With that in mind, he took his torn body through the shadows, which now seemed to help him along toward his destination. He followed Uriel’s scent, tracking his brother’s trace powers until he came to a final shadow and stepped through it into a rain-wet street beyond.
Uriel was up against a building’s wall, his left arm burned black from the shoulder down, his right black from the elbow down. The black dragon had him at the neck, and Uriel could not use his arms to pry the creature’s grip from him. Azrael could smell that the dragon’s fiery poison was spreading.
Dragon venom could be spread through both tooth and claw. Black dragon poison was the most powerful among dragons. A red dragon’s poison was a fire that literally burned the flesh and bone it touched. It was so painful that most victims passed out from shock. It was also deadly for a vampire. Green dragons filled their victim’s blood with acid. Blue dragons were incredibly dangerous in that they shot air into their opponent’s veins, often causing instant death.
But black dragons, also known as dark dragons, were special in that they could do all of these things—and more. These dangerous creatures could move through the shadows. They possessed the ability to change their appearance in order to hide the traits that would otherwise set them apart as inhuman. They could fly without morphing into their dragon forms. And finally, they differed from their colored brethren in that they lacked what the supernatural world had long ago deemed the “magpie trait.”
Dragons loved shiny things. All valuable material things, they coveted. Over the course of centuries, they collected gems and precious metals and usually they found a way to carry these treasures along wherever they went. When they appeared as humans, this trait often set them apart from the people around them, helping to identify them for what they were.
But black dragons wore only their skin—black leather. And in this, aside from their height and musculature, they looked like so very many ordinary people. They were not evil by any means, but they were loners, extremely territorial and possessive, and as if it wasn’t enough that they had resurfaced after two thousand years, it was virtually unheard of that they would be working together in any capacity.
Az shifted into full vampire mode as he tore across the lot between him and the dragon that held Uriel. The creature dropped the archangel and spun to meet Az head-on. Under normal circumstances—whatever those were—a black dragon would have made for more than a worthy opponent. The fight would have gone on for some time. But Azrael could feel time pressing in on him, and these were not normal circumstances. He needed to get to Michael. He needed to get to Sophie.
The black dragon’s attack carried horrendous dangers; however, it was as susceptible to a killing bite as any mortal animal.
The black dragon fell dead at Azrael’s feet, its powerful blood drained from its magical veins. Az wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and watched for a few seconds as the dragon’s body warped and seemed to melt into the darkness, becoming a shadow. Because that’s what it now was.
“Thanks,” said Uriel, who spoke through gritted teeth. Az turned to study his brother. The dragon’s poison had made its way through much of Uriel’s body and would soon head for the heart if he wasn’t healed.
“Az . . .” Uriel said then, grimacing in pain before he continued. He nodded to something over Azrael’s shoulder. “Nice wings.”
Azrael blinked. A blur of thought rushed his mind, utterly worthless. And then he seemed to fully hear what Uriel had just said. He processed it . . . and felt the added weight at his back that he’d been too busy to notice before.
Slowly, he turned and glanced over his right shoulder. Massive pitch-black wings veined through with honey gold rose from the middle of his back and spread to enormous, glorious lengths.
“Whatever she did,” Uriel hissed, trying to speak through his obvious agony, “it must have been pretty great.”
Azrael could barely believe it. The appearance of his wings after all this time could mean only one thing. Sophie had proven her love for him. Az thought of how Eleanore and Juliette had done so for Uriel and Gabriel—both nearly dying in the process. The thought left him terrified.
He spun back to face Uriel. “Use the doorway to get to the mansion,” he instructed quickly, gesturing to a nearby service door in the side of the warehouse.
Uriel didn’t need to be told twice. He moved quickly for one so injured, and raised the portal with his partially burned arm. Az watched long enough to make certain that Uriel stepped through before he turned and once more shot into the shadows from which he’d come.
Almost immediately after pushing through the inky barrier to the shadow dimension, Azrael nearly tripped over something large lying across his path. He glanced down and then was instantly kneeling beside Michael’s unconscious form.
On the outside, there seemed to be nothing wrong with the former Warrior Archangel. However, the bluish tint to his lips and to the skin around his eyes told Azrael everything he needed to know. The black dragon had pumped air into Michael’s veins. The amount of air the dragon poison created when they attacked was enormous and it spread with incredible speed. It was the one attack Michael would not have had time to heal before it caused an air embolism of massive proportions and took him out.
Az listened in the stillness, straining to catch the faintest hint of sound from his brother’s chest.
It wasn’t there.
Azrael’s mind reeled at the implication, but without giving it more than a furious, passing thought, he lifted his brother’s body, bared his fangs, and sank his teeth into Michael’s throat.
It was the only thing he knew to do. Samael wanted Azrael to take Michael’s blood? He wanted him to take Michael’s healing power with it?
Fine.
In this case, it was an act that would not only fulfill Azrael’s infernal contract with the Fallen One—it might save Michael’s life. For if Az could take Michael’s healing ability into himself, he would then be able to use that ability.
And he would use it on Michael.
Az felt his wings fold in behind him as he drank, a part of him that had always been there, hidden and out of reach, but that felt now as if it never been gone. Michael’s blood poured over his tongue, rushed down his throat, and filled his body with a healing warmth. The vampire in him was immune to the otherwise dangerous bubbles of air the dragon had injected into it.
All Azrael noticed was the blood.
Behind his closed lids, he saw the world as it had been two thousand years ago. He recalled the scent of it, the sound of it, the feel of Michael once again trapped beneath his desperate teeth.
He swallowed. But this was different. This time, it wasn’t for himself that he drank.
He swallowed again, concentrating.
Forgive me, Michael, his mind whispered. And he took his brother’s power as his own. Az felt it slide across his muscles, infusing his body on a cellular level. He drank until he felt it click into place, steady and solid and nonrefundable.
Then he pulled his fangs from Michael’s neck and laid the Warrior Archangel back on the shadowed ground. He pressed his right hand to his brother’s chest, closed his glowing golden eyes, and imagined Michael’s heart beating once more. He imagined the air removed from his veins. He wished it with all of his being.
Seconds passed. Azrael tried not to despair. He willed the magic he’d stolen back into the form from which it had come. Little by little, the healing power moved from his glowing hand to Michael’s chest, to his limbs—and, finally, to his heart.
Azrael heard the first telling beat of Michael’s heart and opened his eyes. The second was stronger.
“Michael,” Az whispered, moving his hand to cup his brother’s face.
Michael opened his eyes, blue glowing orbs that pierced the darkness like a sapphire promise. “Az,” he said, and then could say no more. Azrael had taken a lot of his blood; the archangel was weak.
Azrael leaned over, gathered Michael’s heavy
frame into his arms, and stood in one fluid motion.
In his tight embrace, Michael closed his eyes. Show-off, he whispered into Azrael’s mind.
Az ignored him, turning at once back to the shadows. Guide me, he called out, knowing that without some kind of miracle, he would never be able to catch Sophie’s trail again. Too much time had gone by; Abraxos had passed through too long ago. Take me to her, he whispered into the darkness. With the command, he sent out tendrils of his power, allowing it to wrap around the shades of night, pour through them, bring them to life. He coaxed the blackness in ways he never had before. He’d never been this desperate.
This way . . .
Azrael followed the lead, clinging to the trail of helpful magic as if it were a lifeline. His body blurred in the darkness, moving with impossible speed despite his burden. After a few seconds, the shadows lifted away and Azrael felt them thinning. There was a light beyond the final barrier, indicating that this was where the path ended.
Sophie was on the other side of that shadowy door.
* * *
Sophie watched Gregori retreat. As he moved away from them, his form faded into the white of the marble room until it vanished altogether, leaving her alone with John Smith, the two strange men in the gem-encrusted leather jackets, and the man he called Abraxos, the man who had brought her here. She looked at Smith and the two strangers and felt the weight of what Gregori had just said settle in around her shoulders. He’d not only condemned her to death, but had given her away to her captor as if she were no more than a piece of meat.
“You’re close,” said the man behind her.
Sophie spun to face him. As she did so, her wings pulled in around her without her having to think about it.
Too bad I’m about to die, she thought haplessly. I could have gotten used to these.
“You don’t have to die, Sophie,” said Abraxos through perfect, long white fangs.
I was right, Sophie thought. He’s a vampire. She glanced at the windows and the ever-threatening sunrise beyond them. Abraxos was a vampire and vampires couldn’t take sunlight. Just rise already! she thought desperately. Time moved more slowly here. The sunrise seemed to be taking forever. But if the sun did come up, she might stand a chance.
Sophie stood her ground and stared up at him, finally able to get a good look at her abductor now that she was facing him head-on. He was a very handsome man with a strong chin and nose. He was tall and broad, though not as tall as Gregori. Height seemed to be related somehow to seniority or rank in the paranormal world. It was something Sophie was learning, along with a whole hell of a lot of other things.
Abraxos’s eyes were very, very blue and offset the dark blue highlights in his short black hair. At their centers were pupils that glowed an eerie red. Those were the shapes of stars, like Gregori’s.
Sophie swallowed hard, and not knowing what to say, she said nothing.
Abraxos smiled a smile both friendly and cruel and shook his head. “But I doubt you’ll choose to forsake Azrael and swear to supply me with your healing blood forever at this point,” he said, almost chuckling. “So maybe I was wrong. Maybe you do have to die.”
Sophie took an automatic step back, her mind at once going numb and trying to think of a thousand things. There was nothing she could do in this room. Nowhere she could go. And with that thought, she turned, her body instinctively making a dive for the nearest window. But her arm was wrenched in its socket as she was pulled to a rough stop, no closer to the window than before.
Her hair fanned out around her as Abraxos spun her around; she felt her wings expand, catching at the wind to slow her down. And then she was staring up into a red-eyed, fang-filled face and watching it descend toward her with deadly purpose.
She closed her eyes and reached out with her power, frantically grabbing for the only objects in the room—the support columns of marble that stood several feet away. If she was going down, she was going to take everyone in the room with her.
She heard one of them crack, a sick, ominous sound that echoed throughout the chamber like the harbinger of lightning, and then she felt Abraxos’s fingers being wrenched from her upper arm.
They clung to her flesh, leaving bruises as they were ripped away, and Sophie’s eyes flew open in time to see Abraxos go flying backward across the room. A second later, he slammed into the same support column Sophie had been trying to bring down. Its hairline fracture split wide open and raced up the length of the marble, sending debris skittering to the polished floor.
“Sophie!” Azrael turned toward her, his gold eyes taking her in, the expression on his handsome face melting into one of stark, fierce relief.
Sophie felt breathless; she couldn’t believe he was there. His black clothing was torn and in places scorched. Dark liquid stained it here and there; she knew it was blood. At his back folded a massive set of jet-black wings, glorious and beautiful.
They took her breath away.
But there was no time.
Behind him and against the wall, his brother Michael leaned heavily. There were dual puncture wounds in the archangel’s neck.
Sophie had no time to ask any questions before Azrael was shoving her none too gently to the side as he was attacked by the man in the emerald-encrusted leather jacket. Sophie hit the wall, but her large golden wings cushioned her impact. Her hair fell into her face and she hurriedly brushed it aside as she tried to keep track of the bodies blurring into motion before her.
The second leather-and-gem-clad man had gone for Michael. With the way the Warrior Archangel had been leaning heavily against the wall, Sophie wouldn’t have thought him capable of fighting. But perhaps that was something the Warrior Archangel was always prepared to do, for now the two were literally neck and neck, their fingers wrapped around each other’s throat.
Michael’s eyes glowed a bright, fierce blue. And so did his attacker’s.
Well, there’s the supernatural vividness they’d been missing before, Sophie thought. She wondered what the hell the man was.
And then he gained the upper hand, slamming Michael’s body back against one of the marble walls. He smiled, exposing two rows of nothing but sharp teeth and a tongue that whisked out like a snake’s sniffing at the air.
Sophie felt her eyes widen. What the hell?
She turned back to the blurring bodies that were Azrael and his own opponents. Both the leather-jacket-clad man and Abraxos were struggling with him. She still couldn’t make heads or tails of what they were doing; Az simply moved too fast for her to follow. But the figures in black slammed into one wall after another, and at one point, they struck the same already weakened support column, sending more shards of marble and sand to the floor.
Across the room, John Smith stood as still and calm as ever, his blue gaze resting steadily on Sophie. It gave her pause. She straightened, folding her wings in behind her.
Can you hear me? She sent the call out through her mind.
Across the room, Smith nodded coolly.
Sophie took a shaky breath. Why are you still here? What do you want? Why hadn’t Smith left with his employer?
Someone has to remain behind to make certain that the job is done, he told her easily.
A hard chill raced up Sophie’s spine and down her arms. She had a very distinct feeling that John Smith himself never took part in any of the killing that went on under his employer’s rule. So, he had stayed behind as no more than an informant. He would observe, see that either Azrael or Sophie was killed—or both—and then return to report to his employer.
It was a cold and creepy thing to realize. It was apathy at its finest.
Sophie jumped back and gave a short cry of surprise when a heavy body hit the ground in front of her. Her wings ruffled behind her, her hand over her mouth as she looked closely enough to see that it was the man with the emerald-encrusted leather jacket. His throat was torn open.
Up above, two black-clad bodies still whirled in restless motion: Abraxos and Azrael.
Sophie’s stomach did a flip-flop of both worry and hope. She looked over at where Michael struggled with his own attacker to find that the Warrior Archangel had, against all odds, gained the upper hand. She watched as he delivered a series of incredibly hard punches to his opponent, and then a kick to the chest that sent the man flying across the room to land half in and half out of one of the eight windows.
As his upper body breached the barrier, the window’s magic sizzled and flashed, and then went out. The man lay still, obviously either unconscious or dead. At once, a hard chill began to seep into the room, let in by the destruction of the magical shield that had been keeping it at bay.
Beyond the white horizon, the sun’s first rays finally crept over the mountains, setting the land awash in a diamond shimmer of light. Sophie was struck with the beauty—and a nagging sense that she was forgetting something important—but was torn from the image by the roar of pain that suddenly sounded above her.
She looked up as Abraxos shoved himself off one end of the dome ceiling above. A beam of sunlight lit up that side of the room, causing the embedded minerals in the marble to glitter like pixie dust. Sophie blinked as she watched him move, now slower than before. He left a trail of smoke as he once more lunged for Azrael, who was still hovering at the darker end of the room as if held there by invisible wires.
Azrael was ready for him. The two strong bodies slammed into each other, spun, and Az once more had him on the defensive. For a moment, their movements again became impossible to track, but she heard the hard thud of flesh on flesh, and then a growl of anger.
It wasn’t Azrael’s anger; his voice was so distinctive, she would recognize it in any form, at any time. A few more seconds passed, and the two separated, this time as Abraxos went falling toward the ground.
Sophie watched him hit the marble floor, bounce and roll, and land with the left side of his body in another beam of light. At once, he was hissing and pulling away from the damaging ray of sun.