“I do, but . . .” Lazarus’ eyes darted to the tailor, who had wrapped his tape measure around the man’s throat to measure his neck size.
“You’re worried about Donahan here.” The man smiled, and for a moment Lazarus wasn’t sure that he’d ever seen anyone quite so—beautiful.
“Well,” Lazarus stammered.
“You needn’t worry,” the man reassured him. “Donahan was one of my soldiers during the war. He’s been doing penance here on Earth for the last fifty years or so; isn’t that right, Don?”
The fallen angel smiled thinly, continuing to take the man’s measurements.
“And in his time here, he’s become quite the tailor. I wouldn’t think of going to anyone else for a suit.” And then he must have noticed the look on Lazarus’ face. “What is it?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“That look. When I mentioned never going to anyone else for a suit, you made a face.”
“Did I?”
“You did. Why?”
“Perhaps . . .”
“Perhaps?”
“Perhaps because I wouldn’t imagine that somebody like you . . .”
“Somebody like me,” the man said, and smiled radiantly.
“I couldn’t imagine someone like you needing a suit.”
“Why wouldn’t I need a suit?”
Lazarus shrugged. “Do they even wear suits in . . . ?”
“Do they wear suits in Hell?”
“Well, yes.”
The man chuckled as the tailor moved down to his legs. “Of course we wear suits in Hell, especially when our armor is at the cleaners.”
Lazarus found himself actually chuckling, feeling far more at ease with this being than he would ever have imagined.
“Besides, I have to look sharp for Unification,” he added. “So what is it that you’ve come to tell me?” the man asked, changing the subject.
“
He
sent me to tell you that things are in flux,” Lazarus began.
“In flux?”
“Yes, there are some things that might . . .”
“Will Unification still occur?” the man interrupted, a dark seriousness coming over his handsome features.
“Yes, but there could be things that might affect the ceremony.”
“What kind of things?”
“
He
didn’t say.”
“So you can’t be more specific?”
Lazarus shook his head. “If I could, I would, but you know what I do. . . .” He stopped, regretting the words as soon as they left his mouth.
“Go on,” the man prompted.
“I don’t think it has to do with anything, but . . .”
“Go on,” the man ordered.
“Remy Chandler,” Lazarus said quickly. “The Seraphim that left the Golden City after . . .”
“I know who he is.” The way the words were spoken implied much.
“He’s currently in a bit of trouble—demonic assassins attempting to collect on a contract.”
“What does that have to do with Unification . . . with me?”
“I’m not sure that it does,” Lazarus said. “But I know that Remy had something to do with your return to power, and . . .”
“I find your concern for the Seraphim of interest,” the man suddenly said, his tone far darker than it had been. “Didn’t you betray the angel—the world, actually—when you actively participated in the summoning of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse a few years back?”
Lazarus felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach, his most chilling indiscretion laid out before him by the master of indiscretions.
“He was a good friend before my lack of judgment got the better of me,” Lazarus said. “I was hoping . . .”
“Hoping what?” the man asked sharply. “That I might step in and somehow alleviate your guilty conscience?”
“No, that wasn’t why I mentioned it at all,” Lazarus attempted to explain. “It’s just that—”
“Is that it, Lazarus?” The man cut him off. “Is that all that you have for me from Him?”
Lazarus slowly nodded. “Yeah, that’s it.”
“Thank you,” the man said dismissively. “I’ll be sure to keep in mind what you’ve said once the ceremony begins.”
Lazarus stood there a moment longer, wanting to say something more but realizing that it probably wasn’t the best of ideas. So without another word, he turned and walked out of the building.
Making his way down the stairs, he felt surprisingly lighter. He had delivered the Lord’s message to the Morningstar, and hopefully planted a seed as well.
For Remy and his friends needed as much help as they could get.
• • •
“Blue or black?” Donahan asked.
Lucifer had been lost in thought, recalling a time when he’d believed himself to be somebody else and not the Son of the Morning.
“Excuse me?” he questioned, realizing that he’d been spoken to.
“Blue or black?” the angel tailor repeated.
Lucifer’s reflection stared back, confused.
“Your suit,” Donahan explained. “Do you want blue or black?”
“Oh, certainly,” Lucifer answered. “Let’s go with the black.”
“Very good.” Donahan finished the measurements. “You were rather hard on the messenger, weren’t you, Lucifer?”
“Do you think?” he asked, stepping down off the pedestal.
“Things seemed to get a little tense when he mentioned the Seraphim.”
“Remy Chandler,” Lucifer said. If it hadn’t been for him . . .
“His name seemed to strike a nerve. Why is that?”
The tailor had moved over to a small desk and was jotting down the various measurements from memory.
It had been Remy Chandler who had inadvertently returned the Morningstar to the Hell prison of Tartarus, where Lucifer’s memory of who he was—what he was—was eventually restored.
“I have no idea,” Lucifer lied. “I’m barely familiar with the angel.”
Donahan looked up from his scribbles. “Seriously? I got a sense that the two of you . . .”
“The messenger was mistaken.” Then Lucifer cut to the chase. “When will the suit be ready?”
Donahan considered whether to continue with his course of questioning and decided instead to drop it.
It was a very smart idea.
“How does tomorrow sound?” the tailor asked.
“Tomorrow?” Lucifer questioned. “Slowing down in your old age, are we?”
The old fallen angel shrugged.
“I suppose that’s fine,” Lucifer said. “I’ll send someone to pick it up.”
Donahan went back to his notepad. “Very good, sir.”
Lucifer walked to the front of the store, stopping before a display of ties as though he were considering the various styles, colors, and patterns, but in fact his mind was preoccupied with other things.
Distractions.
A distraction named Remy Chandler.
T
he closer they drew to the Garden, the thicker the vegetation became.
The ruins of the city were becoming more choked with leafy vines, many of the structures nearly invisible in the overgrowth. Remy imagined a time not too far in the future when the city would be completely hidden, claimed by the outward-spreading Garden of Eden, and decided it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Thriving life was far more preferable to decaying ruins.
“Can’t imagine it will be much farther,” said a voice from behind.
Remy turned to see the Fossil hurrying to catch up with him, ahead of the weary-looking children of Samson.
“How are they doing back there?” Remy asked of the children.
“They’re tired,” the Fossil said. “Tired and sad.”
Remy turned and made eye contact with Leila. He could see the sadness behind their intensity. “It isn’t easy to lose family,” he said, speaking from experience. The image of the freezer floor at Methuselah’s appeared within his mind, and he quickly pushed it away.
“No,” the Fossil said. “But they knew this trip wouldn’t be an easy one.”
“I haven’t seen Baarabus since . . . ,” Remy began, looking around for signs of the demonic dog.
“He’s around,” the Fossil said. “Where else does he have to go?”
“He hates me for making him into what he is,” Remy said.
“You’re right, but there isn’t much that can be done about it now. You did what you did, and he’s the end result, good or bad.”
“I shouldn’t have done it.”
The Fossil looked at him and smiled crookedly, his face a mass of painful-looking sores. “Actually,
you
didn’t.”
“It was still me.”
“But it wasn’t,” the Fossil corrected. “That decision was made by a Remy Chandler changed by the most horrific situation.”
“Who’s to say that I wouldn’t have done the exact same thing?”
“Who’s to say?” the Fossil agreed with a shrug. “But
you
—the Remy who is here with us now—didn’t make that decision, weren’t changed by the horrors of what you saw.”
Remy stared at the man, the meaning of his words beginning to permeate.
“You’re a different Remy,” the Fossil continued. “And maybe your solution to the problem of this world will be different, too.”
“Is that why you’re all still here?” Remy asked, gazing at the path ahead of them. He could just make out the heavily robed Nomads as they led the way through the weed-choked rubble. “Because there’s still a chance that I can somehow salvage something from this wreck of a world?”
“It’s because you’ve saved us by giving us a purpose.”
“This is a purpose?” Remy scoffed.
“It’s something. It’s movement toward what could be a new beginning.”
“That’s what the Nomads keep talking about: an ending for something new to begin,” Remy said.
“It’s that new beginning that keeps us going,” the Fossil said. “And besides, it’s better than sitting around just waiting to die.”
The Pitiless pistol, the Godkiller, pulsed at Remy’s waist, and he felt compelled to pull it free. “Somehow this is the answer,” he said, admiring the powerful weapon that glistened like gold even though there was very little light. “My other self hid this away until he was ready.”
“But are
you
ready?” the Fossil asked.
“I think I am. At least I think I will be when the time arrives.”
Remy remembered some of the flashes of memory he’d seen upon taking up the gun. He saw the dark-skinned man with the rings, his identity and role a complete and utter mystery, but somehow Remy knew he was important.
“What’s your part in all this, old-timer?” Remy asked the Fossil, wondering if there could be a connection between the man with the rings and the scab-covered Fossil.
The Fossil nervously began to pick at a thick layer of scab on the side of his nose. “Let’s just say I have a healthy amount of guilt over what happened, as do all who survived, I think. I’d like to help make things right,” he answered.
Remy noticed that Azza had emerged from a particularly overgrown area and was standing, waiting.
“What’s up?” he asked as they reached the Nomad leader.
“We have arrived,” the angel said. He turned and gestured down a passage cut through the thick overgrowth of vines. “Through there you will find the entrance. The entrance to the Garden of Eden.”
• • •
Remy and the others followed Azza through the passage, emerging into what looked like a verdant jungle. The growths were wild, unkempt, and nothing that had been seen on Earth before.
It was like stepping onto another planet.
Azza and his brethren stood before one of two vine-covered pillars, the heavy metal gates that once hung between them lying haphazardly upon the ground, twisted and bent.
“Here it has fallen,” Azza said, his Nomad brothers bowing their heads in reverence.
Remy looked at the Garden beyond the broken gates. The jungle within appeared even wilder than it had been the last time he’d seen it.
“You say that Heaven—the Golden City—is somewhere inside?”
Azza followed Remy’s gaze through the open passage. “A part of Unification was successful,” he explained. “The Garden was welcomed back home to the glory of Heaven, but then . . .”
“It all came falling down,” Remy finished, squinting his eyes, trying to see through the dense foliage, hoping to catch a glimpse of the city beyond.
“Through these twisted gates you will find what you have traveled so far in search of,” Azza said.
“The reason why I’m here,” Remy said quietly.
He looked away from the passage to the others. “Well, let’s get going.” He started toward the opening but noticed that the Nomads held back.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“This is where our journey together ends,” Azza said, folding his hands within his robe.
“Seriously?” Remy asked. “You’ve come this far, and now you want to call it quits?”
“Our purpose was to assist you in getting here,” the leader said. “The rest is entirely in your hands.”
Remy didn’t know what to say. He had been counting on the Nomads and their supernatural might to help them with whatever they would be facing in the jungles of Eden and beyond.
Instead, they began to back away slowly.
The Fossil came to stand beside Remy then, laying a bloody and scab-encrusted hand upon his arm. “You won’t get rid of us that easily,” he said.
Leila and the remaining children of Samson came to join him as well.
“We’ve come this far,” she said. “Might as well see it through to the very end. And who knows, maybe it’ll be a happy one.”
“Maybe it will,” Remy conceded, and actually managed the faintest of smiles.
He gave the Nomads one more look, sensing it would be the last he’d see of these angels. “To endings and new beginnings,” he called out.
Then he turned with a wave, walking through the stone pillars, he and his small band of followers, into Eden.
• • •
The Garden appeared sick.
For all the green, there was just as much dead and rotting growth, and Remy remembered the illness that was infecting it the last time he’d been here.
“Looks as though this place is as fucked up as everything else,” Leila said.
“Rotten at the core,” the Fossil said, causing Remy to look at him questionably. Maybe the old-timer knew more than he was letting on.
He was about to probe a bit when he heard somebody let out a yelp.
Remy glanced over to see one of Samson’s children being attacked by a tangle of vines, the dark green vegetation moving serpentlike to enwrap the young man in a constricting hold.
“What the fuck is this?” the man exclaimed, pulling an arm free with a powerful tug, only to have even more vines slither over to grab him again.
Leila went to her brother’s aid, pulling the tendrils away, but she, too, became an object of the Garden’s attack. The more they fought, the more the Garden reacted, thicker roots and vines exploding up out of the dirt to ensnare them.
“What should we do?” the Fossil asked. Vines gripped him so tightly that they had torn away scabs on his arms, causing him to bleed profusely upon the vegetation.
Remy stood perfectly still, remembering what this was.
Remembering what this was all about.
“Don’t fight it,” he ordered, and they looked at him as if he was insane. “If you don’t fight, it won’t think that you’re a threat. Trust me on this.”
“Trust you?” Leila asked as a thick piece of vine wrapped tighter about her throat.
Remy silently allowed the vines to wrap around his legs, waist, and arms. Begrudgingly, the others stopped their struggles, and eventually, although they were completely immobilized, the Garden stopped its assault.
“Now what?” Leila asked.
“It shouldn’t be long now,” Remy said.
As if on cue, the ground in front of him started to churn, to boil, thick black dirt being pushed up from somewhere below by some unknown and growing force.
“Tell me you know what this is,” the Fossil said.
“Yeah,” Remy answered. “I do.”
It was like watching a tree grow in time-lapse photography. First the sprout, and then the shaft of what would eventually become the tree. As it grew, Remy watched it take on more aspects of a human form. In its face, he could see a combination of two other familiar faces.
“Jon . . . Izzy, is that you?” Remy asked, feeling the vines covering his body beginning to grow tighter.
The monolith of wood towered above them now, swaying on tree trunk legs.
“The cancer . . . ,” the tree creature croaked in a voice that sounded like two speaking as one. “It grows too strong!”
“It’s me,” Remy said, trying to capture the Gardener’s attention. “It’s Remy Chandler. Do you remember me?”
The Gardener swayed, looking about the jungle with panicked eyes. “I fight to contain it, but it has become too strong.”
“Jon! Izzy! Are you there?”
The tree creature finally seemed to notice him below its powerful mass.
“It’s Remy,” he said again. “I’m here to help.”
The Gardener’s face at first registered elation, then twisted in a sudden rage. “There can be no help. . . . God is dead . . . and soon I will be as well . . . and the cancer will go out into the world.”
And with those words, the Gardener raised its fist, preparing to strike. Remy struggled within the grasp of the vines, tearing himself free as the fist, thick as a redwood, came down where he’d been mere moments before.
The Gardener, realizing that it had missed, reached for Remy with its other hand. Remy took hold of the Gardener’s yearning fingers, amazed at how fragile they were, the wood crumbling as he twisted away in their grasp.
Samson’s children had managed to free themselves as well and rushed to help him. He watched as Leila charged the tree creature, throwing herself at the backs of its legs. There was a tremendous snap as she struck, and the Gardener bellowed in surprise and pain as it began to topple, one of its thick legs snapped nearly in two.
Samson’s children pounced upon the creature, pinning its thrashing body to the ground. Remy pushed past them to stand above it, looking down into its pained features.
“Jon . . . Izzy,” he said, bearing down upon the creature, forcing it to look at him. “It’s me . . . Remy. . . . We mean you no harm.”
The Gardener seemed to focus on him. “Remy?” it asked, and he saw a spark of recognition in the creature’s eyes.
“Yes, it’s me. What’s happening here? What’s wrong?”
“The sickness—they set it free . . . allowed it to grow, change. . . .”
“The Shaitan?” he asked. “Are you talking about the Shaitan?”
The tree creature’s eyes widened, awash with madness.
“The Shaitan change . . . they evolve. . . .”
“Evolve? What . . . ?”
“They evolve to better fit this horrible world.”
The Gardener then fell eerily silent, its body growing still. Remy looked to the others.
“What was it talking about?” Leila asked. “What are Shaitan?”
“Mistakes,” the Fossil stated. “Things that should never have existed.”
Again Remy was surprised by the amount of knowledge the old-timer seemed to have, and once again, he was distracted before he could pursue it.
Screams sounded from the dense jungle, and the vegetation shook as pale-skinned creatures, their bodies covered in black sigils, exploded from the jungle.
“Those are the Shaitan,” Remy announced, readying himself for attack. The children did as well, picking up rocks and tree limbs from the ground to defend themselves.
But the horrible things sprang into the air, skirting around them as they disappeared again into the jungle behind the group.
“What’s up with that?” Leila asked.
“I don’t know,” Remy said, suddenly having a very bad feeling.
What exploded from the jungle next in pursuit of the fleeing Shaitan was something else altogether. It was most definitely Shaitan, but this one was at least thirty feet tall, and from the size of its bulbous stomach, the tightly stretched skin showing off the outline of thousands of eggs, quite pregnant.
Suddenly, Remy understood the words of the Gardener.
The Shaitan were evolving.
Changing to better fit a horrible world.
• • •
More Shaitan fled from the jungle in shrieking panic, capturing the attention of what Remy could only think of as the Queen.
The giant eagerly snatched up two of the screaming creatures and without a moment’s hesitation shoved one into her enormous maw, swallowing it down with a grotesque-sounding gulp.
“For the good of the spawn,” she bellowed, burping noisily before tossing back the other. “My babies will be better than this place,” she cried as she chewed. “Masters of a world that the wretched God abandoned.”
The Queen’s belly pulsed and writhed. She brought huge hands to her naked front, massaging the pale, lumpy skin. “From the best of us, you will be made even better. The next spawn of our kind even stronger than the last.”
And then she noticed Remy and the children of Samson.
They had dived for cover when she’d first appeared, but her keen eyes picked them out from their jungle surroundings.