Meet Detective Zaniel Havelock, a man with the special ability to communicate directly with angels. A former trained Angel speaker, he devoted his life to serving both the celestial beings and his fellow humans with his gift, but a terrible betrayal compelled him to leave that life behind. Now he’s a cop who is still working on the side of angels. But where there are angels, there are also demons. There’s no question that there’s evil at work when he’s called in to examine the murder scene of a college student—but is it just the evil that one human being can do to another, or is it something more? When demonic possession is a possibility, even angelic protection can only go so far. The race is on to stop a killer before he finds his next victim, as Zaniel is forced to confront his own very personal demons, and the past he never truly left behind.
The first in a new series from the author of the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series.
The angel glowed before me, all white and gold-yellow
light; even its eyes were full of yellow fire, but there was no heat. Angels
don’t give off heat, no matter how fiery they look; if you ever see a glowing
angel and feel heat come off it, it’s not an angel, exactly. One of the first
things you need to understand if you work angel detail is that fallen angels
are still angels, and demons, well, that’s another problem altogether, but the
rule is, if it gives off heat, run; if you can’t run, pray.
The angel’s wings were barely hinted at; “he,” or “she,”
was mostly just light with a humanoid figure in the middle of it, and a
shimmering hint of wings, and flowing robes, but mostly just that full-bodied
halo, the aurora.
The voice sounded male, but honestly angels this shining
are sexless, they just are. “We are pleased that we do not have to manifest
fully for you, Detective Zaniel Havelock.”
It wasn’t the opening I’d expected; if angels seek you out
personally then it’s with an extremely specific message like in the Bible: You are pregnant with the Son of God, or Flee
now, enemies are coming. The personal conversational style was how they
spoke to Angel Speakers, Angelus Dictum, which means
“the angel said” to make it clear that the person sharing the message from the
angel is not an angel but only their mouthpiece. Angels did not speak like this
to people on the outside, but once I’d been inside and I fell back into the
same rhythm, an old habit come back to haunt me. “You can lose the humanoid
stuff altogether if you want. I do appreciate you trying not to drive me insane
by manifesting in your pure energy form, but it’s okay, I don’t need the baby
steps.”
“Very well,” it said, and the human pretense went away. I
was left staring at light, or flame, or something in between the two. It filled
nearly all of that half of the room, but it gave off neither heat nor formed
shadows. Again, if something says it’s an angel, and glows at you, but it
causes shadows around it, it’s not the good kind of angel, or maybe it’s not an
angel at all.
The light turned its “head,” and I could read the body
language of that glow; most people wouldn’t have been able to. “You asked for
me to drop the physical away, not for my comfort, but because you wished to see
if I cast a shadow.”
I shrugged and fought not to let my shoulders tighten. You
couldn’t wrestle an angel in this form; it wasn’t “real” enough, but the body
tenses, preparing for fight or flight, even though neither will help you. You
can’t hit pure spirit, and you sure as Heaven can’t run from it, because
spirit-level angels can just appear anywhere, in multiple places, at multiple
times, and it’s all real, all them, because when they’re this pure, time
doesn’t mean to them what it means to most of us. They can simultaneously be in
several places at once, at the same time for us humans, but different points of
time for the angel itself. Time is way more flexible than the human mind can
comprehend. It was a good thing that the pure spirit didn’t commit crimes,
because we would be beyond fucked trying to prove it, solve it, or catch them.
When this guy was finished glowing at me, he’d go back to God, maybe even be
absorbed back into that ultimate light. Witness protection had nothing on the
pure spirit angelic. They could literally be reabsorbed and made pure and new
again when they made their next earthly appearance.
“I know you are one who has walked through the flame and
survived, but I did not understand what it might mean.”
I remembered standing in the middle of flames that did not
burn, and cast no shadow, and surrounded me on every side. If my faith had not
been pure enough, I would have been consumed by holy fire. I blinked the memory
away and faced the much fainter light of the angel before me. “And what does it
mean?” I asked.
“That you do not think as others do or see as other flesh
sees. You are the only Angelus Dictum to ever finish
your training and then turn your back on it.”
“I am not an Angel Speaker, I’m a cop.”
“You are a police officer, but that does not mean you are
not also an Angel Speaker; otherwise how could I be here?”
I couldn’t argue with the angel and I very much wanted to,
so I let it go. The conversation was getting too weird, and off topic. I was
here to solve a crime, not dissect my past.
From A TERRIBLE FALL OF ANGELS
published by arrangement with Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.
Copyright © 2021 by Laurell K. Hamilton.
Laurell K. Hamilton is one of the leading writers of paranormal fiction. A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Hamilton writes the popular Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels and the Meredith Gentry series. She is also the creator of a bestselling comic book series based on her Anita Blake novels and published by Marvel Comics. Hamilton is a full-time writer and lives in the suburbs of St. Louis with her family. https://www.laurellkhamilton.com/
