Where Angels Fear to Tread

“Please, Samson,” Remy said. “For the sake of the child.”

Samson looked about to explode, his fists clenched at his sides like two wrecking balls, and Remy was prepared, prepared to unleash the full power of the Seraphim in order to keep the strongman at bay.

But it wouldn’t be necessary, for Samson wrestled with his fury, managing to suppress his nearly uncontrollable anger.

“I’m good,” he said, breathless with the strain as he stepped back.

Remy lowered his arm, feeling the Seraphim’s disappointment that things had not come to violence.

“But this isn’t over,” Samson growled, directing what remained of his anger at the woman lounging upon the couch.

“Of course it isn’t,” Delilah said, one long, perfect leg crossed over the other. “We have an innocent child to save, and a piece of creation to retrieve.”

Piece of creation?

Remy turned toward the women. “What was that?” he asked. The Seraphim continued to stir.

“It’s why I’m looking for the child,” Delilah said. “She has what I’ve been searching for. . what I need.”

Deryn was nodding furiously.

“It’s why she’s so different,” the child’s mother tried to explain. “This thing. . this piece of. .”

“Creation,” Delilah finished. “A shard of God’s power used to shape the world and everything in it. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form, and void: and darkness was on the face of the deep. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.’”

She paused for dramatic effect, making sure it was sinking in.

It was sinking in all right.

“This seed of His holy power has existed on the earth since its formation, found by some of the earliest members of humanity, and protected.”

“So how did it wind up with a six-year-old kid?” Samson asked, before Remy could.

Delilah raised a bloodred thumbnail to her mouth. “I’ve probably been a tad overzealous in my pursuit of it, and it sought a safe haven.”

“Inside a little girl?” Samson questioned. “That doesn’t make a whole lot of. .”

But it does, Remy thought. “The piece of creation needed a safe place,” he said aloud, “a place where it could hide and be protected.”

“Yes,” Delilah agreed, nodding her head.

Remy looked to Deryn. “When you and your husband were with the Church of Dagon. . you were supposed to give birth to a child who would house the power of a god. The unborn Zoe had been prepared. . but the ritual was interrupted, and the god never took up residence.”

Delilah nodded again.

“Dagon’s loss was the fragment of creation’s gain. The child—this special child—was the perfect place for the power to hide from me,” Delilah continued, tickled by this newest revelation.

It was all starting to make a twisted kind of sense; all but one very important thing.

“Why would someone like you be interested in something as potentially powerful as this?” Remy asked Delilah, feeling the power of Heaven lunge threateningly within.

It didn’t like this woman, not one bit.

“Good fucking question,” Samson said, and his children grunted in agreement, clutching their weapons.

“Quite simple really,” Delilah answered. “It’s no secret that I’ve grown tired of this cursed existence, and I want it to end.” She played with the crease on the leg of her slacks. “There, I’ve said it.”

“You want to be released from your punishment?” Remy asked.

“I want to die,” she said. “Are you happy now?”

“And you think the fragment. .”

“I know the fragment can release me,” she said. “It came to me in a dream. . divinely influenced, I’m sure. . and it said if I found the creation piece, I would be released from my torment, which is why I’ve been searching so enthusiastically.”

She stood up from the couch, her movements smooth, predatory.

“I’m tired of living. . tired of watching those I’ve learned to love wither and die from sickness and old age. . tired of running from the likes of you and your bastard children,” she said, staring defiantly at Samson and his brood. “I’ll do anything to see it end.”

Delilah placed her hands upon her shapely hips. “Will you help me do this, and save the life of the child in the process?” she asked.

“Zoe is in danger?” Remy questioned, his concern escalating.

“Oh yes,” Delilah said. “It seems that a very ancient power is still very much in the picture.”

It was Deryn’s turn to stand now.

“He did come,” the woman explained. “When the ritual was interrupted, it didn’t stop him from coming. . He came, but instead of a new body, he was forced to go into an old one.”

“The pastor of the former Church of Dagon, and the new Church of His Holy Abundance,” Delilah said. “The old god temporarily lives within a shell of decaying flesh, and will be dead very soon. . ”

“Unless?” Remy asked, not liking where this was going.

“Carl brought her there,” Deryn said, her voice starting to quake with emotion. “He brought our little girl back to the one she’d been promised to.”

“Dagon has the child,” Remy stated.

“Dagon has the power of creation,” Delilah added.

Remy knew what had to be done. The child needed to be saved, and the power of God removed from the ancient deity’s possession.

“Do you know where she is?” he asked.

Delilah smiled a predator’s smile, bringing the scarlet thumbnail back up to her perfect teeth as she nodded once.

“We’ll have to go there,” Remy said, looking at Samson and the others. “We’ll have to go there and bring Zoe back home.”

“And the fragment?” Delilah asked.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for Dagon to possess it.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Delilah said.

She turned toward her white-haired servant amongst Samson’s army.

“Mathias, tell the others we’re leaving,” she said.

“Yes, mistress.” Mathias stepped away from his captors and disappeared into the mansion.

“And we’re going where?” Remy questioned.

“I’m going to get my coat,” she explained. “There’s a private jet waiting for us at T.F. Green.” The succubus continued on from the room.

“We can’t afford to waste any more time.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The power that still crackled through his decaying human form made him feel more alive than he had in countless millennia.

This was but a taste. . a taste of what it was really like. .

Elijah came to him, crossing the room in an utter panic, blocking his view of the child. . the glorious child.

“Get out of the way!” the thing that was Pastor Zachariah shrieked as he attempted to crawl to his feet. But the pain was excruciating, and he crumbled to the floor.

“Pastor,” Elijah whispered, kneeling down beside him, “you’re hurt. . Let me. .”

He was hurt. Dagon could feel the broken bones, his ruptured internal workings struggling to perform their functions to keep him alive. His skin was charred black in places; red and bubbled in others.

The power. . the wonderful power had done this to him.

The power of God.

Dagon knew he would expire soon, the frail human armature that had become his prison, failing by the second. But he had to stay alive—long enough to claim this power as his own; to take what had belonged to another far more powerful than he, for with it, he could achieve the greatness that had eluded him.

He could sense the life radiating from Elijah, the young man’s concern for his health and well-being touching, but irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Using what strength remained in his failing body, Dagon turned his attention to the youth, grabbing him by the back of his neck with a charred and blackened hand, and yanking him down toward his hungry mouth.

The boy didn’t even scream. It was almost as if he knew what was going to happen to him—that the sacrifice of his life would allow the old god to go on long enough to reclaim what had been lost so very long ago.

Dagon’s teeth sank deep into Elijah’s throat, and his face was suddenly awash in the spray of blood.

And life.

The deity felt himself growing stronger, and he knew it wouldn’t last.

But it was enough.

He continued to gorge himself on Elijah’s body, flesh and blood entering his hungry mouth and providing the fuel to keep his own ravaged body alive.

The child continued to stand where he touched her, stiff as a store mannequin, as the power of creation continued to leak from the punctures he’d put in her flesh and to swirl above her head.

Though fearing for his continued survival, he could not keep himself away, and began to crawl across the floor, dragging his shattered limbs behind him like a tail.

The child’s eyes were suddenly upon him, her expression going from blank to complete revulsion.

“No! No! No! No!” she wailed, shaking her hands before her in total panic.

Flecks of divine power sprayed from her wounds, landing at her feet to form a barrier of pulsing radiance to keep him at bay.

Dagon recoiled from the brilliance, his single good eye nearly cooking in its damaged socket.

He needed the child. . needed what thrived inside of her.