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It all happened so fast.
The Sentry thrashed in defense of itself. In one of its massive hands it held a medieval cudgel, swinging it wildly as it attempted desperately to remove the ferocious attackers that tore at its body.
Remy watched in horror as the cudgel swung out, gliding through the air in slow motion, missing its intended prey and co
Remy considered going to the man, but his eyes were drawn to the crimson stain high upon the wall. The old man’s point of impact dripped with blood and fragments of other matter, and Remy knew that there was nothing he could do.
The Sentry roared, his mournful cries muffled by the helmet that covered his face and head. One of the Hellions had managed to reach its prey’s neck, digging its fangs beneath the lip of the helmet and tearing out chunks of the divine flesh beneath. And as quickly as the mighty figure had erupted from the newly opened doorway, he was gone again, dragged away by the savage beasts that prowled the wastelands of Hell.
Remy stood at the edge of the yawning hole torn in the fabric of space and time, weapons clutched in his hands. Images of past battles, like the staccato blasts of machine-gun fire, flashed within his head, and he wondered if there would ever be a time that it was all just a memory, or if violence would always be a part of what he was.
But that rumination was for another time, the angel thought, when the affinity for bloodshed wasn’t a necessity for his continued survival.
The Seraphim clammored excitedly, the stench of Hell rousing it to attention. It was only a matter of time before it was free again.
Madach appeared beside him, knife in hand, a snub-nosed pistol stuffed in the waistband of his pants. Their eyes touched briefly, before both looked down into the sucking void that had been punched through reality, an oppressive blanket of hopelessness and despair being draped upon the shoulders of both men. The sounds of combat mixed with those of intense suffering, escaping from the entrance, a symphony of misery foreshadowing what was likely to come.
“Hear that?” Madach asked, raising his voice to be heard over the wails and cries. “They’re welcoming me back.”
And with those words, the fallen angel jumped down into the hole, disappearing within roiling, rust-colored clouds that stank of death and desperation.
Remy tensed, ready to join Madach, when he sensed them.
In the corner of the study they hovered, rolling balls of fire that watched him with multiple sets of unblinking eyes.
They didn’t even have the common decency to wish him luck.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They’d been married only a very short time.
Marlowe had yet to enter their lives, and they were living in an apartment in Somerville. Their life was good together—better than good, really.
The love he felt for her, and she for him—it was like nothing he’d ever known. But that was a lie, for he had known the intensity of a love like it when in the presence of God.
And he could not help but feel a bit ashamed—and even a little astonished—that a love so great had been so easily replaced. But when he looked at her, lying beside him in bed, or typing up invoices in the office, he knew how it could be possible, for the Almighty had given humanity a piece of Himself, and it radiated through so much more brightly in some than in others.
Madeline shone like the sun, and Remy was powerless not to be drawn to the warmth of her love, which made her sudden statement that cold Sunday afternoon all the more disturbing.
They’d been making di
“I’m probably going to Hell when I die.”
She had just placed a few tablespoons of flour into the pan of drippings and was stirring it; she wasn’t even looking at him.
“What did you just say?” he asked with a chuckle, stopping the turning of the corkscrew midtwist.
He could see that she was suddenly upset, her eyes appearing puffy as tears began to roll down her ruddy cheeks. Remy set the bottle upon the countertop and went to her.
“What’s wrong?”
He’d come up behind her and put his hands upon her shoulders. There was the faintest of trembles there. It was chilly in the old apartment, but he knew that this had nothing to do with the cold.
She laughed, wiping away the tears ru
“You’re going to say I’m stupid,” she said, turning her gaze up to him. “At least I hope you do.”
He waited patiently for her to continue, rubbing his hands lovingly up and down her arms.
“Making the gravy made me think of my nana Sarah—my dad’s mom,” she said. “This was her recipe. She taught me when I was a little girl… before she got sick.”
He still wasn’t quite sure where she was going, but he kept silent, allowing her to purge whatever it was that was bothering her.
“She lived with us after she was diagnosed with emphysema,” Madeline explained as she crushed the balls of flour that floated in the bubbling mixture. “Sarah had a two-pack-a-day habit—Camels unfiltered—and it killed her to stop, even though she was so sick and could barely breathe. We fixed up a spare room, moving her in so that we could take care of her.”
Madeline had continued to stir the light brownish mixture, as if stirring up the memories of the past.
“At first it was sort of fun having her around all the time, but as she became sicker it got tense and sort of scary. Both my mother and father had part-time night jobs and would leave me home alone with Sarah… even after she’d become really bad.”
Madeline set the spoon that she’d been using down and just stood there silently.
Remy said nothing, but continued to rub her shoulders, encouraging her to continue with his silence.
“I can remember sitting in the kitchen at night… sometimes for hours, listening to her in her bedroom down the hall gasping for breath… waiting for something… something horrible to happen. I grew to hate her for what she was putting me through.”
He started to turn her around toward him. At first she fought, but she soon succumbed, melting into him as he put his arms around her.
“It must have been very hard for you,” he said understandingly. “And not the sort of responsibility that should be dropped on a kid.”
He felt the dampness of her tears seeping through the fabric of his shirt.
“You really didn’t hate her; you hated the situation you’d been put in—the illness that was taking away the woman you loved.”
Madeline’s body became rigid within his arms, and she lifted her face up to him. Her eyes were red and swollen, cheeks damp and flushed with pink.
“One night sitting alone in my kitchen, listening to her struggle to catch a breath, I wished that she would die—for God or whoever to come and take her so that I wouldn’t feel so scared anymore.”
Remy knew what had happened then, and how it had played on her childlike psyche, growing into an overpowering obstacle of guilt that she had carried with her to that day.
“She died, Remy,” Madeline had told him, her voice shaking with sadness and shame. “I wished my grandmother dead—I wished so hard that it killed her. And that’s why I’m probably going to Hell.”