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woman behind them.
    “Master of Men! The Vatican burns. The Whore’s armies flee in terror before our forces. We have taken our vengeance!”
    Hannibal smiled. His chin jutted even further, straining the tendons in his neck as he turned to the cameras and roared.
    “Victory over our enemies! The Whore has fallen!”
    The silence was deafening. Then questions peppered the smoky air. “Who is this psycho?” “Why are those Arabs dressed that way?” “What’s with all the elephants?”
    “All in good time, my new subjects. All your questions shall be answered… in Hannibal Time.”
    Hannibal turned to his lieutenants. “I see you have brought my quarry, General Rashid.”
    General Rashid, a huge Nubian with shoulders like boxcars, grabbed the dirty old woman by the scruff of her filthy robes, eyeing the cameras as he spoke.
    “Great One, we caught this cur trying to escape with several of his vassals. We slew them most atrociously. I have brought their leader to you for disposal.”
    “Oops,” Persi the quarter-mastodon fluted. “Sounds like a trampling. That’s my department. If you could do something about my people’s plight I’d be most obliged. We’ve been enslaved for millennia and a few of us are starting to get a little anxious… if you take my meaning.”
    The dirty old woman raised her head, and I saw that she was a man; a very old man with dirt in his teeth.
    “Ah,” Hannibal stage whispered. “And now the foul head of the ancient serpent turns its cataracts to me.”
    The dirty old man climbed painfully to his feet. Eying the cameras, he squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and said, “I see.”
    “What do you see, O leader of a dead faith? Do you see the coming of the true Messiah? Hannibal of the Winding Ways! Heart-render and Loin-piercer! Do you see me?”
    The reporters swiveled their cameras and microphones toward the dirty old man.
    “What is this delusion that speaks out of thin air?” the Pope wheezed. I’d recognized him by his thick Irish brogue. And the phlegm. “I see nothing.”
    Hannibal snarled. “What?”
    The Pope lifted one palsied hand to his ear. “Is someone speaking? I seem to hear a buzzing about my ears. Damned Italian fleas.”
    “Fleas?” Hannibal said. “Do you hear the Father of Deception, my friends? Rome burns. We undead have made a charnel pit of the Vatican: shattered her great beauty before the eyes of the world. Yet this ancient vampire denies what all can see with their own eyes!”
    The reporters swiveled again. The abused Pontiff cleared his throat and spoke directly to the cameras.
    “I see nothing.”
    An audible gasp went up from the milling survivors.
    “Rome has been struck by a series of cataclysms. Earthquakes. Perhaps a biochemical attack that induces violent delusions. My sources within the Holy City inform me that several terrorist organizations have claimed responsibility for much of the violence. Rome has been attacked by anti-Catholic forces bent on destroying our way of life.”
    “Anti-Catholic forces?” Contessa Rossellini cried. “Are you talking about Islamic Jihad? Here in Rome?”
    The Pope shrugged. “I’m talking about a terrorist attack, missy. One cleverly timed to coincide with some heretofore unrecognized natural disaster. Nothing more.”
    “Sword wielding assassins are running rampant through the streets of Rome,” Rosellini shouted. “Isn’t it ridiculous to deny something so obvious?”
    “Your Holiness,” the chubby reporter in the pink suit shouted. “What about the elephants?”
    “Several zoos have reported break-ins. We believe the terrorists’ plot involves using freed animals to create confusion in the streets.”
    “But some of the elephants are clearly dead, your Grace.”
    “Nonsense, my son. Those poor animals are obviously the victims of excessive sun exposure.”
    “‘Sun exposure’, your Holiness?”
    “That’s what I said, boyo. I’m sure that’s what the Church’s