She thought about it for a moment, taking a long sip from her drink.
“You’re probably right,” she finally agreed.
They were both quiet for a bit. He could tell that she was still thinking, working things out. Remy was glad that he was sitting with her, wanting to do everything he could to help ease the pain.
“Spooky slept with me last night,” Ashley said. “She never slept with me. I think it was because she wanted to sleep exactly in the center, and that’s where I would be… But last night she came into my room and meowed for me, and I had to help her up onto the bed…” She sniffled as more tears began to fall.
“She got onto the bed and sat down…and looked at me. It was kinda giving me the creeps, so I asked her what her problem was, and she just gave me one of those disgusted-Spooky looks and lay down right beside me.”
Ashley began to cry, and Remy moved closer, putting his arm around her.
“She started to purr, Remy,” she continued. “Spooky never purred…but last night, she started to purr and then she went to sleep.”
She cried some more, and he said nothing, choosing instead to just hold her.
“She…she was…gone when I woke up,” Ashley said, struggling to get the words out. “She must’ve died sometime in the night.”
“A nice way to go,” Remy said. “Sleeping beside the one you love.”
They sat like that for quite some time, the sun slowly setting, the warmth of it gradually overcome by the evening’s chill.
“Did you ever have to deal with this kind of thing, Remy?” Ashley asked him.
“Sure,” he said, remembering without regret the pets and the acquaintances he had lost in his seemingly endless existence. How empty his life would have been without them. They had helped him to be what he was today. “It never gets any easier.”
“Didn’t think it would,” she said, tipping the cup back and finishing the last of her coffee.
“Don’t let this experience spoil it for you,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Ashley asked, looking at him.
“What you’re feeling now, the sadness…don’t let it take away from all the happiness that you had with Spooky… It’s too special to be spoiled by a sad fact of life.”
“Everything dies,” Ashley said.
“Afraid so.” Remy nodded.
They sat for a bit longer, and finally she had had enough of the fall chill in the air and stood.
“I’m getting cold. I think I’ll head in now.”
“You gonna be all right?” he asked her, standing up from the steps.
“I’m good,” she said. “Sad…but good.”
Remy understood perfectly. “You hang in there, all right?” he told her.
“Yeah, it’ll probably take a little time, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Good to hear.” He headed down the steps. “If you need anything, give me a call.”
“Will do,” Ashley said, climbing the stairs to the building’s front door. “Thanks, Remy.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, already on his way when he stopped. “Oh, Ash?” he called to her.
She was halfway in the door but turned back to see what he wanted.
He’d been thinking about this for a while, and he and Madeline had pretty much decided that they would do it.
“We’re thinking about getting a dog,” he told Ashley. “How would you feel about that?”
He could see the beginning of a smile at the corners of her mouth.
“A dog? Really? What kind?”
“Maybe a Labrador or a golden retriever.”
“Labs are awesome,” she said. “I think that would be pretty cool, especially if you let me babysit.”
“It’s a deal,” Remy said, waving as he turned the corner.
A Lab it is.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It hadn’t taken Remy long to find the Deacon farm. It had been pretty much where the voice on his phone had told him it would be.
The dilapidated main house and the skeletal remains of a barn next door were at the end of an unkempt dirt road that Remy had found behind a rusted chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. As he moved closer to the old farmhouse, he could see the wide expanse of weed-covered fields beyond. It had been a long time since anything of use was taken from this land.
From what he understood, the Deacons were once one of the country’s wealthiest families, starting out in farming but then branching off into gunpowder during the Civil War. It wasn’t long before they were producing virtually all American gunpowder. The family was wiped out after a tragic accident claimed the last Deacon and his heir sometime during the forties.
Remy stood before the front porch, wondering if he was alone. Perhaps Ashley’s kidnapper wanted to make him squirm a bit, or maybe he had no intention whatsoever of showing up.
Remy didn’t even want to consider the latter.
He decided to explore the farmhouse, and his foot had just landed on the first creaking step to the porch when he sensed that he was no longer alone. He turned to see a smiling man standing behind him. There was nothing unusual about his appearance-middle-aged, average height and build-and Remy wouldn’t have thought twice about him if he’d passed him on the street.
“Are you the one who called me?” Remy asked.
But the man simply stood there, smiling strangely.
Two more men and a woman stepped out from the overgrown bushes hiding the house from the road and joined the first of them.
Then there came the creaking of a door, and Remy turned to see yet another man coming out of the farmhouse.
“Are you really an angel?” he asked as he pulled the door closed behind him. “Give us a taste.”
Remy heard the sound of movement and spun around as the four figures in the yard rushed at him. The men grabbed at his arms and the woman fell to her knees, taking hold of his left leg.
Remy gathered his strength and managed to shake them off, kneeing the woman backward into the dirt.
And that was when he realized how weak he was feeling, how his head had started to swim.
“Tasty,” the man on the porch said as he slowly descended the rickety steps. “But nothing too out of the ordinary.”
The three men and the woman were on their feet and heading, arms outstretched, for Remy again. He reacted purely on instinct, shedding his human guise and assuming the form of the Seraphim. Wings the color of gold exploded from his back, and his human garments were replaced with the armored raiment forged in the divine fires of Heaven’s armory.
“Keep back,” he warned, his body radiating a heat so intense that it warped the air around him.
Remy’s attackers hesitated but only for a moment, and then they were on him again, grabbing hold of his holy visage even as their bodies burst into flames. The angel tried to rip them away, but they continued to cling to him like thirsty ticks, and he felt himself grow steadily weaker. Somehow the mere touch of these creatures was draining his strength.
He had to get away. He stretched out his wings and crouched down, preparing to take flight, but there was a sudden weight on his back and he realized that the man from the porch had joined the fray. The combined weights of the five attackers brought him to his knees on the dusty ground as even more of his energy was siphoned away. Remy fought to stand, but was finding it hard to even remain conscious.
Then one by one the creatures released their grips. Remy watched as they absorbed the flames of Heaven, leaving behind creatures burned and blackened, with not even a hint of the mask of humanity they’d once
