Archangel's Legion (Guild Hunter #6)(104)

Wanting to watch his pleasure, she lifted her lashes . . . and felt her breath leave her lungs in a rush, Raphael’s wings edged by an intensely beautiful flicker of haunting white fire.





38





The next day, after a three-hour warning to permit people to gather what they needed, angels hovered over every major route out of Manhattan as an army of cops made sure residents left in an orderly fashion. Normally, the Tower didn’t mess with the civilian force made up of mortals and vampires, but, as with everything else in this territory, the organization fell ultimately under Raphael’s authority, and he’d exercised his power.

Not that the police officers were averse to what they were being asked to do. One of Elena’s cop friends had put it best: “After our briefing this morning about the hurt Lijuan’s planning to bring down on the Tower, and seeing those f*cking nasty reborn things scuttling on the pier, I wouldn’t want my family in Manhattan.”

The cops’ next task would be to maintain order in the surrounding boroughs and make certain no one crossed back into Manhattan.

Fear lingered an acrid taint in the air during the evacuation, but the sight of grim-faced angels overhead and equally lethal vampires on watch in the evacuated parts of the city meant no one stepped out of line—especially after Illium picked up a pair who had thought to burglarize an empty building and dumped them into the freezing waters of the Hudson. He left them there for the maximum survivable time, their eyes panicked and lips blue.

“Next time,” the message went out, “we will not retrieve those consigned to the water.”

There were no further incidents.

Jeffrey, Elena was glad to see, moved his family—including Beth—out by helicopter the first day. Beth, by contrast, was hysterical when she called Elena that afternoon. “What if Harrison dies?” her sister sobbed.

Elena didn’t lie; she didn’t say any one of them would make it out of this alive. Instead, she reassured Beth that the city’s defenses were strong, the evacuation a precaution. After hanging up, her sister marginally calmer, she returned to the young angelic squadron to which she’d been attached, their task to assist in the evacuation of the city’s most vulnerable.

Not strong enough to carry sick adults or older children across to hospitals outside Manhattan, she carried bundled-up babies and toddlers. The latter, despite their illnesses, grinned throughout each flight, not a lick of fear in their expressions. “Can we do that again?” a four-year-old asked when they landed, his cheeks bright red because he’d wanted to face the wind the entire time, despite her attempts to shelter him.

Bending down to hug his thin body, the IV port on his left hand appearing far too harsh for his delicate skin, she said, “Yes,” and hoped it was a promise she’d be alive to keep. “After we fight the bad people, I’ll come back and see you again.”

Then she passed him to the care of the nurse who waited, and she returned to carry across another child, the ambulances—road and air—reserved for those who needed the support of medical machinery. Tower, Guild, police, and corporate choppers were all pooled into the effort, while hunters drove the elderly, and those others who required special assistance, from point to point.

Most evacuees had friends and family with whom they could stay, and still others were invited in by kind neighbors in surrounding areas. However, for those who found themselves homeless, emergency services—acting in concert with the Tower—had set up temporary but snug housing facilities on Tower-owned land in nearby areas. The latter had been done well before the evacuation was announced, which spoke to the precision planning behind the entire operation.

Elena had never seen any evacuation proceed with such speed and lack of trouble—but then again, this was the evacuation of a healthy city into equally healthy areas. No natural disaster had blocked supply lines, damaged roads, or hit the workforce.

Forty-eight hours after it began, Manhattan was a ghost city.

Flying above the empty streets, the odd bit of paper fluttering on the pavement and a lone dog looking up at her, Elena felt a shiver crawl down her spine. The heart of her city was meant to be loud and noisy and full of people. Not that she believed they’d evacuated every single mortal—it was a sure bet some enterprising souls had managed to avoid the mass departure, but they were hidden ghosts, the landscape desolate.

Unable to bear passing over the deserted silence of Times Square, she angled to land at one of the air defense stations, the anti-wing guns primed and ready. Not far from her stood Dmitri, his attention on whatever was being said by a pair of vampires who were experts in using the weapon.

Raphael’s second looked no different from before he’d left the city, his presence darkly sexual with an undertone of deadly violence. But he’d come back with a hunter wife now at work as part of the combined Guild-Tower operations team—Honor wasn’t yet at full strength, but neither was she an ordinary new-Made vampire, her skin brushed with a shimmer of gold, her eyes a luminous jewel green, her mortal beauty honed as sharp as a blade.

The other hunter had laughed at Elena’s flabbergasted expression when they first came face-to-face. “I know, I know. It was a bit of a shock to me, too.” A deep smile, Honor still Honor. “But hey, I was Made by an archangel and feed solely from a dangerously sexy thousand-year-old vampire.”