By the end of my work day, it was dark, my temporary name had been changed to 'Fardeau', and my co-workers had started to call me Dewey. I was physically exhausted from the manual labor of my job by the time I returned to Tecie's apartment, and was irritated to find Stacy Baruth outside the door.

"Stacy Baruth." I tried not to sigh when I spoke. I knew to expect his presence. I did not particularly mind it either. I was just tired.

"Hurry on now. You have a lot of work to do."

He led me down in the light of the setting fake-sun to a small building with windows covered by white wood. And he left me there with a pat on the back and a single word:

"Wings."

Wings. I could feel mine bristle restlessly at the thought of taking them out. I hadn't seen my own for a long time now. They were light blue, that I knew, like the sky.

Angelic wings are not quite wings at all, and I suppose to use a very poor metaphor, they were similar to demon's wings. They didn't quite exist. We could 'put them away' and they would leave no trace of ever having existed. And when we took them out again, they'd be there, as real feeling as anything. The only oddity being, unlike demon's wings, they were able to phase through clothing- but again, they were never physical objects to begin with.

It took a certain level of emotional commitment to keep them hidden, and in times of danger or great stress, angels would often accidentally show their wings.

We know our wings to be extensions of our Grace. To show them is to show our Grace, and thus at once our strength and weakness. Because of this, only friends could see your wings, and only the closest could touch them.

Because our wings were merely projections of our Grace, they could not fly. They were really quite big, inconveniently so, but not big enough to even allow for gliding. Iilal once tried to glide. He broke his legs and was felled shortly after.

I had to navigate a series of odd blockades in a damp alley to even approach the entrance of the rotting building. Once I had found the doorway, indistinguishable from the wall around it in the dark, I nervously drew my wings and folded them behind my back. The air did not feel good.

I remembered that I had to show confidence. I was these demons' savior. They were going to love me.

I opened the door. A heavy scent of rot bothered me immediately, but otherwise the place seemed fairly clean. The floor smelled of new wood, the lights were aesthetically charming, and the people, while still demons, did not appear malevolent.

They watched as I entered the door. I held my head up high and let my arms hang by my side like I was going to twirl in a circle, hands horizontal and stiff. And I slowly spread my wings. Luckily the wall space was large enough to allow me to, and luckily the lights above shone ever so nicely on my feathers.

The effect was immediate. They bowed. They actually bowed! It was more of a kowtow, honestly, as many of them scurried onto the floor to proper lower their heads to the ground. I had a thought then. 'This is how all demons should react when they see angels.' It wasn't the best thought I ever had, but it made me giddy never the less.

Some of them raised their heads as I walked- I was more or less aimless really, but felt I had to walk. Their eyes were so wide, and so many seemed to be crying. It was only after a moment that I had the sense to ask them to rise.

Their leader, a woman whose long red hair I approved of, greeted me. But she always kept her eyes rather low to the ground.

"You came." She murmured.

"...Because of you." I said.

"Me?" She seemed alarmed.

I caught myself. "Because of all of you. I have heard your prayers. I am an angel."

They all seemed to regard this as a very good thing indeed, though they were still doing their best to stay respectfully quiet. That would be a bad thing for me though. There was only so much lying I could do before I got confused. I still needed one of them to tell me what was going on here, after all.

"You don't need to fear me. have come to guide, and help. But not to command." I thought my speech good, and besides, as long as I had my wings out they agreed with whatever I thought. "In fact, I am not wholly familiar with the mission I have been sent here to guide."

"I'll explain all to you, heavenly one." The leader pledged. She did not offer to take my hand, but pointed in a direction. I was expected to lead her there, I realized.

As I walked through the small gathering, I folded my wings back. I couldn't hide them yet, of course, but I was still very insecure about having them out in the first place. And then came the touching- as I walked past them, the followers reached out and stroked my wings. Their hands stung like ice and it was a struggle to keep a steady face. The only time I flinched was when one of them pulled out a feather. I turned around and stared her down for just the shortest of moments. She immediately collapses onto the floor in a kowtow, and the touching ceased.

The leader led me to a small and intimate room at the top of a recently repaired staircase. She sat on the bed across from me and lit a number of rose-scented candles. "My name's Lilith Starlin. I know it's a bit cliché, but you know, it was my name... before all this. I go by Lily now."

Out of pure habit alone, I gestured to myself. "Nichael." Then I recalled. "I am Nichael, the angel of... lavender, wealth, and belief."

"An interesting combination." She seemed more willing to challenge my authority, but she still was staring transfixed at my wings.

"Makes more sense in Enochian."

"So, Nichael. Our mission here at 'The Them', as we're sometimes called- well, we're mostly called 'The church of Future Angels'- but our mission is simply to remove resistance of angels in Hell. We welcome you and your kind with open arms, for we realize as demons, we deserve to be your inferiors. After all, it was our own choices and sins that brought us to damnation, while you have simply always existed in holiness."

She paused and took a heavy breath in. I was continuously uncomfortable, it felt, especially with the way she seemed to slather her words with heavy praise. She was obviously enamored by angels. But it made me feel odd, no matter how much I agreed with the sentiments of demon's inferiority. I guess I just didn't like to see anyone admit to that sort of defeat. A good fight was much more fun than no fight.

"We plan to take down the system, destroy the army, and convert others to our cause so that you may come and reign over Hell peacefully."

"We have Heaven."

"Then you may dispose of us, if you wish. Perhaps in our after-after life, we will be finally pure."

"How long have you followed this faith?"

"I've been faithful from the start. I've always believed in angels, and in my forced year as a soldier I made sure not to harm a single one. I tried to speak to them but- but they never even looked at me. That's when I started to realize what being a demon really meant. And then, five years ago, I was inspired by the actions of the two renegades, and formed this church."

"Renegades?" I frowned, but tried not to let Lilith see. Renegades were highly disapproved of in Heaven.

"There were three of them, according to myth. And television. But a lot of knowledge of them comes from word of mouth, so their tale has really evolved into something else. One was a demon, one was a human, and one was an angel. They traveled from the depths of Hell to the crust of Earth, and then back down again. Each one of this semi-holy trinity represented a different facet of life- the demon was affluent and cruel, the human was passive and kind, and the angel was powerful and a trickster."

"What was the angel's name?"

"Rhamiel." Rhamiel? He had died a very long time ago. We didn't have years in Heaven. Was five years that long ago, or was there another layer to this that I was unaware of? I had been at his funeral. We had burned his body.

"According to legend, on one of the treks through Hell, the demon, human and angel suffered an argument. The demon wanted to head to Heaven. The angel wanted to head to Earth. And the human wanted to stay in Hell. As they fought, Kelly Campbell, the head accountant in The Few overheard. He hated angels greatly, and during his time in the military, would eat them while in his hellhound form. This time again he changed shape into his hellhound body, and attacked the trio."

"What, in the middle of the street?"

"Yes. The human fainted, passively. The demon tried to save the angel by fleeing deeper into Hell, but was cornered. Finally, the angel made his final request: end his life so that he could die with respect. The demon did so, and Kell abducted the demon as an offering to his superior, Alexander. And that's the last anyone saw of any of them. Except the angel Rhamiel, of course. His body is on display in the hospital morgue."

The story sounded incredibly ludicrous, of course, but I listened carefully anyways. Something had to be true in it. The part about Kelly Campbell certainly was. It was common knowledge he used to paint his face with angel blood, and then would lick it off his fingers.

"So." I asked Lilith. "What can I do for you?"

"Guide us. Lead us. Show us the way." She sounded like she was pleading with me. "And what can I do for you?"

"I got it covered. Don't concern yourself too much. I will always be here. But... mostly in the evenings. I am not quite a pure entity of Grace, and have other business in this forsaken city."

"Come by whenever you can, please." She asked. "And-"

Her fingers were making painful gestures, and I knew what she wanted. I did not sigh. I unfolded my wings again, and shivered as she ran her fingers through my feathers. She was so careless about it, especially for someone who worshipped angels. Surely she knew better than to grab my feathers in large clumps? Or to rub them the wrong way? I was really going to have to groom them later to fix all this- despite not technically existing, my wings had a number of very real problems associated with them, including the need for constant grooming. They didn't just fix themselves when I put them away.

Before she let me leave, Lilith pulled three of my longest feathers. She twirled them in her hands for a moment, and then settled on putting them behind her ear.

Again as I walked out, everyone bowed to me, this time a less formal head nod. Their subservience left me feeling odd no matter what I tried to tell myself, and it was honestly a relief to walk back onto the streets again with normal demons. Demons who would want me dead if they knew what I was.