A Deafening Silence In Heaven - Thomas E. Sniegoski Page 0,67

had ever seen.

There was that painful burning again—like a flaming rope around his throat, distracting him for just a moment.

Until he remembered hearing above the sounds of Heaven, a siren of sorts that spoke directly to him—to all creatures of a divine nature. A siren that called to them, telling them to come, telling them they must bear witness to something of great importance.

Come to Heaven . . . for Unification is upon us.

He remembered how he’d turned to her, his lovely Madeline, to tell her that he must leave her, but promised that he would return.

“And things will never be the same,” she had said wistfully as he’d petted Marlowe’s head.

And she was right.

The memory—his memory—turned to fire and chaos, the cries of a dying world deafening, his own screams joining the cacophony of the end.

Through the fire he turned to see her standing where he’d left her, in front of their Pinckney Street brownstone, her body engulfed in flames, a grinning skeleton all that remained to remind him of what had been lost.

“And things will never be the same,” the skeleton of his true love reminded him.

He’d held his hand out and seen that he, too, was in flames, which crawled up the length of his body to consume his human guise and expose his angelic nature to the nightmarish devastation that had changed the world.

Wings covered in fire exploded from his back, stirring the air and scattering the bones of his wife, to be lost amongst the countless dead claimed by the fall of Heaven.

Rising up above the conflagration, he looked down upon the apocalyptic sight in horror. His guise of humanity gone, the unnatural fire began its consumption of his divinity, his angelic flesh slowly eaten away, drifting ash adding to the blackness that now blotted out the sun.

And the angel Remiel began to scream.

Screaming for the loss of all he loved.

Screaming as the world below him died.

• • •

Remy opened his eyes and found himself looking up into the scarred visage of the Archangel Michael.

The archangel’s hand was locked tightly about Remy’s throat, and his skin was burning.

“There you are,” Michael hissed, his single eye bulging with twisted glee. “I didn’t think you were ever coming back to me.”

Remy squirmed in the angel’s grasp, but his hands were bound behind his back. “I like the new look, Michael,” he wheezed as the grip grew tighter and the flames danced upon his flesh. “It suits you.”

The archangel growled like an animal, hoisting Remy up from the ground and giving him a savage shake.

“You can’t even begin to imagine how hard it is for me to restrain myself,” Michael said. “To feel your neck snap beneath my fingers would be like a kiss from God.”

For a moment Remy believed that his neck would indeed break, the pressure on his throat causing the blood to pound in his ears, but just before the vertebrae were pulverized, the archangel threw his body to the ground.

“But I must remind myself,” Michael said, flexing his long, spidery fingers. “This isn’t all about me.”

Dots of color danced before Remy’s eyes and he coughed, the taste of pennies flooding his mouth. He managed to sit up, spitting out a wad of bloody phlegm to be absorbed by the ash collected on the ground.

Looking about his surroundings, he felt that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The Filthies stood around him, their bodies covered in horrible black scars, and as he looked upon each of them, he saw only madness in their expressions, the spark of the divine that should have been there long ago extinguished. These were merely shells of creatures once holy, seemingly unaware that what had made them what they were had died.

But across from him, bound as he was, were two familiar beings.

“Nice to see you’re still with us,” the Fossil said, lying on his side, his face a mass of blood.

One of the Filthies did not approve of the old man’s talking and jabbed the point of a filthy sword into his side. He cried out and then went limp, the pain driving him to unconsciousness.

Baarabus roared his displeasure, struggling against his bindings. “You fuckers are going to pay for that!” he bellowed.

The Filthies jumped upon him as well, jabbing at his muscular body with their spears and drawing blood.

“Enough!” Remy’s voice echoed throughout ruins.

The Filthies stopped their torture of the hellhound and stared at him with those awful eyes, most assuredly debating whether to attack him