Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter #1)(94)

It would all heal. That didn't mean it wouldn't hurt. But his flamboyance aside, Illium was a soldier, a fighter. Which was why Raphael didn't let him rest. Rather, he focused his mental abilities and slapped the angel awake from within his very mind. Illium came to with a gasp. But no scream.

A single perfect eye opened. "Bastard was waiting in the clouds," he whispered, not wasting time with unnecessary apologies. "Glamour. Ellie . . ." He shuddered, fighting his body's need to go into a healing sleep. "I think she saw me go down. C-c-close. He looked healed . . . but was weak." The last word was almost soundless as his body literally kicked him into the deep comalike state from which no one and nothing would be able to wake him for at least a week.

Though he was far younger than Raphael, he might just be old enough to enter anshara itself. It would allow him to heal much quicker, dampening the agony and rebuilding his body before he woke. Otherwise, once the coma broke, he'd be in as much pain as any other being. With so many broken bones, it would be excruciating.

Raphael knew that too well. His mother's last words to him had been said as he lay bleeding on the ground, his wings shredded so badly he'd had no chance to slow his descent. He'd hit the earth at a velocity that would've torn a mortal to pieces. His body hadn't survived too well either. He'd lost pieces. Young as he'd been, it had taken years for everything to fully re-form. Those in anshara healed exponentially faster. But there was no magic cure.

Not unless you were a bloodborn angel bloated with toxin.

Jason's black wings appeared through the clouds. He held out his arms, face drawn. "I'll take him."

Raphael handed over Illium's body. "The rest of the wing?"

"I told them to search for the hunter."

"Get Illium to a healer." He dove back down to the pier, pulling glamour around himself before he came into view. What Illium had fought to tell him was very important. If Uram hadn't healed on all levels, then he wouldn't have been able to fly far with Elena's body weighing him down.

Live, Elena, he said, willing her to fight, to break out of the darkness that cloaked her mind in a suffocating prison. Live. I have not given you permission to die.

Nothing. Silence. Such silence as he'd never before known.

Live, Elena. A warrior does not lie down for the enemy. Live!

"Be quiet," Elena murmured, pulled out of blissful sleep by an arrogant voice that insisted she get up. "I wanna sleep."

"You dare give me orders, mortal?" Ice-cold water splashed across her face, snapping her awake to a nightmare.

At first, she couldn't quite assimilate what it was that she was seeing. Her mind simply refused to put the pieces together. And there were so many pieces. Torn, distorted, impossible pieces. Her stomach twisted, the nausea from the head injury she'd sustained when Uram smashed her face into the dash, merging with the horror of the here and now.

She fought it, refusing to reward the monster with her terror. But it was hard. They'd all been wrong-Sara, Ransom, even Raphael. Uram hadn't taken fifteen victims. He'd taken others, people who wouldn't be missed. Rotting limbs, a gleaming rib cage, evidence of his vicious madness littered the room. A room without light, without air. A cell. A crypt. A-

Snap out of it!

It was her hunter sense, the thing that had marked her from birth.

Swallowing her panic, she focused, and realized the room wasn't, in fact, pitch-dark. Uram had blacked out the windows but some light-too sharp, too white to be natural, which meant she'd been out long enough for night to fall-seeped in around the edges. It was that light that had allowed her to see the sickening truth of the room. Torn bodies thrown about like so much garbage. But not all were in pieces. Against the opposite wall, chains locked around his wrists, she saw the withered body of someone who'd once been human.

Then that dried-out husk blinked and she realized he was still alive. "Jesus!" It came out before she could stop herself.

The monster in front of her, the thing that wore the shell of an archangel, followed her gaze. "I see you've made Robert's acquaintance. He was a loyal one, followed me across the oceans without complaint. Did you not, Bobby?"

Elena watched the cruel humor on Uram's face and realized she'd never understood true evil until this moment. Robert was a vampire, that much was clear. No human that desiccated would still be alive-it looked as if the vampire had lost every ounce of moisture in him but for his large, glistening eyes. Eyes that pleaded with her for deliverance.

Uram turned back to her, his own eyes-a vivid, beautiful green-dancing with laughter. "He thought he was special because I took him with me. Unfortunately, I forgot about him for a while." That power-filled gaze became angry, tinged with red. The sparkling green was suddenly putrid.

Elena stayed very, very still in the corner where he'd dumped her, wondering if he'd thought to take her weapons. She couldn't feel anything on her body but maybe he'd missed one or two-like the ice pick-thin knife in her hair, or the flat blade that slid into a sheath built into her shoe. She flexed her toes and felt the reassuring firmness of her boots. Ransom had given her the boots as a gag gift-she'd never loved the idiot more than she did at that moment.

Uram's eyes bored into her. "But my loyal Bobby did come in useful"-back to Robert-"didn't you? He made a most appreciative audience for my little games."