I AM A GODDESS! A blast of crackling obsidian twined with pearlescent gray starlight blasted past his shoulder. He barely avoided the obsidian hail and that only by dropping precipitously. So, Xi had managed to get through to her about tactics after all—because that honor guard had been a feint.
Rapidly recalculating his options, Raphael nonetheless didn’t respond with his own strike despite the volleys coming at him from her fighters. Xi was at the forefront, blasting bolts at Raphael’s wings. No starlight shimmer to Xi’s blows, but the obsidian of it was a shadow of Lijuan’s—a visual confirmation that, unlike with the abilities possessed by Raphael’s Seven, Xi’s power came from his archangel.
Rather than turning his wings to white fire, Raphael made a point of avoiding the bolts; the less they knew, the better. As he did so, he tried to work out Lijuan’s position, but there was no sign of her. She’d faded in and out of her noncorporeal state during the last battle, but it appeared she could now maintain it without pause.
Why wasn’t she then right over New York?
Why wasn’t she blasting his archers into death?
The air in his lungs turned to ice. This time, she’d done the unpredictable. He broadcast a warning to his entire army. Mobilize all archers, all gunners, look skyward! Bloated with power, Lijuan had done exactly what he’d feared and kept part of her assault force hidden even while exposing the rest. The delay in an attack had to mean the broken-off section was getting into prime position—but they had to be deadly close to that by now.
He had to do something to even the odds.
Incinerating the fighters in front of him with a single blow, he drew on the wildfire inside him and released it not in a massive bolt but in a thick spreading blast with him as the center.
Static filled the air.
Lijuan may have gained enormous power, but as he’d seen with Antonicus, her brand of death wasn’t fully immune to the wildfire. Even if the effect was only temporary, it’d give his people enough knowledge that they could reposition their forces, defend their home.
The wildfire spread and spread . . . and crackled violent blue and white-gold as it hit the enemy force, stripping them of their noncorporeal cloak. The air filled with fire as all his fighters on nearby rooftops began to shoot up at enemy warriors already wounded by the gleaming scythe of wildfire. His power had been too spread out to kill, but it’d caused major damage.
A number went down screaming, their wings shredded by crossbow bolts or bullets, or in flames.
Fuck, Archangel. Elena’s voice, horror in every syllable.
He turned . . . and saw his city surrounded by an army of such magnitude that it had to be every living strong angel in Lijuan’s land. Thousands upon thousands of them. So many that his mind struggled to comprehend it.
A shift in viewpoint and he understood why the attack hadn’t come yet, why the squadrons had moved so slowly to ambush Manhattan. The majority of them were occupied with hauling huge metal carriers.
Those carriers had to hold Lijuan’s vampiric forces . . . and reborn.
Dmitri, call all our people home. This was a fight to the death; they needed everyone. Nimra, Nazarach, Augustus, all of them. It was a risk to pull in his people from around the territory, but unlike the last time, he didn’t think Lijuan was going to try to eat away at him in small bites. No, she intended to take New York, then crawl out across his land.
Tell Galen and Naasir to send our noncombatants in the Refuge to Eli’s Refuge stronghold. They will be protected by Eli’s people. It was a decision he and Elijah had made when Lijuan’s eventual rise became inevitable—had Lijuan chosen to attack South America instead, Galen and Naasir and their teams would’ve taken charge of Eli’s noncombatants, allowing his warriors to head home.
Today, it was Raphael’s warriors who would fly toward battle.
Even as Raphael sent out orders, he was fighting his way through the mass of winged fighters. His sword bled red, but his goal was the archangel with hair of white and wings of a delicate dove gray who soared high above the city, her fingers prickling with an eerily beautiful power that would devastate anything it touched.
He had to strike now, while he could see her. An enemy warrior sliced his sword downward at Raphael’s wing . . . and it turned into white fire without Raphael’s conscious volition. The sword went straight through without causing any damage—throwing the enemy warrior off-balance.
Slicing off the other angel’s head, a spray of warm blood hitting his face, Raphael scalded the remaining enemy fighters around him with archangelic power, then rose high, wildfire building into a lethal sphere in his hand. His initial blast intersected with Lijuan’s and the clash reverberated in a massive boom of sound that smashed over the entire city.
He saw some people drop, hands over their ears, but his archers held.
He threw the hidden sphere of wildfire in his other hand in the immediate aftermath, his aim her wing. She wasn’t expecting the rapid response and his blow found its mark. Screaming as the wildfire seared away part of her wing before she could go noncorporeal, she retaliated in a fury.
Her obsidian death hit the side of a building, shattering glass and destroying a corner. As if a giant had taken a bite out of the skyscraper. Taking advantage of her anger-fueled lack of strategy, he threw more wildfire in smaller but rapid-fire spheres, only then realizing the wildfire had gained a faint opalescence. Not as strong as he’d seen on the broken pieces of the chrysalis, but present.
A piece of Elena’s heart, embedded forever in his power.
The second sphere hit Lijuan’s leg. Wildfire burned over her, and in the background of its merciless glow, he saw the skeletal bones of her face fading in and out.
Why wasn’t she going noncorporeal? Was it possible the wildfire had evolved to stop her from switching form? Or had she used so much energy to hide her massive army that she’d burned out that particular ability?
Whatever the reason, it didn’t stop her from deluging him in a rain of starlight obsidian. But, wounded as she was, her aim was off. Her warriors closed ranks in front of her before he could target her again. Raphael scorched them out of existence, but there were always more ready to lay their lives and bodies on the line to protect their goddess, a flesh and blood wall of mindless fidelity.
The last was a squadron that flew with the precision of a seasoned team. The entire unit snapped around Lijuan in a single heartbeat, then they all dropped as one—right into the thick of the fighting.
Raphael could no longer target her without hitting his own people. She, however, had the same problem—she couldn’t attack him without killing a world-class team of her own.
Stalemate.
Utilizing the lull, he scanned the battle zone. The fireline was out and his archers had fallen back. It was no shock to see that Lijuan’s people had taken the port—with their numbers so gargantuan, he’d expected this first loss.