He hadn’t the slightest idea what could be done to cure this illness, and, to be honest, was unsure if it wasn’t already too late. Looking about, he saw what he had not noticed before, the patches of tarnish that stained the shiny surfaces of their armor, the gray haze that hung over the city in the distance like an abandoned spider’s web, a hint of something sickly sweet lingering in the breeze that could very well have been decay.
“Will you fight with us, brother?” Michael asked, holding out the blade of his sword toward Remy.
The pounding of flapping wings filled the air again, and two angels not of the warrior class flew down to land on either side of the Archangel. Each was holding a pitcher of fragrant water and watched Remy with wary eyes.
“Allow them to cleanse the stain of Hell from your person,” Michael said as the two angels slowly stepped forward. “Then you will once again be allowed to pass through the Gates of Heaven.”
Remy started to move away and the advancing angels looked nervously back to Michael.
“What is it?” the Archangel asked. “Is there something wrong?”
Remy slowly nodded. “There is,” he said. “And the sad thing is, there is nothing I can do to fix it.”
The Archangel sheathed his weapon. “You do understand that you are to be welcomed back into the fold,” he explained. “That your desertion of duty is to be overlooked as restitution for the services that you performed in the service of Heaven.”
Remy shook his head. “I don’t want to come back,” he told the warrior. “I was given a task by the Morningstar… to deliver the message that he was free, and the sad fact that the war isn’t over. I’ve done that now, and now I’m through here.”
Michael gripped the hilt of his sword tightly. “How does it feel to abandon everything that you are?” the Archangel asked, malice dripping from each and every word.
It couldn’t have hurt worse if the angel had driven his blade through Remy’s chest.
“I’ve changed,” Remy told him. “It isn’t what I am anymore.”
He couldn’t stay. The war in Heaven had nearly destroyed him once; he wasn’t about to give it the chance to do so again.
“What are you?” the Archangel Michael asked of him. “What are you if not of Heaven?”
He’d believed that it was dead—or at least close to being that way—but he had been mistaken. Remy felt his humanity, weak and buried so very deep, but still alive. It fluttered at the question, finding the strength to fight.
To survive.
And with the realization that it still lived, he turned away from the gathering of angels, from Heaven itself.
Feeling the pull of Earth upon him.
The pull of the world that had become his home.
The journey from Heaven to Earth was a long one.
Remy lost track of time as he drifted in the void between worlds, descending from on high, moving through one plane of reality to the next.
Some of these were dreadful worlds, full of dreadful creatures that would have liked nothing more than to feed upon the flesh of the divine. And through those fearsome worlds Remy traveled, avoiding conflict when he was able, and, if he needed to, vanquishing any challenger that dared try and prevent him from reaching his destination.
The journey was long and hard, but the promise of what awaited him at the end of this long journey was enough to sustain him.
In a vast sea of black, waiting for the gentle tug of the world he so longed for, Remy floated, wrapped within his wings of golden brown.
Fragments of memory that he believed lost rose to the surface of his resting mind. He hadn’t lost them. They were still there, just buried very deep. And as he floated in the darkness of the void, continuing the long journey home, he carefully stirred them to the surface.
Reacquainting himself with his humanity.
“So it wasn’t like… a hallucination, since I’d been gut shot and all,” Steven Mulvehill said as he raised his cup of coffee to his mouth, all the while watching him.
Remy gazed out over the city of Boston from the patio of Massachusetts General Hospital, where the homicide detective was still recovering from his gunshot wound. He almost hadn’t made it.
Almost.
“Would you believe me if I told you it was?” Remy asked him.
Mulvehill barely took a sip of his drink, the intensity of his stare showing that he was seriously thinking about the question, and its answer.
“No,” he said finally. “Even though I know it doesn’t make a lick of fucking sense, I know what I saw… what I experienced.”
“I could deny it,” Remy answered. He was watching the birds fly above the city, missing the glorious feel of wind beneath his wings. “Who’s going to believe that you actually saw an angel, other than the truly devout, and some others that have a tendency to skip their meds?”
Remy tore off a piece of bagel and placed it in his mouth.
“But you’re not going to?” the detective asked. “Deny it.”
“Not to you,” he answered, chewing his breakfast. Remy picked up his napkin and wiped stray crumbs from his mouth. “Nope, I made my bed and now I have to lie in it.”
Mulvehill’s face screwed up. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean, Plato?”
Remy laughed.
“Means that I’ve got to deal with what I’ve done. I showed you what I am, and now we both have to live with it.”
“You thought I was gonna die, didn’t you?” Mulvehill asked. “You didn’t think you were gonna have to deal with this.”
Remy shrugged, having some more of his coffee.
“How many others know… you’re like that?” the detective asked.
“My wife, my dog, some business associates, but they’ve got some interesting qualities of their own,” Remy answered. He’d finished his coffee and didn’t want any more of the bagel.
“Do you want the rest of this?” he asked Mulvehill.
The detective shook his head, turning the wheelchair slightly to look out over the city. They were both quiet, wrapped up in their own thoughts.
“They say I’ll probably be going home Friday,” Mulvehill said.
“That’s good, right?” Remy asked him. “You’re ready to go home, aren’t you?”
The man nodded once, looking back to the angel sitting across from him at the patio table.
“Yeah,” he said, and paused. Remy could see him reviewing his next words carefully. “But what happens after that?”
Remy leaned back in the chair, folding his hands on his stomach. “I guess it all depends on how long it takes for you to get back on your feet. After that, you’ll go back to work… light duty at first, slowly working your way back to where you were.”
Mulvehill leaned in closer to the table so that others wouldn’t hear.
“You don’t get what I’m talking about,” he said to the angel. “Knowing what I know now… that something like you actually exists… it changes everything.”
“I guess it does,” Remy agreed. “And for that I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to be afraid.”
“I’m afraid now,” Mulvehill said, his gruffness suddenly pulled away like a curtain to reveal a man confronted with the reality of something so much bigger than himself.
“And here I was thinking I was doing you a favor. The next time you get mortally shot, remind me to look the other way.”
The detective at first appeared stunned, but as the smile began to form on the angel’s face, the two of them began to laugh.
The pull on Remy was stronger now, the current that he traveled through the void bringing him closer to his destination. He had no idea how much longer he still had on his journey, or even how long it had been thus far. All he knew was that it was a distance that must be traversed in order to return home.