“Fair point, Lieutenant,” I said. I wondered which of my old classmates or teachers was in the building. It didn’t really matter; I didn’t want to see any of them. “I’m surprised the College sent someone this quickly. Going through channels usually takes days.”
“They already knew about the unusual angel activity in the city.” Charleston had said it that way on purpose, because he wasn’t going to talk in more detail about the angel at the first crime scene today than was needed for my medical care in front of outsiders. It was an ongoing case.
“Who told them that anyway?” MacGregor asked.
“The angels did,” I said, without thinking about it.
“They went and tattled on themselves?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Some Angel Speakers become Angeli Auditor, Listeners. They might not know all the details, but they’ll know it was unusual and they’ll flag it.”
I could still see that room with its couches and cushions where the Listeners lounged and spent the rest of their lives listening to the singing of angels with human scribes taking notes. It was supposed to be an honor to be offered a place there. Only the purest of angelic channels could even do it. At thirteen I’d been offered a tour, because they thought I might be able to become an Angelus Auditor, a listener to angels. I’d had nightmares for weeks after being shown inside that room. Nightmares of being fed through tubes because I’d been consumed by the music of the spheres. One of my classmates, Ambriel, had taken the honor. If she hadn’t been driven completely insane, or died, she’d still be there reporting the Celestial news and being cared for like a coma patient. Between twelve and fourteen they divided the Angel Speaker candidates up into specialty studies. A few narrowed down to one specialty and that was that for them, but the rest of us had two to three possibilities for a few more years. I’d begun studies with the higher order of angels and would have eventually become an Angelus Lucis—it translated to angel of light, but that could only refer to true angels, so we were just referred to as Lights—if I wasn’t consumed mentally or physically by the progressively higher energy levels of the angels I was exposed to. At thirteen I hadn’t even been afraid of the possibility, just honored to be singled out. I’d also been sent to train with Master Donel and the Sentinels—Angeli Extium, Angels of Destruction. There were rumors that to truly join their ranks you had to fight an angel and win like Jacob in the Old Testament. At fifteen I’d believed the rumor; by nineteen I didn’t. It had been the training with Master Donel that had helped me shine during some of Basic and not die in my first battle. Ambriel had trained as a Listener at thirteen, and at fifteen she went into the room of Angeli Auditor and never came out again.
“You all right, big guy? You look pale,” MacGregor said.
“Sit back down before you fall down,” Becki said.
“I’m okay, just . . . worried about my friend.”
“Sure, you are,” she said, and the cynicism was as thick as her sarcasm had been earlier.
I looked down at her, way down; she had to be barely five feet tall. I felt even taller than I was and awkward around her, like I was fifteen again and not used to my size. “I am worried about Ravensong.”
“You better be worried about yourself,” she said.
“Once they’ve seen Ravensong they want to see you, too,” Charleston said.
“How do you know they’ll want to see me?”
“Because they said so on the phone when they agreed to send someone out. They wanted to see all the police involved in the incident.”
“Did they ask for the names of the officers involved?” I asked.
“They did.”
I wanted to ask if they’d agreed to send someone out once they heard my name, but I didn’t want to say that in front of anyone but Charleston, not even MacGregor, let alone two paramedics I’d just met. Was it arrogant of me to think they’d sent someone because I was involved? The anxiety that made my pulse and heart rate speed up didn’t feel arrogant. If I hadn’t been all grown-up and not a kid, I’d have said I was afraid.
“I need to go check on Ravensong and the specialist,” Charleston said. “Maybe you should go to the bunk room and lie down until they want to see you.”
What I wanted to do was go home; even my tiny apartment seemed like a good idea. I wanted to run away, the way I had when I left the City of Angels and joined the army, but I couldn’t leave Ravensong to them. God knew what they might decide for the betterment of humankind, or to support the latest treaty between Heaven and Hell. I couldn’t leave her with no one here who understood that the betterment of humankind wasn’t always better for the single person involved.
“I’m fine, sir.”
He looked at me like he didn’t believe me, but he let it go. The paramedics didn’t believe me either, but Becki finally started working on her partner’s nose. When he took the dressing off, I knew I owed him more than just one drink; maybe a case of his favorite liquor would say I’m sorry I broke your nose.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I couldn’t see Ravensong, but I could ask to be introduced to the Infernalist who had come to help us. Once I knew who it was, if it was someone I knew from before, I knew then I had a starting point and maybe I could advocate for Ravensong even if they wouldn’t let me in the room with her. I’d have walked out in the bloody T-shirt and slacks, but Charleston caught me in time. I didn’t have another pair of slacks to wear, so he suggested I change into the only outfit left in my locker, so I was dressed for the gym when I came out: an oversized tank top that had started as a T-shirt that I’d cut the arms and neck out of, so it was great for lifting weights but left way too much of my upper body exposed for comfort. At least the running pants were the loose ones and not skintight. My dress shoes had been the only things I’d been wearing that didn’t have blood on them, but they looked too weird with the exercise gear, so I put on the cross trainers and short exercise socks, and clipped my badge to the drawstring top of the pants. I ended up clipping my backup gun, a Sig Sauer 380, in an appendix carry; both my badge and my gun were completely hidden under the loose tank top. I tried to put my tactical flashlight and folding blade in the pockets, but there wasn’t room for them and my wallet. Besides, the pockets were deep, but the material wasn’t heavy enough for too much tactical. If I left the building, I’d need to transfer my badge to a lanyard so I could wear it around my neck, or flash my badge and identify myself fast to any other cops if needed. I so did not look like a cop in this outfit unless I was going undercover at a gym.
There were Infernalists at the College who predated me by decades. It could have been one of them, but the moment I saw the woman standing with her back to me I knew it wasn’t any of the old guard. She’d cut her hair short since I’d seen her last, so that it was curly and blond like when she was seven. The bright yellow of her hair looked stark and wrong above the black of her robes. Suriel hadn’t taken the final loose-fitting robes when I last saw her; she’d still been in street clothes, or what passed for street clothes at the College. Until I left the College, I hadn’t realized how outdated the fashions had been; at least they’d let the girls wear pants. Now here she was in black robes like a priest; becoming an Infernalist took longer than almost any other specialty because of the dangers involved. I hadn’t realized until this moment that I’d never doubted she would succeed. Suriel never failed unless she decided that she no longer wanted the goal.