Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 20:41:08 -0800 (PST)
From: CloseTheCellarDoor <closethecellardoor@yahoo.com>
Subject: Evil is a Man: The Angel Stretched Out His Hand -- chapter 5

"Wake up, my Delector," came Sam's gentle voice, rousing me from my sleep.

As softly as it was a way to wake up, it felt like I had just hit the hay.
I moaned and rolled over, pulling the covers over my face defiantly.
"Dude, lemme sleep."

"You've been sleeping for ages.  Sooner or later we'll need to get going."

I opened my eyes.  Sam was across the room, carefully packing his bag.  Oh
God, what a difference it was to wake up and see him, who I loved, instead
of the empty house I woke up to last night.

He had on a pair of tight, expensive-looking jeans, but was otherwise
unclothed.  His thick arm muscles, his strong pecs, his sculpted abs--all
of his muscle knotted with veins and covered with a skin that stayed the
perfect shade of tan even though, I knew now, it never saw any sun.  His
perfect, rugged facial structure, broad, cut jawbone and a strong chin that
was always covered with a light layer of stubble, even though I knew he
never shaved.  His short, surfer-blonde hair, a soft yellow curl just
covering the top of his forehead.  His nose, as perfectly shaped and strong
as the rest of him, only with the slightest hint of red at its tip, somehow
lending his look a subtle vulnerability.  His pouty lips that begged to be
kissed, and his deep, sympathetically wise eyes that together seemed
impossibly unable to form expressions of arrogance, hostility, or
mean-spiritedness.

It was all mine now.  All fucking mine, this being who was nothing short of
the paragon of a man.  I knew I would never, ever get tired of this.

"That's reassuring," he said, folding his shirt and putting it in his
suitcase.  "Because we're going to be together for a long time."

I turned to look at the clock beside me.  "Shit, it's already ten?  Damn, I
must have been tired."  My stomach grumbled and made me aware how painfully
hungry I was.  "I guess I haven't eaten in a long time," I said.  "I'm so
hungry I feel like my stomach's starting to eat itself."

"I figured as much, so I ordered you dinner."  He pointed to a room service
tray loaded with food.

I yawned lazily and got out of bed.  "Mmm, steak," I said as I took the lid
off the silver platter of food and set my bare ass down on one of the
chairs at the table.

"We need to leave in a half hour or so.  You'll need to eat fast and
shower."

I was already ripping into the meet on the plate in front of me.  "Where we
headed?" I asked with a mouth full of food.

"To the Ensis of the Cherubim," he said.

"To the where?" I asked, giving him a what-the-fuck look.

"The home of the angels," he said.  "In Moscow."

"Moscow?  Like, in fucking Russia?"

"Yes.  It's quite a long trip."

"Why the hell are we going there?"

He looked up from his packing and smiled at me.  "Because of you.  You need
to be introduced and properly inducted."

"Uh-huh," I said.  "Inducted into what, exactly?"

"As my new Delector.  My most beloved other half."

I laughed.  "Sounds like we're getting married or something."

"Oh, it's nothing so fickle.  A much more durable bond."

"And this place in Russia--there will be other angels there?"

He nodded.  "Many others, yes."

I pondered this for a second.  "You know what really sounds good to me now,
Sam?" I asked cheerfully.  "Some alone time with you.  Like you offered a
couple days ago.  Just you and me.  Going where we please and doing
whatever the hell we want, without having anyone else around to distract
us.  What do you say?"

He smiled warmly.  "It sounds ideal," he said.  Then he went back to
packing.  "But that is no longer and option for us.  An angel without a
Delector is free to wander the world as he chooses, so long as he helps
people in need.  That is what I was the entire time you've known me, a
Guardian angel of sorts who traveled without the company of other angels.
But an angel with a Delector, a Domno, hasn't the luxury of such a carefree
lifestyle.  A Domno is considered to be in active service to the Angel
Flock.  He must be in continuous contact with the other Cherubim, ready to
take on responsibilities at a moment's notice.  That is what I am now.  As
I have been many times before, for many years."

"You're a slave," I said.

"No, I am a servant to the flock.  And you, in turn, are my servant."

I grunted, not liking the sound of that word.  "I think I liked it better
when you were a one-man show."

"As do I," he said.  "But if I were to remain that way, you wouldn't be
here by my side.  So try not to complain too much."

"But it comes so easily to me.  Like how I just ate all this food and I
still feel hungry."  I picked up a pair of crystal champagne glasses and
showed them to Sam.  "Or here, champagne glasses but no champagne.  We got
jipped."

He walked over to the table, holding his gaze at my eyes, and then grabbed
the glasses from my hands.  "Perhaps there's some use for them."

He walked back across, moving into the more shadowy part of the room, and
turned his back to me.  He set the glasses aside, and I heard him unbutton
his jeans--that got my attention.  I stood up, eager to help him out.

He motioned a hand towards me without ever turning around.  "Stay where you
are," he ordered.  "Sit."

I sat back down regretfully.

He pulled the jeans down to about his knees, leaving him in just his
boxers, as usual.  But then he reached his hand down the front of his
boxers, apparently fishing his dick out and over the waistband.  And then,
with his back to me, he started to stroke.

I couldn't believe it.  Dude was jacking off right in front of me.

"Ah come on," I said, my ass feeling very antsy in my chair.  "Can't I at
least watch?"

"Shhh.  Not this time, Brad."

But I watched the back of him anyway.  His tan, heavily muscled back
flexing as he pounded furiously at his dick.  He was going at it hard, but
he didn't make a single sound of pleasure.  He just looked down at his dick
quietly, the only sound being the rhythmic rub of his strokes.

With all that rubbing going on, it was no wonder that his boxers
slowly--torturously--slid down his behind.  To my surprise, he had on a
black, expensive looking jock, so I didn't even get to see his balls.  But
it was my first time seeing his ass.  Tan and smooth and round and pure
muscle, it went perfectly with rest of his body.

How fucking bizarre it was to be turned on so much by another guy's butt.

After enjoying the show for several minutes, he suddenly reached over and
grabbed the glasses, putting them in front of him.

His ass flexed hard and he bucked his hips forward; I knew he had just cum,
though no sound ever escaped his lips.

Shit.  I realized what he must have been doing with the glasses, yet I
couldn't believe it.

After a good half-minute, he held the two glasses in one hand as he
readjusted himself and pulled his pants back up with the other.

He turned back around, a serious look on his face, and walked towards me at
the table.

"Drink," he said, holding the glasses with one hand just inches from my
face.

The smell hit me before I actually looked at the liquid inside, there was
no mistaking the smell of cum.

But two things were mucho unexpected.  First, the way the cum looked in the
glasses.  It was whiter, milkier, and creamier than my cum, than a normal
man's cum.  Secondly, and more shockingly, was the amount of cum involved.
Both of the glasses--and these were tall glasses--were filled to the brim
with the dude's semen, and the goo was even dripping down the sides of both
glasses.

"Shit dude, how'd you shoot an elephant sized load like that?  What, has it
been fifty years since you came last or something?"  He didn't smile.  "Ha!
It has, hasn't it?"

"No," he said.  "Drink up while it's still warm."

"You want me to drink all of that shit?" I asked.  "You're one sick puppy,
you know that?  This seems pretty fucking fetishistic for an angel."

"Does the idea of drinking my semen disturb you?" he asked.  "Make you
physically ill?"

"Actually, no," I said.

"Then do it.  Remember the promise you made last night to me about
unquestioning obedience."

I glared up at him for a second, angry because I knew he was right, and
then grabbed the glasses, one in each hand, the spunk already sliming up my
fingers.  "Shall I start with a toast?" I asked him.  "Here's to us?
Here's to me drinking enough of your jizz to make my stomach burst open?"

"To symbiosis," he said seriously.

I raised my glass.  "Symbiosis.  Whatever the fuck that is."

I shut my eyes, put the slimy glass against my lower lip, and started to
drink.

It didn't look like the precum he had fed me last night, so there was no
reason for me to expect the physical response that occurred when the cum
hit my mouth.  Condensed ecstasy; hot, violent pleasure poured into my
mouth and the effect was so shocking I almost lost control of my hand and
dropped the glass as my body spasmed happily.  If anything, the effect of
his actual semen was more acute than that of the precum.  The liquid was
thicker and creamier, with a thicker, salty flavor.  It was such a simple
flavor, really, and yet to me it tasted like heaven itself.  Well, shit,
this was the cum of an angel, after all.

"Slow down," Sam told me as I slammed all of the contents hungrily into my
mouth and started on the second glass, pouring it into my mouth.  "You like
that, do you?" he asked with a laugh.

When both glasses were empty, I licked up all the warm spunk that had
dripped down the sides of them.  Then, still eager for more, I wiped the
inside of glasses clean with my fingers, sucking each one clean in turn.

"Jesus Christ," I said, slouching back in my seat, feeling for once
satisfied.  "I've never, ever felt anything like that.  Shit, why did you
wait till now to give me that stuff?  We should have been doing this the
whole time!"

Sam laughed, but didn't answer my question.  "Get in the shower," he said.
"We have a plane to catch."

*****

I was passenger again to Sam's driver, as we drove out into the night,
leaving the city behind and heading into the rural countryside.  We didn't
talk on the way there, and the ride to me felt eerily similar to the one I
had taken two nights ago when Sam had driven me to what was supposed to
have been my prison in the country.

But this ride was much shorter, and ended up at a private airstrip.  Sam
was waived through security towards an unmarked white jet on the dark
runway that was certainly the largest private airplane I had ever seen,
looking as big as a commercial jet.

"You angels always seem to travel in style," I told Sam as we left his car.

"God wouldn't have it any other way," Sam joked, raising his voice over the
shrill hum of the jet.

A portly, redfaced, middle-aged man with a Walrus-like moustache coat came
out of the plane and sauntered down the stairs.  He smiled with a certain
amount of Santa Clause jolliness, squinting his eyes.  I hated him from the
first moment I set eyes on him.  "Well, look who we got here!"  he
exclaimed with a Russian accent that was much thicker than Sam's, clapping
his hands together exuberantly.  "A pair of passengers in need!"

"Please tell me that he is not another angel," I told Sam quietly as the
strange fat man continued walking our way.  "Cause if he is, you really
were stretching it when you said all angels had to be the paragon of
perfection."

Sam snickered.  "Don't worry, Brad.  He's just a man.  Feel free to cut him
some slack."

As the man got close to us, I realized that he was wearing the most
ridiculous uniform, a red velvet button-up jacket with matching pants and a
little red bill-less cap.  "Boy, flight attendants are getting uglier and
uglier these days," I said.

"Sam, my friend!  Please, come on board!  We have long flight back to the
mother country!"

"The mother country?" I asked.  "Does anyone actually say that phrase
anymore?"

The man smiled at me, his fat cheeks bright red.  "Did not you know?" he
asked me.  "I am Russian!"

"Wow, you don't say!" I told him.  "I had you pegged for native Nigerian
for a second there."

"No, no, no, I am Russian," he insisted.  "From Russia," he told me, as if
he thought it likely I might not know the meaning of the word `Russian.'
"Like Sam.  Sam and I, we are practically like brothers, is this not so?"
He patted Sam on the shoulder.

Sam nodded at the man politely but without much enthusiasm.  "Hello,
Nickolai," he said.

"Yeah, I can really see the family resemblance," I teased.

"And this is Bradley," Sam told Nickolai.

The red-faced man smiled and giggled.  "Well, good to meet you son."  I
just stared back at him coldly, not wanting to encourage any more giddiness
than was already directed at me.  "Let me take your luggage."  He swooped
towards us and picked up both of our bags.  "Oh, I am getting too old for
this!" he joked as he arched his back.

"Let me, Nick," Sam offered.

"No, no, no, not on my watch will an angel ever carry his own luggage, not
on my watch."  He hurried off towards the stairs of the plane.  "Better
shake a leg, better get back in the sky, yup, we'd better."

Sam and I slowly followed behind him.  "I didn't know Russians could be
so... jovial."

"Contrary to the opinions of most Americans, we Russians do not all posses
the temperament of Stalin."

Nick turned at the hatch of the plane and waived to us again.  "Come on,
slow pokers!"

"That's a damn shame," I said.

"Nick's just a bit off," Sam said.  "You can't blame him.  He's spent most
of his life serving on this plane."

"Oh, lord, don't tell me he's the pilot too?  We're not letting that guy
fly the plane, are we?"

"Don't be ridiculous, of course not."

We climbed the stairs and stepped into the plane.  The interior was
brightly lit and beautifully designed.  We were in a large, open section of
the cabin.  To our left, two sets of secure, windowless doors stood ajar,
and beyond them was the cockpit of the plane.  Three men sat in the
cockpit, two of them examining controls, one looking back at us.
Physically, they looked like typical airline pilots, only they were dressed
in plainclothes.  I supposed that was normal for a private jet.

To our right, the room we were in extended for a large portion of the plane
before ending in another set of doors.  There were twelve other men in this
room--well, thirteen really, as Nick quickly moved behind me and shut the
door.  Four of these men looked rather unremarkable.  They were sitting in
a group of leather couches in the middle of the room, chatting with each
other.  All were at least in their late thirties.  None of them were the
least bit attractive.

The other eight men, however, were something to behold.  Tall men, like
Sam, and all built like he was too.  And each and every one of them were
(astoundingly) as beautiful as Sam.  Okay, maybe not quite as beautiful as
Sam, though I definitely was a bit biased.  But these men, like Sam
himself, looked less like men and more like gods--the kind of physical
perfection than only happens once in a generation.

Not that all of them looked the same or were in any way uniform.  Not in
the slightest.  They were of all different ethnicities, all beautiful in
their own unique way.  Their clothes were stylish and perfect, but they
each wore different sort of styles, from urban cowboy attire on the man
closest to me, to a costume that looked straight out of a Matrix movie on
the guy who was farthest away.

Nobody had to tell me that these eight men were angels.

They were all standing up, their backs against the walls of the plane, four
on one side and four on the other.  Leather straps held them in place on
the wall, and all of them had their eyes closed.  Their faces stayed
expressionless and stoic as we came in.  Were these angels sleeping?

 "How many people are on this plane?" I asked Nick.

 "Sixteen Thrones and sixteen Delectors," Nick replied, with some dignity.
I supposed I was to be impressed by those numbers.

"Thrones?" I asked, completely clueless.

"A kind of angel," Sam told me.  "Thrones are responsible for the upkeep of
the flock.  All of the angels on this plane are Thrones."

"Right, okay," I said.  "And Delectors, what are those again?"

Nick looked shocked and disturbed at my ignorance.  "Don't ya even know
what you are, son?  You and me both, we are Delectors.  Praise the good
Lord."

"Wait a minute," I said, turning to Sam.  "Does that mean I'm gonna have to
be like this guy?  Be forced to wear an ugly ass costume and prance around
like a stewardess?"

Nick's smile faded for once; apparently he was capable of an angry
expression.  "Hey, I'm not forced to wear this suit!  I made it myself!"

"All Delectors are given freedom to dress as they please," Sam said.  "It's
their right to personal expression.  Nick chooses to express himself by
stitching up these marvelous velvet suits, isn't that right, Nick?"

"Yes indeed, yes, yes," Nick said, skipping back and forth in place and
looking down at his red rags.  "And you, my brother Delector, are just like
me."

"I am NOT a fucking thing like you, Nick," I told him.  "Sam, please tell
me that you're not bringing me along so I can spend my life carrying
luggage and serving coffee."

"Who said I serve coffee?" Nick asked me.

"Well, do you?" I asked him.

"Yes," he admitted sheepishly.  "Shall I get you a cup?" he asked
excitedly.

"No thanks, dude," I said.

"Right now, we are merely guests of this aircraft, Bradley," Sam told me.
"When we get to Moscow, I will be reassigned.  Perhaps they will make me a
Throne, in which case there is a chance I could end up serving on a jet
like this one.  And all Delectors serve with their Domni, so, yes, you
could up having Nick's job, I suppose.  Or you could learn to be a pilot
like those Delectors in there."

"If you're clever enough for that, piloting I mean," Nick said, and I could
tell by the tone of his voice that he had not been clever enough to be a
pilot.  That came as no big surprise.  "But anyway, don't you worry about
it, son.  Sam's being modest here.  He's never going to be no Throne.  When
he's not Guardian, he's always been a Power."

"Power, huh Sam?" I asked, elbowing him in the ribs.  "Sounds good.  Sounds
powerful, really.  What does it mean?"

"A Power," Nick told me, opening his eyes wide with wonder, "is a warrior
angel.  A fighter.  A Potentate.  They fight against evil, protecting
humanity and angels with force."

"Oh," I said.  "A soldier angel.  I can relate to that."

Sam nodded.  "Actually, I was a soldier for a time in my human life.  A
skilled one.  Because of those skills, I've always been given the task of a
Power."

"So, a Power is above a Throne then?" I asked.

"What d'ya mean, above?" asked Nick.

"You know, in the hierarchy?"

Nick just looked back at me, confused.

"There is no hierarchy among us Cherubim," Sam told me.  "Powers, Thrones,
Guardians, and Dominions.  All of them have a purpose, all of them have a
responsibility to the other angels.  Each is an honor in its own way, and
also a burden.  But none are status or power symbols here.  We work not for
the self, but for the angel entity.  Without the self, power cannot be
personally abused or used for individual gain.  An angel may be given more
power than another, yes.  But that power is owned by the entire flock."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the drill," I said.  "Some delusional Marines
used to talk like that too, how they were no longer individuals but just
pieces of a larger machine, but that's total bullshit.  You get promoted,
you get more powerful, and you get more respect.  That's what everyone
wants."

"Don't be foolish enough to compare the Angel Flock to the Marine Corp,"
Sam told me.

"It's true," Nick said.  "A Power gets a whole lot more down time than the
other angels.  And so, so does his Delector.  Sometimes I wish Christian
there," he nodded towards one of the angles on the wall, "was a Power so as
I could get more time off.  But then, you see, being a Power's Delector is
so much more dangerous.  So, I like where I am just fine.  Couldn't be
happier that Christian was assigned to be a Throne."

"So I'll be a Power's Delector?" I asked.  "That's fine, I can handle a
little danger."

"We don't know if I'll be assigned to be a Power again," Sam told me.

"Ha!" Nick said.  "It's all but certain, far as I can tell!"

"There may be enough Powers already," Sam told me.  "I could very well be a
Throne this time."

"Nah," Nick said.  "Not with the war that's going on these days.  Good
Powers are needed more than ever.  You'll see."

"We're taking off!" one of the pilots yelled back from the cockpit.

"Shall we sit down with the other Delectors?" Nick asked.

The three of us joined the four men who were already sitting.  I sat next
to an old man, the oldest one in the group, who seemed totally oblivious to
our presence and kept his anxious eyes firmly upon the lighting fixtures on
the ceiling, as if he was worried they might at any moment fall upon him.

We started to move down the runway.  "There aren't any windows," I said to
no one in particular.

"That's to keep the sunlight off the Thrones come morning," Nick said.
"You do know what sunlight does to an angel, dontcha?"

"I've seen it firsthand," I said, remembering with horror what that looked
like, and praying that I'd never see it again.  "Won't light come through
the cockpit windows?"

"That's why there's those double doors up there.  They shut them up during
the daytime.  If a pilot comes or goes, they open and shut one door at a
time to keep the light out."  We began shooting down the runway.

"Shhhhwooooo!"  I jumped as the weird old man next to me, who had so far
been completely silent, began emitting loud noises from his mouth.

"Jesus fuck, is this guy okay?"  I asked, sure he was having some sort of
epileptic fit.

"Who, Ronald?" Nick asked me.  Who else could I possibly be referring to,
you dumb fuck?  "Of course he's fine.  He just likes to mimic the sounds of
the plane as we fly."

At the moment, Ronald seemed to be imitating the sound of the jet taking
off.  I inched as far away from the psychotic man as I could.  Of course,
this meant I had to inch closer to Nick, who was starting to look more and
more sane.

 "You work as long as we have on a plane, you forget where you stop and the
plane begins!" Nick said, laughing.

"Vroooooooooooom!" Nick cried out suddenly, bucking his hips into the air.

"There's the sound of the landing gear being retracted!" Nick said.

What the hell was with these people?  What kind of angels would ever want
them as their Delectors, anyway?  Were they chosen out of pity?  I looked
at Sam, who was smiling back at me.  You sure hit the jackpot with me if
this is what Delectors are typically like.

I looked at the eight Thrones, seemingly asleep and glued to the wall.

"Are they sleeping?" I asked.

"They're working," Nick told me.

"They're in a sort of trance," Sam added.  "Concentrating too intently to
even open their eyes."

"What are they doing?"

"See how they're strapped into the walls like that?" Sam asked.  "Touching
the plane with their bodies?"

"Yeah."

"They're cloaking the plane.  And everything inside of it.  No men will
ever know that this plane is flying through the sky.  And even better, they
are psychically manipulating pilots of other plains, air traffic control
operators as well.  Other aircraft are subtly redirecting their courses so
as not to interfere with our flightplan.  They'll never even know what
they've done.  It's an ingenious operation, really.  The safest way to
fly."

As we flew east, the other two Delectors offered me a meal, which I
accepted.  A couple of them went back into the kitchen and brought me out
food (nothing better than typical airline food, unfortunately).  But
halfway through my rosemary chicken, I felt a sharp pain in my stomach.  I
put down my dish immediately.  "Holy shit," I said, feeling suddenly like I
was gonna puke.  "I feel like I got food poisoning or something.  You
crazies didn't forget to refrigerate this chicken, did you?"

"It was frozen," one of the Delectors said.

"Is there anything we can do?" Nick asked me.

"Just tell me where the fuck your bathroom is, quick," I said.

"Back here," he said.  "I'll show you."

I got up, following Nick towards the back.

"Should I come with you, Brad?" asked Sam.

"Why?  So you can wipe the puke off my chin when I'm done hurling?  I think
I can take care of myself, thanks."

Nick took me back through the kitchen, where one of the pilots was pouring
himself a cup of coffee.  "Don't mind us, Captain," Nick said, suddenly
shifting into a discrete whisper.  "Bradley here is feeling a little
airsick and has to throw up."

"Oh," said the pilot, stepping away from me as if worried I might at any
moment let the chunks fly.

"I'm not airsick!" I said.  "I don't get airsick!  You motherfuckers
poisoned me!"

Nick led me into a hall with twelve doors along it.  "The bedrooms," Nick
said.  "Eight are occupied currently."

 "Occupied by who?" I asked.

"Why, the dayshift, of course," said Nick.  "Those poor unlucky souls.
Eight Thrones and eight Delectors.  They'll replace us in about half an
hour.  Then we'll be off to bed."  He opened the ninth door.  "You and Brad
will be sleeping in here for the day."  Eventually we got to the bathroom.
"Want me to step inside with you?" he asked me, following me into the
bathroom.

"Get the fuck out," I said, pushing him forcibly out of the bathroom and
locking the door.

I leaned down towards the toilet and immediately puked up my rosemary
chicken.  I didn't really feel any better after I was done.

Feeling exhausted, I went into the bedroom that was assigned to us and got
into the double bed.  I was asleep immediately.

*****

Heat and comfort.  Exquisite pleasure.  That is what I awoke to.

I tried to open my eyes.  I could not.  A hand was holding them shut.

I tried to move my body, but I couldn't do that either.  I was lying on my
back in bed.  Someone was sitting on my chest, their knees pinning down my
arms.

My mouth was open, my lips against something warm and wet and round.
Liquid pleasure was pouring into my mouth.

Yes, yes.  This is what I wanted.  The angel cum filled up my mouth and
started to pour out over my cheeks.  I started swallowing, over and over,
faster and faster, trying to keep up with this fount.

"Yes, Bradley," Sam hummed, his voice coming from above me and falling down
upon me like the sweetest, gentlest breeze.  "I have what you need to feel
better."

My dick jumped in excitement as my sleepy mind put two and two together and
realized that my lips were upon the tip of his dick.  The first contact I
had been allowed with his dick.  I explored with my tongue, finding the
large cum-hole on the surface of his tip, and tasted the hot cum oozing out
of him.  He was climaxing, and for once I was getting this pleasure juice
straight from the sweet source.

I drank eagerly.  And the pain in my stomach slowly went away.

Finally, after at least a minute of him pouring his goo into me, the climax
subsided.  He dribbled some more into my mouth, and then pulled off of me.

I felt his hand on my forehead.  "Go back to sleep," he said.  And my
excitement flipped into exhaustion as I was forced back asleep.

*****

"Wake up, Bradley," Sam said to me, gently waking me up with the soft sound
of his voice.  "We've started our descent."

I opened my eyes.  Sam was already dressed.  He had opened the plane
window, which before had been locked shut, and was looking out at the
night, a burning cigarette in his hand.

I groggily awoke, realizing I was sleeping nude.  Sam must have removed the
clothes that I had gone to bed in the night before.

My dick was as hard as fuck.  "Damn you, man," I told Sam.

"What did I do wrong now?"

"You blew a load in my mouth last night and you didn't even let me get
off."  I grabbed my hard dick and showed it to him.  "I'm as horny as
fucking hell."

"You should come see this view," he said, disregarding my talk of sex.

"I know what I want to see," I said, staring at the crotch of his jeans.
"And it isn't the fucking view."  God I wanted his dick so bad.

I rolled over to the side of the bed, where he was standing, and wrapped my
hands around his waist, grabbing his ass in my hands and pulling his crotch
towards my face.  I rubbed my nose into the fly of his jeans.

"Hey, lay off, will ya?" Sam asked me as he pulled me up away from his
crotch by my shoulders.

"I want another load of yours so fucking bad," I said.

"We don't have time now," he said.  "The other angels--"

"Screw the other angels!  I want your goddamn cum right now, Sam!"

"No!" Sam said.  "I know you're horny as hell, but you'll just have to
suffer through it for now.  Come see the city."

I sighed painfully, relenting, and stuck my cheek against Sam's cheek so I
could see out the window, both of us looking out at the city as we went in
for a landing.  "Nice," I said, trying to sound bored, looking at all the
lit-up buildings.  "Hey, what building's that?" I asked, pointing to a huge
tower away from the downtown area of the city.  It was taller than any
building in the city, a large glass spire that rose up from the ground and
ended in a sharp point.  The whole thing was lit up so bright it made the
city beside it pale in comparison.  I had never seen any building so
beautiful.

He smiled.  "I'm so pleased that you can see it," he said.  "The tower of
light.  You are the only one of my Delectors who has ever been able to see
it straight away."

"How could they not see that?" I asked.  "It's the biggest thing in
Moscow."

"Because, quite simply, it is cloaked.  Nobody can see it but us."

"You can cloak a whole friggin building?  Look how huge that thing is!"

"It's the tallest man-made structure in Russia," Sam boasted.

"How can you cloak that whole fucking thing?"

"There are a hundred Thrones inside, cloaking the thing together.  Men
cannot perceive the building in any way.  We manipulate their minds, make
them walk and fly their aircraft around the building, make them turn
slightly away whenever they take a picture.  No citizen has any reason to
believe that this, the most powerful monument to God, lies right in front
of their faces."

"Fucking unbelievable."

"Hurry up and get dressed."

By the time I had dressed, we had landed in another private airport outside
of the city.  Sam thanked the crew and said farewell, and we left the
plane, our bags in hand.

A car was waiting to drive us to the tower.  The driver stepped out of the
car and walked towards Sam with a friendly smile.

"Deepak," Sam said.  "It's been too long.  I hope this evening finds you
well."

"Indeed it does," he said.  He had a Brittish accent, but he looked Indian
to me.  Probably about fifty, a bit pudgy but tall, and with a white beard.
He had a pair of round glasses on and wore a black suit.

"Are you and Luke on chauffer duty now?" Sam asked him.

"No, we heard you were coming with your new Delector and we volunteered to
come get you," Deepak said.  "Luke's still on the daywatch."

"Well, we are much obliged," Sam said.  "Luke!  Get out here and come meet
my new Delector!"

Luke stepped out of the passenger side of the car and looked me over.  I
knew immediately that he was an angel, he was far too pretty to be anything
else.  Milky skin, curly red hair, big blue eyes, large, pouty lips--like
the other angels, he looked like a model or an actor or something.  Tall,
lean, and young, he wore super fashionable urban attire, the kind of casual
clothes that always belonged either to Europeans or American fags.  Like
Sam, he was the kind of guy I only expected to ever see on the pages of a
magazine or in a film--those kinds of guys weren't supposed to exist in
real life.

I have to admit, the first thing I thought when I saw the dude was,
`fucking hot.'  "Hey, I'm Brad Wheeler," I said, offering him my hand and
my most charming smile.  I instinctively looked down at his crotch as I
moved towards him, wondered what his dick looked like underneath those
jeans.

"Yeah, I already know your name," he said to me sharply without shaking my
hand.  He had some European accent that I couldn't place.  "Let's not
forget that I can read your mind.  In the past few seconds you've already
inappropriately checked out my dick and told me that my clothes were those
of a fag."

Jeez, what a total ass.  "Look, I'm sorry--"

"And you think I'm an ass, that's real nice, thanks tons.  Look, for once
in your hypocritical, deceptive life, it's not okay just to say what's
polite, you have to think it too.  You have to assume that every thought
you have is being spoken aloud."

"Give him a break, Luke," Sam said.  "We all know you can't expect him to
control every stray thought that runs through his brain.  And certainly,
even among angels, there's a difference between an idea thought and one
spoken aloud."

Luke looked over at Sam for a second, leaning against the car door.  He
shook his head sadly.  "When I heard you had a new Delector, it crossed my
mind of course that he and the Eversor you had taken as your watch were one
and the same.  But I discarded that thought.  There was no way Samuel the
strong, Samuel the wise, Samuel the old could make such a terrible
mistake."

"There's no law prohibiting what I've done," Sam said.

"It's sacrilege!" he cried out.

"How is it thus?" Sam asked him.

"The Eversor exists to kill Angels like us.  That's what they told me as
soon as I got here.  He is evil."

"You can see for yourself that Bradley is not evil," Sam said.  "He is an
innocent, and he is a man, and therefore he is allowed to be my Delector.
It is my choice, lest you not forget.  I have chosen him."

"He may be an innocent," Luke argued.  "But only in the most technical
sense.  He is certainly not a man of any reasonable amount of virtue.
Nothing like Deepak here.  If he was not the Eversor, and just a man, I
would have told you that he was a bad choice for this life.  As it is I say
it's only a matter of days before he breaks his vows.  Somehow I wonder if
you would have ever chosen him if it were not for him being Eversor."

"Are you accusing me of picking Bradley as my Delector for some sort of
personal or political gain?"

Luke said nothing, but his silence was an obvious affirmative to the
question.

"Forgive him, please," Deepak interjected.  "He is young and foolish."
Deepak looked over at me.  "Luke is the youngest Angel alive."

"How old are you?" I asked Luke.

He refused to either look or answer me.

"Thirty-one," Deepak answered.  "I am older than him, if you can believe
that.  The only Delector alive who is actually older than their Domno."  He
looked back and forth at Sam and Luke, who were staring at each other as if
they were having some silent conversation in their minds.  "Shall we go to
the Ensis now?" he asked.

"Yes, Deepak, thank you," Sam said.

We all got into the car and Deepak drove the car into the city.  Both the
angels stayed awkwardly silent.

Deepak must have been uncomfortable with their silence, because he suddenly
initiated conversation.  "So, Bradley," he said.  "You're the first Eversor
I've ever met, I must say.  Wow, that is really something."

"Uh, whatever man," I answered.  "Far as I can tell I'm no different that
any other dude.  Really don't see what the big deal is."

"I imagine that you'll be the first Eversor to ever set foot inside the
Ensis," he said excitedly.

"That's actually not the case," Sam interjected.  "The Red broke into the
Ensis a couple decades ago.  Killed many, many angels, defiled Gabriel's
grave, and got away scott free."

"Well, that was before I was a Delector of course.  Hell, Luke wasn't even
an Angel yet then."  There was another moment of silence that I certainly
wasn't going out of my way to fill up.  "You know Brad," Deepak began
again.  "Luke had a run in with another Eversor a few months ago.  Didn't
you Luke?"

Luke said nothing.

"Oh, stop sulking," Sam told him.  "Angels do not sulk."

Luke turned to me finally.  "It was before I found Deepak.  I was just a
Guardian in London then."

"He was foolish enough to try and attack the Eversor," Deepak said, giving
a hearty laugh.  "Even though he was a new angel and a Guardian, which
means he was at half of his strength.  He didn't even have the power to
cloak himself consistently."

"It doesn't matter," Luke said.  "He would have been mine if he hadn't been
guarded by a werewolf."

"But that's not the reason why the action was a foolish mistake," Sam said.
"The Eversor was an innocent, like you Brad.  It is against our rules to
harm an innocent or take them against their will."

"They told me that any Cherubim who could bring a living Eversor to the
Seraphim would be bestowed great rewards," Luke said in defense.  "Nobody
ever told me that a Eversor could be an innocent.  Nobody told me that I
wasn't allowed to harm an innocent Eversor.  Nobody ever tells me anything.
Just toss me into the raging sea and hope that I learn to swim, isn't that
right Sam?"

"Keep your anger in check, young one," Sam responded.  "Let's not forget
that wrath is a sin."  He rubbed his eyes wearily.  "And besides, you
shouldn't need anyone to tell you not to hurt an innocent Eversor.  You
should know instinctively the difference between right and wrong."

"Anyway, Luke's been paying the price for that mistake ever since!" Deepak
said.  "Been stuck on daywatch in the Ensis, the worst assignment a Throne
can be given!"

Luke looked vacantly out towards the window, saying nothing.

Deepak parked the car.  "Alright.  From here we go by foot."

As we walked down the street towards the huge tower of glass in front of
us, Luke took a hold of Deepak's arm and Sam did the same to me.  "We need
to be unseen," Sam said.

As we came to the sidewalk that bordered the front steps of the Ensis, a
man was standing there, looking up, a little awestruck.  I followed his
gaze.  Hundreds of feet of pure white light reflecting through glass.  Yes,
it was incredible to behold.

But why was this man able to behold it?

Was he an angel, perhaps?  No, he was good-looking, but in a rugged way,
more like myself, more like a military guy, not in the `paragon of
perfection' way that Sam and Luke were.  An Asian man in his twenties,
looked to be in great shape.

I waved my hand in front of his face just to make sure.  He never even
blinked; I was as invisible as air to him.

"Can he see the building?" I asked Sam.

"Who is he?" Sam asked Luke, ignoring my question

"Some wolf," Luke said.  "He's been coming here every night.  Sometimes he
just stands there for hours.  Just looking."

"He knows about us," Sam said.  "He's been sent here to find out more about
us."

"But he doesn't know much," Luke said.

"I thought the building was totally invisible?" I asked.

"To men and wolves, this is usually true," Sam said.  "But occasionally you
come across someone who, because of what they know, can sometimes find a
way to see through our tricks."

"All Delectors learn to see through the cloaking," Deepak said.

"Every now and then we've gotten a spectator like him, who seems to see the
Ensis but cannot really perceive what they are seeing."

"Well boys, some of us have to be up early in the morning," Luke said
suddenly, pulling Deepak with him up the steps.  "Sam, I'll see you when I
see you."

"Alright, Luke," Sam said.  "Sleep well."

The pair of them disappeared into the Ensis.

The Asian wolf looked around him suddenly at the other pedestrians.  "Hey,"
he said to a man.  "Do you see that?"

The man responded in confused Russian.

"Do any of you motherfucking Commies speak English?" the wolf asked.

"Hey American!" A young woman cried out.  "Maybe if you didn't call us
commies, someone would answer!"

The wolf grabbed the woman by the arm and pointed towards the tower.  "Tell
me, what do you see here?"

"Where?"

"Right in front of us!"

She looked carefully.  "Where?  In the empty lot?"

"Never mind," he said to her.  "I could have sworn I saw something else."

"You Americans are getting crazier and crazier with each passing year."
She turned to walk back into the crowd.

Giving in, he glanced one last time at the space in front of him and walked
away.  "Hey, wait up girl!" he yelled.  "You think I'm crazy now, you
should see me in bed!  I'm an animal!"

"He's leaving," I said.

"Yes," said Sam.

"Let's go after him!" I said.  "He's a wolf!  We can't just let him walk
the streets!"

"There's no need," Sam said.  "He doesn't really see the building, so he is
not yet a threat."

"But he's a fucking werewolf!  We should kill him before he hurts any of
these people!"

"Angels in general are passive creatures, Bradley," Sam told me.  "If a
wolf is not a threat, then we tend to leave them alone.  We have no desire
to start a war with their kind."

"But you said yourself that they were evil!"

"Werewolves are not in their nature evil, Brad," Sam said.  "They are in no
way demonic.  If they were, they would be much more dangerous to us.
Werewolves are an abomination, a plague upon humanity. They are forced by
their nature to kill.  They are wretched, pitiable creatures.  The kindest
thing we can do for them is to end their suffering and put them in God's
hands.  All of us angels hope one day the werewolf plague will be just a
distant memory.  But we never delude ourselves into thinking that
werewolves are demons."

"Fine," I said, following Sam onto the steps of the Ensis.  "If you want to
run and hide from one little werewolf, there's nothing I can do about it."

Guarding the front doors were two angels dressed in beautiful antiquated
battle armor, each one of them bearing a sheathed sword.

"Powers," Sam told me.  "The guardians of our kind."

"What you used to be," I said.

He nodded proudly.

Golden light was pouring out of the double doors.  We passed through them,
from the shadow of the night and into the bright light inside.

The interior of the Ensis was even more captivating than the outside.  The
tower ended in a point, like a pyramid stretched to several times its
height.  Along the interior sloping walls of the tower were all the rooms
of this huge building, leaving a smaller, pyramid-shaped hollow on the
inside of the building.  Standing in this space was a statue in marble that
was disarmingly beautiful and of incredible stature.  An angel, in full
armor, with his wings folded along his back, standing upright with his
sword raised in his hand, the point of the sword ending at the top of the
tower.

"Holy fucking Mary," I said.  "It's fucking big."

"It's the largest sculpture in the world," Sam told me.  "It's of Gabriel,
the first angel to live on this world.  He delivered many of our souls from
purgatory and died protecting us from the wrath of the devil.  He is buried
on this sight, under the statue.  This whole tower was built around his
burial sight.  The most holy place on earth, as far as I can say.  What do
you think?"

"It's fucking big," I repeated.

"There's a room for every Angel in the world in this building," he said.
"There are almost a thousand angels alive.  It has to be big."

He was standing there beside me, looking up at the statue, his mouth
slightly open in an awe-filled smile.  He was truly proud and thankful, I
realized for these surroundings.  God, he was so fucking hot.  I stared
down at his crotch.  I wanted so bad to take him right here and now.

"So do you have a room in this building?" I asked hopefully.

"Of course," he said.  "Towards the top."  He looked at me excitedly.
"Shall I show it to you?"

"Yes, please," I said.  "I've never wanted anyone as badly as I want you
right this second."

He laughed modestly.  "I feel the same way about you," he said.

"So, what are we waiting for?  Let's go upstairs and rip our fucking
clothes off!"

"There will be plenty of time for that later," he said.  "Don't you want a
tour of the Ensis first?"

I shook my head.  "The only thing I want a tour of is your pants."

He laughed again.  "We'll take a tour of the Ensis and end up at my
bedroom, how does that sound?"

I gave him an annoyed look.

"A very short tour," he said.

"Fine," I said.  "Lead on."

But it wasn't a short tour at all.  The place was huge, a plush fucking
labyrinth.  Sam was stopping to show me every little thing.  The common
areas, the gym, the medical center, and on, and on, and on.

Every room we toured, every hallway we passed through, there were angels
walking around, each of them with their Delectors closely at hand.  It was
so easy for me to tell them apart.  The Delectors seemed to be a
cross-section of men, some attractive, some repulsive, most of them about
average.  The angels, on the other hand, weren't men at all.  To me, they
were gods.  Beautiful creatures who seemed to belong more on Mt. Olympus
than in Moscow.  Though, I figured, perhaps this place was Mt. Olympus
itself.  Clean, white, and strikingly beautiful.

I noticed the other angels looking at me as I passed.  I wondered what they
thought of me.  I liked to imagine that most of them were looking at me
jealously.  They knew that their own Delectors were fucking ugly compared
to me.  They wanted me for themselves.

God, I was so fucking horny looking at all these hot dudes everywhere
around me, if Sam didn't end the fucking tour and take me up to his room, I
was gonna break down and hook up with one of these other angels.  They had
dicks too, angel dicks with angel cum, and that's what I wanted.

Halfway through the tour, I realized how fucking starving I was, so Sam
took me to the dining hall.  There, sitting at many fancy tables set for
two, were dozens of angel/Delector pairs.  Of course, the angels were never
eating anything, just watching while their Delectors enjoyed a good meal.

"Most of the time Delectors have food delivered to their rooms," Sam told
me as we sat down to eat.  "The food here is quite exquisite, or so I have
been told."

The food was excellent, if a bit too oddly European for my taste.  When I
had finished, Sam announced that the tour would continue.  I complained and
I argued, telling him that the tour was taking all fucking day, but he
insisted.  And I whined and complained all the way through.

The one stop on our tour which I had no cause for complaint was the armory.
"Where Powers gear up," Sam told me.  Shelves and shelves spanning up many
feet above us in this prodigious room, all stacked with weapons and armor.
The Powers closest to me were suiting up like the guards I had seen in the
front door, in beautiful ancient armor, most of it looking Roman in design,
and large battleswords.  But this room had so much more to offer.  Weapons
from every era and design, including modern equipment I had been
familiarized with in the Marines.

A Delector nearby was putting on full body armor that a police SWAT team
might have, arming himself with a sawed-off shotgun.  "Why is the Delector
need to be armed?" I asked Sam.

"He's the Delector of a Power," Sam answered.  "He is expected to stay by
his Power at all times and support him as needed in battle."

"Cool," I said.  "You have to be a Power again.  I want to get my hands on
some of these guns."

"It is the duty of the Delectors to guard the angels and the Ensis during
the day, when angels are unable to protect themselves.  Although certainly
the men are comparatively weak, it is not unheard of for a Delector to save
the life of his angel during the daytime, while the Angel sleeps."

Next Sam led us into another huge room, the library.  Books on huge shelves
all around us.  "It's even bigger than the library," I said.

"We angels have more need for books than for weapons," Sam told me.

"So is this the biggest library in the world or something?" I asked.

"Are you kidding me?" Sam asked.  "This isn't even as large as any
university library would be."

"Hey, guess what?  I never fucking went to college.  Never stepped foot in
a university library, so how am I supposed to know that?"

"Well, no, it is just a modestly sized library," Sam said.  "But there are
books here that you won't find anywhere else in the world.  Books long
forgotten by anyone but the angels.  Books written by angels themselves."
He patted my shoulder.  "Do you want to take a look around?"

"No thanks, man," I said.  "I hate libraries.  I hate all the books."

"What's wrong with books?" asked Sam.

"Well, for one thing, they stink."

"Books do not stink!"

"They do too!"  I took a big whiff.  "I can smell them from here.  Smells
old and moldy, like an old ladies ass crack."

"They do not!"

"Can we just please go?" I asked.  "You said this tour would be short.
We've been touring for fucking most of the night!"

"Sure," he said, leading me back into the hall.  "There's just one place I
wanted to show you, but it's a long walk from here."

"Oh Christ, what is it now?"

"The baths," he said, smiling excitedly.  "The Crystal Baths.  They're
underground."

"Is there a fucking shower in your room?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said.  "Of course."

"Then fuck the fucking baths," I said.  "Let's go to the bedroom already!"

"But really the baths have to be seen to be believed.  The design itself--"

"I'm sure that the baths are great, really I am.  But Sam, I don't give a
flying fuck about the baths or the library or the fucking 18-hole golf
course that's probably out back.  I'm not here to see the Ensis, I'm here
to spend time with you.  All I've wanted since Boston was to be alone with
you without any distractions, but ever since then all I've seen is Ronnie,
Luke, and the fucking five star Ensis!  I'm done with the tour, take me
back to the room and let's fool around!"

"Well, if you feel that strongly about it," he said, "we can save the baths
for another day."  He put his hand lightly on my back and guided me towards
one of the glass elevators.

His room was indeed almost to the top of the building, three floors down
from the top floor, in fact.  We walked along a corridor, with door after
door on the wall to our right, and on our left the top of Gabriel's sword
appearing beyond the balcony and reaching past us upwards.

"Here it is," Sam said, holding the door open from me.

"Finally," I said as I went into the room.

Like the rest of the Ensis, Sam's apartment was tastefully decorated with
wide open brightly lit spaces and tall ceilings.  There was a sitting room,
a dining room, a luxury bathroom and, best of all, a king-sized bed in the
bedroom.

"Holy fuck, look at that view," I said, moving towards the windows of the
bedroom which looked down upon the twinkling lights of the city.

"Like all the windows in the building, there are screens which
automatically close before sunrise."  Sam ran his hand over the top of an
ornate wooden dresser and looked at the dust in his hand.  "A bit dusty.
It's been a long time since this place has seen any use."

"I don't care," I said, smiling at him.  "It's perfect."

I ran over to him and started to kiss him.  He knew what I wanted from him,
and I would wait no longer.  He kissed me back, those wonderful angel
kisses, holding the back of my head in his hand.

I pushed him back towards the bed.  At first he didn't budge, a reminder
that he was so much stronger than me and as immovable as stone if he wanted
to be.  But then, realizing where I was trying to lead him, he stepped back
and sat down on the bed, never breaking our kiss.  I sat on his lap and
kissed him harder.  God, how I wanted him.  I reached down and eagerly
pulled his shirt open.

"Hey," he said, pulling his mouth away from my hungry lips.  "You just
ripped off all my buttons."

I wanted him to shut up and keep on kissing me, so I forced my mouth back
upon him.  I reached down to the crotch of his jeans.  I began to slide my
hand down the front of the waistband.  For once, he wasn't going to stop
me.  I would finally have my prize.

"Hello!" yelled a voice from the front room.  Jesus fucking Christ, go
away!

Sam stopped kissing me and looked towards the bedroom door.  "Yeah?"

"Sam, it's Luke!" the voice said.  "I need to talk to you."

No.  I kept trying to kiss him, kept moving my hand into his pants.  "Tell
him to keep walking," I said.

"Get your Dilector off of your dick and come and speak with me!" Luke
yelled.

Sam gently grabbed my hand and removed it from the top of his waistband.
All I had gotten to feel were a few lousy pubic hairs.  He gently pulled me
off of him.  His intentions were clear.

"No, no, no, no, no!" I yelled.  "He can't just walk in here and expect to
talk to you whenever he pleases!  Let him know that you're not his fucking
bitch!"

"Did I tell you yet how impressed I am with your new choice of Delector?
So much class, that one." Luke's shrill voice came from the front room.

"He needs to talk," Sam told me.  "It's the least I can do for him.  You
and I will have time later for this."

I collapsed on the bed in frustration as Sam went out to greet his guest.

"Hi Deepak," he said.  "Why don't you go and wait in the bedroom with Brad
while Luke and I talk."

A moment later Deepak let himself in, nodded politely to me, shut the door,
and looked out the window.

"Shouldn't you be asleep?" Sam asked Luke with a touch of concern.  Deepak
hadn't bothered to close the door all the way, so their conversation was
completely audible in the bedroom.

"I tried, but I failed," he said.  "Angels weren't meant to sleep during
the night.  They weren't meant to stay up all day either."  He said this
bitterly.

"Tell me what's keeping you from your peace," Sam said.

"I've been assigned to a job that doesn't suit me at all.  You were the one
who trained me.  I've been made in your mold--cunning and incredibly
strong.  I was meant to be a Power or a Dominion.  Instead, I'll fester for
years as a Throne.  The worst part is, nobody could care less about it.
Hell, nobody could care less about me."

"You're letting anger seep into your blood," Sam said.  "You're as angry as
a man scorned, and yet you are no man.  You are an angel.  Remember that.
Angels do not get angry.  Angels do not resent their assignments, they do
it without complaint."

"I know," Luke said.  "And that's the real problem.  More and more I feel
what's left of the human soul inside me take over.  It infects my own
divinity, brings it down.  I know what I've been feeling is wrong.  But I
still feel those feelings."  He sighed deeply.  "Everyone knows that you've
had your own battles with the human soul inside of you.  That you were
unable to perform for years at a time.  I'm worried I may be headed down
the same path."

"Anger was never my sin," Sam said.  "My demons came in the form of
depression.  Overwhelming loss at the deaths of my Delectors.  Loss for my
old loved ones and my old humanity.  Loss of faith in the Almighty and His
plan for me.  Loss of direction.  All of it left me, at times, leaving me
no capacity for functionality.  Yes, this was true for many years."

"But you overcame this disease?"

"Yes," Sam said.  "I realized how misplaced my doubt and sadness were.  I
knew that those emotions were not bestowed upon us by the Divine, but by
the devil himself.  I purged all the influence the devil still had over me
until all that was left was pure goodness.  And I've never suffered since."

"I know," Luke said.  "I know that is what I have to do as well.  But it's
easier said than done, isn't it?  I don't know how to make the anger go
away.  But I know I need your help.  When I got here, you took me under
your wing, and that's just what I needed.  A leader.  A guide.  But then
you left me."

"I became a Guardian," Sam said.  "I couldn't stay at the Ensis."

"But all this time, and not even a single word."

"Angels must not develop strong attachments to each other," Sam said.
"It's one of our tenet beliefs.  The brotherhood of the angels cannot ever
exceed the power of the love of a Delector or the divine love for God
himself."

"I know that," Luke said.  "I don't have to love you, Sam.  I just want to
be near you.  So you can teach me everything you know."

"You're asking me to stay at the Ensis?" Sam asked.  "Here with you?"

"Yes, for as long as you possibly can."

"It's not up to me what I am assigned to do or where I shall be placed."

"But you are old and strong and respected!"  Luke argued.  "You have
influence here, I know you do!  All I am asking, is that if you are given
the choice to stay or leave, choose to stay!"

"I will take that into consideration," Sam said.  "But I must ultimately do
what's prudent for me and my Delector."

"Just try."

"Alright."

"That's all I came here to say," Luke said.

Then get the hell out of the apartment and leave us alone!

"Sam, do you remember that time, soon after I first came here?"

No!  Not more conversation!

"What time are you speaking of?" Sam asked.

"That time when we were both in the city and we found that woman who you
said was begging to be saved."

"Ah yes," Sam said.  "She was an aging whore whose looks were fading."

"You let her see you, and you whispered to her--"

Deepak suddenly walked over and shut the bedroom door.  "Let's let them
have their privacy, shall we?" he asked.

"I guess," I replied.  "If we can't hear them, how will we know when they
are done chatting it up?"

"When Luke is ready to go, he'll tell me," Deepak said sagely, returning to
look out the window.  "Great view from up here," he said.  "Luke and I are
much lower down in the tower."

"That's great, bro," I said, not caring at all.  "Glad one of us is having
fun in here.  They've talked long enough.  I'm about to go out there and
break this reunion up."

Deepak chuckled.  "You have a lot to learn about what it means to be a
Delector," he said.  "Another angel will always take precedent over a
Delector.  Do you think that your Domno doesn't know that you want his
friend to leave the two of you alone?  He can hear your every thought.  He
knows.  And yet, he still talks to his friend."

"So what you're saying is that he's a total asshole," I said.

"No.  There couldn't be a nicer angel than Sam."

"Ah ha," I said.  "You're just saying that cause you know he can hear you."

Apparently Luke's reminiscences were quite lengthy, because I was locked in
the bedroom with Deepak for almost an hour.  When he finally left, and took
his Indian lackey with him, I had strong words for Sam for making me wait.

"If you're so angry," he said, "you probably don't want me to touch you.  A
shame.  Because all I was thinking about when Luke was here was how you
were lying here all alone on my bed."

"No, I'm not angry," I said.  "Just don't keep me waiting like that again."

Sam kissed me and pushed me down on the bed.  He pulled my shirt off and
kissed my nipples.  He pulled my pants down and took my hard dick in his
hand.  He moved his head down towards my cock.

"Jesus," I said.  "I'm so horny, just one lick and I'll be ready to cum.
God, how much I need to cum."

But Sam stopped cold, an inch away from the tip of my dick.  I pushed in
forcefully towards him, but he pulled off me and stood up.

"Get dressed," he said.

"What?  Now?  No!"

"We have a meeting to go to," he said.

"What, did you just remember it or something?" I asked.  "Well, too bad.
We'll go to the meeting when we're done here."

"I didn't just remember it," he said.  "Nathaniel just called me."

"I didn't hear the fucking phone ring."

"He didn't call me through the telephone.  He called me telepathically.  I
told him we would be there immediately."

 "Nathaniel doesn't want to suck your dick," I said.  "I do.  Nathaniel can
wait."

"Do you know who Nathaniel is?"

"No," I said.  "But I already hate the name."

"He is one of the Dominions.  But he is the leader of us all.  The head
honcho of the Cherubim.  When he requests your presence, you better fucking
go."

"Fine," I said as I stuffed my hard dick back into my pants.  "He'll have
to excuse the hard lump in my jeans."

Sam led me up to the top story of the tower, which (because each successive
floor was smaller than the previous one) was just a large room, with a tall
glass ceiling ending in the tip of the tower.  The tip of Gabriel's sword
broke through the floor of the room and pointed up towards the sky.

Sitting in a shadowy corner of the room was an Asian angel in a suit and
tie.  Like all the other angels, he was marked by his godlike beauty.  I
guessed this was Nathaniel.  On the other side of the room, his Delector, a
short skinny man in business attire, was seated behind a desk.

Nathaniel was looking at Sam, his elbow on his knee and his hand on his
chin.  He smiled simply and said, "Sam."

"Nathaniel.  It's been too long."

"Come, sit," he said.  "You too, Brad."

I followed Sam and sat next to him on the couch, staring at the strange
angel who called me by my first name.

"How are these days finding you, my friend?" Sam asked.

"I'm getting tired, Sam," he said softly.  "I'm getting old.  I've been
doing this for a long time.  I've started praying that the Seraphim will
reassign me."

"They know how valuable you are, right where you are," Sam said.

"Perhaps so," Nathaniel said.  "But we are not here to discuss me.  We are
here to discuss you and your future."  He turned to face me.  "First, let
me get a good look at the boy."  He looked me over slowly.  "You'd take
this one as your Delector, would you, Sam?"

"I would.  He may be the Eversor, but he's an innocent."

"Innocent of unforgivable sin, yes," Nathaniel said.  "But he possesses
many of the Seven Deadly Sins in great portions.  Pride, wrath.  Lust,
especially.  He is a being built of fire, passionate and easy to anger.
Quite simply, he is a loose cannon.  Are you sure you want this, Sam?"

"I'm positive," Sam told him.

"If that's the case, well then."  He smiled warmly at both of us.  "I
couldn't be happier for you."  He leaned forward and took my right hand in
his.  "Bradley Wheeler, you must make a vow to always obey Samuel.  To
always obey the other angels as well.  To never have sexual relations of
any sort with any other being besides Samuel.  To protect Samuel, with your
life if necessary.  To devote your life's efforts to the will of Samuel and
the Flock.  To devote your spirit to the Lord, and always abide by His
teachings.  To keep the secrets of the Flock always.  To do all of this for
the remainder of your life.  Do you swear to follow these vows, knowing
that the punishment for breaking any of these is death?"

"Death?" I asked.  It seemed like and endless list of demands, and now he
was telling me that if I broke any of them, they would kill me?

"Yes, death," Nathaniel said.  "Do you swear?"

I looked at Sam beside me.  He was smiling at me, urging me to answer yes.
"I swear," I said, really not even sure if I remembered all of those
restrictions.

"Good," Nathaniel said.  "Welcome, Bradley."

Sam put his hand on my neck and rubbed affectionately.

"Sam, I am so happy you have found Brad," Nathaniel said, "because it means
you are no longer a Guardian, and are once again under my jurisdiction.
You are far too valuable an angel to be gone as long as you were."

"Just tell me in what capacity you would have me serve the Almighty."

"I was considering appointing you as a Dominion.  You have the wisdom and
the capacity for action to make an excellent leader."  He took a deep
breath.  "In fact, Sam, I never told you this, but you were almost chosen
by the Seraphim to join their ranks in the seventies.  They rejected you
only because of your cigarette habit and your propensity towards darkness."

"I no longer suffer from the depressions, Nathaniel," Sam said in
self-defense.  "Though, I'm afraid the cigarettes will always be with me."

"I know," Nathaniel answered.  "But I have a role for you to fill here that
I'm sure no one else could fill.  I'm going to once again appoint you as a
Power, at least for now."

"I could never ask for more," Sam said.  "It is an honor."

"And I have a request for you.  An investigation I need you to complete."

"Anything you ask of me I shall gladly do," Sam said.

"I know you will," Nathaniel said, giving him a half-smile.  "Since you
last left to be a Guardian, we Cherubim have had an alarming number of
disappearances.  The details aren't always the same.  Sometimes, the angel
is out on assignment.  Other times, they've just gone out into the city.
Either way, they never return."

"The blooddemons," Sam said.

I yawned.  Blah blah blah, talk talk talk.  Who the fuck cared about this?
I wanted to get back to the room as soon as humanly possible, not sit and
listen to angel politics.

"That's the obvious speculation, yes," Nathaniel said.  "Before, the flock
had really only two predators.  The blooddemons were one of these.  The Red
was the other.  But it wasn't his style to pick off angels one by one.  No,
he preffered grand, marvelously calculated attacks.  His rape of the Ensis
cost us a hundred and thirty-seven angel lives."

"He was our greatest enemy.  But now he is dead."

"Yes," said Nathaniel.  "So that leaves the blooddemons, who have always
lashed out at sole angels who have crossed their path."

"And we know that the blooddemons have been multiplying out of control for
the past year," Sam said.  "So, a sudden rise in angel disappearances would
be expected."

"Yes," said Nathaniel.  "And we have lost more angels in the past year due
to the blooddemons shifting territories than we have in the previous ten.
But these disappearances I speak of began before just one year ago.  And
while always before, when an angel disappeared, if vampires were
responsible, we would eventually find the remains of the angel and give him
a proper burial.  But for the first time, these angels are disappearing
completely when they die.  No trace of them whatsoever."

"What about their Delectors?" Sam asked.

"Almost always found dead.  Sometimes their bodies disappear as well.  But
none of their Delectors have been found alive.  And it's not just the
inexperienced young members of our flock that fall victim to this enemy.
You knew of course the Dominion called Phineas?"

"Yes," Sam responded.  "His wisdom of and devotion to the scripture was
unparalleled among us."

"He was one of the first taken in this manner.  Obviously, when an angel of
that stature dies, there is a tremendous outcry to find his remains and
give them a suitable burial.  But no amount of searching yielded any
results.  He was gone.  As were the forty or so angels to have disappeared
since then."

"And so," Sam said, "you want me to try and find out if the blooddemons are
responsible?"

"Yes," Nathaniel said.  "If the blooddemons are responsible, then this
represents an odd shift in their normal behavior.  I need you to find out
what the cause of this change is.  Understood?"

"Yes," Sam said.

"Good," Nathaniel said, standing up.  "I'll have Sven make Bradley an
appointment with the surgeon for tomorrow.  When he has recovered, you can
come and go from the Ensis as it best suits you."

Sam stood up and started walking towards the elevator, with me in tow.
"Alright, Nathaniel.  I will do my best."

"Oh, and Sam," Nathaniel said.  "There's one consideration here.  Before,
the Red died, the Seraphim had instructed us that any angel to capture the
Eversor was to bring him to them.  But, I imagine now that the Eversor is
an innocent, this order has been outdated.  I will call them tonight and
let you know."

"Thanks, Nathaniel."

*****

A bit later Sam and I were back down in the dining hall eating dinner.  I
had waned to go straight back to the room, but Sam had insisted that I
needed a good meal.  With the painful hunger I'd been feeling in my stomach
lately, I couldn't argue with his logic.

There must have been about fifty other angels in the room, each sitting
with their Delectors.  Some would chat animatedly with their Delectors,
others would just watch them eat in silence or read books while their
partners dined.

"Where are all the chicks?" I asked as I cut into my pork chop.

"Women?" asked Sam.  "Out in the city."

"Aren't there any girl angels?" I asked.

"No.  None whatsoever."

"Why not?" I asked.

"It just isn't possible.  There have never been any female angels and there
will never be any female angels.  Angels are of one gender only.  Male."

"What about all those old paintings and shit that always have female
angels?"

Sam raised an eyebrow.  "All the ignorant expressions of mankind."

"Well, why can't you just make girl angels?"

"It would be impossible.  The very concept is profane."

"How is that profane?"

"God is not some shapeless ethereal being.  God looks like a man, only
infinitely more marvelous.  God created the angels in His image, as he did
Adam.  Woman was something more removed from the Divine, a necessary vessel
of propagation but intrinsically less godly.  The thought of an angel with
a woman's body--that flies in the face of God giving us his image as a
gift.  You might as well conceive of a Labrador retriever as an angel."

"I see.  So the angels are a men only club."

"Yes," Sam said.  "We love womankind just as we love mankind.  We pity them
entirely.  Our Guardians frequently help those women who are in need.  But
we cannot use their bodies as vessels for angel spirits."

I concentrated on eating my food as I thought this over.  "One more
question," I asked.

"Shoot."

"What about the girl Domni?  How come it seems like all the angels are
fags?  Wouldn't the straight ones want girls as their partners?"

"A female Domno--well that too is forbidden."

"How come?"

Sam took a deep sigh.  "The angels consider women more animalistic than
men.  They are creatures of the grass and the trees, not unlike deer and
birds and foxes.  They are beings of nature, God's creation, yes, but
susceptible to the whims of animalistic instinct, and with only a clouded
vision of Heaven.  They are considered to innately have one foot in the
fires of Hell, much more likely than their male counterparts to be the
pawns of Satan.  Throughout history, those civilizations that have made the
error of allowing women any sort or religious authority have found
themselves worshipping false idols.  An imaginary mother of nature, the
animals in woods, the moon, the female reproductive system; all have been
promoted as false gods by powerful women.  And all of those who would
worship false gods worship Lucifer in disguise.

"Women, although a necessary part of human reproduction, were never meant
to be the equals of men.  They unknowingly bring men temptation.  Lust,
Gluttony, and all the other Seven Sins are often delivered to men from Hell
by female messengers.

"Sex with a woman without the intention of propagation is the true
definition of Lust," he said.  "Women are beautiful creatures.  As you are
well aware, their bodies offer men an endless amount of temptation,
temptation that they are often unable to break through.  Even angels have
previously been unable to do anything but succumb to their desires for the
beings whose bodies are said to have been fashioned by Satan himself."

"So, you're saying the angels aren't all fags then?" I asked excitedly.
"You guys used to get it on with the ladies?"

Sam nodded, his face turning red.  "Sadly, yes.  Many centuries ago, the
angels defied God's will.  Instead of being satisfied with His divine love,
the love of each other, and the love of mankind, we wanted the love of the
beautiful womankind as well.  We pursued affairs with these fair creatures,
and in doing so soiled our souls forever.  Furious at our treachery, God
threw us out of Heaven because of it.  And that's why we now inhabit the
earth."

"Wow," I said.  "So you angels aren't perfect.  You've sinned just like the
rest of us."

"Of course, no angel has taken a woman as a lover since we were cast out of
Heaven, and no angel will since.  Just the idea of further betraying our
Lord is blasphemous."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," I said.  "It's amazing how powerful a
pretty face and a big pair of titties can be."

*****

Back in Sam's bed, and it was about fucking time.  My horniness had only
gotten worse as the night wore one, so much so that as Sam led me around
the Ensis, I couldn't peel my eyes off every angel that crossed my path.
Waiting any longer and I'd be bound to drop to my knees in front of one of
those handsome fuckers and beg to suck their dicks.  Hell, even the other
Delectors were starting to look pretty damn good.  Fuck, they had cocks
too, didn't they?

Somewhere in the back of my head, the straight, fag-hating part of me that
Sam had repressed was cussing me out for my wild change of mind.  But that
tiny voice was nothing in comparison to the power of my hormones.

As soon as he shut the apartment door, I pushed Sam back into the bedroom
and onto the bed.  His shirt was over his head in a second as I kissed him
hard.  I want you so fucking bad, it actually physically hurts me.

>From somewhere I barely heard a faint knocking.

"What was that?" Sam asked me, just barely able to vocalize words as I was
jamming my tongue into his mouth.

"It's just the sound of my balls... they're so blue right now they're
starting to break off."

"Knock, knock!" came a voice from the other room.

Sam gently pushed me off of him as he scrambled for his shirt.  "We have a
guest," he said.

"Jesus Christ, why didn't you just lock the fucking door?"

"We don't have any locks on any of the doors here."

A short, old man slowly stumbled into the bedroom.  He had a pair of
over-sized glasses with a thick frame and even thicker lenses.  His
eyebrows and ears were full of bushy grey hair, although his head was bald
except for a lazy attempt at a comb over.  The guy's mouth hung open
stupidly, showing his crooked yellow teeth.  His back was hunched over, and
his trousers and tank were dingy.

"Clean Service!" he barked at us through a thick accent that sounded Polish
to me, but who knows?

"Yeah, I can see why you don't lock the doors here," I said.  "Who wouldn't
want this friendly character walking into their bedroom at random times?"

The man dragged in a maid's cart.  "Here to clean!" he declared loudly.

"Do you have to right now?" I asked him.

He turned and gaped at me stupidly through his glasses.  "I always clean
these.  These rooms here that are not clean.  That have been left alone and
now, no longer.  Needs clean."

Sam smiled at the stranger.  "Well, that is very kind of you, sir," he
said.  "And the room does need a good dusting.  We will wait here while you
work."

I glared angrily at Sam, but he purposely didn't turn to look.

The maid took two painfully slow steps to his cart, looked over it
carefully before extracting a feather duster.  He turned around and walked
towards the dresser.  But, upon getting there, he noticed the grimy
windows.

"Window's are dirty!" he yelled.  "Start with them."

He turned around again and made the long, slow journey back across the room
to the cart.  He carefully put the feather duster back and pulled out some
Windex.

"Fuckin-A!" I yelled, falling back into the mattress and putting my hands
on my head.

"I'll tell you what, sir," Sam said.  "The two of us are going to go
downstairs.  To the Crystal Baths.  We'll be back when you finish here."

The man nodded at us disinterestedly.

Sam pulled me up from the bed and I followed him, beyond frustrated, out
the door.

In the hallway, leaning back against the banister, was an angel.  I
realized that this must have been the maid's Domno, waiting for him to
finish his duties.

"How long does he usually take?" Sam asked the other angel.

The angel shrugged.  "Don't count on him finishing before sun-up."

I looked at this other angel, another specimen of complete beauty, and
thought of the gross old man inside our apartment that was his Delector.
Did these two still have get it on?  The thought made me nauseous.

Sam led down into towards the baths as I berated him for leaving me so damn
sexually frustrated.  In order to pass into the baths, first you had to go
into a shower/locker-room of sorts.

"This is our locker-room," Sam told me as we went in.

"Woo-fucking-hoo," I said to Sam.  "Just point me towards the baths."

Sam grabbed my bicep.  "You can't just go in the water lickity-split," he
said.  "You have to shower first."

"Shower first?  Why the hell would I shower if I'm just about to take a
bath?"

"Because this is a communal bath you're about to go in.  It's expected that
you'll only enter the waters if you are already fully clean.  The shower
stalls are this way."  He pointed to a bunch of wooden, man-sized
compartments.  "Swimwear is provided for you inside.  Although, we do allow
Delectors to go naked.  You can decide."

I raised an eyebrow.  "So there are guys in there just swimming around
naked?"

"That's right."

"This isn't like one of those gay bathhouses you hear about, is it?"

Sam laughed.  "No, certainly not."

"No angel orgies in there?"

"There are never any angel orgies of any sort.  Angels are only allowed to
mate with their own Delector, and Delectors are only allowed to mate with
their own Domno.  Unlike in the human world, you'll find that there's never
any infidelity or bed-hopping here."

"Well, yeah, because if you do fuck around, they kill you for it around
here.  If men had the same rule, every guy would be as faithful as an
angel."

"If a Delector was unfaithful, they would never get away with it, this much
is true.  Us angels can read any Delector's thoughts, and they would
quickly be executed.  Sadly, this occasionally happens.  But men don't have
the constitution of angels, and that's why we rely on such severity to keep
them in line.  Angels could theoretically cheat on their Delectors without
anyone ever knowing.  Angels keep their minds hidden from other angels,
sharing only what they want to and nothing more.  No one would ever be the
wiser.  But, since angels have called this plane home, no angel has ever
been unfaithful.  The very idea is perverse to our kind."

"Either that or you're all a bunch of cheating, lying bastards, and no one
has ever fessed up," I said, but I didn't believe it, I was just teasing
Sam.  I had spent enough time with him to know that there was an real
difference between my kind and his kind.  "So," I said, raising a
suggestive eyebrow.  "Are you gonna go in there naked?"

"No," he said.  "Angels are not allowed to expose themselves to any man who
is not their Domno.  It's not polite and it's not proper."

"Rules, rules, rules!" I complained.  "All I've heard since I've got here
is a fucking mile-long list of rules!"

"Go shower," he said.  Then he went into one of the shower compartments and
shut the door behind him.

I went into another compartment.  There was a shower and a small changing
area with shelves for your clothing.  I quickly undressed, folded my
clothes neatly, and then washed up in the warm shower with the provided
toiletries.  When I was toweling off, I found the swimsuits.  All they had
were white speedos of various sizes.  I was not about to be caught romping
around the baths in a gay-ass pair of speedos.

Sam had said that I could go nude.  Normally, I would have done so with no
problem.  I was bold, and didn't give a fuck what other people thought.
And I wasn't ashamed of my dick, in fact if anything I was quite proud of
the little guy.

But all day today I had been on fire with horniness.  Sam's body was
driving me wild.  Just being near to him was enough now to make my cock
hard.  Even more embarrassing than wandering around the bath in a pair of
speedos was doing so with a hardon.

So, reluctantly, I pulled on a pair of white speedos, making quite sure
that I didn't pick out a size that was too tight for me.

When I left the shower, feeling ill-at-ease and therefore annoyed at my
only costume option, Sam was waiting for me, his blond curls now wet and
sticking against his forehead.  His clothes were gone, but instead of a
speedo, he was wearing a white pair of board-shorts, ones that were thick,
loose, baggy, and came down to his knees.

"Where did you get those shorts?" I asked, making a bee-line for his shower
stall.

"They are for angels only!" he said, grabbing me by the arm.

"What?  What kind of fucked up pointless rule is that?"

"It's the way things are."

"Sometimes I think you're making up these rules as you go, you know that?"
I started walking towards the baths.  "I can't believe you're making me
wear a lousy banana-hammock.  Unless you are in a swim competition, or
playing waterpolo or something, you have no business wearing a speedo.
It's just wrong.  I can't believe--Jusus fucking Christ!"

I had just walked into the baths, and was totally awestruck!  The place was
huge, MUCH larger than a room that would house an olypmic-sized pool.  The
water appeared before me like a vast lake, with hidden pools and bays
disappearing behind walls.  There was so much water in this room that it
was shocking that what impressed me the most was not the quantity of water,
but the quantity of light.  The tall walls of the room, the ornately
detailed ceiling, the floors under the water, the sculpted columns that
rose from the water into the air, all of it was shimmering crystal.  I
could see why Sam called this the "crystal baths."  And behind all of this
crystal were so many lights, glowing, phantom lights that seemed to have no
apparent source, they just were, shining through all the crystal and water,
making it all shimmer and sparkle and glow in the most pure, diffused white
light I had ever seen.  I was sure this was the brightest place I had ever
been in, and yet the light was so gentle on the eyes that it barely caused
me even the slightest squint.

"Yes, it's beautiful," Sam said behind me.  "Some men swoon the first time
they set eyes on it."

He was already stepped down into the water.  I followed him, putting my
foot it, watching the water and the light together consume it all at once.
The water was warm, perfectly so.  I stepped in fully until the water came
up to my knees.

Sam and I were in a shallow area, only a couple feet deep.  Looking around,
there were many different areas of the baths.  Some just a foot deep, where
men were walking through, splashing up drops of water illuminated so
brightly they looked more like tiny sparks.  Other areas of the baths were
deeper, deep pools that normally would have been a deep shade of blue, but
in here the water surrounded its swimmers in white, making them glow.

Looking upon all of this, feeling the cleansing waters caress my legs, I
knew something profound.  These angels, Sam and the others, the ones who
created this, they were surely heavenly.  No man could create something as
beautiful as this.

Sam took me by the arm and led me around the watery channels, as I stopped
to admire every shimmering fountain that poured water so frothy it could
have been champagne.

"I don't ever want to leave this place," I said, dreamlike.

Sam chuckled.  "It was all I could do to get you to come down here in the
first place."

There weren't many other people in the baths.  I looked around briefly, and
counted only eight others that were visible to me from my current spot.
Four angels, and four Delectors, the latter of which all happened to be
naked.  I looked at the closest nudist to me and cringed: fat, wrinkly, and
hairy.  How could I be bisexual, attracted to men, and be so absolutely
disgusted by the sight of his naked body?  I looked back at Sam's
gloriously perfect, muscled tan skin, so smooth, and now, shimmering in its
wetness, glowing in this light.  This was what I was attracted to.

God, how attracted to him I was.  Even in that magical place, his body held
more interest for me than anything around us.

Of course, the other angels looked damn fine too, all of them in matching
white trunks.  But they were small in the distance, and Sam was right here
in front of me.

I followed Sam around the bath.  He led me around slowly and seriously,
taking me first to a nearby fountain, where we both dipped our head under
the bubbly waterfall, and then into the deep, bright pools.

When both of us could no longer touch and started to tread water, I slapped
the surface of the water with my fist, and drenched Sam's face and head.
"Ha, ha!" I teased.

I had intended to start a water fight, but Sam just looked back at me with
a doleful and cross wetness.  "This isn't your buddy's backyard pool,
Bradley," Sam said, adopting that parental tone of voice.  "This is a place
of quiet reflection."

I looked around.  Everyone around was looking at me, like a mob of angry
librarians shocked by an outburst of a schoolboy.

Normally I would have told all of them to go fuck themselves.  But I had
just promised Sam that I would follow his every wish, hadn't I?  So I bit
my tongue and continued to tread water, this time doing so with more
seriousness.

Time went by... relaxing in the warm pools had yet to get old for Sam and
me.  The other people, on the other hand, had their fill.  Two by two they
all filed out of the water and back into the shower room.  Nobody new came
along either.

"It's just us in here!" I said excitedly, but in what I considered to be a
respectfully quiet tone.

"It's unlikely anyone else will come.  It's not long off from daybreak.
Most angels are getting ready for bed."

"Do you think our room's ready yet?"

"Probably not."

I looked at him again.  He was thigh deep in water, standing in front of
one of the gorgeous crystal fountains.  The light was pouring down on him,
and he was looking up, into it.  It was so marvelously angelic a scene.

"Sam," I said.  "Can I see your wings again?"

He smiled, his teeth as white as the light around him as he looked at me
with a knowingly.  He knew that I worshiped his beauty, and he was both
proud of that fact and politely modest.

He turned around, his broad, muscled back facing me, all of it glistening
in the wet light.  "They come from inside me," he said.

I gasped as what seemed to be two white spears cut out of the skin on his
back.  I quickly realized that these were his wingtips.  Soon, the rest of
the wings came out, seemingly cutting two huge gashes all the way down his
back, but never was there any visible red blood or pink flesh.  When the
majestic wings were out and fully extended, the gashes closed up on their
own

I again marveled at the size of his wings.  Together, they must have been
just as massive as he was.  "How could those possibly fit inside your
back?" I asked him.

"With a little divine magic," he said as he spun around.

He looked at me, his arm resting at his sides, the tips of his fingers in
the water, and his white wings, dancing in the glorious light, framing his
beautiful body.

I stepped forward like I had done before on Pendleton, and I moved my
fingers over the wings, needing this tactile fulfillment as proof that they
really existed, that divine magic was not just some illusion.  I rubbed the
stiff white feathers between my fingers, wanting so badly to pluck one, to
take one for myself, though I didn't dare do it without his permission.

Sam surprised me then by moving his arms under my armpits, wrapping them
over the backs of my shoulders, his hands holding on tight to me.  He moved
his face closer to mine, the subtlest smile upon his lips, his deep blue
eyes never leaving my own.  The tip of his nose touched mine; even that
smallest touch of his skin was magical, and he ever so slightly rubbed his
nose back and forth.  Then his nose slipped past mine as his face came
closer, his eyes finally closed, and I closed my own.  His lips met mine;
they were already open slightly, gently yielding.  His tongue tentatively
rubbed along my lower lip.

I kissed him hard, ramming my tongue into his mouth, wanting the pleasure
of his kiss so badly.  I didn't care if we were in a public place, where
someone could walk in on us and see.  I didn't care if this was a place of
quiet reflection.  I just wanted him, right then and there.

He kissed me back, giving me his approval.  His hand cupped the back of my
head and he explored my mouth with his tongue.  My dick was rock hard in a
second, painfully horny, the tip slipping up past the waistband of my
speedos and out into the warm air of the bath.

I broke our kiss and pushed out of his grasp.  Of course, I couldn't force
him to do anything; he let me go.  And I slipped down, pressing my upper
body into him as my face went past his neck, his pecs, his abs, and to the
stiff fabric of his white shorts.  My knees his the ground in front of him
as I kneeled.

I slowly pulled his trunks down, exposing some of his pubes, but stopping
before I hit the base of his dick.  The hair above his dick, instead of
being course and wiry like normal pubic hair, was as soft and blonde as
their hair on his head, and it felt odd to rub my fingers through that
curly mop.  I wondered if he would stop me from going lower.

I looked up at him, questioningly.  He looked down at me, a warm half-smile
telling me that what I wanted to do was okay, or more than that, that he
wanted me to do it too.

My heart started to race, and my cock was about to burst just with the very
thought of it.  I had been waiting for this moment for what seemed like
forever to me.  I wasn't going to take anything slow here.  I grabbed his
trunks and pulled them down as far as I could.

What I saw before me both excited and alarmed me.  Something was not right.
The first thing I noticed was that he had a jock on, a jock whose pouch
seemed impossibly full with a round mound.  For a split second, this seemed
to compute.  The guy's fucking hung, I thought.  Great for me.

But then I saw something that made me gasp.  A huge, fleshy tube, which at
first I thought must have been some sort of novelty dildo, before realizing
that it was totally real, was hanging out the right side of his jock.  It
was pulled against his right thigh, where it was tied by not one but two
black, shiny belts.  The first belt was against his upper thigh, and his
dick went through this, pulling it tightly against his leg.  Then, the
second belt was tied a few inches up from his right knee.  This belt held
the lower part of his dick against his thigh, strapping just above the head
of his dick.  The girth of the thing was bigger than any dick could
possibly be.  And the thing was so long it could be pulled to the side,
then reach down almost to his knee!

"Us angels need the straps," Sam explained to me.  "Otherwise, our dicks
would be hanging out our shorts, like morons."

"How...?" I said, my voice trailing off, me unable to find words.

"I told you," he said, cheerfully.  "God made us angels sexual creatures by
nature.  Much more sexual than he made man."

Something else was puzzling me.  Below the second belt, his dickhead,
which, by the way, was uncut and covered by more foreskin than I have ever
seen in my life, was surrounded by a latex tube that could just barely get
around the un-human girth of the round head.

"A condom," he said.  "All of us angels wear them at all times."  The
condom was filled with a good half-cup of clear, slimy liquid.  "Even if
we're not aroused, we still leak the stuff," he said.  "If we don't put on
the condoms we end up with sticky messes staining through our trousers."
He chuckled.  "You can go ahead and remove it, if you'd like," he said.
"Don't worry.  If anyone else was coming, I'd sense them long before they
got here."

I reached for his dickhead, loving the first touch his dickhead made upon
my skin, and eagerly pulled the condom down.  I did it too roughly, and the
thing broke apart, already stretched too far in order to accommodate his
huge dick.  Clear, glistening, warm precum poured all over my hand, and
into the water beneath us.  A long strand of it hung from the tip of his
dick and went all the way to the surface of the water, and I had the sudden
fantasy that instead of water in this bath, it was completely filled with
his beautiful, miraculous cum.  My mouth was dripping wet in anticipation.

"Untie it," he urged, his voice more guttural than normal.

I drove my hand up the soft shaft to the lowest leather strap, and
unbuckled it, letting it fall into the water beneath us.  The lower half of
his dick wobbled around, free from its constraint.

"And the other."

I slid my fingers up his cock to the second strap holding his dick to his
upper thigh.  In a second, that strap had fallen as well into the water as
his shaft swung freely downwards, hanging like a hose right between his
legs.  It was so long that every slight movement his body made caused his
dick to swing to and fro, and I understood immediately why the belts were
as necessary as they were.

Quickly, not waiting for his permission, I grabbed at his black jock (which
his dick was hanging out of) and yanked it down his legs to his knees.  His
ballsac came loose, which compared to his dick, I guess was well
apportioned, but compared to the rest of his body or any balls I had ever
seen it my life, they were grotesquely huge.  Two testicles the size of
large oranges, I kid you not, surrounded by a thick sheath of wrinkly
scrotum.  The whole thing hung down to about mid-thigh.

"Without the jock," he said as he stepped completely out of it, "my balls
would be swinging around, out of control."

I nodded as I rubbed the huge things in my hands, palming both nuts at
once.  "I can't believe how fucking big you are," I stammered.

"All God's gift."

"Does God have a dick as big as this?" I asked, grabbing the soft but
massive shaft in my hands.

Sam chuckled.  "Bigger."

The pipe in my hand convulsed suddenly, and I almost dropped it and jumped
back in surprise.  It had not moved on its own before, and with something
that big, it's a bit startling when it first happens.  Like a dead beast in
your hands coming back to life.  Really, Sam's cock was so big, it seemed
less a part of him that a separate animal completely, with its own
mysterious motivations and behaviors.

I refused to be timid, even when it convulsed a second time.  As the blood
pulsed into the beast, I choked it tightly with both hands.

The thing was getting hard, and it was getting hard fast.  The foreskin,
which at first covered everything except for a silver-dollar sized portion
of the red dickhead (including the enormous piss-slit), was now sliding
down, unsheathing the whole, huge ball of the dickhead.  The red flesh was
shiny with fresh, slimy precum.

It hardened all the way, its big, mushroom head resting comfortably on my
shoulder as I rubbed my hands up and down the rest of the hard, long tube,
using the wetness of the water we were in for lubrication.  I could already
feel hot precum dripping onto my back and oozing down my body.  Still
stroking, I slid forward and nuzzled my nose into his balls, the scrotum
covering most of my face, as I breathed in, smelling the clean, sweet smell
of my angel.  Sam's body was incapable of producing any foul smell.

I wanted to break open his nuts, like one bites into juicy peaches, and
suck out all of the cum.  Knowing that was impossible, I had to go about
getting his sweet juice through other means.

I stuck my tongue out, and licked the huge length of his dick from the base
of his balls to the tip of the head as I slid backwards in the water.
Holding the rim of the head with both hands, I attacked it, ramming my
tongue into the piss-slit, knowing that it was as large as it was for a
very good reason, and wanting to experience that reason first hand.

Whether it was voluntary or not, Sam's wings started to beat behind him,
slowly and rhythmically.  Each beat brought a gust of warm air against my
face and body.

Sam's hands fell upon the base of his dick as I worked over the head,
circling his shaft with both hands.  He groaned as I put my lips as far
around his dickhead as they would stretch, which wasn't far, as I was
trying to keep my teeth from hitting his flesh.

"Don't concern yourself with your teeth," he said.  "There's nothing that
you can do to me that would hurt me."

With that encouragement, I let my teeth rub against his dickhead as I
pushed my mouth down further, getting his whole head into my mouth and
sucking hard, furiously, like a baby sucks on a woman's tit.

I needed what was inside here, I wanted so badly what he could produce.  I
sucked and I sucked.

He groaned again, pleasurably, and I looked up at him.  His eyebrows were
up in a caring sort of way, and his eyes were locked right onto mine,
encouraging me, loving me silently.

I twisted my hands around the shaft of his dick, trying, I suppose, to milk
him.  Wanting so badly for his milk to come and stop leaving me dry.

It did.  I felt it in my hands first, his shaft thickening even more than
it was, pulsing hard.  I sucked harder than ever, and his slit opened, and
the gushing began as he grunted and flexed his wings to their full span.

Sweet, sweet liquid.  Like heaven.  Like nothing I ever thought possible.
I needed it so, so bad.  Needed this oozing pleasure.

It exploded into my mouth, and I swallowed as hard as I could, not wanting
to miss a drop.  Of course, with the amount of cum that came at me as fast
as it did, that was an impossible task.  Hot slime filled my mouth and
broke out of my lips, gushing all over my chin and onto my neck, my chest,
and pouring down into the water of light, where it would sadly be forever
gone.

I drank and I drank as he kept on feeding me his gift, and when he was
finally done, when the shaft started to soften and shrink, I still sucked,
eagerly, monstrously, wanting more and more and more.

He had to push me off of him eventually, which he did ever so gently and
kindly, so understanding and sorry that there was no more to give.

I put my hands on my bare chest, taking up all the cum that was left, and
feeding it to my salivating mouth.

Sam stopped me from doing this when he pulled me up by the shoulders and
kissed me hard, pushing me back against one of the crystal walls.  At
first, I pulled back, worried he was trying to take away some of the cum
that was still in my mouth.  It was mine!  But, realizing he was kissing me
out of love, I eventually kissed him back.

He ripped off my speedo completely, and my dick sprang out.  Oh my fucking
God, I realized I needed to get off so, so bad.  My dick was harder than I
had ever remembered it, and it felt bigger somehow.  My balls ached
violently, it was almost as if I could feel them being so jammed tight with
cum that they were about to split open.

Sam kneeled down in front of me and dropped do his knees.  He pulled my
left leg and hung it over his right shoulder.  Then he did the same for my
right, until both my legs were hanging over his shoulders, my back and my
head leaning against the wall behind me.

He took my dick into his mouth.  Oh my fucking god, he was so good at what
he did.  Swirling his tongue around like an expert, kissing my cock so
deep.  I was on fire.

I cried out, loud.  I slammed my head back into the crystal, painfully.  I
grabbed his the arches of his wings and yanked them violently.

And I started to cum.

And I came.  And still I came, Sam swallowing every little bit.

And somehow, I was still coming.  My orgasm lasted at least twice as long
as ever before, and was so much more intense.  I knew that, while the
amount of the spunk I had just shot didn't compare to the amount Sam had
moments before unloaded, I still poured out much more cum than was humanly
possible.  Something was different.

As my orgasm faded, as I regained my breath, Sam set me back down in the
water.  He stood back up, took me in his comforting arms, and kissed me
thankfully.

"That was beautiful," he said.

He turned around then, and I saw the wings retract quickly into his back,
the flesh and skin mending itself instantly, leaving nothing but muscle and
tan skin.

"Something's happening to my body," I said, shaking my head.  "I've never
cum like that.  That's not natural.  Sam, what are you doing to me?"

He smiled, rubbing his thumb against my lip.  "You have changed completely
now.  You are not just my Delector in words, but in body as well.  Your
flesh has made room for me now.  Has adapted to me.  It has learned to need
me."

"What do you mean?"

"I told you that this is what it meant to have a life with me.  Our bodies
have joined now.  Once again, I am strong.  Without you, I would again be
weak.  And without me... well."

"What?"

"You would die."

"Die?  What the hell do you mean?"

He smiled, looking up into the light.  "I told you God made us angels into
sexual beings.  He permanently linked our sexuality with our own survival.
We do not need food.  We do not need water.  We do not need shelter from
the cold.  But we still must feed, every day if possible.  If we do not
feed we will soon die."

"I thought you said you didn't eat food, that you couldn't?"

Sam smiled and nodded.

"Oh, fuck," I said as it finally registered.  "You feed on fucking cum,
don't you?  That's sick, man... totally fucked up."

Sam shook his head patiently.  "Simple words from the product of a simple
society.  It's not sick, it's pure, blissful pleasure.  It's God's will."

I shook my head.  "All those times before, you used to go out at night for
hours at a time."

"To the clubs, to the street corners," he said.  "To find any man who was
willing to give me what I needed to live.  In return I would give them an
experience he would never forget."

"And then," I said.  "You stopped going out entirely right when you started
sucking me off on a regular basis!  You were using me!"

"No," he said.  "How could that be if you wanted it as much as you did?  It
was more pleasurable for you than it ever was for me.  You learned to need
me as much as I needed you."

"And now?" I asked.  "Why the fuck am I changing?"

"Because you have tasted me," he said.  "Something that changes a man
forever.  I could never have let that happen before.  But once you gave
yourself over to me, then I did what I've wanted to do for so long.
Transform you into my Delector, my symbiotic lover.  Your body has changed.
Learned to need my seed as much as I need yours."

"That's why I've been so goddamn horny," I said.  "I've been craving your
dick all fucking day!"

"Completely normal for a Delector," he said.  "You must listen to your
body.  It knows what it needs.  And a Delector needs his Domno's seed on a
daily basis."

"What happens to a Delector who misses his daily cum dose?" I asked.

"He will grow weaker.  Crave stronger.  And eventually, sadly, will die."
Sam rubbed my shoulder.  "Don't worry.  I would never, ever let that happen
to you.  My seed will always be here when you need it."

"So, I need to swallow fucking cum to survive," I said.  "Couldn't I do it
like you did before?  Find some fucker on the street and blow the dude?"

Sam shook his head.  "No," he said.  "Delectors can only survive on angel
seed.  It has, let's say, special properties."

"So, that still doesn't explain why I just blew an elephant-sized load," I
complained.

"You're body has changed, Brad.  You're producing more semen, and your
semen has changed in quality.  It has become exactly what I need to regain
my fortitude and retain my full strength.  An angel without a Delector, one
who feeds upon the seed of random men, will always be weak.  An angel who
feeds on the seed of a Delector will be strong.  It's why we angels need
our Delectors as much as they need us."

"So what if one of us croaks then?"

Sam frowned sadly at just the thought.  "If you were to perish, I would
again grow weak without your seed."

"At least until you found a new Delector," I said.

"Yes," he said.  "Not something any angel does lightly."

"And if you die?"

He paused for a moment.  "You, who needs my seed now to survive, would die
as well."

"Couldn't I just find another angel to suck off?" I asked.  "Become another
Delector for someone else?"

"No," Sam asked.  "Your body is only adapted to my particular seed.  The
transition to another angel would be too hard on you physically, and you
would die in the process."  He pulled me to him, hugged me.  "That is why I
warned you that you would be trading in the immortality that had been given
to you by the Eversor gene by staying with me.  Even if I don't die,
eventually my seed will overpower your body.  It will be too much for it,
and you will die.  Don't worry, that won't happen for several decades yet.
But it is the fate of most Delectors."  He rubbed my bare back with his
hand.  "This is the bond you have entered yourself into," he said.  "Can
you accept all of this out of your love for me?"

I shrugged.  "I really have no choice, do I?"

"You've already made your choice.  Now you can either live with the
consequences, or you can self-destruct.  I'm praying you'll chose the
former."  His fingers rubbed through my hair with the back of his hand,
pushed my face against his shoulder.  "Know that I love you more than you
can fathom.  My devotion to you is secondary only to the Lord himself.  And
my love will remain with you, unwavering, until the end comes."

I gave in, and let my body go limp, letting myself flow into him.  "Yes," I
said.  "All I wanted was you.  I don't care about any of the rest of it.
If this is the price I have to pay to be with you, then it is worth it."

*****

On the way back from the baths, with a whole lot of new thoughts swimming
around my head, Sam led me into one other room, what he called the "Spine
of the Ensis."  A dark room, whose two main walls came inwards as they
raised up fifty feet into the air, and met at the top in a triangle, like
the roof of a church.  These two walls were set close together, even on the
floor, allowing a space of only fifteen feet across.  In contrast to the
width of the room, the length went on for many, many yards.  A very oddly
shaped room indeed.

Along both of the long walls, men were strapped into consoles that were
just like the Thrones that had been cloaking the plane.  Of course, that
must have been the purpose of these angels as well, but instead of eight,
there must have been dozens of Thrones along the walls of this room.

"A hundred, actually," Sam said without me asking anything.  "They keep the
whole Ensis permanently cloaked."

Beside all of these angels, their Delectors were sitting in simple chairs.
Some of them were reading books, others were napping or chatting with each
other.  "And the Delectors?  What purpose do they serve?"

"They guard their Domni," Sam said, though it didn't seem like much of a
purpose to me.  "Look, the dayshift is coming in to take over."  Angel and
Delector pairs started filing into the room.  One console at a time, the
nightshift Throne would step down, and the dayshift Throne would take over.
Sleepy-eyed Thrones and Delectors started to leave for their rooms.
"There's Luke and Deepak!"

"Oh, joy," I said, as Sam led me over to greet the couple.

Luke, one of the dayshift Thrones, was all dour and sour when we greeted
him, although Deepak was cheerful.  "Another day performing the worst job
angelically possible," Luke said, looking with distaste at the console he
was about to take over.

"Why the hell is it so bad?" I challenged him.  "Seems like all you have to
do is stand there all day."

He shot me a wrathful look.  "Because, my simple-minded friend, angels were
not meant to stay up during the day.  As the morning goes on, any angel
will get so tired that they will involuntarily fall asleep, ending any
cloaking they were performing in the process."

"How do you stay awake then?" I asked as Luke strapped himself into the
console.

Suddenly his body shook violently.  "Electric shock.  It's a lovely
experience, and it happens by the minute to force my body to alertness."

"It's the only way to keep an angel conscious during an entire day," Sam
explained.

"Yes, well.  It's enough to make a poor angel irritable."  He shook as
another jolt apparently hit him.

"You two better get to bed," Deepak said as he sat down in a chair next to
Luke's console.  "Morning is coming fast."

"Right then," said Sam.  "I'm sorry to leave you like this Luke."

"But it is my job," he said.

"Later dude," I waved to Luke cheerfully.  "You have a fun day at work now,
ya hear?"

Luke gave me another smoldering glance as Sam and I left the Spine.

The Ensis was closing down for the night as we walked back up to the room,
only some angels still out and about, and most of those were quickly
heading for their rooms.

We found the apartment dusted, tidied, and cleaned, and best of all, empty.
Sam quickly stripped and hopped into bed.  I followed suit, stripping, and
hoping maybe there was time for a little fluid exchange before going to
sleep.

Apparently there wasn't.  Sam was asleep as soon as the shades
automatically pulled shut, locking out the pale blue glow of the early
dawn.

I sighed, yawned, and fell asleep pretty quickly myself.

*****

I woke up.  An intense feeling of unease.  Something was wrong here.

I was in a new, strange bed.  In a strange bedroom.

I wrapped my arm around Sam and forced myself back to sleep.

But seconds later I was awake again.  There was no avoiding it.  Something
was wrong here, and it wasn't just the change of location.  Fuck, I had
been in so many beds in the past couple months that it would be strange for
me to awake to something familiar.

No, it was something else.  Something not in this room, but beyond.

Something that I knew didn't belong.  Something that was dangerous.

I refused to let myself be scared.  I was Bradly fucking Wheeler, I was no
pussy and I wasn't capable of fear.

I got out of bed carefully, trying not to wake Sam, and then remembering
that waking him during the day was almost an impossibility anyway.  I put
on a pair of jeans and walked out of the apartment.

Unlike the activity during the night, the Ensis was now dead quiet.  The
light of the windows had shut out and all the lights had been dimmed.  I
looked down over the balcony.  Much of Gabriel was lost in the shadows.
The whole place was totally dead.  Everything seemed normal and benign.  No
cause for concern.  I let myself relax.  Took a sigh of relief.

And then, many, many stories down, on the ground floor of the Ensis, I saw
a dark figure move.  A person was walking amongst the sandaled feet of
Gabriel.

No angel would be walking around at this time.  And no Delectors would
likely be either.  Whoever was down there wasn't supposed to be there, I
was sure of it.

I felt a spark of anger.  How fucking pompous of him to intrude on my peace
like that.  I did a one-eighty and headed back into the apartment.

I leaned over the bed and pushed Sam a bit.  "Sam?"

Nothing.  He slept like the dead during the day.

"Sam!" I yelled, slapping him gently on the face.  All I got in response
was a loud snore.  I slapped him harder.

"I'm asleep," he grumbled, turning away from me in bed.  Obviously he
wasn't going to be any help here.  Of course, he'd be weaker than me in a
fight now anyway.

Thoughts of the previous Eversor breaking into the Ensis during the day and
slaughtering a hundred sleeping angels came into my mind.

I had to go down there on my own.  Whoever was down there needed to be
dealt with.

First, though, I needed a weapon.  I stormed through the apartment closets,
soon coming upon Sam's beautiful sword.  No, I thought.  I can't use this
without his permission.  Eventually I found something else that would make
do.  A golf club.

With my twelve-iron in hand, I got into the elevator and descended, tapping
the head of the club in my hand.

The elevator opened with a "ding."

I strode out into the base of the statue, looking around for my prey.  But
he was gone.  I looked in every shadow, but saw nothing.

"Come out and fight, you scared little son-of-a-bitch!"

No response.

"If you're not gonna come out and face me, then you better be running for
the fucking door.  I'm the goddamn Eversor, you little bitch--"

My sentence was interrupted as the bastard appeared from nowhere in the
shadows and tackled my legs, knocking me to the ground.

Instantly I was up again, swinging like hell into him.  "It's you!" I said,
seeing the familiar ruggedly handsome Asian face right before I swung the
golf club into it.

"You know me?" said the man between blows.  My hits seemed to barely impact
him at all.  "Cause I don't believe I know who the fuck you are."

"Should have killed you last night when we had the chance!" I said, then
swung the club hard at his nose.  "I guess you stare long enough at an
imaginary building and it becomes real, huh?"

"You can't stay hidden from us forever," he boasted as he dodged my blow.
"As soon as we can see you, we can kill you."

I swung hard into the side of his head.  "That's why you came here today?
To kill the angels, huh?"

"Actually," he said, "I'm just supposed to be in here doing a bit of recon.
But hell, as long as the fucking Gifted runs up to me and offers me his
fucking life on a silver platter, I'm not gonna pass that up."  I swing at
him again.  "You ain't that strong yet, I see," he said.  "You ready for me
to start fighting?  It almost doesn't seem fair."

"Do your worst, fuckwad," I said.

He grinned from cheek to cheek.  Then he came at me, faster than I could
even hope to swing my club.  Next thing I knew I was on the floor, blood
gushing out of my nose.  He was on me, and he was hitting me.

I struggled with everything I had to get the one up on this cocksucker, but
it was a fucking lost cause from the start.  He was a werewolf, and I was
still just a man.  I cursed myself for being so impetuous and aggressive.
Now, those faults would certainly cost me my life.

But I was gonna go down swinging.  I hit him as hard as I could, over and
over again.

Amazingly, somehow, I was able to squirm free of his attacks.  Hurting
everywhere, bleeding from who knows where, I ran over to the steel sandal
of Gabriel, my golf club in hand.

"Help!" I yelled.  I hated to admit it, but I needed to be saved, right
now.  I raised the golf club over my head and struck as hard as I could
onto the steel of the statue.

The sound reverberated through the Ensis like a bell.  I hit it again, and
again, and again.  Finally I stopped when the wolf lunged at me from
behind, snarling as he did so, and easily knocking me to the ground.  He
had transformed into that monstrous beast that I had seen up close just
once before.  There was no hope of escaping from him again, I realized.

But the racket I had just made must have worked.  Above me, faces started
to appear over the balconies.  Men, Delectors like me, who had been
awakened by me and would now come to my aid.

"Help me!" I yelled.

Afraid, perhaps, of the hundreds of men who were now awake and aware of his
presence, the beast backed off me and glanced towards the door.

But he hesitated, looking up at the men above us.  They weren't moving,
they never stopped looking down from their safe little perches.

"Get the fuck down here and fight, you pussies!" I yelled at them.

"We can't leave!" one of them shouted down to me.  "We can't move that far
from our Domni, and they will not wake!"

"You'll have to take care of him on your own!"

I looked back at the beast.  He had already moved away from the direction
of the exit and was turning back to me.  If it was possible for a werewolf
to grin, he was doing it.

I wasn't gonna let him take the initiative.  I tackled that furry bastard
before he had a chance to do it to me.

Of course, it was a suicide move, but I fought with every ounce of
aggressiveness I had in me.  Still, it was like hitting a brick wall.

He opened his mouth wide, foamy slobber dripping from his huge white fangs.
He was about to chew out my throat.

I pushed him away frantically and roared with resolve.

I can't say for sure what happened next.  It was like God heard my prayers
and sent me down a miracle.  It exploded electrically from my hands, as
some heavenly energy terrorized my combatant.  He growled with shock,
looking painfully down at my hands on his chest.  I could see the agonizing
pain in his eyes, hear it in his beastly shrieks.

And then, with a thud that I was sure shook the whole building, he slammed
to the floor.

"I did it!  I fucking did it!" I yelled.  "Thank you Lord, thank you!"

The men above me where clapping and cheering.  I still had not forgiven
them for refusing to come to my rescue, but I couldn't pass up the glory
they were offering me.

"What now?" I shouted up to them.  "You guys gonna come down here and
finish him off?"

"We can't come down there!" one of them yelled.  "We can't abandon our
Domni!"

"Why the fuck not?" I asked.  "I know we're supposed to follow the rules
and stand by our Domni and all that shit, but clearly this is an exception
you all need to take!  I could have died, for fucksake!"

"He'll be up soon!" one of them yelled down.  "Better come up here and hide
with us before he comes for his retribution!"

"I'm not gonna just run and hide!" I said.  "I'm gonna kill the bastard so
he can't fuck with us again!"

I retrieved my golf club and began beating the hell out of the werewolf on
the ground.  He started to grunt in his unconsciousness as I pounded into
him.

"You'll never kill him like that!" one of the men above me yelled.  "You
need something stronger!  Go to the armory and get a real weapon!"

"But hurry!" another one yelled down to me.  "He'll be awake before you
know it!"

Yes, yes, the Armory, why the fuck hadn't I thought of that?  I threw my
worthless club down at him and ran off in the direction of the room.

If this had been a proper hotel, they would have had signs to the Armory so
that I might conveniently locate it.  Of course, proper hotels never had
much use for armories anyway.  And this was no hotel I was in, and there
were no signs to guide me to where I wanted to go.  I was soon lost,
running around the dark hallways, wishing that I had paid more attention to
Sam's during the previous night.

Whether it was luck or God guiding me, I don't know, but somehow I stumbled
upon the armory.  Once I was inside the cavernous room, I ran towards the
nearest shelf, lifting up a large bejeweled dagger that looked very, very
old.

Old antique weapons may be pretty, but they probably wouldn't be too
reliable.  I left the area of the room which held the blades and found the
firearms.  After finding two weapons that looked particularly appealing, I
strapped on a vest, stuck one gun on my back, and held the other in my
hand.

I ran out of the Armory, this time remembering the way back to the main
chamber of the Ensis.  I got there just as the wolf was rising to his feet,
now once again just a man who wasn't any bigger than me.

"How could I have fallen for that little number twice?" he asked as he
rubbed a burn mark on his chest.  I didn't know what the fuck he was
talking about and I didn't care.

I lifted my Glock 37, sighted it, and shot him in the head.  "Bang, you're
dead," I sneered.

When the bullet hit him in the cheek, his head recoiled backwards as he
screamed.  "Fuck, that stings!" he yelled, but with the hole in his face I
had just caused, he shouldn't have been able to yell at all.  "Shit, shit,
shit!"  With blood trickling down his face, he stuck his fingers into the
bullet hole.  Soon he had retrieved the bullet from underneath his skin,
showing me the bloody, misshaped lump that had failed to even penetrate his
cheekbone.  "There, all better," he said as the bullet wound disappeared,
leaving no trace of any sort of injury.

I re-aimed my gun towards his chest and unloaded on him.  But he never even
got knocked off his feet.  He just gave me a cocky laugh.  "Bullets are my
friends," he said.

With that he began that hideous transformation back into his beast form.
Every bullet that I had shot into the fucker popped out of his chest one by
one as he transformed, clanging in a pile at his feet.

I ditched my empty Glock and ran like hell away from him.  I didn't care
which direction it was that I was going, as long as it was away from the
monster who wanted me dead.  I came to one of the elevators.  YES!  People
in the movies were always escaping their attackers by getting in an
elevator and quickly being lifted out of harm's way.

I jabbed the call button and waited, looking up at the floor number
monitor.  16... 15... 14... Hurry the fuck up!

The elevator was too fucking slow.  The beast was at my heels, that much
was clear by the heavy, footsteps, the sound of the thing's massive
foot-claws scratching on stone behind me.  I cursed the elevator and kept
on running.

He was still following me.  I almost ran into the library, but that would
have been a mistake.  It was a dead end in there.

I ran on, thinking of a better idea.  The beast was right behind me,
gaining on me.  It had long legs, and it could move much faster than I.

I finally found the door I was looking for and slipped inside, shutting it
behind me and stepping to the side, backing up against the wall next do the
door.

The door flew open, hitting me hard, but covering me from the beast as he
walked in the room.  Coming in quick, he was twenty feet from the door in
half a second.

I pushed the door shut, hard, and stood in front of it.  The beast spun
around to face me, drool flying from his muzzle and disappearing into the
darkness.

He took a few deep sniffs through his nose.  I swore for the first time on
that monster's ugly face I could see fear.

"Men, come and help me!" I yelled.  "Together we can take the fucker down!"

Out of the shadows, men began to appear.  First one or two, then dozens
more, until there were a hundred Delectors closing in on the beast, holding
no weapons but their bare hands.  Deepak was one of those leading the way.

With one last burst of speed, the wolf charged.  Right towards me.  His
snarl as he did so seemed to say, "If I'm gonna eat it here now, I'm taking
you with me."

I quickly pulled out the sawed-off shotgun from my back.  I aimed, and shot
him right in the mouth.

The shot tore open his face and knocked him flat on his back.  His huge
muzzle shook back and forth violently in pain.  I may not have been able to
kill him, but I had ripped apart his mouth.  He rolled around as his face
tried hard to put his flesh back together.

It a second, a hundred pairs of human hands descended on the beast from
every side and blocked my view of him completely, except for a furry,
freaky foot/paw, sticking out of the crowd, that was kicking violently at
nothing until it went limp.

Moments later, that foot was shrinking, turning back into a man's foot.

"A collar!" a man yelled, and out of nowhere one of the other men procured
a thick silver device, which also quickly disappeared into the mesh of men.

Then, they all backed away from him.  There lay the naked man, lying
unconscious.  His hands were behind him in what looked to be heavy-duty,
unbreakable cuffs, and his feet were shackled in similar gear.  Around his
neck constricted the thick silver collar.

"What are you doing, taming the thing?  Keeping it as a pet?" I asked,
outraged.  "Kill the fucker while he's still asleep!"

"No," Deepak told me, stepping out of the crowd of men.  "All of these
creatures must be sent to the Seraphim, where they will be interrogated and
then disposed of.  In that form, those cuffs cannot be broken.  We are
safe."

"But he's a werewolf, guys," I said.  "What if he turns back into that
beast?  Cause I guarantee you that if he did, he'd break through those
cuffs like they were made of straw."

"The collar keeps them from changing form," Deepak told me.  "In their
other forms, their throats are much bigger.  If they try to morph, they
will strangle themselves."

The men congratulated me on what they considered to be my capture, told me
they would take care of the thing until the angels awoke at sunset, and
sent me back upstairs to bed.

As I went back into the main chamber of the Ensis, all those Delectors that
had come out of their rooms to watch me get my ass kicked by the wolf were
cheering for me.  I was still pissed that they hadn't come down to help me,
but I waved and smiled anyway.  I was a fucking hero to them, and I liked
the feeling.

Sam groaned as I got back into bed with him.  He clutched me in his arms,
and mumbled, "Bad dream?"  Immediately afterwards he was already snoring
again.

"If you only fucking knew," I said.

*****

"Of course you had it in you to beat him," Sam told me as he led me through
the halls of the Ensis.  "You had it in you all along.  You are the
Eversor, for crying out loud.  And he was just a weak little wolf."

"I liked the feeling, you know," I told him, slamming my right fist into my
left palm.  "Of knocking the shit out of the motherfucker.  Sure beats
running for my life."

Sam patted me on the shoulder.  "You are getting strong," he said.  "And
that's exactly what needs to happen.  As a Power, I will undoubtedly be led
into a fight every now and again.  Each time, you will be at my side.  I
don't expect you to be much of a contribution.  But I at least expect you
to be strong enough so as not to be a liability for me.

"It's not at all uncommon for a Power to lose his Delector in battle," Sam
continued.  "I have yet to suffer that loss.  I expect you to keep it that
way."

"Don't worry," I said.  "I'm not gonna let some little dickwad kill me
without giving one hell of a fight."

He smiled and turned to face forward again.

"Where are we going, anyway?" I asked.

"You'll see," he said.

When Sam led me into the medical center, I asked, "Why are we going here?
Are you sick or something, dude?"

"No.  Angels do not get sick," he said.  "We are here for you."

"Come on in, son," an Angel in white robes told me.  He was ushering me
towards a door.  Obviously he served as the doctor here.

"I'm perfectly healthy, sir," I told him.

"Excellent," he said.  "That will make things that much easier."  He
motioned me towards the door again.

Hesitantly, I followed him into the room.

"I'll be right outside," Sam told me, taking a seat in the small waiting
area.

He took me into a large, clean examination room of sorts.  It was filled
with much more medical equipment than I had ever seen in an examination
room before.

Standing by the bed was a middle-aged, skinny black man.  He had on scrubs
and a one of those medical-type shower caps.  He was putting on a surgical
mask as I came in.

"What is this, some sort of physical?" I asked the angel.  "You know, I had
one not too long ago in the Marines."

"You're nervous," the angel said.

"I don't really like doctors," I said.  "No offense meant, dude."

"None taken.  Don't worry, Bradley, we will make this as painless as we can
for you."

Right then I heard the slap on the masked man putting on a latex glove.  I
hated that sound.

"I'll be right back," the angel said.  "Frederick here will get you all
set."

The angel left the room.  I turned around to see Frederick snapping on the
other glove.  I couldn't tell for sure what was behind his mask, but I
thought I saw what looked like a sadistic smile.

"Please remove your clothing," he said to me.

Sighing, I pulled off my shirt slowly, my shoes, put them away neatly in a
corner.  "You want my pants off too?"

"Oh yes," he said.

I unbuckled my belt and took my pants off, putting them with my other
clothes.  "Okay," I said.

"No," he scolded me.  "The underpants off too."

"What?  Why?" I asked.

"Just take them off, sonny boy, or I'll come over there and cut them off
with a large scapel."

"Jeez man, ever heard of something called a good bedside manner?"

"Take them off!"

"Okay!"

I slipped my hands in the waistband of my jockeys and pulled them off,
mumbling obscenities as I did so.

"Where's my gown?" I asked.  "I usually wear gowns in physicals."

"I don't care if you usually wear gowns, dresses, or mini-skirts," he
answered.  "In here, you'll be naked.  Now get over here on the fucking
table."

"What are you going to do, give me a Hernia check or something?"

"You'll see.  Get over here."

I walked over to the metal table and jumped upon it.  It was cold against
my bare skin; I shivered.

"Is the table cold?" Frederick asked me.

"Yeah, kinda."

"Well, poor little you.  Get the fuck over it."

"Jesus, man," I said.  "Why are you such an ass?"

"Lie down!" he said, pushing me violently into a lying position on the
table.  "Let's get this started."

"Shouldn't we wait for the doctor to come back--OW!"

The fucker stabbed an IV needle into my arm, as painfully as possible.

"That hurt!" I yelled.  "You could have ripped open my vein like that!"

"Nope, look's like you are A-okay," he said.  "You need to relax.  Suck on
this."

He pushed a gas mask over my nose and mouth.  I quickly pushed it away.
"Get that away from me," I told him.  "I don't need it."

"Oh, you don't, do you?"

"No fucking way."

"So then, you're fine if we perform major surgery on your nervous system
while you're conscious?"

"Surgery?" I asked.  "What the hell for?  What kind of surgery?"

"It's completely routine," he said.  "Every Delector has one.  Now, try to
breathe deep."

He stuck the mask on me again, this time holding it on hard.

"I don't want any surgery!" I yelled.  "I don't need any surgery, I'm
totally healthy!"

"I'll relay that to the doctor," Frederick said.

"This stuff isn't even working on me!" I laughed.  "I'm not the least bit
tired!"

"Is that right?" he said.

"Yeah.  I am the Eversor, you know.  Maybe I'm too strong for this gas.  I
don't think I'll be able to go through any surgical procedure..."

I trailed off.  I was out like a light.

*****

Slap, slap, slap!

"WAKE UP!"

I clutched my cheek, which stung like crazy.

"You don't have to hit him!"  That was Sam's voice.

"Just trying to rouse him."  Oh God, that was Frederick's voice.

I opened my eyes.  My vision was blurred.  My head ached.  I felt dizzy.

"It's the anesthesia," the angel-doctor said from somewhere.  "It'll wear
off."

"I feel like shit," I said.

"But you're the Eversor," Frederick the nurse mocked.  "You're supposed to
be invincible."

Sam clutched my hand.  "You came through the procedure well," he said.

"No thanks to Florence Nightingale here," I said.

"Yup, I think we're done with this!" Frederick said.  He reached for my arm
and ripped out the IV, violently.

"Ah!  Jesus fuck, man!"

"Hey, Frederick!" Sam said.  "Try to be more gentle with my Delector here!"

"My apologies," he said.  "I assumed he was still anesthetized."

Suddenly I felt a strange irritation on the back of my head.  Instinctively
I reached behind me and felt a bandage right below the base of my skull.

"Six stitches," the doctor said.  "But I don't think you'll have much of a
scar."

"What did you do to me?" I asked angrily.

"Why, we put an IH in you, of course," he said.

"An I what?"

"IH.  Invisible Harness.  Standard procedure for all Delectors."

"Don't worry," Sam said, looking down at me.  "All the angels have them
too, including myself."

"You put a harness in me?"  I was getting pissed.  "Why the hell for?"

"The Cherubim take the bond between an angel and his Delector very
seriously," Sam said.  "Before this technology came about, a Domno and
Delector would be literally chained together.  Permanently.  That's how it
was done for centuries.  Believe me, you're luckier this way."

 "What are you saying?" I asked.  "You put some sort of device inside me?
Some sort of tracking device or something?"

"No," said the doctor.  "An Invisible Harness.  It keeps you from moving
far way from your Domno.  If you stay under thirty feet, no effect will
occur.  At thirty feet of distance, your devices will both activate,
triggering a response directly in your nervous systems, cause intense
pain."

"So," I said.  "Basically I have one of those electric shock collars they
make dogs wear.  Only it's permanently in my fucking nervous system!"

"I have the exact same restrictions," Sam said.  "We all do."

"Beyond thirty feet of separation," the doctor continued, "you will
experience more and more overpowering pain."

"How long does the pain last?" I asked.

"Only as long as the two of you remain separated," he answered.  "As soon
as you are within thirty feet of Sam again, the pain will end immediately."

"Well, that plain blows," I said.

"One more thing," the doctor told me.  "Hardly ever do we get a case of a
Delector moving more than fifty feet away from their Domno, as the pain
would be so intense for both of them.  But when it occasionally does
happen, the IH overpowers the Delector's nervous system.  It kills him
instantly.  So, lesson is, don't ever, ever let yourself be separated by
more than fifty feet."

"Okay," I said.  "Great, thanks for telling me.  Walk fifty fucking feet
away from Sam here, ever for the rest of my friggin life, and I drop dead.
Good times, fellas."

"He probably shouldn't walk yet," the doctor said to Sam.  "But if you want
to carry him out of here, he could recover in your apartment."

"Great, thanks Doctor."

After Sam dressed me again, he was carrying me up through the Ensis,
holding me up against his chest as he walked.

"How could you not fucking tell me about this?" I asked.

"I knew of your fear of medical procedures," he said.  "I thought it best
just to spring it on you.  I didn't want to alarm you."

"You were just afraid that I might have done something stupid if I knew
what was in store for me," I said.

"Well, would you have?"

"Probably so," I said.

"You can't ever, ever afford to act rashly anymore," Sam said.  "I know
it's in your nature to fly off the handle once in the while.  But now
you're a Delector.  One misstep and they'll consider it a betrayal.
They'll end your life."

"Alright," I said.  "I can handle myself.  Don't worry."  I looked as a
couple angels passed us in the hall with their Delectors at their side.
"Hey, I just realized why those Delectors didn't help me last night when I
was getting mangled by that wolf!  They couldn't go more than thirty feet
from their Domni.  Of course!"

"Very clever, Bradley Wheeler," Sam told me.  "Now you will have that same
handicap."

*****

"Sam, there's been a change of plans," Nathaniel said with disappointment
that was hard to conceal.  Sam and I were in our second meeting in
Nathaniel's office.  "I talked with the Seraphim.  They want you to bring
the boy to them, as soon as you can manage it."

I balked.  Who the hell were these Seraphim motherfuckers, and what right
did they have to order me to go to them?  What the fuck did they want with
me, anyway?  I was already sure that things would have been better for us
if only Sam and I had gone off on our own and never returned to the Ensis.

"They know he's my Delector?" asked Sam.

"Yes, they are fully aware of that."  Nathaniel laughed.  "They are, of
course, aware of everything."

"I've never seen the Seraphim before," Sam said.  "I don't know where to
find them."

"Nobody has seen them," Nathaniel said.  "They keep their whereabouts in
tight secrecy.  The only Cherubim who have been given access to this
information are a group of a couple hundred or so Thrones.  And they have
sworn never to interact with the rest of us again.  That is how serious the
secret they protect is."

"So, even you, Nathaniel?" asked Sam.  "You, who is in so frequent contact
with the Seraphim?  They still have not allowed you to be privy to their
secrets?"

"Samuel, I have not even been allowed to see any of their faces.  Every
interaction I have with them is by phone."  He smiled.  "So, you see, you
are being given a gift.  They are entrusting you with the knowledge of
their whereabouts.

"I have been instructed to have one our planes take you to Masqat, Oman,
where you will be left at sunset with a jeep and plenty of supplies.
There, you will receive a call from the Seraphim, and be given precise
directions to their dwelling."

"Fine," said Sam.  "We are ready to leave here as soon as we can."

"Excellent.  The Seraphim have requested one more thing.  They want you to
bring the wolf we have in captivity to them personally, where he will be
properly interrogated and then disposed of."

"Of course," Sam said.  "Yes, whatever they ask of me, I shall comply."

Nathaniel put his hands on Sam's shoulders.  "You only just returned here,
and immediately you must leave.  It is our loss here at the Ensis."

"Oh, Nathaniel," Sam said.  "I likely won't be gone for more than a few
days.  Nothing to worry about."

"Somehow I get the feeling that you won't be returning anytime soon.  But I
hope my intuition fails me.  It certainly has before."

*****

In the west, the sun had recently hidden behind the hills, giving the
horizon a sharp contrast between the black hills and the still bright,
orange glow of the sky.  In the north, the plane that had just dropped us
off could still be seen heading away.

We were just sitting there in the jeep on that abandoned little airport.
Me, Sam, and our pet wolf.  He was sitting in the backseat, a thick chain
connecting his collar to the frame of the jeep, with his hands chained in
front of him and also tied to what Sam referred to as his "leash."  He had
a black blindfold on, and had been complaining from the first second we got
off the plane.

"Fucking hell man, it's as hot as Hades up in here," he said.  "Where the
hell are we, the Sahara Desert or something?"

"Shuttup," I ordered the prisoner.

Sam's cell phone rang suddenly.  He put out his cigarette and opened it up.
"Hello?" he asked.  "Uh-huh," he said as he pulled out our map of the area.

He began hastily drawing and scribbling notes on the thing.  Head southwest
out of town towards the mountain range.  Go 31.6 miles.  Pull over onto a
dirt road.  Stop at the large boulder that had been painted with a white
dot.  From there, go on foot due south 2 miles until coming to the burnt,
dead tree.  So on and so forth.

I read every direction as Sam wrote it, quickly committing it all to
memory.  "I'll navigate," I declared, pulling the map out of Sam's hand and
starting to draw our route on it.  I had learned how to do this shit in the
Marines, and I was gonna prove that I could be useful here.  I guess it was
just me trying to feel important.

"We'll be there by morning, of course," Sam said.  "Thank you."  He flipped
shut his phone, and started the car.  "Right," he said.  "Let's get going."

We drove away from the town, dust swirling up everywhere around us as we
went, forcing me to keep my mouth shut and my eyes squinted.

"So, where are we going?" asked the wolf in the backseat, apparently not
minding the mouthful of dust it required to talk.

"Where do you think?" I asked sharply.

"I don't know," he said.  "We're in a jeep, right?  So, maybe we're doing
something outdoorsy?  Like camping or fishing or something?"

"Yeah, maybe," I said.

"Hey, you guys ever notice how the backseat of these jeeps really weren't
meant for people?" the wolf asked.  "I'm folded up like origami back here."

Neither of us responded, probably because neither of us gave a fuck.

"So you guys never told me your names."

"Why should we have?" I asked.

"So that we can be, like, on familiar terms and all.  We're three guys on a
road trip after all, right?  Why not get to know each other a bit better?
My name's Cougar by the way."

"I already knew your name," Sam said.  "It's one of the advantages of being
able to read minds."

"Oh, you read minds, huh?" Cougar asked.  "Wow, man, that's a pretty spiffy
trick.  What am I thinking about right now?"

"It's no parlor trick," Sam said.

"Oh, I understand, its cool man."

"And you were thinking about taking the chains that are binding your wrists
together and strangling me with them."

"Damn, you really can read minds," he said.

"It would be a fruitless effort, anyway," Sam said.  "You'd be dead before
you even made a motion towards me.  Never pick a fight with someone who
knows what you are thinking before you yourself do."

"Okay, good tip, bro.  But what about if I strangle your girlfriend over
here instead?  I can smell what he is, yeah, I know it, but even so, he
would have died in our fight if that little army hadn't had his back."

"Sam would kill you before you ever got the chance," I said.  "Right, Sam?"

Sam winced.

"Ah-ha!  So, Sammy boy's the winged freak among us," he said.  "The fairy,
as I fondly refer to your kind.  Sam the fairy."

"How come they put all these chains on him, but they forgot to gag him?" I
asked Sam.

We bumped along into the night, Sam and I mostly staying silent while the
wolf failed his persistent attempts to befriend us.  Finally, when we came
to the designated boulder marking the place where we were to stop, Sam
pulled over and handed me a flashlight and compass.

"Oh, are we there?" asked the wolf.  "It's about fucking time, hey boys?"

"Do you know how to use this?" Sam asked me.

"Of course," I said, grabbing the compass away from him.  I turned on my
flashlight and pointed towards the south as we got out of the car.  "We
need to go this way."

Sam unlocked the wolf's chained leash, unwrapping it from the car and
holding it in his hands.  "You need to take a step out of the car," he told
the wolf.

Cougar stepped out of the car and sniffed the air.  "We're in the desert,
aren't we?"

"How can you tell?" I asked.

"There's no tree-smells.  No real animal smells either, and no human
smells.  Just the sand, a fairy, and a fairy's little bitch."

Sam yanked the chain towards the south.  "Shut up and start moving," he
said.  "We have a long way to hike."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Cougar yelled.  "You are not about to pull me around
with a blindfold on, are you?"

"Why not?" asked Sam.

"Because that's like totally dangerous, bro," he said.  "I can't see where
I'm stepping!  I could trip and fall!"

"And possibly scrape a knee?" Sam said.  "You're a werewolf, my friend, I
think you'll survive."

"I'm so glad that you've finally come to think of my as your friend,"
Cougar said.  "You're my best fairy buddy, did you know that, bro?"

"I'm ecstatic," Sam said, pulling him again towards the south.

"Jesus, man, take it easy on that chain!  That hurts!"

"Why don't you give the chain to me?" I said to Sam.  "See how hard I can
pull on it?"

"Yeah, why don't you let the kid take the chain?"

"That would not be wise," Sam said.  "You would lose him in a matter of
seconds, I'm afraid.  And stay a good distance in front of us.  I don't
want you getting in range of him here."

We walked on.

A couple miles into the monotonous hike, Cougar said, "Hey, I what happens
if I gotta piss?"

"You piss," Sam said, as we kept on walking.

"You want me to just wet my pants?"

"If that's your preference, that's fine," Sam said, "otherwise, we'll stop
here and you can piss in the sand."

"Fine, let's stop then," Cougar said.

I grunted in annoyance as we stopped walking.  Cougar lifted up his bound
hands towards Sam.

"What?" Sam asked.

"You have to undo my hands."

"Not fucking likely," Sam said.

"How am I supposed to piss without my hands?  I couldn't even get my dick
out."

"I'll hold your dick for you while you piss," Sam offered.

Cougar made a face.  "That's faggot talk," he said.  "I bet you like that
idea, don't you, fairy?  Finally get the chance to fondle my cock."

"Oh yes," Sam said.  "I live for the chance to fondle the sweaty cocks of
wolves who have stumbled into my captivity."

"Well, you're not gonna put your hand on my dick, that's just gnarly, man."

"Fine with me," Sam said, pulling at Cougar's chain.  "You can hold it
until we get to our destination.  Or piss your pants and make even more of
an ass out of yourself, either way works for me."

"Alright, fine bro, you win!" Cougar said, stopping in his place.  "You can
manhandle my wiener.  Whatever gives you your jollies, man."

"Fine, let's get on with it."  Sam reached down and undid Cougar's fly.

"One last warning," Cougar said.  "I haven't showered in like weeks, so
it's totally gnarly down there."

"I'll hold my nose," Sam said, undeterred.

"Genital crabs!" Cougar yelled out.  "I also got those!  Picked them up
from a filthy, fat Russian whore.  Big fucking crabs, man, no joke!"

"Luckily, we angels are immune to such infestations," Sam said.

"Well, you fucking fairies just get all the perks, don't you?"

Sam stuck his hand into Cougar's fly, fished around for a moment, and
pulled out his dick.  Then, he just held it there.  "Well, come on," Sam
said.  "Get on with it!"

"Hold on, I'm a bit piss shy," Cougar said.  "Ah, here it comes."

Hot piss streamed from the wolf's dick into the sand.  I looked away,
towards our destination.  I was eager to keep on moving.

"There, I'm done.  You can stick it back in now."  I heard the sound of his
zipper behind me.  "Hey, what happens if I need to take a number two?  You
gonna wipe my ass for me when I finish?"

"If necessary, yes," Sam said.

We walked on, me leading the way with the map and compass.  The wind was
really picking up by this time, and the sand was blowing in gusts right
into our faces.

"Whoa!" cried out Cougar suddenly.  "There goes the blindfold!"  I looked
back.  He was blinking his eyes and looking around, the wind apparently
having whipped off the blindfold completely.

"Where'd it go?" I asked.

"It's gone, bro," Cougar said.  "Guess someone should have tied it
tighter."

"Just let it go," Sam told me, apparently unconcerned.

"Great, now I can see all our surroundings!  Ha!"  He looked around us.
"And all I see is fucking darkness and sand.  Wow, good thing you
blindfolded me in the first place.  Now I have seen far, far too much."  He
got a good eyeful of Sam for the first time.  "Wow, Sam the fairy, you've
got a real pretty face, ain't ya?  I should be flattered a sweet little
beauty such as yourself would wanna fondle my privates."

"How much farther do we have?" Sam asked me, apparently praying for the
moment that we could part company with this loudmouth as much as I was.

"We're definitely more than halfway there," I said, looking at the map and
the directions.

"So, uh, what's going to happen to me when we get to where we're going?"
Cougar asked.

"We'll hand you over to the other angels.  You'll be interrogated, most
likely psychically."

"And then I'll be turned loose?"

"No," Sam said.  "And then you'll be put out of your misery."

"They're going to kill me?"

"Undoubtedly."

"But, why?" he asked.  "You've already caught me, what more harm could I
cause?"

"They'll kill you because you're a bad person, Cougar," Sam said.  "You
stink of sin.  It's our duty as angels to send sinners like you into God's
hands."

"I'm not such a bad person," Cougar said.  "What if I repent?  Pray and
shit?  Beg God for forgiveness?"

"It couldn't hurt," Sam said.  "But, it would not save you.  If you had
committed some minor sin, then yes.  But you have committed Unforgivable
Sin.  God will not show mercy."

"What have I done that was all so terrible?"

"You've killed innocents.  You can't kill innocents and expect God's good
graces.  I pity you, really, I do, but you're headed for Hell."

"Great.  Well, at least Hell can't be much worse than having a fairy pull
me through the desert on a chain leash, stopping only to fondle my dick
occasionally."

"Maybe not.  Give me a call when you get there and let me know."

"So, if I'm gonna die no matter what..." He threw himself face down on the
ground.

"What are you doing?" Sam said, pulling at the chain.

"I'm not walking another inch!" Cougar said.  "I refuse to march to my
death!"

"Fine," Sam said, pulling out his sword from under his coat.  "If you won't
go willingly, then I'll have to kill you here and now.  I'm sure the other
angels will understand."

Cougar scoffed.  "You can't just kill me in cold blood," he said.  "Killing
is Unforgivable Sin, and you're supposed to be an angel!"

"Only killing an innocent is Unforgivable," Sam clarified.  "You are not
one of those, not by a long shot."  He raised his sword above Cougar's
neck.

"You wouldn't kill me like this," Cougar said.  "Not after we've bonded
like we've done.  I mean, just a little bit ago you had my dick in your
hand.  Shit, we're buddies, you and me!  You couldn't kill your buddy!"

"Watch me," Sam said.  He swung down his sword towards Cougar.

"Wait, okay, okay!" the wolf yelled.  "You proved your point!  I'll keep
walking and take my chances with the others."

And we hiked on.  And on.  And on.

The whole hike, I had carefully kept my distance from the wolf Sam was
dragging behind him on a chain.  I knew first hand how strong he was, and I
wasn't going to risk my health by getting close enough where he could
possibly attack me.  Even with his hands chained, he could still do me some
major damage.  So, as we walked on, I was always aware of my proximity to
Sam and Cougar.

I slipped up once and only once, but it was enough.  I don't know why I got
sloppy.  Maybe I was getting more tired than I knew.  Anyway, I had the map
in my hands, my head was down looking at it, and as I tried to figure out
how far the next landmark that we were looking for would be, I tripped over
a rock and landed forward, my chin digging into the sand.

Before I could even curse properly, I heard the clank-clank of the chain
leash moving quickly towards me.  I looked up.  I had fallen so that my
face was only a couple yards from the wolf.  He wasn't giving me time to
get up and brush myself up; he was an opportunistic motherfucker, and he
was diving towards me!

Thank God Sam had quicker reactions than the wolf!  As Cougar jumped at me,
his hands tied, but his mouth open (I guess the fucker was trying to bite
me), Sam pulled back hard on the chain and instead of my skin, Cougar took
a big bitefull of the map.

"Shit, dude tried to bite me!" I said as I quickly got back on my feet,
dropping the map in the process.  "He was gonna turn me into a werewolf!"

"Relax," said Sam, pulling Cougar onto his knees with the chain.  "His bite
can only turn you if he's a wolf."

"Well, he still could have broken skin!"  For once Cougar was keeping
quiet, and I realized why that was so: he was holding the map in his mouth,
between his teeth.  "What are you gonna do with that, huh?" I asked him.
"Eat it?"

"Drop the map!" Sam said, yanking roughly on the chain.

Cougar looked at Sam with defiant eyes, and in a few seconds, the raggedy
piece of paper completely disappeared inside his mouth.

"You meddlesome little brat!" Sam yelled.

"Ha!  Let's see you try to get to our destination without a map!"  His
pride broke into a fit of coughing.  "Damn thing gave my esophagus a paper
cut.  But it was worth it!"

"Stupid creature," Sam said.  "Morning isn't that far off, and out here you
can bet it'll get hot.  Do you want to die, lost out here in the desert?"

Cougar gave a half smile.  "Something tells me that a wolf can out-survive
a fairy and his bitch in a desert."

Sam yanked the chain again.  "Not when you're chained and cuffed, you
can't."

"Shit, we'll never find this place without that map.  We're fucked, Sam."

"We'll just call them back," Sam said, fishing his cellphone out and trying
to make a call.  "Lord, what a time to deny us of signal."

"Of course there's no signal," Cougar snipped.  "We're in the middle of a
desert, dumbass!"

"If we follow our tracks in the sand back, we can find the jeep again," I
said.

"But it'll take too long," Sam said.  "We'd be only halfway there when the
sun came up."

"Shit, that's right," I said.

"So what?" Cougar asked.  "What happens when the sun comes up?"  He looked
between our blank faces.  "You're weak during the day, aren't you?" he
asked Sam.  "You won't be able to hold me back.  And the first thing I'll
do when I'm free is chew out your boyfriend's throat."  He looked up to the
sky.  "Come on, sun!  Bring it on!"

"It won't come down to that," Sam said.  He took off his jacket and the
shirt underneath.  Suddenly his wings were out, the whitest thing among
this landscape of white sand.  "I'll fly into the air.  I just need a good
aerial view.  Once I spot our destination, I'll lead us there."

"Yeah, sure... you go fly around, bro," Cougar said.  "Just leave your buddy
here to guard me."

"You, my friend, are coming with me."  Sam came up behind Cougar and
wrapped his hands around his back.

"Get the fuck off me, faggot!  Is that your crotch I feel pressed up
against my ass?  You'd better take a step back!"

"If I don't hold on tight, I'm going to drop you and you're going to die."

"Look, I really, really don't want to go for a joyride with you," he said.
"How about you just leave me on the ground and I promise not to run or hurt
your friend here?"

"You're terrified of flying, aren't you?" asked Sam.

"Not terrified!  Just understandably cautious."

"Well, get over it," Sam said.  "We're only doing this because you ate the
fucking map."

"Fine, hold on tight then," Cougar said.  "And please, no tricks!"

"Tricks?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, you know," Cougar said.  "Like pretending to drop me when we're a
hundred feet up, and then catching me and telling me you were just kidding.
None of that."

"Do you really think I'm that sadistic?  Anyway, I won't be able to go very
high.  Something's keeping me tethered to the ground.  Just shut your eyes
if it'll help."  Sam looked at me.  "You will probably feel some
discomfort," he told me.  "But don't worry, I won't go far enough to do us
any harm."

I nodded.

Sam tightened his grip around Cougar, beat his wings loudly, and swept
upwards into the air.  I followed the two of them with my eyes, trying to
remember what the doctor had told me about my invisible harness.  When Sam
reached about thirty feet, the pain started to come.  Not from anywhere in
particular in my body, but from everywhere at once.  I winced and doubled
over.

It was so bad to begin with, but as Sam got higher up, the pain only got
worse.  I fell completely to the sand, shaking everywhere, unwanted tears
forcing their way out of my eyes.  I threw up.

And then the pain was completely gone, like a switch turned off.

I could hear Sam's wing beats above me.  He slowly descended to the sand.

I got up and kicked sand over my vomit as Cougar touched his feet down and
opened his eyes again.  I quickly wiped away my tears.

"Shit dude, were you just crying?" Cougar asked me.

"No!" I snapped at him, lying.

"Don't worry," Sam told me.  "The separation was painful for me as well."

Cougar's jaw dropped open.  "You must be fucking kidding me.  The two of
you separate for like two seconds, and you get all weepy?  God, man-up,
guys."

I glared at Cougar, annoyed that I probably shouldn't tell him why exactly
I was so pained.  I looked towards Sam.  "What did you see up there?"

"Nothing, nothing at all.  Just sand and rock.  Of course, if I could go
higher, maybe I'd be able to see some sign of a structure somewhere.  I
normally can carry two people just fine, but I'm not at full strength yet.
In a couple more days, sure."

"Well, it looks like we're pretty much fucked," I said.  But then I let a
smile crack through.  "We would be, anyway, if I hadn't memorized those
directions you gave me as I mapped them out."

Sam's face lightened.  "You remember the way?"

"Yeah.  We still got our compass.  I can get us to where we need to be."

"You're positive you remember everything?"

"Pretty much, yeah," I said.  But in all honesty, I wasn't at all
confident.  I remembered a series of steps, but what if I remembered the
landmarks in the wrong order, or got a direction wrong?

Sam frowned.  "You're not at all certain.  You have a tendency towards
overconfidence."

"I can do it," I said, taking the compass and pointing in a direction.
"This way."  I started to walk.

"I guess the least you can do is try," Sam said, pulling Cougar's chain
behind him.

I led the three of us into the dark desert, trying to drill my brain for
any forgotten steps.  The directions were long and complex.

After a couple hours of trekking, with me relatively certain I was leading
them in all the right directions, Sam stopped me, pointing his flashlight
towards a large boulder.  "Look," he said.  "A cross."

I squinted, looking at the boulder.  Two rough gashes in the rock formed a
small cross.  "Good!  That means we're almost there."

Sam looked towards the eastern sky, which was starting to glow a dark blue.
"Just in time," he said.  "Which way now?"

I looked around.  To the left of us, there was a ravine that cut deep into
the earth, blocking the way across.  But on the other side was just a bleak
valley, with no sign of any angel settlement.  To the right, there was a
steep, rocky hillside.

I realized that I just couldn't remember what the next step was.  But I
didn't remember any of the directions mentioning a ravine.  So, I reasoned,
"Let's go up."

"I hope you're right about this," Sam said as he followed me up.

"I'm right.  You watch, this place is gonna be right on the other side of
the hill."

But as we climbed that hill I began to have doubts.  I wasn't at all sure
where I was leading them.  Yet, I had made my decision.  There was no going
back.  This was the right path.

"I'm not sure this is the right way, Brad," Sam told me a half hour later,
when we were nearing the top.

"He's obviously has no fucking idea where he's taking us," Cougar said.

"This is the right way!" I snapped, determined.

Ten minutes later, we turned off the flashlights.  Even though the sun was
still below the horizon, it was light enough now to see without them.

At last we reached the top of the hill, with me running up the last few
yards excitedly.  "This is it, you'll see..." My voice trailed off as I
stood at the top and looked out over towards the other side.

Nothing, for miles and miles, everywhere.  Just bleak, grey desert
landscape.  No sign of any civilized being, angel or human.

"Fucking shit!" I yelled.

Sam popped up beside me.  "This is the wrong way," he said.

"What did I tell you?" Cougar remarked.

"We went up when we should have gone down," Sam said distractedly.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"And now it's almost sunrise!"  He spun around on his heels.  "Come,
quickly!"

Sam shot down the hill, pulling Cougar's leash so hard he had to run to
keep from falling over.  I ran behind them as fast as I could.

Shit, the sky was getting lighter and lighter.  I knew that we would never
make it.  The sun would rise and Sam would burn to death and it would be so
terrible.  All because I had led him in the wrong direction.

We went down that hill way quicker than we went up it.  When we reached the
boulder with the cross carved in it, Sam stopped.  "It's not up the hill or
around the ravine.  It's down in the ravine."

"Don't stop, just keep running!" I yelled.

Sam nodded, running towards the edge of the ravine.  When I caught up to
him, I looked down.  A hundred feet, sheer drop down.

"There's no way down!" I said, looking around the ravine.  Every edge was
just as sheer.  No trail or path or stairs anywhere that I could see.

"No way for a man to get down, no," Sam said, his wings breaking through
the skin of his back and beating behind him.

With speed, he grabbed me in one arm, grabbed Cougar in the other arm, and
jumped off the cliff.  He may have not been strong enough to fly with two
passengers, but he was strong enough to float down slowly to the base of
the ravine, his wings beating hard as we fell.

"No, not more flying!  This is the worst vacation I've ever had," Cougar
said, eyeing the fast approaching ground as we landed.

"Now, what exactly are we looking for?" asked Sam.

We walked along the cliff wall, not sure exactly where to go.  "Whatever it
is, we better find it fast," I said.  "The sun's already risen.  Any moment
now it will shine over these cliff walls."

"There!" Sam said, pointing across the ravine.  On the opposite cliff wall,
a huge temple seemed to be carved out of the stone.  A beautifully carved,
sandstone doorway, surrounded by stone pillars, topped a large flight of
rough stone steps.  "It's beautiful!"

"What are talking about?  I don't see anything," said Cougar.

"Of course you can't see it," Sam said.  "You see it, don't you Brad?"

"Yeah.  Let's go!"

Sam took off at a run, moving into the open floor of the ravine, pulling
Cougar behind him.  But I instinctively froze; here I was safe in the shade
of the cliff wall.  Even though I of course knew the sun couldn't harm me,
I had seen how destructive the sun could be with my own eyes.  I had
already started to fear it.

Sam feared it as well, as evidenced by his running from one cliff towards
the other.  He was counting on outrunning the light.

But you can't ever, ever outrun light.  Some distant clouds parted, and it
came pouring over the walls of the cliff.  Right towards Sam.

"Sam, move it!" I yelled.

Sam never even had a chance.  My stomach lurched as the sunlight beat down
upon my friend, surrounded him completely.  He didn't even try to run from
it.  He slowed his gait to a walk right before the sun hit him, and then
stopped completely, his back to me.

And now, I knew what came next.  The burning.  The smoldering.  My friend,
my love, disintegrating in violent fire.  Painfully.  And then... death.

This is what I expected to see.  Yet, the sun was upon him.  And still he
stood.

I ran out towards him, flinching briefly as I left the shadow and the sun
hit my face.  I squinted as I approached him from behind.

How could this be?  How could this light shine so brightly upon him and yet
not harm him?  He looked so beautiful in the morning light.  His skin
looking brilliantly white, reflecting back every ray of the sun.

No.  It wasn't the sun making his skin look white.  It was white.

I ran past him and looked at him with my back to the sun, so I knew I could
trust my eyes.

My God, what have you done?

This was no longer the figure of a man in front of me.

It was still Sam, yes.  But instead of a man, he had become a statue.
Instead of flesh and blood and skin, all there was inside those clothes was
stone; a gorgeous, shiny marble.  Instead of the tan of his skin and the
yellow of his hair and the red of his lips, all had turned to white and
grey.

"Uh, what the fuck happened to the fairy?" asked Cougar.

"No..." I mumbled out loud, my heart sickening.  The sun had turned him to
stone.  It was as if Medusa herself had set her sights upon him.  His stone
eyelids were closed.  His soft, blonde curls turning into carved white
carved shapes.  His stone hand still around the chain leash.  His face,
always a work of art, was now quite literally so.  Completely breathtaking
in his beauty.  Yet lifeless and empty and dead.

A tear came to my eyes.  I wanted to be strong.  But I loved the man, more
than I had ever loved anyone or anything in this world.  Infinitely more
than I loved myself.

"Fuck you, God!"  I yelled up towards the sun.  "I know that you're up
there laughing at me, you smug motherfucker!"

As in response to my taunts, the statue lurched towards me.  I jumped back
in horror.

"Shh, it's okay," Sam's voice whispered.  The stone lips had moved, they
parted, and his voice came from within.

Then it was more than just the lips.  The stone head was moving around on
his stone neck.  The stone arm was reaching out, reaching forward.  The
stone chest was, well... it was flexing.

How can stone move?  I couldn't say.  But it didn't move awkwardly as I
might imagine, with the sound of a large crushing grindstone.  It moved
completely like flesh... smooth, fluid, and silent.  It was flesh, flesh
made of marble.

"I'm still here," Sam said, his eyes still shut but his stone mouth
smiling, his teeth still the same inside.  "Just a little trick I never
thought to show you before."

He was alive.  Thank God.  Thank you, sweet fucking God.

"You sick fucking bastard!" I yelled.  "Why didn't you tell me that you
could turn to fucking stone?"

"It slipped my mind," he said.  "All angels can do it, though not all of
them turn to marble like I do."

"This way you can be in the sun?" I asked him.

"I can," he said.  "This is the only way the sun won't hurt me."

"How come you waited until now to show me?"

"Without a Delector, I wasn't strong enough to turn before.  Now, once
again, I am.  Blissfully."

"Open your eyes," I said.

"I can't," he said.  "It's the one thing part of the angel that doesn't
change.  If I opened them, the sun would burn them out of my sockets, and
I'd never see again."

"That's fucking harsh," Cougar said, awestruck into silence until that
point.

 "Now," Sam said to me.  "I can't stay like this forever.  You have led us
this far.  Lead us the rest of the way."

I turned around and looked at the doorway carved in the cliffs before me.
I started to walk.  Behind me, Sam moved slowly.  Each step seemed
laborious as his feet sunk far into the sand.  I realized that a man made
completely of stone must indeed be heavy.

Even with his eyes shut, he never got off course.

We reached the shade of the other cliff-side, and Sam opened his eyes
again, the brilliant blue contrasting sharply with the white stone of his
skin.

He lifted a stone fist and hammered deeply against the stone door.

After a moment, the doors parted, the massive doors opening inwards on some
sort of mechanism.

We entered into a torch-lit chamber carved in sandy brown stone, ornate
tiles on the ground and pillars against the walls.  Everything looked so
ancient.

The door shut behind us.  Two men, not angels, had been operating a crank
of some kind.  Another, a short middle-eastern man with a thick black
beard, approached us, bowing low in front of Sam, but never smiling.  All
of these men were wearing what seemed to be dark brown monks' robes.

 "We have arrived."  Sam had already returned to flesh, and was starting to
yawn violently.

"The Seraphim expected you some time ago," the man said with a thick
accent.  "They did already retire for the day.  You may speak with them in
the evening."  He looked at the wolf connected to the chain.  "If you
wouldn't mind delivering this one to the dungeon."

"Not at all," Sam said.  "As long as I can stay awake."

"The dungeon?" Cougar asked.  "Are you fucking kidding me?"

The man led the three of us into an adjoining passageway, a stone tunnel
dimly lit with torches, and I realized that this place must have been
hundreds of years old.  I wondered if the Seraphim had lived here that
entire time.

"Visitors are never permitted to wander around the premises on their own
accord," the man was warning.  "Anywhere you go, you must be led.  Much of
this Cathedral must not be breached.  Even myself, a Delector who has lived
here for many years, am not given access to certain parts of the Cathedral.
Violation of these rules will result in death."  Hey said it all quickly
and matter of factly, as if he had said it many times before and was simply
bored of it all.

"Are you a Seraphim's Delector?" I asked him.

He looked at me sharply, as if my question was an obvious attempt to annoy
him.  "Of course not.  The Delectors of the Seraphim would never be
permitted to greet visitors.  They are not even allowed to be looked upon
by the other Delectors such as myself.  No, my Domno is a Cherubim, a
Throne, one of many who have been chosen by the Seraphim to stay
permanently in their Cathedral, to serve and protect them in complete
secrecy."

"Where is your Domno now?" I asked.

"Sleeping, as he should be.  There are about thirty who stay awake during
the day to continue to cloak the Cathedral from intrusions.  The rest of
them, seventy or so, sleep at this time."

I wondered then how it was that this Delector was walking around on his
own, certainly more than fifty feet away from his Domno, and yet, he was
still alive.  I thought of asking him this, but noticed Sam was not asking
the man any questions.  I didn't want to look like some geeky, awestruck
gee-whiz type of dude, so I kept my mouth shut.

He took us down stairs carved into the stone, until we came to the dungeon,
a dark, foul-smelling place with barred cages.

"No way I'm going in there," Cougar said.  "It's dark, dirty, and it smells
like ass."

A figure beyond the bars suddenly got to his feet.  I jumped, alarmed.  I
hadn't thought anyone was in there.  Although the man was extremely large,
his skin was so dark that he blended completely into the darkness around
him, appearing only when he moved around.

"Well, well," the man said.  "Looks like I got me a new cell mate."

The sound of his voice sent chills through my spine.  My face burned with
anger as I grit my teeth together.

"Malcolm, you fuck!"  Cougar said, his spirits lifting suddenly.  "Is that
you stinking up the place?"

"None other."

"Well, shit!  We thought you were dead and rotting away somewhere in
Arizona!"

"So did I," I snapped, looking angrily at Sam.  "You told me he was dead.
I wanted him dead!"

"I never said that," Sam said, yawning.  "The Seraphim always bring the
captives here.  When they've outlived their usefulness, they will be killed
mercifully."

"Do it now," I insisted.  "Kill him now!"

"Absolutely not!" snapped the robed man.  He had unlocked the gate already
and Sam had gently pushed Cougar inside.  Now he was locking him in.  "Both
of you, please leave this room immediately.  It is off limits to visitors."

"Everything's fucking off limits to visitors," I mumbled as the man pushed
me towards the entrance.  "I can leave on my own, thank you."

Behind me, the two wolves were chatting eagerly.  "I thought.  Fuck.  That
I'd never see any of you again.  I've been sitting, alone.  In this cell
forever."

"If the others knew you were alive, we would have been looking for you!"

"How they catch you?"

"They wouldn't have if the new fucking gifted hadn't been on their side.
I'm too fucking smart for them."

And so on.

"This way, I'll show you to your sleeping chambers," the middle-eastern man
said harshly. "When you wake, you'll be allowed an audience with one of our
masters."

"Just one?"

"Outsiders are only permitted to converse with one of the Seraphim.  We
call him the Seraph Mouthpiece.  And none of us are ever allowed to even
see his face.  He wears a mask at all times."

"I wonder what the guy looks like," I thought out loud.

"You should be wondering if there is even a face under there to look at.
Some think if he removed his mask, you would look directly into his soul.
When you meet with him, be as obsequies as you can.  The outside Delector
will never be allowed to talk in his presence or look him directly in the
eyes.  He is easily angered, and will kill without hesitation.  There is no
room for pride in front of any of the Seraphim."

Sam gave me a look or warning.  Listen, he seemed to say.  And be on your
best possible behavior.  Or else.


TO BE CONTINUED