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Remy was torn; he knew his friend was right, but he didn’t want to leave him, especially like this.
Francis must have suspected how he was feeling.
“Get the fuck out of here,” he snarled. “I don’t need an audience for what’s coming.” He started to push Remy away from him. “Go on, get inside and blow their asses away. Show them the consequences of picking the wrong side.”
The Guardian pulled away, curling into a tight ball upon the ground.
“Francis, I—” he began, but he wasn’t given a chance to finish.
“You were a good friend that I didn’t deserve. Thank you.”
Remy slowly stood, staring at the body of his friend lying upon the cold, frost-covered ground in front of Tartarus. “You were a good friend too,” he said, straining to suppress his anger—to hold back the rage he was feeling toward those who had hurt his friend. “And besides, I felt sorry for you.”
Francis remained very still and quiet upon the ground, unresponsive to the verbal jab.
A steady, reverberating, pounding noise began to flow out from the melted opening in the front of the prison, capturing Remy’s attention. He could only begin to imagine the source of the sound.
He chanced one more look at his friend, and realizing that there was nothing more that could be done for him, turned toward the entrance. The pounding thrum intensified, sending vibrations through the ground beneath his feet.
Starting toward the prison, Remy stopped short as he heard the sound of his friend’s weakened voice.
“What was that, Francis?” Remy asked, turning back.
“Just talking out loud,” the fallen Guardian angel said. “Was wondering when it comes time for me… was wondering if I’ll get back to Heaven.”
Remy didn’t know what to say.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so either,” Francis said, his final words trailing off to a whisper.
Remy left his friend.
The Seraphim nature was glad to leave the fallen one behind. It was eager to fight, to destroy the unclean as it had done so very long ago.
It missed the violence. The killing.
Remy held the Pitiless pistol in a grip as tight as the one he had on his fleeting humanity. He didn’t want to lose it completely, but now that the nature of the angel had taken control, it would be so very easy to let it go.
To release the hurt along with the memories, to let it all evaporate away to where it would mean nothing.
But he would not allow that; Madeline would not allow that.
Remy entered Tartarus, passing beneath jagged stalactite teeth that had formed when the opening was made. If he’d thought the feelings of desperation and misery were bad outside, within Tartarus it was a different story entirely.
Protected within the breast of the Seraphim, his humanity shied beneath the heavy atmosphere of oppression. If he hadn’t yet shed his human guise, it would have instantly withered upon entering this place of penance.
It’s even larger on the inside, Remy thought, his golden-flecked eyes looking about the cavernous chamber as he walked deeper inside. There was death everywhere he looked, both fallen and angel Sentry alike. There was no separation here and now, the si
At the end of the body-strewn circular corridor that appeared to have been bored through solid ice, Remy found the room.
For a moment, it was like being back in Paradise.
He imagined that it was a kind of testament—a monument—to why a place such as Tartarus existed. At one time, before the stink of death had infected it, this place would have been special, a tiny pocket of Heaven floating within the depths of the inferno.
The huge concave walls, now spattered with the blood of conflict, showed another such struggle; they showed the story of the Morningstar and those who had followed him, moving moments captured from long ago depicting how they had waged war against the All-Father.
Leading to their fall.
These disturbing moments of betrayal and carnage would be the first things the prisoners of Tartarus would have seen upon their arrival, as well as the last when it came time for their release. A grisly reminder of the wrong they had done.
Remy wanted to look away from the horrific scenes of warfare as they were played out but found himself held by the sight.
Is it possible that it was even worse than I remember? he thought, watching as the two opposing angelic forces clashed upon the golden fields of Heaven, and in the open sky above.
Remy stepped over the bodies that littered the ground of the entryway into the Heavenly chamber, drawn closer to the images of the Great War and the end of a way of life that had been denied him forever because of it.
The battle depicted upon the curved wall of the vast chamber went to white, the searing brightness nearly blinding. Remy lifted a hand to protect his sight.
A face suddenly appeared upon the wall, the resplendent light emanating from around his beatific features. Remy had forgotten how beautiful the Son of the Morning had been, which made what Lucifer had done all the more offensive.
He had been God’s favorite—the chosen son—the first of them all.
Remy felt an undying anger overtake him as the Seraphim was stirred by the sight of its most hated enemy. And deep inside, buried beneath the fury, his human nature bowed its head in sorrow over the enormity of what had been lost on account of this being.
Deciding that he’d already wasted too much time on things long past, Remy was prepared to go deeper inside the formidable structure, when his eyes caught sight of movement at his feet.
What he believed to be the corpses of dead fallen angels shifted suddenly, giving off the illusion of life. Remy spread his wings, propelling himself back out of harm’s way as something emerged, exploding with a bloodcurdling shriek up from beneath the bodies of those vanquished in battle.
It had once been one of his own, an angel of Heaven, but now it appeared as something else. Its robes clung wetly, the gore of those slain in combat making the angel raiment stick to the body like a second skin.
Through the scarlet taint Remy suddenly recognized the face of Uriel, the warden of Tartarus.
His wings had once been snow-white, but now were flecked with crimson. Eyes huge and wild, the warden surged at him, a sword forged from the elemental forces of Heaven crackling in his hand. Uriel raised his weapon but paused in his attack when he saw that it was a Seraphim there before him.
The niggling voice of the Pitiless pistol screamed, to be used inside Remy’s head; he could actually feel the metal of the trigger gently caressing his index finger, attempting to seduce it into action, but Remy stayed his hand, forcing the weapon down by his side.
“I’ve come to help,” he told Uriel, watching the bloodstained expression turn from one of absolute panic to one of surprise.
Slowly Uriel lowered his weapon, head tilting from one side to the other as he studied the angel before him. It was as if he truly didn’t believe his eyes.
“I’m Remiel,” he said, hating the sound of his angel name. After all these centuries, it still sounded wrong—dirty—coming from his mouth. “Of the host Seraphim. I’d learned of your situation here and have come to—”
He never got the opportunity to finish the sentence.
“Lies!” Uriel screamed, his blood-covered face twisted in unabated fury. He came at him then, sword humming like a swarm of angry bees as it cut a swath through the air.
Remy quickly moved out of the way. If not for his wings propelling him back, the arcing blade would have split him in two.
The angel was beyond talking to, the madness of this place—of Hell—having taken root. He was lost to sanity.
The warden’s blade buried itself in the cold floor of the prison lobby, passing through the bodies of the dead that littered the ground, as insubstantial as smoke.