Archangel's War

68

Raphael was standing on the Tower roof under the moonless night sky, watching his consort fly home after a long day spent as a gunner, when he received an unexpected message from Aodhan. Sire. Unless my eyes deceive me, Titus is heading your way.

Given Aodhan’s current position, that was the wrong direction for the Archangel of Southern Africa to have flown to New York, but then, he must have known or guessed that Lijuan controlled the other approach. Communications hadn’t become problematic until well after Lijuan’s initial assault.

Continue to watch, Raphael ordered. Report if anything appears untoward. He swept off the Tower roof, his wings slicing through the chill night air. Eli, it’s possible Titus may be closing in on the city. Will you stand sentry while I head that way?

Consider it done.

He angled his wings so his flight path would intersect with Elena’s. Come, hbeebti. We may be about to welcome an old friend.

Her face lit up when he shared the news.

The night air was cold over their bodies as they flew on, but only Elena’s wings glowed against the black. The energy fissures in her skin had stopped around midday, the same time that the glow began to fade from his body.

Their cells had absorbed the energies, made it their own. They would be the strongest they’d ever been when the war drums beat again.

A shadowy presence in the distance that resolved into large wings, an angel in flight.

“Well met, stripling!” boomed a familiar voice not long afterward.

“My old teacher, it is good to see you.” They clasped forearms in the way of warriors.

“Titus, you’re hurt.” Elena’s eyes were on the splint on Titus’s other arm, the bandage wrapped around it dusty from his travels. Raphael knew it must’ve been a very bad break for Titus to have allowed it to be splinted.

“That dog’s excrement of an archangel was rotting from the inside at the end—his breath was foul and putrid—but he got in a lucky blow,” Titus muttered—at Titus volume, which was a low boom. “He broke it to pebbles. It’s healing, but I will be one-armed for some days.”

That wasn’t the only damage. The usually smooth near-black of Titus’s skin was baby pink on one side of his face when he angled his head, though his eye had escaped injury. It will all heal, Raphael reassured his hunter, aware of her feelings for the archangel. His body has focused on the worst wound first. The facial damage is superficial.

It’s just hard to see Titus of all people hurt.

Yes.

“You fly strongly,” Raphael said aloud, conscious that was what would matter to this generous and honest archangel in whose army he’d once been a green recruit.

“I shoot well, too.” Titus’s smile was a slash of white in his face. “I saw a ship on my flight here. It was crawling with that infectious filth my once wise friend Lijuan calls the reborn. It is now at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Titus, I think I want to kiss you.”

Elena’s declaration had Titus throwing open his arms. Laughing, Raphael’s consort went into them and planted a kiss on the other archangel’s uninjured cheek. “Your wings . . .” Titus stared at the brilliant stormfire. “New things are not always good, but this I like.”

“Come on,” Elena said. “You need to rest, eat. You flew a long way.”

“I would’ve been here earlier, but I had to wipe that bearer of disease, that betrayer of honor, that putrid pustule, off the face of this earth.”

“Charisemnon is dead?” Raphael asked, for they couldn’t afford mistakes on this point. “There is no doubt?”

“Not a one, young pup. I eliminated his sorry being from existence with angelfire.” He settled in to fly beside Raphael. “I could not bring my army—they would have been too slow and it would have left my people with no assistance in fighting the reborn plague.”

“I would not expect it, Titus.” That the other archangel had come, injured and straight off the field of battle, it was more than enough.

“So, who else has made it?”

“Elijah and Michaela.”

“She’s a beautiful dagger, but she knows her duty. And Elijah has always been a good man. What excuse do the others offer?” He didn’t wait for an answer before booming, “If I am here, they should be here! I had to fight another archangel to do it!”

Sire, I may be hallucinating this time, Aodhan said, but Astaad just dropped out of the clouds. He has another angel with him—A jagged pause. It is Aegaeon.

Raphael stopped. “We may have more company.” He turned, watching the skies until he glimpsed the wings of the Archangel of the Pacific Isles. A deep black where they grew out of his back, Astaad’s wings faded in a gradient to pale gray at the tips—it made him very difficult to see against the night sky. Only the paleness of his skin gave him away.

The angel who flew beside him had far flashier coloring.

“Astaad! You took your time!” Titus called out when the two were close enough. “Did you bathe in dirt on your way here?”

Astaad, his goatee not as neat as usual and his tunic and pants a dark brown instead of his preferred white, smiled with the ease of a man long used to Titus’s ways and well able to hold his own. “I see Charisemnon got in a few licks.”

“Hah! You should’ve seen the mongrel dog by the time I got through with him.” Titus clasped forearms with Astaad, while Raphael welcomed Aegaeon out of political necessity. At this point in time, he had to be one of the Cadre, not the young archangel who’d once held a small blue-winged boy’s heartbroken body in his arms.

Astaad then turned to say a personal hello to Elena. “Mele sends her best. She is at home, safe on an island free of noxious contamination.”

The rest of the journey passed quickly, but they landed at the Tower to find Neha and Caliane waiting for them. Neha’s face was smudged with dirt and tired in a way Raphael had never seen it, her dark green leathers dusty. Caliane wore old white leathers, the color now closer to a pale yellow where it wasn’t smudged with dirt and soot.

Both his mother and Neha had their hair in braids at the back of their heads, swords at the hip. Neha took in the landing party. “So, it was Charisemnon who died. Good. Those who betray the Cadre are better off as forgotten fragments of dust.” Right then, Neha was a warrior queen, one who had old blood splattered on her leathers.

“We heard of the situation in your lands,” Astaad said to Neha in his quiet, elegant voice. “It is a horror your people have faced.”

Neha’s mouth firmed into a hard line. “My troops will survive this, and afterward, we will find a way forward. For now, I have left them to come here so we can end this forever. Never again will an archangel dare to use children as battle fodder.”

“It is a breach that will not be forgiven or forgotten,” Caliane added, the echo of nightmares in her eyes. “But my son, do not tell me that Alex has let us down?”

“He fights to save his people,” Raphael said, because he could understand Alexander’s choice even if he didn’t agree with it; it would’ve torn out his heart had he had to leave New York in the same situation.

“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.