Remy found Ashley sitting on the steps of her brownstone, staring straight ahead at nothing. Madeline had given him the news: Spooky had died that morning.
“Hey,” he said, sitting down beside the teenager. He handed her a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.
“Hey,” she said back, carefully taking the cup.
“Two creams, one Sweet’N Low?” he asked.
She nodded, peeling away that little piece of plastic on the lid so she could sip the hot drink. “Right. Thanks.”
“Are you all right?” Remy asked, taking the cover off his own cup of strong black coffee.
“Did you hear?” she asked.
“Yeah, Maddie told me. I’m really sorry, kiddo.”
She nodded quickly, and he could see a fresh tear spill down her cheek. She had some more of her coffee.
“She stopped eating yesterday,” Ashley said. “Didn’t matter what we gave her. We even tried sliced turkey. She loved sliced turkey, but she wouldn’t even take that.”
“I guess it was just time,” Remy said.
“Yeah,” Ashley agreed. “She was pretty old.”
“Had a good life, though,” Remy assured her.
“Ya think?” she asked. She turned her head to look at him, and Remy was surprised to see not the little girl he’d first met on that hot summer’s day in ’96, but a young woman dealing with one of the sad facts of life.
Everything eventually died.
It was something that he still wrestled with in his own immortal existence, one of the difficult truths of being human.
“Sure,” Remy said. He drank some more of his coffee, thinking about what he was going to say. “She had somebody who loved and cared for her, who gave her a safe place to live. I really don’t think a cat could want for anything else. Do you?”
She thought about it for a moment, taking a long sip from her drink.
“You’re probably right,” she finally agreed.
They were both quiet for a bit. He could tell that she was still thinking, working things out. Remy was glad that he was sitting with her, wanting to do everything he could to help ease the pain.
“Spooky slept with me last night,” Ashley said. “She never slept with me. I think it was because she wanted to sleep exactly in the center, and that’s where I would be…. But last night she came into my room and meowed for me, and I had to help her up onto the bed….” She sniffled as more tears began to fall.
“She got onto the bed and sat down…and looked at me. It was kinda giving me the creeps, so I asked her what her problem was, and she just gave me one of those disgusted-Spooky looks and lay down right beside me.”
Ashley began to cry, and Remy moved closer, putting his arm around her.
“She started to purr, Remy,” she continued. “Spooky never purred…but last night, she started to purr and then she went to sleep.”
She cried some more, and he said nothing, choosing instead to just hold her.
“She…she was…gone when I woke up,” Ashley said, struggling to get the words out. “She must’ve died sometime in the night.”
“A nice way to go,” Remy said. “Sleeping beside the one you love.”
They sat like that for quite some time, the sun slowly setting, the warmth of it gradually overcome by the evening’s chill.
“Did you ever have to deal with this kind of thing, Remy?” Ashley asked him.
“Sure,” he said, remembering without regret the pets and the acquaintances he had lost in his seemingly endless existence. How empty his life would have been without them. They had helped him to be what he was today. “It never gets any easier.”
“Didn’t think it would,” she said, tipping the cup back and finishing the last of her coffee.
“Don’t let this experience spoil it for you,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Ashley asked, looking at him.
“What you’re feeling now, the sadness…don’t let it take away from all the happiness that you had with Spooky…. It’s too special to be spoiled by a sad fact of life.”
“Everything dies,” Ashley said.
“Afraid so.” Remy nodded.
They sat for a bit longer, and finally she had had enough of the fall chill in the air and stood.
“I’m getting cold. I think I’ll head in now.”
“You gonna be all right?” he asked her, standing up from the steps.
“I’m good,” she said. “Sad…but good.”
Remy understood perfectly. “You hang in there, all right?” he told her.
“Yeah, it’ll probably take a little time, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Good to hear.” He headed down the steps. “If you need anything, give me a call.”
“Will do,” Ashley said, climbing the stairs to the building’s front door. “Thanks, Remy.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, already on his way when he stopped. “Oh, Ash?” he called to her.
She was halfway in the door but turned back to see what he wanted.
He’d been thinking about this for a while, and he and Madeline had pretty much decided that they would do it.
“We’re thinking about getting a dog,” he told Ashley. “How would you feel about that?”
He could see the beginning of a smile at the corners of her mouth.
“A dog? Really? What kind?”
“Maybe a Labrador or a golden retriever.”
“Labs are awesome,” she said. “I think that would be pretty cool, especially if you let me babysit.”
“It’s a deal,” Remy said, waving as he turned the corner.
A Lab it is.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It hadn’t taken Remy long to find the Deacon farm. It had been pretty much where the voice on his phone had told him it would be.
The dilapidated main house and the skeletal remains of a barn next door were at the end of an unkempt dirt road that Remy had found behind a rusted chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. As he moved closer to the old farmhouse, he could see the wide expanse of weed-covered fields beyond. It had been a long time since anything of use was taken from this land.
From what he understood, the Deacons were once one of the country’s wealthiest families, starting out in farming but then branching off into gunpowder during the Civil War. It wasn’t long before they were producing virtually all American gunpowder. The family was wiped out after a tragic accident claimed the last Deacon and his heir sometime during the forties.
Remy stood before the front porch, wondering if he was alone. Perhaps Ashley’s kidnapper wanted to make him squirm a bit, or maybe he had no intention whatsoever of showing up.
Remy didn’t even want to consider the latter.
He decided to explore the farmhouse, and his foot had just landed on the first creaking step to the porch when he sensed that he was no longer alone. He turned to see a smiling man standing behind him. There was nothing unusual about his appearance—middle-aged, average height and build—and Remy wouldn’t have thought twice about him if he’d passed him on the street.
“Are you the one who called me?” Remy asked.
But the man simply stood there, smiling strangely.
Two more men and a woman stepped out from the overgrown bushes hiding the house from the road and joined the first of them.
Then there came the creaking of a door, and Remy turned to see yet another man coming out of the farmhouse.
“Are you really an angel?” he asked as he pulled the door closed behind him. “Give us a taste.”
Remy heard the sound of movement and spun around as the four figures in the yard rushed at him. The men grabbed at his arms and the woman fell to her knees, taking hold of his left leg.
Remy gathered his strength and managed to shake them off, kneeing the woman backward into the dirt.
And that was when he realized how weak he was feeling, how his head had started to swim.
“Tasty,” the man on the porch said as he slowly descended the rickety steps. “But nothing too out of the ordinary.”
The three men and the woman were on their feet and heading, arms outstretched, for Remy again. He reacted purely on instinct, shedding his human guise and assuming the form of the Seraphim. Wings the color of gold exploded from his back, and his human garments were replaced with the armored raiment forged in the divine fires of Heaven’s armory.
“Keep back,” he warned, his body radiating a heat so intense that it warped the air around him.
Remy’s attackers hesitated but only for a moment, and then they were on him again, grabbing hold of his holy visage even as their bodies burst into flames. The angel tried to rip them away, but they continued to cling to him like thirsty ticks, and he felt himself grow steadily weaker. Somehow the mere touch of these creatures was draining his strength.
He had to get away. He stretched out his wings and crouched down, preparing to take flight, but there was a sudden weight on his back and he realized that the man from the porch had joined the fray. The combined weights of the five attackers brought him to his knees on the dusty ground as even more of his energy was siphoned away. Remy fought to stand, but was finding it hard to even remain conscious.
Then one by one the creatures released their grips. Remy watched as they absorbed the flames of Heaven, leaving behind creatures burned and blackened, with not even a hint of the mask of humanity they’d once worn.
The one from the porch was the least damaged of the five, his clothing singed and his flesh burned a red so deep that it was almost purple.
“Vessels, return home with what you’ve collected,” he instructed, and the charred creatures immediately formed a line and marched toward what was left of the old barn, and disappeared inside.
Remy looked away from the barn and focused on the man who still loomed above him. “What are you?” he managed.
“Very, very hungry,” the creature said, reaching down to take the angel’s face in his hands.
The pain was incredible, but Remy was too weak to cry out as his life force was slowly drained away.
For as far as he could see, the golden fields of Heaven were buried beneath the bodies of his fallen brethren.
Yet still they came at him.
He was tired and did not want to fight anymore, but the angel Remiel continued to defend his Lord God against those who had chosen to stand with the Morningstar.
Not long ago they had been one family, and now they were enemies. They descended upon him, wings pounding the air as they screamed for his death, their fiery blades eager to drink deeply of his Seraphim blood. Remiel tried not to look at them, tried not to see which former brother desired to take his life.
But it was an impossible task. The art of warfare, of violence and death, was such a personal thing.
He struck them down, his brothers, one after another. And as each body fell, its blood seeping into the rich soil of Heaven, tainting with a hint of scarlet the few yellow blades of grass that managed to reach up from between the corpses of the vanquished, Remiel of the Heavenly host Seraphim cried out to his Lord God that he could do this no more.
Yet still they came.
And still he fought.
Remy awoke to the sounds of clattering dishware.
Cautiously, he opened his eyes, not wanting to make it known that he had returned from unconsciousness as he gathered his strength and surveyed his surroundings.
He was inside the farmhouse, lying in the center of a wooden table. The creature that only wore the guise of a man moved around the table, setting out dust-covered plates and cups, muttering to himself.
“It’ll be just like old times,” he said, placing a broken cup next to the jagged half of a plate. “A real family dinner. Just like I remember.” He stopped, his bulging eyes scanning the settings. “But…what do I remember?” He rubbed a burned hand across his forehead, as if he had an excruciating headache.
“They’re not yours,” he said bitterly. “They belong to somebody else.”
“They are mine!” he screamed, grabbing a coffee cup and smashing it to the floor. “I collected them and now they belong to me!”
He leaned against the table, breathing heavily.
“All right, then.” He took a deep breath and stood straight, adjusting the neck of his shirt as if he were wearing a tie. “Let’s just sit down and have a nice dinner, without the drama.”
Pulling out a chair, the man sat down and made himself comfortable. “Fine by me,” he muttered. He picked up an oily rag and laid it across his lap. “I’m absolutely famished.”
He reached across the table to lay his hand upon Remy.
“Enough,” Remy cried, coming suddenly to life. He captured the man’s wrist in one hand and with the other grabbed a knife from the table, infusing it with the intensity of Heaven’s fire. He pulled the man closer and plunged the glowing blade squarely into his captor’s chest.
The man yanked his hand from Remy’s grasp, stumbling backward, gazing with disbelieving eyes at the metal instrument protruding from his chest. “Now, is that any way for dinner to act?” he asked.
Remy sprang from the table as tongues of divine flame began to consume the man from within.
The creature stumbled about the room, fire leaking from his burning form, igniting the ragged curtains. “All I wanted…,” he screamed. “All I wanted was to have them for my own…memories of my own…”
The farmhouse was primed to burn, and in a matter of seconds, the entire house was engulfed. Flames swirled hungrily around Remy like eager dogs anxious for play, but they did not try to touch him, for they knew he was their master. He spread his wings and leapt through the burning ceiling and into the smoke-filled second floor before ripping through the roof to the clear air outside.
Remy hovered above the farmhouse, watching as it collapsed in upon itself with a forsaken moan of weakened timbers. Then, as if satisfied, the flames began to dwindle until only ribbons of thick, gray smoke remained.
His mind was filled with questions. What were these human-shaped creatures that could drain away his life energy with just a touch? He’d never seen their like before, so why had they targeted him? And why through Ashley?
He lowered himself to the ground in front of the rickety old barn and assumed his human guise. Since he’d allowed his first opportunity for answers to burn in a fire of his own making, maybe he could find something in the barn where four of his attackers had disappeared.
The barn was empty, nothing but the lingering aroma of magick in the dusty air, too faint to track. “Damn it,” he snarled in frustration.