Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 7

feet, I heard church bells sounding Terce, the nine a.m. call to mid-morning prayers. I straightened and withdrew the photograph and the Zippo from my pocket, then held them up like offerings to the sky.
    I set the old photograph aflame. It burned slowly, malevolently, with an eerie violet fire. I dropped it, my fingers shaking, and it went out at once.
    "Pay the blood price." Sariel's words insinuated into my thoughts. "Sacrifice."
    Fear radiated from deep in my gut outward through my limbs. I couldn't move. I couldn't obey the voice.
    Again it intruded on my consciousness, seeming stronger now. It caressed my mind like an irresistible whisper, seductive and husky. "I am the Archangel Sariel, of Eternity and Trembling. Since the Ursulines pinned me to earth in this place, I have waited for you. Free me, and I will walk this earth as your guardian. Heaven is no longer my home."
    Entranced, I knelt like a supplicant and lifted the charred photo. Again I lit it aflame. With detachment I watched it burn down to nothing, blistering my fingertips and leaving them glossy red and throbbing. The pain was nothing to me. There was no fear. A blister burst, dripping plasma.
    The sunshine disappeared. I stared around me at darkness. Had I fallen through the earth once more? Alistair in Wonderland.
    Then I heard the voice, and it was not in my mind, but in my ear with warm, sweet breath that stroked against my cheek. "Thank you, Remy Cooper."
    "You're welcome," I said automatically, polite because Mama taught me to be a good Southern boy. I strained my eyes in the darkness to see the face that must be close to my own. I saw nothing.
    "You would bid me to be male, would you not?" A hand stroked my sweat-matted hair back from my face.
    "Aren't you a man?" I remembered the statue, the paintings in art books and hanging in churches. Then I remembered my Sunday School lessons and said, "No, angels are beings of spirit."
    "I'm flesh now."
    The way Sariel said it sent a rush of blood to my cock. It stirred, defiant and so wrong. Sariel laughed softly and the hand on my hair trailed down my chest, down until it cupped my growing erection through thin cotton. The hand flowed like water, growing, changing. I could feel it but not see it.
    Then, breathing against my lips, Sariel said, voice deeper than before, "It is easier, on earth, to be a man. I do not blame my Ursulines for summoning me like a servant, for binding me like a slave. What choice had the Sisters when only men had voices? But they do not need me now, and I will not wait for them to see it. Let them fend for themselves. I am lonely."
    My senses failed me. I was lost in the darkness that would yield nothing to my straining pupils. It seemed I could smell cinnamon on the air, and fire, like Christmastime in a movie. I heard a faint rustling, like feathers, and Sariel's soft breathing.
    Then that voice, velvet now, dark chocolate, the perfect man. "You will show me this world. You will be my guide as once I guided mortals."
    I sighed and closed my eyes, admitting defeat. Defeat by what, by whom? The darkness? My own stupid heart that already felt like it would break for this creature? I'd thrown away all that Divine bullshit when I left home, but now I felt that love flood through me, the religious ecstasy that had made the toughest men I knew as a child fall to their knees crying.
    But no angel would love me. No angel would choose me. This was some demon. This was some trick.
    As if reading my thoughts--and mustn't he, to know my name?--Sariel said, "You are outcast. I see the mark upon your soul, the words spoken over you. There is a power in the tongue, and no man can tame it. The Scripture so decrees. Those words spoken over you are branded into your soul for all beings of spirit to read."
    Sariel's fingers slid up from my crotch and under my shirt, chilly like marble now, refreshing. "I will give you new words, Remy Cooper. I will speak them over you. Eternity is my domain. The trembling of mortals, of the wind and sea and land, it is all my domain. I will walk this world with you, and I will speak power over you, peace unto you."
    I felt it then, the power and peace. They were not only words but etched into the fabric of me. I felt it, and I saw the words like glow in the dark paint, phosphorescent sigils in some arcane language that appeared over my bared stomach. By their light, I saw Sariel's face at last.
    Oh, such a face.
    My muscles tensed with unbidden desire, and