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“So you’re an angel?” she asked, a smile beaming from ear to ear, tears filling her eyes.
“Of the host Seraphim.” Remy nodded, softly rubbing his thumb across the top of the hand he held.
“Why are you here?”
“I’ve been searching for something,” he began to explain. “Searching for something that was lost to me in Heaven—something I wasn’t sure I would ever find again.”
“This something,” Madeline asked, “have you found it?”
Remiel looked deeply into the woman’s teary eyes, the object of his quest glimmering there, just within reach.
“I believe I have,” he told her.
Madeline moved in closer and threw her arms about his neck. He responded in kind, pulling her tightly against him as his wings of Heavenly fire enfolded them both in a loving embrace.
A cold nose nuzzling his ear returned him to the present.
“Hey,” the dog spoke.
“Thanks,” Remy said, throwing his arm around the animal’s thick neck. “Catch any rabbits?”
“Smell them,” Marlowe stated. “No find.”
“Maybe next time,” Remy consoled the Labrador, planting a kiss on the top of his blocky head. “What do you say? Want to go home?”
“Eat?” the dog asked, looking up at him as he stood.
Remy pulled the sleeve up on his jacket to look at his watch. “Yeah, soon. By the time we drive home it’ll be time.”
Marlowe darted toward the path, excited by the prospect of food.
“Don’t go too far ahead,” Remy called after the ru
The angel reached into his pocket and removed the slim phone, flipping it open to see who was calling. He didn’t recognize the number but decided to take the call anyway.
“Yes,” Remy said, the phone placed to his ear. Marlowe was sniffing the base of a tree alongside the path; then he lifted his leg, but to little effect. His tank was empty.
“Mr. Chandler?” asked a dry, raspy voice.
“Speaking. How can I help you?”
“Mr. Chandler, my name is Alfred Karnighan, and I’m very interested in retaining your services.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Karnighan, but my caseload is currently pretty full and—”
“People have spoken very highly of your skills,” the older-sounding man interrupted. “I’d be willing to pay your fees and expenses with an additional twenty-five percent added on if you would consider my situation.”
A part of Remy still wanted to refuse, but he then remembered the stack of bills sitting in the middle of his desk, and his conversation with Mulvehill about the old Remy coming back sometime soon.
“Can you give me an idea of what you’d like me to do for you, Mr. Karnighan?”
“Of course, Mr. Chandler,” the man answered. “Some belongings of mine have been stolen—very valuable and important belongings. And I would like you to find the person or persons responsible and have my property returned to me.”
Remy reached his car, parked outside the cemetery, where Marlowe was waiting patiently to be let into the backseat.
“Have you talked to the police about this matter?” Remy asked, opening the door to allow the dog inside.
“I have, but their performance… has been less than satisfactory.”
Remy climbed into the driver’s seat and closed the door.
“Mr. Chandler?”
“Yes, Mr. Karnighan. Why don’t we meet Wednesday morning, around ten? How does that sound?”
“Like the answer to my prayers, Mr. Chandler.”
Remy had heard that the Nomads had taken up residence somewhere on Tremont Street. They seemed to be drawn to high places, and he figured a recently completed, and so far unoccupied, office building might be the kind of place that they would take a liking to.
The closer he got to the glass and steel skyscraper, the better he knew that his assumptions had been correct. He didn’t have to focus all that hard to sense them; a gathering of angels this large caused a weird kind of ringing in his ears, his inhuman nature roused to attentiveness.
He’d gotten up early and had treated Marlowe to a walk in the Common, generally wasting as much time as he could. But he had to get this over with, and the quicker he got it done, the better off he’d be.
There had been rumors that he’d been the one to inspire the Nomads, that his actions in leaving Heaven after the war had motivated those of like mind to band together. He didn’t like to think of his actions as inspirational to anyone. They were his decisions, and his alone.
Willing himself unseen, he entered the lobby. A real estate agent was showing the building to a group of potential renters, his voice droning on about how the building was state-of-the-art and so on and so forth, as he ushered them toward the elevators. Remy joined the group. They went as far as the twelth floor, the doors opening onto a spacious area just ripe for some sort of commerce, and cubicles of happy worker bees.
Remy hit the button for the top floor, the closing doors cutting off the sales pitch of the real estate agent, and leaving him with the hum of the elevator’s ascent. He liked the sound the elevator made much more than the eager voice of the agent. They must have been sort of desperate, for as far as Remy knew, this building had been empty since its completion more than a year ago.
He wondered if the building’s rather unusual squatters had anything to do with that. It was possible; though invisible to most, their presense could often still be sensed. Not a comfortable feeling, he imagined, often blamed on bad energy flow, or feng shui, if you like.
The doors opened and Remy stepped out onto the twenty-fifth floor. It was a nice space, huge floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto a gorgeous view of the city.
Strolling across the open space, he found the door that accessed the stairwell to the roof. The strange sensation in his ears had intensified, the sound now something more akin to a song—a chant—and the Seraphim that he kept locked up inside him grew frantic with excitement at the idea of mingling with others of its kind.
At the top of the stairs Remy reached for the handle, but the door swung open on its own. They must have known he was coming—certainly if he could sense them, they could him.
Remy stepped out onto the roof. At first he saw nothing more than the building’s heating and cooling units, and the stu
And there they were, the Nomads standing upon the rooftop, gazing out beyond the city below, the eerie song they sang wafting about them. Their dark robes seemed to be crafted from a night sky, a dusky bluish black that twinkled with pinpricks of starlight. They wore hoods that hid their features. There were eleven of them, and Remy wondered where the others might be. In his mind, he pictured skyscrapers around the world, Nomad angels standing atop them, frozen in eerie contemplation, singing their strange song.
“There is genocide in Darfur,” one of them stated suddenly, his voice like the rumble of thunder at a distance. The angel turned its hooded head to stare at Remy, and he recognized Suroth.
Suroth’s eyes were distant, still seeing the atrocites perpetrated by supposedly civilized cultures in the western Sudan. Tears of sorrow streamed down his face, the manifestation of the sadness he witnessed.
Remy remained silent, allowing the angel’s eyes to focus upon him.
“Hello, brother,” Suroth stated, a hint of a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. “I sensed that someone of an angelic persuasion was visiting us, and I’m pleasantly surprised to see that it is you.”
“Hello, Suroth.” Remy bowed his head slightly.
“It has been too long,” the Nomad leader stated, moving toward Remy, away from the others, who continued to stand in quiet observation.