Guild Hunter 03 - Archangel's Consort

puzzle.
    Raphael.
    Placing his palm on the stone that should’ve been cold but instead held a lingering warmth, he dropped his shields a fraction. Mother.
    There was no answer, but he knew . . . “She is awake.” It was too late to kill her while she lay weak and vulnerable.
    Could you have done such a thing, Raphael?
    Her voice, that beautiful, haunting voice, it penetrated to his very bones, stripped him bare. I am an archangel.
    Yes. Such pride in that single word, a wonder of words unsaid. You are the son of two archangels.
    He spread his fingers over the stone. Are you sane, Mother?
    Laughter in his mind, painful in its familiarity. Is any immortal ever truly sane?
    The temple shuddered again, but this time, it was different, dust and rock raining down from the ceiling. Raphael felt the touch of death an instant before he sensed the power of another archangel. “Lijuan is here.”
    “Wait!” Elena grabbed his arm when he would’ve turned, headed out. “I can taste your mother’s scent in the air—exotic and rich and sensual. Black orchids.”
    “I must go, Elena.”
    “But it’s leavened with a strange, unexpected note of sunflowers.” Her fingers clenched on his arm. “There were no sunflowers on the body of the tortured girl, on the bridge, on the vampires who went mad in Boston. The scent was too pure, too much the essence. Do you see? ”
    Thank you, Guild Hunter. He was already moving, Elena and Illium running across the temple floor behind him.
    They exited out into the streets of Amanat to see the Archangel of China in physical form, throwing arrows of power at the temple building. Each bolt was black. There was nothing inherently evil in black—all of Jason’s abilities manifested in that midnight shade—but Lijuan’s power was riddled through with a rotten core that made Raphael recoil.
    Rising to face her in the air above the temple, he blocked one of her shots with the vivid blue that was the manifestation of his own power. “I did not ask for your assistance, Lijuan.”
    Her hair whipped off her face. “She cannot rise, Raphael. You must not let your emotions blind you to the truth of her madness.”
    He knew Lijuan spoke the truth—to a point. Blocking another arrow of power, one that slammed him back several feet through the air, he gathered angelfire in his palms. It might no longer do her mortal harm, but with her in her physical form, a direct hit would still cause significant damage. “The question of her insanity remains unanswered.”
    “She took the young one,” Lijuan said, her hair electric with black strands that Raphael realized were streamers of pure dark energy. “And your consort looks injured. Those are not acts of sanity.”
    Perhaps not, Raphael thought, but most archangels walked a fine line between sanity and insanity. “Any one of us may have done the same.” He spoke not to defend Caliane, but to oppose Lijuan—and because his mother, while she had acted with the cold arrogance of power, had done nothing as yet to speak of madness. Lijuan on the other hand ...
    “What of the people she murdered around the world? The ones hanging from the bridge in your city?” A hail of black rain designed to gouge and kill.
    He swept out of the way, throwing back a volley of angelfire that she swamped in black. “Those acts did not bear her touch, Lijuan. They bore yours.” It was a guess. The murders and torture could well have been orchestrated by Neha, but Lijuan was the one with the most to lose if Caliane rose.
    A pause in the rain of black fire. Then a soft, girlish laugh. “You always were clever.”
    He attacked her with angelfire while she was distracted. Lijuan raised a wall of black flame to block him, her power incomprehensible. And her voice, when it came next, was nothing the least bit human. “Good-bye, Raphael.”
    There was no way to avoid it. The bolts came from everywhere.
    He heard Elena scream as he took a direct hit to the chest. It was not angelfire, for Lijuan had never had that ability, but that didn’t matter. Bloated with her toxic power, it was a killing blow, even for an archangel. The blackness invaded his blood, spread through his cells until he could see his veins turn black under his skin, feel the crawling of it across his irises.
    “I am sorry, Raphael.” Lijuan’s voice. “I always did like you. But you would protect her.”
    He tried to speak to Elena, to tell her that she would be safe. Even after his death, his