Free Scorn of Angels by John Patrick Kennedy

the string of beads that served for a door. Outside, they could hear the noisy market they had come through to meet a man who claimed to have treasures of the ancient world.
    Jerusalem had become a home of sorts for Arcana. There was still so much to be fixed, even though the city was much improved from two years ago. The Christians had done as Arcana told them, which was good, because a cleansing fire would have been the logical next step if they hadn’t, and Arcana was pretty sure God wouldn’t have approved of that.
    But as she had nowhere else to go, Arcana had rented rooms there, paid for with precious metals she’d dug from the ground and shaped in her spare time. And there was a lot of spare time, here. Arcana had never thought she would grow bored, but time moved differently on Earth, and there was no way to make it go faster, even for an Angel.
    Arcana had searched for Caelum and Orion a hundred times, crisscrossing the deserts and hills near Jerusalem, flying into caves and through woods, then taking herself around the world, looking for some sign of their essences. There was nothing. Whatever was left of them had long been scattered to the winds, so that finding even the smallest particle was impossible.
    Every month, Arcana tried reaching back up to Heaven, flying upward by the light of the full moon, and stretched her wings toward Heaven. And every month she’d come back down, unable to locate the Gates. She’d even followed souls upward, to the place where they disappeared into Heaven’s realm. Arcana could not follow, no matter how much of her will and power she bent toward the effort. For an instant—as the soul passed through—she would be blind and deaf, impervious to the chill glory of the celestial regions. When she returned to herself, the soul would be gone and the sky seamless.
    The Gates to Hell, interestingly enough, were wide open, though no one and nothing came out. If God himself had not forbidden the Angels of Heaven to enter Hell, Arcana would have flown down, grabbed Nyx by the scruff of the neck and squeezed until Nyx told her what was going on.
    And still, there was so much time .
    Arcana, not sure what else to do, had begun exploring humanity. Sometimes she would talk to the women in the market, other times sit in the taverns. Two days before, she had been talking, and a merchant of antiquities had asked her to serve as bodyguard while he searched for items of worth to sell to the Christians who were beginning to come as tourists. She had said yes.
    Now Arcana sat in this market in Jaffa, dressed as her warrior self, with long hair braided behind and a grey surcoat over her chainmail. Her sword was sheathed beside her, and a crusader’s shield was on her back. She was female—Arcana didn’t often change her sex—but she had cast a glamour on herself that caused anyone who looked at her to only think “Knight,” not to question her sex or to wonder which country she was from.
    The merchant, Arcana had discovered, was stunningly dishonest and extremely rude. His company made Arcana better understand the human saying, “Idle hands do the devil’s work.” Because she had been idle, she had agreed to work with this man. And in the course of the last two days, she had seen him cheat his customers, lie to his suppliers, steal from whomever he could, and abuse animals and people with the same zeal.
    Arcana had been ready to inflict a lesson on him when they’d come to this place. Now, staring at the scroll in front of her, she was almost willing to relent. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have seen this.
    It was at least a thousand years old. The papyrus it was on was weak and broken in many places. The Muslim man who was showing it to them had opened it with the greatest of care, but even so, Arcana could hear more of the papyrus crackling apart.
    “It is truly an antique thing?” asked the merchant. “Of great value?”
    “It is written in Latin,” said Arcana. “In the