Walking In the Midst of Fire rc-6

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  “Does Neal know you’re in here?” he asked, shifting the plastic shopping bags.

  Remy took a step forward, but Francis took point.

  “Yeah, he left the door open for us,” Francis said with an enormous smile. “We’re supposed to be meeting for lunch. I’m surprised he’s not here yet.”

  “Are you sure it’s today?” the man asked.

  “Yeah, I just talked to him this morning,” Remy said, taking out his phone.

  “Well he must’ve forgot,” the big guy said, already losing interest in them. “’Cause I just saw him getting into his car. If you bust a hump, maybe you can catch him.”

  Remy looked at Francis, and he at him.

  “Son of a . . . ,” Remy began, darting across the kitchen to the window. He looked through the filthy glass onto a rusty fire escape and the alley below, where he saw a navy blue Town Car start to pull away.

  “It’s him,” Remy said, pulling open the window and climbing out onto the fire escape.

  He wasn’t about to let this guy get away.

  * * *

  Remy was starting down the metal stairs, not wanting to risk releasing his wings and being seen, when something fell past the fire escape at great speed. It landed in front of the Town Car only to be struck by the vehicle. He heard the sounds of twisting metal and breaking glass.

  Remy leapt down the final stretch of stairs to the alley just in time to see Francis peeling himself from the front of the smashed Town Car bumper, a geyser of steam from the ruptured radiator hissing like the king of all serpents.

  “No need to thank me,” Francis said, checking his suit jacket for rips. “I do this shit all the time.”

  The driver’s side door opened with a screech.

  “What the fuck!” Neal Moreland bellowed as he crawled out from behind the inflated airbag. “Look what you fucking did to my car!”

  Remy was suddenly beside the guy, taking his arm in a steely grip.

  “You were in quite the hurry, Neal,” he said. “Late for a pick-up?”

  Francis stepped around the car, brushing pieces of glass from the fabric of his jacket.

  “Who the hell are you two supposed to be?” the man asked defiantly, trying to pull away from Remy’s hold with little success.

  Neal was older than he first looked. His thick head of hair was dyed an inky black and too many trips to the tanning salon had left his skin lined and leathery.

  “Management sent me,” Francis stated flatly, his gaze boring into the driver’s. “Do you understand?”

  Neal quit struggling, knowing exactly what Francis meant.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said quickly. “Why the fuck did you have to wreck my car?”

  “Because we wouldn’t have been able to talk with you if we hadn’t,” Remy explained.

  Neal looked at him. “I got a call saying that I pissed somebody off with my job last night,” he said. “Said I might want to lay low for a while.”

  “Your job last night is exactly what I’d like to discuss,” Remy told him, pulling him back toward the fire escape.

  “Hey, I can’t help if he never came out,” Neal protested as Remy began to push him toward the first step. “I waited until they told me not to.”

  “Who told you?” Francis asked.

  “A guy came out and said Mr. Aszrus would be finding another way home.”

  “Where did you take him?” Remy asked.

  “Where he told me to go,” Neal said.

  He looked as though he was going to say more, but stopped, staring at something in the opposite direction.

  “Now what the fuck is that?” he asked.

  Remy barely had a chance to look when the driver was snatched away. Francis and Remy reacted as one, jumping aside as the tendril of smoke dragged a flailing Neal Moreland up into a roiling black cloud that was drifting in from the opposite end of the alley.

  Remy and Francis knew that it wasn’t really a cloud at all.

  Neal screamed horribly as he was taken inside the billowing substance, and a rainfall of blood began pattering down atop the roof of the limousine and the alley floor.

  “Black Choir,” Remy announced, already flexing the muscles of his shoulders to make his wings emerge.

  “No shit,” Francis said, drawing the golden Colt from inside his suit jacket, already on the move toward the threat.

  The Black Choir was the most horrible example of the fallout from the war in Heaven: angels who chose not to take a stand during the Great War, cursed to be accepted by neither God nor Lucifer, and warped to monstrous proportions by their inability to take a side.

  They were true abominations, their misery provoking their foul deeds.

  Remy searched the alley for something to use as a weapon, finding a length of an old wooden pallet lying up against the side of the apartment building beside the Dumpster. It would have to do.

  He reached for the piece of wood in midstride, his wings lifting him from the ground as he took flight.

  The Choir’s writhing, cloudlike environment descended toward Francis, who opened fire with the Pitiless pistol. Shrieks of the eternally damned echoed from within the shifting black and gray miasma. The cloud expanded, flowing out from the ground. Francis spun, attempting to outrun the roiling storm, but he wasn’t fast enough, turning to fire into the black cloud even as it engulfed him.

  Remy descended from above, the piece of wood in his clutches now burning with the fires of Heaven. He could see glimpses of shapes within the shifting fog, the accursed angels now neither damned, nor divine. They were a horrible sight to behold, their thin, pale bodies warped by the hatred they felt for God and His opposite.

  He dropped within the cloud, lashing out with the burning board, the fires of Heaven illuminating the numbing atmosphere within. He swung the flaming club, striking at the Choir and driving them away from his friend.

  Francis fired the pistol with deadly accuracy.

  It was like a world unto itself within the cloud—a horrible world of misery and torment—and Remy and Francis fought together to be free of it.

  “Get me the fuck out of here, Chandler,” Francis cried out.

  “I’m working on it,” Remy shouted, swinging his makeshift weapon at his foes, while also attempting to illuminate a path to escape. Briefly he caught a glimpse of the smashed-in Town Car, and flapped his wings, flying toward it. “Follow me,” he ordered, swinging his burning weapon at the withered angels who tried to prevent their leave.

  Francis’ gun boomed, and angels fell, as they fought their way toward freedom.

  “Get out,” Remy told Francis, pushing him out of the shifting cloud and back into the alley.

  “What about you?” Francis asked as he fired his weapon three more times in succession, the screams of the damned nearly deafening in response.

  “I’m right behind you,” Remy said, infusing the piece of pallet with even more divine fire than it could contain, and tossing it toward the Black Choir angels who were slithering closer to them through their misty environment.

  The wood exploded as it fell among them, the Choir screaming out in rage and pain, driven deeper into the cloud by the blinding light of Heaven.

  Remy emerged to find Francis standing at the ready, gun in hand.

  The living darkness of the Black Choir writhed and shifted before them. Something darker than the area surrounding it moved within, and the Seraphim was at the ready, wings spread to propel him into action.

  The body of Neal Moreland was ejected from the cloud, spit out like an old piece of gum to land broken and bloody beside his wrecked limousine. Seemingly having accomplished what it had come to do, the Black Choir drifted back and away, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Son of a bitch,” Remy hissed, pulling the aspects of his true nature back within himself and squatting beside Neal’s corpse.

  The driver’s body was withered and pale, as if drained of life energies as well as fluids. It was a horrible way to go.
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  “So much for answers,” Remy said.

  “We might be able to get some more,” Francis said, putting the Pitiless back inside his jacket.

  “What do you mean?” Remy asked.

  Francis knelt down beside the corpse, and from another inside pocket extracted the special knife. “This thing is better than a Swiss Army knife,” the former Guardian angel said as he plunged the glowing blade into the back of Neal’s head. “Let’s see what I can find.”

  Francis seemed to drift off for a moment, staring blankly into space.

  A smile suddenly appeared on his face.

  “What is it?” Remy asked.

  “Yahtzee.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Montagin watched the magick user weave his spell.

  “How much longer?” the angel asked before taking a long drink of his second scotch.

  Malatesta continued to mutter, pausing only when he appeared to run out of breath.

  “This is a more difficult task than normal,” the Vatican sorcerer finally said. “We must repel not only the household staff, but also those of an angelic nature. For such a spell to work on an angel, it must be layered, spell upon spell, magick atop of magick.”

  “And that will keep any and all away?” Montagin asked, not sure if he truly believed that was possible.

  “I certainly hope so,” Malatesta said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  The sorcerer went back to work, laying down another layer of magick to keep the contents of the study a secret—how long it would last was a question that gnawed at him.

  Montagin finished his drink, and poured another. He was allowing the alcohol to calm him. It was the only thing keeping him from panic. What he was helping to hide here could very well lead to a war that would rival the one already fought in Heaven so very long ago. The angel brought the glass to his mouth, gulping the liquor, eager to dull the anxiety that nibbled at the periphery of his thoughts. All he had to do was stay focused until Remiel returned. Hopefully, he would have the answers they needed.

  But what if Remiel’s investigation verified what Montagin had first suspected: that the legion of the Morningstar was indeed responsible, and this was but the first attack?

  “Are you sure you’re a proper sorcerer?” Montagin suddenly blurted out.

  Malatesta glared at him, his hands suddenly aglow with preternatural power. “I began my training with the Keepers of the Vatican before my tenth birthday. Before puberty, I had risen to the top of my class in almost all forms of spell casting.”

  Montagin stared, uninterested, finishing up his latest attempt at calming his fragile nerves.

  “If you wish me to finish this spell, you will leave me alone,” the sorcerer demanded. “No more questions . . . no more interruptions. Do I make myself clear?”

  The angel seriously contemplated lashing out against such disrespect. Instead, he strode across the room, placing his empty glass upon a bookshelf as he headed for the door. He was just about to open it when he felt the disturbance. At first he thought it was a manifestation of his nerves, but quickly realized that wasn’t the case.

  “Angels,” Malatesta said.

  “Damn it,” Montagin hissed.

  He turned to the sorcerer, doorknobs in hand. “Finish what you have started, or we’ll all be dead,” he proclaimed before stepping out into the hall and closing the double doors tightly behind him.

  Montagin stopped just outside the study doors and took a deep breath, centering himself, before he marched down the corridor toward where he sensed the emanations were strongest. Turning the corner at the end of the hallway, he found the servant, Marley, bowing her head in reverence to a gathering of three angels who stood in the entryway.

  The three wore human appearances and attire, exuding discomfort as they looked in his general direction.

  “Ah, Dardariel,” Montagin said, attempting to hide his own unease. “To what do we owe this visit?”

  “The general,” the angel responded curtly. “Take me to him at once.”

  Montagin suddenly felt as though his verbal skills had completely left him. He stared at the three soldiers of the divine.

  “He isn’t here,” he managed, feeling as though millennia had passed before he was able to answer.

  Dardariel glared, his dark predatory eyes glistening in the light of the hallway.

  And then the laughing began—not from the angels, but from the girl.

  “Silence, woman!” Montagin roared, his body momentarily taking on the guise of his true form, a being of fiery light.

  The blind woman sensed his displeasure, and carefully backed away from the angels. “I meant no disrespect,” she said, although Montagin could see that she was still stifling a smirk.

  “Leave us,” Montagin commanded, and Marley quickly turned, hand upon the wall as she nearly ran from them.

  “Why do you tolerate such lack of respect?” Gromeyl asked, a look of disgust on his smooth, perfect features.

  Montagin once again assumed his human form. “That one, I’m afraid, is a bit touched in the head,” he explained. “But a favorite of the general.”

  “I cannot even begin to understand how you bear to have them among you,” Sengael said. “They are such filthy, untrustworthy beasts.”

  “And yet the Lord God Almighty loves them so,” Montagin added.

  The three angels turned their gazes to him, and Montagin resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to step back.

  “Until He doesn’t,” Dardariel said, his voice as cold as the vacuum of space.

  “Perhaps,” Montagin begrudgingly agreed.

  “Take us to the general,” Dardariel repeated. “He told us to meet him here, on this day, at this time. A commander of Heaven’s armies would not be so vulgar as to not be here.”

  “And I’m telling you that—”

  “I know not what games you’re playing, Montagin,” Sengael snarled.

  Dardariel sniffed the air. “He is here,” the angel soldier stated. “And you will not keep me from him.”

  He brusquely shoved Montagin aside, the two other soldiers following close behind, glaring menacingly as they moved past him down the corridor.

  “And don’t think the general will not be told of this,” Gromeyl threatened.

  Montagin didn’t know what to do. He seriously considered an attack on the three, but realizing the folly in that, entertained the idea of coming clean.

  Letting them know exactly what was going on—what had happened.

  “Please, my brothers,” Montagin stated, following the angel soldiers. “The general’s essence covers this dwelling; there isn’t an inch that doesn’t hold his powerful scent.”

  He’d managed to come around them just as they reached the study, blocking the doors with his body.

  “Why would I wish to keep you from your meeting?” Montagin asked, desperately hoping that they could not read his panic.

  Dardariel reached out, laying a hand menacingly upon Montagin’s shoulder.

  “Get out of the way,” he ordered, and Montagin began to feel the heat of Heaven’s divine fire start to flow from the soldier’s hand.

  The doors to the study opened abruptly and Montagin released a pathetic scream as he turned to look into the face of General Aszrus.

  “General,” Montagin stated in disbelief.

  “What is the meaning of this?” the general demanded, stepping out farther into the hall, closing the doors behind him.

  “General Aszrus,” Dardariel said, stepping back along with his two companions, all three bowing their heads. “You’re attendant was attempting to keep us from . . .”

  “My attendant was doing exactly as he was told,” the angel general said, looking to his aide.

  Montagin shrugged off the shock. “I tried, General,” he said. “But they did not wish to listen.”

  Aszrus fixed them all in a withering stare.

  “Then perhaps they’ll listen to me,” he stated. “Leave my home.
I have no time for conference today.”

  “But General,” Dardariel began. “The war council is meeting in two days and . . .”

  “Have you lost the gift of tongues, soldier?” Aszrus asked. “Am I speaking some language that you are incapable of understanding?”

  “No, sir,” the angel soldier answered quickly, averting his eyes.

  “Then leave,” Aszrus commanded. “Do not return until you are summoned again.”

  The three angels raised their eyes to their superior. Montagin waited for some sort of challenge, but it did not come.

  “As you wish, my general,” Dardariel responded, obviously chagrined.

  Dardariel’s gaze then fell upon Montagin, and the angel did all he could to suppress a smile of petulant satisfaction, and supreme relief.

  Without another word, the three soldiers opened their wings, and with a rush of air, were gone from the mansion.

  It was a moment before Montagin could react.

  “What madness is this?” he shrieked as he turned to face the general.

  The general’s appearance began to melt away, revealing the form of the smiling Vatican sorcerer.

  “Besides being top in my class for offensive and defensive spells,” Malatesta offered, “I also excelled in the art of glamour.”

  Castle Hallow

  1349

  Simeon could not find his master.

  He’d searched high and low, but the whereabouts of Ignatius Hallow were unknown even to his demonic servants.

  The old necromancer had mentioned that Simeon’s lessons would start earlier than usual, and would be more challenging than ever before.

  Simeon’s thoughts raced through the years he had spent in service to the necromancer called Hallow. None of them had ever been easy, and many of the things he had learned had resulted in his own death. But that was not such a high price to pay when cursed with eternal life.

  Hallow had called him the perfect student, hoping if he’d had time to sire a son, he would have been as obedient—and enduring—as Simeon.

  But today Simeon was to be challenged.

  He had searched everywhere for his master—every place but one, which was forbidden to him.