SEVEN
Remy exited the magickal passage into the safety of an ornate ballroom. He knew this place, the grand room where Sariel and his Grigori held their countless parties. From the outside, the building located in the area of downtown Boston known lovingly as the Combat Zone appeared abandoned, run-down and decrepit. But in actuality, it hid one of the more opulent nests that the Grigori had scattered around the world.
'What the hell was that?' he asked, stepping back from the gradually diminishing supernatural doorway, eyeing the bubbling darkness in case whatever it was he had seen on the other side decided to follow.
'Your true nature is showing,' Sariel spoke. At first Remy had no idea what the fallen angel was talking about, but then remembered his hand. Its golden flesh still burned with the power of the Seraphim.
his fist, he pulled the fire back. It didn't want to go, but Remy was persistent, and the divine power finally bent to his will. It was becoming harder to suppress his true nature since the near Apocalypse, but as of now, he was still its master.
Humanity reasserted, Remy flexed his fingers. The flesh of his hand was bright red, like the shell of a cooked lobster, but already it was beginning to heal.
'It appears what I feared most has become a reality,' Sariel said ominously, wiping liquid darkness from the front of his suit jacket. His gaze was also fixed on the dissipating magickal passageway.
The unconscious angel moaned on the floor.
Remy approached him. 'As soon as he comes to, we'll see what our mysterious stranger here can tell us about what Noah was up to on that rig.'
The other Grigori suddenly entered the ballroom in a line, as if responding to a silent command from their leader. They pushed past Remy and swarmed around the unconscious angel.
'There you are,' Remy said. 'I didn't think you were home.'
'We're always home,' one of them growled, as they picked up the stranger from the floor and began to carry him away.
The Grigori didn't care much for Remy, and truth be told, the feeling was mutual.
He started to follow the parade, but Sariel blocked his path, placing a hand against his chest to stop him.
Remy looked down at the offending hand, and the Grigori leader quickly removed it.
'They will see to him,' Sariel said. 'But we must talk.'
Remy watched the Grigori pass through a doorway with their burden.
'Then let's talk,' he said.
At the end of the ballroom was a large wooden door leading into Sariel's sanctum.
Remy followed the fallen angel inside, the Grigori leader closing the door behind them. He gestured for Remy to take a seat in one of the high-backed leather chairs on either side of the unlit fireplace.
Remy sat, eyeing Sariel as he removed a diamond-shaped stopper from a crystal decanter.
'Scotch?' he offered.
'Sure.' Remy didn't feel much like drinking with the angel, but the Grigori always had very good scotch.
Sariel poured one glass and then another, replaced the stopper, and carried the two tumblers of golden fluid to the chairs.
'Thanks,' Remy said, accepting his drink.
The Grigori took the chair across from him, casually crossing his legs. He took a long sip from his scotch, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
Remy sipped his drink. He hadn't been wrong. The Grigori still had some of the best scotch he'd ever tasted. It made him think of Steven Mulvehill, his closest friend, and how jealous he would be right then.
But Remy doubted the homicide cop would have appreciated the company. The poor guy tried to steer clear of the
'You said you wanted to talk,' Remy said, breaking the eerie quiet.
'I was just appreciating the silence,' Sariel said, swirling the golden liquid in his glass. 'Before the impending chaos.'
'Now that makes me think you know more about what's going on than you've shared,' Remy said before taking another drink of scotch.
'I wasn't sure before,' Sariel said apprehensively. 'But now, there can be little doubt.” The angel gulped the rest of his drink, then stared into the empty glass.
'Why don't you start at the beginning,' Remy suggested. Sariel chuckled. 'Yes, the beginning.'
EIGHT
S S o these orphans that Noah obsessed about, we're talking about the figures I saw standing in front of the mountain caves when the rains started?' Remy asked.
'Noah referred to any life that he was unable to bring aboard the ark as his orphans,' Sariel explained. 'No matter how small, or seemingly insignificant, but yes, those figures… they are the cause for my concern.'
Remy returned with the drinks.
'Go on,' he said, handing Sariel his glass before sitting. 'I'm listening.'
'When the Earth was still young, the Lord God hadn't quite decided what would be the final model for humanity. He experimented first with a species the Grigori came to know as the Chimerian.
'They were different from the two He eventually created in the Garden, more primitive, and far more cunning.' The fallen angel paused for a drink from his glass.
Remy was surprised by the Grigori's words. He had never heard of this prototype for humanity. 'So you're saying that there were two designs for what would eventually become the human race?'
Sariel chuckled. 'He wanted to see which one worked the best.'
'Why didn't I know any of this?' Remy asked in disbelief.
'There was no need for you to know,' Sariel said. 'It didn't concern you. As Seraphim, yours was a more militaristic purpose. It was the Grigori who were assigned to the fledgling world, and thus we were privy to all its imperfections.'
'So these… Chimerian were His first attempts at humanity?'
'They were, and unfortunately, they lost the contest,' Sariel said flatly. 'The two in the Garden, though disobedient, captured His curiosity.'
Remy drank deeply from his glass. It was all a bit overwhelming as he tried to fit the pieces of the picture together inside his head.
'So God brought the rains to destroy this earlier try at humankind,' he stated, part of him hoping that he was wrong.
'Yes,' Sariel agreed. 'But somehow the Chimerian learned of their fate and were determined to survive… in any way they could.'
There was a soft knock at the door.
'Come,' the Grigori said.
The door swung open and a blind man entered. He was elderly, his back slightly hunched, and he was dressed in a butler's garb. The Grigori used the sightless as servants. Remy wasn't sure exactly why, but the blind seemed to be drawn to these fallen angels, as if the Grigori somehow satisfied their deep yearnings to see.
'Would you and your guest enjoy a fire, sir?' the old servant inquired.
'Perhaps a fire would be just the thing to take away the chill that has settled in my bones,' Sariel replied.
'Very good, sir,' the servant said as he carefully crossed the room. Gripping the marble mantel, he slowly lowered himself to his knees before the open hearth.
'We believe that the Chimerian, abandoned by their Creator, found something new to worship,' Sariel continued, ignoring his servant.
'A false god?' Remy asked, running his finger along the rim of his glass.
'Of a sort,' Sariel said. He leaned his head back against his chair, eyes closed. 'We've surmised that they somehow managed to communicate with the nameless things that thrived in the darkness before our Lord God brought the light of creation. Things that were old before even us.'
Sariel drank more.
'And in exchange the Chimerian received knowledge,' he said, eyes still shut. 'An understanding of dark, arcane arts. But it didn't help them.'
Remy watched the servant work on the fire. Slowly, methodically, the blind man felt for the cords of dry wood that were stacked alongside the fireplace, selecting each piece carefully and laying it within the cold hearth.
'They should have all been destroyed when the rains came,' Remy said. 'That was the point of the flood, wasn't it?'
Sariel finished his scotch and straightened in his chair. He let the empty tumbler fall to the floor.
