A Kiss Before the Apocalypse

  “I don't want you to think about that stuff,” she said, running her hands through his hair.

  He started to protest, but she brought her lips around, placing them firmly over his in a kiss that forced him to be silent.

  Remy broke her lock upon his mouth, again looking into her gaze.

  “I just don't know what I would do if... “

  She didn't want to hear it anymore, and using all her strength, forced the man she loved back down onto the bed and crawled naked atop him before he could even think about escaping her.

  “There are other things to think about now,” she said, grinding her lower body into his, feeling him respond.

  His hands drew her down to him, and they kissed.

  Within moments, they were making fevered love again, their cries and moans of pleasure drowning out the prayers of the needy traveling in the night.

  She looked so frail.

  Remy stood beside his wife's bed, watching her as she slept.

  Her eyes slowly came open, as if somehow alerted to his presence, and she turned her head upon the pillow, looked at him, and smiled.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice no stronger than a whisper.

  “Hey,” he said back, moving closer to her bedside. He reached out, taking her hand in his. Again he was disturbed by how cold it felt, how artificial the skin that he had kissed and adored every inch of felt beneath his touch.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, bending down to place a kiss upon her brow. He regretted the stupid question as soon as it left his lips.

  “Been better,” she said, closing her eyes with an exhausted sigh.

  The wind moaned outside, throwing the rain violently against the window.

  “Listen to that,” she said. “Still pretty bad out?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “No sign of letting up either.”

  “It'll make the flowers grow,” she said, smiling with her eyes closed, forever the optimist.

  He squeezed her hand in response. She loved the springtime, the flowers in bloom. It was like a knife to his heart to think that she had seen her last.

  “Always liked nights like this,” she said, turning her head to look up at him. “Sitting on the couch, curled up under a blanket, watching something . . . anything on TV, no matter how good or bad. It was good...just being there with you.”

  The pain was excruciating, like nothing he'd ever felt before. He'd thought about this pain, what it would be like, and never imagined the full fury of its strength.

  He would have taken the burning pain of his true form asserting itself repeatedly over the next seven years instead of having to endure this now.

  “You look awful,” she said, weakly squeezing his fingers in return. “At least I have an excuse.”

  He didn't know how much to say, how much to tell her.

  “It's obvious that you haven't found him yet,” Madeline said. “Because I'm still here.”

  Remy didn't get sick; it wasn't possible for him, but he certainly felt sick then, everything about him breaking down. He felt as though he were dying.

  Dying along with her.

  “I'm close,” he said. “I... I think it might be done today.”

  Something broke loose within his chest, something jagged and sharp, spinning around inside, ripping him to bloody bits.

  “That's a good thing,” she said.

  He stared at her with panicked eyes. Everything he had feared was coming true, as if he were being punished.

  Penance for my sins.

  “It is,” she said to him firmly. “I'm tired, Remy, tired of fighting to keep this poor old body afloat. I'm done now. I've had my life . . . my greatest love. I can leave satisfied.”

  His eyes burned like pieces of the sun jammed into the fleshy sockets, but he did not cry. He never could cry.

  It was the only human aspect he could not surrender to. It would have hurt far too much to be that human, and he was unsure if he was that strong.

  “Do this for me, Remy Chandler,” she said. “One last thing to show how much you love me.”

  He brought her hand . . . her poor, cold hand that had once pulsed with so much love, to his mouth and laid his lips upon it. “Anything for you,” he said, eyes afire.

  “Find him,” Madeline said, her voice growing progressively weaker. “Put things back the way they're supposed to be.”

  Her face twisted up slightly, and he knew that she was in pain. And it killed him to know that there was nothing that he could do to take it away.

  Except.

  He reached down to her, gently taking her frail form into his arms, and he saw his life with her flash before the theater of his mind. Such a short, wonderful life they had shared, and he wouldn't have traded it for anything.

  “I have to go now,” he said to her.

  Madeline swallowed, a dry click in her throat. Her eyes had closed, but she forced them open. “Tell the baby that I love him very much . . . but that I have to go, and that I'll miss him. Will you do that for me?”

  He nodded, his body feeling as though it would simply dissolve, everything that he was disintegrating to dust and blowing away on the wind.

  “I will,” he said.

  “Try to make him understand, I... I don't want him to be mad.”

  “He won't be mad,” Remy told her. “He'll miss you very much. . . . I'll... “

  His voice wouldn't work; it had rotted away, silencing him.

  “You have to go,” she said, and she pulled her hand feebly away. Madeline closed her eyes, turning her face so as not to look at him. “I'm ready, and so are you.”

  He leaned forward again, placing his lips upon her head.

  “I love you, Madeline Chandler,” he said, finding his voice again.

  “And I you, Remy Chandler,” his wife said, turning her face so that their lips could touch again. “My love... myangel.”

  And he knew at that moment, if Madeline were able, she would have left the world right then, surrendering what little life remained in her fragile form, ascending to become part of the stuff that composed the universe.

  But she couldn't.

  She was asleep again as he stepped back from her bed, remembering this last sad sight of her, before turning toward the door.

  Francis stood respectfully in the entry, hands folded, bald head bowed.

  He slowly lifted his face to look at Remy. “Are we ready?” the former Guardian angel asked.

  “Yeah,” Remy said, the plaintive cries of imprisoned souls urging him on to the last leg of his journey.

  “We all are.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  They took Francis' car, the black Land Rover barreling down Route 3 on the way to the Cape.

  It was sort of eerie, Remy thought, looking out the windows; the roads were nearly empty, despite the time of morning. It was rush hour, and traffic should have been at the max, especially on the other side, leading toward Boston.

  “It's almost as if they can sense something's going to happen,” Francis suddenly said, picking up on his vibe. The Guardian looked across at him. “Like they're just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  They'd had the radio on when they first hit the road, turning it off less than ten minutes into the journey. They didn't need to know how close the world was to the end.

  It was pressure that they could live without.

  “There're some CD's in the glove compartment,” the fallen angel said to him. “Take your pick.”

  Remy pushed the button and opened the compartment.

  To say that Francis' taste in music was eclectic was an understatement. Remy found examples of rock, pop, soul, hip-hop, and even some country, each new CD case uncovered providing him with another surprise.

  “Barry Manilow?” Remy said, holding it up.

  The fallen angel shrugged. “He writes the songs that make the whole world sing.”

  Remy decided that some Sinatra would be just the thing to calm his nerves. He placed the disc int
o the car's player, the Rover's high-end stereo system immersing them in the songs of Old Blue Eyes, as they drove on to inevitable conflict.

  They continued on Route 3, and the closer they got to the Cape, the harder it seemed to rain. It wasn't long before they were the only vehicle on the road.

  “I know how you feel about guns,” Francis suddenly said, interrupting Remy's rumination on the words to “I've Got You Under My Skin.” “But I stopped off at my storage bin and picked up some items that might come in handy.”

  “What kind of items?” Remy asked.

  Francis reached out and turned the volume down. “Items that will be beneficial in dealing with the Black Choir, not to mention the Seraphim.”

  Remy didn't like the idea of weapons, or violence, for that matter, but he knew that there wasn't likely to be any choice. Whoever was responsible for what was going on wasn't about to allow them to waltz in and break up their plans.

  Violence was inevitable.

  Gazing out through the rain-spattered windshield, Remy again saw another sign of the impending Apocalypse. The Sagamore Bridge was empty of traffic, and they passed over the Cape Cod Canal without ever slowing down.

  “That doesn't happen too often,” Francis said, in- creasing the speed of his wiper blades to keep up with the watery onslaught.

  Remy recalled the hours sitting in the summer traffic leading up to the bridge; how Madeline swore, year after year, that it was the last time that they would do it. But every year they had returned, seduced by the beauty of the Cape.

  It took his wife's illness, not the seemingly never-ending traffic, to finally stop their visits.

  They continued off the bridge up Route 6 to Well-fleet. Remy could feel a knot of anxiety growing in the pit of his stomach.

  For about five seconds, after his final words with Madeline, he'd seriously considered just calling it quits, returning to Beacon Hill, picking up Marlowe, and going home to wait it out.

  Losing the one you love had the ability to make you think some really stupid things. It had taken four seconds to come to this conclusion, and another second to berate himself for wasting time.

  “How we doing?” Francis interrupted Remy's thoughts. They were on a long stretch of road, undeveloped property that wasn't likely to remain that way on either side.

  Remy unfolded the map he'd printed out from Map-Quest earlier and gave it a quick perusal. “Ravenbrook Lane should be coming up on our right,” he said, and before too long, Francis pulled the car over and turned off the Land Rover's engine.

  “We're here,” he said, leaning his bald head against the driver's-side window, gazing out at the weather. “So much for it clearing up.”

  Remy observed that even though it was morning, it seemed as dark as night here. “Figures,” he said. “You finally get to come to the Cape and it's raining.”

  “Isn't it always that way, though?” Francis asked.

  “Isn't it?” Remy responded in kind.

  They got out of the SUV, going around to the back of the vehicle. Francis used his key to open the hatchback and put down the gate. He reached inside the back, throwing aside a blanket and opening a storage compartment.

  “Now, I want you to be nice to these,” Francis said, pulling out the items that were wrapped in a navy blue blanket. “They're quite valuable.”

  He set the blanket down on the gate and carefully began to unwrap it.

  Remy had sensed them as soon as Francis opened the hatchback, like a tiny, musical voice singing from somewhere far off in the distance.

  The two swords appeared ancient; their once-resplendent surfaces tarnished nearly black by the passing of years. He found himself stepping back, away from the blades.

  It wasn't often that swords forged in the fires of God's fury showed up minus their owners.

  “How did you come by these?” he asked, not able to take his eyes from the weapons.

  “They were part of a cache of Heavenly weapons that supposedly went missing during the war,” Francis explained. “Haven't a clue what happened to the others. These two were found in an archeological dig in Lebanon fifty or so years ago.” The fallen angel stared lovingly at the blades. “Do you know how many bad guys I had to kill in order to afford these babies?”

  Remy scowled. He'd never appreciated Francis' extracurricular activities as a hired assassin.

  “Take your pick,” his friend told him.

  It had been thousands of years since he'd last wielded a sword, and he had sworn that he'd never do it again.

  The weapons whispered to him of what they could accomplish in his hand; the enemies that would fall before their righteous power.

  “I don't mean to rush you,” Francis said over the hissing whispers of the weaponry. “But there's this thing called the Apocalypse we're trying to avoid.”

  Francis was right, and he had no choice this time.

  “I'll take this one,” Remy said as he reached down to the blanket, taking a tarnished blade by the hilt.

  And the sword began to sing.

  In the hands of any other, the sword would have been just that, performing as such, but in the hands of a member of God's Heavenly host, it was so much more.

  The blade vibrated in his grasp, the heavy accumulation of tarnish and grime burning away in a snaking trail of oily smoke. He could feel the weapon attempting to make contact with his true nature, and silenced the communication with his mind.

  “I think it likes you,” Francis said.

  Remy stared at the weapon in his hand. It had started to glow, sparks of yellow flame leaping from the blade's edge as he passed it through the air.

  Francis claimed his own weapon, but with little effect. The blade remained the same, its surface dark and stained. The sword did not react to him, for he had fallen from the grace of the Creator.

  “Not as pretty as yours, but it'll do,” he said, slicing the air with the weapon, trying it out. “Oh yeah, take one of these too.”

  There was a smaller package wrapped within the blanket, and Francis flipped it open to reveal two ornate daggers. “The two sort of go together,” he explained, handing Remy a knife with similar markings to those on the hilt of his sword.

  Not sure where he should put it, Remy slid the knife through his belt, looking down to make sure that it would stay. It did.

  “All right, then,” he said with a sigh. “Should we give this a shot?”

  Francis adjusted his glasses and hefted his sword. He had put his knife in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Yeah, what the fuck? Already made the drive.”

  They walked side by side – swords in hand – down the dirt driveway that led to a small cottage. They'd willed themselves invisible. If anyone had seen them, the police would have been called immediately, reporting that there were two crazy people walking down the street with swords.