Where Angels Fear to Tread

CHAPTER TEN

The pack of soulless beings spilled into the motel room, strangely silent in their attack.

Remy barely had time to react before they had Deryn on the floor, holding her down as one pulled plastic ties from a pocket and bound her hands behind her back, and another drew a hood over her head.

Remy threw himself in the fray, and they swarmed him like ants on a piece of bread. They drove him to the floor, but still he fought.

The Seraphim screeched and wailed to be unleashed, and this time Remy allowed his guard to drop, the essence of Heaven surging to the surface, only to be pushed away. It struggled wildly, but something was preventing its manifestation.

The soulless beings kicked and punched Remy mercilessly, driving him back to the floor every time he tried to stand. Through bleary eyes, he watched as Deryn was dragged from the room.

And then he saw a gray-haired man, standing just inside the door, smiling as he watched the ferocious beating.

The assault was relentless, and as they laid their hands upon him again and again, he caught sight of the mark they wore, his eyes taking in brief glimpses of a pair of lips caught in a flash of exposed flesh.

“Enough,” a voice that sounded a million miles away called out, and the soulless ceased their abuse.

Remy managed to push himself up onto his knees, swaying as the cheap motel room’s floor seemed to move beneath him. Through his unswollen eye, he looked into the barrel of a pistol aimed at his forehead.

The gray-haired man stared down its length, his thumb cocking back the hammer. Remy could sense—could smell—that this one’s soul had been removed as well, but there was something about him, in his cold, unemotional stare, almost as if the absence of God’s greatest gift were nothing important.

Maybe he had learned to live without a soul long before it had been taken.

Remy watched the man’s finger begin to twitch upon the trigger, and summoned the strength to react. He reached up, grabbing hold of the barrel, and twisted it away just as the weapon discharged.

“Shit,” the man cursed, lashing out at him with his foot and kicking Remy back to the floor. He chambered another round and aimed at Remy’s face.

He was about to fire when a roar filled the room.

It was coming from outside, growing louder by the second, and giving Remy just enough of a distraction.

He rolled onto his belly as the sound outside the motel grew to a nearly deafening crescendo, his eyes drawn to the thick curtains that had been pulled across the large motel windows.

The window exploded in a cacophony of shattered glass and cinder block, as a four-wheel drive crashed through the wall.

The soulless screamed as they were scattered, the leader with his gun falling backward as shards of glass and broken cement blanketed the room.

A cloud of dust and dirt billowed through the air as the vehicle’s doors opened and two people emerged.

Remy reached out to the small desk against the opposite wall, trying to pull himself to his feet. He watched in disbelief as a man and woman, exhibiting strength not usually attributed to humans, made short work of the soulless.

Limbs were broken and skulls shattered as the pair waded into the room, administering violence with cold efficiency.

Remy saw movement from the corner of his eye, catching sight of the gray-haired leader bolting from the room. He tried to pursue him, but his legs had become like rubber, and he stumbled forward, falling against the bed.

He quickly turned, trying to stay upright as the room spun, and came face-to-face with one of the pair. It was the man, his face large and square, adorned with a mustache and goatee, his hair shoulder length, the top a spiky mullet. Their eyes locked, and then the man drew back, driving a fist like a wrecking ball into Remy’s face.

He fell back, fighting to remain conscious. He could feel himself being picked up, then tossed like a bag of dirty laundry into the back of the truck

He could hear sirens in the distance as he felt the truck back up.

Banshee wails that took him by the hand and showed him the way to the land of unconsciousness.

Carl Saylor had always thought of himself as a failure.

But as he drove his car up the winding dirt road, with little Zoe sitting in the seat beside him, he believed that now—finally—that was all about to change.

He’d never really been much good at anything. He was the middle child of three; his brother had been great in sports, and his sister had been top of her class in high school and college. Carl never really had much luck with sports, and school, no matter how hard he applied himself, was always just too damn difficult. Even after school, his failures had continued as he moved from one low-paying job to another.

From an early age he knew where his path would take him.

Nowhere.

He stopped the car and peered through the windshield at a rusted yellow gate. He’d followed the directions Frank had given him, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about a gate, and now Carl wondered if he shouldn’t have taken that right about two miles back.

“Where are we, Daddy?” Zoe asked. She was rocking back and forth. “Where are we, Daddy? Where are we, Daddy?” she repeated again and again, not waiting for his answer.

“We’re looking for that special place Frank told us about, remember?” Carl said, reaching across the seat to squeeze her bare knee.

“Frank’s dead,” she said matter-of-factly. “Dead. Dead. Dead.”

“Don’t say that, honey,” he scolded. “It’s not nice.”

“It’s not nice,” she repeated, rocking faster. “It’s not nice Frank’s dead.”

Carl truly believed Frank had saved his life, removing him from the path of failure and putting him on the highway to redemption.

He’d thought that about Deryn too, at first. She’d seemed an awful lot like him.

He glanced over at his little girl, mesmerized by her rocking. He could see his ex in the shape of her face, in the blue of her eyes.

Deryn was the first to hear about the church. Carl had never been one for religion, but he loved Deryn as much as he loved anything, and he went along to one of the meetings just to keep her happy.

The Church of Dagon had welcomed them with open arms, giving them a place to stay when they’d had no other, and even inviting them for a special visit with the church’s founder, Pastor Zachariah.

And suddenly their lives were changed. They were no longer failures. They were chosen, Pastor Zachariah had told them. The pastor’s words were like a magic potion, and Carl and Deryn had thrown themselves into the church, body and soul, waiting for the time when they would be able to fulfill their special purpose.

Then Deryn became pregnant. All the plans began to fall into place, and their future never seemed clearer.

The pastor told them their baby would be the vessel for their god . . . Dagon. And the world would be changed forever.

Carl opened the door, letting a rush of moist, West Virginia heat into the coolness of the air-conditioned car.

“Stay right there,” he told his daughter as he exited. She continued to rock to some silent tune that only she could hear.

He slammed the door closed and walked around the car, standing before the metal gate, craning his neck to see what lay beyond. It appeared to be more of the same, but he didn’t want to believe he was lost.

Not again.

The closer it had come to the time for the ritual, the more doubt had filled Carl’s mind. He’d known it was selfish, but he didn’t want a god to live inside his baby. Carl wanted his baby to belong to him, and to Deryn, not to the church . . . not to the world.

And that was when he had taken a walk down the road to failure again, placing a series of phone calls to various state and federal agencies, suggesting wrongdoing at the isolated church compound.

He’d believed his attempts to rouse the suspicions of the authorities had failed as the night the god Dagon was to return to the world was upon them. All the church was to play a part in the ancient ritual, sacrificing their lives for the good of the world, for the good of their god.

Their lives would reach to the void, punching through the barrier that kept the Lord of Abundance separated from this reality.

The ritual had been well under way, the church brothers and sisters in the throes of death, when the authorities laid siege to the compound.

Carl hadn’t taken his own poison as his wife lay there, waiting for the ritual to be completed and the god to take possession of the child—their child—growing in her belly. As the officials poured into the church, weapons drawn, he had looked into Pastor Zachariah’s eyes and realized the holy man knew he was responsible.

The pastor had run, using the confusion and clouds of tear gas to escape prosecution.

Carl, Deryn, and the baby had been the only survivors, and Carl had believed he was the luckiest man alive.

But he’d been wrong.

Because of his betrayal, he was back on the path of failure, and things had gone from bad to worse.

Carl shook his head and returned to the car.

“C’mon, hon,” he said, opening the passenger door and unbuckling Zoe’s seat belt. “We’re gonna go for a little walk and see what’s up this road.”

The child’s hands were flailing. It had been quite a while since she’d last held a crayon.

“I’ll get you some paper in a little while,” he told her, taking one of her hands in his and leading her toward the rusted gate. Carl picked the child up and placed her on the other side, climbing beneath the metal obstruction to join her.

His life after the Church of Dagon had been exciting at first, as they were interviewed by the newspapers and television, but it seemed like no time at all before things had turned to misery. It had taken Deryn some time to get over their no longer having a special purpose, other than to be mother and father to their new baby.

She had eventually accepted that, but doubt ate at Carl every day. He had thought the move to Florida would help, but a change in temperature wasn’t enough to convince him that what he had done was the right thing.

Zoe’s being diagnosed with autism and his and Deryn’s splitting up were punishment for what he had done, for allowing his selfishness to prevent the world from seeing something special.

But then he had met Frank and learned that the man’s place of worship, the Church of His Holy Abundance, was an offshoot of the Church of Dagon. It was an opportunity for Carl to make amends.

“Let’s go up here,” he told his daughter, leading her up the rock and dirt path.

Frank had seen Zoe’s drawings and taken them as a sign that Carl and his child had been delivered to him, that he would be the messenger, the one to return them to their god.

Carl had followed the man’s directions to the West Virginia compound of the Church of His Holy Abundance to a tee, or at least believed he had, but now he was beginning to think that maybe he was, as he had been for so very long now . . .

Lost.

Rounding the corner, he saw that the rocky path continued.

Maybe a little bit farther, he thought, tugging on Zoe’s hand. The child was bent over, her index finger moving in the dirt. As she drew, she made strange, explosive sounds, almost as if she were imitating gunshots.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Why are you making those sounds?”

And as if on cue, the men with guns emerged from the high underbrush. There were six of them, dressed in military fatigues.

“You are trespassing on private property,” one of them bellowed, aiming down the barrel of a semiautomatic rifle.

Carl immediately let go of his child’s hand and put his own up.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes darting from one armed man to the next. “I didn’t know. . . . I’m looking for a church and I think I’m lost.”

“What kind of church?” the man asked, still staring down the length of his weapon.

“The Church—the Church of His Holy Abundance,” Carl stammered. “I used to be a member—a long time ago. I want them to take me back—and to forgive me for what I did.”

Carl was babbling, his voice quivering with fear and emotion.

The man who questioned him lowered his gun.

“You used to be a parishioner?” he asked.

Carl nodded. “When it was the Church of Dagon.”

The mention of the old church got an immediate reaction.

“Lower your weapons,” the man said, and the others did as they were told.

“Do you know of the church?” Carl asked nervously. “Is it close by?” His arms were starting to ache, so he cautiously lowered them.

A phone began to chirp. The man reached down to a pocket on the leg of his pants, retrieved the phone, and brought it to his mouth.

“Go ahead, base,” he said.

“What’s the problem up there?” a voice asked.

“Seems we have a lost sheep that has returned to the flock,” the man said.

There was a pause. “A lost sheep, you say?” the voice asked finally. “Ask him his name.”

“What’s your name, sheep?” the man asked. He held out the phone.

“Carl. Carl Saylor.”

The man brought the phone to his mouth again. “Did you get that?”

“I did,” said the voice on the other end. “The Judas has come home.”

The other men instantly raised their weapons, hate suddenly evident in their eyes.

“The Judas,” the man with the phone said, and Carl thought there was a very good chance he was about to be killed.

But the voice from the phone spoke again.

“Bring the Judas to the compound,” it said.

And Carl and his daughter were escorted up the road at gunpoint, but he was exactly where he wanted to be.

Lost, but now found.

The sun was going down, and the tide was rolling in.

Remy reclined in his beach chair; his entire body hurt.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

He turned his head to see Madeline sitting there beside him, her silly beach hat still adorning her lovely head.

“I think I got my ass kicked pretty good,” he said. Even talking hurt him. His jaw throbbed painfully with the beat of his heart, and the muscles in his neck and stomach were aching with even the thought of movement.

“What happened back there?” Madeline asked as a gust of warm wind came off the ocean, nearly stealing away her hat. She gripped the brim, tilting her head down to ride out the breeze.

Flecks of sand irritated his eyes, but he stared ahead at the roiling ocean slowly making its way up the beach toward them, toward the end of their days together.

“I’m not sure really,” he said. “The people who attacked me—they were missing their souls.”

“That doesn’t happen all that often, does it?”

“Not usually,” he said with a shake of his head that hurt way more than it should. “Something has taken their souls and left them angry, destructive shells of what they once were. Without a soul, they’ll just lose the will to live, and eventually waste away.”

“What about their leader?” Madeline asked. “He didn’t seem like he was going to be wasting away any time soon.”

“No, he didn’t,” Remy said, remembering the gray-haired man’s cold, lifeless eyes. “Something tells me he wasn’t using his soul all that much even before it was taken.”

They both fell silent for a while, staring out across the ocean. The pain of his body had started to subside, which meant he was healing; one angelic aspect that he’d never made any effort to suppress.

“This is nice,” he said finally, reaching to take her hand.

“It is,” she said, “but you know it’s not real, right?”

Remy sighed, not wanting to see the truth in her gaze.

“I know. But I really don’t care. I’ll see you any way I can.”

He felt her smile at him, and his heart did the same kind of acrobatics it had done when they’d first met.

“You’re sweet,” she said, leaning over to kiss him. “But you really should get going.”

“You’re probably right.”

They kissed briefly, and then Remy stood up. He was no longer wearing his shorts; he was in his work clothes.

“Looks like I’m waking up,” he said, giving himself the once-over.

“Looks like you’re right,” Madeline said, leaning back in her chair as if to relax.

“See you later?” Remy asked.

“You bet,” she said with a smile, and closed her eyes.

Remy opened his eyes and found that he was laid out on an old, beat-up leather couch in the corner of a dark, filthy office.

He sat up with a grunt, flexing his fingers and moving his arms, just to be sure everything had healed while he and Madeline sat on the beach.

He could still smell the ocean.

Cautiously, he rose to his feet and looked around the gloom of the office. On the wall, in a dusty, crooked frame, was a certificate for a job well-done by Rudy Haberlin, from the home office of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. He found the closed door and crossed the room toward it, surprised to find it unlocked.

He stepped out into a small corridor that took him to the lobby of the apparently abandoned Boys Club building, where he found a set of trash-strewn marble steps, leading to what looked like the front doors. He cautiously walked down, only to find that a thick chain and lock had been fastened between the doors, making his escape a little less probable. He thought about calling on the power of the Seraphim again, but decided against it. Maybe as a last resort; there had to be other ways out of the building, and besides, he was curious as to why he had been brought here.

He climbed the stairs back into the lobby and had a look around. Multiple doorways led farther into the darkened recesses of the building, and he was about to pick one at random, when he heard the unmistakable sounds of cheering from somewhere in the distance.

Navigating the darkness, he moved toward a particular doorway, finding another set of stairs descending farther into the belly of the Boys Club. That was where the sounds seemed to be coming from, so that was where he decided to go.

Holding on to the cold, metal railing, Remy descended, listening as the cries grew louder, and some truly unusual scents wafted through the air—expensive perfume, aftershave, liquor, sweat, blood, and the unearthly.

The emergency lights were functioning on this lower level, providing just enough light, as Remy followed the sounds and scents to a set of large swinging doors at the end of the corridor.

Carefully, he pushed open one of the doors a crack and found himself looking into an old swimming pool area. It was crowded, at least two hundred or so normal and paranormal beings circling the pool. Portable bleachers had been set up on either side, where it appeared that the more wealthy and influential were sitting.

Remy willed himself unseen and slipped into the room, maneuvering through the raucous crowd, trying to get closer for a look in the pool.

A demon in an expensive suit got a phone call and so moved aside, allowing Remy the opportunity to take his place for a look at what was holding the attention of so many.

The dry, Olympic-sized pool had been turned into a makeshift gladiatorial pit, and inside, locked in ferocious combat, were two beings, both showing the bloody signs of violence they had heaped upon each other. One appeared to be pretty much human, wearing only a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants. He was a big man, but older. The hair on his chest was white, resembling tufts of down from a torn pillow, and he wore his equally snow-white locks long and flowing past his powerful shoulder blades.

But the other fighter was anything but human. Remy wasn’t sure exactly what it was, guessing maybe some sort of troll descendant.

The troll raked a clawed hand down the front of the human’s chest, staining the downy whiteness a crimson red. The old man stumbled back away from the beast. He squatted down, his hands feeling around on the ground before falling on a wooden bat.

The troll bellowed, looking down and bending just long enough to recover its own club.

The old man charged, holding his bat high. The troll raised its own bludgeon to block the savage blow, but the old-timer had other plans. At the last moment, he bent low, bringing the bat down upon the troll’s bare foot.

The sound of breaking bones, followed by the troll’s bellow of pain, echoed in the chamber.

The crowd went wild. The man advanced on his opponent as it tried to back away. The troll limped, visibly impaired by the injury, but managed to bring its club back up. The white-haired man ducked beneath the swing that would have likely taken his head off if it’d had the chance to connect, and rose up to slam his own bat into the troll’s left side. Remy winced at the savagery of the blow as the troll bent forward in agony.

The old man was relentless, raining blow after savage blow upon his opponent.

Smelling blood, the crowd went wild. And across the room, near the ladder that would bring the victor up from within the pool, Remy caught sight of the man and woman who had driven their truck through the window of the Nightingale Motel and had brought him here. They were cheering madly, caught up in the frenzied excitement of the furious battle below.

The troll’s cry of pain drew Remy’s eyes back to the conflict.

The old man circled the beast that had fallen to its knees. The troll tried to keep its opponent at bay, but it proved impossible. Lashing out with his bat, the old man struck at the troll’s hand, causing it to drop its weapon, which went clattering to the pool floor. The man tossed his own weapon aside, and threw himself upon the back of the beast.

The creature tried to rise, but fell back, while the old man clung on, putting the troll in a headlock.

The crowd had begun to chant, sensing that the match was about to end. It took a moment for Remy to discern exactly what the crowd was repeating, over and over again, but once he did, it all made a twisted kind of sense; the long hair, the nearly superhuman strength.

Remy saw the man lower his head, speaking into the troll’s bleeding ear, before executing his final move.

The troll’s eyes slowly closed, as the old man let loose with a bellow of rage, savagely twisting his adversary’s neck, breaking it, and letting the limp body fall broken to the floor of the pool, where it twitched obscenely before going still.

The winner raised his hands and face to the crowd, and the place went wild with cries, howls, and whistles. Glancing across the room, Remy saw the man who had brought him there collecting large amounts of money. He was laughing, frantically counting as he was pelted with bills.

Somebody had made a small fortune on this bout.

The crowd was breaking up now; some heading toward the doors, others slipping into patches of shadow to disappear. Some had even conjured crackling passages of magickal energy that swallowed them whole before collapsing with sounds reminiscent of a slamming car door.

Remy remained where he was, watching as the woman descended into the pool to help the old man find his footing on the ladder. It was almost as if the man were blind.

They reached the top of the ladder, and the girl handed him a towel and a bottle of water.

“Thank you, little girl,” he said, his voice low and rough.

“Did good tonight, Daddy,” she said with a laugh, leaning in to kiss the side of his sweaty head.

Daddy?

“Excellent haul, Pops,” the young man said, waving an enormous stack of bills beneath the man’s nose.

“Is that what victory smells like?” he asked, and they all started to laugh.

A strange sound from the pool below distracted Remy, and he looked down. Things, about Marlowe’s size, were ripping at the troll’s body with razor-sharp teeth and a hunger that seemed insatiable.

Nose curling up in disgust, he could not help but watch the monster’s body disappear, bones, blood, and all. In a matter of seconds, it was as if it had never been there at all.

The voracious beasts skittered away into the shadows of the pool, and Remy returned his gaze to the only three left in the area with him.

“Would someone care to explain what’s going on?” Remy asked.

The old man jumped, his large head looking around.

“Who’s that?” he asked his daughter, who was cleaning the claw marks on his chest with peroxide.

“It’s the private eye,” the woman said.

“You know, the Seraphim,” the man added sarcastically.

The woman returned to dabbing the wounds with a cotton ball, when the old man gently moved her hands away. Slowly, carefully, he made his way toward Remy, and the milky film that covered his eyes told Remy he had been right. The old man was indeed blind.

“You’re Remy Chandler, right?” the powerful old man said, extending a large hand in greeting.

Remy moved closer, placing his hand in the old man’s calloused paw.

“I am,” he said. “And you are Samson.”

The old man’s lips parted to reveal a wide yellow smile as he pumped Remy’s hand enthusiastically.

“Yes, I am,” he said with a laugh. “The one and only.”