Archangel's Heart

28

“We go on the wing,” Alexander stated. “Only the Cadre, no one else.”

Raphael frowned inwardly. Surely you cannot expect Elijah and I to leave our consorts, he said mind to mind with Alexander. I know you do not want to leave Xander.

As others began to speak around them, Alexander replied on the mental level. It has been pointed out to me—a quick glance at Caliane—that I may be doing my grandson a disservice by having him always at my side. Eyes of undiluted silver looking into Raphael’s own. I did not become a warrior that way. Rohan did not. You did not.

It was an inarguable point. Yet so was Raphael’s. There are those who would hurt the pieces of our heart to get to us.

If we bring them with us, this will take much longer. They cannot match our speed and endurance.

Having kept an ear on the audible discussion, Raphael spoke to back up Elijah. “The Luminata may have a reputation as being worthy of trust,” he said, “but they are not my people, and now that I have walked the hallways of Lumia, I’m not so certain of the clarity of their quest. To ask me to leave my consort here is an exercise in futility.”

“I can understand that.” Favashi’s words were quiet, heavy with emotion. “Had I a consort, I would not leave him in unknown lands with an unknown sect, either.”

The other archangel gave an excellent impression of still mourning Rohan, but Raphael remained chary about the truth of her emotions. Favashi appeared one of the gentlest members of the Cadre, but she hadn’t survived this long by being anything but a clear-eyed operator.

“I suggest a compromise.” Astaad’s tone was of a peacemaker. “It is already deep into the afternoon. We leave tomorrow midday for China, while consorts and other escorts leave for our home territories at dawn, giving us time to fly with them a good distance before we return to Lumia for the trip to China.”

It appeared the most feasible solution. Raphael could get Elena to the plane in that time and Elijah could fly Hannah out of Morocco, Elijah’s consort old enough to make the trip home on the wing. Though she’d have no escort, since Cristiano was a vampire. Eli, if you prefer Hannah not return home alone, she’s welcome to join Elena on the jet.

Thank you, my friend, but there is a plane waiting for her, too—Cristiano flew in on it, while we came on the wing. If she is to return without me, I will ask that she go with Cris to save my heart the worry. A small smile. Hannah prefers the open sky whenever possible.

Raphael knew that in two or three hundred years, he’d be making the same response when it came to Elena; his hunter loved to fly, was held back only by her limited endurance and strength. “I have no argument with Astaad’s suggestion,” he said when it was his turn to speak to the Cadre on the proposal.

No one else demurred, either.

“I’m sorry, hbeebti,” Raphael said to Elena after the Cadre rose into the air and he swept out to fly wingtip to wingtip with her. “It appears you will not have as long in Lumia as we’d hoped.” He told her of the Cadre’s decision.

Her face fell, the two of them close enough that he could see every nuance of her features. “Damn. But I get it—a possible surge of bloodlust-ridden vamps trumps my curiosity about my family history any day.” She tucked back a strand of near-white that had escaped the twist in which she wore her hair. “Shall we wait for Aodhan?”

Raphael considered it, nodded. “Yes. I don’t want you alone in case one of the Cadre calls another meeting after we reach Lumia.”

Landing in among the wildflowers after riding down on a gentle wind, Elena folded back her wings as he did the same with his own. “I discovered something disturbing today.”

He listened as she told him of the lack of angels in the nearest township, of the fear and hatred she’d glimpsed in the eyes of the populace—and of the fact that Majda had indeed come from the town.

Intrigued by the latter but deeply troubled by her report on the townspeople, Raphael said, “Did you see many vampires?” As hunter-born, she could scent them even if they didn’t reveal their fangs.

Elena blinked. “No,” she said after a while. “In fact, the entire time I was there, I didn’t scent a single vampire.”

She stared at him. “Raphael, that’s more than odd. In a township that size, there should’ve been at least a few in the marketplace.”

Folding her arms, she scowled down at the inoffensive wildflowers around them, the colors soft pink, lacy white, and a bright, spiky yellow. “Mortal-only towns are pretty much a myth except when people put up their own gated compounds—and even those only last a generation at best. Someone in the family always ends up wanting to reach for the almost-immortality of vampirism.”

“An irrefutable fact proven through eternity.” Which meant there was a reason both angels and vampires were giving the township a wide berth. “Let me see if Aodhan has heard anything.” He reached out easily to the member of his Seven who was still heading away from Lumia.

Aodhan’s answer had him raising an eyebrow. “He knows nothing of why there are no vampires in the town, but according to what he learned from Remus, it’s possible angels don’t settle there out of respect for the Luminata.”

Elena’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I guess I can understand that given the reputation these guys have in angelic circles. But doesn’t it strike you as giving them their own little fiefdom?”

Yes it did. “I think I need to visit the town myself.” He wanted to see firsthand exactly what the Luminata had been doing cut free from all Cadre oversight. “It must be today. We won’t get a second chance until after the threat of war no longer looms on the horizon.”

Wincing, Elena reached back with one hand to squeeze the opposite shoulder. “I’m not sure I can go back with you right away. I’ve already spent significant time in the air today and I did two vertical takeoffs.”

Not that long ago, his consort wouldn’t have admitted the stress on her wings, considering it a weakness. And not that long ago, he’d have challenged her decision instead of asking what he did next. “The takeoffs were necessary?”

“Yes.” A grim reply. “I want the Luminata and everyone else to think twice before believing they can trap me.”

Now that they’d been in Lumia long enough to have picked up the disturbing undercurrents, Raphael saw nothing but ruthless practicality in her decision. “How bad is the strain?” He reached out not to the injured section but a little bit to the left, massaging the area gently with his fingers.

Eyes closing, his consort released a sigh of pleasure. “Nothing torn, but I’m fairly sure if I make the return trip to the township again, I might snap something.” A pause. “But you have to go even if I can’t. My gut says what’s happening there ties in with the Luminata as a sect and exactly how far the Cadre can trust them.”

“I need your contacts, Elena. The vast majority of mortals are terrified by archangels to the extent of muteness.” He knew exactly what would happen if he landed in the town without his mortal consort—their fear would overwhelm every other response and he’d get nothing.

“I should be able to ease the strain on your wings.” His healing abilities remained erratic, but he’d learned to access a certain low level of power at will—it should be enough to settle a minor strain.

Elena gripped his wrist, her fingers strong and warm. “After we’re back at Lumia. I don’t want you distracted out here.”

Since Lijuan’s squadron was by no means the only possible threat with so many of the Cadre in the vicinity, Raphael nodded. “You’ll also need to refuel and rest your body a little.” Meanwhile, he’d keep an eye on her flight patterns to make sure she didn’t need an earlier landing.

Hand dropping off his wrist, she said, “Raphael, I’ve been thinking . . . the way that painting of Nadiel was left where Caliane might’ve seen it, it can’t have been a simple oversight.”

“It reads as a power play to me, too.” And it made him wonder what other small aggressions the Luminata had taken against the Cadre. “If the Luminata have become so arrogant as to challenge archangels, then they have become a danger that needs to be swiftly eliminated.”

The survival of the world depended on the archangels being the ultimate authority. The Cadre had to be the fear beyond fear. The instant anyone began to question that, they empowered vampires and mortals to do the same. The end result of any such insurgency was always the same: a tide of horror and death.

“When I was a boy,” he told Elena, “a small group of powerful angels in a distant part of Caliane’s lands mounted a rebellion. Not because she was a bad leader.” His mother had been sane then, and beloved by her people for the most part. “They just believed they were too old and too experienced to be under an archangel’s yoke.”

Elena frowned. “Most archangels seem to leave the older angels pretty much alone to keep an eye over their areas of influence. I mean, you don’t interfere with Nimra or Nazarach when it comes to the day-to-day running of their regions.”

“It was no different then.” The wildflowers swayed in the wind as he spoke, brushing against his wings. “But the angels objected to even the fine thread that linked them back to Caliane and made her their official liege.”

“What did she do?” Wariness in Elena’s expression.

He didn’t blame her; his mother had earned her reputation for mercilessness. “She was tired of their behavior so she told them they were free to rule their section of the territory with no oversight from her.”

“I have a feeling this story doesn’t have a happy ending.”

“The angels bragged to anyone who would listen that they reported to no archangel.” Raphael could remember the whispers in the Refuge, had been aware even as a boy of the tension that whitened the lips of more than one adult. “Word soon got out to the vampires that they were under the angels’ control, with no archangel in the mix.”

“We’re talking angels as strong as Nimra and Nazarach?” Elena shifted their positions so she could take his hand, tug him on a walk through the wildflowers. “Those two are plenty strong enough to keep vampires in line.”

“These angels were even older and stronger.” Arrogant men and women who were used to people cowering before them. “But we live in a world of predators and prey, Elena. And while archangels can only be killed by other archangels, even powerful angels can be killed by anyone.”

Elena snorted. “If anyone has a tank or five and a hail of burning hellfire, and oh, maybe eight layers of armor.”

“Truth—but vampires chafing at the bit don’t think with such logic.” He wasn’t talking about people like Dmitri or Cristiano, who owned their vampirism, but creatures weak of character and selfish of need. “Such minds are blinded by hunger until they see only the possibility of total freedom to glut themselves on fresh prey.”

Eyes stark with the knowledge of a woman who’d survived just such a monster, Elena stared at him. “How many died?”

“Five thousand mortals, four hundred and seventy-three vampires, one angel.”

Her fingers clenched on his. “An angel?”

“A predator attacking the herd goes for the weakest link.” Vampires in a twisted kiss were akin to a pack of feral dogs, hunted in that same instinctual way.

“In this case, a number of violent and old vampires decided to attack a scholar who was maybe six hundred years old. He stood no chance, was cut into pieces in front of his household.” As Jessamy would stand no chance against Dmitri—angels weren’t automatically stronger than vampires, a fact most mortals never understood.

“Jesus.” Elena’s face was white. “And once that first boundary is crossed, there’s no going back.”

She’d seen it, the point he was making, his consort’s mind as sharp as the blades she wore with such lethal grace. “Do you want me to finish the story?”

A jerky nod.

“The vampires then slaughtered the angel’s small household of mortals and other vampires.” Raphael had been too young to be allowed anywhere near the scene, but he’d heard adults talking about gobbets of flesh flung at the walls and bloody feathers ground into the carpet, steaming piles of innards left on the welcome mat.

“The vampires moved on to their next target soon afterward, but only after crowing of the kill so the news ran like wildfire through the region.”

Elena just shook her head, her features set in harsh lines.

“Their next target proved stronger than expected, killed the vampires, but the genie was out of the bottle. Other vampires began to strike at angels while feeding on mortals like they were disposable cattle—entire villages were left full of only the dead.” He’d looked up and read the historical records once he was older, discovered the maddened vampires had ravaged anyone in their path.

Elders with fragile bones had been thrown against the walls, children’s soft throats torn out, young men and women abused vilely while those who would protect them were murdered in brutal ways. “The mortals paid the highest price, but the angels who survived the assaults didn’t do so unscathed: a number had their wings hacked off, the vampires having learned to do that first to keep their targets earthbound.”

He thrust a hand through his hair. “There were rational vampires, almost-immortals of iron control and will who tried to halt the tide and who fought heroically to protect the mortals in their areas.” Good men and women who’d fallen in defense of the vulnerable. “But bloodlust is infectious among the young and those already predisposed to violence. And just knowing that they could kill an angel, it was enough to snap the leash.”

“Where were the ruling angels in all this?” His consort’s voice reverberated with anger.

“Flying from scene to scene, helping injured angels, executing vampires. But not even their most brutal punishments could slow the vicious rampage, much less bring it to a halt. Nothing did—not until Caliane said enough and swept in. It took her a single day to bring the entire region into order.”

Elena’s response was hard with the ruthless understanding of a hunter. “Because no vampire can ever kill an archangel.”

“And we live in a world of predators and prey,” Raphael repeated. “Remove the top predator from the chain and the entire chain collapses.”

“It’s not chance the Luminata cleared out the vampires from this region.”

“No, it appears to have been a strategy to maintain their fiefdom—but that strategy hinges on a single fragile fact: that no murderous kiss of vampires will catch wind of an entire town full of defenseless prey.”