The power of Heaven was still somewhere inside of him, but it had gone deep to recover.
To heal.
“I knew there was something different about you,” Francis said. “I thought you might’ve lost some weight.”
“I haven’t quite sorted it all out yet,” Angus started to explain, chubby hand flitting around his head. “But Stearns is up to something…and it’s something that could prove deadly to millions.”
Remy stepped back from the closet door and sat down on the bed. He looked at the body of Ashley’s imposter again. “I need to go back there, to bring the real Ashley home.”
He looked at Francis and the magick user. “This Stearns, he’s a powerful sorcerer?”
“All of the cabal were extremely powerful and—”
“Answer the question,” Remy snapped.
“Yes, he was probably the strongest of us,” Angus said quickly.
“Good answer.” Francis patted the man on the shoulder.
“I think we should pay Algernon Stearns a little visit, then,” Remy said. “A sorcerer that powerful will probably have some idea how I can get back to the shadow place, and I’m guessing we’ll catch his attention with the news that the man he thought he’d killed is still very much alive and looking for a little revenge. And, oh yeah, now has the power of a Seraphim at his disposal.”
“Stearns isn’t a trusting man,” Angus said. “And if he’s in the midst of some master plan, he’ll be on full alert for trouble.”
“I didn’t say it was going to be easy.” Remy stood up and looked to his friend. “Think we might need some accessories.”
Francis nodded ever so slightly.
“And guess what. I think I know where we might be able to find some.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Armaros stood on the roof of Stearns’ office building, admiring the garden of large satellite dishes that had been constructed there. They resembled a cluster of high-tech mushrooms growing up among a forest of steel, glass, and stone.
The thought made the angel smile, knowing that Sariel would have been amused by his blossoming imagination. To be able to see in something more than the reality of it was not a trait normally associated with the minions of God, but the excessive time spent here among them—among humanity—had allowed the Grigori to evolve some.
And Armaros took much pleasure in flexing this new visionary muscle, imagining the kind of world they were about to usher in. There would be panic and chaos for a time, but in the end it would transform the humans, taking them a place closer to where the Lord wanted them to be.
If there was one thing that the Grigori had learned over the countless millennia, it was that the human animals were stubborn beasts and not so easily swayed. They had to be shown the consequences of their actions, and the more gruesome the presentation, the easier it was for them to listen.
Since the Grigori had been partially responsible for the wedge driven between humanity and the Almighty, it seemed only fair that they attempt to make things right.
The Grigori’s final penance for the sins they’d committed.
But first they needed to capture humanity’s attention.
Armaros reached out and placed a hand on the cold metal of one of the satellite dishes, impressed at how far the humans had come with their technology. It was almost like magick. With just these metal dishes, they would be able to reach out to millions of humans all around the world and deliver their message.
It was just a shame that so many of them would have to die.
“Neat trick,” Remy said, following Francis and the sorcerer, Angus Heath, through the fissure cut in the fabric of reality in the deserted back parking lot of the Vermont motel.
The magick user had helped them dispose of the golem Ashley, using a spell that caused the clay body to burn from the inside, turning it to crumbling ash that was easily washed down the drain. To say that the sight of his friend’s visage, even if it was a magickal doppelganger, crumbling away to nothing in a cheap motel bathtub was mighty disturbing was an understatement.
He’d settled his bill and then met the others in the parking lot, stepping through the passage opened by Francis and exiting in the shadow of a Toys “R” Us.
“It comes in handy,” Francis agreed, turning his head slightly to watch the perforation seal close behind them. “One of the perks of a new client.”
“Anybody I know?” Remy asked.
Francis ignored the question and turned away.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Angus asked. “I thought we were going to get weapons, not a new bike.”
“We’re not going there.” Francis sounded annoyed, and walked away from the toy store. “What we’re looking for is this way.”
Behind a Dumpster was a fence, and in that fence a hole had been cut. One by one they climbed through the opening, into a lot filled with rows of storage lockers.
“Where are we, anyway?” Remy asked, not recognizing their whereabouts.
“Brockton,” Francis answered as he paused, getting his bearings.
“Brockton?”
“Is there a problem with Brockton?”
“No, I’m just a little surprised that you’d keep items of this nature here.”
“Let me tell you, Brockton is the perfect place to keep items of this nature.” Francis led them to a particular storage shed, number 666.
“Nice,” Remy said, shaking his head in amusement.
The hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Francis’ mouth as he punched in the code, and the folding door slowly climbed to grant them access.
From where they stood, it looked like the typical storage unit filled with random boxes and old pieces of furniture.
“Is this it?” Remy asked.
“This is it,” the fallen angel responded.
Angus started inside, but Francis quickly stopped him.
“Wait a second,” he said. “I’ve installed a few security measures.”
Francis looked around to be certain they were alone, then pulled up the sleeve of his suit coat and shirt as far as he could manage and removed the glowing scalpel from an inside pocket of his coat.
Remy felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end at the sight of the instrument. “Don’t tell me that opens doors, too,” he commented, watching as Francis brought the thin blade of light toward his exposed wrist.
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said, making a quick cut in his flesh.
A single drop of blood escaped the gash before it was immediately cauterized. That drop landed on the threshold of the storage place, and the sight of the items stored there began to shimmer and waver out of focus.
Remy and Angus entered the shed as Francis reached up to pull the door down behind them. As soon as the folding door was closed, the space became illuminated.
Remy turned, not surprised to see that they were now standing in a room at least ten times the size of a normal storage unit; row upon row of metal shelving housed some of the special items that Francis had acquired over the years.
Angus began to laugh, heading down one of the many aisles.
“Very nice, Francis,” the sorcerer said. “I like your style.”
Remy went in the opposite direction. As he walked among the rows, he found all manner of weaponry, from pistols to rifles, from knives to spears and swords. There were enough arms in this shed alone to fortify an army.
“Find anything you like?” a voice asked from close by.
A box on a shelf in front of him slid aside and Francis peered through from the next aisle.
“Plenty, if I wanted to overthrow a third-world nation,” Remy answered.
“Haven’t done that in a while,” Francis mused.
“How is this stuff categorized?” Remy asked. “Is it even categorized?”
“Kinda sorta,” Francis answered. “I hired a high school kid a while back to get it better organized, but…”
“A high school kid?” Remy
asked, aghast.
“Yeah, didn’t work out too well.”
“Imagine that.”
“Caught her trying to lift a few ounces of my powdered saints’ bones.” Francis took a box from the shelf. “Can you imagine what a snort of Saint Pelagius would do?” he asked as he peeled back the flaps on the box to look inside. “Hey, I was wondering what happened to my bowling shoes,” he said, then placed the box back on the shelf.
“Where’s Angus?” Remy questioned.
“He’s in the paper-goods section. Found some old scrolls and texts that I bought at an estate sale a few years back. They used to belong to a combat magician I’d had few run-ins with over the centuries.”
Francis disappeared for a few minutes, and then Remy saw him heading toward him down the aisle, carrying a large black gym bag. He stopped and picked up a plastic container. “These are good,” he said, pulling off the lid to reveal tiny hand grenades. They were a coppery color and covered with strange, runic designs that made them look almost like Christmas decorations.
“Grenades?” Remy asked, as Francis stuffed the container in the bag.
“Souped up for magickal barriers,” the former Guardian angel explained. “Lotsa bang for your buck.”
Remy found a black case on a bottom shelf and pulled it off, unlatching the clasps and opening the case to reveal two black service Colt .45s. “These are nice.”
“Oh yeah,” Francis said. “With the right ammunition, the twins can be killer.”
“And do you have the right ammunition for the twins?” Remy asked, closing up the case but deciding to bring it with him.
“In the ammunition aisle. I think they’re on special today.”
Remy’s phone began to vibrate in his pocket, and he removed it to see that Linda was calling. She had already left a couple of voice messages while he had been in the shadow place; this time she was leaving a text.
Please call. Important.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and found Francis staring at him.
“Same person that called back at the motel?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Remy answered.
“Anybody I know?” Francis inquired, and for a moment Remy wasn’t sure if his friend knew who it was or not.
Francis had had a crush on Linda Somerset, and although they had never met, the former Guardian had spent many a night watching the pretty waitress at Piazza, fantasizing about a relationship that had never transpired.
It was after Francis had gone missing in Hell that Remy and Linda met and something drew them together.
Francis had yet to be told.
“Nobody that I’ve talked about,” Remy answered.
“I love it when you’re coy.” Francis headed off down another aisle. “Just as long as she keeps you from moping…. I hate it when you mope. Follow me. The bullets for the twins are over here.”
They found Angus pushing a battered shopping cart filled with boxes of books and ancient-looking scrolls toward them.
“A shopping cart?” Remy looked at Francis.
“Anything to make your experience at Weapons Mart a pleasant one.”
“We just about done here?”
Angus looked into his cart and nodded. “Yeah, I’d say so. Maybe a few more this and thats, but I think we’re good.”
“Can you open a passage to my house?” Remy asked Francis. “There’s something I need to check before we get going.”
“I think I could do that,” Francis said, putting the gym bag down and rubbing his hands together. “While you’re making your booty call, Angus and I’ll check out Stearns’ place.”
Remy made a face, staring at Francis as if he didn’t know him.
“Did you just say booty call?” he asked incredulously.
“I did,” the former Guardian answered, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath before starting to conjure the passage that Remy would use to get to his car. “It was the word of the day on my calendar,” he said, as the air before them grew incredibly thin. He reached out to tear through it, revealing another place on the other side.
“And I swore I’d use it in a sentence.”
The little black bugs tasted like peanuts—peanuts boiled in bat piss and then sprinkled with dried shit, but, yeah, he could taste peanuts somewhere in the rancid mix.
Squire took a handful of the squirming insects and dropped them in the pan of boiling black oil. He’d never get used to the screams the little fuckers let out when they went into the hot drink. This brought a smile to the hobgoblin’s face as he squatted before the tiny fire in the shelter he’d made from the skin and bones of one of the shadow region’s larger predators.
There’s no place like home, he thought, stirring the boiling bugs. The little beasties had already started to break down, releasing their fine, stinking aroma.
He couldn’t stop thinking of another home…not his home, but one that felt like the home he’d lost. All he’d seen was the motel room, but Squire got a sense of the world he’d passed into almost immediately. It wasn’t like the one he’d left in ruin, but then again, it was.
Cable television, pork rinds, Internet porn, dollar stores, Doritos; he bet they were all there. He could feel it in the pit of his protruding belly. So much like the one he’d had to abandon.
He poured his steaming bug stew into the open end of a hollowed-out shell and carefully began to eat.
He couldn’t stop thinking about that other world, but he had to. There was no sense in getting attached to another, only to have it yanked away like the first. Squire wasn’t sure he could survive another loss like that.
He sipped at the edge of the shell bowl, sucking pieces of beetles into his mouth. He chewed them quickly, searching for that peanut taste before the other, less appetizing ones, kicked in.
Nope, this was his home now. And it was just the way he liked it: dark, cold and bleak. Nothing to get attached to.
Through the membranous cover of the shelter he’d erected, Squire thought he saw a flash of something…something so bright that it cut through the pervasive shadow like an ax blade through muscle. He sat, sipping his meal, eyes locked to where he thought he’d seen it, waiting in case it happened again.
And it did.
The sudden explosion of light was bright, and it left dancing snowflakes of color on his eyes, now used to the total darkness of the world of shadow.
Downing the remainder of his bug stew, he placed the empty bowl on the ground at his feet and rose to check out what was happening outside.
Squire pulled aside the flap of skin and stepped out into the harsh environment. His goblin eyes scanned the shadows.
“Big fucking surprise,” he grumbled as he caught sight of the mansion that had been nothing but trouble since it had entered his world.
The explosion of light came again, and Squire witnessed firsthand the aftereffects. The air around the mansion pulsated like a long black curtain billowing in the wind. It was as if the very substance of the shadow realm was being tested, reminding him of the time just before the mansion had first appeared.
“That ain’t good,” Squire muttered. He had a bad feeling about what he was seeing, and as he listened to the wails and moans of the various life-forms of this dark, alternate reality, he knew they could sense it, too. Squire always knew that the residents of the mansion were troublemakers, but now he suspected they were something worse than that.
Another flash erupted from the front of the building and radiated out from all of the windows. A rapidly expanding halo of fluctuating darkness around the home again began to show signs of duress.
Squire had a sudden, sinking feeling in his awesome gut that the shadow realm was being threatened, that whatever was going on inside that house was doing something to the fabric of this world’s shadowy existence.
Something that it might not be able to recover from. And then where would that leave Squire?
“Up shit’s creek without a paddle.” The hobgoblin answered his
own question, knowing at that very instant what he had to do.
Squire turned and went back into his shelter. He was going to need a few things. From the corner he hefted the old leather golf bag into a standing position and reviewed its contents. There were a few swords, a spear, and his personal favorite: a battle-ax. He had made many of those over the years, but these were the last of them. His babies, tools of his violent trade that he had not been able to part with.
Squire figured that this would be more than enough to deal with what he would find inside the mansion. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he headed out across the sprawling expanse of shadow.
He’d been wanting to have a little chat with his new neighbors. Now seemed as good a time as any.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The passage that Francis had summoned brought Remy to the small backyard of his Beacon Hill brownstone, giving him enough time to zip into his house for a change of clothes. He doubted it would be wise to show up at his girlfriend’s place covered in blood.
He’d already called Linda and found out she and Marlowe had returned to her apartment that morning to do some laundry. Remy had sensed a bit of tension in their conversation, and he’d guessed that it had something to do with the mysterious stranger she had met in the Common. When pressed, she had said that the guy had been kind of weird, but when she mentioned something about the Watchers going to do something terrible and that it was all because of him, Remy felt his blood go ice-cold.
In his calmest voice, he’d told her that he would be there in a few minutes and ended the call. A familiar dread gripped him. It was that same horrible feeling he’d experienced when he’d realized that Ashley had been taken because of what he was.
Now Linda had been touched, as well.
Remy made amazing time from the Hill to Brighton, taking the first parking space he could find and sprinting to her building. She buzzed him in, and he took the steps two at a time, banging on her door perhaps a little too eagerly, hearing Marlowe’s barking response on the other side.
Linda opened the door, an ecstatic Marlowe by her side.