NOTE: This story was written by the three of us as an e-mail game, the three of us take turns writing a part of the story and then the next person picks it up.  Hence the color coding. What appears in yellow was written by Adrienne, purple by Newt, and blue by myself, Beenie.  Some of the following material may be offensive to some viewers and completely confusing to others.  It contains many inside jokes and mild vulgarity. Enjoy!
 

    The Archangel shifted his wings behind him, fluttering the massive feathered extensions, and then folded them neatly against the curve of his spine.  As he reached with long square tipped fingers for the black dress jacket, the wings seemed to melt into the angel's flesh, vanishing from sight.  He ran the long fingers along his scalp and through the locks of his slightly tangled brown hair.  The lose locks fell just above his shoulder and as he slipped a pair of black sunglasses over his strangely light green eyes he looked at himself appraisingly in the mirror before him.

    His forehead was high, dark brows sloping elegantly over the rim of the sunglasses. The aqua line nose may have hinted at French ancestry, if ancestry had ever been a factor in his breeding. High cheek bones and slightly concave cheeks accented his sculpted lips, full and even. Now, he looked like an elegant executioner with those dark wrap around lenses, that shamelessly emotionless expression grafting his face. Mentally he sighed, and straightened the black tie at his throat.  Af should be doing this, the thought, daring a moment of complaint, it was Af's duty to inform the living they are to die.  He snapped the thought from his mind and smoothed the sleeves of the tuxedo jacket and picked up the gold enameled invitation to Laurel Donaldson's Millennium Ball.

    Beenie Donaldson held a vast flat in the Silver Towers, and in turn this flat possessed an old fashioned ballroom, right down to the antique marble tiles that covered the floor. And now, as Newt and Adrienne swept in, side by side, late, Beenie had half the city crushed into it. But no one seemed to notice, except for Adrienne. It had begun to snow as their limo had pull up to the entrance of the Silver Towers, and the weather man didn't predict an end to the coming storm anytime soon.

    Prisms of light dazzled and dripped from the chandeliers like ice. And the hundreds of candles held aloft by the structure could not melt the frozen jewels. Oblong and ancient tables stretched themselves in various places in the great hall, atop them perched swans of ice that held berries and caviar and brightly colored sherbet lovingly between their spread wings. And the women, fluttered to and fro in a splash of rainbow costumes, as if each were trying to out-do the other with awful showiness. As winters hand grasped the Silver Towers, Aj had the crazy thought that these women would become like butterflies enclosed in amber.

    And the silvery sound of violin music wafted over her skin, chasing away the cold that had settled there. The violinists let their bows rise and fall like the sea as the guests swirled in the arms of their lovers as their rebuffed spouses looked on with twisted faces and they drown themselves in champagne. Aj leaned in towards Newt like a child and tilted her head as someone called her name across the room.

    Beenie descended the long spiral staircase like a beam from the sun.

    "Heeeey!" Beenie chimed with a unique enthusiasm that Aj seldom heard from her confidant of ten years. Beenie shone so bright that both friend and sister had to squint at first to see her clearly. And suddenly the chill that plagued her moments ago melted off her shoulders and dripped effortlessly on to the marble floor beneath her black heeled feet.

    "We're late" Aj observed as her eyes passed over the cyclopean clock that was fixed to the domed ceiling of the ballroom.

    "Late? late?" Beenie repeated as her face metamorphosed into a comic grin, " you're always late, I think your ancestors came over on the June Flower, girl!"

    The crowd around her giggled like monkeys. Newton grinned widely.

    "So Been, where's the food?" Newt asked unceremoniously.

    "Buffet's that way Newt, did Mom come with you?" Beenie queried her younger sibling in the oriental style red silk dress, her lavishly magical colored hair tied up behind her head, with several long spiraling strands lying against her back.

    "I'll race ya!" Newt called to Aj as the woman in red turned on her high heeled shoes and darted off in the buffet's direction.

    Aj, in another one of her infamous "slut dresses" a sparkling low cut silver gown with two thin strings holding the garment around her shoulders and two long slits up the each side.  The auburn haired woman was just about to chase after the woman in red when Beenie yanked hard on her friend's arm.

    "Wait a sec, Aj" the millionairess turned the silver clad female center to face her, "there's somebody who wants to meet ya...he's been asking me about you all night..." Beenie gave her friend the swivel grin.

    "No," Aj tried to break away defensively, "honey, the last time you tried to hook me up you had me on a date with that convicted pedophile that worked in your company's head office...and he was a MAIL CLERK for pities sake! You couldn't even throw me a vice president or board member - your best friend!"

    Beenie tugged on the woman harder "No, that was funny I'll admit, that was damn funny, but this guy's different his name is..."

    "Michael" a smooth slightly accent male voice finished the sentence.

    Both of the women straightened themselves and Aj blushed slightly as she tied to gather her senses. He practically took her breath away. Beenie jumped behind the dark haired man and grinned maliciously to Aj, giving her two thumbs up as she swiveled on her heels.

    "And you must be Aj Amos" he finished and extended a hand, Aj reached for his palm attempting to shake the offered limb, she was taken aback when the man in sunglasses found her fingers first and brought them to his lips. And Beenie giggled like a school girl who knew she did something very very naughty!

    Completely stunned, Adrienne pressed her lips firmly together in hopes that the ample coating of lip gloss would prevent her jaw from dropping straight to the floor.  He was a gorgeous creature to behold, from his manor to his elegant black suit, with just enough starch in it to keep it as smooth as his voice but soft enough to support his fluid movements.  God Almighty help her, every one of his movements was as elegant as those of a sleek wild cat you view in awe on the television one boring night of solitude, as though he had practiced his sweeping gestures in front of a mirror for an eternity.  Even the way the locks of sienna brushed against his shoulders as he released her hand--somewhat reluctantly--was wonderfully assured and smooth, as though he had intended for it to be this way, to make her heart flutter like a butterfly shaking it's wings out after emerging from the chrysalis.  Either he had practiced every move he'd ever made in his life or he'd simply executed this cordial gesture far too many times.

    But before Aj could linger on her last thought, she found herself whimpering a surprised yes in response to a question she barely heard, and felt herself being swept across the cool tiled floors into Michael's arms as the hired orchestra musicians eagerly began another piece on their violins, her new date's sunglasses still stubbornly covering his eyes.

    "OUTTA MY WAY!"  the young Newt bellowed as she broke through a quartet of innocent bystanders, racing for the vittles.  Pinching skirt fabric midway up her thighs between her thumb and forefinger on each hand, she raised the dashing red designer dress up just enough to flash her ankles to a rather handsome young man she's just barreled over, as if this bowing gesture was sort of a haphazard "pardon".

    "Excuse me, madam, this is an emergency of sorts.  I need some muenster cheese immediately, else I shall faint away," quoth she, practicing her Shakespearean tongue; a manner of speaking she'd often adopted to prepare herself for her debut as Titania in Shakespeare in the Park.

    Sighting the red clothed half circle that supported the buffet, and the room's crisp and warm red, brown, and occasionally gold decor, Newt pushed onward, muttering dramatic excuse me's, until she'd placed a porcelain plate with a black and gold rim in her right hand, along with the adequate silverware, and was now pushing her way through munching people.

    "S'cuse me," she yelled, as though hoping the one loud gesture of politeness would compensate for the people she was about to push out of her way.  Pilling fruit salad and melon balls high on her plate, she swayed her hips in time with the piece being played, which was an effective way to dislodge those between her and the precious food. Placing a hearty portion of club sandwich slices onto her plate via some cute little red toothpicks, her hips encountered those of another, more full-bodied woman, who's peacock plumed hat waved ridiculously as she inspected the cheese slices, which she was refusing to move away from. Upon the second, "accidental", and much more forceful sway of the scarlet hips, Newt put her plate down on the buffet and turned to face the big woman.

    Haughtily, she murmured, and gradually becoming louder with each passing second, "Excuse me, ma'am, but though there is MORE than enough food for everyone here, you have chosen to hog the place in the buffet which I have made three people very sorry they crossed the path between me and these fine cheeses for, I DON'T THINK THERE'S ENOUGH ROOM HERE FOR BOTH YOU AND YOUR HAT!"

    Stifling a giggle at herself, still being cute at heart--though watch out when she was hungry!--Newt waited for the response, but was aghast when the woman gave her a rather stern look. She was MUCH younger than she originally thought.  Though larger than she--which was certainly big enough to kick Newt's butt from NYC to Portugal--she was maybe slightly over thirty, though her side profile gave a different impression.

    "Well, I'd never!" the lady growled, her lavish green gown swishing around her ankles as indignant as the peacock plumes threatening to tickle Newt's nose if the fell any farther.  Turning behind her, she consulted a presumably male escort, whining, "Sweetie, did you hear what she just said?  You're not going to let her say that and get away with it, are you?"  Turning again to Newt, "Do you have ANY idea who I am?"

    "N-no!" Newt stammered, and had the thought to show off the back of her dress and run away as fast as possible--with the food, of course. Where's your sis when you need her most?

    "My date, that's who," a creamy male voice replied.  Creamy was most certainly the word for it, Newt thought, for as he ventured his way around his "date", his voice wasn't the only wonderfully smooth about him. He was nearly as tall as his date's hat, towering a good four or five inches above Newt.  His eyes were a emerald green that was varying slightly in hue even as he was staring her down, and his black coat and jacket with an ivory shirt, though he had the top two buttons undone and had apparently abandoned his tie, since it rested around his shoulders, had some kind of an air of slick perfection and cool about them.  His hair, slightly tousled and unruly, was a dusty brown, and strands of it covered his perfect eyes. It was then that Newt realized he was most certainly not glaring at her with those beautiful emeralds, but giving her a look of amused pleasure, and he waited for her to speak first.

    "You...you're...you're..." she stammered, and then gleefully, "YOU'RE ACTUALLY DRESSED UP!"

    Flashing a half grin at her, the two threw their arms around each other in a friendly embrace, and he whispered, "Hello, Newty," into her left ear. Letting go of each other, Newton found she was rather tickled pink at seeing her old college pal, though his date certainly wasn't happy with them knowing each other. Which was when the thought occurred. And though it occurred and sirened through her brain, she kept her lips pursed, so as not ot upset the big woman any more than necessary.

    "Well, darling, why don't you get something to eat?  I have some catching up to do with my friend, here," the chic character amended, stressing the word "friend". Taking Newt aside, though not before she had her plate in a firm grip, they found a remote corner to talk in. He ran his fingers through his hair, a common gesture he had often used when they were friends.  She could sense that he was resisting the urge to tuck a strand of hair behind her own ear, as he repeatedly glanced at it.  Instead, he thrust his hands into his coat pockets, so she decided to put it behind her ear herself.  It wouldn't do to have them acting so personal as they always had in such a prim and proper setting, and they found themselves shifting uncomfortably, since their normal behavior was inappropriate at the time.  Too bad, too, because Newt always felt better when his arm was around her and they could walk around joking and teasing each other and messing up each other's hair like the immature people their inner-childs demanded to be. So instead, Newton popped a melon ball into her mouth, and she remembered her earlier revelation.

    "So, she's your 'date', huh?" Newton prodded, grinning fiendishly.  He gave her a  mirror image grin and raised his eyebrows suggestively.  "Sid, You old dog!  Devilish perv!"

    He shrugged in mock defense.  "Well, can't be too devilish, she's got a little bit of a weak heart."

    Newt's eyes grew wide. "Wait a minute, what are you talking about?"

    "What you were talking about."

    "I WAS JOKING!"

    "Whoops."

    Trying to block out the thought he had suddenly presented, she put a chocolate covered strawberry into her mouth, and decided to think about little kittens tangled in yarn instead.

    "How do I look?" the wayward angel questioned his reflection.

    "Great, but lose the wings," a harmonic female voice replied instead.

    Floating in the room with the help of her shimmering wings, Esther approached the other angel gracefully, and flicked a speck of dirt from his black clad shoulder.  Through the mirror, he saw her smiling sweetly at him, her beautiful face so like a child.

    "I see you've been in the garden again, Af," she chided, her shining, pearly face giving away her jest.  She was perhaps the most beautiful of the angels he'd had the courtesy of being well aquatinted with.

    "Can't help it, Lies," he answered, half apologetically, using her more preferred name.  After all, his job was so depressing, and gardening was so very beautiful.  And up here, the flowers never withered, just became exceedingly beautiful the more he cared for them.  He had always found gardening hard to resist, anyway.  Peter once hinted to him that perhaps he once was a gardener on Earth, but never mentioned it any more.  It did no good for angels to seek out their humanity, anyway.  It only made them heart-sick.

    "But why are you going?  I thought Peter sent Michael already?"

    Startled, Af replied, "I had almost forgotten you were there."

    She laughed, her sweet, full laugh of sheer joy.  Perhaps the name Joy would have suited her better than Esther.

    "Incoming news, Lies," he responded, a smile he had a second ago sported fading into a grimace.

    She was equally disturbed.

    Unhappy seeing her upset, he quickly changed the subject, and proclaimed bravely, "Well, duty calls!"

    She smiled again, which put his heart at ease.

    Content that she was in high spirits again, he strutted out of the small ice blue room, like an over eager rooster.

    "Oh, Af!"  she called after him.

    Grinning, he turned.

    "Yes?"

    "The wings!" she reminded in half distress.  Then her beautiful smile was back on her lips, and he felt one re-crossing his own as his wings dissolved and he headed out on his mission.

    Aj shut her eyes against the swirling colors around her. As she and Michael waltzed through the crowded ballroom, spinning majestically, she felt like she was trapped on an out of control merry-go-round.  Seeming to sense her dizziness, her escort slowed his pace and showed her to a softly lit table in the corner.  With a grateful sigh, Adrienne sat down in one of the low backed victorian style chairs as Michael seated himself in the one across from her without a sound.  Everything about him seemed so perfect.  And even perfect wasn't a good enough word to describe him...his speech, his dress, the way he moved in such a calculated, effortless manner without the slightest ruffle or sound...but it was the closest word she would ever find in this language.

    "Are you enjoying yourself?" he asked in his smooth round tones.

    "Oh yes!" Aj declared, and then blushed deeply at the eagerness of her reply. Michael flashed her a smile that turned the whole room into gold, she could feel herself melting under his gaze.

    "I'm glad to hear it..." he responded coolly, his voice running through her ears like liquid diamonds.  The sound of his voice had become distant and echoing as though he stood on the far side of an endless hallway. "But there's something I need to tell you..." his voiced rolled in monstrously silken waves, crashing over her, and sending her senses reeling.  The room seemed to be swimming around her, thickening as he slowly reached up a hand to remove his sunglasses.

    I'm finally going to see his eyes.  Aj thought in a dazed, dream like state. And that was all she could think of just now, that this was a strange dream, and any minute the clock would strike twelve and Cinderella would wake from this glorious night.

    "You see..." he paused removing his glasses and tucking them into his pocket, "I was sent for you..." He starred at Adrienne, his eyes locked onto hers. His eyes. She had gazed into them for perhaps a full thirty seconds before her mind registered what she was seeing.  Those perfectly shaped orbs in that perfectly shaped face burned with an inhuman fire, a swirling steely fire.  Looking into his eyes, she saw eternity and all of time. Endless time.  And he was transformed.  Adrienne let out an inaudible gasp and tried to push her chair back, to rise from her seat, break free of his gaze and run like mad. But his eyes held her there.

    Broken from the dream state she had been captive of until then, she noticed the change her world had undergone.  Time seemed to have sped up.  The dances whirled by at an inhuman pace, voices sounded too high and energetic, in an almost agitated way, to be understood.  A lurid yellow tint had covered everything, as if she was looking through a shard of lemon glass.  And the shades kept getting deeper and deeper in the yellow haze, and she knew then, she was drowning. And his voice was drowning her.  She could still hear him talking in his silken voice...taking her...taking her there...back to the other side...and she was going with him...

    A bright silver flash ripped through her trance, shattering the world of yellow light.  Adrienne snapped her head around, startled and gasping for air, only to see Michael hastily, and even a tad clumsily, wrapping his sunglasses back around his eyes.  He was startled and seemed as confused as Adrienne felt.

    "Sorry!" chimed the ever grinning red-head, a look that said if-I-was-in-a-chair-I'd-be-swiveling spreading across her face.  "But I just had to get a picture of you two!" She held up her polaroid camera and the as of yet, undeveloped picture.

    "Oh...um...thanks..." sputtered Aj, finally planting her feet firmly back in reality.  She stared at Michael, a look of anger, challenge, and even a little hurt emanating from her face. It was an expression that said 'How dare you!' and 'Just try it again and see what happens!' without uttering a word.

    Seeing that his spell had been broken and the opportunity irrevocably lost, Michael clumsily sprang up from his chair, scraping the bottoms of it along the marble tiles, his face had taken on a deep scarlet hue as he muttered some almost inaudible apologies and excuses and turned on his heels, practically running from the scene and into the night.

    "Well," said Beenie, a touch of wonder and sarcasm in her voice, "you sure know how to send 'em packing!"  She sat herself down in the formerly occupied chair across from Adrienne and starred in disappointment at her still bewildered friend.

    "He...I..." Adrienne stammered at Beenie, a look of urgence on her face, but she just couldn't say it. He was Death! her mind tried to scream out to Beenie. He was here to take me!  but no sound would come from her mouth.  Beenie scowled deeply, not in anger, but in confusion and in disappointment at having her match for Aj turn tail and run so soon.

    "At least I got a picture." she sighed tapping the photo lying face down on the table.  "If you didn't want him Adrienne, I woulda' been more than happy. Mmmm! I could just eat that boy with a spoon!"

    Adrienne just starred at her, mouth slightly agape, the reality of what happened sinking in. She was about to die. Correction. She had been about to die.  But Beenie...Beenie with her damn camera always taking pictures...but thank God this time she had it...She had caught him off guard with that bloody camera...and she was alive because of it...she was alive because Beenie had decided to be the devious Beenie she had always known her to be...she had tried to get a shot of Aj and Michael in what looked like an intimate moment...adoringly gazing into each other's eyes and collecting a little more blackmail on her friend...But it had worked out in her favor just this once...she was still alive...

    "Let's see how this turned out." Beenie interrupted her friend's rambling thoughts. "What the hell?!" She starred from the picture to Adrienne, and back again.  "What in hell is this?!"

    Adrienne grabbed the picture from Beenie, and as she looked at it, she began to laugh hysterically. It wasn't the laugh of the insane, it was the laugh of the saved, the laugh of the relieved. This picture held the truth of everything she had just been through without words.

    "He came to kill me." Aj stated, finally able to say the words. "He was here to take me to the other side." And with that she threw the photo down on the table.  She didn't know if she could tell this to anyone else, but now she could at least tell it to Beenie. Beenie had seen the photo. Beenie knew.  And as far as she could tell, that was how it worked: you couldn't tell those who didn't know, those who didn't find out on their own and see for themselves.

    They starred at the photograph. There was Aj sitting at the table. But her image was blurred and doubled. She was colored in faded and bleaching grays.  Her image, composed of dozens of individual overlapping images of herself, was being stretched and pulled across the table into an ethereal golden light.  Seated in the chair across from her was not the man named Michael they had seen.  The man in the photograph was too unearthly. His clothes, his hair, everything about him seemed to exist in an altered state of reality. It was as if this image held the true reality, as if the world had been hooded for all it's existence, and that hood had been ripped away just enough to see this man.  His eyes blazed with a silver glow. And an immaculately white pair of wings were spread out gracefully behind him....

     The street light bounced hazily off the rain slicked sidewalk.  The rain was falling in sideways sheets, the cold droplets dripped off the edges of Michael's curling locks.  He walked slowly with his head down cast as the hordes of Christmas shoppers milled past him.  They talked in high, almost excited tones about the coming holiday, the latest political scandal and the sudden change in weather.  They seemed to Michael to move at a snail's crawl.  His light green eyes now and then stared into the display windows of the small specialty shops he glided past.  He stopped, raising his head slightly, his expression pitiful, and closed his eyes, the rain drops dripped from his hair onto the contour of his cheek making him look as though he were crying.  He could feel their humanity, those oblivious human moving past him.  It was a warm feeling that ran from the pit of his stomach to the base of his brain, causing his toes to curl.  He was their guardian, not their executioner.

    And with that thought, as if on cue, Michael felt the presence of another angel.  One of his underlings was approaching swiftly, moving hurriedly thought the crowd.  And Af would have almost past his General had Michael not extended his raised hand to signal him.

    "Michael" Af greeted the arch angel in surprise and reverence, "I didn't see you there."

     Michael's voice was void of any emotion.

    "What are you doing here Af." It wasn't even a question in that flat,  accented tone.  It was more of a demand. Arch angels did not ask their underlings anything.

    "The Party, Michael, I'm sorry, that was my duty, I should not have been so selfish.  I was coming to see if it wasn't too late to complete the mission myself, spare you...I'm sorry I should have done it" Af apologized sincerely.

    "Yes you should have." Michael responded in that same neutral voice, "don't dwell on it Af, it will not happen again. There will be no repeat on this evening in the future."

    "Yes Michael, thank you." The angel of death bowed to his General appreciatively. "Shall we catch a movie?" he smiled boyishly.

    "Not tonight Af, some other time my friend."

    "Is everything all right Michael?"

    "Yes."

    "it's about tonight isn't it?"

    "Yes."

    "I'm sorry..." Af began before the arch angel cut him off.

    "Don't be Af."

    "I'll see later then?"

    "Yes."

    "Then goodnight Michael."

    "Goodnight Af, stay out of trouble."

    And with that Michael walked slowly on, with never a mention of the fact that the woman was living still and of the picture his hostess had taken. No worries, he thought. That can be taken care of. And for the girl, the world may be a better place with her in it, HE must have ordained these happenings for some reason....but why? If the woman was not really meant to die, why the charade?  Yes, despite the fact that he was the most powerful of all HIS angels, the mystery of his creator was not his to know.  Michael almost smiled and walked on.

   Af in his rush, slammed into a small, thin woman.  Her short blonde hair and glasses were wet with the rain, in her hand was a take out bag from a Ruby Tuesdays restaurant, she was dressed for a formal evening function. Af fell into a large mud puddle to avoid knocking the human female over.

    "Oh geez, are you all right?" the woman asked, bending to help the man up.

    "Thank you Madam," Af accepted the hand gratefully.

    "You're soaking wet! I'm so sorry...here let me get you a new suit."

    "Pardon?" Af linked in surprise. "A brand new suit??"

    "Oh my daughter has a flat just around the corner, she has lots of suits just lying around...I'm sure we can find you something to wear while I get this dry cleaned...I'm so sorry!"

    "Why...thank you!" Af smiled radiantly and chuckled to himself, these human are so delightfully surprising.

      The woman motioned for Af to follow as she turned and Af took three long strides to catch up to her.

    "May I?" he asked chivalrously as he offered her his arm.

    The woman placed her palm on the inside of his forearm and the two walked brightly down the pavement as the rain suddenly stopped.

    "Well look at that!" the woman mused happily.

    "Amazing isn't it?" Af commented, "by the by Madam, in your generous hurry I don't believe i caught your name."

    "I'm Ms. Donaldson, and don't get any ideas young man, I'm too old for you, " the woman smiled gracefully and then leaned in slight towards him to whisper, "I'm reeling you in for my daughter Laurel!"

    "Really!" the angel exclaimed with a wide smile and a twinkle in his eye... he hadn't had this much fun in years!

    The small airy kitchen bustled with a fury of activity the likes of which haven't been seen since feudal times.  Beenie Donaldson walked up and down her kitchen floor at a frenzied pace.  Adrienne sat in a catatonic state of stubbornness on the small stool, occasionally teetering back and forth with her sanity.

    "It's not possible!" declared Beenie with that indignant red headed way all her own. "Not for one minute!"

    Adrienne continued to sit in a fog of silence, stirring her cocoa as Beenie rushed to the oven.  She had been baking since they had arrived at her flat. And frankly, there was only so much carrot cake that Aj could manage to shove down her throat before she exploded!

    "You saw that picture," Adrienne stated flatly, "you can't deny it when the truth is starring you right in the face!"

    "Hon, you'd be surprised by what I can do." countered the red head. "And denial seems to be a specialty in my family...you want some cookies?"

     Aj shied away from the tray of chocolate chip delectables her friend had just whisked out of the oven and went back to stirring her cocoa.

    "I know it's crazy but we've got to think of some way to deal with it!"

    "Deal with what?!" chimed in an overly cheerful voice.  Startled, Adrienne spun around to face the speaker, tipping over her stool but managing to catch herself before falling flat on her springy rump.

     "Newton, don't you ever knock?!" snapped Beenie in agitation. "Remind me to change my locks and NOT give you a key this time!"

     Newt shot her sister a sarcastic glance and was about to make a retort when her primary senses kicked in.  Her head tilted back allowing her to sniff the air.  To Adrienne she looked like a wild dingo in Australia sniffing for the scent of prey. And this particular dingo had struck gold.

     "Beenie!!!" cried Newt in mock hurt. "You baked!!! And you didn't even tell me!"

     "Maybe I wanted to eat some of it myself."

     But Newton hadn't heard the remark. She was already in mid-pounce, leaping across the kitchen to where a tray of gooey baked goodness lay ripe for the picking. Seeming to realize that there was another person in the room, the girl spun around and smiled through a chocolate streaked face.

     "Hello Aj!" she greeted jovially through a mouthful of cookies. "Ooooh is that carrot cake?!!!" Newton grabbed a knife and cut herself a slab of the cake. Then, hopping up on the counter top, strategically placing herself between the oven and within reach of the freshly made snacks, Newt decided it was time to get back to the subject.

     "So, what are we talking about?"

    Beenie and Aj looked at each other with an uncomfortable side glance. Beenie opened her mouth to tell her sibling but started choking instead.  She tried again, and again the words fell silent.

     "Well?"

     "I...can't!" exclaimed the heiress in surprise. She shrugged her shoulders in a hopeless manner to her friend.  Adrienne's eyes lit up like a light bulb, much like a cartoon character in a Warner Brothers skit.

     "Here." Adrienne tossed a polaroid to Newt. "And wipe that mess off your hands when before you touch it!" she warned.

     Newt wiped her hands on her khakis, realizing too late that she was smearing chocolate across them, and picked up the photo. A slightly confused look furrowed her eyebrows.

     "What's this?" she asked bemused. "Beenie, are you doctoring photos for the government again?"

     Adrienne drew in a very deep breath and spat out the evenings events.

     "Beenie introduced me to this fabulous guy at the party tonight named Michael only he turned out to be the angel of death and he tried to kill me but Beenie showed up with her polaroid and took a picture and it scared him off and the picture developed and this is what we saw....!!!!!" Adrienne inhaled a great gasp of air, and sat doggedly catching her breath.

     "Took a polaroid...? MY polaroid camera Beenie???" Newt threw her hands on her hips in that indignant way only she could manage.

     "I borrowed it."

     "So why not tell me in the first place instead of the run around?" the girl demanded.

     "I'm not sure." replied Beenie in mystical tones. "It's kinda' like in that new Keanu Reeves movie. You know, 'no one can be told what the matrix is. They have to see it for themselves.'  That seems to be how this works. You have to experience it first hand or see a direct sign of it if you want to be able to talk about it."

     "You can't tell people who don't already know unless." added Adrienne.

     "So this is the matrix?" Newton joked. "You mean all this time, I could've saved myself $8.50 at the theater???"

     A loud buzz from the intercom on the wall interrupted the debate.  Beenie went over and pressed one of the round ivory buttons.

     "Yes?" she greeted in her formal voice.

     "...Hello Been..." greeted the familiar voice of her mother. "...I stopped by for a visit...and I brought a friend to meet you...can we come up...?"

    "All right," answered the red head, "but this "friend" had better not be another blind date!"

     Newton and Aj smirked and giggled.

     "Come on Beenie!" joked Newt. "You've got to get moving! You're my only hope for nieces and nephews and at this rate you'll wind up a lonely old spinster...like Adrienne!!!!"

     "Newton!!!" screamed Aj.

     "Well it's true!" Newt jumped off the counter and ran into the next room just as Adrienne had made a leap for the chocolate splattered girl.  Beenie stood watching with the interest of someone who had viewed these antics countless times before.

       There was a gentle wrapping sound that fluttered through the room and reached the man's ears:  knuckles bouncing softly off the wood of his apartment door.  Sid rose reluctantly, fearing that perhaps it was his mistress coming back for seconds.  Although the affair had been stimulating at it's start, he had quickly grown bored with his latest conquest. Then a second thought crossed his mind...but it might be Caitlin. He gave into the better half of his curiosity and crossed the room to the door.

     With a gentle pull, Sid found himself face to face with a tall green eyed man, to his surprise. He smiled, slightly disappointed at the gender of his visitor, but pleased that it was a friend standing before him.

    "Michael!" Sid greeted jovially and ushered his friend in.

    The dark haired man walked slowly into the room.

    "Jesus Michael! Let me get you a towel, you shoulda' called to tell me you were in town, I woulda' come and picked you up!" he called to the man soaked with rain as he approached the bathroom of the flat to retrieve a towel.

    "I wasn't planning to stay long." Michael said softly in his neutral voice and breathed in deeply, relishing the smell of rain that coated his human form.

      Sid appeared in the threshold of the hallway holding a thick fluffy towel in one hand and a bottle of bourbon in the other.

    "Well hell, what brings you to the city, Mike?" Sid asked as he threw the man the towel and slipped into the kitchen for the bourbon glasses. "Out playing savior again?" he asked half jokingly.

    "No." the response was soft, emotionless and cultured.

      Sid often wondered just what happened in this man's past to keep him so distanced.  Not that he should care, he told himself, he saved your sorry life, buddy.  It was clear the man was extensively educated and well traveled, but Sid was dying to know more about the man who saved him from death.

    He had know Michael for three years now, and he didn't even know his last name.  Sid paused in thought as his hand grasped the two squat tumblers. 'Stop it Sid!' he ordered his consciousness. 'He saved your ass and all he asked in return was that you not ask any questions! Simple enough! Just stop driving yourself crazy!'

     When Sid returned to his guest with the tumblers weighted with the amber colored fluid, they exchanged goods. Sid passed the glass to Michael while Michael returned the damp towel to his host.

    "Thank you." Michael offered, and Sid could see the sincerity in his friends eyes.

    "Anytime buddy."

     They both drank and stood in a moment of silence.

     It was Sid who broke the silence and asked Michael to sit.

    "I can't stay long, I need a favor, if you can." He looked directly at Sid now and it took the man back a step.  His guest had a powerful glance.

    "Anything Mike, you know I'd do anything I can."

    "I need you to retrieve a photograph."

    "Uh, sure." Sid responded, slightly confused.

    "I left a photograph with a young woman this evening and I need it back.  I'm sorry Sid, that's all I can tell you, but it is important." Michael explained esoterically in his stoic tone and straight face as he took another swig of bourbon, allowing the warm silky liquid to flow down his throat.

    "Ahhh, one of those dates?" Sid smiled knowingly.

     Michael stared at him blankly indicating his confusion.

    "She was one of those really bitchy women huh? New York is full of em'! Don't worry I understand.  You don't want to see her again! Believe me buddy, I know."

     Michael sat back into the sofa seat Sid had offered him.

    "No, rather the opposite, I found her vibrant and charming and humorously entertaining, which is why I wish not to contact her myself."

    "Woah Mike, you liked the girl, but you don't want to see her again?"

    "Yes."

    "Now I know you hate questions, but I've gotta ask this one...why Mike? I'm bewildered, if I found a girl..."

    The cultured accented voice of Michael cut off Sid's sentence.

    "I don't want to get attached, now here is the address." The dark haired man leaned across a small glass coffee table and handed Sid a slip of paper and a gold crucifix on a thin chain. "Just go to the door and show them the cross, they'll know who it's from, and simply ask for the photograph, they'll know what your talking about.  If any trouble persists, ask for the lady of the house and show her the crucifix."

    "Sounds easy enough."

    "And Sidney."

    "Yeah Mike?"

    "One more thing...don't look at the photograph. It's a lot to ask, but it's important." Michael sat back again and finished his bourbon.

    "What the hell Mike..."

    "Please, let me explain it this way.  My employer would be very disappointed if he discovered I did not take measures to get the photograph with as few people as possible expose to it's contents."

    Sid smiled broadly as if a light switch just went on in his head.

    "Mike, your a bloody spy aren't you?"

    Michael sat in silence.

    "You ARE you ol' devil! Ha! My friend, a genuine spy!"

    "Can you do it Sid? Just as I've instructed?"

    "No problem Mike, first thing tomorrow." Sid was still grinning.

    "I'm very serious Sid, I'm trusting you."

     "You can Mike, I'll get it, I'll meet ya at St. Patrick's Cathedral tomorrow at..say...two...I'll have it Mike."

       Michael rose and headed for the door.

    "Thank You Sidney."

    "Tomorrow then?"

    "Yes" Michael was just about to step out of the door, when he turned his head to look at Sid over his shoulder. "Oh and Sidney...you have."

    "I have what?"

    "About the girl...you have." Michael smiled slightly, a tiny tug on the corner of his lips, the closest thing to an emotion Sid had ever seen his friend display.

    "What girl? Have what? Mike...?"

      Suddenly Sid turned back towards the heart of his flat and away from his friend, he was startled by a sound, it sounded like a bird was in the room, fluttering about the room swiftly. He looked quickly, thinking perhaps he left his bedroom window open and a pigeon had gotten in, then snapped his head back with a fresh onslaught of questions for his friend, but he was gone.

    Rats.  Infernal weather.  So incredibly cold, she thought, that her marrow must be as frozen as the brand name box of mozzarella sticks she'd discreetly masqueraded on her right hip--beneath her all-too-thin coat, of course---as she'd exited the grocery store, unsuspected, earlier in the night.  The run-on thought all too painfully reminded her of her misfortune, and she dug her toes further into the insides of her too big shoes, hoping to eliminate the numb feeling that was beginning to creep up her entire body.

   Idiot, get out of the snow bank, she scolded herself, hugging the threadbare olive coat to her numbing body as she removed her toes from a snow bank.  She'd heard that some rich snob somewhere in an upper-class district was throwing a big old party.  Well where was her invitation?  None of the low class refuse like her ever had the opportunity to grace those ballroom floors, and it was likely that they never would.  No, instead she was out here wrapping her rag of a coat--much too thin for this weather--around herself in a feeble attempt to drive away the chilly breezes and otherwise cold weather.  Well, good luck, she told herself.  Her breath appeared as solid as the concrete slabs beneath her feet.  For Heaven's sake, it was like trying to fight off a pair of jackals with a Popsicle stick!

    Oh, Popsicles!  Best not to think of those, it was too painful.  The last thing she needed tonight was a frozen tongue, and she craned her head upward to grant herself the lavish extravagance of letting the snow fall down like cotton in the breeze to grace her eyelashes.

    Just like that one afternoon when she was growing up in Virginia. Imagine that, a fluke snowfall--and in July!  Oh, how she'd felt like a princess that afternoon, just catching snowflakes on her tongue and watching it dust the prickly cotton plants, only to melt away seconds later.  What she wouldn't give to be that warm again!

    Silencing the reminiscence, she bent down to pull the laces of the huge shoes tighter, and flip flopped back into her little makeshift house in the alley corner, the coating of snow on the ground denying her the slapping sound she had grown accustomed to, enjoyed, and almost depended on to keep her sanity in place.  No matter, if it hadn't flown the coop by now it probably never would.

    But as she stumbled her way into her little home, a tapping sound, even and determined, settled onto her ears like the snow that was chilling them.  At first she thought it was her precious big-shoe- noise, but they smacked, not tapped.  So then it was something else…

    Whirling around as fast as was permitable, and seizing a piece of rotted lumber she'd pressed into service for protection against those drunken gang boys that sometimes lingered around her alley, she held it aloft, ready to set a striking blow to an unsuspecting cranium.

    Much to her chagrin, however, the intruder had anticipated her movement, and she found herself forced into a pile of snow, unarmed. This man is very tall, very dark, was all her iced-over mind permitted her to observe.  Oh, yes, it was certainly getting colder.

    "You've seen the wingéd one, Eve," the tall-dark man stated evenly, as though accusing.

    She lowered her head, suddenly drowsy, but remaining silent.

    "So you have seen him, dear Eve."

      Though every fiber of her being railed against speaking to the tall-dark man, she felt compelled to speak, though her freezing brain could barely string together a sentence.

    "Name…not…Not Eve," she finally managed, her rich southern drawl slurred.

    But the tall-dark man was persistent.

      "Come, Eve, Eve-child, child of Eve," he coaxed, "which way did the wingéd man go?"

    Her head lolling backwards, thumping against the brick building at her back, she looked up at the tall-dark man.  He was indeed a very dark figure.  Some part of her brain thought, "How alarming!" but the frozen bits overrode it.  Mayhaps it was her common sense speaking, but what did it matter?  Even in her chilled daze she recognized that she was losing her fight for heat.

    Scrutinizing the man as best as she could, examining him for obvious signs of the lunacy he displayed, she saw his coal black eyes staring her down, burning into her.  Burning.  That was a very nice word, she thought, and then it struck her that she was fighting to keep her lungs working.

    "I…see lots of men…walk…walk through here.  No wings," she replied slowly, her brain screaming for her to keep alert, or else she may slip into an eternal slumber, and then, in an effort to stay sharp, she continued, mocking him, "No wings to be found, Adam!"

    He simply stood there, now gazing at her with the same seeking look she'd just a moment ago harbored.  His very presence chilled her further, and she tried to draw her knees up to her chest in a defensive, safe, fetal position, but found her legs would not respond.  She was freezing to death, and he was just standing there, obsessing over some freak with a pair of pigeon wings! Pigeon wings?  Now what made her think of that?

    "Ah, so he went down the street this way," he stated, still the calm, nearly lifeless and certainly joyless voice.  "From out of that flat?"

    He indicated a place so very far from where they were she knew not how he could see it.  But then again, he was already reading her brain, she felt.  What was he seeing that she wasn't?

    "Thank-you, Eve woman-child, your mother helps my greater cause once more," he intoned eerily, and she attempted a shiver, but only her head and left arm responded.

    Oh, she certainly was slipping!  She could have sworn there was a tall-dark man standing in her alley.  Well, she told herself, there couldn't have been, men just don't fade away, darling.  But your brain does.

    That was when she saw a man.  Not the tall-dark man she'd imagined she saw, but a different man.  She could feel her body warming, her thoughts returning to unslurred sharpness.  Oh, he was so beautiful, this young man, so light coloured, so fair.  She felt at ease, happy, just gazing at his wonderful form, his ivory robe cast about him like a most regal throne.

    "Come, Mary Elizabeth, and be cold and unhappy no more," he invited, his voice so joyful at rescuing her that it brought tears to her eyes.  And the tears didn't freeze.

    And he'd used her Christian name!  The last person she'd heard call her by her Christian name was her dear old grandmother!  Oh, she was so happy! And his voice, it promised one-thousand warm days in beautiful cotton fields with manna-like snow falling onto her eyelashes!  For one moment it sounded like hundreds of angels and the eternally happy crying "Alleluia, Mary Elizabeth, Alleluia!", her granny's voice the loudest of them all! And her angel, her glowing man inviting her, held out his hand.

    "Take me home," Mary Elizabeth shouted, her voice echoing in the heavens that were drawing her forth and tears streaming down her face with pure joy, "I've forgotten how beautiful God's face is!"

    And she took his hand, moving most wonderfully towards her promised cotton fields, the two leaving the icy snow globe world behind them.

  "This just in, tonight's temperatures may be heading for a record low in New York City," an enthusiastic reporter announced, beaming at finally having the chance to recite the memorable "this just in".

      "Well of course it's cold!" Sid remarked none too cordially, followed by a rather vivid stream of curses, which preceded another line of obscenities as toothpaste dripped out of his mouth, nearly onto his brand new boxers.

  Running for the bathroom sink, he continued to listen at the annoyingly common-sense advisories for staying inside a heated building and dressing fittingly for the weather.

  "So stay inside, and bundle up with your loved ones!" a co-anchor added to the warnings.  Which presented an interesting idea.

  Slurping water from a paper cup and spitting out the toothpaste, a ritual he performed twice before he was completely satisfied, he wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand, grinning at his latest brainstorm.

  Walking by his bed and the television in front of it, he snagged the dress pants from its crumpled pile on his bedspread and threw them in the bottom of his closet into a whole new crumpled pile.  Throwing a few things into any secluded place that presented itself--after all, he was very humble and certainly did not look down upon stuffing junk beneath his bed--he paced around for a moment, and then headed for the kitchen.

    He was hungry--again.  Newt would have snorted at him and said, "It figures" before snagging half of whatever he was making for himself to satisfy her own high metabolism.  Which brought him back to his idea.

    Pausing, he thought about it again, and then discarded it. He stepped onto the tiled kitchen floor, only to jump back again, the floor ice cold as milk.  Hmm, milk…

  Shuffling back onto the carpet, he slid back a door to his closet  and hunted for a pair of socks until he'd found a matching pair.  Slipping them on his feet, and almost falling over in the process, he shuffled back to the kitchen, getting a shock from dragging his feet on the plush carpeting.  He wished he hadn't done that, but most of all, he wished his idea would quit presenting itself to him.  Desire was certainly persistent.

  Opening the cream coloured refrigerator door, he browsed through the shelves, contemplating his contemplation, which he found rather ironic.  He was going to make himself a sandwich, he reminded himself.  But part of his brain kept saying, "and then maybe…".

    "I'm going to have a sandwich!" he yelled for emphasis, immediately grateful that there was no one else to hear.  Wow, if his brain were a person he'd have given it the finger by now and have been done with it.

      And then that devilish little part of his brain chimed in, bargaining, saying, "You know who else might like a sandwich…" Finally giving in, but unhappy about it, nonetheless, he stomped over to his telephone.

  Normal people don't have to argue with themselves like this, he thought, but normal people weren't raised like he was.  He was willing to bet he just took after his real father, curse him for not being as much of a gentlemen as Sid himself was.  If that was him-- and here a part of his brain yelled out, "and it should be!"--he would have married the girl when she told him she was pregnant.  Not just run away to some sketchily detailed job in Canada, and send some money once in a while. Not to mention come back years later and do it all over again.  Of course if that last part hadn't happened, he wouldn't be here, and some days he was not so sure that was a bad thing.

  Picking up the receiver, he poised his fingers over the numbers, ready to dial.  But first he had to remember something.  Was the first number a five or a three?  Pausing, his face growing red with amusement, he suddenly burst out laughing.  How wonderful was that?  His own stupidity just saved him from what could have been the biggest mistake of his life.  Not to mention she'd probably never speak to him again for trying to put the moves on her, rigid little Catholic that she was.

  He never asked for Caitlin's number!

    "I'll get it!" chimed Newt. She bounded through her sister's flat towards the door and the guests waiting behind it.  She let out a gleeful giggle of anticipated mischief as she threw open the door to reveal her mother, bundled up in her beige winter coat, and the latest of her mother's attempts at playing matchmaker.

     "Come in! Come in!" she laughed practically pulling the two in through the door and slamming it shut, turning the dead bolt with a sly grin that told the stranger he wasn't going anywhere for a while.   In a hurried whirlwind of motions, Newt took the stranger's damp coat and then her mother's.

    "Mom, we need to get you a new coat!" she declared, hanging it on the coat rack by the door.

    "And what's wrong with this one?" queried the woman, an edge of humor seeping into her voice, an indication to the stranger that these conversations happened all the time.

    "Nothing except that...except that you look like a giant twinkie!!!!!" Newton protested with that dazzling grin of mayhem. Her stomach growled at her words. '...mmmm....twinkies...,' she thought.  And with a final bound across the room towards the kitchen and whatever food she hadn't already devoured, the young woman's voice rang like a bell across the flat with a devious joy, "Oooooh Beenie!!!!!! Come say hello to mom and her friend!!!!!!"  Then with another barrage of giggles she disappeared around the corner into the kitchen.

    "Hello mum." sighed Beenie as she was pushed around the corner by, what the stranger assumed to be, her younger sibling's hands. The red haired woman walked up to her mother and gave her a kiss on the cheek, never once even throwing the stranger so much as a glance.  Just as quietly as she had entered the room, the young woman turned her back to them and headed for the comfort of a plush blue recliner. "Can I get you anything before I sit down?"

     Her mother flashed a quick apologetic look to her escort before turning back to her daughter.

    "Now, Been, " she began a touch of humor and pleading to her words, "this nice gentleman is stopping by just for a little bit to dry off. I ran into him on the street and knocked him into a puddle. I couldn't let him run around the city in this cold weather completely drenched when you're flat was just a block away, now could I?"

    "I suppose not." conceded Beenie, a smile curling her lips to match the twinkle in her mother's eyes. She turned her eyes at last to the man standing next to her mother...and froze.

    "Is something wrong dear?" asked her mother in confusion. For a single second, a strange look had crept into her daughters features. It was a look of recognition, and even a little bit of terror, but it faded too quickly for her to be sure.

    "No," responded the red head, confidence and cheer coming back to her voice, "I was just wondering if you were going to introduce me to your...friend."

    "Oh!" laughed Mrs. Donaldson. "This is...oh..dear...um...I'm afraid I never caught your name..."

    Beenie raised an eyebrow and folded her arms across her chest. Her mother had brought over a man to try and pawn off on her daughter, a man she had just met on the street...and she didn't even know his name!  Granted he was a very good looking boy, but still, there are some things that should be considered sacred - and one of these was knowing the name of the man you are trying to set your daughter up with.

    "Af."

    "Hm? What?!" the stranger had startled her out of her thoughts.

    "My name, " repeated the stranger, "is Af."

    Beenie grinned in spite of herself, and the oddness of the situation.  There was something about his voice, 'Af's voice' she corrected herself. It was so very smooth, cool, confidant, like the feeling of diving into a pool of ice water. It felt so clear and pure, sending a barrage of chills up her spine.  She held out her hand to the man in greeting.

    "I'm Laurel," a smile crept into her features that could only be described as her trademark smile - a combination of humor, and some dirty, inside joke that only she knew, "but everyone calls me Beenie."

    Af took her hand, and she was struck again by the exoticness of the man.  His tall, lean figure, and straight black hair that hung slightly in front of his eyes, and his wildly electric blue eyes...it all seemed oddly familiar to her.

    "A pleasure, " he replied, and with a quick movement so graceful that graceful seemed a filthy word to use to describe the motion, he had lifted her pale hand to his lips, a smile to match her own exploding on hid face.  He hadn't had this much fun in years!

    "We've met before, haven't we?" Asked Beenie, retrieving her hand from Af.  A startled and confused look crossed the man's face as he slowly shook his head.

    "No...I don't see that we would have...I'm just passing through the city on business."

    "You seem so familiar, I'm sure we've met..."

    "NEWTON!!!!!!!" A loud shout from the kitchen interrupted the moment as Adrienne's angry shouts echoed from the flat clear to New Zealand. "THAT'S MY CARROT CAKE!!!!!"

    A moment later a laughing Newt came racing from the kitchen, plate of carrot cake in hand, with a stampeding Aj behind her.

    "Beenie!" Whined Adrienne as she chased the cake thief in circles around the living room. "That little troll took my carrot cake! It's the last piece and I never got any!!!!"

    Beenie simply slapped a hand over her eyes in response. Af stood still as stone in the center of the room as the two intruders began racing around him.

    "Why...don't we sit down..." offered the red head, motioning to the free sofas in front of them, "...ALL of us!" she shouted to Newt and Adrienne.

     With a groan of defeat, Adrienne slumped down on the couch. As Newton paraded past in a victory dance, Beenie snatched the plate of cake from her sibling and passed it back to Adrienne.  The balance of power successfully restored for the moment, Newt sat next to her mother, sticking her tongue out at her older sister.  Af had quietly seated himself next to Beenie.

    "So..." began Beenie, trying to rekindle a stable conversation, "...where did you say you were from?"

    "I didn't." Af flashed his hostess a coy smile. "But since you ask, no where in particular. I travel far too much to really say I live in any one particular place."

    "Uh oh Been, " Adrienne interrupted with a sly laugh, "a handsome, mysterious man shows up at your door who's not from anywhere in particular...you better watch out or with our luck tonight he'll turn out to be another angel of death!" The four women laughed until tears came to their eyes, Mrs. Donaldson laughing more out of confusion. Af sat suddenly frozen in his seat.

    "Is something wrong?" Beenie asked in dismay, the stranger looked like someone had just killed a puppy, and she wasn't about to let this one get away without a fight, she was just starting to like him...

    "Do you..." Af began a little unsure, but quickly rediscovered his charm and poise, "...do you often run into the angel of death?"

    "Only at Beenie's parties!" Mused Adrienne a little bitterly. The three young women exchanged a round of laughter again.

    "What do you mean?" Af was beginning to sound intensely cautious.

    "Well.." began Beenie with enthusiasm but fell short of the words...that damn matrix effect again!

    "I'll get it!" announced Newt. She jumped up and ran to the kitchen and reappeared before she had really even left, holding a small polaroid in her hand. "You're gonna get a kick outta this!" The girl handed the picture to Af. The amused look on his face quickly faded to one of almost tangible fear. He glanced from Adrienne back to the picture and back again.

    "How...where did you get this?" his voice had begun to shake.

    "I took it tonight at my party." Beenie replied.

    "With MY camera!" shouted Newton, not wanting to be left out. Beenie merely waved her sister off.

    "This hunk of a guy had been waiting around all evening for Aj here, and it turns out he was the angel of death, come to take her away!" she explained.

    "Who else has seen this?" demanded Af, his demeanor suddenly changing.

    "Just us." Newton spoke the words with extreme caution, like an animal that has caught the scent of the hunter. She looked worriedly to Beenie, but her sister was concentrating on Af.  Something in her sister's face frightened her even more than the change in their guest.  Beenie had a strange look on her face, a look of recognition and understanding, like she had just fit a large piece of a jigsaw puzzle together.  Now she was starring straight at the man, it was a defiant look, one of challenge, as if she was trying to stare down the stranger, and let him know that she did not fear him, like two wolves trying to show exactly who was dominant.

    "How many of you are there wandering around?" Beenie's voice had turned to ice. She shifted in her seat, and sat poised like an animal ready to attack at the first sign of a threat.

    Af looked at her in surprise and then in anger, his eyes burning intensely.  Seeing that the red head showed no sign of shying from his gaze he responded in a slow and equally icy tone.

    "Not many." He threw the photo on her lap. "He was just a stand-in for tonight."

    "You know Michael?" Gasped Adrienne, the reality of the conversation finally hitting home. Af scowled but never took his eyes away from Beenie.

    "You're the angel of death..." Beenie added firmly, it wasn't a question, but a statement of fact. "I KNEW we had met before..."

    Now it was Af's turn to be startled. His eyes blinked in confusion, but then his brows furrowed in a strange form of recognition, his head nodded in understanding.

    "It's been, what, twenty six years?" he calculated.

     "Almost twenty seven." Came her even reply. "I have a birthday coming up."

     "I shall have to remember to send you a card." A smile had curled the edges of the man's lips. He stood up, again returning to his graceful manner and went to fetch his coat.

     "If you'll excuse me ladies," he said adding a formal bow, "I have a few matters to clear up." He adjusted his coat and stepped out the door. "It's been...most enlightening...".

     The door closed with a hollow thud, breaking the trance-like silence of the room. Beenie pulled out a pillow from the corner of the couch and proceeded to smother her face in it.

     "This night can't get anymore lively." Declared Adrienne in mock disgust. "At least let's hope not."

     "Yeah," chimed Newton in agreement. "I run into my old college buddy turned male prostitute, Beenie falls for the angel of death, and Adrienne for his substitute. What more can happen?"

        Michael lay naked, his long full white wings flounced around him, as the white robe hammock swayed gently.  Naked, he mused, was a distinctly human word, having no real meaning here, in the primitive abyss of this jungle.  He had always felt most at ease here. The pygmie natives were among the last of their kind to remain blissfully unaware of the modern world, and vice versa.  Here, Michael thought absently, it felt like the way it was in the beginning...or the near beginning. Eden. Oh Eden.

    He came here when he felt he was being called to solve the Creator's plan.  HIS rubix cube of fate.  He closed his green eyes and sighed.  The journey from New York to this small patch of jungle near the ends of the earth, combined with the evening's events, had left him warmly exhausted. Tomorrow, he would rise from the tropical depths of his haven and return to New York to meet Sid and retrieve the photograph.

     Below his tree loft height, small pygmie children began to sing. High thin voices, sounding like birds in the late twilight. Their voices joined the smooth sound of the water fall meters away, and the harmonic chirps of the night creatures. He found his thoughts drifting back to the Winter ball, and the woman he failed to kill.  What did it mean? What was his Creator trying to tell him?  It was maddening. He would speak with Af, perhaps the Creator had endowed the death angel with some information.  Yes, after meeting Sid, he would find Af.

    "My General." a soft smiling voice whispered at the arch angels right.

   Michael started mentally, but casually turned his head to face his fellow angel.  The blonde haired angel, with his high broad cheek bones and light blue eyes was unmistakable.  It was Raguel.  The charge of the Creator who over saw the behavior of all heaven's angels, to be sure they kept the Creator's commandments, and away from the temptations of Lucifer, their fallen brother.

    "Raguel." Michael responded.

    "I wasn't sure I would find you My General."

    "My travels are incognito only when necessary." The arch angel responded emotionless. "What can I do for you my friend?"

    "Nothing." the assuring voice chirped.

    "Nothing?"

    "Yes, it was foretold to me that these things would lead you here, however I was not sure it would lead you to your haven so soon."

    "It is as HE wills it."

    "And Af?" Raguel asked.

    "He was in New York, I passed him on the street." Michael paused as a tiny revelation surfaced in his mind. "Yes, I suspected something was off about him, so it IS the woman." It was less of a question and more of a plainly stated fact.

    Raguel beamed at the mention of the humans.

    "They are so unique Michael, they are so easy to love, you cannot blame him for having doubts, not even the Creator, and Af so longs for a taste of mortality."

    "You suspect...?" Michael asked stoically, fearing the answer that may follow.

    "There have been signs, a woman found in the snow...but no matter, it is after all just a suspicion.  I will leave you now to rest my General, sleep well." Raguel bowed his head solemnly and Michael acknowledged the departure of the angel into the molecules of air that rose up and up on the song of the pygmie children, until the sparkling dust-like particles of the angel rose above the canopy of jungle trees and out of Michael's sight.

    A radio hummed quietly in the background, the gentle waves of sound echoing through the hotel suite.  Though the noise was so silent only the frequencies of the voices were audible unless one strained to hear it, Caitlin's eyelids began to begrudgingly flutter open.

    Wondering how it could possibly be morning already, she rolled over, pulling the sheet up to her chin.  She was rather chilly, having kicked the rest of the bedding off to the side when she grew too warm earlier, presumably near dusk.  Hotel heating was fickle that way, much like the previous day's weather (at this thought part of her brain began to chant "rain, snow, rain, snow, let it go, rain, snow"), making a body too hot one hour and groping for wherever you threw the comforter the next.

    Momentarily hiding her nose in the single ivory cased pillow she slept on, she cracked open an eye just enough to view the red digits on the alarm clock.  8:32.  Why on earth was she getting up at 8:30?  She must be rapidly approaching "late", at the speed she was moving, but late for what?  Certainly there was some appointment of some sort she was late for.  A doctors appointment?  Impossible.  This was New York City, not Baltimore.  Perhaps she had promised she would meet her sister for breakfast, though why she'd agree to such an ungodly hour only the Lord knew--with the exception of the part of her brain that refused to awaken so soon.

    Thrashing in a small battle with the covers, she untangled her legs from the twisted sheet and dangled one foot over the bed, testing the air.  She let another minute pass before she hazarded sitting up.

    Searching the floor with a white-sparkle painted toe, she located her slippers and promptly shoved her feet in them.  The backs of the slippers stubbornly slid beneath her heel, which meant she would be forced to get up and reach down if she wanted to correct it.  Her entire body highly disagreed with this epiphany, but she was going to be late, so none of it mattered.

    With a groan, she literally slid out of the unevenly mattressed bed with a shiver, immediately seeking out her suitcase for a sweatshirt.  Finding a green Calvin Klein sweatshirt, she gracelessly put it over her head and shrugged her arms into the sleeves.  Stumbling over to the window in the dark room, she fumbled for the string that opened the curtains.

    As sunlight poured into the room, she was nearly blinded by the light reflecting off the snow.  There was an ample coating on all the little cars five flights below her, indicating a heavy snowfall during her few hours of sleep after happy hour with the angel of death at Beenie's.  Funny how she'd been here for two days now, visiting her family, and yet she still was surprised every morning when she saw a muddy coloured sky and all the snow, rather than the somewhat cool ocean scene she had grown rather accustomed to.

   "Rain, snow, you'll never know, snowy rain, who's to blame…" Though the idea of smacking her forehead in a feeble attempt to stop the incessant chanting, she rather thought she needed her head, un-abused, for the day, so as to figure out why she was late.  Either way she was getting dressed, preferably in something very warm. The only problem was, her ears wouldn't stop ringing with that infernal chant.

    "Pancakes," she muttered, "I must be meeting Beenie for pancakes."

    As the morning grew old, Caitlin still had no recollection of what she was probably now hours late for.  Beenie had never called her dear Newton, so that could not have been anything to do with her.  Her plane didn't leave for another four days, so that was out.  Bundled up in the bedspread, wearing blue jeans, a sweatshirt, and a tee under that, she scanned her mind for the thought that would not oblige her plea to surface.

    Turning on the television, she flipped through a few stations she was unfamiliar with, noting which one the Weather Channel was, here in NYC.  Pausing for a moment, she listened to the rumble of her stomach, and then resumed her surfing, but to no avail.  And she thought you were supposed to remember things when you stopped thinking about them.

    Rising from the bed, she manually turned off the television and slipped on her boots, ready to go downstairs for what was probably a very picked over continental breakfast.  Picking up her room card-key, she strolled over to the door, lingering as much as possible, just in case Beenie was going to call and scold her for not being there for pancakes.  Not likely, but still she procrastinated.

    Smiling at her own foolishness, she turned the handle of the door and was about to step out, when a noise stopped her.  A phone.  Her phone! Dashing for the telephone, she managed to pick it up on the third ring, her door slamming itself shut with it's own weight.

    "Hello!" she greeted breathlessly, realizing it should have been a question.

    "Newt?" An equally winded male voice whimpered pathetically.

    Taken aback with alarm, she immediately seated herself on the far-from-made bed, listening momentarily to Sid's panting, fearing the worst from the anxiety lining his tone.

    "Yes." She answered slowly, already not believing whatever it was he was about to say.  "What…what's wrong?"

    His voice shook with emotion when he spoke--a frenzied fear.

    "Newt…Newt, you have to come, please!"

    "Tell me what's wrong!" she demanded, her knees beginning to shake.

    "I'm at…your sister's place…There's blood….blood EVERYWHERE!" he stressed the word so much it seemed to pain him.

    "What…"

    "Everywhere!" he repeated, cutting off her sentence, his voice quivering and growing faint.  "Mike told me…Gave me the address…Thought I'd go before…But that's doesn't matter, that's not…But I came…and the door was…I saw your number on the wall…There's even blood on the walls, on the floor, on me….Oh God, what if they think I did this?  HOW could they think I…GOD NEWTON IT'S EVERYWHERE!"

    "Hold on, hold on, I'm coming!  I already have my shoes on," she informed hurriedly.

    "Hurry," he repeated, his voice so faint it made her sick to listen.  And then there was silence.  He had hung up the phone.

    Hanging up the phone while uttering a prayer, she stood up and attempted to get her legs under control and prepared to sprint.  Grabbing her coat as she ran, Caitlin raced out the door, her knees still shaking with fear.

    Adrienne squeezed her eyes tight against the invading morning sun.  Her head hurt, her arms hurt, her entire cringing form seemed to be filled with pain.  The only thing that finally forced her eyes open was the sensation of intense, damp cold.

    Her eyes struggled open to find their possessor lying in a pile of discolored snow in a grungy alley.  Something about the snow seemed to bother some distant part of her brain that was temporarily vacationing at a Caribbean resort.  Scratching her head with her right hand in the effort to awaken her numbing brain cells, her hand, the only one that seemed to be working just then, touched something warm and sticky.  Wiggling her fingers before her still reluctant eyes, she identified the stickiness.  Congealing blood.  That thought bothered her so she pushed it away for the time being, and became engrossed with the only true concern she had at that moment: Where had she left her gloves?

    With a groan of aching muscles, Aj rolled over onto her side and began groping the pink snow with her sticky hand for the elusive Isotoners. Pink snow.  She shot up to a sitting position as if she had been magically electrified.  Starring from the pink snow to her bloody hand, the reality of her situation finally sank in.

   Congratulations! Sang that vacationing part of her brain. Now get me another daiquiri!

   Blood , she thought with a sudden surge of panic.  That one word seemed to be enough to wake the rest of her dozing senses, for the overwhelming scent of blood began to choke out her breath.  Glancing down, Adrienne discovered with horror that her clothes were completely soaked in blood.  Blood that was obviously not all hers if she was still alive after this morning.

   This morning...Something about this morning bothered her. But for the moment she couldn't remember what.  Her left hand, still clenched in an unresponsive fist, tightened automatically and something inside her crushing grip dug deep into her flesh.  The pain activated her nerves and her rebellious hand flew open.  Sitting in her hand, drying blood encrusting it's edges, was Beenie's silver pendant.

    The sight of the pendant caused a depth of fear in Aj she never knew was possible.  Beenie never went anywhere without that pendant.  Since the day that old voodoo woman in New Orleans had given it to her, the alabaster stone hung from the thin silver chain had never parted the woman for more than a shower's length of time.

   You keep this near, the old woman had said, protection, purity, and truth it brings you, ward off them demons that sought you.

   Demons. That word struck a chord in her mind.  Desperately she tried to put two and two together and ended up with the square root of 2,385.  Blood, Beenie, pendant, demons...and me.  Still utterly confused, but aware of the fact that if she sat in the snow much longer she would freeze to death, Adrienne got up and shakily headed to the one place that would give her answers, the place that was pounding in her brain, being chanted by the vacationing brain cells in a primal rhythm, since the moment she regained consciousness - 5680 West Oak Street, apartment 42 - Beenie's flat.

    The darkness lay like a suffocating blanket on everything in the room.  Despite a deafening roar throbbing in her temples, the woman struggled to a sitting position. Her head was absolutely pounding.

   Must be a big storm on the way, she thought out of habit.  An attempt to rub her sinuses came to no avail.  She realized with a start that her hands were tied behind her.  Upon further inspection she noted that her ankles were bound as well.  Her leather boots were discoloured and stank of decay. Her clothes were damp with still drying blood, a mixture of the sweet, coppery smelling red she was accustomed to and an oozing vile black toxin that smelled of rotting flesh. At least we gave him a run for his money...we...Adrienne...!

    "That's right." crooned and oily voice from the shadows.  Heavy footsteps circled around her, echoing in the abysmal darkness.  "You and your friend."  She could almost feel the grin curling his lips. As he approached the stench of rot grew stronger.

    "I know," he scowled seeming to sense her thoughts of repulsion, "it's not a pleasant odor.  But it's all a part of these human forms you see.  One needs some form of fluid to maintain them."

   His blood, she thought trying to recall all the events of that morning, that stinking sludge is his blood...so the rest of this...the rest must be...

    He was in front of her now.  She could only faintly see his outline even though he was no more than five feet away from her.  A wretchedly putrid hand reached out and touched her cheek.

    "Don't worry Laurel." he purred.  "You'll be just fine...for the moment."  He seemed to stand there pondering some inside joke, still stroking the side of her face with the lightest touch.

    "You certainly are a charméd child." He said at last before turning away and melting back into the shadows. "But this time you don't have your wretchéd talismans to protect you...or them!"

            Aj vision began to blur as she stumbled past the scattered pedestrians passing.  They stopped and stared at the woman strangely, and then moved on, mumbling to themselves about how someone should do
something  about the homeless crazies in the city. She had no concept of direction in her distress, but her legs continued to shift beneath her in an instinctive motion that propelled her on.  Her mind bubbled with vision of
horror. The blood on her hands seemed heavy and thick, like tar or paste, she shivered violently and a man yelled an obscentity as he passed her. It was suddenly becoming hard to breath, and she began to shut down here senses slowly, piece by piece in order to maintain some semblance of control. Everything began to fade away, the city street, the wet heavy feeling of the blood on her hands, the pounding in her temples, the monsters in her head slipped back under the bed and she felt her lungs fill with air.  She moved in a daze after that.

    Manhattan east central park's gates beckoned coldly to the crazed woman. The iron mouth of the portal seemed to grin wickedly as she passed through, breathing deeply and moving blindly. The snow crunched
lightly under her feet and the tips of her toes, ears and blood stained fingers were numb with the frost. She realized she felt nothing in them and with this realization, began to reopen her perception. Where was she?
She froze like a cat caught in head lights, almost jumping no to her toes in shock. There on her hands, were the orange stains of human blood and with this revelation, her memory disconnected. She jerked her head up as her eyes darted frantically, surveying her surroundings.  The park, near Beenie's...Beenie?  What's wrong with Beenie...something's happened to Beenie....what...her mind registered only static when she tried to recall.

     A man stood near the edge of the east central parks pond. His strong back covered in a black jacket, looked almost three dimensional to her set against the white of the frozen pond. She shakily moved forward,
to seek assistance. The pain in her temples returned with renewed force and she almost buckled over in reaction.

    "Oh Christ, help me please!" she called to the male figure, she vision blurring again, "please sir...my head...I can't see...my friend...please.."

   The male figure turned and began to approach her slumped body anxiously, clearly concerned...and then halted in his steps.  Aj blinked rapidly and then looked up...and fell to the snow covered ground in shock.

    "YOU!" she spat and her eyes met with the strangers face.

    Michael almost flinched and the pain in her voice.

    Her head began to feel heavier and heavier, and then she felt her neck begin to crane in dizzy circles as slowly, her vision began to narrow into blackness.  And before she knew what was happening, although she
knew she was fainting, she realized the angel's eyes were blue.  Because they were just above her own.  She felt strong, lithe arms wrap around her torso and her upper body was being pulled gently to his chest, to a strange warmth that radiated from there.  And she thought suddenly, in a mere instant, that this must be what love feels like.  If any human could actually physically manifest the emotion. But of course, he was no human.
Her head rolled backwards as the arch angel lifted her, and bobbed limply between her shoulders.

    "Here" he whispered softly in that stoic voice, his lips pressed to her ear and he passed his hand over her forehead.  passing slowly his cool fingers over her skin there.  She felt as if his fingers had dipped into her
flesh and stroked through her brain like sifting through water, the pain stopped and mercifully, there in the arms of an angel, everything went black.

    "Please, God, please, God, please God," Newt murmured.  Her foot poised over the gas pedal, there, was no where to go but perhaps an inch or two forward in the next ten minutes. "Did everyone in New York decide to go on their lunch hour right now?!" she demanded of her car radio.  It gave no response but for "Who's got the hooch?"

    Beyond the blue interior of the rented Saturn the clouds hung fluffy and gray, threatening snow if one more person honked their horn. Irate drivers for ten miles and beyond shouted pointlessly at each other through rolled down windows, occasionally pausing to curse the streams of cold air filtering in through their foolishly missing glass barriers against nature's whims.  And the digits on the little car clock continued to climb upward.

    Elbow resting on the steering wheel, Newt ran her fingers through her hair, dislodging most of it from the already haphazard ponytail. Angrily batting away the loose strands, she smacked her hand on the side of the car window in an effort to unleash some of her aggression and anxiety, simultaneously yelling "Shut up!" to the crooning radio and finally turning it off.  She couldn't wait any longer.

    Carefully maneuvering her car over to the shoulder, she slammed her parking break down and pulled the keys out of the ignition, silencing the gentle hum of the engine that she'd neglected to realize was the super glue that was keeping the bits of her brain from going completely loony.  Her ears still throbbing from the effort of trying to discern the rumble of an engine with a similar frequency of her own, an action that seemed to calm her slightly and allow rational thought, she thrust the keys into her jeans pocket, locked the car, and opened the door just enough to let her thin form slip out of the automobile.

    Setting out on a furious pace that she knew her lungs wouldn't be able to withstand, particularly in such icy degrees, she half trotted her way to the general area where she knew her sister's flat to lie.  Whether or not she actually made it there in time would be another question, and that was too much for her to bear at the
moment.

    Af approached the front entrance to the high rise apartment complex on West Oak Street.  He paused just long enough to read the address - 5680 - and walked past for the seventh time that morning.

    Since about 7 that morning, a sense of caged restlessness had filled him.  No longer able to stand sitting in his hotel room bed, Af had risen, dressed, and headed for Laurel Donaldson's flat.  He wanted to see her again for reasons he couldn't understand.  It was a driving mechanism in the back of his mind that, if he saw her this morning, something important would happen.  But when he had finally reached the doors of her building, the gears of that driving mechanism stuck and creaked with strain.  To put it plainly, he chickened out. So instead,
his feet continued their pace past the front door and down the street. From there he had taken a long, round-about route along the edges of the park, down a few more streets whose names he lost moments after
reading their signs, inevitably arriving back at the front doors of 5680 West Oak Street, and walking by them yet again.  He had been following this cycle for nearly three and a half hours and saw little reason to alter
the pattern at this point.

    This time, however, he stopped a few paces past the green awning that covered the side walk in front.  From the back of his mind he felt the presence of one of his brethren, and with that presence he felt a strange urgency, like an animal trying to escape a hunter's snare.

    Running across the street, oblivious to the squeal of breaks, shouts and obscenities that followed his movement, Af headed into the park and nearly toppled over the blood covered angel who had stood up to greet
him.

    "Michael!" Af gasped in surprise after recognizing him.  His eyes quickly surveyed the arch angel, whose clothes were covered with the red stickiness of human mortality.  Next his eyes landed on the woman lying
in a crumpled heap by his side.  The woman from Laurel's flat.  The one who Michael was supposed to have killed the night before but had lived through, what he could only guess to be, a combination of blind luck
and fate.

    "What's going on?"

    "I was hoping you could tell me." the arch angel replied, his face still as stone, but tiny lines of weariness had seeped into his features. "What are you doing here, Af?"

    "I...well, I..." what could he say? That he had come back to visit a woman who heaven had decided to throw in his path a second time? That he had no idea why he so badly needed to see her? He shook his head at his own confusion, a gesture which Michael understood all too well.  No one seemed to know what the hell was going on this morning.

    "Never mind." the arch angel bent over to pick up the huddled, bleeding mass at his feet, and lifted her effortlessly.  "I know you came to see that woman." He began to walk back in the direction from which the younger angel had just appeared. "And apparently," he added, motioning with his head to the unconscious Adrienne, "so was she."

    "Perhaps," proposed the young angel, "we should all go over there and find out what this is about?"

    Michael nodded. "I need to get her some first aid...and I'm worried about Sidney."

    Af gave the angel a confused look but dared not question the arch angel.

    "A friend." Michael answered, reading the question on Af's face. "I sent him to retrieve a photograph from that apartment..."

    Af jumped back a step, his eyes lit up with relief. He wasn't the only one who knew about the picture.

    "So you know about it too?" he asked, his voice sounding unburdened and elated. Michael responded with a look of amazement to rival his own.

    "I bumped into her mother and she invited me up to Laurel's flat...they showed me the photo while I was there...and she knew who I was..." The arch angel nodded knowingly. Raguel had been right after all. It was the same woman as before.

    Heading for the crosswalk with the younger angel by his side, Michael couldn't help but voice the thought that he was sure was racing through Af's mind as well as his own.

    "Something is trying very hard to bring us all together," he stated grimly, "and I think it's time we found out why."

To Be Continued....