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Unsatisfied and a little guilty, Gabriel turned his attention away from the barrel and toward a family ofthree who were having lunch at another of the picnic tables. The dog approached them, tail wagging inhappy greeting. There were two adults, a mother and a father, and a little girl who was about the sameage as Stevie.

A wave of sadness passed over the animal as he viewed the family. He missed the other members of hisown pack; Tom and Lori were dead, and the Powers had taken Stevie away. But at least he still had Aaron. It wasn't how it used to be, but it would do for now. He still wasn't sure about the one called Camael. There was something about him that he didn't quite trust. He smelledtoo much like that nasty Verchiel to be accepted by him into the pack.

"Hello, doggie!" the little girl squealed as she turned on the bench and caught sight of him.

Gabriel could smell the caution seep from her parents' pores as he approached. He took no offense;after all, he was a strange dog and there were many that he himself would have been cautious of. He satdown, as Aaron had taught him brought one of his paws up in greeting, barked softly once, and waggedhis tail.

The little girl laughed happily, and he noticed the adults smile as well.

"May I pat him?" the child asked, already sliding off the bench.

"Let him smell you first, Lily," the father said cautiously. "You don't want to scare him."

The child held out her hand, and Gabriel sniffed the pink skin of her palm. Fragments of scents clung toher flesh: Soap that smelled like bubble gum; cheese crackers; sugary fruit juice; her mother's perfume. Gently, he lapped the child's hand.

Lily squealed with delight and began to pat his head. "You're a good dog, aren't you," she cooed, "andyour ears are so soft."

Gabriel already knew that, but it didn't prevent him from enjoying the child's attentions, until he caughtthe delicious aroma of food. He lifted his snout and pulled in the olfactory delights as he watched Lily'smother place a hot dog on the table where the child had been sitting.

"C'mon, Lily. Let the doggie go back to his family and you eat your lunch."

Lily patted his head again and leaned in very close. "Good-bye, doggie," she said, kissing his nose as hisstomach gurgled loudly. "Was that your belly?" She giggled.

Gabriel looked deeply into her eyes.
 
"Yes,"
 
he answered with a short, grumbling bark.

She couldn't understand him as Aaron did, but still, she seemed to grasp his answer—as if he weresomehow able to touch her mind.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

Gabriel could not lie to the child and barked affirmatively while he used his mind to tell her that he wouldlove a bite of her lunch.

The child suddenly turned and walked toward the picnic table. She snatched up her hot dog, tore off ahunk—bread and all—and brought it back to Gabriel.

"I don't know if you should do that, honey," her father cautioned.

Lily presented the food to the Lab, and he gently plucked it from her hand, swallowing it in one gulp.

Thank you, Lily,
 
he thought, looking into her eyes.

"You're welcome," she responded with a pretty smile.

Lily's father walked over, carrying his own sandwich in one hand. "Okay," he said, trying to steer thechild back toward the table. "I think the doggie's had enough. Say good-bye now."

Gabriel stared intently at the man.
 
"Before I go,"
 
he directed his thoughts toward Lily's father,
 
"can 1have a bite of your sandwich?"

Without a moment's hesitation, the man tore off a piece of his hamburger and tossed it to the Lab.

Gabriel was satisfied. The painful pangs of his empty belly had been temporarily assuaged with the helpof Lily and her parents—it had been awfully generous of them to share their lunch—and he was headingback to join Aaron, exploring as he went.

The tinkling of a chain was the first thing to capture his attention, and then he became aware of her scent.

Gabriel stopped at the beginning of an overgrown path that led to a small area designated for children. He noticed some swings, a tiny slide, and a wooden playhouse shaped like a train. Again came the jangleof a chain, and from behind the playhouse appeared another dog, her nose pressed to the sand as shefollowed a scent that had caught her fancy.

Gabriel's tail began to wag furiously as he padded down the path and barked a friendly greeting.
Howgood is this?
 
he thought.
A full belly and now somebody to play with.

The female flinched, startled by his approach. Her tail wagged cautiously. She, too, was a yellow

Labrador retriever and she wore a pretty, red bandanna around her neck, as well as the chain.

He moved closer.
 
"I'm Gabriel."

The female continued to stare, and he noticed that the hackles of fur at the back of her neck had begunto rise.

"Don't be afraid,"he said soothingly.
 
"1 just want to play."
 
He lay down on the ground to show her that

he meant no harm.
 
"What's your name?"

The female moved slowly toward him, sniffing at the air, searching for signs of a threat.
How
odd,thought

Gabriel.
Maybe her family doesn't let herplay with other dogs. "I'm Gabriel,"
 
he said again.

"Tobie,"she replied, hackles still raised.

"Hello, Tobie. Do you want to chase me?"heasked pleasantly, rising to all fours.

Tobie sniffed at him again and growled nervously. Slowly, she began to back away, her tail bendingbetween her legs.

Gabriel was confused. "What's
the matter?"
 
heasked, advancing toward her.
"You don't have to chase
me if you don't want to—
I could chase you instead."

Tobie snapped at him with a bark, her lips peeled back in a fierce snarl as she continued to back towardthe playhouse.

Gabriel stopped.
 
"What's wrong?"
 
he asked, genuinely concerned and quite disappointed.
"Why won'tyou play with me?"

"Not dog,"Tobie growled as she sniffed the air around him.
"Different,"
 
she spat, and fled around the

playhouse in the direction she'd come.

Gabriel was stunned. At first, he had no ideawhat Tobie meant, but then he thought of that day when hehad almost died. He flinched, remembering the intensity of the pain he had felt when the car struck him. Aaron had done something to him that day, had laid his hands upon him and made the pain go away. That was the day everything became clearer.

The day he became different?

He left the play area, his mind considering the idea that he might not be a dog anymore, when he heard Aaron call. Gabriel quickened his pace and joined his friend and Camael. They were cleaning up theirtrash and getting ready to resume their journey.

"Where've you been?" Aaron asked as they headed toward the parking lot.

"Around,"Gabriel replied, not feeling much like talking.

A car on its way out of the lot passed them as they waited to cross to their own vehicle. In the back, hesaw Tobie staring intently at him. It wasn't only the window glass that separated him from her, he thoughtsadly as he watched the car head down the road.

"Are you all right?" Aaron asked as he bent to scratch under the dog's chin.

"I'm fine,"Gabriel answered, unsure of his own words—recalling the truth revealed in another's.

"Not dog. Different."

interlude one

This will sting, my liege."

Verchiel hissed with displeasure as the healer laid a dripping cloth on the mottled skin of his bare arm.

"Why do I not heal, Kraus?" the leader of the Powers asked.

The blind man patted down the saturated material and reached for another patch of cloth soaking in awooden bowl of healing oil, made from plants extinct since Cain took the life of his brother, Abel. "It isnot my place to say, my lord," he said, his unseeing eyes glistening white in the faint light streamingthrough the skylight of the old classroom.

The abandoned school on the grounds of the Saint Athanasius Church, in westernMassachusetts , hadbeen the Powers' home since the battle with the Nephilim. This was where they plotted—awaitingtheopportunity to continue their war against those who would question their authority upon the world of God's man.

Verchiel shifted uncomfortably in the high-backed wooden chair, stolen from the church next door, asthe healer laid yet another cloth upon his burn-scarred flesh. "Then answer me this: Do these woundsresemble injuries sustained in a freak act of nature, or do they bear the signature of a more—divineinfluence?"

He was trying to isolate the cause of the intense agony that had been his constant companion since hewas struck by lightning during his battle with Aaron Corbet. The angel wanted to push the pain aside, tobox it up and place it far away. But the pain would not leave him. It stayed, a reminder that he might haveoffended his Creator—and was being punished for his insolence.

"It is my job to heal, Great Verchiel," Kraus said. "I would not presume to—"

Verchiel suddenly sprang up from his seat, the heavy wooden chair flipping backward as his wingsunfurled to their awesome span. Kraus stumbled as winds stirred by the angel's wings pushed againsthim.

"Igrant you permission, ape," the angel growled over the pounding clamor caused by the flapping of his wings. "Tell me what you feel in your primitive heart." His hands touched the scars upon his chest as he spoke. "Tell me if youbelieve it was the hand of God that touched me in this way!"

"Mercy, my master!" Kraus cried, cowering upon the floor. "I am but a lowly servant. Please do not

make me think of such things!"

"I will tell you, Verchiel," said a voice from across the room.

Verchiel slowly turned his attention to a dark corner of the classroom, where a large cage of iron washanging from the ceiling, its bars etched with arcane markings. It swayed in the turbulence caused by hisanger. The stranger taken from the monastery in theSerbianMountains peered out from between the ironbars, the expression on his gaunt face intense.

"Do you care to hear what I have to say?" he asked, his voice a dry whisper.

"Ah, our prisoner is awake," Verchiel said. "I thought the injuries inflicted by my soldiers would have

kept you down for far longer than this."

The prisoner clutched the bars of his cage with dirty hands. "I've endured worse," he said. "Sometimes itis the price one must pay."

Verchiel's wings closed, retracting beneath the flesh of his bare back. "Indeed," the angel snarled.

Kraus still cowered upon the floor, head bowed. "You will leave me now," Verchiel said, dismissing thehuman healer. "Take your things and go."

"Yes, my lord," the blind man said, gathering up the satchel containing his tools of healing and carefully

feeling his way to the exit.

"Why do they do it?" the prisoner asked as he watched the healer depart. "What perverse need is satisfied by the degradation we heap upon them? It's a question I've gone round and round with for years."

"Perhaps we give their mundane lives purpose," Verchiel responded, advancing toward the cage. "Providing them with something that was lacking when they lived among their own kind." Verchiel stopped before the hanging cage and gazed into the eyes of his prisoner. "Or maybe they are just not as intelligent as we think," he said with perverse amusement.

"And that's reason enough to exploit and abuse them?" the prisoner asked.

"So be it, if it serves a greater good. They are aiding us in carrying out God's will. They are serving their

Creator—as well as ours. Can you not think of a more fulfilling purpose?"

Still dressed in the tattered brown robes of the Serbian monastery, the prisoner sat down with a smile,leaning back against the bars of the cage. "And you seriously have to wonder what it was that struck youdown?" He chuckled, making reference to Verchiel's scars. "Wouldn't think you were that dense, but

then again ..."

Verchiel loomed closer, peering through black iron bars. "Please share with me yourthoughts," hewhispered. "I'm eager to hear the perceptions of one such as you—the most renowned of the fallen. Yes,please, what is the Lord God thinking these days?"

The prisoner casually reached within his robes and withdrew the mouse. Gently, he touched the top of itspointed head with the tip of his finger as it crawled about on his open palm. "That I couldn't tell you,

Verchiel," he said, looking up as the tiny creature scuttled up the front of his robe to his shoulder. "It'sbeen quite some time since the Creator and I last spoke. But looking at your current condition, I'd haveto guess that He's none too happy with you either."

And then the prisoner smiled—a smile filled with warmth and love, and so stunningly beautiful. Howcould he not have once been the most favored of God's children?