“Havoc, you okay?” Charleston asked.
I looked at him and wanted to say the truth, that no, I wasn’t okay, and I hadn’t been okay since I left the College of Angels twelve years ago. Out loud I said, “It’s been a hell of a day, but I’m okay.”
He narrowed his eyes at me.
“I will be okay,” I said, and meant it this time. I would be okay, because I had to be okay, there wasn’t another option.
“Good, because I need your help to change the form of the hand,” Suriel said.
I looked at her. “You’re the Infernal specialist, not me.”
“But this is not about demons, Zaniel, it is about changing the appearance of immortal flesh, and you are better at that than I am.”
“Ravensong isn’t immortal flesh,” I said.
“No, but I hope that the hand will be.”
“If it’s her hand, then it’s her hand. Human will alone cannot reshape mortal forms,” I said.
“Nor can a woman who has no taint of the Infernal about her soul suddenly have a demonic hand. That is a punishment or a payment between someone using Infernal magic.”
“I thought you said this isn’t possible under any circumstances,” Charleston said.
“I said that under these circumstances it was impossible, but I have seen long-term users of demonic magic with their bodies misshapen. It was never this—I don’t know what word to use—complete, or . . . the hand isn’t deformed, it’s transformed, and that is incredibly rare.”
“I don’t see the difference between what’s happened to my detective and what happened to the college kid in the hospital,” Charleston said.
“We found books and occult paraphernalia at Mark Cookson’s house. He’s been studying dark shit since he was about midteens if the parents are accurate and I think they are,” Lila said.
“The library book that he stole dates from about that time, coinciding with the personality changes and trouble at school,” Goliath said.
“A lot of online Satanists that recruit teenagers ask them to steal to prove that they’re serious,” Charleston said.
“If the library book date is accurate, Mark Cookson had been experimenting with demons and maybe even trying to summon devils for at least five years,” Lila said.
“What name did you say?” Suriel asked.
I repeated it for her.
Her smile faded. “I know that name.”
“How?” Charleston asked.
“He came to the College. He wanted permission to use the library, and you’re correct, Zaniel, he was researching the Infernal powers.”
“You’re an Infernalist, you had other duties, why would you know the name of someone who came to use the library?” I asked.
“It was one of our exorcists who was originally alerted to the list of books and manuscripts he requested. They did see him in person, but he was not possessed by an evil spirit at that time, and that is all an exorcist cares about. They cannot cleanse a human soul that has chosen the wrong path, for that is free will and not to be tampered with by any of us.”
“The list of books he wanted to see must have been important enough for the exorcist to show it to you,” I said.
She nodded, still not smiling. “It wasn’t what Mark Cookson requested; it was the fact that he knew we had certain manuscripts within our library. No human living today could know that we had . . . certain things within our walls for safekeeping.”
“Like what?” Lila said.
“Like the bottle that Lieutenant Charleston showed me on his phone.”
“Charleston said it just appeared outside the room after we were knocked out, hovered in the air while he threw the containment box around it. He says it tried to dodge like it was aware, alive,” Lila said.
“It is not a relic easily faced down by any human magic. That your lieutenant was able to make it hesitate for a moment is very impressive,” Suriel said.
“Are you saying this bottle is one of the relics that were stored at the College?” I asked.
“It looks like the twin of one that we have at the College,” she said.
“Are you in charge of the forbidden objects at the College?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, and it cannot be the one in our archives, but that there is another like it anywhere is something the masters at the College need to know. It was supposed to be a singular artifact.” She looked worried for a moment, maybe more.
“Which would be worse news, that this bottle is the one from the College, or that there are two of them?” Charleston asked.
“For the world, two would be worse, but for the College both would be terrible . . .” She shook her head, then forced herself to smile, and said, “but in answer to your question, Zaniel, my sash is red, blue, and black with a silver-and-gold badge.”
I was glad she had blue for Ravensong’s sake, and black meant she dealt with the worst of the demonic. “You’re third in line for the head of your specialty, congratulations,” I said, but I knew my face wasn’t neutral. I don’t know why it was a shock that Suriel had done so well in her chosen path; she always did well at anything she set her mind to, but somehow knowing that she was that far up in the hierarchy of the College bothered me. It shouldn’t have, but it did, and I had no idea why.
“You knew this guy was trying to work black magic and you didn’t think to alert the police to the danger?” Charleston said.
Suriel gave him a weak version of her smile, but it left her eyes colder, the steel underneath the baby blues showing through for a second. “If we wished everyone in the human world to know we had certain things, we would advertise it. There are many who would pay well to see into the mystical archives, but some things are better left alone, and far too dangerous for mortal humans to read, or to be in human hands. You’ve all seen the evil that can come of it.”
“How long ago did Mark Cookson come to you?” I asked.
She thought about it. “A year, or a little more.”
“And you remembered his name all this time after reading it once?” Lila said, laying the cynicism and sarcasm on equally thick.
I almost came to Suriel’s defense, but I should have remembered that glimpse of steel; she didn’t need me to ride to her rescue, she never had. “I read his name over a dozen times, because that is how many pieces he wished to read in our library.”
“You make them sign out a request per book?” Goliath asked.
“They do the same at reference libraries,” I said.
“Sorry, I was never much of a bookworm,” he said.
“Me either,” Lila said, “but I’m glad to know that people have to sign their names if they’re trying to borrow something as dangerous as that damn bottle.”
“We would never have let that out of our vaults,” she said.
“What about the books?” Charleston asked.
“He could have read them in the library under supervision, but he would never have been allowed to remove them from our holy wards.”
“And you’re saying the entire list of books was all things he shouldn’t have known were in the library?” I asked.
“Known that they once existed, perhaps, but that they all are still intact and in our library, no. No mortal human would know that.”