Angel’s Blood (Guild Hunter #1)(73)
Author: Nalini Singh

"Don’t thank me. Just keep Ellie safe from whatever monster you’ve let loose."

Yes, Uram was a monster. With a monster’s strength. Raphael’s heart suddenly sped to a killing beat, though the air was still, the winds silent. "Give Dmitri the details." Handing back the phone, he took off from the balcony. His wing ached but he pushed onward, attempting to contact Illium as he flew.

A dull silence was his only answer-not the blankness of death, but something close. He got a little more when he tried Elena. Pain and nausea and anger.

He arrowed a thought toward Dmitri. Forget the bodies for now. Find Elena.

I’m contacting my men.

Jason. The black-winged angel was a master at coordinating the wings of angels under Raphael’s command. Locate Illium. He’s down.

I’m on my way. I’ll brief the wings en route.

Raphael flew harder, cursing his own stupidity. Uram didn’t need to rest to heal, not when he could hasten the process through blood. Another advantage of the bloodborn, another thing that made them feel as if they’d made the right choice. At this point, Uram would believe himself sane-he’d begun to think, to make decisions, but his personality was warped on the deepest level, his brain swimming in the toxin.

The worst thing, Raphael thought as he pushed himself to reach Elena, was that such devolution didn’t happen overnight. Uram’s servants had to have known but, unlike Raphael’s powerful Seven, the other archangel had kept no one strong nearby. No one but Michaela. Raphael’s mouth twisted-he was sure the woman who’d once been called the Queen of Constantinople had helped her lover evade the protocols set in place to prevent exactly this type of thing. Perhaps she’d wanted Uram dead, but more likely, she’d wanted to see what would happen, ascertain if the rest of the Cadre was lying to her.

He reached the part of Manhattan directly across from Castle Point, the spot where Elena had last checked in. "I have a good feeling about this," she’d said. "The scent’s been diffused by the moisture in the air, but I’m going to keep circling until I hit a stronger concentration."

"I’ll send more angels your way."

"No, don’t pull them off the grid searches yet. This could be a trick. I’ll get Illium to contact you if I think I have a bead on him."

Elena had obviously been far closer to the Angel of Blood than she’d believed.

As he flew over the area, looking for her car, his eyes-sharp, like a raptor’s-found Illium instead. The angel’s blue wings stood out even as he lay half-submerged beneath a pier. Diving, Raphael ignored the onlookers who’d begun to gather on the pier as well as the rescue boat powering Illium’s way. Several humans had actually jumped in and were helping to keep Illium’s face out of the water, though they’d been unable to lift him given the weight of his waterlogged wings. They scattered at Raphael’s approach.

Scooping the unconscious angel out of the water, he rose to the sound of camera shutters and cries of wonder mixed with sorrow. Illium had become well-known in the city since his arrival from duties at the Refuge, his blue wings distinctive, his personality infectious. They thought him dead, forgetting that he was immortal.

Uram could have killed Illium, but he’d chosen the faster option and disabled, clearing the way to his real target. Illium, wake. Raphael held position high above the cloud layer, Illium’s shattered body cradled in his arms. The other angel’s wings were torn, his bones broken from the high-velocity impact with the water. Bruises and cuts marked his skin where he’d probably hit something in the river. He’d lost an eye.

It would all heal. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt. But his flamboyance aside, Illium was a soldier, a fighter. Which was why Raphael didn’t let him rest. Rather, he focused his mental abilities and slapped the angel awake from within his very mind. Illium came to with a gasp. But no scream.

A single perfect eye opened. "Bastard was waiting in the clouds," he whispered, not wasting time with unnecessary apologies. "Glamour. Ellie . . ." He shuddered, fighting his body’s need to go into a healing sleep. "I think she saw me go down. C-c-close. He looked healed . . . but was weak." The last word was almost soundless as his body literally kicked him into the deep comalike state from which no one and nothing would be able to wake him for at least a week.

Though he was far younger than Raphael, he might just be old enough to enter anshara itself. It would allow him to heal much quicker, dampening the agony and rebuilding his body before he woke. Otherwise, once the coma broke, he’d be in as much pain as any other being. With so many broken bones, it would be excruciating.

Raphael knew that too well. His mother’s last words to him had been said as he lay bleeding on the ground, his wings shredded so badly he’d had no chance to slow his descent. He’d hit the earth at a velocity that would’ve torn a mortal to pieces. His body hadn’t survived too well either. He’d lost pieces. Young as he’d been, it had taken years for everything to fully re-form. Those in anshara healed exponentially faster. But there was no magic cure.

Not unless you were a bloodborn angel bloated with toxin.

Jason’s black wings appeared through the clouds. He held out his arms, face drawn. "I’ll take him."

Raphael handed over Illium’s body. "The rest of the wing?"

"I told them to search for the hunter."

"Get Illium to a healer." He dove back down to the pier, pulling glamour around himself before he came into view. What Illium had fought to tell him was very important. If Uram hadn’t healed on all levels, then he wouldn’t have been able to fly far with Elena’s body weighing him down.

Live, Elena, he said, willing her to fight, to break out of the darkness that cloaked her mind in a suffocating prison. Live. I have not given you permission to die.

Nothing. Silence. Such silence as he’d never before known.

Live, Elena. A warrior does not lie down for the enemy. Live!

Chapter 37

"Be quiet," Elena murmured, pulled out of blissful sleep by an arrogant voice that insisted she get up. "I wanna sleep."

"You dare give me orders, mortal?" Ice-cold water splashed across her face, snapping her awake to a nightmare.

At first, she couldn’t quite assimilate what it was that she was seeing. Her mind simply refused to put the pieces together. And there were so many pieces. Torn, distorted, impossible pieces. Her stomach twisted, the nausea from the head injury she’d sustained when Uram smashed her face into the dash, merging with the horror of the here and now.

She fought it, refusing to reward the monster with her terror. But it was hard. They’d all been wrong-Sara, Ransom, even Raphael. Uram hadn’t taken fifteen victims. He’d taken others, people who wouldn’t be missed. Rotting limbs, a gleaming rib cage, evidence of his vicious madness littered the room. A room without light, without air. A cell. A crypt. A-