Jason was not an angel who embraced easily.
After they parted, Jason turned to Elena and the light caught on the lines and dots of the tribal tattoo that marked the left side of his face. “I am glad you are safe, Elena.” Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out a small object. “I saw this in a market in China and bought it for when you woke.”
A startled blink before Elena took the oval-shaped article made of metal that had gone slightly green from age. It was a carved box, Raphael saw, the design raised and intricate. But this was a gift from a spymaster. “It contains a secret,” Raphael murmured, certain of his conclusion.
“Hmm.” Setting her jaw, Elena bent over the puzzle box. First, she pushed various parts of the box in one direction, then the other, one by one. When it remained locked, apparently nothing more than a pretty ornament, she began to push in two directions at once.
Nothing.
A narrow-eyed glance up at the angel who’d given her the gift, an angel with wings of a soft black as inky as the night, an angel who lived in the world of secrets and shadows. “Is there really a secret or are you and your archangel messing with me?”
“There is a secret.” Solemn words from a man who smiled rarely and most often with the princess who held his heart. “The trick is—”
“No, don’t tell me.” Lines on her forehead, her attention already back on the puzzle box. “You and Raphael talk while I figure it out.”
“Will you have a drink, Jason?” Angels of Jason’s level of power could no more become intoxicated than Raphael, but the taste was pleasing.
Jason inclined his head. “It has been a long day.”
But he would go home, flying longer still, of this Raphael had no doubt. “Mahiya did not come with you on this journey?” Jason had been training his princess in the techniques of a spy so she could accompany him on some missions at least—gentle Mahiya had put her foot down and stated that she intended to be his partner in every way . . . and that she missed him when he was gone.
Jason was not proof against such unhidden love, not after a lifetime of loneliness. “China is too dangerous,” he said to Raphael. “Mahiya agreed with me—she knows I would worry about her in such a place and has no wish to divide my attention.” He took the tumbler of amber liquid Raphael held out. “She grows in skill day after day. In the future, you will have a pair of spymasters, not only one.”
“Such an advantage will be welcome.” Raphael poured himself a drink, too. “I’ve just been speaking to Elijah.” He summarized Eli’s words about the villagers. “Did you notice any strange behavior?”
19
Nodding, Jason took a sip of his drink. “For the most part, they act as is normal, expected, but every so often, their bodies jerk—as if being pulled by invisible strings.”
“Told you—better, more improved zombies,” Elena muttered, her head bent over the puzzle box.
“An apt description,” Jason said. “These are not the dead turned reborn, but their eyes are not . . . what they should be. The irises appeared an intense black to me rather than even a very dark shade of brown. It is not a natural mortal hue.”
“Are they a threat?”
“At present, they appear to be going about their ordinary lives—farming for the most part. There is a chance it’s the same infection that took Favashi, but that it impacts mortals in a different way.” Jason’s wings rustled as he flared them out before folding them back in. “It could also be connected more immediately to Lijuan.”
Raphael sipped at his cognac as he considered Jason’s words. “If so, she has not gone into Sleep,” he said at last. “A Sleeping archangel cannot impact the world around her.”
“I have sent operatives to all of her strongholds. There is no sign of her or her most trusted people.”
“China is a vast land.”
“Yes, and she has held it for millennia—it’s possible she built a hiding place long before we were born. To be used only once, so it could never be known.”
“Ah-ha!” Elena’s triumphant cry caught both their attention.
Part of the puzzle box had come away from the center. As they watched, she pushed two specific spots using the edges of her nails and multiple other pieces snapped out from the box to reveal a set of tiny metal darts. The box itself had turned into a blower from which the darts could be shot.
Elena’s face was a study in wonder. “This is amazing, Jason! Raphael, check it out.”
Raphael examined the object with interest. “A great artisan put months of work into this.” It was a piece of art as well as a weapon.
Accepting it back, Elena picked up a dart using two fingernails. “I wonder if it still works. Can you throw me a disinfectant wipe from the stuff Nisia left behind?”
After Raphael did so, she sanitized the blower, then very delicately inserted a dart into the device.
Aiming it at the opposing wall, she blew.
The dart flew straight and true to come to a sudden stop in the wall. Small as it was, it was barely visible. Jason retrieved it. “I believe you need to poison the tips for full effectiveness as a weapon,” he said upon presenting it back to Elena.
“I’m totally going to do that. Never know when a secret poison dart might come in handy.” A brilliant smile. “Thank you, Jason. Though . . . it is a little terrifying that you picked up exactly the thing I would’ve coveted had I seen it.”
“I’m a spymaster,” Jason said. “It is my calling to notice such things.”
“Venom’s poison is potent.”
“Hah!” Elena laughed at Raphael’s suggestion. “I’m going to ask him.” Tipping out the darts onto a side table with extreme care, she began to clean and oil the moving parts of the device.
Jason, meanwhile, turned to give Raphael the rest of his report. His people had discovered more ghost villages devoid of life. “We haven’t yet found any bodies.” The spymaster also confirmed that the vampires were getting restless. “The smart ones have started to notice that the archangels never land in China—it’s made them bold.”
Jason’s words bathed Elijah’s earlier concern in a new light. Blood would flow like water should the massive number of the Made in China realize its soil was poisonous to the Cadre. “We have kept you long enough, Jason.” His spymaster’s task was to unearth the problems; Raphael and the Cadre were charged with discovering the answers. “It is time you turned your wings homeward to your princess.”
Inclining his head at Raphael, then Elena, Jason left as silently as he’d arrived. It wasn’t until after he was gone that Elena put down the puzzle box and said, “I didn’t know Jason liked me that much.”