Topiary animals craned their necks at the sound of her feet on the cobblestoned path. Green shoots shot up from the rich soil on either side of her, delicate flowers budding and blooming into existence just for her. Up a gentle slope there was an orchard of trees, their low-hanging boughs laden with brightly-wrapped presents and cakes. A silver stream that sparkled like diamonds wound its way up the hill and among the trees. Fluttering faeries sang, giggled, and danced in air was full of delicate floral scents carried on a cool, soft breeze.

Just ahead, the path split and circled around a tall white statue of a winged angel, its arms spread out in a gesture of welcome. As the young girl’s face lifted up to see its own, it looked down at her.

“Welcome,” the angel said to the girl. “Welcome, to the Garden of Earthly Delights. All that you see here is yours to enjoy.”

“Why would there be an angel in a garden of earthly delights?” the girl asked.

“Um, er…” the angel said.

“You’re Satan, aren’t you?” she asked. It stared down at her impassively, saying nothing. “Come on, you might as well admit it… it’s pretty obvious.”

“…I might not be,” it said.

“Yes, you are,” she said. “Look, your horns are even showing.”

“What?” it said, slapping at its head to try to feel.

“Yeah, and they look like this,” the girl said, putting her thumb and forefinger up to her own forehead in the shape of an “L”.

“I am not a loser!” the angel said.

“Whatever,” she said, turning and walking back towards the gates. “It’s like you’re not even trying anymore.”

He did not fly swiflty upon them. They were so crowded upon each other, many growing out of the backs of others, that they could not hope to bear him aloft. Indeed, he could hardly bear their weight himself. He had six hundred wings, and more were springing up all the time.

He took a flaming sword and sheared off all that he could reach, leaving the smell of burnt feather and flesh in the celestial air. He hacked and he cut and he slashed until his back was a mess of stumps, and from that smoldering mass a dozen more wings swiftly arose.

Sobbing in pain and frustration, Gabriel sank down to his knees in despair and uttered a prayer, his first ever of supplication rather than praise. Would his torments never cease?

Somewhere down far below, at the front desk of a hotel, a four-year-old was being ignored by her parents and the desk clerk while they argued over a service charge. Lacking any other amusement, she slammed her palm down on the desk bell, again and again. She giggled in delight at the noise it made.

Ring, ring, ring.

Six more wings.

“Okay, watch this,” one of them said to his less enthusiastic companion. He pointed down across the street, where a well-dressed but harried and tired looking woman was fumbling with a set of keys beside a dark-colored sedan. She set a laptop case down on the roof of the car. “She’s just come out of the coffeeshop where she waited over an hour for an interview with a man who never showed up. She’s been out of work since her bank shut down eight months ago. She needs a job, needs it badly, but even more than that she wanted this one. It was the perfect fit for her. It was her dream job. It was actually in her field, and the location would have been perfect.”

“How long have you been watching her?” the other one asked.

“The whole time,” he said. “Now take a look directly across the street from her. What do you see?”

“Another coffee shop.”

“Yes.”

“The same as the one she walked out of.”

“Yes!”

“They built two shops at the same street?”

“I know… crazy, isn’t it?” the first one said. “Now watch, because she’s going to look up and see it in about five seconds… three, two, and one.”

As they watched, the woman’s head tipped up in response to the flash of movement from a passing car and the expression on her face became one of surprise, then dawning realization and horror. Her car keys fell from her suddenly limp fingers, straight through the grating at her feet.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the first watcher said.

“If you saw that coming, you might have done something,” the other said. “Or you might have let her know that the man she was waiting for was across the street.”

“He actually wasn’t, though. He never showed up. He forgot about it. That’s what’s so beautiful about it. She’s going to be kicking herself forever, thinking that she fucked up, when actually it didn’t matter which of the cafes she went into. When he realizes that he blew off a prospective employee, he’s going to rationalize it away so it’s not his fault. He’ll decide he wouldn’t have hired her so he doesn’t have to call her to admit his mistake and reschedule. Nothing she could have done would have made this turn out differently.”

“Are you planning on letting her know that?”

“Are you? Of course not. We’re watchers. We watch.”

“We could let someone know.”

“That’s not my department. Anyway, it’s about to get better,” the first one said. “She’s blaming herself right now, but as long as she’s only blaming herself, there’s still the possibility in her heart that the universe is a kind and loving place. That just makes her kick herself all the harder, of course, because God was good enough to give her the chance to land her dream job and she blew it. What we’re about to see is the moment that she loses all faith.”

“That’s kind of morbid, isn’t it?”

“Morbid how?”

“We’re creatures of faith,” the other one said.

“Yeah, but we’re not like storybook pixies or anything. I don’t think we’re going to die just because someone doesn’t believe in us. We’d probably be long gone if that were the case.”

“Lots of people believe in angels,” his companion said.

“Yeah, but most of them don’t have a clue what Grigori are.” He pointed. “Okay, okay… watch this.”

The woman was looking around for something to fish her keys out. A young man who had just walked past the woman’s car suddenly doubled back and snatched the laptop, then took off running. The woman reacted as if in slow motion, turning, rising, and calling hoarsely for him to stop as he vanished around a corner.

“See, that’s it!” the watcher cried, slapping his knee. “Poof! All gone! Her heart’s breaking in two. She’s never going to believe in a higher power again… and the stupid thing is it’s more her fault than the missed interview is. It’s just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Not getting even a disgusted reply from his companion, he turned around and found that he was alone on the roof. The other angel had vanished.

“Probably just left,” he muttered to himself, unconvincingly.

He felt very cold, very small, and not at all sure of himself.