“No, this is not good.” Nisia’s cheekbones jutted sharply against her skin as she stared at the small wound. “Such a cut should’ve been nothing for your body to repair. Your current level of healing is close to a mortal’s.”
Okay, yeah, put that way, they had a problem—but her wings were the bigger one, so she and Nisia returned to the tests.
Elena, I’m almost home. Dmitri informed me about Harrison—have there been further developments?
Archangel. A hot rush of blood through her veins. I haven’t had much of a chance to follow up—I’m with Nisia in the internal sparring ring. It had been free when Nisia enquired, and the better space for testing the range of her wings. More issues with my wings.
I am on my way.
He walked into the ring only a few minutes later, an archangel dressed once again in the worn softness of warrior’s leathers, with his hair tumbled by the wind and his expression dangerously calm. And his wings . . . they were rippling white fire. Wings of pure silence that he could summon at will but that appeared most often when his emotions were running high.
“What has happened?” Liquid blue flame danced in his irises.
A stab of fear deep in Elena’s heart; she couldn’t help it when he got like this. So very other that she feared he’d evolve onto a level of existence where she wasn’t welcome, where she couldn’t follow.
“Elena’s wings show evidence of further degeneration,” Nisia said without stopping her most recent examination of Elena’s flexed left wing. “You can continue to fly,” she said directly to Elena, “but I’ll need to keep a close eye on things.” The healer came around to face her. “We’ll begin with an examination each morning and night.”
Stomach dropping, Elena didn’t even try to stop herself from shifting so that Raphael’s wing overlapped her own. Though the white fire felt like him, she was glad when his wings solidified, the warm weight of bone and tendon and feathers pressing against her wounded wing.
“Is this damage a result of the original strain?”
“It doesn’t matter if it is.” Nisia unfurled then folded in her own wings. “You should be healing.” A thoughtful pause. “Have you been eating enough? We know from previous growth spurts that you require a prodigious amount of energy at such times.”
“You saw me inhale the food we had sent down here.” Elena shoved a hand through her hair, remembering too late that it was in a braid. Pale strands of near-white fell around her face when she pulled her fingers out. “Do I need even more fuel? I might as well just get a stomach tube and pour things in.”
Ignoring her muttered aside with the ease of an angel who dealt with warriors all day, many of them snarly, Nisia said, “It’s highly possible if this growth spurt is a larger one than the others. I’ll speak with your household staff about increasing your energy intake.” The healer considered things for a moment. “I’ll also personally prepare a liquid supplement for you that you need to drink every hour. One full glass.”
Elena thought of the owls and the voice in her head that predicted death—and told both otherworldly manifestations to stuff it. “Full glass every hour,” she promised.
After Nisia bustled off to prepare her supplement, Raphael turned and lifted up the arm with the cut.
“I had another heart attack, I’m healing at the rate of a mortal, and I keep seeing the owls,” Elena said, because keeping secrets from her archangel was a no-go zone.
Raphael’s jaw worked. “We’ve beaten far more dangerous foes than this.”
“Yeah—but this enemy isn’t playing fair. How can we fight what we can’t see?” Frowning, she said, “Ashwini told me not to be afraid of the owls, that they’re just messengers of a messenger.”
A chill whisper across her skin, an old, old voice on the far edge of her hearing.
“What do you hear, hbeebti?” Raphael’s voice was cold with power, his eyes liquid flame again. “Lijuan could be unseen, and we brought her down. An invisible enemy cannot conquer us.”
Elena scowled. “You’re right.” But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t capture the words spoken . . . then they faded altogether. “It’s gone. Like . . . someone moving in a dream.”
Elena and Raphael met with Dmitri, Ashwini, and Janvier later that afternoon, when the winter sky was already giving up its fight against the dark. Added to which, a thick fog-colored blanket made the world smaller and more claustrophobic, and dampened even New York’s vibrant spirit. People were picking grocery store shelves bare in anticipation of deadly blizzards.
“Or maybe a volcano,” Ash said with a shrug when Elena voiced her thoughts. “It’d make as much sense as a lava sinkhole.”
Everyone stared at the hunter turned vampire.
She threw up her hands. “That was just me mouthing off, not a prediction.”
Elena exhaled quietly, while Dmitri scowled at Ash, and Raphael’s expression remained unreadable to anyone but Elena. He wasn’t brushing off Ash’s mad forecast, despite the other woman’s disclaimer. He was probably already thinking of an evacuation plan—just in case.
The ongoing monsoon rains that had hit Africa’s deserts less than an hour earlier had everyone jumpy. According to early media reports, the Sahara was already so wet it had begun to turn into a river of orange sludge while the Kalahari’s drenching had people fearing catastrophic “flooding” from the sand. Desert residents all over the continent had begun to evacuate their homes, taking only what they could carry.
The situation was bad enough that Charisemnon and Titus, neighboring archangels and mortal enemies, had laid down their arms and were cooperating to move large numbers of people out of danger. Charisemnon was a sick bastard who preyed on impressionable young mortals in his territory and had everyone convinced he was all but a god—Elena figured he was helping so he didn’t end up with too few acolytes.
Titus, in contrast, was one of her favorite archangels, a hugely powerful being with a warm heart who was beloved by his people. And by the women he favored with his smile. He loved and he left and no one was angry with him. Women sighed and bit their lower lips and melted when reminiscing about their time with the Archangel of Southern Africa.
Raphael had spoken to both Titus and Charisemnon when news of the rains hit the world. The latter was no ally of his—not after the horror of the Falling—but he’d offered help if needed regardless. Because in some matters, the Cadre laid down all enmities and got on with saving the world. The two archangels had acknowledged the offer but held off from accepting it.
Titus had said, “We do not know what disasters may yet come, my friend. We must all husband our strength.”
Charisemnon had been even blunter. “I may need you when the plagues of locusts and snakes descend. I’m no longer so sure all of Mad Cassandra’s prophecies were so mad.”
So now, the five of them focused on a problem that had hit much closer to home.
Playing a blade restlessly through her fingers, Elena laid out the facts of Harrison’s attempted murder. “He wasn’t stabbed,” she said to Ashwini, “but the forensic team that took images of his throat wound say it looks like it was made by the same weapon as that used to decapitate your Quarter victims.”