The explosion bloomed like a beautiful, deadly flower behind him. As fast as I was, even I couldn’t dodge that.

The shockwave lit up his field and flowed around him. I was not so lucky. The blast carried me out of his path and threw me a good ten feet back and down a set of stairs. My shoulder broke as I hit the concrete wall and my left knee twisted until it tore out of its socket. Rolling down the steps in slow, painful motion, I was aware of every injury I suffered.

When I came to a stop it was a scream of anger, not pain, that ripped out of my throat. A piece of metal two inches long pierced my left arm, through the armor. Grimacing, I yanked it out and tossed the bloody shard away. As I did, I felt the muscles in my arm writhe and reconnect. In an instant, the wound was closed and there was no pain as I flexed my arm. Grinning now, I rose up on my broken leg, fighting down nausea caused by the motion of my ligaments and knee cap pulling themselves back into place. They were finished before I could put any weight on the leg and I stood as though nothing had happened. Rolling my shoulder, I felt the bones reconnect.

I’d throw up later. What was happening, how had I healed so quickly? Fuck it. Right now, I wanted to kick some ass. Grabbing my rifle off the ground, I ran up the steps.

Bedlam greeted me when I came out of the stairwell. In the short time, it took me to fall and recover the world had turned to shit. Fires burned all over the stadium. People cried out as they lay, hidden and dying. I saw the angel bearing down on Stone, who was dragging a bloody and wounded solder with one hand while firing his regular rifle with the other. I moved, running with blinding speed, faster than I thought possible towards him while putting shells in the angel’s back. But I was not fast enough; there was no way I could reach them before the angel did.

The angel raised its fist, over Stone, who kept firing and moving as fast as his human legs would carry him and his squadmate.

Before the fist could fall, a blur came at the angel from the right side. Claire smashed into the angel, smiling and screaming as she did. The field erupted in a different kind of display from any I had seen so far, almost catching on fire where Claire touched it. Off-balance, the angel had a moment to look down at her before they both toppled over the side of the balcony.

I skid to a stop in front of Stone. He just had the biggest look of surprise on his face.

“Get him out of here,” I yelled, pointing at the soldier. Before I had a chance to see if Stone did what I told him, I turned and leapt over the balcony.

I managed to land alright. Almost. The chair I hit broke my fall, but also my ankle with a sharp snap. I did not care about the pain. Dragging myself up, I felt the ankle shifting back into place. As I looked over the chairs in front of me, I was greeted with the most unexpected sight.

Claire and the angel had landed on the center aisle of the stadium, on the concrete. She stood on its back, pressing its face into the ground with the heel of her boot while pulling both of its wings at awkward angles with her hands. For the first time, I saw something like emotion on the angel’s face besides disdain; it looked like it was in pain. Her hands burned where they touched the angel’s field, blue fire licked up her arms and cast her face in terrible shadows.

She was laughing.

I put a shot in its face as it raised its head. More cracks splintered the field and the glowing characters were torn and half-formed.

“Help me pull this thing’s wings off!” Claire shouted to me, her face the image of pure, joyful malice.

I’d never heard such a good idea in my life. Clambering over the seats, I started towards them, still putting shots in the angel as I did.

Before I could reach them, it slammed its fists into the ground with such force that it threw its whole body backward, dislodging Claire. As she fell, it spun and smashed her with a wing, throwing her up into a high arc towards the stage, a good fifty feet away. I sped up, but as I reached it, the angel sliced its other wing towards me. I tried to dodge at the last second, but it slashed through my armor and my shoulder. As I was thrown back by the blow, it ran across the distance to the stage and, before she hit the ground, smashed Claire with its fist. She disappeared through the wall, stone, and metal crumbling to powder.

Oh, this thing was pissing me off. Its aura wobbled and crackled; I could see through the fissures to the beast itself. I wanted to punch my hand through one of those cracks and tear out its spine. I brought my rifle up and fired again, but the shell went wide. The barrel was steaming hot and must have warped from too much rapid-fire. God. Damn. It.

Someone was back on a .50 cal, the tracers stitched up the side of the angel. I ran at it, mindful of the gunner. The angel ignored both of us and was retreating through the hole Claire made, possibly to finish what he started.

That was not going to happen.

As I sped towards the murderous monster, I reversed my rifle so I was holding the steaming barrel. My fingers sizzled where they touched the hot metal, but I barely noticed. I was too focused.

With a final burst of speed, I leapt up, over the edge of the stage, and into the air. It must have been twenty, thirty feet, I could not tell. The angel paid no attention to me until I smashed my rifle over the back of his head. The weapon deformed around the sparkling field and the barrel bent in half.

At least he turned around.

He regarded me with cool indifference as I swung a kick up at his head. Before I could connect, his hand was on my leg and he plucked me from the air like an errant insect and threw me down the wings of the stage. The world spun end over end; for all my strength I could not control myself. Another wall stopped my flight in a sudden and bone-crunching fashion.

Sliding down the wall, the world spinning around me, I thought that this was beginning to become a habit.

My vision was blurred; my eyes watered. I was healing, but not fast enough to simply laugh off the damage. Each breath was like fire in my chest. Around me, muffled, I heard gunshots and the occasional scream, but it all seemed so far from me. With my one working arm, I pushed myself to a sitting position so I could get a better view.

A shadow dislodged itself from the wall near me, creeping along the periphery of my vision. The shadow unfolded itself, till it was tall and thin. Music came from the shadow, beautiful, unearthly notes like nothing I’d ever heard before. Ice crawled up my neck. We knew that some angels could project sound as some sort of weapon. The shadow stopped and turned towards me while I was struggling to stand.

It was the man I’d seen earlier. My vision was still blurry so I did not get a good look at his face. All I could make out clearly were his large, piercing eyes that regarded me with a kind of melancholic kindness. Then he was away again, the music following him.

Maybe the angel heard the music, I don’t know, but it backed out of the hole on the wall and onto the stage. One hand was holding Claire’s limp, bloody body by the throat. The angel gazed towards the shadow and past him towards me. Notes rose in the song to some unknown end.

The patter of .50 caliber shells had stopped. Were they out of ammo? Dead? I was standing now, lifted by the song. My pistol was in my hand.

As the song swelled, the aura around the angel began to change with it, growing brighter and dimmer with the song. When it reached a mighty crescendo the lights around the angel throbbed like the final beats of a dying heart and then they were still. Gone.

I raised the pistol and snapped off a shot. My arm did not do what I wanted, and the shot went wild. There was a thunderous clang as the bullet struck the angel’s armor. The impact caught his attention.

He and I looked into each other’s eyes.

Sighting the pistol for his head, I said, “This is for Debra, you motherfucker.”

The gun roared in my hand. I watched the bullet fly towards him, followed by more as I kept pulling the trigger.

His eyes narrowed; a gaze filled with hate met mine. At last, I had a response.

Then he was gone. His body shone with a brilliant light and that was it: he was there and then he was gone.

The world sped up. I could no longer see the bullets in flight, only the pockmarks they left on the wall behind where the angel was standing. Claire hit the ground with a heavy thump.

I followed her, landing on my knees, my armor cushioning the blow. My raging hopped-up emotions evaporated quicker than the morning after, leaving me scared and hollow. Bones and tendons stopped shifting beneath my skin and pain stabbed me with a dull knife. Everything returned to normal.

It was just me on a deserted stage, with the unmoving body of Claire and rubble remaining.

The shadow man was no longer there.