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  “For... for that moment...?” She shook her head a little, not quite understanding, so he explained everything that had happened that day from his point of view, carefully leaving out anything about his brothers. All she could do was stare at him and nod a little. He looked at the time and sighed.

  “I have to go. But... look, tell you what. You need something, you call me, all right?” He stood up and she tried to sit up in response, but hissed in pain instead, laying back onto the inclined bed.

  “Call you like... like... praying...?”

  He blinked at her, confused, then snorted a laugh. “No, like on the phone. Here’s my number,” he said, handing her a slip of paper with his cell phone number and email address on it. “I trust you not to share this with anybody, either the number or what we just talked about. Okay?”

  “Okay...” She nodded at him, eyes wide and earnest. Reaching for her purse, she winced again, and he got it for her so she could put the number inside. She scribbled hers on a scrap of paper and pressed it into his hand. He smiled and nodded, putting it in his pocket.

  “We can send emails at least.” He looked at her, chewed on his lip for a second, then sat back down beside her. “Hey, I’m going to try something. Never done it before, but... here.” Letting his wings back out, he took her hand and concentrated, trying to find what it was that Brian had done for the woman in the car wreck. He ignored her gasp and he way her hand started to shake a little. The light inside himself seemed brighter than he’d remembered it, and he reached into it and tried to will the woman’s injuries to heal, passing along the golden warmth to her.

  “What are you doing...?” she breathed, and he looked up to see if it was working. The bruises on her arms and face were fading right before his eyes. Grinning, he watched her face as she examined herself, carefully touching the rib that was no longer broken.

  “Sweet,” he said quietly, but Roberta nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound, her gaze snapping up to meet his eyes. With a soft chuckle he stood up and tugged a feather out of one wing, ignoring the little painful twinge that felt like pulling several hairs out of his head, and handed it to her.

  “I gotta go,” he said again, then put his wings away, pulled back the privacy curtain, and went out the door with a little wave. She belatedly remembered to wave back, but otherwise was mesmerized by the dark feather, and was stroking it between her fingertips over and over.

  Grinning like a kid, a spring in his step, he made his way back to the car and hit the freeway back to Sacramento. It wasn’t that far to Reno, he reasoned, and was already planning on flying back as often as he could manage it to visit Brian.

  Twice that morning Brian had had his work interrupted with an odd sensation that gave him goosebumps and tugged at him, both in general and at his hidden wings. He stopped, cocked his head, and looked off into the distance as he tried to determine what could be causing it. Was it something telling him that someone needed him, like an angelic spider-sense? Or maybe it was Mike experimenting in his hotel room. Whatever it was, it was very distracting, and he watched as the cut on his right index finger healed itself, leaving only a few drops of blood to be wiped away as if nothing had happened.

  He smiled to himself even though he was having trouble with the window repair. Everything would be all right, he somehow knew, and he felt as though he had more time to solve things. Like time had slowed down. Like he had forever.

  One of the glass racks had been pretty much destroyed, but he’d managed to salvage about half of the metal frame, and with Mike’s help had restocked it with the remains they’d picked out of the wreckage. He looked over the tiny selection of blues and purples and sighed. He still needed to call the glassblower in San Francisco, and a larger order would have to wait for insurance money, if he got any. The claims adjuster had said she would be there later that day with the probable verdict.

  He picked up some bubbly amethyst and held it up to the one clear pane of glass at the top of the bank of windows to see if the color was right. Now that the skylight was gone, it was difficult to judge. He picked up another purple, this one closer to a violet, and compared the two. But his gaze started to wander past the shards in his hand and to the stained glass windows beyond. To the middle angel that was healing the injured woman, luminous white wings just starting to shine with the late morning sunlight.

  Brian shivered a little as he stared at the window. He tried to get his head around the fact that it was him depicted there, not the archangel Raphael as he’d thought it might be, and he stepped closer. The face of the angel was that of a young man, with dark hair similar to his, dressed in sky blue, his favorite color. He realized then that he’d never really studied his own wings, and wondered if that was what Mike had been doing when he felt the strange sensations that had made him cut his finger. Somehow he knew – it felt right. Like Barrett’s gut, he thought to himself with a smile.

  The bathroom was tiny, but he managed to smash himself inside, wings and all, and could at least see their white tops over his shoulders in the vanity mirror. He opened them as much as he could until they pressed against the wall and door, and brought one forward so he could touch it. Soft. Impossibly soft. Like an owl’s feathers but even softer. Like rabbit fur.

  Barrett’s hair prickled at the back of his neck. Something felt weird. And the trouble was, his gut was beginning to suspect what that something might be.

  “Excuse me a minute,” he said, interrupting the employee meeting he was running and pulling out his cell phone, holding it up as if it had been on vibrate and received an important call. He stepped out of the conference room and headed for his office, closing the door behind him. Mike’s number clicked straight over to voicemail, but after a few rings, Brian picked up.

  “Hey, Bear!”

  “What the hell are you guys doing?” he half-whispered into the phone frantically. “I’m in the middle of a meeting... and... I can feel something happening...”

  Brian blinked, then his eyes widened as he realized what his brother was saying. “Oh crap, yeah, I was just... you can feel that? Then I bet Mike was doing stuff earlier too, because I was getting something on my end of things... crap!” He put his wings away again and chewed on his lip. Did this mean he and Mike couldn’t explore things any more? “Crap! I’m sorry...”

  Barrett pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. How could he tell them to stop being what they were? The truth of it was that he couldn’t, and he knew it, and he’d just have to deal with it.

  “Just... try to keep it to a minimum during business hours.” It sounded a little silly, even as he said it, but what else could he do? He couldn’t afford to have the whole thing disrupt his life, especially not while he was at work. He artfully managed to ignore the eventuality he faced. One day at a time was his goal. Maybe even one hour at a time.

  “Yeah, I understand,” said Brian earnestly, nodding. The last thing he wanted to do was upset or mess with his big brother in any way. “Have you talked to Mike?”

  “No, I just got his voicemail. Look, I gotta get back to my meeting, okay?”

  “He’s on his way to Sacramento, so I’ll keep trying him. No more wings until tonight. Got it.”

  Barrett winced and shivered at the same time. “Is that what you were doing?”

  “Uhm... maybe?”

  “Whatever. Just... don’t do anything weird until at least 6:00.” He hung up abruptly then stood there staring at his cell phone, feeling both relieved and like the biggest jerk in the world. He took a deep breath and went back into the conference room, flashing everyone a quick, tight smile.

  “Family stuff?” volunteered Angela, and he simply nodded. After a pause, the meeting continued as before, the plan of attack for fall and Christmas products being plotted out.

  Brian sat down and sighed. He looked up at the life-size windows for the millionth time and wished things could be different for his oldest brother. He understood the situation completely – Barrett was between a
rock and a hard place. But he also knew that things couldn’t be ignored forever, and sooner or later they all had to come to terms with what had happened and accept it. There simply was no alternative.

  Mike had felt the little weird rippling pull of what Brian was doing and simply chuckled to himself. Acceptance was coming easier now, especially after being out half the night flying around with his brother, and he almost smirked as he came into Sacramento, wondering how many more times he’d have to even use a car at all. The “A-word” was still kind of freaky to think about, but that would get comfortable at some point too, he assumed.

  But now it was time to get his head in the game. The other game. The normal job one. He gave his name and information to the guard at the front door of the building, went through the metal detector, and made his way to the Commanding Officer’s office. After a brief greeting, there was the paperwork. Always paperwork. Just when you thought you were finished, there was more paperwork to acknowledge that you’d done the other paperwork. Three hours later, he finally sat down in his own chair at his own desk with a tired sigh.

  The utilitarian surroundings were less utilitarian than they’d been in the Middle East, but they still had to content with grayish walls, outdated furniture, and a building that looked exactly like a 1950s grade school. The windows were small and high, enough to let light in but not enough that one could really see much out of them besides the tops of trees and a slice of sky.

  Mike found himself absently looking out one of these windows, daydreaming, when the C.O. came in. Snapping to attention in his seat, Mike sat up rigid and saluted, but the older man waved him off.

  “Not needed here. You’re not active any more, Mason. Here’s some examples of the type of SOPs I’d like you to start with. Get a feel for how they’re put together, and I’ll come back later with one you can try your hand at. And... don’t forget to eat lunch, you look a little gray.”

  The stack of folders landed on his metal desk with a dull thud. Mike acknowledged the man with a little smile and a thank you sir, and opened up the first one. Nothing too hairy, it was instructions on how to load different types of munitions onto a particular model of truck. Since it was the military, it read something like a cross between Chinese product use instructions and algebra word problems, but without the entertainment factor. The rows and rows of Courier monospace type, even though familiar enough, started to make his brain hurt. At some point between “Lift clasp 4-A” and “Always use Securing Belt model J-32,” he realized that there was no possible way he’d be able to sit there and write Standard Operating Procedures for a week, let alone the rest of his career – not after what had just happened to him. He could feel his soul shrinking and went into the restroom for a long private sit where no one could bother him. The urge to escape and fly back to Reno to be with Brian was so strong and beautiful, it brought tears to his eyes.

  Whistling while he worked, Brian was about to turn on some music when he heard a knock at the door. He panicked momentarily, a sudden urge to cover up the three angel windows making his skin crawl, but he forced it down and looked out the peephole. A woman with a large leather planner waited, looking around.

  “Sierra Insurance?” he asked after opening the door and putting out a hand. She smiled and nodded.

  “Carrie Jenkins. You must be Brian, right?”

  “Yeah, please come in.”

  She stepped through and looked at the luminous windows, then up at the boarded up skylight hole, then down at the work table.

  “Wow, this place is amazing,” she said, tucking her blonde hair behind her ears and setting her planner on his desk. “So... skylight trouble, hm? What happened to it, again?”

  “My brother fell through it. Off the roof,” he hastened to add.

  “And that destroyed the whole thing?”

  Brian looked at the insurance agent. She was studying the damage to the Saint Joseph glass and didn’t see him studying her. He could see it now... underneath the cheerful exterior was the heart of a shark. She was trying to trip him up in order to deny the claim. He stood up a little straighter. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew.

  “Yeah, weird, huh? I guess the masonry gave way when he hit the metal frame, and the whole thing crumpled into a pile. It's over there,” he said, nodding at where the longer pieces of bent metal frame still lay on the floor. “It was pretty old, after all. You can see some corrosion and rust on the iron.”

  She didn’t answer at first, busy comparing the photos he’d emailed with what she was seeing. “So you’re saying that your brother caused all this damage?” she asked, almost sounding disinterested.

  “Yep. He’s kind of a big guy. Navy SEAL.”

  “Really?” She flashed a winning smile at him, and he felt something shift inside himself. After a moment, he realized it was a mixture of protectiveness and jealousy. Michael belonged to his brothers, not some random woman who...

  “Think you can introduce me?” she said over her shoulder as she started taking a few pictures of her own. He’d been so busy with his thoughts he hadn’t even seen her take out a camera.

  “He’s taken,” Brian blurted out, face reddening and relieved that she didn’t seem to be paying him much attention. Then he noticed her pointing the camera at the wall of stained glass windows. “And those have nothing to do with my claim. They’re... copyrighted designs.” He was about to reach up and put his hand over the lens when she flashed him another smile and put it away. This smile, he somehow knew, was forced and hid her true feelings of irritation at him.

  “I think I have everything I need, Mr. Mason. I’ll get back to you in about a week.”

  “A week? Just to find out if my claim’s valid? I need to order replacement glass right now! And it’s throwing the light all off in here, not having the skylight...”

  She shrugged as if it weren’t her problem and handed him a yellow piece of paper. “Here you go. We’ll get back to you. And my number’s on there to give to your brother if he ever gets... untaken.” She laughed lightly, a sound anyone else might find pleasant, but which infuriated Brian. He could feel the deceptive and shifty energy coming from her clearly now, and he wanted her out of his studio. Fortunately for the both of them, she simply got in her car and drove away without another word.

  He watched her go, then turned to step back inside, when something again caught his eye from the alley. Where there had been one candle, now there were several burning at the entrance to the narrow alleyway behind his building. They were traditional novena prayer candles, in heavy glass cylinders. The grass lining the sides of the dirt alley was still green enough that it wasn’t a fire hazard – yet. But if it kept up, he knew, it could be a problem when the grass turned dry for the summer.

  He squatted down to look at them. Four Saint Michael Archangels and one plain white one. A folded piece of paper was tucked under one of them, and he slipped it out and opened it up.

  San Miguel Arcángel,

  Defiéndenos en la batalla;

  Sé nuestra protección contra la maldad y los engaños del diablo.

  Que Dios lo reprenda, es nuestra humilde oración.

  Y puedas, O príncipe de los Seres Celestiales, por el poder de Dios, echar a

  Satanás al infierno, así como a todos los demás espíritus

  que vagan por el mundo buscando la ruina de las almas. Amen.

  Sacratísimo Corazón de Jesús,

  Ten piedad de nosotros.

  En el nombre del Padre y del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo. Amen.

  He blinked at the words, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. A prayer written to an archangel. And it was meant for his brother.

  It was a full five minutes, reading the note over and over, before he realized he didn’t know any Spanish. Except now he did. Hastily he slid the note back under the candle and went inside, leaning his back against the closed door, his gaze moving between the three angel windows, now glowing brightly with the lowering sun. The impact and
reality of it had finally hit him, and he realized there wasn’t any going back for himself or his brothers.

  But what did it mean? Was it a good or a bad thing? Clearly Barrett wasn’t thrilled about the idea, but Mike seemed all right with it. And when he thought about it, Brian got a little thrill of excitement that ran through him and made his shoulder blades ache, despite the potential problems that could lay down the road.

  He made himself some coffee and watched the sun lower through the windows. It was late on a Friday anyway, and he’d just call the glass place on Monday morning. Maybe he could get a loan from Barrett until he heard from the insurance company.

  Putting away the mundane thoughts of the day, he let his eyes and thoughts wander as he leaned against the wall opposite the bank of stained glass to the west. All he wanted to do was fly and see what he could do, what he and Mike could do, he corrected himself, but that was off-limits until “after business hours.” He sighed and sipped his coffee, then furrowed his brow just a bit and tilted his head.

  The woman that the angel was healing looked a lot like the woman in the car accident that he’d healed. And the “devil” that Michael was going after looked suspiciously like the man in the alley that he’d bumped into. His heart beat a little faster and he examined the last panel – two of the angels being led by the unnamed angel with the square in his hand looked like Michael and Raphael. How had he not seen it before?

  He studied the rest of the scene, seeing if he recognized any of the faces, and was a little disappointed that he didn’t. But for some reason another large window kept grabbing his attention, that of a huge oak tree. It looked like any ordinary oak tree of the region, but there was something in the patterning of the bark...

  His phone rang and startled him out of his thoughts. “Hey, Mike. What’s... what’s wrong?” He was going to say his usual “what’s up,” but a hunch made him switch in midstream, even before his brother said anything.