A girl walked down Mercy Road under a broiling sky too sullen to rain. She was older now than she had been when she fist came this way. She had a silver trumpet under her arm, a horn that shone with the pure, utter brightness of a new instrument that the dirty fingers of the air had never touched to smudge with tarnish. The wings behind her were getting more real, more solid, by the second. She was shining, throwing light on the sidewalks and showing any passers-by just how grimey it was. There were none, though, none but a tired figure standing in a doorway with dark circles under her eyes and a scar on each cheek. I had gotten up that morning and tried get my hair to lie flat and wash some of the wear from my face. It had its usual effect. I was no more presentable, but I felt like I had tried. I had pulled on my least-faded jeans and put a fresh coat of polish on my boots. I put on the long, black coat that was my armor when I lived in another, better, world. I startled her. I should hav taught her not to flinch, I thought.

"Gabriela!" I said "Come here!" She turned her head and looked at me. I wondered if that was how does look at hunters as they pull their triggers. It was like I had shocked her. "Let me get you a good meal before you go to your fate." She followed me to the diner still unsure why she was walking two steps behind a stranger. "I would have liked to give you more attention," I said, "but I have a novel going on. You had potential, but you were on the back burner from the start. Besides, I hate sharing stories with other writers. There are so many telling stories in this town that it has become a weird, polytheistic universe. When I build worlds, I like to rule themm alone. Watch this." I took a napkin from the dispenser and pulled out a pen.

'"Get whatever you want. It's on the house," the waitress said,' I wrote. The waitress got up and walked over to our table.

"Get whatever you want. It's on the house," she said. Gabriela had eggs, and I ordered pancakes.

"Eat up," I said. "Your fate awaits you."

"Whasit?" she asked through a mouthfull of food.

"You will run into a burning library trying to save that poor librarian. The archangel will fly off to wherever he is supposed to be and you will recover your memmory and identity. You will return home to your upper middle class family in your small, upper middle class town. Everyone there will seem so superficial that you will return to places like this. You will enjoy a successful career revitalizing blighted urban areas. I was going to drive you slowly insane and then kill you, but you caught me in a good mood. Good luck, Gabriela. Goodbye."

Burning

Gabriela saw the preacher from the corner, the amen man, she thought, and two women run out of the library with their arms full of books. She stayed out of sight, first behind a tree, then a trash can, then a dumpster. He saw her anyway.

"Little sister!" he said. Gabriela was afraid of something in his smile.

"Uh-hi," she said. She tried to smile back.

"How ya' doin', honey? We're gonna do God's work today. Hallelujah yes we are amen!" He laughed too loudly. She shuddered.

"Who's your friend," said one of the women who looked somewhere between forty-five and sixty.

"Oh, she's a street kid like I was," he said. He turned to Gabriela "A real musician, aren't you. You make a joyful noise every day, don't you? It does my tired heart good to hear it. It ain't easy preachin' in this neighborhood. Can I get a hallelujah? There's an old song says it's hard to be a saint in the city. Maybe that's true. Maybe you'll learn to play it one day, but you're more of a jazz girl, right? Wild, wicked, and pretty."

"Amen," said the other woman, "and we are doing God's work today."

"See these books, little sister?" said the preacher. "They've got some words in 'em we don't like." He held up a copy of The Origin of the Species. "Do you know what's in this book?"

"N-no," she said.

"Good for you, little sister. The stuff in this book makes me sick to my soul. Makes me want to cry, little sister. Can I get an amen?"

"Amen," said the women.

"Amen," said Gabriela.

"This one," he said and held up another. "This one's got soul sellin' and devil dealin' all through it, little sister, and it was written for kids just about your age. You know what we're going to do with these evil things, little sister?"

"N-no," she said.

"We're gonna burn them. You know, send them to Hell where they belong. Can I get an amen?"

"Amen," said the women. "Hallelujah, amen." Gabriela felt heat blossoming behind her eyes. An inferno was budding, soon to bloom. A wind was rising. When she spoke again, they could smell the incense on her breath.

"Not in His name," she said. "Not in his name."

"What, little sister?"

"Not in his name." The books were heavy in his hands. Gabriela shuddered. Fire, she thought. Burn it down. Burn it all down. I'll burn it-burn it-burn it-can't-no-wrong-not His orders. She shook her head hard and bought herself another half-minet of humanity.

"Little sister," said the preacher. "Your eyes are glowin' red. Do you need help, girl? Have you been sinnin'? We're all backsliders-" Gabriela could no longer hear him. She was slipping-slipping-drifting, and then-

"Not in His name," said Saint Gabriel the Archangel. The book burners saw something like wings, transluscent, but getting thicker, more real, by the second, shimmerning in the air behind Gabriela's shoulders.

"A demon!" said the preacher. "Begone, you! We ain't scared of Satan!"

"Satan!" said the Angel, "You would not know him if you saw him." His voice was a wild tenor with singing undertones that ranged from impossible heights, the empty air above soprano, down to the blackest depths of contrabass. "I have seen Satan. I have known Satan. He stood where my brother Michael does before your galaxy began to coalesce." The air around the Angel was hot. He, or maybe she, floated three inches above the sidewalk.