The Everything Box (8 page)

“Then you want to see a movie?”

“A movie?” said Coop.

“Yeah, a movie. You know. We're in Hollywood. The entertainment capital of the planet,” said Morty. “I thought you might like to be entertained.”

Coop nodded. “Yeah. Okay. A movie. But nothing with subtitles,” he said. “If I want to read a book, I'll stay home and read a book.”

“When's the last time you read a book?”

“In prison. I read a lot of books. There wasn't much else to do.”

Morty threw the remains of their lunch away. “I'm so sorry.”

“Stop it.”

“THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!” BELLOWED THE
priest, a good four hours into the exorcism. The chapel was three-sided, one side for each part of the Trinity. Besides the priest, there were nine people in the room, nine being regarded by the Department of Peculiar Science as a holy number. Bayliss was inclined to believe the theory. Nelson yawned and checked his watch.

“The power of Christ compels you!”

“Is it the twelfth century?” said Nelson. “Someone get me my phone. I have apps for this kind of crap.”

Bayliss shushed him. “This one is special,” she whispered.

Nelson whispered back, “I've seen literally a hundred exorcisms. Trust me. This one isn't special.”

“It is when it's our boss.”

“Huh,” said Nelson. “I guess that is a little different.”

“It's the entire top floor,” said Bayliss. “All of management possessed. How do you not know about it?”

“Because unlike you, I have a life outside of work.”

“Being drunk doesn't constitute a life.”

“If you're good at it it does,” said Nelson.

“Does not.”

“Does too.”

“The power of Christ compels you!” said the priest through gritted teeth, looking at the two of them.

“Sorry,” mouthed Bayliss. Nelson, like other members of the group, was holding a ritual crucifix. His was hollow. He popped Jesus's head off and took a drink. “Now that's the power of Christ,” he whispered to Bayliss.

The chapel was deep in the bowels of what looked like an ordinary office building on Wilshire in Los Angeles's financial district. In fact, there was a real import-export business on the thirteenth floor, because it was good cover and because none of the building's real employees would work on that floor. The import-export company's employees wouldn't have worked there either if they'd known the true nature of the building.

The underground chapel where the exorcism was taking place was on old consecrated ground, the former site of a church to Freydis, a little-known Norwegian saint most notable for the fact that the Church in Rome wanted her as far from itself as humanly possible, and there weren't any churches in Antarctica. The reason Rome wanted to keep her at a distance didn't have to do with just her visions—although those were disturbing enough. No, it had more to do with how she responded to them. St. Freydis's father had been a strongman and wrestler in a traveling sideshow, and Freydis was known to strip down to her petticoats and challenge any local demons, smart-ass wizards, and later, mad scientists reanimating corpses to create unstoppable killing machines, and grapple with them. Two out of three falls. Winner take all.

She always came out on top and soon became known as St. Freydis of the Camel Clutch.

“Holy balls, Father, how much longer are we going to have to stand here while you scream like Little Richard?” said Nelson.

“Shhh!” hissed Bayliss.

Eventually, the Church had sent some of its more troublesome priests and lay hangers-on to join Freydis in the godless land of early Los Angeles. They were in charge of studying and suppressing what
was known as Peculiar Science, a catchall phrase referring to both magic and any strange supertechnology used for a variety of nefarious purposes such as preserving Hitler's talking head (which resided in the basement of the Department of Peculiar Science building, along with other treasures). Other fun artifacts included a parchment written by an alchemist named Wexford in 1377 that was the actual formula for turning lead into gold. Wexford had produced so much gold so quickly that he almost bankrupted the European economy. The Inquisition leaked a false version of the formula and alchemists around the world have been trying to re-create the original ever since. This was how Fresca was invented.

The priest went on. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost . . .”

“Seriously. We got to the moon quicker than this,” Nelson said.

“Will you be quiet?” barked the priest.

Nelson frowned at him and took another drink from his crucifix. “I'm a taxpayer, so don't try to pad your hours around here, Padre.” He pocketed the crucifix and went to where Woolrich, his and Bayliss's supervisor, lay on a dais leaking a green puddinglike substance from his mouth. It wasn't St. Patrick's Day, so Nelson was reasonably sure Woolrich hadn't gone on a green beer bender.

The priest stepped between Nelson and Woolrich. “Don't get near him. He's in a delicate state,” he said.

Nelson nodded. “I understand entirely,” he said. And brought his fist down on Woolrich's chest. “Hey, fucknut!” he yelled. “Who's in there?”

A quivering, growling voice issued from Woolrich's green mouth. “My name is Legion. For we are many.”

“This isn't the Vatican,” Nelson said, “so you can put the lid back on the fruit cocktail. Who are you really?”

“Azmodeus. Mephistopheles. Dagon . . .”

“Drop the Batman whisper, Carl,” said Nelson. “I recognize your voice.”

“No!” rasped a voice from Woolrich's mouth. “We are Behemoth. We are Baal . . .”

Nelson punched Woolrich in the balls.

“Ow!” the voice shouted.

“Come out of there, Carl, you sack of ectoplasmic dog shit. The grown-ups have work to do.”

A moment later, the ghost of a prim young man dressed in a dark suit and starched collar appeared next to the dais. Carl's arms were crossed in front of him and he was frowning deeply. He looked like a Victorian banker trying to expel a fiddler crab from his intestinal tract without anyone noticing.

“Work is all we ever do,” said Carl. “Our entire department is on strike until our demands are met.”

“I don't think you should be chatting away so lightly with an unclean spirit,” said the priest.

Nelson shot him a look. “This isn't Lucifer. It's Carl. He works in, what is it? Ghost Enemas and Party Favors?”

Carl straightened his shoulders. “Phantasm Reconnaissance and Logistics. But I don't work anywhere until I—and the other ghosts, apparitions, wraiths, and poltergeists in the department—get a fair hearing about working conditions.”

Nelson uncorked his crucifix and took a drink. The priest looked at Bayliss, who shrugged.

“You want to talk about working conditions?” said Nelson. “Haunting cushy foreign embassies isn't exactly work. Hell, half of you assholes should be moaning around in graveyards and abandoned shotgun shacks. At least
you
get to be somewhere civilized. Look where the rest of us are stuck.” Nelson held his hands up to the subterranean chapel. “It looks like the seventies took a dump in Castle Grayskull.”

Carl looked around. “Still. We feel we're being taken for granted.”

Nelson leaned against the dais. He wondered when Woolrich would wake the fuck up and fire all these ethereal pantywaists. “Welcome to the civil service, pal. We're a bunch of weirdos and eggheads run by Washington bureaucrats, Carl. We're all taken for granted. You've got it good. You're already dead. Us meat monkeys? We're on government salaries and they aren't even matching our
401(k)'s anymore. When we retire, most of us are going to end up living in our cars. The rest are going to eat their guns and take your spook jobs because they won't be whiners. Then you can all go back to your cobwebby attics with the squirrel corpses. Is that what you want, Carl? You want to drift around in some rotting basement or possess underclassmen at frat parties for pocket change?”

“No,” said Carl sullenly.

“Of course not. Now you and the rest of your little rodeo clowns unpossess management, go back where you're supposed to be and forget about this strike crap. Remember how Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers when they went on strike? What do you think they'll do to a bunch of shitknuckle dead troublemakers? First, they'll get some real exorcists . . .”

“Hey!” said the priest.

“Then they're going to round you up and you can all work the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland for the next thousand years. That sound like fun? Screaming kids stinking of cotton candy and puke. Their parents praying for a ten-point-oh earthquake to end their misery. Parades every night. Double shifts on holidays. Try that ‘we're so overworked' shit on the mouse. You'll be exorcised and in Hell faster than you can shake that skinny spook ass at the Sultan of Brunei.”

“Enough!” said Carl. “Fine. You made your point. I'll talk to the others. You'll have the rest of your department back by tonight.”

“Thanks, Carl. You're a pip.” Nelson wasn't entirely sure what a “pip” was, but he'd heard it in an old movie once, and it sounded like the kind of thing Carl would like.

With that, Carl disappeared with a slight pop. Like the Cheshire cat, a single part of him lingered in the air. A transparent hand with one finger pointed skyward and the others bent back.

Nelson spun around on his heel and bowed to the room. Everyone applauded except for the priest and Bayliss. After he shook a few hands, Nelson walked over to his partner.

“Is it time for lunch?” he said.

“It's nine in the morning,” said Bayliss.

“That's lunchtime in New York. Hell, it's dinnertime in England.”

“Yes, but it's still nine
A.M
. in L.A.”

“I could go for a burrito. How about you?”

“This
is
dinner for you, isn't it? You haven't been to bed yet.”

Before he could say anything, the priest got between them. “You ruined my exorcism.”

“Wrong. I saved us from standing around until the next Ice Age. If I hadn't done something they would have dug our fossils out in a million years and wondered why mine was strangling yours.”

“You can't talk to me that way,” said the priest indignantly. “I'll report you to your supervisor.”

“That's him over there,” said Nelson, pointing to Woolrich on the dais. He was just starting to wake up. “Be sure to let him know who pulled the ghost out of his keister.”

The priest started to say something, but Bayliss cut him off. “You have to admit that Agent Nelson got results,” she said. “And faster than, well, you, Father.”

The priest looked sullen. “Well, I loosened him up.”

“Of course you did,” said Nelson. He put his arm around the priest's shoulder. “And I'll be sure to tell him just as soon as someone hoses all the guacamole off his face. Now, who wants a chimichanga? It's on me.”

Most of the other agents in the chapel had left by then. A couple of medical techs had come in and were working on Woolrich.

“Let's get out of here before he gets up,” said Nelson.

Bayliss looked at Woolrich. “Why? Don't you want a pat on the back for saving the day?”

“Of course I do. I love people knowing I was right. But if we hang around, that priest is going to tell Woolrich I Mike Tyson-ed his balls. He won't like that.”

They started out of the chapel. By the door, Bayliss said, “It horrifies me to admit that sometimes you don't suck at your job.”

“Don't worry. I'll destroy your faith in me by the end of the day,” said Nelson.

“I know. That's the only reason I said it.”

They took an elevator up a few floors—past Unspeakable Horrors, past Death Rays et al., past the Liminal Lunchroom—to the garage. Nelson insisted on driving them to the burrito joint. They lurched and squealed down the exit ramp, and he hit the street going the wrong way at forty miles an hour before pulling into the right lane. He smiled.

No. It wasn't going to take long for her to hate him again at all.

To Bayliss, the restaurant didn't look like it had opened so much as escaped whatever government agency wanted to close it, burn it to the ground, and salt the Earth. The interior of the place reminded her of movies about gulags and prison dining halls. She wondered who was going to shank her first, one of the grim diners, the cook, or the food.

“Bring me up to speed,” said Nelson, biting into his carnitas, black bean, and double sour cream burrito. “How's Coopster and Morton? They Mr. Babylon's bitches yet?”

“It's in my report. I e-mailed it to you.”

“I was a little busy saving our boss from being a spook's timeshare. Spitball it for me. How are the lads?”

Bayliss had an egg whites and soy sausage breakfast burrito. It tasted like whatever chicken laid the eggs was free range in a crack house. She didn't want to think about the sausage. She was certain they weren't soy, but wasn't sure if the animal the meat came from was of this Earth. Considering where she worked, Bayliss had seen a lot of animals she didn't want near her mouth, much less in it. But Nelson had paid, so out of politeness she picked at the egg whites with the tip of a plastic fork.

“Cooper and Morton met with Babylon and appear to have accepted the job.”

“Hrrr mrrr, hrrrr?” said Nelson.

“What?”

Nelson swallowed a mouthful of burrito. “I said, ‘When are they doing it?'”

“Intel says three days. On the night of the next new moon.”

Nelson reached for the hot sauce. He poured it on until his burrito looked like it had been shot in the line of duty. “Why the new moon?” he said.

“We don't know. Maybe Babylon is a reverse werewolf. He only turns when there's no moon.”

Nelson stopped with the burrito halfway to his mouth. “Is that a real thing?”

“No,” said Bayliss, looking away. “I just made it up.”

Nelson set down the burrito and took a pull from his crucifix. An old woman crossed herself when she saw him. “Nice one,” he said to Bayliss. “That was really passive-aggressive. You just might make an agent yet.”

“I
am
an agent,” she said.

Nelson cocked his head. “You sure? I thought you were assigned to get me drinks so I didn't have to stop being so amazing at my job.”