In the House of the Wicked (18 page)

Ashley hesitated at the sight of an ebony serpent that surged through the open front door to grab up a golem in its cavernous maw. The artificial man struggled as it was dragged into the darkness outside.

Which, if they had any intention of escaping, was where Remy and Ashley needed to go.

Remy gave Ashley’s arm a yank, and they ran down the short hall toward the still-open door.

The darkness beyond the pale green lights of the Deacon estate beckoned, promising them one of two things.

A chance at freedom.

Or a fate worse than death.

Scrimshaw watched the angel escape the dining room. He was tempted to go in pursuit, but he had to know if his master had survived.

The explosion of energy was like nothing the golem had ever experienced before. He doubted there was any way that Deacon could have lived through it, but he had to be sure.

The dining table had been shattered, and Scrimshaw carefully pulled away the broken sections to get to his fallen master’s remains.

He sensed that he was being watched, and stopped for a moment to find Teddy staring at him, concern in his semihuman eyes. The boy had seriously deteriorated since surviving the attack by the traitorous Algernon Stearns. It was Deacon who had truly saved him—if that’s what he called it—using arcane magicks to retrieve him from the brink of death. But something had been lost in the process. It was as if the child’s humanity had been damaged by Stearns’ assault, and even though Teddy’s body had been restored to life, his soul had continued to die.

Even still, Scrimshaw could see that Teddy feared for the one who sired him. Normally he would have reassured the boy, telling him that everything would be all right, but Scrimshaw did none of that now.

Instead, he carefully picked through the rubble, gradually exposing the tuxedoed body of the man he called master trapped beneath the wreckage. He gently uncovered the man’s head and face and was shocked by what he found.

Konrad Deacon as Scrimshaw remembered him more than fifty years ago: hair a stark black, skin free of wrinkles, unblemished and taut.

Scrimshaw reached out to check for a pulse, and Deacon’s eyes opened wide as his hand shot out and grabbed the golem’s wrist.

“The angel?” Deacon asked excitedly. Golden energy, like liquid fire, drifted from his eyes.

“He’s escaped,” Scrimshaw managed, completely taken aback. “He took the girl, as well.”

Deacon seemed to consider this a moment, then released his hold upon Scrimshaw’s wrist. The golem gazed at the burns left by his master’s touch.

Teddy howled his pleasure, crawling across the rubble to get to his father. But as Deacon rose, he extended his arm and a wall of flame roared from his fingertips, driving back the screaming young boy.

Deacon shrugged off the broken pieces of table and dinnerware, and Scrimshaw saw that he no longer wore the exoskeleton that had helped his fragile body to move. It was as if he’d somehow shed his old form to reveal something shiny and new beneath. Tears in the dusty old tuxedo revealed new muscle and flesh beneath. His master had somehow been transformed into a perfect specimen.

But a perfect specimen of what?

The alarms still assaulted their senses as Deacon turned and walked from the dining room. Scrimshaw took the frightened Teddy’s hand, and, with a little urging, the two followed into the melee outside.

The golem was about to drag Teddy to someplace safe when he saw his master walk dangerously close to an open window. There was a flurry of movement on the other side of the broken glass, and Scrimshaw pushed the wild child away as he darted to intercept his master, who seemed totally oblivious to the potential harm.

A tentacle as black as ink flowed in through the broken window, ready to embrace the man. Scrimshaw grabbed a jagged piece of wood from the floor just as the muscular appendage wrapped about the transformed Deacon.

There was a searing flash of white.

Scrimshaw shielded his eyes from the sudden brilliance, then dropped his hands to see the stump of the tentacled monstrosity withdrawing through the broken window, the wail of the injured beast ear piercing over the still-insistent alarms.

The release of divine light had driven not only Deacon’s attacker away, but all the mansion’s attackers. Scrimshaw watched as the golem staff gradually began to recover.

Deacon turned his glowing gaze to Scrimshaw. “Turn that off, will you?” he said, hand indicating the blaring alarm around them.

Scrimshaw called to one of the other stone men to shut down the alarm, and in a matter of seconds, it was quiet in the house again. He watched as his master strolled to the door, peering outside at the now-still shadow place.

“Do you want me to go after them?” Scrimshaw asked, and Deacon turned his attention to him.

“The angel and the girl…do you want me to go after them?”

Deacon began to smile as he looked back through the open doors. “No need.” He held up his hands, tongues of divine fire leaping from the tips of his fingers. “I’ve already gotten far more than I could ever have hoped.”

Angelina Hayward did not want to go to sleep.

If the little girl could have had her way, she would never go to sleep…never ever, for she believed that she had already spent way too much of her time unconscious to the excitement going on around her.

Since awakening from a coma that the doctors swore she would never recover from, the girl had become the center of a maelstrom. Not only was her return to consciousness considered a minor miracle, but she had also awakened with the promise of a very important message for the world.

A message from God.

The little girl sat in her bed, propped up by multiple pillows. She was trying to put the pretty new dress that her uncle had bought on her favorite baby doll. She was supposed to be resting, but how could she do that when her mind was racing round and round?

Angelina’s life was now filled with excitement. Everybody wanted to speak to her. She’d been afraid of the television people at first, with their cameras and the pretty ladies who never stopped talking and smiling, but she had grown used to their visits and their questions.

The same questions, over and over.

When is God going deliver His message?

And Angelina would just smile at them and tell them that God was very busy, although as soon as He contacted her, they’d be the first to know.

Her parents mostly made the TV people stay outside the home her uncle had provided for them while she recovered, but every morning Angelina would ask her father to carry her to the window so she could wave to those who were camped on the front lawn. This morning she had been especially excited to see them, for she had something she wanted so badly to share with them.

The most beautiful angels had come to her in a dream that night, but she had been so excited to see them that she had woken up. She had nearly burst into tears, until she realized that the angels had followed her. They had worn shimmering robes and golden armor in her dream, but now, as they stood around her bed, she saw that they were dressed in handsome suits and ties. They were still quite beautiful, even without their special angel costumes.

She had been so excited to see them, asking if God had sent them…if it was time for her to give His message to the world.

The angels had smiled at her then, and it was like being out in the sunshine, it was so bright and warm.

And they had told her in pretty voices that sounded like music that they had come to help her prepare for what she was going to do. One of the angels, whose name was Armaros, sat down on the side of her bed and took her hand in his. He told her that it would soon be time for her to speak to the world…although not quite yet.

“Will you be ready, child?”
Armaros had asked her.

And Angelina had answered yes, meaning it with all her heart and soul.

It was no wonder that she didn’t want to sleep. What if God and the angels came again? What if they found her asleep and decided to pick some other little girl?

She’d voiced these concerns to Armaros and the other angels as they’d prepared to leave her. They had laughed at her, and it had sounded like church bells on Sunday morning. Then Armaros had told her that no one else could do what she had been created for.

That she was so very special.

Angelina smiled as she remembered the angel’s words.

“Did you hear that, Dolly?” she asked the baby doll that was her favorite toy and confidant. “They said I was special.”

And she hugged her doll to her chest, secure in the idea that no one could replace her—the angels had confirmed what her favorite Uncle Algernon had always told her.

No one else could do what she was created for.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Francis had no desire to be back in Louisiana so soon after laying his wife to rest.

His wife.

The words still felt wrong in his mind, but so much had been wrong there already. He figured he should be grateful for remembering Eliza Swan at all.

The former Guardian had decided that it might be wise to follow Angus Heath. He’d watched from the shadows as the fat sorcerer let himself into his New Orleans home, and was considering making a call to Remy when anguished cries from somewhere inside cut through the silence of the Louisiana night.

Francis studied the old home for a moment, then closed his eyes and imagined what it would look like on the inside. It was a talent that he’d once put to much use while serving the angelic Thrones, but it was a muscle that he’d allowed to wither—until now, in his service to the Morningstar.

The house had three stories, so he imagined a passage opening before him that would place him at the foot of the stairs on the second floor. The air rippled and the existing reality grew thinner, weaker, until Francis tore it apart and stepped through to the darkened house.

The passage closed with a whoosh of air behind him. He drew his pistol, listening for any sound that would tell him where he needed to go.

Then, as if in answer to a prayer—
fat chance of that
—another, weaker cry echoed from upstairs. Francis took the steps, two at a time, bounding onto the third-floor landing. He paused again, the few angelic senses he had left since the fall searching for clues.

There.

There was no mistaking the smell of death and magick wafting out from the behind the wooden door to his left. It was like dirty socks and gasoline, only not as pleasant.

Francis charged straight for the door, putting all his weight into it as he slammed his shoulder against the wood. He could feel the resistance as he struck, then bounced back into the hall—
magick
.

He aimed the Pitiless pistol and fired at the lock. Bullets made from the divine energies of the Morningstar tore into the enchanted wood, obliterating the magick, and a solid kick gave him access to the room. Francis stormed inside, eyes darting from left to right, searching for Angus.

He didn’t have to look far at all.

Angus was standing in the center of the room. A yellow-haired man with dark, bottomless eyes stood before him, holding Angus’ fat face his hands.

“Drop him,” Francis cried out, firing a single shot from the Pitiless pistol, striking the blond man in the shoulder. The attacker stumbled back, a look of shock on his face, as Angus slumped to the floor like a sack of dirty laundry.

“Who the fuck are you?” the man snarled.

But before Francis could even come back with a pithy retort, the man unleashed a blast of magickal force that screamed like a banshee as it traversed the room toward him. Francis dove from the path of the wailing supernatural energy, tripping over a naked leg sticking out from beneath a pile of dead bodies. Falling atop the fleshy mound, he turned to see the power arcing to the left, coming around in search of him.

Like a heat-seeking missile,
he thought, scrambling to his feet.

The magickal spell was louder now as it zeroed in on him. He didn’t see much of a chance of outrunning it. Instead he reached down and hauled up the naked body of a woman, tossing it into the path of the oncoming magickal force. The body exploded, and the spell dissipated as Francis again withdrew his weapon to fire on Angus’ attacker.

The offending sorcerer was quick, however, erecting magickal shields that absorbed the impact of the bullets, sending the kinetic force of the shots back toward Francis. The floor and wall around him were chewed into splinters as he ducked for cover behind a threadbare chaise longue.

The shriek of another magickal spell filled the air, and Francis was on the move again, crawling across the floor just as the longue that he had been hiding behind went up in flames.

Scrambling to his feet, he saw that Angus was staring at him through hooded eyes.

“A little help here?” he suggested, firing his weapon on the off chance that he might hit his target.

“I doubt you’ll be receiving much help from him,” the sorcerer said with a snarl, as a magickal construct of pure energy resembling an enormous hand snatched Francis up from the floor, lifting him into the air.

The sorcerer then lifted his own hand, clenching it into a trembling fist. The magickal fist holding Francis squeezed, as well, and he felt the air forced from his lungs. Hungry darkness began dancing on the periphery of his fleeing consciousness.

“So, who might you be?” the sorcerer asked, striding closer as the Guardian fought to breathe.

“That…would…be telling…Deacon,” Francis grunted as the giant hand continued to squeeze.

The sorcerer seemed startled. “Deacon? You have me confused with someone I killed a very long time ago,” he said.

The sorcerer was looking up at him now, studying Francis’ gasping face as the grip intensified. Slowly the man raised a hand toward him, and that was when Francis saw what looked like tiny mouths on the flesh of his exposed palm, opening and closing hungrily.

Who the fuck is this guy?

Francis tried to avoid the sorcerer’s approaching hand, but it was soon clamped on his face, the eager mouths attaching themselves to his flesh.