Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Raphael reached up to touch his mark. “It’s pulsing,” he said, staring at the building that was no longer a building but instead a creature out of myth and legend . . . a creature that echoed the mark on Raphael’s temple.
A mark similar to that found in various places in the Refuge, hidden and old.
A roar of sound as the “dragon” of multihued light took off . . . leaving the Legion building untouched. It flew high, high, higher, until she had to arch her neck to keep it in sight.
A second later, it turned and dived—straight at Raphael.
Raphael stood his ground, his jaw clenched, was still standing as unmoving as granite when the dragon of light morphed into an angel unlike any Elena had ever seen. He landed hard on the rooftop right in front of Raphael, his landing spawning cracks in every direction along the impermeable surface.
His wings were more like the Legion’s than any other angel Elena had ever met. Leathery and thick, though they were black rather than the Legion’s gray before the beings began to become more differentiated. And the angel’s weren’t wholly leathery. She could see a fine coating of black feathers over the leather. But it seemed to her that those were cosmetic more than anything.
No primary feathers that she could see—no secondary ones, either.
What she could see were gleaming black claws that thrust out from the two top edges of his wings.
His skin was a burnished brown, his hair thick and dark.
He wore sleeveless leathers of a deep bronze.
But that was where his resemblance to other angels ended. His face . . . She swallowed hard as she took in the right side of his face. Scales iridescent and hypnotic covered that entire side, continuing up into the midnight of hair that reached his nape.
Those scales also ran down his neck to pour across his shoulder and down his right arm, to crawl over the back of his hand and halfway down his fingers before fading off into skin. A single piercing blue eye of fierce paleness looked out from within the scales that should’ve been monstrous but were instead an eerie fascination.
The eye matched the one on his other side, but his face on that side was sharp lines and skin. The split between his two sides wasn’t centered, however. It was more a gradual fading. The scales merged into skin partly along his jaw and across his forehead, blended slightly into his nose.
His lips were just kissed by the scales on one side, softly curved on the other.
He should’ve looked a nightmare.
He didn’t.
He looked a dangerous dragon in angel form.
Without warning, he raised a hand toward Raphael.
Elena tensed.
Just as the angel’s blue eyes turned from human to reptilian, a long, slitted black pupil replacing the roundness of his angelic eyes.
* * *
* * *
Raphael had no idea who—or what he was looking at. That this man was a violent power was obvious. He incited the same reaction in Raphael as any other archangel, except for an odd . . . echo. It was the only way he could describe it. Not only was the Legion mark still throbbing, but something within him seemed to be echoing the other archangel’s pulse.
Now, the unknown being raised a hand.
Raphael’s instinct was to shove it away, make it known that this was his territory. But something in the way the angel looked at him held him back—there was no challenge or aggression in those striking eyes that reminded him of Venom’s. Rather, they held an odd and almost Naasir-like curiosity. Wild. Open.
He permitted the angel to touch his fingers to the Legion mark.
Wildfire crackled from it and down the scales of the other man’s arm.
The new angel—archangel—smiled and, dropping his hand, said something to Raphael in a voice so gritty and deep that it nearly hurt the ear. The language was also incomprehensible.
“We no longer use that tongue,” he said in the language taught to him as Old Angelic. “This is the one we use now.”
The other being cocked his head, listening.
Raphael spoke again, going through a set pattern of words designed to nudge the language awake in Sleepers who had been too long gone from the world.
“Ah,” the being said at last. “The new tongue.” It came out grating and harsh.
The new tongue? Is that what he said?
I believe so, Elena-mine. “We call it Old Angelic.”
A sudden smile, those reptilian eyes flashing back to angelic. “Yes, I see now.” He raised his hand again, and for some reason, Raphael allowed him to touch the Legion mark once more.
It reacted as before, wildfire sparking between them.
“Blood of my blood,” the being grated out, thumping a fisted hand to his heart. “Son of my son.”
Raphael’s heart crashed against his rib cage. “Who are you?”
“Marduk.”
Jessamy was correct, Raphael said to Elena. The Marduk we know of from Babylon was either a descendant or just carried the same name. This is the Marduk from Vivek’s book.