Where Angels Fear to Tread

  “With my faithful four-legged sidekick,” Remy affirmed. “There was much evil to be smitten this morning.”

  They both chuckled at that.

  “So, do you have anything useful for me?”

  The thick, delicious aroma of coffee permeated the kitchen, and Remy placed his hand on the handle of the carafe, impatient for it to finish. There was nothing he liked better than a fresh pot of coffee; it was a human vice he would not have been able to shed, even if he’d tried.

  “I think I do,” Coughlin said, and Remy could hear him shuffling papers around on the other end of the phone.

  The coffee machine dripped, then gurgled its last as Remy pulled the carafe from beneath the filter and poured himself a full mug.

  “Okay, those symbols on the flyer?”

  “Yeah?” Remy prompted, taking a full swig of his first coffee of the day.

  “They were most definitely Sumerian,” the old priest said. “I faxed copies of the pamphlet over to an associate at the Vatican, and he confirmed it for me.”

  “Sort of odd, don’t you think?” Remy asked.

  “Most definitely,” Coughlin answered. “Especially when you hear what the symbols were associated with. They’re connected to an extremely rare, ancient sect that worshipped a deity called Dagon.”

  “Dagon,” Remy repeated. “Wasn’t he some sort of sea or fish god?”

  “He was often depicted that way,” the priest explained. “But in actuality, he was a god of fertility and the vivifying powers of nature and reproduction, of life and death.”

  Remy sipped his coffee, absorbing the information.

  “So you’re probably wondering how and why ancient symbols connected to a seemingly forgotten Sumerian god found their way onto a pamphlet advertising a church in Somerville, and that would be a very good question.”

  “Hit me,” Remy said, hearing the excitement in the old priest’s voice.

  “About ten years ago, a religious order sprang up rather unexpectedly in the southern regions of the country, specifically to worship Dagon. There were reports of child abuse and weapons hoarding, and eventually the ATF moved in with local police.”

  “Y’know, I seem to recall something about that. Weren’t there mass suicides or something?” Remy asked.

  “Yeah, it didn’t end well for the church,” Coughlin agreed. “The authorities found that the majority of parishioners, men, women, and children, had poisoned themselves.” The old priest cleared his throat. “I have some pictures here from the Internet. It wasn’t a very pleasant sight. From my understanding, the church’s followers believed their suicide—their lives—would provide the power needed for their god to be reborn on this earth in a body that had been especially created for him.”

  “What, like Frankenstein?” Remy asked. He had finished his first cup of coffee and was moving on to the second.

  “Nothing so crude,” Coughlin said. “A couple had been chosen to conceive a child—a special child, blessed by the powers of the church family, and this child would be the vessel in which this deity could grow and prosper.”

  Remy felt a sick twinge in the pit of his belly.

  “So I’m guessing this ritual never occurred.”

  “Supposedly it was in the midst of being performed when the authorities stormed the compound and put a stop to it. That couple were two of the only survivors, along with the church’s mysterious pastor, who managed to evade arrest.”

  The feeling in Remy’s stomach became worse, a horrible twisting sensation that meant things were about to go very wrong.

  “The couple survived, huh?” Remy said.

  “Yes, yes, they did. In the pictures I have here, they look so young, children themselves really.”

  “Do you happen to know names?” Remy asked, knowing full well he would come to regret the question.

  “I don’t see any last names,” Coughlin said. “But their first names were Deryn and Carl.”

  It was as if the floor beneath his feet had suddenly dropped away, that descending-elevator feeling that made him want to hold on tight to something.

  Deryn York and Carl Saylor.

  Remy was going to need another cup of coffee.

  Deryn York was staying at the Nightingale Motor Lodge in Brighton, about fifteen minutes from Franciscan Children’s, if traffic was behaving.

  Remy had called her from the road, telling her to expect him, and twenty minutes later, he was pulling into the lot of the run-down, stucco building. Deryn’s room was around back, so he parked as close as he could and walked across the lot.

  She opened the door before he had a chance to knock.

  Remy entered the room and was practically overwhelmed with the stink of cigarette smoke.

  “What is it, Mr. Chandler?” she asked, cigarette butt hanging from her mouth as she wrung her hands in nervousness.

  “Remy,” he corrected, attempting to put her at ease.

  She took the cigarette from the corner of her mouth and pulled a chair from beneath the desk. “All right then, Remy. Please, sit down,” she said, motioning to the chair as she plunked down on the queen-sized bed that was covered with a wrinkled floral bedspread.

  “What about my little girl?”

  Remy leaned forward in the chair and looked her straight in the eyes.

  “What can you tell me about the Church of His Holy Abundance?”

  She stared, slowly bringing the cigarette back up to her mouth. “Nothing,” she said with a shake of her head. “Never heard of it.”

  “Are you sure?” Remy prodded. “Perhaps your husband mentioned it in passing?”

  She shook her head again, releasing a choking cloud of smoke. “No, nothing,” she said, squinting through the noxious fumes that surrounded her head. “Why? What’s this all about Mr. . . . Remy?”

  Remy thought for a moment. “I’ve been doing some poking into your past,” he said finally.

  She stared intensely, slowly bringing the cigarette back up to her eager mouth. “My past?” she questioned.

  “The Church of Dagon,” Remy said. “I know about what happened at the Church of Dagon.”

  “Fucking shit,” she hissed, bouncing off the bed and practically hurling herself toward the dresser where an ashtray waited. “I—I can’t fucking believe this,” she stammered, stamping out her smoke.

  “There was a therapy assistant at Franciscan Children’s who had apparently befriended your husband and daughter. I talked with him briefly at the hospital, but when I went to his home to question him further, I discovered he had been murdered.”

  “Murdered?” she repeated with a gasp, both trembling hands going to her mouth as her eyes widened. “It’s not Frank, is it? Please, tell me it’s not fucking Frank.”

  “I’m sorry,” Remy said quietly.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she repeated, grabbing her purse from the dresser and pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Immediately, she lit up.

  “Seems there’s some kind of connection between the church Frank belonged to and the one you and your husband . . .”

  “That son of a bitch,” she snarled. “I always knew he hadn’t given up the old beliefs, even though he swore he had.”

  She started to pace, puffing on the cigarette as if she would die if she didn’t.

  “I thought he might’ve been slipping when he lost his job, and when we first learned how sick Zoe was, but he promised me it wasn’t true. He knew how I felt about those . . . those freaks.”

  Remy stared and listened.

  “That’s what they were,” she said to him forcefully. “Wanting to use my baby to stick some sort of . . . spirit inside her and . . .”

  She threw her hands in the air in frustration.

  “We were young and fucking stupid; what can I say,” she explained. Her back was to him now as she stood in front of the double windows, their shades drawn to keep out the sun, and any nosy motel residents.

  “So you think he might have gone back to his old beliefs?” Remy asked.

  She picked a piece of tobacco off her tongue and flicked it away. “Yeah, he could have, especially if
Frank was a member. I was sort of wondering where those two would go off to together sometimes. Seriously, with the way things were going, I don’t think it would’ve taken much to push him back to the old ways.”

  A sudden knock at the door startled them, and Deryn looked at him. “It’s housekeeping,” she said, heading for the door. “I called for more toilet tissue just before you came.”

  The Seraphim inside Remy awakened in an instant, aroused by something familiar, and Remy gasped, fighting the nearly overwhelming power that struggled to manifest as Deryn opened the door.

  It wasn’t housekeeping. Not unless they traveled in packs and stank of violence, desperation, and decay.

  And not unless they were all missing their souls.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The pack of soulless beings spilled into the motel room, strangely silent in their attack.

  Remy barely had time to react before they had Deryn on the floor, holding her down as one pulled plastic ties from a pocket and bound her hands behind her back, and another drew a hood over her head.

  Remy threw himself in the fray, and they swarmed him like ants on a piece of bread. They drove him to the floor, but still he fought.

  The Seraphim screeched and wailed to be unleashed, and this time Remy allowed his guard to drop, the essence of Heaven surging to the surface, only to be pushed away. It struggled wildly, but something was preventing its manifestation.

  The soulless beings kicked and punched Remy mercilessly, driving him back to the floor every time he tried to stand. Through bleary eyes, he watched as Deryn was dragged from the room.

  And then he saw a gray-haired man, standing just inside the door, smiling as he watched the ferocious beating.

  The assault was relentless, and as they laid their hands upon him again and again, he caught sight of the mark they wore, his eyes taking in brief glimpses of a pair of lips caught in a flash of exposed flesh.

  “Enough,” a voice that sounded a million miles away called out, and the soulless ceased their abuse.

  Remy managed to push himself up onto his knees, swaying as the cheap motel room’s floor seemed to move beneath him. Through his unswollen eye, he looked into the barrel of a pistol aimed at his forehead.

  The gray-haired man stared down its length, his thumb cocking back the hammer. Remy could sense—could smell—that this one’s soul had been removed as well, but there was something about him, in his cold, unemotional stare, almost as if the absence of God’s greatest gift were nothing important.

  Maybe he had learned to live without a soul long before it had been taken.

  Remy watched the man’s finger begin to twitch upon the trigger, and summoned the strength to react. He reached up, grabbing hold of the barrel, and twisted it away just as the weapon discharged.

  “Shit,” the man cursed, lashing out at him with his foot and kicking Remy back to the floor. He chambered another round and aimed at Remy’s face.

  He was about to fire when a roar filled the room.

  It was coming from outside, growing louder by the second, and giving Remy just enough of a distraction.

  He rolled onto his belly as the sound outside the motel grew to a nearly deafening crescendo, his eyes drawn to the thick curtains that had been pulled across the large motel windows.

  The window exploded in a cacophony of shattered glass and cinder block, as a four-wheel drive crashed through the wall.

  The soulless screamed as they were scattered, the leader with his gun falling backward as shards of glass and broken cement blanketed the room.

  A cloud of dust and dirt billowed through the air as the vehicle’s doors opened and two people emerged.

  Remy reached out to the small desk against the opposite wall, trying to pull himself to his feet. He watched in disbelief as a man and woman, exhibiting strength not usually attributed to humans, made short work of the soulless.

  Limbs were broken and skulls shattered as the pair waded into the room, administering violence with cold efficiency.

  Remy saw movement from the corner of his eye, catching sight of the gray-haired leader bolting from the room. He tried to pursue him, but his legs had become like rubber, and he stumbled forward, falling against the bed.

  He quickly turned, trying to stay upright as the room spun, and came face-to-face with one of the pair. It was the man, his face large and square, adorned with a mustache and goatee, his hair shoulder length, the top a spiky mullet. Their eyes locked, and then the man drew back, driving a fist like a wrecking ball into Remy’s face.

  He fell back, fighting to remain conscious. He could feel himself being picked up, then tossed like a bag of dirty laundry into the back of the truck

  He could hear sirens in the distance as he felt the truck back up.

  Banshee wails that took him by the hand and showed him the way to the land of unconsciousness.

  Carl Saylor had always thought of himself as a failure.

  But as he drove his car up the winding dirt road, with little Zoe sitting in the seat beside him, he believed that now—finally—that was all about to change.

  He’d never really been much good at anything. He was the middle child of three; his brother had been great in sports, and his sister had been top of her class in high school and college. Carl never really had much luck with sports, and school, no matter how hard he applied himself, was always just too damn difficult. Even after school, his failures had continued as he moved from one low-paying job to another.

  From an early age he knew where his path would take him.

  Nowhere.

  He stopped the car and peered through the windshield at a rusted yellow gate. He’d followed the directions Frank had given him, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about a gate, and now Carl wondered if he shouldn’t have taken that right about two miles back.

  “Where are we, Daddy?” Zoe asked. She was rocking back and forth. “Where are we, Daddy? Where are we, Daddy?” she repeated again and again, not waiting for his answer.

  “We’re looking for that special place Frank told us about, remember?” Carl said, reaching across the seat to squeeze her bare knee.

  “Frank’s dead,” she said matter-of-factly. “Dead. Dead. Dead.”

  “Don’t say that, honey,” he scolded. “It’s not nice.”

  “It’s not nice,” she repeated, rocking faster. “It’s not nice Frank’s dead.”

  Carl truly believed Frank had saved his life, removing him from the path of failure and putting him on the highway to redemption.

  He’d thought that about Deryn too, at first. She’d seemed an awful lot like him.

  He glanced over at his little girl, mesmerized by her rocking. He could see his ex in the shape of her face, in the blue of her eyes.

  Deryn was the first to hear about the church. Carl had never been one for religion, but he loved Deryn as much as he loved anything, and he went along to one of the meetings just to keep her happy.

  The Church of Dagon had welcomed them with open arms, giving them a place to stay when they’d had no other, and even inviting them for a special visit with the church’s founder, Pastor Zachariah.

  And suddenly their lives were changed. They were no longer failures. They were chosen, Pastor Zachariah had told them. The pastor’s words were like a magic potion, and Carl and Deryn had thrown themselves into the church, body and soul, waiting for the time when they would be able to fulfill their special purpose.

  Then Deryn became pregnant. All the plans began to fall into place, and their future never seemed clearer.

  The pastor told them their baby would be the vessel for their god . . . Dagon. And the world would be changed forever.

  Carl opened the door, letting a rush of moist, West Virginia heat into the coolness of the air-conditioned car.

  “Stay right there,” he told his daughter as he exited. She continued to rock to some silent tune that only she could hear.

  He slammed the door closed and walked around the car, standing before the metal gate, craning his neck to see what lay beyond. It
appeared to be more of the same, but he didn’t want to believe he was lost.

  Not again.

  The closer it had come to the time for the ritual, the more doubt had filled Carl’s mind. He’d known it was selfish, but he didn’t want a god to live inside his baby. Carl wanted his baby to belong to him, and to Deryn, not to the church . . . not to the world.

  And that was when he had taken a walk down the road to failure again, placing a series of phone calls to various state and federal agencies, suggesting wrongdoing at the isolated church compound.

  He’d believed his attempts to rouse the suspicions of the authorities had failed as the night the god Dagon was to return to the world was upon them. All the church was to play a part in the ancient ritual, sacrificing their lives for the good of the world, for the good of their god.

  Their lives would reach to the void, punching through the barrier that kept the Lord of Abundance separated from this reality.

  The ritual had been well under way, the church brothers and sisters in the throes of death, when the authorities laid siege to the compound.

  Carl hadn’t taken his own poison as his wife lay there, waiting for the ritual to be completed and the god to take possession of the child—their child—growing in her belly. As the officials poured into the church, weapons drawn, he had looked into Pastor Zachariah’s eyes and realized the holy man knew he was responsible.

  The pastor had run, using the confusion and clouds of tear gas to escape prosecution.

  Carl, Deryn, and the baby had been the only survivors, and Carl had believed he was the luckiest man alive.

  But he’d been wrong.

  Because of his betrayal, he was back on the path of failure, and things had gone from bad to worse.

  Carl shook his head and returned to the car.

  “C’mon, hon,” he said, opening the passenger door and unbuckling Zoe’s seat belt. “We’re gonna go for a little walk and see what’s up this road.”

  The child’s hands were flailing. It had been quite a while since she’d last held a crayon.

  “I’ll get you some paper in a little while,” he told her, taking one of her hands in his and leading her toward the rusted gate. Carl picked the child up and placed her on the other side, climbing beneath the metal obstruction to join her.