In the House of the Wicked

CHAPTER TWELVE

The idea of being used as some kind of weapon felt like the point of a spear being jammed into Remy’s belly and slowly twisted.

“You look uncomfortable, Mr. Chandler,” Deacon said.

“I don’t care for the idea of being used,” Remy replied quietly, rearranging his silverware. “In fact, it makes me quite angry.”

Deacon leaned back in his chair, as much as the exoskeleton would allow him. “Would it help if I apologized?” he asked, his tone lacking all sincerity. “I’ll do so if it will clear the air.”

“I doubt it would matter.” Remy could feel his true nature attempting to assert itself, but he forced it back. It wasn’t yet time to call on its talents.

The old man seemed to think about that for a moment. “I guess you’re right,” he said finally. “Abducting the girl does set a bit of a tone.”

The silver knife was cold in Remy’s hand, and he imagined it hot, radiating with the divinity of Heaven.

But his concern was for Ashley. If there was any risk that she could be harmed…

“I took the girl to prove how serious the situation is, Mr. Chandler.” Deacon leaned forward again. “That I would be willing to take the chance of arousing the ire of a being as powerful as yourself to finally get what I have craved for so long.” He paused.

“Revenge, Mr. Chandler,” he continued. “Revenge against those who betrayed me…who harmed my beautiful wife and child…and were responsible for my time here in a land of darkness.”

Teddy jumped up from his seat and crawled across the table, grabbing at the food, tearing off chunks of strangely colored meat and shoving them into his mouth.

Deacon closed his eyes with a sigh, lifting an arm to address one of the golem butlers, but Scrimshaw was already on the move. He dragged the growling child from the table and sat him back in his chair.

“In exchange for Ashley’s safety,” Deacon began again, “I would like you to consider me your god, for the time we are together.”

“Don’t do this,” Remy warned, fire in his eyes.

“And as your god, you will do as I tell you.”

“Don’t,” Remy warned again, his anger nearly blinding.

“You will rain holy vengeance down upon my enemies,” the old man continued, ignoring his guest. “And you will show them no mercy, for you wouldn’t want to upset your god.”

Remy jumped up, sending his chair tumbling backward.

“I warned you,” he said, and he could feel the fire starting to crackle from the tips of his fingers, his wings starting to press against the flesh of his back.

Scrimshaw was suddenly standing behind Ashley’s chair, holding her knife, still stained with the blood of her meal, against her tender throat.

“And I warned you,” Deacon stressed.

The tension in the room was escalating.

“Stand down, Mr. Chandler,” Deacon snarled. “Your god commands you.”

Remy could hold it in no longer. But as his wings exploded from his back and the fires of Heaven swirled around his head, the blaring sound of an alarm distracted everybody in the dining room. Using the distraction, he sprang into the air and, flying across the table, landed in a crouch before the addled Ashley. He lashed out with a wing, swatting at Scrimshaw, sending him crashing across the room.

“I’m getting us out of here,” Remy told Ashley as he pulled her from the chair and into his arms.

Teddy began to howl, tugging on the leash still attached to the collar around Ashley’s neck. Remy yanked the leash from the boy’s grasp, driving the wild child back with a ferocious glare.

Ashley in his arms, Remy was about to take flight when Scrimshaw made his move. Remy hadn’t heard his approach over the clanging alarms, and suddenly the artificial man was on his back, throwing his powerful arms around him, constricting his wings. Remy roared with unbridled fury as the three of them fell atop the table, then crashed to the floor with the dishes.

Remy recovered quickly, wanting to burn the life from this mockery of a man, but Ashley was too close.

Scrimshaw took advantage of that, inhumanly powerful blows striking relentlessly at Remy. The Seraphim spread wide his wings and lashed out at his attacker. Scrimshaw rolled back and away, then leapt to his feet, ready to attack again. But he hesitated.

And Remy saw a smile creep across his face.

The angel began to turn, his senses on full alert, but he wasn’t fast enough.

Steel needles were thrust into his back, just beneath his wings. He cried out, wings flailing, as the metal rods scraped along his rib cage.

But that was nothing in comparison to the pain of the needles being activated. Remy spun around, reaching out for the trailing wires, but the infernal feeding device had already started its work.

He could feel his strength waning as the fury and the fire that was the essence of the Seraphim was drawn from his body. He crashed to the floor as if a rug had been pulled from beneath his feet. He tried to summon the fires of divinity, but all he could produce were small bursts of flame that quickly flickered and died.

Remy could feel himself dying, everything that he was being drained away. He fought to his feet, calling on every ounce of strength he had left, but Scrimshaw was suddenly there, a savage kick sending Remy back to the floor to writhe in the grip of agony.

From where he lay, he could see Deacon, an expression of euphoria on his face as he tasted divinity, even as the old man’s mechanical skeleton began to smoke. The sorcerer had no idea of the power he was playing with. Remy tried to warn him, but Scrimshaw kicked him again.

He rolled onto his side, trying to protect himself, and caught a glimpse of Ashley cowering in the corner of the room, Teddy jumping up and down beside her. Remy didn’t want her to see this, as all that he was was taken into Deacon’s infernal machine.

But it would not go quietly.

It would not go without a fight.

He rose to his knees, his body a quivering mess. Scrimshaw came at him again, but the Seraphim, desperate to live, was now in charge. As Scrimshaw’s foot descended for another kick, Remy lashed out, grabbing the ankle with a twist, and hurled the artificial man away.

Remy stood on shaking legs. His wings, his glorious wings, were fading. Feathers fell to the floor like autumn leaves. He was dying… This man…this sorcerer was killing him. He looked at Deacon, crackling wires still trailing from the external skeleton that he wore over an ancient tuxedo and into Remy’s back.

The Seraphim grabbed at the wires, wrapping them about his fingers. They burned his hands, and the stink of his melting flesh wafted into the air as he savagely pulled. Deacon lurched toward him, but the wires held. With smoldering hands, Remy dragged the sorcerer closer. The old man struggled with surprising strength, trying to plant his feet, but the soles of his black dress shoes were smooth, sliding across the wooden floor.

Remy was weak, weaker than he could ever remember being.

Would this be the time? Would this be what finally ended his existence? This pathetic old man ravenous for revenge. He thought of Francis, what his friend would think, and managed to be embarrassed.

The struggling Deacon was closer. The man appeared younger, his flesh healthy, flushed tight with blood. The mechanical skeleton he wore had started to spark, to whine in protest, for the supernatural energy that filled it was too much.

Too powerful.

Something designed and created by humans was not meant to contain the power of Heaven.

“Is this what it feels like?” Deacon gasped, his voice little more than a breathless whisper above the still blaring alarms. “To be this close to God?”

Remy caught a glimpse of something from the corner of his eye. At first he thought it was the artificial man-Scrimshaw-coming back to help his master, but then he realized who it was who stood in a patch of shadow, and wasn’t surprised at all.

Israfil was there, watching, waiting.

The Angel of Death had come for Remy Chandler.

But Remy wasn’t ready.

He looked away from the death specter and his eyes fell on the cowering form of Ashley Berg, whose life had been transformed into a living nightmare because of her association with him.

Remy had to fix that; he had to make it right. Then death could come for him, as it had for his beloved Madeline.

But not right now.

The angel that he was rallied from the brink of surrender, like one of the great fishes of the ocean being drawn in on a line and finding that deep, hidden reserve of strength for one final attempt at freedom.

“Give it to me,” Deacon hissed, his face obscured by smoke and the stink of ozone. “Give it all to me.”

And as crazy as it seemed, Remy did just that.

A flash of brilliance exploded from his body, a flash so bright that it chased away all the darkness in the room.

So bright that it chased away Death’s angel.

Deacon’s scream joined with Remy’s as the room was consumed in light.

There was a moment of nothing, of sweet oblivion, but it didn’t last long before the chaos returned. Alarms wailed, growing steadily louder as Remy regained his awareness.

He was lying flat on his back, a cracked and seared ceiling coming into focus above him. He sat up and surveyed his surroundings. The room had been obliterated by the release of energy. What appeared to be the broken shape of Deacon was lying among the wreckage of the heavy dining room table, and Scrimshaw was furiously working to uncover his master’s remains. Ashley still cowered in the far corner of the room, the animalistic Teddy crouched beside her.

Remy rose unsteadily to his feet, incredible pain in his back causing explosions of color to detonate before his eyes. Reaching awkwardly behind him, he found the metal spines of Deacon’s feeding apparatus and tore them from his back. It was an agony the likes of which he’d only experienced a few times, agony that should have had a special place in the pain hall of fame. He started to drop to his knees again as his body rebelled against the damage being heaped upon it, but he fought on.

It was what he did. What he always did.

He focused on Ashley. He’d made a promise to her mother to find her, to bring her home, and that was what he was going to do.

“Ashley,” he said, as he stumbled across the room. His voice sounded weak, rough, as if he’d just woken from a long slumber.

Teddy reacted with a hiss, springing at Remy, teeth bared.

And pure instinct powered Remy’s response. He slapped the child roughly to the ground, and, like a dog struck with a newspaper, the boy fled across the room to glare at him from a distance.

“We have to go now,” Remy said, reaching for Ashley.

She pulled away, putting her face against the wall, her eyes tightly closed.

“Please, Ash,” he said, firmly gripping her arm.

She turned from the wall to look at him. What he saw-or didn’t-in her gaze disturbed him greatly, but he couldn’t let it deter him. He lifted her to her feet and pulled her to the entrance of the dining room, its double doors blown from their hinges by the release of his angelic might.

They walked across the fallen doors, into the corridor. The sound of alarms still filled the air, and as they turned the corner to the passage that would bring them to the large foyer, Remy saw what had triggered the security system.

Deacon’s golems, some dressed as household staff, others just human-shaped pieces of clay, fought against multiple attackers. Things with skin blacker than total darkness were attempting to gain access to the home, things that slithered, flew, and crawled were being held at bay by Deacon’s supernatural creations.

Ashley hesitated at the sight of an ebony serpent that surged through the open front door to grab up a golem in its cavernous maw. The artificial man struggled as it was dragged into the darkness outside.

Which, if they had any intention of escaping, was where Remy and Ashley needed to go.

Remy gave Ashley’s arm a yank, and they ran down the short hall toward the still-open door.

The darkness beyond the pale green lights of the Deacon estate beckoned, promising them one of two things.

A chance at freedom.

Or a fate worse than death.

Scrimshaw watched the angel escape the dining room. He was tempted to go in pursuit, but he had to know if his master had survived.

The explosion of energy was like nothing the golem had ever experienced before. He doubted there was any way that Deacon could have lived through it, but he had to be sure.

The dining table had been shattered, and Scrimshaw carefully pulled away the broken sections to get to his fallen master’s remains.

He sensed that he was being watched, and stopped for a moment to find Teddy staring at him, concern in his semihuman eyes. The boy had seriously deteriorated since surviving the attack by the traitorous Algernon Stearns. It was Deacon who had truly saved him-if that’s what he called it-using arcane magicks to retrieve him from the brink of death. But something had been lost in the process. It was as if the child’s humanity had been damaged by Stearns’ assault, and even though Teddy’s body had been restored to life, his soul had continued to die.

Even still, Scrimshaw could see that Teddy feared for the one who sired him. Normally he would have reassured the boy, telling him that everything would be all right, but Scrimshaw did none of that now.

Instead, he carefully picked through the rubble, gradually exposing the tuxedoed body of the man he called master trapped beneath the wreckage. He gently uncovered the man’s head and face and was shocked by what he found.

Konrad Deacon as Scrimshaw remembered him more than fifty years ago: hair a stark black, skin free of wrinkles, unblemished and taut.

Scrimshaw reached out to check for a pulse, and Deacon’s eyes opened wide as his hand shot out and grabbed the golem’s wrist.

“The angel?” Deacon asked excitedly. Golden energy, like liquid fire, drifted from his eyes.

“He’s escaped,” Scrimshaw managed, completely taken aback. “He took the girl, as well.”

Deacon seemed to consider this a moment, then released his hold upon Scrimshaw’s wrist. The golem gazed at the burns left by his master’s touch.

Teddy howled his pleasure, crawling across the rubble to get to his father. But as Deacon rose, he extended his arm and a wall of flame roared from his fingertips, driving back the screaming young boy.

Deacon shrugged off the broken pieces of table and dinnerware, and Scrimshaw saw that he no longer wore the exoskeleton that had helped his fragile body to move. It was as if he’d somehow shed his old form to reveal something shiny and new beneath. Tears in the dusty old tuxedo revealed new muscle and flesh beneath. His master had somehow been transformed into a perfect specimen.

But a perfect specimen of what?

The alarms still assaulted their senses as Deacon turned and walked from the dining room. Scrimshaw took the frightened Teddy’s hand, and, with a little urging, the two followed into the melee outside.

The golem was about to drag Teddy to someplace safe when he saw his master walk dangerously close to an open window. There was a flurry of movement on the other side of the broken glass, and Scrimshaw pushed the wild child away as he darted to intercept his master, who seemed totally oblivious to the potential harm.

A tentacle as black as ink flowed in through the broken window, ready to embrace the man. Scrimshaw grabbed a jagged piece of wood from the floor just as the muscular appendage wrapped about the transformed Deacon.

There was a searing flash of white.

Scrimshaw shielded his eyes from the sudden brilliance, then dropped his hands to see the stump of the tentacled monstrosity withdrawing through the broken window, the wail of the injured beast ear piercing over the still-insistent alarms.

The release of divine light had driven not only Deacon’s attacker away, but all the mansion’s attackers. Scrimshaw watched as the golem staff gradually began to recover.

Deacon turned his glowing gaze to Scrimshaw. “Turn that off, will you?” he said, hand indicating the blaring alarm around them.

Scrimshaw called to one of the other stone men to shut down the alarm, and in a matter of seconds, it was quiet in the house again. He watched as his master strolled to the door, peering outside at the now-still shadow place.

“Do you want me to go after them?” Scrimshaw asked, and Deacon turned his attention to him.

“The angel and the girl…do you want me to go after them?”

Deacon began to smile as he looked back through the open doors. “No need.” He held up his hands, tongues of divine fire leaping from the tips of his fingers. “I’ve already gotten far more than I could ever have hoped.”

Angelina Hayward did not want to go to sleep.

If the little girl could have had her way, she would never go to sleep…never ever, for she believed that she had already spent way too much of her time unconscious to the excitement going on around her.

Since awakening from a coma that the doctors swore she would never recover from, the girl had become the center of a maelstrom. Not only was her return to consciousness considered a minor miracle, but she had also awakened with the promise of a very important message for the world.

A message from God.

The little girl sat in her bed, propped up by multiple pillows. She was trying to put the pretty new dress that her uncle had bought on her favorite baby doll. She was supposed to be resting, but how could she do that when her mind was racing round and round?

Angelina’s life was now filled with excitement. Everybody wanted to speak to her. She’d been afraid of the television people at first, with their cameras and the pretty ladies who never stopped talking and smiling, but she had grown used to their visits and their questions.

The same questions, over and over.

When is God going deliver His message?

And Angelina would just smile at them and tell them that God was very busy, although as soon as He contacted her, they’d be the first to know.

Her parents mostly made the TV people stay outside the home her uncle had provided for them while she recovered, but every morning Angelina would ask her father to carry her to the window so she could wave to those who were camped on the front lawn. This morning she had been especially excited to see them, for she had something she wanted so badly to share with them.

The most beautiful angels had come to her in a dream that night, but she had been so excited to see them that she had woken up. She had nearly burst into tears, until she realized that the angels had followed her. They had worn shimmering robes and golden armor in her dream, but now, as they stood around her bed, she saw that they were dressed in handsome suits and ties. They were still quite beautiful, even without their special angel costumes.

She had been so excited to see them, asking if God had sent them…if it was time for her to give His message to the world.

The angels had smiled at her then, and it was like being out in the sunshine, it was so bright and warm.

And they had told her in pretty voices that sounded like music that they had come to help her prepare for what she was going to do. One of the angels, whose name was Armaros, sat down on the side of her bed and took her hand in his. He told her that it would soon be time for her to speak to the world…although not quite yet.

“Will you be ready, child?” Armaros had asked her.

And Angelina had answered yes, meaning it with all her heart and soul.

It was no wonder that she didn’t want to sleep. What if God and the angels came again? What if they found her asleep and decided to pick some other little girl?

She’d voiced these concerns to Armaros and the other angels as they’d prepared to leave her. They had laughed at her, and it had sounded like church bells on Sunday morning. Then Armaros had told her that no one else could do what she had been created for.

That she was so very special.

Angelina smiled as she remembered the angel’s words.

“Did you hear that, Dolly?” she asked the baby doll that was her favorite toy and confidant. “They said I was special.”

And she hugged her doll to her chest, secure in the idea that no one could replace her-the angels had confirmed what her favorite Uncle Algernon had always told her.

No one else could do what she was created for.