Snow fell quietly.
It's a rarity in the Commonwealth, but it does happen. And when it does, everything stops. The wind falls to nothing, the incessant throb of radstorms over the Glowing Sea drops away and even the sound of gunfire – the heartbeat of life in what was once the city of Boston - fades to nothing. As the snow drifts down, all the dirt and pain is covered over by a pure, soft blanket; unstained and unsullied. For a brief while the world is sweet and new again. Almost - almost! - you could imagine a fat man in a red coat riding in a sled pulled by reindeer. Or that on a night long ago the promise of peace arrived in the body of a child, born in a stable beneath a sudden star. Almost.
The raider peered cautiously around the edge of the window, scanning the buildings opposite and the street below for movement before finally leaning out. He took a deep breath, his tattered leather coat open to the cold night air. A cigarette burned unnoticed on the ledge beside him, its heavy grey smoke coiling upwards to mingle with the darkness. A bottle of cheap whiskey salvaged from some forgotten liquor cabinet stood half empty next to it. Christmas – still marked even now, two centuries after the Great War that ended human civilization – had come early this year.
"Merry fucking Christmas," the raider muttered. He spat at the night. The blob of spittle turned and twisted as it fell. Six stories straight down to where the broken pavement of the parking lot gleamed slick in a shaft of pale moonlight next to a wrecked motorcycle leaning drunkenly against a streetlamp. The new snow was only just starting to cover it, but by morning the city would be a crystal wonderland. The snow would lie thick and heavy on the tree branches and across the broken buildings and ruined vehicles that still, all these years later, littered the streets. The ice crystals would shimmer in the winter sunshine until it hurt the eyes just to look. For a while, people would stay inside for fear of leaving tracks that could reveal their hiding places. But eventually the temperature would rise and the wind with it, and soon the brilliant blanket of white would be reduced to the usual black slush of winter in the Commonwealth.
The raider noticed his cigarette and the bottle beside it. They seemed lonely there on the ledge so he climbed out to join them. Foolish, he admitted, for it made him an easy target silhouetted there in the window. But between the whiskey and the jet he didn't care. Carefully he rested his back up against the window frame, testing his weight on it before relaxing. This building was in no better shape than any other structure in Boston and owed the fact that it was still standing upright to the existence of other buildings on either to rest against.
He let one leg hang out over the darkness. It was cold out there. But a clean, sharp cold; full of strange yearnings and a promise of magic. Picking up the bottle, he took a long, long, drink. The strong liquor burned his lips and his throat. The warm glow in his stomach got even warmer. He looked down at the pavement below. It looked cold so he poured it a drink.
"You're welcome," he added. Now all he needed was another cigarette. Unfortunately he was reasonably sure that the burned-out butt on the window ledge was the last one. Luckily he had papers, and the big ashtray on the old bookcase was full and in arm's reach. He stripped a few butts and rolled himself a poor man's smoke. It was thin and harsh, but it did its thing. He drew the smoke into the very bottom of his lungs and held it there for a long, beautiful moment. Heaven.
He put the bottle down inside on the bookcase. No sense kicking it over by accident. There had been something he'd been thinking of just before. What was it? Something about Christmas, maybe? No - that was after. Before that. Marcy? Had he been thinking about Marcy? Maybe. Why not? So he thought about Marcy. About her hair, her thick, black hair hanging down in long waves to the middle of her back. And her eyes - huge dark pits for a man to wander in and lose himself forever. He thought about the way her body felt under his hands; her smooth, soft skin - how it used to feel. What hands held her now? he wondered. What fingers teased the snarls from her hair, or held cupped the pale oval of her face?
He could make the trip out and find her. He was almost drunk enough to do it. "Hey baby," he'd say in that old, easy way. "You wanna come walk with me?" What would she say? Where was she now? Still in Quincy? No. It had been years since those days, sitting legs a-dangle over the edge of the old elevated highway, holding each other close and whispering their dreams into the sky. They were just kids, then. And Quincy was gone now, too. Gunners, he'd heard. Probably Marcy was dead, anyway. And even if she wasn't, what would she think of who he'd become?
He shook his head. He already knew the answer to that. He writhed inside at the memory of it. How proud he'd been that day swaggering back into Quincy like he owned the place, all decked out in his new tattoos and raider leathers, and the look of revulsion on her face as she'd turned away from him, taking Jun's hand and walking away. Jun, that whiny-assed little flick. Gods above. How could it have been Jun, of all people? They'd even had a child, which meant they must have… No, his mind wouldn't go there. Fuck her, anyway. He was better off without her.
"To you, Marcy," he said, raising the bottle in mock salute. "I hope you froze his dick off." He laughed as he said it, but he wondered why there was a lump in his throat. Angrily he tossed off a slug to burn the lump away. He shuddered. Straight rye; his stomach was going to kill him in the morning. He wondered what she was doing right now.
"I gotta stop doing this," he said aloud. "It's Christmas Eve - what the hell am I doing here?" He closed his eyes and tried to take stock of the situation. It was close to midnight. He could try and make the Combat Zone and cadge a drink out of good ol' Tommy. As if. "Good ol' Tommy" wouldn't stand his mother to a drink, Christmas or no Christmas. Assuming he had a mother. Or he could clean up a bit and try to make St. Mary's in time for Midnight Mass. Wouldn't Father Mike just freak to see Joey Donohoe sitting in his church? Kick him out most likely. "Joey," he'd say with a shake of his head, "you put your mother in her grave with your heathen ways, do you think you deserve to sit in my church?" Probably Joey would then vomit on him. Not so much from drinking but because Father Mike had always made him want to vomit, even when he was a kid in the choir.
But Father Mike was long dead, he remembered. Killed by ferals just outside the door of St. Mary's, in Quincy, years ago. There'd been no more Midnight Mass after that – not there and probably not anywhere. God hated the Commonwealth. Evidence of that was everywhere.
He opened his eyes and regretted it instantly. The world swam dizzyingly around him and for a moment he felt himself lose his balance, there on the windowsill seventy feet above the pavement. He clutched at the window frame and closed his eyes, then opened them, slowly, one at a time, taking stock of the situation as he did so. There seemed to be two of everything now. Two motorcycles in the snow-covered parking lot; two moons shining in the sky, two silver-haired women wrapped in shining angel wings standing barefoot in the snow waving up at him.
He hiccupped in surprise. "I gotta get off the jet," he muttered to himself. He blinked hard, then looked again. The two women were still there. They waved and smiled in unison. He waved and smiled back, then reached for a drink. One or both of them wasn't real. Or maybe it was just him. The drink settled him down. He focussed on the motorcycle. There was only one of it now. Also only one moon in the sky. The woman was still there but at least now there was only one of her.
"What do you want?" he mouthed silently. She pointed at him and beckoned. "Me?" he mouthed, indicating himself. "You want me?" Her smile widened and she nodded. His mouth went dry. He was too fucked up for this. She was beautiful. Her hair was silver like hoarfrost, her eyes the deep crystal blue of million year old ice. Her wings were fresh-fallen snow, unmarked by tire track or footprint. Her white robes were belted by a silver chain, and silver bracelets jangled at her slim wrists. She was a Winter Princess, an Ice Goddess, a Snow Angel. His hands ached at the very thought of touching her
"Hey sweetheart," he called in an attempt at jocularity. "Come on up here - let's see those wings of yours in action." She laughed, a sound like crystal bells ringing under distant stars. Her wings flexed once, twice, then she was aloft.
"This can't be real," he said as she drew level with the window. Suddenly he was painfully aware of his ragged jeans and battered leather jacket, the stubble on his chin and the way his breath must reek of cheap rye and cigarettes. The Angel hovered outside his window, sitting carefully on her now-folded wings and crossing her legs demurely in front of her. She smiled shyly at him. A wave of delight hit him with the smile. Somewhere, he knew, he had a stick of gum. Ah! There it was - in his pocket, covered in lint, but oh well. He popped it in his mouth. The Angel glanced at him quizzically, then looked over at the bottle.
"Oh - ah... you want a drink?" He held up the bottle. "It's awful cheap rotgut. Pretty thing like you'd probably hate it..." he trailed off. She sniffed at the bottle then wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
"Yeah, that's what I think too," he said. Well, maybe that wasn't completely true. But it was true right now. He found the cap and spun it on tight then set the bottle back down on the bookcase. Tomorrow maybe he'd sit down and have a long chat with himself about his drinking habits. But right now...! He felt good. No - better than that. He felt great. He hadn't felt this way since...when? He couldn't remember. Before Marcy. How long? Four years? Five? Had he been sober any of that time? He doubted it. A five year binge...! That hangover was going to be a dilly.
The Angel was still there. She waved, beckoning. "Come out!" she mouthed.
"Out there?" He laughed. "Sorry - not tonight. How about you come in here instead?" He grinned his best grin at her. "Nice and warm," he said. "We could see what's on TV." He laughed at his own joke. The TV in his room hadn't worked in 200 years.
She made a little pout and shook her head.
"No?" he asked.
No, she shook her head again.
"Ah well," he said sadly with the mock-Irish accent that used to crack Marcy up so well. "Them's the breaks. Now if I had meself a lovely set of wings like yours maybe I could come out there with you."
The Angel looked at him in surprise, then began to laugh silently, her whole body shaking in paroxysms of angelic humour. "What's so funny?" he demanded indignantly. She pointed at his shoulders. "What about my shoulders?" he asked.
A serious look overtook her face. She pointed at his shoulders again - first at the left one, then the right. He wriggled them, wincing as his left wing banged against the bookcase. He started, banging it again, and looked back in surprise. A heavy wing, dark-feathered, hung down from his left shoulder through a long slit in his leather jacket. He was reasonably sure that wing hadn't been there this morning. His mouth uncomfortably dry, he looked to his right. Another wing, twin to the first, hung free outside the window. Flakes of snow clung to it, melting as he watched.
Experimentally he flexed them. They felt, well...like wings. "I need a drink," he said to no one in particular. He reached for the bottle with his wing, knocking it over. "Damn," he said. "Wrong set of muscles." This time he used his hand, but the bottle had rolled off the bookcase and on to the floor.
"Okay," he said. "Maybe I don't need a drink." Outside the window the Angel grinned and made flapping motions with her arms. The snowfall was beginning to slacken and a sliver of moon was peering shyly through a widening rift in the clouds. Soon the stars of winter would be out in all their glory - Orion and his dog blazing whitely above the winterscape below, Arcturus burning red at the foot of Bootes, the two Bears wheeling in endless circles around the north star Polaris. If they got high enough, Joey thought, they would be able to see the Milky Way pouring like a river of light across the sky.
He kicked his other leg over the sill and manoeuvred the heavy wing out the window, and wondered idly what the Milky Way was going to look like from the other side.
"Okay," he said, "I'm ready. How do I do this?"
The Angel backed off a couple yards. She mimed sitting on a window ledge, then dived forward toward the ground, opening her wings, catching the air and levelling out into a flat glide, then with a mighty flap pulling upward into a steep climb. She came back to hover close to the window and raised one eyebrow archly.
"Hey, easy!" he laughed. She laughed back, then reached out to take his face in her hands. They were cool, he noticed. But not cold. Exhilarating. She drew his face close to hers and kissed him lightly on the lips. Then she executed a neat backflip in the air and came to rest two yards away from the window sill, still floating on nothing. She beckoned.
He took a deep breath. The pavement looked a long way down. Suddenly this all seemed like a bad idea.
The angel had her hands on her hips. "What are you waiting for, Christmas?" she seemed to be saying. What was he waiting for indeed? He looked at the clock above the doorway behind him. Powered by the slow decay of cesium atoms ticking off the seconds, it had been telling the time with unerring accuracy since before the bombs fell, and now it said midnight. From somewhere, church bells began to toll, ringing for the birth of Christ. He took a deep breath and pushed himself violently away from the window ledge.
He hung for an instant then fell, the dry, cold air roaring past his face in an icy hurricane. The ground screamed up at him. He screamed too in sudden panic as he opened his wings, frantically grabbing air. Closer and closer the pavement loomed, reaching greedily upward to pull him into its hard embrace. Finally the wings took hold and he levelled off in a dizzying swoop that cleared the asphalt by scant inches. Safe! He pumped once, twice, gaining height rapidly. They were powerful. He could fly a thousand miles without stopping, he knew. Or rest motionless high above the atmosphere while the world turned slowly below him. Anything. He was free. Totally free.
Now where was that Angel?
He spotted her above him sitting cross-legged on the air and tapping her finger impatiently on her lovely pale ankle. She looked down at him, then mimed looking at a watch. Then she pointed to the thin moon above them.
"You want to go to the Moon? On Christmas?"
She shrugged and smiled.
He flew up to her. "Hey - wherever we're going that's cool," he said. "Let's go."
She laughed and ran her fingers lightly through his hair. He grabbed for her but she darted out of reach. Unfurling her wings she made ready to lead off.
"Wait!" he said suddenly.
She looked back at him, concerned.
"I mean - when are we coming back? I should maybe pack some stuff...I mean - " he broke off. She was shaking her head.
"Do you mean I can't go back?" he asked. She shrugged. "You mean I don't need anything," he corrected himself. She smiled and nodded.
"Ummmm..." He paused a moment. Something. There was something he should be doing. He knew it. Something he was leaving behind. He patted himself down, suddenly missing the comforting weight of his revolver in its holster on his hip. He could see it through the window, sitting on the TV.
"Gun? Will I need my gun?" He felt foolish just asking. She simply laughed and stuck out her tongue at him. With a flip of her wings she rolled and dove, then began to climb easily upward. With a laugh of his own Joey followed her into the night sky. Anything else he'd come back for later.
A caravan guard scouting the street found the body in the morning, lying on its back spread-eagled below the open window six storeys above. Blood, now dried, had seeped out on both sides like a grotesque parody of a snow angel with great, dark wings.