Something Magic This Way Comes (22 page)

“Grisibald, where have you been?” the wizard said to Ralph.

* * *

Frank put his car into park and sipped his coffee while the song on the radio finished. A hot shower and a good night sleep in his own bed had gone a long way to restoring his faith in the world.

The wizard had returned Rita and him to their own world the day before. Ralph turned out to be his assistant, who had been missing for a couple of weeks. The wizard was the one who recharged the magic in Gerold’s remote, but he didn’t know what he used it for.

Ralph had delivered it and accidentally pressed the button while handing it to Gerold. Once in Denver, Gerold had knocked Ralph out and set him up to be locked away for a long time.

Frank reluctantly headed into his office. He was sure he had several irate clients that he’d have to deal with because of his absence.

Rita was at her desk when he opened the door.

Frank smiled when he saw her.

“Good morning, Rita,” said Frank. “I’m sure I’ve got a stack of messages to deal with.”

“Yes,” said Rita. She rose from her desk and motioned for Frank to follow her. “But we’ve got a bigger problem resolve first.”

Rita led Frank down the hall to the extra office they used for storage. The door was open and inside Frank saw Ralph, sitting at a desk.

“Ralph, what are you doing here?” Frank asked.

“I’m setting up my desk. I’m going to work for you,” Ralph said.

“What are you talking about? You’re cured. You can go back to your world and your old job,” said Frank.

“Naw, that’s not for me anymore. I want to work for you and catch bad guys,” said Ralph.

“But Ralph, that’s not going to work,” said Frank.

“Sure it is,” said Ralph. “Word got around fast about how you captured Gerold. There’s lots of people back in Fips who want to hire us. Frank started to protest again, but Ralph cut him off. “Don’t worry,” Ralph said as he patted his pocket.

“I’ve got my frog pills. They keep my allergies in check.”

Frank sat in the extra chair. He felt his sanity shift to the back seat as it sank in that his life would never be the same again.

“S
TILL sore about Job, huh?” snickered Baalzebub.

The Prince of Darkness took a swipe at the archdevil with his tail, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“It was a fluke,” he grumbled. “A statistical freak. So what if God found one faithful man in a sea of sinners? I should have played the odds.”

“How?”

“I should have bet Him on the whole lousy human race.”

Baalzebub shook his head. “God never would have gone for it. Too much work, visiting personal suffering on all those people. He’s lazy, when you get right down to it. Worked six lousy days and thinks He ought to be able to lounge around the rest of eternity. Coupon clipper. We proletarian types down here
never
get a day off.”

Satan glowered about the stygian gloom of Hell.

He’d gotten tired of Dante’s Renaissance decor lately, so he’d gone back to Classic. Even the reek of brimstone and the screams of tortured sinners didn’t cheer him up.

“I know, I know. That’s why I agreed to bet on Job. I got taken to the cleaners.”

Baalzebub hesitated. Not for the first time, the thought crossed his mind that being chief adviser to the Lord of Evil was not without its drawbacks.

“Maybe you should quit gambling with—”

He ducked Satan’s pitchfork and dived behind a smoldering rock.

“He’s God, dammit! You can’t win. The house odds will get you every time.”

But Satan wasn’t willing to listen to reason. He never was, which (when you get right down to it) is why he’s the Prince of Darkness instead of the Lord of Light.

“There’s gotta be a way to beat Him,” he snarled, after resuming his seat. “All I’ve got to do is figure out a way to get Him to bet on the whole miserable human race.”

He cackled, rubbing his taloned paws. “Any bet on the whole bunch, I’m bound to win!”

Deciding it was safe, Baalzebub resumed his seat.

“Yeah, sure, no question about it. But it’s like I said—He’s a cloud potato. Hates to work up a sweat.”

Satan slouched and stared at his cloven hooves gloomily. Suddenly, he sat up straight.

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it! I’ll bet Him the human race will lose its faith in Creation!”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you see? He’s got such a swelled head over that Genesis business that he won’t be able to resist.”

Baalzebub scratched his horns.

“I still don’t get it. Of course He’ll bet on it. Why shouldn’t He? He’s bound to win. I mean, look at the thing!”

And so saying, Baalzebub exerted his archdevilish powers and brought before the superhuman vision of the Lord of Flies the entire vista of Creation, in all its glory and splendor.

“You see what I mean? Even creatures as stupid as humans aren’t going to doubt for a minute that something this grand was created by a Creator. How else could it have come to be? Even a moron examining a watch is going to figure out that it took a watchmaker to—”

“
Will you shut up about the stupid watch?
I’m sick of hearing it!”

Satan hawked up a lunger and spit on a nearby sinner. A bit mollified, he watched the damned one’s flesh boil away.

“I’ve already figured it out,” he announced firmly.

“All you have to do is provide humans with an alternate explanation, and they’ll jump at it.”

Baalzebub frowned with puzzlement. “What alternative explanation?”

Satan spread his arms in a grand gesture. “Evolution, that’s what!”

“Huh? What’s ‘evolution’?”

So the Prince of Darkness explained to his chief archdevil the entire theory of evolution, which he had just thought up on the spot. (He’s evil, but he’s not stupid.)

He explained mutations and natural selection and particulate inheritance and the double helix, and all the rest of it. By the time he was finished, Baalzebub was rolling on the ground, roaring with laughter.

“That’s the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard!” he gasped. “Not even humans would fall for it.”

Satan grinned. “They will if there’s a shred of evidence.”

“But there isn’t any.”

“There will be, once God makes it. It won’t be hard for Him, either, so He won’t be able to wriggle out of the bet. He’s already made the universe, hasn’t He? All He’s got to do is fiddle with a few details. Throw in some old bones, things like that.”

Baalzebub pondered his master’s words. “You know, you just might be onto something here,” he mused. Then he shook his head firmly.

“No, no. I go back to what I said earlier—there’s no percentage is betting against the Almighty. He’ll figure some way to welsh on the bet, no matter what happens.”

But Satan was set on his course. Straight away he ascended to the heavens and bellowed for God to show His face. After the Lord of Creation manifested Himself, the Prince of Darkness explained the proposition.

God accepted the wager immediately. (He’s not at all indecisive.)

O
NCE A CHUMP
,
ALWAYS A CHUMP
. W
HEN ARE YOU
EVER
GOING TO LEARN
,
YOU PIPSQUEAK
?

Instantly God set about creating the evidence of evolution. He caused great fossils to come into being deep in the bowels of the earth. He created DNA, RNA, the works. He created radioactivity and then changed the laws of nature so that radioactive materials would decay at a precise rate. Because He’s a sporting kind of Guy, He even made some peas smooth and some peas wrinkled, so that human dumbbells could figure out genetics.

When He was finished, he showed His work to Satan.

G
OOD ENOUGH
?

Satan examined the evidence and announced that he was satisfied.

“Once humans get a load of this stuff, they’ll dump the Genesis story in a fast minute,” he chortled. “Give humans a choice between musty old legends and the evidence in front of their own eyes, they’ll trust their senses every time. Idiots.”

N
OT AFTER THEY SEE THE COUNTER-EVIDENCE
.

“What counter-evidence?” demanded the Devil. “There wasn’t anything in our bet about counterevidence!”

S
URE THERE IS
. W
E’RE BETTING HUMAN REASON VERSUS FAITH IN THE
B
IBLE, AM
I
RIGHT
?

Satan scowled. He could smell a rat, but he wasn’t sure just where it was.

“Well, yeah,” he admitted.

A
LL RIGHT
,
THEN
! Y
OU EVER HEAR OF THE
F
LOOD
?

Satan waved his hand dismissively. “That was just a heavy rainfall.” He snickered. “It only happened because you forgot to turn off the water.”

God glowered, but He forebore comment. The truth is, He couldn’t deny it. He’d gotten preoccupied with the creation of the Andromeda Nebula and had let the rain go on a wee bit longer than He’d intended.

But His reply was dignified, as you might expect.

N
OT AFTER
I
REDO IT
. T
HIS TIME
I’
M GOING TO DO IT UP GRAND
.

And, it goes without saying, God was as good as His Word. He rolled history back a few generations to the time of Noah. (God is not limited by the Arrow of Time. As a mere human, you won’t be able to understand how this works. That’s why He’s God and you’re not.)

NOAH.

Noah scrambled to his feet. At his urgent gesture, his three sons stood to attention. Well, Shem and Japheth did, anyway. As usual, Ham slouched.

“Yes, Sir!”

D
O YOU REMEMBER THAT HEAVY RAIN A FEW WEEKS BACK
?

“Sure do, Chief. What a doozy! For a while there, I thought we were all going to drown. Heh, heh, heh.”

IS THAT LEVITY, NOAH?

“No, Sir! No, Sir!”

I
TRUST NOT
. I
N ANY EVENT
, I’
VE DECIDED TO REDO THE RAIN
. W
E NEED A MONSTROUS FLOOD
,
YOU SEE
. D
ROWN EVERYTHING THAT MOVES ON LAND
. E
XCEPT YOU
.

“Uh, yes Sir. Everything, Sir?”

A
LL MEN AND BEASTS THAT WALK OR CRAWL UPON THE EARTH
,
OR CREEP WITHIN IT
,
OR FLY THROUGH THE AIR
.

“Uh, yes, Sir. If you don’t mind my asking, though, why the hard line?”

T
HEY ARE SINNERS ALL
.

Ham spoke up. “Uh, begging Your pardon, Sir, but I actually think most of ’em are pretty devout. Look here, for instance!”

Ignoring Noah’s glare, Ham pointed to a procession of beetles marching past, holding up icons and images of saints.

“And how about over there!” Ham pointed to a circle of baby hamsters gathered about a gray-pelted oldster, learning to genuflect.

S
INNERS
, I
SAID
,
SINNERS THEY ARE
.

And, indeed, it was just as God said. That very moment the beetles plunged into a disgusting saturnalia.

The baby hamsters (and the gray-pelted oldster!) began copulating shamelessly. In the air above, sparrows sodomized each other in midflight. Everywhere the eye could see, people were worshiping graven images.

The soil erupted with earthworms, wriggling an obscene dance.

“I am shocked, Sir! Shocked!” cried Noah.

“Sinners all!” bellowed Shem and Japheth. Ham opened his mouth to say something but fell silent at Shem’s elbow to his ribs.

Q
UITE SO
. Y
OU
,
HOWEVER
,
ARE A RIGHTEOUS MAN
,
AND SO SHALL
I
SPARE YOU
. G
ATHER UP
—

There followed a whole slew of instructions regarding the size of the ark to be built, the wood it was to be made of, how it was to be pitched, and so on and so forth. Accompanied by instructions to save two of every species, one male and one female.

Noah and his sons began scurrying around. Noah and Shem started chopping down trees. Japheth started boiling pitch in a cauldron. Ham—

—right off started causing trouble.

“Hey, Pop,” he said, tugging at Noah’s cloak.

“I’m confused.”

His father glared at him. “What could possibly be confusing, even to you? The Lord’s instructions were very clear and precise.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m confused. He said the ark was supposed to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. Right?”

“Just so.”

Ham held up his forearm and pointed to it. “That’s how long a cubit is, right?”

“Just so.”

Ham shrugged. “Ain’t gonna work, Pop. There’s millions of species on the earth. Sure, most of ’em are bugs. But even so—you got any idea how much room two elephants are gonna take up? And rhinos? And hippos? And crocodiles? And that’s another thing. How are we gonna feed them? Take a lot of hay to feed a couple of elephants. And what about all the carnivores? They can’t eat hay. We’ll have to stock the boat with other animals for them to eat.”

The little brat whistled. “It’s a real paradox, Pop. The Lord said ‘two of each kind of animal.’ No more, no less. But if we only take two, most of ’em will be gobbled up for sure. By the tigers and lions and panthers and wolves and owls and falcons and snakes and—”

“Silence!”

“—which we ain’t got room for anyway.”

Noah cuffed his son. “The Lord will provide, dolt!”

“Gee, Pop,” whined Ham, “I’m just trying to help.”

“Then do so! Gather up all the animals!”

Ham was a lippy kid, but he knew when his father wasn’t fooling around. So he obediently set forth to carry out his instructions.

There followed the most heroic saga in all of human history, unfortunately never recorded. The deeds of Hercules and Gilgamesh pale in comparison. For Ham was forced to wander all over the world collecting two of each animal that walked on the earth or wriggled in the soil. Most of which, alas, do not live in the Holy Land.