Mean Streets

He started to think of Sariel, and the disturbing news that he had delivered, but quickly pushed it from his mind. This time, he wasn't going to get involved.

Continuing on to the car, he called out for Marlowe, who had gone into the woods to relieve himself. "Let's go," he said, brushing the snow from his windshield.

Marlowe came frantically ru

"Leave me?" the dog asked, standing by the rear driver's-side door.

"I'd never leave you," Remy reassured him as he opened the door, allowing the dog to hop inside.

"Never leave," the dog repeated, settling into his place in the backseat.

The ride back to Boston was uneventful; the snow eventually turned to rain as Marlowe's snores wafted up from the backseat of the Corolla, and the talk radio hosts, enamored with the sounds of their own voices, rambled on about the topics of the day.

It was after midnight by the time they returned to Beacon Hill, but the gods of parking had decided to smile on Remy, blessing him with a parking space near the State House, only a couple of blocks from home.

"Home?" Marlowe asked, suddenly awake and sitting up, his black nose twitching in the air.

"Home," Remy affirmed. He got out of the car and opened the back door for the dog on his way to the trunk.

"Get on the sidewalk," Remy ordered, as he removed their one bag.

The dog trotted over to a light post and lifted his leg.

Remy waited until he had finished. "Empty?" he asked.

"Empty," the dog repeated, joining his master as they began their trek to Remy's brownstone on Pinckney Street.

It was quiet on the Hill, the rain and damp cold keeping anyone with an ounce of common sense inside.

Marlowe darted from lamppost to lamppost, lifting his leg and proving that he was a liar.

They reached the brownstone and Remy used his key to open the front door. The dog bounded into the foyer, and pressed his nose to the bottom of the i

Remy walked down the small hall to the kitchen and set the bag down atop the counter. He saw that the mail had been left on the table and he wondered when Ashley, Marlowe's frequent babysitter, had been by.

"She's not here," Remy called out, knowing who Marlowe was searching for. He removed his leather jacket and hung it in the hall closet. "She probably stopped in just long enough to drop off the mail and…" He stopped and turned.

Sariel was sitting in the living room; Marlowe, standing perfectly still and silent before him, had his eyes fixed upon the intruder.

The angel held one of Remy's favorite pictures. It was of Madeline when she was a little girl. She sat atop a pony, wearing a cowboy hat, and smiling that same stu

Her secret weapon, he used to call it.

"So full of life and promise," the angel said, tapping the photo with his manicured fingertips. "But it's all so fleeting for them."

"How dare you," Remy began, feeling his anger surge and the angelic nature he worked so hard to contain setting his blood afire.

"Bite him," Marlowe growled, his jowls twitching and revealing his yellowed canine teeth.

"No," Remy ordered, managing to get his own fury in check. He snatched the frame from the Grigori leader's hand. "You have no right to be here." He returned the picture to its place on the television stand, then turned to confront the angel. "I want you to leave," Remy told him, speaking in the language of their kind… the language of the Messengers.

Sariel stood, adjusting his suit coat. "I'm not leaving without you."

Remy glared, feeling an u

"I don't think you understand," he said, stepping menacingly toward the Grigori.

Sariel shook his head. "No, it is you who does not understand."

The angel suddenly reached out and grabbed hold of Remy's arm. He could feel the power in the grip, the angel magick flowing from Sariel into him.

Marlowe began to bark wildly as a pool of shadow expanded beneath them and the two angels dropped.

Swallowed by the darkness.

FIVE

They emerged in the middle of a storm. The wind roared like some angry beast as it tried to rip them from their purchase on the hard, concrete surface. And if it could not succeed with its bestial strength, it would try to destroy them with the ferocity of its tears, as each drop of rain struck their exposed flesh like the sting of a wasp.

Remy raised a hand to shield his eyes from the savagery of the cold, whipping rain, and quickly looked about. From the comforting warmth of his Beacon Hill home to this; where had Sariel brought him?

It didn't take him long to realize that they weren't on land at all. They were in the middle of the ocean; an undulating mass of white-capped gray swirled all around. His eyes darted about, taking it all in: heavy machinery and equipment, and a familiar corporate symbol, faded on the side of a forklift chained to the concrete so as not to be picked up by the wind and carried away.

An oil rig; they were on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean.

Remy looked at Sariel, who stood silently beside him. The rain pelted the angel's pale features, leaving traces of red on his face where it stung him.

The Grigori leader turned away from Remy, fighting the wind as he began to move toward a large boxy structure rising up from the platform.

Remy had no choice but to follow, struggling against the storm that seemed to grow even more agitated now that they were moving, as if it were angry that they would even think they could escape it. He followed Sariel toward the square building, and up multiple flights of rain-slicked metal steps to a heavy metal door with the words "Level One" stenciled on it in white paint.

The Grigori leader pulled open the door, fighting the wind as it attempted to tear it from his grasp. Remy reached out, helping to hold it open as the two of them beat the fury of the ocean storm and made their way inside.

"I should kill you for this," Remy snarled as he caught his breath in the shelter of the dark corridor. He could still hear the storm outside. Its rage was muffled by the shelter of their new surroundings, but it was still out there and still very angry.

"Perhaps you should," Sariel said, disregarding Remy's threat and heading down the corridor, past large glass windows that looked into empty office space. "Then again, you may want to wait and see why it is that I felt the need to resort to such desperate measures to bring you here."

Remy remained quiet, the anger inside him churning like the storm outside. He followed the Grigori to another flight of metal stairs and the two began to climb.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"Besides an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the South China Sea?" Sariel asked. "This is his home. Noah's home." "He traded in his ark for an oil rig?" Remy said, still climbing and starting to wonder how many floors the structure had.

They reached what seemed to be the final level; the floor was lit in the sickly yellow of emergency lights, and shadow.

"Crammed on a ship with your entire family and almost every conceivable animal for an extended period of time can have a lasting effect," the Grigori said, before proceeding down the corridor.

Remy noticed that up here he could barely hear the storm. He doubted that it had subsided, and considered then that this level had been considerably soundproofed.

Sariel had reached the end of the dimly lit length of hall and now stood before a closed door. "In here," he said, not even bothering to knock as he opened it and walked inside.

Strains of classical music wafted out into the hall. It was Berlioz, his Symphonie Fantastique. It had been one of Madeline's favorite pieces. Remy flashed back to lazy summer mornings, windows open wide in their kitchen as they drank cup after cup of coffee while reading the Sunday Globe, the Symphonie Fantastique the morning's soundtrack.