CHAPTER I

He was standing near the little olive tree in front of my writing studio—wings, white robe, halo, everything, as if he had just stepped out of a Renaissance painting. The wings were huge: a dozen feet across. He fluttered them twice, then folded them carefully behind his back, like someone tucking a handkerchief into his breast pocket.

My first reaction was a shiver that began at the back of my neck and rippled down my spine. My second reaction was a silent “Oh shit!”

You may have heard of my book Against Angels, which stirred up a good deal of controversy a few years ago. (It was praised by all the wrong people, condemned by the Catholic Church, and, to my mild surprise, climbed up and down the New York Times bestseller list for ten weeks.) I’ll tell you about it later, by way of explanation, and about myself as well, and how I arrived at being visited by the archangel Gabriel. For even before I saw the lily in his hand, I knew it was him.