He nodded. “I’ll keep them busy as long as I can, but talk fast, they don’t seem very patient.”
“Give me five minutes,” I said.
He just nodded and left us, but he looked back once, and I knew he’d ask me later. He was my boss; he had the right.
“We’re alone, now what did you mean about the Sentinels not going openly into the outside world?”
She came to stand beside me and lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I have seen Sentinels dressed like outsiders leaving the College. I am told they are checking on some of the failed Angel Speakers, but when I asked why that would be necessary, the answers I was given were not satisfactory.”
“How long have the Sentinels been going outside like that?”
“Not long, or not long that I have seen.”
“Why do you think they’re going out?”
She shook her head. “I am not certain. I have suspicions, but only that.”
“Tell me.”
“It is my home, Zaniel, the only one I remember. I will not betray it to someone whose loyalties lie elsewhere. I saw the look between you and your lieutenant; I know you will be duty bound to report what I say, so I will say very little.”
“I wish I could tell you that your secrets are safe with me, but the Sentinels are dangerous, Suriel; they should not be roaming outside, they are meant to protect what is inside.”
“That is why I am telling you this much, because you are a policeman, and it is your job to keep safe what is out here from anyone that would cause harm—anyone, Zaniel.” She grabbed my arm tight, as if she was trying to tell me more with the touch than just her words. I stared into her eyes, trying to understand, and then I realized she was afraid. Suriel had been fearless once, but she wasn’t now.
“Suriel,” I said, and I was going to ask what was wrong, but I heard Charleston’s raised voice outside say, “We are not holding Master Suriel against her will, she came out to help us with a demon problem.”
I heard that deep purring voice and knew who it was: Harshiel, of course it would be him. “Show her to us and we will believe you.”
“We don’t hold innocent people against their will,” Charleston said.
“We understand that, Lieutenant Charleston,” said a second, much less aggressive male voice. Turmiel was here to soothe and balance Harshiel’s usual belligerence. His nickname at the College was Harsh, and he’d never outgrown it.
“I demand to see Suriel,” Harshiel said; his deep voice sounded like a musical growl. He sang bass in the choir at the College, as Jamie and I had sung tenor, though none of us had been true Angeli Cantor, Angel Singers. That was one of the rarest gifts of voice among us; no one from our year had been so blessed.
“You don’t get to demand anything here,” Charleston said, and if his voice wasn’t as deep or as musical as Harshiel’s it had the ring of authority that the Sentinel’s lacked.
“Standing in my way would be a mistake, Lieutenant.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Turmiel’s voice. “No, we would never do anything so disrespectful and so against the orders we were given.” There was a note of warning in the last words, and it wasn’t aimed at Charleston.
Suriel let go of my arm and started to walk toward the doorway, but I caught her arm, turning her back to look at me. She let me draw her back toward me so I could whisper, “What are you afraid of, Surrie?”
She smiled at the nickname, I think. “That what I have devoted my life to has been corrupted.”
“What does that mean, Surrie?” I whispered.
Turmiel yelled, “Harshiel, no!”
We were moving toward the doorway together; Suriel called out, “Harshiel, don’t you dare do anything rash. I am coming.” She sounded like a scolding teacher to a pupil. The Harshiel I knew wouldn’t take that from her, or anyone that he didn’t see as superior to him, which meant almost no one. I felt magic breathe along my skin and prepared to fight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
It was Suriel’s hand on my arm that helped me think and realize that it wasn’t angelic magic that was breathing through the room. Charleston stood between the doorway and the two Sentinels, but both MacGregors were behind them as well. Officer Odette Minis was standing to one side, so she had a clear line of sight to the Sentinels that didn’t cross any of us. Her hand rested on her sidearm; the holster was unsnapped. Apparently she wasn’t going to try magic if it came to a fight. I was okay with that; sometimes bringing a gun to a magic fight is exactly what you need to win.
The two Sentinels stood in the center of my fellow police officers. Both were dressed in leather vests with hard leather bracers on their lower arms and loose pants like an ancient version of exercise pants. Turmiel tall and tan with his empty hands out to his sides. Harshiel taller with skin that was the closest to true black that I’d ever seen on a human being. Turmiel was handsome, but Harshiel was devastating in his beauty. I’d lived in the City of Angels long enough to know that movie stars would have paid a fortune for cheekbones like his, and there were women who injected their lips to get the fullness that Harshiel had naturally. He’d been one of Suriel’s first crushes besides me. We were allowed childish crushes at the College, just nothing more.
“You have taken our weapons so that we could be allowed up onto this floor, and we mean no harm here,” Turmiel said.
“The powers of the enemy cannot win against us,” Harshiel said. “Even without our weapons the angels will protect us from such deviltry.”
“Is he calling us Satanists?” Young MacGregor asked.
“Yep,” Old MacGregor said.
“There will be no need to test our magic here today,” Suriel said, and her voice had the ring of authority, as if she just expected everyone to obey her. Either she was bluffing or she’d been in her current exalted position longer than I’d thought.
“It would be a certainty, not a test,” Harshiel growled in that thrummingly deep voice that I’d heard so often in choir.
“Well, there will be no certainty today,” Suriel said in that no-nonsense teacher voice. It was a tone of voice that we’d grown up obeying from them, our teachers and masters at the College.
“As you say, so shall it be,” Turmiel said, bowing with a hand to his chest like the Sentinels would to any master at the College. It shocked me to see him do it for Suriel, even though I knew it was her due now.
Harshiel didn’t bow; he glared at her and then at me. I looked into his dark brown eyes and saw something I hadn’t expected to see: hatred. We’d never been good friends, but I didn’t know he thought we were enemies.
“There’s no evil here unless they brought it with them,” Goliath said.
“There is no evil among the angels,” Turmiel said, as if it was just fact.
“The Fallen are still angels,” I said, before I could think that it might have been better to keep my mouth shut.
Turmiel looked at me startled, as if I’d said something he didn’t know, but we were all warned in our training to never forget that the Fallen were not stripped of their angelic powers, or at least not all of them.