by Lisa Hughey
“Give me another minute.” The pain and the sluggishness started to overtake her. But as if her mind was caught in the grip of the healing, she repaired the organs.
“Thank you, Angel.” Her hand fell from the man’s chest as he jumped up.
The third man grabbed her hand and she quickly blocked her body’s instinctive urge to heal. She had to control the process, just like Rafe taught her. “I need more time,” she protested. “This is stupid. If you kill me this way, I won’t be able to fix the rest of the group.”
“I don’t know how much you can take. I just learned how to heal myself and I am not nearly as strong as you are.” But Tomasz shoved the man back. “Give her, us, time to recover.”
The next ten people went relatively well. Angelina healed and then regenerated her power. But the line of people who wanted to be healed continued to grow and she could feel her energy waning.
The next man threw himself down on the hay bale and grabbed her hand, trapping her fingers against his chest. More of the killing fat and plaque loaded into her system. Her thoughts became more stuporous and holding up her head was near impossible. As if she were encased in a cement block, she couldn’t move her arms and legs, couldn’t think past the overwhelming pain. These people had blood clogged far beyond what she had seen before. If they had inter-married, perhaps the defect was even more pronounced?
The repair of his organs took a hideously long time.
“I understand what to do now,” Tomasz said with triumph even as his body slumped against a hay bale.
She needed more time in between healings. Angelina lay against the scratchy hay, her head lolling. “Need more time.”
The next woman waited, restlessly, her foot tapping on the hay that lined the floor as she clutched a little girl’s hand. “Please, let my daughter go next in my place. My husband,” she swallowed and blinked back tears, “died in the fire.”
Angelina’s heart broke at the look of devastation on the woman’s face. How could she turn the grieving woman down? These people weren’t bad. They just wanted to be healthy like everyone else. This mother was no different than Angelina. She wanted to protect her daughter. The Angelic Realm was wrong about the Nephilim.
“Need rest. Just a few minutes.” As her lids drifted shut, she closed out the people in the room. She would be fine with just a little more time in between healings. She could already feel her energy levels rising.
The forbidding, androgynous voice floated down from above. “Give her some room.”
Someone kicked the hay bales. “Your daughter can’t go next, it’s my turn.”
“You’ll get it.” Tomasz had taken charge again. “But give her a few minutes to re-charge.”
Angelina’s brain lumbered along, concentration difficult. “This won’t heal your larger problem.” Fatigue slurred her words.
“Explain.” Tomasz pushed the people back.
“The virus attacks the Archangel DNA.” She watched the motes dance merrily in the filtered sunlight, such an odd contrast to her somber words. “So it will continue to attack the Nephilim.”
“A slight miscalculation.” Somehow she could see what the voice meant, the images in her head of thousands of strong Nephilim taking control of the earth. That had been the plan. Instead something went wrong and the Nephilim were dying.
“Pretty big miscalculation.”
“We merely need to adjust the larger plan,” the voice said icily. “Tomasz, can you do this on your own now?”
The voice. Almost hypnotic with its intensity and the distorted rumble of sound. Was that Remiel? Who was he, it? Larger plan? What plan? Could this have to do with Uri?
“I am not as strong as her. It will take me a lot longer. Days.”
Angelina ignored Tomasz and focused on the voice. “What plan?”
“I will rise again. When the time is right,” the voice roared. Angelina was bombarded with images of regular humans dying. But she shoved those aside and thought about how they had gotten to this point.
“You wanted Uri in prison?” Was that part of the plan?
“A house divided is a house that falls.”
Angelina swore only she heard the whisper. “But for now, those who know too much must fall with them.”
Tomasz jerked. He had heard it, too.
“Use her.” The voice commanded the people who waited patiently.
As if he compelled them, five leapt at her, “Me next.” They grabbed at her.
Instinctively, Angelina blocked the Vis viva from healing but she didn’t know how long she could hold off.
The anticipation coming from the loft was nearly palpable, as if the entity knew something she didn’t. Her mind began the healing without thought, without her permission. She could see what needed to be done and her physical responses were so far gone she couldn’t control her motor function. Her brain was so overloaded that she couldn’t stop the healing process any more than she could will herself to stop breathing.
She was doomed.
Rafe! She called to him once again. He needed to protect her children.
And still she resisted the groping hands, and tried to close her mind. More of the mob surged toward her. There was no way to stop them. Hands touched her, tugging at her arms, legs.
“You can’t make me.” Angelina sounded like her son. Her children. And then she realized she was appealing to the wrong entity. “This won’t stop the virus from spreading,” she cried to the crowd accosting her.
Suddenly she was flat against the barn wall, her arms pinned beside her head, wrists exposed.
One of the larger slivers from the floor shot through the air and slammed through the Angel mark on her forearm. At first, she felt nothing. Then searing heat radiated out from the Angel mark, and spread insidiously. It crept along her veins, moving inexorably closer to her heart.
FORTY
Rafe’s pain and rage didn’t last. The need to see her, talk to her, convince her burned in his blood. He couldn’t reconcile his Angelina with Nathan’s words. Not anymore. A week ago maybe. But not now.
Rafe reached for her, searching the globe for her energy. But he couldn’t find her life force anywhere. He translocated to Brandt, Lina and Janine but they hadn’t had any contact with her. He visited her house and lay on her bed and wondered where in the hell she was.
He didn’t understand it.
It was as if she’d vanished. And that wasn’t right. She couldn’t be completely gone.
The hope and renewal of faith he’d thought destroyed by her defection came roaring back. She had to be out there somewhere. But he needed help to find her.
Rafe translocated to the Realm prison. Uri was in the minimum security section. The cells looked like small Archangel chambers and were protected by an energy field. The entire Universe was constructed of energy. The prison used an energy disrupter to prohibit the Realm inhabitants from escaping. The disrupter effectively rendered everyone impotent against the grid.
“Uri.” Rafe pounded futilely on the electric grid wall.
Shit.
He had tried everything he could think of to locate Angelina but she was gone. Usually all he needed to do was connect with his Angel’s psyche and he could pinpoint their location. But her mind was missing. And the lack of her presence was causing him to go a little crazy.
Suddenly he realized he’d forgotten a very important piece of information. There was a traitor in the Realm.
“What’s wrong?” Uri called from inside the cell. He couldn’t see Rafe but he could hear him just fine.
“I need your help.” Rafe pressed his palms flat against the energy field. The electricity burned his skin.
“What is that smell?” Uri bitched.
“Me.” Rafe laughed harshly. “If I’m on fire, they have to come check right?”
“Are you crazy?” Uri shouted.
“Angelina is gone,” Rafe said starkly.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I c
an’t find her anywhere.” Rafe’s heart thudded so hard the walls of his chest were shaking. “I’m afraid the traitor took her.”
The sickness that accompanied that thought threatened to explode from him.
“You love her.” Uri sounded surprised.
“Of course I do, you idiot.” Rafe dropped his head into hands. “I didn’t contemplate breaking the Realm rules for a simple roll in the sack.”
“I, I should have realized,” Uri stammered.
Rafe snorted. “I have to find her. Save her. Angelina is un ange avec le pouvoir déviant. She can’t be dead.”
Nora shimmered to corporeal form.
“You heard me?” Rafe snarled.
She glanced furtively at Uri’s cell. “Ah, I heard you needed counsel.”
“I don’t freaking need counsel,” he snapped. “I need to go find her.”
“What if it is a trap?” Nora pressed her palms together.
“I’ll be careful.”
Nora sighed. “I cannot let you go alone.”
“Fine,” Rafe said. “Let me take Uri.”
“Why Uriel?”
“Because,” he is my friend. But even more important, “They engineered his imprisonment. For some reason, they don’t want him to be able to use his powers.”
Nora was quiet, as if weighing the validity of his words against the knowledge that they had compiled about their enemy. Finally she answered, “I believe you are correct.”
“I’ll be able to bind the fallen if that is indeed who has her,” Uri added.
“Let’s go.”
“There is danger in this path. For both of you.”
Rafe refuted, “And as long as she is safe, I don’t care.”
He finally understood the human compulsion to protect their own. To put the needs of one above the needs of the many. “I will do anything to save her.”
“You would sacrifice your own existence for love?” Nora asked softly.
“I already have,” Rafe replied. “I finally understand what you tried to tell me when this whole thing began. I understand humans better. I would level worlds to keep her safe.”
“You picked a most unreasonable time to come to that understanding.” Nora nodded. “So be it.”
“Thank you.” Rafe bowed deeply to honor Nora and her decision. “I am in your debt.”
The walls of the grid disappeared from Uri’s cell. Uri held still, staring at Nora, neither of them speaking, time suspended.
“Be safe,” Nora whispered. Even in his haste to leave, Rafe was pretty sure she meant Uri.
“Where are we going?” Uri asked.
The walls of the grid. The energy that held Uri in place had disintegrated. Suddenly Rafe knew how to find Angelina. “We need to follow her energy trail.”
Rafe opened his heart and searched for her trail, tracing her from his chambers. They translocated to a deserted farmhouse.
“You take upstairs, I’ll take down.”
Uri clomped up the steps as Rafe ran through the rooms, but the only place he could find a hint of Angelina was on the ragged front porch swing. She wasn’t there now. But she had been in the last few hours. And then he observed the energy trail with hers. “Nathan.”
Uri leaned against the doorframe, his chest heaving. “Your assistant?”
Rafe realized that prissy, uptight, rule-following Nathan must have brought her to this farmhouse. Just as he’d probably taken her to the next place. The fact that her energy was missing had to mean Nathan was the traitor. The why would have to wait. Where was far more important. Rafe mentally traced her next leap.
“Back to Poland?”
“Poland again.” Uri blinked.
The scene of the fire. What the hell was going on? Rafe readied for the leap. He paused, staring at the dusty floor and the scuff of footprints. “I will not come back without her.”
FORTY-ONE
Angelina was dying. She could sense her life force slipping away.
A disturbance rippled the air. Rafe appeared in the doorway to the barn. He tried to enter but an invisible wall held him back. “No!” he roared.
“You can come no further,” Tomasz said his face a white mask.
Rafe’s anguished gaze stared at the wood spike through her Angel’s mark. He couldn’t heal this wound. She could see the truth.
“Uri, get these people out of the barn. Now.”
Uri called to the villagers. Even though he couldn’t breach the inside of the barn, he could convince the villagers to leave. “My friends, please, I implore you to leave this barn.” Almost as if in a trance, they filed out the barn door, and left only Tomasz and Angelina inside.
“Show Tomasz how to mutate the chickens to kill normal humans and I’ll allow him entrance into the barn,” the evil voice commanded.
That was the change in the plan. Whoever was in the loft was going to try to kill regular humans.
“It’s impossible.” Rafe pounded at the ward. “The chicken DNA cannot be changed or healed by Angels. Only conditions can be healed.”
“Then she is out of time.”
Angelina lifted her gaze to Rafe with a plea. “Kill me now.”
“I cannot.” He shook his head.
“It’s not forbidden,” she rasped. “I saw you.”
“It’s not forbidden.” Rafe laughed bitterly. “It would break my heart. I can’t lose you.”
“Let her go,” Tomasz yelled to the loft.
Rafe turned on Tomasz. “You dare to kill her the way your father was killed?”
“What?” Tomasz denied, “No. My father died in the fire.”
“Your father was stabbed through his Angel’s mark,” Rafe sneered. “Most likely by the one who did this to Angelina.”
Death slowly tugged at her consciousness.
“No. That’s.” His tormented gaze shifted toward the loft. “Not possible.”
Angelina saw Rafe throw himself against the invisible wall. He stabbed the space with his dagger, but he could not pierce it. He tried to use healing energy to punch a hole, but that didn’t work, either. The ward was just as effective as the energy disrupter prison.
Angelina’s vision blurred and her head drooped. “You’re only a pawn in a larger war.”
“Is that truly how he died?” Tomasz shifted his gaze back and forth between Angelina and Rafe.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Let me in,” Rafe raged from the doorway.
“You healed the villagers.” Tomasz held her gaze with his, except his image kept wavering. “Why?”
It was getting harder and harder to concentrate. Death crept closer to her heart. “They are as worthy as anyone else.”
With a cry of rage, Tomasz rushed toward the ladder to the loft. There was a soft pop as barrier broke. Angelina sensed the presence was gone.
Rafe rushed in. But it was too late for her. “I love you,” she said softly to Rafe.
“I love you too.”
“Brandt, Lina, my sister, you need to take care of them. Protect them.”
“What have I done?” Tomasz dropped to the ground.
“Uri, get in here,” Rafe yelled.
“What the hell took so long?” Uri stopped dead at the sight of Angelina slowly dying from the spike through her Angel mark.
“I couldn’t get through the ward to get to her,” Rafe said. The ward had been uncommonly strong.
Uri ignored Tomasz slumped over on the ground, gasping, and asked Rafe, “Can she be saved?”
“I don’t know.” Rafe was afraid the answer would be no. “But first we have to get out of here. You have to go after the energy trail from the loft.”
“Why?”
“I believe it was Remiel.”
Uri nodded. “You take care of Angelina and I’ll go try to capture and bind the rogue Archangel.”
Rafe translocated them back to the Angelic Realm and into his chamber. He lay her down gently on his bed, and examined the spike, fearing it was hopeless. He k
new of no way to stop death from claiming her.
FORTY-TWO
“Rafe?”
“I’ve got you, Carus.”
Rafe lay down next to Angelina on the soft velvet comforter, and clasped her frigid hands in his. With trembling fingertips, he pressed the fine vein at her wrist, searching for her pulse. Sluggish and uneven. He hated the way her blood was moving through her body.
He held his hands over her and went deep into her body. But with the wood through her Angel mark, her energy had turned on her. The only thing holding off certain death was the Latifa ceremony that Victor had performed.
She blinked slowly. “Didn’t think I’d be back here.”
Damn it, damn it. “Why didn’t you call sooner?”
“Tried.” She passed out again.
A regular healing would not work. This was life or death. She was uncommonly strong. Rafe could think of only one thing that might work. They needed as much skin-to-skin contact as physically possible. Rafe willed the clothes from her body and his own. Wrapping his arms around her unresponsive body, he twined their legs together, and pressed his hot body against hers. Rafe attempted to neutralize the excess positive energy into positive, and eliminate the threat.
He ran his hands over her back and up her neck, and then gripped her face in his palms and stared at her as if he could will her back to consciousness. “Wake up, damn it.”
An empty chill spread throughout his body as she remained unresponsive and limp in his arms. He refused to lose her, refused to let her soul be extinguished. He would not let this happen. Not while he still had breath in his body. He roared a silent howl of rage and denial, and rolled so he was underneath her.
Her breasts pressed into the rigid walls of his chest and her arms hung limply along his sides. He forced a kiss to her stiff and frozen lips, like a man possessed. He refused to let her go. He traced the familiar lines of her face, the delicate arch of her brow, the sweep of her lashes against high cheekbones, and the strong feminine bow of her lips with his fingertips.
Her hips lay within the cradle of his.