Thomas Sniegoski - A Hundred Words for Hate

“You shouldn’t have come,” Jon heard Izzy say over the whine of his water-damaged hearing piece.

At least I’ll be with Nathan soon , he thought as he slowly turned, looking into the cold stare of reptilian death.

But then the alligator came to an abrupt stop as the water around them became suddenly hot.

It began to froth, and glow an eerie yellow as something rapidly rose to the surface.

The angel erupted from the swamp in an explosion of blazing light and clouds of steam, his mighty wings flapping powerfully, holding his majestic form above the frothing waters.

Remy scanned his surroundings with the eyes of a warrior, searching out the nearest threat.

He saw Jon bobbing in the water below, an alligator too close. Remy angled his body down toward the water, and reached down to snatch Jon from the water.

A bolt of magickal force struck the metal of his chest plate and he cried out, almost dropping Jon back into the swamp. He quickly recovered, shrugging off the pain and flying toward the stilt house, where he released Jon and turned to face Izzy.

“Get away from my house,” she cried, more and more magickal energy leaking from her body. The sky had begun to rumble; the trees swayed with winds that had begun to pick up. “I’ll bring something worse than Katrina down on your heads,” she spat.

Remy looked at her intensely, furling his powerful wings.

“I don’t want to fight you,” he said.

“I tried to tell her,” Jon said between gasps, but Remy held up a hand, silencing him.

“Look at me,” Remy ordered Izzy. “Really look at me. . . . I know you can feel my intentions. I don’t want to hurt you.”

The magick continued to swirl around her. “I swore I would stop you,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Stop us from what?” Remy asked. “All we want to do is talk to you.”

Izzy held out her hands palms up, showing him the magickal power that swirled there.

“If you’re lying, I’ll make you eat this,” she said with a sneer.

“Deal.” Remy pulled back on his angelic essence with little difficulty, and returned to his very wet but human form.

Jon was looking down at his bare foot.

“I lost my shoe,” he said.

“Maybe one of the gators has it,” Remy said. “Want to go ask?”

This got a laugh from the woman, who was staring at Remy with a tilt of her head.

“There’s something about you,” she told him.

“I’ve heard that,” Remy joked.

“No,” she said seriously. “There’s something familiar about you . . . something that I trust.”

“And that’s a good thing,” Remy said.

“Yeah,” she agreed with a nod, pulling open the screen door and gesturing for them to follow her inside.

“If it wasn’t, the two of you would be dead right now.”

Steven Mulvehill tried to reach Remy again, and again he got nothing.

“Son of a bitch,” he hissed beneath his breath, sliding the phone back inside his jacket pocket.

“He did this,” Fernita said, waving a rubber-gloved finger at the writing upon the wall. “He did this to protect me.”

This whole situation was going from bad to worse. He thought it was crazy enough that angels were trying to kill her; now she was telling him that somebody wrote on her walls to keep her safe. God bless Remy and his weird shit.

“Who did, Fernita?” Mulvehill asked with a sigh.

“Pearly,” she screamed. “My husband . . . Pearly Gates.”

Her expression changed from one of anger to one of complete surprise, as she slowly raised a shaking hand to her gaping mouth.

“What is it?” Mulvehill asked. “Are you all right?”

“My husband,” she repeated. “He was my husband. . . . I forgot that too.”

She began to rock from side to side and Mulvehill moved to put a comforting arm around her shoulder.

“It’s all right,” he said, his compassionate side making a surprise appearance. “I think you’re probably just a little confused right now,” he told her. “Why would your husband want to make you forget him?”

Mulvehill would have loved to forget his marriage and the subsequent divorce, but that was another story entirely.

“He didn’t do it to be mean,” she said, sniffling. “He did it to protect me. He did it to hide me away from it.”

“From the angel that was trying to kill you?”

“Yes,” she said. “If I couldn’t remember who I was, then it couldn’t find me.” She tentatively looked back to the wall she’d been cleaning. “I’m afraid,” she said.

“You don’t need to be afraid,” Mulvehill told her. “I’m here with you.”

“I’m afraid of what else I might’ve forgotten.”

At first Steven thought it was a plane he heard flying overhead, low and rumbling.

And getting louder.

Closer.

And then the air itself seemed suddenly charged. He felt as though bugs were crawling on the back of his neck, and he quickly reached up to make sure that wasn’t true. There were no bugs on his neck, but the hair was standing on end.

Every instinct he’d developed in his twenty years as a homicide cop was screaming.

Screaming for him to get the hell out of there.

The sound from outside was louder, and there was no mistaking that steady, rhythmic beating of the air.

Wings.

“Fernita, we need to get out of here,” he urged, gazing up at the patterns on the water-stained ceiling.

“I can’t go,” Fernita said, spinning around to return to her work. “I need to see what else I’ve forgotten. . . . I need to remember.”

Mulvehill’s senses were shrieking.

“No, we’re leaving.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her along as he headed toward the door.

She struggled for a moment, but then noticed the sound also.

“Oh, no,” she said, her voice a fear-filled whisper. “Is it him?”

“Let’s hope it’s not,” Mulvehill said, hauling her through the rubbish-strewn living room and down the the hallway. At the end, he quickly turned the knob, opening the front door.

“Miles,” she said.

“Who?” Mulvehill asked, and then he saw the large cat crouched in the doorway to the kitchen. Its eyes were huge as it looked all around. Then it suddenly bolted, disappearing with a snap of its bushy black tail.

“He’ll be fine,” Mulvehill told the old woman, pulling her out the door.

Roiling black clouds filled the sky above them as they hurried down the sidewalk to Mulvehill’s car.

“It’s cold out here,” Fernita complained. “I should probably have a coat.”

“I’ve got heat in the car,” Mulvehill told her.

She started to argue, but a sound behind them interrupted her, and they both turned to look back at the house.

Something large fell from the sky, punching an enormous hole through the roof and into the attic.

They could hear the racket of destruction, and Mulvehill knew they didn’t have much time before whatever had just made its grand entrance realized they were no longer in the house. He pulled open the door on the passenger side of his car and practically threw Fernita into the seat, slamming the door shut.

He raced around to the driver’s side, chancing a final look at the house before getting into the car. A piece of furniture—a love seat, or it could have been a couch—flew through the front window to land broken and burning upon the lawn.

Steven Mulvehill got inside his car, turned over the engine, and put it in drive.

Cursing the name of Remy Chandler as he screeched away from the curb.

Malachi had never cared for humanity.

There was just something about them that he despised; maybe it was their basic design. He saw flaws in just about every aspect—soft flesh, easily broken bones, internal workings that would eventually wear down and cease to function.