World After

55

AS EVERYONE takes a moment to absorb what he’s saying, the horde of scorpion locusts hurls toward us.

I want to shout that he’s lying. That the scorpions are his creations, not biblical locusts. But I lose my chance because the crowd goes nuts.

Warriors raise their swords and stab the sky. They shout war cries that shatter the twilight.

Their wings flex, bursting out of the sheaths that disguise them.

Madeline’s carefully placed feathers fly everywhere. Glitter and fluff float into the air and drift like a scene in an old-time ticker-tape parade.

I shrink back, wishing I could disappear. Ironically, Andi does too, so that we continue to look like a matching set.

Bloodlust pulses in the air like sprays of pheromone. The air is thick with it and getting thicker.

Then the terrible thing happens.

Beside us on the stage, a warrior grabs the angel-parts dealer and lifts him above his head. The guy squirms like a kid as his glasses fall off. The angel heaves him into the crowd.

A hundred arms grab the poor man and pull him down into the engulfing center of the angelic masses. The man screams and screams.

The multitude shoves each other to try to reach the man. Bloody bits of cloth and bigger, wet chunks I don’t want to think about fly out of the place where he landed.

The warrior angels rage and yell as they restlessly jostle each other, cheering on the ones tearing at the man who is drowning in their violence.

The crowd is peppered with humans.

From here, the humans look small and terrified as they realize what’s going on. Most of them are women, and they look especially vulnerable in their scanty dresses and heels.

The scorpions thunder above, darkening the sky as they fly by. The wind gains force from countless wings, mixing with the shouts of the crowd. The frantic energy whips up the bloodlust in the drunken warriors.

People panic and run.

And like cats whose instincts get triggered by a fleeing mouse, the warriors pounce.

It’s a massacre.

The ones trapped in the center of the crowd have no place to run, although they try. It’s too crowded for the angels to use their swords. They grab the humans with their bare hands.

Screams fill the night as the center of the crowd tightens in on itself while the edges disperse as people fan out. The angels seem to enjoy the chase as they let humans run away from the crowd before tackling them.

One warrior punches his fist into a waiter’s stomach and pulls out a stringy, bloody mass that can only be his intestines. He drapes them over a screaming woman like fine jewelry. The angels around him roar their approval and punch their fists into the sky in a crazed frenzy.

From the stage, I can see the color of blood spreading across the crowd in a spill that just won’t stop.

Andi is screeching in panic. She turns and runs, hopping down from the stage and into the night.

My instincts yell at me to do the same but the stage is the least crowded, the safest of all the areas I can see. But being on stage during a riot is like being under a ten-thousand-watt spotlight when every cell of my body needs to be hiding in the dark.

Even Uriel seems to be at a loss as to what to do. The jerky motions of his head and the tense expression on his face when he turns to talk to his aides tell me this isn’t part of the plan.

He meant to get everyone drunk, excited, and riled up enough to break taboos tonight. But he clearly didn’t expect this. Maybe if he was a warrior instead of a politician, he would have predicted their response. He would have known that their veneer of civilized behavior was just waiting for an excuse to be shredded.

In pockets of the crowd, angels who’ve been shoving each other in the race to catch a human start throwing punches at each other.

It’s turning into a brawl as well as a massacre. Some of them take to the air to get more room and the chaos becomes three-dimensional.