by Jim Butcher
Remy awoke to the smell of blood. He could still feel the Mother’s touch, restraining him from the inevitable.
There is nothing you can do.
But Remy did not want to believe it, fighting the grip that held him. In the womb of darkness, he heard the sounds of their excitement, and looked to see the Grigori attackers, their fine Italian suits spattered black with blood as they murdered the defenseless survivors of the Great Deluge.
Something snapped inside Remy, and the power of Heaven rushed forward with a terrible fury. He let it come, letting it trample his humanity in its excitement to emerge.
The light thrown from his body burned like the heart of the sun, and he heard the Grigori squeal like frightened animals as they were driven back, away from their murderous acts.
But it appeared he was too late. The Chimerian women were dead, their defenseless bodies bearing the bloody wounds of the fallen angels’ shame.
“Remiel,” a voice called from behind him.
He turned to see Sariel coming toward him through the darkness, a pale hand raised to shield his eyes from the heavenly light.
“We feared for your safety.”
In his other hand the Grigori held a sword, an ancient blade that had been forged in the fires of the Lord God’s love, and had once glowed like a star, but now was only a thing of metal, tarnished and stained by needless violence.
“What have you done, Sariel?” Remy asked, barely able to contain his emotion as he looked upon the women savagely brutalized by the Grigori.
“We suspected you might be in danger,” Sariel spoke. “And came at once to your aid.”
The Seraphim laughed, a low, rumbling sound more like a growl.
“Your concern for my well-being . . . is touching,” Remy said.
And then he turned his cold gaze upon the Grigori leader.
“You used me, Sariel,” he said, repressed fury dripping from every word.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the Grigori leader responded indignantly.
“You made me part of this,” Remy hissed. The glow from his body had dwindled, the darkness of what had transpired draining away the intensity of his light.
“Don’t you see, Remiel?” Sariel asked. “You were part of our test.”
All Remy could do was stare at the sight of something once holy, now but a twisted reflection.
“The Almighty provided you for us to complete our penance,” the Grigori leader went on. His brothers stepped cautiously into the light to join their leader. “You were a tool of our redemption.”
“Redemption,” Remy said, the word like poison on his lips. “You actually believe that after all you’ve done . . .”
His eyes were pulled to the Chimerian bodies and he stopped.
“The Lord God provided us with a way to consummate a task that had remained incomplete for countless millennia,” Sariel continued to explain. “How could we not respond?”
“And Noah?” Remy asked.
“He has been avenged,” Sariel proclaimed, raising his sword as if in victory.
“You murdered him,” Remy raged. He turned his gaze back to the Grigori master; the fire of Heaven burned in his stare.
Sariel started to speak, but Remy did not want to hear it. He charged at the fallen angel, grabbing the lapel of his suit jacket and pulling him closer.
“You killed him in a fit of rage,” Remy accused, his teeth clenched in anger. “You beat a defenseless old man to death with your fists.”
“I lost my temper,” the Grigori admitted, followed by a sigh of exasperation. “He was just so damned stubborn. Wracked with guilt over what he believed he had done . . . you should have seen how excited he was when he thought that he’d found them.”
Remy felt himself becoming sick as the fallen angel attempted to justify his twisted actions.
“He didn’t see the danger no matter how hard I tried to explain it,” the Grigori said, his words fervent. “He told me that he was going to beg God to let them live . . . that because they had survived the flood He should allow them to exist. That they had earned the right to life.”
Sariel actually seemed to believe what he was saying, and that Remy found even more disturbing.
“Here was our chance, Remiel,” the Grigori leader emphasized. “Something to bring us that much closer to going home . . . to be allowed back to Heaven.”
“But you killed him,” Remy reminded the Grigori leader with a shake.
“Yes, I did,” Sariel admitted. “Not sure exactly how that will be received, but at least we’re finishing what the flood began. That has to count for something. I wasn’t about to allow anything to prevent me from completing what should have been finished ages ago.”
Sariel glanced at the hand still holding his lapel.
“It’s done, Remiel,” Sariel said. “This is how it was supposed to be. For us to finish what had already been put in motion; it was a test for us, penance for one of our greatest . . . misjudgments.”
“Misjudgments?” Remy asked, scorn in his words. “But the children . . .”
Sariel looked to the corpses, distaste upon his pale, perfect face.
“An error better left forgotten,” he snarled, removing Remy’s hand from his suit coat. “They were twisted things, Remiel, neither of Heaven nor Earth.”
“They were yours.”
He searched the fallen angel’s eyes, looking for even a small sign of mercy or compassion. It was like staring into a deep, dark hole. There was nothing there, and Remy knew that Sariel and his Grigori brothers were lost.
What they believed of the Chimerian was true of them—there was no place for the Grigori in Heaven, or on Earth.
Remy heard a sound, a howl of mourning from the throats of children born of Grigori and Chimerian women. He turned toward the song to see them, squatting at the edge of darkness, clinging to one another as they ached over the fate that had befallen their Mother.
The Chimerian lament filled the shadows, becoming louder, and their sadness became palpable. One by one, the Grigori dropped to their knees, supremely affected by the woeful song.
Perhaps I am wrong about them, Remy thought.
All were affected except for Sariel.
The Grigori leader looked upon his brothers with horror. “Get up!” he screamed, but either they did not hear him over the sad song or they chose to ignore his words, for they continued to kneel upon the ground soaked with the blood of innocents.
“Listen to it,” Remy yelled over the forlorn sound. “Listen to the pain you’ve caused.”
Blood started to seep from Sariel’s ears. His body grew stiff, and began to tremble. Slowly his knees began to bend, bringing him closer and closer to the ground.
“I . . . ,” Sariel grunted, stabbing the blade of his sword into the ground to halt his progress.
“Hear . . .” He fought the gravity of sorrow pushing down upon him, to struggle to his feet.
“Nothing!” And he sprang across the floor, murder in his gaze as he raised his tarnished blade to strike at those who would keep him from achieving that which he most desired.
That which would keep him from the gates of Heaven.
Remy sprang into Sariel’s path, grappling with the fallen angel and driving him to the cold, hard ground. The Grigori flailed, lashing out with the pommel of his sword, striking Remy across the temple with a savage blow.
There was a searing flash of pain and color as Remy felt the Grigori squirm out from beneath him. He fought back the descending curtain of oblivion, flapping his powerful wings to rise to his feet.
The Chimerian babes had ceased their song as they watched the scene unfold with wide, frightened eyes. They hissed, baring razor-sharp teeth as Sariel loomed, sword raised above his head, ready to fall.
The Seraphim emerged with a roar, pushing aside the fragile shell of humanity Remy wore, burning it with the fire of Heaven. And Remy let it. He was tired of all the pain and death, tired of being manipulat
ed in others’ pursuits of Heaven.
With hands burning white with divine heat, he grabbed the Grigori leader, pulling him back away from his objectives.
Away from his children.
Sariel struggled in the grasp of the Seraphim, and his fine suit and the flesh beneath it burned with the supernatural fire. He spun on Remy, swinging his sword with a cry of fury and pain.
But the Seraphim was not impressed, capturing the blade in midswing, causing the weapon to warp and bend, and finally to melt.
Sariel’s screams were entirely of pain now as his immortal flesh blackened and smoldered, but the Seraphim held him tight, refusing to set him free.
Allowing the power of God that seethed at his core to flow through him and into the fallen angel.
“You wanted to see Heaven again, brother?” the Seraphim spoke in the language of God’s first creations. “See it now.”
The Grigori leader still lived, but his body had begun to crumble, pieces of charred angel flesh breaking away to drift on the air like black snow.
“See it and burn.”
And soon the angel Sariel was no more, as the last of him was consumed by the voraciousness of Heaven’s fire.
The Seraphim flapped his powerful wings, dispersing his fallen enemy’s ashen remains, and turned his attention to the others. They had risen to their feet, weapons in hand, staring at him with intense hatred.
And the Seraphim’s mouth twisted in a cruel smile that told he was ready to share their master’s fate with them. None moved.
Having no fear of them, the Seraphim Remiel turned his back on the Grigori to face the children of the deluge. They looked away from him with a hiss, the intensity of his light searing their sensitive eyes.
Diminishing his holy glow, he knelt upon the ground, opening his arms to them. Without hesitation they came to him, the three orphans crawling into the safety of the angel’s embrace.
Its penchant for violence more than satisfied, Remy was able to usurp control from the Seraphim, putting the genie back into the bottle for another time.
He didn’t know how much longer he could continue to do this, for the essence of the divine grew more powerful each time it was called upon. But that was a worry for another time.
He had the safety of the children to concern himself with now.
Walking through darkness in the bowels of the ark, he held the quivering offspring tight, consoling them with words that everything would be all right, having no idea if he was lying to them or not.
Stopping, he allowed the fire to burn from his hand again to see how far they’d come. To say that he was shocked by the sight of dead Grigori bodies strewn about the ground was an understatement.
Even more shocking was the sight of Francis, and Armaros.
“Hey,” the former Guardian angel said. He clutched what looked to be a Bavarian Warhammer in one hand, while supporting Armaros with the other. “Sorry I’m late, didn’t think they’d start the party without me.”
Armaros pulled away from Francis and opened his arms to the Chimerian orphans.
“You saved them,” he said as the three children leapt from Remy’s arms to go to the Grigori.
“But they’re the only ones,” Remy said sadly.
Francis was staring at the Chimerian children, and by the look on his face, he clearly was not sure what to think.
“How does Sariel feel about that?” he asked.
“Sariel’s dead,” Remy said coldly.
Francis nodded, then reached out a tentative hand to pat one of the bald Chimerian heads. The child growled, swatting at the offending hand with its razor-sharp claws.
“Cute,” Francis said as he quickly pulled his hand back. “He has his daddy’s charming disposition.”
“He was going to kill them,” Remy said, speaking of Sariel. “Because they had the audacity to survive.”
Francis nudged one of the Grigori corpses with the toe of his shoe.
“And he wasn’t the only one with that bad attitude.”
The wayward Guardian then sighed, and slung the medieval weapon over his shoulder. “So what now?” he asked. “Anything else that needs to be killed?”
Remy looked to Armaros for an answer.
“Sariel is dead, but the Grigori still live,” he said, holding the Chimerian children. They were falling asleep, their large heads bobbing. “They won’t give up that easily. We’re going to need a safe place until some of this dies down.”
“Troublemaker,” Francis said from the side of his mouth, his comment directed at Remy.
“You know me,” Remy responded with a shrug.
Francis nodded, rolling his eyes.
“Where will you go?” Remy asked Armaros, who had already started to turn away from them.
“Perhaps it is better that you don’t know,” the fallen angel said, carrying the sleeping orphans farther into the darkness. “Perhaps it’s time for the Chimerian to again become lost to the world.”
To be swallowed up by the gloom.
FOURTEEN
Remy returned to the cottage in Maine, not really sure why; it seemed as good a place as any at the moment. He wasn’t ready to resume his life, to pick up where it had left off with Madeline’s passing.
It was all too fresh. He didn’t know if there would ever come a time when it wouldn’t still be too fresh.
There had been a few inches more of snow, the winter’s flailing last attempts to hold on before the inevitable.
He knew the feeling.
Sitting in the wicker chair on the front porch, Marlowe lying beside him, he tried to imagine life without her. She had been his hold on the world, the thing that kept him from becoming like the Grigori, and the others of his heavenly ilk.
She was his soul. And now, with her gone . . .
Remy tried to think of something else—anything else.
A few days past, as much as he was loath to admit it, the fallen angel Sariel had provided him with something he desperately needed. Something that took him away from his thoughts and pain.
Distraction.
If there was one thing for which he owed the Grigori leader, it was that. He had temporarily taken Remy from his sadness, and he had liked how it felt.
He crossed his legs, pulling the cuff of his jeans down below his ankle, covering the top of his work boot. From the porch he stared out over the driveway, into the dark woods at the snow-covered trees, and beyond.
Staring into the future.
“What?” Marlowe asked, suddenly alerted, following Remy’s gaze, probably hoping that his master had seen some food attempting to escape.
The dog scrambled to his feet with a bark, walking to the edge of the porch and sniffing the cool air, just in case.
“Do you see it?” Remy asked, feeling the darkness calling to him.
“No,” Marlowe grumbled, turning back to him, his thick black tail starting to wag nervously.
Remy smiled, placing both feet on the floor and leaning forward in the chair, hands open to Marlowe.
Marlowe came to him happily, eating up the affection.
“It must’ve been nothing,” he told the dog, allowing the animal to lick his face.
But Remy knew it was there, waiting to take him away.
A diversion from the heartache.
A distraction found in the affairs of angels.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
A martial arts enthusiast whose résumé includes a long list of skills rendered obsolete at least two hundred years ago, Jim Butcher turned to writing as a career because anything else probably would have driven him insane. He lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife, his son, and a ferocious guard dog. You can visit his Web site at www.Jim-Butcher.com.
Simon R. Green is a New York Times bestselling author. He lives in England.
Kat Richardson lives on a sailboat in Seattle with her husband and two ferrets. She rides a motorcycle, doesn’t own a car or a TV, shoots target pistol, and has been known to swing da
nce, sing, and spend insufficient time at the gym. You can visit her on the Web at www.katrichardson.com.
Thomas E. Sniegoski is a full-time writer of novels and comics. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his wife, LeeAnne, and their Labrador retriever, Mulder.