For Liesa and James—

“… Let no force tear asunder…”

Love and thanks to LeeAnne & Mulder for helping me get through this one.

Many gratitudes also to Ginjer Buchanan, Cameron Dufty, Christopher Golden, Kenn Gold, Sheila Walker, Dave Kraus, Mike Mignola, Christine Mignola, Katie Mignola, Stephanie Lane, Joe Lansdale, Lisa Clancy, Pete Donaldson, Mom & Dad Sniegoski, Mom and Dad Fogg, David Carroll, Ken Curtis, Don Kramer, Greg Skopis, Kim & Abby, Jon & Flo, Pat & Bob, Timothy Cole and his band of Merrymen down at Cole’s Comics in Lynn.

And for Steve Dias… get better soon, my friend.

Tom

It isn’t easy being human.

And it was never more obvious to Remy Chandler than it was now, as he stared across the desk at the foul thing pretending to be a man.

He was bulky, wearing a loose-fitting leather jacket with only a wife beater beneath. Anyone who saw him on the street, picking up the newspaper and a few lottery tickets at the corner store, would think him to be one of those neighborhood types—y’know, just rough around the edges.

Rough around the edges didn’t even begin to describe what this thing was.

“Is it all here?” he asked, his dry, raw voice echoing slightly in the cavernous warehouse. He snatched up a roll of dirty bills held together with a thick elastic band.

“Yeah,” Remy said with a slight nod. “Just like you asked.”

The thing posing as a man called himself Eddie, and as much as it pained Remy to admit it, they had once been the same, brothers of Heaven.

Angels.

But that was long ago, before the fall. What separated Remy from Eddie now was damnation. Remy had chosen to abandon the glories of Heaven; Eddie had been cast out for choosing to fight on the losing team.

For challenging the authority of the All-Powerful, Eddie and all the others who had fought on the side of the Morningstar were banished to Hell until the Lord deemed that the first phase of their suffering was at an end. After a time in Hell they were brought to Earth to serve the remainder of their penance, earning forgiveness for their transgressions against the Almighty.

But His absolution was not easily given.

Remy wasn’t sure what the Supreme Being was trying to say by forcing Heavenly creatures who once served His glory to live amongst the lowly beasts that caused the rift between the Son of the Morning and the Source of All Things to begin with. What he did know was that many of the fallen angels, those Denizens of the pits, chose not to lead a quiet life of contemplation, and instead continued their downward spiral into depravity.

They hadn’t left Hell at all, really; they’d just brought a little piece of it with them.

Eddie sniffed the roll and smiled. “Smells about right,” he said, and chuckled, shifting his bulk in the metal chair.

He reached down to the floor and lifted a white hard-foam cooler onto the desk before Remy. An undulating cloud of mist rose from the dry ice inside as he lifted the lid.

“They’re all yours,” Eddie said, reaching into the grayish fog and pulling out two eyeballs, delicately held between the thumb and index finger of each hand. “Here’s a neat trick.” He held the eyes before his own. “You can look through them—see a person as they truly are.”

Remy had the urge to stop him, but what would be the use? Eddie would learn the truth sooner or later.

“Are you a good man or a bad man, my friend?” Eddie asked with a chuckle.

As if gazing through a pair of binoculars, he fixed the eyes upon Remy, and the response was immediate. Remy couldn’t decide whether it was a look of fear or revulsion that appeared upon the fallen angel’s face, not that it really mattered.

The twin orbs dropped from his fingers, falling back into the frothy mist of the cooler, and Eddie began to reach for something at his back.

Remy lunged up and over the desk, wrapping his right hand around the fallen angel’s throat, driving him backward.

“Fucking Seraphim,” Eddie gurgled as Remy slammed him against the wall, catching his wrist with his free hand before the fallen could use the dull black blade.

Remy could sense evil coming off the knife in waves. A blade like that in the right hands could do a lot of damage, but he doubted that Eddie was anything more than a common thug in the Denizen hierarchy, a parasite feeding off the sadness of the world.

So much for redemption, eh, Eddie?

“I’ll take your eyes too,” he hissed, froth spewing from his angry mouth.

“Is that any way for someone looking for God’s forgiveness to talk?” Remy asked, allowing the holy fire of the Seraphim within himself a chance to flow through his body, igniting the hand that held Eddie’s black blade at bay.

Remy’s true nature clawed at its internal confines, yearning to be released, desperate for him to shed his mask of humanity. Since he had averted the Apocalypse just a few short months ago, this power he had worked so hard to suppress had become far too easy to set free. He fought the urge to let the power of Heaven burn away his human guise and assert its full potential.

He had to wonder if there would ever come a day when he was no longer strong enough to hold it back, when he would be too weak to be human anymore.

Eddie’s scream and the sound of the knife blade clattering to the floor pulled Remy from his troubling thoughts. The stink of burning flesh wafted into his nostrils as he pulled back on the power, his angelic nature momentarily struggling as he exerted his full control.

Remy released the Denizen, and he fell to the floor clutching at his injured hand. “What did you do to him?” he asked the former angel, glancing quickly to the cooler, struggling to control his anger.

Eddie cowered on the floor, holding his blackened appendage close, flecks of burned flesh raining down to litter the floor like blighted snow. The fallen slowly lifted his face, and Remy saw both pain and fear in his eyes.

Remy pointed at the cooler still resting on the desk. “Don’t make me ask you again.”

“He… he gave himself freely,” Eddie stammered.

Remy was amazed. Though he was faced with the threat of further pain, the lies still flowed from this Denizen’s mouth. It was typical of their kind, the time spent in Hell shaping them into things of deception.

His angelic nature surged forward, like a pit bull testing the strength of its chain. Remy reached down, grabbed Eddie by the front of his leather jacket, and yanked him to his feet.

“Where is he?”

Eddie’s eyes shifted suddenly to the right, his fear becoming something else.

Anticipation?

And then Remy sensed that they were no longer alone. Still gripping the fallen angel by the front of his jacket, he spun him around, as two more Denizens emerged from the shadows of the warehouse, guns in hand. Eddie didn’t even have time to protest before the bullets punched into his body.

Tossing his Denizen shield aside, Remy darted for the cover of some crates stacked in the corner of the large, open space. More bullets ricocheted off the concrete floor around him, while others burrowed deep into the wood of his cover.

The fury of his Seraphim nature roiled to be loosed, and he tried to ignore it. It would be so simple to set it free, to burn away the skin of humanity that he had worked so hard to maintain, leaving only the soldier of Heaven to deal with the foul betrayers of God’s trust.