"Maybe you're here to strike me down for my unforgivable self-glorification. For thinkin' I was touched by God and gettin' everyone who believed in me killed." But Boyd didn't believe that God would send someone for him. Not anymore. It suited him more to suffer without faith; it was a grander, greater irony, a just reward for his hubris, though he had repented it wholly, utterly, earnestly, and to no seeming avail. When the bartender set another glass of bourbon before him, he cradled it only, breathing in golden warmth and wondering, for a moment, if he'd gone completely crazy. He'd never had real cause to wonder that before; his life had been defined by a series of moments, unparalleled in their clarity - but lately, after he'd gone back to the mines, it had all dulled down to a perpetual haze. He was becoming lost in himself. He hardly knew what to do.
"Tell me how an angel can come to sin. That's a story I'd like to hear."