by Jim Butcher
It wasn’t locked. He placed his hands on the cold metal latch and pulled it up and into place so he could open the first of the two doors. The chemical smell of new wafted out, as the dim outside light flooded into the carrier, illuminating its contents.
The container was filled with all manner of things that would be needed to set up a living space. Remy couldn’t help but think of the furnishing of a college dormitory as his eyes moved across the plastic-wrapped mattresses, chairs, and thick blankets, still wrapped in their clear packaging, stacked in the corners.
In the corner with the blankets were boxes, and as Remy moved closer he saw that they were filled with toys, picture books, and brightly colored blocks. Stuffed animals stared out at him from inside a large, clear plastic bag. In one box there was even a toy Noah’s Ark. He reached down and took it from the container.
Not even close, he thought, looking at the toy mock-up of the great craft. The plastic toy rattled loudly as he moved it, and he discovered that the top of the boat could be removed to reveal plastic animals inside.
Remy put the top back on the boat and placed it with the other toys. He looked about the transport container until something caught his eye. In the far corner of the container he found an unwrapped blanket and a stuffed animal. There was also an opened package of crackers, and crumbs on the floor.
Somebody . . .
The image of what he had seen running from the light again appeared in his head.
. . . or something, has taken up residence here, he thought, looking around with a more cautious eye.
Certain that he was alone, Remy decided that he’d seen enough. He left the container and returned to the spot on the deck where he’d arrived.
Again he found the residue of Sariel’s magick, opened his wings, and prepared to go home. Thinking of the place he wanted to be, Remy let the wings close, wrapping him in their natural magick.
And as he felt himself slip away, drifting between time and space, he realized that he was leaving with more questions than answers.
Remy returned with little more than a whisper. One second he was on board an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the ocean, the next, in the living room of his Beacon Hill home.
It was something he could get used to, and something that would gradually leach away his humanity, until all that remained was a cold, unfeeling instrument of violence forged in Heaven. He had escaped being that a very long time ago, and would do everything in his power to never be that way again.
The wings wanted to stay, to be part of his everyday attire, but Remy told them no. This was how the divine nature that he kept locked away worked, reminding him of what he had once been, trying to tempt him with memories of a glorious time when he soared above the spires of Heaven.
But those times were gone, sullied by the violence of war.
Remembering what he did, could any of them—these so-called creatures of Heaven—even remotely be considered divine?
Remy didn’t think so, and exerting his will upon the wings, he forced them away, burying the nature he had come to abhor, and assuming the guise of humanity.
“Marlowe, I’m back,” he announced, glancing at the clock on the DVD player. He’d been gone for close to two hours.
Odd, he thought, as the normally curious beast did not come to see him.
“Hey, Marlowe?” Remy called out again, leaving the living room and heading down the hallway to the dog’s lair.
“Do you want to go out?” Remy asked, then stopped as he saw that Marlowe was not alone.
The creature appeared human, almost childlike, its body pale, hairless, and incredibly thin. It was dressed in swaths of filthy cloth that hung in tatters from its scarecrowlike frame.
Remy had no idea what it was. It bore no resemblance to the indigo-skinned figures he’d seen perched on the rocks so long ago. It squatted on its haunches in front of Marlowe. Toys were scattered about the floor, and the two were staring at each other intensely, eyes locked as if playing a game, victory going to the one who managed not to blink first.
The tension in the air was palpable, like an elastic band just about stretched to capacity before . . .
Marlowe barked, slapping his paws on the hardwood floor, and all hell broke loose.
The trancelike state between the two beasts suddenly broken, the creature reacted, pulling its pale lips back in a catlike hiss.
Remy was afraid, and as if suddenly catching the scent of his fear, the white-skinned being turned its gaze to him.
Its eyes were black, like shiny pools of oil, and Remy felt himself drawn toward their inky depths.
“Marlowe . . . run,” he managed, looking away before the intruder sprang.
It moved incredibly fast, and collided with Remy, knocking him back against the wall as it tried to escape down the hall.
The dog was barking like crazy now.
Remy dove, wrapping his arms around the creature’s thin waist, driving them both to the floor.
The invader let out an unpleasant squeal, a strange mixture of a baby’s cry and the screech of brakes, as it struggled in his grasp.
“Stay back,” Remy commanded the dog, as the Labrador started to slink from the room. Marlowe retreated.
The strange beast was much stronger than it appeared, easily breaking Remy’s grip and scrabbling to its bare feet in a frantic run. It skidded around the corner into the living room, and Remy was right behind it. But it was waiting for him. The creature charged, slashing at him with razor-sharp claws. Remy leapt back, feeling the claws snag the front of his shirt and graze the smooth flesh beneath.
The beast had retreated deeper into the living room and crouched there, watching him.
Remy was about to charge after it, but something stopped him. Something in the monster’s gaze.
Is that fear?
Still crouched on the living room rug, the creature let out another of its disturbing cries, and Remy watched in surprise as it began to convulse, hunching its back as if bending over to vomit. But instead, the pale flesh on its bony back tore with a wet, ripping sound, and two leathery batlike wings popped from beneath the skin.
Remy watched, dumbfounded, as the creature cloaked itself in its new leathern appendages, then squeezed itself smaller and smaller, until it was no longer there, leaving behind only the telltale scent of magick.
Angel magick.
Remy was still staring at the spot where the intruder had been, trying to understand what was going on, when he heard a soft whimper behind him. He turned to see a trembling Marlowe standing in the hallway, clutching a filthy stuffed monkey in his mouth.
“Hey,” Remy said, going to the shaking animal. “Are you all right?” he asked, running his hands over the black Labrador’s body, searching for injuries. “Did he hurt you?”
Marlowe let the toy drop to the floor, licking the side of Re-my’s face affectionately.
“No hurt,” Marlowe said. “Nice.”
Remy stopped inspecting the dog and looked into Marlowe’s dark brown eyes. “What do you mean, nice?”
“Nice, no hurt,” Marlowe explained. “Give toy.” The dog pawed the filthy stuffed monkey. “Nice. Give toy.”
Remy reached down to pick up the monkey.
“This isn’t yours?” he asked the dog.
“Mine now,” the dog said, playfully snatching it from Remy’s hands and giving it a savage shake.
Images filled Remy’s head as things became more clear, like jagged rocks suddenly visible through wafting holes in thick, ocean fog.
Terribly clear.
He remembered the contents of the transport containers on the oil rig, furnishings for a home, blankets and toys.
Stuffed animals peering out at him from their clear plastic packaging.
“Nice,” Marlowe said again, happily tossing the new toy into the air. “No hurt.
“Friend.”
ELEVEN
Remy called Francis on the way to Lynn.
The former Guard
ian angel turned assassin wasn’t home, so he left a message.
“Hey, it’s me. Heading to Lynn on the North Shore to check out a piece of property that the old man purchased a few weeks ago,” he told his friend, debating if he should explain further or wait until things had crystallized a little bit more.
“Give me a call when you get this. There are some things I need to run by you before you accept the Grigori’s offer. Later.” Remy ended the call and slipped the phone into the pocket of his leather jacket.
He’d reached the rotary in Revere, and veered right onto the Lynn Marsh Road. It was a straight shot from there, across the long stretch of causeway that connected Revere to Lynn.
His thoughts were wandering again to the pale-skinned creature sprouting wings in his living room. He remembered its eyes, moist, dark, and shiny, like the cold ocean water of the marsh-lands he was passing by now.
But there had been something else in the blackness of its stare, ferocity, fear. . . .
Intelligence.
He passed over the Foxhill Bridge into the city of Lynn.
The sprawling General Electric jet engine plant was to his right, the city’s major employer since it lost the shoe industry to foreign shores back in the 1920s.
Remy fished the piece of paper he’d written the address on from his pocket and gave it another glance. According to Map-Quest, he wasn’t too far away.
He continued on down Western Avenue, thinking of the silly little rhyme that just about everybody on the North Shore seemed to know.
Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin, you never go out the way you came in.
It wasn’t long before he found River Street. It wasn’t one of the city’s better neighborhoods. Most of the buildings were boarded up and empty, many blackened and charred as if by fire.
He parked his car beneath the dim light thrown by the single working streetlight, and stepped out onto the street. He could still catch the musty smell of smoke in the air.
Most of the buildings were missing numbers, and it took a little while to figure out where he needed to be looking and on what side, but as he walked the lonely stretch of River Street, it soon became obvious where he was heading.
He could see it ahead of him, the tall spire reaching up into the dingy night sky, the abandoned remains of Saint Mathias Church. She appeared to have been let go quite some time ago, the cruel years having their way with her.
Remy always felt a tinge of sadness when he saw buildings like this, places of worship no longer carrying the prayers of the devoted faithful up to the heavens. It was a sign of the times, he told himself, but it didn’t make it any less sad to see.
Saint Mathias was more than just a church; it was a sort of compound. An alley separated the church from a run-down rectory and an old brick elementary school.
It seemed that Noah had bought it all.
At the back of the church, a frame from one of the elaborate stained-glass windows depicting the Stations of the Cross had fallen away, allowing Remy to look inside.
The building was empty. Anything that would have made it recognizable as a place of worship had pretty much been removed; the only things serving as a slight reminder were wooden pews, stacked in a far, dark corner, as if waiting to be used as kindling.
He saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to pique his curiosity, so he turned his attention to the rectory, directly across from the church. Remy climbed the three chipped and broken concrete steps to the side door. It appeared that new locks had been recently installed.
Remy knew how to do the whole lock-picking thing, but seldom remembered to bring his tools. Looking around—as if there’d be anyone around here to raise an alarm—he placed his hand against the door. He utilized a little bit of his divine strength to force it open, and went inside.
He pulled a small flashlight from his jacket pocket and turned it on, the thin beam of light cutting through the murk. He was in a small hallway that led to a kitchen.
The room appeared clean—too clean. It had been used recently, not like the rest of what was around him. Covered in thick dust, the place looked to have been abandoned more than a few years ago.
Across the kitchen was a swinging door, and he went through into a corridor. There was a flight of stairs leading up to the next level on his right, and a short hallway that led to the rectory’s main office. He checked out the office next. All he found was an old grime-covered desk and a broken wooden chair.
Remy returned to the stairs and climbed to the next floor. He stood on the landing, shining his light across closed doors to rooms that would have once housed the priests of the Saint Mathias parish. There was a strong, musty smell of dampness on the second floor—and something else.
As Remy approached the first door, he tried to convince himself that in a building this old, and in such disrepair, the offending smell could have come from a number of sources: a dead mouse or rat, maybe even a pigeon.
He turned the old-fashioned metal knob. The first door swung open. A rusty box spring lay on the floor in the room’s center. There was a clean spot on the yellowed wallpaper where a crucifix had once hung.
At the next door, the smell was stronger, and Remy prepared himself. He opened the door and found a rat, its withered carcass caught in a trap. He let the beam of light linger on the desiccated rodent corpse, surprised at the amount of stink that still emanated from the remains.
The third room proved to be the charm. This knob was warm to the touch, but he barely noticed as he swung the creaking door wide, moving the beam of his light around the nearly empty room.
Nearly empty.
At first he thought it was a sleeping bag, the encampment of some vagrant who found shelter from the harsh New England cold. But then he realized otherwise.
Remy entered the room, his light trained upon the unmoving shape on the bedroom floor. It took him a moment to process what it was that he was looking at. It was a body, wrapped up in strips of heavy cloth like a mummy. Only the face was left exposed.
A face that Remy knew.
He held the light on Noah’s face. Somebody had cleaned him up, washing the dried blood from his battered face and white beard.
Preparing him for burial.
Around the old man’s body, somebody had dropped slides, as if in some sort of tribute, pictures of all the animal species the old man had saved escorting him on his way to the afterlife.
The sudden sound of a floorboard creaking behind him caused him to spin around, his flashlight beam searching out the source. But he found only an empty doorway, the door slowly closing on its own.
The ringing of his cell nearly gave him a heart attack.
He lowered his flashlight and fished the phone from his pocket. It was Francis.
That was when the creatures chose to make their move. There were three of them. Their pale flesh glowed translucently in the darkness of the room as they emerged from the shadows. They were lightning quick, swatting his cell from his hand. Remy could hear the faint voice of Francis, calling out his name as the phone slid across the floor.
Remy opened his mouth to try and communicate, to experiment with the theory that perhaps these creatures—these Chimerian, which he was pretty convinced they were—were not as threatening as Sariel had painted them to be.
But he didn’t get the chance. Their strikes against him were savage, relentless, driving him to the floor beside the wrapped corpse of Noah. Just as he was about to call on the destructive forces that resided within him, he felt a taloned hand grip his hair. Savagely, the creature slammed his head back against the hardwood floor.
And as the flood of darkness rushed in to drag Remy down, he heard a voice cry out.
“No, do not harm this one,” it said. “He isn’t one of them.”
A mysterious voice that saved his life.
TWELVE
I have something to show you, said the whispering voice, sounding very much like his Madeline, but he knew that it wasn’t.
Somethin
g . . . someone was attempting to communicate with him, to show him something of great importance. All he had to do was accept the offer.
“Show me,” Remy said aloud, suddenly finding himself awake.
At once he realized that he was no longer in the dusty old room of the Saint Mathias rectory.
There was cold stone beneath him, numbing his human flesh with its freezing temperature. Remy climbed to his feet, squinting in the darkness. He did not want to do it, but no longer in possession of his flashlight, he had no real alternative. Carefully he called upon the power of the divine once more, igniting his hand with the fires of Heaven.
In the illumination of its golden flame, he found that he was in some sort of vast underground chamber, its walls covered in thick glacial ice.
“Are you cold?” asked a voice from somewhere close by.
Remy directed the light of his hand toward an outcropping of jagged rock. A figure wrapped in a blanket sat on the ground, leaning back against a wall of ancient stone.
“You’re welcome to share my blanket,” he offered.
Remy walked toward the man, and the light thrown from his hand revealed a somewhat familiar face. “I know you,” he said as the identity of the stranger came to him. “You’re the angel we brought from the rig.”
“Were you there?” the angel asked. “I thought Sariel had returned alone.” The angel was a mess, looking worse even than he had after Sariel’s beating.
“Did he do that to you?” Remy asked.
The angel brought broken and scabbed fingers to his horribly bruised and swollen face. “He did,” the angel said. “For not telling him what he wanted to know.”
“Who are you?” Remy asked. “And what’s your part in all of this?”
“I am Armaros,” the angel said, pushing himself up, using the stone wall for support. “And I was supposed to be Sariel’s spy.”
The angel stepped closer, and the light from Remy’s hand showed him the extent of how badly he’d been beaten. Remy hadn’t seen injuries this savage since . . .