Page 68 of Archangel’s Lineage

Dmitri had put that siren in place during the rebuild after the war. It could pulse out multiple patterns of sound. This one was the simplest—and everyone in the city knew what it meant, and that it was serious. No hesitation, no questions, run! That was the order drummed into the entire populace.

Tower inhabitants had different instructions.

Snapping out of her heartbreak, Elena blew her archangel a kiss, then fell—to land on the balcony outside the technological control center. Her assigned task during an evacuation was to clear the techs. Raphael, meanwhile, would be on the roof by now, on standby to fly out anyone who was stuck.

She found Vivek alone inside. He was shutting down systems at rapid speed, while shunting everything to a remote mirror of the center they had in another skyscraper in the city that most people thought was just an apartment building favored by angels. The secondary control station had been Vivek’s idea, and after the war and all else the city had survived, it was smart thinking.

“I’m going, I’m going!” he yelled when she ran in. “There, done!” In his wheelchair today, he wheeled himself out while she ran ahead and input an emergency code into a panel beside the elevator.

It came up smoothly. This was part of the plan, too, that code the only one that would work during an emergency override. Non-flyers in the upper floors would’ve been flown out by now. Those on lower floors would be racing down the emergency stairs; anyone left behind or who couldn’t get out was to go to a balcony or make a call for rescue.

Even Vivek had agreed to angelic assistance if the elevators were deemed a risk.

“Go, Ellie! Get out!” he called the second his wheels cleared the entry to the elevator.

She ran as the elevator doors were closing, fighting her instinctive urge to search for others who might need help. Dmitri had been blunt about how that would be the worst possible thing to do.

“If it works as designed,” he’d said, that hard, dark-eyed face set in “don’t fuck this up” lines, “and everyone does their job, no one will be left behind. That’s why we have multiple contingencies built in. Anyone who goes back in breaks the system.”

Tech floor clear! she reported to Raphael as her feet slammed onto the balcony. I’m out! She rode the winds away from the Tower at high speed.

Raphael’s mind hit all of them a minute later: Stage 1 complete.

“Wow,” she said to Aodhan, who’d just landed beside her on her assigned building, the intense white light of the sky dancing off him in a brilliance that was painful if looked at directly; he was a violent glow even in her peripheral vision. “I never expected it to go that smoothly. Guess Bluebell was right—Dmitri is the Dark Overlord of Planning.”

“Yes, Dmitri is the best of us at operations.”

“Illium on his way to the Enclave?” She knew the blue-winged angel had been in charge of clearing the infirmary with the wings under his command.

“He and his team completed their task in under a minute.” Pride was a quiet underscore to the words. “Picked up the patients in their beds and flew. They’re crossing the Hudson, will be at the Enclave shortly.”

All wings not assigned to specific tasks would land on rooftops within sight line of the Tower, ready to assist.

Raphael would join her once he completed stage two of the plan: he was the final contingency, the one person who could survive being blown up. He’d use his mind to search for anyone trapped, unconscious, or otherwise injured who couldn’t call for help, then go in to get those people.

Elena didn’t particularly like the idea of her archangel being blown up, even if she knew he would—eventually—come back. He’d still suffer impossible pain and horror. But a bare thirty seconds after his voice had hit her mind, she saw the sunlight glitter off the distinctive white-gold of his wings as he took off from the Tower roof.

Evacuation complete.

A cheer went up around them, but it was muted. Because the reason for the evacuation was obvious now—the scales had crawled up the Legion building until it was all but engulfed.

When she turned to look at the Hudson, she saw sprays of water that drove several meters into the air and hoped the infirmary team was clear. Beside her, Aodhan opened his wings and took off without a word. None were needed. She’d known why he was standing next to her—because she was Raphael’s consort, and if this were a war, she’d be a high-value target.

His job was to help her protect herself while Raphael couldn’t.

The sky remained a searing white that hurt the eyes, and even as she felt the gust of wind that was her archangel landing next to her, the heavens opened up, though there wasn’t a single cloud in that white sky, and rain began to hit them in a hard burst... only it wasn’t rain.

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Elena stared at her hands, then looked at Raphael’s hair, his wings.

“Raphael, is this...”

“I’ll kill them,” he gritted out, doing something with his power that blasted the iridescent angel dust off him and her. Then he created a bubble of power that meant they wouldn’t be recoated in the stuff. “Whoever it is, however old they are, I will strangle them with my bare hands.”

Elena’s lips twitched. She couldn’t help it.

Hbeebti, do not think I didn’t see that.

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