I heard that deep purring voice and knew who it was: Harshiel, of course it would be him. “Show her to us and we will believe you.”
“We don’t hold innocent people against their will,” Charleston said.
“We understand that, Lieutenant Charleston,” said a second, much less aggressive male voice. Turmiel was here to soothe and balance Harshiel’s usual belligerence. His nickname at the College was Harsh, and he’d never outgrown it.
“I demand to see Suriel,” Harshiel said; his deep voice sounded like a musical growl. He sang bass in the choir at the College, as Jamie and I had sung tenor, though none of us had been true Angeli Cantor, Angel Singers. That was one of the rarest gifts of voice among us; no one from our year had been so blessed.
“You don’t get to demand anything here,” Charleston said, and if his voice wasn’t as deep or as musical as Harshiel’s it had the ring of authority that the Sentinel’s lacked.
“Standing in my way would be a mistake, Lieutenant.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Turmiel’s voice. “No, we would never do anything so disrespectful and so against the orders we were given.” There was a note of warning in the last words, and it wasn’t aimed at Charleston.
Suriel let go of my arm and started to walk toward the doorway, but I caught her arm, turning her back to look at me. She let me draw her back toward me so I could whisper, “What are you afraid of, Surrie?”
She smiled at the nickname, I think. “That what I have devoted my life to has been corrupted.”
“What does that mean, Surrie?” I whispered.
Turmiel yelled, “Harshiel, no!”
We were moving toward the doorway together; Suriel called out, “Harshiel, don’t you dare do anything rash. I am coming.” She sounded like a scolding teacher to a pupil. The Harshiel I knew wouldn’t take that from her, or anyone that he didn’t see as superior to him, which meant almost no one. I felt magic breathe along my skin and prepared to fight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
It was Suriel’s hand on my arm that helped me think and realize that it wasn’t angelic magic that was breathing through the room. Charleston stood between the doorway and the two Sentinels, but both MacGregors were behind them as well. Officer Odette Minis was standing to one side, so she had a clear line of sight to the Sentinels that didn’t cross any of us. Her hand rested on her sidearm; the holster was unsnapped. Apparently she wasn’t going to try magic if it came to a fight. I was okay with that; sometimes bringing a gun to a magic fight is exactly what you need to win.
The two Sentinels stood in the center of my fellow police officers. Both were dressed in leather vests with hard leather bracers on their lower arms and loose pants like an ancient version of exercise pants. Turmiel tall and tan with his empty hands out to his sides. Harshiel taller with skin that was the closest to true black that I’d ever seen on a human being. Turmiel was handsome, but Harshiel was devastating in his beauty. I’d lived in the City of Angels long enough to know that movie stars would have paid a fortune for cheekbones like his, and there were women who injected their lips to get the fullness that Harshiel had naturally. He’d been one of Suriel’s first crushes besides me. We were allowed childish crushes at the College, just nothing more.
“You have taken our weapons so that we could be allowed up onto this floor, and we mean no harm here,” Turmiel said.
“The powers of the enemy cannot win against us,” Harshiel said. “Even without our weapons the angels will protect us from such deviltry.”
“Is he calling us Satanists?” Young MacGregor asked.
“Yep,” Old MacGregor said.
“There will be no need to test our magic here today,” Suriel said, and her voice had the ring of authority, as if she just expected everyone to obey her. Either she was bluffing or she’d been in her current exalted position longer than I’d thought.
“It would be a certainty, not a test,” Harshiel growled in that thrummingly deep voice that I’d heard so often in choir.
“Well, there will be no certainty today,” Suriel said in that no-nonsense teacher voice. It was a tone of voice that we’d grown up obeying from them, our teachers and masters at the College.
“As you say, so shall it be,” Turmiel said, bowing with a hand to his chest like the Sentinels would to any master at the College. It shocked me to see him do it for Suriel, even though I knew it was her due now.
Harshiel didn’t bow; he glared at her and then at me. I looked into his dark brown eyes and saw something I hadn’t expected to see: hatred. We’d never been good friends, but I didn’t know he thought we were enemies.
“There’s no evil here unless they brought it with them,” Goliath said.
“There is no evil among the angels,” Turmiel said, as if it was just fact.
“The Fallen are still angels,” I said, before I could think that it might have been better to keep my mouth shut.
Turmiel looked at me startled, as if I’d said something he didn’t know, but we were all warned in our training to never forget that the Fallen were not stripped of their angelic powers, or at least not all of them.
“You would know all about the Fallen, wouldn’t you, Zaniel,” Harshiel said, his voice thick with the emotion I’d seen in his eyes.
“She is not fallen,” I said, but my voice wasn’t certain.
He went after that sign of weakness just like he had on the practice mat when we were learning to fight. “Your flesh was weak, Zaniel, or were you just not good enough to complete the seduction?”
“What did you just say?” I asked.
“Did he just say you were bad in bed, Havoc? All those fantasies down the drain,” Lila asked, coming to join the outer limits of the loose circle that the squad had formed around the Sentinels.
“Do you spread corruption among all the females you meet?” Harshiel yelled.
“Harshiel, enough!” Suriel said.
“Why do you defend him?”
“I am not defending him, I am stopping you from speaking out of school,” she said.
“Oh, Havoc isn’t just the star in the fantasies among us females,” Lila said, her voice full of sarcasm that Harshiel probably wouldn’t understand, “he’s the favorite in a lot of the male fantasies, too.”
“Don’t help me, Lila,” I said.
Harshiel turned on me. “Have you fallen so low as that, you who once were almost our brother in arms?”
There’d been a time in my life when I would have defended my honor against that kind of suggestion, but that time had passed; love was too precious to deny, even if it wasn’t my kind of love.
“I have been on real battlefields, held soldiers in my arms while they bled and I fought to save them, killed enemies that were trying to kill me. I have been a real solider, a real policeman fighting to keep Heaven and Hell from destroying the Earth, not a hyped-up security guard training for a battle that will never come.”
“How dare you!” he said, taking a step toward me.
I went into a soft fighting stance, hoping that he wouldn’t notice, but I should have known better. We’d both begun our lives with the same training.
Harshiel went into a much more obvious stance, knees soft, hands loose as he raised them to protect his upper body, but not fists, too easy to break your hand that way, elbows and knees were better.
I fell into a stance that almost mirrored his, bouncing a little on the balls of my feet, rotating my neck and shoulders. I realized that I wanted to fight him. I had spent thirteen years using our training in the real world against people who were trying to hurt or kill me. No matter how good your training is—and Master Donel was the best—it’s still not the same as real combat. Training to fight for your life is still not the same thing as actually fighting for it. A few minutes of real violence will teach you things that a lifetime of practice can’t.
“Harshiel, stand down,” Suriel ordered.
“We are here to protect Master Suriel
, not to serve some private grievance,” Turmiel said. He started to reach out to grab Harshiel’s arm but seemed to think better of it, letting his hand fall to his side. He looked at Suriel and then at me.
I kept my eyes on Harshiel. He had beaten me regularly as a child. Not as a bully, but just because Harshiel was the best at hand-to-hand. No one but Donel or one of the adult Sentinels could beat him when I was at the College.
I didn’t think of myself as that competitive in that stupid male way that caused so much trouble for every police officer, but suddenly I realized that for the right person, for Harshiel at least, I was that guy. Part of me didn’t like that I had this in me, and another part thought, About damn time.
“As much as I hate to say it, Havoc, stand down,” Charleston said.
“If I said please, Lieutenant?”
“I agree with Havoc; I think tall, dark, and handsome here deserves to get his ass kicked,” Lila said.
“You just met him, Bridges, how do you know he deserves an ass-whooping?” MacGregor the Elder asked.
“A woman knows these things,” she said.
“Zaniel could never beat me before, I doubt that has changed,” Harshiel said. He settled more solidly into his stance.
“That was when we were boys, Harshiel; we’re all grown-up now,” I said.
“You have to take off your shirt when you say things like that,” Lila said.
Officer Minis chuckled and lowered her gun, holstering it. “Yeah, like in the movies.”
Lila nodded. “Yeah, you know, Havoc says ‘all grown-up’ and then he tears off that little bit of a tank top and shows us that six-pack he’s been working on.”
I laughed and relaxed my fighting stance. It was too ridiculous.
Charleston said, “Bridges, stop being a corrupting influence on the new guy.”
“The only corrupting influence here is Zaniel,” Harshiel said, and was totally serious.
“New girl,” Lila corrected. “As a bisexual woman I can tell the difference between girls and guys.”
“Girl is a sexist term; don’t you ever read the gender sensitivity emails?” Charleston said, smiling.
“Nope,” she said.
“I do, and guy is fine, but thanks for the heads-up, no sharing the shower with you,” Minis said, but she was grinning.
“You are making fun of me,” Harshiel said, but stayed in his stance as if Donel was going to come walking by and criticize him.
“Well, handsome, if you take your shirt off, I’ll stop teasing and just admire the view,” Lila said.
“Bridges, enough,” Charleston said, but he was fighting not to smile.
“I do not take my clothes off for strange women.”
“Pity,” Minis said, softly.
“So, do you take them off for strange men?” Lila asked.
“Are you talking to me?” Harshiel asked.
“I am,” she said, but this time she wasn’t smiling. She gave him a look as straight and unflinching as Suriel usually did.
“Stop picking on our guests,” Charleston said.
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” she said, still giving Harshiel serious eye contact. She wasn’t smiling now, as if the teasing was over and she was on to something more solemn, but what? If she had had her own magic and not been a null, I might have worried that she was going to use a spell on him; if she’d been better at hand-to-hand, I’d have accused her of trying to make him fight her instead of me, but as it was, I had no idea what she was thinking.
Apparently Charleston didn’t know what she was up to either, because he said, “Bridges, back away from the Sentinels. They’re going to escort Havoc’s friend Suriel here back to the College, and we’re going to let them do that unless she says she doesn’t want to go.”
“Master Suriel is expected back at the College,” Turmiel said.
“I am expected,” Suriel said, folding her hands in front of her.
“She must come back with us now,” Harshiel said, and he was finally standing up straight and tall again, and not like he was about to participate in training.
“I am a master, you are not, Harshiel; you do not dictate to me,” Suriel said.
“Of course, we do not dictate to you,” Turmiel said.
“Are you refusing to return to the College?” Harshiel demanded.
“No, but I will return because I wish to and because it is my home, not because you drag me back like some runaway child. I did healing work on someone who had been demon touched, which is my job as one of the Chief Infernalists of the College of Angels.”
“It is customary for such work to be done in pairs even for the Chief Infernalist himself,” Turmiel said.
“How could you risk yourself by doing such dangerous work on your own, Suriel?” Harshiel said.
“She wasn’t alone,” I said.
“The angels do not speak through you anymore, seducer,” Harshiel said.
“The angels do still speak to Zaniel, and do not call him that again,” Suriel said.
“He is corrupt and separated from the grace of God,” Harshiel said.
“God still hears my prayers, and the angels still know me,” I said.
“The enemy tricks you into believing that, but it is not angels that sing to you, but demons,” Harshiel said.
“I swear by the angels themselves that they know Zaniel as they always did,” Suriel said.
“You know that cannot be true,” he said.
“I came to test the truth of it for myself, as is my right as a master teacher at the College,” she said.
“Why would you risk yourself, Master Suriel?” Turmiel asked.
“Yes, Suriel, why would you risk yourself for someone that you haven’t seen in so very long?” Harshiel asked. He studied her face as if he was trying to read past the passive expression on it now.
“If you would use the gifts that God gave you instead of letting your prejudices blind you, Harshiel, you would know that it was not a risk to work angel magic with Zaniel.” She looked past him to the other Sentinel.
“Turmiel, look at Zaniel with something other than your physical eyes,” she said.
“Why should he do that? Why should Turmiel care about Zaniel’s powers or lack thereof; why should you?” Harshiel asked.
“Turmiel,” she said again, ignoring Harshiel.
I felt a warm wind against my skin like the perfect breath of spring. I looked at Turmiel—he was still the tallest Filipino I’d ever met in all my years on the outside. He towered over Master Donel. When I was at the College, I hadn’t questioned that Turmiel would specialize as a Sentinel like his uncle, but over the years I had rethought a lot of things about those years, and with Turmiel’s magic blessedly gentle I realized I had been right in one thought: He should have specialized in something else. He was no warrior, no bringer of death. He should have been a healer, a bringer of joy, but like most of us he hadn’t argued with the path the College chose for him.
“It’s considered rude to peek at someone’s magic without asking permission first,” Lila said.
Turmiel’s magic began to fade like a wind dying away. “It’s all right,” I said, “let him look.” I smiled at him. “It’s all right, Turmiel, do what Suriel says.”
Turmiel smiled and it was as gentle as the springlike wind that danced over my skin. It brought my Guardian Angel shining at my back like an all-body halo in a medieval painting of a saint.
“Wow,” said Young MacGregor, “do you feel that?”
“Feel it, no, but I see it,” Minis said.
“He always did shine pretty like that,” Turmiel said, his voice almost dreamy with the power.
“No,” Harshiel said, “no, it cannot be.”
“He partnered me in healing the injured police officer as of old,” Suriel said.
“There is nothing wrong with Zaniel’s angel,” Turmiel said, his voice still dreamy. “He feels sadder like he has seen and done things that hurt him, but he has done nothing to make the an
gels turn from him. In fact, when I think that, they hover closer and want to offer comfort.” As if his words made it so, I felt the brush of wings, and if I hadn’t known it was angel wings, I’d have said birds, because they felt smaller than the angels that came when I called, but there were no birds to see and the touch was more wind and thought than physical feathers. The touch of them opened something inside me and began to heal it. I didn’t even know what it was, only that it hurt and if I and my angels allowed it, Turmiel’s angels would make it better.
I heard Harshiel yell, “No!” and then I felt the wind around my body disturbed as if something was moving close to me. I opened my eyes to see Harshiel’s elbow coming for my face. I had time to block it with my forearm but missed the knee he drove into my stomach. I was able to turn a little, so he didn’t hit my solar plexus solidly, but it was enough that he doubled me over. I put my arms to either side of my head to protect myself as best I could as I fought to breathe. I couldn’t make myself stand upright, so I stopped trying and threw myself into Harshiel. He wasn’t expecting it and was in the middle of trying to elbow me in the back of my head, so I could sweep his arm past me and came up under his arm with my left and hit him in the ribs like I was driving into a heavy bag in the gym. Elbows were better, but sometimes fists are all you have to make it work. The blow caused him to stumble, which let me come at his back and hit him in the kidney once, twice. Then there were hands on both of us pulling us apart while Suriel and Turmiel yelled for him to stop fighting and Charleston yelled at me.
Harshiel collapsed to his knees even with the hands trying to hold him up. I had a moment of satisfaction and then I saw the blood on my tank top. The demon wounds were bleeding again; suddenly I didn’t feel so satisfied.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
We had to call the paramedics again, twice in one day. It was a record, one that Charleston made it clear he did not want to repeat. “I cannot believe that you had a fistfight in the squad room, Havoc. You’re usually one of my most levelheaded people.”
I was sitting in the squad room in the chair at my own desk. The paramedics Roger and Sam bagged up the bloody bandages and shirt to be processed by the ME, just like the ones earlier. We wouldn’t make Adam hunt me down this time. This paramedic pair were both middle-aged men with that world-weary air that said they’d seen it all, patched up all the survivors, and were tired of stupid people hurting themselves for no good reason, or maybe I was projecting on that last part. I was now out of clean shirts to wear until I went home for one, so I was sitting shirtless in my exercise pants and shoes with fresh bandages across my stomach and totally agreeing with Charleston.
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