by Alisa Woods
“Help me?” I ask, incredulous, giving up for the moment my attempt to get past her. “By turning me into this?” I beat my wings against the air with such strength it creates wind and makes her lift.
“There are worse things,” she says, but she’s scowling now.
I’m not sure who she’s trying to convince—herself or me. “Not to me.” I’m about to move to evade her blocking, but a boom sends us both tumbling in the air.
When I recover, I see Elyon has returned. With a human.
“What is this?” I demand of Terah.
She sighs. “Looks like you’re bumped from Top Attraction, sweet thing.”
The human on the platform is a woman. She’s dressed like Beatrice—high necked blouse, thick woolen stockings—but it’s not the woman I spent days watching. I swing sharply to Terah. “What do you mean, attraction?”
“I mean, you’re about to see how there are worse things than getting a blow job from a top angeling and losing your white wing cherry.” She’s snarling at me now, but my gaze is transfixed by the woman.
She’s terrified. I’m fifty feet away from the platform, and I can still see her shaking. Her shoes have thick heels which are tap-tap-tapping against the platform while she holds herself tight across the chest, arms folded, hands gripping each trembling arm. Her brown eyes couldn’t be any more wide with fear.
Elyon steps back from her, leaving her isolated on the platform, but there’s already a dozen angelings gathering around. By now, I know—they’re waiting for a signal. In a perversion of what an angel of light would do—guide, nurture, challenge to Virtue—this angel of darkness urges his angelings to greater acts of depravity.
“Will they kill her?” My voice is a whisper.
“The mothers always die,” Terah says just as quietly.
I feel it coming again—a volcano of Wrath wanting to erupt. This woman is not with child yet—I would sense the soul within if she were—which means they will force themselves upon her. Elyon might pick one to do the violence. He might let the horde have her for their sex orgy, then see which seed takes. Either way, she will bear another dark angeling for his troops. Then her purpose will be at an end, and he will slaughter her like all the other innocents he’s destroyed.
Like my own mother.
I have a jolt of realization. My father, whatever his faults as a lieutenant in Elyon’s unholy army, wished to spare my mother this. He seduced her. He wanted to live in the human world—her world—if only for a while. Maybe he was as evil as Elyon… but there had to be some decency buried under all the Sin.
He made a choice.
I do not have to choose Sin.
The volcano of Wrath turns righteous inside me, and then there is no holding it back. My wings flex, and my mouth opens wide to scream as a Warrior does, but prudence traps the sound in my chest. I beat the air with my wings and surge magic, shooting my body through the air toward the woman on the platform and Elyon’s gathering horde.
“Tajael!” Terah hisses behind me, but she’s warning me, not alerting the others.
I pick up speed, quickly closing the distance, and just as I descend on the platform, a straight arrow headed for the woman, I let the tightly-held energy of my angelsong rip loose from my chest. The shock of it runs like a shockwave through the nearest angelings, and even Elyon seems startled. I swoop in and snatch the woman off the platform and into the air.
Shrieks of protest go up, and I’m sure they will kill me for her. I am dead anyway—lost to Sin, doomed to depravity—but my final act will be secreting this woman away, a righteous rescue from Elyon and his depredations.
Just as the first angeling nips at my wings, I twist through time and space, taking the woman with me.
Reflexively, I bring her back to Chicago. The same alley where Terah first found me. I glimpse my angel blade on the ground, lying half under a refuse bin, but I leave it. Anything of the light is toxic to me now, and once Elyon’s Regiment figures what I’ve done, this is the first place they’ll look. And my blade will bring them as it did before.
The woman is screaming and beating me with her fists. She’s in a panic, but I’ve no time to soothe her. I turn my face from her clawing fingers and twist us again, this time bringing us high above the city. She shrieks, now clutching hold of me, lest she fall to her death. But of course, I’ll allow nothing of the kind. The question is where to take her.
I decide the city’s bustle is the perfect place to lose a human soul, under cover of a thousand others. So, I twist once more, bringing her back down to earth, decloaking us both in an alley next to a boarding house. Beatrice has friends here she visited once, and I sensed the pure souls within. It is a place of safety.
The woman can’t decide whether to let go of me or not. She clings as if still suspended above the city, yet she leans away, her eyes wild with things her mind cannot possibly comprehend. Or perhaps it is already telling her all she saw was illusion.
If only it were true.
“Fear not,” I say, gently extricating her thin fingers from their grip on my shoulders. “I mean you no harm.” Although it’s clear that I am not of this earth, and there are others who look like me, and they just as clearly did mean her harm. “You’re safe now.” Although I cannot tarry—Elyon’s forces will follow me, and in following me, find her.
She’s stumbled back from me now, but she doesn’t go far, just stares at me with open astonishment. “You… you aren’t one of them. The demons.” Her voice is shaky but getting stronger. Good. She’ll need her senses about her to move back into her world. And stay hidden for a while. And not speak of angels lest her world decide she is mentally unfit.
“They’re not demons. They are angels of darkness.” A distinction that hardly matters, but it will serve as an explanation. I need to give her something to make sense of it.
“But you’re not.” The fear has banished, and something like hope lights her face.
I grimace. How to explain that I’m recently Fallen, and while I look like those in shadow, I choose not to join in their depravity? It’s too much explanation, and she needs to get on with rejoining her kind so I can leave her in good hands.
“No, I’m not,” I say simply. I can’t help glancing at my wings, expecting the question to rise to her lips about why they are midnight black like the others—and I startle so bad, I literally jolt within my own skin.
My wings are white.
I flex them forward and marvel. Holy angels of light… how is this possible?
The frank disbelief must be on my face, for the woman says, “I saw them. They changed while we were… when you took me…” She’s stumbling for words.
“While we were traveling?” My mouth still hangs open in wonder, so I shut it.
“Yes.” She edges forward and tentatively reaches for the tip of my wing, running her fingers along the snowy whiteness. “Did I…” She turns back, eyes luminous and wide. “When you saved me… did I save you?”
Her words smack against me. I’m so stunned, I don’t even react when she edges forward again, now close enough to reach with my arms and not just my wings. But they hang at my side, and I’m dumbstruck. A righteous act restored me to the light. I blink and stare, and my mind is racing. This should not be possible. There is nothing in all the Dominions, in all my lessons, in all the history of what I know to be Truth, to say this is possible.
And yet here I stand.
The woman leans into me, clutching me again, this time to bring my cheek down to her lips. A kiss. “Thank you,” she whispers even as I startle and stumble back from her.
She frowns, so I rush to reassure her. “It’s all right,” I say.
But it’s not.
I feel the imprint of her kiss, hot on my skin, and it flushes the memory of Terah’s lips on my body. On my sex. Pleasuring me with her touch and her mouth and her…
I take another step back. “I must leave,” I say hoarsely. For my sake and hers. I gesture to the white st
one wall of the boarding house. “Go inside. There are souls of righteousness there. They will watch over you. Do not return to wherever you were taken for a good spell of time. Let them forget you.”
She’s standing in the alley, blinking like she might cry. “I won’t forget you.”
I swallow, and the temptation of this woman rears up again. “You must not speak of any of this. For your own good.” And then I turn and twist away, taking the danger of my presence with me.
My first impulse is to perch.
I stand on the tallest tower in Chicago. I’m cloaked again, so I can flex my now-snowy-white wings and marvel that this is possible, but I cannot stay here. The city below me offers too much temptation. Too much that could tumble me right back down into a Fall, and now knowing fully that dark place…
But I cannot return to Markos’s realm, either.
My wings might not show it, but I am tarnished.
Weakened.
I twist once more and exile myself to an empty realm. A place between, that’s neither light nor shadow.
Purgatory.
The days are meaningless here.
Purgatory makes me long for Markos’s Penance rooms. There, one could expiate one’s Sin with a turn at the whipping wall or a spell in the stockade. Being caged was a lesson in Humility or Patience. But, in Truth, there are no real Sins for the angelings of the light to atone—just the pale reflection of what they imagine committing. I’ve seen Sin up close, and the forces of light couldn’t conceive of such things, much less act them out. Not without a Fall.
No, Penance is really training in Virtue. A chance to stretch and grow and lay claim to the pure righteousness of the angel within. Purgatory is like Penance without the restraints—and all the more difficult because I am not bound. Only my will keeps me here. There is no clarifying pain, no bright line between good and evil, to mark the time. Purgatory is numbness and exile. A time of contemplation I fear might drive me mad before I can be sure Elyon has moved on to other obsessions and forgotten me.
Having seen the shadow realm, I can’t decide the greater miracle—that all of angelkind hasn’t Fallen or that the shadowkind haven’t broken free of the dullness of their existence. Reject it, as I have. Or maybe what I’ve done—returning from the dark—is the real miracle. Such a thing shouldn’t be possible, and yet, each time I check, my wings are still white. Further, I feel the righteousness seeping back into me. Purgatory is a formless, shapeless place set between the slips of reality that comprise the Dominions of angelkind and the solid world of humanity. The gray nothingness of this realm contains all potentials, good and evil. It brings forth only what you bring to it… and I feel the steady growth of purity inside me each moment I’m here.
My walkabout served its purpose in one sense—the human realm is indeed tempting. I still feel Beatrice’s kiss on my cheek… but that pales in comparison to the tarnish of the shadow realm. Brutish and pleasure-seeking, Terah used my human side against me, touching me in ways she had to know would evoke a response in my male, and very human, body—a response I didn’t understand, and thus, couldn’t control. If she were on her knees before me now, in Purgatory, taking my male shaft into her mouth again… would I Fall? Would the pleasure be so overwhelming that I wouldn’t be able to stop her?
Before, I didn’t want to stop her. Nay, I urged her on, taking her head into my hands and guiding her in the seduction. And my urging increased her vigor at the task, which gave me even more pleasure.
So, the real question is: would I want her to stop?
And to that, I can now unequivocally say yes.
The pleasure is still fresh in my mind. Even pondering the act brings a small rise under my toga. Yet, I have nothing but revulsion for the idea. Zero desire to join the ravishing, violent horde, all sated by their pleasure but irredeemably blackened, not just in their wings but their souls. Righteousness calls to me—that is Truth—but even more, it’s the terrible state of the Fallen that horrifies me and has me clinging to the light, now that I have it back. Even the temptations of the human realm are less now—Beatrice’s kiss would only lead to a rise in Lust, which would presage another Fall. It would take another immensely righteous act to save me… and I can’t even be sure of that. God gave humans the ability—nay, the command—to go forth and multiply, and in this, they are more blessed than angelkind. Sex is a fulfillment of God’s command. But angels were never intended for this. They were never meant to produce angelings like myself.
I am, by my very nature, cursed.
And the last thing I would do in any realm is produce another like me.
Which leads me to this: what now?
Evading recapture by Elyon—or any in the shadow realm—is paramount. But I cannot hide forever in Purgatory. If I succumb to madness, then I lose control… and who knows what harm I might bring then? The only real option is to return to the light, but will Markos even accept me? Can—and should—I hide my time in the shadow realm from him? And what if I return, only to Fall again? Markos saved me from a lifetime of darkness—I cannot repay his kindness by shaming his Dominion with my Fall.
No, I must be sure of myself before I return. And the only way to be certain I can resist temptation is to prove to myself that I am stronger than the allures of Sin. I must be tested. If I succumb, it will be on my own terms, still on walkabout, and the Sin remains mine entirely. Then I will know my fate, and I will make swift work of finding a way to die. But if I can pass this test of my own devising, then I can return to the light with confidence.
With that thought, I will myself away from the endless gray mist of Purgatory.
My first stop is Beatrice’s apartment.
I watch her undress. I stand in silent, invisible vigil in her bedroom as she sprawls on her bed with those lazy limbs and absorbed smile, deep in her books. I imagine her in several positions I observed in the orgy of the shadowkind, placing myself in the act with her. But all I can think is that the longer I tarry in her bedroom, the more I risk one of the shadowkind following me here. Instead, I transport to her father’s room, where he lays sickly and even more gray in pallor than when I last saw him. He is sleeping, so I drop the cloaking and bend over him to administer the life kiss. I exhale all my love of humanity in that breath, tapping the angelic power I have within and infusing him with it. He gasps it in and arches in the bed with the flush of life it brings. The rush of blood to his cheeks, the gasp of new life in his chest, and the pure surge of righteous pleasure that courses through my body... they are similar to the orgasmic pleasure on the faces of the fallen. That I experienced myself at Terah’s hands. And mouth. But I know in my core this is different. I used to think that only violence could be both righteous—an angel blade striking down a demon—or the embodiment of evil, as in the destruction of innocents. But now I see pleasure can be both Sin and righteousness. The pleasure I feel in restoring vigor to this good man—this kind-hearted father to an even more Virtuous daughter—does not presage a Fall, but rather, only bolsters my own Virtues.
It is good.
I leave him startled and wide-eyed. Perhaps he will tell Beatrice of the angel in his bedroom. If not, perhaps she will still understand why her father’s aches and pains are eased. Or perhaps not. The joy is in the giving, not the gratitude.
I scour the city for more humans in need of the blessings I bear. I find weary mothers tending their babies, the sick in need of comfort, and people whose lives are spent beneath the underpasses of the city, one tired moment after another, begging for enough food to get through the day. I remind them of the precious gift of life they have by helping them feel it—my blessing is much like Purgatory, in that I only bring out what they already have waiting inside them.
The hours pass into days, days into weeks, and all of it is a blur of righteous pleasure and an ever-deepening understanding of the Virtues themselves.
Patience is following an elderly man through the harangues of his employer and the tedium of his job to the
heartbreaking emptiness of his home, in order to finally deliver his blessing.
Charity is blessing all eight children of a family in a single night, giving nearly every last measure I have so their mother can see them all rosy-cheeked in the morning.
Humility is walking the hospital ward, breathing life into the dying, easing their pains and sufferings, knowing I cannot rescue them from their fate.
Kindness is listening to a lonely old woman’s stories long after my blessing has restored her enough to tell them.
Diligence and Temperance combine to force me to rest… but only as much as I need to restore and continue to deliver my blessings throughout the city.
And Chastity… Chastity is gently turning away from the kisses of passion that follow my kiss of life. Of knowing my weakness and hammering it into strength—a strength forged by trial and test and test again.
Chicago has morphed into a riot of sunshine, greenery, and the new blossoms of spring. I’ve spent an entire season in the human world, watching their lives play out across their faces—moments of joy and sorrow—and I understand God’s love for them in a way I couldn’t before. It is one thing to love without thought, instinctually because you were built for that purpose… it is another thing entirely to fall in love with the beauty of humanity. They are capable of great evils as well—they struggle as much or more as any angeling—but their souls shine so bright there are days I can scarce look upon them.
I understand why so many angelings have Fallen in the presense of such souls. But I have tested myself relentlessly… and I am finally ready.
I fly one more slow circuit around a city I have grown to love. It would be a minor Sin to remain at this point—it’s wrong to be a Guardian without an angel’s orders. But now I know… should Markos order me to return, to watch over humanity in any and every capacity, I would not fail him.
I twist in the air to bring me back to the domain of the angels of light.
Markos’s Dominion.