Where Angels Fear to Tread (33 page)

Through the maelstrom he saw her, a tiny, shivering figure lying upon the ground.

"Zoe," he called out over the howling wind.

Her eyes were closed, and she hugged herself into a tight little ball.

"Zoe, I'm here," he called again as he got closer.

Spears of lightning rained down in front of him, turning the areas struck to glass, but after a momentary pause, Remy continued on.

"Open your eyes, Zoe," Remy called out. "It's me . . . the one you drew . . . the one you said would protect you."

The wind picked up, roaring like a hungry monster, and Remy felt himself begin to be lifted by the intensifying conditions.

"Zoe, it's me. . . . Please . . . It's Remy."

Through the churn of dirt, he saw that she had opened her eyes.

The storm winds grew more powerful, and he desperately tried to hold on, sinking his fingers deep into the broken ground to anchor himself.

He knew he didn't have long. If the storm became any fiercer, he would be tossed away like the flotsam and jetsam that already clogged the air. This would be his chance . . . the human chance . . . and if he failed, there would be only one other way to put an end to the potential cataclysm.

The angelic way.

The Seraphim was there, waiting as always, waiting to prove that it was the superior nature, and as much as it pained him to admit, its solution was the likely answer.

The world was coming apart around him, and it was only a matter of time before he was torn apart by the storm. Remy was allowing the angel to flow through him again, to reassert mastery over their form, when the scouring winds almost instantly died down.

Remy dropped to the ground, covering his head as all the floating debris and rubble picked up by the power of the Almighty was released, and gravity reasserted its sway, raining it down upon the land.

Wiping grit and grime from his eyes, he raised his head to see what had happened and looked into the tear-filled eyes of a frightened little girl.

"Where's your dog?" she asked in a tiny squeak of a voice.

"He's home," Remy said, getting to his feet and brushing dirt from what remained of his clothes. "And he thought the pictures of him were really beautiful."

That almost got a smile, and as he drew closer, Zoe came to him. Remy knelt down, taking her into his arms. Squeezing his neck, almost to the point of choking him, she began to cry.

"Shhhhh," Remy said, patting her back. "It's all right. Everything is all right now," he said, comforting her.

He could still sense that she was in possession of the power, but somehow she had found the strength to keep it down and to gain control of her fear.

The Seraphim grumbled and roiled within him, unconvinced that the threat had been averted, but Remy believed it had.

"Would you like to go home?" he asked her. "How would that be?"

"Yes," she squeaked, still holding on to him for dear life. "Me and Mommy want to go home to Florida and swim in the ocean with dolphins," she said, hiccupping back more tears.

Gazing about the wreckage of the event that had transpired, Remy had no idea whether Deryn York had survived. His eyes immediately fell upon a form, carefully climbing over the rubble-strewn ground, and he was excited to see that it was Zoe's mother.

But she wasn't alone.

Delilah stood behind the woman, and the closer she got, Remy saw that the temptress had the tip of a large knife pressed to the woman's throat as they walked awkwardly side by side.

"Bravo, Mr. Chandler," Delilah said. "The power to calm a storm. I'm very impressed."

"Let her go, Delilah," Remy said, exasperated by the whole thing. "Don't you think we've all gone through enough?"

"No truer words were ever spoken," Delilah said. "Do you seriously think I'd walk away after this without my prize?" she asked.

He was still holding Zoe in his arms, and she lifted her face to see what was happening. Remy would have rather she didn't, but there was no stopping her.

"Mommy!" she screeched, seeing her mother .

"Hey, baby," Deryn said, trying to sound calm, but the blade's tip being pushed against the soft part of her dirty throat didn't make for the most calming situation.

"Put Zoe down, Remy," Delilah instructed. "And let the child come to her mother."

Zoe squirmed to be free, but Remy did not want to release her.

"Put her down now," Delilah raged, putting more pressure on the bayonet and causing Deryn to cry out.

The child was fighting him now, so he obliged.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, watching as the child ran to them.

"I'm going to make it all better," Delilah said, watching the child with hungry eyes.

Delilah released Deryn, just as Zoe reached her, allowing the two to embrace.

"Don't," Remy cried out, hoping there was a chance that . . .

"I promise you it'll be a wonderful world," Delilah said, snatching the child away from her mother, and preparing to kiss her—preparing to consume the power of God inside her.

The Seraphim emerged again, although Remy still managed to maintain most of his control, as he spread his wings and flew to the child's aid.

There was a flash of light so bright that it blinded him. Remy dropped from the air, rolling across the dirt. Blinding explosions of color erupted in front of his eyes as he struggled to regain his sight.

He could hear Zoe crying and Deryn's calming words of comfort, but he still had no idea what had occurred.

His vision finally clearing, Remy looked around. He saw a blackened and smoldering body upon the ground that must have been Delilah, and beside it, Deryn York clutching her child protectively as she gazed ahead, eyes wide in surprise.

"What now," Remy muttered as he slowly turned to see the cause of the woman's reaction.

The Retrievers stood like statues, staring intently at the mother and child. And suddenly everything made horrible sense. Remy knew why the angels had been in Methuselah's—and why they were here now.

He and the Retrievers had actually been searching for the same thing, the only difference being that he had been looking for the child, whereas they had been looking for what had been hiding inside her.

Still manifesting aspects of the Seraphim, Remy ruffled his wings threateningly as he moved to position himself closer to the mother and child.

One of the Retriever hosts raised his armored arm and pointed a sword that resembled a large splinter of ice at Deryn and Zoe.

"We want what is inside the child," the angel said in an emotionless monotone. "Allow us to relieve her of it, and we will be on our way."

Remy found it interesting that the Lord God had sent His bloodhounds to retrieve something that had been here since the beginning of the world.

Why now?
he wondered.
What's so crucial that He would take back this power now?

Deryn held her child all the tighter, looking at Remy and back to the fearsome pair.

"You can have it," Remy said, "but you must guarantee me the child's well-being."

He waited to see how the pair reacted.

They continued to stare, their shiny black armor glinting in the early sunshine.

"We want what is inside the child," the other Retriever said.

"I understand that," Remy said, "but you have to promise me the child will not be hurt."

The pair glanced at each other, a silent message passing between them.

"We cannot guarantee this," they said in unison.

"Then I'm sorry," Remy said.

"Sorry?" the Retriever questioned with an odd tilt of his head.

"You cannot have what the child possesses," Remy told him.

They again looked at each other.

"We could very easily destroy you, Seraphim," he said with still no sign of emotion. "We could destroy you and take what we desire."

Remy saw the knife that Delilah had used to threaten Deryn upon the ground, and he reached for it. Holding the blade, he willed the power of Heaven into the metal, causing it to crackle with a powerful, holy fire.

"You're welcome to try," Remy told them, and he felt a rush of power flood through him as his warrior nature flexed its muscles in preparation for a battle to come.

He'd always wondered if he could take a Retriever, and now he was going to find out.

The bloodhounds from Heaven responded to the challenge, emitting a birdlike screech as their armor reconfigured into a more combat-ready mode, filled with spikes and many sharp angles. They raised their blades of ice and had started to advance, when they both halted.

At the ready, Remy watched with a curious eye.

The Retrievers appeared to be listening, listening to something that only they could hear.

And as quickly as they had prepared for battle, they stepped down, sheathing their swords, allowing their armor to morph back to its more streamlined design.

"What's happening?" Deryn asked, holding protectively on to her little girl.

"I don't know," Remy said, still watching the Heavenly pair.

The Retrievers stood there a moment longer, their ice-cold eyes darting from the mother and child, to Remy, and then back again.

Finally they spread their razor-sharp wings in unison, and with a final, hawklike screech, they leapt up into the air, and were gone as quickly as they had appeared.

Remy continued to hold on to the knife, waiting for something to happen. He was convinced that the Retrievers were going to drop from the sky in an attack, or that at least something would suddenly appear to challenge him.

But nothing appeared, nothing attacked from the sky, and he actually began to suspect it was all over.

He waited a bit longer, scrutinizing the area for any signs of potential danger and, finding none, allowed himself to relax. The Seraphim, temporarily satisfied, went down quietly, and Remy returned to his more human guise.

Turning, he found the mother and child both staring.

He looked down at himself, at his torn and bloodstained clothes, and self-consciously smiled.

"I knew there was something different about you," Deryn York said.

"You did," Zoe agreed with her mother. "I showed you in the picture I drew."

Her mother turned her face to the little girl. "You did, didn't you," she said, and kissed the child's cheek over and over again.

Zoe laughed sweetly, throwing her arms about her mother's neck and hugging her for dear life.

"I'd like to take my daughter home now, Mr. Chandler," Deryn said.

"Not yet," the little girl chirped, squirming in her mother's arms to be let go.

The child touched ground in a run, stopping a bit away from where they stood. She was staring sadly down at something.

Remy and Deryn followed the little girl, both stopping as they realized the child was looking at the broken and bloody body of Carl Saylor.

The child squatted next to him.

"Zoe," the mother cried out, "come away from there."

"He was a good daddy most of time," she said sadly, and Remy saw her hand reach out to place something that seemed to appear out of thin air upon her father's chest.

It was a purple flower that emitted the most wonderful aroma.

They stood there awhile longer, gazing down at Carl's body, before Zoe broke the silence.

"Can we leave now?" Zoe asked.

And the three walked from the compound into the surrounding woods, finding the path that would eventually lead them home.

Samson emerged from hiding after he was certain they were gone.

He had hated to hide like some loathsome coward, but he knew a blind man would have been useless against the things Remy had faced.

And besides, he had a special purpose to fulfill.

He moved out from behind the section of brick wall that had tumbled, following his nose toward the acrid stink of burned flesh and the supernatural.

Samson knew it was she; even though her flesh had been burned black, practically to ash, it still held the taint of what she was.

Of who she was.

The stink of cooked flesh grew incredibly strong, and he knew he was standing over her.

"Look at you now," he said, feeling a sudden surge of emotion threaten to overtake him.

He remembered how beautiful she had been and tried to keep that thought, even though by the smell, he knew that beauty had been taken away.

Delilah inhaled a rattling breath at the sound of his voice.

"Still alive," he said, and shook his head sadly.

Samson dropped to the ground, rock and bits of glass biting into his ancient knees, and felt with his hands until he found her blackened remains. Gently he gathered her up, taking her frail body into his arms.

She could not speak, but he could feel her starting to quiver. He wondered how long it would take her to heal . . . how many souls she would need to consume before returning to her old tricks.

But that question wasn't relevant anymore because he knew this was the end. For millennia he had tracked her, and now he had her exactly where he wanted her.

Delilah was helpless in his grasp.

This is what I've been waiting for
, he thought. Samson tried to find the anger . . . tried to find the fiery rage, but instead found only sadness—sadness over how far they both had fallen.

He brought her head up and laid it upon his shoulder, holding her tenderly.

"I've never loved anyone more," he told her, his emotion causing his words to break.

Delilah tried to speak, but it came out as only a scratchy croak, and he was certain she was telling him she loved him too.

And Samson took her life, as it was his job to do, the strongest man in the world broken by the memory of a love so powerful that it put his legendary might to shame.

A love that he would carry like the deepest of scars to the end of days.

The strange man was waiting for them as they came out of the woods.

He was standing on the opposite side of the desolate road, across from where the multiple SUVs had been parked, squatting on his hindquarters, and wearing far too much clothing for the warm and humid West Virginia weather.