Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,106

from coming in and spreading any infection.”

“We will bury him deep,” Elijah murmured. “We have enough power to dig a hole so far into the earth that only a living archangel will be able to force his way out.”

Raphael and Titus began to roll Antonicus’s body up in the rug on which he’d died, their faces solemn and their actions as respectful as they could make them.

“I will contact one of my generals to find large plastic sheeting and tape,” Neha said, and went down to pick up the items herself, not wanting anyone less powerful than an archangel near the corpse. On her return, they sealed the rolled-up carpet in the sheeting, then locked it tight with the tape.

Three times.

No one argued or stated it was overkill. “I will carry him,” Raphael said afterward. “I am the only one who has any kind of an immunity.” That Neha and Titus had touched Antonicus in his dying moments was a testament to their heart and courage.

Neha locked the dark of her eyes with his. “But it appears even you cannot defeat this evil any longer and that chills my heart.”

Not answering because Neha’s words were the simple and cold truth, Raphael picked up Antonicus’s body, a body made heavier by the carpet but not so heavy that he couldn’t carry it. “I’ll need to rest at times,” he began, but Elijah frowned.

“We can all help with the passage without risk of infection. All we need are ropes. If we create a sling, no one of us has to bear the entire burden.”

Neha added, “I will ask for the rope to be brought to the room below.”

Raphael put Antonicus down while they waited. “Will you burn this building?” he asked Neha.

“Yes. I’ve ordered everyone but those bringing the rope to evacuate. I will send this fort up in flame as soon as they are clear and we rise.” Her face was half in shadow as she turned her head toward China. “Lijuan has evolved beyond us. Archangels cannot be killed by anything but another archangel, yet she is killing from a distance with this dark fog.”

“Cassandra prophesied that the Cadre alone would not be enough this time.” He took in Zanaya’s and Aegaeon’s motionless, expressionless faces; neither had said a word since Antonicus began to die. “It is why you are awake.”

“But if your wildfire has failed, Raphael, then I fear their waking will not matter.” Caliane’s hair flew back in the night breeze. “This time, our world may end.”

* * *

• • •

The explosion boiled the sky behind Raphael as Neha incinerated the fort’s roof before collapsing the building inward into a hole that Caliane had helped her create. He and the others had flown ahead, with Antonicus in a sling between them. Those with glamour used it to hide the body.

Anyone who looked up would see many archangels together, but that was an explicable thing given the deadly fog and other catastrophic incidents around the world. No one would see a body. No one would know that an archangel had died. Antonicus had gone into Sleep, that was all the world would be told.

If Antonicus’s end caused havoc with the weather, as sometimes happened when an archangel passed, it would be believed to be part of the recent chaos.

When day broke, Michaela and Astaad flew down to wild fields full of flowers and returned with bunches of them to drop on Antonicus’s body. The rope sling the Cadre had woven together was tight enough that the flowers collected around the body and by the time they left the fields, it was a flower-draped bier such as was their way and not just a makeshift coffin created to contain infection.

No one spoke as they flew. On the roof, there’d been some discussion of leaving half their number at the border with China, but in the end they’d decided that there was nothing half their number could do to stop Lijuan. Better they deal with this together, then go to their territories, to prepare in any way they could . . . and to mourn all those of their own who’d been trapped within when the fog crawled across China on a tide of death.

Gadriel, a little set in his habits but noble in a quiet way, hadn’t made it out. Raphael had no body to take home to his family. The angel wasn’t the only one who’d vanished into the murderous dark; Raphael had lost too many good people and