Page 63 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

With my warning complete, I walked to the edge of the
rooftop and tossed the creature’s foolish hat into the dark.
Shortly after, I stood upon yet another rooftop, watching
as a twisting bank of angry clouds descended on the city
risen from sleep. The drifting storm settled between the
winking belfries and crooked spires, presenting a rolling
field of muttering thunder. Merging from without the storm
came the clamor of pointed activity, from nearly every
quarter of the city. New Victoria was slowly coming alive. I
could hear the rustling of unearthly things congregating into
unwholesome crowds. Sighing, I wondered if my cobbled
warning had been a bad idea.
Recessed deeply into the night, moving within the
tumbling grey, I could see small shivering points of blue
light. I knew very well what they were—the Wakeless had
taken to the skies to find me. I looked down from the edge
of the rooftop to where the windows beneath me turned the
bright color of sleep. I watched the cold blue move ever
upward, searching, room by room. The sounds of a second
storm began howling from the streets below—inhuman
gangs of nightmares born from living women trampled
the earth upon countless hateful limbs, creeping, crawling,
flying, leaping.
I couldn’t afford the laughter that mounted as surely as
the storm. I swallowed my amusement, wrapped myself in
silence, and leapt to the roof of an adjacent building. I waded
into the thick cloud cover swirling in front of me as a nearby
rooftop door exploded outward. A gang of evil things landed
around me like a downpour from hell.
The storm obeyed me as well as any shadow, and I
disappeared into its coiling mists. There were a great many of
the caterwauling things, so both of my sisters stood eagerly
at the ready. The fiends flooded into the storm, heedless of
the danger within. Within seconds, several of the things
had been effectively multiplied—or divided, depending on
how you wished to perform the math—before the rest of the
66 | Mark Anzalone