She remembered how her mother had busied herself with phone call after phone call—to the funeral home, to the florist, to family members and friends. Linda had hovered just within earshot, listening as her mother was mostly strong, but hearing the tears reserved for only those closest.
Linda awoke with a start and nearly pitched forward off the bed, where she sat beside Remy. She quickly pulled herself together, catching sight of the angel Assiel still on the other side of her love, his dark hand resting upon Remy’s chest.
Nothing appeared to have changed.
She stood, stretching the numbness from her legs, then leaned in closer to her man. If anything he looked worse, and she felt her mood grow heavy.
Marlowe came into the room again. The poor boy had been back and forth between upstairs and down, almost as if he believed that if he left and returned, he would come back and find his master well. If only that were the case.
“How you doing, boy?” she asked the dog as he came to stand beside her. She scratched behind his ear and rubbed his side.
She knew very well that Remy could die, and she was trying her best to prepare herself. It was one of the hardest things she had ever done, like sticking a toe into bathwater that is too hot. You immediately pull away, but when you keep going back to it, the discomfort gradually lessens, eventually becoming something bearable.
Something bearable.
She doubted that it would ever be.
But what if it did happen? What if Remy just couldn’t hold on anymore? She—everyone should be prepared.
Just as her mother had informed her family about Nana, Linda knew she had to prepare Remy’s friends.
She stared at Remy and Assiel, then turned to leave the room. Marlowe watched her as she went, the look in his dark eyes questioning.
“It’s all right,” she reassured him, keeping her voice low. “I’m going downstairs for a while. You can stay here if you want, or you can come with me. Whatever you like is okay.”
She stopped at the door and heard a soft sigh from behind her. Marlowe had returned to his bed in the corner of the room. It was nice to know somebody who loved Remy as much as she did would be with him.
In the kitchen, she found Steven Mulvehill and Squire sitting at the table, a stack of weapons piled in its center; there were knives and guns, and, if she wasn’t mistaken, a few grenades.
“Hey,” Squire said.
Mulvehill stood, concern on his face. “Is he . . .”
“The same,” Linda said. She couldn’t take her eyes from the stack on the table. “What’s all this?”
“Francis asked us to grab some stuff from his place, y’know, just in case.”
“Are we expecting a third-world nation to attack us?” Linda asked.
“We don’t know what to expect, really,” Squire replied. He reached into the pile and removed a handgun, looking it over carefully before setting it back down beside him. “We just have to be prepared.”
“Can we do anything?” Steven asked.
Linda barely knew this cop, but she could tell he was a good man, and he certainly cared for Remy. She hoped that when—if—this all resolved, no matter how it turned out, they’d have the opportunity to get to know each other better.
“No, no,” she said, suddenly realizing she was incredibly thirsty. She went to the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of water, and nearly drained it one long gulp. She turned and leaned against the counter. An uncomfortable silence filled the room.
“People should probably know,” Linda finally blurted out.
Steven looked at her, confusion on his face.
“Remy’s friends: They should know what’s happened and that things might not turn out so good.” The words were painful to utter, and she felt her eyes grow hot with the potential for tears again. “Sorry,” she said, wiping at her eyes.
“It’s all right.” Steven looked at Squire, who was testing the sharpness of a ten-inch blade by shaving patches of thick hair from his arm.
The room grew silent again and Linda took another swig from her bottle of water before asking the inevitable question, “Is there anybody I should call?”
Steven seemed to give it some thought for a few moments. “He really doesn’t have that many friends. He knows a lot of people, but”—he paused again—“I don’t think he made many friends because of who and what he is.”
“Does he have any . . . angel friends?”
“He doesn’t seem to get along all that well with his own kind.”
“Ashley,” Squire suddenly blurted out.
Both Linda and Steven looked at him.
Squire set the blade he was still playing with down on the table. “If you’re going to get in touch with anybody, it should be Ashley.”
“He’s right,” Linda said.
“Yeah,” Steven agreed. “They are pretty tight.”
“Does she know what Remy is?”
“Yeah, she knows,” Squire said. The goblin pushed back his chair and stood. “She should see him, just in case.”
The weight of the goblin’s words was crushing.
“Does anybody know how we can get in touch with her?” Linda asked.
“I know where she is,” Squire said, walking toward a growing patch of shadow by the kitchen window. “We—Remy, Ash, and me—were all involved with this thing once,” he said. “We’ve stayed in touch since.”
Squire turned and ducked into the shadow as if it were a thing of substance, like pulling back a curtain and disappearing behind it.
“I’ll see if I can bring her back.”
Linda and Steven heard the words echo hollowly from somewhere beyond the shadow.
A
shley was supposed to have been up at six for an eight-o’clock Early Childhood Development class, but she hadn’t been able to find the energy to get it done.
Instead, she’d lain in bed, listening to the Top 40 DJs and their inane banter, and music that she couldn’t stand interspersed with news, weather, and traffic. It should have been more than enough to drive her from bed, but it hadn’t.
She’d thought she might be getting sick—a cold maybe, or even the flu, but physically she felt fine. There had just been something wrong about the morning, and it had lasted well into her day.
Ashley had asked her roommate if she felt it, too, but she’d just laughed and said Ashley was probably getting her period.
But that wasn’t it; that wasn’t it at all.
The day felt wrong.
She sat in a lawn chair in the backyard and played with her phone. There were no messages from anyone, and nothing she could find on the Internet that would give her such an intense sense of unease.
Just crazy, I guess,
she thought. She figured a shower might help and was about to rouse herself from the chair when she heard her roommate call her name.
“Yeah?” Ashley responded, her skin suddenly prickling and her heart beginning to race.
“Can you come in here?”
She bolted from the chair, up the back steps, through the mudroom, and into the kitchen, where she found Melissa looking pale and more than a little befuddled.
“What is it?”
“Your friend is here,” Melissa said.
“My friend? What friend?”
“The creepy one. He’s in the dining room, eating cereal.”
“The creepy one,” Ashley repeated, already on the move into the small dining room.
Squire sat at the table, just about to shovel another spoonful of Lucky Charms into his mouth, as she burst in.
“Squire,” she said. “What . . .”
The goblin wiped his milk-stained mouth with his sleeve and stood.
“We gotta go,” he told her.
“Go where?”
“Boston . . . Remy’s place.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“It’s bad, Ash,” Squire said.
“What’s bad? Tell me what’s going on, or I’m going to fucking lose it.”
“It’s Remy,” Squire said. “He’s been hurt. . . . We don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
“Remy,” she said, her voice little more than a trembling whisper.
It all made sense to her now. This was what she had been feeling.
“Take me there, Squire,” she said, walking over to the goblin. “Take me right now.”
• • •
Marlowe awoke with a guttural
woof
.
The black Labrador lifted his blocky head, looked around the room, and climbed to his feet. He had heard something and thought that maybe his master—his Remy—had awakened.
But that hadn’t happened. The angel who was helping Remy was still sitting on the bed beside Marlowe’s unconscious friend.
Marlowe sniffed the air and padded to the bed, his nails clicking on the hardwood floor.
Woof
, he said again, then laid his chin upon the mattress and sighed. He longed for his Remy to playfully pat the mattress, inviting the dog up to join him as he had so many times before.
There was no movement—no invitation.
Stepping back slightly, the Labrador tensed his muscular back legs, then sprang gracefully up onto the bed. He waited for recrimination from the angel Assiel, but there was none; the angel didn’t move, his hand still resting upon Remy’s chest.
Marlowe sniffed around the bed, catching hints of a familiar smell that made him remember the woman, his Madeline, who had left the pack some time ago. He still missed his Madeline, but this scent made him very nervous.
It was not a good smell. The dog knew it as a sad smell, a bad smell that told him of sickness. Of things coming to an end.
What does this mean?
the dog wondered as he sniffed around his master’s still form.
Is Remy going to leave me, like Madeline did?
Marlowe stood upon the bed, breathing in the smell of something that made the thick black hair at the back of his neck and down to his muscular tail bristle. He would not stand for this. He knew that his Remy loved him and would never leave him voluntarily. They enjoyed being a pack too much. There were still many walks to the Common to be had, many rats and squirrels still to chase, so many things that they needed to do again and then do some more.
No, he would not let his Remy leave him.
Marlowe dropped down as close as he could to his master, his furry body pressed against his Remy’s side, his chin resting on Remy’s naked hip so that he could look up the length of his master’s body to his unconscious face.
This was where he would stay. Lending his strength to his Remy’s struggle, his fight against whatever it was that had caused this smell that made Marlowe think of terrible things.
Of his Remy going away and never coming back.
• • •
His tears were scalding hot.
And lying in the darkness of the cave, Remy reached up to wipe the liquid away. The angel had no need for sleep but would often slip into a deep fugue state where he would heal and reflect on matters of importance to him, the people that he cared for, and the world. It was from one of these states that he’d awakened.
He could not remember what rumination had caused this release of emotion, but whatever it was, it had tugged greatly upon his heart.
Absently, he rubbed the moisture between his finger and thumb as he tried to recall what it was that had stirred him so.
“Lost in thought?” asked a voice from nearby in the darkness, startling him.
Adjusting his vision to see better in the gloom of the cave, Remy saw a hunched and hooded figure standing by the cave’s opening.
“Don’t get too lost,” the hooded man continued, his voice sounding raw, as if it should hurt him to speak. “Maybe next time there won’t be a place for you to end up in.”
“Is that what you think happened to me?” Remy asked. “That I got lost and ended up in this body . . . in this place?”
“It’s possible, but then after all I’ve seen in my lifetime, just about anything seems so.”
Remy sat up in the gloom. “Who are you?”
The man chuckled wetly. “Bet you like asking that question rather than hearing it for a change.”
“I’ve always known who I am.”
“Strangely enough, so have I.”
Remy studied the man, noticing the raw, wet flesh of his hands.
“So you know me?” he finally asked.
“Let’s just say I know of you.”
“You must be the one who came to my defense.”
“Yes. They actually wanted to kill you—thought you were part of some sort of evil Shaitan plan or some sort of nonsense.”
“But you know otherwise.”
“I believe I do. . . . I’m right, aren’t I? You’re not a Shaitan, are you?”
Remy smiled and almost laughed. It felt strange, almost as if that action might be somehow forbidden in this place. “No, I’m who you think I am.”
“Good,” the man said. “It’s nice to be right every once in a while.”
“It is,” Remy agreed. “So who are you?”
“No one you’d remember. We met in passing, but I never told you my name.”
“Which is?”
“I haven’t used it in a very long time, and I would really rather forget it. They just call me the Fossil now.”
“That’s easy enough to remember.”
“I like to keep things simple these days.”
“Is that even possible . . . these days?”
The Fossil picked at a spot of angry flesh before answering. “There really isn’t much to it now; it’s all about staying alive long enough to complete the mission.”
“The mission that I was supposed to lead,” Remy added.
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“The one that I have no recollection of.”
“One and the same.”
“I ought to be doing something about that,” Remy said.
“You’re probably right.” The old man gestured as he started from the cave. “Come with me.”
Remy followed him up the winding stone passage, moving quickly so as to not lose sight of the Fossil, who was far more spry than the angel would have imagined. As they grew nearer the surface, Remy could smell the stink of a Heaven fallen to ruin.
Of a Heaven rotting in what remained of the sun.
The old man stopped just inside the entry to the caves, peering out at the bleak landscape. As far as the eye could see, there was only devastation.
Remy found himself drawn to it, pulled out into the open.
But a thin, bloody hand, flat against his chest, stopped his progress.
“You don’t want to be seen,” the Fossil said.
Remy shook off the pull of outside and squatted down in the dirt and dust, looking out from the cave entrance.
“How could I not remember something like this?” he asked, feeling waves of emotion threatening to beat him to a bloody pulp. There was sadness the likes of which he’d never experienced, mixed with nearly overwhelming anger.
“Maybe it’s not your memory yet,” the Fossil said. He leaned against the stone wall and slid down to the floor. “The one whose body you’re wearing, this is his world.”
In the muted light from the outside, Remy got a better look at the old man, his face as raw and bloody looking as his hands. As if all the skin had been scoured away in hopes that something better waited beneath.
“I have to know,” Remy said, turning away and looking out over the ruins of Heaven and the world. “I have to know what led to this so I can do something, so that I can . . .”
“Fix it?” the Fossil suggested.
Remy glanced quickly at him, and then back to the ugly scene outside. “Is that even possible?”
“I guess it all depends on your definition of
fixing
,” the old man said.
“How did it happen?” Remy asked with growing dread. “How did it all become so . . . broken?”
The Fossil stared out over the remains of the world and Paradise, his eyes suddenly welling with moisture, tears running over the raw, open flesh of his face.
“It was supposed to be something wonderful,” he said wistfully. “The Unification of everything above, below, and what had been lost.” He tore his tearing eyes away to look at Remy. “The dawn of a new Heavenly Kingdom.”
Remy wasn’t sure he completely understood, but if what he thought was true—it
was
something wonderful.
But the question still hung there like an ugly wound, the crack in an otherwise perfect façade.
“What happened?”
“Death . . . Death is what happened.” The Fossil once again gazed out over the graveyard the earth had become. “Somebody killed Him, Remy,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
“Who?” Remy asked, although he dreaded the response.
“The Almighty,” the old man said, his voice a raw, pained whisper. “Somebody murdered God.”
• • •
Francis followed Simeon from Methuselah’s, to find three Demonicus demons waiting for them in the stone passage.
He reacted in an instant, reaching into his coat for protection when he felt Simeon’s hand on his arm.
“That’s quite all right,” the man said. “They’re with me.”
One of the demons nodded his head as they both approached, then activated a sphere of transference around them.
Alarm bells sounded in Francis’ head.
Who the hell is this guy, and when did I get to be so trusting of strangers?
He quickly answered his own questions.
Since my best friend is dying in a bed in Boston is when.
Simeon looked at him as if sensing his unease and smiled.
The sphere of transference rose up around them all, and Francis found himself holding his breath, experiencing that strange sense of vertigo that always happened when using a magickal spell to transport from one place to the next. Then as fast as the sphere had surrounded them, it began to collapse again.
“Welcome,” Simeon said, stepping out and into a room. He spread his arms for Francis to take it all in, and he did just that.
There was no doubt that they were underground, but how far down exactly he wasn’t sure. What was visible of the walls of the vast chamber appeared to be combination of rough stone and dirt. Thick, knotted vines protruded from the visible surfaces, cracking the stone as they pushed outward from the earthen walls.
But all the rest, as far as the eye could see, were taken up with bookcases and tables holding stacks upon stacks of ancient tomes and objects of indistinguishable origins.
“This is where I come when I need to collect myself,” Simeon said as his eyes moved wistfully about the space. “I spent many an hour here in my youth perusing the volumes of ancient arcana and things esoteric.”
“Impressive,” Francis said with a nod. “How far underground are we?”
“A few miles, give or take,” the man answered. “The original structure above was destroyed by a great fire, and what was left collapsed into a swamp. I was shocked when I discovered that this chamber of vast knowledge had somehow been preserved.”
“How long ago was that?” Francis asked.
“When I discovered that the chamber had survived?”
“That you spent many an hour here,” Francis clarified.
Simeon smiled again. “Let’s just leave it at a long time ago.”
He turned away then and headed to a small sitting area with two leather club chairs with an antique wooden table between them, atop which sat a crystal decanter and two glasses.
“May I offer you a glass of my favorite sherry?” he asked, gesturing to the container.
“Sure—why not?” Francis said, joining him.
Simeon sat down in one of the chairs, and Francis took the other, watching as the man gestured to the demons, who still stood where they’d first entered the room. “We’d like some sherry,” he said.
One of the demons approached, picked up the decanter, and carefully poured one glass and then another.
“Our guest first, Beleeze,” his host said, nodding toward Francis as the demon tried to give Simeon the first glass.
Francis locked eyes with the creature and at once felt uneasy. Beleeze lifted the glass and offered it to him, his curled upper lip showing off yellowed, razor-sharp teeth. Francis took the sherry and watched as the demon leapt back as if to escape his vicinity as quickly as possible.