Where Angels Fear to Tread (20 page)

"I told them to follow you." Samson shrugged.

"And what's this information I might have?" Remy asked. There was one dumpling left, and he stabbed it with his fork.

"Methuselah thought you might have something," Samson said. He wiped the sauce from his beard, then picked up his bottle of beer.

"Methuselah?" Remy asked.

"You were at his place the other night, asking about the mark." Samson set his beer down and rubbed the back of one of his large hands.

"Yeah, I was," Remy said, breaking the dumpling in half with the side of his fork and popping the piece into his mouth. He chewed for a bit before continuing. "I was curious if anyone had ever seen something like it."

Marko and Carla chuckled as they sipped their Chinese beers.

"All right, so I'm guessing you guys know something I don't," Remy said. "How about we all be big kids and share."

Their dinners arrived. Carla got the Szechuan chicken, and Marko had ordered some sort of spicy shrimp dish served inside a half of a pineapple. Samson's dinner had something to do with duck and Paradise, and Remy relied on his old standby, General Tsao.

They dug into their meals, Remy still waiting for his answers.

"It's her mark," Samson finally said, feeding the crunchy fried skin of the duck into his mouth.

"Excuse me?" Remy asked, his fork holding some of General Tsao's chicken midway to his mouth.

"The kiss marks," Samson stated in explanation. "They're her mark . . . Delilah's."

Remy dropped his fork. With the inclusion of Samson in the puzzle, he should have known.

"Really," he said, taking another sip of his drink. "She's still around too, is she?"

"Oh, she's around all right," Samson said with a nod, reaching into his mouth to pick a piece of duck from his teeth. "I've been trying to kill that bitch for years."

He grabbed his beer and tipped it back, discovering with disgust that it was empty. "Hey, Kenny!" he bellowed toward the doorway. "Another round, you yellow bastard!"

"You can all go fuck yourselves," the owner replied.

Samson got very serious, his large, sausage-sized fingers intertwining at his chin. "I was born to be the champion of the Israelites," he said quietly. "To deliver my people from the tyranny of the Philistines. All I had to do was abstain from alcohol and not cut my hair."

The waitress returned with their drinks.

"Guess that was supposed to prove I was totally dedicated to God," the big man said as he brought the fresh beer to his lips. He drank nearly half of it before taking the bottle from his mouth again.

"Making up for lost time," he said, and then belched.

The kids thought this was a riot.

"I killed a lot of Philistines in my time," he said, flexing and unflexing his gigantic hands. "And had a lot of women, but nothing compared to her."

"Here we go," Marko said, rolling his eyes. "I'm going out for a smoke." Carla said she would join him, and they both left the table.

"Fucking kids," Samson growled. "No sense of history." He took another pull from his beer.

"So I'm guessing the
her
that no other woman compared to is Delilah."

"And you'd be correct," the big man agreed. "I fell in love with her on first sight. She was from a little village in the valley of Sorek. I was passing through there on the run from some Philistine jerkwads trying to make a name for themselves by taking me down."

He laughed, lifting his beer. "Yeah, good fucking luck with that.

"I hadn't planned on hanging around, but she had this certain quality. Once I was with her, I couldn't imagine being without her."

Samson grew quiet. Remy could tell that the old man's memory was still good enough to remember all the details, both the pleasant and the unpleasant.

"I shared everything with her," he said, still ashamed at how he'd been taken. "Told her about God's mission for me, and how I could be stopped only one way."

"The hair?" Remy said.

Samson nodded.

"So, could you please explain to me what the fuck is up with that?" Marko asked as he and Carla returned to the table, stinking of cigarette smoke. "You cut your hair and lose your strength? I don't get it."

"It's a God thing," Remy said. "I swear He comes up with the stuff off the top of His head."

"Exactly," Samson said. "Those were His rules, and I was supposed to stick to them."

"But Delilah betrayed you," Remy said sympathetically.

The old man clutched his beer bottle in a tightening grip. "Oh yeah, she did that all right. It just goes to show how you never really know a person," he said.

He finished his second beer before coming up for air.

"The Philistines had pulled her aside and made her an offer she couldn't refuse. Eleven hundred silver coins for the secret of my strength."

He shook his shaggy head, his white hair, in a ponytail now, swinging back and forth. He felt for his fork and picked it up, then began to work on one of his duck legs.

"She cut my hair while I was asleep, after a good schtuping—if you know what I mean." He made a fist and brought it back and forth. Remy knew what he meant.

"With the hair gone, my deal with God was canceled."

"God's a dick," Carla said, tipping back her beer.

"He is pretty anal about His rules," Remy said in a weak attempt at defending the All-Father.

"The rest you probably know," Samson said, feeding strips of duck meat into his mouth. "The Philistines captured me, blinded me, and used me as a slave to grind their grain."

Samson tore what remained of the leg from the duck carcass and brought it to his mouth.

"I just bided my time, praying to God every moment I had, swearing to serve Him for as long as He wanted me. He must've seen that I still had some good years left, and He gave me a little gift. He let my hair grow back overnight."

"Dad fucked up those Philistines good," Marko said, doing the fist bump with his sister.

"I did at that," the old man said wistfully. "Brought their whole friggin' temple down around their pointy ears."

The kids raised their beer bottles in salute to their father.

Remy finished his second drink, tipping the glass back so that some of the ice would fall into his mouth. "And what about Delilah?" he asked, crunching on the ice. "I'm pretty sure her story doesn't end there."

The large man shook his head again. He dropped the duck leg bone down onto his plate, wiping his greasy hands on his napkin.

"Not by a long shot," Samson said. "She took off after I was captured, and nobody really knew what happened to her. Probably started a new identity elsewhere, but it didn't change who she really was . . . and whom she betrayed."

Samson turned his blind eyes toward Remy.

"She didn't just betray me; she betrayed God." He pointed toward the ceiling. "And you know He hates to be fucked with."

The cute waitress came into the room to clear the table. There wasn't all that much remaining of the meals, but Marko asked for the leftovers.

"God cursed her," Samson said in a voice softer than usual. "Cursed her to live eternally, always knowing that what she had . . . always knowing that whatever she loved would die."

"And the mark?" Remy asked.

"Now, that's the interesting part," Samson said. "It seems that after God cursed her, she went through a bit of a change. Delilah became less human and more demonic with each passing century. She changed physically. She had the ability to command the weak-willed, and to feed off the souls of her victims. She became a succubus."

"She leaves her mark when she feeds on their souls," Remy said, finally understanding.

"The ultimate hickey," Marko said.

"So you're still looking for her?" Remy asked.

The waitress came back into the room with the bagged leftovers, asking if anybody wanted coffee or dessert. Marko and Carla ordered the fried ice cream, while Samson ordered another beer and Remy asked for a cup of tea.

"I swore to God that I would serve Him for as long as He wanted," Samson said. "And my job is to find that soul-sucking bitch and put her out of His misery."

"All this time though, and you still haven't found her?"

"The bitch goes dormant," the strongman explained. "As if she's ceased to exist. A hundred years have been known to go by until she starts to use her twisted gifts again. I can feel it in my bones; makes them ache something awful. And I've been feeling pretty awful of late."

The waitress brought the desserts and drinks, and asked if they'd like anything else.

They all said no and thanked her. She told them she'd be back shortly with the check.

"She's been active all right," Remy said as he dunked the tea bag in his mug of hot water.

"And now you know why we picked you up," Samson said, pointing at Remy with his beer bottle. "So, that case you're working on, give me some details."

"It's a missing person's case," Remy said as he brought the mug of tea to his mouth. He took a sip of the hot liquid. "A six-year-old child. And it seems as though Delilah might be looking for her as well."

"She's been known to steal a few in her travels," Samson explained. "Raises them as her own; they grow up to serve her and all that. Of course, she feeds on their souls to make them more obedient."

Remy shook his head as he held on to his mug, warming his hands. "Seems a little more complicated than that. I think the child is gifted."

"What, she can spell well or do math problems off the top of her head?"

"No, the I-think-she-can-see-the-future kind of gifted."

"That could be useful," Carla said, licking her spoon clean of ice cream.

"But what would she need that for?" Samson asked. "There are seers all over the planet. What makes this kid so fucking special that it's brought her out of hiding?"

"I guess that's the million-dollar question," Remy said, sipping his tea. "I'm not sure if this means anything or not, but both Mom and Dad were once involved with a cult called the Church of Dagon."

"Dagon?" Samson asked, blind eyes squinting. "The Philistines worshipped a god named Dagon. Matter of fact, it was a Dagon temple I brought down on top of their worthless heads."

"The parents were supposed to provide a host body for Dagon in the form of their unborn child, but the ATF saw things a bit differently and broke up the party before the old god could take up residence."

The waitress brought the check on a small plastic tray and left it by Samson's right hand.

Remy reached for it, but Samson swatted his hand away.

"I got this," he said. "Marko, take care of this and I'll pay you back."

Marko laughed. "Yeah, right," he said as he took the check from his father.

"Disrespectful punk," Samson growled.

"So do you think there's some kind of connection between this church business and Delilah?" Remy asked.

"If there is, I can't see it, pardon the pun," the blind man said with a chuckle. "But it's good info, just in case."

"Delilah's goon squad took my client," Remy said. "I need to find her yesterday."

Samson nodded in agreement. "We'll keep our ears open. If we hear anything, you'll be the first person we call."

"Thanks," Remy said. "And thanks for dinner."

"No problem," the big man said. "Just remember to keep us in the loop if you should come across any promising leads."

"Will do," Remy told him.

Carla and Marko got up to pay the check and have another cigarette, leaving Samson and Remy to themselves again. The room was silent, each lost in his own thoughts.

"Married?" Remy asked, breaking the quiet.

"Who, me?" Samson said.

"Yeah, I thought with the kids, maybe . . ."

The big man chuckled. "After what I went through? I'd never trust another one of them. I'll fuck 'em, but I won't marry 'em."

He got a good laugh out of that, but Remy could sense a certain sadness in the man's words.

"Do you still love her?" Remy asked him.

Samson went stiff, his last beer almost to his mouth. "I should smash your fucking angel face in," he said with an animalistic growl.

"Answer the question . . . truthfully."

Samson downed the remainder of his beer, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Yeah, I love her." He scowled. "I love her enough to want to strangle the life from her body with my bare hands. If that's not love, I don't know what the fuck is."

Marko and Carla dropped Remy back at the Nightingale Motor Lodge to pick up his car. They'd driven by the side of the building for a look, only to find the area cordoned off with wooden horses, the hole in the wall covered with sheets of opaque plastic that seemed to breathe in and out like some kind of gigantic, artificial lung.

Samson's kids got quite a kick out of the damage they'd caused.

They left Remy at his car, reminding him to give them a call if he should hear anything about where Delilah might be holed up.

The ride home was uneventful; the radio tuned to some talk show that he wasn't really listening to. His brain was caught in a loop, turning what few facts he had round and round inside his head.

Parking was particularly bad, so he was forced to park on Cambridge Street, and walk all the way up the hill, to his house on Pinckney Street.

Remy let himself into the brownstone to the sound of the most ferocious dog in the world. Marlowe barked like crazy, bounding from the living room to greet him at the door.

From the ruckus he was making, Remy knew Ashley was still there, and Marlowe was protecting her.

"Hey, Ash," Remy said as he came in, closing the door behind him. "Sorry I'm so late."

He found Ashley sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, her schoolbooks spread out all around her.

"Hey, Remy," she said sleepily.

"Were you working or dozing?" Remy asked, standing in the doorway.

"A little of both really," she said. The television was on, and she grabbed the remote to shut it off.

He went into the kitchen, Marlowe at his heels. "Did Ashley let you out?" he asked.

"
No
," the dog told him.