Officer Diaz pounds to a halt underneath the fire escape and kneels down next to the body. His partner comes slowly behind, gun out and moving smoothly in the firing arcs taught to her at police academy.

"Shit." says Diaz.

"Is it gone?"

"It's way gone."

Officer Flynn puts her gun back into its holster, then crouches down by the body and flips it over with her hand. With the body face up, the smell of blood and sugar gets stronger, and Diaz can see a huge gash running from the forehead to the crotch. It's as if everything has been peeled away from that center line. Inside, there is nothing: the shell of the ribs is there, but no organs; the limbs are flattened, as though they too are empty. A little blood seeps at the edges of the wound, but that is all.

"This is disgusting." Flynn stands again. "Central?"

"Central here."

"We've got a flyer. Review last thirty." At the station, they rewind to catch the last few seconds of feed from her helmet camera.

"You certainly do. Anything else to report?"

Diaz speaks. "Yeah, Central, I have something to report. Review my record at about two minutes ago to one and a half."

There is a long pause.

"Shit, Diaz, I was eating!"

Diaz flashes a quick grin at Flynn. "We missed him by only about ten seconds, Central. Real close." He squints up between the buildings. Rain is beginning to fall.

"One for the meat wagon, Officer. We'll route to your current position. Wait for it, then continue patrol. Central out."

Rain begins to pool in the empty hollow of the body.

"Too late for this guy." says Flynn.

Diaz crosses himself. "Vaya con Dios," he says.

Back in the car, Diaz and Flynn continue their patrol. "I've never been that close to one," says Flynn. "I mean, it happened to my uncle, but when I was just a girl. And I wasn't there." She shudders. "I'm glad I didn't get a clear look."

"You want one?" Diaz taps the camera mounted on his helmet, then laughs at her grimace. "It's not so bad. Something being born, that's what my mother used to say."

She turns to look at him. "What if it happens to you?"

"Hey, I may be a cool bastard, but I'm not that cool." They both laugh.

"This is Central. Proceed to the 100 block of West Chalmaden. Robbery in progress. Repeat -- "

"Diaz here. We got you, Central." He pulls the car around in a fast turn and heads for trouble.

By the time they get back to the precinct, an automatic report is waiting for them. Diaz reads it over. It's basically right, not the way he would have written it, but a hell of a lot less work. He gets hard copy and signs. Flynn comes back with a cup of coffee for each of them.

Diaz looks at her over his coffee. "Corey, haven't you heard?"

"Head what?"

"There's a new study that links caffeine to flying."

She pauses for a moment, then takes a long sip. "There's studies like that for everything."

"Except maybe voting Republican."

"Maybe they're missing something."

Diaz looks over his partner's shoulder. "Shit. Don't look now, but Weinhaltz is about to be on our ass."

She turns to face the detective. He is even more pale than she is with her redhead's complexion, and his skin has an opalescent sheen to it, like the belly of a fish. His eyes seem dead in their sockets. To be fair, it's not his fault he looks like this: the pills make him this way. Diaz knows Flynn is suppressing a shiver: she told him so once.

"I saw on the record that you almost caught a flyer." the pale man's voice is soft and flat, like stale soda, and he stares at Flynn without blinking.

"Um, yeah, that's an affirmative."

"Did you see it? I mean, did you see the flyer?"

"I didn't, but Roger did." Flynn hides her face behind her coffee cup.

Diaz speaks up. "Yeah, I saw it, pulling out of that guy."

"What was it like?"

"Covered in blood. Like a fountain of gore, just like they say on T.V. You can see it on my record, about two minutes before we called in."

Detective Weinhaltz nods and backs away a few steps before turning to go.

"Weinhaltz!" Diaz makes him turn around again. "I take it back, compadre. It was beautiful." Weinhaltz gives him a long look, then leaves.

Flynn's eyes almost leap from her head. "You just said that to piss him off! Macho, we're gonna catch it."

Diaz shakes his head. "Nah. He hasn't got any mad left in him. Not after the pills. I bet he hasn't felt anything for years."

"You'd better hope he doesn't. If he crucifies you, man, I don't know you." She goes back to her desk. "I have to work over the report on the robbery."

Diaz turns away to look at his screen. "It really was beautiful," he whispers to himself.

In the morning, Diaz walks home to sleep. He's had to take the train from work, of course, but he got off one stop early, for the walk. He doesn't get enough exercise since the transfer to car, he thinks.

The light this morning is bright, but cut by early haze. It will burn off, but Diaz will be asleep by then, with any luck. He looks up, hoping to catch something flying. Maybe that guy from last night is still around. Probably not, probably already dead in a gutter, or run over on the street.

His sister is just leaving as he enters the apartment. Neither of them can afford a place to live alone. It makes for some less than comfortable nights on the town: Diaz always tries to go to his date's place, not back to where his sister will undoubtedly make rude comments in Spanish.

"How did the day go, chico?" She's older, she's called him chico all of his life.

"Okay, I guess. We just missed a flyer."

"Like mama?"

"Si, como mama."

"Was he happy?"

"No se." How can you tell? No face, nothing to hang happiness on.

"I have to go to work. Sleep well." She kisses him on the cheek before leaving.

"Adios, Susana."

He gets a beer from the kitchen, Dos Equis, and takes it to his room. It doesn't really matter that you are living with your sister when you have the night shift, he thinks: no dates. He drinks his beer, and takes a scrapbook out from his desk. He looks through for pictures of his mother.

Here's a picture of her holding him as a little boy. Here's one a few years later, at Disney World. Here's a picture of her at the beach, from the vacation they took to Atlantic City when he was in high school. Here's a picture of her just before.

And here's a picture of her just after she started on the medicine, her dark skin with a hint of gray in it. Her eyes empty. There aren't many pictures of her like that. Diaz puts the scrapbook away and finishes his beer before brushing his teeth and turning in. Always brush your teeth, even if your mother isn't around to pester you.

As he tries to sleep, his thoughts race through the flyer, the pictures, his mother. He remembers the angel beating itself against his window the day his mother died.

"What the hell is this? What is this? You and Flynn are out just to look in on the convenience stores on Commercial Avenue, and we end up picking bullets out of every piece of scenery for two miles?" Captain Argues's white hair stands out from his head, illuminated from behind by the flashing blue and red lights.

Diaz shrugs, and Flynn looks down at the pavement.

"And you aren't even supposed to be patrolling this far. You guys are from Central, this is East Side."

"Yes, sir."

Captain Argues walks away five steps, then back. "I'm just not happy, y'know? Two cowboy cops come in from another station, get into a shootout, and who gets the shit?"

Both officers refrain from making any of the obvious comments.

"Get out of here. We'll deal with the rest of this. Expect a note from me to your super."

Diaz and Flynn wait for a moment after he leaves, then run for the car. It still starts. No bullets ended up in the engine after all.

"Wow. Days like this I don't feel so happy about being a cop," says Flynn. Diaz doesn't say anything, concentrates on the traffic, until she gives up waiting for him to say something. "You ever feel like that?"

"Yeah. Only not really. I always wanted to be a cop."

"Really?"

"Uh huh. Ever since I was five. And I still want to be a cop."

Flynn shudders. "The clerk could have been killed, tonight. We could have been killed. I don't know."

"But did you see the look in that guy's eyes? After we took down those thugs? We might have been the armies of heaven, the way he looked at us."

"Tomorrow, though, in the papers? We're going to look like devils."

Diaz laughs at that. "Want to practice? Ready?" He pitches his voice more seriously. "No comment. Sorry. No comment'"

"No comment, macho." They drive on for a while.

Suddenly Diaz speaks. "My sister, she's like that about her job. Some days she comes home and says she's quitting. Me, though, I'm happy to be a cop."

Flynn turns to look at him. "You're a rare man, you know?"

Diaz flutters his eyes at her. "Do you mean that?"

"Keep your eyes on the road!"

Back at the station, they get grilled, then flipped over and grilled on the other side. Diaz gets a ride home with a patrol car heading his direction so he won't lose too much sleep. Before he turns out the lights, he remembers the smile on the clerk's face when the poor guy realized that the cavalry -- that Diaz -- was on the way, guns blazing. It gives him good dreams.

Awaking in the afternoon, he gets himself some breakfast: peanut butter on toast and a pop-tart. He flips through the channels looking for a movie, but the only thing on even remotely worth watching is "Angel of Alcatraz," and he's seen it. The special effects at the end are terrible. When a person flies, it's nothing like the glimmering silver moth they show in the movie. In reality, it looks like you might expect it to, being made from the inside of a person. The one in the movie was the right shape, at least: long thin body, four thrashing wings, whip like antennae.

Thud.

A noise at the window startles Diaz, and he turns to see blood dripping down the pane. He jumps up and looks out; sees the angel spiraling down to the street. It looks pretty fresh, maybe a few hours old. He knows he'll have to remove the blood pretty soon, or it will dry on and be hell to get off.

The phone rings, and he picks it up.

"Mr. Diaz?"

"Speaking."

"Mr. Rogero Diaz?"

"Yeah, you've got him."

"I'm sorry. This is Alan Peters, from the copy shop. Where your sister works."

"What's wrong? Is she hurt?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Diaz. Your sister, she, she flew. It was so sudden, there wasn't anything, the ambulance came too late, we couldn't hold her, she flew -- "

Diaz's heart, which was fluttering, is now pounding. He rushes to the window and yanks it open, sticks his head out and looks around for the angel.

"Susanita! Hermana! Donde estas? Come back! Come back!"

The phone hangs off of the table, bleating forlornly to the air.

The funeral is warm and sunny, like summer days are supposed to be when people aren't being buried. Diaz stands with his father next to the grave. She couldn't be buried in the church cemetery like Sr. Diaz wanted: it's too bad but that's what the church says about flyers.

Sr. Diaz picks up a handful of earth and throws it on the coffin after the priest finishes. "So I bury another one. It's strange, do you know that, hijo? I ought to be there, not Susanita. I'm so old." It's true, he is old, even older than Rogero remembers.

They shake hands with the distant relatives who have come to the funeral. Then Rogero and his father get in a car to go back to the apartment.

"I'm still here, papa."

Sr. Diaz smiles. "For that I am thankful. I hope I do not lose you, too." They drive on in silence for a while. Then: "Do you think they are happy?"

"They're dead, papa. They're in heaven, isn't that pleasant?"

"That's not what the church says. It's not what I meant, either. I meant, were they happy, while they were flying?"

Rogero looks out the window. "I don't know. How could you tell? I don't even know if the one that hit my window that day was Susana."

They get to the apartment. Sr. Diaz will take some of her things back with him when he returns to Texas. Rogero will keep some. The rest, they don't know.

"Papa, do you want this picture? I have one already." It is a family photo, the four of them maybe ten years ago.

"No lo quiero. I don't look at pictures much any more."

"Okay. I'm going to throw it away, then."

"So throw it away."

"I am." But he puts it down on the kitchen table.

"What are you going to do about the apartment?"

"Well, it's paid up for this month. Maybe I'll look for a roommate, or something. I don't really want to move."

"You should settle down with someone, you know? Otherwise, what happens to the family if you..." Sr. Diaz flutters his hands.

Rogero shakes his head. "I just haven't found anyone. Anyway, can you really say that us Diaz men are good for our women?"

"How can you ask?"

"I didn't mean..."

"How good are we? You know something?"

"What?"

"When your mother stopped taking the pills -- "

"What?"

"I didn't tell you, but she didn't throw them away. They were still there, in the closet."

"But I looked for them! And you said -- "

"They were gone. Yes! Because I knew that you would try to give them to her."

Rogero Diaz sits down across the kitchen table from his father.

"How could you?"

"She didn't want to go back to them. So I made sure that no one could make her."

"I didn't want to know that, papa."

"But now you do. So you don't ask how we are for each other. We're the best."

"Are you sure you don't want another week off? I can swing that for you." Lieutenant Fijho is Diaz's supervisor. "No problem."

"No. It's fine, I can cope. I need to come back to work, really."

The lieutenant nods. "All right. I just want you to know that if you get stressed, well, you still have some time coming to you. I won't make a fuss about you not using it all in a lump."

"Thanks. That's nice of you. I don't think I'll take it, though."

"Just take care of yourself."

"Okay."

"You back?" Flynn is leaning on the wall outside the lieutenant's office, and walks with Diaz back towards their desks.

"Yeah, I'm back. Now you have to put up with me."

"Listen, Roger, I'm really sorry about what happened to your sister."

He sits down. "What can I say. It happens to people."

"Only maybe one in a hundred. I'm sorry it was your sister."

"I'm sorry too."

She sits down on the desk next to his. "Anything you want to talk about?"

"No. I've been through it before." Before she can ask: "My mother, about eight years ago."

"Oh." She gets up. "Well, if there is anything..."

"No, thanks. We'd better get ready to go out."

"Yeah, I guess we should. I'll drive."

"Sure."

"Officer Diaz, this is Central." Diaz is waiting in the car for Flynn, who is inside the Store24 talking to the cashier.

"Diaz here. What bug is up your ass this evening?"

The operator laughs. "Nothing much. We just have reports of a prowler near your location, so get your partner into the car and get going."

"Will do." He leans his head out of the car and beckons to Flynn, and she comes out. "We've got a possible prowler a few blocks from here."

On the way there, they pass a flyer lying in the gutter. Flynn glances at it as she drives. "That's gross. I hope sanitation gets here soon. Oh, shit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean, I guess it might have been your sister."

Diaz shakes his head. "It's been a week. They don't last that long."

Flynn doesn't want to think about it.

"Here we are. You want to do the talking, or shall I?"

She shakes her head. "You do it."

"Okay. Can you hand me the clipboard?"

When her hand touches his, he can feel her almost shivering.

There's no prowler, just a neighbor putting out the garbage, but it takes them an hour to quiet the hysterical woman who called it in. The drive back to Central is silent except for the sharp screech of brakes as Flynn cuts off another driver.

"There's a lady for the shit list." Diaz says after correcting the automatic report.

Flynn only grunts a reply.

"I'm going to get some coffee. You want some?"

"No thanks."

"Uh huh. You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Will you stop bothering me? I have to write up a report on a domestic I did while you were out."

"Sorry."

He goes to the kitchen to get some coffee. Weinhaltz is there, microwaving a burrito. He washes back three large pills with a glass of water while he waits.

"Diaz."

"What?"

"You were right. It was beautiful."

"Hey, pal, there's no need to jerk me around."

"No, I mean it." Weinhaltz's face has a minute change of expression. "Oh, you think that I... Well, I didn't mean to bother you. I'm sorry about your sister."

"Yeah. Well." Diaz gets his coffee and goes back to his desk. "Weinhaltz is such a jerk."

Flynn ignores him.

Everyone can be a jerk, he thinks, and pulls up some paperwork.

At home in the morning, Diaz puts some of his sister's pictures into his scrapbook. She always liked to leave her photos lying around loose, but that's not neat enough for him. He wonders when she'll be back from work, as long as he is thinking about her. Then he thinks: what a stupid thing to wonder. She's dead.

The television says that the speaker of the house collapsed in congress yesterday. He's in critical condition, but stabilized. They'll start him on the drugs, and he'll live.

Diaz wonders if he will resign. The law says he doesn't have to. They can't make him. He'll probably resign.

"The problem with an empty house is, when you talk to it, you are talking to yourself." He feels better for being a little silly. Here's a photo of Susana and mama, he can paste it on this page here, it was taken about the same time as this other one.

Except he doesn't really feel like working on the scrapbook, and anyway, he's out of glue. He gets up to look in the kitchen cabinet, see if maybe Susana hid some there, and looks at the window. The blood is still on it. It has dried into a fantastic map, pointing the way to darkest Africa.

It's hard to get to work in the evening, but easier than staying home. The city streets whisper to Diaz through the tires as Flynn drives.

"Officer Flynn, you and officer Diaz will proceed immediately to 1217 Midas. There's a situation in apartment three. You're the closest, but we'll be sending backup, and an ambulance."

"Serious, Central?"

"Affirmative. A man and a woman in the apartment. A neighbor saw through the window: he's going after her with a knife."

"Shit. We're on it." Diaz turns on the siren, and Flynn pulls the car into a sudden reverse turn, fishtailing the vehicle through it too fast.

"Don't kill us, crazy woman."

"Shut up."

Diaz checks his pistol.

They're through the lobby door quickly: Flynn uses the police override on the lock. The apartment, though, they have to shoot open.

"Police!" The apartment seems empty. Diaz hears a noise from the bathroom.

"Shit!" He dashes in that direction, Flynn as always moving more coolly. The bathroom door is flimsy, he practically kicks it off its hinges.

A woman is sitting cross legged by the bathtub, sobbing. She is covered in blood, but Diaz doesn't think it is hers: it too obviously belongs to the man in the tub. He's still gripping the knife; some fanatical strength allowed him to pull it from his stomach up through the bottom of his breastbone, where it is wedged. He had been eating pizza, and the bathroom stinks of gore lightly seasoned with oregano. Flynn finally enters.

"Shit."

Diaz nods. Together, they help the woman up and get her into a chair in the living room. She's physically fine, maybe a few bruises from rough handling, but she's not saying anything.

"What do you think happened, Diaz?"

He looks at his partner. "Looks like this guy wanted to fly."

Flynn makes a face. "Anything you can think of, there's someone on this planet who wants it."

Diaz nods. "Central, cancel that backup, but yes on the medics."

"What happened, find another flyer?"

"Fuck you."

"Sorry."

After getting off of work, Diaz decides to walk all the way home. It will take him an hour, at least, but it's better than going back to the empty apartment immediately. He's off early, actually: Flynn said she'd handle the report. Nice of her. Maybe she's feeling bad for being so cold earlier.

Or maybe she just doesn't want to do it with him.

The area by the police station is pretty nice, mostly apartment buildings with shops on the bottom floors. Some psychiatrists practicing out of third-floor offices. He looks at the people that he passes, on their way to work, mostly. He is thinking: one out of every hundred. Maybe more, maybe fewer.

The next few blocks have lower buildings, more commercial. It's a nice street for shopping. This is the cheap end, it gets more expensive as you walk down towards the waterfront. The shoppers take note of him as he passes, because he's still wearing his uniform.

One out of every hundred. Maybe half of those go instantly. Diaz has a twisting feeling in his gut, but it's only hunger. He stops at Downtown Donuts. It's a rule never to go here in uniform, because of what people say, but it's close enough to the station that the rule gets bent sometimes.

"Officer Diaz! You haven't been by for breakfast for a long time now. Still in uniform -- the chief let up with his stupid rule?" The morning counterman has a thing for being friendly. He says it's more like coffee shops used to be like when he grew up.

"No, Al. I just forgot to change clothes. Have mercy on me and don't tell anyone."

Al grins. "What can I getcha?"

"I'll have a cup of coffee, and a chocolate frosted. And some cream in the coffee, this time, not that soy shit." Al never gives him the soy stuff, but he will give it to people who don't ask. Diaz ribs him about it.

"You shouldn't drink so much milk. You know what they say about lactic acid." Al notes that Diaz hasn't laughed. "What? Did I say something wrong?"

"It's not your fault. It's just that my sister just..."

"And here me making jokes about it! I am such a heel! Oh!" Al speeds down the counter to deal with another customer, but is back quickly. "I am truly sorry."

"Al, do you think it's true about people being carriers? I mean, my sister, and before that my mother, they both went."

"Nah. Maybe its genetic, or something. But it isn't your fault."

"Corey thinks so."

"No! She say that?"

"No, but she's been acting funny ever since she found out about my sister and mother. And she's never liked Weinhaltz."

"No one likes Weinhaltz, since he went on the pills. He was a nice guy before."

"Was he? I never knew him then."

"Yeah, he was a great guy. Life of the party."

He buys a dozen donuts to take home. Al insists that they are day-olds, and charges him only twenty cents, even though they're obviously fresh. He's still feeling bad about the joke, so Diaz doesn't press.

The next few blocks descend to the river, overlooking a basin flecked with sailboats. As Diaz walks over the lion-headed bridge, he notices a dead flyer floating in the water below. It is a ragged thing, pale pink tatters over mottled venous flesh, and its antennae are floating on the surface, as though feeling their way along the current. Diaz remembers that the antennae of an angel come from the optic nerves.

On the other side, there are a few rows of expensive waterfront condominiums before the freeway, and then the less fashionable neighborhood on the other side. Small mom and pop groceries are on every other corner here, their owners out front sweeping dust off the step. Some of them know him, and wave. His apartment is ten blocks from the river. When Diaz gets home, he is tired enough to crawl into bed and fall asleep in seconds.

In his dreams, his sister flutters around him. She has her own face, antennae protruding from her hair. He knows it is a dream because of that -- real angels have only small knobs of wrinkled gray-pink for heads. She can speak, too. She says, "I'm with mother in heaven. We're going to take everyone away. You'll be the only man on earth."

"You can't do that," he says, waving his pistol at her. "Who would I arrest?"

"You can arrest the birds, Chico." She is starting to look more like a real angel, blood dripping down her wings. "You can arrest the birds in the sky."

The alarm wakes him up, and Diaz gets into the shower. He feels hungry, so he gets out, eats a donut, and then gets back in the shower. The afternoon is incredibly hot, and humid, so that stepping out of the shower isn't much of a change. People call these the angel days of August.

Flynn is already waiting in the car when he gets to work. "It's air conditioned in here. You know what they say about the heat," she says.

On patrol, they spend a long time looking for a suspicious person who never shows up, and a short time checking on a car dealership. The night doesn't cool down at all: in fact, it gets hotter. Tempers are short in the bars, and Diaz scrapes his knuckles on the studded shoulder of some fool's leather jacket.

They're back in the car when Central calls them. "Officers Flynn, Diaz, this is Central. Proceed immediately to Alabaster 113. Neighbors report hearing a shot. Top floor."

They pull up, sirens quiet. It's a triple decker house, and they start up the outside stairs, guns out, moving cautiously. Everything is quiet. The door is unlocked, and as it swings open, Diaz sees a pair of legs, and blood. He moves into the room, gun swinging slowly, but sees nothing and then turns to check the body. Shot to the head, the temple. The woman's hand still holds the gun.

Flynn is checking the other rooms, and Diaz calls to her. "Don't bother. It looks like a suicide to me."

She yells back. "Should I look for a note, or something?"

He looks at the skin, the gray tinge. "Don't bother. This kind never leaves a note." After that, the rest of the night is just waiting around for the meat wagon.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" asks Flynn.

"Yeah, I'm okay with it. Why?"

"It's just, we've been getting all of this flyer stuff, and after your sister, I would think..."

"No, I'm fine. Really. I mean, I'm not happy about it, but I'm not fucked in the head."

"Have you cried for her?"

"Don't go pulling this amateur psychology grief shit on me. I got enough of that from the lieutenant."

"People get messed up, if they don't grieve."

"I have. Really. I'm okay."

"You sure? I don't want you flipping out on me."

"Fine."

"You could take some more comp time."

"I'm fine, okay? Or at least I will be if you stop bothering me."

"Okay. I'm just concerned. For you."

They return to the precinct in silence. The automatic report never gets suicides right.

The next day a front blows in, and the day turns unexpectedly chill. Diaz awakens to find himself shivering under his thin sheet, his skin standing out in goose bumps. There is a wind blowing across the city, and as he looks out his window he sees a flyer riding it, like they sometimes do, almost dancing with the sky.

When he gets in, the Lieutenant wants to see him.

"Officer Diaz."

"Sir."

"Well, I wish I didn't have to tell you this. But Officer Flynn has asked to be reassigned." He raises his hand to stop Diaz's answer. "I know it's not your fault. She said she just wasn't comfortable with you."

"We've always worked well together."

"You used to work well together. Now? I've reviewed the records; there's a lot of tension there. I think I should split you." Fijho taps his stylus on the desk. "She's the one raising a fuss, so I'm trading her to daytime. You, I'm keeping."

"Who's my new partner?"

"Officer Breton."

"Breton? I don't know. He's really green."

"You'll give it a try. Okay? But not today. This is effective starting two days from now, just in case Flynn repents. I know you'd prefer to work with her."

Diaz nods. "Anything else, sir?"

"I've got you working on foot, tonight. Get you some exercise. In the park. That's all."

"Yes, sir." Diaz leaves the office.

The park is quiet tonight: too cold for the normal summer mischief. Diaz and Flynn walk slowly along the paths.

"I guess Fijho told you."

"Yeah. He did."

"I'm sorry, it's just that, when I think about it, I think it might happen to me -- "

"It's okay. Really. I understand."

"You do?"

"Yeah." He doesn't, really. But he understands that there is nothing to be done about it now. Maybe later.

"I'm sorry."

They walk along for a while. "Hold up a moment, I'm not in shape for stomping around all night any more." says Flynn.

Diaz stops to wait. "Maybe we can go get some coffee, warm up."

"I don't do coffee any more. Maybe some decaf, though."

"Okay." Diaz turns to face her. There is a red line running from her forehead down the front of her neck. A little blood spots her uniform shirt.

"Macho, what are you looking at? You can't tell me that you're going to start staring at my breasts now. You missed your chance by a year, man."

"Corey..." He doesn't know what to say, his tongue is paralyzed.

"What's the matter with you? Let's get something hot to drink. I feel like I need something."

"Corey, your face..."

"What, have I got a spot on it? What?" She passes a hand over her forehead, feels the raised line in the center. Her hand comes back with blood on it. "Oh my god."

Diaz is suddenly freed from his paralysis. "Central! We need a medic at our present location, code one, officer down."

"Diaz, this is Central. We're sending medic immediately, ETA five minutes."

"Shit, Central, she's flying on me!"

"Help is on the way."

Corey's face is gashed down the middle now, and her breath comes with frothy red bubbles. She's trying to speak, but can't get the words out.

"Corey! Don't do it!" Diaz grabs her, tries to hold her together in a bear hug. He feels her shifting underneath him, splitting like a chrysalis.

"ETA four minutes. Hang in there."

"Don't go." Diaz hangs on, but she convulses and twists free of him as they both fall to the ground. She kicks him in the head, and he rolls away, gets to his feet again. She rips her uniform open, or perhaps better to say the angel does using her arms. He looks at the gash opening in her smooth skin, splitting more deeply. There is only a little blood.

"ETA three minutes."

"Hurry! I can't stop it!" He throws himself on her body, but it is too strong, pushing him aside as it slides from the husk. He grabs it and they wrestle on the ground.

"ETA two minutes. We're coming as fast as we can."

It is slippery with blood like a newborn, and with some sort of outer caul that it seems to be shedding. It buffets him with muscular wings and lashes him with its antennae. He has it firmly in his grasp for a moment, but it slips its skin and leaps away.

"ETA one point three minutes. Are you hanging in there?"

It rises into the air, beating its wings. In shape it most resembles a dragonfly: narrow body, small head, four long thin wings whipping the air. It has tremendous energy now, at the moment of its birth. Diaz stands and stares at it.

"ETA one minute."

It waves its antennae from side to side, then darts forward. Diaz falls back onto the ground, and it hovers over him. Its wings beat faster than Diaz can follow, making almost musical tones.

"ETA thirty seconds."

Diaz hears the siren. ""You'd better go." he says. "Or they'll just shoot you." It strokes his face with its feelers, then rises into the night sky, riding the wind towards the river.

"I'm pulling you for a week."

"I can handle it. Shit, I need to handle it."

Fijho never pounds his fist on his desk, or yells, but there is iron in him. "No. You're going to take a week off duty. Think about things."

"Don't make me sit on my butt for a week. I'll go loco."

"I think you'll go crazy if I don't make you stop and think."

"How about if I go get an eval from psych. If they say I'm okay, can I stay at work?"

"No. It's my call, and I'm making it. See you in a week. Chill out. Have fun. Go look at the sun for a while. If you need more time, you can have it."

"I'll be back in first thing next Tuesday."

Fijho nods. "Okay, macho."

"Don't call me that."

Fijho fixes him with a stare. "See? You need to take time to think about things."

Diaz leaves his gun with equipment, changes out of his uniform in the locker room. The trains aren't running this late at night, so it will be a long walk home. Right on cue, the rain starts.

"Hey Mulhoon, can you guys give me a ride home in your car? The Lieutenant is making me take some time off."

"Sorry man, we've got to get to a scene quick, can't stop now." The police car pulls out and turns on its siren.

Another car. "You guys heading out across the river?"

"No, have to head over to the park. No can do."

"Heading for -- "

"No, have to get this guy up to a cell."

Shit.

"Need a ride?" It's Weinhaltz.

Diaz looks out at the rain. It's really coming down, now, might not let up for hours. "Yeah. Yeah, that would be really nice of you."

Weinhaltz has his own car, out in the lot, and they run to it in the rain, jackets over their heads. Weinhaltz eases the car smoothly out onto the street, then floors it, tires squealing on the wet pavement. There's no one on the streets, but Weinhaltz's driving still makes Diaz nervous.

"Diaz. Can you look in the glove compartment? There should be a bottle of pills."

"Yeah."

"Can you get me one?"

The pills feel almost greasy on Diaz's fingertips; they are gray like Weinhaltz's skin.

"Thanks." Weinhaltz gulps the big pill back dry. They drive on for a minute or two.

"I thought you took those with meals."

"Sometimes I feel like I need another. I can't describe it."

Diaz nods. "My mother sometimes said she could feel it."

Weinhaltz raises one eyebrow, the only outward sign of startlement. "Your mother takes the pills?"

"Took. She stopped."

"Oh." Weinhaltz throws the car through a turn that fishes it all over the street. He doesn't seem to notice Diaz gripping the seat. "Sometimes I think about that."

"Uh huh."

They splash through a puddle, hydroplaning briefly. The fucker is trying to kill us, thinks Diaz. Gray men are all fucking suicidal.

"Do you think it is better to be an ant? Or a mayfly?"

"What?" And he's crazy, too.

"An ant can live a long time, walking around, working with all the other ants."

"And a mayfly?"

"A mayfly lives only a day, then dies. But the mayfly gets to dance in the air, with no one but itself."

"I think it's better to slow down over the bridge."

"Fuck that." They're doing eighty across the river.

"Weinhaltz! Slow the fuck down! Are you trying to kill us?"

Weinhaltz slams on the brakes, and they turn fully around twice before coming to a stop.

"Yes. I guess I am."

"I think I can walk from here."

"Sure."

Diaz gets out, leaving Weinhaltz in the car. When he goes into the lobby of his apartment building, three blocks down, the car is still there, being rained on in the middle of the road.

In the morning, the storm has passed over, and the weather is sunny and warm again. Diaz half expects a flyer to beat itself on his window, or something -- it would be true to form -- but he isn't even bothered by birds today.

He has a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and a beer, then he falls asleep in the afternoon. He didn't get enough sleep last night, now his internal clock is all messed up. He watches a movie in the evening, stays up late flipping through the channels before falling asleep at three. The next day is not appreciably different.

I should go out, Diaz thinks on Friday. I haven't been to a club in six months, not since being on late shift.

Yeah right, he thinks to himself. And what if you found some woman to hang out with? What's her life expectancy, twenty minutes?

Shut up.

"At least I'm not talking to myself out loud," he says. "That would mean I was crazy."

"You're not crazy."

"Shit!" Diaz jumps up in the air and twists around. It's Weinhaltz. "What the fuck do you mean, coming in on me like that? How'd you get in?"

"You left an extra key card in your desk. And the Lieutenant asked me to check on you."

"Really?"

"Yes. But he only asked me after everyone else made excuses."

"I see."

"I brought some beer." Weinhaltz presents six bottles of something microbrewed.

"Well. I guess we might as well get this over with. You can tell the Lieutenant I'm okay. Now go away."

Weinhaltz doesn't move. "You shouldn't be."

"What?"

The detective pulls out a chair and folds his thin form into it. "I don't know if you will get to come back to the force. You make everyone too nervous."

"Except for you?"

"Except for me."

"So I make everyone nervous. So what? Fijho still likes me."

"He likes you, but he isn't willing to break up everyone else just for you." Weinhaltz shrugs. "I think you're going to get a warm handshake and a very nice letter of recommendation."

"Shit." Diaz gives up, sits down, and opens a beer.

Weinhaltz spreads his long fingers and flutters them. "That's what everyone thinks. That you're a carrier."

"That's stupid"

"I know."

Diaz drinks most of the beer. It tastes good, but only marginally improves his mood.

"Diaz, I think I can get you out."

"You? How?"

"I could tell everyone that it's my fault. That I put it on you. That I was seeing your sister, too, that I'm an old friend of the family."

"They won't believe that."

"They will. Everyone knows I have no sense of humor any more."

"So why aren't we good buddies, then?"

Weinhaltz thinks. "Say you didn't like me seeing your sister."

Diaz nods. "This isn't going to stand up long, with people asking both of us questions. And what about you? They'll run you out."

"It's okay."

"What?"

"There's just one thing you have to do for me."

"What?"

"You sound like a broken record. Listen: I stopped taking the pills this morning."

"Shit. Weinhaltz, don't do it."

"Bill."

"What?"

"My name."

"Bill, don't fuck with me, you're joking, right?"

"No."

"You're not. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to stay with me. To make sure no one stops it from happening. I couldn't stand to go back on the pills, not now."

"What about the thing you were going to do, at the station?"

"Already done. And they'll find more when they clean out my desk and my files." He chuckles. "I'm sorry, I had to steal some pictures out of your desk."

"It's okay."

They lapse into silence for a while. Diaz finally notices that Weinhaltz's -- Bill's -- skin doesn't look as gray as it has.

"Diaz?"

"Rogero."

"What?"

"My name. You can call me Rogero."

"Rogero, I want to go to the roof. Help me?"

Diaz helps Weinhaltz to his feet, lets the taller man lean against him. The detective is burning up: his fever must be well over a hundred. They get to the elevator, and Bill uses his override to make it go to the roof.

On the roof, Weinhaltz manages to stay upright for five steps before he goes limp; Diaz can't hold him up any more, so he gently lowers him to the gravel. Bill struggles out of his jacket and unbuttons his shirt. His chest is pale and hairless; a thin red line runs down the middle of it.

Bill takes Rogero's hand, grasps it. Muscles twitch under Bill's skin, and his hand feels alternately hot and cold to Diaz.

"Does it hurt?"

"No." His speech is hard, and brings blood to his lips. "It's not like -- "

Diaz waits as Weinhaltz convulses.

"It's not like that. I can feel again. I haven't felt anything for five years."

Diaz nods. "I remember my mother said that. When she was on the pills. That she couldn't feel anything, I mean."

"Yes. Except this horrible tension, all of the time, from what you're holding back. That's all." A line of blood drools down his chin, and Diaz wipes it off with his sleeve.

Weinhaltz's body is covered with sweat, now, but his skin has gotten cold. There's the thinnest of splits in the skin of his chest.

"Are you sure you want to do this? There's still time to get someone."

Bill is staring into the sun.

"Bill! Are you sure?"

Weinhaltz nods weakly.

Diaz gets up and paces across the roof, forty steps that way and forty steps back. Weinhaltz doesn't watch; his are closed. They move beneath the lids as though in dreaming sleep.

Diaz speaks to him anyway. "Why not me? Why everyone else and not me?"

Weinhaltz laughs a short laugh that turns to a cough. "That's a dumb question."

"Is it?"

Weinhaltz doesn't say anything.

"I guess it is."

The sun is setting between the downtown towers, its rays breaking on sheer glass. In the other direction the sky is already darkening, as though it cannot wait for night.

"Rogero?" Diaz can barely understand Bill because of his broken throat. He is beginning to split, opening like a bud soon to unfurl its leaf.

"What?"

"Is this right, Rogero? Am I making a mistake?"

It is too late, now.

There is a sharp crack and Bill's body shakes, once, as the breastbone breaks and hinges open smoothly. Rogero takes a few steps back as the angel rises out and perches on the corpse.

"Bill?"

The flyer turns its eyeless head in his direction. Its antennae are a vibrating blur, and they make a high humming tone. Diaz raises a hand as though to touch it, but does not.

"Adios, Bill. Buena suerte."

The angel leaps into the air, and the sun shines through its wings turning them into a stained glass window in rose and scarlet. Then it twists in the air, swoops and dives, and is gone.

Rogero picks up the corpse, empty now and light, and carries it back into the building. Over the next rooftop he can see the angel, high up on the wind, dancing in the sky.