On this fine morning, Uriel had gone off by himself to enjoy the sun and get a cup of coffee. He took a long time deciding what he wanted, spent a long time waiting, and finally exited the store and headed for the alley where his bike was parked. In spite of the cafe staff’s slothlike manner, he was in a decent mood. He surveyed the barren roads with pleasure. Trees were beginning to lose their leaves, and with the sinking thermostat he could throw on a jacket without changing his shirt each day. He'd gotten up early for coffee, so the piteous service didn't matter much.

He sipped.

The street was bright and gloriously empty, save for one unmissable object. Lumbering at him from the opposite direction was a slouched, square-shouldered man in a huge black coat. His face was roughly bandaged and looked punched out of granite. From his stride you could tell: he had spotted a target and knew exactly what he was headed for.

“Oh SHIT,” Uriel gargled, tripping on his own feet and splattering coffee all over the front of his shirt.

He took a gulp and dumped the cup. Then it was a race to his bike, leaping on and dragging out the key in one fluid motion. It took him all of two seconds, gear, clutch, ignition and he was ready to go. The priest (because what else could it have been?) had now reached the entrance of the alley where he had parked.

Uriel swore again as he accelerated right into the awaiting human barricade.

There was a tremendous thud and he almost shot out of his seat, had he not grappled the handles in terror. For a moment he was suspended in the air along with his bike, wheels humming haplessly a foot off the ground, lifted by the force of some immovable object. Then he dropped, and every joint and bolt and tire creaked and complained with the impact. As soon as he realized he was safe, he was annoyed. He considered hitting the gas again, but decided against it.

He set his feet on the pavement. His knees threatened to buckle. “What do you want?”

“I want to know if you were at the Church last night.” Patches said flatly. He had his hand against the front of the bike, over the headlights, as though he were suppressing a wild animal.

“No. Nope, never set foot in that place.”

“I thought that I saw you there.”

“And I said, I’ve never been in there.”

“Ah. That’s right, you would have been waiting outside.” With grave seriousness he pressed on. “Were you waiting in the park behind the Church last night?”

“No, I-”

“Your motorcycle looks like the ones that were there.”

“A lot of guys ride bikes around here, a lot of them look like this, you’re looking for someone else.”

“They all say you’re the leader.”

“Me? What did they say, a guy on a bike with a jacket or something?”

“A guy going to get coffee at this time, at this place. There is nobody else here, but you. Like they said.”

Uriel could have screamed, but he’d save that for the company later. He grit his teeth and faced Patches head on.

“Why are you looking for bikes? It’s not like the guys around here are criminals. That’s movie logic, fake old person logic. Prejudice. We’re just like mailmen. It’s a job, we gotta get places, so we're on bikes.”

"You must have time to do otherwise."

"The hell- am I supposed to keep records of what I do off the job? Sorry, but I don't keep timetables on everyone's business to and from home."

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Then why are you here?”

”Some men on bikes took away an important guest, but there was also-”

“They took a what?”

“A guest. And there was someone else, what I really want to know is-”

Uriel was shaking his head rapidly. “Look, I respect you guys as much as anyone else. I wouldn’t do anything to cause you trouble, your guest or whatever you call it, I don’t know what happened but I gotta be somewhere-”

“You were there.’

“No, I wasn’t. At that time, I was-”

”I don’t care much what you were doing. I just want to know from you, who else was there.”

Looming inches from Uriel’s sweating hairline, Patches’ one eye narrowed, the bandage on his face also creased menacingly, folds forming a face of their own. Uriel was sure he was going to be killed. How unfair, it had started off as such a good day.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You helped them escape.”

"Who? Who escape?"

"That's what I'm here to learn. One was our contestant, but the other... If you know someone else I should be speaking to..." Patches tapped the front of the bike, mangled fingers running over the frail glass. Uriel shuddered.

“Okay, okay, fine, you can keep saying I was there. But, since that's not true, that doesn’t mean I can answer any questions about who was there or not. I’ve never been inside the Church.”

“That’s fine then. I want to know who you saw leaving.”

Uriel groaned. “People leaving, a.k.a, people who were inside. Don’t know. Come on, man, I’m trying to work with you. Please.”

The last part was tacked on as Patches thoughtfully pulled his hand into a fist on Uriel’s headlights. He didn’t take a swing, but seemed to be deeply considering something. Uriel twisted the handles away.

“Sorry, but I have to go. I’m gonna be late.”

“Just a moment more. This may sound odd, but tell me if you know any of these people.”

“I wasn’t there!”

“They don’t have to be people who were there. They can be people you know from other places.” Patches pointed at himself. “First.”

“I don’t-”

“Someone who looks like this. Like me. A brother, a cousin. Something like that.”

“I don’t get it. Family? You think I know your family? Got a name?”

“No. I don’t know. I only heard what he looked like. A man who looks like me in hair, eye... something.”

Uriel had been trying as hard as he could not to look this raving lunatic in the eye for the entire conversation. At this, he knew he was being inspected, so he snuck a look, maybe he could scrounge up an answer. What was there to see? A mean looking character, for sure. Maybe a little tired. Pale hair, dark eyes - presumed from the one that wasn't covered. He was heavy around the shoulders, but standing against Uriel, he was only of medium height. In short, he resembled nearly all of the city's working population and at least fifty people Uriel could name. Daring a glance into the one dim gray eye, a certain someone did drift into mind.

“Uh… maybe.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I can’t be sure. You, uh… you… look like a lot of people I know. Not a bad thing, but, you see...”

At that moment, down the street, at least three average looking people with similarly pale hair and tired pre-coffee faces emerged from the cafe, took one look at Uriel’s predicament with one of the city’s priests and speed-walked around the nearest corner, out of sight.

“You see those guys? We all look real similar. I really can't say, man.”

Patches sighed. “Second person I’m looking for. I don’t know what he looks like but he was there that night, at the Ring. He didn’t fight but he was in the building.”

“Oh, come on.”

“There's one thing I know. He’s rich. He met with my organizer, gave a lot of money around the same time as our important guest got taken away. Probably very rich, my organizer was happy.”

Uriel bit his lip. Here was someone he was fairly sure of by that description alone. Someone who wouldn’t appreciate being ratted out, but hell, he had been the one who wandered into the accursed place. He could take care of himself. “That sounds like Magnus Long.”

“That name sounds familiar.”

“It would. The famous architect. Or rather, one of a family of architects, planners, whatever. You don't know who he is? He’s always in the news, he practically owns the city, got spies everywhere. He’s probably watching us now.”

“Can I speak to him?”

“Speak to him? What, you want me to- no, I don’t have that kind of sway. See that building, and that one?” There was no way he could miss them. Over to the south was the blinding glass eye in the sky known as Phoenix Building, and to the east, the slightly less flamboyant but unreasonably tall Dragon Building. “Those are his. You can usually find him inside one of those. Good luck getting an appointment, though.”

Patches looked as though Uriel were trying to introduce him to aliens. Uriel felt a twinge of pity. Had the guy never looked at the skyline in his life?

Patches slowly nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Uh. No problem.”

“One more.” This one appeared to be troubling him. He ground his black and blue fingers against the unfortunate headlight, wrenching it forward again. Uriel was pulled with them. “I think this is the one who took our... important guest away.”

“Oh man. Okay, I’ll hear this out, but you know I don’t even know what was going on in there, what the guest was doing-”

“I’m not interested in the guest. It’s the one who helped him escape, he broke into a locked room and attacked in the dark. He, ah… er…”

Uriel dared to suspect he wasn’t facing the brightest of bulbs. But still, there was reason to be careful.

“He was armed. Blades, maybe more. Um, pretty heavy, very fast. When he was hit he didn’t fall, but bent a bit like rubber, and held on, went for the legs and back. Um, he was breathing hard, his breath was quite hot, so he-”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know a lot of people by their weight. Or by their breathing. You would happen to have any idea what this person looks like?”

“No. I didn’t see."

"Close enough to get breathed on and know how heavy, but didn't see a thing?"

"Maybe, dark hair. And light eyes, very bright color.” Patches said. It was a reflexive guess, nonsensically hopeful. "That’s just a guess.”

“Pretty specific guess. And you say you didn’t see him.” Uriel was able to form a cold, calm smile, mostly for himself. “But when you describe a guy like that, plus some crazy attack scheme, it’s gotta be Val.”

The dead eyed stare widened.

Uriel added lamely, “He’s the only one I know who looks like that.”

“Val. Huh. So it was him."

The name seemed to hit Patches like a revelation. He inhaled sharply and his hand came off the front of the bike and the front wheel bounced upward, only then did Uriel realize how hard he had been pressing down. He was now sure he was going to get a beatdown (again, why? It was all so unfair.) but Patches just turned and stepped to the side of the alley by a dumpster, eyes affixed to the red brick wall of a nearby building.

Uriel scooted the bike onto the road. He was ready to go, but there was the bizarre priest, suddenly entranced with the boring dusty wall. Uriel's fingers twitched at the handles. He gritted his teeth, leaned over, and gave Patches a tap on the back. This didn’t get nearly as much of a reaction as Val's name, but at least he seemed to regain consciousness.

“So, we good?”

“Where can I find Val?”

Uriel shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“But you know who he is.”

“I know him well enough to know he’s even harder to find than Magnus. He doesn’t have any duties. If he fucked around with something down at the church, that’s news to me. You see, I never really know what he’s doing at any time.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No kidding. I also wish I knew what he was up to sometimes. But he’s, ugh-”

“He’s surprising.”

Uriel shrugged. “That sounds about right. I guess you do know him. So, I can go? No further questions?”

“Yes. You’ve been a great help. Thank you.”

“Alright. Uh, you okay? You’re looking a little...”

Patches nodded, face creased in a frown. Uriel inspected his headlights and saw the greasy imprint of a hand on the glass. When he reached to wipe it, he seemed to just leave more sweaty marks. At this point he decided the priest could just go fuck himself and stare into a wall until a truck ran him down.

And Val could go fuck himself too. Uriel was always incredulous with the people Magnus chose for such crucial work. Obviously Val hadn’t done such a good job that night, because one of those black coat killers was after him now, a pretty dim one but enough power to knock back an accelerating motorbike, so not someone who'd stop easily.

Without his coffee, Uriel was just cranky enough to hope they would kill each other.

He felt bad about the whole thing afterward, as he always did. He spent the rest of his beautiful day cooped up indoors in repentance.

---

A fitful night’s sleep was followed by another radio-confirmed beautiful day. Patches woke up later than usual, and proceeded to stare into the spectacle on his ceiling. Despite how well-lit the harsh curves and textures were now that the sun had risen, they did not dig into his vision too badly. His head was pleasantly numb. He recalled a dream. To dream at all was unusual. He attributed his strangeness to his extended slumber. No images in particular came back to him upon waking, though, just the soft and doubtful awareness that something had drained away.

The remaining memory he felt hung shakily, a skeletal image of someone beside him, until he opened his front door, and was plunged into the mid-morning light flooding into the residential cloister.

He showered, ate, and went to the chapel again, out of habit. He entered the confessional booth at the dark corner of the room and sat, unwinding into the cool emptiness, now thinking of nothing but clouds.

It was hot as the middle of summer. Without any forseen services, the main hall and chapel didn’t switch on the air conditioning. As always, he wasn’t sure if he liked it, but didn’t have any particular complaints. At this point it was somewhat nostalgic. He just needed the smell of grass and antiseptic in the wind. The sound of cicadas.

Instead, at noon, he heard the sound of chewing.

In the booth beside him, there was a visitor. Again. And this time, they were eating. It was not nearly as subtle as the breath or the light grazing of his hair, there was no attempt to hide. It was admirably bold. This unseen visitor was really going at some sort of soft but doughy substance with enthusiasm.

He couldn’t think of what to say. For a moment, he considered just getting up and leaving. But the rogue prank of the day before pressed him to do otherwise. It wasn't fair to leave someone without answers.

So instead, he said, “Hello.”

There was a surprised “Gah!” and the sound of coughing. The coughing went on so long Patches thought to get up, again, and make sure no fatal accident had occurred, but as he started to stand, the visitor managed to clear his throat. “You scared me.”

A whine obscured by a mouth of food. And this being the first time Patches had spoke to someone in the booth, he was surprised by the echo. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize someone was here.”

“That makes two of us.”

“When did you come in?”

“Earlier.” The chewing resumed. “Earlier today. I dozed off and when I woke up, I figure it was already lunchtime.”

“I didn’t realize,” Patches said again. “I would have said something if I knew you were there.”

“You come here often.”

It didn’t sound like a question. “Yes. Almost every day.”

“You work the confessional? Wait, is that what you call it.... You work for the church, right?”

“Yes. But I don’t do the services or prayers. I should not actually be in the booth, but there are no services happening right now. So it’s fine. It usually is.”

“How daring. Though I shouldn’t be here either.”

“You’re a guest. If you need to confess, you’re are allowed to come whenever you want. I... I should go, though.”

“What? We just got introduced. Okay, okay, I really just came to snooze and eat. But if you don’t tell anyone, I won’t tell 'em about you.” The sharp crunch for emphasis. “Well, being able to talk isn’t so bad either. Hey, you free to talk?”

“I have time... but... I have to leave soon, regardless.”

“Just asking. Since we’re here.”

“If you need to talk, I’ll go call someone who is qualified, just wait here.”

“I don’t mind talking to you.”

Patches peered into the darkness that separated him from the visitor. “I doubt I have the advice you need.”

"Ah, you can just listen."

"I can do that. For a while."

“It’s alright, This is more of an apology. To you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Not from you! Aagh...” The muffled chewing continued, and then Patches heard a cartoonishly loud gulp. When the voice picked up again the mouth had cleared, but its tone had dropped, unnaturally, several octaves. “I'm saying sorry, to you. Even though I know you weren’t the one who freaked out, I was here first, and you know, I woke up right after you came in. I should have said something, but I was scared. When I saw you in the doorway, I could tell, you were one of those priests. The ones who work the, uh, Rings.”

“You can tell?”

“How could I not?”

Patches didn’t say anything.

“Anyway, I saw you, and since you didn’t see me, I didn’t want to spook you because, hah, um, you know. There’s talk around town. That the church does things to people, the bodies, the fights… but I just wanna say, rumors are rumors, you seem just fine. A real… upstanding guy.”

“I don’t -- that’s fine. It’s fine.” Patches was speechless, but a pleasant sort of stunned.

“So I’m sorry for creeping in and hiding. It’s just because I’m a coward. That’s it.”

“You’re so willing to say it, I’m sure you’re not a coward.”

“That’s nice of you. You know, you might be more qualified than you think for this kinda service. Or not, this is my first time talking here, so what do I know? But whew, there is is, off my chest. So we can both sit here and enjoy the scenery now, right?

“Right.”

“That was a joke. I can’t see anything in here, did they shove this thing in a dark corner on purpose? But... it is relaxing, to look at nothing, sometimes. That’s why I’m here, I guess that’s what I want to see.”

The visitor seemed to understand - or maybe he had missed the point entirely since the peace was broken when he loudly resumed his meal. Patches wondered if there was anything else he could be doing. “What are you eating?”

“Want to see? Haha- seeing- just said I can’t see squat. But wait, I know, here-”

There was a small, damp splat.

“What was that?” Patches asked.

“Um. Nothing. Here, come over, up to the grate. Just hands, right here. Where are you?”

The visitor tapped the grate a few times. Too baffled to object, Patches put one hand against the metal. There was a whirlwind of tapping against the grate, and then something thin, cold - a finger - jabbed at his wrist. ”Gotcha. Wait right there.”

A crinkle of plastic. Then there was another damp splat, and this time the object landed on his arm. He drew it back slowly and attempted to pick off whatever he’d been given off his sleeve.

“There you go. Eat up. It’s not poison.”

Patches smelled, it ate it. It was some sort of vegetable, probably a carrot. It was hard to tell, since it was thoroughly soaked in mayonnaise or some similar thick condiment. He crunched silently and put his hands on his lap.

“What do you think?”

“It’s…”

“It’s bland. I didn’t add enough sauce. Want more?”

“No thanks. But… thank you.”

“Not hungry then. Or do you have to go?”

“I should.”

“Well I’m staying a little longer. Gotta finish this sandwich.”

“Alright,” Patches said again, and stood. As he opened the door, there was another fit of choking from the other booth.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

“Ahem, you had an eyepatch or something when you came in?”

And with the wedge of light coming from the open door, he saw where it was, on the floor next to a cream-covered slab of sliced eggplant. In his confusion he had completely forgotten them both. He turned his back to the grate and the visitor, then snapped the bandage up.

“I’m sorry. Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Why are you sorry?”

Injuries weren’t rare on the priests of the Ring, but his was not what they would call normal. It wasn’t an injury caused by the Ring, either, which was one reason it was considered so abnormal. Eyes were bruised and burst in the Ring of Light with regular frequency, but these cases were invariably accidents and the priests always agreed that these accidents, as horrific as they were, looked very different from an intentional gouging. They had a frame of reference right in front of them.

Nobody wanted to look at an intentional gouging. Patches sometimes considered himself lucky. Unable to look himself in the face regularly, he was not subjected to the reminder. He didn’t feel any more there than he did anywhere else, so when he picked poking fallen hairs from the wrinkles in it, nothing particularly unpleasant came to mind. But there were the faces of those around him. To them, it seemed either an inspiration or reminder of something worse than it had been.

Because, though they didn’t know it, and couldn’t - losing it hadn’t been so bad.

When a young child threw up after looking at him during a church function, he made sure he always wore something to cover it; and of course apologize for and quickly remedy any situation in which he might forget.

“Are you sure you should be putting that back on? It was on the floor, right?”

“I’ll get a new one later. Sorry. I know it looks…”

“Not your fault.”

“Unpleasant...”

“Don’t worry about it.” Slow crunch. “Doesn't bother me.”

For someone who had been too scared to talk, that sounded awfully confident. Patches glanced back at the screen. The light coming through his door threw a sharp triangle of brightness through the metal chains, illuminating his visitor - but only the lower half. The shoulders, up to the crucial face were a quick cutoff to the shadows.

In the triangle, Patches saw two hands illuminated, and a white bread sandwich bursting with an unreasonable amount of fillings, oozing orange dressing. There were tomatoes and cucumbers on the visitor’s lap. One of the hands pulled away from the sandwich to wave goodbye. With only one hand for support, out fell a wad of chicken.

Patches collected the scraps of food that had been thrown at him, waved back at the half-hidden visitor, and left.