Lisa watched and listened to the Christmas carolers in Centennial Park. Many of the singers had strong, beautiful voices. She'd had her eyes closed, enjoying the sounds of the chorus of voices from a comfortable distance behind the singers. A small crowd of people enjoyed the holiday music from the other side of the choir made up of both families and couples.

Lisa had released her jealousy of talented singers centuries ago. Long before she'd taken her modern name and stopped being Ligea, the broken siren. An arrow to the throat had ensured that she would never sing again. Now she preferred to enjoy the music created by others, to observe the humans in their daily lives and wonder at how self-important they were.

Others of her kind, if there were any left, probably would have mocked her for living among humans, adopting their ways, sharing her gift of Oracle with them in an age where man scoffed at history and focused only on the present and near future. But they were so interesting to Lisa that she couldn't help herself. Had she stuck to the old ways she would have exiled herself to some lonely location and lived off of the land. She preferred the living, breathing, ever-changing soap opera that was Atlanta.

A crack of thunder sounded from out of nowhere. The nearly cloudless sky meant the chance of thunderstorms was minimal. And the noise disrupted the carolers for a moment, but they found their place in the hymn quickly.

Then, amid the chorus of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," a boy fell out of the sky and landed a few yards behind the singers. His body gave off waves of smoke, as if he'd had to reenter the Earth's atmosphere before plummeting to the dead grass below. The humans scattered in a panic. A few stayed behind to see if the boy was still alive.

"He's burning up!" one man declared, jumping back and waving his hand emphatically after touching the boy's neck. "He has to be dead. Someone call nine-one-one!"

Lisa couldn't keep her curiosity in check and had approached the fallen body, which was still smoking, with a smirk on her thin lips. Just that morning she had drawn the strangest combination of cards in a tarot spread: the Fool with an inverted Devil crossing over it. It was such a strong indication that the day would bring a change, a new direction to her life. Something big was going to happen.

The boy was smaller than the panicking man, and at first she couldn't tell if he was tall or short for his apparent age. But when she crouched down and got a better look at his face she could tell he was in his late teens. His hair was blond, close cropped and had a slight wave to it. She was surprised to see that he wasn't covered in a layer of soot, especially because he smelled strongly of fireplace ashes and burning coals.

"I wouldn't touch him," the human man warned. He had a hand to his forehead and looked completely distraught. "Where could he have come from? I didn't see any planes?"

Lisa looked up at the man with a bland expression. He didn't sound as if he was really asking her those questions and she was glad of it. As much as she enjoyed watching humans live their lives, she didn't much care for interacting with them outside of her day job as a fortune teller.

She watched the boy for a moment and saw that he was taking shallow breaths, causing little crystallized clouds to appear above his mouth. Then she leaned down to put her mouth near his ear.

"Where did you come from?" she whispered. Her words, though breathed, had a faintly lyrical lilt.

"Fuck if I know..." It was more of a groan than an answer, but the boy opened his ice blue eyes and stared right into Lisa's dull gray ones. "The fuck is going on?"

Lisa merely stared back, eye to eye, unfazed. It all made sense then. She could see it in his hardened gaze; he wasn't a boy at all, but a demon. Lisa had only witnessed a few falls in her long lifetime, and none this close. The lower castes of demons were subjected to having their powers, wings and memories stripped away from them if they failed at their duties on the mortal coil. And to return from the dark ether they had to fall through it.

"Is he alive?" the nearby man exclaimed, having heard the boy speak. He threw his hands up into the air. "Praise be to God! It has to be a miracle!"

Some of the other humans dashed back over to watch the boy struggle, groggily, to his feet. He stared at them all as if they'd lost their minds. Then he noticed that his black t-shirt and jeans were smoking.

"Holy shit! Am I on fire?" he shouted and started trying to look at every inch of himself for flames. Seeing the smoke begin to dissipate, he turned on the small crowd angrily. "What the hell is wrong with you people? And where the hell am I?"

"It's a miracle!" one of the women carolers said, gaping at the young man despite his use of expletives.

"A Christmas miracle!" someone else added, awed at the situation.

At the mention of miracles, Lisa became concerned for her own safety. She tried to pretend that she wasn't standing there in front of those people, next to Miracle Boy. Thankfully her long dirty blonde hair was covering most of her face, which helped her feel hidden though she was in plain view. Fortunately or unfortunately humans were predictable. They were governed by many natural rules and laws that weren't necessarily well known among humans themselves. One of those rules stated they tended to ignore anything out of the ordinary, which included the tawny feathered wings folded against her back that peeked up over her shoulders. But once humans became aware of something otherworldly the Law of Faith kicked in. Suddenly many things that were imperceptible to them before would become clearly visible.

A shocked gasp from a teen girl who had been part of the singing group caused Lisa to look her way. All hopes of continuing to go unnoticed faded away at the astonished expression on the girl's face.

"Look... Mom... it's an angel!" the teen said in a quiet voice, one hand hovering over her mouth. "He has a guardian angel!"

In unison the demon and Lisa turned to look at one another again.

"These people are fucked in the head," he said to her out of the side of his mouth and made a circular motion by his ear with his finger.

Lisa gave him a wry smile and leaned in close. He flinched back for a moment, but she reached out and grabbed him gently by the upper arm. Contrary to what the human man had said, the demon felt just slightly warmer than the human norm.

"I have to leave before they start asking for blessings. Do you want to come with me?" she asked, again her voice nothing but a whisper.

The demon shrugged. "Yeah, whatever."

Then she pulled him into a quick hug and pushed off from the ground. They sprang into the air and with a few heavy wing beats they were high enough to avoid the awed crowd following after them.

"I didn't mean for you to fucking fly off with me!" the boy said in a gasp once his breath seemed to return. He clung to Lisa's thin frame as if his life depended on it. But Lisa didn’t think another fall would damage him any more than the last. Not permanently anyway.

"Running wouldn't have stopped them from coming after us," she said softly. All the talking was making her throat sore. Somehow she doubted, though, that the demon knew sign language. Not that it was a feasible option now that they were flying.

"And what's up with this whispering shit? Huh? Speak up, damn it," the boy grumbled.

"I can't," Lisa said, her mouth still close to his ear. Her whisper lacked both cynicism and sadness. It was just a fact.

"Why the hell not?"

She tilted her head back so that he could see her neck. The jagged scar in the middle of her throat was hard to miss, the legacy of some long-dead Greek sailor.

The conversation halted until they touched down on the roof of an old warehouse sandwiched between several other brick buildings. It was the only one on the block accented with a large neon sign proclaiming "OCCULT" in bright purple beneath a glowing pink hand with a white eye blinking from its palm.

The demon started wandering around on the roof aimlessly while Lisa fished her keys out of her pocket. By the time she'd opened the door that lead down into her little building he was rifling through his wallet. She paused and watched him, wondering what information he would find out about himself.

"My name is Jace... I guess. Is this even my damn wallet?" he said. He tucked a scrap piece of paper back into one of the wallet's pockets, then pulled out a card. Lisa could see it was an ID of some sort, possibly a driver's license. "Jason Emmanuel Dean. Date of birth: April eleven, nineteen-sixty-three. Hey, what year is it?"

Lisa beckoned with her hand for Jace to follow her inside. She locked up behind him, then led the way down into the loft apartment above her shop. Once in the kitchen she pointed to the calendar hanging beside the fridge.

"Two-thousand-five? ...I don't feel forty," Jace said, narrowing his eyes at Lisa. "Is this some kind of stupid joke?"

The siren shook her head, then grabbed a notepad and pen from a drawer. She sat on one of the stools at her breakfast bar and jotted down a few things: My name is Lisa. You don't remember anything because you are a demon who just came back to the mortal world.

She slid the notepad over to Jace.

"You're full of shit! What're you? An angel? Another 'demon?'" He slammed his wallet down on the counter and walked off into the living room. He began pacing around, running his hands through his short hair and mumbling to himself.

Lisa watched him as he puzzled out his existence. She expected that it wasn't easy to figure out your place in the mortal world when you joined it suddenly, and with no past memories of having been there before. But that was the strangeness of it, because Jace obviously remembered some things about the world and the way it worked. He could speak and read English. He understood the passage of time. And he knew what a wallet was. She wondered if he would slowly get his memories back or be forced to figure out everything about himself from scratch.

The only thing she could offer the wayward demon was a place to stay. She had an extra room, but she wasn't sure she wanted to get involved in demonic affairs.

"You got any food?" Jace asked, finally returning to the kitchen.

That made Lisa smile. She leaned over the bar and pulled the notepad back in front of her. Again she wrote down what he needed to know.

"Now I know you're shitting me." Jace looked from the written words to Lisa with disbelief. "Demons drink blood? Are you out of your mind? ...Thanks for the flight. I'm out of here."

He dropped the notepad on the bar and turned towards the stairs on the other side of the living room that led down to the store. Three feet in front of him flames ripped through the air with a crackling rustle. They faded back into nothingness around a lean man in a pinstriped suit. His caramel colored skin, eyes an impossible shade of gold, and the slicked back black hair, tied in a low ponytail, made him look like an exotic used car salesman.

Lisa recognized Samael instantly. She frowned. What would the Devil be doing chasing after some lesser demon? He certainly hadn't shown up in her living room just to visit her. Their brief tryst had ended millennia ago and she hadn't seen him since.

"Jace! I only wish you could remember the tortures I put you through before dropping you back on the mortal plane. Ready to get back to work for your dear old boss, Sam? ...That would be me," Samael said. The disgruntled look on Jace's face did nothing for him. He smiled darkly and nodded. "Of course not. You never are anymore. You worthless piece of ...Ligea? Forgive me, I had no idea you were there. This is a private meeting. Employer and employee."

Lisa's wings flexed and her feathers bristled. She knew the glare fixed on Sam would have no more effect on him than Jace's annoyed gawking, but that didn't matter. She stood up, walked toward the intruder and pointed clearly for the exit. This was her house. She would not be dismissed.

"You people are totally fucked up!" Jace exclaimed, punctuating his words with a wild hand gesture. He dodged around Sam and darted down the stairs.

"I hate this job," Sam said and arched a dark brow. He shook his head at the confused look on Lisa's face. "A lot has happened since the last time we spoke. I was usurped by that lay-about Beelzebub. Stripped of my title. Stripped of my wings. Demoted to mere suicide demon wrangler. Oh, don't smirk at me like that. And don't breathe a word about Lucifer. I'm the best devil Hell has ever seen and I have an ingenious plan to prove it."

Lisa simply stared at Sam for a moment. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, many of them unkind. Part of her pitied him, though. It couldn't be easy to go from Prince of Darkness to low level manager in one fell swoop. She knew enough about falling off of the proverbial high horse to know it was a painful experience. And sometimes more than emotionally. Yet another part of her knew that Samael had been due for a comeuppance since he had usurped Lucifer in the first place. Again she was glad that she wasn't entangled in demonic affairs anymore.

Tires screeched to a crashing halt in the street below. Sam instantly shut his mouth before he could explain his plot to the siren. "Do you think...?"

They both walked over to the twin windows in the living room and slid them open. Down below the scene was chaos as people began to crowd around a car that had smashed into another vehicle parallel parked across the street. The body on the asphalt, face down and obviously bleeding out, looked just like Jace.

Sam made a show of glancing down at his watch. He cursed under his breath. "Ligea," he said, his lips curling into a smile slowly. "Don't you owe me a favor?"

She shook her head slowly. One thing she had been extremely careful of during their relationship was avoiding such things as owing a devil any favors.

"Then help out an old friend? An old lover?" Sam asked conversationally. He stepped closer to her and slid an arm around her waist. "Don't make me beg."

"What kind of favor?" she whispered, putting a hand on his chest in case she needed to shove him back. It might be useful later if Sam was the one indebted to her. Naturally she expected him to twist that around however he liked. The prospect was intriguing anyway.

"See, unfortunately, Jason Dean used to be a very powerful demon. So powerful that he rose up the ranks and was empowered to live and work beyond the rote of a mere suicide demon. He was one of my closest allies. In fact, I may have even considered him a friend at some point thanks to his loyalty. But Beelzebub stripped him of his powers as well and set him back to his original caste," Sam said. He peered out of the window again now that the flashing of blue and red lights could be seen as the first police car arrived on the scene. "I need Jace to regain his former glory if I'm to regain mine. But he needs an ally here on the mortal plane if he's to last more than twenty minutes every time he's dropped back through the ether."

"And what's in this for me?" Lisa asked after taking in everything Sam had just explained to her. Her simple existence suited her and this favor sounded like a lot of long term work. Yet, against what should have been better judgment, she was warming to the idea of seeing Samael again on a regular basis. The creatures of Hell and Sirens were similar enough that it didn't seem strange to her to associate with them. They were all cast offs of the Gods. But Lisa did get tired of everyone’s dramatics.

"If everything goes according to plan? I will have my full powers returned to me and won't want to owe you a favor for eternity." Sam looked at her thoughtfully, then shrugged. "I could give you your voice back."