Thomas Sniegoski: In the House of the Wicked

“You’re sure that you can live with that?” he asked, just to be sure.

“Yeah,” Ashley said. “I don’t think it’s going to be easy at first, and will probably take a while…but I think I’m going to be all right.”

It was good to know.

“And us?” Remy asked.

She stared at him intensely, studying his face as if seeing him for the very first time.

“I think we’re going to be okay, too,” she told him, a sly smile starting to form before disappearing entirely. “Especially after I collect my winnings.”

They had a good laugh then, until Remy remembered her parents. They were probably still worried sick.

“Have you been in touch with your mother and father yet?” he asked.

“Not yet,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Do you think they could handle the truth?” Remy asked.

She shook her head vigorously. “No way,” she said. “I think they both have a difficult time with the way the world is currently, never mind adding this other business.”

“What are you going to tell them?”

“How about that I freaked out…that I needed to get away…that I wasn’t ready for the whole college-and-adulthood thing.”

Remy made a face. What Ashley was planning on selling to her folks and the authorities that were looking for her was ridiculously thin.

“They found blood in your car,” he said.

She shrugged. “I cut myself.”

“Do you seriously think they’re going to buy it?” Remy asked.

“I’m not going to give them a choice,” Ashley said firmly, rising to her feet as she took Francis’ phone from her pocket.

“And, besides, what I’m giving them is more believable than the truth.”

The city was still pretty much in turmoil, even spreading as far as West Roxbury, where Remy had gone to pick up his car from where he’d left it in front of Saint Augustine’s Church.

He didn’t see the old ladies there holding vigil, and he wondered if maybe they’d somehow ceased to be with the death of the Grigori Garfial. It might be something he should look into at a later date, just to be sure. He didn’t want the angel scientist’s lab falling into the wrong hands.

The ride home was a little hairy, lots of streets still closed off, but he managed to get to the Hill in a roundabout way and had even managed to find parking on Pinckney Street.

He’d used Francis’ phone to call Linda before leaving, his phone having been incinerated when he’d gone nova in the expanding eye of the shadow storm. She was excited to hear from him and equally excited to hear that Ashley was safe and sound. Before hanging up, she’d asked him if he’d seen the news, if he knew what had gone on in the city today, and he told her that he’d caught it in bits and pieces and that it all sounded pretty crazy.

Linda said that it was beyond scary, and for him to hurry home, that she would be waiting for him at his place.

Remy let himself into his building, stepping into the foyer to find his door wide open.

“Hello?” he called out, moving toward the opening cautiously. After what he’d just gone through in the past twenty-four hours, cautiously was just the way to go.

From inside he heard the sound of toenails scrabbling across the hardwood floor, and Marlowe bounded out to greet him.

“Hey, buddy,” Remy said, bending down to wrap his arms around the dog’s thick Labrador neck. “How’s my good boy?”

“Talk again?” Marlowe asked, between furious licks of his face.

“Yeah, I can talk to you again,” Remy answered him. “And it feels good.”

“Missed talking,” Marlowe said, giving him his paw.

“And I missed talking to you,” Remy said, giving it a shake. “This is a new trick. Who taught you this?” As if he didn’t know.

“Linda,” the dog barked.

“Thought so. What else has she taught you?”

The dog then proceeded to get down on the floor and place his face between his paws, looking up at him pathetically.

“What’s that?” Remy asked.

“Sad face,” Marlowe answered, springing to his feet, tail wagging.

“And what does that get you?” Remy asked him.

“Treats!” the black Labrador barked happily.

“I think you’re also learning to play Linda like a fiddle,” he said, sticking his head into the apartment to see if she was inside. Finding it empty, he figured she must’ve been up on the roof.

“No fiddle,” Marlowe explained. “Shake and sad face. No fiddle.”

“Got it,” Remy said. “Is Linda on the roof?” he asked the dog, already starting up.

The dog told him she was and joined him on the stairs, practically running him off the steps in order to get up to the rooftop of the brownstone first.

The dog barked his excitement as he bounded out onto the top floor of the building, announcing his and Remy’s arrival. He could hear Linda telling him to calm down, and smell what he believed to be swordfish steaks wafting from the grill.

“Hey,” she said, putting the grill cover back down and coming to greet him in the entryway with a kiss. “It’s good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back,” he told her, returning her kiss and putting his arms around her thin waist to hug her. Touching her, he realized how much he needed this at the moment and didn’t want to let her go, fearing that he might be pulled from the rooftop, sucked up into a swirling vortex that had appeared in the sky.

“Hungry?”

Remy looked from the nighttime sky, where a swirling hole between dimensions had not appeared, and turned his attention to Linda.

“Starved,” he told her.

“Excellent,” she said, pulling from his embrace to return to the grill. “The swordfish should just about be done. Why don’t you open that bottle of Chardonnay for me and pour yourself a whiskey, and we should be ready to eat.”

He heard a crunching sound and looked to see that Marlowe was lying down and happily gnawing on a giant-sized pig’s ear; the ultimate treat when it came to the Labrador.

“Seems as though everybody is eating good tonight,” he said, opening the bottle of wine as he watched Linda take the steaks from the grill and place them on a plate.

All so perfectly normal.

They sat down and ate their meal at the patio table, enjoying each other’s company.

All so perfectly normal.

After they had finished, they took their drinks to the rooftop’s edge, looking out over the sparkling city, the shape of the darkened Hermes Building sticking up among the lights like a jagged spike of darkness.

All so perfectly normal.

And, in reality, as far from the truth as it could possibly be.

“It feels different now,” Linda said as he held her.

She had told him everything that had happened in the city as they ate, about the little girl’s message and how some of the people who had been listening had somehow been stricken dead, about the explosion on the rooftop of the Hermes Building, and the strange atmospheric phenomenon that nobody could explain that had appeared in the sky.

And of the sighting of what some people were saying was an angel just before the thing in the sky disappeared in a flash of light.

He remained silent as she told him everything, holding her tighter as he felt her shiver in his arms.

“Some people are saying that it’s the beginning of the end of the world,” she told him, and he was certain that she wanted to be reassured by him that this was all crazy talk, that there was a rational explanation for every one of the strange incidents that had happened today.

But Remy said nothing, choosing instead to continue to hold her, hoping that this gave her some sense of security.

“Just tell me that everything is going to be all right,” she asked of him then.