“I’m going to ask you to do something pretty horrible,” Remy said, letting his words permeate a bit before he continued. “And it involves that thing inside you.”
“No,” Malatesta objected outright. “You . . . you don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking, and I’m sorry, but it’s the only way. The spirit, or whatever it is inside you, is our get-out-of-jail-free card—they don’t know about it, so they didn’t do anything to prevent it from getting free.”
Malatesta was crying and furiously shaking his head.
“I can’t. . . . I can’t. . . . You don’t understand what that would mean.”
Remy knew exactly what the sorcerer was talking about, having spent the last hundred years, give or take a century, attempting to keep the warlike aspect of his angelic nature in check.
“You’d be surprised at what I know,” he said. “But if we’re going to get out of here, you have to trust me— this is the only way.”
“No,” Malatesta said again, now starting to thrash around in his chair. “I won’t let the Larva out, I’ve worked too hard to—”
There was the muffled sound of voices from outside, and Remy knew that time was just about up.
“Do you hear?” Remy stressed. “This is it—they’re coming for us.”
Malatesta had tucked his chin deep into his chest, straining to keep the monstrous force inside him imprisoned.
“It’s almost too late,” Remy roared.
Malatesta continued to struggle, his body racked with sobs of terror and strain.
“As a soldier of the Lord God . . . as an angel of Heaven I command you to set it free.”
The voices were louder now, almost to the door.
Malatesta was looking at him, his gaze begging Remy not to ask this of him.
“I command you,” Remy said again.
“Please . . . ,” Malatesta whined.
“Do it.”
Malatesta’s eyes slowly closed, and his head sank down, his chin touching the top of his chest. “I hate you,” he whispered. “I hate you with all my heart and soul.”
“I’m sorry,” Remy replied, hearing the sound of the door opening. “If there was any other way . . .”
Two zombie security guards entered.
“Hey, guys,” Remy said. “Miss us?”
The zombie that liked to hit came at him, hands like catchers’ mitts, reaching. He guessed that they were being taken elsewhere, maybe to a certain someone who’d paid a lot of money to do something really horrible to a soldier of Heaven.
The other guard had gone to Malatesta, and was trying to haul him up from the chair. Remy glanced over to see that the zombie was having a bit of trouble, Malatesta’s hands holding on to the back of the furniture.
“I’ll break those hands,” the zombie murmured menacingly.
But that just made Malatesta start to laugh and laugh, and that was when Remy realized it wasn’t the sorcerer who was laughing.
The laughing abruptly stopped, and then Remy heard what could only have been the muffled sounds of bones popping from their joints. He watched in awe as Malatesta was suddenly free from his restraints, his arms bending in directions that should have been impossible.
Malatesta was laughing again, as he sprang onto the seat of his chair, then up and over the towering zombie, grabbing hold of the walking corpse’s chin and yanking back as he went. There was a loud crack as the zombie’s neck was broken, and he tumbled backward to the floor.
The zombie that had been beside Remy was already on the move toward Malatesta. The possessed sorcerer continued to laugh and giggle, evading the zombie with ease, even springing up onto, and sticking to the side of the wall like Spiderman.
The zombie lunged, crashing into wooden crates of wine and boxes of booze as he attempted to rip the insectlike sorcerer from his perch. The zombie with the broken neck was now struggling to stand, his heavy head lolling about horribly as he tried to assist his partner.
“Larva!” Remy called out, still restrained.
Malatesta was padding across the ceiling and looking down on those who were attempting to reach up for him. The demon turned his eyes from his foes to Remy.
“What are you wasting time for with mere animated corpses, when you could be tangling with a soldier of Heaven?” Remy asked it, enticing the accursed thing.
The evil spirit laughed at him, reaching down from the ceiling to rip at one of the zombie’s faces, snatching away one of its eyes and popping it into his mouth like a cherry tomato.
The zombie flailed about, now partially blind.
“Come on,” Remy taunted. “When was the last time you tasted angelic flesh?”
He wasn’t sure if the spirit ever had, but figured if it hadn’t, it certainly would want to. It continued to taunt the zombies.
“Now I know why Malatesta was able to keep you locked up for so long,” Remy stated over the commotion. “You’re weak . . . a minor entity. Nothing more than an annoyance.”
He was counting on the thing’s arrogance and stupidity, and he wasn’t disappointed.
Forgetting its zombie opponents, the Larva came scrabbling across the ceiling, and dropped down atop Remy, sending the chair flipping violently backward to the floor. Remy heard the sound of the chair moaning beneath their weight, as the evil entity hissed and slashed. He rocked from side to side, straining the chair’s integrity while attempting to evade the creature’s razor-sharp claws.
He needed something more to get free of the chair, and his prayers were answered in the form of two linebacker-sized zombies, one with a funky neck, barreling across the room to get their escaped prisoner back under wraps.
They hit the Larva like two runaway freight trains, landing atop them in a heap of powerfully muscled dead flesh that ended up doing exactly what Remy had hoped for. The chair’s back snapped beneath their thrashing bodies, allowing Remy to slip free of the magickally enhanced chains.
He’d had just about enough of animated corpses wrestling atop him and brought forth the fires of Heaven. The light of divinity caused his body to glow, sending the spirit screaming away, and attaching itself again to the ceiling like a spider.
The zombies were driven back from the light, still wearing the protections that kept him from dealing with their likes before. Not wanting them to have a chance, Remy acted, grabbing for the leg of the broken chair that had held him and smashing it into the side of one of the zombie’s heads, and then the other’s.
One of them crashed into a stack of boxes, causing the bottles of liquor inside to smash to the floor in an expanding puddle.
Seeing as they were already dead, Remy didn’t hesitate, flicking his fingers as if flipping droplets of water; but instead of water he was flipping fire.
The zombie went up in a rush of flame, the sprinkler system in the ceiling raining water down upon the room in an attempt to extinguish the fire. The other zombie, his head flopping about loosely, made a dash for the door, but the Larva sticking to the ceiling above had other ideas.
The possessed man dropped down upon its prey, finger claws slashing, ripping away the zombie’s clothes, and finally the dead flesh beneath.
Remy turned his focus to the burning dead man. The zombie was attempting to roll around on the ground, trying to put out the flames. Approaching the flailing figure, Remy took the chair leg, and drove it down into the zombie’s face, and into the brain, shutting the burning corpse down for the count.
He then returned his attention to the Larva.
The possessed Malatesta was crouched atop the zombie, his head buried in a gaping hole that he had torn in the dead man’s gut.
Remy was disgusted.
But there hadn’t been any choice.
“That’s enough of that,” he said, using a tone of authority.
