Thomas Sniegoski - A Hundred Words for Hate

“There is only one,” the Seraphim spoke.

“For now.”

“Kill it,” the Seraphim said with a smile.

“You know that isn’t possible,” Remy said, making the angel smile all the wider. His teeth were incredibly white, and appeared sharp.

Did I really look like that once? he wondered, transfixed by the sight of his angelic persona, absent of any humanity.

“Weak and pathetic,” the Seraphim stated.

“Yeah,” Remy agreed. “You’re probably right . . . but I’m not sure how even you’d do against the Shaitan.”

“Why are you here?” he asked.

Remy considered his answer a moment, then decided to be as honest as he could. “I’m afraid.”

The Seraphim laughed. “Of course you are.”

“I’m afraid of what Malachi has up his sleeve. I’m afraid that once the Shaitan are born, we won’t be able to put them back in the bottle . . . and everybody . . . everybody . . . will be forced to pay the price.”

“What makes this threat so different from all the others?” the Seraphim asked with genuine curiosity. His wings slowly unfurled, stretched out, and then folded back. “Why don’t you just force me . . . bend me to your will as you always have. Give me a taste of freedom, and then lock me away, deep in the darkness until you need me again.”

“This is different,” Remy said. “We have to be together on this . . . need to be. . . .”

Remy hated to have to admit this, especially to his angelic nature, but it was true. Humanity would not be an asset in dealing with the Shaitan. He remembered what it had done to Zophiel, and it frightened him more than anything.

“We have to be more like we once were.”

The Seraphim’s eyes widened. “How we once were?”

Remy nodded. “It has to be if we are to survive this.”

“And what of your precious humanity?”

“It’ll still be here, but . . .”

“Pushed down in the darkness,” the Seraphim growled, enjoying the words.

“Until—”

“Do you even remember what you were?” the Seraphim interrupted.

He moved fast, dropping directly in front of Remy with a single thrust of his powerful wings. The Seraphim stood before him, studying him, but Remy did not flinch. The angel tore the metal gauntlet from one hand, exposing pale, alabaster flesh and long, delicate fingers.

“I remember,” Remy said, not quite sure what the Seraphim was about to do.

“Do you?” the Seraphim hissed, as he placed his cold fingertips upon Remy’s brow.

And then Remy did remember. But this time, he saw the reality of it all, the true memory no longer dulled by the passage of millennia, no longer softened by the fabrication of his humanity.

He saw.

He saw that he was an instrument of God, an extension of the Creator’s love and rage. He was an extension of the Almighty, as were his brethren. And all was right in the mechanism of the universe . . . until the birth of humanity.

When they were placed within the Garden, things went horribly awry.

The war came not long after that, and his full potential became tapped. No longer was he just a messenger of God; he was transformed by battle into a thing of violence, a thing that channeled the wrath of the Almighty.

And he reveled in it, smiting all who would raise their weapons against his— their —Creator.

How dare they do this? How dare they question His most holy word?

Those he had known as brothers fell beneath his hungry sword, and as each died, a little bit of him died with them.

Stained with the blood of his family, he found that he could no longer be there—no longer bathe in the light of his Lord God.

For the light had dimmed.

Bitter and confused, he left Heaven, hoping to make sense of it—to find some meaning—upon the world that God had fashioned for His favorite, yet disobedient, creations.

It was there that he lost himself, where the separation of what he was and what he would become began.

Yet he still carried all that anger, buried away, festering.

Seething.

Infected and pustulated, covered with a thin bandage of humanity.

He saw.

The Seraphim stepped back, studying him as he pulled the gauntlet back onto his hand.

Remy was shaken; the powerfully raw emotion of what his angelic nature had experienced—was still experiencing—was stunning.

“What do you want me to say?” he gasped, as the Seraphim walked away. “That I can give you answers to your questions? That I can somehow make it like it used to be? I can’t do that . . . it will never be the same.”

Remy paused, feeling the rage as he once had. “There are no answers; it’s just how it is. Everything had lost its meaning until I started to watch them.”

“To become like them,” the Seraphim said with a sneer.

“Yeah,” Remy agreed. “And was that so bad?”

“It is not what you are.”

“No, but it’s what I’ve become.”

The Seraphim stared with an intensity that was nearly palpable. But Remy stared back, refusing to back down.

And suddenly the angel spread his wings, a sword of fire—Zophiel’s flaming sword—appearing in his hand. The armor that adorned it was suddenly dirty, stained maroon with the blood of his memory.

“Look upon me,” the angel commanded, his voice booming like thunder. “Look at what I’ve become.”

The Seraphim was a fearsome sight indeed.

“Right now, this is what I need you to be,” Remy said, walking across the top of the spire toward the Seraphim, and offering his hand.

“You,” the Seraphim snarled, staring at Remy’s hand as if it were covered in filth. “What Eden . . . the Earth . . . and the Creator need you to be . . . What I need to be.”

And with those words the Seraphim turned swiftly, unfurled its wings, and leapt from the spire, gliding down to disappear amid the elaborate structures of the holy City of Light twinkling below.

“Are we ready?”

Remy blinked repeatedly, first seeing the multiple boats and those who manned them in the water below where he stood, before turning his gaze to Jon and Izzy, who stared wide-eyed at him.

“Are you all right?” Jon asked. “You got kind of quiet.”

“I’m fine,” Remy said, remembering— experiencing —the rage of the Seraphim. “We should get going.”

They were standing close together on the porch outside of Izzy’s house, having decided that they were going to Eden.

“We was waitin’ for you,” Izzy said. “You was goin’ to tell me how to get to the Garden when you went all strong-silent-type on us.”

“Sorry,” Remy apologized. “I was just thinking.”

“Well, how about you think me an explanation as to how we’re going to find that place.”

“We need some blood,” Jon said before Remy could reply.

Izzy looked at him as if he had three heads. “I’ll give you blood,” she said, making a fist that crackled with repressed supernatural energy.

“He needs it to track the location,” Jon explained, throwing up his hands in surrender. “If you can sense where Eden is, then he can track it through the magick in your blood.”

She looked at Remy.

“I’m afraid he’s telling the truth.”

“How much blood?” Izzy asked.

“Enough that I can catch a strong scent,” Remy explained.

Izzy shook her head in disgust, reached into the pocket of her jacket—she’d put it on because she could sense that Eden was resting someplace cold—and removed a penknife.

She unsnapped the small blade and let it hover over the index finger of her left hand. “This all right?”

“Should be fine,” Remy answered with nod.

She dug the blade into the center of the finger’s pad, the blood welling up on either side of the blade. “Shit,” she hissed. “Now what?”