Page 153 of The Seeker
Ata had warned them. The key to fighting an angel was mental control, not physical. They could never be a match for an archangel. Their only hope was turning his own magic against him.
Bozidar started a low, guttural chant. The magic hit Rhys like a punch to the belly and he doubled over.
Where is she?he whispered in Rhys’s mind.Give her to me, and I will leave you. Give me the memory keeper, and I will leave you in peace.
Rhys threw up. The vomit splashed into a flower bed and turned black, eating at the verdant green plants that had been blooming only minutes before and spreading toward the singer closest to him.
Rhys’s eyes went wide. What was this? What had the angel put in him?
“It’s not real!” Damien yelled.
All around him, singers and scribes were vomiting and crying. Staring at the ground or at their brothers and sisters in horror. The constant assault had stopped and Rhys heard crying in the background.
“He’s making you see things,” Damien yelled again over the sound of Bozidar’s magic. “Wake up!”
Rhys clamped down on the feeling of terror and pushed it to the edges of his mind. He looked down. The vomit was only vomit. The plants weren’t eaten away. The oily black stain was gone.
Rhys felt Meera reaching out, felt her touch the edge of his magic, searching for him. He resisted the connection. What if she felt the angel’s influence in her mind? Everything would fall apart. If she could feel the angel,would the angel feel her?
“Bozidar!”A commanding shout cut through the air. “What dog enters the territory of the Wolf? I am the killer of Nalu, greatest of the archangels.” Ata walked through smoke, the glowing fire of the fields at her back. “Have you come to beg for his scraps?”
The angel stopped chanting and lunged toward Ata. The warrior drew her sword, flipped head over heels, and launched herself at Bozidar’s head.
Rhys searched the smoke, but he saw no sign of Meera. Where was she? Ata’s job was to guard the singers as they built the spell. Only she knew when it would be ready. Only she knew what needed to happen. Now the scarred warrior was flinging herself into battle against an archangel of unspeakable power, and she had no mate to guard her back.
Heaven above.Rhys remembered too late. “She wants to die.”
Meera closed her eyes,ignoring the chaos outside the house, focusing only on the building magic in her breast. She could feel it growing like a black hole inside her. Dark magic. Blood magic. It drilled into her soul like a sickness. Every dreadful thought, every antagonism, every negative energy built and built, rolling over and over like an avalanche thundering down a mountainside.
“When?” Patiala said. “We’re holding him off and shielding her presence, but we can’t wait forever.”
Ata’s right hand, the Koconah Citlal woman, knelt between Sari and Meera, her face and arms covered in Grigori blood. “I was there when Nalu died and Akune was slain. They will know when it is time.”
“Are you sure?”
The woman didn’t say another word, and Patiala pressed her mouth shut and nodded.
“I can feel him,” Sari said. “He’s angry.”
“Damien?”
“Bozidar.” Her eyes were closed and she was in pain. “He’s attacking their minds, creating horrors.”
The little oneswailed at his feet, their eyes gone, nothing left but bloody sockets they covered with tiny, soft hands. “Tatá, tatá!” they sobbed. “Why did you leave us?”
The fear ripped through Damien’s chest.Lies. All lies.But the little hands reached for his ankles and he could feel them, feel their terror and pain. He saw the fingers missing. The stumps where feet had been. They crawled in the mud, and the ground beneath them was pooled in blood.
“Tatá, why did you leave?”
Damien nearly lost himself to rage. The only thing holding him back was the tug of Sari’s magic in his mind and the mating mark over his heart.
Here, her magic whispered.My love, I am here.
“I can’t feel Rhys,”Meera said, tears dripping down her cheeks. “I’m completely blocked.”
Sha ne’ev reshon, what are you doing?
Rhys rocked on the battlefield,holding Meera’s lifeless body in his arms. The cut ran from her breast down to her belly. Blood was everywhere and her eyes stared up at him, lifeless and accusing. Rain poured over them, drenching the ground in her endless blood.
