Walking In the Midst of Fire

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Remy and the glamour-wearing Malatesta approached the entrance to Rapture.

A doorman, a huge specimen of inhumanity squeezed into a black tuxedo, was greeting people at the door and checking their keys.

“Do you have the key?” Remy asked from the side of his mouth.

“Got it,” Malatesta said, holding it up for Remy to see.

In front of them, an elderly woman and a much younger male were greeted and allowed to step inside with just a casual glance, and Remy hoped that it would be just as easy for them.

Malatesta presented the black key for the doorman to see, looking straight ahead as he was about to pass through the entrance. Remy hugged closely behind the sorcerer, thinking that maybe something would go right for them.

The doorman’s large hand planted itself in the center of Remy’s chest, stopping him.

“Excuse me, General,” the doorman said. His voice was rough, as if it were a strain to speak.

The hand resting upon Remy’s chest was like ice, and closer examination of the man showed that he probably hadn’t been alive for quite some time. Zombies were all the rage in supernatural circles, he was hearing. They never got tired, and he guessed that they seldom complained about the long hours, and the low pay. They were probably just happy not to be rotting in a grave someplace.

This particular walking dead man must have been a professional wrestler or some sort of bodybuilder before he shuffled off this mortal coil to Zombieville.

Malatesta turned, wearing a look of annoyance perfect for the face of the angel general.

“Is there a problem?”

The zombie shifted on cinder-block-sized feet. “Actually, sir, there is.”

Malatesta glared like a true champion. He’s good at this, Remy thought. Damn good.

“And what might this problem be?” Malatesta demanded in his best authoritative tone.

“We know who you are,” the zombie said. “But who is he?”

The walking dead man pointed a finger at him that looked like a big, gray Italian sausage.

Remy decided to keep his mouth shut, and trust Malatesta’s skills. If he had been working for the Vatican all these years, he must have learned something about throwing weight around.

“He is my guest,” Malatesta declared.

“Yes, of course,” the zombie stammered. “But the rules of the house state—”

“The rules of the house don’t apply to someone like me,” Malatesta growled. “Do you have any idea what my presence in your establishment does for your reputation?”

“I’m sure that—”

“I don’t think you do,” the disguised sorcerer said, stepping in close to the animated dead man.

“Sir, we must have the proper verification of all guests before—”

“He is Remiel, of the host Seraphim,” Malatesta spoke in his most booming voice. “One of Heaven’s finest warriors, who fought by my side during the Great War with the Morningstar.”

The zombie looked away from the general to fix Remy in a milky stare.

“I don’t like to brag,” Remy said with a smile and a shrug of modesty.

“I believe that is all you really need to know,” Malatesta said.

The zombie looked as though he might continue the argument, but thought better of it.

“That’s more than sufficient,” the zombie said, with a nod to the general. “Enjoy your evening, General.”

He turned his dead gaze to Remy.

“And you as well, sir.”

The doorman then looked away from both of them, before something else could arise, and began to speak with those who were lined up behind them.

“Are we going in?” Malatesta asked of him.

“I guess we are,” Remy said, following the form of the angel general through the doorway and into the building.

Remy could feel it immediately, his location shifting from the Prometheus Arms building to someplace else completely.

“Did you feel that?” Malatesta asked quietly.

“I certainly did,” Remy replied.

They were suddenly standing in front of two enormous double doors, intricately carved with depictions of various sexual acts, vases of flowers, and fruit.

“Tasteful,” Remy said.

Malatesta’s eyes seemed transfixed as they moved over the surface of the dark wood.

Remy reached for the door handles and immediately felt the pulsing beat of blaring music from the other side tickling the flesh of his hands.

“This should be good,” he said, moving the handles down, and pushing the doors open to allow them inside.

It was like a sensory attack, the music loud, with voices raised in conversation and laughter heard over throbbing dance tunes. The air was thick with the smell of cigar and cigarette smoke, as well as anything else that could be rolled and puffed upon. And there was also the smell of hundreds of sweating bodies, eager to do—or continue to do—what they came to this sinful place for.

The lights were turned down low, casting just about everything in thick, liquid shadow as Remy and Malatesta moved from the doorway and into the writhing crowd.

The room was cavernous with small alcoves in the walls, where people, and things not of the earth, were enjoying themselves in as many ways as one could, or could not conceive.

A woman holding a silver tray of drinks approached who she believed to be General Aszrus and with a sly smile handed him a golden goblet of something. Malatesta accepted the offering, and Remy watched as the woman stood upon her toes to kiss the angel’s cheek. A faint glimpse of her tongue showed as she quickly licked the side of his face, before continuing on with her tray of drinks.

Malatesta casually looked in Remy’s direction, goblet in hand, and raised it.

There was a brief pause in the music, before a new tune that sounded pretty much like what had already been playing began. Remy made his way through the lingering crowds, many of whom were locked in what appeared to be heated conversations. Every form of life that he had ever encountered in his long existence was represented here: angels and devils, beast-men, and vampires. There were things that he’d previously only glimpsed from the corners of his eyes, and had wondered whether they were even real.

And they were here, and partying hardy at the Rapture.

Remy became aware of a presence staring at him close by, and turned to look into the face of a very attractive woman. She, too, was holding a serving tray.

“Drink?” she asked him.

“What do you have?”

“What do you like?”

“How about a scotch on the rocks,” Remy said, leaning in close so that she would hear him over the racket disguised as music.

She lowered the tray and moved her hand over a glass filled with ice. There was a crackle of white energy and the glass was filled with what he had asked for.

Remy was impressed, but didn’t want to let on.

She handed him his drink with a lingering look and a grin, and angled her way back into the crowd, on to her next customer.

The scotch was good, really good, he noticed as he stopped for a sip while searching the sea of faces and bodies for a sign of Malatesta.

Remy saw that he was standing within one of the sunken alcoves locked in what appeared to be a rather intimate conversation with a woman clad in a black leather jumpsuit, its zipper pulled down past her navel.

Navigating the crowd, Remy made his way toward them, catching Malatesta’s eye as he approached.

“Ah, here he is now,” Remy heard the sorcerer say.

The woman looked in his direction and smiled predatorily.

“Hello there,” she said. He was surprised that she wasn’t licking her lips as she gave him the once-over.

“Hi,” Remy said.

“This is Morgan,” Malatesta said. “She and I enjoy each other’s company.”

Could he have said that any more awkwardly? Remy wondered. A couple more lines like that and red flags would be going up all over Rapture.

“Oh you do?” Remy said. “Is she one of the ones you were telling me about?” He sipped his drink, gazing over the rim of his glass at the woman, who covered her mouth demurely as she laughed.

“It’s not polite to talk to your friends about our personal business,” Morgan said to Malatesta, wagging a scarlet-nailed finger.

He chuckled, sipping from his goblet. Remy wondered what the golden cup contained, and whether it was healthy for the sorcerer to be drinking.

“He didn’t tell me much,” Remy interjected, causing the woman to turn her attention to him. “Only the juicy parts.”

He imagined Linda hearing him speak like that, and the beating that would have followed.

Morgan laughed, gliding closer to him.

“And how did he describe my juicy parts?” the woman asked without even cracking a smile. He was amazed that she had the ability to say something like that and not start laughing.

“Spectacularly?” Remy suggested, taking a long sip from his drink.

“Sounds about right,” Morgan said, and entwined her arm with his, leading him from the alcove. “Why don’t we go someplace where you can judge for yourself?”

Remy turned to see that Malatesta had been approached by yet another employee of Rapture. It appeared that the general was quite familiar with, and popular among, the staff of the charnel house.

“Don’t worry about him,” Morgan said, squeezing his arm. “She’s almost as good as I am.”

And as they walked, the crowds moved aside, like Charlton Heston as Moses, parting the Red Sea, leading his people to salvation.

Remy doubted that there would be anything even slightly reminiscent of salvation to be found at the end of this journey.

“I swear he’s gotten heavier,” Montagin said with exertion, holding on to Aszrus’ shoulders as they maneuvered the angel general’s corpse through the opening Francis had slit in reality from his basement apartment to where Squire was waiting.

“Maybe it’s the stink,” Francis said, gripping the corpse’s legs as he stepped through the fluttering passage. “Stink has to weigh something, right?”

Montagin came through and they prepared to lay the body down.

“Got any tarps or trash bags handy?” Francis asked, remembering how the body had leaked.

“Got a few Boston Heralds lying around,” Squire responded.

“Yeah, that’ll do,” Francis said.

The hobgoblin shot into the kitchen, returned with a small stack of newspapers, and began to lay them on the floor.

“Got it,” he said as he finished.

Francis had begun to position himself to lower the bottom half of the dead Aszrus down, when Montagin released his end, the angel general’s skull sounding like a dropped bowling ball as it bounced off the hardwood floor beneath the newspaper.

Francis just glared at the angel.

“What?” Montagin protested. “It isn’t like he’s going to feel it.”

He was about to wipe his hands on his pants when he thought better of it.

“I need to wash my hands,” the fussy angel proclaimed.

“Go right ahead,” Squire told him. “But I’m fresh out of lavender bath soaps.”

Montagin fixed the hobgoblin in a withering stare.

Squire looked right back at him, refusing to back down.

Francis knew that he liked the little guy for a reason.

Montagin left the scene disgusted as he went in search of a sink to wash his hands.

“Don’t forget to lift the seat, Mary,” Squire grumbled beneath his breath as the angel passed.

The passage Francis had cut from his apartment to here healed shut noisily with a sucking sound, leaving nothing behind to show that the tear had ever been there.

“Now what?” Francis asked.

“Now we get him someplace where it won’t matter if he stinks to high fucking hell.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Francis agreed.

Squire rubbed his stubby hands together. “First off, we need a nice piece of shadow.”

The hobgoblin was in the process of moving his sparse furniture around, so that the sun coming in from the unshaded window provided them with the largest area of shadow that they could have, when the explosion caused the apartment to shake.

“What the fuck?” Squire cried out.

Francis was already on the move, pistol in his hand as he left the living room, in pursuit of the commotion going on down the hallway in the first bedroom.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to see, and was relieved that it was only Montagin, his chest burning from where he had been struck. He rose to his feet, wings spread.

“You dare use your filthy magick upon me!” the angel bellowed, facing off against an unknown assailant in the bedroom.

A blast of crackling energy whipped out, striking where the angel had just been standing. He leapt above the latest assault, propelling himself into the bedroom with a thrust of his wings.

Francis aimed his pistol from the doorway, the racket of battle rising up from the skirmish unfolding before him.

“For the love of Christ,” he cried, slipping away his gun. “Break it up you two!”

He entered the room, careful to avoid magickal spells that were missing their intended target and striking nearby walls. If this kept up he could see some pretty hefty repair work in his building’s future.

“Knock it off!” the former Guardian angel screamed again as he watched Montagin and the sorcerer, Angus Heath, thrashing about on the floor of the bedroom.

There was a flash of divine fire, and Francis knew that things were about to get even more serious as he dove forward to grab Montagin by the shoulder, hauling him backward with a show of inhuman strength.

“Get your filthy hands off of me,” the angel said with a snarl, turning a flaming hand toward Francis.

The gun was shoved up underneath Montagin’s nose.

“I will turn the top of your head into a fucking Frisbee,” Francis snarled.

A blast of magickal energy struck Montagin from behind, causing him to cry out. He fell to the ground, his body crackling in a magickal corona.

“Oh, don’t make me threaten you, too,” Francis said, aiming his gun at Heath.

“He attacked me,” Heath proclaimed, swaying unsteadily on stumpy bare feet.

“I used the bathroom to wash my hands,” Montagin said, rising to his knees, his wings slowly fanning away the excess magickal power that had engulfed him.

“I didn’t know who you were,” Heath explained.

“Montagin, Angus Heath,” Francis said. “Angus Heath, Montagin. We all BFFs now?”

Squire appeared in the doorway. “Is it safe?” the hobgoblin asked.

“Yeah, everything’s just hunky-dory,” Francis said, putting his gun away. “Think we might be able to—”

The building shook.

“It wasn’t me,” Heath immediately responded, covering his ass.

Montagin was staring at Francis. Clearly the angel felt it, too—that certain feeling in the air when they were around.

“What the fuck now?” Squire grumbled.

“Angels,” Francis said, already on his way from the room. “We’ve just been fucking invaded.”

Constantin Malatesta wore two masks.

The woman who had brought him to the small apartment, off a winding hall away from the main lobby, stood above him as he sat, her eyes fixed upon him hungrily.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked. She’d told him that her name was Natalia, and that she had heard things about him.

Things that she wanted to experience for herself.

He didn’t know what to do; any slight deviation in his concentration could cause the spell that allowed him to masquerade as the angel general to slip, and where would he—and Remy Chandler for that matter—be then?

“A drink? Drugs? Something stronger?” Natalia asked. She had already taken his goblet and was holding it in her hands, suggestively running them along the shaft of the golden cup.

Malatesta didn’t even want to look at her, for it made his thoughts go places that he would rather they not—for the sake of the glamour spell that he wore, as well as the mask of sanity that had been his for these many years, since being indoctrinated into the ways of the Keepers.

Two masks that could potentially fall away if . . .

Natalia tossed the goblet aside and dropped to her knees in front of him.

“Or we could just begin with this,” she suggested, leaning into him, resting her arms on his legs as he sat. One of her hands began to wander in the direction of his crotch.

Panic—sheer, electric panic—shot through him.

Malatesta suddenly stood, nearly knocking the woman over.

Natalia appeared shocked, but then began to laugh.

“I know Morgan is your usual, but there’s no need to be shy,” she told him with a throaty chuckle.

Not knowing what to do, he fixed his gaze upon the golden goblet lying there, and snatched it up from the floor.

“I think I will have something to drink,” he said, just to have something to say, doing everything in his power to maintain his masquerade.

“You go right ahead,” she told him. “We’ll have many hours to get used to one another . . . many hours to play.”

He felt his heart begin to hammer in his chest as he approached the bar cabinet in the corner of the room. Letting his eyes wander over the multitude of bottles, he settled on what he thought was whiskey, and poured himself a full cup.

It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult; he’d been trained for years by the Keepers to keep these dangerous feelings in check.

To keep the Larva locked away.

Malatesta had been sixteen when first approached by the Keepers. At that time he was imprisoned in a boy’s reformatory for crimes of sexual deviancy against the women of his village. Constantin had been told by the village priest that he had a devil living inside of him, for he had been born out of wedlock, and on the Sabbath. Malatesta would struggle with that evil spirit infestation for as long as he was alive, the priest had said. In moments of lucidity, he would pray that he would be kept locked away for his own good, and for the good of the world. Nobody, especially those of the female persuasion, would be safe if he was allowed to roam free.

But his condition did not cause the Keepers concern; in fact, they had sought him out because of it.

Malatesta stiffened, spilling the contents of his goblet as the woman came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest.

“I didn’t figure you for shy,” Natalia said into his back, her eager hands caressing his chest and stomach.

He began to find himself aroused, and with that, so was the Larva—the evil spirit locked away inside him.

The Keepers believed he was perfect for their cause, a lost soul already infected by the blight of the supernatural—these were the types that they were looking for: those already inclined to the ways of the weird. And they had been right. Once they secured his release from the reformatory, they brought him to a secret monastery where his training began in earnest.

But first they showed him how to keep the monster inside him in check, and for many years, other than the occasional backslide when he was younger, foolish, and overconfident, he had done just that, and had continued to do so while serving his Vatican masters.

Until now.

The Larva was fully awake, clawing at his insides, demanding to be paid attention to. Malatesta fought to remember all that he had been taught, every last bit of the minutiae he had been shown to control the filthy spirit that resided within him.

Natalia’s hands were all over him, traveling down to the forbidden place that grew hard as she teased him. It was like ringing a dinner bell for the damnable fiend inside him.

Using all the strength he could muster, Malatesta held on to the beast, but in doing so felt the glamour spell begin to slip.

And he could not allow that.

Malatesta abandoned his drink, spinning himself around to face the woman who gazed at him longingly. The spirit was there, taking full advantage of this weakness. It grabbed Natalia by the shoulders in a grip surely meant to hurt.

The woman gasped as he squeezed, the monster inside him wanting to turn the flesh and bone in his grasp to a red pulp that would ooze from between his fingers.

Constantin was expecting her to cry out; the look in her eyes was one of shock and awe. The Larva liked that. It would feed off of her fear, but slowly. It had been a very long time since it had fed, and it wanted to take full advantage of the meal that was being presented.

Her mouth opened, and he prepared himself for the inevitable screams, but surprisingly, they did not come.

“That’s it,” Natalia said, her face flushed from the pain he was inflicting. “Show me what you can do. . . . Show me what you like.”

Malatesta was shocked by the words, but the spirit—the spirit had just been given the main course. He was nauseated by its excitement, its unbridled enthusiasm, as it tore free of any restraint that he had managed to maintain.

Though he wanted to look away, he couldn’t. His eyes—now the demon’s eyes—were locked upon their prey. Malatesta wanted to say that he was sorry, and that he would pray for her soul when the atrocity was complete, but the Larva refused to let him as it picked the woman up from the floor and savagely threw her across the room, where she struck a high part of the wall, leaving behind a bloody impression before dropping to the bed, and rolling onto the floor.

Malatesta wanted to cry out his sorrow, but the Larva had taken that away as well, replacing it with a hysterical laugh.

Temporarily sated, he was able to restrain the beast, to use the mental constraints taught to him by the Keepers to wrestle the beast into submission.

Malatesta leaned upon the bar, breathing heavily from the exertion of keeping the monster from emerging again while also maintaining the glamour. He thought about leaving the room and finding Remy Chandler before his act was discovered, and they were all put in jeopardy.

He walked toward the door, but was compelled to stop—to stare at the body of Natalia. The bloody smear on the wall above the bed told him that she was injured, quite possibly even dead, but he needed to know.

The Larva chattered excitedly inside his head, eager to deface the woman’s body in some foul way; but Malatesta remained strong, holding the leash tight.

Natalia lay crumpled upon the floor, her limbs bent in ways that suggested to him bones broken in more than one place. And the way her head hung limply to one side . . .

He believed that she might be dead.

The Vatican sorcerer had begun to utter a special prayer for the dead when he saw the body twitch. For a brief moment he was overjoyed by the idea that he hadn’t killed her, but was still nauseated by what he—the Larva—had been allowed to do.

Compelled to move closer, Malatesta found himself kneeling before the woman, reaching out to lay a comforting hand upon a leg bent disturbingly in the wrong direction.

Natalia’s eyes came open, staring.

He could not contain the gasp that escaped his lips as she began to thrash, hauling herself upright against the bed.

Wanting to tell her to stop before she could injure herself further, Malatesta remained strangely silent, watching entranced as she adjusted herself accordingly, setting limbs and bones straight, the way they should have been.

Natalia saw that he was watching, and laughed.

“I knew the bad angel that Morgan told me about was in there somewhere.” She adjusted her arm, bone grinding against broken bone. “Just give me a minute to heal, baby,” she told him, her lips stained with blood.

“Then we can really have ourselves a party.”