A Hundred Words for Hate rc-4 Page 9

  Madeline would have been so proud of him. His wife had always been the first to embrace technology. He probably wouldn’t have even owned a cell phone if it weren’t for her.

  Slowly his fingers played over the tiny keyboard, spelling out the message he would then send to Steven Mulvehill. Remy finished the message, then read it over and could barely contain his smile. He had told his friend about the wonderful old woman recently, and Steven had seemed genuinely amused, wanting to meet her. Well, here was his chance. In the message he asked if Steven would mind stopping by and checking things out, just to be sure that she was all right. As a special incentive, Remy promised the homicide cop a steak dinner at the Capital Grille and a bottle of twenty-five-year-old Macallan single-malt if he did this special favor for him.

  There was very little Mulvehill wouldn’t do for a steak and a good bottle of Scotch.

  The plane’s engine began to whine, the private jet starting to taxi down the runway, preparing to take him on to the next leg of his journey. He hit Send, watching the message disappear into the ether, and smiled as he returned the phone to his coat pocket.

  Remy was certain he’d be hearing some serious shit from Mulvehill on this one, but what were friends for if they couldn’t be taken advantage of?

  Nathan had been Jon’s closest friend.

  They had grown up together in the various Sons of Adam communities, mortal enemies at first, but gradually becoming as thick as thieves.

  And so much more.

  Jon ran his key card through the security gate and entered the biodome, placing the card back inside his pocket. Nathan had always wanted to help; he was just like that. If it would advance the cause in any way, he would be the one to try to march it through. When they’d first begun to discuss human testing in regard to the fruit of the tree, he was the first to put his name on the list.

  Nathan had described it as wanting to do something, to not sit around waiting for things to happen, but to actually contribute to things moving forward.

  I hope wherever you are, you’re happy, Jon thought angrily. There were plenty of others in the Sons who would have volunteered, others Jon wasn’t so close to. It made him feel awful, but he secretly wished that one of them had been the one to taste the fruit, and not Nathan.

  Another door slid open before him with a hiss of hydraulics, and he was hit with a blast of unusually frigid air. The air-conditioning must have been on the fritz again.

  As he moved down the silent corridor, his mind continued to wander. A chill not caused by the air-conditioning ran down his neck as he recalled the moment Nathan’s thoughts—imbued with the power of Eden—touched his mind. Jon had never experienced anything like it, and hoped never to again.

  He had been dwarfed by the immensity of it, a feeling so big that it threatened to swallow him up where he would disappear forever. Was that what returning to the Garden would be like? he wondered. Becoming part of something so big that one would lose any chance of individuality? If that was the case, he would much rather stay where he had been born.

  From birth he’d been taught about the Sons of Adam’s holy mission, and had applied himself to the rules and regulations of the order’s cause, but deep down he had never expected their beliefs would come true.

  Although he’d kept those thoughts to himself.

  And now they were that much closer to its actually becoming a reality. The Garden of Eden was coming here . . . to Earth. It was a concept that he was having a difficult time wrapping his brain around.

  Jon’s mind raced as he passed through a doorway into the cafeteria. A cup of coffee was what he needed, before the sad task at hand.

  It was strangely quiet, even for this time of day. He paused, looking around, and saw no one. Not even the cafeteria staff.

  “Huh,” he muttered to himself, moving on through the empty hall, the reason he had come there forgotten.

  Distracted from his coffee needs, he exited into another corridor, continuing on to his destination with a heavy heart.

  He’d promised Nathan that he would take care of his remains. Neither of them had been sure what would be left after the exercise, but Jon had promised to dispose of them with dignity and respect.

  It was when he’d seen Nathan’s body, after Malachi had . . .

  Go ahead, he thought. It’s true. How else could it possibly be described?

  After Malachi had killed him.

  It was as he looked down at his friend’s ruined form that he knew where he would take Nathan’s remains.

  His friend wouldn’t be around now to return to the Garden, but he could at least find peace in the beauty of the biodome’s garden. That was where Jon would take him and lay him to rest. It was the least he could do for his friend.

  Nathan’s body had been taken to one of the dome’s freezer units, where many of their medical supplies requiring refrigeration were stored. He was certain that Nathan wouldn’t have minded taking a short break there until Jon could get back to him.

  The medical wing was empty as well.

  “What is going on here today?” Jon said aloud as he entered the empty wing and went to the cold-room door. Taking a few deep breaths, he grabbed the door handle, pulled it open.

  The stretcher with Nathan’s body resting atop it was waiting for him. At least that was where it was supposed to be, he thought as he grabbed the chilly ends of the metal stretcher and pulled it from the refrigerated room.

  Another wave of sadness spilled over him as he maneuvered the stretcher down the hall and toward the exit. The Sons of Adam lived a very long time, some stretching into the hundreds of years, and it was quite disappointing—no, worse than that, tragic—that his friend wouldn’t be around to share those years with him.

  But Nathan was all about the sacrifice, especially since Malachi’s arrival to the order.

  Before the angel came, the Sons had just existed, living their dayto-day lives, caring for the father, and waiting for a sign that the sins of the first man and woman would be forgiven.

  Many believed that Malachi was that very sign, an agent of Heaven brought to them to help make their reasons for existing a reality. Jon believed that the angel had come to them with a purpose, but wasn’t quite sure if said purpose was to benefit the Sons’ cause, or something more personal. These were his own intimate thoughts, thoughts that hadn’t been uttered to a soul.

  Except for Nathan.

  Hands on the corner of the cold metal of the stretcher, Jon stopped to gaze down at the sheet-covered form lying there before him. He’d been able to hold himself together, but he felt the grief inside him build to an incalculable level, and there was no amount of strength that could hold it back.

  In the currently empty corridor he began to cry. As the tears came, memories washed over him, the two friends throughout the many years their kind were allowed to live. For a brief moment he wished that he were like all the other human beings out there, no longer special—no longer of the special line—for he would likely be close to death now, and wouldn’t have to know this pain much longer.

  He was tempted to pull away the sheet, to look upon his friend’s broken remains, but didn’t care to soil his memory of him. He remembered how he had looked in the lab . . . how he had looked before Malachi had . . .

  Killed him.

  Jon ran the back of his hand over his face, wiping away the tears and snot, wiping away the residuals of his sadness. Steeling himself, he continued to wheel the stretcher down the empty corridor on the way to what would be Nathan’s final place of rest.

  Reaching the entrance to the botanical garden, Jon walked around the stretcher to open the door. Always the efficient one, he was already reviewing the supplies that he would need in order to prepare Nathan’s grave. He knew that there were shovels inside, so that would pretty much take care of it: a shovel, and perhaps a nice rock to mark where he lay. Jon reached inside his pocket and removed something that he had brought from his room. It was a leather pouch filled with hi
s collection of marbles that he had accumulated over the years. Nathan had always admired them, and Jon thought that he would bury them with him—a piece of himself to accompany his friend. Jon was about to lose it again, so he sucked it up, preoccupying himself with the thought of where he’d need to dig, and how long it would take him to finish.

  The door started to slide open as he walked around the stretcher, but he noticed that the door had opened only three-quarters of the way. Great, he thought, something else for maintenance to look at.

  He returned to the door to check whether something was obstructing the track.

  The first body was just inside the door, a splayed arm jammed against it preventing the door from sliding completely back.

  Jon didn’t know what to think entering the botanical garden, about to ask the man—his name was Rudolf, and Jon had never really liked him all that much—what the matter was as he knelt down beside him, but Jon knew that he was dead before the words could even leave his mouth.

  Instantly slipping into emergency mode, Jon stood and headed for a phone just inside the room to the right of the doorway.

  This was when he noticed the other bodies all along the path leading into the garden. They appeared broken . . . bloody.

  Were those bite marks? he wondered with escalating horror.

  He then knew why the other areas of the dome had been so quiet—the residents were all here. Not realizing it, he had begun to walk the path, stepping over the bodies of the people he had known all his life. All dead, all wearing expressions that could best be described as shock . . .

  No . . . the look was surprise.

  Reaching the clearing, he noticed that the tropical forest was completely quiet; even without his hearing aid, he could hear that the bugs’ and birds’ voices were silenced. Maybe they knew to be silent . . . or maybe they were dead too.

  The most bodies were in the clearing, stacked like a huge pile of dirty laundry . . . dirty, bloody laundry. Jon froze, searching the green of the man-made jungle, sensing that he wasn’t alone.

  “Show yourself.”

  The words left his mouth before he could consider them, and they brought with them a response that he really didn’t care to experience.

  There was laughter from the jungle, low and rumbling, more like a growl. He could feel it low in his stomach, as well as hear it. Jon couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from; it seemed to come from all sides . . . from everywhere.

  And then there came the fire.

  It was like a living thing, leaping out from the concealment of the trees and bushes . . . tongues of flame consuming everything in their path as they made their way toward him.

  Jon spun around, running across the body-strewn path on his way to the exit. He imagined the bodies, his friends, reaching up to grab at his legs and feet, not wanting him to get away, not wanting him to survive. He could feel the fire growing in intensity behind him, nipping hungrily at his heels.

  He could see the door up ahead, the stretcher holding the body of his friend just outside it. That was his goal, he decided, feeling a tongue of fire lick at the salty wetness of sweat on the back of his neck. He wanted to reach his friend.

  If he was to die, he wanted it to be with him.

  Jon made it to the exit, passing through the doorway with one final push, jumping onto the stretcher, feeling the body of his friend beneath him as Hell opened its awful mouth to consume them all.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The airplane shuddered.

  Remy casually glanced out his window expecting to see the beginnings of a storm, but saw only cottony white clouds, so inviting that he was tempted to lay his weary head upon them.

  The jet shook again, harder this time, and now he could hear the alarms going off in the cockpit up front. His hand was reaching to unbuckle his seat belt when the plane trembled yet again, so violently that the overhead storage bins flapped open.

  “Is everything all right?” Remy called out, holding on to his seat as he made his way up the short aisle toward the cockpit.

  The alarms continued on the other side of the door as he rapped on it with his knuckle.

  “Is everything . . .”

  There was an explosion of air that could only have been the roar of decompression, followed by the shriek of the jet’s fuselage as it tried to maintain its integrity.

  The plane began to fall.

  Remy was about to kick open the cockpit door when part of the wall to his right was ripped away with the whine of twisting metal, and the screech of the wind as it rushed in to fill the void.

  Remy attempted to hold on to something—anything—as his body was wrenched toward the yawning hole.

  And through that hole he caught a glimpse—a glimpse of something large and terrible, something that had done this on purpose. Something that had willfully attacked the plane.

  Then a rush of air tore at Remy’s clothing as he lost his grip and was sucked into the void. Spinning through the clouds, he caught sight of the plane—one engine and part of a wing gone, the other engine engulfed by orange flame and leaking black, oily smoke. The cockpit was gone, shorn away, along with the pilot.

  Over the deafening roar of free fall, he could just about make out a sound, and craned his neck to face the Cherubim Zophiel, large and powerful, and as filled with rage as the last time Remy had seen him.

  The Cherubim flew past with the speed of a jet fighter, then banked around to match the speed of Remy’s descent, a trinity of faces—eagle, lion, and man—studying his form as he plummeted to Earth. Malachi had warned of this—of the hatred Eden’s sentry had for the Sons of Adam and their mission.

  The ground loomed closer, and Remy knew what he had to do, although it enraged him. He would have to call upon his other side—the side of Heaven.

  The Seraphim.

  Let’s get this over with, Remy thought. He dug deep within his psyche to where his other half waited. He was there, as he always was, sitting impatiently behind the mental barriers Remy had erected. He reached for the divine spirit, calling him forth, and the Seraphim surged forward, ferociously wild and eager to be free.

  The Cherubim flew toward Remy, all three of his mouths shrieking a cry of doom. The renegade angel was almost on Remy, reaching out to snatch him from the air, but just as his metal claws were to close about him, the Seraphim manifested in a flash of Heavenly fire.

  Zophiel wailed, rearing back from the hungry flame as Remy spread his wings, slowing his descent to face his adversary.

  “Let’s end this the way we should have a very long time ago,” the Seraphim cried over the howling winds.

  The Cherubim roared his response, moving with the speed of a lightning strike, slashing out with multihued wings as sharp and deadly as the finest blades forged in the fires of Heaven.

  Remy glided back, but he wasn’t fast enough and the tip of one of Zophiel’s wings cut a bloody line across the middle of his chest. The Seraphim was angry now. If he hadn’t been sequestered away, and had been allowed to roam free, nothing could have caused him harm.

  Coming around again, the Cherubim came at him with murder in his eyes. Let it come, the Seraphim thought, wings holding him aloft, watching as the sentry flew closer, and closer still.

  Just as he and Zophiel were about to collide—a runaway freight train about to hit a Volkswagen Beetle—Remy flew up and turned, landing on the back of his attacker.

  The Cherubim screamed, his wings flapping wildly as he attempted to dislodge the bothersome insect that had attached itself, but the Seraphim held tight, angling his body to avoid the knifelike feathers of the Cherubim’s wings.

  Remy reached out and grabbed hold of the Cherubim’s long black hair. He channeled his inner fire, igniting the sentry’s hair like a fuse, the divine power burning down its oily black length until it engulfed all three visages. The Cherubim screamed wildly as he thrashed and spun his armored body around before plunging earthward in an attempt to extinguish the flames.

&n
bsp; Spreading his wings, Remy released his grip, attempting to avoid a collision with the quickly approaching desert floor, but Zophiel had decided otherwise. The Cherubim grabbed the Seraphim’s ankle with a gauntleted hand, dragging his prey down with him.

  Remy struggled, but it was useless; the Cherubim’s grip was too powerful, and the pair struck the ground at full velocity—a mushroom cloud of sand and rock blossoming from the desert floor.

  The Seraphim crawled up from the crater, burning with rage and the desire to see his enemy vanquished, but the Cherubim was nowhere to be found. The angel fluttered his golden wings, shedding a thick layer of dust and some slivers of rock that clung to them. He was about to take to the air again, when the humanity that had been momentarily forgotten attempted to reassert its control.

  The Seraphim did not care for this, fighting the attempts to again force him down to the darkness. But the humanity was still stronger, wrestling with the warlike nature of the angel, pulling it down and forcing it to heel.

  Remy was again in control. It took a moment for his head to clear, a warrior’s rage still burning in his every muscle.

  He did not put his angelic form away entirely, still needing the ability to fly. There was part of him that would have loved to chase after his attacker, but also a part that thought of the biodome, and the safety of the Sons of Adam. What if Zophiel had come for him after first attacking the dome?

  The Seraphim had no care for the Sons or their cause. All that concerned him was to see his enemy destroyed, and he argued to be free again against Remy’s mental restraints.

  But Remy was stronger, and he kept the warrior nature at bay. Fearing for the lives of the biodome’s residents, he unfurled his wings and took flight, soaring just above the desert surface, on his way back from where he had come.

  Unnoticed, the tiny lizard emerged from beneath the sand, watching as the Seraphim took flight. It waited there patiently, watching with large, dark eyes filled with intelligence, until the angel was just a dwindling speck on the horizon.