THE ANGEL QAPHSIEL AND A MAN WHO CALLED HIMSELF simply Frank were sitting at a card table in room 8 at a hotel on East Sixth Street in L.A.’s Skid Row district. The bottom floor of the hotel housed an extremely questionable fish-and-chips joint (the question being the composition of the fish. It was, in fact, fish and not some clever scientific construct, like flounder-flavored packing peanuts. The chips were generally considered all right, even if their age bordered on the Jurassic). The room smelled like old grease and a chemical forest, probably from all the pine-scented deodorizers that hung from every vertical surface. It was like Eden, Qaphsiel thought, if Eden had been dipped in batter and Kentucky fried by the banks of a chemical plant. Still, even in such dismal surroundings, Qaphsiel was excited.
“So,” he said.
“So,” said Frank.
“Thanks for meeting me.”
“I’m always happy to meet another seeker of the truth.”
The room was hot. Qaphsiel unzipped his Windbreaker halfway, careful not to expose his wings. “So, you’re a religious man.”
Frank cocked his head. “More spiritual than religious. That’s how I found the box.”
“Really? How?”
Frank spoke in a slightly rapturous tone. “I was in Tibet, meditating with a group of very old, very psychically powerful monks. All we’d had to eat or drink for days was yak butter tea.”
“Was it cold?”
“The tea?”
“Tibet.”
“It’s Tibet. What do you think?”
“Cold then.”
“As a witch’s tit on a ski lift.”
Qaphsiel smiled. “Eloquent. So, you were meditating.”
“Yes, with the monks, when my consciousness was pierced by a blinding pure white light.” Frank held up his hands like he was giving a benediction.
“And that’s when you saw it?”
“No. That’s when I met with my spirit guide, Flamel.”
“Nicolas Flamel? The alchemist?” said Qaphsiel.
“Yes. You’ve heard of him?”
Qaphsiel nodded, the tiniest hint of suspicion creeping into his mind. But he stopped himself. He’d been on the hunt for so long that it was easy to get cynical. “Of course. My, your fifteenth-century French must be very good.”
Frank looked puzzled, then nodded and gave him a good-natured smile. “Well, you know how it is in these disembodied spiritual situations. I could understand him and he could understand me.”
“Of course. I should have guessed. Please go on.”
“Anyway, Flamel took me deep into a cave in an unnamed mountain high in the Himalayas.”
Qaphsiel looked around the room. There were stacks of old books on Bible ciphers, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Tibetan Buddhism, various grimoires. Also, some vintage Playboys that someone had tried to cover up with a prayer shawl. “It was darned lucky of you running into a French alchemist all the way in Tibet.”
“Wasn’t it?” said Frank. “Old Nicolas, he gets around.”
“Probably cashing in those frequent flyer miles.”
Frank laughed. “You got it. Anyway, he takes me deep into a cave full of spiritual objects. The True Cross. Lost books and manuscripts. Dorjes. Reliquaries.”
“And that’s where you found the box.”
“No. That’s where I found a book with a map to Aghartha.”
“Aghartha?”
“Yes. It’s where the ascended masters live in the center of the Earth.”
Qaphsiel turned his head slightly. “The center?”
“Yes.”
“Of the Earth?” Crossing his fingers, Qaphsiel said, “And that’s where you found the box?”
“No. That’s where I met a priest who took me to the lost city of Shamballah.”
Qaphsiel took a deep breath. “You know, perhaps I don’t need the whole blow-by-blow.”
Frank shrugged. “I’m just making the point that it was a long and arduous journey.”
“And I feel like I’ve been with you every step of the way.”
Frank ticked off a list with his fingers. “I mean, there was an ocean of fire. And highwaymen and pirates.”
“Were the pirates on the sea of fire?”
Frank shook his head. “No. A different sea.”
“Then I definitely don’t need the whole story.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself, but you’re missing a good one.”
“My loss,” said Qaphsiel. He cleared his throat. “May I see the box?”
Frank hesitated. “Well, after such a taxing journey, I mean, buying a parka and supplies, flying to Tibet . . .”
“You want to see the money.”
Frank put his hands together as if in prayer. “Please. I’m planning a new journey. There’s a beaver in India who can tell you your past lives through . . .”
“A beaver? In India?”
“Yes. How it got there is an interesting story, if you have the time.”
“I don’t!” said Qaphsiel quickly. Then he added, “I don’t usually carry cash. Will this do?” He opened a hand and gold coins cascaded onto the table.
Frank stared. “Holy shit.”
Qaphsiel smiled tightly. “Spoken with the poetry of the truly enlightened. Now may I see the box?”
“Sure,” said Frank. He went to an altar to Ganesha and brought back a cloth bundle.
Qaphsiel took out his map. Shapes and lines drifted across its surface, showing patterns of divine power. “Hmm. This is puzzling,” he said. “If this really is the box you say it is, there should be some sign on my map.”
Frank held his hand over the bundle as if blessing it. “It’s wrapped in a magic, protective cloth.”
Qaphsiel smiled. “Ah. That must be it.” It looked like a knockoff Gucci scarf with the tag clipped off.
Frank stacked the coins on one side of the table while Qaphsiel carefully unwrapped the box on the other. He frowned when he saw it, bent his head down, and opened the lid just a crack so he could look inside. He closed it quickly.
“Nope. That’s not the box,” said Qaphsiel.
Frank looked up from his piles of coins. “You sure? You should check again.”
“Trust me. I know what’s in the box, and this isn’t it.”
Frank shrugged. “Sorry, man. This is the only box like it in the world. I brought it all the way back—”
“Yes, from where a monk and a Frenchman and a pirate and probably a sphinx and a talking beaver named Mr. Waffles told you it was hidden.” Qaphsiel turned the box over.
Frank looked up from his horde. “Hey, I went to a lot of trouble to find that.”
Qaphsiel turned the box over in his hands. “Really? Was the first Pier One closed?”
Frank’s eyes narrowed. “Are you calling me a crook?”
Qaphsiel pointed to a spot on the box. His shoulders sagged. “It clearly says ‘Made in Japan’ on the bottom.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Someone did a good job of rubbing it out, but it’s there. I have better eyes than most mortals.”
Frank pushed his chair back from the table. “Who are you?”
Qaphsiel set down the box. “It’s my own fault for looking on Craigslist. But that’s where Gabriel found the Holy Grail, so it seemed worth a try.”
“Hey, pal, I asked you a question. Who are you?” said Frank. He put his hand in his jacket pocket. Qaphsiel hadn’t noticed the suspicious bulge of a pistol there before.
He sighed deeply. “You’re the thirteenth mortal who’s tried to sell me a false box.”
Frank stood and backed away. “Okay, buddy. You wanted a box. I brought you a box. Now I’m taking my gold and leaving.”
“You’re half right,” Qaphsiel said. “You know, I used to have great powers, but most were taken away by the archangels after my . . . indiscretion.”
“Archangels, right,” Frank said, moving slowly away.
Qaphsiel pushed the box off the table onto the floor, where its cheap hinges snapped off. “In the old days, I would have just turned you into a worm and let you live out your final days contemplating your sin.”
Frank angled his way around the room, heading for the door. “A worm? Sure thing, nut log. I’m going now.”
“I don’t have that kind of power anymore, but I can still do this.” Qaphsiel pointed a finger at him like a gun and said, “Bang.”
Frank exploded like a piñata full of beef stew.
Qaphsiel went to the Ganesha altar and found a roach clip next to an old bong serving double duty as a flower vase. Stepping carefully around fresh Frank chunks, he sifted through the man’s possessions trying to find out who he really was.
The first thing he found was a medallion on a chain. Qaphsiel picked it up with the clip, expecting to find a yin-yang symbol or maybe an ankh. When he held the medallion up to the light he gasped and dropped it on the floor. It was the sigil of Abaddon, the Destroyer.
A folded piece of paper lay nearby. He picked it up with the clip and shook it open. It was a flyer for a bake sale. Someone had drawn rather obscene sketches on all the pastries. A glazed donut seemed to be sodomizing a carrot cake. Qaphsiel was about to toss the flyer aside when something in the bottom corner caught his eye. It was small. Almost hidden.
The symbol for Caleximus, the Ravager.
This is it, Qaphsiel thought. Abaddon and Caleximus worshippers? Those Doomsday nitwits. He understood now that it was a race for the end of the world. He had to find the box. And soon.
He picked up his map from the table. Lines of force drifted north and west toward a spot in Hollywood. Fountain Avenue.
Fountain Avenue?
Qaphsiel dropped the roach clip and the flyer and tiptoed carefully out of the room, whispering what had now become his eternal Earthly mantra:
“Oh, crap. Oh, crap. Oh, crap . . .”