A Terrible Fall of Angels

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “How high?” she asked.

  “Do you channel? Is it one of your gifts?” I asked.

  “I can hear them sometimes, like I can hear people, like I heard Levi, I mean Levanael.”

  “She doesn’t hear everyone like I do,” Jamie said, “just certain people for specific reasons.”

  “I dreamed of Levanael and my guides told me to be on the lookout for him, but I don’t channel like he does. In fact, my boss says she’s only met one other person who has the ability to channel so easily and so completely as Levanael.”

  I nodded. “Even at the College he was one of the purest channels they’d seen in years.”

  “You make it sound like it was more common at the College of Angels.”

  “Not common, but there are always a few in any new group of students,” I said.

  “Really,” she said, and looked at Jamie as if for confirmation. He nodded, and she turned back to me. “As clear a channel as Levi, Levanael?”

  “Almost.” I didn’t tell her about the room where the gifted lay fed through tubes while they spoke from the highest angels and the students with the gift to interpret it wrote it down. It was recorded now, but the gift of interpretation worked best in person. Speaking in tongues was only half a gift; you needed someone with the talent to interpret it, or it was just gibberish. You had people who spouted in tongues, and those like me who could deal directly with the higher order of angels, and those like Jamie who could let other people’s prayers come out of their mouths—all of them were given a chance to be in the room where once you went in, you never left. I’d refused my chance, and so had Jamie.

  “Bast, my boss, has been active in the pagan community for over forty years and she says Levanael is like a glass that just fills up with spirit. She says it’s a really rare gift.”

  “Maybe it’s more common among the angel-touched,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Emma said, but she didn’t look convinced.

  “Or they cherry-pick the ones who can do it and lock them away or break them so that no other spiritual power can use them.” Jamie sounded bitter, like a throwback to some of his saner moments on the street. Saner had not meant happier.

  “What do you mean?” Emma asked.

  He looked across the table at me. I wanted to look away from the anger in his eyes, but I didn’t. I tried to give him calm energy back to cool his anger. I prayed that this wasn’t the beginning of him falling back into the abyss.

  “Don’t you remember when they stripped away all your other guides and totems, everything but the angels?”

  I shook my head. “All I had was my Guardian Angel.”

  “I bet you had more. You just don’t remember.”

  Emma reached out to touch his hand where it was clenched on the table, then hesitated. “May I touch you, Levanael?”

  He gave a small nod, so she finished the gesture, laying her hand over his. “I thought you meant something else besides what you told me about your personal guides being stripped from you. I’m sorry, I didn’t think what it might mean for channeling.”

  For the first time since I’d seen them together, he didn’t touch her back, just glared at me across the table. His shoulders had hunched forward like he was collapsing on himself. It was the way he’d held himself on the street sometimes, like he had something heavy sitting on his shoulders. Just seeing that made me afraid for him. He said, “I had an imaginary friend when I came to the College of Angels. She was a little girl with long curls and ribbons in her hair. I know now that her clothes meant she was from the 1930s or ’40s. Emma and Bast and others at the shop have helped me get a clearer picture of her, and the others.”

  “What others?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about all of it.”

  If it had been almost anyone else, I would have reminded him that he brought it up, but I wouldn’t push Jamie today, not if I could help it.

  “You’ve regained your totem,” Emma said, squeezing his hand as if she were trying to press some of her positivity into him.

  His expression softened and some of the awful tension went out of his shoulders. He let out a long sigh as if he’d been holding his breath. “Yeah, he helps me.”

  “Who helps you?” I asked.

  “My totem, my animal guide.” He glanced at Emma and turned his hand so he could hold her hand back. He looked at me, but this time he was smiling. “Your totem is like a spirit guide, but it’s an animal guide. We have one from birth or even before, just like a Guardian Angel.”

  “I’ve seen totems and animal guides with other spirit workers,” I said.

  “There are also animal messengers that come and go in our lives as we need them,” Emma said.

  “But we have one main totem that will help us be the best version of ourselves,” Jamie said.

  “It sounds like a Guardian Angel,” I said.

  “Angels are forced to ask permission to help their human charge; totems can be more active even if the person is unwilling to make the right choice,” Emma said.

  “Spirit guides don’t have to wait for permission either,” Jamie said. “But the person has to actually listen to them.”

  “I’ve heard some of this before from coworkers and others, but never had them equate it so closely with Guardian Angels.”

  “They probably thought you’d be insulted,” she said.

  “Insulted how?”

  “When people from the College of Angels come to the store they are very insulted when we equate animal totems and spirit guides with angels of any kind. They are even insulted when we try talking about guides that are usually human ancestors or relationships from other reincarnations.”

  I laughed. “Oh, don’t talk reincarnation to anyone at the College.”

  Jamie laughed, too.

  She looked at both of us. “What did I miss?”

  “Suriel, our friend, she got memories in meditation from what she thought might be a past life, but when she tried to tell our meditation teacher that, well, he used it as a chance to tell all of us that there was no such thing as reincarnation. We had one lifetime to make our place in Heaven and if we screwed it up, we went to Hell forever.”

  “Wow, that’s harsh,” she said.

  “It’s the truth,” Jamie said.

  “No,” she said, “no, it’s not true, or at least it’s not to my faith. You and I have known each other in past lives, Levanael. You felt the connection from the moment we met.”

  He nodded. Then looked at her with eyes as full of sadness as they’d held anger earlier. “I know we’ve known each other before, Emma, but I still believe in Heaven and Hell and all the awful things they terrified me with as a child.”

  “Before Dante wrote his fictional Hell, it was just separation from God, that’s it,” she said.

  I nodded. “She’s right; I found people who read the original languages that the Bible is written in, and that’s all Hell was: separation from God. It’s like the Fallen can no longer hear the voice of God.”

  “You don’t believe I’m going to burn in Hell for all the shit I did on the street?”

  I reached across the table and put my hand over his other hand while she held the other one. “No, Jamie, Levanael, no, I don’t believe you are going to Hell. A seraph spoke through you today and you felt energized and better. If you were impure and damaged, you would have been destroyed by it.”

  That smile lit his face almost as if he were glowing from inside. I blinked and called that second sight, and he was shining with white light and there was an angel behind him towering up to the ceiling and beyond like a winged shadow at his back. I hadn’t seen his angel looking this good in years. I started to tear up and looked down to hide it. I wasn’t ashamed to cry in front of them, but I didn’t want Jamie to think he was making me sad. I didn’t want to upset him or take that glow from him.

  “Did you say a seraph, as in one of the seraphim?” Emma said.

  Jamie and I looked
at each other. I finally answered, “Yes.”

  “Wow, they are like the closest to the throne of God, right?”

  We both nodded.

  “I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to channel one of them.”

  “It’s rare even at the College of Angels,” I said.

  “I’ve never done it before. The highest before was a cherub,” he said.

  “One of the cherubim? That is impressive, too; you do understand that the higher orders of angels almost never interact directly with human beings, right?”

  He looked at me again, and I nodded. “I’ve been crazy for ten years; I don’t know what normal is outside of the College. Inside, a handful of us were able to work with the higher orders of angels, but it wasn’t long after I channeled a cherub that I went insane.” He looked very seriously across the table at me. “So how did I do a seraph today without going crazy again? We weren’t in a warded area, no special magical protection except what I was carrying with me.”

  “I had the apartment blessed when I moved in,” I offered.

  “Maybe that was it,” he said, then frowned. “No, Z, a blessed apartment isn’t as much protection as everything that surrounds the College of Angels.”

  “You have your totem protecting you now,” Emma said.

  I wanted to ask what his totem was, but I knew from working with Ravensong that it was considered a very personal question. I tried not to remember her raccoon too vividly, because I knew that if you thought too much about something mystically it was like trying not to think of the color blue; when people tell you to think of anything but blue, it’s all you can think of. I saw a white bird on Emma’s right shoulder. There was a dove cuddled up against her cheek. It was so real that for a second, I thought a real bird had flown in here somehow to perch on her, and then I realized it wasn’t a flesh-and-blood dove.

  I glanced at Jamie and found myself staring not at him, but at the round face and dark orange hair of an orangutan. A huge male orangutan. It looked at me with gold-brown eyes that were not even close to the darker brown of Jamie’s eyes, but the look in the eyes seemed alike somehow, both gentle and waiting, but waiting for what? I tried to turn away, because I knew it was looking without permission, but of all the spirit animals that Jamie could have had . . . why an orangutan? And yet the longer I looked at Jamie with the great ape beside him, the rightness of it settled over me. They matched in a way that Guardian Angels never worried about. Babies were given an angel like the color of their eyes, just part of the equipment of being human, but somehow I felt that totem animals didn’t work that way.

  I finally looked away as if I’d been caught staring at something too personal, and found Emma watching me. “What do you see, Zaniel?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .”

  “I didn’t ask you to apologize, I asked you to tell me what you see.”

  “There’s a dove on your shoulder, and there’s an orangutan sitting beside Levanael.”

  Jamie smiled. “I didn’t know you could see totems.”

  “I can see the totems of people I work with when we’re doing magic together, though I’d thought my coworker had a bear as one of her totems, but today I realized that the bear felt different from a totem, more and less, more power, but less personal.”

  “Bear is the symbol for several Deities, so it could be the representative of one of the Gods or Goddesses that your friend works with in her magical practice or her path of faith,” Emma said.

  “I think Goddess, it felt like that kind of energy,” I said.

  Emma nodded and smiled, though her eyes were darker gray and more serious than the smile. She seemed to be studying me, or maybe she was looking at me with more than just her physical eyes, too. I’d started it, so I guess I couldn’t complain.

  “Can you see anyone else’s totem?” she asked finally.

  I turned and looked at the rest of the customers. They were sipping their tea and coffee. Some of them were eating scones and muffins, a few sandwiches, and drinking bottled waters, but it was just people enjoying themselves at a café. There wasn’t another animal in sight, real or metaphysical.

  “What do you see, Zaniel?” Emma asked.

  “Nothing, I expected to see everyone’s totems the way I see angels once I concentrate.” I turned back to her and the dove was still cuddled close to her cheek as if it liked being there. The orangutan was still looking at me with that peaceful, gentle expression that mirrored Jamie’s to the point that when Jamie raised his tea, the orangutan raised its own phantom cup and drank.

  “Jamie’s orangutan is drinking tea, is that typical?” I asked.

  “You mean for the totem to mimic what we’re doing?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, fighting the urge to blink rapidly so I wouldn’t see the ape echoing Jamie’s movements. I don’t know why, but that bothered me.

  “Sometimes; sometimes it works the other way. If we are in danger we can borrow or be filled with the fierceness of our animal, or we can imitate how they survive in their environment and it will keep us safe. They can also help us study or find our best way to live our lives in so many ways. Embracing the characteristics of our co-walker can teach us so much about ourselves and how we fit into the world around us.”

  “Did you say co-walker?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve never heard that term.”

  “Out totems, especially our major totems, walk beside us on our path of faith, our journey through life. They are always with us, just most people can’t see them.”

  “Like Guardian Angels.”

  “Yes and no; angels need permission to help us once we stop being children and start making our own choices. Totems can interfere without permission, but they can’t force us to make the right decisions, and they can’t stop us if we’re determined to do something that all our instincts are telling us not to do.”

  “How is that different from angels?” I asked.

  “Totems can show up and make themselves known in more obvious ways than most Guardian Angels. Totems can be pushier and fight for your attention more than angels. You have to be quiet and listen to hear the brush of angel wings.”

  “You have to be quiet and listen for your totems, too,” Jamie said.

  Emma smiled at him and leaned her head against his, but now her hair went through the dove on her shoulder; but unlike a flesh-and-blood bird it didn’t get squished, it was more like it was suddenly more misty and less solid, but it rubbed its head between their heads as if the bird liked them touching, or liked them both.

  “I guess so; I’ve seen my dove since I was a little girl, so for me she’s always been with me.”

  “I had no idea I had a totem at all,” Jamie said, “let alone what it was.” He glanced at the orangutan as if he could see it, too, and I realized of course he could. He could see angels just like I could, so of course he could see other spiritual guides.

  “When did you realize you had a totem?” I asked.

  “A few weeks after I met Emma. I thought I was hallucinating again like I was being chased by this big orange monkey”—the orangutan gave him a look—“sorry, big orange ape.” The orangutan settled back satisfied and drank more from its phantom cup.

  “Did the orangutan just get upset that you called it a monkey and not an ape?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Jamie said, “and that’s part of what’s different about them, Z. Angels don’t have preferences about what you call them, they’re like shiny bits of God that are attached to you, but they don’t have personalities.”

  “Most Guardian Angels don’t have what most people consider personalities,” I said.

  “True, but most totems have more energy of the animal they represent, and animals have strong preferences just like we do.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “They can,” Emma said, “but most totems are quieter. They’re more guiding spirits than interfering spirits.”

  “When I firs
t saw mine, I thought I was backsliding and going crazy again.”

  “He called me in a panic,” Emma said.

  “I bet.”

  “Do you have any other questions about totems, Zaniel?” Emma asked, and then sipped her tea while she seemed to wait for me to think.

  I drank some more tea, which was getting colder faster because it had so much milk in it, I think. It was still good, even cold; usually I reheated tea or made fresh, but this was like milky, sweet Earl Grey. It might even be good iced, and I usually hated iced coffee or tea drinks.

  “You think that the orang . . . totem is what helped Levanael channel a seraph without any negative side effects?”

  “He keeps me safe and helps me stay calm and just more even,” Jamie said.

  “Then I am very grateful to him.” I frowned and turned to Emma. “Guardian Angels aren’t usually any gender, but you both have referred to your totems by gender; is that typical?”

  “Some totems are very certain what gender they are, some don’t care about gender at all. Your totem is leopard with all the lessons that can teach you, but it’s not about being a male or female leopard, just a leopard. Other totems come to us to teach us specific lessons that need gender, like how to mother our inner child and heal from abuse from a mother figure, and your totem may need to be female to help you heal.”

  “Or for me the orangutan is male because I’ve never been very good at being the typical male, so my orangutan is helping me learn to be comfortable with being sort of unconventional as a man.”

  Emma leaned her head against him again, smiling and obviously perfectly happy with the type of man Jamie was. “Some totems switch genders back and forth depending on different lessons or protection or nurturing that their person needs. One of the witches I know is all about lion, but it’s male and female, in fact sometimes he’s surrounded by an entire pride of lions. That’s rare, but a lot of people have more than one totem, though most people have one main animal that’s their co-walker, or co-creator.”

  “That’s fascinating, but do they all see their totems this clearly? I know many people can’t see their Guardian Angels, but they still believe in them and they still work with them and ask them for help,” I said.