A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(54)

I turned for the door and Charleston caught my arm. “Havoc, let the specialist look at her. Once they have something to report I’ll make sure you’re with me when they make it.”

I shook my head. “This isn’t possible, Lieutenant. I need to see Ravensong.”

“Not a good idea,” Neil said from where he was still sitting by the wall.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because whatever is in those wounds is demonic in nature and so is whatever is happening to her hand; until we know what happened, let’s keep the two of you separated.”

“The doctor at the hospital didn’t see anything demonic in my wounds.”

“He’s a paramedic healer, Havoc; if he advises we keep you away from Ravensong for now, then we do it. Let the specialist from the College of Angels look at Ravensong, then we’ll go from there.”

That stopped me; I couldn’t even think clearly for a second. “Why did you go to the College of Angels for your demon specialist? They aren’t who the department normally hires to help with demons.”

“You saw that bottle, it’s old as hell and has demon blood in it, contained behind spells that keep it fresh and sentient.”

“Sentient blood? Even demon blood doesn’t think after it leaves the body, Lieutenant.”

“Whatever demon ichor is in that bottle opened it and let itself out, Havoc. None of us have ever seen anything like it. We can’t even find any precedent in the metaphysical database, so we reached out to the College of Angels. This thing took out some of my best people; if we hadn’t had a containment spell box made by one of the best wizards in the country, God knows what harm that damn bottle would have done before help could have arrived,” Charleston said.

“Fair point, Lieutenant,” I said. I wondered which of my old classmates or teachers was in the building. It didn’t really matter; I didn’t want to see any of them. “I’m surprised the College sent someone this quickly. Going through channels usually takes days.”

“They already knew about the unusual angel activity in the city.” Charleston had said it that way on purpose, because he wasn’t going to talk in more detail about the angel at the first crime scene today than was needed for my medical care in front of outsiders. It was an ongoing case.

“Who told them that anyway?” MacGregor asked.

“The angels did,” I said, without thinking about it.

“They went and tattled on themselves?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Some Angel Speakers become Angeli Auditor, Listeners. They might not know all the details, but they’ll know it was unusual and they’ll flag it.”

I could still see that room with its couches and cushions where the Listeners lounged and spent the rest of their lives listening to the singing of angels with human scribes taking notes. It was supposed to be an honor to be offered a place there. Only the purest of angelic channels could even do it. At thirteen I’d been offered a tour, because they thought I might be able to become an Angelus Auditor, a listener to angels. I’d had nightmares for weeks after being shown inside that room. Nightmares of being fed through tubes because I’d been consumed by the music of the spheres. One of my classmates, Ambriel, had taken the honor. If she hadn’t been driven completely insane, or died, she’d still be there reporting the Celestial news and being cared for like a coma patient. Between twelve and fourteen they divided the Angel Speaker candidates up into specialty studies. A few narrowed down to one specialty and that was that for them, but the rest of us had two to three possibilities for a few more years. I’d begun studies with the higher order of angels and would have eventually become an Angelus Lucis—it translated to angel of light, but that could only refer to true angels, so we were just referred to as Lights—if I wasn’t consumed mentally or physically by the progressively higher energy levels of the angels I was exposed to. At thirteen I hadn’t even been afraid of the possibility, just honored to be singled out. I’d also been sent to train with Master Donel and the Sentinels—Angeli Extium, Angels of Destruction. There were rumors that to truly join their ranks you had to fight an angel and win like Jacob in the Old Testament. At fifteen I’d believed the rumor; by nineteen I didn’t. It had been the training with Master Donel that had helped me shine during some of Basic and not die in my first battle. Ambriel had trained as a Listener at thirteen, and at fifteen she went into the room of Angeli Auditor and never came out again.

“You all right, big guy? You look pale,” MacGregor said.

“Sit back down before you fall down,” Becki said.

“I’m okay, just . . . worried about my friend.”

“Sure, you are,” she said, and the cynicism was as thick as her sarcasm had been earlier.

I looked down at her, way down; she had to be barely five feet tall. I felt even taller than I was and awkward around her, like I was fifteen again and not used to my size. “I am worried about Ravensong.”

“You better be worried about yourself,” she said.

“Once they’ve seen Ravensong they want to see you, too,” Charleston said.

“How do you know they’ll want to see me?”

“Because they said so on the phone when they agreed to send someone out. They wanted to see all the police involved in the incident.”