Dancing on the Head of a Pin by Thomas E. Sniegoski
He did not want to look at them, curled fetal-like within their small, icy cells, but could not help himself. Remy had known these creatures. No, it was Remiel who had called them family, his brain quickly corrected. But nonetheless, they had been part of his world at one time, and here they were confined to an eternity—or more—of suffering for their actions.
Remy had tried not to think of what had occurred after the rebellion had been thwarted, after he had left Heaven for the earthly plains. He knew it would be bad; how could it not? The Lord of Lords—the Creator of all things—had been challenged by His own creations. How could He not punish them?
Remy knew it would be bad, but he never imagined anything like this.
They rounded yet another corner, the pitching of the floor beneath their feet making it ever more precarious as they descended deeper and deeper into the prison’s lower depths.
From the corner of his eye, Remy believed that he’d seen movement from inside one of the cells. His gaze moved over the frozen wall, looking for what he’d seen, and he was about to dismiss it as a trick of the poor light when a section of cell wall to his left suddenly cracked, sounding like the snap of a bullwhip, and then exploded outward.
Remy and Madach reared back, immediately on the defensive as they were showered with razor-sharp fragments of prison wall. At first he believed it to be more of the fallen angels escaping, but he quickly came to the realization that it was something much bigger, as even more of the wall crumbled and gave way to reveal multiple Tartarus Sentries pouring into the winding corridors, locked in furious combat with recently escaped fallen prisoners.
The Sentries roared through their blood-streaked helmets, unleashing the full fury of their Heavenly weaponry as they attempted to beat back the prisoners that attacked them.
They were like locusts, swarming through the jagged break in the wall, attacking the guards in a frenzied rage. The Sentries swung their crackling swords wildly, the burning blades decimating their enemies with every swing, flaming body parts strewn into the air, but still they kept coming.
The Sentries’ attempts to defend themselves grew more frantic as the fallen numbers continued to grow unabated. Soon Remy could no longer see the giants, their armored forms covered in writhing bodies slick with the grime of confinement in Hell.
The corridor trembled from the ferocity of the struggle, chunks of ceiling dropping down to shatter at their feet.
“Go!” Remy yelled to Madach, pushing him farther ahead. But their way became blocked by one of the Sentries, who dropped to his knees to reveal fallen angels wielding jagged pieces of their prison walls like daggers, clinging to their keeper’s back like hungry ticks to a dog.
And the walls continued to shudder from the enormity of the struggle, more and more of the prison breaking away. Remy was certain the passage was about to come down on their heads, and knew that if they were going to continue on their mission, he had to make this fast.
Leaping in front of Madach he raised the sword that he had taken from the warden Uriel, lashing out at the fallen that swarmed atop the giant Sentry.
The prisoners screamed, leaping back from the devastating blade, shielding their eyes, sensitive from a millennia of shadowed confinement, from the emanations that leaked from the Heavenly weapon.
With a grunt, the Sentry clamored to his feet, reaching out to destroy anything within reach. Realizing that they too were targets for the giant guard’s rage, Remy and Madach tried to push past the Heavenly Sentry. The being’s movements were wild, out of control, as he slammed his bulk against the wall, his flailing, razor-sharp wings cutting through the air, their sharpness devastating to any who got too close.
Madach dove past the Sentry’s uncontrolled movements with Remy close behind.
They were barely able to keep their footing as they skidded down the winding, circular corridor. Remy looked over his shoulder briefly, the curve of the wall hiding most of what was occurring behind them.
There was a sudden roar and a flash of blue light, and Remy watched as the area behind him started to disintegrate. He turned away from the horrific sight, the sound of devastation at his back. He spread his wings, springing off the ground that had started to crack and crumble beneath his feet, reaching for Madach. He grabbed the fallen angel beneath the arms, lifting him from the path and into the air.
He wanted to believe that there was still a chance they could survive this. If there was one thing living as a human being had taught him, it was to believe.
There was always a chance.
No matter how bleak the circumstances.
“It doesn’t look good for me,” the man he would know as Steven Mulvehill had said, leaning back against a gray concrete parking garage support.
There was a growing patch of crimson on his belly where he’d been shot, and he was looking at one of his hands. It had been stained red with his blood.
He was dying.
Remy did not know this man; the two had not yet established their special bond.
Two cases: one that he had been hired to investigate—a possible kidnapping—had somehow intersected with that of another investigation being carried out by the homicide division of the Boston police. Revelations were made, motives revealed, and guilty parties attempted to flee justice, no matter the price.
It had been three a.m. on a rainy Sunday in a Logan Airport parking garage. A suspect in both their cases was preparing to leave the country. Mulvehill had been confused; some pieces of the individual’s story just didn’t seem to fit. He had some questions for the man—some niggling inconsistencies that needed to be clarified before he felt safe in allowing this man to leave.
Those same inconsistencies had aroused Remy’s interests as well, bringing him to the same Logan parking garage.
Mulvehill had been the first to arrive, catching the man as he unloaded a suitcase from the back of his metallic blue BMW. All the homicide cop wanted was to talk, to have a few of his questions answered, some gaps in logic cleared up, and then the individual would have been allowed to go on his way.
The violence was unexpected, the weapon hidden somewhere in the trunk. And it was the one shot fired from the handgun—the single thunderous clap that reverberated off the concrete walls and ceiling of the parking garage—that had led Remy to the man who would later become his friend.
He had found him alone, slumped against the support column, the stomach area of his shirt stained red from blood. The man was dying, and Remy found himself drawn to act.
“It doesn’t look good for me,” Mulvehill had said, looking down at the expanding stain. There was fear in his voice, fear of the unknown that awaited him if he were to die.
It was in Remy’s nature—as a being of Heaven—to comfort, and to ease the dying man’s fears. He had knelt beside the terrified man, taking his bloodstained hand in his, lending him some of his divine strength to either pass to the Source or hold on until help arrived.
He had told the man—told him that no matter what happened he would be all right. And to further ease his fears, Remy did something that he had not been inclined to do since his revelation to Madeline.
Remy could never quite figure out why it was this man, this dying individual’s fear, had inspired him in such a way to reveal his true nature.
Holding the man’s hand tightly in his, Remy had dropped the human facade to reveal the being that he truly was, and again he had told him that no matter the outcome, he would be fine.
The homicide detective seemed to relax, all the tension leaving his body. A smile slowly formed on his paling features, as he looked up into the eyes of a servant of God.
“What a relief,” he’d whispered as his life force continued to ebb away. “This makes it easier.”
The eerie sounds of police and ambulance sirens filled the parking garage, their piercing wails urging him to hang on.
The dying man seemed to be at peace, and as his eyes began to close, his grip upon Remy’s hand weakening as he
“I thought I was going to Hell.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The memory of how his friendship with Steven Mulvehill had been born was viciously snatched away and replaced by the painful reality of the moment, as Remy was startled back to consciousness.
He remembered the pulsing blue light of the Sentry’s power unleashed and the corridor turning to rubble around him.
He gasped, eyes snapping open, as he pushed himself up from where he lay, the horror of the current situation reminding him that the danger was still ridiculously high.
Looking about the darkened subchamber, he came to the realization that he was not alone. They squatted around him, the fallen that had survived the Nomads’ liberation, insanity and desperation burning in their once-divine eyes.
Seeing that he was now awake, they reached for him, spidery fingers eager to connect, to remind them of what had once been theirs. They were all around him, moving as one, drawn to his divinity.
Their hands were eager, desperate, clawing at his flesh, hungry to be as he was again. The touching soon went from cautious to demanding, jagged fingernails digging into his flesh as they sought to possess a piece of what they had lost to sin.
Sure that he was about to be torn apart, Remy cleared his mind, reveling in the power that was his to control. The Seraphim became aroused, and it flexed its Heavenly might. Remy’s flesh began to glow, the power of Heaven radiating outward. The fallen gasped, stumbling away from the divine light that emanated from his every pore.
But they were starving for Heavenly power, and soon surged at him again. Greedily they engulfed him, their filthy, emaciated bodies suffocating the light as they forced him down to the frozen ground with their rapacious mass.
He tried to fight, to push them away, but there were just too many. It was like attempting to hold back an ocean wave, and it wouldn’t be long before he was drowned in their hunger.
The Pitiless pistol roared. Remy knew the sound, the timbre of its voice.
“Get away from him,” a voice that he recognized as Madach’s yelled.
The fallen recoiled, allowing Remy to scramble to his feet. But his body still glowed with its Heavenly light, and the fallen angels could not help themselves, again surging toward him.
Madach aimed the pistol, firing into the advancing swarm. Remy watched them go down, one after another. At least ten of them had to die before the others got the idea, running off to hide in the deep shadows of the cavern, until their courage was again restoked by his divine light.
Madach looked about as good as Remy felt. He leaned awkwardly to one side, almost all exposed skin stained a horrible blackish red.
Remy was pretty sure he looked no better.
“Those things certainly do come in handy,” Remy said, pointing at the Pitiless weaponry still in Madach’s hand.
“Fire with fire,” the fallen angel said, turning slightly toward another tunnel at the far end of the vast subterranean chamber.
A succession of loud, nearly deafening pounding sounds drifted out from the tunnel mouth, sounds that suggested something very tough being broken into. This is what they had heard in the upper levels of the prison, what they had been drawn to.
“We need to go in there,” Madach said, pointing with the tip of the samurai sword he held.
Remy saw that the fallen were becoming brave again, the pathetic creatures coming out from hiding, their hands extended toward him like they were beggars on a street.
“Then, let’s go,” he said, being the first to move toward the cavern entrance. “But I’m going to need a weapon.”
They stood at the opening, Remy waiting to see if Madach would share his arsenal. If not, I suppose I can always use a heavy rock, Remy thought.
Madach hesitated, but then handed the Pitiless Colt over, turning the pistol around to hand it to Remy butt first.
The gun felt hot in his hand, and Remy let the images of past violence wash over him unhindered.
The earsplitting noise at the end of the tunnel continued, sounding more furious and frantic.
“Don’t want to jinx it, but we might not be too late,” he said, leading the way into the cavern.
“With the way my luck runs, we might want to hurry, then,” Madach said, tight at his back.
The cavern passage dipped down in a precarious slope, deeper and deeper into the innards of Hell.
In the distance there was a flash of light, the sharpness of the flare nearly blinding in the darkness of the cavern. Before each spark there came the distinctive clanging sound of metal striking something even harder.
They moved toward the flash, toward what they sensed to be their ultimate destination. The Seraphim was content in its natural state, eager for the conflict that it would soon be facing. Remy wasn’t sure if it would even be possible to repress the angelic nature again—to put it back inside its box. But that was a worry for another time, a worry that he would be lucky to have, because it would mean that he had managed to survive the impending confrontation.
Cautiously he and Madach emerged from the cavern passage out into the larger chamber, their eyes fixed upon the vision before them. The chamber was vast, its walls made from the same miles-thick icy substance found throughout the prison of Tartarus.
Only here it was melting.
It was like coming out into a torrential rainstorm, water from the melting ice raining down upon them from miles above. In the center of the vast water-soaked chamber there stood what could best be described as a sarcophagus. Remy had seen things similar in his extensive lifetime upon the planet, as well as in his many visits to Boston’s museums of science and fine arts. Only this had been built not to house the dead, but to imprison and punish the still living.
Remy couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He’d heard whispers of Lucifer’s pall but had never expected to see it. It was strangely beautiful to behold, the front of Lucifer’s place of confinement adorned with the intricate sculpture of a beautiful winged warrior clutching a flaming sword to its breast. Carved above the sculpture, written in the language of the Messengers, it read, HERE IS THE SON OF THE MORNING, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF THEM All, WHOSE BETRAYAL HAS SHAKEN THE PILLARS OF HEAVEN. MAY HE SOMEDAY LEARN THE ERROR OF HIS ACT.
The stone case shuddered violently, a flash of bluish light filling the chamber as it was struck from somewhere behind.
Slowly a figure emerged from behind the standing coffin of the Morningstar, dragging an enormous battle-axe crackling with the power of Heaven behind him. He was looking for damage in the surface of the stone case, not paying attention to anything else in the chamber.
Remy knew the figure at once, despite the Nomad’s haggard appearance. Suroth continued to walk around the case, unaware that he was no longer alone. The Nomad leader moved in closer to the sarcophagus, reaching out to run his hand over the surface, searching for any flaws that could be taken advantage of.
With a roar, he raised the Pitiless axe up over his head and brought it down upon the pall’s front. Again there was an explosion of sizzling blue, and the Nomad scrutinized where the weapon had struck.
It might have been a trick of the light, but Remy thought that he might have seen the beginning of a crack.
“Suroth, stop!” he bellowed, scrambling across the slippery surface, Pitiless pistol in hand. “This has to end now.”
The Nomad had raised the axe to strike at the coffin again but stopped, turning toward the angel.
At first Suroth appeared enraged, gripping the hilt of the battle-axe tighter, prepared to deal with the interloper, but his features softened as he recognized who approached.
“Remiel?” he asked, a smile forming on his haggard, blood-flecked features. “Can it be true?”
Remy stopped beyond the reach of the axe.
“It’s true, Suroth,” he said. “You have to stop this.”
The angel looked around, his wid
“Yes, you’re right. I have to stop this.”
With incredible speed and a roar of indignation, Suroth lashed out with the axe again, this time the wide blade causing visible damage in the surface of the great stone burial case.
Remy saw the wound appear as the blade struck, and reacted instinctively. This couldn’t be allowed to happen, no matter the cost, and he found himself raising the gun that he held tightly in his grasp. He listened to the chattering of the weapon, its promises to stop his enemy—all his enemies—forever and ever.
Remy fired the gun, hoping to injure the Nomad enough so that he would drop the axe and step away from the sarcophagus. The Colt Peacemaker roared like a lion, the muzzle flash illuminating the chamber in its celebration of violence.