by Nalini Singh
Little hunter, little hunter, where aaaaaarre you?
Perhaps I’ll tie you to Bobby, let him feed.
You disgust me.
Dead, they’re all dead.
Because of you. Her sister’s voice. Ari’s voice.
Monster. Belle, whispering so low and mean. You’re a monster.
“I’m sorry,” Elena whimpered. “I’m sorry.”
Monster.
“I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t!”
Better that you die here in this tomb, than lead others to their deaths.
Ari would never say that to her. Belle had never spoken to her in that vicious tone. The wrongness of it snapped the snare of nightmare. Shoving up the mental shields she’d been working on since she woke from the coma, she slammed herself against the wall, only then realizing she’d taken several steps forward. “I’m not playing this game!”
The instant her back met the wall, she became aware of the rush of cold air at her feet. Horror uncurling within her, she reached out with a foot, scooting forward an inch at a time. Her leg was almost fully extended when she felt a “lip” of stone—as if there was nothing beyond except a deadly crevice.
Shaking, she pulled back her leg, dropping her knives into the palms of her hands at the same time. Sweat trickled down her temples, stuck her hair to the sides of her face, made the air chill against her skin—she welcomed the rush of sensation, even as she decided to gamble with what might very well be her life. Wish me luck, Archangel.
There was no response, but she knew he had to be blasting the rock with angelfire by now. He’d get her out. She just had to keep herself alive in the interim.
Right on cue, she heard the slither of something on the stone, something heavy and scaly and reptilian. Shivering, she switched one of her daggers for the short sword Galen had drilled her in until she could fight in the dark—so long as she avoided that gaping pit in the center—and she opened her mouth. “Games,” she said, speaking to the alien intelligence behind this trap, “are beneath you.”
The slithering didn’t cease, but she felt the sense of something, someone watching and listening, the heavy weight of that presence pressing down on her as she drew in long, slow breaths and tried to pinpoint the location of whatever it was that had crawled out of the pit to join her.
Musk. Dirt. Moss.
It was the last that gave her the anchor she needed—the stone room had been bare of living plants when she’d retrieved Illium. The creature was in the left-hand corner, she thought, heading toward her. So she began to inch to her right a fraction at a time, always testing ahead before she moved. She didn’t trust the hole to remain in the center of the room.
“You were a goddess,” she said as she moved. “Intelligent and beautiful, and worshipped by people not out of fear, but out of love. I am nothing but an angel new-Made, no real challenge to someone of your power.” It was the unvarnished truth, and that, Elena thought, might just save her. Unless Caliane was still utterly insane. “To torment me serves no purpose but to lessen you.”
A sudden cold that made her heart stutter in shock. The thing in the room with her hissed in rage at the same instant, and she knew she was skirting the edge of what would be tolerated. But she had to keep talking, had to keep Caliane from ordering the creature to attack. “Do you know what Raphael told me?” she said, hope flaming anew as she felt a vibration in the wall. Archangel.
The moment’s distraction almost cost her everything as the serpent or whatever the fuck it was spit something in her direction. She caught the scent of acid a fraction of an instant before it would’ve been too late and slammed herself down and to her right, breaking what felt like a rib in the process. That pain, however, was nothing to the searing agony on the very tip of her left wing. Swallowing the scream that wanted to escape, she blinked back tears and crawled another foot out of range. “He told me,” she said through the agonizing hurt, “that you had a voice like the heavens, so pure and strong and imbued with love that the world itself stood still to listen.”
The cold retreated with such unexpected swiftness that Elena wondered if she’d surprised Caliane. But it was too late. She was trapped in a corner, with the floor falling away in a steep drop to her right, solid stone walls to her back and left ... and the creature coming straight for her. She could see glowing slivers of swirling yellow and green that she guessed were its eyes, and from the sound it made as it slithered across the floor, it was massive.
There was no way in hell she’d be able to fight that thing trapped like this, but there wasn’t any time to do—“Idiot, shit.” She was moving even as the thought entered her head, rolling off to her right and into the pit, wings flared wide to control her descent. She had a feeling she did not want to drop down to the bottom—who the fuck knew what waited below, but she could use this space to maneuver. She didn’t let herself consider the fact that the whole thing might snap shut, crushing the life out of her—maybe, just maybe, Caliane had heard enough to decide to give her a chance.
Twisting so that she faced the last known position of the creature, she beat her wings up and sliced out with the short sword. A scream of rage and the thick, pungent odor of body fluids told her she’d scored a hit. Her elation lasted only an instant—before agony blazed down her left side and she realized the creature had spit at her again.
It felt like her flesh was being peeled off her bones. Tears streamed down her face though she tried to fight them, knowing she couldn’t give in to any vulnerability. Then her left wing began to drag, and she knew the acid had hit something vital. Fighting to keep herself afloat, she slammed into a wall inside the hole, felt the roughness of it scrape away the skin on her arms, her face, to expose her flesh to the air.
A second after that, she heard the slithering below.
Jesus. Swallowing, she beat her good wing faster in an effort to rise, but only succeeded in slowing her momentum a little. Archangel, if you have something up your sleeve, now would be the time.
A slam of crashing noise and then light, so bright that it made her cry out, shade her eyes with her uninjured arm as rocks and stone ... and wetter, slimier things, rained down from above. Ducking to the side, she scrabbled at the coarseness of unfinished stone as one wing collapsed completely. “Raphael! Down here!”
A nail tore off her finger, another, blood slicking over her skin. Hurry!
Strong hands clamping over her shoulders. Two seconds later, she was being hauled out through a gaping hole where there had once been a door. Blinking against the sudden light, she tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out past gritted teeth, the agony on her left side starting to crawl to the right.
Raphael brushed the hair off her face. “I have you, Elena. I have you.” The warmth from his hands began to soak into her skin, chasing out the vicious pain that made her feel as if her organs were caught in a massive grinder.
Giving in to the need, she buried her face against his chest and fisted her hand in his damp shirt as he used his power to heal her. He was big and strong and warm, and she wanted to strip him to the skin and wrap herself around him until nothing could touch either of them. Sucking in a breath when his hand brushed her still-burning hip, she set her jaw, holding on with a white-knuckled grip.
Sooner than she’d expected, the pain was nothing but a memory.
“How bad is it?” she asked against his chest. “My wing?” It felt dead, gone. No, please no.
33
His arms around her. “The creature’s poison was not as bad as Anoushka’s.”
“Not reassuring, Archangel.”
“Your wing was paralyzed, not damaged—the acid didn’t have time to eat through the tendon and bone. You’ll be able to fly again in a few minutes.”
So relieved that she was shaking, she pulled away to sit up—and got a good look at her side. Her clothing had been eaten away in spots large and small to expose her flesh. And it was flesh, the skin having been burned to nothingness by the acid.
Bone gleamed white through one section and the sight of it made her want to retch.
Tensing her stomach against the urge, she wiped off her tears and blew out a breath. “Not as bad as it could’ve been.”
“They go for the eyes,” Illium said, sounding coherent and functional as he stood guarding the gaping hole in the stone below the dais, his sword in hand. “Good thing it was dark in there or your eyeballs would’ve been leaking down your face by now.”
Elena stared at him. “Thank you for that cheerful thought.”
The damn blue-winged idiot winked at her, those astonishing lashes closing over one golden eye.
“Raphael, can we kill him now?” she muttered, trying not to think about the fact that she had holes seared into her flesh.
Raphael’s bones cut against his skin as he helped her to her feet. “Not yet, Elena. We may have need of him.” It was said with such frigid calm that for a moment, she thought he’d taken her seriously.
Then she followed the direction of his gaze into the dark maw of the chamber where she’d been trapped. “No.” She gripped his arm. “You’re not going in there.”
A glance so arrogant, she knew most beings—mortals and immortals both—would’ve fallen to their knees in submission. “Leave me, Guild Hunter. Illium will take you to the roof, to safety.”
“Sire—” Illium began, no hint of laughter in his expression now.
“Illium.” A single word. A command.
Illium looked as if he wanted to argue, but in the end, he bowed his head. However, Elena wasn’t one of Raphael’s Seven. She didn’t have to obey his orders. Moving around to face him, she folded her arms. “If your mother is so powerful,” she said, “then she can meet us out here just as well as in that pit.”
“Caliane is not used to coming to anyone.”
She raised an eyebrow and hoped like hell her next words wouldn’t get them killed. “Or maybe she’s only powerful when she has her prey trapped and alone. You’ve never had trouble facing anyone down in the full light of day.”
The temple shook at her feet, trembling so hard she almost tumbled into Raphael. For a moment, she was afraid the entire structure would collapse, burying them. But she’d forgotten that Caliane was a goddess in Amanat—and that her people slept vulnerable beneath the stone roof.
When the trembling stopped, everything was as it had always been. Except that Raphael and Illium had their eyes trained on the dais. On what had appeared atop the stone.
* * *
Raphael strode up to what he now realized was an altar, aware of his consort and Illium coming to stand beside him, their swords drawn. But his attention was on the stone slab before him. Six feet long and three feet wide, perhaps as deep, it was a cool pale grey and free of ornamentation. Like the door below, the slab appeared seamless, but unlike the door, he didn’t know how to unlock this puzzle.
Raphael.
Placing his palm on the stone that should’ve been cold but instead held a lingering warmth, he dropped his shields a fraction. Mother.
There was no answer, but he knew . . . “She is awake.” It was too late to kill her while she lay weak and vulnerable.
Could you have done such a thing, Raphael?
Her voice, that beautiful, haunting voice, it penetrated to his very bones, stripped him bare. I am an archangel.
Yes. Such pride in that single word, a wonder of words unsaid. You are the son of two archangels.
He spread his fingers over the stone. Are you sane, Mother?
Laughter in his mind, painful in its familiarity. Is any immortal ever truly sane?
The temple shuddered again, but this time, it was different, dust and rock raining down from the ceiling. Raphael felt the touch of death an instant before he sensed the power of another archangel. “Lijuan is here.”
“Wait!” Elena grabbed his arm when he would’ve turned, headed out. “I can taste your mother’s scent in the air—exotic and rich and sensual. Black orchids.”
“I must go, Elena.”
“But it’s leavened with a strange, unexpected note of sunflowers.” Her fingers clenched on his arm. “There were no sunflowers on the body of the tortured girl, on the bridge, on the vampires who went mad in Boston. The scent was too pure, too much the essence. Do you see?”
Thank you, Guild Hunter. He was already moving, Elena and Illium running across the temple floor behind him.
They exited out into the streets of Amanat to see the Archangel of China in physical form, throwing arrows of power at the temple building. Each bolt was black. There was nothing inherently evil in black—all of Jason’s abilities manifested in that midnight shade—but Lijuan’s power was riddled through with a rotten core that made Raphael recoil.
Rising to face her in the air above the temple, he blocked one of her shots with the vivid blue that was the manifestation of his own power. “I did not ask for your assistance, Lijuan.”
Her hair whipped off her face. “She cannot rise, Raphael. You must not let your emotions blind you to the truth of her madness.”
He knew Lijuan spoke the truth—to a point. Blocking another arrow of power, one that slammed him back several feet through the air, he gathered angelfire in his palms. It might no longer do her mortal harm, but with her in her physical form, a direct hit would still cause significant damage. “The question of her insanity remains unanswered.”
“She took the young one,” Lijuan said, her hair electric with black strands that Raphael realized were streamers of pure dark energy. “And your consort looks injured. Those are not acts of sanity.”
Perhaps not, Raphael thought, but most archangels walked a fine line between sanity and insanity. “Any one of us may have done the same.” He spoke not to defend Caliane, but to oppose Lijuan—and because his mother, while she had acted with the cold arrogance of power, had done nothing as yet to speak of madness. Lijuan on the other hand ...
“What of the people she murdered around the world? The ones hanging from the bridge in your city?” A hail of black rain designed to gouge and kill.
He swept out of the way, throwing back a volley of angelfire that she swamped in black. “Those acts did not bear her touch, Lijuan. They bore yours.” It was a guess. The murders and torture could well have been orchestrated by Neha, but Lijuan was the one with the most to lose if Caliane rose.
A pause in the rain of black fire. Then a soft, girlish laugh. “You always were clever.”
He attacked her with angelfire while she was distracted. Lijuan raised a wall of black flame to block him, her power incomprehensible. And her voice, when it came next, was nothing the least bit human. “Good-bye, Raphael.”
There was no way to avoid it. The bolts came from everywhere.
He heard Elena scream as he took a direct hit to the chest. It was not angelfire, for Lijuan had never had that ability, but that didn’t matter. Bloated with her toxic power, it was a killing blow, even for an archangel. The blackness invaded his blood, spread through his cells until he could see his veins turn black under his skin, feel the crawling of it across his irises.
“I am sorry, Raphael.” Lijuan’s voice. “I always did like you. But you would protect her.”
He tried to speak to Elena, to tell her that she would be safe. Even after his death, his Seven would not break their vows. They would protect her. But Lijuan’s poison spread throughout his system, blocking his efforts to fight it with the cutting blue of his own power. And he fought. He fought with every ounce of will in his immortal heart, every ounce of the unnamable, unending emotion he felt for Elena.
Even dying, he managed to throw a final ball of angelfire, using his fading vision. It made Lijuan scream. That high-pitched sound ringing in his ears, he fell to earth, coming down hard on the temple roof, his wings crushed but not broken, his fall cushioned by a power that felt akin to that which had once been the standard against which he judged himself.
My son! My Raphael.
Too late, he thought, it was too
late. Caliane had never been a healer, and his entire body was riddled with Lijuan’s black poison. Shoving outward with his own newborn gift, he tried to heal himself, but his ability was young, scarcely formed. It stood no chance against Lijuan’s brand of evil.
“Raphael!” Hands cupping his face, fierce determination in his hunter’s voice.
He wanted to order her to leave, to warn her that the infection that was Lijuan’s power could spread, as it had with the reborn, but he knew she’d never leave, his consort with her mortal heart. Elena mine.
Elena swallowed the tears and panic that threatened to take her over when she saw Raphael’s beautiful eyes overrun with tendrils of Lijuan’s evil, obscuring those irises of a haunting shade found in the deepest part of the ocean, intense and absolute. “No,” she said. “No!”
Above her, the sky fractured in a cataclysm of light, and when she looked up, Lijuan was no longer alone. An archangel with hair of tumbling raven black and wings of purest white faced her, her hands ringed by blue flame.
The template from which I was cast.
Snapping back her head, she squeezed Raphael’s hand, his golden skin pale above veins turned black and rigid. Archangel, can you hear me?
These words hold the last remnants of my power.
Focusing on the fact that he was still alive and refusing to consider anything else, Elena ducked as a piece of rock went flying past—spreading her body and her wings above Raphael.
Go, Elena! They will fight to the death.
Ordering me around even now, Archangel? She wouldn’t leave him. She’d never leave him. Looking up, she saw that Illium continued to stand guard, his face streaked with anguished fury. Bluebell will tell us when to duck.
A moment’s silence, and her heart almost stopped.
I should be dead.
Trembling, she pressed her forehead to his. Don’t say that. You survived Lijuan once. You’ll do it again. Except that his golden skin had turned cold and pale, his eyes now eerie blocks of black, and his wings ... She lifted a fisted hand to her mouth, biting down hard on her knuckles.
