A woman shrieked out a distressed scream.

It had to have been a few blocks from where Sam was now hovering and watching the sun set. Night was quickly falling.

That scream may not have been anything bad. Plus, the city has policeman to take care of this kind of deal. Best to just fly on--

“Somebody help!!” The scream turned into a desperate plea.

Sam's heart began beating against his chest. He heard her. He couldn't just turn a deaf ear, especially now with his powers.

“I've got to do something,” he confirmed aloud to himself as he took off in the direction of the woman.

What would normally take a few minutes or more to find would now only take him seconds from up here. As he flew, he watched down below for the stranger in trouble. He saw cars, heard some chatter... Ah! Sam saw a couple of people running away in fear. He knew he was close, and it might be violent.

There she is.

He perched on top of a building beside the commotion to survey the situation.

There's the woman. And there are 2 muggers... no, make that 3.

The woman was backed into a corner, and the 3 men were all armed. The man in front, who seemed to be calling the shots, had a handgun. Looked like the others were only holding knives.

I've got to deal with the gunman first, or things could get dicey.

Sam took a deep breath.

Lord, give me strength.

He summoned his heavenly lance, focused on its flight path in his mind, and... launched it at the gunman.

The flight of the lance that he was aiming for was actually not a direct, straight-on shot, but one that went down toward the street, then curved back at the mugger, in an attempt to pin him up against the wall.

And, it worked! With a quick SHH-WHAM, the lance managed to hit the mugger and hang him up on the bricks beside them. Sam was trying to do this in a non-lethal way, by catching the man by his clothes, but instead hit the man's arm. Not lethal, but not exactly painless.

“Ahh...! My arm!” The gunman cried out in pain, and dropped the gun after a shot misfired.

The woman was still screaming and scared, rightly so, while the other men had now shifted their attention to the rooftop.

Cover's blown. Guess I need to make my appearance now.

Sam jumped from the building to the street below, letting his ethereal wings glide him down safely.

“Its... an angel?” The men now seemed more scared than intimidating, yet still held their weapons aggressively toward Sam.

“I thought angels were like... pretty women,” one mugger said to the other.

“That's a misconception. Angels in the Bible were seen as male or masculine,” Sam corrected, as he proceeded to punch said attacker in the face.

As the man fell to the ground, Sam reached out a caught the also-falling knife with reflexes he didn't know even existed. It had to have been part of his new abilities.

The last mugger shouted and swung wildly, and managed to slice Sam's arm while he was distracted.

Out of anguish, Sam launched the knife at the man. It flew with such velocity that it managed to get lodged into the brick of the building, but not before slicing off a finger of the attacker, causing him to drop his weapon as well.

“Oh, sorry, I'm not used to all of this yet,” Sam half-apologized.

“'Used to this'?! Who are you,” the 9-fingered man asked in pain.

“I'm nobody. Just a pilgrim, passing through.”

Sam then picked the 2 men on the ground up and hung them up on the edge of the building by their shirts, for the cops to find. He recalled his lance out of the leader's arm and did the same thing with him. He also apologized to the man for his poor accuracy, to which the mugger was very forgiving. Sam also found the missing finger and gave it back to the attacker who cut his arm. Maybe the paramedics could save it?

Speaking of his arm, it had been healed! The cut was now mainly gone, not even a scar, and there was no pain.

Thank you for grace and protection, he prayed.

Finally, he walked up to the woman, who was still very afraid, but now in awe of what had happened. She hugged Sam and sobbed.

“It's okay, you're safe now.” Sam tried to console her, over the wails of the anguished men.

“Thank you so much! Who did you say you were?”

“I'm, umm... I'm nobody, just a pilgrim.”

“Well, thank you, Pilgrim! I'm going to tell everyone about you!”

Sam smiled as she ran away, now safe and crying tears of joy instead of fear.

He flew back up from where he came, waved to the muggers, and headed back to the parsonage.