by Tad Williams
Seriously, don’t you think you’d be willing to give that a try? You and me, a boring ordinary couple? Walk into a party together and not worry some ancient Old World demon is going to jump out of the guacamole and try to kill us? Go on vacation without worrying that the apocalypse will start as soon as we’re away from our desks? I could happily spend years kissing up one side of your body and down the other. I’m not exaggerating. I dream of you all the time. I would love to lick, bite, and suck on every inch of your chilly skin. You are like a giant coconut Popsicle, pale and cold and sweet. Oh, but warm inside. So warm.
Don’t you dare give up on me, woman. Don’t you dare give up on us.
twenty-four
werepig worries
I DON’T WANT to seem like the kind of guy who’s always complaining (even though I am) but when I first started out in the angel business I really thought there would be more harping, clouds, and streets paved with gold, rather than Dear John messages from my girlfriend in Hell and six a.m. calls from worried werepigs.
Actually, it was more like five-twenty when my phone rang, and I could ratchet my eyes open just wide enough to recognize the number for Fatback Central.
“George,” I said, “welcome back.” I think I made those sounds, anyway. I’m not a morning person even on my good days.
“Bobby, I’ve been hacked. I mean robbed. I think someone was in my house.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We just got back yesterday. Javier’s grandson was in charge while we were gone, but he went out one night even though we told him not to. Somebody’s been into all my stuff.”
“Slow down. What stuff?”
“My computers, my voice mail—all that stuff from you, Bobby.”
“Shit, you’re kidding. All our communications, emails, everything?” This was disaster on a huge scale. I’d been doing business with George for years, and only about half of it was legitimate, by Heaven’s standards. Also, most of the illegitimate stuff had happened in the last year.
“No, no, not everything. It’s okay—I’m not an idiot, Bobby. I took my drives with me. But everything that came in while I was out of town, because all the emails were copied to my home system. All your voice messages, too. It was meant to make sure I wouldn’t lose anything. I’m sorry.” He went quiet for a moment. “I think I’ve checked it all. I can’t be positive, but I don’t think they got anything that would let them hack into my main records.”
Even if it was only the last couple of weeks’ worth of stuff taken, it was still fairly catastrophic, because Donya Sepanta’s name and a ton of research about her had all been there, not to mention research into the Black Sun Faction and some other things. Was Anaita behind this burglary? I almost hoped she was, because there was no way she could use it against me, not without opening herself to some very painful questions from the other ephors and heavenly authorities in general. It was more likely, though, that the neo-Nazi boys were trying to find out what I knew about the horn. “What happened?”
He told me Javier had already located tire tracks, probably from a Jeep or Land Rover, which led right onto the property from a disused fire road. It sounded like the bad guys had pretty much waited until the coast was clear—in this case, until grandson Steven snuck off with some friends to go see some 90s hip-hop group at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, leaving the house and barn unguarded. Then the bad guys had swept down for their little smash-and-grab, or in this case, smash-and-hack. “Did they take anything else? Money or valuables, or anything unusual?”
“Nothing. Just information, and most of it from you.”
“Did you call the police?”
He laughed in a not-happy way. “When should I have them drop by? When I’m a giant pig? Or during regular working hours, when I have a human body and the brain of a giant pig? My family doesn’t call the police for anything.”
George was beginning to feel the approach of the dawn, so I told him I’d get up to see him when I could—not that I thought there was anything I’d find there, but just because I felt bad about it. It wasn’t George’s fault he’d been haunted and now home-invaded, it was mine. He was kind enough not to point that out, but I felt I owed him a visit.
“I don’t have a car right now, though, so it might take me a few days.”
“What happened to your ride, Bobby?”
Under the circumstances, I didn’t think it would make him feel any better to know that the same people who’d been in his house had slipped a giant murder-slug into my car, so I just told him it was in the shop.
One thing I never figured on in this angel business was how much I’d have to lie. It’s a very lucky thing I’m good at it.
I did my best to get back to sleep after George and I hung up, but I probably managed only an hour’s actual unconsciousness before nine o’clock rolled around, which was when the Amazons woke me up with breakfast. They’d walked to the nearest fast-food place and brought me back a slice of pure madness called a Breakfast Taco, accompanied by a bag of soggy Good Mornin’ Taters. I actually ate this meal, and then did my best to pretend I didn’t want to run to the bathroom and immediately recycle it. The women meant well, but they hadn’t yet learned that the incredible bounty of America also spawned horrors Man was not meant to experience, especially in the early hours of the day.
• • •
I hadn’t noticed anything immediately noteworthy in Oxana’s pictures from Anaita’s house, so I had the Amazons send them to Clarence for further study. Then, once the Breakfast Taco had passed the make-or-break point in the digestive process, and I knew I could leave the house safely, I set out for Orban’s semi-legitimate gun shop and vehicle emporium. I wandered far enough from the apartment to be out of the blocked zone, called a cab to meet me out on University Avenue in twenty minutes, then started walking.
I had to go to Orban because the number one problem at this moment—number one out of about four hundred or so—was my lack of car. See, I can’t do rentals anymore under my own name because, well, because I tend to break them. Not on purpose, it’s just that stuff keeps happening to me. You may have noticed. Strangely and unfairly, the rental companies keep track of things like that. I’d had to use a fake ID to get the Chrysler we drove to Anaita’s house, and I didn’t want use those too often.
Also, I’m always a tiny bit more cautious with a car I haven’t paid for, and even a half-second hesitation might be a problem. I once rammed a six-legged something-or-other with a car that belonged to one of the other guys in the Harps, back in the Counterstrike Days. I saved both our lives, but he still made me pay for all the bodywork. So I was going to have to go back to Orban to get another vehicle, but I was worried. I’d planned out what to do with the cash I’d made from selling my Matador, and although I still had a lot of the money, I already knew I’d have to give a lot of it back to Orban for things that went bang and things that went boom; I couldn’t really afford another big chunk of it for something that went vroom-vroom. But what choice did I have? You can’t fight neo-Nazis and powerful angels using only the SJTD bus system.
It’s true. I swear I’m not just being picky.
Anyway, by the time I hiked out to University the cab was already waiting. The driver was a slightly schlubby-looking guy with glasses and a beard, the kind you can usually find in almost any bar explaining why everyone else is wrong about everything except him, but as long as he didn’t expect me to talk libertarian politics, I didn’t care. I spent the first part of the ride trying to read the instruction pamphlet for my new phone. The only problem was that it was in Serbo-Croatian, and mine is a little rusty.
“Nice day, huh?” the driver said. Since it was raining lightly, and gray and cold, I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but I nodded. “I mean, it could be worse,” he added. “Am I right?”
I didn’t know about him, but the only way I could imagine things being much
worse at the moment was if this guy had a bugbear in his trunk, too, but I just nodded again. “I guess.”
“Me, I always try to remember that it could be worse. You know, like I could be in Hell or something.”
I stiffened and snuck a look at his face in the mirror, but he was chewing on a toothpick watching the traffic go past at the intersection where we’d stopped at a red light. “You worry about that much?” I asked.
“Not too much. But it’s good to remember. I mean, some people don’t know when they’ve got it good. Know what I mean? We never know what’s going to happen. And we never know until it’s all over who our real friends are. Or our real enemies.”
Now I was feeling distinctly uncomfortable, although it was far from the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had with a cabbie. Still, I shifted a little bit so I could reach my gun easily. The Belgian FN had gone in the car fire, but I still had my good old Smith & Wesson revolver, my sofa gun, now back on the starting team. It was a bit depressing, actually. I couldn’t remember the last time I had gone anywhere unarmed.
We slid onto the Bayshore and headed north toward the Salt Piers and Orban’s place. I had almost stopped worrying about the driver when he suddenly said, “You sure this is where you wanna go?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just the kind of place . . . well, people probably know you there, know you go there, I mean. So some other people might be watching.”
I carefully set the muzzle of my.38 against his neck so he could feel it against his bare skin. “I don’t like you much, pal. I think you’re going to pull off at the next exit. Right?”
He wasn’t very upset, or at least he didn’t seem that way. Maybe I wasn’t the first passenger to have this reaction. He carefully moved into the right lane and we exited on Marsh Road, heading out toward the edge of the Baylands Preserve. Before we left civilization behind entirely, I had him pull over in front of what was probably an abandoned cement plant, a great pale cube set behind razor wire. On this ugly gray day it looked like the kind of place that might house a concentration camp instead. When the driver stopped the car, he remained very still. Smart.
“I’d prefer not to shoot you,” I said. “Because I’m just that kind of dude—agreeable, friendly, interested in others. However, if you don’t explain this weird shit you’re talking to me, I may just have to shoot you a few times anyway, working my way up from the expendables to the oh-god-not-those. Are we clear?”
“Perfectly,” he said. “I guess I’m getting better.”
“What the fuck, if I may be so bold, are you talking about? Because you’re not about to get better, you’re about to be very unwell. This thing is jammed full of thirty-eight caliber semiwadcutters, and if I shoot you in the neck they’ll probably pop your head right off like a grape off a stem.”
“I’ve always admired how well you do this,” he said. “You must practice.”
“Talk! And not bullshit!”
“You really don’t recognize me?” He sounded thrilled, and all of a sudden I realized what was going on.
“Temuel?”
“I probably should have talked about sports—isn’t that what these kind of people do? But I don’t really know anything, and I would have got it wrong.”
“What the hell are you doing, Archangel? If you don’t mind me asking? Because you just freaked me right the fuck out, and I was about to pistol whip you.”
“See? I love that. It sounds so authentic! How do you whip with a pistol?”
I fell back in the seat. I know, I still couldn’t be one hundred percent sure it was Temuel and not some especially tricky, well-informed demon, but seriously, who else would be such a dweeb? “Why are you here, Archangel?”
“I thought it was time we had a talk. Some very worrisome things are going on, and—”
“Hang on. Why are you driving the cab I ordered? How did that happen?”
“Please, Bobby, give me a little credit. Do you really think an archangel can’t get his hands on a cab when he wants one?”
“Don’t bullshit me, please. How did you know I called for a cab?”
No answer. His eyes caught mine in the mirror for a second, then he looked away. I could swear I saw something that looked like shame.
“You told me you took all the tracking software and surveillance doo-hickeys out of my phone.” I don’t know why I was angry. What had I expected? “You gave it back to me, and said it was clean. You told me you took that shit out!” I’d only figured out that particular bit of management treachery after Clarence had shown up at Shoreline Park when there was no way he could have known Sam and I were there.
“I did.” Temuel seemed agitated. “I swear by the Highest that I told you the truth. I took out or disabled all those things in your phone.”
“Yeah, well, that’s bullshit,” I began, then realized that he might actually be telling the truth. Because I wasn’t using that phone anymore. What was in my pocket was my new, clean Serbo-Croatian Cubby Phone. “Hang on—how did you know?”
“I can’t tell you. You’ll have to trust me.”
“I beg your pardon? Is this the comedy portion of the evening’s entertainment? Damn you, just tell me what’s going on!”
“Please don’t talk to me like that.”
For just a moment, I heard something in his voice I hadn’t heard before, a steeliness, perhaps even a cold, hard anger under the mild words. It reminded me that whatever else he was, Temuel was an archangel of the Lord God, and I had been talking to him like he was a street punk. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m under some stress. And I’m up to here with secrets.”
When he spoke again, Temuel sounded like his ordinary self. “I promise, Bobby, that I’m only trying to keep you safe. I want to know where you are in case I have to help you. Like now.”
“You may be a very good angel,” I said, grumpy again but taking things down a few notches, “but you are a terrible-ass liar, Archangel. I’d bet that ‘keeping me safe’ also has something to do with keeping yourself out of trouble as well.”
Another embarrassed look, like someone in a sitcom caught stealing ice cream from the fridge. He’d have been adorable if my soul and sanity weren’t in jeopardy. “Of course. I’m letting you run on a long leash, so I need some idea where you’re running.”
I filed this away for later. Was he telling me he knew about my visit to Anaita? How was he keeping track of me? I was ready to swear no one had been tailing me or spying on the apartment. But if he wasn’t going to tell me, he wasn’t going to tell me. You don’t force an archangel to do anything. Unless you’re a higher angel.
I realized I was still holding my gun on him and slipped it discreetly back into my coat pocket. “Just tell me what you’re doing here now. What’s going on? Why another surprise meeting?”
“It’s your request for a leave of absence, actually—I warned you, remember? I held onto it as long as I could, but people notice when you’re not doing your job, Bobby. You’re a bit infamous. Now the Ephorate is unhappy again, and they’re talking about bringing you back in for disciplinary action.”
“Which means?”
“Probably nothing good.”
“When you say the Ephorate, who do you mean, exactly? All of them?”
He looked troubled. “It’s very hard to explain all the ins and outs, but Chamuel, Anaita, and Raziel are the most disturbed. Terentia and Karael have, well, not defended you, but suggested that more information is needed. Karael even said that he thought you might have been more seriously affected by the disappearance of Edwin Walker’s soul and all the trouble that came afterward than anyone realized.”
“Karael defended me? Well, bless him.”
“He’s loyal to his soldiers, and you used to be a soldier. That’s mostly what’s kept you out of trouble so far.”
“As well as
some string-pulling behind the scenes by you?”
He shrugged, but he still looked unhappy. “I do what I can, but I have no real power. Not compared to Terentia and the rest.”
The problem was, I didn’t know where Temuel himself actually stood, especially with Anaita, so I couldn’t question him about the things I most needed to know. You just can’t make too many assumptions where my bosses are concerned. I mean, from what my old top-kicker Leo and others like Gustibus had told me, there were grudges and vendettas being acted out in Heaven based on petty slights that took place while humans were still drawing bison on cave walls.
“So what do you suggest I do?”
“If I were you, I’d ask to be interviewed by our superiors about your reasons for taking leave. Make them more comfortable with what you’re doing, why you’re not doing your job. At the very least it might buy you a little more time.”
“Time for what?”
Now it was his turn to give me a hard look. “I don’t know. And to be honest, Bobby, I don’t want to know.”
That hung in the air for a good long time—several seconds at least. “Why are you helping me in the first place, Archangel?” I said at last.
“Anything I say will sound like . . . bullshit,” he said. I think it was the first time I’d ever heard him swear. “But I care about you. I even admire you, except when you’re being a complete idiot. And I think there are things that need to be discovered, unhealthy secrets that should not remain secret. If you can do that, then Heaven will be a better place.”
“But how can Heaven be a better place?” I said, only half-sarcastic. “It’s already perfect.”
“We all wish that were true,” Temuel said. “But some of us know it’s not.”
He’d brought the conversation to a halt again. I couldn’t think of anything else I could ask him without revealing my particular problem with Anaita. “I appreciate it, I guess. But next time, could you just, I don’t know, tone down the who-am-I-this-time games? It’s nerve-wracking.”
