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.
Blood spread from beneath the fan of her hair, a scarlet carpet on the asphalt.
But even worse was the creep of black that was a growing sun around her heart. “Lijuan got her poison into you.” At point-blank range.
Cat green eyes held Elena’s. Flickers of fire lit the archangel’s irises.
Elena looked up.
The sky was aflame above them, as Neha unleashed the flip side of her ability to create ice. Even from so far, it felt as if the heat kissed Elena’s skin through her clothes.
“My son,” Michaela whispered and it was barely comprehensible. “The healer . . . he will be kind.”
“Keir? You want Keir to be the foster dad?”
“Yes.” Rattling sounds in her throat. “Tell him . . . tell him . . . I did not mean . . . to leave him. My . . . son. Protect . . .”
“We will.” Elena wanted to close her hand over Michaela’s, but the archangel’s bones were shattered. When she looked up again, to see if Raphael could help, she found him in a pitched battle against Lijuan.
Fires continued to burn in Michaela’s eyes when Elena turned back to the archangel. A sudden fierceness lit them. Her voice came into Elena’s mind now, the feel of her a sensual perfume. But the words she spoke were hard with resolve—though her voice, it was faded there, too.
I need you to lift my hand and bring it to my chest, above the infection. A cough that bubbled blood. Once I do what needs to be done, take me to a safe place.
Elena had no idea what the hell Michaela was talking about, but she lifted one shattered hand, not flinching when the bones rattled, and placed it in the correct spot. “You’re about two inches from the top of the infection.”
Bronze fire erupted from Michaela’s fingers.
Elena closed her eyes reflexively against the sudden brightness. When she opened them again, Michaela’s eyes were closed, her body limp . . . and most of her chest gone, cut out by her own power. Elena could see the gleam of bone, the spongy texture of one lung.
And blood, so much blood.
Stomach roiling, Elena nonetheless looked carefully at the massive open wound. No sign of infection, all the black cut away. Along with most of Michaela’s ribs and internal organs, part of one hip, a section of pelvis.
“Ellie.” Dusty black boots slamming down beside her, Jason’s wings in her vision. “I’ll carry her to the infirmary.”
Elena nodded jerkily. “I think her neck’s broken.”
“No,” Jason said after crouching down to examine Michaela more closely. “It’s not broken. It’s almost severed from her body.”
Swallowing hard, Elena said, “She was talking.”
“She is an archangel.” He gathered Michaela into his arms.
Elena didn’t ask him if Michaela would survive; as long as none of Lijuan’s infection remained, the Archangel of Budapest would come back. Given her massive injuries, however—injuries that had come on top of having given birth not long ago—it might take a long time.
She flew escort for Jason until they were in friendly territory, then he went onward and she flew back to the battle zone. The sky remained full of fire. Neha was attempting to burn Lijuan’s troops out of the sky.