Julia ignored him, her back turned to the threats as she continued to gnaw on the special treat that she already had.
“I believe you’ve brought something here to sell me?” Byleth prompted.
“Yes,” Mason answered, shooting a disdainful look at his monkey before turning his attentions toward Byleth. “Yes, I have, and let me say this time I believe I’ve outdone myself.”
Mason moved the toggle on the arm of his chair, spinning the conveyance around.
They all followed him toward the table.
Remy sensed it immediately, a sudden unease permeating the atmosphere of the garage. He noticed that Byleth was looking at him, that stupid grin that he wanted to smack from his face present again.
“I’m assuming you can feel that?” Remy asked him.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” the Satan answered. “That’s power you’re experiencing,” he told his former friend. “You’re now in the presence of objects that can initiate change.”
Remy wanted desperately to move, to grab the Satan by the front of his shirt and shake some sense into him, but that wasn’t going to happen as long as Procell kept on with his muttering.
“You’re not seeing the big picture,” Remy said. “And I’m sorry to say that neither am I. There’s something else going on here besides the fight over ownership of these weapons, but I just don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, and something tells me it’s gonna be too late once I do.”
Byleth dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “I’ve got all the pieces I need,” he said, moving closer to the table, eyeing the transport cases. “Once they’re mine, I dare anybody to try and fuck with me.”
Remy didn’t like what he was feeling. It reminded him of that uneasy sensation that built in the air just before the full fury of an electrical storm was released. He would’ve bet good money that something was about to happen, and double or nothing that it wasn’t anything good.
“Madach, I’ll let you do the honors,” Mason said, and Remy noticed a lone figure who had been standing by the black van as he came toward the table. He hadn’t paid him much attention until now.
He was a fallen, and Remy watched him carefully as he approached the cases. The former angel was nervous, his hands visibly trembling as he undid the latches on the first of the cases.
The way he was dressed—paint-stained jeans and work boots, heavy hooded sweatshirt—was as a working stiff. There was something oddly familiar about this particular fallen angel, but Remy couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“Quickly,” Mason urged with a lopsided grin. “I think the Satan here is going to be very happy to see what I’ve brought for him.”
Madach stopped before undoing the last of the latches on the final box. “What we brought him,” he said in a firm, yet very soft voice.
Mason glared.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s what we brought him,” the fallen explained with emphasis, to be certain that Mason understood. “You and me. I came to you with the product and you said we’d bring it to him together… partners.”
Julia leapt up and down excitedly in her master’s lap, pulling at her loose-fitting diaper, as if sensing the growing agitation in the room, and maybe something more.
“Of course,” Mason conceded, turning his temporarily embarrassed face back to Byleth. “Madach was instrumental in me getting these items.”
Byleth nodded, eyes riveted on the cases lying on the table. “I appreciate his efforts,” the Satan said. “And perhaps, after the transaction is completed, we can discuss how appreciative I am.”
This seemed to satisfy Madach, and he finished with the last of the latches, flipping the lid open, and then moving back to the others to do the same, exposing the special contents to their potential owner.
And it was a look, something briefly expressed in the eyes of the fallen angel, that at last jarred Remy’s memory as to where he had encountered this person—this Madach—before.
It had been just days ago, in the entryway of Francis’ Newbury Street brownstone. Madach had been leaving the building as Remy had been coming in. He had reacted strangely to Marlowe, afraid that the dog was going to hurt him. Remy distinctly remembered wondering if that particular fallen would fall in with the Denizens, or lead a repentant life as was expected of him.
So much for being repentant.
Byleth looked inside each of the cases, eyes twinkling excitedly. He stopped, reaching down to remove something wrapped in plastic. Eagerly he tore away the covering.
The Colt Peacemaker glistened like gold in the harsh fluorescent light of the garage. Byleth held the six-shooter before him. Remy could only imagine what that piece of violence had to say.
The Satan examined the weapon’s loading chamber, his smile growing so wide that it could split his face.
“It’s loaded,” he said, aiming down the barrel of the gorgeous weapon.
“Strangely enough,” Mason gurgled. “It always seems to be that way, even after we’ve taken the bullets out.”
Like a kid at Christmas, Byleth placed the pistol back inside its case, moving on to the next one. He gasped, and as if carefully reaching for a newborn pup, he put his hands inside coming away with an ancient battle-axe. Byleth hefted the heavy piece, holding it out before him, a crazy person’s smile upon his face. As he watched helplessly, Remy was stricken with a sense of dread so immediate that if he had been able to, he would have dropped to the ground and covered his head.
There didn’t appear to be anything special at all about the axe, the iron weapon tarnished with age, the edges of the blade stained with something dark that he guessed could’ve been blood. But like the daggers, the ancient weapon had a voice, and it cried out to anyone with the ability to listen, and it was deafening.
“Something isn’t right,” Remy warned as he looked around the garage.
Procell remained undistracted from his task, while Mulciber came at him unexpectedly to cuff him on the back of his head, knocking him to the floor.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” the bald fallen snarled.
On his hands and knees, Remy felt the floor begin to tremble.
A look of confusion registered on Mulciber’s face. Momentarily distracted from Remy, he was feeling it too.
The fallen with the broken nose looked back to Remy with questioning eyes as the vibrations coming up through the floor intensified.
“I told you something was wrong,” Remy said.
“Satan?” Mulciber called out to his master, he too sensing that things were not how they were supposed to be.
Byleth ignored him, swinging the battle-axe in the air. Remy could only imagine the slideshow of countless lives cut down in the blade’s lifetime playing inside the Satan’s head.
Mulciber yelled out, this time a little louder, the vibration at their feet growing worse. Procell noticed now, the chanting of the spell that kept Remy mobilized slowing considerably. And still the Denizen leader wasn’t listening.
“Hey, dumb-ass,” Remy finally yelled, bringing all the attention to him.
Axe in hand, Byleth snarled. Remy knew what he wanted to do with that killing tool, but he doubted the Satan would get that chance. There were other, more pressing matters, soon to be concerned with.
Remy’s outburst finally drew the Satan’s attention to the fact that something was wrong. The air was thick with the sense of menace.
“What is that?” Byleth asked, looking about the room. The alarms on the sports cars were triggered, filling the confined space of the garage with blaring horns and flashing headlights.
Remy’s eyes were drawn to a section of floor, cracks like bolts of lightning zigzagging across the hard surface before the ground erupted.