by Nalini Singh
“I suggest a new name,” Aodhan murmured. “Bugs.”
“Yeah, bugs it is.” Vivek took another two seconds. “Bug’s on the move.”
At first, all they saw from the bug’s low position were the windows of the buildings opposite and the odd angel flying low. “Her army isn’t all in uniform this time around,” Elena said, that fact only now registering.
Raphael stirred. “Are all our people marked?”
“Yes,” Dmitri confirmed. “If they aren’t in uniform, they’re wearing armbands signifying their allegiance.” He glanced at Illium. “Bluebell, get your squadron leaders to fly out with extras while we’re in the cease-fire. I don’t want the bands accessible to Lijuan’s troops.”
It was only as Illium headed out that she saw he’d had his hand curled over Aodhan’s brutally fisted one. What nightmares did Sparkle remember, she thought. What ugliness had this stirred up?
His departure left Aodhan and Suyin side by side, and the picture they made was startling: Aodhan’s glittering beauty against the ice white of her skin and hair. A symphony of cold starlight and the heart of the sun.
“No time to make uniforms for such a grand army?” Janvier’s molasses of a voice, slow and easy, but the bayou green of his eyes was as hard as jade.
Ashwini ran a hand down his back. All of them attempting to comfort one another.
“Lack of markings could be on purpose, a way to cause confusion in battle,” Dmitri pointed out.
Jason opened out his wings, settled them back in. “We could turn that around, use her lack of uniforms against her.”
Nodding agreement, Raphael said, “Brief Naasir on the situation so he can utilize it as soon as he arrives. He’s going to be heading into enemy territory.”
“I heard from him just before the cease-fire,” Dmitri said. “He and Galen should be here by morning. They helped Elijah’s people move the vulnerable in the Refuge into the most central stronghold. Jessamy and all the babies and kids are in there, along with the majority of the Medica team. Keir’s missing, said to be in Michaela’s territory.”
Elena thought back, realized the most central Refuge stronghold was Favashi’s. Her people certainly had no loyalty to Lijuan or Charisemnon. Keir must be with Michaela’s child.
If I know him, he’s already left with the babe, Raphael replied. He’ll be making his way to the Refuge along isolated routes. Michaela would not want her child in her territory when Lijuan’s infected present the threat of a plague.
Will he be safe? He was crossing a massive distance in the midst of a war.
My guess is that he’s traveling alone with the child, Raphael said. He should attract no attention, especially as other noncombatants will be fleeing to the Refuge for safety. And Keir is tougher than he looks—this is not the first child he has carried to safe harbor.
On the screen, Vivek’s bug finally caught sight of Lijuan and Xi. The two stood in a large garden-like square that Elena recognized from her flights over the city. It was a semi-private park created for business workers, a bright green haven in the summer months and a pretty place to catch some fresh air in winter.
Yet today, despite the rich hues painted on the snow by the setting sun, the park was a place of shadows. In the center bustled multiple vampires; they were constructing something out of materials they must’ve brought with them in one of the submarines. “What is that?” She leaned in closer to the screen.
“I recognize it,” Raphael said. “It’s the jade throne from a mountain stronghold Lijuan often used as a retreat. I saw it on a visit with my father.”
“It went missing hundreds of years ago, is considered a lost relic,” Jason murmured.
“Lijuan must’ve put it in storage.” Dmitri scanned the scene in front of them. “It looks like she’s busy for the time being. I’m going to set some things in play. Janvier, Ash.”
The two slipped away with Dmitri. Together with Naasir, the three led the “sneak attack” section of Raphael’s forces. They’d trained multiple small teams in the time since the last battle, and were the reason the city was so well booby-trapped. Venom’s Holly was part of their group.
“I can watch the feeds,” Vivek said. “I’ll send out an alert if I see anything that indicates preparation for an attack.”
“You have more of those bugs?” Illium, having returned from the balcony, came to stand next to Vivek’s wheelchair.
The hunter-born male nodded. “I seeded them everywhere I could. Bugs are pretty dumb in the brain department and have a tendency to fall off buildings and get squashed, but no one much notices them. Where do you need eyes?”
“I want to get a real count of her forces.”
Sara and Venom walked over to join them. “It’d be good if we could separate out ground and air support numbers,” Sara said, to Venom’s nod.
While the four of them worked on that, Suyin and Aodhan decided to rejoin their squadrons. Both those squadrons were in the air, maintaining the watch. Raphael stayed in the war room to speak to Suyin while she put on her battle armor, while Elena walked out onto the balcony with Aodhan.
With the twin swords that he wore in a dual sheath down the center of his spine, his well-worn leathers, and muscular build, he was a battle-honed warrior whose beauty was brilliant in the last of the sun’s light. But beyond all that, he was her friend. So she held out her hand.
He closed his own over it without hesitation, his palm warm. “Illium’s not as stable as he appears. His father’s waking threw him badly.”
No surprise that Sparkle was more concerned about Bluebell than himself. “He talking to you about it?”
A clenched jaw, Aodhan’s bare biceps bunching. “He’s the most stubborn person I know.” Releasing her hand, he prepared to take off. “But as the Hummingbird pointed out, I am no pushover.”
His takeoff was flawless, the glittering filaments in his wings ablaze. Suyin took off with a quieter whisper not long afterward. In this light, the dull silver of her armor appeared nearly the same bronze as the primaries that edged the snow-white of her wings.
Not all angels wore armor, but it was a smart move for Suyin, given her level of training. Designed for the angel, it featured a breastplate that fit exactly right, a neck guard, thigh guards, leg guards integrated into her boots, and forearm guards.
Elena’s own “armor” was integrated into her leathers, everything triple reinforced. She liked the freedom of movement it offered. “Suyin doing okay?” she asked Raphael as he came to stand behind her.
“She is haunted by the knowledge that she is of a bloodline with Lijuan. What hidden capacity for evil, she asks, does she carry within?”
Retracting her wings, Elena leaned back against his chest and drew in the masculine heat of his scent. “That they share nearly the same face must make it even worse.” It’d be like watching a horror version of yourself.
“I have told her it comes down to choices. Such as the one Lijuan made to murder the mortal who awoke in her what you do in me.” Arms already around her, he kissed her temple.
In front of them, their city was eerily calm. Sentries stood on rooftops around the entire perimeter, with archers and shooters on standby. Elena spotted a medic lift off from one rooftop, head to another. Bandaging wounds that didn’t necessitate a trip to the infirmary. “Do you know how many we lost?” It was a hard question to ask; the one question she couldn’t ask was if someone she knew was already gone.
“Six percent of our overall force.” Raphael’s wings became limned with a deadly glow. “It does not seem a large number against such a massive enemy, but for our first battle we projected a one percent loss as the maximum.” Though he was talking in cold percentages, his hand fisted against her abdomen.
These weren’t just numbers to Raphael.
Throat thick and eyes hot, Elena slid her hand over his fisted one an
d held on. They stood in silence as night fell on the first day of a war that had just begun.
57
Lijuan launched her next assault under cover of night.
Thanks to its watchers, living and electronic, Manhattan was ready.
Squads of black-clad angels had taken to the skies in absolute silence only ten minutes after Vivek’s bugs picked up the first signs of preparation in her camp. All the flyers for this op had been chosen because their wings were naturally dark. Each angel took off on their own, as if heading home to the Tower . . . but used the moonless night to disappear into the clouds.
Jason led the team.
Once in the sky, the squadrons did silent sweeps in a holding pattern above Dmitri’s predicted attack zone. When an angel needed a break, he flew back a short distance and dropped down on a rooftop.
No one from Lijuan’s side seemed to notice—lone angels all over the city, enemy and friendly, were dropping down or taking off. Aside from those taking a break, Jason’s team stayed high.
Now, Jason! Raphael sent the command as Lijuan’s forces rose en masse from their base by the water; he’d waited until they were high enough that no soft landing was possible.
The nets were fine and black and invisible in the darkness as they fell from the sky. He knew the instant they made contact with Lijuan’s winged fighters because the fighting formations collapsed into chaos, angels tumbling uncontrolled from the sky as their wings became tangled in nets that cut and made them bleed.
Their nets successfully deployed, Jason’s team emerged from the skies behind enemy lines, and the sky crackled with black lightning. Jason’s power was enormous in comparison to most angels’ and he sent his energy directly into the heart of Lijuan’s disoriented forces, while other angels in his team used line-of-sight grenade launchers to blow up enemy supplies and ground teams.
Aodhan supplied violent backup from this side.
Raphael, meanwhile, was facing off against Lijuan. Jason’s team had made no effort to tangle her in nets—given her power, it’d have been a waste. She was his to neutralize. But while his wildfire had regenerated to a certain point, he had nowhere near enough to take on an archangel who’d so recently fed on the lifeforce of at least a hundred people.
Turning his wings to white fire, he moved so quickly in and out of position that her shots went wild, smashing into buildings devoid of residents or workers. Step by step he managed to draw her past her collapsing night assault force and out over water. Now past enemy lines, he took her high, where none of her angels could interfere.
Her next attempt at hitting him smashed into the water. It caused that water to foam and spout, but the ocean was vast enough to absorb the energy without damage. Her fury at his avoidance of her strikes made her face turn skeletal for a haunting instant . . . before she turned without warning and headed straight to Manhattan.
Raphael fired, aiming at her wings.
She went noncorporeal right before the wildfire reached her. Raphael swore under his breath . . . except it appeared Lijuan hadn’t shifted location when she went noncorporeal. Wildfire fractured inside the hauntingly translucent form of an archangel, her mouth falling open in screaming pain.
Her body reappeared.
Rage a cold mask on her features, she shifted position to rain her own power at him in a wide spread he couldn’t fully evade. One bolt hit him hard on the shoulder, spinning him around. But he’d already thrown the ball of wildfire in his hand and it smashed into the tip of her right wing.
He had only droplets left inside him—and Lijuan was healing in front of his eyes.
He flew straight at her, sliding out his swords as he did so. When she responded with a barrage of poisonous blows, he made no attempt to dodge them. He was already hit. He’d deal with the damage in the aftermath.
He had to stop her before she took his city.
Blades of starlight obsidian slammed into him with brutalizing force, the poison spreading below his skin in an oily slide. Lijuan laughed at the sight of his swords, the two of them close enough now that she spoke aloud. “You should’ve killed her when I told you.” In her voice whispered thousands of ghosts, their pleas piteous in the maw of their terrible goddess. “Now you are a little bit mortal and weak with—”
Raphael sliced one razor-sharp blade across her neck, the other across her thighs. Blood splurted and her hands flew up to hold her head to her neck.
One leg fell into the ocean, while the other hung half severed.
Managing to get his hand on her stump, he sent the last of his wildfire directly into her bloodstream.
She shrieked in true pain, the sound agony along his nerve endings.
Eyes red and blood overrunning the hand she had around her throat, she sent out a blast that caught him at point-blank range. His vision wavered, but he saw her turn and fly toward her base of operations. Already, her fighters were coming toward Raphael, ready to intercept him.
His wings grew heavy with the blackness spreading over them. He couldn’t make them turn into white fire. Even his ability to create angelfire had flatlined. The ocean awaited below—if he fell, it was over. Lijuan’s forces would take him. And she would feed on an archangel.
Sire. Jason dropped out of the sky, Jurgen with him. Falling on either side of Raphael, the two dark-winged angels literally dragged him into the air, while Andreja covered their retreat with a machine gun.
Run, Raphael commanded her and she followed them up, firing at the enemy the entire way.
The rest of Jason’s stealth squad appeared around them.
All of them made it to safety, with the majority of the squad splitting off to return to the front line. Leave me on the roof of the Legion building and go, Raphael ordered, even as blackness began to creep across his vision. This is when Xi will launch a secondary attack, while he believes we are at our weakest.
Sire, Jason argued, why the Legion building and not the infirmary?
Because Elena is waiting for me there. Alongside their Legion. Go.
Jason and Jurgen eased him to the rooftop, then took off. That they weren’t happy about it was obvious even through his increasingly narrow field of vision.
Eyes of liquid silver above him, the near-white of Elena’s hair windswept around her head—and her expression ferociously set. “Shit, Archangel, you look like crap.” Cutting away his leathers to expose his chest, she pressed both hands to his skin. “If this doesn’t work, I’m going to kill you.”
Nothing happened. The world hung in balance.
“Black stuff’s trying to crawl onto my skin.”
“Break contact.” He lifted his hand, caught her wrist.
“No, wait.” She dug her nails into his skin when he would’ve moved her. “Hah! Stupid stuff can’t get a grip.”
Before he could ask what she meant, the opalescent wildfire contained in Elena’s body jolted into his in a savage blast that had his back arching as he clenched his jaw and attempted not to scream. The wildfire was unrelenting torture through his veins, along his wings, on his eyes as it ate away at Lijuan’s poison.
Elena never broke contact with his skin. He could hear her voice in his head and though he couldn’t divine the words through the howl of the battle taking place in his body, it was a reminder that he was not just the Archangel of New York.
He was Elena’s lover . . . and her beloved.
It was only when his body slammed back down onto the hard surface of the roof that he realized he’d lifted partially off. Breath heaving as wildfire continued to shoot through his veins in sharp stabs, he opened his eyes. “How does it look?” His senses remained dazed from the dual punch he’d taken—first from Lijuan, then from Elena.
Such a vicious punch for so small an amount.
Yet Lijuan had survived blow after blow after blow with little effect.
“Eyes clear.�
�� Breaking contact, she watched with intense care as he got to his feet.
Upright, he flexed his hands and saw that his veins were wildfire, a glowing network of midnight and dawn that flowed to living green. Shifting to go behind him, Elena ran her hands over his wings.
“Clean,” she pronounced, just as the lovely, strange wildfire under his skin faded and settled. “No sign of the poison.” Exhaling on a shudder, she pressed her head to his back. “Fuck. I can’t believe that worked. Not after what you told me about Antonicus.”
“Neither can I.” It had been a desperate gamble put in play when it became clear Lijuan was planning to strike.
“Could be you have a level of immunity because of the dregs of wildfire always inside your cells.”
“Perhaps.” He looked out at where battle had broken out once more, the dazzling light of Aodhan’s power coming up against the obsidian of one of Lijuan’s generals. “I’ve bought us a little time before Lijuan rises again. It may be enough for my wildfire to fully regenerate.”
Dmitri, report.
Lijuan’s soldiers are building another mound of bodies for her to feed from, but other than that they look to be hunkering down in a defensive formation. Aodhan and Jason are dealing with a small air attack, and Venom’s cleaning up one on the ground. No loss of territory.
The Legion, who had stood watch around the rooftop during the transfer, began to whisper in his mind. Raphael. Aeclari. We give.
Raphael found the Primary, shook his head. “Not yet. I can recover without it this time.” He didn’t know if his body had developed enough to hold both the Cascade power and the Legion energies. “Give me the power only when there is no other choice, when I am dry of power, and we are on the verge of losing the war.”
We understand. A rain of whispers. We hold. We wait.
“We believed the Cascade of Terror was the worst that could befall the world.” The blue in the Primary’s eyes appeared to glow. “We were wrong. This is the Cascade of Death and it could end immortals and mortals alike.”