Archangel’s Ascension (The Guild Hunter Series)

Illium hadn’t minded talking to the shopkeepers who’d been determined to share what little they had out of their respect and liking for both Giulia and Marco, but he exhaled as they landed in front of a small apartment building only a fifteen-minute walk from the shop. “The idea of facing a mother who’s lost her child…” His entire self throbbed as if bruised from the inside.

Aodhan squeezed his shoulder. “Unless she finds it difficult to talk to me, I can do most of the talking here.”

“You sure?”

Aodhan nodded. “Your heart is too soft, Blue. I’ve grown a carapace.”

The words wounded Illium—because Aodhan had been the more softhearted of them growing up, the gentle boy with an artist’s soul. It would’ve been easy to mourn who his friend had been—but that wouldn’t only be an insult to all that Aodhan had become, it would mean that Illium didn’t adore this version of his childhood friend.

They were all pieces of Aodhan.

Today, he just accepted Adi’s offer, and they walked into the building one after the other. Per the details Navarro had shared with Dmitri, Giulia Corvino had moved from her eleventh-floor apartment to a ground-floor residence in this building six weeks before the war.

Her home was just to the left off the main entrance.

When she opened the door, it was with no surprise in her expression, her features drawn. “Gino called me,” she said in greeting, her simple dress as dark as her pain, the cardigan she wore over it so oversize that it could’ve fit Illium. “I’ve made coffee.”

A sudden frown, a glimpse of her mobile features when she wasn’t being suffocated by the weighted blanket of grief. “Oh dear, I’m not sure your wings will fit through this door.”

“It’s doable,” Aodhan said. “Awkward, but doable.”

Moving back from the door, Giulia did them the courtesy of going into her living room instead of watching them enter. Because it was more than awkward, and required the cautious bending of their wings. Bending that could lead to a break if they weren’t careful.

Aodhan went first.

Entry into the living area is much easier, he told Illium from up ahead, as Illium navigated the door. It’s through an arch.

Such arches had gone out of fashion in mortal homes a few decades ago, but they were far more angel-friendly than doors. However, given that the majority of mortals never interacted with angelkind on that level, they didn’t build for wings.

Finally inside, he shook out his wings to ease up the cramping, then shut the door behind himself before walking into the living area. To find himself facing a sideboard on which were arranged multiple frames featuring photos of the same boy.

A chubby toddler gripping the edge of a sofa.

A smiling boy of four or five with his hands on the straps of a daypack, his face painted like a lion’s.

Taller now, sitting in between a younger Giulia and a bearded man who had the boy’s face with more maturity to it.

Photos of what looked like a beach vacation, Marco and his father running into the surf, followed by one of the boy holding a sports trophy, then in a graduation gown beside a beaming Giulia, other celebrating graduates in the background. Still later, an image of the boy become a man—long face, handsome bone structure, thick black hair, eyes the hue of bitter chocolate. He was flashing his fangs in a wicked grin, his hands clawed in an imitation of a vampire out of a mortal horror movie.

“He was always smiling.” Giulia straightened a frame that didn’t need to be straightened. “I told him the fang photo was silly when he gave it to me, but oh, it made me laugh. He hugged me until I admitted how much I loved it.”

Her lips trembled in a shaky smile as she ran her fingers over the glass of the frame. “I know some parents don’t like their kids becoming vampires, but all I could think was that our child would live forever now. His father died so young, and I was always scared I’d lose Marco, too. Then he became a vampire. Safe, I thought.”

“He should have been,” Aodhan said bluntly. “For centuries, even millennia.”

Giulia blinked rapidly before rubbing her eyes with the crumpled tissue in her hand. She, at least, had no trouble facing or talking to Aodhan. It helped that he was inside, with no sunlight on him—but Illium thought it was mostly because Giulia’s grief and anger had numbed her to any other emotion.

“No mother should have to bury her child.” Her voice was a rasp. “But I had to not only bury my child, but go to the funeral of the lovely sprite of a woman he intended to ask to be his wife.” She swallowed. “Tani—that’s what everyone called her—wasn’t interested in being a vampire, was too attuned to the seasons of the world to want to alter her place in it. He knew she’d die while he lived on…but she was the one for him.”

A long breath shuddered through lungs that couldn’t bear the pressure. “At least he was young enough to sire children, he told me. He’d have a piece of his love in their children and their children’s children long after she was gone from this world.

“I think, if he’d met her before he was Made, he would’ve never applied. He was a lively boy, but his sadness over the idea of losing her one day…he was distraught when my husband died.” She ran her hand over the cardigan, playing with a button. “Marco understood grief in a way I never wanted for my boy. I could see he was already bracing himself for Tani’s loss.”

Walking away from the photos after another harsh inhale, Giulia took a seat on the sofa. “I should’ve asked you to sit. I’m sorry. Please.”

None of her furniture was suitable for angelic wings, so Illium perched on the arm of an armchair, while Aodhan chose to do the same on the sofa opposing Giulia’s. “Wings,” he said gently when she looked from one to the other.

“Oh,” she said. “I never thought.” A lopsided smile. “Never thought to have two of the Seven in my living room. Marco would’ve asked me for every detail, would’ve told his friends—and they’re not bums, like I’m sure Gino told you.” An exasperated shake of the head. “One’s in grad school and the other just got out of a young marriage and is putting his life back together. Gino has some old-fashioned ideas, but he’s got a good heart.”

She rubbed at her eyes again, but it was as if she’d cried so much, her body had nothing left to give. “When I began to make noise about Marco and Tani’s deaths, I didn’t expect anyone to pay attention, much less two of the archangel’s closest angels.” A penetrating look this time, one with a serrated edge to it. “Is it because the archangel knows something?”

Aodhan shook his head. “Raphael would never protect anyone who harmed a young vampire. Quite apart from it being a matter of honor, it’s a matter of maintaining vampiric discipline in the city.” He decided to be blunt with Giulia because she seemed the kind of woman who’d appreciate plain talking.

“Vampires who believe they can be killed with impunity before they’ve even completed their term of service will no longer be willing to behave. No city wants to have bloodlust-ridden young vampires wreaking havoc. Yes, angelkind can control them, but the damage to the ecosystem of the city would be significant—not to mention the time cost to the Tower and the Guild.”

The dark veil of Giulia’s grief seemed to retreat under a crisp understanding. “Yes, yes, that makes sense to me. You don’t want an angel to go around breaking the rules any more than you do the vampires.”noveldrama

“You see why it’s important we end this here, for practical reasons. But for me, this is personal. I want justice for these two innocent lives.”

Giulia was silent for a long time, her eyes locked with Aodhan’s, as if searching for the truth of him. “Tell me what I can do to help,” she said at last.

“Navarro informed the Tower that he returned all of Marco’s belongings to you.”

“Yes.” Giulia’s nod was jerky. “He has been very kind—when I first went to plead with his people, and they told me he was injured, I thought he was brushing me off. I tried to investigate on my own, but I didn’t even know where to start.”

She twisted the tissue in her hand. “Then one day, the phone rings and it’s Navarro. I only found out later that he was still healing when he called me, that he’d taken a near-killing blow in the war. I could tell he didn’t believe me, but he said he’d pass on my concerns to the Tower’s investigative team. That you’re here tells me he kept his word.”

“Navarro told you no lies,” Aodhan confirmed. “He took it straight to Dmitri, who handed the file to a fire investigator for a first look, then to us after the investigator determined it likely to be arson.”

Giulia’s exhale was jagged.

“Do you have the items the unwanted suitor gifted Marco?” Illium asked. “Small or big. A letter, a card, an actual physical item, all of it will be useful.”

“I couldn’t go through the boxes,” Giulia whispered. “I just couldn’t bear it. It felt like truly accepting he was gone. Any packages she left for him on my balcony, I handed to him without opening, so I don’t even know what was in them.” Rising, she motioned them to follow. “It’s all in here.”

They managed to get through the narrow entrance opposite the arch and down a short hall to a room at the back, which had a window, a bed, and a spotlessly clean carpet. An empty vase sat on the windowsill, while someone had strung fairy lights around the top of the ceiling.

“This is my guest room.” Her arms around her thin frame, her hug so tight it was as if she was trying to hold herself together. “I could’ve shifted to a one-bedroom when I moved out of our old apartment, especially with Marco living at his angel’s residence, but I wanted him to know he could always come home. So I got the two-bedroom, and after moving me in, he put up his lights again. Wherever I lived, he used to stay at least one day a month with me, on his days off from his duties.

“Later, he brought Tani with him, and she was such a sweet girl, she’d refuse to spend the night one out of every two times. ‘This is Mama and Marco time,’ she’d say.” Giulia’s voice hitched. “I loved her, too, was looking forward to having her as my daughter-in-law, to babysitting the grandbabies they planned to give me.”

A trembling laugh. “I was even looking forward to the unusual names I was sure she’d give them, ready to have a little Leaf or Sunshine running around. She was so innocent, Tani. I don’t mean she didn’t see reality. She did. But she also saw wonder in the everyday world, made it feel new and beautiful.”

Like Kaia, Aodhan found himself saying to Illium, because Illium’s mortal lover was a part of his history, not to be swept under the rug or willfully forgotten. I might not have been her biggest fan, but I did appreciate her ability to find delight in the smallest wildflower, or in the perfect blue of a cloudless sky.

I’m glad she had the life she did, Illium responded, an affection in his voice that was akin to what you might feel toward a distant but good friend. Full of children and grandchildren. I couldn’t bear to think about that for a long time, but now I look back and I’m happy that the girl I loved once lived a life awash in love, including grandchildren who adored her for her sense of wonder. Tanika deserved the same chance.

“Is it possible that Tanika was the main target?” Aodhan asked aloud. “We don’t wish to fall into the error of assumptions that blind us.”

“The only enemy she had was the woman obsessed with Marco.” Giulia’s skin flushed, her neck stiff with anger. “Otherwise, she was just a sweet normal girl who loved her parents, loved Marco, and had a job she enjoyed at a fashion boutique.”

Aodhan made a note to double-check that view with Tanika’s intimates, because there were countless things a woman wouldn’t have shared with her future mother-in-law. But given the location of the murders, that Marco was the fulcrum and the reason remained the strongest possibility.

“Those are Marco’s things.” She pointed to a stack of four neatly taped boxes.

“That’s all?” Illium asked.

Giulia’s smile was faint. “He wasn’t much of a collector of things. Not even at the age when most kids collect rocks or toys or special cards. He was content with just one—but it’d be one that was unique or sentimental. With clothes, he stuck to black. ‘It all matches and looks amazing,’ he’d say when I scolded him over it.

“He got even worse after his Making. Said he’d seen a couple of overstuffed houses when he visited older vampires who’d become mentors to him, and while he respected them as people, he had no intention of spending eternity the same way.”

She shook her head. “I told him he was in danger of living in a monk’s cell, but he laughed and hugged me off my feet and said never, because he’d always have the colorful blanket I made for him, and the photos of the people he loved, and the fairy lights he liked to string up wherever he slept. ‘I don’t need much more than that, Mama.’ ” Tears choked her voice on that final sentence.

Aodhan, despite his complex emotions when it came to touch, felt compelled to take her hand. It was soft, worn with years of life in a way the hands of immortals never became. She clenched her fingers around his, and in the delicate warmth of her, he sensed her mortality like a flicker at the corner of his vision.

How do you bear it, Blue? he asked, not for the first time. These mortal lives are so fragile.

Illium’s eyes met his, a tender empathy in the gold. The day I distance myself from mortals is the day I lose a piece of that thing mortals call a soul. I don’t want to live in a walled city, my heart protected from bruises…and from the wonder of knowing extraordinary people who exist only for a single moment in time.

Love overwhelmed Aodhan in a storm surge.

Illium’s courage and grit were legendary, but this? This was an altogether different kind of valor.

He curled his fingers around Giulia’s, careful of his strength…and suddenly aware that touching her had caused no subconscious recoil inside him, no flinch. He didn’t know if it was because he was healing on a level deeper than he understood, or if it was because of Giulia. Her love for her son, her refusal to just accept his death, her willingness to go to Marco’s dangerously powerful angel himself for answers—they all showcased a spirit as extraordinary as Illium’s.

“I won’t rest until I find out who did this to your son and his beloved,” he promised her. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes—I’m immortal. I will find an answer for you.”

“I believe you,” Giulia whispered. “And I’m glad Marco and his Tani have you in their corner.”

“May we take these boxes with us? It’ll be easier to examine them in a larger space. We’ll bring it all back, I give you my word.”

“Yes. But if you find anything that obsessed murderess gave him that he kept for some reason, then get rid of it after you use it to find her. I don’t want it polluting the rest of Marco’s belongings.”

Aodhan inclined his head in a small nod before releasing her hand.

Given the space constraints in the apartment, he and Illium decided it’d be too difficult for them to maneuver both their wings and the boxes out at the same time, so they told Giulia they were calling friends to assist, then stepped outside her apartment to wait close to the main doors. She came with them…and squinted as the weak sunlight that poured through the doors hit Aodhan, transforming him into dazzling white fire.

Before he could apologize, she gave him a smile incandescent in its joy. “Marco’d be so proud of me right now,” she said. “Standing here with the angel who always flies so high that mortals hardly get a glimpse of him. Hold on while I go get a pair of sunglasses.”

Aodhan looked after her as she vanished back into the apartment. “She is extraordinary.”

Illium, who stood across from him, the open doorway between them, smiled. “I think, Adi, you’re about to make another mortal friend.”

The thought was terrifying for all the pain it would one day entail…but no less beautiful for it.