What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [128]
“Yes,” said the angel Ezekiel, his wings and robe all glowy and radioactive looking. “It’s me.”
Chapter 49. Satan and Ezekiel
The angel was friggin’ huge. And standing there, with his angry face on, he totally dwarfed and overshadowed the Prince of Darkness.
Satan glared up at him. “What are you doing here?” .
Ezekiel glared right back. “What are you doing here?”
“I asked first.”
Ezekiel scoffed. “So? I asked second.”
“So,” said the Devil, scoffing right the hell back, “that means you have to answer first.”
“Make me.”
Liam, Festus, Raju, and Lola watched the supernatural standoff with the weary and wary eyes of people who’ve already met their quota of really weird shit. Cadmon, on the other hand, watched enthusiastically, flipping back and forth to stare at Satan and Ezekiel like an amphetamine addict at a tennis match. He was therefore the last to notice the two men in military uniforms who clomped up the passageway in their heavy soldier boots.
The two soldiers skidded and stumbled to a stop, and, breathing heavily, clicked their heels together and stood ramrod straight to salute the preacher.
“Mr. Cadmon, sir!” said the first.
“Sir!” echoed the second. He stood as still and rigid as his companion, but sneaked a peek at Lola.
Cadmon either ignored or simply didn’t hear them, and so the soldiers just stood, their steely eyes boring in the back of the preacher’s well-coifed gourd. They continued to stand for a few, long seconds, waiting for the preacher to take a break from his manic imitation of a sprinkler head. Satan and Ezekiel paused in their argument and turned to stare at the preacher, who looked confused for an instant, and then turned to see what they were looking at. There, ten inches from his face, was an emphatic man dressed in camouflage.
“Sir!” said the man.
Cadmon stepped back and wiped spittle from his cheek. “Not now,” he said, shooing the soldier away, and turned to smile at the Devil and Ezekiel.
The soldier would not be shooed. “But, sir!”
Cadmon spun as if powered by a spring. “What is it?” he snapped.
The soldier finally seemed to notice that everyone there in the passageway was watching him, and he wilted a little under the weight of everyone’s stares. He glanced around sneakily and then switched to stealth mode, sidling up closer to Cadmon. “Shir,” he said, whispering out of the side of his mouth and through clenched teeth, “da wefon uz rey tabeh reweez.”
“Wh—?” Cadmon shook his head very slowly, mystified.
The soldier tried again, this time bouncing up and down on his heels and nodding his head with each syllable, as if he could make Cadmon understand through the sheer force of unconquerable, soldier-iffic will.
“Da wefon. Uz rey. Tabeh reweezd.”
Cadmon took a moment to pause and reflect on the soldier’s words and to place his palm over his face. Finally he surrendered. “Just say it,” he said. “Spit it out.”
The soldier’s eyes darted back and forth. Satan and Ezekiel, apparently bored with the soldier, resumed their bickering. The other soldier, also apparently bored, opted to smile and wink at Lola.
Raju was not bored. Quite the opposite, in fact. He scrambled toward the soldier, shoving Liam out of the way. “Dude, I can’t stand it! Tell us already!”
The soldier who’d done all the talking – whose body had become so tense and clenched that he had actually started to shake – let out a percussive burst of breath and seemed to deflate. When he finally spoke, it was with the grit and effort that generally only accompanies certain tasks, like lifting a crashed car off of a body or forcing a stubborn bowel movement. “The weapon is ready to be released, sir!”
“Weapon?” asked Lola.
“Oh, tell them to go ahead,” said Cadmon, waving his hand and turning back to watch the supernatural fight club.
“Sir?”
“What weapon?” asked Lola. Cadmon ignored her, and waved off the soldiers again, trying to ignore them too.
“But we need the key, sir!”
The preacher let out a testy sigh, and then reached into his collar and