Abel said “no” again and hung up on her.

  She’d called back. Left a voicemail. Reminded him of her name and told him to look her up online. And he did—he found out she was some kind of hunter of the paranormal. Exposer of truths and lies alike. She seemed to have a habit of finding people like Abel, getting their stories, the real stories, out there. She found the people who had been touched by God, or an angel, or the Devil, and she put them back on their feet among the rest of the world, those fortunate enough to have been touched by nothing at all.

  It all sounded like bullshit, no matter what Abel had seen in that apartment last fall. No matter what had started that fire. He’d saved her number, despite his better judgement, but he hadn’t called her back. He still remembered the slogan he’d seen on her website:

  If you don’t look, you’ll never know.

  Fuck that, Abel thought. Yet, still he found himself moving slowly—slow as Hell—toward the source of unseasonable heat on the side of a mountain in March. Cain followed at his heels.

  The trees were dense on this part of the mountain, so Abel didn’t see much of anything until the heat started to get more intense, intense enough that he thought that he was getting close. And at first all he saw was light. Bright light. Like someone had taken the sunrise peeking over the horizon and zoomed in. Abel checked his smart watch. It was well past dawn.

  For a moment, Abel thought of turning back. He almost did. But then Cain woofed softly as he moved past Abel to lead instead. Maybe he knew Abel well enough to know he was going to back down. But why would a dog care? Then again, Abel thought, maybe Cain just smelled something interesting.

  “You’re supposed to follow me,” Abel pointed out, even as he picked up the pace to keep up with the dog. His lungs strained. A side effect of smoke damage, he knew—because the panic attacks evidently weren’t enough for him. “Slow down.”

  Cain kept going, and Abel kept following, but it didn’t take long to find trees that were somehow askew. Forced down and away from something, leaning back like they were trying to avoid touching something reviling. Or maybe the opposite—trying to avoid touching something they were unworthy to touch.

  And there, there was the light and the source of heat, Abel supposed. A small crater in the middle of the woods on the side of a mountain. And in the middle of the crater, a figure.

  Instinct kicked in. Someone was hurt. And even if Abel was in no shape for emergency response, being a first responder had been his whole adult life. He picked up his pace, jogged over to the crater, even as his lungs started to strain, even as something in his mind screamed and screamed—

  He closed his eyes the second he laid eyes on what was in the crater.

  For a moment, he couldn’t describe it. His mind held two competing thoughts: that was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and that was the most horrifying sight he had ever beheld. Something terrifying and perfect. Terrifyingly perfect. Perfectly terrifying.

  He couldn’t make sense of it. He couldn’t think. It was indescribable. It was awful. It was beautiful. It was Godly. It was Hellish. It was the most ordinary miracle of all.

  Abel wanted to open his eyes and see what it was his mind had railed against for himself. He needed to open his eyes. He was frozen to the spot.

  And then he heard Cain howling.

  Cain hadn’t been Abel’s companion for long—and he had named him in a way that told everyone just how much he resented his need—but he had become a loved one. The ironic and petty name for an overgrown puppy had turned into one of fondness. You’ll be the death of me, someday, he told Cain. Because Abel already couldn’t fathom the opposite, the idea that maybe he could lose Cain.

  Abel’s eyes snapped open as he leapt forward, grabbing Cain’s collar and pulling him away from the crater. Cain’s howling continued, but it changed shape—it wasn’t pain. It was mourning.

  Or perhaps it was worship.

  Losing his foot as he tugged Cain away from the strange hole in the side of the mountain, Abel fell to his knees. He stayed there, knowing he, too, should worship.

  His eyes landed on the thing in the crater again. This time, he saw it more clearly, his eyes open to the truth.

  The thing in the crater looked like it might have been human once. Or perhaps humans might have once been the thing in the crater. Abel recognized, at least, that they were supposed to resemble each other.

  Holy, holy, holy, Abel’s mind rejoiced. He wasn’t so sure if holy was the right word. But it was beautiful, despite his fear. And somehow, someway, despite everything, Abel knew that this was an angel. This was one of the angels that Abel’s mother had always wished that he and his sisters had been touched by. Not a demon, not a Devil. An angel.

  Abel almost wept. He didn’t know how he knew that it was an angel, but something in his mind cried out to him that it was. Like calling to like. Humans calling back to the thing that provided the blueprint for all that came before and after.

  Besides him, Cain continued to howl, the sound scattering birds from the trees. The birdsong faded into oblivion. Abel stayed on his knees until Cain wore himself out, the howling, too, fading away.

  “Come on, boy,” Abel said softly. Carefully, reverently, he lifted himself to his feet. He took cautious steps toward the thing in the crater. It was hot—almost unbearably—but he was less afraid than he was before. It still sent his heart racing, but it was also oddly comforting. Safe.

  Coming to the edge of the crater, Abel stopped and stood as still as he could manage. He stared down into the hole. He stared at the angel. He tried to wrap his mind around it and failed.

  Holy, holy, holy.

  Abel wanted to determine if it was alive, but he did not know how one determined if an angel was actually alive. Did it need to breathe, like Abel struggled to do every day? After a moment, he decided yes—for what else could be sending trembling shivers up and down the angel’s body, its wings, so many wings, twitching up and down as if something still animated it?

  So yes. It was alive. It had to be.

  Cain sniffed at the crater and Abel crouched down to be closer to the ground. How long had the angel been there? What did it need? What could Abel do? All of his rescue training could do nothing to save him now.

  The angel’s eyes snapped open, all of them, all at once.

  Abel yelped and fell backwards. More irises than he could count, in an array of colours—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet—radiant in their prisms, shifting perpetually, followed the movement. Some of them rolled loosely like they could not focus, but most locked onto him.

  “You’re awake,” Abel said softly.

  One of the angel’s mouths opened. Out came a song, like the birds, like the mournful, worshipping howl. Abel’s ears rang. He’d experienced tinnitus for the first time when that apartment had gone up in flames. He’d experienced it a few times since. But this was like an echoing—the song repeated in his head, would possibly repeat forever, even when the angel’s mouth closed again.

  Holy, holy, holy.

  Abel took stock of his options. The angel was burning up—he could feel it from here—so there was no need to cover it to keep it warm or protect it from shock. It was breathing. But if it had been here for a while, perhaps it was hungry, dehydrated. Abel carefully took his backpack off and grabbed a water bottle and a granola bar. He saw Cain perk up at the sight of food, wagging his tail, but Abel disappointed him by placing both on the ground just at the edge of the crater.

  The angel emerged, like how Abel could imagine it emerging from the womb of God, long limbs with too many joints bending and creeping out of the hole. It crawled up into the dirt. It picked up the granola bar and placed it gingerly in its maw, consuming it whole.

  Abel stared in shock. He had been the one to provide it, but it still baffled him. An angel had just devoured an almond butter granola bar. It had contained raisins. It did not feel divine.

  There was a sound, then. A choking, hysterical sound. Abel didn’t recognize what it was, even while distantly realizing it was coming from himself, until Cain began to nose at his hand, press into him with gentle pressure, asking for Abel to put his hand on top of his head. His head swam. Cain saw the panic attack coming, even when Abel did not see it in himself.

  The angel was still watching him. Maybe it was dizzy, too. Its eyes never remained still for long, even if they remained generally in Abel’s direction. It nudged the water bottle. The bottle fell over and rolled toward Abel. He stared in disbelief. Was it offering it back to him? Did it matter? He could use it.

  Abel lifted his hand first to pet Cain to thank him for and accept his comfort before he reached out for the water bottle. Something was frightening about putting his hand so close to the angel, like it might swallow him in his entirety like it did the granola bar, but it simply watched him as he picked up the water bottle. His hands shook as he popped the spout and drank from it. The water was tepid, not cold, but compared to the heat the angel emanated, it was a comfort. Soothing.

  It didn’t stop his head from spinning, not completely, but focusing on the water for a few moments helped.

  Abel took a few breaths. He tried to steady himself. Cain brushed against him. He would be okay. He would be okay. He was far away from that place. He would never have to go back. He would never even have to talk about it again. Not if he didn’t want to.

  Unsure what else to do, Abel held the water bottle back out to the angel, whose bony hand reached out to take it back from him, as if understanding.

  Their fingers touched. Abel was shocked at how cool they felt despite the heat of fire radiating off of it. And he understood many, many things at once: the angel’s name, though Abel could not fathom how to wrap his mind around the syllables of a word that was not a word; that it had fallen here, not of its own accord; that it was not male, nor female, nor neither, nor both, that it was beyond Abel’s comprehension; that maybe everything would be okay; that it loved Abel simply for being here.

  Tears sprung to Abel’s eyes. As a boy, his mother had told him and his sisters that God loved them and that that was why He ruled with an iron fist. Abel understood well that holy love was both pure and terrible. He had been awe-struck by it. It was another thing entirely to feel it—this angel was impossible, it was real, it was everything, it was nothing. It was here. It loved Abel because he, too, was here.

  “Thank you.” Because what else did one say to that realization? On second thought, Abel added, “I love you, too.”

  The angel nodded, a gesture that seemed incomplete somehow. It still held the water bottle, even though it did nothing with it.

  They stared at each other for a long time. Cain sat nearby, right by Abel’s side, refusing to move. He, too, watched the angel, but now with a quiet acceptance, as if he felt what Abel felt. They both knew that the angel could be a threat, but that it did not choose to be.

  Abel’s head began to hurt. He closed his eyes to block out the light, the glow radiating off of the angel’s body. The relief was immediate, but so was the confusion. As soon as Abel closed his eyes, he failed to remember what the angel looked like. He failed to understand. Its loss nestled into his heart immediately, terribly. Abel’s throat constricted with a grief that echoed something he’d been feeling almost every day since the fire.

  He opened his eyes when Cain licked at his hand. He took a trembling breath and pet the dog before returning his gaze to the angel. It hadn’t moved. It still held the water. After a moment, it held it out to him again. Cain seemed to notice, and took the bottle from the angel, gripping it in his jaws, before returning it to Abel. Abel didn’t know if Cain felt anything from coming so close to the angel. But maybe the dog had already understood God.

  “I’ll just keep this then.”

  The angel cocked its head and slowly came closer. It moved in a strange crawling motion, its legs bug-like as they propelled it forward. Its wings flared slightly like they would help it gain momentum.

  “God,” Abel started to say. He thought that maybe that would be offensive but correcting himself or apologizing seemed strange. Instead, he took a drink from the bottle as he collected his thoughts before saying, “How did you get here?”

  The angel said nothing at first. Abel wondered if it could speak at all. Everything he had understood thus far had come from its song, its touch. No words. So, when the angel reached out again, he understood what it needed from him. His hand shook as he reached out to make contact.

  At first, he saw and understood nothing. He felt only the strange hot-coolness of the angel’s skin. Something about it exhilarated him. And then there it was:

  Fire. So much fire.

  Abel recoiled from the angel at the sight of it. It disappeared when he broke contact, but it had been everywhere. Fire—everywhere. Burning. Screaming. Where Abel’s Hell had included smoldering plywood blocking access to first responders, and religious iconography going up in flames, the angel’s fire had been different. Just as terrible, just as all-consuming, but it had no source and there were no exits because the fire stretched into infinity.

  Was it an angel after all? Was this a mark of a demon? What was the difference, and did it matter?

  Abel barely recognized it when he began to weep. The image was gone, but he could practically still smell the smoke, feel the heat, hear the screams. Someone was burning alive in the next room. Something had started that fire deliberately. A sacrifice to God. Purifying fire.

  Holy, holy, holy.

  Abel couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. He could barely feel the movement of Cain as his service dog put himself between Abel and the angel. Cain leaned against him, offering weight. Comfort. Abel wrapped his arms around the dog and allowed himself to weep into Cain’s fur until his throat stopped burning and his head stopped spinning.

  “Fuck,” Abel gasped out. Cain licked his face to calm him down. Despite the nightmarish vision, Abel couldn’t bear not looking at the angel, so he made sure to look at it again. Unsure what else to say: “You, too, huh?”

  The angel didn’t try to touch him again, but it opened its mouth again and sang. It rang in Abel’s ears again. A mournful song. An apology. The angel wasn’t sorry for everything, and maybe not even for much, but it was sorry for this.

  Abel thought that he would never understand. Yet he understood.

  Keeping one arm around Cain and allowing himself to rest some of his weight on the dog, Abel wiped away his tears with his other hand.

  For what could have been eternity, the three sat together alone on a mountain. An angel, fallen. A child of man, wounded. A beast of Eden, blameless.

  Abel thought of his mother’s words. A child could be blessed by God, or an angel. Tainted by a demon or the Devil. Unburdened and alone.

  Abel thought, too, of that woman’s words: If you don’t look, you’ll never know.

  Slowly calming, Abel wet his lips. He looked at the angel. The strange, inhuman thing. The thing that was more human than human. Both and neither. He found himself speaking.

  “We thought the call was normal. We thought—fires are surprisingly routine, most of the time, actually. But someone had boarded up all the windows. We couldn’t get inside except through the front door. And of course that’s dangerous as Hell. But I went. Smoke was everywhere. And it didn’t take long to find the shrine.”

  The angel watched. It listened. It waited.

  Abel couldn’t explain how he knew it was listening, but it was listening.

  “There were—crosses and crucifixes everywhere. It was a nightmare version of my grandmother’s house, God rest her soul. And Christ, nothing we did could do anything about the fire. Like it was impossible. But I found this man. And somehow, I knew. I knew he had done something to make the fire impossible to put out. And I—”

  Abel sobbed.

  “Angel, please forgive me, I killed him. I killed him because I didn’t know what else to do. And angel, please forgive me, but the moment he died, the fire went out, just like that. And angel, please forgive me, but I was glad.”

  It was the first that he had told anyone of it. It had been impossible to know, otherwise. Everyone else at the centre of the flames had died by then, the only survivors besides Abel had been in different rooms of the apartment building. Abel had barely survived himself, nearly dying from the burns. And what difference did it make if the culprit had died suffocating on smoke or because someone had cut off his air on purpose?

  But Lord, how many people had died before Abel had done it? How many were sacrificed, and why?

  Was it enough for whatever unholy purpose the man had intended? Abel had saved a few of them, sure, but had it been too late?

  He had nightmares, sometimes, after staying up too late at night wondering how many souls it took to summon something worse than whatever that man had already been. He dreamt of nightmarish creatures breaking through the crust of the Earth and seeking out not only Abel, but all the other survivors. Things not unlike the angel, but with no love for anyone in their hearts, least of all Abel.

  “Angel, forgive me.”

  The angel watched Abel for a moment. Cain seemed to understand something before Abel and stepped gingerly out of the way. The dog bowed down, like he might play, but more like in reverence. The angel crawled closer. It leaned into Abel. And it kissed him.

  Holy, holy, holy.

  It felt like magic. It felt like forgiveness. It felt like redemption.

  The angel moved away. Again, Abel began to weep.

  Without knowing why he was saying it, he promised the angel, “I will never forget you. I will always love you.”