Thomas Sniegoski - Walking In the Midst of Fire

He walked toward the door, but was compelled to stop—to stare at the body of Natalia. The bloody smear on the wall above the bed told him that she was injured, quite possibly even dead, but he needed to know.

The Larva chattered excitedly inside his head, eager to deface the woman’s body in some foul way; but Malatesta remained strong, holding the leash tight.

Natalia lay crumpled upon the floor, her limbs bent in ways that suggested to him bones broken in more than one place. And the way her head hung limply to one side . . .

He believed that she might be dead.

The Vatican sorcerer had begun to utter a special prayer for the dead when he saw the body twitch. For a brief moment he was overjoyed by the idea that he hadn’t killed her, but was still nauseated by what he—the Larva—had been allowed to do.

Compelled to move closer, Malatesta found himself kneeling before the woman, reaching out to lay a comforting hand upon a leg bent disturbingly in the wrong direction.

Natalia’s eyes came open, staring.

He could not contain the gasp that escaped his lips as she began to thrash, hauling herself upright against the bed.

Wanting to tell her to stop before she could injure herself further, Malatesta remained strangely silent, watching entranced as she adjusted herself accordingly, setting limbs and bones straight, the way they should have been.

Natalia saw that he was watching, and laughed.

“I knew the bad angel that Morgan told me about was in there somewhere.” She adjusted her arm, bone grinding against broken bone. “Just give me a minute to heal, baby,” she told him, her lips stained with blood.

“Then we can really have ourselves a party.”

It was as if the building on Newbury Street and Francis were connected on some level. He had lived in the brownstone since its construction back in 1882, and they’d been through quite a bit together, seen a lot of things.

This angelic incursion was just the latest.

Standing silently in the lobby, Francis closed his eyes and reached out, feeling as the building felt, hearing the sounds, smelling the smells both old and new.

The angels had come in from the roof. The magickal wards that Francis had set up so many years ago were signaling the invasion. He doubted that the invaders had even noticed them, and if they had, they hadn’t given them a second thought.

These were angels of Heaven’s war legion, and Francis seriously doubted they gave one lick that they were trespassing.

Which was why he was going to teach them a little lesson on respecting others’ space.

Still standing in the entryway, senses fanning out through the building like a spider’s web, he was able to trace their movements. There were six of them, spread out, investigating every apartment, probably trying to pick up the scent of the general’s stinking body.

Francis opened his eyes, and pulled his knife from inside his suit coat pocket. Squinting from behind his dark-framed glasses, he found a weak point in reality, and swiftly cut a passage that would take him to the first of the home invaders.

The first of his prey.

The angel Montagin looked as though he might burst into tears at any moment.

“We’re dead,” he whined, as he nibbled on a fingernail. “Might as well just accept our fate.”

“I’m not accepting anything,” Squire said. “What I am gonna do is what Francis asked me to.”

The angel watched him.

“You’re going to hide the body?” he asked. “What’s the use?”

Squire turned at the door. “You have a better plan, Mary? Gonna stand here and wait to be slaughtered? I don’t fucking think so.” Squire stopped, eyeing Heath and Montagin. “Are you coming or not?”

It didn’t take Heath long to make up his mind. “Your plan is better than no plan,” he said, walking as if drunk, still experiencing the effects of the Bone Master’s poisonous bullet.

Squire continued to stare at the angel. “I’m not gonna ask you twice.”

“So what, then?” Montagin asked as he strode over to join them. “We hide Aszrus’ body, and then what of us? Are you going to hide us, too?”

Squire led them down the hall to the living room where the angel general’s corpse was still waiting.

“One thing at a time, Tinkerbell.” Squire stopped in front of the dead angel’s body. “Now help me move this furniture around. I’m gonna need the biggest shadow we can make.”

Taking down an angel of the Lord was all about surprise, and capitalizing on their sheer arrogance. As far as angels were concerned, nobody was as badass as they were.

Francis begged to differ.

He stepped from the rip he’d cut in the stuff of time and space, and quietly darted for a patch of shadow in the upper corridor, just as one of the angel soldiers rounded the corner. The angel was armored, what light there was on the abandoned floor glinting off Heavenly forged metal. In one hand he held a sword, and it glowed as if just pulled from the heart of the sun.

This guy had meanmotherfucker written all over him, but Francis wasn’t fazed in the least. He’d watched a lot of mean motherfuckers cry for their mothers when faced with something meaner than them.

Francis put away his knife and drew his pistol, waiting for the angel to come closer. He stepped from the shadows, striking at the soldier of Heaven. The angel did not even have the opportunity to raise his fiery sword before Francis drove the butt of his weapon into the angel’s forehead.

Wings of chocolate brown flecked with white erupted from behind the warrior of Heaven like a parachute. Perhaps it was to startle his attacker, or maybe to provide a means of escape, but either way, it didn’t work. For Francis stuck to him like glue, hitting him again and again, until the angel crashed to the floor and remained still.

The blood was flowing freely from the fissure that Francis had put in the angel’s forehead, but at least he was still alive. How easy it would have been to slip the knife from inside his pocket and end this being’s life permanently, or fire a single shot from his gun into the unconscious soldier’s heart, or skull.

But that wasn’t what this was all about. Instead, he stifled his urge to kill, and used the knife to cut another passage to his next encounter.

Besides, he didn’t want to have to listen to Remy complain about his use of excessive force.

Montagin watched as the hobgoblin and the sorcerer moved the furniture, using what little sun was coming through the window to create a particularly large patch of shadow.

“Thanks for the help, Precious,” Squire said as he finished moving the recliner.

“You’re welcome,” Montagin responded, before realizing that the little creature was being entirely sarcastic.

He had never encountered one of these hobgoblin creatures before, and now figured it was probably because they had all been slain for their infuriating, antagonistic ways.

At least that was why he would kill one.

“Now, what should we do with this patch of shadow?” the angel asked.

“ We do nothing,” Squire retorted. “But I will use my special gift to open a passage to a place that exists on the other side of all shadows, and remove this particularly fragrant bag of angelic rot from this plane of existence.”

The hobgoblin’s words were like a blow to the heart, but Montagin managed to suppress his anger at the creature’s lack of respect.

“You’re going to put him in the dark,” Montagin said, going to Aszrus’ corpse, and kneeling down beside it.