“Several, actually,” Uriel said, still clearly amused. “All designed for your protection, but there are still some things I can tell you.”

“Then tell me why,” I said. “Why do all this? Why sucker me into going back to Chicago? Why?”

“Jack told you,” Uriel said. “They cheated. The scale had to be balanced.”

I shook my head. “That office, in Chicago Between. It was yours.”

“One of them,” he said, nodding. “I have a great deal of work to do. I recruit those willing to help me.”

“What work?” I asked.

“The same work as I ever have done,” Uriel said. “I and my colleagues labor to ensure freedom.”

“Freedom of what?” I asked.

“Of will. Of choice. The distinction between good and evil is meaningless if one does not have the freedom to choose between them. It is my duty, my purpose in Creation, to protect and nourish that meaning.”

I narrowed my eyes. “So… if you’re involved in my death…” I tilted my head at him. “It’s because someone forced me to do it?”

Uriel waggled a hand in a so-so gesture and turned to pace a few steps away. “Force implies another will overriding your own,” he said over his shoulder. “But there is more than one way for your will to be compromised.”

I frowned at him, then said, with dawning comprehension, “Lies.”

The archangel turned, his eyebrows lifted, as though I were a somewhat dim student who had surprised his teacher with an insightful answer. “Yes. Precisely. When a lie is believed, it compromises the freedom of your will.”

“So, what?” I asked. “Captain Jack and the Purgatory Crew ride to the rescue every time someone tells a lie?”

Uriel laughed. “No, of course not. Mortals are free to lie if they choose to do so. If they could not, they would not be free.” His eyes hardened. “But others are held to a higher standard. Their lies are far deadlier, far more potent.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Imagine a being who was there when the first mortal drew the first breath,” Uriel said. Hard, angry flickers of light danced around us, notable even against formless white. “One who has watched humanity rise from the dust to spread across and to change the very face of the world. One who has seen, quite literally, tens of thousands of mortal lives begin, wax, wane, and end.”

“Someone like an angel,” I said quietly.

“Someone like that,” he said, showing his teeth briefly. “A being who could know a mortal’s entire life. Could know his dreams. His fears. His very thoughts. Such a being, so versed in human nature, in mortal patterns of thought, could reliably predict precisely how a given mortal would react to almost anything.” Uriel gestured at me. “For example, how he might react to a simple lie delivered at precisely the right moment.”

Uriel waved his hand and suddenly we were back in the utility room at St. Mary’s. Only I wasn’t lying on the backboard on a cot. Or, rather, I was doing exactly that—but I was also standing beside Uriel, at the door, looking in at myself.