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He pushed open the storm door and stepped outside. He could feel the woman's eyes on him as he walked toward his car. He half expected her to call out to him, to ask him questions that would keep him there longer, but then he heard the front door close. He focused again on the sounds of the suburbs around him: morning talk shows on television, the rasping snore of a restless sleeper, and a new sound — the pitiful sobs of a woman, more alone at that moment than she had ever been in her life.
It took him longer to get back into Boston. Remy sat in the late-morning traffic, listening to news radio and slowly making his way across the Le
Remy decided to stop at the hospital, to see Peter Mountgomery for himself, hoping to still some of these strange feelings of unease.
Finding a space on Cambridge Street, he locked up his car, fed the meter a few quarters, and walked the short distance to Massachusetts General Hospital. He entered the main lobby through the revolving doors and willed himself invisible — another angelic trait he allowed himself to indulge in every so often. In his line of work, the talent frequently proved invaluable. Only the very young and the very old had the ability to glimpse the angel when he was in this state. He imagined it had something to do with being closer to the divine at those particular stages in the human life span.
Remy moved through the lobby and down the crowded corridor, following the signs for the Bigelow Building elevators. No one so much as looked in his direction. The center elevator chimed happily as its doors opened, and he joined a small crowd headed up.
While everyone else watched the numbers over the doors climb, Remy and a baby boy stared at each other. The child began to laugh, pumping his chubby arms crazily as drool trailed from his toothless mouth. Gently, the angel brushed the child's head with the side of his finger and mouthed the word hello. The boy laughed even harder, squealed loudly, and tossed his melon-shaped head back, flailing his arms. The mother glanced around nervously, looking for what had excited her baby so, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. She smiled and kissed the child, calling him her silly monkey, as they exited the elevator on the floor before Remy's.
He had little problem finding Mountgomery's room. Still unseen, he approached a tired-looking nurse who was doing paperwork at the nurses' station. He moved up silently behind him and whispered into his ear. The exhausted young man put down his pen suddenly, as though he had just thought of something he didn't dare forget again, and wheeled his chair over to a computer terminal. He began to type on the keyboard, and Remy watched as Peter Mountgomery's medical records appeared. He was in room 615. The nurse checked some information, nodded to himself in satisfaction, and went back to his paperwork. Silently, Remy Chandler thanked him and headed down the hall.
The angel heard it even before he'd reached the room he sought, the doleful, ethereal cries of a soul in distress wafting down the corridor. Remy entered room 615 and approached Mountgomery's bed, wincing as the man's life force screamed to be freed from its prison of flesh.
What is keeping you here? he wondered, staring down at the man, desperate for answers. Why hasn't your soul been taken? The man lay in the hospital bed, his head and neck swathed in bandages stained with blood and a yellowish discharge. He was hooked to a number of machines that monitored his condition and provided life support. Tubes of various sizes carried fluids to and from his body.
Remy took Peter's hand in his and gently squeezed. "Why are you still here?" he whispered, speaking directly to the spirit trapped within the broken body.
The imprisoned soul moaned all the louder, sensing the presence of a being who might free it from its confines. The anguished cries tore at the essence of Remy's true self.
"I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do," he told it. "It's… it'snot my job."
The soul continued to cry out, and the angel's thoughts turned to the one whose purpose it was to an- swer these plaintive cries. Remy let go of Mountgom-ery's hand, stepping back from the bed, watching the man's chest rise and fall with every breath — with life. Something was wrong.
Horribly, horribly wrong.
And then Remy heard the others.
The pleading wails of Mountgomery's soul rose in intensity, joining with other tortured cries from the intensive care unit, and it was almost more than the detective could stand. The accumulated misery was deafening, and he quickly left the room, making his way back to the elevators. He had to get away.
Tormented souls beckoned to him as he passed other rooms, begging for his divine attention, and he apologized to them all, sorry that there was nothing he could do to help them.
It isn't my job.
At the elevator he wondered, Where is Israfil? The question replayed itself over and over again as he practically threw himself into the elevator to escape the mournful pleas.
Where is the Angel of Death?
Chapter four
Remy headed for his Beacon Street office, his brain feeling as though it was about to explode. For some reason, souls were not being collected. Life essences were trapped within bodies that should have been dead but were not.
Not good. Not good at all.
Remy climbed the steps to the converted brown-stone and entered the lobby. He checked his mailbox and found that the postman had already been by with his daily dose of bills. This time it was electric and phone. Making his way to his office on the second floor, he swore that the utility companies had started billing more than once a month, for it didn't seem possible that the services had come due yet again.
The angel tensed as he pushed the key into the lock and turned it. There was no mistaking the smell wafting out from within his office. He listened to the clacking sound as the bolt slid back, unlocking his office door. It had been quite some time since he had last breathed in that thick, heady aroma. To the human nose, it would smell like a strange mix of ci
To an angel, it smelled of power.
Remy turned the knob and swung open the door.
They were waiting for him. Four of them, each dressed in stylish suits of solid black with white shirts buttoned up to their throats. They stood before his desk, their broad backs to him, unresponsive to his entrance.
Remy entered the office just as he did any other day of the week, putting his keys back in his pocket and gently shutting the door. He placed his mail in a wicker basket that rested atop a gray file cabinet to the right of the door. The basket had once contained a plant sent to him as thanks from a satisfied customer, but not anymore. He had never been very good with plants.
His visitors still did not move, and Remy continued to act as if they weren't there, grabbing the glass carafe from the coffeemaker that sat on a small brown refrigerator on the other side of the file cabinet. He leaned over, opened the fridge, and removed a jug of springwa-ter. He filled the carafe, then placed the water jug back inside. Allowing the refrigerator door to close by itself, he turned to finally acknowledge his guests.
"Coffee?" he asked, plucking a filter from a box. He placed it in the machine and filled it with several scoops of the rich-smelling brew, then poured the contents of the glass carafe through the plastic grill on top and flicked the switch to on. The machine gurgled to life.