For millennia the angel had found the concept of humanity revolting and then had been shocked at how easy it was to be one of them—how simply he slipped into the role of humanity—and he found the experience to be quite enjoyable most of the time. Alastor had grown particularly fond of eating and television.

The fallen angel looked away from the mirror, suddenly unnerved by his grotesque appearance. “I tell you there was no other way.” He continued through the basement, drawing closer to the source of his tribulation.

“I’m here,” he announced, his breath coming in wheezing gasps as he stopped before a large wooden table bolted to the wall. The top of the workplace had been cleared away, the only uncluttered surface in the entire room, and resting on it was a long, cardboard box.

“Do you miss us?” asked the voice in a sibilant whisper that tickled his ears.

Alastor felt the scars on his back begin to burn and itch beneath his heavy, cotton sweatshirt—slightly at first, but growing to the point where he wished he could tear the flesh from his back to make it stop. He gripped the ends of the table and squeezed.

“Of course I miss you, but…”

“Take us back,” the voice commanded, hissing. “Make us whole again. It was never supposed to be this way.”

The fallen angel shook his head sadly, the flesh of his face and neck wobbling with his repressed emotion. “If I were to do that, I would most certainly be destroyed,” he said, fighting back tears.

He reached for the box flaps that hid the artifacts of his past and pried them apart, the scars upon his shoulder blades screaming for his attention.

“But we would be together again,” the whisper from within the box cajoled. “As we are meant to be.”

Alastor had wrapped them in sheets of plastic to protect them from the dampness. He gasped as he always did when he looked upon them, never fully remembering the extent of his sacrifice. He started to close up the box, not wanting to be reminded.

“Look at me,” the voice within the box demanded.

“I have looked,” he responded slowly. “And as usual, I am filled with an overwhelming sadness.”

“Unwrap us,” it ordered. “Look upon us and remember.”

Alastor found himself doing as the voice requested, pulling back the plastic wrap to expose the box’s contents. He remembered the pain—the decision, as well as the act itself—to sever from his body the final remnant of what separated him from the monkeys.

To be human, they had to be cut off.

Alastor mournfully gazed upon his severed wings. He had reasoned that without them, it would be easier to assume the human role, and it had most certainly helped, but that was before they began to speak to him.

With a trembling hand, the fallen angel gently stroked the downy soft surface of the wings and a faint smell of decay wafted up from them. He knew that it was impossible for the appendages to actually communicate with him, and defined the oddity as fallout from his attempt at being human. He had seen talk shows about situations just like this. The experts would say that he was delusional. Alastor smiled. To be human and insane; he had achieved far more success than he ever imagined.

“Put us on,” the wings whispered seductively. “Shed the grotesque shell that adorns you and wear us again.”

Alastor began to close the wrappings.

“What are you doing?” they asked, panic in their sound.

“I have done as you asked,” he responded to his psychosis, continuing to place the sheets of plastic over the severed limbs of flight. “I can do no more than that.”

“Please,” the wings begged as he began to close the box.

His body wracked with guilt, Alastor ignored the plaintive cries. “I’m sorry,” he managed.

The angel secured the box and stepped quickly back, listening for the sounds of protest that did not come. Perhaps they are honoring their bargain after all. He turned from the table, longing for the comfort of his chair, the television, and a large slice of pie. He smiled. It’s odd how much better things always are with pie.

The laughter seemed to come from all around him.

Alastor whirled, startled by the harshness of the sound. His eyes immediately went to the box, but something told him that the sound did not come from there. Had his psychosis manifested in another way, or was he no longer alone? The angel’s mind raced as he scanned the cluttered basement area before him.

A figure clad in crimson armor emerged from behind the curtain of coats hanging on pipes that ran across the cellar ceiling. Alastor gasped. The way the figure moved—stealthy and silent, almost as if he were watching something created by the madness of his own mind. Was it possible? Had his troubled thoughts created this specter in red? Something else to torment him?

But then it spoke, pointing a gauntlet-covered hand. “You try to hide, covering your pretty angel stink with the smell of man.” The crimson figure shook its helmeted head, an odd clicking sound escaping from beneath the face mask. “You don’t do the magick, and you cut away your wings,” the man said, making a hacking gesture with one of his armored hands.

“The Powers…,” Alastor croaked, forcing the words from his corpulent mouth. “You serve the Powers.”

He knew the answer, even before the figure clad in armor the color of blood nodded. He knew, for senses long atrophied had kicked in, the scent of Heaven’s most aggressive host filling his nostrils with its fetid aroma of bloodshed.

“And you’ve come for me?”

Again the creature nodded.

Alastor studied the agent of the Powers, a part of him marveling at the beauty of the fearsome suit of metal that adorned his foe. The armor had been forged by Heaven’s hands, of that there was no doubt. The faint light thrown by the cellar’s single bulb played lovingly off the intricate details of the metal skin; it made him remember days long past, of brethren that died beneath his sword, of his fall from grace.

Panic gripped the fallen angel. He did not want to die. From within he summoned a glimmer of strength, a spark of angelic fury untapped since he had fought beside the Son of the Morning. In his mind he saw an ax and tried to bring it into the world.

The spark of heavenly fire exploded to life in the palm of his hand—and Alastor began to scream. It had been so long that it burned him. His flesh had become as that of a human, and the fires of Heaven began to consume the delicate skin. The stench of frying meat filled the basement, and the fallen angel perversely realized that he was hungry, his swollen stomach grumbling to be fed.

He tried to concentrate on the weapon he saw in his mind’s eye: a battle-ax like one he had wielded in the war. In his charred hand the flames began to take shape, and Alastor felt a wave of optimism the likes of which he had not felt since devising the plan that almost made him human. He brandished the ax, fearsome and complete, at his attacker.

The figure in red giggled; an eerie sound made all the more strange filtered through the mask that hid his face.

“You find me amusing, slave of the Powers host?” Alastor asked, attempting to block out the throbbing pain in his burned hand. “We’ll see how comical I am when my ax takes your head from your shoulders.”

Again the armored warrior laughed, reminding Alastor of some demented child. They continued to stare at each other across the cellar space, the fires of Heaven still burning in the fallen angel’s fragile grasp. The pale, doughy skin of his arm had begun to bubble and smolder. The pain was excruciating, but it helped him to focus.

“You gave it all up for this?” the red-armored horror asked, looking around at the clutter of the basement before turning his gaze back to Alastor.