Dead Harvest

  Then I pictured Kate, so small and frightened and alone, and my hesitation evaporated.

  I stepped off of the toilet.

  I stepped off of the toilet, and nothing happened.

  At first, I thought I'd just miscalculated – that I'd left too much slack in the shirt, and wound up just standing here, tied to the bed frame like an idiot. Then I looked down. My feet scrambled for purchase a good six inches off the floor. Just the sight of them swinging there made me break out in a cold sweat. And yet somehow, I was still breathing.

  Whatever the hell was going on, I was sure of one thing: this was not my fucking day. I couldn't even manage to kill myself properly.

  "You'll forgive my interference, I trust, but I found your chosen method of egress a touch… drastic."

  The voice came from somewhere to my right, its honeyed tones resonating off the cold masonry of the cell walls. Hanging there as I was, I couldn't see who the voice was coming from. I opened my mouth to reply. All that came out was a hoarse squeak.

  "So sorry," continued the voice. "Where are my manners?" The sleeve around my neck abruptly slackened, and I tumbled to the floor.

  He was a tall, slender man, and he was standing in the far corner of my cell. Though I was looking right at him, he remained fuzzy and indistinct, like something half-glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. His hair was neither light nor dark; his eyes were neither brown nor green nor blue. In fact, I could scarcely be certain he was a he at all: he was more the impression of a man, a collection of vague, impassive features, imbued with an odd internal light and clad in a suit of charcoal gray. Black gloves of supple leather graced his hands. He extended one by way of assistance, and I took it, climbing to my feet.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked. His eyes seemed lit from within, his every movement suffused with preternatural grace. It was all I could do not to look away.

  "Why, Collector, I would have thought that you'd be grateful – after all, I just spared you no small measure of suffering, did I not?"

  "But you – you're a seraph, aren't you? An angel of the highest order. It seems odd you'd deign to meddle in the affairs of Man – or stoop to rescuing a lowly Collector from hanging himself."

  The angel smiled. "It seems you know your angelic hierarchy. But tell me, Collector, how well do you know yourself? Your given name, for example, is from the Hebrew for 'heard by God'. Perhaps it is by God's grace that I've come to rescue you. Then again, perhaps I simply wish to save this vessel of yours from prematurely shuffling off this mortal coil. After all, this man is a warrior for good – he deserves better than to be discarded once his usefulness to you is at an end."

  "So which is it? Did you come here to spare me or to save him?"

  "It is a fallacy of your human perspective that it must be one or the other. Can it not be both? Or, failing that, can it not just be?"

  "You're telling me mine is not to wonder why."

  "I'm telling you to have faith in the will of God," the angel amended.

  "Faith is belief in the absence of proof. As far as proof goes, I've seen my share. The way I figure it, that means faith for me is no longer an option."

  "I speak not of faith that God exists, but of faith that grace lies not beyond your reach."

  "I made my choice a long time ago. Save your talk of redemption for someone who deserves it."

  His eyes danced with mischievous cheer. "Like, perhaps, the MacNeil girl?"

  "So that's what this is about."

  "Again you persist in this fruitless quest for understanding."

  "Yeah," I said, "I'm funny that way." Then my brain played a little connect-the-dots and I flashed the angel a rueful smile. "The guys in the Crown Vic this morning – they were your boys, weren't they?"

  "An unfortunate misunderstanding," the angel replied. "I was laboring under the misapprehension that you were willingly subverting the ancient balance, and I reacted accordingly. Now I understand that your intentions are pure, and that you've simply been misled."

  "So what – you're here to scare me straight?"

  "I'm not here to scare anybody, Collector. I'm simply here to remind you that this détente of ours has lasted for millennia, and it has done so because the balance has always been carefully maintained – by those like me, as well as those like you. I would be loathe to see anything disrupt that balance – the results would be catastrophic."

  "And if the girl is innocent?"

  "Not a soul among us is innocent," he replied, "but of course that is not what you mean. You might be surprised to know your concerns have not fallen on deaf ears. I've looked into the matter myself, and I've been assured that she is anything but. To put it plainly, she's been deceiving you."

  "I don't accept that."