A spot of rich green amid the skeletal branches of a nearby tree caught Remy’s attention, and he found himself staring. It was odd to find such vibrant leaves in the dead of winter—and even odder to find so many.
And then he noticed that the explosion of plant life seemed to be all around him, in the trees, in the bushes, and even in thick patches of grass that seemed to have erupted up through the old snow and ice.
A sudden barrage of barks distracted him from the oddity of nature, and Remy quickly stood to find his dog.
The sun was just about ready to rise, and he could see Marlowe had something pinned against one of the new trash barrels. He was darting from side to side, barking and growling.
“Marlowe, no,” Remy commanded, knowing exactly what he’d find as he headed for the ruckus.
The rat was huge, fat, and it glared at the dog, its beady eyes glistening red in the first light of morning, bristling, brown-furred back pressed against the barrel.
“Rat,” the dog barked angrily. “Rat take bread.”
“What bread?” Remy asked as he approached, careful not to slip on the packed snow as he left the relative safety of the paved walkway.
“My bread,” Marlowe barked again, lunging at the now hissing rat.
“You don’t have any bread,” Remy reminded the frenzied animal. And then he saw it. The overweight rodent had taken possession of the end of a submarine sandwich roll . . . a roll to which a certain Labrador retriever, even though he’d been warned not to eat any garbage, had taken a particular shine.
“No,” Remy ordered, reaching over to grab his dog’s collar. “It’s not your bread. . . . It’s garbage, and what did I tell you about garbage?”
“Not garbage.” Marlowe’s eyes were riveted to the roll. “Bread.”
“If you found it on the ground, it’s garbage.” He tugged on the collar as Marlowe tried to pull away.
Remy looked at the rat and spoke in its primitive tongue. “We’re sorry,” he said. “Take your prize and go.”
The rat glared at him, its damp nose twitching in the air, testing for danger. It did not trust him.
Remy pulled Marlowe away.
“No!” the dog protested with a pathetic yelp.
“No?” Remy repeated. “How about yes?”
The rat’s bulk loomed over the piece of roll as it eyed them cautiously. “Mine,” it squeaked. “Hate dog. Hate man,” it added with a dismissive hiss, as it snatched up the bread and scampered off.
“And furthermore, what did I tell you about rats?” Remy asked the dog, releasing the hold on his collar.
“Filthy,” Marlowe said, already sniffing at the ground and ready to move on.
“Yeah, filthy,” Remy said. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was nearing five thirty. “Want to go home and get some breakfast?”
That caught the dog’s attention.
“Eat?” Marlowe asked.
“Would I lie to you?” Remy questioned, smiling, the love that he felt for this simple animal nearly overwhelming.
“No lie,” the Labrador said, excitement in his doggy voice. “Eat. Eat now.”
“Well, c’mon, then.” Remy gestured for Marlowe to follow him.
As he turned, he caught sight of three figures on the path up ahead of him, and took Marlowe’s leash from his pocket. “Come here.” He reached down to clip the leash to the dog’s collar. “Just in case you get any ideas about bothering these early risers.”
“No bother,” Marlowe said, but his tail was already wagging furiously. Marlowe loved people, but could never understand that some people didn’t love dogs, especially big ones that seemed overly excited.
“Behave yourself,” Remy told him, pulling up on the leash as they grew closer to the three figures.
He saw that they were eyeing him and he made it a point to pull Marlowe even closer.
“Good morning,” Remy said to the first of the men, a short, dark-haired, dark-skinned fellow, probably in his mid-twenties, bundled up in a heavy woolen cap and puffy jacket. The other two men were similarly dressed.
The three stopped and watched Remy as he passed, Marlowe struggling, desperate to say hello.
“Don’t worry about him,” Remy explained with a smile. “He just gets excited around people. Doesn’t have an aggressive bone in his body.”
He tugged at the dog’s leash, continuing toward the exit when he heard one of them speak.
“Remy Chandler?”
He stopped and turned.
“Yes?”
“You are Remy Chandler . . . the private investigator?” the shortest of the three men said.
“I am,” Remy answered. “And you are?”
“My name is Jon,” the man said, pulling off one of his gloves as he stepped toward Remy, offering his hand. “We’ve been looking for you.”
Remy shook the man’s hand as the other two nodded. The handshake was warm and firm.
“Really,” he said. The man had an odd speech pattern, as if he was quite hard of hearing.
Marlowe pulled forward on the leash, barking for some attention.
“Knock it off,” Remy said, giving the leash a tug.
“That’s all right,” the man said, squatting down to vigorously pet the dog behind the ears. “He seems like a good dog.”
“Very good,” Marlowe grumbled, finally getting the attention he so desperately craved.
“He tries,” Remy said, giving Marlowe’s butt a swat. “So, you say you’ve been looking for me?” There was a strange vibe coming off the men, but one he couldn’t quite read. The only thing that he could tell—could feel—was that they weren’t dangerous, and meant him no harm.
“We have,” Jon said, his breath coming in roiling clouds of white as he slid his hand back into his glove. “We were told you were here, but we didn’t know where exactly. It’s so cold we were about to give up.”
The others smiled as they nodded again, obviously pleased they had managed to stick it out.
“That’s funny,” Remy said. “I don’t remember telling anybody that I’d be here.”
“You didn’t have to,” Jon said. “We listen to our surroundings, and in turn, they tell us what we need to know.”
Okay, not dangerous, but very likely crazy.
“So your surroundings said I’d be at the Common, walking my dog?”
Jon bent at the waist in a stiff bow. “They did indeed. I believe it was an elm. . . .”
“Maple,” one of the others corrected.
“Ah, yes, thank you. A maple tree on Pinckney Street told us that you had passed with your friend here.”
Remy smiled carefully. “A tree told you I went to the Common?”
“It mentioned you had passed, as did the others you walked by on your way here.”
“More than one tree talked to you?” Remy asked incredulously.
“All plant life upon this planet talks to us,” Jon said with a beatific smile. “You probably think we’re mad,” he added.
Remy laughed. “Well, since you brought it up.”
“We are the Sons of Adam,” Jon said, pointing to his comrades, and then to himself.
It took a moment for their identities to sink in.
“Sons of Adam,” Remy repeated slowly as the meaning of the words began to permeate his thick skull. “The Adam?”
“Exactly,” Jon said. “And he’s sent us here to find you.”
Marlowe, tired of all the talking, flopped down onto the cold path, lifted his leg, and began to lick at his lower regions.
A real class act.
Remy was silent, anticipating what was coming next.
“The first father has need of your special skills,” Jon continued.
“Adam needs you to find something for him. He asks that you find the key . . .
“. . . the key to the Gates of Eden.”
Hell
Francis really didn’t know what to expect when he died, but it wasn’t this.
Every in
ch of his body ached. Even thinking hurt, and although he tried to throw himself into a pool of sweet, sweet oblivion, it just wasn’t meant to be.
He’d always said thinking could be bad for you, but this was the first time he had actual physical proof.
Tiny hand-grenade blasts were going off inside his skull, all over the surface of his brain, and they forced him to scream like a little girl.
A tough little girl with a penchant for medieval weaponry, and a dry wit.
Francis cautiously opened his eyes. His brain was on fire, as was his skin. Even his eyelids felt as if they’d been ripped from his skull, and put back with random staples.
He rolled over on what appeared to be the floor of a cave, the sounds of Hell still reshaping themselves in the distance. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom of his surroundings, he forced himself to look around.
A flash of memory—like a hot poker being shoved into his ear—jumped into his thoughts, but was quickly gone in a flesh-rending screech of spiked tires.
Gone, but what he had seen was not forgotten.
He remembered lying on the ground, ready to die . . . ready to be swallowed up by one of the many molten pools opening up on the blighted surface of Hell. And just as he was about to give in to the fury being unleashed, he saw the figure of a man.
A hooded figure wearing tattered robes, and holding a staff that appeared to be made from polished bone.
But then the ground vomited up a cloud of noxious gas and bubbling lava, and he saw the man no more, succumbing to the flirtations of sweet unconsciousness, as what he believed to be the final curtain came down.
The show wasn’t over, though; in fact, it had just been an intermission, and now the main feature had begun.
Francis lifted himself into a sitting position, the pain of this action making him wish for a quick, numbing death, just to make it all stop. Propped against the wall, he quickly examined himself. He was naked; the nasty wounds he’d received in recent battle and the tantrum thrown by the hellish environment had been dressed.
He lifted an arm that felt as though it weighed a ton, and examined the covered wounds. Thick wads of drying Hell-ash had been placed upon his injuries. Hell-ash had natural healing attributes, but if the proper kind wasn’t used—the deeper layers found beneath new accumulations—it could also be extremely toxic.
Whoever had taken care of him knew what they were doing.
He checked himself out; his filthy, naked form was covered with the healing ash. His body had endured a lot of punishment, and Francis realized that he should have been dead.
He took a deep breath and continued to peer through the gloom at his surroundings. He wasn’t too far from the entrance to the cave, and he found that if he leaned slightly to the side he could just about make out what was going on outside . . . and it didn’t look good.
From what he could see, it looked as though he had been taken to one of the caves that dotted the high hills just beyond the valley that had held Tartarus.
The sky outside the cave was dark and still filled with screeching winds and swirling debris. He guessed that Big Daddy Morningstar was still doing his thing: taking Hell apart piece by piece. What he was going to do once that was finished was the ten-million-dollar question.
Something moved in the darkness behind him, and Francis turned toward the sound. Maybe his mysterious benefactor was about to make an appearance.
“Hello?” he called out, his voice sounding incredibly small as it bounced off the walls of the cave. “Thanks for patching me up. Don’t often see folks do such good work with Hell-ash . . .”
Something growled in the shadows, and Francis realized that he might have been a little premature with his thanks.
A Hellion padded toward him from the back of the cave, head low and growling. The Hell beast looked just as nasty as Francis remembered after having gone a few rounds with the filthy fuckers when Tartarus first started to come apart at the seams: thick bodies seemingly devoid of flesh, showing off powerful red musculature. Beady eyes glared at him from its skull-like head.
He tried to move, summoning all the strength that he could muster, but didn’t accomplish anything other than sliding over on his side and rolling onto his belly. Lifting his head, he saw that the beast had paused, watching him.
Viscous drool that hissed and spattered like hot grease as it landed upon the floor of the cave dripped from its mouth in a continuous stream as it finally determined that Francis was no threat, and started toward him again.
Francis tensed as the monster drew closer, emitting a strange, high-pitched keening sound incongruous to its great size.
“C’mon, then—what are you waiting for?” the former Guardian angel growled as he watched the beast’s red, exposed muscles suddenly tense before launching its ferocious mass at his prone and helpless form.
“I hope you fucking choke.”
Fernita couldn’t find her telephone.
She stood in what little open space there was in her living room, closed her eyes, and tried to remember.
The problems with her memory were getting worse, and had been for quite a few years. The old woman did what she could to accommodate the changes. She didn’t go out much anymore, preferring to remain in her home, in a safe environment, where the routines she’d established for herself could be maintained.
Outside, those routines didn’t exist, and things had a tendency to become very confusing. There was something about a trip to the grocery store. She couldn’t recall the exact details, but she knew it had been bad, and that was why she had become more or less housebound.
But she didn’t mind, most of the time. Here in the safety of her home, surrounded by her things, she felt as though she had some control.
That life wasn’t slipping away between her fingers like grains of sand.
Most of the time, but now was one of those times when the familiarity of routine began to crumble, and she was finding it very hard to hold it all together.
“Where are you?” she whispered, eyes still closed, rocking ever so slightly from side to side.
She tried to remember the last time she had used the phone, and decided it was when she had spoken with that nice man Remy Chandler.
Wasn’t it a coincidence that he was exactly who she needed to talk to now?
To tell him that she’d found a clue.
Fernita opened her eyes for a moment, glancing toward the area of the room where the clue had been uncovered. It gave her an uneasy feeling in her stomach to see it there, very much like the feeling she got those few times she had to leave her house.
Her mind started to wander again as she attempted to recall how it was that she’d found the clue, but she was able to pull herself back to the matter at hand.
For a moment, what exactly she had been desperate to find suddenly eluded her, but then she remembered—grabbing hold of the memory with both hands and holding fast—the phone. She needed to find the phone so she could call Remy.
Miles meowed from his perch upon the windowsill, rubbing the side of his neck against the corner of some boxes stacked beside the window.
“Help your mama out here, cat,” she said. “Where did I put that phone?”
The cat looked at her intensely, making a little chirping sound, as if to answer her. He then jumped down into her seat, flipping onto his back as if to show off the black fur of his belly.
“That’s not helping me. Shoulda had a dog,” Fernita said with mock disgust. “I could just say, ‘Fetch me the phone,’ and he’da found it for me already.”
Miles rolled onto his side, letting his head hang over the cushion. One of his paws dangled off the chair and he started to swat at the handle of a grocery bag that she’d brought into the room for some reason or another.
It had something to do with apples, she inexplicably remembered.
Fernita was drawn toward the bag, the chair, and her cat.
She leaned forward, peering inside the open bag to see that it was fil
led with the peelings and core of an apple she’d had for a snack. When, she could not recall, but it couldn’t have been that long ago.
It was probably a good idea that she put the bag, and its peelings, in the trash before it started to stink up the place, she told herself as she reached for the handles.
Miles swatted at her outstretched hand, nicking the top of one of her dark knuckles with the hook of his claw.
“Ouch!” Fernita squawked, pulling back her hand, one of her fingers catching the handle of the plastic bag.
The loud rustling of the shopping bag startled Miles, and he bounded from the chair, his panic to flee setting off a kind of chain reaction that began with the boxes he’d been rubbing his scent on earlier.
The boxes tipped toward the seat, spilling magazines and coverless paperback books onto her chair and the floor beneath.
“Guess I was right,” Fernita muttered as she dove forward to stem the avalanche. “Should’ve got a dog when I had the chance.”
And then it came to her: a memory seemingly sunk to the bottom of the lake that was her recollection.
She was eating an apple right before she’d called Remy Chandler.
The bag of apple droppings still hanging from her wrist, Fernita stepped back from her chair to take in the big picture and found what she was looking for.
She had placed the old rotary phone on the floor while she had cut her apple, and it must’ve been pushed out of sight by her comings and goings.
“Found it,” she said happily, holding on to the arm of her chair as she bent down to retrieve the phone. She brought it up from the floor, careful not to get the cord caught on anything else that could tip or topple.
She dropped the bag from her wrist and placed the phone on a stack of Better Homes and Gardens by her chair.
Strangely enough, she never had a problem remembering where she kept the private eye’s phone number, and removed the old business card from inside her apron along with some old tissues. Letting the Kleenex fall to the floor, she studied the number on the card and slowly began to dial.
As she waited for her call to be answered, her eyes drifted to the other side of the room, where something odd had been uncovered after her dreams that night.
A Hundred Words for Hate Page 5
