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natural order. And the last time there had been a death outside the natural order was when Ramuell had cut a swath through the innocent of this city.
    “It can’t be,” I said as Gabriel stared at me. “It can’t . I killed him. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that I killed Ramuell. Lucifer’s been dangling it over my head ever since.”
    “Then it must be another nephilim,” Gabriel said slowly.
    “You just said that couldn’t happen,” J.B. said.
    “Do you have another explanation, Agent?”
    “No, but I’m not the one calling Maddy a liar.”
    Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “I did not call Madeline a liar.”
    “You implied it,” J.B. fired back.
    “You’d better do something before this turns into a scene from a high school romcom,” Beezle muttered.
    I stepped forward, intending to get between them and push them apart—they were practically nose to nose—when I heard somebody groaning. I froze, trying to determine the location of the noise, but I couldn’t pick it out over the sound of bickering.
    “Shut up,” I snapped, and both of them turned to stare at me. “Somebody else is here.”
    I heard the groaning again, very faint, farther along the alley and closer to the street. I started forward and Gabriel gripped my arm.
    “Wait. It may be a trap,” Gabriel said. “Stay behind me.”
    “Because I’m small and helpless?” I asked, annoyed.
    “Because your powers do not seem to be functioning normally right now,” he answered reasonably.
    I supposed I couldn’t argue with that even if it did make me feel useless.
    J.B. took up a position behind me and we proceeded slowly toward the sound, picking our way carefully through the remains of the werewolf. I felt things squishing beneath my boots and tried not to think about what I was doing. My body thrummed with tension. What was waiting for us? Another of this creature’s victims, or the creature itself?
    Gabriel directed the ball of nightfire toward the sound. There were white feathers splashed with red scattered around just past the gore from the werewolf. A bloodied hand came into view, then an arm, then a gigantic pair of white wings covering a body lying prone on the ground. A golden-haired head was just visible.
    “It’s an angel,” I said.
    “Or something that looks like one,” Gabriel agreed. “Gargoyle?”
    Beezle squinted, his clawed hands gripping the lapel of my coat, and I knew that he was looking through the layers of reality to find the creature’s essence.
    “It’s an angel.” Beezle nudged me with a sharp little elbow. “See, I’m handy to have around.”
    “Sometimes,” I agreed.
    Gabriel signaled to me to stay behind and J.B. put his hand on my shoulder to make sure that I understood. I shrugged off his touch, resenting their high-handedness. I wasn’t stupid. I knew that I wasn’t up to tangling with anything supernatural at the moment.
    My bodyguard approached the body carefully, knelt beside the angel and rolled the creature to its back. The angel’s face was splattered with blood and there was a large and ugly gash across his bare chest.
    Gabriel beckoned the ball of nightfire closer to him. “It’s Baraqiel.”
    “What’s he doing here?” asked Beezle, surprise evident in his voice.
    “Who’s Baraqiel?” J.B. and I asked together.
    “Lucifer’s personal messenger,” Beezle said.
    I wondered what Lucifer was up to now. Why was his personal messenger lying wounded in an alley only a few feet away from the mangled corpse of a werewolf? Had Baraqiel just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was he the werewolf’s killer?
    Gabriel laid his hands on the wound and the alley grew brighter as the light of the sun came from his palms. The air filled with the scent of apple pie baking—a smell that was unique to Gabriel.
    Baraqiel gasped for air and his eyes flew open as Gabriel lifted his hands away from the angel’s chest. The wound was healed.
    “Gabriel?” he asked, his