“Our people are not so timid.” Dropping the towel, he drew her close and touched his lips to the side of her throat.
She shivered, leaned back into him, and they simply stood skin to skin for a stolen moment.
The memory of her warmth was still with him when he met with Nazarach minutes later. The dangerous midlevel angel with wings of burnished amber and skin of gleaming black had bad news. “I’ve had a confirmed report that reborn have been spotted on the outskirts of Atlanta. It’s believed the initial group was brought in on a long-haul truck, possibly after being smuggled in through shipping containers.”
Raphael hadn’t expected such sneak tactics from Lijuan on the eve of true battle. He’d believed she’d unleash her reborn during the actual battle, to go up against his ground soldiers. No doubt this was Charisemnon’s influence. “Take your squadron and go stamp out the menace before it spreads.” He couldn’t leave the task to younger, weaker angels, not given the danger.
“If New York falls—”
“We can’t afford for the reborn to infect any part of the territory. They’re too virulent.” Holding the Tower remained critical, but that didn’t mean he’d permit the rest of his territory to fall into ruin.
Nazarach left with a promise to return as soon as possible. When Nimra came to Raphael with the same reports about her territory a few minutes later, followed by Andreas, Raphael had had enough. Anger simmering under his skin, he put through a call to Lijuan’s second. The old archangel eschewed modern conveniences, but her people had recently convinced her to upgrade.
Xi, with his black eyes and striking wings of red-streaked gray, answered within moments. “Archangel.” A polite incline of his head. “How may I be of service?”
“I have a message for your mistress,” Raphael said, too furious to temper his words. “Tell her I did not expect such cowardice from her.” He ended the call as anger flushed red across Xi’s sharp cheekbones, and was unsurprised when Lijuan’s face appeared in the glass wall of his office moments later, in a show of her power.
“You dare call me a coward?” Unhidden rage, her face skeletal as her physical form faded in and out.
Raphael held her gaze, his own rage as potent. “What is it if not cowardice to release your reborn on the edges of my territory, forcing me to scatter my forces?” He gave away nothing by admitting that, since news of the fighting against the reborn would soon spread across the world. “You must believe your forces weak indeed that you use such contemptible tactics.”
Curling black in her irises. “You should take care in making such accusations.”
“Ask Xi to turn on a television set. I’m sure the pictures will be available within minutes.” Continuing to face that inhuman visage with its gaping eye sockets and mouth full of silent screams, he said, “Perhaps you should choose your allies more wisely,” certain Lijuan had put Charisemnon in charge of her reborn forces.
No response, her face disappearing from view . . . but there were no more reports of new infestations in the hours that followed. That still left them dealing with the creatures already loose in the territory—and that proved no easy task for his people, even though Jason’s warning meant they were prepared for Lijuan’s “improved” design.
These new reborn didn’t shuffle; they ran in a fast crablike walk. And they weren’t sad or broken at being trapped in their dead bodies; they were mindless creatures that wanted only to feed on living flesh.
Then they discovered Charisemnon hadn’t forgotten the port city of New York.
• • •
“Jesus Christ,” Elena said, watching the reborn scrambling down the sides of the cruise ship that had apparently berthed early evening, soon after the steady rain had tapered off at last. Under guard because it had stopped in Charisemnon’s territory some weeks earlier, before the start of hostilities, it had been scheduled to be searched and processed in the next half hour.
Then one of the dockside workers noticed the blood-soaked “guests” on deck.
“How the hell did people not know they had those creatures on board?” She shot a crossbow bolt at one particularly fast one that had made it onto the pier, taking out its heart and immobilizing it for the moment.
At least the pier blazed with floodlights, making the task easier.
Beside her, Illium unsheathed Lightning, the sword a gleaming piece of death. “No one to ask, but if I had to guess, I’d say Charisemnon’s staff booked out an entire deck for their party and either bribed or threatened someone into permitting them to board at night, before the other passengers. These reborn don’t look human enough to pass otherwise.”