As the severed limb fell to the ground, she disengaged from Alexander with a sound that was ten thousand screams in their minds. And went noncorporeal again.
Alexander?
I’m a little weaker, but she didn’t get much, barely a sip.
Sweaty and bloody, they fought on. Raphael wasn’t the least surprised when Lijuan reappeared with a whole arm only five minutes later. This time, she didn’t attempt to feed—she aimed a bolt directly at Illium, her face wreathed in malevolence.
Illium twisted with speed, but even Bluebell’s agility wasn’t enough to fully avoid the blow. It went through the tip of one wing and began to spread blackness over his wing in a rapid surge. Illium wasn’t an archangel. His body had no defenses. Raphael was too far from him and Lijuan was now raining her power down at his troops in a merciless hail that would murder and destroy if he didn’t stop her.
He put up a wildfire shield.
Despite taking a catastrophic hit, Illium did the impossible. He went straight at Lijuan and slammed his favorite sword, Lightning, through her heart. She and the sword disappeared even as his wing blackened—but there was a flicker in her disappearance this time. He’d got the heart itself, damage bad enough that most archangels would’ve gone into anshara while it healed.
Go to Elena! Raphael told the angel, aware he couldn’t lower his shield and go to Illium when Lijuan was apt to return at any moment. He didn’t know if Elena could release wildfire on her own into anyone but Raphael, but it was Illium’s only chance. Elena, Illium’s been hit.
Lijuan returned in a viciousness of starlight obsidian.
71
Pulse in her mouth, Elena was ready for Illium.
Bloody from the spray when he’d cut off Lijuan’s arm, his blue-tipped black hair matted with sweat, he came down hard. One of his wings was almost fully black at this point, the infection gaining ground with every second that passed. Elena touched her hand to it even before he’d caught his balance. Wildfire sparked over her skin in a protective glove but none passed from her to him.
“Cut it off.” Illium handed her his other sword, the edge a deadly gleam. “Stop the spread. Now Ellie.”
Elena set her jaw and took the blade. There was no point in arguing. His wing would grow back. He wouldn’t survive if the poison reached his bloodstream. Using one wildfire-gloved hand to hold the blackened wing away from his back, she sliced. The blade was razor-sharp, went through the feathers and bone and tendon like they were butter.
Illium’s spine went rigid, but he didn’t cry out. Elena didn’t cry, either, even as she excised off half of one of the most beautiful pair of wings in the world. She made sure to cut as close to the inner edge as possible, removing a clear two inches of healthy wing to ensure none of the poison would get into his bloodstream.
The blackened and dead wing fell to the rooftop.
He incinerated it with his power.
“You’re bleeding,” Elena said as she returned his sword.
“It’ll stop soon.” His face was pale but marked by lines of determination. “Slice off the healthy wing. I can’t fight with it pulling me off-center.”
It was harder this time, because there was nothing wrong with that wing, his feathers a vivid blue edged with filaments of silver, but she knew why he was making the choice. Illium was lethal with a sword in the air or on the ground but a messed-up center of gravity would make him clumsy, easier to kill.
“Done.” Her voice came out a rasp.
Shifting to face her, his eyes dilated but his resolve unshaken, he touched his fingers to her cheek. “Wing loss is a foreseeable battle injury, Ellie. They’ll grow back. I’ll just have fluffy duck feathers and be grounded for a while—I’m very strong. It won’t take long.”
He incinerated his remaining wing, as if able to tell how much it hurt her to see it lying there, severed from his body. “Not sure if this’ll make you feel better, but the first time this happened, my feathers grew back even prettier.” A wicked grin.
“No.” She poked him in the chest. “That does not make me feel better.” But weirdly, it did. He’d been so much younger then, and he’d come through fine.
His back was a mask of blood when she checked again, but the first wound had already stopped bleeding and there was no sign of any further infection. For a second, she thought she saw a faint glow, similar to what happened with Raphael’s wings when he was feeling lethal—or when he was overflowing with power.
Then an entire squadron of Lijuan’s fighters landed on the rooftop and they had no more time. Elena brought up her crossbow, Illium sliced out with his sword, and they exchanged grins before diving into battle.
Elena was on the edge of the building, having just brought down an enemy angel when she saw one of Lijuan’s poisonous bolts drop down directly at Galen, who was in the air on the far side of her roof. She was beside him before she realized it, shoving him out of the way. The bolt hit her instead, punching all the air out of her lungs.
Her entire body erupted with wildfire, encasing her in light.
Lijuan’s bolt dissipated.
Handy, but it used power. She flew back to her rooftop just as Illium finished off the last assailant. Grabbing a crossbow from a fallen enemy fighter, he took up a shooting stance beside her, and they aimed up. Not far from them, she saw Michaela deliberately put her body in the path of a bolt that would’ve otherwise hit and disabled Jason.
The Archangel of Budapest shrugged it off and kept going, flying to take on a general who’d pinned down a squadron. Turned out some people’s true colors were hella surprising. She’d never again look at Michaela the same way.
Elena saw Raphael hit Lijuan in the fucking center of the chest, the wildfire turning her veins electric, but not only had the damn immortal monster healed devastatingly fast from Illium’s heart blow, she remained able to turn noncorporeal. When she appeared by Michaela this time, neither the archangel nor anyone around her was able to interfere before Lijuan disappeared—taking Michaela with her.
She reappeared less than a second later only a meter from the edge of Elena’s rooftop, hovering over clear air with Michaela in her grip.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!” Illium yelled and all the shooters unleashed their arrows or bolts or guns at the Archangel of China.
Several hit Michaela, but Elena knew an archangel could survive those. If they didn’t disengage Lijuan from her neck however, she’d be dead or close to it very soon. Not that Michaela was taking this lying down—she’d created a collar of bronze energy around her neck that appeared to be repelling Lijuan’s attempts, and she was trying to swamp Lijuan in her bronze fire.
Face icy in fury, Lijuan went to put her hand directly over Michaela’s heart.
Taking a breath, Elena paused for a split second, exhaled . . . and shot. Her bolt went through Lijuan’s eye, causing her to rear back, both her hands flying up to her face.
Raphael hit the injured eye with wildfire at the same time, getting it directly into Lijuan’s blood. Lijuan shimmered then reappeared and Elena thought they’d got her. But she disappeared fully the next second . . . even as Michaela fell, fell, fell. There was no one in her path who could catch her, nothing to stop her catastrophic impact with the city street far below.
Trusting Illium and the others to hold off enemy troops, Elena retracted her wings and jumped off the rooftop, only reengaging her wings when she was nearly at the ground. She was beside the fallen archangel mere seconds after the impact. Michaela looked stunningly beautiful even now, with her legs broken under her, bones piercing her bodysuit to gleam wetly in the light, and her neck at a sickening angle, her arms like matchsticks someone had snapped into tiny pieces.