Thomas Sniegoski - A Hundred Words for Hate

Taking one last puff from the cigarette in his mouth, the homicide cop shoved the smoldering remains into the open ashtray, which resembled a kind of cigarette cemetery, the butts sticking up like tombstones.

Leaning over in the driver’s seat, he looked out the passenger window at the house across from him.

He’d received his friend’s message after a particularly grueling day on a Charlestown double homicide with no witnesses, or at least that was what they were saying. The folks of that particular Boston neighborhood had their own ideas on justice and how to handle things. He’d seriously considered ignoring Remy’s text, but realized that his alternative—at least three hours of paperwork—wasn’t any more attractive.

Remy had talked about this Fernita Green and what a hot shit she was a few times, and Steven had even said that he would get a kick out of meeting her, but the real reason he didn’t say no was because of who was asking the favor.

How could somebody say no to an angel of Heaven?

It sounded fucking stupid even as he thought it, but there was some semblance of truth even with the stupidity.

To most, Remy Chandler was just a guy, a relatively good-looking middle-aged private investigator. Nothing more than that.

But Steven knew otherwise.

He knew some of the details: that Remy had left Heaven after some war, fed up with all the bullshit that was going down as a result of the conflict, and ended up here. He’d been hanging around Earth for a really long time, eventually becoming a private eye, falling in love with an amazing woman, and losing her to cancer.

Mulvehill was sure there was more, all kinds of details connected to what Remy actually was, and the reality of the kind of world in which Steven was living where a warrior angel every so often had to deal with a situation like the impending Apocalypse, or that the Devil was taking control of Hell again.

Yeah, weird shit happened, but it was the kind of shit that Mulvehill would rather not know about. Just being privy to the knowledge that Remy wasn’t really human was more than he cared to know, a peek into a reality that, because of his friendship with Remy, he now knew existed, and wished that he didn’t.

The pair had a rule when they were together. The weird shit was kept to a minimum. Steven believed that this rule was a good thing, helping to keep Remy grounded in his attempt to be as human as the next guy, and it also prevented Steven from knowing things that he shouldn’t.

Things that weren’t meant for someone like him to know.

So he had driven all the way from Boston to Brockton in rushhour traffic, no mean feat, out of respect for what Remy was, and the things he had done in service to humanity, but mostly he did it because Remy was his closest friend.

And, of course, he’d been promised dinner at the Capital Grille, and a twenty-five-year-old bottle of Macallan.

Score one for the homicide cop!

Steven left the warmth of his car and walked up to the house. It was a nice place, a Dutch Colonial, but it was starting to look a little run-down.

Remy had mentioned that he thought Fernita might be showing the first stages of Alzheimer’s. He could understand why Remy had asked him to check up on the woman. Steven wasn’t entirely sure of the connection between the old woman and the private eye, vaguely recalling something being said about her hiring him to find something that she had lost, but that was all Steven could remember.

He walked up the wooden steps onto the porch and wondered if Fernita knew that he was coming. He had called Remy about an hour ago to ask that very question, but the call hadn’t gone through.

Standing in front of the door, he hoped that Remy had mentioned him in passing to the old gal, so that he was at least vaguely familiar to her. Raising a knuckle, he rapped on the glass panel. Steven waited a little longer, pulling the collar of his winter coat up tighter around his neck, before knocking again. There was still no response, so he leaned into the door, listening, and heard movement from inside.

“Fernita?” he called out, knocking again a little louder. “Hi, I’m Steven Mulvehill . . . Remy Chandler’s friend? He asked me to stop by.”

The sounds inside grew louder, more frantic.

“Fernita?” he called again. “Is everything all right?”

Steven was reaching for the doorknob when the door came suddenly open, and Steven stood face-to-face with an older black woman who could only have been Fernita Green.

“Hi,” he said again. “I’m Steven. . . .”

And then he noticed the look on her face, and the wild glint in her eyes behind her thick glasses—never mind the fact that she was wearing green rubber gloves.

“I don’t have time for this bullshit,” she said furiously. “Everything’s coming together and here I am at the door talking with the likes of you. Get offa my porch or I’ll call the police,” she snarled, ready to slam the door in his face.

Mulvehill was startled. This wasn’t the nice old woman Remy had talked about; this lady was crazy with a capital C.

“I am the police, Fernita,” Mulvehill told her, placing a hand on the door to keep her from closing it. “And Remy Chandler . . . You remember Remy, right? He asked me to stop by . . . to make sure you were . . .”

She abruptly turned her back, leaving the door open as she disappeared inside the house muttering to herself.

Steven had no idea what to do. He stood there for a moment, then took a deep breath and followed her in, carefully shutting the door behind him. “Fernita?” he called out. “Hey, Fernita . . .”

He immediately noticed the stacks of magazines and newspapers just inside the door. Remy had hinted that she was a bit of a hoarder, and from what he could see he had to agree.

“Hello?” he called again, moving tentatively down the hallway, turning slightly to the side to avoid knocking over any piles.

“Remy was worried, and asked me to . . .” Mulvehill came to the archway into the living room and found his voice immediately stolen away.

The amount of stuff . . . Boxes and bags and stacks and piles were everywhere, making it look as though she were packing her things to move, but he knew that wasn’t the case.

He couldn’t see Fernita, but he could hear her.

Mulvehill gingerly stepped into the room, careful not to disturb anything as he searched. He found her in a far corner, on her hands and knees, a bucket of dirty, soapy water beside her. She was using a brush and scrubbing at a section of wall in front of her.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his eyes going to the strange writing in black that she was working hard to erase. Mulvehill stared at the writing, his eyes tracing over the unknown alphabet, certain that he had never seen anything quite like it before, and he felt the hair at the back of his head begin to stand up, and he realized that this wasn’t just a case of him being asked to check in on a potentially sick old woman.

No, this was more than that.

This was one of those other cases . . . the cases that he preferred that Remy not talk about.

It was one of those weird-as-shit cases.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him,” Mulvehill muttered beneath his breath, watching as the old woman continued to furiously scrub at the bizarre writing on the wall.

Desperate to make it go away.

Arkansas, 1932

Fraciel drove the blade of the Enochian dagger through the angel’s heart, closing his eyes as he listened to the final cries of the once-Heavenly creature.

The angel tried to escape him, spreading its powerful wings and flapping wildly in a futile attempt to take flight, but Fraciel held him tight as he twisted the blade, stealing away the angel’s last bit of strength.