Psalm V: The Darkness

The morning had been a blur.

Miles didn't remember the phone call and how it had sped his heart so much he felt it would explode. He didn't remember answering the door, his sweaty hands slipping on the knob. He didn't remember what Manuel had asked or what Miles had answered. All he knew was that now he was standing alone in his living room and facing the steel crate that held her.

He dropped his change and lost his face. He was himself, someone he hadn't seen in a long time. Seeing his reflection on the smooth silver, Miles had forgotten how hideous his right eye looked. The one he had stabbed with the feather of his angel. A marble of red veins suffocating a pool of green, it was a miracle he could see out of it.

He grinned.

The metal was cold and smooth under his palm. Miles didn't know what to expect as he touched the cage. It almost felt empty and a wave of panic overwhelmed him for a second, but he knew she was in there. He had heard the rustle of a body as Manuel and another nameless Cleaner had set her down on the floor. He placed his other hand on the grey surface. The wall beeped, twin doors slowly slid open, and, like a light breeze pushing curtains apart, Miles's angel was revealed.

She sat with her back towards him, knees drawn to her chest.

Silver.

That was the color of her hair. Pale blue hues danced within the straight strands. The locks were kept between shoulder blades that poked under silky, pale skin. The curve of her spine disappeared halfway down her back under the white cloth that wrapped around her body.

White. The color of sin.

But where were her wings?

Miles took a step towards her, entering the cage. The angel didn't move. He took another tentative step followed by another until he was directly behind her, his shadow overtaking her. She still refused to budge as if dead. He kneeled down.

Her wings. He knew they were folded under her skin. But he had to see them.

His fingertips brushed her shoulders, and all the heat of the world was in his hands. Miles half cried, half sighed as he wrapped his arms around her torso and pulled her against him. He bowed, burying his face in the hollow of her collarbone. Her hair fell on his head and divine smelled like cold.

Miles rocked with her, each movement delivering a kiss, a touch, a lick. He relieved her of her crude wraps, of her falsely implied sins, and spread her legs to see she was like any other woman but also not. He ran the pads of his fingers on her, one after the other.

Desire exploded in him coupled with an expansion of another emotion he didn't recognize it was so rarely encountered in this world. The swirl of these sensations gnawed at his stomach each time he touched her. Her warmth fed it, growing. Mounting. Until he grunted and pulled her hair so she would face him. She stared at him with garnet eyes, but he only caught a flash of their burn as his mouth closed over hers.

He ignited.

She was divine. She was eternity. She was salvation. All this he tasted on her. He wanted to feed on her, devour her.

He wanted to see her wings.

Miles opened his mouth to ask his wish, but he realized something. "What is your name?" he asked instead, his lips brushing hers.

She stiffened, the only reaction she had done thus far.

He ran his thumb on her lips. They seemed thicker when he kissed her.

She scowled, gaze sharp.

Miles kept stroking. Coaxing. "Your name? What should I call you?"

Her stare remained hard, framed by frosty white eyelashes.

He stroked harder.

There was a waver in her eyes like she had lost a fight against something, and she blinked. "I was given the name Vretiel."

Miles smiled. Her voice, the only thing he had remembered, hadn't changed. Hadn't aged. It reminded him of warm milk with honey, yet he had never had such a drink.

"Vretiel," he said. Her named wrapped his tongue in odd angles in his mouth.

"What do you want with me?" she asked.

He hugged her tighter. "You wings. I want to see them."

"No."

A spark of anger volleyed through his chest like the sharp haze of a shooting star. "Why?"

"No."

His eyes widened, lips parted.

Didn't she understand that he saved her? That he would do anything for her—what he had done for her—and all he was asking was for one simple favor? Just to see the bloody majesty that had set him on the path to her? Couldn't she see that all this was because he loved her?

He gripped her wrists and yanked her so her back hit his chest. He heard her teeth click together. Miles brought his lips to her ear. "If you don't, it won't go very well for you."

Vretiel laughed. The sound of such clarity and the way her chuckles caused her body to move against his aroused him. He kissed her ear and neck. She stopped.

"I am familiar with all the threats your kind likes to say," she said. "I will not show you my wings."

A blaze of fury and frustration burned away Miles's excitement. He knocked her down so she was on her stomach, her face pushed up against one of the crate's corners. He sat on her legs and grabbed both her wrists in a fist. With his free hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver scalpel—the least offensive of his arsenal.

He sliced between her right shoulder blade and spine. The wound oozed mercury blood, and Miles shoved his fingers in the fleshy pocket. It was like touching fire. Regardless, his fingers raked for what he sought. As his hand inched further in, he could hear the rip of her skin as the gash grew, trying to accept him.

The angel remained still and silent.

Miles found it. What felt like tiny, balled up tissues clung to his fingers. He pinched as much as he could between his fingers and drew out a bundle of wet feathers. They squirmed in his hand, and he pulled back to see an impossible amount of feathers erupt from the gash. Rows and rows folded over each other, solid brown plumes that emerged untouched by the blood and gore which bore them. Miles was in awe as the glider unfolded, so huge and powerful it had to bend in half in the crate.

That was when the angel started screaming.

A twin gash on the left side of Vretiel's back appeared, but no feathers were seen there. Instead, a broken twig of a bone feebly poked through her flesh. It was black and rotten, strings of her muscles wrapped around the jagged tip. Even the fresh blood on the hollow blackness appeared dead. Vretiel whimpered when the bone moved in unison with its healthy counterpart.

Miles gasped. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he whispered as he kissed her back, her blood scorching his lips and tongue.

"Please..." Vretiel said.

He ignored her mostly because he wasn't sure she said anything. Miles leaned forward and ran his palm on her feathers. Even though his hands still throbbed with her blood, he felt the plumes' velvet strokes. The sensation of their touch, of finally, finally having them in his hands, caused him to harden. He felt his cock press down on Vretiel's lower back which excited him even more.

"Please!" Vretiel's voice was a bulldozer. "I have to put them away. It hurts!"

Miles nodded and even without seeing the movement, she seemed to understand. Her wings retracted. Bones pulled in and folded, but as they did, the feathers fell off. They formed a violent flurry in the air like swarms of locust. Miles didn't move until the last plume settled on the floor.

He lifted Vretiel, feathers sliding off her body, and exited the crate. As he walked to his room, Miles noticed her downcast look. She appeared defeated, a victim of an unknown force. An ache to comfort her bloomed inside Miles chest, but before he could say anything, Vretiel wrapped her delicate arms around his neck and looked up at him. Her eyes were vacant.