Mercury Rests (7 page)

Work Experience

Director of Marketing

Heaven

Inception–Fall of Man

• Oversaw award-winning “Let There Be Light
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  ” campaign
  

Demonic Overlord

Hell

Fall of Man–Present

• Spearheaded groundbreaking “Surely You Will Not Die if You Eat of the Fruit
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  ” campaign
  

References available upon request

Cravutius set the paper down and glared at Lucifer. “I’m afraid we’re not looking for an unquestioned despot at the moment,” he said curtly.

“You should be,” said Lucifer. “You need somebody to take control of things. The Mundane Plane is completely out of control.”

“Out of control, is it?” said Cravutius, smiling slightly. “Actually, my impression is that things are progressing quite nicely. It’s true that we’ve had some setbacks of late, but let me ask you this, Lucifer: are you familiar with an Uzzite named Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

“Job!” exclaimed Lucifer, resisting the urge to cackle with glee. He knew he could provoke them into bringing up Job. “Of course Job fears God and shuns evil. He’s got angels making sure he never so much as stubs a toe. You make sure all of his plans work out, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. Take away all that stuff, and I guarantee that he will curse God.”

The committee broke into a buzz of urgent whispering. Lucifer stroked his chin to cover a smile. He had them right where he wanted them. If they admitted that Job’s obedience was conditional, then they would be conceding that the so-called “Divine Plan” was working so well only because they were sheltering Job
from the realities of the world. His success would be replicable by others only to the extent that they too were exempted from the unpredictable vicissitudes of life.

“It’s a classic problem, symptomatic of poor management,” Lucifer said, leaning back in his chair. “Your solution isn’t scalable.”

“We’re getting off track,” said a committee member, a red-haired seraph. “What does any of this have to do with Michael?”

“Well,” said Lucifer. “I abducted
Michelle
as a form of protest against the poor management of the Mundane Plane. I don’t have anything against her personally, and I’d be happy to release her if I felt that my concerns were being taken seriously.”

“Go on,” said Cravutius.

“If you think Job’s prosperity gospel is going to succeed on a large scale, then why not put it to the test? Make sure you work out any flaws before you’ve got a thousand other Jobs out there using the same philosophy.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” asked the red-haired seraph.

“Remove Job’s special angelic protection. Let him experience a few setbacks and see if he sticks to his principles. If you can demonstrate that Job’s loyalty isn’t dependent on his good fortune, I’ll give you back Michelle.”

There was some bickering among the committee members, but eventually they agreed. “You are not to touch a hair on Job’s head, though,” said Cravutius sternly.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Lucifer innocently.

Lucifer lost no time in making Job’s life miserable.

One of the main advantages that evil has in the eternal struggle between good and evil is the lack of imagination of those on
the side of good. When Cravutius and his committee agreed to withhold angelic protection from Job, they had in mind that Job would occasionally lose a sheep to chlamydia or step in a pile of camel dung. What they failed to realize was that by promising not to allow Heavenly agents anywhere near Job, they were giving Lucifer free reign to fuck with Job at his leisure. And fuck with him he did.

He started by convincing the leader of a nearby tribe that Job had stolen some of their oxen. While Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
⁶

While that messenger was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

While the third man was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

Job waited a moment to make sure that no one else was coming. When it was clear that the entirety of the bad news had been delivered, Job got up from his chair. “Well,” he said. “Despite the fact that you all keep interrupting each other, I think I have the gist of the situation. I’m pretty well fucked, is that it?”

The four luckiest servants in all of Uz nodded their heads in solemn agreement.

Job dismissed the servants, who went looking for a card game.

Lucifer, meanwhile, waited outside Job’s window so he could hear Job when he cursed God.

Job tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.”

This was not the reaction Lucifer was hoping for. A few days later he met again with the Committee.

Cravutius said to Lucifer, “Where have you come from?”

“Oh, you know,” said Lucifer, concealing his disappointment. “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

“Asshole,” muttered the red-haired seraph.

The committee charged Lucifer with excessively tormenting Job. Lucifer pointed out, however, that he had abided by the letter of their agreement. “Not only that,” Lucifer went on, “but you still haven’t proven that Job’s love for God is unconditional.”

“What?” demanded Cravutius. “You took everything from him, and still he praises God! We demand that you release the archangel Michelle at once!”

Lucifer shook his head. “What are a few sheep to a man like Job? As long as he has his health, he’s perfectly content. Let me give him some nasty skin disease, and we’ll see his true colors.”

There was muttering among the committee members.

“Very well, then,” said Cravutius. “He is in your hands, but you must spare his life.”

So Lucifer afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.

His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”

“Wow, nice bedside manner,” Job replied. “Sorry if my oozing sores are bringing you down.”

His wife folded her arms and stuck out her lower lip at him.

“Oh, honey,” said Job. “I’m sorry. I’ve hurt your feelings. Look, all I’m saying is this: sometimes God gives us good, and sometimes He gives us trouble. We just have to accept it. Hey, can you get this one on my lower back? It’s driving me bonkers.”

His wife shook her head and walked away, leaving Job to suffer alone.

Eddie sat in his hotel room in the dark. The lights were off and the shades were drawn.

Cody Lang was dead.

Eddie had done his best to save her, but she had slipped away after muttering her last words. “Pull the switch.” Whatever
that
meant. He had set her body in the pit and caused the walls of the shaft to collapse on top of her. The daughter buried in her father’s grave. He hoped the authorities would let her rest in peace.

What was he supposed to do now? Cody said he was supposed to finish his story, that he was supposed to write the final Charlie Nyx book after all. That it ended with something called Wormwood. But what the hell was that?

After Cody’s heart stopped, Eddie had searched the area, trying to figure out where the bullet had come from. His best guess was that the shooter had been on the roof of one of the buildings across the street, but he found no clues of any kind. The assassin was long gone. Who would want Cody dead? Presumably someone who didn’t want her talking about whatever it was she had discovered. Something about Wormwood.

There was a knock on his door. Housekeeping?

“Go away!” yelled Eddie.

Another knock.

“I said, go away!”

“It’s destiny, Eddie,” said an all-too-familiar voice. “Are you going to let destiny languish in the hall?”

“Go away, Culain! Or Cain, or whatever your name is!” Cain was the last person Eddie wanted to see. Eddie wondered if he knew about Cody. No, of course not. How could he? She had been dead for less than an hour. Eddie had been the last person she saw.

If I had any decency, I’d tell him his daughter is dead, thought Eddie. But I don’t. Anyway, screw Cain. He’s a murderer and a manipulative jerk. Let him find out on his own.

“Eddie!”

“Go away! I don’t want to talk to you!”

“I’m not leaving, Eddie.”

“I’ll call hotel security.”

“Just let me in, Eddie. I need to talk to you. I’ve got some information for you.”

“Information about what?”

“About the story you’re writing.”

“I’m not writing any story. I’m done with that. Go away!”

“So you don’t want to know how it ends?”

“No!”

“OK. But I’m leaving something for you. In case you get curious.” He heard Cain slip something under the door. “Good-bye, Eddie,” said Cain.

Eddie said nothing. He sat in the dark for another hour before his curiosity got the better of him. He turned on a lamp and walked to the door. On the carpet just inside the door lay a
red plastic item the size and shape of a penknife. Eddie picked it up. It was a USB drive.

He walked to his laptop, which was resting on the small hotel desk, and plugged the drive into one of the slots in the back. The laptop had been a gift from Finch Publishing, to facilitate his writing of the final Charlie Nyx book. Eddie normally wrote all of his reports longhand, but Wanda Kwan had insisted. They had even scanned his manuscript and the boxes and boxes of background information Cain had given him, because he had refused to come to Los Angeles without them. Over the past few days, he had learned how to type passably and had become enamored of the little magic box.

The USB drive held hundreds of pages of information: everything from high-resolution scans of the Sumerian manuscript Cain had been tasked to rewrite to the six completed Charlie Nyx books to ramblings on the “secret history of Los Angeles.” Cain had evidently stolen his own daughter’s notes. Classy.

The Sumerian manuscript was a chaotic mishmash of unintelligible symbols and pictograms, and Cody’s notes weren’t much better. Her notes were composed mostly of bizarre and probably imagined correlations between disparate people and events that resembled a demented game of word association. For example:

• Six of seven
  Mercury
  astronauts attended the opening of Space Mountain in Anaheim. Exception: Gus Grissom—died in mysterious launchpad fire.
  
• Gus Grissom was a MASON: Also possible relative of Karl Grissom, antichrist???
  
• Who is Mercury???
  

Poor Cody, running around trying to make sense of conspiracies far above her pay grade. Eddie couldn’t imagine there was any real connection between the Mercury astronauts, the Masons, and the Antichrist. And yet, somehow this chaotic method of paranoia-riddled word association had allowed her to piece together much of the convoluted scheming of Tiamat and Lucifer. Her obsession with the Los Angeles streetcar conspiracy led her to believe that diabolical entities had manipulated the development of the Los Angeles suburbs to enable the construction of a vast system of underground tunnels—a ridiculous conclusion that was nevertheless completely true. And that wasn’t all. Cody believed that she had discovered the true purpose of the tunnels.

According to her notes, the tunnels were part of something called a Chrono-Collider Device, which had been built by an occult organization known as the Order of the Pillars of Babylon. The OPB—spearheaded by billionaire Horace Finch—had intended to use the CCD to unearth the most profound mysteries of the cosmos, thereby asserting their dominance over time and space. The OPB had been founded thousands of years ago in the wake of Tiamat’s own failed attempts to exert control over the time-space continuum. It was unclear from Cody’s notes what Tiamat’s current relationship to the OPB was. Was she now its leader?

Besides the Sumerian scrawlings and Cody’s ramblings, there was one other file on the drive, modestly titled “Supplemental Information.” Eddie opened it and was stunned at what he found. The document was an encyclopedic accounting of virtually everything that had happened over the past three days, from Eddie’s encounter with Wanda Kwan in Cork to the implosion of the moon. It was hundreds of pages long. Eddie spent the next six hours poring through the document, barely taking time to blink.

“Unbelievable,” he gasped as he read of the existence of a second Chrono-Collider Device underneath Eden II, Horace Finch’s vanity project in Kenya. That lunatic Finch had nearly destroyed the world with his scheme to use the CCD to trap mysterious subatomic particles called chrotons. The receptacle he was planning to use to store the chrotons was an anti-bomb—a millennia-old glass apple that Christine Temetri had found hidden in a cave. The anti-bomb would have killed everyone on Earth if he had succeeded. Fortunately, Jacob Slater had sabotaged the CCD and stolen the apple, and Mercury flew it to the moon before it went off.