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He was adorned from head to toe in intricate armor of gold, as if the rays of the sun had been used to create the ornate adornment for him, and for all the angelic soldiers that landed behind him.
As the leader strode closer to the Gate, he removed his helmet, and a sick feeling writhed in the pit of Remy’s belly as he recognized this angel.
“Greetings, Michael,” Remy said, bowing his head slightly in respect for the leader of the mighty Archangels.
The Gates parted, and the Archangel strode through them. “Heaven knows of your involvement in the most delicate and dire of matters,” the warrior angel stated, stopping before Remy. “Your arrival here before the Gates, stinking of the pit, implies that a great danger to Heaven, and all of creation, has not been averted.”
Remy studied the angel before him, and all those that had descended with him from the sky. They were clad in the armor of war, a telling sign that they were very much aware of what had transpired.
“The Thrones are no more,” Remy said, watching for some sign that this was a surprise. There was nothing; the sharp angular features of the angelic warrior remained passionless. “Destroyed by the newly awakened Lucifer Morningstar.”
A violent shudder ran through Michael’s brown-speckled wings, the only sign that he was affected by this news at all.
“I suspected no good would come from their scheme,” the angel stated, obviously referring to the Thrones’ plan to remove Lucifer from Tartarus. “They used forbidden magicks to make him forget who he was… what he was,” Michael continued with disdain. “And then they made him believe he was another… another of the lowly, absolution seekers that had si
The Archangel paused.
“What we feared most has occurred.” The angel turned to the army that stood beyond the Gate. “But we stand ready to deal with this impending threat.”
“So it’s war again?” Remy asked, an oppressive sense of sadness sweeping over him, replacing the euphoria of his return.
Michael turned, revealing the most disturbing of expressions. The Archangel wore a smile, and there was a glint of excitement in his piercing eyes.
“War,” he repeated as he reached down and drew the sword hanging from the scabbard at his side. “For the kingdom and the glory of Heaven.”
He raised the blade high, and all those behind him did the same.
Remy’s warrior nature was aroused by the sight before him, eager to join their number, to again wield a weapon in service to the Lord God Almighty.
But there was also a part troubled by the sight, by a nagging voice from somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind that warned the coming war would make the first pale in comparison.
“You haven’t learned a thing,” Remy said to the armored Archangel.
Michael scowled. “We’ve learned that the battle is never truly over until your enemies are utterly vanquished.”
“And the grace of mercy?” Remy asked.
“Mercy,” the Archangel scoffed. “You see now where mercy has brought us.”
And Remy saw exactly where it had brought them. There had been no healing since the conflict that altered the very nature of Heaven; in fact, he believed the wound caused by the war now festered with infection.
He hadn’t the slightest idea what could be done to cure this illness, and, to be honest, was unsure if it wasn’t already too late. Looking about, he saw what he had not noticed before, the patches of tarnish that stained the shiny surfaces of their armor, the gray haze that hung over the city in the distance like an abandoned spider’s web, a hint of something sickly sweet lingering in the breeze that could very well have been decay.
“Will you fight with us, brother?” Michael asked, holding out the blade of his sword toward Remy.
The pounding of flapping wings filled the air again, and two angels not of the warrior class flew down to land on either side of the Archangel. Each was holding a pitcher of fragrant water and watched Remy with wary eyes.
“Allow them to cleanse the stain of Hell from your person,” Michael said as the two angels slowly stepped forward. “Then you will once again be allowed to pass through the Gates of Heaven.”
Remy started to move away and the advancing angels looked nervously back to Michael.
“What is it?” the Archangel asked. “Is there something wrong?”
Remy slowly nodded. “There is,” he said. “And the sad thing is, there is nothing I can do to fix it.”
The Archangel sheathed his weapon. “You do understand that you are to be welcomed back into the fold,” he explained. “That your desertion of duty is to be overlooked as restitution for the services that you performed in the service of Heaven.”
Remy shook his head. “I don’t want to come back,” he told the warrior. “I was given a task by the Morningstar… to deliver the message that he was free, and the sad fact that the war isn’t over. I’ve done that now, and now I’m through here.”
Michael gripped the hilt of his sword tightly. “How does it feel to abandon everything that you are?” the Archangel asked, malice dripping from each and every word.
It couldn’t have hurt worse if the angel had driven his blade through Remy’s chest.
“I’ve changed,” Remy told him. “It isn’t what I am anymore.”
He couldn’t stay. The war in Heaven had nearly destroyed him once; he wasn’t about to give it the chance to do so again.
“What are you?” the Archangel Michael asked of him. “What are you if not of Heaven?”
He’d believed that it was dead—or at least close to being that way—but he had been mistaken. Remy felt his humanity, weak and buried so very deep, but still alive. It fluttered at the question, finding the strength to fight.
To survive.
And with the realization that it still lived, he turned away from the gathering of angels, from Heaven itself.
Feeling the pull of Earth upon him.
The pull of the world that had become his home.
The journey from Heaven to Earth was a long one.
Remy lost track of time as he drifted in the void between worlds, descending from on high, moving through one plane of reality to the next.
Some of these were dreadful worlds, full of dreadful creatures that would have liked nothing more than to feed upon the flesh of the divine. And through those fearsome worlds Remy traveled, avoiding conflict when he was able, and, if he needed to, vanquishing any challenger that dared try and prevent him from reaching his destination.
The journey was long and hard, but the promise of what awaited him at the end of this long journey was enough to sustain him.
In a vast sea of black, waiting for the gentle tug of the world he so longed for, Remy floated, wrapped within his wings of golden brown.
Fragments of memory that he believed lost rose to the surface of his resting mind. He hadn’t lost them. They were still there, just buried very deep. And as he floated in the darkness of the void, continuing the long journey home, he carefully stirred them to the surface.
Reacquainting himself with his humanity.
“So it wasn’t like… a hallucination, since I’d been gut shot and all,” Steven Mulvehill said as he raised his cup of coffee to his mouth, all the while watching him.
Remy gazed out over the city of Boston from the patio of Massachusetts General Hospital, where the homicide detective was still recovering from his gunshot wound. He almost hadn’t made it.
Almost.
“Would you believe me if I told you it was?” Remy asked him.
Mulvehill barely took a sip of his drink, the intensity of his stare showing that he was seriously thinking about the question, and its answer.
“No,” he said finally. “Even though I know it doesn’t make a lick of fucking sense, I know what I saw… what I experienced.”
“I could deny it,” Remy answered. He was watching the birds fly above the city, missing the glorious feel of wind beneath his wings. “Who’s going to believe that you actually saw an angel, other than the truly devout, and some others that have a tendency to skip their meds?”