by Nalini Singh
“It will not matter if he wins the battle there if he is left to fight Lijuan alone.” Caliane pursed her lips. “I spoke to him personally before these new ways of communication stopped working and made it clear the war must be won before we can begin to fight lesser battles.”
Elena spoke into the small silence that followed Caliane’s words. “I don’t suppose any of you sank a ship full of reborn?”
Everyone but Titus shook their heads.
Ah well, Archangel. One out of three isn’t bad.
69
The war room burned with so much power that the tiny hairs on Elena’s arms stood straight up. Vivek wouldn’t even go near the knot of angry archangels. “Cadre’s fucking terrifying as a group,” he muttered to Elena when she came to get some information for the discussion. “You get my balls of iron award for this century.”
It was as she was walking back to the Cadre that the salt-laced sea crashed into her mind. Alexander has just been spotted entering the territory, together with Zanaya.
Every single archangel in the world would soon be in Manhattan.
When it was time, the two of them excused themselves to go welcome the Archangel of Persia and the newly awakened Ancient. Zanaya, stunning in a way that slapped you in the face then wrapped around you with sensual grace, gave Elena the once-over.
“A mortal turned angel,” she said, her lips soft and full, and her body clad in a simple black wrap that barely brushed her thighs. “How extraordinary. And such wings.”
A statement like that could be made or lost on tone, and Zanaya’s lyrically accented one held only wondering astonishment. Elena felt a bit like an interesting bug, but not one the Ancient wanted to squash. She went to compliment Zanaya on her sword—it was serious metal, not a pretty toy—when her gaze was caught by a rippling light beyond. “The sea aurora’s back.”
Zanaya’s lips tilted up. “Qin’s legend, that is what we called it in child tales. An old one. Will he rise, do you think?”
“He does or he doesn’t,” Alexander snapped. “We must prepare for battle.”
Leaving the lovely beauty of the sea aurora to play out on the water, they walked into the war room. Do you think Lijuan will try to attack this Qin? Elena asked Raphael.
It will be madness on her part. His aurora may play there, but it does not mean he Sleeps directly beneath.
“I left my territory overrun by reborn to come here.” Alexander met the violent blue of Caliane’s gaze across Dmitri’s strategy table. “We must end this here and quickly.”
Dude has no idea, Elena muttered to Raphael a half hour later, while Aegaeon spoke about how they could take Lijuan if they all worked together.
He is used to fighting ordinary foes, and even the experience in India cannot change the imprint laid by millennia. Raphael nodded at Dmitri and the drop-down screen opened up. “Before we go any further, you should all watch this.”
It was a replay of their last two encounters with Lijuan. The replay was choppy, the footage cobbled together from various surveillance and spy cameras, but it told a chilling tale.
“That is the fire with which you made her retreat in the past?” Astaad asked, dark eyes intent and hands braced on the edge of the table; his biceps were bunched, the sleek muscle of him evident for the first time since Elena had met him.
“Yes,” Raphael confirmed. “And this”—another glance at Dmitri—“is how she refuels herself and rises again, glutted with power.”
The flesh mountain came into view, squirming with life. Dmitri had chosen the footage from the very first feeding, as it was the clearest. It showed Lijuan going from wounded to a healthy glow while her people shriveled into desiccated mummies. The other archangels said nothing for a long time after the last frame blinked out.
It was Zanaya who broke the silence, her stunning face solemn within the frame of silver hair washed with purple. “Can this being she has become be killed?”
“All we can do is try.” Caliane’s quiet statement held resolve. “The only other option is to swear allegiance to the goddess she believes herself to be and watch the world drown in death.”
Her appetite will never be satisfied, child of mortals. She will feed . . . feed . . . feed into her reign of death.
Elena staggered at the old voice that had entered her head without warning. Vestiges of Sleep lingered in Cassandra’s tone, but they were only remnants. The Ancient was awake or very close to it.
Elena. The sea crashing into her mind, the salt-laced waves powerful. What is it?
Cassandra’s newly awake. She took a discreet step back from the table, then another. Let me see if I can talk to her.
Raphael’s eyes flicked over her head. Her owls await you on the balcony. Go. I will ensure no one in the Cadre notices.
Elena slipped away to join the lovely snowy birds with golden eyes, while Raphael stayed with the other archangels. Hannah, the only one who probably would’ve noticed her retreat, was with the injured members of Elijah’s army.
Prophecy of mine. A brush of thought against her that felt like a smile. You altered destiny. You are whole.
Elena’s heart clenched at the open joy in the Ancient’s voice. Thanks for the assist along the way. Cassandra had come through in the end. Elena didn’t hold her delay in doing so against her—to change the mind of a being so old required a tectonic shift.
I don’t suppose you can give us a heads-up on the final battle? One way or another, it would end the next time Lijuan rose. After that, they had no more aces in the hole, no more Legion, no more power.
The threads are too tangled. A sigh. In the center is a mirror that distorts the images on the other side. I cannot see what will be. I see only a chaos of possibilities. I see death. I see life. I see a mockery of both.
Elena stilled. The mirror. Is there anything special about it?
A long pause but she didn’t think Cassandra was gone—not when the white owls preened their feathers on the edge of the balcony.
The mirror changes that which it is given, Cassandra said at last. It does not reflect the truth but it does not lie. It is . . . a channel.
Elena asked the question different ways, brought Raphael into the discussion, too, but that was all the Ancient could tell them. Cassandra sighed before her mind faded once more.
Elena met Raphael’s eyes as she walked back into the war room, the endless blue a familiar shock. You think she’ll join us for the battle? Cassandra had already altered her pattern of behavior once by acting to help change the future.
Ancients are difficult to predict. Even if she does, it may not be enough to balance the scales of power.
Elena nodded, her jaw tight. Because this time, the Cascade might’ve outplayed itself by giving one player a seemingly unbeatable ability.
How could you win against an enemy who could regenerate at rapid speed?
“. . . happened to Antonicus,” Neha was saying when Elena quietly rejoined the group. “Simply being an Ancient, with powerful energies, will not protect you.” Her eyes were trained on Aegaeon. “Don’t be an arrogant fool.”
The Ancient’s nostrils flared, the blue-green of his hair liquid silk around his harshly handsome face. “Remember to whom you speak, girl. I was a ruler before you were ever a thought.”
Illium’s father is an asshole. She couldn’t see how their bright, beautiful, beloved Bluebell had come from this man. Yeah, fine, the wild blue feathers had definitely had their genesis in Aegaeon—the streaks of blue in the predominantly sea green hue of the Ancient’s wings were identical to Bluebell’s, but that appeared to be his sole contribution. What the hell did the Hummingbird see in him?
Aegaeon was well known for his ability to seduce women. I am told that, in the beginning, he was often a different man with the Hummingbird, as you say Dmitri is with Honor.
I’ll deny it until I�
��m blue in the face if you tell Dmitri this, but there’s no comparison. He’s a prince in contrast to this pompous ass.
Despite all their powerful clashing personalities, the Cadre managed to come up with a battle plan by the time dawn’s light touched the sky. Elena had made herself do the sensible thing and gone to bed to catch some rest so she could be at her best when morning broke. As it was, she returned in time to hear their decision.
The first was one Raphael had already made: to begin the battle on their terms, not Lijuan’s. “The tiredness of our troops is no longer a handicap. Not when we have all of you.” He looked around the table, his hands braced on the side and his wings held neatly to his back. “Even the sheer numbers at her disposal can’t outweigh the power of ten archangels, four of them Ancients.”
His next words were cold with power, demanding attention. “If there is a risk that you will be taken by the enemy and rescue is unlikely, do what must be done. We cannot know how strong she’ll become if she feeds on an archangel.”
Aegaeon banged his fist on the table, scattering the markers they’d just laid out as they discussed the battle plan. “You truly believe she would dare cross that line?”
“She turned children into infected vampires,” Neha spit out. “There is no line she will not cross.”
No one had anything to say to that.
“Two hours until we strike.” Raphael pushed off the table, rose to his full height. “Prepare for battle.”
70
Titus was glorious to watch. The Archangel of Southern Africa had planted his booted feet on the ground on this side of the front, his wings spread wide and his golden breastplate gleaming even in the dull morning light that got through the snow-heavy clouds. The equally gold “tattoo” that had formed on his skin was visible only in glimpses on his thickly muscled shoulders and equally impressive biceps.
His roughly hewn and square-jawed face was set in a glower that dared the other side to shoot anything at him.
The man was beautiful—and also a little arrogant, Elena thought with a grin. She was on a nearby rooftop, her crossbow pointed at one of those on the other side who might try to take out Titus’s wings. She fired just as she saw a hand go to press the trigger. More crossbows and guns fired all around her.
A roar of sound, Titus’s growl rising to the skies as he lifted up both his uninjured arm and his splinted one. And rained down hell.
The road lifted up under the feet of the enemy, cracking and rippling as if it was a river. Buildings shook hard. Glass that had survived the earlier detonations shattered. The quake seemed to go on forever, sending angels into the sky—butterflies disturbed from a tree. Dust blurred the landscape, floating up to further dull the turgid gray skies.
Ice, hard and biting, sleeted from the clouds at that very instant, pounding at the angels who’d taken off. Neha couldn’t totally control the area hit, so their side also got a dose of frigid cold, but they were prepared for it. Clothing, gloves, cap, Elena was dressed for the heart of winter.
Howling mini-tornados whacked into the angels on the other side on the heels of the ice, taking them down like dominos. Zanaya was not playing.
Neither was Alexander: every bit of metal on the ground on the enemy side began to liquefy even as the angels fell. Alexander couldn’t affect things that weren’t touching the ground—so the weapons held by fighters would survive, as would any that were stored in buildings or crates that protected them from direct contact with the earth.
But Alexander wasn’t targeting the weapons anyway.
At first, all Elena saw was a fire hydrant that melted, spraying water everywhere . . . but then the buildings that were still standing began to shake, as the metal rods within started to quiver and fail.
Ground fighters looked up at those precariously swaying buildings, their eyes huge.
Waves rose from the water on the other side, smashing into the shore and washing away vampires and reborn and fallen angels before the waves sucked back out with unbeatable force, taking anyone on the ground out to sea. Astaad and Aegaeon had to be careful how far they pushed things, because too much water and it’d wash away their own side, but the two seemed to have calculated it just right.
They’d had Caliane standing by to create a shield to protect their own, but it wasn’t needed. Michaela had been told to stay back, keep her power in reserve for a direct strike against Lijuan, while Elijah hung to the far back, his job to protect their flank until Lijuan was sighted—in case the Archangel of China decided to pull another noncorporeal ambush.
Raphael waited for Lijuan.
As with all archangelic powers, the Cadre couldn’t keep this up endlessly, but when the ground stopped shaking and the rain and ice stopped, and the tornados halted, the seas retreating, Lijuan’s forces were in disarray. Buildings had collapsed into melted shapes straight out of a Salvador Dali painting. Roads no longer existed.
A massive chunk of the ground troops had disappeared into the ocean, as had large numbers of angels who’d been battered to the ground. Yet their sheer numbers meant a vast army remained.
They fought back with devoted fury.
Lijuan’s surviving generals shot waves of obsidian fire, each one aiming themself at an archangel. After having injured Elijah, they knew they could disable the Cadre; take out enough archangels and New York lost any advantage it had in launching the attack now, before Lijuan was ready.
Raphael had planned to seed the sky with wildfire to try to unmask her, but live battle had a way of interfering with strategic plans; too many of their own fighters fought at too many different elevations in the sky. Elena sent up a prayer to any actual gods that Lijuan hadn’t fed enough to go noncorporeal.
Her prayers went unheard.
Elena had just shot out the wings of an enemy angel who was trying to hack at Aodhan’s wings when Lijuan appeared without warning behind Zanaya. It also put the Archangel of China at the farthest point from Raphael. Archangel!
Even as he reacted to make it to that location, Lijuan grabbed Zanaya by the upper arms and bit down on her neck. Zanaya twisted with a snarl, attempting to reach for her sword and kicking back with her feet as mini-tornados appeared around Lijuan . . . but then her body seemed to slow down, her reactions stiffen.
The tornados faded.
Lijuan was sucking the life out of an Ancient and doing it at vicious speed.
Elena willed her body to go there, help Zanaya, but the speed still didn’t work with archangels.
Though Raphael arrived at the location of the attack in a matter of seconds, his wings pure white fire, Lijuan turned noncorporeal again before he could hit her with wildfire . . . and Zanaya fell from the sky, her wings crumpled and her body far smaller than it should’ve been. Alexander caught her partway, cradling her close as he flew her toward the Tower.
Elena’s heart pounded. Archangel, how do we find her? She could be at any elevation, at any location. Always before, she’d had a single target. Now she had many. Raphael couldn’t spread his wildfire that wide without wasting the one weapon that might halt the Queen of Death.
Wildfire ringed his hands. I must remain within equal distance of as many of the Cadre as I can.
Lijuan appeared beside Alexander.
Raphael threw wildfire in her direction without a single hesitation. It hit, crackling energy through her system, but she went noncorporeal a heartbeat later. And Raphael realized that feeding on Zanaya had done what they feared; it had supercharged her.
Thank you for bringing me so much POWER! Laughter in Lijuan’s mental voice, a kind of girlish delight that was disturbing in its facsimile of innocence.
She appeared behind Neha this time, but Galen—nearby—bought the Archangel of India a moment to react by slicing his broadsword down toward Lijuan’s neck. She flicked him away and the heavily built weapons-master smashed into a building, but that m
inor delay gave Neha a critical second to turn. She struck out with the curved edge of one kukri blade, managed a deep slice across Lijuan’s cheek.
A flap of skin and flesh slapped against her jaw, a wet red hole where her cheek should be. Blood splurted out . . . then vanished. The wound had closed by the time Raphael threw wildfire in her direction. She laughed and was gone before the wildfire hit her, and the bolt exploded into a knot of fighters, taking out several from both sides.
Raphael’s rage was a cold thing with a heart of fire. This was always her endgame.
Perhaps she’d intended to “absorb” the Cadre one by one, but they’d served themselves to her on a platter. She didn’t have to consider anything else beyond her urge to feed. She certainly didn’t care that her troops were dying under waves of archangelic power. She would have more people once she owned the world. Mortals, vampires, angels, all were disposable to her. Galen? Are you down?
Few broken bones but not enough to take me out of the battle. Go toward Astaad. He’s the most vulnerable right now.
Astaad was fighting alone against three of Lijuan’s generals. It looked like he’d taken a hit of obsidian rain on his right forearm. The arm dragged, numbed and possibly eaten away with infection, but he continued to do battle, taking out one general as Raphael flew toward him. This time when Lijuan reappeared, Raphael was close enough to hit her, but though her face contorted at the wildfire strike, the skeletal understructure glowing into focus, she was still able to go noncorporeal.
She didn’t appear again for five long minutes, giving neither him nor Galen any way to predict her actions. When she did, it was behind Astaad once more. He had Michaela by him, but though she reacted rapidly, her bronze lightning smashing into Lijuan’s shoulder, Lijuan dragged Astaad close . . . and both disappeared.
Raphael, fuck.
Yes, Guild Hunter. We are in trouble.
Both archangels reappeared in the sky moments later, not far from where she’d first taken Astaad.