“I’ll let you know what I find out,” Remy whispered in his friend’s ear as he headed in the direction of his car.
Mulvehill was lighting up a cigarette. “Watch your ass,” he muttered, cigarette clamped between his lips. Some of the remaining crowd gave the man talking to himself a sideways glance before turning their attention back to the apartment building.
The die hards will be getting their payoff soon, Remy thought, cutting across to the side street where he’d parked his vehicle. Dougie’s bagged body will soon be coming out on a stretcher, a prize for their endurance.
The Pitiless daggers beneath his arm screamed to be noticed, but he managed to close his mind to the disturbing imagery they tried to force upon him.
Remy got to his car and tossed the wrapped blades down onto the passenger seat. His thoughts raced with what he would need to do next.
He slipped the key in the ignition, deciding that he would continue on to Karnighan’s. The old man had to know more than he was letting on. The engine turned over, and he thought that it might be wise to give Ashley a call to go over and feed and walk Marlowe. Who knew how long the business in Lexington would take, and he didn’t want his four-legged friend back home to suffer.
He was thinking that Francis might need a call as well when the black SUV seemed to appear out of nowhere, cutting him off as he pulled out of the parking space, blocking his exit.
He been around long enough to know that nothing good was about to happen.
The truck’s doors opened and four familiar faces emerged.
This shit never gets any easier, Remy thought, almost sure that he could hear his angelic nature chuckling to itself as the four Denizens who had attacked him at home surrounded his car.
He didn’t have Marlowe to worry about this time, and that was good.
“You told me to call when I had something,” Remy said as he slowly got out of the car, his attention focused on the spokesman from their last meeting. “I don’t have anything yet, but you never know, I might be coming into some information shortly.”
“My employer says that you’re taking too long,” the spokesman said.
There was a barely perceptible nod, and one of the Denizens was coming at him, his hand inside his coat pocket.
Remy didn’t have time to wait to see what it was. He met the fallen angel halfway, moving as quickly as he could, slamming his fist into his attacker’s face.
The Denizen stumbled back, nose spurting blood, a short knife with a blade seemingly made from a polished black stone clattering to the ground.
Remy was glad he hadn’t waited; that particular blade, made from the walls of Tartarus, could have done some serious damage to him.
He knew the name of only one of them, Balam—the one that had pointed a gun at his dog—and decided that he would deal with that one next. The memory of what he had done caused a terrific anger to flare within Remy, and he let the Seraphim inside have a brief taste of freedom.
Balam hadn’t pulled his gun, and Remy figured they probably wanted him alive, but this particular Denizen was large and powerful, moving far more quickly and gracefully than Remy expected. He threw a punch that Remy attempted to avoid, but he moved a tad too slow, and the man’s knuckles grazed the side of his face. It hurt like hell, and for a moment he saw an explosion of stars.
Balam took immediate advantage, gripping him by the back of the coat and pulling Remy toward him. The arc of his fist was a blur as the hit connected with Remy’s stomach, doubling him over with a painful explosion of air from his lungs.
Again with the stomach.
But it had brought him close enough.
Close enough to strike.
Remy allowed Heaven’s power a moment’s freedom, the fires of the divine collecting at the tips of his fingers. He thrust his hand at Balam’s stomach, the burning fingers connecting with the satiny material of the dress shirt he wore, burning through, and into the flesh beneath.
And the fire did not stop there.
Balam screamed as his body began to ignite, the fires of Heaven fueled by his wickedness. He immediately dropped to the ground and began to roll.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” the spokesman moaned, rolling his eyes.
There was movement to his left, and Remy whirled, the man who had tried to stab him earlier was charging. Where’s the knife? His thoughts raced as he grappled with the fallen, trying to keep his hands in view. They tumbled to the ground, each of them trying to get the better of the other.
The remaining attacker must have ducked around Remy’s car, coming at him from a blind spot.
Remy wasn’t even aware that he’d been stabbed—in the shoulder—until he felt his entire right side begin to grow numb.
Fists were raining down from above him as he attempted to get up, but one of his legs had become useless, tingling and trembling.
“That’s enough,” he heard the spokesman say, and the two Denizen thugs stepped back.
The leader stood over him, a hate-filled flicker of fire burning in the center of his eyes. “If my employer didn’t think you were valuable to him, I’d have you cut to ribbons and sold to anybody who wanted a piece.”
Remy’s shoulder throbbed with the steady beat of his heart. “Why don’t we cut the bullshit and you just tell me what’s going on,” he grunted as he struggled to stand.
“I will kill him,” a dry hiss of a voice rasped. His buddy Balam tried to get at him but was held back by two of the others. His body still smoldered, the Heavenly fire having badly burned his face and chest as it spread. He had his gun out and was waving it around.
Remy was almost on his feet when the spokesman came forward and, with a kick, knocked him back down to the ground.
“We’ve been watching you, waiting for a chance to talk to you without your Guardian angel friend being around.”
They were afraid of Francis, and he couldn’t blame them. He’d had a scary reputation even before he fell from God’s grace.
“We think you’ve found some things out,” the spokesman said. “Things that my employer would be very anxious to hear about.”
“You first,” Remy said, lying on his back, finding it very difficult to keep the world from spinning. “First tell me why your boss is looking for the Pitiless, and I’ll fill you in on what I know. Who knows, maybe between the two of us this whole mess will start to make some sense.”
The spokesman came toward him then, the fire of his hate burning even brighter in the center of his coal black eyes, but then a sudden voice interrupted his murderous intent.
“Hey, Arioc,” one of the Denizens called.
Arioc, the name echoed inside Remy’s skull.
“You might want to see these,” one of the fallen angels said.
Remy managed to pull himself into a sitting position. They were at his car, the passenger door open. The Denizen was handing his superior the bundled sweatshirt with the daggers at its center.
“No!” Remy barked, and again attempted to climb to his feet. This time he was successful, lurching toward his vehicle.
“What have we here?” Arioc asked, hefting the item handed to him. “Do we have something more here than dirty laundry? By your reaction, I would have to say that’s a big yes.”
They all laughed. The Denizen who’d searched his car, and had been the one to stab him, again came at him from behind, pushing Remy roughly up against his car.
Face pressed to the cold metal of the hood, he managed to twist his head enough to see what was happening. The Denizens were all standing around their leader as he unwrapped the sweatshirt.
Remy could feel himself beginning to fade, finding it harder and harder to remain conscious as the poison from the Hell blade’s bite continued to course through his system. He was forced to drop the barriers again, allowing the power of Heaven to course through his frame, burning away the toxins that if allowed to spread would kill him.
He was able to stand now, a sudden vitality making his muscles
hum with divine power.
Arioc had exposed the blades, eyes wide in wonder as he looked upon them. He reached within the cloth, removing one of the daggers and holding it up. The blade glinted seductively in the glow of a streetlight that had just come on. By the twinkle in his beady eyes, Remy could tell that the murderous images conjured by the weapon were now filling the Denizen’s mind. The fallen angel smiled, reveling in their intensity. He held the dagger aloft, pointing it into the sky, toward Heaven.
“Oh, isn’t this the sweetest thing,” Arioc said, as all eyes were glued to the seductiveness of the single Pitiless.
Remy was at a loss as to what he should do. He was considering the insanity of trying to get the blades back and making a run for it when things went from bad to worse.
It didn’t even register at first, his brain attempting to process what it had seen, and then attempting to delete the information as a side effect of having the shit knocked out of him again.
The wind had kicked up; at least he believed it to be the wind. There was a sudden rush of air—a roar—and something far more substantive was moving amongst the Denizens.
Arioc’s head was suddenly gone from his body, the crimson arterial spray shooting up into the air like a fountain. The others barely had the opportunity to take their eyes from the Pitiless blade still being held aloft before they too were taken down.
Balam was next to go, his burned and blackened facial features registering danger well before the others.
Remy started to yell as Arioc’s headless corpse finally collapsed to the ground, the stump of his neck still pumping blood out onto the street. He pushed off from the car, his warrior’s nature urging him into battle. Closer now, he could just about make out the blurred shape of the thing that moved amongst them. It was large, about the size of a jungle cat.
The thing from the vision he’d experienced back at the apartment. The thing that had killed Dougie.
Balam was attempting to get a bead on the blurred shape with his gun when his hand was abruptly no longer attached to his wrist. Remy watched the hand, still holding the weapon, sail through the air, bouncing off the side of the SUV and clattering to the ground.
It had all happened so fast that the fallen angel didn’t seem to know that he was now weaponless, pointing the bloody stump at the shape that circled him, preparing for its next strike. Balam’s stomach was torn open next, the burned flesh sounding like the crackling of autumn leaves as the former angel was savagely disemboweled.
Whatever it was that attacked them was nearly invisible to the human eye, it moved so quickly. Fueled by the Seraphim’s lust for battle, Remy advanced toward the bloody scene. Another of the Denizens had gone down, while the other looked on, stunned, his face spattered with the blood of his companions.
Remy squinted, altering the composition of his eyes to look upon the world not as a human, but as an angel, and at last he was able to see what exactly they—he—was up against.
It had the shape of a large dog, but its body resembled that of something that had had its skin pulled away to reveal raw sinew and musculature. Its pointed head seemed to be made entirely of exposed bone, its yellow eyes like two LEDs illuminated from within the deep black caverns of the eye sockets.
It was perched on the back of the third Denizen, who thrashed beneath the thing’s weight. The dog thing eyed Remy before lowering its head to bite into the back of its prey’s neck, and with a savage shake, it broke it. The beast was drooling, and Remy noticed that everywhere the saliva touched, it sizzled and burned. The unpleasant image of Dougie’s burned open belly filled his head, and he suddenly understood.
The monster looked back to Remy, distracted from the remaining blood-spattered Denizen, who stood frozen in place, his eyes riveted to the terror that had laid waste to them.
The thing’s body was rigid except for the slight movement of its yellow eyes. Remy stared back at the beast, attempting to draw it closer to him, away from the other man.
The surviving Denizen began to back away, but his movement caught the attention of the animal. It turned with a shrieking hiss, as its red-veined muscles tensed to pounce on the escaping prey.
The nature of the Seraphim exerted control, and Remy found himself bounding at the animal as it prepared to strike. Remy snatched up the Pitiless dagger that Arioc had dropped from a cooling puddle of blood, and then found the other still nestled snugly within the confines of the sweatshirt lying in the street.
In his hands, the daggers began to sing an aria to the glory of the violence to come.
This is what they had been created for.
The beast sprang, catching the remaining Denizen with little effort, and was about to maul him savagely when Remy launched himself through the air, twin daggers poised to strike.
The animal looked away from its prey, mouth open in a roar of savagery, a roar drowned out by the cry of a warrior.
A warrior of Heaven.
CHAPTER NINE
The beast was in motion, turning from its fallen prey to attack Remy. With a powerful thrust, he plunged one of the Pitiless daggers into the bloodred flesh of its muscular hide as it descended. It tossed its skull-like head back in a bellow of pain and he slid the second blade into the soft tissue below its jaw.
The animal panicked, its powerful form recoiling from the attack. The beast was not accustomed to its prey biting back, and Remy managed to jump backward, taking the bloodstained blades with him as he avoided the monster’s slashing black claws.
The Seraphim rejoiced in its freedom, Remy barely maintaining enough control to prevent its power from fully manifesting. He battled not only the wild monstrosity crouched and growling before him, but the fury of the angel within.
It begged to be released, demanded to be fully free, but Remy ignored the commands, desperate to hold on to his humanity. Yes, it had become wounded over the last few months with the death of his one true love, but it was not yet dead, and he had no intention of allowing it to be eclipsed by the ancient power fighting to emerge.
Distracted momentarily by his inner struggle, Remy reacted too slowly as the monster pounced again. He managed to get only one of the daggers up as the full weight of his bestial attacker fell upon him. He pushed up on the dagger as he was driven back to the ground by the behemoth’s full weight, the animal’s tough, leathery hide resisting the piercing point of the Pitiless blade.
He hit the ground with tremendous force, his head striking the ground with equal intensity, and his world exploded into a reality of flashing colors and overwhelming nausea.
Fighting to remain conscious, he looked up into the eyes of the behemoth, laser points of yellow like the final moments of a dying star as it burned its last in the thick velvet tapestry of the night sky.
Its breath stank of blood and something else.
Brimstone.
And he then knew where the creature had originated, but he did not have the slightest clue as to how it had come to hunt upon the streets of Boston.
It was a question that nagged at him as the weight of the beast crushed him against the unyielding street, the darkness exploding inside his head, making it difficult to focus, making it difficult for him to remain conscious.
He watched through a spreading black haze as the beast drew back its bony face, its jaws opening wide before its jagged bite descended toward his throat.
Explosions of thunder crashed in the heavens as a curtain of darkness fell, sparing him the moment of his unpleasant demise.
* * *
The Pitiless blades chattered.
Even deep beneath the crushing waves of unconsciousness he could still see the moments of their existence. Death after death; he thought he would drown in the blood spilled by their being.
Eventually the visions of death ran thin, and he was shown the sight of their conception and birth, materials mined from the earth, nothing but raw matter to be melted down to liquid and poured into molds to be crafted into the objects of death they would be
come.
But the special knives wanted him to see more, wanted him to know all their secrets. They took him deeper into their memories, showing him what they were before they had fallen from the sky to the world of man.
What they were before they were dropped from Heaven.
Heaven?
The darkness was suddenly ablaze with a vision of one of the Lord’s chosen—the angel Azazel, weapons master of the angel hosts, working his artistry within the hallowed confines of his workshop within Heaven’s armory. Rows upon rows of beautiful armament lay waiting for the day that they would be called upon in battle.
Remy knew—sensed—that this was a time before the war, before the fall.
Azazel’s wings fanned the flames of a fire that burned hotter than the center of a sun. The armorer worked the stuff of Heaven, manipulating the divine material, shaping it into a thing of the utmost beauty, as well as a tool of devastation.
Remy could now see what it was that angel armorer worked upon, what he toiled so diligently to produce.
One had already been birthed, lying there patiently, waiting for its sister to be completed.
The Pitiless daggers.
The sight of them in such a holy place filled Remy with a dire sense of foreboding. He was tempted to call out, to ask the angel why it was that he had produced the twin daggers, when the angel turned to speak—but not to him.
There was another present—another who hung close to the shadows, watching the birth of the deadly armaments.
Having completed the second of the pair, the angel weaponeer turned, holding the glowing daggers in hand, presenting them to the figure cloaked in shadows. The light shining from the still-white-hot metal dispelled the pockets of darkness within the workshop, revealing the figure that stood there in wait.
As beautiful as Remy remembered him to be, he was adorned in armor the color of the sun’s rays, his sharp, noble features looking as though they had been sculpted by a master’s hand… which they had.
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