Chapter 1
The call had come from one of the newly built neighborhoods on the west side of town; endless rows of brutal gray apartment buildings, broken up here and there with dog poop studded micro-parks.
Officer Patrick Collins hated coming this far west. He was old enough to remember the way the neighborhood used to look, before a series of suspicious catastrophic fires leveled the area to ash. The real estate conglomerates had moved in from somewhere and quickly created what Officer Collins guessed was supposed to be affordable housing. They forgot to make it look nice, however.
Officer Collins felt a twinge as he passed the corner where Blue Scoop Ice Cream used to be. The giant cone that was once mounted to the roof of that now-cremated building had seemed to him to be the biggest thing in the world when he was small.
The building where the call had come from was actually in one of the nicer blocs of the area; a row of small townhouse-style dwellings, each with its own front patio. Generally these buildings were filled with students who attended the nearby free cultural college, living five or six to a unit.
Officer Collins had been driving solo and he pulled his cruiser behind the already-parked car of his coworkers and radioed his arrival to dispatch. The cruisers were painted light blue, a color scientifically shown to be non-threatening.
Each of the vehicles were marked by a large decal of the precinct’s mascot, a lovable, giant-headed cartoon cop with an ingratiating smile and wide, outstretched arms. Officer Collins found this logo embarrassing. He rubbed his hands over his face and prepared himself for the encounter.
Officers Stewart and Ramirez were already out of their shared patrol vehicle. Stewart was saying something and gesturing at one of the townhouse doors while Ramirez hooked his thumbs through his belt loops philosophically and listened.
When Collins was out of the car, the three men began to move toward the door in question. Garbage lined the walkway and on the front door was a messily-taped poster of Napolean Dynamite, a character from an old movie that was currently enjoying an irony renaissance.
Officer Collins knocked right between Napoleon’s eyes as the character’s mouth hung open adenoidally. The door opened a crack and then all the way. The officers announced themselves as they had been trained to do:
“I’m Officer Collins and my pronouns are He/Him. This is Officer Stewart, He/Him and this is Officer Ramirez.”
“He/Him,” finished Officer Ramirez, completing the litany. The person who opened the door stepped back to let the officers in.
They were chubby but petite with short hair that was shaved at the sides. They wore colorful pajama pants and a tight tee-shirt that read: “Ganon’s Cleaning Service- if the stain won’t come out, Triforce!” There was some kind of demon on the shirt holding a mop. Officer Collins didn’t get it. The person scratched their not-unsubstantial belly through the shirt. The townhouse smelled like cooked eggs.
“Thanks for coming by, you guys,” said the small, chubby person, “My pronouns are She/They and it- the thing I called about? It’s upstairs.”
The officers followed this person up a cramped and cluttered carpeted staircase. The carpet was thin and dirty and colored flags hung up the walls on either side of the stairwell. Officer Collins could never keep the meaning of these flags straight, though it was part of the required training.
Officer Ramirez slipped ahead of the group, stepping on what looked like a half eaten sandwich and pausing to knock it off of his boot.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but this might be dangerous. We insist on going first. For your safety.”
The other two officers slipped by the small person who was opening their mouth to protest. Officer Collins turned to them.
“We really need to take every precaution. No disrespect intended,” he said. The small person sagged against one of the flags.
“Well, okay, but just like. Watch out for the cats.” On cue, a huge orange tabby shot out of the dark upstairs to inspect the smashed sandwich. Ramirez bent down and let the cat’s tail run between his fingers as he reached the landing.
At the top of the stairs were three closed doors. Behind the farthest door, the officers could see a red pulsing light emanating from underneath. Another cat sat blandly by this door, licking its rear with its leg extended. Collins put his hand to his hip, forgetting that there was no service weapon there.
“It’s the one on the far right,” said the small person from the stairwell. Officer Ramirez was already at the door, his own hand searching for a nonexistent gun.
He reached out and touched the knob. Officer Collins was right behind him. Officer Stewart, newer and obviously unnerved, hung back at the top of the stairs. His hand drifted toward a light switch but its flat click yielded nothing and the landing remained dark. Ramirez turned the knob and swept into the room in one fluid motion.
The room was throbbing with crimson, the exact color of eyelids closed against sunlight. On the floor, sitting in a puddle of shining liquid, was what looked like an angel.
The figure was facing away from them. It had huge wings that were possibly white but glowed lung-pink in the bizarre light. The wings created big peaks over the creature’s head and pooled in a mass of feathers on the floor behind it. Some of the feathers appeared broken and bloody. Collins pushed his way into the room, his training kicking in.
“I’m Officer Collins,” he began, “and my pronouns are-” The creature moved its head and Collins stopped talking because everything suddenly seemed absurd.
He crossed himself slowly. The creature moved its face into view. It looked like it had been smiling, though its eyes were full of the same liquid it sat in.
All of the officers saw something different in this face. Ramirez saw the elfin face of a puppy he had nursed by dropper when he was young and he thought of that good dog, lost now to time.
Collins thought of his mother who had been old and then dead and there was nothing he could do about it.
Stewart, the youngest and most frightened, saw something in the creature’s visage that made him fall to his knees in the doorway.
The small person approached the door, saying something to Stewart who was beyond listening.
“So I think I summoned it, but I have no idea what I did,” they said and promptly stumbled over the kneeling Stewart.
The creature was in the process of turning around to face the men. It used its slim arms to propel itself ponderously on the floor. Its legs seemed to be useless and its feathers rasped against the carpet as it moved. It caught the small person’s pratfall and it began a croaking laughter. Collins jerked at the sound. The creature’s eyes shot to his face.
“Yes,” it said. Its voice was doubled and Collins couldn’t tell if it sounded masculine or feminine. “Yes, I know your pronouns. All of them. I know them and I do not care, not at the moment. I am leaking here, leaking right out. Get me something. Milk. Milk, that will do. A lot of it.”
The small person was staring at the creature from their fallen position. Officer Collins poked them with his boot.
“Hey,” he hissed, “do you have it? Milk?” The small person looked up at him.
“Oat milk,” they whispered.
“Okay. Well, go get it then. Please,” said Collins, trying to keep his voice level.
The small person stood up, stepped over the frozen Stewart and scurried down the hall.
Collins snapped in front of Stewart’s face and received no response. He didn’t know that Stewart would live the longest of all of them and would tell the story of the angel at every one of his remaining birthday parties until the last one, the one where he couldn’t talk anymore and his great-granddaughter had to guide his hands while he sliced the cake.
