A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(73)
I heard Harshiel yell, “No!” and then I felt the wind around my body disturbed as if something was moving close to me. I opened my eyes to see Harshiel’s elbow coming for my face. I had time to block it with my forearm but missed the knee he drove into my stomach. I was able to turn a little, so he didn’t hit my solar plexus solidly, but it was enough that he doubled me over. I put my arms to either side of my head to protect myself as best I could as I fought to breathe. I couldn’t make myself stand upright, so I stopped trying and threw myself into Harshiel. He wasn’t expecting it and was in the middle of trying to elbow me in the back of my head, so I could sweep his arm past me and came up under his arm with my left and hit him in the ribs like I was driving into a heavy bag in the gym. Elbows were better, but sometimes fists are all you have to make it work. The blow caused him to stumble, which let me come at his back and hit him in the kidney once, twice. Then there were hands on both of us pulling us apart while Suriel and Turmiel yelled for him to stop fighting and Charleston yelled at me.
Harshiel collapsed to his knees even with the hands trying to hold him up. I had a moment of satisfaction and then I saw the blood on my tank top. The demon wounds were bleeding again; suddenly I didn’t feel so satisfied.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
We had to call the paramedics again, twice in one day. It was a record, one that Charleston made it clear he did not want to repeat. “I cannot believe that you had a fistfight in the squad room, Havoc. You’re usually one of my most levelheaded people.”
I was sitting in the squad room in the chair at my own desk. The paramedics Roger and Sam bagged up the bloody bandages and shirt to be processed by the ME, just like the ones earlier. We wouldn’t make Adam hunt me down this time. This paramedic pair were both middle-aged men with that world-weary air that said they’d seen it all, patched up all the survivors, and were tired of stupid people hurting themselves for no good reason, or maybe I was projecting on that last part. I was now out of clean shirts to wear until I went home for one, so I was sitting shirtless in my exercise pants and shoes with fresh bandages across my stomach and totally agreeing with Charleston.
“I called Patterson,” Roger, the brown-haired white paramedic said. “She described your wounds earlier and they look about the same to me.”
“Patterson?” I asked.
“Becki Patterson,” he said.
I nodded. “I remember her.”
“Most guys do.”
“Her partner used her first name, but not her last,” I said, and I knew I sounded defensive, though I wasn’t sure why.
“Sure, but I bet you don’t remember his first name,” Roger said, giving me a look that was so weary and cynical I wanted to ask him how hard his shift had been. I didn’t for the same reason he wouldn’t ask me. First responders barely admit weakness to their friends, let alone to strangers.
I had to admit he was right, I only remembered Becki’s name and I owed her partner for the bloody nose. I suddenly felt shallow and sexist.
His partner looked Pakistani maybe, but certainly some members of his family had come from a part of the world that was near Pakistan at some point. At the College of Angels, you could just ask someone’s ethnic background and they’d tell you even if your guess was wrong. They appreciated being asked and you trying; in the outside world some people appreciated the curiosity, and some people didn’t, so I’d learned to not ask unless the conversation gave me an opening.
The second paramedic that might or might not be part Pakistani spoke with absolutely no accent other than East Coast American with emphasis on Manhattan, New York. “The other guy won’t let us take him to the hospital for tests. He’s got bruising over his kidney and it’s painful when I palpate it. If either of you can talk some sense into him, I’d really like a doctor to look at him. You never know with a kidney shot that’s this tender.”
“Suriel, the blond woman with him, is his superior. She might be able to order him to see a doctor,” I said.
The paramedic shook his head. “She tried pulling rank and the patient wasn’t having any of it. He’s her bodyguard according to him, so he’s supposed to keep her safe and he can’t do that from the hospital.”
“How hurt is he?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Hard to say without a doctor and maybe more tests.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt him seriously,” I said.
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have hit him in the kidney with your fist, twice,” the paramedic said.
“We’re trained to fight angels, not mortals; that means you go for the kill.”
The look on his face let me know that I’d overshared. Charleston said, “It’s a metaphor; the kid was raised in the College of Angels before he wised up.”
“Oh, that cult, glad you escaped, that documentary about the divorced parents fighting for their kids was a heartbreaker. My wife and me, if someone tried to take our kids when they were just little bitty kids like that . . .” He just shook his head at the thought of what they’d be willing to do to save their kids from the “cult.”
I took a breath to say something but felt Charleston’s hand squeeze my shoulder. I knew what he meant. I shut my mouth. He was the boss and he’d just saved me from the fact that I’d told a stranger one of the deepest and most esoteric secrets that the College of Angels had.