“Sure,” Amelia said.
“Crick,” Flechette said, “we will take you to the medical rooms. Was your mission achieved?”
“Yes,” he said. He was glad of the two men who came to help him down the steps, but he turned to look back at Clovache and Batanya. “And I was very satisfied with the service.”
A week later, Batanya and Clovache had returned to their favorite courtyard to spar with each other. First they used weapons, then they wrestled. They were sweaty and limber and pleased with themselves when they were through, and though Batanya pointed out a few mistakes her junior had made, they sprawled on the grass in the sunlight in good harmony.
“How is Geit?” Batanya asked.
“Glad to see me again, and very vigorous in telling me so,” Clovache said, smiling to herself. “Did I hear someone knocking on your door at night?”
“Unexpectedly, yes.” Batanya grinned, which made her scar more obvious. But who cared?
“Do tell?”
“Our client,” Batanya said.
“Oh, my honor! Then you’ve experienced…”
“Oh, yes,” Batanya said, her voice rich with satisfaction.
“I didn’t get a very good look in Lucifer’s chamber,” Clovache said, “being in imminent danger and so forth. How is he all… arranged?”
“Very satisfactorily,” Crick said, dropping onto the ground beside Batanya.
“How are you today, Harwell Clansman?” she asked.
“Very well, Britlingen.” He smiled down at her. “But I have to go to Pardua to give Belshazzar his conjuring ball, now that I’m well enough to travel.”
“Will you be there long?”
“Depends on how much Belshazzar believes me.”
“What, do you need a sworn statement?” Clovache said. “We were there, we saw the conjuring ball, we saw you retrieve it, and in fact we came within a breath or two of losing our lives for it. Though it turned out to be quite handy, if you can concentrate. That’s all I did, you know, concentrate on where I wanted to go.”
“Ah, but am I taking Belshazzar the same conjuring ball that we retrieved?” Crick said. “That’s what he’ll wonder.”
Clovache gaped at him. “And why would you not?” she demanded. “Oh. Oh, it’s very valuable. But he commissioned you to steal it!”
“And what am I?”
“A thief,” Batanya said, without opening her eyes. “Dear Crick, you are a thief.” Her hardened hand slipped into his bony one.
After that, they all enjoyed the blue sky and the floating clouds, the light breeze that stirred their hair. Perhaps they were all thinking about how excited the magicians and the mechs had been when they’d seen the conjuring ball; how they’d peppered Crick with questions, most of which he couldn’t answer, about the ball’s properties and history and operation; how they’d disappeared with it for a few days, taking Amelia with them, to “make sure it still worked.”
“Be careful along the road, and come back when you can,” Clovache said, when she got up to take her gear into the castle.
“Oh, I will,” Crick said. He lay back in the green grass, smiling gently at Batanya. “I’m thinking of taking an apartment down the hill, in Spauling.”
“Really?” Batanya said. “That’s very interesting.” She was on her feet. “Invite me to the housewarming, will you?”
“You’ll be the only guest.”
Angels’ Judgment by Nalini Singh
A GUILD HUNTER NOVELLA
The Cadre of Ten, the archangels who ruled the world in all the ways that mattered, met in an ancient keep deep in the Scottish Highlands. No one-human or vampire-would dare trespass on angelic territory, but even had they felt the need to give in to the suicidal urge, it would have proved impossible. The keep had been built by angels, wings a prerequisite for access.
Technology could’ve negated that advantage, but immortals didn’t survive eons by being left behind. The air above and around the keep was strictly controlled, both by a complex intrusion detection system and by units of highly trained angels. Today’s security had turned the sky into a cascade of wings-it wasn’t often that the ten most powerful beings in the world met in one place.
“Where is Uram?” Raphael asked, glancing at the incomplete semicircle of chairs.
Michaela was the one who answered. “He had a situation in his territory that required immediate attention.” Her lips curved as she spoke, and she was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman who had ever lived… if you didn’t look beneath the surface.
“She makes Uram her puppet.” It was a murmur so low that Raphael knew it had been meant for him alone.
Glancing at Lijuan, he shook his head. “He’s too powerful. She might control his cock, but nothing else.”
Lijuan smiled, and it was a smile that held nothing of humanity. The oldest of the archangels had long passed the age where she could even pretend at being mortal. Now, when Raphael looked at her, he saw only a strange darkness, a whisper of worlds beyond either mortal or immortal ken.
“And are we not important?” A pointed question from Neha, the archangel who ruled India and its surrounds.
“Leave it, Neha,” Elijah said in that calm way of his. “We all know of Uram’s arrogance. If he chooses not to be here, then he forfeits the right to question our decisions.”
That soothed the Queen of Poisons. Astaad and Titus seemed not to care either way, but Charisemnon wasn’t so easily appeased. “He spits on the Cadre,” the archangel said, his aristocratic face drawn in sharply angry lines. “He may as well renounce his membership.”
“Don’t be stupid, Chari,” Michaela said, and the way she did it, the tone, made it clear she’d once had him in her bed. “An archangel doesn’t get invited to join the Cadre. We become Cadre when we become archangels.”
“She’s right.” Favashi spoke for the first time. The quietest of the archangels, she held sway over Persia, and was so good at remaining unnoticed that her enemies forgot about her. Which was why she ruled as they lay in their graves.
“Enough,” Raphael said. “We’re here for a reason. Let’s get to it so we can return to our respective territories.”
“Where is the mortal?” Neha asked.
“Waiting outside. Illium flew him up from the lowlands.” Raphael didn’t ask Illium to bring their visitor inside. “We’re here because Simon, the mortal, is growing old. The American chapter of the Guild will need a new director within the next year.”
“So let them choose one.” Astaad shrugged. “What does it matter to us as long as they do their job?”
That job happened to be a critical one. Angels might Make vampires, but it was the Guild Hunters who ensured those vampires obeyed their hundred-year Contract. Humans signed the Contract easily enough, hungry for immortality. However, fulfilling the terms was another matter-a great many of the newly Made had changes of heart after a few paltry years of service.
And the angels, despite the myths created around their immortal beauty, were not agents of some heavenly entity. They were rulers and businessmen, practical and merciless. They did not like losing their investments. Hence, the Guild and its hunters.
“It matters,” Michaela said in a biting tone, “because the American and European branches of the Guild are the most powerful. If the next director can’t do his job, we face a rebellion.”
Raphael found her choice of words interesting. It betrayed something about the vampires under her tender care that they’d seize any chance of escape.
“I grow tired of this.” Titus stirred his muscular bulk, his skin gleaming blue-black. “Bring in the human and let us hear him.”