That’s how he’d managed to stay hidden for so long. It’s how he’d staged his apparent death and covered his tracks. He’d put on a very convincing show, right in front of Nero’s eyes. Sooner or later, all archangels developed special powers above and beyond the Legion’s usual magic spectrum. Damiel’s unique combination of magic, his skills as a Tracker and an Interrogator, had allowed him to maintain the charade that he was dead for centuries.
“Nero is always so eager to boast about his old man,” he said with a warm smile.
Nero gave him a flat look. “Yes, all the time. To anyone and everyone who will listen.” His tone was as dry as sandpaper.
I almost laughed.
Damiel did laugh, and it was a good-natured one at that. He patted Nero hard on the back, then looked at me. “I can help you find your sisters. I can’t promise it won’t hurt, however.”
“Whatever it takes,” I said to him. “I don’t bruise easily.”
Damiel laughed again, and this time it was me that he slapped on the back. Maybe I’d spoke too soon because his friendly slap had bruised me down to the bone.
“Leda,” Damiel said, motioning for me to give him my hand.
I did. Then Damiel looked at Nero, holding out his other hand. Nero set his hand in his father’s.
“Now you two link hands,” Damiel instructed us.
The moment we all linked, a shock of power surged through me, up and down my arms, like I’d just grabbed a lightning bolt. As the magic burned through me, crumbling my defenses to ash, my heart raced so hard that I thought it might explode. Blotches danced in front of my eyes. My vision was going dark. Blackness swallowed me.
Hold on, Leda, Nero said in my mind, his voice a tether in the darkness. It will get better.
The pain will go away? I asked hopefully.
No, the pain never goes away. You just get used to it.
I choked out a laugh.
Lying to you won’t make it hurt less, Nero said sensibly.
That’s one of the things I loved about Nero. I could always count on him not to bullshit me.
Like you would tolerate anyone bullshitting you.
I laughed again. Gods, I loved him. And he was right. I was getting used to the pain. The pounding, excruciating, mind-splitting agony was dulling into a distant but persistent thump. My vision was improving too. I could see Nero now. We stood side-by-side, two bright spots inside a sea of blackness.
“Excellent,” Damiel’s voice penetrated the darkness. “Now if you two lovebirds are finished playing footsie beneath the abyss, let’s get started.” He faded into sight, a third bright spot in the deep black sea. “I’m using my blood connection to Nero, who is connected to you, Leda, through your bond. And you are connected to Calli and Bella and to your little sisters. You’re the focal point, Leda, the prism through which all our magic connects.”
So that’s why it hurt so much. The magic of two archangels was tearing through me like a river of raging rapids.
“A web of magic is stronger than a single strand,” Damiel said. “We will use it to locate your sisters. Your link to your sisters will boost my and Nero’s telepathic range.”
It was the same trick Nero and I planned to use to find my brother and his mother once I had gained the power of Ghost’s Whisper.
“Your brother and Cadence are no longer on Earth,” Damiel said, picking up on my thoughts. “It requires a lot more magic to breach dimensions and cross worlds. Your sisters are, however, on Earth.”
“Yes. I can feel them,” I said excitedly, a familiar feeling washing over me. I could sense Gin and Tessa. They felt so close, like I could reach out and touch them.
“Keep calm,” Damiel told me. “Don’t pull too hard on your connection to them. Too much tension will make the strands of the link snap.”
I glanced down and realized I was tugging hard on two interwoven strands, two ribbons glowing with magic. One was gold-red. The other was silver-blue. When I touched the braided ribbons of magic, I felt feedback, a hum, a musical note against my skin. Somehow, I could feel that the gold-red one was Gin and the silver-blue one was Tessa. I followed the ribbons with my mind.
Scenes flashed past almost faster than I could process them. I saw mercenaries taking Gin and Tessa in Purgatory, grabbing them along with the other teenagers. Later, in a dark room, a cloaked mercenary handed my sisters over to a Pioneer leader. I dove into the mind of the Pioneer, fast-forwarding in time to a large, underground room. Flames licked the hearths of twelve fireplaces. The red light flickered and sizzled, casting shadows across the backs of the twelve men who’d convened there, one standing in front of each fireplace.
“Hardwicke’s mercenaries have taken another forty prisoners from towns along the Frontier,” said one of the men. Like all the others, his face was shrouded in darkness.
“Have you sent our demands to the Legion soldiers?” asked another.
“Yes. They will cooperate to save their precious loved ones.”
Laughter spilled out of the darkness where another man stood. “The Legion is not as impervious as it makes itself out to be.”
“I say we strike now.”
“The Legion is weak, ready to be toppled,” agreed another.
The laughing man laughed once more. “The Legion is tearing itself apart from the inside. And thanks to our potion, we can create an army to finish the job. We can take back the Earth from those foreign invaders who call themselves gods.”
As the Pioneers spoke, I relayed everything back to Nero and Damiel.
“Which Legion soldiers have been compromised?” Nero asked me.
“I don’t want to condemn them to death because they have held on to a piece of their humanity.”
“I will restrain them, not kill them, if possible,” Nero promised.
I realized it was the best I was going to get. Nero’s first duty was to protect the Legion of Angels from threats both internal and external. If the Legion fell, so would the Earth. We were the shield that stood between humanity and the monsters.
So as the Pioneers discussed the Legion soldiers they’d blackmailed, I repeated their names to Nero.
The light in the dark room shifted, throwing off the shadows. For the first time, I could make out a face in the crowd. I recognized one of the Pioneer leaders. It was the district lord I’d seen dining at the Silver Platter in Purgatory as his starving servant, chained to the column, looked on.
I walked past the circle of Pioneers, straining my eyes to see their faces. I saw more district lords from Purgatory—all of them, in fact. And the remaining Pioneer leaders consisted solely of district lords from other towns across the Frontier.
The realization hit me with the force of a high-speed train. The Pioneers were the district lords. One by one, they were taking over the poor, neglected towns of the Frontier, and they were doing this all right under our noses as they plotted to destroy the Legion of Angels.
24
Siege
We rode in the back of a Legion truck headed for Purgatory. All roads seemed to lead me back there.
The truck’s wheels rumbled over the bumpy road. The hum of the engine filled the dead silence hanging heavy in the air. Nero sat across from me. His face was serious, devoid of emotion. It was his game face. In preparation for the coming battle, he was putting his mind in the right place to be cold, calculating, and merciless—the perfect angelic trifecta.
Beside me, Bella’s hands lay folded together in her lap, as steady as her pulse was erratic. She was scared for Gin and Tessa. We all were. Our little sisters were being held by a group of psychopaths who’d unleashed monsters on a city of thousands of people, just to swing a punch at the Legion.
“They’ll be all right,” I told Bella, reaching over to squeeze her hand.
She squeezed back.
I looked out the window at the dark curtain of clouds overhead. Fat snowflakes began to drop to the ground like goose down. It was the height of summer, but out here near the plains of monsters, the weather was always so variable, so unpredictable.
“It’s snowing,” I commented.