Where Angels Fear to Tread (23 page)

"Open it," Samson said.

Another of his kids removed herself from the pack and approached the door, lock picks emerging from a thin packet that she'd pulled from her back pocket.

"Showtime," she said, kneeling in front of the old lock. "This should take no time at . . ."

The doorknob began to move, turned from the inside.

Everybody froze. Remy watched as Samson's head cocked to one side, hearing the doorknob jiggle. He held up one large hand, signaling to his brood that they should stay right where they were.

A white-haired man, whom Remy immediately recognized, stepped outside, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

This was the man who almost put a bullet into Remy's skull back at the Nightingale Motor Lodge, a man perfectly comfortable without a soul. His lighter had just made it up to the tip of his smoke when he noticed the twin gun muzzles pointed at either side of his head, and the large form of Samson standing directly across from him.

The big man raised a sausage-sized finger to his lips, warning him to be quiet.

There was no fear in the man's expression; in fact, he smiled crookedly, still holding the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He allowed the lighter to reach the smoke, igniting the tip.

"Samson and company," the man said, puffing smoke from the other side of his mouth. "Go right in," he said, the door open at his back. "You're expected."

One of Samson's other kids ran toward the door, pistol in hand, checking it out. "Looks clear," he called out.

Remy had moved to stand beside the big man, his eyes glued to the soulless man casually puffing on his cigarette.

"What do you think?" Remy asked.

"I think we're going in," Samson said. "But he's going first."

He pointed in the direction of the man as his son and daughter urged their captive back into the house at gunpoint.

The man let the cigarette fall from his mouth, grinding it out with the heel of his shoe.

"She doesn't allow us to smoke inside," he said, before walking back in, two automatic rifles pointed at his back. "Come on in. I'll take you to her."

More of Samson's kids, their firearms at the ready, swarmed in through the back door, making way for them to follow.

"Are you sure this is wise?" Remy asked, allowing Samson to hold on to his arm at they walked through the doorway into the house.

"When have I ever done anything wise?" he asked. "I'm just rolling with the punches as I've done for the last few thousand years."

The air-conditioning must have been turned to its maximum setting, making for a sharp transition going from the damp, warm mugginess of outside, to an almost deep-freeze chill inside.

Marko waited for them in the doorway leading from the kitchen.

"Anything?" Remy asked.

"There're voices coming from the front of the house, but no signs of aggression yet," Samson's son said.

"Go on ahead with the others," his father ordered. "We're right behind you."

Remy could feel the Seraphim coming awake, the potential for violence the perfect thing to stir it from its dormancy. But Remy held the power of Heaven in check, desperate not to call upon it unless an absolute necessity.

They passed through a heavy, swinging door into a hallway of dark mahogany. Remy could see Samson's sons and daughters up ahead, scanning every nook and cranny for potential danger, but none was to be found.

The white-haired, soulless man was still being led by the pair with the rifles, leading the train of young soldiers deeper into the house. The closer they got to the front of the elaborate dwelling, the louder the voices became. They were moving toward the sounds, the soulless man doing as he promised and delivering them to his mistress.

Remy escorted Samson down the center of the corridor, Samson's children on either side of them.

Up ahead, their prisoner was about to pass from the hallway into what could best be described as a den. The voices were louder now, and distinctly female. Remy felt Samson's grip upon his arm painfully tighten at the sound of one voice in particular; low and throaty, distinctly sexual, and charging the air with every uttered word.

"It's her," the large man hissed.

Samson started to move ahead of him, blindly bouncing off the hallway wall, as he moved in the direction of those speaking.

The powerful man's soldiers followed his lead, guns drawn and ready for firefight, as they filled the doorway to the parlor.

Remy pushed through the crowd to where Samson now swayed upon his feet.

"Delilah," he snarled, hate dripping like poison from the utterance of her name.

Remy was shocked to see Deryn York sitting upon a flowered love seat, sipping from a fine china cup, and, beside her, a dark-haired, dark-skinned woman of infinite beauty.

"Hello, Samson," the beautiful woman said, setting her cup and saucer down upon the coffee table before her. "It's been quite some time."

Remy could feel the magick in the woman's words, in her speech, keeping them all at bay, preventing tempers from igniting.

Deryn looked terrified, the base of her cup trembling against its saucer.

"Are you all right, Deryn?" Remy asked her.

She nodded, eyes wide as she stared at all the men and women in the doorway with their guns.

"I . . . I'm fine. . . . Really . . . I'm fine," she said.

"See," Delilah said, throwing up her hands. "She's perfectly fine."

The beautiful woman smiled, showing off perfect teeth as white as pearls. "So why don't we all calm down and turn our attention to a situation that requires our concern."

Delilah reached for her cup and saucer, reclining upon the couch as she brought the cup to her mouth.

"Deryn's daughter, for example," she said, sipping nonchalantly, dark eyes staring intensely over the rim of the fine china.

Samson began to scream, throwing back his arms and shoulders as if snapping some form of invisible restraints. "Succubus!" He lunged toward the sound of Delilah's voice. "You've worked your last spell upon me, and upon this world."

There was murder in the man's intent, and rightfully so, but this woman—this Delilah—knew something about the child that Remy had been hired to find, and if Samson were to kill her, that information might be lost.

Remy moved at the speed of thought, getting between the strongman, the coffee table, and the woman who sat behind it.

"Samson, wait," Remy said, allowing the Seraphim to emerge. The fire of Heaven burned in his veins as he placed his hand upon the man's chest.

Samson's blind eyes dropped to where his hand had fallen.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he snarled, flecks of spit shooting from his mouth. "Take your stinking hand off me and get the fuck out of the way."

"She knows something about the child," Remy said, his voice booming with the authority of one of His messengers. "Kill her, and we might never find her . . . never know what's truly going on here."

At that moment, Remy was prepared for just about anything. He could feel Samson's heart beating crazily, sense the rage churning at his core.

"Please, Samson," Remy said. "For the sake of the child."

Samson looked about to explode, his fists clenched at his sides like two wrecking balls, and Remy was prepared, prepared to unleash the full power of the Seraphim in order to keep the strongman at bay.

But it wouldn't be necessary, for Samson wrestled with his fury, managing to suppress his nearly uncontrollable anger.

"I'm good," he said, breathless with the strain as he stepped back.

Remy lowered his arm, feeling the Seraphim's disappointment that things had not come to violence.

"But this isn't over," Samson growled, directing what remained of his anger at the woman lounging upon the couch.

"Of course it isn't," Delilah said, one long, perfect leg crossed over the other. "We have an innocent child to save, and a piece of creation to retrieve."

Piece of creation?

Remy turned toward the women. "What was that?" he asked. The Seraphim continued to stir.

"It's why I'm looking for the child," Delilah said. "She has what I've been searching for . . . what I need."

Deryn was nodding furiously.

"It's why she's so different," the child's mother tried to explain. "This thing . . . this piece of . . ."

"Creation," Delilah finished. "A shard of God's power used to shape the world and everything in it. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form, and void: and darkness was on the face of the deep. Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.'"

She paused for dramatic effect, making sure it was sinking in.

It was sinking in all right.

"This seed of His holy power has existed on the earth since its formation, found by some of the earliest members of humanity, and protected."

"So how did it wind up with a six-year-old kid?" Samson asked, before Remy could.

Delilah raised a bloodred thumbnail to her mouth. "I've probably been a tad overzealous in my pursuit of it, and it sought a safe haven."

"Inside a little girl?" Samson questioned. "That doesn't make a whole lot of . . ."

But it does
, Remy thought. "The piece of creation needed a safe place," he said aloud, "a place where it could hide and be protected."

"Yes," Delilah agreed, nodding her head.

Remy looked to Deryn. "When you and your husband were with the Church of Dagon . . . you were supposed to give birth to a child who would house the power of a god. The unborn Zoe had been prepared . . . but the ritual was interrupted, and the god never took up residence."

Delilah nodded again.

"Dagon's loss was the fragment of creation's gain. The child—this special child—was the perfect place for the power to hide from me," Delilah continued, tickled by this newest revelation.

It was all starting to make a twisted kind of sense; all but one very important thing.

"Why would someone like you be interested in something as potentially powerful as this?" Remy asked Delilah, feeling the power of Heaven lunge threateningly within.

It didn't like this woman, not one bit.

"Good fucking question," Samson said, and his children grunted in agreement, clutching their weapons.

"Quite simple really," Delilah answered. "It's no secret that I've grown tired of this cursed existence, and I want it to end." She played with the crease on the leg of her slacks. "There, I've said it."

"You want to be released from your punishment?" Remy asked.

"I want to die," she said. "Are you happy now?"

"And you think the fragment . . ."

"I
know
the fragment can release me," she said. "It came to me in a dream . . . divinely influenced, I'm sure . . . and it said if I found the creation piece, I would be released from my torment, which is why I've been searching so enthusiastically."

She stood up from the couch, her movements smooth, predatory.

"I'm tired of living . . . tired of watching those I've learned to love wither and die from sickness and old age . . . tired of running from the likes of you and your bastard children," she said, staring defiantly at Samson and his brood. "I'll do anything to see it end."

Delilah placed her hands upon her shapely hips. "Will you help me do this, and save the life of the child in the process?" she asked.

"Zoe is in danger?" Remy questioned, his concern escalating.

"Oh yes," Delilah said. "It seems that a very ancient power is still very much in the picture."

It was Deryn's turn to stand now.

"He did come," the woman explained. "When the ritual was interrupted, it didn't stop him from coming. . . . He came, but instead of a new body, he was forced to go into an old one."

"The pastor of the former Church of Dagon, and the new Church of His Holy Abundance," Delilah said. "The old god temporarily lives within a shell of decaying flesh, and will be dead very soon. . . ."

"Unless?" Remy asked, not liking where this was going.

"Carl brought her there," Deryn said, her voice starting to quake with emotion. "He brought our little girl back to the one she'd been promised to."

"Dagon has the child," Remy stated.

"Dagon has the power of creation," Delilah added.

Remy knew what had to be done. The child needed to be saved, and the power of God removed from the ancient deity's possession.

"Do you know where she is?" he asked.

Delilah smiled a predator's smile, bringing the scarlet thumbnail back up to her perfect teeth as she nodded once.

"We'll have to go there," Remy said, looking at Samson and the others. "We'll have to go there and bring Zoe back home."

"And the fragment?" Delilah asked.

"I don't think it's a good idea for Dagon to possess it."

"I couldn't agree with you more," Delilah said.

She turned toward her white-haired servant amongst Samson's army.

"Mathias, tell the others we're leaving," she said.

"Yes, mistress." Mathias stepped away from his captors and disappeared into the mansion.

"And we're going where?" Remy questioned.

"I'm going to get my coat," she explained. "There's a private jet waiting for us at T.F. Green." The succubus continued on from the room.

"We can't afford to waste any more time."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T
he power that still crackled through his decaying human form made him feel more alive than he had in countless millennia.

This was but a taste . . . a taste of what it was really like. . . .

Elijah came to him, crossing the room in an utter panic, blocking his view of the child . . . the glorious child.

"Get out of the way!" the thing that was Pastor Zachariah shrieked as he attempted to crawl to his feet. But the pain was excruciating, and he crumbled to the floor.

"Pastor," Elijah whispered, kneeling down beside him, "you're hurt. . . . Let me . . ."