“I recognize it,” Raphael said. “It’s the jade throne from a mountain stronghold Lijuan often used as a retreat. I saw it on a visit with my father.”
“It went missing hundreds of years ago, is considered a lost relic,” Jason murmured.
“Lijuan must’ve put it in storage.” Dmitri scanned the scene in front of them. “It looks like she’s busy for the time being. I’m going to set some things in play. Janvier, Ash.”
The two slipped away with Dmitri. Together with Naasir, the three led the “sneak attack” section of Raphael’s forces. They’d trained multiple small teams in the time since the last battle, and were the reason the city was so well booby-trapped. Venom’s Holly was part of their group.
“I can watch the feeds,” Vivek said. “I’ll send out an alert if I see anything that indicates preparation for an attack.”
“You have more of those bugs?” Illium, having returned from the balcony, came to stand next to Vivek’s wheelchair.
The hunter-born male nodded. “I seeded them everywhere I could. Bugs are pretty dumb in the brain department and have a tendency to fall off buildings and get squashed, but no one much notices them. Where do you need eyes?”
“I want to get a real count of her forces.”
Sara and Venom walked over to join them. “It’d be good if we could separate out ground and air support numbers,” Sara said, to Venom’s nod.
While the four of them worked on that, Suyin and Aodhan decided to rejoin their squadrons. Both those squadrons were in the air, maintaining the watch. Raphael stayed in the war room to speak to Suyin while she put on her battle armor, while Elena walked out onto the balcony with Aodhan.
With the twin swords that he wore in a dual sheath down the center of his spine, his well-worn leathers, and muscular build, he was a battle-honed warrior whose beauty was brilliant in the last of the sun’s light. But beyond all that, he was her friend. So she held out her hand.
He closed his own over it without hesitation, his palm warm. “Illium’s not as stable as he appears. His father’s waking threw him badly.”
No surprise that Sparkle was more concerned about Bluebell than himself. “He talking to you about it?”
A clenched jaw, Aodhan’s bare biceps bunching. “He’s the most stubborn person I know.” Releasing her hand, he prepared to take off. “But as the Hummingbird pointed out, I am no pushover.”
His takeoff was flawless, the glittering filaments in his wings ablaze. Suyin took off with a quieter whisper not long afterward. In this light, the dull silver of her armor appeared nearly the same bronze as the primaries that edged the snow-white of her wings.
Not all angels wore armor, but it was a smart move for Suyin, given her level of training. Designed for the angel, it featured a breastplate that fit exactly right, a neck guard, thigh guards, leg guards integrated into her boots, and forearm guards.
Elena’s own “armor” was integrated into her leathers, everything triple reinforced. She liked the freedom of movement it offered. “Suyin doing okay?” she asked Raphael as he came to stand behind her.
“She is haunted by the knowledge that she is of a bloodline with Lijuan. What hidden capacity for evil, she asks, does she carry within?”
Retracting her wings, Elena leaned back against his chest and drew in the masculine heat of his scent. “That they share nearly the same face must make it even worse.” It’d be like watching a horror version of yourself.
“I have told her it comes down to choices. Such as the one Lijuan made to murder the mortal who awoke in her what you do in me.” Arms already around her, he kissed her temple.
In front of them, their city was eerily calm. Sentries stood on rooftops around the entire perimeter, with archers and shooters on standby. Elena spotted a medic lift off from one rooftop, head to another. Bandaging wounds that didn’t necessitate a trip to the infirmary. “Do you know how many we lost?” It was a hard question to ask; the one question she couldn’t ask was if someone she knew was already gone.
“Six percent of our overall force.” Raphael’s wings became limned with a deadly glow. “It does not seem a large number against such a massive enemy, but for our first battle we projected a one percent loss as the maximum.” Though he was talking in cold percentages, his hand fisted against her abdomen.
These weren’t just numbers to Raphael.
Throat thick and eyes hot, Elena slid her hand over his fisted one and held on. They stood in silence as night fell on the first day of a war that had just begun.
57
Lijuan launched her next assault under cover of night.
Thanks to its watchers, living and electronic, Manhattan was ready.
Squads of black-clad angels had taken to the skies in absolute silence only ten minutes after Vivek’s bugs picked up the first signs of preparation in her camp. All the flyers for this op had been chosen because their wings were naturally dark. Each angel took off on their own, as if heading home to the Tower . . . but used the moonless night to disappear into the clouds.
Jason led the team.
Once in the sky, the squadrons did silent sweeps in a holding pattern above Dmitri’s predicted attack zone. When an angel needed a break, he flew back a short distance and dropped down on a rooftop.
No one from Lijuan’s side seemed to notice—lone angels all over the city, enemy and friendly, were dropping down or taking off. Aside from those taking a break, Jason’s team stayed high.
Now, Jason! Raphael sent the command as Lijuan’s forces rose en masse from their base by the water; he’d waited until they were high enough that no soft landing was possible.
The nets were fine and black and invisible in the darkness as they fell from the sky. He knew the instant they made contact with Lijuan’s winged fighters because the fighting formations collapsed into chaos, angels tumbling uncontrolled from the sky as their wings became tangled in nets that cut and made them bleed.
Their nets successfully deployed, Jason’s team emerged from the skies behind enemy lines, and the sky crackled with black lightning. Jason’s power was enormous in comparison to most angels’ and he sent his energy directly into the heart of Lijuan’s disoriented forces, while other angels in his team used line-of-sight grenade launchers to blow up enemy supplies and ground teams.
Aodhan supplied violent backup from this side.
Raphael, meanwhile, was facing off against Lijuan. Jason’s team had made no effort to tangle her in nets—given her power, it’d have been a waste. She was his to neutralize. But while his wildfire had regenerated to a certain point, he had nowhere near enough to take on an archangel who’d so recently fed on the lifeforce of at least a hundred people.