“You told me that he was dead when you found him, that the car that struck him hadn’t even stopped. . . .”
She looked at Remy then, and he saw in her eyes the depths of her sadness, of a grief so strong that a monster such as the Bad Hour could have feasted upon it for centuries.
“Can you imagine hearing that?” she asked him. “Hearing that about your baby?”
Remy couldn’t imagine it, and the Seraphim fought harder, surging to escape the prison of flesh, blood, muscle, and bone that had kept it locked away for centuries.
The Bad Hour was growing, feeding off all the emotion in the room. This was its power, to feed upon the anger, to use it to grow its strength. There was no wonder why it hadn’t yet dealt with Jackie, Patricia’s emotions still so very raw . . . so strong.
So delicious.
“I tried to get past it, but I couldn’t. . . . I kept imagining him there, lying in the road, wondering why I had left him as he died.” She was sobbing now, the grief completely overwhelming her as it had continued to do since Petey’s death.
And the Bad Hour grew stronger, taking the little form of Petey, stoking the fires of her grief.
Patricia suddenly went quiet, wiping the tears from her face as she carefully rose from her knees.
“And now we’ve come to this,” she said, seeming more in control. “At first I was afraid . . . scared of what I had called up. . . . I tried to warn you with a note that it was coming, so that you could prepare. . . . I think I did it more for myself, hoping that it might satisfy my anger, my hunger for revenge if you knew something was coming . . . but it did the opposite and made me want to see you suffer all the more.”
Patricia stared at her adversary, with dark, cold eyes. There was a piece of the Bad Hour behind those eyes, of that Remy had no doubt.
“How should we do this?” the woman then asked. “How do I make you pay for your sins? Do I let Petey drag you out into the street so that you can be hit by a car and die there alone . . . or do I let it just rip you apart while I watch?”
The Bad Hour seethed, writhing in anticipation, feeding off the woman’s escalating fury. This was what it had been waiting for, and though it had savored her tears and rage, this was what it was all about.
The coup de grace.
Remy felt as if his skin were on fire, the Seraphim bubbling just below the surface. The Bad Hour’s influence was still upon him, but he had to try to stop this . . . to halt what was about to happen.
“And if you do this,” Remy asked, still managing to hold on to the leash that kept the power of Heaven inside him in check. “If you toss her in the street to be hit . . . or rip her apart . . . what then?”
Patricia seemed confused by the question, the darkness in her eyes temporarily fleeing. “She’ll have paid for what she did to my baby . . . to me.”
“But then what?” Remy asked. “Petey will still be gone. . . . The grief will still be as real.”
The Bad Hour did not like what he was saying. A mass of solidified shadow whipped out from its boiling mass to strike him savagely to the floor. It took all that Remy had to maintain his grip upon his divine nature, to retain his humanity in the moment.
“You’ll still have to deal with the guilt that you’re carrying,” he told her, lifting his face to look at her.
The old woman seemed startled.
“My guilt?” she asked incredulously. “Why would I have any guilt? It was she who . . .”
“You left your baby,” Remy said, rising, hoping to weaken the Bad Hour’s hold upon her, to redirect some of that anguish and rage upon her.
“I had no choice!” Patricia bleated, the tears starting to flow again. “My mother was dying and I couldn’t . . .”
“Your mother was your major concern,” Remy said, regaining a slight bit of control over the angelic essence roused to anger by the demonic spirit. “Petey had to come second.”
“But I loved him,” the woman sobbed.
“I never said that you didn’t,” Remy told her. “But a decision had to be made, and you made it.”
“I couldn’t take him with me. . . . I was staying at the hospital just in case . . . for when the time came,” Patricia said, remembering.
“You made a decision to have somebody else care for Petey,” Remy said, driving the point home.
“She had excellent references,” Patricia said. “I even called some of the people to ask about how their dogs were treated.”
“You did everything you could to be sure that Petey would be cared for,” Remy said.
“I did.”
“But something happened,” Remy stressed. “Something horrible.”
“She killed him!” Patricia screamed, and the miasma of darkness that was the Bad Hour seemed to grow even larger, starting to engulf the still struggling Jackie Kinney as she was hanging in the air. The dog trainer fought against the living shadow as it attempted to flow into her mouth and nose.
The dogs were on the brink of madness now, throwing themselves against their cages.
“No, it was an accident,” Remy bellowed above the din, trying to keep his own emotions in check so as not to rouse the angelic fury within himself.
“She was responsible for my baby . . . for his life, and now he’s gone because of her!”
“And that’s all true,” Remy said. “But it doesn’t mean that she did anything on purpose. Yes, she’s responsible, but she didn’t kill Petey. You’re as guilty of his death as she is.”
Patricia looked to the living mass of darkness that had practically enveloped all of Jackie Kinney, the look upon her face telling him that perhaps his words had managed to permeate through the thick cover of anguish, and sadness.
The cloud of black receded, and Jackie began to cough uncontrollably as she was able to breathe again.
“You’re right,” Patricia said, as the Bad Hour angrily tossed the trainer to the floor. The living shadow began to transform, taking the shape of the little black dog, lying upon the ground, its limbs twisted and broken as if having just suffered some major trauma—as if struck by a car.
“No,” Patricia screamed at the sight, trying to look away, and as she turned her head, the dog began to pathetically cry out, and Remy could understand the words and emotions being conveyed.
As could the old woman.
She killed me, said the Bad Hour, using the form of Petey as its mouthpiece. If it wasn’t for her I’d still be alive. . . . You would still have me to love. . . .
The words were burrowing their way inside her, rekindling the fire that Remy thought he’d begun to extinguish.
Jackie had managed to struggle to her knees and Remy found himself crawling over to the woman, blocking her from the next assault that was about to occur.
“Leave her alone,” Remy roared, as some of his Heavenly might slipped from his control. The kennel was suddenly filled with an unearthly glow, and wings of golden fire erupted from his back, expanding to fan the growing darkness away from them with their Divine brilliance.
The Bad Hour lost its little dog shape, returning to that of living darkness. And just as it flowed toward them, about to encroach upon the barrier of Divine light that had been placed between it and its prey, there was a flurry of movement, and Remy saw Marlowe bounding to his aid.
Both the Bad Hour and Patricia reacted to the dog’s sudden appearance, recoiling from his frantic barking.
The Labrador charged at the Bad Hour, with not even the slightest hint of hesitation, his jaws snapping at the living shadow, attempting to bite the thing that was threatening his master.
“Marlowe, no!” Remy said, torn between leaving Jackie and going to his best friend’s side.
The living darkness swatted at the attacking beast, knocking Marlowe across the room where he landed upon his side. The Bad Hour surged at the Labrador, and Remy tensed to leap into the fray to prevent his dog from being harmed, when he heard another voice.
“Stop this,” Patricia commanded, a sudden strength in her voice that had not been evident before.
Marlowe jumped to his feet, moving back toward the kennel cages, the dogs within them still carrying on. The Bad Hour hung above him like a frozen wave of oil, its master’s command halting it in mid-attack.
The demonic entity spun angrily in the air, turning its fluid mass to confront the old woman.
“No more,” she said with a shake of her head. “This is done now. . . . We’re not going to hurt anybody else.”
The Bad Hour again transformed itself into the injured Petey, but Patricia looked away.
“Don’t show me that anymore,” she said. “Petey is gone, and as much as that hurts me to admit, nothing’s going to bring him back.”
The Bad Hour did not care to hear this, swirling around the older woman, trying to get her to look at it, trying to get her to reconsider her words.
But Patricia refused.
“I’m done with this,” she said. “Done with feeling this way . . . done with all the violence that my pain has caused. . . .”
The Bad Hour’s roar was deafening as it gripped the old woman in hands crafted in shadow.
“I’m done with you,” she said, looking into the bottomless hollows of its empty eyes.
Something seemed to pass between them, a conversation not meant for anyone else.
“I know there’s a price to pay,” the old woman said, still looking into its churning face. “I knew that when I called you to me, and it was a price I was willing to pay.
“And one that I’m still ready to pay to send you back to the Hell that I summoned you from.”
The Bad Hour roared once again, feeding upon the anger exuded by the older woman that had caused it to grow larger, and larger still. It held her in its nightmarish grasp as a terrible mouth formed upon its indistinct shape and it lowered itself down onto her, swallowing her up in one tremendous bite.
The thing of darkness hovered there above the kennel floor, digesting its latest meal.
Remy watched the shapeless thing, curious as to whether or not its hunger had been sated. The demon surged toward him with a thunderous growl, and a rush of air, but Remy stood his ground, still managing to keep the angelic power inside him under control.
The Bad Hour kept its distance, as if the glow of Heavenly fire radiating from Remy made it reconsider what it might do.
Then the revenge-fueled beast suddenly turned its amorphous head to one side, and with a sound akin to a chuckling laugh, the undulating mass of darkness seemed to collapse in upon itself until only the tiniest dot of the deepest black remained.
And that was soon gone as well.
Confident that he could now control it completely, Remy pulled back upon his angelic nature, quickly returning to his human guise, and checked on the health of the dog trainer. Her pulse was steady, and she didn’t appear to be physically injured in any way, but she moaned in the grip of delirium, repeating the words I’m sorry over and over again.
The dogs in the kennel had ceased their barking, as if sensing that the danger had passed, and Remy turned to see Marlowe cowering in the corner by the open back door as if preparing to flee.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Bad dog,” Marlowe said, hanging his head in shame.
“Why are you a bad dog?”
“Not listen,” Marlowe said. “Remy told Marlowe to stay . . . good dogs stay.”
Remy smiled, raising his hand to motion the dog to come to him.
“You’re not a bad dog,” Remy told the Labrador as he came, muscular tail wagging crazily. “You’re a very good dog.”
“No more school?” the dog asked.
“No more school,” Remy repeated with a laugh, the dog lovingly licking at his face and ears.
As only a good dog could.