The Book of Joby (102 page)

“There’s nothin’ to know,” GB insisted patiently. “Once you’ve learned to tap in, you don’t have to know how it works any more than you know how you’re makin’ your lungs fill up or your legs move. You just want ’em to, and they do. Tell ’em not to and they don’t. For us, the power’s built in like that too.”

Doubting it could really be so easy, Joby concentrated on the match and reached for the strange ecstasy GB had helped him recall a moment earlier, amazed at how effortlessly the seductive feeling returned now. At first, he imagined the match sprouting wings and fluttering off like a butterfly, but that seemed too hard to hope for on a first try, so he decided just to make it light, since that’s what matches did anyway.

Staring at the match, the memory of “power” grew even fiercer within him, becoming a kind of pressure in his face as the image of the match aflame grew more vivid in his mind. With a smile, Joby started to believe it might actually happen, and—

The match went up all at once—not just its tip, but the entire length of it! Joby lurched back in surprise, then lunged forward to beat it out with his cupped palm. He’d been so sure nothing would happen that he’d never worried about scorching the tabletop.

“Kind of a boring choice,” GB grinned, “but not bad for a beginner.”

Joby gaped at him in stunned disbelief.

“Hey, that wasn’t me,” GB said with mild amusement. “You’re in, man.”

“What do I do now?” Joby asked, still in a daze.

“Whatever you want.” GB shrugged happily. “Practice, I guess. I can help you if you want, but we’ll have to do it someplace private, so people don’t start askin’ questions. In fact,” GB said, looking troubled again, “maybe you
better wait awhile before you show people, or they’ll think it was awful sudden and I’ll get discovered.”

“All right,” Joby said, still too overwhelmed to think straight. “We can meet in my room at the inn or somewhere in the woods.” He shook his head in wonder. He’d done magic! Real magic! Snap! Just like that, his whole world had changed again.

Agnes stood inside one of Taubolt’s newest boutiques, discreetly concealed behind reflections in the store’s large plate-glass window, and watched Joby Peterson being fawned over by a crowd of hooligans up the street. Since getting Nacho Carlson and that vagrant boy off the hook, he’d become the darling of delinquents everywhere.

Community service,
Agnes thought with contempt. What impression was
that
likely to make on anyone? No one on her side of the issue had even been informed of the underhanded coup where that decision had been made. She’d clearly placed far too much trust in Donaldson—not a mistake she’d make again.

Turning away in disgust, she walked out of the store in a huff just as Peterson’s band of thieves produced a burst of braying laughter at some doubtless filthy joke. The sound brought back her first encounter with him in the Heron’s Bowl all those years before. The proof of his poor character had been plain even then. What was such a perverse young man doing teaching school? She’d be looking into
that
immediately.

It all seemed very curious, Merlin thought as he stood outside his grandson’s room waiting for Joby to answer his knock. Joby had sent him a general delivery letter, of all things, saying he had something urgent to discuss. Admittedly, it was a lengthy hike to Merlin’s house up on Avalon Ridge, and, yes, he had been gone a lot, what with all the work involved in defending Taubolt, and it was true that “Solomon” did not have a phone. Still, a letter by post? Joby was lucky it had come to Merlin’s attention at all. Why had he not just left a message with anyone on the Council? And why was he not answering now? Mrs. Lindsay had seemed quite sure about seeing Joby come in. Merlin knocked again, suppressing a distasteful hybrid of irritation and concern.

“Come in,” Joby called, sounding muffled and unwell somehow.

“Joby?” Merlin called back. “It’s Solomon. I can come back if you’re sleeping?”

Receiving no answer at all, Merlin’s concern increased. Finding the door unlocked, he opened it and peered inside. No one was there. Early evening light poured through the half-open window onto Joby’s unmade bed. A chilly breeze ruffled class assignments stacked neatly on Joby’s desk. That was all. Yet Merlin had heard someone call to him quite clearly. Seeing Joby’s partly opened closet door, Merlin went with growing discomfort to see if Joby were inside it for some reason. When he pulled the door open, however, what he found left him gaping in disbelief.

Leaning into Joby’s modest wardrobe was a woman Merlin hadn’t seen in centuries, dressed precisely as he’d seen her last, just before she had betrayed him.

“Nimue!” he exclaimed, aghast.

“You remember! After all this time.” She grinned coquettishly. “I’m flattered.”

Behind him, the merest breath of air and a soft click as Joby’s room door closed. Merlin whirled, still dazed with disbelief, to find an adolescent boy of astonishing beauty smiling slyly from across the room. His fair hair was shot with miser’s gold, his chiseled features rife with malice, his blue eyes, icy. Merlin knew him instantly, for Hell’s master made no effort to shield himself from Merlin’s probing mind.
“Lucifer!”
Merlin gasped.

“Very good.” The fair boy smiled. “Not one of your celebrated Council members has managed to see through my disguise at all. But then, I didn’t want them to. If you don’t mind, however, I prefer GB at present.” The boy moved gracefully to place himself between Merlin and the door, as if that mattered now. “Kallaystra, dear. Come say hello to the man who’s caused us all this trouble,” GB said, waving vaguely at his own body.

“We’ve met. Several times,” she said, stepping out of Joby’s closet to stand behind Merlin and run her hands seductively across his shoulders and down one arm. “I wore this,” she gestured like a Vegas showgirl—not just at her medieval attire, but at her face and form as well—“in honor of the last one.”

Merlin barely managed not to groan. One good forgery of Joby’s signature was all it had taken to breach his defenses. How could he have been so stupid? More to the point, in how many dreadful ways would he and who knew how many others pay for it now?

“It’s amazing that I didn’t guess your identity earlier,” said Lucifer. “Able to hide from celestial eyes and fend off the wrath of demons. Who else but that troublesome half-breed, Merlin? Or should I say Solomon? No, wait, it’s Mary too, isn’t it? So nice to have you sorted out at last, though I confess I’d no idea you were still around.”

“I’ve lived quietly,” Merlin said, struggling to maintain his composure. Against Lucifer himself, he’d have stood no chance at combat and little of escape. Against both of them, without more preparation, he stood no chance at all.

The too-pretty boy sidled closer, his every gesture filled with subtle threat. “So what is
your
interest in this matter, Merlin? I’d think a man of your distinction would have bigger fish to fry than the fate of one obscure young man in a tiny town like Taubolt.”

“You have the power to destroy me,” Merlin said, ignoring the question. “But I will make you pay for it. I
can
make you pay.”

“Destroy you?” said the boy. “I’ve no such intention, old man. Not
yet
. I want you alive to watch as I destroy your
grandson
. That’s who we’re talking about, isn’t it? The grandfather from Taubolt who hasn’t any past. The dead old man who gave Joby his beloved book of fairy tales. What a lot of roles you have performed in this affair. It’s practically a one-man play, only you’re not the
one man
it’s supposed to be about.” The boy finally let his mocking smile slip. “You’ve been no end of trouble, if you want to know the truth, and last time I checked, you were still serving Heaven. Does that place you squarely next to Gabriel on the reservations list for my little summer camp? I think it does,” he growled. “And for what? I am bound to win at this point. Even a bleeding heart like the Creator’s can justify only so much illegal interference before being forced to default. You can’t imagine how much I appreciate your help with that. I’m sure the whole
world
will want to thank you—if there’s time.”

“The Creator would never have entered into any wager you were bound to win,” Merlin said defiantly.

“The Creator’s miscalculations are piling up enormously, if you haven’t noticed,” Lucifer countered. “I mean, if you’re going to trot Arthur out again, why on earth would you send Mordred too? It’s that kind of cockiness that’s lost Him this whole contest.”

“Arthur?” Merlin asked, confused. “Mordred? What are you talking about?”

After gazing at him in bemusement, Lucifer burst into delighted laughter, joined by Kallaystra. “You really don’t know, do you! Destiny’s own device, utterly unwitting! Oh, that’s rich!”

“What are you two cackling about?” Merlin asked, annoyed to be caught so transparently off guard. “What’s Arthur got to do with this?”

“Spirited away to sleep until the world has need of him again,” Kallaystra murmured in his ear. “Isn’t that how the story goes?”

Lucifer suffered another bout of giggling, then said, “That you should be the one to bring him back into the world this way is rich enough, but not even to know, now
that
is entertaining. Really,” he chortled, “every time I find myself convinced He hasn’t any sense of humor, He surprises me with something like this!”

It took another moment for Merlin to decipher their ravings. Then it was all he could do to keep his legs beneath him. His grandson . . . was . . . Merlin nearly moaned aloud to think that his first concession to love since Nimue should have plunged that poor boy’s soul a
second
time into such ordeal. “You lie,” he insisted palely. “And Mordred was an incest. Joby has no sisters. Not even any cousins.”

“A bastard son is a bastard son,” the boy said sardonically. “The niceties are unimportant, surely. Either way, your great-grandson is going to deliver you grandson to me
again
.” He gave Merlin a chiding smile. “Or were you even unaware that Hawk was Joby’s child? My goodness, what a lot of things you’ve overlooked.”

“You can’t possibly know all this,” said Merlin. “You’re speculating.”

“You’d be amazed at what I know,” the boy said icily. “Our dear, trusting Joby has let me riffle freely through his mind. I know more about him now than he does himself
and
about everyone he’s met here, everything he’s done, everywhere he’s been. That little shard of Eden you’ve all been hiding up north will make a
splendid
bonfire.”

“You’ll have to get through Michael first,” said Merlin. “He will be nowhere near as easy to deceive as I was.”

“But, my dear Merlin, I thought we had been over this,” said the boy. “Michael is required, just as you were, to refrain from interfering. While I concede that he’s a fiercer foe, he’s also got a reputation for obedience that, I must say, puts yours to shame.”

“The Garden has nothing to do with Joby!” Merlin spat. “Michael’s not a fool!”
As I am,
Merlin thought bleakly.

“But it
will
have
everything
to do with Joby when he goes up to help them save it.” Lucifer smirked. “Did I forget to mention that I’m teaching Joby magic now? In fact, I’m supposed to meet him for a lesson right here in several minutes. I’ll be right beside him when he finds your body. How poignant. He’s quite skillful actually. When
I’m
doing all his tricks, at least. What a good thing
someone’s
kept him ignorant of what it’s really like to use such power, or I doubt he’d have fallen for my useful substitutions.”