Thomas Sniegoski: In the House of the Wicked

“Hold on!” Steven cried, taking his gun from his jacket pocket. He doubted that she could even hear him, deafened by the iPod and her terror. He ran to her side, holding his pistol at the ready, and she began to scream as she saw him.

His gaze fell on the pool of darkness from where the limb-the tentacle? — originated. He didn’t want to fire the weapon too close to the woman, so he decided to shoot where the limb came from.

Taking aim, he fired at the base of the black arm, one shot right after another hitting his target.

And the terrible limb reacted.

The tentacle recoiled, releasing the woman from its grasp and withdrawing into the pool of shadow on the wall.

The woman lay on the floor of the alley, hysterical, and he went to her, helping her to rise.

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” she said over and over again between gasping sobs.

Mulvehill checked her out to be sure she was okay. She had circular bruises along both shapely legs but otherwise seemed unscathed.

There was a sudden explosion of some kind from close by, and he could feel it in the air, a vibration that made the skin of his face tingle and itch. That was followed by screams off in the distance.

“Get out of here,” Mulvehill told the woman, waving his gun around as he turned his attention to the other end of the alley.

He did not watch her leave, feeling the pull of his destination at the end of the alley.

There was no stopping him now; Mulvehill knew exactly where he needed to go.

Where he needed to be.

Like a faithful dog, the power of the divine was coming back to him.

Deacon could not help but smile as he was filled again with the energy Stearns had so desperately coveted. He held Stearns tightly by the shoulders, watching as the divine force the sorcerer had tried to rip from him flowed back into his own body.

He allowed wings of flame to unfurl, reveling in the rush of cosmic energies that made him feel like the next-best thing to the Creator Himself.

“What was that, Algernon?” Deacon asked the man who had started to wither and age in his grasp. “What was that about taking away what’s mine?”

“Please,” Stearns gasped as a bloody tooth fell from blackened gums to dribble on a string of spit to the floor. “Leave me with something…just a taste.”

Deacon threw his head back and laughed, catching sight of the rip in the fabric of reality swirling above his head. Is that getting larger? he wondered offhandedly.

“I gave the power to you, Algernon.” Deacon turned his attention back to what was left of the sorcerer. “A gift…but you were too weak to contain it.”

“Please,” the old man begged, the flesh on his face sagging.

Deacon had never felt so strong.

“Please?” Deacon repeated, giving the man a violent shake. “If I had begged for my wife’s life…or mercy for my little boy, would you and your cabal have granted it?”

Stearns looked away, his eyes closing.

“I thought not,” Deacon said. “All those years I spent in the shadow place…all those lonely, lonely years…it led me here…led me to this very special moment.” He gave Stearns another shake.

“Do you hear me…old man?” he asked with joy.

Stearns’ eyes flickered open, hooded at first but growing wider by the second.

“Yes, that’s it,” Deacon urged. “Wake up for me…wake up for that special moment when I take it all from you.”

He was about to flex the full extent of his power, to allow the fires of the Seraphim to surge through his body, down into his hands, to incinerate the sorcerer to cinder and ash. Until he realized that Stearns’ milky gaze was focused not on him, but on something somewhere beyond him.

And his mortal enemy was smiling.

Deacon began to turn but was not fast enough.

Two daggers of metal entered the resurrected flesh of his back, just below his beautiful wings of fire.

There was a whisper in his ear.

“I believe you have something that belongs to me.”

And the fires of the Seraphim surged to greet Remy Chandler.

The power of Heaven flowed through Remy’s hands as he gripped the hilts of the murderous blades.

He screamed as the power entered him, its home for countless centuries.

But its dwelling had changed, and the divine fire of Heaven wondered if this receptacle for its glory would be strong enough to contain it.

Remy sensed its hesitation and urged it forward, even though his body burned with its heat and the scent of his singed flesh filled the air.

“Come into me,” Remy cried out, his voice rough and choked with smoke. “Come into me and be at home.”

And the power did, rushing in to fill the void that had been left by its passing.

Filling Remy close to bursting.

Deacon felt his body grow weaker.

The muscles in his back shriveled and he slid off the dagger’s blades, dropping to his knees on the broken ground. Then he pitched forward, lying on his belly, desperately holding on to what little life energies he had remaining, and was shocked to find himself staring into the equally desiccated face of his rival.

Deacon did not know if his adversary was dead or alive until he saw the sorcerer’s shoulder twitch and his arm begin to move. Fingers splayed, Stearns weakly extended his arm, reaching for Deacon.

Reaching for his face.

Too weak to move, Deacon could only watch in horror as his enemy’s hand grew closer, horrible puckered mouths, like multiple versions of his grandfather’s toothless mouth, hungrily descending.

Deacon wanted to scream but he did not have it within him to do so.

Stearns’ hand fell upon him and the mouths greedily began to feed on what precious little he had left.

And suddenly Deacon found himself transported to another place.

It took him but a second to realize when and where he was.

It was August 6, 1945, and he was standing in the center of a road that led to Hiroshima.

He looked up to the sky, closing his eyes, waiting.

There came a flash so bright that he could see it, even though his eyes were still closed.

And a sound followed that could have been the sound of Creation.

But he knew, in fact, it was the sound of the end.

Remy felt as though he’d been born again.

The Seraphim was whole once more- he was whole once more.

But something was wrong.

Remy’s body swelled with power, his every muscle burning, throwing off waves of intense heat. He tried to rein it in, to calm its fury, but something stirred it to action, and suddenly he knew the cause.

The golem child-Angelina-had filled him with the power of life, and this was what the holy fire was feeding on. The fires were stoked too high.

The sustenance of life was the most splendid and delicious of energies, and he was drunk on its potential. Remy struggled to focus, but he was high on the power that coursed through him.

He needed to do something, to find a way to alleviate this dangerous overflow. His gaze moved across the blighted rooftop before him, falling on the most horrific of sights.

The nearly skeletal Algernon Stearns lay atop the body of Konrad Deacon, feeding on what residual life force still remained within his enemy’s withered corpse.

As if sensing the power in Remy’s stare, Stearns raised his gaze to him.

There was hunger in the old sorcerer’s eyes.

And this time, Remy was happy to oblige him.

He surged upward with a single flap of his powerful wings, dropping down in front of the cadaverous figure. Fear had momentarily surpassed hunger as Stearns looked at him, but that was quickly dispersed as Remy moved closer and extended his hand.

It was like dangling a bloody piece of meat before a hungry dog. At first there was some wariness, and then all sense of caution was jettisoned as the hunger got the better of him and Stearns reached up, wrapping his fingers around Remy’s hand.