At first Francis thought it was some sort of joke, but he sensed from the weapons themselves that they were the real deal, and were anxious to be back in his possession.
He took them, first the knife and then the gun.
“I haven’t forgotten about our little conversation downstairs,” Francis said, dropping the knife into his pocket. He hefted the pistol. It felt good in his hand, which suggested to him that he was spending a little bit too much time with the gun.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t enough.
“Of course not,” Dardariel said, and gestured for them to follow. “They’re waiting for you on the roof.”
Francis looked to the others.
“Who is waiting?” Montagin asked.
Squire and Heath shrugged.
“Only one way to find out,” Francis said. He continued down the corridor, following Dardariel up another small flight of stone steps that led onto the prison rooftop.
He really had no idea what to expect. A catered lunch would have been nice, but he was completely taken aback by the sight that awaited him.
It was a gathering of angels.
Everywhere he looked stood a soldier of Heaven, and as Francis emerged onto the rooftop, every eye turned to him. The Pitiless grew warm in his hand, excited by the prospect of violence, but Francis knew it would be hopeless.
Sure, he could take a bunch of the peacocks down, but eventually one of them would reach him, and that would be all she wrote.
Still, not a single weapon of fire was called upon. The angels simply stood and stared, as if waiting for something.
“Ah, there you are,” the Archangel Michael said, moving away from the crowd. “Now we can go.”
Montagin was standing beside Francis, and the former Guardian could sense Heath and Squire at his back. They all seemed just as confused as he was.
“Go where?” Francis asked.
“There has been a cessation of hostilities,” the Archangel stated as he spread his wings.
All the other angels opened their wings as well.
“A conference has been called.”
Angel soldiers appeared behind Francis and his group. They were incredibly close—close enough to take them inside their winged embrace, and transport them away.
“And we must answer the summons.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Remy stopped in the doorway of Prosper’s room, a steaming mug of coffee in hand.
A few of the female staff were seeing to the fallen angel’s needs—changing bandages, fluffing pillows. Remy noticed that none of the Nephilim that Prosper employed were present. He figured that the lie about the death of their children was just too much for them to forgive.
“You wanted to see me?” Remy asked.
“Yeah,” Prosper said, shifting his weight upon the bed. He dismissed the girls with a wave of his hand, and they passed Remy with a smile as they went out the door.
“I wanted to thank you,” the fallen angel said, playing with the corner of his bedsheet.
“For what, not killing you?”
“Yeah, there’s that,” Prosper answered. “But also for getting me out of there.”
The fallen angel looked at Remy. His eyes were still bloodshot, his face swollen and bruised in places.
“I have no doubt in my mind that they would have killed me if . . .”
Remy took a sip from his coffee mug.
“And you would have deserved it.”
Prosper shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s also because of me that they’re still alive.”
Remy silently considered that.
“They would have been tossed in the trash, whether they were dead or alive.”
“So you think of yourself as some kind of savior? That they owe you?”
“No, nothing like that,” Prosper said.
Remy drank some more coffee, watching the fallen angel.
“You did me a solid, so I wanted to do the same for you,” Prosper continued.
“And what are you going to do for me?”
“I called off the hit,” Prosper said. “You don’t have to look over your shoulder for the Black Choir anymore.”
“Until they come for me again.”
“Yeah, but it won’t have anything to do with me.”
“What about the others?” Remy asked. “The Bone Masters.”
Prosper looked at him strangely. “Bone Masters?”
“The other assassins you sicced on me—the guys with the freaky guns that shoot teeth.”
Prosper stared, then slowly shook his head.
“I only hired the Choir,” the fallen angel said. “I don’t know anything about any Bone—”
Malatesta appeared behind Remy.
“We should probably head back,” he said, his voice low. “The Keepers should be there within the half hour.”
Remy nodded, and looked back to Prosper.
“You be sure,” Prosper said, hands flitting nervously over his bedclothes as Remy prepared to go.
“Sure about what?”
“That you’re doing the right thing,” Prosper said. “That it’s okay for those things—children, if you want to call them that—to remain alive.”
“Of course I’m sure,” Remy said, disgusted at the notion that the children of Gunkanjima should be denied the right to exist.
He left the fallen angel and followed Malatesta back to Prosper’s office. Some of Prosper’s girls were there already, bags packed and stacked beside them.
“What’s this?” Remy asked as he came into the room.
“They want to be with their children,” Malatesta explained.
“How could we not be with them now that we know they’re alive?” Natalia asked.
“What kind of mothers would we be?” asked Morgan.
It all sounded perfectly reasonable to Remy. He simply nodded as Malatesta reopened the passage to Gunkanjima.
* * *
The microwave beeped, announcing that Mulvehill’s Hungry-Man Salisbury steak dinner was done. He went to the oven on the counter and pulled open the door, reaching in to withdraw his meal.
“Shit!” he swore, as he burned his fingers on the hot packaging.
He dropped the dinner on the counter, and blew on his fingertips as he went to the fridge for a bottle of water. He’d already had a glass of Irish whiskey to relax after a particularly insane day, and would probably have a second before calling it a night, but he preferred some water with his meal.
Twisting the cap off the water, Mulvehill took a long drink, then returned to his dinner on the counter. Cautiously, he peeled back the plastic covering, careful not to get too close to the cloud of steam that billowed out from underneath. He tossed the damp, plastic covering in the trash, then placed the still-hot plate on a dish towel for easy carrying. Retrieving his water, he took his meal toward the living room, hoping there would be something worthwhile to watch on television.
As he left the kitchen on his way to the living room, Mulvehill happened to glance down the hallway and saw that his door was partially open, moving ever so slightly in the phantom breezes that passed through the old Somerville apartment building.
I could’a sworn I locked that, he thought. He placed his dinner atop the towel on the coffee table, then went back to the door. He pulled it open first, looking up and down the corridor outside the apartment, before closing it firmly, and sliding the bolt in place.
His mother referred to this feeling as somebody walking over your grave, that strangely electric sensation that ran down one’s spine for no apparent reason. Mulvehill could never understand how somebody could be walking on his grave when he wasn’t dead yet, but he still thought of his mother every time he had that feeling.
Steven Mulvehill was thinking of her now.
He wasn’t sure why he moved when he did. Perhaps it was that strange, grave-walking chill that caused him to suddenly twitch, convulsing to one side, or maybe it was that sixth sense that cops often develop after s
o many years on the street, that sense that tells them that something is about to happen.
Whatever it was, Mulvehill moved, just before he heard the noise—like somebody blowing air through a hollow tube—and the wood to the right of the doorframe exploded into splinters.
Pure instinct kicked in then as he dove back into the kitchen where he knew he’d left his gun on the kitchen table along with his car keys. He heard that noise twice more, followed by breaking glass and the sound of something punching through the metal body of the stove, before he was able to retrieve the Glock from its holster.
Mulvehill crouched near the wall of the kitchen, flicking off the safety on his weapon. He was just about to peer around the corner into the living room, when everything went dark.
Son of a bitch. His mind raced as he tried to calculate his next step. His eyes went to the phone cradle hanging on the wall beside the fridge, and he saw that there was no phone there. Most likely it was in the living room, where he’d used it last. His cell phone was in the bedroom, charging. He remembered how proud he had been for actually remembering to charge his phone. Normally he would have left it on the kitchen table with his gun and keys, almost dead.
But at least then he could have made a call. He cursed his unusual efficiency and pledged never to charge his phone again until it was completely dead, and he clutched his gun, tilted his head toward the living room, and listened. Something was moving in the darkness, waiting for him.
Panic started to set in and he was immediately transported back to the day when he was first made painfully aware that the world in which he lived wasn’t at all what it had seemed, and that his best friend, Remy Chandler, was the one who had left the door open for all the weirdness to come inside.
And that was what this was. He was certain of it. Sure, it could have been a run-of-the-mill break-in—there wasn’t a shortage of junkies in the area—but something told him otherwise. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, a sensation like no other.
He guessed it was a variation on that cop’s sixth sense that he had; it had become more finely attuned of late, almost as if it were picking up a brand-new channel. It was the weird shit channel, and alarm bells were going off inside his head now.
His body had become drenched with a cold sweat, and he could smell the aroma of his Hungry-Man dinner cooling in the living room on the coffee table. He’d been really hungry when he set that meal down.
Like he didn’t have enough to be pissed off about.
Mulvehill had faced things in the dark before and had survived. In fact, he was starting to become really good at it. With each new exposure he gained a certain amount of knowledge that he could apply to the next time that something from Stephen King’s closet tried to kill him.
He slowly stood, zeroing in on a sound like that of rustling fabric, and he fired the gun once.
Yeah, weird shit, he thought, charging into the darkness of the living room to confront who knew what.
You can fucking keep it.
* * *
It had stopped raining on Gunkanjima Island.
Remy stood off to the side, watching as the children gathered up their meager belongings to take with them to their new home. A pile of things that would have been discarded as trash by most had formed in the center court area of the mining settlement.
“I doubt they’ll be able to take all that with them,” Malatesta said, coming from the building where Prosper had kept his office. The Vatican sorcerer was carrying two steaming mugs of coffee.
“Well, I’ll be,” Remy said, taking the offered cup. “All the comforts of home.”
The two drank their coffee silently, watching the children interacting with the women from Prosper’s charnel house. There was no precise way for them to know which child was theirs, but somehow, they seemed to know. And they also seemed to be taking to their new role as mothers quite easily, jumping right in to help the children gather up their things.
“Any idea where they’re going?” Remy asked Malatesta.
“The Keepers have many places of learning around the world,” Malatesta said. “I’m sure one of them will be the perfect fit.”
Remy still had mixed feelings about handing the children over to the Keepers, but he had very few options. He just couldn’t imagine them out there on their own.
“I’ll be keeping close tabs on them,” Remy said, eyes still staring at the scene before him.
“I’m sure you will,” Malatesta responded.
“Do you think your bosses are aware of that?”
“I think it foolish to say that they wouldn’t be.”
“And your problem?” Remy said. He looked to the sorcerer. “How’s that?”
Malatesta took a drink from his mug before replying. “The child’s touch helped me to regain control, but it doesn’t mean the Larva spirit isn’t still there, struggling to take it away. It got a taste of freedom, and liked it. It won’t take much for it to be free again.”
Remy felt bad for his part in all of that, but again, there hadn’t been a hell of a lot of choices.
He caught sight of Gareth then, standing alone near his quarters, watching his brothers and sisters. There was a certain look in the teen’s eyes that Remy understood only too well. He was questioning his own actions, wondering whether he had done the right thing.
Remy approached the boy cautiously, not wanting to rile him. The level of power in this teen was quite awesome, if not a little frightening.
“I think they’ll be all right,” he said to the young man.
“I hope you’re right,” Gareth said. “My father talked about a war and the part we would play.” The young man grew quiet, continuing to stare ahead at the children who looked to him as leader.
“That war is still coming,” he finally said quietly.
Remy was about to reassure the youth, but he never got the chance.
The sound came from across the water, multiple rotor blades spinning with blinding speed as a helicopter drew closer.
“This is it,” Gareth stated, and then sighed, his eyes turning toward the gunmetal-colored sky, before looking directly at Remy.
“The beginning of the end.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In an area of the island that had once been set aside for the children of miners, was a park, now overgrown with a thick, tall grass that bent in the artificial winds created by the Chinook helicopter as it slowly descended from a darkening sky.
The copter touched down, back end pointed toward Remy and the collected children. There was a high-pitched whine of hydraulics, and the back of the large craft began to open; a loading ramp slowly lowered to the weed-covered lot.
Malatesta left the gathering, running across the grassy expanse toward the helicopter, shielding his eyes from the debris kicked up by the craft’s slowing rotor blades.
“Am I going in that?”
Remy looked down at the child who had temporarily repressed the sorcerer’s demon. He’d learned that the boy’s name was Apple, because he liked apples. “Yeah,” he said. “You all are. It’s going to take you to your new home.”
Remy was watching Malatesta standing before the loading ramp, waiting for his superior, when he felt the tiny hand find its way into his. He glanced back at Apple to see him staring up at him, a smile that was almost blinding on his dirty features.
“Thank you,” the little boy said, and all Remy could do was smile back, and give his small hand a gentle squeeze of assurance.
An old man, dressed in a black cassock, a golden crucifix about his neck, carefully descended from the loading ramp. He extended his hand toward Malatesta, who bowed his head and kissed the man’s ring.
The two talked as the rotors spun above them, and Malatesta briefly looked back in Remy’s direction. The sorcerer’s body language seemed to be trying to tell him something.
“Are we leaving now?” Apple asked, hand still in Remy’s.
“Not quite yet,” Remy said as several other me
n, also dressed in the robes of their faith, began to exit the belly of the mighty Chinook and spread out.
The angel let go of the boy’s hand, and walked toward them. Malatesta turned and Remy caught sight of the look on his face. Immediately he knew they were in trouble.
The Keepers acted as one, suddenly raising their hands and uttering an ancient spell in some long-forgotten language. The atmosphere became instantly charged with unnatural energy, calling forth another storm.
“What’s going on?” Remy demanded, still heading for Malatesta.
The Vatican sorcerer extended his hand, gesturing for Remy to stop. The old man standing beside him glared at the angel, and Remy saw a glimmer of something he’d seen long ago in the eyes of their church’s leader—the cold detachment of an act of betrayal.
The magickal force erupting from the hands of the Keepers wove a canopy over their heads, an undulating dome of supernatural energies hovering above the overgrown playground.
Remy stopped cold, as the magick turned the gray sky to a blood red.
How appropriate.
His wings came on reflex, and the fires of Heaven raced from where they churned in his chest to pool in his hands. But he had no opportunity to act, for Malatesta’s magick lashed out like the tail of a whip, wrapping itself around his neck as he attempted to take to the sky. The power coursing through him was overwhelming. He struggled to flap his mighty wings, but they were no longer in sync, and floundering he dropped to the ground, the tendril of humming magick still wrapped about his throat.
Remy dug his fingers beneath the band of preternatural force, desperately trying to rip it from his neck, but it seared his fingers, leaching away his strength even as he fought.
“I’m sorry Remy,” he heard Malatesta say, realizing that the sorcerer was controlling the leash of magickal energy that was attempting to strangle him. “For the good of us all it must be this way.”
Remy thrashed upon the ground, turning toward the children. The Keepers had used their spells to corral the children, and they cried out in surprise—and fear.
Another group of Vatican agents had separated the mothers from their children, moving them away, toward the transport chopper.
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