Chapter 2

With a sigh, the young pale man threw his unfinished cigarette off the roof. He was perched on the very gutters of the Cathedral, feet pushing against the ridges. He was at no risk of falling, nor was he seen by anyone. He watched the falling embers crash and explode on the roof below him, then looked up and around. The sun was slowly setting, casting orange light across the waves he could just see in the distance, past the old fortifications along the sea front. Despite the cool breeze coming off the water, the night was still promising to be warm, and the young man rolled up his shirt sleeves. Dressed in a white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, and black jeans, he looked like any other young man, relaxing after a day at work. Apart from the large bronze brown wings that stretched behind him, of course, clashing with the paleness of his skin and shirt. Faint white swirls, like scars, crawled up and down his arms and across his chest. He leaned forward and sighed, resting his elbows on bent knees.

“Where are you mate, you are late,” He looked up and searched the sky again, before pulling a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and taking another in his mouth

“Those things can kill you, you know?”

“Jesus Damien,” He leapt up and turned around, dropping the cigarette out of his mouth, greeting the newcomer with a sly smile and a middle finger, “I think I’m safe for now,”Damien smiled, landing gracefully on the peak of the Cathedral roof, folding his great red gold wings behind him, a colour that in the light of the sunset almost looked like it was aflame.

“Azazel, you need to be less jumpy, who do you think is going to sneak up on you on the roof of a cathedral?” Azazel ran his free hand through his pitch black mop of dead straight hair and shrugged.

“Well you got up here, there might be other Angels, Fallen or otherwise, about. Some of the Upstairsers like picking on poor little Fallen like me,” Damien snorted and loitered down the slope of the roof too him, snatching the packet of cigarettes from Azazel’s hand.

“Poor little Fallen indeed, Azazel, from what I’ve heard, you beat up your fair few of Angels in the war before you were cast out of Heaven. Even Father spoke highly of you a few times, and Father barely likes anyone,” Azazel shrugged and smirked, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Well what can I say, I was a low key badass back in the day. Now I’m just a low key baby sitter,” Damien took a cigarette in his mouth, then threw the packet in Azazel’s face, hitting a direct bulls eye, causing the Fallen to flinch and fluster slightly

“Babysitter indeed,” he mutter around the cigarette as he lit it, producing flame from one finger. Azazel followed suit, instead using a lighter, not possessing the power of flame like his friend did.

“So what’s the plan for tonight? Throw stones at humans? Pranks? A bit of late night flying over the sea?” Clouds of smoke formed above them as they spoke, the only physical sign of their presence humans would be able to detect. They were invisible to the human eye, choosing so for the moment, for it suited their dusk hangouts on the roof of a Cathedral. Azazel had suggested it, and Damien suspected it was a way of the Fallen feeling that tiny bit closer to home. Azazel seemed to enjoy torturing himself by often visiting the cathedrals and churches of this city, never going inside the buildings, but sitting a top the peaked roofs, watching the humans, sometimes roaming around the grounds outside if they had them, but always falling short of actually going inside the doors.