There wasa light knocking at my front door. Wincing as I waddled across the living room, I opened the door to find Michael and Gabriel standing outside, their wings hidden by glamours.
“Back so soon?”
Gabriel shrugged. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“Okay, come in then, I’ll make some food, and we can talk.”
They followed me in, and I pulled a carton of eggs out of the fridge. Jellybean perked his head up from his spot behind the back door. "Want to go hunt?" I asked.
He wagged his tail and whined. "You can't kill anyone's pet, okay?"
With a woof, he stood, his whole body quivering. "And come back before Lucian does, okay?"
He gave me another soft bark, then turned to stare at the back door until I opened it. Bounding out and leaping across the back porch and into the grass, he rolled and wiggled in the sunshine for a few minutes before getting to his feet and launching himself across the yard.
"What a good boy." Michael chuckled. "Why do you have a Hellhound disguised as a retriever?"
He stood in the doorway with a confused but tickled look on his face.
I turned to the sink to wash my hands. "Presumably he escaped from Hell."
Michael and Gabe joined me at the sink and washed their own hands. "But why do you have him?"
Gabriel sighed. "She said he'd protect her, and I have to admit, he's foiled me a couple of times from trying to kill Lucian."
I dropped the towel I was drying my hands with and glared at him. "What do you mean?"
He shrugged. "I mean, I tried to get at him a few times and the dog wouldn't let me or was blocking me when I tried. But come on, Lil, I'm not trying all that hard, you have to know that. If I was, Luc would be dead by now."
He sure was full of himself. "Oh, you think so? What about this spell on him? For all you know, it would stop you."
Michael picked up the towel I had dropped and gave it a shake. A few dog hairs drifted off of it. Jellybean hadn't been in the house long, and he was already getting his fur everywhere.
I moved to the refrigerator to look for more breakfast ingredients. Lucian had opted to do a protein shake and hit the gym before work—something I normally would've done with him. Not now. I'd be lucky to make it from the couch to the TV to pop in a yoga DVD. Besides, watching exercise counted too, right?
"Can we run through everything we know?" I asked.
Michael took the sausage from me. "Only if you sit. You look exhausted."
I allowed them to help me make breakfast. Why not? Settling at the kitchen table, I watched the two angels and grinned at them doing mundane tasks like whisking eggs and finding the right frying pan.
Michael brushed his curly brown hair out of his eyes as he flipped the sausage a few minutes later. "I've been studying the gates. I imbibed them with all the power I could, and if we amassed enough angels, Fallen, and maybe Upper Demons, we could shore it up for a while. Long enough to figure out the baby situation."
Gabriel gave him a flat look. "Or we could get Lucifer back where he belongs and take care of the problem in minutes." He twisted his arm around a skillet full of eggs. "I have some news in that regard." With a sigh, he continued cooking without expanding on his statement.
"You gonna tell us or make us guess?" I asked.
Gabriel shot me a scathing look. "It's hard to say."
"What is?" I stood from the chair and barely avoided groaning as the baby settled low in my hips, making them ache and feel like I carried a watermelon between my legs.
"Sit, sit," he hurried over and turned me around. "What can I get you?"
"I was coming to comfort you. Whatever you're about to say is bothering you." I let him help me back to the chair with a sigh. "I'll be glad to get back to my regularly scheduled body."
Gabriel sat across from me and took my hand.
"I think Raphael is behind all this."
