Titus couldn’t hold back a snarl at the trust, innocent and pure, that these people had shown in the traitorous waste of archangelic space named Charisemnon. Rather his boot had ground the archangel’s face into dust than it had stepped on the envelope left behind in betrayed hope.
Sharine took a deep breath of her own before continuing. “‘We wish to tell you that, today, we had to fight an angel who was sick with the taint. At first, when we saw wings in the sky, we were so grateful we fell to the earth in joy. We thought to send a message asking for supplies enough to get us through the worst of it. But then the angel landed and we saw that he wasn’t right.
“‘We didn’t attack him. Please know that. We welcomed him as an honored guest, as we would do to any angel. Even though his teeth were sharpened at the edges, and his hands cold and wet, and a green rot was spreading under his skin. We believed that he was sick because of a wound taken in battle, that he would soon fight it off.’”
“For that knowledge alone,” Titus murmured, “Charisemnon would’ve executed them one and all.” No mortal could ever see angelkind as vulnerable. “Should the Cadre become aware of this, the only choice will be death, or the erasure of their memories.” The latter was a terrible thing, an intrusion and a violation, but Titus agreed with those who said it was better than wholesale slaughter.
Eyes shining with a wetness she didn’t permit to fall, Sharine carried on. “‘At first, the angel spoke to us and his voice was disturbing in its grating intensity. But that lasted only minutes. Then, snarling akin to a feral dog, he hauled one of the village women close and ripped off her head, bathing himself in her blood before tearing open her chest cavity to feed on the organs within.’”
Fingers trembling on the paper, Sharine lowered it for a moment. “I have heard of this type of behavior.”
“Vampires who’ve given in to bloodlust act so; hunters often find them with their faces coated with blood, their minds drunk and bodies slack from the indulgence.” He moved close enough so that his wing overlapped hers. She didn’t step away or rebuke him for the intimacy. “I can read the rest of the letter.”
“No. I’ll finish it.” Another long breath. “I do this for the scared, brave people who thought to leave this behind, to warn others.” Exhaling, she read on. “‘The angel acted drunk afterward, his actions uncoordinated, so we took the opportunity to defend ourselves.
“‘Many of our strong were already dead by then, so we couldn’t fight him with honor. We threw fuel on him and set him afire. We hope you will have mercy on us, my lord Archangel. We didn’t wish to cause him pain or kill him without mercy, but we didn’t have any other way to stop him.
“‘Once he fell to the ground, we used a kitchen cleaver to remove his skull from his spine; we believe that perhaps angels can recover from this, so we have left his head beside his body. That body, we placed with the others, both friend and foe, that lay decomposing around us. Then we lit a fire using what little fuel we had.’”
At least that explained why the fire hadn’t burned its way through the village; it hadn’t had enough fuel to begin with.
“‘Fire was the only way we could think of to purify the blood of the tainted ones and farewell our own,’” Sharine read. “‘We did a prayer for the lost, then began our preparations to leave.
“‘We hope that you’ll find us in the next village. It lies north-northwest in a straight line, a half day’s hike for a young man or woman. For us, it’ll take a day or more. We no longer have any working vehicles, and we have many wounded, children, and elderly. We thank you for fighting for us, and hope our letter helps you to save others from this horror. And if we don’t make it, please send word of our passing to the two towns below, where many of us have family and friends who’ll tell others that we are gone.’”
Sharine was crying now, her tears quiet and heartbreaking. “It’s signed with what I assume is the name of this settlement. Below that is a description of the angeclass="underline" tall, with white skin in the few areas where it wasn’t green-black, black curls, and a marking on the left cheek that looked like a lightning bolt.”
Titus hissed out a breath. “Skarde, a courtier of Charisemnon’s—and a man rumored to be one of his best intelligence agents.” The scar hadn’t healed after a decade because it had originally been made by Charisemnon in a temper—the barest graze of archangelic fire.
Carefully folding the letter, Sharine placed it back in the envelope.
They stood in a moment of silence for the dead and the lost. When she looked up at him and said, “We’ll go north-northwest?” he didn’t tell her that there was no hope. He nodded; it was beyond him to abandon people who’d thought of others in their most dire moment.
First, however, they made a second call to his scientists and scholars, giving them this further information. One of the scientists asked Titus to take a sample of any flesh they could find, as well as some bone as a contingency against a disaster that might make the body inaccessible.
He was still speaking on the phone when Sharine moved to fulfill the request. Taking off her backpack, she took out the packet in which she’d kept the energy bars she’d given the children; she used it to scoop up a small wing bone, then set her jaw and used her throwing blade to cut off a piece of mummified skin.
Dropping it into the packet with the bone, she sealed it before thrusting it to the bottom of her backpack, then pulled the backpack on. When she looked around for something with which to clean her blade, he took it from her and wiped it on his pants. One more stain made no difference.
Accepting the blade back as he finished talking to his people, she slid it away into its thigh sheath. Two minutes later, they took flight in grim silence, their eyes searching the land for bones.
A half day’s walk wasn’t so far by the wing even at low speed and the sun was not yet high in the sky when they reached a village that appeared alive, smoke coming from the chimneys and movement in the streets. Bones aplenty they’d seen on their journey here, but none had been human.
Their landing caused fear, chill and black, to ripple through the village, the people going down with their faces pressed to the earth, but Titus was ready for it this time. “Rise!” he ordered, and once they’d done so, he held up the letter. “I come from the village of Dojah. Did any of the survivors make it here?”
A thin girl with a worn face, her skin a light brown and her hair in braids against her skull, stepped forward. “My lord Archangel.” Her voice shook. “Ten of us made it. Two died later, their injuries terrible. Of the remnants, there is one older than me but he battles a fever after our trek here, and isn’t lucid. The others are all children, saved by the courageous actions of others, but wounded in their hearts.”
“Do you know what’s written in this letter?” he asked, striving to keep his voice gentle and knowing he’d failed when she flinched.
“N-no.” A whispery response. “My grandmother is the one who wrote it, b-but she is now gone.” Tears washed her cheeks.
Sharine moved to put her hand on the young woman’s, murmuring to her until awe replaced the terror in her expression and she found her voice again. “I will tell you all that I know, Archangel Titus.” That she addressed him as he preferred told him that Sharine had said something on the point.
I thank you, Sharine. He found it infuriating to deal with these people’s blind terror even knowing it had nothing to do with him.