23

Damiel’s interests and ours were aligned as far as he needed us to help him find his wife Cadence. Locating her had been his mission, his purpose in life, since the two angels had been separated two centuries ago.

And he knew Nero and I were his best bet. Damiel’s magic alone was not strong enough to track Cadence. Even his bond to her couldn’t break through to the Guardians’ realm, but Nero had a bond to her as well. Born in blood, strengthened by magic, the bond of mother and son was a powerful one. Since becoming an archangel, Nero’s magic had only grown. If I became an angel, together these intersecting bonds that linked us all together would work in unison, the magic of each feeding off the others, building and culminating. Then we might just be powerful enough to break through the Guardians’ magic barrier to find Cadence and Zane.

If Damiel wanted us to help him, he’d have to behave himself, and he knew it. We could trust him—at least as much as we could trust any angel.

So the next day, we went to meet with the legendary Damiel Dragonsire. Nero had asked him to come to Chicago, but he hadn’t said why. To do so would have been a violation of the angel code of conduct, subsection ‘Power Plays’.

Breaking that code completely, I’d invited Bella and Calli to the meeting, and Harker too. I didn’t question Harker’s loyalty, not after all he’d done for Bella. He was already keeping the secret of her origin; I knew he’d keep Tessa’s and Gin’s secrets as well.

Besides, we would need all the help we could get if we were going to keep my little sisters safe—both from the Pioneers and from the Legion of Angels itself. The Legion was not above turning people into weapons. In fact, it did exactly that each and every day.

We met with Damiel in an apartment building in the city. The angel was staying in the penthouse suite, of course. The elevator doors slid apart, and we stepped into a very extravagant, very modern open living room decked out in marble and gold. Floor-to-ceiling windows with a gorgeous panorama view of the whole city lay beyond the massive leather sofa. At least twenty people could have sat there and still had elbow room to spare.

“Subtle,” I commented.

Damiel came out into the kitchen, smiling. He was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of artfully torn jeans. His hair was slightly disheveled in a stylish, purposeful manner. It made him look casual, approachable, like someone you could trust.

“I’m glad it pleases you,” he said with a bow.

He continued to smile, waiting, his eyes twinkling with private delight. I had the sinking suspicion that he knew exactly what we were going to say. Maybe he did. He was telepathic after all. I’d been blocking my thoughts, but I wasn’t sure if Bella and Calli could do the same. Zane had always been too polite to read our thoughts without permission, but most angels possessed no such moral scruples.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of the recent tragedy that has befallen the Legion in Memphis,” I said.

“Yes. The Pioneers have been restless lately, their random acts of terror growing bolder each week. I told Nyx she should have had me hunt them down months ago.” Damiel looked at me, his bright blue eyes reflective. “Your sisters are among the Pioneer’s prisoners who are still missing.”

He really did know everything that was going on at the Legion. I suppose it wasn’t surprising considering he used to be the head of the Interrogators.

“You think this has something to do with your sisters’ special magic,” Damiel continued. “You think the Pioneers took them for the same reason the warlords hunted them all those years ago, when your foster mother Callista found them.”

Calli folded her arms across her chest, giving Damiel the sort of look that, when I was younger, had prompted me to make myself scarce. Except Damiel was a several-hundred-year-old angel. He didn’t scare easily. He just countered her look with an amused one of his own.

“You’re reading our minds.” Calli didn’t look happy about it.

Damiel continued to smile. “Not this time. I’ve been watching the supernatural underworld for some time. I have focused especially on looking for sources of powerful magic.”

To help him in his quest to find Cadence.

“I first heard whispers of two very special girls many years ago, when the warlords of the Jaded Jungle were fighting over them,” said Damiel.

“What do you know of their powers?” I asked him.

“That they are supposed to be unlike anything in this world.”

“So we’ve heard. But what does that mean?”

“Your sisters come from other realms.”

Just like I’d thought.

“What kind of magic do they possess?” I asked.

He shook his head. “The rumors weren’t that specific. After the warlords lost them, no one ever heard another thing about them. They just disappeared, as though they’d never existed. No one could find your sisters. Until now.”

“Could you identify their magic if you saw it?”

He gave me a smug look.

Of course he could identify their magic. Sorry I’d ever doubted his supreme archangel majesty.

“Can you help us find my sisters?” I asked.

“Perhaps. Tracking is tricky magic, you see. There are so many people on Earth, so many streams of magic. It’s all very busy, very crowded.”

“But it’s not a problem for a legendary Tracker like you.”

Damiel chuckled. “Nero told you about that, did he?”

Nero had told me that Damiel was the best Tracker there was. He was the best Tracker and the best Interrogator. He could hunt down anyone the Legion wanted to find and extract any information out of them.

That’s how he’d managed to stay hidden for so long. It’s how he’d staged his apparent death and covered his tracks. He’d put on a very convincing show, right in front of Nero’s eyes. Sooner or later, all archangels developed special powers above and beyond the Legion’s usual magic spectrum. Damiel’s unique combination of magic, his skills as a Tracker and an Interrogator, had allowed him to maintain the charade that he was dead for centuries.

“Nero is always so eager to boast about his old man,” he said with a warm smile.

Nero gave him a flat look. “Yes, all the time. To anyone and everyone who will listen.” His tone was as dry as sandpaper.

I almost laughed.

Damiel did laugh, and it was a good-natured one at that. He patted Nero hard on the back, then looked at me. “I can help you find your sisters. I can’t promise it won’t hurt, however.”

“Whatever it takes,” I said to him. “I don’t bruise easily.”

Damiel laughed again, and this time it was me that he slapped on the back. Maybe I’d spoke too soon because his friendly slap had bruised me down to the bone.

“Leda,” Damiel said, motioning for me to give him my hand.

I did. Then Damiel looked at Nero, holding out his other hand. Nero set his hand in his father’s.

“Now you two link hands,” Damiel instructed us.

The moment we all linked, a shock of power surged through me, up and down my arms, like I’d just grabbed a lightning bolt. As the magic burned through me, crumbling my defenses to ash, my heart raced so hard that I thought it might explode. Blotches danced in front of my eyes. My vision was going dark. Blackness swallowed me.

Hold on, Leda, Nero said in my mind, his voice a tether in the darkness. It will get better.

The pain will go away? I asked hopefully.

No, the pain never goes away. You just get used to it.

I choked out a laugh.

Lying to you won’t make it hurt less, Nero said sensibly.

That’s one of the things I loved about Nero. I could always count on him not to bullshit me.

Like you would tolerate anyone bullshitting you.

I laughed again. Gods, I loved him. And he was right. I was getting used to the pain. The pounding, excruciating, mind-splitting agony was dulling into a distant but persistent thump. My vision was improving too. I could see Nero now. We stood side-by-side, two bright spots inside a sea of blackness.

“Excellent,” Damiel’s voice penetrated the darkness. “Now if you two lovebirds are finished playing footsie beneath the abyss, let’s get started.” He faded into sight, a third bright spot in the deep black sea. “I’m using my blood connection to Nero, who is connected to you, Leda, through your bond. And you are connected to Calli and Bella and to your little sisters. You’re the focal point, Leda, the prism through which all our magic connects.”

So that’s why it hurt so much. The magic of two archangels was tearing through me like a river of raging rapids.

“A web of magic is stronger than a single strand,” Damiel said. “We will use it to locate your sisters. Your link to your sisters will boost my and Nero’s telepathic range.”

It was the same trick Nero and I planned to use to find my brother and his mother once I had gained the power of Ghost’s Whisper.

“Your brother and Cadence are no longer on Earth,” Damiel said, picking up on my thoughts. “It requires a lot more magic to breach dimensions and cross worlds. Your sisters are, however, on Earth.”

“Yes. I can feel them,” I said excitedly, a familiar feeling washing over me. I could sense Gin and Tessa. They felt so close, like I could reach out and touch them.

“Keep calm,” Damiel told me. “Don’t pull too hard on your connection to them. Too much tension will make the strands of the link snap.”

I glanced down and realized I was tugging hard on two interwoven strands, two ribbons glowing with magic. One was gold-red. The other was silver-blue. When I touched the braided ribbons of magic, I felt feedback, a hum, a musical note against my skin. Somehow, I could feel that the gold-red one was Gin and the silver-blue one was Tessa. I followed the ribbons with my mind.

Scenes flashed past almost faster than I could process them. I saw mercenaries taking Gin and Tessa in Purgatory, grabbing them along with the other teenagers. Later, in a dark room, a cloaked mercenary handed my sisters over to a Pioneer leader. I dove into the mind of the Pioneer, fast-forwarding in time to a large, underground room. Flames licked the hearths of twelve fireplaces. The red light flickered and sizzled, casting shadows across the backs of the twelve men who’d convened there, one standing in front of each fireplace.

“Hardwicke’s mercenaries have taken another forty prisoners from towns along the Frontier,” said one of the men. Like all the others, his face was shrouded in darkness.

“Have you sent our demands to the Legion soldiers?” asked another.

“Yes. They will cooperate to save their precious loved ones.”

Laughter spilled out of the darkness where another man stood. “The Legion is not as impervious as it makes itself out to be.”

“I say we strike now.”

“The Legion is weak, ready to be toppled,” agreed another.

The laughing man laughed once more. “The Legion is tearing itself apart from the inside. And thanks to our potion, we can create an army to finish the job. We can take back the Earth from those foreign invaders who call themselves gods.”

As the Pioneers spoke, I relayed everything back to Nero and Damiel.

“Which Legion soldiers have been compromised?” Nero asked me.

“I don’t want to condemn them to death because they have held on to a piece of their humanity.”

“I will restrain them, not kill them, if possible,” Nero promised.

I realized it was the best I was going to get. Nero’s first duty was to protect the Legion of Angels from threats both internal and external. If the Legion fell, so would the Earth. We were the shield that stood between humanity and the monsters.

So as the Pioneers discussed the Legion soldiers they’d blackmailed, I repeated their names to Nero.

The light in the dark room shifted, throwing off the shadows. For the first time, I could make out a face in the crowd. I recognized one of the Pioneer leaders. It was the district lord I’d seen dining at the Silver Platter in Purgatory as his starving servant, chained to the column, looked on.

I walked past the circle of Pioneers, straining my eyes to see their faces. I saw more district lords from Purgatory—all of them, in fact. And the remaining Pioneer leaders consisted solely of district lords from other towns across the Frontier.

The realization hit me with the force of a high-speed train. The Pioneers were the district lords. One by one, they were taking over the poor, neglected towns of the Frontier, and they were doing this all right under our noses as they plotted to destroy the Legion of Angels.