A Terrible Fall of Angels

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  He opened his big brown eyes and looked directly at me with that burn of intelligence and insight fully behind them. It sent a thrill through me that was somewhere between sexual and scary. I’d wanted this for so long, but I didn’t trust the change to last, and I didn’t know if I had another crushing disappointment in me. I wasn’t sure I could take it if he reverted. I prayed, prayed that this would last, that he was cured, well.

  “I woke up,” he said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not sure I do either, but did you ever have a dream where you think you woke up, but it’s just another kind of nightmare, so that you keep dreaming you get out of bed, but you’re actually still trapped in the dream?”

  “Yes, I guess everyone has them sometimes.”

  “Maybe, but everyone else wakes up. I’ve been trapped in a nightmare for over thirteen years.”

  “Do you think the last fifteen years have been just dreams and nightmares?” I tried to study his face, to see his answer there, but he was looking down at the tea so I saw mostly the top of his thick brown hair and a rim of face. His hands looked so much darker as he lifted his cup to drink more tea. They were tanned and weathered more than his face, as if the beard and wild hair had protected him like fur, but his poor hands . . . they looked like they belonged to someone older. Someone who’d worked outdoors their whole life maybe, but not the soft, smiling boy I remembered. He’d been the best of us all, the gentlest soul, the kindest heart, and the highest scorer on all the tests for psychic ability, as long as it was pure power being tested and not control of that power.

  He sipped the tea and looked at me over the rim of the cup. His eyes looked very dark for a moment, almost black, the way they’d get the few times he got truly angry.

  “Maybe I just want to think of it as a nightmare so I don’t have to think too hard about everything I did while I was sick.” The voice was deeper, not a hint of laughter in it; this was how he’d sounded on good days over the last decade.

  “I can understand that.” I finally sipped my tea and it was good, but I’d let it start to get cool. I didn’t want tea, I wanted Levanael, I wanted to undo the shadow in his eyes and the tone in his voice.

  “I can feel your questions hanging like something heavy around you.”

  “You can’t hear them?” I asked, and took another sip of tea.

  His eyes held that bitterness I’d come to dread, but it was better than the rage, or the terror. That was the worst. “Not right now. I told you my head is quiet, quieter than it’s been since I hit puberty. You know the theory that God doesn’t let our full powers hit while we’re too little to cope with them?”

  “Of course, that’s why they recruit so early for the College. They want to train us to control our powers before they are fully fledged. Untrained psychics and witches who suddenly grow into their power as teenagers are dangerous to everyone, including themselves.”

  “I don’t remember when I couldn’t hear other people’s thoughts,” he said, and upended his teacup like you’d finish off liquor, or maybe his was getting cold, too.

  “I remember that your parents brought you into the College to see if the angels could help you.”

  He flashed me a smile and asked, “Could I have another cup?”

  “I’ll make us a pot if you want.”

  “Do you have a real teapot?”

  I grinned and went to the cabinet over the microwave. I got down a carefully covered bundle and set it on the cabinet by the stove.

  “Is that a tea cozy on it?” he asked, and sounded happy again like I hadn’t heard him in so long. I didn’t want the serious sad coming back; it made me feel like the positive change was only temporary. I wanted it to last.

  “Yes, though I like thinking of them as tea sleeping bags,” I said, and lifted off the deep blue tea cozy.

  He laughed again, head back and just so happy. “I’d forgotten that we used to call them tea sleeping bags when we were little, and how did you get a nice heavy teapot like Master Sarphiel had?”

  “I sent away to England for it when we bought our house.” I pushed the thought away that Reggie had packed it up in a box with some other things she thought I’d need in the apartment, as if I wouldn’t need a big teapot at the house anymore.

  “What did Master Sarphiel here call it, a Brown Betty?”

  “Yes, though since this one is a deep blue is it still a Brown Betty, or is it a Blue Betty?”

  He chuckled. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. It takes me back to those endless pots of tea when we were all still together before we had to choose specialties.”

  I nodded. “I’ve told Connery it’s a tea cozy, but when he asked what that meant, I told him it was a sleeping bag for the teapot to keep it warm.”

  “Does he call it a tea sleeping bag?”

  “He says, ‘Don’t forget the sleeping bag, Daddy. The tea needs to be warm.’ ”

  “That’s great, I’m sorry I scared him the last time. I didn’t mean to.”

  “I know you didn’t mean to.”

  The sadness started to slip back over his face as I put enough water in the teakettle to fill the big pot. “You can feel my questions, so I’ll just ask, how did your head get so quiet? How did you clean up and get . . . better?”

  He smiled, chasing back the shadow in his eyes. “I was sleeping in an alley, I’m not even sure where I was exactly, but I woke up and there were people standing over me. I thought I was going to get robbed or beaten up again.”

  I fought to keep my face neutral at the again. I’d taken him to the emergency room at least five times myself. I’d hated that he wouldn’t stay in the shelters where he was safer, not safe, I knew better, but safer than that.

  “But they didn’t hurt you?”

  “They were prophets,” he said, his face sliding into that seriousness again.

  “Oh,” was all I said, because street prophets could be just another name for crazy homeless person, except that they thought they had the ear of God, or the angels, or a saint, or even occasionally the devil. A lot of schizophrenics thought they heard the voice of God; how did you tell delusion from true prophecy?

  “I know what you’re thinking, Z. They were the real deal.”

  “I thought you couldn’t read my thoughts.”

  “I don’t need to; that little oh and the way you go all stiff through the shoulders, that was enough.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult the prophets.”

  “I know some of them are crazy like I was, but in between the crazy some of us truly do hear the angels, or spirits and powers of one kind or another.” He was getting sullen again. I had a glimpse of what his face must have looked like behind the beard and hair all these years. There was a sourness to it that looked wrong on his shaved face, as if the old crazy Jamie was getting mixed up with the original Jamie, which I guess was exactly what was happening. Even if he stayed sane from this day on, the years on the street had to have left their mark.

  I sat back down across from him this time, because I wanted to see his expression full on. “What did the prophets tell you?”

  “That I needed to go to a shop and talk to a woman who worked there.”

  “What shop?”

  He gave me a sly smile that had always been edged with beard before this; I didn’t like the smile still being in him. It was an unpleasant smile, the one that meant he was usually about to say something crazy, or mean, or both. I prayed that whatever he said next wouldn’t be either.

  He looked confused. “Part of me wants to say I bet you’d like to know, or It’s none of your business, but it’s like habit. It’s not what I want to say to you.”

  “What do you want to say to me?” I asked, trying to keep my voice and face neutral so I didn’t trigger any negative urges in him.

  “I want to tell you about the shop and that Emma works there. She does reiki and reads tarot. The prophets told me a woman wearing a rose would help me close my s
hields so I could be alone inside my head.” The confusion moved to something else, something that didn’t quite believe in going to look for a woman with a rose.

  “Why did you do what they said?” I asked.

  “Is it that obvious that I didn’t believe them?” he asked.

  “To me, it is,” I said.

  He smiled then. “I guess expressions and body language don’t change that much with time.”

  “I don’t know about that, but we can still read each other.”

  He offered me a fist bump and I touched his fist with mine just as the rapid-boil kettle beeped to let me know the water was hot.

  “Make the tea, Z. I’ll talk while you do it.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, and got up to pour hot water into the big blue teapot. I swirled a splash of hot water around to warm the pot. Master Sarphiel had always been very firm on that. The tea steeped better in a warm pot than in a cold one.

  “I can’t tell you everything, because I don’t remember all of it, or understand what I do remember.”

  “That’s okay, Jam . . . Levi, just tell me what you can.”

  “I honestly don’t remember what alley I was sleeping in when they woke me up. I just stared up at this group of shapes. I had a few seconds of wondering if they were real, or I was seeing spirits, or hallucinating, or having someone else’s nightmare, or maybe my own? I thought I was flashing back to the last bad beating I got.”

  “The hospital called me on that one.” I was glad I had finished pouring the hot water into the pot, because my hands shook. I lost one of the tea bags, but with the others I got their strings tight underneath the lid of the teapot. I slid the tea cozy over the pot to make sure it stayed hot while the tea steeped, then set the timer for ten minutes.

  “You’re still my emergency contact,” he said.

  “But you said they were prophets, not thugs.”

  “Yes, when I was sure I wasn’t still dreaming, they gave me their message about going to the shop and talking to a woman with a rose.”

  I leaned against the edge of the cabinet and watched him instead of sitting back down. “But you didn’t believe them?”

  “No, I thought they were just crazy like me, so I laid back down and told them to leave me alone.”

  “And did they, leave you alone?”

  He gave a little chuckle. “No, because at least two of them were prophets, the real thing. They grabbed my arms and pulled me to my feet. I started to try and fight them, but they were a lot stronger than they seemed. I wondered if they were angels in disguise for a second, because of how strong their hands were on my arms.”

  “Angels don’t do that much anymore,” I said.

  “No, but they had the strength of God in their hands. I felt that and knew they were real.” He was quiet so long I prompted him and asked what happened next.

  “I started walking in the direction of the shop. It wasn’t close to where I was, and I didn’t have money for any other way to travel. I was lucky that I didn’t get arrested for walking in the middle of the road, because I did that some, I remember getting honked at and then realizing I was in the middle of the damn road.”

  It startled me that he cursed. We had all been taught that curses should be saved for when you meant them. Jamie didn’t mean the road to be damned, or a road to Hell. I wanted to remind him why he shouldn’t use it so casually, but I kept my mouth shut and listened.

  “I made it to the street where the shop is, but then I heard or saw someone’s thoughts. This man just walked by and he was thinking so hard that I just started following him. I probably would have followed him for miles, or until his thoughts calmed down, but a woman walked by us wearing a T-shirt with roses on it. It made me stop, literally stop on the sidewalk. I was able to let the man’s thoughts go. I could hear them getting farther away, but I turned and started following her.”

  I wondered how the woman had felt about being followed by Jamie before he’d cleaned himself up. The tea timer sounded and saved me from letting my body language tell him what I was thinking. I was too busy lifting the tea cozy off, taking the tea bags out, and fishing with the tongs for the one that I’d lost in the tea.

  “I followed her through the door into her shop. I mean I was right behind her. I’m lucky she didn’t call the cops.”

  “Were you able to tell her why you were there?” I asked, getting our mugs off the table so I could put sugar in them.

  He gave a laugh that was more bitter than funny. “Tell her that a bunch of wandering prophets told me to look for a woman with roses. The truth didn’t sound very sane.”

  “Did she believe you?” I asked, as I poured tea into the mugs, adding cream to both.

  “She did, and I know whatever I said to her wasn’t as clear as what I’m saying now. She should have called the cops, or told me to leave her shop, but she had this gentle energy. It reminded me of how I used to feel when I prayed, and God liked the prayer.”

  I set his tea in front of him and sat down across the table from him, because I wanted to see as much of his face as I could. Profile wasn’t enough for me to read him.

  He looked at me with those big brown eyes. They’d always dominated his face so that you saw his eyes and then the rest of him. Compelling was what one of the other female Angel Speakers had said once: “Levanael’s eyes are so compelling.” She’d been right.

  “What happened next?” I asked.

  “Emma, that’s her name, said that she dreamed about me coming to the shop.”

  “Wow,” I said, and felt like we were ten again and had just seen some bit of angel magic we’d only read about before.

  “I know, it was extraordinary. Not just that she had the dream but that she was willing to trust it enough to take me back to one of the small rooms where they do reiki and tarot. You know what I looked like before, Heaven help me, smelled like before, but Emma just took me in the room as if I was normal.” He smiled and sipped his tea before adding, “The owner of the shop was there and wouldn’t let Emma close the door. In fact, she stayed at the door watching over us. I can’t blame her. In fact, I’m glad she was looking out for Emma. She’s this amazing gentle energy that just feels good to be near.”

  “Like the right kind of angel,” I said.

  He nodded. “That’s sort of how she feels, but it’s like when we were around the priests that felt right. The energy of faith, true faith.”

  “That’s really rare,” I said, drinking my own tea. It was good and I really needed to drink it before it got cold this time.

  “It is.”

  “What did she do to”—I made a vague motion at him—“for you?”

  He took another sip of tea, sighing happily. “I’m so glad I can taste things again.”

  “Me, too,” I said, and meant it.

  “The healing started with Emma’s energy, and then she did actual energy work on me. Part of it was reiki, that’s what she’s got certificates in, but part of it was just intuitive energy work, that’s what she called it.”

  I drank my tea and didn’t say that I’d never seen just energy work make a miracle like this. It could help, but this kind of change took more than one miracle cure.

  “It was crystals and herbs and her guides talking to my guides.”

  “You mean your Guardian Angels?”

  “Not just the angels, but the other spiritual beings that are supposed to help protect me.”

  I thought about Ravensong’s raccoon, the great bear and the blond Goddess or Valkyrie at her back. “Spirit guides and totems, you mean?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  I wondered if I lowered my shields and opened my senses, would I see some new power around him? I didn’t do it because it was too risky. I’d seen what was around Ravensong, and then I’d been in that place beyond where music was visible and angels moved along the humming strings of the universe. I couldn’t risk having Jamie follow me into that place, because it was traveling to it that had driven him mad.


  “Did Emma help you get cleaned up, too?”

  “She helped me get some clothes from Goodwill and she let me use her bathroom to get cleaned up. Her boss made sure that Emma’s roommates were home while I was there.”

  “I take it that the owner of the New Age shop doesn’t have the same energy as Emma.”

  He stirred his tea, smiled, frowned, smiled again, and said, “No, her energy feels very pointy like a porcupine, so that nothing gets in her shields.”

  “Anyone sensitive to energy wouldn’t want to be around that.”

  “True, maybe she only was pointy at me, keeping my energy off outside her shields,” he said, sitting back down with his tea. He wrapped his hands around the mug as if it didn’t have a handle. He didn’t drink from it right away, as if he was more warming his hands on the mug.

  “You look great,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I look better, but great, I’ll get there.”

  I reached across the table and put my hand on his arm. “You look great to me, Lev-I, Levi.”

  He put his hand over mine. “Thanks, Z. I’m sorry for everything I put you through.”

  “You don’t have to apologize, you were sick.”

  “I do need to apologize, but thank you for saying that.”

  “Does Emma know what caused everything to go . . . off?”

  “You mean why I went crazy at the very end of training to be an Angel Speaker?”

  “Yes, but if it’s hard to talk about we can wait. It’s just that no one at the College understood what happened.”

  “We’re not a hundred percent certain, but we think it’s my telepathy.”

  “There are other telepaths at the College,” I said.

  “But no one as powerful as I am, Z.”

  “No one but Master Bachiel,” I said.

  “Emma thinks that he, or some of the teachers, should have protected me more. She says I had almost no ability to shield my gift.”

  “They did teach us how to shield ourselves,” I said.

  “I never got good at personal shielding, remember?”

  I thought about it. “That’s right, it was your weakest skill set.”