Archangel's Enigma

17

Raphael wasn’t expecting to be called into a Cadre meeting anytime in the future, so when the call came—especially when it came from Titus—he knew it must be deadly serious. He cut an over-sea night-training drill short the instant Aodhan relayed the message, and headed to the Tower communications room.

Sirens rose up from the streets as he winged his way past lit-up high-rises, a yellow cab rear-ended another, and tugs on the Hudson sounded warning horns. All familiar sights and sounds, his city back in one piece.

That didn’t mean the war had been won.

Elena, he said after landing on the Tower roof, aware she was in the Tower helping young Izak with his physical therapy. I’m about to speak with the Cadre. He folded in his wings and strode forward. I want you to listen in. Not only did Elena need to understand the political climate, his hunter had a sharp mind and an acute gaze.

On my way.

He didn’t wait for her, but knew when she slipped into the room out of sight of the cameras that linked him to the others. He glimpsed the lightweight crossbow strapped to her thigh and the blades in her forearm sheaths before the screen in front of him split to display Favashi, Titus, Astaad, Elijah, Michaela, Neha, and Caliane.

Missing were Lijuan and Charisemnon.

Lijuan’s absence was no surprise, but since Raphael’s ascension, Charisemnon hadn’t missed a meeting regardless of wars and battles. It gave credence to the theory that the Archangel of Northern Africa had been ravaged by the very disease he’d created—he wouldn’t appear in public again until he was in full health.

“Titus,” Neha said, her hair swept off her face into a soft bun at her nape, and her body clad in a sari of gold-shot green silk. “What is the emergency?”

When the archangel who controlled the southern half of the African continent began to speak, his voice wasn’t the tempered quiet he usually used in meetings. It was a booming bass that vibrated with raw anger. “One of my scouts has long been a friend of Jariel and was invited to his home for a stay. He arrived to find Jariel’s people massacred, and Jariel’s head placed in the center of the entranceway, a pile of ash the only evidence of what may have happened to his body.”

Onyx eyes glittering and muscles bulging under the jet of his skin, Titus slammed down a glass jar. It cracked to spill black ash over the wooden surface on which the Archangel of Southern Africa had slammed it. “We all know ordinary fire does not create a neat pile of ash in a defined area. It also does not destroy the brain while leaving the rest of the head untouched.”

A stunned silence.

Archangel?

Jariel was believed to be on the cusp of becoming an archangel, Raphael told his consort. Perhaps in the next two decades.

“You’re certain?” Astaad asked Titus, his black goatee neat against the sunless white of his skin. “We must be certain.”

Titus’s nostrils flared. “My man will send images, but I am dead certain. From the condition of the other remains, it was done at least a week ago, more likely ten days.”

Not long before Andromeda’s abduction, Elena said, her mind clearly walking the same path as his. Coincidence?

I don’t believe in such a lethal coincidence.

Someone sucked in a breath as the images Titus had promised began to scroll across their screens. Jariel’s decaying head looked at them with sightless eyes filmed over with white. Images of the rest of his home showed dead vampiric retainers and broken angels with crumpled wings. All killed in ways that were final even for those seen as immortal by the humans.

It was Michaela who said it, the piercing green of her eyes focused on the ash. “There is only one way to confirm.”

Titus silently scooped up the black ash and held it close to the camera on his end. Ash created by a fire, and ash created by an archangelic ability might appear identical to the naked eye, but look closely enough at the latter and sparks of power lingered within it for up to a month afterward.

“So.” Neha’s voice was a blade, the Archangel of India’s view on the massacre unmistakable. “It was one of the Cadre.”

They were the only beings on the planet who could incinerate with that much power. It didn’t even necessarily require angelfire, not if the archangel was close to the target—a simple discharge of concentrated archangelic power would equal the same end.

“Why?” Astaad shook his head, clearly deeply disturbed. “He wasn’t Cadre yet, had no say in our politics.”

Raphael thought again of the scholar’s abduction and of Lijuan’s plans for Alexander. “Perhaps someone decided to get rid of a competitor before he reached maturity,” he said, careful not to give away too much—alliances were fluid things and someone in this meeting could well have formed one with Lijuan.

“If that’s the case,” Neha said in a silky whisper that dripped venom, “you had better watch your Bluebell to make sure his head remains attached to his body.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” he said in a bland tone that betrayed nothing.

Elijah stirred, stroking his hand over a small puma—perhaps a cub—who’d just climbed up to settle on his desk. “Only one of us is capable of such a heinous act.”

“You speak too soon, Elijah,” Favashi said in her soft, steely tone. “Any one of us could be taking advantage of Lijuan’s notoriety to make a power play.” She locked gazes with Michaela, who only smiled coldly. “Any one of us.”

They spoke for another ten minutes without coming to a consensus on the identity of the perpetrator. They did however make the decision to warn seven other angels who were the most powerful in the world once you took the Cadre out of the equation. Illium wasn’t on that list . . . but he should’ve been. Despite Neha’s acerbic comment, the others hadn’t yet realized the intensity of the spike in his power levels.

Switching off the connection after spending an extra few minutes in conversation with his mother, Raphael turned to Elena. She walked over to join him, the near-white of her hair pulled back into a ponytail and a blade moving through her fingers as she stared at the image he’d frozen on the screens—that of the spark-filled black ash in Titus’s hand.

“Favashi is right,” she said, slipping away the blade. “It could’ve been any of you, though personally I’d eliminate you from the suspect list.” Rising on tiptoe, she claimed a kiss that poured mortal warmth through him, melting the ice that had formed over the course of the meeting. “I’d also eliminate Caliane because your mom just wants to be left alone with her people.”

Raphael cupped her jaw, running his thumb over her cheekbone. “Elijah and I have been in nearly daily contact of late.” The two of them had decided to work together to defend this region against any further attacks. “Quite aside from the fact that my instincts say he is too honorable for such a cowardly act, I know he never left his territory.”

Stepping closer, Elena put one hand on his chest. “I don’t see Astaad and Neha doing this either.”

“Astaad prefers to stay out of conflict when he can, so I agree.” The Archangel of the Pacific Isles had only joined the coalition against Lijuan when the Archangel of China dared fly her reborn over his territory. “As for Neha . . . yes, she is a queen. She wouldn’t consider it honorable to ambush a weaker, younger angel in his home.”

“Michaela is looking surprisingly normal.” Elena’s eyes narrowed. “I expected her to have grown horns or something, the way she’s kept her head down.” She frowned. “Only . . .” Breaking contact, she turned to the main screen. “Does this thing record?”

“Of course.” He showed her how to bring up the recording. “You want Michaela?”

“Yes.” She watched the loop two times. “Shit.” It came out almost soundless. “She’s got the same fragile thing going on that Beth had when she was pregnant.”

Since Elena’s sister was terrified of him, Raphael had spent little time with her, but he had seen other pregnant mortals and immortals in his lifetime. And now that Elena had pointed it out, he noted the new delicacy of Michaela’s skin—and the fact that though she was a woman who used her body as a weapon, she’d shown none of it today, her image cut off below the shoulders.

“Michaela may actually be with child,” he said slowly.

“Holy hell.” Elena whistled. “Do you think she was just laying the groundwork when she lied to us? So no one would believe it when it happened?”

Raphael shook his head. “Immortal pregnancies are too rare to be predicted with any accuracy. There is a second possibility.” He thought of how he’d found a wounded Michaela with a glowing red fireball in the bloody cavity where her heart should’ve been. “Whatever it is that Uram did to her, it may be starting to show on the surface.”

“Can we confirm either way?” Elena shook her head almost before the words were out. “If she’s hiding because she’s vulnerable, let’s leave her be.” His consort’s throat moved in a convulsive movement. “I’ll never forget how she looked that night in the Refuge when Sam was taken. I’ve always wondered if it was losing a child that made her so mercenary and heartless.”

Raphael’s heart wasn’t as soft as his consort’s, and he didn’t think motherhood had or would change Michaela, but if she was in fact with child, he hoped the infant would escape being warped by Uram’s poison. “If she is pregnant, it may be another Cascade event,” he said, his mind on Illium’s struggle to hold the deadly levels of power building up in his body.

Elena blew out a breath and leaned against him. “Have you heard from Jason or Naasir?”

Spreading his wing to slide over hers, Raphael nodded. “Jason is safely out of Lijuan’s territory and is carrying a wounded hostage.” A woman who’d been thought long dead. “No word from Naasir and the scholar.”

Elena’s hand curled around his. “It’s Naasir. He can get out of anything.” Fierce belief, but below it was a dark worry.

Thinking of the black ash in Titus’s hand, Raphael knew she was right to worry. Naasir was strong and fast and highly intelligent, but he was currently trapped in the heart of enemy territory, and that enemy did not fight according to any known rules of war.