“You’ll never hurt anyone ever again,” Remy stated flatly, dispassionately, willing his hands afire.
The assassin continued to fight him, even as the divine flames began to hungrily consume the flesh of his face, his eyes bubbling and popping from their sockets before the flames spread onto his skull.
The Bone Master screamed for far longer than Remy would have imagined he could.
When he finally fell silent, Remy let the body slip from his grasp. The fire continued to burn, jumping to the assassin’s robes and the flesh beneath. If allowed to spread, there would be nothing left to show that the assassin had even been there.
All except for the physical and mental damage the demon had inflicted in his wake.
Marlowe came to Remy, leaping up on his chest, stretching his neck to eagerly kiss his face. Remy found it suddenly difficult to remain standing, and dropped down to his knees, giving the dog ample opportunity to display his rampant affections.
As Marlowe frantically licked his face, Remy looked to see Linda staring at him from where she sat perfectly motionless upon the floor. He wanted to tell her to remain calm, that he would explain everything to her, but he found that the words would not come.
The look of fear in her eyes freezing them in his throat as he tried to speak.
“I believe,” he started, the words for some reason so difficult to pry from his mouth. “I believe I owe you an explanation.”
Remy heard himself, the words sounding strangely slurred, and wondered what could be the cause when he came to realize that his entire body was growing increasingly cold. He could not feel his limbs, and found himself suddenly toppling over onto the floor.
Marlowe yelped in panic as he fell, and Linda was at his side, leaning over him, tears in her eyes, her face racked with the beginnings of panic.
“You’re bleeding,” he heard her say, though strangely muffled, and he was able to lift his body and tilt his head in such a way to see that yes, he was indeed bleeding; a cold realization came to him.
The assassin’s bullets had found their target, the venom-infused teeth sending a powerful poison coursing through his veins.
Remy attempted to react, to alter his internal chemistry in such a way as to burn the poison away before . . .
Nothing happened, and the cold continued to permeate his every fiber; he was finding it harder and harder to remain there—to remain with Linda and Marlowe.
Marlowe cried pathetically, pacing back and forth in front of them. Linda was holding him now, gripping him tightly in her arms and begging for him to stay with her.
“Remy, what should I do?” she pleaded, hoping that he would help her, but it was so difficult for him to speak.
“I . . . I’m so sorry,” he managed to squeak out. “Didn’t want . . . to lie.”
She was hysterical, and he wanted to hold her, to tell her that he would be fine, but he could no longer move his arms, and now that everything had been revealed, he did not want to begin another lie.
“Remy,” she pleaded, tears raining down upon his face; tears that he could not feel.
He tried to stay with her, but his eyes had grown so heavy, and he could no longer hold them open.
Marlowe was howling now, his cries reverberating through the lobby. Remy thought it was the saddest sound he had ever heard as he felt himself begin to succumb.
His eyes closed, and darkness fell, but there was fire in the midst of shadow; a struggling flame fighting to stay alight in the encroaching gloom.
But the fire grew dim, smaller by the passing moment, until it was but a faintly glowing ember, and it could fight no more, giving in to the dark.
The last thought Remy had before he, too, succumbed:
EPILOGUE
Simeon stood on the outskirts of the ancient cemetery, watching the burial from a distance, and trying to remember how it felt to die.
With each shovelful of dirt upon the wooden coffin, he imagined himself deep within the ground, lovingly held in the earthen embrace, waiting for the moment when he would at last pass from life.
But the Earth, and Heaven, would not have him.
The forever man’s thoughts drifted back to a time that seemed not so long ago. But what was time for one who would breathe forever?
Castle Hallow had fallen, and the sorcerous might of the Pope named Tyranus had been unleashed as death had taken him. In his fury, Simeon had commanded the demon legions to attack, their number proving too great for the holy man. But as he succumbed, the Pope let flow his vast reserves of supernatural power, laying the castle low.
The fortress of the necromancer crumbled and sank beneath the moor, Simeon’s body weighed down by pieces of heavy wall that took him deeper and deeper beneath the mire.
And that was when he experienced the vision.
In a moment of death—which was all that he was ever given—Simeon saw the way in which his desires could finally come true.
And in the time of death allotted, before he was wrenched back to wretched existence, he saw how it could all be made possible.
The rings. The two rings of Solomon.
With one ring already adorning his finger, Simeon had searched for the other, dying again and again while looking for the corpse of the Pope called Tyranus deep beneath the gripping marshland.
A woman’s cry tore Simeon from his memory.
He watched as a group of men supported an older woman in a veil, and dressed entirely in black, holding her up as they escorted her from the new grave. Eyes drawn to the freshly turned earth, Simeon again remembered how it had been.
Now possessing both of Solomon’s rings, he’d pulled himself up from the mire, a new purpose burning in his chest where a soul used to be.
He’d cried out his victory to the Heavens as he emerged from the mud, desperate for them to hear him, and to know that he would be the one to bring them down.
As usual, Heaven and all who lived within its glory chose to ignore him.
But that slight would come at a cost most severe.
He wondered if the angel that stood upon the ground where the necromancer’s castle had once been would be returning to Heaven.
The angel turned to watch his struggles as he withdrew himself from the grip of the moor. A sword of fire glowed powerfully in his grasp as he observed him.
Simeon was tempted to share his vision with the divine creature, but he decided against it, believing that it was best that the Almighty and all who served Him be unaware as to what was coming sometime in the future.
The angel had asked who he was, and how he came to be alive, but Simeon did not have time for questions, raising his hands and feeling the power of the rings tingling upon his fingers.
“I’m nobody,” he had told the angel. “And nothing worth remembering.”
And the angel had agreed, spreading his wings and taking to the sky.
He’d often wondered in the passing years what had happened to that angel, and if he would ever see him again.
