An Apple for the Creature

“So the stake, Peter. If we pull it out, does your dad come back to life?” Nash asked, walking toward him. Adding a little pressure.

And Claire cracked a little smile. Because the question coming as it did after the cop’s question, plus Peter’s name, made it a doozy of a triple entendre.

“Why should I tell you?” Peter asked.

“Because we’re going to shove one into you,” Jackson said. “As big as a goddamn turkey baster.”

Claire snickered. Shiflett looked at her with astonishment. Claire shrugged.

“FBI humor,” Claire said.

“But how can you laugh? You’re married to him,” Shiflett said. “You lived with him, and had sex with him, and all that time, he was a vampire. And he was murdering girls. Sucking out their blood.”

“You don’t need to remind me,” Claire said. “Anyway, we hardly ever had sex.”

“Good.” The cop blanched. “If anything like that ever happened to me, I don’t think I’d come out of it okay.”

“Then you’d better not ever get married,” Claire said, and this time she chuckled.

“Ha-ha,” the cop said weakly. “Wow.” Then, “So, you want to go out for coffee once this is done?”

“Sure, but I need to make it a quickie.” Claire actually winked.

This time the cop smiled back, just a little. A little was good.

“I’ve already made calls,” Peter said. He lifted his chin and looked straight at the mirror. “I have relatives, Claire,” he said. “I have brothers.”

“Love the flaccid posturing,” Jackson said.

“Bring it, sucker,” Claire said back at Peter, wondering if he had super hearing or eyesight. Maybe he could see her standing there. She hoped he could. “I’ve got eleven VSI agents backing me up.”

And as soon as Peter was history, and forensics school was over, damn straight they were all moving to Washington, D.C., to work in the basement of the Hoover building. Laughter and all.

And somehow . . . Jackson.

The Bad Hour THOMAS E. SNIEGOSKI

Thomas E. Sniegoski is a New York Times bestselling author of the young adult series The Fallen as well as the popular urban fantasy books featuring angel-turned-private-investigator Remy Chandler. The Fallen: End of Days is the latest in the Fallen series, and In the House of the Wicked, the next of the Remy Chandler books, was released in August 2012. Tom lives in Massachusetts with his long-suffering wife, LeeAnne, and their French bulldog, Kirby. Please visit him at www.sniegoski.com.

NOW

The trees bordering the winding back road bent in the breeze, forming a natural canopy that prevented the light of the nighttime heavens from reaching the road below.

Still, it seemed darker than usual in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.

“Bascomb Road should be right up ahead,” Remy Chandler announced. He leaned forward in the driver’s seat, peering into the night, straining to find the street sign that would signal his destination.

“Yep, here we are,” he said, taking a right onto Bascomb and then a quick left into the parking lot of his client’s property.

There was a shifting of weight in the shadows of the backseat, and Remy gazed into the rearview mirror to see Marlowe’s dark brown eyes staring back at him.

The Labrador retriever whimpered, his eyes temporarily leaving the rearview mirror to take in his surroundings.

Remy pulled the car into a space in front of a large wooden building, his headlights illuminating a handcrafted sign that read, KINNEY KENNELS AND OBEDIENCE SCHOOL.

“You ready?” Remy asked, putting the car in park.

“No,” the dog answered in the language of his species, eyes once again meeting Remy’s in the mirror.

Eyes filled with the question of why it was necessary to come to such a horrible place.

NINE HOURS AGO

Remy sat behind the desk in his Beacon Street office putting together an expense report for a client whose job he had finished the previous week. Marlowe snored in the grip of sleep, lying on the floor beside Remy’s chair, flat on his side with his legs stiffly outstretched as if he’d been tipped over.

It was a slow day at Chandler Investigations, which wasn’t unusual, and why Remy had decided to bring his four-legged pal to work with him. Some paperwork, maybe a few follow-up phone calls, and then he’d be free for the rest of the day.

Unless something unexpected came up.

Some of the more interesting examples of the unexpected he’d experienced over recent months passed through his thoughts as he double-checked some math on the report: investigating the possibility of a demon incursion in a Southie housing project, making sure that a cache of Heavenly armaments didn’t fall into the wrong hands, a lunch meeting at the Four Seasons with the archangel Michael to discuss his possible return to the Golden City, and of course there was the time that he had to avert the Apocalypse.

Not the types of jobs usually associated with a typical private investigator, but Remy Chandler was far from typical.

Remiel, as he had been called when serving in the angelic forces of the Lord God, was of the Heavenly host, Seraphim, a warrior angel who had fought valiantly in the Great War against the forces of Lucifer Morningstar. It was that war that had soured Remiel to the ways of Heaven, and he had abandoned the Kingdom of God, choosing instead to live on the earth with the Creator’s most amazing creations, losing himself amongst them for thousands of years; suppressing his angelic nature, doing everything in his power to be one of them.

To be human.

But that had proven to be far more difficult than he had expected, as things of a supernatural nature had a tendency to find him, even though he did everything in his power not to be found.

He opened his desk drawer to remove the stapler, the clattering of items in the drawer disturbing the Labrador lying ruglike at his feet.

“Why noise?” Marlowe asked in annoyance.

“I’m sorry,” Remy responded, using the gift of tongues common to all those with an angelic heritage, and one that Remy didn’t mind using, especially when dealing with the four-year-old black Labrador.

“Didn’t mean to disturb you, Your Highness,” Remy joked as he stapled the sheets together.

“Noisy,” Marlowe grumbled again, then settled his head back down on the hardwood floor with a disgusted sigh.

Remy laughed as he found an envelope in another drawer, and a sheet of stamps in the drawer beside that one, making as much noise as he could to play with the puppy a bit.

“Bite you,” the dog said, sitting up and glaring at him.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Remy warned, fighting the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

The dog sprang to his feet, his thick tail wagging so furiously that Remy couldn’t understand how it was that the dog didn’t take flight.

“Joke,” Marlowe said, shoving his large blocky head into Remy’s lap, looking to have his floppy ears scratched. “No bite—joke.”

“You’re such a bad dog,” Remy said, as he lovingly petted the animal.