Mean Streets (32 page)

Humanity reasserted, Remy flexed his fingers. The flesh of his hand was bright red, like the shell of a cooked lobster, but already it was beginning to heal.

“It appears what I feared most has become a reality,” Sariel said ominously, wiping liquid darkness from the front of his suit jacket. His gaze was also fixed on the dissipating magickal passageway.

The unconscious angel moaned on the floor.

Remy approached him. “As soon as he comes to, we’ll see what our mysterious stranger here can tell us about what Noah was up to on that rig.”

The other Grigori suddenly entered the ballroom in a line, as if responding to a silent command from their leader. They pushed past Remy and swarmed around the unconscious angel.

“There you are,” Remy said. “I didn’t think you were home.”

“We’re always home,” one of them growled, as they picked up the stranger from the floor and began to carry him away.

The Grigori didn’t care much for Remy, and truth be told, the feeling was mutual.

He started to follow the parade, but Sariel blocked his path, placing a hand against his chest to stop him.

Remy looked down at the offending hand, and the Grigori leader quickly removed it.

“They will see to him,” Sariel said. “But we must talk.”

Remy watched the Grigori pass through a doorway with their burden.

“Then let’s talk,” he said.

At the end of the ballroom was a large wooden door leading into Sariel’s sanctum.

Remy followed the fallen angel inside, the Grigori leader closing the door behind them. He gestured for Remy to take a seat in one of the high-backed leather chairs on either side of the unlit fireplace.

Remy sat, eyeing Sariel as he removed a diamond-shaped stopper from a crystal decanter.

“Scotch?” he offered.

“Sure.” Remy didn’t feel much like drinking with the angel, but the Grigori always had very good scotch.

Sariel poured one glass and then another, replaced the stopper, and carried the two tumblers of golden fluid to the chairs.

“Thanks,” Remy said, accepting his drink.

The Grigori took the chair across from him, casually crossing his legs. He took a long sip from his scotch, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Remy sipped his drink. He hadn’t been wrong. The Grigori still had some of the best scotch he’d ever tasted. It made him think of Steven Mulvehill, his closest friend, and how jealous he would be right then.

But Remy doubted the homicide cop would have appreciated the company. The poor guy tried to steer clear of the
weird shit
, as he liked to call it.

“You said you wanted to talk,” Remy said, breaking the eerie quiet.

“I was just appreciating the silence,” Sariel said, swirling the golden liquid in his glass. “Before the impending chaos.”

“Now that makes me think you know more about what’s going on than you’ve shared,” Remy said before taking another drink of scotch.

“I wasn’t sure before,” Sariel said apprehensively. “But now, there can be little doubt.”

The angel gulped the rest of his drink, then stared into the empty glass.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Remy suggested.

Sariel chuckled.

“Yes, the beginning.”

EIGHT

“
S
o these orphans that Noah obsessed about, we’re talking about the figures I saw standing in front of the mountain caves when the rains started?”

Remy asked.

He stood at the liquor cart, pouring two more drinks. He thought another might help Sariel get through what he had to say, and he hated the thought of the Grigori drinking alone.

“Noah referred to any life that he was unable to bring aboard the ark as his orphans,” Sariel explained. “No matter how small, or seemingly insignificant, but yes, those figures . . . they are the cause for my concern.”

Remy returned with the drinks.

“Go on,” he said, handing Sariel his glass before sitting. “I’m listening.”

“When the Earth was still young, the Lord God hadn’t quite decided what would be the final model for humanity. He experimented first with a species the Grigori came to know as the Chimerian.

“They were different from the two He eventually created in the Garden, more primitive, and far more cunning.” The fallen angel paused for a drink from his glass.

Remy was surprised by the Grigori’s words. He had never heard of this prototype for humanity. “So you’re saying that there were two designs for what would eventually become the human race?”

Sariel chuckled. “He wanted to see which one worked the best.”

“Why didn’t I know any of this?” Remy asked in disbelief.

“There was no need for you to know,” Sariel said. “It didn’t concern you. As Seraphim, yours was a more militaristic purpose. It was the Grigori who were assigned to the fledgling world, and thus we were privy to all its imperfections.”

“So these . . . Chimerian were His first attempts at humanity?”

“They were, and unfortunately, they lost the contest,” Sariel said flatly. “The two in the Garden, though disobedient, captured His curiosity.”

Remy drank deeply from his glass. It was all a bit overwhelming as he tried to fit the pieces of the picture together inside his head.

“So God brought the rains to destroy this earlier try at humankind,” he stated, part of him hoping that he was wrong.

“Yes,” Sariel agreed. “But somehow the Chimerian learned of their fate and were determined to survive . . . in any way they could.”

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Come,” the Grigori said.

The door swung open and a blind man entered. He was elderly, his back slightly hunched, and he was dressed in a butler’s garb. The Grigori used the sightless as servants. Remy wasn’t sure exactly why, but the blind seemed to be drawn to these fallen angels, as if the Grigori somehow satisfied their deep yearnings to see.

“Would you and your guest enjoy a fire, sir?” the old servant inquired.

“Perhaps a fire would be just the thing to take away the chill that has settled in my bones,” Sariel replied.

“Very good, sir,” the servant said as he carefully crossed the room. Gripping the marble mantel, he slowly lowered himself to his knees before the open hearth.

“We believe that the Chimerian, abandoned by their Creator, found something new to worship,” Sariel continued, ignoring his servant.

“A false god?” Remy asked, running his finger along the rim of his glass.

“Of a sort,” Sariel said. He leaned his head back against his chair, eyes closed. “We’ve surmised that they somehow managed to communicate with the nameless things that thrived in the darkness before our Lord God brought the light of creation. Things that were old before even us.”

Sariel drank more.

“And in exchange the Chimerian received knowledge,” he said, eyes still shut. “An understanding of dark, arcane arts. But it didn’t help them.”

Remy watched the servant work on the fire. Slowly, methodically, the blind man felt for the cords of dry wood that were stacked alongside the fireplace, selecting each piece carefully and laying it within the cold hearth.

“They should have all been destroyed when the rains came,” Remy said. “That was the point of the flood, wasn’t it?”

Sariel finished his scotch and straightened in his chair. He let the empty tumbler fall to the floor.

“It certainly was the point,” he said. “And for countless millennia, we believed it successful. Then Noah brought to my attention the fact that the deluge might have failed.”

Remy finished his own drink and seriously contemplated another. “How did he know?” he asked.

“The old man was a tortured soul,” Sariel said. “The longer he lived, the more obsessed he became with the things he had left to die. The guilt ate at him.”

“You kept in touch?” Remy asked, curious as to the Grigori’s relationship with Noah.

“We saw each other from time to time,” Sariel said, waving his hand vaguely. “We survivors of the deluge shared a kind of bond.” The Grigori leader smiled, but there was little warmth in the expression.

“When we spoke, he told me of the expeditions that he’d undertaken, traversing the globe, sparing no expense, searching for signs of those that had been left behind . . . signs that they—his orphans—may have somehow survived.”

The servant appeared to have finished preparing the wood, and leaned back as if to admire what he had accomplished.

“He said he could remember them all,” Sariel said, tapping the side of his skull. “Each and every species that was deemed unworthy to board the ark. He could see them in his head. Awake or asleep, they were always with him.”

“I can see how that might drive you a little . . . crazy,” Remy acknowledged.

“The last time we communicated, Noah told me that of all the doomed species, he believed
they
might have survived.”

“They, meaning the Chimerian.”

“I tried to explain the danger if this was true, but he couldn’t see it,” Sariel explained. “All he cared about was the alleviation of his guilt.”

The servant had found the tin of fireplace matches and was attempting to ignite the fire.

“So you think Noah found the Chimerian . . . and that they are responsible for his death.”

“You saw his body,” Sariel snarled. “You saw that thing scuttling away in the shadows.”

“Yes.” Remy nodded slowly. “I did see something, although I have no idea what it was.”

Sariel’s thin, bloodless lips pulled back in another attempt at a smile.

“What you saw was potential doom for humanity,” the Grigori said.

Remy was surprised by the intensity of the words.

“Don’t you think you’re being overly dramatic?”

The servant struck the match on the rough stone surface on the side of the fireplace. It ignited with a hiss, the flame growing so large that it consumed the matchstick in an instant, leaping down to the old man’s fingers, and then to his clothes. A cry of surprise and pain escaped him, as he fell backward, the sleeve of his jacket afire. Remy reacted immediately, dropping to the floor and leaning across the thrashing old man to suffocate the flames with his hands.

And all the while, Sariel sat, calmly watching it all unfold.

“
That
was dramatic,” he stated. “What will happen to humanity if the Chimerian are allowed to thrive . . . that will be
tragic
.”

The servant seemed to shrug off the pain of his burns, and returned to the fireplace, taking another match from the tin.

Remy couldn’t believe it.

“That will be enough,” Sariel ordered.

The old man stopped. “Sorry for the delay, my master, but—”

“I said that will be enough,” the Grigori leader interrupted.

Without another word, the servant hauled himself to his feet using the marble mantel, and clutching his injured hand to his chest, shuffled from the room.

Remy had had just about enough of the fallen angel’s company.

“Perhaps you should tell me exactly why you’ve decided to involve me in this,” he said as he got to his feet.

“You care for them a great deal,” Sariel stated. “Those outside these walls.” He gestured with his chin to the world beyond his lair. “I thought you would want to save them.”

“What can I do?” Remy asked. “This is much bigger than I—”

“What can I do, asks the soldier of Heaven,” the Grigori mocked. “You sell yourself short, my brother.”

“No,” Remy stated with a definitive shake of his head. “That’s not me anymore. I’m not going to allow you to drag me—”

Sariel had closed his eyes again, clearly not interested in Re-my’s rant.

“We must hunt and destroy them,” the Grigori proclaimed. His eyes opened and held Remy in an icy stare. “We must find where they nest and finish what the deluge should have.”

“You can’t be serious,” Remy said.

Sariel glared at him. “They were never supposed to survive. They should have died when the Earth was young and the flood waters rose.”

“But you’re talking about exterminating a species we know nothing about,” Remy said. “We can’t just . . .”

“If the current kings and queens of the world are to survive, we must.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Do you wish to take that chance?” Sariel asked.

Remy should have known better. It always came to this—passing judgment, and death.

“I won’t kill for you,” he said, moving toward the door.

“But the humans . . . will you kill for them?” the Grigori leader asked.

Remy stopped and turned. “Why did you drag me into this?” he asked. “You know how I feel about you and your brethren. You know I want nothing more than to live my life peacefully and to not be bothered with . . .”

“You are the powerful Remiel,” Sariel said. “A Seraphim warrior that, as much as you are loath to admit, still retains the full extent of its heavenly might.”

Remy shook his head. “I told you, that’s not me anymore.”

Sariel smiled. “I could have sworn I saw your old self driving back the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse a few short weeks ago, but I must have been mistaken.”

Remy pulled open the door. He’d heard enough.

“This isn’t just for us, Remiel,” Sariel called after him. “The Chimerian will hate humankind as much as they hate us. We’ll need your strength if we are to succeed.”

Remy didn’t even turn around, allowing the door to slam shut behind him as he strode across the ballroom. Just outside the grand room, he saw a gathered crowd of Grigori, and remembered the angel they had brought with them from the rig.

“The angel,” he said to one of the Grigori. “Has he regained consciousness?” He craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of where they had taken him.

“He’s resting,” the Grigori said.