Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“He asks me every time he clocks up another century—and reminds me that we’ve clocked up another century together,” Andreja had complained to Illium. “Man is relentless.”
Illium’s lips curved at the memory; he knew all about quiet, relentless types. He also knew that Andreja had been so terrified of commitment because of how much she loved Laric; she’d been scared he’d fly away after he was healed of his own terrible pain. But Laric was like Illium: they loved deep and true only once…and for always.
Sweeping down through the clouds with his own lover’s smile in his mind’s eye, he dropped to the first set of nonreflective windows, got a wave from a passing vampire with hair of liquid jet that reached her lower back.
Her black bodysuit boasted a jagged cutout over the shoulder and upper chest area that peaked at one shoulder, and her boots had chunky heels of clear glass so high that he had no idea how she walked so effortlessly in them. While her hair had been black this past century, Holly’s eyelashes changed color with the day and her mood.
Venom green, came the laughing comment into his mind before he could ask the question, Holly’s ability at mental speech excellent. Not every vampire developed that ability, but Holly had been Made by an archangel. An insane one, but one of the Cadre nonetheless.
I’m feeling mushy in love today. She blew him a kiss before vanishing around the corner.
Three floors farther down, a wing of angels took off, with Sameon at the head. Illium would recognize those brown wings tipped with black anywhere, as he would Sam’s intense style of flight. The angel of some seven hundred years of age—give or take a few decades—had learned under Galen, but he was a much more contained flyer than the Barbarian—a direct contrast to his openhearted personality. Should the Tower hold a popularity contest, Sam would win.
Everyone loved the dark-eyed wing commander and loyal member of Elena’s Guard.
Today, Sam took his wing out over the glass and metal of the city and toward the crystalline blue of the water. That hadn’t changed, either—the glass and the metal that was New York. Different, yes, with more skyway bridges, the subways sleek with self-driving transports, and the buildings and floating habitats designed to be full work-life environments, including sprawling internal gardens brought about by the quiet influence of the Legion’s green legacy.
But the soul of the city?
It beat loud and clear in the traffic that buzzed along the streets, and in the distinctive yellow color of the autonomous cabs. The technology could’ve long ago moved into private vehicles, but while vehicles with the option for autonomous operation were popular—with the driver in control of switching it on or off at will—there’d been no demand for fully self-driving cars after a few unfortunate incidents where the safety features had caused the vehicles to come to a halt due to sensing “pedestrians.”
Said pedestrians had been frothing-at-the-mouth vampires driven by bloodlust who’d smashed into the vehicles and made a meal of the hapless passengers.
Turned out mortals could have immortal memories when it came to fear. Didn’t matter how the manufacturers tried to push upgraded vehicles they promised wouldn’t turn their drivers into sitting blood banks; no one was buying.
Illium, lover of tech though he was, couldn’t blame them.
Flying cars, of course, had never stood a chance in a world populated by angels, the risk of collisions too high.
He grinned as, just then, he spotted two street vendors yelling at each other across a busy avenue, no doubt complaining about patch poaching. The cabdrivers might have been superseded by technology, but the people were still there—and they were still New Yorkers. Hot dog stands, coffee carts, vendors hawking tourist tchotchkes, the colorful parade continued unabated.
All that had changed was the way of it: the stands and carts were flight capable these days—the sole land vehicles that had an exception to the usual flight rules, but only to claim or leave their assigned spots on rooftops and in habitats. They also had a ponderous maximum speed, and were limited to highly specific pathways at assigned times of the day.
No one wanted a hundred superpowered carts blundering about in angelic airspace.
“Markets have existed since time immemorial,” his mother had said to him during one of his visits to Lumia, as the two of them walked the bustling lanes of the local market accompanied by a gaggle of children who adored Sharine, the Hummingbird. “I cannot foresee any future in which they die a total death.”
Neither could Illium. The age of online convenience had been followed by a return to open-air markets—the young rediscovering that which their ancestors had disavowed—until the world now stood at a midpoint that had held stable for two hundred years.
One of the vendors saw Illium just then. The man’s top half was painted a vivid glowing pink, his bottom half apparently clothed but who knew. Illium was all for self-expression but he’d never been tempted by the trend for paint-closets that decorated their users each morning. At least the Tower had put a “must wear actual physical underwear” law in place.