The day was sunny and deceptively calm. Lilly stood at the windows in the living room and looked out on the street. A perfectly ordinary street lined with trees and unnecessary SUVs and featuring joggers and mums pushing prams. The baby had begun to fuss and John had taken her and walked back and forth with some inappropriate rock song playing which actually seemed to calm her.

“It’s noisy in the womb.” Cain moved up behind her and Lilly gave him a weak smile.

“How would you know something like that?” She asked.

Cain shrugged, “I know a lot of random crap. Comes with being very old and very wise.”

Lilly snorted. “Wise my ass.”

“But old,” he stepped up close behind her and she could feel the warmth from his body.

She leaned back and let him take some of her weight. “I’m not religious, I never have been. I don’t know anything about any of that stuff unless it was in a movie… but I know you guys. I know you wouldn’t hurt me, I’m pretty sure you aren’t running around hurting anyone else so…”

Cain put his arms around her and gave her a squeeze. “But we used to.” He confessed quietly. “We hurt people, we were in the war and we wanted to win it.”

“What are you doing?” She pulled away and turned to look at him. “Why are you saying this now?”

“Because I don’t think you understand what you’ve done.” He said. “You know three demons who aren’t really into it anymore, but not everyone’s like that, Lil. Abraxas is a vicious son of a bitch, okay? He was a die-hard believer and he’s never going to stop. Eventually, he’ll find a way to turn this cold war hot again and when that happens,” He looked away uncomfortably.

“What? What happens then?”

His eyes moved back to hers, and they’d changed again to the fiery yellow she’d seen at the hospital. “Then the legions will be called up, and we’re all going to have to make choices.”

“Choices like what?”

“Like whether or not we’ll answer!” He snapped. “Don’t you understand, we can’t change sides? The flyboys won't have us, the silver city will never accept us, its get with the program or be a target for everyone!”

“You wouldn’t really go back to what you did before though?” She looked at him, and for the first time, she was legitimately frightened.

“What did I do before, Lilly?” He asked, his voice dangerously low. He took another step forward and looked down at her intently. “Do you know what I did?”

Lilly shrank for a moment, but she saw the flicker of sadness behind Cain’s eyes and straightened her spine again to look up at him defiantly. “You won't hurt me. And you’re not going back.” She snuck her hand forward and gripped his, hard. “I know you better than that. All of you.”

Cain’s eyes changed back and he sighed, “Being around us, being in all this, is gonna come back and bite you in the ass, Lilly.”

“Shut up.” She went up on her toes and kissed his cheek lightly.

“Alright, it’s someone else’s turn to walk back and forth, I need a beer!” John called out.

Lilly rolled her eyes at Cain and hurried to take the baby from John so he could have a break. “Come here honey,” She smiled down at the grizzling girl. “It’s okay, Thomas will be back soon with something for you to eat.”

John’s voice came from the kitchen, “You want a beer, Lil?”

“No I don’t want a beer, John, I’m holding a baby!”

John snorted, “A baby you stole from a demon general with a chip on his shoulder and a bad fuckin’ attitude. If I were you I’d drink the beer.”

The key turned in the lock and Lilly turned to watch Thomas walk in, but she did a double take when she saw he wasn’t alone. She didn’t see how it happened exactly, but John and Cain were beside her. John held a long-bladed kitchen knife and Cain glowered darkly.

“It’s okay,” Thomas waved a hand and ushered two men into the room. “They just want to talk.”

“I don’t like them here,” Cain growled.

“You will in a minute,” Tom started but he was cut off by the tall red-haired man behind him.

“That is a Nephilim,” Telemachus gestured to the child.

The room erupted in sound. Lilly couldn’t understand what was going on, ‘Nephilim’ wasn’t a word she’d read in her short, fevered research into demonology after discovering the truth about her friends, but by the way everyone was losing their minds, it must be pretty bad. She hugged the baby closer and took a step back.

"Can I see her?" the other stranger asked quietly, and somehow Lilly heard him through the din. Lilly met his eyes and frowned. He looked so sad. “She’s-”

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“She’s his daughter,” Telemachus said. “This is Metatron,”

“Talkie tosser is Telemachus,” Tom said.

Lilly shyly shifted the baby and blanket so Metatron could see his daughter’s face. "Do you want to hold her?"

"Hey now!" John stepped across her and separated them and Cain moved in on the other side.

"It's not that we don't trust you mate," Cain said.

"But we don't trust anyone." John finished.

Lilly shook her head, "He's not going to hurt his own baby, guys."

Cain snorted. "Oh yeah? Where's he been, hmm?"

"Think about it Lil," John agreed. "If he's such a loving father what was the kid doing alone in the hospital? How did Abraxas even know about her? There's some bullshit politicking going on here," he said firmly. "And until we know exactly what that means, you can keep your grubby mitts off."

Metatron held up his hands in surrender. "I couldn't be with her," he said quietly. "Don't you understand, I've broken the covenant, and the more contact I have with my daughter the more likely she'll pay the price." He looked at John, stricken, then gestured back to Telemachus. "Once she was born, Telemachus came for her. To protect her. But you were already there," he gave Lilly a small smile. "You'd already taken her. You were protecting her. We thought perhaps that was better. Safer. For everyone."

It was John who snorted this time. "For everyone? For Lilly, it's safer to be running around with a half-angel baby? Hunted by one of the old generals? That's safer? Mate, you are thoroughly full of shit."

“That is no way to talk to-” Telemachus started but John cut him off.

“We’ll talk however we like. You’re the ones dropping Nephilim in our city, drawing out old power and-”

“Hey!” Telemachus snapped. “Don’t you stand there and pretend to me that you care about this city, brother.”

“I’m not your brother, not anymore. That’s been made very clear.” He put one arm around Lilly’s shoulders. “And what we care about isn’t up to you. What does Abraxas want with your halfling?”

“The same thing he always wants,” Metatron said quietly. “He wants his friend back. He wants the Earth. He wants to stick it to our father and generally be unpleasant.”

Lilly leaned against John’s side “How does a baby let him do that?”

“There are a number of possibilities,” Telemachus told them. “A sacrifice of some kind for the power to give Lucifer a physical body maybe. Or Abraxas may believe he has a way for the Morning Star to possess the child and manifest in the physical world that way.” He shrugged. “The punchline is they’re going to come for her once they work out where she is. Tracking her would be difficult but I imagine Abraxas has always kept a close eye on you, John, and since you didn’t kill the hellhound…”

“Keys,” John said sharply but Cain was already moving. He grabbed a set of car keys from a hook in the kitchen and Tom held his arm out to Lilly and beckoned her towards the door.

“We’re going.” He said shortly.

“What? Where?” Lilly asked.

The three demons looked at the angels expectantly. The angels said nothing.

“Give Metatron the baby,” Cain told her. “We have to get out of here.”

Metatron sobbed and Telemachus shook his head. “We can’t take her.”

“Excuse me?” Thomas snapped, “You said you would, that’s why I brought you here!”

Telemachus shrugged. “I lied. Standard rules apply and we can’t touch her…” he looked reproachfully at Metatron. “Nephilim are forbidden, and as a blanket decree, things start going badly if an angel touches one. We’re not supposed to get any joy from such offspring…”

Thomas rolled his eyes, “God is love.”

“God is a pragmatist,” Telemachus said. “Most people avoid things that bring them pain. Nephilim bring angels pain. That’s why Lilly was inspired.”

“What does that mean?” Lilly asked.

“Son of a bitch.” John snapped. “Come on, we have to go.”

“What does inspired mean, John?” Lilly demanded as he ushered her out the door past the angels.

“It means it wasn’t your idea to pick up the baby and walk out with her. Shit, it probably wasn’t even your idea to investigate things at this hospital. They needed someone to get her out and they manipulated you into doing it for them.” He hurried her down the corridor while Cain and Thomas brought up the rear. “It also means no matter what we say we’re probably not going to be able to get you to abandon her.”

“John…” She growled in warning but he waved her off as they trotted down the stairs to the parking garage under the apartment complex.

“I wouldn’t bother trying, don’t worry, just keep moving. Telemachus is an asshole but he’s right, Abraxas will have kept an eye on where I am, they won’t be far away.”

“Can’t we just… poof?” She asked. “Didn’t we ‘poof’ before?”

“The apartment is different, it’s home. We can always go home.” Cain told her. “We’ll set something else up someplace but right now we have to get you away from here.”

She stumbled over her own feet but John and Thomas were there to keep her from going down. When they paused for John to unlock the car she looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes. “They called you brother, I thought,”

“Not anymore,” he kissed her forehead and nodded at the open door. “Get in. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

Cain and Tom both sat in the back with her, wedging her in the middle between them.

“Keep the baby low,” Tom advised, “we really don’t need to get pulled over right now.”

John drove like a little old lady through the streets of Melbourne and out onto the freeway that led to the foothills of the Yarra Ranges. Lilly held the unnamed baby on her lap and watched silently as Cain fished a weird box of premade formula from Tom’s shopping bags and poured it into a bottle. He handed it to her without a word. “I know it’s only room temp, but she can’t go much longer without food.”

“Why do you know anything about babies?” Lilly asked as the baby began to suck at the nipple with a blissful expression.

Cain shrugged, “we lived in a brothel in Cardiff for the better part of a decade in the 1500s.”

“Where are we going?” She changed the subject.

“There’s a cabin just outside Reefton,” John told her with his eyes still on the road. “It belongs to a petty mobster who won’t be in any position to use it for a while.”

“He’s in Port Phillip Prison,” Cain said in response to her questioning look. “Don’t worry, Abraxas won’t think of it, we haven’t been out there since the place belonged to his grandfather.”

“Why would a mobster invite you to their holiday house?”

Cain and Thomas grinned identical grins, “Obviously you’ve never been a guest at an orgy with incubi in attendance…” Cain waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.

Lilly shook her head, “I must be the most boring person in history with demons for friends.”

“Yeah, probably.” Tom agreed.