Free Debts by Tammar Stein

Chapter One
    Everyone holds secrets. Everyone hides them.
    That middle-aged woman shuffling into the café, weighted down by a bulky purse and clunky knee-high boots. The college student absently drinking coffee while tapping on a laptop, white earbuds shutting out the rest of the world. The server who brings them their lunches. They’re all hiding something.
    One was molested as a child. One came here from the apartment of a married man. One just found out she’s pregnant.
    It’s possible.
    Or maybe Miriam’s being paranoid.
    Because when Emmett’s phone rings, he glances at the readout and straightens with a jolt, and in that second, Miriam could swear a guilty look crosses his face.
    “Do you mind if I take this outside?” he asks, already rising out of his seat.
    “Go ahead.” She waves a hand casually, though something turns in her belly, a question that didn’t used to exist.
    Emmett nods his thanks and hurries outside, phone to ear. Her salad, his sandwich, sit paused on the table.
    Miriam rereads the chalkboard menu above the gleaming wooden counter, eyeballs the glass case full of treats she shouldn’t have. Now she has time to really study the other people in the café, all busy in their own worlds, which for all she knows are actually safe, comfortable and lovely. It’s possible. She tucks a few strands of her long curly hair behind an ear, though it’s afutile gesture; her hair makes its own decisions about where it goes.
    She can see Emmett outside, holding the phone to his ear with one hand, using the other to block the noise from the street. His eyes are almost closed as he focuses hard on the voice coming through. The café sits on a busy street and there’s a steady stream of cars driving by Emmett. A couple of Vanderbilt students brush past him, laughing at a shared joke. It’s undoubtedly quieter inside. She flicks through a mental list of possibilities for the mysterious caller. One of his local buddies who watches the shop? No. Emmett wouldn’t leave his seat for that. If it was one of those burly but sweet guys, he’d give her that familiar half smile and say, apologetically, “It’s BJ, do you mind?”
    She’d like to think it’s his sister, the naval officer, calling from some exotic port. Somehow, Miriam is sure it’s a girl calling. But also, she’s just as certain it isn’t his sister.
    A man walks into the café. Miriam notices him in that casual way you notice strangers when you’re sitting by yourself at a restaurant, waiting for your date to return. There’s not much about him that would catch her eye. But she looks again as she realizes he’s walking straight toward her. When he casually sits down in Emmett’s seat, she straightens in surprise.
    “Excuse me,” she starts. “This seat is taken—”
    “Hello, Miriam,” he says, but his lips aren’t moving.
    Miriam’s eyes grow wide and the breath catches in her chest. He smiles at her reaction, a modest smile that seems to mock her, as if to say,
What’s the big deal
, but also
You haven’t seen anything yet
. And
Who’s got secrets now?
    In her defense, he doesn’t look anything like Raphael, that terrifying angel, the left hand of God, who came to her six months ago. That time, there was a searing cold light that burned her skin. A light that blinded her. A voice that reverberated in her bones. A face so terrible shestill can’t bring herself to think of it.
    Instead, there is this little man with mousy brown hair and narrow shoulders, wearing a beige jacket so forgettable as to be practically invisible. Yet despite the convincing disguise, his eyes don’t look human. His eyes are the deep blue-black of the ocean when the bottom is five miles down. An ocean where large creatures are stirring.
    He doesn’t say his name. He doesn’t need to. She hears it in her mind, ringing like a bell.
    The archangel Gabriel, whose name means “God is my strength,” who serves as a messenger from God to humans, is