An Apple for the Creature

The Bad Hour THOMAS E. SNIEGOSKI

Thomas E. Sniegoski is a New York Times bestselling author of the young adult series The Fallen as well as the popular urban fantasy books featuring angel-turned-private-investigator Remy Chandler. The Fallen: End of Days is the latest in the Fallen series, and In the House of the Wicked, the next of the Remy Chandler books, was released in August 2012. Tom lives in Massachusetts with his long-suffering wife, LeeAnne, and their French bulldog, Kirby. Please visit him at www.sniegoski.com.

NOW

The trees bordering the winding back road bent in the breeze, forming a natural canopy that prevented the light of the nighttime heavens from reaching the road below.

Still, it seemed darker than usual in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.

“Bascomb Road should be right up ahead,” Remy Chandler announced. He leaned forward in the driver’s seat, peering into the night, straining to find the street sign that would signal his destination.

“Yep, here we are,” he said, taking a right onto Bascomb and then a quick left into the parking lot of his client’s property.

There was a shifting of weight in the shadows of the backseat, and Remy gazed into the rearview mirror to see Marlowe’s dark brown eyes staring back at him.

The Labrador retriever whimpered, his eyes temporarily leaving the rearview mirror to take in his surroundings.

Remy pulled the car into a space in front of a large wooden building, his headlights illuminating a handcrafted sign that read, KINNEY KENNELS AND OBEDIENCE SCHOOL.

“You ready?” Remy asked, putting the car in park.

“No,” the dog answered in the language of his species, eyes once again meeting Remy’s in the mirror.

Eyes filled with the question of why it was necessary to come to such a horrible place.

NINE HOURS AGO

Remy sat behind the desk in his Beacon Street office putting together an expense report for a client whose job he had finished the previous week. Marlowe snored in the grip of sleep, lying on the floor beside Remy’s chair, flat on his side with his legs stiffly outstretched as if he’d been tipped over.

It was a slow day at Chandler Investigations, which wasn’t unusual, and why Remy had decided to bring his four-legged pal to work with him. Some paperwork, maybe a few follow-up phone calls, and then he’d be free for the rest of the day.

Unless something unexpected came up.

Some of the more interesting examples of the unexpected he’d experienced over recent months passed through his thoughts as he double-checked some math on the report: investigating the possibility of a demon incursion in a Southie housing project, making sure that a cache of Heavenly armaments didn’t fall into the wrong hands, a lunch meeting at the Four Seasons with the archangel Michael to discuss his possible return to the Golden City, and of course there was the time that he had to avert the Apocalypse.

Not the types of jobs usually associated with a typical private investigator, but Remy Chandler was far from typical.

Remiel, as he had been called when serving in the angelic forces of the Lord God, was of the Heavenly host, Seraphim, a warrior angel who had fought valiantly in the Great War against the forces of Lucifer Morningstar. It was that war that had soured Remiel to the ways of Heaven, and he had abandoned the Kingdom of God, choosing instead to live on the earth with the Creator’s most amazing creations, losing himself amongst them for thousands of years; suppressing his angelic nature, doing everything in his power to be one of them.

To be human.

But that had proven to be far more difficult than he had expected, as things of a supernatural nature had a tendency to find him, even though he did everything in his power not to be found.

He opened his desk drawer to remove the stapler, the clattering of items in the drawer disturbing the Labrador lying ruglike at his feet.

“Why noise?” Marlowe asked in annoyance.

“I’m sorry,” Remy responded, using the gift of tongues common to all those with an angelic heritage, and one that Remy didn’t mind using, especially when dealing with the four-year-old black Labrador.

“Didn’t mean to disturb you, Your Highness,” Remy joked as he stapled the sheets together.

“Noisy,” Marlowe grumbled again, then settled his head back down on the hardwood floor with a disgusted sigh.

Remy laughed as he found an envelope in another drawer, and a sheet of stamps in the drawer beside that one, making as much noise as he could to play with the puppy a bit.

“Bite you,” the dog said, sitting up and glaring at him.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Remy warned, fighting the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

The dog sprang to his feet, his thick tail wagging so furiously that Remy couldn’t understand how it was that the dog didn’t take flight.

“Joke,” Marlowe said, shoving his large blocky head into Remy’s lap, looking to have his floppy ears scratched. “No bite—joke.”

“You’re such a bad dog,” Remy said, as he lovingly petted the animal.

“No bad dog,” Marlowe argued.

“Oh, yes, you are,” Remy said. “Only bad dogs threaten to bite their masters.”

Marlowe stood on his haunches, resting his front paws on Remy’s thigh so he could lick his best friend’s face. “No bite, joke!” Marlowe barked. “Joke! Joke! Joke!”

The private eye laughed, trying to avoid the dog’s pink, slobbering tongue.

The door into the office suddenly opened, and both Remy and Marlowe turned to see who had interrupted their play.

An older woman strode in as if she owned the place. She was tall, close to six feet, wearing a lambswool jacket and faded blue jeans. Her white hair was pulled back tightly in a long braid, her blue eyes slightly magnified behind her silver-framed glasses.

“Sounds like somebody has a bit of a discipline problem,” she said with a hint of a smile, as she closed the door behind her.

Seeing a new face was all he needed. An excited Marlowe bounded happily across the office to greet what he was certain would be another best friend to add to his collection.

“Stop,” the woman suddenly commanded, hand outstretched.

And Marlowe did just that, coming to a complete stop, staring up at her with large, attentive eyes.

“Sit,” she said, motioning with the same hand, slowly lowering it.

And Marlowe did that too.

“It appears he has the aptitude for the basics,” she said, looking to Remy, who was now coming around the side of his desk. “I’m guessing a lack of consistency in discipline might be the culprit.”

“Ya think?” Remy asked, as Marlowe scurried away from the woman, to cower behind him.

“I’ve never met a dog that I couldn’t train,” she said, staring at Marlowe as if he was a challenge. Then she looked back at Remy, and started toward him, hand extended. “Jacqueline Kinney,” she said.

“I’m Remy Chandler,” Remy responded, taking her hand and shaking it. It was rough and callused. “What can I do for you?”

Marlowe continued to watch the woman, scooting closer to press against his leg.

“I’d like to hire you, Mr. Chandler,” she said, looking around the office.

“What seems to be your problem, Ms. Kinney?”

“Jackie,” she told him. “Call me Jackie.”

“Okay, Jackie.” He gestured for her to take the chair in front of his desk as he went around to take his own. Marlowe remained close to him, as if some strange static charge had caused him to stick. “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Thanks,” she said as she lowered herself down into the seat. “For the past month or so, someone has been trying to disrupt my business, and my life.”

Remy slid a notepad over in front of him and picked up a pen for writing notes.

“And why do you think that?”

She dug into the pocket of her coat and removed a folded piece of paper. “I found this in my mailbox not long before the problems started,” she said, as she leaned across the desk to hand the wrinkled paper to Remy.

BEWARE THE BAD HOUR it read in capital letters, obviously written by an angry hand.

“And you have no idea who could have left this?” Remy asked.

Jackie shook her head. “I didn’t even know what it meant, and thought it might be one of my staff pulling a joke.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t?”

“No, they had no idea, or where it came from, and honestly, I threw it in my desk drawer and never gave it another thought—until the problems started.”

“Problems?” He set the note down and picked up his pen.

“It started really as a kind of feeling . . . an uneasiness in the air, I guess, and I wasn’t the only one to feel it. I run an obedience school and kennel, and the dogs staying in the kennel seemed to feel it too. They began barking and carrying on twenty-four-seven. In all my years of boarding dogs, and I’ve been doing this for a long time, I’ve never seen animals act that way. It was as if they could sense something coming.”

“The Bad Hour?” Remy suggested.

“Maybe.” Jackie shrugged. “Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“Has there been anything other than this strange uneasiness that you and the kennel dogs have been feeling? A physical threat, maybe?”

“The uneasiness was just the beginning,” the older woman said, nodding. “It wasn’t long before I started to sense a presence . . . and then it started to show me that it was there, and what it could do.”

“A presence?” Remy questioned. “Do you mean like a ghost, or an evil spirit or something?”

“I wouldn’t know what to call it,” Jackie said. She was sitting taller in her chair, her breathing coming quicker. Whatever it was, it was clearly frightening her. “It likes to slam doors and slide furniture around in the middle of the night. I hear barking inside my bedroom, but I don’t have a dog of my own.”

Suddenly, Remy heard that familiar alarm bell start to go off inside his skull; the one that signaled this was likely one of those cases. The weird shit, as his closest friend, Boston homicide detective Steven Mulvehill, liked to call them.

“And your business? You say you run a kennel?” Remy asked as he jotted down some random thoughts.

“Kennel and obedience school,” she answered proudly. “I’ve been in business for close to thirty years.”

“And the presence is affecting that as well?”

Jackie nodded grimly. “I teach obedience classes in an old barn, but I had to cancel my summer classes because none of the puppies would go into the building.”

Remy was looking at his notes, unsure exactly how to proceed.

“Ms. Kinney . . . Jackie, it’s not that I’m unsympathetic to your situation, but I’m really not too sure how a private investigator would . . .”

“My father had a collection of Civil War memorabilia that I was trying to sell a couple of weeks ago. I met a gentleman who was interested in some of Dad’s things, and as we were talking, I mentioned my situation to him. He said you’re the best person for my problem. He said that cases like this . . . of a more unusual nature, were your specialty.”

Remy frowned. “This gentleman,” he said. “Did he happen to have an interest in weaponry?”

“Yes, he did,” Jackie said. “He purchased some of my father’s cutlasses. His name was Francis . . . I didn’t get a last name. He paid cash.”

Remy nodded. Francis was once the guardian angel Fraciel, until he was banished to earth after siding with the Morningstar during the War. Fraciel, now going by the earthly moniker of Francis, had seen the error of his ways, and had begged for the Almighty’s forgiveness. Instead of imprisonment in the Hell prison of Tartarus, God had shown unusual mercy and had sentenced Fraciel to guard one of Hell’s entrances on earth, as well as to act as one of God’s own personal assassins.

The former guardian angel had a love for medieval weaponry—all weaponry, really—and often hired himself out to the highest bidder when the Almighty didn’t have anybody that needed smiting, so he could afford to expand his collection.

Remy often found Francis’s skills quite beneficial for some of his own more dangerous cases.

“Was Francis wrong in sending me to you, Mr. Chandler?” Jackie asked.

Remy thought for a moment. In spite of how Marlowe seemed to feel, there was something about this old dog trainer that Remy liked. And since his schedule happened to be open at the moment, he figured what the heck.

“No, that’s perfectly fine,” he said. “I’d be happy to take your case.”

“No, make leave,” Marlowe said in a doggy grumble as he continued to cower beside Remy’s chair.

Remy reached down to pet his dog’s head and said, “Since your problem seems to focus around your property, I’ll need to go there.”

“Of course,” Jackie agreed. She stood, ready to leave, looking relieved, as if a huge weight had been lifted. “In fact, why don’t you come tonight?” she suggested. “Our first class of obedience training for new dog owners actually begins tonight. Bring your boy there, and mingle with the class while you’re doing your thing.”

Marlowe peeked around the corner of the desk to watch the woman leave.

“Who knows?” Jackie said with a hint of a smile. “Maybe you’ll learn something.”

NOW

Remy opened the back door of the car for Marlowe to get out.

The dog just sat there, looking everywhere but at him.

“Come on,” Remy urged. “Let’s go.”

The dog lowered his head, still not looking at Remy.

“No,” he said with a throaty grumble. “Not going . . . not a bad dog.”

“I didn’t say you were a bad dog,” Remy said. “I just want you to get out of the car.”

“Bad dogs go school,” Marlowe said. “Not bad dog. Good dog.”

“Of course you’re a good dog,” Remy said. “Who told you that only bad dogs go to school?”

The black Lab turned his dark brown gaze to his master’s. “You say.”

“Me?” Remy asked. “When did I ever . . .”

And then he remembered. Ever since Marlowe was a pup, Remy had been teasing the dog about his rambunctiousness, threatening to send him to obedience school if he didn’t learn to behave.

“Marlowe, I was only kidding,” Remy tried to explain, climbing in beside his friend.

“No kidding,” the dog said, refusing to make eye contact again.

“Really, it was just a joke.” Remy started to ruffle the dog’s ears. “Like when you said you were going to bite me back at the office.”

“Joke?” Marlowe asked, daring to look at him again.

“Just a joke,” Remy soothed. “I swear . . . you are not a bad dog.”

“No school?”

“Well, we still have to go in, I’m afraid,” Remy explained. “We have to see what we can do about helping Jackie.”

“Jackie scary,” Marlowe said.

“Yeah, a little, but she still needs our help.”

“Wait here?” Marlowe asked.

“No, I think you need to come in with me,” Remy said. “We have to pretend we’re here for school, so we can figure out who’s trying to hurt Jackie’s business.”

“Jackie scary,” Marlowe said again.

“Yes, I know she’s scary, but it doesn’t change the fact that she needs our help, all right?”

Marlowe didn’t respond.

“So are you getting out of the car?”

The big dog sighed heavily, and stood up on the backseat.

“There’s a good boy,” Remy said as he got out of the car, Marlowe leaping to the ground behind him.

“We’re gonna have to put this on you.” Remy showed Marlowe the leash, then leaned in to attach it to his collar. “Now remember, you’re going to have to help me out.”

The two walked side by side toward the large barn. The sound of dogs barking from the kennel at the back of the sprawling property was carried on the night wind.

Remy stopped to listen, hearing the panic in the raised voices of the kennel dogs. Yeah, they most definitely had to do something about that.

“So I know you’re a good dog, and you’re very smart, but you’re going to have to pretend that you’re not. Do you understand?” Remy asked as they started toward the barn again.

Marlowe stopped and stared at Remy as if he were crazy.

“We’re supposed to be going to classes to learn things that you already know, so you’re going to need to pretend not to know them.”

“Pretend stupid?” Marlowe asked.

“Exactly,” Remy said. “Pretend stupid.”

Several other dog owners and their pets were making their way down the path toward the barn, and Marlowe watched as they passed and went inside.

“Stupid dogs go school. Marlowe smart. Pretend stupid.”

“That’s it,” Remy said, giving the leash a slight tug as they headed toward the barn entrance. “We have to look like everybody else so we don’t stand out. Got it?”

“Got it,” Marlowe answered.

They reached the door to the barn and Remy took hold of the handle, pulling it open for the dog to enter.

Marlowe sat down, staring.

“What are you doing?” Remy asked.

“Being stupid,” Marlowe replied as he continued to stare at the open door.

“Okay, let’s pull back a bit on the stupid and get inside,” Remy said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

He could have sworn that the Labrador rolled his eyes as he passed by into the barn.

Marlowe trotted into the building with Remy close behind him.

The dog was immediately on alert as he took in his new surroundings. The smell of urine washed over his senses, and he suddenly realized how bad some of these dogs really were.

Following his nose, he glanced over to see a woman kneeling down with a handful of paper towels mopping up the floor as a white poodle stood innocently by, feigning disinterest.

“He does this when he’s frightened,” the middle-aged woman in the New England Patriots jacket tried to explain to Remy. “Guess it’s obvious why we’re here,” she said with a nervous laugh.

Marlowe knew that it wasn’t fear that made the dog pee inside the barn; it was the desire for his scent to be the strongest, marking his territory. He pulled Remy over toward the poodle as the woman quickly disposed of the damp towels, tossing them into a nearby plastic barrel. She kept the dog tight to her side, although he struggled to get closer to Marlowe.

“He isn’t very nice,” the woman said to Remy. “They say he needs to be socialized better. I hope these classes work.”

“What’s his name?” Marlowe heard Remy ask.

“Vincent,” she replied, still holding the poodle back.

Bad dog better name, Marlowe thought as he extended his muscular neck toward the defiant poodle.

He heard Remy making small talk with the woman as he fixed the poodle in his sternest of stares. “No pee,” he growled at the white, curly-haired dog.

“I pee . . . mine,” the poodle retorted, his entire body quivering with excitement.

“Not yours,” Marlowe corrected.

“Mine!” the dog barked, straining on his leash.

With a harrumph, Marlowe went to the spot where the dog had just relieved himself, sniffed it, then positioned himself over the damp floor.

“Not yours,” Marlowe said again, letting a quick stream of his own urine spray upon the spot.

“Marlowe!” Remy yelled in horror as he watched his dog urinate on the barn floor.

The dog looked at him with an expression that said, What’s the problem?

“What the hell are you doing?” Remy asked, dragging him over to one of the many paper towel dispensers bolted to the walls around the barn.

“Teaching,” the dog explained.

“Yeah, this one escapes me,” Remy muttered softly. He pulled a handful of towels from the roll and returned to the scene of the crime.

“How were you teaching by pissing on the floor?” Remy asked him as he started to sop up the still-warm puddle.

“Said room his. . . . Not his,” Marlowe explained.

“So you showed him that the room wasn’t his by peeing on his pee,” Remy finished.

“Yes,” Marlowe barked happily.

“You know what, no more teaching, okay? Let’s leave that to Jackie.”

Marlowe didn’t really care for that, but agreed for the sake of higher learning.

Remy tossed the wet paper towels into the barrel, and took a moment to absorb the vibe in the room. Jackie had talked about feeling a presence, something that had prevented her summer puppy classes from happening, but all he could sense at the moment was the nervous anticipation of people desperate for their dogs not to do anything embarrassing.

He watched as a large man in baggy shorts and a red hoodie was dragged by an equally large Saint Bernard to see a cream-colored French bulldog, owned by a mother and little girl, that didn’t appear at all interested in the other dogs, focused instead on killing a spider that had been trying to cross the room. There was an attractive young woman with a slightly older companion whose eyes were glued to a BlackBerry. She was trying to calm a shivering German shepherd mix who seemed terrified of the other dogs. An older couple—probably retired—stood off by themselves, a howling dachshund held tightly in the woman’s arms.

“How old?” asked a voice nearby, and Remy spun to face a woman with a coal black dye job, drawn-on eyebrows, and a turquoise velour sweat suit. She held a small, puffy-furred black dog protectively in her arms that silently studied him and Marlowe with deep, dark eyes. Remy didn’t know what kind of dog it was, maybe a Maltese, or some kind of terrier, but it was cute in that ankle-biting kind of way.

“Excuse me?” Remy asked.

“Your dog,” she said, looking down at Marlowe. “How old is he?”

“Oh, he’s four,” Remy replied.

Marlowe pulled on the leash, trying to get closer to the woman, as well as the dog in her arms. She backed up quickly as if afraid, holding her little dog closer to her.

“Sorry,” Remy said, hauling Marlowe back. “He’s perfectly harmless.”

“This one isn’t,” the old woman said, eyes darting to her little friend, who remained perfectly calm and silent cradled in her arms.

“Bit of an attitude?” Remy asked with a smile.

“You might say that,” she answered coldly.

There was silence then, and Remy tried to fill the uncomfortable moment by again looking around the barn. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Even extending his preternatural senses, Remy experienced nothing more than anxiety from the dog owners in attendance, and their pets.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the older woman said suddenly.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she repeated, her expression showing as little emotion as the tiny black dog she held in her arms.

“I really don’t understand what . . .”

“He’s too well behaved,” she added, motioning with her chin to Marlowe, who was sniffing the air, taking in all the various scents. “Maybe an advanced class would be better for him.”

“Maybe,” Remy said, petting his dog’s head. “But I think a refresher course might do him some good.”

A chorus of dog barks suddenly filled the air of the barn, and Remy glanced over to see Jackie Kinney entering through a back door, striding across the wood floor, clipboard in hand. He was amused by the air of confidence she exuded as she stopped in the center of the room, her eyes falling upon each and every person, and their dog. Like General Patton about to address his troops.

“Good evening,” she said, her voice booming with authority. “First off, I’d like to thank you all for choosing the Kinney Obedience School for your dog’s education, and for having the wherewithal to realize that a dog needs training if it is going to be a part of your family . . . a part of your day-to-day life.”

She looked around the room again, this time only making eye contact with the dogs. Remy could have sworn that the majority averted their gazes, surrendering dominance, as her stare touched them.

“I’m scared,” Marlowe grumbled, as Remy gently stroked his blocky head with the tips of his fingers.

Jackie raised the clipboard. “Before we get started, I’d like to take attendance.”

The trainer began to read from the list, ticking off the names of the owners and their dogs as they responded.

“Remy Chandler and Marlowe?” she called out, and before Remy could respond, Marlowe let out a booming bark to let her know that they were there.

Jackie smiled at them, checking off their names.

“Anyone whose name I didn’t call?” she asked, her eyes darting around the room for people she might have missed.

“Patricia Ventura,” the woman standing behind Remy called out. “Patricia Ventura and Petey.”

And that was when Remy felt it. There was a sudden change in the atmosphere. The air seemed to get heavier, colder. It was obvious that the others were feeling it as well because they began to look about, talking amongst themselves. The dogs became uneasy, some beginning to whine.

“What happening?” Marlowe asked.

“I have no idea,” Remy answered as he watched Jackie, her face wearing an expression of supreme unease. She was staring at a point somewhere behind him, at something that seemed to have frozen her in place. Remy started to turn, as the lights began to flicker, a sound like an angry hive of bees filling the room.

The barn then went completely dark and somebody cried out, the dogs all reacting in a cacophony of high-pitched yips and booming barks.

The lights momentarily returned, before they started to flicker again, and Remy saw that Jackie was gone, her clipboard lying abandoned on the floor, the door at the back of the barn swinging in the evening breeze.

The room was in chaos with dogs barking crazily, straining at their leashes, as their owners struggled to maintain control. The owners could feel it too: the presence of something unnatural. Remy watched as a few of them dragged their dogs toward the exit, and he started across the room to the swinging back door. Then he noticed that Marlowe was still by his side and he stopped.

“I want you to stay here,” he told the dog, kneeling at eye level.

“Help you,” Marlowe said eagerly. “Find scary Jackie.”

“No, I need you to be a good dog and stay here,” Remy replied firmly.

“Good dog?” Marlowe asked with a tilt of his head.

“Yes, a good dog will stay here and do as he’s told.”

He saw that Marlowe was about to argue, but then the dog sat down just inside the door.

“Good boy,” Remy said, darting out into the night. “I’ll be back.”

The cold nighttime air felt charged, but it was the frenzied barking of multiple dogs in the distance that told Remy where to go.

He moved across the back lot, past an obstacle course of some kind, and toward a larger, single-story structure that was the kennel. The closer he got, the louder and more frantic the dogs became. Remy listened to the barks, hearing the panicked message in their cries. They all had one thing in common: they were all concerned for Jackie’s safety.

He reached the back of the kennel, and saw the open door. That strange sensation still clung to the air, and he followed its trail into the building, senses on full alert.

It was even louder inside, the dogs frantically carrying on in response to what was playing out before them. Remy came around a section of cages, catching a glimpse of the woman in the blue sweat suit with the jet-black dye job, standing over the unconscious form of Jackie Kinney.

He stepped into the aisle and caught the woman’s attention. A look of surprise passed across her features, before she looked back to the unconscious woman on the floor.

“Huh,” she said, eyes fixed to Jackie Kinney. “Petey was right, it was you.”

Remy cautiously moved closer.

The older woman looked at him from the corner of her eye. “He said that we had to do this now, or we wouldn’t get the chance . . . that you were here to stop us.”

He stopped moving, watching as her lipstick-covered lips twisted in a crazy smile.

“Did you see the look on her face when I said our names?” the old woman asked Remy. “Patricia Ventura and Petey.” She returned her intense stare to Jackie, still lying motionless upon the ground. “It was like she’d seen a ghost.”

Strangely, the dogs in the kennel stopped barking. Remy could feel their eyes upon him, as they stared out through the mesh of their cages.

“Are you Patricia Ventura?” he asked her.

She nodded. “I am.”

Something moved in the shadows by the floor, and Remy watched as the tiny black dog approached Jackie’s body, its small shape suddenly shifting and blending, seeming to absorb the shadows around it, transforming into something monstrous that reached down with a black, clawed hand to the unconscious dog trainer, hauling her up from the floor.

“And this is Petey,” Patricia said.

Remy lunged toward the creature that seemed to be composed entirely of shadow. As much as he hated to do it, he tapped into the nature that resided deep within, drawing upon the power of Heaven at the core of his being, coaxing the Seraphim forward to help him deal with the fearsome threat he was about to confront.

Through a warrior’s eyes, Remy watched as the creature called Petey reacted, its movements quicksilver fast. Jackie’s body was cast aside, and Petey came at him, immersing him in the darkness of its mass.

The black of the beast seeped through his clothes, and into his flesh, permeating his very soul, and Remy felt an anger—a rage—that threatened to overwhelm him, and to unleash the full fury of the angelic essence that was held in check within the human guise that he wore.

An angelic essence that, if roused to anger, could burn the world to a cinder.

Marlowe was a good dog, he really was, but still he stood at the open door, tempted to go farther. The Labrador lifted his snout and sniffed at the air. His Remy was there on the wind, but there was something else as well.

Something that made the hackles of black fur around his thick neck stand on end, something that could only mean that his Remy might need him.

Marlowe started to go forward, but heard his master’s words again warning him to stay where he was. If he was a good dog he would do what his Remy asked of him.

He hesitated momentarily, not wanting to be bad, but could not help himself.

Remy had dropped to his knees, arms wrapped tightly around himself as he tried to keep the destructive potential of his angelic nature inside.

It was so angry right now; it wanted to come out. . . . It wanted to come out and burn the world and everybody on it. And then it wanted to move on to Heaven.

“I call it Petey,” the old woman said. She was wringing her hands, old eyes fixed to the living shadow as it expanded and contracted in the air beside her. “But I know it isn’t really him.”

Jackie Kinney was starting to come around, her moans just a precursor to the horrors to come, Remy was sure. He had to get control of himself, to push the power of the Seraphim back down deep inside himself where it couldn’t do any harm before he could help her.

But it was just so damned angry.

“I think it was the grief that called it,” Patricia began to explain. “My grandfather from the old country called it the Bad Hour . . . some kind of spirit or demon or whatever, that came when the anger . . . when the grief was just too strong to control.”

Through burning eyes Remy watched the living shadow churn and shift its form to that of the little black dog again, before transforming back to its more monstrous shape. It then surged down to the woman moaning on the ground and snatched her up, holding her body aloft in the grip of shadow.

The kennel dogs had started to react again, snarling and baring their teeth through the screened doors of their kennels. It was apparent that they too had been touched by the anger exuded by the black beast . . . the thing called the Bad Hour.

“It was her that did it,” Patricia accused, eyes fixed to Jackie hanging in the air in front of her. “She was responsible for all of this.”

The living shadow let out a fearsome growl, shaking the dog trainer’s body like a rag doll. Jackie moaned in both pain and mortal terror.

“How?” Remy managed, still fighting to keep his more volatile nature in check. He needed to know what this was all about. Maybe in knowing he would find a way to defeat the beast, as well as the anger that crippled him.

“I trusted her,” Patricia said with a quiver of rage in her voice. “I trusted her with my Petey and she killed him.”

The old woman was crying now, and the shadow thing—this Bad Hour—extended a tendril of darkness to her, tenderly stroking her face, as if savoring her tears and sadness.

“My mother was dying, and I had to go to her, to be with her. . . . I knew that it wouldn’t be long, that I was going to say good-bye to her. She was the last of my family, my brother and sister had been gone for nearly two years. . . . We were all that was left, Momma and me . . . and Petey.”

The little dog appeared briefly in the mass of shadow again.

“I’d never had children, so Petey was my child . . . my baby.” She was wringing her hands faster now, more violently, as if trying rub them clean of some stubborn stain.

“Momma was in the hospital and I knew that Petey wouldn’t be allowed there. . . . I needed a place for him to stay, where somebody would take care of him until I got back.”

Patricia clenched her fists and strode toward Jackie hanging in the air, to confront the trainer.

“This woman . . . this cold-hearted bitch promised to take care of my baby, swore to me that she’d look after him . . . and she lied.”

Remy saw that Jackie’s eyes were now open, a tentacle of darkness wrapped tightly around her throat.

“No,” Jackie managed, her voice nothing more than a tortured whisper. “It . . . It was . . . accident.”

Patricia shook her fists at the woman. “Don’t you dare say that,” she hissed, the flush of her cheeks showing through the heavy makeup. “Don’t you dare!”

The Bad Hour flowed tighter about Jackie, bending her limbs in impossible ways, threatening to break her into pieces.

“I trusted you,” Patricia shrieked. “I trusted you and you killed my Petey.”

Jackie struggled pathetically in the grip of nightmare.

“So . . . sorry . . .”

“No,” Patricia bellowed, turning her gaze from the woman. “It’s too late for that. . . . You did what you did and you have to pay. . . . I have to pay.”

The older woman seemed to grow smaller, collapsing in upon herself.

The Bad Hour reached out again with one of its limbs of shadow, touching the woman as if lending her some of its strength, feeding her anger.

“I know the story she told, I’ve heard it over and over again inside my head, but it doesn’t matter one little bit.” Patricia studied the trainer hanging helplessly before her. “You weren’t looking out for him. . . . You weren’t being careful, and you let him get out of his crate, and he was so scared. . . .”

Patricia became overcome with emotion, choking back her tears as she again recollected what had led them all to this.

“He . . . He was probably looking for me . . . wondering where I had gone . . . why I had left him in this . . . place. . . .” She dropped to her knees, weak from grief. “So scared that he didn’t even think of the road outside . . . of the cars. . . .”

Patricia stared at her balled fists; they were trembling with fury.

“You told me that he was dead when you found him, that the car that struck him hadn’t even stopped. . . .”

She looked at Remy then, and he saw in her eyes the depths of her sadness, of a grief so strong that a monster such as the Bad Hour could have feasted upon it for centuries.

“Can you imagine hearing that?” she asked him. “Hearing that about your baby?”

Remy couldn’t imagine it, and the Seraphim fought harder, surging to escape the prison of flesh, blood, muscle, and bone that had kept it locked away for centuries.

The Bad Hour was growing, feeding off all the emotion in the room. This was its power, to feed upon the anger, to use it to grow its strength. There was no wonder why it hadn’t yet dealt with Jackie, Patricia’s emotions still so very raw . . . so strong.

So delicious.

“I tried to get past it, but I couldn’t. . . . I kept imagining him there, lying in the road, wondering why I had left him as he died.” She was sobbing now, the grief completely overwhelming her as it had continued to do since Petey’s death.

And the Bad Hour grew stronger, taking the little form of Petey, stoking the fires of her grief.

Patricia suddenly went quiet, wiping the tears from her face as she carefully rose from her knees.

“And now we’ve come to this,” she said, seeming more in control. “At first I was afraid . . . scared of what I had called up. . . . I tried to warn you with a note that it was coming, so that you could prepare. . . . I think I did it more for myself, hoping that it might satisfy my anger, my hunger for revenge if you knew something was coming . . . but it did the opposite and made me want to see you suffer all the more.”

Patricia stared at her adversary, with dark, cold eyes. There was a piece of the Bad Hour behind those eyes, of that Remy had no doubt.

“How should we do this?” the woman then asked. “How do I make you pay for your sins? Do I let Petey drag you out into the street so that you can be hit by a car and die there alone . . . or do I let it just rip you apart while I watch?”

The Bad Hour seethed, writhing in anticipation, feeding off the woman’s escalating fury. This was what it had been waiting for, and though it had savored her tears and rage, this was what it was all about.

The coup de grace.

Remy felt as if his skin were on fire, the Seraphim bubbling just below the surface. The Bad Hour’s influence was still upon him, but he had to try to stop this . . . to halt what was about to happen.

“And if you do this,” Remy asked, still managing to hold on to the leash that kept the power of Heaven inside him in check. “If you toss her in the street to be hit . . . or rip her apart . . . what then?”

Patricia seemed confused by the question, the darkness in her eyes temporarily fleeing. “She’ll have paid for what she did to my baby . . . to me.”

“But then what?” Remy asked. “Petey will still be gone. . . . The grief will still be as real.”

The Bad Hour did not like what he was saying. A mass of solidified shadow whipped out from its boiling mass to strike him savagely to the floor. It took all that Remy had to maintain his grip upon his divine nature, to retain his humanity in the moment.

“You’ll still have to deal with the guilt that you’re carrying,” he told her, lifting his face to look at her.

The old woman seemed startled.

“My guilt?” she asked incredulously. “Why would I have any guilt? It was she who . . .”

“You left your baby,” Remy said, rising, hoping to weaken the Bad Hour’s hold upon her, to redirect some of that anguish and rage upon her.

“I had no choice!” Patricia bleated, the tears starting to flow again. “My mother was dying and I couldn’t . . .”

“Your mother was your major concern,” Remy said, regaining a slight bit of control over the angelic essence roused to anger by the demonic spirit. “Petey had to come second.”

“But I loved him,” the woman sobbed.

“I never said that you didn’t,” Remy told her. “But a decision had to be made, and you made it.”

“I couldn’t take him with me. . . . I was staying at the hospital just in case . . . for when the time came,” Patricia said, remembering.

“You made a decision to have somebody else care for Petey,” Remy said, driving the point home.

“She had excellent references,” Patricia said. “I even called some of the people to ask about how their dogs were treated.”

“You did everything you could to be sure that Petey would be cared for,” Remy said.

“I did.”

“But something happened,” Remy stressed. “Something horrible.”

“She killed him!” Patricia screamed, and the miasma of darkness that was the Bad Hour seemed to grow even larger, starting to engulf the still struggling Jackie Kinney as she was hanging in the air. The dog trainer fought against the living shadow as it attempted to flow into her mouth and nose.

The dogs were on the brink of madness now, throwing themselves against their cages.

“No, it was an accident,” Remy bellowed above the din, trying to keep his own emotions in check so as not to rouse the angelic fury within himself.

“She was responsible for my baby . . . for his life, and now he’s gone because of her!”

“And that’s all true,” Remy said. “But it doesn’t mean that she did anything on purpose. Yes, she’s responsible, but she didn’t kill Petey. You’re as guilty of his death as she is.”

Patricia looked to the living mass of darkness that had practically enveloped all of Jackie Kinney, the look upon her face telling him that perhaps his words had managed to permeate through the thick cover of anguish, and sadness.

The cloud of black receded, and Jackie began to cough uncontrollably as she was able to breathe again.

“You’re right,” Patricia said, as the Bad Hour angrily tossed the trainer to the floor. The living shadow began to transform, taking the shape of the little black dog, lying upon the ground, its limbs twisted and broken as if having just suffered some major trauma—as if struck by a car.

“No,” Patricia screamed at the sight, trying to look away, and as she turned her head, the dog began to pathetically cry out, and Remy could understand the words and emotions being conveyed.

As could the old woman.

She killed me, said the Bad Hour, using the form of Petey as its mouthpiece. If it wasn’t for her I’d still be alive. . . . You would still have me to love. . . .

The words were burrowing their way inside her, rekindling the fire that Remy thought he’d begun to extinguish.

Jackie had managed to struggle to her knees and Remy found himself crawling over to the woman, blocking her from the next assault that was about to occur.

“Leave her alone,” Remy roared, as some of his Heavenly might slipped from his control. The kennel was suddenly filled with an unearthly glow, and wings of golden fire erupted from his back, expanding to fan the growing darkness away from them with their Divine brilliance.

The Bad Hour lost its little dog shape, returning to that of living darkness. And just as it flowed toward them, about to encroach upon the barrier of Divine light that had been placed between it and its prey, there was a flurry of movement, and Remy saw Marlowe bounding to his aid.

Both the Bad Hour and Patricia reacted to the dog’s sudden appearance, recoiling from his frantic barking.

The Labrador charged at the Bad Hour, with not even the slightest hint of hesitation, his jaws snapping at the living shadow, attempting to bite the thing that was threatening his master.

“Marlowe, no!” Remy said, torn between leaving Jackie and going to his best friend’s side.

The living darkness swatted at the attacking beast, knocking Marlowe across the room where he landed upon his side. The Bad Hour surged at the Labrador, and Remy tensed to leap into the fray to prevent his dog from being harmed, when he heard another voice.

“Stop this,” Patricia commanded, a sudden strength in her voice that had not been evident before.

Marlowe jumped to his feet, moving back toward the kennel cages, the dogs within them still carrying on. The Bad Hour hung above him like a frozen wave of oil, its master’s command halting it in mid-attack.

The demonic entity spun angrily in the air, turning its fluid mass to confront the old woman.

“No more,” she said with a shake of her head. “This is done now. . . . We’re not going to hurt anybody else.”

The Bad Hour again transformed itself into the injured Petey, but Patricia looked away.

“Don’t show me that anymore,” she said. “Petey is gone, and as much as that hurts me to admit, nothing’s going to bring him back.”

The Bad Hour did not care to hear this, swirling around the older woman, trying to get her to look at it, trying to get her to reconsider her words.

But Patricia refused.

“I’m done with this,” she said. “Done with feeling this way . . . done with all the violence that my pain has caused. . . .”

The Bad Hour’s roar was deafening as it gripped the old woman in hands crafted in shadow.

“I’m done with you,” she said, looking into the bottomless hollows of its empty eyes.

Something seemed to pass between them, a conversation not meant for anyone else.

“I know there’s a price to pay,” the old woman said, still looking into its churning face. “I knew that when I called you to me, and it was a price I was willing to pay.

“And one that I’m still ready to pay to send you back to the Hell that I summoned you from.”

The Bad Hour roared once again, feeding upon the anger exuded by the older woman that had caused it to grow larger, and larger still. It held her in its nightmarish grasp as a terrible mouth formed upon its indistinct shape and it lowered itself down onto her, swallowing her up in one tremendous bite.

The thing of darkness hovered there above the kennel floor, digesting its latest meal.

Remy watched the shapeless thing, curious as to whether or not its hunger had been sated. The demon surged toward him with a thunderous growl, and a rush of air, but Remy stood his ground, still managing to keep the angelic power inside him under control.

The Bad Hour kept its distance, as if the glow of Heavenly fire radiating from Remy made it reconsider what it might do.

Then the revenge-fueled beast suddenly turned its amorphous head to one side, and with a sound akin to a chuckling laugh, the undulating mass of darkness seemed to collapse in upon itself until only the tiniest dot of the deepest black remained.

And that was soon gone as well.

Confident that he could now control it completely, Remy pulled back upon his angelic nature, quickly returning to his human guise, and checked on the health of the dog trainer. Her pulse was steady, and she didn’t appear to be physically injured in any way, but she moaned in the grip of delirium, repeating the words I’m sorry over and over again.

The dogs in the kennel had ceased their barking, as if sensing that the danger had passed, and Remy turned to see Marlowe cowering in the corner by the open back door as if preparing to flee.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Bad dog,” Marlowe said, hanging his head in shame.

“Why are you a bad dog?”

“Not listen,” Marlowe said. “Remy told Marlowe to stay . . . good dogs stay.”

Remy smiled, raising his hand to motion the dog to come to him.

“You’re not a bad dog,” Remy told the Labrador as he came, muscular tail wagging crazily. “You’re a very good dog.”

“No more school?” the dog asked.

“No more school,” Remy repeated with a laugh, the dog lovingly licking at his face and ears.

As only a good dog could.