by Nalini Singh
“I don’t suppose we can fly a jet out there and punch a few holes in the ship using grenade launchers?” Elena folded her arms, her booted feet set wide. “I mean, there’re no rules about how you get to a battle, right? Lijuan used submarines.”
“I thought about that,” Dmitri said, “but she’s ahead of us.” Minimizing the feed from enemy territory, he flicked up another image.
It was of the ruins of a jet, its wings broken off and its fuselage cracked in half as it lay on the tarmac. Elena recognized the paint job. “Dougal, the others?” she whispered.
“As far as I know, the planes were empty.” A glance at Raphael. “Images were hand-delivered by one of Jason’s people. I didn’t want to interrupt whatever was going on that had you turning the sky the color of a nice blood wine.”
“Xi must’ve sent out a stealth team under cover of darkness.” Raphael sounded cool, clearheaded. “Did she hit all our planes?”
“I don’t have a report from the secondary airport, but chances are high. I had to pull protection from both airports when we saw the size of Lijuan’s army—it’s why I told all pilots and airfield crews to evacuate to housing a short distance away.”
“You made the right call. We had no way of knowing the ships were en route.”
“Did they attack nearby civilians?” Elena was deeply conscious of the vulnerability of her friends and family.
“No, it was a targeted strike.”
“Lijuan might be mad, but she remains a goddess in her mind,” Raphael murmured. “Goddesses do not win battles by attacking the weak.”
“She did and is doing horrible things to her people.”
“But they are her people, Elena. To her, that means they belong to her, to do with as she wishes.” Raphael looked once more at the images of the broken planes. “What are the chances Xi will launch a major assault during the hours of darkness that remain?”
“Naasir’s been skulking around out there and managed to pick up some high-level chatter. Together with what we’re getting from Vivek’s technological spies, I’d say it’s low to negligible. My feeling is they’re waiting for the reinforcements to arrive. With that and Lijuan at full power, that’s it. Game over in a single strike.”
“That is exactly what I would do were I running Lijuan’s war room.” Raphael looked out beyond the glass, to the fires on the various rooftops. “We must make the assault before they are ready, but when our people are not so exhausted. In the interim, I must think on how we can kill an archangel who appears to have become truly immortal.”
* * *
• • •
First, however, the two of them flew over their side of the city and landed on those rooftops and streets nearest where they’d lost ground. They met with the troops who’d been so badly demoralized by that loss, and whose faces now lit up at seeing the power burning off both of them.
Izzy’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Coming closer, he reached out a finger to Elena’s arm, hovered.
“Go on,” she said. “I should warn you I have no idea what will happen.”
The warriors around him looked even more intrigued. Izzy was undeterred. “I’m part of your Guard, Ellie. Your power won’t hurt me.” He touched his finger to a section of her skin that held tributaries of liquid gold. The gold twined around his finger for a second before returning to her and continuing on in its business.
He dropped his hand, his smile a thing of beauty. “See? Your power knows me.”
Patting his cheek because seriously, he was the most adorable adult angel she knew, she said, “Long as you don’t steal the last slice of pizza like you did last time. Then all bets are off.”
As his friends laughed and slapped him on the back, the sky continued to swirl blood red, and Elena knew the power in Raphael’s veins was bedding in, becoming a permanent part of his cells.
Later, back in the suite, their first goal was to be clean.
“I have dirt on top of my dirt,” she muttered, but it wasn’t a true complaint. No soldier cared about being clean when those few minutes might mean the fall of their city. This time was a luxury.
Soon as they’d stripped, Raphael scooped her up in his arms, her wings lightning and fire around them, and took her straight to the bath. Steam rose from the top of it.
“I swear, Montgomery has better spies than Jason.” She sighed as Raphael lowered her into the bath before following her in. It was a place where they often played, but not today. Today, it was about scrubbing off the dirt while their wings brushed against each other and their legs touched.
Afterward, they jumped in the shower for a final rinse. That was when Raphael lifted her up by the hips and pinned her to the wall. They came together in a hot, hard fury, a moment stolen on the eve of a battle where all could be won . . . or lost.
No foreplay, no teasing, just the raw need to be one.
Limp against him in the aftermath, she sighed when he pressed a kiss to her shoulder. They took a long second more to be together, to find strength in one another before they drew apart and began to dry off.
They didn’t dress in full combat gear, but put on enough that they could be on the battlefield in a matter of seconds should it be necessary. Clean, ready, they lay down in bed, Elena’s head on Raphael’s chest and her wings sprawled over him in a dance of lightning, while he cupped her nape with his hand, his thumb stroking absently.
They talked about Lijuan and about the knowledge the Legion had tried to give them, attempting to make sense of a shattered kaleidoscope of memories. Elena fell asleep at some point; her exhausted body still felt very mortal at times. When she woke, it was to a reddish light falling through the balcony doors they’d left uncurtained all night.
Raphael remained in bed with her and awake, his free arm bent behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. His other arm was yet wrapped around her. He was warm and strong and smelled like home—and the glow of power burned from his skin.
“Mirrors and channels,” he said, picking up their conversation as if she hadn’t conked out in the middle of it. “Let us recap our thoughts, hbeebti: mirrors reflect objects and light, but a certain kind of mirror can make light stronger, too, focus it.”
Elena yawned, her brain fuzzy. “Gimme a minute to throw some water on my face.” It took more like five, but she was refreshed by the time she returned to the room. “What time is it?” It had been long enough for her own glow to disappear, though her veins did turn to liquid gold now and then without warning.
“Seven in the morning.”
She poked her head out the balcony doors. In the distance was a gray sky that might mean it was raining out there, but directly above . . . “Raphael, the bloodstorm sky is still swirling away above the Tower.” A slow-moving cyclone with a heart of red so dark it was black.
“I know.” Raphael’s voice was a little absent. “I decided to let the enemy wonder what exactly is happening to me.”
“Excellent evil plan.” Going back to the bed, she took a cross-legged position facing him. “How about an experiment? Throw a little power at me.”
When he did, the energy sank into her, only to release back into him the instant she made contact. “I guess that’s a mirroring effect in a way, but I don’t think that’s what the Legion meant.”
She pressed her fingers to her temples, squeezed her eyes shut. “I have fragmented images of massive explosions, of power narrowing to a single point . . . and a sense of things being made . . . bigger. Does that make sense?”
“The Legion want us to do something that magnifies power.” Raphael sat up, the sheet pooling at his waist and his bare chest a seduction.
But no matter how they approached it, they couldn’t find the truth hidden in the Legion’s enigmatic words—or in the memories the Primary had tried to pass on. The only thing that was indisputable was that even wildfire could only
injure Lijuan now. If they did what they’d done before, they’d waste the Legion’s sacrifice for no final outcome. Yet doing nothing wasn’t an option.
When they rose not long afterward, Elena ate, then flew across to the front line to relieve a gunner who’d stayed up overnight. “I’ll take the day,” she told him. “Get some rest, and you need blood, too.” The male was too pale, his face thinner than was his normal.
When he protested that he was fine, she pointed out that he’d be useless as a gunner if he fainted mid-shot.
“I do not faint.” Arms folded, eyes narrowed, affront in every breath.
Jeez, four-hundred-year-old vamps could be so tetchy. “Then do it for me,” she said. “I need to feel useful.”
“Consort, no one could ask more from you.” Arms unfolding, his expression earnest. “You fight by our side every day.”
Despite his response, her words did convince him to take the break. That done, she turned her attention to another vampire. “You, too.” She pointed a finger. “Take the time while things are quiet. It’s all going to go to hell sooner rather than later.”
Setting down her weapon, the experienced vampire with whom Elena regularly played poker, sniffed at her. “Ellie, did you have a shower?” A gasp.
Elena waved her hand from her body toward the other woman. “Smell my lemony freshness. You, too, can have this scent if you leave before Her Evilness wakes.”
“I’m gone.”
Seeing that others who’d taken a rest break were arriving to relieve the remainder of the night watch, she settled in to her spot. It was raining on this side of the city, but the thin drizzle didn’t penetrate her jacket or pants. She’d walked up to this roof after landing lower down on a balcony invisible to Lijuan’s forces. At which point, she’d retracted her wings and covered her hair under a black knit cap.
The energy fissures didn’t often happen on her face, so if she kept the knit cap snugged down and her hands in her gloves, no one from Lijuan’s side should make her. Should that change, she’d return to the Tower.
She was here to help, not draw danger down on their troops.
Raphael, meanwhile, was in a meeting with Elijah and Michaela. The three archangels needed to make strategic plans about how best to utilize their energies in battle. For one, while it was clear Michaela could hurt Lijuan a little, her strikes would have more impact if she waited until Raphael had softened up the goddess of fricking zombies with wildfire.
They couldn’t afford to waste any advantage.
A strange calm hung over the city. A shooter would fire a potshot from Lijuan’s side every so often, and Raphael’s side would retaliate, but for the most part, things were eerie in their stillness.
Everyone was waiting for the last battle.
68
Raphael was standing on the Tower roof under the moonless night sky, watching his consort fly home after a long day spent as a gunner, when he received an unexpected message from Aodhan. Sire. Unless my eyes deceive me, Titus is heading your way.
Given Aodhan’s current position, that was the wrong direction for the Archangel of Southern Africa to have flown to New York, but then, he must have known or guessed that Lijuan controlled the other approach. Communications hadn’t become problematic until well after Lijuan’s initial assault.
Continue to watch, Raphael ordered. Report if anything appears untoward. He swept off the Tower roof, his wings slicing through the chill night air. Eli, it’s possible Titus may be closing in on the city. Will you stand sentry while I head that way?
Consider it done.
He angled his wings so his flight path would intersect with Elena’s. Come, hbeebti. We may be about to welcome an old friend.
Her face lit up when he shared the news.
The night air was cold over their bodies as they flew on, but only Elena’s wings glowed against the black. The energy fissures in her skin had stopped around midday, the same time that the glow began to fade from his body.
Their cells had absorbed the energies, made it their own. They would be the strongest they’d ever been when the war drums beat again.
A shadowy presence in the distance that resolved into large wings, an angel in flight.
“Well met, stripling!” boomed a familiar voice not long afterward.
“My old teacher, it is good to see you.” They clasped forearms in the way of warriors.
“Titus, you’re hurt.” Elena’s eyes were on the splint on Titus’s other arm, the bandage wrapped around it dusty from his travels. Raphael knew it must’ve been a very bad break for Titus to have allowed it to be splinted.
“That dog’s excrement of an archangel was rotting from the inside at the end—his breath was foul and putrid—but he got in a lucky blow,” Titus muttered—at Titus volume, which was a low boom. “He broke it to pebbles. It’s healing, but I will be one-armed for some days.”
That wasn’t the only damage. The usually smooth near-black of Titus’s skin was baby pink on one side of his face when he angled his head, though his eye had escaped injury. It will all heal, Raphael reassured his hunter, aware of her feelings for the archangel. His body has focused on the worst wound first. The facial damage is superficial.
It’s just hard to see Titus of all people hurt.
Yes.
“You fly strongly,” Raphael said aloud, conscious that was what would matter to this generous and honest archangel in whose army he’d once been a green recruit.
“I shoot well, too.” Titus’s smile was a slash of white in his face. “I saw a ship on my flight here. It was crawling with that infectious filth my once wise friend Lijuan calls the reborn. It is now at the bottom of the ocean.”
“Titus, I think I want to kiss you.”
Elena’s declaration had Titus throwing open his arms. Laughing, Raphael’s consort went into them and planted a kiss on the other archangel’s uninjured cheek. “Your wings . . .” Titus stared at the brilliant stormfire. “New things are not always good, but this I like.”
“Come on,” Elena said. “You need to rest, eat. You flew a long way.”
“I would’ve been here earlier, but I had to wipe that bearer of disease, that betrayer of honor, that putrid pustule, off the face of this earth.”
“Charisemnon is dead?” Raphael asked, for they couldn’t afford mistakes on this point. “There is no doubt?”
“Not a one, young pup. I eliminated his sorry being from existence with angelfire.” He settled in to fly beside Raphael. “I could not bring my army—they would have been too slow and it would have left my people with no assistance in fighting the reborn plague.”
“I would not expect it, Titus.” That the other archangel had come, injured and straight off the field of battle, it was more than enough.
“So, who else has made it?”
“Elijah and Michaela.”
“She’s a beautiful dagger, but she knows her duty. And Elijah has always been a good man. What excuse do the others offer?” He didn’t wait for an answer before booming, “If I am here, they should be here! I had to fight another archangel to do it!”
Sire, I may be hallucinating this time, Aodhan said, but Astaad just dropped out of the clouds. He has another angel with him—A jagged pause. It is Aegaeon.
Raphael stopped. “We may have more company.” He turned, watching the skies until he glimpsed the wings of the Archangel of the Pacific Isles. A deep black where they grew out of his back, Astaad’s wings faded in a gradient to pale gray at the tips—it made him very difficult to see against the night sky. Only the paleness of his skin gave him away.
The angel who flew beside him had far flashier coloring.
“Astaad! You took your time!” Titus called out when the two were close enough. “Did you bathe in dirt on your way here?”
Astaad, his goatee not as neat as usual and his tunic and p
ants a dark brown instead of his preferred white, smiled with the ease of a man long used to Titus’s ways and well able to hold his own. “I see Charisemnon got in a few licks.”
“Hah! You should’ve seen the mongrel dog by the time I got through with him.” Titus clasped forearms with Astaad, while Raphael welcomed Aegaeon out of political necessity. At this point in time, he had to be one of the Cadre, not the young archangel who’d once held a small blue-winged boy’s heartbroken body in his arms.
Astaad then turned to say a personal hello to Elena. “Mele sends her best. She is at home, safe on an island free of noxious contamination.”
The rest of the journey passed quickly, but they landed at the Tower to find Neha and Caliane waiting for them. Neha’s face was smudged with dirt and tired in a way Raphael had never seen it, her dark green leathers dusty. Caliane wore old white leathers, the color now closer to a pale yellow where it wasn’t smudged with dirt and soot.
Both his mother and Neha had their hair in braids at the back of their heads, swords at the hip. Neha took in the landing party. “So, it was Charisemnon who died. Good. Those who betray the Cadre are better off as forgotten fragments of dust.” Right then, Neha was a warrior queen, one who had old blood splattered on her leathers.
“We heard of the situation in your lands,” Astaad said to Neha in his quiet, elegant voice. “It is a horror your people have faced.”
Neha’s mouth firmed into a hard line. “My troops will survive this, and afterward, we will find a way forward. For now, I have left them to come here so we can end this forever. Never again will an archangel dare to use children as battle fodder.”
“It is a breach that will not be forgiven or forgotten,” Caliane added, the echo of nightmares in her eyes. “But my son, do not tell me that Alex has let us down?”
“He fights to save his people,” Raphael said, because he could understand Alexander’s choice even if he didn’t agree with it; it would’ve torn out his heart had he had to leave New York in the same situation.