spread across the entire village, it hunkered down and turned opaque. The camera could no longer see through the thickness of it. No more faces. No more waving hands. Nothing but an endless night.
Expression grim, Dmitri brought up another file. “This was recorded the following day.” The fog had all but dissipated, but when the angel holding the camera flew down to take a closer look, he found only silence. Oranges rolled out of a bag abandoned on the small deck attached to a house. A barn door flapped open, no animals within. A bowl of food sat in front of a doghouse, but no puppy barked up at the angel.
No villagers. No bodies. An entire group taken without a trace.
37
Elena broke the chill silence. “At least now we know how she’s doing it.” A glance at Raphael. “Could be in conjunction with another volunteer acolyte . . . or maybe she’s gone beyond that.”
“I will send an alert to those in charge. The people of China must be warned to get out of the way should they see such a fog.” Doing nothing in these circumstances wasn’t an option. “Dmitri, send the recording to others of the Cadre, under my seal.”
His second nodded and turned his attention to the task.
Raphael, meanwhile, asked Elena to walk outside with him.
Only once they were out on the edge of the railingless balcony, their city spread out below them like a toy creation, did he say, “Why did you allow Dmitri’s jibe to get to you?” It had disconcerted his second, too. Dmitri only acted the way he did with Elena because she gave as good as he dished out.
“It just struck me.” She stared out at the steel and glass and vibrancy of their city. “This craziness began with me—with a mortal turned angel. What if I was the catalyst for the Cascade? All this death and darkness and horror, it’d be on me.”
“It could as easily be said that Uram was the catalyst.” Raphael felt sorrow for the archangel he’d had to execute, an archangel who’d once been his friend, but he also knew that it’d had to be done. Uram had become a monster, one who gorged on death and whose murderous appetite would never be satisfied. “It’s what brought you into my life.”
Elena played a throwing knife through her fingers, the fading winter light glancing off the shining surfaces. “I try to tell myself that, but . . . I’m the wild card element in all of this. Archangels, angels, mortals, vampires, that was the world before me. Now we have an angel-Made.”
“Naasir would be most annoyed at you for forgetting him.”
But Elena’s gaze remained solemn. “Naasir and I should begin a club for all the ones who don’t quite fit on the taxonomic tree.”
“You were just the first whisper of the Cascade, Elena-mine. Not the catalyst, for no one can control such powers as are currently smashing the world, but the first sign that the Cascade had begun.”
Allowing him to haul her close, Elena stroked his skin . . . and jumped. “You’re a little electrified, lover,” she informed him, while continuing with her caresses. “I don’t know if I like being the first sign of impending doom any better.” A scowl. “Still, it beats being the cause.”
“What arrogance you have, Guild Hunter, to think you are the reason behind a tumult of power such as the world has never seen.”
“Jeez, you’re right.” She bumped her forehead against his chest. “I must sound so full of myself.”
He went to reassure her that he’d meant nothing of what he’d said, then paused. His words had worked. Not in the way he’d wanted, but they’d broken through the shadowy miasma that had threatened to encompass Elena. So he curved his hand around the side of her neck and said, “It is the curse of immortality. You must watch against further development.”
She tilted back her head. “Fiend.” She “punched” him in the side, the touch featherlight. “Also, Dmitri’s now one point up on me. Ugh.”
“You’ve forgotten the kiss.”
Her eyes brightened at the reminder of Dmitri’s utter horror. Satisfaction curling her lips, she pressed a kiss to his chest, shivered. “Yep, still electrified.”
“And filthy. Come.” He rose up into the air as night licked the horizon. “You can wash my back.”
* * *
• • •
Elena put on soft gray pajama pants after a delicious bath with Raphael, topping them with an equally soft tank in a darker gray and a deep