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Cassiel regarded him for a moment before speaking. “We exist because humanity needed us to. The universe does not craft saviors, but men do. We are the answer to a prayer no one remembers saying.”

I blinked, trying to parse the cryptic response. It sounded like the kind of pseudo-profound bullshit you'd find on a self-help poster. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means,” Cassiel continued, his gaze moving between us, “that faith creates as much as it sustains. The collective belief of billions across millennia has power. Real power.”

Moira had approached the supernatural with a cold, clinical detachment. Her lessons on angels were particularly harsh—she'd call them “humanity's greatest self-deception.” Angels were myths, she taught, stories invented to help people sleep at night while monsters prowled outside their doors. Declan had been even more direct:“Faith is for civilians, not hunters,”he'dsay. I'd internalized their teachings the day I watched a werewolf tear through a hunter outpost in Wales, killing three of our own while the youngest among us whispered prayers that went unanswered. Declan had pulled me aside afterward, his words still clear in my memory:“In this world, boy, the only things you can count on are your own strength and a loaded weapon.”

If angels existed, they were worse than useless. They were negligent.

Cade frowned, his brow furrowing in that way it did when he was puzzling through something complicated. “So, what? You're just... wish-fulfillment? Some kind of supernatural placebo?”

“If that helps you understand, then yes.” Cassiel's face remained impassive, but there was a hint of something almost like condescension in his tone. As if we were children trying to grasp calculus.

I shook my head, frustration building in my chest. This was getting us nowhere. Every answer just raised more questions, none of which seemed particularly relevant to the immediate situation: we had a self-proclaimed angel standing in a dead man's body, and no idea what it wanted.

“No. No, this is bullshit. Even if you are an angel, why are you here? Why now? And what the feck do you want with Edward Hayes?” My voice rose with each question, anger and confusion feeding each other in a cycle I couldn't seem to break.

Cassiel's eyes darkened slightly, a storm cloud passing over a cold sky. “I am here because of you, Sean.”

A ringing started in my ears, like the aftermath of a too-close explosion. “Me? What the hell are you talking about?”

Outside, a distant rumble of thunder punctuated the question, as if the night itself was responding to the tension building in the room. The brief respite from rain was ending, the first fat droplets beginning to spatter against the windows once more.

Cassiel stepped forward, moving with that unnatural smoothness that marked him as other-than-human. Cade's hand instinctively shifted toward his weapon, but Cassiel paid no attention to the gesture. His focus remained entirely on me, as if Cade were merely a piece of furniture in the room.

The floorboards didn't creak beneath Cassiel's weight. Dust didn't stir as he moved. It was as if the physical world acknowledged his presence only reluctantly, unsure what to make of a being that didn't fully belong to it.

“I was not sent to interfere,” Cassiel said, his voice steady and assured. “I chose to.”

My jaw tightened as I struggled to maintain my composure. Every instinct screamed danger, but another part of me sensed something different. Not safety, exactly, but not immediate threat either.

“Why?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes.

“Because something is coming. Something that has been set in motion by forces you cannot comprehend.” Cassiel's gaze was penetrating, like staring into the depths of a glacier. Ancient. Cold. Unfathomable. “The prayer revival was not what it seemed. Brother Michael is not what he seems.”

“And what is he?” Cade asked, his voice tight with suspicion.

“An archangel. Fallen. Diminished. Desperate to restore what he has lost.”

“Like you're any different?” I shot back.

Cassiel's expression didn't change, but the temperature in the room dropped several degrees. “I am being more honest with you than most of my kind would be.”

“Your kind,” Cade repeated. “Angels.”

“Yes.”

“So you're saying those men who died, with their eyes burned out...” I began, connecting the dots into a picture I didn't like.

“Brother Michael hunts them. Drains them.” Cassiel's voice remained even, but there was an undercurrent of something like disgust. “He seeks to restore his grace by consuming human souls.”

“The prayer revival,” Cade said, realization dawning on his face. “It was a feeding ground.”

“Yes,” Cassiel replied simply. “Those who died glimpsed his true nature during the revival. They became marked by the experience—their souls forever changed. Perfect for his consumption.”

“But not you?” Cade asked, skepticism heavy in his voice. “You're not feeding on souls too?”

“I am responsible only for Edward Hayes,” Cassiel acknowledged, gesturing to the body he now inhabited. “He was already marked for death. Michael had targeted him. Hayes knew he was living on borrowed time.”