Thomas Sniegoski - Walking In the Midst of Fire

The ghosts fought him at first, having been tormented for so long, bound to the island. But Remy showed them the light, and what it would mean if they let go.

And as he’d hoped, the spirits calmed, soothed by his message of eternal rest. Their torture would end. They would at last know peace, their ghostly energies finally able to travel on to join the stuff of the cosmos.

The stuff of creation.

“What’s he doing to my ghosts?” Remy heard Kitty cry from somewhere far away. Before he could react, he was struck by a bolt of energy that picked him up from the ground and tossed him against the side of a building.

The ghosts were in a panic once more.

Remy crawled to his knees, raising his head, certain that he wasn’t going to like what he was about to see.

And he was right.

Kitty had been joined by some of her brothers and sisters.

They were of various ages, some a little younger than Kitty, while others looked as though they were in their teens. The angels at Rapture had been busy.

“I don’t . . . ,” Remy started again, wanting them to know that he wasn’t there to hurt them. But his words fell upon deaf ears.

One of the young teens approached him, a smile on his dirty, pimply face. His hands were outstretched, and from the tips of his fingers flowed streams of some kind of bioenergy. It was like being touched with a power cable, and Remy’s body immediately convulsed.

The ghosts were back as well, their number growing by the second, and Remy’s mind became so crowded with horror and misery that he could barely put his own thoughts together enough to stand.

“Please,” he begged. He had no desire to hurt them, but if they kept this going . . .

The wind kicked up, and Remy felt as though he’d been clutched by a giant, elemental hand. He was picked up, his wings flapping uselessly, and tossed back to the ground by the invisible hand of some angry, and powerful godlike being—a godlike being controlled by a fourteen-year-old child in a torn Sex Pistols T-shirt, jeans, and scuffed-up cowboy boots.

Remy was about to plead with them again, but their eager faces told him they were having way too much fun. Instead, he decided he should consider getting the hell out of there before the sadistic brood ended his life for good.

The invisible hand had him again, this time by the legs, and whipped him savagely against the ground. He could hear the children’s excited cheers as he was tossed aside like a rag doll, rolling to a stop in the center of a street now lush with vegetation. He lay there, playing dead, gathering his wits. No matter how badly his warrior nature railed inside him, he would not hurt children, no matter how bloodthirsty they appeared.

They were approaching him. He could hear their feet scuffing across the ground over the wailing of the dead still inside his mind. This was it.

Remy sank his fingers deep into the muddy ground, and willed the fire that churned inside of him forward. It exited his fingertips in an excited rush, pouring into the ground and causing the vegetation and anything else lying within it to explode in bright yellow flames.

The children began to scream, and Remy took to the sky, beating the rain-filled air unmercifully as he flew away from the angry tribe, maneuvering between the abandoned buildings as he sought a place to set down, to rest and gather his thoughts.

He hadn’t been paying attention to the airspace in front of him until it was too late.

The teenage girl hung in the air as if floating in water, her hands held out on either side of her churning with some bizarre mutation of divine fire. As he grew closer, he saw her mouth twist in a grimace of exertion, and as he dropped from the sky in an attempt to escape, she tossed the flaming orbs of hissing fire where he’d just been.

Evading the fireballs, Remy twisted in the air above another street that had succumbed to the elements, and saw another gathering of children.

Almost as if they’d been waiting for him.

The wind picked up suddenly, savagely, and it took all that he had to stay aloft. A wall of air pushed down upon him, and Remy found himself striking the side of another building, his wings beating as hard as they could to keep him airborne as the screaming winds forced him back down to the street.

Twisted by the ferocity of the unnatural air, Remy was slammed down upon his back, the oxygen forced from his lungs in a wheezing explosion. Colors danced before his eyes, and he did everything he could to maintain his consciousness. He could only imagine the fate that awaited him if the children found him helpless.

A piece of pipe lay upon the ground, and Remy reached out to snatch it up. He needed a weapon, and if a sword or gun wasn’t handy, then this would have to do. Willing some more of his inner fire into the body of the makeshift club, he watched as it began to glow.

By the light of the divine fire he saw something that took his breath away.

Malatesta and Prosper were tied to twin posts sticking up from the ground. The fallen angel was unconscious and looked as though he’d been beaten within an inch of his life, while the Vatican magick user, though bloody and bruised, at least was awake.

“I’d ask if you’re all right, but you’d probably tell me to go fuck myself,” Remy said, flaming pipe in hand.

“You’re probably right,” Malatesta answered weakly.

At least the sorcerer was in control again.

“Prosper?” Remy asked, keeping his eyes on the children, who were now coming closer.

“Alive,” Malatesta said. “But just barely.”

The teenage girl dropped down from the sky to land before Remy. Her hands blazed as if dunked in gasoline and lit on fire.

“Anything you can tell me that could help me out?” Remy asked.

“Not that I can think of at the moment,” Malatesta said. “One of them seems to be able to broadcast directly into my head, making it rather difficult to think straight, never mind cast spells.”

“So much for asking for a hand,” Remy said.

He was watching the group, sensing power the likes of which he’d never encountered. Holding the flaming piece of metal out before him, Remy decided that fighting would lead to nothing good, and let the makeshift weapon clatter from his hands to the street.

“I don’t mean any of you harm,” he said, raising his hands in surrender, and allowing his wings to fold upon his back.

The teenage girl just laughed, and threw one of her balls of fire directly into Remy’s chest. It exploded on impact, knocking him backward to the ground where he found that he no longer had the will—or the strength—to rise.

The children gathered around, staring down upon him—some with curiosity and the wonder of youth, others with distrust, fear, and hate.

He wanted to tell them again that he wasn’t like the general, that he wasn’t like Aszrus, but the girl’s fireball had taken away everything he had left.

Suddenly, Remy noticed movement in the gathering and a murmur passed through the crowd. Then they moved aside, allowing another of their number to step forward.

He was an older boy, probably sixteen or so, and in his eyes Remy saw something that scared him.

In the young man’s eyes were anger and defiance.

“He wanted to turn us into weapons,” the young man said as he stared down upon Remy.

“I guess his wish has come true.”

In that bizarre state between waking and unconsciousness, Remy waited until he was able to pull enough of himself together to function again.

But in the cool, soothing darkness, he wasn’t alone.

“You’re really in a fix this time, Mr. Chandler,” said a voice that he missed with every fiber of his being.