Francis slid the lethal weapon back inside its holster. “So what now?”

“Make sure the building is empty,” Remy told him as he knelt beside the tormented angel. “Things could get a little destructive if he abandons this form.”

The former Guardian nodded, turning to head back the way they’d come. “Are you going to be all right with this?” he asked from the doorway.

“I’ll be fine,” Remy replied, gently pulling the angel into his arms, attempting to stifle the bone-breaking spasms that wracked the Heavenly creature’s body. “We’re just going to have a little talk.”

Francis remained in the doorway, unmoving.

“Go on,” Remy urged. “I want to get this over with. He’s suffered enough.”

“I’ll see you outside,” Francis said over his shoulder as he turned into the hallway of shadow.

Remy leaned forward, his mouth at the angel’s ear, and spoke in the language of the Messenger—the language of God’s winged creations.

“Are you ready, brother?” he whispered. “Are you ready to let go of the wreckage that is this material form?”

The angel turned his face toward Remy, and he could not help but stare into the sucking black of the empty sockets.

“I deserve no such thing,” the angel rasped, clutching the front of Remy’s jacket with a bloodstained hand. “We’re no better… than those cast down into the inferno.”

“Let go of your sin, brother,” Remy soothed. “Return to the Source and know the forgiveness of—”

The angel suddenly pushed him roughly away. “I would never dream of tainting the purity of the Source,” he cried, rising to his knees.

Remy tried to stop him, but the angel moved with surprising swiftness, his hand finding what appeared to be the sharpest of the knives and gripping it tightly.

“No!” Remy reached out to stop the action, but he was swatted aside by one of the angel’s flailing wings.

“I deserve no less,” the angel spat, and plunged the blade into his heart. He withdrew the knife and repeated the horrific action again, and then again, before falling to his side, legs thrashing as if he were trying to run, as the life left his body.

Remy was stunned. By taking his own life, the angel had damned himself, trapping the life force within the body, to slowly dwindle away as the corpse decayed.

He couldn’t bear to see the body of the holy being left to the devices of scavengers. Reaching deep within himself—into the resources of his own suppressed divinity—he laid his hands upon the angel’s waxen brow and carefully called upon the power within.

The fiery essence of the Seraphim ignited his hand and spread onto the dead Nomad’s body. The fires of Heaven were voracious, consuming the flesh, muscles, bones, and feathers.

Hand still burning with an unearthly orange radiance, Remy pulled the fire back into himself, struggling to stifle the urge to burn away his own human guise and let his angelic identity roam free. And slowly the power was returned to that deep, dark place inside.

A place where it waited for him to abandon the charade that he had begun since leaving the golden plains of Heaven.

Remy rose to his feet, backing toward the exit, watching, waiting for the sign that he was expecting.

The body of the angel lay upon the ground, consumed in holy fire. Its grinning skull peered out at him from within the marigold flame, before collapsing in upon itself with a loud crack like a gunshot. At that point the fire grew larger, burning brighter—hotter—igniting the floor before spreading to the walls of the chamber, burning away even the shadows.

Satisfied that there would be nothing left for the scavengers to salvage, Remy left the room, the spread of divine flame burning hungrily at his back.

The fire burned hotter than any earthly flame. The entire warehouse, every inch of brick, steel, mortar, and glass, was engulfed in a matter of minutes.

Remy was lucky to get out with his skin intact.

But would it really have been so bad—to let the scourging flames eat away the fragile human form he had constructed for himself, to abandon this charade and return from whence he came? A tiny piece of him screamed its approval, but the remainder of the man was not yet ready to say good-bye to the world that had been his home for so long, even with all its imperfections.

“Did you get everybody out?” Remy asked Francis as they stood on the corner of Summer Street watching the building burn.

The Boston Fire Department arrived with a wail of sirens, the firemen leaping from their vehicles to battle the raging conflagration. But before they could even mobilize their hoses, the warehouse collapsed in upon itself with a mournful roar.

“There was nobody alive inside,” Francis said, taking a pack of Tic Tacs from his pocket and shaking some into his mouth. “Though I did tell a few rats that they might want to find other accommodations.” He shook a few mints into his mouth. “Thanks for helping me out with this one,” he continued after a moment.

“No problem,” Remy answered. “It was the least I could do. The idea of one of us in the hands of the Denizens is not—”

“One of you,” Francis interrupted. “It’s been a long time since I had my wings.”

The disturbing imagery of the tortured angel filled Remy’s thoughts as he watched the fire burn. “What could have brought him to that?” he asked aloud.

Francis’ face was illuminated by the light of the roaring fire; twin images of the inferno reflected on the surface of his eyeglasses. “I can think of a few things,” he said. “Things you would give anything to make right.”

Remy didn’t press him. Francis was still making penance, and would be doing so for a good long time.

“He was a Nomad,” Francis said, glancing at his palm where he’d held the angel’s flesh. He wiped the hand on the side of his pants. “Can’t remember the last time I’ve see one of them.”

“They’re around,” Remy answered, still watching as the intensity of the flames began to die down. “Don’t come out in the open often, too busy contemplating their place in the grand scheme of things, or something like that.”

Francis grunted in understanding.

“I should probably try to contact Suroth,” Remy said reluctantly. It wasn’t something he was looking forward to. He didn’t care for anything that reminded him of what he’d left behind.

He felt something being forced into his hand and looked down. “What’s this?” he asked, holding the same roll of money he had used to pay Eddie for the angel’s eyes.

“Retrieved it before getting out of the building,” Francis explained. “It belongs to you now, for services rendered.”

“Forget it,” Remy said.

Francis jumped back, arms spread. “No arguments. You’ve taken time away from your own business to help me. You’ve earned it.”

As much as Remy hated to admit it, his friend was right. He had been delinquent from the agency for quite some time. Since Madeline’s death he’d barely worked at all, finding it hard to generate interest in just about anything. The money would come in handy to pay some bills.

“Thanks,” Remy said, putting the roll inside the pocket of his jacket.

“No, thank you.”

Clouds of white steam billowed up into the night air as the firemen were finally able to turn their hoses on the smoldering wreckage of the warehouse.

“Want to go for a drink?” Francis asked.

It would have been nice to go someplace else, to delay the inevitable, but Remy had somebody waiting for him back at the house.

“Marlowe probably needs to go to the bathroom,” he said, feeling warm pangs of affection for the black Labrador retriever fill him.

“How’s he doing?” Francis asked. “You know, with the whole Madeline thing?”

“He still asks about her from time to time,” Remy said. “But I think it’s just in a dog’s nature to accept the inevitable and move on.”