Jeremy Bushnell - The Weirdness

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.

“Be cause William Harrison Ridgeway was coerced into swearing his Dark Oath to you in order to remove Anil Mallick from danger, and be cause 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.”