Thomas Sniegoski - Where Angels Fear to Tread

“The child?” he asked. “Your concern is for the child?” He started to laugh, a horrible sound that echoed through the night.

“She lives. . for now,” he said, drawing Remy closer. “But soon all that is special inside of her”—he patted his scaled breast—“all of it will reside within me.”

The deity’s smile grew enormous. “And then there won’t be a thing that God, or His winged soldiers, will be able to do to stop me.”

It was Remy’s turn to laugh.

Dagon loosened his grip.

“Did I say something to amuse you, Seraphim?”

Remy’s eyes had been closed, but he slowly opened them to look into Dagon’s angry gaze.

“You amuse me. You’re nothing but a nearly forgotten deity that’s only received a reprieve from oblivion by stumbling onto something that’s given him a taste of power, the likes of which he’s never before tasted,” Remy told him with a sneer. “God eats punks like you for breakfast.”

Dagon laughed sharply.

“Speaking of breakfast,” he said, drawing Remy closer to him, “I’ve never tasted angel before.”

Dagon’s mouth grew incredibly wide.

“Wonder if you’ll taste as good as you smell.”

And he prepared to take a bite.

Delilah opened her eyes to the sound of a child’s screams, and the world had changed.

She looked around, realizing she was not in a place she recognized. Moments before she had been in her home, but now. .

It took her a moment to get her bearings as she tried desperately to recall what had happened and whether she had turned off the oven.

And then she remembered the strange child in her dining room.

“Sam!” she cried out for her husband, her eyes scanning her surroundings for a sign of something— anything —that was familiar.

There was a man standing beside her, and as she looked at him, he began to sob. She recalled suddenly that his name was Mathias, and that he loved her more than anything because she made him that way.

The man was crying as she reached out.

Mathias grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing it over and over again, drenching it with his plaintive tears.

“I want it back,” he said through trembling lips. “Please let it come back to me. . Please. .”

And little by little, bit by bit, Delilah remembered.

She remembered what the truth was.

A powerful rage filled her as she realized she had been manipulated, entranced by a power that had shown her what could be.

A taste —if she were to possess it.

There was a man—not quite a man anymore—with a rather large knife standing over the body of the fallen woman he’d just stabbed. He looked ashamed at what he had done.

The little girl had gone to her mother, pulling her dying form up onto her lap, rocking from side to side and repeating over and over, “ You’re okay, Mommy. Please get up. You’re okay, Mommy. Please get up. You’re okay, Mommy. Please. . ”

Delilah had no idea if the woman would be all right; nor did she care. All she was concerned with at the moment was what was inside that little girl, and how she needed it to give her back a world denied to her.

She sensed a moment at hand; a moment that she must seize with both hands, and throttle the life from, if anything beneficial was going to come from it.

“You,” she said, looking toward the still-crying Mathias.

He responded with red, watery eyes, barely able to contain his emotions.

“You want your fantasy back?” she asked him. “Bring me the girl and we’ll see what can be done about making your dreams come true.”

The expression on his face became rapturous, as if he could never hope to bring what he had experienced back, but she had shown him otherwise.

She had shown him the truth. It could be so.

Mathias went to work, making his move toward the little girl.

“You’re okay, Mommy. Please get up. You’re okay, Mommy. Please get up. You’re okay, Mommy. Please get up. You’re okay, Mommy. . ”

The child’s father seemed to be in a sort of trance, gazing down at his former wife bleeding in the arms of his daughter. It was as if he were trying to make some sort of sense of what had happened.

Of what he had done.

It was obvious the poor soul had yet to understand that he was not in control of himself any longer, that a darker, more malevolent force now controlled his puppet strings.

Mathias saw his objective and went for it, reaching for the child to claim her.

The man became like a thing possessed, lashing out with his knife, slashing across Mathias’ arm.

“You will not touch the child,” the man said with a slow shake of his head, his eyes so dark they looked like dollops of tar hardening in his deep sockets. “She belongs to Dagon.”

Mathias jumped back, the sleeve of his sweat-dampened shirt cut, blood dribbling freely from the gash in his arm. He reached into his back pocket and removed the Swiss Army knife he’d used earlier to pick the lock to the building. He briefly gazed at the tool, selecting what was needed for this particular job and unfolding the five-inch blade.

“It’s not the size of the blade that matters, but how it’s used.” Delilah remembered these words of the many men who had often fought for her over the ages.

“Remember what you saw,” Delilah said aloud to inspire her champion. “It can only be that way if the child is mine.”

The words were just the catalyst required. Mathias sprang like a predatory beast, the small blade darting through the air, finding its prey multiple times, before falling back.

Carl was bleeding from many places as he maneuvered himself between his attacker and the child, who was cradling his dying wife.

Delilah was growing impatient, wishing the two would just kill each other and be done with it as she glared at her prize. She began to move around the men, as they continued their dance of death, moving closer to her objective.

If you want something done right. .

She was close enough to speak to the child.

“Zoe,” Delilah whispered, flexing the power of her voice. “Zoe, I was a friend of your mother’s.”

The child didn’t seem to hear, hugging her mother and kissing her face and the top of her head, telling her over and over she was not dead.

“Zoe,” Delilah said, trying again, flexing her vocal muscle.

This time it worked, and she caught the child’s attention. Zoe looked up, her face flushed scarlet, her eyes swollen with tears.

“Come with me, child,” Delilah said, holding out a hand. “I’ll take you somewhere you’ll be safe.”

And as the words left her, Mathias screamed, lunging at Zoe’s father. The two stumbled backward, crashing into the classroom desks that had been pushed to the side of the room.

The screams were wild, inhuman, like two savage beasts.

Zoe became distracted, staring in terror at the battle being waged across the room from her.

“Zoe,” Delilah demanded, cautiously moving closer.

The child’s attention snapped back to her.

“Take my hand, and everything will be all right,” Delilah said as she willed the child to her.

Zoe looked about to do as Delilah wanted, when the damnable Deryn York fitfully twitched and let out a guttural moan.

Delilah rolled her eyes, furious that the bitch hadn’t yet died.

Zoe’s attention was back upon her mother.

“The specialness says I can fix her,” Zoe said, patting her mother’s hair.

“Perhaps we can,” Delilah said, “but you’re going to need to come with me before. .”

The men thrashed upon the ground in an expanding puddle of gore. Whose blood it was exactly was not known, but Delilah guessed it was likely from them both.