Walking In the Midst of Fire

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Prosper could barely recall what he had once been, and was the happier for it.

He vaguely recalled Heaven in faded fragments, visions that would come to him in tattered images when he had imbibed to excess.

But what followed Heaven were the memories that proved more distinct—the tortures of Tartarus, the prison where angels who had sided with the Morningstar were incarcerated, forced to relive their sins against God until deemed worthy of release. But once freed, Heaven was still denied those angels; instead they were forced to continue their penance on the world of God’s favorite pets, humanity.

Penance, Prosper thought with a grin as he walked into the howling winds and rain that tried to push him back. He doubted there was a single thing he’d done since arriving on Earth that could be considered penance.

He had found the world of man to be cruel and decadent, but he’d managed to build a life for himself far away from the fragmented memories of Heaven. Prosper had built his own paradise in the hundreds of years he’d been exiled, and gladly let the recollections of God’s kingdom slip away.

It was the vices that he learned to exploit, the twisted pleasures enjoyed not only by man, but the other supernatural beings that had found themselves upon the Earth. His places of forbidden pleasures—his dens of inequity—were the bane of his rivals. None could offer what he did, and the human, as well as the unearthly, sought out his establishments with vigor.

Fighting the wind-swept rain, he paused long enough to realize that he was being watched. He shielded his eyes against the stinging downpour and looked at the gray, concrete buildings around him. Prosper wanted to know which of them had chosen to skulk in the shadows, watching him, reveling in the idea that he had been summoned here now.

Eager to see him punished as he often punished them.

If he had his way they would all be dead, and the current situation that was causing him so much grief would never have transpired.

Prosper scowled as he gazed at the seemingly empty windows, hoping that they saw the displeasure upon his face.

He reached the building that housed his office, and found one of Simeon’s demon lackeys waiting for him in the entryway.

“Prosper,” Beleeze said with a courteous nod.

“He’s already here?” Prosper asked, moving toward his office door.

“Oh yes,” the demon replied. “He’s been waiting for quite some time.”

Damn it all, Prosper thought, managing to appear cool on the outside. He had been hoping to reach his office before Simeon arrived.

He knew the forever man would have one question after another and had wanted time to prepare.

Damn it all to Hell.

“Simeon,” Prosper said with a smile as he threw open the door. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long. I was in the middle of—”

“I’ve been waiting longer than I care to,” Simeon interrupted. He was sitting on a leather couch in the darkest part of the office.

“I’m sorry about that,” Prosper said. “There were some loose ends that needed cutting.”

He made his way to his desk, pulling out the high-backed leather chair. “Can I get you anything to drink?” he asked before sitting down. “Maybe a snack?”

“I should be snacking on your still-beating heart,” Simeon snapped, standing bolt upright, seemingly without bending his legs.

“Now, Simeon,” Prosper said, attempting to soothe the man. “There’s no need for that.”

“No need?” Simeon asked, slowly walking toward the desk. “One of your charges slips away and commits murder, shitting on plans that I’ve had in motion for years, and you don’t think I have reason to be upset?”

“Honestly?” Prosper asked. “No, I do not.”

Prosper didn’t even see him move. Suddenly he felt himself lifted from his seat and thrown viciously over the desk to the floor beyond. He lay on his back, stunned, with the grinning visage of Simeon looming above him.

“Do I look like someone who enjoys being fucked with?” the forever man asked, his eyes bulging so wide that they looked as though they might pop from his head.

“I meant no disrespect,” Prosper began, offering no attempt at retaliation. He was smarter than that.

“Too late,” Simeon said, stepping back and allowing him to stand.

“I didn’t want you to worry needlessly,” Prosper explained. “Yes, this is a bit of a glitch, but I’m dealing with it.”

Simeon’s back was to him now as the forever man stood in front of a window boarded up tight to keep the frequent wind and rain from coming inside. “You’re dealing with it,” Simeon repeated with a laugh. “If this is the best you can do I shudder to think of how bad things would be if you weren’t paying attention.”

Prosper bit his tongue, the desire to flaunt his achievements nearly overwhelming. Simeon stood quietly, perfectly rigid, the potential for violence exuding from him in waves.

“Has news of the murder gotten out?” Simeon finally asked.

“No,” Prosper said, climbing swiftly to his feet. “From what I understand it’s still pretty much contained.”

He made his way around to his desk and pulled open a side drawer. There was a good bottle of Irish whiskey and two glasses there.

“First things first, there was the matter of the driver,” Prosper said. He held up the bottle and glasses. “Drink?”

“And?” Simeon asked.

“And, I dealt with it,” Prosper said, pouring himself a few fingers of the whiskey.

“And how did you deal with it?”

“I hired somebody . . . a group of somebodies, really,” Prosper said, sipping the golden liquid.

Simeon’s stare said that he wanted more.

“The Black Choir,” Prosper said. “I hired the Black Choir to remove him.”

Simeon’s gaze grew laser-beam focused, and Prosper felt the tingle of sweat beginning to form at the back of his neck.

“A little dramatic just to deal with a driver, don’t you think?”

“The driver and someone else,” Prosper explained, certain that he would not like where the conversation was going. “An outsider.”

“An outsider?” Simeon came closer to his desk.

“Yes,” Prosper said. “One of their own, but not part of the establishment. An investigator of some kind.”

“An investigator,” Simeon said. “You do realize that this isn’t good.”

“Of course I do,” Prosper snapped, and then quickly smiled benignly. “Which is why I took care of it. Which is why I brought in the Choir.”

Simeon’s stare bored into his skull.

“And they’ve been successful, this Black Choir?”

Prosper poured himself another finger. “Partially,” he said, watching the fire again ignite in the forever man’s eyes. “But like I told you, there’s no need for concern,” he continued quickly. “The Choir missed their first crack, but they are still after him. Shouldn’t be long now.”

Prosper brought his drink to his mouth and smiled.

“Seems like the Black Choir has a real hard-on for this guy.” He took a drink and then chuckled.

“I wouldn’t want to be that poor bastard.”

Simeon had started to pace back and forth.

“So you believe once this . . . investigator is removed from the board, things will return to normal?”

Prosper considered the question.

“Maybe not normal, but definitely better,” he said, wincing. “At least we should have enough time to clean things up here, and as far as the angels go, one side will blame the other, and bang. Isn’t that where you wanted all this to end up anyway?”

It looked like a smile had started to crease Simeon’s face, but Prosper couldn’t be sure. For all he knew it could have been a grimace of pain.

“Where I wanted this to end up?” Simeon repeated. “Like you have any idea where it is that I want to be.”

With those words Simeon spun on his heel, heading for the door. But just as he placed his hand upon the knob, he stopped and turned back to face Prosper.

Prosper waited, nervously holding his breath.

“This investigator for the angels who we won’t be worrying about soon,” Simeon said. “He has a name?”

Prosper gasped, air filling his lungs as he nodded.

Simeon raised a hand, gesturing for him to continue.

He racked his brain, trying to recall the name. He’d heard it only once.

And suddenly it was there.

“Remy,” Prosper blurted out with a proud smile. “Remy Chandler.”

Simeon’s expression turned to stone. “Are you certain?”

Prosper nodded. “I remember because of the Choir’s reaction when I told them who their target was. I guess they have a bit of history.”

Simeon stared.

“History,” he repeated, and there was that smile that might not have been a smile again, before he turned away, leaving the office.

Prosper felt his legs go suddenly weak, a trembling passing through them that made it feel as though they had turned to jelly. He dropped into his seat with a heavy sigh.

That could have gone worse, he told himself, reaching for the whiskey with a trembling hand.

Eyes fixed to the door, hoping—praying—that Simeon did not come back.

• • •

Dardariel returned alone to his general’s dwelling.

Something had not felt right.

The soldier of Heaven parted his wings in the hallway of the elaborate human mansion, sniffing the air for a hint of his superior.

There was something in the air of this place that tickled his nostrils but eluded his divine senses as soon as it was perceived.

The others that had accompanied him were afraid to follow, afraid to further incur the wrath of the great general. But Dardariel’s concern overruled his fear, leading him back here to this place Aszrus called home.

Dardariel stood in the hallway, awaiting the attentions of the human staff, but none came. Odd, he thought, assuming his human guise and walking the silent halls. He followed his senses, tracking the elusive scent, searching for signs of life, but the grand home was eerily silent.

It wasn’t until he got closer to the spot where he and his fellow soldiers had last encountered the angry general that he finally heard something: the sound of activity, and someone softly crying.

Dardariel strode with purpose down the corridor and turned the corner to General Azrus’ study. The angel paused, listening to the sounds of sorrow, and what could only be the bristles of a brush moving across fabric from behind the closed doors.

One of the doors to the study was opened a crack, and the angel was drawn to it, as if some invisible force had hooked him and was effortlessly reeling him in. He passed through the doorway and immediately felt his flesh begin to tingle, as if assailed by something that had once been there—something to deter his presence. The powerful aroma of cleaning products assaulted his complex sense of smell.

But it was what lay beneath the noxious, soapy smell that birthed his ire.

A female member of the house staff—Dardariel wasn’t sure if this was the one they had encountered earlier, for all the hairless monkeys looked the same to him—was on her hands and knees, a bucket of foaming liquid by her side. She was scrubbing at a dark stain in the middle of the carpet.

A dark stain that gave off a smell that caused Dardariel’s every sense to cry out in protest.

It was the smell of blood. The smell of blood rich with the stink of violence.

“What is this?” the angel demanded, no longer holding on to his human visage. Dardariel was suddenly armored, his brown and black spotted wings fanning outward as he set upon the sobbing woman.

She froze, turning her blind eyes toward the booming sound of the angel’s voice.

“Please . . .” was all she could manage before his hands closed about her throat, and he hurled her across the study.

The angel soldier stared at the haze of bubbles, and at the fading spot on the rug beneath them. Dropping heavily to his knees, Dardariel bent closer to the carpet, his nose mere inches from the bloody blemish.

It was Azrus’ blood; of that there was no doubt.

Dardariel heard the pathetic whimpering of the human woman and turned, eyes aflame with rage and indignation, toward where she had fallen. She lay upon the floor, up against the book-lined wall, her limbs bent and twisted unnaturally.

“Where is he?” Dardariel demanded.

“I—I don’t—,” she stammered between grunts of pain. She flopped around upon the floor of the study like a wounded bird.

Dardariel rose to his feet and stomped across the room. “What has happened to the general?” he demanded, grabbing the woman’s broken arm and hauling her to her feet.

Her scream was piercing, but it was music to his ears if it would supply him with the information he sought.

“The general,” he repeated, shaking the woman’s arm, feeling the broken bones grind beneath their fragile flesh covering.

Her eyes fluttered, and she moaned. He was afraid that she would lose consciousness, so he drew her close, blowing the breath of the divine upon her face, and watching her instantly revitalize.

“You’re . . . you’re so beautiful,” the blind woman said, her empty eyes tearing up as her senses were overwhelmed.

“Who are you?” Dardariel asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

“Marley,” she said. “My name is Marley.”

“Tell me, Marley,” Dardariel said, still holding on to the woman’s arm, his face mere inches from hers. “What has occurred here? What has happened to your master?”

He could still smell the blood, and it made him want to scream, and rage, and tear this dwelling down to the ground.

“Something . . . something bad,” she said, and started to sob again.

The fire of Heaven surged within Dardariel, and it took all that he had to keep himself from burning like the sun.

“What?” he asked. “What . . . bad, has happened here?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t know,” she told him. “He kept us away. . . . I tried to see, but . . .”

“Who kept you away?” Dardariel asked.

“Montagin,” she said in a pain-filled whisper. “Montagin did not want us to know that something . . .” She started to writhe in his clutches. “But I knew. . . . I could feel it. . . . My love of him was too strong. . . . I knew that something had happened to him.”

She was crying again, sobbing for the love of her master, and perhaps for the pain she was currently enduring.

His eyes were drawn back to the mark on the carpet, almost as if it were calling to him, mocking him. What did it all mean, he needed to know. Here they were on the precipice of war, and now this.

“Where is he?” Dardariel demanded.

“I don’t know,” she said. “They took him away from here. . . . I wanted to see him. . . . I needed to. . . .”

He was suddenly sick of her babble and cast her aside without further thought. Again there was screaming, but he didn’t care. Dardariel was back at the stain. Reaching down with a finger, he scraped his elongated nail along the fibers, attempting to raise the scent.

The smell grew stronger. He brought his finger to his nose and, moving past the chemical stink, took in the scent of blood. Then his tongue darted out, licking his fingertip, and his senses came alive.

Dardariel found himself screaming, his head tilted back as he proclaimed his fury to the world. There was fire on his body now, radiating from his armor, his hands, his wings, and the top of his head.

There was no more keeping it in. He had what he needed; there was nothing more to be learned in this place. And as for what had happened here, like the stain the human had been attempting to remove, it would be cleansed from the earth.

The fire leapt from his body, engulfing a nearby chair and sofa, leaping onto the first of the bookcases, and the books upon the shelves.

Marley had rolled onto her stomach, and was lifting her head to capture his eyes. Dardardiel rewarded her tenacity by looking at her.

“I loved him,” she said, her voice a screeching mess as the flames blossomed, and rushed to claim her.

The angel could not help but laugh as his wings fanned the burgeoning fire.

“What does something like you know of love?”

Dardariel listened, wondering whether she would try to answer him as she was consumed, but as he expected, he heard only screaming.

With the scent of Aszrus’ life-stuff in his nostrils, the angel leapt into the air, crashing up through the ceilings and floors until he was hovering above the burning estate. He tilted his head back and cried out for his brothers, calling them to him, as he began to follow the trail.

Following the scent of spilled angel blood that would lead them to their wayward general.

• • •

The general’s body was starting to stink.

Francis and Montagin had moved Aszrus from his Newport abode to the basement apartment of the Newbury Street brownstone, and the corpse now lay on the floor of Francis’ living room, a trash bag shoved beneath him just in case he leaked.

“A stinking body is bad,” Francis said, gazing down at the corpse, his hands on his hips. “A stinking angel body is really bad.” He paused, remembering the position of authority Aszrus held in the angelic hierarchy. “The stinking body of an angel general is so bad that I’m getting a headache even talking about it.”

“We should have left him where he lay,” Montagin fretted. “With the sorcerer’s magicks at work, there was a chance we could have lasted until Chandler got back.”

“A chance,” Francis said. “But a slim one. If the general’s playmates stopped by once, they’ll definitely stop by again. We couldn’t take the risk.”

“But the smell,” Montagin said. He pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and held it to his nose.

“Yeah, it’s getting pretty bad,” Francis agreed, staring at the bloated corpse on the floor. He’d met Aszrus a few times in Heaven, before the beginning of the war, and had never really liked him. The guy was pretty full of himself.

Now look at him, he thought. Full of nothing but gas.

“We gotta move him,” Francis said aloud.

Montagin looked at him incredulously. “Again?” he whined. “We just moved him here.”

“Yeah, I know,” Francis said. He was already heading toward the door. “But we can’t just leave him here, stinking to high heaven. A smell like this could lead the general’s buddies right to my door.”

“Where would you suggest we put him, then?” Montagin asked. “There’s not a place on earth that—”

“Exactly,” Francis interrupted. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He climbed the stairs from the basement to the lobby, and on up to the third floor. The smell of violence lingered in the hallway, and Francis remembered that someone had tried to punch Angus Heath’s ticket there the other day. He noticed a dark, ashen stain on the rug in the corridor, and made an educated guess as to what had left it.

Francis approached the door and gave it a solid kick. “Hey,” he said, leaning in close. “Quit spanking it to porn and open the door.”

The door opened suddenly and Francis was staring down into the ugly, hobgoblin face of Squire.

“What, do you have a fucking hidden camera in here?” he asked with a snarl.

“Nope,” Francis said, pushing his way into the apartment. “Just figured that’s what you’d be doing.”

“To what do I owe this visit?” Squire asked, slamming the door behind him.

Francis saw the large shape of Angus Heath lying on the couch. He was covered with several blankets, but he was still shivering. “He all right?” he asked the hobgoblin.

“He got himself poisoned by a Bone Master,” Squire said.

“Bone Master?” Francis repeated. “Sounds like what you might’ve been watching when I knocked.”

“You’re a fucking riot,” the hobgoblin said as he walked past the angel and approached the shivering sorcerer, laying a stubby hand upon his brow. “He’s still pretty feverish, but he does feel cooler than he did a while ago.”

Francis glanced over to the television and was surprised to see what seemed to be a show about cupcakes. “Cupcakes?” he asked.

“What can I say,” the hobgoblin answered with a shrug. “Fucking shoot me, I like cupcakes.”

Heath mumbled something unintelligible, and began to thrash, knocking his blankets to the floor.

“Did you pop by to borrow a cup of sugar?” Squire asked, picking up the blankets and draping them over his friend. “Or is there something else?”

“Something else,” Francis said.

“Go on,” Squire urged.

“Got a favor to ask.”

“Yeah?”

“Got the body of an angel general rotting in my basement apartment,” Francis said matter-of-factly. “I was wondering if for storage you could stick it in one of those shadow places you so often frequent.”

“Oh, is that all?” Squire replied, rolling his eyes.