Archangel's Viper

36

Raphael, Michaela, Venom, they all watched without interrupting, as if aware something was taking place that they couldn’t perceive. Luckily for Holly, she didn’t have to be silent. The echo of Uram could do nothing more to her.

You don’t remember, do you? she murmured. Do you remember coming to New York?

A deadly silence.

You are not an archangel. You are an echo, a mad ghost created of fragments of energy left behind before your death. Holly felt an unexpected sadness spear her heart. You must’ve been an incredible power to do that, to leave behind energy that survived for so long.

“I am an archangel!” It was a roar that shuddered against the walls of the turret that Michaela had turned into a nursery and a prison both. “I am Uram!”

“My love.” Michaela reached out a hand across the crib, her face a thing of power softened by grief. “Become whole.”

The power inside Holly coalesced into a tense knot, ready for the transfer.

If you go into that flesh, Holly said in a voice she forced to be calm, you will be sightless and without hearing, without voice, the entire time it’ll take you to recover. You’ll be helpless in Michaela’s hands, a child she has to raise. She stopped herself from saying anything more, from pointing out that Michaela could use any such opportunity to shape Uram as she saw fit.

The truth, of course, was that Uram would never be a child. Would never grow. There wasn’t enough of him left. Even now, his few memories were less sharp than they’d been before, as if having degraded once brought out into the light. If he went into that lump of flesh, however, then Michaela would fight for him to be allowed to exist. And, given Michaela’s love for Uram and for the meat host in the crib, sooner, or later . . . Oh, that wasn’t it at all.

The knowledge was a faint whisper at the back of her mind, but it came from the echo that was part of her. And it told her the echo would try to take over Michaela the instant it had bathed in enough of her blood.

Would it succeed?

Holly didn’t think so, but the risk was too horrific to chance. For if the echo did succeed in maddening Michaela, Uram’s blood reign would begin all over again.

Take this body, she whispered. At least until you are strong enough to create a full adult body in which to transfer yourself.

This time, the answer was internal . . . and thoughtful. I will have to leave a splinter of energy in the other to make sure it grows.

You know you need all of you to return to greatness.

A long pause before Holly’s hand reached into the crib and spread over the lump of flesh below. A single touch and she knew it was wrong. There was no warmth to that flesh. It was cold. Dead. Animated only because Uram’s energy, fed by Michaela’s blood, ran in its veins.

Venom watched Holly’s hand spread on the lump that was the unbeing, acid green wings continuing to glow behind her. He wanted to tear that acid green from her, set her free. But to do that would be to kill her.

He refused to believe she was already gone, that this was now a matter between archangels. When the Holly/Uram hybrid looked up without warning and said, “I will keep this body,” Venom knew he was right. Holly had done something, changed the script.

Sire. Venom didn’t look at Raphael as he spoke. I think we should let this, too, run its course.

There’s little choice. Raphael’s voice was a storm of power in Venom’s head, so much of it that Venom sometimes wondered how the sire could bear it. If there is even the slightest chance that Uram can come back, I cannot strike without it being an act of war. To attack an archangel rising from a long Sleep is to breach all the rules that keep the Cadre from destroying one another and the world. We have already had one such incident; I will not be responsible for a second.

Venom stared directly at Holly, willing her to look at him. Just one second, that was all he needed. A heartbeat.

Holly’s eyes scanned the room. “Do not interfere,” her mouth said before she frowned and shook her head. “I do not remember how I came to this place, but this is my resurrection.”

Even as Holly’s mouth moved, her eyes were processing what she’d seen in the echo’s scan. Venom’s hand had moved so quickly that most people wouldn’t have caught it. She did, because she was a little like him. And— Why am I like Venom? she asked the echo inside her. Did you have an affinity for snakes? Except . . . I’m not all like him.

A buildup of pressure. Quiet, mortal!

Holly forced herself to sound subservient. Please. I’ll be gone once you come to power. Answer this one question before you take my flesh for your own. Did you have an affinity to snakes? Like Neha.

Holly’s head fell back, laughter pouring out of her mouth. When the echo stopped laughing, it said, I am not Neha with her poisons. I am Uram.

And she realized the echo didn’t know. The echo didn’t remember what powers it’d had that had fed into Holly. It couldn’t tell her the “why” of her, couldn’t explain if she was the way she was because the toxin that had fueled his madness, had twisted the abilities he’d had as an archangel. She’d have to do her own research . . . if she survived this. Yes, you are an archangel, she said, setting her endgame in motion. Because she’d recognized that move of Venom’s hand.

It was part of a silent language he’d taught her during their sessions while he’d been away from New York. He’d made her practice the rapid hand movements until she could use them without thought. Similar to sign language, but much faster, it could, Holly had originally thought, be utilized only by people who had their reflexes. Which would’ve made it pretty useless.

But it had turned out it could also be used in combat situations with other angels and vampires in the Tower. She just had to slow things down so they could see the movements. The speed he’d taught her was so, should the two of them be in a hostile situation, they could talk without anyone being the wiser.

The move he’d just made, it meant: Ball’s in your court.

Holly shuddered deep within. He was telling her that Raphael and Michaela wouldn’t interfere. If the horror was to end here, she had to be the one to end it. Only she knew what was at stake. Only she understood that this echo of energy was created of the most horrific part of Uram, the part that had existed right before his death. When the archangel had been a being driven by madness and blood- hungry for the pain of others.

Shelley. Maxie. Cara. Rania. Ping. Kimiya. Nataja. Daisy.

Her friends’ names, and those of three other women who’d never stood a chance, they were a silent mantra in a hidden part of her consciousness as she spoke again to the echo. Thank you, she said, as if he’d answered her question when he’d done no such thing. I hope my body serves you well.

A pause. You have served me well. Swirled in the madness was a regal graciousness. Now it is time for you to cease to exist.

He pulled energy from the lump of flesh in the crib. It ran up Holly’s arm in an acid-green electrical storm that threatened to melt her brain and explode her heart. She gritted her teeth . . . or tried to. The echo had control of her body and it wouldn’t let her take that instinctive action. When the energy threatened to erase her brain, her memories, she hunkered down and fought back using the very power he’d given her.

Because she still had access to part of that power. It had become fused into her cells and this body was yet hers, each and every part of it imprinted with the force of her life. If he truly had been an archangel, she couldn’t have regained any access to the strength forged of his energy and her determination. But he was only a faded echo. Powerful, but not a power. Not like Raphael or Michaela or the Uram he’d once been.

Steeling her mind, Holly refused to be crushed, but she made no move to betray herself . . . not until the echo ripped her hand off the now-lifeless lump in the crib. As she watched, the fleshy host quickly turned a putrid green at the edges, the rot snaking so swiftly through the rest of it that it was clear it had been rotting for a long time, the putrefaction held back only by Michaela’s blood. A foul smell began to emanate from it.

Flicking out a hand, Michaela incinerated the thing she’d birthed.

Ashes lay in the crib.

And Holly’s skin glowed with an acid green power this body wasn’t built to contain. With the extra power came a stronger echo. More knowledge. A vague, vague hint of sanity. Holly had been winging this, and the best plan she’d come up with, given her limited control, had been to force one of the archangels to kill her—kill them both—by inciting the echo into an act of total insanity.

Such as attempting to tear off Michaela’s wings.

But now, she paused, thought. Do you see what you’ve become? She made her voice non-confrontational, never forgetting that she was talking to an immortal who was used to having people bow and scrape to him. That wasn’t always the way—from what she’d seen of Raphael’s rule, he preferred strength around him. Venom didn’t bow and scrape to anyone, and Raphael’s hunter consort was a warrior through and through, one who held her ground.

Uram had been different. From an older time. She knew because she’d researched him obsessively. You were considered an archangel among archangels. Neha admired you, called you the most handsome man she had ever met aside from Eris—and you forgave her bias there, I think. Even Lijuan respected you and she respects very few people.

The echo rumbled inside her. I will have all their respect once more.

Will you? Holly fought his hold on her mind to bring up the images she’d tried to bury for four long years. Of nightmare and horror and Uram sitting on a thronelike chair, his mouth rimmed with blood while a severed arm lay in his lap.

A roar erupted from her mouth. “Lies!”

She glimpsed confusion in Michaela’s eyes, battle-ready tension in Raphael. Only Venom watched in motionless, expressionless silence. He understood what was going on. He knew Holly wasn’t dead.

Ask your fellow archangels, she whispered. Ask them what you became. That nightmare is the only part of you that remains. Not the archangel who was considered the fastest among the archangels. Not the archangel who ruled with an iron fist but had the respect of his generals. Not the archangel who had the most beautiful woman in the world as his lover. Just that ravenous monster who thirsts endlessly for blood.

Her pulse leaped at the thought, her mouth watering.

Nauseated, she forced herself to continue. You feel it. You feel the urge to drink. You’re looking at Michaela’s throat. You want to rip it out.

Another roar of sound, her hands fisting without her conscious volition.

“Uram.” Michaela circling the crib to come cautiously closer. “It’s all right, my love. This body will frustrate you until you can reshape and regrow it to your requirements, but that will not take you long.”

A memory flash that wasn’t her own: Michaela flat on the ground with her wings outspread and her chest ripped open, a glowing red fireball in place of her heart. The female archangel’s body jerked, blood streaking the smooth brown of her skin.

The terror in her expression shocked Holly into silence.

Archangels didn’t get terrified. Archangels were the terror.

Holly’s hand rose, her fingers brushing the taller woman’s cheek. “My sweet.”

No terror today. Michaela’s eyes shimmered, the bright green dazzling beyond the wash of water. “You are the only one who ever understood me.”

Holly’s fingers played along the swanlike length of Michaela’s throat, stopping for a heartbeat at her pulse, before running down between the archangel’s breasts to eventually spread over her heart. It beat rapidly under her palm. “I tore this open,” came from her mouth. “I put myself inside you.”

Michaela’s hand closed over hers and the punch of archangelic power rocked Holly’s entire body. Michaela was glowing and when an archangel glowed, people usually died. However, this archangel wasn’t in a murderous mood—and didn’t believe she was dealing with a mortal. “It is no matter,” she said with a soft smile. “I didn’t understand then. I didn’t know you were asking me to keep you safe until you could return.”

Why am I so weak?

It took Holly a second to realize the question was for her. Because you are only a faded echo of a great archangel. You are a ghost.

I will grow strong again.

Do you truly believe so? Holly asked seriously. Can you draw power from the world around you?

Her eyes went unerringly to Michaela’s neck, and to the pulse that beat there. Her fingers curved slightly over Michaela’s heart. Blood will feed me. Blood will make me grow.

The madness is returning, Holly said before the shred of sanity slipped away forever. You will once more become enslaved to blood. A monster who will be feared but never respected. Even then, you will never be what you once were.

Rage in her veins. “I need your blood, my love,” her mouth said to Michaela. “Just enough to give me a little more strength.”

Michaela angled her neck in a trust that shook Holly. She’d always thought of the Archangel of Budapest as arrogant and beautiful and manipulative. That was how Michaela came across in the media that so loved her. And, blinded by the differences in their power and age, Holly had never once thought about how Michaela was a woman, too, one who’d loved a man who had died.

Holly ran her fingers over the line of Michaela’s throat before rising on tiptoe to bend her mouth to that pulsing spot. Blood spurted onto her tongue, hot and fresh and so powerful that it made her physically stagger. But still she drank and drank, until she could literally drink no more.

When she did finally tear away, it was to see Michaela’s throat wound close up in front of her eyes.

The archangel didn’t look weakened or as if she’d been hurt.

And Holly’s body swirled with power that threatened to burst her cells, burn out of her skin. Dear God. How did anyone survive feeding from an archangel?

“Was that enough?” Michaela’s question was gentle, her own hand rising to lie against Holly’s cheek. “I have waited for you.”

Holly’s skin cracked across her back, her chest, her soul in danger of drowning as pain ripped at her insides. Are you more yourself? she asked through the haze of it. Are you more Uram?

I need more blood. Her head turned toward Raphael. Stronger blood.

You are glutted on the blood of an archangel, and yet you seek more blood. Agony twisted at her guts as things began to crack inside her, too, her body full of too much archangelic power. You will always seek more and more and more. The craving clawed at her even as her body began to fail. You are starting to want blood with violence, aren’t you? You want to tear at Michaela’s throat like a wolf gnawing on his kill.

“No!” Holly’s body staggered back to press against the cold stone wall.

Sweat dripped down her temples.

Are you any stronger? Holly kept on pushing through the unbearable pain of a body bursting from the inside out. Even a little? The surge of archangelic blood, archangelic power, should’ve had a violent effect . . . and it had. Or are you unable to transmute that energy into a form you can use? Because you are only an echo.

Blood. A red haze. I need blood. A sudden, cunning thought. This body is weak. I need hers. The power wrenched out of her before Holly could do anything, bending her spine so far backward that she knew it was about to snap.