“Definitely soup,” Malcephalon told the expectant assembly, managing to gloat somehow, despite his eternally drawn expression. “When his rage has given birth to action, he will lose any claim to conscience. After that, our victory is assured.”
“Let’s not sink all the lifeboats just yet,” Lucifer drawled, barely able to rein in his own giddy anticipation, given the week’s achievements. “Our plan does seem to have unfolded perfectly for once, but let’s not get careless with self-congratulation.” He stared pointedly at Malcephalon. “To win, we must prove ‘brazen defiance’ and ‘great wickedness,’ remember, not just some half-baked little lapse in judgment. I want no risk of losing another one of these things on some tawdry technicality. Our Enemy’s very big on that sort of thing, remember. So let’s keep whispering in his ear until his rage has come to full fruition, and please, let’s make sure that he’s not caught or, God forbid, killed somehow before he’s done all that is required of him.”
The Christmas decorations and choral music hailing Joby from every store-front seemed a vicious mockery as he strode down street after street lacking any destination. Two days ago he’d ripped out his answering machine to stop the frantic messages left by his parents, who’d apparently seen his picture on the evening news. He ignored the uncertain greetings received from acquaintances he passed on his manic walkabout. He did not want to see them, or be seen, by anyone ever again. He wouldn’t have left his apartment at all had he not been driven by a desperate need to move—move and think.
By night he dreamed of grief and guilt. By day he dreamed only of rage and revenge. The papers were full of Gypsy’s death, and the city’s defensive explanations. Public outrage had stirred demands for outside investigation and immediate reopening of the Meal Project, but Joby didn’t care. That officer had been right. All Joby’s moronic candles in the darkness were a useless, wicked fraud! Nothing anyone did now could bring Gypsy back. When the city’s detractors had squeezed sufficient political capital from the scandal of Gypsy’s murder, it would be quickly forgotten and unavenged. Any real justice was up to Joby. In this one last thing, he did not intend to fail his martyred friend.
He had no care for consequences now. He hated his life, had always hated it, and would happily see it end, so long as justice was served first. How did one learn to build a bomb? he wondered. How many would it take to level city hall? Who most deserved to die? Could he get enough of them with just a gun before being stopped?
“Ouch!” Joby gasped, nearly sprawling to his face. “Goddamn it!” he spat, looking back to find Mary stretched halfway into the busy sidewalk, looking crossly up at him as she rubbed the foot he’d stumbled over. “Damn it, Mary! Can’t you stay out of my way?” he raged at her, heedless of the stares from passersby. “What’s your problem?”
“Have I the problem?” she asked severely. “I’d say it’s your manners have slipped a bit.” She gave him one last scowl, and went back to reading the book in her lap.
Joby turned angrily to go, then realized what she was reading, and spun back, sure his mind had gone at last. Yet there it was: A Child’s Treasury of Arthurian Tales!
“Where did you get that?” he demanded, his fury momentarily displaced by astonishment.
She looked up from her reading, seeming irritated to find him still there. “Thrift store,” she said curtly. “The throwaway bin. Seemed too pretty t’toss out without one more readin’, not as I can see it’s any of your business.”
“I . . . I had a book like that once,” Joby said. “It was a gift from . . . Can I see it?”
She held it up for him to take, still looking cross.
The book was as worn as his had been, in virtually the same places. He held it to his face, and breathed in the very scent he remembered. Knowing there was no way it could be his own, he lifted its faded cover anyway, turned to the first blank page, and froze, openmouthed.
To my beloved grandson on his first day of life,
May you grow to be a knight Arthur would be proud of. Do great
things with a large heart, beautiful child. I am proud of you already.
With much love, your Grampa Emery
For a moment, he could hardly breathe. Then his eyes began to well, his breath to come in gasps as his exhausted mind and ravaged heart collided, the first propelled by shocked disbelief, the second by grief and shame.
“How did you get this?” he demanded, trembling.
“I told you,” Mary said.
“No!” Joby shouted. “I threw this away! How did you get it?”
“Haven’t we a temper today!” Mary replied sternly. “Thrown-out things is what thrift stores sell, lad. Stompin’ on my feet, yellin’ like a drunkard. Now yer callin’ me a liar. Your company’s gone sour. Think I’ll go find better.” She started to get stiffly to her feet. “Keep the silly book since you seem to own it. Cost me little enough.”
“No, wait! I’m sorry,” Joby said. “It’s just that . . .” The last frayed lines of defense inside him collapsed like the walls of Jericho. “I can’t . . .,” he pleaded. “Not now! Not now!” Clutching the impossible book to his chest, he doubled to his knees in unchecked misery, oblivious of those who gaped or turned away on the street around him, only half-aware of Mary’s arms folding him toward her breast. “I tried,” he sobbed as Mary pulled him closer, kissing his head, and rocking him in her arms. “I ruin everything I do, everyone I care about!” he wailed into her lap. “I just come near them and they die!”
“There, there, child,” she cooed sadly. “I know. It’s been an awful thing. . . . Just cry now, ’til it’s done. . . . I ain’t goin’ nowhere, my dearie.”
Twice, as Joby sobbed into her lap, he felt her stiffen convulsively, and wondered fearfully if she were going to have a heart attack and die now too. He wanted to run away, and couldn’t stop crying, and didn’t want her to let go of him, all at the same time.
When his sobbing finally ended, he lay empty and exhausted in her embrace, ignoring the respectable people who hurried by averting their eyes, or shaking their heads, until Mary broke their silence.
“You should leave here, dearie. This town’s got nothin’ but pain for you now. Go someplace far off where there’s no past to haunt you.”
“I tried that,” Joby murmured without raising his head. “When I came to Berkeley. . . . Start again. Someplace new. . . . There is no such place.” He sat up, wiping ineffectually at his eyes.
“There must be,” Mary pressed. “Ain’t nowhere ever made you happy?”
“Well . . . there was one place,” he said, surprised to think of it so suddenly after so many years. “There was this town called Taubolt. But I don’t know anyone there, or have anywhere to stay. Not on the twenty or thirty bucks I’ve got left.”
Mary nodded soberly and said, “That’s it, then. If I was you, I’d go there right this minute, and not look back.”
“What? But . . . I just told you. Where would I stay? What would I do for food?”
“Homeless is homeless, one place or another.” She shrugged. “And if all you’ve left is thirty dollars, that’s what you’ll be soon either way. Small towns ain’t no meaner to such folk than big ones are. There’s all manner of things t’eat in the sea, child, and who’s to say there ain’t a job waitin’ for you there?”
“Oh sure,” Joby scoffed, wearily. “I can’t get work for love or money here in Metropolis, but up in ‘two-store Taubolt,’ I’ll be first in line, right?”
“You’re doin’ it again, dearie,” she said, absently pulling one of her yarn ornaments from somewhere in her skirts. “Always rollin’ out that dark carpet in front of you. Them two stores will also have fewer folks to choose from, I imagine.” She began to wind and weave the trailing yarn around its small frame. The little diamond shape looked nearly finished. “Have you really anything t’lose by tryin’?”
Joby saw her wince and flinch again.
“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.
&
nbsp; “Indigestion,” she huffed. “An old woman’s stomach is no pretty sight, child. Are you goin’ or not?”
“Mary, I don’t even have a car. How am I supposed to get there?”
“You’ll find a way once you decide,” she said. “Decidin’s the hard part, ain’t it, dearie.” She yanked the last strand of yarn tight, and tied it off.
“What are these things you’re always making?” Joby asked.
“Just little charms.” She smiled. “For friends I meet here and there. . . . Brings ’em good luck. Keeps the dark away some.” She held out the one she’d just finished. “This one’s for you, dearie. Been makin’ it special.”
“Thank you,” Joby said, abashed. “You’ve been so nice to me, after the way I—”
Her face spasmed, and her arm jerked, as she held the ornament out to him.
“Mary, what’s wrong?”
“I told you, dearie, bad chowder,” she said shortly. “Take it now.”
After shoving her gift into Joby’s hand, she began climbing to her feet.
“Where are you going?” Joby asked.
“I got places to be some time ago,” she said a bit breathlessly, and turned to leave. “As do you, my dearie, if you’ve the brains God gave you.”
“Mary, wait!” Joby said, leaping to his feet.
“What is it?” she asked brusquely, looking back over her shoulder.
“I just . . . Thank you,” he said, embarrassed. “For these.” He held out her woven gift and his long-lost book. “I’ve never said it, but . . . I really . . . you’re one of the kindest, wisest”—he struggled for some way to express what he was feeling—“most patient people I ever met. . . . I just wanted to say that.”
Her eyes grew shinier and more pink-rimmed than usual. “Whatever fool things you must think about yourself, child, I’ve always been proud of you. Now, for God’s sake, get out of here. Wherever your life’s waitin’ now, it ain’t nowhere ’round here.” She turned again, and walked off toward the corner without a backward glance.
“Good-bye,” Joby said quietly, amazed to realize that the consuming rage that had driven him for days had simply vanished, like a spent fever, though, like a fever, it had left him feeling weak and insubstantial. Willing himself to look away from Mary’s retreating back, he turned and headed home down Telegraph, his book in one hand, her yarn charm in the other, wondering if she could be right about going to Taubolt.
Merlin’s skirts were bunched in white-knuckled hands as he left his grandson behind, straining to hold the demon’s onslaught at bay until he could be sure the boy was out of sight. The jig was clearly up for this disguise. A pity really. With a saint for a mother and a demon for a father, it wasn’t easy to invent personas effectively beneath the interest of both Heaven and Hell. Still, “Mary” had served her purpose, he hoped.
“Who are you, woman?” the demon demanded, appearing directly in front of him, steps short of the damned corner. “What are you?”
Knowing that no normal mortal would see the apparition, Merlin vainly pretended not to, hoping to confuse his tormentor just long enough to achieve his escape. Though twelve years spent waiting unobtrusively to act had seemed hardly any time at all to a man of Merlin’s age, reaching that corner ahead of him seemed to be taking forever.
“I know you see me, hag!” the demon snarled. “Your concealments are a marvel, I confess, but no merely mortal thing sloughs off my attacks one after another. You weaken though. I feel it. Tell me what you are, and where you got that book, and I may let you live. Resist me further, and I will simply tear the answers from you.”
Merlin just kept walking.
“Fool!” the demon snarled. “Where do you think to hide from me now?”
Fool, Merlin thought back through gritted teeth. Around that corner will do nicely.
“Do you think your noxious little knot of spells can save the boy?” the demon pressed. He raised a hand and redoubled the barrage of strokes and heart attacks he’d been hurling at Merlin, sufficient some time ago to drop any normal mortal woman where she stood. Throwing all his remaining strength into the shields that wreathed him, Merlin walked straight through the shadowed ghost, to its clear amazement.
“What are you?” it snarled, in angry dismay.
“If you don’t know by now, dearie, it’s too late t’care,” Merlin cackled, turning the blessed corner at last. No one at all came around the other side.
“He was there then, wasn’t he?” Gabriel asked. “With us in the glade when Joby threw his books away. That’s how they disappeared.”
“It would seem so,” mused the Creator. “He hides quite well, you know, even from angels.”
“But not from You, My Lord,” the angel pressed. “Why did You not just tell me?”
The Creator shrugged. “I just assumed that if he’d wanted you to know what he had done, he’d have told you himself.”
Disguised as a pigeon, Gabriel had watched the confrontation between Merlin and Malcephalon from atop a nearby record store, but, unlike Malcephalon, Gabe had quickly guessed who the old woman must really be. The sudden cessation of Merlin’s anguished pleas to Heaven on his grandson’s behalf, the angel now realized, had coincided too perfectly with “Mary’s” appearance. The book’s unexpected reappearance had removed any remaining doubt—regarding Merlin’s involvement, at least.
“But . . . does all this not suggest he’s been planning to disobey You from the start?” Gabriel asked anxiously. “He serves Heaven and received the same command all others did, not to interfere unasked, yet he disobeys. What are we to do, My Lord?”
“You know I’m not allowed to answer such questions, Gabe,” the Creator chided. “Keep this up, I could get confused and say something I’m not allowed to. Then Lucifer would win. That what you want?”
“No, My Lord. Of course not.”
But can that be what You want, Lord? Gabriel thought, unable to expunge the shameful thought.
As worded, Lucifer’s condition forbidding the Creator’s servants from helping Joby uninvited had applied only to immortal beings, but Merlin, though uniquely long-lived, was certainly not immortal. It had been the perfect loophole! The one remaining mortal able to hide from angels and contest with demons would have been free to help Joby, had the Creator not gratuitously upped the ante by addressing His command against unsolicited aid to “all serving Heaven.” Why had He done that? The Creator never used words carelessly!
No one knew better than Gabe that the Creator’s decisions were infinitely above any angel’s right, or ability, to question. And yet, for the first time in all the angel’s eons of experience, there it was . . . doubt. Gabriel didn’t want it, didn’t know what to do with it. But now it was and could not be unmade. Could the Creator want Joby to fail? Had He given up on creation? . . . Or was there something else between the lines here that Gabe was failing to perceive?
“You won’t punish him then?” Gabe dared to ask.
“I can hardly imagine doing so would not constitute an expression of My will in this matter,” the Creator replied patiently.
Gabe looked down uncomfortably, wondering how much of his own newly minted doubt the Creator had already divined. “Lord,” he said, as dry of mouth as an angel is capable of being, “these conditions You have agreed to are so impossibly unfair. It might seem to some . . .” He shook his head. “No. It is I who wonder. Have You intentionally set this contest against Joby for some reason?”
“Why would I do that?” the Creator asked casually.
“I cannot imagine, Lord. But . . . it seems to me that Joby would certainly have failed had Merlin not disobeyed Your command.”
The Creator shrugged. “He may still fail. What is it you really want to know?”
“Is that what You intend, Lord?” Gabe pleaded in sudden desperation. “That he fail?”
“I can’t tell you what I intend, Gabe. You know that. I’m quite out of the loop until this wager is ended, though I may have much to sa
y then, if anyone is left to hear it. How about a hand of cards, Gabe? Would that cheer you up?”
Gabriel could hardly believe his ears. Cards? The Creator sounded almost cheerful! Didn’t He care at all?
“My Lord,” he said palely, “I fear I have no appetite for cards. May I decline?”
“Why, of course, Gabe.” The Creator sounded nonplussed. “Would I make you play? How much fun would that be?”
Williamson hovered anxiously amidst the cloud of demons wreathing Joby’s bed. Despite Malcephalon’s efforts to dissuade him, Joby had hung the old woman’s charm around his neck on a strip of ribbon, where, to everyone’s livid consternation, it had blunted their influence ever since. The boy had even considered going into a church to pray for guidance! It had taken the combined strength of six different demons just to make Joby tired enough to come here to sleep instead. Adding insult to injury, the thing cast off a prickly energy difficult for Williamson, or even his superiors, to endure.
“Impossible!” Malcephalon kept hissing. “This cannot be happening!”
The Triangle, who might ordinarily have made quite a joke of Malcephalon’s disgrace, were too dismayed to do more than grumble agreement.
To Williamson’s concealed satisfaction, Malcephalon was in dire trouble for having failed to recognize the old woman’s purpose and power in time. In fact, the once-dominant demon hadn’t a friend in Hell now.
It seemed the old sorceress had left the world without a trace. Since she’d tried to send the boy to Taubolt, most thought it likely that’s where she’d gone as well. Lucifer had ordered that Joby be allowed nowhere near the coast on pain of punishment far worse than death. Ironically, that very command had caused Williamson to realize that his long-awaited chance to grab the ball had finally come. It was common knowledge by now that not even Lucifer had been able to find the place, or Joby in it. Thus, if Joby were to get back there now, and Williamson were with him when he did, Lucifer, for once, would be powerless to prevent Williamson from calling the shots alone and engineering Hell’s victory all by himself. Not even Lucifer would be able to deny him credit then! The one remaining problem was how to get sufficient time alone with Joby.
The Book of Joby Page 28
