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.