You Can't Kill the Multiverse (But You Can Mess With its Head) excerpt

1. The Necromantic Uncertainty Principle in Action

All of the ingredients - many of which were difficult to find in this heathen realm - had been collected. The eyes of various beasts were freely available at a specialty market in Kensington. Various herbs could be found in what the people of this realm called "supermarkets," where they were sold for pittances. The blood of a virgin was a little harder to come by, but, after three tries, the wizard found one by surfing through a place on a magical scrying glass called Craigslist. The young woman - Gladys Kravitz of Niagara Falls - seemed immune to his charms, so the wizard drugged her drink - purely in the name of world domination! - and took the serum that he needed. When she woke up the next day, she would be weak and woozy and have an uncontrollable craving to eat jelly beans, but at least she would wake up the next day. For what good that would do her.

The wizard read the prognosticatory pages of many of the local papers (such as The Star and The Globe) to determine when the moon would be at its fullest. While there, he picked up this nugget of wisdom: 'Today will not be a good day to start a new project'. And, indeed, it would not be a good day FOR THE CREATURES WHO LIVED IN THIS REALM! He would have laughed evilly at this thought, but the steam from the ingredients coming to a boil in the cauldron was playing havoc with his asthma, so the wizard settled for a wicked grin and the promise of much evil laughter to come.

"Alzabracheem fectid barada nictu," the wizard intoned as his hands snaked in front of him and he put the fourth toe of his left foot in, he put the fourth toe of his left foot out, he put the fourth toe of his left foot in and he shook it all about. As the stench from the boiling cauldron contents started to grow, his chanting became louder and his motions more animated. Part of him suspected that his landlady, Missus Schmelson, would give him no end of grief if she was unable to get the smell out of the drapes, but it was a small part of him, easily ignored as the dark ritual reached its climax.

"ALZABRACHEEM FECTID BARADA NICTU!" he shouted, his motions becoming what can only be described as 'frenzied'. "ALZABRACHEEM KLAATU BARADA NICTU!" Then, just as the wizard feared he would collapse from exhaustion before the climax of the ritual...there was a mild 'poof' and a wisp of pale grey smoke rose out of the cauldron before it was dissipated by the air conditioning. (It was a humid July night, okay? Where does it say that casting a world-threatening spell has to be done in discomfort?)

This was not what the wizard had been promised by the Malificient Malefactorum de Maliciosi. He was expecting the sky to darken and blood to rain from the clouds. He was expecting a rumbling so deep it shook the earth with a trembling, fearsome [MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATION: a fearsome trembling]. He was expecting various demons to pour forth from a hole in the universe, create a little havoc, then await his command. He was expecting to hear cries of terror from the street, the horrific wailing of those whose comfortable, familiar world had turned into a nightmare. When you are expecting the horrific wailing of those whose comfortable, familiar world had turned into a nightmare, poof and a wisp of pale grey smoke just don't cut it.

He couldn't understand what had gone wrong - the wizard had been studying the Malificient Malefactorum de Maliciosi since his uncle Maladroissier had given it to him for his fifth birthday. He consulted the great book of evil spells. Over over sideways over under sideways down - he had clearly done the hand gestures properly. Same with the incantation - his southern accent may have distorted the words a little, but the meaning should have been clear. The contents of the cauldron were still bubbling, so the wizard tried the incantation again, this time enunciating the words more clearly and making the hand gestures more slowly and fluidly. He was rewarded with a 'pop' and acrid orange smoke. No blood raining from the sky. No horrific wailing of...you know.

It wasn't because the wizard was fat BECAUSE THE WIZARD WASN'T FAT, OKAY? His...overabundance of physical presence was pure muscle. Mostly. Well, damn the pox-eyed pusillanimosity of Polidor, anyway, who said evil sorcerers all had to be tall and thin? Other than all of his teachers at Worthags, the school for evil sorcerers (where, okay, fine, sure, he had to admit that he had only graduated 23rd in his class - middle of the pack - not bad, but not enough to get you into the really top flight covens. Look, the important thing is that he did get his degree, and it qualified him to practice the dark arts every bit as much as Jimmy Malfantome, Marise Maldarictor or any of the other students who had graduated ahead of him, okay? Anyway, he would have done much better if he hadn't had to take Zombies in seventh grade - zombies, uuuuuuugh! But, animal familiars was full - what can one do? He knew he shouldn't dwell on the past so much, but, really...umm...what was he talking about, again? Oh, right...) And, all of the other students. And, his parents. And Evelina Malaproptor, authoress of The 25 Bad Habits of Really Successful Warlocks. Still, he thought, surely evil isn't about how much you weigh, but about the content of your heart. Your dark, bile-filled heart.

The wizard screamed in frustration. Almost immediately - with unseemly haste, actually - somebody banged on his floor from below. "Sorry, Missus Rosinante," he shouted. "I...I stubbed my toe. It was very painful, as you might -" The tenant below banged on his floor a couple more times with greater urgency. "Right. Right. Sorry," he mumbled to himself. He imagined the blood raining down especially hard on her head.

It was late and he was discouraged. Deciding to call it a night, the wizard turned off the burner on the stove and moved the cauldron to a cold burner. A conscientious evil sorcerer will always clean up his workspace as soon as he has cast his last spell (or, so Evelina Malaproptor would have one believe), but his heart wasn't in it. The cleaning would have to wait until morning.

The wizard went to bed, oblivious to the croaking that was coming from the street outside his window.

2. Faith, Hope and Severity

"Frogs?" Superintendent McCrae barked in disbelief.

Faith and Hope looked at each other as though that could somehow change the answer. It didn't. So, they looked back at their boss and Hope responded, "Yeah. Frogs."

"The size of cars?" Superintendent McCrae continued.

"That is correct," Faith answered. "It makes sense, since..." she bit down on her lip, but the words had to come out: "the cars had turned into frogs."

"The cars had turned into frogs?"

"Yes, sir."

"What," Superintendent McCrae asked in the certain knowledge that he was not going to like the answer, "happened to the people in the cars?"

"They...were surprised to find themselves sitting on top of giant frogs, the drivers holding reins," Faith stated.

"It was like being in a fairy tale, many of those affected reported," Hope added, "except the details weren't quite like any fairy tale they had ever read!"

"That's such a Mary Beth observation to make," Faith told her.

"You think so?" Hope tried to hide the delight in her voice in front of their boss.

"I'm jealous."

"I know you always pictured yourself as Mary Beth, so that means to a lot to me."

Constables Farrah "Faith" Achmed and Rachel "Hope" Hoppshivitz had an ongoing argument about which of them was Cagney and which Lacey. Hope was tall and skinny and had short-cropped red hair; Faith was dark-skinned, Rubensesque of figure, with long, luxurious black hair. In truth, neither of them comfortably fit the mold of the characters portrayed by Sharon Glass and Tyne Daly on the CBS television series aired from 1981 to 1988, but everybody - even officers of the law - can dream, can't they?

"Credit where credit is due," Faith said.

"Do you think," Hope asked, "I could have been a bit more...insouciant?"

"No. Your insouciance was perfect."

"I don't know. I thought I could have been more insou -"

"CAN WE GET BACK TO THE CASE?" Superintendent McCrae roared.

Superintendent McCrae, the head of 37 Division (which was an odd name consi - no, it's an odd number, so that wording could be construed by some as actually being appropriate - which was a...strange name considering that it was a prime number) and their superior, seemed to have only one response to every stimulus - from getting up in the morning to tracking down serial killers: he acted as if he had just swallowed a bug (childhood memories aren't always bucolic, you know). He had honed this attitude of annoyed aggressiveness during years of being a wrestling fan, and he was secretly proud of the fact that he was quite good at it. When they were first assigned to work together, Hope and Faith assumed his attitude towards them was based on the fact that they were two women trying to get ahead in a man's world; they were disabused of this notion the afternoon when Yakabuki, an Afghan war vet, left Superintendent McCrae's office blubbering like a baby.

Every so often, somebody in the squad room would suggest that they hold an intervention, purely for Superintendent McCrae's benefit, you understand; after all, if he didn't do something about his anger issues, it was only a matter of time before he spontaneously combusted. While most of the police on duty at the time would agree that something needed to be done, the enthusiasm for an intervention would only last until the next time Superintendent McCrae threw an object through the window of his office, at which point everybody would magically find something else to be busy with and the impulse would die out.

Superintendent McCrae's office was white, clinical, with simple furniture that could fool most people into thinking it had been constructed out of things that had once been part of something living. Behind Superintendent McCrae's desk was a board with a Crayola crayons box worth of coloured strings tacked onto it at a variety of lengths and angles. A couple of old-timers swore that there was a map of the city under all that string, but the other cops in the Division had their doubts. Clearly, the issue of the string would have to be dealt with by Superintendent McCrae in one of his sessions with his therapist. If he ever realized how much he needed a therapist. And, after he dealt with the anger issues, of course.

And, that could take some time.

Hope and Faith assured him that they could get back to the case. "How many cars were affected?" he asked like he was about to eat his desk out of frustration.

They reported that all of the cars in a 20 mile radius had been affected. The change seemed to have happened at 2:37 in the morning, so damage was minimal. There had been a 10 frog pile-up on the Don Valley Parkway, but those involved were more confused than hurt. Other than that, various minor hindleg benders had been reported throughout the affected area, but nothing serious.

"Thank god nobody got killed," Superintendent McCrae said, although it sounded like he was offering to duel with a man who had slept with his wife. "What's being done about the giant frogs in the streets?"

Faith and Hope explained that the frogs were slippery bastards that were extremely difficult to corral. One of the smaller frogs was tasered, to no effect. Half a dozen officers tried to taser said frog at the same time, but this stopped its heart. This did not go over well with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, let me tell you. After this incident - the complaint will be filed in due course - the officers on the street agreed to leave the giant frogs to the professionals.

"The SPCA?" Superintendent McCrae asked, hopefully.

"No," Faith replied, "chefs in French restaurants."

"If you start seeing monster specials on the menus in French restaurants," Hope added, "you'll know that they were successful."

Superintendent McCrae frowned, a big, sloppy, unhappy kind of facial movement. "Any theories about what happened?" he asked.

Faith and Hope looked at each other. Then, they looked back at Superintendent McCrae. Then, "Turn on the TV," Hope advised.

Had it been anybody else, Superintendent McCrae would have barked at them for proposing he amuse himself by watching television in the midst of being briefed about an ongoing investigation. However, experience had shown him that - he couldn't make up his mind between the adjective eerily or uncannily, so you decide - whenever the television was on when they were in the room, it aired something relevant to their current case. So, Superintendent McCrae opened the desk drawer that didn't contain a gun, rummaged around for a moment and pulled out a remote. He pointed it at the TV set high into the wall in the far corner of the room and pressed the on button. Nothing happened. He looked at the remote closely and pressed a button on the top, bulbous part of it, then pointed it at the TV set and pressed the on button again. Still nothing happened. He looked, pressed, aimed at the TV and pressed several more times until, with great frustration, he threw the converter back into the drawer and got up to turn the television on by hand. Unfortunately, the room had a relatively high ceiling, and he couldn't quite reach the television. With a great roar, he went back to his desk, pulled out the chair, wheeled it over to the TV and, teetering precariously, pressed the on switch. Faith and Hope had watched this routine many times and remained stoically silent throughout. They were rewarded with this:

KOLONOSCOGRAD
(over)
Adenine, this is the kind of chaos that has been visited on streets all over Toronto. Police are baffled as to why frogs appeared on city -