Mean Streets (34 page)

The black Lab met Remy at the door, panting like a freight train, tail wagging so fast that Remy thought he was going to take off for sure.

“Remy!”
the dog barked.
“Remy! Remy! Remy!”

“Hello, hello,” Remy said with a laugh, pushing the dog aside so that he could get in and close the door.

“Thought gone,”
the dog said, eagerly licking Remy’s hand.

“Yep, I was gone but now I’m back,” he reassured the animal.

Remy walked down the hallway, excited dog by his side.

“Did Ashley stop by to feed you?” he asked, already knowing that she had.

“No,”
the dog said, standing at attention in the kitchen.

The dog’s answer took him by surprise.

“No?” he asked.

“No feed,”
he growled.
“Hungry.”

Remy glanced around the room, noticing the empty food bowl and the full water dish. He also saw the note on the counter near the coffeepot and Ashley’s unmistakable scrawl telling him that Marlowe had been fed and taken out. She’d even drawn a smiley face at the bottom of the note.

“Then what’s this?” Remy asked, picking up the note and showing the dog.

“Paper,”
the dog answered, tail wagging.
“Rip?”

“No, you can’t rip it. It’s a note from Ashley telling me that you already ate,” Remy said. “You’ve been nabbed, good sir.”

“Nabbed, good sir,”
Marlowe repeated sadly.

Remy laughed. The Lab had a bottomless pit for a stomach and often tried this trick to get an extra meal. It had worked a few times with Madeline, but never with Remy.

His wife had been too trusting.

He flashed back to the last vision he’d had of her aboard the rig, the sensation of warmth on his hand as it was placed upon her stomach.

“A gift of our union,”
she had said.

What does it mean?
he wondered. At first he’d believed it all part of the process of grieving, but now he was beginning to suspect otherwise. There was some kind of connection between the visions and Noah’s murder, but what, he hadn’t a clue.

And that was what he was going to have to find out.

He’d planned on returning home, cleaning up a bit, and heading to the office to catch up on paperwork.

But not now.

There was little chance of turning this boat around. He might as well throw himself head-on into the madness. The quicker he dealt with this business, the quicker he could return to the life he’d worked so hard to build, but now that seemed to be crumbling at the foundation.

Noah’s office would be the place to start. It had been in a shambles, and he hadn’t had a chance to really go through it. There might be something still lying about waiting to be uncovered.

“Shit,” he muttered beneath his breath.

That meant returning to the rig, and the only way he would be able to do that would be with the help of certain skills that he had used far too freely lately. He knew that there wasn’t much of a choice, but it still pissed him off.

He walked into the living room to explain to the dog that he was leaving again. Marlowe lay in the middle of the floor, Sphinx-like, tail thumping. Remy knew what that particular look meant and felt bad.

“Sorry, buddy,” he said. “But I can’t take you for a walk right now. I have to go to work for a while.”

The dog looked as though he’d just been told that he was going to the pound. Guilt almost got the best of Remy, but then he remembered something that was even better than a walk to the park.

“Would you like a pig’s ear instead?” he asked.

Marlowe jumped to his feet and bolted toward the kitchen. By the time Remy caught up to him, he was standing in front of a lower cabinet door, staring intensely as his tail wagged in anticipation.

“I guess that’s a yes,” Remy said as he pulled open the cabinet and reached for the bag that contained the disgusting treats. “You work on this and I’ll take you for a walk when I get back,” he told the dog, who wasn’t even listening. Marlowe’s dark brown gaze was transfixed on the bag.

Remy removed one of the greasy treats and held it out. Marlowe carefully plucked it from his hand, then darted from the kitchen to his room—his lair, as Madeline used to call it—to consume his prize.

That taken care of, Remy walked into the living room and stood on the spot where Sariel had used his unique skills to take him from his home. He closed his eyes. Carefully he stirred the angelic essence lying inside him. It didn’t take more than a gentle prod to awaken it.

The divine power surged through him, coursing through his blood. His senses at once awakened, coming alive with a vengeance. His hearing became preternaturally acute, and the voices of millions in prayer assaulted his ears, as though they were all in this very room with him. And the smell.

The smell was strong, nauseating—the smell of magick.

Opening his eyes, he looked down at the spot where the passage had opened. He could see the residue of Sariel’s traveling spell, wafting up from the rug on his living room floor.

Rolling his shoulder blades, he allowed his wings to emerge. He could feel the appendages moving beneath his flesh, growing in size as they worked their way toward the surface. There was a brief flash of pain, and then enormous relief as his golden wings unfurled. Gently he fanned the air as he prepared for his journey.

Now is as good a time as any,
Remy thought as he pulled his wings about him, wrapping himself within the tight embrace of the golden feathers. The scent of Sariel’s magick was still fresh in his nostrils, and by closing his eyes he could see the path he would need to travel.

He thought of his destination, and then he was gone.

TEN

L
ike electricity moving through a wire, he was there.

The heavy smell of salt in the air was the first thing he became aware of. Remy opened his wings and exposed himself to the new environment.

He had appeared exactly where Sariel’s magick had dropped them before. The weather this time was far more hospitable, although the wind still whipped across the broad expanse of concrete, trying desperately to catch his golden wings.

It was pitch black on the ocean, but security lights drove back the darkness of night from the vast deck of the oil rig.

Remy pulled his wings back, then headed for the metal staircase, head bowed against the humid breeze. Once inside, it didn’t take him long to find Noah’s quarters.

The slide projector still hummed from the desk, but the bulb had burnt out, and the room was immersed in shadow. Allowing his eyes a moment to adjust, Remy carefully approached the desk, mapping out in his mind where he remembered most of the mess to be, as well as the old man’s body.

He recalled a banker’s lamp, and leaned over across the desktop until his fingers found the dangling chain and pulled it, dispelling the darkness.

The office was still in chaos, but Noah’s body was gone.

Remy moved around the desk to study the spot where the body had lain; telltale spatters of dried blood proved that it had been there. He recalled the vague image of the pale-skinned thing, skittering back into the darkness of the warehouse, and wondered if that had anything to do with the body’s disappearance.

Turning his attention to the desk, Remy pulled out the chair, rolling it over stray pieces of paper and slides that covered the floor.

“Where do I start?” he asked himself, staring at the disheveled surface of the desktop. Deciding that the journey of a million miles begins with the first step, Remy dove right in, selecting the first random piece of paper and giving it a once-over. It was nothing special, a bill for food supplies for the months of January and February.

There were more bills and receipts, and an amazing number of charitable mailers, all of them from animal organizations, many of which Remy had never heard of.

He found a recent fax from a shipping company confirming the pickup of four transport containers from the rig in two days’ time. What in the world would an old man, alone in the middle of the ocean, have been shipping? Remy made a mental note to find them before leaving.

As the surface of the desk became organized, the paperwork he found beneath became more interesting. It appeared that Noah Driscoll had been looking into real estate in the Boston area, and had found something he liked by the looks of a recent purchase and sale agreement. The property was in Lynn, north of the city. Remy jotted down the address to check out later.

Transport containers, purchased property—the old man had certainly been up to something before his untimely demise.

Remy left the office, heading back outside to find the transport containers. He could not help but be impressed by the view from the rig, undulating gray waters in every direction as far as the eye could see. If one wanted peace and quiet, total isolation, this was certainly the place.

But if that was the case, why had Noah bought property in a North Shore city?

Curiouser, and curiouser,
Remy thought.

He found the transport containers at the back of the rig, stacked one on top of the other and secured to the deck by woven steel cords.
These babies aren’t going anywhere,
Remy observed as he approached one of the powder blue steel containers.

It wasn’t locked. He placed his hands on the cold metal latch and pulled it up and into place so he could open the first of the two doors. The chemical smell of
new
wafted out, as the dim outside light flooded into the carrier, illuminating its contents.

The container was filled with all manner of things that would be needed to set up a living space. Remy couldn’t help but think of the furnishing of a college dormitory as his eyes moved across the plastic-wrapped mattresses, chairs, and thick blankets, still wrapped in their clear packaging, stacked in the corners.

In the corner with the blankets were boxes, and as Remy moved closer he saw that they were filled with toys, picture books, and brightly colored blocks. Stuffed animals stared out at him from inside a large, clear plastic bag. In one box there was even a toy Noah’s Ark. He reached down and took it from the container.

Not even close,
he thought, looking at the toy mock-up of the great craft. The plastic toy rattled loudly as he moved it, and he discovered that the top of the boat could be removed to reveal plastic animals inside.

Remy put the top back on the boat and placed it with the other toys. He looked about the transport container until something caught his eye. In the far corner of the container he found an unwrapped blanket and a stuffed animal. There was also an opened package of crackers, and crumbs on the floor.

The image of what he had seen running from the light again appeared in his head.

. . . or something, has taken up residence here,
he thought, looking around with a more cautious eye.

Certain that he was alone, Remy decided that he’d seen enough. He left the container and returned to the spot on the deck where he’d arrived.

Again he found the residue of Sariel’s magick, opened his wings, and prepared to go home. Thinking of the place he wanted to be, Remy let the wings close, wrapping him in their natural magick.

And as he felt himself slip away, drifting between time and space, he realized that he was leaving with more questions than answers.

 

 

 

Remy returned with little more than a whisper. One second he was on board an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the ocean, the next, in the living room of his Beacon Hill home.

It was something he could get used to, and something that would gradually leach away his humanity, until all that remained was a cold, unfeeling instrument of violence forged in Heaven. He had escaped being that a very long time ago, and would do everything in his power to never be that way again.

The wings wanted to stay, to be part of his everyday attire, but Remy told them no. This was how the divine nature that he kept locked away worked, reminding him of what he had once been, trying to tempt him with memories of a glorious time when he soared above the spires of Heaven.

But those times were gone, sullied by the violence of war.

Remembering what he did, could any of them—these so-called creatures of Heaven—even remotely be considered divine?

Remy didn’t think so, and exerting his will upon the wings, he forced them away, burying the nature he had come to abhor, and assuming the guise of humanity.

“Marlowe, I’m back,” he announced, glancing at the clock on the DVD player. He’d been gone for close to two hours.

Odd,
he thought, as the normally curious beast did not come to see him.

“Hey, Marlowe?” Remy called out again, leaving the living room and heading down the hallway to the dog’s lair.

“Do you want to go out?” Remy asked, then stopped as he saw that Marlowe was not alone.

The creature appeared human, almost childlike, its body pale, hairless, and incredibly thin. It was dressed in swaths of filthy cloth that hung in tatters from its scarecrowlike frame.

Remy had no idea what it was. It bore no resemblance to the indigo-skinned figures he’d seen perched on the rocks so long ago. It squatted on its haunches in front of Marlowe. Toys were scattered about the floor, and the two were staring at each other intensely, eyes locked as if playing a game, victory going to the one who managed not to blink first.

The tension in the air was palpable, like an elastic band just about stretched to capacity before . . .

Marlowe barked, slapping his paws on the hardwood floor, and all hell broke loose.

The trancelike state between the two beasts suddenly broken, the creature reacted, pulling its pale lips back in a catlike hiss.