He’d had to do it.
Zoe stared straight ahead through the windshield. She was staring into the future; that was what Carl liked to believe.
He reached across the seat and lovingly patted her bare leg.
“How’s my girl?” he asked cheerfully.
She’d been so quiet—even more than usual—since leaving the hospital. He thought she might be missing her mother, but who could tell?
Who knew what was going on inside her pretty little head? If she wasn’t sitting and staring, she was drawing. He’d had to take away the paper and crayons or that would have been all she did. The doctors at Franciscan Children’s had said they should try to force her to interact with them, with the world around her, and not let her escape into her head, which was where she went when she drew.
Now her hands lay limply on the seat at her side, fingers twitching, as if eager to hold crayons again.
Carl remembered how he’d felt when he and Deryn had first realized there was something wrong with their little girl. At first there was disbelief, then sadness, and then came the anger—lots and lots of anger.
It had been murder on their marriage; like salt eating away at a piece of metal. They’d been so good together, but with the baby being sick. .
He honestly believed that they were being punished; that a higher power had struck at them for the sins of their past, even though that sinful past had been so long before. But the offended higher power obviously hadn’t forgotten and had been waiting for the perfect time to illustrate its displeasure with their indiscretions.
In the early days, Carl and Deryn had been strong. They’d thought nothing could hurt them, and that just showed how stupid they had really been.
The forces they’d offended had found the one thing that could shake them to their core, striking at their pride and joy, their little girl, and marking her with this affliction.
So Carl had made himself a promise. He would do anything to make his little girl well, even if it meant making amends with an angry higher power. He glanced at Zoe again; she hadn’t even reacted to his touch.
Thy will be done.
Remy eventually found Frank in the hospital’s cafeteria.
He’d gone by the therapy department, this time posing as a friend of Frank’s, and learned that he was on his break.
He grabbed a cup of coffee, which tasted as though it had been made with the finest dishwater, and then caught sight of a man wearing green scrubs. Could he be Frank? He was sitting by himself, reading from a pamphlet and sipping from a bottle of water.
“Excuse me,” Remy said, leaning in to be heard over the clatter of the lunchroom. “Frank Downes?”
Zoe had captured the man’s likeness pretty well, especially his protruding ears.
The black man looked at him with cautious eyes. “Who wants to know?”
“My name is Remy Chandler,” he said, pulling out a chair and flashing his identification. “I’m a private investigator, working a missing person’s case. I was hoping you could help me.”
“I don’t know anybody who’s missing,” Frank said, screwing the cap back onto his water bottle.
Remy had removed the plastic cover on his coffee, hoping that somehow that would make it taste better. It didn’t.
“A little girl named Zoe Saylor, and her dad, Carl,” Remy said, sipping the foul fluid.
The man’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I know them,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “Should I?”
Remy shrugged. “I thought you might. Zoe drew an awful lot of pictures of you, and your name was in her therapy notes.”
Frank smiled nervously, pushing back his chair as he stood.
“Mister, I see a lot of kids here every day,” he said. “Lotta pictures too. Sorry I can’t be more help.”
And that was that.
Remy watched as Frank left the cafeteria; he knew full well the man knew more than he was sharing.
Frank was hiding something. Now all Remy had to do was figure out what it was.
There was a Starbucks not far from Franciscan Hospital for Children, and Remy took a brief respite from his detective duties to grab himself a decent cup of coffee.
He sat in his car, the AC running against the August heat, while he sipped his coffee and mulled over his options. He figured Frank was probably his best, so he decided to wait until the therapy assistant’s shift ended, then follow him.
He found a parking spot on the street where he could easily see the comings and goings of the hospital, then used the time in the car alone to check his messages. Deryn York had called twice. He thought about calling her back but decided he’d wait to see if his suspicions about Frank paid off. Instead, he called Ashley, his neighbor and Marlowe’s longtime dogsitter. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be out, and he knew Marlowe would be frantic if his supper was late. They were lucky to have Ashley. She was always willing to help out, treating Marlowe as if he were her own dog. But Remy also knew the teenager would be off to college soon, and then what would he do? Well, that was a worry for another time. For now, Ashley agreed to feed and walk Marlowe tonight, allowing Remy to settle in and wait for Frank.
It was nearly four o’clock, and Remy was beginning to think he might have somehow missed Frank, when he caught sight of the man leaving the building, backpack slung over his shoulder. He was talking animatedly with a female coworker, who was clearly not interested in whatever Frank was saying. She nodded her head and tried to inch away, and finally, Frank pulled a flyer from his backpack and handed it to her. She took it, then quickly headed off toward the parking lot. Frank called something out to her, gave her a final wave, and turned toward the street.
Remy waited a few moments, then got out of his car, following the therapy assistant on foot as he sauntered down Warren Street toward Cambridge. Thankfully, the streets in this area bustled with people, providing Remy with enough cover to remain unnoticed, without having to use his angelic power.
He watched as Frank picked up his mail at the post office, then stopped to buy scratch tickets and a six-pack of Corona at a small Korean market. Finally he walked up the front steps of an apartment building on Saunders Street.
Remy stopped in front of a building a few doors down and watched Frank fumble through his backpack for a set of keys. He felt a wave of disappointment wash over him. There certainly didn’t seem to be anything suspicious about this man’s actions; he worked, and went home. He’d probably microwave a frozen dinner and watch the news while he downed a few beers. Then he’d doze in his favorite chair until it was time to go to bed, before waking up in the morning to do it all over again.
Sighing, Remy was just about to leave Frank to his night, when he caught sight of four men emerging from a black Range Rover parked across the street from Frank’s building.
They headed straight toward Frank, quickly climbing the steps and coming up behind him just as he unlocked the door. Frank turned toward them, an expression of surprise, then fear, on his face as one of the men grabbed his elbow and pushed him through the door.
This was what made Remy’s job interesting.
Life was always tossing him curveballs, and he had no choice but to swing.
CHAPTER FIVE
Remy quickly climbed the steps to the front door of the apartment building. He peered through the glass, but the lobby was empty. Frank and his friends must have already gone to the therapy assistant’s apartment.
On the wall to Remy’s left was an intercom system with a listing of the last names and apartment numbers of the building’s residents. F. Downes was in number 306.
Remy ran his finger down the length of buzzers, pretty sure that at least one person would answer.
“Yes?” a woman asked after a bit of squawking feedback.
“UPS,” Remy said, lowering his voice.
The front door buzzed as another voice asked who was there.
Ignoring it, Remy pushed through the door and headed up the stairs in the lobby. O
n the second-floor landing, a woman in a bathrobe asked him if he had seen a UPS man in the lobby, and Remy told her he was on the way up. He continued up himself, listening to the sounds of the building—his hearing was good, inhumanly so—a television tuned to a newscast, an animal snoring, a microwave announcing that dinner was ready. .
There it is, he thought as he reached the third floor. The sounds of a struggle. And it was coming from number 306.
Standing on the threadbare runner outside 306, Remy knocked on the door, and the sounds of violence inside came to a sudden stop.
“Guys, it’s me,” Remy called, placing his mouth close to the door.
He heard sounds of movement inside and placed his thumb over the peephole. “C’mon, let me in,” he said.
The door opened a crack and Remy stared into the eyes of one of the intruders. “Who the fuck are you?” he snarled.
“Is Frank home?” Remy asked with a smile.
“Get the fuck out of here,” the man replied, getting ready to close the door.
“Now, is that any way to answer the door?” Remy said as he slammed his shoulder into the door, pushing the man backward and forcing himself inside. “What if I were from Publishers Clearing House?”
He quickly scanned the room.
Frank was down, lying on his side in the middle of the tiny kitchen floor, two toppled dinette chairs near him. Blood stained the front of his green scrubs top, making it look dark and wet; more seeped onto the linoleum in a crimson pool beneath him.
The four attackers were eerily silent, their eyes slack, void of emotion.
Then the closest lunged at Remy with a snarl. He reacted in kind, putting everything he had into a punch. The man’s face snapped to the left and he stumbled to the side. Remy drove the heel of his shoe into the guy’s knee and was greeted with a wet snapping sound as the man screamed and crashed to the floor.
Two headed for Remy next, one of them brandishing a bloodstained knife. Remy could feel his heart hammering in his chest, hot blood pumping through his veins, as the angelic nature trapped within him shrieked to be free.
He dove to the right, grabbing one of the overturned chairs, using it to parry the knifeman’s thrusts. Remy lifted the chair and brought it down on the man’s outstretched arm. The knife clattered to the floor. He quickly kicked it away, then slammed the chair against the side of the second attacker’s face.
He turned to see that knifeman had found his blade and drove a knee into the man’s groin as he bent to pick it up. With a wheezing groan, the guy went down like a ton of bricks. But Remy was suddenly grabbed around the throat from behind—the man he’d hit with the chair had recovered.
Remy struggled, and the two crashed through the kitchen into the small den. Their legs struck a cheap coffee table, shattering it as they tumbled to the floor against a worn leather couch. The shock of the impact loosened his attacker’s grip, and Remy managed to free himself, picking up a piece of the broken table and using it as a club. The man raised his arm to block the blows, then kicked Remy in the stomach, knocking him back into the kitchen.
His true essence wailed, demanding to be unleashed.
And he continued to ignore it, scrambling to stand as soon as he hit the floor.
Three of the attackers were trying to escape and he lunged toward them, but something grabbed his ankle and he tripped, crashing to the floor. He rolled onto his back to find knifeman, a balding man with a fat, red face, still holding his ankle in a vise-like grip. Infuriated, Remy lashed out, kicking the man in the face and knocking him back, his head bouncing off the kitchen floor and rendering him unconscious.
Remy jumped to his feet and spun toward the door, but the others were gone, the sounds of their feet on the stairs floating through the open door.
He took a deep breath and went to Frank.
The man was lying in a shivering ball on the floor, and at once Remy could see he was too late. The aura of death was wrapped around Frank like a comfy blanket.
Remy knelt beside him, careful to avoid the still-spreading puddle of crimson.
“You,” Frank slurred as Remy lifted his head, resting it in the crook of his arm.
“It’s all right, Frank,” Remy said. “Relax. Everything is going to be fine.”
Most would have thought he was lying to soothe the dying man, but it was true. Soon there would be no worries, no pain, as the powerful force that was Frank’s immortal soul returned to the source of all life in the universe.
But before he was gone, Remy had questions that needed answering.
“Who were they, Frank?” he urged. “Why did they attack you?”
Frank’s eyes had started to close, but as Remy spoke, they slowly opened. “They wanted to know about Zoe. . and Carl.”
A chill vibrated down Remy’s spine.
“Carl and Zoe?” Remy asked. “What did they want with them?”
“Want them,” Frank grunted. He tried to move, but his face twisted in pain and he began to convulse. It wouldn’t be long now.
“Parsons,” Frank said weakly. He reached up, grasping Remy’s biceps.
“Dr. Parsons? What does he. .”
“Told them,” Frank gasped. “Told them where. . where I lived. . ”
“Were Carl and Zoe here, Frank?”
“Gone now. . left. . left this morning. They must know. .,” he said, his voice growing weaker. “Know how special. .”
“Who’s special, Frank?” Remy urged.
“The child. . little Zoe.”
Even through his pain, Frank smiled at the mention of the child’s name. Then Remy felt the man’s grip on his arm suddenly strengthen.
“Scared,” he managed, his eyes looking up into Remy’s.
Remy pulled him closer. “Don’t be, Frank.” He loosened the mask of humanity he wore and allowed Frank to see him for what he really was.
The last thing he would see before he passed from this world.
The aura surrounding Frank was completely black now, and his hand slipped from Remy’s arm, dropping to the floor.
The Angel of Death appeared in a flicker of time before them, taking what was his, before moving on to the next to feel his touch.
A part of Remy was annoyed that Israfil hadn’t even acknowledged his presence. Even a simple Hey, how’s it going? would have been nice, for if it hadn’t been for Remy, Israfil would have triggered the Apocalypse and brought about the end of the world.
But then again, angels with that magnitude of power and responsibility often had very short memories.
At least that was what Remy liked to tell himself.
Gently, Remy laid Frank’s head upon the kitchen floor. Israfil had taken what had defined the man as a human being, leaving only a husk behind.
Remy remembered trying to explain that to Mulvehill during one of their late-night drinking binges on the rooftop patio of his Beacon Hill home. He thought the candy bar and wrapper analogy had worked best.
He stood and stared down at Frank’s lifeless features. Now only the wrapper remained.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of a moan from behind him. He turned to find the remaining creep gradually making his way back to consciousness. Remy planned on questioning the guy before calling the police, but first he wanted to have a quick look around Frank’s apartment. If Carl and Zoe had been here, perhaps they had left something that could shed some light on where they might have gone.
Remy walked into the small den and scanned the debris left from his struggle with Frank’s killers. He bent down and picked up some old copies of the Boston Herald, revealing some crumb-covered plates and an empty juice box, a sure sign that a child had been here.
He tossed the papers on the couch, then lifted up the largest piece of the broken coffee table, leaning it against the wall. He knelt on the area rug, poking through the pile of animated movies and princess coloring books, until something red caught his eye.
He reached out and picked it up. It was a
flyer advertising a place of worship called the Church of His Holy Abundance. Remy had never heard of the place, but that didn’t really surprise him—religions were popping up and dying all the time. This pamphlet was unusual though; some of the symbols drawn around its border were strangely old.
He folded the flyer, placed it in his pocket, and continued to rifle through the piles of debris. He found more pamphlets and information the church had mailed to Frank, and then something familiar.
“What’ve we got here?” he asked aloud, pulling the sheets of construction paper from beneath some more dirty plates.
Remy stared at a drawing, unmistakably done by Zoe’s hand. At first he didn’t understand what he was looking at, and then suddenly it dawned on him. The picture was of a man, kneeling on the ground, and of another man behind him, carrying a knife.
“Oh shit,” Remy said, and spun around to find that the knifeman was conscious again and bearing down upon him.
Knife descending.
The blade dropped in a silver arc, slicing through Remy’s shoulder as he tried to move out of the way.
With a grunt of pain, he pushed backward, away from his attacker, but the man had murder on his mind.
He threw himself at Remy, falling upon him, the knife raised again. Remy grabbed his attacker’s wrist as the weapon dove toward his throat, and was momentarily distracted by a strange mark on the back of the man’s hand. It resembled a pair of pursed lips.
Then the Seraphim inside him howled its fury.
And in a moment of startled weakness, Remy let slip the leash of control. The power of Heaven surged forward with a roar; the angel warrior that he was rejoiced.
He squeezed the man’s wrist with all his divine might, feeling the bones crack beneath his grip. The man screamed in agony and tried to pull away, but the Seraphim would have none of that. Remy drew the man closer, inhaling his fear-tainted scent with a growl.
Immediately his angelic essence recoiled, a convulsive reflex that caused him to hurl the man away and across the room. Remy began to cough, as if his lungs had been filled with some sort of corrosive gas, a foul taste coating the inside of his mouth making him gag.
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