The Weirdness (31 page)

They put the gun and the tire iron in the duffel bag, along with the Neko, which floats serenely in the bubble of its shining final seal, and then Billy tries to fill Denver in on everything that’s happened, but she has pieces of the story from Anil and the Ghoul, and she ends up shushing him so she can tend to his wound. He’s grateful for that, because it allows him to not have to figure out what to do when he gets to the part of the story where he and Elisa fuck one another.

He leans his head back and lets Denver press a tissue against his chin, watches the streetlights recede through the cab’s rear windshield. It’ll be sad, to say goodbye to all this. This world, with all its weirdness. He will, in the end, miss it.

After the blood seems to have been stanched, he wonders if he can get away with leaning in for a kiss. He can.

They kiss for a while, and it’s good.

And then Billy looks out the window. They’re still in Manhattan. If they were going to Anil’s place, or the Ghoul’s place, or any of their normal haunts they should have crossed over to Brooklyn long ago. And they’re going completely the wrong way to get back to Denver’s place, where they wouldn’t go anyway, ’cause Denver has eleven fucking roommates. It occurs to Billy to ask what he should have asked before he got in the cab.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to see your dad,” she says.

“That guy’s not my dad,” he says, beginning to get agitated. “I don’t want to see him. I thought we were going to see Anil—”

“Anil gave me an address. He said we should meet him there, that there were people there who could help you—”

“You’re taking me to the Right-Hand Path headquarters,” Billy says, incensed at what suddenly appears to him as her betrayal. “I can’t
go
there. That’s like the
one place
I can’t go.”

“I don’t understand,” she says. “Everybody says that these people can
protect
you.”

“They can’t protect me,” Billy says. “And I’m not allowed to let them try.” They cross through an intersection. Billy figures out where they are on the grid; they aren’t far, now, from the Right-Hand Path headquarters. “Hey,” Billy says. He reaches up and raps on the scratched plane of Plexiglas separating him from the cabbie. “Hey, pull over. I have to get out.”

“Billy,” Denver says. “Just wait.”

“You don’t understand,” Billy says. He can feel the prohibitions put in place by his vow begin to rise in him, a sort of physical discomfort, a vague, burning itch prickling over him, as though he’s been sprayed with a fine mist of allergens.

They roll up to HQ. There are signs that Lucifer has been here. Billy remembers Lucifer saying that when he came for Elisa and Jørgen, he came in his full splendor. Billy didn’t think too much about what that meant at the time but he thinks about it now. The building looks like a bomb went off inside it. Scorch marks, some of them fifteen feet high, mar the granite facing. Clean-cut looking men and women with violet hard hats—Right-Hand Path employees, Billy guesses—politely herd pedestrians along a strip of
CAUTION
tape that cordons off the site. He wonders whether the pedestrians will remember having seen the damage, or if some replacement memory gets installed in their minds before they go.

The cab pulls over. While Denver fumbles with her credit card Billy grabs the duffel bag, pops the door and hurries out. He’s going to run. Or at least that’s the plan. He looks both ways, trying to decide which way to bolt, but then right there at his side is Barry, the big guy with the serpent facial tattoo who plays Gorbok the Mad.

“Don’t worry, Billy,” Barry says, in his sweet, high voice. He places a firm hand on Billy’s shoulder. “We got ya.”

Billy tries to twist free but Barry’s hand stays heavily on his shoulder; it sends some kind of line of force down through his body, rooting his feet to the pavement.

“Come on now,” Barry says. “Let’s get you upstairs. We’ve regrouped into the secure room, on three.”

“Fuck you,” Billy says. In response, Barry steps behind him, and twists his arm back between his shoulder blades.

“Don’t hurt him,” Denver cries, as Barry marches Billy forward. They enter the burnt lobby through a seam in a translucent tarp, stretched across the spot where there used to be a revolving
door. Standing in the lobby is Laurent, wearing one of the violet hard hats.

“Billy!” Laurent says. “Good to see you, very good to see you. We’ve suffered some, ah, unfortunate setbacks today, you can see, the old place looked a little better this morning.” He smiles. “But it’s good to have you back in our court.”

“I’m not in your court,” Billy says, as they usher him through the lobby.

“Oh, no, I suppose not, not if we’re speaking about, you know, where your loyalties lie.” They push Billy through a door and begin guiding him up a flight of stairs, with Denver bringing up the rear.

“We have your friend Anil in the secure room; we got his report of the situation, a layman’s report, but very good nonetheless, very rich in nuances, the
fine details
, I can understand why the man became a writer. In any case! He seemed to indicate that you might be on the wrong side of some kind of Dark Oath scenario. Which would match, you know, with what happened with Elisa, and the other one, the big gentleman?”

“Jørgen,” Barry offers, as they cross the second floor landing.

“Yes! Jørgen! Shame about the two of them; we may be able to get them later, very tricky right now, though, very tricky. So—where was I? Oh, yes, in our court. You say you’re not. And to this we say: Of course! Of course you’re not. Dark Oath, you know, it works that way. You probably see us as the enemy right now, it’s terribly ironic, actually. But in a physical sense? We have you here in the building. Literally in our court. And that’s very, very, very good.”

“You can’t stop Lucifer,” Billy says. “He came and he took Jørgen and Elisa away from you. He’ll take me, too.”

“Well,” Laurent says. “We’ll see about that.”

“Yes,” Billy says. “We will.”

They emerge into a hallway on the third floor and hustle him toward a pair of black double doors at the far end. As they approach, Billy’s dad, Keith, still in his commando garb, throws the doors open. Billy glares at him as though he’s an enemy.

“Is he—” Keith says.

“It’s as we thought,” Laurent says. “Dark Oath.”

“Shit,” Keith says. He looks like he might rip a phone book in half.

“Don’t hurt him,” Denver says, hurrying to catch up. “It looks like you’re hurting him.”

They enter the secure room. Fluorescent lighting, nacreous tile. Various personnel toil busily at racks of arcane-looking equipment. The room resembles a hospital operating suite jammed full of card tables, half-finished cups of coffee, empty take-out containers, and at least one ashtray. Billy sees Anil sitting in a plastic chair, safely out of the way of most of the bustle, in front of a glossy black bank of dormant technology.

“Seal the room,” Laurent says to Barry. Barry lets go of Billy’s arm finally and begins to do something to the door, something that involves a brilliant light flowing out of his fingertips. It hurts to look at, like an acetylene torch. Billy moves his arm gingerly, rotates it tenderly in its socket.

“We can undo the Oath,” Laurent says to Keith. “It’ll just—it’ll just take some time.”

“How long?” Keith says.

“Two days?” Laurent says.

“Two
days
?” Keith says.

“It’s unfortunate, I agree. But we don’t have the right components and we don’t have the right staff. I could get you this
Yoruban guy, a specialist, but he’s in Nigeria, and even if we
could
get in touch with him—”

“You can’t keep this room secure for two days,” Keith says, pressing his fingertips against his temples like a character in a commercial for a headache remedy. “Not against the Adversary.”

“He has a name, you know,” Billy says.

“Billy,” Laurent snaps. “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable. Go sit over there by the God detector. With your friend.” He waves in Anil’s direction.

Billy takes one more look at the double doors. They are barely visible behind a gleaming magical glyph. So, okay, fuck it, he probably can’t run. He dismally considers whether he’s going to need to turn into a wolf again and kill everyone in the room just to keep his word. But he feels no special compulsion to do anything other than wait for Lucifer to show up. So he goes, and he sits down in a chair next to Anil. Denver comes and joins them.

“Hey, man,” Anil says.

“Hey,” Billy says. He dumps Anton Cirrus’s duffel bag onto the floor.

Anil puts a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Listen, man, these guys say that they’re going to help you get out of this. This Oath or whatever it is that you’re under.”

“But that’s the thing,” Billy says. “I can’t really root for that. I gave my
word
.”

Anil gives him an incredulous look. “Are you kidding me?” he says. “Of all the people I know, you’re like the
first
person to try to weasel out of your obligations. You break promises
all the time
.”

Billy turns to look at Denver, in the hopes that she’ll defend his honor, but all she does is give a palms-up gesture.

“So what the fuck makes
this
promise so special?” Anil says.

“I made it to the Devil,” Billy says.

“Right—which means that it fucks you
even worse
than the average stupid shit you agree to! And now you’re in a room with people who love you—your
friends
and your
dad
and an entire staff of fucking
magicians
who are working overtime to help you
get out of this
and you won’t even allow yourself to
root for them
? No offense, man, but it’s kind of a dick move.”

“You know what’s a dick move?” Billy says.

“What,” Anil says.

But Billy has no retort.

They sit there in silence for a minute. “All I’m saying,” Anil says eventually, “is just try to let yourself feel a little hope.”

Billy tries it. And a little light goes on in the wing of himself that he thought had collapsed, in the part of himself that he thought had died.

“So now what,” Denver says, after a minute.

“I dunno,” Billy says. “Anybody have, like, an UNO deck or something?”

The lights go out. A collective murmur of dismay goes up from everyone in the room, except Billy. The lights come up again a second later, when some backup system kicks in, although the illumination they cast seems a little more feeble and uncertain now.

“He’s coming for me,” Billy says. He says it quietly, but a pall has fallen over the room, so no one has any trouble hearing him.

“Hold that seal,” Laurent says.

“Got it,” says Barry.

The room shudders ferociously. The lights flicker. An expensive-looking oscilloscope-type widget crashes to the floor, gives one single alarming bleat as it dies. Barry’s glyph wobbles, blurs at its edges. Sparks peel off and bounce to the floor.

“
Hold
that
seal
!” Laurent shouts.

“It’s not that easy,” Barry says.

“Goddamn it,” Laurent says. He turns from person to person frantically, although he does not really appear to be addressing anyone in particular. “We’re not going to lose. Not twice in one day. We’re the fucking good guys. The whole
point
of our
existence
is that we’re superior to evil. We’re supposed to
win
. Our whole building got fucking trashed by hellfire once today, okay, yes, bad, but we should at least be able to hold
one room
that a fucking council of warlocks designed to be the most mystically secure space in all of New York City.” He takes off his hard hat and flings it at the wall.

The room gives another violent shudder. Barry’s silvery glyph suddenly turns a dark, smoky red. Little flames spill out of its edges. Barry begins to tremble and jitter, like someone about to have a seizure.

“Oh,” Laurent says, throwing his hands up into the air. “Oh. This is just perfect. We are ever so perfectly fucked.”

“Billy,” says Denver. She grips his leg.

“Yeah,” Billy says. He doesn’t look at her; he’s watching the door, watching the glyph begin to burn.

“Are we going to die?”

Billy turns to look at her now, sees the fear in her face. “I don’t know,” he says.

“If we’re going to die,” she says, “I want to say that I’m sorry. About last night.”

“Sorry?” Billy says.

“Yes,” Denver says. “When you said you loved me. I should have said it back.”

“Oh,” Billy says. “Uh, you still could say it. Now might be a
good time.” His hope grasps at the idea that somehow love is the key to this situation, that somehow, love will save them all.

She opens her mouth, but then the room is gripped by a third groaning spasm. This one cracks about half the tiles that line the walls and shatters three of the fluorescent lights, filling the air with a harsh, choking dust. The glyph sputters out completely.

“Fuck,” Anil says, rearing out of his chair. “Fuckity fuck.” He fumbles around in his pockets and gets out a convenience-store packet of incense sticks, rips it open, takes all dozen sticks into one fist. With his other hand he pulls out his lighter, gets it going, lights the end of all the sticks at once. He gets down on his knees, closes his eyes and begins to murmur hurriedly, waving the sticks in the air, making tight little loops of fragrant smoke.

“What are you doing?” Billy asks.

Anil snaps his eyes open, looks sharply at Billy. “What does it look like I’m doing, nimrod? I’m
praying
.”

And behind him, one by one, all 777 LEDs on the God detector begin to light up.

THE ADVERSARY • THE PROTECTOR OF COWS • TREATIES AND PEACES • BAD EXAMPLES • 16,000 WIVES •
NON SERVIAM
• THE DEVIL AT THIRTY • SQUANDERED EFFORT • THE DEAL • FOREVER TOGETHER • IDEAS