The Weirdness

by Jeremy P. Bushnell

  “So now what,” Denver says, after a minute.

  “I dunno,” Billy says. “Anybody have, like, an UNO deck or something?”

  The lights go out. A collective murmur of dismay goes up from everyone in the room, except Billy. The lights come up again a second later, when some backup system kicks in, although the illumination they cast seems a little more feeble and uncertain now.

  “He’s coming for me,” Billy says. He says it quietly, but a pall has fallen over the room, so no one has any trouble hearing him.

  “Hold that seal,” Laurent says.

  “Got it,” says Barry.

  The room shudders ferociously. The lights flicker. An expensive-looking oscilloscope-type widget crashes to the floor, gives one single alarming bleat as it dies. Barry’s glyph wobbles, blurs at its edges. Sparks peel off and bounce to the floor.

  “Hold that seal!” Laurent shouts.

  “It’s not that easy,” Barry says.

  “Goddamn it,” Laurent says. He turns from person to person frantically, although he does not really appear to be addressing anyone in particular. “We’re not going to lose. Not twice in one day. We’re the fucking good guys. The whole point of our existence is that we’re superior to evil. We’re supposed to win. Our whole building got fucking trashed by hellfire once today, okay, yes, bad, but we should at least be able to hold one room that a fucking council of warlocks designed to be the most mystically secure space in all of New York City.” He takes off his hard hat and flings it at the wall.

  The room gives another violent shudder. Barry’s silvery glyph suddenly turns a dark, smoky red. Little flames spill out of its edges. Barry begins to tremble and jitter, like someone about to have a seizure.

  “Oh,” Laurent says, throwing his hands up into the air. “Oh. This is just perfect. We are ever so perfectly fucked.”

  “Billy,” says Denver. She grips his leg.

  “Yeah,” Billy says. He doesn’t look at her; he’s watching the door, watching the glyph begin to burn.

  “Are we going to die?”

  Billy turns to look at her now, sees the fear in her face. “I don’t know,” he says.

  “If we’re going to die,” she says, “I want to say that I’m sorry. About last night.”

  “Sorry?” Billy says.

  “Yes,” Denver says. “When you said you loved me. I should have said it back.”

  “Oh,” Billy says. “Uh, you still could say it. Now might be a good time.” His hope grasps at the idea that somehow love is the key to this situation, that somehow, love will save them all.

  She opens her mouth, but then the room is gripped by a third groaning spasm. This one cracks about half the tiles that line the walls and shatters three of the fluorescent lights, filling the air with a harsh, choking dust. The glyph sputters out completely.

  “Fuck,” Anil says, rearing out of his chair. “Fuckity fuck.” He fumbles around in his pockets and gets out a convenience-store packet of incense sticks, rips it open, takes all dozen sticks into one fist. With his other hand he pulls out his lighter, gets it going, lights the end of all the sticks at once. He gets down on his knees, closes his eyes and begins to murmur hurriedly, waving the sticks in the air, making tight little loops of fragrant smoke.

  “What are you doing?” Billy asks.

  Anil snaps his eyes open, looks sharply at Billy. “What does it look like I’m doing, nimrod? I’m praying.”

  And behind him, one by one, all 777 LEDs on the God detector begin to light up.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DEUS EX MACHINA

  THE ADVERSARY • THE PROTECTOR OF COWS • TREATIES AND PEACES • BAD EXAMPLES • 16,000 WIVES • NON SERVIAM • THE DEVIL AT THIRTY • SQUANDERED EFFORT • THE DEAL • FOREVER TOGETHER • IDEAS

  Barry loses consciousness and slumps to the floor, and the double doors swing open, revealing Lucifer, standing there, in his bloodied shirt, grinning widely. For one horrifying moment Billy can see through him, can see how the version of Lucifer that looks human is really just the tip, the tiniest tip, of something larger, infinitely large, really. Billy looks into Lucifer’s face and it is like looking through a window into an endless abyss, an inferno as broad as the universe. Except worse than an abyss, and worse than an inferno, because it has a mind. It is intelligent, diabolically intelligent, capable of scheming, strategizing, plotting. Capable of being an opponent, the opponent of anything, the opponent of a god. Billy looks at Lucifer and he sees the Adversary. And he finally understands what it means, to have sworn himself to that, and he wills himself to break free of his vow, in the way that you try to will yourself to wake up from a nightmare, but he can’t, he can’t wake up, he can’t break free, and the horror of this causes him to nearly lose his mind right then and there.

  But something stops him. Some presence in the room. Something stabilizing, balancing, calming. Lucifer looks over Billy’s shoulder and his grin dissolves, replaced by recognition. An unmistakably contemptuous variety of recognition.

  Billy turns. Behind him stands a dark-skinned Indian man, slender, young, maybe eighteen at best. He wears a keen blue suit, with a sharp yellow silk tie, and in his hands he holds a very fine briefcase. He’s incredibly handsome in sort of an androgynous way, a way that seems familiar to Billy somehow, as though he recognizes this man from a movie, or as though some facet of the man’s face can be found somewhere in every movie ever made, even movies that are nothing but footage of water.

  The man steps out into the center of the room. “Lucifer,” he says, in a voice that is light and boyish but betrays no trace of immaturity.

  Lucifer responds by forcing a polite smile, the kind of smile that reveals that a smile can be achieved by just tensing particular zones of your face. “Krishna,” he says. “The Protector of Cows.”

  No way. No fucking way. Billy turns to look at the God detector. Its display seethes with evolving mandalic patterns.

  Anil still sits in front of it, staring at Krishna in a stupor of disbelief: his jaw hangs open, the incense droops in his slackened fist. Fragrant smoke merges with the thin, acrid smell of frying circuitry.

  Laurent looks from the machine to Krishna to Lucifer and back again, and finally, with nothing to say for once, he drops his ass into a chair.

  Denver has her camera out and she leaves Billy’s side in order to maneuver for a better angle.

  Billy can’t immediately see where his dad is.

  “Long time no see,” Lucifer says. “What brings you here?”

  “I received a request for intercession,” Krishna says, gesturing at Anil.

  “A request for intercession?” Lucifer repeats, incredulously.

  “But—I mean—you must get, what, millions of those a day.”

  “True,” Krishna says, pronouncing the word with great precision. “But is it not apparent that the circumstances unfolding here today are unique?”

  “Well, sure, but,” Lucifer says. “When you really think about it, couldn’t you say that all circumstances are unique?”

  Krishna blinks, once, very slowly.

  Lucifer says, “Okay, so, you’re telling me that that one’s yours?” Lucifer waves a hand to indicate Anil. “That’s fine. I’m not here for that one. I’m here for the other one.” He turns to address Billy. “Billy Ridgeway. Have you fulfilled your objective?”

  “I have,” Billy says.

  “Are you ready to depart with me, to return to Hell?”

  “I am,” Billy says.

  Keith Ridgeway gives a roar and springs out of whatever nook he’d been crouching in. He lunges at Lucifer with a ceramic blade in his hand. Lucifer turns, though, and snaps his fingers, and Keith vanishes in a spume of white flame. Dad, Billy thinks, with a jolt.

  “He’s fine,” Lucifer says, quickly.

  “What did you do to him?” Billy says, with mounting horror.

  “I sent him home,” Lucifer says. “Ohio. Don’t worry. I have no interest in harming your father. I
’m not inherently vengeful, you know.” He looks pointedly at Krishna, as if this utterance is a move in some long argument the two of them have been having. “But now. It is time.”

  “Wait one moment, please,” Krishna says.

  “What,” Lucifer says. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  “Ah, but there you are incorrect,” Krishna says. He calmly approaches a metal table cluttered with Right-Hand Path crap, and, with a single fluid arc of his arm, a graceful motion, like the most sublime gesture in a modern dance piece about office life, he sweeps it clear, sending paper cups and reams of printouts to the floor. “If this situation did not fall under the scope of my dharma I would have no ability to hold you here, as it would not be rightful. And yet we can see that here you are held. Are you not?”

  “I am,” says Lucifer, tetchily. “Although I fail to see why.”

  Krishna places the briefcase on the table and pops its clasps. The report echoes off the room’s destroyed tile. Lucifer winces at the sound.

  “Your actions are in violation of a long-standing agreement,” Krishna says.

  “Nonsense,” Lucifer says.

  From his case, Krishna produces a document festooned with official-looking seals and at least one strip of crimson ribbon. He proffers it toward Lucifer, who makes no gesture toward accepting it. “Need I remind you, Lucifer, of the protocols established by the Treaty of Sectarian Nonaggression?”

  “You don’t need to remind me,” Lucifer says, “of the protocols of the Treaty of Sectarian Nonaggression.”

  “I would hope that I would not,” Krishna says, “as you assented to them on October 25, 1965, and you assented to an earlier yet functionally identical version of them on October 24, 1648, in the form of—”

  “The Peace of Pantheons,” Lucifer says, wearily. “Believe me, I remember.”

  “Nevertheless,” Krishna says, “perhaps it would be worth taking the time to review their principles, which explicitly prohibit any god, demigod, angel, archangel, demon, or devil from deliberately harming or threatening to harm human adherents of any member faith. Therefore, when you endangered Anil Mallick with hellfire—”

  “But—” Lucifer points at Anil. “He’s a secular humanist!”

  “He is Hindu,” says Krishna.

  “His parents are Hindu,” Lucifer stresses.

  “It is true that he has claimed that he is not the best example of a practicing Hindu,” Krishna says. “But even a not-very-good example remains an example.”

  “So, okay, maybe he’s Hindu. But a treaty violation only means—”

  “Among other things,” Krishna says, “what that means is that you forfeit the right to any gains directly acquired by means of the acts which violated the treaty. And because William Harrison Ridgeway was coerced into—”

  “He prefers Billy,” Lucifer says, although suddenly Billy isn’t certain that he does, any longer.

  “Because William Harrison Ridgeway was coerced into swearing his Dark Oath to you in order to remove Anil Mallick from danger, and because Anil Mallick was endangered in violation of the Treaty of Sectarian Nonaggression, the penalties you face include an invalidation of William Harrison Ridgeway’s Oath, effective immediately.”

  And with those words Billy feels it go, as though washed away by cold, clear water rushing through his mind. He inhales once, deeply.

  “You cheat,” says Lucifer.

  “Lucifer,” Krishna says. He returns the document to its case and claps it shut. “My intercession here is complete, or nearly complete, and so I intend to depart. But I shall leave you with one recommendation. Whatever business you may have with these people? Conclude it.”

  “Yes, fine,” Lucifer says. “Give my best to your sixteen thousand wives.”

  For the first time, an irritated look crosses Krishna’s face. “You do understand that those wives are manifestations of Lakshmi, my consort—?”

  Lucifer shrugs. “If you insist,” he says.

  Krishna sighs, and in the sigh is the sound of a river, an infinite river, and when the sound fades Krishna is gone, although it’s difficult to pinpoint any exact instant as being the one at which he disappeared, and in a way it is like he is still there with them. The situation still feels balanced. Billy turns to check out the detector, which is dormant, and he notices that Anil has disappeared, spirited away by his god. Billy senses him returned home, bewildered, worried but safe.

  “So,” Lucifer says, returning his attention to Billy.

  “So,” Billy says. “Now what?”

  “Nothing has changed,” says Lucifer. “I still intend to take you and the others to Hell with me, where you shall serve the purpose for which you were bred and born. No ward protects you. I can take you at any time.”

  “But that’s not fair,” Billy says. “You don’t get to take us just because you can.”

  “I never claimed to be fair, Billy,” Lucifer says, softly.

  “But that wasn’t the deal,” Billy says.

  “Billy,” Lucifer says. “We made no deal.”

  “We did,” Billy says, pleadingly.

  “We did not,” Lucifer says. “You are correct that I proposed a deal, originally. You will recall the terms: you were to have given me the Neko, and I was to have seen to it that your book would be published, and our obligations to one another were to mutually conclude. But you did not agree to that deal. You made a point, repeatedly, of saying that you were not agreeing to that deal. And now I want more.”

  “You said you enjoyed tempting people,” Billy said. “Show me. Tempt me. Give me something.”

  “Billy,” Lucifer says. “It is time to go.” He raises his hand.

  Billy looks Lucifer in his stupid placid face, and feels his anger and animal ferocity surge up again. He finds himself wanting blood in his mouth.

  “No,” he says.

  “No?” Lucifer says, sounding faintly amused.

  “No.”

  Lucifer regards Billy carefully. “Are you telling me,” he says, “that you won’t serve your master?”

  “You’re not my master,” Billy says.

  “I appreciate this attitude,” Lucifer says, after a beat. “It reminds me of myself at your age. Very well, then. You wish to make a deal? Let’s make a deal.”

  And with those words it is like a circle is drawn around them, a circle that no one else in the room can enter.

  “Let us discuss your book,” Lucifer says.

  “No,” Billy says. “Screw the book. My book sucks and I don’t give a shit about it.” He exhales after he says that, like he’s letting go of a breath he’s held for years. Something that had been flailing in him, all that time, finally calms, and from that position of calm he is able to speak: “Here’s the deal: I give you the Neko and you leave me alone. You leave me alone and you leave my friends alone, forever. You release Jørgen and Elisa from their own oaths or obligations or whatever. You let us all go home and you don’t contact us again.”

  “That’s really what you want,” Lucifer says.

  “That’s what I want,” Billy says.

  Lucifer watches him closely. “I went to some trouble to make the three of you, you know,” he says, with something bordering on affection in his voice. “To let all three of you go would represent the squandering of a great deal of effort.”

  “You waited thirty years to track us down,” Billy says. “You can’t have needed us all that badly.”

  “Thirty years,” Lucifer says. “That’s nothing to me.”

  “Then start over,” Billy says. “Invest the time. Make another set like us. In the end you’d have exactly what you want now.” He feels bad, using someone not yet born in this way, an innocent person he’ll never know, but he has nothing else to bargain with.

  Lucifer considers the idea impassively. It is like watching a computer chew up some enormous wad of data only without the benefit of a creeping bar to mark the progress of the process.

  “This is the deal,”
Billy says, quietly. “Take it or leave it.”

  After a nearly interminable interval Lucifer breaks into a smile.

  “No,” he says.

  “No?” Billy exclaims.

  “Don’t act so surprised, Billy Ridgeway; you’re not the only one who can say no when a proposal does not suit him.”

  “Okay, fine,” Billy says, anger in his voice. “Make me a counteroffer, then.”

  “I shall,” Lucifer says, his smile broadening. “And here it is. You give me the Neko. I send you and your friends home. I free Jørgen Storløkken and Elisa Mastic from their Oaths and I begin to work on building another retinue of hell-wolves. But that will take time. It will take years. What I want from you, then, is permission. I want permission to contact you again, should I require your services.”

  “Am I obligated to say yes? When you pop up? Do I have to do what you say?”

  “You do not. At that time, should it come, we will negotiate a new deal. I only ask for the right to approach you, and I ask that you consent to hear me out.”

  “Will I have to watch a PowerPoint presentation?”

  “Yes,” Lucifer says. “But any such presentation will be under forty-five minutes in duration.”

  “Fifteen,” Billy says.

  “Thirty,” Lucifer says.

  “Agreed.”

  “I have your consent?”

  “You do.”

  “Very well, then. Billy Ridgeway, I accept our deal.”

  He extends his right hand, and Billy knows that the time has come: at long last, he has to shake hands with the Devil. And he does. Lucifer’s palm is cool and dry to the touch, and Billy feels a little self-conscious about his own, which is coated with a clammy sheen of panic sweat.

  “The Neko, please,” Lucifer says, extending his left hand, without releasing Billy’s right hand from his grip. Billy passes the duffel bag containing the Neko and the cache of incriminating weapons.

  “I shall honor our agreement,” Lucifer says, looking Billy straight in the eye. “And if you wish to go home, then home is where you shall go.”