Chapter Seven:
"So," Skinner said slowly three days after the League discovered Angela's secret. "If you could, would you have a relationship with Gabriel?"
Angela stared at him. "I beg your pardon?" she asked, quite shocked. "Whatever do you mean?"
"You're always talking about him. Archangel Gabriel did this, Gabriel did that, Gabriel did some other damned thing," he said. "Gabriel smote the ground and out sprang the LXG. Gabriel then tapped them all with his Holy Sword of Truth, and the seven of them, Gabriel and the League, saved all mankind from almost certain obliteration." He waited for her to answer.
She was silent for a moment as she considered his words. Then she said with a smile, "I'm impressed, Mr. Skinner. You've just proved that your intelligence goes so far as to include such a vast word as 'obliteration' in your vocabulary."
"I know when I'm being insulted, Angela," he said bluntly.
"Good," she said lightly. "I should think you an idiot if you didn't." She smiled into the abyss of time and space that only Angels could see. She tended to look to it often and lose herself in its infinite and prevailing grandeur. "And in answer to your first question, no. I would not have a relationship with him, even if my Grace wasn't at stake."
"Why?"
She laughed quietly to herself. "He's the Left Hand of God, Mr. Skinner," she said airily. "Would you like to be in a relationship with a Hand of God?"
"Good point."