CHAPTER FORTY

We helped Doris catch the puppies, which were doing laps around the pool. Jamie laughed as he held a squirming puppy. It struggled not to get down, but to lick his face. He’d been afraid of dogs, of most animals, for years, and now he acted like an armful of puppy was the best thing in the world. It made my heart ache to see him so happy about anything, but especially one of the many things he’d seemed terrified of for over ten years. I would not cry in front of him while he was laughing, but I wanted to; luckily the puppy in my hands gave a serious squirm and I had to concentrate not to drop it. The thought that I might drop the tiny dog instead of saving it was enough to dry up any thoughts of tears.

“You really need to get them life jackets, Doris,” I said as I handed the puppy to her.

“I got them, they have little handles on them and everything. They’re supposed to be napping, not out by the pool, and thank you for getting Charlie out of the pool when he fell in last week.”

“I’m happy to help, and thank you for letting Connery play with them.”

“Pugs love kids, and he helped tire these little maniacs out,” she said, laughing as Donald tried to lick her face.

Jamie offered her the other puppy, and she tucked one under each arm. “Thank you both for catching the little hooligans.”

“Our pleasure,” Jamie said, and seemed to mean it.

One puppy started barking. “Charlie, stop that.” He didn’t stop and now it was a duo of puppy barks. “Don’t you start, Donald.”

“I’m going to take Jam . . . Levi upstairs for some food. We’ll see you later.”

“Have him make you some of that veggie pasta with the white sauce, it’s delicious,” she said as she turned with the wriggling puppies.

“I don’t have the ingredients for that right now, Doris, maybe next time he visits.”

“Invite me next time you make it,” she called back as she used her foot to close the door, and the sound of excited barking grew a little dimmer.

“That was great,” Jamie said.

I almost said, But you’re scared of dogs, but I didn’t, because his face was shining with joy, almost like the way Connery’s did after he’d played with the dogs. It was like Jamie was reborn, childlike and happy, like the last thirteen years had been washed away. I said another quick prayer of gratitude and led him toward the only stairs leading up. My apartment was at the top of the stairs; just turn slightly to the right.

It was the smallest apartment in the building, tucked away on the top floor, but there was a picture window that went from almost ceiling to floor so the living room got a lot of light, and a second smaller window on the other side of the door made the two-seater kitchen table cheerful. The sunlight hit the pool below and bounced even more light up to us, so that it was almost never dark or gloomy. As a cop, I wasn’t happy with the big window right by the front door, but as a person who’d just been kicked out of his home, I’d needed the light. The other apartments I could afford had been like dark holes. Neither my depression or my son would have done well there. Connery liked sitting at the table eating breakfast and watching the water shadows bounce along the roof overhang just outside the kitchen window. There were days when his happiness was everything to me.

“You always could do that,” Jamie said.

I turned from the table and realized that I’d totally lost track of things for a second. Jamie seemed okay, better than okay, but bringing a potentially unstable person into my apartment and then zoning out was not a good idea.

“Do what?” I asked, and tried not to frown or act upset. Jamie could be sensitive to moods.

“Smile and have it look happy and sad at the same time.”

“So, I’ve always been a gloomy overthinker, even at seven?” I asked with a smile.

He grinned. “Maybe not gloomy, but you’ve always been serious and an overthinker.”

“Hey, I kept us out of trouble more than once, because I thought things through.” I took off my suit jacket and put it on the back of the kitchen chair.

“I didn’t think you followed sports, Havoc.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He motioned at the shirt.

I looked down and realized I was wearing a Broncos shirt I’d borrowed from Charleston after my last clean shirt had been cut off me.

“I forgot I borrowed a shirt from my lieutenant.”

“Why’d you need the shirt?”

“It’s long story and I’d rather hear your story while I fix us dinner.”

“What are we having?”

“Paninis.”

“What kind of hot sandwiches?” he asked.

“Roast beef, three kinds of cheese, and a choice of dill or sweet bread-and-butter pickles. I’ve got mayonnaise, dijonnaise, and stone-ground mustard.”

“What’s dijonnaise?” he asked.

“A mix of mayonnaise and mustard in one bottle.”

He made a face. “No, I don’t want that.”

“Hey, my kid loves the stuff.”

“What toddler doesn’t like mayonnaise and ketchup?”

“He’s three, so don’t call him a toddler to his face. He’s a big boy now.”

Jamie smiled. “I still can’t believe you have a child, that any of us have a child.”

I knew he meant Surrie, him, and me. “Yeah, Suriel was surprised, too.”

“You’ve seen Surrie? Where? When?”

I mentally cursed myself for just blurting it out. “Tell me how you got better, and I’ll tell you how I ran into Surrie.”

His face crumpled and I watched an echo of the crazy Jamie in his eyes. “Suriel came to give us her expertise on a demon-related case today, that’s all.” It wasn’t all, but I wanted to chase away that shadow in his eyes. I’d fill in the blanks after I got him talking about something else.

“So she stayed an Infernalist,” he said, face serious and sad, and his eyes still not good.

“Yes.”

“How was she?”

“She’s third in line of all the Infernalists.”

“I knew she’d do well at whatever she chose.” It was almost an echo of what I’d thought, but he didn’t look happy about it. He looked sad, worse.

I thought about telling him that I’d see Harshiel and Turmiel, too, but he’d never been friends with them, and his eyes still didn’t look right. I wanted him well more than I wanted to talk about anyone at the College. I got the cheese out of the fridge, slicing some samples off the three kinds of cheese I had. I handed him a taste of muenster. He took it without thinking about it and ate it the same way. The moment he tasted it his eyes cleared. I’d noticed over the years that sometimes food could bring him back out of whatever trap his mind had become. It never brought him back completely; Gordon Ramsay couldn’t have fixed a meal that would have cured him, but food helped, especially if he hadn’t been eating enough.

“That’s good, muenster, right.”

“Yeah,” I said and handed him a piece of the Old Croc cheddar, though it wouldn’t melt well enough for a panini.

“Okay, that’s amazing, what is it?”

“Old Croc cheddar, it doesn’t melt well, but I can cut some with crackers for us to snack on while I cook the sandwiches.”

“Yes, please,” he said, and he looked happy again. His eyes were clearing of that shadow. He was better, so much better, but the broken bits were still inside him. I guess we never really get rid of the broken pieces; we heal, but the scar tissue stays to remind us of what happened.

I put the cheese and crackers on a small plate. They were supposed to be salad plates, but I’d never seen anyone serve salads on them; desserts yes, salads no. Reggie had explained to me that the tiniest plates in our wedding china were supposed to be the dessert plates.

“You look sad, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“Did you know this is supposed to be a salad plate?” I said.

He looked down at the cheese and crackers, which were half gone. I almost told him that he was going to ruin his dinner as if he were Connery. Instead I reached for a cracker and a chunk of cheese, before he finished them all. If we shared, then neither of us would ruin our dinners.

“I thought it was for desserts.”

“Me, too, but according to my wife they’re salad plates and the really tiny plates are the dessert plates.”

“You thought about Regina, that’s why you looked sad,” Jamie said. His dark eyes studied my face as if they could see inside my head to every thought, which had been true once, before he lost the gift along with his mind. He’d tested so high on the Methodius scale that teachers had compared him to Bachiel, who stayed in his high tower and listened to thoughts of the human world. It was a rare gift to be able to see angels and read human thoughts.

“Did you hear me thinking?” I asked.

“No, I am thankfully alone inside my head. It is so quiet, so peaceful inside me right now. Blessedly so.” He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh of contentment.

“I’m glad,” I said, and meant it, but I had so many more questions that I wanted answered; I was just afraid that too many questions would undo the peace inside him.

“Is that supposed to be smoking?” he asked, pointing back at the stove.

“Crap!” I grabbed the pan off the heat and flipped the sandwich over. The bread wasn’t black, but it wasn’t the light golden brown I’d been aiming at either.

“I guess this one is mine,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I’m the cook and I burned it.”

“I’m not sure I follow your reasoning, but okay.” He took another piece of cheddar, broke it in half and put it on a cracker.

I put a second sandwich together and lowered the heat before I put it back on the flame. I watched this one more carefully, turning it over when the bread was a golden brown and not burned. By the time I had it finished, the Old Croc cheddar was gone, the plate empty except for two lonely crackers. I’d have offered him more cheese, but the sandwich was done. I plated it and set it down in front of him, trying not to grin as he said, “Smells great, Z.”

I did grin then, because it had been his nickname for me since we were small. Suriel had never liked it, said it wasn’t dignified. She’d always cared more about stuff like that even at eleven.

“Thanks, Lev,” I said, using his old nickname.

He shook his head. “Levi is short enough, Z, maybe someday I’ll earn the other name back, but let’s not jump the gun.”

“Okay . . . Levi.”

He gave me a truly dazzling smile as if I’d done something a lot more special than use his new name. His teeth flashed white and I realized he’d cleaned up everything. It wasn’t that he was dirty exactly, but there just weren’t a lot of places to do a lot of personal hygiene when you were homeless. Especially when you wouldn’t stay in a shelter for long. He had said that the voices in his head were louder indoors, or he was closer to God outside. Either way, I’d stopped trying to help him get a bed in some of the better shelters, and halfway houses were out because he wouldn’t stay on the meds that the newest doctor had prescribed. I wanted to ask if he was on meds now, but it wasn’t a safe question. If he was on meds that worked, I didn’t want to do anything to make him question them.

I put my sandwich on another plate and sat down at the table with him. Sunlight spilled a warm yellow rectangle across the table as we ate. We didn’t talk, but it wasn’t awkward, it felt peaceful. We ate in companionable silence. I normally liked the sandwich, but today it could have been almost anything, and I still would have enjoyed it, because Jamie was there, really there. Not just the shell of his body, but his eyes were lit up, alive and full of humor and joy, and he was enjoying the food in front of him.

I was hungering for the sight of him sitting happily beside me more than any food. How did I ask the questions I wanted to ask without risking raising the shadows inside him?

“I’d forgotten that food could taste like this.”

“Thanks, but it’s just a hot sandwich.”

“It’s not the sandwich, though that was good. It’s like I can taste food again. I can see color and light. It’s like I was trapped in the valley of death and everything was gray and dark. Now I’m out and it’s so much better.”

“How did you get out?” I asked; because he’d brought it up, it seemed safer.

His smile wilted a little around the edges, and the shadows in his brown eyes were there for a second like a flinching, but then he took a deep breath and shook himself like a dog coming out of water.

“Can I have some tea, while I try to explain it all?”

“What kind of tea?” I asked.

“Hot, sweet, like I liked it before.”

I got up smiling and went to the cabinet in the narrow galley kitchen. I got to turn around with a box of Bigelow’s Chinese Fortune Oolong. I’d kept a box of it and made sure it was a fresh box, just in case. I’d kept it the way you’d keep your friend’s favorite whiskey waiting for that one last drink together. We hadn’t been allowed strong drink in the College, though we’d both made up for it once we left. I’d never stayed drunk the way that Jamie had, and I’d never done drugs, but I’d tried most of the things the College of Angels had forbidden us. Teenage rebellion, just done a decade late.

“Real cream, sugar in the raw, right?”

He gave me a big smile. “You remembered.”

“You don’t forget how your best friend likes his tea.”

“I’ve spent so many years drinking and popping and injecting anything, everything, but I could never drink coffee. Even as lost as I was, that still tasted bitter to me.”

“But tea didn’t taste good?”

He shook his head. “Nothing tasted good, but things could taste bad.” Again, there was that shadow across his face.

I put on hot water in a rapid-boil kettle that I’d gotten so I could do tea before I went to work. “I drink coffee at work mostly.”

“Yuck,” he said.

“Yuck? I’ve seen you drink liquor, cheap shit that I wouldn’t clean my gun with, and coffee is yuck.”

“Weird, huh?”

“Yeah, a little. So how did you get back to this, to you, to here?” I asked.

He looked down at his hands spread flat on the table in the sunlight. His hands were clean, but they were also the most tanned part of him, because he’d never worn gloves on the street, but he had covered most of the rest of him. I’d come to hate the old trench coat he’d worn over everything else. Not just because it was stained and smelled bad, but because he huddled in it like a security blanket, and because it reminded me of the wings of angels the way it would flap and billow around him when he was walking fast down the street. It was like a double slap in the face, the loss of him and the loss of being with the angels. Wings weren’t necessary for an angel to translocate; nothing was, they could vanish in the blink of an eye. They could travel back to God, or wherever he wanted to send them, instantly. Yet most angels appeared as human forms with large, sweeping wings big enough to carry a human body upward like an eagle, because humans expected them to have wings. We expected them to be beautiful and to have wings. Only two things weren’t humans projecting onto the angelic: halos of light, where the true forms of angels licked out around the edges, and height. Angels were tall; six feet was short for them. It was as if you couldn’t shrink all that power down enough to be short. There were exceptions, there are always exceptions, but most angels couldn’t squash themselves down enough to look truly human.

“You always were good at that,” Jamie said.

I blinked and looked at him, realizing that I had been thinking more about angels than about the man sitting in my kitchen. “Good at what?” I asked.

“Silence, you could always be quiet and wait for me to talk.”

I wondered how many times in the past my “silence” had been me lost in thoughts like now. I pushed the thought away to look at it later and tried to really be present for my friend. I needed to be here and now.

The timer on the microwave sounded. “Tea’s ready,” I said, and got up to get it.

He smiled, but he was staring at his hands on the tabletop, so I wasn’t sure if he was smiling at that or at his own inner thoughts. One of the things that had made us friends was that he was almost as introspective as I was. Surrie was cautious, but even she told us, “You think too much, sometimes you just have to do things.”

“Whatcha thinking about?” I asked, using the phrase that we’d used when the three of us were younger, before everything went wrong.

“It feels like Suriel should be here to say that, and get us talking instead of just brooding,” he said. His smile somehow was sad now.

I put the tea bags on the spoon rest and said, “She stopped saying it by the time we were fifteen or sixteen.”

“When we all finalized our specialties,” he said. He was staring at his hands now, smile gone.

I added sugar to both teas and real cream to his, and set it down in front of him. “Tea just the way you like it,” I said, smiling, hoping for one in return.

He warmed his hands over the steam like it was a fire and the day had turned cold. The sunlight was still warm; it was Southern California, it wasn’t cold.

“Talk to me, Jamie, please.” I sat down at the table not across from him, but in the chair facing the window so I could be closer. We weren’t eating now, so elbow room wasn’t an issue.

“Levi, my name is Levi now.”

“Okay, Levi, sorry but it’s going to take me a little bit to get used to the new name.”

“Like it took for you to finally call me Jamie.”

“You had been Levanael since we were seven. I didn’t even remember your birth name by the time we were nineteen.”

“Nor I yours.”

He was somber again, almost sad.

“You look great, Jam . . . Levi,” I said, trying to sound cheerful and chase the shadows away.

“I look a lot better than I did two weeks ago.” He took his first sip of tea and closed his eyes as if he was letting it melt on his tongue like it was his favorite candy.

“What happened two weeks ago?” I asked, my voice soft, tone neutral like I’d learned in interrogations when the victim was potentially fragile.

He opened his big brown eyes and looked directly at me with that burn of intelligence and insight fully behind them. It sent a thrill through me that was somewhere between sexual and scary. I’d wanted this for so long, but I didn’t trust the change to last, and I didn’t know if I had another crushing disappointment in me. I wasn’t sure I could take it if he reverted. I prayed, prayed that this would last, that he was cured, well.

“I woke up,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I do either, but did you ever have a dream where you think you woke up, but it’s just another kind of nightmare, so that you keep dreaming you get out of bed, but you’re actually still trapped in the dream?”

“Yes, I guess everyone has them sometimes.”

“Maybe, but everyone else wakes up. I’ve been trapped in a nightmare for over thirteen years.”

“Do you think the last fifteen years have been just dreams and nightmares?” I tried to study his face, to see his answer there, but he was looking down at the tea so I saw mostly the top of his thick brown hair and a rim of face. His hands looked so much darker as he lifted his cup to drink more tea. They were tanned and weathered more than his face, as if the beard and wild hair had protected him like fur, but his poor hands . . . they looked like they belonged to someone older. Someone who’d worked outdoors their whole life maybe, but not the soft, smiling boy I remembered. He’d been the best of us all, the gentlest soul, the kindest heart, and the highest scorer on all the tests for psychic ability, as long as it was pure power being tested and not control of that power.

He sipped the tea and looked at me over the rim of the cup. His eyes looked very dark for a moment, almost black, the way they’d get the few times he got truly angry.

“Maybe I just want to think of it as a nightmare so I don’t have to think too hard about everything I did while I was sick.” The voice was deeper, not a hint of laughter in it; this was how he’d sounded on good days over the last decade.

“I can understand that.” I finally sipped my tea and it was good, but I’d let it start to get cool. I didn’t want tea, I wanted Levanael, I wanted to undo the shadow in his eyes and the tone in his voice.

“I can feel your questions hanging like something heavy around you.”

“You can’t hear them?” I asked, and took another sip of tea.

His eyes held that bitterness I’d come to dread, but it was better than the rage, or the terror. That was the worst. “Not right now. I told you my head is quiet, quieter than it’s been since I hit puberty. You know the theory that God doesn’t let our full powers hit while we’re too little to cope with them?”

“Of course, that’s why they recruit so early for the College. They want to train us to control our powers before they are fully fledged. Untrained psychics and witches who suddenly grow into their power as teenagers are dangerous to everyone, including themselves.”

“I don’t remember when I couldn’t hear other people’s thoughts,” he said, and upended his teacup like you’d finish off liquor, or maybe his was getting cold, too.

“I remember that your parents brought you into the College to see if the angels could help you.”

He flashed me a smile and asked, “Could I have another cup?”

“I’ll make us a pot if you want.”

“Do you have a real teapot?”

I grinned and went to the cabinet over the microwave. I got down a carefully covered bundle and set it on the cabinet by the stove.

“Is that a tea cozy on it?” he asked, and sounded happy again like I hadn’t heard him in so long. I didn’t want the serious sad coming back; it made me feel like the positive change was only temporary. I wanted it to last.

“Yes, though I like thinking of them as tea sleeping bags,” I said, and lifted off the deep blue tea cozy.

He laughed again, head back and just so happy. “I’d forgotten that we used to call them tea sleeping bags when we were little, and how did you get a nice heavy teapot like Master Sarphiel had?”

“I sent away to England for it when we bought our house.” I pushed the thought away that Reggie had packed it up in a box with some other things she thought I’d need in the apartment, as if I wouldn’t need a big teapot at the house anymore.

“What did Master Sarphiel here call it, a Brown Betty?”

“Yes, though since this one is a deep blue is it still a Brown Betty, or is it a Blue Betty?”

He chuckled. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. It takes me back to those endless pots of tea when we were all still together before we had to choose specialties.”

I nodded. “I’ve told Connery it’s a tea cozy, but when he asked what that meant, I told him it was a sleeping bag for the teapot to keep it warm.”

“Does he call it a tea sleeping bag?”

“He says, ‘Don’t forget the sleeping bag, Daddy. The tea needs to be warm.’ ”

“That’s great, I’m sorry I scared him the last time. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know you didn’t mean to.”

The sadness started to slip back over his face as I put enough water in the teakettle to fill the big pot. “You can feel my questions, so I’ll just ask, how did your head get so quiet? How did you clean up and get . . . better?”

He smiled, chasing back the shadow in his eyes. “I was sleeping in an alley, I’m not even sure where I was exactly, but I woke up and there were people standing over me. I thought I was going to get robbed or beaten up again.”

I fought to keep my face neutral at the again. I’d taken him to the emergency room at least five times myself. I’d hated that he wouldn’t stay in the shelters where he was safer, not safe, I knew better, but safer than that.

“But they didn’t hurt you?”

“They were prophets,” he said, his face sliding into that seriousness again.

“Oh,” was all I said, because street prophets could be just another name for crazy homeless person, except that they thought they had the ear of God, or the angels, or a saint, or even occasionally the devil. A lot of schizophrenics thought they heard the voice of God; how did you tell delusion from true prophecy?

“I know what you’re thinking, Z. They were the real deal.”

“I thought you couldn’t read my thoughts.”

“I don’t need to; that little oh and the way you go all stiff through the shoulders, that was enough.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult the prophets.”

“I know some of them are crazy like I was, but in between the crazy some of us truly do hear the angels, or spirits and powers of one kind or another.” He was getting sullen again. I had a glimpse of what his face must have looked like behind the beard and hair all these years. There was a sourness to it that looked wrong on his shaved face, as if the old crazy Jamie was getting mixed up with the original Jamie, which I guess was exactly what was happening. Even if he stayed sane from this day on, the years on the street had to have left their mark.

I sat back down across from him this time, because I wanted to see his expression full on. “What did the prophets tell you?”

“That I needed to go to a shop and talk to a woman who worked there.”

“What shop?”

He gave me a sly smile that had always been edged with beard before this; I didn’t like the smile still being in him. It was an unpleasant smile, the one that meant he was usually about to say something crazy, or mean, or both. I prayed that whatever he said next wouldn’t be either.

He looked confused. “Part of me wants to say I bet you’d like to know, or It’s none of your business, but it’s like habit. It’s not what I want to say to you.”

“What do you want to say to me?” I asked, trying to keep my voice and face neutral so I didn’t trigger any negative urges in him.

“I want to tell you about the shop and that Emma works there. She does reiki and reads tarot. The prophets told me a woman wearing a rose would help me close my shields so I could be alone inside my head.” The confusion moved to something else, something that didn’t quite believe in going to look for a woman with a rose.

“Why did you do what they said?” I asked.

“Is it that obvious that I didn’t believe them?” he asked.

“To me, it is,” I said.

He smiled then. “I guess expressions and body language don’t change that much with time.”

“I don’t know about that, but we can still read each other.”

He offered me a fist bump and I touched his fist with mine just as the rapid-boil kettle beeped to let me know the water was hot.

“Make the tea, Z. I’ll talk while you do it.”

“Sounds good,” I said, and got up to pour hot water into the big blue teapot. I swirled a splash of hot water around to warm the pot. Master Sarphiel had always been very firm on that. The tea steeped better in a warm pot than in a cold one.

“I can’t tell you everything, because I don’t remember all of it, or understand what I do remember.”

“That’s okay, Jam . . . Levi, just tell me what you can.”

“I honestly don’t remember what alley I was sleeping in when they woke me up. I just stared up at this group of shapes. I had a few seconds of wondering if they were real, or I was seeing spirits, or hallucinating, or having someone else’s nightmare, or maybe my own? I thought I was flashing back to the last bad beating I got.”

“The hospital called me on that one.” I was glad I had finished pouring the hot water into the pot, because my hands shook. I lost one of the tea bags, but with the others I got their strings tight underneath the lid of the teapot. I slid the tea cozy over the pot to make sure it stayed hot while the tea steeped, then set the timer for ten minutes.

“You’re still my emergency contact,” he said.

“But you said they were prophets, not thugs.”

“Yes, when I was sure I wasn’t still dreaming, they gave me their message about going to the shop and talking to a woman with a rose.”

I leaned against the edge of the cabinet and watched him instead of sitting back down. “But you didn’t believe them?”

“No, I thought they were just crazy like me, so I laid back down and told them to leave me alone.”

“And did they, leave you alone?”

He gave a little chuckle. “No, because at least two of them were prophets, the real thing. They grabbed my arms and pulled me to my feet. I started to try and fight them, but they were a lot stronger than they seemed. I wondered if they were angels in disguise for a second, because of how strong their hands were on my arms.”

“Angels don’t do that much anymore,” I said.

“No, but they had the strength of God in their hands. I felt that and knew they were real.” He was quiet so long I prompted him and asked what happened next.

“I started walking in the direction of the shop. It wasn’t close to where I was, and I didn’t have money for any other way to travel. I was lucky that I didn’t get arrested for walking in the middle of the road, because I did that some, I remember getting honked at and then realizing I was in the middle of the damn road.”

It startled me that he cursed. We had all been taught that curses should be saved for when you meant them. Jamie didn’t mean the road to be damned, or a road to Hell. I wanted to remind him why he shouldn’t use it so casually, but I kept my mouth shut and listened.

“I made it to the street where the shop is, but then I heard or saw someone’s thoughts. This man just walked by and he was thinking so hard that I just started following him. I probably would have followed him for miles, or until his thoughts calmed down, but a woman walked by us wearing a T-shirt with roses on it. It made me stop, literally stop on the sidewalk. I was able to let the man’s thoughts go. I could hear them getting farther away, but I turned and started following her.”

I wondered how the woman had felt about being followed by Jamie before he’d cleaned himself up. The tea timer sounded and saved me from letting my body language tell him what I was thinking. I was too busy lifting the tea cozy off, taking the tea bags out, and fishing with the tongs for the one that I’d lost in the tea.

“I followed her through the door into her shop. I mean I was right behind her. I’m lucky she didn’t call the cops.”

“Were you able to tell her why you were there?” I asked, getting our mugs off the table so I could put sugar in them.

He gave a laugh that was more bitter than funny. “Tell her that a bunch of wandering prophets told me to look for a woman with roses. The truth didn’t sound very sane.”

“Did she believe you?” I asked, as I poured tea into the mugs, adding cream to both.

“She did, and I know whatever I said to her wasn’t as clear as what I’m saying now. She should have called the cops, or told me to leave her shop, but she had this gentle energy. It reminded me of how I used to feel when I prayed, and God liked the prayer.”

I set his tea in front of him and sat down across the table from him, because I wanted to see as much of his face as I could. Profile wasn’t enough for me to read him.

He looked at me with those big brown eyes. They’d always dominated his face so that you saw his eyes and then the rest of him. Compelling was what one of the other female Angel Speakers had said once: “Levanael’s eyes are so compelling.” She’d been right.

“What happened next?” I asked.

“Emma, that’s her name, said that she dreamed about me coming to the shop.”

“Wow,” I said, and felt like we were ten again and had just seen some bit of angel magic we’d only read about before.

“I know, it was extraordinary. Not just that she had the dream but that she was willing to trust it enough to take me back to one of the small rooms where they do reiki and tarot. You know what I looked like before, Heaven help me, smelled like before, but Emma just took me in the room as if I was normal.” He smiled and sipped his tea before adding, “The owner of the shop was there and wouldn’t let Emma close the door. In fact, she stayed at the door watching over us. I can’t blame her. In fact, I’m glad she was looking out for Emma. She’s this amazing gentle energy that just feels good to be near.”

“Like the right kind of angel,” I said.

He nodded. “That’s sort of how she feels, but it’s like when we were around the priests that felt right. The energy of faith, true faith.”

“That’s really rare,” I said, drinking my own tea. It was good and I really needed to drink it before it got cold this time.

“It is.”

“What did she do to”—I made a vague motion at him—“for you?”

He took another sip of tea, sighing happily. “I’m so glad I can taste things again.”

“Me, too,” I said, and meant it.

“The healing started with Emma’s energy, and then she did actual energy work on me. Part of it was reiki, that’s what she’s got certificates in, but part of it was just intuitive energy work, that’s what she called it.”

I drank my tea and didn’t say that I’d never seen just energy work make a miracle like this. It could help, but this kind of change took more than one miracle cure.

“It was crystals and herbs and her guides talking to my guides.”

“You mean your Guardian Angels?”

“Not just the angels, but the other spiritual beings that are supposed to help protect me.”

I thought about Ravensong’s raccoon, the great bear and the blond Goddess or Valkyrie at her back. “Spirit guides and totems, you mean?”

“Yes,” he said.

I wondered if I lowered my shields and opened my senses, would I see some new power around him? I didn’t do it because it was too risky. I’d seen what was around Ravensong, and then I’d been in that place beyond where music was visible and angels moved along the humming strings of the universe. I couldn’t risk having Jamie follow me into that place, because it was traveling to it that had driven him mad.

“Did Emma help you get cleaned up, too?”

“She helped me get some clothes from Goodwill and she let me use her bathroom to get cleaned up. Her boss made sure that Emma’s roommates were home while I was there.”

“I take it that the owner of the New Age shop doesn’t have the same energy as Emma.”

He stirred his tea, smiled, frowned, smiled again, and said, “No, her energy feels very pointy like a porcupine, so that nothing gets in her shields.”

“Anyone sensitive to energy wouldn’t want to be around that.”

“True, maybe she only was pointy at me, keeping my energy off outside her shields,” he said, sitting back down with his tea. He wrapped his hands around the mug as if it didn’t have a handle. He didn’t drink from it right away, as if he was more warming his hands on the mug.

“You look great,” I said.

He shook his head. “I look better, but great, I’ll get there.”

I reached across the table and put my hand on his arm. “You look great to me, Lev-I, Levi.”

He put his hand over mine. “Thanks, Z. I’m sorry for everything I put you through.”

“You don’t have to apologize, you were sick.”

“I do need to apologize, but thank you for saying that.”

“Does Emma know what caused everything to go . . . off?”

“You mean why I went crazy at the very end of training to be an Angel Speaker?”

“Yes, but if it’s hard to talk about we can wait. It’s just that no one at the College understood what happened.”

“We’re not a hundred percent certain, but we think it’s my telepathy.”

“There are other telepaths at the College,” I said.

“But no one as powerful as I am, Z.”

“No one but Master Bachiel,” I said.

“Emma thinks that he, or some of the teachers, should have protected me more. She says I had almost no ability to shield my gift.”

“They did teach us how to shield ourselves,” I said.

“I never got good at personal shielding, remember?”

I thought about it. “That’s right, it was your weakest skill set.”

“Inside the College it didn’t matter; the wards around it are so solid and well constructed that they protected me.”

“They protected us all,” I said.

He nodded. “But when we started working directly with the realm of angels, there was nothing to shield me from them.”

“Shield you from the angels?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, not from them, from the thoughts of all the people praying to the angels and to God.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Can’t you hear prayers?”

“Sometimes, if I’m not shielding tight enough, or if the prayer has a lot of need or emotion behind it.”

“How did you filter out the prayers inside the angelic realm?”

“I don’t hear prayers unless I’m listening for them there.”

“What do you hear?”

“Music,” I said.

“Music, just music?”

“Beautiful, amazing music like the universe is created out of music and light.”

He stared at me as if I’d said something terrible. “Music and light, just music and light?”

“I see angels and I see the light and lines of creation.”

“You didn’t hear the voices of all the people praying, asking for God’s help?”

“No,” I said.

The blood drained from his face so suddenly that I got up to put a hand on his shoulder in case he fainted. “Jamie, Levi, are you okay?”

“I heard voices, millions and millions of thoughts, prayers, screams of pain, people screaming in agony and begging God to help them.”

I knelt by him so I could look into his face. “You heard people screaming for help, while the rest of us saw music and lights?”

He nodded, his face so pale his lips looked bloodless. “I couldn’t shut it out. Even when the teachers brought me back from the heart of creation, I could still hear them.”

“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.”

I hugged Jamie a little harder, because he and Suriel were the first people that I thought would always be there for me. They’d been my family until I found Reggie and we had Connery.

Jamie pulled back from the hug to study my face. “What did you just think about, Z?”

I shook my head and stepped back, but he grabbed my arm. “Talk to me, Z, please. I’ve been missing for years, let me be here, really be here for you and for me again.”

My eyes felt hot, damn it I was not going to let him see me cry, but my throat was too tight with grief to speak. God help me, God help us both.

“Z, please, talk to me.”

The first hard tear trailed down my face. I pulled away and went to the kitchen with my back to him. “Let’s do more tea and then you can call Emma or let me drive you.” My voice was neutral, but the first tear had been joined by more. I’d learned to cry without letting it show in my voice or face years ago. Men didn’t cry, especially in the military, or on the force. Hell, soldiers and cops of either sex weren’t supposed to cry. We were supposed to be strong, and tears weren’t strong, but more than that I didn’t want to explain the tears to Jamie. I was afraid that it would trigger something in him that would undo all the progress that he’d made. It was a miracle that he was standing here with me. I didn’t want to spoil it by being weak and human.

I knew he was behind me before he wrapped his arms around my waist and hugged me from behind. I startled, stiffening in the embrace, because I’d been too long in the outside world where men didn’t do this. I’d almost forgotten that there had been a time in my life when I hadn’t thought anything about it. The College of Angels taught that male and female didn’t matter, that we were all one, and affection was innocent like small children. I’d believed that until I was about fifteen. Suriel had already started to pull away from casual physical affection, but Jamie never had. He’d come to us for cuddling like we were all still seven years old huddling in little homesick puppy piles.

“I’m here, Z, just like when we were kids. You can tell me anything.”

I patted his hands where they held me and told him part of the truth. “I was thinking about Reggie and Connery, and you and Suriel. Everyone I’ve ever loved.” I almost choked on that last part because it was too much truth.

Jamie held me tighter and only the height difference kept it from being more intimate than it could be. “Is that all you have ever loved, truly, Zaniel?” The cadence of the words wasn’t Jamie.

My skin ran cold with terror because I knew that voice. The tears were gone, dried up along with the inside of my mouth.

Jamie’s arms were less tight, but he leaned against me in a way that wasn’t just friends and was . . . softer, something, as if it wasn’t just the cadence of Her speech that he was channeling, but Her body movements, too.

“Zaniel, why did you leave the College?”

“Jamie, let go of me.”

“Why did you leave, Zaniel?”

“Let go of me, now.”

“I felt your touch for the first time in so long when you came into the light.”

I finally used his angel name. “Levanael, let me go, please.” If Jamie could hear me, then I had a choice of using violence to stop him from touching me or let her get a stronger hold on me. Clothes helped; bare skin was always . . . harder with her.

Jamie let go of my waist with one arm, as if he’d finally heard me, and then his hand touched the skin of my arm, as if she’d heard my thoughts about bare skin.

I saw her in my head like a daydream, hair spun of light so that you could never call it blond, but yellow, or even gold didn’t describe the color of her hair, not really. Her skin was a shade of paler light as if I needed other words that meant white and energy, and fire, and ice, and elemental things that did not exist for humans. Her body was perfect, because she’d created it for me, the fantasies of a teenage boy and her own preferences from human media, thoughts and wishes. She would always be my fantasy made almost flesh, except she could never get it quite right, because short of incarnating she couldn’t be human, but then human was overrated, I thought as I stared into her eyes like blue sky, but a sky that never ended and never touched the Earth. It was like looking into eternity, beautiful eternity.

She reached one shining hand out toward me, and I knew that all I had to do was reach back and I could travel the music of the spheres and the light of God to find her.

I tore myself away from Jamie, screaming, “NO!”

Jamie stumbled back against the table as if I’d shoved him. He had to grab the edge of it to steady himself or I would have knocked him to the ground. “I didn’t know she was still there waiting for you.”

“She’s eternal, she can wait forever,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Z, I didn’t mean to channel her.”

“You were the clearest, purest channeler in our year at the College. It’s not your fault; when the higher angelic orders want to speak through you, it’s not like you can say no.”

“You said no.”

“She isn’t trying to use me as a channel to speak through, Levanael.”

“No, she wants you the way a woman wants a man. I didn’t know that she had fallen, I’m so sorry, Zaniel.”

“Is she completely fallen now? Did I damn us both?”

“You’re not damned, Z, and neither is she.”

The tears were back, why was I crying? “Are you sure?”

“She hasn’t joined the enemy, so she’s not damned, and not completely fallen, just sort of . . . crisped around the edges.”

“She didn’t look burned to me.”

“I don’t mean literal fire, Zaniel, you should know that.”

I nodded and wiped at the stupid, traitorous tears.

“I’d forgotten how good it felt to channel the higher levels of the angelic.” He raised his hand up in front of his face. “I feel like my skin should glow with all the power.”

I didn’t know what to say, because I was so scared, I could taste iron on my tongue. I’d felt her twice today. The first time was my fault, getting too caught up in my old abilities, but this time, I hadn’t done anything to call her to me this time, which meant she’d sought me out.

“I can’t imagine what it was like to touch her for real like you did, Z. If it felt better than this, I couldn’t have told her no.”

“One of us had to be strong enough to stop, or she would have fallen. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t be responsible for that, for her being . . . lost.”

“You were what nineteen, twenty?”

“Yeah, somewhere in there.”

“How did you have the strength to question it at only twenty?”

“I prayed for guidance and strength and God gave it to me.”

“When I prayed for God to help quiet my mind, nothing came.” The happiness in his face began to fade. The confidence and power that he’d gained from channeling an angel began to seep away like a cup with a crack in it. It hurt my heart to see it happening in front of me.

I wanted to hug him again, but I was afraid to touch him too much, afraid that She would come back through the clear channel of Jamie’s talent. I put my hand on his shoulder where the shirt protected us both from skin-to-skin contact. I prayed that it would be enough to protect us from her attention. The touch on his shoulder made him look at me. “Some prayers take longer to answer than others, Levanael.”

His eyes held sorrow like rain to drown all the sunshine in the world. His eyes had always been like that; expressive didn’t quite cover Jamie’s eyes. How could I help him? Then the thought came, and I thought, Oh, yeah, and felt slow for not thinking of it sooner.

“Let’s pray,” I said.

His eyes focused on me instead of on the dark thoughts in his head. “I remember you used to ask me that when you found me on the streets. We even tried it a few times and it didn’t help.”

“ ‘Prayer isn’t a grocery list for miracles, it’s a tool for talking to God.’ ”

Jamie smiled and his eyes filled with it. “Master Sarphiel said that all the time in every class we had with him.”

“ ‘Prayer is just one way to bring yourself into alignment with the divine,’ ” I said, repeating another common refrain from Master Sarphiel.

“ ‘Any person on the planet can pray, Levanael, you must do better than that.’ ” He even got the inflection of the voice right.

It made me laugh. “Inside the College with all the wards and magical shielding, yes, but outside in the world let’s just pray, okay?”

Jamie’s smile wilted around the edges. His serious eyes studied my face. “You’re afraid she’ll come back through me again, aren’t you?”

I took a breath trying to think how to word it, then finally nodded.

“It felt good to channel her. It felt good to be an Angel Speaker again,” Jamie said.

“Angels speak to me, but they speak through you.”

“Only because I’m not strong enough to meet them in person like you are, like Suriel was.”

“Neither of us was a clear enough channel for God’s grace and light to shine through us.”

“Master Bachiel said I was too empty, and the two of you were too full of yourselves, to be a clear channel for the divine.”

“You mean we were too arrogant in our power to let anyone speak through us, even God.”

“No, you both had strong enough personalities that there wasn’t room for anyone else. I was always less sure of myself than either of you. Master Bachiel said I didn’t fill up all the room inside myself, that’s why I channeled so easily and why I could hear prayers. I was closer to the angels that sat nearer to God, reflecting his glory and praise.”

“I don’t remember him saying that to you.”

“It was in one of our private sessions. He was training me to be his successor at one point, remember?”

I nodded. “I remember.” I had thought it was a bad idea at the time. Surrie and I had both thought that Jamie was too gentle and felt too deeply to match the sternness of Bachiel. I’d been amazed when the College said that Jamie was the first student in decades that rivaled Master Bachiel’s abilities, and that he should train him. Their gifts from God might have matched, but nothing else did.

“What are you thinking, Zaniel?”

I was startled too far into my own memories, so I told him the truth. “I always thought that Bachiel wasn’t a good mentor for you; just because your gifts matched didn’t mean that he was the right teacher for you.”

“You and Surrie said so at the time, but the College and Bachiel insisted, and everyone else told me it was an honor to be groomed to take Bachiel’s duties on. Why didn’t he help me shut out the pain of all the unanswered prayers, Z?”

“I don’t know, but I’d like to contact the College and find out.”

He grabbed my arm and I startled, half expecting her to take him over again, but it was just his hand on my skin, just him and me. Something tight and scared in my gut eased.

“Don’t go back, Z, if you do she’ll find you.”

I nodded. “After I told the College what had happened between us, She was put in a place between.”

“You mean they imprisoned her?”

“No, She agreed to enter because there’s really no way to lock up one of the seraphim, not really. She agreed to meditate on her transgression to decide if she saw it as an actual sin. She thought I would stay at the College and finish my training if she exiled herself, and she was half right.”

“You finished your training. I remember you coming and finding me to tell me you’d become an Angel Speaker. I was proud and happy for you, but I was ashamed that I had failed so utterly.”

“I’m sorry, Levanael, I just wanted to share it with you, but I was selfish and didn’t think how you’d take it.”

“That was the first time you took me to a hospital and got me locked up.”

“You were trying to hurt yourself.”

“I don’t remember everything, but I know it was bad. You were trying to keep me alive; some of the voices told me that you’d help me stay alive. It’s probably why I kept coming to find you sometimes.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t let you stay with me all the time.”

“I scared your little boy the last time. I remember that much. I’m so sorry, Z. I hope he won’t be scared of me forever. I hope he’ll forgive me.”

“I think he will,” I said, but thought that I wouldn’t put the two of them in the same room until Jamie had proven the recovery was permanent. Connery would get over one scare, but multiple ones . . . I didn’t want to push it. If I got my best friend back, I wanted my son to love him like I did.

“I’m too nervous to pray to God right now, Z. Emma introduced me to the Goddess and she’s, they’re both, it’s like the energy I’ve been missing. I’m not sure what God will think about that.”

“I work with a lot of people that follow the Goddess. They’re good people, and I don’t think God is as jealous a God as the Old Testament makes him out to be.”

“I think you’re right, but I’d still rather wait to test the theory.”

“You had an angel, a seraph, speak through you, Levanael. If that doesn’t speak to your purity of heart and soul, I don’t know what does.”

He smiled then. “I hadn’t thought about it like that. If you’d tried to get me to agree to channel an angel, especially one of the higher orders, then I’d have been too scared, felt unworthy, but it just happened and it worked. It means I’m not damned after all.”

“Why would you be damned, Levanael?”

“God judged me and found me wanting, and then he cast me out. The original idea of Hell is to be cut off from contact with God, and I have been that for ten years.”

“I’m so sorry, Levanael.”

“I’ve been letting you call me that since She spoke through me, but they stripped the name from me when they cast me out of the College.”

“You know how rare the ability to channel the more powerful angels is even among the trained Angel Speakers,” I said.

He nodded. “But they took my name and forced me to be Jamie again. I hadn’t been that name in so long that it didn’t feel like me. I was Levanael and they made me Jamie again. He was a child; I was five when I gave up that name.”

“Sometimes I forget that you were chosen two years earlier than either Suriel or me.”

“Yeah, we were all seven, but I’d been at the College longer than anyone in my year. They brought me inside at five because I was already hearing voices; my parents brought me to get me some miracle from the angels, and as soon as I went inside the walls and all the wards and mystical shielding, it was better. It was a miracle, but it only worked inside the College, and then it stopped working even inside. When they threw me out . . . it was so much worse than before.”

His eyes went haunted again, and I didn’t know what to say, because I’d let him go. I’d protested and appealed to everyone inside the College who would talk to me, but in the end that was all I’d done, talk to people. I’d gone back to my own training, because She had been waiting for me, all gold and light and power and . . . she’d been my whole world, and that she consumed me enough to make me forget about what had happened to Jamie was the beginning of me questioning it, questioning her.

“I’m sorry, Levanael, sorry that I didn’t do more to help you when it happened.”

“It’s okay, Z, you were the only one from the College who ever came to find me. Even Surrie never came looking, I really thought she would.”

I debated again on telling him more about her visit, but wasn’t sure if it would help or hurt. A phone rang and saved me the debate, because it was the smartphone in his pocket, not mine.

“Emma!” The way he said her name was enough for me to know that he had a crush on her, if not more. They talked back and forth for a few minutes. Jamie’s face was more animated than I’d seen it in years. I prayed that Emma was enjoying her end of the conversation as much as Jamie was.

Jamie’s face sobered a little around the edges and then he held the phone out to me. “Emma says she needs to speak to you.”

I might have questioned it, but I wanted to talk to the person who had helped Jamie so much, so I just took the phone and said, “Hello.”

“Hello, Zaniel, if I can call you that. Levi says that you don’t always like people using your full name.”

“Of course you may.”

She gave this laugh that made me smile without meaning to, and said, “Then call me Emma.”

“Okay, Emma, you wanted to speak to me.”

“Yes, my guides said that you and Levi had experienced a major channeling event.”

I was quiet on my end of the phone.

“What’s wrong, Z?” Jamie asked, watching my face.

I repeated what she’d said.

He smiled. “Oh yeah, Emma is way hooked up magically. Her guides are good.”

I was so startled that I said the truth out loud. “I’m not sure anyone on my unit is this good.”

She gave that infectious laugh again, but I managed to fight off the smile this time. “Flattery like that will turn a witch’s head clean around.” I almost asked the mundane question of whether she meant that for real before another peal of laughter made me realize she’d made a joke. She was a witch, not a supernatural; her physicality and physics still worked like normal. I knew that, but for just a second, I wondered, and I knew better. I had to meet this woman. If she was this good, then even as a consultant for the unit she’d be valuable. There was a moment where I got that little psychic slap of That’s not what you’re supposed to be thinking. I took a breath and tried to center myself, quiet myself and hear the voice of God, or the angels, or I guess Emma would say my guides. I tried to be still and listen, instead of rushing ahead and thinking I understood everything.

I was rewarded with a faint warmth, that pulse of yes. I asked, quietly in my head, “What am I supposed to be thinking? What am I supposed to do here and now?”

Emma said, “There’s a great coffee and tea shop just down the street from where I work. If you and Levi can meet me there, we’d have enough time to talk before my first client.”

“Client?” I made the word a question with the inflection at the end.

“Reiki,” she said, fully expecting that I’d know it was a type of healing energy work.

“If Levanael is okay with it, that sounds great.”

“He doesn’t like being called that name,” she said, her voice more serious.

“He’s okay with it since the . . . major channeling event.”

“Really, that’s fascinating. I can’t wait to meet you and find out all the details.”

“What’s the name of the coffee shop?” I asked.

“The Cozy Cauldron. Can you please put Levi back on the phone and then I’ll see you both soon.”

Again, I found myself smiling without meaning to, as if she exuded joy. Was it a spell? I got that psychic poke saying Stop being so damn cynical. I handed the phone to Jamie and tried to be less cynical, but after this many years of being a cop it wasn’t easy to switch gears from cynicism to whatever the opposite of that was, and then I realized that I honestly didn’t know the antonym for cynical. I watched Jamie’s face light up again as he spoke to Emma and fought not to think it was too good to be true. I realized that what I’d lost somewhere along the way was belief in the basic goodness of things, that somewhere in all the everyday mess God still had a plan. Combat had made me question it, being a police officer had made me question it more, but it was losing Reggie and Connery that had finally broken something in me. Something I needed to keep trusting that the loss of Jamie to his illness, the loss of the first person who made me fall in love with Her, the loss of Surrie when I left the College, through all of it I had still believed, still had hope. I stood there watching Jamie’s face, the happy lilt in his voice like a small song of praise to the possibility of love with Emma, and I didn’t believe it was possible. They could fall in love, but the love that is supposed to be the purest reflection of God’s love for us, the love of a man for his wife and children, that was what I’d lost faith in, because I’d believed with all my heart and soul that Reggie was the one, and when Connery came along the love had just expanded until I thought my heart would explode with it. Instead, I had a dinner date with Reggie, and I’d been hopeful until I saw Jamie talking on the phone to a woman he was falling for, and I suddenly didn’t believe that Reggie and I would ever get back to that. We might get back to something, but it wouldn’t be this pure, unstained, shining adoration, and for a second, I hated them both, and then I was afraid for Jamie. Afraid of how hurt he could be if he followed his heart and Emma decided one day that he wasn’t the man she thought she married, and the man he really was, the reality of him, wasn’t what she wanted. How in the name of Heaven did a man cope with that?

I stood there and prayed that I wouldn’t let my broken heart harm Jamie and whatever was happening with Emma. I prayed for the grace not to be jealous or angry about it, and not to share out loud or by psychic leaks how I really felt.

He got off the phone and smiled up at me. “Emma says she can’t wait to meet you.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice, and finally said, “Gotta get a fresh shirt, then we’ll go.”

“Why did you need to borrow a shirt from your boss?” he asked.

“Got messy at work, you know how it is,” I said, and kept heading for the far door and the bedroom and away from his questions.

“I hugged you that last time, my hands touched something.” He started walking after me, saying, “Z, are you hurt? Is that why you have the day off?”

“It’s not that bad and it means I get to spend more time with you.” I didn’t turn around or slow down. I didn’t want to answer questions about the injury, especially not to Jamie, because I still wasn’t sure how fragile he was, or wasn’t. Talk about demons being corporeal enough to claw a person up would spook anyone.

“Why don’t you want to tell me about it?” His voice sounded plaintive behind me.

I stopped with the door to the bedroom partially open. “Because bad things happened today, and people got hurt a lot worse than me. People that I was supposed to protect.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Z, but just promise me you really aren’t hurt that badly. If you need to rest, then we can do this another day.”

I was suddenly tired, as if it had all caught up with me at once, but I shook my head. Jamie was here; he was Levanael again, or sounded like him. I didn’t want to lose a minute of the miracle of it. I’d stay with him as long as I could, or until the miracle started to unravel. In my head, not a voice exactly, but maybe my own self was talking back to me, chiding me, because miracles don’t unravel.

“I wouldn’t miss the chance of spending time with you, Levanael, and I meant what I said about asking Emma if what she did for you might help others.” I started to put on a plain dark blue polo shirt that Reggie had grown to hate, she said it was my I’m-not-a-cop cop shirt but it was loose on me now that I’d leaned down so the bandages wouldn’t show. I looked down at myself and realized the polo shirt looked like it was going to a casual Friday office and the bottom half screamed gym. If I just changed shirts then I’d be done, so I settled for another oversized tank top that was cut around the shoulders and neck but left enough material to hide both the bandages on my stomach, my badge, and my gun. I almost changed so I could have my full-sized duty weapon, but I didn’t want to keep Jamie waiting longer than necessary. When you’ve got a miracle sitting in your living room you don’t leave it waiting so you can pack more firepower, or that’s what I told myself as I opened the bedroom door to step out. Reggie told me I didn’t know how to stop being a cop. Was the thought that she’d be pleased that I hadn’t changed everything to carry a bigger gun influencing my choice? I’d have liked to say no, but I try not to lie to myself. Lunch with her wasn’t until tomorrow, but I made the choice as if she was the one waiting in the living room and not Jamie.