Archangel's War (Guild Hunter #12) - Nalini Singh Page 0,169

Raphael. Two archangels in the sky, one with wings of gold and white, the other with feathers of shimmering bronze.

Michaela was even dressed in a long-sleeved bodysuit as she’d been that long-ago day. When the Archangel of Budapest landed on the balcony with Raphael, the bodysuit proved to be a dark green with a slight shimmer to it. Her hair was the same silken tumble down her back, her face startlingly beautiful. The milk chocolate hue of her skin was rich despite the night darkness, holding a warmth that Elena had always thought at odds with the biting edge of her personality.

Today however, there was no sarcasm, no curl of the lip. Michaela just nodded at Elena—her gaze narrowing slightly at the sight of Elena’s stormfire wings—before turning to Raphael. “I saw reports from this city, knew I had to come.”

“What about your territory?” Raphael asked with no indication of pain in his voice, though Elena knew it had to be torturous. “The reborn infection? The children.”

“If she wins this war, it will not matter that my territory is clean of infection.” A gravity to Michaela’s presence that Elena had never before felt, the sudden sense that this woman was an archangel. “If we beat Lijuan here, then we have a chance to salvage my territory.”

“You have made a difficult choice.” Raphael inclined his head in an acknowledgment between equals. “Your babe?”

A tightening of her features. “The Cascade gave me the ability to create power constructs that survive outside my body. I built Keir a shield that protected him and my babe—he says it held until he was nearly to the Refuge. They are safe.”

Elena found herself exhaling a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. The idea of Keir and a newborn dodging the death stalking the world had been a horrific one.

“My power did damage to Lijuan,” Michaela said. “Is it possible I can assist you to victory?”

To Elena’s surprise, Raphael nodded. “My wildfire in her likely increased the impact, but you read slightly differently to my healing senses—there remains an imprint inside you of the life you so recently birthed. It is fading but not yet gone.”

And Lijuan was a creature of death.

“Good. I will assist you in ending her, then I will return home.”

“What is the situation on your side?”

Elena knew Raphael had to have that critical information, but panic clawed at her—the poison was eating at him from the inside out. Already, she could see the creeping edge of blackness on one wing.

“Bad,” Michaela said shortly, her face grimmer than Elena had ever seen it. “When I left, Alexander and Zanaya were attempting to drive the reborn into a single valley so that we could scorch them with fire.” The vivid green of her eyes took in the smoldering city around them, smoke yet rising to the sky from the earlier detonations. “I have told Alexander that this is more important. It is where we win or lose the world. But he sees coming here as abandoning his people. He is a fool.”

Elena wouldn’t describe the Archangel of Persia as any kind of a fool, but she had to agree with Michaela that the long-term picture had to take priority.

“The children . . . It is difficult.” Michaela blinked rapidly, her throat moving. “All our troops are severely demoralized from having to cut down those we are programmed to protect. I kept seeing my own babe, kept thinking that each child was another woman’s heart.”

Elena couldn’t imagine the horror of facing infected child after infected child. She’d frozen when faced with a single infected child during the last battle, a sundress-wearing girl who’d come off an infected cruise ship. The idea of having that nightmare moment repeated in a continuous loop . . . Bile coated the back of her throat.

The sky boomed with a massive burst of sound without warning, a huge overwhelming force that was a roundhouse punch to the side of the head. Elena’s ears popped, her head ringing. Archangel, what the hell was that?

Eyes the most violent shade of blue in this world held hers. An archangel has died.

66

As Elena’s skin chilled at Raphael’s words, the sky began to fill with clouds pregnant with snow. That didn’t happen with Uram. He had died in a blast of pure white light that lit up the entire city before it faded out of existence, no trace left of the Archangel of Blood.

The impact is never the same, Raphael said. I am told