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  “Anadidd’na anu’dd,” he answered. She looked up, happy. She hadn’t seen him in a long time.

  “Welcome,” she said. “Why have you come?”

  “Who is that?” Jason asked, coming to look closely at Mahkail.

  “Jason, this is Mahkail. I told you that someone already had the name ‘parroah’na anan’ae’? This is him.”

  “The sex god, huh? I’m underwhelmed.”

  Samantha grinned at Mahkail’s expression, overtaken with a giddiness from old memories.

  “Yes, well, I run with barbarians, now. Get over it. Why are you here?”

  “We had an incident. I came to you for help.”

  “What kind of incident? Is everyone okay?”

  Mahkail’s face darkened.

  “We lost six.”

  “I’m sorry,” Samantha said. “Who were they?”

  He had been watching Jason, but his eyes shot to her.

  “Don’t pretend, Anadidd’na Anu’dd. It’s well known where your loyalties are.”

  It was the hardest slap the angel knew how to give her.

  O’na Anu’dd, her best friend from the years she had spent in heaven while she was dead, was the angel of death, and he was a bad fit for most of angelic culture. Some angels didn’t understand him, others were concerned about him, and some - especially the elite warriors like Mahkail - were openly contemptuous of the angel’s well-known empathy for humans. They saw him the way a veteran might view a conscientious objector; he was dodging out of his role as an angel to avoid the conflict that was central to angelic existence. Mahkail would have had a lower opinion of O’na Anu’dd than even the fallen.

  Samantha glared at him, stunned.

  “Give me your sword,” she demanded, putting out her hand. Jason shuffled to the side.

  “Sam,” he warned.

  “No, this is my right. I came to him bearing good greetings, and he dishonored my friend.” She looked at Mahkail. “Give me your sword.”

  He glanced at Jason again with disdain.

  “Must we do this in front of him?”

  “Fine.” She turned to Jason. “You do this without knowing the rules, he’ll put his fist through your skull and I’ll stand and watch.” Jason shrugged. She looked back at Mahkail. “We good? Your sword.”

  She put her hand out again more emphatically and he glowered, but reached behind his back, grasping a hilt that hadn’t been visible before. He drew the full-length sword that he wore on his back and held it in front of her, blue angelfire licking along the blade. She didn’t wince away as he laid it across her hands. When he let go, the fire flickered out. She kept his eye, hard, for four counts before she looked down at the sword, sliding her hand out to the hilt and rotating it up slowly in front of her eyes.

  “This is a beautiful weapon that has brought righteousness and justice into the earth plane. Blessings on its bearer.”

  She laid the blade back flat on her hand and dropped a knee slightly as she offered it back to Mahkail. He took the blade and the flames sprung back up on the silver metal as he put it back over his shoulder again.

  “Thank you. Now give me Lahn.”

  “Sam,” Jason said, shaking his head.

  “You have no standing here. Shut up,” she answered. She heard his teeth click shut as he stepped away. She drew Lahn from behind her back and Jason tipped his head to the side.

  “How did I not know that was there?” he asked. She rolled her eyes.

  “The old Jason would have known.” He grinned, and she looked at Mahkail, grinning again at his disgust. “I run with barbarians and I was raised by wolves. You already knew that.”

  He made a point of looking around the apartment, pausing at Sam as he snored on the mattress on the floor, then held out his hands for Lahn. She placed the blade across the angel’s palms and stepped back. He turned the blade over in his hands, running his fingertips over the angeltongue symbols that were in relief on the blade.

  “The maker of Lahn returned to Heaven, did you know that? She is happy. At peace. Her chief pride from her time among the gray, though, is that you should bear this blade.” He looked up at her, letting the words sink in, then held the blade out to her. “Glory and power.”

  Samantha allowed him to place Lahn back across her hands, re-sheathing her under the shirt she had stolen from Jason to sleep in.

  “Thank you,” she said. Mahkail closed his eyes and bowed his head to her, long dark hair falling in waves over his face, then straightened.

  “I’m sorry. It has been a long battle with great grief, and it has been a very long time since I have been home.”

  “You know that I understand better than most,” Samantha answered, giving him a more genuine, less playful smile.

  “So we’re all friends again?” Jason asked.

  “We never stopped being friends,” Samantha said. “Mahkail is a warrior. I understand that he is invested in what goes wrong.” She smiled. “He taught me a lot of what I know about tactics.”

  “And she taught me much about the nature of playing against people.” Mahkail straightened slightly. “Angels are not as good at finding loopholes in confrontations.”

  Samantha let a grin spread across her face.

  “Yeah, that sounds like a sore loser.” She pointed her thumb at the angel and looked at Jason. “Don’t trust a word out of this one. He cheats.”

  “I’ve never cheated in my life,” Mahkail protested.

  “No, you just fail to disclose all the rules in advance.”

  His forehead wrinkled as he dropped his head to look at her.

  “What was it you said to me once? Life is hard, get a helmet?”

  She laughed, and he smiled.

  “We have missed your sense of play,” he said.

  “I’ve missed everything,” she answered, putting her hand out onto his arm. “I am sorry for your loss today.”

  “Right,” Jason said. “So he’s an angel, angels can die, and because of that, he’s here why?”

  “I’m here because we need help, and you were the closest person capable,” Mahkail said, not looking at Jason.

  “Where were you?” Jason asked.

  “Kazakhstan.”

  “And she’s the closest person you could find.”

  “It isn’t about geography, Jason,” Samantha said. “It’s more of an ‘enemy of my enemy’ thing.”

  “You aren’t allied with these guys?”

  “No… it’s…” She sighed. “Okay. Say you’re France and Germany just attacked you… Okay, no. Okay. Imagine a world where all of the countries are stacked on top of each other…”

  Jason raised an eyebrow at her and she frowned harder, then looked at Mahkail.

  “You explain it.”

  “I thought you were doing admirably.”

  She snorted.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “I need you to be the carrier until we reach the intersection where we can open the gate.”

  She closed her eyes, doing the math.

  “I’m honored,” she said. She wanted to say no, to send him on to the next person on his list, but it was too important. She opened her eyes and nodded. “Of course.”

  He took out a soft leather bag and presented it to her.

  “What is that?” Jason asked.

  “Angeldust,” Samantha answered. “The remains of the fallen angels.”

  “Entrusted to you for safekeeping until such a time as they can be transported home,” Mahkail said. She covered his hands with hers.

  “Wait. There are angels in there?” Jason asked. “Six of them?”

  “Just the important parts,” Samantha said, eyes locked with Mahkail.

  “How do they tell which parts are the important ones?”

  She gritted her teeth.

  “They have ways.”

  “He should not be here for this,” Mahkail said. She shook her head.

  “They share the risk.”

  He tipp
ed his head forward, conceding.

  “What do they do with the rest of them?” Jason asked.

  “If angeldust falls into the hands of dark magic users, it can be used for terrible things,” Mahkail said. “We scattered it in the upper atmosphere. It will act as a subtle blessing on the areas of the earth where it falls.”

  “They scattered it in the atmosphere,” Jason said. “Of course.”

  Mahkail’s head dropped further forward.

  “You tie your life to theirs,” he said. “You protect their safety with your existence.”

  “With my life,” she corrected. He nodded.

  “Wait a minute,” Jason said.

  “Shut up,” she answered.

  “You have my salute and my gratitude,” Mahkail said. She took her top hand off of his and took the bag. He let go of the bottom and she let her hand drop away. He looked around the apartment again.

  “You have warded this place well, but your use of dark magic to do it concerns me.”

  “That’s right. How did he get in?” Jason asked.

  “Angels go where they please,” Mahkail said. Samantha smiled.

  “Unless Nuri says otherwise.”

  He glared and she looked away. Her relationship with Nuri and Kjarr was a long-term sticking point with most angels.

  “I have had a change in my nature, of late,” she said. “The magic here is a remnant of the old behaviors.”

  “I can see that.”

  She wondered exactly what he could see, but knew it was impossible for him to explain it to her. She settled the flap over the top of the bag.

  “I expect you’ll want to bind it to me?”

  “Of course.”

  She lifted her shirt and wadded the excess fabric in one hand as she held the bag against the narrowest part of her waist with the other. Mahkail put out a finger and, starting with the corner of the bag, traced a tingling line around her waist on her bare skin, speaking a string of words in angeltongue that she recognized. It was a standard binding invocation, powerfully administered by an angel who had done it hundreds or thousands of times before. He made his way all the way around her waist and touched the other corner of the bag. The tingling line turned into a cool metal chain. She tested the length against a deep breath and nodded. It was going to be inconvenient, but it was the only way she would have taken responsibility for angeldust, and it was the only way he would have left it with her.

  “What the hell?” Jason asked.

  “You should dismiss him and find better company,” Mahkail commented.

  “He has proven himself,” Samantha answered. “How long do you think it will be?”

  “You know we can’t predict.”

  “Sam, he just tied that bag to you.”

  “Thank you, Jason. I know you can’t predict, but you can estimate. An angel that has been on this side as long as you have can feel them coming.”

  “Can feel what coming?”

  Mahkail closed his eyes, drawing a breath that left him at his full height.

  “Less than a year. Longer than three months.”

  “Feel what coming?” Jason asked again.

  “Thank you,” Samantha said. “I imagine you have troops to attend to.”

  “There is one more thing,” Mahkail said.

  “Tell me.”

  Mahkail raised an arm.

  “This is Kelly.”

  Samantha turned her head to find a slight, blond youth standing beyond Jason. She opened her mouth and closed it.

  “No,” she said, looking back at Mahkail. “No, I am not running a zoo. I do not want to collect them all. I am not taking custody of a…” she leaned forward, looking around Jason at the teenage boy. “Of a newly minted class one angel. Not going to happen.”

  “This is not a negotiation.”

  They stared at each other, then Mahkail disappeared and Samantha groaned. Jason was still looking at the kid.

  “Kelly’s a girl’s name.”

  <><><>

  Sam woke up warm and well-slept. Samantha was cooking in the kitchen, and she felt confident. Her plan for getting Sniffer out of Hell was a good one, the apartment smelled good, and he wasn’t afraid or angry. He appreciated mornings like this one. He opened his eyes to find a shirtless, skinny blond kid sitting in a chair looking at him.

  “Morning,” it said. Sam jerked away.

  “Sam, who is that?” he asked.

  “Kelly,” she said.

  “Kelly the boy,” Jason added. Sam blinked. The kid blinked.

  “Why is he here?”

  “He’s our new bodyguard,” Samantha said with sarcasm in her chipper tone. Sam looked harder, his warm, foggy sleep-mind sure there was something he was missing.

  “Sam’s got a bag of angeldust tied to her waist,” Jason said. Sam shook his head and looked over into the kitchen helplessly.

  “He’s an angel,” Samantha said. Sam sat up and nodded. The kid gave him a closed-mouth smile that revealed deep dimples. Sam shook his head again.

  “Wait, what?”

  <><><>

  The explanation didn’t help much.

  “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “Because having one of you awake for that was complicated enough,” Samantha said, looking over at where Jason was trying to teach Kelly to fetch.

  “One of us?” Sam asked. She sighed. She was trying to stay focused, to maintain a sense of forward motion and direction, but underneath it, there was a lot going on that she wasn’t telling him about. And there had been for a while. He wanted to dig at it, but - as always - it didn’t feel like the right time. He pushed the thought away and cleared his mind, trying to give her space to tell him what she needed him to know.

  “Can I see it?” he asked. She lifted her shirt, showing him the dessert-plate sized leather satchel that was tied to her waist with smooth gold chain. She lifted the flap on the satchel and pulled it open so he could see the glittering white dust there.

  “Angels ash?”

  She nodded.

  “Same as demons. Demon ash is powerful, but easy enough to get. Angel ash is really rare, because they protect it when angels die. And the ash of a gray angel is gray, and nowhere near as powerful.”

  She closed the satchel.

  “I thought demons just ended back up on the hellplane after we ashed them.”

  “They do.”

  “So why do you have to hold on to the angel’s ash? Why not just scatter all of it?”

  “Demons are individually responsible for the power necessary to cross. Angels draw on divine power when they cross, so their ashes are part of their identity in a way that demons aren’t tied to theirs.” She put her shirt back down and plated a stack of pancakes. “It’s the concept of power-self. I can’t explain it in the time it takes to make breakfast.”

  “But they only need part of themselves back?”

  “Just the important parts.”

  “Which are?”

  “Heart, lungs, brain, femur, hands… a few other things.”

  “How do they tell which parts are which?” Sam asked. She glared at him.

  “How would I know? They have ways.”

  “Are all people this condescending towards angels?” Kelly asked, appearing at the counter.

  “Oh, honey,” Samantha said. “Wait until you see Precious Moments.”

  “Get the ball, Kelly,” Jason called. “It’s over there.”

  Kelly glitched back across the apartment.

  “It doesn’t help that he actually does it,” Sam said.

  “We’re going to have to have a conversation about glitching in public,” Samantha answered. “And remind me to tell Jason that he is not to take Kelly anywhere near… Well, any place he’s already been in New York. And that’s for you, too. You keep him away from anything gray, got it?”

  “Sure. Is it like not getting the gremlin wet?”

  “Which kind?” Samantha answered absently. She turned off the griddle and pu
t it in the sink, walking over to the spot on the floor where they ate. Sam followed with plates.

  “Jason, stop tormenting the angel.”

  “But it’s like having the world’s most gullible kid for a little brother,” he answered, sitting down next to her. “He believes everything.”

  “Yes, you’re going to be a great influence on him,” she said.

  “What kind of angel is he?” Sam asked. She looked at Kelly, squinting.

  “How long have you been sentient?” she asked.

  “Two eons,” he answered.

  “Not all angels are sentient?” Sam asked.

  “What’s an eon?” Jason asked.

  “You think they measure time in years, on the Paradise plane?” Samantha asked. She looked at Kelly again.

  “Without rounding, how long have you been sentient?”

  “One eon, five days,” he answered, looking crestfallen. Samantha turned back to her plate.

  “Like a toddler,” she said, shaking her head. “They always round up.”

  “What does that mean?” Sam asked.

  “Angels tend to fill in where there is need,” she said. “As there are more people on earth at a given time, there are more angels involved in what’s going on here. More of the lower-classes get promoted and then,” she glanced over at Kelly with annoyance, “dumped on unsuspecting members of the gray class for training.”

  “I’ve trained more than you have,” Kelly said. “I am an angel of God, trained for his armies in the warfare against corruption and sleft’na pall.”

  Samantha smiled at the idealism. Sleft’na pall was a reference to the darkness that preceded and caused the initial concept of death. Angels used it as a term for demons.

  “And my friend here got you to fetch a ball,” Samantha said. “You’re a mushy cherub baby, and the first demon you stumble across is going to get you to fetch his weapon for him so he can dispatch you without getting up.”

  Kelly was stung and it showed. Sam was a little surprised that Samantha would treat an angel like that, and she let him in on the slight guilt she felt, but mostly she was impatient and annoyed.

  “You bear the pride that is the mark of fallenness,” Kelly said. “I recognize it and I pity you.”

  “You want to know the difference between pride and realism?” Jason asked.