The demon grabbed his glass and drained it, slamming the empty down upon the wooden tabletop loud enough for the waitress to hear. He looked around but did not see her—in fact, the bar seemed to be empty.
“Waitress!” he bellowed.
He hoped that the golem heard him, heard the anger in his voice, and fired the bitch for not serving him properly. But he didn’t see the golem, either. The demon’s eyes ticked to the entrance of the establishment and saw that even the minotaur doorman wasn’t in his usual place.
What’s going on? he wondered. He grabbed the empties that surrounded him, tossing them back, hoping for one more sip from each, as he waited for someone to serve him.
But the bar remained empty.
The demon was about to get up and explore, when he at last saw somebody come out from the back. “About fucking time,” he hissed, holding up one of his empties and giving it a shake.
The figure did not seem to take note of his need, walking toward where he’d taken up residence for the last five hours or so.
“A drink!” he screamed at the figure, who still did not stop.
It was then that he noticed the figure wore a heavy, hooded cloak, similar to the ones worn by . . .
“They’re all dead,” the figure said, slowly removing the covering around his head to reveal the pale guise of a Bone Master assassin.
“What?” the demon squawked. “Who’s dead?”
The Bone Master remained silent, staring at him with eyes that burned with unquenchable hatred.
The demon was unable to hold his tongue. “Well, I’ll tell you who’s not dead: the guy I paid my life savings to have killed, that’s who’s not dead.”
“It is all because of you that we are no more. Except for me, Ripper of Souls, the Bone Masters are extinct. And it is all because of you.”
The demon jumped up, sending his heavy wooden chair flipping to the floor. “I don’t know what you’re going on about, but I want what I paid for,” he snarled. “I don’t care what happened to the other Bone Masters. . . . I don’t care that you’re the last one; I expect you to deliver what I was promised.”
“And would that be a hit on an angel by the name of Remy Chandler?” A human in a dark suit emerged from a patch of darkness across the bar and strode over to join them.
“What’s it to you?” The demon bared his rows of razor-sharp teeth.
“I need to be sure,” the stranger explained.
“So what if I did?” the demon asked. “He a friend of yours or something?”
The human smiled and unbuttoned his jacket. “As a matter of fact, he is.” From the inside pocket of his suit coat the man removed a pouch, heavy with its contents. He hefted the leather purse and then tossed it on the table top with a clatter.
“That’s good enough for me,” the man addressed the Bone Master, adjusting the black, horn-rimmed glasses on his face.
“What’s that?” the demon asked, his clawed fingers reaching for the pouch.
The assassin’s movements were a blur as he pinned the demon’s hand to the table with a knife. The demon screamed and tried to pry the blade up, but it was imbedded, too, in the wood of the table.
“That’s his payment,” the stranger said.
The demon didn’t understand. “Payment? Payment for what?”
The stranger smiled again. “Payment for the murder of the piece of shit that tried to have my friend put down.”
The demon’s eyes widened, and his survival instincts kicked into high gear. He pulled his hand up from the table. The pain was excruciating, but he knew what was to come would be much worse.
And all too final.
With a wet, ripping sound, his hand came free, and he stumbled backward, tripping over his overturned chair and landing on the floor.
The Bone Master loomed above him. “All dead, because of you,” the assassin said mournfully. His hands emerged from within his cloak, clutching a weapon of bone.
The demon didn’t even have a chance to beg for his life before he was dead.
• • •
Loose ends.
Francis hated them more than just about anything else. They prevented him from thinking clearly, from focusing on the future. No matter how hard he’d tried to let go, no matter that his friend had survived, that Heaven and the universe had managed to pull through once again, it didn’t change the fact that someone—something—had put a contract out on Remy Chandler and had nearly killed him.
That didn’t sit well with the Guardian angel Francis.
Guardian angel.
It still gave him quite a kick that he had been returned to his full status as a Guardian, that his penance had been counted and he’d been absolved of his sins, and he’d been given back his title and all that it entailed. Yes, he still worked for the Morningstar, but since Unification, that was no longer such a dirty thing.
Francis watched the Bone Master as he stood over his prey, his living weapon of bone, cartilage, and sinew dangling from his hand.
Loose ends still dangling in the breeze. It was time to wrap them up once and for all.
He’d never expected to hear from Methuselah. The golem bar owner tried to keep mum on his clientele and their doings, but having one of his demon regulars flapping his gums about Chandler must not have sat well with him, and he’d made the call.
Originally Francis had planned to do it himself, but then he’d realized that would take care of only one of the loose ends.
And there were two.
He’d thought that all the Bone Masters had been destroyed in one way or another, but he learned through the grapevine that one had survived—driven nearly insane by the murder of his species and hell-bent on discovering who was responsible. But if a Bone Master assassin still lived . . .
“You do good work,” Francis complimented.
The Bone Master just stood there, staring at the dead demon, who had already begun to rot and stink up the joint. “I perform the function that I was born for . . . and what I am paid to do.”
“The Bone Master assassins,” Francis said. “The most proficient killers in existence, I hear. . . . Well, they used to be.”
The Bone Master turned his dark gaze upon him.
“I hear that you’re the last of them,” Francis added. “Is that true?”
The assassin seemed visibly shaken. “The entire guild, even the uninitiated, have been killed.”
“Wow, that really sucks,” Francis said. “And this is the piece of shit that was responsible for making that happen?” He pointed to the dead demon on the floor of the bar.
The Bone Master looked back to the corpse and snarled. “This one hired us to slay an angel of Heaven who had offended him.”
“And what, it didn’t go so well?” Francis asked curiously.
“The angel did not die, and when my brothers attempted to complete the contract . . .”
“Let me guess—his friends didn’t take too kindly to that.”
The demon assassin glared at him, eyes shiny and dark with madness.
“His friends,” the Bone Master said with a snarl.
“So because you Bone Master types wouldn’t pull back on a contract put out by this asshole”—Francis pointed to the dead demon again—“your entire species, except for you, has been wiped out.”
The demon assassin trembled with repressed fury.
“And the contract, as it stands now?” Francis asked.
“Still unfulfilled.”
“So let me get this straight,” Francis said. “Even with the guy who took out the contract dead at your feet, and only one of you Bone Masters left alive, you’re still planning on carrying out that contract?”
The Bone Master puffed out his chest proudly. “As the last, it is my responsibility to . . .”
“Thanks; that’s all I needed to hear.” In one fluid movement, Francis pulled the revolver from inside his jacket and fired a single shot into the killer’s forehead.
The Bone Master
’s eyes went wide in death, as if not believing what had just occurred. His body fell backward, landing splayed across one of the wooden tables.
“Stupid son of a bitch,” Francis said, returning the pistol to the inside of his jacket. “And here I was going to let you live.”
He’d hoped the assassin would have been smarter, to realize that the idea of fulfilling the contract on Remy Chandler just wasn’t worth it anymore.
So much for common sense.
“So are we done here or what?” asked a voice from across the bar.
Francis looked up to see Squire entering from the kitchen. He was being followed by the sorcerer Angus Heath, who was the cook at Methuselah’s; the minotaur, Phil; and the establishment’s owner, Methuselah himself.
“Yeah,” Francis said, satisfied that all the dangling threads had been snipped away. “I think we’re good.”
Squire came to stand with him. The goblin was holding a plate of chicken wings in one hand and eating them with the other.
“So you had to kill him?” Squire asked about the Bone Master.
“Yeah,” Francis said. “He was still planning on going after Remy.”
The goblin shook his head as he had another wing, sucking the bone clean of meat in a matter of seconds. “You’d think he would have quit while he was ahead.”
“I suppose it must have something to do with honor,” Francis said as he stared at the cooling corpse of the killer atop the wooden table.
“Something to do with being fucking stupid, if you ask me,” Squire added his two cents.
“We’ve got to clean up,” Francis said, going to Bone Master’s corpse. “Help me with the other one.”
“I’m eating,” Squire complained.
“You’re always eating,” Francis said, hauling the corpse up from the table and slinging it over his shoulder with a grunt.
“And you’re very hurtful,” Squire retorted, setting his plate on another table and taking the legs of the dead demon.
Francis headed to the front of the bar.
“Sorry about the mess,” he apologized to Methuselah.
“No worries,” the golem said as he went to his place behind the bar. “Nothing that a mop and a bucket of soapy water can’t take care of . . . Right, Phil?”
The minotaur snorted by the front door.
“As if I don’t have enough to do,” he said, picking up a magazine of crossword puzzles.
Francis pulled from his pocket the satchel of coins he’d used to pay the now-dead assassin and tossed them onto the bar with a heavy jingle.
“For your troubles.”
“You’re too kind,” Methuselah responded, his great stone fingers closing around the purse and making it disappear somewhere beneath the bar.
“Could probably do up a pretty good stew with those two,” Heath said, wiping his hands on the stained apron that covered his protruding belly.
“Sorry, they’ve already been promised to a hungry lady,” Francis said, moving past the sorcerer/head chef and into the kitchen, heading for the back exit.
“Pardon me?” Heath questioned as Squire followed, dragging the demon by the legs. “Is this somebody special?”
“Oh, she’s special all right,” Squire answered, maneuvering the corpse around the corner and into the kitchen behind Francis. “In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything quite like her.”
“Sounds mysterious,” Heath said with a laugh from outside the kitchen.
Francis waited at the screen door for Squire, holding it open with his shoulder as Squire dragged the demon corpse behind him.
In Methuselah’s back alley, a beautiful black 1960 Lincoln Continental purred.
The door slammed closed behind them with a clatter as they made their way to the front of the car to deposit their goods.
“Here ya go, sweetheart,” Francis said, dropping the body down in front of Leona. “Eat up.”
Squire dragged the demon’s body alongside the Bone Master’s and dropped his legs.
“You might want to step back,” Francis said, just as the car lunged forward with a roar of its engine, the front grill opening wide with the metallic screech of rending metal, and began to feed upon the corpses before it.
“Ain’t that a sight,” Squire said.
“Isn’t it, though?” Francis said.
The bodies were gone in less than a minute, and Francis knew that it was time to go.
“So, where to now?” Squire asked, climbing into the passenger seat and slamming the door closed.
“I’ve got to go to work,” Francis said, putting the car in drive.
“Matters of the newly formed Kingdom, is it?” Squire asked with a grin. “Must be kind of exciting with everything being all shiny and new.”
Francis held on to the steering wheel but didn’t really need to do anything at all. Leona knew the way.
“I guess,” he said with a shrug. “Shiny and new, but there’s still plenty of darkness there, which is why I still have a job.”
Squire was silent.
“Are they hiring?” he asked suddenly.
“What? Are you looking for a job?”
The goblin gave him a shit-eating grin. “Sure,” he shrugged. “I could use the dough, and I’ve got a talent or two that could be beneficial.”
“Insatiable hunger? Don’t really see the use for that.”
“Fuck you,” Squire squawked. “Seriously, if I got a job there, maybe we could be partners.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah, think of it,” Squire said.
“No thanks.”
“We could be like Cagney and Lacey.”
“Who?”
“Simon and Simon?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Jake and the Fatman?”
“I think you can get out here,” Francis said, nothing but perpetual darkness outside the car as they traveled through the fabric of reality.
“Anyplace to eat out there?” Squire asked. “I’m fucking starved.”
• • •
Remy sat on his rooftop deck, snoring dog by his chair, and gazed up into the Heavens at the new star blazing in the sky. He missed his friend.
It was on nights like this, with summer just around the corner, when he knew that he would miss him the most.
Remy reached for the bottle of Glenlivet and poured himself two fingers of the fine scotch.
“Toasting Steven again?” asked a voice from nearby.
He turned in his chair to see Linda leaning in the doorway. The sight of her made him smile, and it was almost enough to take the sad edge off.
Almost.
She came to sit in his lap, throwing her arms around his neck. Marlowe lifted his big head and studied her momentarily before dropping it back down to the deck, snoring again in seconds.
“Where is it again?” she asked, taking the smallest of sips from his glass of scotch.
“The new star? Right there.” He raised his hand and pointed to a particular place in the heavens. “It burns just a little bit brighter than all the rest; can you see it?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Now I can.”
The world wasn’t that much different since Unification had come to pass. Those more sensitive to the preternatural could feel that something wonderful had occurred somewhere out there in the ether, but just about everybody else simply went on with their lives as they had before.
Even though Heaven was watching more closely now.
Linda had some more of his scotch before giving the glass back to Remy. “There weren’t any stories about him on the news tonight,” she said.
He knew exactly what she was talking about. Law enforcement was still on the hunt for a killer, or killers, who’d slain Boston Police detective Steven Mulvehill in his Somerville home. The search had been relentless, and even Remy had been questioned repeatedly. He wished that he could have shared the truth with them, but the truth was just too much.
Even with the Unification, the world was just not ready to know the reality of what existed around them, and Remy wasn’t really sure if they ever would be.
“It’s old news now,” he said, sadly swirling the golden liquid around in his glass. “Eventually, it’ll even be forgotten.”
“Steven will never be forgotten,” Linda said, leaning her cheek against his head.
“No, never.”
“I think I’m going to bed,” she said, and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Are you coming down?”
“I think I’m going to sit here a little bit longer, if that’s all right.”
“That’s fine,” she said getting up from his lap. “Feel free to wake me when you get in.”
He held her hand and kissed it before letting go.
She smiled at him, and he felt that oh-so-human flutter in the pit of his belly that reminded him how lucky he had been to find her.
“Come on, Marlowe,” she said to the dog. “Let’s go to bed.”
The dog looked at him first.
“Go on,” he told the beast. “I’m just going to sit here, think for a while, and drink.”
The Labrador climbed to his feet and stretched before trotting off to join Linda.
Alone, Remy closed his eyes and listened to the prayers of the world. The voices were much clearer since Unification, and he allowed them to wash over him.
But one prayer seemed to separate itself from all the others. It wasn’t that it was more important, it just stood out, as if it wanted to make sure that he heard it.
To know of it.
Curious, Remy focused on the pleas of a young woman in the throes of childbirth. She was praying to the Holy Father for her child—her son—to be healthy, and brave, and smart, and a leader whom others would look up to in times of need.
That he would be a good person.
Remy thought that was a lovely sentiment for her to want for her newborn child, but he could not understand why this plea—this prayer—was coming across so very strong, nearly drowning out all the other prayers of the world.
As if he was being told to pay attention.
Used to the mysterious machinations of his Holy Father, Remy did what he thought he should, putting all his focus on this new mother as she was about to bring life into the world.