Scrimshaw admired her and wished that there was time to speak with her about her life and its defining moments. He would have loved to have them as his own.
“Your father is taking us home,” Scrimshaw told the wild child.
Teddy just looked at him, head cocked, and then gestured to all around him.
“Yes,” Scrimshaw said. “All of it. He’s going to use his new power to take us back.”
Scrimshaw caught something from the corner of his eye and looked to the girl. One of her hands had shot to her neck and appeared to be undoing the leather collar.
“Don’t you…,” he began, but before he could get the remainder of his warning out, she was gone, running off in the opposite direction.
Scrimshaw couldn’t help but smile. Sure, he was frustrated, he didn’t have time for such things, but then again, this might give him the opportunity that he’d been hoping for.
A chance to spend a little quality time with a girl named Ashley.
Algernon Stearns entered the darkened television studio where history was about to take place.
He flipped on the lights, taking in all the sights that he had grown accustomed to over the past year as the place where little Angelina Hayward’s special message would be broadcast to an eager faithful.
And, in so doing, satisfy his hunger for ultimate power.
The center of the studio had been set up like a little girl’s bedroom: a fancy pink bed with fancy pink bedding, stuffed animals, and baby dolls yearning for a child’s attention. Everything that his little messenger would need to feel comfortable.
He still found it hard to believe that Armaros—a supposed creature of Heaven—had come to him, helping him to formulate this plan, helping him to refine his ideas for the largest yield. It had been the angel who had come up with the idea of a sick little girl with a message from Heaven. All Stearns had to do was assist in her creation and provide the means for distributing the message.
He quietly thanked any and all who had suggested he invest heavily in television during its golden years, and, more recently, the Internet. He could not have asked for better delivery systems.
Stearns’ thoughts started to wander to unknown territories again. He had no real idea why the angels were so keen on helping him achieve such a level of sorcerous power, although they had indicated that they were somehow attempting to reconnect humanity with its God.
Personally, he felt the killing of millions to be a bit dramatic, but, then again, he was dealing with a species that thought nothing of flooding the world in order to make a point about sin.
And besides, who was he to judge? Stearns was about to become one of the most powerful beings on the planet. He wondered, as he wandered about the empty studio, if having that much magickal power might put him at odds with his angelic comrades. It would be something he’d have to consider once he had his power. He might have to do some extensive research on the best way to kill angels.
Stearns’ phone beeped, interrupting his thoughts, and he snatched it from his pocket.
“Speak,” he commanded.
“She’s here,” said one of his golem security officers.
“Excellent.” Stearns was unable to keep the smile from twisting his features. “Bring her right up to the studio…. I’m sure she’s eager to get started.”
Armaros remembered that the party had gone on for days.
Even though they were sorry for all the sins that the Grigori had committed in embracing the ways of humanity, it did not stop them from committing more.
It was like a sickness. The more they tried to distance themselves from the decadent ways of the human animals, the more they were drawn to them, eager to participate.
Armaros had tried to be good, but it never seemed to be enough. The longer they were here in exile, the harder it was to remain pure.
The party at one of the isolated French villas that the Grigori had acquired throughout the centuries was moving into its third day; every conceivable vice concocted by mortal man and woman was on display, and the fallen angels were more than happy to indulge.
Armaros, high on multiple drugs and alcohol, had become lucid enough to realize that Sariel was nowhere to be found; in fact, Armaros could not remember the last time that he had seen his leader. Shaking off the effects of the party, he had gone in search of Sariel, curious if perhaps their leader had found a vice so special that he did not wish to share.
He’d left the party, descending into the deeper levels of the villa, toward where he remembered seeing an ancient, secret chapel. As he had journeyed deeper into the winding stone passages tunneling beneath the estate, he’d heard the sound of a plaintive voice. At first he did not recognize it, but as he stepped from the passage into the chapel, he found Sariel slumped upon the altar before a great stone cross.
And the leader of the Grigori was crying.
Armaros was stunned, any residual effects of the party’s concoctions now completely gone from his body as he stood there watching.
His leader continued to kneel, raising his head to speak aloud in the tongue of the messenger—the language of the angels.
Sariel was praying, begging God to listen to him.
“Sariel?” Armaros had called out, moving farther into the church.
The leader of the Grigori had risen suddenly, an expression of surprise on his tear-streaked face.
“What are you doing here?” Armaros had asked as he approached him, placing a gentle hand on his cheek. “Alone.”
Sariel moved his face from the comforting hand, turning his gaze to the cross. “Sometimes I come down here to listen.”
Armaros did not understand. “Listen?” he asked.
Sariel looked at him again. “The prayers of the faithful and those who have lost their way and have nowhere else to turn.”
Armaros was quiet for a moment, listening, but heard nothing.
“I don’t…”
“Listen,” Sariel commanded forcefully.
Armaros tried again, this time his acute senses reaching out beyond the confines of the underground church to the festivities above. He was about to confess that he still did not hear them when he heard the first fragment of prayer.
“I hear them,” he had told his master, focusing on the prayer and hearing all the more in a cacophony of sound. “I hear them all.”
“No matter the time, there is always someone calling out to Him, begging for His help…for His guidance.”
Sariel looked back to the cross.
“When I entered the church…it sounded as though you were praying,” Armaros said to his leader, a part of him hoping he had been mistaken.
It looked as though Sariel was about to object. “I was listening to the prayers of the faithful and those who had lost their way with nowhere else to turn,” he began, then paused. “Listening, but also praying, hoping that maybe if He was listening to them, He might be listening to me,” he finished.
Armaros could hear the pain in his leader’s voice—see it in his eyes.
“We’re lost, Armaros,” Sariel told him. “For what we have done to this world, we are damned…no matter how much penance we do or how loudly we beg—”
There was a quiver in Sariel’s voice, a moment of weakness that Armaros had never seen. And it chilled him.
“We are lost,” Sariel finished, the sadness in his tone suddenly replaced with anger.
And with those words, the fallen angel sprang atop the stone altar, grabbing hold of the cross, and with a show of inhuman strength, tore it from its perch, allowing it to tumble forward and smash upon the ground.
Sariel and Armaros stood together, staring at the rubble that had once been humanity’s symbol of their faith.
Of their God.
And then, after some time, Sariel spoke.
“Do you still hear it, Armaros?” the leader of the Grigori asked, brushing the dust of many years past from his silk shirt.
“The prayers?”
“Oh, dear
no,” Sariel scoffed. “Upstairs…in the villa.”
And Sariel put his arm lovingly around Armaros, leading him from the church and into the labyrinth.
“We’re missing the party.”
Was that when our leader truly died? Armaros mused, leaving the memory of that day in the hidden church.
His eyes focused out the window again, but instead of the same Boston he and his brethren had pondered over for years, he saw something entirely new.
Armaros saw a world on the cusp of change.
He closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind, searching for the ones he was sure would come; the fallen Guardian and the Seraphim who wished so much to be human. The Guardian he had sensed earlier, sniffing around what was to be ground zero.
It was the sign he had been waiting for.
Now was the time to begin things anew, to awaken the world and show God that they were still here.
The Almighty may have turned a deaf ear to Sariel’s prayers, but that would no longer be the case once their message was broadcast through the golem child.
As the Grigori and all angels had the power to hear the world’s prayers, so did they have the ability to respond.
And that was what the Grigori intended to do.
When the time was right, the child would speak to the faithful, and she would deliver a message.
Their message.
That the Lord of lords was unhappy with humanity and was about to show His displeasure.
And those who heard would be struck down by death, but their passing would not be in vain, for it would show the unbelievers—the sinners—that the divine did exist.
And was watching.
The sacrifice of the faithful would lead to the conversion of an even greater number. Like a prescribed fire in a forest, the burning of trees and vegetation so that it may grow back all the stronger.
He thought about his love again—the leader no longer beside him—and felt his anger grow. Sariel should have been here. But, then, would they have gone this far if he had still been alive?
Sariel’s death had been the fire that burned what they used to be away, allowing what they were now to grow.
Making them stronger, as the human species would soon be.
For they would need to be strong…. They would all need to be strong.
Armaros remembered the figure sitting in the shadows, the promises that he made.
He said that God would hear them but that there would also be a war.
Armaros pondered if what they were about to do might be an aspect of the coming conflict. That the potential death of millions could be the catalyst that triggered the start of war.
If that was what it would take to again gain the attention of their Creator, then so be it. He was willing to take that chance.
He reached out with his mind to his brethren, stirring them to attention. The Grigori turned from their view of the world to stare at him.
Armaros clutched the wooden box that contained the ashes of his leader and lover to his chest. Their eyes bored into his, and he felt himself touched by their familiar stares. He knew each and every one, for they had endured this world, its pleasures and its torments, together.
Reaching out to them, to their minds, he told them that it was time.
And they would be either praised and welcomed back to the bosom of the Lord God Almighty…
Or they would be damned.
But, really, they had already been damned once. How much more damned could they be?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Garfial pushed past Remy, grabbing the remote from what looked to be a pile of bones, and turned up the television’s volume.
The newscasters were still talking, going over again the history of little Angelina Hayward.
“Okay, this is good,” Garfial stated, staring at the screen. “It hasn’t happened yet…. There’s still time.”
“I need to know what’s going on,” Remy told him, not really sure how much help he would be in his current state.
The Grigori looked away from the television screen but his eyes kept darting back, afraid that he might be missing something.
“They had me create a golem in the form of a little girl,” Garfial started to explain.
“That little girl.” Remy pointed to the TV.
“Yeah,” Garfial said. “She’s pretty complicated…has no idea what she really is…believes one hundred percent in the history that we created for her.”
“As does everybody who is hearing about her,” Remy added.
The fallen angel nodded. “And that’s where the fun begins. How many people do you think are watching this now? How many other channels are picking up on the story about the little girl who came out of a coma, promising a message from God and is now about to deliver?
“This is probably reaching all over the world…. Right this minute, millions of people are waiting to hear little Angelina’s message. And that doesn’t even count the people on the Internet.”
Remy looked to the television to see that they were showing footage of Angelina when she first awoke from her coma. The little girl was pale and quite sick-looking, an oxygen mask clamped onto her tiny face. She was clutching a pink teddy bear to her chest as her mother stroked her sweaty head.
“What was she created to do?” Remy asked, not really wanting to know.
“Think of her as both a transmitter and receiver.”
“And what is she transmitting and receiving?”
“Armaros and the other Grigori are going to provide her with the message that will go out to everybody who’s listening,” Garfial said. He seemed to be growing more agitated.
“As soon as she begins to speak, she will create a psychic rapport with her listeners, and then the Grigori will provide their message to the faithful.”
Remy stared, waiting. “Which is?” he prodded.
“They’re going to project all the pain and suffering they’ve endured since being exiled to Earth, and kill everyone who’s listening,” Garfial said.
Remy felt the world go out from beneath him. It was worse than he suspected.
“Then the girl will act as a receiver, and the sorcerer—Stearns—will reap the benefit of the megadeaths. She’ll collect all their energies and transmit them to him.”
“Making him incredibly powerful,” Remy finished.
Garfial’s eyes had drifted back to the television. They had gone to a commercial break. “I’d say the most powerful magick user on the planet,” he confirmed.
And that didn’t make sense to Remy. “Why would Armaros want to kill millions and then hand over all that power to somebody like Stearns?”
The reporters were back, announcing yet again that little Angelina Hayward was close to delivering the message she’d received from God.
“That’s something you’ll have to ask him about,” Garfial announced. “All I can tell you is that I like it here. Any desire I had to return to…Him”—he pointed to the ceiling—“went away a very long time ago. This can’t be allowed to happen,” he said, indicating the television, then looking at Remy. “You have to stop them.”
Remy remained silent, knowing Garfial was right, but having no idea how he was going to accomplish it.
“Hell, you’re part of the reason this is happening in the first place,” Garfial added with a disturbed laugh.
The news program was showing the little girl and her family as they were assisted from their home to a waiting van. Throngs of onlookers waving signs and holding banners lined the street.
As soon as Angelina was safely inside the van, the cameras cut to a live shot on the plaza in front of the Hermes Building in the Back Bay, where reporters began to explain how Algernon Stearns, multimillionaire philanthropist, had been so touched by the little girl’s amazing story….
“I need to get in there,” Remy said, pointing to a splendid aerial shot of the skyscraper and the Boston skyline.
The Grigori nodded. “Uh-huh. And then what?” br />
Remy didn’t have an answer.
“Look at you,” Garfial said. “Here I am sneaking around the city, trying to find you, and when I do, you’re nothing but a shadow of yourself.
“This is going to happen,” he said, a look of resignation on his pale features. “Millions will die, and we’ll be responsible.”
“Can you get me inside?” Remy asked, ignoring the Grigori.
“Sure,” Garfial said with a nod. “But Armaros will smell the Seraphim on you like…”
Remy slowly shook his head. “Maybe not.”
It was Garfial’s turn to be silent.
“You said it,” Remy continued. “I’m a shadow of myself. If I can get in there and do some damage before the broadcast…”
Garfial was gnawing on a fingernail like it was his last meal.
“We’re going to have to leave, like, right now,” he said, a spark of hope now burning in eyes that moments ago were filled with dread.
On the television, a large black van turned from Boylston Street into the parking garage beneath the Hermes Building.
“I need to make a call first,” Remy said, taking his cell phone from his pocket. He didn’t mention that he also had to force Stearns into getting him back to the shadow realm so he could find Ashley and bring her home.
“Make it quick,” the fallen angel said nervously.
Remy punched in the number and waited.
“Yeah,” the Guardian angel answered on the first ring.
“It’s worse than we thought.”
There was a slight pause, and then Francis’ voice.
“Isn’t it always?”
As she ran for her life through the twisted house, all Ashley could think of was The Wizard of Oz.
She would have preferred to be thinking of how to escape the monsters chasing her and how to survive, but the favorite film from her childhood had decided to take up residence in the forefront of her brain.
Maybe it had to do with the story: young girl swept up from her home to awaken in a strange place filled with incredible sights. Or maybe it was the question of whether or not Dorothy was dreaming, for Ashley wanted so desperately to wake and find that this was really a horrible nightmare.