Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,158

enemy throughout the city and his birds of prey fought in unnatural squadrons formed by Eli’s knowledge of tactics.

Deacon and his repair team had left their workshop to wipe out a surge of reborn in an unexpected corner of the city. Janvier and Ashwini had flooded an enemy weapons cache with seawater and made it appear an accident, while Holly had managed to taunt and lead a couple of reborn right into an uninfected section of Lijuan’s army. Demarco and the other snipers had stealthily blown off the heads of more than one senior member of Lijuan’s forces, timing their assassinations to get lost in the mass of battle injuries.

Dmitri had mowed down an entire squadron that’d had the misfortune to land on the rooftop where he was fighting, his weapons a blur. Naasir was deep in enemy territory and had successfully fouled the enemy’s main water supply by rerouting sewerage into it. Venom had beheaded reborn after reborn, his clothing stained with blood. Galen hadn’t stopped fighting since his arrival. Aodhan, Jason, and Illium had forgotten sleep.

His Legion had fallen again and again only to rise back and fight with unflinching courage, but even they couldn’t make up for the massive disparity in numbers.

Lijuan’s forces had begun to pincer the city in their grip, the battle now being fought on two major fronts.

He deflected a hail of obsidian from one of her generals, struck back with angelfire. The general collapsed his wings and dropped out from under the electric blue ball. It smashed into two other fighters beyond him; they died without having a chance to scream.

Another bolt arrowed toward him, but Raphael didn’t duck. If he did, that bolt would hit a mass of his own people. Instead, he went to deflect the power with angelfire . . . when something about the energy coming toward him had him responding with wildfire instead. His instincts had understood what his mind took a moment to process: this obsidian had a piercingly lovely starlight shimmer.

The two powers collided in a crash of light and sound that echoed through his head. Lijuan is awake! Drop drop drop!

He sent out a pulse of wildfire in a three hundred and sixty degree circle only seconds later. Enemy fighters died in a single breath, and the air rippled bare meters from him. He pulsed more wildfire in that direction. Lijuan shimmered and came into focus, and despite the amount of wildfire he’d expended, she didn’t appear wounded.

The hail of return fire she sent toward him was vicious.

Elijah had rejoined the battle only minutes earlier, was fresher than Raphael, but the other archangel stayed back. Raphael knew the action went against every bone in Elijah’s body, but they had agreed to this. Raphael and his city couldn’t afford to lose their only archangelic backup. Elijah had to keep his distance from Lijuan—as with Antonicus, he had no defenses against her particular brand of death.

Elijah’s voice in his mind. I will take care of her generals.

Silver-green fire erupted around Raphael.

Your city is falling. The cold words held a taste he could only describe as death, the screams of the lost Lijuan’s terrible symphony. Surrender now and I will cause you only a modicum of pain when I absorb you.

Raphael took no pleasure in being proven right in his supposition that Lijuan didn’t intend to kill him and Elijah outright. As powerful as she was now, how much more powerful would she become once she fed on two archangels?

He warned Eli of her intent even as he directed a pinpoint strike of wildfire to her heart.

Deflecting it with a wave of her hand that shot the shards of starlight obsidian in every direction, she smiled. So, you choose pain. So be it.

One of the shards hit him on the shoulder and spun him around. Using the motion instead of fighting it, he shot back a wide arc of wildlfire. Lijuan couldn’t avoid it, as he hadn’t been able to avoid her strike. The wildfire hit her around the solar plexus, causing her body to bow inward and her skin to glow from within.

But she held her ground, as he held his.

He could feel her poison working its way through the bones of his shoulder, but the wildfire in his body was fighting against the virulence. That wouldn’t last much longer, not if they kept battling at this level. If he ran out of wildfire, that was it.

Crossbow bolts thumped into Lijuan’s shoulder. She turned and swiped out