Dancing on the Head of a Pin (17 page)

There wasn’t a nicer bunch of guys on the planet.

“It’s all we really have left,” Byleth offered. “And we take from it what we can.”

Remy took the Satan’s answer for what it was worth. “Fair enough,” he said. He noticed that Mulciber and Procell had stopped giving him the hairy eyeball and were now looking at the area near his feet, at the twin daggers that still lay there. Remy wondered if the knives were somehow attempting to communicate with them as they had with him, filling their heads with their greatest hits.

He leaned forward, picking the twin daggers up from the rug, and watching as all present physically reacted.

“So, what can you tell me about these?” Remy asked. The knives were trying to get into his head again, but he was ready this time, blocking the violent imagery and focusing on the here and now.

“Nothing much to tell, really,” Byleth said, uncrossing his legs, planting both feet upon the floor. He was staring at the Pitiless with hungry eyes. “I first learned of them just before my release from Tartarus,” the Satan said. “They were whispered about . . . their purpose a mystery.”

“That was quite some time ago,” Remy said, rubbing the flat of his thumb along the hilt of one of the knives. The weapon seemed to purr, enjoying his attention. “Why the sudden interest now?”

Byleth reclined in the chair and sighed, looking as though he was relaxing, but Remy knew that wasn’t the case. “They were supposed to be special, but as far as I knew they were lost, hidden away someplace waiting for somebody to discover them. I never gave them much thought beyond that, really, focusing my talents on building a power base amongst the Denizen community. It was a long, uphill battle, but one I relished, and eventually managed to win.”

“Do they give you a special decoder ring, or maybe even some decorative horns when you make Satan?” Remy asked. Obviously he’d been spending way too much time with Francis.

He could see Byleth’s men tensing, just waiting for the word to pummel him. But he doubted they’d do it, even if ordered. Remember, he still had the knives.

“You’re much funnier than I ever remember you being,” Byleth responded with a sickly grin. “Is it something you intentionally work at, or does it come as a result of living with them . . . living as one of them?”

“It was either this or in-line skating,” Remy explained. “I went with being funny; it’s something I can do all year-round.”

The onetime friends glared across the study at each other. Remy could tell that the window for friendly conversation would be closing soon, patience wearing thin, and he needed some answers.

“So what put them back on your radar?” Remy asked, holding the twin daggers up, points to the ceiling. All in the room were feeling it, the daggers’ power charging the air.

“Recently released parolees from Tartarus had heard some murmurings from within the prison walls; something big was about to happen and the weaponry was somehow involved.”

Remy slid to the edge of the couch. “That was it? Some parolees talking shit? There had to be more than that.”

“They said that there was a change coming,” Byleth said, the intensity growing in his gaze.

“And let me guess, you don’t like change . . . especially if it involves you. You like things just the way they are.”

The Satan smiled, a pale imitation of the beatific appearance he once had when still loved by God. “Exactly,” he said. “So I put the word out, that it could be quite profitable to anybody who could find these weapons for me. I figured if they were in my possession, they couldn’t do me any harm, and if they were as special as people said, nobody would dare try and fuck with me.”

Remy gazed at the knives, stifling the violent urges that attempted to force their way to the forefront of his thoughts.

“They’re special all right,” he said. He tore his eyes from the sleek, deadly weapons to stare intensely at Byleth sitting across from him. “Do you have any idea what they actually are, or who they were created for?”

The Morningstar’s face briefly flashed before his eyes, a surge of rage bubbling up from his center. The Seraphim roared its anger, bucking against the confines placed around it.

“Do you have any idea?” Remy growled, surging up from his seat, letting his arms snap forward, the Pitiless blades spinning through the air before dropping to stick in the hardwood floor before the Satan’s feet.

He was glad to be rid of them, the chatter inside his head starting to clear. Byleth’s men launched themselves immediately at him, the bald fallen pulling back a fist in order to strike him for what he’d done.

“Don’t,” their employer commanded, his voice no louder than a whisper.

They stopped midattack, turning to see if their boss was serious.

Byleth had slid from his chair, kneeling in front of the daggers.

“Leave him alone,” he ordered, his eyes held to the knives. “He’s only given me what I wanted.”

Mulciber roughly pushed Remy back onto the couch. Byleth leaned one of his ears down to the weapons. “I can hear them. . . . They’re talking to me.” He laughed, reaching out tentatively to one of the blades. “They . . . they want me to hold them.”

Remy as well as the two bodyguards watched with curious eyes. He had no idea how the weapons would affect the Satan, if one who had fallen from Heaven would be privy to the visions that had been shared with him.

Byleth’s hands wrapped around the hilt of one of the knives, and then the other, tugging them both from the floor. It looked as if the fallen angel had suddenly received a massive electrical shock, his legs sliding out from beneath him as he twitched upon the floor.

The goons made a nervous move toward their employer.

“He’s fine,” Remy called after them. They turned, staring nervously, unsure if they should trust his word.

“They’re just talking.”

Byleth thrashed as he rolled onto his back. He held the daggers out before him, a look of absolute shock and surprise etched upon his face. With a sudden groan of exertion, he opened his hands arthritically, the knives falling from his clutches.

His men rushed to his aid, helping him up, returning him to his seat.

“For
him,
” Byleth groaned. “The daggers were made for him.”

Remy got up from the couch and went to the liquor cabinet. Helping himself, he picked up the crystal decanter and poured another drink. Byleth looked as though he could use it.

“Weapons of the Morningstar,” Remy said, handing the fallen angel the glass. Byleth took it from him, slurping loudly at the alcohol. “Weapons crafted for Lucifer’s hands.”

“It must have been just before the war,” Byleth gasped, out of breath from the experience of touching the Pitiless. The effects of the weaponry on the fallen appeared even more severe than they had been on Remy. “Some sort of secret weapons, perhaps.”

Remy thought about what Byleth had just said, the idea of weapons as some sort of last-ditch effort rattling around inside his head.

“Secret weapons that were never used.”

But if that was the case, why did they end up here . . . on Earth?
Remy wondered, not even close to answering the questions that continued to float to the surface of his brain.

“How did you know about my case? How did you know I’d been hired to find what you had been searching for?”

Byleth clung to his glass of booze like it was a security blanket. “Your friend Francis made a few calls for you, asking around. And in turn, those he reached out to got in touch with us. It sounded like we just might be looking for the same thing.”

Byleth held out his empty glass. “More,” he commanded.

Remy took the glass and poured more Scotch from the decanter.

“Before your involvement, we had been contacted,” Byleth said, taking the glass. “Somebody who had heard about my offer to make them rich if they could deliver the Pitiless.”

Remy watched the fallen angel drink.

“So you made a deal with this person?” Remy asked.

Byleth nodded. “Arranged for an exchange, but it never happened.”

The fallen angel seemed to become even more nervous, getting out of his chair to fix his own drink. His movements were awkward, a shaking hand dropping the crystal stopper from the bottle, good Scotch splashing over the rim of the glass to be wasted as he filled it to the brim.

“I’m guessing that something besides your seller standing you up happened.”

“You could say that.” Byleth laughed nervously, pouring the contents of the glass down an insatiably thirsty gullet.

Remy urged the Satan to go on with a stare.

“We were attacked,” he said. Remy could see that his hands were shaking, and wasn’t sure if it was still the effect of connecting with the powerful weapons, or this recent memory. The fallen leader appeared unnerved.

“Rival host, maybe even a Hellion of your very own? What attacked you, Byleth?” Remy urged.

The fallen angel’s eyes got suddenly glassy as he gazed into the past. Slowly he made his way back to his seat, swatting away the helpful attentions of his bodyguards. He lowered himself into the folds of the wingback.

“He dropped out of the sky like a falling star,” the Satan said. “He was beautiful . . . as we all were once.”

Byleth looked at Remy, smiling sadly.

“An angel attacked you?”

He nodded. “Something wasn’t right about him. He was enraged, filled with a violent anger, going on and on about a sin that he couldn’t bear anymore.”

A sudden twinge of recognition stabbed at Remy, like a jab from one of the powerful blades.

“Was he a Nomad, Byleth?” Images of the poor creature that he and Francis had rescued from a dissecting chamber flashed before his eyes.

Remy reached down to grip the fallen’s shoulder, to urge him to answer.

Mulciber immediately grabbed hold of Remy’s wrist, attempting to pull it away. The Seraphim did not take kindly to being touched by one of
them,
and Remy allowed it to emerge, taking hold of the large man’s arm and twisting it violently to one side. Pulling the big man closer, Remy drove his forehead into the Denizen’s face.

The fallen grunted, blood exploding from his nose as he dropped to his knees moaning. The other Denizen made his move, but Remy froze him with a stare.

The Seraphim liked this, wanting to make the foolish creatures suffer, but Remy restrained it. This wasn’t the time for games.

“Byleth?” he said firmly.

“Yes, yes, he was a Nomad.” He tried to have some more to drink, but his glass was empty. “I didn’t think of it at the time . . .” Byleth stopped, remembering the details. “But I think he was trying to warn us.”

Remy felt his anger flare, the Seraphim right there, eager to be set loose, but he held its leash tight. “But you didn’t listen.”

Byleth turned in the chair, anger burning in his eyes. “Of course we didn’t listen; even though a Nomad, he was still one of them . . . still of Heaven. And he wanted the weapons that we didn’t have.”

“What did you do?” Remy asked, already knowing the answer.

Byleth laughed, slumping in the chair. “We saw it as an opportunity,” he explained.

Mulciber was still moaning, attempting to stifle the flow of blood that poured from his damaged nose.

“We captured him,” the Satan continued with a certain amount of pride. “It wasn’t easy—he was strong—but at the same time, I don’t think he had all his faculties. It was almost as if something . . . some knowledge that he had locked away inside his head had driven him mad.”

It took everything that Remy had not to grab Byleth and beat him senseless. “You captured him and you cut him up,” he said through gritted teeth.

Byleth smiled weakly, knowing that what he had done was wrong, but still taking pleasure from it. “Normally I wouldn’t have had anything to do with it, but with this one . . . I cut out his eyes.”

Remy’s true nature fought harder than he could ever remember, and he could feel his skin begin to itch—to heat—as the warrior angel rose to the surface, ready to emerge and destroy these abominations in their nest. And Remy doubted that the unleashed Seraphim would have stopped there, flying into the night, hunting every Denizen it could find and destroying them one after the other.

This might have happened—if there hadn’t been a knock at the door.

It was just enough of a distraction to avert disaster.

“Yes,” Byleth called.

The door opened and another of his men stood there. He was holding a cell phone.

“It’s somebody named Mason,” the fallen angel said.

“He says that he’s out back and to tell you that he’s found what you’ve been looking for.”

R
emy didn’t like the sound of that.

Byleth pulled himself together, running his long fingers through his straight blond hair. “It appears to be my lucky day,” he said. He removed his sports coat and squatted before the daggers.

“Depends on how you define
lucky,
I guess,” Remy said, watching as the Satan wrapped the knives in his jacket. “What are you going to do with them?”

“What do you think?” Byleth asked, a nasty glimmer in his eye. “They were to be Lucifer’s. The power of Heaven flows through them. Imagine the clout somebody with these bad boys in their possession would have.”

Remy couldn’t believe his ears. “You can’t be serious,” he said. “There’s something not right about this whole business,” the angel started to explain. “The kind of not right that involves a creature from Hell and an angel driven crazy by guilt. Do you seriously want to wrap this Pitiless albatross around your neck?”

“Losing Heaven nearly destroyed me,” Byleth began. “My time in Tartarus was nothing compared to the pain I felt . . . still feel . . . when God took it all away.”

The Satan looked to his men.

“Restrain him,” Byleth commanded.