“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.”