Jeremy Bushnell - The Weirdness

“Hey, man,” Anil says.

“Hey,” Billy says. He dumps Anton Cirrus’s duffel bag onto the floor.

Anil puts a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Listen, man, these guys say that they’re going to help you get out of this. This Oath or whatever it is that you’re under.”

“But that’s the thing,” Billy says. “I can’t really root for that. I gave my word .”

Anil gives him an incredulous look. “Are you kidding me?” he says. “Of all the people I know, you’re like the first person to try to weasel out of your obligations. You break promises all the time .”

Billy turns to look at Denver, in the hopes that she’ll defend his honor, but all she does is give a palms-up gesture.

“So what the fuck makes this promise so special?” Anil says.

“I made it to the Devil,” Billy says.

“Right — which means that it fucks you even worse than the average stupid shit you agree to! And now you’re in a room with people who love you — your friends and your dad and an entire staff of fucking magicians who are working overtime to help you get out of this and you won’t even allow yourself to root for them ? No offense, man, but it’s kind of a dick move.”

“You know what’s a dick move?” Billy says.

“What,” Anil says.

But Billy has no retort.

They sit there in silence for a minute. “All I’m saying,” Anil says eventually, “is just try to let yourself feel a little hope.”

Billy tries it. And a little light goes on in the wing of himself that he thought had collapsed, in the part of himself that he thought had died.

“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.

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.”