The Stupidest Angel Chapter 18

Chapter 18YOUR PUNY WORM GOD WEAPONS ARE USELESS AGAINST MY SUPERIOR CHRISTMAS KUNG FUMolly slipped knocked out(p) the back door of the confine and round the outside wall until she could see the tall figure rest ahead her picture window. The fallen wires had stopped s pose out by the street and the stars and moon merely trend through the darkness at all. Str angely enough, she could slide byly see the man by her breast window because there was a faint glistering shining slightly him.Radioactive, Molly thought. He wore the long black duster favored by common sense pirates. Why, though, would a desert marauder be out in a rainstorm?She assumed the Hasso No Kamae stance, back straight, the sword held high and tilted back over her right shoulder, the sword guard at oral cavity level, her left foot forward. She was three steps from lay outing a deathblow to the intruder. The sword balanced perfectly in her grip, so perfectly that it seemed to weigh nothing at all. She could feel the wet waste removeles under her b are feet and wished that shed put on shoes before dashing out into the darkness. The cold rain against her bare jumble made her think that maybe a sweater would have been a good idea as well.The glow man looked toward the opposite corner of the cabin and Molly made her move. Three soft steps and she stood fuck him the edge of her blade lay crosswise the side of his neck. A quick pull and she would cut him to his vertebrae.Move and die, Molly utter.Nuh-uh, utter the glowing man.The tip of Mollys sword broaden a foot beyond the strangers face. He looked at the blade. I like your sword. pauperism to see mine?You move, you die, Molly tell, thinking that it wasnt the sort of thing you should have to repeat. Who are you?Im Raziel, said Raziel. Its not the sword of the Lord, or anything. Not for destroying cities, near for fighting maven or two enemies at a time, or slicing cold cuts. Do you like salami?Molly didnt quite pick out how to proceed. This glowing sand pirate seemed perfectly unafraid, perfectly unconcerned, in fact, that she was holding a razor-sharp blade against his carotid artery. Why are you face in my window in the middle of the night?Because I cant see through the wooden part.Molly snapped her wrists back and smacked Raziel in the side of the head with the flat of her blade.Ouch.Who are you and why are you here? Molly said. She snapped her blade back to threa ten dollar bill an other smack, and in that instant Raziel stepped a right smart from her, spun, and drew a sword from the middle of his back.Molly hesitated, just a second, then approached and snapped her blade down, this time in a real attack aimed at his shoulder. Raziel parried the blow and riposted. Molly swept his blade aside and came around with her blade for a cut to the left arm. Raziel got his sword around just in time to deflect her blade down his arm instead of across it. The razor-sharp tashi took a long swath of fabric fro m his coat, as well as a thin slice of flesh down his forearm.Hey, he said, looking at his now-flapping sleeve.There was no blood. Just a dark stripe where the flesh was gone. He started hacking, his sword describing an infinity pattern in the air before him as he drove Molly back through the pine timbre toward the road. She quickstepped back, parrying some blows, dodging others, stepping around trees, kicking up wet pine straw as she moved. She could wholly see her glowing attacker, his sword shining now as well, the darkness around her so complete that she moved solely by memory and feel. As she deflected one of the blows, her heel caught on a root and she lost her balance. She started to go over backward and spun as if to catch herself. Raziels nervous impulse carried him forward, his sword swinging for a tar repay that a second before had been two feet higher, and he ran right onto Mollys blade. She was bent over forward the blade extended back across her rib cage and through Raziel, extending another two feet out his back. They were frozen there for a moment him bent over her back, stuck unneurotic with her sword like two dogs who needed a bucket of water thrown on them.From a crouch, Molly yanked the blade out, then spun, ready to deliver a coup de grace that would cut her enemy from collarbone to hip.Ouch, said Raziel, looking at the hole in his solar plexus. He threw his sword on the ground and prodded the wound with his fingers. Ouch, he said again, looking up at Molly. You dont thrust with that kind of sword. Youre not supposed to thrust with that kind of sword. No fair.Youre supposed to die now, Molly said.Nuh-uh, said Raziel.You cant say nuh-uh to death. Thats sloppy debating.You poked me with your sword, and cut my coat. He held up his damaged arm.Well, you came creeping around here in the middle of the night looking in my windows, and you pulled a sword on me.I was just showing it to you. I dont even like it. I essential to get net s lingers for my next mission.Mission? What mission? Did Nigoth send you? He is no longer my higher power, by the way. This is not the kind of support I need.Fear not, said Raziel, for I am a messenger of the Lord, pass off to bring a miracle for the Nativity.Youre what?Fear notIm not afraid, you nitwit, I just kicked your ass. Are you telling me youre an angel?Come to bring Christmas joy to the child.Youre a Christmas angel?I bring tidings of great joy, which shall be to all men. Well, not really. This time its just to one boy, but I memorized that speech, so I like to use it.Molly let her guard down, the tip of her sword pointed at the ground now. So the glowing stuff on you?Glory of the Lord, said the angel.Oh piss, said Molly. She slapped herself in the forehead. And I killed you.Nuh-uh.Dont start with the nuh-uh again. Should I call an ambulance or a priest or something?Im healing. He held up his forearm and Molly watched as the faintly glowing skin expanded to cover the wound.W hy in the hell are you here?I have a mission Not here on Earth, here at my house.Were attracted to lunatics.Mollys first instinct was to take his head, but on second thought, she was standing in the middle of a pine forest, in freezing rain and gale-force winds, naked, holding a sword, and talking to an angel, so he wasnt exactly announcing the Advent. She was a lunatic.You want to come inside? she said.Do you have hot chocolate?With minimarshmallows, said the Warrior Babe.Blessed are the minimarshmallows, the angel said, swooning a little.Come on, then, Molly said as she walked away muttering, I cant believe I killed a Christmas angel.Yep, you screwed the pooch on this one, said the Narrator.Nuh-uh, said the angel.Get that piano against the door Theo yelled.The bolts on the front door had completely splintered away, and the Masonite buffet table was flexing under the blows of whatever the undead were using for a battering ram. The entire chapel shook with each impact.Robert and J enny Masterson, who owned Brines Bait, Tackle, and Fine Wines, started rolling the upright piano from its spot by the Christmas tree. Both had been through some harrowing moments in Pine Coves history, and they tended to keep their heads in an collar.Anyone know how to lock these casters? Robert called.Well need to brace it just the same, Theo said. He turned to Ben Miller and Nacho Nunez, who seemed to have teamed up for the battle. You guys look for more heavy stuff to brace the door.Where did they get a battering ram? Tucker fictitious character asked. He was examining the big rubber coasters on the piano, trying to figure out how to lock them.Half the forest has blown down tonight, said Lena. Monterey pines dont have a taproot. They probably just found one that they could lift. Turn it on its back, Tuck said. Brace it against the table.The ram give the doors and they popped open six inches. The table hooked under the heavy brass handles was bending and beginning to split. Th ree arms came through the opening, half a face, the snapper drooling out of a rotted socket.Push Tuck screamed.They ran the piano up against the braced table, slamming the doors on the protruding limbs. The battering ram hit again, popping the doors open, driving the men back, and rattling their teeth. The undead arms pulled back from the gap. Tuck and Robert shoved the piano against the door and it shut again. Jenny Masterson threw her back against the piano and looked back at the onlookers, twenty or so people who seemed too stunned or too scared to move.Dont just stand there, you useless fucks Help us brace this. If they get in, theyre handout to eat your brains, too.Five men pointed flashlights at each other in a Me? You? Us? inspection, then shrugged and ran to help push the piano.Nice pep talk, said Tuck, his sneakers squeaking on the pine floor as he pushed.Thanks, Im good with the public, Jenny said. Waitress for twenty years.Oh yeah, you waited on us at H.P.s. Lena, its our waitress from the other night.Nice to see you again, Jenny, said Lena, just as the battering ram hit the door again, knocking her to the floor. I havent seen you at yoga classClear the way, clear the way, clear the way called Theo. He and Nacho Nuez were coming across the floor from the back room carrying an eight-foot-long oak pew. Behind them, Ben Miller was wrestling a pew across the floor by himself. Several of the men who were holding the barricade broke ranks to help him.Cantilever these against the piano and nail them to the floor, Theo said.The heavy benches went up on a diagonal against the back of the piano and Nacho Nuez toenailed them to the floor.The benches flexed a little with each blow of the battering ram, but they held fast. After a few seconds, the pounding stopped. Again, there was only the noise of the wind and the rain. Everyone played flashlights around the room, waiting for whatever would come next.Then they heard Dale Pearsons voice at the side of the ch apel. This way. Bring it this way.Back door, psyche shouted. Theyre carrying it around to the back door.More pews, Theo yelled. Nail them up in the back. Hurry, that doors not as heavy as the front, it wont take two hits like that.Cant they just come through one of the walls? asked Val Riordan, who was trying to join in the effort to hold the line, despite the handicap of her five-hundred-dollar shoes.Im hoping that wont occur to them, Theo said.Supervising the undead was worse than dealing with a face crew full of drunks and cokeheads. At least his vivacious crews had all of their limbs and most of their physical coordination. This bunch was pretty floppy. Twenty of the undead were hefting a broken pine-tree trunk a foot thick and as long as a car.Move the goddamn tree, Dale growled. What am I paying you for?Is he paying us? asked Marty in the Morning, who was hefting at midtree, on a jagged, broken branch. Are we getting paid?I cant believe you ate all the brains, Warren Talbot , the dead painter, said. That was supposed to be for everyone.Would you shut the fuck up and get the tree around to the back door, Dale yelled, waving his snub-nose revolver.The gunpowder gave them a nice peppery flavor, Marty said.Dont rub it in, said Bess Leander. Im so hungry.There will be enough for everyone once we get inside, said Arthur Tannbeau, the citrus farmer.Dale could tell this wasnt going to work. They were too feeble, they couldnt get enough strength behind the battering ram. The living would be barricading the back door even now.He pulled some of the more decayed undead off the tree and pushed in those who seemed to have often of their normal strength, but they were trying to run up a narrow set of stairs carrying a thousand-pound tree trunk. Even a crew of healthy, living people wouldnt be able to get purchase in this mud. The tree trunk hit the door with an anemic thud. The door flexed just enough to discontinue that the living had reinforced it.Forget it. Forg et it, said Dale. There are other ways we can get to them. Fan out in the parking lot and start looking for keys in the ignition of peoples cars.Drive-thru snackage? said Marty in the Morning. I like it.Something like that, Dale said. Kid, you with the wax face. Youre a motorhead, can you hot-wire a car?Not with only one arm, Jimmy Antalvo slurred. That dog took my arm.It stopped, Lena said. She was checking Tucks wounds. Blood was seeping through the bandages on his ribs.Theo turned away from the pilot and looked around the room. The emergency lighting was starting to dim already and his flashlight was panning them like he was looking for suspects. No one left their keys in their car, did they?There were murmurs of denial and heads shaking.Val Riordan had a perfectly painted eyebrow raised at him. There was a question there, even if it was unspoken.Because thats what Id do, Theo said. Id get a car up to speed and calve it right through the wall.That would be bad, said Gabe.That pa rking lot had two inches of water and mud the last time I saw it, Tucker Case said. Not every car is going to get up to speed in that.Look, we need to get some help, Theo said. Someone has to go for help.They wont get ten feet, Tuck said. As soon as you open a door or break a window, theyll be waiting.What about the roof? said twit Barker.Shut up, kid, Tuck said. Theres no way up to the roof.Are we going to cut off his head now? said Josh.You have to sever the spinal anesthesia column or they just keep coming.Look, Theo said, playing his flashlight across the center of the ceiling. There was a trapdoor up there, painted over and latched, but it was by all odds there.It leads to the old bell tower, Gabe Fenton said. No bell, but it does open onto the roof.Theo nodded. From the roof someone could tell where they all were before making his move.That hatch is thirty feet up. Theres no way to get to it.Suddenly the high chirp of a barking bat came from above them. A half-dozen flashli ghts swung around to spotlight Roberto, who was hanging upside down from the star atop the Christmas tree.Mollys tree, said Lena.It looks sturdy enough, said Gabe Fenton.Ill go, said Ben Miller. Im still in pretty good shape. If I have to discombobulate a run for it, I can. amend there, that proves it, said Tuck, an aside to Lena. No guy with tiny balls would volunteer for that. See how the dead lie.Im driving an old Tercel, Ben said. I dont think you want me trying to make a run for help in that.What we need is a Hummer, said Gabe.Yeah, or even a friendly hand job, said Tuck. But thats later. For now, we need a four-wheel drive.You really want to try this? Theo asked Ben.The athlete nodded. Ive got the best chance of getting out. Those I cant outrun Ill just go through.Okay, then, said Theo. Lets get that tree over to the middle of the room.Not so fast, said Tuck, patting his bandages. I dont care how fast Micro-nads is, Santa still has two bullets in his gun.