The Choir

Cody wasn’t sure what to think of Kyle, who had somehow become the voice of Gabriel. Gabriel meant warrior of God and was, according to Bible tradition, the general of the heavenly host that had driven Lucifer and the fallen out of Heaven. When Cody first heard that Gabriel had a singer, he’d imagined that the legendary Kyle was some tall, blond, all-American handsome boy next door who played football but likely looked ridiculously good in medieval armor.

Kyle was none of those things. He was tall and child-slender with narrow shoulders and sharp cheekbones. In fact, he looked like a male version of Snow White, all pale skin and dark hair and what Elise called (either admiringly or derisively, Cody could never tell) a “pretty red mouth.”

Most of the Seraph-voiced (‘singers’ according to the Angels, ‘companions’ according to the clergy, ‘choirboys’ on the street) managed to stay hidden in the general population, passing off their skills as quirks, mental illness, or dramatic pretension. Even though Kyle didn’t looked much like a warrior, he wielded Gabriel like a warhammer, and wherever Kyle deigned to stay, vigilantism followed. Cody honestly couldn’t figure out how the police hadn’t cottoned on to the crime rate patterns that hailed Gabriel and Kyle’s arrival, but then the police had gotten lazy once the government stumbled across the Listeners.

Elise drove into the heart of the city, navigating the maze of one-way streets like a pro. Cody’s mother, who worked at a law firm downtown, still cursed and got confused by the one-way streets. Elise parked her car outside a nondescript little Lutheran church and then got out, beckoned for the boys to follow her. She didn’t bother to put any coins in the meter. Marsh followed her up the stairs to the church. Cody sighed and put some quarters into the meter, then brought up the rear.

Elise eased open the door and slipped inside, and the boys followed her example.

Marsh paused, stuck out one foot, and Cody almost tripped over it. He caught himself on the back of a pew and straightened up, scowled.

And then he stared. What had looked like a little Lutheran church on the outside was actually an abandoned gothic cathedral on the inside. Pigeons fluttered between the buttresses and beams, and rats scurried through the debris scattered across the floor. After a moment, Cody could sense the buzzing of power, see the Hebrew letters sketched into the walls and floors.

So this was why Gabriel answered to Kyle. Kyle had mastered the Alphabet.

“I found them,” Elise called toward the rafters. “None too soon - the Feds had a Listener posted at the school.”

“Listeners are the least of our problems,” someone said, and Cody saw Kyle shimmer into being on one of the upper balconies.

Gabriel stood behind him, radiant in silver armor.

“Welcome to the Choir,” Kyle said.

(487 words)