But it worked this time too. Izzy got up from her chair, leaving the cramped living room space and disappearing through a doorway into what Remy figured was her bedroom.
“What’s this about?” Jon asked. “How could her pictures help us in—”
“Trust me,” Remy told him, as the woman returned carrying a wrinkled paper bag.
“I’ve been meaning to get a book,” she said, plopping down into her seat and opening the bag. “Y’know, one of those books you put pictures in?”
“A photo album?” Remy suggested.
“Yeah, yeah, a photo album . . . I need one of those.”
She removed a stack of old photos and began to shuffle through them. “Most of these are just friends who helped raise me after my folks were gone.”
And then her face lit up with a smile as she stopped at one photo in particular. “Here it is,” she said. “I guess she was quite the singer when she was young.”
Hesitantly, she handed the picture over to Remy.
Remy recognized the woman at once—much younger, of course, but there was no mistaking Fernita Green.
“This is your mother?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Your mother is Fernita Green,” he said.
Izzy’s face scrunched up. “No.” She took the picture back. “My mother’s name is Eliza Swan.”
Remy’s heart began to race. His mind immediately went to his many visits with the old woman he knew as Fernita Green, her missing memories, how she was looking for something very important that she’d lost.
Now Remy knew what that something was. And he also knew that he might just have put a very good friend in a lot of danger.
Jon was staring at him, trying to read the expression on his face.
“What is it?” he started to ask, but was interrupted by Izzy, who was handing another photograph to Remy.
“This is the only one I have of my dad,” she said. “I don’t know what it was for, or who even took it, but one of the Daughters gave it to me to remember him by.”
The picture was old and grainy. It looked as though it might have been taken inside some sort of club. All the patrons were black, and Remy recognized a young Fernita Green—Eliza Swan—singing on a stage.
“Daddy’s the one in the front row staring at Mama as if there wasn’t another living person on the planet,” Izzy said proudly.
The photo was black-and-white, and the man whom Izzy pointed out as her father was a tad blurry, but he looked pretty much the same as the last time Remy had seen him, other than having a little bit more hair—and being black.
Remy knew Pearly Gates by another name.
He knew him as Francis, and suddenly things became a whole lot more interesting.
And dangerous.
“We have to leave,” Remy said, standing quickly. “We have to get back to Massachusetts right away.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Hell
The memories actually helped to lessen the pain.
Francis let his mind go, allowing the buried recollections to float to the surface as they attempted to squeeze themselves between what he did remember, changing the past to something altogether new.
Brockton, Massachusetts: 1953
Eliza was crying.
She understood why it had to be this way, but it didn’t make it any easier to accept.
“How much will it take from me?” she asked softly.
Pearly knelt at the base of the wall, drawing strange symbols with a black paint that he’d made from crushing hard-shelled beans grown inside a dead man’s skull, and mixing the powder with a bit of blood from each of them.
“Most,” he said, working on the symbols from memory. They had to be laid out just right, or they wouldn’t work.
“You?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Izzy?”
The mention of their child just about broke him. He had never imagined he could feel such pain.
“I’ll mostly be gone,” he said, feeling as if the blade of his Enochian dagger had been thrust through his heart. This whole situation was killing him, but he kept telling himself over and over again that it was for her own good—it would keep her alive.
If he didn’t . . . if they stayed together . . . she was as good as dead.
“You’ll remember me as somebody you knew . . . but little more than an acquaintance.”
The forces of Heaven wanted Eliza Swan dead, and Pearly was going to do everything in his power to see that they didn’t get their way. The magick originally used to hide her from the Thrones would work on beings of that power level for only so long, which was why Malachi had suggested something more . . . permanent.
Eliza began to sob, and Pearly had to fight the urge to go to her, to take her into his arms and tell her that everything would be all right.
Because then he’d be lying.
Everything wasn’t going to be all right.
When he finished this spell, her memory would be incomplete; huge gaps of her past would be missing; characteristics that defined her as who she was as a person, gone.
In effect, she would be somebody else.
The elder had told him to take her away, to hide her from the eyes of those who would do her harm. He still wasn’t sure why Malachi was so keen to protect her, other than the fact that he had said she was special . . . and important for the future. It made Pearly a little uncomfortable, but he would do anything to protect Eliza.
Massachusetts was as good a place as any. The former Guardian angel had always had a fondness for New England. And he had met somebody very special here once, one of his own—an angel of Heaven—and his being here, in the same state as Eliza, made Pearly feel that much safer about leaving her.
He stopped his work momentarily, wiping his hands upon a rag before reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. He removed a business card—the Seraphim’s business card. He lived among the humans, as a human. This angel—this Remy Chandler—helped them as a private investigator. A detective.
“Take this,” he told Eliza, handing her the business card.
“Who is it?” she asked, her voice still shaking with emotion as she read the card.
“If there ever comes a time that you need help,” he assured her, “this man will help you. That’s what he does . . . he helps people.”
Her lips mouthed the name.
“I don’t understand,” she said as the tears flowed from her eyes.
“You will if it’s necessary,” he said. “He’s a good man. . . .”
“Like you?” Eliza said, reaching out to touch his face, but he stepped away to avoid her tender touch.
“Not like me at all,” Pearly said, the faces of the angels and the men that he’d killed in service to the Thrones flashing before his mind’s eye.
He returned to his work, finishing the last of the sigils before climbing slowly to his feet.
Eliza had become strangely quiet. Pearly turned toward her and found her simply standing, staring off into space, not noticing him, the angelic magick already going to work on her.
He hated this more than anything he’d ever experienced in his very long existence, but Malachi had said that it was necessary to protect her. And Pearly would do anything in his power to keep her safe.
Even if it meant losing her forever.
He watched her as she stood there, her eyes glazed as they traced the symbols drawn upon the wall. And as her eyes finished their review, the marks gradually faded away, blending with the paint of the wall.
She wouldn’t even know they were there, keeping her hidden from those who wished to do her harm.
Pearly stood beside her, resisting the urge to reach out to her, resisting the urge to take her into his arms and hold her for one last time. She would be safe here in the life he had created for her. The house was paid for, and there was money in a special bank account, the residuals of his being on the Earth for so many years, and having such a knack for killing. Somebody always wanted someone d
ead, and he was more than happy to oblige—for a price—when not kowtowing to the Thrones.
He wanted to tell her that he loved her, and that he was sorry. . . .
But she didn’t even know he was there.
Eliza blinked her beautiful brown eyes, and then went about her business, humming a tune, strangely off-key, as she assumed the functions of her new life. Even her talent for song had been taken away.
Pearly stopped at the door for one final look. She was in the kitchen, putting some glasses away in the cabinet.
“You take care of yourself, Fernita Green,” he called out, using her new name.
Then he opened the door and stepped out into the New England cold. He liked this part of the world, the change in seasons. He hoped that Eliza . . . Fernita . . . would like it too.
Francis took one final look at the house in the quiet Brockton neighborhood as he stood upon the walk.
He had never imagined that he could feel such pain, and not even have a sword plunged through his chest.
Malachi had been very specific that they meet after he had hidden Eliza away. The abandoned church in Italy’s San Genesio seemed just as good a place as any.
Francis pushed open the door and stepped into the run-down structure to see the elder sitting in one of the pews, gazing up to where a crucifix had once hung. There was a stain against the yellow wall over the altar in the shape of the cross.
“Is it done?” Malachi asked, not even turning around.
“Yeah,” Francis replied, the weight of the word nearly exhausting.
“And nobody knows her location but you?” The elder angel turned his head ever so slightly.
“That’s right,” Francis said. “Only me.”
Malachi left the pew and came to stand before him.
“Then everything is as it should be,” he said.
Malachi then reached into the inside pocket of the suit jacket he wore and removed a scalpel. The light from the blade was momentarily blinding, and Francis reflexively stepped back.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“The final step,” Malachi answered.
Francis didn’t quite understand.
“It’s to take that very important memory away,” the elder explained.
“You’re going to cut out my memory?”
“Not exactly,” Malachi said. “I’m going to take it and move it to someplace else in your mind. Someplace where it will be waiting when we need it.”
Francis considered that.
“Will I still remember her?”
Slowly, Malachi shook his head.
“All your memories of her will be put away,” the elder explained. “That way no one will ever know where to find her . . . until it’s necessary.”
“And when will that be?”
Malachi turned back to the altar, gazing at the cross-shaped stain upon the wall.
“When it is time,” he said. “When all the pieces have fallen into place.”
Francis was suddenly afraid. He wanted to know exactly what all of this meant. He wanted to know exactly what role he and Eliza played in Malachi’s vision of the future.
The questions were just about to flow when Malachi turned back to him, scalpel of light still in his hand.
And before the words could leave Francis’s lips, the blade shot toward him.
Cutting away the brightest light he had ever known, and leaving behind only the darkness.
Hell
Malachi dug deeply within the angel’s brain, allowing the flow of memories to bleed out, flowing into and up through the scalpel and into the elder’s own mind.
“There you are,” the angel said with a joyous grin, digging deeper beneath the gelatinous folds to find—at last—what he had been seeking.
“Just a little bit deeper,” he said to Francis, who twitched about on the verge of death beneath the elder’s ministrations.
“And I should have it all.”
“You have me,” the angel said, opening his palms to show that he was unarmed.
Francis blinked wildly, momentarily unsure of what had just occurred. He had completed a side job in Italy when he had sensed the nearly overpowering presence of one of his own.
An angel of incredible power somewhere close by.
He had found the angel in the church: Malachi, he believed he was called, an important angel of the highest order that had betrayed the Lord of Lords during the Great War.
Malachi had sided with the Morningstar, but fled to Earth after the rebellion was squelched. If Francis’s memory served him correctly, the Thrones wanted this one very, very badly.
Francis had a gun in his hand, and it was pointed at his quarry.
He wasn’t sure whether the Thrones wanted this one dead or alive, but he was more than willing to use the Colt .45 loaded with special bullets made from lead mined from the resources of Hell, bullets that could end an angel of Heaven despite its divinity.
“Are you going to kill me?” the angel asked.
Francis was tempted, but at the same time could feel little malice for the betrayer, for he too had fallen under Lucifer’s spell.
Although Francis had realized the error of his ways.
“All depends on how hard you want to make this, or how merciful I’m feeling at the moment.”
The angel just stared.
“I could end it now for you,” Francis said. “One shot to the head would take it all away.”
“Yes,” Malachi said. “Yes, it would.”
“They’ll put you in Tartarus,” Francis told him. He had seen the prison, and had often been threatened with a cell there by the Thrones. He wasn’t certain which would be worse: death or time spent in the Hell prison.
“They will,” Malachi said, seemingly resigned to the idea.
“And that’s all right with you?”
“It’s how it is supposed to be,” the renegade angel said.
And suddenly there was a sound like the loudest thunder, and the air behind them began to tremble and bend as a passage was opened from the other side. The Thrones were again upon the world of God’s man.
Four of the flaming, eye-covered orbs floated from the opening out into the church, lining up in a row behind Francis.
“Thought you might be interested,” he said, pistol still pointed at the angel called Malachi.
“We are,” the Thrones answered as one.
Malachi stood with his hands crossed before him, eyes upon the Thrones.
“Didn’t know if you wanted this one dead or—”
“No,” the Thrones hissed. “This one must be made to suffer,” they said as one.
The four floated around Francis and encircled the renegade.
“What have you been doing?” they asked the elder angel directly, their voices eager. “Share with us, and your penance will be less . . . harsh.”
“It’s as if you believe I’ve been up to no good,” Malachi said, and chuckled.
“Tell us,” the flaming orbs covered in bulging eyes demanded.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Tentacles of fire shot out from the bodies of the Thrones, enwrapping the elder angel in their fiery grasp.
The angel was burning, but he did not scream.
“What do you think he did?” Francis asked, disturbed by the sight of Malachi’s flesh bubbling—melting—as the Thrones’ fiery appendages continued to entwine and caress.
The Thrones ignored the question, converging on the elder as his body began to tremble from the agony he was experiencing.
But still he did not cry out.
Francis had seen a lot of terrible things in his long life, and this had to be right up there with the worst. The Thrones must have had a serious mad-on for this guy for them to be paying this much attention to him.
Malachi had dropped to his knees, head drooping to his chest. His hair was on fire now, his blackened scalp starting to show the seared bone of his skull.
Francis still pointed
his weapon, feeling his trigger finger begin to itch. He was tempted to fire, to put one shot in the angel’s head to end his torment. Nobody deserved this.
“Keep it up and there won’t be anything left for Tartarus,” he called out.
The Thrones’ multiple sets of eyes darted quickly to him, bulging at his insolence. He half expected to feel those tentacles wrapping around him at any second.
“The fallen Guardian is correct,” the Thrones said, withdrawing their hold on Malachi as he crouched there, smoldering from their touch.
The air behind them began to vibrate and blur as a passage for their departure was summoned. Francis could see the forbidding shape of the icy prison fortress, Tartarus, behind them, stepping back as the acute smell of brimstone and despair wafted out from the opening.
The Thrones again took hold of the charred and still-smoking angel, dragging him toward the passage and a fate more horrible than an eternity of death.
Malachi’s head bobbed as he was pulled through the pulsing rip in the fabric of time and space, slowly lifting his chin to look at him just as he passed over the threshold from the realm of Earth, into Hell.
“It’s how it is supposed to be,” Malachi said through cracked and blistered lips, seemingly accepting his fate.
Then the doorway began to waver, the passage to Hell’s prison closing up behind them.
Hell
Malachi admired the glint of his blade.
The information he had been seeking for so very long, extracted from the brain of the fallen Guardian, dangled wetly from its tip.
“Hello, lovely,” he purred.
How long had he waited for this moment? The elder truly couldn’t say. The time spent confined within an icy cell in Tartarus had seemed like an eternity. But he’d had his transgressions to keep him company, and his plans for the future of the universe, while he patiently waited for the inevitable to occur.
The fruit of the Tree had shown him a possible future; he just needed to have the patience to wait for it to happen.
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