Raphael thought of the desiccated corpses found in her territory, of the fighter Naasir had seen go to his death, and knew Lijuan sought to feed on an archangel. “A very generous offer,” he said aloud, while his mind reached for Dmitri’s. You must make sure the remainder of the Cadre knows Lijuan seeks to feed off not only angels, but archangels.
I’ll ensure the message gets through, came the immediate reply. Sire, the new assault force has arrived and will swarm the Tower in minutes if we don’t do something to stop them. I’ve authorized the use of any and all weapons at our disposal.
Raphael heard gunfire and rocket booms on the heels of that statement and knew his exhausted and wounded vampires, and the hunters, were shooting at the enemy, while his angels, some with broken limbs, all with injuries, filled the sky. But there were too few of them, and too many of the strange gray-winged angels who powered Lijuan’s new assault. “What have you become?” he said to her, unable to imagine how she could’ve created this new army, silent and lethal, without anyone in the Cadre knowing the truth.
A terrible smile. “The epitome of our evolution.”
That level of power could not be held in the hands of a nightmare.
He blasted her with angelfire without warning, wanting her to believe his intent was another ordinary battle. Deflecting the blows with a rain of black razors that he held back through sheer will, she smiled again. “I will chain you in my court, feed on you for years. You’ll be the example that brings the others in the Cadre to their knees.” His shield broke, the razors shredding his face.
Raphael!
He reached for Elena not only with his mind but his hand, Jason and Illium clearing a path for her so she could get to his side. This will hurt, hbeebti, he said, as the mad archangel raised her hands again.
Nothing hurts when I’m with you.
Squeezing her hand, he sent an order to all his troops in the vicinity to get out of the blast zone. If Lijuan’s forces thought them cowards in retreat and turned their attention to him, Elena, Illium, and Jason, all the better. He’d take as many of them with him as he could.
He met Lijuan’s gaze before she would’ve struck again, and said, “Feed.”
She froze, her surprise unhidden.
“I won’t fight if you give me your word you’ll call off your troops till the sun sets on this day.” All he needed was a single point of contact and he could ignite the tiny amount of combined angelfire and wildfire left inside him, hopefully sending Lijuan to the hell where she belonged.
See you on the other side, Archangel.
Total calm descending on him with Elena’s words, he said, “My consort also remains,” knowing that was a lure Lijuan could not resist. She coveted Elena’s wings for the macabre collection of angels pinned to the walls of the refrigerated space that was her museum of death. “Look down.”
Lijuan’s teeth gleamed in a satisfied smile as she realized whose hand he held in his own. “I will agree,” she said, with a gleam in her eye, “if you give me your consort first. I wish to snap her neck, make her a beautiful corpse.”
His rage violent, he felt Elena’s wing just brush his as she flew up. Contact, Raphael. That’s all you need, right? Use me as a conduit.
No! he wanted to scream as Lijuan’s hand clamped over Elena’s wrist at the same time that his own closed around her ankle. Forgive me, Elena.
I’ll be waiting for you.
Refusing to let Elena die at Lijuan’s hand, he reached for the flickers of flame within himself and his consort, ready to ignite them both, when something dark gray slammed into Elena hard enough to break Lijuan’s hold.
At the same instant, a thousand crossbow bolts thudded into Lijuan’s body.
His wings tangled with Elena’s as she tumbled into him, it took Raphael several seconds to slow their momentum, and when he looked up, it was to see a badly bleeding Lijuan take bolt after bolt from the gray-winged angels, as others of the gray ones took on the enemy one-on-one.
Raphael didn’t waste time wondering which unexpected ally had sent this strange force. Attack! he ordered his own fighters, and made the decision to use a minute amount of wildfire to neutralize the poison Lijuan had thrown at him, for he was now of more use to his people alive. No mercy!
A wild grin on her face, Elena lifted the crossbow she’d never dropped, one wrist ringed with bloody bruises from Lijuan’s grip. We need to f**king deify whoever the hell sent those gray guys.
The sight of her hurt made the cold rage in him flare to icy brightness. First, he said, powering to Lijuan, I need to take out the garbage.
An archangel couldn’t be killed by crossbows, but with the bolts thudding into Lijuan’s body as fast as she pulled them out, she was distracted, her energies funneled toward healing herself. Her facial bones appeared and disappeared as her skin faded in and out, but when she didn’t shift into her noncorporeal form, he realized that whatever power she gained from draining the lives of others, it wasn’t enough to allow her to transition under this type of bloody attack.
Wrapping one hand around her ankle while she was distracted, he sent all his remaining power, power kissed with the life that was Elena, directly through his arm and into her bones. Her shriek splintered the sky, her lower body exploding in a blinding flash of light, her torso crumbling.
Is the wicked witch dead?
I’m not certain. He almost thought he’d seen her transition into her other form at the absolute last instant. But even if she survived the blast, it’ll have been with extreme injuries. Her body is gone. It would take her months to regrow it, and while Lijuan had tried to make them believe she didn’t need the flesh, this battle had shown she very much did.
Even if she could feed on others to speed up her healing, the way she’d opened her mouth when tugging Elena closer told Raphael she needed her physical form to feed. And he’d seen her head burst like a pumpkin as bolt after bolt thudded into it in that split second while she screamed. The gray ones were merciless fighters, but right now they were on New York’s side.
And it was time for him and his own to reclaim their city.
His body’s ability to store power depleted to the point of nonexistence, he grabbed the sword Illium threw at him and entered the fray, his battle cry echoed by every one of his men and women.
He didn’t know how long they fought, but he was always aware of Elena and those of his Seven who fought with him. Dmitri, having held off a new attempt to storm the Tower, his view far better than those in the thick of battle, sent through continuous strategic updates that Raphael used to direct his men and women so they acted as a smooth unit. He didn’t realize how far they’d pushed Lijuan’s forces until they hit the Atlantic, the fighting having moved from Manhattan and over wider New York as the sun rose higher and higher in the sky.