Walking in the Midst of Fire (7 page)

“There’s a war brewing, don’t you know.”

•   •   •

His name was Montagin, and Remy had not seen him since the first war against the Morningstar. How apropos that he would be the one to come to Remy now.

“How long has it been?” Montagin asked, turning to face the angel as Remy slid into the pew.

“Let’s just say that it’s been a long time,” Remy replied, trying to keep it friendly.

“It was right after the war, wasn’t it?” the angel asked. His eyes twinkled mischievously.

This was one of the many reasons that Remy had left Heaven: Angels were basically assholes.

“It was,” Remy agreed tightly.

“Right before your little tantrum that ended up with you settling . . .” Montagin’s dark eyes darted about, seeing not only the church, but the world outside it. “Here.”

Remy didn’t respond to the angel’s malicious grin.

“So how have you been?” Montagin then asked, unbuttoning his suit coat so that he was able to cross his long legs without wrinkling the linen. The off-white suit appeared very expensive, and he was wearing what looked to be Italian loafers, without socks.

Very stylish for a creature of Heaven; Remy had to wonder how long he’d been in this world.

“Fine,” Remy said, casually nodding. “I’m surprised to see you.”

Montagin smiled. “Just happened to be listening and I wasn’t too far away. Actually it should have been Aszrus who answered, but he had some business to take care of tonight.”

The mention of Aszrus caused an icy chill of concern to pass through Remy’s body. “Aszrus is here?” he asked.

Montagin nodded. “Has been here for quite some time. We’ve always anticipated that what’s happening would occur.”

“And what exactly is that?” Remy asked.

Montagin chuckled coldly. “You’re not that far removed from what you are, Remiel,” he said. “You’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to know—not to see—what’s been unfolding all across this planet.”

“You mentioned a war,” Remy prompted.

“And that will likely be the end result,” Montagin acknowledged, slowly rotating his foot. Remy was reminded of a cat’s tail languidly swishing back and forth just before it pounced.

“I’m sure you know that the Morningstar has returned to Tartarus and is in the process of reshaping it into who knows what?” Montagin leaned forward toward Remy.

“Yeah, I’d heard something about that.”

“Good,” the angel said. “Then you’re not as far gone as I feared.”

“So this is all about the Morningstar,” Remy said, ignoring the barb.

Montagin was staring intensely now.

“Are you just playing dumb, or are you really that stupid?” he finally asked.

“I just don’t see an imminent threat,” Remy told him.

“Lucifer has returned to power,” Montagin said a little slower and a little louder. “Lucifer has returned to power, and has gone back to Tartarus . . . back to Hell.”

“So he’s gone back to where the Almighty put him to begin with.”

“Is this what living here among the monkeys does to one of us?” Montagin asked with a sneer.

“What does it do, Montagin?” Remy retorted. “Does it make me ask questions, and not fly off the handle at the slightest things? If that’s the case, then yeah, I guess living here has done that to me.”

The angel’s face wore an expression of absolute disgust.

“Even after everything you saw during the war, you can still be blind to what Lucifer is capable of.”

“I know what he’s capable of, but the question is, what is he doing now?”

Montagin rose to his feet, buttoning his suit jacket as he stood.

“If you can’t see his influence in everything that has been happening here on the world of man, then I’m afraid there’s really nothing more I can say to you.”

“Are you serious?” Remy questioned. “You think that what’s been happening here is all Lucifer’s fault?”

“Whether it is or isn’t doesn’t matter to the overall picture,” Montagin said. “The fact is that Lucifer Morningstar is free, and as long as he is, he poses a danger to God and the Kingdom of Heaven.”

“And Earth?” Remy asked the million dollar question.

“Yes, to Earth as well,” Montagin said, almost begrudgingly. “To think of the Morningstar in control of this world . . . We will not stand for it.”

“So that’s why Aszrus is here,” Remy stated.

“As well as others in various aspects of reconnaissance,” Montagin said. “I just so happen to have been assigned to assist the general.” He stepped into the far aisle. “And I believe I’ve answered your pleas.”

Remy could feel his disbelief turning to anger. “After everything we’ve already been through,” he began incredulously, “after everything we lost, we’re willing to do this all again?” He stood and moved back into the center aisle. “Didn’t we learn anything?”

Montagin considered the question as brown wings reached from his back, readying to embrace his form.

“Maybe we learned that the Lord God Almighty was far too merciful to those who challenged His holy word.”

Remy couldn’t believe his ears. What had happened to these supposed divine creatures to make them so bitter?

“That if He’d tempered His mercy then, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now,” Montagin continued, as his wings folded about him.

And he was gone, as silently as he’d appeared.

•   •   •

Dottie and Marlowe were right where Remy had left them, only the old woman had rolled up her sleeping bag, and the two were sitting side by side, Marlowe draped partially across her lap. They were sharing a bag of Cheez-Its.

Marlowe was first to notice the angel’s return.
“Hello,”
he woofed, spewing orange crumbs.

Dottie turned toward him and smiled, popping a Cheez-It into her mouth. “There he is,” she said to the dog. “I told ya he wouldn’t be long.”

Marlowe’s tail wagged as she gave him another one of the treats.

“He wasn’t any trouble was he?” Remy asked.

“No trouble at all,” Dottie said, reaching out to pat Marlowe’s head. “He even watched my stuff while I ran in the store to get us something to eat.”

“A regular watchdog,” Remy said, bending over to scratch his friend’s ear.

“Watchdog!”
Marlowe barked, and then began sniffing for stray Cheez-It crumbs.

“Well thank you for watching him, Dottie,” Remy said, taking the end of the leash from the woman.

“No problem at all, it was a pleasure,” she said. “So how did it go?”

Remy cocked his head, unsure of the question. “Go?”

“Inside.” She motioned toward the church with her head. “Did you get to talk to who you wanted to.”

“Not really,” Remy acknowledged, giving the leash a slight tug so that Marlowe would stand.

“Huh,” Dottie said. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t.” Remy found himself thinking of his dream and the foreboding words of the old man, and what Dottie had said earlier about seeing angels on the streets.

The old, homeless woman was carefully watching him as he wrapped the leash around his hand and started to lead Marlowe away.

“Thanks again,” he said, turning to head back up Boylston toward home.

“So what’re you gonna do?” Dottie’s voice called after him.

Remy turned to face her.

“What are you gonna do?” she asked again. “You know, to fix the problem . . . what’re you going to do?”

It was a very good question, and one that Remy didn’t have an answer for. Instead, he shook his head, then turned back up the street, her question hanging in the air like a bad smell.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
he weeks that followed were without catastrophic event, but the potential for disaster was never far from Remy’s mind, and he found himself watching for angels in the strangest of places.

What are you gonna do?

The answer to old Dottie’s question still evaded him.

I honestly don’t know, Dottie. I really don’t.

He was doing the last bit of paperwork on a workman’s comp job he had done for an insurance company out of Lexington—an incapacitating neck injury that wasn’t so incapacitating that it kept the claimant from participating in a bodybuilding competition—when there was a knock at his office door.

“Come in!” Remy called out, stapling the pages of his report together and placing them inside a file that also contained some photos taken at the Mr. Power Competition in Tampa.

The door into the office swung open and a man stepped in. He was wearing a dark suit on his average-sized frame, his blond hair cut short. He looked around the office, taking it all in as he carefully closed the door behind him.

Something wafted off of him like the smell of aftershave.

Something with the potential for danger.

“Can I help you?” Remy asked as he stood, all of his senses on alert.

“Remy Chandler?” the man asked, a hint of an accent in his voice.
Italian, most definitely Italian.

“That’s right,” Remy said, feeling the power exude from the man in waves.

“My name is Malatesta,” he said, stepping forward and extending his hand. “Constantin Malatesta.”

Remy had been wondering when the Vatican representative who had paid Steven Mulvehill a visit would finally get around to meeting him face-to-face. He shook his hand, a strange electrical tingle coursing up through the angel’s arm reaffirming what he had felt in the air when the man entered.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Malatesta?” Remy asked, feigning ignorance of the man’s identity as he released his hand and gestured for him to take a seat in front of the desk.

“Thank you.” Malatesta unbuttoned his suit coat as he took the offered chair. “First, let me say how good it is to finally meet you.”

The man smiled.

“Have you been wanting to meet me, Mr. Malatesta?” Remy asked, curious, as he cocked his head.

“For quite some time,” the man acknowledged. “But it’s only been recently that there has been a reason to make the journey to Boston.”

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Remy said. “You obviously know who I am, but I can’t say the same of you.”

“Where are my manners?” Malatesta said, reaching into his suit coat pocket to extract a small, leather identification case. He opened it, and leaned forward to place it on the desk in front of Remy.

Remy examined it and smiled. “Yep, you’re from the Vatican, all right,” he said, and handed it back to his guest.

“Ah, so you are aware of me?” Malatesta asked.

“Detective Mulvehill informed me that somebody from Rome was asking questions about me, yes.”

“Then you lied a moment ago,” the man said, putting his identification away. “You do know something about me.”

“Only what Detective Mulvehill could tell me, which wasn’t much. But what I’d really like to know is what could the Vatican possibly want with a private investigator from Boston?”

Malatesta crossed his legs and smiled, saying nothing.

“Well?” Remy prompted. “Care to explain?”

“Our records on your whereabouts were relatively accurate until the mid-thirties,” the man said, picking a piece of lint from his pant leg and letting it drop to the office floor. “But then things got a little sketchy.”

Remy remained silent, glowering at the man sitting across from him.

“There were a few sightings here and there, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that we received some solid information on your location.”

Remy leaned back in his office chair, hands clasped behind his head. “You keep mentioning
we
.”

“Of course, the people that I work for.”

“At the Vatican.”

“Yes, at the Vatican.”

“May I ask who these people are?”

Malatesta chuckled softly. “I doubt that you’ve ever met any of them, but they are very familiar with you, Mr. Chandler. They are the people charged with tracking things of . . . an unusual nature. Many of these things—these items in our possession—are ancient writings and artifacts of power, while others are of a more transient nature.”

“And do these people have a name?”

“They’re known simply as Keepers,” Malatesta said.

“And, are you a Keeper, Mr. Malatesta?”

The blond-haired man seemed amused by the question. “Oh, no, Mr. Chandler. I simply do their bidding,” he explained, slowly shaking his head. “I am but one of their humble agents out in the world.”

Remy knew where this was going and resigned himself to the fact.

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked, rising from his desk chair and going to the coffee cart he had set up in the corner beside an old file cabinet.

“Yes,” Malatesta answered. “That would be lovely.”

Remy went about the steps to prepare a pot. He’d had multiple cups at home before leaving for the office and hadn’t even thought about making coffee when he’d gotten in that morning. That alone should have told him that something was off about this day.

As the machine burped, hissed, and gurgled, Remy spurred the conversation on. “So your employers, the Keepers of the Vatican’s secrets, have sent you out into the world looking for me.”

“They sent me to Boston, yes,” Malatesta said. “There have been quite a few incidents in this region of the world that have caught their attention of late.”

Remy should have seen this coming, and deep at the back of his mind, maybe he had. With what was going on out there in the world, and the potential for so much worse, he just couldn’t bring himself to care all that much about what the masters of the Catholic Church would be up to.

But whether he wanted to know or not, now he did, and it appeared that they had been looking for him.

“There has been quite a lot going on around here lately,” Remy acknowledged with a knowing nod.

Malatesta reciprocated with his own slow nod. “Quite a bit, yes.”

The coffee was just about done, and Remy looked to see if the mugs he had were clean. One was. The other wasn’t, its bottom covered with a gross brown stain. Remy took the cup and went to the small washroom at the far end of the office space. He ran the hot water into the cup and washed away the old coffee residue.

“So, I’m curious,” he said, leaving the bathroom. “How did you narrow it down? How did you find me?”