A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(11)

So I now knew it wasn’t a possession for certain; that didn’t leave many other options when it came to real demons. “They aren’t demon touched, are they?” It was a polite term for someone with demonic ancestry. It didn’t always mean they would be bad people, or even that magically talented, but when they did have problems, they were big ones.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Stop fishing, Detective, because I’m done rising to the bait.”

That could be a yes, or he was just tired of the word games. “Why did you break protocol and put the patient next to another darker-energy patient?”

“How do you know . . .” He sighed, and the anger darkened his eyes again. “You didn’t know until I just told you. Damn it, Detective, I can order you out of this room and have security keep you off my floor. I will do exactly that if you ask me one more leading question.”

“Sorry, Dr. Paulson, but there’s something wrong out there in the hallway. Something wrong in at least one room. My lieutenant felt it, and then I could feel it, so whatever it is, it’s getting stronger.”

“How do I know you’re not lying to try and get me to give you more patient information?”

“If you step outside this room, farther away from George’s aura, you may be able to feel it for yourself by now.”

“No, I won’t, my psychic shielding is impenetrable.”

“If you can shield that well, then drop a tiny bit of your protection and you will feel it.”

He shook his head. “I can’t drop my shields, it’s a natural skill. The metaphysical practitioners at the medical school weren’t sure what would happen if they broke my shields down to teach me to control them, so they gave me a choice. I chose to leave them intact, which means I’m almost a psychic null except that I’m even more impervious to psychic attack than a true null.”

I tried not to stare at him as I processed what he’d just said. “Thank you for sharing that with me, Doctor.”

“I shared it because if there is a metaphysical problem that turns . . . dangerous, I need you to know that you don’t have to protect me. I have the perfect defense against everything.”

“Appreciate knowing that,” I said.

“I also want to be clear that I will be useless for any metaphysical offense. I can protect myself, but no one else.”

I nodded. “Good to know,” I said.

“Yes, most people with my ability to shield can flex it outward to protect others, but I can’t. I didn’t want you to count on me to do something I am incapable of.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“You’re welcome.” He studied my face as if he would memorize me. “You aren’t lying about what you’re sensing on the floor, are you?”

“No, Dr. Paulson, I’m not.”

“Then you need to know that this is the first time I’ve seen the metaphysical unit completely full. That’s why we had to put patients next to each other that we normally would have separated.”

“Was it one incident that left a lot of injured?”

“No, Detective Havelock, they’re all from different incidents. In fact, there’s not even a theme. It’s not a shape-shifter gang war filling the ward, or fairies getting drunk on energy at Solstice, or even spells going wrong at the dark of the moon and sending us a whole coven. There’s no pattern.”

“Is it all”—I tried not to say evil, since the new, more sensitive vocabulary meant we couldn’t call anyone’s religion evil, but—“negative energies, except for George here?”

“No, we have three that you would call purely negative, two that are somewhere between good and evil, and the rest are neutral. Literally just injuries from magic gone awry. We’ve even got one teenager with a broken wrist from a poltergeist.”

“It’s rare that a poltergeist will hurt someone badly enough to be hospitalized. Are you sure it’s not something more malignant?” I said.

“The injury isn’t that bad, but the witch on duty suggested we keep him overnight in a warded room so the poltergeist wouldn’t be able to feed off the teenage energy until a more permanent solution can be arranged.”

“Aren’t all the rooms on this floor warded against magic?” I asked.

He looked at me as if I’d said something stupid and then pointed at a small flat box set into the wall beside the door. It was blank and innocuous looking, but I knew if I looked at it with that other part of my vision it would have holy symbols on it.

“Of course, the new ward panels that got installed last month. Sorry, they’re new enough I keep forgetting,” I said.

He nodded, face softening, as if I’d redeemed myself a little. “Yes, even someone with a small talent could touch the ward panel and they would be invoked.”

“Can you activate the ward panels?” I asked.

“I haven’t tried, but I’d go on the assumption that it’s like all magic and would require my shielding to be more porous, but I assume you have talent in that area, so the panels should work for you.”

“Does it keep things in, or out?” I asked.

“What is inside the warded area remains, what is outside can’t cross, or that’s the theory.”