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cracking slightly. “This is probably just a part of that. There were epidemics of this type before the war. I’ve read about them and I’ve prepared my staff for the possibility. We’ll deal with it.”
    Dylan didn’t believe it. Her instincts told her this was not normal.
    And she could see in Stiles’ face that he felt the same way.
    “Thank you, Harry,” Josephine said. “That’s all we needed. You should go back to your patients.”
    Harry glanced at Stiles before his eyes fell on Dylan. “We have this under control.”
    Dylan turned away, stepping to the door and staring out into the yard through the small window. She heard the front door close and felt Wyatt move up behind her.
    “He’s a good doctor,” he said softly. “You have to trust him.”
    Dylan turned and moved into his arms, relieved to feel the warmth of his touch.
    “I’ll talk to the council,” Josephine said. “But I really don’t think there’s reason to be alarmed yet.”
    They’re being naive.
    Dylan glanced at Stiles and nodded.
    But what could they do about it? If they were wrong, and Harry was right, they would just incite a panic. But if Harry was wrong…
    Dylan didn’t know what to do.

Chapter 7
     
    Stiles went back to the hospital after leaving Dylan’s, walking among the patients that were coughing and sneezing in the waiting room. The number had more than doubled since that morning. He recognized the little boy that Dylan had been so concerned about. His little face was pale and his coughs were weak—a bad sign. Stiles touched his forehead and tried not to acknowledge the hope that bloomed in his mother’s eyes, but his healing power seemed confused by what it sensed inside of him.
    He couldn’t heal these people any more than Dylan could.
    He left, walking through the streets like a dejected mortal. Stiles had never questioned his Father’s intentions. All through the war, all through the pain of watching humans he had come to care for dying at the hands of angels and gargoyles alike, he never questioned God. Things are more complicated than the humans could ever have guessed when they’d written their Bible. God gave humans freewill, which gave them so many choices that it was often difficult to predict which path their lives would take. That made it difficult for God to interfere. That was why he couldn’t stop Lucifer and his legion from engaging in a war against the humans, why he couldn’t simply end the war once it had begun, and why he had to give the choice to someone with freewill.
    But now…he didn’t understand what God was doing with these people now.
    Hadn’t they been through enough? Did he really have to introduce some illness that threatened everything they had fought so hard for during the war?
    And that was exactly what Stiles was afraid was happening. This illness…if it spread everywhere as quickly as it was spreading here, and if people began dying as Stiles feared…if…if…
    He found himself in the cemetery. He couldn’t remember walking there. He simply looked up and Rebecca’s unmarked grave spread out in front of him. He sat in the grass and ran his fingers through the soft dirt that was mounded over the box holding her body. He closed his eyes and he could see her as she was the first time he’d seen her…
    Laughing over the heads of a half-dozen children was a woman who was no more beautiful than any other woman he had seen, no more alluring. But there was something about her that seemed to speak to his soul.
    She was so beautiful, with her dark hair and smile that was like pure sunshine. That was still the way he saw her, even as that dark hair faded to gray and then white, and even after that smile was dimmed by the ravages of age. He never saw her wrinkles, never noticed the age spots she was so conscious of. She told him once he should go find a younger lover.
    We look ridiculous—me and my white hair and wrinkles, and you still looking like you did the first time I