“Yes, yes, hold on. Will you look at the teeth on that thing? Oh thank goodness, a commercial. Where was I? Oh yes. Here we are.”
Uzziel set down the remote control and pulled a silvery box about the size of a Rubix Cube from his pocket. Flipping the latch with his finger, he opened the lid to reveal a cubical lump of obsidian.
Malphas’ face gray visage shifted a few shades toward white. “Is that…?”
“A Balderhaz Cube. Your anti-bomb won’t work within fifty feet of here.”
Malphas’ eyes darted around, looking for a place to run.
Uzziel brandished a pistol in his other hand. “And this won’t let you get more than fifty feet from here.”
“A bullet isn’t going to stop me.”
“No, but I bet if I hit you with several of them at just the right angle, I can knock you back onto the linoleum.”
“This is your plan? To send me back to the Floor where I can warn Lucifer to send the first batch through with AK-47s?”
“Look behind you,” Uzziel said.
“Please,” said Malphas. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”
“I have to admit that it was actually Mercury’s idea, putting a temporary portal on top of your portal. It’s not really an original idea, of course, portal-stacking, but it generally has so little practical application that it never occurred to me.”
“A portal on top of another portal?” said Malphas, looking back at the breakfast nook to see a second glowing pattern superimposed on the first. “But then….”
“Anyone coming through the Linoleum portal gets immediately transported through the temporary portal on top of it. Rather than being loosed on Los Angeles, your demon brigade finds itself on an unexpected layover at the planeport.”
“Then we’ll just –”
“Take over the planeport and then use the Mundane portal to transport to Megiddo, where Michael’s army is waiting for you? Capital idea. Except that the planeport has security systems that prevent unauthorized portal openings – including the sort of rifts created by your anti-bombs. So you’ll have a brigade of morons threatening baggage handlers with ornamental glass apples. And even if they somehow managed to cow the planeport security into submission by threatening to upset the aesthetic balance of the baggage claim area, they will still have to deal with Michael’s better-trained, better-prepared, better-armed, and in pretty much every other way better force at Megiddo. Give it up, Malphas. You’ve been outmaneuvered.”
Malphas stared weakly at the impotent glass apple in his hand, gradually coming to terms with the hopelessness of his situation.
“If what you say is true, then why am I here?” he asked finally. “Why didn’t I transport to the planeport?”
“The temporary portal activated only after you came through. That’s why I had to keep the Cube shielded until you got here. Now that both portals are open, they are – temporarily at least – part of Mundane reality, so the M.E.F. won’t affect them. I assume that Lucifer sent you through to check things out and give him the all clear, correct?”
Malphas remained silent.
“Don’t make this difficult, Malphas. You know how this works. We can do things the hard way or the excruciatingly hard way. So what’ll it be? Answer quickly, please. The show’s about to start back up. I’m finding it has a sort of morbid appeal.”
Malphas grunted something barely perceptible.
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, ‘the hard way.’”
“Excellent. Now why don’t you hand me your little housewarming present and step outside. There are some cherubim in the hallway who will escort you outside the M.E.F. so that you can phone up Lucifer and tell him that the conditions for a surprise attack are sunny with a chance of catastrophic success. Once his demonic horde begins showing up at the planeport, you’ll be escorted somewhere comfortable where you can be debriefed on the details of Lucifer’s plan.”
Malphas, not feeling as if he had much of a choice, complied.
As a result, only seconds later a very surprised horde of demons bearing ornamental glass apples began pouring into the Temporary Portal Arrivals area at the angelic planeport. They were met by two dozen security officers bearing flaming swords and one diminutive cherub who buzzed annoyingly over their heads.
“The sting of a bumble bee will help ease the pain of arthritis for thirty days,” offered the cherub.
FORTY-FOUR
Christine, Mercury and Karl crept as stealthily as they could through the corridors of the planeport. Mercury had managed to convince Uzziel to create one more temporary portal – ostensibly so that Mercury could return to the Courts of the Most High and turn himself in. Mercury, however, had other plans. Amid the chaos surrounding the apprehension of the apple-toting horde, they managed to smuggle Karl unseen to the Infernal Plane.
“So,” said Christine, as they walked up the steps toward Lucifer’s pink stucco house, “You made a deal with Lucifer to return Karl to him?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry,” replied Mercury. “He’ll be perfectly safe. And comfortable. Hey Karl, that’s your house over there.”
Karl looked in the direction of the cozy faux Tudor that Mercury was pointing out.
“Looks okay, I guess,” said Karl. “My mom won’t be there, right?”
“No, Karl. Your mom, along with almost everyone else in the Universe, has absolutely no idea where you are. That was part of the deal.”
“And I can work on my music?”
“Absolutely,” said Mercury. “I wrote a state-of-the-art sound mixing system into our contract with Lucifer. Plus a T1 Internet connection and full access to Lucifer’s library of illegal recordings. That’s like eighty million songs. And I’m not just talking about illegally downloaded recordings. I’m talking about illegal recordings. He’s got a recording of Richard Nixon singing ‘Tiny Bubbles’ in the shower.”
“Huh,” said Karl, obviously thrilled to have a place where he could work undisturbed. “That’s pretty cool, I guess.”
“Yeah,” said Mercury. “Also, I think I may have insisted on a crystal duck.”
“Okay,” said Karl, as if he had expected as much.
“And he’s not allowed to harass you in any way. I mean, I can’t guarantee he’s going to show up at neighborhood barbecues or anything, but he shouldn’t give you any trouble.”
“Will he do my laundry?”
“Er, you want Lucifer to do your laundry? I didn’t actually think to ask, but that might have been a deal breaker.”
“Whatever. I just don’t want to do it.”
“I think we can work something out. Just keep in mind that Lucifer might be a little on edge when he finds out that –”
The front door of Lucifer’s house swung open. “You!” howled the lanky blonde demon, wearing only a pair of Rocky and Bullwinkle boxer shorts and a navy blue terrycloth bathrobe. “You!”
“It’s okay,” said Mercury. “I’m no good with names either. It’s MER-kyer-ee. Like the planet. And you’re Lou… Lou… Lou something, am I right?”
“You told Heaven about my plan!”
“True,” said Mercury. “Christine here and I told the Arbitration Panel of the Subcommittee for Adjudication of Matters of Alleged Violations of the Apocalypse Accord.”
“That’s a violation of our contract! Don’t you realize what you have done? You will suffer torments unheard of, even on this Infernal Plane!”
“Sadly, no,” said Mercury. “We told Heaven about your plan before we signed the contract. The contract, as I recall, has no provisions requiring that we go back in time and un-tell people that we had already told. It’s your bad luck that we figured out your scheme, like, hours ago. The important thing is, I’ve told no one about your plan since the contract was signed. And as you can see, I’ve also delivered Karl Grissom, Antichrist par excellence. No one knows that he’s alive except for me and Christine, who is the one who saved his life in the first place. I have held precisely to the
letter of our contract. Now I believe Karl has some questions regarding late night recording sessions. Are you the acting president of the homeowners’ association here, or should he address his questions to another demon?”
“The Antichrist is no good to me now,” growled Lucifer. “My demonic horde is stranded at the planeport, thanks to your meddling. You knew my plan would fail! You acted in bad faith!”
“Hang on,” said Mercury. “I thought it was the good kind of faith that you didn’t care for. I was under the impression that bad faith was okay in these parts.”
“I will rain down fire upon you!”
“Again, no. Our contract guarantees my safety, as well as that of Karl and anyone else rescued from Tiamat as a part of his extraction.”
“Tiamat,” hissed Lucifer. “So she’s the one behind all of this. She abducted the Antichrist to use him against me. I should have known you were in league with her.”
“I’m not ‘in league’ with her. Well, it’s true that I was once in a league with her, but it was a bowling league, and in any case, that was years ago. These days I’m a free agent. I work autonomously.”
Christine cleared her throat.
“Sorry,” said Mercury. “I’m working with Christine. We work together, autonomously. And you can’t touch either of us. It’s all right there in the contract. If you try raining fire down upon us, you’re going to be in a hell storm of trouble yourself.”
Lucifer fumed silently.
Mercury turned to Karl. “Karl, it’s been fun. Sorry I called you a dickweed. Lucifer here will get you your keys. And Lucifer, I know you’re fond of Karl, but no sneaking out to toss pebbles at Karl’s bedroom window. I remember what it was like to be young and in love.”
Mercury wheeled about and offered his arm to Christine. “Shall we?”
Christine nodded. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
FORTY-FIVE
Christine stood once again on the verge of Armageddon.
Having returned to the planeport, she and Mercury had taken the only available portal back to the Mundane Plane – the one that opened to Megiddo.
“So despite all of our efforts,” said Christine, “the Apocalypse goes on as planned.”
“Presumably,” said Mercury. “We can only hope, as you say, that the good guys end up being good guys and don’t make things any worse than they need to be. Lucifer bet everything on his sneak attack; he’s going to be woefully unprepared when the Heavenly host starts showing up here, ready to give him a beat-down. Not only that, but the downside of pulling out of the Apocalypse Accord, from Lucifer’s point of view, is that it frees up Heaven to attack him anywhere, anytime. Michael will presumably seize upon the current situation as an opportunity to wipe out Lucifer once and for all.”
“And the Four Attaché Cases of the Apocalypse are still out there somewhere?”
“I had to agree to give the Case of War back to Uzziel to get him to go along with my plan without asking too many questions. Lucifer still has the Case of Death, but he’ll probably get rid of it once he starts trying to build a case for plausible deniability of this whole mess. That mutant strain of corn is still wreaking havoc in South Africa, thanks to the Case of Famine, and I think the World Health Organization has the Case of Pestilence.”
“That can’t be good,” said Christine.
“No. I’d expect that to go horribly wrong sometime in the next few days.”
“And I assume that the situation in the Middle East has only gotten worse.”
“A safe assumption. It usually has.”
“So there’s really nothing we can do to stop it?”
Mercury shrugged. “These impromptu diabolical schemes are one thing. Stopping the Apocalypse is a whole different deal.”
Christine nodded grimly. “So what happened to Izbazel anyway? You said he got hit by that pillar of fire near Tiamat’s hideout. Is he dead?”
“Angels don’t die. Izbazel is probably in the hands of the Heavenly authorities. Pillars of fire, in addition to being fantastically destructive and really cool to watch, act as temporary portals. Whatever was left of his corporeal form was sucked back to a special area of the planeport, where he could be collected by agents assigned to apprehending renegade angels.”
“What about Tiamat and Gamaliel and the rest of her minions?”
“They’re on the run. I wouldn’t be surprised if Heaven picks them up, too. They will need to lay low for a while to avoid the wrath of both Heaven and Hell.”
“And Harry?”
“Harry’s dead.”
“Right, but what does that mean? Is he in Heaven?”
“Beats me,” said Mercury. “What happens to you mortals when you die is one of the great mysteries of the Universe.”
“So we don’t go to be with the angels in Heaven?”
“Not that I know of. I hope not, for your sake. Most angels are wankers.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
“And what’s going to happen to you?”
“Well, I did foil Tiamat’s plan to subjugate all of humanity and thwart Lucifer’s plot to double-cross Heaven and bring about untold destruction, so at the very least I can look forward to spending the next five hundred years filling out paperwork.”
Christine nodded, thinking about everything that had happened over the past few days. After some time, she spoke. “Why did you do it?”
“Well,” Mercury said. “In all honesty, I was going to just make regular Rice Krispy bars, but I was out of marshmallows. I saw that we had some of those Peeps, and I thought –”
“Seriously, Mercury. I thought you didn’t care about anything. Why did you get involved?”
Mercury waved a hand, dismissively. “Oh, you know. The whole business with the linoleum portal… And trying to kill Karl. I mean, what did he ever do to anyone? It’s like that book, you know…”
“To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“No, the one with the kids on the island.”
“Lord of the Flies.”
“No, you know. They have a raft, and they’re sailing down the river.”
“Huck Finn.”
“And then they get attacked by those flying monkeys.”
“Flying monkeys? Are you talking about The Wizard of Oz? There was no island in the –”
“Charlie Nyx and the Terrible Flying Monkeys! That’s it! Book Four. It’s like that. At the end, where Charlie Nyx has to choose between saving his sweetheart Madeline or killing all the flying monkeys so that they can no longer terrorize the good people of Anaheim.”
Christine’s eyes narrowed. “How in the hell is this anything like that?”
Mercury thought for a moment. “Well, I suppose it isn’t, exactly. Still, the whole business seemed unsportsmanlike.”
While they talked, a young girl in her early teens was dawdling nearby. She was making a not very convincing show of being interested in a collection of pebbles at her feet.
“Can we help you with something?” Christine said to the girl.
“Uh, sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing,” she said. “Were you talking about the Apoc... the end of the world?”
“Yeah,” Christine said wearily. “We just thwarted two demonic plans for world domination only to have the Apocalypse proceed as planned. It’s been one of those kinds of weeks.”
“I know what you mean,” said the girl. “My dad makes me clean up after my little brothers sometimes. I get so sick of it. It’s so unfair. Day after day after day. Sometimes I just want to end it all, you know?”
Christine instinctively moved closer to the girl, worried that she might have been planning to throw herself over the railing to the rocky ravine below.
“You’re a little young to be so defeated,” said Christine.
“Am I?” asked the girl. “How old do you have to be before you’re allowed to be defeated?”
Mercury peered curiously at the girl, as if noticing something a little funny about her.
&nb
sp; “Well,” said Christine. “You know, that’s a good point. There’s never really a good age to be defeated. I guess we all just have to keep going, the best we can.”
“Yeah,” said the girl, smiling weakly. “I guess. You’re kind of a nice person, you know that?”
“Thanks,” said Christine. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to count for much in the scheme of things.”
“You’d be surprised,” said the girl. “Hey, can I talk to you for a moment?” She glanced at Mercury. “In private?”
“Um, sure,” said Christine. “But I’m not sure what –”
“It’s okay, Christine,” said Mercury. “I need to get going anyway. Can’t stay in one spot too long, you know.”
“Wait, you’re leaving?” said Christine. “Just like that?”
“I can do a little soft shoe first if you like.”
“It’s just that…” said Christine, “I was just starting to… not hate you so much.”
“Yeah,” said Mercury. “You’re pretty cool too. Unfortunately, duty calls.”
“‘Duty?’ Since when do you care about doing your duty?”
“Oh, not my duty,” said Mercury. “But if everybody else keeps insisting on doing their duty, somebody’s got to clean up the mess.”
“Yeah,” said Christine. “You’re surprisingly good at that.”
“Also, I have an allergy to paperwork,” said Mercury. “If I stick around much longer, Heaven is going to haul my ass in for debriefing. In fact,” he said, glancing at the young girl, “I suspect that the only reason I haven’t been apprehended yet is the fact that I have a friend upstairs.”
The girl turned to him and smiled an inscrutable smile. Her face was youthful, but that smile had millennia of experience behind it.
“Goodbye, Christine,” said Mercury, and slipped away.
FORTY-SIX
“My name’s Christine.”
“Yes, I know,” said the girl. “I’m Michelle.” She was thin and wiry, and her kinky chestnut hair framed a pretty but stern face.
“Nice to meet you, Michelle. Are your parents…”
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