"I didn't tell you? I made a snowman! Well, I made the parts of a snowman. I even managed to find a big round trash can and two bowling b.a.l.l.s. You know, for the nose and eyes. Uzziel interrupted me before I could put it together."

"You really are like a child, aren't you, Mercury? The rest of us are plotting Armageddon, and you're busy making snowmen. You could be making snowmen now if you wanted to. Why do you care so much about Karl?"

"About Karl? I don't. I mean, a.s.sa.s.sination still seems unsportsmanlike to me, but he got himself into this business. I feel a little more responsible for Christine, though. You noticed that I wrote into the contract that Lucifer would not be allowed to harm anyone else we free from captivity along with Karl, right?"

"So the untouchable, unflappable Mercury has a soft spot for a mortal, no less," said Izbazel, relishing the moment. "I thought you had turned into a cynic like me, but it turns out that you're a romantic."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand," said Mercury. "You like to think that you're in charge of your destiny, but you're just a typical angel, being pulled about by abstract forces you don't understand. Sometimes I think these mortals have an advantage over us. The eternal perspective can skew your vision, make you think you see things more clearly than you do. I think being mortal, knowing that you only have a few scant years to figure everything out, helps to crystallize things. Someone like Christine, who really understands what's at stake... she takes good and evil seriously in a way that I'm not sure you and I can understand."

"So after everything you've been through," said Izbazel, "you're back on the side of Heaven."

Mercury laughed, a long, loud laugh that made Izbazel feel queasy inside. "Izzy," Mercury said, "you just got schooled by that sap Gamaliel, and yet you persist in the illusion that you've got the whole Universe figured out. You spent a few hundred years schlepping about for the Mundane Maintenance Corps, tuning interplanar energy receptors or whatever, and you think you've earned the right to look down on Heaven. Izzy, do you know what my biggest accomplishment was, in four thousand years on this plane?"

Izzy said nothing.

"It was in 1814, at the Battle of Plattsburg, in New York State. The Americans were still at war with the British, despite the fact that some overly optimistic fool had named it the War of 1812. I was a.s.signed to protect a certain Captain Miller, an American. My superiors never told me what was so special about this guy, but I watched over him day and night. The Brits shot so many sh.e.l.ls and rockets at that fort, it should have been just a hole in the ground. But miraculously thanks to me most of the rockets didn't explode and none of the thousands of bullets managed to find Captain Miller. After a while, even with interplanar energy at my disposal, I had a hard time keeping up with it all. At one point a bomb got past me and exploded two feet from Miller. I had just enough time to arc the shrapnel around him. Three other men were wounded and one was killed, but Miller was miraculously unscathed. Miller would have been dead five times over in that battle if it weren't for me."

"Okay, so you saved this Captain Miller's life. What's your point?"

"The point is, Miller figured it out. He knew he couldn't have survived that battle without divine a.s.sistance. Up to that point, he had been a Deist a believer in a distant G.o.d who didn't get involved in human affairs. But after his miraculous survival at the Battle of Plattsburg, he became a die-hard believer. A real Bible-thumper. So far, so good. A job well done, right?

"But then Miller he gets it into his head that the Second Coming is going to happen on 1843, and he starts spreading the word. It doesn't happen, of course, so he revises the date. Still nothing. So he stops trying to predict the End, but by now the movement's got a life of its own. One of his followers declares that the Second Coming will happen on October 22, 1844. Do you know what happened on October 22, 1844, Izzy?"

Izbazel had to admit that he did not.

"Nothing," said Mercury bitterly. "Nothing happened. Thousands of people gathered to experience Christ's return, thanks to Captain William Miller, and nothing happened. The crowning achievement of my angelic career is what is commonly known as the Great Disappointment. I saved William Miller's life so that he could spread disillusion and hopelessness to tens of thousands of people. That's my legacy. So don't you presume to lecture me about which side I should or shouldn't join."

"Yes, well," said Izbazel, suddenly uncomfortable with this turn in the conversation. "In any case, it's nice to see that you actually do care about something. I wanted to tell you, by the way..." Izbazel drifted off.

"What?"

"Well, I wanted you to know that I realize that you didn't have to stand up for me back there, with Lucifer. I mean, if you hadn't insisted that you needed me, I'd be a newt right now."

"Oh, but I do need you," said Mercury.

"For what?"

"Well, somebody's got to dig through all the garbage in that dumpster to get to the attache case at the bottom."

Izbazel regarded the pile of restaurant detritus and grimaced. "Whatever. It's better than being a newt."

"Or a p.a.w.n," added Mercury.

After several minutes of digging through paper wrappers and partial cheeseburgers in various states of decomposition, Izbazel extracted the silvery case, now smeared in mayonnaise and mustard as well as the blood of a recently deceased Israeli general. He handed it to Mercury. "What's the plan? You're going to find them with the case?"

"If Tiamat is the one behind this," Mercury said, "then Karl is most likely still on the Mundane Plane, since she's stuck here, thanks to Lucifer. And their means of escape suggests that they didn't plan on using a portal to extract him. They would have planned to get out of the area of the stadium quickly."

"Maybe an airplane? Or a helicopter?"

"Too high-profile, especially considering that all eyes are on L.A. right now. They must have escaped by car."

"They might still be on the road then."

"Maybe. Probably not, though. They'd want to get off the road and hide out somewhere safe, as soon as they were outside the chaos caused by that implosion. So I'd say we look on the main roads out of the city, twenty to a hundred miles outside of L.A., somewhere relatively secluded. Tiamat is known for her personal phalanx of combat-trained demons, so they shouldn't be too hard to find."

Mercury scanned the rocky coast of Malibu and the spa.r.s.ely populated areas off I-5 before finding a red patch in the middle of the San Bernardino forest.

"There they are," he said. "Sitting ducks."

"Yes," said Izbazel. "Looks like about thirty sitting ducks. With automatic weapons."

"It'll be okay," said Mercury. "I've got an idea. Just give me a minute to call Uzziel and let him know what we're up to."

THIRTY-NINE.

After Mercury had briefed Uzziel leaving out certain details to avoid breaking his contract with Lucifer he and Izbazel headed south to the location indicated by the case. Being cherubim, they were capable of a top airspeed of nearly three hundred miles per hour, and they managed the journey from Lodi to the San Bernardino Forest in just over forty-five minutes. When they got within a mile of Tiamat's stronghold, they landed and crept to the top of a ridge overlooking the cottage. The sun hung just above the horizon in the west.

"You feel that?" asked Mercury.

"Some kind of disturbance in the Angel Band?" guessed Izbazel.

"It's a Mundanity Enhancement Field, centered on that cottage," replied Mercury. "Seems to be about a hundred yards in diameter. She probably set it up to keep Lucifer from finding her. We'll have to be careful. We won't be able to pull off any miracles within that sphere."

"But neither will they."

"True, but you don't need as many miracles when you have a Kevlar vest and an M4 carbine."

Neither angel had been involved in a hostage extraction previously, but they had both watched enough Mundane television to know that their best bet was for one of them to create a diversion that would lure the bulk of the guards away from the cottage while the other released the captives. They had seen this work dozens of times, although generally the odds were not quite so lopsided, and it tended to involve more diving sideways in slow motion while firing two large caliber handguns simultaneously than either of them was comfortable with. Mercury persuaded Izbazel to accept the task of extracting Christine and Karl mainly by reminding him that it was the diversion-creator who usually ended up gasping something in his dying breath about going on without him.

"Just remember," said Mercury, "you won't be able to use transplanar energy inside that sphere. If you get caught outside of it, though, you've got the advantage. They'll avoid using miracles to keep from drawing attention to Tiamat's stronghold, so they'll stick with their a.s.sault rifles. Once you get Karl and Christine out of that bubble, use miracles to protect them from the bullets. The bullets won't kill you, of course, but they'll slow you down and hurt like h.e.l.l, so protect yourself as well."

"Hang on, Merc," said Izbazel. "You forget, I'm a wanted angel. I can't afford to draw too much attention to myself either. If I start moving bullets around by harnessing interplanar energy, Heaven will be able to get a lock on me. They'll hit me with a Cla.s.s Five as soon as they catch wind of me."

"Don't worry," said Mercury. "I've apprised Uzziel of what's going on. There won't be any unwanted interference." This was true, from a certain point of view.

"Meanwhile, you'll be doing what exactly?"

"Diversion," said Mercury.

"Right, but what kind of diversion, exactly, are we talking about?"

"The diverting kind. The kind that makes you go, 'Hey, what's that that? I think we should maybe take a better look at that that.'"

"I'm going to be a newt, aren't I?"

"Don't worry about it. I got your diversion covered. You just get as close as you can to that cottage and wait for the diversion."

"Which will be..."

"You'll know it when you see it. It will be very diverting."

"Yeah," Izbazel said. "I'm sure."

The two of them split up and headed toward the cottage from different angles.

Izbazel might have felt better about the plan if he knew that Mercury really did have one h.e.l.l of a diversion in mind. He probably would not have been too keen, however, on the exact nature of the diversion.

FORTY.

Izbazel crept as stealthily as he could toward the rear of the cottage. He was roughly three hundred yards away, moving gingerly from tree to tree.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," muttered Izbazel, an exclamation that could have applied equally to any of the countless annoyances that were currently plaguing him.

First and foremost, he was annoyed that his attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate Karl had gone sideways. He had given up a cushy job in the angelic bureaucracy to work for Lucifer, and needed badly to ingratiate himself to the Evil One. He was annoyed that no matter how this ended, he would not be moving into a cozy faux Tudor in Hidden Oakes with a view of Hidden Oakes Golf Course and Country Club. He was annoyed that he probably would not need a house in any case, as this little adventure would most likely end in him being turned into a newt. He was annoyed that he didn't actually know what a newt was.

He had been annoyed for some time now with the fact that he had been outsmarted by that nitwit Gamaliel, but that annoyance was overshadowed by his annoyance with being led around by the nose by Mercury, an angel for whom he had nothing but disdain.

He was annoyed that he couldn't quite convince himself that there wasn't something else, perhaps grudging respect, hiding out amongst his overwhelming disdain for Mercury. He had long thought of Mercury as sort of a rabid dog: unpredictable and potentially dangerous, to be sure, but relatively easy to contain. Somehow, though, Mercury had been able to remain one step ahead of the various plotters. This, too, annoyed him.

He was further annoyed that Mercury, for whom he was on the verge of admitting he might have a very slight amount of grudging respect along with truckloads of disdain, hadn't been able to come up with anything better than "I'll make a diversion, and you rescue the hostages."

Finally, he was annoyed that Mercury had instructed him to approach from the east just as the sun was setting, making it nearly impossible for him to see. Even with his angelic vision, he found himself squinting in an effort to distinguish trees from guards. What was Mercury thinking?

One thing was certain: Izbazel had no intention of rescuing anybody. If he actually managed to get inside the cottage, he was going to kill Karl with his bare hands. Probably that meddler Christine, too. Then he would ditch Mercury and make a beeline back to the Infernal Plane, where he would inform Lucifer that he had completed his mission. Mercury, having failed to deliver the Antichrist, would then be fair game. He relished the thought of Lucifer turning Mercury into a newt. He imagined Mercury in the form of a sort of winged oyster, flapping around helplessly.

He crept closer to the cottage.

It was to Izbazel's credit that when he was about two hundred yards from the cottage, it occurred to him that maybe Mercury had antic.i.p.ated what Izbazel was planning to do with Karl. But that made no sense. Why would Mercury want Karl dead?

Izbazel, his eyes on a pair of guards about halfway between him and the cottage, tip-toed to the next large tree.

A new burst of annoyance washed over him as he recalled how Mercury had denigrated his diabolical competency. What had he said? That Izbazel should be a "middle school librarian." Whatever that that meant. Well, we'll see what he thinks when meant. Well, we'll see what he thinks when he's he's been outsmarted by been outsmarted by me me. How could have been so careless as to put me me in charge of the rescue? in charge of the rescue?

Hang on, he thought. How could could he have been so careless? He had to have known. So... Mercury wants Karl and Christine dead? That didn't seem right. he have been so careless? He had to have known. So... Mercury wants Karl and Christine dead? That didn't seem right.

The guards were now facing away from him, so Izbazel seized his opportunity to move forward another twenty feet.

He wondered how long it would be before Mercury's diversion started. He was hoping for an explosion. An explosion would be really neat. But how would Mercury cause an explosion?

It dawned on Izbazel that Mercury wasn't going to be able to cause an explosion. In fact, Izbazel didn't see how he was going to create a diversion of any kind. Which meant that he had sent Izbazel on a fool's errand. He had planned on Izbazel to fail. But why?

Izbazel noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. What the h.e.l.l? Another guard to his right? And still another coming out of hiding on his left. They had seen him coming. They were trying to encircle him!

Izbazel ran. Automatic weapon fire rang out in the woods.

Forget this! he thought. Nothing to do now but get the h.e.l.l out. They had failed.

He took to the air, reaching out to the interplanar energy channels to envelope himself in a protective bubble of supernatural power. In the back of his mind he hoped he could trust Mercury's a.s.surances that Heaven wouldn't interfere. The way he was pulling in interplanar energy, he'd be a sitting duck if Heaven decided this was a good time to take out a renegade cherub.

Hundreds of bullets whizzed pa.s.sed him, miraculously altering their trajectories at the last split-second. The bullets didn't bother him nearly as much as the possibility of being hit with a Cla.s.s Five pillar of fire at any moment.

Now that that would be a diversion, he thought to himself as he soared toward the treetops. But Mercury had promised there would be no unwanted interference from Heaven. It occurred to him, though, that under the circ.u.mstances he and Mercury might disagree on the definition of "unwanted." Maybe, it further occurred to him, Izbazel being incinerated in a Cla.s.s Five was precisely what Mercury wanted. In fact, maybe Mercury had offered Izbazel to Heaven in exchange for providing a diversion so that Mercury could free Christine and Karl. All Uzziel would need to pinpoint his location would be for Izbazel to draw attention to himself by manipulating interplanar energy which is exactly what Mercury had told him to do to avoid being shot. would be a diversion, he thought to himself as he soared toward the treetops. But Mercury had promised there would be no unwanted interference from Heaven. It occurred to him, though, that under the circ.u.mstances he and Mercury might disagree on the definition of "unwanted." Maybe, it further occurred to him, Izbazel being incinerated in a Cla.s.s Five was precisely what Mercury wanted. In fact, maybe Mercury had offered Izbazel to Heaven in exchange for providing a diversion so that Mercury could free Christine and Karl. All Uzziel would need to pinpoint his location would be for Izbazel to draw attention to himself by manipulating interplanar energy which is exactly what Mercury had told him to do to avoid being shot.

Middle school librarian indeed, he thought to himself. I'm starting to get the hang of this sort of intrigue.

For once, he was right.

FORTY-ONE.

"What the h.e.l.l?" exclaimed Katie Midford, also known as Tiamat, the Wh.o.r.e of Babylon.

"Not h.e.l.l," said Christine. "Heaven."

The cottage shook from the blast. They had to shield their eyes from the blinding light pouring in through the windows.

"This must be what it's like to be inside a Thomas Kinkade painting," said Christine.

"What's going on?" said Karl, terrified.

"That, if I'm not mistaken," said Christine, "was a Cla.s.s Five pillar of fire. Someone in Heaven has evidently taken an interest in our host's little hideaway."

"We need to get out of here," said Gamaliel. "If Heaven knows about this place, we don't stand a chance here."

"They have no right!" hissed Tiamat. "They don't know what they are doing! If I fail, Lucifer's plan will proceed! He'll make this whole plane into a wasteland!"

Christine, having a sudden notion, said, "Why don't you turn yourselves in? If you spill the beans on what Lucifer is planning, I'm sure they'll go easy on you."

"Silence!" snapped Tiamat. "We're not finished yet. Let's get out of here."

Gamaliel led them to the Ford Explorer parked behind the cottage. Two other cherubim, who had been standing guard outside, ushered the captives to the vehicle.