A Deafening Silence In Heaven - Thomas E. Sniegoski Page 0,20

to do more, but . . .”

Mulvehill found himself going to her, placing a comforting, supporting arm around her.

“I know there’s only so much we can do for him.” He squeezed her tighter, hoping that they could somehow support each other then.

“Where is Francis now?”

“He left a while ago,” she told him. “He went to get the physician, to bring him back here.”

“Okay,” Mulvehill said, taking the info and processing it. His eyes kept going to Remy, lying there so still. It didn’t seem right for him to be this way. He was a force to be reckoned with, and to see him so defenseless filled Mulvehill with an unnatural panic. What did this mean for the rest of the world? Who was keeping the boogeyman from the front door?

“He’s going to be all right,” Mulvehill suddenly blurted out, looking to Linda for backup. But she just stared. “He has to be.”

There was a noise from the kitchen, and they both looked in that direction, while Marlowe barked and bounded from their side, ahead of them, to check things out.

Linda followed him. When they noticed that Marlowe had come to a complete stop just outside the kitchen, hunched and growling, hackles raised, they stopped as well.

“What is it?” Linda asked Marlowe, about to go around the animal.

Mulvehill wasn’t sure, but instinct made him grab hold of her arm, preventing her from going any farther as he reached for the Glock holstered on his belt.

Pulling her behind him, Mulvihill entered the kitchen. The back door was open, moving lazily in the gentle breeze finding its way inside. Marlowe’s unease had intensified, the dog barking crazily, his gaze fixed on a corner of the kitchen.

All he saw was a patch of shadow, and he was about to tell the dog to be quiet as he checked out the yard, when something moved in the corner of the room.

It dislodged itself from the shadows, a vaguely human shape wearing a tattered cloak that seemed to change color as the figure pushed off from the wall to come at him.

Mulvehill knew exactly what he was facing, having killed one of the creatures in his own apartment only hours ago. He aimed the pistol, firing on the assassin as it drew its own fearful weapon from beneath its cloak, a gun seemingly made from the skeleton of some freakish animal. The creature was fast, ducking beneath his shots as it aimed its skeletal gun.

He caught sight of Linda, frozen in the doorway, and screamed something unintelligible, hoping she would understand and run for cover. Mulvehill fired again, buying them some time, praying that he might kill yet another of the monstrous assassins, but from the corner of his eye he saw the still shape of Remy Chandler—an angel warrior of Heaven, laid low by one of these very things—and realized that his luck had likely run its course.

The creature flowed to one side, easily evading his shot, the bullet burying itself in the plaster wall behind it, as it aimed its own grotesque weapon and prepared to fire.

Marlowe lunged with a guttural growl, hitting the killer like a runaway freight train, throwing the weight of his eighty-pound body into the assassin’s side, causing the skeletal weapon to spit its shot into the ceiling.

The creature screamed something in a foul-sounding tongue as it recovered its footing, lashing out at the attacking dog. Marlowe did not let up, showing a ferocity that Mulvehill would never have imagined. The Labrador sank his teeth into the assassin’s wrist, holding on and shaking the limb violently as the creature flailed. Mulvehill brought his weapon up, wanting to take another shot but afraid he might hit the attacking Marlowe.

There was a flash, the glint of light off something metal, and Mulvehill saw that a knife had suddenly appeared in the creature’s hand. He screamed the dog’s name in warning, still trying desperately to aim his gun, but the shot was not there, and he watched in horror as the assassin prepared to use the knife on its attacker—

But instead the hooked blade fell from his grasp.

Mulvehill was stunned, even more so when the assassin pitched forward and fell face-first to the floor, an axe buried in its back.

From behind, a short, squat figure climbed out of a patch of shadow as if climbing up and out of a hole.

“Sorry I’m late,” the grotesque little man said as he stomped over to the body of the assassin and pulled the axe from