kissed it gently, lending her some of his own strength.
“What is it, child?” Remiel asked her. “What are you trying to say?”
She was fighting to breathe, lungs clogged with congestion, the glands beneath the skin of her throat black and swollen; but despite her condition she continued to fight to get the words out.
“Where . . . ?” she wheezed.
He was about to answer her, to tell her where her force of life would soon be, joining with her family and the many others who had been taken by the plague this day, but she had not yet finished her question.
“Where’s . . . Dolly?”
Remiel did not understand what it was she asked.
“Dolly?” he repeated. “You want to know the whereabouts of Dolly?”
“Where . . . Dolly . . . ?” the small child gasped, now moving about more wildly upon her bed as if searching for somebody . . . or something.
He was holding her down, to keep her from rolling onto the cold, dirt floor, when he saw it lying crumpled in the corner, beside the hearth. A doll of straw, wearing a dress of burlap.
He left the child momentarily to retrieve the toy and bring it to her upon the bed.
“Is this what you were asking for?” Remiel asked, showing it to her before placing the doll in her waiting arms.
Her bloodshot eyes became wider as she took the toy, hugging it to her body, and she seemed to relax, beginning the process of giving in to the sickness that consumed her.
“That’s it,” Remiel whispered, tenderly wiping a lock of sweat-dampened hair from the child’s forehead. “You can go now that Dolly is here with you.”
She seemed to grow smaller, her body, once tense with the pain of disease and impending death, now relaxing under his watchful gaze. The child’s face grew slack, and there was a brief crackle of bluish white energy that only he could see.
Israfil, the Angel of Death, then appeared to collect the last of the child’s life energies, but the powerful angel did not acknowledge Remiel’s presence there.
The Angel of Death departed as quickly as he had come, and Remiel stood up, looking down at the shell of cooling flesh that had once housed the stuff of life. He looked about at the remains of the child’s family, their bodies in more advanced stages of decay, having passed from the world earlier. It was a house void of all life now, except for the disease and vermin that thrived upon the corpses that rested there.
Remiel let his arms drop to his sides and called forth the fire of God, allowing it to flow into his hands. The fire was hungry, eager to consume anything it was set upon. The angel walked about the tiny home gently caressing the sparse furniture and the bodies that lay putrefying in death, leaving behind the fire of Heaven to quench its insatiable hunger.
Stepping through the door, roiling fire at his back, the angel Remiel wondered how many more he would need to comfort on their way to death before the virulent plague ran its course.
The whinnying of horses distracted him from his thoughts, and the angel, clad in the clothes of a simple man, looked to see that he was now being watched.
The knights sat upon their horses, watching him with suspicious eyes. He could have easily willed himself invisible and gone on his way unhampered, but these armored soldiers, there was something about them.
Something that made him curious.
The shack behind him had become like a ball of fire, and he continued to watch the knights, their horses made nervous by the intensity of the divine flames.
“There was great sickness here,” Remiel spoke above the roar of the flames. “But I have put an end to it.”
The knights continued their silence, watching him with scrutinizing eyes.
“Is there something I can do for you, brave knights?” Remiel asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“Our master wishes an audience,” said one of the soldiers.
“With me?” Remiel asked. “Why would someone of obvious power wish to speak with one such as me?”
“He knows what you are, soldier of God,” said the knight, bowing his head.
The other knights followed suit in reverence to the angel.
“Will you accompany us to nearby Bohner Castle to speak with the Holy Father?” the knight asked.
“Holy Father?” Remiel repeated, curious about the title they had given their master.
“Yes, warrior of Heaven,” the knight said. “The Holy Father, Pope Tyranus of the Holy See.”
They had brought along a riderless horse, and presented it to him.
“Will you ride with us?” the knight asked him, as the other knights watched. “Or would you prefer other means in which to reach our destination?”
Remiel had grown temporarily disenchanted with the wearisome task of ministering to the dying, and believed that this might be just the kind of distraction that he required at that moment.
“Take me to your master,” he said, climbing up onto his mount. The flaming home behind him collapsed with an animal-like roar, tongues of angelic fire lapping eagerly at the damp, night air.
“Take me to Pope Tyranus.”
CHAPTER TWO
Steven’s visit had left Remy’s mind buzzing.
After his friend had decided to pack it in for the evening, he’d stayed on the roof for a while pondering the questions of an uncertain future.
His dreams warning of an impending war, and now the Vatican looking for him, made him very anxious indeed.
But what to do about it?
Remy downed the last of his scotch, not allowing himself to feel the effects of the alcohol. Marlowe was looking up from the floor where he lay.
“We should think about heading down,” Remy said, his mind still annoyingly abuzz.
Remy stood, grabbed the nearly empty bottle of scotch and the two tumblers, and started for the doorway. Marlowe cut him off, zipping down the stairs in front of him to get inside first, his toenails clicking on the wood steps as he made his way down.
“Don’t make too much noise,” Remy warned the beast. “You don’t want to wake up Linda. You know what she’s like when you wake her up.”
Remy laughed as he heard Marlowe’s bark of a response.
“Exactly,” Remy replied as they reached the first floor.
Most of the lights were off, but Remy had no problem moving around in the darkness. With just a thought, he could adjust the structure of his eyes, and see in the black as though the sun was coming in through the windows.
Marlowe drank sloppily from his bowl of water in the kitchen corner as Remy set the bottle on the counter and put the dirty glasses in the sink.
No matter how hard he tried to slow it down, his brain simply refused to cut him that slack. Something was brewing, and he knew that it likely had to do with the return of Lucifer to the prison dimension of Tartarus to remake it in his own image.
To turn it into Hell.
Remy had always feared something like this happening—the forces of God once again pitted against the Morningstar.
He needed to know what was happening; needed to know how close the impending disaster was, and how
