Free Fangs In Vain by Scott Nicholson Page A

of His tests.
    Roy reached for the sack and
brought up a flare, along with a lighter. “I hear angels don’t particularly
like fire,” Roy said.
    “Not true. You’ve been hanging out
with evil people, and evil people lie all the time. I mean, nobody trusts a
Gog, right?”
    “I’m not a Gog. I’m a messenger.”
    “Oh, like a dark angel, huh?”
    Yes, very dark,” he said. “Let’s
see if we can cast a little light.”
    Roy thumbed the lighter and
applied it to the flare, which began sparking furiously. He brought it closer
to her face, and a few of the sparks cast pinpricks of pain along her exposed
skin. Sabrina smelled smoke and wondered if her clothes had caught fire.
    “It’s a shame to mar such a pretty
face,” Roy said in his killer-clown voice. Then he tilted his head to one side,
smiled, and added, “Actually, I’m in the shame game, so it’s all good.”
    Luke and Cherry yelled from below,
but Sabrina couldn’t see them. If Luke weren’t wounded, he would scale the wall
in no time and rescue her. Cherry was about as menacing as a goldfish, so the
odds were slim that she’d retrieve the spear gun and make a dramatic assault up
the tiny belfry ladder.
    And with God out playing golf with
Moses or something, that meant Sabrina was on her own.
    The flare was inches from her
face, and her skin felt chapped. The flare glinted in Roy’s eyes, and she could
have sworn she saw roiling pits of hell in there. If Roy was a messenger, she
didn’t want to meet the guys he was summoning.
    Summoning?
    “Hey, Roy, aren’t you supposed to
be waving those things around? The old ‘One if by land, two if by sea’? They
might be angry if you let them down.”
    Roy froze. “Goddamn.”
    “Bible says not to take God’s name
in vain.”
    But Roy wasn’t listening. He began
waving the flare wildly over his head again, ranting in Latin toward the sea.
The offshore storm, which had seemed to weaken in intensity, now rumbled with
renewed determination. The boiling purple froth churned toward land, flickering
with trapped lightning.
    Roy yanked another flare from the
sack as the first one burned low. He discarded the dull red ember of the spent
flare and continued signaling whatever mysterious forces required his
attention.
    Sabrina rocked back and forth a
little, careful not to ring the bell. Soon her feet were near the spent flare,
and she mashed her big toes together until the ember was snug between her
Crocs.
    This had better work or you’re
toast .
    It was time to channel Little
Sabrina Vickers, the kid who had been an aspiring Olympic gymnast at the age of
ten, until her body started filling out and spawned the unfortunate balance
challenges caused by large boobs. Still, she had retained a lot of flexibility,
thanks to yoga, Pilates, and modern dance she’d pursued as an adult. Well,
until she’d died, anyway.
    The ember had nearly burned
through the rubber of her shoes and pain bolted up her legs. She lifted her
legs and did a half-flip, dangling in the air as she applied the fire to the
old rope. Her skirt parted and Roy would have gotten an eyeful if he turned to
look.
    But Roy kept on with his chanting,
and somewhere below, Luke was yelling at her to “do something.”
    Between Luke and God, she had
plenty of bossy men in her life.
    The remnant of the flare was
fading fast, and Sabrina wondered if the flame would last long enough. The
storm picked up force and the wind rattled the old belfry, causing the tin
roofing to flap and whisking away the stench of burnt rope.
    What will give first, my Crocs
or the rope?
    As it turned out, it was both at
the same time.
    The pain penetrated her insteps
just as the rope gave way, and she bounced to the hard floor. Roy didn’t hear
the impact above the wind. In fact, he started gibbering “They’re here! They’re
here!”
    Sabrina unraveled the rope from
her arms and wings. Roy’s silhouette stood against the lesser black of the sky,
the moon now almost