Archangel's War

31

Jerking forward on the instinctive desire to help, Elena reached out a hand . . . and the wildfire jumped onto the back of her hand, a shocking bolt of energy. Power burned over every inch of her, the surface of her skin cracking open to display veins of gold before they sealed over again.

“Elena.” Raphael’s hand on her nape, hauling her close.

“I’m fine.” Her chest heaved. “It was just one hell of a rush. Too much power inside me.” Energy arced from her heart to Raphael’s. He took it with no outward effects—and she was no longer choking on wildfire.

Sucking in gulps of air, she pressed her forehead against his chest. “That was weird.”

“As always, hbeebti, you are a mistress of understatement.”

“Riva?”

“Unconscious but alive.” His next words raised every hair on her body. “It is as well that he lost consciousness before the wildfire jumped to you. Else, I would’ve had to take his memories, and that is not always a simple thing with vampires this old. It can leave them with permanently broken minds.”

Drawing back, Elena held a gaze as cold as the heart of midnight, devoid of humanity or mercy. “Remember your promise, Archangel.” She’d told him to check the villagers’ minds yesterday; had that led to this?

“You would hold me to that even for a vampire who belongs to another archangel?”

Elena narrowed her eyes. “As long as I exist, you don’t get to fall into that particular black hole.” Of a power so violent it sought to reshape his very soul. “I’ll never let you become cruel or heartless. Violating minds is a step on the wrong road.”

Ice glittered in his expression. “This power, it tells me I would be better off without the weakness of you.”

Elena folded her arms, set her feet apart. “And what do you think about that?”

“That regardless of what I believed about my hold on the power, this battle has just begun.” Cupping one side of her face with a hand frosted in ice, he said, “It seduces with its strength, makes me want to alter myself to better host it.”

Turning her head, she kissed his palm though her skin was numb from the cold of it. “Just remember what happened to Lijuan. Do you want to be His Creepiness?”

“I would much rather be your archangel.” Dropping his hand from her face, he looked at Riva again, and though it was with the calculating gaze of an archangel weighing up a threat, his voice held a hint of warmth when he spoke. “Riva will be fine, but we have a problem.”

Elena deliberately leaned her body against Raphael, using her own heat to warm him up. “This is no simple infection.”

“No. It’s too much of a coincidence that it attempted to take the leader of this city—the intent must’ve been for it to grow strong enough to control him. As Favashi was controlled.”

“Why not go straight for the brain?” Gruesome as it was to consider, a worm in the brain would be an efficient shortcut.

“Too likely to end in death?” Raphael suggested as he opened up his wing to curve it around her, warm and heavy. “It’s also possible that what matters is a critical mass, not the location of it.”

“Did it feel the same as the stuff in Favashi?” An archangel and a vampire were two very different beings.

A pause, Raphael absently brushing his hand down her spine. “No. That poison is designed for archangels; it would lead to immediate death for ordinary angels and vampires. This is a softer thing, but I sense Lijuan’s hand in it.”

“You planning to speak to the Cadre?”

“I must. Each and every individual in a position of power in China must be checked for signs of infection. I can use wildfire to clear it from their bodies while I’m here, but that is a short-term measure.” His next words were hard. “Let us hope it is confined to the vampires. Because if angels can be controlled thus, there is only one option: annihilation.”

Because free of any angelic oversight, vampires across China would inevitably give in to bloodlust. They would torture and murder, rend and tear. They would become a horde that spilled over into neighboring territories. The Cadre would execute every single living being in China, stain its soil a permanent red, to prevent that outcome.

Kill it. Burn the entire territory down to the ground.” Charisemnon bit out the words, but even the Archangel of Northern Africa had a grim look on his handsome face at the idea of such a death toll.

“If only that were a viable choice,” Astaad murmured. “It will not end the threat posed by Lijuan.”

“And death on such a scale?” Neha’s sari was a deep yellow with a rich pink and gold border and the silk of it whispered as she moved a hand in a strong negative. “It will leave a stain across eternity.”

“You are all being very careful not to look at me,” Caliane murmured in a quiet voice that held the echoes of hundreds of crying children; they were ghosts of the dead that his mother carried within and would into her final Sleep. “But of all those here, I am the only one who understands the toll it takes to wipe out thousands of innocent lives—I cannot be permitted to hide from my knowledge.”

It was a bleak truth. Alexander had killed in battle, as had Raphael and many of the others. Some of their number had murdered in cold blood, but none had unleashed wholesale slaughter. Caliane had wiped out the thriving populations of two cities.

She’d spared the children, but their fragile hearts had broken under the trauma. Most had simply curled up and died. Angelkind had fought to save those tiny human lives and failed. Raphael’s palms curled inward, his skin remembering the calluses that had formed from digging grave after grave.

It hadn’t been in penance for his mother’s horrific crime. Nothing could be penance enough for that.

“Such an action is a burden that will haunt you through time.” Caliane spoke with no self-pity, with potent directness. “Atonement is an impossibility. The ghosts of the lives I took have become my constant shadows. I hear them in the gray hours before dawn, when the world is quiet, and I have no answers for them when they ask me why they had to die.”

Raphael’s shoulders bunched, his gut tight. This was the first time he’d heard his mother speak of her terrible act, the first time he’d understood that she’d not only come out sane after her long Sleep, but with all her memories intact. In the bleak lines of her face, he saw the truth: his mother remembered each and every soul she had condemned to the pitiless ocean.

“But what I did,” she continued without mercy to herself, “would pale in comparison to eliminating the people of an entire territory. We would not survive the weight of the dead on our conscience. The Cadre will fall and Lijuan will rise again from beneath the bones of her dead.”

Raphael stood in a pool of silence, the screens around him showing faces gone motionless. Each of the archangels had responded quickly to his request for an emergency gathering.

Michaela had done so from deep in Hungary, the face that had been the muse of artists through the ages even sharper in its beauty. She’d lost weight. Where others might’ve appeared haggard, she looked refined down to the very core.

Astaad had called from a Pacific isle, his skin damp and his hair windswept, his goatee rougher than usual. He’d been the first to make the connection and they’d spoken privately for a minute or two. “I’ve had to clear this island of all its citizens—my own abode here is in the process of being dismantled.”

It turned out that the calm waters around the island had become violent to the point of causing tidal waves. Astaad had already lost ten people who’d been caught unawares by the first wave, and was taking no chances.

Neha, the archangel currently closest to Raphael, had responded to his request from the room she most often used for these meetings. But while she wore a sari and sat on a throne, her hair was not in an elegant bun but simply braided. The braid sat over one shoulder, the black strands entwined with copper thread. Kohl rimmed her eyes.

Titus, Alexander, and Elijah had all appeared at the same moment.

Now, Caliane’s closest compatriot in the Cadre stirred. “I hear you, my friend.” Alexander’s golden hair glinted in the early evening sunlight where he stood, a general at rest. “Wiping out China is not a viable option unless we fail to contain the spread of this contagion.” New lines in the face he turned to Caliane. “If that is the case, we have no choice and must bear those deaths on our souls.”

“If the Cadre is agreeable,” Neha said, “I’ll send a medical team to begin the examinations.” A pause before she locked gazes with Raphael. “I can take over your aerial sweep so you can assist on the ground, but China is currently yours.”

“I would be glad of the help.” Whatever their differences, he had no argument with Neha’s commitment to the goals of the Cadre. “I cleared the medics at this citadel and sent half of them to check on the leadership in the next major hub.” He’d also made sure they had a heavy escort and that those escorts were clean of infection. “The other half are in the process of examining Riva’s closest advisors and associates.”

“We may hope this isn’t widespread.” Astaad stroked his damp goatee. “You say the tainted vampire disappeared for a number of hours. It seems he must’ve been taken to a secret place to be infected. The contagion may not be in the air or in the soil.”

“I am in agreement with you.” Riva’s infection had been a purposeful act.

“As only Raphael has the wildfire,” Elijah murmured, “our options are limited.”

Discussion ensued. The final consensus was unanimous: should the healers discover that Lijuan’s scourge had only affected vampires who held cities and not their angelic brethren, the vampires would be pulled out. The angels who remained would commit to a checkup once a week as a safeguard.

And if angels were shown to be infected . . .

None of them wanted to face that, not until it was unavoidable.

Four days later, and the official count of infected commanders was at five. All vampires. After Raphael used wildfire to eradicate the scourge in their bodies, he ordered the exodus of all vampires who’d been sent into the territory by the Cadre. That included the senior vampires of Favashi’s court.

All of Lijuan’s people chose to stay and as they were of this land, and already loyal to Lijuan, with no need for her to take control of them in other ways, there was no reason not to permit the decision. As a precaution, however, any vampire in a position of power was demoted to a lower rank.

Angels would now run the cities, with Gadriel taking over Riva’s citadel.

The Cadre also decided to speed up their rotation cycle after Raphael reported the signs of rising bloodlust. Michaela was meant to follow Raphael—she was actually down to do a double shift, as she’d been unable to make her last rotation. Titus had agreed to cover for her. Prior to that, she’d talked Charisemnon into taking her place.

Raphael was expecting the call he received from her the night before he and Elena were scheduled to make their last flight over China. Exhausted from the long day, the two of them had just showered in preparation for a late meal in their rooms, when the screen in the living area chimed.

Elena paused in the midst of pulling on her pajama shorts to throw clothes at him. He pulled on the loose sweatpants and T-shirt, sealing the wing slits shut with the ease of long practice before he answered the call, while his consort stayed out of view.

“I need to return to my own territory,” he said the instant Michaela’s face appeared on the screen. “That is nonnegotiable.”

Elena, having tugged on her tank top and shorts, began to sharpen one of her knives.

“I know.” Michaela’s rich brown skin held a shimmer that turned her sensual beauty ethereal. “I was hoping you could speak to Lady Caliane on my behalf.”

Raphael had no time for the games of the former Queen of Constantinople. “Michaela, I’m already scheduled for extra shifts as a result of my absence and I had a good excuse. I do not think my mother will look kindly on your shirking of this duty.”

Michaela lifted a hand to rub her face, the lush tumble of her hair a mass of dark brown and bronze with traces of other colors. “I convinced Charisemnon by hinting I’d allow him to put his hands on my body. I convinced Titus by feigning illness—he is so soft about such things.”

Hbeebti, I can feel the laser burn of your glare.

She doesn’t sign off soon, I’m telling her to get her ass lost. Screw archangelic etiquette—you need to rest and she needs to do her job.

“For you, however,” Michaela murmured, “it must be the truth.” A faded smile that actually managed to look truly tired, but Raphael didn’t soften; Michaela was a master manipulator with a hundred faces.

“I know you will not believe a word I say,” she added, “not after the last time, so I will simply show you. And trust you not to use it against me.” Michaela rose from her chair . . . and the gauzy sides of her gown split over the tautly rounded curve of her abdomen.