The previous day had held a dreamlike quality of which she didn't want to let go, so early that morning when Kate first awoke, she lay in bed stretching and hoping her mere force of will would allow her to cling to that sensation a while longer. She usually wasn't a slugabed, so the whole lovely episode lasted barely twenty minutes, but it was a fine start to what looked to be an unimpeachable day. She was free, with no ties to what lay behind her. The future was her pearl.

She got up, did her chores, played with the horses and with that knuckleheaded dog, and had a bite to eat. The day was so pristine that when she heard a vehicle pull up in the early morning, she was completely taken aback to see it was Eli. She knew he was coming up that day, but the idea he was such an inveterate early riser had slipped her mind. It was barely 8:00 in the morning when he arrived.

"Well ain't you an early bird," she said as she bounced up to his truck. In recent months, she'd abandoned all pretense at the grace and poise Alice had toiled many hard years to cultivate, at least she did when she was around him.

"I didn't have to wait around this morning for you to drag-ass out of bed. So, what's it like to be a free woman?" he asked as he returned her embrace.

"Glorious."

Kate had come up the night before, immediately after the closing on her now former house in the Hills. This tiny ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley was her home, now. Her lovely red pickup was parked next to the barn to prove it.

"What are we doing, today?" he continued.

"I'm going to feed you, then work you like a dog," was her only response. Any shame she had about exploiting her friend's labor was gone for the moment. She took his hand and led him to the kitchen.

"I'm guessing the closing went the way you wanted."

"It did," she crooned while pulling breakfast makings from the fridge. "I had to write a check for eighty-grand at the end to pay off the last mortgage, but even that was a relief. It was thirty-thousand less than I originally thought it would be. I now owe no one nothing."

"You look about three inches taller." He pulled something from his pocket. "This might be an added bonus." He reached over and handed her a men's watch.

"Holy shit," she said quietly. "This is Otto's. Oh!  ... the butt-fucker ponied up?" She began laughing and stood there for some time staring at the watch in her hand. After a while, she extended the item toward Eli. "You take it."

Eli took back the item in question, a vintage Cartier. "Kate, love," he said, gesturing with the item, "this could go a long way toward paying for your new pasture fence. It might even cover the entire cost. I can't take it from you. Time means shit to me. In fact, I threw my watch in the river when I left the army." After briefly regarding the watch once more, Eli pulled the lid from a smiling pig cookie jar on the counter and gently placed the watch within. "We'll let him hold the stakes until you decide what to do with it."

She didn't protest. The truth was that she wanted him to take the watch—her conflict with her former step-kids never had been about the money—but she also knew Eli wouldn't accept something so lavish. He would probably win this round, and she didn't mind. Instead of fussing, she leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek.

"I'm guessing lovely Clancy swears up and down it's the only thing he took," she said when she turned back to her task.

"No, he didn't, but he claims he's sold everything else of his father's."

"That's how much he valued his dad," she snorted. "Do you think that line of BS is true?"

"It might be. He was actually wearing that watch the day he got arrested but had the presence of mind to pocket it when you showed up at the beach house."

"Butt-fucker," she sniggered.

Eli joined in her laughter. For reasons she couldn't fathom, he remained amused at hearing her utter that phrase.

"We'll find out if his line of shit is true soon enough," he said. "It looks like the prosecutor is going ahead with residential burglary charges. Battery will get him a few months of county time. Burglary is likely to land him a few years upstate. I think Clancy's about ready to piss himself."

"So, does he fear prison more than he dislikes me?"

"I think that's the question he's asking himself. Either way, my lawyer is convinced the prosecutor won't plead him down to a misdemeanor, no matter what you and I think. You'll probably be hearing from the prosecutor's office soon."

"I don't plan on lying on the stand for him," she said with a smile. She swatted Eli's hand when he attempted to filch a piece of ham.

"Oh, I never imagined you would. Clancy's lawyer just hopes you and I will support a plea deal ... or at least won't object to one.

She reached up with a sticky hand from her cutting board and caressed Eli's jawline. "Let him keep the rest of the stuff. I'll testify at his trial but don't want anything else to do with him or his wretched siblings." It was enough for her that Clancy had admitted to stealing from her by returning the watch. The rest she decided to leave to the courts.

That decision got her feeling magnanimous, so she let Eli thieve a piece of ham from the cutting board on his second attempt, but only that once.

"Jan has a crush on you," she said with a mild hum.

"What prompted that?"

"She might be by today. Just thought I'd give you a heads-up. And, no, I'm not trying to play matchmaker."

"I think it would be a felony if you did. She's what? Twelve?"

She ignored the question; he was clearly baiting her.

"Just don't do anything to lead her on. We both know what an old Lothario you are."

"With the emphasis on old."

"You don't look a day over thirty-five, you fraud. Maybe you really did make a pact with Satan."

"I'd like to think I could've cut a better deal than my current life."

"Do you think those things really exist?" she asked wistfully.

"What? Pacts with Satan? I dunno. The Regensburg IX demon said demons in Hell, or whatever you call the place, have very little influence in our world. Only the very smallest and weakest can actually slip through the cracks separating our worlds, and only the very, very strongest can exert their will on our world from beyond. Even that influence is weak."

"The strongest? You mean like the Devil?"

"I'm not sure. The picture the R. IX demon painted was that Lucifer, the so-called Prince of Darkness, really wasn't all that powerful. He was just the rabble-rouser who instigated the war in Heaven. According to the manuscript, there was another angel/demon, one who the demon referred to simply as 'the Beast,' who was the true leader of the losing side."

"So, this Beast would be the Devil?"

He gave her a wicked smile. "Nope. According to the demon, the Beast didn't flee Earth with the rest of the losing army .... He was one of those deserters who remained here after the rest took off."

"Kiss my ass," she slowly droned. Breakfast was ready, and she handed him a warm plate before steering him to the small kitchen table. "You're not scaring me with spooky stories."

"You asked about it, and I'm just saying what the demon from the manuscript claimed. He also said that if the Beast ever revealed himself on Earth that the war between the angels almost certainly would erupt again."

"Okay, where is this Beast, now?" She asked the question lazily, not wanting him to see how interested she was. The intensity of her recent obsession with all things paranormal had become a little embarrassing, even when it was just her and Eli.

"In hiding, of course. But I got the sense from reading the R. IX manuscript that the Regensburg demon was actually the Beast."

"Oooh ... a little spookier. Keep going."

"There's nothing else to tell. The Beast could be anywhere, walking among us, hiding inside any human. Hopefully, he'll be sharing a cell with Clancy Cyril."

"That's a sweet sentiment," she cooed. On an impulse, she picked up a fork and began eating from his plate. "But are these Earth-bound angel/demons ... you know, dangerous? And I don't remember these details from your thesis. Are you fucking with me, again?"

"No. I'm not fucking with you. I promise. The R. IX manuscript was long, really long. I read all of it but only based my thesis on a small portion. It's a wicked cool book ... no pun intended. I'll send you an electronic copy if you want to read it."

"I couldn't remember my high school Latin to save my life."

"Well, I'll summarize. The R. IX demon basically said the winner writes the history books, and the winning side in this war, through the various religions of the World, have painted the losing side as monsters."

"I read that part," she corrected. "Tell me something new."

"Okay. The R. IX demon claimed that demons, angels ... beings like him, whatever you call them, are neither inherently bad nor good. They have personalities just like humans. To paraphrase what he said, 'many is the heavenly angel I wouldn't walk across the street to piss on, and many are the demons of Hell I might still call friend were it not for my calamity.'"

"His calamity?"

"It's what he calls his act of desertion."

"Okay, but he's saying demons aren't inherently bad."

"Ah," he said emphatically, "I see your point. He hedged a little on a few things. Apparently, their species comes from a different plane of existence, one that is, I dunno, more essence and spirit. They need either to create or to borrow physical forms to survive in a plane of corporeal existence like ours ... and according to him there are numerous other planes, all different."

"You said physical form? Like a human might need a space suit?"

"He didn't describe it in that way, but, yeah, I remember thinking much the same thing. But it's a little different. Being in a plane of existence different than their own slowly corrupts members of his species, transforming them and making them more like that plane. The angels who lost the war fled to a realm that was much less essence and spirit even than our universe. The demon claims being trapped there has coarsened the members of losing army in some way, so they ... I dunno, are less lofty and spiritual and more driven by their base and carnal impulses."

Eli finally took a bite and then continued. "He said something similar about the Earth-bound demon/angels. It was one thing he was very candid about. He said when he first came to Earth, he very much looked down on humans, loathed them in fact, felt soiled when he had to flee his angelic carapace to hide inside a human host. But he claimed that over the years he became more and more in tune with humanity, and by the time he recounted this tale to the person, or persons, who inscribed it in Regensburg IX, he'd developed a great compassion for what he'd come to think of as his fellow humans."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. One of the scribes who wrote R. IX also seemed to hint at that in several places. Apparently, that scribe had known the demon as a human for many years before he basically outed himself to her. And I do think one of the scribes was a woman, based on things she wrote. In fact, I suspect the scribe may have been the demon's human wife ... though I have zero proof for that. It's just a feeling."

"What a great made-for-TV movie, 'Honey, I Married a Demon.'"

"Or, 'Honey, I Married an Angel.' It's hard to call something like the Regensburg demon ... well, to call him/it a 'demon.'"

"Because he ... or 'it' ... is neither from Heaven or Hell. You said that before." She scrunched up her face. "It was never clear, though. What caused this war? It sounds a lot like the traditional story that one group of angels rebelled and were cast down."

"That part wasn't a hundred percent clear to me, either," he replied. "So much in the manuscript was terse or muddled. In brief, the R. IX demon claimed the war wasn't a rebellion. It was a civil war. According to him, the leader of the winning side, who he sometimes referred to—condescendingly, I suspect—as Yahweh, wasn't the Creator. Well, he didn't create the angels, though angels themselves apparently are creators of sorts. But either way, in the view of the losing side, disobeying this Yahweh character wasn't a crime, because he was just another angel. Still, it was never perfectly clear whether the conflict was about anything bigger than a clash of personalities between the warring parties."

"You said all that before, too ... but then, who did create the angels?"

"Kate, when I go back and get my Ph.D. in theology, that'll be my dissertation topic."

"Ha. Yeah, I get you .... How did we start talking about this?"

"I don't remember. Isn't there ranch work to do? That doesn't involve me dying in a stampede?"

"Sissy. Come on. Let me show you the garden I'm putting in."