In the House of the Wicked rc-5

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  The sorcerer sneered as he quietly passed the television reporting yet another story of the child and her promise. It was all bullshit as far as he was concerned. The Creator…God…or whatever it was being called now had lost interest in its earthly creations a long, long time ago, and the only message that Heath could imagine the little girl delivering was that the human race was a total disappointment.

  Francis was deep in some sort of trancelike state that was as close to sleep as a fallen angel could manage, while the other-Remy was what Francis had called him-was still recovering from the injuries he had sustained in the place of shadows.

  But it was neither of the two divine beings that interested him at the moment; it was the girl.

  Angus moved around the bed to where she lay. The bathroom light had been left on, the door partially closed, shedding some light in the rented room.

  Light from which he could check on his suspicions.

  The girl had been hurt pretty badly, looking as though she had been mauled by some kind of animal. He had cleaned the wounds and bandaged them the best he could while Francis fretted over his unconscious friend.

  That had been when he started to suspect that there was more to this young woman than initially met the eye.

  Angus hovered over her as she slept, angling his body in such a way so as not to block the light leaking from the bathroom. Carefully, he reached out to peel back the girl’s covers. Her shirt was still unbuttoned, exposing her young flesh and the heavy bandages he had placed upon her wounds.

  He could not deny the fact that he felt the pangs of hunger emerging, but doubted he would receive much in the way of sustenance from this one if his suspicions were correct.

  Angus first pulled away a piece of the tape and, when he saw that his touch did not disturb her slumber, lifted the bandage to get a better look at the wound. It had already started to heal, far faster than it should have been able to. He leaned in closer and stuck his finger into the healing gash, attempting to pull the flesh apart to see what secrets lay beneath.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” asked an angry voice, and he felt the cold barrel of a pistol against the back of his head.

  Angus pulled his fingers away and froze.

  “I’m checking something.”

  “Looked a little nastier than that to me,” Francis said. “Planning an unauthorized midnight snack, perhaps?” the fallen angel suggested.

  The sorcerer sighed. “If I’d planned to do that, I could have just kissed her.”

  “What were you checking?”

  Angus felt the pressure on the back of his head ease, and he turned to face Francis. “I was checking to see if she’s real.”

  Francis looked at him, head cocked to one side. “Excuse me?”

  “As I tended her wounds, I got a sense that maybe she isn’t as human as she appears to be.”

  “You’re talking nonsense.”

  “Perhaps, but that still doesn’t explain the strange aura I’m sensing.”

  “Strange aura,” Francis repeated. “That pretty much says it all.”

  Angus couldn’t stand it any longer; he needed to be vindicated. He turned again to the girl and reached out, plunging his fingers into the exposed stomach wound and ripping a portion of the flesh away.

  Francis reacted as Angus thought he might, pistol-whipping him and throwing him to the floor.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” the angel said, going to the girl’s side but stopping cold when he saw what had been revealed.

  “Not what you expected to see, is it?” Angus asked, rubbing the sore spot at the back of his head.

  “That’s not what I think it is…is it?” Francis asked, moving in for a closer look.

  “All depends on what you thought you might see,” Angus said, joining him at the bedside. “If you thought you’d see bloody flesh and exposed muscle, no, not at all.” He stared at the open wound and the damp gray material that lay beneath it. “But if you expected to find clay, then we were both right.”

  “It isn’t her,” Francis said, eyes darting to the unconscious Remy on the bed.

  “No, it isn’t,” Angus agreed. “She’s a golem…a very advanced golem, but a golem nonetheless.”

  “Then where’s the real Ashley?” Francis asked, worry in his voice.

  Angus looked over to the closet door, remembering the thick wall of shadow that had appeared there.

  “Still over there, I’d imagine.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Never talk to strangers.

  Ashley heard her mother’s voice over and over again, echoing inside her skull, growing louder with every utterance until she felt as though she might scream until her throat bled.

  But she had already done that.

  When she’d awakened inside the metal cage.

  She opened her eyes quickly, hoping that something-anything-might have changed, but she was still there.

  Cramped inside a cage, stuck in the corner of a filthy room that had been decorated for a small child a very long time ago.

  There was a part of her that still hoped something was wrong with her, that maybe she’d had some sort of horrible illness, a fever so high that it caused her to hallucinate, or maybe she’d been in a car accident and this was some kind of head trauma. She would even accept being drugged at a party, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d even been to a party.

  All she could remember was that afternoon, heading downtown and filling out job applications.

  And the strange man.

  Never talk to strangers.

  She almost told her mother to shut up, but just the thought of her mother made her begin to cry, and she had been crying so often, for so long, that she barely had any tears left.

  Ashley had first noticed the man in the antique store, watching her as she had petted the cat. She remembered how she was annoyed at first and then creeped out. She’d been tempted to tell the guy off, but instead she had moved on to the next on her list of potential employers.

  Remy would have been proud of her, being aware of her surroundings and who was in them. He’d always drilled that into her: Pay attention to details, no matter how small. All good advice, like…

  Don’t talk to strangers.

  As she lay curled up on a dirty blanket draped across the bottom of the cage, Ashley realized that the alarms had stopped. The grating sounds had started suddenly and had seemed to go on and on for a very long time.

  But they’d finally been silenced.

  She had thought the alarms might have had something to do with her, that maybe somebody- Remy — had come to take her home.

  But the alarms had stopped, and she was still here.

  Remy hadn’t come.

  She hadn’t a clue as to where she was or why she had been taken, so even though she didn’t want to relive it, she allowed the scene to replay in her mind. Maybe she had missed something.

  She had finished her job search for the day and wanted something to drink. Knowing that there was nothing good back at the apartment, she had stopped at a convenience store not too far from her new home.

  It was funny the details that she remembered leading up to…

  Ashley began to tremble, pulling herself tighter into a ball. It was cold in the little kid’s room, and she reached out to pull a corner of the blanket over herself.

  The convenience store had been empty. A song had been playing softly over the speakers. She’d recognized the tune but couldn’t remember exactly what it was; it had been mangled so badly in this horrible Muzak version.

  She recalled wandering the short aisles, considering all kinds of purchases, even though she’d just gone in for a drink. And finally she’d just headed to the refrigerator cases at the back of the store. It hadn’t taken her long to make her pick: a cherry-flavored iced tea that she seemed able to buy only around there. She’d shared that information with Remy the last time he’d been up, and he had told her that it probably was because Massach
usetts had laws preventing drinks that foul from being sold in the Commonwealth.

  Ashley smiled briefly at the memory of her friend; then the reality of her situation again weighed down upon her.

  Was anybody looking for her? Was Remy looking for her? Did they even know where to start?

  Ashley had paid for her drink and then returned to her car, still trying to figure out what song was playing in the store. It was probably that distraction that had made her less than careful.

  “Don’t Fear the Reaper”…Blue Oyster Cult.

  She had remembered the song just as she’d climbed into her car, and placed her drink in the cup holder. She thought she might have been laughing when she’d inserted the key into the ignition, thinking about how cheery a song about not being afraid of death could sound when run through a Muzak filter.

  The first person she’d thought to call about it was Remy. The two had had some interesting discussions about death over the years, and she thought he might get a kick out of hearing how the classic rock tune was being mangled.

  Never mind the fact that she missed him…missed Beacon Hill, missed Marlowe, and missed her parents. This going-off-to-college-to-learn-to-be-an-adult thing wasn’t nearly as easy as she had thought it would be.

  She’d been reaching for her cell phone when the man had attacked. She knew instantly who it was as his hands came over the front seat from the back to grab her. She saw most of his creepy face reflected in the rearview. She had tried to fight him off, bloodying her nose in the process, but as soon as his hands touched her, her strength had started to fade.

  The creepy man just held her tight, an unusually hard hand pressed over her mouth, the other across her neck, waiting until the fight was gone from her.

  It hadn’t taken long.

  She remembered feeling incredibly tired and wanting so desperately to go to sleep as another part of her brain screamed like crazy for her to wake up and run.

  But that wasn’t going to happen.

  The creepy man’s touch was like a drug, and before she knew it, she was gone.

  Anger quickly replaced the sadness and fear. How pathetic was she to be so easily taken from everyone she loved, to not even put up a fight?

  Maybe she deserved this.

  A flash of bright light crept into the room from a torn window shade, and for a moment she thought it was lightning.

  Ashley waited for the sound of thunder to follow, but it didn’t come.

  She angled her body in such a way as to keep her eyes on the shade, not remembering a time when she’d seen any light come from outside.

  It always seemed to be dark where she was now.

  Even something as simple as that flash of light was enough to bolster her hopes for a moment. Thoughts of a rescue played out in her mind.

  Remy coming to save her.

  She was about to close her eyes again, to try to escape through sleep, when the door into the room swung open. Thoughts of Remy still at the forefront of her mind, she sat up, holding her breath.

  Hoping.

  But her hopes were quickly suffocated as the strange little boy ran into the room, slamming the door closed behind him.

  She had no idea who he was and didn’t know if he could even speak. He seemed more like an animal, grunting and growling.

  He glanced at her briefly as he passed her cage. His eyes were wide, wild, and he appeared to be out of breath. The boy went to a cabinet in the corner of the room, pulling open one of the drawers and reaching inside.

  Ashley wished herself smaller, pushing herself deeper into the corner of the cage, one of the bars now digging painfully into her back as she watched him.

  Praying he would leave her alone.

  But the filthy animal child removed the leather collar and leash from the drawer and slowly approached the cage.

  It was time for her walk.

  Carroll Funeral Home

  September 2008

  He’d asked for some time alone with her.

  Remy stood perfectly still, staring down at the remains of his wife of fifty years lying in the coffin.

  But she wasn’t really there.

  Madeline Chandler had been a loving, vivacious woman who had enjoyed every moment of her life, even as her time on this earth was slowly ticking away, eaten up by cancer.

  It wasn’t her that he saw lying there. Certainly it looked like her in elder years, but what really made her who she was-his wife, his lover, his friend-had left this shell once it had decided to quit working.

  He found this moment alone with her remains similar to looking at a photograph, the image a reminder of what had once been.

  And what had been lost.

  He could remember every moment that they had spent with each other, the important to the mundane. There wasn’t a single minute that he would have traded away.

  Unless it would have given him another minute with her.

  As an angel of the Heavenly host Seraphim, he had prepared himself for this.

  Not this specifically, but for the pain that he was certain would be part of the human life he had chosen to live. As he lived and loved among them as the centuries passed, he thought he had learned what it was all about.

  What it meant to be human.

  It had never been clearer than when he had met her and their lives had inexorably become entwined. What he had thought he’d learned from the human species had merely been a scratch on the surface; Madeline had shown him the reality of it.

  Her love for him-their love for each other-truly showed him what God had seen in these magnificent creations. After believing that he had read the entire book on humanity, being with Madeline made him realize that he’d read only the prologue to the most wondrous tale still to be experienced.

  But now that book was done.

  He thought he had prepared himself for the inevitable end to their story, but now realized that nothing could have prepared him for this.

  The pain was so bad it made him doubt everything he had done since renouncing Heaven and coming to Earth.

  Was it worth it to lose it all?

  Death was a sure thing for them, but they still carried on, living their lives to the fullest extent. Once again he thought he’d understood them, but now he saw how strong they actually were.

  And he had begun to wonder about his own strength. The skin of humanity that he’d proudly worn for more than a millennium had been damaged by the death of his companion. It was a pain that seemed never to diminish, instead growing more pronounced with the passing of each day that she wasn’t there with him.

  Remy laid his hand upon hers, remembering all the times that her lovely fingers had been entwined with his, and would never be again.

  He was close to shucking it all, abandoning the life he had created for himself and returning to the world he had turned his back on. He had thought that what he’d experienced there during the Great War had been the most painful moments of his existence.

  Until now.

  He would have gladly endured that pain twofold rather than deal with what he was going through now.

  It felt as though he were disintegrating, that if he stared at his hands he would see the skin there slowly beginning to blemish and crack, eventually falling away to reveal what lay beneath.

  What he had been before…

  The hairs on the back of his neck reacted to another presence, and he knew that he was no longer alone. He turned to see Ashley standing there, the once-little girl on the verge of blossoming into a mature young woman.

  He forced a smile as he looked at her.

  “Hey,” Remy said. “Thanks for coming.”

  She looked incredibly uncomfortable, eyes darting everywhere but to the coffin in back of him.

  “Mom said that it went from seven to nine, and I didn’t want you to…y’know, be alone or anything.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ashley looked as though she might jump out of her skin as she stood in the doorway to the viewing roo
m.

  “Have you ever been to a wake before?” Remy asked, pretty sure that he knew the answer.

  She shook her head. “Does it show?”

  Remy shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “I have no idea what I should be doing,” she confessed. “Mom and Dad said that I could wait for them, but then I thought of you here alone, and I knew that I would want somebody here with me if…”

  Remy went to her and put his arm around her shoulder.

  “That means a lot.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder, the two of them just standing in the viewing room’s doorway.

  “I’m really sorry, Remy,” she said softly.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he replied. “These are just the things that happen.”

  “Doesn’t mean we have to like them.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “How’s Marlowe doing?”

  Remy thought about his canine friend for a moment. The dog actually seemed to be taking Madeline’s death better than he. Maybe it had something to do with an animal’s simplicity, more accepting of the natural order of things, or maybe they were just smarter than everybody else.

  “He’s doing all right.”

  “And you?”

  “Marlowe’s doing all right.” He answered the previous question again, not wanting to face the pain.

  They were quiet for a bit, just standing together. He could tell that she was looking at the casket and its contents, getting used to the image.

  “So, what are we supposed to be doing?”

  “We’re doing it,” Remy said. “We’re saying good-bye.”

  “Over here?” she asked him.

  “If that’s what makes you comfortable.”

  She looked up at him them, and he saw in her eyes the little girl he’d first met on that hot summer’s day. But he also saw a beautiful young woman filled with promise and wisdom. She reminded him more and more of Madeline, and that made him very happy.

  This world needed more like her, now that she was gone.

  “This is no way to say good-bye,” Ashley said, taking his hand.

  She led him to the coffin, where they stood in silence, hand in hand.

  “She looks nice,” Ashley said finally.