Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 22:32:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: CloseTheCellarDoor <closethecellardoor@yahoo.com>
Subject: Evil is a Man: The Angel Stretched Out His Hand -- chapter 8

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Okay, so you all hate me by now, I know.  BUT listen, I went through some
majorly frustrating crap recently, namely my computer coming down with some
virus (I'm guessing it was an STD of some kind) and me losing ALL of my
files.  So, everything that I had written for this story went away.  I got
pissed and swore I wouldn't re-write any of it.  But, I came to my senses
recently, so here we are.  Hopefully I still have some readers left.

Might want to go back and review the names and descriptions of the other
angels before you read this chapter.



CHAPTER EIGHT


"You know what I like most about angels?  No guess?  It's that when you
light them on fire, they burn like paper."

It was latest version of horrible nightmares that seemed to haunt me since
my old life in Pendleton was flipped upside down and shaken violently.

This one was a memory, one that had chilled me from outside in when I first
experienced it.  With all of the traumatic happenings that took place that
night, this one had blurred together with everything else.  It was only now
that this memory was standing out in the crowd, forcing me to pay
attention, to experience it renewed.

The demon leader let out the slightest pleasurable moan as his finger
snapped the trigger of the flamethrower.  The fire that spewed forth was
blindingly bright and covered its target in the slightest of a moment.

Usually, when someone is exposed to fire, their clothes are the first to
ignite.

Not in Salim's case.  His wings were first, the fire spreading through them
as if they had been coated with gasoline.  In a matter of seconds, they
would completely turn into white ash.

His flesh caught fire soon after.  The skin crackled and flaked away, and
underneath, even the blood caught fire.

His face didn't even show the slightest hint of pain as he died.  I
couldn't even begin to imagine how much pain he must have been in... and
yet, not even the smallest cry of anguish.

Moments later, Dale would scream.  He would scream with the absolute
physical terror of someone realizing that half of their body is lying in
bits and pieces on the floor.

After he died, his wings started to disintegrate, white feathers first
falling to the floor and turning to dust, then the whole wing following
suit.

The terror then of my dream-land alter ego must have been even greater than
when I saw these events firsthand from my hiding place under that goddamned
car.

And then, Sam ran out of the front door, towards us.  The demon turned to
face him...

"Bradley, awake!"

My eyes ripped open.  I was sweating.  My breath was short.

Sam put a hand on my bare shoulder.  Ah, the comfort.  "You were having one
of your nightmares," he said.  "At least, I think you were.  I used to be
able to experience your dreams along with you.  Now, I can only
conjecture."

"It was a nightmare," I said.

"Care to tell me what it was about?"

"Just a flashback.  Salim and Dale being mutilated while I stood there
watching everything."

Sam put his arm around me, that consoling arm.  "It's only natural that you
would feel sorrow for these two angels who lost their lives in such a
horrible way," he said.

"But I don't," I said honestly.  "I didn't know them, and I didn't really
care that they died.  Not really."

"You don't feel the least bit of pity?" Sam asked, a tinge of
disappointment in his voice.

I wondered if I should lie to him now.  I decided I was too upset to even
try.  "Not really," I said.  "I mean, in the academic, removed, `that
really blows' kind of way, I guess I feel bad.  But emotionally, I couldn't
give a shit about them.  They weren't my friends."

"So," Sam said, a little more coldly than usual.  "If you didn't care about
their passing, then why would you have these nightmares?  I tell you, it's
your subconscious guilt-"

"No," I said.  I knew where he was going with this, and I cut him off.
"It's not like that.  I wasn't terrified of losing them.  I was terrified
that two angels could be killed so easily like that.  I had always thought
of angels as almost, I don't know, sanctified.  Un-killable.  I knew in
theory that they could be killed, I had seen you almost reach that point
enough times.  But you had always somehow survived.  It was as if God had
always been protecting you from crossing that line.  At least, that's what
I thought."

"He has been," Sam said confidently.

"Maybe so," I said.  "But he wasn't protecting those two that night.  They
died.  And before they did, they suffered.  They must have been in terrible
pain."

"Would it alleviate your concerns any if I told you that they weren't in as
much pain as you may think?  God gave all of us angels a gift, that of
diminished pain.  When we're cut, we still feel pain.  But it hurts so much
less than it would for you."

"But Dale," I said.  "He screamed so painfully."

"Perhaps it was less from the pain and more from the sheer horror of his
situation that he screamed," Sam offered.

"After he died, his wings turned to dust," I said.  "What happened to
them?"

"Our wings collapse after we're killed," Sam said.  "It's a good thing they
do, too, as in case men come upon our bodies before the Flock can retrieve
them, there is nothing suspicious left behind which would suggest our
otherworldly nature."

"Salim went up like a roman candle," I said.  "How come angels burn so
easily?  Why would God make them that way?"

Sam shuffled in bed beside me.  "It's a weakness God has afflicted us with,
as punishment.  It follows suit with our deadly reaction to the sun.
Sunlight will incinerate us, and fire will do the same.  The Lord made us
well equipped to handle cold, knowing how cold the biting wind can be as we
fly above the Earth.  The Lord made our eyes well equipped to see in even
the darkest of darkness.  But sunlight and heat of the fire are things
which we cannot bare.  It's just a part of our nature, best to accept
without question."

"Accept that angels can be so easily killed with just a little fire, just a
little sunlight," I muttered, still upset.

"Ah, I see," he said.  "Now that you've seen an angel be murdered first
hand, you're worried..."

"That you'll be next," I answered.  "How can I be sure that you won't be so
easily killed yourself, Sam?"

"You can't," he said.  "These are violent times, and I could be killed at
any time."

"Dude, you're not doing a very good job of comforting me here," I
complained.

He laughed.  "What I can promise you is that I am much stronger than either
Dale or Salim were, God bless their souls.  I won't be taken down so
lightly."  He smiled at me.  "Is that reassuring enough for you?"

"I guess so," I said, and I shut my eyes again as I held onto his hand.

It was my first lie of the day.  I was not the least bit reassured.  I
couldn't shake the sickening reality of Sam's impending mortality.  I
couldn't help feeling that it was coming quick and fast, and that the form
it would take would be far more terrible than anything Salim or Dale and
suffered.

I wondered briefly if it was truly Sam that I was worried about, or if it
was the fact with his death, mine would soon follow.

I shook that fucked-up thought from my head.  I cared about Sam more than I
had cared about anyone, I was sure of that.

And I would do everything in my power to see to it that he survived.

Trouble was, my power was hopelessly insignificant next to the power of
those around me.  I had no control over the events unfolding around me, and
that scared the hell out of me.

I shut my eyes and forced myself back to sleep, praying that I would find
no more nightmares today.

*****

"Meet me in the chapel," Sam had told me in our temporary Cathedral bedroom
earlier that night.  "Tonight, we move into the Inner Circle.  Bring your
belongings with you."

And so, here I was, bag slung over my shoulder, walking into the chapel,
surrounded by the candlelit faces of religious sculptures, all of them
looking, with solemn piousness on their stone faces, towards the
front-center of the room where the life-sized crucifix was hung on the
wall.

There was another figure in here with the same quiet reverence of the
statues, one who would be easily mistaken for a stone carving with his
unmoving, stiff body and hard expression.  But I knew better.

Faith, you're a fucking asshole, you know that?  I'd run over to where you
are kneeling and fucking kick you in the face if I knew that you wouldn't
smite me down for it like God himself.

Nothing.  No response.

That's one thing I loved about this new psychic shield.  No longer did I
have to hide my true thoughts from any of these angels.  I was free to
think exactly what I pleased.

You're not God, Faith.  You never will be.

Faith turned his head back suddenly to face me, his eyes fierce and
accusatory.  I almost jumped.  Had he somehow heard my thoughts?

"Your mind may be shielded, but I can still hear you move," he said calmly.
"You slither around like a slug; silently, but leaving a trail of slime
wherever you pass."  He looked me up and down.  "I know about your newly
permanent shield."

"Maybe it's best that you can't hear my thoughts right now," I said, with a
rude insinuating tone.

He didn't crack the slightest smile.  "I'll be merciful and not interpret
that as bald impertinence.  Justice tells us that your new condition was
forced upon you.  But I can't help wonder, what secrets are you now able to
hide?"

"I don't have any secrets," I lied.  "Nothing to hide."

"I hope, for your sake, that you are for once being truthful," he said.
"But I find that doubtful.  Know this: whatever you try and keep from us, I
will find out.  You may have blocked out my mind, but my other senses are
always alert.  Wherever you go, whatever you do, I'll be watching."

I almost said some rude comeback, a snarky response.  Fear kept my mouth
shut.

"Now," Faith said, returning his attention to the figure of Christ in front
of him.  "This chapel was meant for worshipers, not loiterers.  Kneel down
and pray, or get out."

"Well, fuck, I guess I'll do the latter," I said, gripping my bag tight and
heading for the downward leading staircase that I knew led down into the
Seraphim dwelling.

The stone staircase curved as it went down, and I heard footsteps below me.
Someone was coming up towards me.

"Bradley," I heard a Russian-accented voice call out.

Sam had appeared around the bend of the staircase below me, no longer in
his robes but dressed instead in his normal plainclothes.

"Come on, come on," he said, waving me downwards.  "I've already put my
things in our new room."

The stairs ended, throwing us into another large circular room made of
stone blocks.  This Cathedral place really had a thing for circular
architecture.

"This," Sam said, gesturing to the large space around us, "is the great
room.  The Seraphim common area."

The large room seemed to be split into areas: a small library with desks
and bookshelves, a larger sitting area with antique couches and chairs, a
dining area with one very large wooden table, and a small kitchen.  All of
it was lit by torches and candles.

"Is there electricity?" I asked hopefully, somehow already knowing the
answer would be no.

"Afraid not," Sam said.  He pointed towards the antique kitchen appliances.
"The icebox is an actual icebox, though here underground the ice is almost
not necessary.  The stove is coal-burning.  All the rooms have torches for
light and fireplaces for heat."

"That meager kitchen's more just for snacking," a fat, middle-aged white
man was saying as he came up to Sam and me.  He had a thick "Fat Bastard"
Scottish accent and seemed to force just the tiniest hint of a smile my
way.  "When we want a proper meal, we go upstairs to the main kitchen," he
continued.  He stuck out a meaty hand.  "Cedric's the name," he said.
"Chastity's Delector."

My mind quickly processed the name Chastity, remembering that he was the
freaky weird Seraph who had nails through every part of his body.  The
angel was small in size, but his Delector was huge.

"Right," I said, shaking the man's sweaty hand.  "Bradley here.  Sam's
Delector."  I suddenly mused bitterly about how even the way we spoke of
our Delectors implied their ownership of us.  I felt insulted until I
reminded myself that that's all we really were: property.

"You mean, Justice's Delector," this fellow piece of property corrected.
"Sam's soul will always inhabit the body you stand beside, but to not
address the Seraph with the respect of his new position is considered a
disrespect here."

"Right.  Justice."  I still had not gotten used to that new name.  "Sorry,"
I said to Sam.

"Frankly, I don't care how you address me," Sam said.

"Justice," Cedric said to Sam, his voice automatically taking a more
respectful tone than it had with me.  "I can show the kid around if ya
like.  I know this area better than you do, I'd wager."

Sam looked a little annoyed-I could tell he wanted to do the showing-but
agreed anyway out of diplomacy perhaps.  "I'll just take your things to our
room," he told me, taking my bag.

Cedric started to lead me around the great room.  "This is where us
Delectors spend most of our time," he said.  "Course, you're always free to
wander about the Cathedral, go outside if ya like.  But that gets old
fast."

"Who are those two?" I asked, pointing towards a couple of skinny men who
looked closer to my age than Cedric, maybe in their mid-thirties.

He looked over to where the two were standing.  "Ah, them?  Fernando and
Sebastian."  There was a certain amount of obvious dislike in his voice
when he said those names.  "Charity and Fortitude's Delectors,
respectively.  A couple of spoiled gossip-mongers.  A pair of whiney
bitches, those two.  Course they're younger than me, and I used to lay it
on hard when they started with their bullshit, ya know, real tough."  He
pounded his fist into his open palm.  "Then they complained a time ago and
now we have this bullshit rule.  Not allowed to physically assault the
other Delectors.  Still, even without being able to knock those two around,
everyone pretty much knows I'm the boss round here.  Where the Delectors
are concerned, anyhow."

"And where are the other, uh, the other three Delectors?"

"In their bedrooms, don't ya suppose?" he asked me, clearly having expected
me to know the answer already.  He gestured to one of wooden doors around
the perimeter of the great room.  "All these doors lead to the seven
bedrooms," he said.  "Well, cept this one here."  He opened it and showed
me into a very medieval looking, candlelit bathroom.  "We all share a
bathroom," he said.  "Which really means us Delectors, since the angels
only rarely use it."

"We have running water then, at least?"

"Thank the Lord for that much," he said, turning on a sink faucet.  He felt
the water coming out.  "But no water heater, sad to say.  Water gets damn
frigid, but as my Domno would say, hardship only stings on its initial
exposure.  Soon what was once hard becomes the norm."  He left the bathroom
and pointed to another door.  "That, young man, is your new bedroom.  And
that bout ends the tour, then."

"Well, thanks for showing me around," I said to guy as I began towards my
bedroom.

Cedric put a hand on my chest to stop me.  "Now you listen.  Us Delectors
are responsible for the cleaning and maintenance of all of this.  So don't
think you can just sit around all day pulling pud in your bedroom.  You
come to me, and I'll give you a job to do, clear on it?"

"Sure man," I said, and walked quickly into the bedroom, not liking this
Cedric character much at all and wishing Sam had just given me the tour.

The room wasn't big but I suppose it was big enough, with a queen-sized
bed, a dresser, a table and a couple of chairs.  Sam was admiring the one
striking object in the room: that huge painting of a sun-filled sky that
Humility had given us.

"Doesn't it look fantastic in here?" he asked.  "Almost as if we were
looking through a huge window out into the daylight."

"Not really my style," I said, honestly.  "Too scenic.  But I guess it's
cool for what it is."

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in!" Sam called.

The angel I remembered was called Charity came into the room, smiling at me
and shutting the door softly behind him.

He wore a pair of jeans and a button-up with the sleeves torn off, his
clothes again looking like they had been around since the seventies.

"Bradley, you little devil, you," he said with a wink as if he knew I was
up to something naughty.  "Hope you are settling in."  He played with his
bushy blonde soup-strainer as he smiled at me, his eyes glinting quickly
with some hidden, unreadable thought.

"I am," I told him.

I glanced quickly over to Sam, who was unpacking his clothes with his back
to me.  Remembering that my psychic shield was protecting me from him, I
let myself think freely.

I looked back at Charity.  Out of all of the Seraphim, all of which were
incredibly beautiful in their own way, I was most attracted to the angel
standing right in front of me.  Perhaps it was his physical similarities to
Sam: his height, his lean muscularity, his blonde hair and tan skin.

No, I realized.  What attracted me most to this angel was all of those
contrasting differences.  The straightness of his hair, the 70's cut of it,
the bushy blonde moustache.  He kind of looked like Mathew McConaughey in
Dazed and Confused. His face, not kind and disarming like Sam's, but with
an egotistical American cut to it, his smile cocky and his eyes bold.  The
way his well-mannered gentleness seemed to contradict the ego of his
face. His southern American accent, something I had not previously come
across among the angels.

Charity smiled, his cheeks reddening only slightly.  I wondered if he knew
I had just been sizing him up.  "Have you come across my Delector,
Fernando?" he asked quickly.

I shook my head.  "Not yet."

"I could introduce you if you'd like me to," he said.  "I'd best warn ya,
he's a bit, well, let's say dramatic."

What little I knew about Fernando from Cedric suggested that Charity was
being charitable in this description.

Charity winked one of his steely eyes at me.  "But he's a good kid once ya
get to know him.  Classy guy.  Really he is."

I suddenly wondered what it was like to be the Delector of this smoldering
figure in front of me; imagining an alternate reality in which Charity had
found me instead of Sam.  Flashes of memories came back to me of that night
I was baptized, the image of this angel naked and aroused permanently burnt
into my mind.

Charity turned away from me and looked towards Sam.  "Justice, I thought
now would be a good time as any to discuss some matters," he walked further
into the room, coming face to face with his peer.

"Now would be perfect," Sam said, smiling and looking Charity straight in
the eye.

"You may not know this, son," Charity began, "but the now deceased Justice
and I had a lot of joint ventures.  I worked more actively with him than
with any other member of our Order."

"Oh?" said Sam.  "Honestly, Charity, I'm not even aware of the full extent
of all it is that you oversee."  There was no disrespect in Sam's voice,
just honesty.

"Well, I am quite active, as you know," he said.  "Unlike some of the
others, I believe that proactive achievement and preemptive attention are
unbeatable strategies."

"I obviously could not agree more," Sam said.

Charity smiled.  "Through me, the Ensis has donated hundreds of millions of
dollars to charitable causes.  We are the ghost-masters of several major
international humanitarian organizations, ones I'm sure you would be
familiar with.  With the power given to me, I guide the direction of our
gifts to avoid corruption and waste, to ensure that each cent we give and
each cent we collect is maximized in terms of its potential.  Justice and I
had certain projects underway, to find groups of people in need who were
being oppressed by evil doers.  He would arrange for the elimination of the
oppressors, and I would provide the safety net for a people on the edge of
life."

"Sounds fruitful," Sam said.  "Are there any world happenings that need my
current attention?"

"Actually, yes, there is."

I didn't announce my departure, I just quietly left the room.  I could tell
that theirs was likely to be a long and particularly boring discussion.  I
had no interest in the minute details of Seraphim concerns.  I shut the
door behind me quietly, and walked out into the great room.

"Helllllo there, you sexy, sexy boy!" squealed a squeaky voice as someone
tackled me out of the blue as soon as I had stepped away from my bedroom
door.  Skinny arms wrapped around me and wet lips were pressed hard against
my cheek.  "Mmmmwa," said the attacker, exaggerating the sound of the
forced kiss.

"Oh fuck Sebastian, get off him!" came a Latin accented, effeminately toned
voice to my right.

"But he's just so, so, so cute, Fernando!  Look at that adorable little
face, so kissable!"  Sebastian thrust his crotch into me with gusto.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you it's rude to dry-hump a stranger?" asked
Fernando.

Sebastian grabbed my shirt collar and looked right into my eyes, a skinny
white boy with lots of acne scars.  "Forget about him," he said to me.
"It's all about me.  Put your arms around me.  You can grab my ass if you
want to.  And how could you not want to, with an astonishing ass like
mine?"

My old reaction to having such a flamer jump upon me would have probably
been some amount of retaliatory violence.  But now I would react with
perfect patience.  "Please, bro, get off me," I told him, gently shoving
him away.

"Ouch, girl!" Fernando hollered from the sidelines.  "Looks like your
astounding ass got plain rejected!"  He was a dark-skinned Hispanic with a
mop of curly hair.  Cute, I guess, in his way, though he was way too short
and skinny for me.  Both he and his white twin over there wore tight
fitting, trendy American clothes.  Both of them looked like they could
easily be broken in half by anyone with any sort of muscle.

"Sorry, I must have mistook him for a top," Sebastian said.  "He just looks
so macho and manly, I guess.  It's hard to believe he's just another
bitch-boy, beg-for-more-ass-pounding bottom.  Like the world needs another
one of those."

"Wait, hold on there, fucker," I told him.  "What is it exactly that you're
accusing me of here?  You're saying you think I like to take it up the
ass?"

"Well, don't you?" asked Sebastian.

"Fuck no!" I answered.  "I ain't never been fucked up the ass before, bro.
And I intend to keep it that way.  I mean, goddamn!"

"See, Sebastian?" Fernando asked.  "He is a top."

"A top?" I asked.  "I'm not down with all this fag-talk."

"Duh, a top," Sebastian said.  "You know, like you're attracted to a guy's
ass.  When you see a nice one, one not unlike the one I got on me, you want
to fuck the hell out of it."

"Jesus," I said.  "Are all fags so obsessed with butt-sex?"

"It's our bread and butter," Sebastian said.  "I assume you're attracted to
boys, or you wouldn't be here."

"Yeah, I am," I said, my face turning red at that admission.

"Well then," Sebastian said, "every gay man is one of two things.  Either
he's a top, and he hooks up with bottoms, or he's a bottom, and he gets his
ass plowed by tops.  That's how nature made us.  One or the other."

"Well, unless you're versatile," Fernando added.

Sebastian made a mock gagging sound.  "Yeah, right.  A truly versatile fag
is about as mythical as a truly bisexual male.  You know any boy who says
he's bi is nothing more than a log cabin republican fag.  You know what I
see when I look at a so-called verse-man?  I either see a bottom with
illusions of grandeur, or a top with a killer pain in the ass.  There's
just no such species as a versatile gay man.  Period."  He finished his
tirade and raised an inquisitive eyebrow at me.  "So, Bradley, my stud?
Which are you?  A top or bottom?"

I shrugged.  "Well, if I have to pick one..."

"You most certainly do," Sebastian said.

"...then I'd have to go with a top," I said.  "There's nothing I find even a
little bit hot about me taking some guy's dick up my ass."

Sebastian grinned.  "That's just what I wanted to hear.  We'll get along
marvelously, stud boy."  He again pushed himself up against me.  "So, how
many hundreds of boys like me have you fucked?"

"Uh..." I stuttered, not wanted to admit that I was completely inexperienced
in that department.  I hated to seem like less of a man, especially in
front of these two fucks.  Could they be right?  Had I been missing out on
the most important part of a gay man's sex life this whole time?  How did I
even know for sure that I was a top when I had never fucked a guy?  Sure, I
thought a guy's tight ass was a hot thing to behold.  But was I attracted
to a dude's ass enough to want to fuck it?  Would Sam let me fuck him if I
asked?  All of these questions swirled around in my head, leaving me unable
to deal with the problem now wrapped around my body.

"Oh wait, was that question confusing to you?" Sebastian asked me.
"Because none of the hundreds of boys you fucked were anywhere near as
gorgeous as me?  Want me to rephrase?"

"Bro, get off of me!" I said finally, pushing the guy loose of my body.
"I'm not the least bit into you."

Sebastian moved away from me.  "Well, I had to try.  How could I possibly
resist?  Angels can't fuck their Delectors' asses, and I've had this itch
inside me for years."  He turned his back and started to walk away.

Fernando sidled up beside me and hooked arms with me, as if I were one of
his gal pals.  "Don't worry about him, Brad," Fernando assured me, pulling
me gently towards Sebastian's direction.  "He just heard that your main
failure is your propensity for lust, and he wanted to see if he could lead
you astray.  He wouldn't actually have gone all the way or anything with
you, oh no, no, no, not likely.  If he did, he would be breaking his vows
same as you.  He's just a big tease."

I looked at Fernando.  "So you're Charity's Delector, right?"

"Yes sir, righto, affirmative.  Couldn't have a better Domno, in my
opinion."

Sebastian turned around, his big eyes rolling exaggeratedly.  "Oh please,"
he said.  "My Domno could kick your Domno's ass."

"Nah-ah, you don't even know that," Fernando answered.

"It's sooo obvious."

"You don't know that.  All I'm saying is that Charity and Fortitude never
got into a fight.  So, how can you know who would win?"

"Oh God, don't even try to use that lame argument again, are you kidding
me?  Fortitude is the biggest, strongest angel there is, period.  He could
beat ANYONE in a fight."

Fernando, apparently unable to think of any rebuttal, looked down at his
feet and muttered, "You don't know that," to himself.

"So, you're Fortitude's Delector?" I asked Sebastian.

"Yup," he answered, looking suddenly more proud of himself than ever.  "The
one and only."

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Girl, there ain't no question too personal for me."

I recoiled silently at being called "girl," but I let it slide.  "How come
he never talks?"

Sebastian looked at me for a moment, and then broke out into mocking
laughter.  "Did you hear him, Fernando?  How come he never talks.  Real
brilliant the new girl is here."

"Funny," Fernando said sarcastically.

"He never talks, dear," Sebastian started.  "Because he's disabled."

"Ah.  Deaf then?"

"No, dummy, not deaf.  Mute.  He's mute.  Yup, I know.  Never once has he
said anything to me at all.  Of course, he can hear what I'm saying just
fine.  Can hear what I think just fine too, something that always seems to
get me into trouble, mmmkay?  But he can't ever say a word to me.  I
consider it a blessing in disguise."

"Well, how does he communicate with you?" I asked.

"Oh, well.  If it's really super important, he'll bring in one of the other
angels and they'll talk for him.  The angels can project thoughts to each
other, so he talks to them, you know, all telepathic like?  Then they tell
me the message.  I tell you, once I got so frustrated--because try and
understand what it feels like to love a man who has never once said
anything to you.  I got so frustrated that I begged him to learn sign
language so he could finally say I love you to me."  Sebastian shrugged.
"He refused.  Too proud to learn it, I guess.  But that's okay.  Mostly, if
he wants me to know something, he'll make it clear by gesture.  Oh, there
he is now."

Fortitude, in just a pair of jeans, came down the stairs from God knows
where, stomped on over to where we were standing, unceremoniously lifted
Sebastian up and threw him over his shoulder like a potato sack, never once
looking at me or Fernando.

"Oh, here we go again," Sebastian muttered.  "Ciao, boys.  Fort, you're
hands better not have blood on them again or I will flip out.  I just
washed these clothes."  Fortitude seemed to pay absolutely no attention to
his Delector, and Sebastian's whine died out as soon as Fortitude slammed
their bedroom door shut.

I wondered if they were about to suck each other off.  That thought got me
to thinking what it would be like to be in Sebastian's shoes, to have a
being of such size and power to screw around with.

"Mmm-hmm," Fernando said.  "Fortitude's got a sexual appetite the size of
his, well, the size of his dick.  Don't pretend you don't know what I'm
talking about, I was baptized the same way you were, I know what a monster
the guy's packing.  Those two are always locked in their room together.
Lucky guy, Sebastian."  Then he smiled quickly at me.  "Not to say
Charity's leaving me wanting anything, no way.  But Charity is always so,
you know, gentle and careful with me."

It was the same way with me and Sam, I thought.

"Sometimes I wish I had someone with more of a wild animal as a Domno,"
Fernando went on.  "But really, I couldn't be happier with Charity.
Anyway.  Nice to meet you, Brad, and hope you feel at home here."

"Yeah, thank you," I said.

He lowered his voice to a whisper.  "Sebastian doesn't like you much.  From
the first moment you walked in, he was a bit jealous, I think.  You are the
youngest and best looking Delector in here.  But I am not going to hold
that against you, no sir."

"Well, uh, thanks bro."  I cocked my head, listening to the sudden sound of
screaming coming from behind closed doors.  "Lord, is that Fortitude and
Sebastian going at it?"

Fernando listened.  "Those screams?  No, that's Chastity and Cedric, the
resident freaks of the Inner Circle.  They're at it all the time too.
Never can you enjoy a moment of silence around here without it being broken
by those cries."

The screams grew louder and more pained.  It sure didn't sound like
ordinary sexual cries.

"What the fuck's going on up in there?" I asked.

He rolled his eyes.  "Oh, you just have to go and see for yourself.
There's no way in Heaven that I'll do it justice by describing it."  He
started pushing me in the direction of their bedroom door.

"I'm not going in there," I protested.  "Fuck, I don't want to invade their
privacy."

"What privacy?  They absolutely LOVE it when they have an audience.
Really, you must go in, for their sake at least."  He knocked on the door,
loudly.

"Yeah?" came Cedric's voice.  "Who's there?"

I looked at Fernando, and he was motioning for me to answer.  I refused,
shaking my head.

"It's me, Bradley," Fernando said, striking a deeper, straighter tone of
voice than normal, the act of which seemed so difficult his face contorted
and his whole body stiffened.

"Well, if you're gonna come in then come on in, Bradley," Cedric said.

Fernando opened the door, pushed me inside, and shut it behind me.

"Sonofabitch," I cursed.

"There will be no profane language in my domain!" Charity yelled from
within the room, and then capped the statement with a tortured scream.

"Jesus!" I exclaimed.  "Alright, sorry!"

"Neither will there be blasphemous language!  Ahhh!"

"Right, okay, just calm down, bro!"

Chastity's room was the exact same size and shape as Sam and my room, but
it was infinitely less comfortable.  Aside from one extremely old,
dilapidated dresser, the place was totally sparse.  No chairs or tables of
any kind, nothing on the wall except a small crucifix, and worst of all, no
bed.

"I live in simplicity," Chastity told me.  "Anything that is not absolutely
essential I do away with.  We sleep on the hard ground.  We light only one
candle to see by.  We never light a fire unless doing without it would
cause Cedric to freeze to death.  Chastity is not just about abstaining
from sexual pleasures.  It's about abstinence from all of the pleasures of
the flesh."

"Ah, I see," I said.

"You see, but you do not understand," Chastity told me.  "This
understanding will likely elude you as long as you live.  Cedric, another
one!"

"Right!"

Cedric walked over to where Chastity was lying on the floor and, with a
hammer in his hand, made for his arm.

"Not there," Chastity said.  "I need to feel it more.  My neck, Cedric, my
neck!"

I winced as Cedric's meaty hands found one of the nails sticking out of the
side of Chastity's neck, and with the back end of the hammer, he extracted
the long, thick thing out of his flesh.  Chastity moaned in pain as the
skin healed itself, the only reminder being the blood on the nail.

"Do it!" Chastity screamed violently.  "Do it to me!"

Cedric lined up the prick of the nail against Chastity's skin, and with a
huge swing of the hammer, rammed the thing a good half inch into his
throat.

"Ahh!!" Chastity screamed.  On an on he screamed in pain, but made no move
to stop Cedric.

Cedric kept on hammering until the nail was as far as it had been before.
Chastity's flesh healed around the nail, stopping the bleeding.

I was completely disgusted.  "Why do this to yourself?" I asked him.

"I'd explain myself but you are too thick to understand," he snapped.  "But
I'll try anyhow, even if chastity is completely antithetical to your
desirous, sinful nature."  He looked towards the cross on the wall.  "God
put us angels here on this world not because he wanted us to succumb to our
wants and desires of the flesh.  He put us here as punishment for our sins.
Just as he punishes mankind for Original Sin, so to does he punish the
angels.  And so, how arrogant is it in the face of God for my kind to
indulge their physical desires?  I strip away all pleasure in my life, and
even that is not enough, even nothing can become warm and comfortable.  So
I pain myself through this process.  Everyday Cedric pulls the nails out of
me, and hammers them back in again.  The pain never lessens.  As an angel,
I may experience less pain than if I was a man.  But the pain is still
palpably intense.  I do this so I will not forget that God means to punish
me."

"When will it stop?" I asked.

He glared at me.  "Stop?"

"When can you stop punishing yourself?"

"I pray everyday that that day's punishment will be my last.  That God will
accept us back into His graces.  I know someday that day will come."

"Wow," was all I could say.  "But the two of you, you still, you know?" I
asked, waving my index finger between them.

"We do only what must be done to survive," Chastity said quickly.  "Neither
one of us enjoys the process, do we Cedric?"

"Good Heavens, no," he responded, but his over-eagerness made me doubt his
honesty.

"If you plan on staying in this room," Chastity said to me quickly, "then
have the courtesy to rid yourself of those clothes.  I don't use nails on
Cedric for fear I might do permanent damage, but I do whip him regularly.
You could submit to the pain as well.  Cedric, fetch the horsewhip!"

"Uh," I said, backing towards the door.  "Thanks for the offer, but no
thanks."

"You will never change unless you submit your body before God!" Chastity
shouted.

"I think you're right, I AM ruled by my desires.  There's no changing me,
so better not even try.  It would only bring about disappointment.  Bye
then."  I hurriedly backed up towards the door.

"Sinful wretch!" Chastity shouted as I let myself out.  "His sacrilege
infects me, Cedric, quickly drive another nail into me and rid me of his
infectious sin!"

I shut the door behind me, vowing never to go into that room ever again.
Fernando was there laughing smugly at me.  "Did you have fun in there?"

"Never, ever do that to me again!" I warned him.

"Alright, sheesh!  But wasn't it absolutely divine?  Did you let Cedric
spank you, just a little bit?  He swears he does it out of faithfulness to
God or whatever, but Sebastian and I swear that he's a closet S&M freak!"

I didn't respond, I just walked towards the kitchen area for a drink, while
Fernando trailed behind me like an unwanted stray.

"Anyhoo," he said, finally realizing that I wasn't up for chatting.  "I'm
getting hungry and Charity promised me he'd sit with me for dinner.  Thank
God for small miracles, huh?  I may not have the largest, most powerful
Domno, but at least mine's the sexiest.  What can I say, I have a thing for
blondes.  Speaking of blondes, your Domno is pretty damn edible as well,
isn't he?  Man, I wish he had been around when I was baptized so I could
have checked him out in all his glory."

I looked back at him impatiently.

"Well, tata," he said, and he sauntered his skinny ass off through the door
of his bedroom, leaving me thankfully alone in the great room.

I walked over to the kitchen, hoping to find something that resembled a
meal.  I opened the icebox, actually having to pick up a candle and hold it
close to the thing to see what was inside.

I heard a door open and shut behind me, and at first I ignored the sound,
keeping my head stuck in the icebox.  But when I heard muted music coming
towards me, I spun around.

Temperance was the cause of the noise, headphones in his ears playing some
loud song, the cord disappearing to some unseen player in his pocket.  He
had one a pair of tight, torn up black jeans over black Doc Martens.  He
was wearing a sleeveless black concert shirt that said, "Never Mind the
Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols" in faded print.  He had a studded black
leather bracelet to go with his studded black leather belt.  Dude looked
fucking hardcore and cool as all hell.  That he would sport those kinds of
clothes, that Travis Bickle haircut, and all that attitude in this stodgy
Cathedral instantly made him my personal hero.

He gave me a quick nod as he came into the kitchen, opened up a cupboard,
and pulled himself out a glass.

"Whatcha looking for?" I asked him, finding any excuse to talk to the guy.

"Sorry?" he asked, pulling out just one of his headphones, which once out
of his ear made a horribly loud noise.

"I asked what you were getting."

"A Dr. Pepper and some Cheetos," he said in his cool-guy German accent.

"No shit, you guys have name brand junk food here?"

He smiled broadly.  "If you know where to find it," he said, pulling an
orange bag out from behind a large grouping of fresh fruit, and a brown
bottle from behind the milk.  "It's mine, you know," he said.  "But uh," he
nodded at me and smiled with a friendly glint in his eye, "you can share
the good stuff if you like."

"Thanks, man, awesome," I said.  "But, wait a second.  I thought angels
couldn't eat without puking it up."

He snickered.  "Ah, well you know," he said, stroking his devilish goatee
and looking around suspiciously.  "Can you keep a secret?"

"Sure man."

He motioned for me to come close, and I pulled my head towards his, not
able to take my eyes off his gorgeous face for a second.  He leaned in
until his lips grazed my ear and then whispered, "the food's for my
Delector."

"Fuck," I said, taking a step back and laughing at my own foolishness as he
smiled at me.  "Shoulda guessed that."  I pointed to his headphones.  "I
thought there weren't any electronics in this place," I said.  "No
electricity."

"Yeah well," he said, shrugging.  "It's an MP3 player.  Batteries: miracle
invention, those."

"Cool," I said.  "Whatcha got playing right now?"

He pressed his headphone further into his ear, then flashed his mischievous
grin at me again.  "You wanna listen?"

"Okay."

He sidled up to my left side, and with one headphone still in his left ear,
he reached around and put the other into my right, forcing our faces to
push against each other cheek to cheek.  My right ear flooded with hard,
screaming rock, not the kind of music I ever listened to, but I wasn't
really listening, my mind focused instead on the warm skin of his face
against mine, the familiar sensation of that tingly angel magic seeping
into me, only his felt somehow slightly different than Sam's did.

"You like?" he asked, breaking away from me then.

"Yeah," I answered.  "But weren't those lyrics a bit, I don't know,
satanic?"

He smiled.  "Well, all the good stuff is.  Of course, if you'd like, I
could switch to Christian rock."  He looked me seriously in the eye for a
moment before his smile broke through again.  "Not on your fucking life,
have you heard how much that shit sucks?  Hey, if they write sacrilegious
lyrics, well it's not my fault, is it?  That's more Faith's department."

"Yeah?" I asked, nodding.  "So what exactly is your department?
Temperance, huh?  What the fuck does that mean, anyway?"

"Believe me, you're not the first one to ask me that," he said, putting his
hand on my shoulder.  "I'm the lucky one who got stuck with the most boring
of the Virtues, but what can I do?  Temperance is about self-control.  Lack
of excess.  Moderation.  On a global scale, I do what I can to fight
gluttony: prostitution, obesity, alcoholism, drug abuse."

I flinched at that last one, and he smiled knowingly at me.

"On a personal level I try to live a balanced lifestyle, never going to the
extremes that Chastity or Faith put themselves through.  Balance is about
taking your pleasures in moderation.  Like my music, this Dr. Pepper, this
stuff is okay as long as it's controlled and in small proportions."

"Ah, I see," I said, with some hopefulness.  "Some pleasure is okay in your
book then."

He laughed, rubbing his sandy goatee and looking to his side.  "Yeah, the
little things are okay in my book.  As for those big things, well..."

He suddenly threw himself against me, knocking me back against the kitchen
counter.  He thrust against me hard, sexually, and brought his face close
to mine, his open lips so close to mine, his goatee scratching my chin.

"The big things are so, so pleasurable," he whispered, his hot breath
landing all over my open lips.  "Temperance tells me that this, this,
this..." he brushed his lips against mine, "... is wrong."

He pulled back from me as violently as he had come in, and left me
breathless and flushed as he smiled at me, closed-mouthed.  "You're
lustful, Bradley," he said.  "It doesn't take that lump in your pants for
me to know that."

I self-consciously readjusted my hard dick in my pants.  "Sorry," I said.

"Don't apologize for your very nature.  Unlike what Chastity might tell
you, a little lust isn't such a bad thing if it's not allowed to get out of
hand.  But you, brother, are on the verge."  He grabbed his food in his
arms.  "Not a threat, just a friendly warning, brother to brother."  He
winked at me then.  "See ya around."  With that he put his headphones back
in his ears and strolled off towards his bedroom.  I couldn't help checking
out the man's sweet ass in those tight black pants.

Shit, that guy was fucking hot.  I didn't care if he didn't have the
muscles or height of some of the others, it was his attitude that did it
for me.  How cool was it that a young, hip cat like him was one of the
angels.

I got my snack, grabbing some of the junkfood that Temperance had offered,
and went towards our bedroom, pining for Sam's body suddenly, wanting to
jump him.

I opened our bedroom door just a crack and listened to see if Sam had
finished his discussion with Charity.

"Well, many areas in Latin America are brimming with violent corruption,"
Charity was saying.

That was enough to make me shut the door again.  "Fucking leave him alone
already," I muttered to myself.

"Well, Bradley," a voice said from behind me.

I spun around to see Humility standing before me, his blindfold neatly tied
over his eyes.  I hadn't even heard him approach.

"I just came by to see how Justice was enjoying his new wall-décor, but if
you'd rather I didn't disturb him, I can come by another time."

"No, no, no," I said.  "I wasn't talking to you, Humility, I didn't know
you were there.  But Justice is having a meeting with Charity right now, so
you might want to wait until they're finished.  I was planning on waiting
out here until Charity left."

"I see," Humility said.  "Justice is understandably busy with Seraphim
matters.  I'll come back another time.  Good day, Bradley."

He turned away from our bedroom door and started walking slowly against the
curved wall of the great room, feeling the stones with his hand as he went.

"Is your room next door to ours?" I asked hopefully, as this is the
direction he was headed.

"No," he replied.  "It's the third door on this wall."

I looked around the room.  The third door down was actually close to the
opposite side of the great room.  The quickest path to his door would have
been to go straight through the great room, through the sitting area.  He
must have been following along the wall only because he was blind.

Leaving behind my snacks, I walked towards him.  "Here, let me help you get
there faster," I said.  "Your way will take you all night."  I grabbed his
arm, and pulled him away from the wall towards the center of the room.

"Well, thank you, my boy," he said.  "Pity your mind has been veiled from
me.  Otherwise instead of borrowing your arm I could have merely borrowed
your eyes."

I didn't respond, I just led him around the furniture and towards his
bedroom door.

"Ah, here we are.  Would you like to come in and see my dwelling?"

It almost sounded like a come on.  "Sure," I said, only half interested in
seeing his room.

He smiled happily and pushed the door open.

As I followed him into his bedroom, my eyes danced around the walls of the
place.  Every square inch was covered with framed color paintings or
photographs of the sun.  Some at sunset or sunrise, some at midday, but all
vividly colorful.

"I graduated to photographs a few years ago," he said.  "They may make for
less artistic wall décor, but they are so much more true to life."

A moan coming from the direction of the bed startled me, and I only then
realized there was a man sleeping in there.  A very scrawny, very old man,
with leathery brown skin and white hair.

"Bradley, meet my Delector," Humility said, walking to the bed and laying a
loving hand upon the man.  "Yann."

"Uh, hey," I said awkwardly to the phantom in the bed.

The man just muttered something, his eyes remaining closed.  Humility
clutched the man's hand and rubbed his fingers against the man's forehead.
"It's alright, Yann, go back to sleep."  He looked at me and smiled.  There
was absolutely no trace of ego in that smile.  "He's very old," he said
quietly.  "He's reaching the end, I am sad to say.  The days to come will
be much more difficult for me than they will be for him.  I have made him
very comfortable, and when he finally goes, he will go loved."

I thought briefly ahead in time, many years down the road, knowing that
this would be me and Sam.  Sam would take care of me and let me die like
this, as peacefully as one can do it.  Seeing the way the youthful Humility
still looked at this man, who to me seemed absolutely repulsive, with
nothing but complete love, well, I don't know, it moved me.

Humility turned to face me then, and smiled earnestly.  "I thought,
perhaps, you might have some questions for me.  I've been here for a long
time, and I am never so busy that I cannot stop long enough to bring a new
young man like yourself up to speed."

"Okay, thanks," I said, positive that I could trust this man.  "How old are
you, anyway?"

"Many centuries in age," he said, laughing a bit.  "But never old enough to
think I know more than the Almighty, or to allot more importance to my life
than I deserve."

"But you're not the oldest Seraph, are you?" I asked.  "I mean, not as old
as Faith."

"That I am not.  If I were, then I would be leading this circle in his
stead.  He is, if you can believe it, more ancient than myself."  He
laughed, not a hearty laugh, but a controlled chuckle.  "But, I'm curious.
Which of us angels do you think are the oldest, and which the youngest?"

I shrugged.  "Well, going by looks alone, I'd have to say that Chastity is
the youngest.  But my gut tells me he's not."

"Your gut should be commended, you're absolutely right."

"I mean, it's pretty damn clear that Temperance is the youngest of the
Seraphim," I said, emboldened.  "He looks like he's twenty-two, but he
actually acts like it too."

"Ha!" Humility said, shaking his head.  "Your gut has failed you after all.
You couldn't be more incorrect.  Though, if I were in your shoes, I would
have guessed exactly the same thing.  No, in fact, when I was initiated,
when I graduated from a lowly Cherub to the place I still hold now,
Temperance was the only other angel around besides Faith who is still alive
today.  Faith has not too many years on Temperance.  In fact, Faith wasn't
the Elder when Temperance joined, and neither did he recruit him.  I was
Faith's first recruit."

I was blown away.  The dude I had just met with the rocker T-shirt was
centuries old.  "I would have never guessed the guy was a day over
twenty-five."

"Yes, well," Humility said, "unlike the rest of us, he's evolved with the
times.  For the past couple of decades he has adopted the persona of a
punk-rocker, and I think it suits him just fine.  But don't be fooled.
Behind that innocuous teenage image are many hundreds of years of
experience."

"Wow," I said.  "So, you're the third oldest here.  Who came after you?"

"Fortitude," he told me.  "The position is supposed to be filled by the
most physically strong angel alive.  Faith had a very big problem in those
years in that our Fortitudes kept on dying off.  Fortitude is expected to
carry out the most dangerous work any of us do.  Only, perhaps, Justice
would even approach the level of danger Fortitude is expected to carry
out."  His smile faded.  "But, Bradley, don't let that scare you.  Your
Domno is as capable as any Justice we've ever had.  I have all the
confidence in the world that he will be around for a very long time."

"He will," I agreed.

"But I digress," he said.  "Anyway, the latest Fortitude had been killed by
demons, so it was up to Faith to pick a new one.  However, he was
unsatisfied with every possible Cherub in the Flock, none of them were
strong enough in his eyes.  So, he did something that happens occasionally
in our Order.  He handpicked a man that he turned directly into a Seraph.
This man was an Ottoman soldier, an absolute brute, who perhaps didn't fit
perfectly into the accepted traits of an angel, but nonetheless was
immensely hardworking and faithful.  He became Fortitude, and with his
tremendous discipline, has learned to turn his body into steel, the hardest
material any known angel has ever become."

I nodded.  "Sam just turns into marble," I said, disappointedly.

With a shrug he brushed that fact away.  "Your Domno is not charged with
protecting the entire flock single-handedly," he said.  "When an angel is
turned, he has an automatic disposition towards one material that he'll
change into when he morphs.  For your Domno this material is marble.  Many
of us old-timers have learned to change into harder, more solid materials
to aid us in physical fights, should they ever arise.  It takes many years
of careful focus to learn to change into something as hard as metal, and
your Domno just hasn't had the luxury of time to do this as of yet.  It's
just another example of how Fortitude is the strongest angel alive, and we
are lucky to have a power like his on God's side."

"Too bad the guy's mute, huh?" I asked, for some reason wanting to remind
him of the man's one obvious weakness.

"Do you know how he came to be that way?" Humility asked.

"No.  I assumed he was born that way."

"He still spoke when he was became a Seraph.  No, God did not inflict
Fortitude with his disability.  He did it to himself."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It was many centuries ago.  He took his Delector along with him on one of
his dangerous endeavors.  Apparently he thought his Delector would be
unharmed, but he miscalculated his adversaries.  His young Delector was
killed, and Fortitude of course blamed himself.  To punish himself for his
costly error, he took a permanent vow of silence before God.  And he hasn't
uttered a single word since."

I laughed.  "You mean, he just chooses not to speak?"

"No.  When he took his vow, he guaranteed its permanence by ripping out his
voice-box.  Even if he figures his penitence has finally absolved him of
his mistake, he will never be able to speak again.  And he has never really
let himself attach to any of his Delectors since, out of fear of loss, I
suppose."

"Wow," I said.  "Tragic."  But honestly, I could not feel pity for a guy
who chose to rip his own voice-box out.  "So who's the next oldest?" I
asked.

"Chastity," Humility answered patiently.

"And then Charity, huh?" I asked.

Humility nodded.  "He was the next one to join or Order, but oddly enough,
Sam is actually much older than Charity.  Like Fortitude, Faith created
Charity from a fresh human host body.  He never worked his way up through
the Cherubim.  So, Charity was around thirty when he was made, and that was
in the 70's.  Sam is twice his age and, I imagine, twice his strength, in
spite of the fact that Sam has no experience as a Seraph."

So, Charity, the Seraph who I found most attractive, was also the youngest
and the weakest of the group.  Fernando's insistence that his Domno could
beat Fortitude in a fight was nothing more than absurd: it would have been
like expecting hummingbird to take down an eagle.

In his bed, Yann suddenly erupted into a fit of coughing.  "Yann, give me
some deep breaths," Humility said as he kneeled down in support of the
ailing man.

"I'll take off," I said to Charity, not wanting to stick around watching a
sick old man hack up phlegm.

"Perhaps that is best," Humility said politely as Yann convulsed with
another fit of coughs.  "Any more questions, my son, and you know where to
find me."

I thanked him and shut the door behind me, walking back towards Sam and my
bedroom.  I stuck my ear against the wooden door: no conversation could be
heard from inside.  Good, Charity had finally left my Domno alone.  I
picked up my food and went inside, ready to tell Sam about all of my
impressions of the cast of the inner circle.

Inside, I found that, indeed, Charity had left our room.  But so apparently
had Sam, who was nowhere to be seen.  He must have ran off somewhere with
Charity or someone else.  I wasn't about to chase all over the Cathedral
looking for him.

Annoyed, I sat on the bed and ate my meal by myself.  Afterwards I started
to yawn, so I stripped down and hopped into my new, lonely bed.

I could have used a dose of Sam's cum before going to sleep, but I was too
pissed off now to wait for him.  I took some special satisfaction knowing
that he would also miss out on my cum, his normal bedtime meal.

When I drifted off, it wasn't Sam's image that ran through my head, nor was
it Charity's, as I would have expected.  It was Temperance's.  I could
still feel his goatee scratching against my chin, and my hardon didn't
subside until I had fallen asleep.

*****

A week had passed since we had moved into the inner circle, and in that
time, I had learned a lot of things, mostly about my co-inhabitants and all
of their quirks.  I learned who to fear (Faith's constant malevolent
watching of me and Chastity's vocal distaste for me was enough to make me
flee their presence), and I learned who to avoid (Sebastian and Fernando,
who never ceased to annoy, and Cedric, who could not greet me without
delegating some chore to me).  I learned who to listen to (Humility, who
happily handed out life-lessons one serving at a time), and who would not
listen (Fortitude, who did not even bother to acknowledge me when I spoke
to him).  I learned who would make time for me (Temperance always had what
he called "kick-it" time with me, by far the most fun guy in the inner
circle), and who would not make time (Sam, who was constantly busy with
work, more often then not co-conspiring with Charity).  And, in spite of my
objections to the angel personification of Faith, I let my own faith
blossom, reading the bible at a pace I never thought myself capable of, and
making prayer a regular part of my day.

After a couple days of life in the inner circle without ever meeting
Temperance's or Faith's Delectors, my curiosity about these two mysterious
brethren surged.  At one point I asked Temperance why his Delector never
came out of his room and why he never invited me in.

"I'm beginning to think you're just pretending to have a Delector and all
that junkfood you take into your room is just to feed some crazy
binge-eating fetish you've got," I joked with him as we sat together in the
great room.

Temperance laughed.  "Ollie's the real deal, man, flesh and blood and all
of that good stuff.  If you want to see him, go ahead and go in my room."

"So why do you keep him locked up in there like Repunzel in her tower?"

"He's not locked in, he can ditch the room anytime he likes.  But he never
wants to.  Ollie is just, well, he's just... been through a lot.  He's not
the youngest Delector here, and he's deteriorating with age.  He mostly
just stays in bed or putters around the room."

That answered my question.  I assumed Temperance's Delector was old and
decrepit and on the verge of death, just like Humilty's was.  Obviously
Faith's Delector was in the same condition.

I had no further desire to see either of them face to face.  It was like
volunteering to help out in a retirement home: only an insane person would
do something that crazy.  I hoped that these three men would die soon
enough and free their Domnos from the responsibility of caring for them.
Well, I can't say I hoped that for Faith.  Faith was an asshole, and
deserved to be tortured with a long sentence of arduous caretaking for his
decrepit Delector.

Almost exactly a week after we had moved in, Sam called an informal meeting
of the Seraphim to update them of his newest strategies and tactics in the
continuation of what he now was calling the Holy War against God's enemies.
He had at first planned to summon the circle into another Conclave for a
more formal gathering, but had switched it to an informal meeting in the
dining area of the great room so I could stand-by and watch, as he had no
longer any reasonable explanation for inviting me into the Conclave with
them.

And that's how all seven of the Seraphim came to be sitting at the dining
room table that night, with Faith choosing to sit at the head of the table.
I positioned myself upon the closest couch in the great room; close enough
to hear everything they said but far enough away so as not to draw
attention to my presence.  Somewhere the egotistical part of me agonized at
being forced to sit away from the angels; it was like being told I still
wasn't old enough to sit with the adults at a family function, only more
insulting.  I suppressed the ego as best as I could, telling myself that
Humility would never complain if he were in my shoes.

Apparently, none of the other three ambulatory Delectors were interested in
this tactical meeting; they were all in their respective bedrooms.  I
realized that I was the only Delector in this circle who gave half a shit
about the larger events that were taking place here, and it made me feel
damn superior.

"Last time we were all gathered together, my brothers," Sam was saying to
the Seraphim, "I told you that this Holy War would have three phases.

"Phase one was the elimination of the Bridge.  With some unexpected
casualties sustained, we have nonetheless emerged victorious.  Through our
actions the Bridge is no more.  All of their bases have been destroyed and
their resources cut off.  The few survivors there were are now spread
across the world, with no central organization or leadership to manage
them.  Their only retaliatory option is to go public with their knowledge,
but even if they did, only idiots and conspiracy theorists would likely
believe them.  And so, phase one of our war has been unquestionably
accomplished.

"Now to begin phase two, the final destruction of the blooddemons.  Oh, how
pleased God will be once we've exorcised the last demon back into Hell."

"I assume the elimination of the werewolves is the last and final phase?"
Humility asked.

"Of course," Sam answered.

"But wait," Temperance interjected.  "The wolves are by far the easier
prey, right?  Why not start with them and work our way up to the demons?
Let's not bite off more than we can chew so soon in the game."

"No," Sam said, shaking his head.  "We have to follow this order.  We
cannot take the wolves out before we kill the demons because we need the
wolves to help us destroy the demons."

There was a uniform reaction of upset grumbling from the other Seraphim.
"Join forces with those abominations?" Faith asked.

"God will punish us in the end!" Chastity yelled out.

"Haven't we made enough underhanded deals with the devil as of late?" asked
Faith.  "Do we really need to degrade our kind even further through more
spotty agreements?"

"We have no other option," Sam said.  "We simply cannot defeat the demons
on our own."

"That much is obviously true," Humility said, speaking to the group.  "The
demons outnumber us a thousand to one, perhaps more than that.  And even if
the playing field was somehow equal, they are far more powerful than us and
would easily destroy us in any sort of war."

"So you too now, Humility, believe we should throw reason out the door and
enter a battle we have no hope of winning?" Faith asked him.

"Not in the least," Humility said.  "I was just acknowledging the
hopelessness of trying to fight the demons unassisted.  If I were choosing
our path unilaterally, I'd opt for continued peace and covertness.  But,
like you, Faith, I was outvoted here, and so my opinion is insignificant."

"Never insignificant," Sam said, smiling at Humility.  "We value your
wisdom on these matters more than you know, Humility, even if we do not
always agree with you.

"I am humbled by your respect, Justice," Humility responded.

"Alright, before we all start sucking each other off here," Temperance
said, "let's hear your full plan, Justice."

Sam's eyes sparkled as he took a moment to gather his thoughts and then
dove in head first.  "First of all, we need to pad out our numbers as much
as we can.  I plan to contact the Ensis and have their Dominions scour the
land for new potentials--we will need new Cherubim joining our flock now
more than ever.  Also, we should send as many Powers as can be spared to
gather as much current information on the demons as they can possibly
collect.  We need to know everything about their organization if we are to
expect to fight it.  And we should tighten our Ensis defenses, as the enemy
knows the location of our main holy ground."

"All of these changes would be easily made," Charity said.  "I'll make a
couple phone calls to Nathaniel."

Sam nodded.  "Once we have the information we need, we'll strike at the
demons.  Our attack will be unexpected and overwhelming, particularly
because it will not be carried out through our hands, but through the hands
of the wolves.  The wolves are our one natural weapon against the demons.
They are predisposed to beat them in any hand to hand combat.  And they
have the great numbers that we lack.  As long as we control the wolves, we
will win this war."

"How do you hope to keep control over an entire species?" asked Humility
doubtfully.

"I'm planning another meeting with their leader," Sam said.  "Just like
last time, a little bargaining should convince them to do our bidding."

"And then, once the demons have been offed," said Temperance, "we just turn
around and kill off the wolves?"

"Exactly," Sam said.  "Phase three of this war will be the easiest to carry
out.  The wolves will be battleworn and reduced in number after they have
fought the demons.  They will be no match for our Powers.  We will
eliminate them easily, and with that, we will have purged the abominations
from this plane.  Humanity will finally be safe."

"Nice," said Temperance.

"Go forth and do as you must," Faith said with his commanding voice,
quickly grabbing the reins back from Sam and reminding everyone who their
leader was.  "Only time can tell if your strategies will play out in
practice as smoothly as they have in your imagination."

*****

It was only a couple nights later that Charity came knocking on our bedroom
door with urgent news for Sam.

"I don't mean to interrupt your bid to take over the world, here, fella" he
said good-naturedly, "but I've got a bit of a situation you may want to be
informed on."

"Tell me," Sam said to him.

"I'm leaving tonight for Myanmar."

"Where the fuck's Myanmar?" I asked from where I was sitting on the foot of
the bed, my bible in hand.

Charity looked back at me as if he only then realized I was in the room.
"Myanmar.  You must have heard of it, son.  A country in Asia.  Haven't you
ever heard of Burma?"

I hit myself on the head in a gesture of self-deprecation.  "Right, of
course," I said.  "Myanmar, I knew that."  Of course, I still had no
fucking clue what Myanmar was.

Charity laughed at me.  "I knew the second I said `Burma' you'd feel dumber
than dirt."

"Yup," I said, "that's me, totally dumb.  Regular fucking idiot there for a
moment."

Sam raised an eyebrow at me, then looked back at Charity.  "He still has no
idea what Myanmar is."

I jumped to attention, sitting straight up.  "What?  That's fucking insane!
You can't read my mind anymore, Sam, don't pretend you know what I know and
what I don't know, because you totally don't know what I know or don't
know," I said rapidly.

Sam looked at me, blinking in confusion.  "I haven't the slightest idea
what you just said."

"Maybe you should enroll in a few more rudimentary ESL classes then, you
Russian son-of-a-bitch."

"Hell, I don't have any idea what he said either," Charity said.  "And I
bleed red white and blue."

"Anyway, I don't have to read your mind to know you don't know jack shit
about Myanmar," Sam told me.  "You don't have to pretend just to impress
our visitor."

I was starting to get pissed off that Sam was challenging me.  Who the fuck
cared if he was right on the money?  "I know everything there ever was to
know about motherfucking Myanmar.  You think I don't know it, Sam?"

"Where is it located?" Sam asked, challenging me playfully.

"In Asia."

"Where in Asia?"

"In the fucking middle of nowhere."

Charity nodded.  "That's fairly accurate," he said.

Sam looked back at me.  "What's the countryside like?" he asked me.

"Rural," I said.  "Beautiful," I guessed.  "Sparsely populated."

"Right on," Charity said.

"And the people?" asked Sam.  "What state are they in?"

I thought about this, figuring if I had never heard of this country, there
was probably a good reason.  "Destitute," I answered boldly.
"Impoverished."

"Because there aren't enough resources to go around?" Sam asked me.

I knew he was trying to trick me.  "No," I avoided.  I struck my best
professorial tone, and said, "Because of political unrest, of course."

"Exactly right," Charity said.  He pounded Sam on the shoulder in
congratulations.  "Well, you should be proud, Justice.  You've got the
smartest Delector in the inner circle."

"Damn right," I said, sticking my nose back in my bible and trying to look
as bookish as possible.

"I don't doubt it," Sam said to Charity.  "I'm just not sure his
intellectual faculties are being used in the best manner possible.  Anyway,
what seems to be the situation in Myanmar?"

Charity sighed.  "A small farming village there in the mountains has been
commandeered by a militant private enterprise.  An alluvial diamond deposit
has recently been discovered in a nearby stream, and the villagers are
being forced to dig up all these precious gemstones."

"Modern day slave labor," Sam said grimly.  "Won't the local authorities do
anything about it?"

Charity shook his head.  "This village is out of touch.  Off the map and
off the radar.  And the authorities seem to be willing to turn a blind eye
to the whole operation.  The enterprise is supportive of the State Law and
Order Restoration Council, probably financially.  And the villagers have
always been advocates of the National League for Democracy."

"And so," Sam said pensively, "since Aung San Suu Kyi is currently
indisposed, that leaves any help those people may get on our shoulders."

"Exactly," Charity said, chuckling.  Obviously Sam was making some sort of
joke, something that he thought would go over my head.

I wasn't going to be outplayed here.  I forced a deep laugh, shaking my
head.  "Aung San Suu Kyi, that's a good one, man," I said.  "He's
indisposed.  Man, is he EVER!  Sam, you are too much."  I gave him a
push-away gesture with my hand as I continued to laugh.

Sam gave Charity a knowing look, and the guy returned it.

"This is just the kind of operation the old Justice and I used to
collaborate on," Charity said.

"You save the people in need, while I..."

"While you deal out judgment to those responsible."  Charity smiled at Sam.
"Of course, you not being the old Justice but a completely new Justice with
a new MO, you might not want to join me on this.  I could manage on my own.
I could kill God's enemies myself," he said.  He bit his upper lip, then
said sheepishly, "Honestly, I've never killed a man before.  I've been
hoping to avoid it."

"Never killed before?" asked Sam, completely shocked.  "How is that
possible?"

"I'm still young, after all," Charity said.  "Relatively speaking, of
course.  I know the time will come when God will ask me to deliver his
wrath upon one of his sinners.  But that time has yet to come, and for that
I'm thankful."

"Do you think it's wrong to kill?" I asked Charity, expecting to get a
weak-ass, liberal minded `yes' admission, expecting him to be one of those
idiots who would lay down their guns in the face of a hostile invasion and
die in the name of pacifism.

"Not the least bit," Charity answered instead.  "I understand that killing
is a necessary part of God's plan for us.  It's not the principle I'm at
odds with, it's the practice.  I have a distaste for cutting into someone
and watching while they bleed to death in front of me.  What the hell is
the matter with me?"  He smiled playfully.

"Well, whether you hate to kill or you love it, the time will come when you
will have to take your first life," Sam said, a little preachingly.

"I know this already," Charity said, a little resentfully.  "If that time
has come upon me now, then so be it."

"No, it hasn't, I'm afraid," Sam said.  "Because I'm coming with you.  It's
my responsibility to judge the sins of others and deal out judgment, not
yours.  Bradley, pack your things, quickly."

Charity seemed somewhat elated at his decision.  "We'll be leaving for
Mandalay in an hour."

*****

I sat there in the car, sandwiched in between Francisco and Sebastian, as
we shot down the road at a reckless speed.  We took every turn so quickly,
that my two backseat companions pushed against me in the worst game of
corners I had ever willingly been a part of.

Francisco was at least trying to keep his body from pushing into me as we
went around a right corner.  Sebastian, if anything, was exaggerating the
affect the turns were having on his body.

We tore around another left turn, and once again that asshole plastered his
body against mine.  He planted his right hand down on me, supposedly trying
to keep his balance, but happening to grab me right at upper thigh level,
like three inches from my dick.

"Get the fuck off of me!" I snapped for the hundredth time.

"I told you, I can't help myself!" Sebastian clucked back at me as we made
it around the corner and he sat upright again.  "It's called centrifugal
force, perhaps you learned about it in school?  Is this your first time
riding in the backseat of a car?"

"No, I've rode bitch plenty of times," I said to him.  "And not once did
any of my buds accidentally cop a feel on my package."

"Well, I just can't seem to control myself," he said back.

"Fuck, I knew we should have gotten two cars," I said.

After our plane had dropped us off in Mandalay, the first thing we had done
was bought a car.  With cash.  Charity, who had gone all rabid since the
first mention of getting a car to drive us to our destination, had taken
charge, first wanting to find a 70's muscle car to buy.

"They don't make `em like they used to in my heyday," he had said.

When, not surprisingly, we did not find any dealers of 70's cars, he sadly
accepted purchasing as brand new Masserati.  The slimy car-dealer
practically shit his pants when Charity bought the car from him with cash,
without even trying to bargain down the obviously inflated sticker price.
As soon as he had the dealership fill up the tank and put on a tow hitch,
we prepared to leave for the village in the mountains that we were on a
mission to save.

Charity was the first one to get in the car, in the driver's seat, of
course, slipping into the leather seat of car like a hard dick slips into a
condom, lightly caressing the steering wheel with his hands like it was the
skin of a beautiful woman.  The expression on his face was decidedly
pleased.  Obviously, dude loved him some wheels.

Sam started to get into the passenger seat of the car without asking anyone
else if that was cool with us.  Annoyed, I grabbed him by the arm.  "Wait
up," I said.  "How come you get shotgun?"

"Cause I'm bigger than you," he told me.  It wasn't in a macho, challenging
way, it was just a description of practicality: he would have the hardest
time fitting in the small backseat.

"Fuck." I said, pushing his arm as I went to the backseat.

Those punks Francisco and Sebastian had hurriedly jumped in the backseat
while I had futilely tried for shotgun, and now they were smugly sitting
against both windows, leaving me the tiny bitch seat.

"Oh no," I said, pushing Francisco towards the middle.

"Hey," he complained.

"We got here first!" Sebastian whined.

"I don't give a fuck," I said, pushing Francisco again.  "Go sit next to
your butt-buddy over there."

"I can't sit in the middle!" he complained.  "I get carsick.  I need the
window seat."

"Bullshit," I said.

"No, it's true!" he said.  "Charity, tell him it's true!"

"Huh?" asked Charity, forcing himself to pull his attention away from the
dashboard for a moment and look back at us.  "Uh, yes.  He does tend to get
carsick," he said hurriedly, and then looked back towards the dash.

"Make him sit in the middle and you'll end up with spew all over you,"
Sebastian challenged me from the other side of the bench.

"Fine," I said, quickly walking around to the other side of the car.  I
opened Sebastian's door.  "Move over," I ordered.

"No!  I am NOT moving!"

"Move the fuck over!" I started to push him.

"Get off me!"  He pushed back at me, but he was no match for my strength.
"Ow, you're hurting me!"

Suddenly I felt a crushing grip on my shoulder pulling back away from
Sebastian.  I turned around, and came face to face with... a thickly muscled
neck.  I had to tilt my head up to look into Fortitude's visage, and
although the dude couldn't speak, the stern anger on his face said
everything to me.  He was not happy, and he could kick my ass any hour of
the day.

"Uh, sorry bout that," I said.  "I'll just sit in the middle seat, no
problemo."

"Damn right, girl!" Sebastian yelled smugly.

Fortitude let my shoulder go, and under his watchful eye, I got in the car,
climbing carefully over Sebastian and sitting in the middle seat.

An hour and a half later, and Charity was still barreling us down these
mountain roads at a pace that would have scared me if I didn't know that it
was an angel's precise hands at the wheel.  Obviously Charity was enjoying
himself, as he spent the first half hour of our drive telling us how much
he liked cars when he was young, about the first time he ever drag raced,
about the first car he ever bought, and so on.  Clearly this guy didn't get
many opportunities to entertain his favorite hobby at the Cathedral, and I
was cool with him getting his kicks out here in Myanmar.

But it was pissing me off that Sam and Charity were sitting up there
comfortably in the front, the open moon-roof blowing a gentle breeze
through their hair, Sam pondering the countryside out his passenger window
while Charity sang along, loudly and out of tune, to "I'm a Ramblin' Man,"
which blasted out of the car's six speaker sound system and assaulted our
ears with a country-western sound that couldn't have been more out of place
beside the Myanmar scenery.

"How bout turning it to something else?" I suggested.

Charity apparently didn't hear me, singing along louder than ever to the
twangy country.

"Damnit, aren't angels supposed to have super-human hearing?" I asked no
one in particular.

"No, who told you that?" asked Sebastian.  "It's a bit better than human
ears, maybe, but nothing to write home about.  Now their sense of taste,
that's enhanced.  Charity has told Fernando over there that he can taste
what Fernando had for dinner in his cum, right Fernando?"

Fernando moaned unintelligibly and stuck his head further out the open
window; dude was seriously car sick.

"Why don't you just ask Charity to turn off the music with your thoughts?"
Sebastian asked me.  "Oh, I forgot, you can't do that anymore.  You can't
be read.  Fuck, I'd rather get my hand cut off than lose the ability to
have my Delector read my mind.  Or even my eyes cut out, or my ears."

"Or, better yet, your tongue," I said.

"Well, I was going to get his attention for you myself, but after that
comment."  He folded his arms and turned his back to me with attitude.

I leaned forward and hit Charity on the shoulder.  "Yeah?" he asked,
stopping his singing and tilting his head back a bit towards me.

"How bout playing something else for a change?" I asked.

"What's wrong with ol' Jennings, here?" he asked.  "Country never did get
better than this.  `Sides, I only got the one record, and that's the record
that's on.  You brought a record of your own with ya, good buddy?"

"Their called CD's, man.  CD's.  And fuck, I guess I forgot my CD wallet."

"Well, that's a damn shame," he said.  "Looks like we'll keep on with
Jennings."

"I like Waylon Jennings," Sam added in his Russian accent, validating
Charity completely and causing the guy's lips to form a satisfied smile
under that blonde bushy moustache of his.

Charity took another hard turn to the right, and Francisco's body pushed
into me, his head rolling.  He emitted a sickly moan.  "I think I'm gonna
puke," he said.

I suddenly started pushing him hard towards the open window.  "Don't you
dare do it on me, bro," I said.

I grabbed Francisco's head in my hands and forcibly pushed his face out the
open window.

"What a jackass," Sebastian complained.

"Go ahead and puke!"

"Never mind," Fernando mumbled, trying to push his head back into the car.
"I'm feeling a bit better now."

I let go of him, and slid more towards Sebastian's side.

Turning my head and looking out the back window, I could see the sixth
member of our party.

Charity had told Sam and I that Fortitude was coming along before we had
left the Cathedral.  "Good thinking," I had told Charity.  "Order the
muscle to go with us in case we run into a situation."

Charity just laughed at me.  "Let's get one thing straight, son," he told
me.  "Nobody `orders the muscle' to go along with them, no matter how much
they may want him.  He goes where he damn well pleases.  He told me he was
going along, and that was that."

We only got a five-seat car, but that didn't seem to bother Fortitude any.
He was doing what Charity had called "motor-gliding."

"An angel let's the wings loose, gets a rope, and ties it onto the back of
a speedy car," Charity had said when Fortitude had first taken off and our
car accelerated until the rope between us was firmly taut.  "One hell of a
ride."

"Huh," Sam had said.  "I've never heard of such a thing before."

"Temperance invented it a few decades ago," Charity said.  "He and
Fortitude are the only ones who do it."

"You've never done it?" I asked Charity.

"Me?  Nah.  I'm not a good enough flier yet," he smiled.  "I'd probably end
up hitting a tree or an overpass or something."

"I bet Sam could do it," I said.

"I bet he could too," Charity agreed.

Sam had merely smiled in response.

As I watched out the window, Fortitude's flying skill was astounding.  He
did flips and rolls with ease, and flew around obstacles with effortless
precision.

"Fuck," I said, staring at him, my jaw slack.  "I wish I could do that."

"That's my Delector out there," Sebastian reminded me.

I didn't have to tell him that I was in complete awe.

*****

It took us over an hour of driving on rough dirt roads before we got to the
small village that wasn't even on our map of the country.  When Charity
pulled the car over and put the car in park, I thought he might not have
the right place.

I looked around us.  Jungle everywhere, and a hill in front of us.  No sign
anywhere of any sort of habitation.  "Are you sure this is it, man?" I
asked.

"You betcha."

"How can you be sure if the place isn't even on the map?"

"Because we can feel the people," Sam answered for him.  "They are close."

Admittingly, as soon as Charity cut the engine and Waylon Jennings stopped
his moaning, you could hear the sounds of what sounded like a construction
site working nearby.

The five of us got out of the car, with Fortitude dropping down hard and
fast from the air and dropping the rope handle.  We walked over the hill
that was in front of us, and looked down at the scene below.

The village was built about a quarter of a mile away from a small river.
No villagers were evident in the village, but there were a number of armed
men in civvies patrolling the small huts and houses of the village.  The
largest building, a one-story wooden structure, was the only house with
light coming from its windows.  There were guards posted at every door of
this building.

While the village was relatively inactive and totally quiet, the river was
something else entirely.  A noisy generator powered huge flood lights that
bathed the whole scene in white.  They had constructed a shabby concrete
dam, about twenty feet high, that blocked the river's water and pulled it
back into a wide lake, the water being neatly diverted around the site in
wooden aqueducts.  In the space where the river used to be was now just a
gaping hole in the earth full of black mud.  In this hole were people of
all sizes, hundreds of people, their gender and features completely
obscured by the black muck that covered every part of them.  They were
digging in the earth, collecting, gathering, rinsing.  Armed guards stood
above the bank, only their rubber boots showing any sign of mud, leering
down at the villagers, and occasionally yelling or kicking at a straggler.

"First time you've seen something like this?" asked Francisco, who was
standing beside me.

"It looks like something out of a Holocaust movie," I said.

"They've pushed those pour souls to the verge of death," Charity said.  "We
cannot act too soon."

We returned to the trunk of the Masserati, where we had deposited all of
our weapons before we set out.  They three angels attached their sword
sheaths to their belts.  Fortitude was the first to draw his sword, one
longer and broader but far less beautiful than the one Sam carried.

I put on a Kevlar body vest and armed myself with a semi-automatic pistol,
both of which I had brought in from the weapons stash on the plane.

I noticed Francisco and Sebastian hadn't brought any weapons of their own.
"Don't the two of you need to be armed?" I asked as I slipped my combat
knife into my vest.

"I don't ever need to fight," Fernando informed me.  "I'm a complete
pacifist."

"Hmph.  I don't know how you could passively sit there and let everyone
else take the action for you."

"Now, wait a minute," Fernando chimed.  "Just because I'm a pacifist
doesn't mean I'm passive.  I play nurse to Charity's doctor.  I've helped
save hundreds of lives.  So don't get all high and mighty, mister Marine
guy.  I've done far more good than you've ever done."

I looked over at Sebastian.  "And what about you, sunshine?  You some sort
of wanna-be pacifist super-hero too?"

"Not really," he answered.  "I try to stay out of the way."

"What he's trying to say is that he cowers in the car while the rest of us
fight the bad guys," Fernando teased.

Sebastian rolled his eyes.  "Less cowering, more keeping the car warmed up
in case we should need to make a quick getaway."

"Honey, please!" Fernando said.  "You're terrified of blood."

"Terrified is an exaggeration."

"You faint at the sight of an overly-rare steak!"

"Well, hey now, we're talking about risking a bad case of food poisoning
there!"

I shook my head at Sebastian.  "Well, if I were Fortitude I'd be downright
ashamed of you."

Sebastian sneered back at me.  "I think my Delector prefers me to stay
alive.  Seems like the way your Delector keeps on exposing you to dangerous
situations, he's trying to kill you off before your natural expiration
date."  He shrugged.  "Actually, considering your attitude problem, trying
to get you killed seems like a perfectly reasonable goal to me."

"Rrrrooow!" exclaimed Fernando, imitating the bitchy sound of a cat fight.
"Somebody got fucked on the wrong side of the ass this morning."

"You boys ready?" Charity asked Fernando and myself as he nodded towards
the village.  "Best shake a leg here, fellas."

"Well, ta-ta," Sebastian said as he got back into the backseat of the car
and locked the doors.  He gave me a forced, overly friendly smile and a
girlish wave.

"Motherfucker," I said as the five of us started to walk towards the
village.

"Should be a simple enough operation here," Charity said.  "Won't take
long."

Sam pointed towards the village.  "The people who are responsible for this
atrocity are holed up there.  Bradley and I are going to administer
justice."

"My responsibility is with the people under that dam," Charity said as he
started to walk down towards the water, followed closely by Fernando.

"We'll meet you there briefly," Sam said as he started to move towards the
village.

As I hurried along to follow him, I looked back to see Fortitude following
Charity and Fernando towards the creek.  I was a little disappointed.  I
had wanted to see him in action.

As we approached the dark village, Sam grabbed my hand, clearly cloaking
the two of us.  "This should be extremely easy.  No real danger to either
one of us.  Of course, I've said those words before and have been mistaken,
so we shall see just how this plays out."  He pointed to the house in the
village that was lit.  "Their leaders are in there.  First, the street
guards must be eliminated.  Stay with me."

With his left hand around my wrist, Sam held his sword in his right hand
and stalked around the muddy dirt streets of the small village.

SCHLEP.

One gunman's head landed in the mud, staining the brown red.

SCHLEP.

Another head on the ground as we glided through the tight corners of the
village.  Seconds later, two more were dead.  Sam was an efficient killing
machine.

He pointed to the shut door of the lit up building.  "We go in," he said.

I grabbed the gun at my hip and cocked it towards the door.  "I'm ready."

Sam raised an eyebrow.  "Put that away," he told me.  "Only draw your gun
if it is absolutely necessary."

"Aww, come on, man?" I whined.  "How come you always get to have all the
fun?"

He didn't respond, he just gave me that stern paternal look, and I knew
that was the end of the discussion.  "Fine," I said, re-holstering my
weapon.  But I kept my right hand on it just in case it was needed.

Still holding onto my left hand, Sam just opened the door and stepped
inside.  I pushed myself through the door, careful to make sure to keep
contact with Sam's hand at all times.

We were inside some sort of meeting hall, empty except for a dining table,
a bunch of wooden chairs, and standing lamps.  At the table sat two
middle-aged men in military uniforms, one fat and the other skinny.  They
were looking at a bunch of scattered papers in front of them, and they were
arguing with each other.  At least, I thought they were arguing with each
other, but that could have just been the natural intonation for Burmese, or
whatever the hell it was that they spoke.  It was all Greek to me.

Around these men, in the corners of the hall, were four more armed guards.
Without hesitation, Sam swung his sword against the guard who was nearest
to us, and his head hit the wooden floor with a soft thud.

The other five men in the room turned to look at the fallen man, some of
them gasping in shock.  They saw their comrade slain but could not see a
culprit.  They shouted to each other fearfully.

Sam pulled me across the room to the next guard, and cut his head off as
well.

The other men pointed and shouted at the spot where the latest guard had
fallen.  The two seated men stood up.  They were pointing right at Sam,
right at me.  I realized then that they could see through Sam's cloak.

He must have known the same thing, because he let go of my hand then and
approached the table where the two uniformed men stood.  He said something
commanding to them in their language, and then killed them one at a time.

One of the guards, the one closest to where I was standing, had raised his
rifle and took aim at Sam.

This was my chance.  I drew my weapon, aimed at the guy's head, and fired
three shots before Sam looked reproachfully at me.  The guard fell to the
ground, gun and all, covered in blood and gore.

"What?" I asked Sam, who was still giving me that look.

"I told you not to draw your gun unless it was necessary!"

"He was about to shoot you in the ass!  I'm telling you, it was necessary!"

In the other corner of the room, the one remaining guard raised his gun
with shaking hands.  I quickly took aim at the guy's head, eager to see
another guard's skull break open.

"Desist, Bradley!" Sam commanded, motioning for me to lower my weapon.

"But he's about to..."

"He's an innocent!  A new recruit, has not yet taken life."  Sam strode
over to the man, pulled his gun away from him and tossing it aside, and
then slamming the frightened guard's head back against the wall, knocking
him unconscious.  "There," Sam said, looking around at our gruesome work.
"All done here.  Let's go."

I followed him out of the building and out of the dirt streets of that
little village, both of us returning to the dammed-up creek.

Things had changed since we left that place.  All the armed guards, once
threatening, were now lifeless humps on the ground.  The villagers had
stopped their grind, looking around them with awed faces, some of them
gazing upon their rescuers with admiration, but most just looking
frightened and unsure.

Charity and Fernando walked among them in the mud, helping the weak and
fallen to stand, Charity reassuring the people in their native tongue.
Even that brash language sounded beautiful coming from that angel's mouth.

Fortitude wasn't helping; he was standing not far from the base of the dam,
his massive form taking on a statuesque stillness.  But I imagined that
just moments ago this powerful form had been in movement, had taken action.
I guessed that all of the many bodies lying bloody in the mud were his
handiwork, and he had accomplished much greater killing far more
efficiently than Sam and I had.  I was truly sorry to have missed out.

Charity smiled at Sam when we approached, wiggling his thick moustache.  "A
lot of these people are malnourished and are physically exhausted.  They
can't even stand."

"Bradley will come down and assist the two of you," Sam said as he started
down the muddy bank.

"Ah, come on, I'm no medic," I said, not following him down.  "Fernando's
mister nurse-dude.  Let him take care of things-"

My complaints were interrupted by the sounds of villagers shouting in their
incomprehensible language.  The cries were coming from the villagers nearby
the dam wall, and although I couldn't understand what they were saying, it
was clear from the urgency in their voices that they were quite upset about
something.

All the angels turned to face the dam wall, seemingly understanding what
the villagers were shouting about.

>From my vantage point on the bank, I could see the four or five villagers
by the dam who were crying out.  And I could see what they were anxiously
pointing towards: one of the bodies, a fallen guard who was lying at the
foot of the dam, was now stirring.  Apparently he hadn't been as dead as
they thought he was, because he was reaching into his jacket, grabbing a
hold of something.

"Shit!" I cried out when I saw what it was he was holding.  "That's a-"

BOOM!!

A ball of fire blasted outwards from the soldier's location, engulfing the
few villagers who had been shouting, and blasting blood and body parts all
over the scene.  All of this bursting out of one little hand grenade.  When
the fire dissipated, it was clear that the soldier was now finally dead,
having taken out several helpless villagers with him.

"Damn, who was responsible for killing that guard?" Sam asked, his normally
peaceful tone of voice now full of regret and remorse.

"It was me," Charity said, taken aback.  "I thought he was dead.  He must
have just been unconscious."

Sam shook his head, but did not offer any reprimands for his fellow Seraph.
"Well, it's over now," Sam said simply.

But a loud cracking sound proved Sam wrong.  It was coming from the dam
wall, right over the body of the guard, right in charred spot where the
explosion had hit the concrete.

A sudden spray of water caused a young woman to scream.  A hole was
breaking in that wall.

"Oh no..." Sam said as soon as he figured out what was happening.

I could see the chunks of concrete about to push out and break apart.  I
knew that in seconds, the whole lake above them would be on top of these
villagers.

Thank God Fortitude saw the same sight as me, and was much closer to the
dam wall than any of us.  Right before the wall could burst open, he was
there upon it, his body and wings turned into shiny silver steel, his mass
pressed into the wall, holding it in place.  All of the bystanders, myself
included, watched him hold back a lake, completely amazed.  I knew that he
was the only one of the angels strong enough to do this.  I guessed that he
was the only being on this Earth strong enough to do this.  And watching
him save hundreds of innocent people with his unending power, I wanted so
badly to be him, to wield that strength.  And if I couldn't be him, I
wanted to worship him.  I was ready to turn my back on God and swear
allegiance to one of his angels instead.

"He can't hold it for long!" Charity cried out, and I realized that
Fortitude must have communicated that to him psychically.

"We need to get these people out of here!" Sam yelled.

Charity started to yell commands in Burmese.  The people who were still
mobile started to run out of the mine, heading up the muddy banks to
safety.

"Bradley, we need you down here!" Sam ordered me.

Eager to help, to do something important and significant, to show just half
the courage of Fortitude against the wall, I ran down into the mine, where
Sam, Charity, and Fernando were trying to lift up the fallen, all of those
who could not walk themselves.  I lifted a skinny girl into my arms and
started to carry her up the bank.

"There's too many," Charity was saying.  "Not enough time."  He started to
shout more orders to the villagers in Burmese.

The able-bodied villagers returned to the mine, helping carry the others
out themselves.  It was the only way to save everyone.

It wasn't long after Charity carried the last old man to safety that the
dam broke around Fortitude, crumbling under the pressure and collapsing all
at once.

The water roared forward, consuming the mine and pushing down the riverbed.
Villagers cried out just watching the power of it all.  Fortitude was
caught somewhere in the middle of that water, completely submerged by the
blue.

The water settled into a wide pool, stilling itself and looking so calm it
was almost impossible to conceive that this was the same water that had
been a deadly rushing mass a moment before.

I didn't think anything could survive the crushing grip of that water.  I
was wrong.

The steel tips of his wings were the first to appear out of the clear blue
water.  Soon his head followed, his steel face expressionless as he moved
out of the water.  All of his clothes had been ripped off and carried away
in the current.  He was naked and gloriously beautiful.

Seeing their savior rise out of an assumed death, the villagers started to
cheer and clap.  Many were in tears.

They adored him.  Like me, they worshiped him for his power.

He stood there, unreceptive, cold.  I think he disappointed those people
when he offered them no life-changing speeches or humble gratitude for
their devotion.  Fuck, he was a fucking god, and he could act however he
damned well pleased.

"So, it's done," Sam said to Charity with relief.

"Your job is done," Charity said back.  "Mine continues here.  There are
many who need medical attention.  They'll die without my help."

"Shall we stay and assist you?" Sam asked him.

"No.  You go.  Fernando and I are used to handling situations like these on
our own.  Take the car and return to the Cathedral.  Once we have finished
here, we'll return as well."

Sam nodded.  He put his hand on Charity's shoulder and smiled.  "Your
steadfast devotion to what is right is inspiring."

Charity smiled back proudly.  "I'll see you soon, good buddy," he said.

Sam and I walked back to the car.  Fortitude was already there, changed
back into flesh and getting a fresh set of clothes out of his bag in the
trunk.

"Well, well, well," Sebastian said to me as I got in beside him on the back
seat of the Masserati.  "Look who has come back completely unscathed.  I
bet your Domno is so disappointed in you."

"You should have been out there with us, Sebastian," I told him.  "Bodies
everywhere.  A sea of blood and severed limbs flying all over everything.
You would have loved it."

Sam got into the driver's seat of the car, firing up the engine, and
Fortitude crashed down in the passenger side.  As soon as he got in, a
respectful quietness settled upon the car, one that would linger all the
way to Mandalay.

*****

By the time we got back to Mandalay, it was almost dawn, so the four of us
got two hotel rooms, and Sam went through his routine of duct-taping the
light out of our window before bed.

Our plane, after taking Faith to the Ensis and back for some unknown
purpose of his, wasn't scheduled to come back to Mandalay until the
following night.  Sam, figuring he'd take advantage of our unwanted time in
Myanmar, decided to call the cell phone of a certain werewolf, Rick, and
ask him to come to Mandalay to meet us for "a talk."

>From what I heard of the conversation, it took some convincing, but Rick
finally gave in to Sam's insistence, knowing the lives of his two captive
friends were still on the line.

Sam told him where to meet the two of us the following night, and at what
time.

"Yes, bring along your bodyguard Case if you must, but just him and only
him," Sam said before hanging up the phone.  He smiled slightly to himself.

"Are we going to get to kick some hairy wolf ass tomorrow, or what?" I
asked excitedly.

Sam groaned.  "There will be no ass kicking of any kind.  This is purely a
war of words.  On second thought, there's no reason why you should endanger
yourself by coming along.  Last time, I needed to bring you so that they
could ID you.  This time, there are no matters that concern you.  You'll
stay here."

"No, I will not, bro!" I said.  "You might need me."

"I won't need you.  Last time, you got yourself captured and just became a
liability to me.  You could have been killed."

I held up my hand.  "I won't let that fucker touch me again, I swear to
God."

"You cannot expect defend yourself against the most powerful wolf there
is."

"I'll stay back, behind you, at all times."

He seemed to be softening to the idea.  "And you won't behave in your
typically capricious manner?"

"I'm not sure what `capricious' means, but I swear to God I won't be it."
I shrugged.  "Anyway, you said yourself that this was just a talking sort
of meeting.  How dangerous could that be?"

He groaned again.  "Alright.  But your safety is my first concern.  Any
sign of a problem, and I want you to just run out of there, got it?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good.  Now get some sleep.  We need to be ready to clash wits with the
wolves tomorrow."

*****

The next night, the four of us checked out of our hotel and drove outside
of Mandalay back to the little dusty airfield that our plane had dropped us
off at, and was now waiting for us to board.

Sam put the Masserati into park but didn't kill the engine as we reached
the small hangar that held our plane.  "Here's where you two get off," he
said, looking towards Fortitude in the passenger seat.  "Bradley and I are
meeting the wolves not far from here.  The plane is set to depart before
sunrise.  We'll be well back before that point."

Fortitude made an almost imperceptible movement of his eyes.

"Oh, you're coming?" Sam asked him, obviously the recipient of some
telepathic communication.  "Indeed, your strength could be a needed asset
tonight, though I do not think we will have any problem."

There was another pause, in which I assumed Fortitude was "saying"
something more.

"Well then, we'll be happy to have you along," Sam said.  "It will at least
make me feel more secure with Bradley's safety."

"Good," I said.  "If they're coming, why are we still idling here?  Let's
go irritate some wolves!"

"No, wait, hold on!" Sebastian was saying as he unbuckled.  "Let me out of
here first."

"You're not coming?" I asked, of course knowing the answer.

"Umm, no, I don't think I'll volunteer to go poke sticks at a pack of
hungry werewolves, if you don't mind," he said.  "What good would I be
there anyway?"

"Ah, come on," I complained.  "You don't have to do anything.  We just need
the numbers to intimidate them.  Just stand there and look tough."  I knew
this was a ridiculous request as soon as I said it.  There was no way in
hell Sebastian would ever, EVER, be capable of looking like a tough guy.  I
guess I just liked to remind him that he was nothing more than a little
pussy-boy.

"Act tough?" he asked, incredulously.  "Yeah, I can try, but I think
they'll be able to tell I'm not so hardcore when they see the stream of
urine running down my leg."

"Let him go, Brad," Sam urged me.  "Tell them we'll be on the plane in a
couple hours," he said to Sebastian.

"Yep, got it."  Sebastian slammed the door behind him, and strutted off
towards out plane with the self-important composure of an anorexic movie
starlet.

Sam drove us out into the trees and hills, returning to the rural
countryside, and soon pulled over into a dirt clearing.

"This is where I asked them to meet us," Sam said, turning off the car.

There weren't any lights on around us, but luckily the moon was bright
enough for me to see our surroundings.  There was just one structure
anywhere near this spot, and it was right in front of us: a church.

It wasn't a large church, and it was modestly designed, though it had a
sort of quaintness about it that I suppose many would have found beautiful.
All wooden construction, with a steep roof and tall steeple, it looked not
unlike something American settlers might have built for themselves in
simpler times past.  A simple, white-wash paint had been applied to the
exterior wooden walls, making me think the church would once have had that
small community charm to it.

But that charm had left it.  Today, the place was in ruins.  The white
paint was chipped and torn; the wooden planks of the exterior walls were
sagging and rotting; the roof had a huge hole in it, apparently caused by a
large tree-branch falling upon it.

"What happened to this place?" I asked Sam as we got out of the car.

"After the British left, the people went through a period of
nationalization," he told me.  "That meant turning their backs on the
Western religions.  This place, once so revered by many, was abandoned."
He motioned with his finger.  "Look around.  With no one to keep back the
growth, nature takes over.  Grass, plants, weeds, saplings.  All over the
place here.  In a few years, there won't be anything left of this church.
Just forest.  Over order and sanctity, chaos wins out."

"Deep, man," I said, half-mockingly, as I started to walk towards the
building.  "Deep."

Sam followed close behind me, with Fortitude behind us.  "Careful,
Bradley," Sam warned from behind.

"Of what?" I asked.

"We are being watched."

Surprised, I quickly looked around.  One quick 360 and I didn't see any
prying eyes.

"Look there," Sam said, pointing towards the forest.

I saw something that I had missed the first time: a number of motorcycles,
partially concealed by the trees and shadows.

"But I don't see the riders," I said quietly.

"They are in the trees," Sam told me.  "Now, keep moving.  Go inside."

I turned the knob and pushed at the ruined wooden door, but the thing
didn't budge.  "It's fucking broken," I said.  "It's not even locked, it's
just broken."

I felt hands on the sides of both shoulders as I was lifted up and sent
neatly to the side.  I turned to see Fortitude removing his hands from me.
He looked at the jammed door with visible consternation, and if it were
possible for a door to feel intimidation, I'm positive it would have at
that moment.  The moment was brief, however, as Fortitude shoulder-rammed
the door, knocking it clean off its hinges, and sending it crashing to the
floor inside the church.

"Fucking hell," I said, following Fortitude into the church.  "Never have I
seen a door opened with such style, man."  I was truly impressed.

The inside of the church was much like the outside: rotting wood, chipped
white paint, and green weeds everywhere.  Most of the room was dark, but
the hole in the roof where the tree had fallen upon it was letting white
moonlight cast down into the church.  The wooden pews were covered in dust
and dirt.  In the front of the church was an alter centered around a large
crucifix with Christ's familiar form nailed upon it.

Sam walked up to this alter, taking out his lighter and snapping it to life
as he did.  "Look," he said.  "Everything is still here.  Even all these
candles.  The worshipers turned their back on the Lord, but they must have
still been too superstitious to loot this place."  He started to light the
many white candles around the edges of the room.

As the candles created the first real light, I could see that above us was
a small balcony with more pews upon it, looking down upon the alter on the
first floor.  "Do you see any stairs?" I asked.

Sam followed my gaze.  "We don't need any stairs," he said.

Pulling his black jacket off, his white wings came out and he grabbed a
hold of me.  It only took a few beats of his wings before we were upon the
balcony, and he set me down.

"Stay up here, where you'll be safe," he said.  "No close encounters with
the wolf king this time."  He turned his head and looked down towards the
broken door.  "Here they come."  He hopped down the first story, landing
without a sound and leaving me on my own in the balcony.

I heard boots crunching on gravel, then saw them coming through the door.
There was their cockroach of a leader, the one named Rick, walking a little
ahead, his head raised up high and his gaze egotistical and challenging.
To his right walked the large wolf that had escaped with Sam and myself out
of the Denver Bridge base.  Case was his name, I remembered.

This time, however, there was a new face.  A large wolf, one even larger
than Case, with a stature more similar to Fortitude, was flanking Rick's
left side.  He looked to me to be Hawaiian, a big, fat guy with his long,
tangled hair tied back in a messy pony-tail.

The three of them looked first at Fortitude, who was standing on the alter
by the Christ figure, and then up at the balcony at me staring them down,
then finally at Sam in front of them.

"You push me, Rick," Sam said, shaking his head in disapproval at the head
wolf.  "I told you you could bring your bodyguard.  This wolf has no right
being here," he pointed to the new guy.

Rick shrugged, with clear disrespect.  "I saw that you brought more than
one guard with you tonight, and thought I'd even the score."

"I'd hardly count Bradley as a bodyguard," Sam said.  "He hasn't the
strength to give me any sort of protection."

My face burned red, though I knew he was telling the truth.  And that was
the worst fucking part.

"He's the Gifted, isn't he?" challenged Rick.

"I think you're forgetting that I dictate the rules here, and you follow
them," Sam said.  "This is not a negotiation.  Send your new brother away."

"Not until you send away yours," Rick said angrily.

"I will do no such thing," Sam responded.  "And if you continue to refuse
my wishes, I will remove this wolf with force."

The large wolf stood a little in front of Rick.  "Just try and make me
budge," he said with a deep, fat-man's breathy voice.

Sam seemed to consider his next move carefully, deliberating the possible
results of his actions.

His carefulness proved pointless, however, as soon as Fortitude changed
from a passive, stony observer, to a sudden aggressor.  With his mouth open
in a silent roar, he charged the new wolf, pulling out his huge sword in
the process.

The wolf was as shocked as all of us had been at the suddenness of the
attack, but he was a skilled fighter.  He avoided Fortitude's first swing
of the sword, and backed off, quickly bursting through his clothes as he
turned into a particularly chunky werewolf.

If anything, Fortitude was pleased at his opponent's suddenly improved
stature.  I imagined the stud would always welcome a more challenging
fight.  He was that fucking confident.

The fat wolf rammed Fortitude, taking a hit on the arm from Fortitude's
sword, spilling blood all over the church floor.  But he still out-massed
Fortitude, and knocked him backwards, the two of them breaking pews as they
tussled around on the floor.

After a few seconds, Fortitude had had enough: it was time to pull out all
of his assets.  He transformed into steel until he was the exact same shade
of shiny silver as the mighty blade in his hand.

I noticed Rick's put upon tough-guy composure crack suddenly, as worry
passed over his face, worry for the fate of his ally.  He moved to enter
the fight himself, almost on instinct, but Case put a hand on his shoulder
and shook his head, his eyes concealed behind those sunglasses but his
message clear.  Rick stopped, stood still, and forced the composure back
into his face.

The remainder of the fight was short-lived and extremely unbalanced.  The
wolf didn't have a prayer against Fortitude, lasting only a few seconds
before the merciless angel cut his head off.  All through the fight,
Fortitude stayed absolutely, eerily silent, even as he delivered the fatal
slice to his enemy.

The werewolf's bloody body quickly turned back into the chopped-up corpse
of a huge, fat man.  Rick's glare, first directed at Fortitude, and then
finally at Sam, could not have been anymore fiery.  This was no longer a
tough guy act on his part.  This was pure, unmitigated hate.

Case stepped towards Fort and motioned for him to come at him with cool
flick of his hand.  "Let's see if I'm as easy for you to kill, big man," he
said to the steel angel.

"Go for it, Fort!" I found myself shouting.  "Rip his head off!"

Rick shook his head.  "Case, don't," he said.  "I hate to admit it, but
that one could easily dispatch both of us on his own."

"I already knew that," Case said.  "If you wanted me to die for you, I'd be
ready."

"No need to waste your life on a fight both of us would lose," Rick said.

"As you will lose every fight that you ever initiate us into," Sam said
decisively.  "You know now that you can never beat us.  Our strength will
always trump your own."

"Just get on with it, angel," Rick said to Sam.  "Tell me what you brought
me here to tell me and stop playing me.  God, I hate these screwed-up
games!"

"Alright," Sam said.  "Let's cut right to the chase.  We angels need the
continued cooperation of the wolves."

"Oh, good," Rick said sarcastically.  "We've worked so well together
before, why quit now?  Do angels have the memories of goldfish?  Last time
our two factions teamed up, you got a lot of my best wolves killed.  You
remember that?"

Sam shook his head patiently.  "Not I.  Not us.  The demons killed your
wolves.  Our side took losses as well."

"And who was the one who was idiotic enough to make a deal with the demons
in the first place?" asked Rick.  "Who was it, tell me?  Cause no wolf
would ever be so stupid as to expect that anything a demon agreed to could
be counted upon."

"The point is, wolf, that neither one of our factions betrayed the other,"
Sam said.  "There was plenty of opportunity to do so, but we held true to
our words.  Our two species make for natural allies.  Angels are inherently
trustworthy.  We cannot lie, we have sworn not to.  Wolves don't have the
same level of integrity, but we angels have the advantage of telepathy.
Most any devious plot you may be hatching against us will be detected and
counteracted before they are put into effect.  Therefore, both of us know
we can trust each other.  You may hate us, in fact, I know that you do.
You may want us dead.  But still, you know I am trustworthy, and you know
that you have no other choice but to do as I wish."

"Or what?" asked Rick.  "Or you'll kill my two brothers?  Is that the
continued threat?"

"Exactly," Sam said.

"And still, even if I do everything you say, you cannot guarantee their
safe return to me, is that still true?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

Rick chuckled in frustration.  "Well then, I just don't see what you have
to bargain with here.  My brothers mean a lot to me, but I cannot endanger
my entire species on some off chance that you may release them to me.  That
just wouldn't be responsible."

"The lives of your two wolves is not what I expect to bargain with here, my
friend," Sam told him.

"What is it, then?" asked Rick.  "And don't call me `friend.'"

"THIS is what I'm bargaining with."  Sam walked over and kicked the bloody
head of the fallen wolf.  "For centuries we angels have stayed out of this
conflict between you and the demons.  Now, for the first time, you shall
see our power at war.  If you refuse to submit and do as we instruct, then
we shall first point our swords in your direction.  You haven't a prayer in
defeating us, wolf, especially not while you still limp from your battles
with the demons.  You speak of avoiding submission to us in order avoid
endangering your kind?  We will kill every last one of your kind before you
can even begin to muster a defense.  Is that clear?"

Behind Sam, Fortitude put a hand on his sword menacingly.

"Crystal," Rick growled.  "What cruel fate do you have in mind for my kind,
then, angel?"

"Don't be so glum," Sam told him.  "Helping us angels will actually help
you out as well.  Recently, the tides of this war have been changing.  The
demons have wrestled away the reigns from your hands.  Left to your own
devices, you will lose the war.  That I am certain of."

"I wouldn't make the mistake of underestimating us," Rick said.

"And I wouldn't make the mistake of falling prey to some supercilious
delusions.  If you are as skilled a strategist as you must be, you know I
speak the truth here.  With the Bridge out of the picture, there isn't even
a variable that could work in your favor.  You will lose the war in a
matter of months."

"And how do you suggest we prevent that from happening?" asked Rick.

"Our two factions will join forces.  You wolves will do the fighting.  The
grunt work.  Us angels will be the brains.  The decision-makers."

Case laughed.  "I don't like the sound of that, Rick."

"Yeah," Rick said.  "You expect us to die in battle while you angels just
sit around out of harm's way?  This is NOT a fair exchange."

"Nobody said it would be," Sam said to him.  "You don't have a choice here.
You will follow every order we give you.  We, in turn, will do what your
kind have failed to do for centuries.  We will break through the secrecy of
demon organization."

"How do you expect to do that?" Rick asked.  "I have been trying to do that
for months."

"We have telepathy on our side."

"You angels can't read the demons minds, I thought," Rick said.
"Otherwise, you would have known the demons were planning to betray us when
we attacked the Bridge."

"True, we can't read the minds of the demons themselves," Sam said.  "But,
they have begun to rely more and more upon their human slaves.  We can pull
all the information we need from them.  Attack plans and strategies.  The
locations of their safehouses.  It is this informational superiority that
will turn the tide in our favor.  You do exactly as we tell you to, and
it'll be the demons who are extinct in a matter of months.  Think about
what an accomplishment that will be."

Rick looked in the direction of Case, though Case's eyes were covered by
the sunglasses, so I couldn't tell what the guy was thinking.  After a
moment, Rick nodded.  "Alright.  I'll do this.  Not because I want to get
into any sort of alliance with you, angel, but because you have left me no
other choice."

"Good," Sam said.  "That is all.  You may go now."

Rick raised his hand up.  "One request-"

"No requests," Sam told him.  "You are in no position.  You will leave now,
and I will be in touch with you soon by phone.  Goodnight, gentleman."

"Fine," Rick huffed.  "Goodnight.  Case, let's go."

The two wolves walked out of the church without a further word.  A few
seconds later, two motorcycles fired up outside and drove off.

"They're gone," Sam said.  "You can come down!"

By this time I had already discovered the stairs and rushed down to
congratulate Sam.  "Lemme see your hand," I said, grabbing Sam's hand and
bringing it to my face.  I sniffed at his palm inquisitively.

"What in God's name are you doing?" Sam asked me.

"Nothing.  Just wanted to see what wolf-balls smelled like."  I pushed his
hand away and grabbed him excitedly on the shoulder.  "You had them by the
balls the moment they got here.  Nice work, bro, nice fucking work!"

I looked back at Fortitude standing by the wall, his eyes stony and adrift.
I wanted to give the guy props as well, after all, it was his quick
decisiveness that had resulted in the death of the new wolf.  It was that
act alone which had intimidated Rick into submission, I was sure of it.
Without Fortitude, Sam might have eventually found a way to take command of
the wolves, but Fortitude did it much faster and much better than Sam ever
would have.  I supposed it's why he was Fortitude in the first place.

I almost congratulated the guy, wanting so badly to become buds with the
one angel who I admired most.  But he had never shown the slightest bit of
concern over me.  Fuck, he continuously acted as if I wasn't even fucking
around.  He wasn't looking at us now, he was staring off into space.  So, I
didn't say shit to him.  Dude wouldn't have cared if I complimented him in
the first place.

Sam followed my eyes to look back at Fortitude.  His toothy smile receded
to a more modest one.  "I guess we should be heading back to the plane,"
Sam said, to both of us, I suppose.

The three of us walked out of the church towards the Masserati.  Fortitude
stopped suddenly, looking towards the trees.

"What, are the wolves still here?" I asked.

Fortitude didn't respond in any way to my question.  He walked over to the
trees, grabbed a hold of something large and black, and pulled it into the
clearing.

"The dead wolf's bike," Sam said, and then I could see that it was.

Fortitude set the bike upright and hit the ignition.

"Alright, Fortitude," Sam said.  "We'll see you back at the plane before
sunrise."

I figured that Fortitude must have told Sam he wasn't turning up the
opportunity to ride a sick-ass bike.  Fort straddled the thing like it was
his bitch, and took off down the road.

Sam smiled at me.  "Now that he's gone," he said.  "We don't have to leave
so soon."

I looked around.  "Okay.  But what the fuck is there to do around here?"

Sam popped the trunk of the Masserati.  "I thought you might get hungry so
I brought you a meal," he said.  "Nothing fancy, just some sandwich fixings
and fruit.  Let's take it in the church and have a feast.  To celebrate
this accomplishment."

Sam pulled out a grocery bag and headed back for the church.

"Um, okay," I said, thinking I'd rather be riding around on a motorcycle
with Fortitude than sitting in a ruined church eating grapes, but Sam was
my Domno, so I would have to go along with his odd ideas.  I suddenly felt
resentful towards Sebastian, and not just because he was an asshole this
time.  The fuckhead didn't know how lucky he was to have the most powerful
angel of them all as his Domno.

Sam quickly made me a turkey sandwich and handed me a bag of fruit.  I sat
down on a pew while I ate, not being able to take my eyes off of the fat,
headless dead man on the ground nearby.  I ripped apart that meaty sandwich
and downed it in a matter of moments.  My next victim was a juicy plum,
which I hungrily tore into.  The juice dribbling down my chin was not too
different a color from the red blood splashed all over the floor.

"I brought some champagne along as well," Sam said, pulling a bottle and a
glass out of his bag.  "I was pretty certain that things would go just as
they did.  I left the wolves with no other choice but to follow my
commands."

He popped the top off the champagne, white foam splashing to the ground as
I put aside the few tattered remains of my meal.  Filling a single glass,
he turned to face me.

"You ate that food so quickly," he said.  "Was it enough to satiate you?
Are you still hungry?"

I smiled as I took the glass from his hand.  "Of course I am," I said,
drinking down the whole glass in one, long gulp.

Sam chuckled.  "I was taught in my youth that a gentleman never chugs his
champagne.  He sips it modestly."

"Well, we both know I'm no gentleman," I said.  I stared ahead at him, this
now familiar beauty in front of me.  His black jacket, wide open and
exposing the fleshy tan skin of his chest to me, his left nipple just
barely visible.  His black slacks, loose fitting yet not quite managing to
cover up the wonderful package inside.

"Would you like me to pour you another glass?" he asked me, moving the
bottle of champagne in my direction.

I looked at him defiantly and threw the glass down to the floor, where it
shattered amongst the fallen red blood.  "It's not the champagne that I
want right now," I told him.

I pulled him forward and unbuckled his black belt.  He let me unbutton and
unzip him, let me pull his pants to his ankles.  Let me unstrap his member
and pull his jock down.  His dick was already coming to life.

I was eager for his cum, and noticing a trickle of precum drip down his
head, I lunged for it and started to work it over with my tongue.  I
silently shuddered as I swallowed the first trace of that sweet liquid.

He reached down and held his dick in place with his left hand, guiding the
head towards my mouth.  With the other hand, he lifted the bottle of
champagne forward.

"Seems a shame to open a bottle of bubbly without making a toast," he said.
"To the light.  To the dawn of the dominion of angels upon this land.  To
that end having been irrevocably set in motion in this church tonight."

I smiled up at him.

"And, of course," he added.  "To you, Bradley.  To my love."

He poured the pale gold liquid down onto the base of his dick, and it
traveled down along its length, mixing with his steady release of precum,
and pouring and bubbling and foaming into my waiting, open mouth.  The tang
of the champagne caught the back of my tongue as his cum produced more
pleasurable shudders within me.  Absolutely delightful.

As I sucked him off that night, I found my hands reaching around to find
his hard ass, kneading and exploring his crevice like I had never done
before, letting me realize my attraction to that particular body part.

With my mouth on his head along with our combined four hands stroking his
shaft, it wasn't long before he started to shoot.

My life, my poison, my reason for living poured into me mouth, splashing
all over my face and my hands as I drank it down.

When he finally pulled back, panting pleasurably, leaving me covered in
that slime, some new desire forced its way into my mind.

He lifted me up and pulled my pants down, diving hard onto my dick and
working every trick his tongue knew to give me pleasure.  I pulled away.
Shook my head.

"I don't want to come like this," I said.

"Like what?"

"Like always!  You sucking me off like always!"

He seemed a little surprised.  "Whatever I can do to please you, I wish to
know," he said.  "Pleasing you pleases me most."

I looked at him in the eye.  I wanted to tell him what I wanted to do to
him, what I wanted from him.  But I was ashamed.

Instead, I looked away from him, not letting him meet my eye.  I grabbed
him and pushed him backwards, forcefully, even if my force was nothing but
an illusion, nothing but his good humor.

I spun him around and pushed him forward onto the church alter, one or two
candles falling to the floor in the process.

I had him bent over that alter, his bare ass in the air, and that's when he
must have realized exactly what it was I had in mind.  I wasn't going to
ask his permission; he had already given it to me.

I rubbed the large amount of his slimy cum I had all over my hands into the
crevice of his ass, pulling his tight cheeks apart and fingering his warm
hole.

"Nobody has wanted to do this to me for a long time," Sam said, not exactly
with excitement, but certainly with acceptance.  "Go ahead.  I'm an angel.
You can't hurt me, Bradley."

I rubbed the remainder of his cum all over my dick.  With a ferocious new
appetite, I lined up my dickhead with his puckered hole.  I pushed myself
into him hard, with all of the sexual energy burning inside of me, begging
to be released.

Holy fuck, it felt so good.  So warm and so tight, so much better than any
pussy I had fucked.  I cried out with pleasure.  I couldn't control myself
as I started to fuck him hard in short little back and forth strokes.  His
own wet cum that I had stuffed inside him rubbed against every part of my
dick, tingling it with its own special magic.

"Fuck, yes," I called out.  "Fuck yes, Sam."

I reached forward and put my hands around his stomach, holding on as I rode
the hell out of him.

With each stroke I grunted happily, my dick throbbing with such pleasure.

"Yes, Bradley, Yes!" he cried out beneath me, grunting along with me at
each thrust.  I knew it must have been more my pleasure that he was
responding to than it was the actual process of getting fucked.  In the
whole history of our sex-life, he had always put my pleasures first.  Hell,
he had been that way even before we started getting off together.  He was
just so fucking giving.

Then again, nothing got him off more than pleasing me.  Beneath me now, he
was not faking pleasure in order to encourage me or heighten my enjoyment
while he bit his lower lip and bared the pain.  He was loving every second
of this just as I was.  If he got off sexually on pleasing me, did that
mean that pleasing me was just as selfish as me demanding to be pleased?

The thought was too complicated for me to hold onto, and Sam was now so
excited that his wings were ripping out of his back, flying out, framing
the two of us in beautiful white.

I held on even tighter to his body.  "I'm about to cum, bro," I huffed.

And then he did the one thing that was selfish, but the one thing that I
knew was unavoidable.  He pulled his ass off my dick, and spun around under
me with slippery speed, ending up with his mouth around my dick, his hands
on my ass, pulling me into him.

I finished off my fuck into his mouth, and it still felt amazing.

Crying out with ecstasy and pulling his blonde curls with both hands, I
started to shoot what I was sure must have been the biggest load of my
life.

Slack-jawed as he swallowed my load, I looked up at the height of my climax
to see Jesus's tattered form nailed to the large wooden cross on the wall.
I stared at the vacant looking eyes on the gaunt figure's face, and
imagined for a second that they were not a sign of pain or impending death,
but of pure, uninhibited sexual pleasure, the same kind I was experiencing
now.

Even the most powerful orgasm has to end, and as it did, Sam stood up and
took me into his warm arms, kissing me like he always did after sex.

After my hard breaths died down, I looked into his face and asked him,
"Does this mean you're a bottom?"

He laughed at me.  "The notion of set roles in gay sex is nothing but a fad
of the past few decades," he said.  "I come from an age that didn't bother
to distinguish between those two positions."

"Oh, sorry for bringing it up, then," I said.

He smiled at me.  "Besides," he told me, "I'm completely and utterly
versatile, depending on the needs of my partner.  Any man who isn't is
unfairly limiting himself.  Of course, an angel cannot possibly fuck his
human lover, if that's what he desires.  But even in that case, there are
other more creative ways to pleasure the human.  If you'd like to
experience them, I'd love to show you."

I shook my head.  "Hell no, bro.  I'm fine limiting myself to being a
top-only.  Not all of us have your reduced pain thing going on, and I'm not
much of a masochist."

He kissed me on the forehead.  "Whatever makes you happy," he said simply.
"Now, let's leave one church for another.  We have good news to deliver to
the rest of the Cathedral."

We put our clothes back on, and blew out the candles.  With just the
moonlight coming through the broken roof shining down on the figure of
Jesus on the cross, his features looked different to me.  I stared up at
his face, seeing that the expression of sexual ecstasy had been nothing
more than an illusion.  No, very clearly, the man was in terrible pain.  It
was his reward for a life of virtue and faith.  It was the fate that many
of those who had followed his ways shared throughout the centuries.

The path of faith could often lead a man to a terrible end.

"Are you ready?" Sam asked me from the church door.

"Yeah," I said, taking one last look at Christ's form before turning away
and going towards Sam.

He put his arm around me and led me back out into the night.


TO BE CONTINUED