I shook my head, brushing aside the eerie feeling creeping across my skin. The strangeness of my dream still haunted me, no doubt. I stretched my arm experimentally. I could've sworn I'd been shot last night at the police station. There was no sign of a bullet hole, not even a bruise. I pulled back the fabric of the tee shirt and touched the flesh of my shoulder tentatively, as if it didn't belong to me, or as if I expected mere contact to dispel the illusion and reveal a horrible wound. There was nothing. My skin was unbroken. It was a miracle. I looked over at Michael. His penis twitched in a dream, and a smile touched his lips.

"I must have dreamed the wound," I told myself in a voice that sounded unconvinced. "I must've dreamed it. I must have." A six-winged creature with Michael's voice flitted through my mind, dream words echoed: I am the arch ... "No," I stopped myself. "No."

Reaching out, I grabbed Michael's leather jacket. It was solid, not an apparition. "See," I whispered. "Real."

Michael stirred at the sound. With a groan, he stretched. The noon sun spread across his body as he unfurled. Seeing me, he smiled. "Morning."

"Hi." My voice sounded small. Looking at my hands, I realized I was still clutching his leather jacket. Even though I knew I must look foolish standing there with his tee shirt on, stroking the contours of the soft leather, I couldn't quite bring myself to relinquish my hold on the jacket.

"You okay?"

I glanced up at him. He had propped himself up by the elbows to take a better look at me. Even in his nakedness, his pose held the relaxed confidence of a statue of a Roman god. I laughed nervously at the thought. Michael's association with divinity was hardly in the small "g" category, I reminded myself ... or was it?

"Deidre?"

"When you said you were too busy to have ... um, when you said that earlier, what were you too busy doing? No, uhm, that didn't make any sense, did it?" I suppressed a nervous laugh and clutched the jacket. My stomach lurched. "Michael, are you ... Michael, what are you?"

He scratched his chin, considering. Then, he stood up and walked over to where his jeans and underwear were wedged into the corner. Stomping into them, he said, "I knew I should have told you before."

He glanced up from buttoning his fly, and his eyes locked on mine. The sound of torrential fluttering of six powerful wings filled my ears. A monster with Michael's soft gray eyes said, I am the arch ...

I shook my head. "You know what? I changed my mind. Maybe I don't want to know." I jettisoned the jacket and started frantically gathering my remaining clothes. "In fact, I really have to go. I talked to Mouse a second ago and found out that Daniel escaped. I don't know what Danny's planning on doing, but I can guess his target. I think I need to intercept him before he goes after Letourneau. I mean, who knows what kind of mental state he's in? The last letter of his I finally read ... man, he sounded a few bytes short of RAM, if you know what I mean. Daniel could be a real liability. He could damage our ability to have a little surprise on our side – not that we have any real plan, which is something else we have to ... Oh."

My breath caught in my throat as Michael slid his arms around my waist from behind. His arms were strong and solid, but the center of his chest burned with that strange warmth I had felt in the police station. I remembered the vision from my piggyback into the FBI agent's eyes: a glimmering bow tie of heat radiated from a molten center, it was as though what seemed to be Michael's body was a shell, and the real beast lay under the surface.

"I've never been a LINK-angel, Dee."

His arms around my waist squeezed me tightly, but comfortably. I squirmed in his embrace. "Michael, I really don't want to know this." I whispered. "I'm afraid it will change things."

"Like what?"

I turned around to face him and put my hands on his smooth chest. "Like this." I stroked his rib cage with my fingernail. He shivered.

"Why would that have to change?" He smiled, tightening his grip around my waist. "I kind of like that new development. It was nice ... twice."

"Michael ..." I was dumbfounded. I searched his face for some comprehension, but he just smiled rakishly. "What about chastity and celibacy?"

"What about them?" Stepping back from our embrace, he frowned. He looked me up and down. "Are you telling me you took a vow of celibacy? Deidre! This is a fine time to tell me that."

"No," I started pacing and was on the verge of shouting. "Not me, you. You're the one who's supposed to be chaste, pure ..."

"Why? Says who?"

I stared at him. Despite the sun, the wood floor felt cold. I was uncomfortably aware of my body: the heaviness of my breasts; the feather-light touch of the oversize tee shirt against my nipples; and the empty ache between my thighs.

Standing there in just his jeans, he reminded me of so many of my lovers. The dark mass of his hair was tousled, and his underwear peeked out of where he'd left the last button of his fly undone. The sun highlighted the wisps of hair on his arms.

I slapped his face with my open palm. The connection was solid, and I was rewarded with a satisfying tingle in my palm. Staggering back in surprise, he cupped his chin in his hand.

"Deidre! What possessed you to do that?"

"I just wanted to know."

"Know what?" Michael rubbed his chin. From an unreadable face, his gray eyes watched me intently.

"I just wanted to know if you could see it coming." Relieved, I took in a deep breath. I let the tension drop from my shoulders.

"What do you think that proves?" Michael asked, buttoning the last of his fly. Not waiting for a response, he continued, "This is exactly what Morningstar has been trying to remind me of since I got here."

I stared at him. "What?"

"This level precludes predetermination. Here, the apple has been eaten, as it were."

He leaned against the narrow wall space between the windows. His tall body was cast in shadow, and the light streaming in formed bright semioval shapes on either side of him like wings. From the shadows, his eyes seemed to glow with an inhuman light. I gasped and shook my head.

"This is all crazy. Listen to you, you're spouting nonsense like the Revelation preacher."

"Am I?" Michael crossed his arms in front of his chest. Though most of his body was still shrouded in shadows, the sunlight outlined the muscles of his arm. Only a few hours ago, those arms held me. Looking at the hard lines of his body, I desperately wanted to believe he was a solid, normal man. I tried to deny the truth, but I knew.

I remembered the moments he was on top of me. The usual comforting feeling of being held down by another's weight was missing. First time, I’d tried to pull him tighter. I could feel the outlines of his flesh, but without the mass. Later, I'd rolled us over, trying to banish the sensation replaced by something worse. When I was atop him, it had felt as though I were floating on air.

Now, it was my head that felt light, and I swallowed, hard. "Michael, I'm not ready for this."

Michael stood very still, as though afraid that with any sudden move I might bolt from the room. He chose his words carefully, slowly. "I think you've suspected for a long time, Dee."

My fingers brushed the live connection of the LINK implant. What was once dead, had been revived ... resurrected ... and with such strange timing. It was almost as if, the moment I chose not to betray Michael the way I had betrayed Daniel, it came alive. No, I shook my head mutely. It couldn't be.

Pulling my hand away from the implant, I flexed my fingers and felt the strength in my muscles move all the way up to my shoulder. "Miracles."

"Yes, miracles," Michael said quietly. He turned to look out the window at the smog-shrouded city. "So incredibly precious. So costly. Every time I come, I'm given a purpose and allowed one miracle to use to that end. One. It irks me, you know? Morningstar is right. I should have trusted you to make the right choice. Jibril trusted you. But, I didn't want to risk it. I have been trying to stack the deck, and very ungenerously, I might add. I used Morningstar, I used Jibril, because I didn't want to tarnish myself. You see, a miracle is a manipulation ... and when you manipulate the universal fabric like that, you take the easy road, you turn away, yetzer-ha-ra, sin ..."