Sebastian Monet stood still in the midst of the busy crowd on the street corner, even as the ebb and flow of human motion pressed in all around him. He stood in the very center, his broad shoulders sticking up above everyone else's and propping his six-foot-two-inch-high head above the crowd. His golden brown hair fell in curly locks down to the middle of his back, his rimless glasses sat a little low on his long, straight nose, and his blue eyes lay closed on his downturned face. His long arms, clad to the cuff in a white collared shirt, lay straight at his side as he listened for one particular sound through the noise of human lives. His stillness was like a statue, and no one even brushed against him.

His ears twitched slightly. He heard it. He lifted his long, fair, young-looking face and stared straight at the source of the noise. He was right. He had heard the gasp. As Sebastian's eyes fixed on the one who had made the sound, there, standing stock still in the crowd, gazing with fear and horror straight back at Sebastian, was a single man.

Sebastian took one step forward.

The man squealed and turned around. He started running through the crowd, interrupting and knocking into nearly everyone, trying to run from the tall, solemn man who watched him with piercing blue eyes.

Sebastian took off running in pursuit. The crowd did not part for him, as it somewhat unwillingly had for the man he pursued; the crowd did not knock into him; the crowd did not notice him. He ran through their midst without touching a soul.

The fleeing man turned into an alley, and Sebastian turned after him, his gray shoes plodding silently on the cobblestones. The man tried to lose Sebastian in the winding of the alleyways; but Sebastian knew them better than he, and the man made a wrong turn. He ran straight up to the wall that barred his passage and turned around to watch Sebastian with eyes of terror, like a possessed man.

Sebastian stopped several yards away from the man he followed. He knew his prey was trapped. He reached out his hand and in it materialized a long spear. The man's eyes grew even wider at the sight.

Then Sebastian spoke. "You know why I have come." His voice was strong and low, yet almost sad; it matched the beautiful melancholy of his face.

The man, in a shaking voice to match his shaking legs, spat out, "As if!"

"You can see me. You fear me. You know why."

"They'll never get any proof on me. Never, you hear?"

"You misunderstand." Sebastian lowered his spear. "I'm not a policeman. I am Judgment."

The man stood frozen.

"I judge those who can see me, those whom I can touch. The only ones who can see me are the murderers."

A sharp intake of breath came from the condemned man.

Sebastian pointed his lowered spear at the man's chest. "Judgment has come." In the blink of an eye, the spear passed through the man's heart, and a small chip appeared in its wooden shaft. It was one of many.

Sebastian looked at the mark in his spear and sighed before reaching out his hand and making it disappear. "One more soul. One more soul that won't free me." He looked down at the dead man's still face. "Don't be so upset," he murmured. "Death is such a sweet solace."

He turned around and backtracked through the alleys to the street.

It was a neverending cycle to him, a daily routine he couldn't escape. It was his purpose now; it was the only reason he yet lived, if indeed it could be said that he "lived." It was a lonely existence, one where only a murderer could see, hear, or touch him--and those who could see him, feared him.

Sunset found Sebastian sitting on the steep roof of the cathedral, gazing at the waning orange light. He loved the old district of the city. It was the only place that hadn't changed at all since thirty years and a lifetime ago.

These were the only streets unchanged since she walked them.

Sebastian felt a tear welling up in his eye, and promptly wiped it away. He had let her go thirty years ago--there was nothing more to be said or done now. He hadn't said goodbye to her because he wanted to--no, he hadn't even gotten the chance to say goodbye. He refused to see her for thirty years, and his resolve would not waver now. He wanted her to move on with her life.

He wanted the woman who was once his betrothed to move on with her life after his death.

No, he wouldn't regret her now. But he would remember. Memory was what kept him going; it was a sickly sweet indulgence he did not often permit.

He had it all, back then. He was a brand new university graduate, twenty-five years old with a doctorate. He had just gotten a job teaching at the university he had graduated from only months before. He was liked and respected, his friends loved his gentle manner, and his colleagues respected his brilliant mind. He had just become engaged to the woman he loved more than all the success in the world. He was going somewhere, and he was going there with her. He had everything.

Someone didn't like that.

He didn't see his attacker's face, or anything else that would provide a clue as to who his assailant was. All he knew was that one moment he was in his study reading, and the next he had been run through.

Sebastian Monet was murdered, thirty years ago.

And he was cursed.

He awoke many days later to walk the earth in a state between life and death--a state reserved only for those known as "the fallen." He was murdered, and doomed to an existence only as an angel of judgment for murderers until his own murder be avenged.

He had toyed with the idea of hunting for the one who had killed him, but quickly dismissed it. He didn't know who did it, but poking around with the people he used to know--if indeed it even was someone he knew who had killed him--might lead him to his lover. He couldn't bear to see her, see her sorrow, and know she could never see him. He was dead to her; he knew she needed to be dead to him.

Thirty years ago. That was thirty years ago.

Thirty years and a lifetime.

As the last glow of twilight faded beneath the horizon, Sebastian picked himself up off the roof of the old cathedral and resumed his prowl of the streets.

He wasn't really listening for the gasp, but thirty years of listening for it made it rather hard not to notice it when it happened. He looked over just in time to see a figure ducking into the alley to his right. He followed it, but not far. It headed away from the mostly deserted street into a completely deserted passage, stopped under a street lamp, and turned around.

The figure was a middle-aged woman, gazing at him with a mixture of fear and disbelief.

Sebastian slowed when he saw her halt, and stopped just barely in range of the lamplight. The woman's eyes widened, and she spoke. "It really is you."

Sebastian almost opened his mouth to refute her, but he stopped. He looked at her eyes, curious, feeling a sense of déjà vu, like a memory just out of reach. Then it hit him, and he started involuntarily--the disbelief in the woman's eyes was soon matched in his.

"You look the just the same. Are you a ghost?"

Sebastian licked his suddenly dry lips and swallowed the lump in his throat. "Something like that."

"You've finally come back to haunt me. Or something like that," the woman said softly, echoing Sebastian's own words. "You always did; only before I couldn't see you."

"Miette." The word rushed from Sebastian's throat as though it had been waiting to come out for a long time. When it did, for moments that felt like hours, there didn't seem to be anything else that needed to be said.

Finally the woman, Miette, broke the silence. "Are you real?"

Sebastian opened his mouth to answer, but stopped short. He didn't really have an answer. His eyes lowered; then they noticed her left hand.

He smiled slightly. "I'm glad," he said.

Miette looked up, surprised, then saw his eyes fixed on her wedding ring. Instinctively she reached over with her right hand to cover it. When he saw that, Sebastian raised his eyes to Miette's.

What he saw in her eyes reminded him of what he ought already to have known. "You shouldn't be able to see me," he said quietly.

Miette fidgeted uncomfortably.

"But the fact that you can..."

"I'm sorry," she interrupted. "I was--I just--I panicked. I'm sorry--I've been sorry. Every day. Every day I've prayed for your forgiveness, so that you'll stop haunting me--now have you come for revenge?"

Sebastian's head bowed and he turned toward the brick wall he stood by. His voice was barely audible. "So it was you."

"You mean you... you didn't know?"

Sebastian did not respond.

"I..." her voice trailed off.

Sebastian swallowed hard, trying to fight the surge of emotion that welled up in his throat. He only managed to squeak out one little word: "Why?"

"Andrew."

"Andrew? Andrew Renald?"

Miette nodded. "I married him."

"When?"

"Excuse me?"

"I suppose what I want to ask is, how long after I... died?"

Miette fidgeted again, but probably didn't see much purpose in lying at this point. "Three months."

Sebastian bit his lip. For minutes nothing was said. Then, "You loved him, not me."

"...Yes."

"Then why did you agree to marry me?"

"How could I say no? Everyone expected the match. My family loved you. And at the time, I thought I did too."

"And when your heart turned--did you think I wouldn't have let you go, if you had only asked? Did you think I wouldn't have broken the engagement and been happy for you and Andrew if I knew that you were happy with him?"

"It wasn't that. My family--my family would never have allowed it. I had no reason to refuse you but my feelings. My family would never have let me break the engagement. They'd have disowned me first."

Sebastian's voice again sank to barely a whisper. "So you killed me."

Emotion was rising in Miette's voice. "I panicked, I panicked! If I'd been thinking straight I'd never have--and I didn't really want to--and, and you didn't deserve it, and--"

Sebastian interrupted her. "I should have paid more attention," he said simply. "If I had, I'd have seen how unhappy you were." He finally turned away from the wall to face her again, and this time bowed his head and shoulders to her. "I'm sorry."

"You--you--" Miette took a step backward, then stopped. Her voice rose; her tone was beginning to sound hysterical. "You're sorry? You wander as a ghost for thirty years because I killed you to be with another man and you're sorry? No. No! Don't you dare! Don't you dare be sorry!"

Sebastian righted himself, surprised. He didn't say anything, but his eyes were soft.

Miette saw them, and they set her off. "Right there! Right there, it's in your eyes! That's why I hated you!"

Sebastian stood stock still, shocked. Miette was half leaned over, heaving. For a full minute there was no sound but her heavy breathing and the whistle of the wind.

When Miette continued, her voice was lower, but still shaking with emotion. "Whenever we were together, you were always so calm. You never got angry with me, no matter what I did. You loved me, I knew it, everyone knew it. I knew nothing I could do would change that.

"Whenever we would fight--if you could even call it that--you were always the one to say you were sorry. You were always the one to make things right. You were always humble, you were always accepting, you were always perfect. You were perfect! You were always apologizing like you were the one who was wrong but you weren't! You never were! You always made the peace--you always loved me--no matter what I did--no matter that it was my fault--no matter that you had nothing to apologize for--you made me feel so guilty!" She took a deep breath. "Compared to you, I would never be good enough."

Sebastian let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "You were always good enough for me."

Miette's voice sank back down to a whisper. "That only made it worse. I didn't want to always be the child making the stupid mistakes, the little girl whose daddy would take on his knee and explain her mistakes to. I didn't want to be a baby--I wanted to be a partner. You were too perfect--too perfect to leave, too perfect to live with. I panicked."

Sebastian hardened his face and turned his back to her. "Your panic has cost me thirty years in purgatory."

Miette said nothing; she just watched his back.

"I have become Judgment, to punish those who can see me--the murderers."

She flinched slightly at the last word.

"My soul cannot rest in peace until Judgment avenges it. I must kill the one who killed me. I cannot die," he turned back around to her, "unless you do."

Her eyes were glued to the ground. She said nothing. Nor did she attempt to run.

Sebastian reached out his hand, and the spear materialized. Slowly he approached her.

She did not move.

He was almost on top of her; his arm was raised, his spear lowered.

Still, she did not move. She kept her eyes glued to her feet.

Then she felt his hand on her shoulder, and she looked up. The spear rested on the ground, and his eyes looking into hers were gentle.

"These thirty years," he said softly, gently, "have been punishment enough. Live, Miette; live and love, to the end of your days. I will not number them." He smiled softly at her. "Go home, and take my forgiveness with you."

First one step, then two, Sebastian began backing away from Miette, from his past, and he ran all the way back to the cathedral, feeling lighter than he ever had before.