“What are these?” she asked, on the brink of tears. “I don’t want to wear them.”
“Don’t you want to look pretty for the world?” Stearns responded, thinking quickly. “Those are special bracelets worn only by those important enough to hear a message from God.”
His staff then attached leads from the special bracelets to components hidden beneath the mattress, which would eventually be connected by cable to the exoskeleton he wore.
Angelina was in tears, slumping farther down in the bed, clutching all her toys.
“Why are you sad, sweetie?” Stearns asked, feigning compassion. He stood beside her, reaching out with a metal gloved hand to stroke her cheek.
“I’m scared,” the child spoke, eyes darting fearfully about the room. “And the angels haven’t come to—”
As if on cue, the door to the studio swung wide, and a man was violently tossed from the entryway onto the floor. The Grigori, Armaros in the lead, followed.
“What is the meaning of this?” Stearns demanded.
“This is our very special friend, Remy Chandler,” Armaros said.
The man, bloodied and beaten, moaned as he struggled to regain consciousness.
“And we thought it only fair that he have a front-row seat to the events that are about to transpire.”
“You…you can’t do this,” the man called Remy Chandler mumbled through swollen lips as blood dribbled from his injured mouth.
“And that is where you are wrong,” Armaros said as he and the other Grigori gathered around the little girl’s bed.
“We can, and we are.”
Francis sipped his Starbucks coffee and waited.
The call from Remy had come fifteen minutes ago, but so far nothing had happened.
“What, exactly, are we waiting for?” Angus asked, nervously watching the traffic and people going by. “Maybe we’re just missing it.”
“Hasn’t happened yet,” Francis said between sips of his scalding drink.
“What should we do?”
Francis didn’t answer the sorcerer, choosing instead to think this through. He wasn’t the most patient of beings. There was a part of him, one that really didn’t get to come out all that often, that wanted to be patient—to do exactly what Remy had asked of him. But there was another side of him, one that often seemed to get its way, that thought they should be doing something right now.
“Maybe he took care of the situation himself,” he said finally, turning to look at the sorcerer sitting beside him. “Maybe the problem wasn’t all that big and he didn’t need to call in the big guns.”
“Big guns?” Angus asked, confusion written all over his fat face. “Who…?”
“Us,” Francis explained. “The big guns…the heavy hitters. Maybe there wasn’t any need to—”
The sound like an angry swarm of hornets filled the backseat of their borrowed vehicle, tickling the insides of their brains.
Francis spun around in his seat, pistol pointed and ready to fire, without spilling a single drop of his coffee. He recognized the shape of an angelic portal opening and guessed that this was the sign Remy had told him was coming. The pinprick hole grew, and with a rush of air unleashed its contents into the backseat.
A fallen angel’s body spilled out, pitching forward, crimson gore spewing from an angry neck wound.
“Holy fuck,” Francis screamed, tossing aside his coffee and jumping into the backseat, forcing his hand against the bleeding gash in the traveler’s throat.
“Get me something to stop the bleeding,” he yelled at Angus.
The angel thrashed wildly as warm blood flowed out from between Francis’ fingers. Angus handed him a small stack of napkins, and he jammed them against the gushing wound, hoping it would be enough but knowing otherwise.
Francis noticed that the blood was being quickly absorbed by the upholstery of the car’s backseat, not even leaving a stain. Leona may have been fed earlier, but she obviously wasn’t above having an unexpected snack.
“Remy,” Francis said, leaning down to look into the dying Grigori’s eyes. “Where is he? Is he inside?”
The angel’s eyes were growing dimmer, but he struggled to respond.
“Yes…,” he gurgled. “Taken…”
“He was taken,” Francis repeated. “Taken by Stearns? Your boss…Who took him?”
“Maybe a spell of healing?” Angus suggested, and the tips of his fingers started to grow a fiery red.
“Too late for that,” Francis replied.
“Stop…them…,” the fallen angel managed, reaching up to take hold of Francis’ shoulder in a weakening grip.
“Yeah,” Francis said, watching as the life went out of the angel’s eyes. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”
The part of Francis that liked to act first and think later was in full control now as he climbed back into the driver’s seat.
“What are we going to do now?” Angus asked, movement in the backseat capturing his attention. Now it wasn’t only blood that was being absorbed by the upholstery.
“We’re getting inside,” Francis said, turning over the engine.
“But there are wards in place and golem guards…”
“And they’ll be dealt with.” Francis put the car in drive and leaned closer to the steering wheel. “Leona, I know Richard said you’d only give us a ride, but I was wondering—especially since I just gave you that nifty angel snack—if you’d be willing to get us inside that building across the street.”
The car didn’t respond, as if considering his request.
“I happen to know that there are magickal wards in place to keep people like us from entering and there are probably armed guards, but a really good friend of mine is trapped inside, and a lot of people are going to die if we don’t help him.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re reasoning with a car?” Angus asked, horrified.
Francis held up a finger, signaling for him to be quiet.
“What do you say, Leona? Can you get us inside?”
The radio that had been playing softly in the background went to static, before Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries was suddenly blaring from the speakers.
“Oh, God,” Angus screamed, fumbling to get his seat belt on.
“That a girl,” Francis said, grabbing hold of the wooden steering wheel. He let the car do what it did best, what it had been created to do.
Drive.
Effortlessly and with great speed, Leona freed herself from the parking space, driving down Boylston Street, accelerating by the second. Just as she was about to pass the building, she slammed on her brakes, spinning around so that she faced the sidewalk in front of Hermes Plaza.
“Dear God in Heaven!” Angus wailed, grabbing for anything that might give him purchase.
“Hold on,” Francis cried, as the Lincoln jumped the curb, barely missing gaggles of screaming pedestrians, and sped toward the front entrance of the building.
Leona’s engine roared like some great jungle cat about to take down its prey.
Something was wrong with the shadow path.
Squire could feel it deep in his rounded gut, the quill-like hair on the back of his thick neck standing at attention.
The first rule any hobgoblin learned about traveling the paths was to pay attention to location and the stability of the path. That very rule suddenly came to mind when he felt the darkness beneath his feet grow soft, and watched as Ashley stumbled in front of him, falling to her knees.
“Get up,” Squire ordered, fearing the worst. “Get up, get up…”
A gunshot rang out from behind them.
They had to get to the other end, and fast.
There were more gunshots, but the bullets were absorbed into the substance of shadow, likely coming out in some other dark place. Squire pictured some poor schmuck getting in some quality porn time when a bullet found its way out from a patch of black behind the La-Z-Boy. Could seriously ruin a guy’s evening.
The passage was breaking down, and that could mean only one thing was happening: The environment in which the path had originally existed was now different.
Squire came up close to Ashley, who was still struggling to regain her footing in the mudlike substance that was now the floor of the tunnel. He wrapped his arms around her tiny waist and hauled her back onto her feet, practically dragging her through the sucking surface.
The passage was closing in on them, growing smaller, narrower. If they didn’t find an exit soon, it would collapse in on itself and they would drown in this shit. Not a bad fate for the jerk-offs that were chasing them, but it wasn’t something that Squire was looking forward to.
More gunshots rang out, and he felt a bullet whiz past his face. The assholes were getting closer.
“We gotta move faster,” he urged Ashley. He did have to hand it to the kid: She was hanging in there pretty well. Most couldn’t handle five minutes in a shadow path, never mind being in one on the verge of collapse.
“I can’t go any farther,” Ashley screamed, pressing herself against a solid wall of shadow.
“Outta the way.” Squire pushed her aside. He placed his hands against the cold, sticky surface and closed his eyes. It was just as he thought: This had been the exit a few minutes ago, but since something was happening to the environment outside, it had almost healed over.
Almost.
Squire could still sense a place on the other side, and since he had no desire to suffocate within the stinking bowels of a shadow path, he decided to do something about it.
He swung the golf bag from his shoulder and rummaged through it, pulling out a battle-ax.
No need for anything dainty here.
“Get behind me,” he told the girl, as more gunshots rang out.
Squire raised the ax above his head, chancing a quick look behind him. The path was constricting faster, squeezing Tattoo Man and Dog Boy in its shrinking grip, buying him just enough time.
The goblin let out a scream, putting everything he had behind the strike as he brought the blade down on the hardening wall of shadow before them.
The blade buried itself deep within the solidified midnight, but he believed he could see a hint of a light from the world that still existed behind it. Yanking the blade back, he hefted the mighty ax, striking the wall again and again.
“We ain’t got much time,” he said to Ashley, hacking at the wall once more and then grabbing the edges of the cut and pulling.
Ashley hesitated at first but then joined Squire with gusto, sinking her fingers into the gelatinous dark and ripping away chunks to open the passage.
A sickly light leaked from the opening they’d torn, and it appeared large enough for them to get through, but the way the wall was healing up, it wouldn’t be for long.
“Now,” Squire ordered, pushing Ashley toward the hole.
She started to protest, fear creeping into her eyes, but he insisted, shoving her into the gradually diminishing crack and forcing her through to the other side.
He was about to follow her when he felt a powerful grip clamp down on his ankle.
“Going somewhere?” the tattooed man asked as he slithered on his belly through the intestine-like passage that was collapsing all around them. The schnauzer boy had managed to make it past his partner, crab walking toward him, mouth open to bite.
A quick backhand across the face was enough to discourage the youngster, but then Squire watched as Tattoo Man, who was still holding him with one hand, pulled his gun up in the other and prepared to fire.
Squire knew he had only seconds before the passage he’d cut healed up twice as thick as before, trapping him here, and he didn’t cotton to that at all. He glanced down, seeing the hilt of his ax sticking up from the softening surface beneath his feet, and yanked it free with a moist sucking sound. He managed to bring the ax down on the wrist of the hand that held his ankle, just as the tattooed man fired his gun with the other.
Yanking his foot back, Squire found that he was free, but he’d also been shot, the bullet punching its way into his shoulder, forcing him to drop his battle-ax.
But things weren’t any better for Tattoo Man.
He was screaming, clutching the stump of his hand, as Squire pushed himself backward toward the fissure—less than half the size it had been mere moments before.
Sensing that it was now or never, Squire dove headfirst into the passage, forcing his way through the tight squeeze of the wound he’d cut in the hardening blackness. It wasn’t easy; the walls of the passage attempted to crush him as he wiggled his way through. He’d always been curious as to what it would feel like to be born, and figured that this was probably the closest he’d ever get to having the experience again.
The passage was closing behind him, but he could see a hint of soft light ahead. His shoulder screamed in protest, but Squire didn’t listen. There’d be time for pain later, when he was still alive and on the other side with the time to bitch about it.
He clawed at the membranous caul that had formed over the exit, pulling himself through, out into the light with a series of grunts and a scream of freedom.
Out of the frying pan.
“Don’t want to be doing that again anytime soon,” he said, rolling on his stomach and starting to stand. He saw that Ashley was there, but her stare was fixed on something he had not yet noticed.
And then he saw that she was staring at a naked and perfectly muscled human figure standing with arms outstretched. Wings of fire grew from his back, and the words of some ancient magickal spell spilled from his mouth to seed the air.
Squire knew where they were, and they hadn’t gotten very far. They were back inside the old mansion, but he could feel that something wasn’t right. It was moving…. The magick spell that the man was casting was taking the entire estate to someplace else.
Out of the frying pan, he thought, feeling reality whizzing past him.
And into the fire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They were going to make him watch.
Remy was hauled to his feet by two of Stearns’ goons, as the deaths of more than a million people were set in motion.
There was a flurry of activity in the television studio. Technicians moved about a glass control room above the main studio while more of Stearns’ techs were attaching thick cables to the external skeleton of metal that the sorcerer wore, cables that trailed across the floor to the strange machinery that was part of the little girl’s bed.
“Quickly now. Quickly,” Stearns bellowed.
Remy could not take his eyes from the Grigori calmly standing beside the child’s bed, waiting to do their part.
He was disgusted, nauseated by the idea that they and he were actually of the same species. He’d suspected that the Watchers—the Grigori—had been driven insane by their banishment to the world they had helped to corrupt, but he never imagined how truly crazy they had become.
Or how far they’d go to show it.
“I get it,” Remy yelled over the voices raised in preparation, temporarily bringing silence to the studio.
Armaros was looking at him now with cold, dead eyes.
“I get it,” Remy said again. “You’re pissed…pissed at God for forgetting you, pissed at yourselves for being so damn weak, and pissed at me for killing your leader.”
He could feel the fury radiating from them in waves; it was like static electricity, charging the very air. It made the hair on his arms stand on end.
“But don’t do this,” Remy begged. “Take your anger out on someone who deserves it…. Take it out on me, if you have to.”
Armaros drifted closer.
“The great angel Remiel,” the new Grigori leader scoffed. “You actually believe this is all about you? Such arrogance. But then again, what would we expect from one of the Almighty’s elite?”
The fallen angel moved to stand before Remy.
“This isn’t about past angers and sorrows,” Armaros said. “This is about the f
uture of this world…of humanity and of Heaven itself.”
Remy wasn’t sure he understood. “How can the killing of a million of His flock be seen as a positive move toward the future?”
“Are you so blind?” Armaros asked. “Can you not see the signs? There’s a war coming…and the world of man will become a battleground.”
“It’ll never come to that,” Remy said, trying to hide his uncertainty.
“The signs are there, Remiel, whether you choose to ignore them or not. What we are doing today is preparing the world…preparing the people for what is to be a time of great loss.”
“You keep talking, but I still don’t see how killing a million people and giving a sorcerer this kind of power is preparing the world for anything.”
“We did this to them, Remiel,” Armaros said. “We steered them down this road to decadence. This will be our chance to make things right, to set them on the path to believing again.”
Armaros turned to his brethren, Stearns, and the little girl cowering in her princess bed.
“They will believe in their Creator again, and they shall fear Him as they should. And then they will be prepared for the troubled times to come.”
Remy had no idea what to say; it was all so insane. He knew that there were changes in the wind….
But war?
Could he have been so blind?
Stearns cleared his throat, and Remy looked over to see the sorcerer fully adorned in the armored apparatus that would feed him the death energies of those cut down by the Grigori’s message. He was tapping a watch on his wrist, urging them to proceed.
“Of course, Algernon Stearns,” Armaros said, returning to stand with the other Grigori.
The fallen angel turned his attentions to the little girl partially hidden beneath her covers.
“Are we ready, my child?” he asked her.
“Is God gonna tell you His message?” she asked, peeking out.
The angel nodded and smiled. “He is, and then we are going to tell you…and then you will tell the world.”
“Armaros,” Remy cried out again, hoping that this time…maybe.
But he succeeded only in annoying Stearns, who gestured to his security guards, and Remy was forced to his knees, his arms bent unnaturally behind him.