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Father Robert Covington Blood was around Ali's bakery when he ran into the sandy-haired kid. Blood knew him, Austin Aires, from school and had always said hi to the boy, if only because of his uncle. See, Blood wanted to maintain a solid image of benevolence, and found it easy among these quiet, unassuming folks to do so. But it was always best to be careful, so befriending someone so close to the chief of police would not be harmful for Blood. Especially as his boredom with the area generally rose. True to form, he said "Hi Austin" with genuine enthusiasm, and a very faint accent often confused in this New England for the way that the well (read: at great expense) educated talk. When the boy looked up (Blood was one of only a very small handful of people in these parts Austin had to look up at), though, he noticed a quickly recognized emotion behind those penetrating blue eyes. "Looking for something?"

"I'm only around the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I have heard no word yet." Father Blood answered, noticing that his "Looking for something" comment had completely gone over the boy's head. Or at least past him, to be certain the kid could get it, he just wasn't in the right mood, Robert guessed. "What happened? Another intruder on campus drill?"

Father Robert Blood hated the intruder on campus drills that the high school had gotten so obsessive over since the school shooting scares in New City. He didn't mind that they wasted his time, rather each time he was worried that it was not a drill. That somehow the Delmor police had figured out what he was and was coming for him. For the children, they would have to protect the children. But Blood knew there was nothing that would make the boys in blue suspect his character, he hadn't given in since he was thrown out of England.
But he didn't know how long that could last.

<<
Lindsay was aimlessly driving around Delmor when she passed Ali's Bakery and noticed that unlike everywhere else in Delmor (or so it seemed), there was some activity. As she drove past, she suddenly noticed Austin wince, pause, and collapse. She assumed he had fainted, but had no idea.

Crap, two people fainting in one day? Does this s**t follow me around or something!?

Although she was still not thrilled with Austin for some of his earlier remarks (though she assumed it was merely Austin being a typical boy... saying anything to get on a girl's side...), she figured that Father Blood might need some help.

Seriously, if this keeps up, I'd better get trained in first aid or something. This sucks.

Lindsay noticed the lack of other cars on the street, so she turned her car's steering wheel hard so that her car ended up, after a few quick (and questionably legal) maneuvers, in the nearest space. She grabbed her purse off of the passenger's seat, hastily cut her car off, and walked over to the scene.

"Hello, Father, hello Austin... uh, need some help?" Lindsay asked. Unlike earlier, however, this had an air of something far more out of the usual than even a fight that was cut off by armed robbers.

Lindsay leapt back in surprise, standing awestruck, pressed against the passenger's side door. She groaned quietly at the sight of Austin's shoulderblades, recoiling slightly at the scene which looked almost Kafkaesque to her.

She likely would have glared at the fascinated Episcopalian were she not in a state of shock herself. She was truly torn--keep watching, run like hell, or ignore Father Blood's snarling and do something. She decided, with a nonchalant half-smile, to merely do nothing for the moment. Even if there was something to do, Lindsay wasn't going to go jumping into everything she saw. This guilty conscience of hers... well, she was fed up with it. She had had to deal with it when she could not have done anything. This wasn't the first time it had gotten her into something stupid, and it probably wasn't going to be the last, but she was just plain sick of it. She would not let her own guilty conscience get in the way of having a life.

Sure, being The Charge was nice, sometimes, but she wasn't going to let her morals drag her into foolishness.

...No one could say the situation wasn't emotionally charged, that's for sure...

Lindsay was annoyed. Yeah. That statement could have won the understatement of the year contest easily. She was irate, to say the least. All of this... in one day. Even in Delmor, this was too freaky for her. She was irate at what had happened earlier, what was going on now, and at herself. Lindsay was so emotionally overloaded that she was seriously on the breaking point.

Unable to even pause and think about what the hell she was doing, Lindsay just snapped. In broad daylight, seemingly out of the blue, electricity crackled across her skin.

No weirder than what's going on anyway! Lindsay thought, literally shaking with irritation.

Suddenly, a sharp pain caused her to leap forward, swearing a blue streak regardless of the minister right in front of her. She glared at her car, sitting innocently in its space, made of electricity-conducting metal which had just caused some of the electricity to arc and discharge right at Lindsay. "Um... sorry..." she muttered. She had planned on threatening Josh about giving the insane scene some space rather than blinding it, but the pain caused by the electrical discharge had her momentarily distracted.

"HEY! You mind NOT blinding everyone within a 200-foot radius of here!?" Lindsay snapped in Josh's general direction.

Now that some of her irritation had been taken out on her car, Lindsay began to wonder why she had been so impulsive as to even hint at the presence of her electrical ability. Had there been more than the four of them on the street, she would have hastened back into her car and floored it. However, considering the suddenly-bright light, the fascinated Episcopalian, and whatever was happening to Austin, she figured what she did actually probably would almost seem normal.

"What the hell..." Josh barely noticed the newcomer as he stared in horror at the light bouncing off his arm. Suddenly, he found the light was bouncing off the rest of him as well. Waves of light reflected from his body and cast a pulsing glow on the area.

As he became aware of the others, Josh suddenly became very self-conscious. Whatever was happening to him, it was certainly not normal. The last thing he needed was for word to get around that he was some kind of freak. So, with a frantic glance at those gathered, Josh turned and took a step back towards Delmor Cinemas.

Suddenly, there was an especially blinding flash and Josh found himself halfway down the block. He fell to his knees, gasping for air like he had just sprinted the distance. As he struggled to breathe, he was thankful that at least his skin had stopped glowing.

Afterwards>>>

And then suddenly, at the brightest moment of illumination, the wings shot out. They practically appeared. No slow unfolding, just a blinding, tearing, rip as the massive wings exploded out of his back. And then there was Austin, stretched out entirely, his back arched so it looked as though he was being lifted by an invisible cord attached to his sternum, his wings stretched out and up towards the farthest heavens.
There might have been yelling, but Father Blood could not tell. Later, when he reconstructed the scene to be archived in his flawless memory, the other senses would have their say, but at the moment everything was ocular. Blood watched, unaware of all around him, the girl was gone, the source of light a triviality. Here was Austin Aires, nephew of the police chief, sprouting wings and flying. He looked down at Father Blood, his eyes asking every question in the world, but then the boy's face was blank, almost zen. Perhaps from the immense overflow of pain. Father Blood had long known that feeling any one emotion, pain, pleasure, fear, love, in its purest and most vivid form would render the mind completely blank, if only for a moment. In days past monks would use this technique to communicate with their gods, with their purest subconscious. At this moment, Father Blood reasoned, Austin Aires saw his own soul.
Blood allowed the words "God in Heaven" to escape his lips, praying that Austin could live with what he saw. The eyes were still blank, introspective, as though Blood could see the back of the eye and the eye itself was staring back into the boy's head. Those magnificent blue eyes.
Curiosity got the better of him, and he asked in a hushed, reverent voice, far more sincere than that which he reserved for funeral services, "What do you see, Austin?"