Fire arced over their heads as they flew into the city, the archers who’d taken up position on the rooftops having found the weapons ready and waiting for them in Tower-branded steel boxes that had been positioned at key points throughout the city. The first wave of flaming arrows had no hope of reaching Lijuan’s army.

The arrows were a warning . . . and a distraction.

Elena looked over his shoulder. “It’s coming up,” she murmured. “None of our vessels caught out as far as I can see. Dmitri must’ve hit the alert as soon as he spotted the disruption.”

“Good.” He did not want his own people trapped outside with the enemy when the fuel line they’d lain in the ocean went up in flame. That fuel line curved around all the oceanic routes to Manhattan—because it was always to Manhattan that Lijuan would return should she decide to declare war against Raphael.

Manhattan held his Tower. The symbol of his rule.

Destroy it and she struck a savage blow to his people’s hearts.

At present, the fuel line was nothing but innocuous buoys of faded blue bobbing on the water. The entire line had been held firmly anchored to the ocean and river floors until Dmitri hit the switches to release them. It was the Legion who’d laid the line—it turned out that creatures who Slept in the deep for thousands of years didn’t actually need to breathe.

Strands of Elena’s hair kissed the side of his face. “How long do we wait?”

“Until her army is right over the fuel line.” Because some of the enemy angels would be flying low—and the fireline was set to ignite in furious vertical blasts. An old technique from wars fought before Raphael was born.

“I hate the idea of crisping angels, but I know these ones want to kill and enslave us.” Elena’s eyes were resolute when they met his, silver bleeding into gray. “No mercy. Anyone with her has seen her true face, seen her murder and consume thousands, and still they choose to follow her.”

“Should you falter, hbeebti, remember the lost children.”

Cheekbones sharp against her skin, she said, “Let’s kick her psychopathic ass.”

He landed on the deserted Tower roof. Raphael’s people would only retreat inward when there was no hope of holding the line—but, regardless, multiple steel boxes sat near the edges of the roof. Each was filled with short-range missiles, bows and arrows, crossbows and such other weapons as could be used with line-of-sight targeting.

The two of them made their way to the redesigned war room from where Dmitri ran battle operations. Where before the war room had been separate from the aerie, the two were now integrated. The entire floor was a single space with toughened mirrored glass on all sides, giving his second a three hundred and sixty degree view of the city.

To ensure Dmitri didn’t need to walk around the floor to get that view, in the center of the space hovered a screen that curved fully around in a single piece. Dmitri could step below the screen, pull it down so it was at his eyeline, and see everything in a single rotation, zooming in and out as necessary.

Small apertures built into the glass walls could be opened at will to fire weapons directly from the war room. The space also boasted a large flat table to the left, on which Dmitri could run battle tactics as he preferred, as well as a full electronic hub to the right that would switch automatically to generators should the Tower’s main power supply be cut.

“I called Lady Caliane,” Dmitri said as they entered.

“Good.” His mother would’ve already alerted the rest of the Cadre to head to New York.

But Dmitri shook his head, his expression as black as the tailored shirt he wore with the sleeves folded back. “There’s a major problem in India.” Walking them to the electronic hub, he pointed to a screen streaming images that had Raphael frowning, for what he saw wasn’t a problem but a gift.

“The children.” Hope lilted through Elena’s voice. “Are they running across the bor—” Her voice broke off with a jagged edge at the same instant Raphael realized the sickening truth.

“Raphael, those children have fangs.” Rigid spine, a white face.

51

Raphael knew his hunter could handle her rage. Today, he needed to look after someone else first. Dmitri, you do not need to watch this.

I’m dealing with it. A steady voice, though his second’s expression was stone. My Misha is safe from this hell and I like to think he got a second chance at life—as I did. But I would appreciate it if you kill the bitch stone-dead so she doesn’t do this to any other child ever again.

It is a promise, my friend. Raphael squeezed Dmitri’s shoulder before looking back at the ugliness on the screen. “These children aren’t simply vampires—they’ve been changed in a way akin to the reborn.” Eyes reddened and flesh holding a greenish tinge that spoke of putrefaction, their locomotion a rapid crablike skitter, these innocents were already dead, reanimated only by Lijuan’s power.

Elena’s hand clenched around a knife blade. “Are they infectious?”

“Looks like it.” Dmitri’s voice held pure calm; Raphael’s second had shut away his violent anger so he could function.

Raphael reached for Honor’s mind. I apologize for the intrusion. He was not in the habit of making such contact with the wife of his closest friend. Dmitri needs you. Come to the war room.

Honor didn’t have the ability to respond to him, but Raphael knew she would soon be here. Honor loved Dmitri as intensely as Ingrede once had. Ingrede had known a content mortal husband and father. Honor knew a deadly vampire with scars on his soul. Dmitri loved them both and always would.

“An entire group got through in the first wave,” Dmitri was saying to Elena. “The fighters on duty froze.”

“Like I did the last time, with the cruise ship passenger.” Elena’s voice was rough, her neck held stiffly. “Lijuan counted on people’s abhorrence of harming children.”

Closing his hand over her nape, Raphael massaged it gently. “How bad is it?” Children were never to be turned into vampires, much less such abominations as Lijuan had created. Each and every angel in the world would consider it their personal shame that such an atrocity had been committed.

“There are thousands of them—Lijuan must’ve had them lying silent and unmoving in the forests near the border, or in the basements of houses.” Dmitri brought up another set of moving images that showed the children attacking vampiric ground troops and spitting up at angelic fighters who came too close.

None of the adults were doing anything but defending themselves.

“You are right—they spread disease.” The spitting, the way the children attempted to claw anyone nearby, it was designed not to kill but to infect.

“That’s from the initial invasion.” Dmitri’s attention shifted to over Raphael’s shoulder, the ice of his calm cracking with a flex of his hand.

Not asking any questions, Honor went straight to her husband and wrapped her arms around him with ferocious tightness. Dmitri held her back as hard, his head bent so his cheek pressed to hers for a long, taut second.

Elena glanced up at Raphael, a painful comprehension in her eyes. Dmitri intimated once that he’d been a father.

He was beloved by his children. Little Misha had pelted down the pathway anytime he caught sight of his papa.

Swallowing hard, Elena said nothing further, honoring Raphael’s loyalty to his friend.

In front of them, Dmitri and Honor separated—but Dmitri kept Honor’s hand in his as he brought up another set of images. “This is the current feed.”

Yellow and orange licked across the screen.

Neha’s angelic squadrons were setting the border aflame. Several of the toughened warriors were crying. To execute a child even when that child had been made monstrous was no easy thing. Neha, too, was in the thick of battle, her face smudged with streaks of soot and sweat plastering her hair to her temples as she used her Cascade-born ability to create fire to speed up their efforts.

No tear tracks marked her face, but the Archangel of India was attempting to drive the children back into Lijuan’s territory rather than ending their existence. Even the knowledge that those tiny bodies were rotting flesh held together by infection wasn’t enough to stifle the primal rejection of killing a child.

A buzz, Dmitri glancing at his phone. “Rhys just confirmed Lady Caliane is assisting Neha.”

Raphael’s gut clenched. My mother’s revulsion against harming a child ever again is so strong she’ll let them eat her alive before raising a hand to help herself.

She understands the stakes. Elena shifted so that the side of her body brushed his. We have to trust her not to surrender to her nightmares.

Not certain his mother’s mental state was strong enough, Raphael said, “Lijuan’s eliminated both Neha and my mother from the fight.” Neither could leave India lest it be overrun by the infected. Lijuan surely had more reborn hiding close by. The stronger adults would be the second wave, after the children traumatized and weakened the border guard.

“She’s taken out Alexander and Michaela, too,” said another familiar voice.

Raphael glanced over to the sharp-featured man with a muscular upper body who’d come up beside Dmitri in a manual wheelchair. Vivek Kapur passed across a sheet of paper, the dark brown of his skin shining with health. “Dispatch from the border with Persia. Reborn children pouring out there, too. Lijuan doesn’t seem to have targeted the border with Michaela, but she’s gone to assist Alexander.”

“With their territories connected by land, she has no other choice.” Should they fail to stop the scourge in Alexander’s land, the infected would crawl unchecked across a vast geographic area. “Elijah?”

“No adverse reports at this point,” Dmitri said. “No reports at all from the rest of the Cadre, but it hasn’t been long since I fired off my message.”

A whisper of black on the edge of Raphael’s vision. “Jason,” he said. “What have you heard?”