Angel Fury (Immortal Legacy #2) - Ella Summers Page 0,32

your help. Go to the Hive. Take the daggers they have stolen from us. Stop them. Before it’s too late.”

“The Legion is not in the habit of fighting other people’s wars,” Damiel replied coolly.

“That’s true, but as Illias pointed out, if the Hive escapes, they will come to Earth. That makes it very much our problem,” I told him.

Damiel looked at me. “I don’t like it. They dragged us into their war, and now we have to clean up their mess.”

“It seems we have little choice.”

“Yes, and I hate that even more.”

“Why did you need to bring us all the way here to tell us this?” I asked Illias.

“He didn’t want the gods or demons to know about the immortal daggers, that there is a whole set of sixteen of them,” Damiel told me. “A master of magic. Both gods and demons would destroy everything in their quest to acquire that set.”

“Yes, both gods and demons would destroy everything, including my world.” Illias looked around, as though afraid we were being spied on.

“The gods and demons have no influence here. They cannot hear us,” I told him.

“It’s not them I’m worried about right now.”

“You don’t even trust your own people,” Damiel laughed.

“As I told you, some of my people are unhappy that you now possess the Diamond Tear and the Sapphire Tear. They don’t trust you with the daggers. They don’t understand that this is your destiny, that the Immortals meant for you to wield those daggers. And my people certainly wouldn’t want you to have more of the daggers. I wouldn’t be surprised if, even now, some of them are plotting a way to take the two daggers from you.”

We’d saved the Magic Eaters from the Hive, and they still hated us. I had to remind myself that this wasn’t about helping the Magic Eaters so much as it was about stopping the Hive.

“What is your history with the Hive?” I asked Illias.

“For years, they have been raiding our world and any other world they could get to, looking for the immortal daggers. They will stop at nothing to possess them. Everything they have—every soldier, every resource, every bit of magic they possess—they have put into fulfilling this goal. That’s why it’s so difficult to defeat them. They have the power to destroy your world, and if you don’t stop them, they will do just that. And then they will add the immortal daggers you carry to their collection as spoils of war.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” I told Damiel. “We must go to the Hive world. We must stop their army from reaching our world. We cannot allow them to burn and pillage and take their revenge. To destroy everything.”

“And we cannot allow the Hive to grow their power by collecting more immortal daggers,” Damiel agreed.

Drawing the Diamond Tear, I glanced at Illias. “Do you know where on the Hive’s world we will find the immortal daggers they currently possess?”

“I believe so.”

“You believe so? You don’t know it?” Damiel demanded.

“If you reopen the magic mirror between our world and the Hive’s, the trail will bring you to a massive fortress just outside a city. When the magic mirror was still functional, our scouts sometimes used it for reconnaissance. After a raid, the Hive soldiers always marched to that fortress. The stolen daggers should be inside.”

I used the dagger to reopen the passage to the Hive world.

Damiel looked at the swirl of magic before us. “We have entirely too little information to successfully complete this mission.”

“Then we’ll just have to do some reconnaissance of our own.”

“So it would seem.” He didn’t look very happy about traveling to a hostile enemy world without any backup or any idea of what to expect.

But we angels didn’t allow personal feelings to get in the way of doing our job. Damiel stepped into the magic passage and I followed.

On the other side, I took a sudden, unexpected plunge into a very cold body of water.

I pushed up above the water’s surface, drenched from head to toe. I hadn’t put up my water elemental defenses in time. There had been precious little time. I sure hadn’t expected to land in water.

I began swimming toward land, cursing whoever had made this passage. Who created an interworld portal over the water?

The shore wasn’t far away. Damiel was already standing on the beach, watching my progress.

“Do you require assistance?” he asked me.

“I am quite capable of getting myself out of here. I can swim, you