by Nalini Singh
“Yes.” He knew she was no longer talking about Illium. “Immortality has its price.”
Her arms tightened around him. “It’s too high, far as I’m concerned. Bowing and scraping to a master? Hell, no.” Her tone was acerbic. “Maybe that’s why you guys Make so many morons into vamps. They’re the only ones stupid enough to apply.”
He squeezed her. “So now you insult the Cadre of Ten.”
“You know Mr. Ebose. You know who I retrieved for him. Come on, seriously—what was his qualification for immortality aside from abject idiocy?”
“That, you cannot know.”
“I already know too many secrets—what’s one more?”
He dipped with the air currents, making her hold on tighter. “We’ve arrived.”
She sighed, but then he felt the brush of lips against his jaw. “Being with you is an exercise in frustration.”
He landed in the woods that separated his home from Michaela’s, shed the glamour, met the vivid silver of her eyes. “I’ve set guards on Sara, Ransom, your father, your siblings, and their families.”
Shadows moved across her face, darkening those eyes to storm readiness. “Thanks.”
“Do you consider Harrison an idiot, too?” he asked, referring to her brother-in-law. “He is a vampire after all.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I have one question—I need to know.”
“Beth,” he said, watching that expressive face. For a hunter, her shields were surprisingly weak, as if she somehow still saw innocence in the world.
Then she will kill you. She will make you mortal.
Was it not worth the loss of a little immortality to have that strange mix of innocence and strength close to him? “Harrison knew when he was Made that there was no guarantee we’d accept his wife.”
“Is it possible?” she asked. “However you choose the Candidates, is it possible Beth could be one?”
“Why does it matter to you?” he asked. “They treat you like so much trash.”
Her hand fisted. “Yeah, well, just call me a glutton for punishment.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter that she drives me insane half the time. She’s my sister.”
“As Ariel and Mirabelle were your sisters?”
34
Her entire body stilled. “I don’t talk about that.”
He knew the facts, but hearing the odd brittleness in her voice, realized they told him nothing. “Beth isn’t suitable,” he said, instead of fencing with her.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He’d made it a point to find out . . . because he’d known Elena would want to know.
“Aw, shit.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “He’s a moron but he loves her.”
“He loves immortality more,” Raphael said with centuries of experience. “Did he not, he would’ve waited until she, too, was accepted.”
Elena looked at him, an inscrutable expression on her face. “Do you believe in anything good anymore?”
“If we’re able to kill Uram, then perhaps I’ll believe that evil does not always win.” Perhaps. He’d seen too much malice done to believe in the fairy tales that comforted humans through their firefly life spans.
Shaking her head, Elena began walking toward Michaela’s home. “I’m starving.”
“You ran a long distance.” He sent a message to Montgomery to prepare food fit for a hunter.
“What happens if you don’t eat?”
Another question no one had thought to ask him for over a thousand years. “I fade.”
“Get weak?” She crouched, touched the earth, and brought her fingers up to her nose. “I thought I scented something but it’s gone.”
He waited until she was up again before answering. “No, I literally fade, become a ghost. Food anchors our physical form.”
“Then why don’t other angels starve themselves—you know, to get the invisibility thing happening?”
“Fading doesn’t incur invisibility, just washes us out. Since lack of food also leaches power, being faded is not a good thing.”
“So if I want to make an angel vulnerable, I should starve him?”
“Only if you plan to contain him for the next fifty years.” He watched shock, then consternation fill her face. “Starvation is a relative concept. Unlike a vampire, an angel will not easily fade.”
“Vamps don’t fade, they shrivel,” she muttered, and he had the sense that she was remembering something. “The older they are, the more they shrivel.” She stopped at the edge of Michaela’s lawn and looked up at the archangel’s window. “Same concept, though, I guess.”
“Yes.” Following her gaze, he remembered how she’d looked up from that very spot yesterday. “Do you scent him?”
“Yes.” She bit her lower lip and glanced back the way they’d come, before returning her attention to the window. “Something’s wrong.”
“It’s too quiet. Where are the guards?” He scanned the area, looking for Uram’s distinctive wings. “He can’t have reached here much ahead of us. Geraldine’s memories have him dumping her when he sensed pursuit.”
She shot him a narrow-eyed look. “What was he planning to do—make her into art, shock the people who found her?”
“Yes.”
“Figures. Can you do a flyover?”
He gathered his wings, gave an upward push, and was airborne. It was a freedom he’d always taken for granted . . . until he saw the hunger for flight in a hunter’s eyes. No overt signs, he told her, the mental link effortless by now.
“I’m going in.”
That was unusual, how very easily she spoke to him. He knew Elena thought she was only speaking out loud, that he was taking the words from her mind, but that wasn’t quite true—she instinctively knew how to arrow her thoughts so they didn’t get lost in the jumble of an active mind. She could also block him when she wanted. It hurt her, but she could do it. The arrogance in him wasn’t exactly pleased by that, but the archangel found it intriguing.
Catching a downward draft, he winged down to land behind her. “You will not go in alone.” No mortal could hope to win against Uram.
She didn’t argue, the look in her eyes—focused, hunter-born—saying that at this moment, she saw him only as another tool. With a sharp nod, she closed the distance to the house, but, rather than going around the front, she jimmied open the sliding doors on one side. “I’m drowning in his scent,” she whispered. “He’s here.”
Raphael put a hand on her back. “I’ll go first.”
“This is no time to pull macho crap.”
“It could be a trap. You’re mortal.” Stepping through the doorway, he scanned the room—the library. “Come.”
She followed on quiet feet. “Scent’s deeper inside.”
He opened the doors to the library and stepped out. Riker was staked to the wall in front of him, a wooden chair leg embedded in his throat. The vampire was still alive but unconscious—likely from the blow to his head that dripped blood down his temples.
“Jesus,” Elena whispered. “He’s having a very bad week. Do we leave him?”
“He won’t heal until the stake’s removed.”
“Then let’s go. I can only deal with one psychopath at a time.” She nodded left.
He began walking that way, not particularly surprised when he found another one of the guards impaled on a savagely compelling sculpture from Michaela’s years with Charisemnon. The vampire’s head hung at the wrong angle for life. “He’s dead.”
“Broken neck?”
“Decapitation”—he showed her how the head was barely attached by a few tendons—“coupled with removal of the heart. It wasn’t planned, though. This was just to get him out of the way.” He put a foot on the stair.
“No.” Elena pointed in the other direction. “Deeper inside.”
A scream shattered the air.
He stopped her from running. “That’s what Uram wants.” Pushing her behind him, he headed toward the sound. Uram was a master of strate
gy—he’d obviously figured out that Elena was the linchpin. Take her out and he could evade the Cadre for years—there were other hunter-born, but none as gifted as Elena. And if Uram wasn’t executed within half a century of his devolution, he might gain enough power to rule. And the world would drown in blood.
Elena tugged on his wing. He glanced over his shoulder, about to warn her not to distract him. It could prove fatal, even for an immortal. She was pointing up. He nodded. I know. Michaela’s home had high ceilings, as was the case with the homes of most angels. Her living room, like his, was basically the central core of the house, the upper floors arranged around the edges. Uram wouldn’t be waiting below, he’d be waiting above.
That left Raphael at a disadvantage. This house had been remodeled from a human dwelling, rather than being designed for angelic inhabitants. There were no high windows he could use to fly straight through to the living area. He’d have to walk in the door. Elena tugged again, until he bent his ear to her lips.
“Let me go in, distract him. You come in straight after—he won’t have time to kill me.”
Had anyone outlined this scenario to him before he met Elena, his answer would’ve been instant. Yes, send in the hunter, distract the bloodborn. And if the hunter died, it was a small price to pay to win this war. But now he knew her, now he’d taken her, now she belonged to him.
Her eyes narrowed, as if she could read his thoughts.
“Go in low,” he said, knowing he’d startled her. “He’ll aim for head-height. Roll.”
She nodded. “He’s definitely in there. The scent’s crawled into my blood it’s so thick, so heavy.” Then she was moving toward the doorway.
The next few instants went at inhuman speed. Elena rolling inside, chunks shearing off the doorway, a howl of rage, and then Raphael was in the room, looking up at Uram as the other archangel fired bolts of pure energy at Raphael’s hunter.
He launched himself upward, gathering his own energy. This, too, was why he’d been asked to lead the hunt. Of the Cadre, only four could create the energy bolts. It was a gift that came with time—but only if the imprint for it was already there. And unlike with the room of Quiet, this energy didn’t have to come from within. As he rose, he drew power from electrical sources, shorting out the lamp burning below.
He threw the first bolt at Uram before the other archangel realized he was there. It hit midchest, throwing Uram against the wall. But Uram wasn’t an archangel for nothing. Stopping himself from crashing through the wood, he threw back a ball of red-hot flame. Raphael dodged it, knowing that if it hit his wings, he’d go down. Angelfire was one of the few things that could truly damage an immortal.
Angelfire and a hunter’s gun, he corrected. Elena, did I see you arm yourself with that little pistol you used to unman me?
Another exchange of blue and red, huge holes in the wall, dust floating to the earth in serene quiet. As they fought, he watched Uram, tried to see the monster. But the archangel looked as he always had, his new fangs hidden from sight as he focused on repelling Raphael’s blows, attacking with his own.
A passing fireball singed Raphael’s wing. Shrugging off the shrieking nerve endings, he returned fire, catching the tip of the other angel’s left wing. Teeth bared, Uram howled and the monster emerged, red fire in his eyes, fangs lengthening past his lips . . . and a dervish of flame in his hands.
The blood had made him stronger.
That was the draw, the temptation, the insanity. After the Scourge took hold, blood increased an angel’s power to the nth degree. But by then, no matter how they appeared, they were so insane that it mattered little. However, Raphael was no green boy to allow himself to be cornered. He dropped at the last instant, and the wave of angelfire hit the wall where he’d been moments ago, decimating everything in its path to expose the outside world, even as he shot upward with a bolt of his own.
Something fired, the sound a loud crack. Uram tipped to the side, faltering, and Raphael saw the tear at the bottom of his wing. He struck out at the vulnerable spot and hit, causing considerable damage. But Uram was already moving. Dodging Raphael’s second strike, he flew out the hole created by their battle.
Raphael went after him, knowing he could take him while the bloodborn angel was injured. He’d just swept out into daylight when a body slammed into him. He began to spiral down, managing a soft landing only by dint of years of experience—and put the body on a relatively clear section of the floor.
Michaela.
The female archangel was missing her heart, a glowing red fireball where the organ should’ve been. Not stopping to think, he thrust in a hand covered with blue fire and pulled out the red, throwing it at a wall and dissipating its destructive force. Michaela’s heart began to regenerate in front of his eyes.
“Elena!”
“I’m here.” She touched his arm, staring horrified at the mess of Michaela’s chest. “Wha—”
Leaving Michaela where she was, he wrapped an arm around Elena’s waist and flew up. “Track him.”
Understanding at once, she hung on tight and gave an alert nod. When he reached the opening Uram had used to escape, she pointed up, then toward Manhattan. Raphael knew he was fast, but Uram now had a head start. Raphael was also carrying another and though the other angel was injured, so was he. But they were close, so close . . . until they hit the stretch of the Hudson above the Lincoln Tunnel.
The waters of the river churned below, but Elena could find no hint of Uram’s scent in the air. Raphael took them down low enough that he could feel a fine spray on his face, but she shook her head. “He knows about water.” Sheer frustration. “Either he dived in, or he skimmed so close to the surface that the moisture masked his scent.”
Raphael fought the urge to expend power in a useless fit of fury. Instead, he did several wide sweeps along and around the length of river where they’d lost the trail. “Nothing,” Elena said. “Fuck.”
Silently echoing the sentiment, he flew them back to Michaela’s home through a sky pregnant with clouds, sending Dmitri a command to blanket both sides of the river with searchers. The chances of that search bearing fruit were incredibly low—Uram had to maintain glamour only for the undoubtedly short time it would take him to find a hiding place. For an archangel—even an injured one—that was child’s play.
Michaela was still where he’d left her, but her heart was now a beating, pulsing reality in her ravaged chest. Her eyes were open, filled with a kind of horror he’d never expected to see. Michaela was too old, had experienced too much, to know true fear.
“He’s mad,” she said when he crouched down beside her and took her hand. Bubbles of blood foamed out of her mouth. “There’s nothing left of the man he once was.”
Raphael saw Elena step out, knew his hunter was giving them privacy. Michaela would kill her as soon as talk to her and she felt compassion. So human, was Elena. “He’ll return for you.” Killing another angel was a vicious rite of passage, a compulsion the bloodborn didn’t seem to be able to fight. And once they fixated on someone, they never shifted their interest.
“He said”—Michaela coughed, her heart still visible through the closing gap that was her chest—“that I was the last thing tying him to this existence, that once I was dead, he’d be free to Rise. Rise to what?”
“Death, endless death,” Raphael said, continuing to hold her hand. Michaela was a cobra, but she was a cobra who was needed. If they lost her, the Cadre of Ten would be dangerously unbalanced. There was one who could possibly step into Uram’s shoes, but no second. “Where were you?”
“He took my heart once before he went after my guards, then again, and left me unconscious on the roof. I’d almost healed enough to fly when”—another cough, but the blood was gone—“he put the fire inside. He didn’t have time to spread it.”
They both knew if he had, she’d have died an agonizing, and complete, death.
“Go,” she said, her eye skating to his wing. “You’re injured. Yo
u need to heal before he does.”
Nodding, he rose, aware she’d be functional in another few minutes. “I saw one guard in the hall, Riker staked by the library. Where are the others?”
“All dead,” she told him, lifting her left hand. A bloody diamond glittered on her ring finger. “On the roof.”
“I’ll arrange extra protection.”
She didn’t argue with him this time. “No invitation to your home?” She was starting to revive, burying her terror as immortals learned to do very early on.
He met her gaze. “You must remain a tempting target.”
Fear skittered in the backs of her eyes. “He won’t return tonight.”
“No—he’s too badly injured. Get the house repaired while he’s down.” He looked up at the huge hole where the wall had been. “At least as much as you can. I’ll send you some of my angelic guards as well.”
Michaela sat up, not bothering to cover her bare chest. It was a weapon, her body, one she wasn’t hesitant about using. But that wasn’t what she was concerned about right then. “Won’t that lessen my status as a tempting target?” In that moment, she was an archangel, knowing only that Uram had to die.
“He’s arrogant enough not to worry about even other archangels, you know that better than anyone.”
She looked up, a spark of true pain in her eyes. “I did love him. As much as an archangel can love.”
He said nothing, leaving her to consider what immortality had made her as he went to find Elena. She was waiting for him outside, on the edge of the lawn where the woods began. Her eyes immediately shot to his wing. “He damaged you.” Anger whiplashed through the air.
“I damaged him worse.”
“Bastard got away.” She kicked at the leaves as they walked. “How’s Her Royal Bitchiness?”
“Alive.”
“Pity.” The word was caustic, but he remembered the compassion.
He gripped her upper arm. “Don’t ever feel sorry for Michaela. She’ll use that vulnerability to destroy you.”
“Yet you saved her life.”
He slid his hand down to her elbow, then off. “She’s necessary. Impossible as it may seem, Michaela is more human than Charisemnon and Lijuan.”
