Dancing on the Head of a Pin by Thomas E. Sniegoski
Remy came up from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist, and pressing against her. “I don’t understand what that has to do with . . .”
Madeline turned around in his grasp, gazing into his eyes.
“You’re an angel from the kingdom of Heaven,” she stressed. “Isn’t all this . . . with me . . . I don’t know . . . boring?”
Remy looked deep into her inquisitive stare as she waited for his answer. She would know whether or not he was lying; it was a gift that she had.
Slowly he lowered his face down toward her, his lips eventually meeting hers. They kissed softly at first, and more eagerly soon after that.
Before leaving the roof to descend the stairs to their new home, where they made love on an old down comforter they’d used as a makeshift drop cloth, Remy broke their passion to answer her question.
“All this . . . you . . . this is Heaven,” he told her.
This is Heaven.
He emerged from the void into a darkness of a different kind, this one illuminated by a multitude of stars, twinkling in the galaxy like jewels strewn upon a covering of velvet.
Hanging in space, he found his bearings, moving through the vacuum, at last, toward his destination.
He had no idea how long he’d been gone, feeling the heart within his chest swelling in size as he beheld the planet he had so come to love hanging there, as if waiting for his return.
The angelic nature was displeased, attempting to exert dominance, to suppress the humanity that had emerged from hiding as he’d traveled the void toward Earth, growing in size and strength at the joy he had found in the recollections of being human.
There was nothing the angelic essence would have loved more than to withdraw completely, leaving him frail and unprotected in the killing coldness of space, eager for him to beg to be something more.
Remy held the reins firmly, controlling the troublesome aspect of his being as he entered the Earth’s atmosphere, the sudden friction of oxygen upon his flesh causing it to heat, threatening to burn. His body beginning to glow white-hot with reentry, he gritted his teeth, spreading his wings wide to help slow his descent.
The angel dropped out of the night sky unnoticed by the city below, which was as he wished it to be.
Dropping through a thick bank of clouds, Remy emerged over the city of Boston. A smile appeared on his face and his naked flesh tingled. It had been scoured a bright red as a result of his journey. It would all heal eventually, he thought, flapping his wings furiously, pushing his speed to the maximum in order to return home. He had no idea how long he’d been gone, time moving differently in travels from one realm to the next.
He just hoped it hadn’t been too long. That he hadn’t been forgotten.
Remy soared above Faneuil Hall, Government Center, and then the golden dome of the State House on his way to Beacon Hill . . . to Pinckney Street.
To his home.
The rooftop of his building appeared below him, and he was suddenly overtaken with a feeling of absolute exhaustion. He swooped down from the night sky, aiming for the rooftop patio below.
As his bare feet touched down upon the blacktop, he collapsed, pitching forward, the stinging warmth of his face and body now pressed to the cool tar-paper roof.
Unconsciousness threatened to take him, but he managed to fight it, not wanting to surrender to the darkness again. He’d spent far too much time in the womb of oblivion, and would prefer not to return there.
In the distance he heard a noise, growing louder, more persistent as it came closer. It was the barking of a dog—his dog—and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever heard a sound so beautiful.
Marlowe was saying hurry, over and over again in the rough voice that he had. And Remy couldn’t have agreed more.
Hurry.
He heard the door to the roof open, the distinct voice of his friend speaking to the insistent animal.
“If these are friggin’ pigeons again, you’re not getting your snack tonight. You think I’m joking? Try me. If you brought me all the way up here in the middle of the freakin’ night again to . . .”
Marlowe knew he was there, somehow sensing his arrival.
He was a good boy, a really good boy.
The barking turned higher, almost a squeal of pain, as the dog found him. Remy could feel his excited approach. The Labrador pounced and began licking his face, his head, his shoulders, repeating his name over and over again. Remy wanted to sit up, to throw his arms around the neck of his animal friend and tell him how much he was missed, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t even open his eyes.
“Jesus Christ, Remy,” he heard Mulvehill say. “I thought you were dead. When I got that phone message I didn’t know what to think. . . . I didn’t know if you needed my help. . . . I thought you were dead. . . .”
Mulvehill knelt upon the ground, and Remy’s bare skin stung as his body was gently raised, held in the arms of his friend.
Marlowe had not stopped kissing his face. It felt good, cool and sort of slimy on his tender flesh.
“Look at you,” Mulvehill said, holding his friend close. There was worry in his voice, and Remy wondered how bad he actually looked.
“You hang in there, okay?” he said. “You’re going to be fine. It’s my turn now,” Mulvehill said. “There’s no reason to be afraid. . . . Everything is going to be all right.”
And with those words, Remy managed to crack open his eyes, staring up into the man’s worried face.
His friend was right, he thought, as he felt his eyes begin to close, eager oblivion rushing in to steal him away from this moment of happiness.
At the moment, there was no reason to be afraid; everything was going to be all right.
And as exhaustion threatened to take him, he saw his wife’s beautiful face as she again asked him the question.
Are you happy?
And he completely surrendered to the moment, taking her into his arms, the two of them drifting down, down, down into the darkness.
Yes.
EPILOGUE
It had taken him time to heal, the damage far more extensive than he would have originally believed.
Hell certainly had its dramatic effects; his shoulder still ached where he had been wounded, his flesh still peeling in places, the remaining manifestation of his angelic form sloughing off like a snake shedding its skin.
It itched like hell.
Remy stood in the foyer of Francis’ building on Newbury Street, listening to the sounds of the empty building. The fallen that had lived here were gone, leaving to go elsewhere when the passageway between this world and Hell was severed.
It is not such a bad thing, he thought, there being one less entry point from the netherworld, especially now.
The jingling of Marlowe’s collar distracted him from his musing. The dog was at the end of the hall, sniffing around an old radiator.
“What did you find?” Remy asked.
“Mouse smell,” Marlowe said, lifting his head to answer, a large wad of dust sticking to his wet black nose.
Since Remy’s return, Marlowe had become his shadow, refusing to let him out of his sight. He believed the dog had thought that he had died, leaving him like Madeline had. It would take some convincing, but he was sure that the animal would soon start to relax again.
Malowe padded down the hallway toward him.
“Want to get going?” Remy asked him, reaching out to pat his head and wiping away the dust and dirt that still clung to his nose.
“Park?” the dog asked.
Remy reviewed his day. It was Saturday, and there really wasn’t all that much planned.
“Sure, I think we can squeeze in a run to the Common,” he said.
Marlowe’s tail wagged happily.
Fishing the building’s keys from his pocket, Remy noticed Marlowe now sniffing around the door that would take them down into what had been Francis’ place.
“Where Francis?” Marlowe asked with a tilt of his head.
&nbs
“Francis had to go away,” Remy told the animal.
And until that penance was completed, until the Lord of Lords bestowed forgiveness, there would be no release.
“Coming back?” Marlowe asked, inquisitively tilting his head to one side.
“I don’t know,” Remy answered truthfully. “I really don’t know.”
The former Guardian must have suspected that something had been wrong in the netherworld, putting things in motion in the material world that put Remy in charge of all his financial holdings. Remy had been stunned when he’d received the letter from the lawyer’s office explaining that he was now the sole owner of the property on Newbury Street, until the original owner’s return.
“C’mon, let’s go to the park,” he said, opening the foyer door out into the entryway. Marlowe bounded ahead of him as Remy took a final look.
They’d blamed the results of Hell leaking out from the Tartarus passage on a gas leak, city workers tearing up the street in front of the brownstone, as well as the basement, in search of the problem pipe.
Nobody ever really said if they’d found what they were looking for, but things returned to normal, and the building was again deemed safe to be lived in.
Not wanting the now vacant building to sit there empty, Remy had contacted a real estate company and was going to rent the apartments out. There was no danger now, the passage to Hell having been permanently closed, but Francis’ apartment would remain locked and unrented just to be on the safe side.
Remy left the building, the details over what had transpired in both Hell, and later in Heaven, nearly dominating his thoughts. He had no idea what the future would bring, the concept of a war breaking out between the forces of Hell and Heaven making him feel very afraid. He knew that a war such as that would not stay within the combatants’ borders.
Marlowe barked, snout pointed at the door as he waited patiently to leave.
“All right, pal,” Remy said, pushing open the outside door. “We’re going.”
The dog leapt out onto the front landing, bounding down the steps with increased excitement.
Heading straight toward the lone woman standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Marlowe, no!” Remy yelled, hoping to put the brakes on the dog’s excitement, but it didn’t do much. He loved to meet new people, and when there was one just standing at the end of the walkway, waiting for him, how was a Labrador to resist?
Remy was just glad that she wasn’t holding a roast chicken, or even an apple or banana; then things could have gotten ugly.
He tried to gauge the woman’s body language, her reaction to a seventy-pound dog bounding toward her.
She handled it like a pro—or at least a dog lover—bending down to meet his arrival, sticking her hand out for the animal to smell.
Marlowe licked her fingers furiously, and the woman started to laugh, squatting down to ruffle the dog’s ears and talk to him, telling him how beautiful he was and asking his name.
“Sorry about that,” Remy said, reaching the end of the walkway. He removed a leash from his pocket and attached it to the loop on Marlowe’s chain collar. “His name is Marlowe, and as you can see, he doesn’t care for people very much.”
“I can see that,” she said, rising from her squat to meet his gaze.
The first thing that passed through Remy’s mind was that she was a very attractive woman, the next being that he knew her.
She continued to pet Marlowe, the black Labrador leaning into the woman’s legs, his hunger for affection nearly pushing her back.
Remy must have stared too long, still shocked to be standing there, talking with Linda Somerset, the waitress from Piazza that had so captured Francis’ attentions.
How weird is this? he thought.
“I know this is going to sound stupid, but have we met?” she asked, moving a lock of dark hair away from her pretty face with one hand, while continuing to pet an attention-starved Marlowe with the other.
He remembered how he’d been at the café with Francis, both of them willing themselves unseen.
“You work at the restaurant down the street, Piazza,” he said. “A good friend of mine used to go there quite a bit.”
She smiled, nodding. “I knew you looked familiar.”
Remy smiled back, suddenly experiencing a bit of what Francis must have felt with the woman. There was a warmth about her, an air that she was a good person.
He knew Marlowe would agree.
She looked to the brownstone.
“Do you live here?” she asked. There was a hint of awe in her voice.
“No,” he said. “Marlowe and I live on the Hill. I’m just managing the property for a friend.”
Linda continued to stare at the building. “I love this place,” she told him. “I go by it every day on my way to work and I heard from an agent at the restaurant that there were apartments opening up. I couldn’t resist stopping by to check it out. Don’t know what it is, but there’s something about it that just makes me feel safe.”
She laughed again, returning her attention to the dog. “Bet that just makes me sound crazy,” she said, rubbing Marlowe’s ears, making his collar jingle like sleigh bells.
“Not at all,” Remy said. “There’s definitely something very special about this building.”
He almost started to laugh, thinking how bullshit Francis would have been to see him now.
“It was very nice meeting you, Marlowe,” she said, bending down to plant a kiss on top of his blockish head. “And it was very nice speaking with you,” she said to Remy with a friendly smile. “I’m Linda.”
She extended her hand, and he took it in his. He almost responded by saying that he already knew her name, but decided that it could come across as creepy.
“Remy,” he said. “Remy Chandler.”
“Marlowe!” the dog barked.
“And you already know Marlowe.”
The handshake broke, and they continued to stand there in uncomfortable silence, each waiting for the other to speak.
“Linda go to park with Marlowe?” the dog asked in a series of whines and grumbles that only Remy, and other dogs, could decipher as language.
“No, I don’t think Linda wants to go to the Common with you,” he told the animal with a chuckle.
Linda laughed. “Is that what he asked you?”
“Yeah,” Remy said. “We’re going to the Common and he asked if you wanted to come along.”
“So you speak dog?”
“Among other languages, yes.”
She thought he was fooling around, of course.
“Tell him that I would love to go on a walk with him, but that I have to go to work,” Linda Somerset said.
Remy looked down at Marlowe.
“Did you get that?” he asked the animal.
“Yes,” Marlowe woofed.
“He got it,” Remy said.
She looked at her watch, and quickly up Newbury, not sure how to end the conversation.
“Maybe I’ll see you at Piazza sometime,” he said, beginning to lead Marlowe away, toward where he’d parked his car.
“Maybe you will,” she said, starting to walk backward. She waved, and then turned around to head up Newbury Street.
Nice girl, he thought, giving Marlowe’s leash a tiny tug as they headed toward the car.
“I work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and every other weekend,” he heard a voice call after him.
He turned to see that Linda was calling to him.
“You talking to me?” Remy asked jokingly.
She shook her head. “I was talking to the handsome one,” she said. “I was talkin
“Linda say Marlowe handsome,” the black dog said, his tail wagging excitedly.
He laughed at her joke and gave her a final wave.
“See you around, Remy Chandler,” she said, heading on her way.
There was something in the way the words were said, like they had come from an old friend who hadn’t been heard from in a very long time.
Something that he knew she believed.
“Like,” Marlowe said walking alongside him.
And strangely enough, so did he.
“See again?” the dog asked, looking at him with dark, inquisitive eyes.
“Yeah,” Remy finally answered as they reached the car, not sure exactly how he felt about it, “we probably will,” at that moment understanding again how difficult it was to be human.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thomas E. Sniegoski is the author of the groundbreaking quartet of teen fantasy novels titled The Fallen, which were transformed into an ABC Family miniseries, drawing stellar ratings for the cable network.
With Christopher Golden, he is the coauthor of the dark fantasy series The Menagerie as well as the young-readers’ fantasy series OutCast. Golden and Sniegoski have also cocreated two comic book series, Talent and The Sisterhood, and wrote the graphic novel BPRD: Hollow Earth, a spinoff from the fan-favorite comic book series Hellboy.