Where Angels Fear to Tread

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  Delilah said nothing, mixing the ice and lemon in her glass with a long, delicate finger.

  “You’ll have this one here take me out into the jungle and put a bullet in the back of my skull?”

  “Heaven forbid,” Delilah said, in mock offense. “You’re free to go at any time . . . after you hear my offer.”

  Poole gulped his whiskey, refusing to look at her.

  “And what is your offer?” he asked, finally looking into her eyes, as if the whiskey had given him courage.

  “Help me find what I’m looking for and I will make you a very wealthy man,” she said. “It’s quite simple really.”

  “I’m already a wealthy man,” he replied.

  “Oh, Mr. Poole.” Delilah smiled. “Wealth can be measured in so many ways.”

  She held the man’s gaze, working her magic upon him. He was like a fish on the end of a line, being slowly drawn to her.

  “You will have whatever you need to find my prize. . . . Every resource will be at your disposal. Isn’t that right, Mathias?” she asked.

  The warrior behind her nodded. “Anything . . . just ask.”

  Poole smiled. “Anything?” he repeated, finishing off what remained of his drink. “How about some more of this?”

  “Of course,” Delilah said, about to call for Maynard.

  “I want him to get it,” Poole interrupted, holding out his glass to Mathias.

  Mathias glared at him.

  “You did say anything,” he said, giving the tumbler a little shake, making the ice jingle merrily.

  “Yes, we did,” Delilah agreed. “Mathias, if you would be so kind.”

  Mathias stepped forward to snatch the glass from the man’s hand, quickly turning and disappearing into the house.

  Alone, Delilah and Poole smiled at each other.

  “Does that mean you accept my offer?” Delilah asked.

  “How could I resist?” Poole said with a giggle. “I’ve always wanted my own bloody island.”

  Delilah laughed with the vile little man, making him believe he actually had some power in this situation. She much preferred when they came to her willingly. “Only an island, Mr. Poole? You’re thinking far too small.”

  They shared another laugh as Mathias returned with a tray, carrying an ice bucket, Poole’s glass, and a bottle of whiskey. He set it down on a small table beside Poole.

  “Just a little ice, please,” Poole prodded.

  The look on Mathias’ face told Delilah there was nothing he would have liked better than to kill the English Hound with his own two hands. But ever the good soldier, her warrior carefully placed a handful of cubes into the glass and then filled it with whiskey.

  “Thanks ever so much,” Poole said as he took the glass from Mathias.

  “Is that all?” Mathias asked, his words as sharp as a knife blade.

  “For now,” Poole replied, motioning Mathias back to his position behind Delilah’s divan.

  “So, what are you looking for?” Poole asked, taking a drink of his whiskey.

  “Right to the point,” Delilah said. “I think we’re going to get along just fine, Mr. Poole.” She turned her head slightly toward Mathias.

  Immediately he left the balcony, returning just a few moments later with the iron statue they had taken from the Vietnamese temple, before detonating the explosives that had reduced the holy place to so much rubble. He cradled the metal infant in his arms, carrying it as carefully as he would have one of her many children.

  “What is that?” Poole asked, his speech somewhat thick as the whiskey began to take effect.

  Delilah flowed from the divan, meeting Mathias in the center of the balcony.

  “A vessel,” she said, staring at the statue. No matter how many times she looked upon it, it never ceased to infatuate her. Sometimes, late at night, when she fought to keep sleep from claiming her, she swore she could hear it crying.

  “A vessel for what?” Poole asked.

  “Give it to him,” Delilah instructed, and Mathias slowly moved closer.

  “No, wait,” Poole cried nervously. He tried to set his drink down on the nearby table, but it crashed to the floor.

  “This vessel once contained my prize, Mr. Poole.”

  The Hound was trying to move away. She was sure he could hear the vessel . . . hear it as it whispered its secrets to him.

  Mathias placed the infant-shaped container at the man’s feet.

  “Please,” Poole begged. His face had become bright red, and his body shook spastically. “Take it away.”

  “Touch it, Mr. Poole,” Delilah commanded, using her talent to bend his will to hers.

  Unable to resist her, the Hound leaned forward, fingers splayed to touch the child. He screamed as his fingertips brushed the sides of the infant’s head. He tried to pull away, but the power of the vessel drew him back. He slid from his chair, dropping to his knees, running his hands over the tarnished metal body. His eyes had rolled back in his head, and he was murmuring indistinctly as tears stained his face.

  His probing fingers found the hidden latch, splitting the metal child open, allowing him access to where Delilah’s prize had rested for centuries.

  Poole gasped, his breath catching in his throat.

  “Control, Mr. Poole,” Delilah barked.

  Her commanding words seemed to have an effect as his eyes rolled forward, and he seemed to be trying to focus on the smooth, concave surface inside the vessel.

  He reached out a shaking hand, but quickly pulled it back, as if afraid he might be burned. “I—I can’t,” he sobbed pathetically, a trail of mucus running from his nose. “Please, I just want to . . .”

  Delilah was growing impatient. She wanted her answers now.

  “You will, Mr. Poole,” she snarled, reaching out to grab hold of his wrist, forcing his hand down into the open body of the vessel.

  The Hound immediately began to scream and scream. . . .

  And Delilah wasn’t sure if he was ever going to stop.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Remy knew it was going to be one of those days.

  “It’s hot as Hell in there,” the man from McNulty Heating and Cooling warned as he held open the front door to Remy’s office building.

  He was short and a little fat. The front of his light blue shirt was stained with grease, his dark navy work pants powdered with dust.

  “Let me guess,” Remy said, passing through the foyer. “The air-conditioning is broken.”

  The repairman laughed. “You must be the detective.” He pointed at the building registry hanging on the wall in the lobby.

  “Bingo! Any idea when it’ll be fixed?” Remy asked, more out of curiosity than anything. He really wasn’t affected by temperature, be it hot or cold.

  The McNulty guy smiled, shaking his head. “Haven’t a clue. We’re gonna have to order some parts—could take a few days.”

  Another McNulty employee, a disgruntled look on his face, came up from the building’s basement.

  “What’s the verdict?” the first asked.

  “Put a fuckin’ bullet in it,” he grunted. “Gonna need a whole new unit.” He kept right on walking through the doorway and out to a van parked in front of the building.

  “There you have it,” Remy’s new friend said with a shrug.

  “Guess so.” Remy turned toward the stairs.

  “What, you’re still going up?” the repairman asked from the doorway.

  “Yeah, probably push some papers around and take an early lunch.”

  “Better you than me,” the man said, letting the door close as he left to join his partner. “It’s gonna be hot as Hell up there.”

  Remy continued up the stairs to his office, letting the man’s words bounce around inside his skull. He was tempted to explain that Hell was actually a place of extremes—of both intense heat and numbing cold—but he doubted the repairman would have really much cared, and then of course, he would want to know how Remy knew so much about the infernal realm.

  Why, I was just there on business, he imagined saying.

  He chuckled out loud and unlocked his office door. B
ut still he couldn’t help wondering what was happening in Hell. After usurping Heaven’s power there, the Son of the Morning had begun to reshape the realm. What had once been prison to those who had followed him in his rebellion against Heaven was slowly becoming Lucifer’s twisted version of the Eternal Realm. And how exactly did Heaven plan on dealing with that?

  Remy shook his head. Those were matters of the damned and the divine, with humanity caught square in the middle.

  He stepped into his office and realized the air-conditioning repairman had been right. It was stifling in the room. He closed the door and went directly to the window, opening it wide in the hope of catching a breeze to air out the stale, musty smell.

  Then he checked his phone for messages and, finding none, decided to spend the morning working on invoices and paying some bills. But first there was a mighty need for coffee.

  He had just filled the machine and set the carafe to collect the elixir of life, when there came a knock at the door and a woman cautiously entered the office.

  “Hi,” Remy said cheerfully, moving toward her in greeting. “May I help you?”

  The woman was wearing a dungaree jacket and skirt, and a bright red T-shirt. She was about five foot six, with bleached blond hair, and looked at first to be in her late thirties, although as Remy drew closer, he realized her eyes didn’t seem as old as she appeared.

  The woman closed the door behind her, nervously moving her bag from one shoulder to the other.

  “Umm,” she said, uncertainty in her tone. “You’re Remy Chandler, right? The private investigator?”

  “Yes, I am,” Remy said, smiling kindly. The woman looked about to snap. “Is there something I can do for you, Ms. . . . ?”

  “York,” the woman replied, her sandaled feet scuffing across the hardwood floor as she stepped farther into the room and extended her hand toward him. “Deryn York.”

  Remy shook the woman’s warm and clammy hand.

  “Why don’t you have a seat, Ms. York.” He directed her toward the chair in front of his desk, then headed back for the coffeepot.

  “Coffee?” he asked her. “I’ve just made it.”

  “Yes, thank you,” she said, pulling at the front of her skirt so it just about touched her knees.

  Remy realized he had only one clean mug, the other one being sort of dusty.

  “Let me just rinse this out,” he said, going to the tiny bathroom across the room. “It’s really warm out there today,” he said, raising his voice over the water in the sink.

  “Yeah,” she answered, “hot as Hell.”

  Y’know, Hell is a place of extremes. . . .

  “It certainly is,” he replied instead as he left the bathroom. “How do you like your coffee?”

  “Oh, just sugar, please.”

  “How many?” he asked, pouring her a cup, and placing it on the edge of the desk in front of her. He went around his desk and opened the center drawer where he’d recently seen a few packets.

  “Do you have six?” she asked.

  “Six?”

  She smiled self-consciously and shrugged. “I like it really sweet.”

  Remy counted the packets in his drawer. “I only have five,” he told her.

  “That’s fine,” she said. “Five should be good.”

  He set down the sugar packets. “Here you go,” he said.

  “Thank you.” She immediately ripped open the packets one after another, pouring their contents into the dark brown liquid.

  “So, Ms. York,” Remy said, sitting down in his chair and taking a sip from his mug with the picture of a black Labrador retriever, “what can I do for you?”

  She sipped her own coffee and made a face. Obviously it wasn’t sweet enough.

  “I called your home last night,” she said, setting the mug carefully down on the edge of his desk, “but I didn’t leave a name . . . or much of a message really.” She laughed nervously.

  “I thought that might have been you,” Remy said.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. I really didn’t know what to say, and I had no intention of even coming here, but . . .”

  “But here you are,” Remy finished for her.

  “Exactly,” she responded. “You’re all I have left . . . my last resort.”

  “Okay then.” Remy grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. “What’s brought you here, Deryn York?”

  She took another sip of coffee, perhaps to fortify herself, before starting to speak.

  “My daughter,” she said, her eyes becoming misty. “My daughter, Zoe.”

  “All right,” Remy encouraged her. “Take your time and tell me what happened.” He was trying to make her feel comfortable; the tension was spilling off her in waves. “Are you from this area?”

  Deryn shook her head. “Originally I’m from South Carolina, but we moved to Florida about five years ago.”

  “You and your daughter?” he probed.

  “And my husband,” she added, reaching for the coffee again. “We’ve since separated, but I can’t seem to get rid of him. He insisted on coming here with Zoe and me, even though I didn’t want him to.”

  “So you’ve moved here from Florida?”

  “Not permanently,” she quickly corrected. “I hate the cold, but I heard the best doctors are here, so I didn’t really have a choice. As soon as they figure out what’s wrong with Zoe, we’ll go right back home.”

  Remy nodded, taking a drink of his coffee. “Your daughter is sick then?”

  Deryn stared down into the contents of her mug. “The doctors in Florida say she’s probably autistic,” she explained quietly, then looked up at Remy. “But Carl wanted to be sure, and he said the best doctors are here. He’s from here originally.”

  “Where were you taking her?”

  “Franciscan Hospital for Children.” She stopped, reaching down into her bag and removing a pack of cigarettes. Without even asking Remy if it was okay, she placed one between her lips and lit it with a disposable lighter.

  “I can’t believe how fucking stupid I was,” she said, dropping the lighter and package of smokes back into her bag. “Oh, is this all right?” she asked, suddenly conscious of what she was doing.

  “It’s fine,” Remy said, not wanting to upset her. They were finally getting someplace, and he didn’t want to cancel the momentum. “Why do you say you were stupid?”

  “Because I trusted him,” she said angrily. “I let my guard down.” Deryn feverishly puffed on the cigarette, forming a toxic cloud around her head in the too-warm office. “I wasn’t feeling well, so I stayed at the hotel and let Carl take Zoe to an appointment. And that’s the last time I saw them. It’s been six days.” Deryn choked back a sob, bringing a hand to her mouth.

  “There hasn’t been any contact with Carl since he took Zoe?” Remy asked.

  “No,” she said miserably, finishing the smoke and dropping the butt into her coffee mug where it hissed faintly.

  “Have you contacted the police?”

  “Yes, once I realized what the son of a bitch had done. There’s a warrant out for his arrest.”

  “And you have no idea where he might have taken your daughter?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  Remy stood and grabbed his mug. “Would you like another cup? I can rinse yours out.”

  “No, no thanks,” she said with a nervous shake of her head. “I’m good.”

  Remy refilled his cup and returned to his desk. “So tell me about your relationship with Carl,” he began. “Was it an amicable split or . . .”

  “We only stayed together as long as we did because of Zoe,” Deryn explained. “We thought a baby would help us, but with her being different and all . . .” Her voice trailed off and she looked as though she had the weight of the world upon her shoulders.

  “Does Carl have any history of violence?” Remy asked. “He wouldn’t want to cause Zoe any harm, would he?”

  “Oh no,” she said quickly. “Carl really is basically a good guy. We both had kind of screwed-up childhoods, but we managed to get beyond that. We were good parents, Mr. Chandler.”

  “Except that Carl has taken your daughter.”

  “Yeah,”
she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “But maybe if I had paid better attention, this could all have been avoided.”

  “Ms. York, you can’t beat yourself up about—”

  “I need to show you something, Mr. Chandler,” Deryn interrupted, pulling her bag up onto her lap.

  Remy leaned forward, curious, as she withdrew a handful of folded pieces of construction paper from inside the bag. Carefully she unfolded them, looking at each before handing them to Remy.

  He looked at the first. It was obviously a child’s drawing, done in crayon, crudely depicting a little girl and a man leaving what appeared to be a hospital. The next picture was of the same girl and man, only they were in a car. The man was in the front seat, driving, while the child stared out the back window, yellow circles beneath her eyes—probably falling tears, Remy guessed.

  “Zoe did these?” he asked, looking up at Deryn.

  She nodded. “About three weeks ago.”

  He was looking at the drawing again when the woman’s words permeated his brain. “Three weeks ago?” he repeated. “So your husband must have been preparing her for this?” He waited as Deryn shook her head no.

  “She drew those pictures without any knowledge of what her father was going to do,” the woman explained. “But she knew he was going to take her, Mr. Chandler, just like she knew I would be coming to see you.”

  Deryn leaned forward and handed him one last drawing.

  Remy’s eyes widened in surprise as he studied it. Zoe had drawn a childlike depiction of the front entrance to his brownstone, a person standing in front with a black dog on a leash. He was certain the person was himself—the feathered wings were a dead giveaway—and, moreover, floating in the air, written in a small child’s handwriting, were his address and telephone number.

  Mathias stopped the Range Rover halfway down the dirt path, just close enough to see the bungalow ahead.

  Poole had eventually proven his worth, using information he derived by touching the Vietnamese vessel, as well as extensive maps of the entire world. According to the Hound, Delilah’s prize would be found here, in Palatka, Florida, of all places.

  It wasn’t exactly a place that Mathias imagined finding an object that could quite easily change the course of the world, but perhaps that was the point—no ancient temples surrounded by worshippers ready to die in its defense; instead, a run-down bungalow in the backwaters of Florida.