When Lily opened her eyes she found herself in yet another dim room. A different atmosphere filled this space. The darkness was heavy, but not menacing or oppressive. She was certain of her safety in this place.

She saw all this from the glow of a single lamp on an old, enormous, military style desk behind which a woman with hair and eyes the same steely color as the desk peered at her over half-moon spectacles. "We don't usually see your kind here. This is an administrative office, not a daycare."

In her arms, Liam squirmed, yawned, and opened his beautiful brown eyes, so like his father's.

The truth of his safety struck her and she nearly fell to the ground. Hot tears filled her eyes. The enormity of all of the emotions she'd experienced since the moment she heard Max's cry of alarm an eternity ago in the upstairs hallway came crashing down on her. She gasped for breath.

"You're not going to faint in my office, are you?" the woman asked in her low, drowning voice.

"She'll be fine," A powerful male voice answered. "She is stronger than you can imagine." Azrael stepped into the circle of light and put an arm around her. Lacking the will to fight the tsunami of tears, she curled into his powerful chest and let him hold her while she cried.

How long was that?

A moment?

A lifetime?

Both?

It didn't matter. The strong arms of Death stayed around her, preventing her from falling down. No longer did his energy scare her. What was death, but the start of new life?

Eventually, her tears slowed and her breath came a little easier. She pulled away and he released her.

"I'm sorry," she motioned to the mess on the front of his shirt.

"It's no matter," he assured her.

Lily wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Are the others..."

"Max is free."

"Max, but what about Daniel? The companions? The demons, are they..."

Azrael interrupted her once more. "There is much to discuss. Max wasn't sure if you would want to see him. He asked that I meet you here."

Did she want to see him? The question hadn't really occurred to her, but now that he'd put it into the world, she wasn't sure what to say about it. Instead she asked, "Where are we?"

"Nowhere," he answered. With a quick glance around he explained. "This place is a void--a space between spaces. It is nowhere. Here, there is no time and no space. Nothing exists here," he paused, rocking his head back and forth for a moment as though thinking. "Except Harriet. She chose this non-plane of existence because, in her words--"

"No one bothers me here," the old woman said blandly from behind her desk. "Yet here you are. Talking. Do you know how hard it is to type these forms with all your chattering?"

Azrael's powerful, melodic voice was a lot of things. Chattering was not one of them.

"Will you come with me to speak with Max?" He asked. "There will be no danger to any of you."

She believed he was not above keeping secrets, but she also believed when he gave a flat, straight statement like that he was telling the truth. In fact, something about him made her believe he was actually incapable of telling a lie. She gazed down at her child, bright-eyed and content, watching the two of them with an interest far beyond what she would expect from one so young. He was the image of his father. Her husband. The memory of his body hanging from the chains sent shivers through her.

"I'm surprised he's not back at work," she said, half joking just for something to say.

Azrael seemed surprised. "He's dead, Lily."

The words slammed into her. "What? You said..."

"I said he is free, and so he is, but he is as dead as you are. He had no other way to follow you here, just as you followed your son."

"But he's..." she held up a hand as though the words she needed would drop into it. Had she lost the ability to finish a sentence?

"He's of the earth. He is able to come here, to the void, because it is both places, and neither. He cannot go beyond while dwelling in flesh."

The floor beneath her feet tilted again. Straightening her spine and taking a deep breath she nodded. "OK. Please take me to him."

The angel nodded. He took her hand and walked toward the shadows, but they never closed in around them. As though he carried his own light within his very being, the darkness retreated from his approach. In time, or in an instant, they were in a new place where pale, watery sunlight shone with surprising golden warmth. Tall ripe wheat swayed in a gentle breeze ripe with the fragrance of day lilies. A hard-packed, sandy path led toward a cottage with a straw roof.

An image of being greeted by Goldilocks and the three bears popped into Lily's mind and she barked out a laugh that sounded just a little hysterical to her own ears.

Azrael gave no indication that he noticed.

She shifted Liam to her shoulder and whispered against his tiny ear. "Mommy might be cracking up, little man. I think I'm just about past my limit, here."

Ahead of them, the door opened and Max stepped out. No scratch marred his dark skin. His hair was clean, gleaming blue-black in the weird light.

He waited in silence for them to reach the house and he stepped aside to let them in, his eyes never leaving his wife and child. When Azrael closed the door behind them, Max said, "I give thanks to God that you are safe. I couldn't... I didn't..."

He trailed off.

Maybe it wasn't just her. Maybe this place left everyone someone speechless.

"May I hold him?" he asked.

No part of Lily wanted to let go of her son, but it seemed only fair. Max had gone to the same extreme measures she had to follow their child's kidnappers. She let him lift the baby away and watched as he breathed deeply of the scent of his soft hair. "I'm so sorry, Lily. None of this should have happened to you."

Did it matter that it had happened? The question came to her strange and unbidden and she possessed no answer.

"Will you forgive me?"

"I'll try," she offered. It seemed a pathetic answer, but when he held out his hand, she took it and the love in his eyes promised that everything would be OK, somehow.

Max led her to a little round table where they sat, huddled together on one side. Azrael sat across from them.

The angel of death wasted no words. "Daniel and his fellow warriors made a choice to help you. The breech has not been healed. Imbalance is everywhere. Hell reigns on earth. The prisons of Hell overflow with angelic captives."

The muscle in Max's jaw jumped. He looked straight into Lily's eyes. "This happened because of me," he said. "When I married you, I let myself be distracted. I missed reaps. That creates breeches, weak spots that allow evil into the world. When I was ordered to reap Liam I tried to save him instead, but Raboch stopped me. I killed myself to follow you. It's the most unnatural act there is. The cracks broke open into a doorway. There is nothing to stop evil from pouring into the world now."

"Because you married me."

"Because I let myself be distracted from my duty."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous." A hint of annoyance tinted Azrael's strong voice. "You have a unique place in the order, Maximus, but all of Heaven and Hell do not move around you."

Max fell back against his chair as though struck. Lily guessed that in all the long stretch of eternity, Azrael had never spoken to his son quite like that.

"You neglected your duty and that created a foothold for the black ones. A foothold for evil does not a world destroy. This is so much bigger than you, you cannot even comprehend it. It is a battle that outstrips the existence of humankind by a hundred thousand millennia. What you did was foolishness, but not a foolishness that hasn't been done countless times before you. You said it yourself, you were conceived of a human, as were your siblings." He made a little bow toward Lily. "The daughters of men are a powerful temptation."

Max sat perfectly still. It seemed he wasn't even breathing.

Finally, Lily turned to Azrael and asked, "OK. So Max was caught up in this and became a part of something bigger than himself. Now Liam and I are part of it, too. What happens from here?"

Azrael shrugged, an entirely human gesture. "That's entirely up to you."

"To us?" Max asked, coming to life again.

"Well, the battle will carry on with or without you. It will continue until He who allowed it to begin puts an end to it. Your part in it is up to you."

"What can we do?" Lily asked.

"You are fully human. You can choose to do nothing. You can take your son and move on to what comes next. That is, by far, your most pleasant option. You should know that."

"OK," she said. "What are the less pleasant options?"

"There is really only one. Humans don't often realize it, but the bonds of marriage stretch far beyond the laws of a specific land. You and Max are literally one being now. You are as Max is. You can choose to be a part of the cycle of birth and death, as he is."

"I can become a reaper?"

"You can," the angel affirmed. "And as such, you can help fight back those who would use the breech to the harm of humankind until such a time as it is repaired." He turned toward Max, "That goes for you, too, my son. You can go with your wife and son. Your journey has been long. You can choose to end it now."

They sat at the little table, none of them looking at any of the others until Lily asked softly, "What about Liam?"

"Liam's death had nothing to do with the breech. He was a human child, used as a tool of war by a terrible evil. His time on earth has ended."

Tears came again. Max put an arm around her and pulled her close. They both held the boy in their arms. "Why?" she asked. "Why would this be allowed to happen to an innocent baby?"

Azrael shrugged. "I don't know why the days are numbered as they are."

"Who would take care of him?" she asked.

"Everyone. No one. Source," Max answered. "There is no mother or father in the presence of the Mother/Father of us all."

Azrael nodded in agreement. "No one is saying you have to leave him. You have every right to move on with him."

"But you want us to stay and help you." It wasn't a question. His feelings were plain.

"Maximus is my firstborn. He is the most powerful. He is stronger than he realizes. I think you are stronger even than him. Together, I believe the two of you have it in you to battle Hell."

"Battling doesn't mean defeating," Lily pointed out, making a conscious choice to gloss over the comment about her strength. That was too strange to think about on top of everything else.

"No. But giving up always means losing."

"There is no failure. There is only quitting," Max murmured.

Azrael inclined his head in agreement.

Lily shifted the baby in her arms and held him with his little head in the palm of her hand, so she could see his face.

"We can't leave Daniel and the others, can we?" She asked.

"I will love you no matter what you decide," Max said, running his hand over her hair. He barked out a harsh, joyless laugh. "All I've wanted for a thousand lifetimes is the chance to die and move on. Here it is and I can't do it."

She kissed her son's head, his round cheeks, his tiny lips, both eyes, his head again. She held him against her breast. "I'll find my way back to you, beautiful boy. Never forget how much your mommy loves you. I'll fight Hell to come back to you."

A whisper of a memory came to her. Max had once made a similar promise. He'd kept his word.

On the other side of the room a rectangle of light formed in the air. The light spread from top to bottom until it resembled an open doorway and a being with no form, more tangible and real than anyone she'd ever met stood in the door, yet they were invisible, without matter.

Liam smiled and kicked his feet.

Lily's heart swelled toward the creature--a manifestation of love, formed and infinite. On trembling legs she stood and approached the door. "I'll be with you again. I swear it," she whispered in his ear, even as he reached for the light.

He was lifted from her arms and the sense of having completed a task of enormous importance and infinite righteousness washed over her as the door disappeared and, with it, her son. He would be safe. No evil could touch him where he was going. She was certain of that, if nothing else.

She turned toward the two men at the table. Ignoring the tears coursing down her cheeks, she lifted her chin and asked, "What do we do first?"

"First, we are born," Max said. "Brace yourself. Childhood is disorienting."