He reached for a silver decanter and poured a libation into a tarnished goblet. “Wine?” the Pope offered.
Remiel found himself taking a goblet in hand and holding it out so that the holy man could fill it.
They both noticed the servant girl now standing nearby, watching the holy man, a look of horror upon her face.
“Please, your holiness, please allow me to pour . . . ,” she began.
“Off with you, girl,” the Pope said, setting down the decanter. “My guest and I wish for privacy.”
He turned his cold, gray eyes to Remiel.
“And we’re both human enough to serve ourselves,” he added with a smile.
Remiel turned his gaze to her, reassuring the girl with a kind nod. She turned away, darting into a passage behind a scarlet curtain.
Pope Tyranus leaned forward in his chair, sinking his long fingers into the eye socket of the roast boar, rooting around, and removing the gelatinous remains of the wild pig’s eye.
“Excuse my lack of manners,” the Pope said as he brought the dripping organ of sight toward his eager mouth, “but I’m simply famished. You should be honored that I waited for you.”
He slurped the eye from his fingers and chewed happily.
“You said that the lord of this manor and most of his servants are dead,” Remiel began. He picked up his goblet of wine.
The Pope waited for him to continue, using his silken robes to wipe away the ocular fluid that dribbled down his chin.
“So why are you here?” Remiel asked as he sipped from his silver cup, his eyes never leaving those of the Pope. “Why would one such as yourself risk exposing himself, and his servants”—Remiel turned slightly in his chair to glance at the soldiers who remained at attention in the entry to the dining hall—“to the potential of plague?”
“Exactly,” Tyranus reiterated. “What could be of such importance that I would leave the safety of Rome and expose myself to all of this . . .” He waved his bejeweled hand around in the air beside his head. “Death,” he finished dramatically.
The Pope sipped more wine, as if he needed the soothing effects of the libation to continue.
“These are dark and dangerous times we live in, soldier of God,” Tyranus told him. “There are forces of darkness afoot that wish to squelch the goodness of the true faith.”
Remiel was amused by the statement—as if one faith of humanity were somehow better than all the rest. As if one specific religion would somehow place its followers closer to God than all the others.
Pope Tyranus must have caught the look on Remiel’s face. “Do you not see it as you make your way in the world, angel?” he asked, his annoyance clear in his tone. “Things lurking in the shadows that lust to see your most holy radiance snuffed out like a candle’s flame.”
Remiel slowly rotated his goblet upon the wooden table, carefully considering his words.
“This world has always been plagued by darkness, but there has also been light. There is a balance here, I believe.”
“Balance?” Tyranus sneered. “I’m afraid I see a world teetering on the edge of the abyss. Balance was lost a very long time ago.”
He picked at some pheasant meat that he had torn from the body of the bird and placed upon his plate.
“I plan to keep this world from plunging headlong into damnation.”
“And this has brought you here? To England?”
Tyranus slowly chewed the piece of pheasant meat he’d put in his mouth. “Exactly, angel.”
“And how do you plan to prevent the world from being swallowed up by this darkness you see?” Remiel asked, curious.
“I sense that we don’t necessarily agree on the level of the threat that the good people of the world face,” Tyranus stated.
Remiel shrugged. “It is a matter of perception,” he explained. “When one has seen true darkness . . .”
The angel remembered the war against the Morningstar, and the lives of his brothers that he was forced to take. The taste of angel blood was suddenly in his mouth, and he quickly picked up his goblet to wash it away with wine.
“Perhaps, but from the look I see upon your face now . . . you’ve experienced something akin to what I see out there.” The Pope pointed beyond the dining hall, out beyond the castle, out into the countryside racked by plague and things of a far more sinister nature.
“Though my brothers and sisters of the blessed faith disagree with my methods, I believe I have found the answer to stifling the flow of evil into the world.”
Remiel waited for the revelation, still hearing the ghostly sounds of Heaven’s war echoing in his ear.
“By fighting fire, with fire,” Pope Tyranus confided. “Darkness used in the service of light, against darkness.”
The angel considered this, and found the concept interesting, but still could not quite fathom why he had been summoned here. What was his part to play in all of this?
“And my role in this battle against the encroaching shadows?” he asked.
Pope Tyranus smiled, his icy eyes twinkling.
“The lord in whose house we now reside summoned me with knowledge of an item of incredible power.” The old man spoke in a whisper that only they could hear. “A ring once given to the great King Solomon by the Archangel Michael.”
Remiel immediately perked up, remembering the ring, and how it would give whomever possessed it control over the demonic.
“I can see that you know of this item,” Pope Tyranus spoke.
“The sigil ring,” Remiel said. “As far as I know, it was lost after the death of the wise king.”
“And for a time it was,” the Pope acknowledged, slowly nodding. “But it was eventually found, though not by any who shared the great king’s connection to the divine.”
Tyranus paused, playing with a silver ring upon his finger, slowly turning it around, and around.
“The ring found its way from one eager finger to the next, as all who possessed the powerful, magickal artifact fell victim to an evil successor.”
“And the lord who succumbed?” Remiel asked. “He had knowledge of who now possesses the sigil ring?”
“Oh yes,” the Pope said, his voice a chilling hiss. “He had succumbed to the plague before my arrival, but that did not prevent me from . . . extracting the information by supernatural means.”
Remiel looked at the holy man, offended by what he was suggesting.
“Fire with fire, soldier of God,” he clarified. “Though it pained me to do so, I recalled his spirit to the earthly realm, and for the good of the world forced it to give up the ring’s current owner and location.”
“Who now possesses this artifact?”
“It has come into the possession of a powerful necromancer,” the Pope said. “One who has learned to harness the power of the dead and dying.”
“Where?” Remiel asked, already suspecting he knew the answer.
“Somewhere right outside this door, angel,” Pope Tyranus said. “Can you think of a better place for one who harnesses the power of death, than a region besieged by plague?”
“His magick will be strong,” Remiel said.
“But not as strong as a soldier of Heaven,” Pope Tyranus said, leaning back in his chair, again fiddling with the ring upon his finger.
“You’re going to help me, angel,” the Pope told him. “You’re going to obtain Solomon’s sigil ring, and do your part in keeping the world from sliding into darkness.”
Remiel was stunned, shocked that one such as Tyranus felt that he could give orders to an angel of the holy host Seraphim as if he were a mere lackey.
But for reasons then unknown to him, the angel Remiel held his tongue, knowing that he would do everything in his power to perform this chore, and to obtain the ring of Solomon for the one who asked it of him.
For Pope Tyranus of the Holy Roman Empire.
* * *
“I’m sorry,” Remy told the Vatican representative. “I have no interest in working for yo
u, or the Keepers, or anybody else associated with the Vatican.”
Malatesta just stared.
“I know it’s probably hard for you to believe, but—”
“No,” the man interrupted. “After reviewing what I could find on your original involvement with us . . .”
“I’m surprised there was anything left for you to review,” Remy said. “Since Tyranus’ name was removed from the lineage of popes.”
“Even though his reign was erased, there are still some records to be found about the Black Pope, and his actions during the Middle Ages.”
Remy chuckled. “Kinda like that stain on the rug you can never get completely out.”
Malatesta tilted his head ever so slightly to one side. “A stain on the rug?” he asked, obviously not getting what Remy was talking about.
“It’s nothing,” Remy said. “Just trying to draw a comparison.”
Malatesta nodded, sliding to the edge of the chair to drive home his point. “The Keepers have given me full authority to apologize profusely for any past transgressions, and to offer you substantial payment, within reason, for your time and services while working with us.”
Remy shook his head.
“I’m really sorry, but I’m just going to have to say no.”
It felt good saying no to the Vatican representative, not at all like when he was dealing with Pope Tyranus.
“There’s nothing that I can say or do to change your mind?” Malatesta asked.
Remy shook his head again. “I’m afraid not.”
Malatesta looked as though he was going to continue, but then appeared to think better of that. “I guess there’s nothing more to say,” he said, standing up.
Remy stood also.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Chandler,” Malatesta said, and extended his hand.
Remy reached out, taking his offered hand, and as their flesh touched . . .
There was a flash, and a hum, like unrestrained power coursing through a live wire lying in wait upon a street after a storm. If there had been any doubt that this man, this Constantin Malesta, had some sort of a knack for the arcane art of magick, there wasn’t any now.
His power coursed through Remy, amplifying the sensations that he had been experiencing for quite some time, reminding the angel of what was out there in the world, and the dangers that it would soon be facing.
“Perhaps another time,” Malatesta said with a final squeeze, before releasing his grip.
And before Remy could even respond, the Keeper agent was gone. But what he had stirred up in Remy with just a touch remained, and it lingered disturbingly for the remainder of the day.
CHAPTER FIVE
The next few weeks passed without incident.
The world rolled on, the trivial and the not so trivial, the kinds of events Remy had grown accustomed to in his time with human civilization, as days passed into weeks.
But that did not mean he wasn’t waiting for the so-called other shoe to fall. He found himself staring out the windows of his office and down onto the city streets far more attentively, watching the evening news broadcasts, and trolling the Internet with more frequency as he looked for signs.
He found nothing serious enough to alert him to impending doom, and started to eventually let his level of caution drop; still, he kept one eye open and his superhuman senses on alert for any notable change in the ether.
But life marched on; it had the habit of doing that, and Remy found himself more fully engaged in his ordinary human life than he had been for quite some time.
Business was good—not great, but good—enough to keep money coming in to handle the rent on the office space, and pay for the inordinate amount of coffee he drank.
On a personal level things couldn’t have been better. The more time he spent with Linda, the more the trepidation that he’d felt at becoming involved again—falling in love again—slowly crumbled away. He needed a partner to be whole, to be the person he wanted, and needed, to be. Linda was that partner—of that he no longer had any doubt.
The August night had been dreadfully humid, but a quick-moving thundershower while they had been out on a walk with Marlowe had brought with it a welcome drop in temperature. Refreshing cool breezes made the curtains in the house flap and wave like something out of an eighties music video.
While he dried Marlowe off with a towel, which was more of a tug-of-war match than anything of real use, Linda kicked off her sneakers and peeled her soaking-wet T-shirt and running pants from her body. She left the wet clothing where it had fallen, in a trail that led to the stairs that would take her up to the bedroom.
“Coming?” she asked as she started to climb, wearing only a sports bra and panties.
“Oh, do I have to?” Remy mockingly whined.
Linda laughed, padding up the wooden steps.
Telling Marlowe that Linda and he had some business to attend to met with some minor protests—Linda had been staying with Remy and Marlowe far more often lately, and the Labrador was feeling just the tiniest bit neglected—but the offer of a smoked pig’s ear was just the balm the retriever needed to feel as though he was still loved.
Remy picked up Linda’s discarded wet things as he followed their path to the stairs, finding the bra and panties waiting for him at the top.
“You’re never going to find yourself a good man with these cleanliness issues,” Remy said as he added her underthings to the wet pile, and dumped them in a hamper in the corner of the bedroom.
“Guess you’ll be stuck with me,” she said, propped up on her elbows in bed, a sheet barely covering her naked body.
“Great,” Remy said with a heavy sigh that made the woman laugh. He started to remove his own clothes, also damp from the summer rain, as she watched him from the bed.
“Is it so hard?” he asked her, as he tossed his shirt into the open hamper. “Dirty clothes go in there.”
He shed his sweatpants and underwear, putting them where they now belonged.
“Is that where they go?” Linda asked, wearing an exaggerated, dumbfounded look. “I thought that was the trash barrel.”
Remy shook his head in mock disgust.
“And they said I would be sorry for bringing a mail-order bride over from Blugrovia.”
She started to giggle, the sheet sliding down to reveal her nearly perfect breasts.
“I may not be the most tidy, but I can shine in other ways,” Linda said, holding out a hand and beckoning him to join her in bed, beneath the sheets.
“Shine away,” Remy said, crawling into bed with the woman he loved.
Their lovemaking was passionate, yet gentle. There was a hunger present, each of them attempting to appease the other until the air of the bedroom became filled with the sounds of labored breathing, gentle sighs, and pleasure-filled moans, before falling eventually to contented silence.
Exhausted by the act, Linda swiftly drifted into a deep sleep, Remy’s arm around her body as she snuggled up tightly against him. He lay there in the soothing quiet, listening to the sounds of the city outside.
There came a creaking of the wooden steps, and he lifted his head from the pillow to see Marlowe’s head peak up over the rise.
Remy put a finger to his mouth.
“C’mon,” he told the dog. “But be extra quiet.”
The Labrador contemplated his jump up onto the bed before doing it, seeming to defy gravity for an animal his size as he leapt into the air, before coming down upon the mattress with hardly a ripple.
“Good boy,” Remy whispered, reaching his hand down to pat the dog’s rump as he lay down with a heavy sigh at the foot of the bed.
“Good boy,” Marlowe repeated, licking his chops noisily as he settled in for the night. It wasn’t any more than five minutes before Remy heard the dog’s breathing change as he drifted off into sleep.
Remy lay there for what seemed like hours but was more likely much less than that, staring up at the ceiling, listening to Linda and Marlowe, an od
d symphony of heavy breathing, moans, and grunts.
As a creature of Heaven he did not require sleep, and had often used this time of night, when loved ones were embraced in the arms of Morpheus, to escape to a kind of fugue state where he thought about his life, and the events and people that had helped to shape him into the man he was, for better or worse.
And some nights he would just watch TV.
Remy was about to carefully extract himself from bed to go downstairs and see what he might find on-demand that he hadn’t yet seen, when he felt a sudden change in the atmosphere. He knew in that instant that he was no longer the only one awake in the room.
Montagin appeared in the far corner, in front of the hamper, his wings unfolding in the darkness to reveal the angel that had been within their feathered embrace.
Remy leapt up from his bed, feeling his own angelness rising to the surface. He had no idea why Montagin had come, and assumed the worst.
Assumed that he was there to harm him and those that he loved.
Remy’s first thoughts were to the safety of Linda and Marlowe, but he noticed that the two were still deeply asleep, their breathing regular and heavy.
He reached over to brush some hair away from Linda’s peaceful face, as Marlowe snored loudly, certain now that the angel had done something to keep his loved ones in slumber.
“You better have a really good reason for being here,” Remy warned, looking away from his woman to lock Montagin in his fiery gaze.
“I didn’t know what to do,” the angel said, his eyes wide and darting about the room. “It’s terrible.”
“What is it, Montagin?” Remy demanded.
The angel’s eyes seemed to focus upon him, as if remembering where he was and why he had come.
“It’s murder, Remiel,” Montagin spoke, his voice a whisper filled with disbelief.
“General Aszrus has been murdered.”
Heaven
At the Close of the Great War
Remiel stood on the battlefield, the Kingdom of Heaven looming ever so large at his back, the corpses of his fallen brothers strewn upon the ground before him.
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