Where Angels Fear to Tread (29 page)

It made him feel sick to see it being used in such a tawdry fashion. And he didn't want to even think about how this creature had acquired it.

More and more of Remy's comrades were falling, and as they fell and were torn apart by the vicious dead, they too rose to join the legions of the reanimated against their brethren. The dead were relentless in their attack.

Remy ejected an empty clip from his Colt, quickly snapping in the next in one fluid movement. He took down an old woman in a flowered nightgown, her white hair already speckled with blood and brains, even before two of the special bullets were unloaded into what remained of her face.

Their own number had dwindled by half, most of Delilah's followers having already been taken to join the ranks of their attackers.

Automatic gunfire blared like staccato blasts of thunder as those who had managed to hold their own continued their struggle. Samson, his clothes torn and bloody, continuously lashed out, powerful blows falling upon the dead with the force to pulverize.

And still they kept coming.

Remy knew what he had to do, and though it was excruciating to admit, little else would suffice.

Reaching down beneath his human façade, he found the power of Heaven waiting, and he extended his hand.

I have need of you
, Remy called, urging the power to come forth. And as it surged upward, his body flushing with the power of God, he felt it recede as quickly as it had arrived.

Remy was shaken, his body filled with the agony of his true nature repressed. He looked toward the ancient god whose gaze had fallen directly upon him.

"
I know what you are
," the deity roared inside Remy's head.
"And you are not wanted here, warrior of Heaven."

By now the dead were at him, so close, and so many, that his weapon could do little. The dead had him, dragging him down to the ground, the sickening stench of blood and decay flooding his nostrils enough to suffocate him . . .

As the dead made great efforts to make him one of their own.

Delilah held the metal bowl against herself, moving the electric mixer around through the golden cake batter until all lumps had disappeared.

Satisfied, she turned the mixer off, ejecting the beaters onto a waiting paper towel from which she picked up one of them, hungrily licking the batter from the blades.

Perfect
, she thought, enjoying the taste of the cake batter she had made from scratch. She spooned the thick contents of the bowl into the cake pan. Completely content in her actions—indeed, in her life—Delilah hummed a song, the name of which she did not know.

Right then she experienced a moment of perfect bliss. She couldn't imagine life being any better.

Smoothing out the batter with a spatula, she opened the preheated oven and slid the cake inside to bake. Setting the timer, she prepared to clean up, and then get the dining room decorated for the party.

It was her youngest's birthday. David was going to be six years old. He would be starting school this year, and she experienced a pang of sadness, which quickly went away when she felt the stirring of life in her protruding belly.

Five months pregnant
, she thought with a smile as she laid her hands upon the material of her flowered maternity dress. She and her husband had assumed they were done with babies.

This thought made her laugh as she strolled from the kitchen toward the dining room. She could hear the kids going wild outside with their father, and she strolled over to the sliding glass door to see what they were all up to.

It was warm outside, and the kids were enjoying the pool, as well as squirt guns and the hose.

There were children everywhere she looked, and for a moment, she fought to catch her breath.

How many children do I have?

The thought was totally bizarre, and she had no idea where it came from. She had as many children as she had, and that was that.

A water balloon struck the glass door, exploding in wetness, and she instinctively screamed aloud, jumping back.

Her husband, Sam, was looking at her through the door, a huge smile upon his rugged face. Looking at him standing there, wearing only his shorts, his muscular body exposed, she could understand completely why they had as many children as they did.

She slid the door open a crack to speak to him.

"It's a good thing for you I'm pregnant," she said, shaking her fist.

He pretended to cower in fear, just as six of her children, three boys and three girls, between the ages of eight and twelve, attacked him with their own water artillery.

She laughed uproariously as she watched them chase her husband around the yard, shrieking at the top of their lungs, as he narrowly evaded being hit by the water-filled balloons.

Perfect
, she said to herself, again thinking of her life and how absolutely rewarding and wonderful it all was. She couldn't imagine it being any better.

Delilah sensed she wasn't alone in the dining room, and she turned from the view of her family to see a little girl, no older than six, sitting on the floor beside her dining room table. The child rocked from side to side, staring ahead at something Delilah was not privy to see.

"Who are you, darling?" she asked, cautiously moving closer, not wanting to scare the little girl. "Are you here to play with the kids?" she asked.

The girl must've been one of her kids' friends, but she didn't recognize her from the neighborhood. The child said nothing, continuing to rock back and forth and to stare intensely ahead.

"Hey, are you all right?" Delilah asked her. "Do you . . . do you want me to call your mommy?"

The girl suddenly sat up bolt straight, her eyes widening as if she were seeing something terrible.

"My mommy's hurt," she said, her voice rising to the level of a scream.

"Oh, honey," Delilah said, grabbing hold of the back of one of the dining room chairs as she lowered herself down to the child's level. It wasn't as easy as it used to be with her belly growing so . . .

Delilah looked down to see her stomach strangely flat.

That's odd
, she thought, staring down at where the bulge of life used to be.
To look at it this way, it almost looks as though I'm not pregnant anymore.

"She's hurt," the child was screaming now, climbing to her feet. "My daddy hurt my mommy!"

Delilah reached out to the child, wanting to take her into her arms and comfort her. She wanted to tell her everything was going to be all right.

Perfect.

But something told her that this wasn't the case, that things were far from perfect. There was a nearly deafening rumble from outside, and Delilah turned to glance toward the sliding glass door. If there was a storm coming, she wanted her family to come inside.

She wanted them there with her.

But it had grown dark as night out where the sun had once been shining on a—
dare she think it
—perfect day.

"Sam," she said, calling out her husband's name. "Kids!"

Standing at the glass door, she peered out into the darkness. No longer could she see her children playing, or her husband, or even her yard, for that matter.

There was only darkness.

Delilah turned from the glass door to speak to the mysterious child. Somehow she knew this little girl would know what had happened.

"Where are they?" Delilah asked, suddenly on the verge of hysteria. "Where is my family?"

"Gone," the little girl said with a stamp of her foot. "All gone."

And the world . . . Delilah's world . . . wasn't so perfect anymore.

Mathias twitched uncontrollably and moaned as he thrust, climaxing for the fourth time since he and the woman he loved had awakened aroused, hungry for love.

He slumped atop her supple form, jamming his panting face against her neck as she squirmed beneath him.

"Is that all you have?" Delilah asked in a panting whisper, her hand already on the way down between their legs to arouse him to prominence again.

He kissed her neck, his tongue sneaking out to lick at the saltiness of her sweating flesh.

"You're going to kill me," he said with a lascivious chuckle. She responded in kind, working her magic yet again on what he believed, up until a few moments ago, to be a tired and withered member.

Delilah rolled him onto his back as she squirmed out from beneath his weight.

"It appears you still have some life left in you," she said, working his growing stiffness with a voracious smile.

Mathias smiled in return, filled to bursting with his love and passion for this woman who had become his life.

Fully erect now, she climbed astride him, lowering herself down onto his swollen manhood.

"So we'd better take advantage," she said, beginning to move slowly up and down, riding him. "For who knows how much longer we actually have?"

He surrendered to her passions, closing his eyes and immersing himself in the unbelievable pleasure of her. She was everything to him, and he couldn't imagine a world in which she wasn't his—body and soul.

Entering a kind of fugue state, he lay there listening to the moans of her pleasure, adding his own sounds of bliss to their symphony of passion as they both grew closer to yet another climax.

But suddenly Delilah stopped her rhythmic pounding and was speaking to someone.

"Hello there," his love said.

His eyes snapped open as she disengaged herself from their lovemaking, crawling off him.

"What's wrong?" he asked, looking to see that his woman was staring across the room.

There was a little girl sitting upon the floor.

Mathias crawled to the foot of the bed to join his love, who now covered her glorious nakedness with a sheet. He wasn't sure why, but seeing this child filled him with a sense of overwhelming dread.

"Who could she be?" Delilah asked.

And Mathias just stared at the silent little girl, who rocked to her own inaudible rhythm; suddenly he knew exactly who she was.

She was the end of it all.

The water was glorious.

The sun was slowly fading, reflecting off the ocean and giving it a strange, coppery hue.

Almost like . . .

Deryn didn't even want to go there; thoughts like that didn't belong in her head. She had to stay positive, if not for herself, for Zoe.

The smiling child, water wings inflated upon her arms, and a life jacket securely fastened about her neck and waist, was slowly dog paddling toward her with the help of her husband.

Things are good now
, she thought as she watched the two loves of her life approach.

It had been a trial, with Zoe being sick and all, but since Boston, things seemed to be moving in a positive direction.

Deryn held out her hands to the paddling child.

"Come on, big girl, you can do it."

She loved how Carl, her great protector from harm, doted on the little girl. It wasn't too long ago that she had been afraid they wouldn't make it as a couple; that his joblessness and Zoe's illness would just be too much for them.

But she had faith; faith in her child, and faith in angels.

The thought threw her. She'd never been a religious person, so didn't really understand where the sudden belief in winged servants of God even came from, but if it was this belief that helped to make their life better, then she guessed she was more religious than she'd thought.

The sun was pretty much gone now, a sleepy eye peering over the gulf horizon. There was no doubting what the water resembled now, and she swam around in a circle to greet her child and husband—to dispel the nasty thought.

But they were gone.

How is this possible?
she wondered, treading water.
They were here just a moment ago.

"Carl?" she called out, looking all around. "Zoe?"

The water seemed to have grown heavier, thicker, and a strong smell—
the stink of metal
—assailed her senses.

She knew the smell, and what it was trying to tell her.

"Oh God," she said, starting to swim toward shore. It splashed in her mouth as she paddled furiously; the taste of copper and iron.

On the shore ahead, she saw the figure of a child waiting for her. At first she wasn't sure, but she realized it was her daughter, but not the smiling, happy child who had been swimming out to her seconds ago.

This child was different.

"Zoe!" Deryn cried out as the water grew choppier and the clouds in the sky above churned with darkness. Nothing would stop her from reaching her child.

Nothing would keep her from holding on to the happiness she had attained.

The scarlet waters churned, and an undertow like nothing she had ever experienced in these waters pulled her down beneath the waves.

Down into a sea of blood.

"It's bad, isn't it?" Madeline said from her beach chair.

Remy sat across from her in his own chair, his body bloodied, scratched, and bitten. He didn't want to answer . . . didn't want to worry her.

The beach was as black as night, even though he knew it had to be midafternoon. That was when they'd gone to the beach most often, midafternoon.

"Yeah, it's bad," he said.

"Then what are you doing here?" she asked him.

He shrugged, reopening a wound on his shoulder, allowing a crimson trail to run down his chest toward his taut stomach.

"Something's wrong," Remy said, dabbing at the blood with his fingertips. "Something's keeping the Seraphim locked up."

A warm wind came up suddenly off the water. It smelled of death.

"And you need it?" Madeline asked, holding on to the large brim of her hat.

Remy didn't answer.

"Why is it so hard for you to admit that sometimes you need to be what you actually are?"

He looked at the woman he loved, feeling a nearly overwhelming sadness with the intrusive memory that she was now gone from his life.

"Because I don't want to be that," he said.

She smiled at him then, shaking her head in that sometimes-you're-so-gosh-darn-cute way.