Mercury Falls (10 page)

"Lodi?" Christine asked. "You mean. . .?"

"Yeah, like the song."

"You said what's-his-name, Keith, the Antichrist, was in Lodi. Is that him?" She pointed at the red dot.

"Hard to say," said Mercury. "I know he shows up at Charlie's Grill openings sometimes. But as far as I know, these sort of celebrity appearances generally don't involve the celebrity climbing onto the roof of the building next door."

"So who. . .?"

On the screen, it appeared that a crowd was assembling in the parking lot. The figure now glowed so brightly that his or her features were obscured.

"Wow," said Mercury.

"What? Who is it?"

"That, if the case is to be believed," said Mercury, "is one very angry individual."

A common belief on the Mundane Plane is that the lack of free will is what separates angels from human beings. This, of course, is rubbish. Given that the Almighty has preordained all things, free will is necessarily an illusion. As illusions go, however, it's an extremely convincing one, and we angels are just as subject to it as humans are. The difference is that humans, being mortal, don't have an eternity to make up for their mistakes, and therefore they take the illusion much more seriously.

One of the consequences of the hold this illusion has on human beings is the disproportionate amount of their limited time that human beings spend trying to figure out just how much freedom they don't have and what, if anything, they can do about it.

Two schools of thought have emerged on the issue.

The determinist argues that in a Universe governed by the principle of cause and effect, every event must have a cause. Further, if every event has a cause, then there is no such thing as "freedom"—every event is determined by the prior succession of events. The actions of human beings are not immune to this rule: everything a person does must have been determined by prior causes. Free will, then, is an illusion. Everything human beings have ever done—and will ever do—has been determined for eternity.

The advocate of free will blames the determinist for excusing all sorts of crimes, from child abuse to mass murder. After all, if everything we do is determined for us, then there can be no such thing as guilt or responsibility.

The determinist responds, "Well, what are you blaming
me
for? I didn't make the rules. Don't shoot the messenger and all that."

The free will advocate replies, "Why
shouldn't
I shoot the messenger? After all, if I do, it won't be my fault. It may simply have been determined from the beginning of time that I was going to shoot you."

Eventually the determinist concedes that perhaps the best option is for everyone to pretend that we have free will, since we don't really seem to have any choice in the matter, and he rather likes not being shot at.

The free will advocate begrudgingly accepts this compromise but insists that he is being magnanimous and was in no way obligated to do so.
⁸

In the end, there isn't much practical difference between the two positions, which explains how most people on the Mundane Plane are able to believe, to some degree, in both of them simultaneously.

One such person was Danny Pilvers, who had been predestined from the beginning of time to be a would-be assassin. Danny Pilvers took very seriously indeed the illusion that he was making choices of his own free will. He had, he believed, made up his own mind to assassinate Karl Grissom, the Antichrist, while simultaneously believing that assassinating Karl Grissom was his inexorable destiny.

As fate would have it, he managed to be wrong on both counts.

Christine didn't know, of course, that Danny Pilvers was a would-be assassin. To Christine, who was just pulling into the parking lot some fifty feet away, he looked very much like an actual assassin. The fact that no one else noticed Danny was a testament to how still he was able to be, as well as how preoccupied the spectators were, because his green camouflage clashed badly with the brick-red tile roof of the Burger Giant.

Christine gunned the accelerator.

"Get down!" she shouted. But the Camry's windows were up, and the Charlie Nyx theme was reaching a crescendo. Even the roar of the engine was drowned out by crashing of cymbals.

Karl Grissom stood next to his car, fumbling with his keys. He was wearing a black polyester Antichrist costume which, despite having been custom-made for him, appeared to be at least three sizes too small. On his head was a football helmet—sans faceguard—that had been spray-painted black and had two large goat horns glued to it. What with the goat-head helmet and metal-studded black leather gauntlets, Karl was having a hell of a time with his keychain.

Most people would consider what happened over the next three seconds to be a highly unlikely set of coincidences. In fact, it was a highly unlikely string of events occurring in rapid succession, topped off with two minor miracles.

First, the Charlie Nyx theme ended, and the polarized crowd erupted in polite applause and hisses, respectively, depending on which side of the cheeseburger demarcation ribbon they were on.

Danny Pilvers took a deep breath.

Karl Grissom removed the goat helmet and placed it on the roof of the Saturn.

The director of marketing for Charlie's Grill said, "Let's have one more round of applause for the Antichrist. Give it up for Karl Grissom!"

Everyone looked toward Karl, who was now completely hidden from the crowd by the Saturn and the goat-head helmet.

Karl dropped his keys and bent over to pick them up.

Danny Pilvers, who had trained the sight of his rifle precisely between the goat horns, squeezed the trigger.

A bullet traveled from the barrel of the rifle toward the area that Karl's head had occupied roughly four tenths of a second earlier. The bullet punched a finger-sized hole through the front of the helmet.

The same bullet then punched a similar hole through the back of the helmet.

The bullet, having thoroughly enjoyed this hole-punching business, proceeded to punch holes in the windows of four nearby cars, finally coming to rest on Chapter 41 of a dog-eared copy of
Gravity's Rainbow
, which is 186 pages farther than anyone else had ever gotten.

The helmet flew off the Saturn, caromed off a Dodge Caravan with two shattered windows, and smacked Karl Grissom in the forehead, knocking him unconscious.

Gasps of horror, excitement, and/or glee escaped from the crowd.

Christine's Camry slammed to a halt in front of Karl's Saturn. She threw the door open and yelled, "Get in!"

Karl did not get in because, having been struck on the head by a football helmet 2.8 seconds earlier, he was still unconscious.

Danny Pilvers, whose view of the Antichrist had been obscured by a rented Camry, decided to redirect his anger to a more accessible target. He set his sights on the plucky brunette behind the wheel and squeezed the trigger again.

At this point, Minor Miracle Number One occurred: the bullet discharged by Danny Pilvers's rifle decided, halfway between Danny and Christine, that it didn't share the hole-punching affinity of its comrade. It decided, in fact, to stop in midair, reverse course, and jump right back down the barrel of Danny Pilvers's gun. It did this with enough enthusiasm to throw Danny Pilvers off balance, causing him to roll off the tiled roof of the Burger Giant, bounce off the limb of a nearby shade tree, and break his collarbone on the value menu next to the drive-through.

Immediately thereafter, Minor Miracle Number Two occurred: the left rear door of the Camry opened by itself. Karl Grissom's limp mass rose three feet off the ground and floated into the Camry, coming to rest gently on the backseat. The door closed itself.

Christine, half expecting a pillar of fire to descend at any moment and void her insurance, turned and stared dumbly at Mercury.

"This would be a good time to leave," Mercury said.

She nodded and threw the car into reverse, peeling dramatically out of the parking lot. Screams and shouts from the bewildered bystanders followed them.

"Well," said Mercury. "That's going to get us some attention."

"I don't get it," Christine said. "Why does this stuff keep happening? Is this part of some kind of plot?"

She was having a hard time processing the sheer number of explosions, killings, and near killings she had experienced over the past few days. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Was this what she had to look forward to for the rest of her life, however long that would be? Just a series of random explosions? Where was the Universe
going
with this? She was beginning to feel like a character in one of Katie Midford's juvenile novels, in which—she had heard—every chapter ended with an explosion to keep the reader's interest.

They were back on the freeway, now headed south on I-5. Karl lay moaning and holding his head in the backseat. Mercury had looked him over and determined that he hadn't been seriously injured. Christine had to trust that angels knew about such things. Karl's house wasn't far; Mercury had rattled off the address—apparently from memory—in response to Christine's rhetorical hand-wringing about what to do with Karl. She figured she'd drop Karl off at home and then continue to her home in Southern California.

Mercury was in the passenger's seat, fiddling with the controls of the Attache Case of War. "Man, things are heating up in Syria," he said.

"Well?" Christine demanded.

"Well what?"

"Is there a point to all this, or is it just the Universe toying with me again?"

"Hmmm," said Mercury, "I did mention something about the Apocalypse."

"And what was that back there? I mean, am I wrong or did Karl
float
into the backseat of my rental car?"

"Minor miracle," said Mercury. "All cherubim can do them. Assuming there's no interference, that is. I'm surprised they let me get away with two of them. Maybe they didn't have time to trace me after the first one."

"Two miracles?"

"Yeah, the first was more impressive, really. That second bullet was headed straight for—"

"And what are you
doing
here, anyway? If you didn't want to be involved in the Apocalypse, why are you hanging out with me and Karl the Antichrist, playing with your magic box?"

"The Apocalypse isn't like jury duty, Christine. I can't just opt out because I don't feel like playing."

"So you're just along for the ride?"

"Something like that. You're a fun person to hang out with. Besides, if you're going to risk your neck to do something stupid like save Dickweed here from assassination, I feel obligated to keep you from getting yourself killed."

"Hey," said Karl from the backseat. "What the hell?"

"None of this makes any sense to me," Christine said.

"Did you expect it to?" Mercury asked.

"It's just. . ." Christine said. "I pictured the Apocalypse being more. . ."

"Organized?"

"Well, yes. Isn't there supposed to be a more structured timetable? Rivers of blood, that sort of thing? I mean, what does this guy Karl have to do with anything?"

Karl sat up, still rubbing his head. "Did you hit me with your car? I think I've got whiplash. It hurts like a mother—"

"He's the Antichrist," explained Mercury. "Can't have an Apocalypse without an Antichrist. That would be like
The King and I
without Yul Brynner."

"Yul Brynner died in 1985."

"And it hasn't been the same since, has it?"

"OK, but this guy is clearly not the actual Antichrist. Look at him."

Karl was a heavyset, balding man in his late thirties, with pasty skin and a dull look in his eyes. He had the look of someone who spent most of his time playing video games in his mother's attic, probably because he did, in fact, spend most of his time playing video games in his mother's attic.

"What are you, retarded?" said Karl. "Everybody knows I'm the Antichrist. And guess what, now the Antichrist is going to sue you for hitting him with your stupid car and then kidnapping me—I mean him. Who are you people anyway?"

"She's a reporter," said Mercury. "She's doing a story on you."

Christine started, "No, we're taking you—"

"And what happened back there? I don't even remember. . ."

"You passed out back at Charlie's Grill," said Mercury. "Must have been the heat."

"Where's my friggin' helmet? I only have six of those, you know." He was peering at Christine in the rearview mirror. "Your face is kind of weird."

"We're taking you home, Karl," Christine said.

"For the interview," said Mercury. "We're going to interview you at home."

Christine turned to Mercury. "Why are you doing this?"

"You are a reporter, right? Karl here is a big story. Even bigger now that someone has tried to kill him."

Christine muttered, "Why would anyone want to kill
him
?"

"Kill who?" asked Karl.

"'
Kill who
?'" repeated Christine incredulously. "Don't you know what—"

"Charlie Nyx," interjected Mercury. "There's a plot to kill Charlie Nyx."

"Well, duh," said Karl. "The Circle of Seven was exposed at the end of
Charlie Nyx and the Flaming Cup
. The Urlocks wanted to kill Charlie so that—"

"Shhhh!" Mercury said. "Christine hasn't read
The Flaming Cup
yet. Don't spoil it for her."

"You haven't read. . .have you read
any
of the Charlie Nyx books?"

"She's a journalist. Not much of a reader."

"That's me," said Christine. "If it weren't for my duties chauffeuring the Antichrist to and from assassination attempts, I'd never lift my knuckles off the ground at all."

"So she's a reporter," said Karl. "Who are you?"

"Well," Christine began, "he's an angel. . ."

"Agent," Mercury said. "She means agent. I'm here to talk to you about doing a cameo in the next Charlie Nyx movie. Name's Mercury."

"Mercury? Is that Jewish or something?"

"Yes, exactly," Mercury said. "I'm a six-foot-four Jew with silver hair. Just like Jesus."

"What about my car?" said Karl. "You can't just leave my car at Charlie's Grill."

"Why don't you get some sleep, Karl," said Mercury. "You probably have a concussion from that knock on your head."

Christine said, with some concern, "Aren't you supposed to keep someone awake if they. . ."

But Karl was already snoring in the backseat.

"Don't worry," said Mercury. "He doesn't have a concussion. Probably. Anyway, that was just a mild sleep suggestion. Perfectly safe."

"Another minor miracle?"

"It may surprise you to find that many people find me very persuasive. I don't resort to using miracles for every little mundane thing."

"Just momentous tasks like card tricks."

"That was a demonstration. Special circumstances."

"Like wanting to impress me?"

"Why, did it work?"

Christine decided to change the subject. "Do you know as much about Karl as you do about me?"

"More. Not to denigrate your importance, but he
is
the Antichrist."

"So you're saying that he really is
the
Antichrist? Not just the winner of some stupid contest, the
actual Antichrist
?"

"That's the intel I have," Mercury said. "He wasn't exactly what I expected either."

"Then who was that trying to shoot him?"

"Not sure," said Mercury. "That wasn't in the SPAM."

"The Schedule of. . ."

"Plagues, Announcements, and Miracles."

"But why would it be? I wouldn't think that shootings by crazed gunmen would make it onto that kind of schedule."

"No, you're right. In fact, individual mortals don't play much of a role in the Apocalypse. Your role is primarily to panic, start wars, and die from pestilence. Those are activities normally done in large groups. When an individual person does something truly unexpected, there is usually some unauthorized supernatural intervention involved."

"So," she said to Mercury, "you're saying that we have no say in our own Apocalypse? The whole thing has been scheduled for us, and we don't even get to play?"

"Pretty much. But that's basically your whole history in a nutshell. We give you a certain amount of freedom, but when things go too badly off course, the SPAM kicks in. Cherubim like me make adjustments and get things moving in the right direction again."

"So what happens when someone like Lee Harvey back there goes off his meds?"

"Precautions are taken to keep things like that from happening."

"Very effective, I see. So why did you save Karl?"

"Oh, you know. It seemed unsportsmanlike. I still think he's a dickweed."

At this point, three things happened at almost—but not quite—exactly the same time.

First, Christine noticed a blue light flashing in her rearview mirror. Two cops on motorcycles. Probably CHP, she thought.

Second, she passed a sign reading, "Lodi Next 3 Exits."

Third, Christine realized that Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Lodi" was playing on the radio.

"Dammit!" Christine spat.

Just about a year ago, I set out on the road. . .

"What?" said Mercury.

"Police," said Christine.

Seekin' my fame and fortune, lookin' for a pot of gold. . .

"I think this is Lynyrd Skynyrd," said Mercury.

"CCR," said Christine. "It's synchronicity."

Things got bad, and things got worse, I guess you know the tune. . .

"Synchronicity?" said Mercury, glancing in the rearview mirror. "OK, now
that's
the police."

"It's CCR. Creedence Clearwater Revival."

"Creedence Clearwater Revival is pulling us over on motorcycles? Damn, this is a weird town."

Oh lord, stuck in Lodi again.

"What do I do?"

"Well, if they were cops I'd pull over. But I don't know what the protocol is for being pulled over by John Fogerty."

"What, no miracles up your sleeve for this one?"

"Every miracle I perform is one more chance for you to be playing ping-pong with Ariel for eternity. So what do you say we take our chances with Ponch and John here."

Christine grumbled and pulled over. The cops stopped about twenty feet back. One remained on his bike, while the other walked up to Mercury's side of the car. Mercury rolled down the window.

"Nice bike," Mercury said. "I was going to get one, but my wife here says they lower your sperm count. We're trying to have another baby," he added, glancing lovingly at Karl, still sound asleep in the back.

"Step out of the car, please," said the cop. He was muscular and tall—almost as tall as Mercury. An angular jaw jutted out from beneath his visor.

"Something wrong, officer?" asked Christine.

"Please just step out of the car, sir," said the cop. His hand was on his holster.

"OK," Mercury said. "But I am
not
going to squeal like a pig, no matter how nicely you ask."

Mercury got out and stood in front of the cop.

"Turn around."

"You have to buy me dinner first."

"Turn
around
," the cop said, more angrily this time. His thumb flicked the snap of the holster.

"OK, OK, no need for that. Can I see some ID, though?"

The cop looked sternly at Mercury for a moment, then started to laugh. He reached into his belt and pulled out a small piece of charred paper. He held it up for Mercury to see.

It was the ace of spades.

The cop flicked the card at Mercury. It twirled and landed at his feet, facedown. A pair of bicycle-riding cherubim adorned the back.

"Striking resemblance, isn't it?" the cop said. He holstered his gun and removed his helmet. The man could have been Mercury's brother.

"Gamaliel," said Mercury coldly. "I suppose that's Izbazel back there."

The cop on the bike smiled and waved.

"They're cherubim," said Mercury to Christine.

"Oh, thank God," said Christine, stepping out of the car. "We thought you were going to arrest us for kidnapping, or being involved in the assassination attempt. You have no idea how relieved—"

"That was pretty stupid, using the Attache Case of War," Gamaliel said. "You made it very easy to find you. Good thing we started intercepting the signals after the pillar of fire destroyed your house. That was impressive, by the way. You've evidently made someone very angry."

"Evidently," said Mercury.

"You know what we want, Mercury."

"Well," said Mercury, "if you're anything like me, a Styx reunion tour is pretty high on the list."

"Give him to me."

Mercury started, "I'm sure I don't—"

"The Antichrist, Mercury. Hand him over."

"Hang on," said Christine. "We just saved this guy's ass. What exactly are you planning on—"

Gamaliel pulled his gun. "Obviously," he said flatly, "we're going to kill him."