Simeon stared at the older man over the metal rim of his cup.
“Everything that you know.”
Hallow laughed—a loud, braying sound. “Everything, you say. Do you realize how long I’ve lived to know what I do?”
Simeon stared intensely, wanting the necromancer to know how serious he was.
“How long it would take for you to learn even a fraction of what I’ve already forgotten?” Hallow asked.
Simeon could not help but smile at the older man. “Doesn’t matter,” he stated flatly. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”
The necromancer at first seemed startled by the sudden levity of Simeon’s words, but then the true meaning permeated through his copper skullcap, and down into his brain, and Ignatius Hallow began to laugh.
Sharing the joke of the forever man. Sharing the joke of the man who could not die.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A certain energy once again radiated from the brownstone on Newbury Street, but up until recently, that energy had been missing.
Remy hoped to kill two birds with one stone on this visit. Climbing the concrete steps to the front door, he let himself into the entryway as he fished for the key that would get him into the building.
The fact that people actually lived in the building again seemed to give the old brick structure a life of its own, and Remy could feel it in the air as he stepped into the lobby.
Francis was back, reclaiming the building that had been left to Remy when the fallen Guardian angel was thought dead, killed during the upheaval in Tartarus caused by the return of Lucifer Morningstar.
But he had returned, unscathed, and with a new employer. Though the identity of his fallen friend’s new boss had yet to be discussed, Remy had his suspicions.
One does not walk away from an upheaval in Hell and not have scars to show for it.
Remy figured Francis would have the inside scoop as to what might have happened to Aszrus and on whether the Morningstar was interested in escalating a conflict with Heaven. He headed for the door leading to the fallen angel’s basement apartment, and immediately sensed that his friend was not at home. He pulled open the door anyway, but the silence confirmed his suspicion.
No matter. He’d hook up with Francis later. Instead, he turned his attention to the second bird. He was in need of a magick user, and Francis just so happened to have one living in his building.
Angus Heath wasn’t the most pleasant of individuals. A former member of a band of sorcerers interested in the acquisition of supernatural knowledge and power in order to influence the world, he and Remy had recently been forced to work together in order to stop a renegade member of his former cabal.
Heath had since claimed an empty apartment on the third floor, and Remy quickly took the stairs two at a time to reach his destination. It was surprisingly cool outside, and the steam heat in the long hallway hissed like a snake, as if in warning.
Remy rapped on the door with his knuckle, listening to see if he could hear anything inside. Thinking that he might have heard movement, he knocked again.
“Angus,” he called. “It’s Remy Chandler. I need a favor.”
There was movement behind the door, and Remy stepped back on instinct as it came open to reveal not at all who he was expecting to find.
“Hey, Remy,” the creature named Squire said. His arms were filled with items as if he’d just come from grocery shopping, but they’d run out of bags. Squire was attempting to hold on to a loaf of bread, a jar of mayo, multiple packages of cold cuts, and a king-sized bag of potato chips.
“Did I knock on the wrong door?” Remy asked, checking the number.
Squire now lived in the building, too, after helping out with the same case that had introduced Remy to the sorcerer, Heath. Squire was a hobgoblin from an alternate version of Earth where something really horrible—something that he wasn’t too keen on sharing—had transpired. He had the ability to use shadows as a means of transport. He was also pretty good in a fight.
“No, you’re good,” the hobgoblin said, closing the door behind him, but dropping the loaf of bread in the process. “As you can guess Angus isn’t home.”
“Which is why you’re helping yourself to his food,” Remy said.
“Exactly,” the squat, homely creature said. “Could you grab that bread for me?”
Remy bent and picked it up, watching as Squire headed down the hall to an apartment on the other side.
“It’s unlocked,” he said, motioning with his chin for Remy to open his door.
Remy turned the knob and pushed it open, Squire heading in first.
“Make yourself at home,” the hobgoblin said as he walked into the kitchen area, putting his plunder down atop the counter. Remy tossed him the loaf of bread as he looked around.
The apartment was practically empty, except for a leather couch and a beat-up old recliner. There was a large, flat-screen television hanging on the wall.
“Can I make you a sandwich?” Squire asked. He had torn into the packages of cold cuts and the bread and was making a monstrosity of a meal. “I got roast beef, provolone, and ham.”
“No, I’m good,” Remy said. He watched the goblin construct his lunch in awe, multiple pieces of meat and cheese creating a sandwich at least five inches thick. And since he didn’t appear to have any silverware, he just dipped his chubby fingers into the jar of mayonnaise and smeared it on the meat and bread. He then placed some whole pickles and a handful of potato chips onto the heap of cheese and meat.
“There, that oughta hold me for a bit,” he said, proudly placing the other piece of bread on top and pushing it down with a muffled crunch.
Squire grabbed the huge sandwich off the counter and started toward the living room.
“I’d offer you a drink, but I forgot to see what Angus had in the liquor cabinet,” he said, hopping up into his recliner. A cloud of dust shot up into the air as he hit the seat.
“Love what you’re doing with the place,” Remy said sarcastically.
“Can you believe that somebody was throwing this chair out?” Squire asked. With the hand that wasn’t clutching his snack, he found the remote control and pointed it at the television.
The sounds of moans and shrieks of pleasure filled the apartment, and Remy glanced toward the screen to see a naked man and woman in the midst of a pornographic act that was probably illegal in at least fifteen states.
“Really?” Remy asked, looking back to the grinning creature.
“Not a fan of the arts?” Squire asked with a cackle. He pointed the remote again and turned the porn off. It was replaced with The Price Is Right.
“So, what do you need Angus for?” the hobgoblin asked, taking a huge bite of his sandwich as some of the contents between the two bread slices spilled out from the bottom onto his shirt.
Squire really didn’t seem to care.
“I need a magick user for a case I’m working on,” Remy answered. “Any idea where he went?”
“Pretty sure he headed over to Methuselah’s,” Squire answered with his mouth full. “Said something about planning the dinner specials for the week.”
Remy nodded, reminded that the sorcerer was the cook at the tavern located at the edge of multiple realities.
“Let me finish my snack and I can open a shadow path and take you over,” Squire suggested.
“Wouldn’t want to take you away from your art,” Remy said with a smirk.
And the hobgoblin began to cackle, the last of the sandwich unappetizingly visible from his open maw.
• • •
The corridor of shadow opened up just outside the large, wooden door with the neon sign flashing METHUSELAH’S hanging above it.
“I always thought you needed a key to find this place,” Remy said. He had a key. It had been Francis’, but he’d left it back on Beacon Hill.
“Yeah,” Squire replied. “But I’ve got a knack for finding shit that ain’t supposed to be found.”
“Go
od to know,” Remy said.
The hobgoblin and Remy stood in the stone alleyway, total darkness at their backs.
“Are you coming in?” Remy asked. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Naw,” Squire said. “I gotta get back to the apartment. I’m getting cable installed and they’re supposed to be there between ten and five.”
“No worries,” Remy said. “I owe you one, then.”
“And don’t think I won’t take you up on it,” Squire said, turning back to duck inside the shadow portal.
Remy was walking toward the ancient, wooden door, when Squire called out from behind him.
“Hey, Remy.”
He turned to see the hobgoblin peering out from inside the passage as it grew smaller around him.
“Don’t tell Angus you found me in his place,” Squire said. “You wouldn’t believe how sensitive he is about that shit.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Remy said, giving him a wave before turning back to the entrance to Methuselah’s.
The door opened before he could even knock.
A minotaur loomed over him in the doorway, its nostrils flared and dripping.
“What do you want?” the brown-furred beast demanded, its eyes dark and reflective in the strange glow of the alleyway.
“Is that any way to talk to a customer?” Remy asked, advancing to push past the beast.
The minotaur moved to block his entrance. “If I owned the place I wouldn’t let you holier-than-thou types through the door,” he growled.
“Good to know,” Remy told him, looking deep into his eyes. “When Methuselah hangs it up, I’ll be sure to lose the address.”
The monstrous bouncer was giving it his best, trying to outstare him, but Remy didn’t have the time for this kind of nonsense. He was about to get a bit more physical with the door beast, when the bar’s owner called out from inside.
“Let him in, Phil,” the gravelly voice of Methuselah ordered.
The beast turned its massive, horned head to look inside the bar.
“You heard him, Phil,” Remy said, shoving the large-bodied mythological doorman aside to step into the dingy bar.
Remy could sense the minotaur coming up quickly behind him, and spun around just as Methuselah called out from behind the bar.
“Phil, you heard me!”
The minotaur had raised his huge fists, like twin cinder blocks, and was preparing to bring them down on Remy.
“Do it and pay the consequences,” Remy warned, the power of the Seraphim now coursing through his body, causing his voice to echo. “Don’t and we both go about our business. It’s really pretty simple.”
Phil loomed above him, nostrils wet and pulsating as he clenched his huge fists.
“What’s it going to be . . . Phil?” Remy asked, the fire of Heaven blazing in his eyes.
“It’s a good thing Francis is your friend,” the minotaur said, lowering his muscular arms and returning to his post in front of the door. “Wouldn’t want to offend him by stomping your holy ass.”
Remy let it go, sidling up to the bar.
Methuselah, in his stone golem body, placed an empty glass on top of the bar and began to fill it from a dust-covered bottle of whiskey.
“Sorry about that, Chandler,” Methuselah said, filling the glass by half with golden liquid. “Phil has just never warmed to you angel types.”
He slid the glass across to Remy.
“On the house.”
Remy didn’t want to seem rude by refusing the offer. He picked up the glass, tossing back its contents in one gulp. He was certain that if he’d allowed himself to feel the alcoholic effects of the beverage, his head would have been spinning.
“Hit you again?” Methuselah asked, ready to pour some more.
“I’m good,” Remy said, placing his hand over the mouth of the glass.
“So what brings you in?” Methuselah returned the dusty bottle to the display behind the bar. “Sorry to say that it’s usually nothing good.”
The bar was pretty empty, only sporadic tables here and there occupied by customers.
“No wonder Phil doesn’t like me,” Remy said. “Is Angus around?”
“Heath?” Methuselah asked. “Yeah, he’s out back in the kitchen.”
Remy slid from his stool, heading toward the double doors that would take him out back. “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead,” Methuselah said, waving one of his squared, stone hands. “Try not to wreck the place.”
Remy passed through the swinging doors into the kitchen, eyes scanning the good-sized room for a sign of Heath. He was surprised at how clean it actually was.
Three creatures of some insectlike species watched him with their bulging, compound eyes. One had grabbed a rather large knife.
“Angus Heath,” Remy said, speaking the language of the insect creature. “Is he around?”
The insect kitchen worker, startled by Remy’s question and how it was asked, pointed with the knife blade to an area in the back, near the walk-in freezer.
“Thanks,” Remy said, walking where the insect had pointed.
He found Heath leaning upon a scratched and gouged butcher block table, a legal pad laid out before him. It looked as though Squire had been right about what the sorcerer was doing here. He was planning the dinner specials.
“I bet you make a mean shepherd’s pie,” Remy said as he approached.
The heavyset sorcerer looked up. “Fancy seeing you here. To what do I owe the occasion?”
“I need a favor,” Remy said.
“Let me guess,” the rotund sorcerer stated. “Something, something, something . . . the end of the world.”
Remy smirked but with little humor.
“Yeah, a little something like that.”
It didn’t take Heath long to agree to help once Remy explained what was at stake.
The promise of substantial payment for his services didn’t hurt, either.
“I’m going to need some things from my apartment,” Heath announced to him as they came through the double doors into the bar.
“Where are you going?” Methuselah asked, pouring a guy wrapped from head to toe in heavy robes a drink of something red and churning.
“There’s something I need to take care of,” Heath said. “But I’ll be back before the dinner crowd shows.”
Methuselah glared at him.
“Would it help if I told you that it’s something really important?” Remy asked, following Heath to the door.
“Isn’t that how it always is with you, Chandler?” Methuselah asked. “Make sure you get him back here in one piece. He’s the best cook this place has had in over seven hundred years.”
“Take it easy, Phil,” Remy said to the minotaur as he passed, and the tavern’s door was loudly slammed closed behind them.
“I take it that you and the minotaur don’t get along,” Heath commented as they walked along the stone corridor to the doorway waiting for them at the end.
Heath pulled a fancy-looking gold key from inside his pants pocket, and slid it inside the lock, opening the door.
“Had an entrance installed inside my apartment,” the sorcerer said, putting a finger up to his mouth as if uttering a secret he didn’t want repeated. “Takes the problem of being late for work when I oversleep off the table,” he said, swinging open the door into a pool of shadow.
Remy followed Heath inside and was closing the door behind him when something was suddenly in the Methuselah’s alley—something desperate to join them.
It moved more quickly than even Remy could see, forcing its way through the doorway and into the cool space beyond.
“What the fucking hell!” Remy heard Angus bellow, as the door slammed closed on them, and they were all engulfed in total darkness.
There was a struggle in the pocket of black, and a strange sound like blasts of air being shot down a hollow tube. Remy reacted, jutting out his arm and filling his hand with the fire of the divine, which illum
inated a closed door in the shadowy oblivion before them.
Then there followed a rush of flame, and the door disintegrated in a flash of smoke and fire. They emerged from the closet into the apartment.
“What is going on?” Heath asked in a near hysterical shriek, and Remy noticed that the sorcerer’s chest was bleeding.
“You’ve been hit,” Remy said, holding on to the large man as he began to fall to his knees.
That strange blowing sound filled the air again, and Remy reacted in an instant, throwing himself atop Heath’s body.
The apartment was filled with smoke from the exploding door and the smoke alarm wailed. Remy brought forth his wings, flapping them wildly to clear the air and find their attacker.
The shooter took aim from the kitchen and Remy recognized him to be the cloaked customer at the bar for whom he’d seen Methuselah pouring a drink as he and Heath had left.
The shooter raised a long, sleeved arm and fired again.
Remy leapt above the intense blasts, and angled his descent down toward his assailant, connecting with him before he could fire his weapon again.
Landing atop the would-be assassin, Remy drove him savagely to the floor. There was a clattering sound as they hit, and Remy watched as the weapon flew from the attacker’s hand and slid across the black-and-white linoleum tile.
The weapon was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. It appeared to be made out of yellowed bone, and looked almost like the intact skeleton of something that had once been alive, petrified into the shape of a gun.
The figure lashed out at the angel straddling him, the strength of the blow knocking Remy to the floor.
Scrabbling across the kitchen, the assassin went for his weapon. Remy dove as well, grabbing handfuls of the attacker’s robes, and willing them to burn.
The cloth went up as if doused in gasoline.
The assassin screeched, throwing off the burning garment to reveal his true form.
There was no doubt that the attacker was a member of a demon species, one of the mysterious races of creature that angels believed existed in the darkness before God brought forth the light of creation, but even that was purely speculation.
His pale, naked flesh scorched by divine fire, the demon snarled, showing off yellow, razor-sharp teeth as he snatched up his bony weapon from the floor and began to shoot.
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