The Broken Angel

“Why can’t we live together?” Sahadeva looked at Samuel with his big, liquid eyes and Samuel lowered his.

They had met more and more lately by the crystalline pond just outside Sahadeva’s father’s palace in a gazebo hidden behind the wooden screens Sahadeva had had built, sheltered from prying eyes. Samuel knew from his lover’s tone a fight was brewing, but he didn’t mind. He adored Sahadeva and accepted him with all his human flaws. Samuel leaned in to brush his full mouth with his and savored the berry lingering on his lips that he had just fed to Sahadeva. At times like this, when his lover purred under his touch, he couldn’t believe his blessings, and wondered about life’s serendipity and the absolute beauty of it.

One day, Samuel had been flying low over the planes of Goa, wondering what it would feel like to enter those waters and swim. He rode the thermals for a while, then circled a small island and landed on a ridge overlooking the sea. He had let the windy breeze ruffle his feathers and enjoyed the sunrays on his skin. Sudden cries from the waters below had woken him from his rest. He focused his perfect vision on the dark speck marring the blue of the sea, zooming in until he saw a man struggling to stay afloat.

Samuel closed his wings tightly against his back and dove, spiraling toward the castaway, hurrying to reach the man before he sank underwater where he couldn’t rescue him. Opening his wings at the last moment, he swept the surface as the man started disappearing, only his hand surfacing. Fighting a wind threatening to push him sideways, Samuel grabbed the tips of the man’s fingers and pulled him up. Twice the man’s fingers slid from Samuel’s hold as the gust wet his wings and weighed him down. Samuel strained his shoulder muscles and reined his wings upward and out of danger, then managed to get hold of the man’s wrist and with a final jerk brought him up and against his chest.

While in midair, the man had tilted his black, curly head up and looked at him with the darkest eyes Samuel had ever seen. “My name is Sahadeva, and I owe you my life,” the man had whispered before fainting in Samuel’s arms.

“My name is Samuel, and my heart is yours,” he had whispered back.

Back to the pond, Sahadeva was still waiting for his answer. “Why can’t we live together?” he repeated, leaning away from Samuel’s embrace.

“Because I can’t leave the heavens to be with you without falling. I come here when I can, but my absence doesn’t go unnoticed. I have a job to do.”

Sahadeva brushed the points of Samuel’s feathers, then moved to the edge of their bed. He shrugged as he stood, then walked to the rocking chair, and sat facing him, his eyes locked on Samuel’s. “My father has chosen a bride for me. I am expected to produce an heir soon.”

****

Samuel kept spiraling toward the hard soil without breaking his fall. He knew he would not die. He could not, but it scared him nonetheless. “I renounce.” Saying the words out loud with the full knowledge of what they stood for was enough to make him one of the fallen ones. Once made, the decision was set in stone. His skin lost its glowing quality and faded to a dull tan. He looked at his open hands, which only a moment before rays of white light had sprung from. His fingers waved, driven by the wind this way and that. He felt pain. At first, he didn’t know what that lacerating feeling was. It started at his back, between his shoulder blades, where his wings originated, and radiated to his arms and his chest, constricting his ribcage until it crushed his lungs. Helplessness. The emotion had been alien to him until the moment he had decided to leave everything behind for Sahadeva. He should have felt relieved, happy he would be reunited with his beloved. Instead, he plummeted to the ground, his heart heavy. He focused on the memory of his dark prince’s soft lips and strong arms, and braced for the full impact of immortality as a fallen angel. A crater formed around him as he broke the ground. At the last moment, he had oriented his head up and legs down toward the earth and was now buried to his chest. Instinctively, he fanned his wings open. The sun behind Samuel cast his shadow before him. He moved his wings and feathers fell all around him like leaves in autumn. He had known that would happen, but when he brought his wings around him and saw the clipped ends of what had been his pride and joy—the only aspect of his solitary existence he had liked— he wept.

Without the gift of flying, it took him three months by foot to reach Goa and the shore where everything had started. He never slept, but kept walking, one step after the other, his body powered by his love for Sahadeva. His skin, once golden, tanned to a dark, burnt brown. His hair grew. His heart starved, such was Samuel’s longing for his beloved’s caresses. Yet, he never stopped to rest.

Once he reached Sahadeva’s land, he had waited a week in the bungalow where they had spent entire days making love to each other, hoping for a glimpse of him. He had announced his presence to the palace staff as he had done countless times in the past. Finally, one morning, a livered servant from the palace had told him to follow him. He had been self-conscious of his once-beautiful wings now trailing behind him, mutilated, and had walked with his head low throughout the airy corridors leading to the inner chambers of the palace. They reached a room opening to the gardens where the servant left him to wait yet again. Samuel spent several hours contemplating the alabaster fountains outside. He saw the sun setting behind the laced white walls bordering the gardens’ walls.

When Sahadeva finally entered the room, he wasn’t alone. A young, pretty woman covered in red and golden silks walked inside, a step behind him, a hand over her belly.

Samuel’s first instinct would have been to take his beloved in his arms and kiss that mouth he had missed dearly during such a long separation. But the presence of Sahadeva’s bride by his side broke his heart. “Sahadeva…”

“You have fallen from grace.” Sahadeva gave him a thorough look, his eyes lingering on Samuel’s wings, distaste on his face. “You shouldn’t have come to sully my happiness.” He took his bride’s hand, turned, and left.

Samuel’s legs gave away from under him and he dropped to his knees, his broken wings brought forth to protect him from a reality he couldn’t accept. A day later, two royal guards came to escort him out of the room, and found him in the same position. Outside the palace, a demon waited.

Samuel looked outside the arched window occupying a large portion of the plastered wall behind his desk. Be it the hottest of summers or the coldest of winters, that window always had its panes wide open. He liked to think he could jump from the windowsill and fly away. If only it were still possible.

At the moment, he would have gladly left that room behind for a quiet alcove. His office at the Immortal Council headquarters was spacious, and he had been given carte blanche to furnish it as he pleased. But that office, although situated in one of the most sought-after locations in Rome, Castel Sant’ Angelo, had also come with a job that, on days like today, he hated. Fortunately, his hearing sessions only happened on Mondays. The rest of the week was dedicated to solving cases no one in the paranormal world wanted to work on. Unfortunately, today was Monday.

The two were-pumas behind his desk had been talking incessantly for the better part of an hour. Not that sixty minutes was significant to him—immortality tended to nullify the importance of time, especially when counted in minutes and hours. But still, he wanted to believe he had better things to do than listen to two religious bigots who didn’t understand people could have a love life without having procreation in mind.

“I’m telling you, they make the most obscene noises.” The young were-puma blushed, her eyes on the floor. “And they laugh. A lot. As if they’re having fun.” She had lowered her voice at the last sentence and made a horrified face.

For a brief moment, Samuel felt pity for the unlucky wife.

“And they go on and on the whole night like that. It isn’t possible to sleep, and you must understand how difficult it is for us with the cubs and all.” If possible, her husband looked even redder than she.

Samuel regarded them from his high position. “No, I wouldn’t understand since I’ve never had children.” A detail they already knew, but it had felt good interrupting their tirade by stating the obvious. Perched on the windowsill, his broken wings trailing behind him, he resembled more a gargoyle than an angel. Or so he had been told by his good friend Ophelia. Although, given how angels—thanks to their propensity to think too highly of themselves—were generally not liked by the rest of the paranormals, maybe looking like a gargoyle was something to aspire to. Also, having fallen from grace, he didn’t belong to the angel race anymore. A thousand years ago, the Holy Nation—the coalition of angels on Earth—had made sure he understood his place in the world when they had refused him sanctuary. He had so become the Fallen.

The wife stood and accompanied her speech with lots of over exaggerated hand waving. “Please, do something. Those two heathens are disrupting our matrimonial life. We can’t have any more cubs at the moment. We can’t afford them. But those two vampires are
constantly
luring us into temptation—”

If he weren’t mistaken, Samuel thought to have seen the were-puma miming intercourse with her gestures. He managed not to laugh.

“Having so much sex is sinful. It shouldn’t be allowed.” The husband slapped the palm of his hand on the marble surface of the desk top and winced. “They don’t breed for the Great Cat’s sake!”

Leaning out of the window, Samuel gave the paved ground four floors below a good look and found it almost deserted from pedestrians and scooters. He had to look away, his compulsion to jump at times like this hard to fight.

“I’ll talk to your neighbors and ask them if they could insulate the walls of their apartment.”
So they can have wild and extremely fulfilling sex without you complaining to me.
He made a gesture for the two of them to exit his office.

“We knew
you
would understand the seriousness of our predicament.” The husband smiled and handed him a pamphlet. Then they vacated the premises, commenting to each other how great it was having someone like Samuel on their side.

Thanks to his superior sense of hearing, Samuel distinctly caught the whispered end of their conversation.

“…to make an honest disciple out of a fallen…”

He rolled his eyes heavenward, then looked down at the suspiciously heavy pamphlet bordered in gold as an older fairy entered and took one of the chairs before his desk. He laid the folded paper down, eyeing the title,
The Importance of Abstinence
, on the front. Promptly turning it to the other side, he saw the propaganda only became bolder and racist. The back title declared, “MIX AND MATCH IS WRONG. KEEP THE SPECIES PURE.” He shook his head, then sat on his swivel chair and waited for the lady to start her litany of complaints.

“Please, make yourself comfortable.” He couldn’t help a last look over his shoulder. Rome awaited him outside. A loud cough made him straighten on his chair and focus on the woman in front of him.

The fairy adjusted her frail body on the leather cushion, then arched an eyebrow. “So you are the new liaison?”

Samuel was four or five times bigger than she, but such was her disdainful attitude that she managed to look down her nose at him. “I’ve been a liaison between paranormal species under the Peace Pact Alliance for almost two years—”

“Caronte was such a great liaison. He did an excellent job.” The lady stared at him some more.

“So I’ve been told.”
Countless times since I’ve taken Caronte’s place
.

Samuel had been offered the liaison position when Caronte had had enough and wanted to spend time in Hades with his newly wedded wife. No one else had come forward for the job. Samuel was under no delusion he had been asked because he was the right man for it. He—among all the paranormals populating Rome—was the only one who couldn’t refuse the offer. As a fallen who hadn’t turned demon, he made a species all on his own—a neutral third party.

He waved his hand toward the drop-leaf table where he kept his tea sets. The fairy shook her head. He rose to serve himself a cup of Jasmine tea. “What can I do for you, my lady?” He sat, cup and saucer in his right hand, a teaspoon in his left.

The fairy harrumphed, then pointed a thin and bony finger at him. “I don’t know if you can do anything at all for me. You look so scrawny.”

My hand is twice the size of your face.
Samuel dropped two cubes of sugar in his cup and stirred them with the teaspoon, exercising his self-control by breathing slowly. “Be that as it may, I’ll try my best to be of assistance to you.”

“We’ll see.” The woman crossed her arms over her chest. “My tenant, an immortal, hasn’t paid rent for the last three months. I want him evicted. Can you do that?”

Samuel drank the whole cup in one single, undignified gulp, then placed the cup and saucer on the table. “I’m sure I
could
. But I don’t think it will come to that.”

The woman sneered. “Will you persuade the immortal to pay me with your angelic features?”

“Something like that.” Samuel gave the harridan a big smile. He felt his jaws crack, but kept the smile on his face for several seconds. “Meanwhile—” He pushed his chair back and leaned to the side of his desk to rummage in one of the many drawers hidden in its mammoth legs. “Here’s some literature about interspecies relations.”

The lady simply stared at the booklet he held toward her. “What would I need that for?”

“The Peace Pact Alliance is trying to raise awareness about the many differences among paranormal species. With the help of many volunteers who donated their time to answer a quite lengthy questionnaire, we were able to put together this guide.” Samuel opened the booklet on the chapter regarding immortals. “Immortals have a sense of time different from other species. For you, three months might seem a long time, but for an immortal, it may only feel like a minute. Your tenant may not be aware he’s late in paying the rent.” He fervently hoped her tenant was gambling and whoring his money away.

The fairy snatched the booklet from him. “I’ll give you one week. If it’s not handled by then, I will issue a complaint about you to your superior.” She pushed herself up and waved her free hand in a gesture that resembled a curse. “What’s your handler’s name,
angel
?”

Samuel’s hair prickled with a subtle current of energy at the fairy’s slight. A painful reminder of the power he had lost. “Ludwig Barnes is my direct superior. If you have any concern about my performance, please contact him. He will be more than happy to assist you.” He stood and rounded the desk to stop before the miniscule woman who barely reached his navel.

The fairy had the good sense to step back. “Don’t think I won’t.”

Long gone were the days Samuel could will nuisances like that old crone away with just a thought. “I could call him for you.”

The woman raised her pointy chin to look at him. He leaned over the desk to grab the pearl-gray telephone handset.

The woman turned and reached for the door. At the threshold, she told him to write down her address and the name of the immortal plaguing her. She departed with a last pointed finger and possibly a silent curse. “One week.”

Samuel followed the woman outside to see if there was anyone left in the waiting chamber. The place was deserted and, consequently, he was free. He went back inside to get his cell, and as he was locking the door behind him, the phone rang. He swore, knowing he couldn’t ignore that call. Only Barnes used the land line. His boss wanted to maintain as much distance from the sullen angel as possible. When he first started the job, Samuel had tried to give Barnes his cell number, but Barnes had explained that calling him on his private number would imply familiarity.

“Samuel.” He didn’t have a last name. He had been willed to the mortals’ plane by his creator with that name. Nicknames others had given him made up for the lack of it anyway.
Broken Wing Sam
was the one most had taken up. By now, he almost expected people to address him thus.

“Ludwig Barnes.”

Samuel often wondered about the utility of following social etiquette just for the sake of it. His boss had called him, so he knew he was speaking to Samuel. And Samuel knew it was Ludwig Barnes who had called not only because his boss was the only one who called him on that line, but also the caller ID had told him so. Mental communication had been way more efficient. Another of the powers he had once possessed. He had never thought of mind reading and projecting as a power, but as part of him, like one of his remaining senses.

“Go to Via Larzi and see if you can find anything related to this recent vampire blood-dealing situation we’re having.” Barnes had a deep, masculine voice, well-suited to his Herculean frame. The immortal’s story was shrouded in mystery, but rumor had it he had been changed soon after the Roman Empire’s fall and had hailed from north of the Alps. His reddish-brown hair suggested Viking blood and gave the tales credit. Besides that, he was a recluse.

“Okay.” He was going to have his break after all. Via Larzi was three blocks from Alexander Drako’s gym.

With a smile, he locked the door, and instead of riding the elevator, he walked down the stairs to the ground level of Castel Sant’ Angelo. Per Council mandate, before leaving the building, he willed his wings away and let his body shrink to his human form. When paranormals had been forced into hiding, he had hated becoming a cripple, even if temporarily. The idea to use what was left of his powers to betray his true nature had pained him. For a long while, he had kept himself inside the paranormal compound, using the Promenade and even venturing in warlocks and witches’ territory to move between locations, reducing the necessity to change. Then, little by little, helped by Alexander and Ophelia, he had embraced the change.

Already anticipating a good session of sparring at his friend’s gym, he summoned his walking cane and headed toward the bus stop at the end of the bridge. He leaned against the low parapet, his eyes studying the thermals above. He missed flying. Not a single moment passed that he didn’t remember he was grounded. His heart ached as the playful winds of spring moved clouds and birds in a constant flurry.

The bus arrived and he slowly climbed the platform. He showed his special permit to the bus driver, who gave him a brief look and a small smile. A woman sitting in the reserved seats made to get up when he walked by, but he thanked her and moved farther inside. He heard an unsavory comment about cripples, but could not bring himself to let the person know he was an insufferable jerk. The bus lurched to a stop, swaying him. He moved out of the way to let the new commuters in when he saw a familiar face heading straight toward him. His heart slammed against his chest as the athletic brunette—the woman he thought about every free moment he had—drew closer to him.

**
*
*

Martina hated using her time off to take care of business. Her lawyer had called, saying they must talk in person immediately, and she wasn’t looking forward to the meeting. A lawyer herself, she was working on an abuse case and was tense and tired after interviewing people the whole morning. The victim she was representing had just turned eighteen, which complicated matters for her and simplified them for the rapist who had taken advantage of a naïve teenager. Martina had been dabbing tears from the girl’s face when her lawyer had summoned her.

As soon as she got on the bus, she spotted her sparring partner, Samuel, trying to remain upright while pushed and pulled by the sea of people crowding the narrow space. A sense of rage invaded her at the thought that nobody had given him a seat. Humanity must have reached its lowest point if a man with disabilities wasn’t given the courtesy due him. She pushed through and finally reached him.

“Samuel!” She smiled and leaned in to kiss both his cheeks.

He smiled back at her, and his lapis lazuli eyes lit with a light that always had the power to warm her inside. “Hi, Martina. It’s so nice to see you. Where are you going?”

“Boring lawyer stuff.” The bus suddenly braked and she was pushed by someone behind her. She lost her hold on the handle above her head and ended in Samuel’s space.

“A new case?” He cushioned her with his chest and free arm.

She noticed how careful he was not to hit her with the cane she had never seen him without outside of the sparring ring. “No, the same case as always.” She stepped back and anchored herself to the side handle. “I need to kick someone hard.”