Raphael had broken up the meeting the instant he got Aodhan's message. For once, no one argued, the entire Cadre lifting off in a rush of violent power that had the Luminata staring up at them.
Raphael didn't bother to tell those of the sect what was going on--if Lijuan was coming this way, everyone would know soon enough. He flew at archangelic speed, spotted Elena within minutes. She and Aodhan were in the middle of the group heading toward Lumia, Xander and Valerius leading. Get behind us.
Raphael--
I know. That she'd never let him go into war against Lijuan alone. I need you safe until I know if it's Lijuan we're facing. And the Archangel of Death isn't the only threat in the air. It'd be easy for one of the other archangels to "accidentally" send Elena tumbling from the sky.
Shit, yeah, I get it. She and Aodhan dropped in preparation for passing under the Cadre.
Xander and Valerius dropped a second later, with the others following like dominoes. The two parties passed each other a minute later, going in opposite directions. But Raphael knew Elena and Aodhan would be turning to stay on the Cadre's tail. Not only because they were stubborn and loyal, but because of a truth no one else in the Cadre could ever know: that Raphael's power to hurt Lijuan was rooted in how Elena had made him "a little bit mortal."
He carried a piece of his hunter in his blood. And while the wildfire was too powerful to truly live in Elena, touches of it burned through her blood nonetheless, for it was a creation of life and his hunter burned so very bright. Elena, Aodhan, tell me if the members of the Cadre behind me make any unexpected movements.
Got it.
Sire.
The Luminata's protective squadron had risen into the air ahead of them, dropped so suddenly Raphael knew one of the other archangels had ordered them down. The leader of that squadron had a brain that he'd obeyed so quickly and efficiently; he'd taken his squadron down but kept it in battle-ready formation on a low flight path to the left of the Cadre.
Ahead of them, Lijuan's squadron made an unanticipated move: they began to drop slowly, in a fashion that telegraphed their intention to make a landing. The Luminata squadron flew forward and landed behind them, close enough to be a threat, far enough away not to step on the Cadre's toes.
Raphael and the other archangels waited until Lijuan's entire squadron was down before they landed. It wasn't planned, but they ended up in a neat, straight line all the way across. Somehow, Raphael wound up at the center of the line, face to face with the squadron leader. "Do you escort Lijuan?" he asked the square-jawed blond male with eyes of blue.
"No. I have a message from my lady." He held out a sealed envelope with both hands, formal and practiced.
Michaela, standing next to Raphael, was the one who took the envelope. "It took an entire squadron to deliver this?"
The squadron leader didn't react to the acid in Michaela's voice. "We had to be certain the Luminata guard would permit us access to the Cadre. Our instructions were to hand the letter to only the archangels as a group."
That made a certain amount of sense.
Of course, it also made sense that Lijuan was in her noncorporeal form and the squadron's task was to distract them while the Archangel of China readied herself to strike. Then the squadron leader bowed from the waist. "My instructions are to return as soon as I have completed my task."
"I assume none of us wish to delay him?" Neha said coolly before nodding to the squadron leader, who'd risen back to his full height. "You have performed your task as asked. Good journey."
The blond male seemed to unbend a fraction. "I thank you, Lady Neha."
He spoke a command in Mandarin Chinese and the squadron lifted off as one. The Luminata squadron followed them out, but Raphael knew they'd stop at the border to Lumia. Aodhan.
I have it, sire.
Alexander, Mother, can you spare your escorts to join Aodhan?
Both answered yes and Tasha and Valerius fell in with Aodhan, ready to track Lijuan's people far enough out that they couldn't double back in a surprise attack.
Alone on the field of golden grass but for the others of the Cadre around him, Raphael touched his consort's mind. Any thoughts, Guild Hunter?
Lijuan is playing games, was the grim response. Or Xi is covering for her, hoping to give her enough time to finish whatever it is she's up to.
Yes. He saw Michaela hand the letter to Caliane.
"I think of all of us," the green-eyed archangel said, "you are the one least likely to be accused of tampering with this on the trip back to the meeting chamber."
Caliane took the letter but didn't spread her wings. "There's no need for any accusations. We read it here." With that, she broke the seal and the Cadre came together in a circle, close enough to hear but not close enough that their wings would overlap.
Raphael found himself on the opposite side of the circle from his mother.
"'To my fellow archangels,'" she read out in her crystal-clear voice, "'I write this knowing you meet at Lumia. There is no need. I am fully capable and in charge of my territory. As a goddess, I do not accept the authority of the Luminata to call me to order--no one holds that power over me.'"
Favashi spoke into the pause, her voice toneless but her words blade-sharp. "Well, it sounds like Zhou Lijuan in any case."
"Xi has known her a long time," Astaad pointed out, because for all his traditionalist views on respecting a fellow archangel's territory even with bloodlust licking at the edges, he'd been Cadre for over two thousand years. He understood politics.
"Shall I continue?" Caliane asked. "I think we can all guess the rest."
"She may surprise us yet." Michaela's acerbic tone.
"Indeed." With that single word that said nothing while communicating a great deal, Caliane continued to read the missive. "'I have no need to prove my existence. It lives in the strong and ordered beauty of my territory. I will emerge when I wish. Until then, you should return to your own territories. They are vulnerable without you.'"
The threat couldn't be much clearer.
"Despite her delusions of godhood, she has signed it 'Zhou Lijuan, Archangel of China,'" Caliane said. "I assume the Historian will be able to verify the veracity of that signature?"
"It does not matter, does it?" Elijah said with the calm for which he was known. "Nothing in that letter says it was written yesterday or a month ago or even a year ago."
"She knows we are at Lumia," Charisemnon pointed out, his arms folded across his chest.
It was Neha who responded. "An easy guess if she was preparing for this in advance."
"And," Favashi added, "we don't know how many different letters she wrote and left with Xi. She could well have written one to be sent should the Cadre have decided to meet with no interference from the Luminata."
"Or," Charisemnon said, his jaw jutting forward, "the letter could be legitimate and we are wasting our time here."
"Do you never cease repeating yourself?" Alexander sounded as pompously Ancient as anyone might expect--except those who knew him. It had been many centuries since Alexander went to Sleep, but Raphael had known the Archangel of Persia for all of his life before then. As a result, where others might hear pompous, Raphael heard aggravation and a temper close to the edge.
Charisemnon squared his shoulders, locked gazes with the Ancient. "Careful who you mock, old man."
Alexander laughed, his amusement appearing genuine. "Ah, the arrogance of youth." He shook his head, a handsome man with golden hair and wings of silver who would not appear in any way old for countless millennia, if ever.
In truth, Raphael had never seen any adult angel who showed signs of visible age once they'd reached their prime in terms of physical appearance. It was theorized that they did, in fact, age after a certain point, but at so very slow a rate that it was all but invisible. The other theory was that they reached their prime and stayed in that state. Raphael tended to believe more in the former than the latter--because he'd seen changes in himself. Nothing anyon
e else would notice . . . except an eagle-eyed consort.
Elena was dead certain he hadn't yet hit his prime. "Alexander calls you a pup and I think he's right, at least in terms of your immortality. You're still maturing and becoming impossibly more beautiful with every day that passes."
Holding back a smile at the memory of her glare as she'd said that, Raphael glanced at Titus, who'd been unusually quiet. The warrior archangel's forehead held two deep vertical grooves, his attention on the far horizon where the squadron had vanished. But then he gave a nod as if he'd come to a decision and said, "Enough of the debating. We could be here all year." His voice boomed. "There is only one way to decide this and that is to go to China."
Several heads nodded, but it was Elijah who spoke. "If Lijuan is still awake and in control, she'll be furious at our intrusion and will rise to confront us."
"Then we can all go home." Michaela's curt words bristled with impatience, her wings held a little too tight to her body and her arms folded as aggressively as Charisemnon's.
She'd been pushing for an end to this meeting from the start. Nothing unusual in that except the other archangel usually enjoyed politics and could be counted on to draw things out for her own amusement. Yet now, she wanted to get back to her territory as fast as possible.
To a child?
Or was there something more dangerous going on?
Because it was equally possible that the toxic contamination she'd suffered at Uram's hands had gone active. Perhaps she knew she'd betray her unstable state if she stayed too close to the rest of the Cadre.
"We need to come to a unanimous decision," Charisemnon insisted, a hard light to his eyes. "That is the law."
"There is no written law," Neha countered. "It is simply that we usually decide by consensus. In this case, however, with bloodlust threatening to consume China, we must act and act fast, even if that means a majority vote."
"I'm not certain we have that right," Astaad began.
"I have no quarrel with you, Astaad," Neha said, "but your lands are an ocean away, while mine border Lijuan's. I cannot and will not wait for the rest of you when my territory is at risk of a spillover of bloodlust." Her tone was of the Queen she was, one who had held power for a millennium. "It is a question of protecting my territory."
"Neha is right." Alexander's tone said he'd made up his mind and that was it. "The Cadre has no right to stay her hand. And as the outcome of any investigation will affect all of us, we must take her lead."
"So you would leave me in my territory, close to my armies?" Charisemnon's smile was sly. "I think not."
"If you stay," Titus said with a grim smile of his own, "I stay. That, I believe will even things out and allow the rest of the Cadre to head to China."
His smile wiped out, Charisemnon looked at Titus with unhidden ill will. The two had been at odds for a long time, their morals and ethics sharply opposed. Raphael had always been on Titus's side, seeing in him what an immortal should be, while in Charisemnon, he saw what an immortal could become if he gave in to the worst excesses of their kind.
"A vote." Neha's sari rustled in a rasp of silk as she spoke, the Archangel of India skilled at flying in the garment and landing as elegant as when she'd taken off. "Who does not wish to travel to China to confirm whether or not Lijuan is present in her territory?"
Everyone stared at Charisemnon.
Face going a hot red and fists bunching at his sides, he said nothing.
"So," Neha said after a full minute, "we are decided. We will head to China."
28
"We go on the wing," Alexander stated. "Only the Cadre, no one else."
Raphael frowned inwardly. Surely you cannot expect Elijah and I to leave our consorts, he said mind to mind with Alexander. I know you do not want to leave Xander.
As others began to speak around them, Alexander replied on the mental level. It has been pointed out to me--a quick glance at Caliane--that I may be doing my grandson a disservice by having him always at my side. Eyes of undiluted silver looking into Raphael's own. I did not become a warrior that way. Rohan did not. You did not.
It was an inarguable point. Yet so was Raphael's. There are those who would hurt the pieces of our heart to get to us.
If we bring them with us, this will take much longer. They cannot match our speed and endurance.
Having kept an ear on the audible discussion, Raphael spoke to back up Elijah. "The Luminata may have a reputation as being worthy of trust," he said, "but they are not my people, and now that I have walked the hallways of Lumia, I'm not so certain of the clarity of their quest. To ask me to leave my consort here is an exercise in futility."
"I can understand that." Favashi's words were quiet, heavy with emotion. "Had I a consort, I would not leave him in unknown lands with an unknown sect, either."
The other archangel gave an excellent impression of still mourning Rohan, but Raphael remained chary about the truth of her emotions. Favashi appeared one of the gentlest members of the Cadre, but she hadn't survived this long by being anything but a clear-eyed operator.
"I suggest a compromise." Astaad's tone was of a peacemaker. "It is already deep into the afternoon. We leave tomorrow midday for China, while consorts and other escorts leave for our home territories at dawn, giving us time to fly with them a good distance before we return to Lumia for the trip to China."
It appeared the most feasible solution. Raphael could get Elena to the plane in that time and Elijah could fly Hannah out of Morocco, Elijah's consort old enough to make the trip home on the wing. Though she'd have no escort, since Cristiano was a vampire. Eli, if you prefer Hannah not return home alone, she's welcome to join Elena on the jet.
Thank you, my friend, but there is a plane waiting for her, too--Cristiano flew in on it, while we came on the wing. If she is to return without me, I will ask that she go with Cris to save my heart the worry. A small smile. Hannah prefers the open sky whenever possible.
Raphael knew that in two or three hundred years, he'd be making the same response when it came to Elena; his hunter loved to fly, was held back only by her limited endurance and strength. "I have no argument with Astaad's suggestion," he said when it was his turn to speak to the Cadre on the proposal.
No one else demurred, either.
"I'm sorry, hbeebti," Raphael said to Elena after the Cadre rose into the air and he swept out to fly wingtip to wingtip with her. "It appears you will not have as long in Lumia as we'd hoped." He told her of the Cadre's decision.
Her face fell, the two of them close enough that he could see every nuance of her features. "Damn. But I get it--a possible surge of bloodlust-ridden vamps trumps my curiosity about my family history any day." She tucked back a strand of near-white that had escaped the twist in which she wore her hair. "Shall we wait for Aodhan?"
Raphael considered it, nodded. "Yes. I don't want you alone in case one of the Cadre calls another meeting after we reach Lumia."
Landing in among the wildflowers after riding down on a gentle wind, Elena folded back her wings as he did the same with his own. "I discovered something disturbing today."
He listened as she told him of the lack of angels in the nearest township, of the fear and hatred she'd glimpsed in the eyes of the populace--and of the fact that Majda had indeed come from the town.
Intrigued by the latter but deeply troubled by her report on the townspeople, Raphael said, "Did you see many vampires?" As hunter-born, she could scent them even if they didn't reveal their fangs.
Elena blinked. "No," she said after a while. "In fact, the entire time I was there, I didn't scent a single vampire."
She stared at him. "Raphael, that's more than odd. In a township that size, there should've been at least a few in the marketplace."
Folding her arms, she scowled down at the inoffensive wildflowers around them, the colors soft pink, lacy white, and a bright, spiky yellow. "Mortal-only towns are pretty much a myth except when people put up their own gated compounds--and
even those only last a generation at best. Someone in the family always ends up wanting to reach for the almost-immortality of vampirism."
"An irrefutable fact proven through eternity." Which meant there was a reason both angels and vampires were giving the township a wide berth. "Let me see if Aodhan has heard anything." He reached out easily to the member of his Seven who was still heading away from Lumia.
Aodhan's answer had him raising an eyebrow. "He knows nothing of why there are no vampires in the town, but according to what he learned from Remus, it's possible angels don't settle there out of respect for the Luminata."
Elena's lips pressed into a thin line. "I guess I can understand that given the reputation these guys have in angelic circles. But doesn't it strike you as giving them their own little fiefdom?"
Yes it did. "I think I need to visit the town myself." He wanted to see firsthand exactly what the Luminata had been doing cut free from all Cadre oversight. "It must be today. We won't get a second chance until after the threat of war no longer looms on the horizon."
Wincing, Elena reached back with one hand to squeeze the opposite shoulder. "I'm not sure I can go back with you right away. I've already spent significant time in the air today and I did two vertical takeoffs."
Not that long ago, his consort wouldn't have admitted the stress on her wings, considering it a weakness. And not that long ago, he'd have challenged her decision instead of asking what he did next. "The takeoffs were necessary?"
"Yes." A grim reply. "I want the Luminata and everyone else to think twice before believing they can trap me."
Now that they'd been in Lumia long enough to have picked up the disturbing undercurrents, Raphael saw nothing but ruthless practicality in her decision. "How bad is the strain?" He reached out not to the injured section but a little bit to the left, massaging the area gently with his fingers.
Eyes closing, his consort released a sigh of pleasure. "Nothing torn, but I'm fairly sure if I make the return trip to the township again, I might snap something." A pause. "But you have to go even if I can't. My gut says what's happening there ties in with the Luminata as a sect and exactly how far the Cadre can trust them."
"I need your contacts, Elena. The vast majority of mortals are terrified by archangels to the extent of muteness." He knew exactly what would happen if he landed in the town without his mortal consort--their fear would overwhelm every other response and he'd get nothing.