Authors: Robert Kroese
The assembled congregants of the First Satanic Church of
Milhaus gaped, speechless.
“Of course, you must know something about interplanar
travel,” said the man, “seeing as how you summoned me.”
Sean pointed wordlessly to the copy of
Demonology for
Imbeciles
, which was resting on the back of a dilapidated easy chair. The
man picked it up and thumbed through a few of the pages. “Ugh,” he said. “Where
do they get this crap? How in hell did you manage to…
oh.
Wow, they stole the whole summoning chapter from Vandersloot’s
The Little
Book What’s About Demons
. Man, I thought we’d burned all of those.” He
frowned, staring at the corrupted pentagram on the floor. “But how’d you know
my name?”
“Your name?” asked Neva.
“Well, you misspelled it,” the man said, gesturing at the
sigil, “but you got the phonetics right.”
The four regarded the sigil. “That symbol is your name?”
asked Sean.
The man nodded.
“More or less.”
“How do you pronounce it?” asked Sean.
“Oh, no,” said the man. “I’m not saying it out loud. Bad
enough you wrote it out like that.” He dragged his foot across the sigil,
obliterating it.
“But what do we call you then?” asked Neva.
“You aren’t really going to need to call me anything,” said
the man, “because I’m not planning on hanging out with you morons.” He walked
passed Neva and began up the basement stairs. He stopped and turned, grinning.
“But if you’re wondering what name to give the malevolent entity you’ve
unleashed on the world,” he said, “you can call me Mercury.”
Chapter Two
Near Rapid City, South Dakota;
August 2016
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
asked Nisroc, pausing suddenly on the trail.
Izbazel stopped short behind him and thought about it for a moment,
gazing at the massive granite faces towering over them. The fact was
,
Izbazel wasn’t at all sure it was a good idea. In fact, if
he were honest, he’d lay even odds that it was an absolutely terrible idea. But
Izbazel wasn’t particularly good at being honest with
himself
,
and he was even worse at being honest with others. “Of course I’m sure,” he
said. “You’ll see. This is going to be huge.”
Nisroc sighed and continued trudging up the sloping path.
Izbazel was immediately behind him, followed by Konrath and Scalzi. Each of
them wore a heavy pack and carried two large duffel bags, and they were
sweating in the heat of the South Dakota sun.
The four demons were all that was left of the once proud and
globally feared organization known as Chaos Faction. After pulling off a string
of several high-profile terrorist attacks around the world, Chaos Faction was
betrayed to the federal agents by one of its own, a demon named Ramiel, and
most of its members were arrested and never heard from again. Among those who
were apprehended was Tiamat, the demoness who was the brains behind Chaos
Faction, and her right-hand demon, Gamaliel.
The four demons
who
remained at
large were decidedly second-string: they had only gotten away because Tiamat
had insisted they be nowhere near the site of what turned out to be Chaos
Faction’s last major operation, knocking over Fort Knox.
[3]
That operation had failed, thanks to
Ramiel, and now Izbazel found himself in charge of what was left of the organization,
more-or-less by default. He and Nisroc were the only ones with any experience
running covert operations, and Nisroc didn’t have the temperament of a leader.
Given that the four of them were demons and therefore
capable of manipulating interplanar energy fields, it would have been a simple
matter for them to create chaos on a large scale—for example, by crashing the
computers of the New York Stock Exchange with a freak magnetic pulse, or by
replacing the face of Ben Franklin on ten million hundred dollar bills at the
Federal Reserve with that of Rick Springfield. But the modus operandi of Chaos
Faction had always been to use mundane technology, for reasons that Izbazel
wasn’t completely clear on. He thought it had something to do with not wanting
to escalate the conflict with the powers of Order into a full-fledged war. Or
maybe it was because Tiamat had wanted it to look like Chaos Faction was a
large grass-roots operation expressing the frustrations of millions of
disenfranchised people and not merely a band of rogue demons wreaking mischief.
The subtleties of Tiamat’s decision-making processes were beyond Izbazel’s
somewhat pedestrian mind.
Whatever the explanation, Izbazel intended to stay within
the operational guidelines Tiamat had established. Eventually he hoped to
figure out where Tiamat and the other demons were being held and break them
out—but not before he had established himself as Tiamat’s obvious choice for
second-in-command. Ideally he’d find a way to rescue Tiamat while leaving that asshole
Gamaliel to rot in prison.
For now, though, he needed to focus on the mission at hand.
So far, Chaos Faction had encountered no resistance in its latest mission—only
confused glances and giggling from tourists who couldn’t imagine why anyone
would need an oversized backpack and two duffel bags full of supplies to hike
the half-mile circuit of the Presidential Trail. Izbazel now saw that their
luck had come to an end, though: a park ranger was walking down the trail
toward them, and he didn’t look happy.
Izbazel pushed Nisroc aside, taking the lead. Picking up his
pace, he pretended not to see the ranger in the hopes that if he didn’t stop,
the ranger wouldn’t bother to ask about the packs.
“Hold on there, guys,” said the ranger, a hippie-looking blond
guy with his hair in a ponytail. “What’s in the packs?”
“We have the right to travel unmolested by fascist thugs,”
snapped Izbazel, while the other three simultaneously shouted, “Just water!” In
the heat of the moment, Izbazel had forgotten their agreed-upon response.
“Water, huh?” said the ranger, ignoring Izbazel’s outburst.
“Mind if I take a look?”
“You don’t need to look in our packs,” said Izbazel, with a
slight wave of his hand.
The ranger stared at Izbazel. “I don’t need to look in your
packs,” he said.
Izbazel smiled and started to walk past the ranger.
“But I’m going to,” the ranger added, placing his hand on
Izbazel’s shoulder.
Before Izbazel could react, something flew over his shoulder
from behind, smacking the ranger in the forehead. The ranger’s eyes went wide,
and then his pupils rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground. The golf
ball-sized rock that had struck him skittered into the underbrush.
Izbazel whirled to face Nisroc. “What the hell was
that
?”
Nisroc held his hands up. “It looked like you needed some
help.”
“You think I couldn’t have hit him with a rock if I had
wanted to?” growled Izbazel. “You thought to yourself, ‘Man, Izzy’s in real
trouble here. What he needs is someone capable of throwing a rock at a forest
ranger’s head from five feet away. It’s a good thing I’m here, because that’s
right at the top of my impressive list of talents.’ Is that it?”
Nisroc’s brow furrowed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think
I understand the question?”
“Forget it,” Izbazel snapped. “Let’s get out of here before
he comes to.”
Izbazel pressed on, leading the three demons up the trail.
Soon they had looped around to the rocky plateau on the back of Mount Rushmore.
“Alright,” said Izbazel. “For this next part, we need to cut
across country so we can get to the faces.”
“Which way?” asked Scalzi, peering into the distance.
“That way,” said Izbazel, pointing to his left.
“Can’t be,” said Scalzi.
“Why not?” asked Izbazel.
“We should be able to see the backs of their heads.”
“The backs…” started Izbazel. “You realize that it’s just
the faces carved into the rock, right? Not the whole head?”
Scalzi frowned. “That’s a bit misleading then, isn’t it?”
“How is it misleading?” asked Izbazel.
“Well, when you see George Washington’s face, you say,
‘Look,
it’s
George Washington.’ You don’t say, ‘Look,
it’s
George Washington’s face, behind which is probably a
big pile of loose gravel and shrubbery.’”
“It’s not… look, just shut up, OK? No more talking. That
goes for you too, Konrath.
Konrath!”
Konrath, who had stopped to pick daisies a
few paces behind the rest of the group, suddenly jerked to attention.
“Yessir, Izzy,” he said. “No talking.”
“Good,” said Izbazel. “Now, we’re going to cut across here
and climb down the faces, just like
North by Northwest
. Got it?”
The three demons nodded.
Izbazel left the path and started to cross the rocky field
toward the front of the mountain. He had gotten about ten paces when he
realized no one was following him. He turned to see the other three demons
walking the opposite direction.
“What in blazes are you guys doing?” he yelled.
The three stopped and exchanged confused glances.
“You said north by northwest,” said Nisroc at last.
“The movie!” growled Izbazel. “Cary Grant and Eva Marie
Saint scale the faces of Mount Rushmore to get away from Martin Landau.”
“Oh!” cried Nisroc. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why were they trying to get away from Martin Landau? Seems
like a nice enough fellow.” The other two demons nodded in agreement.
“Forget I said anything about
North by Northwest
!”
snapped Izbazel. “Just be quiet and follow me.”
The demons shrugged, muttered to each other, and fell in
line behind Izbazel. It wasn’t long before they had reached the top of the
gigantic sculpture. They lined up on the edge of a lock of Jefferson’s hair,
overlooking the vast slope of the Founder’s forehead.
“How long did this take to make?” Konrath asked.
“Millions of years,” answered Scalzi confidently.
“Erosion.”
“You idiot,” spat Izbazel. “They carved it out of the rock
with explosives, just like the Grand Canyon. Tie the end of this rope around
that rock over there.”
Scalzi and Konrath took the end of the rope and tied it to
the boulder Izbazel had indicated.
“OK,” said Izbazel. “Nisroc, you’re going to climb down the
rope and swing over to Washington.”
“Why me?” asked Nisroc.
“You said you had experience with explosives.”
Nisroc frowned. “You asked me if I had ever blown a nose.”
“You must have misunderstood. Anyway, there’s nothing to it.
Just shove the explosives up Washington’s left nostril. I’ll activate the
detonator from here.”
“Why Washington?” asked Nisroc. “What’s wrong with
Jefferson?”
“There’s nothing
wrong
with Jefferson. But George
Washington is the alpha male of the group.
“He’s the what?” asked Konrath.
“The alpha male.
The
leader.
Father of his country, all that.”
Nisroc rubbed his chin. “I kinda think Roosevelt could take
him.”
“Sure,” agreed Izbazel. “It’s generally agreed that Teddy
Roosevelt was the manliest of all the presidents. If they were all in a bar
fight, Teddy would come out on top. Lincoln would make a good show of it, but
he’s too lanky and slow. And Jefferson—well, let’s be honest here, a delicate
guy like Jefferson isn’t going to last long against dudes like Washington or
Roosevelt. But as manly as Roosevelt was, Washington was the original American
badass.
Stood up to the greatest military of the time.
Cracked walnuts in his bare hands.
Valley Forge,
cherry tree, all that.
First in war, first in peace, first in
the hearts of his countrymen.
So he’s the one whose nose we need to
blow.”
The demons nodded, having been persuaded of the wisdom of
Izbazel’s plan.
Once he was satisfied the rope was securely tied, Izbazel
tied the other end around Nisroc’s waist. The rest of the rope lay coiled on
the ground near the boulder. Izbazel had Konrath and Scalzi hold the rope,
instructing them to slowly let it out as Nisroc made his way down the slope.
“Once you’re in place,” he said to Nisroc, “I’ll pull the rope up and
then lower the explosives down and swing them over to you.”
Nisroc nodded uncertainly, taking the rope in his hands. He
began to slowly back down the sheer rock face. “I don’t think I like this very
much,” he said.
Izbazel shrugged. “At least you can see where you’re going.”
he said. “Imagine climbing down Washington’s big dome. With Jefferson, it’s a
straight shot from his widow’s peak to the tip of his nose. Now get moving.”
Nisroc grumbled but continued down the granite slope. Soon
he had crossed Jefferson’s brow and was making his way down his long, straight
nose. When he got to the tip, he stopped, flattening himself against the rock.
Down below, he could hear tourists shouting.
“Don’t stop!” cried Izbazel. “They’ve seen you. We don’t
have much time. We’ll lower you another thirty feet or so, and then you need to
swing over to Washington.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to reach!” yelled Nisroc. “Can’t
I just fly?”
“No!” shouted Izbazel. “No miracles.”
Nisroc grumbled to himself but allowed them to lower him so
that he dangled thirty feet under Jefferson’s nose. He could hear shouting far
below.
“Now what?” he yelled.
“Swing over to Washington’s shoulder!” shouted Izbazel.
Nisroc remained hanging from the nose, the rope digging
painfully into his midsection. Izbazel had tied it with a slipknot, and every
time Nisroc moved, it tightened a little more. He thought he knew what a
balloon animal felt like. He worked one of his hands into the loop of the rope
to try to widen it, but only succeeded in getting his hand hopelessly stuck.