A Terrible Fall of Angels

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I went to him and said, “Levanael, without Suriel there today, something terrible would have happened.”

  “She was always gifted,” he said, crying and starting to rock himself. I couldn’t stand to see him starting to break without touching him. I wrapped my arms around him and he didn’t fight me. I hugged him tight and prayed that he would be all right.

  Emma laid her hand on his shoulder and then her other hand on my arm, and it jolted through me like a circuit had been completed. We were surrounded by white wings and the singing of angels and between the feathers was the golden light and I knew if the wings unfolded we’d be standing in the light of God.

  Jamie screamed a sound of such hopelessness that it broke my heart and the light was gone, the angels fled. Jamie pushed and fought against me. I let him go and he stumbled into Emma, almost knocking her down. She grabbed his arm to steady them both and he tore away from her.

  “No! No! I won’t let them destroy you the way they destroyed me!” He turned back to me. “Get out, Zaniel, get out, stay away from Emma. I won’t let you take her to that place where the angels sing. I won’t let you break her the way it broke me.”

  Emma tried to reassure him. “You channeled a seraph today, Jamie. You’re not broken.”

  He pointed a finger at her and shook his head over and over. “You don’t know what they do to you. You don’t know what it’s like to be alone in the light and then to have the light taken away, too, so that you’re alone in the darkness.”

  “Levanael,” she said, crying.

  “No, Levi, just Levi, I can’t be the other, not if it will hurt you, Emma. I won’t feed you to them, the way my family fed me.”

  He turned to me then, and said, “The way your family fed you to them, Zaniel.”

  “Fed us to who, Jamie?”

  “Yes, I’m Jamie, just Jamie alone in the dark.”

  “Fed us to who, Levi,” I said.

  He shook his head. “You know who, Z.”

  “The College of Angels,” I said.

  He nodded, tears streaming down his face.

  “They can’t force me to go to the College of Angels,” Emma said.

  “Why do you think they send people from the College here to the store, Emma? They’re looking for more angel-touched that they missed, and they missed you.”

  “They didn’t miss me, Levi. I told you my parents refused to let them take me.”

  “Levi.” Bast’s voice soothed over all of us; I smelled lavender, but not incense. I found her with a spritz bottle in her hand, spraying lavender-scented water in the air, but it was more than that; her voice seemed to calm us, too. It was her store; she had a right to use magic to calm us down. She was speaking and I couldn’t remember the words, as if they weren’t meant for me, or maybe I wasn’t supposed to remember them.

  Bast hugged Jamie and he let her hold him, but I realized there was movement on the other side of him as if there was something there I couldn’t quite see. I concentrated and it was his totem. The orangutan wrapped its overly long arms around Jamie. Emma was crying on the other side of them, her dove like an echo of angel feathers around her head with a glowing almost-halo to make it even more confusing. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye again and it was the raccoon standing there on two feet beside my left leg. It looked up at me as I looked down at it. It—no, he—looked at me with those big, dark eyes and seemed to be trying to tell me something, but I didn’t know how to hear the message. Did I say, What’s wrong, Lassie, is Timmy down the well, or would it be like a Disney movie where he started talking like a person?

  “I don’t know what you want, boy,” I said, as if he were a real pet.

  “He wants you to call your friend and see if she’s missed him,” Bast said. She was taking Jamie back to one of their rooms where they usually read tarot or did reiki. Emma tried to follow, but Bast made her stay out.

  “You’re on the register. I can’t keep all our customers from wanting to come inside forever.” The moment she said it, the door to the store opened and a group of people came inside.

  Bast called back over her shoulder, “We’ve got this, Zaniel. Call your friend before your phone rings for work.” The door shut behind them.

  I glanced down at the raccoon. He didn’t look solid in the way that a real animal would, but it was more solid than some Guardian Angels, but then it wouldn’t blast a human’s mind to look at a raccoon, and even a Guardian Angel in its pure form could be too much for some people.

  I hadn’t known that the College took people’s totems and non-angelic spirit guides away from them. I didn’t remember it happening to me as a child, but I trusted Jamie’s pain on this. The College had told us all that only angels were worthy guardians and guides and that all the rest were if not evil at least unworthy. We were taught to counsel people to only listen to their Celestial guides. I concentrated in a way that was more familiar, and my own Guardian Angel was still at my back like a halo of light and white feathers. The raccoon was still there at my side, and either they ignored each other or the two energies were so different it didn’t matter to them. A tightness in my shoulders loosened. Had I really believed that just because I had a totem, my angel would leave me as unworthy? Maybe, okay, probably. I’d never taken anyone’s spirit anything away from them, but I’d been taught that anything short of angelic was lesser, and that the angelic didn’t like being around lower spirits, and everything was less than angels.

  I blinked and let go of both types of seeing. I was just standing in the store watching Emma answer questions from the small crowd of customers. She glanced my way, then mouthed the words Call your friend. She turned back to the couple who were asking her questions with a smile.

  I walked to the side of the room near the crystals and the outer door and away from the customers. It was the best I could do for privacy without leaving the store, and I wasn’t ready to leave without seeing Jamie again.

  “Hi, Havoc, aren’t you supposed to be resting, too?” Ravensong sounded so ordinary and like her usual self that it made me smile.

  “I wanted to check on you, see how you’re doing.”

  “I’m okay and the hand works.”

  “I’m sorry that I couldn’t give you back . . . more,” I said, which was a totally inadequate word for not being able to give her back her hand, complete and whole.

  “The doctors would have cut my hand off, Havoc, you and I both know that, so stop beating yourself up about cosmetic issues. Besides, all the other witches will be jealous they don’t have their own dainty demonic hand.” She tried to make a joke of it, and it made me feel worse.

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and focused on the raccoon gazing up at me with big eyes; it looked like it was trying to talk to me, but there was no sound.

  “Are you missing anything since we healed you earlier?” I asked.

  “Missing something? The extra flesh of that monstrous hand, but other than that, I’m fine. I mean, if you could have shaved a few pounds off other places so I didn’t have to keep hitting the gym that would have been great, but I forgot to ask if there’s an angelic weight loss program.” Another joke; her trying to make me feel better when she was the one who was permanently changed was making me feel worse.

  The raccoon waved its paws at me almost like it was asking me to give it the phone, but I knew it wasn’t solid enough for that. “I’ve got . . . somebody here who wants to talk to you.”

  “Put them on the phone.”

  “I don’t know how,” I said.

  “No more riddles, Havoc, it’s been a long day.” Her voice held tiredness and the edge of exasperation. If I pushed hard enough, she’d get angry with me and part of me thought I deserved it. Surrie had been my friend and she was the reason Ravensong was missing one of her totems now.

  Some teenagers were peering into the case of crystals near me. I lowered my voice and asked, “Are you missing one of your totems, or spirit guides?”

  S
he was quiet for a second and then said, “Son of a bitch. Where is the little bugger?”

  “I think he’s with me.”

  “Why would my totem be with you?”

  “It’s complicated and I’m in public.”

  “It’s not impossible to damage a witch’s ties to their totems and guides, but it’s not an easy type of magic and it will come back and bite you on your karmic ass so hard that you’ll wish you hadn’t done it.” She sounded angry now, and now I felt I didn’t deserve it, not for this, this hadn’t been my fault.

  “I didn’t do anything to cause this,” I said.

  “Then how did it happen?”

  I glanced at the teenagers, who were close enough that I had to move to let them see something in the cases. I looked for Emma, but she was out of sight in the store, still helping other customers. The door to the room where Bast had taken Jamie was still closed.

  “Talk to me, Havoc,” Ravensong said.

  “Let me get someplace quieter,” I said, having to move so that the teenagers could get a better look at stones in the case behind me. I looked around the store and finally spotted Emma walking with an older woman, but their backs were to me as they looked at books. God help me, I didn’t want to leave Jamie upset. I didn’t want him to think that I’d abandoned him again.

  “Havoc, talk to me,” Ravensong said; her patience was starting to wear thin, and I couldn’t blame her.

  “I’m here, Athena, just give me a second.” I pushed through the doors to the sidewalk. It was a lot less crowded than the store. I stood where I could glance in the windows in case I saw Jamie, but I owed Ravensong my attention.

  “You almost never call me by my first name unless you’re at the house socializing with the missus and me,” she said, her voice wary now instead of angry.

  “I just learned that some of the people at the College of Angels may be stripping people of their totems and guides, all except their Guardian Angels.”

  “I’d heard the rumor,” she said.

  “I hadn’t,” I said.

  “You don’t hang out with enough pagans to hear the rumors.”

  “I’ve talked to someone who has regained his totem after the College stripped it away from him as a child.”

  “Are you saying that your little friend from the College, the Infernalist, took my raccoon?” Her voice rose, the anger back and hotter than before.

  “No, she may have tried, but somehow it’s with me.”

  “What do you mean, it’s with you?” She sounded surprised, maybe even shocked.

  “When I was able to see my friend’s totem and his girlfriend’s totem, then I could see the raccoon with me. It looked like the same one that I saw with you in the interrogation room, but I’m not an expert on raccoons so the friend told me to call and check with you.”

  “I can’t guarantee it’s mine, but I’m missing my little guy and it would be a hell of a coincidence if it was someone else’s raccoon that you absconded with.”

  “I didn’t abscond with anyone. The friend thinks that when the Infernalist tried to strip it away from you, it hid using my energy so she couldn’t damage its tie to you.”

  “That raccoon has been my co-walker through life for over thirty years, so I’d call that damaged.”

  “But he’s not gone, in fact he’s looking at me like he wants me to hand him the phone again, but he’s not that solid.” Then I realized that I didn’t know much about totems yet, so I added, “Is he? I mean, can a totem be solid enough to hold a phone?”

  “Not really, or not usually, but then you’re not supposed to be able to take someone’s totem away from them. Trauma or abuse can change your totem, either its nature from nice to more protective, or even switch one animal for another that will help you survive what you’re going through, but it’s not possible to steal someone’s totem.”

  “I thought you said that magic could do exactly that?”

  “It’s possible to damage someone’s totem, or their connection to it, or sometimes in rare cases totems can even take some of the mental or emotional damage so the human they’re with doesn’t suffer the full brunt of it, but no magic can steal it from you.”

  “Guardian Angels do that, take some of the mental and emotional and spiritual damage for the people they guard, especially children,” I said.

  “One day we’ll sit down and have a long discussion on the differences between totems, angels, spirit guides, the works, but right now I need you to come for a visit, so I can get back with my little buddy there.”

  “Let me say goodbye to my friend and I’ll head your way, and I’m sorry, Ravensong, sorry about all of it.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, Havoc, you backed me up magically like you’ve done a dozen times before. I’m too upset to meditate about it yet, but I think my raccoon even tried to warn me off, he was certainly waving at me just before everything went sideways. If a witch ignores her own guides, then it’s her own damn fault.”

  “I’m still sorry that your hand isn’t completely back to normal, and that Suriel seems to have tried to strip you of your totem.”

  “Okay, you can be sorry since it was your friend that did the second part, but I’ll tell you this: All my other totems and guides are exactly where they’re supposed to be, so your little friend wasn’t able to do what she tried to do.”

  “I don’t agree with the College stripping children of their totems, but I can see their reasoning, but for Suriel to try to strip you of your totem, that’s . . . an outrage and an insult to a witch of your strength and talent.”

  “The Infernalists are the ones most likely to come out of the College to help with demon shit; this makes me wonder if we need to double-check anyone they’ve helped and double-check that their totems and spirit guides are intact,” she said.

  “God help us, I hadn’t even thought that far yet.”

  “Seeing someone from your past can be hard, especially if you were close once; it messes with all of us, Havoc.”

  “Thanks for understanding, Athena.”

  “There you go again using my first name, keep that up and I’ll think you’re sweet on me.”

  Her tone made me smile. “You’re my favorite witch, you know that.”

  “Well, then it’s lucky we’ll have a chaperone; Louie came home early from work to take care of me, so you’ll have to fantasize about sexy witches on your own time.” She laughed then, her I’m-a-dirty-old-lady laugh, which she wasn’t supposed to use at work anymore. It made me feel better that she could laugh, and I knew she didn’t mean it. She never meant it.

  “Your wife is a good enough witch to keep us both in line,” I said.

  She laughed again. “Get your fabulous body over here so we can figure out what’s going on, Havoc.”

  I heard a voice in the background and Ravensong said, “Louie reminded me that I’m supposed to practice politically correct speech even when I’m not at work, so I don’t get written up again.”

  I almost pointed out that she’d been saying things that sexual at work to me earlier today but stopped myself in time. I was not going to tattle to her wife about work stuff. “I did not report you for sexual harassment,” I finally said.

  “I know you didn’t, Havoc, but someone did, and so I’ve got to behave myself a little better.” She had to be thinking she’d already misbehaved today, but we were both going to pretend in case her wife could hear my end of the conversation.

  “I’ll help you behave at work, if that’s what you want?”

  She sighed. “Not what I want, but . . .” She took the phone away from her mouth and then came back on. “Louie says she’ll have tea waiting for you when you get here.”

  “Tell her thanks.”

  “You can tell her yourself once you get here.”

  I glimpsed Emma in the shop between customers. “I’ve got to say goodbye to my friends, then I’ll be heading your way.”

  “See you soon, Havoc.”

  “Same
, Ravensong.” We both hung up and I went into the shop to at least leave a message for Jamie with Emma. I was waiting while Emma finished checking out some customers when my phone rang again. It was Charleston.

  “Hello, Lieutenant, is everything okay?”

  “No, if you are fit for duty, I need you.”

  “I’m out with friends, I’m good, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m looking at what’s left of another college student and her boyfriend.”

  “What do you mean, what’s left?” I asked, and started walking away from the happy customers and Emma, because whatever he was about to say was nothing they needed to hear.

  “I mean that it’s worse than the last victim, but it’s another woman that Cookson was stalking.”

  “He’s dead, we found his body exploded into bits at the hospital,” I said.

  “We found skin, just skin.”

  “Are you saying he’s alive and that he did this?”

  “I don’t know, Havoc. I’ve already got a request in for the ME to give me a piece of the skin so I can ask the loa which side of the veil Cookson is on. Give me a piece of him and I’ll find him on Earth or in Hell.”

  “Give me the address and I’ll—”

  “No, I don’t need you here. I assumed that the demon inside Cookson had betrayed and killed him like they usually do, but either Cookson is still alive or the demon is doing it as part of the bargain, so either way the women are in danger.”

  “Agreed, what do you want me to do, Lieutenant?”

  “We have three more women to protect. I’ve got uniforms en route to them, but they’re going to need magic.”

  “Just tell me where and I’ll meet them.”

  “Tell me where you are, Havoc, and I’ll send you to the nearest potential victim. You may be the closest to the university campus and to the two women we have a bead on.”

  “Where’s the third?”

  “She’s meeting her boyfriend somewhere, no one seems to know where.”

  “Okay, send me pictures so I can recognize them all, and I’ll head to the university to back up the uniforms. Are you sure you don’t need me at the crime scene?”