do,” he hissed, kicking the demon’s corpse. “We couldn’t have played nice? No, that would have been too fucking easy.”
He imagined all those that lived in the Bone Master encampment, the young training to be the clan’s latest assassins. They were all dead now, dying horribly because their spokesperson wouldn’t bend the rules.
“Was it worth it?” he asked the corpse at his feet. He gazed away from the body of the Broker, looking out over the compound, listening to the eerie silence of what the Wrath had wrought. Through a heavy, blue-tinged mist he could see the bodies of those who’d tried to escape their fate, struck down by the anger of God. A by-product of the Wrath, the mist swirled about the air, even though the air was deathly still. It was looking for more life, desperate to do more of what it was created to do.
But all good things must come to an end, even for the Wrath of God.
Francis walked over to the canister that had held the Wrath and picked it up. Gazing into the darkness of the container, he prepared himself for what he knew wouldn’t be easy.
Inside the pocket of his suit jacket he found the wrinkled piece of paper where he’d written down the invocation that would call the Wrath back to its vessel. He studied the writing for a moment.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” he muttered, clearing his throat before calling out to God’s anger in the language created specifically to control it.
Francis continued to read the words, watching as the bluish gray fog grew thicker, whirling around him as if angry. He held out the open vessel as he reached the halfway point of the invocation. The fog flowed toward the opening, then veered off defiantly.
Great, he thought, speaking the words louder and more forcefully.
It was like watching a bass at the end of a hook fighting not to be pulled into the boat. Francis continued to read, remembering the guy he had gotten the canister from stressing how important it was to read the spell to draw the Wrath back with the utmost confidence, explaining that the death force was like an unruly dog, easily sensing weakness and challenging the one who sought to bind it.
For a brief moment he wished that he had a newspaper to whack it on the snout. Instead, he kept reading, sterner, harder—he’d show this plague of anger who was boss. The Wrath continued to fight him.
And just when he thought that he had it contained, it deviated away from the opening, what had already gone inside spilling out and flowing down to the street level. Francis watched with interest as the Wrath flowed into the dead Broker’s body, entering through the demon’s every orifice.
Great, Francis thought. How the fuck do I get it out of there? He didn’t have time for this shit.
He moved closer to the corpse. It had become swollen now, filled up with the Wrath of God.
“I know you’re in there,” Francis said to it. “Why don’t we make this easy and you come out and get back into your canister?”
He prodded the corpse with the toe of his shoe.
The demon’s body gurgled grotesquely and seemed to expand, almost as if the Broker were still alive and breathing.
And then the corpse began to move.
“That’s different,” Francis said, stepping back from the corpse, which had started to flop around on the ground like a fish tossed up onto a dock.
The Broker’s mouth started to move, and an awful croak flowed out from its recesses.
“Un . . . under . . . understand?” the Wrath of God strained to ask.
“Do I understand you? Yes, yes, I do,” Francis said. “What I don’t understand is what the fuck you’re doing.” He held out the vessel. “Quit fooling around and get back in here.”
“Things . . . ch . . . changing,” the Wrath stammered.
“Yeah, the times they are a-changing, I get it. Back in the can.”
“No! The . . . the great forgiveness is . . . is about . . . is going to occur . . . Unification . . .”
Francis recalled what he had heard at Methuselah’s but had never bought that it would ever occur. However, if anybody—or thing—would know of such things, it would be something that still held a connection to the Creator.
“Seriously?” Francis asked. “God is going to forgive . . .”
“Everything . . . changes,” the force of rage stated. “Peace . . .