Michael Walsh - Early Warning

Alex tried to control his excitement. The vision of glory was something he had sought for many years, the moment of transcendence that would allow him to lord it over, however briefly, his tormentors. That was all he ever asked of God when he was at prayer: that just for one brief instant, he would not only be in command but that the others, his antagonists, would be forced to acknowledge his dominance. He would see the looks in their eyes, the worm turned, the worm Ouroboros devouring its own tail, the perfect circle of life and death.

And he knew something the others didn’t, the swine. This was one of the things that was going not only to win him accolades and plaudits, but earn them: he knew, being German and all, that the word Worm didn’t mean worm at all, but Dragon. He’d seen the movie and read the book and even looked up the images of the paintings online, he knew all about Blake and his Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, and if he could not appreciate the visions for their artistic conception and execution, he could happily acknowledge their raw power, their controlled glimpse into the divine madness of Revelation.

Blake, however, was long gone, at one with the worms, small “w,” returned to the earth by being devoured and shat out the assholes of other creatures, rejuvenating Mother Gaia as they destroyed one another. Just as he was doing now.

Damn that woman. Even amid all this tumult, her shrieks had been driving him crazy. Once more he leaned out the window and peered through his scope. This time he found her.

She was across the street, on the roof of what had been the AMC Theaters. The building was on fire, so it was only a matter of time before she would finally shut the fuck up and take those two mewling brats with her, but there was no law that said he couldn’t hasten her demise along. It wouldn’t be an easy shot, but at least it was a free throw-no one would notice, and if he bagged her, so much the better. Practice made perfect.

He fired.

And missed.

At least he assumed he missed. There was no reaction from the woman, at least not that he could notice, and the damn kids were still hopping around like Mexican jumping beans. But they weren’t going anywhere. The flames were licking up the side of the building, the foundations were visibly shifting, and pretty soon their only choice would be to go down with the ship or stand there and let him put a bullet through their goddamn skulls.

He fired again.

And missed.

Shit.

He was lining up the third shot when the phone rang again. He didn’t want to take the call, but he was a good soldier, this was his duty, and the kill could wait. On an island of two million people, there was plenty of time and plenty of targets.

“Tammy.”

The voice again. “Bring as many souls to God as you can.”

“Where do you want me after that?”

“That is known only to God. But to you, brave warrior, it is given to defend the Brothers. You will shoot them as they come from the west. Do you see them, O my brother?”

Alex Stegmaier glanced down the street; the sun was hanging over Jersey now, lowering into his eyes.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Many are the police. They wish to kill you. You understand that, O my brother?”

“Of course I do. You think I am afraid?”

“I know you are not. But sometimes to a man comes fear unbidden, like a houri in the night, and he cannot resist her seductive beauty. You understand that, O my brother?”

“I do.”

“And you are willing to confront this temptress, this whore?”

“Of course I am. As I have many times before.” That part was a lie, of course, and perhaps Control knew that. But it was a brave lie, and when the time came, he knew that he would in fact have the courage to view Death’s handmaiden unflinchingly.

“Then go bravely to your reward, my son.”

“To the virgin?”

“Always to the virgin. Let her know pleasure only through you.”

“Thy will be done.”

“Not my will, but that of Allah.”

Alexander Stegmaier was about to say something clever, but he couldn’t think of anything. “Whatever,” he knew, would simply not do, not given the high-toned and -falutin level of this discourse, which was like something out of a Sir Walter Scott novel, maybe The Talisman. Cleverness had never been his long suit.

He was still trying to think of something when he realized he was looking down the barrel of a gun. There was obviously a man holding it, but in the darkness of the parterre of the New Victory, he couldn’t make out his face or his features.

“Do you know what this is?”

Alex Stegmaier thought hard. They had pointed a number of weapons at him during his training, and he thought he could still get most of them, but this one was a little different.

“It’s a Colt.45.”

“Very good.”

Alex felt himself swelling with pride. “Am I right?”

“No, but pretty close.”

The man lowered the sidearm a bit, so Alex could get a good look at it. He must be one of the Brothers, he thought, come to show him the way out of this place, and into the light. “Do you know who I am?”

“A Brother,” replied Alex, confidently.

The man gave a rueful laugh. At least it sounded rueful, although in this environment it could have been jocular or sardonic or any of those other words he had never quite learned the meaning of back in high school in Marin County. Nuance was for chumps with time on their hands. He was going places.

“This is a Judge,” said the Brother. “It is the last thing you will ever see. Do you understand that?”

Alex said he thought he did. It occurred to him that perhaps the Brother was going to give the weapon to him, for use in one final blaze of martyrdom. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m your angel.”

Now this was something Stegmaier could understand. He would never let on, not even to this Brother, but he’d just about had it with the other Brothers, the ones who were always spouting off about Allah and Akbar and all those other guys, who in the end might as well have been Vishnu or Durga or one of those other Hindu gods, not counting the cows. Angels were in his wheelhouse. He could sing the choirs: angels and archangels, thrones…

This was no time for the damn cell phone to ring, not with him so close to heaven, but it did. He was about to push the talk button, to speak with Control, when the Angel took the instrument from his grasp. Instead of speaking, though, he waited until he heard Control’s voice at the other end of the ether. Then he said: “Quels est-ce que sont les noms de Dieu?” followed by a stream of gibberish that sounded like the language the Brothers sometimes spoke, but different. Alex Stegmaier was never very good at languages, not even English.

The Angel hung up, but pocketed his phone. Well, this was war, so of course he would take it. Control had told him to kill anyone who tried to take his instrument away from him, but under the circumstances-and given that he was a Brother-there was not much he could do about it. After all, it was only a cell phone. Besides, he had more urgent, more pressing concerns.

“What kind of angel are you?” he asked. “Angel, archangel, cherubim, seraphim, thrones, powers, dominions, what? There are nine of them, you know, divided into three choirs.”

“Only one kind,” the angel replied. “The Angel of Death.”

Alex thrilled to this news. A real Brother at last, not one of those muttering fakirs with their beads and their dirty feet, the feet they were always washing, to no apparent end. How could you wash your feet when you hardly used any water? For him, a nice long hot shower was always the answer for what ailed him.

He was still thinking about, and anticipating, a hot shower when the Brother did something entirely unexpected, at least as far as Alex was concerned. He fired.