Where Angels Fear to Tread

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  Samson heard the angel go, and hoped he wouldn’t be too late.

  The warrior could feel that the change had started, but the existing reality wasn’t giving up without a fight.

  It was a difficult and dangerous thing, changing what was and attempting to replace it with something else. It was a matter best left to the gods.

  The blind warrior stood for a little while, appreciating the deathly silence, but also cursing it. He listened for a sign of life, something that showed him that at least some of his children had survived.

  Samson listened hard, straining his enhanced hearing for a moan, or a sigh, or a troubled breath.

  But there was none of that to be heard.

  And with a heavy sigh of his own, he knew he must follow the angel, for he still had a job to finish.

  He had the Lord’s work to do.

  Delilah felt the world begin to change, just as it was torn away from her.

  She was hurled violently back, landing upon the ground, just as she heard the lovely sounds of her children awakening from their beds after a long night’s sleep; just as she heard the sounds of their eager feet upon the floors above her head as they were coming down to her.

  But it was all gone in an instant, when Dagon reasserted himself.

  The deity was in a bad way, the burns that had eaten away the flesh around his mouth and chest having spread across most of his once-impressive physique.

  He looked as though he’d bathed in acid.

  From where she lay, Delilah saw that Dagon had taken the child, pulling her from the air and dragging her down to the ground.

  In one of his misshapen hands he held what appeared to be a piece of broken glass, and he was poised to bring it down upon the struggling child; to cut her open to remove the prize they both wished to possess.

  The child squirmed beneath the horned god’s attempts, but he held her pressed to the ground long enough to commit his act.

  The glass blade descended. Dagon had aimed for the heart, but the child’s squirming distracted his aim, and the tip of the impromptu knife went into her stomach instead.

  It was as if all sound were suddenly stolen away, and time slowed to a crawl.

  The child’s mouth was open wide in a silent scream, and her eyes bulged with the horror of what had just been done to her.

  And then her eyes closed, and she went very still.

  Dagon perched over the child’s body, waiting for a sign.

  He did not have long to wait.

  The energy erupted from the child in a burst of invisible force, picking up the ancient god and tossing him aside like a rag doll.

  Zoe floated up from the ground, her bloodied stomach mended in a flash of white and the smell of burning ozone; even the scarlet stains upon her clothes were soon but a memory.

  Gone was the frightened little girl, unsure of the power—the specialness—that lived inside her. Here was a being who had embraced this might and who was about to show those that hurt her what true power was all about.

  Dagon seemed to know this as he hauled his broken body up from the ground where he’d been discarded. It wasn’t the first time the deity had been cast aside for something stronger.

  “Please,” he begged upon his knees before the floating child, “just a taste . . . I don’t want it all. . . . Just a taste again . . . not to be forgotten . . .”

  Zoe looked down upon the lowly god and snarled.

  “I used to think you were scary,” she said, her child’s voice oddly alien, “but you’re no scarier than a bug.”

  A terrible smile appeared upon the little girl’s face, the pulsing circle of energy that surrounded her momentarily expanding outward to touch Dagon with its might.

  It happened so quickly that the old god wasn’t even given a chance to scream. In a flash, his entire mass had been turned to bugs, golden cockroaches that for a moment held the form of Dagon, before they dropped to the ground in a squirming heap.

  And Zoe eagerly returned to Earth to enthusiastically stomp upon their skittering forms, happily crushing their shelled bodies beneath her sneakered feet.

  Making certain not to miss a one of them.

  The Seraphim Remiel plummeted from the morning sky, drawn to the enormous power radiating from the body of one human child.

  The child had become a receptacle for a tiny fraction of the Lord God’s power, but even a fraction of the Maker had more power than the puny human brain could ever hope to comprehend.

  Here in the body of a little girl was the ability to create worlds, and from what the angel could see, it was driving her mad.

  Remiel touched down upon the earth, avoiding pieces of the building that had somehow come apart and were now floating weightlessly in the air like an asteroid field.

  The might of God was radiating from her in waves, growing steadily stronger as the child stood.

  His human aspect felt sadness for the young one, eager to help in any way he could, but the Seraphim fought this emotion, seeing only the potential for extreme danger; danger to itself, as well as a threat to the world that God seemingly loved above all else.

  It was the child who posed the threat with her inability to control the level of divine power that now coursed through her.

  Remiel slowly approached, feeling waves of God’s raw awesomeness radiating from the little girl; the potential to create . . . or to destroy.

  “Child,” Remiel called, his voice like the most beautiful of voices raised in song, “calm yourself.”

  Zoe looked at him in all his angelic glory and was terrified.

  “Get away!” she screamed, and the ground spasmed violently, shaking him from his feet, the undulating earth carrying him away.

  The angel spread his wings and took to the air, flying above the writhing earth.

  “I mean you no harm,” Remiel called down to her, but her fear was too great, and a terrific wind was summoned that was like the hand of a giant—or God—swatting him back to Earth like a bothersome insect.

  The weather had started to react to the child’s release; voluminous gray storm clouds, throbbing with electrical fury, were building over their heads.

  “Mommy!” Zoe cried out as the thunder rumbled. “Where are you? I want my mommy.”

  Jagged bolts of lightning javelined down from the sky, attempting to skewer him with their electrical touch. Remiel scrambled across the ground, narrowly avoiding the deadly bolts raining from the Heavens.

  The child was frightened, overwhelmed by what was happening to her; in a state of mind that could very well destroy them all.

  The Seraphim was in a quandary. All that it knew was the option of battle, to wrestle something to the ground and end its threat by sword and burning all traces away with Heaven’s fire.

  But there was another way; a way the angel of Heaven did not care to recognize.

  A human way.

  The morning had become like night, the tumultuous air swirling the floating debris at greater and greater speeds, the other structures around the former building beginning to come undone.

  The Seraphim momentarily struggled with its other side, the fragile human nature that it despised, this time proving itself to be the stronger. With a growl it allowed itself to be forced down, fully aware that if its weaker nature was not successful, it would be the Seraphim that reasserted itself, and the threat of the child would be put succinctly to an end.

  Remy knelt upon the ground, feeling the physical characteristics of his warrior half recede. He was breathing heavily, his heart beating rapid fire in his chest as he glimpsed the nightmare he had been left to face.

  The child had lost control, her fear causing the power to lash out uncontrollably and strike at the world that scared her.

  She needed to see a friendly face; she needed to see someone who would tell her it was going to be all right. Not having any idea of what had happened to Deryn York, Remy took it upon himself to be that person. He hoped the little girl, filled with the power of creation, would recognize him, and not extinguish
his life with a bolt of lightning.

  The dirt and rock swirled faster in the air, stinging his exposed flesh. His clothes were in tatters, just one of the many pitfalls of assuming an angelic form, but he struggled on, shielding his eyes from the scouring grit, as he made his way toward the little girl at the center of the storm.

  Through the maelstrom he saw her, a tiny, shivering figure lying upon the ground.

  “Zoe,” he called out over the howling wind.

  Her eyes were closed, and she hugged herself into a tight little ball.

  “Zoe, I’m here,” he called again as he got closer.

  Spears of lightning rained down in front of him, turning the areas struck to glass, but after a momentary pause, Remy continued on.

  “Open your eyes, Zoe,” Remy called out. “It’s me . . . the one you drew . . . the one you said would protect you.”

  The wind picked up, roaring like a hungry monster, and Remy felt himself begin to be lifted by the intensifying conditions.

  “Zoe, it’s me. . . . Please . . . It’s Remy.”

  Through the churn of dirt, he saw that she had opened her eyes.

  The storm winds grew more powerful, and he desperately tried to hold on, sinking his fingers deep into the broken ground to anchor himself.

  He knew he didn’t have long. If the storm became any fiercer, he would be tossed away like the flotsam and jetsam that already clogged the air. This would be his chance . . . the human chance . . . and if he failed, there would be only one other way to put an end to the potential cataclysm.

  The angelic way.

  The Seraphim was there, waiting as always, waiting to prove that it was the superior nature, and as much as it pained him to admit, its solution was the likely answer.

  The world was coming apart around him, and it was only a matter of time before he was torn apart by the storm. Remy was allowing the angel to flow through him again, to reassert mastery over their form, when the scouring winds almost instantly died down.

  Remy dropped to the ground, covering his head as all the floating debris and rubble picked up by the power of the Almighty was released, and gravity reasserted its sway, raining it down upon the land.

  Wiping grit and grime from his eyes, he raised his head to see what had happened and looked into the tear-filled eyes of a frightened little girl.

  “Where’s your dog?” she asked in a tiny squeak of a voice.

  “He’s home,” Remy said, getting to his feet and brushing dirt from what remained of his clothes. “And he thought the pictures of him were really beautiful.”

  That almost got a smile, and as he drew closer, Zoe came to him. Remy knelt down, taking her into his arms. Squeezing his neck, almost to the point of choking him, she began to cry.

  “Shhhhh,” Remy said, patting her back. “It’s all right. Everything is all right now,” he said, comforting her.

  He could still sense that she was in possession of the power, but somehow she had found the strength to keep it down and to gain control of her fear.

  The Seraphim grumbled and roiled within him, unconvinced that the threat had been averted, but Remy believed it had.

  “Would you like to go home?” he asked her. “How would that be?”

  “Yes,” she squeaked, still holding on to him for dear life. “Me and Mommy want to go home to Florida and swim in the ocean with dolphins,” she said, hiccupping back more tears.

  Gazing about the wreckage of the event that had transpired, Remy had no idea whether Deryn York had survived. His eyes immediately fell upon a form, carefully climbing over the rubble-strewn ground, and he was excited to see that it was Zoe’s mother.

  But she wasn’t alone.

  Delilah stood behind the woman, and the closer she got, Remy saw that the temptress had the tip of a large knife pressed to the woman’s throat as they walked awkwardly side by side.

  “Bravo, Mr. Chandler,” Delilah said. “The power to calm a storm. I’m very impressed.”

  “Let her go, Delilah,” Remy said, exasperated by the whole thing. “Don’t you think we’ve all gone through enough?”

  “No truer words were ever spoken,” Delilah said. “Do you seriously think I’d walk away after this without my prize?” she asked.

  He was still holding Zoe in his arms, and she lifted her face to see what was happening. Remy would have rather she didn’t, but there was no stopping her.

  “Mommy!” she screeched, seeing her mother .

  “Hey, baby,” Deryn said, trying to sound calm, but the blade’s tip being pushed against the soft part of her dirty throat didn’t make for the most calming situation.

  “Put Zoe down, Remy,” Delilah instructed. “And let the child come to her mother.”

  Zoe squirmed to be free, but Remy did not want to release her.

  “Put her down now,” Delilah raged, putting more pressure on the bayonet and causing Deryn to cry out.

  The child was fighting him now, so he obliged.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked, watching as the child ran to them.

  “I’m going to make it all better,” Delilah said, watching the child with hungry eyes.

  Delilah released Deryn, just as Zoe reached her, allowing the two to embrace.

  “Don’t,” Remy cried out, hoping there was a chance that . . .

  “I promise you it’ll be a wonderful world,” Delilah said, snatching the child away from her mother, and preparing to kiss her—preparing to consume the power of God inside her.

  The Seraphim emerged again, although Remy still managed to maintain most of his control, as he spread his wings and flew to the child’s aid.

  There was a flash of light so bright that it blinded him. Remy dropped from the air, rolling across the dirt. Blinding explosions of color erupted in front of his eyes as he struggled to regain his sight.

  He could hear Zoe crying and Deryn’s calming words of comfort, but he still had no idea what had occurred.

  His vision finally clearing, Remy looked around. He saw a blackened and smoldering body upon the ground that must have been Delilah, and beside it, Deryn York clutching her child protectively as she gazed ahead, eyes wide in surprise.

  “What now,” Remy muttered as he slowly turned to see the cause of the woman’s reaction.

  The Retrievers stood like statues, staring intently at the mother and child. And suddenly everything made horrible sense. Remy knew why the angels had been in Methuselah’s—and why they were here now.

  He and the Retrievers had actually been searching for the same thing, the only difference being that he had been looking for the child, whereas they had been looking for what had been hiding inside her.

  Still manifesting aspects of the Seraphim, Remy ruffled his wings threateningly as he moved to position himself closer to the mother and child.

  One of the Retriever hosts raised his armored arm and pointed a sword that resembled a large splinter of ice at Deryn and Zoe.

  “We want what is inside the child,” the angel said in an emotionless monotone. “Allow us to relieve her of it, and we will be on our way.”

  Remy found it interesting that the Lord God had sent His bloodhounds to retrieve something that had been here since the beginning of the world.

  Why now? he wondered. What’s so crucial that He would take back this power now?

  Deryn held her child all the tighter, looking at Remy and back to the fearsome pair.

  “You can have it,” Remy said, “but you must guarantee me the child’s well-being.”

  He waited to see how the pair reacted.

  They continued to stare, their shiny black armor glinting in the early sunshine.

  “We want what is inside the child,” the other Retriever said.

  “I understand that,” Remy said, “but you have to promise me the child will not be hurt.”

  The pair glanced at each other, a silent message passing between them.

  “We cannot guarantee this,” they said in unison.

  “Then I’m sorry,” Remy said.

  “Sorry?” the Retriever questioned with a
n odd tilt of his head.

  “You cannot have what the child possesses,” Remy told him.

  They again looked at each other.

  “We could very easily destroy you, Seraphim,” he said with still no sign of emotion. “We could destroy you and take what we desire.”

  Remy saw the knife that Delilah had used to threaten Deryn upon the ground, and he reached for it. Holding the blade, he willed the power of Heaven into the metal, causing it to crackle with a powerful, holy fire.

  “You’re welcome to try,” Remy told them, and he felt a rush of power flood through him as his warrior nature flexed its muscles in preparation for a battle to come.

  He’d always wondered if he could take a Retriever, and now he was going to find out.

  The bloodhounds from Heaven responded to the challenge, emitting a birdlike screech as their armor reconfigured into a more combat-ready mode, filled with spikes and many sharp angles. They raised their blades of ice and had started to advance, when they both halted.

  At the ready, Remy watched with a curious eye.

  The Retrievers appeared to be listening, listening to something that only they could hear.

  And as quickly as they had prepared for battle, they stepped down, sheathing their swords, allowing their armor to morph back to its more streamlined design.

  “What’s happening?” Deryn asked, holding protectively on to her little girl.

  “I don’t know,” Remy said, still watching the Heavenly pair.

  The Retrievers stood there a moment longer, their ice-cold eyes darting from the mother and child, to Remy, and then back again.

  Finally they spread their razor-sharp wings in unison, and with a final, hawklike screech, they leapt up into the air, and were gone as quickly as they had appeared.

  Remy continued to hold on to the knife, waiting for something to happen. He was convinced that the Retrievers were going to drop from the sky in an attack, or that at least something would suddenly appear to challenge him.

  But nothing appeared, nothing attacked from the sky, and he actually began to suspect it was all over.