Azrael's Song

Angels didn’t get sick days or paid time-off like humans did. But after the last war—it was a doozy, even by the standards of the 20th century—who could blame Azrael for needing to take a few days off for some “me time”? Michael wasn’t happy about it, but he granted the request. He couldn’t remember the last time the angel of death had done anything that didn’t involve some aspect of war, plague, or one of the many disastrous human inventions that peppered the sphere known as earth.

“Enjoy it while it lasts, Az,” Gabriel said. “Michael’s going to add more overtime when you get back, just watch.”

Azrael wouldn’t argue with the opinionated angel. She had better things to do—and with a time limit, at that.

When she awoke in her human host body, she was pleased to find it was pliable and young, quite unlike the usual models the Divine were able to procure for themselves through Michael’s oversight. She suspected Gabe had something to do with that; he always said she needed to “treat” herself, as the humans were supposedly "en vogue" to say in this time period.

At least she hadn’t been dropped into a war zone. The apartment was small yet clean, with one bedroom, a closet full of the latest fashions, and a kitchen window view overlooking an expanse where she could just make out the sunrise. Something soft and furry brushed against her wrist, and she nearly jumped, almost in danger of vacating the body even though she had only just asserted control over it.

She breathed out and laughed a little at herself when she looked over to see an orange cat perched on the counter beside her. It greeted her with a disgruntled meow that was probably the universal feline language for “feed me.”

Azrael knew the animal could probably sense she was not its real owner, but hunger be damned.

After finding a can of tuna and spooning out a portion for the cat, she relaxed and sat at the small kitchen table. There were no newspapers to be had in the vicinity, so she fine-tuned her theory on where she was in history since this seemed to be an era where print materials had become obsolete. But even upon inspection for one of those “smartphones” humans used, Azrael couldn’t find a thing. She wasn’t even sure which country she was in.

She needn’t have worried because the next moment she heard a key in the door. Azrael barely had a moment’s preparation to ready her facial expression—how did this human usually appear to outside onlookers?—before she was faced by a brunette young woman whose arms were laden down with paper bags of what appeared to be groceries.

“Oh, Ess, you’re up! Guess even you couldn’t resist an early start to a beautiful day, huh?” The woman smiled, and the shape of it assured Azrael that her human host and this girl were quite close. Sisters? Azrael hadn’t gotten a good look at the host’s face in a mirror, so it was a possibility. But when she was reminded of the apartment key—set down with a jangle on the counter, the bags of groceries following—it seemed likely they were roommates too. But with only one room?

Before Azrael could react, the young woman leaned down to peck her lips against the host’s mouth. The girl straightened, a warmth radiating from her very demeanor. “Why so speechless? Are you still waking up?”

Azrael ducked her head to hide her confusion. It had been eons since she had had such intimate contact with a human. And even then, those had been work-related dalliances. What strings had Gabriel pulled to get her stuck in a host that was in a clear romantic relationship? Such a thing went beyond the ethics of how the Divine usually operated.

“Esther? Hon, you’re starting to scare me.”

And it didn’t help that this other human seemed to be quite perceptive and observant.

Azrael shook her head and smiled so widely that her cheekbones actually hurt from the strain. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, even laughing a little for good measure. “I’m just tired.”

At first she was worried the other woman would call her on the bluff, but then she too smiled as if this were just a normal part of her girlfriend’s quirkiness. “You need to stop pulling all-nighters,” she said, turning around and starting to put away cans of food in the cabinets. “You’ll regret it when you get older.”

Honestly, maybe it was a good fit—Azrael in Esther’s body—because the angel couldn’t remember the last time she had allowed herself sleep. Traveling from moment to moment, death to death, span to span—that kind of existence didn’t allow for something so wasteful as sleep.

As she watched the young woman finish up unpacking the bags, Azrael found herself curious. The lack of a wedding ring was conspicuous—maybe the couple wasn’t as serious despite the obvious emotional investment on the other woman’s part? Azrael then looked down at her hands and saw different shades of color embedded in her fingernails—dried paint. Was Esther an artist of some kind?

But her eyes still strayed to the other woman who was now humming as she folded up the empty paper bags. If only Azrael could peek into her mind, she might be able to find out what her name was.

And it was also distracting that the humming actually sounded like a song Azrael had heard long, long ago, so much so that she couldn’t place it. Whether she liked it or not, her memory was long—as old as time—but small details evaded her all the time.

“What song is that?” she found herself asking, and the young woman’s humming tapered off into a silence that felt...heavy.

Azrael was almost sorry to have asked.

“I don’t know,” the other girl said, her voice soft, as if she too were trying to place the notes of a song that must have been decades old—at least—for Azrael to know it. “It might be something I heard at my mom’s shop. Maybe an old vinyl or something? I don’t know, Ess.”

But Azrael could remember another time, soldiers marching through a swamp of a battlefield, their voices bolstered together in a rhythm that went along with their footfalls even as they fell out of tune with the song…

“Ess? Ess, why are you crying?”

Azrael looked up to find the girl looking at her with concern, and it was the first time she felt wetness on her cheeks.

She shook her head and suddenly wished she could just vacate the body before the time limit was up. It was bad enough that she was having flashbacks—such a human thing—to a time and place removed from the here and now.

When the girl enveloped her in a hug, Azrael didn’t try to pull away. No, she held on for dear life, clutching the girl’s shoulders as if they were just another part of the gravity pulling her—body and all—back down to earth.

“Just stay like this,” Azrael said, not even bothering with how this embrace alone crossed the ethics of the Divine in the human world. “Just...just hold me for a little while.”

The girl, a stranger, just nodded her head. Her lips brushed against the human host’s temple.

And all the while Azrael heard the dying strains of a song left behind in an era so very long ago...