Walking in the Midst of Fire (8 page)

Malatesta folded his hands in his lap, shifting his weight, as if he was considering what exactly he should share, and what he shouldn’t.

“There are others out there in the employ of the Keepers, even though most are totally unaware that the data they provide is being collected, compared, and contrasted. The name Remy Chandler has popped up a number of times in connection to some of the more unusual data that was being reviewed.”

Remy poured his company a cup of coffee.

“And the more bizarreness that occurred in this region . . .” He brought the mug over to his guest. “Do you use sugar? I don’t have any milk, but I might have some powdered creamer if . . .”

“Black is fine,” Malatesta said, taking the offered mug. “Thank you.”

He brought the edge of the mug to his mouth and sipped.

“More bizarreness in a particular corner of the world would cause us to focus our attentions, and narrow said focus on certain locations . . .”

“Or people,” Remy finished, bringing his own cup of coffee back to his desk, careful not to spill it as he sat down.

“Or people,” Malatesta agreed, having some more of his steaming drink. “Your name quickly moved to the top of our list.”

“Lucky me,” Remy said.

The Vatican representative chuckled. “We were very discreet in our interview process,” he said.

“Who else did you talk to beside Detective Mulvehill?”

Malatesta was bringing the mug up to his lips. “Some former clients who all spoke very highly of you . . . if they spoke at all.”

Remy cocked his head, confused by the statement.

“Some of those we talked to would give us only the basic information, as if they were somehow protecting you . . . protecting your secret.”

“Most don’t even know that I have one,” Remy said, taking a sip of his coffee. “It’s something that I work on.”

“I can imagine it would be complex,” Malatesta acknowledged. “You said
most
. . . . There are some who . . .”

“Very few.”

“Detective Mulvehill?”

“Let me guess. He got all squirrelly when you started asking about me.”

“Squirrelly,” Malatesta repeated and laughed. “Yes.” He drained his coffee and leaned forward to set the mug on the edge of the desk.

“Want another cup?” Remy asked. “I’ve got a whole pot.”

“No, thank you,” Malatesta said. “I’m trying to limit my caffeine, and I’m afraid to say that cup has put me over my allotted amount.”

“No worries,” Remy answered, as he stood and headed for the pot. “More for me.”

“So, now that I know how you found me, Mr. Malatesta,” he said, filling his mug, “why don’t you tell me what I can do for you?”

“Not for me per se, Mr. Chandler,” Malatesta answered. “It is what you can do for a changing world.”

Remy chose to stand, steaming cup of coffee in hand.

“And what, I’m afraid to ask, is that?”

“The Keepers of the Vatican wish you to work for them, Remy Chandler.”

Remy thought about this for a moment before bringing his mug up to his mouth. “I worked for the Vatican once, a long time ago,” he said, taking a sip of the hot liquid, reveling in the scalding sensation as it burned his lips and tongue. “Let’s just say it didn’t turn out so well.”

England
1349

“Do you eat?”

Pope Tyranus did not rise from the head of the vast banquet table as Remiel was led into the dining hall by the soldiers of the Vatican.

The table was covered with all forms of repast: roasted chickens, quail, a wild boar the size of a small child, and bowls of peas, carrots, and potatoes. There was enough to feed a small village laid out before the holy man.

“Would you prefer that I speak in Latin?” the Pope asked in the tongue of the Church, seemingly impatient with the lack of immediate response. “Or perhaps Italian?”

Remiel fixed the old man in an icy stare. “Occasionally I indulge,” he replied to the first question. “But it is not necessary for my survival.”

“Then, will you do me the honor of indulging me?”

The old man gestured for him to take a seat at the corner, by his side. Remiel noticed the jewelry that clattered upon his wrist, and the rings that adorned his long, slender fingers.

There was something in the tone of the holy man’s voice, something that told him to acquiesce to the Pope’s request of him.

Pope Tyranus smiled as Remiel approached the table.

A servant appeared from a shadowed corner of the hall, pulling out the heavy wooden chair so that the angel could sit, before scampering out of view again.

“She’s actually one of the few left alive here,” Pope Tyranus said, drawing Remiel’s attention back to himself. “The lord of this manor, his family, and most who served them have succumbed to the pestilence.”

He reached for a silver decanter and poured a libation into a tarnished goblet. “Wine?” the Pope offered.

Remiel found himself taking a goblet in hand and holding it out so that the holy man could fill it.

They both noticed the servant girl now standing nearby, watching the holy man, a look of horror upon her face.

“Please, your holiness, please allow me to pour . . . ,” she began.

“Off with you, girl,” the Pope said, setting down the decanter. “My guest and I wish for privacy.”

He turned his cold, gray eyes to Remiel.

“And we’re both human enough to serve ourselves,” he added with a smile.

Remiel turned his gaze to her, reassuring the girl with a kind nod. She turned away, darting into a passage behind a scarlet curtain.

Pope Tyranus leaned forward in his chair, sinking his long fingers into the eye socket of the roast boar, rooting around, and removing the gelatinous remains of the wild pig’s eye.

“Excuse my lack of manners,” the Pope said as he brought the dripping organ of sight toward his eager mouth, “but I’m simply famished. You should be honored that I waited for you.”

He slurped the eye from his fingers and chewed happily.

“You said that the lord of this manor and most of his servants are dead,” Remiel began. He picked up his goblet of wine.

The Pope waited for him to continue, using his silken robes to wipe away the ocular fluid that dribbled down his chin.

“So why are you here?” Remiel asked as he sipped from his silver cup, his eyes never leaving those of the Pope. “Why would one such as yourself risk exposing himself, and his servants”—Remiel turned slightly in his chair to glance at the soldiers who remained at attention in the entry to the dining hall—“to the potential of plague?”

“Exactly,” Tyranus reiterated. “What could be of such importance that I would leave the safety of Rome and expose myself to all of this . . .” He waved his bejeweled hand around in the air beside his head. “Death,” he finished dramatically.

The Pope sipped more wine, as if he needed the soothing effects of the libation to continue.

“These are dark and dangerous times we live in, soldier of God,” Tyranus told him. “There are forces of darkness afoot that wish to squelch the goodness of the true faith.”

Remiel was amused by the statement—as if one faith of humanity were somehow better than all the rest. As if one specific religion would somehow place its followers closer to God than all the others.

Pope Tyranus must have caught the look on Remiel’s face. “Do you not see it as you make your way in the world, angel?” he asked, his annoyance clear in his tone. “Things lurking in the shadows that lust to see your most holy radiance snuffed out like a candle’s flame.”

Remiel slowly rotated his goblet upon the wooden table, carefully considering his words.

“This world has always been plagued by darkness, but there has also been light. There is a balance here, I believe.”

“Balance?” Tyranus sneered. “I’m afraid I see a world teetering on the edge of the abyss. Balance was lost a very long time ago.”

He picked at some pheasant meat that he had torn from the body of the bird and placed upon his plate.

“I plan to keep this world from plunging headlong into damnation.”

“And this has brought you here? To England?”

Tyranus slowly chewed the piece of pheasant meat he’d put in his mouth. “Exactly, angel.”

“And how do you plan to prevent the world from being swallowed up by this darkness you see?” Remiel asked, curious.

“I sense that we don’t necessarily agree on the level of the threat that the good people of the world face,” Tyranus stated.

Remiel shrugged. “It is a matter of perception,” he explained. “When one has seen true darkness . . .”

The angel remembered the war against the Morningstar, and the lives of his brothers that he was forced to take. The taste of angel blood was suddenly in his mouth, and he quickly picked up his goblet to wash it away with wine.

“Perhaps, but from the look I see upon your face now . . . you’ve experienced something akin to what I see out there.” The Pope pointed beyond the dining hall, out beyond the castle, out into the countryside racked by plague and things of a far more sinister nature.

“Though my brothers and sisters of the blessed faith disagree with my methods, I believe I have found the answer to stifling the flow of evil into the world.”

Remiel waited for the revelation, still hearing the ghostly sounds of Heaven’s war echoing in his ear.

“By fighting fire, with fire,” Pope Tyranus confided. “Darkness used in the service of light, against darkness.”

The angel considered this, and found the concept interesting, but still could not quite fathom why he had been summoned here. What was his part to play in all of this?

“And my role in this battle against the encroaching shadows?” he asked.

Pope Tyranus smiled, his icy eyes twinkling.

“The lord in whose house we now reside summoned me with knowledge of an item of incredible power.” The old man spoke in a whisper that only they could hear. “A ring once given to the great King Solomon by the Archangel Michael.”

Remiel immediately perked up, remembering the ring, and how it would give whomever possessed it control over the demonic.

“I can see that you know of this item,” Pope Tyranus spoke.

“The sigil ring,” Remiel said. “As far as I know, it was lost after the death of the wise king.”

“And for a time it was,” the Pope acknowledged, slowly nodding. “But it was eventually found, though not by any who shared the great king’s connection to the divine.”

Tyranus paused, playing with a silver ring upon his finger, slowly turning it around, and around.

“The ring found its way from one eager finger to the next, as all who possessed the powerful, magickal artifact fell victim to an evil successor.”

“And the lord who succumbed?” Remiel asked. “He had knowledge of who now possesses the sigil ring?”

“Oh yes,” the Pope said, his voice a chilling hiss. “He had succumbed to the plague before my arrival, but that did not prevent me from . . . extracting the information by supernatural means.”

Remiel looked at the holy man, offended by what he was suggesting.

“Fire with fire, soldier of God,” he clarified. “Though it pained me to do so, I recalled his spirit to the earthly realm, and for the good of the world forced it to give up the ring’s current owner and location.”

“Who now possesses this artifact?”

“It has come into the possession of a powerful necromancer,” the Pope said. “One who has learned to harness the power of the dead and dying.”

“Where?” Remiel asked, already suspecting he knew the answer.

“Somewhere right outside this door, angel,” Pope Tyranus said. “Can you think of a better place for one who harnesses the power of death, than a region besieged by plague?”

“His magick will be strong,” Remiel said.

“But not as strong as a soldier of Heaven,” Pope Tyranus said, leaning back in his chair, again fiddling with the ring upon his finger.

“You’re going to help me, angel,” the Pope told him. “You’re going to obtain Solomon’s sigil ring, and do your part in keeping the world from sliding into darkness.”

Remiel was stunned, shocked that one such as Tyranus felt that he could give orders to an angel of the holy host Seraphim as if he were a mere lackey.

But for reasons then unknown to him, the angel Remiel held his tongue, knowing that he would do everything in his power to perform this chore, and to obtain the ring of Solomon for the one who asked it of him.

For Pope Tyranus of the Holy Roman Empire.

•   •   •

“I’m sorry,” Remy told the Vatican representative. “I have no interest in working for you, or the Keepers, or anybody else associated with the Vatican.”

Malatesta just stared.

“I know it’s probably hard for you to believe, but—”

“No,” the man interrupted. “After reviewing what I could find on your original involvement with us . . .”

“I’m surprised there was anything left for you to review,” Remy said. “Since Tyranus’ name was removed from the lineage of popes.”

“Even though his reign was erased, there are still some records to be found about the Black Pope, and his actions during the Middle Ages.”

Remy chuckled. “Kinda like that stain on the rug you can never get completely out.”

Malatesta tilted his head ever so slightly to one side. “A stain on the rug?” he asked, obviously not getting what Remy was talking about.

“It’s nothing,” Remy said. “Just trying to draw a comparison.”

Malatesta nodded, sliding to the edge of the chair to drive home his point. “The Keepers have given me full authority to apologize profusely for any past transgressions, and to offer you substantial payment, within reason, for your time and services while working with us.”

Remy shook his head.

“I’m really sorry, but I’m just going to have to say no.”

It felt good saying no to the Vatican representative, not at all like when he was dealing with Pope Tyranus.

“There’s nothing that I can say or do to change your mind?” Malatesta asked.

Remy shook his head again. “I’m afraid not.”

Malatesta looked as though he was going to continue, but then appeared to think better of that. “I guess there’s nothing more to say,” he said, standing up.