Her eye narrowed. Nostrils tattooed with scales and barbs flared as she sniffed the air. What was that smell?
But she already knew the answer to the question: Brother Fist. It was a smell she knew as well as her own face in the mirror, a sweet perfume He had begun to exude just a year before: His own attar of holiness. Her first days away from His side she had missed it.
Then why did it seem like such a loathsome stench now? Was this yet another effect of her eroding angelic state?
She forced herself to stifle her unworthy revulsion and put one foot in front of the other. This twisting of her senses was a final deception, cast against her to keep her from her rightful place at Brother Fist’s side. One word, one touch, and all would be right again.
She stepped through the doorway, and at last she was returned to His holy presence.
Yet seeing her Master did not bring the comfort she so desperately craved. It only made things worse. The time apart, some inner failure, something was making her see Him differently from the way she should.
He was dressed in His black cassock and seated in His usual place, the big thronelike chair near the wall of screens that let Him look into every corner of the Eden He had created. That was as it should be. Yet instead of stern and strong and righteous, He looked old and weak and—
—sick.
She tried to smother this blasphemy even as it was being born. It was just that the Hand of God was heavy on His shoulders. It was a failure in her perceptions, a betrayal by her untrustworthy senses. The other was impossible. Unthinkable.
Ashamed that she had been prey to such a profane thought in His presence, she bowed her head, praying that when she looked up again the scales would be gone from her eyes.
“Brother Fist,” she intoned with abject humility, speaking His name like a talisman that would give her strength and lend truth to her senses. “I have returned.”
“My angel,” he replied in a thick, phlegmy rasp. “You have done well.”
Scylla hunched her shoulders. That praise heaped on the burden of her manifest unworthiness was a weight greater than even the shining metal armor that proved she was an angel could bear. Heart stuttering with fear, she steeled herself to confess.
She was never given the chance. Brother Fist spoke first. What he said and how he said it instantly banished all thoughts of confession from her troubled mind.
“Leave us now, Scylla.” His tone was brusque, impatient, as if she were an annoyance, not His angel and right hand.
Her head snapped up in surprise. She stared at Him in wounded incomprehension, unable to believe that He would dismiss her so offhandedly. She had been away for over fifteen days, braving the Profane World and putting her very soul in peril for him, yet He did not seem to care. His eyes were fixed on the infidel Marchey, and had she been forced to describe the look on His face, she would have said it was one of greedy expectation.
“But—but this man is dangerous, Master!” she protested lamely. Suddenly a sickening apprehension crawled through her. I have fallen so low that I am no longer worthy of His love. He sees. He knows. I have become less than dust in His gaze.
Brother Fist’s eyes had begun turning a yellowish color some three years before. Another sign that the Hand of God was on Him, he said; it was the reflection of the golden streets of Heaven. Those sallow eyes blazed with petulant fury now. A fury directed at her. It rooted her to the spot, unable to speak or move.
“I said leave us!” His skull-like face hardened, and he beat on the arm of his chair with a bony, blue-veined fist. “Get out, you stupid bitch! Out!”
Scylla turned and fled, cringing under the lash of His displeasure, and knowing He would strike her dead with a thought if she did not remove herself from His sight. She stiff-armed the door out of her way, choking back the bewildered cry of pain and appeal lodged in her throat.
Her cubby was on the opposite side of the chapel so that she would be close at hand to her Master, and it was there she sought refuge.
Her metal-shod feet clattered across the mosaic floor as she crossed it in a stumbling run. Once inside her room she flung herself down on the raised foam pallet that served as her bed, burying her face in the forgiving softness. Her breath came in hitching gasps, but she did not cry.
Angels do not cry.
Ever.
To do so would be an abomination. To do so would be the final damning iniquity.
Biting back some hot wet force boiling inside her and threatening to burst free, she made herself sit up. She held out one trembling hand. Her right hand.
At a mental command her right buckler released itself. She shucked the weapon off and laid it aside. Gleaming silver metal still covered her palm and fingers like a second skin, but with the buckler gone the needle-scarred area on the back of her hand was exposed. Like her weakness. Like her manifest unworthiness.
She partially extruded the talons on her left hand, the gleaming white ceramyl blades as sharp as the line between sin and obedience, between damnation and grace.
Sharp enough to slice into the tattooed flesh at the back of her hand like corruption had insinuated itself into her soul. Blood welled up around each blade, the price Brother Fist said God demanded when He was failed.
Her one green eye slid shut to hold in the strange wetness gathering there. The blood was born in pain, and that was good. Pain was the ladder one climbed to return to grace, and she bore it gladly. Each throb was a rung that lifted her higher.
The pain was cleansing. It washed away the hurt and confusion, leaving only her essential suffering self, naked to God’s judgmental scrutiny.
I am an angel.
She gritted her teeth, digging her talons deeper to root out every corrupt tendril of doubt and resentment.
I was brought down to serve Brother Fist To carry out His will and protect Him.
Blood pooled around her talons, a shimmering ruby set in a silver brooch.
I am His to be used as He will I am my duty. Without it I am nothing. I must serve with no expectation of reward in this life, and any punishment I earn should be received gladly, for it is just that I suffer for my failings.
Her whole body trembled as she balanced on the knife point of pain. Sweat glazed her forehead. She held her breath, afraid that it might carry a scream if she released it.
There is nothing of me or mine more important than my duty to my Master. If He asks me to lay down my life, I should rejoice that I can pay the price He asks of me.
She closed her eye, the better to see Truth as she recited her catechism.
If I allow Him to be hurt either by action or inaction, God Himself will condemn me to eternal damnation for failing my duty to protect His Servant.
Scylla’s green eye opened. She saw her path clearly.
She was Brother Fist’s angel. His protector. The man she had brought to him was unpredictable, maybe even dangerous. Her Master was alone with him, unaware of the threat the infidel posed and undefended from him.
He had ordered her away from His side, away from where she could watch over Him. That (hurt!) was His right. He had not ordered her to listen in and act as hidden guardian, but then again He had not ordered her not to, and how else could God’s Will be done?
Her talons retracted, the china white ceramyl smeared with the red of her own blood. She stood up, flexing her wounded hand. It felt aflame, but functioned perfectly. Her angel body could block the pain, but she kept it from doing so. Pain kept the doubt and deception at bay. Pain was truth. Pain was clarity of thought and action. Pain was grace.