A Terrible Fall of Angels

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “I respect your choice,” I said at last.

  “I take it that you are religious,” he said.

  “You could say that.”

  He looked at me as if he expected me to say more. I just smiled at him.

  “What, you’re not going to try to convert me to your path of faith?”

  “Me talking about my personal belief in God isn’t going to help Detective Gimble.”

  “Don’t you mean personal belief in Deity, Detective Havelock?” said a deep voice from outside the curtain.

  I smiled and said, “Sorry, Lieutenant Charleston, I forgot my political correctness for a second.”

  A large, dark hand parted the curtain and my boss, Lieutenant Adinka Charleston, stepped through. The rest of him matched the hand. He was as tall as the doctor but built more like me. He’d gone to college on a football scholarship and played pro as an offensive lineman for two years before injuries took him out. He was a little thicker around the middle than he had been in the NFL, but not by much. Other than the hair going gray he looked pretty much like the pictures in his office when he was in uniform for the Denver Broncos.

  “Don’t forget again, Detective. We wouldn’t want the doctor to think we were insensitive.” His voice sounded serious, but I knew that he thought the new PC vocabulary regulations were a crock of shit, which was what he’d called them when he was forced to give us the lecture about using them. I didn’t know why he was pulling the doctor’s chain, or maybe mine, but I knew he was.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” I said, but I gave him a sideways look to see if I could figure out what was up.

  He looked down at Gimble, who looked even smaller lying in the bed surrounded by the three of us. All traces of the smile faded from Lieutenant Charleston’s face. “So, what are you going to do to wake up my boy here?”

  “If he truly saw an angel, then he shouldn’t be in a coma, but he is, so if we can figure out what did this to him, then we can put together a course of treatment.”

  “Did the angel touch him?” Charleston asked.

  I shook my head. “No, if it had he’d be dead.”

  “I thought angels healed with their touch,” the doctor said.

  Charleston and I both shook our heads. “You explain, Havelock, you’re our angel expert.”

  “If they are sent from God to heal, they can, but angels that are pure spirit like the flame we saw, they mostly follow orders, and he wasn’t there to heal.”

  “What was he there for?”

  “To deliver a message,” I said.

  “To the patient?” the doctor said.

  I shook my head. “No, not for Gimble.”

  “Doc, I need to talk to my detective alone for a few minutes.” Charleston smiled at the doctor as he said it, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. They showed that he was smiling for social convention and nothing else.

  Dr. Paulson seemed to understand, or maybe he had other patients with less complicated complaints; whatever the reason, he gave us the room.

  Lieutenant Charleston’s smile faded until his expression matched his eyes, sort of unfriendly and taking no shit. “So, the angel had a message for you?”

  “It gave me the message,” I said.

  “Don’t play word games with me, Havoc. One of my detectives is lying in a bed unconscious and no one knows why, or how to wake him up. Answer my damn question.”

  I told him what little information the angel had given me. It sounded even less helpful than it had at the crime scene.

  “So, the murderer isn’t a demon, but it’s somehow part of the Devil’s plans?” Charleston asked.

  “The Adversary, yes.”

  “That’s just another term for Satan, right?”

  “It’s what I was taught to use at the College of Angels,” I said.

  “Just making absolutely certain we’re talking about the same being.”

  “It’s the same,” I said.

  “Could the murderer be possessed?”

  “The angels are aware of what a possession is, Lieutenant. This was something new, or unusual, and whatever the murderer is, it’s something that the angels don’t understand, and that is powerful enough that it can hide its movements from Celestial powers.”

  “If it’s not a possession, then the hot lead I was going to tell you about just got colder.”

  “What lead?” I asked.

  “There was a security video in the parking area across from the apartment building. The camera caught a man leaving the building at the right time to be the murderer. Looked like there might even be blood on his clothes, but if we’re looking for something supernatural this kid isn’t it.”

  “Kid, so you have an ID?”

  “Mark Cookson, nineteen; his grades have fallen in the last semester enough that he’s on academic probation at UCCA, University of California, City of Angels. He got some complaints by female students for being overly persistent in his attentions after they’d made it clear they weren’t interested; nothing violent, nothing illegal, just socially awkward and bordering on stalking. He’s definitely a creeper. One of the students that had complained about him was our victim.”

  I looked at him and felt that eager rise when everything starts to fall into place on a case. “Did you find him yet?”

  “He’s not in his dorm and his roommate changed schools midsemester so no new roommate to question.”

  “Is there anything in the dorm room that says he’s into black magic, or demonology?”

  “Had to send someone else to see the dorm room and try to find any friends he might have, because I got a call that one of my detectives was in the hospital.” He gave me a look.

  “Sorry, Lieutenant.”

  “Mark Cookson sounds like he could be good for this, Havoc, but your angel makes it sound like we are looking for someone a lot more dangerous than a horny teenager with bad social skills and no criminal record.”

  “If they find things in his room that say he’s been messing with black magic, then he may still be the guy.”

  “But if he is, then we’re looking for him right now. He’s from an upper-middle-class family, he’s not going to know how to hide from the police. We will find him, probably soon, which makes me think he’s not it, because if he was, why would we need a message from the angels?”

  “I don’t know. The angel shouldn’t have given the message to me at all, Lieutenant. It should have gone to an Angel Speaker at the College, then they would have given the message to their handler, they would have given it to the administrative assistants, and they would have contacted the prophet on duty.”

  “How long would all that have taken?”

  I thought about it. “Hours, maybe a few days.”

  “This is a murder investigation, Havoc; maybe God knew we needed the information sooner rather than later.”

  “The Big Guy can do anything He wants to do.”

  The lieutenant sighed. “Then he sent the message to you personally, because he knew we needed to know sooner.”

  “Perhaps, but in the twelve years I’ve been gone from the College I’ve never had a message given to me.”

  “You’ve never had another angel speak to you since you left?”

  I looked away then, not sure what my face would show. I chose my words carefully, because Charleston wasn’t just a good cop, he was a Voodoo Priest, and I knew he worked his own brand of magic to give him better insight into people when he needed information from them.

  “I’ve worked my brand of magic with the angels since I left the College, but I’ve never had them seek me out to tell me some message as if I were still an Angel Speaker.”

  “You’re an Angel Speaker and a detective on the case; it sounds like you’re the perfect person to receive a message about the crime.”

  “I’m not an Angel Speaker.”

  “Maybe not officially, but you can talk to them without ending up in a coma, or worse.”

  I let out a long breath because I’d be
en trying hard not to think about worse. “If any part of the holy fire had touched Gimble he’d be dead.”

  “Or insane,” Charleston said.

  “If he wakes up, that’s still a possibility, sir.”

  “How serious a possibility?” he asked.

  “He could wake up with no memory of it happening, or wake up screaming, or violent, or blissed out.”

  “Blissed out, what does that mean?”

  A deep breath from the bed made us both look down. I put a hand on Gimble’s shoulder so that if he tried to get out of the bed and hurt himself, or us, I could keep him down until he could be restrained.

  He blinked up at us. “Hey, Havoc.”

  “Hey, George,” I said, and smiled because he looked normal.

  “Hey, Lieutenant.”

  “Hey, Detective, how are you feeling?”

  “I saw an angel, did Havoc tell you, I saw an angel?”

  “He told me.”

  “It was beautiful, so beautiful, like looking at the sun just standing in a room, except it had wings, but they were made of fire. It was amazing, wasn’t it, Havoc? Tell the lieutenant how amazing the angel was.” He touched my hand, which was still on his shoulder. “Tell him, Havoc; I don’t have the words.” He held my hand and started to cry softly, but his face was full of wonderment and awe. I’d seen that look before on other Angel Speakers, and in the mirror. It was like being born again into God’s chosen faith.

  I held Gimble’s hand and looked across at our boss. “This is blissed out.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  He stopped crying and just lay there glowing with happiness. If it had been because of true love, or a new baby, or any of a dozen things I’d have been happy for him, but I’d seen the same angel and I wasn’t glowing. It did feel good to stand near him, though, as if waves of happy contentment were flowing from him to the rest of the room. The nurse on duty came in to check his vitals and stayed talking to him, smiling down at him as he smiled up at her. Of course, Gimble was smiling at everyone; the whole world would be his friend while the afterglow lasted.

  Lieutenant Charleston took me outside the room and spoke low while Gimble made friends with another nurse. “How long is this going to last?”

  “Hours, days, months.” I shrugged.

  “Are you telling me one of my detectives is going to be like some charismatic preacher for months?”

  “Or it could fade in an hour,” I said.

  Two other nurses came down the hallway and entered Gimble’s room. We stepped back to look in on him, but he was beaming at the four nurses and telling them about the angel. There didn’t seem to be any medical emergency that warranted that many nurses.

  Dr. Paulson came down the hallway frowning. “Where the hell are my nurses?”

  We both pointed at the room behind us. Paulson strode through the door. “We have other patients on this floor, ladies and gentleman.”

  They made sounds of apology and seemed a little embarrassed or confused about why all four of the nurses on the floor were in one room when there didn’t seem to be much wrong with the patient.

  Dr. Paulson shooed them out of the room like they were children being sent outside to play. He didn’t seem affected by the angelic bliss spilling off Gimble; neither were Charleston and I, but we had training in resisting metaphysical interference, and the doctor didn’t. So how was he unaffected?

  He looked at both of us, the irritation in his eyes bordering on anger, but his voice was still controlled and even. “The religious mania is fine, I’ll have someone from psychiatric look at him, but why is it affecting the nursing staff?”

  I answered, because as Charleston liked to remind me, I was the unit’s angel expert. “Sometimes people come away from angelic visitations trailing clouds of glory. Being that close to God can make them high, but it can also make them shine to other people. People are naturally attracted to things that bring them closer to God’s presence.”

  “I know that seeing an angel in pure form can drive a person insane or give them amnesia, so they don’t remember the incident at all, or even this type of evangelical experience, but there’s nothing in the literature about it being contagious.”

  “It’s a rare side effect,” I said.

  “I’ve never heard of it either,” Charleston said. He joined the doctor in giving me unfriendly looks.

  “It may be because Gimble is psychic in his own right, so that his powers are combining with the protective story his mind built for him.”

  “What protective story?” Charleston asked.

  I looked at him as if to say, did he really want me to give out this much detail in front of someone who wasn’t one of us? But he said, “Dr. Paulson is the doctor in charge of Gimble’s treatment, Havelock. He needs to know enough to make that treatment effective.”

  “Point taken, Lieutenant,” I said, and turned to the doctor. “I saw the same angel and it wasn’t all light and choral singing. It was special and awe-inspiring, but it wasn’t the way Gimble is describing, at least not to me.”

  “Are you saying that he saw something you didn’t?” Paulson asked.

  “I’m saying that there is some debate on whether spiritual beings look different from person to person. The theory is that it’s the same reason that we can see spirit, but it doesn’t always show on film, so we may be seeing it with the parts of our minds that see dreams, or daydreams, rather than concrete reality.”

  “So, you’re saying that what you saw and experienced may not be what the other detective saw.”

  “Yes.”

  “So why is that a protective story?”

  “It could be that he saw exactly what I saw, but it’s too powerful for his mind to deal with, so in order not to go crazy his mind has given him a wonderful vision instead of the scarier truth.”

  “You mean like a trauma victim remembering things differently,” Paulson said.

  “Yes, in either case the mind is trying to protect the person from something that was overwhelming to them mentally and emotionally.”

  “Don’t forget spiritually, Havelock; maybe what’s happened to Gimble is that seeing an angel in person has given his religious beliefs a kick in the head,” Charleston said.

  “Maybe, but most of the time this kind of shiny happiness doesn’t last long enough to change a person’s religious habits. I pray that it doesn’t last for Gimble.”

  “Why?” Charleston asked.

  “Because this kind of belief can lead people to quitting their jobs, giving away their possessions, and devoting the rest of their lives to charity or something.”

  “Is that so bad?”

  “It is when it’s the mind protecting itself from trauma instead of a deeply held religious belief.”

  “If a person leads a good life, does it matter what motivated it?” Charleston asked.

  I looked at him. “What would your wife say if you came home tonight and asked her to sell the house, empty out your savings, give or sell everything of value you had so you could give it to the poor, and then you’d spend the rest of your lives helping the homeless, or something like that?”

  Charleston looked at me for a moment, then laughed. “She’d think I’d lost my mind and wouldn’t do any of it with me. She’d probably try to have me put on a twenty-four-hour psychiatric hold.”

  “It’s that kind of abrupt change, Lieutenant. It’s not a person soul-searching for years to find their place in the world or in Deity’s plan, it’s like a lightbulb that gets turned on one day in a room that was already bright and sunny. It’s not bringing people out of the darkness into the light of spiritual growth, it’s shining so much light on a person that they become blind to the joy they already have.”

  “Okay, but why is it impacting the nursing staff?” Paulson asked.

  “Like I said, I think it’s because he’s psychic.”

  “What kind of psychic is he?”

  “Empath mostly,” Charleston said, which was my clue not to
add anything else. If my boss didn’t want the doc to know everything Gimble could do, then that was okay with me. I didn’t like oversharing with civilians.

  “Is he a receptive or a projective empath?” Paulson asked, and that meant he paid more attention than most civvies did to gifted Americans. Most people didn’t even know that there was more than one type of empath, or that their power could be more than just picking up emotional impressions from others.

  “Mostly receptive,” Charleston said, which again was my cue to not overshare.

  “But he can project, too?” Paulson said.

  Charleston made a head movement that could have been a nod or a shrug. Paulson took it as a nod. “Then could he be projecting his emotions onto my nursing staff?”

  I nodded before I could stop myself, but Charleston conceded it. As if on cue the male nurse came back down the corridor and tried to go into the room, but Paulson stepped in his way.

  “What is it, Gonzales?”

  “Time to check the patient’s vitals, Doctor.”

  Paulson shook his head. “No, it’s not.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The anger flared in Paulson’s eyes again. “You took his vitals less than ten minutes ago, I’m sure.”

  “Maybe he pressed his call button?”

  Paulson sighed and ordered the man to go back to his other duties. One of the other nurses was walking this way and passed Gonzales to reach Gimble’s room.

  “What is it, Prescott?” he asked her.

  “The patient pressed his call button.”

  Paulson leaned back into the room and asked, “Did you press your call button?”

  “No, but I’d love some company.” I could see George’s smile while he said it; he was a very social guy. I wondered if that was part of it; was he literally projecting his social need on the nurses? Had the angel somehow increased his psychic abilities? That would be a first.

  “Check on your other patients, Prescott, this one is fine.” She went farther down the hallway, and I saw the last nurse peeking around the corner at us, as if she’d go into Gimble’s room as soon as the coast was clear.

  “I can’t have the entire nursing staff on this floor ignoring the other patients.”