Thomas Sniegoski - Walking In the Midst of Fire

“Coming?” she asked as she started to climb, wearing only a sports bra and panties.

“Oh, do I have to?” Remy mockingly whined.

Linda laughed, padding up the wooden steps.

Telling Marlowe that Linda and he had some business to attend to met with some minor protests—Linda had been staying with Remy and Marlowe far more often lately, and the Labrador was feeling just the tiniest bit neglected—but the offer of a smoked pig’s ear was just the balm the retriever needed to feel as though he was still loved.

Remy picked up Linda’s discarded wet things as he followed their path to the stairs, finding the bra and panties waiting for him at the top.

“You’re never going to find yourself a good man with these cleanliness issues,” Remy said as he added her underthings to the wet pile, and dumped them in a hamper in the corner of the bedroom.

“Guess you’ll be stuck with me,” she said, propped up on her elbows in bed, a sheet barely covering her naked body.

“Great,” Remy said with a heavy sigh that made the woman laugh. He started to remove his own clothes, also damp from the summer rain, as she watched him from the bed.

“Is it so hard?” he asked her, as he tossed his shirt into the open hamper. “Dirty clothes go in there.”

He shed his sweatpants and underwear, putting them where they now belonged.

“Is that where they go?” Linda asked, wearing an exaggerated, dumbfounded look. “I thought that was the trash barrel.”

Remy shook his head in mock disgust.

“And they said I would be sorry for bringing a mail-order bride over from Blugrovia.”

She started to giggle, the sheet sliding down to reveal her nearly perfect breasts.

“I may not be the most tidy, but I can shine in other ways,” Linda said, holding out a hand and beckoning him to join her in bed, beneath the sheets.

“Shine away,” Remy said, crawling into bed with the woman he loved.

Their lovemaking was passionate, yet gentle. There was a hunger present, each of them attempting to appease the other until the air of the bedroom became filled with the sounds of labored breathing, gentle sighs, and pleasure-filled moans, before falling eventually to contented silence.

Exhausted by the act, Linda swiftly drifted into a deep sleep, Remy’s arm around her body as she snuggled up tightly against him. He lay there in the soothing quiet, listening to the sounds of the city outside.

There came a creaking of the wooden steps, and he lifted his head from the pillow to see Marlowe’s head peak up over the rise.

Remy put a finger to his mouth.

“C’mon,” he told the dog. “But be extra quiet.”

The Labrador contemplated his jump up onto the bed before doing it, seeming to defy gravity for an animal his size as he leapt into the air, before coming down upon the mattress with hardly a ripple.

“Good boy,” Remy whispered, reaching his hand down to pat the dog’s rump as he lay down with a heavy sigh at the foot of the bed.

“Good boy,” Marlowe repeated, licking his chops noisily as he settled in for the night. It wasn’t any more than five minutes before Remy heard the dog’s breathing change as he drifted off into sleep.

Remy lay there for what seemed like hours but was more likely much less than that, staring up at the ceiling, listening to Linda and Marlowe, an odd symphony of heavy breathing, moans, and grunts.

As a creature of Heaven he did not require sleep, and had often used this time of night, when loved ones were embraced in the arms of Morpheus, to escape to a kind of fugue state where he thought about his life, and the events and people that had helped to shape him into the man he was, for better or worse.

And some nights he would just watch TV.

Remy was about to carefully extract himself from bed to go downstairs and see what he might find on-demand that he hadn’t yet seen, when he felt a sudden change in the atmosphere. He knew in that instant that he was no longer the only one awake in the room.

Montagin appeared in the far corner, in front of the hamper, his wings unfolding in the darkness to reveal the angel that had been within their feathered embrace.

Remy leapt up from his bed, feeling his own angelness rising to the surface. He had no idea why Montagin had come, and assumed the worst.

Assumed that he was there to harm him and those that he loved.

Remy’s first thoughts were to the safety of Linda and Marlowe, but he noticed that the two were still deeply asleep, their breathing regular and heavy.

He reached over to brush some hair away from Linda’s peaceful face, as Marlowe snored loudly, certain now that the angel had done something to keep his loved ones in slumber.

“You better have a really good reason for being here,” Remy warned, looking away from his woman to lock Montagin in his fiery gaze.

“I didn’t know what to do,” the angel said, his eyes wide and darting about the room. “It’s terrible.”

“What is it, Montagin?” Remy demanded.

The angel’s eyes seemed to focus upon him, as if remembering where he was and why he had come.

“It’s murder, Remiel,” Montagin spoke, his voice a whisper filled with disbelief.

“General Aszrus has been murdered.”

Heaven

At the Close of the Great War

Remiel stood on the battlefield, the Kingdom of Heaven looming ever so large at his back, the corpses of his fallen brothers strewn upon the ground before him.

The air was heavy with the stink of death, and the taste of blood was bitter in his mouth.

“Stand down, Seraphim,” a voice ordered from behind him.

Remiel spun, his bloodstained sword at the ready in his gold, gauntleted hand.

General Aszrus emerged from a shifting haze that seemed to rise up from the bodies of the dead that littered the ground.

“I ordered you to stand down,” he repeated.

Realizing that they’d fought on the same side, Remiel lowered his blade, turning back to the carnage for which he had been partially responsible. The sword was suddenly heavy in his hand, and seemed to grow heavier with each passing second.

“It is a sight,” the general said as he moved to stand beside Remiel.

“It is,” Remiel agreed, feeling a bottomless sadness open up at his core.

“But we are victorious,” Aszrus added.

The words were as sharp as a dagger, and Remiel flinched as if struck.

“Victorious?”

“Aye,” the angel general said, with the hint of a crooked smile upon his chiseled features. Remiel studied the figure then, noticing the dried blood that flecked his pale, perfect flesh. “Many of our brothers perished in this great conflict, but so did our enemies.”

“Enemies who were our brothers not so long ago,” Remiel reminded the general.

Aszrus’ gaze intensified.

“Brothers who turned against the Lord God to follow the edicts of the Morningstar,” he said firmly. “Making them brothers no longer.”

Remiel sensed the presence of others and turned to see the last of the general’s men, their haggard faces a reflection of the battle that had been fought. Here were faces of beings once touched by the glory of God, now forever changed by what they had seen, and been forced to do.

“But that is behind us now, soldier,” Aszrus proclaimed, reaching out to lay a heavy hand upon Remiel’s armored shoulder. “Those still faithful to the Morningstar have been routed, and the adversary himself has been captured, and awaits the Almighty’s edict for his treasonous acts.”

Aszrus paused, allowing his supposedly inspirational words to sink in.

“It’s over, brother,” the general added.

Remiel could not take his eyes from the carnage, and the more he looked, the more he saw.