Where Angels Fear to Tread

A ghostly moan close by captured Dagon’s attention.

The child’s father—the Judas—was still lying stunned upon the floor, but he had started to come around. Dagon saw that the child noticed this as well, a glint of expectation in her innocent eyes.

Daddy would save her.

Dagon scrabbled across the floor, reaching out and grabbing the father’s ankle with charred claws, pulling him closer across the plastic-covered floor. The man struggled weakly, but he was no match for the desperate Dagon.

The dying deity crawled atop the man, hearing his screams of terror and urging him to carry on the histrionics.

The child noticed as well, peering over the growing barrier at her screaming father.

“That’s it,” Dagon gurgled through the fluids filling his throat. “Look here.”

The child was staring now, panic on her face.

“Daddy,” she said as she made a move to come closer, but the barrier stopped her with a crackling hum.

Who is the master here? Dagon wondered. The child had been bred as a receptacle for divinity, but had the power taken control, as he had the body of Pastor Zachariah?

“Drop the barrier,” Dagon commanded.

The child stared, her eyes frozen in fear.

Dagon grabbed her father’s head, smashing it down on the floor, stopping him from flailing.

“Drop it!” he ordered again.

And still the child remained safely behind the wall of burning power.

Dagon made sure she was watching as he gripped her father’s skull, pulling back on his head to expose the width of his throat. The ancient deity opened his mouth, showing the child he was prepared to bite.

“Daddy, no!” she shrieked, starting to whimper and cry.

“Then drop the barrier,” Dagon said. He didn’t have much time, the burst of strength he’d received from feeding upon his faithful disciple rapidly fading.

“Do it,” he screamed, a spray of warm blood clouding the air from his outburst. His strength was failing, and it would not be long before he was no more.

Another ancient power gone from existence.

Forgotten.

He sensed the blood thrumming through the man’s body under him and found himself gazing down at his throat; the carotid artery pulsing beneath the thin veneer of flesh.

Dagon didn’t want to die and was desperate for as much life as he could have. He lowered his mouth, prepared to rip out the Judas’ throat to sustain him for that much longer, when the child cried out.

“Don’t hurt my daddy!” she screamed, stomping her foot upon the plastic-tarp-covered floor.

And as the foot landed upon the cover, the barrier was gone in a flash, the smell of burned ozone lingering in the air.

Dagon smiled, even as he was dying.

His suspicions were correct; the child did manage some amount of control over the power hidden inside her.

She had placed her hand over where his nails had punctured her flesh, and Dagon watched as she moved her frail hand away to reveal that the wounds were no longer there, a trace of red, irritated skin the only evidence that the injuries had been there at all.

Oh, to have such power, he thought as desperation filled him.

He would be dead in a matter of moments; all the suffering he had endured since crossing over to this forsaken world, for naught.

The child moved haltingly closer, tears streaming from her eyes as she looked upon her injured father. He was awakening; moaning aloud as his head thrashed from side to side.

“Daddy,” she said as she reached out to him.

Dagon could smell it on her; the blessed stink of a power he had longed for.

The power of life. The power of creation.

Weak beyond words, he laid his head down upon the parent’s chest, letting the rhythmic beating of the man’s heart escort him down the path of oblivion.

“Don’t want to die,” he slurred, the blood leaking from his mouth staining the man’s shirt beneath his face.

But it was too late for begging.

Or was it?

Finding a residual strength, he managed to open his remaining eye and saw that the girl child had come closer, standing over him as she reached down to her awakening father.

Dagon could feel the power calling to him as it thrummed within the child’s body. His eye fixed upon her hand as it moved across his line of sight; the tiny blue vein in her wrist pulsing with the beat of her heart, her blood filled with the stuff of God.

He did not know where he found the strength; some last bit of life’s flame about to go out, and to thus bring the darkness of oblivion. But Dagon used that fire, taking its rapidly denigrating power and using it to surge up toward the child’s wrist, and then sinking his hungry teeth into her tender flesh.

Gouts of her blood filled his mouth as she thrashed, clawing at the skin of his face—at his remaining eye—as she tried to remove his hold upon her.

But Dagon held fast, greedily drinking her blood; the child’s pathetic cries were drowned out by the roar of creation in his ears.

Remy thanked Ashley’s mother and hung up his phone.

He had to make sure Marlowe would be fed, watered, and walked. He was sure he’d hear about it from Marlowe when he returned, but at least his friend would be looked after.

He saw Samson standing by himself, deep in thought, at the back of the property, smoking a cigarette.

Remy approached, clearing his throat. It wasn’t wise to sneak up on a guy with superhuman strength. “You’re ready for this?” he asked.

“I’m ready to go back in there and strangle the life from her,” Samson roared, nervously puffing away.

“That’s not a good idea.”

He grunted and continued to smoke.

“We have to think about Zoe,” Remy said, attempting to justify what they were about to do. “She’s completely innocent in all of this.”

“I understand that,” Samson said. “But I don’t trust Delilah. There’s shit she’s leaving out.”

“Then we’ll have to be on our toes,” Remy added.

Samson grunted again, bringing the cigarette to his mouth and sucking on the end as if there were no tomorrow. Maybe he knew something Remy didn’t.

“A piece of creation,” the big man said, smoke billowing from his nose and mouth. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Remy thought for a moment, and the more he thought, the scarier it became. “It’s a piece of Him,” he said finally. “A piece of what makes Him God.”

Samson laughed, but there was no humor in his expression. “Obviously it wasn’t a part He needed too badly.”

“From what I can figure out, the Creator sort of exploded when He created the heaven and the earth. . pieces of His divinity shaping existence as we know it.”

“The big bang,” Samson said.

“Yeah, I guess,” Remy acknowledged. “And I guess there were some unused slivers of God’s big bang lying around just waiting to be found.”

“Sparks from a fire,” Samson grumbled, trying to visualize what it was all about.

The big man was quiet for a moment, thinking some more. “Do you think it’s wise for her to have this?” he asked, turning his milky eyes toward Remy.

“No,” Remy answered. “Which is why we need to keep an eye on her and make sure she uses it for exactly what she said it was for.”

“To die?”

“You heard her,” Remy said.

“I’ve heard her say a lot of things over the centuries,” Samson said. “She even said she loved me more than life itself, and we saw how that turned out.”

Remy heard the sounds of heavy tires on gravel and walked toward the side of the house to see multiple vans pulling up in front. These would be their rides to the airport. “The vans are here,” he called over his shoulder.

One of Samson’s offspring had appeared and was leading the large man back into the house.

“Gonna need some help with the not-letting-her-out-of-our-sight business,” he said, pointing to his blind eyes.

“You’ve got it,” Remy said, feeling the crawl of anticipation in his gut growing more prominent.

Deryn held the back door open for Samson and his son, asking the strongman if he had any cigarettes to spare.

She looked a little shell-shocked, but was holding up better than expected. It was one of the things Remy admired most about humanity—the ability to accept and adapt to the most insane situations.

Deryn saw him and smiled as she lit up her cigarette.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

She nodded through a cloud of smoke as she shook out the match, letting it drop to the ground.

“I’m going to get my daughter back,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“You really shouldn’t be going,” Remy told her. “Let me handle it from here. I’ll bring Zoe back.”

Deryn sucked on the end of her smoke.

“Can’t do that,” she said. “Delilah says I have a connection to her, and you need me to find her. I have to go.”

“I’m sure there are other ways we could—”

“Delilah says I have to go,” Deryn interrupted forcefully.

“I wouldn’t believe everything Delilah has to say.”

“But I can’t afford not to believe her,” the woman explained. “I’ll do anything to get my daughter back.”

“It might not be safe,” Remy said, knowing the words were useless, but he had to try.

“Then I’ll just need to be extra careful,” she said as she finished her cigarette, not giving him the opportunity to attempt to convince her otherwise.

And soon he was standing there alone with his thoughts, that awful feeling of dread anticipation in his gut.

It was going to be there for a while.