And The Devil Will Drag You Under (1979) (22 page)

The head seemed frozen for a moment. Then, slowly at first, then building, it started to laugh uncontrol-lably, until peals of deep, rich laughter almost shook the foundations of the building.

Then in an instant the creature was gone, leaving only the echoes of its mirth, but there was another sound, the sound of a thin, reedy voice still chuckling-near him.

Mac whirled. Sitting not two pews in back of him, on the aisle, was the demon prince Abaddon himself. He was still laughing, and he looked and sounded exactly like Asmodeus Mogart.

The demon, who was wearing a flowered aloha shirt and baggy jeans with boots, grinned at him and ap-plauded slightly. "Very, very good!" he chuckled, then looked around thoughtfully at the church. "Obviously the act still needs a little polishing, though."

It was Mac's turn to smile. "Oh, I wouldn't say so. If somebody didn't know about the University and the Department of Probabilities and some of the real laws of existence, then they'd be scared shitless by all this. I am deeply impressed, anyway."

The demon smiled, accepting the flattery and ob-viously enjoying it. "I've let things slip the last few centuries," he explained. "Office work. I let my people -my contacts on

the

various

planes go their own way a little too long. No miracles or manifestations for a while, and the cult tends to die out if there are others to take its place. Now I have nobody left to do my legwork for me, let me keep track of what's going on up and down the Main Line, get the stuff I need-things like that. It's like starting from scratch. I can't tell you what a blow to the ego it is to find out that most planes don't even remember my name unless it's in some arcane book of demonology."

Walters nodded, suddenly understanding what all this was about. The jewels were repellers of a sort; each insured that the physical presence of a demon couldn't coexist in proximity to another demon on the same plane. "Proximity" probably meant the whole planet. But they could get close-he remembered Mogart in that primitive world. "Out of phase," he'd called it. Ghostlike, unseen-but with the jewels, the amplifiers, they could make their influence felt. They could establish a cult, then use it as their eyes and ears in each plane they were interested in, keeping an eye on other projects as well as on their fellow demons-particularly the renegades-and having the cult ob-tain ideas developed on one plane that could be useful on another, perhaps even products.

Demonology, Mac reflected, was sadly unromantic from the other side of the pentagram.

"So what's the old sot got in mind?" Abaddon prodded. His mood was still light, and Mac hoped it would remain so. "He was never much of a sportsman himself. Couldn't stay sober."

Quickly Walters explained the situation-the col-lision, the short time, the need for six jewels.

Abaddon nodded. "I can see his point. He'd rather die than go home, he's got no means of space travel to get him out of the target area, and the only al-ternative would be to spend eternity forever out of phase-you can't drink there, either. So he's trying to create an Eye of Baal, huh?

That'd do it. But I've never seen one formed outside of University sanction. Hell, with an Eye of Baal even
you
could become Zeus atop Olympus-that's right, isn't it? I haven't got the wrong world?"

"Right world," Mac assured him. "But it's our only hope."

Abaddon became thoughtful. "How many's he got?"

"I've seen three," Mac told the demon. "Probably by now my counterpart has another. I hope so, anyway. Probably four."

Abaddon was impressed. "That many? In so short a time? My, my! Whatever happened to security? Oh, I guess we just underestimated Mogart. He seems to have done his homework on all counts. So now you're here to bet me for my jewel, huh? Number five of six?"

"Or perhaps number six," the human responded. "After all, I have no idea what my counterpart is doing, how well or whatever, since we're running at such different time rates."

Abaddon reached into his pants pocket and brought out the jewel. Mac's heart leaped at seeing it. So close! So very, very close!

Abaddon read his thoughts and laughed. "I know, I know! But you can't take it from me-not here. Not anywhere, really. I have to
give
it to you. You know that. Either that or else not be in any position to stop you-and this is my element, not yours."

"I know that," Mac grumbled. He did-but he didn't have to like it. "That's why I suggested the wager. A contest, with your jewel the prize."

Abaddon put the jewel away. "So I'm to take the risk and also put up the only prize? Come on, now! What's in it for me if I win?"

Mac had considered this possibility on his way into the town and was ready to respond. "Look, I know you're still in good graces and all that," he began, "but tell me, doesn't an Eye of Baal tempt you-even a little bit?"

The demon stared at him for a minute, then sud-denly a twinkling started in his eyes and spread through his whole face. He laughed evilly, a human-proportioned, high-pitched echo of his great phony laughter.

"If I lose, my world's dead and, as you said, so is Mogart," Mac pressed. "That means four, maybe five jewels at the very least. It also means that both my counterpart and I won't have a home to come back to but will have a proven track record of getting the goods. Even if we're one short, we could wait until you found the right time and place and go after it."

"You'd work for me?"' the demon asked, his tone definitely interested. "And you can speak for this counterpart individual?"

He shrugged. "What choice would she have? No Mogart, no home world. A job's a job and a demon's a demon."

Abaddon nodded thoughtfully. "You're right, of course. Amazingly, you're right. An Eye of Baal." He looked up at Mac Walters. "So what's the wager?"

Halfway there!
The human exulted. "Simple, really. You will place the jewel somewhere near here-in a known place, that is. I'd then have to get it without getting killed and within, say, a given local time limit. I'd just as soon
not
get killed even if I lose."

"You against me?" The demon was incredulous. "Hell, man, I can wilt you where you stand.

You know that. I've been doing this sort of thing for about four billion of your years!"

Mac shook his head. "No, that'd be unfair and you admit it. Choose a champion-another human. Show him the ropes here if he needs it." He was improvising now. "Let's make it a race, your champion against me for the jewel. Make him anybody you want, but somebody from my world or at least close to my world so we start out without any physical or mental handi-caps. A fair race to a predetermined point. If I get there, I get your jewel. If he gets there first, then you have Mogart's number and, if I'm still alive„ my services and probably those of the woman working with me. Fair enough?"

The demon thought the proposal over. "Yes, indeed, it does sort of appeal to me," he murmured, more to himself than to Mac. He looked up at the human. "Shall we agree to that and start this? No time limits, though. You against my champion. I guarantee he'll be from your world.

I can reach back a bit into the past if necessary to get one-time is a bit more fluid for those of us not tied to the plane involved. We'll start from here and make the objective a monument, a statue of me, let's say, that I'll put a bit away from here. Let's see-you use kilometers, don't you? We'll make it at the end of a road seven kilometers from this church."

"Your champion gets no more information on its location than I do-all even?" Mac prompted.

"Of course! A wager's no fun if the race is fixed. Profitable, maybe, but no fun. I won't cheat you, and if you win I'll pay off. One thing, though-if you get killed, it won't end you. If you die here you'll simply become one of the local living dead under my orders, so even if you lose that way, you'll be in my service."

Mac shivered slightly, remembering the poor girl. An eternity like that-he wasn't going to die if he could help it. He took a deep breath and swallowed hard. "You're on: Let's do it."

Abaddon rose and put out his hand. "Shake on it?"

Walters looked bemused. "What? No blood pacts?"

"On an agreement, a wager, between honorable gentlemen? Don't be ridiculous," Abaddon scoffed.

They shook hands.

"Let's go down to the cafe and get a bite to eat while I summon my champion," the demon suggested. "Then we'll be ready to start this." He paused and his voice became tinged with excitement. "This is really going to be
something!"

Mac followed him, feeling a bit hungry and re-membering those steaks. "You sound confident,"

he noted. "What if I win? You'll be trapped here."

"I never take a wager I don't intend to win, the demon responded lightly. "But still, this isn't a bad place to be stuck-anything you want is yours. And sooner or later, in a few thousand years or so, somebody else will be through to sharpen up his skills, so it's not forever." He patted Mac on the rump. "But I don't intend to lose. I intend to have a great deal of fun!"

Halfway there, yes,
Mac Walters told himself. But something in the demon's manner suggested that the second half would be much tougher than it looked.

2

"Are there really people here, or is this just more of the act?" Mac Walters asked the demon prince Abaddon over steak, baked potato, and coffee in the cafe.

Abaddon smiled. "Well, yes and yes. Yes, there are real people here and yes, it's all part of the act." He became serious and commonsensical in tone and expression, as if lecturing a novice or new student. "You see, creating inanimate objects and special ef-fects is easy. Here in the training area anybody can do it, and on the stable planes those of us with amplifiers can do it, although only to a minor degree. To give you an idea as to the power of the jewels, six will certainly deflect a rogue planet and sixty are used to create a stable plane. But living things-that's a bit different. In the creation process we can, of course, establish the building blocks for the evolution of life by any rules we choose and let it take its course. We can also, with the jewels, affect things which are already alive. There is, however, a binder force, if you will-it's difficult to put it in layman's terms-in all living things, and there is an enormous but finite amount of it. It's this force, stabilized by the
persona
of Mac Walters, that travels the planes and enters other bodies, not the physical you. Only we Main Liners, who
are the only naturally created plane's inhabitants-at least I think and hope so-can and must travel and take our physical selves along. In most cases this force is dispersed upon death, but not always. If the personality is particularly strong it might survive intact-a ghost, if you will-or partially, as an elemental insane force, a poltergeist or some such phenomenon, at least for a time."

He paused to polish off the rest of his food and swig some coffee. He looked neither anxious nor worried, which bothered Mac considerably, since he was staking his jewel on the coming contest.

"But here, you see," the demon continued, "there was no creation as such. Anyone who dies here is stuck here and is usable by the living who enter. Most are sacrifices, people and animals who pledged themselves or were pledged to us in rites, plucked a frac-tion of a second before true death by one of us and brought here, and in some cases just people picked at random as needed. People disappear all the time in every world-no real problem."

He pulled two cigars from his coat pocket, offered Mac one-which was declined-then lit his in the interesting manner of having his index finger burst into flame. Mac tried not to be unnerved, and it suddenly occurred to him that the demon might be trying to psych him out.

Abaddon inhaled and blew out a big cloud of purple-gray smoke. "Of course," he added,

"there are some planes where nobody really dies-ones which have reincarnation and the like, and one where the best of the faithful become demigods and get to do their own minicreations. Then there are a plethora of planes where magic works, and so we have vam-pires and other creatures of the night. Quite a number on the minus line that aren't anything close to human, too, and where death has different meanings. It keeps things from getting boring, anyway.

"So, to return to your question, there are lots of `people' here, in that form. For the town I don't need their physical forms, only what is. necessary to assure that the normal functions of the town run as if it were real, and that I have. That answer your question?"

Mac suppressed a chuckle. "I'd
almost forgotten that I'd asked a question, but thanks. What about that girl in the graveyard?"

The demon looked startled. "Girl? In my graveyard?"

Quickly Mac told Abaddon of his encounter with the living dead.

"Hmmm . . ." the demon said thoughtfully. "Lots of that sort of thing around, of course, but I didn't know it was here. Mammon and some of the others take their demonic roles too seriously, to the point of believing in them themselves. We're all a little crazy, Walters, in our own way-all the responsibility and living an impossibly long time do it, I suppose."

"You seem pretty sane and levelheaded to me," the human noted.

The compliment pleased Abaddon. "Thanks. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only really sane one left. Still," he added, pausing for effect, a twinkle now in his eye, "I made this dumb wager with you, didn't I?"

Mac decided he didn't really want to comment on that. He was about to change the subject when a man materialized just inside the entrance to the cafe. There was a little bang when he appeared, and a slight smell of ozone. He looked at the two sitting there with some curiosity and a bit of suspicion, but not with any great fear or alarm.

"Was ist das?"
he asked in a nasty-sounding tenor.
"Gott in Himmel! Ich bin-"
He sounded slightly angry.

"English, please, my friend," Abaddon told the newcomer in a conversational tone.

The newcomer looked mildly surprised. "English? Well, all right, then, whatever," he said in a gentle upper-class British accent. He was still mad. "What the bloody hell took you so long, Abaddon? I thought I'd had it with that bloody planet about to go bump!"