A Hundred Words for Hate

  There’s something you don’t see every day, he thought in a painfilled haze, watching as gigantic hunks of glacial ice cascaded toward the surface of Hell, only to stop midway and float inexplicably weightless through the debris and ash-choked air. Pieces of Tartarus, like an asteroid field above the quake-ravaged surface, gradually dissolved into a thick cloud of swirling matter.

  Hell was coming apart at the seams, and Francis had a front-row seat.

  After centuries of servitude, he had been given the job as Guardian of one of the many gates—passages—from the world of man to the Hell realm and the prison of Tartarus. It had been his way of making amends with the Almighty for temporarily siding with the Morningstar. And he had served his God well, helping those fallen angels released from their time in the icy prison to prepare for the remainder of the penance they would do on Earth.

  He’d also shown some initiative, and managed to maintain a lucrative business as a professional assassin. Very selective in those he killed, Francis had eliminated only the worst of the bad. It had been the one saving grace in his exile upon the planet of man—that and his friendship with the Seraphim Remiel.

  Known now as Remy Chandler.

  The remains of Tartarus swirled in the air, a maelstrom of ice, dust, dirt, and rock.

  And the storm was growing.

  Francis lay upon the trembling ground watching in awe. He knew that was where Remy had been going when last he saw him, and wondered if the Seraphim had anything to do with the cataclysm that threatened the Hell realm.

  Of course he did.

  The ground beneath his back grew incredibly hot, but Francis didn’t have the strength to move. He was thankful Hell decided to do this for him.

  There was an explosion of foul-smelling gas, the force of the blast propelling him up into the air, only to land on his belly at the edge of an expanding pool of lava.

  Francis barely managed to hold on to consciousness, the sucking darkness of oblivion pulling him slowly closer. He tried to pull himself away from the burning fluid, but managed only to turn onto his back, where he could once again look up into the rubble-filled sky.

  Pieces of Hell and Tartarus had mingled together, a growing, swirling vortex of all the misery, hate, and sorrow that defined this horrible place created by a supposedly loving God.

  It wouldn’t be long until Francis too joined the maelstrom, sucked up with everything else into the yawning maw of the voracious funnel cloud.

  What did you do, Remy? Francis wondered as he felt the first, burning touch of liquid rock on his battered flesh. What did you find inside the prison that could have led to . . . this?

  And as if some higher power had heard his question and, knowing that he would soon no longer be among the living, took pity upon him, showing him the answer.

  The vortex spun above him, opening wider and wider. And inside its mouth, floating in the dust-, dirt-, and ash-choked air, untouched by the madness of what was happening around him, floated a figure.

  The figure . . . he was like the sun, repelling the darkness with a golden light that emanated from his perfect form.

  Francis remembered this being, and how he had once stood alongside the Almighty.

  The answer to his question hovered in the center of the storm.

  The Morningstar had risen.

  And Francis knew that nothing would ever be the fucking same again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “So, what’s your story, Remy Chandler?”

  Linda Somerset’s voice echoed inside Remy’s head as he drove past the Museum of Science on his way to Somerville, where he’d promised to meet Steven Mulvehill for a nightcap.

  The date had gone well—nothing spectacular, but good. There were no fireworks or wedding plans or joint checking accounts in the foreseeable future, but the night had been okay. There’d been lots of small talk, conversation establishing a comfort zone for the two of them. Normally, Remy would have been bored to tears, but from Linda, it was like opening the window on a gorgeous spring day after a particularly harrowing winter.

  And it had been a harrowing winter.

  “So, what’s your story, Remy Chandler?”

  He heard her ask the question again. She had just finished talking about everything from her fear of spiders and her love for Japanese monster movies to her failed marriage and how it had taken her a very long time to get her head straight again.

  She had paused, brought her second merlot to her lips, and asked him over the rim of her glass:

  “So, what’s your story, Remy Chandler?”

  And strangely enough, he had told her. Not everything, of course, just the things that wouldn’t make her run screaming into the night. No, there’d be plenty of time for that business on the second date.

  The second date.

  The thought troubled him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want another; he’d had a pretty good time with Linda, but he just couldn’t shake the guilt.

  He felt as if he were cheating: cheating on the memory of Madeline.

  Remy parked his car at a meter across from the Bowman. The usual barflies were hanging out in front of the neighborhood tavern, smoking their cigarettes, even though the windchill had to be well below zero. The cigarette smoke mixed with the exhalation from their lungs formed thick clouds of white that billowed in the air before them.

  Remy passed through the cloud bank and pulled open the heavy wooden door to a blast of warm air that stank of stale beer and age. He looked around and found Mulvehill hunched over the bar, contemplating the secrets of the universe in a Scotch on the rocks.

  “Should you be drinking that now?” Remy asked as he joined his friend, removing his heavy leather jacket and placing it over the top of a high-backed stool. “Isn’t it a school night?”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t,” the homicide detective said, gesturing for the bartender. “What do you want?”

  “I’ll have whatever he has,” Remy told the proprietor as he took a seat beside Mulvehill.

  “So?” Mulvehill asked, taking a careful sip of his drink, barely disturbing the ice.

  “So what?” Remy replied, knowing full well what his friend was getting at.

  “Didn’t you have plans tonight?” Mulvehill said with a smirk.

  The bartender returned with another Scotch on the rocks and placed it on a napkin in front of Remy. “Thanks.” Remy nodded as he picked up the drink and took a long sip of the golden liquid.

  “Maybe,” he said to Mulvehill as he smacked his lips and set the glass back on the napkin.

  Mulvehill laughed. “Asshole,” he said with a shake of his head.

  “Coming from you, that means a lot.”

  “I know assholes,” Mulvehill said, pointing to himself as he stifled a laugh. “And you’re exceptional.”

  Remy lifted his drink in a toast to his friend. “Why, thank you, sir,” he said. “I have at last achieved greatness.”

  Mulvehill picked up his own drink in response and they both drank, silently savoring the alcohol and the friendship they shared.

  “So, did she show?” the detective asked, finally breaking the silence.

  “She actually did,” Remy answered, staring straight ahead at the elaborate assortment of liquor bottles behind the bar. “Imagine that.”

  “Imagine.” Mulvehill nodded. “How’d it go?”

  “Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?” Remy turned his gaze to his friend with a smile.

  Mulvehill cringed in mock horror. “Ouch,” he said, screwing up his face in an expression of pain. “Sorry, dude.”

  Remy laughed. “No, it was fine,” he said. “Nice, actually.”

  “Nice?” Mulvehill asked. “What, did you go out with my mother?”

  “No, that would have been hot.” Remy wiggled his eyebrows for effect.

  “Now you’re just getting gross,” Mulvehill said with a disgusted look.

  Remy took another sip of Scotch. “Really, we did have a nice time.”

&nbs
p; Mulvehill watched him carefully. “Really? A nice time? The sky didn’t open up and rain toads or anything?”

  Remy shook his head. “Nope, it was a nice time.” He could still feel the guilt inside, squirming around, keeping company with the essence of the Seraphim, and he hoped his friend wouldn’t notice.

  “Then why does your face look like that?” Mulvehill asked, turning on his bar stool to study Remy.

  “Like what?” Remy asked, feigning innocence. He leaned over the bar to get a better look at himself in the mirror behind the liquor bottles. “I’m telling you, there’s nothing wrong. I went on a date, we had a nice time, and that’s it. Nothing more.”

  “You’re so full of shit you stink,” Mulvehill growled. “I’m going to need another one of these just to talk with you.” He gestured for the bartender.

  “I might as well too,” Remy said, lifting his glass toward the bartender.

  “So if you had such a nice time, why do you look like you ate a bad piece of fish?” Mulvehill pressed.

  “Bad piece of fish?” Remy echoed. “I look that bad?”

  Mulvehill nodded. “Something isn’t sitting right with you.”

  The bartender brought them two fresh drinks, and was off to the other end of the bar in a flash.

  “It’s stupid,” Remy said. He drained what remained of his first drink and set it down before picking up the second.

  “Figured as much,” Mulvehill said. “Why don’t you share the stupidity so I can get a good laugh.”

  “It’s because I had a good time,” Remy mumbled, embarrassed as he heard himself speak the words.

  “You look like you’re smelling low tide at Revere Beach because you had a good time? What’s wrong with this picture?” And then Mulvehill’s expression changed. “This is about Madeline, isn’t it?”

  Remy said nothing.

  “Jesus, Remy,” the homicide cop said. “Can’t you cut yourself the tiniest bit of slack?”

  Remy knew that Steven was right, but it didn’t change how he felt. “I know it’s crazy,” he admitted, “but I can’t shake the feeling that . . .” He stopped, staring at the ice in the bottom of his glass.

  “That you’re cheating on her,” Mulvehill finished the sentence for him, his voice low and rough.

  Remy nodded once. “Yeah, something like that.”

  “You know that’s not true, right?”

  “Yeah.” Remy nodded again.

  “This isn’t helping you at all, is it?” Mulvehill said.

  Remy started to laugh. “Not at all.”

  Steven laughed too, picking up his drink and taking a large swig. “You’re your own worst enemy, Remy Chandler,” the homicide cop said.

  “Ain’t it the truth,” Remy had to agree.

  They were quiet again, the sounds of the bar swirling around them as they sat and drank. There was a tickling at the base of Remy’s brain, and suddenly he could hear a voice—a prayer—ever so softly from someone in the bar. The person was praying for his mother, who was dying. He was praying that her life would end soon.

  That there would be an end to her suffering.

  “So where’d you leave it?” Steven asked, the distraction an answer to Remy’s own silent prayers.

  “We’re supposed to have lunch tomorrow.”

  “So you’re going to see her again?”

  “Yeah,” Remy said.

  “Good. You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “You’re alone,” Remy countered, turning to look at Steven.

  “But, you see, that’s the difference between us,” the cop explained. “I’m better off alone because I’m a miserable bastard, but you . . . Let’s just say you need a good woman to keep you in check, and we’ll leave it at that.”

  Steven was right.

  Since the death of his wife, Remy was finding it more and more difficult to control the angelic nature that writhed and churned inside him—desperate to be released, desperate to do what he was created for.

  The Seraphim was a soldier—a warrior of God—and he existed to burn away anything that was a blight in the eyes of God. A power such as that had to be controlled.

  Steven knew that, and knew that it was the love of Madeline that had kept the destructive, divine power in check for all these years, a love that had kept Remy anchored to the mask of humanity he’d created for himself as he lived upon the world of God’s man.

  An anchor that was now missing.

  “What makes you think Linda will be able to fill that role?” Remy asked him.

  Steven shrugged. “I don’t, but at least you’re out there trying . . . acting like all the other poor schmucks looking for love.”

  “Except you,” Remy said.

  “I eat love for breakfast and it gives me the wind something awful,” Mulvehill said with a snarl as he finished what was left of his drink. “I need a cigarette and my bed, in that order.”

  He fished his wallet out from the back pocket of his pants as he slid from the stool. “I got this,” he said, pulling out some wrinkled bills and placing them on the bar. He gestured to the barkeep and took his coat from the back of his chair.

  “Wow, even after I pissed you off you’re still picking up the tab,” Remy said, slipping into his own leather jacket.

  “What can I say,” Mulvehill said, pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes from an inside coat pocket. “I’m generous to a fault.”

  Remy followed his friend outside into the freezing cold. The smokers who had been there when he’d first arrived were long gone.

  “Shit, it’s cold,” Mulvehill said as he yanked the collar of his coat up around his ears. A cigarette protruded from his lips, and he brought a lighter up to ignite its tip.

  “It’s January in New England; what do you expect?” Remy commented.

  “Thank you, Al fucking Roker,” Mulvehill said dryly, making Remy laugh. “Where’d you park?”

  Remy pointed to his Toyota across the street. “There she be,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “I walked; figured it’d be one of those exasperating nights where I needed many drinks to keep from strangling you.”

  “And was it?” Remy asked.

  “You were one Scotch away from being throttled,” his friend said, cigarette bobbing between his lips.

  “Guess it’s my lucky night,” Remy said. “Want a ride?”

  Mulvehill shook his head. “Naw, gonna walk off the buzz.” He started to back up down the street.

  “Talk to you later, then,” Remy said, walking into the center of the street. There wasn’t a trace of traffic as he strolled to his car.

  “Hey, Chandler,” Steven called out as Remy stuck his key in the door of his car.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “Can’t imagine she wouldn’t want you to be happy,” his friend said.

  “You’re probably right,” Remy answered, letting the words slowly penetrate, knowing full well whom Steven was talking about. Pulling open the car door, he waved good night before climbing inside.

  Can’t imagine.

  Odd jobs—that was all he could remember doing for . . .

  It seemed like forever.

  They called him Bob, but he had no idea where the moniker had come from. He couldn’t remember his real name.

  He couldn’t remember much of anything.

  Bob was waiting in front of the Home Depot with ten others, waiting for work. They would do just about any form of manual labor for a day’s pay—gardening, painting, yard cleanup . . . odd jobs.

  Odd jobs.

  Bob stood by himself, away from the others, as he usually did, eyeing the entrance to the parking lot.

  The smell was upon him first, a wave of hot, fetid aromas—the stink of a primordial jungle, lush with thick, overgrowing life. Bob closed his eyes, suddenly feeling as though he’d moved through time and space to another location.

  A place that he could almost see inside his mind. A place where he had been before.

  This wasn
’t the first time he’d experienced this, but it was stronger of late, the smells more specific, the imagery more precise, and he kept hoping that one day soon, he would remember more.

  More than the odd jobs.

  “Hey, you comin’?” a voice asked, interrupting his thoughts.

  Bob opened his eyes to see a thin Hispanic man standing in front of him. The others were already climbing into the back of a silver pickup truck.

  “Yes,” Bob answered quickly, the lingering scent of the forest fading from his nostrils as he joined the other day laborers.

  After a short drive, they ended up in a well-to-do neighborhood, clearing an overgrown lot to make way for the renovation of an existing property. Bob knew little more than that, and really didn’t care.

  He couldn’t forget the latest assault to his senses. It was right there, teasing him, telling him something he needed to know, but didn’t understand.

  Almost as if the memory were in some foreign tongue.

  Bob stood in the lot, a scythe in his hand, cutting a swath through a thick wall of overgrown weeds. He concentrated on the rhythmic, back-and-forth movement of the blade, trying to forget the smells, the sensations, but elusive echoes remained, just beyond his reach.

  The morning sun climbed high in the sky, and his shirt was soaked with the perspiration of hard work. Heart hammering in his chest, Bob let the scythe drop and removed his shirt, exposing his well-muscled flesh to the sun’s rays.

  The high-pitched sound of a child’s laugh caught his attention and he gazed back toward the well-kept yard beyond the lot. The man who owned the property—Bob didn’t remember if he had even told them his name—was spraying a gleefully shrieking little boy with a garden hose.

  Bob’s eyes were riveted to the scene, locked on the image of the happy child racing around the yard, trying to avoid his father’s attempts to soak him. It was all so . . . familiar.

  And suddenly, the laughing child was replaced by the image of a man and a woman . . . naked, perfect in their form. They too ran through a gently falling rain.

  A rain that fell upon a garden.

  The Garden.

  Bob let out a scream of agony and fell to the dusty ground he’d just cleared. For years—centuries—he had waited for a time when his visions would reveal their secrets, but now he wanted them to stop.