I had been taking a lot of elevator rides recently. I didn't have time to reflect on that though, because the elevator was fast as fuck. I was first unsettled by the speed, and before I could really catch myself the doors opened.

A good secret nightclub would have a little lobby area to fully ready the fancy folks who'd were entering, a little place with maybe a classy bar and a polite doorman.

The Blues just opened to the heart of the club, a short stage with a section of tables and chairs. On most nights, you'd walk right out of here into some sort of deafening noise, a mildly good singer determined to pierce your eardrums or a dreadfully loud band.

The place was a long line of misaligned ideas. To the left of the performance area was a series of couches put together like a maze. Beyond that was a series of nice, wooden chairs and booths by the window, as well as a proper kitchen.

It was midday- three fifty exactly- and the place was rightly deserted. A couple of scroungy looking people were scattered throughout. Some sort of music was playing, but it wasn't what you'd expect from this sort of place. Likely it was some security personnel playing their favorite tracks before the place actually opened later tonight.

Rhamiel and the other angel sat at a booth. Rhamiel's gaze was fixed out the window, and he didn't even look as we slide in.

"Pepper," said the man who was evidently Salt, "You're here." He had pure white hair that was growing out, his darker roots clearly exposed.

"Doing some escorting. This is Mannie, a friend of Blake's and a courier of sorts who just brought me the wondrous news that Sydney Westman is dead."

"Yes." Everyone's attention slowly panned to Rhamiel.

Rhamiel had a young face. I don't normally like to talk about people's appearances, nor do I like to dwell on them. He had those nasty scars all over, of course, but I always thought he had one of those really childish faces if you could somehow remove them. Large eyes, soft skin and a bad bone structure.

Salt and Pepper both looked young- most angels did- maybe even in that same youthful period that divides the young from the children. Rhamiel had just barely slipped below that border, dangling right on the edge with a single finger holding on.

He still had blood on his face, a smearing around his mouth and chin had left a dark hue, one that was purer still on the spots he had missed below his chin. He looked overwhelmingly guilty too, which was a nice thing for him to do. I'd hate to have to argue with him about the whole 'ripping people's throats out unexpectedly is weird and not good' thing.

I had left to find him, I had found him, and I was wholly unprepared. He had simply been a bad plan to impress a near stranger. Now he was blood-stained my responsibility.

"Hello," He said in a soft voice, like he had recently forgotten to cough, "I want you to look at this ring," he pulled the angelsword out of his pocket and dropped it into my palm.

"Hey," I said. I turned the ring over in my hands. It made of a dark metal, thick and heavy, with a large and uneven white quartz as the centerpiece. The leather lining was soft to touch, and I ran my fingers along it as I spoke, "I liked Sydney, you know."

Like saying that helped.

"You hated her."

"It's frightening how people's opinions change when someone dies." I was satisfied with the thought, but after a few seconds it felt cheesy. "You shouldn't have done that."

"I told you I needed a weapon. I told you I was seeking a weapon. I found a weapon. I took it." His eyes finally carried emotion. "Very much planned and very much logical."

"Look," I said, and I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. I frowned. "Look, okay. Just- Look. I mean, I know-" I closed my eyes.

"You should've have bothered coming here. I will take care of myself fine."

"I know that. I know that," I said, "Look, I don't normally get myself tangled in these things, these concerns of other people. I thought it'd be a good idea to- I don't know, bring you to justice? But I guess- I guess I don't really know what to do. I guess I only came here because you owe me one."

"I owe you?"

"I'm fucking sick of hearing other people speak. But- tell me why. Tell me what happened with you." Pepper and Salt were grinning at the both of us from across the table. I shooed them away to the other side of the room.

"I did promise," he said, soft skinned, like a lamb. "We don't have time in Heaven. We have moments, and we have scenes. Events. No days, just suns. So I do not know how long I have been here."

"A year," I said. "I'm pretty sure it's a year." I hadn't known of Rhamiel's existence- no one had- but I could remember a vague speech about a year back by Alexander Scott, the Ophiuchus. It'd been the first time he'd been seen in public since his election, and it wasn't long after that Sydney had been put in office, and the angelswords had become part of the military.

"A year without starlight. A room without dark." Rhamiel didn't seem surprised that had it had been that long- or was a year shorter than he had expected? He gazed out the window. "I was walked three times a day. Fed once. Every other minute was on my back, facing the lights. Every so often they would lay me on the table and take my skin. This must have been on schedule, but it always felt sudden."

"That's fucked up, but honestly, you could have had it worse."

"I had it how I had it. Always the lights, never the sun, and without a night. We do not like the stars-" He emphasized 'we' strangely, holding it out, like to be associated with other angels was something he had to question- "We take comfort in knowing they exist. They are omens, they are death, but we see them, and we knew. I saw nothing, I knew nothing, just black, white, and silver."

"How did they capture you? Hell's always been against taking angels alive."

"I was left for dead," Rhamiel jerked his head in what struck me as a very casual manner, a sort of implied 'obviously' on his part. "I may have died. Thought I had. I woke under the body of another, and crawled until I could walk. A man found me, and carried me to his home by the woods, and took me away from everything good. Ad pecc."

"Towards sin?" I hated angelic.

"Yes."

"What did you tell him had happened? You must have been covered in blood."

"My wings were out." That settled that. A man finds a downed god in the woods. What do you do but accept your place in this new dichotomy of Heaven and Hell? I'd gone through something similar when I was younger. You don't turn away, though. You should, but you don't.

Rhamiel shook his head, like the next few words took a bit more effort to force from his mouth. "I was led astray by that man, and a new day. And that new life. And the idea of a new anything. Nothing was real, old, and suddenly, neither was I. There was only a forbidden promise found in the flesh of an unknown man: humanity."

"Oh shit. That's some deep as fuck prose. How long did that take you?" Try as I was, it was hard shaking Rhamiel's words out of my mind. His eyes were wide- well, considering. His right one was still awkwardly clenched, watery and forced shut by a soft pink cut. Everything he said sounded dead. There was nothing I could do to lighten this- he looked and spoke like he no longer had control of his muscles, like I was hallucinating the sounds from his mouth and staring at a long-suffered corpse.

"All I've been thinking about, light after light, is what I will tell Michael, and what I shouldn't have done. And that shouldn't is everything. I tried to never leave that man, but dreams haunted my breaths, and Michael knew my thoughts. He called, and I came, programmed again."

"How did Michael react?" Even my voice was sounding dead, sobered by him, ignoring the soft rock from the kitchen, the light chatter of Pepper from a few tables down.

"I never saw him. Heaven did not welcome me, my brothers were cold and my urn was cast and filled with ashes and burnt funeral lilies. To survive was not to live, but to escape everything I'd always known I was. Everything my brothers knew about me had died when I had, in the woods, in the darkness."

I would've made another rude quip about Rhamiel's strange use of prose, the sudden jump in eloquence, but. I wasn't going to. I was going to breath, and smell the old cigarette smoke that haunted this booth, while Rhamiel tapped against the window.

"Every step I took was poisoned after him, chased by emotions I had never been allowed. Everything tasted bitter after Earth, like dirt and a lack of sugar. It was his fault, and I had to get back. Anything, I'd do, and everything, it took. When I was put back into the war, I took the first chance I could to... do what I had to do. Killed my squad. Promised the demons I'd cooperate. They didn't trust me, tied me up and talked it over. One of them, a prisoner dressed like a general, leaned over. Slipped me a ring and told me she could help."

"Why did you trust her?"

"She told me what I needed to hear, so I freed myself and killed the lot of them too. The prisoner- her name was Sydney Westman. And she bashed my head in. She ended my life, and brought me to the light."

"Is that why you killed her?"

"I killed her because it was time. Because she was there, and I needed the ring. Because I need to get to Earth, and I need to find him. Because I need another life, and a real, real night. Again."

"It isn't hard to get to Earth," I said. "I could show you."

Rhamiel didn't react. "We've always thought of you as creatures of the dark, slithering in caves, covered in dirt. We were of the light, of Grace, dwelling. But now I know you are of light and we are of sun: you never rest, never cease trying to attain what we allow to pass."

"Look. I'll take you there. Eventually. Maybe."

"You shouldn't." He sighed, and it was relief just seeing him moving, breathing. "He didn't love me. Michael did. I do not deserve light, or love. Just the blood I give myself. And... I'm done. I haven't suffered, I have been punished, and that is what I have, and am, and..."

"Rhamiel."

"Please don't say my name."

"Rhamiel, Michael doesn't own you. Michael doesn't love you. He loves having you, the concept of you, the fact that you love him... he's a leader, not a human. And I don't doubt that you're awful, but don't you still deserve the right to a fucking nature walk? It isn't hard. I'll take you to Earth, and you can just stay with me until we figure something out."

"No." Rhamiel sounded a little alarmed by my proposition. "I brought this to myself."

"Yeah. Obviously. But who gives a shit about consequences, okay? I do generally have a lot against you, but I'm not a good person. You're admitting your mistakes, ri-"

"No."

"Fuck off and stop trying to get me to pity you. I already do."

"It's okay. I'm running out of words."

"One year of sunlight and it takes you only a few minutes."

He propped his head up by his hand. "You'd think all those hours of nothingness would foster creativity, but I'll admit. It was mostly pain, and existential crises. Am I real? Is this real? Were the stars real? Sometimes I felt like I fell into a dream. Sometimes it felt like there was a dream within my dream, where I was human, where I knew other words." He paused, again taking his time to continue. "Ha!"

"Ha?"

"Ha! Who cares. Who, as you say, gives a fuck. I know only what circled through my head this last, long year: the mantras of angels. The hymns someone wrote, and every last twinge of song that I've been repeated over and over again. So you know. Fuck. I gotta get back there."

He was coming to life again, still a little like a jerky animatronic, still a little stiff. Programmed. Lying. "I'll help you," I promised, "Just one thing first."

"You said that earlier. Clearly trying to get me to ask what."

"Well," I said, "Blake."