Mean Streets

didn't worry about waking anybody up-this person never slept, and was almost always home.

Wishing for his cell phone, he fed the machine with change and dialed the number, listening as it rang.

On the third ring the phone was picked up, but only silence greeted Remy.

'It's me,' he said.

'Hey, me,' replied a voice on the other end. 'What's up?'

'I've got a bit of a problem, and I want to run it by you.'

'This doesn't have anything to do with the Apocalypse, does it?' the voice asked.

'Not exactly,' Remy responded.

'Good, I've pretty much had my fill of the Apocalypse.'

'Meet me at the Taj for breakfast. My treat,' Remy told him.

'Sounds yummy, give me about a half hour and I'll be there.'

'Half hour?' Remy asked. The voice on the other end lived less than ten minutes away.

'Finishing up Once Upon a Time in the West? he said.

'Didn't you watch that last month?' Remy remembered their conversation about Henry Fonda's performance in the Leone masterpiece.

'New month,' was the answer.

It made perfect sense.

'See you in a half hour, then,' Remy said, and hung up.

The former Guardian angel said nothing as he strolled into the lobby of the Taj Hotel. With his balding head, horn-rimmed glasses, and usual gray suit, white shirt, and maroon tie, Francis looked like any other white-collar business type employed in the city of Boston.

'How was the movie?' Remy asked, getting up from the sofa where he had been awaiting his friend's arrival.

'Better with every viewing,' Francis said.

Remy nodded, even though The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was his own personal favorite of the Leone westerns.

'Are we going to eat?' Francis asked, looking toward the cafe.

'Let's go,' Remy said as the two walked toward the entrance. 'I could use a pot of coffee.'

'Waffles,' Francis said, and Remy turned his head to look at him.

'What was that?'

'Waffles,' he repeated. 'I could really go for some waffles.'

Knowing what Remy did about the being called Francis, statements like that only made him smile.

Francis was once the angel Fraciel of the Guardian angel host Virtues. A bad choice on his part had left him on the outs with the Lord God after the rebellion. Realizing the error of his ways, Fraciel had thrown himself at the mercy of the Almighty, begging, for forgiveness. Surprisingly, the Almighty did not banish the Guardian to the Hell prison, Tartarus, but instead made him watchman over one of the gates between the earthly realm and the Hellish, a gate that just so happened to be in the basement of the Newbury Street brownstone that Francis now owned. When he wasn't taking care of his duties to the doorway to Tartarus, the former Guardian angel worked as one of the world's most sought-after assassins. If you could afford his fee, and he decided, after careful review, that the victim did in fact deserve to be taken down, there was little that could be done to prevent the inevitable.

But this morning, the inevitable was that Francis was going to have waffles.

They were seated at a table by the window, overlooking the lower end of Newbury Street, and while the hostess went off to get coffee for Remy and tea for Francis, they quietly perused the menu.

Remy really didn't have to eat, although he often did so to maintain his guise of humanity. This morning, however, he realized he had no desire for food. Francis had already closed his menu and placed it on the table beside him, so Remy did the same.

'First off, how are you doing?' the former Guardian asked, as he straightened his silverware. Francis had always been fascinated by Remy's relationship with Madeline, observing the many facets of their marriage like a scientist watching some new kind of germ beneath a microscope.

'I'm doing,' Remy replied, concerned by the bizarre visions he'd been having, but not yet ready to share. Francis already thought he was nuts to live the way he did.

'And the mutt?'

'He's doing, too.'

Francis accepted that with a pause and a nod.

'So what seems to be the problem?' he asked, changing the subject.

The waitress appeared then, bringing Remy a carafe of coffee and Francis a metal pot of hot water and a small wooden box filled with flavored teas. She took their order: bagel with cream cheese for Remy, and waffles topped with strawberries and whipped cream for Francis.

'So?' Francis prodded, after she'd gone. He was dunking an English Breakfast tea bag in a cup of hot water he'd just poured.

Remy took a long drink from his coffee cup before replying. 'It's getting weird again.'

'Again?' Francis questioned with a laugh. He removed the tea bag and placed it on the side of his saucer. Then he added two heaping teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk. 'Has it ever stopped? Especially since the whole Apocalypse business, the crazy train has been running flat-out.'

Remy didn't like to hear that. He had hoped that once they'd driven back the Four Horsemen, the world would have settled back into some semblance of normalcy, but it really hadn't. He wondered how much that had to do with his current dilemma.

'First off, Noah's dead,' he began.

Francis was stirring his tea. He removed the spoon and set it down on the white tablecloth, where it left a brownish stain.

The former Guardian took a slurping sip from the rim of his cup as he digested Remy's statement. 'Why am I already guessing that he didn't die peacefully in his sleep?'

'He was murdered,' Remy confirmed, remembering what he had seen aboard the oil rig, the horrible condition of the old man's body, as if he'd been beaten to death.

'Color me surprised,' Francis said sarcastically.

Remy drank his coffee, allowing the caffeine to work its magic upon him.' Sariel was the one who showed me,' Remy continued.

'That one is such a creep,' the former Guardian said with a nod. 'But he does have some damn fine scotch.'

'It seems that Noah was trying to make contact with a species called the Chimerian… the Lord's first attempt at creating man that were supposed to be wiped out during the Great Flood, but somehow weren't.'

Francis was silent as their breakfasts were delivered.

'Is there anything else I can get you?' the waitress asked.

Remy shook his head with a smile.

'Just some syrup and I'll be good to go,' Francis said.

She quickly darted away and returned with the syrup, placing it on the table in front of Francis. 'Let me know if you need anything else,' she offered as she moved on to her other tables.

'There was a first attempt at humanity?' Francis asked as he poured syrup on the waffles, careful not to get any on the whipped cream.

'That's what Sariel said.' Remy was relieved to know that he wasn't the only one unaware of the early prototype. 'Think I might've caught a glimpse of one on Noah's oil rig.'

'So that's true, then?' Francis asked, breaking off a piece of waffle with his fork. 'I'd heard he was living alone in the middle of the ocean.'

The former Guardian took a bite of his breakfast.

'So these…,' he began with a mouthful.

'Chimerian.'

'Chimerian. You think they offed the old man?' Francis asked.

Remy paused to think about the question, and realized, at this stage of the game, he didn't really know. 'Possibly,' he answered.

'No wonder our fair-haired boy sounded like he was in such a tizzy,' Francis commented, eating more of his breakfast.

Remy set his bagel down and wiped at his mouth, wanting to be sure he wasn't mistaken about what he'd just heard.

'Who, Sariel? You talked with him?'

Francis nodded as he chewed. 'Called about ten minutes before you did, said he was going to need my skills for a matter of grave importance.'

'Did you already know what I just told you?'

Francis shook his head. 'No, when I asked him what was up, he said it was a hunting expedition.'

'And you agreed to this?'

He shrugged. 'Business has been sort of slow, and there are these Bavarian Warhammers coming onto the market that I'm really jonesing for…'

Francis had a thing for weaponry. He collected it obsessively, like a nerdy kid and comic books.

'You agreed to this,' Remy repeated, resigning himself from question to statement.

'Yeah,' Francis said, breaking off another piece of waffle and shoveling it into his mouth.

'Do you understand what he wants you to do?' Remy asked. 'He wants you to help them kill these creatures… these survivors.'

'He said that you were on board, too,' Francis told him, reaching for his teacup.

'Of course he did.' Remy had picked up the other half of his bagel, but placed it back on his plate. He couldn't even pretend to be hungry