucifer said, “but I don’t have a lot of time. Diabolical schemes to attend to. You have something to tell me, Cain?”
“I do,” said Cain, grinning maliciously. “I’ve done it. The seventh book is nearly finished. Everything is unfolding according to plan!”
“Well, that’s great,” said Lucifer, without much enthusiasm. “Is that all, Cain?”
“Is that all?” echoed Cain in disbelief. “I’m bringing about the end of the world! Remember the whole ancient Sumerian manuscript deal? This was your idea!”
Lucifer shrugged. “I’ve got a lot of diabolical plans in motion at any given time. Right now I’m really focused on the whole nuking Heaven thing. But hey, that’s not to take away from what you’ve accomplished. Really great work, Cain. Seriously.” He put his hand on Cain’s shoulder in a fatherly gesture that even made Mercury a little uncomfortable.
Cain glared daggers at Lucifer. “Do you have any idea what I sacrificed to make sure the final book is done properly? I killed my own daughter!”
“Really?” asked Lucifer. “That seems a bit excessive.” He looked to Mercury, who nodded in agreement.
“All your scheming would come to nothing without me!” Cain snarled, prying himself away from Lucifer. “The only reason your plan to destroy the Eye of Providence has gotten this far is because of the work I’ve done! Why do you think all of your other schemes failed? The world can’t end until the seventh book has been written! When everyone and everything else failed you, I did what needed to be done!”
Lucifer nodded, a condescending smile plastered on his face. He nodded surreptitiously at someone behind Cain.
“Goddamn you, Lucifer! You could at least say thank you!”
A muscle-bound demon strode forward and took Cain’s arm.
“Thank you, Cain,” oozed Lucifer. Then to the demon: “Get him out of here.”
The demon dragged the grumbling and cursing Cain to the door. There was the sound of the door slamming, then silence.
“Man, I didn’t think that guy was ever going to leave,” said Mercury. “Doesn’t he know we’ve got important stuff to talk about? Now, where were we?”
“I was about to blow up Heaven,” said Lucifer. “But first, I need to make sure you won’t interfere.”
“I don’t suppose that means you’re going to make me sign a nondisclosure agreement?” asked Mercury.
“Sorry,” said Lucifer, and brought the baseball bat down on his skull.
THIRTY-ONE
Eddie led Christine around to the back of the restaurant. Jacob, who was fairly shaken up by Christine’s performance, trailed silently behind.
They rounded the corner of the building just in time to see a tall, blond man exiting from an unmarked door.
“Back!” hissed Eddie out of the corner of his mouth. Eddie kept walking, trying to appear nonchalant.
“Why, what...” started Christine. Then she saw him. Lucifer. The devil himself. Christine had met him twice before, and she didn’t think he liked her much. Understandable, given that she had spoiled his two previous attempts to destroy the world. There was no doubt he would recognize her.
There wasn’t time to get out of sight, so Christine did the only thing she could think to do: she spun 180 degrees and threw her arms around Jacob, planting a kiss right on his mouth. After a momentary start, Jacob fell into his part with ease. By unspoken agreement, they became Anonymous Couple Necking behind Charlie’s Grill. After nearly knocking Eddie over, Lucifer strode past them, followed by two bulky demons. “Get a room,” he sneered. The three demons got into a limousine, which squealed out of the lot.
Jacob and Christine kissed for a good three seconds longer than they needed to. At last Eddie cleared his throat.
Jacob pulled back slightly. “You OK?”
Christine smiled and nodded. “You?”
“Better,” said Jacob, releasing his embrace. He was visibly calmer. “Let’s go get your friend.”
“Right,” said Christine. She spun around again, walked to the door Lucifer had just exited, and tried the handle. “Locked.”
“Hmph,” said Eddie, waving his hand over the lock.
Christine tried again, and the door opened. Stairs led down into darkness. “After you,” she said to Eddie.
“No way,” Eddie replied. “I said I’d show you the door. I’m not going down there.”
“Fine,” said Christine. “Wait here and stand lookout. Let us know if anyone shows up.”
Eddie shrugged, leaning against the stucco wall of the restaurant.
“Wait, Christine,” protested Jacob. “You can’t go down there. There could be...”
But she had already started down the stairs. Jacob reluctantly followed.
At the bottom of the stairs was another door, locked with a dead bolt from the outside. For locking someone in, thought Christine. Not that a simple dead bolt would hold an angel.
She turned the latch, releasing the dead bolt, and opened the door to find a bare concrete room lit by a single lightbulb. An unconscious man lay on his side, tied to a chair. His hair was matted with blood. Mercury.
“Is he...unck?” Jacob asked.
“Angels don’t die,” said Christine, rushing to Mercury. “Help me get him upright.”
They righted the chair and started to untie Mercury’s arms and legs. His eyes were closed and the left side of his face was covered with blood.
“Are you sure he’s alive?” asked Jacob.
“He’s been through worse than this,” said Christine. As if in response, Mercury’s head lolled from left to right and he groaned. By the time they had him untied, he was fully conscious.
“Early tarred all being Ed and Ed,” mumbled Mercury.
“What did he say?” Jacob asked. “Is that some sort of code?”
Christine shrugged. “Mercury, what did you say?”
Mercury repeated, more slowly, “Really. Tired. Of. Being. Hit. In. The. Head.”
“Understandable,” said Christine, eyeing the baseball bat lying in the corner of the room. “Can you walk? We should get you out of here. There’s an angel named Eddie upstairs standing guard, but I’m not sure I completely trust him.”
Mercury started to laugh but it turned into a whimper. With Christine and Jacob’s help, he got to his feet. “Eddie gummy shuttin’ dead,” he mumbled.
Jacob looked questioningly at Christine. She explained, “Eddie got him shot in the head.”
“Ouch,” said Jacob. “He’s in remarkably good shape, considering. Unck.”
“He’ll be fine in an hour or so,” Christine said. “We just need to get him out of here before—” She stopped, realizing the doorway was blocked by a tall, well-built man.
“Before what?” asked the man, smiling. It was Gamaliel. He strolled into the room, followed by Izbazel. Two demons, one working for Tiamat and the other for Lucifer. This didn’t bode well.
“Son of a bitch,” Christine said. “Why didn’t Eddie warn us?”
“Eddie?” asked Gamaliel. “Is that the guy who took off like a rabbit as soon as he saw us? You might want to pick a better lookout next time.”
“Eddie...rabbit,” mumbled Mercury, giggling to himself.
“Shut up, Mercury!” snapped Izbazel. “Gamaliel, seize Mercury. You two, upstairs, now.”
Gamaliel shot Izbazel a bemused look. “I don’t work for you, asshole,” he said. But he grabbed Mercury by the arm, brushing Christine out of the way. He made his way upstairs, practically dragging the barely conscious Mercury with him. Christine and Jacob followed, with Izbazel prodding them from behind.
The three of them were forced into an unmarked van and their hands secured behind their backs with zip ties. Gamaliel got in the driver’s seat and Izbazel in the front passenger’s seat.
“Where are you taking us?” demanded Christine.
Izbazel smiled. “Where you can’t cause any more trouble.”
“Disneyland?” Mercury offered meekly.
> THIRTY-TWO
While Christine, Jacob, and Mercury were being corralled into an unmarked van in Glendale, Tiamat stood stolidly surveying a horde of demons standing at attention on a remote plain in Kenya. The demons wore desert fatigues and carried assault rifles. A few of them also carried portable rocket launchers. Only the flaming swords hanging from their belts distinguished them from a brigade of human soldiers. Most of the demons belonged to Lucifer but they had sworn an oath of allegiance to Tiamat, and they were hers to command. Behind them, the sun slowly sank behind Mount Mbutuokoti. Ahead of them, barely visible in the distance, was the dome of the enclosed ecosystem known as Eden II, which concealed the world’s largest particle accelerator—CCD-2, the key to total mastery of space and time.
The main object of the assault was simple: retake Eden II from Michelle’s troops. Once the main assault started, Tiamat herself would lead a smaller force into the heart of Eden II, to the coordinates where Horace Finch had planted the apple seed. With any luck, the tree was already bearing fruit—and Michelle’s troops hadn’t noticed the peculiar tree growing in a secluded grove far inside the dome. Her bigger worry was that someone—either on her side or on Michelle’s—would trample the little tree during the battle, destroying the apples before Tiamat could get to them. Barring that, once the facility was secure and she had plucked an apple from the tree, her team would proceed downstairs to the Chrono-Collider Device. She would then commence the execution sequence already programmed by Alastair Breem, causing a collision of subatomic particles that would release a batch of chrotons into the apple. Once she had control over the chrotons, she would control the space-time continuum itself.
Michelle’s forces would have the advantage of cover, being dug under the dome of Eden II, but Tiamat had surprise and overwhelming numbers on her side. Given enough time, there was no way the Heavenly troops could hold out. Her greatest fear, though, was that Heaven would sense that they were losing and attempt to wipe out the whole facility with a Class 5 Pillar of Fire. Lucifer had assured her that he had agents in Heaven who could muck up the approval process for a while,11 but that would buy her maybe an hour at most. She needed to get to the apple and head underground quickly, where even a Class 5 would be powerless to stop her.
Mercury Rests Page 20