Thomas Sniegoski - Walking In the Midst of Fire

Remy nodded. “Yes.”

“And what you are.”

He nodded again.

“And what about you?” asked another voice.

Remy looked over to see the older boy, Gareth, strolling down the street toward them.

“Are you afraid of us?”

Remy knew that he couldn’t lie. He couldn’t take the chance.

“Yeah,” he replied. “At least I was.”

Gareth laughed boisterously. “You should be.”

He looked to the children, who laughed along with him.

“But I’m not anymore,” Remy added.

Another boy pushed through the crowd and slowly stepped toward Remy, the flesh of his hands transformed into two blades of solid bone.

“I’d say that’s a big mistake,” he said, slashing at the air.

Remy was ready to defend himself, but was hoping that he wouldn’t have to.

“Stop,” Gareth commanded.

The boy did as he was told, and turned toward his leader.

“Get back,” Gareth said, motioning for the young man to return to the crowd.

The boy hesitated, and Remy saw the potential for a challenge, but then he returned to the group of children, his hands morphing back to normal.

“So you say you’re not afraid of us anymore,” Gareth stated. The son of Aszrus moved closer. “Why is that?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Remy said. “I still think you’re extremely dangerous, and in need of some serious guidance, but a little while ago I saw the good that you’re capable of.”

Remy’s eyes found the little boy who had weakened the demonic spirit that had been attempting to take over Malatesta, but did not single him out, just in case there were repercussions.

“Good?” Gareth questioned. “You saw good?”

He strode toward Remy, stopping with his face mere inches from the angel’s. Remy could feel the raw power emanating from the youth, and wondered at the extent of the teen’s might.

“Do you see any good in me?” he asked, defiantly.

“I don’t want to fight you,” Remy said softly, so that only Gareth could hear. “And I don’t want to see you hurt.”

Gareth backed down slightly, but Remy could see the frustration that burned in his eyes.

“What makes you so different from the rest?”

“Let’s just say I left their company a long time ago and leave it at that,” Remy explained. “But I still understand them well enough to know what they’ll do when they find out that something like you— all of you —exists.”

“We’ll fight them,” Gareth said angrily.

“And you’ll die,” Remy told him as a matter of fact.

“If that’s the way it has to be . . .” Gareth’s voice trailed off. “We’re all supposed to be dead anyway.”

“But it doesn’t have to be like that,” Remy said. “You could live.”

Gareth turned away, walking back to the gathering of children. He could see the anticipation on their faces, eagerly awaiting their leader’s orders to take him down.

Remy continued to stand his ground, hoping Gareth was smarter than that.

“Do you know how much I wanted him to like—to love—me?” Gareth asked.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, another storm on its way to the island.

Remy remained silent.

“At first, when I realized what he was—who he was—all I wanted to do was kill him,” Gareth said through gritted teeth. “But then something started to change inside of me and I realized the connection.”

He stepped toward Remy again.

“I realized that I was part of something . . . someone . . . . I wasn’t alone— we weren’t alone. And for a moment . . . a very brief moment . . . I thought that we were going to be accepted . . . that we were going to be part of a family.”

Remy could hear the pain in the young man’s voice and see the turmoil in his eyes. The poor kid just didn’t understand the kind of creatures he was dealing with.

“But I was no more important to him than a really sharp knife, or a sword. He—they—were going to use us as weapons, to fight some sort of war they suspect is coming.”

Gareth clenched his fists by his sides, and Remy suddenly felt the atmosphere around him begin to change, charged with a power the likes of which he was certain he’d never experienced before. And as if somehow picking up on the power he was broadcasting, the children behind him allowed their own new abilities to jump to life.

“They wanted weapons,” Gareth stated. “Then so be it.”

“They’ll kill each and every one of you without a second thought,” Remy stated flatly.

It looked as though Gareth was going to continue to rouse the crowd, but his speech was cut short by another voice.

“I don’t want to die,” said a small voice from within the gathering, and Remy watched as the little boy who had weakened the demon inside Malatesta pushed his way through the crowd, stopping before his leader.

“I don’t want to die,” he told Gareth again.

“You might not have a choice.”

“But he says we don’t have to.” The child pointed at Remy.

And before Gareth could reply, Remy jumped in. “That’s true. With his help,” he pointed to Malatesta. “We could take you from the island to somewhere you’d be safe and cared for.”

Remy glanced over to the sorcerer.

“The people who raised me—taught me—could do the same for you,” Malatesta said, taking his cue.

“Personally, I think it’s a whole lot better than dying,” Remy added.

Gareth looked as though he was about to reiterate his defiance, when the child spoke again.

“We did just get our gifts,” he said, holding his dirty hands up before his face. “It would be pretty sad for them to go away when we died.”

Gareth looked out over the crowd of children. It wasn’t hard to see that they were looking for some sort of guidance, and would follow whatever he decided.

The teen glanced back at Remy, and the angel could see there was still a struggle going on behind his eyes.

“What do we have to do?” he finally asked, forcing the words from his mouth.

Rome

Patriarch Adolfi lay beneath the covers in a restless slumber.

As one of the leaders of the Keepers, he was made privy to more than any man should know, the unnatural just as much a part of his day-to-day as the normal.

Of late the unnatural was all he knew, for the fate of the world was dangling precariously at the edge of the abyss.

Tonight, as he had during many recent nights, the old priest dreamed of the end of the world. He saw the planet’s greatest cities crumble, its citizenry swept up in waves of fire, and above it all God’s winged messengers waged war with nary a thought for the innocent dying in the streets below.

Above the clashing swords of fire that rained hungry sparks down upon Earth and its inhabitants, who cowered in fear, Adolfi saw the shape of Heaven in all its glory.

And then he saw it was in ruin.

The old man awoke with a gasp, clutching his pillow in the dark and realizing that he had been crying. The images of the Celestial City floating dead in the sky above a dying world filled him with such terror and sadness.

The patriarch knew that it would be impossible to sleep anymore, and pushed himself up into a sitting position—to find that he was not alone.

Adolfi gasped, throwing his frail body back against the heavy oaken headboard, a cry poised upon his lips.

“Good morning, Adolfi,” the intruder said calmly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

The intruder sat in the patriarch’s favorite reading chair, beside the window that looked out onto the garden. Three others, who wore the shadows of the room like cloaks, stood to the side and behind the chair.

It was then that Adolfi realized that he knew this one, although it had been many, many years since last he’d seen him.