What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [41]
The lights flickered and dimmed, and he heard a familiar buzz-saw sound.
“Shit,” he said. It was too late. The angel was here. Now.
He got up and scrambled out of his office. “Stay here!” he yelled to Janie.
He could see the white-orange light fading as he ran up the hall toward the main auditorium. He started to sprint and bounded up the small set of stairs that led toward the back of the stage. The light had faded completely, and the angel was scanning back and forth, searching, by the time Cadmon reached him.
He turned and saw Cadmon. “William Cadmon,” he said, “I am Ezekiel.”
Cadmon said nothing. He was doubled over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
“There is a problem,” said Ezekiel.
Cadmon held his hands up. “I know, I know. He’s just…” He stood there, shaking his head, searching for the words. “He’s just an asshole.” He shrugged.
“Who is an asshole?” asked the angel.
“Whitford.”
Ezekiel looked confused. “Whitford? Why is Whitford an asshole? I do not understand why you’re bringing this up now.”
“Well,” said Cadmon, “because—”
Ezekiel waved his giant angel hands dismissively. “Never mind that,” he said. “We have a problem.”
“I know,” said Cadmon. “That’s why I was—”
“There has been a disturbance,” said Ezekiel.
“What?”
“Someone – something – is coming. And we must stop him.”
Cadmon shook his head, unable to follow. “What?”
“We will need your friend’s army.”
“My friend? Who? What?” Cadmon put up his hands. “Wait a second! What the hell are you talking about?”
Ezekiel grimaced. “There is someone coming,” he said. “Someone who would interfere with our plan.”
“Our plan?”
“God’s plan,” said the angel. “And he’s on the way here. Right now.”
“Wait, do you mean—?”
“We will go to meet your Governor friend together. We will need his army.”
“Wait,” said Cadmon. He didn’t like the sound of that. Never mind how hard all of this was, he didn’t want to have to share the angel with anyone. They’d chosen him, not Whitford. And he wanted it to stay that way. “I have an army.”
Not it was Ezekiel’s turn to be confused. “What?”
“It’s true,” Cadmon lied. It wasn’t an army, per se. More of a rabble, really. What he had was a good and zealous friend who was one of the leaders of the idiots who ran around pretending to be resistance fighters for the Republic of Texas. They thought of themselves as an army, but a ragtag group of heterogeneously-armed, secessionist nutcases fond of professing their allegiance to the logically problematic hierarchy of “God,” “The Second Amendment,” and “The Republic of Texas,” was never going to merit that label. Even so, Cadmon had started recruiting the group of self-proclaimed “militia men” shortly after the angel had first appeared, thrilled and amused by the ease with which they’d flocked to him when he’d talked about his plans. Of course, he’d had to substitute the phrase “mighty, independent nation” for “Kingdom of Heaven on Earth,” but this was just a minor detail.
Cadmon explained his “army” to Ezekiel, and Ezekiel just stared back at him.
“No,” said Ezekiel.
The preacher waited for the angel to continue, but “No” was apparently all he had to say on the matter. “No?”
“No,” said Ezekiel. “We will go talk to your friend. Tomorrow. Make it happen.”
Chapter 15. Clyde Parker Clogs Satan’s Commode
Someone once said, “Move to New York if you like money; Move to D.C. if you like power.” Power, schmower – that someone was a gigantic dumbass. Unless you’ve been sent to the Nation’s Capital by voters or lobbyists or cronies or whoever it is that sends the Mr. Smiths of the world off to run things, you’re not going to get anything other than ridiculous traffic, an absurdly high cost of living, and long list of other things that suck. You definitely won’t get anything that resembles power. You probably won’t even see it, unless you get stuck at one of the road blocks police put up to let its motorcade go by.
If you do move to Washington, D.C., you’ll need somewhere to lay your powerless head, which means you’ll pay an exorbitant rent to live in a space that