Dancing on the Head of a Pin

  Remy brought the cup of coffee up toward his mouth. “It’s to be expected,” he said, taking a long drink. It was hot, burning hot. It felt good to feel something other than sadness.

  “With most folks, yeah, but with you it’s different. You’re not the same person anymore, and that’s really sad.”

  Remy set his cup down. “Who am I, then?” he asked, directing the question as much to himself as to his friend. “Maybe when she died Remy Chandler died with her, and this is the new guy who got left behind.”

  Everything grew very quiet, the emotion suddenly so thick that it was almost difficult to breathe.

  “Any chance of the old guy coming back?”

  “Why, does he owe you money?” Remy joked, trying to lighten the mood.

  The scruffy man shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “Just pure selfishness on my part. I’m not ready to say good-bye to him yet.”

  “I hear he’s been going through some pretty rough shit,” Remy said as he picked up his cup, looking inside at what remained of the contents. He finished what was left and grimaced at the bitter end.

  “Thought I heard something to that effect,” Mulvehill said, moving to the edge of his chair to retrieve the empty bag from the floor. He put his own empty coffee cup inside it. “I hope he swings around again sometime soon so I can tell him that he’s not alone in this, that he has people who give a shit about how he’s feeling, and what he’s going through.”

  Remy wheeled his chair closer to the barrel where he’d recently disposed of his plant. “I’m sure he’s aware of that already, but it doesn’t hurt to tell him again.” He threw away his coffee cup.

  “Yeah,” Mulvehill said, rising from his seat. “He’s kind of thick like that.”

  The detective retrieved the bag containing the apple pastry and crinkled the top tighter. “Sure you don’t want this?” he asked.

  Remy shook his head. “I’m good.”

  Mulvehill accepted this, walking across the office to the coat rack for his jacket.

  “So if you should see him,” he began.

  Remy looked up from an electric bill he’d retrieved from the pile, at first confused.

  “Our mutual friend, the one we were just discussing?” Mulvehill clarified. “If you should see him, pass on that I wish him only the best.”

  He adjusted the collar on the jacket and, satisfied that he was presentable, opened the door to leave.

  “And that I really miss her too,” he added as he left, closing the door behind him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Remy stood before his wife’s grave, as he’d done so many times since she’d left him.

  He had managed to make it through all the mail and even returned a few phone calls before deciding not to push his luck. He’d stopped at home to pick up Marlowe, then headed for the cemetery.

  A thin, snaking vine clung to the face of the marble grave marker, the delicate purple flowers that grew from the vine embellishing her name.

  MADELINE CHANDLER: BELOVED.

  It always stunned him how beautiful it was, no matter the season; there were always flowers of various colors and sizes growing on and around the grave, a gift of gratitude from Israfil, the Angel of Death, for Remy’s assistance in keeping the world from ending.

  “Hey there, beautiful,” Remy said, kneeling upon the thick green grass. He reached out, letting his fingers brush the engraving of her name.

  He knew that she wasn’t there with him, for when she had passed from life, her essence—her soul—had joined with countless others, as had been done since creation, to become part of the very fabric of the universe.

  To become part of the Source.

  He of all people knew how it worked, but he liked having a place that he could come to—to think, to chat with her as if she were still with him.

  From out of the corner of his eye he saw Marlowe zip past, obviously on the hunt.

  “Are you going to come over and say hi?” Remy called to the animal that was darting between the headstones, snout pressed to the ground.

  “No,” the dog answered. “Finding rabbits.”

  Remy turned his attention back to his wife’s grave.

  “Things have been kind of crazy,” he said, picking away some of the dead, dry leaves that hung uselessly from the veinwork of vines that covered the front of the marker. “You know, lots of the weird stuff.”

  Whenever he was involved in a case outside the walls of normalcy, Madeline had always referred to it as that weird stuff. When your husband was a disenfranchised angel from Heaven, working as a private investigator, the weird stuff just had a tendency to find you. She never liked it, saying that it gave her the creeps, but over time had learned to tolerate it.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know; you hate that crap.” He laughed softly, hearing the sound of her complaining as if she were there with him. “But it keeps me busy . . . keeps me distracted.”

  He read her name on the stone over and over again.

  “I’m surprised that you didn’t run from me screaming that morning when I showed you,” he said.

  When I showed you what I was.

  Nahant, Massachusetts, 19??

  “What are you doing?” Madeline Dexter asked him, a smile creeping around the corners of her seductive mouth. The warm wind whipped off the water as she picked some stray strands of her tousled hair from her mouth, her beautiful brown eyes riveted to him.

  They had been out all night dancing at the Wonderland Ballroom, just one of the hundreds of joyous times they’d shared since she had first come to work as his office manager.

  There was something about this woman, something that demanded that she know the truth.

  “I have something to show you,” he said to her.

  He let her hand go and stepped back. His eyes quickly scanned the beach around them, wanting to be certain that they were indeed alone. The sun had just come up, and there wasn’t another soul to be found. At that moment, as far as he was concerned, they were the only two people upon the planet, like Adam and Eve.

  He hoped things worked out for him and Madeline better than they did for those two.

  Madeline moved her shoes from one hand to the other. “What is this, Remy?” she asked, with a nervous giggle. “What’re you going to do, some sort of magic trick?”

  Remy smiled at her warmly. After what he had left behind in Paradise, he had never believed he could trust something so completely. She made him want to belong. For the first time in more than a millennium, he truly felt a part of humanity, not just some imposter going through the motions.

  She made him feel human, and he couldn’t bear to hide the truth about himself any longer.

  “A magic trick,” he repeated, and laughed.

  He tried to recall the last time he had shed his human guise. It was before he’d come to Massachusetts, and maybe even before Massachusetts had been established, for that matter. It had been a long time, and he did not relish the act.

  But it had to be if their relationship was to continue down this path.

  “You’ve often talked about how honest I am, how I can’t lie to save my life.”

  She stared at him intensely. She was starting to look worried, maybe thinking that he was going to reveal that he already had a girlfriend, or perhaps even worse, that he was married.

  If only it was that simple.

  “But I have been lying, Maddie,” he told her, “lying about what I am.”

  She stepped toward him, concern on her face. “You don’t have to do this,” Madeline said. “Whatever it is you’ve been hiding . . . it’s all right, Remy; we can work it out.”

  Madeline was afraid, and if he were to be perfectly honest, so was he.

  Remy didn’t want to lose her, and by revealing the truth, he knew that he very well might. But he couldn’t lie anymore, especially to her.

  “Don’t ruin this,” she begged.

  Gently he pushed her back, the fear intensifying in her eyes.

  ?
??I have to do it,” he said.

  “No, you don’t,” Madeline commanded as she stamped her bare foot in the sand. “Don’t do this to me. . . . Don’t take away what we have. . . . Please.”

  He couldn’t torture her anymore. Remy reached down within himself, deep into the bottomless darkness where he had hidden his true self, and called to the power of Heaven.

  He wished he could say that it was happy to see him, that this was about to be a pleasurable experience, but then he really would have been lying. It hated his human guise and eagerly attacked it, burning away his clothes and the tender flesh to reveal the truth beneath.

  Tears streamed down Madeline’s face as her pale, delicate flesh was illuminated in the glow of his divinity.

  But she did not run; she did not scream in terror.

  The essence of the Seraphim exerted its full power, exploding from his body in a flash of brilliance. Remy tossed his head back and yelled to the Heavens as two great feathered wings emerged from his back, their gentle beating tossing sparks of fire to smolder in the sand.

  Exhausted, Remy—now in the guise of Remiel of the Heavenly host Seraphim—dropped to his knees on the beach.

  “I couldn’t hide this from you any longer,” he said, his odd-sounding voice making her flinch. “I had to tell you—show you the truth.”

  Slowly, Madeline dropped to her knees. “I always knew there was something different about you,” she whispered. There was no fear in her tone, no disbelief, just a breathless wonder. “Something special.”

  She reached out, touching his bare, luminescent flesh. “You’re real,” she said with a laugh, the tips of her fingers causing his skin to tingle pleasurably.

  “I am,” Remy answered, taking her hand in his. “More real now, since you’ve come into my life, than I’ve been in . . . in a very long time.”

  “So you’re an angel?” she asked, a smile beaming from ear to ear, tears filling her eyes.

  “Of the host Seraphim.” Remy nodded, softly rubbing his thumb across the top of the hand he held.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I’ve been searching for something,” he began to explain. “Searching for something that was lost to me in Heaven—something I wasn’t sure I would ever find again.”

  “This something,” Madeline asked, “have you found it?”

  Remiel looked deeply into the woman’s teary eyes, the object of his quest glimmering there, just within reach.

  “I believe I have,” he told her.

  Madeline moved in closer and threw her arms about his neck. He responded in kind, pulling her tightly against him as his wings of Heavenly fire enfolded them both in a loving embrace.

  A cold nose nuzzling his ear returned him to the present.

  “Hey,” the dog spoke.

  “Thanks,” Remy said, throwing his arm around the animal’s thick neck. “Catch any rabbits?”

  “Smell them,” Marlowe stated. “No find.”

  “Maybe next time,” Remy consoled the Labrador, planting a kiss on the top of his blocky head. “What do you say? Want to go home?”

  “Eat?” the dog asked, looking up at him as he stood.

  Remy pulled the sleeve up on his jacket to look at his watch. “Yeah, soon. By the time we drive home it’ll be time.”

  Marlowe darted toward the path, excited by the prospect of food.

  “Don’t go too far ahead,” Remy called after the running dog, just as his cell phone started to ring.

  The angel reached into his pocket and removed the slim phone, flipping it open to see who was calling. He didn’t recognize the number but decided to take the call anyway.

  “Yes,” Remy said, the phone placed to his ear. Marlowe was sniffing the base of a tree alongside the path; then he lifted his leg, but to little effect. His tank was empty.

  “Mr. Chandler?” asked a dry, raspy voice.

  “Speaking. How can I help you?”

  “Mr. Chandler, my name is Alfred Karnighan, and I’m very interested in retaining your services.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Karnighan, but my caseload is currently pretty full and—”

  “People have spoken very highly of your skills,” the older-sounding man interrupted. “I’d be willing to pay your fees and expenses with an additional twenty-five percent added on if you would consider my situation.”

  A part of Remy still wanted to refuse, but he then remembered the stack of bills sitting in the middle of his desk, and his conversation with Mulvehill about the old Remy coming back sometime soon.

  “Can you give me an idea of what you’d like me to do for you, Mr. Karnighan?”

  “Of course, Mr. Chandler,” the man answered. “Some belongings of mine have been stolen—very valuable and important belongings. And I would like you to find the person or persons responsible and have my property returned to me.”

  Remy reached his car, parked outside the cemetery, where Marlowe was waiting patiently to be let into the backseat.

  “Have you talked to the police about this matter?” Remy asked, opening the door to allow the dog inside.

  “I have, but their performance . . . has been less than satisfactory.”

  Remy climbed into the driver’s seat and closed the door.

  “Mr. Chandler?”

  “Yes, Mr. Karnighan. Why don’t we meet Wednesday morning, around ten? How does that sound?”

  “Like the answer to my prayers, Mr. Chandler.”

  Remy had heard that the Nomads had taken up residence somewhere on Tremont Street. They seemed to be drawn to high places, and he figured a recently completed, and so far unoccupied, office building might be the kind of place that they would take a liking to.

  The closer he got to the glass and steel skyscraper, the better he knew that his assumptions had been correct. He didn’t have to focus all that hard to sense them; a gathering of angels this large caused a weird kind of ringing in his ears, his inhuman nature roused to attentiveness.

  He’d gotten up early and had treated Marlowe to a walk in the Common, generally wasting as much time as he could. But he had to get this over with, and the quicker he got it done, the better off he’d be.

  There had been rumors that he’d been the one to inspire the Nomads, that his actions in leaving Heaven after the war had motivated those of like mind to band together. He didn’t like to think of his actions as inspirational to anyone. They were his decisions, and his alone.

  Willing himself unseen, he entered the lobby. A real estate agent was showing the building to a group of potential renters, his voice droning on about how the building was state-of-the-art and so on and so forth, as he ushered them toward the elevators. Remy joined the group. They went as far as the twelth floor, the doors opening onto a spacious area just ripe for some sort of commerce, and cubicles of happy worker bees.

  Remy hit the button for the top floor, the closing doors cutting off the sales pitch of the real estate agent, and leaving him with the hum of the elevator’s ascent. He liked the sound the elevator made much more than the eager voice of the agent. They must have been sort of desperate, for as far as Remy knew, this building had been empty since its completion more than a year ago.

  He wondered if the building’s rather unusual squatters had anything to do with that. It was possible; though invisible to most, their presense could often still be sensed. Not a comfortable feeling, he imagined, often blamed on bad energy flow, or feng shui, if you like.

  The doors opened and Remy stepped out onto the twenty-fifth floor. It was a nice space, huge floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto a gorgeous view of the city.

  Strolling across the open space, he found the door that accessed the stairwell to the roof. The strange sensation in his ears had intensified, the sound now something more akin to a song—a chant—and the Seraphim that he kept locked up inside him grew frantic with excitement at the idea of mingling with others of its kind.

  At the top of the stairs Remy reached for the handle, but the door sw
ung open on its own. They must have known he was coming—certainly if he could sense them, they could him.

  Remy stepped out onto the roof. At first he saw nothing more than the building’s heating and cooling units, and the stunning city view beyond the roof, but squinting through his sight, altering the composition of his eyes, allowed him to see so much more.