The Silent: Irin Chronicles Book Five(85)

Prija took the gun and nodded again.

“Good. Keep your back to the wall and shoot anyone not friendly.” Kyra just hoped that Rith didn’t come in. He was the only one of the party that Prija had never met. “Unless he’s carrying a black knife about this long.” She held her hands a foot apart. “That one is ours. He’s a scribe.”

Prija curled her lip, but she nodded anyway.

A thought occurred to Kyra. “The men who took you. One of them was a scribe. Is he still here?”

She shook her head. “Dead.”

All in all, it was probably for the best. They didn’t need a seasoned warrior working with their enemy. “Okay, keep your head down and I’ll be back.”

“Not hurt.” Prija sat up. “Only thirsty. Go with you.”

“I’ll bring water to you. Trust me, this place smells a lot better than the last one.” She tucked her stray hair under the watch cap she’d tugged on earlier and ducked out the doorway, following the red glow outside.

The forest was in flames.

Luckily, the compound itself was clear of most brush or anything flammable. Kyra only hoped that Sura had gotten the women away before the fire started. She ran along the path toward the women’s block where they’d rescued the others earlier, keeping to the shadows in the red glow of the forest fire. Overhead, she heard him and her eyes rose.

Arindam the Fallen was thick in the battle.

She didn’t care what Prija said, those wings were real. She’d seen angels grow into monsters. She’d seen them appear and disappear at will. She’d never seen one fly. But when she finally saw the Fallen in the red glow of the fire, she knew what Prija meant. Whatever his original form, he had taken on the body of the idol she’d seen at some of the temples. He had the head of a man with a curved beak like a vulture. His muscled arms stretched out, and wings sprouted from the bottom of them. His body was that of a man, but instead of feet, he had massive claws that clutched a flaming branch.

He perched on the top of the temple and roared over the clearing as the scribes and free Grigori shot at him. One of Niran’s men was using arrows, which seemed to be the only thing not bouncing off the monster’s skin. When he roared, Kyra felt it like a pressure in her mind. She nearly went to her knees, but she remembered Prija waiting for her and moved on. As she ran, she didn’t try to block the monster’s song out. It was the same static, pulsing with an unearthly low rhythm. She focused on it and tried to think of it like the wind through trees—low and repetitive—and not a monster’s siren call.

She entered the building where the women had been kept and was immediately hit in the face by the sour smell of urine again. Arindam truly was a monster if he could keep his own women in this filth. Kyra had seen a lot, but she’d never been subjected to conditions like this.

She ran to the back room and grabbed the long neck of the instrument she’d seen Prija playing, returning at the last minute to grab the thin bow that went with it. She rushed out and ran straight into Leo.

“What are you doing?” he shouted.

“Getting her instrument!” She looked over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Getting nowhere in this fight. This angel is impenetrable to bullets, and we only have one archer.”

“Not something you foresee taking into battle anymore.”

“Niran anticipated.” Leo grimaced. “We’ve killed all the Grigori or they’ve run. It’s just the angel, but nothing we do is working. We can’t even reach him. I think he’s laughing at us.”

On cue, a booming laugh echoed over the hilltop.

“I think you’re right,” Kyra said. “Let me take this back to Prija and see if we can get anywhere with it.”

“Have you figured out how to—”

“No. Don’t ask. I’m working on it.”

Kyra ran back to Prija, and Leo turned toward the fire.





Chapter Twenty-Six





“Are they getting anywhere?” Niran asked him. The two men were crouched behind a low wall that had been shattered by the angel’s fist. He was playing with them and enjoying it.

“Of course they are,” Leo said. “They just need time.”

“You’re lying.”

“You know as well as I do.”

“Prija is fine?”

“She’s healthy and angry as hell.”

Niran smiled. “A promising combination.”

“She’s talking to Kyra.”

His eyebrows went up. “I haven’t heard her speak in years.”

“Well, now she’s talking to Kyra.”

The news seemed to invigorate Niran. He rose and hurled a chunk of stone at the angel’s perch on the temple. It fell short, but Leo had to admire the effort. He ducked down when a fireball hit the back of the wall.

Rith jumped over it a few seconds later. “We need to find a way to get him down or get us up.”

Leo popped his head up and looked at the sharply sloped roof. “Getting us up would only result in us falling down.”

“So we need to take him out of the air,” Rith said. “Unless I can get close enough to him, I can’t use this blade. I’m not going to risk throwing it at him. If he takes if from us, we have nothing.”