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ask, “Are you okay holding my hand like this?”
    “Should I not be?” Michael shot Gabriel a look tinged with curiosity. “I am not, I admit, comfortable in places with large crowds whom I do not know. But we are among our own choir, our Brotherhood. So, I am fine with this.”
    “I’m well glad to hear that, solnyshko .” Gabriel gently squeezed Michael’s hand.
    Michael smiled just a bit and led him into the living room. There, Ishtahar sat. Her blue eyes were wide, and her face was pale.
    Terror, stark and raw, was written all over her aura, her body language, and her features.
    Gabriel took several quick steps to Ishtahar and knelt down beside her, placing one hand on her shoulder and taking her two small hands in his other hand.
    “Ishtahar,” he said. “Ish, I am so sorry.”
    She looked at him and blinked, biting her lower lip. Tears slid down her cheeks. “It is not your fault, Gabriel,” she said. “Semjaza was—is—a magician, after all. If anyone could free himself from Archangelic bondage, it would be him.”
    Gabriel closed his eyes for a long moment, resting his forehead against hers. “I’m still sorry,” he whispered.
    “So am I,” Ishtahar replied. “Oh, Gabriel. He will come for me. I know it.”
    “He can come all he likes.” Remiel’s voice was harsh, angry, as he cut in. “But he’s not getting you.”
    “Remi….” Gabriel trailed off as he looked up at the Archangel of Mercy and Compassion.
    “It’s not your fault, okay? It’s not.” Remiel stood there, arms folded over his chest, expression one of belligerent determination. “Did you set him loose? No. Did Ish call him up and invite him for tea and crumpets? No. This is on him. Like all the other crimes he and his have committed.”
    Gabriel regarded Remiel for several long, unblinking moments and nodded, suddenly feeling much more himself. That Ishtahar and Remiel did not blame him was a huge weight off his shoulders, although he still felt guilty.
    “I should have killed him at the time,” Gabriel said as he got to his feet. Ishtahar clutched his hand. “It would’ve saved a lot of misery.”
    “You weren’t ordered to,” Remiel said, still in that same harsh voice. “Anyway, you did enough. How many did you kill, Gabriel? How many Nephilim?”
    Gabriel opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had no idea. “I… don’t know. I never counted ’em.”
    “Six thousand, four hundred and nine,” Tzadkiel said. Gabriel looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “I was ordered to do a headcount,” Tzadkiel explained. “Sammy had to back up the count.”
    “He speaks the truth,” Samael agreed, stepping out of the shadows. “They were many, Gabriel, and yes, they were of all ages. But you had no choice. Just as you had no choice when you slew the Egyptians because Pharaoh would not let Moses and his people leave.”
    Gabriel sighed. “So much death,” he said. “A lot of it committed by me.”
    “And by me,” Michael said. He moved to Gabriel and touched his cheek. “Forget not, Gabriel, that it was I, not you, who slew many of our own kind during the War in Heaven. It was I, not you, who slew the Babylonians who strove to conquer Israel. It was I, not you, who battled Lucifer for Moses’s soul and won; it was I, not you, who slew the Manicheans who strove to rise above the Sassanids. So do not say you have committed more genocide than I, for you have not.
    “None of us here are innocent,” Michael went on. “Samael leads the dead to final judgment. Some of those, he must first extinguish the life force within. And Raphael, how many has Raphael lost to war, to disease? Enoch saw Raphael fight with sword and shield, killing many of Lucifer’s agents, countless numbers of them. Raziel has murdered those of the sons of Cain and of Adam who tried to use the contents of the Holy Book of Saint Raziel to take over the world. Tzadkiel has condemned many a petitioner at their final judgment; in fact, it