Widening eyes, before her gaze followed his. When he tugged at her hand, she came with him. Only to protest when he put his arm around her shoulders, tucking her close to his body.

“If I’m to protect you from a falling building,” he grumbled, “you must be tight to me.” His bones could take far greater damage, and he’d also wrap his wings around her, protecting her own.

“You’re making sense. It’s aggravating.” With those grumpy words that made him want to smile, she slipped an arm around his back, pressed a hand against his bare skin.

The contact burned . . . and was a strange kind of comfort.

With her at risk, he walked to the doorway without delay. “Stay close,” he ordered, then released her so he could use both hands to pull at the exposed edge of the door. It creaked, its mechanism stuck or warped as a result of the quake.

A shower of dust as he finally wrenched the door off its hinges and put it aside. Sharine coughed and waved her hand in front of her face, the dust swirling in the doorway making it difficult to see beyond until it settled.

“The smell,” she said on another cough. “Decay and neglect and a wetter, more fetid odor.”

“Yes, as if something died within.”

Using the back of his hand to wipe the dust off his own face, Titus told Ozias to stay above. Warn us if you see any sign of movement in the cracks caused by my power. He was certain the earlier shake had resulted from such movement.

Sire.

And, to satisfy your curiosity so you don’t expire from the frustration—you were correct. This building connects to the building hidden beneath the rubble next door. With that, he stepped into the hidden underground bunker, Sharine by his side, their wings rubbing against each other, they were so close.

It was pitch-dark beyond what little light fell into the space from the doorway, and the first warning he had that they weren’t alone was a scrabbling sound as something rushed toward him on a rattle of chains.

41

Punching out his hand with warrior precision, he wrapped his fingers around the throat of what he expected was a reborn. Nails clawed at him as Sharine wreathed her hand with her power. Dim light suffused the room . . . to reveal a reborn such as he’d never seen. Her wings had been clipped so she couldn’t fly, her eyes were reddened, her flesh holding a greenish tinge.

Yet she wasn’t rotting, was alive in some bizarre sense.

His anger at Charisemnon’s malevolent actions a storm, he went to tear off her head out of instinct when Sharine put a hand on his forearm. “No, Titus, don’t!”

He stopped mid-motion, even as the reborn scrambled weakly at his arm, its strength fading at rapid speed. “The creature is a danger, and it’s also cruel to allow it to exist in such a state.” No angel would ever choose this life.

“Look.” That single word was full of horror, her gaze not on the reborn’s face, but lower.

To the creature’s swelling belly.

His stomach revolted so badly that he almost threw up, as might a young soldier faced with the viscera of battle for the first time. “I’ll do it quickly,” he promised Sharine. “I won’t extend its torture.” Such a thing as this was beyond evil. “Women who are with child when attacked don’t survive and rise as reborn—I’ve never seen such.”

But she put her hand in his and squeezed. “Don’t you understand, Titus?” Her body trembled. “I think she’s carrying the cure.”

He stared at her, then at the weak creature in his grasp. There was little flesh on its body—not a surprise if it had been trapped in this room since Charisemnon’s death; it would’ve had only the food the other archangel had left behind for it. That food was apt to be flesh . . . and while the reborn had become smarter, they were nowhere close to smart enough to know to hoard food against a shortage. Their instinct was to gorge.

“Find another light source,” he said to Sharine; he focused on the practical action because the horror would otherwise overwhelm him. “There must be something brighter here if this was Charisemnon’s workspace.”

It didn’t take her long, the room soon drenched in a clinically white light. The space that stretched out in front of them was massive, but it was also open enough that he could see at a glance that it contained no other reborn.

A filthy mattress and a pile of blankets lay in one corner, along with iron restraints that had come off the slightly cracked wall. He looked down, saw the chains dragging from the creature’s ankles. Though it turned his stomach, he carried the now unmoving reborn to that bed—even the chains didn’t add much to her weight.

She’d fouled part of the mattress, but he found a comparatively clean patch on which to place her.

“This must’ve held food.” Sharine pointed to several now broken containers near the mattress. “Oh, sweet mercy.”

Following her gaze, he saw a mound of small bones. Muscles bunching, he looked again at the starving reborn. “When I moved the earth, it must’ve cracked the joints enough for rats to get in.”

“She did what she had to do to survive,” Sharine said, her face taut with sorrow.

“It’s not a she, Sharine. She died when Charisemnon and Lijuan did this to her.” Sharine had to understand that, or she’d hesitate against a reborn at the wrong time, and end up torn apart. “This is a creature created by a monstrous evil.”

A shuddering breath, but Sharine nodded.

Sire, the cracks in the earth are moving and heading your way.

Titus felt the first whisper of a rumble under his feet even as Ozias’s warning hit his mind. That this structure was still standing told him it was solid and built to be resilient, but they couldn’t rely on that—not after all the damage caused by earlier quakes. “Gather any documents you see,” he told Sharine. “I’ll do the same—this creature’s body is limp. We don’t have to fear an attack.”

It was Titus who found the still functional cold storage room. Rows upon rows of bodies lined the walls, all of them angelic females. Clipped wings were standard . . . and someone had slit open the stomachs of several. Small twisted forms with no faces and with skin a rotting green were stacked in another corner.

He shut the door when he heard Sharine coming closer. “You don’t wish to see what lies within,” he said, holding tight to the door handle to stop her from even attempting to open it. “Trust me on this. As a mother, you don’t want to see that.”

She looked at him for a long moment before inclining her head. “I trust your judgment.” In her hands were several thick notebooks. “Can you get a box from the external room?”

He made her come with him, not wanting the building to come down on top of her while he was away. After returning with the box, they quickly filled it with all of Charisemnon’s notes that they could find, then Sharine hefted it up in arms that trembled, but held. He, in turn, wrapped the reborn angel in multiple blankets so that no one would know it was an angel he held, then followed Sharine out of the bunker.

He’d send an excavation team here once the shakes had stopped and it was safe, but for now, this would have to be enough.

Ozias took the box from Sharine the instant they stepped out, her eyes narrowed as she observed Titus’s burden. But she didn’t ask any questions, her faith in Titus overwhelming her shock. “Back to Charisemnon’s border court?”

Titus nodded. He wasn’t about to carry this infection into his own court.

“Wait,” Sharine said. “May I have that?” She was pointing at the water flask his spymaster had strapped to one side of her thigh.

When Ozias, her hands full of the box, nodded, Sharine reached for it. Opening the flask . . . she began to pour the cool, clear water over Titus’s wounds. He could tell the scratches were already healing, and he felt no sense of sickness, but he let her do what she needed—with the blood washed away, she’d be able to see the healing edges for herself.

“It’s itching,” he murmured, his gaze on her downbent head, and his heart . . . soft. “You know what that means.”

A sharp, tight nod. “Good.” Closing the lid on the empty flask, she held on to it as the three of them took off.

She flew right next to him while Ozias went a little ahead, and they spoke as they flew. “She looks to be either at term or very near it.”

“You must advise me on this. Do we need a midwife?” He couldn’t believe he was asking such a thing, not when what was growing inside this dead creature brought to shambling life was apt to be a thing of horror. “Or can I open her womb after ending her life, and retrieve whatever germinates within?”

Sharine’s face went white, her bones sharp against her skin as she looked at the reborn angel in his arms.

“Think of your people,” he said gently. “Would any one of them wish to be in this state? Would they want for you to prolong their torture?” That was when he felt a movement against his chest, where the reborn angel’s stomach was pressed.

A rippling spasm.

He’d never been in such close contact with a woman about to have a child, and the ripple felt too big and strong, but he was old enough to know what was happening. “The decision’s been made—she’s having contractions.”

“I can act as midwife.” It wouldn’t be the first time Sharine had delivered a child; with age came many experiences, and she remembered acting as an emergency midwife to another angel well enough to do this. “It’s probably for the best if we don’t bring anyone else into it. We don’t know what either mother or . . . child, if it is a child, carry in their blood and other bodily fluids.”

For better or worse, Sharine and Titus had both already been exposed. Ozias hadn’t come in actual contact with the victim, nor had she spent time in an enclosed space with her. Sharine, in contrast, had scratched her hand while inside that room. Nothing but a minor scrape that was already all but healed, but still, a significant exposure.