The teen glanced back at Remy, and the angel could see there was still a struggle going on behind his eyes.
“What do we have to do?” he finally asked, forcing the words from his mouth.
Patriarch Adolfi lay beneath the covers in a restless slumber.
As one of the leaders of the Keepers, he was made privy to more than any man should know, the unnatural just as much a part of his day-to-day as the normal.
Of late the unnatural was all he knew, for the fate of the world was dangling precariously at the edge of the abyss.
Tonight, as he had during many recent nights, the old priest dreamed of the end of the world. He saw the planet’s greatest cities crumble, its citizenry swept up in waves of fire, and above it all God’s winged messengers waged war with nary a thought for the innocent dying in the streets below.
Above the clashing swords of fire that rained hungry sparks down upon Earth and its inhabitants, who cowered in fear, Adolfi saw the shape of Heaven in all its glory.
And then he saw it was in ruin.
The old man awoke with a gasp, clutching his pillow in the dark and realizing that he had been crying. The images of the Celestial City floating dead in the sky above a dying world filled him with such terror and sadness.
The patriarch knew that it would be impossible to sleep anymore, and pushed himself up into a sitting position—to find that he was not alone.
Adolfi gasped, throwing his frail body back against the heavy oaken headboard, a cry poised upon his lips.
“Good morning, Adolfi,” the intruder said calmly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
The intruder sat in the patriarch’s favorite reading chair, beside the window that looked out onto the garden. Three others, who wore the shadows of the room like cloaks, stood to the side and behind the chair.
It was then that Adolfi realized that he knew this one, although it had been many, many years since last he’d seen him.
“Is it you?” the priest asked, his voice old and brittle.
“Yes,” the stranger replied. “It’s me.”
He stood, and silently glided across the room, stopping at the foot of Adolfi’s bed. The patriarch stared in awe at the man with the pale, almost translucent flesh, and thick black hair.
He hadn’t aged a day.
“Simeon?”
The man smiled. “I can’t tell you how good it makes me feel that you remember.”
“But how? You look no older than the last time we . . .”
“Ah yes, the good old days,” Simeon spoke wistfully. “Perhaps later there will be time to reminisce, but now . . .”
Simeon gripped the wooden footboard and leaned forward, a look of urgency on his face.
“If the world is to survive, I need you to make some calls.”
• • •
Another storm had found the island of Gunkanjima. But it did not deter Remy and his party as they headed for the passage that would take them back to Rapture.
Remy and Malatesta supported the injured Prosper, while the children eagerly swarmed around them, excited for what was about to happen.
Excited for their future.
“Are we close?” Remy asked Prosper.
The fallen angel grunted once, and the group stopped. Remy and Malatesta released the fallen angel and he swayed for a moment in the falling rain.
Then Prosper lifted a hand, his fingers bloody, some oddly twisted. He began to draw shapes in the air before him, shapes that suddenly came to glowing life, as the space before him began to shimmer.
Prosper turned his bloodied face to Remy.
“It’s done,” he said through split and swollen lips. “Now where does that leave me?”
Remy looked at him. “I don’t think I’m following.”
“You don’t need me anymore,” Prosper said. “So where does that leave me?” The fallen angel’s eyes were darting from Remy to Malatesta, and then to the excited children milling about.
“We’re taking you back to Rapture,” Remy told him. “And maybe somebody there will take care of your sorry ass.”
Prosper’s stare was intense.
“You’re not going to kill me?”
Remy stared back with equal intensity before answering.
“No,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I’ve got bigger things to worry about right now than offing you.”
The children were eyeing the fallen angel hungrily.
“If I wanted to be a real son of a bitch I’d leave you here with the kids,” he said. “Let them show you how much they appreciate the life you’ve given them so far.”
Prosper refused to look at them, hanging his head.
Gareth joined them, standing beside Remy.
“Are you sure this is the way?” he asked.
“It’s the only thing I’ve got,” Remy replied.
The air was filled with the hissing of the storm.
“And you think that’s right?” Gareth asked. “That we should remain alive?”
“I do,” Remy told him, hoping that what he was about to attempt would bring some semblance of peace and normalcy to these sad, pathetic creatures that were the product of divine lust.
With that said, Gareth turned, and walked away.
“Will you be back soon?” asked the little boy who had pushed Malatesta’s demon deeper.
“Soon as we can,” Remy reassured him.
“Will it be raining all the time where we’re going?” the child asked.
“I bet it’s going to be sunny a lot of the time there,” Remy told the boy. “If that’s all right,” he added.
The boy nodded vigorously, and Remy reached out to ruffle his rain-soaked head.
Malatesta was holding Prosper up by the arm.
“Ready?” the sorcerer asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Remy answered.
Malatesta began to help Prosper through the passage, but Remy paused for a moment to give the children one final wave.
He caught sight of Gareth in the distance, watching with dark eyes filled with fear of what was to come.
A fear of the fate that might befall them all.
• • •
Morgan was sipping a pear martini and pretending that she gave a shit about her latest john’s confession that he’d been responsible for at least two of the murders credited to Jack the Ripper, when she noticed the security staff moving en masse down the corridor toward Prosper’s office.
She and the rest of the girls had been pretty much left in the dark not only as to the fate that had befallen their boss, but also what had really happened to the children they believed had died at birth.
She excused herself with a smile, and followed the walking dead men down the corridor. As she suspected, the door to Prosper’s office was wide-open, and a strange humming sound that made her inner ear itch was coming from inside.
Security was on full alert, but she managed to maneuver herself through their obstructing bulk into Prosper’s office. The air at the back of the room had begun to shimmer and blur, finally spitting out an all too familiar shape.
Prosper fell through the fluctuating passage to land on his knees in his office. He looked like someone had taken a hammer to him, and for a moment, Morgan was tempted to go to the angel.
But then she remembered what he had done to Bobbie, and what he had kept from them.
Prosper knelt for a moment, before falling forward to all fours. The passage behind him shimmered and blurred some more, before another shape emerged that Morgan recognized as the guy who’d been disguised as Aszrus. And then the angel Remiel stepped through behind him.
Morgan was pushed aside as the zombie security team surged forward.
“Stop!” Prosper croaked. “They’re with me.”
The zombies nearly fell over one another as they froze in their tracks. It was then that Morgan caught the angel’s eye, and she couldn’t help but feel a smile begin to tease at her lips.