Archangel's Heart

17

Elena sat up in interest as she realized the two Luminata had pulled out weapons—long sticks with which they danced an intricate martial dance. Replace those sticks with swords, she thought, and they’d be killers. No surprise, not given what she’d already picked up from the way the older Luminata moved through the hallways.

And notwithstanding the other creepy things about this place, the fact the Luminata were warriors didn’t immediately negate their stated goal of luminescence. There was contemplation in the physical, too. On a more pragmatic note, these guys had given up sex, money, other vices and sins. They had to get rid of all that testosterone in some way.

Why not in combat?

. . . it’s possible Gian was already Luminata when he was involved with the unknown woman. And not just a brother—he’s been the Luminata for centuries.

Raphael’s words reverberated in her mind at the thought of vows and vices.

Right then, Gian made a particularly smooth move that had her releasing a quiet whistle. His hood fell back at the end of the move, hair of dark brown exposed to the morning sunlight.

The two men drew apart a few seconds later and bowed to one another, sticks held out to the side. The still-hooded male left via the external corridor to the left, but Gian turned directly toward Elena, telling her he’d been aware of her presence the entire time. “Consort,” he said formally.

Going with instinct, Elena smiled. “Just Elena.” If she wanted to learn Gian’s secrets, she had to earn his trust.

A responding smile that turned the leader of the Luminata from handsome to devastatingly so. “When we are alone, Elena then.”

Something in that statement raised the tiny hairs on her arms, made her fingers itch for her long knife, but she kept a smile on her face and got to her feet. “What’s it called? The martial art you were practicing.”

“Contemplation.” His eyes, pale and striking, held her own. “That is its purpose, to put us in a mental space where we have absolute purity of thought.”

Forcing herself to shake off her negative reaction to being watched with such unnerving concentration, Elena grinned. “Yeah, and you don’t sometimes fight just for the hell of it.”

Gian’s laughter was deep, that of a man who was delighted with his partner in conversation. “Ah, but that is our secret.” He held out the stick, suddenly just a handsome angel who happened to enjoy her company. “Would you like to learn? It takes hundreds of years to master, but I can show you the basics.”

Closing her hand over the smooth wood, Elena found it unexpectedly heavy. “I’m always up for learning new weapons.”

Gian kept scrupulous distance between them as he fetched another stick and showed her what he called “the first path.” Given the weight of the stick, the movements were difficult, even at slow speed. But Elena wasn’t an ordinary consort or a mortal—she was hunter-born and Guild-trained. She picked up the motions with a quick fluidity that had Gian giving her a look that said he couldn’t decide whether to be pleased or discomfited.

Ah, but I am a traditional man. I prefer my beauties without blades.

Given his views on women, Elena half expected him to call a halt to the exercise, but he upped the ante and the speed. Her breath began to come harder, but she didn’t falter. She’d seen Gian move, knew he could push it to a speed where she simply couldn’t keep up—she wasn’t that immortal yet—but he brought things to a smooth stop well before she reached the edge of her endurance.

“You are skilled,” he said, his face flushed from the exercise. “Even a Neanderthal can accept the beauty of such warrior grace.”

As a compliment, it was a good one. Even better was the self-deprecating smile that accompanied it. Only it no longer rang true to Elena. It was the eyes. Gian’s eyes never changed, no matter what the rest of his face did. And those eyes watched her as if he was trying to peel her down to the bone.

Not so much male admiration as a scientist with a bug.

“Thank you,” she said, wondering if she was just seeing such negative things in him because she knew he’d lied, if only by omission. “But you’re a master at this.”

“I will be happy to give you lessons during your time here,” the Luminata responded with apparent sincerity. “I’m sure a hunter will begin to chafe at being trapped in such a quiet place. No rogue vampires here for you to hunt.”

“Activity’s always welcome,” she replied, handing him the stick she’d borrowed. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning then?”

A nod of Gian’s head. “It will be my pleasure.” He glanced at Aodhan, a gentle disappointment in his gaze when he looked back at her. “You do not need a guard with me, Elena.”

“Aodhan’s not a guard,” Elena said. “He’s a friend—and if I had to guess, I’d say he’s composing a painting in his mind.” She had no such belief, but she knew Aodhan would back her.

Gian’s expression was suddenly suffused with light. “Ah, of course. This is a new environment for him. All artists absorb the new.” He looked in interest at where Aodhan remained by the wall, out of range of their conversation. “Will he begin to create it here? We have supplies—some of my brothers prefer to search for luminescence through art rather than martial contemplation.”

“I’ll ask him,” Elena said. “But I know he spends a lot of time thinking before beginning to create.” Aodhan had told her that once as she was sitting in his Tower studio reading a backlog of Guild bulletins while he just looked out at the stormy skies beyond.

First I must see, Ellie. Only then can I create.

“I will ask my brother Natal to come here tomorrow morning during our practice,” Gian said, and again, he was suddenly standing much closer than he should’ve been, the movement so quiet she hadn’t caught it. “He and Aodhan will have much in common.”

Regardless of the crawling feeling across her skin, Elena stayed in place. She knew Aodhan would be with her in a heartbeat if she gave the slightest indication of trouble, but she wanted to get a handle on Gian. Secrets and lies aside, was he just weird because he was old? Or was he something far more dangerous?

“You’ve led your brothers for a long time,” she said. “Aren’t you tired of it?”

A slight cocking of his head. “You’ve asked about me?” His eyes filling with light, his wings flaring out before closing back in.

“You are the Luminata. I was curious.”

“Yes, of course you would be curious. It is in your blood,” Gian said almost absently.

The words were stones thrown into a still pond.

Elena wanted to clutch at them, claw out the answers she needed. But she couldn’t show her hand. Not yet. Not when she was stumbling in the dark. “Yep. Hazard of being hunter-born, I guess.”

Gian blinked, stared at her for a second as if she wasn’t who he expected, then smiled. “Yes.” A glance up at the sun. “Alas, I must go. It is time for my first meditation—but I look forward to meeting again.”

Saying her good-byes, Elena walked up to Aodhan while Gian left the same way as his previous partner. “Just so you know,” she said, “you’re contemplating creating a new artwork.”

“You did not lie, Ellie. This place does interest me on an artistic level.” Eyes of shattered light met hers. “Gian stands too close to you.”

“Do you think it’s because he’s been here for hundreds of years?” She nudged her head and they walked down the corridor. “His social skills might just be rusty.”

“No.” Aodhan’s response was firm. “He only does it with you, no one else.”

Elena thought of how Gian had stared at her so strangely there at the end. “I remind him of the woman he was involved with.” She’d updated Aodhan on that piece of information after their flight the previous night. “I’d probably stare, too, if I met a man who looked like Raphael. And if the breakup was bad, if Gian’s lover did betray him, it explains why he hasn’t mentioned her.”

Aodhan nodded, but she saw he wasn’t convinced. Neither was Elena: she was just forcing herself to look at every possible angle. She couldn’t allow herself to be unduly influenced by the fact that those tiny hairs on the back of her neck? They’d quivered upright the entire time she was with Gian.

A sudden wind whistled through the courtyard.

Elena shivered, hearing within it a woman’s desolate moan.

Raphael sat next to his mother in the internal chamber. There was nothing in this room beyond ten armchairs arranged in a circle. On his right was Titus, next to Titus sat Elijah. Alexander had taken the seat directly opposite Caliane. Next to him sat Michaela on one side, Favashi on the other. Charisemnon had the seat between Michaela and Elijah, while Neha sat next to Caliane on her other side, Astaad next to Neha.

The Cadre of Ten was in session though there were eleven archangels in the world for the first time in known history.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Charisemnon said into the quiet broken only by the rustling of Neha’s silver-shot maroon sari as the Archangel of India crossed her legs.

Neha’s hair was in its usual elegant knot and she wore a teardrop-shaped bindi in jewel blue between her eyebrows.

Raphael knew that while Neha may have stopped wearing mourning white, she would never forget—or forgive—the death of her daughter. Regardless of how much he respected her, or how much he missed the relationship they’d once had, he could never forget that simple fact.

Vengeance defined Neha.

And it was she who responded to Charisemnon. “So sure, Charisemnon—have you had contact with Zhou Lijuan?” Her voice was poisonous grace, but that poison wasn’t malicious—Neha was the Queen of Snakes and Poisons after all. Then again, given the way she was looking at Charisemnon, maybe it was very much on purpose.

As Elena had pointed out, Neha did not suffer cowards.

And as far as Raphael was concerned, Charisemnon was a coward who brought shame to angelkind and who needed to be erased from existence. The Archangel of Northern Africa had gained the ability to create immortal-harming diseases in the Cascade, had used it in attacks on Titus’s and Raphael’s territories. In Raphael’s case, it had led to the Falling, when angels fell from the sky to be shattered and broken.

Hundreds had been horrifically injured.

Five had died.

Been murdered.

Including young Stavre, a promising youth on his first placement.

The fallen had been carried home from New York by an honor guard of angels, their funeral biers covered with flowers as they traveled the sky road they’d so loved in life. When the honor guard passed by Neha’s lands on the way to the Refuge, they’d been joined by another squadron. The new squadron had carried lanterns to light the way, those lanterns refreshed all the way to the fallen’s final home in the mountains where each had been born.

The Archangel of India was a complicated woman.

“If I had met Lijuan,” Charisemnon said with a smile that dripped charm, “I would’ve spoken up when this ridiculous summons was first sent.” He remained boneless as a cat in his seat, a handsome man with flawless skin. No sign remained of the disease that had ravaged him when his abilities turned on him; he was once again an archangel who attracted lovers in droves and who had a liking for young flesh in his bed. Too young.

That one was always full of himself even as a boy.

His mother’s voice, that stunning symphony of sound, broke into Raphael’s thoughts. Sometimes, he said, I forget that you knew everyone here as a child. What was Alexander like as a boy?

Her eyes met his for a fleeting instant, the incandescent blue flame burning with memory. As ambitious and as honorable as he is today. She turned to face the others once more. Though now he carries a violent rage deep within. Sadness in her tone. I hope he will not allow it to poison him.

Xander is helping. Lijuan had murdered Alexander’s only son as well as Rohan’s wife, but that son had left behind a son of his own. Alexander can’t drown in grief when he has a boy to raise. Like Elena’s adored Izak, Xander needed seasoning, needed a firm guiding hand as he grew into his wings and learned his own strength.

Yes. Caliane’s agreement was soft. But it is a harsh thing to outlive your child. Some never recover. I have seen this in my eternity of life.

Raphael could say nothing to that; his mother had lived so many years that he might never know quite when she’d been born, when she’d taken her first steps. Across from her, Alexander raised his eyebrows very slightly and he had the feeling the two Ancients were talking to one another.

Charisemnon, meanwhile, was still attempting to convince the rest of them to dissolve this meeting and give Lijuan more time to surface.

Raphael decided it was time to get things back on track; he had no intention of being stuck in Lumia for weeks. Especially not when the Luminata watched Elena from the shadows, their intent unknown. “We can’t cancel this meeting,” he said when Charisemnon paused for breath. “Bloodlust has already hit.”

“Isolated incidents.” Astaad stroked his goatee as he had a habit of doing when deep in thought. “While you all know I believe vampires must have a strict hand on them regardless of age, it is a big thing to depose an archangel. We must be certain.”

Neha inclined her head, her tone far less poisonous in response to Astaad. “I share a significant border with Lijuan. Any outbreaks of bloodlust could well spill over onto my lands and yet I would not declare her derelict in her duties or gone to Sleep without irrefutable proof.”

Neither statement surprised Raphael. Astaad was an ally, Neha an unknown at this point in time, but both were archangels who believed in tradition over change. “The incidents are no longer so isolated,” he said in the pause that followed their exchange.