Thomas Sniegoski - Walking In the Midst of Fire

“Take it,” were the last words uttered by the magick wielder called Hallow.

And again, Remiel did what was asked of him, taking the golden ring from the burned and crumbling hand as the necromancer’s body fell away, breaking into smoldering pieces that hissed upon the floor.

The ring was like a piece of the harshest winter, yet at the same time it burned in the palm of his hand.

“Where is it?” the Pope demanded. “Give it to me.”

Remiel saw the brother ring adorning the holy man’s finger, as he closed his hand over what had been given to him by his dying enemy.

“Give it to me!” Pope Tyranus roared, extending his spidery hand greedily.

The angel Remiel’s thoughts became suddenly clear, and he understood the magnitude of what had been done to him.

And he became very angry.

Remy placed his hands upon Malatesta, trying to keep the man from hurting himself as he convulsed on the ground.

He could feel the sorcerer’s skin ripple, and saw the bones beneath his face distorting as he attempted to fight the evil that tried to usurp his control. From the looks of it, he wasn’t doing too well.

The disturbing sound of popping joints and the elastic-band snap of tearing tendons filled the space, and all Remy could do was beg the man to fight.

Prosper was suddenly awake and beside Remy, begging the angel to show the man some mercy, and put him down—for his sake, and for the sake of the world.

For a moment Remy actually considered the request.

The demon peered out through the Vatican magick user’s eyes, as he twisted and writhed on the floor, trying to escape the bonds that still held him. And then Remy noticed its gleeful expression change.

“Who is that?” the Larva asked, his struggles intensifying.

Remy turned to see a small shape standing just inside the door. It was one of the children.

“Hey,” Remy said, trying not to scare the youth.

The little boy, who appeared no older than six, shuffled farther into the room, the cuffs of his overly long sweatpants practically covering up his shoes.

“That man has something bad in him,” the child said, squatting down next to Remy, his gaze never leaving the panicking Malatesta.

“Keep him away,” the Larva roared, eagerly trying to get his hands free.

“I can see it,” the child said. “I did when he first got here, too.”

“You can see the bad thing?” Remy asked.

The child nodded. “I can see the good . . . and the bad.”

The child’s eyes seemed to twinkle with an eerie incandescence as he looked at Remy. “You’re a good guy,” he said, smiling. He was missing his two front teeth.

“I like to think so,” Remy replied.

Malatesta’s hand broke free of his bonds then. His fingers were horribly distended, and adorned with razor-sharp claws. He grabbed at the boy, but Remy was faster, grasping the deformed arm of the possessed by the wrist.

“He doesn’t like you,” Remy said to the boy.

“Yeah,” the child said, rubbing a filthy finger beneath his nose. “He knows I can see him hiding inside. . . . He knows what I can do.”

Malatesta started screaming, his body writhing in the throes of agony.

“Get that fucker away from me!” the evil spirit screeched in a voice that was filled with fear.

“What can you do?” Remy asked the little boy, as he struggled to hold Malatesta down.

The little boy looked down at his hands, dirty palms up.

“I can make him so he ain’t so strong,” the child said. He looked up into Remy’s eyes. “It’s my gift, I guess,” he added with a shrug.

It was then that Remy truly saw this child—these children—for what they were, for the potential they had, if they were allowed to survive long enough to show it.

“Would you use your gift to help my friend?” Remy asked.

“No!” the evil entity inside of Malatesta wailed. “No! No! Fucking no!”

“I never done it before,” the little boy said, nervously.

Remy was curious. “Then how do you know . . .”

“We all got something special,” the boy explained. “I just know what I can do.” The child looked at Remy again. “Does that sound crazy?”

Remy shook his head. “Not at all.”

The child smiled, then turned his attention to the man who lay upon the ground, violently twisting and turning. “That’s enough outta you,” he said, and placed his hands on Malatesta’s chest.

Malatesta’s neck stretched, and sharp teeth grew from his mouth as he tried to bite the child. Remy reached out, placing his palm against the man’s fevered brow and shoving his head back.

“Go ahead,” he urged the boy. “Do your thing.”

The child leaned forward upon his hands, looking as though he was going to start to perform CPR. Malatesta’s body went suddenly rigid, as if an electrical current was coursing through it. The Larva’s screams became higher and higher pitched until his mouth remained cavernously open.

Remy heard a sudden buzzing, and a swarm of flies, their bodies fat, shiny, and green, flew out of Malatesta’s gaping mouth. The sorcerer’s body had gone suddenly still, and Remy noticed that it had returned to normal. Malatesta’s eyes were fluttering now, about to open, as if coming up from a very deep sleep.

Remy looked to the boy, who was leaning back on his haunches.

“It’s weaker now,” the child said.

“It appears that way,” Remy said, amazed at what he had just seen.

The child was staring at him again, as if waiting for something.

“You did a very good job,” Remy told him, and the child beamed from ear to ear.

Malatesta awoke. “What . . . what happened?” he stammered. He sounded weak, but did not appear to be fighting the monstrous spirit that lived inside of him.

“This little guy here just saved you,” Remy said, placing his hand upon the boy’s shoulder. “And showed me that we need to do everything we can to help these kids.”

Remy burned away Malatesta’s bonds, and helped him to sit up.

“What can we do?” the sorcerer asked.

“We have to get them away from here—hide them,” Remy said.

“And how do you suppose we do that?”

“We’ll need some help,” Remy said as he fixed Malatesta in a powerful stare.

“That’s where your employer comes in.”

Remy emerged from the building to confront the gang of children who had been left there to guard him and the others. Malatesta and Prosper followed him, propping each other up.

The children leapt to their feet and advanced menacingly toward them, but Remy held his ground.

“I don’t want to fight you,” he said, infusing his voice with the power of Heaven. It boomed, echoing powerfully in the chasms created by the abandoned buildings around them.

“Then you should go back inside,” a teenage boy said, the air around his body shimmering as if with incredible heat.

Remy shook his head. “I’m not going to do that. If I did, I couldn’t help you.”

“You’re going to help us?” the flying girl who’d hit him with one of her fireballs asked with a smirk. “Who said we wanted your help?” She hovered a few feet off the ground, and Remy could see the beginnings of fireballs coalesce in the palms of her hands.

“You’re all in incredible danger,” Remy tried to explain. “There are forces out there, in the world, that will see what you are—what you can do—as an enormous threat.”

The children looked at one another.

“You’re talking about the angels, aren’t you?” the girl who floated in the air asked him. “The angels responsible for us being born.”