Walking In the Midst of Fire

CHAPTER ONE

Remy Chandler’s eyes wandered to the television hanging above the crowded bar.

He didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t help himself. There was always a nervous trepidation these days, a fear that he would see something that might compel him to act. Things were different in Boston—in the world, really—since a tear had been rent in the fabric of reality. It had swallowed up the top floors of the Hermes Building in Back Bay before Remy was able to close it.

And thanks to the media, millions of people throughout the world had caught a glimpse of something that had, until then, managed to remain in the shadows.

The news tonight was more mundane—tornadoes in the west, a school shooting in California, more sanctions about to be imposed upon a hostile Middle Eastern nation, and an eighty-nine-year-old woman who had hit the lottery for two hundred and fifty million dollars.

No more holes in the fabric of time and space spilling nightmare creatures into this reality . . . at least not in this news cycle. Maybe they were saving that one until the eleven o’clock broadcast.

“Are you gonna eat that last one?” Linda asked, pulling his attention back to his dinner companion.

“I’m sorry,” Remy said, tearing his eyes from the television and gazing at the attractive, dark-haired woman sitting across from him. “Something caught my eye.”

“Whatever,” she replied. “Do you want that or not?” Her fork hovered over the last cube of fried manchego cheese on the plate in the center of the table.

“No, go ahead,” he told her.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Linda grinned as she speared the cheese, dipped it in a red sauce, and popped it into her mouth.

Remy picked up his drink, watching as she closed her eyes in ecstasy while she chewed. She opened them and giggled when she saw him staring at her.

“I feel like such a pig,” she said, swallowing and wiping her mouth with a red linen napkin, “but I could eat a hundred of those things.”

They were at Loco, a tapas and wine bar located thirty minutes southwest of the city. Linda had mentioned wanting to try it once or twice and, feeling as though he had been neglecting his lady friend of late, Remy had made reservations for a special night out.

The waitress, a lovely girl by the name of Jessica, brought out their next selection, a flatbread pizza covered in Gorgonzola cheese, sprinkled with pine nuts and basil, and drizzled with a balsamic glaze. Remy wasn’t quite sure how he was going to feel about this one, but he was put at ease with the first bite.

“This is pretty good,” he said, nodding slowly.

“You seem surprised.” Linda laughed.

“Guess I just didn’t know what to expect,” he said as he took another bite.

“Kinda like how it was with me.” She winked at him over her slice of pizza.

Remy smiled warmly, feeling her hold upon him growing even stronger. “I got more than I bargained for with you,” he said, swirling his drink in the glass, the melting ice cubes tinkling like wind chimes.

“And is that more in a good way or more in a bad way?” she asked, with a lovely tilt of her head.

He suddenly thought of Madeline. She was the love of his life and always would be. But there was definitely something about this woman sitting across the table from him, this Linda Somerset, that made Remy happy he hadn’t abandoned his human visage when Maddy had passed away.

“I think you already know the answer to that,” he told Linda as he helped himself to another piece of the flatbread.

“I know what I think,” she said, once again helping herself to the last piece. “But I’m not sure you’d agree.”

Linda kept her eyes on him as she took a large bite of the bread.

As an angel of the host Seraphim, Remy Chandler had fought for Heaven against the forces of Lucifer Morningstar. What he had seen, and done, during the Great War had soured him to the ways of Heaven, and so he had sought refuge on the world of the Almighty’s most cherished creations. Remy, then Remiel, had come to the Earth to lose himself, crafting a human persona of his very own, suppressing his true angelic nature.

After thousands of years, it was Madeline who had solidified his mask of humanity, and made it something so much more. Her love for him had made him human, and now she was gone. The fabric of his humanity had begun to fray, and he’d had little hope that it would last—until he’d met Linda Somerset. Remy was beginning to believe that there just might be some hope for him after all.

“I knew you were trouble the minute I saw you,” he said, looking at her, taking in the sight of her.

“So, is that good trouble or—,” she started to ask, holding back her laughter as he interrupted.

“Knock it off. You’re the best kind of trouble I know.” He reached across the table to take her hand in his.

He’d been fighting his feelings for her since he’d met her, that annoying voice in the back of his brain reminding him how devastatingly painful it was to lose such love.

And no matter how human Remy believed he was, he faced a harsh reality. He was immortal: destined to watch anything he came to love wither and pass from life, always leaving him alone.

“Suddenly so serious, Mr. Chandler,” she said, and he could see the beginnings of concern in her eyes. “Is everything all right?”

He smiled, but didn’t release her hand. It felt good in his, and he wanted to keep it there for a little while longer. “Everything’s fine,” he said. “No worries.”

But he was worried. Things had been getting progressively worse since the Apocalypse had been so narrowly averted just a couple of short years ago.

Remy remembered the prophetic dream he’d had just after the Hermes Building incident, when he’d spoken with a very familiar old man on a Cape Cod beach about a coming war.

Linda looked at him as if trying to see more than what he was willing to show her. “Okay, so why do you look the opposite?”

Jessica brought them their entrees—braised short ribs for Linda, a filet mignon with lobster for him; she then left to refill their drink order—another glass of Cabernet for her and a whiskey and ginger for him.

Linda continued to watch him. “Hello?” she asked.

Remy picked up the steak knife from the corner of his plate. “I’ve just been feeling a little bit guilty,” he said with a shrug as he cut into his steak. It was so tender, he could have sliced it with his fork.

“Guilty about what?” Linda asked, tasting a bit of her own meal.

“I don’t think I’ve been such a great boyfriend lately,” he said, placing the meat in his mouth and chewing. It tasted as good as it looked.

Linda laughed out loud.

“What’s so funny?” Remy asked.

“You said you’re my boyfriend.”

“Yeah? And that’s funny because . . . ?”

“You’ve never said it before,” Linda answered, looking down at her plate and suppressing a smile. “I liked hearing you say it.”

She turned her dark eyes up to him, and he just about melted.

He used to feel a nasty twinge of guilt when she looked at him like that, as if he was somehow cheating on the memory of his departed Madeline.

But Remy had come to an understanding with these feelings, an understanding that this was just another aspect of being human: that it was nearly impossible to stop loving, for without love, there really wasn’t much of a point.

Especially for him.

Without love he would be forced to return to what he really was; a warrior with the blood of his brothers on his hands, an angel that had lost faith in Heaven and its Creator.

Remy needed to love, and needed the love of another to truly live.

And really, wasn’t that the truth for just about everyone?

“I would like to think of myself more as your Lambykins, or Snugglebunny,” he said without cracking a smile as he stabbed a piece of beef and lobster with the end of his fork and popped it into his mouth.

“Interesting. I was thinking more along the lines of Honeybunny,” Linda said slyly, scrutinizing him with a careful eye from across the table. “Yeah, you’re most definitely a Honeybunny.”

Sarah, who was tending bar at Loco that night, brought them their new drinks just in time.

“Honeybunny it is,” he said, lifting his glass in a toast.

“To Honeybunny,” Linda replied, picking up her wineglass.

They each had a drink to consummate the toast, playfulness twinkling in their eyes.

“So I’m just Girlfriend, then?” she asked.

“You seemed to like it a little while ago,” he replied.

“Yeah, Girlfriend is good, but it doesn’t have the same oomph as Honeybunny.”

“True,” Remy agreed. “Maybe we should give you a more tantalizing moniker.”

“Moniker?” she repeated, starting to laugh. “Who the hell uses the word moniker? What are you, like a hundred and fifty years old?”

If you only knew, he thought, feeling another twinge, not over falling in love, but because he was unable to share the truth of himself with her.

It just wasn’t the proper time. Things were still young, fresh, and the burden of his reality would surely kill what they were currently sharing.

Some other time, perhaps.

“Give me a break,” he said with a chuckle. “I have a word-of-the-day calendar on my desk.”

That made her laugh again and he absorbed the sound, relishing how good it made him feel.

“Maybe I should just call you Jerk-Woman,” he said, feigning indignation.

“Oh really? Jerk-Woman?” she asked, pretending that she was offended, but not able to hide her smile.

“I’m just going to sit here and finish my dinner and think of all the other fabulous words from my calendar that I still haven’t had the opportunity to use,” he said as he made a show of dismissing her.

Linda reached across the table, taking his hand in hers and giving it a powerful squeeze.

“Your girlfriend is perfectly fine by me,” she said as he looked up into her smiling face, feeling his heartbeat grow faster as the blood rushed through his veins.

“Yeah, I wasn’t too thrilled with Jerk-Woman,” he said, watching as she brought her wineglass up to her mouth.

“Oh good,” she said, just before taking a drink. “Wouldn’t care for that moniker,” she teased, wrinkling her nose with distaste.

“I was thinking about one of the classics, like the Old Ball and Chain.”

The words had barely left his mouth when she started to laugh while in midsip.

Remy knew right then how impossibly special she was, still sexy as hell even with wine coming out of her nose.

Simeon soon learned that no matter how hard he tried, the bliss of death was now denied him. Driven nearly insane by the Nazarene’s actions, the resurrected man wandered, searching for a way to return to the bosom of God.

His body still bore the effects of the time he had spent rotting in the grave, his seeping flesh a home for insects, muscles pulled away from bone. He was a monstrosity, feared and reviled wherever his travels took him, and his hate of life grew, even as his body healed, for he remembered what had been taken from him.

And a hate of God, and all that He was, blossomed, as well.

It was in the place called the Skull, a place named Golgotha, that Simeon finally came to understand his purpose for being in this world. The Nazarene, now an adult, had been arrested and tried for his crimes. He had been sentenced to die, crucified between two common thieves. From the crowd Simeon watched the King of the Jews suffer, reveling in the fact that the one who had snatched him from death was suffering as he himself had.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” the Nazarene cried out as he hung upon the cross, and Simeon took great pleasure in seeing that the Almighty seemed to ignore this man, as well, this man who called Him father.

Simeon wanted to go to him, to stand beneath the slowly dying man and ask him to take back his gift of life, that perhaps the Lord of Lords would look kindly upon this act, and allow him release, as well.

And just as he was about to force himself through the lingering crowd, the skies grew gray, then black, and the ground beneath his feet began to move as if alive.

“It is finished,” the one called Jesus cried out from the cross.

Sensing that his opportunity was fleeting, Simeon pushed against the mass of people, some weeping for their assumed savior, others waiting eagerly for his death.

“Nazarene!” Simeon cried out, finally breaking through the throng.

A Roman soldier stepped forward and struck him across the temple with the butt of his sword, sending Simeon to the ground, fighting to remain conscious.

And it was then that he heard the last words of the one who had taken away perhaps his only chance at regaining the rapture he had briefly known.

“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

And it was done. Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, was dead.

Simeon looked upon the face of his tormentor through the blood that dripped from the wound on his head, and saw the peace of death.

And he knew then and there that if he was to be denied that bliss, he would do everything in his power to see that it was denied to all.

He would take away their Heaven.

• • •

The evening had been next to perfect, and Remy did everything he could to hold on to the satisfying feeling of contentment he was experiencing. As they drove back to Boston, Linda Somerset snuggled close to him in the front seat of his Toyota, her head resting upon his shoulder as the new Brandi Carlile CD played on the stereo.

But when he drove, his thoughts tended to wander, and that very seldom lent itself to anything good. He found himself thinking of the dream he’d experienced, the one where he talked with the Almighty in the form of an old man, who Remy had once imagined was the personification of a perfect, human existence. Everything that he had wanted and would ever want for himself.

“I need your help, Remy,” God had said in the dream, his bare feet awash in the coming tide. “The Kingdom of Heaven needs your help.”

Remy reached for the radio, turning up the volume in the hope that Brandi’s gorgeous voice would drown out the memory of the words and what God had asked of him.

“There is a war coming, Remy Chandler,” the old man had told him. “And I need you to stop it.”

No pressure.

“It was a nice night,” Linda said groggily, as Brandi sang.

“Yeah, it was,” Remy answered, grateful for the distraction.

He put his arm around her and pulled her closer.

“You know it doesn’t really bother me,” she said.

“What doesn’t?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

“When you’re gone . . . for work and stuff,” she explained. “It doesn’t bother me ’cause I know that’s your job . . . and I know you’ll be back.”

Remy pulled her even tighter to him. “That’s good to know.”

“And if you don’t come back I get to keep your dog.”

He laughed, happy that she and Marlowe had become so close. Remy wouldn’t have had a clue as to what to do if the black Labrador hadn’t liked Linda, but that was something he would never have to concern himself with. The dog had been pretty much smitten the first time he’d laid eyes on her.

“Don’t let him find out about that,” Remy said. “He’ll try to figure out a way to keep me out of Boston indefinitely.”

She laughed, rubbing her cheek against his chest. “Aw, Marlowe loves you more than he’s letting on.”

“Oh yeah? How can you tell?”

“He told me,” she said.

“Really,” Remy said bemusedly. “He talks to you now?”

“I can understand him,” Linda said. “We chat all the time about stuff.”

Remy found the conversation particularly amusing since he actually did have the gift of language. He was able to speak the languages and understand the tongues of all life upon the planet, including Labrador retrievers.

“You talk about stuff,” Remy repeated.

“We do,” Linda answered. “All kinds of stuff.”

“I’m sure it’s very interesting,” he said.

“You’d be surprised,” she answered.

The search for the ever-elusive parking space on Beacon Hill went as poorly as it usually did, forcing him to put his car on Cambridge Street, which meant that they had to endure the hike up Anderson Street to his home on Pinckney.

By the time they reached Revere Street, Linda was hanging all over him, jokingly telling him that she wasn’t able to go any farther and that he was going to have to carry her. He joked about leaving her there and going for help, which got them both laughing and holding each other close. And that just led to kissing.

At this rate they’d never get to the house, and the neighbors would be calling the cops for the indecent public display of affection.

“We should probably take this inside,” Remy said, looking deep into her eyes.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she answered, reaching up to touch his face, her fingernails on the roughness of his five-o’clock shadow sending currents of electricity down his neck and into his spine.

She suddenly didn’t have any problem climbing the remainder of the hill, urging him to follow with a seductive wag of her finger.

Remy pushed himself the rest of the way, catching up to her at the top of the street, and grabbing her around the waist. He was about to kiss her again, when he saw that they weren’t alone.

Steven Mulvehill sat on the front steps of Remy’s brownstone, legs splayed out onto the sidewalk.

“Hey,” the Boston homicide cop said as he casually looked up from his phone. Steven was one of the few people who Remy truly called friend, even though that relationship had been going through some difficulties of late.

“Hey back,” Remy said.

Steven had gotten a little too close to the secret world that Remy navigated, and had almost paid a deadly price. The friends hadn’t really spoken since.

“I was hoping I’d catch you,” Steven said. “Didn’t realize that you’d have company.” He reached down and picked up the paper bag at his feet. “We can do this another time. I’m Steven by the way,” he said to Linda, sticking out his hand as he stood. “You must be Linda.”

“Yeah.” She gave him a spectacular smile and took his hand. “Yeah, I am. It’s really nice to finally meet you.”

Steven’s own smile slowly waned as he returned his attention to Remy. “Give me a call. I know I’ve been out of touch, but I’m back now. We need to talk.”

Remy was about to reply, when Linda beat him to the punch.

“Hey, you know, I’ve got to get up early tomorrow,” she said, her eyes darting to Steven and then to Remy. “I was planning on going right to bed. Why don’t you stick around, Steven?”

Linda looked at Remy. He saw what she was doing, and loved her all the more for it.

“Why not,” Remy agreed.

She smiled briefly at him, and then turned it to Steven. “Promise you won’t keep him up all night.” Her eyes dropped to the paper bag in his hand. “Or that you won’t get him too drunk.”

“Promise,” Steven said, holding up his hand in a Boy Scout salute. “I know what a sloppy drunk he can be and I wouldn’t want to subject a sweet thing like yourself to his shenanigans.”

Linda laughed out loud.

“Shenanigans?” she repeated. “Who uses these words? Let me guess, you have a word-of-the-day desk calendar, too.”

“He gave it to me for Christmas,” Steven said with a completely straight face, pointing at Remy. “Why?”

• • •

The silence on the roof of Remy’s brownstone was practically palpable.

He and Steven had grabbed some glasses and filled a bucket full of ice in the kitchen before heading up to the rooftop deck. Marlowe had been ecstatic to see his friend Steven and had insisted on joining them. He now lay beside Steven’s chair, looking up at him lovingly, tail wagging.

“How ya been?” Steven finally asked, breaking the silence, reaching down with his free hand to pet the black dog’s blocky head.

“Are you asking me or the dog?”

“Both,” Steven said. He brought his tumbler of Glenlivet 18 to his mouth and carefully sipped at the scotch.

“I’m doing all right,” Remy said, having some scotch of his own. “How are you doing, Marlowe? Steven wants to know.”

“I love Steven,” Marlowe said, tail thumping excitedly upon the rooftop. “Miss him.”

“Well?” Steven asked.

“He says he’s good,” Remy said, not bothering to share the extent of the dog’s emotions. “He said he missed you.”

“I missed you, too, buddy,” Steven said, leaning over in the chair to scratch Marlowe behind the ear and accept a wet, sloppy kiss.

Remy swirled the ice around in his glass, deciding to tackle the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. “Here’s the real question,” he said. “How are you?”

Steven moved uneasily in his chair, looking out at the twinkling lights of the city.

“I’m good now,” he said. “I’m getting there . . . getting better. I’m all healed up physically.”

“You know I’m sorry for what happened,” Remy told him. “If I had known what I was asking you to do would put you in any danger I would never . . .”

“It’s cool,” Steven said. “If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

“When you wouldn’t answer my calls . . .”

“If we talked then it wouldn’t have been all right,” Steven said, downing the remaining contents of his glass. He set the empty tumbler down on the patio table and fished a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, tapped one out, and lit it. “I just needed some time to think about stuff,” he said, blowing a stream of smoke into the cool night air. “I needed to think about what I’d seen . . . and how it was connected to you.”

Remy listened, sensing that his friend had more to say.

“I know you’d told me stuff in the past,” Steven said with a nervous chuckle. “But I never imagined . . .”

Steven’s voice trailed off, cigarette smoldering in his hand as he stared off into space. Remy was certain that he was experiencing it all again—his nearly fatal brush with the supernatural.

“I never meant for you to be exposed to that part of my life,” Remy said. “You asked me to keep it as far from you as possible, and I thought I’d done a pretty good job until . . .”

Steven looked at him with fear in his gaze. “It’s terrifying,” he said. His hand was shaking as he brought the cigarette up to his eager lips. “The things I saw . . .” Steven finished the smoke, stamping out the remains in an ashtray on the table.

“I know,” Remy said. “I’m sorry.”

“How do you sleep?” Steven asked, pulling the stopper from the bottle and pouring another few fingers of scotch into his glass. He added some ice as an afterthought.

“I’m not sure you remember, but I’m not human,” Remy said. He quickly looked to the doorway that led onto the roof, just to be sure that Linda wasn’t there to overhear, before looking back to his friend. “This kind of thing—I’m sort of built for it.”

“And I’m not,” Steven Mulvehill said, bringing his glass to his mouth for a sip of his drink. “But now I know what’s out there . . . not just what you’ve hinted at . . . what’s really out there, and I’m terrified . . . terrified to have anything to do with you because it might force me to come in contact with something that, this time, would finish me off in the most horrifying way imaginable.”

“I figured as much,” Remy said, sipping what remained of his drink.

The two were silent, the sound of Marlowe’s deep snoring the soundtrack to the moment.

“So how about now?” Remy finally asked him. “Are you still scared of what’s out there? Of me?”

Steven laughed, looking at his friend.

“Fucking terrified.”

That made Remy laugh, too, and shake his head.

“I wish there was something I could say or do to take away your fear, but . . .” Remy stopped, considering his words. “But it doesn’t change the fact that those threats are out there, and now with what happened in Back Bay . . .”

“You were involved with that,” Steven stated. “How did I fucking know you were involved with that?”

“You are a police detective,” Remy said. He leaned forward in his chair and reached for the bottle.

“I was out there,” Steven suddenly stated.

“Where?” Remy asked as he poured more scotch over the dwindling ice in his glass.

“The streets around where that business was happening.”

Remy sat back. “Did you see . . .”

“More shit that I wish I could unsee,” he said.

“Why would you go anywhere near something like that if you knew . . .”

“I saw it on TV and just about shit myself,” Steven explained. “I knew it—as soon as that special news report started, I knew that it must’ve had something to do with the crazy shit that you’d gotten me involved with.”

“Still doesn’t explain why you would go out into it,” Remy said. “Especially after what you’d gone through before. I don’t get it.”

“I was afraid,” Steven said.

“Yeah, I get that, but it doesn’t tell me why—”

“The fear was eating me alive,” he interrupted. “It was all I knew. . . . I woke up with it. I had lunch with it. . . . It was with me constantly, and it liked to remind me that it was the fucking boss.”

Steven took a big long drink, almost draining his glass.

“And when I saw that business on the television I wanted to pull the curtains and hide myself away. . . . That was what the fear was telling me to do.”

Remy continued to listen, urging him on with a glance.

“But I didn’t want to listen anymore,” Steven continued. “I didn’t want to hide anymore.”

“So you went out there, out onto the streets to confront your fears? Is that what you did?”

Steven chuckled, taking another cigarette from his pack.

“Sounds pretty fucking stupid doesn’t it?” he said, starting to laugh harder.

Remy laughed, too. “It really does.”

“But that’s what I did. I put my gun in my pocket, drove as far as I could, and walked as close as I was able.”

“And did you face your fears?” Remy asked.

“I don’t know what I fucking faced,” Steven said. “It was pretty horrible . . . but I faced it, and I lived to tell about it.”

Remy raised what was left in his glass to him in a toast.

Steven lifted his empty glass in response.

Remy finished off his drink, thinking of how he was going to word his next question.

“So what now?” he asked. He decided to have something more to drink. “Are you planning on walking the mean streets looking for evil to vanquish?”

Steven smiled. “Nothing so dramatic,” he said. “I’m back at work, doing my thing, but I see things differently now.”

“How so?”

“I know what’s really out there now, waiting in the shadows, as do a lot of people, I think, since what happened at the Hermes Building.”

“They were blind, but now they see,” Remy said grimly.

“Yeah, but I at least understand what I’m seeing,” the homicide detective said.

“So, you’re good?” Remy asked. “You’re dealing with this okay?”

“As good as can be expected,” Steven said in all truthfulness. “Am I still afraid of what could be waiting for me around the next corner? You bet your ass I am, but I’ll be damned if I let the fear win.”

They again raised their glasses in a toast, both of them drinking at the same time.

“Marlowe wasn’t the only one who missed you,” Remy said casually.

“You just missed the free booze,” Steven said with a knowing nod.

“Am I that transparent?” Remy asked.

“I was blind but now I see,” he said, throwing Remy’s quote back at him. Steven was smiling and finishing his latest cigarette when . . .

“Ah!” he said, turning in his chair toward his friend.

“‘Ah’?” Remy asked. “‘Ah’ what?”

“Malatesta,” Steven said, snapping his fingers. “The guy from the Vatican . . . What was that all about?”

“Guy from the Vatican?” Remy asked. “What guy from the Vatican?”

A sick feeling swirled with the alcohol that had pooled in his belly.

“His name was Malatesta,” Steven explained. “He was waiting for me outside my apartment right after the business in Back Bay.”

“What did he want?” Remy asked cautiously.

Steven shrugged. “He wanted to know what I could tell him about you.”

“And you told him . . .”

“Everything,” Steven said, his face suddenly very serious.

Remy wasn’t quite sure how to react when his friend caved.

“I’m just fucking with you,” the detective said. “I told him that I knew you were a Boston PI, and that we’d crossed paths a few times in our chosen professions, but that was about it.”

“Did he ask you anything else?”

Steven shook his head. “He verified your office address, thanked me, and left. I figured he was on his way over to talk to you.”

“No, never saw him,” Remy said, suddenly slightly concerned, and very curious.

“I wonder what it’s all about,” Steven pondered.

“I haven’t a clue,” Remy answered.

“The Pope doesn’t know that you’re . . .” Steven made flapping movements with his hands.

It was a tricky question, and one that Remy wasn’t sure he wanted to answer in detail at the moment, so he decided to keep it simple. “No. No, he doesn’t.”

But there had been other popes in his lifetime upon this planet, and one in particular a very long time ago.

The angel Remiel, wearing the guise of a man, sat upon the edge of the child’s cot, holding her hand.

The plague was about to claim her life, as it had her father, mother, older brother, and sister.

And he did not wish her to pass from life alone.

The child was burning with fever; the fingernails on the tiny hand that he held were black with gangrene. She thrashed on the straw-filled mattress, and he leaned in close to whisper words of comfort and ease her into the arms of death.

“Fight it no longer, sweet one,” Remiel whispered into the tiny ear inflamed with fever. “Let the sickness that has already taken your family take you, and you will no longer be alone.”

She was looking up at him now, eyes red and bleary with the intensity of the warmth radiating from her small body, mouth moving as she struggled to speak.

The angel listened intently, trying to understand. Squeezing her hand in his, he brought it to his mouth and kissed it gently, lending her some of his own strength.

“What is it, child?” Remiel asked her. “What are you trying to say?”

She was fighting to breathe, lungs clogged with congestion, the glands beneath the skin of her throat black and swollen; but despite her condition she continued to fight to get the words out.

“Where . . . ?” she wheezed.

He was about to answer her, to tell her where her force of life would soon be, joining with her family and the many others who had been taken by the plague this day, but she had not yet finished her question.

“Where’s . . . Dolly?”

Remiel did not understand what it was she asked.

“Dolly?” he repeated. “You want to know the whereabouts of Dolly?”

“Where . . . Dolly . . . ?” the small child gasped, now moving about more wildly upon her bed as if searching for somebody . . . or something.

He was holding her down, to keep her from rolling onto the cold, dirt floor, when he saw it lying crumpled in the corner, beside the hearth. A doll of straw, wearing a dress of burlap.

A dolly.

He left the child momentarily to retrieve the toy and bring it to her upon the bed.

“Is this what you were asking for?” Remiel asked, showing it to her before placing the doll in her waiting arms.

Her bloodshot eyes became wider as she took the toy, hugging it to her body, and she seemed to relax, beginning the process of giving in to the sickness that consumed her.

“That’s it,” Remiel whispered, tenderly wiping a lock of sweat-dampened hair from the child’s forehead. “You can go now that Dolly is here with you.”

She seemed to grow smaller, her body, once tense with the pain of disease and impending death, now relaxing under his watchful gaze. The child’s face grew slack, and there was a brief crackle of bluish white energy that only he could see.

Israfil, the Angel of Death, then appeared to collect the last of the child’s life energies, but the powerful angel did not acknowledge Remiel’s presence there.

The Angel of Death departed as quickly as he had come, and Remiel stood up, looking down at the shell of cooling flesh that had once housed the stuff of life. He looked about at the remains of the child’s family, their bodies in more advanced stages of decay, having passed from the world earlier. It was a house void of all life now, except for the disease and vermin that thrived upon the corpses that rested there.

Remiel let his arms drop to his sides and called forth the fire of God, allowing it to flow into his hands. The fire was hungry, eager to consume anything it was set upon. The angel walked about the tiny home gently caressing the sparse furniture and the bodies that lay putrefying in death, leaving behind the fire of Heaven to quench its insatiable hunger.

Stepping through the door, roiling fire at his back, the angel Remiel wondered how many more he would need to comfort on their way to death before the virulent plague ran its course.

The whinnying of horses distracted him from his thoughts, and the angel, clad in the clothes of a simple man, looked to see that he was now being watched.

The knights sat upon their horses, watching him with suspicious eyes. He could have easily willed himself invisible and gone on his way unhampered, but these armored soldiers, there was something about them.

Something that made him curious.

The shack behind him had become like a ball of fire, and he continued to watch the knights, their horses made nervous by the intensity of the divine flames.

“There was great sickness here,” Remiel spoke above the roar of the flames. “But I have put an end to it.”

The knights continued their silence, watching him with scrutinizing eyes.

“Is there something I can do for you, brave knights?” Remiel asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“Our master wishes an audience,” said one of the soldiers.

“With me?” Remiel asked. “Why would someone of obvious power wish to speak with one such as me?”

“He knows what you are, soldier of God,” said the knight, bowing his head.

The other knights followed suit in reverence to the angel.

“Will you accompany us to nearby Bohner Castle to speak with the Holy Father?” the knight asked.

“Holy Father?” Remiel repeated, curious about the title they had given their master.

“Yes, warrior of Heaven,” the knight said. “The Holy Father, Pope Tyranus of the Holy See.”

They had brought along a riderless horse, and presented it to him.

“Will you ride with us?” the knight asked him, as the other knights watched. “Or would you prefer other means in which to reach our destination?”

Remiel had grown temporarily disenchanted with the wearisome task of ministering to the dying, and believed that this might be just the kind of distraction that he required at that moment.

“Take me to your master,” he said, climbing up onto his mount. The flaming home behind him collapsed with an animal-like roar, tongues of angelic fire lapping eagerly at the damp, night air.

“Take me to Pope Tyranus.”