Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(55)

Such an act also spared the warriors who fought alongside her . . . at least a little. Because there were too many nests, and the reborn were pitifully small. They ran in different directions. They hid. And so the warriors, their faces streaked with tears and eyes raw, had to use their swords to strike them down.

Each blow broke another warrior’s heart.

Zanaya knew from the blank looks on many of their faces that Alexander would be losing a chunk of his angelic army to Sleep as soon as this war was done. As for the vampires, they’d retreat into the isolation that was their version of Sleep.

Loyal and brave of heart they were, but this . . .

Even Alexander’s unfaltering and ferocious Wing Brotherhood might not make it through this trial.

Zanaya didn’t blame any of them.

Especially after she came within inches of a child who looked so lifelike that it would’ve been easy to believe that he was a lost mortal babe, caught up in this nightmare. Horrified that might be true, she looked into his mind . . . and heard only a scream of nothingness. No mind. No whisper of what the mortals called a soul.

No . . . there it was, a scant flicker.

Rage gripped her at the realization that some small fragment of personhood had survived. But that fragment was trapped within the horror, its body rotting as this creature fed on living beings. There was no way to save that fragment.

“I am sorry, little one,” she said as she lifted her sword.

The child screamed and ran at her, its eyes turning red.

Then it was done, the head separated from the neck, and she had to move on to the next and the next. So many. A never-ending wave of death. She killed the children of her territory! Zanaya’s fury was a black cloud that roiled with thunder. That is the only way she could’ve created so many.

Yes, was Alexander’s grim answer. I would’ve noticed if mortal children began to go missing with such regularity inside my own territory. A terrible heaviness to his words, a reminder of why he was so sensitive to the topic. These are her people. People she was bound to protect. That is our unspoken covenant with the mortals.

She agreed with him, though many of their kind wouldn’t. Too many believed angelkind above mortals and that was that. The truth was far more complex: angelkind would be a chasm of frothing madness without the mortals. She’d never known the whys of it, but the toxin that built up in angelic bodies could only be purged safely one way: through converting mortals into vampires.

Yet their angelic ancestors had done such a good job of convincing mortals that to become a vampire was a privilege that mortals applied for it. If only they knew . . . But would that change anything? Unlikely. Because any mortal uprising could have only one end: death for mortals.

But not this way. Never this way.

This act of Lijuan’s broke the faith between immortal and mortal in the most fundamental aspect. Zanaya hoped that there was not another archangel in this world who agreed with Lijuan. If there was, she thought as she stood in a field of the dead given terrible life, then she would end them as brutally as they had forced her and Alexander to end these children.



* * *



*

Even archangels had to rest sometime.

None of them—Alexander, Zanaya, or Michaela—had done so for a twenty-four hour period, but aware they’d be useless should they allow themselves to burn out, they returned as one to Alexander’s closest fortress when the waves of reborn children came to a lull.

“It’s only a small reprieve,” Alexander said after using a wet cloth to wipe the sweat, dirt . . . and other things, from his face.

Zanaya nodded her thanks to the small and thin member of his staff who’d run over the towels, and took one for herself.

Michaela did the same, before saying, “Yes. From what we’re hearing from the other territories, Lijuan planned this very long-term. There will be multiple waves.” She cleaned her face, but even with dirt on it, there was no ignoring her startling beauty. Skin of a smooth and sumptuous brown, eyes of striking green, masses of tumbling hair in rich hues of brown and gold, her wings a shimmering bronze and her body tall but with all the right curves.

Even her leathers were exquisite, a dark red that molded to her frame.

“There was an angel named Gavriel in my time,” Zanaya murmured, thinking aloud. “Your skin is a tone or two paler than his, but you have a more feminine version of his face.” The angel had been handsome beyond bearing, coveted by many. Zanaya had always thought him rather too pretty, with no edge to him, but from a purely aesthetic perspective, she’d appreciated that he was perfect.

Dropping her hand to the side, Michaela stared at Zanaya. “My father. He vanished after I was well into adulthood. I don’t know if he Sleeps or if he is dead.”

Zanaya wondered if she was imagining the question in Michaela’s voice. “I can’t help you there. But he was known to Sleep often.”

Michaela glanced at Alexander. “You never told me you knew my father.” A bite to her.

Ah, so the child has what the father lacked.

Not acknowledging Zanaya’s mental aside, Alexander said, “I didn’t know him. He was born in Zanaya’s territory, was part of her court.”

The slightest widening of Michaela’s eyes, the first indication of the woman behind the mask of archangelic beauty and power. “I wasn’t aware my father was in the court of an archangel.”