“Don’t do this, Michael. Listen to me for once,” Remy begged.
The archangel lowered himself to his throne with a grunt. “He wants you all taken to the pit.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Can you hear me?
Linda flinched at the sound of Assiel’s voice.
“Did you hear that?” Ashley asked.
Linda nodded. Marlowe’s tail was wagging and the dog was looking around for the source, showing her that he, too, had heard the healer’s voice.
“Is he here?” she wondered aloud, looking about the bizarre landscape that continued to shift and change as they stood beside the massive tree. One moment they were standing in the vastness of some great desert, the next in what looked to be a field of wheat, and then amongst rocks and ice.
I’m here, Assiel confirmed for all to hear.
“What is this place?” Linda asked, growing dizzy from the swiftly changing environment.
You are at the center of Remy’s being, the angel answered. The place where what you would call his soul dwells.
“Why does it keep changing?” Ashley asked.
It reacts to your thoughts, to your moods. It’s attempting to find something that your minds can fully comprehend—a common ground.
“How do we get it to stop changing?” Linda had to close her eyes as a wave of nausea threatened to overtake her.
Calm your minds, Assiel instructed. Focus on a place of pure tranquility.
“Where should it be?” Ashley asked. “I’m not sure if I’ve ever been to a place of pure tranquility.”
It doesn’t matter where it is, as long as it is a place where you were once safe and content.
Linda thought of the mountains of New Hampshire, the beaches of Cape Cod, and the rocky shores of Maine. All the places she had traveled to as a child. Places where she had felt secure and at peace.
“Cool,” she heard Ashley say, and she opened her eyes.
The world around them had calmed, transforming into something akin to a peaceful glade, with the sounds of birds chirping in the trees and the amazing smell of the woods after a summer rain.
“We did good,” Linda said, looking at Ashley, who nodded. “You, too,” she said, bending down to ruffle Marlowe’s black, velvet ears. The dog licked her face and wagged his thick, muscular tail.
“Now what, Assiel?” Linda asked.
“Bet it has something to do with this,” Ashley answered instead.
Linda turned to find Ashley staring at the large tree. The thick brown bark seemed to be flaking off, and a reddish liquid leaked from underneath to drip down the trunk, pooling at its base.
“It looks like it’s bleeding.” Ashley reached a tentative hand out, laying it flat against the bark—and suddenly stiffened, her eyes rolling back in her head.
“Ashley!” Linda cried as Marlowe barked frantically.
She grabbed Ashley’s hand, and pulled it away from the tree. Her palm was stained with the bloodred sap.
“Are you all right?” Linda asked.
For a moment, Ashley appeared confused, as if she wasn’t sure where she was, but then she seemed to remember. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed, pulling her hand from Linda’s grasp and staring at it.
“What is it?”
“This is him,” Ashley said, pointing to the tree. “This is Remy . . . or at least it’s part of him.”
“Assiel said that this is his soul.” Linda stepped closer to the tree and found herself raising a hand toward it.
“It’ll freak you out,” Ashley warned.
“Yeah, that’s okay.”
Linda swallowed as she laid her hands upon the rough bark. It was warm, as if flushed with the heat of blood. She felt the tree as it pulsed with life, but she also felt it weakening.
The tree was dying.
Remy’s soul was dying.
Linda suddenly felt herself falling backward and realized that Ashley and Marlowe had pulled her away, severing her connection to the weeping bark.
“Oh my God,” she whispered as she got her bearings back.
“I know,” Ashley agreed.
They all gazed at the tree now as it continued to weep the thick, bloodlike substance, saturating the ground beneath.
“I don’t think we have much time,” Linda said.
You are correct, Assiel responded from the ether.
“So how do we fix this?” Ashley asked. “How do we stop him from dying?”
You must add your strengths . . . your life essences to his.
“Will that be enough?” Linda questioned.
It will sustain him.
“But for how long? That doesn’t solve the problem of where his life energies are going.”
No, it doesn’t.
“So we’re just keeping him alive with our strength until . . .”
The angel remained quiet.
“Until we run out, too, and then I’m guessing we all die,” Ashley finished Linda’s sentence. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
Linda turned back to the tree, watching it continue to bleed. “I know how I feel. I feel like we can do more.”
“Like what?” Ashley wanted to know. Both she and Marlowe fixed Linda in their gazes.
“Where is his energy . . . his soul, going?” Linda asked, then pointed to the darkly stained earth and answered her own question. “It’s going into there.”
Marlowe immediately jumped into action, bending forward and digging furiously with his front paws.
“Hey!” Ashley warned. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
Linda watched the dog and the hole that had started to form, and felt compelled to move closer. She found herself dropping to her knees beside the Labrador, and began to dig at the moist earth with both hands.
“Okay,” Ashley said slowly; then she joined Linda and Marlowe, and she, too, began to dig.
They dug deeper and deeper, exposing the lower regions of the tree. Linda was the first to notice something odd.
“Wait,” she said, and Ashley immediately stopped. Marlowe was lost in the moment, continuing to paw and dig.
“Marlowe, stop,” Linda ordered, and the dog did, panting tiredly.
“What is it?” Ashley asked, crawling closer to the edge of the hole they’d excavated.
“Careful.” Linda held out a hand to keep the young woman from getting too close. Then she squinted into the darkness of the hole. She could see the tree’s roots as they intertwined about one another, extending downward into . . .
It should have been earth, but instead there was nothing but darkness.
Linda watched the sap flow down the trunk of the tree, onto the thick roots, then drip off into—nothing.
“There’s nothing there,” Linda said, leaning forward, reaching her hand down into the blackness of the void. The loose earth beneath her knees gave way, and she was suddenly falling forward into the hole. She felt herself begin to panic, fingers scrabbling for a hold on the roots.
But her momentum was stopped as Marlowe grabbed a mouthful of the back of her blouse. And then Ashley was there to help pull Linda back to solid ground.
“Are you all right?” the girl asked, fear in her tone.
“I’m fine. Thanks for the hand.” Linda petted Marlowe’s head and gave him a quick kiss before turning her attentions back to the hole they’d dug. She smiled slightly. “There’s something down there in the darkness.”
“And that’s where Remy is.”
• • •
The Harvester was proud of his job, but he wished he were killing.
That was what the Bone Masters were born to do—to kill—to be the best assassins in existence.
Unless born a Harvester.
He scowled as he gathered up his tools, tools that had been used by his father and his father’s father.
It had been his lot in life to have been born into a Harvester family, and once a Harvester, always a Harvester. There was no point in railing against it.
Harvesters selected the eggs from the many nests that littered the pocket dimension, searching out the healthiest, returning them to the home world, where they would be matched with a novice Bone Master. It was an important job, and that was what the young Harvester kept telling himself, even as he imagined bonding with one of the hatchlings and eventually starting a career as an assassin for the Bone Master guild.
With a heavy sigh, he placed his special tools in the egg basket, ready to embark on his journey to the pocket dimension that had always existed alongside the Bone Master home world. It was only accessible once every five cycles, when the barrier between the worlds was thinnest.
Today would be that day.
The Harvester picked up his basket and left his dwelling. He stood outside, in the early hours of the day, and closed his eyes, listening for the familiar sound. It was a sound he’d heard in his mind since coming of age, a sound that only a Harvester could hear, the sound of a passage opening to the pocket dimension. It was high-pitched, painful in many respects. It took him a moment to focus, but there it was, off in the distance . . . not too far . . . closer than it had been in previous cycles.
He found the passage in a swampy area used to dispatch the weak and infirm of the Bone Master clan. He could see it as nobody else could: a gossamer sheet of reality that separated his world from the world of harvesting.
He approached the veil and set his basket down, removing an ancient tool used by his family for countless generations. It was told that the hooked knife had been fashioned from the fang of the first of the special animals to cross from the pocket universe. He wasn’t sure whether that was true, but he did know that the blade performed a very specific function.
A job that only it could do, very much like himself.
Standing before the weakness between worlds, he raised the knife and cut into the area where the barrier was thinnest, slicing an opening from his world to the other. A blast of stinking air escaped from the tear, but he was used to the thick, acrid smell, for he’d been smelling it all of his life. The stink had clung to the clothes and skin of his father and grandfather, and he was aware that he stank of it as well.
The Harvester stepped through the passage and into a strange world of perpetual shadow. Plumes of thick green gas erupted from jagged cracks in the skin of the world. Two moons hung in the black sky, both full, like the blind eyes of some enormous god, another sign that it was time for harvest.
Walking across the dry and barren landscape, the Harvester carefully avoided the open earth and the corrosive gas that escaped from it, pulling the collar of his tunic up over his mouth and nostrils to filter the air. He remembered where he had seen nests on his previous visits, filled with eggs not then ready to be taken, but now . . .
From the corner of his eye, he caught movement and spun around.
A pregnant layer, its hairless flesh prickled with quivering bumps, pressed itself against an outcropping of rock and hissed at him. The beasts were ferocious in nature, and even more so when carrying eggs. The Harvester stepped back respectfully, communicating with his eyes that he meant the animal no harm, encouraging it to go its way and allow him to go his.
The beast turned its swollen body and lumbered off toward another formation of rocks in the distance.
Next cycle, I’ll take its eggs back with me, he thought as he watched it disappear into the shadows thrown by the rocks.
A mountain of rock rose up from the scarred surface in the distance, and he made his way toward it. That promising nest had been located just inside a cave, and . . .
Something else caught the Harvester’s attention, and he slowed just a little bit as he grew closer to the cave.
Eggs . . . There were eggs scattered on the ground, their thick leathery skin torn, leaking fluids into the thirsty dryness of the ground.
How can this be? he wondered, starting to run now. The beasts of this world had no natural predators; in fact, everything here seemed to exist only to allow these creatures to flourish. Even the toxic gas that escaped from the planet’s bowels was loaded with minerals that acted as nutrients for the gestating eggs.
What could have done this horrible thing?
The Harvester stopped before the first of the ruptured egg sacs. The pale, spindly animal that had once been inside it lay not far away. But as the Harvester grew closer to the corpse, he took notice of something even more disturbing—the creature’s head appeared to have been twisted completely around on its neck.
“I’m surprised at how fragile these things are,” said a voice, so loud in the silence of the world that the Harvester cried out, dropping his basket.
He looked up to see a human—at least he appeared to be so—step from the cave and approach him holding another of the eggs.
“I would have thought that something that was to become a demon assassin’s ultimate weapon would be a little more”—the man then threw the egg sac to the ground, where it burst open, its liquid contents spraying across the dirt—“durable.”
The Harvester gasped, making a move toward the ruptured egg, and the important life that had started to painfully emerge from within.
“Leave it,” the man warned, and there was a menace in his voice that froze the Harvester in place.
The animal had partially emerged from within its broken egg sac, struggling to free itself as it opened its mouth and wailed—a wail that was cut violently short as the man crushed the animal’s skull beneath the heel of his shoe.
The Harvester screamed at the horrific sight. It was his purpose to harvest and protect the young life-forms. To see them so cruelly slain caused something inside him to snap.
A killer’s nature to emerge.
The Harvester dove for his basket, reaching for the hooked blade. He grabbed it and lunged at the man, aiming for his pale throat.
But the man moved with incredible speed, capturing the Harvester’s wrist and twisting so violently that the bones snapped with a sound like the crack of whip. The Harvester cried out in agony, dropping his sacred weapon as he fell to knees. He cradled his broken wrist and glared up at his attacker.
“I have no idea who you are or why you are here, but—,” the Harvester began.
“So glad you’ve asked,” the man interrupted, stepping ominously closer. “I need to get to the Bone Master home world, and I’d like you to take me.” He smiled then, a predator’s smile.
“I will never betray my sacred trust,” the Harvester said defiantly, still cradling his broken wrist as he shook his head. “I will never take you there.”
The man loomed above him. “I don’t need you to take me there. I already have a ride.”
A deafening sound reverberated from within the confines of the cave, and the Harvester gasped as two glowing orbs ignited in the darkness—the eyes of some unknown beast. The animal emerged, and the Harvester saw that it wasn’t an animal at all but a wheeled vehicle that moved with a life of its own.
“This is Leona,” the man said, addressing the vehicle, its inner workings revving louder as it bounced slightly—excitedly—on its four wheels. “She was hungry, so I told her to have a look around.”
The Harvester did not understand the man’s meaning at first, but then noticed the lifeblood dripping from the front end of the machine, pieces of egg sac hanging in tatters as if from some sort of mechanical mouth.
“No,” he whispered in disbelief.
“Yeah,” the man said matter-of-factly, glancing at the roaring machine with a smile. “Who’da thunk she’d like eggs so much?”
“No!” the Harvester screamed this time, managing to get to his feet and propel himself toward the cave and the vehicle blocking its entrance.
The man lashed out with his leg, tripping the Harvester, and he fell to the ground directly in front of the rumbling—growling—machine. Its front end opened wide to reveal jagged teeth of metal, the smell of burning oil and rot roiling out.
“Like I was saying,” the man said, reaching down and haul
ing the Harvester up from the ground. “I really don’t need you to take me to the home world.”
He grabbed the Harvester’s uninjured wrist and forced his hand closer to the opening in the front of the vehicle—to the jagged mouth.
“I just need directions.”
• • •
The Filthies dragged a struggling Remy across the open ground toward the pit. He dug his boots into the dusty earth, but it did little good as they reached the edge and tossed him in.
Hands still bound behind his back, he landed on his side, the air punched from his lungs with the impact, specks of exploding color dancing before his eyes.
Slowly he recovered, and as his vision cleared, he found himself looking into the face of the dead, torn and bloody, frozen in an expression of absolute horror. Remy struggled to his knees, seeing even more grisly remains scattered about the floor of the large pit that was probably once a swimming pool.
The cries of his people caused him to turn, and he watched as three of Samson’s children—the muscular and bearded Anthony; the oldest of Samson’s brood, Dante; and the young woman whom he’d befriended, Leila—fell in. They landed with as much grace as they were able, lying in the bloodstained dirt collecting themselves.
“Welcome to our pit,” Michael said from above.
Remy glanced up to see the archangel looking down at them. The others of Samson’s brood were positioned at the edge, ready to be tossed down at a moment’s notice.
“Oh yes, we almost forgot.” Michael glanced to his side, motioning for his people to act.
Eight Filthies appeared at the edge of the pit, struggling with the writhing Baarabus. They pushed the demon dog over the side, where he fell with a yelp, nearly landing atop Leila, who was the last to recover.
“As I was saying, welcome to our pit,” Michael repeated. “We find this a much more entertaining way to deal with sinners. . . . Keeps the morale up.”
Remy pushed himself to his feet. Ahead of him, carved out of the walls of the pool, were three barred cells, and inside the cells were things, pacing back and forth and watching them.
Hungrily.
“You bastard,” Remy said with a snarl, gazing up at Michael.
A Deafening Silence In Heaven Page 19