Where Angels Fear to Tread (26 page)

He could feel her begin to relax, the nervous energy that her body was emitting dwindling down to the faintest of crackles.

"This will all be over soon," Remy said, and he pulled her close for a hug. "Just a little more craziness and it'll all be done."

"A little more craziness?" she asked, and he felt a tremble go through her body as he held her.

"I'm not sure how much more I can take," Deryn said, letting herself be held by the private eye.

She didn't know what it was, but there was something about him; the way she felt whenever he was even close by. Remy Chandler made her feel safe, and she totally believed him that things were going to work out.

Deryn had been on the verge of panic since her daughter's disappearance, but after having met the man in Zoe's drawings, and having spoken to him about finding her daughter, she had believed then that things were going to be okay.

But that was all before she was taken from the motel.

Her panic threatened to rise again, but the closeness to Remy Chandler helped her to keep it all under control.

She knew things were not normal with the woman called Delilah, and with the people who seemed to worship her every word. To look at her, one saw a beautiful woman in her early thirties, apparently wealthy and very much used to getting what she wanted.

But there was something else, something occasionally caught from the corner of the eye, something that hinted to Deryn that this woman was not what she appeared to be.

That they all: Delilah, her servants, the blind man—Samson—and his children, and even Remy Chandler . . .

They were all not what they appeared to be.

But being held by the private investigator seemed to make everything all right.

Deryn always suspected that her daughter's odd talents, the ability to predict the future through her drawings, would take her to some interesting places; that the door to another world could possibly be opened to her.

But she never imagined the door opening so wide.

"How sweet," a woman's voice commented, and Deryn found herself stepping back from Chandler's arms.

And she immediately felt the effects of a world, far stranger than she ever imagined, begin to exert its influence upon her.

"The cars are here and we're ready to go," Delilah informed them.

Six black SUVs had silently appeared upon the runway, waiting for them.

"All right," Deryn said, starting toward where the trucks were parked.

Delilah's hand shot out as she passed, gripping her elbow in a hold so powerful that it made her wince.

Remy had started toward them at seeing this, when Delilah specifically addressed Deryn.

"We're ready to go," Delilah said again.

Deryn didn't understand.

"Where are we going, dear?" the woman, who maybe wasn't a woman at all, asked her.

"I'm not sure I . . ."

"Poole is dead, so we no longer have our Hound," Delilah informed her. "But I believe your connection to him was likely enough to have left some kind of residual impression to where we should be going next."

Deryn looked at Remy, her anxiety starting to escalate. She wanted to be in his arms again, to feel as though everything was safe.

"Think of your daughter," Delilah commanded. "Think about how badly you want to hold her again."

She found herself doing exactly as the odd woman commanded, and found her head filled with the staccato images of a place she had never been, but where she somehow knew her daughter to be.

When she opened her eyes, Remy was standing beside her, a look of concern on his face.

But she was fine; she knew where her daughter was.

"We need to go that way," Deryn said, pointing toward an open gate far in the distance.

The alarm wailed in the night, calling forth his followers from the safety of their beds.

Dagon stood before the dwelling of Pastor Zachariah, as the sirens howled, and waited for the faithful.

He held the child's tiny hand firmly in his own, feeling the continued presence of a power that could very well reshape the world, pulsing within her fragile, human form.

Dagon glanced down at her, sensing that it was no longer the child who controlled the little girl's body, but the power of creation that had emerged, peeking out through the child's eyes.

This power, now coursing through his own form as well, had lain becalmed for countless millennia, watched over by holy men, protected, until the woman—
the soul eater
—had begun her search, and it had found refuge in a child's body.

Dagon saw the woman inside his mind, the one who was going to try to take his prize from him.

She would fail.

With new eyes that could see in darkness as clear as day, Dagon watched his followers come to him. The expressions on their faces were humorous to behold. They had no idea what they were looking at . . . what they were in the presence of.

He raised his perfectly muscled arm and waved them closer.

"Come to me, my faithful," he said, his voice booming in the night like Gabriel's trumpet. "Come, and stand before your god."

They moved closer, but not too close. They were afraid, and he could understand their fear.

For he doubted that these mortals had ever stood before something so wonderful.

Their frightened murmurings filled the air like insect song as he began to address his acolytes.

"Be not afraid," he told them, "for I mean you no harm."

Their chatter grew more intense, and then an older woman in a flowered nightgown stepped from the crowd.

"What are you?" she asked, her voice raised in fear. "Where . . . where is Elijah? . . . Where is Pastor Zachariah?"

The crowd murmured, not yet convinced that they were in the proximity of greatness.

"I am your lord and god," he told them. "The one you have prayed to for so many years." He paused for a moment, smiling as he raised a perfect hand to the sky.

"I am Dagon."

The crowd buzzed, and he basked in their fear, surprise, and adulation.

"Where is the pastor?" the woman asked again.

"He no longer exists," Dagon explained. "He and I were one, but now only I am here."

The woman stepped back into the protection of the crowd.

"You look like the Devil," she said, and the gathering agreed.

Dagon laughed at the superstitious lot, his laugh a booming sound that cleaved the silent night like a thunderclap.

"Certainly you can't be serious," he said, his patience waning. "I have come for you—I have come to save you all."

"Everything I'd expect a devil to say," the woman cried.

Dagon was tempted to silence her, but knew that any act directed toward her would be seen as proof of her accusation.

No, he had to show them the truth.

He closed his eyes, feeling the power that coursed through his every muscle burn like the sun. They had to be shown the glory of what stood before them; the glory of what he was.

A messenger was needed to proclaim his coming.

The god growled as he reached out with his mind, taking hold of the one who would best serve his purpose, and calling him forth.

The little girl gasped, her own eyes closing as he exerted his strength. The power within her crackled about her head, joining with his own.

She looked up at him with large, vague eyes.

"I will show them," he told her.

The crowd was growing anxious, and he could sense their fear and confusion increasing. He hoped what he had to show them would belay their concerns.

The sound of a door opening behind him made Dagon smile.

He listened to the creak of the porch beneath the weight of a footfall as a figure emerged from the house.

Dagon stepped to the side, pulling the child along, and they both watched the figure sway on the top of the porch, preparing to descend.

"It's Elijah," the woman proclaimed, and the crowd murmured enthusiastically.

The young man looked out over the gathering. His clothing was stained nearly black with blood, but the crowd seemed not to notice. Nor did they see the jagged hole in his throat—until he began to awkwardly descend the porch steps.

"Look at him!" somebody yelled.

"Is that blood?" cried another.

The crowd began to back away, but Elijah continued to stand before them, watching, his head tilted loosely to one side.

It was suddenly eerily quiet in the compound.

Dagon closed his eyes, reaching out to his puppet, manipulating brain functions and vocal cords for this, his most special moment.

"I . . . ," Elijah began, his voice horribly rough and gravelly. "I was . . . I was dead." The young man raised his bloody hands for all to see, and then showed them the mortal wound torn in his neck.

Dagon could feel the fear slowly turning to awe, and he knew he had them.

He had them all.

"But now . . . ," Elijah croaked, "now I am alive." He spread his arms. "Praise him. . . . Praise Dagon."

Dagon smiled.

"Praise him!" somebody screamed.

"Praise Dagon!" bellowed another.

And soon they were all singing his praises, and he allowed his influence to slowly creep within each of them.

They were his, body, mind, and soul.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

R
emy sat in the back of the black SUV as it sped down the dark West Virginia road.

"We're close," Deryn said from the front seat, between Mathias, who was driving, and Delilah. "We're really, really close."

Delilah placed a comforting arm around the mother, pulling her close. "And soon you'll be holding your little girl in your arms again," she said, leaning her head against Deryn's. "And I will be holding mine."

Remy's ears perked up, and he was about to ask what she had meant by that, when the first of the attackers spilled from the woods down onto the road. They came from both sides, many of them wearing dark clothing, their screaming faces seeming to float in the stygian darkness as they jumped into the path of the speeding vehicle.

Mathias barely slowed as he plowed into the first of the fleshy obstacles.

Tires screeched, and the windshield turned to a frosted red, ice tinged with crimson, before the air bag erupted from the steering column. The sound of impact was horrible; the screams of those hit even worse.

Deryn was screaming too as the car spun and came to a neck-snapping stop.

"Deal with this," Delilah ordered her driver, before turning in her seat to look at Remy and at those beside him.

Without question, they all left the car.

Remy was torn as he heard the sounds of fighting from outside.

"Go, angel," she told him, her arms still around his crying client. "They need you out there. She'll be perfectly safe with me."

Remy hesitated until the first blast of gunfire.

"Go," Delilah hissed, her eyes glistening in the darkness of the car.

He pushed open the car door. It was chaos outside, Samson's children and Delilah's soulless warriors fighting together against a common foe.

A woman wearing a hooded sweatshirt and torn sweatpants came at him with a kitchen knife. She screamed something unintelligible, thrusting the blade toward him. Remy moved aside, grabbing hold of her arm and twisting it enough so that she dropped the blade.

"Fucking bastard!" she got out between screams of pain.

But that didn't stop her; she continued to fight, clawing at his face in her frenzy.

He hated to do it, but he punched her, and blood sprayed from her nose as she at last dropped to her knees and fell sideways to the ground.

"Nice one," he heard a voice say, and he glanced over to see Marko grinning, just before Remy delivered a roundhouse kick to an attacker wielding a baseball bat. "Did you imagine maybe it was your wife or girlfriend when you did that?"

The man's words were meant as a joke, but they, like the current situation, just pissed him off.

The Seraphim was eager to be free, as it always seemed to be these days, and Remy cut it some slack, letting it emerge enough to fill him with a warrior's fury.

And the hunger for battle.

The ground was littered with bodies; he did not take the time to identify each and every one, but he knew that some of Samson's children, as well as Delilah's minions, had fallen.

But so had their enemy.

He snatched up the baseball bat dropped by Marko's fallen enemy, hefting it in his hand, and waded into combat.

As he swung, blocked, and struck out with the weapon, his mind flashed back to an earlier time—a time when he fought on the side of the Almighty against those who had attempted to usurp His holy rule. Remy remembered the anger, and disgust, he'd felt for his enemy—those who had once been his brothers—and immersed himself in battle.

The Seraphim was elated, attempting more and more to exert its influence, trying with all its might to persuade Remy to let it be completely free.

It whined pathetically in Remy's ear, telling him that the battle in which he now fought would be over in a matter of seconds if only he would let go.