Mercury Rises (5 page)

"Yeah, about that..." said Mercury.

"What?"

"If this rain keeps up, the palace will be underwater in a couple of days. We might want to look into reserving some space on the ziggurat."

"It would take quite a flood to submerge this palace," Tiamat said. "Every living thing that moves on the Earth would perish. I doubt it will come to that."

"And if it does, and the top of the ziggurat is full?"

Tiamat smiled wickedly. "Why, then we'll..."

"I know, I know," said Mercury wearily. "Throw some people off the ziggurat."

FIVE

Los Angeles was a revelation to Eddie Pratt. He had been in Ireland for so long that he had begun to think of the Mundane Plane as an endless landscape of moss, cobblestones, and fog. Southern California was warm and dry, and the oppressive fog of Cork had been supplanted by a pleasant brownish haze that hung in the distance like a cozy blanket hugging the city. As an angel Eddie was immune to lung cancer, emphysema, and stray bullets, but not, it turned out, to depression and ennui. Driving down Rodeo Drive in a rented BMW convertible, he scolded himself for not daring to abandon his post earlier. No wonder they called this the City of the Angels.

After checking into his suite at the Wilshire, Eddie had procured the BMW on his newly acquired expense account and spent the next several hours driving around the city, admiring---and, he hoped, being admired by---the beautiful people. At two p.m., he strode into the executive conference room on the fifteenth floor of the Beacon Building wearing aviator sunglasses and a forest green velour jumpsuit that he thought made him look stylish while retaining comfort. He was half right.

Wanda Kwan introduced him as "the man behind the success of Charlie Nyx," and he smiled and shook the hands of the representatives of the various aspects of the Charlie Nyx franchise. There was a representative from the movie studio, someone who handled the Charlie Nyx action figures and other merchandising, a woman from the
Beacon
who was doing a feature on the Charlie Nyx phenomenon, a small, roundish man whom Wanda introduced as the marketing director for the Charlie's Grill chain of restaurants, and several others.

"Horace Finch sends his regrets," Wanda said. "He's out of the country right now, but he asked me to personally thank you for coming to Los Angeles, Eddie. I'll be his acting representative during this meeting, and if there is anything you would like to communicate to Mr. Finch, I'll be happy to relay it for you."

Eddie nodded understandingly.

"So," said Wanda to Eddie, "I think the big question on everyone's mind is, how's the book coming?"

Eddie affected a smile, trying to appear confident. In fact, although he couldn't explain why, this syndicate of Charlie Nyx-related interests was making him profoundly uneasy. It was ridiculous that he, a six-thousand-year-old angel, could be made to feel uneasy by this gaggle of money-grubbing bureaucrats, but here he was, fidgeting nervously under the table. He took a deep breath.

"Well," he said, "The book is fantastic. I mean, I really think it's the best one yet."

Nods and appreciative murmurs went around the table.

"Here's the thing, though," Eddie went on. "Given the recent, ah,
events
in Anaheim, there are certain elements of the story that need to be, well,
massaged
, so as to not appear insensitive to those aggrieved by this terrible tragedy."

The syndicate nodded and murmured in respectful agreement. No one wanted to be insensitive to those aggrieved by a tragedy, especially if being insensitive in any way tarnished the Charlie Nyx brand or the Finch Corporation's public image, thereby adversely affecting the beloved shareholders.

Thank God, thought Eddie. If they think I have to rewrite a significant part of the book, it might give me enough time to locate a copy of the actual manuscript.

"We completely understand," said Wanda. "In fact, I believe Tim has an idea in that regard." She motioned to the dwarfish man that had been introduced as Tim Scalzo, the marketing director of Charlie's Grill.

"Yes," Tim piped up. "As you know, sales at most Charlie's Grill stores have been down for the past several weeks. In addition to the weak economy, which has affected all of our respective interests, Charlie's Grill has had to face a number of unique challenges lately. First, there's the bad press that has resulted from the class action lawsuit regarding Charlie's Triple Bacon Sausage Burger. Despite the fact that all four meats used in the burger were of the finest quality, six highly publicized deaths have turned this into an expensive and embarrassing public relations nightmare for us. Then there are the religious extremists who are boycotting Charlie's Grill because they didn't see the humor in our 'Be the Antichrist' promotion. I mean, come on, people, don't take things so seriously. It's not like Karl Grissom was the actual Antichrist!"

The syndicate laughed. Eddie shifted nervously in his chair.

Tim went on, "And frankly it's a bit unfair that they're refusing to call off the boycott even though Karl was shot in the head and was then absconded with, never to be seen again. I mean, how badly wrong does a marketing campaign have to go before we're forgiven?"

Murmurs of sympathetic understanding arose from the syndicate.

"And on top of all that," Tim continued, "our research indicates that seventeen percent of our frequent patrons have stopped eating at Charlie's Grill because they're afraid they might get shot at. Because of
one
shooting at
one
restaurant. I mean, how do you combat that kind of thinking? It's completely irrational. You're probably twice as likely to be struck by lightning as you are to be shot in the parking lot of Charlie's Grill."

"And six times as likely to die from eating the food," offered Eddie helpfully.

Tim glared at Eddie. "The cause of death for three of those cases hasn't yet been proven." He continued, "The point is that Charlie's Grill could use some good publicity, especially now, as we embark on a new phase in the expansion of the Charlie's Grill concept. As you know, before this run of bad luck, we began construction on the new Charlie Nyx Travel Plaza and Family Fun Place in Laguna Hills, just south of L.A. The Laguna Hills location was to be our flagship, the shining gem in the crown of the Charlie's Grill chain. Of course, there are always naysayers, and especially with the bad press we've gotten lately, many commentators are insisting that we've overextended ourselves. It goes without saying, then, that our grand opening this winter has to be a smashing success. What I'm suggesting is that we use the power of Charlie Nyx to revitalize the Charlie's Grill brand."

Eddie stared dumbly at Tim. "You...want to hold some kind of Charlie Nyx--related event at this travel plaza thing?"

"No, no," said Tim. "I mean, yes, of course. But more importantly, we want to incorporate the Charlie Nyx Travel Plaza and Family Fun Place into the book somehow. Maybe Charlie stops there on the way to the tunnels of the lizard king to take a shower or play some video games or something."

"I love it," gushed Wanda. "The
Tunnels of Doom
movie is already scheduled to premiere at the adjacent Charlie's Cinemas, so we'll do a huge grand opening slash movie premiere slash book-release party. It's a perfect storm of corporate synergy. The shareholders are going to
pee
themselves. Of course, that does mean an aggressive publishing timeline for the book. We'll need a draft by next Friday. That won't be a problem, will it, Eddie?"

"Wha...er," Eddie started. "So I have find...er, rewrite the book to take out any references to Anaheim and add a chapter where the main character swings by a
truck stop?
In a
week
?"

"A truck stop!" exclaimed Tim. "This is a Travel Plaza and Family Fun Place, Eddie. Complete with one-hour napping rooms, luxury showers, and a Family Massage Center. We just need Charlie to take twenty minutes out of his busy adventuring schedule to drop by there. He can't spend all his time whacking goblins with his magical staff, after all. You know how fifteen-year-olds are."

A stern-looking man at the end of the table cleared his throat.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Dan," Wanda said. "You had some legal concerns you wanted to mention."

"Yes," said Dan. "As you know, the entire Anaheim Stadium site is an ongoing crime scene, which means that under no circumstances is the book to make any reference to it. I trust that won't be a problem, Mr. Pratt."

"Well, I can't just..." Eddie began.

An editor for Finch Books, a bookish woman named Linda, spoke up. "Although, of course, it's very important that we maintain continuity with the rest of the series."

Eddie protested, "But how can I maintain continuity if I can't mention the setting of..."

"Yes, yes," the man in charge of action figures and merchandising said. "Continuity is very important. Also, the outfits."

"Outfits?" Eddie asked, confused.

"In the series thus far, Charlie's sweetheart Madeline changes outfits an average of three and a third times per book. We'd like to up that to five for this one. Sales of Sweetheart Madeline dolls are down forty percent this year, but we think we can make most of that up by offering several new accessory sets."

"And explosions," added the movie studio representative. "Receipts from the last Charlie Nyx movie were down fifteen percent, and our research indicates this is partly due to the relatively low number of explosions in that installment. We need at least six explosions to keep the interest of our core audience."

"
Tasteful
explosions," Wanda clarified. "The main thing, of course, is that the book reflect the true wishes of the late Katie Midford. What her wishes would have been if she had written them, I mean. And that we get the finished manuscript by next week."

"I'm sorry," Eddie began. "I just don't see how I can..."

"And once that's out of the way," Wanda went on, "we can talk about your angel book."

"Ooh, you've got a book about angels?" asked the studio rep. "How many explosions does it have?"

For a moment, Eddie stared at them in disbelief. Then, with the slightest hint of hope in his voice, he asked, "Do implosions count?"

SIX

The day after the
Banner
was shut down, Christine made a pilgrimage to the Anaheim Crater, the capacious hole in the ground where Anaheim Stadium had once stood. She hadn't been back since the stadium was destroyed.

Traffic, always bad in Los Angeles, had gotten exponentially worse since the Anaheim Event forced the closure of several main roads. Christine got lost and ended up cutting through an alley only to be trapped in a seemingly endless sea of immobile vehicles. All around her, horns honked and drivers hurled curses. Some of them had gotten out of their cars and were screaming and gesturing wildly at someone or something ahead of her.

"This whole city has gone insane," Christine muttered, gripping the steering wheel. She and Mercury might have averted the Apocalypse, but you certainly couldn't tell from the atmosphere in L.A. recently. Even before Anaheim, people had been on edge because of the earthquakes, but now things were really getting bad. It reminded her of those wretched movies about the teenagers who were supposed to die in an accident but somehow cheated Death only to be painstakingly hunted down one by one by Death over the next two gruesome, pointless hours. The Apocalypse, not to be cheated of its moment in the sun, seemed to be asserting itself in the collective psyche of Los Angeles: where earthquakes and implosions had left off, mass hysteria was taking over.

After five minutes of sitting immobile behind a great white plumbing van bearing the markings of "Kip's Plumbing," Christine turned off the engine of her Scion. Another three minutes and she threw the door open and got out of the car.

"What the hell is going on?" she demanded of no one in particular. Looking around the van, she could make out some sort of disturbance about ten cars up. She locked the Scion and marched forward, determined to find out what was going on. What she found was a crowd of maybe fifty people standing in a rough circle. Squeezing through to the front of the crowd, she saw the source of all the trouble: an unkempt, elderly man had parked his pickup in the middle of an intersection. In front of the pickup was a metal barrel, in which a fire was burning. The man was hollering something incomprehensible at the crowd, and they were hollering something incomprehensible right back at him. In his hand was a hardcover Charlie Nyx book.

"Oh, jeez," muttered Christine. This old kook had arranged an impromptu book burning in the middle of a busy intersection. And he was about to get himself lynched, judging by the mood of his audience. She doubted many of them were die-hard Charlie Nyx fans, but quite a few of them seemed to be fans of "Get out of the road, asshole!"

A beefy, balding man wearing blue coveralls had stepped forward and was berating the old man furiously, jabbing his finger into the man's ribs. Embroidered on his chest was the name "Kip." Great globs of saliva were fleeing Kip's lips in droves, landing on the old man or anywhere else they could find refuge. What the old man lacked in size, he made up for in intensity, shrieking like a wounded seagull about "blasphemous books" and "signs of the End Times."

While this altercation was going on, a young man in a business suit rushed forward and gave the barrel a kick, knocking it over and spilling a mass of flaming books into the street. Several onlookers dove out of the way of the conflagration, creating havoc in the crowd. Meanwhile, a new fracas had broken out closer to Christine, with an angry contingent castigating the man who had kicked over the barrel. Kip had brought his fist back in an effort to cow the old man, and two other men had stepped up to restrain him. In the distance, Christine heard sirens and saw the flashing lights of emergency vehicles, but they seemed to be making little progress toward the source of the trouble. Chaos was spreading through the scene like germs at a preschool.