Archangel's Prophecy (Guild Hunter #11)(83)

“Mahiya will understand.” Light and shadow played over the curves and dots of the tattoo that marked his face. “Whatever is occurring in China, it could have implications for the entire world.”

“Elijah’s consort is reaching out to Favashi,” he told Galen, having already shared the same with Jason. “Her goal is to get an invitation to visit Favashi’s court.” Should Hannah succeed, she and Elijah would be right in the heart of Favashi’s territory.”

A cascade of whispers at the back of Raphael’s mind, hundreds of bat-winged beings settling on the buildings around the Tower, hundreds of gargoyles peering at them in interest.

“Sire.” Venom came to stand with Raphael as Galen and Jason stepped away to talk. “I know they are your Legion, but they are also creepy as hell.”

“That is very amusing coming from you,” Raphael said to this member of his Seven who enjoyed using his slitted viper’s gaze to disconcert and, at times, frighten.

“But there’s only one of me—imagine over seven hundred vampires with viper eyes staring at you.”

“You make an excellent point.”

Beside him, his eyes unshielded among friends, Venom raised his glass toward the Primary, who’d landed directly across from them. “Would you like a drink?”

Taking his words as an invitation, the Primary came to crouch on the small wall that edged the roof. When Illium walked over with a tumbler full of amber liquid, he took it.

As they watched, he sniffed it several times then drank the entire thing down in a single movement. Placing the glass on the roof wall beside him afterward, he said, “This is a thing I have tasted before.” As if he’d logged the experience against the millions of memories in his mind.

With that, he opened his silent wings and flew off to join his brethren on the buildings around the Tower. All those buildings were considerably shorter, but the attraction for the Legion was clearly the Tower roof.

They were there two hours later, when the night sky began to crack with gold. The lightning was silent and uncanny and beautiful. The white-gold filaments in Raphael’s wings vibrated in time with the strange lightning . . . and the sky, it was golden fire.

The thought raised every hair on Raphael’s arms. He’d last seen a sky full of golden fire as a youth, when Caliane executed Nadiel. The death of Raphael’s father—of an archangel—had released energy so violent that it had scarred Laric through time.

His mind reached out, searched. Elena.

Silence.

A searing star above him. All that golden lightning coalescing into a single spot directly above Raphael. Flaring out his wings, he flew up while ordering the winged members of his Seven to stay down. This, he knew, was not a thing that could be dealt with by angels.

It was a thing for an archangel.

But as he flew up, he turned in the direction of the rooftop that belonged to Sara and Deacon, and though his hunter was too far for him to see, he knew she’d taken off and was flying toward him. This was not a thing for angels, only for an archangel . . . but he waited for her to make her way to him.

Aeclari, sang the Legion. Aeclari.

Then she was there, breathless and with her gray eyes stark against the lightning-lit dark gold of her skin.

Taking her into his arms, he said, “Close your wings, hbeebti.”

She did so without hesitation, her trust a gift.

Holding her close, he lifted them both into the burn of light.

It cascaded into him in a thousand tiny lightning bolts that sparked through his skin and wings. Elena, though she was pressed against him, was touched by none of it. He was the lightning rod and the energy knew only to come to him.

His hunter traced a jagged crack in the skin of his upper arm. It was what had happened to Illium when the Cascade shoved him full of power too huge for his body. Unlike with the blue-winged angel, Raphael was in no danger of being overwhelmed or killed. “It causes me no pain.” As one fracture healed, another appeared. But his cells were absorbing the power as rapidly as it jolted out of the sky and into him.

He felt full to the very edges of his wings by the time the storm ended.

Elena stared at his face, her eyes a mirror of the incandescent light. “It’s beautiful in an eerie way,” she murmured. “Your face is covered with fine lightning-bolt cracks that glow with power.” She raised a hand to his skin but didn’t touch. As if afraid of hurting him.

He moved his face so that her fingers brushed his jaw. “There is no pain,” he repeated. “The power simply needs time to be absorbed into my flesh.”

When Elena drew away her hand, her fingertips glowed with light. Rather than seeking to sink into her, however, that light flew back to him, golden dandelions against the night. Undaunted, she brushed her fingers over his arm where the light glowed through the cracks in his skin. That light reached out and twined around her hand, crawled up her arm.

Raphael watched ready to intervene, but at no point did it merge into her skin.

Instead, after a moment, it drew back toward Raphael.

“This energy is too strong for you,” he told his hunter. “It is archangelic and it stretches my power to places unknown.” He could feel himself changing on the most basic level, his cells altering shape. It had happened once before, but this . . . it was bigger, the changes deeper.

A fine tension in Elena’s features. “So much power, Raphael.” She spread her fingers over his heart. “Promise me you won’t stop being a little bit mortal.”