“We’re not supposed to feel Hell here.”
“You’re right,” Remy said, shrugging the hand away and climbing out of the car. “We’re not.
“And that’s what makes me so goddamn nervous.”
As much as it frightened him to admit it, the essence of Hell had indeed come to Newbury Street.
Steeling himself against the feelings of utter despair, fear, and hopelessness wafting down the street at him like a bad stink riding on a gentle summer wind, Remy forced himself forward, fighting his way toward Francis’ brownstone.
The sidewalks and street were filled with people, lying where they had fallen—first affected by the waves of misery leaking out from the nether regions, some trembling and crying, others so sickened, so traumatized by what they were experiencing, that they had fallen into a kind of coma, puddles of vomit pooling at their heads.
The closer Remy got to the brownstone, the harder it became for even him to continue. His mind became crowded with thoughts of failure—of the crimes he’d committed against his own kind in the name of God. He saw the death of his enemies—his brothers—his sword cutting them down. With each strike of his sword—each death—the journey down Newbury Street became more difficult.
Remy stopped, pummeled by the memories, the guilt, of his ancient past. Violently shaking his head, trying to force away the overpowering thoughts, he glanced at Madach there beside him.
The fallen angel hugged himself, tears streaming down his face as he gazed fearfully ahead.
“I can’t go back there,” he said shaking his head. “I’ve done my penance and I won’t go back—I can’t go back.”
The miasma of anguish that enveloped them was nearly suffocating; Remy felt his legs begin to grow limp, and he was tempted—oh, so tempted—to lie down on the street, curling up into the tightest ball that he could imagine, to escape the sensations he was experiencing.
Anything of importance had left his mind; all he could think about, all that he could dwell upon, was the failure to his own, to his Lord God Almighty.
To Madeline.
It was as if he’d a received a shot of pure adrenaline directly to his heart, the image of his wife’s smiling face, like the rays of the sun, burning away an oppressive fog. Thoughts of her loss, and of how he had failed her on so many levels, niggled at the edges of his memory, but they had not the strength to dampen the joy and love he felt for her still.
Remy straightened, focusing on his surroundings. They were less than two blocks away.
Madach had dropped to the street. He sat there rocking back and forth, head buried in his hands.
“Get up,” Remy said, reaching down to haul the fallen angel up by the arm.
“I can’t…,” he complained.
“You can and you will,” Remy stated firmly, using this moment of clarity to propel himself and his companion forward. “If it wasn’t for you, this wouldn’t be happening. You’re coming with me just in case I need a hand.”
He pulled the struggling Madach along, maneuvering him through the body-strewn street until they finally reached the steps of the brownstone.
Wave after wave of sensations, the likes of which Remy had never felt before, washed over him. Hell had indeed come to Earth and it was leaking from the brownstone.
Madach was a quivering wreck, trying to sit down on the building steps, to hide from the destitute feelings that threatened to cripple him.
“I… I just can’t,” the fallen said, his voice a pathetic squeak. But Remy would not allow him to sit down, holding on to his arm and dragging him up the stairs toward the door.
The fallen angel’s complaints fell on deaf ears, Remy’s only concerns being that he get inside before he himself was reduced to a quivering pile of jelly. He had to know what was going on. He had to know the fate of his friend.
Remy opened the heavy wooden door and pushed Madach in ahead of him. The inside foyer door was open and Remy dragged Madach through the lobby to the door to the basement and Francis’ apartment.
Reaching for the doorknob, he felt the pulsations of the infernal place radiate from the crystal knob, a warning of what he was likely to find on the other side.
Again he steeled himself with the memory of Madeline, and like a suit of armor, it protected him against the relentless onslaught of the dispiriting atmosphere.
He took the knob and turned it, pulling the door open and letting it bang off the wall as he stood in the entryway looking down the stairs. Voices drifted up from the room below, voices that sounded familiar.
Madach shuffled closer. “We’re going… we’re going down there?” he asked, gulping noisily as he stared down the steep set of steps that led to the living area below.
The voices continued, followed by some menacing music that strangely enough seemed to fit the situation. Eerie pulses of light caused bizarre shadows to dance around what little they could see of the room waiting at the bottom.
“Looks like it,” Remy said, already beginning his descent.
He stopped momentarily to give Madach a look, making sure that he wasn’t going down alone.
The fallen angel pulled his act together, using the banister as he leaned against the wall, taking each of the descending steps slowly.
They were closer to the source. It was all Remy could do to keep from blacking out with the intensity of malevolence that hung in the air like smoke.
“We’ve got to keep it together,” he told Madach, who didn’t appear to want to leave the next-to-the-last step. He stood there, body rigid, petrified.
“You’re doing fine,” Remy told him, walking into the living space. “Don’t make me haul you off those steps.”
His words having their desired effect, Remy listened as Madach descended the remaining stairs and followed at his back.
Nothing appeared abnormal. The strange, shifting light and the sound of voices were caused by the television set. Remy took note that Francis had been watching Jaws. There was a half-eaten sandwich and cup of coffee sitting on the table, next to Francis’ chair.
“Where is he?” Madach asked through trembling lips.
Remy didn’t answer, approaching the television and turning the volume down to nothing. He hated to do it. His favorite scene was on: Quint’s speech about being on the Indianapolis.
But it didn’t become completely quiet.
He saw that Madach was carefully looking around the space, zeroing in on the source of the additional sound.
“It’s coming from over there,” he said, pointing with a nearly lifeless hand at the narrow corridor that ended with the worn door to Hell.
Remy moved down the hallway, the noise growing louder the closer he got to the door.
“I don’t think… I don’t think you want to go down there,” Madach said at his back, and Remy had to agree.
He didn’t want to go there, but there really wasn’t much choice.
Madach stopped at the edge of the darkened corridor as Remy continued.
The door was closed, but a radiance of palpable hopelessness emanated off the paint-blistered surface of the wood, and the sounds coming from the other side—he hadn’t a clue how to describe them. They were like the raging of a powerful storm, the sounds of nature’s fury muffled only by the fragile barrier that kept the storm at bay.
Something was wrong on the other side of that door.
Horribly, horribly wrong.
Remy wanted to quit, to drop down to the floor, allowing the sins and failures of his very long life to wash over him, to drag his body out into an ocean of anguish but Madeline helped him to fight, her memory urging him on.
The doorknob was both excruciatingly hot and numbingly cold in his grasp. As he was about to turn it, he looked to the end of the hall to see Madach standing there. The fallen looked as though he had aged twenty years, his body stooped from the Hellish emissions that pummeled them.