Archangel's Enigma

41

Naasir and Andromeda were out of bed and about to head out to speak to Tarek when the land bucked with violent fury. Struggling out of the small house, they went to their knees outside. The shaking seemed to go on forever.

“Naasir!”

Following her pointing finger, Naasir looked to the horizon.

Sand spouts burst out of the ground to spiral to the sky, burning a destructive path through the landscape, the lightning so electric and bright that it hurt the eye as it hit over and over and over again.

The shaking stopped with a spine-wrenching jolt, but the clouds above had turned a silvery black that boiled across the sky, turning morning once more into midnight. In the distance, the land cracked, the lava that poured out of it a molten and angry red that crawled across the ground at impossible speed.

Andromeda felt her heart slam into her ribs, but her fear wasn’t enough to make her miss a simple fact. “The village!” she yelled to Naasir over the sounds of the violence. “No lightning strikes within! No sand spouts!” Even the earthquake hadn’t collapsed any buildings.

“Inside!” he yelled and they both retreated.

Shutting the window to cut down the noise, he shoved a hand through his hair. “Something has angered Alexander, but even in his rage, he hasn’t forgotten the wing brothers who protected him these many centuries.”

“Alexander was meant to love his people.” Andromeda’s fingers trembled as she fixed her braid. “Do you think he’s killing them?”

“We’ll have to wait until after this is all over to find out.” Naasir suddenly hissed out a breath. “In protecting this village, he’s put a beacon right over it. Lijuan will know to head for the eye of the storm, will be aware Alexander must be nearby.”

Andromeda picked up her sword. “We should go, see how we can help the wing brothers.”

Nodding, Naasir opened the door again and they walked out into the fierce dust-swirled wind. It didn’t take them long to find the Brotherhood—they were gathered in the large central meeting hall. Since they’d spotted no one else on their way here, not even a face at a window, it appeared the noncombatants had already been moved to safety.

“These are the portents for which we were told to watch,” Tarek informed them. “But it was meant to begin far more gently and be a process that took a year.”

Andromeda considered if she should take another weapon from the wing brothers’ stockpile, decided on a relatively light crossbow. “The enforced speed of the Ancient’s waking means he’s going to be far weaker than he should be when he rises.”

Tarek’s hand fisted.

“If we can distract Lijuan’s troops,” Naasir began, right as the wind and the lightning dropped without warning, the ensuing stillness eerie.

Shaking his head, Naasir started again. “If we can distract Lijuan’s troops, it’ll give him a little more time at least.”

Andromeda didn’t say anything, but they both knew Alexander would still be at a catastrophic disadvantage. From what Andromeda had read in the Archives, when an archangel rose this quickly, he or she was at less than half strength, with little endurance. Lijuan simply had to outlast him and she could kill him when he fell.

“Hide your men and women in the trees and shoot up,” Naasir said. “This assault is all about speed, about reaching Alexander before he gathers his strength—Xi won’t bother waiting for ground troops. It’s going to be nothing but air squadrons.”

“We have weapons for the air.” Tarek’s tone was ruthless. “Buried in the lands around the caves and the village. I didn’t want to activate the weapons with the sands twisting and the ground shaking, but it takes two hours for them to power up.”

Naasir chose his words with care, aware he was talking to a man who was used to running a lethal group. But Naasir had spent centuries working at the side of an archangel; he knew the value of the knowledge in his head. “I’d recommend you do it,” he said, holding the other man’s gaze. “I say that as someone who was in the battle in New York—I know how to fight a winged enemy from the ground if necessary.”

Naasir’s respect for Tarek grew when the leader of the Wing Brotherhood just gave a curt nod before ordering one of his men to start the process to activate the weapons. Turning back to Naasir, the other man said, “Tell us what else you know of fighting against angels.”

Naasir focused on how the wing brothers could maximize their assets—skill, knowledge of the terrain, and the element of surprise. He also told them to utilize their agility by rigging trap lines in the trees using wires so thin they were nearly invisible. Any angel who tried to land would get caught up in it, like an insect in a spider’s web.

“We stand a higher chance of success if we can keep them in the air, especially since you have ground-to-air weapons,” he said once Tarek agreed to the traps. “On the ground, you’ll be fighting one-to-one and Lijuan’s squadrons are full of old angels with unknown and dangerous abilities. Too old to be hampered by their wings.”

“If they do land,” Tarek told his men and women, “shoot for the heart or the head. No warnings. We have to incapacitate as fast as possible.”

“You do have one winged fighter,” Andromeda pointed out.

Naasir glanced at her. At that instant, he was more the experienced and honed commander of an archangel and less a primal chimera. It was a little intimidating.

“Your injuries?” he asked, and though his expression didn’t change, he touched a gentle hand to her primaries.

He was still Naasir, she realized on a wave of love. This was no false skin, just another aspect of his personality. “Healed enough to not be a problem.” Especially if they only wanted her aloft for short bursts. “I’m good with a sword in the air, but I won’t be able to do much damage on my own.”

“You’ll take out the stragglers we manage to corner off.” The feather he’d woven into his hair in a silent, powerful declaration fell forward as he leaned in to cup her jaw and cheek. “Or you’ll drive them down into the booby traps.” His voice took on the faintest edge of a growl. “In between, you stay grounded.”

A sense of urgency beating at her, Andromeda wanted to rise to her toes, press her mouth to his. “How long do you think we have?”

A dusty scout, his cheeks burned by the driving sand, tumbled into the room on the heels of her question. “I’ve been to the waypoint,” he gasped, hands on his knees. “The message was garbled because so many of the signal mirrors have been broken, but two things were clear: Lijuan has murdered Rohan, and she is on her way here.”

Andromeda’s gut went cold. Children were sacred to angelkind, and though Rohan was no longer a child, he had been the only and beloved son of an archangel.

Around her, the wing brothers—jaws clenched and muscles bunched—lowered their heads in silent respect for Rohan. When they looked up afterward, it was with fury in their eyes and blood on their mind. A cold-voiced Tarek’s questions to the scout elicited a chilling detail: Xi’s squadron was a bare four hours away. “No one’s spotted Lijuan,” the scout added. “But . . . part of the message said something about blood sacrifices.”

Andromeda’s hand clenched on the hilt of her knife as Naasir growled. “She feeds on the lifeforce of others to strengthen herself.” In his voice was firsthand knowledge. “Has there been any sign of Raphael?”

The scout shook his head. “Nothing. Parts of the beacon chain in some directions are broken, but messages are still getting through—he hasn’t been spotted anywhere in the territory.”

“Go,” Tarek ordered the wing brothers. “Set up the traps while I make sure the ground-to-air weapons are powering up as they should. Then find your positions and stay there.” He paused, held each wing brother’s gaze in turn. “Today, we fight for our archangel, do what we pledged to do four hundred years ago. If we fall, it will be in honor and we will wake at our archangel’s side when it is his time to leave this world. That time is not today.”

The wing brothers uttered a battle cry that made Naasir’s eyes gleam wild. When they scattered, Naasir and Andromeda went with them and helped to set the traps in place. Andromeda also had to memorize the exact positions of those traps for when she had to drive winged fighters into them. The time raced by as if it was falling from an open hand, until she looked to the west while in the air, and glimpsed the smudge of a large winged presence on the horizon.

Calling out a warning to the others, Andromeda went to the ground, her borrowed crossbow in hand and her sword hung off her belt. She wasn’t as good with the crossbow as she was with the sword, but so outnumbered by enemy forces, it would be safer and more effective for her to keep her distance if she could.

When Naasir jumped down beside her, she saw a kind of feral joy in him at the prospect of battle, but below that primal emotion was another. “You don’t think we can win without Raphael,” she whispered.

He shook his head, silver strands sliding against one another. “Alexander left these men here not to fight a battle, but so that when the time came for him to rise, he would do so with those he trusted, be able to rest in unhurried quiet as he grew in strength.” He examined her remaining injuries as he spoke. “The Brotherhood’s task was to protect the caves from the curious, not hold them against an enemy archangel and her squadron. They’re brave beyond measure, but they’ll be slaughtered.”

Andromeda didn’t want to think of that future, a future where Tarek lay with blood on his face, his mind and his heart lost to the world. “Do you think Raphael is far?”

“I can’t hear him.” Naasir touched his temple and Andromeda realized he must have the honor of speaking to his sire mind-to-mind. “I can hear the sire from far enough away that I can estimate distances. If I can’t hear him still, then he won’t make it in time.” Grim words. “It’s possible Lijuan spotted him and sent a group of her powerful commanders to slow him down.”

A cold knot in her gut, Andromeda put her hand on Naasir’s cheek. “Whatever happens today, know this: I would have been so proud to be your mate. Nothing would have given me more joy.”

His claws dug into her without cutting as he hauled her close. “Let’s fight, mate.” The wild gleam was back. “Then I’ll find your stupid Grimoire book and we can rut and you can pet me while I’m naked.”

He made her cheeks go red and her mouth laugh at the same time. Giving her one final squeeze, he disappeared up into the trees, while she held position where she was. Everything was quiet now, no lightning, no thunder, no sand spouts. It wasn’t, however, a peaceful silence—no, this silence held too much portentous tension.

Like a wave about to crash.

And then it did, Lijuan’s squadrons swarming over the area, Lijuan in her physical form at the front. She immediately directed her incongruously beautiful black rain onto the village, each shard a piece of living onyx that gleamed with blue, black, and deepest green highlights.

None of the defenders moved.

There were no longer any living beings in the village—even the animals had been spirited away. Let the Archangel of China waste her energy.

All too soon, however, the enemy began to head as one toward the caves, as if Lijuan had realized that was the likeliest possibility. The defenders had to act, keep the squadrons away from Alexander’s place of Sleep. It would’ve been better had they been able to set up more than the odd sniper on the roof of the caves themselves, but as Andromeda and Naasir had discovered, there was little shelter there, barely any places to hide.

The first volley of crossbow shots took down at least ten of Lijuan’s people. When the angels fell, they didn’t rise again, the wing brothers hidden in the trees and on the ground efficient with knives and having no compunction against taking lethal force. Learning from that first surprise volley, the squadron flew higher, out of crossbow range.

Tarek fired the ground-to-air missiles.

It worked to scatter the ordinary angels, killing at least ten more, but Lijuan was an archangel. She sent her rain of jagged black shards down into the trees. Andromeda heard at least two bodies hit the ground near her, wing brothers who had been impacted directly by a blade of black. Even as she ran toward the sounds, the trees began to blacken and crumble around them, as if Lijuan’s death was now so strong it withered the earth, too.

Realizing all their plans would be for naught if Lijuan destroyed the trees, Andromeda rose up in the air just enough to line up the Goddess of Death. Lijuan, in her arrogance, wasn’t expecting such a blunt attack and the shot took her through the wing, sending her into an uncontrolled spiral. She recovered with killing speed. Screaming, she raised her hand as if to rain down the black shards again . . . and the sky erupted with glittering silver lightning that began to hammer her forces to the earth.

Wings crumpled and bones broken, angels began slamming into the trees and the ground at terminal velocity. Andromeda took the chance to run toward the fallen wing brothers. Both were just . . . gone. Ash.

Above, Lijuan turned away from the trees and put up a black shield that held off the lightning, her new flight path a direct route to the caves. She intended to destroy them, Andromeda realized. Even if she attacked only from above, her potent black poison could well seep in and kill Alexander . . . as well as all the noncombatants likely hidden within.

“Rise, Alexander!” Andromeda screamed as she ran out onto open ground from where she could see the caves; she wasn’t sure anyone was listening but couldn’t simply watch in horrified silence as Lijuan murdered an Ancient. “She will poison your home!”

The lightning stopped.

A heartbeat later, the stone above the caves cracked in a jagged fury that sounded like the earth screaming, and then an angel was rising out of them. His wings were pure metallic silver, his hair rich gold, and his skin a paler gold. His beauty was flawless. Like that of a statue carved out of marble. But this statue was born of rage, his hands full of silver fire.

That fire arced toward Lijuan like directed lightning.

Lijuan laughed when Alexander’s fire didn’t penetrate her shield, then she attacked with her deadly black rain. Alexander swept aside fast enough to avoid a direct hit, but he was sluggish. If Andromeda could see that, so could Lijuan.

The Archangel of Death beat her wings upward in a decisive move, and Andromeda knew she intended to rain down her death on Alexander from above. There was no way he could move fast enough to avoid it.

Naasir broke the neck of the angel who’d slammed into one of the booby traps when a lightning bolt fried part of his wing, then moved to check on a wing brother who’d fallen under Lijuan’s rain. He was gone, only a smear of ash to mark his existence. Hissing out a breath, Naasir ran to make sure Andromeda was all right.

She wasn’t on the ground.

He looked up, his heart painful it was beating so fast, and found his strong, courageous mate in the air. She was winging her way to Lijuan, and by some miracle, hadn’t yet been spotted by the half of the squadron that had survived the lightning bolts. “Keep the angels busy!” he yelled to the wing brothers who could hear him and they renewed their efforts with the crossbows.

The snipers on the cave roof were trying to reach Lijuan with their bolts, but she stayed out of range. The longer-range missiles had ceased to be of any use as soon as Alexander rose; given his diminished strength, an aerial shockwave could take him down. As it would Andromeda.

Naasir bared his teeth and silently promised his mate he would punish her for this, but on the ground, he grabbed a portable missile launcher from the supplies they’d hidden throughout the area, and put it on his shoulder. The shock wave from this weapon should be far more contained. As Andromeda shot crossbow bolts at Lijuan’s back in an effort to give Alexander a little more time to gather his strength, Naasir unleashed the missile.

Lijuan managed to avoid it, but the maneuver left her off-balance long enough that Andromeda was able to drop like a stone and arrow herself toward the trees. Naasir’s blood pulsed in a roar as Lijuan spun around and tried to come after Andromeda, but Alexander hit her with his silver lightning again and this time, her shield was down.

Screaming high and shrill, she turned to throw that hard jewel-like black rain at Alexander. The Ancient couldn’t avoid it this time. It hit, and where it hit, his skin grew black, as did his hair and his wings.

Alexander began to fall to the earth, as if those large, powerful wings no longer worked right.

Ice white hair turned a lustrous black and crackling with power, Lijuan threw back her head in laughter Naasir could see from the ground. As she raised her single regenerated hand to deliver the killing blow, Naasir loaded up a second missile, was about to shoot when he felt the crash of the rain, the fresh bite of the sea in his mind.

Focus on the squadron, Naasir. I will take care of Lijuan.