Dancing On the Head of a Pin rc-2

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  The goons made a nervous move toward their employer.

  “He’s fine,” Remy called after them. They turned, staring nervously, unsure if they should trust his word.

  “They’re just talking.”

  Byleth thrashed as he rolled onto his back. He held the daggers out before him, a look of absolute shock and surprise etched upon his face. With a sudden groan of exertion, he opened his hands arthritically, the knives falling from his clutches.

  His men rushed to his aid, helping him up, returning him to his seat.

  “For him,” Byleth groaned. “The daggers were made for him.”

  Remy got up from the couch and went to the liquor cabinet. Helping himself, he picked up the crystal decanter and poured another drink. Byleth looked as though he could use it.

  “Weapons of the Morningstar,” Remy said, handing the fallen angel the glass. Byleth took it from him, slurping loudly at the alcohol. “Weapons crafted for Lucifer’s hands.”

  “It must have been just before the war,” Byleth gasped, out of breath from the experience of touching the Pitiless. The effects of the weaponry on the fallen appeared even more severe than they had been on Remy. “Some sort of secret weapons, perhaps.”

  Remy thought about what Byleth had just said, the idea of weapons as some sort of last-ditch effort rattling around inside his head.

  “Secret weapons that were never used.”

  But if that was the case, why did they end up here… on Earth? Remy wondered, not even close to answering the questions that continued to float to the surface of his brain.

  “How did you know about my case? How did you know I’d been hired to find what you had been searching for?”

  Byleth clung to his glass of booze like it was a security blanket. “Your friend Francis made a few calls for you, asking around. And in turn, those he reached out to got in touch with us. It sounded like we just might be looking for the same thing.”

  Byleth held out his empty glass. “More,” he commanded.

  Remy took the glass and poured more Scotch from the decanter.

  “Before your involvement, we had been contacted,” Byleth said, taking the glass. “Somebody who had heard about my offer to make them rich if they could deliver the Pitiless.”

  Remy watched the fallen angel drink.

  “So you made a deal with this person?” Remy asked.

  Byleth nodded. “Arranged for an exchange, but it never happened.”

  The fallen angel seemed to become even more nervous, getting out of his chair to fix his own drink. His movements were awkward, a shaking hand dropping the crystal stopper from the bottle, good Scotch splashing over the rim of the glass to be wasted as he filled it to the brim.

  “I’m guessing that something besides your seller standing you up happened.”

  “You could say that.” Byleth laughed nervously, pouring the contents of the glass down an insatiably thirsty gullet.

  Remy urged the Satan to go on with a stare.

  “We were attacked,” he said. Remy could see that his hands were shaking, and wasn’t sure if it was still the effect of connecting with the powerful weapons, or this recent memory. The fallen leader appeared unnerved.

  “Rival host, maybe even a Hellion of your very own? What attacked you, Byleth?” Remy urged.

  The fallen angel’s eyes got suddenly glassy as he gazed into the past. Slowly he made his way back to his seat, swatting away the helpful attentions of his bodyguards. He lowered himself into the folds of the wingback.

  “He dropped out of the sky like a falling star,” the Satan said. “He was beautiful… as we all were once.”

  Byleth looked at Remy, smiling sadly.

  “An angel attacked you?”

  He nodded. “Something wasn’t right about him. He was enraged, filled with a violent anger, going on and on about a sin that he couldn’t bear anymore.”

  A sudden twinge of recognition stabbed at Remy, like a jab from one of the powerful blades.

  “Was he a Nomad, Byleth?” Images of the poor creature that he and Francis had rescued from a dissecting chamber flashed before his eyes.

  Remy reached down to grip the fallen’s shoulder, to urge him to answer.

  Mulciber immediately grabbed hold of Remy’s wrist, attempting to pull it away. The Seraphim did not take kindly to being touched by one of them, and Remy allowed it to emerge, taking hold of the large man’s arm and twisting it violently to one side. Pulling the big man closer, Remy drove his forehead into the Denizen’s face.

  The fallen grunted, blood exploding from his nose as he dropped to his knees moaning. The other Denizen made his move, but Remy froze him with a stare.

  The Seraphim liked this, wanting to make the foolish creatures suffer, but Remy restrained it. This wasn’t the time for games.

  “Byleth?” he said firmly.

  “Yes, yes, he was a Nomad.” He tried to have some more to drink, but his glass was empty. “I didn’t think of it at the time…” Byleth stopped, remembering the details. “But I think he was trying to warn us.”

  Remy felt his anger flare, the Seraphim right there, eager to be set loose, but he held its leash tight. “But you didn’t listen.”

  Byleth turned in the chair, anger burning in his eyes. “Of course we didn’t listen; even though a Nomad, he was still one of them… still of Heaven. And he wanted the weapons that we didn’t have.”

  “What did you do?” Remy asked, already knowing the answer.

  Byleth laughed, slumping in the chair. “We saw it as an opportunity,” he explained.

  Mulciber was still moaning, attempting to stifle the flow of blood that poured from his damaged nose.

  “We captured him,” the Satan continued with a certain amount of pride. “It wasn’t easy—he was strong—but at the same time, I don’t think he had all his faculties. It was almost as if something… some knowledge that he had locked away inside his head had driven him mad.”

  It took everything that Remy had not to grab Byleth and beat him senseless. “You captured him and you cut him up,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Byleth smiled weakly, knowing that what he had done was wrong, but still taking pleasure from it. “Normally I wouldn’t have had anything to do with it, but with this one… I cut out his eyes.”

  Remy’s true nature fought harder than he could ever remember, and he could feel his skin begin to itch—to heat—as the warrior angel rose to the surface, ready to emerge and destroy these abominations in their nest. And Remy doubted that the unleashed Seraphim would have stopped there, flying into the night, hunting every Denizen it could find and destroying them one after the other.

  This might have happened—if there hadn’t been a knock at the door.

  It was just enough of a distraction to avert disaster.

  “Yes,” Byleth called.

  The door opened and another of his men stood there. He was holding a cell phone.

  “It’s somebody named Mason,” the fallen angel said.

  “He says that he’s out back and to tell you that he’s found what you’ve been looking for.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Remy didn’t like the sound of that.

  Byleth pulled himself together, running his long fingers through his straight blond hair. “It appears to be my lucky day,” he said. He removed his sports coat and squatted before the daggers.

  “Depends on how you define lucky, I guess,” Remy said, watching as the Satan wrapped the knives in his jacket. “What are you going to do with them?”

  “What do you think?” Byleth asked, a nasty glimmer in his eye. “They were to be Lucifer’s. The power of Heaven flows through them. Imagine the clout somebody with these bad boys in their possession would have.”

  Remy couldn’t believe his ears. “You can’t be serious,” he said. “There’s something not right about this whole business,” the angel started to explain. “The kind of not right that involves a creature from Hell and an angel driven crazy b
y guilt. Do you seriously want to wrap this Pitiless albatross around your neck?”

  “Losing Heaven nearly destroyed me,” Byleth began. “My time in Tartarus was nothing compared to the pain I felt… still feel… when God took it all away.”

  The Satan looked to his men.

  “Restrain him,” Byleth commanded.

  Mulciber seemed to have learned his lesson; his face stained with blood, he looked to the floor. But not the other, the one that Byleth called Procell.

  Remy had wondered about that one, not at all physically imposing, but there was something about him that flashed caution. He planted his feet, preparing for a physical attack that never came.

  The fallen angel Procell lifted one of his hands, and Remy noticed the elaborate tattoos—sigils—that had been drawn upon the pale flesh. He didn’t have a chance to react as the Denizen waved his fingers in the air, an incantation of angel magick leaving his lips, cast through the air to ensnare Remy in its ancient power.

  It was as if a net had been thrown over him. Remy felt immediately weak, the inner power that he suppressed quieted to an electric thrum. It had been ages since he’d been on the receiving end of angel spell casting, and was amazed that he was still conscious. It was like he’d taken an entire bottle of Vicodin and washed it down with a double-Scotch chaser.

  Procell’s lips moved, uttering the same incantation over and over again, reminding Remy of buzzing swamp insects on a hot summer’s night. His eyes looked as though they’d been covered in morning frost.

  “You’re making a terrible mistake,” Remy slurred, swaying slightly in the grip of the magick.

  “I’ve worked and suffered greatly for what I have now,” Byleth said, holding the wrapped daggers close to his heart. “And no one is ever going to take it away from me again. Lucifer’s loss is my gain.” And with that, he turned toward the door and walked out of the room.

  Remy stood there, helpless, wondering how long it would be before they figured out that they didn’t need him anymore.

  Procell droned on.

  “Would it be rude if I asked you to shut up?” Remy said to the fallen angel, who of course ignored the request.

  And then his gaze fell on Mulciber. He saw a glint of maliciousness in the fallen angel’s eyes. “Gonna give a little bit of this pain back,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

  Mulciber dug into his pockets to remove what looked like a knife. The blade was short, black, chipped from a larger body of stone. Remy made a mental note to Francis to ask him how the fallen from Tartarus were smuggling the pieces of Hell onto the Earth.

  “And you’re just gonna stand there and let me hurt you,” the injured fallen continued.

  Remy looked to Procell for backup. “How do you think your boss will feel about this?” he asked.

  Procell just shrugged, repeating the incantation again and again, as Mulciber lurched toward Remy.

  “First thing I’m going to fuck with is your eyes,” he said.

  The fallen angel raised the shark-tooth-shaped blade, making sure that Remy could get a good look. “I’ve let the blade soak in the blood of one of your relatives,” Mulciber whispered, his breath stinking of onions.

  “I’ll remember that,” Remy said, his gaze upon Mulciber’s eyes unwavering. “And I’ll remember you.”

  The fallen angel laughed, immediately wincing as a new stream of blood started to flow from one of his nostrils.

  He sniffled wetly, wiping his nose with the back of his hand as he moved the blade up to Remy’s face. He was just about to insert the point into the corner of Remy’s right eye, when Byleth came back into the room.

  The Satan’s expression at first was excited, a flush of pink on his normally pale cheeks, but it quickly dropped when he saw what was about to happen.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” he asked in a husky whisper.

  Mulciber lowered the blade but stayed close. “I was about to give him a little payback.”

  “No,” Byleth simply said.

  The injured fallen whirled, knife still in hand. “No disrespect, but he should receive some of what he’s dished out.”

  Byleth nodded. “You’re probably right, but not now.”

  Remy breathed a sigh of relief, the fear that he might have to wear an eye patch fading away.

  Mulciber stepped in close again, the blade slowly rising.

  “Is that disobedience I smell?” Remy asked, barely able to hold back his grin.

  “Get away from him,” Byleth commanded, and Mulciber backed down, stepping away, the blade disappearing back into his pocket.

  “Thanks,” Remy said, turning his eyes to Byleth, who’d come a bit farther into the room.

  The Satan smiled mischievously.

  “I want to show you something.”

  * * *

  The hall outside the study was paneled with rich, dark oak. Framed black-and-white photographs—from some fabulously chic up-and-coming artist, Remy was sure—adorned the wood walls on both sides.

  He followed Byleth and Mulciber, the still-droning Procell steering him down the hallway. At the end of the corridor, they turned the corner, descending a set of stairs where a heavy metal door equipped with multiple locks stood open. More Denizen lackeys waited by the door, standing up straighter as their Satan returned.

  “In here,” Byleth said, waving Remy to follow as he passed through the door.

  The room was large, filled with multiple shelving units, covered in weaponry of every conceivable design and shape from every time period. It was like the Wal-Mart version of Karnighan’s place.

  “Oh, I see,” Remy said, eyeing the racks.

  “False alarms,” Byleth said on his way across the room toward another door. “Extreme, I know, but I couldn’t be too careful. If I had the slightest inkling that they might be part of what I was looking for, I bought them.”

  At the back door to the storage room he stopped to look at the arsenal he’d accumulated. “They’ve come from all over the world,” he explained, “and there were times that I actually believed I had finally put my hands on the legitimate items.”

  He paused before opening the door. “But after tonight, I realize that I was never even close.”

  Byleth threw open the door into a substantial garage; a limousine was parked over to one side, five trendy sports cars parked in a row on the other. A black van had backed into the center of the garage; its back doors were open wide, and the contents that it had carried were already unloaded.

  A folding table had been set up just outside the back of the van; three yellow transport cases—the kind that would be used to allow valuable items to travel—had been laid out upon the tabletop like items at a flea market. Remy noticed that the daggers had been placed, still wrapped in Byleth’s suit coat, at the end of the table.

  A wheelchair-bound Mason, wearing an Evil Dead T-shirt, drove over to meet them. Julia perched on his shoulder, enjoying some kind of biscuit. “Hey, look who it is,” the man said cheerily. “Didn’t expect to find you here.” A fresh trail of drool trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m a little disappointed, Mason,” Remy said, eyeing the objects laid out upon the table. “I thought we had a deal.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Mason said. “With the kind of payday our friend here is offering, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to follow that old adage—deals are meant to be broken.”

  Julia chattered a greeting to him excitedly in between bites of her cookie.

  “Hey, Julia, nice to see you too,” Remy said to the monkey. “Did you know that your master is a scumbag?”

  The monkey squealed with glee, jumping with her treat down from her master’s shoulder to his lap, and then to the floor.

  “Julia, come back here this instant,” Mason demanded.

  Instead she climbed up Remy’s leg and onto his shoulder, and tried to feed him her cookie.

  “Julia!” Mason screamed, his normally labored breathing sounding all the more di
fficult.

  “Have?” the monkey offered again.

  “No, thank you, Julia.” Remy smiled.

  “Julia, you bad, bad girl. Come to me this instant!” Mason carried on.

  Mulciber swatted at the capuchin. “Go on,” he barked. “Go back to your boyfriend.”

  Julia shrieked, baring her tiny teeth, trying equally to avoid the hand and to bite it.

  Byleth cleared his throat noisily, not amused by the drama. “Are we going to do some fucking business here, or are we going to continue with this Animal Planet bullshit?”

  “Go back to your master,” Remy whispered to the agitated animal. “That’s a good girl. Go on. That’s it.”

  His soothing tone had the appropriate effect; the monkey crawled down to the floor and then hopped back up onto Mason’s lap.

  “Don’t think I won’t remember this when it’s time for special treats again,” the man complained, obviously jealous of the attention the monkey had shown Remy.

  Julia ignored him, her back turned to the threats as she continued to gnaw on the special treat that she already had.

  “I believe you’ve brought something here to sell me?” Byleth prompted.

  “Yes,” Mason answered, shooting a disdainful look at his monkey before turning his attentions toward Byleth. “Yes, I have, and let me say this time I believe I’ve outdone myself.”

  Mason moved the toggle on the arm of his chair, spinning the conveyance around.

  They all followed him toward the table.

  Remy sensed it immediately, a sudden unease permeating the atmosphere of the garage. He noticed that Byleth was looking at him, that stupid grin that he wanted to smack from his face present again.

  “I’m assuming you can feel that?” Remy asked him.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” the Satan answered. “That’s power you’re experiencing,” he told his former friend. “You’re now in the presence of objects that can initiate change.”

  Remy wanted desperately to move, to grab the Satan by the front of his shirt and shake some sense into him, but that wasn’t going to happen as long as Procell kept on with his muttering.

  “You’re not seeing the big picture,” Remy said. “And I’m sorry to say that neither am I. There’s something else going on here besides the fight over ownership of these weapons, but I just don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, and something tells me it’s gonna be too late once I do.”