I saw her first at Sal's, leaning nonchalantly over the piano and watching the floor show intently. Her pearlescent wings waved haphazardly, almost of their own accord, above her back. She was the most gorgeous hallucination I'd had yet.

Problem was, I was beginning to think these were more than hallucinations. I'd learned since I was a kid that no one ever saw the creatures that lived all around me, but it seemed like most people somehow knew they were there. A leprechaun could stand right in the middle of a crowded street and everyone would find some reason to walk around him, though they never saw him. I recently watched a gremlin push a waitress down the stairs. The poor girl swore she hadn't tripped, but no one had seen any attacker.

Which would mean I really had been walking zero on those opium trips. Sorry, let me clarify. My mother was a closet opium addict, and as a young lad, I'd pinch some of her supply from time to time and retreat to the attic for a few hours. I'd always end up in a strange grey world inhabited by the same odd creatures that plagued my whole life. I'd wake in a fright and vow never to touch Mum's stuff again.

It was in the attic as well that I discovered an old journal from the Civil War the house's previous owners must have left behind. The soldier described the trip to my grey dreamworld in great detail, terming it "walking zero." He described a heavenly woman as well, but his writings ended suddenly.

So optimistically I watched the angel that returned to the speakeasy almost every night, hoping she was more than simply a lovely vision. I could tell the boys were starting to wonder why my eyes wandered to empty corners of the room, but I thought perhaps if she knew I was watching her she might do something to prove her own existence.

One night I managed to catch her eye. Her interested gaze slipped over me at first, so intent was she on absorbing everything in the crowded and noisy dance hall. But her gaze snapped back, and I stared into almost-fearful icy blue eyes for endless moments, until Michael laid a large hand on my shoulder and whirled me back to my life.

"Have ye heard anything I've been sayin', Sean?" the man demanded. "Wake up, it's goin' down tonight."

Flanagan leaned in with his oily smile. "That gun of yours better be loaded and ready, O'Reilly. We'll be needing your skills tonight."

By the time I turned again, she was long gone, a single feather laying atop the bar.

After that night's bust, I was forced to lay low for a few nights, nursing my shoulder one of those filthy Italian's bullets had grazed. Besides, Torrio's men, not to mention the cops, were combing the city for us. Flanagan was dumb enough to get himself pinched, and the pushover had spilled everything to the feds. Until O'Banion got around to paying the police off, we had to live like rats.

As soon as I got the go-ahead I was back at Sal's, though my shoulder still ached. I couldn't get that angelic figure out of my head, especially those eyes... she had seen me, did that mean she was real? Could I talk to her tonight?

The old "condemned" dance hall was really swingin' that night. The band was the cat's meow and Sal was glowing. "Haven't seen you around lately, Sean," she greeted after I gave the password to enter the forbidden party.

"Oh, I've been laid up from a little accident," I smiled, touching the lump of bandages under my shirt.

Sal just smiled and called to a scantily-clad waitress behind her. "Get this torpedo some giggle water! Come on in," she added more intimately. "Get off those dogs," she motioned to my feet while drawing me to an empty table. "Your friends aren't out yet, but I'm sure a lounge lizard like yourself will find some company," she winked, then sailed on to the next customer. We all loved Sal. Absentmindedly, I played my fingers across the dull throb in my shoulder, sipping the bad gin I was served and looking for my angel.

And there she was, magically appearing behind the piano when a passing hoofer blocked my view for a moment. She was wearing a sequined dress that looked just like the backless one the lead singer had on, and her delicate feet mimicked the steps of the jubilant dancers on the floor. There was a real longing in her eyes amid the excitement that had flushed her cheeks.

It was only a few seconds later that she caught me staring, eyes again widened in surprise as her feet went still. She obviously didn't think anyone could see her. She broke eye contact first, looking down at her hands, apparently lost in thought. She glanced back up to find me still staring, and she seemed more sure of herself this time. This vision of loveliness smiled slightly at me and promenaded across the stage and dance floor to my table.

"You can see me," she wondered as she sat gracefully on the stool across from me, wings sweeping back to frame her slight form.

I just nodded, breath completely stolen by her beauty, even more magnificent up close. Her skin was flawless, and shimmered with a heavenly radiance. It was all I could do to keep myself from reaching out to touch her pink rose-petal lips and her eyes, so joyful and yet somehow craven, made me want to cry. She had to be real.

Do you know what I am?" she asked in dulcet tones, but seemed almost afraid of an answer.

I stared at her heavenly wings, a dead giveaway, but shook my head no.

"I'm one of the tarshishim," she whispered, "an angel."

I wanted to believe it so horribly. "How can I know you're not just a hallucination?" I finally spoke.

Silently, she reached a fine-boned hand to the lump of bandages on my shoulder and closed her eyes. A wonderful coolness spread over the wound, and when she withdrew, the throbbing pain was gone. I clasped my hand over my shoulder, mouth agape, then frantically loosened my collar to put my hand right against the skin. Under all the useless bandages, the wound was gone.

"Have you come to save my soul?" I whispered to her, thinking of the way I got my shoulder ripped open in the first place. That wasn't the only bullet that had flown that night.

The sadness returned to her eyes and a half-smile to her lips. "I'm not working tonight."

I just stared at her. I didn't know what to say, what to think... a real angel.

She had resumed watching the crowd. "Why do they do that?" she asked suddenly, her gaze fixed on a young couple necking in the back.

My Catholic upbringing made me turn white as a sheet, that a holy angel should witness such indiscretion. So instead of explaining the subtleties of sex appeal, I just dismissed, "they're drunk," and absentmindedly took a sip of my own liquor.

Ever so carefully, she reached across the table and took the glass from my hand. She stared wonderingly at the brown liquid and asked, "so this is what makes you do it?" and put it to her lips.

I turned bright red and snatched it away from her. "No," I chortled, "it just... makes people less decent."

Her gaze had wandered back to the offending couple, and I almost thought she forgot I was there when she spoke next. "And that's worth breaking the rules for? Indecency?"

She really was an innocent. "The people here, they don't consider Prohibition a real law."

"And you?" she queried, turning her brilliant eyes back to me, "why do you break the laws so frequently?"

I had joined O'Banion's gang when I was only fourteen, running messages and laundered money under the guise of the neighborhood paperboy; growing up to become one of the North Siders' best gunmen had certainly put some deep stains on my soul. "You shouldn't be talking to a guy like me, if you're not working." I replied.

"It would not be. . .smiled upon," she said with an almost wicked look as she gazed at me over folded hands. That cravenness I had detected before was now brimming behind her eyes.

The last time a gal had given me a look like that, she didn't let me sleep a wink all night. But coming from the creature sitting in front of me, it was all I could do to keep from crossing myself and begging God's forgiveness for tempting one of his angels.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught Sal heading our way. Frantically, I tried to think of an appropriate way to introduce one of God's messengers until Sal laid a hand on my shoulder and smiled, "Thought you'd find someone to join you by now. Guess I'll have to keep you company myself."

I had forgotten no one else could see her. The angel gave me a gracious smile and stood just as Sal took the seemingly vacant chair.

"Somethin' wrong, darlin'?" Sal asked, reaching a concerned hand across the table to me as I watched the holy vision walk out the back door of the bar.

I didn't see her for three days, though I spent every free moment at Sal's, waiting. I wasn't sure what for, but I was convinced she had wanted something from me. There was such a wild hunger in her eyes.

I was on the job, actually, when I found her. I left my little apartment building in the crisp evening air and headed to Big Mike's place, buttoning my coat against a chilly autumn breeze. I was sticking to the back alleys just in case the cops were out. Wouldn't want to spoil a good alibi.

It was already getting dark and I smiled when I realized I was pretty close to Sal's. My brisk pace slowed, however, when I noticed a curiously familiar bundle beside the trashcans a little ahead of me. My heart stopped as I came close enough to see the silver feathers scattered around something dark and shivering.

I was almost afraid to look, so fearful was I of what that quivering body had to be. That glorious face, burned forever into my memory, turned up to me as I bent to lift her, eyes sparkling blue holes of fear and shame.

She weighed nothing at all without her wings. A few of the silver feathers were still clutched in her little fist as I took her back to my place.

She didn't speak for so long I thought perhaps she had lost her tongue as well. I put all the kindling I had left on the fire and wrapped her in my biggest flannel blanket. As a last desperate step I tried to give her some of my best hot coffee, but she just stared at the steam rising from the cup she had taken numbly into her little hands.

Finally I just sat on the couch and looked at her, still so beautiful, though with a markedly different radiance now. It was only then that I noticed the tears that had begun seeping from her brilliant eyes.

"I just wanted to see..." she said hollowly, still staring at absolutely nothing.

I moved closer, vowing to give her all the support I could. "See what?" I reached out to touch her, but drew back, unsure of how close she would want me to come.

"I just didn't understand," she sighed instead, bowing her head and shaking it bitterly.

I took the coffee from her and she collapsed into my chest.

I continued to hold her even after the tears had long stopped.

"What's God like?" I asked simply, as if I were a child.

"I wouldn't know," she only bitterly replied.

"I'm mortal now," she said to me the next morning. She hadn't wanted to sleep alone, but I had been nothing but a gentleman that first night in my narrow bed. When she got up I saw the thin, shimmering scars across her shoulderblades; she was wearing the same dress had been that last night at Sal's. What had happened to her between then and now? And what could I do for her, I wondered.

"This feeling in my stomach, is it hunger?"

She devoured the biscuits I found ravenously, so I decided we should go out for some eggs and bacon.

"I never asked you your name," I said helplessly to break the silence.

"Anriel," she breathed, the sadness she had momentarily forgotten in the repast returning to her eyes.

Anriel was too exotic a name for nineteen-twenties Chicago. "I should just call you Annie," I apathetically concluded, though the prospect of a new name seemed to please her. I could see the little tragedy pulling herself together as we sat there, recovering finally from catastrophe.

"I'm glad you're here for me, Sean," she said urgently, clasping my hand in hers as we sat at the sofa in my little apartment. "You've given up so much of yourself for me..."

"How could I not?" I replied feverishly. "You're still the most divine creature..." I trailed off as she looked away.

"I'm still and angel to you, aren't I?" she said dreamily, looking back at me after speaking. I could only nod; her beauty continued to take my breath away. "A holy piece of your awe-inspiring Church?" she continued.

Again she looked away. "I was indeed part of that great organization of angels," she said lowly, "but I knew no more of God or anything 'divine' than you do. We were charged with protecting the Earth, but our orders came only from a deluded archangel that claimed to have some intangible connection with what lies beyond."

Her eyes once again locked on mine, her gaze now horribly cold. "I have committed no great sacrilege, only lost forever the place I have always belonged." And the sorrow again cracked through her expressionless mask.

After a few days of moping, Anriel began to get restless. "Take me to Sal's tonight," she requested, bouncing on the sofa next to me.

"You want to go to Sal's?!" I asked incredulously. I think she was more over her Fall than I was.

But I could refuse her nothing. I bought her the most expensive bottle of wine Sal's basement had to offer and watched the little angel get as ossified as only a mortal can.

I sat by as she let herself be dragged to the dancefloor, giggling helplessly, by two spoiled college boys. She fumbled through the Charleston as I fondled the pistol under my jacket, reflecting on my mis-spent life, so far gone to hell that there could be no hope for redemption for me. And the angel that had seen empires rise and fall laughed until tears streamed down her face, coyly holding hands with some kid who was probably scared of his own shadow. It was apparent she had already forgotten the Gates of Heaven had so recently slammed shut forever in her face.

I heard her stagger through the door to my flat around four in the morning, and moments later, a large thud on the sofa.

"How did it happen?" I finally asked one evening, the first night she hadn't begged me to take her out and turn her loose in weeks.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, the old sad wisdom returned to her eyes and I finally remembered she wasn't just a silly girl enjoying her youth with plenty of giggle water and necking.

She stared off into the distance, as she was often given to. "Angels must be a presence simply felt in the material world. We perform miracles, help and protect every single day, but we can't have... direct contact with your kind."

I interrupted her, shocked. "You mean this is because you talked to me?" I asked incredulously.

She smiled, faintly, and graciously shook her head. "You're an adept. We can't help coming into contact with people like you, though we usually reserve such encounters for more divine messages. No, I grew fascinated with the human condition, your emotions, and freedoms. I observed love... and desire."

She paused, and I didn't even want to hear anymore.