“Was it just books that he wanted to see or were there objects on the list?” I asked.
“He knew we had things, Zaniel, things that no mortal human could have known about.”
“You keep saying mortal human like there’s another option,” Lila said.
“There are always other options, but a boy so young had not the decades of life to research and find out half of what he seemed to know,” Suriel said.
“Did anyone from the College follow up with the Cookson kid and try to find out how he knew all this?” Charleston asked.
“We took steps to find out more about him.”
“What kind of steps?” I asked.
“Steps that should have worked, unless he was being championed by someone or something that was far more powerful than we anticipated.” She looked at me as she said it, as if trying to tell me more than her words meant.
“If you want to tell Havoc something in private, say so and we’ll give you some space,” Lila said.
“Thank you, that would be most appreciated,” Suriel said.
“She was being sarcastic,” I said.
“Was she?”
“I was,” Lila said.
“What did the College do to find Mark Cookson?” Charleston asked.
“We petitioned the angels to aid us in the search,” she said, as if it was an everyday occurrence to ask angels to help you find someone.
“And they couldn’t find Cookson?” I asked.
She shook her head. “They could not.”
“That’s not possible; if the angels are given someone to find they do not miss their prey,” I said.
“Prey, what do you mean, prey?” Lila asked.
I glanced at her and then looked at Suriel. We met each other’s eyes and then she made a small up gesture with her hands, as if it was more my choice what to share.
“If God tells his angels to find you, they will find you; you cannot hide from them,” I said.
Suriel gave me a look as if waiting for me to add more; when I didn’t, she just looked away, but Lila and Charleston had both caught it. I saw them look at me and then at each other, but I was done on the topic of angels and their prey. There were truths that I had learned at too high a cost to ever share unless forced.
“So how did they miss the Cookson kid?” Charleston asked.
“Because something was protecting him,” I said.
“That was our thinking,” Suriel said.
“So, you had a college student running around our city asking about dark tomes of power and you didn’t think to give us a heads-up?” Lila asked.
“He had not broken any of your laws. What were we supposed to tell you, that we didn’t like his reading habits? That we thought he might be under the protection of a major demon, or worse? We cannot approach the human authorities every time we think someone is tainted; if we did, you would be chasing down our fears constantly.”
“There can’t be that many,” Goliath said.
She gave him a look that was more like Reggie, full of scorn, as if he was being naïve beyond words. He frowned at her, as if he wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of that look very often.
“People travel to the College of Angels from all over the world,” I said.
“We do not bother the human police unless we feel the person is a danger to themselves or others. We knew he could not find what he sought anywhere else, and we would not agree to him reading any of the things he listed, so without the knowledge he was harmless. We treated him as such.”
I knew she was leaving out things. I knew that if they suspected there was a human in the city, or the world, who was that well protected by the Infernal forces, they would make it their job to find out the how, why, and who involved. That over a year had passed without any resolution meant that something had gone wrong. I would ask Suriel in private and hope she told me. I knew better than to ask in front of others outside the College. I’d be lucky if she confided in me.
“Well, the demon exploded out of him and killed him, so he’s harmless now,” Lila said.
“Lieutenant Charleston explained the bits of skin at the scene. I am not sure what to make of that and I will consult with others at the College, but at this moment we need to save Detective Ravensong’s hand.”
“There is no we, Suriel,” I said.
“Would you let the doctors amputate her hand, when you could help me save it?”
I looked at Charleston. “Is that true, are they really talking about amputating her hand?”
He nodded. “It’s true.”
“Zaniel,” she said, “your power is a gift from God. It is your gift to him that you use that power to serve others. Would you deny that aid to your own friend and coworker?”
“I haven’t done anything like what you are asking since I walked out the gates of the College,” I said.
“Thirteen years or thirteen minutes is all the same to the angels,” she said.
“I’m not an angel,” I said.
“Nor am I a demon, we just work with them.”
That made me smile. She took my hand in hers, not as the formal greeting, but the way she used to when we were seven. It felt right to have her hand in mine again, as if I’d been missing her far more than I’d allowed myself to realize. I fell back into that old habit of letting her lead, as if I didn’t outweigh her by over a hundred pounds now. I could have tucked her under one arm, but it isn’t always about size. She’d always been the bravest of the three of us, our leader without any vote taking place, or any questions asked. Once that had been enough, and I prayed that it would be again.
She led me to the door to one of our specially warded interrogation rooms. The entire floor had more wards on it than the rest of the building, but these rooms were self-contained, magically warded, and isolated from the rest of the building. The rooms also had steel-reinforced doors just in case supernatural strength came with supernatural magic.
“Why is Ravensong in here?” I asked.
“The hand was transforming when I found her. It kept changing as I watched, getting more . . . I decided to bring her in here to see if it would slow down what was happening to her,” Charleston said.
“Did it slow it down?” I asked.
“It stopped at her wrist. I’ve been trying to remember if it stopped as soon as we crossed the industrial-strength wards, but honestly I’m not sure if it would have stopped outside the interrogation room just the same.”
“You think that the transformation would have kept going past her hand?”
“I was afraid it would, so I brought her here to try to slow it down.”
“Why aren’t I in one of these?”
“You’re not turning into a demon,” Charleston said.
“We don’t know what happened when the bottle did whatever it did,” I said, pulling free of Suriel’s hand.
“We do not have time for your self-doubt, Zaniel.”
I realized it wasn’t self-doubt, it was fear. I’d reacted to just a picture of Ravensong’s hand; I wasn’t sure I was up to seeing those claws in person again this soon.
I said, “Whoever helped the Archangel Michael get back to his true form is better at this than I am. Send to the school for them.”