Peanut looked over at me, and yep, his face was definitely more solid. “You were right, you know? When you said there had to be signs that something had gone terribly wrong with Gabriel. That there had to be signs.”

I stepped back, bumping into the wall.

“And there were. You were also right when you said you were a loophole. A weapon that could be snuck past the oath to harm none. At least in the beginning that was all that you were, but then I learned just how and why God could and would do anything for His children.” A smile formed. “That sometimes even God bent the rules.”

I was completely flattened against the wall, my heart pounding so fast there was no question I was very much alive.

“An archangel cannot remain on Earth and among souls for any real amount of time. There are too many responsibilities and too many consequences. The presence of one would draw too much attention from all manner of things,” he said, and the barest white glow started to appear in the center of his chest. “But just like God, I could not walk away from my own creation. My flesh and blood.”

The glow from the center of his chest washed across the rest of his body. Heavenly light pulsed an intense white—the kind of light I knew souls saw before they passed on. It was warm and bearable to look upon, to witness.

Peanut changed.

His body lengthened and his shoulders broadened. The mop of brown hair lightened, turning to the color of the sun. His features hardened, shedding the fullness of youth I was familiar with. The old Whitesnake T-shirt turned to a white sleeveless tunic, and the ragged jeans became linen, pearl-hued pants. And his skin...it continuously shifted through the shades of human skin before settling somewhere in between.

“So,” he said in that voice that didn’t belong to Peanut. “I did what I could to watch over you.”

My father, the archangel Michael, stood before me.

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

He laughed—he actually laughed, and it was a strange sound, one familiar and yet unknown. It reminded me of Peanut’s laugh if that laugh had grown up.

“I am not surprised by that response.”

My eyes felt like they were about to pop out of my head. “You... There is...” I shook my head. “Is this real?”

He nodded.

“But where is Peanut?”

Those all-white eyes warmed. I didn’t know how that was possible, but it was, because they did. “I am Peanut.”

“That’s impossible. Peanut was a teenager. He is a teenager, and he died in the ’80s—”

“At a Whitesnake concert, after climbing to the top of a speaker tower and then falling to his death?” he finished for me. “Have you ever heard of anything more ridiculous?”

Well, no.