Archangel's Sun

13

Titus was worried enough about where the burrows might lead that he left his weapons-master Orios in charge of the main section of the nest and flew back to expose other hidden routes. The first suspicious area, however, proved to have already been unearthed.

Fire boiled inside the tunnels, the reborn surely incinerated.

“Who did this?” he asked on a stab of joy, wondering if one of his older angels had come into a new power.

Sweat streaking her face from the heat of the flamethrower, Marifa turned to him and said, “The Hummingbird.”

The two of them stared at each other for a long second before the other angel said, “On my honor, sire. It was her. She looked as surprised as I felt, but she blew open the hole for us.”

Deciding that particular mystery could wait, Titus left the squadron captain to it and went in the opposite direction to where he could see wings of indigo light. It appeared the Cadre had sent him far more help than he’d believed. That, or a doppelganger had taken over the Hummingbird’s body.

It took hours for them to clear out the entire interconnected burrow, but the work wasn’t yet done. He and his people—and the powerful imposter with drooping wings who looked like the Hummingbird—had to go backward through every other cleared section to ensure they hadn’t missed a burrow that might spout reborn in a nightmare eruption.

It wasn’t as if he could simply crack open the earth—an entire city sat on that earth.

“We will have to be vigilant,” he said to his people as they gathered on the ramparts of the citadel, sweaty and dirty and with more than one streak of putrid reborn flesh or blood on their clothing and bodies.

He’d been lucky today, hadn’t lost any of them, mortal, vampire, or angel, to the vicious creatures. “Alert the populace to the danger and tell them to hail a warrior should they hear anything beneath their homes—reassure them we won’t be angry at false alarms, no matter how many.”

“We could position ground-sensors around the citadel and the city,” said a two-hundred-year old vampire who had an intense interest in the technologies of this time.

“Go, speak to Tzadiq, get it under way.”

The Hummingbird had returned to the citadel with them, but she stayed on the edge of the group and remained silent until it had disbanded. Only then did she approach Titus, her wings having dropped until the tips dragged on the ground.

“I haven’t yet spoken to you of all I saw on my journey.” No tiredness in her voice, but he saw it in those wings and in the strain on her face. “Who should I consult regarding the settlements that desperately need assistance?”

“Tzadiq will take care of it,” Titus said, not happy to know so many people were suffering. “But right now, I wish to talk about your power.”

She waved it off, as if he wasn’t an archangel and she could defy him with impunity. “I have something far more interesting for you—I thought the reborn must’ve begun to mutate, but now I’ve seen the ones here, I begin to question my conclusion.”

While he was still agog at her complete disregard for his authority, she pulled out a phone device from her pocket and touched the screen. “Here, look at the moving pictures I took.”

Caught between the urge to snarl at her to respect his authority and a fascination that was rooted in befuddlement, Titus found his attention caught by the images on the screen. The recording showed the hand of what he thought must be a reborn. It was severely burned, but the hand was elongated in a way that turned the stomach, it was so alien . . . and there.

He grabbed her wrist without thought, faintly noting the unexpected tensile strength of her bones. “Can you show me again?”

“I believe so, but I need both hands.”

Heat burned his skin. “My apologies.” Titus wasn’t in the habit of grabbing women without permission.

“It is no matter,” she murmured, her focus on tapping at the device.

Once again treating him like an errant pup who’d made a misstep, rather than the archangel of an entire continent.

Chest rumbling, he went to point out that he was no pup and never would be, but she smiled without warning—and the searing beauty of the light in her expression knocked him flat.

“I have it,” she said with open pride, and held out the phone again.

Titus had to force himself to pay attention. “Watch with me, focus on the fingers.” He needed to know if she saw it, too.

A second in, she sucked in a hard breath. “It moved.” Horror in every syllable. “That should be impossible. The bodies were so badly burned that nothing could’ve survived it—and reborn are susceptible to fire.”

“It’s possible this reborn was a vampire before being turned, and managed to survive for a considerable period of time.” Those were always the nastiest ones to kill. “But it should still not be showing signs of life, given the intensity of the fire.” The rest of the recording offered evidence of a violent blaze. “How far is this settlement?” He couldn’t ignore the sign of an even more robust strain.

When she told him the location, he did rapid calculations in his head. He couldn’t send a proxy for this—he had to see her discovery himself, but he also couldn’t leave his people low on manpower. Still, if he flew at archangelic speed . . . “Can you give me exact coordinates to the village?”

Her face dropped, smile fading. “I don’t know how to give you such coordinates.”

“Your device may have noted it.” He reached out mentally to Obren, aware the youth was an aficionado of technology. “Obren joins us soon to check.”

But the boy shook his head after checking the device, his locs tied back at his nape with a thin piece of twine. “I’m sorry, sire, it appears that operation has been turned off.”

“I may have done it while I was working out how to use the device.” The Hummingbird’s tone was apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

Titus ordered Obren to return to his duties. “In that case,” he began.

But the Hummingbird was already speaking. “I can lead you directly to it.”

“You’ll slow me down,” Titus said bluntly, and braced himself for a fit of feminine anger. “I can’t lose time, not now.”

“Yes,” the Hummingbird agreed in a quiet tone. “But I think even an archangel shouldn’t go into such danger alone. And as I am not yet assigned to a specific task, taking me along will leave no hole in your defenses.”

Titus didn’t believe he was invincible because he was an archangel. Even archangels could be hurt. Right now, an enemy didn’t need to kill him to do catastrophic damage to his territory. If they shot a missile at him, blowing his body to pieces, they took out a massive part of his offensive forces for however long it took for his body to knit together.

He didn’t believe any of the Cadre currently had the time or energy to launch such an assault, but some of Charisemnon’s flunkies might yet act out of stupid loyalty. And, as she’d proved today, the Hummingbird had some power. Enough to scare off anyone who thought they were coming at a tired and worn Titus.

“A good strategic point,” he said. “Can you be ready to fly in four hours?” That would give him time to organize his forces—and for her to get a few hours’ rest. Her wings had dropped even further.

A nod from the Hummingbird. “I should tell you, my endurance is not yours.”

“I’ll carry you from the point you get tired, if you’ll permit it.” It came out stilted. “I mean no insult.”

“I take none.” Her eyes were intense, and yet somehow . . . lost. No, that wasn’t right. When he’d seen her in the distance through the years, he’d thought her a lovely ghost, a woman with so many fractures in her psyche that she only survived by disassociating from the world.

This was different; she hadn’t retreated from the world. Rather, it was as if she was looking inward, searching for something she’d forgotten. Such wasn’t the least bit unusual in older angels. Even Titus found himself doing it on occasion, and he was only three thousand five hundred years old in comparison to—

It was then that he realized he had no idea of the Hummingbird’s age. What knowledge he had said she was a contemporary of Caliane’s—and Raphael’s mother was an acknowledged Ancient. Yet when he looked at the Hummingbird, he felt no sense of age, no sense of history pressing down on his bones.

Her presence was radiant, full of an unexpected light.

“Is all well?” He tried to temper his voice out of its usual booming register.

Lines furrowing her forehead, she seemed to snap back to reality. “What’s wrong with your voice? Are you falling ill?”

Titus wanted to throw back his head and just roar at the sky. Why were women the bane of his existence? He loved them, that much was true. But they also drove him to distraction. “My voice is fine,” he grumbled. “I was attempting a tone that wouldn’t blow out your eardrums. According to all those borrowed warriors who quit my service, I yell too much.”

She tilted her head a fraction to the side. “I don’t recall making that complaint.” Arch words, no indication of anything but a woman confident and strong.

“My people seem to find my voice just fine, too, but others are weak and lily-livered.” It was a gauntlet he’d just thrown down, pushed to the edge by her . . . He didn’t know what it was about the Hummingbird that aggravated him, and that just turned the aggravation up another notch.

The edge of her mouth lifted slightly, her extraordinary eyes filling with an effervescence he could’ve sworn was laughter. “I agree with you,” she said in that mellifluous voice rich with tonal layers. “You’re an archangel fighting a deadly scourge. Those who expect you to waste time pandering to their needs should be ashamed to call themselves warriors.”

He glared at her, not sure if she was making fun of him or not. Regardless, there was nothing he could do about it. She was the Hummingbird. Angelkind would disown him should he lay a finger on her. Not that he would. But it was the principle of the thing. “I am an archangel,” he boomed. “I am the law in this territory.”

She bowed deep and precise. “Of course.”

He felt like he’d just been petted on the head, much as an indulgent mother might do to a small child who was puffing himself up. Growling in his chest, he decided to do as advised by a long-ago trainer, and take a step back.

The adversary he faced wasn’t a simple one; to win this war he’d have to be cunning and stealthy. Neither of which was exactly his strong suit, but if he changed cunning to strategy . . . yes, that made more sense. “Please take this opportunity to rest your wings. We fly when the sun is high in the sky.”

It was the longest break he could give her. He’d use the time to brief Tzadiq, Orios, Tanae, and the others of his senior court—including Ozias; his spymaster was on her way back to Narja, close enough now that he could reach her with his mind. The short of it was that Titus’s people had to push on with the eradication process. They couldn’t stop for a single day. Not with the rapid-fire spread of infection.

Even with his many soldiers spread out across the territory, they couldn’t protect every village and every town and every city. People were dying. People were being taken by the reborn and changed into a rotting abomination of life. Fathers were having to kill mothers before a mauled loved one became a creature of nightmare. Children were becoming orphans all over his territory . . . if the little ones survived at all.

This war was more heartbreaking than any he’d ever before fought.