Free Thy Fearful Symmetry by Richard Wright Page A

expected.
    “I don't believe that. If you can be absolved, why can't I?”
    Ambrose looked down at Pandora's still face. “That's how it usually works. This time though, I think it's irreversible.”
    “But why? I'll appeal to God Himself. I'll...”
    Ambrose looked up at him. “You've come as close to God as you ever will. You've spoken to the Prince of the Countenance, highest among the handful of Archangels permitted to look at His own face. You've been condemned to damnation by Metatron, the little Yahweh, a creature so powerful that he's been mistaken for God Himself several times in your history. You weren't damned by a set of rules, to escape on a technicality, like I did. God does His dealings on this world through Metatron, His mouthpiece, and you might as well have been personally judged by the Almighty.”
    Calum's eyes were wide, his pupils tiny, and he dropped to his knees. Ambrose was almost sorry to see it. Here was a tiny man, with a tiny life, who should have a myriad tiny hopes and troubles. Now he was a player in celestial events unlike anything Ambrose had heard of. All because he had followed his conscience. “I'm sorry, Calum.”
    Calum's mouth flapped. “Sorry? Did you know?”
    Ambrose didn't have to lie. “That it would come to this for you? I had no idea. Do you think it would have stopped me, if I had?” Calum's face creased in pain, and he shook his head. “I am what I am, Calum. To be honest, which is still a novel experience for me, I don't even know what that is anymore. I'm fighting my nature for her,” he indicated Pandora with a flick of his head. “I'm even getting somewhere. If you'll pardon the cliché though, I'm no angel. Not anymore.”
    Calum's jaw clenched, and he pushed himself to his feet, eyes stabbing accusations. “I know. I know what you are. I know what you did, and I'm damned for it in turn.”  
    Ambrose pursed his lips. Now he would find out what else was bothering the priest. “I'm not entirely sure I follow you.” The note of polite confusion in his voice was feigned. Ambrose knew very well what was adding to the burden of Calum's guilt.
    “Really? You were out last night.”
    As he thought. “You could say that.” Truthfully, he had been more concerned with drowning his sorrows. Alcohol had a limited effect on him, but it was the better option to sitting staring at his comatose love for another fifteen hours of night. Leaving the church had been an enormous risk, but he had been unable to resist the temptation to thumb his nose at his pursuers one more time.
    “You were at the student union up the road. I saw the papers this morning. The police want to talk to you, did you know? Your description is all over the press.” There was despair and anger in Calum's voice, floating over a current of violence that the priest would never admit to feeling. Had Ambrose been mortal and vulnerable, he did not think Calum would have been able to stop himself from venting his frustrations physically. Even now he was holding himself back like a dog on a leash. His legs were held, as though relaxing them would lead to stepping forward, to punching, and kicking, and biting.
    Ambrose rolled his shoulders wearily, and rubbed a hand over his face. “That was a mistake, and not what you think. I did nothing wrong.”
    “You did nothing wrong? ” Calum was spitting now. “People died! Lots of people died!”
    “People die every day. Death is not a crime. Malice is. Calum, I gave them a gift, and -”
    “Gift!”
    That was enough. Ambrose snapped, his rare temper flowing freely for the first time in decades. Standing, he let his true nature show. With his fingers crooking into yellow claws, he stretched out his wings, shredding his t-shirt in the process. Scarlet light played beneath the smooth skin of his face and torso, making him luminous as his eyes narrowed to crimson dots.
    “Do not presume to judge me.”
    Calum quailed, and that was enough to draw Ambrose back to