Page 183 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

growing more irritated by the antlered god, though I admit
I was slightly taken with him. He was a crafty one, after all.
It was a surreal scene—persons falling silently through the
darkness at me, each one carefully aimed to knock me from
the wall, to send me hurtling down. Tom smartly denied
them their screams, so that I was given no warning as to
the direction or angle they fell. When Tom finally ran out of
people to drop, I continued my ascent.
Reaching the appropriate floor, I was confronted by a
wall of armed and armored policeman eager to be done with
their night’s business. Pushing their obnoxious lights from
my face with obedient shadow, I stood to my full height,
my father’s head nearly scraping the ceiling. One of them
croaked into the radio, “We got ‘em, alright. He’s cornered
and all out of tricks. Were gonna bring him down the easy
way.” I was amused by the bravado.
Without warning, the power went out, followed by
explosions and screams. It seemed my sister had done her
work well. I’d inserted her into one of the plummeting secret-
keepers from the elevator shaft, hoping that she might help
improve my situation from below. The bravado vanished
from the men gathered before me. I remained amused, but
no longer stationary.
I was quick, if not particularly gentle. I sensed no good
reason to spare them the pain they would have gladly given
to me. I heard the police radio squawk a second time. The
voice on the other end called out to the dead policemen as
chaos and death reigned in the background. Apparently, my
sister had transferred herself to the operator of an armored
communications vehicle on the scene, and was making quite
merry. The voice ended in a single, wet shriek.
I hastened up the stairs to the rooftop, weeding my path
of any lingering ill-wishers as I went. I saw a small bit of
blood just outside the door to the chapel. Tom was inside.
Somewhere in the darkness of my mind, I heard my father
cracking his knuckles.
186 | Mark Anzalone