Silently Hunted

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Fifty seconds and counting sir…

Alright Maion, I’ve sent everyone out. The only ones left are Raphael and An…the Half Breed. Unless they are with you? He was still searching, all the places she could have been taken to be killed quietly were empty. And after finding all the possible angels that wanted her dead, it did not make sense that they were still missing. The basement was bigger than he had thought at first. His preliminary walk through earlier had not shown him everything. There were doors he had assumed were closets, which in fact led to other rooms.

No, they have not yet being accounted for…and sir, we have an issue. Vamps are incoming. I can hold the explosion until you are out. But we will have vamp impact soon.

No! Don’t waste more lives to night. Get out, I’ll get out don’t worry, blow the place on schedule.

Yes sir…thirty five seconds.

The last place he could look safely, he knew that logically. But he also knew he could not leave this basement without Anya. And not because of his orders either. It was purely self-interest and he knew it. Opening the door to the bathroom that led from the master bedroom he had lain on the floor of earlier, knife to his throat.

The sight before him almost had him forgetting the time limit he was on. It only took a split second for him to process the event before he was moving once more, but it was an image that would stay with him for the rest of his years. Of that he was sure. What he could not work out yet, though, was whether that was a good thing or a bad.

Raphael was sitting on the floor, knees up, back to the wall arms wrapped tightly around Anya as she sat in his lap. One hand in his hair the other on his left bicep, holding him in places as she drank from the artery in his neck. The expression of pure bliss upon his face was one to make the jealousy rise once more to the forefront of his mind. But this was a council member, and while both were archangels. There was still a power difference, mainly due to the huge difference in their ages.

As Raphael looked up and saw him there, the bliss turned to an uncomfortable moment. When he fully realised he had left himself open to attack on any front. Gently easing Anya away from his jugular, while taking care not to rip open his throat. Though Zeke had to admit, he did not particularly care if she had torn apart one of the greatest archangels that lived at the moment. Although, he would probably regret that thought at some point to come.

As Anya was drawn away from Raphael, Zeke moved in. And found much to his surprise, she was still unconscious. At the questioning look that he sent the healer, he received a shake of the head in return. “I take it, we need to leave if you are here now?” At his nod, they both flew into action. Quite literally.

Raphael relinquished Anya over to Zeke, before taking up the rear as they used the power that came with age, power and training to make it out of the basement and nearly to the front door as the first explosions rocked the floor. If they had been standing upon it, they may not have made it out as they saw the fine cracks appearing, and could hear the floor collapsing. Wings came in particularly useful at times.

They made it out just as the house seemed to sink in on itself, with tiny fireball explosions taking down the parts that had stubbornly stood, in the face of destruction. Taking to higher altitudes, he saw just how close they had come to being overcome. The vamps had found where his angels deconstructed the defensive perimeter of lasers, and had almost made it to the back entrance. Some, he smiled, had been caught up in the explosions and were even now being tended to by comrades. That meant less vamps to chase them out of the territory.

Making their way to the rendezvous point, they had all agreed upon. He kept a stony silence when Raphael tried to engage him in conversation. It was neither the time nor the place. And before any tactics were talked of, he wanted to know how he had ended up in that room, with a vulnerable half angel, and finished in the positions he found them in. In his mind, this was all on Raphael. Anya was still limp in his arms as he held her close against the chill of the air currents. She would have had no conscious knowledge of what she was doing. In fact it was most probably her natural instinct to take blood when in that position.