A woman’s voice said, “Zaniel, are you all right?”
For a moment that voice merged with the one in the vision and I cried out. If I hadn’t been too manly for it, I’d have said I screamed.
Suriel’s voice came again, because of course it was Suriel and not that other voice at all. “Zaniel, are you well? Please answer me.”
“You okay there, Havoc?” Ravensong asked. Her voice sounded hoarse, almost like the croak of her namesake. Human voices would sound rough for a few minutes until my hearing adjusted. The singing of angels could spoil you if you listened too long.
Suriel knelt beside me but did not try to touch me. She knew better. Ravensong didn’t. Her hand rested on my bare arm. If she had been just human it would have been okay, but she was a witch and magic calls to magic.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I was thrown back into that place of song and color, where angels traveled on golden threads like spider silk that ran throughout the universe, holding everything together. I realized that the spider analogy wasn’t me. I heard Ravensong think Grandmother Spider, and there was movement along the threads like something huge and monstrous. I thought NO, and the movement was gone, and we were back in the crystal, silver, and gold space where angels in pure form raced back and forth along the singing notes of creation.
One of the angels paused and looked in our direction. It was like looking into fire, except the fire could look back at you. Would her mind survive this? I felt tiny hands on my arm and somehow I knew there was another one touching her, and then I felt pressure, metal slicing through reality, pulling her back from the brink of staring too long into the abyss, even if it was a space that went up instead of down, or maybe went everywhere at once, but even filled with fire and warmth it was still an abyss that would look back at you.
I was back on the floor of the interrogation room with Ravensong gasping beside me as if she’d run a long distance as fast as she could. I could see the Valkyrie standing over her with pale braids and metal helm, her shield held in front of Ravensong, a sword that burned with a light of its own in her other hand. The eyes that glared at me from the helmet were a storm-cloud gray and angry.
I wanted to say It’s not my fault, she touched me, but you do not argue with gods, or demigods, or the messengers of Deities unless you have no choice. Short of that, let it go, because divine beings do not take well to mortals that argue back, or most of them don’t. I’d been told that the Norse pantheon and some other more warlike pantheons liked for their followers to have a fighting spirit that extended even to fighting the gods, but that was all theoretical for me. The Big Guy that I followed wasn’t big on defiance.
The raccoon chittered up at me, patting my arm. I wasn’t sure if it was reassuring me or scolding me for endangering Ravensong. I just didn’t speak enough raccoon to be certain, and then I looked into those shining dark eyes and I knew it wasn’t chastising me. It was more a pat on the arm to say It’s okay.
I smiled at him, and then Ravensong said, “That was intense.”
“That’s one way of saying it,” I said, and looked at her. We stared at each other for a second, her blue eyes to my brown, and then she smiled at me. It was a little lopsided as if she couldn’t quite find her usual smile, but it made me smile back, because she’d just survived so much more than Gimble had, and it had put him in the hospital. Looking into her older, wiser face, I knew she wasn’t going to need a doctor for the glimpse of the infinite. They’d want to look at her hand, but her mind was intact. She was good.
The Valkyrie was back to standing at her back again rather than covering her with a shield and having a bare sword in her hand. The danger was over but the glare in those storm-cloud eyes didn’t like me much. It was a silent warning to knock that shit off, or we would have words.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Ravensong said, looking up at the towering figure. The Valkyrie glared at me one more time, then faded from sight, though the huge bear appeared and roared at me before they both faded.
“Sorry about that, I know it wasn’t your fault; you’d think after this”—she held up her hand—“I’d know to keep my hands to myself.”
The raccoon petted me again with its strangely human-looking paw and then moved to Ravensong, cuddling against her like it was a cat. She reached out to it as if she could touch it as solidly as it touched her. I watched its gray ombre of hair move under her hand, reacting to her touch. Was that just an illusion my mind was filling in, or was she able to pet her totem for real?
She smiled at me. “It’s as real as the sword and shield that saved me in your shining palace,” she said.
“Did you read my mind?”
She shook her head. “I read your face.”
“I thought I did better cop face than that.”
“You do, or Detective Havelock does, but this Zaniel of the Angels, his face shows every thought.”
I didn’t like that doing angel magic made me easier to read, but it made me more vulnerable in all sorts of ways, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. Me losing my poker face was the least of it.
“Your friend seems no worse for seeing . . . the shining palace,” Suriel said, using Ravensong’s phrase rather than the words we had learned for it.
“Her guides and Goddess saved her,” I said.
“Her magic saved her,” Suriel said.
“That, too,” Ravensong said.
I stood up and offered Ravensong a hand.
“What, you think the old lady can’t do it on her own?”
“Aren’t you ladies always complaining that chivalry is dead?” I asked, smiling at her.
She grinned and took my hand, using her right hand without thinking about it. I didn’t think about it either until I felt the difference in skin texture. I pulled her to her feet using the new hand. The scales felt cool and smooth, but I could still feel them so though I thought smooth, it wasn’t the same kind of smooth as human skin. The skin was red with darker highlights like an antique ruby that sat in the crown of some long-ago king. The delicate black claws pressed into my skin, dimpling it. I realized her hand looked more like the raccoon’s paw than the demon’s hand from the hospital.
Once she was standing, we let go of each other. A pinprick of blood popped out on my skin where one of her nails had dimpled the flesh.
She didn’t notice, but Suriel did. “You might want to be careful until you adjust to your new hand.”
“It will take some getting used to,” Ravensong said, holding it up and wiggling the fingers in front of her face.
“The nails seem quite sharp,” Suriel said, looking at my arm.
Ravensong saw it, her eyes going wide. “Oh shit, Havoc, I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, and wiped the blood away, but the bead of red welled up again. Apparently, I was going to need to hold pressure on it before I put a bandage on it.
“How deep is it?” she asked, looking worried. The Goddess may have vanished from my sight at least, but the raccoon was still there at her side, on its hind legs now looking worriedly between us.
“Not bad, I just need to hold pressure on it and then put a Band-Aid on it. I cut myself worse shaving.”
“But you will have to practice with the hand to find out how much pressure human skin can take from the nails,” Suriel said.
“Yeah, I’ll have to be careful with the little woman when I get home tonight.”
“Little woman?” Suriel asked.
“My wife.”
“Ah,” Suriel said, and the one sound held disapproval.
Ravensong heard it, too, because she frowned at her.
I decided to try to lighten the moment. “It took me a while to figure out that the woman who teased me the most at work didn’t even like men.”
Ravensong grinned at me. “A woman can admire the view without wanting to marry it.”
“So your wife explained to me at the Christmas party.”
She smiled and a look came into
her eyes that showed just thinking about her wife was a good thing. I hoped to get back to that with Reggie. What Louie, short for Louanne, had told me at the party was that when Ravensong joined the force, being lesbian wasn’t a good thing, so she’d been more flirtatious with the men to cover it and never lost the habit. It had helped that she could talk about Louie instead of Louanne. They’d been together twenty-five years and were still stupid happy together; they were what I hoped to have with someone someday. It startled me that I had thought someone someday, not Reggie and now. We would have lunch tomorrow and then a date after that. We’d kissed today, held each other and it had felt so good, but it had been six months between kisses. It still scared me that I hadn’t put her name in that thought, but it would be okay, we would work things out.
“What’s wrong, Havoc?”
I shook my head. “Nothing, just remembering when you met Reggie at the first holiday party.”
Ravensong grinned at me. “Well, your wife is quite the looker.”
“Zaniel, do you have a wife?” Suriel asked.
“I do,” I said, smiling before I could stop myself.
“How could you do that, Zaniel? You are an Angel Speaker; it is forbidden for us to marry.”
“I stopped being an Angel Speaker when I left the College.”
“You were not cast out, Zaniel. You are an Angel Speaker in the good graces of both the College of Angels and God. You took a vow to serve him above all others. We cannot do that and divide ourselves between him and a spouse.”
“When I left the College, Suriel, I left it in every way.”
“What do you mean by that, Zaniel?”
“I told you I joined the army just after I left the College.”
“The army, as clergy?”
I shook my head. “I joined as a regular soldier.”
“Why would you do that?” She stared at me as if I’d said something obscene.
“Because being raised at the College of Angels didn’t prepare me for any job in the real world. I didn’t know how to fill out a job application, or use a computer, but I was big and strong, and an army recruiter saw me walk past. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You could have come back to us,” she said.
“No, I couldn’t.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Zaniel.”
I glanced at Ravensong.
“How about you send Charleston in here, so he can decide if I need to see a magical healer before I step outside here?”
“You will be fine,” Suriel said.
“That has to be the lieutenant’s call, he’s the boss,” I said.
“Havoc’s right,” Ravensong said.
“Then we will wait until your lieutenant comes, but perhaps we could visit and talk of old times before I have to go back,” Suriel said.
“I’d like that,” I said, and I meant it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
I got us both hot teas from the break room and then we sat down across a table in one of the empty interrogation rooms. She took a sip out of one of the few plain mugs I was able to find. She held the mug with her hands curled around it, fingers through the handle as if it wasn’t there.
She lowered the mug and smiled. “You remembered how I liked my tea.”
I smiled back. “Of course I did, I could probably order food for you at almost any restaurant, unless your taste buds have changed completely in the last twelve years.”
“You were always good when it came time for kitchen rotation,” she said.
“You weren’t bad at it either.”
“You were the better cook,” she said.
“I was; do you remember the time that Levanael set the kitchen on fire? They wouldn’t let him cook after that.” I laughed, but she didn’t.
“That is not his name,” she said.
I suddenly didn’t feel like laughing either. “I know they stripped him of his angel name when they cast him out. He goes by his birth name of Jamie now.”
“It is forbidden to speak to anyone who was cast out,” she said.
“I am no longer of the College; I don’t have to abide by their rules.”
“So you see the exiles?”
“Exiles, no, not exiles, just Jamie. How many other exiles are there?” I asked.
She looked down into her mug. “Enough.”
I would have pushed about that one-word answer, but there were other things I wanted to know more, and I knew that her time here was limited. She would have to be back inside the walls before dark unless she had special permission.
“Why are you here, Suriel?”
“To help you and your coworkers,” she said, and she raised her bright blue eyes to me; her delicate face was unreadable, and that let me know she was lying or at least not telling the whole truth.
“You have a silver badge that marks you as third in line of all the Infernalists at the College, Suriel. Someone that senior would not have been sent out alone like this for anything. They would have sent at least one of the College Sentinels to be your bodyguard.”
“I have enough authority to come out alone, and enough power to protect myself, but I am expected back soon.”
“How soon?” I said.
“They do not like us out much after dark,” she said.
“Why did you use your authority to come here alone?”
“I heard that it was a police matter, and then I heard your name, Zaniel, and I had to come and see if . . .” She took another drink of tea, as if the sentence was done.
“If what?” I asked.
“If the angels still spoke to you, if they still answered your call, and they do.”
“I did not fail my training, Suriel.”
“When you left the College, Zaniel, we all thought you would be back. We all believed you would find the outer world corrupt and come back to us. When you did not return, the elder teachers told us that you must have been flawed all along and that the angels no longer spoke to you for fear your flaw would spread to them.”
I stared into my tea mug but didn’t want it anymore. “I was flawed, am flawed, and I didn’t use my magical gifts until other lives would have been lost; only then did I risk reaching out to the angels again.”
“And when you called, they answered just as they always had,” she said, her voice soft.
“Yes,” I said, and looked up to meet her eyes. They were staring at me like two blue diamonds of righteous intensity. Suriel never looked away, never flinched, but there was a tiredness in her eyes now that might have been more. Was that doubt in her clear blue gaze for once? Of course, she doubted me, how could she not, how could I not?
“What happened at the College was not your fault, Zaniel,” she said.
“You thought it was at the time; in fact, you were shocked and disappointed in me, you said so.”
“I didn’t know the full details then,” she said, but she looked down as she said it, which wasn’t like her, or hadn’t been like her years ago. Did I really know her now, or she me? How much had the years changed us? She felt so familiar to me, but in a way we were strangers; just thinking that made my chest ache as if there was more than one way to have a broken heart.
Charleston came into the room looking larger than normal with Suriel in the foreground. “Havoc, there’s an escort here from the College of Angels.”
I had one wild second of thinking they’d come for me, but the next thought was they had no power over me anymore, and I knew why they were here before Suriel said, “They’ve come to escort me home.”
“That’s what they said, but they look a lot more”—and Charleston seemed to search a long time for the right word before saying—“athletic than the normal Angel Speaker.”
“They are Sentinels; they do not travel openly outside the College often,” she said, and then she stood.
“What do you mean, openly?” I asked.
She shook her head as if she didn’t want to have the conversation in front of Charleston. I stood up
and asked, “Can you give us a few more minutes alone, please, Lieutenant?”
He nodded. “I’ll keep them busy as long as I can, but talk fast, they don’t seem very patient.”
“Give me five minutes,” I said.
He just nodded and left us, but he looked back once, and I knew he’d ask me later. He was my boss; he had the right.
“We’re alone, now what did you mean about the Sentinels not going openly into the outside world?”
She came to stand beside me and lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I have seen Sentinels dressed like outsiders leaving the College. I am told they are checking on some of the failed Angel Speakers, but when I asked why that would be necessary, the answers I was given were not satisfactory.”
“How long have the Sentinels been going outside like that?”
“Not long, or not long that I have seen.”
“Why do you think they’re going out?”
She shook her head. “I am not certain. I have suspicions, but only that.”
“Tell me.”
“It is my home, Zaniel, the only one I remember. I will not betray it to someone whose loyalties lie elsewhere. I saw the look between you and your lieutenant; I know you will be duty bound to report what I say, so I will say very little.”
“I wish I could tell you that your secrets are safe with me, but the Sentinels are dangerous, Suriel; they should not be roaming outside, they are meant to protect what is inside.”
“That is why I am telling you this much, because you are a policeman, and it is your job to keep safe what is out here from anyone that would cause harm—anyone, Zaniel.” She grabbed my arm tight, as if she was trying to tell me more with the touch than just her words. I stared into her eyes, trying to understand, and then I realized she was afraid. Suriel had been fearless once, but she wasn’t now.
“Suriel,” I said, and I was going to ask what was wrong, but I heard Charleston’s raised voice outside say, “We are not holding Master Suriel against her will, she came out to help us with a demon problem.”
A Terrible Fall of Angels Page 21