Over my shoulder, she said to Michael, "It's been a long time, Malach."

"Rebeckah, I ..." Michael started.

"Lots of people lose the faith. I understand. It's never easy to decide to die for a cause." Rebeckah's jaw muscle twitched. "Deidre, I have a lot to do, you understand. This memorial ... it's for Daniel, as well. I hope you'll stay."

"I will. I can never repay you. Thanks."

"We knew the risks," Rebeckah said. I could see a tear forming in the corner of her eye.

My mouth opened, but I wasn't sure what to say. I intended to start talking anyway, to try to bridge the gulf between us with nonsense, babble – anything was better than the nothing that hung in the air. Michael put his hand on my shoulder, and the half-formed words evaporated. Rebeckah turned and walked away.

"Was all this pain and death part of the plan, Michael?" My voice was hoarse from all the unspoken words. I turned to glare at him, anger rising in me. "I mean, is the end going to justify all of this?"

Michael looked me in the eye, his gaze steady. "I pray it does."

I shook my head. "But you don't know, do you?"

"No." Squinting at me, he looked as though he expected an explosion.

I dropped a bomb of a different kind. "Michael, am I pregnant?"

His mouth hung open. He looked stunned.

"You can't be surprised. You can't be." My eyes narrowed. I looked him up and down, searching for some clue that he was faking his astonishment. He just stood there in the hallway, looking stupid. "You set everything up. Morningstar implied that he could ruin your plan by killing me, remember? He meant us, in the bell tower. The dream. The lily. Are you with me, Mike?"

"You're pregnant?" Michael asked, a stupid grin forming at the edges of his mouth. "Really?"

I stared at him, my mouth twisted in something combining a grimace and slack-jawed confusion. I couldn't believe he didn't have anything to do with the dream I'd had or the vision Eion had seen.

"Well," I muttered, "all the 'signs' seem to indicate I am."

Michael nodded appreciatively, not getting my reference.

"Hey," I offered sarcastically, "we could name him Emmanuel."

"What if it's a girl?" Michael looked genuinely hopeful.

It was my turn to gape stupidly into his face. "What do you mean, 'What if it's a girl?' "

"You already know its gender?" Michael shook his head in disbelief. "People certainly move fast these days. So, you've been to the doctor?"

"No, I haven't been to a doctor," I found myself shouting. "I had a fucking vision!"

The Malachim stopped to stare at us. The far-off banging of construction was the only sound in the hallway. When I looked to Michael to make our excuses, I noticed all the blood had drained from his face. When our eyes met, I saw sudden realization dawning there. I nodded my head. "Yes," I said. "Eion had the same vision."

"Oh." His voice was nearly a whisper. "Oh."

I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him out of the middle of the hallway. Blindly pushing the nearest door open, I all but shoved Michael into the room. It was a control booth for a theater. I could see a glass-sheathed stage through the window.

Ages ago, someone had converted this warehouse to a small theater. Rows and rows of empty seats glittered like ice-covered headstones. Fortunately, there had been no audience when the bomb hit. The stage was empty, the set only half-started or half-struck. I imagined somewhere in the cavernous backstage there was a frozen body of the technical director, caught working overtime to finish scenery for a play that, now, would never see opening curtain.

"I don't think we need worry," Michael said. "It might not be what it seems."

At first I thought Michael was talking about the theater; it took me a second to regroup. "Oh, yeah? And what makes you say that?"

"This is not the usual route ..." Michael cleared his throat noisily. "Um, Jibril is the usual herald for these things."

" 'Herald'?" I laughed. "Is that an euphemism?"

"Yes ... No. Messiahs are complicated. Some are born, but most are made."

I nodded, agreeing to myself that I didn't really want to know how messiahs worked – not right now, anyway. I had more pressing concerns. "I don't want this baby, messiah or not."

Michael chewed his lip. Noticing the Malachim working in the theater, Michael walked over to the control panel and looked out over my shoulder at them. "Okay," he said.

His hands rested on the edge of the board, and he peered intently into the theater. Hunched over the panel like that, he looked like a director – anxious, but controlled – watching every move of the actors on opening night.

My peripheral vision caught movement in the theater. Malachim in armored suits were hauling flat cardboard boxes to center stage. Though I couldn't see their faces, they moved with a sad, slow precision. Watching their work, I suddenly knew that the theater would be where the memorial service would be held.

Michael was close enough to touch. The smell of him drifted in the space between us. I breathed in deeply the aroma of leather, and something else, like heavy incense, frankincense, perhaps. The smell reminded me of church ... and sex.

"Michael, what about the baby?"

His gray eyes stayed riveted to the action on the stage, as if he were afraid to look at me as he spoke. – "I love you."

"You're an angel Michael. You have to love everybody."

"No, I don't." He grimaced at the Malachim in the theater. Then, he swung his gaze to mine. Our faces were inches apart, close enough to kiss. "I'm not talking about godly love, platonic love, or anything like that. I love you in the romantic sexual sense, Deidre, like a man loves a woman."

"You love me; I see." Despite my earlier talk, I had to keep reminding myself that Michael was an angel. When I wasn't touching him, there was nothing about him that seemed supernatural – no nimbus of light or billowing wings. Instead, he stood there in his leather and denim like any man. The light from the theater fell across the lines of his face, illuminating shapes and contours. Yet, his solidity was an illusion, and I had no idea what really lay beneath the airy shell he carried with him: was it something I could love, or was it a monster with six feathered limbs and a voice like thunder?

"Michael," I said, "show me your real face."

His gaze, which had been focused ahead, dropped to his chest. "I can't."

I nodded. "Because I couldn't handle it?"

"Because I don't have one."

"I don't understand."

"When I'm not here, I'm nothing ... everything. I'm in stasis, yet not. I'm not even a distinct me, but part of a bigger thing." As he searched for words, he scratched the back of his neck. The gesture seemed distinctly human. "It's hard to explain because it's nothing like here: there's no physical body to anchor the spirit to place and time."

"And yet you think you could love me like 'a man loves a woman'? Michael, we can't. We're not even the same species."

His eyes found mine. His dark eyebrows twitched as he searched for the right words. Finally, he said, "I haven't been back."

"Back where? Heaven?" He nodded. Though I didn't understand what he meant, the ashen cast to his face told me he was confessing to something serious. "Why not?"

"I'm afraid."

"Of what?" I tightened my grip on his arm. "Of God?"

He looked back over my shoulder at the Malachim. "I'm afraid of losing what I've gained here: a sense of self, apartness – and all that worldly life entails: having friends, enemies, lovers ... a family."

I let go of his arm, and backed away. " 'A family'?"

He smiled. "It was just a thought."

"Well, forget it. Michael, you're an angel. I'm not."

"Deidre" – his eyes pleaded with mine – "I could stay."

"Stay? What does that mean 'stay'? For me? That's a sweet sentiment, Michael. Really." I patted his arm gently. "But, I'm not sure I want to go down in history as the woman that Saint Michael the Archangel, Defender of the Catholic Faith, Host of Heaven, and God Incarnate quit his job for."