”Get off your asses and help me. Look around for some kind of clue,” he told the Aesir. “It could be a note or some other kind of message, something done in haste.”
The Aesir looked at him with a touch of insolence, but after looking at each other and nodding, they slowly got up and started poking around.
Lucifer saw the blinking light and it took him a few seconds to realize that is was the answering machine. He shot toward it and pushed the play button. “You have one message,” the mechanical voice intoned. “Beep.”
“To whom it may concern,” the frosty lilt of Lilith’s voice said. Lucifer’s blood went cold. “A scavenger hunt is only as good as its opening clue. On the eve of this noble quest, let me assure you that sometimes even I, Lilith, can be wrong about things. Occasionally, I’ll get something backwards or get the words wrong, especially on old pop songs. I mean, who in the world can recite the lyrics to “Oye Como Va” verbatim, besides Carlos Santana? Ciao, Lucifer baby. Beep.”
“I’m beginning to feel like we should have brought Miss Marple with us,” Thor said.
Lucifer tentatively touched the outgoing message button.
“Beep. Hi Lucifer. This is Eve. I’ve never forgotten our tryst in the Garden. It’s the one thing that has kept me sane for all these years. I’ve never believed all the bad things I’ve heard about you and I hope that someday we’ll meet again. I miss you. Beep.”
Lucifer blinked and wiped his eyes, trying to rub invisible grit out, and then he pumped his fist into the air. “She still wants me!” he yelled.
Lucifer rewound the answering machine and re-listened to Eve’s message. It seemed straightforward enough. The tone seemed calm and steady, with no quivering or signs of duress. There was something about her inflection which sounded tinny and a bit hard as if she was pushing the words deeper into the cassette tape.
Was it possible?
He popped the tape out and looked closely at it. An impish grin eased onto his face.
“Abraxas, you magnificent bastard!” he shouted. “I read your book!” Lucifer started rummaging through some drawers, looking for a small screwdriver.
Chapter 54[54]
The Aesir huddled around the answering machine on the kitchen table. Lucifer hit the play button and leaned in, listening intently. The reversed words warbled out of the tinny little speaker, indecipherable.
“I think I heard it say ‘this is an exercise in futility’” Thor said.
“Shhh,” Lucifer said, scribbling furiously on an official Heaven notepad.
“I still don’t hear anything,” some of the others complained. “Let’s see if there is anything decent on television in this place.” Several gods filed noisily out of the room.
Lucifer’s ears tensed. He had caught a few words here and there and was mentally trying to unjumble them. Swizzle stick? he asked himself. Petulant rhododendron? Then it jumped out at him like a slasher in a cheap B horror movie.
“Secret message found Eve’s my bitch find her if you can.”
“Lucifer!” someone shouted. “Get in here quick!”
“hat now? he thought, and went into the living room. The gods were all standing around the big-screen television. “FOX NEWS ALERT,” screamed across the bottom of the screen.
“I have no time for this,” Lucifer said. “It’s probably just another attractive blonde woman missing.”
“Shhh!” they all hissed at him. Lucifer looked through the group. “Oh shit,” he said.
The Remusians had landed.
Chapter 55[55]
The Starship Flotsam hung in geosynchronous orbit over the land mass known as North America. The first mate, Olsen, was beating a sustenance technician with a plastic food tray when the communications officer interrupted him with a series of increasingly loud throat clearings.
“What is it, you addled fool?” Olsen shouted, flinging the bloodied tray at him. Perry ducked and said, “We’ve lost communications with the Captain.”
Olsen dropped into the Captain’s Chair. “Any indication of the reason?” he asked, toweling the blood off his boots.
“No, sir. We have an open line to them but it abruptly terminated. All of our equipment is functioning normally.”
“Best guess?”
Perry considered it. “It’s either total destruction of the scout ship or someone just turned it off.”
“The Captain would never just turn it off,” Olsen said. “That is against every protocol in the book. We have to assume that they are all dead.” He looked over the flight crew. “In accordance with Remusian space law, I therefore assume full command.”
There was some polite applause and Olsen acknowledged it within protocol. “You will all feel the wrath of my position if you fail to obey my orders,” he said blackly.
More polite applause, but this time a little more restrained.
“Orders, Captain?” the third mate, now automatically promoted to first mate said shakily. It was not a position he coveted, as it was the job most likely to end up with your head on a pike, under the usual Remusian starship tradition.
“Lane was a coward,” Olsen said. “He was a weakling and trembled with fear at the very sight of the tiniest arachnid.” He went through a huge litany of Lane’s many flaws, both real and imagined. It traditionally put a little distance between the new regime and the old regime, giving the new Captain a bit more immoral authority over the crew.
“Set our destination coordinator for the capital of the largest industrial nation. We will set our terms there and see if we can destroy some of their most valued artifacts and monuments,” Olsen said. He turned to the yeoman. “And bring me the Captain’s Hat.”
He watched the port screen as they began their descent. “Prepare to start firing missiles at random,” he told the arms officer, “but if you don’t hit a target of value with each one, I will use your entrails for party favors at our upcoming Victory party.”
My very first threat as Captain, he thought proudly. He patted the notebook in his breast pocket. Just wait until I tell Mom that I used one of her favorite intimidating comments from my childhood as my inaugural command. She will be so proud of her little boy.
“Fire,” he ordered, “for my Mom!”
Chapter 56[56]
Absalom heard the digging of his own grave and he really didn’t mind. “Finally,” he thought. “I am ready to meet my Maker.” He felt a gentle rain falling on his face and he smiled and licked his lips. Salty rain?
“Absalom! You’re frickin alive! I thought you were dead Viking meat!” Sweat was dripping from Fat Boy’s face as he leaned over Absalom, who was a bit disappointed about this turn of events. He sat up and rubbed his shoulder. He could feel the makings of the bruise of all bruises forming. He must have caught the axe handle instead of head. The Vikings are coming! He scrambled to his feet, wincing.
“Don’t worry, I already boarded up the hole,” Fat Boy said. “We’re safe for now.”
They went back upstairs to the kitchen.
A large brown satchel sat on top of the cracked-ice table. Absalom walked over and opened it up and poked around.
Some coins clattered in the bottom, as well as some miscellaneous trinkets. He pulled a large book out of it and laid it on the table. “My Vacation” it said on the cover. He flipped it open.
“Hagia Sofia, before,” was written underneath a picture of a church, and was mirrored by a similar shot of what appeared to have once been the same church, only this time it was a charred mass of ruins. “Hagia Sofia, after the chariot hooligans. Byzantium 532.”
The next page was a picture of a group of Middle Eastern men holding weapons and surrounded by horses and camels. “Where’s my fifth share, Propheter? Bedr 623.”
“I wonder what F-stop got used on these?” Fat Boy asked. “Hard to take a decent picture in the desert like that.”
The photo album had a number of other shots, including one of Sir Isaac Newton taking a leak on a tree with the enigmati
c inscription. “Newton and Gravity. Preliminary study.”
“Fakes,” Absalom said. “State of the art, but clearly these are assembled fakes.”
“Not quite,” a low voice surprised them. Fat Boy raised the Walther PPK quickly, his eyes darting around.
“Hold your fire, young man. No point in wasting your bullets.” A man stepped out of the hallway. He was medium build, blue-eyed with light-brown hair. Grungy sandals squeaked on the vinyl floor as he walked over to the refrigerator. “Can I interest you gentlemen in a diet soda?” he asked.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” Fat Boy instructed. “Where’s Lucifer?”
The man looked at them in surprise. “Lucifer? Why would you be looking for that ungrateful bastard?”
“You know him?” Absalom asked.
“He used to work for me, but I fired him.” The man popped open a can. Fat Boy lowered the gun and frowned. He didn’t know if Lucifer could take other forms, besides the obvious snake. Only one solution. He reached into his fanny pack and pulled out his vial of Holy Water, unscrewed the cap and flung it at the man. “The power of Christ compels you!” he shouted. The man was non-plussed. A drop of water hung from his nose and he slowly reached up and wiped it off.
“I’m Jehovah,” the man said. “But you can call me Joe. After all, we’re not in church.” He chuckled. “These days, nobody’s in church much.” He put his hands behind him and hopped up, sitting on the kitchen counter. He took a long slug from the can of soda and sat it beside him. He pointed to Absalom. “You look like the man with the keys. Can I have a look at them?”
Absalom reached into his jeans pocket and pulled them out. The gold and silver gleamed with an inner fire. He held them by the keychain and tossed them to Joe, who caught them with one hand.
“I made these a long time ago,” Joe said. “I had a beautiful vision. I would walk the Earth and create a new church, and all of the people that followed its tenets closely would die, judged as worthy, and dramatically would pass through the Pearly Gates into their new home in Heaven. Things didn’t go well on Earth, as I suppose you know. I was so fed up that I shanghaied Peter to be the gatekeeper and abandoned ship.” Joe’s eyes seemed to mist in the low wattage light. He rubbed the gold key with his palm and looked at Absalom. “How were things the last time you visited?”
Absalom looked at him, eyes wide. Joe smiled gently. “These keys were never meant to leave Heaven. The man who possesses them here on Earth might have daydreams or nightmares, the keys projecting the owner back in Heaven’s general direction like a salmon looking for the spawning grounds. They want to go home.” He looked questioningly at Absalom. “Have you had any experiences like that?”
“A week ago,” Absalom answered. He told Joe the story of his meeting with Lucifer and the odd Greek dream guys. When he wrapped up with Lucifer skedaddling with the map, Joe was silent, rubbing his thumb heavily between his eyes.
“Page 346, you say,” Joe mused. “That’s the Wisconsin exit. I always thought he might find his way to that one.” He laughed, remembering the entry word.
“Think?” Fat Boy asked. “You don’t know? Aren’t you omniscient and omnipotent and omnipresent?”
“No, no, and no,” Joe answered. “You’ve been hanging out with the Baptists, haven’t you? If I were all-knowing and all-powerful, why would I have allowed rap music to happen?”
“But-”
“I set this game up,” Joe said. “Quantum physics, thermodynamics, evolution, the whole she-bang. But if you make the rules, you have to play by the rules. If I wave my hand and willed the moon to quit shining, can you imagine the utter chaos that would occurs? The sun would probably blow a gasket from the inherent inconsistency.” Joe shuddered.
“So no miracles?” Absalom asked.
“Miracles?” Joe said.
“Water into wine, rising from the dead, that kind of stuff.”
“Transmutation of elements? Holy Vishnu,” Joe said. “At Cana, I just had a confederate swap out the jugs. Those shepherds put away enough wine to keep the local vineyard in business for a year. They were so sloshed I could have convinced them that they were drinking Moet et Chandon instead of the cheap local grape. I’m no magician, fellows. I’m a deity on permanent vacation.” Joe hopped from the counter.
Fat Boy was scribbling in his detective pad. “What about all the smoting you did in the Old Testament?”
Joe answered. “I got a lot of credit for natural disasters in those days. Being a monotheistic deity is a lot like being a pro quarterback. You get way too much credit when the good things happened and far too much blame when things go sour.” He walked over and turned on the coffee maker. “How about some breakfast blend?” he asked.
“Sure,” Absalom answered. Caffeine, he thought. Merciful heavens, I need to clear these cobwebs. God lives in a dump and I don’t think I can handle it.
The intoxicating smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the room and Joe poured both of them a cup. “Starbucks?” Fat Boy smiled.
“I’m a bit of a coffee snob,” Joe admitted. They all sat down at the table and silently drank the hot java. Fat Boy broke the silence.
“Well, now what?”
Absalom nodded and they both looked at Joe. “What, do you want me to whip up some scones?” He started to stand up but Absalom put a hand on his arm. God wears L.L. Bean shirts, he thought. What an ad campaign that would make.
“No,” Absalom said. “What about Lucifer? Doesn’t he need to be stopped or something?”
Joe mulled it over. He stood up and got him some more coffee. He was apparently in no hurry to answer. He sat down. Blowing on his cup to cool it.
“Lucifer,” he said, “is probably still pissed about me expelling him from Heaven. He knows that I am all-powerful when I am there, so I cannot imagine what his gambit is. He can’t be planning another futile takeover. Something else must be afoot.” He took a sip.
Fat Boy and Absalom looked at each other. “I thought God would be taller,” Fat Boy mouthed. “And a little more decisive,” Absalom said.
“Boys,” Joe said. “I’ll have you know that I truly do work in mysterious ways. That’s one thing that they got right in the Bible.”
“You mean, you have no idea what to do next and you’re just winging it?” Fat Boy asked.
“That sums it up pretty well,” laughed Joe. “If Lucifer wants to run Heaven, I’ll be Conrad Hilton and say be my guest. He can’t break much up there, and I figured most of the inhabitants would ignore him. I can’t imagine what his plan is.”
The radio on the counter crackled to life. “This is the Emergency Broadcast System. This is not a test. Repeating. This is not a test. Please stand by for the President of the United States.”
Radio static bounced around the institution-green kitchen cabinets until a deep baritone voice rumbled from the failing speaker of the radio.
“My fellow Americans,” he began. “In a situation such as this, only directness would be appropriate.” Static crackled. “At noon, Washington D.C. time, a spacecraft landed on the East Lawn of the White House. After a brief exchange, the captain of the ship, Olsen, has proclaimed himself Emperor of Earth. Hey, let go of the mike, you asshole alien…” A sizzling sound punched through the air, followed by crackly silence.
Absalom and Fat Boy exchanged glances. They both looked at Joe.
“Okay,” Joe said. “Maybe I should have limited my creating to just one planet. But sometimes you just want something a little different, crikey, you’re both men of the world, you know what I’m saying.”
The Philandering Creator, Absalom sighed. If I ever get back to the bookstore, I’m dumping all the Bibles in the dumpster. He reached over and turned up the radio.
“Greetings from Mother Remusia, citizens of Earth,” Olsen boomed. “I am Olsen, your new ruler. We have chosen your miserable planet to find sex slaves, amass great quantities of booty, and find something decent to eat. Qualified members of the huma
n race will be gathered and used as wait staff in the restaurants of Remusia. The remainder will be ground beneath the boots of the Remusian war machines.” Olsen paused and said grimly. “Oh, and I’m supposed to deliver this message.” Paper crinkled as he clear his throat.
“Dear Jehovah. Paybacks are hell. Signed, Take a Guess.” Olsen finished.
“Well, I guess we know Lucifer’s plan now,” Joe said.
Absalom and Fat boy looked at him. They definitely were not amused.
Elijah ticked off another prediction. ““You owe me chicken wings and attractive scantily clad waitresses,” he laughed. “Your treat.”
Enoch rolled his eyes. One of these days, he thought, the Prophet of Smug was going to miss one, and I’ll be there to rub it in his face the rest of his life.
Chapter 57[57]
“So in the beginning, God created the Remusians?”
Absalom’s tone was accusatory, and Joe felt the venom. “Absalom, my son,” he said. “When you date a woman, you don’t brag to her about how many women you’ve slept with, do you? You always tell her she’s special and that she’s the only one. Well, I’m that kind of gentleman when it comes to my creations.”
“Are you telling us there are even more than this?”
“Well, a few,” Joe answered. “That doesn’t make me a whore, does it? I made them all for love.”
Absalom felt the bile rise in his throat. “Chosen people, my ass,” he fumed.
“So getting back to the original topic,” Fat Boy said, unencumbered by hurt feelings for a set of facts that he always felt was painfully obvious. After all, the grays of alien abduction fame were clearly real, as he had meticulously chronicled in one of his journals. “Lucifer has convinced an alien contingent to eradicate all the people from the face of the Earth. If he kills everybody, he’ll have more of the wicked to torment and will continue his god-given mandate of torturing the souls of those who have fallen away from the Creator.” Fat Boy looked down at his notes. “Have I missed anything?”
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