Thomas Sniegoski - In the House of the Wicked

He was just about to slip the key attached to a green plastic pine tree into the lock when he sensed it.

Danger.

He hesitated a moment. He was still weak from his encounter at the farm. But, then, even though every preternatural sense screamed in warning, he unlocked and pushed open the door.

A serious sense of menace rolled from the room like a thick fog as he stood in the doorway. The shades were drawn, but his eyes quickly scanned the dimness, searching for the cause of his overwhelming unease. His gaze fell on a shadowy shape sitting in the chair wedged into the corner of the room beside a floor lamp, and watched as the figure reached up to switch on the light, expelling the unknown.

“What took you?” Francis asked. “I almost dozed off.”

Remy forced himself to calm down, even though his senses continued to warn him of danger. He found that odd, for he and the former Guardian angel had been friends for quite a long time. He wondered if it had something to do with the fallen angel’s stay in the Hell dimension known as Tartarus. Something had happened to Francis there. Something he had not yet shared with Remy.

“You got here fast,” Remy said, closing the door behind him. “I appreciate it.” He set his jacket-wrapped bundle on the end of the bed and sat down across from his friend.

“What’s the story?” Francis asked, casually crossing his legs.

The former Guardian angel and part-time assassin was dressed in his usual attire: two-piece suit, dark socks, dress shoes. He looked more like a certified public accountant than a fallen angel of Heaven serving out his sentence on Earth. Francis knew he had made the wrong decision when he chose the Morningstar over God, and had begged for forgiveness from the Almighty. For penance, he wound up as a guard at one of the passages between the hellish Tartarus and Earth.

A job that had come to an end with the return of Lucifer Morningstar.

“Somebody’s taken Ashley,” Remy blurted out, the words stirring the destructive power of Heaven that churned inside him, still waiting for its opportunity.

Francis said nothing, which surprised Remy, but he continued anyway.

“I wasn’t sure at first if it had anything to do with me, but-”

“But it does,” Francis interrupted without emotion. He reached into his suit-coat pocket and removed a pack of cigarettes, tapped it against the side of his hand, and slid one from the package.

“Yeah, it does,” Remy admitted, the very words painful.

“Any idea who’s responsible?” Francis put the pack away and lit the smoke with a metal lighter that he took from another pocket of his suit coat.

“I’ve talked to the guy. He called me with Ashley’s cell phone, but I haven’t a clue as to who he is. Seems to have a hard-on with the notion that I’m an angel.”

Francis puffed on his smoke.

“And how does he know that?”

Remy shrugged. “Maybe from Ashley.”

“But she doesn’t know, unless…”

“No, I haven’t told her,” Remy said quickly, starting to think.

“Never can tell,” Francis said. “Every now and then, you seem to get the urge to unburden yourself.”

Remy wasn’t listening to Francis’ jab; instead he was focusing on the mysterious voice at the other end of his cell phone. He had specifically said that Ashley had told him, but if Ashley didn’t know, then how…

And then he remembered the creature at the farmhouse, seemingly struggling with memories that did not belong to it. Could one of these creatures have taken some of Ashley’s life force, and, in doing so, somehow figured out what Remy was?

There was still so much that he didn’t know, and it made his Seraphim nature want to destroy something. But Remy managed to keep a level head, which reminded him…

He turned on the bed and grabbed the object wrapped in his coat.

“The last time the guy called, he told me go out to an abandoned farm for a meeting,” Remy said as he carefully unwrapped the clay skull.

“What’ve you got there?” Francis finished his smoke, and, not finding an ashtray, pinched the tip and dropped the remains on the carpeted floor.

“I was attacked by these artificial beings,” Remy explained as he showed the skull to his friend. “They appeared to be human, but when they got their hands on me, they began to siphon off my life energies.”

“And this head belongs to one of them?”

“Yeah. Most of them left after nearly draining me dry. This one stayed behind to finish me off.”

“So you were set up,” Francis commented, taking the skull from Remy for a closer look.

“Looks like it.”

“So how do you know that Ashley is still alive?”

“Don’t even think that,” Remy snapped.

“I know it’s tough to hear, but you’ve got to think of this from all the angles. If one of this guy’s creature flunkies tried to kill you-or drain you dry, or whatever the fuck it was doing-then your contact could already have gotten rid of her.”

“No. He wants something from me,” Remy said firmly.

“Then why try to off you?”

“I don’t get it, either. But there was something he said in our last conversation about needing to know that I was actually what he thought I was. Why the need to verify if he just wanted me dead?”

Francis was still holding the skull, but stared at Remy. “You know you’re clutching at straws.”

“It’s all I’ve got right now, which is why I gave you a call. Any idea what that thing is?” Remy nodded toward the skull.

“Some kind of artificial life-form-a homunculus or golem-likely created by a pretty powerful magick user, but that’s all I’ve got to contribute.” Francis hefted the skull. “What the fuck is it made out of, anyway?”

“I think it’s clay.”

“Wonder if it has a brain, or something that functions like one,” Francis mused.

“I have no idea,” Remy answered. “Why would you…”

Francis reached into his jacket pocket to remove what looked to be a glowing scalpel, its blade seemingly made from light.

“Did you get that from…,” Remy began.

“Yeah, took it from Malachi,” Francis said casually. “Right after I put a bullet in his head.”

Malachi had been one of the first angels created by the Lord God and had helped the Creator design many of the forms of life that had first appeared on the earth. The blade was his most prized tool.

“What are you going to do with it?” Remy asked Francis.

“If there’s a brain, or something like it, inside this skull, I’m going to use the scalpel to see what I can find out. You’d be amazed at what an all-purpose tool this is. I can see any memories stored inside there, and, if I want to, I can cut them out. You watch: All the kids will be screaming for one of these this Christmas.”

Francis plunged the blade down into the hardened clay of the cranium and closed his eyes as he took a deep breath. “Oh yeah,” he said. “No brain, per se, but there is information stored here.”

The jaw of the skull suddenly sprang open, and Francis pulled back the scalpel, dropping the skull to the floor.

“Shit,” he exclaimed, as a thick, black smoke billowed from the mouth.

Remy quickly stood, but the smoke didn’t spread. Instead, it formed a writhing cloud in the air before them.

“That’s different,” Francis said.

Remy saw that his friend had put away the scalpel and had now drawn a gun from inside his jacket, a gun that Remy had seen before-a gun that had once belonged to the Morningstar.

“Remy Chandler,” said the gravelly voice that he recognized as the one he had heard over his cell phone.

“I’m here,” Remy said, looking from his friend to the undulating mass of gray.