Where Angels Fear to Tread

CHAPTER NINE

Delilah was exhausted from her travels, but she would not rest until the object was finally in her possession.

And if she could not rest, neither would those who served her.

Clifton Poole had been set up in his own room and given everything he could possibly need in order to lead them to her prize.

So far his attempts at divining its location had not borne the kind of results she had hoped for, and she prayed this morning would be different.

She strolled down the corridor of her new Boston home, high heels clicking upon the meticulously cared-for hardwood floors. She knew she was being followed and deliberately slowed her pace, then turned to confront a woman in a navy blue suit.

“Who are you?” she asked in a powerful voice that reverberated down the sprawling corridor.

“I’m so sorry for disturbing you,” the woman said, cowering beneath Delilah’s gaze. “I’m Ms. Burnett . . . Janice Burnett. . . . I . . . I brought you to this house.”

Delilah smiled. “Of course, Ms. Burnett.”

She looked up and down the corridor, at the beautiful religious murals painted on the walls. The estate, once owned by the Archdiocese of Boston, had been put on the market to help pay restitution to the victims of the recent clerical sex abuse scandals.

Their loss was her gain.

“You’ve served me well,” Delilah said to the young woman.

Ms. Burnett looked as though the weight of the planet had suddenly been lifted from her shoulders. “Oh, thank you,” she said, tears beginning to flow from her eyes. “You don’t know what that means to me.”

But Delilah knew exactly what it meant; how special it was to serve her. All it had taken was one conversation with the Boston real estate agent for her to realize how much she had wanted to please Delilah.

Ms. Burnett rushed down the corridor and dropped to her knees in front of Delilah. “I . . . I didn’t know if you were happy . . . if I had pleased you,” she said, reaching for Delilah’s ring-covered hand, lovingly kissing it.

Delilah pulled her hand away, startling the woman.

“I’m pleased,” she said. “For now.”

Burnett stared up at her with wide, desperate eyes.

“What else can I do for you?” she begged. “Ask me anything. . . . I’ll do anything to . . .”

“Go,” Delilah said with a wave of her hand. “I have other concerns that demand my fullest attention.” She turned her back on the groveling woman and continued on down the hall to Poole’s room.

She rapped loudly on his door with one of her rings. “Mr. Poole,” she called out, pulling a key from the pocket of her slacks.

She opened the door and stepped inside.

The room was dark, and it stank of stale sweat and bodily waste.

Delilah fumbled on the wall to the right of the door, searching for the light switch. Finding it, she flipped it up, and a chandelier brilliantly illuminated the room.

Poole screamed, his naked body appearing pale and malnourished in the light as he hunched over his work upon the floor.

Had she given him permission to eat? Delilah couldn’t remember, but that was the least of her concerns at the moment.

The Hound dipped his fingers into a bucket of his own waste and drew feverishly upon the hardwood floor.

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Mr. Poole,” she announced, trying not to breathe in the foul aroma.

“I’m trying,” he screamed.

His work was elaborate; a map, covering a good eighty percent of the floor inside the nearly barren room, and she was certain it would soon encompass even more than that.

“But when I get close . . .”

He started to scream, his body thrashing upon the floor as if electricity were being pumped through him. Then just as suddenly, he seemed to recover, crab walking across the floor to a stack of atlases and maps piled in the corner.

The metal child vessel, which had once contained the object of her desire, sat there as well, arms outstretched.

“Do you have anything, Mr. Poole?” she asked, fearing his answer.

He ignored her, scratching at his filthy genitalia, before snatching a road map from the floor and unfolding it to its fullest. He practically lay upon it, pressing his face to the elaborate cartography, as he muttered unintelligibly.

He reached out and dragged the empty vessel closer, holding it in his arms, as he studied the map, licking the metal container’s head with a thickly coated tongue.

“Talk to me, Mr. Poole!” Delilah bellowed, flexing the muscles of her commanding ability.

Poole recoiled as if slapped, then fell backward to the floor.

She crossed the room, careful not to step upon the waste.

“It knows we’re looking,” Poole rushed to explain. “It knows we’re looking and hides when I try to find it.” He grabbed the sides of his head in pain and slowly began to rock. “It’s putting . . . putting things inside me . . . inside my skull . . . trying to stop me. . . .”

“But you won’t stop, will you, Mr. Poole?” Delilah asked him.

“No,” he screamed, flecks of spit flying from his mouth. “I have to find it . . . find it for you . . . so . . . so you’ll be happy.”

“Exactly,” she agreed.

Delilah tried not to think about how close she had been. If only they had moved just a little bit faster, they would have found the father and child in the city, but now they had gone.

And no one could tell her where they’d gone.

“So, to keep me happy, you will continue to search. . . . You will not sleep; you will not eat. . . . You will not piss or shit. You will not stop for a second. Do you understand me, Mr. Poole?”

The Hound twitched, trembling beneath her gaze.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” she asked with a predatory snarl.

Poole flopped about, scrabbling across the filth-covered floor on his hands and feet as he resumed his search.

Delilah strode from the room, locking the door behind her and turning to find Mathias waiting patiently.

“I hope for your sake you don’t have any bad news,” she warned.

Mathias averted his gaze. “No, my mistress, but I might have something you’ll find pleasing.”

Delilah was curious.

“Well?” she urged.

“It may not be exactly what you’re looking for, but perhaps it could eventually bring us to that,” the mercenary said.

“Get to the point, Mathias.”

Mathias looked up, staring into her dark eyes.

“The child is with her father,” he said. “He accompanied her to the hospital that morning.”

She stepped closer, sensing something at the brink. “Get on with it,” she hissed, motioning with her hand.

“The child is with the father,” Mathias repeated.

Delilah loomed closer, her control nearly failing.

“The father,” he said again, and she was about to reach out and pluck out his eyes when, suddenly, she understood what he was saying.

“She came to the city with both parents,” Delilah said.

“And according to Parsons, the mother was calling repeatedly, trying to find them.”

“They may have contacted her,” Delilah said, trying to keep her excitement in check.

“Perhaps,” Mathias said. “Who knows what we might learn if we were to speak to her?”

Images of the lives she had led, of the loves she had had, flashed through Delilah’s mind. . . .

“Find her,” she commanded.

The images reminded her of what she could have again, what could still be, if only . . .

“And bring her to me.”

Marlowe was hungry, but then again, when wasn’t he?

They’d managed to make it back from Methuselah’s pretty much unscathed, but with very little to show for their efforts.

On the drive home, Remy tried to explain to the Labrador why it was a bad idea to try to get demons to give him food, but the dog just didn’t understand. Why wouldn’t everybody want to share their food with him? After all, he was Marlowe.

Remy couldn’t argue with that kind of logic, so he let it drop.

They found a parking space on Irving Street and returned to the brownstone just as the early risers were starting to make their way downtown.

They were barely through the door when Marlowe demanded his breakfast, which he quickly scarfed down, followed by half an apple.

And that finally left Remy free and clear to shower and get ready for the day.

Methuselah’s had left him feeling grimy. It wasn’t the tavern per se, but what he had seen there, revealed when the shadows had been pulled away like a magician’s trick.

Retrievers, and not the good, four-legged kind.

God’s Retrievers.

Not good at all. All he could imagine was that the situation between Heaven and the newly reconfigured Hell was starting to heat up.

Clean and dressed, Remy headed back downstairs to find Marlowe fast asleep on the couch.

It was beginning to feel a little muggy inside, the hint of higher temperatures to come, so he put the air conditioners on for his pal, then went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee for himself. He picked up his cell phone from the counter where he’d left it to charge and found he had missed a call from Father Coughlin.

He hit REDIAL, and the old priest picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, it’s Remy,” the angel said, taking his Little Britain mug from the dish rack and setting it down beside the coffee machine, which was still brewing.

“And where were you at such an early hour?” the priest asked curiously. “Out fighting crime, were we?”

“With my faithful four-legged sidekick,” Remy affirmed. “There was much evil to be smitten this morning.”

They both chuckled at that.

“So, do you have anything useful for me?”

The thick, delicious aroma of coffee permeated the kitchen, and Remy placed his hand on the handle of the carafe, impatient for it to finish. There was nothing he liked better than a fresh pot of coffee; it was a human vice he would not have been able to shed, even if he’d tried.

“I think I do,” Coughlin said, and Remy could hear him shuffling papers around on the other end of the phone.

The coffee machine dripped, then gurgled its last as Remy pulled the carafe from beneath the filter and poured himself a full mug.

“Okay, those symbols on the flyer?”

“Yeah?” Remy prompted, taking a full swig of his first coffee of the day.

“They were most definitely Sumerian,” the old priest said. “I faxed copies of the pamphlet over to an associate at the Vatican, and he confirmed it for me.”

“Sort of odd, don’t you think?” Remy asked.

“Most definitely,” Coughlin answered. “Especially when you hear what the symbols were associated with. They’re connected to an extremely rare, ancient sect that worshipped a deity called Dagon.”

“Dagon,” Remy repeated. “Wasn’t he some sort of sea or fish god?”

“He was often depicted that way,” the priest explained. “But in actuality, he was a god of fertility and the vivifying powers of nature and reproduction, of life and death.”

Remy sipped his coffee, absorbing the information.

“So you’re probably wondering how and why ancient symbols connected to a seemingly forgotten Sumerian god found their way onto a pamphlet advertising a church in Somerville, and that would be a very good question.”

“Hit me,” Remy said, hearing the excitement in the old priest’s voice.

“About ten years ago, a religious order sprang up rather unexpectedly in the southern regions of the country, specifically to worship Dagon. There were reports of child abuse and weapons hoarding, and eventually the ATF moved in with local police.”

“Y’know, I seem to recall something about that. Weren’t there mass suicides or something?” Remy asked.

“Yeah, it didn’t end well for the church,” Coughlin agreed. “The authorities found that the majority of parishioners, men, women, and children, had poisoned themselves.” The old priest cleared his throat. “I have some pictures here from the Internet. It wasn’t a very pleasant sight. From my understanding, the church’s followers believed their suicide—their lives—would provide the power needed for their god to be reborn on this earth in a body that had been especially created for him.”

“What, like Frankenstein?” Remy asked. He had finished his first cup of coffee and was moving on to the second.

“Nothing so crude,” Coughlin said. “A couple had been chosen to conceive a child—a special child, blessed by the powers of the church family, and this child would be the vessel in which this deity could grow and prosper.”

Remy felt a sick twinge in the pit of his belly.

“So I’m guessing this ritual never occurred.”

“Supposedly it was in the midst of being performed when the authorities stormed the compound and put a stop to it. That couple were two of the only survivors, along with the church’s mysterious pastor, who managed to evade arrest.”

The feeling in Remy’s stomach became worse, a horrible twisting sensation that meant things were about to go very wrong.

“The couple survived, huh?” Remy said.

“Yes, yes, they did. In the pictures I have here, they look so young, children themselves really.”

“Do you happen to know names?” Remy asked, knowing full well he would come to regret the question.

“I don’t see any last names,” Coughlin said. “But their first names were Deryn and Carl.”

It was as if the floor beneath his feet had suddenly dropped away, that descending-elevator feeling that made him want to hold on tight to something.

Deryn York and Carl Saylor.

Remy was going to need another cup of coffee.

Deryn York was staying at the Nightingale Motor Lodge in Brighton, about fifteen minutes from Franciscan Children’s, if traffic was behaving.

Remy had called her from the road, telling her to expect him, and twenty minutes later, he was pulling into the lot of the run-down, stucco building. Deryn’s room was around back, so he parked as close as he could and walked across the lot.

She opened the door before he had a chance to knock.

Remy entered the room and was practically overwhelmed with the stink of cigarette smoke.

“What is it, Mr. Chandler?” she asked, cigarette butt hanging from her mouth as she wrung her hands in nervousness.

“Remy,” he corrected, attempting to put her at ease.

She took the cigarette from the corner of her mouth and pulled a chair from beneath the desk. “All right then, Remy. Please, sit down,” she said, motioning to the chair as she plunked down on the queen-sized bed that was covered with a wrinkled floral bedspread.

“What about my little girl?”

Remy leaned forward in the chair and looked her straight in the eyes.

“What can you tell me about the Church of His Holy Abundance?”

She stared, slowly bringing the cigarette back up to her mouth. “Nothing,” she said with a shake of her head. “Never heard of it.”

“Are you sure?” Remy prodded. “Perhaps your husband mentioned it in passing?”

She shook her head again, releasing a choking cloud of smoke. “No, nothing,” she said, squinting through the noxious fumes that surrounded her head. “Why? What’s this all about Mr. . . . Remy?”

Remy thought for a moment. “I’ve been doing some poking into your past,” he said finally.

She stared intensely, slowly bringing the cigarette back up to her eager mouth. “My past?” she questioned.

“The Church of Dagon,” Remy said. “I know about what happened at the Church of Dagon.”

“Fucking shit,” she hissed, bouncing off the bed and practically hurling herself toward the dresser where an ashtray waited. “I—I can’t fucking believe this,” she stammered, stamping out her smoke.

“There was a therapy assistant at Franciscan Children’s who had apparently befriended your husband and daughter. I talked with him briefly at the hospital, but when I went to his home to question him further, I discovered he had been murdered.”

“Murdered?” she repeated with a gasp, both trembling hands going to her mouth as her eyes widened. “It’s not Frank, is it? Please, tell me it’s not fucking Frank.”

“I’m sorry,” Remy said quietly.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she repeated, grabbing her purse from the dresser and pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Immediately, she lit up.

“Seems there’s some kind of connection between the church Frank belonged to and the one you and your husband . . .”

“That son of a bitch,” she snarled. “I always knew he hadn’t given up the old beliefs, even though he swore he had.”

She started to pace, puffing on the cigarette as if she would die if she didn’t.

“I thought he might’ve been slipping when he lost his job, and when we first learned how sick Zoe was, but he promised me it wasn’t true. He knew how I felt about those . . . those freaks.”

Remy stared and listened.

“That’s what they were,” she said to him forcefully. “Wanting to use my baby to stick some sort of . . . spirit inside her and . . .”

She threw her hands in the air in frustration.

“We were young and fucking stupid; what can I say,” she explained. Her back was to him now as she stood in front of the double windows, their shades drawn to keep out the sun, and any nosy motel residents.

“So you think he might have gone back to his old beliefs?” Remy asked.

She picked a piece of tobacco off her tongue and flicked it away. “Yeah, he could have, especially if Frank was a member. I was sort of wondering where those two would go off to together sometimes. Seriously, with the way things were going, I don’t think it would’ve taken much to push him back to the old ways.”

A sudden knock at the door startled them, and Deryn looked at him. “It’s housekeeping,” she said, heading for the door. “I called for more toilet tissue just before you came.”

The Seraphim inside Remy awakened in an instant, aroused by something familiar, and Remy gasped, fighting the nearly overwhelming power that struggled to manifest as Deryn opened the door.

It wasn’t housekeeping. Not unless they traveled in packs and stank of violence, desperation, and decay.

And not unless they were all missing their souls.