Elise and Israfel

“So you got it.” Elise nodded at the receipt crumpled in Cody’s fist. It bore the date, time stamp, and address of a convenience store on 24th and Lake. If the news was anything to go by, someone got shot outside of that store at least once a week.

Cody pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded, jammed the receipt into his pocket. “Yeah. They’ll leave me alone now.”

“You probably should’ve made a better attempt at going incognito, you know,” Elise said. She lit a cigarette, took a deep drag.

Cody pawed at his bruised cheekbone, abashed. He’d made it almost all the way back to Dodge without incident before he’d hit an unexpected patch of light and Asrael’s protection had vanished. A couple of boys from Central High had rolled him for some of his lunch money. Too bad Cody spent more on lunch in one day than those boys spent in a week.

“I hope you know you’re a walking cliché,” he said. He eyed Elise up and down where she was perched on a tombstone, smoking a cigarette, a guitar dangling from her other hand.

“What kind of cliché?”

“The Courtney Love kind.”

Elise snorted indelicately and tossed her head. “Oh please. Are you even old enough to really know who she is?”

“I keep company with the Angel of Death,” Cody said flatly. “Wanna know what Kurt Cobain sounded like after he died?”

“You’re just bitter you didn’t get the fun angel.” Elise stubbed out her cigarette and spit on her fingertips, traced a few idle Hebrew letters on the granite of her tombstone perch, and then angel on the tombstone behind her stirred, came to life.

It unfurled its wings and stretched, tossed its head, and when it lifted its head, parted the curtain of platinum blond hair, Cody saw that it was male. Most likely. Angels were distressingly androgynous.

“Hey, Israfel,” he said.

Israfel lifted one languid hand and pushed his hair out of his face. “Hello, Nicodemus.” He stepped off the grave and crossed the grass, his feet not quite touching the ground. He stood behind Elise. “What did you need?”

“How about a little heavenly harmony?” Elise asked.

Israfel sighed and lifted his hands, and a guitar materialized from the twilight shadows. “Someday you’ll have to find a non-frivolous use for your gift.”

“One day I’m sure you’ll tell me about one,” Elise said, and drop-tuned her guitar.

Cody huffed and cast Israfel a sympathetic look. “I’m sure if you read your Bible, you’d remember how the walls of Jericho came down.”

(434 words)