R
emy slowly rose to his feet, his eyes fixed on the covered corpses that represented his humanity. This was the last he could stand of this nightmarish world that had become his twisted new reality.
“Is this it?” he asked, still staring at the dead. “Is this why I was supposed to come here?”
He turned toward Gerta and Methuselah, still standing in the doorway to the freezer.
“I think it’s time,” the little girl said, turning her innocent gaze up to the stone man.
“Are you sure?” Methuselah asked. “If what he said is true, this isn’t even the Remy who left it here.”
“No,” she said, looking back to the angel. “It isn’t . . . but it’s the one who’s supposed to take it back.”
“Take it back?” Remy repeated, moving toward them. “What am I taking back?”
The golem hesitated.
“Go ahead,” Gerta said.
Methuselah silently turned and walked away, only to return a few moments later holding something wrapped in a towel.
“Here,” the golem said, holding the package out to Remy. “You asked me to watch over this until you came back.”
Remy took the package and immediately felt it. The Seraphim fire that whirled insanely at his core suddenly surged through his body in panic, filling his every muscle, feeding him with the strength he would need to defend himself.
But against what?
“Do you know what it is?” Gerta asked, looking up at him with eyes like the windows to some great cathedral of the soul.
Remy couldn’t find the words, the experience of holding the mysterious package like nothing he could remember.
“I want to put it down, to throw it away, but I . . . I don’t want to,” he finally gasped.
“Open it,” the little girl said excitedly, as if it were a special birthday gift.
Remy’s hands were actually shaking as he began to carefully unwrap the towel. He saw a flash of gold, and his heart skipped a beat. He pulled his hand away for a moment, then gently lifted the last of the wrappings.
The golden pistol lay nestled in a bedding of towel, and it seemed to speak to him in the gentle voice of a long-lost lover.
So good to see you again, Remiel. It has been too long.
The golden pistol was called Pitiless because of its incredible affinity for death; there wasn’t another weapon in all of existence as deadly. Forged from the very life force of Lucifer Morningstar, this was a weapon to fear, a weapon that Remy had last seen in the possession of his friend, former Guardian angel Fraciel.
Francis.
It was the first time that Remy had thought of his fallen friend, and the realization that his was not one of the bodies in the freezer made the question surge to the surface of his mind.
Where was Francis, and why was Remy now in possession of the Pitiless pistol?
Pick me up, and I’ll show you,
the Pitiless whispered.
Remy stared at the weapon, the warmth of the gun radiating through the towel. It was like he was holding a living thing, and in a way, he was.
This had been Lucifer’s way of hiding his power after losing the war against God: disguising it as weaponry, multiple pieces scattered to the world of man, waiting for the day when they would be found by his followers and his full strength would return to him.
And that power was returned, as the Morningstar ruled Hell once again. But the pistol remained as it was created, almost as if it had a special purpose.
A purpose it had yet to fulfill.
“This doesn’t belong to me,” Remy said, looking from Gerta to Methuselah. “How . . . ?”
“After everything went to shit—”
The little girl looked sternly at the golem.
“Excuse me,” Methuselah apologized. “After everything went bad, you showed up with it, handed it over to me, and said that there might be a time when you would come back for it. You said I was to hold on to it for you until then.”
“But why would I have this?”
Gerta’s voice was calm yet commanding as she spoke to him. “Maybe you should listen to it.” She motioned to the Pitiless with her chin. “It might know something that you don’t.”
He knew that she was right, but the idea of holding the weapon, of letting it worm its way into his head . . .
Remy looked down at the weapon, feeling it pulse powerfully in his hand. He had to know how the Pitiless came to be in his possession, and the only way he could learn this was right there at his fingertips.
He just had to be brave enough—strong enough—to find out.
Remy reached for the gun, his hand wrapping around the grip, and the floor of reality dropped out from beneath him.
The Pitiless transported him to another place . . . another time . . . another moment.
Just before the end.
Before the fall of Heaven.
• • •
The images came at Remy fast and furious, combined with the overwhelming emotions of the time.
It was a moment of absolute glory—Heaven about to be reunited with its missing pieces, and the Earth about to be made part of God’s empire.
Remy was jubilant as he stood amongst a gathering of Heaven’s representatives—the angelic as well as humans touched by the divinity of God.
The Golden City hovered before them, the Almighty represented as a glowing sphere of the purest light, rays of His holy omnipotence radiating outward, calling for the lost regions to return.
For Heaven to be unified once more.
Remy could feel the anticipation in the air as the Garden of Eden and the territorial mass that had become known as Hell slowly returned to the places they had inhabited before the Great War.
But a sudden dark tremble, a vibration through the ether, warned him that something was amiss. All eyes were upon the Lord of Lords, but Remy turned his on those gathered to witness the wonder. Instincts honed by the profession he had mastered in the world of man were on full alert. Something was wrong.
Remy wandered through the gathering, scanning the crowd. He saw the Archangel Michael and his soldiers, their expressions surprisingly grim as they perched upon the shores of Eden. There were those who had fallen amidst the gathering as well, their sins about to be forgiven, their penance completed as the Morningstar was welcomed back into the family of Heaven.
But the odd feeling continued to worsen as Remy moved through the crowds, watching their euphoric expressions as Eden and Hell gradually returned to their rightful places.
Remy’s eyes were drawn to his Lord God, and he experienced a joy unlike any other as he looked upon the glowing sphere.
Then the configuration of Heaven began to shift and change as what had been excised returned with the divine cacophony of the celestial choir.
The regions were realigning. Remy could see dark towers that could only have been erected in Hell, rising up alongside the spires of the Golden City.
And from one of the towers a shape appeared, clad in armor that seemed to be forged from the heart of the morning sun. The figure leapt from the spire, wings of solid black springing from his shoulders as he glided down to gently land before the sphere of God.
Lucifer Morningstar stood before his God and did what Remy had never believed possible. The Son of the Morning knelt before God and bowed his head in acquiescence.
It was truly about to happen.
Remy stared in awe at the scene before him, the strange sensation that something was wrong temporarily forgotten.
The music of the Heavenly choir intensified, vibrating inside his skull as Heaven expanded, returning to the glory of what it had once been when the universe was young.
A tendril of light reached out from the sphere, the Lord God embracing his fallen son, and everything was well again in the cosmos.
Everything and everybody were connected.
It was all the Kingdom of Heaven.
And at that moment of cosmic bliss, something went terribly awry.
Searing flashes of terrible imagery exploded before Remy’s eyes.
A stab of gold from the corner of his eye.
Francis in the crowd, the Pitiless clutched in his hand.
His friend as he looked at Remy with eyes as dark as the longest night.
The Pitiless roared.
God screamed.
And the Heavens fell.
• • •
Remy cried out as it all came to a fiery end, falling to his knees inside the freezer.
Methuselah was clutching Gerta to his great stone body, the little girl looking afraid. “Was it bad?” she asked in a tiny, scared voice.
Remy nodded. “It was, but I saw . . .”
“What did you see?” Methuselah prompted.
Remy stood up, the Pitiless pistol still clutched in his hand. “I saw what was supposed to be the most wonderful thing . . . and how easily it was all taken away.”
“Did you see who was responsible?” the stone man asked.
Remy looked at him, at the burning light emanating from his deep and shadowy eye sockets.
“The recollection is a little fuzzy, but . . .”
“Who?” Methuselah persisted.
“I think . . .”
“Who?”
“Francis,” Remy answered. “I think it was Francis. And he used this very weapon to . . .”
“Are you sure?”
The images flashed before his eyes again: Francis holding the Pitiless, the look that the former Guardian angel gave him before . . .
“Yes,” Remy said sadly. “It was him.”
The golem pulled the child closer. “And what do you intend to do now?” he asked.
Remy stared at the golden weapon in his hand, knowing that it still had a part to play. That it was part of the end, and also the beginning.
“I have to go back,” he said. “I have to go to the ruins of the Golden City. I have to . . . to finish what was started.”
Remy turned back to the covered bodies of his friends. He was tempted to look at each again, but instead, he silently bid them farewell, stepping from the freezer and closing the door firmly behind him.
Methuselah and the child followed him from the kitchen to the front of the bar. The children had all awakened, and they watched him silently. He realized that he was still clutching the Pitiless in his hand, and he quickly slipped it inside his coat so as not to scare the kids.
There were more flashes of memory, mini explosions along the surface of his brain. He saw himself finding the children, saving them from the wreckage of the world, promising them that they would be part of something new.
“One for the road?” Methuselah asked. He had returned to his place behind the bar and was holding up the dusty bottle of scotch.
But as tempting as the offer was, Remy knew that it was time for him to go. “Next time,” he replied.
“Will there even be a next time?” the golem asked.
Remy looked at the kids again, feeling the weight of the Pitiless inside his coat. “Yes, there will be a next time,” he said to answer Methuselah’s question as well as reassure the children of their future.
“We’ll drink then,” Methuselah said, returning the dusty bottle to its place on the shelf behind the bar.
Remy was about to make his way to the exit when Gerta dashed forward and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Don’t be sad,” she said, hugging him tightly.
He hugged her back, a part of him wishing that he could stay right there.
“I’ll try not to be,” he told her.
He turned then and headed toward the door.
“And don’t be afraid,” Gerta called after him.
“I won’t,” Remy promised over his shoulder as he pulled open the heavy wood door.
His eyes brushed the still form of Phil the minotaur, covered in the passage of time.
The Hell you won’t be,
he imagined the doorman saying in his gruff, no-nonsense tone, and he knew the mythical beast to be right.
He stepped from the bar into the damp stone alley that would take him back to a dying world.
A world that he had to somehow fix.
S
atquiel’s wings opened in the Garden of Eden, and Simeon emerged from the cover of feathers into a world of lush, tropical green.
He breathed deeply of the air, so fresh and clean that it caused his lungs to ache. Scanning the jungle before him, he saw a place overflowing with growth, pregnant with life and the promise of a new beginning.
Truly the Paradise it had been created to be.
Almost as if compelled, Simeon dropped to the ground, feeling the moisture of the fertile earth soaking through the knees of his slacks. He plunged his hands into the rich black soil, letting it sift between his fingers.
For a moment he felt as though he had found a home, a place where he could forget the atrocities that had been committed against him, a place where it was possible to forget a God that had taken so much.
But there was something in the dirt.
A corruption of perfection, a cancer hidden beneath layers of chaste dirt, rock, and vegetation. A reminder that faultlessness did not exist and that the transgressions perpetrated against him were not so easily wiped away.
Simeon let the tainted earth fall back to the ground. “There is a sickness here,” he said aloud.
Behind him, Satquiel chuckled. “Of that you are mistaken. Life here is in its purest state, fresh from the mind of the Creator Himself.”
Simeon stood, scrutinizing his surroundings. He had been so overwhelmed by the supposed perfection of it all that he hadn’t noticed it at first. “Rot,” he said to Satquiel, motioning toward the lush vegetation. “Look at the leaves, the stems, the very flowers.”
Indeed, there were brown spots on many of the growths, some having already turned to black. On a nearby vine, a fat pod had grown, and Simeon reached out, plucking it from the vine. He turned toward the angel, holding it out.
“Pregnant with life,” the angel said, a superior smile on his face.
Simeon squeezed the pod between his forefinger and thumb, and a thick, foul-smelling ooze flowed out and over his hand. “‘Pregnant with rot’ is more like it.”
Satquiel seemed surprised, taking the pod from him and examining it carefully.
But Simeon was already on the move, noticing that the path of decay seemed to be more distinct in one particular direction. He pushed his way through the thick underbrush, keeping his eyes on the blemishes and stains of rot, finally ending up on the edge of a grove of sorts, a tree with bark of an unusual golden color at its center.
“Isn’t that lovely,” Simeon said, as he stared at the impressive growth.
There was movement behind him, and he turned to see that Satquiel had joined him but had dropped to one knee as he stared at the tree before them.
For a moment Simeon didn’t understand, but, looking back to the tree, it was obvious. “The Tree of Knowledge,” the forever man whispered.
He stepped from the overgrowth, toward the tree—and was immediately stopped as a hand like steel took hold of his arm.
“It is forbidden,” Satquiel said with a threatening snarl, his eyes leaking tiny sparks of fire.
Simeon glared at the angel. “You forget who is in control here,” he said, turning Solomon’s ring on his right hand.
Satquiel released his hold with a hiss.
“Very little is forbidden to me,” he reminded the angel as he turned his attentions back to the tree. “It would be wise for you to remember that.”
He focused on the fruit hanging from the branches of the tree, imagining what it must have been like for the first daughter, Eve. But the fruit appeared to be suffering as the Garden itself did, swollen with rot, the skin splitting in places to release a viscous juice that rained to the ground.
As he stepped closer to the tree, he caught sight of something moving just beneath the tainted earth that surrounded it. At first he thought it a trick of his eyes, but closer inspection proved there was indeed something there. Call it some sort of sixth sense, honed over the countless millennia he had spent in a dangerous world, but Simeon knew that it would not be wise to tread upon that ground.
He reached down and picked up a small, smooth stone, tossing it onto the dirt at the base of the tree. Something that looked like multiple worms shot up from below and dragged the stone down.
Simeon’s heart quickened with excitement.
Is it possible I’ve discovered the source of the Garden’s illness?
“Satquiel,” Simeon called, keeping his eyes on the churning patches of earth.
“Yes?”
“Do you have any idea what
that
is?”
“I don’t,” the archangel replied.
“Hmm,” Simeon commented, reaching up to stroke his chin. “I would like to know.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Go there,” Simeon said, pointing to the mound of black earth. “Walk upon the ground. I’m curious.”
He could see that Satquiel was trying to defy him, fighting against the power of Solomon’s ring, but it was all for naught. The magick within the ring was too strong.
The archangel haltingly made his way past Simeon, and as soon as his foot landed on the loose earth beneath the Tree of Knowledge, it triggered the most explosive of reactions. It was as if some sort of trap had been sprung, the ground encircling the angel erupting as things the likes of which Simeon had never seen broke the surface, grabbing hold of the powerful angel and dragging him down.
Simeon stepped carefully back.
The thin, white-skinned creatures, their flesh adorned with strange, tattoolike markings, were brutal in their assault, clawed hands ripping bleeding furrows in the angel’s exposed flesh. Satquiel cried out, and a sword of flame appeared in his hand. He hacked at the creatures, but for every creature he cut down, four more seemed to take its place.
The angel’s wings flapped powerfully, kicking up clouds of dust and dirt. The creatures grabbed at the flailing appendages, spidery fingers breaking with their pounding intensity. But eventually the wings were slowed enough that the grappling hands took hold. Handfuls of feathers were torn away, pulled down beneath the ground before the eager hands returned for more.
Satquiel’s body burned with the fires of Heaven, but it didn’t seem enough. The creatures continued to reach for the soldier of Heaven, ripping at his flesh, dragging him down.
Closer to the churning earth of a poisoned Eden.
Satquiel’s eyes locked on Simeon’s, and the forever man saw the panic there. A part of him wanted to help, but another, stronger part was fascinated, preferring instead to watch how this would all turn out.
The archangel lost his sword, the burning blade tugged below the surface with a sizzling hiss. His wings were torn apart, little more than useless pieces of trembling cartilage and bone. Both arms disappeared as Satquiel continued his descent beneath the churning dirt. Soon only his head and shoulders remained aboveground, but still he continued to struggle. The creatures hungrily tore at his face, the once statuesque features now ragged and stained with blood.
“Help . . . me,” Satquiel managed as a clawed hand tore away a portion of his cheek.
Simeon did not answer. He simply stood and watched as the archangel’s head gradually sank beneath the writhing ground at the base of the Tree of Knowledge.
Mind racing, the forever man searched his memory for a hint of what these creatures might be, but he found nothing that he could recall. He continued to watch the earth, which had returned to a state of calm, only to be startled as it began to roil again, a large section of blighted soil moving toward him like a wave about to break upon the shore.
Simeon scrambled to his feet as the ground close to him started to churn, the hungry faces of the unknown beasts baring their razor-sharp teeth, rising out of the dirt as skeletal arms reached for him.
Simeon attempted to flee, but the beasts were faster than he was, digging away at the Garden’s floor, causing it to give way beneath his steps. The forever man fell to his knees and began to crawl, but the monsters grabbed at his legs, their claws puncturing his flesh, which healed almost immediately, only to be punctured again in their attempts to hold him.
Simeon had flipped over onto his back and was being dragged back toward the grove as he began to recite a spell of protection. His hands had begun to glow with an ethereal light, and he was about to unleash his unholy power upon the things in the ground, when . . .
From across the grove on the opposite side, he saw them.
“In the nick of time,” the forever man muttered happily.
And Simeon began to smile.
• • •
The Archangel Michael’s mind burned with the knowledge provided by the Gardeners of Eden. Foul creatures called the Shaitan, precursors to the creation of angels, hidden in the ground beneath the Tree of Knowledge.
Outrageous.
He had known that the Garden had been severed from the Kingdom of Heaven during the Great War, but he’d never known the true reason it had been cast adrift. The Shaitan were that reason, for these shape-shifting creatures were extremely dangerous and had only the destruction of Heaven on their foul minds.
Michael and his soldiers had listened to the Gardeners’ words carefully before heading toward the Tree of Knowledge to deal with the infestation.
The Gardeners had explained that Eden was dying, poisoned from the inside by the malignant life-forms created by the Lord God’s top designer, Malachi. The Shaitan had been rejected by God, but Malachi had ignored their Lord’s wishes and had allowed the abominations to live.
Now it was up to Michael and his archangels to finally purge Eden of these foul creations before Eden was rejoined with the Kingdom of Heaven.
And that was when the commander of the archangels had the most loathsome of thoughts, considering the idea of leaving Eden just as he’d found it and letting the ceremony of Unification turn to chaos as these foul Shaitan creatures swarmed the Kingdom of Heaven. That would most certainly show the Creator the wrongness of this entire affair.
It was certainly tempting and would show his disdain, but he was a loyal servant of the Heavenly Father and dared not bring shame to his position as commander of the archangel forces.
The Gardeners moved upon a wave of soil, the thick obstructions of vines and overgrown trees moving aside to allow them passage. Suddenly they stopped, the mound of living soil that they manipulated for travel collapsing to the ground.
“What is wrong?” Michael asked, raising a hand so that his soldiers would stop.
Picking themselves up from where they’d fallen, Jon and Izzy slowly turned to face him.
“We’re getting closer to the Tree,” Jon said.
“Gets harder to do our thing the closer we get to the Shaitan,” Izzy added.
Michael could see that the beings looked sick; their bodies, which seemed as much plant as flesh, appeared affected by something.
“Where is the Tree?” Michael asked them, craning his neck to see through the thick jungle before them.
“Through there,” Jon said, pointing with a finger entwined with blossoming vines.
Michael pushed past the strange pair and, summoning a sword of flame, began to cut a swath to their destination. He heard the pair cry out as he hacked into the wall of thick roots that blocked his way. The archangel and his soldiers turned toward them.
“Do we cause you pain?” he asked.
Izzy nodded. “Yeah, you do,” she said. “Give us a second to collect ourselves, and then we’ll—”
“We’re sorry,” the angel said, but not really meaning it. Michael’s only concern was reaching the Tree and the threat buried beneath. He and his soldiers had not the time to be worrying about the health of Eden’s wardens. He and the other archangels continued to cut their way through the thick wall of vegetation, ignoring the cries of the Gardeners behind them.
The closer they got to the Tree, the denser the plant life became, and that just annoyed Michael all the more. He called upon the divine fires that burned within him, allowing his body to radiate the heat of a star as he continued to hack his way through the wall of vegetation. The other archangels followed his lead, and soon they pushed through to an open grove, where their eyes fell upon their prize.
And something totally unexpected.
There was the tree, in all its glory, but there was also a man—a human, under attack from what could only be the Shaitan. The foul creatures moved through the dirt around the tree like sharks in water and were dragging the human into their filthy environment.
Michael had no idea who the human was, or why he was there, but his enemy was before him, so any other mystery would have to wait.
He turned toward his warriors. “For the glory of Heaven and the Lord God, kill them,” he ordered. “Leave nothing of their kind alive.”
There was nothing an archangel wanted to hear more than an order to perform an act of violence in the name of their Creator. It was an excuse to tap into areas often suppressed for great lengths of time.
But when allowed to run free, it was a sight to behold.
Michael watched as his archangels swarmed the grove, their powerful wings lifting them up in mighty leaps as they descended upon their prey. Swords, knives, and spears of flame fell upon the creatures in the dirt. It should have been a one-sided bloodbath, but the Shaitan fought furiously, using their dirt habitat to hide themselves and surprise their attackers.
From the corner of his eye, Michael caught movement and turned to find the human standing there, his clothing in tatters. Michael took his eyes from the battle briefly to fully gaze upon the man.
Yes, indeed, he was human, but there was something more to him.
He would have expected sheer terror from the man, but his incredibly calm demeanor left the Archangel Michael with a nagging question.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
The human smiled, nervously playing with a piece of jewelry—a ring—upon one of his fingers.
“Me?” the human said. “You can call me
master
.”
And for some reason, that sounded perfectly acceptable to the leader of the archangels.