The wing brothers uttered a battle cry that made Naasir’s eyes gleam wild. When they scattered, Naasir and Andromeda went with them and helped to set the traps in place. Andromeda also had to memorize the exact positions of those traps for when she had to drive winged fighters into them. The time raced by as if it was falling from an open hand, until she looked to the west while in the air, and glimpsed the smudge of a large winged presence on the horizon.
Calling out a warning to the others, Andromeda went to the ground, her borrowed crossbow in hand and her sword hung off her belt. She wasn’t as good with the crossbow as she was with the sword, but so outnumbered by enemy forces, it would be safer and more effective for her to keep her distance if she could.
When Naasir jumped down beside her, she saw a kind of feral joy in him at the prospect of battle, but below that primal emotion was another. “You don’t think we can win without Raphael,” she whispered.
He shook his head, silver strands sliding against one another. “Alexander left these men here not to fight a battle, but so that when the time came for him to rise, he would do so with those he trusted, be able to rest in unhurried quiet as he grew in strength.” He examined her remaining injuries as he spoke. “The Brotherhood’s task was to protect the caves from the curious, not hold them against an enemy archangel and her squadron. They’re brave beyond measure, but they’ll be slaughtered.”
Andromeda didn’t want to think of that future, a future where Tarek lay with blood on his face, his mind and his heart lost to the world. “Do you think Raphael is far?”
“I can’t hear him.” Naasir touched his temple and Andromeda realized he must have the honor of speaking to his sire mind-to-mind. “I can hear the sire from far enough away that I can estimate distances. If I can’t hear him still, then he won’t make it in time.” Grim words. “It’s possible Lijuan spotted him and sent a group of her powerful commanders to slow him down.”
A cold knot in her gut, Andromeda put her hand on Naasir’s cheek. “Whatever happens today, know this: I would have been so proud to be your mate. Nothing would have given me more joy.”
His claws dug into her without cutting as he hauled her close. “Let’s fight, mate.” The wild gleam was back. “Then I’ll find your stupid Grimoire book and we can rut and you can pet me while I’m naked.”
He made her cheeks go red and her mouth laugh at the same time. Giving her one final squeeze, he disappeared up into the trees, while she held position where she was. Everything was quiet now, no lightning, no thunder, no sand spouts. It wasn’t, however, a peaceful silence—no, this silence held too much portentous tension.
Like a wave about to crash.
And then it did, Lijuan’s squadrons swarming over the area, Lijuan in her physical form at the front. She immediately directed her incongruously beautiful black rain onto the village, each shard a piece of living onyx that gleamed with blue, black, and deepest green highlights.
None of the defenders moved.
There were no longer any living beings in the village—even the animals had been spirited away. Let the Archangel of China waste her energy.
All too soon, however, the enemy began to head as one toward the caves, as if Lijuan had realized that was the likeliest possibility. The defenders had to act, keep the squadrons away from Alexander’s place of Sleep. It would’ve been better had they been able to set up more than the odd sniper on the roof of the caves themselves, but as Andromeda and Naasir had discovered, there was little shelter there, barely any places to hide.
The first volley of crossbow shots took down at least ten of Lijuan’s people. When the angels fell, they didn’t rise again, the wing brothers hidden in the trees and on the ground efficient with knives and having no compunction against taking lethal force. Learning from that first surprise volley, the squadron flew higher, out of crossbow range.
Tarek fired the ground-to-air missiles.
It worked to scatter the ordinary angels, killing at least ten more, but Lijuan was an archangel. She sent her rain of jagged black shards down into the trees. Andromeda heard at least two bodies hit the ground near her, wing brothers who had been impacted directly by a blade of black. Even as she ran toward the sounds, the trees began to blacken and crumble around them, as if Lijuan’s death was now so strong it withered the earth, too.
Realizing all their plans would be for naught if Lijuan destroyed the trees, Andromeda rose up in the air just enough to line up the Goddess of Death. Lijuan, in her arrogance, wasn’t expecting such a blunt attack and the shot took her through the wing, sending her into an uncontrolled spiral. She recovered with killing speed. Screaming, she raised her hand as if to rain down the black shards again . . . and the sky erupted with glittering silver lightning that began to hammer her forces to the earth.
Wings crumpled and bones broken, angels began slamming into the trees and the ground at terminal velocity. Andromeda took the chance to run toward the fallen wing brothers. Both were just . . . gone. Ash.
Above, Lijuan turned away from the trees and put up a black shield that held off the lightning, her new flight path a direct route to the caves. She intended to destroy them, Andromeda realized. Even if she attacked only from above, her potent black poison could well seep in and kill Alexander . . . as well as all the noncombatants likely hidden within.
“Rise, Alexander!” Andromeda screamed as she ran out onto open ground from where she could see the caves; she wasn’t sure anyone was listening but couldn’t simply watch in horrified silence as Lijuan murdered an Ancient. “She will poison your home!”