Thomas Sniegoski - In the House of the Wicked

The big man howled in pain, nose gushing blood as he was driven away from the bed. Remy gazed down in horror at Ashley’s mangled body. Bloody bandages littered the bed, and his eyes became transfixed by the vision of her gore-stained midriff.

“What have you done?” he screamed at the man, who sat slumped on the floor, chubby hand clutched to a badly bleeding nose.

“It’s not what you think,” the man cried. “Let me explain.”

But Remy heard none of it, his warrior’s mind already activated. He bounded from the bed and hauled the blubbering man to his feet. If he had been able, the fires of the Seraphim would have already been flowing, eating the man’s flesh inch by inch.

But the fire did not answer his call, so Remy had no choice but to hit the man again and again.

There came a sudden flash, and Remy found himself flying backward over the bed and into the wall beside the door. He lay there breathing heavily, his heart rapidly beating as if shocked by a defibrillator.

“I could cook your flesh to the bone,” the fat man snarled, blood running from his nose to drip from his chin. His hand crackled with supernatural energies, and Remy realized that he was dealing with a magick user.

So be it, he thought, springing to his feet again. He would just have to hit the guy that much harder.

The man fired another blast of destructive energy, but Remy managed to avoid it, throwing his shoulder into the man’s expansive gut and driving him back toward the closet door. He was atop him in seconds, punching him with both fists, until he heard the sound of a door opening behind him.

He paused and turned to see Francis entering the room, arms loaded with shopping bags.

“Why the fuck are you beating the crap out of Angus?” the former Guardian angel asked, setting the bags down on the floor.

“He didn’t give me a chance to explain,” the big man gurgled.

Remy pointed to Ashley’s body as he stood on shaky legs.

“That,” he said, going to the girl who meant so much to him.

“Calm down. It isn’t her,” Francis told him.

“What do you mean, it isn’t her?”

“Look at her,” Francis said. He was helping the fat man to get up.

Remy was on the verge of panic, but he did as his friend told him.

“I don’t think Ashley was made out of clay,” Francis continued. He had given the magick user a handkerchief from his pocket for his bloody face. “But, then again, I didn’t know her as well as you did.”

Remy looked closely at the gaping wound in Ashley’s belly and found himself carefully poking at the damp gray clay.

“She isn’t real,” he said, looking up.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” the fat man said.

“Who are you?” Remy asked, eyes squinting suspiciously.

“This is Angus Heath,” Francis said. “He’s the guy I talked to about your golem situation…which doesn’t seem to be getting any better, by the way.”

Remy looked back to the girl on the bed. “Deacon did this,” he said.

“Deacon?” Angus asked, stepping forward, bloody handkerchief clutched to his face. “You know that for sure?”

Remy nodded. “He’s over there,” he said, gesturing to the air. “His whole estate in some shadow world.”

“I knew he wasn’t dead,” Angus said. “He must’ve transported himself there when we tried to kill him.”

Remy stared at the magick user.

“It was a long time ago,” Angus said quickly. “Algernon Stearns…”

“Stearns,” Remy interrupted. “Deacon wants me to kill Stearns. That’s why he took Ashley.”

Remy stopped short, realization sinking in like a bolt from above.

“If this isn’t her, that means the real Ashley is still there,” Remy said, looking at Francis and Angus. “I have to go back.” He went to the closet. “There was a door here.”

“It’s gone now,” Francis said. “It went away when the goblin left.”

Remy looked at him. “Goblin?” he asked as a hazy memory surfaced of the creature that had saved him from the shadow animal.

“Yep, little guy, bad skin, pointy ears,” Francis explained. “I know it sounds crazy, but a goblin brought the two of you back. Haven’t a clue as to who he was, but he seemed to think there’s some serious trouble brewing in the world and didn’t want to stick around.”

It was a thought that Remy shared-he’d felt that way since he and Francis had helped to avert the Apocalypse.

“It must have something to do with Stearns,” Angus said, looking into his bloody handkerchief as if searching for something he’d lost.

“What about Stearns?” Remy asked.

“You mean besides him trying to kill both of us by sucking out all our life energies?” Francis asked.

That surprised Remy, as well. “Deacon almost did that to me. In fact, it’s left me a bit…depleted.”

The power of Heaven was still somewhere inside of him, but it had gone deep to recover.

To heal.

“I knew there was something different about you,” Francis said. “I thought you might’ve lost some weight.”

“I haven’t quite sorted it all out yet,” Angus started to explain, chubby hand flitting around his head. “But Stearns is up to something…and it’s something that could prove deadly to millions.”

Remy stepped back from the closet door and sat down on the bed. He looked at the body of Ashley’s imposter again. “I need to go back there, to bring the real Ashley home.”

He looked at Francis and the magick user. “This Stearns, he’s a powerful sorcerer?”

“All of the cabal were extremely powerful and-”

“Answer the question,” Remy snapped.

“Yes, he was probably the strongest of us,” Angus said quickly.

“Good answer.” Francis patted the man on the shoulder.

“I think we should pay Algernon Stearns a little visit, then,” Remy said. “A sorcerer that powerful will probably have some idea how I can get back to the shadow place, and I’m guessing we’ll catch his attention with the news that the man he thought he’d killed is still very much alive and looking for a little revenge. And, oh yeah, now has the power of a Seraphim at his disposal.”

“Stearns isn’t a trusting man,” Angus said. “And if he’s in the midst of some master plan, he’ll be on full alert for trouble.”

“I didn’t say it was going to be easy.” Remy stood up and looked to his friend. “Think we might need some accessories.”

Francis nodded ever so slightly.

“And guess what. I think I know where we might be able to find some.”

Armaros stood on the roof of Stearns’ office building, admiring the garden of large satellite dishes that had been constructed there. They resembled a cluster of high-tech mushrooms growing up among a forest of steel, glass, and stone.

The thought made the angel smile, knowing that Sariel would have been amused by his blossoming imagination. To be able to see in something more than the reality of it was not a trait normally associated with the minions of God, but the excessive time spent here among them-among humanity-had allowed the Grigori to evolve some.

And Armaros took much pleasure in flexing this new visionary muscle, imagining the kind of world they were about to usher in. There would be panic and chaos for a time, but in the end it would transform the humans, taking them a place closer to where the Lord wanted them to be.

If there was one thing that the Grigori had learned over the countless millennia, it was that the human animals were stubborn beasts and not so easily swayed. They had to be shown the consequences of their actions, and the more gruesome the presentation, the easier it was for them to listen.