Mercury Falls (28 page)

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 OK, 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."

"OK," 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 not 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, blond demon, wearing only a pair of Rocky and Bullwinkle boxer shorts and a navy blue terrycloth bathrobe. "You!"

"It's OK," 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 OK 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."

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 Attache 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 Krispies 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.

"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 OK, 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.

"Good-bye, Christine," said Mercury, and he slipped away.

"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. . .?"

"I'm
the
Michelle."

Christine regarded the girl, trying to make sense of this remark.

"Archangel," the girl said. "Commander of the Heavenly army."

"But he's. . .you're. . ."

"Mistranslation," said the girl. "You know how male-dominated cultures are. I'd like to think it was an honest mistake, but Gabrielle isn't so charitable. I allow the misunderstanding to persist for security reasons."

"So you. . .you're the highest ranking angel there is."

"Well, I command the army. Technically, I answer to the Seraphic Senate. They tend to follow my lead on military matters, though."

"Why are you here?"

"This is where it ends," said Michelle. "This is Megiddo, the site of the final battle between good and evil."

"I know. I've been here before."

"Really? Did you get a T-shirt? There's an excellent selection in the gift shop."

"So I suppose you're here to do some final reconnaissance or something? Make sure everything is in order for the big Apocalypse?"

"Actually," said Michelle, "I'm here to talk to you. I've been watching you with some interest. It's difficult not to empathize with your situation."

"You've been watching me this whole time? Through everything?"

"Not the whole time, but long enough. I was there when Isaacson died."

Christine's eyes widened. "You. . .you were the one who helped me escape from that house!"

"I was."

"So you're behind all this?" said Christine. "You understand how I got sucked into this whole mess?"

"Actually, no," replied Michelle. "Your involvement is still a bit of a mystery. None of the factions planned on you playing much of a role. Somehow events conspired to place you in the middle of all the action."

"But if I wasn't expected to play some important role in the Apocalypse, why did you save me?"

Michelle smiled grimly. "I felt somewhat responsible for your circumstances."

"Why? Did you have something to do with that rocket?"

Michelle nodded. She said, "Isaacson was supposed to be a known quantity. It had come to our attention that his heart was no longer in the fight. I spoke with him not long before you arrived, under the guise of a Syrian informant. I got the impression that he was on the verge of consolidating his gains and calling off any further offensive action. We needed him to continue escalating the situation."

"So you killed him? Because he had the gall to hesitate on the path to Armageddon? And nearly killed me in the process, I might add."

"I redirected a rocket that was going to hit a civilian dwelling. Rather than seven civilians dying, one elderly general died. A military officer who, I might add, was scheduled to be killed in a few days anyway. All I did was hasten his death to ensure that the conflict would escalate as expected."

"Yeah, well, you could just as easily have turned the rocket into a bowl of petunias," said Christine. "Nobody
had
to die."

"At the time, I was of the opinion that someone did. I'm reassessing that opinion at present."

"So you left me at the hospital with the spelunking note? And the Attache Case of War?"

"I did. As I was technically not supposed to have any contact with Isaacson, I couldn't risk holding on to the case. I figured it was as safe in your hands as anywhere."

"Then you've been watching me since that rocket strike?"

"No, but I have enough intelligence sources to piece together most of your adventures over the past few days. I have a sense of what you've been through."

"I doubt that."

The girl peered curiously at her. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," said Christine wearily. "Why not."

"What would you do if you were in my position?"

"Hmmm," said Christine. "I'd avoid making any big decisions at this point. I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was your age."

"Lucifer has given me an opening," explained Michelle, "and I'm tempted to take it. To give him the ass-kicking he's been asking for since he first started screwing with the Plan down here. He's off-balance and unprepared for the battle. On the other hand, an operation like this inevitably creates a great deal of collateral damage, and by withdrawing from the Apocalypse Accord, Lucifer has given me a fair amount of flexibility. I could call the whole thing off and just hope for the best. Lucifer's organization would remain intact, but his influence on this plane would be mitigated to some degree."

"Well," said Christine, "the way I see it, God gave us this planet. This plane, whatever. To humanity, I mean. Not the angels. I understand that He's evidently given the angels some authority over certain things, and I won't pretend to understand how all that works. But your organization is clearly too vast and complicated for even you to fully understand or control. And the bigger and more powerful an organization is, the more bureaucratic hoops its members have to go through to get anything done. What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that while I'm sure you run a bang-up organization, it doesn't frankly seem to do us a whole lot of good down here on the ground. You folks are so far removed from the actual events that when you finally do something, it's usually too little, too late. Or far too much, too early. To us down here, your involvement is just another terrifying unknown. Terrifying unknowns tend to create fear, and fear tends to bring out the worst in people."

"So you'd prefer that we pull out of this plane entirely and just leave you to fend for yourselves?"

"I suppose not," admitted Christine. "Granted, if Lucifer is going to keep scheming away, then I suppose some involvement from your side is a necessary evil, if you'll pardon the expression. But maybe you could limit yourselves to preventing Lucifer from wreaking too much havoc down here, so at least humanity has a chance."

"You would have me call off the attack then. Put off the Apocalypse."

"Look, the way I see it, there are plenty of battles between good and evil on this plane already. You might have noticed that we've got a fair amount of war, death, famine, and the other one. . ."

"Pestilence."

"Right, and pestilence without any help from you. I don't think you need to go out of your way to ratchet up the stakes. Just give us a chance to work things out down here."

"Hmmm," said Michelle. "You understand what you are asking for? You are asking, essentially, that the Apocalypse be left in your hands."

"In the hands of humanity, correct. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying you can't help out. All I'm asking is that you don't blindly follow this SPAM, or whatever guidelines you are using. Don't just mechanically follow rules that were written up thousands of years ago, for reasons that you don't understand, in a language nobody speaks anymore. Ask yourself, before you act on the basis of one of these rules, whether you're helping our cause or hurting it."

"A reasonable request. The SPAM is a very powerful document, but between you and me, I find certain parts of it nearly impossible to understand. There is, even among my wisest advisors, a good deal of disagreement regarding the meaning of some sections. Trying to use it to plan a military operation is hopeless."

"This is really all up to you then? Whether the Apocalypse goes forward or not, I mean? You get to make the decision."

"Oh my, no," said Michelle. "I have tactical authority, of course, but all I can do about a decision like this is report to the Senate Committee on Strategic Interplanar Intervention. I do, however, have some pull, and at this point my recommendation could very well make the difference."

"And what are you going to tell them?"

"Well," said Michelle, "as inclined as I am to leap off this precipice, I do find your case compelling. I'm in a difficult position, you see. On one hand, your actions allowed the Apocalypse to proceed according to Plan. I could take that as a sign that it is part of the Divine Will that the Apocalypse go forward. On the other hand, you're only involved in the first place because I violated the SPAM to kill General Isaacson and to spare you."

"So," said Christine, "if you hadn't violated the SPAM, then your Plan—the so-called Divine Plan—would have failed. Your failure to follow the Plan was a critical element in the Plan's success."

"At least as far as I can tell," said Michelle. "That is, perhaps the Divine Plan would have found another way to work itself out, even if I hadn't acted the way I did. Maybe in the end it makes no difference what I do."

"But you're the Archangel Mi—er, Michelle!" Christine sputtered. "If your actions don't matter, then whose do? I have to believe that it makes a difference. I mean, I wouldn't be alive if you hadn't saved me."

"On the other hand, your life wouldn't have been in danger if I hadn't redirected that rocket to kill Isaacson."

Christine groaned in exasperation. "We could play this game forever," she said. "You can't live your life according to far-off consequences you can't possibly foresee. Ultimately, you just have to make the best decision you can."

Michelle sighed. "It's a paradox, to be sure. By violating the Plan, I made it possible for the Plan to succeed. Do I take that to mean that the Plan is meant to succeed, or that I am meant to circumvent it?"

"I'm not sure it means anything," said Christine. "To quote one of the minor prophets: 'You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice; if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.'"

"That's quite profound," Michelle said. "Is that Habakkuk?"

"Rush," said Christine.

"Of course," said Michelle. "I remember when Lucifer lost that bet to Neil Peart."

"So what is your decision?"

Michelle stared over the edge of the valley for a time before answering. "The matter requires further study," she said. "I believe I'll recommend that the Senate appoint an investigative committee and put off taking any further action until the committee has made its findings. Then there will be the interminable hearings regarding the report that the committee generates, the inevitable scapegoating and bureaucratic reshuffling, culminating in a lengthy debate about what course of action, if any, to take."

"How long do you expect this process to take?"

"I wouldn't expect anything this century."

"Wonderful. So humanity gets a second chance."

"Yet again," said Michelle. "I hope you appreciate what this means."

"I do," said Christine. "I will. Absolutely." The Universe, she thought, might not be such a jerk after all. One thought still nagged at her though. "Perhaps it's too much to ask, but I was wondering. . .Do you think I could be reimbursed for new linoleum in my breakfast nook?"

"Hmmm," said the angelic general. "I'll see what I can do. That's not really my department."