Thomas Sniegoski - Walking In the Midst of Fire

“Oh, don’t make me threaten you, too,” Francis said, aiming his gun at Heath.

“He attacked me,” Heath proclaimed, swaying unsteadily on stumpy bare feet.

“I used the bathroom to wash my hands,” Montagin said, rising to his knees, his wings slowly fanning away the excess magickal power that had engulfed him.

“I didn’t know who you were,” Heath explained.

“Montagin, Angus Heath,” Francis said. “Angus Heath, Montagin. We all BFFs now?”

Squire appeared in the doorway. “Is it safe?” the hobgoblin asked.

“Yeah, everything’s just hunky-dory,” Francis said, putting his gun away. “Think we might be able to—”

The building shook.

“It wasn’t me,” Heath immediately responded, covering his ass.

Montagin was staring at Francis. Clearly the angel felt it, too—that certain feeling in the air when they were around.

“What the fuck now?” Squire grumbled.

“Angels,” Francis said, already on his way from the room. “We’ve just been fucking invaded.”

Constantin Malatesta wore two masks.

The woman who had brought him to the small apartment, off a winding hall away from the main lobby, stood above him as he sat, her eyes fixed upon him hungrily.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked. She’d told him that her name was Natalia, and that she had heard things about him.

Things that she wanted to experience for herself.

He didn’t know what to do; any slight deviation in his concentration could cause the spell that allowed him to masquerade as the angel general to slip, and where would he—and Remy Chandler for that matter—be then?

“A drink? Drugs? Something stronger?” Natalia asked. She had already taken his goblet and was holding it in her hands, suggestively running them along the shaft of the golden cup.

Malatesta didn’t even want to look at her, for it made his thoughts go places that he would rather they not—for the sake of the glamour spell that he wore, as well as the mask of sanity that had been his for these many years, since being indoctrinated into the ways of the Keepers.

Two masks that could potentially fall away if . . .

Natalia tossed the goblet aside and dropped to her knees in front of him.

“Or we could just begin with this,” she suggested, leaning into him, resting her arms on his legs as he sat. One of her hands began to wander in the direction of his crotch.

Panic—sheer, electric panic—shot through him.

Malatesta suddenly stood, nearly knocking the woman over.

Natalia appeared shocked, but then began to laugh.

“I know Morgan is your usual, but there’s no need to be shy,” she told him with a throaty chuckle.

Not knowing what to do, he fixed his gaze upon the golden goblet lying there, and snatched it up from the floor.

“I think I will have something to drink,” he said, just to have something to say, doing everything in his power to maintain his masquerade.

“You go right ahead,” she told him. “We’ll have many hours to get used to one another . . . many hours to play.”

He felt his heart begin to hammer in his chest as he approached the bar cabinet in the corner of the room. Letting his eyes wander over the multitude of bottles, he settled on what he thought was whiskey, and poured himself a full cup.

It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult; he’d been trained for years by the Keepers to keep these dangerous feelings in check.

To keep the Larva locked away.

Malatesta had been sixteen when first approached by the Keepers. At that time he was imprisoned in a boy’s reformatory for crimes of sexual deviancy against the women of his village. Constantin had been told by the village priest that he had a devil living inside of him, for he had been born out of wedlock, and on the Sabbath. Malatesta would struggle with that evil spirit infestation for as long as he was alive, the priest had said. In moments of lucidity, he would pray that he would be kept locked away for his own good, and for the good of the world. Nobody, especially those of the female persuasion, would be safe if he was allowed to roam free.

But his condition did not cause the Keepers concern; in fact, they had sought him out because of it.

Malatesta stiffened, spilling the contents of his goblet as the woman came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest.

“I didn’t figure you for shy,” Natalia said into his back, her eager hands caressing his chest and stomach.

He began to find himself aroused, and with that, so was the Larva—the evil spirit locked away inside him.

The Keepers believed he was perfect for their cause, a lost soul already infected by the blight of the supernatural—these were the types that they were looking for: those already inclined to the ways of the weird. And they had been right. Once they secured his release from the reformatory, they brought him to a secret monastery where his training began in earnest.

But first they showed him how to keep the monster inside him in check, and for many years, other than the occasional backslide when he was younger, foolish, and overconfident, he had done just that, and had continued to do so while serving his Vatican masters.

Until now.

The Larva was fully awake, clawing at his insides, demanding to be paid attention to. Malatesta fought to remember all that he had been taught, every last bit of the minutiae he had been shown to control the filthy spirit that resided within him.

Natalia’s hands were all over him, traveling down to the forbidden place that grew hard as she teased him. It was like ringing a dinner bell for the damnable fiend inside him.

Using all the strength he could muster, Malatesta held on to the beast, but in doing so felt the glamour spell begin to slip.

And he could not allow that.

Malatesta abandoned his drink, spinning himself around to face the woman who gazed at him longingly. The spirit was there, taking full advantage of this weakness. It grabbed Natalia by the shoulders in a grip surely meant to hurt.

The woman gasped as he squeezed, the monster inside him wanting to turn the flesh and bone in his grasp to a red pulp that would ooze from between his fingers.

Constantin was expecting her to cry out; the look in her eyes was one of shock and awe. The Larva liked that. It would feed off of her fear, but slowly. It had been a very long time since it had fed, and it wanted to take full advantage of the meal that was being presented.

Her mouth opened, and he prepared himself for the inevitable screams, but surprisingly, they did not come.

“That’s it,” Natalia said, her face flushed from the pain he was inflicting. “Show me what you can do. . . . Show me what you like.”

Malatesta was shocked by the words, but the spirit—the spirit had just been given the main course. He was nauseated by its excitement, its unbridled enthusiasm, as it tore free of any restraint that he had managed to maintain.

Though he wanted to look away, he couldn’t. His eyes—now the demon’s eyes—were locked upon their prey. Malatesta wanted to say that he was sorry, and that he would pray for her soul when the atrocity was complete, but the Larva refused to let him as it picked the woman up from the floor and savagely threw her across the room, where she struck a high part of the wall, leaving behind a bloody impression before dropping to the bed, and rolling onto the floor.

Malatesta wanted to cry out his sorrow, but the Larva had taken that away as well, replacing it with a hysterical laugh.

Temporarily sated, he was able to restrain the beast, to use the mental constraints taught to him by the Keepers to wrestle the beast into submission.

Malatesta leaned upon the bar, breathing heavily from the exertion of keeping the monster from emerging again while also maintaining the glamour. He thought about leaving the room and finding Remy Chandler before his act was discovered, and they were all put in jeopardy.