for us to know!” Michael shouted. “Don’t you see, you fool? We are only men. We see only in one place at one time. The Lord knows all that might be. Would you presume to say that you know better than our God what should be done with the swords?”
Douglas stared at Michael.
“Are you stupid enough to believe that He would want you to cast aside your beliefs to impose your will upon the world? Do you think He wants you to murder decent men and abduct innocent children?” The bat struck Fidelacchius from Douglas’s hands, and Michael followed it with a pair of crushing blows, one to the shoulder and one to the knee. Douglas went down to the sand in a heap.
“Look at yourself,” Michael said, his words hard and merciless. “Look at what you have done in God’s name. Look at the bruises on my daughter’s arms, at the blood on my friend’s face, and then tell me which of us has been deceived.”
Again, the bat swept down, and Douglas fell senseless to the sand.
Michael stood over the man for a moment, his entire body shaking, the bat still upraised.
“Michael,” I said quietly.
“He hurt my little girl, Harry.” His voice shook with barely repressed rage.
“He isn’t going to hurt her now,” I said.
“He hurt my little girl.”
“Michael,” I said, gently, “you can’t. If this is how it has to be, I’ll do it. But you can’t, man.”
His eyes shifted back toward me for just a second.
“Easy, easy,” I told him. “We’re done here. We’re done.”
He stared for another long, silent moment. Then he lowered the bat, very slowly, and bowed his head. He stood there for a minute, his chest heaving, and then dropped the bat. He settled down onto the sand with a wince.
I got up and collected Fidelacchius, returning it to its sheath.
“Thank you,” Michael said quietly. He offered me Amoracchius’ hilt.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
He nodded, smiling wearily. “Yes.”
I took the sword and looked at Douglas. “What do we do with him?”
Michael stared at him silently for a moment. In the background, we could hear emergency vehicles arriving to attend to the aftermath of the rooftop explosion. “We’ll bring him with us,” Michael said. “The Church will deal with its own.”
I SAT IN the chapel balcony at St. Mary’s, staring down at the church below me and brooding. Michael and Forthill had been seeing to Father Douglas, who wasn’t going anywhere under his own locomotion for a while. They had him in a bed somewhere. It had hurt to watch Michael, moving in what was obviously great pain, hobble around the room helping to make Douglas feel better. I’d have been content to dump the asshole in an alley somewhere and leave him to his fate.
Which might, just possibly, be one reason I was never going to be a Knight.
I had also swiped Forthill’s flask of Scotch from his room, and it was keeping me company in the balcony—two more reasons I was never going to be a Knight.
“Right at the end, there,” I said to no one in particular, “those two started speaking a different language. I mean, I understood all the words, and I understood the passion behind them, but I don’t get how they connect. You know?”
I sipped some more Scotch. “Come to think of it, there are a lot of things I don’t get about this whole situation.”
“And you want an explanation of some kind?” asked a man seated in the pew beside me.
I just about jumped out of my skin.
He was an older man. He had dark skin and silver-white hair, and he wore a workman’s blue jumpsuit, like you often see on janitors. The name tag read JAKE.
“You,” I breathed. “You’re the archangel. You’re Uriel.”
He shrugged. The gesture carried acknowledgment, somehow.
“What are you doing here?” I asked—maybe a bit blearily. I was concussed and half the flask was gone.
“Perhaps I’m a hallucination brought on by head trauma and alcohol,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. I peered at him, and then offered him the flask. “Want a belt?”
“Very kind,” he said, and took a swig from the flask. He passed it back to me. “I don’t exactly make it a habit to do this, but if you’ve got questions, ask them.”
“Okay,” I said. “Why did you guys let Michael get so screwed up?”
“We didn’t let him do anything,” Jake replied calmly. “He chose to hazard himself in battle against the enemy. The enemy chose to shoot him, and where to