Nodding at her to hold her position, he began to check the area to see if he could glean anything that might speak to Kallistos’s whereabouts. Nothing but scuff marks in the dust from where the other vampire had dragged the young angel’s body inside. Kallistos had left the same way he’d entered, making no effort to hide his prints. Will he live? he asked, seeing Raphael break the life-giving kiss.
Eyes of unearthly blue locked with his. Yes. And he’ll be whole once more. But he will need care of a kind the mortal world cannot provide.
Dmitri nodded. I’ll organize transport to the Refuge.
No, Dmitri. I must take him myself. The archangel rose, the angel’s limp body in his arms. We’ll leave three days hence, after he has had a chance to regain a little strength.
Elena?
She is my heart. She comes with me.
Dmitri had expected nothing else. I will watch over your city, Sire.
It was as Raphael was leaving that Honor stepped forward. “Wait.”
Walking around to the archangel’s other side as if she hadn’t just halted the most powerful being in the country, she lifted up the young angel’s hand. It was fisted. “He’s hiding something in his palm.”
Raphael glanced at Dmitri. “Force it open.”
Dmitri managed not to break any bones, but he did have to bruise the boy to peel apart his fingers. To reveal the crushed but still recognizable remains of two sugar maple leaves. “Nothing to differentiate them from any other similar leaves,” he said, picking up the remains of the greenery.
Cupping the angel’s hand, Honor leaned closer. “He’s written something on his palm.”
“Eris,” Raphael said, his vision acute. “The word is ‘Eris.’ ”
Dmitri frowned. “Neha’s consort? No one has seen him for centuries.” Even as he spoke, his eyes fell once more on the leaves from the sugar maple tree. “Neha,” he said, an old piece of knowledge jarred loose in his mind, “has no properties in this territory, but Eris had a liking for it before he went into seclusion.” Whether that seclusion had been by choice was debatable, for Dmitri had heard rumors that Neha’s consort had betrayed her with another woman, been punished for it for the past three hundred years.
It wasn’t impossible that Kallistos’s position in Neha’s court had allowed him access to Eris, and, whatever else he had become, Isis’s lover had proven intelligent. More so perhaps than Eris—who had always been Neha’s gleaming ornament of a consort, a beloved plumed bird the archangel had showered with jewels and silks. “Kallistos must be using Eris’s estate as his base.”
“Go,” Raphael said, gathering the hurt angel’s body closer to his own. “Take all the men you need.”
“Sire.” I won’t leave the city vulnerable. There’s still a chance Neha’s hand is behind this. The archangel hated everyone who had helped execute her daughter, Anoushka—Raphael was amongst that number. This may be a trap to draw us away.
I’m more than capable of defending my city, Dmitri.
And she is more than capable of poisoning the air itself if it suits her purpose. I’ll go alone. I’m strong enough to handle Kallistos, even if he has more of his protovampires with him.
Raphael’s blue eyes were relentless. You will take Illium.
I am not blinded by the past. His decisions were rational, coldly so.
Nevertheless. Raphael’s expression changed the barest fraction. I would not lose my second.
Dmitri bowed his head in a slight nod. “Honor,” he said after the archangel walked out with his living cargo, “I’m going to take the chopper to Vermont—”
Stalking to stand face-to-face with him, she pushed at his chest. “If you’re even thinking about leaving me behind, think again.”
He should’ve stood firm, would have had it been any other woman. But Honor . . . she had her hooks so deep into him that it made the old, merciless part of him go motionless, examine the situation—and his sudden vulnerability—with icy focus. To destroy this strange, wonderful something between them, all it would take were a few well-chosen words of utmost cruelty.
Honor was smart, but she was also tender of heart. She didn’t know the depths to which he could go, the wounds he could inflict. He could make her bleed without ever raising a hand. “I am not a good man, Honor,” he said, touching his fingers to her jaw.
Instead of shying, she leaned into the touch. “You’re my man.”
You’re my man.
The echo of Ingrede’s words tangled with Honor’s, but then, his wife had been tender of heart, too. He’d protected that heart with all his strength . . . and he knew that despite the deep weakness she created in him, he would do so once more with Honor. It was a strange thing, to feel such tenderness again, to know he was capable of it. “Come. It’s time to beard the monster in his den.”
Venom was the one who most often piloted the chopper for use by the Seven, but Dmitri knew how to do it—he’d been curious when the machines had been invented. Though he found more pleasure in handling cars, he’d kept up the useful skill. Now, having delayed only long enough to change and gather weapons, he lifted the black machine off the helipad situated not on top of the Tower, but several floors below, on a balcony cut into part of the building.
“Illium?” Honor’s voice came through crystal clear, both of them miked, ears protected against the noise of the blades.
“He’s already on his way.” The blue-winged angel was one of the fastest fliers amongst his kind and would beat them to Vermont. “I’ve been in contact with the Made who live in and around the general region of Eris’s property.”