Free In the House of the Wicked by Thomas E. Sniegoski Page A

Ashley’s father.
    She looked at him again, appearing to think a moment before answering. “He’s at the house…just in case she…just in case somebody calls and…”
    “That’s good,” Remy said, standing beside her chair. “I think you should go there, as well…be with Karl. Support each other.”
    “We’re going up to Brattleboro as soon as I get home.”
    Remy had no doubt that that’s where they would be heading.
    “Keep me in the loop,” he said. “Give me a call if you hear anything at all, no matter how insignificant it might seem.”
    She got up from the chair. Remy held her by the elbow just to be sure she was steady enough on her feet.
    “I will,” she said, sniffling. “I’m so sorry that I broke down like that…. I…”
    “No worries,” Remy said to her.
    She managed a halfhearted smile and walked toward the door.
    “What are you going to do?” she then asked.
    The Seraphim nature was fully aware and listening, sensing that what it could do—what it existed for—would soon be called upon and put to use.
    “I’m going to start my own investigation,” Remy told her.
    She nodded, opening the door, and was about to step out into the hall when she stopped and turned.
    “Promise me that you’ll find her,” Carol said. “That no matter what, you’ll bring my little girl back to me.”
    “I promise,” Remy told her.
    And he’d never meant anything more.
    Beacon Hill
    Summer 1996
    Remy trekked up the hill from Charles Street carrying a bag of groceries, odds and ends Madeline had asked him to pick up for supper.
    It was a blazingly hot day on the Hill, but Remy didn’t allow himself to feel it. He enjoyed being human and all that it entailed, but if he could tweak his body temperature during the hot-and-humid Boston summers, he could see no problem in acknowledging what he truly was from time to time.
    An angel of the Heavenly host Seraphim could be comfortable at the North Pole, on the surface of the sun, or even Beacon Hill in the middle of August.
    As he headed up Mount Vernon Street, he noticed a Gentle Giant movers’ truck double-parked in front of one of the brownstones. The back of the truck was wide open to reveal a jam-packed trailer filled with a combination of covered furniture and multiple boxes. The movers were just starting to unload and were already soaked with sweat.
    Bet they wish they were of the Heavenly host Seraphim, Remy thought as he drew closer.
    The sidewalk in front of the brownstone was crowded with items unloaded from the truck, so he stepped into the street to get around it.
    And that was when he noticed the little girl.
    She couldn’t have been any older than five, and was crouched down outside a black, wrought-iron fence in front of a house across the street on Louisburg Square. He could hear her little voice, talking away as he drew nearer. Where are her parents, and who the hell is she talking to? he wondered.
    He could now see a frazzled-looking woman giving instructions to the movers from the steps of the brownstone, and a man on a cell phone pacing back in forth in the midst of a heated conversation with what sounded like the cable company.
    Remy guessed that the little girl belonged to them.
    She had stuck one of her small arms through the rungs of the wrought-iron fence and was making little smacking sounds.
    Remy couldn’t help but slow down to see what she was up to.
    On the other side of the fence was a small garden, a cherry blossom tree in the center surrounded by an assortment of wildflowers and some tall grass. Remy could just about make out the shape of a little black-and-white cat, hunkered down, trying desperately to hide in what grass there was.
    The child must have sensed Remy’s presence behind her and turned her adorable gaze up to him.
    “My kitty got out of her box and ran across the street into the grass,” she informed him. “Can you help me get her out?”
    Remy stepped over to the fence, setting his bag of groceries