Ambrose’s hooves clattered on the stairs inside as he was drawn toward the racket. His eyes flared when he spotted the Leviathan, which he knew would eat us all after finishing off Ben the Behemoth. Ambrose galloped back up and through the apartment. I heard a resounding crash and a shuddering. I was sure the refrigerator had fallen on Steve, turning him permanently to dust, but it could have been my kitchen cabinet collapsing from the force of Ben and Anna’s shagging against it.
    My knees buckled and Colleen caught me.
    Then came the snorting and stamping Ambrose only made when he was desperate to communicate something. In contrast, from the back of the apartment Lucas began to howl, a hollow throaty climax.
    “I know that howl! Who else is in there?” Colleen demanded.
    “No one. You’ve got to leave. Please, trust me. Everything will be wrecked if—”
    But she pushed me out of the way and stormed upstairs. Through his wrinkles and warts, the kurupi bared his yellow teeth at me, then nodded and followed, his phallus now hooked around his neck like a towel. He held onto it, his hands on either side like a pro athlete. Halfway up the stairs he started chanting, “Par-ty! Par-ty!”
    The Leviathan was last, so gargantuan I thought she would tear my staircase asunder. I watched her tail thrash at the moldings. I sank to my knees on the cold concrete of the porch.
    The shopkeeper at the end of the street stood peering at the downed traffic light. He raised his fist to me, made an obscene gesture.
    My downstairs neighbor ducked outside and said, “Sure, it’s Saturday night, but what’s going on up there?”
    “Don’t worry,” I assured him, “It will all be over soon….”
    Just then a swift snap swallowed the other sounds: something splitting the air. It came again, then again, zinging, hissing, and whispering through the spring night. It was the Dullahan, I realized. The Leviathan must have made an immediate impact on him — her breath of cinders and the sea, her serpentine movement, the scale of her destruction. It was a Goth boy’s dream. Ian had sprung to his feet, whipping for all he was worth. The crisp whisk of bones sliced the silence.
    Leviathan roared in response, and the whole building shuddered.
    Above the house, the sky lit up with a cataract of blood mixed with fire. As long as the Behemoth and the Leviathan didn’t battle, it sounded like we had made a perfect match after all.

–––––––––––––––––

Emily Schultz is the co-founder of Joyland. Her novel, Heaven Is Small, was published by House of Anansi Press in Canada in 2009, and is forthcoming in the United States for fall 2010. She has recently published in Black Warrior Review and the Noir anthology series by Akashic Books.