Archangel's Sun (Guild Hunter #13)(9)

For the vampires, Titus believed that their liege had either accidentally infected them with a disease or he’d used them as guinea pigs. It was possible the angels had been thrown to the vampires as sacrificial food, but it was equally possible the decomposition hid what might’ve been indications of disease. It was the latter prospect that haunted Titus—because angels weren’t supposed to be vulnerable to disease.

It was a law written into stone.

As immutable as the wind and the sky.

Or it had been before Charisemnon.

Then Tzadiq had discovered the worst thing: a slimy black-green trail along the hallway that led out of the room of the rotting dead . . . in a shape that couldn’t be of anything but an angel. No other being in the world could’ve made that particular pattern. Only an angel whose wings were dragging along the stone as they clawed and crawled their way down the hall.

Needless to say, Titus was handling serious and deadly problems.

The Hummingbird had exactly zero useful skills when it came to the grim tasks that lay ahead.

He wanted to groan all over again. Did he even have anyone left on his staff who could pretty up a room for her?

This was going to be an unmitigated disaster.





6


Sharine’s first action was to consider the well-being of Lumia and its connected township. To that end, she called together those of her current team who wore the mantle of leadership: Trace, Tanicia, and Farah.

The most senior of the three, Tanicia, her black hair delicately braided around the front but a halo at the back, said, “We won’t flinch at maintaining the rules you’ve set down, Lady Sharine.” Her voice was husky, her gaze resolute, and her wings a deep autumnal orange-red against skin of darkest brown. “We will allow no stain to fall on your honor.”

She should not have favorites, Sharine thought, but Tanicia was one of hers. A warrior through and through, but one with heart. Sharine had seen her slipping sweets into the hands of the younglings who ran after her in the streets, wanting to touch her wings but too well-taught by their parents to dare.

“I have every faith in you,” she reassured all three, lest they believe she was questioning their loyalty or commitment. “But we are short in number—and now you’ll lose me for a time. We must have contingencies in place should the vampires in the area begin to act out.” As Raphael had reminded her, bloodlust was always a threat, especially in the absence of archangelic oversight.

With Elijah, the Archangel of South America, as well as Caliane in the healing sleep of anshara, the Cadre was only seven right now, one of them Suyin, newly ascended and finding her feet. Add in the fact that Neha, the Archangel of India, had awakened from anshara a bare week ago, and the Cadre was stretched to the limit.

As a result, powerful angels who could maintain the leash of fear were needed far more so than in the normal order of things. Sharine wasn’t deadly or an enforcer. But in the time since taking up her position here, she’d learned that she had the ability to bring out the best in others, including warrior squadrons.

Those squadrons held the leash for her.

“We’ve spoken of that,” Tanicia said, her glance taking in Trace and Farah. “A number of vampires from this region were called to fight in Archangel Charisemnon’s army.”

“Yes.” Sorrow wove through her blood for all the people, vampiric and angelic and mortal, who would never again return, their bodies obliterated in war. Those assigned to Lumia at the time had come to her before their departure, making sure she knew she was about to lose them from Lumia’s complement and why.

Sharine had begrudged none of them. The war hadn’t reached this isolated area—Charisemnon had aimed himself at the southern half of the continent, with the fighting mostly taking place at the north/south border.

“The archangel didn’t only recall his soldiers, he drafted in civilians who were technically his people, though they lived inside our borders,” Tanicia reminded Sharine. “Sad as it is to say, that means we currently have a very small population of civilian vampires. We should be able to maintain the peace for weeks or longer—you’ve built a solid foundation on which we can stand.”

“The idiots know to behave,” Trace drawled. “Everyone else will otherwise haul them into line—and not be gentle about it. No one, mortal or immortal wishes to lose you as Guardian, and to that end, they will ensure the Cadre has no reason to question your leadership.”

Oh, she did like him. She liked all of her people. Farah, so quiet and sage in her advice. Trace, erudite and silkily dangerous. Battle-worn Tanicia, who’d been at Sharine’s side from the start, when Sharine wasn’t sure what she was doing here. The only reason she’d even accepted the position was because Illium had taken her hands and said, “These people are hurt, Mother. You understand pain, and you understand how to be kind. That’s what they need.”

He could be so wise sometimes, her blue-winged boy who was becoming more powerful each time she turned around. Yet she would always remember him as the ungainly babe who’d wobbled the first time he took off from their kitchen doorway, straight down into the breathtakingly steep drop-off outside.

She’d had her heart in her throat every painful second, but she hadn’t gone after him. His father had been watching from below . . . and well, Aegaeon had still been a good father then, even if he’d already lost interest in her as a woman. He’d have caught their small and delighted boy if he’d tangled his wings and fallen.