The cold nighttime air felt charged, but it was the frenzied barking of multiple dogs in the distance that told Remy where to go.
He moved across the back lot, past an obstacle course of some kind, and toward a larger, single-story structure that was the kennel. The closer he got, the louder and more frantic the dogs became. Remy listened to the barks, hearing the panicked message in their cries. They all had one thing in common: they were all concerned for Jackie’s safety.
He reached the back of the kennel, and saw the open door. That strange sensation still clung to the air, and he followed its trail into the building, senses on full alert.
It was even louder inside, the dogs frantically carrying on in response to what was playing out before them. Remy came around a section of cages, catching a glimpse of the woman in the blue sweat suit with the jet-black dye job, standing over the unconscious form of Jackie Kinney.
He stepped into the aisle and caught the woman’s attention. A look of surprise passed across her features, before she looked back to the unconscious woman on the floor.
“Huh,” she said, eyes fixed to Jackie Kinney. “Petey was right, it was you.”
Remy cautiously moved closer.
The older woman looked at him from the corner of her eye. “He said that we had to do this now, or we wouldn’t get the chance . . . that you were here to stop us.”
He stopped moving, watching as her lipstick-covered lips twisted in a crazy smile.
“Did you see the look on her face when I said our names?” the old woman asked Remy. “Patricia Ventura and Petey.” She returned her intense stare to Jackie, still lying motionless upon the ground. “It was like she’d seen a ghost.”
Strangely, the dogs in the kennel stopped barking. Remy could feel their eyes upon him, as they stared out through the mesh of their cages.
“Are you Patricia Ventura?” he asked her.
She nodded. “I am.”
Something moved in the shadows by the floor, and Remy watched as the tiny black dog approached Jackie’s body, its small shape suddenly shifting and blending, seeming to absorb the shadows around it, transforming into something monstrous that reached down with a black, clawed hand to the unconscious dog trainer, hauling her up from the floor.
“And this is Petey,” Patricia said.
Remy lunged toward the creature that seemed to be composed entirely of shadow. As much as he hated to do it, he tapped into the nature that resided deep within, drawing upon the power of Heaven at the core of his being, coaxing the Seraphim forward to help him deal with the fearsome threat he was about to confront.
Through a warrior’s eyes, Remy watched as the creature called Petey reacted, its movements quicksilver fast. Jackie’s body was cast aside, and Petey came at him, immersing him in the darkness of its mass.
The black of the beast seeped through his clothes, and into his flesh, permeating his very soul, and Remy felt an anger—a rage—that threatened to overwhelm him, and to unleash the full fury of the angelic essence that was held in check within the human guise that he wore.
An angelic essence that, if roused to anger, could burn the world to a cinder.
—
Marlowe was a good dog, he really was, but still he stood at the open door, tempted to go farther. The Labrador lifted his snout and sniffed at the air. His Remy was there on the wind, but there was something else as well.
Something that made the hackles of black fur around his thick neck stand on end, something that could only mean that his Remy might need him.
Marlowe started to go forward, but heard his master’s words again warning him to stay where he was. If he was a good dog he would do what his Remy asked of him.
He hesitated momentarily, not wanting to be bad, but could not help himself.
—
Remy had dropped to his knees, arms wrapped tightly around himself as he tried to keep the destructive potential of his angelic nature inside.
It was so angry right now; it wanted to come out. . . . It wanted to come out and burn the world and everybody on it. And then it wanted to move on to Heaven.
“I call it Petey,” the old woman said. She was wringing her hands, old eyes fixed to the living shadow as it expanded and contracted in the air beside her. “But I know it isn’t really him.”
Jackie Kinney was starting to come around, her moans just a precursor to the horrors to come, Remy was sure. He had to get control of himself, to push the power of the Seraphim back down deep inside himself where it couldn’t do any harm before he could help her.
But it was just so damned angry.
“I think it was the grief that called it,” Patricia began to explain. “My grandfather from the old country called it the Bad Hour . . . some kind of spirit or demon or whatever, that came when the anger . . . when the grief was just too strong to control.”
Through burning eyes Remy watched the living shadow churn and shift its form to that of the little black dog again, before transforming back to its more monstrous shape. It then surged down to the woman moaning on the ground and snatched her up, holding her body aloft in the grip of shadow.
The kennel dogs had started to react again, snarling and baring their teeth through the screened doors of their kennels. It was apparent that they too had been touched by the anger exuded by the black beast . . . the thing called the Bad Hour.
“It was her that did it,” Patricia accused, eyes fixed to Jackie hanging in the air in front of her. “She was responsible for all of this.”
The living shadow let out a fearsome growl, shaking the dog trainer’s body like a rag doll. Jackie moaned in both pain and mortal terror.
“How?” Remy managed, still fighting to keep his more volatile nature in check. He needed to know what this was all about. Maybe in knowing he would find a way to defeat the beast, as well as the anger that crippled him.
“I trusted her,” Patricia said with a quiver of rage in her voice. “I trusted her with my Petey and she killed him.”
The old woman was crying now, and the shadow thing—this Bad Hour—extended a tendril of darkness to her, tenderly stroking her face, as if savoring her tears and sadness.
“My mother was dying, and I had to go to her, to be with her. . . . I knew that it wouldn’t be long, that I was going to say good-bye to her. She was the last of my family, my brother and sister had been gone for nearly two years. . . . We were all that was left, Momma and me . . . and Petey.”
The little dog appeared briefly in the mass of shadow again.
“I’d never had children, so Petey was my child . . . my baby.” She was wringing her hands faster now, more violently, as if trying rub them clean of some stubborn stain.
“Momma was in the hospital and I knew that Petey wouldn’t be allowed there. . . . I needed a place for him to stay, where somebody would take care of him until I got back.”
Patricia clenched her fists and strode toward Jackie hanging in the air, to confront the trainer.
“This woman . . . this cold-hearted bitch promised to take care of my baby, swore to me that she’d look after him . . . and she lied.”
Remy saw that Jackie’s eyes were now open, a tentacle of darkness wrapped tightly around her throat.
“No,” Jackie managed, her voice nothing more than a tortured whisper. “It . . . It was . . . accident.”
Patricia shook her fists at the woman. “Don’t you dare say that,” she hissed, the flush of her cheeks showing through the heavy makeup. “Don’t you dare!”
The Bad Hour flowed tighter about Jackie, bending her limbs in impossible ways, threatening to break her into pieces.
“I trusted you,” Patricia shrieked. “I trusted you and you killed my Petey.”
Jackie struggled pathetically in the grip of nightmare.
“So . . . sorry . . .”
“No,” Patricia bellowed, turning her gaze from the woman. “It’s too late for that. . . . You did what you did and you have to pay. . . . I have to pay.”
The older woman seemed to grow smaller, collapsing in upon herself.
The Bad Hour reached out again with one of its limbs of shadow, touching the woman as if lending her some of its strength, feeding her anger.
“I know the story she told, I’ve heard it over and over again inside my head, but it doesn’t matter one little bit.” Patricia studied the trainer hanging helplessly before her. “You weren’t looking out for him. . . . You weren’t being careful, and you let him get out of his crate, and he was so scared. . . .”
Patricia became overcome with emotion, choking back her tears as she again recollected what had led them all to this.
“He . . . He was probably looking for me . . . wondering where I had gone . . . why I had left him in this . . . place. . . .” She dropped to her knees, weak from grief. “So scared that he didn’t even think of the road outside . . . of the cars. . . .”
Patricia stared at her balled fists; they were trembling with fury.