Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,112
that he realized he’d forgotten to create a shield around himself.
It took but a thought.
A roar of noise and dust and nothingness. Then . . . an abrupt silence. Andreja. Status.
I’m scanning the skies and the landscape. I don’t see any more twisters. All is calm.
Raphael sucked the energy that protected the plane into himself, pouring a vast amount of it back into the Legion, some of whom had fallen where they stood when he grabbed for their power. He had no desire or need to carry that much power in his own body—not when the Cascade lightning was already so violent. I thank you.
We are yours, whispered seven hundred and seventy-seven voices. This power is yours.
Inside him, the Cascade energy settled back in with a familiar coldness leavened only with a tendril of wildfire and steel. Deplane, he said to those inside.
Already out from under the plane, he rose into the air just as the clouds opened up. Pounding rain began to slice in from his right, hitting his skin in hundreds of sharp, cold shards.
The Legion mark on his temple flared.
The door of the plane opened at last, and Elena raced out. He was hovering right outside, hauled her off the top of the stairs and into his arms. She clung to him with a laugh, the lightning storm of her wings brilliant against the gray heaviness of the rain-wet world. A second later, she thrust her hands into his hair, pulled his head down to her own, and kissed him stupid.
* * *
• • •
Later, they stood with Dmitri and watched the footage from the airport cameras and from a plane spotter who’d been parked at a “secret” location the enthusiasts shared only among themselves. The Tower let them be because they never tried to breach the airport boundaries and policed themselves into good behavior. This spotter had been recording the jet coming in, complete with commentary.
“Tower 1 is about to land,” he said cheerfully. “Like, that’s not the actual call sign because the Tower doesn’t advertise which of its planes are in the sky, but I can tell this is number 1 from that slight mark on the tail. Means one of the senior people must be onboard. Can’t wait—Fuck!”
The footage wobbled as he focused in on a tornado that had appeared out of nowhere. He whipped the camera back and forth as another appeared, then another.
“Oh cripes! How’s the pilot going to avoid those?” Fear rippled through his words. “That plane is going to go right into that twister. Oh man, oh man . . .” His words mumbled off into a chill terror they could almost feel, until his voice squeaked again. “Raphael! Fuck me! No one is going to believe this!”
He’d caught the instant Raphael’s energy crawled all over the plane and turned it into a glowing beacon in the heavy gray darkness. The plane was soon obscured by the twisters and the dirt and debris in the air, only to reappear in patches as Raphael brought it in to land.
Through it all was an awed silence that ended with, “That’s the fucking Archangel of fucking New York! Suck on that all you cretins who try to attack our city, especially you Zhou Lijuan!”
Elena snorted out a laugh. “I like this guy.” She had to laugh or her heart might explode—she couldn’t believe Raphael had done that. Seeing the visuals and the size of the jet above his head, viewing the sheer power involved in the landing . . . Her pulse was thunder.
“You would,” Dmitri muttered, but his words didn’t hold their usual mocking bite. He was too focused on the second recording that had begun to play—this one from the surveillance cameras at the airport. Vivek had stitched together the footage to provide a continuous narrative.
The tornados had sprung up without warning, huge swirls of wind and dirt and flying debris that had become shrapnel. Raphael’s wounds had already healed, but Elena was going to be seeing his blood smeared on his skin for a while to come. Andreja at the air traffic control tower had narrowly avoided having her head sliced off when part of a broken-off wing smashed through the glass of her enclosure.
Turned out that had occurred close to the start of things; she’d then continued to calmly communicate with Raphael.
“Why is Andreja in that control room?” Elena said to Dmitri. “I’d figure a woman that unflappable would be in the Tower.”