Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,155

advantage. “The only reason we managed to hold her off in the latest attack,” Raphael said, “was that we were both close enough to respond quickly.”

“And because your consort can do something I have never seen anyone do.” Elijah smiled at Elena, who stood silently beside her onetime nemesis, Galen.

Her responding smile was enigmatic. “A woman must have her secrets.”

Shifting their discussion to what they could control, they used the battle layout on Dmitri’s table to plan troop movements, but the harsh fact was that they did not have enough people—not when faced with the size of Lijuan’s army.

“How is she feeding them?”

Everyone turned to Vivek. He flushed under the deep brown of his skin, realizing he’d interrupted two archangels and their most senior people, but to his credit, he held his ground. “Archangel Lijuan has far too many people for there to have been enough food on the submarines. So how is she feeding them?”

“Angels do not need to eat as much as mortals,” Raphael said, but he was frowning. “Wounded angels, however, do need food to have enough energy to recover.”

“Well, that explains it,” his consort muttered. “She just eats her wounded.”

Everyone stared at Elena this time.

“What?” She threw up her hands. “It’s the truth.”

“It is indeed,” Elijah said. “That leaves blood for the unwounded vampires. So she must have a store of mortals who’ve been kept away from the fighting.”

“One second.” Dmitri grabbed Vivek’s ever-present tablet and brought up something. “This came in just before all hell broke loose—one of the snipers reported seeing a small group of ‘scared mortals’ being ushered into a building. They were dressed like farmers. Healthy, but only about fifty in number.”

Cristiano, a powerful vampire in Elijah’s team, shook his head. “That’s nowhere near enough for the number of vampires she has in her ground forces. Also, she still has to feed the mortals and Venom tells me you left no food behind when you evacuated that area.”

“Her plan was to take this city in a violent surge—plenty of food and blood then.” The courage of Raphael’s people had stopped her advance, but they were exhausted and they had lost too many of their own.

He locked eyes with those of liquid silver, his hunter with whom he had no shields. If we do not stop her, hbeebti, Lijuan will feed on our own.

* * *

• • •

The fighting over the next two days was brutal. Lijuan was still down, possibly as a result of having been badly injured twice in quick succession, but her generals and commanders were determined not to let that stop them. Even more of them were now shooting Lijuan’s obsidian power from their hands.

When Elijah got hit in the chest with a bolt, they all panicked—but it became clear in a matter of seconds that while the energy was deadly to an ordinary angel, it did not incapacitate an archangel. Neither were their strikes infectious. Elijah was soon able to shake off the effects.

The law that only an archangel could kill another archangel remained an immutable one. However, that so many of Lijuan’s senior people could now end members of New York’s troops in a single strike meant both Elijah and Raphael had to be out there—being worn down by constant battle while Lijuan rested.

Elijah’s birds of prey were vicious fighters who’d torn holes in angelic wings and gouged out eyes, but neither they nor the Legion could even the odds when Lijuan was feeding near-archangel level power to the top echelon of her army. Take Raphael and Elijah out of the field of battle and it’d be a bloodbath.

“I will not sacrifice people,” Raphael said to Elena in the short lull between one battle and the next. “I will not allow them to be mowed down like dispensable pieces on a chessboard.”

“You know I’m on your side.” If he won the war by walking on the bodies of his people, he would lose the greater battle—to remain Raphael.

She was bone-tired, too, but she stayed on the front line beside their people, sometimes with the ground teams fighting the reborn, others with those on rooftops. With her wings retracted and her hair hidden under a knit cap, the enemy couldn’t find her. Permanent dye would’ve been better, but they’d discovered it didn’t stick. The energy that arced through her wings occasionally zapped her hair, too, and poof, no more dye.

Yesterday, she’d been back-to-back with Venom as they cut down a swarm of reborn. Today, she was firing a