Archangel's War

52

Cowards are abandoning their wounded.” Dmitri spat out the words. “It’ll tank morale among her troops.”

“No,” Raphael murmured, “they’re too devoted to her. She is their goddess and the burned ones will consider it their sacrifice to sink down to the ocean floor until they can be retrieved. The ones with enough wing surface left to float may survive. Most will die.”

Elena sucked in a breath. “I thought angels couldn’t drown?”

“That badly wounded? It’s possible. Especially if their lungs are scorched and they are young.”

The idea of burned and bleeding angels sinking helplessly into the ocean while they drowned over a matter of hours or days made Elena’s stomach threaten to revolt. “Can we help them?” She had to ask the question, couldn’t abandon her humanity.

The Raphael who looked at her was the deadly archangel with power running cold and hard through his veins. But the Raphael who answered her was the man who loved her. “If we can do so safely, we will float out rafts onto which they can climb.”

Shokran, Archangel.

You keep me human, Elena. You stop me from becoming Lijuan. Never stop making such requests. Out loud, he said, “We must prepare for the next wave.”

Dmitri pressed a finger to his ear. “Ashwini’s got her team in position. Short-range rocket launchers ready.”

“Any signs of similar weapons among Lijuan’s troops?” Elena asked.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Dmitri zoomed in on a particular group of fighters. Rocket launchers on angelic backs, assault guns strapped to the front, that was just the start.

“Satellite’s also picking up a ton of movement beneath the water,” Vivek added. “She’s got more submarines, and I bet you they’re overflowing with supplies and people and weapons.”

“Her Evilness learned from the last battle.”

“No, it would have been Xi,” Raphael murmured. “He has always been the most intelligent man in her arsenal—though he is only dangerously powerful when she is nearby.”

Elena had nearly forgotten that Lijuan could share power with her troops. “That explains how she pulled off the noncorporeal tactic—she must’ve temporarily shared that power across her entire army.” No one had to tell her it was seriously bad news that Lijuan was now strong enough to spread herself that thin.

“Divers are in position,” Dmitri said.

Raphael resettled his wings. “Can they see the underwater craft?”

Dmitri spoke into a button mike pinned to his shirt collar, dark head bent, listened to the reply. “Negative. The water is murky.”

“I can use satellites to—” Vivek began.

Raphael swiped out a hand. “No. We stick to the rules of war. I will not violate them and step on the road to becoming Lijuan. If the subs attack, they become fair game at any distance. Prior to that, the divers must be able to see them. Line of sight, that is the law.”

Pride had Elena lifting their clasped hands to her mouth for a kiss.

In the distance, the hail of arrows continued. “I need to go relieve an archer.” That was her assigned task during the initial assault phase; she wasn’t expert-level, but she was good enough to take over for short periods so they could rest.

Eyes as blue as a pristine mountain lake slammed into hers, lightning alive in their depths and in the Legion mark at his temple. Stay safe, hbeebti.

That goes double for you, Archangel. He was going to be doing something incredibly dangerous very soon.

She made it to her position with two minutes to spare and picked up the shooting where the archer had left off. Her preference was the crossbow, but she’d honed her archery skills after the last battle because at this distance and with the added fire element, the specially designed arrows functioned better at the task.

Heat smoldered against her in every direction, eliminating the chill of winter. In front of each archer was a small flaming pot in which they lit their arrows. Sweat trickled down Elena’s face; she was glad she’d taken the time to find a hairtie and pull her hair back into a short tail.

She missed the ease of braiding her hair to keep it out of the way, and was already growing out the strands. Mostly though . . . she couldn’t keep seeing Belle in the mirror. Each time she turned and glimpsed the shorter strands without warning, she remembered Belle’s delight the day she’d had her own hair trimmed to that length. It hurt too fucking much to have a constant reminder of her dancing, wild, often impatient but always loving big sister.

She reached for another arrow. As with the other archers, she wore a quiver on her back—it was continuously refilled by young vampires or Guild trainees. Elena caught the gaze of the trainee who topped up her quiver without getting in the way and nearly lost her focus. But her body knew what to do and she did it without pause.

Her arrow flew.

She shouldn’t have been surprised to see Eve. Her sister was no longer a child. She was heading to sixteen and was one of the top trainees in the Guild despite her diminutive size. But Eve was also the baby of the entire family.

She notched another arrow, dipped it in flame, fired. “When’s your shift end?” she called back to this sister of hers who wore a long blade in a thigh sheath. No one would take Eve unawares as Slater Patalis had taken Elena’s family unawares. Belle and Ari and Mama, they’d stood no chance. Eve would stand a chance.

As for Jeffrey’s first daughter by his second marriage, she stayed out of the way of the immortal world, so perhaps she would remain safe. Elena hoped for a nice staid life for Amy, one cocooned in wealth and privilege. A life of debutante balls, a stockbroker husband, and a magazine-worthy home.

Far better than blood and death and grief.

“Thirty minutes!” Eve called out over the whoosh of the arrows firing. Crossbow bolts were also being prepped for the next phase. The clank of them as they were picked up and set out near where they’d be utilized was a constant.

“Then I’m a spotter with a ground watch team until it’s my turn back here again!’

Ground watch would sweep for any land-based fighters or reborn Lijuan managed to bring into the city. If those mockeries of life managed to spread their infection . . .

Elena set her jaw and slid out another arrow. Notched it. Set the tip aflame. Fired.

And waited, her heart a knot.

Raphael rose high above the Tower, taking in the overall battle. He’d changed into faded leathers of a bronzed brown, and wore two swords crisscrossed on his back below his wings, as well as forearm guards. Battle between two archangels never came down to such things, but he might need them to intercede on behalf of his other fighters.

At this moment, the wall of fire kept Lijuan’s forces at bay. Any who attempted to fly over it were being picked off with anti-wing guns from shooters positioned close to the waterline for just such a possibility. But the deluge was beginning—Lijuan had such a massive force that he could tell she planned to storm the city with no regard for her own casualties, until his archers couldn’t pick off enough of them to hold the line.

Dmitri, how is the evacuation proceeding?

The port and surrounding areas are clear. We can draw back to the first point without leaving anyone behind.

The operation had been completed faster than Raphael had expected, but then, Dmitri, Galen, and Venom had been working on the evacuation plan for months, even while Raphael lay unresponsive by Elena’s side. Their people were being moved out of Manhattan with clinical precision. Raphael had used his mental voice to command those who shouldn’t be moving yet to stay in place until given the order to go.

Chaos would reign if the entire population attempted to leave at once.

As it turned out, the biggest problem had been making people go. New Yorkers wanted to fight. Anyone with a relevant skill was being assigned a job by the teams Venom had on the ground. The recalcitrant were simply being picked up and dumped into people-mover trucks. There was no choice, not this time. Anyone left behind was fodder for the reborn, a way for infection to spread.

Hold the line, Raphael said, able to see that the deluge was not yet critical. Tell the gunners to prep. A heavier mass of line-of-sight rocket-launchers and anti-wing guns would be their second line of defense, to be put into operation while the archers and close gunners withdrew to safety. Get the nets ready to deploy. Naasir’s idea, coming off something he’d done during the last battle.

New York was a city of skyscrapers. Which meant it had plenty of points where you could attach rolled up nets created of translucent wires fused with razor-sharp shards of glass. No mortal or immortal could’ve woven those nets without slicing their fingers to shreds. It was a machine that had undertaken the dangerous task.

Over the time since the last battle, Raphael’s people had quietly attached the nets in ways that made it appear as if the holders were a part of the chosen buildings. An ornamental edging, or an extra air-conditioning pipe, even the odd stone gargoyle replaced by a hollow simulacrum.

All the nets were motorized. One electronic command and they’d engage across a large area of the city, creating a lethal network that’d cut and shred the wings of angels who flew into them. Unless the light hit a net just right, the traps were all but invisible.

All of Raphael’s winged troops had been drilled on their locations. He had absolute faith that none would’ve betrayed them to the enemy.

Done. Dmitri’s clear voice. I’ve also activated the booby traps in the projected landing areas.

Raphael had his eyes on the water, so he saw it explode a second before Dmitri said, One of our divers managed to get to a sub, plant explosives all over it. He saw through a porthole—thing was full of reborn.

Raphael hoped the fine nets in place across the mouths of the Hudson and East Rivers would stop the wreckage from floating into his city. The more pieces of infected reborn they could keep out, the better. Any survivors?

Unknown, but we have the area under constant surveillance.

Lijuan’s squadrons broke fighting formation, scattering in a disorderly manner. They hadn’t expected an attack from below. Shortsighted of Xi, but the general wasn’t used to fighting at a water border. No one had attacked China in thousands of years.

Another explosion in the water, followed by a third.

Did our divers get away in time?

They’re safe, Dmitri confirmed. We’re picking up at least three more subs but they’ve started firing into the water around them. Short-range guns. No missiles.

Tell the divers to withdraw. He didn’t want to lose experienced people when there was little chance of success. We’ll tangle the craft in the nets below the waterline. Those nets had been activated when Lijuan and her army were first sighted, would now be rippling silent and invisible in the cold dark.

The nets weren’t strong enough to stop the subs, but they’d slow them down. It’d give Dmitri more time to come up with possible solutions.

Raphael. Dmitri’s tone was sharp. Scheduled commercial flights that took off from Charisemnon’s territory in this general direction but to different cities are now altering their flight paths to head to New York. Pilots have ignored all attempts at communication.

Realization was instant. Charisemnon never gave up their alliance. The Archangel of Northern Africa and the Archangel of China had played them from the start—there was no way enemy planes, most probably packed with reborn, could take off from another archangel’s territory without that archangel being aware of it.

Charisemnon had betrayed them all. Warn Titus, then alert the rest of the Cadre.

Titus was an honorable warrior, wouldn’t expect a knife in the back during a catastrophic fight to save their people from the scourge of the reborn. Charisemnon, however, wouldn’t hesitate to slam in that blade. If they couldn’t get a warning to him, Titus would never see the death blow coming.