Archangel's Heart (Guild Hunter 9)

Vengeance defined Neha.

And it was she who responded to Charisemnon. “So sure, Charisemnon—have you had contact with Zhou Lijuan?” Her voice was poisonous grace, but that poison wasn’t malicious—Neha was the Queen of Snakes and Poisons after all. Then again, given the way she was looking at Charisemnon, maybe it was very much on purpose.

As Elena had pointed out, Neha did not suffer cowards.

And as far as Raphael was concerned, Charisemnon was a coward who brought shame to angelkind and who needed to be erased from existence. The Archangel of Northern Africa had gained the ability to create immortal-harming diseases in the Cascade, had used it in attacks on Titus’s and Raphael’s territories. In Raphael’s case, it had led to the Falling, when angels fell from the sky to be shattered and broken.

Hundreds had been horrifically injured.

Five had died.

Been murdered.

Including young Stavre, a promising youth on his first placement.

The fallen had been carried home from New York by an honor guard of angels, their funeral biers covered with flowers as they traveled the sky road they’d so loved in life. When the honor guard passed by Neha’s lands on the way to the Refuge, they’d been joined by another squadron. The new squadron had carried lanterns to light the way, those lanterns refreshed all the way to the fallen’s final home in the mountains where each had been born.

The Archangel of India was a complicated woman.

“If I had met Lijuan,” Charisemnon said with a smile that dripped charm, “I would’ve spoken up when this ridiculous summons was first sent.” He remained boneless as a cat in his seat, a handsome man with flawless skin. No sign remained of the disease that had ravaged him when his abilities turned on him; he was once again an archangel who attracted lovers in droves and who had a liking for young flesh in his bed. Too young.

That one was always full of himself even as a boy.

His mother’s voice, that stunning symphony of sound, broke into Raphael’s thoughts. Sometimes, he said, I forget that you knew everyone here as a child. What was Alexander like as a boy?

Her eyes met his for a fleeting instant, the incandescent blue flame burning with memory. As ambitious and as honorable as he is today. She turned to face the others once more. Though now he carries a violent rage deep within. Sadness in her tone. I hope he will not allow it to poison him.

Xander is helping. Lijuan had murdered Alexander’s only son as well as Rohan’s wife, but that son had left behind a son of his own. Alexander can’t drown in grief when he has a boy to raise. Like Elena’s adored Izak, Xander needed seasoning, needed a firm guiding hand as he grew into his wings and learned his own strength.

Yes. Caliane’s agreement was soft. But it is a harsh thing to outlive your child. Some never recover. I have seen this in my eternity of life.

Raphael could say nothing to that; his mother had lived so many years that he might never know quite when she’d been born, when she’d taken her first steps. Across from her, Alexander raised his eyebrows very slightly and he had the feeling the two Ancients were talking to one another.

Charisemnon, meanwhile, was still attempting to convince the rest of them to dissolve this meeting and give Lijuan more time to surface.

Raphael decided it was time to get things back on track; he had no intention of being stuck in Lumia for weeks. Especially not when the Luminata watched Elena from the shadows, their intent unknown. “We can’t cancel this meeting,” he said when Charisemnon paused for breath. “Bloodlust has already hit.”

“Isolated incidents.” Astaad stroked his goatee as he had a habit of doing when deep in thought. “While you all know I believe vampires must have a strict hand on them regardless of age, it is a big thing to depose an archangel. We must be certain.”

Neha inclined her head, her tone far less poisonous in response to Astaad. “I share a significant border with Lijuan. Any outbreaks of bloodlust could well spill over onto my lands and yet I would not declare her derelict in her duties or gone to Sleep without irrefutable proof.”

Neither statement surprised Raphael. Astaad was an ally, Neha an unknown at this point in time, but both were archangels who believed in tradition over change. “The incidents are no longer so isolated,” he said in the pause that followed their exchange.

18

A piercing silence.

“Jason got word to me before dawn this morning.”

“How?” Charisemnon sat up in his seat. “Mortal technology cannot presently penetrate Lumia and the borders of the stronghold are heavily patrolled.”

He may as well have called Raphael a liar.

Strangling the ice cold anger that would disrupt the meeting and give Charisemnon a victory, he shrugged and spoke to the room at large rather than deign to respond to an archangel he planned to kill as soon as it became feasible. As far as he was concerned, Charisemnon was a cockroach, a scourge on the earth.

“Jason isn’t known as the best spymaster in the world for nothing.” It was a deliberate dig—Charisemnon had once tried to lure Jason away by promising him lands of his own to rule.

The other archangel had never understood that, to Jason, such an offer wasn’t freedom: it was a cage.

“I don’t care how that black-winged shadow of yours got word to you, Raphael,” Titus said. “I want to know what he said.”

A number of the others nodded, though Charisemnon’s face was rigid, the color of an overripe tomato and as attractive.