"Odd place for a war."
The angel stopped at one of JC's candles, lit so long that it guttered in its frail cup of wax. Beads of it hung from the marble rail like Mardi Gras necklaces.
Touching flame didn't burn the angel. Nothing living would. It drew back its fingers, hard as ivory chopsticks and just as white.
JC shifted on the tile floor of the bell tower. Each breath bloomed saffron in the still air. "I didn't choose it."
"Of course you didn't." The angel crouched, then leapt, perching on one of the stubby granite parapets. JC trembled inwardly, too cold to withdraw. "Whom do you want killed?"
"You don't have wings," JC said. When his lips parted, the frost tore them. He tilted his head to catch the blood before it soiled him.
The angel's tongue appeared, small and pink. "Why have wings? I can't fly here. And you haven't answered my question."
"Isn't there..." JC paused, laboring for clarity. His cheeks felt like chewing gum. He no longer suffered his nakedness, but he saw cold spreading on his skin, sensed the dry brush of wind like a passing cat. "Do you have to kill? Can't you just destroy?"
"Subtle." The angel turned its head. Two flames kindled and died in its eyes. "Few of you appreciate the difference. In fact, you're worse at it than humankind."
"A flaw in my upbringing," JC said. "I was born among angels."
"So, destruction. Of what?"
"Our creative rivals. And the thieves of our labor."
The angel laughed. In a valley that trembled like silk under the moon, three children woke to churchbells.
"What's the joke?"
"It's so petty. Avaricious."
"It's fair."
"Fair!"
"A flaw in my upbringing," JC said, lowering his eyes to veil their smolder. "I was raised by men."
The angel surveyed him, its own eyes hole-black. "And how does this destruction serve the Word?"
"My Word is music," JC said softly. "I serve it with my being."
He sang the ritual notes again, as he was made to sing, broader than mortal lungs could bear. His flesh shrank from their purity like shadow shrank from sun. Blood, long crystal, glittered fresh on his wrists and feet.
"Prideful monster," spat the angel. "Servant of words, not the Word."
JC's throat swelled shut, but the notes beat against it, undefeated by flesh. Blood crested his top lip. He tasted sulphur.
~I dared too far,~ he thought, and freed a red-jeweled smile. ~A flaw in my upbringing.~
"What good luck I'm not an angel," said the being he'd called, and snuffed every candle.
***
the end.