Thomas Sniegoski - Walking In the Midst of Fire

He landed upon an angel named Celiel, who had once boasted that he would tell the Lord God Almighty how wrong He had been about humanity, and if He didn’t like it, he would spit in His eye. Celiel was now quite dead, blackened flesh showing through the gash in his armor that stretched from his neck down through his shoulder.

Rolling from atop the corpse, Puriel realized that he could no longer fly—a large portion of one of his wings having been cut away. He struggled to stand, eyes searching the roiling black smoke for a sign of the one that had struck him from the sky.

He remembered with sorrow how he had stood there, waiting for the inevitable.

Prosper let out a short scream, the glass of bourbon slipping from his hand and falling to the floor. The picture inside his head was as clear as day: an armored warrior of Heaven emerging from the billowing smoke, a sword of fire held tightly with purpose.

How could he ever have forgotten that face? The face of the one who spared him his life allowing him to be imprisoned in Tartarus.

The face of the angel Remiel.

“Son of a bitch,” Prosper growled, leaning over to pick up the glass that he’d dropped. His hand was still shaking, and it took more than one try to finally snatch up the tumbler and place it on the corner of his desk.

Prosper stood, breathing heavily through his nose, attempting to calm himself. It was no wonder that he’d reacted in such a way to the angel.

Grabbing the bottle of bourbon, he began to pour himself another finger’s worth. Maybe I’ll pay the angel a visit myself, he considered, downing the drink in one huge gulp. It would be something special for Remiel to remember his face this time.

The door into his office swung open then, and Prosper turned to see Bobbie coming in.

“Don’t you fucking knock?” he asked, his rage suddenly inflamed. Then he saw that she wasn’t alone, and once again the glass fell from his hand, this time shattering as it hit the floor.

The angel Remiel came into his study.

“I think you and I need to have a little chat,” the angel said.

It took all that Prosper had at that moment not to drop to his knees and pray for his life.

Remy saw Prosper begin a desperate dive for the phone on the corner of his desk, and met him halfway, knocking him to the floor with a solid slap across the face.

“Lock the door,” Remy said to Malatesta, who had entered behind him. “We don’t want anyone interrupting our discussion.”

The magick user stepped away from the door and lifted his hands, muttering beneath his breath as he sealed the door with a spell.

Prosper scrabbled across the floor away from Remy. “Do you have any idea who I am?” he asked. “The forces that I could call down upon your sorry ass?”

“I know, I know,” Remy said, humoring him. “You’re a very important person.” He casually sat on the corner of the desk.

“We can do this one of two ways,” he began. “You can answer all of my questions, truthfully, or you can fight me every inch of the way and I will take a certain amount of pleasure in breaking every bone in your body, starting with your hands.”

Prosper was now standing, moving toward the leather chair behind the desk. “Oh how the mighty have fallen,” he said with an idiot’s grin.

“What are you talking about?” Remy asked, confused.

“Look at you,” Prosper said. “The champion of Heaven, now nothing but a fucking thug. Guess it can happen to the best of us, too.”

Remy wasn’t sure exactly what he was getting at, but he got a sense that it had something to do with the old days.

He chose to ignore the comment, instead asking, “So, what’s it going to be?”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Prosper declared with a cocky smile, leaning back in the chair, as if daring Remy to do something.

At one time Remy would have thought his own reaction troublesome, that the often violent angelic nature that he worked so hard to contain was getting stronger, and perhaps even out of control.

But now he looked at it as something that happened when he needed it to.

His wings were out in an instant, launching him over the desk, where he landed atop Prosper, sending them and the chair upon which they struggled backward onto the floor. His hand was around the fallen angel’s throat.

Prosper was trying to scream, but Remy squeezed tightly, refusing to let anything out except a frightened-sounding squeak.

“You want to be a badass, you do it when the world isn’t on the verge of being burned to a cinder.”

Remy allowed a small amount of the divine fire that was so eager to come out into his hand, burning Prosper’s throat. Then he released his grip, and loomed above the choking fallen angel.

“Now are you ready to talk to me?” he asked.

Prosper looked as though he might continue to fight, but appeared to think better of it when he touched the reddened flesh around his throat.

“Good boy,” Remy said. “Tell me everything you know about this.” He pulled the wrinkled photo from his shirt pocket, and tossed it into Prosper’s lap.

The fallen angel picked it up, staring at it. “Cute,” he said with a smirk just begging to be swatted from his face. “Isn’t that how you’re supposed to react to human offspring?” He tossed the photo at Remy with a flick of his wrist. “I don’t know shit about it.”

Remy’s wing suddenly lashed out to savagely smack Prosper’s hand as he drew it back.

The fallen angel cried out, grasping his injured wrist.

“Fucking hell!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Remy said, feigning compassion. “Reflex action toward douche bags. Didn’t even know I was going to do it.”

He smiled. “Tell me about the picture.”

“I told you,” Prosper began again.

Remy advanced, wings fanned out around him threateningly. “If I have to ask again . . .”

Prosper cradled his arm to his chest, eyeing Remy fearfully. Remy was pretty sure that the fallen angel’s wrist had been broken. There was no better an incentive than broken bones.

Remy sensed movement, and turned to see Bobbie darting toward him. He was about to act, lashing out again with his wings, when she avoided him, heading toward Rapture’s owner.

“I’ll get him to talk,” she said, and that was when Remy noticed the short-bladed knife in her hand.

She was at the fallen angel in an instant, pressing the knife to his throat just beneath his chin.

“Enough of your fucking games, Prosper,” she said, her voice trembling, eyes filled with tears. “Tell us what happened to the babies or I will cut your throat.”

Prosper yelped as she pushed upon the blade, a trickle of scarlet running down his neck to stain the collar of his dress shirt.

“You’re fucking done here,” he told her, snarling. “You’re over.”

“I pretty much figured that out as soon as I saw the picture,” she said. “Tell me about the children.”

“Not a hell’uva lot to tell,” Prosper said with a loud swallow. “What had once been nothing more than an accidental by-product of business suddenly was going to make me some money.”

“A by-product!” she screeched, pushing on the blade, forcing Prosper to lean back. “They were our babies—our children—and you told us they were dead.”

“How else were you going to give them up?” he asked. “The fact that lots of them did die gave me the perfect excuse. The babies died in birth. It was sad, but nobody gave it another thought.”

Prosper made his move then, ducking his head beneath the blade and grabbing Bobbie, twisting the knife from her grasp, and bringing it to her chest.

“Another fucking step, any of you, and I’ll open her up,” he warned.