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He thought about telling Mulvehill how much his friendship had meant to him over the years, but decided that in the long run it wouldn’t have been worth the punishment. If he managed to survive what was ahead, and had left a message pretty much professing his love for the man, any moment spent afterward with the homicide cop would be unbearable, the teasing that he would have to endure more painful than the tortures of Hell.
Why take a chance?
He pocketed his phone and got into the car.
“Everything all right?” Madach asked, staring straight ahead with unblinking eyes.
“Had to put some stuff in order, just in case.”
Remy slipped the key into the ignition and turned the engine over. Pulling out of the parking space, he drove down Comm Avenue, trying to get as far from the commotion surrounding Newbury Street as possible. He swung around the Public Garden, then past the Common and the State House, tempted to stop and see Marlowe one more time. But as usual, time was wasting. He picked up 93 by Haymarket and headed north out of the city. It was a roundabout route but it would eventually get them to Lexington and Karnighan’s mansion.
They drove in silence, Remy lost in his thoughts, trying to recall every minute detail of the case, carefully picking through the information in search of something he might have overlooked.
“What did you see back there?” Madach asked, his voice startling in the quiet of the car.
Remy glanced briefly at the fallen angel, both hands upon the wheel as he drove up Route—in light traffic. “What do you mean, what did I see?”
“Back when we were walking to Francis’ place,” Madach explained. “When Hell was leaking out onto the street. What did you experience?”
Remy thought about how to answer the question. He finally just shrugged. “A lot of things I regret,” Remy stated, eyes fixed to the road. “Things I wish I could have done differently, but at the same time I know there really wasn’t much of a choice.”
“Choice,” Madach repeated, laughing a bit sadly. “It was all about choice… and so many of us making the wrong one, y’know?”
“But you had to have believed that what you were doing was right,” Remy added. “No matter how misguided, you were fighting for something you believed in.”
The fallen angel laughed all the harder. “I don’t even remember anymore,” he said. “I was just overwhelmed with this sense of utter desperation.”
Remy felt his stare, so intense that it was hot upon his cheek.
“I was filled with hatred and sadness over what I had done,” Madach finished. “I still am. I should never have been released from Tartarus.”
“But you were,” Remy said, taking note of the exit signs. “I can’t see many mistakes being made there.”
“Yeah, I guess. And look how I repaid that faith,” he said, shaking his head in disgust.
“Not the best of moves,” Remy added, flipping on his signal as he moved over to the right-hand lane to exit. “But maybe you’ll have a chance to redeem yourself tonight.”
“Or maybe I’ll just make the wrong choice again.”
They rode the remainder of the way in silence, a knot of apprehension forming solidly in the center of Remy’s belly as he drove through the gate of Karnighan’s home, and up to the house.
Remy opened the car door, reaching down to release the latch that would open the trunk. Going around to the back of the car, he removed the duffel bag stuffed with weapons that they had taken from Francis’ home.
“What are you bringing those for?” Madach asked.
“Just in case.” Remy slammed the trunk closed and waited, looking around the property.
“What’s wrong?” Madach asked, standing beside him.
“Karnighan has dogs, but they don’t seem to be around.”
“I let Dougie deal with them,” Madach said. “Guess he ground up some sleeping pills and put it in hamburger. I wanted them asleep before I even got out of the car.”
Remy walked toward the front door, slipping the strap of the heavy bag over his shoulder. “I doubt they’re asleep now,” he said as he reached out to ring the doorbell, but then he noticed that the door was ajar.
“Shit,” he hissed.
He pressed his fingertips against the heavy wooden surface and pushed; the front door silently swung wide, exposing the empty foyer.
The lights were on, but there wasn’t a sign of Karnighan.
“After we dealt with the dogs, we got in through a side door in the garage out back that I had left open the day before. We knew that the old man wouldn’t be around because he specifically told the foreman that we shouldn’t work on Friday ’cause he’d be away on business. It was the perfect opportunity—the one Dougie and I’d been waiting for.”
They stepped into the foyer and Remy closed the front door. Everything seemed pretty much the same as he remembered.
“Doesn’t sound like you had to twist Dougie’s arm all that much to get him to help you,” Remy said, speaking in almost a whisper, gesturing for the fallen to follow him. He was tempted to call out Karnighan’s name but decided against it. No need to call attention to their arrival; the old man knew that they were coming.
“We got in and went right to the room downstairs,” Madach continued. “Dougie wanted to have a run at the whole place, but I wouldn’t let him. We’d come for the weapons, and that was it.”
Madach swatted his arm, getting Remy’s attention.
“That should count for something, don’t you think?” the fallen asked. “If I’da let him, Dougie would have ripped him off blind.”
“You’d think,” Remy acknowledged as they passed through the room that was being painted the last time he’d been there. The job had been completed since then, the ceiling now a robin’s egg blue, the trim painted white. There was a baby grand piano in the corner, and a leather couch and sofa positioned around a long coffee table, its surface covered with large hardbound art books. It was like something out of a home design magazine, Remy observed as they passed through and approached the corridor that ended with the elevator.
“We headed down in the elevator and I worked on the combination for a while,” Madach said.
“Puzzles, right?” Remy asked. “You’re good at solving puzzles?”
The fallen angel nodded. “You should see me with a Rubik’s Cube.”
The aroma floated lightly in the air, and could easily have been lost amongst some of the other scents of the spacious home, but it snagged Remy’s attention, filling him immediately with dread.
“Down here,” he said, taking a right at the top of the corridor, away from the elevator, following the smell down another hallway to Karnighan’s study.
“Smell it?” Remy asked, approaching the study.
Its doors were open wide, inviting them to enter.
Madach bent his head back and sniffed at the air. “What am I supposed to be smelling? All I’m getting is new paint.”
Remy had forgotten how much the fallen had lost from their original states of being; senses once so acute that they could smell the stink of sin had been dulled by their plummet from grace. They’d had so much taken from them, it was no wonder the Denizens had turned against the Lord God and all that He stood for.
This is where he and Karnighan had shared coffee and talked about their business arrangement.
It hadn’t smelled of blood then.
The odor was nearly gagging in its intensity as Remy entered the room, and there was little doubt now as to what it was. He stopped, eyes darting around for the source. A lone reading lamp in the far corner of the room provided the only light and there Remy saw someone crouched upon the bare hardwood floor within a circle of blood.
The man worked busily, painting with gore. The body of one of Karnighan’s guard dogs—Daisy—lay just outside the circle, her stomach slit open vertically, exposing her i