A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(104)

“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?”

She 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.