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He sighed. “Despite the weakness it betokens, I can’t deny
the beauty of your sorrow. It’s sweeter than the dawn laid
out across a fresh silken corpse on burial day. Whited death,
all made up in bows of youngest light, soon to be lost to
the catch and drowse of funeral memories. Do you want to
see them now, son? Do you want to see what a wonderful,
if completely undeserved, gift I’ve given to them? Shall we
replace to the gallery?”
Before I could take a single step toward or away from my
beckoning forebear, a knife slid across my neck, followed
by a whisper at my ear. “Looks like I caught you unawares,
man-giant. Your vaunted silence seems to have let you down.
But fret not, for I shall raise your spirits, all the way into the
sky and beyond. Or perhaps below, yes? Regardless, your
affinity for silence and darkness holds no advantage over
magic—mine in particular. And so, the time has come to
make you disappear, from the world of the living and from
my enchanted list of names. So, Presto— ”
I thrust myself backward, attempting to deny the blade in
my throat any additional depth. Firing my elbow behind me,
I hoped to catch my attacker in some vital place. Nothing. I
felt as if I were struggling with a wisp of smoke, with only
the smiling wound in my throat as proof of a solid attacker.
My elbow swept across what could have been the fabric of a
long coat, which hung loose and flowing around its wearer,
but nothing so firm as a killer who managed a blade as a poet
wielded words.
The man continued to talk as if my actions had done
nothing to disturb his perch near my ear. “Well done, my
less-than-gentle giant, but I’ll still see those guts of yours
vanish, compliments of my very splendid and very serrated
disappearing act, likely in the next second or so.” I swung
my sister behind me, her teeth hissing through air. I began to
suspect the Red Dream worked altogether differently for this
particular Wolf.

220 | Mark Anzalone