The body of the woman, also nude, lay on the bed atop a dark, checkered bedspread, what appeared to be a Bible clutched in one of her hands. She had been shot once in the forehead and again in the chest. Mount-gomery wavered on his bare feet, the gun shaking in his hand at his side. He stared at Remy in the doorway and slowly raised the weapon.

"Don't do anything stupid," Remy cautioned, his hands held out in front of him. "I'm unarmed."

He felt a surge of adrenaline flood through his body as he watched the man squint down the barrel of the pistol. This is what it's like to be truly alive, he thought. In the old days, before his renouncement, Remy had never known the thrill of fear; there was no reason to. But now, moments such as this made what he had given up seem almost insignificant.

The man jabbed the gun at Remy and screamed, "Shut the door!" Slowly, Remy did as he was told, never taking his eyes from the gunman.

"It's not what you think," Mountgomery began. "Not what you think at all." He brought the weapon up and scratched at his temple offhandedly with the muzzle. "Who… who are you?" the editor stammered, his features twisting in confusion as he thrust the gun toward Remy again. "What are you doing here?" His voice was frantic, teetering on the edge of hysteria.

Hands still raised, Remy cautiously stepped farther into the room. As a general rule, he didn't like to lie when he had a gun pointed at him. "I'm a private investigator, Mr. Mountgomery," he said in a soft, calm voice. "Your wife hired me. I'm not going to try anything, okay? Just put the gun down and we'll talk. Maybe we can figure a way out of this mess. What do you think?"

Mountgomery blinked as if trying to focus. He stumbled slightly to the left, the gun still aimed at Remy. "A way out of this mess," he repeated, with a giggle. "Nobody's getting out of this one."

He glanced at his companion on the bed and began to sob, his voice trembling with emotion. "Did you hear that, Carol? The bitch hired a detective to follow me."

Mountgomery reached out to the dead woman. But when she didn't respond, he let his arm flop dejectedly to his side. He looked back at Remy. "Carol was the only one who understood. She listened. She believed me." Tears of genuine emotion ran down his face. "I wish we'd had more time together," he said wistfully.

"The bitch at home thought I was crazy. Well, we'll see how crazy I am when it all turns to shit." The sadness was turning to anger again. "This is so much harder than I imagined," he said, his face twisted in pain.

He lowered the gun slightly, and Remy started to move. Instantly, Mountgomery reacted, the weapon suddenly inches from the detective's face. Obviously, madness had done little to slow his reflexes.

"It started when they opened up my head," Mountgomery began. "The dreams. At first I thought they were just that, bad dreams, but then I realized they were much more."

The editor pressed the gun against Remy's cheek. "I was dreaming about the end of the world, you see. Every night it became clearer — the dreams — more horrible. I don't want to die like that," he said, shaking his head, eyes glassy. "And I don't want the people I love to die like that either." The man leaned closer to Remy. He smelled of aftershave and a sickly sour sweat. "Are you a religious man?"

If he had not been so caught up in the seriousness of the situation, Remy Chandler would have laughed. "I have certain — beliefs. Yes. What do you believe in, Peter?"

Mountgomery swallowed hard. "I believe we're all going to die horribly. Carol, that was her name." He jerked his head toward the dead woman on the bed. "Carol Weir. She wanted to be brave, to face the end with me. But she was too good to die that way."

He smiled forlornly and tightened his grip on the gun. "I would have divorced my wife and married her, but it seemed kind of pointless when we looked at the big picture. This was the nicest thing I could do for her. She thanked me before I…"

Mountgomery's face went wild with the realization of what he had done, and he jammed the barrel of the gun into Remy's forehead. The muzzle felt warm.

"Would you prefer to die now, or wait until it all goes to Hell?" the editor asked him.

"I'm not ready to make that decision."

Remy suddenly jerked his head to one side, grabbing the man's wrist, pushing the gun away from his face. Mountgomery pulled the trigger. A bullet roared from the weapon to bury itself in the worn shag carpet under them.

The two men struggled for the weapon, Mountgom-ery screaming like a wild animal. But he was stronger than Remy had imagined, and quickly regained control of the pistol, forcing the detective back.

Again, the editor raised his arm and aimed the weapon.

"Don't you point that thing at me," Remy snarled, glaring at the madman. "If you want to die, then die. If you want to take the coward's way out, do it. But don't you dare try to take me with you."

Mountgomery seemed taken aback by the detective's fierce words. He squinted, tilting his head from left to right, as if seeing the man before him for the first time. "Look at you," he said suddenly, with an odd smile and a small chuckle. "I didn't even notice until now." He dropped the weapon to his side.

It was Remy's turn to be confused. He glanced briefly behind him to be sure no one else had entered the room.

"Are you here for her — for Carol?" Mountgomery continued. "She deserves to be in Heaven. She is — was a good person — a very good person."

"What are you talking about, Peter?" Remy asked. "Why would I be here for Carol? Your wife hired me to…»

Mountgomery guffawed, the strange barking sound cutting Remy off midsentence. "There's no need to pretend with me," he said smiling. "I can see what you are."

A finger of ice ran down Remy's spine.

With a look of resigned calm, Mountgomery raised the gun and pressed the muzzle beneath the flesh of his chin. "I never imagined I'd be this close to one," he said, finger tensing on the trigger. "Angels are even more beautiful than they say."

Remy lunged, but Mountgomery proved faster again. The editor pulled the trigger and the bullet punched through the flesh and bone of his chin and up into his brain, exiting through the top of his head in a spray of crimson. He fell back stiffly onto the bed — atop his true love, twitching wildly as the life drained out of him, and then rolling off the bed to land on the floor. His eyes, wide in death, gazed with frozen fascination at the wing-shaped pattern created by his blood and brains on the ceiling above.

Remy studied the gruesome example of man's fragile mortality before him, Mountgomery's final words reverberating through his mind.

I never imagined I'd be this close to one.

He caught his reflection in a mirror over the room's single dresser and stared hard at himself, searching for cracks in the facade. Is it possible? he wondered. Had Peter Mountgomery somehow seen through Remy's mask of humanity?

Angels are even more beautiful than they say.

Remy looked away from his own image and back to the victims of violence. How could a case so simple turn into something so ugly? he asked himself, moving toward the broken door, followed by the words of a man who could see angels and had dreamt of the end of the world.

He stepped quickly into the afternoon sun and almost collided with the Hispanic cleaning woman and her cart of linens. She looked at him and then craned her neck to see around him and into the room. Remy caught the first signs of panic growing in her eyes and reached back for the knob, pulling the door closed. In flawless Spanish he told her not to go into the room, that death had visited those within, and it was not for her to see. The woman nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving his as she pushed her cart quickly away.