He hadn't meant it like that, no. True, some angels, like Rafe, tended to dip into minds more often now than they had, but most, like Gabriel and Michael, still considered it a matter of courtesy not to do so. It just didn't quite occur to him to say that.

The Archangel had reached the height of the ceiling and began moving down the opposite wall, stepping back. The spell wasn't a circle so much as a spiral. Gabriel glanced back, but waited for Skulduggery to finish his question without interruption. It was a valid question. A very valid question. Gabriel just wished he knew what kind of answer Skulduggery wanted. Not that he would have lied, but at least he would have known how to approach things.

"I've ... known it to happen," he said at last. With relative frequency, in fact, a couple of centuries ago. The description fitted vampires to a T; theirs were souls who never passed on, trapped in a never-dying body. Which would be one of the reasons why vampires were insane. "But your circumstances are very different; the way your soul is tied to your skeleton--I've never seen anything quite like that before, not without having passed on first. There's similarities ... but it's not the same." Now he turned to look, and his expression was gentle and apologetic and reassuring all at once. "I don't know why you are what you are, Skul. But there's a reason for it. There's always a reason."