Mean Streets

"No," Remy ordered, managing to get his own fury in check. He snatched the frame from the Grigori leader's hand. "You have no right to be here." He returned the picture to its place on the television stand, then turned to confront the angel. "I want you to leave," Remy told him, speaking in the language of their kind… the language of the Messengers.

Sariel stood, adjusting his suit coat. "I'm not leaving without you."

Remy glared, feeling an unnatural heat start to burn behind his eyes.

"I don't think you understand," he said, stepping menacingly toward the Grigori.

Sariel shook his head. "No, it is you who does not understand."

The angel suddenly reached out and grabbed hold of Remy's arm. He could feel the power in the grip, the angel magick flowing from Sariel into him.

Marlowe began to bark wildly as a pool of shadow expanded beneath them and the two angels dropped.

Swallowed by the darkness.

FIVE

They emerged in the middle of a storm. The wind roared like some angry beast as it tried to rip them from their purchase on the hard, concrete surface. And if it could not succeed with its bestial strength, it would try to destroy them with the ferocity of its tears, as each drop of rain struck their exposed flesh like the sting of a wasp.

Remy raised a hand to shield his eyes from the savagery of the cold, whipping rain, and quickly looked about. From the comforting warmth of his Beacon Hill home to this; where had Sariel brought him?

It didn't take him long to realize that they weren't on land at all. They were in the middle of the ocean; an undulating mass of white-capped gray swirled all around. His eyes darted about, taking it all in: heavy machinery and equipment, and a familiar corporate symbol, faded on the side of a forklift chained to the concrete so as not to be picked up by the wind and carried away.

An oil rig; they were on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean.

Remy looked at Sariel, who stood silently beside him. The rain pelted the angel's pale features, leaving traces of red on his face where it stung him.

The Grigori leader turned away from Remy, fighting the wind as he began to move toward a large boxy structure rising up from the platform.

Remy had no choice but to follow, struggling against the storm that seemed to grow even more agitated now that they were moving, as if it were angry that they would even think they could escape it. He followed Sariel toward the square building, and up multiple flights of rain-slicked metal steps to a heavy metal door with the words "Level One" stenciled on it in white paint.

The Grigori leader pulled open the door, fighting the wind as it attempted to tear it from his grasp. Remy reached out, helping to hold it open as the two of them beat the fury of the ocean storm and made their way inside.

"I should kill you for this," Remy snarled as he caught his breath in the shelter of the dark corridor. He could still hear the storm outside. Its rage was muffled by the shelter of their new surroundings, but it was still out there and still very angry.

"Perhaps you should," Sariel said, disregarding Remy's threat and heading down the corridor, past large glass windows that looked into empty office space. "Then again, you may want to wait and see why it is that I felt the need to resort to such desperate measures to bring you here."

Remy remained quiet, the anger inside him churning like the storm outside. He followed the Grigori to another flight of metal stairs and the two began to climb.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"Besides an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the South China Sea?" Sariel asked. "This is his home. Noah's home." "He traded in his ark for an oil rig?" Remy said, still climbing and starting to wonder how many floors the structure had.

They reached what seemed to be the final level; the floor was lit in the sickly yellow of emergency lights, and shadow.

"Crammed on a ship with your entire family and almost every conceivable animal for an extended period of time can have a lasting effect," the Grigori said, before proceeding down the corridor.

Remy noticed that up here he could barely hear the storm. He doubted that it had subsided, and considered then that this level had been considerably soundproofed.

Sariel had reached the end of the dimly lit length of hall and now stood before a closed door. "In here," he said, not even bothering to knock as he opened it and walked inside.

Strains of classical music wafted out into the hall. It was Berlioz, his Symphonie Fantastique. It had been one of Madeline's favorite pieces. Remy flashed back to lazy summer mornings, windows open wide in their kitchen as they drank cup after cup of coffee while reading the Sunday Globe, the Symphonie Fantastique the morning's soundtrack.

Remy couldn't have been further from that moment.

"In here," he heard Sariel call out.