They landed in one of those tiny nations that fell somewhere between the so-called first world and emerging world. It wasn't unusual, in such a place, to see armed military at the airport. Insecure leaders always felt the need to make a fuss by displaying their power and might.

Given that, the first sign of trouble Daniel noticed was the utter lack of security. A single customs agent waved them through after a cursory glance in their carry on bags. No soldiers guarded the gates. No police officers watched over the crowd. Only a few frazzled airline employees seemed to be standing in the gap between order and chaos.

The princess took her bag from the conveyor belt and smiled at him over her shoulder. "Don't cause too much mischief out there, now," she said.

He grinned. "Me? Nah. Wouldn't dream of it." His eyes stayed on the curve of her backside until she was out of sight. He turned to see the old man with the passport stamp staring after her, too. He sighed, thwapped the stamp against the counter where he thought he saw Daniel's passport and waved him through without a word.

The second sign of trouble was in the taxi line. Twelve rusty black and yellow cabs were lined up at the curb. From behind the windows, twelve pairs of glowing yellow eyes glared at him.

"Bloody Earth," he mumbled under his breath. Demons. They always congregated where they smelled impending disaster, pain and suffering a favorite delicacy among their kind.

The driver's door of the third taxi opened and a man stepped out. He stood taller than Daniel and broader at the shoulder, as was common among the men of this part of the world. He walked too fast to pass for human, if anyone cared to pay attention to such things. Of course, no one did.

When he'd come close enough that Daniel could smell the stink of sulfur clinging to him he spoke, a dozen voices in the discordant melody of Hell. "Why are you here, angel?"

Daniel slipped his hands into his pockets. "I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and honk up a better question than that."

The demons pulled the taxi driver's brows down into a frown of confusion. "What?"

The angel chortled. "Don't worry about it, mates. I'm just a Watcher, here to Watch, not interfere. Besides, there's no way I'm the only angel this side of the Danube."

"You're the only one who showed up here, at this hour."

Bollocks. Something was about to happen at the airport. He shrugged, taking a casual glance around himself. Three reapers on motorcycles pulled up to the curb behind the taxi stand. "This is where and when the plane landed," he told the demons.

They cocked the driver's head to one side. "Why'd you take a plane anyway?"

Daniel winked. "Girls, mate."

The demons blinked with the man's eyes, trying to make sense of that answer.

The princess stepped out of the airport, a pretty pink daisy in a field of boring black and grey. A woman in a black Burka walked a few paces behind her. Only her quick brown eyes showed through a slit in her veil.

Daniel made a point of not paying attention to them. "Well, mates. It's been perfectly awful seeing you, and I hope the rest of your day will be just as pleasant as you are." He turned to walk away.

Four more Reapers stepped off the Hilton shuttle bus.

The angel lacked a literal heart, but if he'd had one, it would have been pounding. A single Reaper could transition half a dozen dead. If seven were here...

A long black car pulled to the curb and two more emerged.

Moving as one, the demons in the taxi line opened their doors and exited the vehicles. Those inside the man before Daniel hissed in garish excitement. "Time to eat," they said joining their fellows in moving toward the airport.

An explosion somewhere beyond the front doors of the building sent shockwaves through the earth.

Daniel let go of the illusion of being a man. In shining silver armor, with wings spread out behind him, he raced toward the princess. She cowered against a concrete retaining wall. The guardian stood before her, her black robes nearly concealing the girl. Her shining silver sword gleamed in her hand.

A second explosion sent a shower of glass, carried on a wave of heat in their direction.

The Guardian held her position.

The debris rained down on Daniel and covered the sidewalk, leaving a clean circle of space around the two women.

The Guardian met Daniel's eyes. "This isn't your fight, Watcher."

He itched to draw his own sword, but he knew she spoke truth. The demons were here to feast on the chaos, but the act itself was not demonic. This was nothing more than politics--humans killing humans for power or land or religion that as far removed from True Faith as could be. It was not his role to interfere in the actions and consequences of humans.

"Daniel?" The girl from the plane peeked around her protector's legs with wide eyes. He knew she saw him as he really was, bedecked in silver armor, carrying a sword on his back, shining with light that glowed from the core of his form, with wings that arched up from his shoulders and trailed all the way to the ground.

He winked at her. "You're jammy, Highness. This one'll keep you safe."

Leaving her in the care of the one who'd been sent to protect her, he took to the sky. From there, he did what he'd been created to do. He Watched.

He Watched as humans fought and died just like they'd done since Cain took his first swing at Abel, and he ached for them, for he loved them and, like all angels, longed for them to live up to their potential, which was extreme. After all, of all the beings, only humans were created in The Image.

He Watched the Guardian as she moved the princess further and further from harm's way in careful fits and starts.

He Watched the Reapers gather the souls of the dead and take them on to their next journey in popping flashes of light.

He Watched the soldiers appear, seemingly from nowhere to round up the crowds and take control. These were not the warriors of the regime whose demise he'd just witnessed, but those of the new leader. A leader that would rule and die like every leader before them.

He bore witness, and he wept for the race he held so dear.

Then his eyes fell on an inky black stain spreading across the pavement near the place he'd spoken with the taxi-driver thing.

A slow smile spread across his face.

It was not a Watcher's place to interfere in human business, but all the angels were charged to stand in the gap when the forces of Hell moved against mankind.

The fight he itched for had just come to him.

The smokey shadows rolling across the ground solidified and took on form. Four of them with greedy eyes and sharp teeth.

Even as he descended, a falling star cutting through the smoke of battle, he lifted his sword from its scabbard. The blade sang at being unleashed.

The shadow crawlers turned their faces toward him, hissing when he landed in their midst.

"'Ello, boys! God is good, but you lot look like your faces caught fire in Hell and someone tried to put it out with a load of wet bricks."

They moved on him as one and, with a laugh of pure joy, he swung his sword at the atrocities. An explosion of sulfur burst into the sky when the edge of the blade made contact with the creature closest to him.

A powerful hand, hot, slick, and sharp-clawed grabbed him from behind. Long fingers wrapped around his face.

He threw his body forward, at the same time thrusting his sword back and upward from his hip.

The jagged nails ripped through his face, from nose to right temple in the second before the demon shrieked in agony and burst into physical non-existence.

A hard blow from the left sent him sprawling across the pavement. The sword clattered away. Both demons were on him. The agony of Hell clung to their forms. It radiated from them, an aura of despair and regret, but it could get no further than the surface of his being before burning in the Light of Heaven.

One creature slammed a fist into his jaw. Stars exploded in his vision.

"Go back where you came from, foul beast!" Daniel shouted, yanking a dagger from a sheath on his leg and slamming it into the demon's chest.

The pressure pinning him to the ground disappeared.

He scrambled to his feet to see the fourth creature running from him--running toward the souls being gathered by a Reaper in a beige trench coat.

Tossing the dagger in the air, he caught it by its tip, took careful aim, and launched it. It sank in the center of the beast's back at the same moment the pain in Daniel's side registered in his mind. He looked down at the armor there, dented so badly it dug into him under his arm.

"That'll leave a bruise," he muttered to himself.

Turning, he took in the scene. The destruction was done. It had taken years to build this place and a few minutes to destroy it. The seeds of fear that had been sown would spread roots through the generations. Men, women, and children cowered and wept in groups in sheltered alcoves and behind overturned vehicles. Bodies and parts of bodies lay scattered like so many fallen tree branches after a storm.

He bore witness to the carnage, but then, as always, his attention turned to Truth.

A woman held her child's blanket as a bandage against a man's bleeding head. She whispered words of comfort to him, promising that help would be on the way.

A young man carried an elder toward the soft, clean grass on the far side of the road.

Three grey-haired ladies surrounded a pregnant girl, pressing her to sip water, to lie down, to breathe deeply.

For age upon age, he had Watched, as he'd been created to do. He had learned in that time that no species in the universe held within them the sick-spirited brokenness that led to this kind of malicious destruction of their own species.

No other species in the universe could rally together to care for each other so selflessly in the face of death and chaos.

There were times when he wondered if Heaven allowed these atrocities of darkness in order to showcase the bright, shining light of those created in His image.

Moving slowly, he retrieved his dagger and his sword and slid them back into their sheaths, wincing at lifting his arm above his head.

The Reaper with the trench coat and another in jeans and a torn tee-shirt passed him and nodded in greeting. "Watcher." Dark circles hung heavy under their eyes. Their shoulders slumped forward. They walked with careful, deliberate steps.

He inclined his head respectfully. "Reapers."

Ambulances with piercing sirens and flashing lights appeared in the distance.

A new flag was raised on the pole in front of the airport.

Politics. A new leader had risen. Soon enough they, too, would succumb to something supposedly new.

The fisherman, Peter, had written the Truth. People are like grass that withers and flowers that fall. Only the Word of the Lord endures forever.

"Daniel?"

The sound of his name turned his head.

The girl from the plane stood twenty feet away. No bruise marred her flawless skin. No strand of hair was out of place. The Guardian had done well.

He took a deep breath and called the energy of earth to himself. A veneer of human flesh covered his angelic form. This body hurt more than the other one. He pressed a hand to his bruised ribs. Smiled. Sucked air through his teeth. Bloody earth! He'd forgotten the cut on his face.

She swallowed hard. "You're hurt."

"All you've seen and that's the first thing you say?"

A little frown line appeared between her perfect brows. "What did I see?"

She was human. Earthbound, and far from death. Thanks be to God and the Guardian who'd protected her. Her mind would spend the next few hours coming up with rational explanations for the forms that had boiled up out of the pavement, the woman in black who'd defended her with the skill of an elite warrior, and the man who'd sprouted wings and shining armor. By the next morning, it would all be a dream and her story would be one of luck and happenstance. She'd believe she'd been saved from a terrible act because she'd stepped out of the building at the right moment.

"Do you know anything about what happened here?" he asked her.

Through tear-filled eyes, she looked at all that was around them. "I... my uncle was to be crowned. No one thought... he was so far down the line of succession... he was kind to me as a child." The end of her sentence dissolved into a hiccuping sob. "They killed him, didn't they?"

He had no idea if whoever was behind all this had murdered her uncle, but the odds weren't in the old man's favor. He didn't tell her that. He didn't tell her anything. With his good arm, he pulled her close and held her while she wept.

In the distance, the Russian spy emerged from the ruined front doors of the airport. He'd given up all attempt at subterfuge. He walked with the careful movements of a trained soldier, a nine millimeter Makarov pistol clutched in his hands.

He spotted Daniel and the princess and jogged toward them, bowed his head awkwardly. "Majesty, we can get you to safety."

She sniffed and pulled out of Daniel's embrace. "Who are you?"

"Lieutenant Albert Vasiliev, Russian ground forces."

Wiping her nose with the back of her hand, she nodded. Apparently, Russian allies appearing out of nowhere when she needed them was par for the course in her world. "Can you help him?" She asked the Lieutenant, gesturing toward Daniel.

Daniel held up a hand. "Not as bad as it looks. I'm fine. Can you get her out now? Before those troops get out of their trucks and cover the area?"

"I have a chopper in preflight right now."

"Good." He pressed his hands to either side of the beautiful woman's face and turned it upward toward his. "You get home safe, Zofia. You're a national treasure."

"Who are you, really?" she asked.

He smiled through the pain. "Just a traveler." The kiss between them was soft and lingering and had the effect of turning his knees to water.

Then she was gone. He stayed and Watched the helicopter disappear into the sky. He Watched the soldiers spread out. He Watched the sick be lifted onto stretchers and born away. He staggered to a nearby hotel lobby and, on modern flat-screen TVs, he Watched the new queen give a long speech in which she said nothing.

He Watched because that's what he'd been created to do.