“Leave me,” the cat growled.
“Sorry to disturb you, but I really need to ask you a few questions,” Remy told the annoyed feline. “Then I promise I’ll leave you alone. All right?”
The cat slowly lifted its furry head to glare at Remy with eyes the color of jade.
“There was a girl in here a few days ago,” Remy began. “She came in to ask for a job, but I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t have seen you and tried to make friends.”
“No girl,” the cat said, closing its eyes.
Remy kicked the base of the hamper again.
“She would have been really nice, and probably would have scratched behind your ears and told you what a pretty cat you were, or something like that.”
The cat raised its furry bulk, arching its back with a hiss; then it paused, seeming to think about what Remy had just said.
“Nice girl,” the cat said after a moment. “Did scratch…felt good.”
The Maine Coon sat and turned its face up to him. “Yes,” it said.
“So you remember her?”
“Didn’t hear?”
“Yeah, I heard,” Remy said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice, reminding himself why he thought that most cats were assholes. “Do you remember if anything out of the ordinary happened while she was here? Anything that you might’ve noticed?”
“No,” the big cat said, standing up and moving in a circle as it prepared to again curl up on the blanket. “Scratched and stroked…then gone.”
“That was it?”
The cat didn’t answer as it snuggled back down and closed its eyes, finished with Remy. Well, he had said he would leave the cat alone if it answered his questions.
He was turning to leave when the cat’s voice stopped him.
“Strange man,” it said.
“Excuse me?” Remy turned back and peered down into the hamper.
The cat was looking up at him.
“Strange man in store,” the cat said. “Followed nice girl.”
“A strange man followed her out of the store?”
The cat made a face, as if something disturbed it.
“What do you mean by strange man?” Remy wanted to know. “What was strange?”
“Smell,” the cat explained.
And the cat’s ample fur puffed out on its body as if the threat was still there.
“Smell wrong.”
Remy grabbed a coffee from a pizza shop on the corner and stood at the window counter, gazing out at the people walking by on their daily grind. He imagined Ashley doing the same, moving from one store on her list to the next.
A strange man following.
He sipped the hot black coffee, letting it burn the inside of his mouth. He wanted to feel something other than the growing sense of dread in his belly.
The cat had said that the man smelled wrong—strange. Animals were extremely sensitive to the unusual, the bizarre, and Remy was forced to wonder if Ashley’s disappearance could have had something to do with him.
And what he actually was.
He’d tried as hard as he could to keep the more unusual aspects of his existence separate from his human life, but, as of late, it was becoming increasingly difficult. And what if someone—something—with a grudge against the angel Remiel had decided to get even by striking against those about whom he cared the most?
Remy drank from his cup again, scalding the inside of his mouth. He didn’t care for that thought, not one little bit. Briefly he imagined what he would do to anything or anyone that tried to hurt him through his friends. All he could see was fire; all he could hear was the screams of whoever or whatever might be stupid enough to dare.
The imaginary screams were suddenly drowned out by the sound of his phone ringing. He reached into his pocket and checked to see who it was.
Carol Berg.
“Carol?” Remy answered, feeling his body immediately tense.
“Remy,” she said. “They just called…the police…They found her car.”
His heart began to race faster and faster, and he thought it might explode.
“They found Ashley’s car.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The police had found Ashley’s car not five miles from her new apartment.
It was in the parking lot of a small strip mall, where they’d gone for a quick cup of coffee when Remy had helped her move.
He wished himself invisible and approached the car, watching as the local police swarmed about the Honda, searching for clues.
Remy could feel his anxiety growing, and then he heard the words he dreaded most.
“I’ve got blood in here.”
He quickly stepped up behind an officer who was leaning into the vehicle, shining a flashlight on the passenger’s seat. He forced himself to remain calm as he waited for the officer to withdraw. It seemed to take forever, but finally the policeman stepped back and Remy was able to take a look, relieved to find only a few spatters of blood on the passenger’s seat.
Images of Ashley fighting an attacker flashed before his mind’s eye. He saw her scratching the assailant and drawing blood; he saw her being struck, the blood upon the cloth seat from her nose.
He shook his head and moved away from the car as more detectives approached to gather their evidence. The scent of Ashley’s blood lingered in his nostrils, and he cursed senses that had become stronger since embracing his true nature.
He had hoped that this was all some sort of enormous mistake, that he would arrive in Brattleboro to find Ashley at her apartment, wondering why everyone was so upset when she had simply gone to visit a friend at another campus, lost track of time, and her phone had gone dead.
But that wasn’t her…. Ashley wasn’t wired that way.
Remy looked to the car again…the empty car where spatters of blood had been found. He watched the policemen doing their job. He wanted to do something, too. But what?
Frustration roiled within him. An angel of the Heavenly host Seraphim was not accustomed to standing idle. He was a creature of action, of battle, of war…but there was nothing to lash out at with his sword of fire.
He was helpless, the only clue he had coming from a cat that happened to notice a strange-smelling man follow Ashley from a store.
He was considering going back to the store to question the Maine Coon some more when his cell phone began to ring. The officers around him immediately reacted, checking their own phones as Remy walked away from the scene, taking the phone from his pocket. He expected it to be Carol, but instead saw a number that he immediately recognized.
“Ashley?” he cried into the phone, desperate to hear her voice, desperate to know that she was all right.
There was an odd silence from the other end, reminding him of the roaring sound he and Madeline had heard when they’d pressed seashells to their ears at the beach on the Cape.
“Hello?” Remy prodded. “Ashley, is that you?”
“Remy Chandler,” said a voice as dry as the grave. “Is that what you call yourself, angel?”
“Excuse me?” Remy asked, stunned. “Who is this?”
“Never mind that,” the voice croaked. “I have the girl…. I have Ashley.”
Remy was silent, waiting for what was to follow.
“Go someplace quiet and wait for me to contact you again.”
“If you’ve hurt her…,” Remy began.
“Now, why would I want to hurt the darling who has given me you?” interrupted the voice, sounding jubilant. “Go and wait for my call.”
The line went dead, and Remy stood there, too stunned to move. It was exactly as he feared. Not only had Ashley been forcibly taken.
It did have something to do with him.
Remy took a room at the Simons Motor Lodge.
He sat in the semidarkness, cell phone on the circular tabletop beside him, waiting for it to ring.
He’d put the television on, hoping for a distraction, but it did little more than annoy him.
Lucky him, there was another story about the little girl who’d awakened from a coma with a message from Heaven. He saw pretty much the same footage he’d seen the other night at Linda’s, but this time he learned the young child’s name.
Angelina Hayward.
She’d suffered massive head trauma after falling off the back deck of her home, putting her into a coma from which no one ever expected her to awaken. But little Angelina had surprised everybody, saying that the angels had brought her back and that the Almighty had a message.
Remy could not help but feel contempt for the media and how they played up the story. He knew that angels had nothing to do with the girl’s awakening. As far as he knew, they were far too busy dealing with the return of Lucifer Morningstar. And as far as getting a message from God? Well, suffice it to say that Remy doubted the validity of that claim.
Angelina was just a very lucky little girl who had managed to beat the odds and come out on the other side reasonably unscathed.
The screen showed a close-up of the child in her bed, clutching a stuffed bear, the reporter asking her if she had anything to say to all the people watching her.
“Talk to you soon,” she squeaked, then smiled, hugging the bear.
The anchors gushed about how inspirational the child was, and Remy was about to change the channel when his cell phone began to ring. He snatched it from the table and saw that it was Ashley’s number. But instead of relief, it now filled him with dread.
“Remy,” he said.
There was that pause again, that hollow rushing sound before the old voice began to speak.
“There’s a farm on the outskirts of town. Used to belong to the Deacon family…Do you remember them?”
“Can’t say that I do,” Remy answered truthfully.
The voice went silent, and Remy wasn’t sure if the line was still open.
“Hello? Are you—”
“Never mind,” the voice interrupted. “They haven’t been in the public eye for quite some time. They were once like royalty, you know.”
“And what does that have to do with—”
“You will go to that farm and wait,” the voice instructed.
“Wait for what?”
“I need to be sure of you, Remy Chandler,” the voice said. “I need to be sure that you are what the girl showed me.”
“Ashley has no idea what I am…and neither do you.”
The voice laughed, a sound like old, dried leaves being crushed.
“I know exactly what you are, angel.”
“Why are you doing this?” Remy asked.
“Because I can, angel,” the voice said. “Because I can.”
Beacon Hill
Fall 2008
Remy found Ashley sitting on the steps of her brownstone, staring straight ahead at nothing. Madeline had given him the news: Spooky had died that morning.
“Hey,” he said, sitting down beside the teenager. He handed her a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.
“Hey,” she said back, carefully taking the cup.
“Two creams, one Sweet’N Low?” he asked.
She nodded, peeling away that little piece of plastic on the lid so she could sip the hot drink. “Right. Thanks.”
“Are you all right?” Remy asked, taking the cover off his own cup of strong black coffee.
“Did you hear?” she asked.
“Yeah, Maddie told me. I’m really sorry, kiddo.”
She nodded quickly, and he could see a fresh tear spill down her cheek. She had some more of her coffee.
“She stopped eating yesterday,” Ashley said. “Didn’t matter what we gave her. We even tried sliced turkey. She loved sliced turkey, but she wouldn’t even take that.”
“I guess it was just time,” Remy said.
“Yeah,” Ashley agreed. “She was pretty old.”
“Had a good life, though,” Remy assured her.
“Ya think?” she asked. She turned her head to look at him, and Remy was surprised to see not the little girl he’d first met on that hot summer’s day in ’96, but a young woman dealing with one of the sad facts of life.
Everything eventually died.
It was something that he still wrestled with in his own immortal existence, one of the difficult truths of being human.
“Sure,” Remy said. He drank some more of his coffee, thinking about what he was going to say. “She had somebody who loved and cared for her, who gave her a safe place to live. I really don’t think a cat could want for anything else. Do you?”
She thought about it for a moment, taking a long sip from her drink.
“You’re probably right,” she finally agreed.
They were both quiet for a bit. He could tell that she was still thinking, working things out. Remy was glad that he was sitting with her, wanting to do everything he could to help ease the pain.
“Spooky slept with me last night,” Ashley said. “She never slept with me. I think it was because she wanted to sleep exactly in the center, and that’s where I would be…. But last night she came into my room and meowed for me, and I had to help her up onto the bed….” She sniffled as more tears began to fall.
“She got onto the bed and sat down…and looked at me. It was kinda giving me the creeps, so I asked her what her problem was, and she just gave me one of those disgusted-Spooky looks and lay down right beside me.”
Ashley began to cry, and Remy moved closer, putting his arm around her.
“She started to purr, Remy,” she continued. “Spooky never purred…but last night, she started to purr and then she went to sleep.”
She cried some more, and he said nothing, choosing instead to just hold her.
“She…she was…gone when I woke up,” Ashley said, struggling to get the words out. “She must’ve died sometime in the night.”
“A nice way to go,” Remy said. “Sleeping beside the one you love.”
They sat like that for quite some time, the sun slowly setting, the warmth of it gradually overcome by the evening’s chill.
“Did you ever have to deal with this kind of thing, Remy?” Ashley asked him.
“Sure,” he said, remembering without regret the pets and the acquaintances he had lost in his seemingly endless existence. How empty his life would have been without them. They had helped him to be what he was today. “It never gets any easier.”
“Didn’t think it would,” she said, tipping the cup back and finishing the last of her coffee.
“Don’t let this experience spoil it for you,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Ashley asked, looking at him.
“What you’re feeling now, the sadness…don’t let it take away from all the happiness that you had with Spooky…. It’s too special to be spoiled by a sad fact of life.”
“Everything dies,” Ashley said.
“Afraid so.” Remy nodded.
They sat for a bit longer, and finally she had had enough of the fall chill in the air and stood.
“I’m getting cold. I think I’ll head in now.”
“You gonna be all right?” he asked her, standing up from the steps.
“I’m good,” she said. “Sad…but good.”
Remy understood perfectly. “You hang in there, all right?” he told her.
“Yeah, it’ll probably take a little time, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Good to hear.” He headed down the steps. “If you need anything, give me a call.”
“Will do,” Ashley said, climbing the stairs to the building’s front door. “Thanks, Remy.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, already on his way when he stopped. “Oh, Ash?” he called to her.
She was halfway in the door but turned back to see what he wanted.
He’d been thinking about this for a while, and he and Madeline had pretty much decided that they would do it.
“We’re thinking about getting a dog,” he told Ashley. “How would you feel about that?”
He could see the beginning of a sm
ile at the corners of her mouth.
“A dog? Really? What kind?”
“Maybe a Labrador or a golden retriever.”
“Labs are awesome,” she said. “I think that would be pretty cool, especially if you let me babysit.”
“It’s a deal,” Remy said, waving as he turned the corner.
A Lab it is.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It hadn’t taken Remy long to find the Deacon farm. It had been pretty much where the voice on his phone had told him it would be.
The dilapidated main house and the skeletal remains of a barn next door were at the end of an unkempt dirt road that Remy had found behind a rusted chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. As he moved closer to the old farmhouse, he could see the wide expanse of weed-covered fields beyond. It had been a long time since anything of use was taken from this land.
From what he understood, the Deacons were once one of the country’s wealthiest families, starting out in farming but then branching off into gunpowder during the Civil War. It wasn’t long before they were producing virtually all American gunpowder. The family was wiped out after a tragic accident claimed the last Deacon and his heir sometime during the forties.
Remy stood before the front porch, wondering if he was alone. Perhaps Ashley’s kidnapper wanted to make him squirm a bit, or maybe he had no intention whatsoever of showing up.
Remy didn’t even want to consider the latter.
He decided to explore the farmhouse, and his foot had just landed on the first creaking step to the porch when he sensed that he was no longer alone. He turned to see a smiling man standing behind him. There was nothing unusual about his appearance—middle-aged, average height and build—and Remy wouldn’t have thought twice about him if he’d passed him on the street.
“Are you the one who called me?” Remy asked.
But the man simply stood there, smiling strangely.
Two more men and a woman stepped out from the overgrown bushes hiding the house from the road and joined the first of them.
Then there came the creaking of a door, and Remy turned to see yet another man coming out of the farmhouse.
“Are you really an angel?” he asked as he pulled the door closed behind him. “Give us a taste.”