Archangel's Kiss (Guild Hunter 2)

"Can you make it so it loads automatically?" Galen could go eat his sword, she thought.

Childish, yeah, but it made her feel better. "I need speed."

"Something with small spinning sawblades might be better - let me work on it. You can use the bolts for chipping and the blades for serious defense." A pause. "You are coming back to the Guild?"

"Of course." She was hunter-born. Wings didn't change that.

Raphael met Neha's eyes on the wide screen mounted on the wall. The Queen of Snakes, of Poisons, sat in a chair carved out of a light-colored wood that gleamed. The sheen did nothing to hide the fact that the carvings were of a thousand writhing snakes, their scales catching the light as Neha leaned back, the bindi on her forehead a tiny golden cobra.

"Raphael." Her lips - red, lush, poisonous - parted. "I hear there is trouble in the Refuge."

"An angel who seeks to become an archangel."

"Yes, so my daughter tells me." She waved an elegantly shaped hand, the bangles on her wrists making a delicate clinking sound. "There's always one who seeks to rise above his station." Reaching forward, she picked up something, the silk of her emerald-colored sari a quiet rustle. "But I agree, this one must be punished in a way that'll never be forgotten.

Our children are too rare to be used as pawns."

Raphael knew that in spite of the way she'd phrased that, Neha was one of the few members of the Cadre who treated human children as precious. That didn't stop her from ending adult lives - but any resulting orphans grew up in the lap of poisonous luxury, the memories of their parents' agonizing deaths wiped from their minds.

"Anoushka," she now said, stroking the python she'd placed in her lap, "says you know of the distasteful object that was left in her bed."

"You have many enemies." And Anoushka, he thought, was beginning to grow a phalanx of her own.

Her hand moved over the snake's viridian skin, sleek, sensuous, as if she were petting a lover. "Yes."

"Have you heard anything from the others that may help in the hunt?" The one they sought may well have made mistakes in any acts predating the assaults within the Refuge.

"Titus and Charisemnon have closed their borders - none of my people can get in or out." An irritated light filled those dark eyes. "Favashi mentioned something about losing a few of her older vampires two months ago. She hasn't yet tracked down the perpetrator." This time, Raphael saw open disbelief.

Neha, he knew, would have killed and kept killing until someone confessed. It wasn't the best way to get to the truth - but then, the Queen of Poisons had never had a rebellion in her lands. "How is Eris?" It was only as the words left his mouth that he realized he'd lied to Elena. Therewas another long-term archangelic pairing. But it hadn't been a lie with intent - he'd simply forgotten about Eris, as most people did.

"He lives." Neha's words were chilling in their very preciseness. "Anoushka is going through her people to find the traitor who defiled her bed. I'll let you know if she unearths anything of value."

As he terminated the connection, Raphael thought of the last time he'd seen Eris.

Three hundred years ago.

Chapter 20

Elena was reading a dossier of current events in a corner of the classroom while the kids created presents for Sam using arts and crafts when the sea crashed into her mind.

Something's happened, she thought before Raphael could speak, scanning the classroom with frantic eyes to ensure everyone was present.Not another child?

Lijuan has sent you a gift.

Her soul iced over at the thought of what an angel who used death as her symbol would consider a suitable gift.Do you know what it is?

It's keyed to your blood.

She couldn't help her shiver.We're going to visit Sam. I'll be by after. She had a feeling the gift wouldn't exactly put her in the right frame of mind to be seeing a hurt child.

Come to my office. I'll send someone to guide you.

Anyone but Galen.She had nothing against his skills as a weapons master - bastard was good. But his dislike of her was as solid as rock. And even on such short acquaintance, she understood that he wasn't the kind of man who'd easily change his mind. Better to save them both the aggravation and avoid unnecessary contact.

The sea began to retreat.I must go.

She wanted to ask him what else was going on, but decided to keep her questions 'til their meeting over the "gift." For now, she was going to focus on the children, their excitement infectious as they readied themselves to visit their friend . . . not an archangel who found pleasure only in the dead.

Raphael flew to a distant corner of the Refuge, the echo of Elena's mental touch still resonant in his mind. Elijah was waiting for him on a rocky outcropping far from prying eyes, his golden hair whipped by the mountain winds. Landing, Raphael joined him on the cliff edge. "What have you found?"

"They haven't just closed their borders," the other archangel replied. "Titus is readying himself to move against Charisemnon."

Archangels didn't meddle in each other's affairs, even when those affairs led to mass bloodshed, but they needed to be prepared. "Titus refuses to accept that his evidence might be false?"

"He will not believe that amere angel could've played them so very easily," Elijah said,

"sparking a war that keeps them entangled in their own lands while this pretender desecrates the Refuge."

Raphael stared out at the white-capped peaks beyond the gorge, thinking about their policy of noninterference. "Even in a border war, thousands will die. And yet we consider that an acceptable toll to maintain the balance of power within the Cadre."

Elijah took a long time to reply. "That's a very human statement, Raphael."

"Then she will kill you. She will make you mortal."

Lijuan had said that to him, after advising him to kill Elena.

The older archangel had been right - Elena had changed something in him. He bled faster, healed slower. But he'd also been given the most unexpected of gifts. "Perhaps it'll keep me sane when I reach Lijuan's age."

"So one of us is brave enough to say it." Elijah nodded. "She is not insane in the accepted sense."

"Her mind isn't broken," Raphael agreed, "but the things she's using that mind for -

they're not what she would've done had she been truly thinking." Lijuan was no longer anything close to what was known, but she'd always played the political game with a clear head.

"Are you sure?" Elijah bent down to pick up a pebble that had somehow ended up on the otherwise barren ridge. "None of us witnessed her youth, but there are whispers that she was fascinated with death even then. Some say . . . no, I cannot lay that slander on her without proof."