See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

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The sky had mostly stopped burning.  The cries and moans of the astrocielo diminished to a dull roar in the back of Michael’s mind, and he found it much easier to feel out the measure of his power in the physical world.  No more accidental lobotomies, or subjects so fear-wracked they tinged the air with urine.  Those were a result of barely controlled psychic energy.  He could reel it all in now, or roll it out slow, one wavelength at a time.

So great was his control that he had found the assassins.  It was just a matter of time before they were brought to heel.  He tapped the bravest and holiest of the papal guard to be his escorts, and had the Tiemplo Santo Pietro cleaned and blessed – reconsecrated by no less  than the gathered cardinals.

The putti had settled down again for the night, clustered for warmth atop the all the buildings of the Walled City.  They would wake sometime after dawn, letting early birds fight for the scraps.  Considering they ate angelfly larvae to survive, they would have some rough times soon, but for now it was a big relief from the horror of the assassination.

A few thousand people had gathered outside the temple, waiting for some official word, something to tell them what to do.  Michael was still too disconnected from mortal affairs to process that, but he was beginning to feel a sense of peace, and let that radiate from within.  The crowd would remain civil.

A papal robe had been tailored to fit the great angel, embroidered also with violet marks of regency, carefully designed openings allowed for his wings.  No more nudity, which he had come to understand was part of what rendered him so terrifying to behold, in this pure-hearted society.

Michael knew he’d need to assume the papal palazzo, teach himself how to eat, sleep, and drink, but there was one thing that kept him in suspense.  One buzzing that he couldn’t quell – a burr in his psychic equilibrium.

The crowd outside parted peacefully for the guards, who carried four glass-topped coffins up the steps, into the great temple.  They stood them upright before the pontiff-regent.  Each contained a captured assassin, beaten and stripped to their undergarments.  The stands secured in place, each guard prostrated himself on the marble tiles, awaiting their orders.

“Well done, well done.  But this was not the death of that ancient emperor, the work of so many knives.  Who plunged their dagger into his pontiff’s sweet heart?  Whose most singular act of depravity has brought an angel’s feet to walk this earth?”

Michael walked down from the throne and looked over their bodies.  What a sight!  Nothing had ever looked quite like this to him before.  He was becoming fast acquainted with human frailty, with biological realities.  It was endlessly fascinating.  The angel pawed at the glass like a monkey, or a child in a candy store.

These were youths, far from the time when their bodies would sag, when everything they were would be rewritten in shorthand, scratchier strokes, again and again, until they were no more.  Did they think it better to die young?  If so, then why did they flee arrest?

He could see the potential in each of their bodies, every nascent polyp or cyst, every developmental pathway that would change their body, if they had a future.  He could see every wound they’d sustained in their struggles, imagine every possible way any given one of them could spiral beyond repair, crippling or killing.  They were clay, they were water, they were a moment in time that had not been before and would never be again.

But this was his power talking – his angelic birthright.  His eyes were now human enough.  Rein in the psychic power, feel the moment as it was for them.  It was only fair, and the only way to understand them, on their own level.

On closing his mind’s eye, they looked so different.  Man, woman, woman, man.  The two on the left were shorter and thicker, the man fully bearded, both soft and vulnerable – saved from utter ruin only by the resilience of youth.  The two on the right weren’t as strong, but blessed with a natural conformation that would lead to fewer injuries and illnesses in life.  Slim, broad-shouldered, a natural athleticism to them.  This man had a much shorter beard than the other – just a few days of growth.  This woman had drained the color from her hair with foul chemicals, and painted her face – the paint now smeared and ruined.  She wore no bra, her pert breasts were as bruised and flecked with blood as any part of her body.  But what was this injury?

He looked closer, hypnotized by the canvas of all their exposed skin, but particularly the tips of her breasts.  They had metal bars crossed through them.  It could be no accident.  Had someone begun to torture them already?

Michael called his holiest guard to stand beside him.  “Who did this to her breasts?  Their punishments should be more carefully considered, not so strange and … indecent.”

“I believe she did it to herself, pontiff-regent.  It is a habit of uh… shameless people.  Some of them like to pierce their bodies.  I don’t know why.”

The angel shook his head.  The feathers of his wings flattened, and has he turned to examine her again, they rose – puffing up like an excited dove.  “It is said a fallen angel taught man to paint himself.  Only this one has taken that lesson…  It is her, isn’t it?  The one I sensed!  The one who designed to kill God Himself!”

He stepped back a pace, drawing up an arm in fright, his wings flapping nervously.  His guard hustled back to the ranks.  The angel’s agitation raised a wave of nervousness in all present, though not as bad as on his first arrival.

Michael calmed himself, straightening his cassock.  “She is the one who hates God the most.  The one so fallen that there is no innocence left in her heart.  She must have slain the pontiff.”  He gestured to his bravest guard.  The man came to his left side.

“Yes, pontiff-regent?”

“Who are they?  And most importantly, who is she?”

“They are college students from a world called Corazon 2.  They were suspected in helping another violent radical escape incarceration there.  Names,” he pulled out his mobile, “Jorge Lactoque Salas, Xihuani Omerta, Zochino Olivares Tavernetti, and, most importantly, Christina Violeta Chaco Mondragon.”

“Christina.  The anointed one.”

They all lay there, slumped against the backs of their coffins, beaten insensate.  The angel resumed his throne and looked across the assassins, and across his people.  “I will know all there is to know about them, before I decide their ultimate fate.  That they may experience it in full awareness and understanding, I would have them healed of these injuries.  But remember what they have done, and leave not the slightest chance that they may try to escape again.”

The guards rose, taking down the coffin stands, and readying themselves to carry the heavy burdens away.

Michael said, “They shall be the Seal of Murder.  None shall dare to design death for another, when they reflect on what has befallen these four.  It is not for man to kill man.  That is the Will of God.”

He said these things, but his heart was racing.  What was this feeling?

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