Mean Streets

"What can I do?" Remy asked. "This is much bigger than I—"

"What can I do, asks the soldier of Heaven," the Grigori mocked. "You sell yourself short, my brother."

"No," Remy stated with a definitive shake of his head. "That's not me anymore. I'm not going to allow you to drag me—"

Sariel had closed his eyes again, clearly not interested in Remy's rant.

"We must hunt and destroy them," the Grigori proclaimed. His eyes opened and held Remy in an icy stare. "We must find where they nest and finish what the deluge should have."

"You can't be serious," Remy said.

Sariel glared at him. "They were never supposed to survive. They should have died when the Earth was young and the flood waters rose."

"But you're talking about exterminating a species we know nothing about," Remy said. "We can't just…"

"If the current kings and queens of the world are to survive, we must."

"You don't know that."

"Do you wish to take that chance?" Sariel asked.

Remy should have known better. It always came to this— passing judgment, and death.

"I won't kill for you," he said, moving toward the door.

"But the humans… will you kill for them?" the Grigori leader asked.

Remy stopped and turned. "Why did you drag me into this?" he asked. "You know how I feel about you and your brethren. You know I want nothing more than to live my life peacefully and to not be bothered with…"

"You are the powerful Remiel," Sariel said. "A Seraphim warrior that, as much as you are loath to admit, still retains the full extent of its heavenly might."

Remy shook his head. "I told you, that's not me anymore."

Sariel smiled. "I could have sworn I saw your old self driving back the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse a few short weeks ago, but I must have been mistaken."

Remy pulled open the door. He'd heard enough.

"This isn't just for us, Remiel," Sariel called after him. "The Chimerian will hate humankind as much as they hate us. We'll need your strength if we are to succeed."

Remy didn't even turn around, allowing the door to slam shut behind him as he strode across the ballroom. Just outside the grand room, he saw a gathered crowd of Grigori, and remembered the angel they had brought with them from the rig.

"The angel," he said to one of the Grigori. "Has he regained consciousness?" He craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of where they had taken him.

"He's resting," the Grigori said.

Remy tried to move past and felt a hand suddenly pressed to his chest. He glanced down at the hand.

"I said he's resting," the Grigori repeated more forcefully.

"I know your kind despises me for one reason or another, but I strongly suggest that you remove your hand from my person or I'll be more than happy to provide you with something to really hate me for."

The hand stayed there a moment longer before it was withdrawn.

He considered pushing past the Grigori lackey to find the angel and ask him what he knew, but right then, he didn't have the energy.

He gave the fallen angel a final, nasty look, then quickly turned and left.

It was cold outside on the early-morning streets of Boston, but Remy didn't feel a thing.

NINE

Remy wandered up Tremont Street, onto Arlington, ending up in the lobby of the old Ritz-Carlton Hotel, now the Taj.

He glanced at his watch and figured that Ashley would probably be up by now, getting ready for school. Finding a phone, he dialed the number and got Ashley's mom. He explained that he was working on a case, and would she or Ashley mind zipping over to the apartment to give Marlowe his breakfast and take him out.

The woman said that there would be no problem, and Remy thanked her and hung up.

Now what to do? All the way up from the Zone he'd thought about what Sariel had proposed, and how freaked he was by what the Grigori had believed he'd do.

The sad thing was that no matter how disturbed he was, he couldn't really see much of a choice. If these creatures… these Chimerian were as dangerous as Sariel said, there could very well be human lives at stake.

Remy headed into the Club Lounge and bought a large coffee. The scotch had worn off a while ago and he needed something more stimulating to get his brain functioning the way it should.

He took the coffee and returned to the bank of phones in the lobby, digging through his pockets for change. In this particular instance, he didn't worry about waking anybody up—this person never slept, and was almost always home.

Wishing for his cell phone, he fed the machine with change and dialed the number, listening as it rang.

On the third ring the phone was picked up, but only silence greeted Remy.

"It's me," he said.

"Hey, me," replied a voice on the other end. "What's up?"

"I've got a bit of a problem, and I want to run it by you."

"This doesn't have anything to do with the Apocalypse, does it?" the voice asked.

"Not exactly," Remy responded.

"Good, I've pretty much had my fill of the Apocalypse."

"Meet me at the Taj for breakfast. My treat," Remy told him.

"Sounds yummy, give me about a half hour and I'll be there."

"Half hour?" Remy asked. The voice on the other end lived less than ten minutes away.

"Finishing up Once Upon a Time in the West? he said.

"Didn't you watch that last month?" Remy remembered their conversation about Henry Fonda's performance in the Leone masterpiece.

"New month," was the answer.

It made perfect sense.

"See you in a half hour, then," Remy said, and hung up.

The former Guardian angel said nothing as he strolled into the lobby of the Taj Hotel. With his balding head, horn-rimmed glasses, and usual gray suit, white shirt, and maroon tie, Francis looked like any other white-collar business type employed in the city of Boston.

"How was the movie?" Remy asked, getting up from the sofa where he had been awaiting his friend's arrival.

"Better with every viewing," Francis said.

Remy nodded, even though The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was his own personal favorite of the Leone westerns.

"Are we going to eat?" Francis asked, looking toward the cafe.

"Let's go," Remy said as the two walked toward the entrance. "I could use a pot of coffee."

"Waffles," Francis said, and Remy turned his head to look at him.

"What was that?"

"Waffles," he repeated. "I could really go for some waffles."

Knowing what Remy did about the being called Francis, statements like that only made him smile.

Francis was once the angel Fraciel of the Guardian angel host Virtues. A bad choice on his part had left him on the outs with the Lord God after the rebellion. Realizing the error of his ways, Fraciel had thrown himself at the mercy of the Almighty, begging, for forgiveness. Surprisingly, the Almighty did not banish the Guardian to the Hell prison, Tartarus, but instead made him watchman over one of the gates between the earthly realm and the Hellish, a gate that just so happened to be in the basement of the Newbury Street brownstone that Francis now owned. When he wasn't taking care of his duties to the doorway to Tartarus, the former Guardian angel worked as one of the world's most sought-after assassins. If you could afford his fee, and he decided, after careful review, that the victim did in fact deserve to be taken down, there was little that could be done to prevent the inevitable.

But this morning, the inevitable was that Francis was going to have waffles.

They were seated at a table by the window, overlooking the lower end of Newbury Street, and while the hostess went off to get coffee for Remy and tea for Francis, they quietly perused the menu.

Remy really didn't have to eat, although he often did so to maintain his guise of humanity. This morning, however, he realized he had no desire for food. Francis had already closed his menu and placed it on the table beside him, so Remy did the same.