A Deafening Silence In Heaven - Thomas E. Sniegoski Page 0,113

sternly at the golem.

“Excuse me,” Methuselah apologized. “After everything went bad, you showed up with it, handed it over to me, and said that there might be a time when you would come back for it. You said I was to hold on to it for you until then.”

“But why would I have this?”

Gerta’s voice was calm yet commanding as she spoke to him. “Maybe you should listen to it.” She motioned to the Pitiless with her chin. “It might know something that you don’t.”

He knew that she was right, but the idea of holding the weapon, of letting it worm its way into his head . . .

Remy looked down at the weapon, feeling it pulse powerfully in his hand. He had to know how the Pitiless came to be in his possession, and the only way he could learn this was right there at his fingertips.

He just had to be brave enough—strong enough—to find out.

Remy reached for the gun, his hand wrapping around the grip, and the floor of reality dropped out from beneath him.

The Pitiless transported him to another place . . . another time . . . another moment.

Just before the end.

Before the fall of Heaven.

• • •

The images came at Remy fast and furious, combined with the overwhelming emotions of the time.

It was a moment of absolute glory—Heaven about to be reunited with its missing pieces, and the Earth about to be made part of God’s empire.

Remy was jubilant as he stood amongst a gathering of Heaven’s representatives—the angelic as well as humans touched by the divinity of God.

The Golden City hovered before them, the Almighty represented as a glowing sphere of the purest light, rays of His holy omnipotence radiating outward, calling for the lost regions to return.

For Heaven to be unified once more.

Remy could feel the anticipation in the air as the Garden of Eden and the territorial mass that had become known as Hell slowly returned to the places they had inhabited before the Great War.

But a sudden dark tremble, a vibration through the ether, warned him that something was amiss. All eyes were upon the Lord of Lords, but Remy turned his on those gathered to witness the wonder. Instincts honed by the profession he had mastered in the world of man were on full alert. Something was wrong.

Remy wandered through the gathering, scanning the crowd. He saw the Archangel Michael and his soldiers, their expressions surprisingly grim as they perched upon the shores of Eden. There were those who had fallen amidst the gathering as well, their sins about to be forgiven, their penance completed as the Morningstar was welcomed back into the family of Heaven.

But the odd feeling continued to worsen as Remy moved through the crowds, watching their euphoric expressions as Eden and Hell gradually returned to their rightful places.

Remy’s eyes were drawn to his Lord God, and he experienced a joy unlike any other as he looked upon the glowing sphere.

Then the configuration of Heaven began to shift and change as what had been excised returned with the divine cacophony of the celestial choir.

The regions were realigning. Remy could see dark towers that could only have been erected in Hell, rising up alongside the spires of the Golden City.

And from one of the towers a shape appeared, clad in armor that seemed to be forged from the heart of the morning sun. The figure leapt from the spire, wings of solid black springing from his shoulders as he glided down to gently land before the sphere of God.

Lucifer Morningstar stood before his God and did what Remy had never believed possible. The Son of the Morning knelt before God and bowed his head in acquiescence.

It was truly about to happen.

Remy stared in awe at the scene before him, the strange sensation that something was wrong temporarily forgotten.

The music of the Heavenly choir intensified, vibrating inside his skull as Heaven expanded, returning to the glory of what it had once been when the universe was young.

A tendril of light reached out from the sphere, the Lord God embracing his fallen son, and everything was well again in the cosmos.

Everything and everybody were connected.

It was all the Kingdom of Heaven.

And at that moment of cosmic bliss, something went terribly awry.

Searing flashes of terrible imagery exploded before Remy’s eyes.

A stab of gold from the corner of his eye.

Francis in the crowd, the Pitiless clutched in his hand.

His friend as he looked at Remy with eyes as dark as the longest