Mercury Shrugs (9 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Lucifer’s cell; April 29, 2017

“None of this makes any sense,” Lucifer said with a frown. “How can the goblin attack me when he has only one hit point?”

“Hit points don’t affect a monster’s ability to attack,” said Drekavac tiredly. “It’s the same with your characters. It’s a concession to playability.”

“Well, it’s silly,” said Lucifer, studying a big black rulebook whose cover was dominated by a giant scimitar-wielding demon menacing a trio of adventurers. “Who wrote these rules?”

“I thought you did,” said Drekavac. A few of the other demons in the circle nodded.

“I think I would have remembered that,” said Lucifer. “Oh, wait. This does seem familiar: THACO.” He pronounced the acronym
Thay-co
. The rest of the demons in the circle groaned. Lucifer chuckled.

Suddenly Gurien yelped as if something had bit him.

“What the hell’s gotten—” Pazusu started, but then trailed off, following Gurien’s gaze. In the middle of the circle of demons, a faint blue-white ellipse had appeared, glowing in the dim light of the cavern. It seemed to be getting brighter as they watched.

The rest of them now saw it as well.

“What in Heaven’s name...?” asked Drekavac.

“It’s a portal!” Azrael cried. “Someone is breaking us out!”

Lucifer seemed less enthusiastic, although his interest was certainly piqued. He stood up and took a step back. “Careful,” he said. “We have no idea who might be coming through that thing.”

The other demons heeded the warning, getting up and stepping back from the brightly glowing portal.

“Hey!” called Malcazar from across the cavern. “What are you guys doing in there?”

“Don’t let him see the portal!” Lucifer snapped. “Move!”

The demons congregated together, putting their bodies between the wall of bars and the portal.

“Just playing a game, Malcazar,” called Lucifer. “No need to get up from your nap.”

But Malcazar was already halfway across the cavern, his fiery sword drawn.

Lucifer heard a high-pitched scream behind him, and he turned to see a figure flicker into being on the glowing ellipse. No sooner had she fully materialized than she tumbled to the cage floor, moaning in pain.

“Turn her over!” Lucifer barked. The woman had landed face-down.

Two of the demons complied, carefully moving the woman onto her back. Her shirt was drenched with blood.

“Tiamat!” Lucifer exclaimed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“No... time... to explain,” said Tiamat. “Go... through the portal.”

Lucifer frowned at her. “You’re breaking me out?”

“Yes,” gasped Tiamat. “Be ready.”

“For what?” asked Lucifer.

But Tiamat had lost consciousness.

“What’s going on in there?” Malcazar growled, now nearly to the bars. “Step to the back of the cage, all of you!”

“You think it’s a trap, boss?” Azrael asked.

“Probably,” said Lucifer. “But it can’t be worse than this. Go!”

Azrael nodded. He took a step onto the portal and vanished.

“The rest of you too! Go, go, go!”

One by one, the demons stepped onto the portal and vanished. Soon only Lucifer, Gurien and Tiamat were left.

“Lucifer!” Malcazar yelled, struggling to keep his hands steady enough to get the key into the lock. “Step away from that portal!”

“What about her?” asked Gurien, indicating Tiamat.

Lucifer looked at Malcazar and then regarded the bloody figure of Tiamat lying on the stone floor a few feet away. “Follow me,” he said. “Take her with you.”

Lucifer stepped onto the portal and disappeared.

Chapter Fifteen

The BOX, just outside Elko, Nevada; April 29, 2017

“God damn it!” Burton growled. “Where the hell did she go?”

“Don’t worry,” said Mercury. “She went to a farm where she can run and play with all the other aspiring tyrants.”

“I tried to warn you,” said Eddie, getting to his feet and rubbing the back of his head. “I did, you all heard me.”

“Everybody shut up!” Burton shouted. He turned to Balderhaz. “You! What did she do?”

Balderhaz took a step toward the portal generator. He frowned as he scanned the LCD screen. “She seems to have changed the coordinates slightly.”

“To a different plane?” asked Burton.

“Not enough power for that,” said Balderhaz. “She just moved the destination portal... this can’t be right.”

“What?” demanded Burton. “What did she do?”

“If I’m reading this correctly, she moved it about a hundred feet underground.”

“Underground
?” asked Burton. “Why?”

“Lucifer,” said Mercury. “Oh, man. I’m such an idiot. This is my fault.”

“What?” asked Suzy. “What did you do?”

“Tiamat must have found out where they’re holding Lucifer. She’s going to break him out.”

“Lucifer?” asked Burton. “You mean...?”

“The devil himself, yes,” said Mercury. “Burton, if you’ve got any sense in your head, you’ll order your men to aim every weapon they have at that portal.”

“Shut it down!” Burton said. “Close the portal!”

“She locked me out,” Balderhaz said. “I can get around it, but it’s going to take me a few minutes.”

“What if we just wreck the generator? A few hundred rounds—”

“The portal will persist for a few minutes if the generator is shut down without closing it,” said Balderhaz.

“There’s no time,” said Mercury. “Aim your guns at the portal and be ready. Suzy, take cover.”

Suzy nodded and took a step toward the bank of machinery to her left.

“Don’t move!” Burton snapped. “Take one more step and I’ll—”

But as he spoke, a massive horned demon suddenly materialized on the portal. The demon paused a moment, taking in its surroundings.

“Shoot that thing!” Burton cried. “Kill it!”

In the split second it took them to aim their guns at the demon, it launched itself toward Special Agent Burton, nearly reaching him before being cut down in a hail of bullets. Another demon appeared on the portal behind him to take his place, and another after that.

Suzy was so stunned that all she could think of to do was put her hands over her ears to shield them from the deafening sound of gunfire. A strong hand gripped her arm, and after a moment’s confusion she realized it was Mercury. She followed him as he pulled her down an alley, then made several quick turns through the maze of contraptions, boxes, and instruments. He shoved her into a narrow spot between two large metal machines. “Stay here!” he barked, barely audible over the constant gunfire.

“What are you going to do?” Suzy asked.

“Get shot, most likely,” said Mercury, and disappeared from view.

Suzy crouched in her hiding space, her eyes closed and her hands clamped over her ears, for what seemed like an hour while the shouts, screams and gunshots went on and on and on. The smell of smoke—like the smell of firecrackers mixed with machine oil—permeated her nostrils. Then, suddenly, the cacophony stopped. After a moment she heard voices, low and muffled. She removed her hands from her ears, but still couldn’t make out who was speaking or what was being said. She cautiously peeked out of her hiding space, and saw that the aisle was clear.

Keeping her head low, she worked her way back to the open area where the portal generator was. Peering through a crack in two boxes, she saw that the portal generator had been knocked on its side, and its casing was riddled with bullet holes. The portal itself was gone. Next to the portal generator, half-obscured by a blue-gray fog of smoke that hung in the air, stood a tall blond man wearing an orange jumpsuit and holding an automatic rifle. Suzy scanned the area as well as she could through the gap in the boxes but saw no one else. It wasn’t until she craned her head so that she could see the floor that she realized where everyone had gone.

There were bodies everywhere. About half of them wore black tactical gear and the other half wore orange jumpsuits. There was an awful lot of blood spattered around, but it was hard to tell which blood belonged to whom. At least some of the FBI men were clearly dead, while others were merely unconscious or wounded. The demons, for the most part, looked even worse off, but Suzy knew that they’d be as good as new in a few hours. Not so much the men in black who were missing limbs or large chunks of brain matter. Suzy had to look away and take several deep breaths to keep from gagging. Groans and whimpers filled her ears.

“Wow!” she heard someone say—presumably the blond man, who seemed to be the only one in the condition to speak. “That was exciting, wasn’t it?” He seemed to be the winner of the battle by default.

The only response was more moaning. Having calmed her stomach a bit, Suzy peered through the crack again, but was unable to locate Mercury or the others. All she could see was the blond man standing over a chaotic mass of black, orange, and red.

“Now, does somebody want to tell me where we are?” the blond man said. “You there,” he said, poking his rifle barrel at one of the men in black, who seemed to be trying to get up. “Where are we?”

“Desert,” the man mumbled. “Nevada.”

“Nevada!” cried the blond man. “I love Nevada! Anywhere near Vegas?”

The man in black shook his head.

“No matter,” said the blond man. “Ah, it’s good to be back on the Mundane Plane. Although frankly it’s good to be anywhere besides that damn cage. Tiamat, I could kiss you on the lips. Tiamat?” He looked around at the mass of bodies. “Gurien!” he snapped. “Where’s Tiamat?”

“Here, boss,” said a weak voice somewhere to the left of Suzy’s field of vision. “She’s underneath me.”

“Well, get off of her, you cad,” snapped the blond man, who was apparently Lucifer. Somehow he wasn’t what Suzy had expected. “Tiamat!”

“I hear you,” groaned Tiamat. “But I’m in no mood to be kissed on the lips or anywhere else. Help me up.”

Lucifer moved out of sight for a moment. Several of the men in orange began to get slowly to their feet, beginning to recover from the wounds they had suffered.

“Search them all,” said Lucifer. “Make sure they’re completely disarmed. Then dump the dead ones somewhere and tie up everybody who’s still alive.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier just to kill them?” Gurien asked.

“We might need hostages,” said Lucifer. “Now do what you’re told.”

“What about the wounded ones?” asked another demon.

“If you can keep them from moaning, tie them up with the others. Otherwise, put a bullet in their head and throw them in the pile.”

Most of the moaning stopped.

“And these three?” said another voice, over to Suzy’s right. “They appear to be civilians.”

“Those three are angels,” said Tiamat, still out of sight. “Tie them up. Where’s Burton? He’s got a Balderhaz cube. Where’s the girl?”

“Who?” asked Lucifer.

“There was a pudgy girl with purple hair. No matter. Just be careful with those three. Especially the tall one.”

There was some scuffling and moving about as the men in black were sorted into categories of living, dead, and mostly dead. Two gunshots later, the moaning stopped completely and the middle category had gained a couple of members. The corpses were dragged out of sight, and the others—including Mercury, Eddie and Balderhaz—were prodded into the center of the open area, where they had their hands and feet secured with regulation FBI zip-ties. Only four of the FBI agents were still alive, Burton among them. He seemed to have been grazed on the right shoulder and left cheek, but was conscious and alert. Balderhaz and Eddie looked unharmed, but Mercury seemed dazed and his shirt was soaked with blood.

“They’re not going to stop, you know,” said Burton. “There are only a handful of you, and the federal government has virtually unlimited—” The demon called Pazusu punched Burton in the gut and the man doubled over and fell to the floor. Tiamat nodded in approval. No one else spoke up after that.

By the time the captives were tied up, the demons were all on their feet, although several of them were limping or nursing other wounds. The only exception was the massive horned demon who had come through the portal first. He seemed to have taken the brunt of the gunfire, and his mutilated, barely recognizable form still lay on the concrete floor, half-covered with the bloody remnants of his jumpsuit.

Lucifer retrieved the Balderhaz cube from Burton’s pocket and then turned and walked directly toward Suzy. For a split second, thinking he had seen her, she considered running, but she froze and held her ground. Lucifer stopped in front of the stack of boxes, set the cube down on top of the stack, turned, and walked back toward the captives. It occurred to Suzy that if she could get to the cube, Mercury and the others might have a chance to escape. But Lucifer was a good eight inches taller than she; she wouldn’t be able to reach the top of the stack of boxes without a ladder or something else to stand on. And that commotion would likely draw attention. She decided to remain where she was for now.

“So,” Lucifer said, walking back to Tiamat, “what have you been up to?”

“I’ve been working with the FBI for a few months now, just for something different,” said Tiamat, with an obvious effort to appear nonchalant. “They’re paranoid about angels. So I built them a miracle detector.”

“Did you?” said Lucifer, intrigued. “May I see it?”

“Sure,” said Tiamat. “Check Burton’s other pocket.”

Lucifer walked to Burton, who glared coldly at him. Ignoring him, Lucifer reached into Burton’s pocket and pulled out a device that was only a little larger than an iPhone. “Compact design,” said Lucifer. “I’m impressed. What’s the range?”

“Ten miles or so, depending on the size of the surge. There’s a much more powerful one in D.C., but of course that one isn’t portable. These morons were drawing so much interplanar energy that we were able to pinpoint them to within a few miles of here. This baby got us the rest of the way.”

“What kind of cat did you use?”

“Siamese.”

“Good choice.” Lucifer walked around the portal generator with an admiring look on his face. “So the great Balderhaz decided to try to reestablish contact with Heaven. Do you think it can be repaired?”

“I’m sure it can,” said Tiamat. “But why would you want to? The only place you can go is Heaven. You know, where you just escaped from.”

“You think too small,” said Lucifer. “This portal generator is just the thing I need to reestablish my dominion over this plane.”

“You mean
our
dominion,” said Tiamat. “I broke you out. We’re partners now.”

“Of course!” said Lucifer, with a disarming smile. “Of course we are. I’m eternally indebted to you, my dear. We’ve had our differences in the past, but it’s time to put that behind us.”

“Good,” said Tiamat cautiously. “Now what is this plan of yours?”

“Well,” said Lucifer, “to be honest, it’s a bit sensitive. I’d rather not divulge too much at this point. Nothing personal, but there are a lot of contingencies and I don’t want to get ahead of myself.”

“I see,” said Tiamat. “So what’s the next step?”

Lucifer bent down and righted the portal generator. The LCD screen was cracked and the casing had at least a dozen bullet holes in it. Lucifer absently felt at the holes with his fingertips. “How long do you think it will take to repair it?” he asked.

“Depends what’s wrong with it,” said Tiamat. “But they seem to have all the tools we would need to fabricate replacement components. I wouldn’t think it would take more than a few hours.”

“Good, good,” said Lucifer. “With a working portal generator, we’re most of the way there. But I’m missing one piece of the puzzle. A certain artifact that has unique properties. I know where it is; I just have to go get it.”

“And how long do you expect this to take? We can’t remain here indefinitely. Somebody is going to miss these agents.”

“If my suspicions are correct, I shouldn’t need more than four hours,” said Lucifer. “You can hold off the feds until then. Just tell them you’ve got hostages. It’ll be like Waco all over again.”

“Didn’t everybody in the compound at Waco get incinerated?”

“Yes,
eventually
,” Lucifer replied. “But they held out for almost two months. All I need is a day.”

Tiamat seemed unconvinced.

“Look, I’ll leave my minions here with you. You saw how they did against these guys. You’ll have no trouble holding off the feds for a day. Hear that, Azrael? Tiamat’s in charge until I get back.”

A faint moan emerged from Azrael’s bloody form.

“You see?” said Lucifer. “Everything is going to be fine. Get that portal generator working. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”