A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(58)

“I did not mean to offend anyone, but I do find it difficult to deal with people outside.”

“You don’t get out much, do you?” Lila said, not sounding exactly friendly.

“No,” Suriel said as if she hadn’t heard the sarcasm, or just hadn’t understood it.

“What color of sash is in your bag besides red?” I asked. I’d finally noticed her small black bag like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag from a movie. When I’d left there’d been talk of going to a backpack, but apparently they’d decided it was too modern.

She looked up at me, startled at last, as if she hadn’t expected the question. She should have known I’d ask, even if it had only been for old times’ sake.

“What sash?” Goliath asked.

“We all come in to be trained as Angel Speakers, but there are different specialties. We differentiate by sashes worn over the robes,” I said.

“You should not be telling secrets to strangers,” Suriel said.

“Honey, all of us that watched Where Do Our Children Go?, that documentary on Netflix, knew about your little sashes and a lot more,” Lila said.

“I do not know what you are talking about,” Suriel said.

“It was a documentary about parents trying to get their children back from the College of Angels,” I said. I hadn’t been able to watch all of it; it had been too hard to watch the kids going into the big double gates with their parents. That would be the last time they saw their families unless they failed the training.

“I did not know there was such a documentary,” she said.

“Are there still no televisions at the College?” I asked.

“There is one for playing DVDs of movies and educational programming in the teachers’ lounge now,” she said.

“Well, at least that’s some progress,” I said.

“You say the angels still speak to you, Zaniel.”

“They do.”

“I need your skills with the angels in order to help your coworker.”

“You have studied a decade longer than I have, Suriel; I can give you nothing that you do not already have in your arsenal.”

She smiled, but this was a sad smile. “You always underestimate your worth, Zaniel.”

I shook my head. “I did, and then I thought too much of myself, and the price of that was too high, so let me be humble, Suriel. I’m too dangerous any other way.”

“Oh, Zaniel, that is not what happened.”

“I was there, Suriel, I know what happened.”

She shook her head hard enough that her blond curls bounced the way they had when they were longer, and we were younger. “I will not argue old wounds with you here and now, Zaniel.”

“Good.”

“Whatever wounds we have, Zaniel, I need your help.”

“What help can I possibly be?”

“Have you seen what happened to your friend Ravensong?”

“The lieutenant described it to me, but I haven’t seen it.”

Suriel’s face was serious again. “It is something that should not be.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean that demon flesh can do this, but not mortal human flesh.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Lieutenant Charleston, can you please show him a picture of the hand?”

Charleston stepped forward, using his smartphone to bring up an image. We took a lot of pictures with our phones because phenomena didn’t always last long enough to wait for forensics to arrive with better cameras. Some of it couldn’t even be captured by technology, but apparently this could.

The first image was Ravensong sitting in a chair with something on the end of her arm. It wasn’t a bad picture, but I think my eyes just didn’t want to make sense of it. The next one had an arm resting on a table with a Halloween glove on it; that’s what I thought, that it couldn’t be real. It was so outsized, compared to the pale wrist that it was attached to, that it looked like something people wore on Halloween with black claws. My pulse started beating a little faster as I looked at those claws, because I remembered them slashing at me, pressing into my stomach while I fought not to let them gut me.

“Are you unwell, Zaniel?”

I swallowed before I answered, because my mouth was dry. “I’m fine.”

“You are sweating, and it is not warm in here,” she said.

I touched my forehead and realized she was right. Staring at the claws that had almost . . . No, I didn’t let myself finish the thought. The monster had tried to kill me; it failed, I lived, I won, it lost, time to get dinner, or lunch, or a drink. That was the way you thought about it in the military and on the job.

Charleston took the phone out of my hand. He was studying my face. I tried to give him my best blank cop face, but I couldn’t fix the sick, cold sweat on my forehead except by wiping it off. I took even, deep breaths and that helped slow my pulse and heart. I was probably pale, and that didn’t have a quick fix.

“I did tell you the hand looks like the demon from the hospital,” Charleston said.

I nodded and let my breath out slow. “You did. I didn’t think it would bother me.”

“I’m sorry, I do not understand,” Suriel said.