"The Messenger" by Wayne L. Wilson

From: The Darker Mask: Heroes From the Shadows ed. Gary Phillips and Christopher Chambers

Wilson's contribution to this collection of dark superhero tales opens with a man walking along the Venice Beach boardwalk entranced by the best trumpet-playing he's ever heard. Following the music through a thick fog, he encounters a few people who don't seem to hear it. Finally he finds the trumpet player, an imposing figure who oddly seems to have no weight. Realizing the figure is God or an angel, the man has a hard time accepting what he's told, until the spirit of his dead wife appears.

The tone of continued skepticism here nicely balances the more "out-there" elements. Not your typical feel-good story.

"Accidentally, Like a Martyr" by Reed Farrel Coleman

From: The Darker Mask. Ed. Gary Phillips and Christopher Chambers. Tor, 2008.

This story from a anthology of noirish superhero tales is told in the frenetic, poetic stream of consciousness of a crack addict who kills a priest to steal from a church poor box. After this encounter, he gains the power to travel through time, taking the sins of others as his own, clearing their paths to heaven while he is cursed with immortality on earth. A Deity with an Irish brogue calls him the Absolver.