****

"FRANK!!"

Frank turned as he heard Monica's scream from downstairs. He rushed to the door and threw it open. "What?!"

"Look at this." Monica clicked on the television and turned the volume up high. Every monitor in the Nest filled with one of the local news reporters on location with a breaking story.

… coming to you live from a remote airstrip outside of Chicago where three Federal Agents were involved in a shoot-out just an hour or so ago. Details are sketchy at best, but we do know that two are dead, and one is being rushed to the hospital as we speak. The looks on the faces of those involved here is grim as the one wounded Agent is not expected to live. We do know that reputed drug czar Luis Mendoza was killed in the shoot-out between his people and the Federal Agents. Why we are not sure, but we'll come back to you immediately when we have more information…

"Jesus Christ…"

Frank sat down with a thump onto the landing of the stairs outside of his office.

Lina stood behind him, watching the TV silently. "Mommy," she finally said.

Alex, Jake, Cody and Monica all turned around to look up at the toddler. As Frank finally looked around and at his daughter, something ticked in Alex's mind. She turned back to the monitors. Everything that came into the Nest was recorded digitally. "Cody, run that back."

"Alex, it was a live feed…"

"DO IT CODY!" she thundered.

Frank sighed and pulled Lina into his lap. "No baby. Mommy isn't here."

"No Daddy. Look," she held up a white feather to him. "I found this."

Frank looked at the feather for a moment. "Where did you get that?"

"While you were watching the TV. It fell from the sky and landed by your picture of Mommy."

Frank's eyes misted up immediately and for a moment he hugged his daughter tight. If he took Lina at her word, then it could mean that Litha was an angel now… but part of him refused to look at it that way.

"Frank…"

He looked over Lina's head to see Alex in the stairs in front of him.

"We think found Litha's car. It was at the airstrip… where the shoot-out…"

He nodded, stroking Lina's hair lightly. As she hugged him back, her fingers twirled the silky white feather between her fingers. Mommy was an angel…

'I am assuming that this is how you dressed in your normal life?' the angel asked as it faced Litha and took in her black tactical pants, lug-soled boots, black turtleneck sweater and Kevlar vest under a black windbreaker.

'Only when I work. Who is responsible?'

'Why do you ask that again? Have you not received an answer that satisfies you?'

'No.'

'What if I told you that the answers you seek will tear apart the universe. Would you still demand those answers?'

'Yes.'

'You are so selfish Lilith Morgana Sinclair Donovan. You come all this way to find answers that you have no right to find and you do it wearing a gun on your hip.'

'Two guns, actually. And they are the instruments of my will in this level of existence. I willed them here and well… here they are. You still have not answered me. Who is ultimately responsible for leaving my husband and child alone? I don't give a damn about my death! Is it the Devil? Is it the embodiment of Evil in the world? Is there a being out there who frustrates God's designs and takes away choice and makes a joke out of justice?'

'Whatever you call it, it is just incorporated within the total being. Another kind of gatekeeper. He is not responsible.'

'Then what must I do? Who must I kill to prove that I chose life? Well? Tell me damnit! MUST I KILL GOD?'

Litha expected the angel in front of her to comment. At the very least to strike her down for such a blasphemous remark. She, Lilith Morgana who was named after the first vampire and a Goddess and who was raised in a pagan household, was asking the most ridiculous question. As if one could kill God with a single bullet.

'I am the one responsible. Kill me if that would make you feel better.'

Litha sighed and drew the pistol on her left hip. She took aim and shot the angel. She wasn't sure what to expect as she watched the bullet penetrate the light surrounding the angel.

But, the angel drew it's wings about it and the bullet struck a wingtip. The feathers exploded in white flame, burning like the tip of a welding torch. A singed feather fell from the angel's wing, fluttering down past Litha and out of her sight as the light subsided around her.

****