Gabriel couldn't help but smile, and it was bitter, ironic and still, yes, still fond all at once. "You'd think it wouldn't. But most of my brothers and sisters have never had a creative thought in their lives. It's all orders, orders, orders and Destiny, all the time. That was the gift Dad gave to humanity."

He shrugged. "Sure, a ton of you don't do shit with anything. But where I came from there was almost seven freakin' billion of you. And most of the time? If you were given a reason to fight, to live, to try harder? You did. My brothers tried to destroy the whole damned world. It was humans who stopped it."

Okay, now he was depressed. With a sigh he let his head thunk back against the stone, and the archangel stared up at the clearing storm.