A bead of sweat rolled down Max's temple, threatening to blind him for life with its salty sting.

"You look like you're straining, mate. Gonna pop somethin'?" Daniel grinned at him from the opposite end of the antique walnut desk they were carrying into Lily's school.

"You're lucky my hands are full, watcher."

Daniel laughed and stepped backward up onto the wide concrete step at the door. Cords of muscle stood out on his neck. "You'd be gone in a puff of smoke before I had a chance to make a real effort."

Lily stood halfway up a ladder patching a hole in the plaster. "When left to get the truck you were joking about garden gnomes in your underwear drawer and now you're threatening to vaporize each other?" She laughed. "You two do have the most stimulating conversations."

"Ya like to be stimulated, Mrs. Metit?"

Max jerked the desk forward, crushing Daniel between their ridiculously heavy burden and the doorframe of Lily's office.

"Oi! Don't be a tosser! I'm jus' makin' conversation." Daniel shifted so they would fit through the doorway. "See if I help next time you need a moving man."

"You only agreed to help this time because you know Lily's cooking dinner."

They set the desk in front of the window and Max wiped the sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve. Blindness averted.

Daniel pointed at him. "You married a woman who is a fine cook."

"I'm aware."

"I'm cooking, but you're in charge of dessert," Lily called from the other room. A moment later she appeared in the doorway, hands on her hips. She examined the placement of the desk and nodded. "It's perfect."

"Praise be," said Max. "If things go my way it'll never be moved again."

Lily rolled her eyes. "I thought you two were big strong men. You're defeated by a little desk?"

"You'll note I never complained," Daniel pointed out.

Max smacked him on the arm.

Lily laughed. "Thank you, guys. I really do appreciate it." She pointed at the window. "Look, that girl is out walking again."

They both turned to look. A small woman in a black burka walked along the sidewalk with a peaceful, meandering stride.

"I don't mean to judge," Lily said. "But she's got to be lonely in a town like this. I mean, the people here are great but they're also very..."

"Midwestern," Daniel finished for her.

"Exactly. Would you mind if I invited her to dinner?"

Max turned and took her hand in his, raised it to his lips and kissed it. "I think it's a fantastic idea."

"I'm going to see if I can catch her before she's gone too far." Lily jogged out the door.

The void tugged on Max. He glanced at Daniel who gave a wide-eyed shrug. "Let's go, then."

They slipped through to the void to find Harriet hidden behind great messy mounds of paper. Pink slips littered the floor. Her computer screen flashed in neon green, lending an alien aspect to her appearance. Her glasses dangled from a chain around her neck. A thick lock of grey hair had escaped the tight bun on top of her head and hung lank against her face. Without looking up from the ledger in which she was scribbling, she pointed at something behind them.

They turned.

Azrael nodded at them. "There's been a breach," he said without preamble.

"Not exactly news these days," Daniel quipped.

The angel of Death looked down at him. "There has been a breach, directly to Hell, seventy feet long, in the center of Sculpture Park in Moscow which is, if you have forgotten, the second most densely populated city on earth."

Daniel rubbed his eyes. "Bloody earth."

"Bloody, indeed," Azrael replied.

"How many?" Max asked.

"More than the local reapers can handle," Azrael replied.

Max muttered a curse far worse than Daniel's. It wasn't unheard of for there to be more than a thousand deaths in a single day in a city the size of Moscow. If the local reapers were missing reaps because they couldn't keep up, that was bad, indeed. And if there was a breach, who knew what evil crawled the street.

"The twins will cover your territory in Michigan. You need to go where you are most urgently needed," Azrael said. He stood before them, hands folded together, as placid as a pond on a summer day, but his power rippled and rolled around Max, a great sucking black hole from which no man could escape. Not even Max. Especially not Max. "I expect you can get there within a day."

"How long will I be there?" Max asked.

Azrael cocked his head to one side as though trying to comprehend something truly bizarre. "You'll be there as long as you are needed."

Max lowered his eyes. "Of course."

"Within the day, Maximus. Daniel, come with me."

Azrael turned and walked away, disappearing from their sight in seconds.

Daniel clapped Max on the arm. "We'll sort it out, mate. It won't take long."

Max nodded and watched his friend follow after his father. The suggestion of humanity melted away from Daniel as he moved and when he disappeared he did so in a flash of silver armor and towering, glimmering wings.

Max glanced back at Harriet who was holding one paper between her teeth while searching through the stacks for another.

And then he was back on earth, alone, looking out the window, watching Lily come up the walk with long, certain strides. Bright sunlight sparkled on golden highlights in her hair. She had a smudge of white paint on the side of her nose.

"She seems excited to come," Lily said, coming through the door. "Her name is Delwyn. Isn't that the prettiest thing you ever heard?" She glanced around. "Where's Daniel?"

Max swallowed hard. "He had to go."

Her shoulders sagged. "Don't tell me--" She didn't have a chance to finish before Max had her in his arms. He kicked the door shut and tugged at her shirt and, after a moment of startled surprise, she melted into his embrace and met him, urgency for urgency.

"I have to leave," Max told her when he could find words again.

She pulled away and studied his eyes. "I want to ask you a million questions."

He traced the angles of her face, burning them into his mind. "I want to tell you everything."

She curled against his chest and clung to him. "When?"

"I should be gone by now."

"Swear you'll come home to me."

Her hair was silk beneath his hand. The fragrance of her minty shampoo tickled his nose. "I swear I'll try."

She pulled away and stood, straightening her clothes. Her voice, not quite a shout, echoed off the bare walls. "That's not good enough, Max. You swear to me you'll come home. You swear it on every good and sacred thing that exists."

He rose to his feet and took her face in his hands, kissed her forehead, both eyelids, the tip of her nose. "The sheer force of your will will bring me back to you." He kissed her lips then, as softly as he had that very first time outside of her room in Vegas. "I love you, Lily Metit."

He turned and walked away knowing that if he stayed for one more minute he'd stay forever and the world would burn down around them and he wouldn't even care.

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Poor Max. The whole work/life balance thing is getting tricky.

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