LITMIR.BIZ

      Gabriel swung the hammer with more force than needed, and sparks flew on impact as the beam slammed into place on the joist. He hit it again for no apparent reason while around him rang out the rhythmic sounds of striking tools and cheerful singing. When construction of the community building for the Ludus Paradisus was finished, its glistening rooms and classical façade would be pristine, lovely, even spotless. Perfection. Just like everything else.

      Gabriel glanced over his shoulder, and then he struck the beam again, knocking it the tiniest bit off its mark. One miniscule imperfection in this flawless structure. No one would possibly notice. He smiled, suddenly more engaged with the project, and found himself actually on the verge of whistling.

      “You’re a little off.”

      He turned and saw a brown-haired virtue angel watching with arms lightly crossed and head canted. A silver necklace with the word Humilitas gleamed on her pale throat. She looked more perfect than the building they were raising.

      “I didn’t think anyone would notice,” Gabriel said.

      She patted his arm, and were it not for the quirk at the corner of her mouth, she would have seemed completely sincere. “Don’t worry. You’ll get it in a couple hundred more years.”

      Gabriel watched her walk away, arms swinging loosely and a swivel to her hips like a church bell ringing. He dropped his massive hammer and the handle just missed Raphael’s foot as he approached, his white overseer’s robe brushing the floor.

      “Were you just talking to Arrayah?”

      “I’m not sure.” Gabriel shook his head and started walking in the other direction.

      “Why was a virtue angel talking to you?”

      “Good question.”

      Raphael picked up Gabriel’s hammer and followed him behind the lines of whistling workers. They were perfectly content and ordered, none missing a beat, and always just ahead of schedule.

      “The ceremony tomorrow has been moved up two hours. How is your team’s production today?”

      “They’ll get it done. They always do,” replied Gabriel.

      He kept walking and snatched a brown satchel from a bronze table with tools all over it.

      “Where are you going?”

      “To have some fun,” said Gabriel.

      “What about your construction team?”

      “They’re all yours.”

      Out of the corner of his eye, Gabriel noticed Michael heading his way. Great. What had he done now?

      “Gabriel,” Michael said, waving a hand as he approached.

      “I’ll be back in a little bit.”

      Gabriel turned, leaped, and with three swift down-drafts of his wings was aloft and soaring over the construction site. He began to pass the training facility adjacent to it. No sooner had Michael flown up after him than Gabriel tucked in his wings and plummeted down to land with one knee landing in the soft earth of the practice field.

      “Can you not sit still for five minutes?” Michael called out, landing gracefully beside him.

      “Welcome to the practice field, Michael,” Gabriel said. “It was pretty clear at the last games that you didn’t know where it is.”

      “Why practice when I have no competition?”

      Gabriel clutched at his chest and staggered back. Michael, stone-faced, reached down to brush a spot of dirt from his polished boot. Did the archangel never smile?

      “I have to tell you something,” Michael said.

      “That you have the sense of humor of a wet phoenix?” Gabriel took two strides into the shadow created by the overhang of the training facility’s closest wing. He came back with a bow and quiver in one hand and a bag of ripe fruit in the other.

      “Something important,” Michael said.

      Gabriel stepped to a wood-and-metal structure at the edge of the field that had a scoop drawn back by ropes and pulleys. It was a small trebuchet, and he dropped two red fruits into the bowl-shaped end of its launching arm.

      “Everything is always important,” Gabriel said. “Which is another way of saying that nothing ever is.” He kicked a lever, and the trebuchet catapulted the fruit so high into the air that even his powerful eyes nearly lost sight of it. He notched an arrow and drew the string on the twelve-foot bow to full tension, his fingertips just brushing his cheek. With a soft twang and a rush of air, the arrow launched into the sky. At the moment of its highest arc, it struck the first fruit with such force that it exploded into a red mist. His motions almost too fast to track, Gabriel drew and fired another arrow, and the second fruit—still a good forty yards off the ground—was obliterated into pulp as well.

      “It has to be a mistake.” Michael had that tone of voice he used when he seemed to have forgotten Gabriel was in the room. “There’s no way you’re ready for this.”

      Gabriel rounded, gripping his bow. “What did you say?”

      “If my vision had been about shooting fruit and playing games,” Michael said, turning away, “you’d be the one to tell.”

      “Wait.” Gabriel grabbed Michael’s arm, which gave about as much as the iron hammer had. “Just wait.”

      “Something’s coming, Gabriel. I saw it.” Michael shook him off. “And you had better figure out what’s important to you.”

      Michael bolted off toward a towering mountain that jutted above the range surrounding it. Gabriel, squinting at the bright light pouring from its peak, felt a headache coming on. A massive city had been built just shy of the summit, a sprawling metropolis so big that he felt tired just looking at it. The wall that formed the city’s foundation had twelve layers made up of jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, and he had forgotten what else, though he knew them by heart once. All rare and precious, of course. Michael doubtless knew them all. Even at this distance, Gabriel tracked Michael until he landed heavily near the city’s gated entrance and soon disappeared

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