Judgement and Wrath by Matt Hilton Page B

would be demanding the immediate arrival of Miami P.D. The cops didn’t have a station house on the island, but there’d be plenty of rent-a-cops en route. The police wouldn’t be far behind.
    There were two possible ways for this to play out. He could get the hell away now and take a second shot at his targets later, or he could try and kill them now and take his chances with the swarm of uniforms bearing down on him.
    He wasn’t worried about security guards or cops. They’d never been capable of stopping him before.
    He made his choice.
    He exited the kitchen and looked up. He saw a head glance over the balcony. Quickly, Dantalion lifted his Beretta and fired. The man had seen him, though, and ducked back out of sight. Then Dantalion had to dance to avoid the bullets blasting holes through the balcony above his head. Splinters of wood rained down on him, but miraculously none of the bullets hit their mark.
    Dantalion fired back.
    Then he was back in the kitchen. His mind made up. Choice made.
    The island wasn’t supplied with a gas main. Electricity was the overriding source of power to these houses. However there were secondary sources, too. Oil tanks. Propane gas. Jorgenson’s house was equipped with a full cooking range.
    Reaching down alongside the range he found a rubber pipe attached to a valve on the wall. Dantalion grabbed a knife from a nearby cutting block and swiped it through the rubber pipe. He heard the hiss of escaping gas. Then he moved back across the room to the door. Listened. A mutter of voices from above. Good, they were still in the room.
    Dantalion looked back at the range. He imagined that there was a haze over the cooker now, but knew that was only fancy. The gas was invisible. But it was there, the cloud growing exponentially by the second.
    The scorching flames of hell would scour this house, do his work for him. How appropriate for one who fancied himself as one of the Fallen. It would be just like home.
    Above him he heard smashing glass. Not a window, more a dull thud followed by tinkling. A second more solid thump and he almost believed that he saw the balcony above him shift under the weight.
    He went into the foyer, training his gun on the bedroom door. Two forms raced out, bent low as they charged along the balcony towards the rear of the house. Startled by the direction they’d taken, he was a split second behind them as he fired. His bullets found only plaster, then the two were out of sight behind a turn in the hall above.
    A gun poked over the balcony. Firing blind. One of the bullets snicked a bleeding chunk from Dantalion’s right thigh and he was forced to swerve away. Back towards the kitchen. In the doorway he searched for the front door. Should have opened it first. But never mind. He’d take his chances. He took out the lighter he’d used to ignite his cigar earlier. Back out under the balcony, using the wall as a shield, he flipped the lid open and spun the wheel of the lighter. A flame guttered, went out. He hissed, spun the wheel again and this time the flame stood an inch tall.
    As he slid the lighter across the floor towards the cooking range, he was already running.
    The gas caught with an imploding cough, then expanded as the flames raced through the kitchen.
    Two feet from the front door, Dantalion held his breath in anticipation. He grabbed at the handle, tugged open the door, was through it. That was when the flames backed fully down the exposed rubber pipe, found the reserve tank and exploded like Hiroshima.
    The impact knocked Dantalion sprawling. His ability to hear deserted him. His vision was full of raining debris and flames and smoke. His body was pummelled by flying dust and fragments of wood.
    But he was happy.
    No way the people inside could survive that explosion.
    Back on his feet, his first concern was for his book. He felt in his pockets while his ears whooshed and squealed as they sought to regain normal function. His book was there, attached