Jackie smiled at them, checking off their names.
“Anyone whose name I didn’t call?” she asked, her eyes darting around the room for people she might have missed.
“Patricia Ventura,” the woman standing behind Remy called out. “Patricia Ventura and Petey.”
And that was when Remy felt it. There was a sudden change in the atmosphere. The air seemed to get heavier, colder. It was obvious that the others were feeling it as well because they began to look about, talking amongst themselves. The dogs became uneasy, some beginning to whine.
“What happening?” Marlowe asked.
“I have no idea,” Remy answered as he watched Jackie, her face wearing an expression of supreme unease. She was staring at a point somewhere behind him, at something that seemed to have frozen her in place. Remy started to turn, as the lights began to flicker, a sound like an angry hive of bees filling the room.
The barn then went completely dark and somebody cried out, the dogs all reacting in a cacophony of high-pitched yips and booming barks.
The lights momentarily returned, before they started to flicker again, and Remy saw that Jackie was gone, her clipboard lying abandoned on the floor, the door at the back of the barn swinging in the evening breeze.
The room was in chaos with dogs barking crazily, straining at their leashes, as their owners struggled to maintain control. The owners could feel it too: the presence of something unnatural. Remy watched as a few of them dragged their dogs toward the exit, and he started across the room to the swinging back door. Then he noticed that Marlowe was still by his side and he stopped.
“I want you to stay here,” he told the dog, kneeling at eye level.
“Help you,” Marlowe said eagerly. “Find scary Jackie.”
“No, I need you to be a good dog and stay here,” Remy replied firmly.
“Good dog?” Marlowe asked with a tilt of his head.
“Yes, a good dog will stay here and do as he’s told.”
He saw that Marlowe was about to argue, but then the dog sat down just inside the door.
“Good boy,” Remy said, darting out into the night. “I’ll be back.”
—
The cold nighttime air felt charged, but it was the frenzied barking of multiple dogs in the distance that told Remy where to go.
He moved across the back lot, past an obstacle course of some kind, and toward a larger, single-story structure that was the kennel. The closer he got, the louder and more frantic the dogs became. Remy listened to the barks, hearing the panicked message in their cries. They all had one thing in common: they were all concerned for Jackie’s safety.
He reached the back of the kennel, and saw the open door. That strange sensation still clung to the air, and he followed its trail into the building, senses on full alert.
It was even louder inside, the dogs frantically carrying on in response to what was playing out before them. Remy came around a section of cages, catching a glimpse of the woman in the blue sweat suit with the jet-black dye job, standing over the unconscious form of Jackie Kinney.
He stepped into the aisle and caught the woman’s attention. A look of surprise passed across her features, before she looked back to the unconscious woman on the floor.
“Huh,” she said, eyes fixed to Jackie Kinney. “Petey was right, it was you.”
Remy cautiously moved closer.
The older woman looked at him from the corner of her eye. “He said that we had to do this now, or we wouldn’t get the chance . . . that you were here to stop us.”
He stopped moving, watching as her lipstick-covered lips twisted in a crazy smile.
“Did you see the look on her face when I said our names?” the old woman asked Remy. “Patricia Ventura and Petey.” She returned her intense stare to Jackie, still lying motionless upon the ground. “It was like she’d seen a ghost.”
Strangely, the dogs in the kennel stopped barking. Remy could feel their eyes upon him, as they stared out through the mesh of their cages.
“Are you Patricia Ventura?” he asked her.
She nodded. “I am.”
Something moved in the shadows by the floor, and Remy watched as the tiny black dog approached Jackie’s body, its small shape suddenly shifting and blending, seeming to absorb the shadows around it, transforming into something monstrous that reached down with a black, clawed hand to the unconscious dog trainer, hauling her up from the floor.
“And this is Petey,” Patricia said.
Remy lunged toward the creature that seemed to be composed entirely of shadow. As much as he hated to do it, he tapped into the nature that resided deep within, drawing upon the power of Heaven at the core of his being, coaxing the Seraphim forward to help him deal with the fearsome threat he was about to confront.
Through a warrior’s eyes, Remy watched as the creature called Petey reacted, its movements quicksilver fast. Jackie’s body was cast aside, and Petey came at him, immersing him in the darkness of its mass.
The black of the beast seeped through his clothes, and into his flesh, permeating his very soul, and Remy felt an anger—a rage—that threatened to overwhelm him, and to unleash the full fury of the angelic essence that was held in check within the human guise that he wore.
An angelic essence that, if roused to anger, could burn the world to a cinder.
—
Marlowe was a good dog, he really was, but still he stood at the open door, tempted to go farther. The Labrador lifted his snout and sniffed at the air. His Remy was there on the wind, but there was something else as well.
Something that made the hackles of black fur around his thick neck stand on end, something that could only mean that his Remy might need him.
Marlowe started to go forward, but heard his master’s words again warning him to stay where he was. If he was a good dog he would do what his Remy asked of him.
He hesitated momentarily, not wanting to be bad, but could not help himself.
—
Remy had dropped to his knees, arms wrapped tightly around himself as he tried to keep the destructive potential of his angelic nature inside.
It was so angry right now; it wanted to come out. . . . It wanted to come out and burn the world and everybody on it. And then it wanted to move on to Heaven.
“I call it Petey,” the old woman said. She was wringing her hands, old eyes fixed to the living shadow as it expanded and contracted in the air beside her. “But I know it isn’t really him.”
Jackie Kinney was starting to come around, her moans just a precursor to the horrors to come, Remy was sure. He had to get control of himself, to push the power of the Seraphim back down deep inside himself where it couldn’t do any harm before he could help her.
But it was just so damned angry.
“I think it was the grief that called it,” Patricia began to explain. “My grandfather from the old country called it the Bad Hour . . . some kind of spirit or demon or whatever, that came when the anger . . . when the grief was just too strong to control.”
Through burning eyes Remy watched the living shadow churn and shift its form to that of the little black dog again, before transforming back to its more monstrous shape. It then surged down to the woman moaning on the ground and snatched her up, holding her body aloft in the grip of shadow.
The kennel dogs had started to react again, snarling and baring their teeth through the screened doors of their kennels. It was apparent that they too had been touched by the anger exuded by the black beast . . . the thing called the Bad Hour.
“It was her that did it,” Patricia accused, eyes fixed to Jackie hanging in the air in front of her. “She was responsible for all of this.”
The living shadow let out a fearsome growl, shaking the dog trainer’s body like a rag doll. Jackie moaned in both pain and mortal terror.
“How?” Remy managed, still fighting to keep his more volatile nature in check. He needed to know what this was all about. Maybe in knowing he would find a way t
o defeat the beast, as well as the anger that crippled him.
“I trusted her,” Patricia said with a quiver of rage in her voice. “I trusted her with my Petey and she killed him.”
The old woman was crying now, and the shadow thing—this Bad Hour—extended a tendril of darkness to her, tenderly stroking her face, as if savoring her tears and sadness.
“My mother was dying, and I had to go to her, to be with her. . . . I knew that it wouldn’t be long, that I was going to say good-bye to her. She was the last of my family, my brother and sister had been gone for nearly two years. . . . We were all that was left, Momma and me . . . and Petey.”
The little dog appeared briefly in the mass of shadow again.
“I’d never had children, so Petey was my child . . . my baby.” She was wringing her hands faster now, more violently, as if trying rub them clean of some stubborn stain.
“Momma was in the hospital and I knew that Petey wouldn’t be allowed there. . . . I needed a place for him to stay, where somebody would take care of him until I got back.”
Patricia clenched her fists and strode toward Jackie hanging in the air, to confront the trainer.
“This woman . . . this cold-hearted bitch promised to take care of my baby, swore to me that she’d look after him . . . and she lied.”
Remy saw that Jackie’s eyes were now open, a tentacle of darkness wrapped tightly around her throat.
“No,” Jackie managed, her voice nothing more than a tortured whisper. “It . . . It was . . . accident.”
Patricia shook her fists at the woman. “Don’t you dare say that,” she hissed, the flush of her cheeks showing through the heavy makeup. “Don’t you dare!”
The Bad Hour flowed tighter about Jackie, bending her limbs in impossible ways, threatening to break her into pieces.
“I trusted you,” Patricia shrieked. “I trusted you and you killed my Petey.”
Jackie struggled pathetically in the grip of nightmare.
“So . . . sorry . . .”
“No,” Patricia bellowed, turning her gaze from the woman. “It’s too late for that. . . . You did what you did and you have to pay. . . . I have to pay.”
The older woman seemed to grow smaller, collapsing in upon herself.
The Bad Hour reached out again with one of its limbs of shadow, touching the woman as if lending her some of its strength, feeding her anger.
“I know the story she told, I’ve heard it over and over again inside my head, but it doesn’t matter one little bit.” Patricia studied the trainer hanging helplessly before her. “You weren’t looking out for him. . . . You weren’t being careful, and you let him get out of his crate, and he was so scared. . . .”
Patricia became overcome with emotion, choking back her tears as she again recollected what had led them all to this.
“He . . . He was probably looking for me . . . wondering where I had gone . . . why I had left him in this . . . place. . . .” She dropped to her knees, weak from grief. “So scared that he didn’t even think of the road outside . . . of the cars. . . .”
Patricia stared at her balled fists; they were trembling with fury.
“You told me that he was dead when you found him, that the car that struck him hadn’t even stopped. . . .”
She looked at Remy then, and he saw in her eyes the depths of her sadness, of a grief so strong that a monster such as the Bad Hour could have feasted upon it for centuries.
“Can you imagine hearing that?” she asked him. “Hearing that about your baby?”
Remy couldn’t imagine it, and the Seraphim fought harder, surging to escape the prison of flesh, blood, muscle, and bone that had kept it locked away for centuries.
The Bad Hour was growing, feeding off all the emotion in the room. This was its power, to feed upon the anger, to use it to grow its strength. There was no wonder why it hadn’t yet dealt with Jackie, Patricia’s emotions still so very raw . . . so strong.
So delicious.
“I tried to get past it, but I couldn’t. . . . I kept imagining him there, lying in the road, wondering why I had left him as he died.” She was sobbing now, the grief completely overwhelming her as it had continued to do since Petey’s death.
And the Bad Hour grew stronger, taking the little form of Petey, stoking the fires of her grief.
Patricia suddenly went quiet, wiping the tears from her face as she carefully rose from her knees.
“And now we’ve come to this,” she said, seeming more in control. “At first I was afraid . . . scared of what I had called up. . . . I tried to warn you with a note that it was coming, so that you could prepare. . . . I think I did it more for myself, hoping that it might satisfy my anger, my hunger for revenge if you knew something was coming . . . but it did the opposite and made me want to see you suffer all the more.”
Patricia stared at her adversary, with dark, cold eyes. There was a piece of the Bad Hour behind those eyes, of that Remy had no doubt.
“How should we do this?” the woman then asked. “How do I make you pay for your sins? Do I let Petey drag you out into the street so that you can be hit by a car and die there alone . . . or do I let it just rip you apart while I watch?”
The Bad Hour seethed, writhing in anticipation, feeding off the woman’s escalating fury. This was what it had been waiting for, and though it had savored her tears and rage, this was what it was all about.
The coup de grace.
Remy felt as if his skin were on fire, the Seraphim bubbling just below the surface. The Bad Hour’s influence was still upon him, but he had to try to stop this . . . to halt what was about to happen.
“And if you do this,” Remy asked, still managing to hold on to the leash that kept the power of Heaven inside him in check. “If you toss her in the street to be hit . . . or rip her apart . . . what then?”
Patricia seemed confused by the question, the darkness in her eyes temporarily fleeing. “She’ll have paid for what she did to my baby . . . to me.”
“But then what?” Remy asked. “Petey will still be gone. . . . The grief will still be as real.”
The Bad Hour did not like what he was saying. A mass of solidified shadow whipped out from its boiling mass to strike him savagely to the floor. It took all that Remy had to maintain his grip upon his divine nature, to retain his humanity in the moment.
“You’ll still have to deal with the guilt that you’re carrying,” he told her, lifting his face to look at her.
The old woman seemed startled.
“My guilt?” she asked incredulously. “Why would I have any guilt? It was she who . . .”
“You left your baby,” Remy said, rising, hoping to weaken the Bad Hour’s hold upon her, to redirect some of that anguish and rage upon her.
“I had no choice!” Patricia bleated, the tears starting to flow again. “My mother was dying and I couldn’t . . .”
“Your mother was your major concern,” Remy said, regaining a slight bit of control over the angelic essence roused to anger by the demonic spirit. “Petey had to come second.”
“But I loved him,” the woman sobbed.
“I never said that you didn’t,” Remy told her. “But a decision had to be made, and you made it.”
“I couldn’t take him with me. . . . I was staying at the hospital just in case . . . for when the time came,” Patricia said, remembering.
“You made a decision to have somebody else care for Petey,” Remy said, driving the point home.
“She had excellent references,” Patricia said. “I even called some of the people to ask about how their dogs were treated.”
“You did everything you could to be sure that Petey would be cared for,” Remy said.
“I did.”
“But something happened,” Remy stressed. “Something horrible.”
“She killed him!” Patricia screamed, and the miasma of darkness that was the Bad Hour seemed to grow even larger, starting to engulf the still struggling Jackie Kinney as she
was hanging in the air. The dog trainer fought against the living shadow as it attempted to flow into her mouth and nose.
The dogs were on the brink of madness now, throwing themselves against their cages.
“No, it was an accident,” Remy bellowed above the din, trying to keep his own emotions in check so as not to rouse the angelic fury within himself.
“She was responsible for my baby . . . for his life, and now he’s gone because of her!”
“And that’s all true,” Remy said. “But it doesn’t mean that she did anything on purpose. Yes, she’s responsible, but she didn’t kill Petey. You’re as guilty of his death as she is.”
Patricia looked to the living mass of darkness that had practically enveloped all of Jackie Kinney, the look upon her face telling him that perhaps his words had managed to permeate through the thick cover of anguish, and sadness.
The cloud of black receded, and Jackie began to cough uncontrollably as she was able to breathe again.
“You’re right,” Patricia said, as the Bad Hour angrily tossed the trainer to the floor. The living shadow began to transform, taking the shape of the little black dog, lying upon the ground, its limbs twisted and broken as if having just suffered some major trauma—as if struck by a car.
“No,” Patricia screamed at the sight, trying to look away, and as she turned her head, the dog began to pathetically cry out, and Remy could understand the words and emotions being conveyed.
As could the old woman.
She killed me, said the Bad Hour, using the form of Petey as its mouthpiece. If it wasn’t for her I’d still be alive. . . . You would still have me to love. . . .
The words were burrowing their way inside her, rekindling the fire that Remy thought he’d begun to extinguish.
Jackie had managed to struggle to her knees and Remy found himself crawling over to the woman, blocking her from the next assault that was about to occur.
“Leave her alone,” Remy roared, as some of his Heavenly might slipped from his control. The kennel was suddenly filled with an unearthly glow, and wings of golden fire erupted from his back, expanding to fan the growing darkness away from them with their Divine brilliance.
An Apple for the Creature Page 34