Archangel’s Enigma (Guild Hunter #8)(53)
Author: Nalini Singh

“Titus,” Neha said, her hair swept off her face into a soft bun at her nape, and her body clad in a sari of gold-shot green silk. “What is the emergency?”

When the archangel who controlled the southern half of the African continent began to speak, his voice wasn’t the tempered quiet he usually used in meetings. It was a booming bass that vibrated with raw anger. “One of my scouts has long been a friend of Jariel and was invited to his home for a stay. He arrived to find Jariel’s people massacred, and Jariel’s head placed in the center of the entranceway, a pile of ash the only evidence of what may have happened to his body.”

Onyx eyes glittering and muscles bulging under the jet of his skin, Titus slammed down a glass jar. It cracked to spill black ash over the wooden surface on which the Archangel of Southern Africa had slammed it. “We all know ordinary fire does not create a neat pile of ash in a defined area. It also does not destroy the brain while leaving the rest of the head untouched.”

A stunned silence.

Archangel?

Jariel was believed to be on the cusp of becoming an archangel, Raphael told his consort. Perhaps in the next two decades.

“You’re certain?” Astaad asked Titus, his black goatee neat against the sunless white of his skin. “We must be certain.”

Titus’s nostrils flared. “My man will send images, but I am dead certain. From the condition of the other remains, it was done at least a week ago, more likely ten days.”

Not long before Andromeda’s abduction, Elena said, her mind clearly walking the same path as his. Coincidence?

I don’t believe in such a lethal coincidence.

Someone sucked in a breath as the images Titus had promised began to scroll across their screens. Jariel’s decaying head looked at them with sightless eyes filmed over with white. Images of the rest of his home showed dead vampiric retainers and broken angels with crumpled wings. All killed in ways that were final even for those seen as immortal by the humans.

It was Michaela who said it, the piercing green of her eyes focused on the ash. “There is only one way to confirm.”

Titus silently scooped up the black ash and held it close to the camera on his end. Ash created by a fire, and ash created by an archangelic ability might appear identical to the naked eye, but look closely enough at the latter and sparks of power lingered within it for up to a month afterward.

“So.” Neha’s voice was a blade, the Archangel of India’s view on the massacre unmistakable. “It was one of the Cadre.”

They were the only beings on the planet who could incinerate with that much power. It didn’t even necessarily require angelfire, not if the archangel was close to the target—a simple discharge of concentrated archangelic power would equal the same end.

“Why?” Astaad shook his head, clearly deeply disturbed. “He wasn’t Cadre yet, had no say in our politics.”

Raphael thought again of the scholar’s abduction and of Lijuan’s plans for Alexander. “Perhaps someone decided to get rid of a competitor before he reached maturity,” he said, careful not to give away too much—alliances were fluid things and someone in this meeting could well have formed one with Lijuan.

“If that’s the case,” Neha said in a silky whisper that dripped venom, “you had better watch your Bluebell to make sure his head remains attached to his body.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” he said in a bland tone that betrayed nothing.

Elijah stirred, stroking his hand over a small puma—perhaps a cub—who’d just climbed up to settle on his desk. “Only one of us is capable of such a heinous act.”

“You speak too soon, Elijah,” Favashi said in her soft, steely tone. “Any one of us could be taking advantage of Lijuan’s notoriety to make a power play.” She locked gazes with Michaela, who only smiled coldly. “Any one of us.”

They spoke for another ten minutes without coming to a consensus on the identity of the perpetrator. They did however make the decision to warn seven other angels who were the most powerful in the world once you took the Cadre out of the equation. Illium wasn’t on that list . . . but he should’ve been. Despite Neha’s acerbic comment, the others hadn’t yet realized the intensity of the spike in his power levels.

Switching off the connection after spending an extra few minutes in conversation with his mother, Raphael turned to Elena. She walked over to join him, the near-white of her hair pulled back into a ponytail and a blade moving through her fingers as she stared at the image he’d frozen on the screens—that of the spark-filled black ash in Titus’s hand.