Archangel's Consort

She fell into the wild blue of his eyes when he lifted his head from his unhidden visual exploration of her skin, her body. “Is that good news or bad?”



“It means she is almost awake.”



23



Elena took one look at the Hummingbird as the angel stepped into the living room on Illium’s arm and stopped breathing.



Michaela was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman who had ever lived, but this woman was . . . radiant. It was the only word Elena could come up with to describe her. Eyes of sparkling champagne, hair of purest black tipped with gold, skin stroked by the sun . . . and wings of a wild, unexpected indigo, each feather bearing streaks of shimmering gold so pale as to be sunlight.



When she smiled, her lashes came down for a second and Elena saw that they were black tipped with gold. “Hello,” the angel said. “They call me the Hummingbird, but you may call me Sharine.”



Elena took the hands Sharine held out, unable to refuse. They were small, delicate, in perfect proportion to the Hummingbird’s bare five feet of height. “I’m Elena.”



“Oh, I know.” A laugh that was pure diamond sparkles glittering in the air. “My baby’s told me all about you.”



Looking up at Illium, she expected to see a playful scowl, but the blue-winged angel watched his mother with a mute sadness that made Elena’s own laughter fade. “Your baby,” she said at last, “is very beautiful.”



“Yes, I have to have a care—the girls will be after him once he grows up a little more.” Her gaze shifted to behind Elena. “Raphael.” Smiling with such love that it made Elena’s heart hurt, the Hummingbird walked into Raphael’s arms. “How’s my other boy? Never my baby, not you. But still my son.”



Elena watched in fascination as Raphael dipped his head and let Sharine straighten first his hair, then his shirt. She’d never seen him bow his head before any other being, male or female, but he treated the Hummingbird with the greatest respect ... and care. Such care that it spoke of handling something broken.



When Elena glanced at Illium again, she couldn’t stand what she saw on that face that was a dream of beauty. Closing the distance between them, she curled her hand around one muscled arm—as in the Refuge, his upper body was bare. Except tonight, his chest bore a painting of a huge bird in flight. “That’s stunning.” It didn’t take more than a cursory study to realize the bird was a stylized version of Illium.



“My mother,” he said, his voice more solemn than she’d ever heard it, “is the one who taught Aodhan to draw, to sculpt. To act as her canvas is considered a great honor among angelkind.”



As Elena watched, Sharine put her hand on Raphael’s chest, smoothing out a nonexistent wrinkle. “We have not met for many days,” she said. “Five or six at least.”



Elena frowned. She knew Raphael hadn’t had physical contact with the Hummingbird for over a year, and yet Sharine’s words held nothing of humor, nothing that said she was gently chiding him for the time that had passed. Suddenly her earlier words, calling Illium her “baby,” cast a far more somber shadow.



“Yes,” Raphael said with a slow smile. “I knew you would come see me before the seventh.”



Sharine laughed then, and it felt like warm raindrops against Elena’s skin.



“She’s . . .”



“I know.” Illium’s muscles tightened under her hold. “Ellie . . .”



“Hush.” She leaned into him, allowing her wing to brush over his. “She loves you, loves Raphael. That’s what matters.”



“Yes.” Smiling at his mother when the Hummingbird turned and held out a hand, he went to help her get seated.



The dinner was magical. Elena had heard Raphael use his voice in that way—until it felt like a tactile caress, but Sharine had honed it into an art form. Listening to her was like being surrounded by a thousand streamers of sensation, all of them sparkling with brilliance.



And the stories she told—of Raphael’s and Illium’s youth, such wonderful stories of bravery and folly, all told with a mother’s pride in her sons. Sharine had not borne Raphael, Elena thought as she stood on their private balcony later that night, watching the Hummingbird take flight with Illium by her side, but she had cared for him just the same. “She reminds me of some gorgeous hothouse flower.”



“One that’s been crumpled,” Raphael said, his hands on her shoulders as he pulled her back against his chest, one arm sliding around to hold her pressed to him. “For the rest, you must ask Illium.”



Placing her hand over his forearm, she shook her head. “I can’t. Not when I see how much it hurts him.” She’d believed she knew the greatest tragedy of the blue-winged angel’s life. He’d loved a mortal, lost her to angelic law and her human life span. But the pain she’d seen tonight, it was older, deeper ... raw and aged and angry. “How long is she staying in the city?”



“She will leave within the hour—she finds it difficult to linger far from home.”



As they stood there in silence, there was a spark of fire in the sky. Then another, and another.



The stars were falling.



There was no magic the next day. Even the spring sunshine promised by a stunning dawn was subsumed by bone-chilling horror as the calm broke in the most decisive of ways.



Flying down, then up toward the bottom of Manhattan Bridge, Elena hooked her fingers in the massive metal structure and stared at the five bodies that hung from its belly. They’d been spotted at daybreak by one of the craft that used this section of the East River—the witness was apparently still puking his guts out.



Elena swallowed her own gorge as the bodies swung from the ropes.



Swinging so gently. One foot bare, one clad in a shiny highheeled shoe.



“No shadows,” she said, fighting the nightmare. “There are no shadows.” It was too early in the day, and for that mercy, she could only be grateful. “One, two, three.” Her fingers refused to release their grip.



Another river-borne wind. The bodies swayed.



Her stomach bucked, bile burning the back of her throat.



“Hey, you see anything useful?” Santiago’s distinctive voice came from the wireless device tucked over her ear.



“No,” she said, forcing the word out through gritted teeth. “Let me get closer.” And do my job. She would not let the past steal her future from her.



Taking a deep breath, she let go of the bridge finger by finger, then dropped low enough that she could spiral over the water before beating her way to a closer position. As she rose up over the choppy waves, she kept her eyes resolutely on the spot underneath the bridge where she intended to hook her arms in an effort to brace herself. “This would be easier if I was human,” she muttered.



“Yeah?”



She jerked, having forgotten Santiago could hear everything. “Harness would be useful,” she said. “Impossible to get wings into one though.”



“We’ll have to get a special set made for you.”



Nothing in his tone said he was joking.



“Thanks.” For accepting her wings in as straightforward a fashion as he’d accept a new coat.



There.



Grabbing the metal in a secure grip, she held on with one arm as she hooked her leg over the beam. Only when she was in a stable position did she look down at the rope, thick and brown, where it had been tied to the beam. Her eyes skimmed forward—each of the five bodies hung from the bridge the same way, the ropes the same length.



“Someone took their time.” It wasn’t the broken necks alone that had killed them—most vampires over a decade old could survive that unless the break was close to decapitation, and hunter instincts whispered that these men were all over fifty, though not by too much. No, it was the fact that it looked like their hearts had been removed, too, their shirts plastered to their fronts by stains that could’ve come from only one thing. At this age, the dual shock would’ve been enough even without total separation of the head from the body.



“Had to be fucking what’s-his-name? The guy in the red and blue suit with the spider thing.”



“Not a movie buff, Santiago?”



“I’m a man. I watch football and hockey as I should.”



Even as she responded to his dry humor, Elena thought of the vampires she’d seen skittering over walls with the strength and speed of arachnids, and knew the answer had to be both more prosaic than a comic-book superhero—and possibly more terrifying, if the hint of scent Elena could taste in the air was to be believed.



Lush. Sensual. Exotic. Whispers of a rain-dark forest, a hidden glade.



Keeping her wings tight to her back in an effort to avoid the rusted metal all around, she shifted along her perch until she was directly above the first vampire. It wasn’t so bad from that position, she realized, because she’d never been on the mezzanine when her mother had chosen to—



Slamming the door shut on that memory, she took a deep, steady breath, drawing in the scents. Salt, the sea, it was a constant, so she took that out of the equation straight away. She also put aside the puzzlingly pristine fragrance of Caliane’s signature black orchids.



Sweetgrass, cut on a summer’s day.



It was one of the most delicate scents she’d ever sensed on a vampire, and it belonged to the one who hung on this rope. Which meant the killer’s scent was either much more faint or not present. Knowing she had to get closer to the victim, she twisted, managing to drop down into a hanging position with both arms hooked over the metal beam for support, her wings spread wide for balance.



The body was only inches away ... but too far down.



Gritting her teeth, she shifted her hold until she was gripping the metal with her fingers. Still not close enough. “There’s nothing I can do here,” she said at last, frustration gnawing at her temper. “I’ll have to do the final scent track when the bodies are—Fuck!”



“Elena! Talk to me!”



Heart thudding triple-time, she reached out and managed to just graze the vampire’s forehead with her fingertips. Plasticky, frigid from the air. Except... “Oh God.” She’d definitely seen it this time—the flicker of an eyelid, as if he was struggling to raise it. “He’s alive! Get Rescue down here now!”



“Shit! I’m on it.”



Santiago was efficient but she knew it would take time. If this vampire—Jesus, maybe all the vamps—were in any way conscious, then what they were suffering right now had to be torture. Dropping and sweeping out from under the bridge, she rose into the air, twisting her head in every direction.



“Looking for someone, Ellie?”



Startled, she fell several feet before getting her momentum under control. Illium came to hover beside her when she rose back up and caught the edge of the bridge once again, holding herself in place so she could talk to him. “At least one of them is alive. Can you get them down?” He was the single angel she knew who might have a hope of maneuvering in the cramped conditions.



He held out a hand. “Dagger.”