Iris walked down the streets of Heaven, checking the alleyways and rubbing her bandaged wing. Everyone was sleeping around this time, so the streets were empty. Either that or the angels were too afraid of going out. Iris saw a pair of rats run in the shadows. It made her wonder if those were dead rats or if they had somehow weaseled their way into Heaven. Those things were probably somewhere down in Hell too. Although, she knew roaches tended to be more of a problem down there.

“You’re not an angel,” said a voice from the shadows. Iris looked behind her, seeing something shifting around. Now she could see a figure slightly illuminated by the street lamps.

“Look at the halo,” she frowned, taking the small disk down from her head and tapping it. “I think I could pass.”

“The red skin gives us away,” the man said, stepping fully into the light. He was a carvation like her, but had these brown hawk wings and sharp scorpion tail. Instead of normal fingers, he had sharp talons as well.

“I went to The Living once and forgot to change the skin. Everyone believed I was a sunburnt human.”

“Do you ever wonder why only humans get to come here?” he asked, looking at an angel looking fearfully at them through a window then turning back to Iris. “Where do you think we go after we die?”

“I try not to think about it,” Iris said, slowly backing away and taking deep breaths. “By the way, I’m Iris.”

“Gryft,” the man coughed, starting to circle her. “I’ll give you a deal, Iris. If you turn a blind eye to some angels going missing, I’ll let you walk away scott free.”

“We both know you’ll just take a swing as soon as I turn my back,” she spat.

“Ah well,” Gryft smiled, poising his talons. “Don’t say I didn’t give you an easier way out.”

Gryft lunged at Iris, pouncing with a smile as she yelped and rolled aside to the ground. She rubbed her bandaged wing and Gryft pounced again; once again she barely dodged. They played a slight game of cat and mouse, with Iris barely dodging the carvation’s savage swings. The truth was that Gryft was letting her get away. He enjoyed the chase.

“C’mon, fight back,” he grinned. “I want a real fight! Those angels are all soft as hell, but I know you can give me a match!”

Iris turned around and started to make a dash, but Gryft decided it was time to end it, since she wasn’t fighting back. In a flash, he zoomed up to her, reeled his talons, and stabbed her right through the back. To his surprise, the carvation did not bleed. She let out a gasp and fell to the ground, disappearing into clouds of light as Gryft tried to figure out what was going on. Then, he got hit in the back of the head with something. It was… a mailbox? Someone’s mailbox was walking around with an oddly animated vigor.

“Man, that was a nice copy too,” Iris sighed with a smirk. “I had to work hard to make her convincing. Even Max couldn’t tell the difference.”

“Trick magic…” Gryft growled.

“Great stuff, isn’t it?”

Iris waved her hand at more objects around. A couple lamp posts, some mail boxes, a package pickup box, and someone’s lawn chair all jumped at Gryft while Iris had small electric shocks arc between her fingers. All the objects pinned the carvation to the ground.

“So where are the angels?” Iris asked, her voice drained of any playfulness.

“Gone,” he smiled. “.”

Gryft threw the things holding him down off of him, and they all clattered to the ground lifelessly. As he reached for Iris’ throat, she put an electric hand on his chest. He screamed and groaned, throwing Iris down an alleyway and into a wall.

“Never mind,” he coughed, looking at the scorched handprint on his shirt. “I think I liked you better when you didn’t try to stop my heart.”

As he walked down the alleyway, Iris tried thinking about what would stop him. Of course, carvations could take a lot more than most living things before they got knocked out. Iris never found that a problem until now. Did carvations have any real definite weaknesses…?

“I’m going to enjoy ripping your wings out,” Gryft growled. “I’ll take your halo and uses it as a ring toss hoop and-”

He was interrupted by a brick ripping out of the house beside them and hurling towards his shoulder. Out of reflex, he quickly reached out a hand and caught it. It made him chuckle from barely stopping it.

“Nice try,” he grinned. “That trick reminds me of something a friend did to me one time. After this I’ll have to drop by and give her a-”

Gryft was, once again, interrupted by another brick coming towards him. He caught it again with his other hand. Unfortunately, he couldn’t catch the next few dozen bricks ripping out of the walls. Nor the ones that popped out of the sidewalk. They all wrapped around the man, pressing into his skin and fusing together, eventually wrapping him in a brick cocoon. Gryft slammed and pounded the brick, cracking and breaking them as they were quickly replaced. Iris made sure his prison was air-tight though, and eventually the resistance stopped.

Iris finally slumped totally to the ground, completely exhausted of her magic. She wished that her wing didn’t restrict her magic usage. She could’ve flown circles around the guy and blown him out of the sky with magic. Though, exhausting herself worked well too.

“Um…” said an angel, looking through her now-nonexistent wall. “Is this going to be replaced soon?”

“Call the doctor first,” Iris groaned. “And I might put in the request for you sooner.”