Mean Streets

Remy looked to Armaros for an answer.

"Sariel is dead, but the Grigori still live," he said, holding the Chimerian children. They were falling asleep, their large heads bobbing. "They won't give up that easily. We're going to need a safe place until some of this dies down."

"Troublemaker," Francis said from the side of his mouth, his comment directed at Remy.

"You know me," Remy responded with a shrug.

Francis nodded, rolling his eyes.

"Where will you go?" Remy asked Armaros, who had already started to turn away from them.

"Perhaps it is better that you don't know," the fallen angel said, carrying the sleeping orphans farther into the darkness. "Perhaps it's time for the Chimerian to again become lost to the world."

To be swallowed up by the gloom.

FOURTEEN

Remy returned to the cottage in Maine, not really sure why; it seemed as good a place as any at the moment. He wasn't ready to resume his life, to pick up where it had left off with Madeline's passing.

It was all too fresh. He didn't know if there would ever come a time when it wouldn't still be too fresh.

There had been a few inches more of snow, the winter's flailing last attempts to hold on before the inevitable.

He knew the feeling.

Sitting in the wicker chair on the front porch, Marlowe lying beside him, he tried to imagine life without her. She had been his hold on the world, the thing that kept him from becoming like the Grigori, and the others of his heavenly ilk.

She was his soul. And now, with her gone…

Remy tried to think of something else-anything else.

A few days past, as much as he was loath to admit it, the fallen angel Sariel had provided him with something he desperately needed. Something that took him away from his thoughts and pain.

Distraction.

If there was one thing for which he owed the Grigori leader, it was that. He had temporarily taken Remy from his sadness, and he had liked how it felt.

He crossed his legs, pulling the cuff of his jeans down below his ankle, covering the top of his work boot. From the porch he stared out over the driveway, into the dark woods at the snow-covered trees, and beyond.

Staring into the future.

"What?" Marlowe asked, suddenly alerted, following Remy's gaze, probably hoping that his master had seen some food attempting to escape.

The dog scrambled to his feet with a bark, walking to the edge of the porch and sniffing the cool air, just in case.

"Do you see it?" Remy asked, feeling the darkness calling to him.

Wo, "Marlowe grumbled, turning back to him, his thick black tail starting to wag nervously.

Remy smiled, placing both feet on the floor and leaning forward in the chair, hands open to Marlowe.

Marlowe came to him happily, eating up the affection.

"It must've been nothing," he told the dog, allowing the animal to lick his face.

But Remy knew it was there, waiting to take him away.

A diversion from the heartache.

A distraction found in the affairs of angels.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

A martial arts enthusiast whose resume includes a long list of skills rendered obsolete at least two hundred years ago, Jim Butcher turned to writing as a career because anything else probably would have driven him insane. He lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife, his son, and a ferocious guard dog. You can visit his Web site at www.Jim-Butcher.com.

Simon R. Green is a New York Times bestselling author. He lives in England.

Kat Richardson lives on a sailboat in Seattle with her husband and two ferrets. She rides a motorcycle, doesn't own a car or a TV, shoots target pistol, and has been known to swing dance, sing, and spend insufficient time at the gym. You can visit her on the Web at www.katrichardson.com.

Thomas E. Sniegoski is a full-time writer of novels and comics. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his wife, LeeAnne, and their Labrador retriever, Mulder.

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