Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish (24 page)

"No, no, no, you insipid ape-descended creature!"

The cat formerly known as Fuzzbucket, who was the fluffy vessel for a currently irate Prince of Darkness, shouted at Big Ernie with as much anger and indignation as his body would allow.

"Pick up the shovel, the
shovel!
It's the flat scooping device right there!"

Big Ernie was no rocket scientist. His brain had never been equipped to deal with anything unusual, and an angry cat shouting at him was a bit much for him to handle.

"Err, Satan, umm, your grace, master," said Itch while offering a sort of bow, "I don't want to, uhh, question your judgment but couldn't we just pick up a couple of generators or something?"

The Devil turned his attention from Big Ernie, who was scooping lemons into the large box trailer, and fixed his eyes on Itch. It had already occurred to the Devil that Itch had a better grasp on the situation than Big Ernie and was obviously the smarter of the two. Fuzzbucket had explained his master plan to both of them. Big Ernie just stared blankly, as if someone had slapped him with a wet salamander. But the Devil could see the wheels turning behind Itch's beady little eyes and had no doubt that Itch was probably thinking how to turn the situation to his advantage. He was obviously underhanded and devious, and the Devil couldn't help but admire the ugly little man.

"If that was even remotely possible," said the Devil, "don’t you think I would have done something about it already?"

He swished his tail for effect, and then began cleaning behind his ears. He had found the constant preening to be a severe hindrance at first, but the more time he spent inside the cat, the more he enjoyed it.

"Well, uhh," said Itch, "I just thought it might save us some time, um, your majesty."

"Indeed it would, my fiendish-minded little servant, but unfortunately it is not an option. Lemons are the only way! "The Devil turned back to Big Ernie. "Shovel faster, you giant ape!"

"But, umm, your magnificence, there must be easier ways to make e—"

"Look here," yelled the Devil, "this is my plan. I know exactly what's what and you will do as I say or I will reduce you to nothing more than a small amount of dust. And furthermore—"

The Devil looked past Itch across the runway. The three of them were currently outside an old hangar. A hand-drawn sign taped to the door read
Temporary Lemon Storage
. A hundred feet away from the hanger, a construction crew worked on a new section of runway. What caught the Devil's eye was the bright yellow front-end loader busily moving dirt from one spot and placing it in another.

"Hmmm," said the Devil slyly, "I have an idea. Come with me."

It took the Devil only four and a half minutes to convince the driver of the front-end loader that he'd gone completely mad, as he was talking to a cat and the cat was matter-of-factly talking right back to him, so obviously he couldn't be sane.

The construction worker then solemnly decided, at the Devil's urging, that this type of work really wasn't his cup of tea and that he should pursue his original career choice of being an astronaut.

Five minutes later, Itch wrestled with the controls of the machine as he loaded the remaining lemons into the truck's trailer. The Devil looked on with mild satisfaction and fought the urge to take a quick nap. "The time has come," he decided, "to get out of this damn body!"

The bistro was void of all patrons when Death and Gerald entered; the quaint chairs were the only things sitting around the equally quaint tables. The kitchen door at the back of the restaurant swung open, and the waitress walked out carrying a tray of appetizers. She walked right up to Death and Gerald, handed Death the tray, then pointed upstairs.

"Hello, dears, he's waiting for you just upstairs. Give me a shout if you want anything to drink" And with that, she vanished.

Death felt stupid for thinking that their visit would come as a surprise; of course He anticipated it, probably saw it a mile away.

Gerald helped himself to some food from the tray and munched away, happy to have something other than airline peanuts.

Death and Gerald proceeded upstairs. Heinrich sat in the same spot Nigel had sat and was staring out the window, a whimsical smile playing on his face. He stood up and turned to greet the two visitors. He swept Death up in a big hug, almost causing him to lose his tray of food. Death felt a colossal surge of warmth run through his body, and, for a brief moment, everything seemed right with the world.

Heinrich released him and waved to a seat at the table.

Gerald still had a mouth full of food when Heinrich shook his hand.

"Lovely to finally meet you, Gerald," said Heinrich. "Won't you please have a seat?"

Gerald sat down and looked at the hand Heinrich just shook; an oddly pleasing sensation crept over him.

Heinrich sat down across from the pair and poured all three of them a glass of wine.

"So," said Heinrich, "How's things?"

"Fabulous," said Gerald, feeling immediately at ease with the man who sat across from him.

"Not going all that well, actually," said Death, almost sheepishly.

"What's on your mind?" asked Heinrich.

"Absolutely nothing," said Gerald enthusiastically, not realizing that the question wasn't meant for him. He picked up the wine in front of him, drained half the glass, and felt extremely pleased for the thousandth time today that he was no longer a penguin.

Death looked Heinrich right in the eye.

"I'm sorry about all this, I really am."

Heinrich waved off the obvious concern in Death's voice.

"Think nothing of it, not your problem anymore; I'm sure it'll sort itself out. You need not feel any responsibility for it."

"That's just it though," said Death, "I do, I totally feel responsible. I quit and now look what's happening!"

"Death, my old friend," said Heinrich, "why do you feel responsible? You quit to get away from this job, didn't you? The loneliness, the repetition, yadayada."

"Yes, but it's who I am. I'm the Angel of Death, it's what I do."

"Did," said Heinrich, "past tense."

"You're playing with me, aren't you? You know it drives me crazy when you do this," said Death.

"Not at all," laughed Heinrich. "Just out of curiosity, though, what made you quit?"

"Well, I have to admit I'd had a bit to drink."

"I'd noticed," said Heinrich.

"What gave it away?"

"You kept calling me Nancy."

"Ahh. Well, everything was getting a bit much for me, I suppose I felt underappreciated, and then I got thrown out of a pub because no one believed who I was."

"Naturally," agreed Heinrich.

"And then a cat talked . . . me . . . into . . . quitting."

The words he spoke were like a kick in the crotch to Death's mind. How in the world had he not thought about the cat? Cats can't talk!

"Ahh yes, a talking cat," said Heinrich, "Are you sure it wasn't just the beer?"

"That's impossible," said Death, amazed at his own blindness, "cats can't talk."

"That's not entirely true. I mean, this fine fellow sitting next to you was once a penguin."

Death looked at Gerald and then back at Heinrich. "What's going on? I know you know, and you know that I know that you know. You should really just tell me what you know. You're always doing this to me," said Death.

Heinrich laughed and took a sip of wine.

"Of course I know what's going on. It's actually all quite simple, in a confusing sort of way." Heinrich topped up Gerald's glass, as it was now empty.

"Well, what is it?" demanded Death.

Heinrich leaned across the table, a twinkle in his eye.

"Let's open another bottle and I'll explain everything."

Somewhere across the city, in the powerless buildings of Majestic Technologies, a man, a woman, and an elf ran through the hamster-maze-like corridors in search of the security centre. They moved as quietly as possible in order to avoid any marauding elves they might come across.

So far, the entire place seemed deserted.

After ascending one floor and then turning so many corners that Nigel fully believed they couldn't even be in the same building anymore, they came to a room with large double doors with friendly letters above them that read
Security Centre
.

They entered the room and blocked the door from the inside.

The Security Centre was nothing more than a small room with a bank of television screens and some complicated buttons that might or might not light up. Everything was currently dead, as there was no power.

"Ah," said Celina.

"What?" said Nigel.

"No power. Oh, wait a sec."

Celina reached under the control panel with the fancy buttons and started pulling out wires.

"Hey you, Eggnog, can you come over here, please?"

Eggnog, who had been standing idly in a corner, was happy to have something to do and skipped over to Celina.

She turned the elf around and lifted up his shirt to reveal what looked to Nigel like a plug socket in the centre of Eggnog's back.

"The elves have a super-charged lithium ion battery that can recharge itself when they're on down time," said Celina. "Eggnog here should be able to power the security system and cameras for up to a good couple of hours if I can hotwire this thing."

There was a crackling sound as Celina pulled out two wires and inserted them into Eggnog's back. The control centre monitors flickered and came to life.

"It'll take a while for all the cameras to switch on, but we can look at what happened before the power went out." Celina pressed a few buttons, turned a couple of knobs, and sneezed.

"Bless you," said Nigel.

"Thank you," said Celina.

The monitor in the centre of the console flicked on and displayed the front security gate of Majestic Technologies. It looked to be early morning, as the sun was still low in the sky.

"Okay, this is it," said Celina and hit the
slow
button.

A black shape moving fast enough to blur slightly on the screen climbed up the fence and jumped over the razor wire, landing effortlessly on the other side.

"Pause it!" said Nigel and leaned closer to the screen. "I know exactly what that is."

"What?" said Celina, squinting at the screen.

"I'll bet you anything that's Fuzzbucket," said Nigel.

Celina looked at Nigel, and an expression, as if she suddenly realized that she knew absolutely nothing about this man and that he could very well be an escaped mental patient, crossed her face.

"I think you should explain yourself," said Celina.

Nigel considered how crazy what he was about to say would sound to this rather beautiful woman who probably thought he had lost all his marbles already. He never had any luck with women, so there was obviously no harm in telling the truth. He took a deep breath.

"This will all sound crazy but earlier this morning I visited an elderly woman who claimed that her cat had been possessed by the devil and had ran off to take over the world. Then, as a result of a bad gambling habit, I was also fired from my job. Then I got your phone call and my goldfish may have been telling me all day that I should beware of elves, not to mention that I used to be telekinetically gifted and I think it all ties in together somehow but I honestly can't figure it out."