Sweat beaded on Mercury's forehead. His breathing deepened.

"Mercury, dammit! Stop!" Izbazel was near panic.

The head of the spoon began to move, ever so slightly, at odds with the handle.

"Mercury, you lunatic, Stop it!"

The head of the spoon bent forward.

There was a collective gasp from the restaurant's patrons.

Izbazel and Gamaliel both leapt to their feet. They ran to the door, flung it open, hopped on their motorcycles and screeched away.

The head of the spoon sagged and wilted, then fell to the table. Mercury held only the handle. He picked up the fallen piece and held both pieces up, one in each palm.

The restaurant erupted into applause.

A small boy who had been sitting nearby walked up to the table.

"How... did you... do that?" he gasped.

Mercury smiled. "Trick spoon." He snapped the pieces together and handed them to the boy.

The boy stared at the spoon in his hand. "How do I...?"

"You'll figure it out," said Mercury. "Anybody can do it. Just remember, the real trick is in the presentation."

Mercury paid the bill and left.

EIGHTEEN.

The Antichrist had spent the night on Christine's couch. As if she hadn't been through enough, she had heard on the drive down that a minor earthquake, centered just north of Los Angeles, had hit the area. Fortunately, it had apparently done little damage. She was so exhausted from the drive and the day's events that she fell asleep with her clothes on as soon as she had satisfied herself that her linoleum was no worse for wear.

Christine had leveled with Karl, explaining what had happened in Lodi. Well, she had almost almost leveled with him. She had to tell him that she was a Secret Service agent to get him back in the car, and she had kept up the ruse so that he'd let her take him to meet Harry. leveled with him. She had to tell him that she was a Secret Service agent to get him back in the car, and she had kept up the ruse so that he'd let her take him to meet Harry.

She wasn't entirely certain why she was taking him to meet Harry; it just seemed like the thing to do. Until now, Harry's tendency to commingle the spiritual with the temporal had always made her a little uncomfortable, but now that the two had collided in the unlikely form of Karl Grissom, she found herself envying Harry's way of looking at things. If anyone would know what to do about Karl, it would be Harry.

She had told Karl that Harry was the director of a covert branch of the Secret Service based in Los Angeles that was charged with protecting Drew Barrymore and the Antichrist. Karl was the kind of person who would readily accept an absurd story if it were filled out with enough bizarre and arbitrary details.

The next morning they met Harry in his office at the headquarters of the Banner Banner. Despite her ambivalence toward Harry, she was relieved to be in the company of a more-or-less normal, sane individual.

Harry was, inexplicably, completely taken with Karl.

"So you weren't wearing the helmet? On the video, it looks like..."

"I guess I ducked," said Karl. "Yeah, I have pretty fast reflexes."

"He bent over to pick up his keys," Christine said. "The bullet missed him completely."

Harry closed his eyes and spoke aloud. "'And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.'"

"Is that from a book?" asked Karl.

"Revelation thirteen verse three," said Harry.

"That's pretty cool, I guess," said Karl. "I know almost all the lyrics to R.E.M's 'The End of the World as We Know It.'"

Christine started, "Everyone knows almost all the " knows almost all the "

"That's great, Karl," said Harry. "You obviously have a lot of potential."

"So did you get him yet?" Karl asked.

Harry said, "Whom?"

"The guy who tried to shoot me, of course. Did you catch him or what?"

"Er," Harry said.

"Harry isn't at liberty to discuss such matters," Christine said. She added, for good measure, "National Security."

Harry gave Christine a puzzled look. Christine found her attention drawn to an interesting tuft of carpet. She wondered how her linoleum was holding up.

"Karl, would you like a soda?" asked Harry. He held out a dollar. "There's a machine in the lobby, on the first floor."

"About friggin' time," said Karl. "I'm practically dying of thirst." Karl stomped out of the room.

"Sorry," said Christine. "I had to tell him you were Secret Service to get him down here."

Harry nodded, as if he had figured it was something like that. He sat down behind his desk and motioned for Christine to take a seat in one of the chairs opposite him. In the middle of Harry's desk, next to his flat panel monitor, was a beautiful leather-bound King James Bible.

Christine proceeded to tell Harry an edited version of the previous day's events. She left out Mercury and the pillar of fire. In her version, Gamaliel and Izbazel were a couple of anti-Charlie Nyx fanatics who had threatened Karl in Lodi.

"I'm not really sure what to do with him," Christine concluded. "Should we take him to the police?"

"I'd like to do a story on him," said Harry. "Have you interviewed him yet?"

"Uh," Christine began. "Does listening to someone talk about Charlie Nyx until you start to consider the merits of swerving into oncoming traffic count as an interview?"

"He's a person of... he's an important person," said Harry.

"No," said Christine. "He's a..." Only one word came to mind.

"He's a what?"

"A... d.i.c.kweed," said Christine.

"That's not really for us to say," admonished Harry. "A lot of people think that this Antichrist contest is the final straw in the mockery of religion. I'd like to hear what Karl has to say about that."

"Honestly, Harry, I don't think he's put a lot of thought into it. And frankly, Karl is only a story because people like us are saying he's a story. You do realize that the Charlie Nyx marketing people are using you, right? The more we whine about their stupid pseudo-Satanic marketing gimmicks, the more books they sell."

"Pseudo-satanic?" said Harry. "That's an interesting distinction. 'He who is not with me is against me.' Matthew twelve verse thirty. On what side of that line are your pseudo-Satanists?"

Christine was getting fed up with Harry's deliberate obtuseness. "Harry, please. You can't honestly believe you understand what's going on here well enough to report on it. What if you're only seeing a very small part of the picture? What if there are..." She struggled to convey the baffling complexity of the situation without referring to motorcycle-riding cherubim, magical briefcases or pillars of fire. "What if there are forces beyond your understanding at work here? What if you're just a prawn, er, p.a.w.n p.a.w.n, being manipulated on a chess board?"

"Then I have a responsibility to report what I see from my square on the board."

"Okay, but you also have a responsibility to not pretend that you can see the entire board."

"I'm not following you, Christine. Where are you going with this?"

"Look," Christine, grabbing the Bible from Harry's desk. She flipped it open to near the end and began to read: .

"And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short s.p.a.ce. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou saw are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the wh.o.r.e sitteth, are peoples, and mult.i.tudes, and nations, and tongues. And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth."

She closed the book. "Are you going to tell me, Harry, that you understand all of that?"

"Revelation seventeen," said Harry. "That pa.s.sage refers to the Wh.o.r.e of Babylon, who appears at the very end of the tribulations. Many scholars think that she signifies Rome, although during the Middle Ages it was commonly thought that "

"The fact is," said Christine, wagging the Bible at Harry, "You have no idea who or what the Wh.o.r.e of Babylon is. It's all conjecture. So while you waste your time looking for the Wh.o.r.e of Babylon in the current events section of the paper as if it were some kind of diabolical version of Where's Waldo Where's Waldo, real events are occurring that people need to know about. I mean, I hear there's a war going on somewhere."

"We'll cover that too," said Harry. "It's all..."

"Connected?"

"I was going to say 'important.' All of this stuff the situation in the Middle East, Karl, the thing with the corn in South Africa...."

"The corn in South Africa?"

"Oh, the AP just reported it. There's some kind of mutant strain of corn that's taking over South Africa. We've got Dave looking into it."

"Mutant corn? Are we talking about twelve-foot stalks of corn walking down Main Street or what?"

"Nothing that dramatic. A biotech company down there has been doing some testing of biogenetically altered pesticide-tolerant corn. Evidently some of it got away from them, and they're having a hard time getting it under control."

Christine was dubious. "Doesn't corn move kind of... slowly? It sounds like they're not trying very hard."

"I don't know the details, but I guess a lot of people are concerned. They were counting on this new strain of corn to ease poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, but now it looks like this corn might actually wipe out a lot of other crops. Crazy stuff."

"Yeah," said Christine. That was was weird. weird.

"And then there's this thing with the morgues. Have you heard? Somebody broke into a morgue downtown yesterday and stole a dozen corpses. Then this morning they broke into another morgue and stole ten more. Explain that that to me." to me."

"Easy," said Christine. "Somebody underestimated the number of corpses they needed."

"The point is," said Harry, "there's a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world, and the public needs a sane voice to explain it to them."

For a moment Christine didn't follow him. "Oh!" she eventually said. "You mean us us."

"The Banner Banner, Christine. We have a responsibility to report all of these events as part of a coherent narrative that people can understand."

"But that's my point," sighed Christine. "You don't know the whole story, so the only way you can come up with a narrative is to make one up make one up."

"We've been given the narrative. G.o.d tells us of His unfolding plan for creation."

"And you feel that you understand this plan?"

"G.o.d has given us His blueprint for history. We just need to open our eyes and ears."

"So you believe with one hundred percent certainty that we're headed toward Armageddon?"

"We've always been headed toward Armageddon. It's just a question of proximity. Look, we're not going to go on the record as saying, yes, this is the beginning of the Apocalypse, but I certainly do think it's our responsibility to point out how our current situation mirrors the teachings about the End Times found in the Bible."

"Fine," said Christine. "Let's say you're right. Let's say hypothetically speaking that we really are in the End Times. In that case, hypothetically, what would our position be?"

"Position? I don't follow you. We're a news magazine. We don't take positions, we report the news."

"But clearly we do take positions. I mean, this is a Christian publication. So we take the Christian position. Or at least a a Christian position." Christian position."

"Of course," said Harry. "But that's like saying we take the position of truth over falsity. It goes without saying that we are on the side of truth. Time Time and and Newsweek Newsweek claim to be on the side of truth too, of course, but they have a different understanding of truth. A deficient one, in my opinion. Any conception of truth that leaves out G.o.d or makes G.o.d only a contingent possibility is inherently deficient. There is no truth apart from G.o.d." claim to be on the side of truth too, of course, but they have a different understanding of truth. A deficient one, in my opinion. Any conception of truth that leaves out G.o.d or makes G.o.d only a contingent possibility is inherently deficient. There is no truth apart from G.o.d."

It was rare for Harry to go off on such an abstract tangent, and it was throwing Christine off her train of thought. "I guess what I mean," she said, "is... are we pro-Apocalypse or anti-Apocalypse?"

Harry laughed. "You might as well ask whether we're pro-earthquake or anti-earthquake."

"Okay," said Christine. "Are we pro-earthquake or anti-earthquake?"

"What difference does it make?"

"It makes a difference," said Christine. "If you could stop an earthquake, would you?"

"Of course, but that's a ridiculous..."

"What if we could stop the Apocalypse?"

"You can't stop the Apocalypse. It's part of G.o.d's plan."

"But what if you could? I mean, you and I have our differences in how we interpret 'G.o.d's plan,' but you know that I appreciate the way our staff covers natural disasters. Even when that meteor hit the Bellagio last year, we never even mentioned the possibility that it was some sort of divine retribution. Which is, of course, more than I can say for a lot of religious media outlets...."

"What's your point, Christine?"

"When an earthquake or a hurricane hits, we treat it as a tragedy in other words, as something that should not have happened. An objectively bad thing that we would have prevented, if we could have. I mean, maybe it's G.o.d's will that 33,000 people died in an earthquake in Pakistan last year, but we don't cover it like, 'Sorry folks, G.o.d's will, you know. Better luck next time.' We may acknowledge that it's part of G.o.d's plan, but we also acknowledge that sometimes G.o.d's plan sucks sucks. So how is the Apocalypse different? I mean, if we can see it coming, shouldn't we try to stop it?"