Black and grey realism tattoo of a winged archangel standing over a fallen demon, with a small emblem and script, across the upper arm and shoulder.

Winged archangel over a fallen demon on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large tattoo of a winged angel in armour-like robes stands above a crouched dark figure on a brick path, set against a cloudy background. The shading is smooth and detailed, with strong contrast in the feathers and shadowed areas, and a small grey emblem sits beside the angel's wing. Partial script runs along the bottom of the piece, and the image is in black and grey with no colour ink.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Angel Wing Demon Cloud Emblem Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm had been told to sweep the bell tower stairs before Lauds, and he was still on the third step when the lamp went out. The wind had come up over the high pasture and was pushing rain through the arrow slits, and somewhere below in the cloister the old abbot was calling for someone to bring the lantern and the iron key to the gate.

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The gate was the trouble. Every winter a thing came up the brick road from the valley, crawling in the ditch like a dog that had been beaten, and every winter the monks shut the gate and sang until it went away. Anselm had never seen it. He had only seen the scorch marks on the wall where the abbot's predecessor had once laid a hand, and the grey ash that never quite washed off the bricks.

This year the brothers were too few to sing. So Anselm went down with the lantern and found the path already lit by something that was not lantern light, a pale wash over the cloud banks. At the gate stood a figure with feathers folded like a cloak and a shield of plain iron on its arm. It did not look at him. It looked down the road, where the crouched shape was dragging itself through the mud.

"Keep the door barred," the angel said, in the voice of a man reading a letter aloud. "Go and ring the bell for the shepherds."

Anselm rang until his hands bled. When he looked again the road was empty, the brick path swept clean, and a small grey medal lay on the top step, stamped with a rose of six petals. He kept it. The abbot never asked where it came from, and Anselm never told him the angel had been smiling.