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the beast, burying her overlong fingers into the meat of the
thing’s back, tugging at its spine. The creature howled in
pain, thrashing wildly at its tormentor. The strange woman
did not relent, only reaching deeper into the demon’s back as
if trying to climb inside its body.
Lefty was back up. He cranked the monster across
the face, blasting its teeth all over the courtyard, several
embedding themselves like bullets into a nearby stone wall.
I have no shame in saying I had to check my shorts.
Mr. Grey also returned, busying himself at the task of
slicing through the tendons of the monster’s legs, causing
it to slowly collapse to its knees. I could see the golden
goblin’s shadow holding tightly the beast’s flailing arms,
allowing the other killers to pile onto their adversary without
significant resistance.
All was going well, and the beast seemed near defeat
when I noticed the trees around the courtyard turning white
and dead. For a fleeting moment, I thought I caught sight
of a giant shadow, bloated and female, stooping behind the
tree line. Then, the lightning fell like rain, and four screams
chased the thunder.
The hole in the sky continued to pour out a sea of lightning,
surging and splashing across the battlefield, reducing
much of the surrounding forest to a smoking landscape of
blackened matchsticks. The thunder was unbearable—a
standing ovation of gods bringing together mountainous
hands. My head was ready to crack open and spill out its
brains for want of silence, when the world went dead and
dark. My first thought was that I’d gone deaf and blind, but
I could make out the sound of wind scavenging the soot as
hungrily as a pack of jackals, and I could see blurred figures
scattered about the smoking ground. Mr. Grey was among
the blackened forms.
If anything justified the rumors of their superhuman
fortitude, it was that the four Noctu-psychotics still drew
breath, albeit with difficulty. Not surprisingly, Lefty was the
282 | Mark Anzalone