A Hundred Words for Hate rc-4

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  “To survive what is coming, we must all evolve. I learned that quite a long time ago, but I’ve only recently come to truly understand it.”

  The angel approached Francis, and he squirmed on the slab, but to no avail. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  “But I knew that things were finally about to come around when I found you out there. It was a surprise, but not really.”

  The angel reached out with a bloody hand to stroke Francis’s bald head.

  “I knew you would be coming; I just didn’t know when.”

  The scalpel was in the angel’s hand again, and all Francis could do was stare in horror at the figure looming above him.

  “I was always proud of the Guardian’s design,” he said.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Francis growled.

  “You don’t remember me . . . yet,” the angel said with a smile that would have given Charles Manson the creeps. “But you will.”

  He leaned toward Francis, one blood-encrusted hand holding the former Guardian angel’s head steady as the scalpel once more slipped effortlessly into his skull.

  Like a hot knife cutting through butter.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Remy helped Jon bury Nathan as the sun started to set over the Arizona desert.

  They were silent as they shoveled dirt over the poor man’s battered corpse with tools they had found after foraging through the wreckage of the biodome.

  “Tell me about him,” Remy said, desperate to ease the uncomfortable silence.

  “Nothing much to tell, really,” Jon said. He had begun to place large rocks atop the fresh earth in an attempt to keep the desert predators away. “He was a good man . . . a kind man, and I loved him.”

  Jon looked at Remy with a sad smile as the tears began to flow down his dirty cheeks.

  “There, I said it.” He looked skyward. “I said it, and the heavens didn’t open up, and fire didn’t rain down from the sky.”

  “Did you think it would?” Remy asked him.

  Jon shrugged. “Relationships like ours were frowned upon in the Sons,” he said. “So we kidded ourselves by ignoring our true feelings . . . lying to everyone around us, as well as ourselves.”

  The man looked back to the fresh grave, then bent down to retrieve more rocks.

  “How pathetic is it that only after he is dead can I say it out loud.” Jon shook his head in disgust. “You should have left me to die under the rubble.”

  “He knew that you loved him,” Remy said.

  Jon laughed bitterly. “Yeah, I’m sure he did.”

  “I can sense these things better than most, but one would have to be in a coma to not see and feel the connection you two had.”

  Jon knelt beside the grave. He stayed like that for a little while.

  “Thank you for that,” he said finally.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Well, thank you anyway.”

  “You’re welcome,” Remy said.

  Jon stared at the grave again. “It’s kind of funny,” he said. “I can still feel him around me.”

  “Not such a bad thing, is it?”

  “No, not at all. It’s really kind of nice.”

  “We should probably think about going,” Remy suggested.

  “Yeah,” Jon said.

  “From what I remember of the map, we’re going to Louisiana, right?” Remy asked.

  “Louisiana it is,” Jon agreed. “But we’ll have to be careful. It has to be done just right, or it could be disastrous.” He seemed to almost physically shake off his emotions, and was suddenly very professional. “The first thing we need to do is find some batteries for my hearing aid, and then get ourselves cleaned up. I doubt the Daughters of Eve would talk to us if we look as though we’ve just fought a war.”

  “Do you think they will talk to us?” Remy was curious, given the feud between the two groups.

  “Sure,” Jon said. “Right before they find out who we are, and try to kill us.”

  * * *

  Fernita Green reached into her bucket of filthy water and removed a rag.

  “Here,” she said to Mulvehill, handing him the dripping cloth. “Start scrubbing. Anyplace you see this writing.”

  For some reason he took it, soapy water dripping from his hand to patter on the threadbare carpet.

  “Listen, Fernita,” Mulvehill started. “Why don’t we talk about this . . . ?”

  “There’s no time to talk,” the old woman snapped as she frantically rubbed at a blackened smudge on the wall. “I have to get it all off.”

  Mulvehill wasn’t familiar with the scrawl, but it looked old, and he got an odd, itchy feeling at the backs of his eyes when he looked at it for too long.

  “All the things I forgot,” Fernita said as she scrubbed. “The more I wipe away, the more I remember. . . . It was horrible . . . just horrible.”

  The old woman was sobbing as she dunked her brush into the bucket beside her and brought it out again to scrub at the wall.

  Cautiously Mulvehill knelt beside her, feeling the spilled water from the bucket soak into the knees of his slacks as he gently put his arm around her. “It’s all right,” he tried to console her. “Everything is going to work itself out. Why don’t we take a break, talk a little, and see what—”

  “They were burnin’,” the old woman said, staring at him with eyes red from crying. “All those folks inside, they all got burned up because of me.”

  Mulvehill felt horrible. Fernita Green was in genuine pain; he could practically see it eating away at her.

  “He was trying to kill me,” she said between sobs, and then with a desperate moan she attacked the wall again, rubbing with all her might to make the markings disappear.

  “Who, Fernita?” Mulvehill asked. “Who was trying to kill you?”

  The old woman slumped forward, sliding down the wall until her face and hands were touching the ground. She was exhausted, barely able to hold herself up anymore.

  “The angel,” she said into the floor, and he thought for sure that he must have misheard her words.

  “Who?” he asked again, squeezing her tighter.

  “The angel,” she said again, raising her head. “The angel wanted to kill me.”

  “Shit,” Mulvehill said, fingers of icy dread tickling the length of his spine. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

  Jon and Remy were at a motel on the outskirts of the Sonoran Desert, cleaning up before beginning their search for the Daughters of Eve.

  The van from the biodome had been singed a bit in the explosion, but it had proven to still be road-worthy. They’d made a quick stop at the closest megastore, picking up some fresh clothes, a map, and Jon’s hearing-aid batteries.

  Remy had just run himself through the shower, and he came out of the bathroom to find Jon sitting on the corner of one of the beds, staring at the room’s green carpet with laser-beam intensity.

  “You all right?” Remy asked, drying his dark hair with a towel.

  It took a moment or so, and he was about to ask the question again when Jon pulled his eyes away from the rug.

  “I’m good,” he said, but Remy wasn’t sure he believed him. The man was pale, sick-looking, and he hoped that it was just the reality of their situation catching up with him.

  “Are you done in there?” Jon asked, rousing himself.

  “It’s all yours.” Remy stepped aside as Jon grabbed a plastic bag containing his purchases and disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind him; seconds later the water in the shower was running.

  Remy had bought a new pair of jeans and a powder blue dress shirt. He tore the price tags off and dressed, glancing toward the bathroom, wishing he were alone on this leg of the journey. Something told him that things were only going to get worse, and Jon had already been through enough.

  From another bag on the floor, Remy took out the maps he’d bought and unfolded them on the bed, planning the quickest route to Louisiana and hoping the van would last lo
ng enough to get them there.

  Steam swirled around the bathroom as Jon held on to the edges of the sink, staring at his fogging reflection in the mirror.

  But it wasn’t himself he was looking at; it wasn’t a person at all. Jon was seeing a place . . . a place not seen by man or woman for a very long time.

  Eden was coming.

  He was both in awe of and terrified by the immensity of the place, the wildness of its smell. It was closer now than it had ever been, and soon it would be here.

  If only Nathan could have lived to see it.

  But it was his sacrifice that had allowed Jon to connect to the special place in a way that his people never had before.

  It was as if he were actually there, walking amid the lush, tropical green, feeling the moisture of the humidity upon his naked skin.

  The pain was sudden, like stepping on shards of glass with bare feet.

  Jon recoiled, his entire body shivering with the intensity of the agony. His gaze fell on the ground at his feet and he realized that where he was standing was inexplicably dead. The Garden around him was lush and thriving, but this area now appeared leached of life.

  And then he heard the sounds. They were coming from the dead zone, somewhere very close.

  Something was stirring.

  Something beneath the earth.

  And as it stirred, Jon felt himself growing sicker . . . weaker . . . as if his very life force were being sucked away.

  Remy had just finished leaving Linda Somerset a message, explaining that he’d be gone longer than he thought, but would make it up to her when he got back.

  First Mulvehill’s bottle of twenty-five-year-old Scotch and steak dinner, now Linda, and he was sure Marlowe would have something to say when he returned.

  Jon emerged from the bathroom, interrupting Remy’s thoughts. He was completely naked, and looked even paler, if that was possible.

  “We have to find the key right away,” he said, swaying on his bare feet.

  “I agree,” Remy said carefully. “I’ve already gone over the maps and I think—”

  “No.” Jon shook his head. “We have to get there fast. . . .”

  “Yes, I know, and I’m pretty sure I’ve mapped out the fastest route—”

  “Faster,” Jon interrupted, panting, as if he’d overexerted himself in the shower. “It has to be faster. We have to be there now.”

  Remy rushed to the man’s side as he began to fall, grabbing hold of his arm to steady him. “What’s happened, Jon?”

  “Something’s happening in the Garden,” he said, gasping. “Since Nathan did his thing I’m more connected. . . . I had a vision. . . . Something’s killing it.”

  “Did your vision show you what’s killing it?” Remy asked. “Is it Zophiel or . . .”

  “I don’t know what it is,” Jon said with a shake of his head.

  “So not only do we have to get the second half of the key and get Adam home; now we have to save the Garden as well.”

  “Looks like it,” Jon agreed. He pulled out the chair to the desk and sat, elbows resting on his bare knees. “We need to get to Louisiana as fast as possible, and the quickest way is you.”

  Remy didn’t like the sound of that. “Me?”

  Jon looked up, face pallid and sweating. “You’re an angel; I saw those wings when you rescued me from the wreckage of the dome.”

  “You want me to fly us there?”

  “Don’t play stupid, Remy,” Jon said. “You know you do more than fly.”

  “And you received your doctorate in angelology from what school?”

  “From the school of answering to one for more than seventy years,” Jon retorted.

  It was easy to forget how old Jon actually was, and how long he’d been in the company of Malachi.

  “I don’t know where we’re going,” Remy said. “I have to have some sort of connection.”

  “I do,” Jon said. “After Nathan ate the fruit and connected us to the Garden, it was like I was there.”

  Remy shook his head. “But it didn’t happen to me.”

  “It’s in my blood now. The scent of the place is in my blood.”

  Jon had received a gash on the side of his head in the biodome explosion, and although it had stopped bleeding some time ago, it appeared to be seeping a bit since his shower. He reached up, touched the wound, and held his bloodstained hand out to Remy.

  “You can follow a scent. Track this. . . . It should bring us there, or at least pretty close.”

  Louisiana: 1932

  Francis had become a regular at the Pelican Club.

  Leo, the big man on the porch, greeted him nightly with an accepting nod, and Cleo, his dog, with an excited wag of the tail.

  He was okay as far as they were concerned.

  If only they knew the truth.

  Melvin greeted him the same way from behind his two-by-four bar every night—with a big smile and a jelly jar full of moonshine.

  Francis liked being a regular, liked the fact that folks smiled at him as he entered, assuming he was one of them.

  If only they knew the truth.

  The Thrones had sent him here on a mission of murder, and as he sat on the rickety wooden stool, sipping moonshine whiskey from a jelly jar, he waited for his target.

  He had been waiting for days.

  It wasn’t that his target hadn’t made an appearance; in fact, she had been there every night. He liked to tell himself that he was waiting for the opportune moment.

  But he knew otherwise.

  It was always the same. He arrived at the Pelican intent on carrying out his assignment, but then she’d open her mouth to sing, and it was like nothing mattered anymore.

  Tonight the Swamp Angel was singing once again, but there was a difference; tonight she was looking at him. It was bad enough that her voice had such an effect on him, but now, as her eyes touched his, it was a whole new ball of wax.

  “I think somebody’s noticed you,” Melvin said as he used a rag to dry the inside of a recently washed jelly jar.

  “What are you talking about?” Francis asked, not able to tear his gaze away from the Angel.

  “I think you know what I’m talking about,” Melvin said. “You’d have to be dead not to notice.”

  The situation was going from bad to worse, and this target wasn’t even a real angel; she was human. Francis picked up his drink and retreated to one of the darker corners. He had to think.

  The Swamp Angel finished her first set, climbed down off the stage, and grabbed a drink from the bar. She and Melvin talked for a moment, both glancing toward Francis.

  Quickly the former Guardian angel willed himself invisible, appearing to humans as only another shadow in the darkness of the corner.

  The woman took her drink and headed toward him. And certain that he couldn’t be seen, Francis watched her, nearly mesmerized by her beauty. She was wearing a frilly white blouse and a blue skirt that came down past her knees. The clothes looked as though they might have had some years on them, but it didn’t matter. She wore them well.

  She stopped before him and took a dainty sip from her whiskey. “Do you like my singing?” she asked.

  Francis looked over his shoulder but there was no one else there.

  “Are you not answerin’ my question because you don’t, or are you just being rude?” she asked.

  She can see me.

  The Swamp Angel smiled, and held out a delicate hand. “Well, I’m not rude,” she said. “I’m Eliza. Eliza Swan.”

  Not good. Not good at all.

  The smell of Eden was most certainly in Jon’s blood.

  He had quickly dressed, then given Remy a facecloth he had used to wipe the blood from the laceration on his head.

  His blood reeked of magick, and Remy could follow magick.

  With the scent of Eden filling his nostrils, Remy reluctantly called upon the Seraphim. He felt the transformation begin, as his clothing shifted from cloth to armor, and wings of gold un
furled from his back. His angelic nature eagerly attempted to fully assert itself, but he forced it back, allowing only a small part of the divine power to come forth.

  Remy leaned in close to Jon, capturing a whiff of fresh blood from his still-weeping wound.

  An explosion of imagery filled his mind. He knew where they were going.

  “Are you ready for this?” Remy asked.

  Jon nodded, although his expression wasn’t as certain.

  Remy took hold of Jon’s shoulders and closed his wings around both of them. In his mind, he saw the place where they were headed and tightened the embrace of his wings as he felt reality begin to shift.

  The strong bleachy smell of the motel room was replaced with the thick aroma of honeysuckle and the heavy, damp smells of a swamp.

  They had arrived.

  Remy opened his wings, and Jon spilled out onto the ground, where he immediately began to vomit.

  “Sorry about that,” Remy said as he took full control back, pushing away the fearsome visage of one of God’s soldiers. “I’ve heard it can be a little rough.”

  “S’okay.” Jon wiped his mouth and climbed unsteadily to his feet.

  “So, where are we?” Remy asked, looking about the heavily wooded area.

  “It’s called Eden Parish,” Jon said, beginning to make his way through the forest.

  “Of course it is,” Remy said, following.

  Jon pushed through the thick underbrush to emerge in what looked like a small junkyard. Old, rusted-out cars were parked here and there, and a school bus without any wheels listed to one side, and appeared to be sinking into the soft earth.

  “Is this right?” Remy asked, the place not where he imagined one of the descendants of Eve to be found.

  “I think it is.” Jon continued to walk across the yard, past corroded car engines and shopping carts overflowing with pieces of scrap metal. There was a dilapidated trailer ahead, and Remy could see a small child sitting on some wooden steps that led up to a screen door.

  The child was filthy, and was playing with a black-and-white kitten in her lap.

  “Hello,” Jon said, smiling at the child.