Montagin pulled his arm away, reaching up to rub at where Remy had grabbed him.
“That better not leave a bruise,” the angel warned as he brought his wings around to embrace them both, and transport them away from Remy’s bedroom to . . .
Here.
They appeared in the corner of a room—a study—that Remy would have given one of his kidneys to have.
It was enormous, filled with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and heavy pieces of leather furniture. Lying in the center of what was obviously a priceless Persian rug was the sprawled body of angel General Aszrus.
Remy glanced to his left, through the opening in the slats of a shuttered window, and saw a spectacular view of the sea washing up on a rocky beach outside.
“Where are we?” Remy asked, walking away from Montagin toward the body.
“Newport,” the angel responded. “I believe it’s in a state called Rhode Island.”
“What brings an angel soldier and his assistant to Newport?” Remy knelt beside the corpse.
“You would have to ask him,” Montagin replied. “Perhaps he saw a picture in one of the human magazines he enjoyed reading.”
Remy looked down at the general, remembering how he’d last seen the powerful being. Once again, his face was flecked with small spatters of blood, but this time it was his own.
“Tell me everything about finding him,” Remy ordered.
He was already starting to notice things that were . . .
Montagin had crossed the room, over to what looked to be a portable bar in the shape of an old globe. The angel lifted the cover, revealing the inside of the planet to be filled with bottles of alcohol.
“I came in for one of these, actually,” Montagin said, removing a decanter of scotch from the hollow inside of the globe, along with a glass, and filling it halfway.
Remy looked away from the corpse, to the angel.
“He was the one to introduce me to the joys of alcohol,” Montagin said. “Especially scotch. Got to be one of the only things I admired about this monkey cage of a world.”
“So, you came in for a scotch—go on.”
Montagin came cautiously closer, drink in hand.
“I didn’t expect to find him in here, especially in this . . . condition.”
The angel took a large gulp of his drink and swallowed it down without any hesitation, his eyes briefly closing as he savored its taste. It was obvious to Remy that the angel wasn’t lying when he said that he’d learned to love alcohol.
It wasn’t often that one could observe an angel in the throes of pleasure.
“Aszrus wasn’t supposed to be here. He’d gone out earlier in the evening and wasn’t expected back until much later—if at all.”
“Where did he go?” Remy asked.
The angel shrugged. “Out,” he answered. “The general did not share his every bit of business with me, only items that pertained to maintaining God’s will and the glory of Heaven.”
“Right,” Remy muttered in response. “The glory of Heaven. So you don’t have the slightest idea where he went last night?”
“Not the slightest,” Montagin said as he drank some more.
Remy scowled, not liking that pieces of the puzzle were missing. “Go on. You came in . . .”
“So when I came in and found him like this . . .”
“And this is exactly how it was when you entered?” Remy asked. “You didn’t touch anything?”
The angel shook his head. “Not a thing.” He considered the question again, before adding to his answer. “I had a drink, but that was all.”
“And then what did you do?”
“Drank my drink, and thought about who could have done such a thing, and what it would mean to the grand scheme of things.”
“And then?”
“And then I thought of you, and how if there was anybody on this forsaken world that could keep this situation from blowing up it would be you.”
“I’m guessing that you already suspect who’s responsible,” Remy said, rising to his feet, eyes still rooted to the corpse of the angel general.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Montagin scoffed.
“No, not really,” Remy said, looking away from the corpse to the angel.
Just as he was about to take another swig from his glass, he stopped. “You’re not sure?” Montagin asked. “Who else but the Morningstar would be responsible for such a blatant disregard for protocol? Somebody entered the dwelling of a general serving in the army of Heaven and cut out his heart. Who else but Lucifer would dare —”
“He wasn’t murdered here,” Remy interrupted, looking back to the corpse.
“What?” Montagin asked, thrown by the statement. “What do you mean he wasn’t murdered here?”
“There isn’t enough blood.” Remy pointed down to the Persian rug beneath the corpse. “If Aszrus’ heart was cut out here, the rug would be stained with his blood. There isn’t more than a drop here and there beneath him.”
Montagin downed what remained of his drink, placed the empty glass on one of the bookshelves, and stalked closer for a look.
“You’re right, but if he wasn’t murdered here, then . . .”
“He was murdered someplace else,” Remy finished. “And I think that wherever that is will likely tell us who is responsible.”
“But who else would dare?” Montagin began.
The stink of scotch wafted from the angel’s breath, causing Remy to wrinkle his nose.
“I could be wrong, but I’m just not feeling the work of the Morningstar here,” Remy said.
“Then who?” Montagin demanded.
“Don’t know.” Remy was looking at the body again, searching for something—anything—that he might have missed the first few times. “But something tells me that if the Morningstar was involved, he wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of killing the general, and then bringing the body back here. I’m guessing it would have been left where it fell.”
“How can you know that?” Montagin asked.
Remy shrugged. “I can’t,” he said. “It’s just something that I’m feeling in my gut right now. This doesn’t feel like an act of war. It feels more . . . personal.”
“But that’s exactly what this is,” Montagin stressed.
Remy understood the ramifications of this act, and did everything possible not to break out in a cold sweat.
“Right, but we’ve got to do everything in our power to prevent folks from finding out about it right now until . . .”
“Until?” Montagin wanted to know.
“Until I figure out who’s responsible.”
CHAPTER SIX
The clock was ticking, and since Montagin didn’t have any information as to where the general had been the previous night, Remy figured that it wouldn’t hurt to ask some of the house staff if they knew anything.
Montagin had pissed on the idea, but Remy knew better, insisting that the angel would be surprised at how much was known by people who supposedly didn’t know a thing.
They locked up the study and proceeded through the labyrinthine corridors of the estate to a huge kitchen,
