A Terrible Fall of Angels

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Inside the College it didn’t matter; the wards around it are so solid and well constructed that they protected me.”

  “They protected us all,” I said.

  He nodded. “But when we started working directly with the realm of angels, there was nothing to shield me from them.”

  “Shield you from the angels?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No, not from them, from the thoughts of all the people praying to the angels and to God.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Can’t you hear prayers?”

  “Sometimes, if I’m not shielding tight enough, or if the prayer has a lot of need or emotion behind it.”

  “How did you filter out the prayers inside the angelic realm?”

  “I don’t hear prayers unless I’m listening for them there.”

  “What do you hear?”

  “Music,” I said.

  “Music, just music?”

  “Beautiful, amazing music like the universe is created out of music and light.”

  He stared at me as if I’d said something terrible. “Music and light, just music and light?”

  “I see angels and I see the light and lines of creation.”

  “You didn’t hear the voices of all the people praying, asking for God’s help?”

  “No,” I said.

  The blood drained from his face so suddenly that I got up to put a hand on his shoulder in case he fainted. “Jamie, Levi, are you okay?”

  “I heard voices, millions and millions of thoughts, prayers, screams of pain, people screaming in agony and begging God to help them.”

  I knelt by him so I could look into his face. “You heard people screaming for help, while the rest of us saw music and lights?”

  He nodded, his face so pale his lips looked bloodless. “I couldn’t shut it out. Even when the teachers brought me back from the heart of creation, I could still hear them.”

  “You could still hear prayers all the time?”

  “No, I could shut out prayers, you know, unless they were strong like you said, but it was the people screaming and crying for God to help them that I couldn’t shut out. So many people calling for help and no one answering.”

  “God answers prayers, but sometimes the answer is no,” I said.

  His eyes looked black in the white of his face like burned holes. “These weren’t prayers, Z, they were people crying out in torment, begging God, or someone, to help them, and no one ever came. I didn’t hear the people that were being helped, all I heard were the ones that didn’t get a visit from an angel, or anything good.”

  “And you’ve heard that in your head for fifteen years?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t know what to say. What could I say to make up for him being trapped like that for so long? Nothing. I said the only thing possible.

  “I am so sorry, Jamie.”

  “Levi, I am Levi now, a name of my choice. Not my parents or the College, but my choice.”

  “Levi, I am so sorry that happened to you and that no one at the College understood what was happening to you.”

  “Emma found some other psychics to help me. One of them is a telepath almost as powerful as I am. He says that if Master Bachiel had a similar gift he should have known I couldn’t shield well enough, and he should have been able to hear the voices I was hearing.”

  “I was there when he came to look at you. He said that no one at the College of Angels could help you.”

  “Is that exactly what he said?” Jamie asked.

  “Yes, I made him repeat it, because I didn’t want to believe it.”

  “He didn’t say wouldn’t, but that they couldn’t, you’re sure?”

  “I’m sure, because I kept going over and over everything that happened, looking for something else I could have done to help you, to keep them from kicking you out. I should have gone with you.”

  “No, Z, we were both kids. I was too crazy in the head for you to take care of me. Your place was there.”

  “How did Emma teach you to shield when the masters at the College couldn’t?”

  “She gave me objects, magical objects to help me shield while I learned. She brought in other witches to do a spell to help me quiet the voices while I got stronger.”

  “They prayed over you at the College.”

  “But they didn’t do any active magic to help me.”

  “Prayer and the angels are the only magic we need.”

  “Well, I needed something else. Did they even consult a witch, or anyone outside the College?”

  “They don’t deal with witches, you know that.”

  “They deal with psychics, that’s God’s gift being used. Did they ask any psychics to help diagnose me?”

  “They brought in healers and doctors to see you.”

  “And none of them could figure it out, really?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Bachiel should have known, or at least suspected, that’s what Emma says anyway. That if he was as powerful a telepath as he’s supposed to be, he should have heard the voices in my head.”

  “If that’s what was wrong, then yes, he should have heard the voices when he examined you.”

  “What do you mean, if that’s what was wrong?”

  “I just can’t believe that Bachiel, Master Bachiel, would have let you suffer if he could have helped you.”

  “Maybe he couldn’t have helped heal me, but he should have known what was wrong.”

  “I don’t know what to say. How did Emma do what the entire College of Angels couldn’t?”

  “It’s a medi-spell, an experimental medi-spell that’s part medicine and part magic. It’s designed to help teenagers who are just getting their full powers to shield and control them. Emma’s brother is a doctor, that’s how she got me into the medical trials.”

  “Then Bachiel was right, no one back then could have helped you.”

  Jamie pushed the chair back and stood up. “Why are you defending him? If he is as strong a telepath as he claims, he knew what I was hearing, knew what drove me insane. If he’d just told the doctors that it was telepathy stuck on and too loud, maybe they could have helped me?”

  I stood up, too. “They tried, but the only thing that helped was to drug you out of your mind. Your eyes were open, but it was like you weren’t there. They couldn’t keep you on the dosage that made everything quiet, because it made all of you quiet. You stared at the wall, or at nothing, for hours. I’d never felt so helpless in my life.”

  “I don’t remember any of that,” he said.

  “The drugs wouldn’t let you remember. They wouldn’t let you do anything.”

  He shook his head. “Someone should have been powerful enough to figure this out sooner, Z.”

  “I don’t know why they couldn’t help you more, Jamie.”

  He screamed, “That is not my name!” His hands were in fists at his sides. He was so angry he was shaking.

  “Levi,” I said, my voice as calm as I could make it, “Levi, I don’t know why the College failed you.”

  “I’m sorry, Z, I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” His voice was calmer, but he was still shaking.

  “It’s okay, Levi.”

  “I should go.”

  “Let me drive you,” I said.

  “You mean you want to see if I’m lying, or hallucinating Emma and the shop. You want to see if I’m still homeless.” A look slid through his eyes that I didn’t like at all; it was that sly, almost evil look. It always seemed like it was someone else looking out of Jamie’s eyes. It was there for a moment and then he was back, blinking gentle brown eyes at me. “I don’t know why I said that, Z.”

  “I believe you about Emma and the rest, because I can see the change in you.”

  “I know you believe me, Z.”

  “I’d like to meet the person who helped you and see the shop. I’d really like to talk to them about how they helped you in more detail, because if the masters at the College messed up with you
this badly, then are there others that we could find and help?”

  Jamie looked up at me. “I hadn’t thought about that. I’ve just been so happy that I was back to myself that I never thought about others. It’s like I’ve been trapped in their prayers and pain so long, I just want to concentrate on me.” He got that look on his face that he’d had from the moment I knew him at seven, so sincere, so worried. “Is that bad of me, Z?”

  “No, no, if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” I said, but I hugged him so he couldn’t see my face, because I worried about the same kind of thing. I was a detective. One of the things that Reggie had hated was that sometimes I couldn’t get a case out of my head. I’d tried to explain that people could die, or murderers could get away, or victims might never be found, or Heaven and Hell could go to war again and destroy the world and everything and everyone on it. When I’d said that last, she’d gotten the angriest of all, because she said, “So I’m a selfish bitch to want my husband’s full attention, because it could cause the apocalypse? No pressure there.”

  I hugged Jamie a little harder, because he and Suriel were the first people that I thought would always be there for me. They’d been my family until I found Reggie and we had Connery.

  Jamie pulled back from the hug to study my face. “What did you just think about, Z?”

  I shook my head and stepped back, but he grabbed my arm. “Talk to me, Z, please. I’ve been missing for years, let me be here, really be here for you and for me again.”

  My eyes felt hot, damn it I was not going to let him see me cry, but my throat was too tight with grief to speak. God help me, God help us both.

  “Z, please, talk to me.”

  The first hard tear trailed down my face. I pulled away and went to the kitchen with my back to him. “Let’s do more tea and then you can call Emma or let me drive you.” My voice was neutral, but the first tear had been joined by more. I’d learned to cry without letting it show in my voice or face years ago. Men didn’t cry, especially in the military, or on the force. Hell, soldiers and cops of either sex weren’t supposed to cry. We were supposed to be strong, and tears weren’t strong, but more than that I didn’t want to explain the tears to Jamie. I was afraid that it would trigger something in him that would undo all the progress that he’d made. It was a miracle that he was standing here with me. I didn’t want to spoil it by being weak and human.

  I knew he was behind me before he wrapped his arms around my waist and hugged me from behind. I startled, stiffening in the embrace, because I’d been too long in the outside world where men didn’t do this. I’d almost forgotten that there had been a time in my life when I hadn’t thought anything about it. The College of Angels taught that male and female didn’t matter, that we were all one, and affection was innocent like small children. I’d believed that until I was about fifteen. Suriel had already started to pull away from casual physical affection, but Jamie never had. He’d come to us for cuddling like we were all still seven years old huddling in little homesick puppy piles.

  “I’m here, Z, just like when we were kids. You can tell me anything.”

  I patted his hands where they held me and told him part of the truth. “I was thinking about Reggie and Connery, and you and Suriel. Everyone I’ve ever loved.” I almost choked on that last part because it was too much truth.

  Jamie held me tighter and only the height difference kept it from being more intimate than it could be. “Is that all you have ever loved, truly, Zaniel?” The cadence of the words wasn’t Jamie.

  My skin ran cold with terror because I knew that voice. The tears were gone, dried up along with the inside of my mouth.

  Jamie’s arms were less tight, but he leaned against me in a way that wasn’t just friends and was . . . softer, something, as if it wasn’t just the cadence of Her speech that he was channeling, but Her body movements, too.

  “Zaniel, why did you leave the College?”

  “Jamie, let go of me.”

  “Why did you leave, Zaniel?”

  “Let go of me, now.”

  “I felt your touch for the first time in so long when you came into the light.”

  I finally used his angel name. “Levanael, let me go, please.” If Jamie could hear me, then I had a choice of using violence to stop him from touching me or let her get a stronger hold on me. Clothes helped; bare skin was always . . . harder with her.

  Jamie let go of my waist with one arm, as if he’d finally heard me, and then his hand touched the skin of my arm, as if she’d heard my thoughts about bare skin.

  I saw her in my head like a daydream, hair spun of light so that you could never call it blond, but yellow, or even gold didn’t describe the color of her hair, not really. Her skin was a shade of paler light as if I needed other words that meant white and energy, and fire, and ice, and elemental things that did not exist for humans. Her body was perfect, because she’d created it for me, the fantasies of a teenage boy and her own preferences from human media, thoughts and wishes. She would always be my fantasy made almost flesh, except she could never get it quite right, because short of incarnating she couldn’t be human, but then human was overrated, I thought as I stared into her eyes like blue sky, but a sky that never ended and never touched the Earth. It was like looking into eternity, beautiful eternity.

  She reached one shining hand out toward me, and I knew that all I had to do was reach back and I could travel the music of the spheres and the light of God to find her.

  I tore myself away from Jamie, screaming, “NO!”

  Jamie stumbled back against the table as if I’d shoved him. He had to grab the edge of it to steady himself or I would have knocked him to the ground. “I didn’t know she was still there waiting for you.”

  “She’s eternal, she can wait forever,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Z, I didn’t mean to channel her.”

  “You were the clearest, purest channeler in our year at the College. It’s not your fault; when the higher angelic orders want to speak through you, it’s not like you can say no.”

  “You said no.”

  “She isn’t trying to use me as a channel to speak through, Levanael.”

  “No, she wants you the way a woman wants a man. I didn’t know that she had fallen, I’m so sorry, Zaniel.”

  “Is she completely fallen now? Did I damn us both?”

  “You’re not damned, Z, and neither is she.”

  The tears were back, why was I crying? “Are you sure?”

  “She hasn’t joined the enemy, so she’s not damned, and not completely fallen, just sort of . . . crisped around the edges.”

  “She didn’t look burned to me.”

  “I don’t mean literal fire, Zaniel, you should know that.”

  I nodded and wiped at the stupid, traitorous tears.

  “I’d forgotten how good it felt to channel the higher levels of the angelic.” He raised his hand up in front of his face. “I feel like my skin should glow with all the power.”

  I didn’t know what to say, because I was so scared, I could taste iron on my tongue. I’d felt her twice today. The first time was my fault, getting too caught up in my old abilities, but this time, I hadn’t done anything to call her to me this time, which meant she’d sought me out.

  “I can’t imagine what it was like to touch her for real like you did, Z. If it felt better than this, I couldn’t have told her no.”

  “One of us had to be strong enough to stop, or she would have fallen. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t be responsible for that, for her being . . . lost.”

  “You were what nineteen, twenty?”

  “Yeah, somewhere in there.”

  “How did you have the strength to question it at only twenty?”

  “I prayed for guidance and strength and God gave it to me.”

  “When I prayed for God to help quiet my mind, nothing came.”
The happiness in his face began to fade. The confidence and power that he’d gained from channeling an angel began to seep away like a cup with a crack in it. It hurt my heart to see it happening in front of me.

  I wanted to hug him again, but I was afraid to touch him too much, afraid that She would come back through the clear channel of Jamie’s talent. I put my hand on his shoulder where the shirt protected us both from skin-to-skin contact. I prayed that it would be enough to protect us from her attention. The touch on his shoulder made him look at me. “Some prayers take longer to answer than others, Levanael.”

  His eyes held sorrow like rain to drown all the sunshine in the world. His eyes had always been like that; expressive didn’t quite cover Jamie’s eyes. How could I help him? Then the thought came, and I thought, Oh, yeah, and felt slow for not thinking of it sooner.

  “Let’s pray,” I said.

  His eyes focused on me instead of on the dark thoughts in his head. “I remember you used to ask me that when you found me on the streets. We even tried it a few times and it didn’t help.”

  “ ‘Prayer isn’t a grocery list for miracles, it’s a tool for talking to God.’ ”

  Jamie smiled and his eyes filled with it. “Master Sarphiel said that all the time in every class we had with him.”

  “ ‘Prayer is just one way to bring yourself into alignment with the divine,’ ” I said, repeating another common refrain from Master Sarphiel.

  “ ‘Any person on the planet can pray, Levanael, you must do better than that.’ ” He even got the inflection of the voice right.

  It made me laugh. “Inside the College with all the wards and magical shielding, yes, but outside in the world let’s just pray, okay?”

  Jamie’s smile wilted around the edges. His serious eyes studied my face. “You’re afraid she’ll come back through me again, aren’t you?”

  I took a breath trying to think how to word it, then finally nodded.

  “It felt good to channel her. It felt good to be an Angel Speaker again,” Jamie said.

  “Angels speak to me, but they speak through you.”

  “Only because I’m not strong enough to meet them in person like you are, like Suriel was.”