A Terrible Fall of Angels

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I uncurled from the hug and looked at Lila with Suriel still hugging me around the waist. “We grew up together at the College.”

  “I don’t hug the boys I grew up with,” Lila said, raising one eyebrow at me.

  “We haven’t seen each other in twelve years,” I said.

  Suriel stepped back from me and there was a stiffness to her that hadn’t been there a second before. “Zaniel and I were fast friends once.”

  “Losing our friendship was the only regret I had when I left the College,” I said.

  “The only regret?” Suriel said, and she looked me in the eyes in that way I remembered—so direct, her blue eyes to my brown, like she was weighing and measuring me. She’d been able to do that since she was about twelve.

  “How many cuties did you leave behind at the College of Angels, Havoc?” Lila asked, giving me a knowing smile.

  “What did you call Zaniel?”

  “Havoc,” Lila said.

  “It’s a nickname I picked up in the army,” I said, “Havoc Havelock.”

  “You were in the army?” Suriel said.

  “Yes.”

  “When?” she asked.

  “Just after I left the College of Angels.”

  She stared at me again. “Your hair used to be almost black, it’s much lighter now.”

  “Too much sun,” I said.

  “It suits you.”

  “Thanks, you cut yours,” I said.

  She touched the curling edge of her hair almost self-consciously. “It’s easier to take care of.”

  I smoothed my hands through my own short hair. “That it is.”

  “Was he this much of a stud muffin when you were in school together?” Lila asked.

  Suriel looked at me and this time she didn’t look at my face. “He did not have so many muscles back then,” she said in a voice that was utterly serious, as if Lila wasn’t teasing her, or she didn’t realize it was teasing.

  “Yeah, if he keeps wearing shirts that show off his chest like that, I’m going to want to give him a hug,” Lila said, again still teasing, but she was watching Suriel with a look that was more serious than her tone of voice.

  “I thought you liked girls, Bridges,” Goliath said as he walked up to us.

  “Even a fish lover can admire this much beef,” she said, flashing him a shit-eating grin, one of her I’m-just-one-of-the-boys looks, which she only used on men who were giving her a hard time being a woman in a man’s profession—or, combined with the fish comment, she didn’t want MacGregor the Younger to know she was bisexual and not a lesbian. Which probably meant either he had hit on her or she was afraid he would if he thought he had a shot; either way I wasn’t going to out her, but I would ask her in private why she felt the need to pretend to be a lesbian in front of the new guy. Lila could handle herself, so if she was having issues with Goliath this quickly then we needed to know that before he got an offer to become a permanent member of the unit.

  “I have interviewed Detective Bridges and Detective Ravensong; is it true that you were acting as a priest to Detective Ravensong’s priestess in a pagan ritual when the metaphysical incident happened?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  She studied my face again like she was searching my face for answers. I was remembering now that some of the other students had found her eye contact unsettling. It had never bothered me.

  “Have you left the fold and joined the wolves?” Suriel asked.

  It was my turn to search her face to see if she understood how rude what she’d just said had been. Her big blue eyes looked back at me, peaceful and uncomprehending. I’d almost forgotten the utter certainty that God and the angels were the only path and anything else was wrong, or even evil.

  “If you think there are no wolves at the College of Angels, Suriel, then you are blind.”

  “I’ve angered you,” she said.

  “You’ve offended me on behalf of my friend and colleague.”

  “So, you are no longer Christian,” she said.

  “I am still a follower of Christ.”

  “How is that different from being Christian?” she asked.

  “I find organized religion difficult to deal with.”

  “What does that mean, Zaniel?”

  “What does my religion have to do with you helping Ravensong and advising us on the object that harmed her?”

  “I want your help to heal her, Zaniel, but if the angels no longer speak to you, then you cannot aid me.”

  “The angels still speak to me, Suriel.”

  “Even though you take part in pagan rituals?” she said.

  “Angels aren’t Christian, Suriel, you know that.”

  She nodded. “We share the same angels with all the religions of the Book.”

  “The book?” Goliath asked.

  “The Bible,” Lila said.

  “The Qur’an, and the Torah,” I added.

  “Oh, you mean Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,” Goliath said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Goliath nodded. “Okay, but what does that have to do with what happened to Detective Ravensong or the two of you getting knocked out?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Zaniel, you know that’s not true; our faith protects us from the powers of evil better than any other.”

  “I know that is what you believe, because I believed it once, too, but I have seen too much of the world outside the College of Angels, Suriel. I have seen Ravensong back down a demon by invoking the Goddess more than once; all good faiths shine a light into the darkness.”

  She shook her head. “That is not what I believe, and it is not what you believed once.”

  “Once upon a time I believed many things, Suriel, but that time is not now.”

  “When I knew you were involved, I did not request a second to accompany me, for there is no one better at my side for the work ahead, but now I am unsure that you are up to the work.”

  “You’ve had over ten years more training than I have, Suriel.”

  “Why did you not call upon the angels to deal with the relic, Zaniel?”

  “Because we needed a magic circle up as quickly as possible so we could keep the rest of the unit safe; Ravensong is faster at that than anyone else I know.”

  “The witch says you gave her your power to tap into for her spell.”

  I didn’t like the inflection on the word witch when she said it, but it was Lila who said it out loud. “You say witch like it’s a bad thing.”

  “I was taught that all ways of power are lesser than the way I was taught. I mean no offense, but it is what I believe.”

  “Do you think that witches are all evil?” Lila asked.

  “Don’t ask her that, Lila, you won’t like the answer,” I said.

  “If you think witches are evil, then why are you willing to help us?” Goliath asked.

  “Yes,” Charleston said from behind us all, “if you think we are all evil pagans, why are you helping us?”

  “I did not say you were evil, just misled.”

  “Misled?” He said the one word in that tone he used sometimes when you knew that you were in trouble. Either Suriel didn’t understand the tone or she wasn’t worried about the consequences. She was still comfortable and secure in the College of Angels and everything they taught us there. No, not taught, indoctrinated. How do you know you’re in a cult? You usually don’t until something happens that is so terrible you can’t ignore it, or pretend it didn’t happen, and then you start questioning everything.

  Suriel’s face was peaceful; she hadn’t had her moment yet, and maybe she never would. Maybe she’d be one of those people who go through life without anything forcing her to question everything; part of me envied her that, but the rest of me was sorry for her.

  “It is my duty to help those afflicted by forces of the Enemy.”

  “She means Lucifer,” I said.

  “I know who she means,” Charleston said, still with that purr of threat
in his voice.

  She was looking around at all of us. “I have offended you again. I did not mean to be offensive.”

  “When is the last time you were outside the College, Suriel?”

  “I am not cloistered away, Zaniel.”

  “How often are you allowed outside the walls?” I asked.

  “It is not a prison, Zaniel.”

  “You’re right, the day I left no one tried to stop me.”

  “I did not mean to offend anyone, but I do find it difficult to deal with people outside.”

  “You don’t get out much, do you?” Lila said, not sounding exactly friendly.

  “No,” Suriel said as if she hadn’t heard the sarcasm, or just hadn’t understood it.

  “What color of sash is in your bag besides red?” I asked. I’d finally noticed her small black bag like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag from a movie. When I’d left there’d been talk of going to a backpack, but apparently they’d decided it was too modern.

  She looked up at me, startled at last, as if she hadn’t expected the question. She should have known I’d ask, even if it had only been for old times’ sake.

  “What sash?” Goliath asked.

  “We all come in to be trained as Angel Speakers, but there are different specialties. We differentiate by sashes worn over the robes,” I said.

  “You should not be telling secrets to strangers,” Suriel said.

  “Honey, all of us that watched Where Do Our Children Go?, that documentary on Netflix, knew about your little sashes and a lot more,” Lila said.

  “I do not know what you are talking about,” Suriel said.

  “It was a documentary about parents trying to get their children back from the College of Angels,” I said. I hadn’t been able to watch all of it; it had been too hard to watch the kids going into the big double gates with their parents. That would be the last time they saw their families unless they failed the training.

  “I did not know there was such a documentary,” she said.

  “Are there still no televisions at the College?” I asked.

  “There is one for playing DVDs of movies and educational programming in the teachers’ lounge now,” she said.

  “Well, at least that’s some progress,” I said.

  “You say the angels still speak to you, Zaniel.”

  “They do.”

  “I need your skills with the angels in order to help your coworker.”

  “You have studied a decade longer than I have, Suriel; I can give you nothing that you do not already have in your arsenal.”

  She smiled, but this was a sad smile. “You always underestimate your worth, Zaniel.”

  I shook my head. “I did, and then I thought too much of myself, and the price of that was too high, so let me be humble, Suriel. I’m too dangerous any other way.”

  “Oh, Zaniel, that is not what happened.”

  “I was there, Suriel, I know what happened.”

  She shook her head hard enough that her blond curls bounced the way they had when they were longer, and we were younger. “I will not argue old wounds with you here and now, Zaniel.”

  “Good.”

  “Whatever wounds we have, Zaniel, I need your help.”

  “What help can I possibly be?”

  “Have you seen what happened to your friend Ravensong?”

  “The lieutenant described it to me, but I haven’t seen it.”

  Suriel’s face was serious again. “It is something that should not be.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean that demon flesh can do this, but not mortal human flesh.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Lieutenant Charleston, can you please show him a picture of the hand?”

  Charleston stepped forward, using his smartphone to bring up an image. We took a lot of pictures with our phones because phenomena didn’t always last long enough to wait for forensics to arrive with better cameras. Some of it couldn’t even be captured by technology, but apparently this could.

  The first image was Ravensong sitting in a chair with something on the end of her arm. It wasn’t a bad picture, but I think my eyes just didn’t want to make sense of it. The next one had an arm resting on a table with a Halloween glove on it; that’s what I thought, that it couldn’t be real. It was so outsized, compared to the pale wrist that it was attached to, that it looked like something people wore on Halloween with black claws. My pulse started beating a little faster as I looked at those claws, because I remembered them slashing at me, pressing into my stomach while I fought not to let them gut me.

  “Are you unwell, Zaniel?”

  I swallowed before I answered, because my mouth was dry. “I’m fine.”

  “You are sweating, and it is not warm in here,” she said.

  I touched my forehead and realized she was right. Staring at the claws that had almost . . . No, I didn’t let myself finish the thought. The monster had tried to kill me; it failed, I lived, I won, it lost, time to get dinner, or lunch, or a drink. That was the way you thought about it in the military and on the job.

  Charleston took the phone out of my hand. He was studying my face. I tried to give him my best blank cop face, but I couldn’t fix the sick, cold sweat on my forehead except by wiping it off. I took even, deep breaths and that helped slow my pulse and heart. I was probably pale, and that didn’t have a quick fix.

  “I did tell you the hand looks like the demon from the hospital,” Charleston said.

  I nodded and let my breath out slow. “You did. I didn’t think it would bother me.”

  “I’m sorry, I do not understand,” Suriel said.

  “The claws,” I said, swallowed hard, “the claws are the same ones that tried to kill me in the hospital hallway.”

  “You’re saying that this hand is an exact match for the demon you all fought at the hospital?” she asked.

  “Looks to be,” I said.

  “But it shouldn’t be identical,” she said.

  “No, it shouldn’t be, and it’s not possible that it’s done that to Ravensong. You’re right, mortal flesh does not do this.”

  “It changed the kid in the hospital into its image,” Charleston said.

  “No, it changed him into a half-human version of a demon. Real ones don’t look like that except in the movies, and that’s mostly because they’re being played by human beings, so they need the makeup or suit to fit the actor,” I said.

  “They can change into what your lieutenant described to me, but only if mortal thought has impacted immortal flesh,” Suriel said.

  “But that only happens if many humans think an immortal being should look a certain way; one person can’t permanently change the immortal’s shape.”

  “They can if they are the sorcerer that works with the immortal spirit most often,” she said. “Frequency of contact with one mortal can add up over time so that one person’s vision can change the spiritual being, in the same way that hundreds viewing it at once can change its appearance.”

  “You mean that one person dealing with the same demon over and over can impact it like being viewed on television did to the Archangel Michael a few years back?” Charleston asked.

  “Yes, he was chosen because it was felt that he could withstand so many mortals around the world seeing him physically manifest and be interviewed on television, but even he was unable to withstand so much mortal energy shaping him into their ideal.”

  “There were riots in the streets because he ended up being dark-haired and darker-skinned,” Lila said.

  “Black or brown hair with darker skin tone is the most common in the world, and most people prefer to see the angelic in their own form. It shouldn’t have been a surprise,” Goliath said.

  “Some of the rioting was from the dark-skinned folks like you and me,” Charleston said, “because they thought God should look all shiny and blond like you.” He nodded toward Suriel.

  “Not God,” Suriel and I sa
id together. She smiled at me and I couldn’t help smiling back. I motioned for her to continue.

  “Not God, but the Archangel Michael, the right hand of God, but he is not God,” she said.

  “Either way, people wanted him to look like all those old Renaissance paintings of angels, not like a Hispanic, Middle Eastern stud muffin,” Lila said.

  “People always envision angels as beautiful,” Suriel said.

  “They are beautiful,” I said, and I had a moment of seeing that golden white light, not the paltry fire of the angel at the first crime scene, but the power of the higher orders. I could almost see her face, the face and body that I had created from the ages of fifteen to nineteen until she became real and could no longer change to another form. That was when she had known something was wrong, and when I had believed her lies as if they were my only truth.

  Suriel said, “Yes, but not in the way that the masses think of beauty.”

  I did my best to focus on Suriel’s face, her smile, her humanity, and push the ideal beauty of angels out of the front of my head. I wasn’t sure that I would ever be able to get that beauty out of the back of my head. It isn’t just ugliness that has the power to haunt; beauty has its own ghosts.

  “No, angels don’t look like we think they will,” I said, finally, but I must have not taken all those memories out of my voice, because she looked at me more closely. Or maybe it was just that Suriel knew; she knew because she had been one of the people I went to for advice. She’d taken me to the masters of the school so they could decide how badly I had fucked up. Suriel had just been in training then, like me. Her with a black badge on her polo shirt, and me with a white one on mine, showing what specialties we’d chosen to study. Later my white badge had been given a gold stripe down it to show that I dealt with the higher orders. Had I stayed at the College my black robes would have been crossed by a white-and-gold sash. I’d been one of only two in our class to be chosen to try to earn the gold sash. The other one had been Jamie, who was now homeless and a diagnosed schizophrenic. The angels had broken Jamie’s mind; they’d only broken my heart, so I’d gotten the better deal. It was why I’d let him crash on my couch when he wasn’t too crazy and I didn’t have Connery. It could have been me instead of him, maybe even should have been me. Jamie didn’t do anything wrong; I’d been the one who had sinned, and yet I was okay, and he was broken.