“I am not a fool, sister.” Rote bitten-out words, Nivriti’s attention on the dead bird. “It is hard to say if the marks of violence on the body are as a result of the wall, or of the bird’s fall.”
Neha hunkered down beside her sister, their wings overlapping. “See those, Nivi.” She pointed to the wing area.
A hiss. “Cuts. Yet there are no stones on the ground that could’ve done such damage.”
“Lady!” One of Neha’s senior vampires ran toward her, was breathless by the time he arrived. “A dog ran into the dark fog and it fell where it stood. When we dragged it out by the visible hindquarters, it was cut all over and bleeding.”
“Dead?” She had to know if survival was possible.
“All but,” the vampire said. “We gave it mercy.”
“Mercy was the right choice.” She rose to her feet. “Spread the word that no one is to approach the border. I will warn Lady Caliane’s people. If anyone does fall in, haul them out as fast as possible.”
“Yes, my queen.”
Nivriti got to her feet as the vampire ran to action Neha’s orders. “No archangel in history has been able to so surround their territory.”
“Caliane can do it,” Neha murmured. “But Amanat is the size of a large village. To encompass China . . .”
She stared at the dark fog and told herself it was her imagination, that she couldn’t see the trapped and screaming faces of the lost villagers staring back at her.
All those souls imprisoned forever, their teeth and nails Lijuan’s weapons.
40
Talk about hell on earth.” Elena’s mutter had Antonicus shooting her another riveted look. She tried to ignore him. He’d been staring at her since she returned to the Tower.
He should’ve been staring at the screen in front of them—on it was a live broadcast from Neha’s territory, of the border with China. Neha’s second had sent it out to all of the Cadre before Raphael could initiate a meeting about Antonicus.
“Hell is a mortal concept. This is very much an immortal nightmare.”
Elena couldn’t disagree, but that wasn’t why the back of her neck was prickling. Why does Antonicus keep looking at me as if I’m an interesting new bug?
He has no idea what you are and that is a strange thing for an immortal. He ran his fingers through the stormfire of her wings.
Shivering inwardly, Elena said, Stop that. I have to look hard-ass so your new friend doesn’t try to chop me open and examine me.
He is not a friend. Raphael’s features gave nothing away as he turned to the Ancient, his presence remote in a way that reminded her of the archangel she’d first met. “You have been most patient. It is time, however, that we had a meeting of the Cadre.”
“It has been no trouble,” Antonicus replied in a language that Raphael could just understand. He knew the other archangel had chosen that language on purpose—because he must’ve already picked up modern English. That was a skill that seemed to sharpen with age and knowledge, as if once the brain had a hundred languages inside it, new ones were simply absorbed.
Antonicus’s eyes returned to Elena.
“Unless you wish to start a war,” Raphael said in the same ancient language, “you will treat my consort with respect. Or she will be forced to excise your eyes from your head.”
Clearly comprehending his tone if not his words, Elena began to play a sharp blade through her fingers.
Antonicus remembered his manners at last—he even had the grace to flush. Raphael knew the change was unlikely to last. Angels this old, archangel or not, had a tendency to believe age gave them the freedom to discard accepted rules of behavior.
“Consort.” The archangel spoke English with a liquid accent. “You are the most unique being I have seen in all my life.”
“Guess you don’t know Naasir,” was Elena’s cool riposte.
Antonicus’s wings opened in a wave of charcoal gray, snapped shut. “Who is this Naasir? Is he like you? An angel-Made?”
Elena’s smile was slow and as sly as Naasir’s. “You’ll have to ask Naasir what he is.”
Amusement slicing through the ice of his anger, Raphael touched her mind. Attempting to break Naasir’s secrets through others?
Never! I’m going to find those answers myself. I just want Antonicus to beat his head against that particular brick wall, too.
“Sire.” Dmitri stepped into the office. “Archangel Neha has convened a meeting of the Cadre.” Words of perfect politeness that gave away nothing of the reality of Raphael and Dmitri’s relationship. His second and friend had met enough Ancients to understand how to manipulate their perceptions where it mattered.
Antonicus paid no mind to Dmitri. The old were often foolish.
“Keep an eye on this feed.” Raphael indicated what was occurring on Neha’s border. “Interrupt us if there is a major change.” With that, he led Elena and Antonicus into the large room set up for these meetings and initiated the link.
Antonicus reared back when he saw Neha’s face appear on the central screen, Caliane’s on the screen next to hers. “What is this? You have trapped the Cadre within these black boxes?” His wings began to glow.
“Antonicus, I would know that voice anywhere.” Caliane, her white leathers dusty and her hair damp, shook her head. “Still acting before you think, I see.”
“We do not have time to explain the modern world to you,” Neha snapped at the much older archangel. “Suffice to say that these are communication devices.”
More faces appeared on the screens around them. Alexander also had an unknown archangel with him. Raphael’s gut tightened. Each waking should’ve sent a wave of color or light or sound across the world, alerting the entire Cadre as to what was occurring. In New York, aside from the disturbance caused by Antonicus’s waking, that had only happened with the death screams that announced Lijuan’s return.
Unless . . . was it possible the others had woken all at once?
He waited for Astaad, his spine rigid. The Archangel of the Pacific Isles was the final member of the Cadre to appear. With him was an archangel with massive shoulders and hair of blue-green. Elena, I need you to go to your Bluebell. I want you with him when I give him some news.
Elena slipped out of the room in silence and without questions, and he knew she’d felt the urgency pulsing through his veins.
He spoke next to Dmitri. Find someone we trust in the village by Lumia. No, someone the Hummingbird trusts. That individual’s task is to keep her away from any news feeds until given further orders. Illium’s mother was at least isolated enough that he could give her time to become used to this turn of events on her own terms before the world started coming at her.
Raphael forced himself to pay attention as Alexander introduced Zanaya, then did his own duty by presenting Antonicus. Astaad was commendably calm in his presentation of Aegaeon.
The Ancient scowled. “I did not intend to wake yet. I have barely Slept.”
A surge of violence inside Raphael that had his hand curling into a hard fist by his side. Better that this particular Ancient had Slept forever.
Raphael, I’m with Illium. He’s exhausted after the training maneuvers he’s been running all day.
Stay with him. No matter what. He couldn’t tell Elena why—this news must go first to Illium.