Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter #1)(89)

Raphael went after him, knowing he could take him while the bloodborn angel was injured. He'd just swept out into daylight when a body slammed into him. He began to spiral down, managing a soft landing only by dint of years of experience-and put the body on a relatively clear section of the floor.

Michaela.

The female archangel was missing her heart, a glowing red fireball where the organ should've been. Not stopping to think, he thrust in a hand covered with blue fire and pulled out the red, throwing it at a wall and dissipating its destructive force. Michaela's heart began to regenerate in front of his eyes.

"Elena!"

"I'm here." She touched his arm, staring horrified at the mess of Michaela's chest. "Wha-"

Leaving Michaela where she was, he wrapped an arm around Elena's waist and flew up. "Track him."

Understanding at once, she hung on tight and gave an alert nod. When he reached the opening Uram had used to escape, she pointed up, then toward Manhattan. Raphael knew he was fast, but Uram now had a head start. Raphael was also carrying another and though the other angel was injured, so was he. But they were close, so close . . . until they hit the stretch of the Hudson above the Lincoln Tunnel.

The waters of the river churned below, but Elena could find no hint of Uram's scent in the air. Raphael took them down low enough that he could feel a fine spray on his face, but she shook her head. "He knows about water." Sheer frustration. "Either he dived in, or he skimmed so close to the surface that the moisture masked his scent."

Raphael fought the urge to expend power in a useless fit of fury. Instead, he did several wide sweeps along and around the length of river where they'd lost the trail. "Nothing," Elena said. "Fuck."

Silently echoing the sentiment, he flew them back to Michaela's home through a sky pregnant with clouds, sending Dmitri a command to blanket both sides of the river with searchers. The chances of that search bearing fruit were incredibly low-Uram had to maintain glamour only for the undoubtedly short time it would take him to find a hiding place. For an archangel-even an injured one-that was child's play.

Michaela was still where he'd left her, but her heart was now a beating, pulsing reality in her ravaged chest. Her eyes were open, filled with a kind of horror he'd never expected to see. Michaela was too old, had experienced too much, to know true fear.

"He's mad," she said when he crouched down beside her and took her hand. Bubbles of blood foamed out of her mouth. "There's nothing left of the man he once was."

Raphael saw Elena step out, knew his hunter was giving them privacy. Michaela would kill her as soon as talk to her and she felt compassion. So human, was Elena. "He'll return for you." Killing another angel was a vicious rite of passage, a compulsion the bloodborn didn't seem to be able to fight. And once they fixated on someone, they never shifted their interest.

"He said"-Michaela coughed, her heart still visible through the closing gap that was her chest-"that I was the last thing tying him to this existence, that once I was dead, he'd be free to Rise. Rise to what?"

"Death, endless death," Raphael said, continuing to hold her hand. Michaela was a cobra, but she was a cobra who was needed. If they lost her, the Cadre of Ten would be dangerously unbalanced. There was one who could possibly step into Uram's shoes, but no second. "Where were you?"

"He took my heart once before he went after my guards, then again, and left me unconscious on the roof. I'd almost healed enough to fly when"-another cough, but the blood was gone-"he put the fire inside. He didn't have time to spread it."

They both knew if he had, she'd have died an agonizing, and complete, death.

"Go," she said, her eye skating to his wing. "You're injured. You need to heal before he does."

Nodding, he rose, aware she'd be functional in another few minutes. "I saw one guard in the hall, Riker staked by the library. Where are the others?"

"All dead," she told him, lifting her left hand. A bloody diamond glittered on her ring finger. "On the roof."

"I'll arrange extra protection."

She didn't argue with him this time. "No invitation to your home?" She was starting to revive, burying her terror as immortals learned to do very early on.

He met her gaze. "You must remain a tempting target."

Fear skittered in the backs of her eyes. "He won't return tonight."

"No-he's too badly injured. Get the house repaired while he's down." He looked up at the huge hole where the wall had been. "At least as much as you can. I'll send you some of my angelic guards as well."

Michaela sat up, not bothering to cover her bare chest. It was a weapon, her body, one she wasn't hesitant about using. But that wasn't what she was concerned about right then. "Won't that lessen my status as a tempting target?" In that moment, she was an archangel, knowing only that Uram had to die.

"He's arrogant enough not to worry about even other archangels, you know that better than anyone."

She looked up, a spark of true pain in her eyes. "I did love him. As much as an archangel can love."

He said nothing, leaving her to consider what immortality had made her as he went to find Elena. She was waiting for him outside, on the edge of the lawn where the woods began. Her eyes immediately shot to his wing. "He damaged you." Anger whiplashed through the air.