Archangel's War

41

Elena’d been working on her laptop for a half hour when Illium poked his head over to look at the screen. She bit back the force of her relief at the interruption—Illium was never as painfully silent as he’d been since takeoff.

“What are you doing so fiercely?” He propped his chin on her shoulder, his breath warm against her skin and the strands of his hair mingling with her own.

“Reigning over my blood-café empire.” It actually was turning into an empire, mostly thanks to Marcia Blue, the shy vampire who’d come up with the idea. Though their financial manager, Jonas, had also proven his worth.

“Is sweet Marcia still besotted with Jonas?”

“The besotting is mutual, but Marcia’s too wary after her Contract period.” Marcia’s angel had been a cruel fuck. Immortality didn’t always bestow empathy. It tended to wear that empathy away, until many immortals treated humans and young vampires as nothing but toys, to be used and discarded.

“Don’t ever become like that asshole.” She reached up to pat his cheek with one hand while scanning a financial report. “I want to kick him in the face anytime I see him. Too bad even consorts can’t go around kicking asshole angels in the face.”

“I’ll help you hide the body if you ever want to do away with him.” Playful words, but she felt the rigid tension that continued to grip his body.

She closed the lid of the laptop—she’d only opened it to give him space. “Want to raid the liquor cabinet and see if we can get you drunk?” Angels had such high metabolisms that alcohol did nothing for most. The only angel she’d ever seen even a little drunk was young Izzy, and he’d been badly injured from battle at the time—he’d also been sipping on Illium’s lethal secret recipe.

“I’ll grab the whiskey.”

He came back with a full-size bottle and two tumblers.

Elena had no idea if she’d become impervious to the effect of alcohol, so she was careful with her sips. “Whoa.” It hit her bloodstream with a punch of heat.

Illium threw back his own drink, then poured another one—all the way to the top of the crystal tumbler. He drank with methodical calm and was three quarters of the way through the bottle when he said, “My bastard of a father is awake.”

Elena’s muscles locked. She knew nothing about Illium’s father except that the topic must be a sensitive one. He had such an openness to him—even when speaking of hurtful things like his lost mortal love and Aodhan’s retreat from the world—that it was obvious when he didn’t talk about something. And he never talked about the man who’d sired him.

“He’s an archangel?” Raphael had once mentioned that Illium had an Ancient for a parent, but Elena hadn’t made an automatic connection to the Cadre. As for the Hummingbird . . . she’d already been a gifted painter during the time Nadiel and Caliane were lovers, so she wasn’t young—but either she wasn’t old enough for Ancient status . . . or she occupied a position in the angelic world that was matchless, beyond age or time.

“Everyone knows that Raphael is the beloved son of two archangels. My parentage is a question mark.” His lip curled. “I know he’s my father, but the rest of angelkind began to whisper questions after the bastard left us to fend for ourselves when I was too small to fly straight.

“Raphael was the one who taught me how to lift a sword, how to be a man of honor. He was the one my mother relied on to protect her boy. Aegaeon just took his pleasure of my mother and left. No archangel ever just abandons their child, that was what the cruel said. The Hummingbird must’ve been unfaithful, the boy another angel’s seed.”

His hand clenched so hard on the tumbler that it cracked. Abandoning it, he picked up the bottle of whiskey and slugged it down. His eyes glittered in the aftermath, but she knew it wasn’t the alcohol. It was anger so deep it cut. Elena didn’t blame him, but she couldn’t let it poison him.

“Clearly, your father and Jeffrey share the Great Father of the Year Award.”

Illium stared at her for a second before starting to laugh hard and deep. It hurt, that sound. There was no joy in it, but perhaps there was a release of pain. Because when he stopped at last, he reached over to tug on one of the tiny feathers at the ends of her hair.

“Aegaeon’s the reason the award was invented.” Settling back into his seat, Illium put down the whiskey bottle and stared up at nothing for a while. “Bastard was a good father while he was around. Taught me how to get myself in the air, picked up and kissed my mother with this bold hunger that made her smile and blush, told me to be courageous and to explore like a warrior.”

He flexed his fingers, curled them in again to bloodless tightness. “But he broke my mother with his selfishness, and I’ll never forgive him for that.”

“Your mother is a gift.” A being lovely and unique and old. “Whatever he did, he didn’t steal her soul.”

But Illium shook his head. “You’ve only ever met this Hummingbird.” Such sorrow in his words. “My mother used to be so young, Ellie. She had me when she was many eons old, but I never felt as if I’d been birthed at the twilight of her life.”

A haunted smile. “She’d play hide-and-seek with me through the Refuge, and when Aodhan and I got in trouble, she’d discipline us with the sternest expression, then hug and kiss us when we got sad.

“We’d make sweets together. We’d throw paint at canvases just to see which patterns emerged. We’d sneak into the Library at night to read by candlelight. She used to dance to any music that was in the air, this vibrant sprite that I’d sit and watch.”

Elena couldn’t imagine Illium’s mother doing any of those things. The angel she knew was a luminous talent, an artist revered and cherished, but she was also ethereal, existing in her own world. Often, she didn’t seem to remember that Illium was an adult, instead treating him as the boy he’d once been. But Sharine wasn’t mad, not in any sense of the word as the world used it.

She was, as Illium had said, broken. No, fractured was the better word. Cracks in her psyche, cracks in her emotions, her sense of self damaged. That didn’t stop her from being well-respected and, as she’d shown since being appointed to her present duty, she had the self-possession, intelligence, and sheer kindness to take over a place traumatized by evil.

“That he’s risen now, when my mother is coming into her own again?” Illium ground his teeth. “I will kill him if he damages her a second time. I swear it . . .” Flat, deadly words that allowed no room for doubt.

Raphael knew Elena was vulnerable away from him, but he also knew Illium would lay down his life for her—and he was an angel very few in the world could defeat. Most of those who could defeat him were preoccupied with the catastrophic emergence of three extra Ancients on top of Lijuan’s return. If they were lucky, no one would even notice Elena’s absence.

Around him, the Cadre meeting continued on unabated.

He’d held his silence since soon after the start. First, he’d given Aegaeon and Antonicus time to stop complaining about being so summarily woken, then he’d given the rest of the Cadre time to announce that no one was about to seize their territory from them. Zanaya’d had an amused smile on her face throughout, her contributions to the discussion cleverly designed verbal grenades.

At this moment, his mother was updating the new Ancients on the central events of this Cascade.

“Are you saying this Lijuan believes she is better than us?” Aegaeon snorted. “Show her to me and she will soon lose that belief.”

Titus was having none of it. He slammed down his staff; the resulting percussive thunder succeeded in claiming everyone’s attention. “Before you make rash promises, perhaps you should watch the recording made by Neha’s people.” He initiated a replay of the black fog that swathed China.

Antonicus had not paid much attention while Raphael was viewing it, now watched with engrossed concentration. To Zanaya and Aegaeon, it appeared new.

“She is the Archangel of Death.” Zanaya’s features held a repulsion that made her starlight eyes flow into obsidian. “I see this now.” She turned to Antonicus and Aegaeon. “Do you not see?” It was a demand. “We wake before our time to take care of this menace. We are not meant to live in this world. It is not our time.”

Raphael felt a reluctant liking for the Ancient. She might delight in stirring the pot, but she also saw with more clarity and less arrogance than most of the Cadre.

“Why would the Cascade do this?” Michaela’s cheekbones sliced against her skin. “Why give us a way to defeat Lijuan?”

“Because the Cascade wants chaos,” Raphael said, repeating words the Legion had dredged from the depths of memory so old that it began before the birth of mortals. “There is no chaos in only one power.”

He gestured to the frozen image of a blanked-out China. “A being who can do this, who can hide a landscape as vast as China, is no longer an archangel. She is beyond that, and we will need all our strength to defeat her should she prove a threat.”

“What do you mean, prove a threat!” Charisemnon brought his fist down on the ornate table in front of him, veins pulsing at his temples and splotches of red on his neck. “Do you not see what she is doing?”

“She is the goddess of her own territory,” Neha reminded him, her tone frigid. “As long as she remains in that territory, we cannot and will not touch her.”

“To do so would be to breach the laws that keep peace in the world,” Astaad said. “We do not interfere in territory that belongs to another.”

Elijah looked to Neha. “Do you have any further news of China?”

“Death.” Neha’s answer rang in the silence. “Anything that flies into that fog dies.” The jeweled green viper on her shoulder twined itself sinuously around her upper arm. Touching her fingers to its triangular-shaped head, she said, “We did not have to sacrifice any creatures—Lady Caliane and I both witnessed disoriented animals wander in and die.”

“This is so.” His mother’s voice was somber. “Thus, the talk of making war on Lijuan is moot for the moment. We cannot enter that dark fog.”

“We are archangels!” Antonicus pushed out his chest, his wings spread. “We cannot be brought down by fog. What feebleness has permeated the Cadre that you act akin to scared prey?”

“Raphael.” A tic in Neha’s jaw, her gaze hard as stone. “Do you have any recordings of what occurred in your territory when Lijuan made war on you? I do not think our awakened brethren will believe us until we show them evidence of—”

“This is foolishness!” Antonicus’s wings glowed. “I do not need to see more of your moving images. I will end this once and for all. I am going to China.”

“You have no invitation,” Caliane reminded him with commendable calm. “Entering another archangel’s territory without permission is a breach of protocol.”

“Once I find this Lijuan, I will make my apologies.” He unsheathed his sword. “And if she is a threat, I will neutralize her.”

Raphael and the others of the current Cadre attempted to talk the egotistical Ancient out of a project that could have no good ending, but he was adamant.

“In that case,” Raphael said when it became clear that Antonicus would not see reason, “will you agree to wear a device that records and transmits images back to us? We must know what is happening within the fog.”

Antonicus flicked a hand. “As long as it does not interfere with my ability to use my weapons.” Pure contempt in the look he gave the Cadre. “I must have a day to rest after my premature waking. I will make the attempt directly afterward.”

“We must all bear witness,” Caliane murmured. “Neha, I would ask permission for the Cadre and the awakened ones to gather on your border to watch Antonicus’s flight into the fog.”

“I will be gracious.” Neha was very much the Queen of India at that moment. “You are to leave immediately after Antonicus’s attempt, unless there is reason for another meeting of the Cadre. If so, we will hold that meeting at the border fort.”

“Agreed,” said every archangel in the space.

All twelve of them.

Add Lijuan and there were thirteen archangels in the world, five of them Ancients.

War was a certainty.