Authors: Robert Kroese
Gamaliel took two steps
toward Michelle and punched her in the face, causing her to stumble backwards
and crash into a monitor. She slunk to the floor, blood pouring from her nose.
“You have no idea how long
I’ve been waiting to do that, you sanctimonious bitch.” He turned to one of the
men. “Tie them up. We’ll lock them both in a closet until Possum Kingdom
reopens.”
Chapter Forty-three
About a thousand miles above
Earth; August 2016
Mercury shot into space, pushing in
front of him the absurd contraption that Balderhaz repeatedly assured him was a
fully functioning mind control transmitter. The existing transmitter had to be
removed and this one put in place in order for their scheme to turn the tables
on Tiamat. Of course, the new transmitter would do no good if Suzy’s software
patch hadn’t been uploaded to the Myrmidon server, but Mercury was blissfully
unaware of the challenges facing Eddie and Michelle. Balderhaz had told him the
installation was simple: he just had to rip the old one off the satellite, duct
tape the new one in place, and connect the signal cable. A roll of duct tape
was tucked inside the oil drum for the purpose.
Finding a satellite that was roughly the size of a minivan
in the vast expanse of space hundreds of miles above Earth’s atmosphere was
tricky, even when you knew roughly where the satellite was. Mercury had managed
to secure a GPS locator/altimeter, but it wasn’t perfectly accurate and it
didn’t make it any easier to locate an object against the black canopy of
space. He finally noticed the silvery outline of the satellite at the precise
moment he spotted another object on the horizon. This second object was growing
rapidly larger, and he quickly realized it wasn’t an object but a person:
someone was rocketing toward him at immense speed.
Mercury shot toward the satellite in the hopes that he could
get there and secure the transmitter before the figure closed with him, but it
soon became clear this wasn’t going to happen. The figure was on a trajectory
to intercept Mercury before he reached the satellite. Mercury put on a final
burst of speed and then, just before the figure hit him, hurled the transmitter
in the direction of the satellite. With a little luck, he’d be able to deal
with the interloper and then catch up to the transmitter before it started
falling.
Then the figure hit him like a freight train. Whoever it
was, he’d been traveling several hundred miles an
hour,
and Mercury felt ribs snap as a shoulder impacted against his chest. He and the
mystery man tumbled through space over the vast blue globe. Mercury could only
hope that the attacker was in half as much pain as he was.
Mercury managed to wriggle out of the figure’s grasp and,
trying to ignore the pain in his ribs, pulled his knees up and then kicked hard
against the man’s chest. They had reached the apogee of their ascent and for a
moment the two hung suspended in space, looking at each other. The man grinned
at Mercury. He didn’t seem to be in a lot of pain.
Izbazel.
If there was one demon that hated Mercury more than
Gamaliel, it was Izbazel. And while Izbazel was no match for Mercury in a
battle of wits, it was anyone’s guess
who
would come
out on top in a no-holds-barred exospheric donnybrook.
Especially
when Mercury already had half a dozen cracked ribs.
Getting his bearings, Mercury located the transmitter, which
had nearly reached the apogee of its flight, still a hundred yards from the
satellite. Within a few seconds, unless someone intervened, the transmitter
would begin plummeting to the Earth below. Even at nearly a thousand miles
above the surface, the grip of Earth’s gravity was very strong.
Mercury wanted to say something clever to Izbazel, like,
“Congratulations, you’re not the dumbest person on Earth anymore,” but his
broken ribs—not to mention the near complete lack of atmosphere—made talking
problematic. He contented himself with mouthing the word
asshole
, and
then shot past Izbazel toward the transmitter.
He caught the contraption before it had fallen more than a
couple hundred yards, and once again hurled it toward the satellite. He tried
to overshoot a bit this time, to give
himself
a little
more time to deal with Izbazel. Hopefully his aim in the quarter-mile oil drum
toss wasn’t any better than his aim with a ping pong ball, because if the
transmitter hit the satellite at a hundred miles an hour, this whole plan was
going to be moot.
Mercury was about to turn to face Izbazel when he noticed
another figure rocketing toward him from the opposite direction. If he’d had
any air in his lungs, and if he could move his chest without experiencing
intense pain, he might have sighed. It figured that Tiamat wouldn’t leave her
satellite guarded by a single demon.
Allowing himself to fall toward the azure sphere below,
Mercury concentrated for a moment on repairing his splintered ribs. Angels
ordinarily heal at about a hundred times the rate of a human being anyway, but
with some additional effort an angel can further speed the process by fusing
broken bones and knitting together torn tissue. He’d almost completed the
process when the second figure shot past a few hundred yards overhead. The
second figure met Izbazel and the two of them stopped and changed direction to
pursue Mercury.
He halted his descent and shot spaceward once again. This
was going to be tricky. The transmitter had—fortunately—missed the satellite
and was now falling once again. Mercury needed to zoom past the two demons fast
enough that they couldn’t catch him and then slow down to catch the transmitter
without tearing it to pieces.
Barely slipping past the two demons, Mercury altered his
course to intercept the transmitter. He caught it as gently as he could and
once again hurled it toward the satellite. This was getting exhausting.
The transmitter had scarcely left Mercury’s fingertips when
both demons slammed into him simultaneously. This time Mercury couldn’t wriggle
away. Izbazel had his legs and the other one—whom he’d identified as Nisroc,
possibly the only demon more dimwitted than Izbazel—had Mercury in a bear hug.
The three angels focusing all their effort on the melee, they once again
plummeted toward Earth. Mercury twisted, jerked, kicked and even bit, but the
two demons wouldn’t let go. Far above him he saw the transmitter once again arc
past the satellite and begin to fall.
He tried to keep it in view, but Nisroc’s hand clamped over
his eyes. Meanwhile, Izbazel continued to hold his legs with one arm and pummel
Mercury in the kidneys with his other. They fell for miles, with Mercury never
ceasing to struggle. Finally he heard the faint sound of air whistling past his
ears. As it grew gradually louder, the cold of space gave way to the burning
sensation of reentry. Their rapid descent compressed the air beneath them,
causing it to go from pleasantly warm to hellishly hot. Fortunately, since they
were covering him so tightly, Nisroc and Izbazel took the brunt of it. He felt
them twisting and turning to avoid being burned, but eventually they were
either going to have to let go or exert some effort to keep from being
incinerated alive.
Nisroc broke first, releasing his grip on Mercury’s head and
pushing himself away. But Mercury took advantage of Nisroc’s shift to turn the
tables on him, getting the demon in a headlock. A moment later Izbazel gave in,
and as he tried to get away Mercury wrapped his legs around his neck, putting
him in a scissor lock.
“What the hell are you doing?” Izbazel screamed. “We’re all
going to burn up!”
Mercury grinned as he felt the skin on his knuckled blister.
“If I’m going down,” he yelled, “you two dumbasses are coming with me!”
Chapter Forty-four
Provo,
Utah; August 2016
Gamaliel’s
men had just finished zip-tying Michelle and Eddie’s hands behind their backs
when Eddie’s phone chirped. Gamaliel looked at the man holding the phone,
who
shrugged it and handed it to Gamaliel. “Text message,”
the man said.
Gamaliel frowned as he read
the screen. “You,” he growled at Eddie. “What does this mean?” He held the
phone out to Eddie. It read:
ur
covered :)
Eddie smiled. “You’re the one
with the secret weapon,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Gamaliel glowered at Eddie
and grabbed the hair dryer out of the man’s hand. He pointed it at himself and
pulled the trigger, blasting himself with hot air.
“What the hell?” said
Gamaliel.
“This is just a hair dryer.”
“No shit,” said Michelle,
getting to her feet and wiping the blood from her lip with the back of her hand.
Gamaliel noticed that somehow she’d gotten her hands loose. “Eddie, do you mind
taking care of the goon squad?”
“Um?” said Eddie.
“Oh, sure.”
Eddie waved his hand and the six men’s guns were
suddenly jerked out of their hands. The rifles hung in mid-air over their heads
for a split-second, and then jerked backward, the butt of each gun striking its
owner in the temple, as Eddie had been struck a moment earlier. The six men
slumped to the ground simultaneously.
Meanwhile, Michelle had
leaped six feet in the air, soaring toward Gamaliel as she tucked her arms and
legs against her body. Gamaliel, who was still in shock that Eddie had somehow
performed a miracle while inside the Balderhaz field, was taken by surprise.
When Michelle was an arm’s length from Gamaliel, she suddenly straightened,
striking him full force in the mouth with the heel of her boot. Gamaliel’s head
jerked back and he stumbled backwards, falling to the floor and striking his
head on the wall behind him. Michelle landed in a crouch.
“Eddie!” she snapped.
“Huh?” asked Eddie, who was
still admiring his handiwork with the goon squad. He turned toward Michelle
just in time to see her throw the thumb drive. He managed to catch it as
Michelle renewed her offensive against Gamaliel. She leaped at him, trying to
drive his head into the wall behind him, but Gamaliel had just enough presence
of mind to slide out of the way. The butt of Michelle’s palm slammed into the
wall, crashing through the drywall. Gamaliel got slowly to his feet, spitting blood
and broken teeth on the floor.
“Eddie!” Michelle yelled
again, trying to extract her tiny fist from the wall.
“The
patch!”
Eddie nodded and went to one
of the computers, plugging in the USB drive.
Gamaliel took a step forward,
holding out his hand toward Eddie. Gamaliel wasn’t stupid; he’d figured out
that someone else nearby was using the anti-Balderhaz field gun to allow
Michelle and Eddie to manipulate interplanar energy. But that meant Gamaliel
could perform miracles as well. Wiping out data stored on magnetic media was
the easiest thing in the world for an angel to do. A miniscule amount of
interplanar energy could be converted into a powerful electromagnetic pulse,
erasing every bit of data on every computer in the building. But Eddie was
exerting as much effort as he could muster into not letting Gamaliel get ahold
of any interplanar energy in the area. He couldn’t hold Gamaliel off forever,
but he could buy Michelle enough time for another attack.
Michelle had already gotten
free from the wall and was moving toward Gamaliel when the latter suddenly
crouched down and then shot directly upward, crashing through the ceiling.
Through the hole, the night sky could be seen.
“Suzy!” cried Eddie.
“I’m on it,” said Michelle.
“Run the patch!” Michelle shot through the hole in the ceiling after Gamaliel.
Eddie found the patch file on
the thumb drive, uploaded it to the Myrmidon server, and executed the file. A
progress indicator crept across the screen as the software was updated. Behind
him, several of the goons were stirring. Eddie tried to give them another
knock, but he suddenly found himself unable to grab hold of any interplanar
energy. Suzy must have moved out of range with the anti-Balderhaz field gun.
The progress indicator was at thirty-seven percent. Eddie smiled nervously as
three of the six men picked up their guns and got to their feet. They didn’t
look happy.
“OK, look, guys,” said Eddie.
“All I’m doing is patching the software. It’s no big deal. It’s like when that
window pops up and asks you if you want to update Java.”
The three men exchanged angry
glances.
“I hate that fucking thing,”
said one of them.
The other two grunted in
agreement, and Eddie realized he’d made a serious tactical error. Everybody
hated Java updates.
The three men moved toward
him. “Get out of the way,” the first one said, “or—”
But at that moment Michelle
and Gamaliel came crashing back through the ceiling, flattening the three men.
Michelle was on Gamaliel’s back, with her legs wrapped around his stomach and
her arms around his neck. Gamaliel was growling and trying to pry her arms off.
Eddie glanced at the screen.
The progress indicator was at fifty-eight percent. If he could keep Michelle
and Gamaliel from smashing the computer in the next couple of minutes, their
mission would be a success. Gamaliel got up, staggered back and forth for a few
seconds, further trampling the barely conscious men he’d just landed on, and
then barreled backwards into the bare wall behind him.