Would this be the time? Would this be what finally ended his existence? This pathetic old man ravenous for revenge. He thought of Francis, what his friend would think, and managed to be embarrassed.
The struggling Deacon was closer. The man appeared younger, his flesh healthy, flushed tight with blood. The mechanical skeleton he wore had started to spark, to whine in protest, for the supernatural energy that filled it was too much.
Too powerful.
Something designed and created by humans was not meant to contain the power of Heaven.
“Is this what it feels like?” Deacon gasped, his voice little more than a breathless whisper above the still blaring alarms. “To be this close to God?”
Remy caught a glimpse of something from the corner of his eye. At first he thought it was the artificial man- Scrimshaw-coming back to help his master, but then he realized who it was who stood in a patch of shadow, and wasn’t surprised at all.
Israfil was there, watching, waiting.
The Angel of Death had come for Remy Chandler.
But Remy wasn’t ready.
He looked away from the death specter and his eyes fell on the cowering form of Ashley Berg, whose life had been transformed into a living nightmare because of her association with him.
Remy had to fix that; he had to make it right. Then death could come for him, as it had for his beloved Madeline.
But not right now.
The angel that he was rallied from the brink of surrender, like one of the great fishes of the ocean being drawn in on a line and finding that deep, hidden reserve of strength for one final attempt at freedom.
“Give it to me,” Deacon hissed, his face obscured by smoke and the stink of ozone. “Give it all to me.”
And as crazy as it seemed, Remy did just that.
A flash of brilliance exploded from his body, a flash so bright that it chased away all the darkness in the room.
So bright that it chased away Death’s angel.
Deacon’s scream joined with Remy’s as the room was consumed in light.
There was a moment of nothing, of sweet oblivion, but it didn’t last long before the chaos returned. Alarms wailed, growing steadily louder as Remy regained his awareness.
He was lying flat on his back, a cracked and seared ceiling coming into focus above him. He sat up and surveyed his surroundings. The room had been obliterated by the release of energy. What appeared to be the broken shape of Deacon was lying among the wreckage of the heavy dining room table, and Scrimshaw was furiously working to uncover his master’s remains. Ashley still cowered in the far corner of the room, the animalistic Teddy crouched beside her.
Remy rose unsteadily to his feet, incredible pain in his back causing explosions of color to detonate before his eyes. Reaching awkwardly behind him, he found the metal spines of Deacon’s feeding apparatus and tore them from his back. It was an agony the likes of which he’d only experienced a few times, agony that should have had a special place in the pain hall of fame. He started to drop to his knees again as his body rebelled against the damage being heaped upon it, but he fought on.
It was what he did. What he always did.
He focused on Ashley. He’d made a promise to her mother to find her, to bring her home, and that was what he was going to do.
“Ashley,” he said, as he stumbled across the room. His voice sounded weak, rough, as if he’d just woken from a long slumber.
Teddy reacted with a hiss, springing at Remy, teeth bared.
And pure instinct powered Remy’s response. He slapped the child roughly to the ground, and, like a dog struck with a newspaper, the boy fled across the room to glare at him from a distance.
“We have to go now,” Remy said, reaching for Ashley.
She pulled away, putting her face against the wall, her eyes tightly closed.
“Please, Ash,” he said, firmly gripping her arm.
She turned from the wall to look at him. What he saw-or didn’t-in her gaze disturbed him greatly, but he couldn’t let it deter him. He lifted her to her feet and pulled her to the entrance of the dining room, its double doors blown from their hinges by the release of his angelic might.
They walked across the fallen doors, into the corridor. The sound of alarms still filled the air, and as they turned the corner to the passage that would bring them to the large foyer, Remy saw what had triggered the security system.
Deacon’s golems, some dressed as household staff, others just human-shaped pieces of clay, fought against multiple attackers. Things with skin blacker than total darkness were attempting to gain access to the home, things that slithered, flew, and crawled were being held at bay by Deacon’s supernatural creations.
Ashley hesitated at the sight of an ebony serpent that surged through the open front door to grab up a golem in its cavernous maw. The artificial man struggled as it was dragged into the darkness outside.
Which, if they had any intention of escaping, was where Remy and Ashley needed to go.
Remy gave Ashley’s arm a yank, and they ran down the short hall toward the still-open door.
The darkness beyond the pale green lights of the Deacon estate beckoned, promising them one of two things.
A chance at freedom.
Or a fate worse than death.
Scrimshaw watched the angel escape the dining room. He was tempted to go in pursuit, but he had to know if his master had survived.
The explosion of energy was like nothing the golem had ever experienced before. He doubted there was any way that Deacon could have lived through it, but he had to be sure.
The dining table had been shattered, and Scrimshaw carefully pulled away the broken sections to get to his fallen master’s remains.
He sensed that he was being watched, and stopped for a moment to find Teddy staring at him, concern in his semihuman eyes. The boy had seriously deteriorated since surviving the attack by the traitorous Algernon Stearns. It was Deacon who had truly saved him-if that’s what he called it-using arcane magicks to retrieve him from the brink of death. But something had been lost in the process. It was as if the child’s humanity had been damaged by Stearns’ assault, and even though Teddy’s body had been restored to life, his soul had continued to die.
Even still, Scrimshaw could see that Teddy feared for the one who sired him. Normally he would have reassured the boy, telling him that everything would be all right, but Scrimshaw did none of that now.
Instead, he carefully picked through the rubble, gradually exposing the tuxedoed body of the man he called master trapped beneath the wreckage. He gently uncovered the man’s head and face and was shocked by what he found.
Konrad Deacon as Scrimshaw remembered him more than fifty years ago: hair a stark black, skin free of wrinkles, unblemished and taut.
Scrimshaw reached out to check for a pulse, and Deacon’s eyes opened wide as his hand shot out and grabbed the golem’s wrist.
“The angel?” Deacon asked excitedly. Golden energy, like liquid fire, drifted from his eyes.
“He’s escaped,” Scrimshaw managed, completely taken aback. “He took the girl, as well.”
Deacon seemed to consider this a moment, then released his hold upon Scrimshaw’s wrist. The golem gazed at the burns left by his master’s touch.
Teddy howled his pleasure, crawling across the rubble to get to his father. But as Deacon rose, he extended his arm and a wall of flame roared from his fingertips, driving back the screaming young boy.
Deacon shrugged off the broken pieces of table and dinnerware, and Scrimshaw saw that he no longer wore the exoskeleton that had helped his fragile body to move. It was as if he’d somehow shed his old form to reveal something shiny and new beneath. Tears in the dusty old tuxedo revealed new muscle and flesh beneath. His master had somehow been transformed into a perfect specimen.
But a perfect specimen of what?
