Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
“Should we fly down?”
“Yes, we must.”
They soon stood beside the creek that looked like a snake that curved and flowed, its scales gleaming in the sunlight. But the water itself was normal, and when Raphael tested it he felt no shock of power. Neither did Elena.
“Pass me the phone—I’ll take a video,” Elena said.
They took off the instant she was finished. They couldn’t allow this small anomaly to keep them from heading to the city. Except . . . the anomaly followed them. Iridescent scales appeared in every body of water they passed, a stunning and languorous river of inhuman color.
Then they reached the Hudson.
“It’s beautiful,” Elena said begrudgingly. “Weird but beautiful.” The colors were astonishing, jewellike in their clarity. “You said the waters changed on your ascension. Plus I know stuff happens when archangels wake, too.”
Raphael’s face was no longer as grim as it had been. “This doesn’t feel like an ascension—it is too slow. Ascensions are hard, fast, as you saw with Suyin. But yes, it’s possible that an archangel is waking.” A sudden, unexpected smile. “I don’t know these signs, so it may be another old one. It’s the one weirdness that would be a good thing right now.”
Elena was in firm agreement. Even an old blowhard like Aegaeon would be welcome. “Let’s ask Caliane if she knows who it is.”
“I am seeing the same phenomenon in my territory,” Caliane said when they called her from the Tower; with her hair pulled back, her face was stark in its perfection of bone structure. “The colors are astonishing but I know not to whom they belong. I would remember if I had ever previously seen such a display—it’s too striking to forget.”
“Time for a meeting of the Cadre?”
“Yes, let us see what the others are experiencing.”
The answer was . . . nothing.
Elena, who’d slipped out of shot to stand against the wall, frowned. How was that possible? Every single other awakening had caused signs throughout the world. Several of the Cadre even sent their people out to overfly waterways. Each squadron came back with reports of “all systems normal.”
“So it is only mother and son who experience this.” Aegaeon folded his arms, his lip curled.
Elijah stepped in even as Aegaeon was parting his lips to deliver his next shot. “Perhaps it has to do with your Legion, Raphael. Your mark is sparking with light again.”
Elena’s eyes snapped back to the mark. Elijah was right; the stylized dragon had once again come to life. Not with the intensity she’d seen in the forest, but it was far brighter than it had been at any other time since the Legion sacrificed themselves.
“Perhaps,” Raphael acknowledged. “We will monitor the situation.”
However, in the days that passed, they saw no sign of the otherworldly beings who’d become such an integral part of the city. Their building, a haven of plants next to the Tower that Elena cared for in their absence, appeared as it always did, no odd growth patterns or hues.
Right now, it was clothed in bright spring green with splashes of color from eager new blooms. Her favorites were the short purple freesias that raced to the front of the line every single year.
But while the Legion building carried on as usual, the Hudson and other waterways continued to change into rivers of iridescent scales without warning, and the region experienced another shake that did only minor damage and caused no deaths. Other than that, life kept on as normal.
Except, of course, nothing was normal.
In other parts of the world, two more volcanoes had erupted, causing mass casualties, while a third was showing all the signs of an impending eruption. Angels and archangels had responded to assist as fast as possible, but even an archangel couldn’t stop a geothermal event. All they could do was fly survivors out and help in the heartbreaking aftermath. Elena had seen more angels cry over the past couple of weeks than she ever had in her lifetime.
People were scared.
That included angelkind. Because the Refuge continued to suffer severe quake after severe quake, until only half its structures were habitable—and the poisonous pools of boiling water had spread, swallowing up bridges and eating away at literal stone.
Angelic children had now been underground for two and a half weeks.
“It’s begun to have a psychological effect on the little ones,” Jessamy said to Elena during one of their regular conversations.
Purplish shadows sat under the burnt sienna hue of the other woman’s eyes, her naturally thin face now inching dangerously close to unhealthy. “They’re meant for air and sky, not for caverns below the earth. The Refuge is too quiet without them, and everyone in a bad temper for the lack. Galen growled at me today and slammed a bowl of oatmeal on my desk, wouldn’t leave until I ate it.”