"Boss, can you supervise a no-knock warrant?" Abby asked.

"This is the liquor store stick ups?" Rita asked.

"Yeah. My CI has both the perps in an apartment on 8th. We want to move on them before we lose them."

Rita looked at her phone, and the time shown on the lock screen, which said 4:05 PM. The men and women working the 4 - 12 shift were already filing in.

"Sure, I'll supervise. Grab some help from the 4 - 12 shift. But pizza and beer is on you two afterwards. Least you can do for ruining my evening plans."

"You have plans for this evening?" Sax asked.

"I'm not answering any questions without my lawyer present," Rita said as she stood up from her desk.


Back in the day these sort of warrants had been a regular part of Rita's routine, but it had been a while since she had served any type of warrant. The hallway they stood in, and the door they looked at just before the lock was struck by a powerful blow that sent wood fragments from the door and door-jam flying, could have been one of a thousand hallways and doors that Rita had seen during her career in law enforcement.

"POLICE!" Abby Archer yelled as she proceeded into the apartment, her Sig Sauer P320 held in both hands.

Sax was second into the apartment, and Rita was third. The two men from the 4 - 12 shift, one of whom had used his size thirteen shoe to kick in the door, were just entering the apartment when Rita saw Abby drop to her knees and rolled to her left side as she fired her weapon, and as the wall next to her disintegrated under the impact of two blasts from a sawed off Remington Versa Max 12 gauge shotgun.

Rita's vision was blocked by a refrigerator as she and Sax crouched in the small kitchen before proceeding around the corner past Abby and into the living room.

The air in the room was a cloud of plaster dust and burned gunpowder. Rita and Sax both looked at the face of the dead gunman as they passed his body on their way to the closed door that Abby still held centered in her three dot sights as she rolled over and used her left hand to pro herself up onto her feet.

"CLEAR!" could be heard from two male voices as the men from the 15th squad cleared the second bedroom and bathroom.

"You're gonna die in that room unless you do exactly what I say!" Abby Archer yelled through the closed door, "you hear me? Your buddy's dead! You wanna join him? Or you wanna live? There's five of us, and we'll turn you into fucking sausage unless you do exactly what I say! Even the rats won't want you when we're done with you! What's it gonna be?"

The silence lasted only a few seconds.

"I'm coming out! Don't shoot!"


Pizza and beer at Emmy Squared Pizza was as good as it got in Rita's opinion. The two guys from the 4 - 12 were promised their share of the reward, and Abby had made sure that two large pies were on their way to the squad as the three women sat and enjoyed their continued existence and the opportunity to draw breath a while longer and enjoy good food, and good company.

"Remember, you have Lefrak City in the morning," Rita said to Abby as the blond detective ordered another beer.

"I remember," Abby answered as she watched Rita drink half her shot of Buffalo Trace bourbon before washing it down with a mouthful of beer, "you should talk."

"I don't have an appointment with Medical Division tomorrow."

"But you've been there before, right?" Abby asked.

Abby had never shot anyone before today, let alone kill anyone. Rita knew both the women at the table with her, and their records. It was now only Sax who had been spared that particular trauma, and the nightmares that followed.

"Yeah, I've been there," Rita answered before picking up the glass again and downing the remaining bourbon, "Just be honest, about the shooting and about how you're feeling, and you'll be fine."

"Were you honest about your feelings when you were there?" Sax asked Rita.

"Eventually," she answered before going silent and staring at her beer.

It took a moment for anyone to say anything. It was during that moment that Saxon McGuire looked at her boss, and at the intricate pattern of lines that began on the backs of Rita's hands and traveled up her forearms.

"Hey, loo, can I ask you something?" Saxon McGuire asked her boss.

"Sure thing."

"Heard a story from Sergeant Shannon about something similar that happened to you a bunch of years back. You and Lieutenant McDowell, when you were both still detectives. You served a no-knock on some drug dealers, who threw shots. Chased a guy up onto the roof. Things got weird."

Jesus.

"What do you want to know?"

"Is it true?"

Every fucking word of it. Rita thought to herself as her mind went back to that day.


Rita released the thumb break of her custom leather holster and took a combat grip hold on her Glock 19 as she followed closely behind Connie. Rita's blonde partner had already drawn her own weapon, a duplicate of what Rita still had in her holster, ready to draw in less than a second. Andy was behind them, his snub nosed .38 caliber revolver in his right hand, pointed at the ceiling, his right arm forming an "L" with his bicep parallel to the floor and his forearm pointing straight up.

It was just the three of them hugging the left hand wall of the dimly lit, filthy, hallway, the equally filthy window at the end of the hall providing them a dirty view of the dark December New York evening sky. Andy's partner John was still a complete fucking mess after his father's suicide and his girlfriend's overdose, and Rita was secretly glad that he wasn't here, and they could focus on the two murdering drug dealers without having to worry about John too.

"504," Connie whispered as they approached the door they wanted.

Two of the men from ESU stayed behind Andy as the third man with the heavy steel battering ram moved to the front. Three more of their team were in the alley at the bottom of the fire escape to cut off any escape. When the man was in place he looked at Connie and nodded.

"3,2,1," Connie counted down with her left hand just before the ram impacted and the door jam splintered.

She was inside in an instant, but the hallway that led into the apartment had a wooden barricade across it.

"Police!" was all she was able to call out before the barricade in front of her and the wall and bookcase beside her exploded, and the deafening sound of an automatic weapon filled the small space.

"CONNIE!" Rita and Andy yelled simultaneously as Rita watched her partner instinctively fall to her right and protect her face with her left arm as shrapnel from the ruined barricade and furniture peppered her face and head.

Rita was almost deaf, and as the apartment filled with smoke, pulverized plaster, and gunpowder residue she began to cough and her eyes began to burn, but she was still able to see the man as he climbed backwards out of the window, the AK47 still in his hands, and pointed at Rita.

Rita fired twice, striking the window jam with her first shot and grazing the fleeing perp with the second.

"Where's the other one?" Rita heard Connie say dimly through the ringing in her ears as she moved to the window before glancing out leftwards and upwards through the broken glass and wood.

"All units, be advised, armed suspect heading up the fire escape," Rita said into her hand radio before sticking her arm through the window and pointing her weapon to the left. Her head followed soon after, before she climbed out all the way and proceeded along the grating and up the metal stairs. What little light there was showed a clear path all the way to the roof. The man had wasted no time in his efforts to escape.

She heard footsteps on the metal fire escape behind her and glanced back briefly to see two uniforms illuminated by the light of the ruined window before her eyes returned to the path in front of her. She caught a glimpse of a blond head of hair just below her as she turned the corner off the steps to the next level of grating and knew that Connie was OK. By the time that Rita stopped almost at the top Connie had caught up to her. She had blood on the left side of her face and hair, but her left eye looked undamaged.

Rita was keeping her head down, building up the courage for the final act of this deadly play, and hoping to fucking God that she wouldn't puke. Rita looked at Connie and began the mental count that would end with her sticking her head up above the level of the wall.

I fucking hate this part, she thought just as a glow from the rooftop caught her attention. It started as a dim glow but increased quickly.

Night became day in a matter of seconds as something on the roof began to glow like the sun.

What the fuck is happening? she thought.

"What the fuck is happening?" Connie asked just as Rita stood up, pointed her right arm, her Glock held in a death grip at the end, and walked towards the center of the roof, and the large HVAC unit that stood there between her and that artificial sun that was lighting up this portion of Manhattan.

"Holy fucking Jesus," Connie said beside Rita as they both lowered their weapons and looked upwards at the apparition that was rising upwards in front of them.

It was a man, or at least it had the appearance of one. It was his glowing body that was lighting up the night around them as he slowly rose upwards from behind the HVAC unit, drifting up roughly fifteen feet above the building. He seemed to just hover there as glowing tendrils extending from his body held the fleeing perp's wrists and ankles. Rita watched as he drew the terrified man upwards away from the roof and closer to him. The glowing man's face turned towards the two women and he observed them for a moment before returning his gaze to the man who hovered in front of him. When he spoke his voice echoed unnaturally, as if it was inside Rita's head as well as outside, reflecting off brick and concrete but also off some part of Rita that until now she had not known existed.

"Did you hurt this woman?" the unnatural voice asked.

The man's screams and the smell of burning flesh were almost simultaneous.

"Officers," said the man's voice, "is anyone seriously injured?"

No one spoke.

"No," Rita answered finally.

He had drawn the drug dealer quite close to him, and his voice became almost soft as he spoke, but Rita could still hear it clearly in her head.

"Shall I show you what would have become of you if her answer had been different?" he asked, his voice adopting almost an intimate quality.

Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos Santificado sea tu Nombre, Rita began to recite in her head as the suspect began to gibber in fear. She had no idea what the glowing man was showing him or how, but Rita didn't think their perp was going to survive the experience much longer, that he would die from fright.

Rita also had no idea why it was that in that moment she thought of her mother.

¡Mamá! ¡Mamá! ¡Ayúdame, hay monstruos debajo de mi cama! Rita would cry when she was a little girl as she hid in her bed under the covers.

¿Cómo sabes que no hay ángeles debajo de tu cama? her mother would answer as she sat on the edge of Rita's bed and stroked her head through the layer of blanket.

Which one are you? she thought up to the glowing man.

Neither, came into her mind in reply to her thought.

Jesus Christ, she thought.

Wrong again, she heard in her head, and she would have sworn on the Holy Bible that he smiled at her in that moment.

"We can take him from here," she heard herself say to the thing that underneath the glow looked human.

The glowing man, and the suspect that he still held in his grasp returned to the rooftop, and as the ethereal restraints disappeared and the suspect collapsed, the glow dissipated as well, and it was just a man standing in front of them.

But not just a man.

Jesus, he's the most beautiful fucking man I have ever seen in my life, Rita thought as she stared at him before realizing that he had probably heard that thought as well.

"You're sure you're alright?" the man said to Connie as Rita's face burned from embarrassment.

All the officers, detectives, and members of the NYPD ESU seemed to regain the power of speech and movement at the same time.

Connie's hand went to the side of her head and face. She was still bleeding, and some of the blood had caked in her hair as fresh blood left a trail down her neck and shoulder. Rita began to realize that she was bathed in sweat, and that the cold December air on the roof was beginning to make her shiver.

"I'm fine, it was just shrapnel from the barricade and bookcase."

"I can fix it, if you like," he said as he walked closer and raised his right hand slightly, a hand that began to glow again.

He was standing only a few yards away, and Rita could not take her eyes off him.

"No, I'll take care of it," she answered as Andy came up beside her before placing himself between Connie and the man.

"Okay then," he answered before drifting upwards and away from them.

He looked at Rita before he smiled and spoke.

"Have a good night."

"You too," was Rita's automatic response before her brain began to work again.

You too. What a stupid fucking thing to say.


Veniero's Pasticceria & Caffe on 11th in the East Village had been in business for over a hundred years, and was their regular haunt when they had something to discuss, or when they just wanted to sit and talk about whatever. It sported a window display that could cause you to gain weight just by looking at it.

In the hour that Rita and Connie had been sitting and staring into their coffee cups, their fresh cannolis sitting untouched, they had said almost nothing, each of them mentally reviewing the evening's events. The vacant stares that both women directed at the table top were more than enough indication to Cheryl the waitress that they wanted to be left alone, and so she simply left their check on the table before departing with a reminder that closing time was in thirty minutes.

"First time I ever came across one, he had just stopped an armored car heist. He'd used balusters from a wrought iron fence to tie up the perps, and he had to unbend them all eventually so we could get the guys into cuffs. The building super was pissed, and kept asking who was going to pay to repair the fence." Connie said as she stared into the cooling coffee in her cup, her eyes still unfocused, "Second one was a flier. Shot past us on his way to a high rise fire. Just a blue blur in a red cape."

"First one I met was a woman who could control the weather. Storm clouds, lightening, stuff like that," Rita said before laughing, "had a voice like Sade. Fucking gorgeous. Middle of Winter, I was still in uniform and was freezing my ass off, and she was wearing next to nothing and never batted an eye. It took half a box of dryer sheets to get the static charge out of my clothes afterwards just from standing near her. Second and third were both assholes. Swept in, dropped off a couple of low life skels they had snatched from someplace and then expected me to spread my legs out of gratitude."

"Yeah, huh?" Connie said, "never hear that part in the news reports."

"Nope."

They were both quiet for a few minutes.

"Was that guy even human?" Connie asked. Rita didn't need her to explain who that guy was.

Mamá, ¿cómo puedo distinguir un ángel de un demonio? Rita had asked her mother once.

Preste atención a lo que hacen, en lugar de lo que dicen, her mother had answered.

Which one are you? Rita had asked the glowing man unintentionally.

Neither, he had answered.

"I don't know. Are any of them human?"

"I still can't wrap my head around it. I can't keep the image clear in my mind. It's almost like a dream. It fades a bit more every minute."

"Those cuts on your face and head are real enough."

Connie's hand went instinctively to the damaged side of her face.

"I can still hear his voice in my head," Rita said.

Rita suddenly had Connie's full attention.

"You heard his voice in your head?"

"Yeah. You didn't?"

"No. Don't think Andy did either," Connie said.

"No, huh?"

"Must have been just you."

"Why just me?" Rita asked.

"Maybe he liked you?" Connie answered.

"What the fuck is there in me for him to like? I'm me, he's him. Jesus, you saw him."

"There must be something. He didn't talk to me."

"Maybe because I was closer to him."

"Yeah, that was probably it," Connie said sarcastically as she finally picked up her cup and took a sip of cold coffee.

"How about those burns on that guy's wrists and ankles."

"Didn't look like regular burns at the hospital, but it smelled like a fucking barbecue while it was happening. They looked more like tattoos than burns afterwards. Just lines of darker skin," Rita said.

"He screamed bloody murder while it was happening. And I wonder what he heard in his head that had him shit himself and gibber like an idiot."

"I don't know, but it got him to give up his running buddies. And I'll bet that he hasn't stopped crying since. Fucking guy was a wreck."

"Saul on the road to Damascus," Connie said quietly after a moment.

"What?" Rita asked.

"An epiphany. A conversion. Whatever he showed him, whatever he said into that guys head, it turned his world upside down. He may never stop crying," Connie replied.

"I could give him a list of people to talk to next," Rita said, "starting with John."

Connie looked around as she spoke. "Don't joke. He might hear you."

"If I thought he could still hear me I would send him a different request."

Connie's eyebrows came up as she looked at her partner, who had not had a boyfriend in several months.

"Don't fucking start," Rita said.


"Jesus," Sax said.

"Yeah," Rita replied as she finished her story and her beer.

"Never seen one in the flesh," Abby said after a moment, "not sure how I would react."

"You'll run into one eventually," Rita said, "too many of them running around. Just don't say anything stupid."

"And at least one of them is leaving us presents this summer."

"Merry Fucking Christmas," Sax said, following the words with a smile and a sip of beer.

Another moment of silence followed, during which Sax looked again at the patterned lines of dark skin on her boss's arms and hands, lines that looked like faded tattoos.

"Did you ever see that guy again?" She asked Rita.

Rita took a moment before answering.

"I'm not answering any questions without my lawyer present."