Mean Streets

ONE

Remy knew it wasn't real, the product of some strange, dreamlike state, but he didn't mind in the least. Seeing her this way—it was almost as if she were still with him.

Almost as if she were still alive.

She had called to him from inside their Maine summer home, and he'd gone to her, climbing up the stairs to the second floor. Standing in the doorway to one of the spare rooms, he watched her.

Her back was to him as she looked out one of the open windows onto the expanse of backyard, verdant with grass that would need a lawn mower's attention sooner rather than later. She was wearing a white cotton dress that billowed and moved in the warm summer breeze coming in through the window. And as he silently stared from the doorway, he was reminded of how much he loved her, and how incomplete he would be without her,“Remy," she called out again. He answered, startling her. She laughed that amazing laugh, and turned to face him.

"There you are," she said, eyes twinkling brighter than the highest spires of Heaven.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." He stepped into the room.

"No fear," she said with a slight shake of her head as she reached out to take his hand.

Deep down he knew that this was all wrong, that Madeline had passed away three long weeks ago from cancer, but he couldn't help it, eagerly wrapping himself in the warmth of a lie.

Her hand was cold and wet and he was about to ask if everything was all right, when he realized how dark it had become in the room.

Black, like the inside of a cave.

And from outside he heard the sound of heavy rain.

A dog barking pulled Remy from his fantasy, and he left his wife, the darkness, and the rain to find himself sitting on the porch of the summer home, now in the grip of winter.

It was snowing, and the wind had carried the fluffy white stuff up onto the porch. It had even collected on him as he had sat unmoving. Remy brushed the snow from his arms and the top of his head and Marlowe barked again for his attention.

"Hey," Remy said. "Sorry about that, must've dozed off."

"No sleep," the black Labrador retriever said, reminding him that angels did not sleep.

Angels of the heavenly host Seraphim were not supposed to have human wives, summer cottages in Maine, or work as private investigators, either. But he did.

"I know, but I was dreaming," he said, remembering his wife's beautiful face and how the sudden darkness had tried to claim it.

"Rabbits?" the dog asked.

"No rabbits," Remy said. Snow had accumulated on the dog's shiny black coat and Remy started to brush it away. "Madeline."

Marlowe lowered his gaze. "Miss," he grumbled in his canine tongue.

As a member of God's heavenly host, Remy was able to understand the myriad languages of every living thing on Earth. But even if he could not, there was no mistaking how the animal was feeling, for Remy felt the very same way.

"I miss her, too," he said, reaching down to rub behind one of Marlowe's velvety-soft ears.

Since Madeline's passing, Remy and Marlowe had felt more than a bit lost. Remy had hoped a trip to the house in Maine might have been good for them both, a change of scenery. A needed distraction.

He took a deep breath and gazed out over the porch rail at the falling snow. "I'm not sure how great this idea was," he said and sighed.

It had been spring the last time they'd come, before everything had been thrown on its ear.

Before the cancer.

They'd had a wonderful weekend, taking the day off from the office and driving up early Thursday afternoon. He'd felt something special even then, remembering how he'd experienced a weird kind of euphoria as he'd gotten out of the car and hauled their bags from the trunk.

Madeline had already gone inside, leaving the door to their getaway wide open. And as he had climbed the stairs to the front porch, watching his wife move about, pulling up shades and opening windows to air away the winter staleness, Remy had experienced a moment of perfect contentment.

This was what he had been waiting over a millennium for.

It wasn't as though he hadn't been happy until then. He'd been on the earth for hundreds of thousands of years, and there had certainly been moments of happiness, but right then and there, at that specific moment, Remy Chandler was fulfilled.

Since leaving Heaven after the Great War against the Morningstar, he'd been searching for something. He'd always known he would find it on the Almighty's greatest experiment, among His most complex creations.

And he did—it had just taken a little while.

It had all started to fall into place when he'd made the decision to live as a human. Suppressing his angelic nature, Remy had walked among them—learning from them—trying so desperately to be one of them.

But it had taken a purpose, a job, to finally set him on the right path. Choosing the name Remy Chandler, the angel Remiel now worked as a private investigator, and had at last found what he had been searching for. The job allowed him to see every facet of humanity, the depravity, the cruelty, the kindness, the passion. It allowed him to observe and to learn from them, and for three hundred dollars a day plus expenses, he helped them.

He'd been around humans for what seemed like forever, but they still had so much to teach him. And that was never more obvious than when he had first met the woman who would eventually become his wife.

Madeline.

She'd shown him what it truly meant to be human. She be- came the anchor that allowed him to keep the nature of the divine being he truly was at bay. After all he had lost in the Great War, Madeline had become his island. She had become his Heaven.

Now she was gone, and he feared that the skin of his humanity would begin to slip away, to slough off like that of a reptile, revealing what he had always been beneath.

"We could have stayed in Boston and been just as miserable," he said to his companion while rubbing the top of the dog's blocky head.

And as if in response, the wind picked up, blowing snow across the porch, showing that the harsh New England season still had plenty of bite left.

Marlowe turned his nose into the breeze. "Cold," he said softly, but loud enough for Remy to hear.

"Is it?" Remy answered, not having allowed himself to feel much of anything since his wife had died.

The Labrador placed his face in Remy's lap.

Marlowe's pack was now incomplete, and Remy could only imagine how difficult it was for him to understand that Madeline wasn't coming home. It was like attempting to explain the concept of death to a very young child.

"Sad," the dog said, and it just about broke Remy's heart.

"I know, I'm sad, too." He bent forward to whisper softly, lovingly, into the animal's ear. "What would make you happy?"

"Madeline come back?" Marlowe lifted his head excitedly. His ears perked up, and his thick tail wagged so hard that Remy thought for sure the dog would topple over.

"No, Madeline can't come back."

He remembered the strange experience he'd just had, and the feeling of his wife's hand in his. It was almost as if she had been with him again.

He kissed the bony top of the dog's hard head. "I wish she could, but she can't. Is there anything else that would make you happy?" Remy asked his four-legged friend.

Marlowe thought for a moment. "Pig's ear," he said, an excited little tremor in his voice.

"A pig's ear?" Remy asked, pretending to be surprised. "That's just gross."

"Pig's ear good," the dog answered. His muscular tail continued to wag.

"Y'think?" Remy wrinkled his nose in an expression of distaste.

"Yes!" Marlowe barked, stepping back, at full attention now.

"All right, then." Remy pushed himself up from the chair. "Let's go get you a…"

He sensed it at pretty much the same time that Marlowe did, and the promise of a pig's ear was momentarily forgotten.

Marlowe started to growl, low and rumbling, the thick black fur around his neck and above his tail rising in caution.

Remy walked across the porch to the top of the stairs. He looked out at the woods surrounding the property, the cold wind causing the little vegetation that was able to survive the winter to sway and rustle.

In spite of how it looked, he knew that they were no longer alone.

There was a disturbance in the air near the driveway and Remy watched as a human figure gradually materialized in a walk toward them.

The male figure was tall, dressed in a finely tailored gray suit, but wasn't a man.

Marlowe was by Remy's side now, barking crazily.

"Quiet," he ordered. "It's all right."

"Greetings, Remiel," the angel Sariel said with the slightest hint of a bow. The angel was tall, his features pale and perfect, as if sculpted by a master from the finest Italian marble. He adjusted the sleeves of his suit jacket as he looked around him.

Sariel was the leader of a host of angels called the Grigori, messengers sent by Heaven in the earliest days of humanity to guide God's latest creations. They had became corrupted by the early decadence of man, and soon found themselves on the receiving end of the Lord's wrath.

The Grigori had been robbed of their wings and banished to Earth, there to await the Almighty's forgiveness before being allowed to once more pass through the gates of Heaven.

Sariel and his brothers had been waiting for a very long time.

"What can I do for you?" Remy asked the angel.

Marlowe continued to growl, his eyes locked upon the immaculately dressed angel standing in the snow-covered pathway leading up to the house.

"Is this where you've come to mourn?" Sariel asked.

"Excuse me?" Remy felt his anger begin to rise.

"I heard about your mate's passing," the Grigori leader stated flatly. "And I wonder if this is where you've come to mourn your loss?"

The dog was becoming extremely upset, and Remy reached over to place a calming hand atop his head.

"Shhhhhhhhh, now," Remy said, hoping to quiet his own growing anger as well.

"This is a private place," Remy told the angel. "Which poses the question of how you've come to find me here."

"Forgive the intrusion," Sariel said without an ounce of sincerity.

It was very difficult for Sariel to even pretend to understand what it was like to be human. The Grigori, and many of the other angelic beings that had come to walk the Earth, viewed the human race as just one more example of the myriad animal species that existed upon the surface of the world, refusing to acknowledge how special they truly were.

Refusing to acknowledge that they had been touched by God.

Remy was a rarity among heavenly beings, one who actually embraced humanity and strived to be a part of it.

"I do not wish to intrude upon your bereavement, but a matter of grave importance has arisen since last we saw one another," Sariel continued.

Just three weeks ago, the Grigori had helped Remy to avert the Apocalypse. Although their motive was selfish—for their fate if the world should die was uncertain at best—Sariel had gathered his Grigori brothers to help Remy prevent the release of the Four Horsemen.

"A matter of grave importance," Remy repeated. "Seems to be quite a bit of that going around these days."

Sariel stared, not understanding Remy's sarcasm.

"Why are you here, Sariel?" Remy asked, not even trying to hide his exasperation.

"The old man is dead," he replied.

"The old man… who… what old man?" Remy was confused, but then it dawned on him, the connection with the Grigori.

The old man.

"Noah?" Remy asked. "Noah is dead? How?"

Sariel adjusted his suit jacket, again tugging on his sleeves.

The cruel winter wind blew again, and with the chilling breeze came a taint of change in the air. A taint of something menacing. "He was murdered, Remiel," Sariel said. "The ark builder was murdered. “Before the Flood Unbeknownst to them, Remiel watched as they toiled, building the great wooden craft. Day after day he observed the old man, Noah, and his sons work on what gradually took the form of an enormous, roofed ship.

An ark.

Remiel had not been on the world of man for long, and he knew there was much still to explore, but he found that he could not leave.

The angel was fascinated, that fascination becoming even more pronounced when, in the early hours before dawn, he watched the old man approach the enormous vessel and begin to paint the magickal sigils upon its hull.

Unable to contain his curiosity, Remiel drew closer. He allowed himself to be seen, approaching the old man as he wrote with crimson fingers upon the hull of the great wooden craft.

"What are you doing?" Remiel asked, studying the marks, feeling the arcane energies radiating from the strange symbols of power.

"You startled me," Noah said, and Remiel felt the man's ancient eyes scrutinizing him, peeling away the deception that he was but a nomad from the desert.

That he was but a man.

Noah dropped to his knees, and immediately averted his eyes.

"Messenger of Heaven, I have done as He has asked of me. All nears readiness," the old man professed. "As soon as I have completed the symbols, we will be ready to accept the beasts of the land."

"You mistake me for someone else, old father," Remiel said, reaching down to take the man's hand and pull him to his feet.

"Are you not one of His winged children?" Noah asked.

Remiel's suspicions were correct, the old man could see through his disguise.

"You can see me?" he asked.

Noah slowly nodded.

Truly this human has been touched by God, the angel thought.

Remiel's attention returned to the ark and the sigils that the old man was painting on its surface.

"These are powerful magicks you play with," he said as he brought his hand close to one, feeling the energy emanating from it. "And did the Almighty bestow this knowledge upon you, as well, as the gift of sight?"

The old man dipped his fingers into the wooden bowl of bloodred paint and began to draw upon the ark again.

"As your brethren have brought me this most holy mission, they have also delivered unto me the means to achieve this enormous task," Noah went on, the symbols of power leaving his fingers in strange patterns of scarlet.

TWO

"My brethren," Remiel repeated thoughtfully. "Why do you do this?" he asked. He walked around to what would be the bow of the great ship. "Why have you built such a craft?"

"You test me, angel," the old man said, furiously painting. "A great storm is coming."

"A storm?" Remiel asked. He spread his wings, and floated gracefully into the air to inspect the great ship further. The magick had begun to work upon the craft. The angel flew closer to an open passage leading deep into the bowels of the ship. The darkness was limitless—the space within the belly of the ark endless.

"It is a storm to wash away that which offends Him," Noah said as the angel returned to his side.

"And the ship?" Remiel questioned, folding his powerful wings behind him.

"It is needed to hold all life that has been deemed worthy to survive," Noah said. "The beasts of the land, no matter how large or small; it is my task to be certain that they live. As they are the Lord's children, so are they mine."

Remiel was fascinated. Had this old man actually received a message from the Lord of Lords, telling him of an approaching cataclysm? Did the Almighty truly intend to wash away His own creations?

He had known his Creator as a being of intense emotions. But he questioned the notion that the Almighty could be capable of destroying what He had once been so proud of, what had been the primary reason for the Great War against the forces of the Morningstar.

Remiel pondered this quandary for many days and nights, all the while watching Noah as he and his family performed the tasks supposedly assigned by God.

Eventually, the skies grew dark and pregnant with storm.

Remiel observed the beasts, deemed worthy, herded aboard the great ark. It was the magick that called to them, drawing them to the place that would be their sanctuary against the coming doom. It seemed not to matter how many there were, the belly of Noah's craft welcomed them all and gave them safety.

It took seven days for Noah and his sons to complete their miraculous task, and when the last of the animals was finally herded aboard, there was the most awesome of sounds from the sky, a clap of thunder like nothing Remiel had ever heard before.

A sound that signaled the beginning of the end.

And then the rains began.

It was a terrible rain, the water falling so quickly, the wind blowing so fiercely, that it soon began to obscure the land. A great and terrible hand in the form of a storm had descended upon the world, to wipe away its imperfections.

Remiel stood at the foot of the gangplank used by the beasts to climb to safety aboard Noah's ark, and looked out into the storm. From the corner of his eye, he thought he'd seen something. Peering intently through the torrential downpour, he scanned what little was left of the land until he found them. Hooded shapes, their skin the color of dusk, standing perfectly still in front of the caves that spotted the hills, as the rain fell around them and the waters rose.

Within moments they were gone, swallowed up by the deluge.

Remiel turned to board the craft, and came face-to-face with one of his own.

The angel Sariel stood with his Grigori brethren. One by one they climbed the ramp to board the ark. Remiel was surprised to see that they had been found worthy. Soon only he and the Grigori leader stood upon the gangplank.

"Did you see them?" Remiel asked above the howling storm.

Sariel did not answer. Instead he turned and began the climb to board the ark.

Remiel grabbed hold of the departing Grigori's arm.

"I asked you a question," he said sternly turning his gaze toward the now-empty hills.

"His will be done," Sariel said, pulling his arm away.

And the rain continued to fall. Ancient teachings said it lasted for forty days and forty nights, but the angel Remiel recalled that it took far less time than that to drown the world.

THREE

Remy left the ancient memories behind, returning to the here and now. "Murdered?" he asked. "How do you know?"

"I saw it," Sariel said, stepping closer to the porch.

Marlowe started to growl again. The Grigori leader stared at the Labrador with cold, unfeeling eyes.

"I know murder when I see it."

Remy was about to ask more questions, but stopped. No, he told himself. This time I will have nothing to do with their affairs.

The affairs of angels.

"I'm sorry," he said, slowly turning his back and walking toward the door. "C'mon, Marlowe."

"Where are you going?" Sariel asked from the foot of the porch steps.

"I'm going inside," Remy replied. "To get away from you."

"I don't understand," the Grigori leader stated.

"I'm through with this." Remy stood in front of the door, but turned slightly to address Sariel again. "I'm done with all of it… with murder, floods, apocalypses and angels. Just leave me alone."

He opened the screen door and then the door behind it, letting Marlowe inside first.

"You're not human," Sariel called out after him. "No matter how hard you try or how much you pretend, you will never be anything more or less than what you are.

"One of the patriarchs of humanity has been slain," Sariel continued when Remy didn't respond. "I thought this is what you do, Remy Chandler," the Grigori leader taunted. "I thought this is what you play at while living among them."

Remy remained silent, stepping into the cottage and closing the door behind him.

Marlowe waited on the rug just inside the door, square head cocked inquisitively.

"Okay?" the Labrador asked.

"Fine," Remy answered. "Why don't we see about getting you some supper?"

The dog bounded toward the kitchen, and Remy chanced a quick look through the sheer curtain over the window in the door.

Sariel was gone.

Remy decided that he'd had more than enough distraction. Marlowe didn't mind; it was pretty much all the same to him. As long as he was fed and got his regular walks, he could have been on the surface of the moon for all he cared.

It didn't take him long to pack into a shopping bag what little he had brought up with him. Deep down Remy had always known that he wouldn't be staying long. This was a special place he had shared with Madeline, their place to get away from it all and enjoy each other, and now it only served to remind him that that life was over. Madeline was gone.

Remy stood in the entry with Marlowe beside him, nose pressed to the front door. He took a long look around. He wasn't sure when he'd be back, and for a moment he just wanted to savor the memories of her. When he did return, would they still be so strong?

He could see her washing their dinner dishes at the sink in the kitchen down the hall. He'd often used that time to take the car to the tiny general store five miles down the road to buy ice cream for dessert.

"Going?" Marlowe interrupted.

"Yeah, we're going." Remy turned away from the memory and opened the door to the winter night.

The snow had slowed, leaving behind two inches or so of the fluffy stuff.

Except for the patch of ground where Sariel had been standing.

Marlowe bounded down the steps, happily frolicking in the snow, snapping at the featherlike flakes that still drifted in the air.

Remy stood over the barren spot. He reached out, passing his hand through the air above it. There was most certainly a disturbance there, the residual effects of angel magick.

He started to think of Sariel, and the disturbing news that he had delivered, but quickly pushed it from his mind. This time, he wasn't going to get involved.

Continuing on to the car, he called out for Marlowe, who had gone into the woods to relieve himself. "Let's go," he said, brushing the snow from his windshield.

Marlowe came frantically running.

"Leave me?" the dog asked, standing by the rear driver's-side door.

"I'd never leave you," Remy reassured him as he opened the door, allowing the dog to hop inside.

"Never leave," the dog repeated, settling into his place in the backseat.

The ride back to Boston was uneventful; the snow eventually turned to rain as Marlowe's snores wafted up from the backseat of the Corolla, and the talk radio hosts, enamored with the sounds of their own voices, rambled on about the topics of the day.

It was after midnight by the time they returned to Beacon Hill, but the gods of parking had decided to smile on Remy, blessing him with a parking space near the State House, only a couple of blocks from home.

"Home?" Marlowe asked, suddenly awake and sitting up, his black nose twitching in the air.

"Home," Remy affirmed. He got out of the car and opened the back door for the dog on his way to the trunk.

"Get on the sidewalk," Remy ordered, as he removed their one bag.

The dog trotted over to a light post and lifted his leg.

Remy waited until he had finished. "Empty?" he asked.

"Empty," the dog repeated, joining his master as they began their trek to Remy's brownstone on Pinckney Street.

It was quiet on the Hill, the rain and damp cold keeping anyone with an ounce of common sense inside.

Marlowe darted from lamppost to lamppost, lifting his leg and proving that he was a liar.

They reached the brownstone and Remy used his key to open the front door. The dog bounded into the foyer, and pressed his nose to the bottom of the inner door. Remy barely managed to get the door open as Marlowe pushed his way inside, nose to the floor, on the trail of a particular scent.

Remy walked down the small hall to the kitchen and set the bag down atop the counter. He saw that the mail had been left on the table and he wondered when Ashley, Marlowe's frequent babysitter, had been by.

"She's not here," Remy called out, knowing who Marlowe was searching for. He removed his leather jacket and hung it in the hall closet. "She probably stopped in just long enough to drop off the mail and…" He stopped and turned.

Sariel was sitting in the living room; Marlowe, standing perfectly still and silent before him, had his eyes fixed upon the intruder.

The angel held one of Remy's favorite pictures. It was of Madeline when she was a little girl. She sat atop a pony, wearing a cowboy hat, and smiling that same stunning smile he had fallen in love with.

Her secret weapon, he used to call it.

"So full of life and promise," the angel said, tapping the photo with his manicured fingertips. "But it's all so fleeting for them."

"How dare you," Remy began, feeling his anger surge and the angelic nature he worked so hard to contain setting his blood afire.

"Bite him," Marlowe growled, his jowls twitching and revealing his yellowed canine teeth.

"No," Remy ordered, managing to get his own fury in check. He snatched the frame from the Grigori leader's hand. "You have no right to be here." He returned the picture to its place on the television stand, then turned to confront the angel. "I want you to leave," Remy told him, speaking in the language of their kind… the language of the Messengers.

Sariel stood, adjusting his suit coat. "I'm not leaving without you."

Remy glared, feeling an unnatural heat start to burn behind his eyes.

"I don't think you understand," he said, stepping menacingly toward the Grigori.

Sariel shook his head. "No, it is you who does not understand."

The angel suddenly reached out and grabbed hold of Remy's arm. He could feel the power in the grip, the angel magick flowing from Sariel into him.

Marlowe began to bark wildly as a pool of shadow expanded beneath them and the two angels dropped.

Swallowed by the darkness.

FIVE

They emerged in the middle of a storm. The wind roared like some angry beast as it tried to rip them from their purchase on the hard, concrete surface. And if it could not succeed with its bestial strength, it would try to destroy them with the ferocity of its tears, as each drop of rain struck their exposed flesh like the sting of a wasp.

Remy raised a hand to shield his eyes from the savagery of the cold, whipping rain, and quickly looked about. From the comforting warmth of his Beacon Hill home to this; where had Sariel brought him?

It didn't take him long to realize that they weren't on land at all. They were in the middle of the ocean; an undulating mass of white-capped gray swirled all around. His eyes darted about, taking it all in: heavy machinery and equipment, and a familiar corporate symbol, faded on the side of a forklift chained to the concrete so as not to be picked up by the wind and carried away.

An oil rig; they were on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean.

Remy looked at Sariel, who stood silently beside him. The rain pelted the angel's pale features, leaving traces of red on his face where it stung him.

The Grigori leader turned away from Remy, fighting the wind as he began to move toward a large boxy structure rising up from the platform.

Remy had no choice but to follow, struggling against the storm that seemed to grow even more agitated now that they were moving, as if it were angry that they would even think they could escape it. He followed Sariel toward the square building, and up multiple flights of rain-slicked metal steps to a heavy metal door with the words "Level One" stenciled on it in white paint.

The Grigori leader pulled open the door, fighting the wind as it attempted to tear it from his grasp. Remy reached out, helping to hold it open as the two of them beat the fury of the ocean storm and made their way inside.

"I should kill you for this," Remy snarled as he caught his breath in the shelter of the dark corridor. He could still hear the storm outside. Its rage was muffled by the shelter of their new surroundings, but it was still out there and still very angry.

"Perhaps you should," Sariel said, disregarding Remy's threat and heading down the corridor, past large glass windows that looked into empty office space. "Then again, you may want to wait and see why it is that I felt the need to resort to such desperate measures to bring you here."

Remy remained quiet, the anger inside him churning like the storm outside. He followed the Grigori to another flight of metal stairs and the two began to climb.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"Besides an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the South China Sea?" Sariel asked. "This is his home. Noah's home."

"He traded in his ark for an oil rig?" Remy said, still climbing and starting to wonder how many floors the structure had.

They reached what seemed to be the final level; the floor was lit in the sickly yellow of emergency lights, and shadow.

"Crammed on a ship with your entire family and almost every conceivable animal for an extended period of time can have a lasting effect," the Grigori said, before proceeding down the corridor.

Remy noticed that up here he could barely hear the storm. He doubted that it had subsided, and considered then that this level had been considerably soundproofed.

Sariel had reached the end of the dimly lit length of hall and now stood before a closed door. "In here," he said, not even bothering to knock as he opened it and walked inside.

Strains of classical music wafted out into the hall. It was Berlioz, his Symphonie Fantastique. It had been one of Madeline's favorite pieces. Remy flashed back to lazy summer mornings, windows open wide in their kitchen as they drank cup after cup of coffee while reading the Sunday Globe, the Symphonie Fantastique the morning's soundtrack.

Remy couldn't have been further from that moment.

"In here," he heard Sariel call out.

It was dark inside the room, except for a beam of light flashing on a screen that hung from the ceiling. A slide projector whirred at the opposite end of the room, its fan humming to cool its inner workings as the next slide in the carousel dropped into place.

Remy stood in darkness as the image of a bird appeared on the screen. There was nothing special about it; it was only a bird. That slide was then replaced by the image of a frog with beautiful blue skin.

Shielding his eyes from the harshness of the projector beam, Remy searched for Sariel and found him in the far corner of the room. He was standing beside the desk. The slide projector rested on it.

"Sariel?" Remy asked quietly, crossing the room toward him.

The room itself was in a shambles. Papers and books were scattered about as if the storm outside had touched down in the cramped confines of the office.

Sariel remained silent, unmoving, his gaze fixed to something on the floor behind the desk.

Another slide fell into place as Remy approached. Stacks of the plastic carousels littered the top of the desk, all of them loaded with slides. Remy peered over the clutter to find what he had expected.

Noah lay on the floor on his back, his ancient eyes swollen to slits, gazing up, unseeing, at the ceiling. The old man's face was badly bruised, as was his neck. Twin trails of blood from his damaged lips dried in the silver-gray hairs of his beard.

He didn't look much different than he had that day so long ago when Remy had watched him paint the mystic sigils on the ark. The only difference was that he was dressed in brown corduroy trousers and a heavy fisherman's sweater.

And he was dead.

It had been quite a few centuries since Remy had come face-to-face with the old man who had come to use the name Noah Driscoll. He'd read about him from time to time, about how he'd made his fortune as a shipping magnate before turning to oil. How the family business had been handed down through the generations, father to son. But in truth, it was Noah, assuming a new identity every few decades. God's touch had a tendency to considerably increase the life-span of a human, and for Noah, that had most certainly been the case.

"He was afraid that this might happen," Sariel said.

Another slide was projected onto the screen. Remy glanced in that direction to see a photo of some kind of worm, writhing in a patch of overturned earth.

"Maybe you should tell me what you know," Remy said, the words leaving his mouth before he had the opportunity to catch them. It was happening again, as it always did; he was inexorably pulled into the matters of the divine.

"Over the centuries he'd become obsessed," Sariel started to explain, his eyes still locked upon the battered corpse. "Fixated on the mission that God had given to him."

Another slide was projected onto the screen, and they both looked toward it—a bear in a tree, looking as though it had actually posed for the shot.

"They say he had millions of these," Sariel stated.

The bear was replaced by some kind of bright green insect.

"Photos of all the beasts that he was responsible for saving, as well as those that evolved from them."

A monkey with a strange, beaklike nose.

"But his obsession eventually took a turn down a truly disturbing path," the Grigori continued.

Remy looked away from a dolphin leaping happily in the ocean waves.

"Disturbing how?"

"He became obsessed with the things he was not able to save," Sariel explained. "The things that God had deemed unworthy; the things that were destined to die beneath the waters of the Great Flood."

Remy had never really understood why the Lord God had decided to wipe clean the slate and start again. It was almost as if He'd realized He'd made some sort of mistake, and had wanted it done away with before anyone could notice.

Whatever the reason, the Almighty had seen fit to destroy the planet, and use the beasts chosen to survive as the seeds of a second generation of life in the world.

"What kinds of things?" Remy asked, his curiosity piqued.

The slide carousel clicked past the image of a female tiger and her cubs, and the room suddenly brightened as the light of the projector reflected off of the whiteness of the screen. It continued to click away, though the remainder of the tray was empty.

"He called them his orphans," Sariel said with a sad laugh.

"Noah's orphans."

SIX

Sariel was about to continue when he suddenly turned toward the door. "We're not alone," he snarled, and before Remy could react, Sariel had traversed half the room with one powerful leap.

Shadows shifted in the doorway, someone fleeing now that they had been discovered.

Remy followed the Grigori in a run, catching a glimpse of the fallen angel as he darted around a corner in pursuit of his prey.

The rig was a maze of winding corridors, eventually coming to a stop at a set of swinging doors. Cautiously, Remy pushed one open.

Inside was a large storage space the size of a warehouse. Ordinarily it probably housed the supplies needed to keep a rig this size in working order, but now the space was nearly empty. A few crates and pallets of machine parts were stacked about the poorly lit room. But by the looks of them, they had sat there, unused, for quite some time.

Remy listened for a sign as to where Sariel had gone, but all he could hear was the wailing of the storm outside, eager to come in.

"Remy," a voice suddenly whispered from somewhere in the shadows.

His heart fluttered as he looked around. He knew that voice, and had to wonder if he'd somehow slipped into another of the bizarre, dreamlike states he'd experienced while at the house in Maine.

He blinked his eyes and shook his head. Had the chamber become darker? A damp chill seemed to be emanating from the encroaching shadows.

"Remy, I have something to show you," said the voice of his wife, and he found that he couldn't move, standing perfectly still, waiting for her to come to him.

And she did, slowly emerging from the sea of black, still wearing her flowing summer dress. She smiled as she reached for him.

Remy closed his eyes and did the unthinkable. He wished the vision of her away.

Madeline's hand was deathly cold as it snaked into his, and he started at her chilling touch. Opening his eyes, he stared into hers, feeling himself drawn into their depths.

But there was something wrong. How many times had he looked into Madeline's eyes, lost in the love that he found there? These were not those eyes, and Remy fought to be free of them.

As much as it pained him, he spoke the words as he tried to pull his hand from hers. "You're not her.” But the woman that appeared as his wife held fast, refusing to let him go.

"No," she said plaintively. "Please, don't pull away. I have something to show you."

The desperate look on her familiar features rendered him powerless and he allowed her to pull his hand closer.

"A gift of our union," she said, and placed his hand upon the warmth of her stomach.

Remy stumbled back with a gasp, dispelling the eerily real vision. The palm of his hand tingled strangely, and he flexed his fingers.

"A gift of our union," he heard the vision's voice say again.

But the mystery of the words was quickly dispelled by a bloodcurdling cry that echoed through the storage space.

"Sariel?" Remy called out, running in the direction of the scream.

As he grew closer, he could hear the unmistakable sounds of a struggle, and the Grigori leader's voice raised in anger. He came around a pallet, stacked high with wooden boxes, to see that Sariel had caught his prey, and had driven him to the ground. The man struggled weakly as Sariel's fists rained down on his face.

"What are you doing?" Remy yelled.

Sariel raised his fist to bring it down again upon the man's swollen and bloody features, but Remy caught his wrist. The Grigori's head spun toward him, insane fury burning in his cold gray eyes.

"Enough," Remy commanded.

Sariel tried to pull free of his grasp, but Remy held fast, pulling the Grigori off of his victim.

The mysterious man moaned, bubbles of blood forming upon his lips.

"Who is he?" Remy asked, letting go of Sariel's wrist and kneeling beside the man.

"The one responsible for killing Noah, I would assume," the fallen angel answered with a snarl. He was rubbing his wrist where Remy had gripped it.

"Could he be one of Noah's employees?" Remy asked, patting the man down, looking for some form of identification.

"As far as I know, Noah had no employees," Sariel answered. "The old man enjoyed his isolation. He shut this rig down years ago."

"Who are you?" Remy asked the man, gently slapping his cheek to rouse him, but Sariel had done an exceptional job in beating him unconscious.

Some of the man's blood got on Remy's hand and he felt the divine power of the Seraphim, locked away deep inside him, stir with familiarity.

"He's one of us," Remy stated, wiping the blood on the leg of his pants. "He's an angel." He turned to look up at Sariel.

But the Grigori wasn't paying any attention. He was instead staring into the shadows around them.

"What's wrong?" Remy asked.

Sariel raised a hand to silence him, head tilted. Listening.

At first, all Remy could hear was the raging storm outside the rig, but then he, too, heard the sounds.

Something rustling in the shadows.

Sariel immediately stiffened.

"We need to go," he said, his hands already moving through the air as he began to weave a magickal passage, a means for them to escape.

Remy stood, attempting to see what was there in the darkness, half expecting his dead wife to step from the shadows. “What is it?" he asked, as what little light they had within the warehouse space was suddenly extinguished.

Sariel didn't answer, continuing to focus on conjuring the magicks to take them away.

Remy was about to demand an answer when the passage began to open, a swirling vortex even blacker than the darkness that surrounded them.

Sariel bent down, hauled the unconscious angel up, and dove through the doorway to safety.

Remy paused. His curiosity got the better of him. He allowed the divine power within him to emerge, channeling the angel fire just enough to illuminate his hand and dispel the encompassing gloom.

Something squealed as if in pain, fleeing into a pool of shadows.

It appeared almost human.

Almost.

SEVEN

Remy exited the magickal passage into the safety of an ornate ballroom. He knew this place, the grand room where Sariel and his Grigori held their countless parties. From the outside, the building located in the area of downtown Boston known lovingly as the Combat Zone appeared abandoned, run-down and decrepit. But in actuality, it hid one of the more opulent nests that the Grigori had scattered around the world.

"What the hell was that?" he asked, stepping back from the gradually diminishing supernatural doorway, eyeing the bubbling darkness in case whatever it was he had seen on the other side decided to follow.

"Your true nature is showing," Sariel spoke. At first Remy had no idea what the fallen angel was talking about, but then remembered his hand. Its golden flesh still burned with the power of the Seraphim.

his fist, he pulled the fire back. It didn't want to go, but Remy was persistent, and the divine power finally bent to his will. It was becoming harder to suppress his true nature since the near Apocalypse, but as of now, he was still its master.

Humanity reasserted, Remy flexed his fingers. The flesh of his hand was bright red, like the shell of a cooked lobster, but already it was beginning to heal.

"It appears what I feared most has become a reality," Sariel said ominously, wiping liquid darkness from the front of his suit jacket. His gaze was also fixed on the dissipating magickal passageway.

The unconscious angel moaned on the floor.

Remy approached him. "As soon as he comes to, we'll see what our mysterious stranger here can tell us about what Noah was up to on that rig."

The other Grigori suddenly entered the ballroom in a line, as if responding to a silent command from their leader. They pushed past Remy and swarmed around the unconscious angel.

"There you are," Remy said. "I didn't think you were home."

"We're always home," one of them growled, as they picked up the stranger from the floor and began to carry him away.

The Grigori didn't care much for Remy, and truth be told, the feeling was mutual.

He started to follow the parade, but Sariel blocked his path, placing a hand against his chest to stop him.

Remy looked down at the offending hand, and the Grigori leader quickly removed it.

"They will see to him," Sariel said. "But we must talk."

Remy watched the Grigori pass through a doorway with their burden.

"Then let's talk," he said.

At the end of the ballroom was a large wooden door leading into Sariel's sanctum.

Remy followed the fallen angel inside, the Grigori leader closing the door behind them. He gestured for Remy to take a seat in one of the high-backed leather chairs on either side of the unlit fireplace.

Remy sat, eyeing Sariel as he removed a diamond-shaped stopper from a crystal decanter.

"Scotch?" he offered.

"Sure." Remy didn't feel much like drinking with the angel, but the Grigori always had very good scotch.

Sariel poured one glass and then another, replaced the stopper, and carried the two tumblers of golden fluid to the chairs.

"Thanks," Remy said, accepting his drink.

The Grigori took the chair across from him, casually crossing his legs. He took a long sip from his scotch, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Remy sipped his drink. He hadn't been wrong. The Grigori still had some of the best scotch he'd ever tasted. It made him think of Steven Mulvehill, his closest friend, and how jealous he would be right then.

But Remy doubted the homicide cop would have appreciated the company. The poor guy tried to steer clear of the weird shit, as he liked to call it.

"You said you wanted to talk," Remy said, breaking the eerie quiet.

"I was just appreciating the silence," Sariel said, swirling the golden liquid in his glass. "Before the impending chaos."

"Now that makes me think you know more about what's going on than you've shared," Remy said before taking another drink of scotch.

"I wasn't sure before," Sariel said apprehensively. "But now, there can be little doubt.” The angel gulped the rest of his drink, then stared into the empty glass.

"Why don't you start at the beginning," Remy suggested. Sariel chuckled. "Yes, the beginning."

EIGHT

So these orphans that Noah obsessed about, we're talking about the figures I saw standing in front of the mountain caves when the rains started?" Remy asked.

He stood at the liquor cart, pouring two more drinks. He thought another might help Sariel get through what he had to say, and he hated the thought of the Grigori drinking alone.

"Noah referred to any life that he was unable to bring aboard the ark as his orphans," Sariel explained. "No matter how small, or seemingly insignificant, but yes, those figures… they are the cause for my concern."

Remy returned with the drinks.

"Go on," he said, handing Sariel his glass before sitting. "I'm listening."

"When the Earth was still young, the Lord God hadn't quite decided what would be the final model for humanity. He experimented first with a species the Grigori came to know as the Chimerian.

"They were different from the two He eventually created in the Garden, more primitive, and far more cunning." The fallen angel paused for a drink from his glass.

Remy was surprised by the Grigori's words. He had never heard of this prototype for humanity. "So you're saying that there were two designs for what would eventually become the human race?"

Sariel chuckled. "He wanted to see which one worked the best."

"Why didn't I know any of this?" Remy asked in disbelief.

"There was no need for you to know," Sariel said. "It didn't concern you. As Seraphim, yours was a more militaristic purpose. It was the Grigori who were assigned to the fledgling world, and thus we were privy to all its imperfections."

"So these… Chimerian were His first attempts at humanity?"

"They were, and unfortunately, they lost the contest," Sariel said flatly. "The two in the Garden, though disobedient, captured His curiosity."

Remy drank deeply from his glass. It was all a bit overwhelming as he tried to fit the pieces of the picture together inside his head.

"So God brought the rains to destroy this earlier try at humankind," he stated, part of him hoping that he was wrong.

"Yes," Sariel agreed. "But somehow the Chimerian learned of their fate and were determined to survive… in any way they could."

There was a soft knock at the door.

"Come," the Grigori said.

The door swung open and a blind man entered. He was elderly, his back slightly hunched, and he was dressed in a butler's garb. The Grigori used the sightless as servants. Remy wasn't sure exactly why, but the blind seemed to be drawn to these fallen angels, as if the Grigori somehow satisfied their deep yearnings to see.

"Would you and your guest enjoy a fire, sir?" the old servant inquired.

"Perhaps a fire would be just the thing to take away the chill that has settled in my bones," Sariel replied.

"Very good, sir," the servant said as he carefully crossed the room. Gripping the marble mantel, he slowly lowered himself to his knees before the open hearth.

"We believe that the Chimerian, abandoned by their Creator, found something new to worship," Sariel continued, ignoring his servant.

"A false god?" Remy asked, running his finger along the rim of his glass.

"Of a sort," Sariel said. He leaned his head back against his chair, eyes closed. "We've surmised that they somehow managed to communicate with the nameless things that thrived in the darkness before our Lord God brought the light of creation. Things that were old before even us."

Sariel drank more.

"And in exchange the Chimerian received knowledge," he said, eyes still shut. "An understanding of dark, arcane arts. But it didn't help them."

Remy watched the servant work on the fire. Slowly, methodically, the blind man felt for the cords of dry wood that were stacked alongside the fireplace, selecting each piece carefully and laying it within the cold hearth.

"They should have all been destroyed when the rains came," Remy said. "That was the point of the flood, wasn't it?"

Sariel finished his scotch and straightened in his chair. He let the empty tumbler fall to the floor.

"It certainly was the point," he said. "And for countless millennia, we believed it successful. Then Noah brought to my attention the fact that the deluge might have failed."

Remy finished his own drink and seriously contemplated another. "How did he know?" he asked.

"The old man was a tortured soul," Sariel said. "The longer he lived, the more obsessed he became with the things he had left to die. The guilt ate at him."

"You kept in touch?" Remy asked, curious as to the Grigori's relationship with Noah.

"We saw each other from time to time," Sariel said, waving his hand vaguely. "We survivors of the deluge shared a kind of bond." The Grigori leader smile but there was little warmth in the expression.

"When we spoke, he told me of the expeditions that he'd undertaken, traversing the globe, sparing no expense, searching for signs of those that had been left behind… signs that they—his orphans—may have somehow survived."

The servant appeared to have finished preparing the wood, and leaned back as if to admire what he had accomplished.

"He said he could remember them all," Sariel said, tapping the side of his skull. "Each and every species that was deemed unworthy to board the ark. He could see them in his head. Awake or asleep, they were always with him."

"I can see how that might drive you a little… crazy," Remy acknowledged.

"The last time we communicated, Noah told me that of all the doomed species, he believed they might have survived."

"They, meaning the Chimerian."

"I tried to explain the danger if this was true, but he couldn't see it," Sariel explained. "All he cared about was the alleviation of his guilt."

The servant had found the tin of fireplace matches and was attempting to ignite the fire.

"So you think Noah found the Chimerian… and that they are responsible for his death."

"You saw his body," Sariel snarled. "You saw that thing scuttling away in the shadows."

"Yes." Remy nodded slowly. "I did see something, although I have no idea what it was."

Sariel's thin, bloodless lips pulled back in another attempt at a smile.

"What you saw was potential doom for humanity," the Grigori said.

Remy was surprised by the intensity of the words.

"Don't you think you're being overly dramatic?"

The servant struck the match on the rough stone surface on the side of the fireplace. It ignited with a hiss, the flame growing so large that it consumed the matchstick in an instant, leaping down to the old man's fingers, and then to his clothes. A cry of surprise and pain escaped him, as he fell backward, the sleeve of his jacket afire. Remy reacted immediately, dropping to the floor and leaning across the thrashing old man to suffocate the flames with his hands. And all the while, Sariel sat, calmly watching it all unfold.

"That was dramatic," he stated. "What will happen to humanity if the Chimerian are allowed to thrive… that will be tragic."

The servant seemed to shrug off the pain of his burns, and returned to the fireplace, taking another match from the tin.

Remy couldn't believe it.

"That will be enough," Sariel ordered.

The old man stopped. "Sorry for the delay, my master, but—"

"I said that will be enough," the Grigori leader interrupted.

Without another word, the servant hauled himself to his feet using the marble mantel, and clutching his injured hand to his chest, shuffled from the room.

Remy had had just about enough of the fallen angel's company.

"Perhaps you should tell me exactly why you've decided to involve me in this," he said as he got to his feet.

"You care for them a great deal," Sariel stated. "Those outside these walls." He gestured with his chin to the world beyond his lair. "I thought you would want to save them."

"What can I do?" Remy asked. "This is much bigger than I—"

"What can I do, asks the soldier of Heaven," the Grigori mocked. "You sell yourself short, my brother."

"No," Remy stated with a definitive shake of his head. "That's not me anymore. I'm not going to allow you to drag me—"

Sariel had closed his eyes again, clearly not interested in Remy's rant.

"We must hunt and destroy them," the Grigori proclaimed. His eyes opened and held Remy in an icy stare. "We must find where they nest and finish what the deluge should have."

"You can't be serious," Remy said.

Sariel glared at him. "They were never supposed to survive. They should have died when the Earth was young and the flood waters rose."

"But you're talking about exterminating a species we know nothing about," Remy said. "We can't just…"

"If the current kings and queens of the world are to survive, we must."

"You don't know that."

"Do you wish to take that chance?" Sariel asked.

Remy should have known better. It always came to this— passing judgment, and death.

"I won't kill for you," he said, moving toward the door.

"But the humans… will you kill for them?" the Grigori leader asked.

Remy stopped and turned. "Why did you drag me into this?" he asked. "You know how I feel about you and your brethren. You know I want nothing more than to live my life peacefully and to not be bothered with…"

"You are the powerful Remiel," Sariel said. "A Seraphim warrior that, as much as you are loath to admit, still retains the full extent of its heavenly might."

Remy shook his head. "I told you, that's not me anymore."

Sariel smiled. "I could have sworn I saw your old self driving back the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse a few short weeks ago, but I must have been mistaken."

Remy pulled open the door. He'd heard enough.

"This isn't just for us, Remiel," Sariel called after him. "The Chimerian will hate humankind as much as they hate us. We'll need your strength if we are to succeed."

Remy didn't even turn around, allowing the door to slam shut behind him as he strode across the ballroom. Just outside the grand room, he saw a gathered crowd of Grigori, and remembered the angel they had brought with them from the rig.

"The angel," he said to one of the Grigori. "Has he regained consciousness?" He craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of where they had taken him.

"He's resting," the Grigori said.

Remy tried to move past and felt a hand suddenly pressed to his chest. He glanced down at the hand.

"I said he's resting," the Grigori repeated more forcefully.

"I know your kind despises me for one reason or another, but I strongly suggest that you remove your hand from my person or I'll be more than happy to provide you with something to really hate me for."

The hand stayed there a moment longer before it was withdrawn.

He considered pushing past the Grigori lackey to find the angel and ask him what he knew, but right then, he didn't have the energy.

He gave the fallen angel a final, nasty look, then quickly turned and left.

It was cold outside on the early-morning streets of Boston, but Remy didn't feel a thing.

NINE

Remy wandered up Tremont Street, onto Arlington, ending up in the lobby of the old Ritz-Carlton Hotel, now the Taj.

He glanced at his watch and figured that Ashley would probably be up by now, getting ready for school. Finding a phone, he dialed the number and got Ashley's mom. He explained that he was working on a case, and would she or Ashley mind zipping over to the apartment to give Marlowe his breakfast and take him out.

The woman said that there would be no problem, and Remy thanked her and hung up.

Now what to do? All the way up from the Zone he'd thought about what Sariel had proposed, and how freaked he was by what the Grigori had believed he'd do.

The sad thing was that no matter how disturbed he was, he couldn't really see much of a choice. If these creatures… these Chimerian were as dangerous as Sariel said, there could very well be human lives at stake.

Remy headed into the Club Lounge and bought a large coffee. The scotch had worn off a while ago and he needed something more stimulating to get his brain functioning the way it should.

He took the coffee and returned to the bank of phones in the lobby, digging through his pockets for change. In this particular instance, he didn't worry about waking anybody up—this person never slept, and was almost always home.

Wishing for his cell phone, he fed the machine with change and dialed the number, listening as it rang.

On the third ring the phone was picked up, but only silence greeted Remy.

"It's me," he said.

"Hey, me," replied a voice on the other end. "What's up?"

"I've got a bit of a problem, and I want to run it by you."

"This doesn't have anything to do with the Apocalypse, does it?" the voice asked.

"Not exactly," Remy responded.

"Good, I've pretty much had my fill of the Apocalypse."

"Meet me at the Taj for breakfast. My treat," Remy told him.

"Sounds yummy, give me about a half hour and I'll be there."

"Half hour?" Remy asked. The voice on the other end lived less than ten minutes away.

"Finishing up Once Upon a Time in the West? he said.

"Didn't you watch that last month?" Remy remembered their conversation about Henry Fonda's performance in the Leone masterpiece.

"New month," was the answer.

It made perfect sense.

"See you in a half hour, then," Remy said, and hung up.

The former Guardian angel said nothing as he strolled into the lobby of the Taj Hotel. With his balding head, horn-rimmed glasses, and usual gray suit, white shirt, and maroon tie, Francis looked like any other white-collar business type employed in the city of Boston.

"How was the movie?" Remy asked, getting up from the sofa where he had been awaiting his friend's arrival.

"Better with every viewing," Francis said.

Remy nodded, even though The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was his own personal favorite of the Leone westerns.

"Are we going to eat?" Francis asked, looking toward the cafe.

"Let's go," Remy said as the two walked toward the entrance. "I could use a pot of coffee."

"Waffles," Francis said, and Remy turned his head to look at him.

"What was that?"

"Waffles," he repeated. "I could really go for some waffles."

Knowing what Remy did about the being called Francis, statements like that only made him smile.

Francis was once the angel Fraciel of the Guardian angel host Virtues. A bad choice on his part had left him on the outs with the Lord God after the rebellion. Realizing the error of his ways, Fraciel had thrown himself at the mercy of the Almighty, begging, for forgiveness. Surprisingly, the Almighty did not banish the Guardian to the Hell prison, Tartarus, but instead made him watchman over one of the gates between the earthly realm and the Hellish, a gate that just so happened to be in the basement of the Newbury Street brownstone that Francis now owned. When he wasn't taking care of his duties to the doorway to Tartarus, the former Guardian angel worked as one of the world's most sought-after assassins. If you could afford his fee, and he decided, after careful review, that the victim did in fact deserve to be taken down, there was little that could be done to prevent the inevitable.

But this morning, the inevitable was that Francis was going to have waffles.

They were seated at a table by the window, overlooking the lower end of Newbury Street, and while the hostess went off to get coffee for Remy and tea for Francis, they quietly perused the menu.

Remy really didn't have to eat, although he often did so to maintain his guise of humanity. This morning, however, he realized he had no desire for food. Francis had already closed his menu and placed it on the table beside him, so Remy did the same.

"First off, how are you doing?" the former Guardian asked, as he straightened his silverware. Francis had always been fascinated by Remy's relationship with Madeline, observing the many facets of their marriage like a scientist watching some new kind of germ beneath a microscope.

"I'm doing," Remy replied, concerned by the bizarre visions he'd been having, but not yet ready to share. Francis already thought he was nuts to live the way he did.

"And the mutt?"

"He's doing, too."

Francis accepted that with a pause and a nod.

"So what seems to be the problem?" he asked, changing the subject.

The waitress appeared then, bringing Remy a carafe of coffee and Francis a metal pot of hot water and a small wooden box filled with flavored teas. She took their order: bagel with cream cheese for Remy, and waffles topped with strawberries and whipped cream for Francis.

"So?" Francis prodded, after she'd gone. He was dunking an English Breakfast tea bag in a cup of hot water he'd just poured.

Remy took a long drink from his coffee cup before replying. "It's getting weird again."

"Again?" Francis questioned with a laugh. He removed the tea bag and placed it on the side of his saucer. Then he added two heaping teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk. "Has it ever stopped? Especially since the whole Apocalypse business, the crazy train has been running flat-out."

Remy didn't like to hear that. He had hoped that once they'd driven back the Four Horsemen, the world would have settled back into some semblance of normalcy, but it really hadn't. He wondered how much that had to do with his current dilemma.

"First off, Noah's dead," he began.

Francis was stirring his tea. He removed the spoon and set it down on the white tablecloth, where it left a brownish stain.

The former Guardian took a slurping sip from the rim of his cup as he digested Remy's statement. "Why am I already guessing that he didn't die peacefully in his sleep?"

"He was murdered," Remy confirmed, remembering what he had seen aboard the oil rig, the horrible condition of the old man's body, as if he'd been beaten to death.

"Color me surprised," Francis said sarcastically.

Remy drank his coffee, allowing the caffeine to work its magic upon him." Sariel was the one who showed me," Remy continued.

"That one is such a creep," the former Guardian said with a nod. "But he does have some damn fine scotch."

"It seems that Noah was trying to make contact with a species called the Chimerian… the Lord's first attempt at creating man that were supposed to be wiped out during the Great Flood, but somehow weren't."

Francis was silent as their breakfasts were delivered.

"Is there anything else I can get you?" the waitress asked.

Remy shook his head with a smile.

"Just some syrup and I'll be good to go," Francis said.

She quickly darted away and returned with the syrup, placing it on the table in front of Francis. "Let me know if you need anything else," she offered as she moved on to her other tables.

"There was a first attempt at humanity?" Francis asked as he poured syrup on the waffles, careful not to get any on the whipped cream.

"That's what Sariel said." Remy was relieved to know that he wasn't the only one unaware of the early prototype. "Think I might've caught a glimpse of one on Noah's oil rig."

"So that's true, then?" Francis asked, breaking off a piece of waffle with his fork. "I'd heard he was living alone in the middle of the ocean."

The former Guardian took a bite of his breakfast.

"So these…," he began with a mouthful.

"Chimerian."

"Chimerian. You think they offed the old man?" Francis asked.

Remy paused to think about the question, and realized, at this stage of the game, he didn't really know. "Possibly," he answered.

"No wonder our fair-haired boy sounded like he was in such a tizzy," Francis commented, eating more of his breakfast.

Remy set his bagel down and wiped at his mouth, wanting to be sure he wasn't mistaken about what he'd just heard.

"Who, Sariel? You talked with him?"

Francis nodded as he chewed. "Called about ten minutes before you did, said he was going to need my skills for a matter of grave importance."

"Did you already know what I just told you?"

Francis shook his head. "No, when I asked him what was up, he said it was a hunting expedition."

"And you agreed to this?"

He shrugged. "Business has been sort of slow, and there are these Bavarian Warhammers coming onto the market that I'm really jonesing for…."

Francis had a thing for weaponry. He collected it obsessively, like a nerdy kid and comic books.

"You agreed to this," Remy repeated, resigning himself from question to statement.

"Yeah," Francis said, breaking off another piece of waffle and shoveling it into his mouth.

"Do you understand what he wants you to do?" Remy asked. "He wants you to help them kill these creatures… these survivors."

"He said that you were on board, too," Francis told him, reaching for his teacup.

"Of course he did." Remy had picked up the other half of his bagel, but placed it back on his plate. He couldn't even pretend to be hungry anymore. "I just can't wrap my brain around the idea of wiping them out," he said.

"Think of it this way: they're murderers," Francis said flatly. “And they shouldn't even be alive. The flood should've erased them from the world."

Remy poured himself another cup of coffee, not buying the Guardian's justification.

"Think of it as tidying up," Francis stressed. "We'd be setting things right."

"We'd be committing murder."

"Is it murder when you put a rabid animal down?" Francis asked. "These things are likely dangerous. Can we take a risk on them maybe breeding and getting around?"

Remy knew that his friend's points were accurate, but something nagged at him, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"We don't know anything about them, other than what Sariel has told us."

"And?" Francis asked.

"When have we ever trusted anything Sariel has said?"

"Good point." Francis took a sip of his tea.

"I'm not comfortable with this," Remy said, removing the cloth napkin from his lap and placing it on the table.

"So does that mean you're not in?" Francis asked.

Remy fished fifty dollars out of his wallet and put it on the table.

"I don't know what it means."

"Do you want a lift?" Francis asked. "Let me finish here and—"

"Think I'll walk," Remy told him. "It'll give me a chance to think this through. I'll call you later."

"Sounds like a plan," Francis said, as he continued to eat. "And thanks for breakfast."

"Everything all right?" the hostess asked as Remy passed her on his way out.

He smiled, tempted to tell her the truth. No, things weren't all right. Not in the least.

It was a nice day, not that Remy noticed at all.

He walked across Arlington Street and through the Public Garden, heading toward the Boston Common. People were just starting to hit the streets on their way to work, flowing up from the Park Street T Station and trickling down from the many small streets that made up Beacon Hill.

Remy wandered against the tide heading to Downtown Crossing, the financial district and Government Center, making his own way home up through the Common to Joy Street.

As he walked, the same thoughts bounced around inside his head. He didn't want to be like them… like the Grigori, and even Francis. He would have been perfectly content to live like those bustling along to work around him.

Ignorant to the matters of the preternatural.

But he wasn't, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't ignore what he knew.

Especially when lives—human as well as angelic—might be at risk.

To say that Marlowe was happy to see him was an understatement. But that was one of the most glorious things about dogs, they were always happy to see you. The black Lab met Remy at the door, panting like a freight train, tail wagging so fast that Remy thought he was going to take off for sure.

"Remy!" the dog barked. "Remy! Remy! Remy!"

"Hello, hello," Remy said with a laugh, pushing the dog aside so that he could get in and close the door.

"Thought gone," the dog said, eagerly licking Remy's hand.

"Yep, I was gone but now I'm back," he reassured the animal.

Remy walked down the hallway, excited dog by his side.

"Did Ashley stop by to feed you?" he asked, already knowing that she had.

"No," the dog said, standing at attention in the kitchen.

The dog's answer took him by surprise.

"No?" he asked.

"No feed,” he growled. "Hungry."

Remy glanced around the room, noticing the empty food bowl and the full water dish. He also saw the note on the counter near the coffeepot and Ashley's unmistakable scrawl telling him that Marlowe had been fed and taken out. She'd even drawn a smiley face at the bottom of the note.

"Then what's this?" Remy asked, picking up the note and showing the dog.

"Paper," the dog answered, tail wagging. "Rip?"

"No, you can't rip it. It's a note from Ashley telling me that you already ate," Remy said. "You've been nabbed, good sir."

"Nabbed, good sir," Marlowe repeated sadly.

Remy laughed. The Lab had a bottomless pit for a stomach and often tried this trick to get an extra meal. It had worked a few times with Madeline, but never with Remy.

His wife had been too trusting.

He flashed back to the last vision he'd had of her aboard the rig, the sensation of warmth on his hand as it was placed upon her stomach.

"A gift of our union," she had said.

What does it mean? he wondered. At first he'd believed it all part of the process of grieving, but now he was beginning to suspect otherwise. There was some kind of connection between the visions and Noah's murder, but what, he hadn't a clue.

And that was what he was going to have to find out.

He'd planned on returning home, cleaning up a bit, and heading to the office to catch up on paperwork.

But not now.

There was little chance of turning this boat around. He might as well throw himself head-on into the madness. The quicker he dealt with this business, the quicker he could return to the life he'd worked so hard to build, but now that seemed to be crumbling at the foundation.

Noah's office would be the place to start. It had been in a shambles, and he hadn't had a chance to really go through it. There might be something still lying about waiting to be uncovered.

"Shit," he muttered beneath his breath.

That meant returning to the rig, and the only way he would be able to do that would be with the help of certain skills that he had used far too freely lately. He knew that there wasn't much of a choice, but it still pissed him off.

He walked into the living room to explain to the dog that he was leaving again. Marlowe lay in the middle of the floor, Sphinx-like, tail thumping. Remy knew what that particular look meant and felt bad.

"Sorry, buddy," he said. "But I can't take you for a walk right now, 1 have to go to work for a while.” The dog looked as though he'd just been told that he was going to the pound. Guilt almost got the best of Remy, but then he remembered something that was even better than a walk to the park.

"Would you like a pig's ear instead?" he asked.

Marlowe jumped to his feet and bolted toward the kitchen. By the time Remy caught up to him, he was standing in front of a lower cabinet door, staring intensely as his tail wagged in anticipation.

"I guess that's a yes," Remy said as he pulled open the cabinet and reached for the bag that contained the disgusting treats. "You work on this and I'll take you for a walk when I get back," he told the dog, who wasn't even listening. Marlowe's dark brown gaze was transfixed on the bag.

Remy removed one of the greasy treats and held it out. Marlowe carefully plucked it from his hand, then darted from the kitchen to his room—his lair, as Madeline used to call it—to consume his prize.

That taken care of, Remy walked into the living room and stood on the spot where Sariel had used his unique skills to take him from his home. He closed his eyes. Carefully he stirred the angelic essence lying inside him. It didn't take more than a gentle prod to awaken it.

The divine power surged through him, coursing through his blood. His senses at once awakened, coming alive with a vengeance. His hearing became preternaturally acute, and the voices of millions in prayer assaulted his ears, as though they were all in this very room with him. And the smell.

The smell was strong, nauseating—the smell of magick.

Opening his eyes, he looked down at the spot where the pas- sage had opened. He could see the residue of Sariel's traveling spell, wafting up from the rug on his living room floor.

Rolling his shoulder blades, he allowed his wings to emerge. He could feel the appendages moving beneath his flesh, growing in size as they worked their way toward the surface. There was a brief flash of pain, and then enormous relief as his golden wings unfurled. Gently he fanned the air as he prepared for his journey.

Now is as good a time as any, Remy thought as he pulled his wings about him, wrapping himself within the tight embrace of the golden feathers. The scent of Sariel's magick was still fresh in his nostrils, and by closing his eyes he could see the path he would need to travel.

He thought of his destination, and then he was gone.

TEN

Like electricity moving through a wire, he was there. The heavy smell of salt in the air was the first thing he became aware of. Remy opened his wings and exposed himself to the new environment.

He had appeared exactly where Sariel's magick had dropped them before. The weather this time was far more hospitable, although the wind still whipped across the broad expanse of concrete, trying desperately to catch his golden wings.

It was pitch black on the ocean, but security lights drove back the darkness of night from the vast deck of the oil rig.

Remy pulled his wings back, then headed for the metal staircase, head bowed against the humid breeze. Once inside, it didn't take him long to find Noah's quarters.

The slide projector still hummed from the desk, but the bulb had burnt out, and the room was immersed in shadow. Allowing his eyes a moment to adjust, Remy carefully approached the desk, mapping out in his mind where he remembered most of the mess to be, as well as the old man's body.

He recalled a banker's lamp, and leaned over across the desktop until his fingers found the dangling chain and pulled it, dispelling the darkness.

The office was still in chaos, but Noah's body was gone.

Remy moved around the desk to study the spot where the body had lain; telltale spatters of dried blood proved that it had been there. He recalled the vague image of the pale-skinned thing, skittering back into the darkness of the warehouse, and wondered if that had anything to do with the body's disappearance.

Turning his attention to the desk, Remy pulled out the chair, rolling it over stray pieces of paper and slides that covered the floor.

"Where do I start?" he asked himself, staring at the disheveled surface of the desktop. Deciding that the journey of a million miles begins with the first step, Remy dove right in, selecting the first random piece of paper and giving it a once-over. It was nothing special, a bill for food supplies for the months of January and February.

There were more bills and receipts, and an amazing number of charitable mailers, all of them from animal organizations, many of which Remy had never heard of.

He found a recent fax from a shipping company confirming the pickup of four transport containers from the rig in two days' time. What in the world would an old man, alone in the middle of the ocean, have been shipping? Remy made a mental note to find them before leaving.

As the surface of the desk became organized, the paperwork he found beneath became more interesting. It appeared that Noah Driscoll had been looking into real estate in the Boston area, and had found something he liked by the looks of a recent purchase and sale agreement. The property was in Lynn, north of the city. Remy jotted down the address to check out later.

Transport containers, purchased property—the old man had certainly been up to something before his untimely demise.

Remy left the office, heading back outside to find the transport containers. He could not help but be impressed by the view from the rig, undulating gray waters in every direction as far as the eye could see. If one wanted peace and quiet, total isolation, this was certainly the place.

But if that was the case, why had Noah bought property in a North Shore city?

Curiouser, and curiouser, Remy thought.

He found the transport containers at the back of the rig, stacked one on top of the other and secured to the deck by woven steel cords. These babies aren't going anywhere, Remy observed as he approached one of the powder blue steel containers.

It wasn't locked. He placed his hands on the cold metal latch and pulled it up and into place so he could open the first of the two doors. The chemical smell of new wafted out, as the dim outside light flooded into the carrier, illuminating its contents.

The container was filled with all manner of things that would be needed to set up a living space. Remy couldn't help but think of the furnishing of a college dormitory as his eyes moved across the plastic-wrapped mattresses, chairs, and thick blankets, still wrapped in their clear packaging, stacked in the corners.

In the corner with the blankets were boxes, and as Remy moved closer he saw that they were filled with toys, picture books, and brightly colored blocks. Stuffed animals stared out at him from inside a large, clear plastic bag. In one box there was even a toy Noah's Ark. He reached down and took it from the container.

Not even close, he thought, looking at the toy mock-up of the great craft. The plastic toy rattled loudly as he moved it, and he discovered that the top of the boat could be removed to reveal plastic animals inside.

Remy put the top back on the boat and placed it with the other toys. He looked about the transport container until something caught his eye. In the far corner of the container he found an unwrapped blanket and a stuffed animal. There was also an opened package of crackers, and crumbs on the floor.

Somebody…

The image of what he had seen running from the light again appeared in his head.

… or something, has taken up residence here, he thought, looking around with a more cautious eye.

Certain that he was alone, Remy decided that he'd seen enough. He left the container and returned to the spot on the deck where he'd arrived.

Again he found the residue of Sariel's magick, opened his wings, and prepared to go home. Thinking of the place he wanted to be, Remy let the wings close, wrapping him in their natural magick.

And as he felt himself slip away, drifting between time and space, he realized that he was leaving with more questions than answers.

Remy returned with little more than a whisper. One second he was on board an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the ocean, the next, in the living room of his Beacon Hill home.

It was something he could get used to, and something that would gradually leach away his humanity, until all that remained was a cold, unfeeling instrument of violence forged in Heaven. He had escaped being that a very long time ago, and would do everything in his power to never be that way again.

The wings wanted to stay, to be part of his everyday attire, but Remy told them no. This was how the divine nature that he kept locked away worked, reminding him of what he had once been, trying to tempt him with memories of a glorious time when he soared above the spires of Heaven.

But those times were gone, sullied by the violence of war.

Remembering what he did, could any of them—these so-called creatures of Heaven—even remotely be considered divine?

Remy didn't think so, and exerting his will upon the wings, he forced them away, burying the nature he had come to abhor, and assuming the guise of humanity.

"Marlowe, I'm back," he announced, glancing at the clock on the DVD player. He'd been gone for close to two hours.

Odd, he thought, as the normally curious beast did not come to see him.

"Hey, Marlowe?" Remy called out again, leaving the living room and heading down the hallway to the dog's lair.

"Do you want to go out?" Remy asked, then stopped as he saw that Marlowe was not alone.

The creature appeared human, almost childlike, its body pale, hairless, and incredibly thin. It was dressed in swaths of filthy cloth that hung in tatters from its scarecrowlike frame.

Remy had no idea what it was. It bore no resemblance to the indigo-skinned figures he'd seen perched on the rocks so long ago. It squatted on its haunches in front of Marlowe. Toys were scattered about the floor, and the two were staring at each other intensely, eyes locked as if playing a game, victory going to the one who managed not to blink first.

The tension in the air was palpable, like an elastic band just about stretched to capacity before…

Marlowe barked, slapping his paws on the hardwood floor, and all hell broke loose.

The trancelike state between the two beasts suddenly broken, the creature reacted, pulling its pale lips back in a catlike hiss.

Remy was afraid, and as if suddenly catching the scent of his fear, the white-skinned being turned its gaze to him.

Its eyes were black, like shiny pools of oil, and Remy felt himself drawn toward their inky depths.

"Marlowe… run," he managed, looking away before the intruder sprang.

It moved incredibly fast, and collided with Remy, knocking him back against the wall as it tried to escape down the hall.

The dog was barking like crazy now.

Remy dove, wrapping his arms around the creature's thin waist, driving them both to the floor.

The invader let out an unpleasant squeal, a strange mixture of a baby's cry and the screech of brakes, as it struggled in his grasp.

"Stay back," Remy commanded the dog, as the Labrador started to slink from the room. Marlowe retreated.

The strange beast was much stronger than it appeared, easily breaking Remy's grip and scrabbling to its bare feet in a frantic run. It skidded around the corner into the living room, and Remy was right behind it. But it was waiting for him. The creature charged, slashing at him with razor-sharp claws. Remy leapt back, feeling the claws snag the front of his shirt and graze the smooth flesh beneath.

The beast had retreated deeper into the living room and crouched there, watching him. Remy was about to charge after it, but something stopped him. Something in the monster's gaze.

Is that fear?

Still crouched on the living room rug, the creature let out another of its disturbing cries, and Remy watched in surprise as it began to convulse, hunching its back as if bending over to vomit. But instead, the pale flesh on its bony back tore with a wet, ripping sound, and two leathery batlike wings popped from beneath the skin.

Remy watched, dumbfounded, as the creature cloaked itself in its new leathern appendages, then squeezed itself smaller and smaller, until it was no longer there, leaving behind only the telltale scent of magick.

Angel magick.

Remy was still staring at the spot where the intruder had been, trying to understand what was going on, when he heard a soft whimper behind him. He turned to see a trembling Marlowe standing in the hallway, clutching a filthy stuffed monkey in his mouth.

"Hey," Remy said, going to the shaking animal. "Are you all right?" he asked, running his hands over the black Labrador's body, searching for injuries. "Did he hurt you?"

Marlowe let the toy drop to the floor, licking the side of Remy's face affectionately.

"No hurt," Marlowe said. "Nice."

Remy stopped inspecting the dog and looked into Marlowe's dark brown eyes. "What do you mean, nice?"

"Nice, no hurt," Marlowe explained. "Give toy." The dog pawed the filthy stuffed monkey. "Nice. Give toy."

Remy reached down to pick up the monkey.

"This isn't yours?" he asked the dog.

"Mine now," the dog said, playfully snatching it from Remy's hands and giving it a savage shake.

Images filled Remy's head as things became more clear, like jagged rocks suddenly visible through wafting holes in thick, ocean fog.

Terribly clear.

He remembered the contents of the transport containers on the oil rig, furnishings for a home, blankets and toys.

Stuffed animals peering out at him from their clear plastic packaging.

"Nice," Marlowe said again, happily tossing the new toy into the air. "No hurt.

"Friend."

ELEVEN

Remy called Francis on the way to Lynn. The former Guardian angel turned assassin wasn't home, so he left a message.

"Hey, it's me. Heading to Lynn on the North Shore to check out a piece of property that the old man purchased a few weeks ago," he told his friend, debating if he should explain further or wait until things had crystallized a little bit more.

"Give me a call when you get this. There are some things I need to run by you before you accept the Grigori's offer. Later." Remy ended the call and slipped the phone into the pocket of his leather jacket.

He'd reached the rotary in Revere, and veered right onto the Lynn Marsh Road. It was a straight shot from there, across the long stretch of causeway that connected Revere to Lynn.

His thoughts were wandering again to the pale-skinned creature sprouting wings in his living room. He remembered its eyes, moist, dark, and shiny, like the cold ocean water of the marshlands he was passing by now.

But there had been something else in the blackness of its stare, ferocity, fear….

Intelligence.

He passed over the Foxhill Bridge into the city of Lynn.

The sprawling General Electric jet engine plant was to his right, the city's major employer since it lost the shoe industry to foreign shores back in the 1920s.

Remy fished the piece of paper he'd written the address on from his pocket and gave it another glance. According to Map-Quest, he wasn't too far away.

He continued on down Western Avenue, thinking of the silly little rhyme that just about everybody on the North Shore seemed to know.

Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin, you never go out the way you came in.

It wasn't long before he found River Street. It wasn't one of the city's better neighborhoods. Most of the buildings were boarded up and empty, many blackened and charred as if by fire.

He parked his car beneath the dim light thrown by the single working streetlight, and stepped out onto the street. He could still catch the musty smell of smoke in the air.

Most of the buildings were missing numbers, and it took a little while to figure out where he needed to be looking and on what side, but as he walked the lonely stretch of River Street, it soon became obvious where he was heading.

He could see it ahead of him, the tall spire reaching up into the dingy night sky, the abandoned remains of Saint Mathias Church. She appeared to have been let go quite some time ago, the cruel years having their way with her. Remy always felt a tinge of sadness when he saw buildings like this, places of worship no longer carrying the prayers of the devoted faithful up to the heavens. It was a sign of the times, he told himself, but it didn't make it any less sad to see.

Saint Mathias was more than just a church; it was a sort of compound. An alley separated the church from a run-down rectory and an old brick elementary school.

It seemed that Noah had bought it all.

At the back of the church, a frame from one of the elaborate stained-glass windows depicting the Stations of the Cross had fallen away, allowing Remy to look inside.

The building was empty. Anything that would have made it recognizable as a place of worship had pretty much been removed; the only things serving as a slight reminder were wooden pews, stacked in a far, dark corner, as if waiting to be used as kindling.

He saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to pique his curiosity, so he turned his attention to the rectory, directly across from the church. Remy climbed the three chipped and broken concrete steps to the side door. It appeared that new locks had been recently installed.

Remy knew how to do the whole lock-picking thing, but seldom remembered to bring his tools. Looking around—as if there'd be anyone around here to raise an alarm—he placed his hand against the door. He utilized a little bit of his divine strength to force it open, and went inside.

He pulled a small flashlight from his jacket pocket and turned it on, the thin beam of light cutting through the murk. He was in a small hallway that led to a kitchen.

The room appeared clean—too clean. It had been used recently, not like the rest of what was around him. Covered in thick dust, the place looked to have been abandoned more than a few years ago.

Across the kitchen was a swinging door, and he went through into a corridor. There was a flight of stairs leading up to the next level on his right, and a short hallway that led to the rectory's main office. He checked out the office next. All he found was an old grime-covered desk and a broken wooden chair.

Remy returned to the stairs and climbed to the next floor. He stood on the landing, shining his light across closed doors to rooms that would have once housed the priests of the Saint Mathias parish. There was a strong, musty smell of dampness on the second floor—and something else.

As Remy approached the first door, he tried to convince himself that in a building this old, and in such disrepair, the offending smell could have come from a number of sources: a dead mouse or rat, maybe even a pigeon.

He turned the old-fashioned metal knob. The first door swung open. A rusty box spring lay on the floor in the room's center. There was a clean spot on the yellowed wallpaper where a crucifix had once hung.

At the next door, the smell was stronger, and Remy prepared himself. He opened the door and found a rat, its withered carcass caught in a trap. He let the beam of light linger on the desiccated rodent corpse, surprised at the amount of stink that still emanated from the remains.

The third room proved to be the charm. This knob was warm to the touch, but he barely noticed as he swung the creaking door wide, moving the beam of his light around the nearly empty room.

Nearly empty. At first he thought it was a sleeping bag, the encampment of some vagrant who found shelter from the harsh New England cold. But then he realized otherwise.

Remy entered the room, his light trained upon the unmoving shape on the bedroom floor. It took him a moment to process what it was that he was looking at. It was a body, wrapped up in strips of heavy cloth like a mummy. Only the face was left exposed.

A face that Remy knew.

He held the light on Noah's face. Somebody had cleaned him up, washing the dried blood from his battered face and white beard.

Preparing him for burial.

Around the old man's body, somebody had dropped slides, as if in some sort of tribute, pictures of all the animal species the old man had saved escorting him on his way to the afterlife.

The sudden sound of a floorboard creaking behind him caused him to spin around, his flashlight beam searching out the source. But he found only an empty doorway, the door slowly closing on its own.

The ringing of his cell nearly gave him a heart attack.

He lowered his flashlight and fished the phone from his pocket. It was Francis.

That was when the creatures chose to make their move. There were three of them. Their pale flesh glowed translucently in the darkness of the room as they emerged from the shadows. They were lightning quick, swatting his cell from his hand. Remy could hear the faint voice of Francis, calling out his name as the phone slid across the floor.

Remy opened his mouth to try and communicate, to experiment with the theory that perhaps these creatures—these Chimerian, which he was pretty convinced they were—were not as threatening as Sariel had painted them to be.

But he didn't get the chance. Their strikes against him were savage, relentless, driving him to the floor beside the wrapped corpse of Noah. Just as he was about to call on the destructive forces that resided within him, he felt a taloned hand grip his hair. Savagely, the creature slammed his head back against the hardwood floor.

And as the flood of darkness rushed in to drag Remy down, he heard a voice cry out.

"No, do not harm this one," it said. "He isn't one of them."

A mysterious voice that saved his life.

TWELVE

I have something to show you, said the whispering voice, sounding very much like his Madeline, but he knew that it wasn't.

Something… someone was attempting to communicate with him, to show him something of great importance. All he had to do was accept the offer.

"Show me," Remy said aloud, suddenly finding himself awake.

At once he realized that he was no longer in the dusty old room of the Saint Mathias rectory.

There was cold stone beneath him, numbing his human flesh with its freezing temperature. Remy climbed to his feet, squinting in the darkness. He did not want to do it, but no longer in possession of his flashlight, he had no real alternative. Carefully he called upon the power of the divine once more, igniting his hand with the fires of Heaven.

In the illumination of its golden flame, he found that he was in some sort of vast underground chamber, its walls covered in thick glacial ice.

"Are you cold?" asked a voice from somewhere close by.

Remy directed the light of his hand toward an outcropping of jagged rock. A figure wrapped in a blanket sat on the ground, leaning back against a wall of ancient stone.

"You're welcome to share my blanket," he offered.

Remy walked toward the man, and the light thrown from his hand revealed a somewhat familiar face. "I know you," he said as the identity of the stranger came to him. "You're the angel we brought from the rig."

"Were you there?" the angel asked. "I thought Sariel had returned alone." The angel was a mess, looking worse even than he had after Sariel's beating.

"Did he do that to you?" Remy asked.

The angel brought broken and scabbed fingers to his horribly bruised and swollen face. "He did," the angel said. "For not telling him what he wanted to know."

"Who are you?" Remy asked. "And what's your part in all of this?"

"I am Armaros," the angel said, pushing himself up, using the stone wall for support. "And I was supposed to be Sariel's spy."

The angel stepped closer, and the light from Remy's hand showed him the extent of how badly he'd been beaten. Remy hadn't seen injuries this savage since…

Noah.

"When Noah started talking about how the Chimerian had survived, Sariel became worried. He assigned me to be the old man's assistant, to help him with the search." Armaros pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

"But I was really there to keep tabs on Noah's expeditions, and to alert Sariel and my brothers if anything was ever found."

"Which it was," Remy stated.

A strange, almost beatific expression came over the fallen angel's bruised face. "Yes," he said. "Yes, we found a small number of them, but I couldn't bring myself to tell Sariel. I knew why he wanted to know if the Chimerian had survived."

Remy stared, already guessing the answer.

"He wanted to destroy them," Armaros stated, his voice trembling with emotion. "He wanted to complete what the deluge had failed to."

Something moved in the darkness behind them and Remy turned toward the sound, pushing back the darkness with the light of the divine.

Three of the Chimerian hissed angrily, scurrying back to the protection of the shadows.

"They don't mean you any harm," Armaros reassured him, moving around Remy to get to the creatures. "They're just afraid."

Armaros knelt down, calling them to him.

Remy had lowered his hand, the light thrown now at a minimum. He watched as they emerged, cautiously moving toward Armaros at his urgings.

They came to the Grigori, and he put his arms around the pale-skinned creatures. They clung to him with their clawed hands, nuzzling in the crook of his neck.

Remy's suspicions had been right; these weren't savage beasts to be put down.

"How could I tell Sariel about them?" Armaros asked, kissing one of them atop its bald, veiny head.

"They're only children."

Armaros hugged the children lovingly, and they hugged him back.

"We were going to try to save them—Noah and I," he explained. "Transporting them to a place in the modern world where they could learn, and adapt."

Remy recalled the transport containers, and the abandoned church property in Lynn.

"Noah had it all worked out," the angel continued. As soon as he spoke the old man's name, the Chimerian children immediately reacted. They became very still, throwing back their overly large heads, their mouths emitting a strange ululating howl that echoed through the vast chamber.

"I know, I know," Armaros said, pulling them closer to him.

"They miss him," the angel explained. "They loved their Noah very much."

It was the most heartbreaking sound Remy had ever heard, triggering some bizarre paternal instinct. He wanted to go to them, to hold them in his arms as Armaros did, and comfort them from the pain of the world.

"He had returned to the rig for some final preparations when Sariel found him," the angel explained, drawing the Chimerian children closer to him.

The scene of the crime flashed before Remy's eyes, Noah's beaten and battered body lying on his office floor.

"And for what he was going to do, Sariel killed him," Remy said.

Armaros nodded. "I'm not sure if that was his intention… but he was so enraged that Noah could even consider what he was doing…"

The angel looked at Remy. "But how could we not?" he asked. “Somehow they had survived the deluge… survived all the years following… doesn't it mean that they'd earned their right to live?"

Remy stepped closer, keeping his burning hand at his side.

The children grew nervous at his approach.

"Shhhhh," Armaros comforted. "He means you no harm."

One of the Chimerian looked at him with deep, cautious eyes, and Remy knew that this was the one that had found its way to his home.

Remy knelt down near Armaros, reaching out with the hand that did not burn with the fire of Heaven. The child at first studied what was offered, and then cautiously reached for it, gripping one of Remy's fingers in his.

"That's it," Armaros said. "He's our friend."

With the child's touch the images flowed through his brain, and his suspicions were confirmed. He knew these children of the flood, and why the Grigori were so desperate for them to be gone.

"The bastards," Remy whispered. "The miserable, coldhearted bastards."

Seeing that he wasn't a threat, the two other children became interested in him, leaving Armaros's arms to come to him. And with each touch of their clawed hands, or the feel of their warm breath on his cheek, Remy knew them more, and what they had gone through to live.

"I couldn't let Noah's death be in vain," Armaros went on. "I was going to try and accomplish our goals alone…" The Grigori laughed. "But I was sloppy and Sariel caught me. I tried to tell him that they meant us no harm, that they only wanted to live, but he would hear nothing of it. I'm surprised that I didn't share Noah's fate right then and there, but that must be where you came in."

The Chimerian children were crawling all over Remy now, completely unafraid.

Armaros chuckled. "They know you," the fallen angel said. "They know what you are."

Remy laughed, the first real laugh that he'd had since his wife had died.

With the thought of Madeline, the Chimerian children stopped. They stared at him with their intense dark eyes. And one by one, they drew back their heads and sang their sad, sad song for him.

"Sariel tried to make me talk," Armaros explained defiantly. "But I wouldn't tell him." He shook his head from side to side. "I thought I would die, but still I kept their secret. He wanted to know about this place, but I held my tongue."

Remy was holding the children now, each of them completely comfortable with the other.

"How did you escape?" he asked.

"There are some among them—the Grigori—that feel as I do. They let me go so that I could try and get the children to safety before…"

Remy felt it inside his head, like fingers gently running across the surface of his brain. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant sensation.

Angel of Heaven, said the voice like a gentle summer breeze tickling inside his ear. I have something to show you.

Armaros must have heard it as well, because he smiled.

"She wants to talk with you," the fallen angel said. He opened his arms, calling the children to him. "Go to her."

"Who?" Remy asked, feeling a psychic tug upon him, turning in the darkness like the needle of a compass, pointed toward where he needed to go.

"The Mother," Armaros said.

There wasn't a moment's hesitation; this was what he had been waiting for. Remy headed off into the vast underground cave system.

She was calling to him.

The Mother was calling, and he had no choice but to answer.

THIRTEEN

It felt as though he'd been walking for days, but he knew that wasn't the case. The chamber went on, and on, up and over hills of ice older than recorded history, the only source of illumination being the divine fire that burned around his hand.

Dripping stalactites, like the teeth of a giant beast, hung over his head as he slid down from the other side of a black rock wall and onto a path that seemed to be taking him even deeper into the cavernous surroundings.

At first he had not the slightest idea what it was that loomed out of the darkness in front of them, believing it to be another enormous wall of rock and ice, an obstruction that could very well prevent him from going any farther.

Remy lifted his burning hand, staring at the obstruction, and realized that he was looking at something else altogether.

That he had reached his destination.

Remy nodded in satisfaction, taking it all in, absorbing the sight of the ancient craft that appeared to have become part of its rocky underground surroundings.

It must've been swallowed up by changes in the Earth's surface. Pulled farther and farther beneath the ground as time passed, he thought as he looked upon what was left of the ark.

The remains of Noah's ark.

Over the passage of time the wood had ossified, becoming like stone, blending with its geological surroundings. The front of the once gigantic ship protruded from the stone as if sailing through a monstrous ocean swell that had been frozen in time.

It made sense that this was where they'd be, Remy thought as he was drawn toward the ancient transport. Denied passage on the great craft, but now…

Wedging his fingers deep into cracks between the rock and ice, Remy started to climb, the gentle voice of the Mother driving him on.

The answers are inside, Remy told himself, the all-too-human flesh of his fingers feeling the rigors of the harsh elements.

And Remy needed answers.

From the beginning, when Sariel had first come to him, he had sensed that something wasn't right, that he wasn't getting the entire picture.

It was all so much bigger than what the Grigori leader had cared to share.

Remy reached the top of the ark, jumping from an icy ledge to the side of the craft, and climbing over onto what had once been the deck. Countless millennia of shifting, geological change had done its job on the ship, holding the vessel in its cold, rocky clutches like a prized toy in the mouth of a playful dog.

There were gaping holes in the surface of the deck, and Remy could feel the tingle of something ancient and magickal wafting up from the darkness below.

Moving toward one of the holes, he peered down into the ship's hold. Memories from days long past exploded inside his head, of the ship's bowels filled to bursting with life of every conceivable size and shape.

Life that had been deemed worthy to survive the coming storm.

No real thought went into his next action. The Mother was waiting for him, and he simply lowered himself through the hole and into the waiting darkness below. Using protrusions of rock and ancient, ossified wood, Remy climbed down into the ship's limitless hold.

Touching bottom was like being on the ocean floor, not a lick of light to be found. He let the fire of divinity burn brighter from his hand to light the way.

He walked where they had kept the animals, remembering how it had looked then: the pens, primitive tanks, corrals and stalls, as far as the eye could see, built to hold the myriad varieties of life that the old man and his family had been instructed to save.

Remiel, whispered the voice of the Mother.

"Yes," he said aloud, walking farther into the cavernous belly of the ark.

Remember the days long past, when the Maker's world was young.

As he trudged along, images flooded his mind, rapid-fire pictures across the surface of his brain as the Mother began to show him.

He saw the world as it had been, young and vibrant, fertile with life. A dark, indigo-skinned people—the Chimerian—made their homes among the rocky hills of the primordial world. They were a beautiful people, their skin the bluish color of dusk.

Somehow they knew that the Maker did not favor their continued survival, and they begged Him to have mercy on them, but the All Powerful had already made up His mind, already created something to replace them.

But the Chimerian did not give up hope, continuing to pray, and to make sacrifices in hopes that their Maker would not forsake them, that He would see that they were worthy to live.

And they believed themselves saved when the emissaries came, living among them. Living like them.

Teaching them.

But the emissaries had come only for their own selfish reasons, immersing themselves in the earthly pleasures of food, drink and carnal acts, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the Chimerian were extinct.

Remy saw the emissaries inside his mind, saw their leader in the midst of revelry as he and his brethren partook of all mortal excesses.

He saw Sariel and his Grigori.

And then he saw a Chimerian woman, her belly swollen with life.

The fallen angel became enraged.

It cannot be, the Grigori leader ranted, and the woman cowered. Your kind were supposed to be barren.

And she looked to him with hope in her eyes, hope for her and all her kind, as well as the children to be born of Chimerian women and fallen angels.

A gift of our union, the beautiful woman with the night-colored skin said to Sariel.

She reached out, took Sariel's hand, and placed it on her stomach.

A gift to show the Maker we are worthy to live.

A final image was burnt into Remy's mind: it was of the Chimerian women, clad in hooded cloaks stitched from animal skins, clutching bellies swollen with life.

They stood upon the rocky hills as the rain fell in torrents, and the waters rose, watching as those deemed worthy to live filed aboard the ark.

Unworthy to exist.

Forsaken.

Remy came away from the sad vision in an area of the ark darker than even the light of the divine could illuminate.

He knew that she was here, somewhere in the ocean of night, hiding herself away.

"How?" he asked the darkness. "How did you survive?"

The feeling inside his head was immediate, like a long, sharp finger slowly pushing into the soft gray matter of his brain, but he did not fight it. Remy let the answers come.

It was like looking out through dirt-covered windows, the scenes unfolding, desperate to find a place inside his already crowded skull.

Remy stumbled and fell to the ground, fighting to stay conscious.

The Chimerian people bobbed upon the waters, one by one taken by the merciless sea. But some survived, the women of the tribe, those who had been touched by the Grigori. Somehow they had been changed by their experiences with the fallen ones, their bodies evolving, making them able to endure the catastrophe.

The impregnated women clung to the side of the great ark, their bodies enshrouded—protected—by thick cocoons made from magick and sorrow.

And they survived like that, hiding from those who wished them gone, sleeping through the passage of ages, waiting for a time—a safe time—to emerge.

Through a thick gauze of webbing Remy watched as a man clad in heavy winter garb, protected from the harshness of the elements, moved toward them.

Noah.

Sensing changes in the world, and in him, they had reached out, drawing him to their hiding place. And begging their forgiveness, he pulled them from their womb of shadow.

Noah at last finding his Chimerian orphans.

Remy felt the hold on him released, and he peered again into the limitless depths of the darkness, searching for the one who had called to him.

He got to his feet and moved farther into the nebulous embrace, the light of his hand nearly useless in the supernatural environment.

"Are you here?" he asked. "Show yourself to me."

The Mother responded to Remy's request; her form, as well as the forms of the other Chimerian survivors, gradually moved into focus.

It was as if they were lying in a great nest crafted from the stygian gloom, six of them, several still pregnant with the fruit of their union with the emissaries. They appeared to be asleep, but their minds were active.

Remy could feel them all reaching out to him, attempting to communicate, but one voice remained the loudest.

The Mother.

Remiel, she spoke inside his mind.

He looked down into the nest, and for a moment he saw the love of his life as he had watched her so many times, fast asleep.

The picture of a sleeping Madeline quickly changed to that of the Chimerian Mother. She appeared smaller than the others, having already borne her young.

The children that he'd encountered.

I felt you out there, the Mother whispered wearily. A compassionate consciousness to hear our plea.

"What would you have me do?" Remy asked, kneeling down beside the nest.

Will you speak for us, warrior of Heaven? she asked. When we are at last gone, driven from existence, will you remember us?

"I'll help Armaros," Remy told her. "We'll continue what Noah began and—"

Too late for that, she said resignedly. Our time draws near. Tell me that you will remember us for what we were, and not as some blight upon the early land.

"I'll help you," he said, the words leaving his mouth just as the Mother began to scream.

Remy didn't know what to do. Reaching down, he took her hand in his. "What's happening?" he asked.

It has begun. The end of us…

"What can I do?" he demanded. There had to be something.

The other women began to moan and writhe, as if held in the grip of some terrible nightmare. The smell of magick was suddenly in his nostrils, and Remy turned in the darkness.

Something was appearing behind him, a jagged, lightning-bolt tear was ripped in the shroud of shadow that had protected the Chimerian women. Remy sensed the danger at once, rising to his feet and allowing the warrior side of him to bubble to the surface. The Grigori spilled from the open wound into the chamber, their eyes gleaming with bloodlust.

"No!" Remy screamed in the voice of the Messengers, his wings of feathered gold spreading from his back, forming a barrier between them and the Chimerian women.

And then he felt her touch again, pulling him back. Drawing him down.

The Mother had brought him into a vision.

They were at the Maine cottage, standing inside the extra room. Wearing the image of his wife, she attempted to console him.

"There's nothing that you can do," she said, standing before the open window, the wind pulling at her clothes. It had become like night outside, the air electric with the coming storm.

"Don't let them do this," Remy said, unable to keep the tremor of emotion from his voice.

"We always suspected that it could end this way," the Mother, wearing the guise of Madeline, said. She reached out and cupped the side of his face.

"Remember."

Then the storm was upon them, and the rain began to fall.

Remy awoke to the smell of blood. He could still feel the Mother's touch, restraining him from the inevitable.

There is nothing you can do.

But Remy did not want to believe it, fighting the grip that held him. In the womb of darkness, he heard the sounds of their excitement, and looked to see the Grigori attackers, their fine Italian suits spattered black with blood as they murdered the defenseless survivors of the Great Deluge.

Something snapped inside Remy, and the power of I leaven rushed forward with a terrible fury. He let it come, letting it trample his humanity in its excitement to emerge.

The light thrown from his body burned like the heart of the sun, and he heard the Grigori squeal like frightened animals as they were driven back, away from their murderous acts.

But it appeared he was too late. The Chimerian women were dead, their defenseless bodies bearing the bloody wounds of the fallen angels' shame.

"Remiel," a voice called from behind him.

He turned to see Sariel coming toward him through the darkness, a pale hand raised to shield his eyes from the heavenly light.

"We feared for your safety."

In his other hand the Grigori held a sword, an ancient blade that had been forged in the fires of the Lord God's love, and had once glowed like a star, but now was only a thing of metal, tarnished and stained by needless violence.

"What have you done, Sariel?" Remy asked, barely able to contain his emotion as he looked upon the women savagely brutalized by the Grigori.

"We suspected you might be in danger," Sariel spoke. "And came at once to your aid."

The Seraphim laughed, a low, rumbling sound more like a growl.

"Your concern for my well-being… is touching," Remy said.

And then he turned his cold gaze upon the Grigori leader.

"You used me, Sariel," he said, repressed fury dripping from every word.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," the Grigori leader responded indignantly. “You made me part of this," Remy hissed. The glow from his body had dwindled, the darkness of what had transpired draining away the intensity of his light.

"Don't you see, Remiel?" Sariel asked. "You were part of our test."

All Remy could do was stare at the sight of something once holy, now but a twisted reflection.

"The Almighty provided you for us to complete our penance," the Grigori leader went on. His brothers stepped cautiously into the light to join their leader. "You were a tool of our redemption."

"Redemption," Remy said, the word like poison on his lips. "You actually believe that after all you've done…"

His eyes were pulled to the Chimerian bodies and he stopped.

"The Lord God provided us with a way to consummate a task that had remained incomplete for countless millennia," Sariel continued to explain. "How could we not respond?"

"And Noah?" Remy asked.

"He has been avenged," Sariel proclaimed, raising his sword as if in victory.

"You murdered him," Remy raged. He turned his gaze back to the Grigori master; the fire of Heaven burned in his stare.

Sariel started to speak, but Remy did not want to hear it. He charged at the fallen angel, grabbing the lapel of his suit jacket and pulling him closer.

"You killed him in a fit of rage," Remy accused, his teeth clenched in anger. "You beat a defenseless old man to death with your fists."

"I lost my temper," the Grigori admitted, followed by a sigh of exasperation. "He was just so damned stubborn. Wracked with guilt over what he believed he had done… you should have seen how excited he was when he thought that he'd found them."

Remy felt himself becoming sick as the fallen angel attempted to justify his twisted actions.

"He didn't see the danger no matter how hard I tried to explain it," the Grigori said, his words fervent. "He told me that he was going to beg God to let them live… that because they had survived the flood He should allow them to exist. That they had earned the right to life."

Sariel actually seemed to believe what he was saying, and that Remy found even more disturbing.

"Here was our chance, Remiel," the Grigori leader emphasized. "Something to bring us that much closer to going home… to be allowed back to Heaven."

"But you killed him," Remy reminded the Grigori leader with a shake.

"Yes, I did," Sariel admitted. "Not sure exactly how that will be received, but at least we're finishing what the flood began. That has to count for something. I wasn't about to allow anything to prevent me from completing what should have been finished ages ago."

Sariel glanced at the hand still holding his lapel.

"It's done, Remiel," Sariel said. "This is how it was supposed to be. For us to finish what had already been put in motion; it was a test for us, penance for one of our greatest… misjudgments."

"Misjudgments?" Remy asked, scorn in his words. "But the children…"

Sariel looked to the corpses, distaste upon his pale, perfect face. “An error better left forgotten," he snarled, removing Remy's hand from his suit coat. "They were twisted things, Remiel, neither of Heaven nor Earth."

"They were yours."

He searched the fallen angel's eyes, looking for even a small sign of mercy or compassion. It was like staring into a deep, dark hole. There was nothing there, and Remy knew that Sariel and his Grigori brothers were lost.

What they believed of the Chimerian was true of them—there was no place for the Grigori in Heaven, or on Earth.

Remy heard a sound, a howl of mourning from the throats of children born of Grigori and Chimerian women. He turned toward the song to see them, squatting at the edge of darkness, clinging to one another as they ached over the fate that had befallen their Mother.

The Chimerian lament filled the shadows, becoming louder, and their sadness became palpable. One by one, the Grigori dropped to their knees, supremely affected by the woeful song.

Perhaps I am wrong about them, Remy thought.

All were affected except for Sariel.

The Grigori leader looked upon his brothers with horror. "Get up!" he screamed, but either they did not hear him over the sad song or they chose to ignore his words, for they continued to kneel upon the ground soaked with the blood of innocents.

"Listen to it," Remy yelled over the forlorn sound. "Listen to the pain you've caused."

Blood started to seep from Sariel's ears. His body grew stiff, and began to tremble. Slowly his knees began to bend, bringing him closer and closer to the ground.

"I…," Sariel grunted, stabbing the blade of his sword into the ground to halt his progress.

"Hear…" He fought the gravity of sorrow pushing down upon him, to struggle to his feet.

"Nothing!" And he sprang across the floor, murder in his gaze as he raised his tarnished blade to strike at those who would keep him from achieving that which he most desired.

That which would keep him from the gates of Heaven.

Remy sprang into Sariel's path, grappling with the fallen angel and driving him to the cold, hard ground. The Grigori flailed, lashing out with the pommel of his sword, striking Remy across the temple with a savage blow.

There was a searing flash of pain and color as Remy felt the Grigori squirm out from beneath him. He fought back the descending curtain of oblivion, flapping his powerful wings to rise to his feet.

The Chimerian babes had ceased their song as they watched the scene unfold with wide, frightened eyes. They hissed, baring razor-sharp teeth as Sariel loomed, sword raised above his head, ready to fall.

The Seraphim emerged with a roar, pushing aside the fragile shell of humanity Remy wore, burning it with the fire of Heaven. And Remy let it. He was tired of all the pain and death, tired of being manipulated in others' pursuits of Heaven.

With hands burning white with divine heat, he grabbed the Grigori leader, pulling him back away from his objectives.

Away from his children.

Sariel struggled in the grasp of the Seraphim, and his fine suit and the flesh beneath it burned with the supernatural fire. He spun on Remy, swinging his sword with a cry of fury and pain.

But the Seraphim was not impressed, capturing the blade in midswing, causing the weapon to warp and bend, and finally to melt. Sariel's screams were entirely of pain now as his immortal flesh blackened and smoldered, but the Seraphim held him tight, refusing to set him free.

Allowing the power of God that seethed at his core to flow through him and into the fallen angel.

"You wanted to see Heaven again, brother?" the Seraphim spoke in the language of God's first creations. "See it now."

The Grigori leader still lived, but his body had begun to crumble, pieces of charred angel flesh breaking away to drift on the air like black snow.

"See it and burn."

And soon the angel Sariel was no more, as the last of him was consumed by the voraciousness of Heaven's fire.

The Seraphim flapped his powerful wings, dispersing his fallen enemy's ashen remains, and turned his attention to the others. They had risen to their feet, weapons in hand, staring at him with intense hatred.

And the Seraphim's mouth twisted in a cruel smile that told he was ready to share their master's fate with them. None moved.

Having no fear of them, — the Seraphim Remiel turned his back on the Grigori to face the children of the deluge. They looked away from him with a hiss, the intensity of his light searing their sensitive eyes.

Diminishing his holy glow, he knelt upon the ground, opening his arms to them. Without hesitation they came to him, the three orphans crawling into the safety of the angel's embrace.

Its penchant for violence more than satisfied, Remy was able to usurp control from the Seraphim, putting the genie back into the bottle for another time.

He didn't know how much longer he could continue to do this, for the essence of the divine grew more powerful each time it was called upon. But that was a worry for another time.

He had the safety of the children to concern himself with now.

Walking through darkness in the bowels of the ark, he held the quivering offspring tight, consoling them with words that everything would be all right, having no idea if he was lying to them or not.

Stopping, he allowed the fire to burn from his hand again to see how far they'd come. To say that he was shocked by the sight of dead Grigori bodies strewn about the ground was an understatement.

Even more shocking was the sight of Francis, and Armaros.

"Hey," the former Guardian angel said. He clutched what looked to be a Bavarian Warhammer in one hand, while supporting Armaros with the other. "Sorry I'm late, didn't think they'd start the party without me."

Armaros pulled away from Francis and opened his arms to the Chimerian orphans.

"You saved them," he said as the three children leapt from Remy's arms to go to the Grigori.

"But they're the only ones," Remy said sadly.

Francis was staring at the Chimerian children, and by the look on his face, he clearly was not sure what to think.

"How does Sariel feel about that?" he asked.

"Sariel's dead," Remy said coldly.

Francis nodded, then reached out a tentative hand to pat one of the bald Chimerian heads. The child growled, swatting at the offending hand with its razor-sharp claws.

"Cute," Francis said as he quickly pulled his hand back. "He has his daddy's charming disposition."

"He was going to kill them," Remy said, speaking of Sariel. "Because they had the audacity to survive."

Francis nudged one of the Grigori corpses with the toe of his shoe.

"And he wasn't the only one with that bad attitude."

The wayward Guardian then sighed, and slung the medieval weapon over his shoulder. "So what now?" he asked. "Anything else that needs to be killed?"

Remy looked to Armaros for an answer.

"Sariel is dead, but the Grigori still live," he said, holding the Chimerian children. They were falling asleep, their large heads bobbing. "They won't give up that easily. We're going to need a safe place until some of this dies down."

"Troublemaker," Francis said from the side of his mouth, his comment directed at Remy.

"You know me," Remy responded with a shrug.

Francis nodded, rolling his eyes.

"Where will you go?" Remy asked Armaros, who had already started to turn away from them.

"Perhaps it is better that you don't know," the fallen angel said, carrying the sleeping orphans farther into the darkness. "Perhaps it's time for the Chimerian to again become lost to the world."

To be swallowed up by the gloom.

FOURTEEN

Remy returned to the cottage in Maine, not really sure why; it seemed as good a place as any at the moment. He wasn't ready to resume his life, to pick up where it had left off with Madeline's passing.

It was all too fresh. He didn't know if there would ever come a time when it wouldn't still be too fresh.

There had been a few inches more of snow, the winter's flailing last attempts to hold on before the inevitable.

He knew the feeling.

Sitting in the wicker chair on the front porch, Marlowe lying beside him, he tried to imagine life without her. She had been his hold on the world, the thing that kept him from becoming like the Grigori, and the others of his heavenly ilk.

She was his soul. And now, with her gone…

Remy tried to think of something else—anything else.

A few days past, as much as he was loath to admit it, the fallen angel Sariel had provided him with something he desperately needed. Something that took him away from his thoughts and pain.

Distraction.

If there was one thing for which he owed the Grigori leader, it was that. He had temporarily taken Remy from his sadness, and he had liked how it felt.

He crossed his legs, pulling the cuff of his jeans down below his ankle, covering the top of his work boot. From the porch he stared out over the driveway, into the dark woods at the snow-covered trees, and beyond.

Staring into the future.

"What?" Marlowe asked, suddenly alerted, following Remy's gaze, probably hoping that his master had seen some food attempting to escape.

The dog scrambled to his feet with a bark, walking to the edge of the porch and sniffing the cool air, just in case.

"Do you see it?" Remy asked, feeling the darkness calling to him.

Wo, "Marlowe grumbled, turning back to him, his thick black tail starting to wag nervously.

Remy smiled, placing both feet on the floor and leaning forward in the chair, hands open to Marlowe.

Marlowe came to him happily, eating up the affection.

"It must've been nothing," he told the dog, allowing the animal to lick his face.

But Remy knew it was there, waiting to take him away.

A diversion from the heartache.

A distraction found in the affairs of angels.