Archangel's Legion(88)

“I’ll arrange a retrieval team in suitable biohazard gear, then contact the healer.” Aodhan lifted off in a whisper of sound.

The vampire continued to scream as if hot pokers were being driven into his flesh. “This isn’t right.” The fact that his suffering might help save the lives of others didn’t make it seem any less like torture. And that was a line she would never cross. “We have to end—”

“No.” Illium retrieved his sword, Lightning, from the sheath on his back. “He is not in such pain. The location of the injury means it hurts going in, but it’s only a dull pulse once the bolt is embedded.” Striding forward, he put the tip of his sword on the vampire’s chest while staying out of reach of the creature’s torn, bloodied fingernails. “Quiet.”

The vampire froze.

Crossbow raised to cover Illium, Elena walked close enough to look into the vampire’s face, and what she saw made pity rain in her veins. “You want to die.” Those bloody eyes held a glimmer of true consciousness, enough that this vampire understood what was happening to him even though he couldn’t stop it.

“Can’t kill,” the vampire said, a tear rolling down his face, the liquid pinky red. “Can’t kill.”

Can’t kill?

“Did you try to kill yourself?” she asked, but he was gone, febrile madness crawling over his eyes to leave him clawing out chunks of his own face.

“I can’t watch this.” Not wanting to end the vampire’s life when Keir might be able to help him, she took a gun and flipped it, intending to knock him out with a tap to the head.

“Wait.” Illium stared at the vampire, his eyes burning true gold . . . and the sick male stopped writhing, his hands falling to the sides and absolute peace in his expression as his lashes closed.

Elena looked at Illium with new eyes. He was, she realized, not just powerful. He was becoming a power.

“Why are you looking at me like that, Ellie?” Sliding away his sword, darkness in the gold. “You’re afraid.”

“Not of you. I just realized you might one day leave the Seven.” No one as powerful as she suspected Illium would eventually become would want to be in service to another—if that was even a choice. “I can’t imagine you not being a part of this city, of my life.”

“It’s not going to happen anytime soon.” A dazzling smile that erased the shadows, his wings spreading to brush her own before he folded them back in. “Forget the coming war, the Tower would fall down without me.”

“So modest.” Her smile faded as her eyes landed on the vampire, who slept so peacefully and who she knew would probably never wake, though she hoped Keir could save him. “What does it say about the archangel behind this, that he has the ability to create disease?”

“You know the answer to that.”

Yes, unfortunately, she did. Power corrupted, and often the corruption was absolute and ugly.

Glancing at the angel, beautiful and gifted, who crouched down to more closely examine the victim, his wings a carpet of exquisite blue and silver on the concrete, she hoped that when the time came, when his power matured to its full strength, he’d have someone who’d act as his anchor, as she and Raphael did for one another. She couldn’t bear to think of Illium corrupted. Not Illium.


• • •


The vampire died twelve hours later, having never wakened from his sleep. “It was a blessing,” Keir said, before he left the city—the healer had arrived in time to examine the victim while he lived. “The disease had eaten its way into his internal organs, would’ve caused him excruciating pain had he been conscious.”

Keir’s tests had also shown the male had had a genetic abnormality that made him less susceptible to the virus, though, as they’d seen, not immune. As to how he’d been infected, that was unknown. However, interestingly, he’d just returned to the country after a business trip to China.

“If we’re wrong and it is Lijuan,” Raphael said to Illium as they flew back after escorting Keir to the jet, “then she’s gaining strength at a pace far beyond that of anyone else in the Cadre.” It could well make her invincible.

Illium held position, wing to wing. “It’s possible she could simply have facilitated the infection by offering safe passage through her lands to her coconspirator.”

“Not a great scenario, death and disease acting in concert, but better than Lijuan being the sole holder of such vicious ‘gifts.’”

Snow started to fall again around them, the world below dusted in innocence and peace, but the illusion didn’t last. Early the next day, a plane bound for New York, its point of origin Shanghai, made an emergency medical landing in San Francisco, the human pilot sending a request for Tower assistance through air traffic control.