“Then you agree. She must be kil ed before she wakes and terrorizes the world.”
“No, she must be woken.” Perhaps there remained within him a piece of the child he’d once been, but his decision was that of an archangel—this law could not be defiled, no matter the target. For once done, it could not be taken back. The slope would turn ever more slippery, as al those who Slept became fair game. “If we can rouse her before she is ready, she wil rise weak. It’l give us the advantage as we seek to learn whether or not she is sane.”
Whether or not she would have to die.
Lijuan’s expression remained serene, but a ring of black appeared around her irises, a thick, oily color Raphael had never before glimpsed. Something in it whispered of the reborn, the corpses Lijuan had animated to mute, hungry life. “She escaped al those years ago,” the Archangel of China pointed out, the black ring shifting with an almost living awareness, “because the combined power of the Cadre wasn’t enough to keep her contained.”
“But they did not have you.” Raphael deliberately played to Lijuan’s vanity.
The other archangel’s gaze turned distant. “Yes. Caliane did not evolve as I have.” A smal , satisfied smile. “You wil walk me to the door, Raphael.”
“I am not your pet, Lijuan”—a soft reminder—“and never wil be.”
Lijuan’s hair flew back in that eerie breeze that seemed to affect only her. “Pets are so easily disposable, Raphael. I have something far more permanent in mind for you.” A whisper of power licking around his face. “You could rule the world.”
Al he’d have to do, he thought as he watched her take flight into the blue skies above his city, was give up his soul.
Rain drenched the city again that night, coming down so hard and fast that Elena wrapped her arms around herself as she stood by the flames of the fireplace in Raphael’s private study, staring out at the bleak landscape beyond. “Il ium’s mother arrived safely?”
“Yes. We dine with her tomorrow eve.”
“I figured she’d want to rest tonight.” She shivered as a particularly brutal burst of rain hit the windows, but wasn’t sure it had anything to do with the rainstorm. Her skin had been creeping ever since Raphael told her of his meeting with Lijuan. “Could you fly in this?”
The archangel who stood looking at papers at a solid desk set in the center of the room, his wings sheened with amber light, nodded. “You could do it, too, but only for a short period. Your feathers are designed so as not to become waterlogged, but the pressure of the rain and wind would mean you’d have to push harder with every wingbeat to keep yourself aloft.”
Before, when she’d watched angels taking flight from the high balconies that ringed the Tower, she’d been fil ed with a quiet awe. Not the sickening and worshipful adoration that gripped the angelstruck, but a simple, deep appreciation for their otherworldly beauty and grace. “I never considered the mechanics behind flight until I grew wings.” Wings that gave her a freedom beyond anything so many people would ever know.
The Archangel of New York watched her as she walked to stand beside him in front of the desk, his eyes a crystal ine blue licked with the yel ow orange of the flames in the fireplace. “What is on your mind, Elena?”
“Does vampirism cure paralysis?” Blinded by the entitled idiots she hunted on the job, she’d never been able to figure out why anyone would want to sign up for a hundred years of slavery just to live longer. But Venom’s flip remark about his bal s growing back had gotten the wheels turning enough that she’d done a bit of research at the Academy library. “I know the process heals a lot of other il nesses, but what about spinal damage?”
“It is not an instantaneous process,” Raphael said. “Depending on the severity of the injury, it can take up to five years for the vampirism to advance far enough in the cel s to repair the damage. Not many angels are wil ing to wait that long.”
Elena bit her lower lip.
“You need to get his blood.”
She’d known he wouldn’t say no, but stil ... her heart clenched. “I’l have to steal it. I won’t give him the option unless he qualifies as a Candidate.” Vivek had been hurt quite enough. “Give me a while to figure out how to do it.”
Raphael’s hair caught the firelight as he nodded. “I heard you talking to Sam earlier.”
“He’s a chatterbox.” The kid had a way of getting to her. “He said Jessamy made him write an extra essay because he did something naughty, but he wouldn’t tel me what it was.” It had delighted her to hear him sounding so very much like himself. His memories of the trauma he’d suffered, she’d been told, would resurface slowly, giving him time to adapt.