Archangel's Storm gh-5

by Nalini Singh

  “Jason.” The warmth of Jessamy’s smile traveled through even the tiny screen. “It’s good to see you.”

  “And you.” It was Jessamy who had first helped him remember what it was to be a person again.

  Standing outside the place where he’d watched the baby angels go to learn things, he waited for the last lingering student to disappear before he slipped inside.

  The woman within looked up, her eyes gentle with a kindness that wasn’t pity. “I have something for you,” she said, as if she’d been waiting for him, as if she knew he’d been listening to her lessons from the shadows for many days.

  Walking over, she handed him a set of hard books with big letters on the pages. “To help you remember.”

  He touched the cover, turned the pages.

  He’d once had books like this, had read them over and over even after he was alone, but then they’d crumbled, and after a while, he’d forgotten he was supposed to know how to read. Until today, when Jessamy’s newest lesson had turned a key in his mind, unlocking the sound of his mother’s voice as she taught him his letters.

  Taking the books, he left without a word.

  It had taken him months to break his silence, but Jessamy, with her wise eyes and kind heart, had never pushed, always left him room to breathe. Now, he said, “I have a question for you.”

  A tilt of her head.

  “You know Lijuan has evolved, and Raphael has gained a new ability. There are now signs that something may be happening to Titus, though I cannot yet say what.” The warrior archangel’s people were fiercely loyal, and Jason’s spies had only been able to ascertain that Titus was battling an illness. As archangels did not get sick, Titus must be undergoing a transformation of some kind.

  Neha’s ability to wield ice wasn’t public knowledge, thus he couldn’t speak of it without breaking the blood vow, but he had further evidence of a Cadre-wide phenomenon. “You remember Astaad’s erratic behavior.” The archangel had beaten one of his beloved concubines to a pulp, when he was known to be indulgent with his women to the point of spoiling them. “What I’m hearing is that he’s stabilized and may have gained nascent abilities over sea creatures.”

  Jessamy’s expression was thoughtful. “At the time, his behavior was explained by the disruption caused by Caliane’s awakening.”

  “The awakening of an Ancient is nothing to ignore,” Jason said, thinking of the lost city of Amanat risen in a place far from its origin. “But could Caliane’s awakening have been triggered by a more dominant force?” Lijuan’s dark evolution had predated Caliane’s waking by mere months, both events shifting the course of the world’s history.

  “There’s no—” Jessamy went silent. “Wait.”

  When she returned, it was with an old bound book she held with such care, it was clear it was fragile. “This history mentions an event called the ‘Cascade’ and states: ‘And the archangels were not who they should be, and bodies rotted in the streets, and blood rained from the skies as empires burned.’”

  Expression solemn, Jessamy glanced up. “This Cascade was over twenty-five thousand years ago. I’ll begin to search the archives for further information, but though her exact age is disputed, I believe there is one archangel awake who would’ve experienced it firsthand.”

  Caliane.

  Ending the call soon afterward to make another, he rose on a flight path toward the fort, aiming for the office Rhys kept near the barracks that housed most of the guard. The other man was overseeing a training exercise from his balcony, but he had the forensic reports.

  “Nothing we didn’t already know,” he said to Jason. “There was no finesse, no attempt to hide anything. Audrey appears to have had her organs removed, while Shabnam’s head was torn off. Arav, too, was ripped apart—tendons sheared, muscles snapped.”

  Jason scanned the reports, saw the note about Shabnam’s head, read that Arav had indeed been ripped apart—by bare hands. Not a single mark that could be attributed to a weapon had been found on his body. That told Jason something important. Very, very few angels had the strength to physically rip out another angel’s spine, much less wrench off his head.

  And to do that in flight against a general of Arav’s abilities? It would require near-archangel level strength or an unknown new ability. He needed to have his people begin to covertly check the power status of certain angels, get an indication if they, too, were being impacted by this strange evolution that seemed to be affecting the Cadre.

  Flipping back, he rechecked the report on Shabnam. Though the pathologist had been unable to confirm, given the nature of her injuries, it was his considered opinion that her face had been raked with claws of some kind. Jason had witnessed Neha’s fingernails elongate into claws, but it wasn’t an ability limited to her alone. Still, it was another piece of the puzzle.

  “Yes,” he said, retaining his copy of the forensic findings. “There’s nothing important here.” Rhys might be Neha’s man, but he wasn’t Jason’s.

  26

  Raphael considered the discussion he’d just had with Jason, and made the decision to put through a call to Caliane. His mother had initially been resistant to utilizing any kind of modern communications equipment, but after he’d refused to communicate with her using raw power, she had finally acquiesced to a small suite Naasir and Isabel had put in place.

  Now, Raphael waited as the angel on duty went to retrieve Caliane.

  “Raphael.” Eyes shining with love, she reached out toward the screen as she always did, as if she would touch him. “My son.”

  “Mother.” So long had he thought her forever lost that each time he spoke to her, it was a kick to the gut, an ache in his heart. “I would ask you a question.”

  “First, you must answer one of mine.” The order of an archangel who had been alive for an eon before her Sleep. “When can I next expect my son’s presence?” She waved her hand. “And I do not mean through this device.”

  “I cannot leave the Tower until one of the senior Seven return.”

  “The beautiful blue one. He is certainly not weak.”

  No, Illium was in no way weak, but his power had been growing in unpredictable jolts; enough that he didn’t quite have a handle on his new strength. “Mother,” he said gently, for he would give her honor until and unless her terrible madness returned, “I am your son, but I am also Cadre. Do not attempt to run my Tower, and I will not attempt to run your city.”

  Caliane’s gaze burned a dramatic blue flame, the glow deadly. “And should I decide to visit you, what then?”

  “I and my consort would welcome you.”

  “So you intend to continue the liaison? I could break her in a finger snap.”

  “Then I would have to kill you—as I will do if I ever consider you a threat to Elena.” His mother was an Ancient, used to getting her way and to seeing him as a child. She needed to remember that the boy she’d left bleeding and broken and heartsick on a green field far from civilization was long gone. “I am not who I once was.”

  The glow dimmed, melancholy in every line of her face, and he knew she relived the same memories. “Ask your question, Raphael.”

  He spoke to her of the “Cascade,” saw immediate comprehension. “So”—a whisper that held the weight of too much knowledge—“it’s true. I’d begun to sense the signs but had hoped I was wrong.” Hair the shade she’d bequeathed him tumbled over her shoulders as she shook her head.

  “Will you tell me about it?”

  “It is exactly what the Refuge Historian believes it to be—a confluence of time and certain critical events that has ignited a power surge in the Cadre. Some will gain strength, while others will be reborn with new abilities. There is no way to predict the outcome, and many of these abilities will be erratic at best, have catastrophic effects at worst.”

  “The Cadre may be able to weather the change successfully now that we have this knowledge.”

  Caliane’s expression was suddenly old, so very old that he c
ould believe Lijuan was right, that his mother had lived two hundred and fifty thousand years. “Yes, but you see, it was during the last Cascade that I believe I first became touched with madness, though I did not know it then, for it was an insidious intruder hiding within. There is no way to protect against such a change.”

  27

  Venom, his legs hanging over the side and his mirrored sunglasses in place, was sitting on the part of the balcony outside Jason’s room when Jason returned to the palace. A steaming cup of coffee sat next to his left hand.

  “I had to beg,” the vampire said when he saw the direction of Jason’s gaze. “Your princess considers coffee an insult to the taste buds.” He raised his face to the sky, drinking in the sun with sinuous pleasure. “Did I ever tell you I hate the cold?”

  “Every winter.” Jason passed Venom the forensic reports. “What do you see?”

  “Archangel strength or near to it . . . or maybe an ability of some kind,” Venom said, because he’d been trained by Jason to see such things. “Puts a whole new spin on recent events. Lijuan?”

  “She could’ve done it and been gone before we ever knew she was here.” The Archangel of China had the ability to dematerialize her body, though as Raphael had shown in the battle above Amanat, she wasn’t as omnipotent as she went to great lengths to make everyone believe.

  “Yes,” Venom said, “but she’s always had a cordial enough relationship with Neha. And to kill Eris in that way? I’ve seen the sick things Lijuan has done, but this was personal.”

  “Yes.” Catching a whisper of some unknown flower intermingled with spices bright and opulent, he turned to see Mahiya step out of her suite. Part of him went motionless, waiting to see if she’d come to regret the passion they’d shared in the hours before dawn.

  Her smile lit up her eyes. “I heard your voice.”

  It took intense concentration not to reach out, part her soft lips with his own, taste a smile that was a kiss against his senses. “What did you discover today?”

  Venom rolled up to his feet before Mahiya could reply. “Let’s talk inside.”

  It seemed natural to follow Mahiya into the cool comfort of her living quarters, the low table on the floor set with food. “I thought you might be hungry since it’s after lunch,” she said, but Jason’s attention was riveted by the pink teddy bear sitting beside the lamp.

  “Ah.” Venom closed the doors and said, “I have a story about that.”

  Jason stayed silent as Venom relayed the strange tale. “A scarlet-haired vampire?” he asked Mahiya once she’d added her findings. As for her taking the risk that she had with the box, they’d discuss that in private.

  “Yes.” A fiery glint in her eye. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t ask anyone else in the area if they’d seen the man—it would’ve caused too many ripples.”

  Jason looked at Venom.

  Sipping at his coffee, the vampire gave him a lazy grin. “Yes, I went down to the city, made some enquiries.” Leaning back against the wall, he said, “Our buyer doesn’t sound like he’d blend into the general populace, yet no one has any knowledge of him. Then again, my contacts are—relatively speaking—on the younger side. Might be he’s an old one who’s just come out of seclusion.”

  Angels Slept when immortality became too heavy a burden. While vampires lacked that ability to put their bodies in a state akin to suspended animation, they could and did sometimes retreat into isolation accompanied only by their “cattle.” It was what the old ones called the humans who were addicted to a vampire’s kiss and remained with them as a ready source of food.

  For the older vampires, the term was one of affection, the donors treated with the same respect one might show a beloved pet. Those cattle quite often recruited replacements as the decades passed—Jason had known one vampire to remain in seclusion for three hundred years and counting.

  “He might be from outside the region,” Mahiya said.

  “He sent you what could be a courting gift. That argues otherwise.” According to everything she’d told him, her trip to Lijuan’s stronghold had been her only foray beyond the borders of Neha’s territory since her return from the Refuge. “Did you see anyone who might fit the description while you were in China?”

  A tiny shiver rippled across her shoulders. “No. Red wings, yes, red hair, no. No one with that skin tone, either.”

  “Refuge?” Venom asked. “Could be he saw you when you were younger.”

  Mahiya shook her head.

  “Any visitors to Neha’s court who’ve paid you undue attention of late?” Hair color could be altered.

  “The usual meaningless court flattery. Nothing that would lead to such a convoluted scheme to pass on a gift.”

  And the gift itself, Jason thought, was unusual for an immortal, most of whom would woo a woman with jewels or unusual treasures. As for this particular woman, he found the idea of another man courting her incited in him a dark violence he’d spent a lifetime learning to contain.

  “Don’t lie to me, Nene!”

  “I’m not! Why won’t you listen? He’s a friend—”

  “Is that why you disappeared with him for an hour?”

  “I was showing him the atoll while you spoke with his father!” A sobbing sound of frustration. “I hate this ugly jealousy of yours, Yavi. It’s killing us.”

  His mother’s prophetic words ringing through his mind, Jason turned to Venom. “See if you can dig deeper without it reaching the wrong ears.”

  Venom bent to put his empty cup on the table before flowing to his feet with a supple grace that was a thing of beauty to some, an indication of danger to others. “I think I’ll jump off the balcony, scare the guards hiding outside.” With that, he was gone.

  Jason stepped closer to Mahiya. “You should not have taken that risk.”

  “It was a considered one.” Her tone was resolute. “I would do it again in a heartbeat. I will not barter for my life with yours or Venom’s.”

  Gripping her chin, Jason looked into an unflinching gaze bright as a jungle cat’s. “I do not wish to scrape up the remains of your broken, violated body.” It was a confession from a part of his self that hadn’t seen the light in an eon. “So you must allow me to keep you safe.”

  Mahiya had been ready to fight arrogance, found herself bewildered by the quiet request so potent with emotions unspoken. “I won’t take any unnecessary risks,” she said, closing her fingers over the bones of his wrist, his skin hot under her touch. “I promise.”

  “You are the weakest one of us, Mahiya.”

  “But,” she whispered, asking him to understand, “I am not weak. I cannot be that and survive.”

  Her black-winged lover said nothing for a long, motionless moment before releasing his hold on her. She forced herself to let go of him, feeling bereft. “Come,” she said. “Eat with me before the food goes cold.”

  Jason caught her wrist when she would’ve moved to the table. “You don’t treat food as other immortals do.” His thumb moved over her knuckles. “Tell me why.”

  Snakes hissing all around her, fangs sinking into her skin, poison in her bloodstream.

  Mahiya’s fingers curled into her fist, but she held her ground. “No, Jason. I will not allow you to steal all my secrets while you hoard your own.” He knew so much about her, while she did not even know where he made his home.

  His fingers flexed, and he tugged her closer, until they stood toe to toe. “Do you know the story of Yaviel and Aurelani?”

  It was the most startling of questions. “Of course.” Theirs was one of the great angelic romances. “They were born of warring families from different sides of the world. Yaviel was a singer turned artisan, Aurelani a scholar gaining renown.” Both families had been painfully proud of their children, but when the two fell in love, centuries-old hate had overwhelmed the tenderness of their devotion, and they’d been torn apart.

  “It is said Yaviel survived torture to break into Aurelani’s home to steal her away and that
they disappeared to build a life together, far from the vicious power of their families.” The romance of it had made her girlish heart sigh. Even now, as an adult, her soul ached at the idea of being loved with such devotion. “Yaviel’s musical instruments continued to appear in the Refuge, so there were some who knew where the lovers lived, but it was a secret never betrayed.”

  Jason’s voice was rough as he said, “He called her Nene, and she called him Yavi.”

  A chill over her skin, a vision of suffocating darkness.

  “Nene couldn’t abide the cold, and Yavi loved her so that he found them an uninhabited atoll in the warm waters of the Pacific, far, far from any sky roads to civilization.” His fingers tightened on her wrist, but she didn’t move, didn’t dare breathe. “Trusted friends came and took Yavi’s creations to the Refuge, where they sold for amounts that meant he could buy his Nene whatever she wanted. She loved amethysts, and he showered her with them . . . but what Nene loved most was her Yavi.”

  A tear trickled down her cheek though he’d said nothing awful, yet the sadness in him, it was a heavy weight she thought might crush a lesser man. “She must have loved you, too,” she whispered, seeing in his face the history of two different clans who had eventually ended one another in a rage of violence.

  “Yes.” Haunted eyes meeting hers. “I was well loved by my parents.”

  Mahiya wanted to ask him why he used only the past tense, why he carried such black sorrow within, what had happened to Nene if Yavi was dead, but she couldn’t hurt him when he was already so terribly hurt deep inside. “I never ignore food, because I know what it is to starve.”

  The profound sadness in Jason changed, became a black blade licked with flame. It took a great deal for an older angel to starve, but an angel of Mahiya’s age remained vulnerable. “When?”

  Mahiya swallowed, her fingers curling on his chest. “After Lijuan had me escorted back from her territory. Neha threw me into a windowless cell up at Guardian, and then she locked the door.”