Page 95 of Archangel’s Lineage

Elena’s eyes glowed when she met his, the power in them as wild and alive as her. “I can hear it singing.” A whisper. “A song inside my head.”

“I hear a hum. Is that what you hear?”

But she shook her head. “No, it’s a delicate melody... but it’s slightly out of tune.” She frowned. “Almost but not quite right.”

“Suyin.”

Elena’s eyes flicked up from the object on her palm. “The last piece. The discordant note. She hasn’t found it yet.”

“Hers has always been the most difficult task. There is no way she can search the vastness of her territory in the time given.”

Elena handed the living piece of their origins back to him. “The music’s stopped. I must have to hold it to hear the song.”

“The hum’s constant for me now, but not intrusive. Like... having a pet purring in the corner.”

They both looked down at the seemingly innocuous object.

“Oh yeah,” Elena muttered, “that’s no blade. And, to reiterate, I never want to meet the Ancestors. Just putting that out into the universe. Meeting their grandson or great-grandson Marduk is more than enough.”

“In that we are in agreement. Come, Elena, I must inform the others,” he said, and they flew upward instead of down to the ground.

Rather than making a call, he sent a simple message using the same system the Cadre used to talk: Found. He’d just finished the task when Elena picked up the object again, and he saw the “metal” begin to pulse with life as it had when he’d taken it.

Archangelic cells.

Just a few.

They shouldn’t have been enough for this, especially when she showed no other sign of archangelic power. But, then, Elena had always been a being unique, an angel-Made. Ambrosia had changed her, and that ambrosia had come from him.

The obsidian-blue of the strange metal reflected in the silver clarity of her eyes as she turned it this way and that in open fascination—only to smile with joy sudden. “The melody just came into tune.”

Suyin made the call a mere three minutes later. “We now have a complete set.” She held up an artifact identical to the one in Elena’s hands; Raphael’s consort stood beside him for this meeting.

The others all held up their own finds, Zanaya looking askance at the glowing metal. “I can hear the hum you mentioned, Raphael. It took until I found mine to start.”

The others confirmed they could hear it, too.

“Perhaps you heard it earlier because Alexander’s and yours were in close proximity at the time?” his mother suggested.

“Perhaps.” He blew out a breath. “We must meet in person again, to triangulate the position of the base into which these subcomponents must be placed.”

“As soon as possible,” Titus added, even his naturally warm expression tight today. “I’ve just had word of a volcanic eruption off the coast of New Zealand.”

“Fuck.” Raphael’s imprecation wasn’t the only one.

“Where do we meet?” Aegaeon said, and for once, he wasn’t blustering. “The base could be anywhere, so we chance being too far from it no matter the location we choose.”

All of them frowned, because he was right.

Elena, who never spoke at Cadre meetings if she could help it, said, “How loud is the hum you hear?”

Suyin was the first to answer. “Subtle. And I only hear that when I’m holding the object.”

“I can hear it when it’s in the room,” Aegaeon said. “No farther.”

The others said much the same, except for Alexander, who could hear it across the desert closest to his home. “But no farther. Perhaps an hour’s flight on the wing.”

That left Caliane. “It is irritating to the nth degree.” His mother scowled. “Akin to a whispering courtier who will not be quiet. No matter if I fly to the mountains or across the ocean, I get no peace.”

---