I shut my eyes tight and reached out through pools of bubbling energy that formed the barrier between the world of the living and the realms of the Infinite, and instantly, I was bombarded with voices seething with anger. They called out my name, each voice more venomous than the next. Their rage lashed out, trying to tear the Word from my lips, but my will blotted them out as easily as snuffing out a candle.
In seconds I felt his presence, so I took a deep breath as I opened my eyes and looked upon the shimmering energy swirling around Ezekiel’s bare feet. He stood before me, pulsing with a whiteness that would blind a normal man, but I was not a man and sure as hell not normal.
His face was smooth like the surface of a gemstone and his clear blue eyes bore into me like a dentist’s drill. His blonde hair appeared as strands of gold, hanging loosely and nearly touching his bare shoulders, and he was shrouded in a winged cocoon which he folded back from the front of his body until they rested behind his shoulders. He appeared to take a deep breath of the stale air inside my flat and he folded his perfectly sculpted arms across his broad, muscular chest.
“Timothy,” he said in a cold, hard voice. “Why do you summon that which you can no longer claim fellowship with?”
I rose from my kneeling position, pushing back a sudden urge to tell him to go fuck himself.
“I’m not looking for fellowship, I’m looking for answers.” I said, matching his tone.
“No, I don’t suppose you are, my flawed child. I have not come to mince words that lead to no good end for either of us. I will assume you seek my counsel?”
I thrust out my left hand, dangling the blood-encrusted feather in front of me. “This arrived in an envelope from your people. I can tell right off the bat the feather is of a divine origin but that’s not what has me worried. I want to know about the blood. I don’t know anything about angels outside of you, so you’ll forgive me if I’m just a little curious.”
He crossed the floor until he was an arm’s length from me and snatched the feather from my hand. “The feather is indeed from one of my kind. As for the stain, it is not my place to speak of it.”
“It’s blood, Ezekiel,” I said, eyeballing him. “And it didn’t come from an angel who cut himself shaving. What’s going on?”
“We bleed for the redemption of humanity,” he said. “We give light in the dark places and we glow with the warmth of His love.”
I raised a hand. “Yeah, I don’t need a Sunday school lesson here. I want to know how this feather could come into the possession of the Archdiocese of Halifax. Is it a Holy relic?”
His eyes narrowed. “It is none of your concern, death-dealer.”
“You’re so damned predictable, Ezekiel –kind of what I figured you’d say. Listen … angel’s feathers covered in blood don’t show up on my doorstep every day, so just tell me what’s going on and maybe I can shed a little light on things. You know my reputation.”
“I know that you are beyond redemption, death-dealer,” he said. “I know that you have taken a name for yourself – when none of your kind has a name. Tim Reaper – a silly play on words from a silly entity dressed in human skin.”
I grated my teeth together and took a deep breath because Ezekiel was starting to piss me off. “I get we’re not going to get all huggy and apologetic here, Ezekiel, but it would be nice if you’d tone down the Holy rhetoric. Just tell me about the feather and we can go our separate ways.”
His eyes drifted down to the feather and then back up to my face. “There is nothing further to discuss. You summoned me to provide you with an answer which I have now provided. I said you were beyond redemption and I meant it.”
I nodded. “That you did, Ezekiel, but here’s the thing: if I am beyond redemption as you say, why did this land on my doorstep? You answered my call after ignoring me for decades, so that would imply this feather is of some importance. If this isn’t a Holy relic and it clearly doesn’t have any earthly DNA, then my hunch is that something shitty has happened to one of your guys.”
What happened next confirmed my suspicion the feather was genuine.
Blackness suddenly filled my office as Ezekiel stretched out his wings and lifted off the ground. “BLASPHEMY!” he roared. “KNOW THY PLACE FOR THE VERY GROUND BENEATH YOUR FEET WAS CREATED BY THE ALMIGHTY! BEG HIS FORGIVENESS LEST I SMITE THEE IN HIS NAME!”
Okay, I didn’t see that kind of reaction coming. He was going full King James English and just so you know, whenever Holy beings started using words like “thee” and “thou”, it was time to freaking head for the hills.
But why all the secrecy? I’d known Ezekiel since the beginning and despite my little faux pas nearly a century ago, he’d never threatened to raise a hand against me until now. If Ezekiel was clamming up about why the Catholic Church saw fit to deposit an envelope containing a genuine angel’s feather covered with genuine angel’s blood, then all was not well in the halls of the Holy.
I gestured for him to calm down. “Okay, look … first off we’re in my flat so the ground beneath my feet is knotty pine and second, my home is a smite-free zone, got it?”
The angel glared at me as he floated down until his feet touched the floor. “I am here because I carry the smallest of hopes you have seen the error of your ways and you’re ready to beg for His forgiveness. I can see now nothing has changed since the time you were cast out.”
“Cast out?” I snapped. “You guys didn’t even give me a chance to explain why I did what I did. You forced me to take the life of that little boy as some kind of twisted lesson at the start of this so-called punishment. You didn’t want to hear what I had to say then and you’re still not interested even now, a hundred years later!”
“Your desire to touch the human soul?” the angel sneered. “That you wished to understand why He chooses everyone’s time? That is not your place and it never was. You were a taker of lives – that is how it has always been. You questioned His plan for those He created and chose to usurp the Almighty by shaping the very power He gave you into a weapon against Him. I know what you are, creature – I’ve seen the darkness inside you. It stirs your thoughts and poisons your intent. It bleeds into your very being and infects your thoughts with notions of taking His place. There was another who once thought as you do now and he too was cast out.”
Taking His place?
The discussion was going to hell with a capital H. All I wanted was a little insight into why the Church saw fit to slip an envelope in my mail slot and now I was being compared to the Devil himself because once upon a time I had the audacity to question my role in the grand scheme of things. Somehow a simple line of inquiry about an angel’s feather had morphed into a debate about the mistake I made, and I hate that shit.
I yanked the feather out of the angel’s left hand and stuffed it back in the envelope. “I get that we’re not exactly drinking buddies, Ezekiel, but you know who this feather belongs to and you probably know how the Church got its hands on it. The question is what do they want from the likes of me?”
A thin smile formed on his lips. “That’s the great mystery, isn’t it? One I’m confident will reveal itself to you in His good time. For now, it is you who must decide if that which you hold in your hand is a curse or a gift, Timothy.”
“Curse or gift? What the hell are you talking about?”
Ezekiel began glow so brightly I had to squint to see him. His feet lifted off the ground and he stretched out his arms as he began to disappear.
“A time of choices is upon you, death-dealer. In the days ahead, you’ll be put to the test and the wrong choice will affect not only you, but those who He made in His image. It was His will that made you what you were – He believes you are not without redemption, but I have my doubts.”
A blinding light filled the room as I fell to my knees. Waves of emerald energy swept over my body like a rogue swell. It burned like a thousand suns, searing my essence with images of a hell on earth if I failed to discover the meaning behind the
bloody feather. Towering pillars of blackness cast an eternal shadow, scouring the natural light of the sun from the face of the earth; erasing any memory of warmth and love and hope. A great cry filled the air as the damned marched by me in an unending procession, their tortured faces, frozen by the darkness that set itself on the world of man. I cupped my hands over my ears to block out the haunting cries and screams of terror when suddenly there was another flash of light and then a welcome silence. But only for a moment, because what happened next made my blood run cold.
Two clear and unmistakable words that told me I was in way over my head.
“Help me,” the voice said .
5
For the record, I disliked anything that even remotely resembled a religious quest because it always ended up badly for everyone involved. But there it was: an omnipotent presence spoke to me in a language whose breadth and scope was beyond imagining and it wanted my help. Me.
But was it Him? Did the Almighty speak to me, the biggest fuck-up in celestial history?
Nah … it couldn’t have been. First off, I’m a freaking asshole on a good day for shit sake. And second, it wasn’t a man’s voice. Or a woman’s … it was just a voice. Even if it was the Almighty, surely there was an ancient order of Holy warriors out there somewhere that could take this thing on. I shrugged and decided if the creator had wanted to speak with me, he’d have done something cool like make a burning bush appear in my living room.
I slid into my easy chair and stared at the feather, still confused as to whatever the hell Father Butler had drawn me into when he slipped the envelope through my mail slot. My mind swam with theories. Maybe the feather was a key to some unknown plague that would throw the entire planet into chaos. Perhaps the heavens were about to experience an all out civil war between competing camps of angels, but to what end? The Supreme Being could kick the ass of any army that dared try to challenge His authority over all things, and yet … a mysterious voice spoke to me.
I glanced at my watch. It was shortly past midnight, and I was in a holding pattern until I met with the priest at the Citadel. I threw on my trench coat and chambered a round in my Beretta. I lived in a shitty part of Halifax and I didn’t like to leave my flat after dark without a loaded weapon because when you’re a known quantity among those who stick to the shadows, you’re an automatic target. I locked the door to my flat and headed down the narrow staircase overlooking the small parking lot behind my building, my mind full of the nightmare imagery I had the misfortune of witnessing. I paid little attention to a cat-fight between two strung out crack heads behind a dumpster at Uniacke Square as I climbed the hill leading to Gottingen Street.
The moon bathed the sidewalk with milky blue light as I pulled a cigarette out from my breast pocket and slipped it between my lips. I was about to light it when my eyes caught a flash of movement from a stairwell hidden behind a large blue spruce tree.
“Don’t fuckin’ move, Jack,” said a voice from the shadows. “You even breathe and I’ll slice and dice your sorry ass.”
I heaved a weary sigh and did as the voice ordered. I had no interest brawling before I’d had a chance to suck back a pint of Alexander Keith’s.
“You have my undivided attention,” I said. “But I’d like to finish this cigarette before you mug me. I mean, it’s only fair, seeing as how you’re going to walk out of here with my wallet and all.”
A solitary figure slunk out of the shadows. He was dressed in a pair of oversized denims that hung down just over his pelvis and exposed a pair of red boxer shorts. There was a red doo rag on his head and about ten pounds of shit jewellery hanging from his wiry neck. His face appeared as a ghastly shade of grey in the moonlight and his eyes narrowed as he performed acrobatic tricks with the butterfly knife in his right hand.
“You trying’ to be funny, ass wipe?” he choked, his voice sounding like he’d hit puberty at about eighty miles an hour. “Q … this fucktard thinks he’s a funny guy.”
I felt a hand on my right shoulder and it gave me a hard shove.
“He’s too fuckin’ funny,” said a voice from behind me, as the cold steel blade of a knife pressed ever so gently against the right side of my neck. “Maybe I should cut out his tongue so he don’t make shitty jokes no more.”
I cocked an eyebrow as Q ran his blade along the front of my trench coat, slicing off a button for effect. I lit my cigarette and inhaled deeply to show I wasn’t buying his bullshit tough guy routine.
“I’m going to have to sew that button back on and me without my thimble” I said as I exhaled through my nostrils, my eyes on the one with the butterfly knife. “I’ve already been introduced to Q, so I guess you’ve probably got some bonehead name you ripped off from New Jack City , too, huh?”
The knife acrobatics stopped as doo rag took a threatening step forward. “Shit, man … all I was gonna do was take your wallet and now you’re dissin’ me?”
I stretched out my arm and then carefully unbuttoned the first three buttons of my trench coat as I gestured for him to calm down with my other hand.
“I’m not dissing you, buddy,” I said, opening my trench coat to reveal the holstered Beretta. Q took one look at it and the colour drained from his face. “What was that line Sean Connery used in The Untouchables? Something about never bringing a knife to a gun fight? Yeah, that’s the one. Here’s what’s going to happen – I’m willing to bet the contents of my wallet against the likelihood that both of you won’t live longer than twenty seconds from now if you don’t clear the fuck off. So … which of you gangsta wannabes do I shoot first, Doo Rag or Q? I’m not picky by the way … I thought you should know that before I send both of you assholes to the morgue.”
Q didn’t waste a minute giving me an answer. He dropped his knife and flew over a chain link fence. My eyes panned over to Doo Rag who began flipping his butterfly knife as he backed away.
“Yo … w-we didn’t mean nothin’,” he stammered. “We was just fuckin’ with ya.”
I grunted something in the affirmative and buttoned up my trench coat. “Fair enough. Seeing as how your associate has abandoned you, I would try to say something deep and meaningful like ‘go and sin no more’, but somehow I think it’d be lost on you. Steer clear of my neighborhood, got it?”
“Y-Yes, sir,” he answered with an audible gulp.
My eyes narrowed menacingly. “I mean it now. If I see you hassling anyone within a ten block radius of here, I’ll shove that butterfly knife up your ass sideways.”
He nodded and raced off, nearly crashing into a roll out recycling bin. I took a deep drag off my cigarette and headed up Gottingen Street until I could see the blinking neon sign for Boyzies, a high-end gay bar in the worst part of town. Dane Woollcott was the proprietor of my favourite watering hole and when I asked him why the hell he was opening up in a dangerous part of the city he told me it made good business sense because redneck assholes won’t come near the place. It was safe, secure and free from any homophobic morons who might want to harass his clientele.
Look – I’m not gay. I drink at Boyzies because the beer was cheap, I could smoke indoors and Dane happened to be a broker of information about everyone and everything going on in the city. He had his ear to the ground because his patrons ranged from politicians to professional athletes, and he had dirt on everyone including me. Yeah, yeah – I know that I stuck out like a sore thumb in the place, but Dane paid me to drink there because I’m the best bouncer he’d ever seen in his life.
Like I said before, I did a bit of everything to scrape by.
A techno-vibe beat poured through the front doors as I sauntered past Marilyn, a steroid soaked drag queen with a penchant for size sixteen pumps and next to me, the best bouncer in town. Pink and lime green fluorescent light stabbed at my brain like an ice pick as she gave me a sultry wink and pointed to the enormous horseshoe-shaped bar in the middle of the dance floor. I nodded my thanks and proceeded to weave my way through a crowd of about twenty men who wer
e dancing their asses off amid a haze of sweat, smoke and Axe body spray until I found my usual spot facing the main doors.
I eased myself onto the plush leather bar stool as Dane sloshed an ice cold pint of Keith’s in front of me. His ebony skin took on a purple hue amid the fluorescent light and cigarette smoke, and he wore an Armani suit that probably cost more than my entire earnings in the last fiscal year.
“How’s life been treating you, Timmy?” he asked, as he pushed an ashtray in front of me. “You find the guy who killed those two girls yet?”
I yanked a cigarette out of the pack and slid it between my lips. “If I were to tell you that it was taken care of, Dane, you’d have firsthand knowledge of a major crime and you’re far too pretty for prison.”
He snorted . “I’m too pretty for the entire correctional system – you? Not so much.”
“Thanks,” I said as I gulped back a mouthful of Keith’s. I leaned in toward him. “I need to pick your brain for a minute.”
“Pick away – just don’t expect any miraculous insights.”
“Gotcha – listen, you grew up in East Preston, right? That’s a pretty tight community and everyone goes to church, yeah?”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t get me started about Baptists, man – they don’t exactly take a shining to my lifestyle.”
I nodded. “Yeah, you’re gay, I get that. Anyway, Baptists are all hellfire and damnation, right? But I’ve never set foot in a Baptist church in my life, so I’m kind of wondering what the official Baptist spin on angels might be.”
He flashed me a toothy grin. “You’re asking me about angels? Honey, I’m a sinner with a capital S. Shouldn’t you be talking to a priest or something?”
Immortal Remains: A Tim Reaper Novel Page 4