A Book of Dust and Breath

Chapter 36.2

He looked into the blue eyes that had held him captive for a year and told the one secret he'd never before revealed.

"I'm the son of an angel. The Angel of Death. I'm a reaper."

Her chin lifted a fraction of an inch. "I," her voice caught. "I don't understand."

"I help people find their True Selves. When they die, the part of them that is truly who they are rises from the body, usually confused and disoriented. It's my job to help them cross over to my father. He guides them from there."

"You kill people." Her face was perfectly unreadable, her eyes dry now, watching him warily.

"No. I transition the dead."

"You're an angel?"

"Azrael is an angel."

"You're human."

"I'm sort of... human plus. I live. I die. I am reborn with the faintest hint of memory of all that's come before."

"Are you the only one?"

"No. I have thousands of brothers and sisters."

"Thousands."

"Yeah."

She looked away, studied the baby. He made the tiny noise again and Max stood to get a bottle from the counter. He went through the motions of preparation, just as the nurse had shown him and handed it to Lily. She accepted it from him and held it to her son's lips. He latched on and sucked greedily.

"Daniel is like you?" She asked.

A half-hysterical laugh burst out of him. "No. He'd be insulted to hear you even ask. He's an angel, like my father, except a different class. He's a watcher."

"Then I really did see him in glowing armor with a sword."

"Yeah."

"And Delwyn? She's part of this, too?"

"Delwyn is a warrior. A companion. What some call a guardian angel."

She swiped at the tears on her face. "And those creatures, they were real, too?"

"Very real."

"They've been there all along." It wasn't a question. She'd sensed them on her very first day in the house. "They were there and you knew it."

"Yes." Had he ever felt so small and powerless and insignificant? "I think they were trying to get at me through you. Or, really, trying to get at Azrael."

Her chin trembled, but she gritted her teeth to still it. "So why didn't they attack me sooner?"

"You were too strong. They had to wait until the connection between your body and spirit was broken, or nearly so."

"You shielded me. They went inside you."

He stood and walked toward the window. Beneath them, the roof of a lower level stretched grey and ugly. In the distance, cars moved on and off the expressway. Busy people, going on with life, not thinking for a moment how fragile it all was.

"When you come home all beat up and half dead, is that why? Is that what happens to you? This is where you go? Off to fight demons and save the souls of the dying?"

He kept his back to her. What words could he offer to make it easier as she assembled the pieces of the puzzle in her mind? How could he explain that every time he fought the shadow crawlers they ate a piece of his soul? How could he describe the torment of Hell, imparted by them into his mind when they touched him?

No hysterics. She didn't faint or scream or tell him to get away. The peaceful warrior maintained control.

Finally, unable to stand the silence, he faced her once again. "You believe me? You have no objection to this nightmare?"

A strange, horrible, mirthless kind of laughter burst out of her. "I saw for myself. And yes, I object."

He returned to her side.

"There's more, right?" she asked. "You've gone this far. May as well tell me the rest."

Lowering himself back to the chair he said, "They don't do this, Lily. They... I mean... they're not supposed to. They don't stalk people the way they've done with you. They have no dominion over the living. Not even over the dying. There only claim is on the dead and very, very few of the dead at that. They came for you because they're trying to destroy me. They're trying to destroy me because I'm Azrael's oldest son, the most powerful, and he has destroyed their chief. It's war and they're using you."

"And they're not done yet."

He watched as her chin notched up again, a sure sign she was bracing herself against whatever storm was brewing within her soul.

"What do we do?" She asked.

His own personal miracle, lying there with their astonishing little child asleep in her arms, he wondered if he would die from loving her so much. Surely no other woman had ever been as brave, as clever, as accepting, or as strong. "Rest," he said. "You are protected. Liam, too. The warriors surround you. Let yourself heal and then we'll figure it out. There has to be a way to work this out. I'm sure of it."

He could see the longing to resist his words in the thin, straight press of her lips, but her drooping eyelids betrayed the truth of her exhaustion. Her wounds, the loss of blood, the pain medication all fought to pull her back toward sleep.

"Rest," he said again. "I won't leave you for a second. I swear." Even as he said the words he felt the pull of the void and he resisted it. "I'll stay with you."

She gave herself over to sleep and when her breathing grew slow and deep once more, he took the baby from her arms and sat down to rock him again, ignoring the tug when it came again.

Somewhere nearby a soul sought help. Let Heaven send someone else.

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Well, the cat's out of the bag and Max's world is in a bit of a downward spiral. He's making some tough choices, but is he choosing wisely?

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