The darkness parts in front of me, light forming down the middle and spreading toward my face, the cocoon splitting, the shelter cracking in half. The ruffling of feathers is almost as loud as the rumbling from behind me. They part, the great wings rising above me. Blue. The feathers are so blue, so deep and dark and wonderfully blue that the lump in my throat grows bigger and my eyes burn.
The rumbling turns into a full-on growl and I turn my head to the left. Only inches from me is the face of the angel Calliel, coming slowly into focus. His head is so close to mine I can smell my soap on him, even through the scent of musty earth. The stubble on his head blends into a sideburn that turns into the light beard across his face, a deeper red than I’ve ever noticed before. His eyes look almost completely black. His lips are parted, his teeth bared in fury. The rumbling is coming from him. His chin scrapes my shoulder, and only then do I notice his arms around me protectively, his right across my right shoulder and chest, his left around my waist.
Something catches the corner of my eye and I look up, over his head. The wing above me seems massive, pressed against the ceiling and bending back down toward the floor. A tip of the wing, which I now see is the left, falls toward me. It stops moving down about a foot overhead. The wingtip is still for a moment, but then it starts to shake, twitching back and forth. Something falls. I reach up with my only free hand and catch the object. It’s hot in my hand. I lower it to see.
A round disc of burning metal, squashed flat.
The bullet.
The growl is turning into a roar.
I turn from Cal and look ahead. The tweaker is standing frozen, his face pale. Abe is staring slack-jawed, his eyes wide. I wonder what they see. I think for a moment, my mind disconnecting from the reality in front of me, that what they see must all be blue.
I turn back to the angel. I reach up with my free hand and grab his chin, turning his head toward mine. There’s a moment when the sound coming from his throat gets louder, and his eyes get blacker, but then something sparks within him and a semblance of humanity returns.
He can’t have humanity, I think wildly. He’s not human.
“Hey,” I whisper.
He snarls at me.
I shake his chin with my hand. I struggle to free my left arm, twisting as I pull.
He tightens his grip around me, and for a moment, I think he won’t let me go, but I slide my other arm loose and he moves his hands to my back, clutching me tightly. I reach up and cup his face in my hands. He tries to pull away and I dig my fingers into his skin.
“Hey,” I say again, louder. “It’s okay.”
Cal shakes his head. “He needs to go into the black!” he roars, his voice far deeper than I’ve heard it. His breath is hot against my face, contrasting with the chills down my spine. “He will suffer for trying to take what’s mine!”
“No,” I say, trying to ignore the way his words slam into me. “You need to listen to me. Can you do that?”
I think he’s going to refuse, he’s going to pull away and launch himself at the gunman, sending him into the black, whatever or wherever that may be. He surprises me then, as a shudder rolls through him, rippling up through his body and extending through his wings. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, and when they open again, they are dark, but the overpowering black is gone. He nods.
“You are not the judge,” I tell him. “You are not the jury. You are not the executioner. Since you are none of those things, what are you?”
“I am the protector,” he whispers.
In the distance, a bell rings, but we ignore it.
“And you have protected me,” I tell him, relaxing my grip on his face, tugging gently on the auburn hairs on his face. From up above, bright lights swirl and the wings begin to fade.
His face grows dark again. “But… but he—”
“No,” I tell him. “Me. You and me. Okay?”
He watches me for a moment. I don’t look away. He sighs and the lights above grow brighter, obscuring the feathers, which are