A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(5)

“Gimble, what did I tell you about cursing in front of Celestial beings? Especially using blasphemies that involve Heaven, God, God’s Mom, or any other saint, Deity, or other spiritual being?”

He closed his mouth enough to look embarrassed. “Cursing using Heaven, God, God’s Mother, saints, Dieties, et cetera . . . can cause beings of high spiritual content to dissolve, or otherwise flee a crime scene, not because they are guilty, but because your language causes them discomfort.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“Jesus . . . Jeez, Havoc, I’m sorry. I just never saw anything like it. You know, they don’t even show up on film in that form, so it’s just been drawings and stories until now.”

I sighed, and then I had to smile. “It is a Heaven of a thing the first time.”

“How old were you the first time you saw something like that?”

“Thirteen,” I said.

“Jesus, I mean, jeez, weren’t you scared shitless?”

I nodded. “Yeah, yeah I was.”

“What did you do when you saw it the first time? The angel in its pure form, I mean.” What little color was left in his face drained away. I was already moving forward when his eyes fluttered back into his head and he started to fall. I caught him around the waist, but the height difference made it easier to just pick him up.

“I fainted,” I said.





CHAPTER TWO




Gimble didn’t wake up in the ambulance. I knew that because I rode in the back with him. He could come to like normal, just his usual cheery self, or there were other options. The kind that had made me insist on staying by Gimble’s side even though the paramedics had assured me that I could follow in my car to the hospital. I’d stayed with Gimble no matter how many medical professionals tried to get me to step outside the little curtained area in the hospital, too. I had let hospital security take me back so I could put Gimble’s weapons in a locker, which both I and the security person signed off on. When the security person suggested I could put my own stuff in a locker, I told him that what attacked Gimble might be coming back for him, which absolutely was a lie, but there was no way I was giving up my gun or anything else unless I had to, and I didn’t think I had to.

Gimble and I were finally upstairs on the very top floor, which housed the Metaphysical Injury Unit. He was still unconscious in the bed, and I was trying to answer the doctor’s questions. Dr. Paulson was a couple of inches taller than me, at least six foot five, positively willowy in his nice white coat. I felt like a muscular bull in the proverbial china shop standing next to him. “Are you seriously telling me that an angel did this to him?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slow. I’d told the story to the paramedics, several nurses, and at least one intern who had hunted up the doctor on call. Apparently, the intern had felt that an angel-induced coma was above his learning curve.

“Detective Gimble seeing an angel in its pure form caused him to pass out, but the angel didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I thought angels didn’t do anything by accident,” Dr. Paulson said.

“Short of God, no one’s perfect,” I said.

“Angels are,” he said, as if it was true.

I smiled and tried to think of how to explain how very wrong he was, without pissing him off or oversharing with him. He was the doctor in charge of this area, so if he disliked me enough he could make me leave Gimble’s side, and that wasn’t happening.

“Maybe the angel thought that Detective Gimble could handle it,” I said, though I knew that wasn’t true. The angel hadn’t been thinking about Gimble at all; it had thought about its message and getting it to me. Angels with a mission are very narrow of focus.

“You’re both with the Heaven and Hell Unit; shouldn’t he have been able to handle it?”

“The Metaphysical Coordination Unit handles things besides Heavenly and Hellish incidents, so not everyone in the unit is equally good with angels.”

“But you’re fine,” the doctor said.

“I’m good with angels.”

“Are you sure it was an angel and not something just masquerading as one? That would explain why your colleague has been harmed.”

I took in a deep breath and let it out slow. The doctor didn’t know my background, so he didn’t know he’d insulted me. Heavens, there were people in my unit who didn’t know all my background, so I really couldn’t get upset with the doc, so why was I?

“I know the difference between an angel and the things that pretend to be angels.”

“I’ve had patients in the ER that talked of winged demons, Detective Havelock.”

“There are more things above and below with wings than just angels, Doctor, and most of them have little or nothing to do with any of the Abrahamic faiths.”

“Abrahamic faiths? Oh, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“I haven’t heard them referred to like that since med school when I took the required metaphysical medicine courses.”

“I take it you aren’t a religious man, Dr. Paulson.”

“My sister and I joked that we were raised Jewish light.” He smiled as he said it.

“And nothing you’ve seen in your medical career has made you more religious?”