What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [129]
“Why didn’t you say something?” asked Ezekiel.
“I knew I couldn’t trust you,” said Satan. “And that you’d never agree.”
“So, what? You just walked out on us!” said Ezekiel.
“What?” asked Cadmon. “Walked out on who? What are we talking about here?”
“You little shit,” said Satan, completely oblivious of the irony of a normal-sized person saying that sort of thing to a giant guy with wings. “Don’t you understand? We were never going to win! I left to avoid,” he waved the flaming shotgun around, “all of this. But now you’ve gone and started it up anyway!” He smacked Ezekiel, which was a little weird, because, due to the size disparity between the two supernaturals, the smack landed at about Ezekiel’s waist. Between that and the glowy, other-worldly appearance of the angel, it came off a bit like someone from the Lollipop Guild walking up and hitting Glenda (the Good Witch). “You screwed everything up!”
“Wait just a goddamned second. What the fuck is all this?” asked Cadmon, stepping away from his soldiers, the key dangling from his hand.
The soldier, still waiting for the key, turned and finally seemed to register the fact that there was a large angel in the room, at which point he began doing a pretty good impression of a statue. His companion continued to wink and nod and smirk and wobble his head at Lola.
Raju snatched the key from Cadmon’s hand. The preacher, whose attention was focused on Ezekiel, just let go, apparently thinking that the soldier had grabbed it.
The more erect of the two soldiers saw Raju. “Hey!” he said. “Give me that!” He tackled Raju. Liam skidded over to pull the him off Raju. Festus stayed put and offered unspoken moral support.
The other soldier did not join the fray, opting instead just to keep smiling at Lola. He continued to do that until Lola punched him in the face. He promptly fell backward onto the floor. It is not clear whether this was solely due to the force of Lola’s punch. It could have been that, but it also could have been the fact that the stadium began to shake and rumble – nothing too serious, of course – but the floor was definitely moving more than would be expected on, say, pretty much any other day ever in the history of Austin .
“Why did you do that?” The soldier sat, holding his nose, which now appeared to be leaking a fair amount of blood. “I loved you!” he said. “I loved you!” Lola kicked him. “Ow!” She kicked him again. “Ow!” She kicked him a third time, and he fell over and didn’t say anything. Lola brushed her hands off and turned her attention to Liam, Raju, and the other soldier.
“Uncle!” said Raju. “Say ‘uncle’!” Liam sat, straddled across the other soldier’s back, tying the man’s hands together with his belt, while Raju kicked him and urged him to say, “Uncle.”
Cadmon finally turned, exasperated, to see what the hell all the ruckus was about. He looked first at the soldier on the ground, who was doing little other than bleeding from his face, and then at Liam. Then he saw the key hanging from Raju’s hand. “Hey!” he said, lunging for Raju and tearing at his shirt. “You can’t—”
Lola pulled the gun from the waist of her pants, and she stepped over to Cadmon.
“Let go,” she said. He ignored her, so she cocked the weapon.
He turned and seemed surprised, as if he were seeing Lola for the first time. He ran his eyes up and down her body. “Ooh,” he said, his eyelids droopy and a sly smile on his face.
She pointed the pistol at the his head. “Don’t touch them,” she said.
“I wasn’t going to,” he said, staring down at her chest.
“Not those,” she said. “Them.” She waved the gun at Raju and Liam. “Put your hands up.”
“Oh,” he said. All of the allure drained from his expression, and he put his hands up. He glanced over at his soldiers. “Can you guys do something about this, please?”
The bleeding soldier moaned, “But I loved