His expression as tentative as she felt, he gave her a lopsided smile. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she said, painfully relieved he wasn’t holding a grudge.
“Why are you two acting like moobs on a first date?” Demarco asked in open confusion. “Did you dump the librarian and the archangel and rub your naughty bits together? Man, it must’ve really sucked eggs if you’re avoiding eye contact.”
“Demarco,” Elena and Ransom growled together.
“And awkward moment over.” Demarco winked, his usual laid-back grin on his face. “Let’s talk angels, crossbows, and bullets.”
They spent the next ten minutes in a discussion of optimal positioning, after which the focus shifted on how the shooters—crossbow wielders and those with specialized anti-angel guns—could do the most damage with the least effort.
Elena’s advice was simple. “Aim for the wings.” It was highly unlikely either weapon could kill immortals of the age and strength as those in Lijuan’s army, but if the Guild team could keep wounding the enemy fighters long enough, the immortals on their side might be able to finish the task.
“We have crossbow users like you who have precision aim,” Demarco countered, his careless charm discarded to reveal hard-eyed intensity. “You can get bolts through the neck. It’ll disable the enemy fighters for longer.”
“It’ll take longer to get off a shot.” Elena thought of the intricate timing that’d be required and shook her head. “We can take out more with the wing hits.”
“Yeah, but the ones with injured wings will rise faster, too.”
They both looked to Ransom. Frowning, the other hunter said, “We have approximately twenty-five precision bowmen. We can embed them with the ones aiming for the wings, so the enemy doesn’t know who to take out and the shooters have time to aim under the cover provided by the others.”
“Works for me.” Demarco glanced at Elena, and when she nodded in agreement, said, “Okay, positions.”
They spent the next few hours making sure all the shooters knew where they were supposed to be once the shit hit the fan. When Ransom and Demarco were satisfied with that aspect of things, Elena rounded up a crew of junior angels and did flyovers so the hunters could practice aiming at a moving, winged target. The gunmen used blanks, the crossbow users blunted bolts.
When they called the exercise to a halt, Elena spent a quarter of an hour discussing possible refinements with Demarco and Ransom, before taking off again, her intent to head to Raphael. He was at a higher elevation, working out something with Illium and Jason that periodically cracked black lightning across the sky.
She’d just swept around to begin the climb when it happened.
The Hudson altered color in a rolling wave. This time it wasn’t the shade of blood, but a deep, vibrant blue electric with a luminous white fire. Angels who’d been nearby hovered above the water, but Elena saw the gulls dive in and out with no ill effects, the shimmering blue glittering on their feathers until it drained off.
“An interesting development,” Raphael said, having dropped down to hover beside her. “Astaad is rumored to have a certain control over the sea—but it may well extend to domination over water in general.”
“Maybe, but those are your colors.” That heartbreaking blue, more pure than any gemstone on this earth, existed only in the eyes of her archangel and the woman who’d given birth to him; never had she seen it in any other circumstance. Until now.
“The day I ascended to the Cadre,” Raphael murmured, “the skies rained such a hue and the waters of the world became my eyes. I did not have you in my heart then; there was no dawnlight.”
Elena glanced at the purity of his profile, the deep red mark on his temple hidden behind glamour. “Could it be a sign? Of further evolution?” She couldn’t help but remember the astonishing beauty of the white fire on his wings that he’d said must’ve been an illusion created by a pulse of power that ignited a glow.
It sounded right . . . except her gut insisted that what she’d seen had been real, that if she’d reached up and touched his primaries at that instant, she’d have caught a flame on her fingertip.
“If this is a sign of evolution,” Raphael said, “it’s not one I can sense, as I sensed my ascension from angel to archangel.” Angling his wings, he swept down to the water.
Elena followed as close as she could get, close enough to see him run his fingers through it. The water, he said, tastes of the same power that attempted to push its way into me.
Get away from it, she ordered, her heart stuttering at the sensory memory of the terrible cold that had come with the bloody rain.
There is no chill beyond that of a winter river today, he said, but flicked off the water and rose to her side.
The color began to retreat at almost the same instant.
“Regardless of what this portends,” he said, expression brutally pragmatic, “we can’t permit it to distract us, not when Lijuan’s winged fleet has been spotted less than two days’ flight from making landfall.” His hand closed over hers. “Omens and signs are worthless when we’re about to go into battle against a flesh-and-blood army.”
Some mysteries, Elena thought, as the masculine heat of him reassured her the water had had no ill effects, would have to remain unsolved. The lives of millions were at stake. Because if Lijuan defeated Raphael in battle, it’d mean the death of the only being in the world with a proven ability to cause the Archangel of China any significant harm. Left unchecked, Elena had no doubt Lijuan would soon turn the planet into a festering graveyard peopled by her reborn.