Free A Kiss Before the Apocalypse by Thomas E. Sniegoski

heart.
    “I can’t have you sitting around watching me die,” she told him with a slight shake of her head.
    Remy looked away, hating to hear her talk about the inevitable. Marlowe had found a new friend. An old man in a heavy winter jacket sat in his wheelchair, patting Marlowe’s big head while the dog did everything he could to try and lick the old-timer’s face.
    Madeline took Remy’s hand in a disturbingly icy grip, pulling his attention back to her. “I know you don’t like to hear me talk about it, but it’s all right,” she said with a small smile. “I know I’m going to die, Remy, and I accept that, but I don’t want you to die with me.”
    He was suddenly thinking about Nathanuel’s visit to his office—about the missing Angel of Death, and what it meant to the world.
    What it means to me.
    “What if I told you that you weren’t going to die,” he said aloud, before he even knew the words were coming out of his mouth.
    “I’d say that you were kidding yourself. I am dying, Remy. No matter how much you hate to think about it. I have cancer, and I will die soon.”
    One of the nursing assistants had picked up Marlowe’s ball and was playing with him now.
    “Nathanuel came to visit me today,” Remy said, holding Madeline’s hand tighter, willing some of his own warmth into her icy grip.
    “Nathanuel . . . the angel Nathanuel?” she asked with disbelief. His wife was fully aware of his past dealings with the Seraphim, how they felt about him, and his feelings toward them. “What on earth did he want from you?”
    “Israfil is missing,” he said, looking back to her.
    “Israfil,” she repeated. He could tell she was playing with the name inside her head.
    “The Angel of Death,” he clarified. “The Angel of Death has gone missing, and there’s nobody doing his job.”
    Madeline let go of his hand suddenly, grabbing at the collar of her sweater, pulling it up closer around her neck as if protecting herself from a sudden chill. “Does this have anything to do with the case you were talking about yesterday? The one where the man could actually see you?”
    Remy nodded. “It does,” he explained. “Before he shot himself, he said that he’d been dreaming about the end of the world.”
    “Then he killed himself,” she stated, her voice almost a whisper.
    Remy slowly shook his head. “He tried . . . but he hasn’t died.”
    And then it seemed to hit her. He could see the meaning of his words flooding into her expression. She reached for his hand again, pulling herself to her feet.
    “Nobody is doing his job,” she repeated, her stare intensifying. “Nothing is dying.”
    He took her into his arms, hugging her close to him, not caring if anyone noticed the intimacy in the embrace between the supposed mother and son.
    “They want you to find him, don’t they?” Madeline said, her cheek pressed against his chest. “They want you to find Israfil.”
    “Yes.” Remy held her tightly.
    She pulled away from him slightly, looking up, trying to find his eyes, but Remy was looking elsewhere, focusing on the dog at play, doing everything he could to not think of the repercussions of what he had been asked to do.
    “You’re going to do it . . . right?” Madeline asked.
    Remy remained silent.
    “Remy?”
    He lowered his gaze to finally meet hers and saw that she was crying.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” she told him, her voice trembling with emotion. She raised a hand to his face, cupping his cheek. The hand was freezing, but at the moment Remy could feel nothing.
    “And I want you to stop.”
    Remy brought his hand up to hers, taking it from his face and kissing it softly.
    “I love you,” he said, the words almost excruciatingly painful as they left his mouth.
    “And I love you too,” she told him. “But I don’t want to live if it has to be this way. I need to go soon, darling,” Madeline said. “I don’t want to, but I’ll need to. Do you understand?”
    He