Archangel's Enigma (Guild Hunter)(28)

It had taken him longer than other immortals because he was different.

A growl sounded not far from him. He growled back and had a running companion for over an hour before the other runner rumbled a snarling good-bye and turned back into his territory. Continuing to run at the same relentless pace, Naasir looked up at the sky and tried to find Jason. He couldn’t. The spymaster was too good.

When he saw a small truck parked up ahead on the far edge of a field—as if the owner had walked into the village in the distance—he got into it. Hot-wiring the ignition, he drove the truck until he’d exhausted the fuel, ran again until he found another ride. He was moving as fast as he could without causing his body to shut down, but Lijuan’s territory was vast. It would take him at least another full day to reach Andromeda. Another twenty-four to thirty-six hours when she was alone with Zhou Lijuan.

Snarling, he reminded himself that the woman who smelled like his mate wasn’t prey. She was smart. She had secrets. She would survive.


*



Andromeda’s gasp was still hanging in the air when Lijuan smiled. “Ah, have you seen my faces?” She carried on speaking without waiting for an answer. “I am continuing to evolve. Soon, I will be more powerful than even the legends rumored to Sleep beneath the Refuge.”

Andromeda had no doubts Lijuan was changing, but she wasn’t sure she’d call it evolution. “Lady,” she said instead, her tone respectful. “According to reports filed after the battle, you perished in the fighting.” She needed to keep Lijuan talking. It would give her precious more time to think of a way out of this situation.

“I am not so easy to kill.” Lijuan’s voice echoed with screams again on the last two words, as if the souls she’d swallowed were fighting to get out. “I decided on a strategic retreat, decided to permit Raphael to live.”

Andromeda allowed Lijuan’s rewriting of history to stand. Discretion wasn’t only the better part of valor at this instant, it might be her only chance at survival. “Will you rejoin the Cadre?”

“The Cadre is a weak construct.” Lijuan flicked her hand as if brushing aside the idea. “It is time for a new world order.” Leaning back in the throne, she smiled, her face continuing to fade in and out of its different forms. It was eerie and oddly compelling at the same time. “I will create a better world.”

For the next hour, Andromeda listened to Lijuan speak of the world she planned to build. The archangel’s words were rambling and disjointed, and at times, they faded off completely, Lijuan’s body phasing in and out at the same time. However, Andromeda knew it would be a fatal mistake to underestimate her. Zhou Lijuan had at least nine thousand years of life and experience behind her, likely more.

“You listen well, scholar.”

Andromeda inclined her head. “It is my task to listen and to record.”

Lijuan smiled right as her face changed into the skull avatar. It turned the smile into a grotesque grimace filled with agonized howls that made Andromeda want to clap her palms over her ears. Controlling her breathing with grim effort, she gripped her hand tighter in front of her.

“Then hear this,” the archangel said in her sepulchral voice. “I have need to speak to Alexander.”

“The Ancient Sleeps.” Andromeda’s response would be expected, shouldn’t engender torture or violence. It remained a calculated risk nonetheless. “No one is meant to disturb an angel’s Sleep.” It was a taboo on par with that which forbade the abuse of children.

“I understand your qualms, but the world is changing and you must change with it.” Lijuan’s bloody eyes held her own. “Xi tells me you know where Alexander Sleeps.”

“No, Lady. I do not,” Andromeda said even as the crushing depth of Lijuan’s power threatened to suffocate her. “Alexander was too good a general for it to be otherwise. I know only of a possible location where he might have gone to ground.”

“Lying to me would not be a good idea.” A strange chill infiltrated the air at Lijuan’s words.

“I would not.” Andromeda’s breath felt like shards of ice in her lungs, stabbing and painful. “Alexander was an Ancient when he went to Sleep. He must have had the power to hide himself in the same way as Caliane.” Raphael’s mother had taken an entire city with her into Sleep, and when it rose after more than a thousand years, it was in a location far from its origins. “We cannot know whether he buried himself in the earth or under the seabed.”

Lijuan nodded at last, the inhuman chill receding. “You speak the truth. I must not forget that Alexander was always a great tactician. The tales his peers told of him as a young fighter . . .” A shake of her head, her tone almost affectionate as she added, “He would neither confirm nor deny most of them when I asked.”

Aware Lijuan’s mood could turn in a heartbeat, Andromeda used grim focus to keep her voice steady, though fear was a cold intruder in her gut. “May this scholar importune you for such stories as have been lost in time?”

Lijuan laughed and for an instant Andromeda could see the archangel as she’d once been. The one who was old and arrogant, but also wise and a cool head on the Cadre. The one who had found amusement in a wild boy who’d pretended to eat her cat.

“So young and curious.” Lijuan shook her head. “Yes, I will tell you stories, scholar, but first, you will give the possible location of Alexander’s place of Sleep to Xi.” It was an order. “He will mount the search.”