Chapter 14
"We have a stop to make before we set off on the hunt," Nyx told Nero and Damiel. "We're meeting up with two additional angels: Colonel Fireswift and Colonel Dragonblood. Fireswift and Dragonblood will join us on the hunt."
I didn't know Colonel Dragonblood. He was the angel who was supposed to have run my Crystal Falls training, but at that exact moment, his wife had gotten the Fever, so Nyx had sent Nero instead.
I did know Colonel Fireswift, however. And as fun as it sometimes was to annoy him with my crazy ways, I wasn't sad to see him leave. I could only spend so much time with Fireswift before his personality really started to grate on me. And then I got edgy.
Nyx, Nero, and Damiel spread their angel wings and flew off, leaving me and Cadence with Stash—and a really big Legion airship.
"One sec," I told them. "I just need to gather up my family."
Bella and Zane were all healed up. The problem was with the rest of my family. Calli, Gin, and Tessa didn't go willingly onto the airship, at least not without protest. So I told them that my worrying about them, my concern that someone was going to kill them, was causing me distress and that was hurting the baby. After that, they all caved and came with me, even Calli.
Yeah, it was a dirty move, but I'd do what I must to keep my family safe.
We all boarded the heavily guarded and armored airship. On the way in, I spotted my friends from Heaven's Army.
Octavian and Arabelle were waiting at the door.
Arabelle was the team's only female soldier, but I'd never gotten the impression that this bothered her. She was good at what she did, though occasionally irreverent. That was one of the things I really liked about her, that she was a god but she didn't take that fact very seriously.
Octavian, the tall and slender soldier next to Arabelle, was as reckless as the gods came. He wore black armor that resembled a suit—and he wore his fire-red hair in a long, skinny ponytail. His words were usually seasoned with a healthy dose of sarcasm.
He winked at me as I stepped aboard. "Hey, Pandora. Looks like we're on angel babysitting duty again."
"We promise to keep you out of trouble," Arabelle said.
Octavian tapped the hilt of his knife. "If that's even possible."
The other godly soldiers were waiting in the hall. Devlin, the team's straight-laced leader. Theon, the quiet and reflective god, who enjoyed soap operas and caramel-flavored ice cream. The big and bulky twins Punch and Patch, identical right down to the tattoos inked into their dark skin.
Devlin gave me a professional nod. Punch and Patch flashed me two sets of bright, shiny teeth. And Theon…well, Theon looked at me like I might explode—and take him with me. I could understand his caution. I did kind of blow him up the last time we'd worked together, but in my defense, it was a total accident.
The gods I'd met in Heaven's Army were so unlike the seven gods who sat on the ruling council. They were so down-to-earth, so normal, so fun.
I liked Stash best of all, of course. He was my cousin, after all, and I'd known him back when we'd all thought he was just another werewolf, Stash included. I'd been little more than a fresh Legion recruit when we'd met at a fairy bar, where he'd earned his money armwrestling for dollars and tending bar. Now he was a demigod in Heaven's Army, and I was an angel. My, how much things had changed in only two years.
I glanced back as Harker stepped aboard, Bella by his side. The rest of my family followed. As Harker showed them to their cabins, I continued down the corridor. I'd spotted another old acquaintance.
"Nice to see you again, Dominic."
The airship pilot was an old friend of Nero's. I wondered how he'd come to be here.
"Pleased to see you too again, Leda Pandora," Dominic said pleasantly. "Lot's changed since we last met. Heard about the bun in your oven. Good to hear it was Nero who put it there."
Dominic was hardly subtle, but what could you expect from a man who slicked back his hair with grease and wore a leather jacket made of orange monster hide—and had the matching boots to go along with it?
I tried really hard not to laugh. Because that would have been totally inappropriate. "How did you come to be here, Dominic?"
"I've been doing contract work for the Legion, flying your airships. Nero set me up with the gig. Pay's good. Get to meet all kinds of interesting people and angels. And…" He glanced at Devlin and his team. "…gods too. Well, just came down to greet you, Leda. I'd better get back to piloting. This ship won't fly itself, but it'll crash itself into a building real quick if I'm not at the helm." Then he dashed up a staircase.
And I kept walking with Cadence, following Stash.
Nerissa was the next familiar face I spotted. "Leda, good, you're here."
"Nyx ordered me to come aboard. So where else would I be?"
"Where else indeed! Just two days ago, you disappeared to run off to some monster-infested city. And you ignored my calls. And everyone else's calls. The First Angel was quite agitated."
"How could you tell Nyx was agitated?" I wondered. "She's always so calm and collected."
"And she was. Mostly. But her hair was doing that underwater flowing thing that it does, and it was floating in a distinctly agitated manner."
"So Nyx's hair follows her moods just like mine does," I noted for future reference.
"Her hair is a tad more subtle than your hair, Leda."
"That isn't hard." My hair changed colors quicker than a mood ring.
"So these gentlemen…" Nerissa cast a furtive glance down the hall, where Patch and Punch were standing. "…have helped me set up medical facilities on board. So I will be able to monitor the progress of your pregnancy." She looked at Cadence. "The progress of both your pregnancies. Congratulations, Colonel Lightbringer."
Cadence nodded in appreciation of Nerissa's words.
"Wait a minute," I said. "You've set up medical facilities on board? Just how long does Nyx intend to keep me on this ship?"
"I didn't ask, but I figure it's not as long as forever."
"Very funny," I told Nerissa sourly. But I didn't dwell on that. I'd just had an idea. "Nerissa, how complete are these medical facilities?"
"Very complete. Don't worry. I have everything I could possibly need to ensure you have a safe pregnancy and birth."
"Are the facilities sufficient for you to conduct research?"
"Of course." A suspicious crinkle formed between her eyes. "Why?"
"Oh, don't worry. It's nothing crazy. I just want you to do some research on finding a way to increase the survival rate of the Legion's initiates."
Nerissa let out a weak laugh. "You don't ask for much, do you? The Legion has been around for centuries, Leda. Don't you think that our doctors would have found some way to improve the survival rate of our initiates if that were even remotely possible?"
"No, I don't think so," I told her. "Because I'm willing to bet the Legion never looked into it. Being part of the Legion was always thought of as something holy, like you were chosen by the gods or something. So all those initiates' deaths were just dismissed as people who were unworthy."
Nerissa frowned. "You might have a point."
"Of course I do. And my point is I think the Legion needs to stop being so full of itself. I think lots of people could contribute, lots of people could thrive with just a little extra help. It's time to dispense with the whole level-up-or-die mentality that has always defined the Legion. The angels think it makes us all strong, but in fact, it makes us weak. Our numbers are falling. Roughly half of our initiates die before they can even become a soldier. Many more soldiers die along the way. There are people out there, wanting to help us, wanting to protect their world. But many of them never get to serve. They die before they've even held a sword. We must find a way to give them their best chance. We have failed them for far too long."
"So, basically, you are going for a complete and total upheaval of the Legion," Nerissa said.
"Basically, yes."
"The other angels won't like it," she warned me.
"Let me worry about the other angels. You worry about saving lives."
Nerissa nodded. She set her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "You're a good person, Leda."
I waved her away, smiling. "All right now. Don't go getting sappy on me."
Nerissa snorted, then she turned and walked away.
"Leda, this way." Stash extended his arm, showing me the way. "We're almost there."
We passed more armed Legion soldiers in each and every hall. The other godly soldiers had repositioned themselves to cover more of the ship too. I caught a glimpse of Devlin patrolling the corridor Nerissa had taken. And I saw Theon standing guard outside a dining cabin. Cadence and I kept walking. Stash stayed by our side.
He led us into a large room. If I could have picked one thing it most resembled, I'd have said a library. There were bookcases on every wall that wasn't a window. But there were also plants growing everywhere. And birds chirping. Ok, it was a garden library.
"It's beautiful," I commented to Cadence.
"Yes," she agreed. "It truly is."
There were lounge chairs and sofas positioned throughout the room, intermixed with the plants. Cadence took one long look out of the large window that covered one side of the room, then she sat down on a cozy sofa.
"Hey, Angel!"
My very large cat was resting on another sofa. She came out of her catnap just long enough to glance at me, then she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
"Nyx made sure my cat came along," I said. "She really does love me."
"The First Angel loves that Angel is a powerful accessory to your magic," Cadence said.
Angel helped me channel more magic than I could otherwise handle. The cat was very useful—and very cuddly.
"Cadence, have you and Damiel discussed baby names yet?"
"Not yet. It's quite early." Cadence poured herself a cup of tea from the steaming kettle on the coffee table.
"Nero brought up the topic of names," I said.
"Did he?" Cadence smiled. "I'm glad he's so excited."
"He truly is. He once told me that he wants lots of children."
"Then it's a good thing you're both immortal. The Fever doesn't come around every month, you know."
"Good thing too. If mine did, Nyx would keep me safe in this fortress forever." I looked around the garden library. It was very nice, but it was still a cage.
"Try to think of it as a vacation, Leda."
Cadence picked up the newspaper on the coffee table and opened it. The front cover had a big story about the Angel of Chaos and General Windstriker, the First Angel's righthand angel, expecting a child. There was an accompanying picture from our wedding.
"You know what, being a prisoner makes me hungry," I commented.
But before I could raid the snack bar, two Legion soldiers stepped into the room.
Both were female, one tall with golden hair and one short with dark, nearly black, hair.
The tall soldier was a lieutenant. I knew that from the metallic emblem of a paw print pinned to her uniform. She had rosy cheeks and a long, blonde braid. Every strand of the braid was picture-perfect, braided with machine-like accuracy. My braids never looked that good. I wondered how long it had taken her to perfect her braiding technique. Despite the precision of her braid—and the crispness of her uniform—there was a warmth in the woman's eyes, a warmth that her time serving the Legion hadn't managed to cool.
The shorter soldier's psychic hand insignia told me she was a captain, a Legion soldier of the sixth level. She was also a dead ringer for another soldier I'd once met: Selena Singh. Except, Selena Singh had been a major in the Legion. And she was dead now. She'd died in the battle at the Magitech barrier at Memphis, victim to a particularly nasty Venom bullet.
"Who are you?" I asked the two soldiers.
"Lieutenant Alice Jones," the taller woman said.
"You look familiar, Lieutenant." I hadn't met her before, of that I was sure. But there was something distinctly familiar about her face.
She smiled. "You know my son. He looks a lot like me."
"Your son?"
"Jace Angelblood."
So this was Jace's mother. But that meant she was also…
"You're Colonel Fireswift's wife."
"I am."
I looked her over. She had a friendly smile and a kind face.
"You don't look evil," I declared honestly.
Alice Jones laughed again. Alice Jones, such a normal, homely name for the wife of an angel like Fireswift.
"Believe it or not, I get that reaction a lot," she told me.
Wow, Colonel Fireswift's wife was a nice person. Who would have thought?
I turned to the shorter woman. "You look even more familiar, Captain."
"You met my big sister Selena," she told me.
Ah, that explained it.
"I'm Captain Andromeda Singh."
Fancy name. And yet, it was all wrong. Major Singh's name was wrong, for that matter.
"You and your sister are Legion brats, right?" I asked her.
"We were."
"But you don't have an angel name," I pointed out.
"Our angel father went rogue when we were still young. Since that day, we've used our mother's surname."
She didn't look like my question bothered her. I supposed she'd gotten used to answering it. She sure was a lot nicer than her sister had been.
"Nice to meet you both, but what exactly are you doing here?" I asked the two women.
"The First Angel ordered us to report here," Lieutenant Jones answered. "Because we're pregnant."
"Both of you?"
Captain Singh nodded. "Yes."
"They are both married to an angel," Cadence told me. "Lieutenant Jones to Colonel Fireswift. And Captain Singh to Colonel Dragonblood."
So the two women were here for the same reason as Cadence and I were. Nyx had stuffed all of her soldiers who were carrying the children of angels into this airship. No wonder there were so many guards that we could barely walk down the hall without bumping into someone. This wasn't just about me and Cadence.
"A few months ago, I went to Crystal Falls for a training that was supposed to be conducted by Colonel Dragonblood," I said to Captain Singh.
"Yes, he runs that training regularly," she replied.
"But he didn't go that time because his wife had the Fever."
It was still called the Fever in non-angels who were the wives of angels.
"You're Colonel Dragonblood's wife."
"I am aware," she said, amused.
"But that Crystal Falls training was months ago. You don't appear that far along. Your belly is as flat as mine."
"My, you are as direct as they say, Colonel," Captain Singh told me.
I shrugged.
She laughed. "That Fever cycle was a bust, but oddly I had the Fever again last month. And that was a success."
"How often does it happen that two Fever cycles fall so close together?" I asked.
"I've never heard of such a case before," replied Captain Singh.
"Nor have I," Lieutenant Jones chimed in.
I looked at Cadence.
She shook her head. "It just doesn't happen."
Just as I'd thought.
"And you had the Fever last month too?" I asked Lieutenant Jones.
"I did."
"So did Cadence." I chewed on this new information. "Don't you think it's kind of odd that we all had the Fever at the same time, especially when the fertility of Legion soldiers is so sporadic and infrequent?"
"It is indeed odd," Captain Singh agreed.
"You think it means something?" Lieutenant Jones asked.
"I certainly don't trust a coincidence like that," said Cadence. "Especially, when it's completely unprecedented."
"But it's not actually completely unprecedented." I thought back to the legacy charts Colonel Fireswift had made me memorize. "Twenty-four years ago, many children of angels were born in the same month."
"That's when you were born," Cadence said to me.
"Right. There were so many Legion brats in my initiation class. At the time, I didn't realize how unusual that was. But now I know just how weird it really was. They aren't ever that many Legion brats in an initiation class."
"No, there aren't." Cadence's face was contemplative. "One or two at most, from the luckiest, most fertile years. Not eight like in your initiation group."
"You think this is about me?"
"Like I said, I don't trust coincidences. This isn't random. And you are the link between both occurrences of this phenomenon, Leda," Cadence said. "Back then as one of the children born. And right now as a pregnant angel."
I wasn't sure what that meant. Why were so many angels and wives of angels pregnant both times? And what did I have to do with it?
But there were no obvious answers, and there was no time to contemplate this now anyway. We had work to do, the work Nyx had set me.
I already had Nerissa working on the initiates' survival rate, but that was only one piece of the puzzle. We still had to convince people to join the Legion of Angels. We had to make them trust us. We had to make them willing to risk everything, to put their lives in the Legion's hands. Because even if a way could be found to make more initiates survive the Nectar, they would still be risking their lives as Legion soldiers. This war would not be bloodless. Hell, there was already blood everywhere, on many worlds.
"I assume Nyx sent you here to do more than be pregnant?" I asked Captain Singh and Lieutenant Jones.
"Indeed," Lieutenant Jones said cheerfully. Her pleasantness must have been the universe's way of balancing out her husband's unpleasantness. "The First Angel instructed us to assist you in your mission in whatever ways you required."
"Did she tell you what we'd be doing?"
It was Captain Singh who answered this time. "Our goal is to boost the Legion's recruitment numbers. A worthy undertaking."
"It is," I agreed. "But this isn't simply about fulfilling the First Angel's wishes. It's about nothing less than changing the future course of human history."
"Then let's get started," Lieutenant Jones said brightly.
"How did a nice person like you end up married to someone like Xerxes Fireswift?" I asked her seriously.
Her brows lifted.
"Sorry." I threw Fireswift's wife an apologetic look.
She laughed. "Don't worry about it. Xerxes tends to get that reaction from people." Her eyes twinkled as she added, "Our magic was found to be compatible, so the Legion ordered us to marry." She didn't look bothered by her fate. "You know, Colonel, I've never heard an angel apologize."
"Not even your husband?" I asked. I couldn't help myself.
"He's not an angel to me," she said solemnly. "He's just a man."
I couldn't imagine that, Colonel Fireswift as just a man. I couldn't imagine him as anything other than the humorless, hardass angel that I'd known for the past two years. Well, no, that wasn't entirely true. I had caught glimpses, here and there, of something else. Like when his daughter had died. The memory made me feel freshly sympathetic toward the woman in front of me.
"I was there when your daughter died," I said to her. "She fought so bravely. I'm sorry for your loss."
Her eyes were wide, trembling. "Thank you." She cleared her throat, steadying herself. "There's that sorry again. That's twice in two minutes, Colonel Pandora."
"She's still learning," Cadence told her.
"But you passed Xerxes's angel test," Lieutenant Jones said to me.
"I do better on tests than in real life."
She looked at me, really looked at me, like she was analyzing me. Then she declared, "You're exactly as Xerxes describes."
"That bad?"
"That good. Of course, he rants about your disregard for rules and regulations, your dirty fighting, your snide remarks. But reading between the lines—and hearing about you from my son Jace—I always pictured you to be a good, wholesome person who would go to any length to protect those she loved, no matter the consequences."
I nodded. "Yeah, that basically sums me up. I'm not exactly the model angel."
"You know the rules. You understand the etiquette."
"And in the end, you don't give a damn about those rules or etiquette," Captain Singh chuckled.
"You talked to your sister, did you?" I asked her.
"Selena also had her fair share of rants about you, Colonel. Personally, I thought she needed to chill out. She and I were always at odds on the topic of doing the right thing—and what that even meant." She shrugged. "We did not see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. We quarreled often. But in the end, she was still my sister, and I loved her."
"I know how that feels," I told her. "And I'm sorry for your loss as well."
The two of them had lost someone they loved during the same battle—and to the same poison.
"Selena died a hero, serving the Legion and protecting the Earth." Captain Singh looked at Lieutenant Jones. "They both did."
The two women nodded, unshed tears glistening in their eyes.
They needed a distraction from their pain, and Cadence delivered. "Let's develop our strategy to boost the Legion's recruitment numbers and make the First Angel's wishes a reality."
"Right," I agreed. "I already have Dr. Harding working on how to increase the survival rate in people who drink the Nectar."
"Do you think that's possible?" Captain Singh asked.
"I don't know, but we have to try. The best way to increase the Legion's numbers is to ensure more people survive the initiation ceremony—and every promotion ceremony after it. That will also convince more people to join our ranks. Think about it. The high risk of death puts off a lot of prospective initiates. Besides the children of angels, our initiates mainly consist of the desperate: those desperate for help, desperate for magic, or desperate for power. How do we convince people to join who just want to keep the world safe?"
No one answered. If there had been an easy answer, an angel at the Legion would have thought of it already. Or would they have truly come to an answer? Nyx had given me this task because she thought I was uniquely suited for it, given that I acted as much human as I did angel. Or even more human than angel, actually.
Maybe the problem was that none of those angels could think like a human anymore. It had been too long since they'd been human, assuming they'd ever been human at all, as it often was with the children of angels.
If that was the problem, then I just had to think like a human. What did humans want?
I opened up the question to the group. "Why don't many humans want to join the Legion of Angels?"
"They are afraid the Nectar will kill them," Captain Singh said.
"There is that, of course, and I already have Nerissa working on the problem," I said. "But I'm sure that's not all there is to it. It's bigger than that. Many humans would gladly risk their lives for the greater good... So maybe the problem is they don't believe joining the Legion actually serves the greater good."
"What do you mean?" Lieutenant Jones asked.
"Think about it. What do we call Nectar?"
"The food of the gods," Lieutenant Jones answered instantly, eagerly.
Her studious nature reminded me of my sister Bella.
"Right," I said. "Nectar is this holy, magical thing, far above humans. The people of Earth are fed exactly that line. Nectar is only for those who have been judged worthy. If you're not worthy of it, of these gifts of the gods, then you will die. We ask them to give up everything—their friends and family and everything else they have in their life—for the Legion. Not for humanity. For the Legion."
"The Legion protects humanity," Captain Singh said.
"Do we really?" I asked. "Sure, we take out any threats to the planet or to the gods' authority, but how much do we actually help the people? Every day, the Legion of Angels receives thousands of petitions from the people of Earth. Most of their prayers go unanswered. It's all part of some big show to demonstrate the Legion's power and the rareness of our gifts. Don't you see the problem? If the Legion wants people's help, if we want them to join in our fight, then the Legion can start by helping those people."
"But how do we do that?" Lieutenant Jones asked me.
"Remember all those unanswered prayers I just talked about? Well, that's about to change. We are going to begin our quest by actually answering the people's petitions for help. And we're going to do it in person. We're going to hold an open court, a court people can attend to petition for our help. We are going to put a face on the faceless Legion of Angels. A caring, approachable face, not that powerful, aloof face that's scaring them all away."
"You want to rebrand the Legion of Angels?" Cadence said, her mouth falling open in disbelief.
"Essentially, yes."
"Leda, the Legion is centuries old," Cadence said gently. "That is centuries of tradition. And the gods are even older. We're talking about millennia. The gods won't approve of your plan. The angels won't approve."
"The Legion needs the people. We need more soldiers. This is how we can get them. The gods can continue to be all-powerful and unseen, and the other angels can continue to scare the living daylights out of everyone if they must. But the people need to know there's at least one angel who has their interests at heart. An Angel of the Earth."
"Sounds like another nickname for you," Cadence said.
"Well, what's the harm of just one more?" I grinned. "Look, this is the path the gods set out for me. Faris stood up at my wedding and spelled it all out."
I remembered Faris's words that day well:
You all know Leda Pandora. She has saved the Earth countless times. Her rise from humble human to holy angel will inspire you to join the Legion of Angels. Her selfless dedication will inspire you to persevere and level up your magic. And her compassion will inspire you to fight for this world. And for the gods.
For she truly is the Angel of the People. Her image will be everywhere—on banners and billboards, on buildings and trains. Not as the Angel of Chaos, but as the Angel of Hope. A symbol of harmony and perseverance. Of ascension. An example that lights the way for all hopeful humans to follow.
"The gods made me the face of the Legion, the Legion's liaison to the people of Earth. They want me to inspire the masses to join their army and fight for them. This is how we do it. I will hold an Angels' Court, a place the people can come to personally petition the Legion for aid."
"Leda, this is a big change to sell to Nyx," Cadence said.
"Nyx gave me the authority to do whatever is necessary to increase the Legion's numbers. And I say letting people know we give a damn about them is necessary to making them give a damn about us. We can't expect them to put their lives in our hands if we can't take care of those lives. So, let it be known in all the cities of Earth. We shall hold the very first Angels' Court one week from today."