He stepped away to take the call, returned to say, “Delhi is glowing. Some kind of bioluminescence. Rhys is sending me images.”
“If this is all the same Ancient,” Elena said, “then I kinda like them already. I mean, pretty lights, cool bubbles in a lake, glowing cities, seems pretty mellow to me.”
Raphael stared out at the water, not certain it was all connected to one Ancient. “The bioluminescence strikes me as different from the two water-based phenomena.”
“Rhys has understatement down pat.” Dmitri flipped his phone in their direction.
“It looks like the aliens came and irradiated everything.” Elena whistled through her teeth.
When Dmitri’s phone rang just as he drew it back, Raphael said, “Which second is it now?”
“Not a second but might as well be—it’s that creep, Riker. I don’t know why Michaela keeps him around. He’s a vicious fucker.”
“He’s also viciously loyal to her,” Raphael said as Dmitri stepped away again.
His second just held out his phone when he returned: on it was the image of an old European city, possibly Prague, backed by a sky in which swirled a slow spiral of stars. A new galaxy being born.
It wasn’t the final portent.
By dawn, New York was in the grip of a huge storm that coated the city in ice, and the list had grown to include intricate crop circles in Titus’s land, a rainstorm in Japan that turned the country a bright magenta, large standing rocks erupting out of the earth in Alexander’s territory—some through the floors of buildings—and last but not least, an impossible blooming of wildflowers across frozen Siberia.
If each represented an Ancient—or even simply an archangel . . . Death. It was death.
38
The vortex of ice finally began to thaw seventy-two hours later, but Elena wasn’t breathing easy. Not only had the bitter cold caused a number of deaths, the volcano that shouldn’t fucking exist had blown with a vengeance. Andreas was in charge of disaster cleanup and his people were still counting the dead.
Raphael’s territory wasn’t the only casualty of the wave of catastrophic events.
Hundreds, maybe thousands, had been washed away in floods in India, while plagues of locusts had poisoned countless people in Titus’s and Charisemnon’s territories. A massive landslide in Alexander’s territory had buried a remote village, while a rampant fire had rioted through the ancient city of Xian, China.
Michaela’s territory was in the midst of a deadly heat wave in the depths of winter, while food crops designed to feed many of Elijah’s people through the winter months had begun to rot and degrade without reason.
With all that going on, Elena barely felt the chill of the drizzling rain as she paced along the cliff-edge of their Enclave land. “What did Astaad say?”
Raphael thrust his hand through the damp strands of his hair. “He just lost two more of his islands under the turbulent water. Low casualties because he’d already given the evacuation order, but a large ship capsized at the same time deep in the ocean. Over forty mortal lives taken by the sea.”
Numb from the constant wave of disasters, Elena went to ask about Japan when her body swayed on a rolling wave. Across the ice-encrusted waters of the Hudson, the Tower moved. “Archangel, the Tower.”
“It is designed according to modern ways of building. It will flex not fall in a tremor.”
Elena jolted as another tremor hit, this one much harder. Lifting off was instinct. She and Raphael headed directly for Manhattan, hitting the edge of the city just as a skyscraper in the distance, its windows a reflective blue, began a stunning and deadly show. Sheets of windows dropped like water to shatter onto the sidewalk and street far below.
Raphael’s wings turned to white fire, Elena flying as fast as she could in his wake, but it was too late to save the pedestrians who’d been under the glass when it first fell. The world wasn’t shaking anymore by the time Elena landed, the entire sidewalk covered with unyielding snow created from shattered blue glass.
It was safety glass, but the amount and velocity of it had been catastrophic. Racing to where she could see an outflung hand with nails painted a soft pink, she began to clear away the glass. Raphael was already pulling another body out of the glass rubble behind the woman.
She barely noticed slicing her hand on a piece of metal wire hidden in the glass debris, the red smearing across the squares of blue. It wasn’t until later, after she’d delivered a small teenage girl to the hospital, that she wiped her palm on the side of her pants . . . and remembered that a cut that wouldn’t heal had been one of the first signs of her “devolution.”
Gut twisting, she lifted her hand to examine the cut.
Her palm was smooth, unmarked by anything except dried remnants of blood. Disbelieving, she pressed down on her flesh. No bruising, no indication she’d hurt herself at all. She was still staring at it when her phone rang. It was Vivek, directing her to another area where someone needed assistance.
New York was built strong, but it also had a bunch of old buildings.
Regardless, it was only two hours later that she and Raphael met in the sky above the city. “It’s not as bad as we thought at first.”
The vast majority of the city had come through with no ill effects. Yellow cabs zipped along the streets, exchanging insults with kamikaze bike messengers, while food carts that had closed up shop after the shake were all back to doing a brisk business.
“I’m more worried about other consequences.” Raphael stared out at the ocean. “Our sensors are reporting a deep-sea disturbance.”
As if on cue, the ocean began to boil . . . and the sky, it turned a violent bruise purple. As they watched, the water parted as if over a great beast from the deep. However, what emerged from that water wasn’t a mythological beast but a slender man dressed in a white tunic and black pants, his hair tumbled dark brown and his skin tawny.
His eyes were a dazzling gray, his bones perfect.
I am Antonicus! Who dares wake me?
Elena winced at the hugeness of that voice.
Showing no outward response, Raphael flew toward the other archangel. I am Raphael and you are in my territory. This land is not yours.
The Ancient stared at him, his gaze flat. You are a pup. He threw out a hand ringed with angelfire.
Easily dodging the bolt, Raphael returned the hit with a bolt of his own. Antonicus managed to evade it, but it singed the side of his tunic. Hissing, the other archangel stared unblinking as Raphael came to a stop across from him. “Why disturb my rest, pup?”
“I do not wish for you to be awake,” Raphael said bluntly, in no mood to go gentle. “A Cascade is in effect and it’s having an unpredictable impact on all the Cadre, even those who Sleep.”