“We have weapons for the air.” Tarek’s tone was ruthless. “Buried in the lands around the caves and the village. I didn’t want to activate the weapons with the sands twisting and the ground shaking, but it takes two hours for them to power up.”
Naasir chose his words with care, aware he was talking to a man who was used to running a lethal group. But Naasir had spent centuries working at the side of an archangel; he knew the value of the knowledge in his head. “I’d recommend you do it,” he said, holding the other man’s gaze. “I say that as someone who was in the battle in New York—I know how to fight a winged enemy from the ground if necessary.”
Naasir’s respect for Tarek grew when the leader of the Wing Brotherhood just gave a curt nod before ordering one of his men to start the process to activate the weapons. Turning back to Naasir, the other man said, “Tell us what else you know of fighting against angels.”
Naasir focused on how the wing brothers could maximize their assets—skill, knowledge of the terrain, and the element of surprise. He also told them to utilize their agility by rigging trap lines in the trees using wires so thin they were nearly invisible. Any angel who tried to land would get caught up in it, like an insect in a spider’s web.
“We stand a higher chance of success if we can keep them in the air, especially since you have ground-to-air weapons,” he said once Tarek agreed to the traps. “On the ground, you’ll be fighting one-to-one and Lijuan’s squadrons are full of old angels with unknown and dangerous abilities. Too old to be hampered by their wings.”
“If they do land,” Tarek told his men and women, “shoot for the heart or the head. No warnings. We have to incapacitate as fast as possible.”
“You do have one winged fighter,” Andromeda pointed out.
Naasir glanced at her. At that instant, he was more the experienced and honed commander of an archangel and less a primal chimera. It was a little intimidating.
“Your injuries?” he asked, and though his expression didn’t change, he touched a gentle hand to her primaries.
He was still Naasir, she realized on a wave of love. This was no false skin, just another aspect of his personality. “Healed enough to not be a problem.” Especially if they only wanted her aloft for short bursts. “I’m good with a sword in the air, but I won’t be able to do much damage on my own.”
“You’ll take out the stragglers we manage to corner off.” The feather he’d woven into his hair in a silent, powerful declaration fell forward as he leaned in to cup her jaw and cheek. “Or you’ll drive them down into the booby traps.” His voice took on the faintest edge of a growl. “In between, you stay grounded.”
A sense of urgency beating at her, Andromeda wanted to rise to her toes, press her mouth to his. “How long do you think we have?”
A dusty scout, his cheeks burned by the driving sand, tumbled into the room on the heels of her question. “I’ve been to the waypoint,” he gasped, hands on his knees. “The message was garbled because so many of the signal mirrors have been broken, but two things were clear: Lijuan has murdered Rohan, and she is on her way here.”
Andromeda’s gut went cold. Children were sacred to angelkind, and though Rohan was no longer a child, he had been the only and beloved son of an archangel.
Around her, the wing brothers—jaws clenched and muscles bunched—lowered their heads in silent respect for Rohan. When they looked up afterward, it was with fury in their eyes and blood on their mind. A cold-voiced Tarek’s questions to the scout elicited a chilling detaiclass="underline" Xi’s squadron was a bare four hours away. “No one’s spotted Lijuan,” the scout added. “But . . . part of the message said something about blood sacrifices.”
Andromeda’s hand clenched on the hilt of her knife as Naasir growled. “She feeds on the lifeforce of others to strengthen herself.” In his voice was firsthand knowledge. “Has there been any sign of Raphael?”
The scout shook his head. “Nothing. Parts of the beacon chain in some directions are broken, but messages are still getting through—he hasn’t been spotted anywhere in the territory.”
“Go,” Tarek ordered the wing brothers. “Set up the traps while I make sure the ground-to-air weapons are powering up as they should. Then find your positions and stay there.” He paused, held each wing brother’s gaze in turn. “Today, we fight for our archangel, do what we pledged to do four hundred years ago. If we fall, it will be in honor and we will wake at our archangel’s side when it is his time to leave this world. That time is not today.”
The wing brothers uttered a battle cry that made Naasir’s eyes gleam wild. When they scattered, Naasir and Andromeda went with them and helped to set the traps in place. Andromeda also had to memorize the exact positions of those traps for when she had to drive winged fighters into them. The time raced by as if it was falling from an open hand, until she looked to the west while in the air, and glimpsed the smudge of a large winged presence on the horizon.
Calling out a warning to the others, Andromeda went to the ground, her borrowed crossbow in hand and her sword hung off her belt. She wasn’t as good with the crossbow as she was with the sword, but so outnumbered by enemy forces, it would be safer and more effective for her to keep her distance if she could.
When Naasir jumped down beside her, she saw a kind of feral joy in him at the prospect of battle, but below that primal emotion was another. “You don’t think we can win without Raphael,” she whispered.
He shook his head, silver strands sliding against one another. “Alexander left these men here not to fight a battle, but so that when the time came for him to rise, he would do so with those he trusted, be able to rest in unhurried quiet as he grew in strength.” He examined her remaining injuries as he spoke. “The Brotherhood’s task was to protect the caves from the curious, not hold them against an enemy archangel and her squadron. They’re brave beyond measure, but they’ll be slaughtered.”
Andromeda didn’t want to think of that future, a future where Tarek lay with blood on his face, his mind and his heart lost to the world. “Do you think Raphael is far?”
“I can’t hear him.” Naasir touched his temple and Andromeda realized he must have the honor of speaking to his sire mind-to-mind. “I can hear the sire from far enough away that I can estimate distances. If I can’t hear him still, then he won’t make it in time.” Grim words. “It’s possible Lijuan spotted him and sent a group of her powerful commanders to slow him down.”
A cold knot in her gut, Andromeda put her hand on Naasir’s cheek. “Whatever happens today, know this: I would have been so proud to be your mate. Nothing would have given me more joy.”
His claws dug into her without cutting as he hauled her close. “Let’s fight, mate.” The wild gleam was back. “Then I’ll find your stupid Grimoire book and we can rut and you can pet me while I’m naked.”
He made her cheeks go red and her mouth laugh at the same time. Giving her one final squeeze, he disappeared up into the trees, while she held position where she was. Everything was quiet now, no lightning, no thunder, no sand spouts. It wasn’t, however, a peaceful silence—no, this silence held too much portentous tension.
Like a wave about to crash.
And then it did, Lijuan’s squadrons swarming over the area, Lijuan in her physical form at the front. She immediately directed her incongruously beautiful black rain onto the village, each shard a piece of living onyx that gleamed with blue, black, and deepest green highlights.
None of the defenders moved.
There were no longer any living beings in the village—even the animals had been spirited away. Let the Archangel of China waste her energy.
All too soon, however, the enemy began to head as one toward the caves, as if Lijuan had realized that was the likeliest possibility. The defenders had to act, keep the squadrons away from Alexander’s place of Sleep. It would’ve been better had they been able to set up more than the odd sniper on the roof of the caves themselves, but as Andromeda and Naasir had discovered, there was little shelter there, barely any places to hide.