Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish (28 page)

The elves cleared the area around the table where the Frankenstein Santa Claus lay. Following the cat's orders, which is exactly what their programming told them to do, they began lining up the lemons around the table in a perfect spiral that stretched farther and farther outward. The array was actually quite pretty. The elves worked in a sort of production line, as was customary for all ordinary toy-making elves, passing the lemons along.

Another group of elves entered the warehouse, each carrying a large box.

"We found them!" shouted one of the elves with a box.

The Devil hopped off his box and walked up to the elves.

"Excellent, you found both?"

The elf nodded enthusiastically, the telltale maniacal grin spreading across itsface.

"Lots of copper in the labs and every office had paperclips."

"Perrfect," the Devil purred, "now get to work!"

The elves shuffled off with their boxes and started unpacking.

The Entity was currently waste deep in snow. Jeremiah was blowing bubbles. Celina and Nigel were currently preoccupied with the knock at the door. The elves were busy with their lemons. Itch was trying to figure out how to get out of his current situation. Big Ernie was shaking like a leaf. The Devil swished his tail.

No one was monitoring the front gate at Majestic Technologies.

No one noticed the figure dressed almost head to toe in black. Black boots, black pants, black hooded sweater, the hood covering a black ski mask with two black eyes peering out. Green socks. A large rectangular-shaped black box strapped securely to the figure's back. The figure had only a hint of Guinness on his breath as he entered through the broken security gate, happy that his entry was so easy and completely unnoticed.

Death and Gerald had been happy to get out of Rupert's cab. They both agreed that that they'd spent far too much time in that particular cab and had learnt more about international hotel soaps than they ever really wanted to know in the first place.

Death was happy to find that a certain amount of his angelic strength and powers had begun to return. He couldn't exactly travel at the speed of nothingness just yet, and he hadn't regained any sort of omnipotent strength, but he found that he could see quite clearly in the dark again, which proved quite helpful while trying to navigate the deserted corridors of Majestic Technologies.

The map they'd obtained at the reception desk had proved completely useless and more complicated than Hungarian algebra that had already been translated from Chinese. They'd finally resolved to walk around looking for any signs of life, or at least, Death looked; Gerald just held on to the back of his robe and tried not to stumble, as he couldn't see a thing.

After hearing muffled voices behind the door of the security centre, they assumed they had found what they were looking for. However, getting the individuals inside to open the door wasn't quite as easy as expected.

"Just open the door," shouted Death from outside the door.

Celina shook her head. Obviously, she wasn't in any hurry to meet the Angel of Death, if that's who it really was behind the door.

"How do we know you're not an elf?" shouted Nigel.

Eggnog began to shake his hips. There was a deep sigh from behind the door.

"Because I'm not. How many elves would claim to be the Angel of Death to make someone open a door?"

Nigel looked at Celina, who half shrugged with uncertainty.

"That kind of makes sense."

"You're damn right," said Death from behind the door, "now open the door."

Nigel pondered the possibility of there really being an Angel of Death and decided that under the current circumstances the chances were extremely good.

"What do you want?"

"I'm here to help."

"If you are the Angel of Death, what kind of help are you offering?"

"Actually, I'm a little foggy on that myself. Heinrich sent me."

Nigel moved toward the door.

"What did you say?"

"Heinrich, the wine waiter. He sent us to help."

"Us?" said Celina.

"Who else you got out there, Death?" asked Nigel, then added under his breath, "Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy?"

"He's a friend."

"I'm Gerald!" said Gerald.

"Are you an angel too, Gerald?" asked Nigel.

"No I'm a human being at the moment."

Nigel looked back at Celina, who had started to look a little tired; the day was clearly getting to her. Nigel unlocked the door and swung it open.

Standing outside the door was, in fact, the Angel of Death, black robe, pale complexion, the wisdom of a million years sparkling in his dark eyes, and almost as quickly as he'd noticed him, Nigel slowly began to forget about him. In fact, it proved difficult to hold any part of this person anywhere in his memory. The other, well-tanned gentleman looked to be of a similar age as Nigel. He had a very faraway look in his eyes, as if he was seeing everything for the first time.

"I'm the Angel of Death," said Death and offered Nigel his hand, which Nigel took and shook while still trying to hold Death's facial features in his memory but it was like trying to carry a gallon of water without a bucket.

"This is Gerald," continued Death.

Gerald grabbed Nigel's hand and shook it vigorously.

"Very happy to meet you, Nigel, I used to be a penguin."

The man dressed almost completely in black, with green socks, peered around the corner of a parked truck and looked into the open warehouse. He'd had a couple of pints before embarking on his task, but he was sure he hadn't consumed nearly enough alcohol to warrant the spectacle he was observing: a large warehouse, in the centre of which was a large table where Santa Claus was lying, lemons lined up all around the table, a sleigh complete with reindeers off to the side, and a mean-looking black cat snapping orders at a group of leprechauns sticking bits of metal into the lemons and connecting them together with wires.

The man in black was, in fact, a part-time member of the IRA, which was a group of Irish people famed for blowing up parts of England and large chunks of Ireland in the name of peace whenever they felt the urge.

At his other job, he was a baker who was quite famous for making extremely good petitesfours, small balls of baked pastry containing whipped cream and covered with chocolate. For the IRA, he picked up and delivered bombs. He had been in Ireland just last night to pick up such a bomb.

The bomb had been lovingly crafted by an irate wife whose husband was always off at the local pub getting drunk, and as a result of his neglect, she had taken up bomb making and become exceptionally good at it.

The Baker, the appropriate nickname bestowed by his superiors at the IRA, decided that maybe this was God's way of telling him to quit drinking. He swung the bomb off his back, set the timer, activated the device, and very quietly and slowly slid the large black box just inside the warehouse. He ran for the exit and was back in his bakery making a batch of petites fours before the sun came up the very next day, completely sober and with a vow never to drink again.

Next to the door of the warehouse, the digital readout on the bomb began to tick away.

29m59s

Jeremiah swam around in his bowl. He'd napped for a while but couldn't remember why, and seconds later, he couldn't remember napping at all. And so he swam. The castle in his bowl was beginning to turn a bit greenish, so Jeremiah was staying away from it for the time being, hoping that it would turn back to its normal colour, although he couldn't remember what its normal colour was.

The familiar feeling, although it played no part in the little fish's memory, returned to him. Information began to mount up in his tiny little head, but he didn't know where to throw it. Usually, he knew right away. The information just kept mounting up and mounting up, pictures, words, things Jeremiah didn't understand, but the feeling overwhelmed him. He started to swim in little circles, and then decided to hide in his little green castle just to be on the safe side.

Pleasantries had been exchanged; Nigel had finally found that if he kept glancing at Death, then he wouldn't slip from memory quite so easily. Celina wasn't having as much luck and had to keep asking who he was. Gerald was just happy to meet new people. Eggnog, who was still plugged into the monitors, hummed a little tune.