AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've envisioned this script-format bit as a
black-and-white, film-noir-style prologue to the story proper, the
scene that runs before the opening credits in the style of the James
Bond 007 movies, if you will.

[EXTERIOR, NIGHT: MARLAEL, an old-fashioned, square-jawed,
trenchcoat-and-hat-wearing private eye in the noir tradition, emerges
from the smoking ruins of a warehouse, scorched and battered but
essentially unharmed.  He coughs out some smoke, dusts himself off,
adjusts his hat, and then starts walking for home.  A block or two
down the street he reaches a lamp post, where he finds LUCIFER
waiting.  MARLAEL just slumps a little, too tired and resigned to
bother drawing his weapon.]

MARLAEL: All right, what do -you- want?

LUCIFER: Relax, angel, I won't harm you tonight.  Normally we would be
enemies, but tonight you have saved a favored servant of mine from...
considerable inconvenience.  I feel I owe you a favor. 

MARLAEL ('skeptical' doesn't really cover his expression, but it's as
good a description as we're going to get in English): Oh really. 

LUCIFER: Really.  Is there anything I can offer you?  Think it over for
a moment.

MARLAEL thinks it over for a moment.  Taking his time about it, he puts
away his pistol, rummages in his pockets, comes up with a crumpled
packet of Dunhills, shakes out the last one, puts it in his mouth, and
pats down his pockets.  His lighter seems to have fallen by the wayside
sometime during the evening.

MARLAEL: ... Yeah, there is something you can do for me, now that you
mention it.

LUCIFER (smiling darkly): And what might that be?

MARLAEL (deadpan): You got a light?

LUCIFER stares blankly at MARLAEL for a moment.  Then he snickers.
Then chuckles.  Then chortles.  Then throws his head back and guffaws
into the night for several minutes.  When he recovers, he pulls a black
Zippo from his pocket and tosses it to the angel.

LUCIFER (still grinning): Keep it.

LUCIFER turns around, looks back, waves.  MARLAEL waves back, still
deadpan, and lights his cigarette.  LUCIFER disappears into the night;
for a moment we can still hear him chuckling.

MARLAEL examines the lighter for a few moments, chuckles, puts it
in his pocket.  Then he turns and continues walking home, smoking and
humming "Jesus He Knows Me".

[DISSOLVE TO BLACK.]


		     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
			       presents

		   A Departure Division Production
				  of
		     A Benjamin D. Hutchins Film

			      IN NOMINE:
			  .45 CALIBER ANGEL
		Being a Chronicle of the Angel Marlael

	      (c) 1997-1999 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

	       In Nomine (c) Steve Jackson Games, Inc.

		     With thanks to Derek Pearcy,
		  and apologies to Raymond Chandler


			      Chapter 1
			An Evening's Diversion

	I took one last drag on my cigarette, tossed it into the
gutter, and blew out smoke in a sigh, then pushed open the door and
walked into the bar.  It was full of noise and smoke, the
crosscurrents of a dozen or so conversations and maybe twenty
different brands of smokes, none of them mine.  I suppose that
shouldn't surprise me as much as it does; my brand isn't often to be
had around these parts.  On the jukebox, Phil Collins was wailing
about having money in his pocket, and for a second I had to stop and
tune him in.  I love Phil Collins; his best songs have such a great
plaintive quality.

Please answer the phone, 
'Cause I keep calling, but you're never home
What am I gonna do?

	Out of habit, my eyes scanned the patrons as I walked toward
the corner table in the back of the bar.  My senses told me more than
I really wanted to know about them, as always.  I tuned most of them
out; they weren't important to me, and I'd seen their like so many
times before that I'd long since stopped being interested by them.  It
was just the little guy in the corner booth I was here to be.
	Jerry was sweating and nervous, but that didn't surprise me
much.  Jerry was always sweating and nervous.  I should have realized
that he was up to something, but I guess I was having an off day; I
just sat down at the table as usual.
	"H-hey, Mason," said Jerry.
	"Jerry," I replied.  "Smoke?"
	"No thanks," Jerry replied.  "I-I'm trying to quit."
	Jerry was always trying to quit.
	"Suit yourself," I replied, shaking myself out another
Dunhill.  A friend of mine across the Pond keeps me stocked up, no
mean feat considering I put about a pack of the things away every day.
It's the way it's got to be, though.  For some reason, American
tobacco gives me a headache.
	I lit up and waited for Jerry to get to the point.  As usual,
he took his time about it.  First he hemmed, then he hawed, then he
asked me if I wanted a drink.  Then he pretended he was having a hard
time getting the bar girl's attention.  Then he asked me if I wanted a
drink again.  He commented on the weather and solicited my opinion of
the Sox's chances this year ("snowball's in Hell," same as it is every
year).  Then he bummed a cigarette.
	Jerry always bummed a cigarette.
	Finally, it was the point in our little dance where either
Jerry got to the point or I got mean.  To date I'd only gotten mean
once.
	"OK, so... listen, I hear you're looking for Joey Zippo."
	Joseph "Joey Zippo" Ziponito was a legbreaker for the local
Mafia chief.  I'd been tracking him for the past couple of months on a
couple of arson jobs down in the warehouse district.  He didn't get
his nickname just because of his unfortunate surname; he was
well-known, if never convicted, as the best gasoline-and-matches man
in the state.  I was involved because one of the warehouses he'd
torched hadn't been empty.  A wino who just happened to be a sometime
informant and oft-time friend of mine had happened upon the door Joey
Zippo had left open on his way out, bedded down among some old
magazines for the night, and been found, as they say, "beyond
recognition" in the morning.  He'd have gone unidentified forever,
probably, if I hadn't given him a twenty and sent him to the dentist a
month or two before.
	Ironies like that really piss me off.
	I kept my face neutral as I replied, "Yeah, so?"
	"So I seen him the other day," Jerry replied.  "He's back in
town."
	"No kidding."
	"Yeah.  He's gonna do another job.  Tonight."
	I looked skeptical.  "So you want me to believe that Joey
Zippo told you - Jerry Stondowski, the Prince of Squealers - that he's
in town to do a job?"
	"Naw, naw," Jerry replied.  He never seemed to take offense
when I called him that, and sometimes, just sometimes, late at night
when the electricity went off, I wondered why.  "I heard it from Eddie
Dice."
	I couldn't remember Eddie Dice's real name off the top of my
head, but I knew who he was - one of Don Carlo's numbers and gambling
men.  OK, that made sense - Eddie Dice liked to talk, especially if he
got a few shots in him, and I knew he liked Jerry for some weird
reason, enough to talk to him if there was nobody else around to talk
to.
	"What's your price, Jerry?" I asked.
	"My price?" Jerry replied, trying to seem innocent.
	Jerry always tried to seem innocent.
	"You wouldn't be telling me this unless you wanted something,"
I said.  "Don't waste my time."
	Jerry noticed the hard edge in my voice and decided to get to
the point quickly.  Another timely save for Jerry.
	"I don't want nothin' for this one," Jerry said.  "Just doin'
a favor for a pal."
	Oh, yeah.  I was about to believe -that-.
	My face must have said it for me, because before I could say
anything, Jerry held up a pudgy hand.  "Honest!  Cross my heart, I
don't want nothin', Jake."  Oh, now I was "Jake", was I?  "Only next
time I get in a jam, maybe if you're around you might help me out,
huh?  As a favor for a pal?"
	I couldn't help but smirk a little.  Jerry really missed his
calling.  He should have been a Lilim.
	On the other hand, he might be.
	"OK, fine," I said, and nothing celestial happened, so I guess
I was wrong.  It disappointed me in a way.  I still didn't buy what he
was telling me about this "favor for a pal" business, but I suppose it
would pay to get a tough private eye or two owing you a favor if you
double-cross the Mob as often as Jerry does.  I just didn't give Jerry
credit for being that smart, is all.
	I got up from the table, stubbing out my cigarette in the
ashtray.  "Did Eddie Dice happen to mention -where- Joey's latest
little job is?"
	"You didn't hear it from me, understand?" Jerry asked.
	Jerry always asked me that.
	"A little bird told me," I replied sarcastically.  "Do you
know or not?"
	"Anybody else asks me, I don't know shit," Jerry replied,
which was disturbingly close to true.  "For you... Eddie Dice mighta
mentioned the Kingsford Arms down on MLK."
	"Thanks, Jerry," I said, tossing a couple of bucks on the
table to cover his drink and heading out of the bar.

	It only hit me hours later, as I sat in my car across the
street from the Kingsford, a dingy flophouse which would be referred
to as an "under-maintained but historic residence hotel" by a
real-estate agent, what an ironic name "Kingsford Arms" was for a
building targeted for arson.  First good chuckle I've had in months.
	I lit my ninth cigarette of the night, munched some fried
chicken from the bucket I'd brought along, and kept watching.  Joey
Zippo wasn't very subtle; chances are, if he meant to torch the
Kingsford tonight, he'd just walk into the lobby, cap the
receptionist, splash gasoline around, drop a match and walk out.  It
was as close to a style as he got.  It was anybody's guess how he
avoided successful prosecution all these years.
	At ten-thirty, the Kingsford's receptionist, a white male aged
approximately ten thousand years, tottered out, and meandered down the
street to the east.  He left the door blocked open with a wooden
wedge, and why not, really?  There was nothing in there anybody would
ever want to steal.  I decided not to take out any bets on where he
was headed when I remembered that there was an all-night liquor store
two blocks in that direction.  Well, what luck for Joey Zippo if he
should show up right now!  No pesky desk clerk to waste 50 cents'
worth of ammo shooting; he could get right to the gas-slopping and
match-tossing.
	And here he came now, at the wheel of the shittiest-looking
'75 Thunderbird I'd seen in a long time (and I've seen, believe it or
not, a lot of shitty-looking '75 Thunderbirds): a big,
wide-shouldered, slope-browed guy with a thatch of curly red hair that
almost blended into his eyebrow (singular; it crossed the bridge of
his enormous crag of a nose without perceptibly thinning), dressed in
a black T-shirt two sizes too small for his massive muscles,
painted-on jeans, and cowboy boots.  He was smoking a cheap cigar I
could smell all the way across the street as he emerged from his
T-bird, and in his right hand he had a five-gallon metal can.  No
bonus points for guessing what -that- held.
	He compared the street address to a card he fished out of the
pocket of his T, apparently not satisfied with the aging neon sign
above the door that currently read KIN SFOR AR S - [ ] VACA CY.  Then,
nodding his rather-less-than-saturnine head, he went up the front
steps.
	I hit the button on my cell phone that would call the fire
department, slipped out of my car and followed, drawing my Army .45
automatic out of my coat as I crossed the street.  When he got to the
top of the stairs, I stood at the bottom, aimed the pistol at his
barn-like back and said in my sternest voice,
	"Hold it right there, Joey."
	He froze, then turned around and smiled a jagged,
yellow-toothed grin at me.  Now I could see that his T-shirt had a
slogan printed on it in big white letters: "BORN TO BURN".  How
apropos.
	"Well, well.  Jake Mason.  How's your partner?"
	I ground my teeth.  The scumbag knew full well that Matt
Dixon, my onetime mentor in the detecting business, was the old wino
who'd roasted in his last warehouse job.  (Sure, I wanted to help him
out, but some guys just won't take help.  Y'know?)
	"Better off than you're going to be, Zippy, if you don't put
that gas can down right now and put both of your hands up where I can
see them," I replied.
	Joey Zippo snorted.  "Go ahead and shoot, gumshoe.  You can't
stop me."
	And as if to prove his point, he turned around and flung the
gas can into the lobby of the Kingsford.  It exploded as it passed
over the counter, spraying burning gas everywhere and almost
immediately engulfing the whole registration area.  For a moment, I
thought the can had been rigged to do that, until I realized that it
wasn't the can at all.
	Holy shit.
	The only people I know of who can make things catch fire just
by looking at them aren't really people.
	Joey Zippo turned around and grinned self-satisfiedly at me.
I would say the dancing flames of the fast-growing fire inside the
Kingsford were reflected in his eyes, except that he was facing away
from them at the time.
	"Should've shot when you had the chance, gumshoe," said Joey,
his grin widening.  Suddenly, I felt extremely warm.  Son of a bitch!
Now he was trying to set -me- on fire!  I gathered my Will and forced
it against his own, driving his attack away; I could tell that
surprised him, since he took a step back and his looming brow furrowed
with consternation.
	Joey Zippo the arsonist was a goddamn demon.
	I -hate- demons.
	I let him have it a couple of times with the .45 - not that I
expected it to do me a whole lot of good, but it capitalized on his
momentary lapse and pushed him back a bit, as well as getting blood
all over the stupid slogan on his T-shirt.  He snarled and came down
the stairs at me, growing nasty claws out of his fingers and slashing
at me.  He didn't cut me, but his swipe knocked my .45 out of my hand
- I could hear it clatter away, but didn't have the time to look and
see where it went.  I backpedaled away a couple of steps, looking
around for anything I might use as a weapon against this freak.
	Nothing here, but I had a couple of things in the trunk of my
Buick I might be able to use.  I ducked another claw swipe, then drove
a punch into Joey's face, knocking him back a couple of steps.  That
gave me time enough to get behind the car and pop the trunk.  I
grabbed the first thing I could find and invoked an old favorite
ability on it, learning to use it as a weapon even before I realized
what it was.
	I've never seen anybody, mundane or celestial, look quite as
startled as Joey Zippo was when a pair of jumper cables wrapped around
his bull neck and yanked him head-first into a lamp post.  The impact
put the light out, but it made the most delightful BONG noise, too -
and anyway, I wanted the light out.
	I gathered my Essence up within me, opened my heart, and, for
the first time in maybe too long, I sang one of the Songs my old
Superior taught me.  As I did, the ether shifted around me in response
to my musical commands; my flesh became transparent, and in the
darkness of the night, I all but vanished.  By the time Joey Zippo
regained his balance, I was gone - a ghost in the night.
	Not that I was running away, but with his size advantage, and
those claws, I figured I might as well even up the odds a little.
It's not as if you have to fight fair when you're up against a
Servitor of Belial.
	I tossed the jumper cables back in the trunk and hauled out a
tire iron instead.  It's hard to find the old-fashioned L-shaped tire
irons any more; they've gone out of style in favor of the cross-shaped
ones with the different socket sizes on the arms.  I could play a
fighting march with one of those, too, if I had to, but I prefer the
classics.
	As Joey prowled the middle of the street, snuffling smoke out
of his dilated nostrils and yelling for me to come out and calling me
a coward, I walked right up behind him, got a good windup, and smashed
the back of his skull with the tire iron, sprawling him face-first on
the pavement.  Mind you, he wasn't going to be put down for good by a
blow like that.  A shattered skull is really only an inconvenience to
a demon's corporeal Vessel.
	He scrambled to his feet, blood oozing from his ears and nose,
and slashed at where he thought I ought to be; I slid a few feet to
the left, then whacked one of his knees to powder.  As he fell I
brought the socket end up hard under his chin, shattering a bunch of
teeth and turning him over on his back; then I caved in a bunch of his
ribs.  I let that refrain run on a little too long; he tagged me with
a wild claw swipe, opening a couple of bloody but superficial furrows
in my side before I could get out of range and spin the dodge into a
blow that cracked his forearm bones.
	The pain just made me angry.  I let him get most of the way to
his feet before taking out his other knee, then helping him fall
faster with another shot to the back of the head; then I dropped the
tire iron, went over to his T-bird and retrieved my .45 from beside
the driver's door.
	I let the Song die away, returning myself to visibility, as I
drew a bead on what was left of Joey Zippo.  He looked up at me
through his one good eye and snarled.
	"I'll be back for you, angel," he growled.
	"I'll be here," I replied, and shot him.  He flopped over on
his back, gurgled, and then burst into flames.  Within a few seconds,
there was nothing left of the mortal vessel that had been Joey Zippo
but a vaguely man-shaped dark spot on the pavement.
	I tossed the tire iron into the Buick's trunk and drove away
from the burning hotel.  I'd tipped the manager off to a spurious
Board of Health inspection earlier that day; there was nobody in
there, and the sirens told me the fire department wasn't too far away
anyway.
	Rather than drive home, I headed up onto the 880, popped some
Genesis into the tape deck, and lit up a cigarette, heading south just
for something to do.  I knew a pistol range in Milpitas that was open
'til midnight, and my shooting arm wanted more practice.
	Demons.
	They always feel bound to remind me that I'm an angel.
	I -hate- that.

'Cause I can't dance and I can't talk
The only thing about me is the way that I walk
I can't dance and I can't sing
I'm just standing here selling
Oh and checking everything is in place
You never know who's looking on

			   TO BE CONTINUED