Immaculate

"That stuff last night. Do you do that often?"

"What stuff?" asked Dante, looking up as the waitress placed a large plate of pancakes in front of Emily. He nodded as she waved the coffee pot at him, and wrapped himself around the cup when she'd finished.

"I mean," Emily leaned in, lowering her voice to a whisper "Rescuing women an alleys and throwing angels off buildings"

"Oh. Yeah. More then you'd expect, anyway" he said, with a grin.

They were sitting in a cafe around the corner from Dante's office. Emily had appeared at his door almost as soon as Dante had opened the blinds. He'd taken one look at her, said "what, no coffee?" and grabbed his coat.

"What was last night about? Why did he come after me?"

“Honestly, I don’t know. It thought your soul was in danger from something. But everyone’s soul is in danger from something. According to the rules he follows, that’s pretty much the deal with ‘life’. The instructions are pretty clear – humans have free will.”

“Am I safe now, or will there be others?”

“Well, Gwinette isn’t actually dead. To take on physical form, angels – and demons – have to obey the basic rules of the universe, which means they can be killed. Except all killing them really does is send them back to the spiritual realm.”

“So he can come back?”

“Well, it takes time and effort to generate a body – especially the sort of body they like to ride around it. So you’re safe for probably 6 months or so. But more importantly, Gwinette was almost certainly acting alone. And now he’ll be subject to the discipline of his order.”

“There’s one thing that been bugging me since you dropped me home last night. You know, apart from the whole ‘mythical winged creature trying to kill me to save my soul’ thing. Why were you in that alley last night?”

Everything else had been foreplay. This question was the main event.

“I was working a case. I was hired to protect you.”

“Hired by who?”

“The client specifically asked to remain anonymous. Well, anonymous to you.” Dante smiled. He was looking forward to the next bit. She might demand. She might rage. She might pout or sulk. Hopefully she’d try to use her charms to get the information. Whatever she tried, it would be interesting.

Instead, much to Dante’s disappointment she just let it go with a shrug. Apparently the main event was still coming.

“I want to know why that angel was after me. I want to hire you.”