Archangel's Resurrection (Guild Hunter #15)(57)

Wars are not what they were in our time. Alexander’s voice in her head, the general having beaten her back.

She wasn’t surprised he’d divined the direction of her thoughts. I wouldn’t say so, lover. The smartest of the Cadre always enticed great minds to our courts. People whose bodies weren’t built for the physical act of war, but whose minds could turn the tide. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten Ibanaya?

A startled smile that creased his cheeks just as Michaela entered the room. I never could beat him in a game of strategy.

There was no more time for talk of the past then, because Senior General Keemat strode over to state that the “file” was “ready to play.” Short and compact with muscle, her sharp eyes a dark brown and her skin a lighter hue of the same shade, her tightly bound hair a rich black, the commander had wings of darkest green threaded with gold.

Now, she led them to the largest screen in the room, then used a small device in her hand to initiate the display of captured memory.

Zanaya had prepared herself and still her breath caught at the unbroken wave of black-eyed evil over Raphael’s city. “These fighters aren’t like the reborn we’ve been battling.”

“No,” Keemat said, and her voice held a lilt that reminded Zanaya of the people of her Nile. “Dmitri—that’s Raphael’s second, Lady Zanaya—he tells me that these creatures have a certain level of intelligence in comparison to the reborn. Almost as if another mind is controlling their bodies.”

“If Lijuan is able to do that with so many . . .” Michaela’s voice trailed off, but they all understood the magnitude of the peril she’d left unspoken.

Alexander, his jaw a brutal line, said, “We must assist, but first we have to control the situation here. Elsewise, Lijuan will win by eating us all up in small bites.”

Zanaya felt for Raphael’s people. To face such an army . . . they would have to fight with courage beyond courage. But Alexander was also correct in his decision; should they leave his territory now, the children would likely spread throughout, creating more reborn.

It wouldn’t matter then if they won the battle in New York—the war would’ve been lost to these creatures for they would’ve spawned and spawned by massacring anyone who came in their path. The entire system of angel-mortal-vampire would collapse without enough mortals left alive to process the toxin.

“Is there more?” Michaela asked.

Keemat briefed them on everything she had, and they talked over that knowledge as they ate with rapid speed. It was just fuel at this point, necessary to power their bodies. Afterward, they decided to put themselves on the field in rotation, so that the squadrons and infantry always had the support of one archangel.

“I’ll take the first lone watch,” Alexander said. “It’s my territory and my responsibility. You two rest until you can take over. We’ll fly to Raphael’s territory after clearing up these reborn. We can’t burn ourselves to the bone, need to be able to make the flight.”

Zanaya walked out with him, while Michaela went into a private room set up with a communications system in order to make contact with her own people. The Archangel of Budapest wished to ensure her territory remained unmolested by the reborn threat.

Zanaya waited until she and Alexander were in the entranceway with no one else around before she took his hand; her discreetness wasn’t about hiding who they were to each other. Anyone who knew even a piece of their history knew of Zanaya and Alexander.

No, it was about giving him a moment to lay down his head.

So she tugged him to her in silence, and he came in the same quiet to wrap his arms around her. And for a fragment of time, she held him, this general who she had loved all her lifetimes. She kissed him on the jaw when he pulled back and then she watched him put on his warrior skin once more.

“Thank you, my Zani.”

He touched his fingers to her lips in a caress familiar and resonant.

Then he was striding out.

She stepped out in time to see him take to the skies, her general who’d have his heart broken over and over again this day. “If mortal hell exists, Lijuan,” she whispered, “I condemn you to it.”



* * *



*

In the days that followed, however, it was them and others around the world who lived in hell—a hell of Lijuan’s creation. As they had guessed, Alexander’s wasn’t the only territory Lijuan had infested with reborn children. Neha was dealing with the same—with Caliane’s assistance.

Meanwhile Titus and Charisemnon battled a different wave of reborn, while Astaad and Aegaeon fought against a spreading wave of noxious insects that carried infection dangerous to vampires and angels both. The Archangel of the Pacific Isles and the newly risen Ancient had had to burn out multiple islands, razing the abundant green to stone, to contain the rapidly spreading plague.

But nothing was as bad as the situation in New York. That city had held the line thus far, its people refusing to surrender, but they couldn’t go on forever.

So Zanaya wasn’t surprised when Michaela said, “We must go to New York. The situation is dire!”

Alexander fisted a hand on the sand table around which the three of them stood, working on a strategy to funnel large numbers of reborn into a dead-end valley. “I won’t abandon my people.”