Archangel's Prophecy (Guild Hunter #11)(75)

Closing his hand over her wrist, Raphael bent his head so their foreheads touched. There they stood for long minutes even as the snow began to fall and the Legion landed all around them.





32




Elena watched Raphael soar into the sky, the snow melting against her skin. She knew exactly how hard it had been for him to leave her; she fought the urge to fly to him, stick close. Never, as an adult, had she been so deeply afraid. Not even when she fell the first time.

Then, she hadn’t understood what she and Raphael could be together, hadn’t tasted the full glory of a love that was her breath and the reason for her being. Hadn’t lived with an archangel who loved her more than eternity.

Her eyes burned.

A flutter of snow and silence, vast numbers of the Legion rising from this balcony and from rooftops across the city to fly in the same direction as Raphael, an eerie gray wave whose voices no longer whispered in her head. The Primary, however, still waited for her—and she wasn’t so arrogant as to shrug off the escort. “I have to check on my brother-in-law, then I’ll be out and we’ll fly.”

No movement, the living gargoyle waiting patiently.

She checked her phone as she made her way quickly to Harrison’s bed in the infirmary and saw a message from Ashwini. The hunter and Janvier were in the Quarter, running down the exact depth of the relationship between Lee and Kumar, Blakely and Acosta. We’re also taking another stab at the drug angle, talking to people in the gangs to see if there are rumors of a hit.

The pragmatic nature of it all, the banal predictability of evil, was an antidote to the mystery of her transition. I’m going to chase down Jade, she wrote back, then made herself add, Dig about Harrison, too, in connection with the others. It made her sick to her stomach to consider that Beth’s husband might’ve been a party to rape, drugs, death, but the questions couldn’t be left unasked.

Her brother-in-law himself could tell her nothing; he remained unconscious.

Your sister was here earlier today, Laric shared in the silent tongue, his hands flowing with subtle grace. She said she told their little girl that her father had gone away for a while for business.

“Good on Beth. No point in Maggie seeing him like this.” Elena placed her hands on her hips. “She’ll be mad at him for leaving without saying good-bye, but she won’t be afraid.” And Maggie was secure enough in her father’s love that she wouldn’t consider it an abandonment.

I think so, too, Laric said. I know little of children, but I believe, once he wakes, it will not be a hard thing for him to mend the small anger. To root out fear is sometimes impossible.

“You’re certain he’s going to recover?” Harrison’s skin was bloodless.

Laric touched her gently on the arm to get her attention on his hands. Jason’s blood has had enough time to bond with Harrison’s own, and it has restarted that which stopped in Harrison. He will heal.

Switching to the silent tongue herself, because she needed the practice, she said, How long before I can talk to him?

She thought Laric might’ve smiled at her awkward movements. It was one thing to be fluent at “listening” to the language, another to speak it. The gestures were subtle, small, the curve of a little finger able to alter the entire meaning of a sentence.

He is no longer in an imposed coma but in a more natural unconscious state. The healer made sure the blanket over Harrison’s body was neat and tidy. Nisia says we cannot predict when he might wake—it will depend on his own body’s healing capacity.

Nodding thanks at Laric for the information, Elena stepped out to check in with Vivek. “Any news on Jade?”

“I was just about to call you.” Vivek’s voice hummed with the thrill of the hunt, his hunter-born instincts riding him hard. “Your man Jade’s shed his old skin and set himself up under his two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old real name, Jadchenko Simnek, and yes, that was a bitch to track down.”

Elena’s own instincts hummed. “Damn, you’re good, V.”

“Never forget it,” Vivek said in smug pleasure. “Anyway, he’s got an apartment on the Upper West Side. I’m messaging you the address. Looks like he’s living large off the income generated from a gaming website. Got himself a view of Central Park.”

“A gaming website?” It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that’d interest a vampire from the tail end of the eighteenth century.

“He has a track record in the share market under both his old and new names. Nothing big, but the man’s invested in tech companies before—he’s smart enough to keep up with the world. Be careful.” A pause. “And hey, Ellie? Thanks for pulling me into the hunt.”

“You’re the best partner I could imagine.” He’d be a lethal danger once he could hunt on the ground as well as via his byzantine network of computers. “I’ll let you know what I find at Jade’s.”

The sun had gone behind the clouds when she flew off with the Primary her silent shadow, and the city looked metallic and gray. Snow was falling, but it wasn’t heavy, nothing she couldn’t handle. Once airborne and despite the healthy condition of her wings, she flew with a sedateness that wasn’t her natural state, trying to glide as much as possible.

Below her, New Yorkers moved in a chaotic dance of pedestrians and cars and trucks that somehow wasn’t a total mess. More than one pedestrian looked up and waved before carrying on their way. A taxi driver stopped at a red light hung out his window to grin and wave at her.