Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,116

temperatures to drop even further.

Then the drone flew closer.

Her stomach lurched.

The man who lay under the thin sheet was a husk. His skin was dark brown parchment over wide cheekbones and hollow cheeks, his eye sockets sunken black shells, his hair strands of dried-out grass that would blow away in the next wind.

The fog continued to retreat.

The bodies came faster now. Fallen in the streets, more lying on rooftops, several just sitting under a tree. People who had no horror on their faces. People who’d simply been going about their lives when a dark goddess sucked that life out of them.

Elena caught the edge of what looked to be a homemade children’s playground created from bamboo stakes and ropes and old tire swings. She wanted to look away, her gorge rising, but forced herself to stand in place. She would bear witness. She would remember.

There were no bodies. None.

A cold wind across her skin. Raphael, where are the children? They hadn’t seen a single living or dead child.

I fear the answer, Guild Hunter.

So did Elena, the claw of fear a vicious grip around her heart.

The fog stopped retreating.

They waited for ten minutes, but the barrier had settled at a new point and there it remained. Neha’s drone pilots began to explore the exposed areas in more depth: mummified bodies inside the homes, both human and animal, everything desiccated. Plants, food, even a large spider that hung in the corner of one house.

Neha directed one of the drone operators to use the drone to touch the shriveled corpse of what might’ve been a cat. It collapsed into dust at first contact.

“Abandon that device in Lijuan’s territory once we’re done,” Neha commanded. “In fact, land all the devices on Lijuan’s side of the border. We will fly them again from that point. If their energy fails, we will send out new devices. I do not wish anything from that territory to come into mine.”

Elena didn’t blame the Archangel of India. She had no idea how Neha had managed to stay so cool-eyed and rational. Having that nightmare at your border had to be fucking terrifying. At least Michaela was buffered by a massive expanse of relatively uninhabited territory in Mongolia—in the last balancing of territories, the country had been split between Lijuan and Michaela, and the residents had mostly moved either into China or into Russia.

Alexander also shared a massive border with China, but his people, too, tended to live more inward from the border, for much the same reason. Better to be closer to your archangel and distant from a neighboring one seemed to be the thinking. Neha alone had a border with China that was inhabited—likely as a result of the long-term friendly relationship between the two archangels.

The population there wasn’t heavy, but it wasn’t miniscule, either.

“She’s feeding again.” Raphael’s voice, cold and remote in a way that raised the tiny hairs on her nape . . . but the wildfire, it continued to dance over his fingers. “And, given the depth of land exposed by the retreating fog, she is already monstrous in her power.”

Thousands of people, Elena realized, Lijuan had already fed from thousands. Maybe tens of thousands if some of the other border areas had been more heavily populated. Ports, she thought suddenly, China’s oceanic borders were home to thriving port cities . . . so much life, so much fuel for Lijuan.

Horror was an acidic taste on her tongue. Raphael, she only fed on a few people when in New York and she was nearly unbeatable. It was stating the obvious but she had to state it, had to get the horror out of her head.

At least we have warning. He held out his hand, an act he never did when speaking to the Cadre.

Wildfire arced between them as she slid her hand into his, and it was cold, so cold. She tightened her grip, set her jaw, and accepted it. Accepted him. Raphael sucked in a small breath at the same time. His skin warmed, his wing brushing across the lightning storm of her own.

On another screen, she saw Elijah turn to drop a kiss on Hannah’s black curls as she, too, came to stand next to her archangel. Unlike Elena’s hand-combed locks and old Guild sweatshirt, Hannah wore an elegant green-striped blue gown and her hair was braided in a complicated and lovely pattern twined with thick golden threads.

Dismay was a heavy darkness on the face of the only other—living—consort in the Cadre. That