With the rocketeers taken out and the Nubian borne aloft to his messy fate, Anubis appeared to grasp, for the first time, that the game was up. A window appeared on the dome’s screen that showed the God-King in tight close-up. With nothing left between his holy personage and the wrath of Gojiro, his eyes widened in shock and his tongue lolled out. He seemed to be saying something, but Semple couldn’t hear the dog’s final words. “Why the fuck don’t we have sound in here?”
Anubis, still staring transfixed at Gojiro, began slowly to back away across the roof to where the near-hysterical remnants of his harem were huddled together waiting for the end. After half a dozen paces, he managed to break the paralyzing eye contact and turned and fled, pushing his way into the group of concubines and actually holding one of them, a pouty, full-breasted teenager Semple had known as Nephra, in front of him as a human shield. Semple was instantly outraged. “Will you look at that shameless son of a bitch hiding among the women? He can’t even go out with fucking dignity. He’s got to know there’s no way the body of one nubile babe, no matter how big her tits, is going to save him. Why can’t he accept that he’s pod-bound and exit with a bit of class?”
Mr. Thomas sniffed. He wasn’t taking the fate of Anubis quite as personally as Semple. “A lot of leaders have tried to get away among the women. Britain’s Charles II tried it, so did Bonnie Prince Charlie, and Jeff Davis after the Civil War.”
“But he knows he can’t escape.”
In one respect, Semple was wrong. Whether it was actually Nephra’s ample breasts or not was unclear, but when Anubis grabbed her, Gojiro did actually pause. Although he could have crushed Anubis and the women of the harem in one fell handslap, he hesitated. Inside the dome, lizard-brain fireworks were visible as synapses processed the dilemma. Could it be that the big reptile held the dogheaded king’s cowardice in as much contempt as Semple? He hardly seemed capable of such finesse, and yet there he was, standing and waiting, wondering what to do next. Semple, too, was at something of a loss. She had no personal animosity against the women. When Anubis had appeared on the rooftop, she had assumed that they would share the same fate as the other innocent victims of the razing of Necropolis-regrettable, but too damned bad. Now that Gojiro was displaying this unexpected streak of dinosaur chivalry, she saw that she was going to have to revise her ideas.
“Has he ever behaved like this before?”
Jesus shook his head. “It’s extremely peculiar. He never used to be a respecter of gender.”
Gojiro’s next move was even more peculiar. He extended a clawed index finger and pointed at Anubis. It was the simplest of gestures, but its effect on the God-King was electrifying. His dog jaw dropped; he hurled Nephra from him. Gojiro continued to point at Anubis as he ran to the edge of the roof. Now it was Anubis’s turn to hesitate. He was plainly teetering in both mind and body, unable to decide whether to jump or to wait for the Big Green to tender his fate. Semple had no doubt what she wanted him to do. “Jump, you bastard! Do the decent thing and end it now.”
But Anubis didn’t jump. Clearly, terminating his own incarnation was not a part of his nature under any circumstances. Gojiro, however, had an idea of his own about how the wretched creature should meet his fate. The monster pressed his lips together and very gently blew. The radioactive breath came in a narrow stream, but it was enough. Anubis was engulfed in flame. His entire body was burning like a torch as he lurched over the edge of the roof and fell. Arms and legs outstretched, he spun as he dropped, leaving a spiral of smoke while plummeting to the ruins below. He struck the ground on an incline of rubble beside an upended block of masonry with a tangle of steel projecting from its broken end. As sharp steel penetrated his burning body, a final hiccup of flame vaporized all that remained of Anubis.
Semple was silent for a moment. “So I guess that’s the end of that.”
Mr. Thomas asked the obvious question. “And how does it feel?”
Semple didn’t immediately answer and Jesus cut in. “The most divine of emotions is that of revenge well executed.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“What do you mean?”
“To tell the truth, it doesn’t feel as good as it ought to.”
“You wanted him to suffer more? It was a long fall and he was on fire all the way down. He definitely crashed and burned.”
Semple frowned. “It’s not that. It’s just that what’s done is done, and I guess it’s over and that’s kind of hard to accept.”
The goat gave a superior sniff. “They say some people are never satisfied.”
Semple bridled. “I didn’t say that I wasn’t satisfied-”
“I’d also point out that it isn’t exactly over. The women are still there. Didn’t they used to be your co-workers?”
“What do you think he’s going to do to them?”
“I suspect that’s exactly what he’s thinking about now.”
Gojiro stood staring at the trembling group of women. Semple shuddered. “I wouldn’t like to be in their position.”
Jesus raised an eyebrow. “Do you really care?”
“They’ve got to be scared out of their minds.”
“But do you really care?”
Semple turned angrily on them. “I don’t know. I’m safe in here, so it’s all fucking hypothetical, isn’t it?”
Gojiro turned and began to walk away. The women of the harem, up to this point huddled together, started to spread out as if they couldn’t quite believe their unexpected deliverance. After a half dozen paces, though, Gojiro halted and looked back. The women also froze.
“Is he going to kill them after all?”
The thought may well have crossed the King of the Monsters’ mind. Certainly, inside the dome, Semple, Jesus, and the goat were treated to another brief synaptic fireworks display, but then the second-unit screens showed him turning again and moving on.
“He let the women go.”
“I guess he’s still into this new knight-in-shining-armor mode.”
“Yeah, but where’s he going now?”
The forward view on the screen was an extreme long shot, the replication of Gojiro’s distant gaze, fixed somewhere beyond the city limits, not only in a direction in which Semple had never been during her sojourn in the city, but directly into a totally surprising and highly colorful purple and magenta sunset.
Mr. Thomas looked worried. “Where did that fucking sunset come from?”
Jesus spread his hands. “Don’t look at me, I didn’t conjure it. Besides, the colors are just a result of crap in the air. It’s probably the dust he kicked up smashing down all those buildings.”
Mr. Thomas looked even more worried. “I think he deliberately made the sunset himself.”
Jesus shrugged. “He always gets a bit weird after he’s whacked a city.”
“He never made a sunset before.”
“You can’t say he doesn’t have a sense of theater. We’ve always known that.”