Pulling the Wings Off Angels

Long ago, a wealthy man stole an angel and hid her in a chapel, where she remains imprisoned to this day.

That's the legend, anyway.

A clerical student who's racked up gambling debts to a local gangster is given an ultimatum-deliver the angel his grandfather kidnapped, or forfeit various body parts in payment.

And so begins a whirlwind theological paradox-with the student at its center-in which the stakes are the necessity of God, the existence of destiny-and the nature of angels.