SHORT STORY / "The Soul Broker"

In 2018, I wrote and published an urban fantasy short story about an angel and a demon meeting in a bar, called The Soul Broker, on my website and Wattpad. It was the first time I’d ever published an original story. Before that, I’d only published fan fiction anonymously as a teen or shared my original fiction privately.

I was working on full-length projects, but none were anywhere near ready for publication. I really wanted to finish something I could put out in the world that reflected who I was as a storyteller, so I wouldn't just be talking about my writing and would actually have something tangible to show for it.

Now, with the one-year anniversary of publishing my debut novel (a contemporary romance, though I have more fantasy projects in the works) this month, it’s cool to look back on this other milestone that paved the way for my publishing a novel in more ways than one. Even though I’ve grown a lot as a writer over the past several years, I still love and am proud of this story. It did a lot for my confidence through committing to it and pushing past the fear of sharing it online.

I made some minor grammatical edits to the prose before publishing it here, but the bulk of it is the same as when I first published it. If you’re interested in my author’s notes on the story itself, they’re at the end.

It was the night of a new moon, which meant there was a deadline licking at his heels.

An unexpected month-long recess at a palace in the desert had put Bo off schedule, from which he resurfaced with an atypically large quota to meet, one that even by his standards was tight. He didn’t sweat it. In his line of work, opportunity was never far from reach. Souls aching to be set free were a dime a dozen. For someone who had been in the game as long as he had, he preferred a challenge, anyway. The ones who clung to hope, convinced they could fulfill their desires while retaining their so-called virtue─they were the most fun to break.

But, given the circumstances, the low-hanging fruit would have to do.

A balmy Saturday night had the clubs packed with souls. He picked a random one in a random city. It didn’t matter which one; they were all the same. As he passed through the tightly packed bodies, Bo could taste its patrons’ inner torment, more bitter than the liquor flowing from the taps. Each one clawing for an escape through the most convenient forms of distraction, exchanging their hard-earned cash from hours of misery for temporary releases from that misery.

Thank Lucifer, he wasn’t one of those pathetic fucks anymore.

It was a cycle he had observed for centuries. The methods changed, but the intention remained the same. A release from the pain of living. Places like the one he found himself in were a hotbed for his business. Still, there was an art to choosing the right mark, especially when the options were so abundant. He watched his younger colleagues make rookie mistakes, get too cocky, read a mark all wrong, and it cost them. He fancied himself one of the best in the business because he understood the nuances that many of his peers overlooked.

If there was anything Bo understood with keen familiarity, it was the pain of desire. When satisfied, it was the greatest sensation a soul could achieve. Left unfulfilled, however, and it would gnaw you into misery.

While his colleagues grew a comfortable distance from ungratified yearning to taking whatever they wanted when they wanted it, Bo chose to foster memories of his former life. They faded like old photographs, but he preserved them as best he could, returning to them often and seeking out similar experiences in others to revive them. Most demons couldn’t wait to forget their past. He knew the benefits of remembering.

That relationship with the human experience is what drew people to him. He didn’t have to scheme and sell. He simply communicated.

It also meant he carried around more pain than his peers, but in his eyes, that made every indulgence and win more satisfying. Even his current choice of vessel was based on a desire to increase the challenge. The man he possessed wasn’t handsome in the conventional sense that his earlier vessels had been. The body was tall and muscular, but his facial features were unusual. A wide mouth with full lips, a crooked nose, dark eyes framed by a strong brow. His skin was pale, his hair ink-black. By no means ugly─he didn’t care to lose all the benefits of an attractive physical appearance─but he had to work a little harder to shift people’s knee-jerk reaction.

He rarely let his quotas run until their deadlines. In fact, he was regarded as an overachiever, bringing in more high-value souls than his entire division combined. But the work had become monotonous, and he was restless. He had willfully let the clock run out in an attempt to inject some excitement, and his confidence in his ability left him unconcerned, even as it drained to the final hours. Bo filled the time by enjoying the company of three unburdened college students, indulging in top-shelf whiskey and offering his encouragement free of charge to anyone on the precipice of a bad decision.

For those primed for an upgrade, he delivered.

When that became boring, he pulled out his timepiece that hung from a chain and rested in a pocket of his vest. He glanced at the pocket watch, its large, gold face riddled with layers of complex dials and dots, and multiple hands moving in various directions. Just over an hour to go and one soul left to acquire. Too bad none of his peers were around to call him crazy, tell him there was no way he would make it in time. That would at least introduce the thrill of proving them wrong.

His heartbeat worked at a steady, almost lackadaisical pace as he walked through the writhing bodies, like a solid ship cutting through a churning ocean. As their flesh rubbed against his three-piece suit, he read their desires. Peeked into their souls, inhaling their wants, fears, regrets. So much of the same. A waitress who dreamed of her name in lights. A married insurance adjuster who wished the hot girl in marketing would fuck him. A computer programmer who wanted his boss to drop dead so he could finally get the promotion he deserved.

Blah, blah, blah.

Was there no true, raw passion left in the world? Not one living soul with an ounce of creativity?

The watch vibrated against his abdomen. The hour warning. He sighed, unable to summon a single fuck.

He wanted a seat at the bar, but it was full. He eyed a woman perched on one of the stools, tapping a chipped red fingernail anxiously against her half-empty glass, her discount store heel doing the same to the metal foot rail. He noted the nicotine patch on her arm and tasted the sweet memory of tobacco rolling off of her in painful waves of longing.

Approaching her, he whispered in her ear, “Go have a cigarette. You deserve it.”

The tapping ceased. Her eyes lifted, suddenly clear, determined. “I need a smoke,” she declared and slipped off the stool, bound for the exit.

He calmly took her place, calling the bartender’s attention. “I’ll have a vodka tonic. Your best.”

As the bartender nodded, another woman, wrought with concern, hurried after the first, shouting over the noise of the crowd for her to wait while freeing up the barstool beside him.

Bo looked across the void to the man sitting two stools away. In a room full of energy and wanton behavior, he was still and pensive, as though he’d been placed in the wrong movie. He was an average thirty-something-year-old man with a small gut hanging over his slacks and glasses perched on his short nose. He sat hunched against the bar with a barely touched glass of whiskey nestled between his hands.

Bo felt his troubled soul as distinctly as the bass pulsing through the soles of his shoes. A conflicted heart steeped in turmoil, ripe for a hand of persuasion to guide it out of its miserable tug-of-war into resolve and conviction, and thus, freedom.

Bo was a skilled purveyor of such things. They would be an asset to each other.

He read the man’s story with a glance as the bartender placed a glass in front of him and poured. Bo’s attention didn’t leave the conflicted patron as he took his time sipping, letting the warmth sit on his tongue as he worked out his approach.

Once he was satisfied with his plan, he opened his mouth to speak, but something else ─someone else─caught his eye.

Standing at the end of the bar, a tall brunette fixed her eyes on him with an intensity that caught him off guard. He’d seen thousands of beautiful women in his lifetime, enjoyed the company of nearly just as many, but the way she looked at him gave him a rush few things were capable of stirring in him anymore. A few moments passed as he drank her in before he realized what she was.

She was bathed in a soft glow, almost imperceptible yet captivating. The first of her kind he had ever seen. From the way everyone else was carrying on with their business, he assumed he was the only one who could see the light emanating from her.

Bo rose from the stool, leaving both his drink and his mark behind. His body carved a path through the crowd, barely sparing anyone a glance as they instinctively moved—or were moved—out of his way. When he reached her, he stopped inches away, close enough to study the glow in all its brilliance. She met his gaze but didn’t move. If she was bothered by the invasive proximity, she gave no sign of it. Only watched him with the same quiet curiosity as he took her in.

She wasn’t what he would have expected. Beneath the glow, her skin was inked with various tattoos across her smooth, olive skin. Her eyeliner was appropriately winged. Long, dark hair cascaded down a bare shoulder, the other side pinned up in a style he recalled women wearing in the 1940s. Her dress was a simple black number with a halter neckline, exposing a delicate decolletage that led to a pair of cherry-red lips.

“Well, this is unexpected,” he mused through a tilted grin.

“I’m sure it is.” The words were delivered to him in a smooth, sweet voice, laced with amusement.

“This isn’t exactly your kind’s haunt. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Everywhere is our ‘haunt.’ We go where we’re needed.”

“If that were true, I would’ve run into one of you centuries ago.”

“You’re assuming you’d know if you had.”

“Well, you’re not exactly inconspicuous.” Bo’s gaze traveled over her, following the warm light as it wrapped around every curve. Without warning, the light vanished. He blinked, momentarily mistrusting his own eyes. “Neat trick. Can you show me how to do that?”

“I’m sure you have plenty of your own tricks up your sleeve.” She lowered her chin as an eyebrow arched, glancing across the bar. “Like attempting to broker that man’s soul.”

Bo shoved his hands into his pockets, relaxing his shoulders. “Is that why you’re gracing me with your presence? To try and stop me? Because if you are, I hope you can do more than a box of Christmas lights.”

A smile danced around her wide, dark brown eyes. “It’s cute you think you’d have a chance if I were.”

His expression hardened as their proximity took on new meaning. Heat rose under his skin. “You’d better be willing to risk every soul in here on that confidence."

For a moment, the same fire of battle blazed in her eyes, but she pulled it back. Tamed it. Something else took its place. Her gaze broke away, seeming to go to war with herself instead. He watched, intrigued, as she observed the people on the dance floor behind him.

“Why do you do what you do?” she asked, as though she were a human asking another human why they decided to go into banking.

“Because they weren’t hiring at Whole Foods.” Where there was once amusement, he now witnessed a definitive lack thereof. Was she really serious with that question?

“You have various positions. A hierarchy, similar to ours. It’s safe to assume you were given this role for a reason, and given your proficiency at it─”

“So you’ve heard of me?” Bo was delighted by the idea of the feathers upstairs bristling at his achievements.

“─there’s probably some personal motivation behind your success,” she continued, ignoring his question. “You seem to enjoy it.”

“You’ve watched me,” he amended, even more delighted. He took her silence and glare as confirmation. He leaned his weight on one elbow against the bar, clasping his long, slender fingers together. “I do enjoy it. Sometimes. It gets repetitive after the first few hundred years.”

“Why do you enjoy it?”

“It’s quite selfless, actually.” He smiled. “I like giving people their freedom.”

Her head tilted slightly. “You consider damning them to Hell for all eternity, freedom?”

“You have a very limited view of Hell. It’s not all fire and brimstone. One could argue that what you ask of humans is its own type of Hell, just a different one.”

“Being a decent person isn’t a form of Hell.”

“It is when it goes against your nature.”

“You believe virtue is against human nature?”

“It’s against all of our natures. Even yours.”

It was hard to read what she made of that statement. She had a strong poker face. Still, he thought he saw a hint of something─intrigue, perhaps, or maybe even the tiniest bit of doubt. He decided to indulge it.

“From the moment a soul is put on this earth, it is bound by limits and expectations imposed on it,” Bo explained. “And not just physically. From that first breath, it feels the wonderful rush of hunger and desire on a level that is unique to its existence, and just as quickly—” He snapped his fingers. “It’s starved for what it aches for most. You, through the society you’ve trained so well, hammer it into them from the beginning that they’re not good enough as they are. They’re sentenced to spend their whole lives fighting what feels good. What feels natural.”

“It’s part of their journey,” she said without hesitation.

Bo huffed a dark sound akin to a laugh. “Right. What it is is cruel. But if you guys are doing it, it’s for a purpose, right? A greater good. Such a handy excuse, that one.”

“Growth doesn’t happen without resistance. Humans are created as imperfect, blank slates. They experience things from different perspectives and have the opportunity to contribute to the world in their own way. When they find enlightenment, it’s more powerful because they discovered it on their own. Their lives aren’t determined for them. They have the will to choose.”

Her spiel sounded methodical until the last two sentences, when the words seemed to stick on their way out. It caused a small crack in her armor.

Interesting.

“Unlike you,” Bo concluded for her.

Clearly not interested in his assumptions, the crack filled, covered by her signature Resting Angel Face. All peace and condescension and bullshit. “Our purpose is to guide them toward their potential,” she declared.

He laughed. “See, that’s the problem. You think they’re broken, in need of fixing. You insist they live up to an impossible standard while setting them up for failure. You expect them to repress nearly every instinct they have, that they were created with─while tempting them in a playground of possibility─to meet a standard only achievable if they give up everything that makes them what they are.”

“They’re made to be more.”

“They’re made to hunt, indulge, and fuck,” he said. “They’re made to feel. They aren’t your projects. Rather than just letting them be what they are, you tell them they’re fucked up for wanting any of it, and you make them think you’re telling them that out of love, for their own good. You don’t impose those sadistic rules and expectations on any other creature but them. Imagine telling a lion to tame its temper and thirst for blood so it can ascend to a higher place and make an arrogant celestial race feel good about themselves.”

Bo searched for some hint of a fissure in her assurance, but her expression remained unmoved. He tucked his lower lip in, biting down. “But you can’t possibly understand that, can you?” he accused. “Because, unlike us, you’ve never been one of them.”

She didn’t just continue to regard him with condescension; she actually looked past him, as though he were boring her with his rambling. An inferno rose through his body, filling his chest. Bo knew looks could be deceiving, just as he knew of an angel's alleged power and strength, but he was too pissed off to care.

If he died, it would be a hell of a way to go out. And it wasn’t like he expected either of them to make it out of here alive once he clocked what she was.

“Show me,” she said.

“Show you what?” He spat the question through clenched teeth, prepared to accept the invitation to the fight they had been dancing around since they met.

“How it feels to be like them.”

For the second time in one night, Bo was well and truly thrown. He followed her gaze over his shoulder to the club-goers on the dance floor, surrendering to the throes of ecstasy. Returning, he searched her face. “You mean to be human?”

“Yes,” she affirmed, still watching them. “To feel what they feel. That passion. To yearn for something so intensely that it overwhelms logic and reason.” She narrowed her eyes, resembling a grounded child watching other children play through a window. “I don’t understand it. Of course, I understand the mechanics, but I don’t understand the experience. I don’t know the feeling. We don’t feel emotion. Not the way they do. It’s necessary because it enables us to keep the peace and stay focused on them. Unlike your kind, who have become completely consumed by emotion to the point of destruction.”

“Hold on─aren’t you on the team whose modus operandi is to basically keep them from giving in to everything you just mentioned?”

Finally, she met his eyes again. “Only when it is harmful.”

“Wow. Self-righteous and hypocritical. You’re doing a bang-up job living up to your reputation. At least you’re consistent.”

“I want to know what it feels like so I can be of better service to them,” she countered. “I know their temptation the way someone knows about dancing by reading a book. I know how it works, what the steps are, how the body is meant to move, but when I try to guide them away from those temptations… sometimes, I can’t reach them. Not as deeply as I could if I truly understood their struggle.” Her voice softened. “They are willing to risk so much for it. Everything, in some cases. They sell their souls for it. It must be powerful.”

“So, you want me to help you get better at your job so you can make mine more difficult?”

“I thought you were so good at your job that it wouldn’t matter what I do?”

Bo smirked. Fair play. “Alright. What’s in it for me, though? Why should I give a shit about your rebellious adventure in self-discovery?”

“Isn’t the opportunity to potentially turn an angel to the dark side temptation enough?”

He hadn’t framed it that way in his mind, a shameful admittance he had to make to himself. But the idea sparked a fire in his belly that he had long forgotten the taste of. It raced through him like the flame up a trail of gasoline. Of all his conquests, he had never given thought to what the greatest of them all could be. He had been thinking so small. If he turned an angel, he’d be a legend.

His lips curled wickedly. Oh, how he’d missed that feeling.

“Alright, angel girl. You have a deal.” Lifting his arm, he snapped his fingers. Though he had been busy at the other end of the bar fulfilling an order, the bartender abruptly abandoned the half-made drink to pour two glasses of whiskey. He delivered them to Bo.

Bo offered one to her, to which she raised a dubious eyebrow.

“I’m not thirsty,” she said.

“You don’t drink whiskey because you’re thirsty.”

“Alcohol doesn’t have any effect on me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Man, you’re fun. Think of it like a handshake. An informal way to seal the deal, so to speak.”

She sighed before reluctantly accepting the glass.

“To trying new things.” Bo clinked his glass against hers, then threw back a gulp. When she didn’t follow suit, he gave her an encouraging look.

Another sigh. She took a sip. She might as well have been drinking water. He noted the little black cross inked on her index finger as she peered indifferently into the glass.

“What’s your name?” he asked. “Since we’re going to be getting so close and all.”

“Manaraiasi,” she answered, setting the glass aside on the bar.

“Fuck, that’s a mouthful. How about I just call you May?”

“No one calls me that.”

“Well, someone does now. I’m Bo. Just Bo.”

“Okay. Let’s get on with it. Show me what desire feels like.”

He laughed into his whiskey, then paused. “Oh, you’re serious. Of course, you are. Uh, that’s not how it works. I can’t just snap my fingers the way I did to get a couple of drinks.”

“I thought demons could fabricate emotion? You’re no good to me if you can’t do that.”

Bo took another sip, swallowing before answering. “First, rude. Second, that’s an ignorant, oversimplified, and embarrassingly incorrect interpretation of what we do. We don’t create emotion. We manipulate it. Some form of it must already exist. We just turn up the volume on it, so to speak.”

A shadow crossed over her. Was that disappointment he saw? “I told you, angels don’t feel emotion. Not in the traditional sense.”

“Normally, I wouldn’t argue about you guys being a bunch of cold, emotionless pricks. But the truth is, everything with a soul is capable of emotion. Last I heard, angels have those. You’ve just been conditioned to suppress certain─most─aspects of it. Pretty much all the parts that would make you fun or, at the very least, tolerable.”

Whatever hint of vulnerability that was there a moment before vanished as May pointedly reminded him, “There’s a reason for that. It’s as much a part of your history as it is mine.”

“We got the fun end of the deal,” Bo replied with a slanted grin. He thought for a moment that might elicit a smile, that he saw the corners of her mouth twitch just a little, but she continued as though they were two boring diplomats discussing the details of a trade deal.

“So, you’re going to attempt to tap into what you think is already there.”

“What is already there, yes. I just have to get inside and wake up what’s been asleep for far too long, then coerce it to come out and play.” Cradling the glass of whiskey, he pointed toward her forehead, eyeing her like an archaeologist would a dusty, sealed tomb.

May gave a little dismissive shake of her head. “I don’t think it will work.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Bo replied, basking in the irony. “Most demons probably wouldn’t be strong enough for the likes of you; you’re right. But lucky for you, you found one of the few─maybe the only─who is.”

She clung to her incredulity, but he sensed a flicker of hope behind it. He looked deeper, leaned in closer, searching. “Now, to figure out the thing you desire most.”

“The entire point of this exercise is that I don’t desire anything. We don’t need─”

“Connection.”

The word seemed to slice right through her. He could practically see it reverberating through her bones and across her radiant, illustrated skin. One corner of his mouth lifted in triumph.

“Yes, that’s it,” Bo declared, his voice dropping, rasping. “You said you want to feel desire so you can understand the people you want to help. Understanding is the basis of connection, the most basic of desires. See, you’re just as simple as they are.” He glanced sidelong at the humans indulging in their wildest, most primitive needs. He extended his hand to her. She regarded it with the same disinterest as the whiskey.

“Come with me,” Bo encouraged her.

“To where?”

“Stop asking so many questions.”

Hesitancy gave way to resolve. May placed her hand in his, small and graceful but firm, and electricity sparked at the meeting of their flesh. The reaction of opposite energies colliding. They both glanced at their hands. Her, surprised. Him, titillated.

She let him lead her through the crowd, deep into the heart of the dance floor. Every soul around them vibrated, and, packed so close together in such heightened states, they created a collective wave of energy that pulsed around them. He sensed May’s energy, too, but it was distant. Protected. Not so readily available as their human counterparts.

Stopping in the thick of it, a sea of sweat and fervor surrounding them, he turned to face her. A smoky haze lingered in the air. He reached around her slender frame, setting one hand on the small of her back as the other held hers, and pulled her closer to him. The muscles in her back were as taut as violin strings. Feeding off the energy of the surrounding souls, he used it as fuel to boost his signal as he reached for hers. 

In the midst of the chaos─music pumping, people dancing, gyrating, shouting─their eyes locked. He applied just enough pressure to hold her attention, but not to trap her, and looked deep inside.

It was true what others had told him about her kind—she was espoused to control the way he was to chaos. Its influence was wrapped tightly around every breath, every atom. It was exhausting to witness as an observer. What they failed to mention, however, was the warmth. He hadn’t noticed it when they were sparring, but now, as he traveled deeper, he could feel it. It was a mystifying dichotomy how, at once, she was both distant and close. Like the sun, warm and bright but impossible to touch.

If he were going to pull this off, he would have to not only touch it but dominate it.

He began to gently sway. She was stiff beneath him, harboring an expression of calm disbelief. But he was good at what he did. He siphoned from the souls around them, pulling on their energy. He watched her meticulously managed countenance soften, sensing the shift.

Once he was sure that he had her attention, he dipped his lips to his ear and whispered, “Let go.”

And there it was, distant but powerful. Like a voice calling across the sea. Closing his eyes, he pressed his cheek to hers and reached for it, pushing his way in with careful force. At first, she met him with a great deal of resistance, more than he had experienced with anyone else. But the more he soaked in the energy around them, poured his own into her, beckoned hers to join them, the more that resistance melted away.

It stopped at arm’s length, reluctant to step over the threshold. 

Bo gently squeezed her hand, caressing it with his thumb. His stubble grazed her soft skin as he met her eyes, inviting her, without words, to take the final step. A flicker of fear swept across her face. For a moment, he wasn’t sure which way she would go.

He both felt and saw the moment when she made the choice and gave in to him.

Not wasting a moment, he locked onto her soul and poured every ounce of his power into her. She closed her eyes, tilting her head back. As her desire awakened from its deep slumber, stretching its legs, opening itself up, he fed it with everything he had. Bo pulled from those around them—every moment they had ever felt a torturous emptiness—and channeled it into her. The deep, hollow ache fueled the intense need to feel seen, whole, wanted.

Understood.

The world went dark, quiet. The music became a distant pulse in the air. As her eyelashes pressed against her cheeks, the passing lights caught the moisture seeping from beneath them.

Once he was satisfied that she had soaked in their suffering long enough to crack open her heart, he led her to the better side of desire. He channeled the friends and lovers. He felt their laughter, their joy, the delicious anticipation of eye contact from across the room, the rush of a first kiss. Freedom.

Connection.

Guiding her closer so that their bodies pressed against each other, he began to sway to the music again as it slowly returned and swelled around them. A hypnotic beat with a deep bass massaged their bones. The sound grew, engulfing them as she followed his lead and sank into it. Her weight relaxed against him. His fingers played with hers as the other hand remained comfortably on the curve of her back.

The tension and sadness washed away. As the energy around them shifted to liberation and ecstasy, a smile formed on her lips.

She was actually having fun.

He caught himself smiling, too. He enjoyed the sight of her body bending effortlessly like water. All the tension that had held her together earlier, like a straitjacket, flowed right off of her. Now, he danced with a freshly unshackled spirit. The secondhand high he got whenever he took humans to the edge of their desire had been a perk of the job, but her transformation was the most intense he had ever assisted. It must have been so beyond anything she had ever allowed herself to experience. They were both absorbed by an explosion of rich, vibrant color; the air tasted sweeter, like decadent chocolate and citrus, and he felt every drop of blood in his system as it pumped through his veins. 

He watched the lights dance on the thin layer of sweat on her chest. She trusted his hands to cradle her as she surrendered. When she finally pulled herself back up, he held her, foreheads touching. His fingers sought to intertwine with hers. She allowed it, their heartbeats touching through their fingertips. Her breath was heavy across his skin as her hips began to move with his, the heat rolling off of her in undulations.

Bo had awakened her, had gotten her there. Now, all he had to do was keep her there.

His attention fell to her lips, full and wet. Kissing always helped strengthen a connection, but he found himself wanting to kiss her for his own pleasure. He watched her chest rise and fall, listening to her labored breath. He felt drawn to her in a way he didn’t fully understand. Beyond the physical. The wildness of not understanding, of feeling something raw, mysterious, magnified his desire.

He dipped his mouth to hers, needing to taste her. As their lips brushed, she opened her eyes. Took hold of him with her gaze.

It was like a tidal wave.

The feeling swallowed him whole. A warmth like he had never felt, or couldn’t remember feeling, washed over him. Not the heat of the desire that they had both been caught up in a moment before. A soothing, gentle embrace. The heaviness he had carried for so long, the heaviness that had become a part of him, lifted away like a shadow passing into light. 

His eyes widened as her body glowed. This time, he felt it. The light reached out and embraced him, warming him from the inside out. She smiled, but it was different now. Not wild or drunk on desire. Peaceful.

The way he felt.

Her breath now came in soft strokes. She lifted a hand, gently cupping his cheek. Her thumb caught a tear as it fell. No fear, no anger, no pain existed in him anymore. Something had put it all aside. It was a new, different kind of freedom.

It startled him when the light extinguished, both in front of his eyes and within.

Just as quickly, he was hollowed out, stripped bare. She stepped back, releasing their hands. The air hitched in his throat as the weight piled back on him, filling around his bones. His soul. His chest tightened, lungs short of breath.

Now, completely parted from one another, he could only look at her, stunned.

Her voice was inaudible, but he read the words on her lips: “Thank you.”

And she was gone.

He stood there, soaking in the aftermath. In emotions he hadn’t felt in centuries. Some he had never felt at all. It was as though he had been floating along, numb and high, when the wind was knocked out of him. People danced as though he wasn’t there, bumping and grazing his body. He couldn’t move.

He wiped his cheek, rubbed the moisture between his fingers. Two questions swam in his mind. First, what had he just experienced?

More importantly, how could he experience it again?

At the edge of his consciousness, he felt the watch vibrate in his pocket.

When I first decided to write a short story in 2018, I didn’t have an idea for it. I just knew I wanted to write one, so I went looking for inspiration.

I’m a big fan of the TV show Supernatural, which plays with a lot of biblical mythology, and I’d been wanting to explore something similar. The idea of a demon and an angel meeting in a bar came to me when I saw a photo of two people talking — one wearing white and the other in all black. From there, I followed the questions that popped up: How would they react to each other? What would they talk about? What would they want, respectively?

I’ve always loved hearing how everyone reacts differently to this story when they read it. Years later, I still love these characters and the world of this story. They may pop up in a future project, perhaps in a continuation of this story or in one of my other fantasy works in progress. 👀

𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓀 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓇𝑒𝒶𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔! If you enjoyed it and would like to show your support for my work, please:

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𝓍𝓍 𝐿.𝐸.