by Nalini Singh
Twisting her braid around his hand as he came to stand behind her, Raphael pressed his mouth to the exposed skin of her nape. “Take the chopper. You don’t have the endurance to fly that far.”
Emotionally vulnerable to him in a way that scared her at times like this, she pulled away, turned. “Who’ll be piloting the chopper?”
“Venom.”
“That’s your final offer?”
When the archangel merely looked at her with those eyes of pitiless blue, she had her answer. “Fine.” Frustration turned her muscles rigid. “But make sure he keeps out of my way.”
Elena made a call to Sara once they were in the air, stiffly conscious of the vampire at the chopper controls beside her. God, she was so mad at Raphael. She’d known this fight was coming, but that made it no easier to handle—especially when Raphael simply refused to give ground.
No negotiation. Nothing but an archangel’s expectation of obedience.
If he thought that was the end of—
“Ellie?” Sara’s voice sounded as if it was coming from the moon. “Where are you?”
“Approximately halfway to Boston,” she said, then got straight to the reason why she’d called. “Why did you pull me in?” Not that she wasn’t happy to be back in the field, but the Guild had any number of hunters at its disposal.
Sara’s voice dropped out for a second, came back. “... all over the place. We need everyone we’ve got.”
“What?” Elena pressed on the headphones. “Repeat that.”
“Vampires breaking their Contracts all over the place,” Sara said. “It’s like some weird—” A crackle of noise and the call dropped completely. But Elena had heard enough—chaos on this scale could only be connected to one thing . . . only one being.
Caliane.
16
Ransom was waiting near the deserted concrete pier in Boston where he’d asked her and Venom to land when she’d made contact as they came into the city. Lifting her off her feet as soon as she reached him, he planted a smacking kiss on her laughing lips. “Ellie, those wings sure are sexy.”
God, it was good to see him. “Put me down, gorgeous.”
“Archangel the jealous type?” He continued to hold her, which argued to his strength—her muscle mass was high to begin with and her wings only added to that.
Pushing at his shoulders, she freed herself. “I thought we had a vampire to catch?”
“Yeah, come on.” His face—a stunning mix of Native American skin and bone structure, and eyes of Irish green—was suddenly all business. “The trail leads to a particular section of warehouses about five minutes away on foot. That’s why I asked you to land here.”
“If you’re so close,” she said, “why did you wait for me?” Pretty as he was, Ransom was also one of the Guild’s top hunters, someone she’d have at her back anytime.
“It’s not just one, Ellie.” He began to lead her past a huge boathouse and toward a number of warehouses she could see in the distance. “And they’re helping each other.”
“Shit.” It was rare, very rare, for vampires to hunt together—but when they did ... “What’s the body count?”
“Twenty-two, last I heard.” Ransom’s long hair, a sleek tail down his back, shifted in the breeze as he gave her the update. “But that was half an hour ago.”
“They can’t be feeding if they’re moving that fast.” Which meant they were killing for the hell of it, and that made them a plague. “You said they’re helping each other—are they acting like they’re thinking?”
“Not on a complex level, but someone’s definitely home upstairs. Weird, huh?”
Elena thought of Ignatius, wondered if Neha hadn’t gotten the message after all.
Iron in the air, thick, fresh.
Ransom brought up a hand at the same instant that she caught the scent.
Raising her wings and tucking them tight to her body—something she’d finally learned to do on command—she took a long, quiet breath.
Motor oil and fish.
Blood, rancid fat, effluent.
Blueberries bursting open, their juices staining the earth.
Any and all of them could be vampiric scents, but Ransom didn’t need her nose today. He needed good old-fashioned backup. Pulling out the weapon Deacon had designed for her, the one she’d taken to calling her “blade-bow,” she fell in behind him as the other hunter led her and Venom through the labyrinthine passageways between the warehouses.
The day had turned dull about an hour ago, clouds racing to cover the sun, and now, a fat pellet of rain hit Elena’s cheek. She bit back a curse. If the vampires decided to run, the rain would be their willing accomplice in washing away the trail. Which meant they had to neutralize the targets here—retrieval was simply not on the table, not if the vampires were hunting in a pack.
Her wing brushed against something sharp, snagged. She bit down on her lower lip to quiet her gasp and stopped just long enough to unhook her wing from the rusty nail. Blood darkened the midnight blue feathers near the center of her right wing, but she was more worried about tetanus. An instant later, she remembered she was no longer vulnerable to disease—she still wasn’t going to be punching corroded nails into her body anytime soon.
Continuing to hug one side of the thin alleyway as Ransom took the other, she glanced back at Venom. The vampire was sticking to her but keeping enough of a distance that he wouldn’t be a liability in a fight—in fact, given what she’d seen of his skills, he’d be an asset.
Blueberries, ripe, ripe blueberries.
She hissed under her breath at Ransom. When he turned, she motioned toward a warehouse about three down from where they currently stood. She saw him nod just before the skies opened and rain sleeted down like some great faucet had been turned on in the heavens.
“Fuck,” she muttered, and abandoning all ideas of subtlety, ran toward the back of the warehouse as Ransom circled around to the front. She was only two feet from the wooden door when she caught a hint of sharp, astringent mint in the air, and then she was being slammed down onto the wet asphalt. Skin tore off her cheek, and her right hand landed awkwardly enough that she might have broken her wrist if she hadn’t begun to half roll at the instant of contact. As it was, one of her wings crumpled under her with a searing pain that she hoped like hell didn’t mean she’d broken one of the fine bones within.
The weight on her back was gone the next moment, and she didn’t have to look to know that Venom was dealing with the vampire who’d attacked. She took one glance to make sure he had the upper hand—oh, yeah—before leaving him to it and closing the distance to the door. She could hear the hard, thudding sounds of fighting now, as well as a wave of eerie laughter from within, which meant they’d ambushed Ransom as well.
Her hand tightened on the blade-bow.
“Wait.” Venom’s breath at her ear, his hand on her arm. “Go up, come in through the roof—from the state of this place, it’s probably half rotten anyway.”
That would be a huge advantage but—“Can’t do a vertical takeoff.”
Venom went down on one knee, his eyes preternaturally vivid in the rain, his sunglasses having been lost in the fight. When he cupped his hands, she realized what he intended and slung the blade-bow over her shoulder. “Ready?” She put one foot in his cupped hands, rested her hands on his muscled shoulders. At his nod, she said, “Go.”
He lowered his hands and then he pushed. Vampires were fast and strong, but she’d never have expected the power he put behind his assist. Twisting in midair, she managed to grip the lip of the roof, feeling the metal cut into her palms deep enough that blood gushed warm and thick. But that mattered nothing while Ransom was down there alone.
Using the muscle that made her hunter-born, she managed to get herself over and onto the roof—and though one of her wings complained a little, it didn’t appear broken. It was obvious Venom had been right about the condition of the roof. Knowing Ransom didn’t have much time, she retrieved her
bow, then ran across the cracked and rotting structure until she came to a part that caved in, taking her with it.
She allowed herself to fall, spreading out her wings to slow her momentum as she hit the warmer air inside the warehouse. Startled bloodstained faces lifted up to hers, male and female both, red swirling in those eyes. Bloodlust. That confirmed, she didn’t give them any warning, just started firing. The little spinning blades cut through necks, sliced through brains, blew through hearts ... Jesus, she thought. Deacon was good.
Feet hitting the floor with a jarring thump, she yelled, “Ransom!”
“Not dead yet!” came the response from within a tangle of vampires.
That was when she saw the eyes in the walls, the vampires crouching up on ledges, ready to pounce. She turned just in time to take out two behind her. Christ, how many of them were there? Then there was no more time to think—her wings made her so vulnerable on the ground that she couldn’t afford to let them get close. Using the blade-bow one-handedly, she began firing the miniature flamethrower with the other. Not so useful a weapon when in flight, but it did a hell of a job in close combat.
Screams, high and shrill, filled the warehouse as flesh sizzled and charred, the smell nauseatingly akin to a backyard barbeque. And it wasn’t only her and Ransom doing the damage. She glimpsed Venom with the wicked curved knives he liked—where in the blazes had he pulled those from?—slicing off vampiric heads with that reptilian speed that both repelled and fascinated her. Blood fountained as he executed a stacked blonde vampire about to claw at his face, spraying his cinnamon skin with ruby red droplets.
“Ransom, look out!” she yelled as she saw one of the crouchers go for her friend.
Ransom lifted a gun, shot, even as she drilled one of her blades into the vampire’s skull. The male fell, his body twitching as if he was fighting to rise in spite of the fact his brains were leaking down his temples. But, he was damaged enough that they didn’t have to worry about him for a while.
Fingers, slick and cold on the tip of her wing.
No. Her wings were highly sensitive and she hated having them touched by evil. The urge to spin, to act without thought was almost blinding, but she fought it and instead turned Deacon’s blade-bow backward, calculating the location of the vamp from the scent of honey and marigolds so thick in her nose.
A gurgling sound, fingers spasming then slipping away told her she’d hit her mark. Firing the flamethrower at a vamp who was running toward her in a fucking four-legged lope, she fried the petite brunette midjump before swiveling on her heel to turn the flames on the vampire who’d touched her wing ... and who was trying to clamp his bloodstained teeth onto her feathers.
When he met her eyes, he smiled. “She wakes.” It was a near-sibilant whisper, his throat almost destroyed by her blade—and still his eyes, they gleamed with an unholy joy. “She wakes.”
Shaking off the shiver crawling up her spine, Elena said, “Yeah, well, it’s goodnight for you.” With that, she turned the flamethrower on the sucker.
When she swiveled back around, it was to a scene of carnage . . . with only two other people left upright. Ransom held two smoking big-ass guns, one on either side of his body, his legs spread as he stood checking to see if any of the vamps near him still breathed. His face was bloody with claw marks, his black T-shirt almost shredded off him, and his hair, having come loose in the struggle, ran a silky black rain down his back.
By the door near where she’d been attacked stood Venom, blades swiveling in his hands, his suit jacket and tie gone, his white shirt splattered with blood. His hair, for once, wasn’t GQ-perfect. Instead, it tumbled over his forehead, and paired with his feral smile, it turned him shockingly attractive in a very disturbing way.
His eyes, slitted and inhuman, met hers at that moment. “I can’t hear any pulses.”
“We’ll check one by one to be sure,” she said, chest rising and falling in short, sharp breaths like the two men. “This group was far too organized—we don’t want any of them waking up.”
Silently, they did exactly that, covering every inch of the warehouse. “I count fifteen,” Ransom said, when they met in the middle.
“Yeah, that’s what I got,” Venom added. “There’s one outside, too, so sixteen in total.”
Ransom really looked at the other man for the first time, shook his head, stared again. “Holy hell, your eyes are like a fucking viper’s.”
Venom raised an eyebrow. “You have hair prettier than one of Astaad’s concubines.”
Ransom gave the vampire the finger. Venom grinned.
Certain that all was now well in the male world, Elena reached into her pocket and pulled out a spare hair tie, throwing it to Ransom. “I’d say this was impossible if I wasn’t standing in the middle of it. We have what, maybe three rogue vamps in the state in a year?”
“Rogues, yes,” Ransom pointed out, pulling his hair back in that rough way men had of doing. “Bloodlust? We’d get maybe one that was totally whackjob.”
“The Sire keeps a tight control on his vampires,” Venom said, going down on his haunches to wipe off his bloody blades using the shirt of a fallen vamp. “This simply shouldn’t have happened.”
Remembering what that last vampire had said, Elena knew there was a high chance Caliane was behind this, but she kept her mouth shut. Much as it pained her to keep a secret from Ransom and the Guild, she’d agreed to be Raphael’s consort. He had her first loyalty. She wouldn’t betray that trust—more, she wouldn’t share the shreds of information she had when nothing could be done about it.
“We need to ID the vampires,” she said, bending to strap the blade-bow to one thigh and the miniature flamethrower to the other, “notify the authorities.”
“I’ll do the authorities,” Ransom said, pulling out his cell. “They know I was on this track.”
“I know at least two of the vampires from sight,” Venom said, disappearing his blades into the crisscrossing black sheaths on his back that she could see now that he wasn’t wearing his jacket. “Give me a few minutes to see how many others I can ID.”
As Venom did that, Elena went around checking for wallets where they hadn’t been fried by her flames or otherwise destroyed. She ended up finding seven pieces. Venom ID’ed four others from sight, which left them with five unknowns, most of them either charred beyond recognition or missing a face courtesy of Ransom’s gun.
“The angel in charge of this region is on his way with the authorities,” Ransom told them, closing his cell phone. “He’ll take care of the rest of the IDs. Looks like he’s going to need to break out the DNA kit for a few.”
Elena looked toward the hole in the roof where she’d entered the warehouse and found rain still pouring in. “I think we all need a shower.”
The men didn’t say anything as they followed her out of the warehouse and into the torrential downpour. The water around them turned to rust, then a pale orange, then sepia, until finally, it ran clear. Blinking the rain from her eyes, she walked back to the door.
“Ellie.” Ransom’s voice. “Our job is done. We just hold the scene until the cops arrive.”
Elena nodded. “I know, but I want to check their scents. This kind of a mass outbreak . . . for all we know, it could be a mutant virus.”
Of course both men fell into step beside her, though they’d already verified that every single one of the vampires was well and truly dead. Vampires weren’t true immortals. They could be killed not only by other vampires and angels, but also by humans—beheading and fire were the best methods, though removal of the heart also worked if you then cut or, in Ransom’s case, blew off the head to make certain.
Leaving the two men to talk in quiet tones near the doorway, she went from body to body, searching, searching . . .
Dark, lyrical, lush.
There it was again, that haunting, intricate scent beneath the more brash smells of the fallen vampires. She was almost certain she’d scented the same thing when the wind threat
ened to crash her into the Hudson . . . except something niggled at her, some “off” note she couldn’t quite identify. “Damn.” She knew for certain she’d be tracking down the essence of this particular black orchid as soon as she got back to the city.
Deep in the heart of Manhattan, Raphael snapped the neck of a bloodlust-ridden vampire after blazing through his mind to take what he needed to know. That information proved both sickening and . . . sad. Some would have said the Archangel of New York had no mercy in him, but he didn’t enjoy the waste of life. Most of these vampires had gone mad beyond any hope of recovery.
An insane vampire could not be allowed to continue to live, because driven by the urge to consume blood far beyond that which was necessary for life, that vampire would kill hundreds of innocents. “Under five decades old,” he said to Dmitri as the leader of his Seven came to stand beside him after dispatching his own prey. Around them, the city lay wrapped in a cloak of fear and danger, the lights in the high-rises fragile bulwarks against the dark that had fallen an hour earlier.
“Mine, too,” Dmitri replied, the edge of his long black coat lifting slightly in the breeze. “Venom just sent me a message—all the ones he recognized in Boston were young. No one over six decades old.”
“She is not yet conscious in truth, her strength weak,” Raphael said. “Yet she can do this.” Cause carnage on a scale unseen for centuries, turning formerly sane vampires into killing machines.
“Sire . . . Aodhan and Naasir, how close are they to finding her?”
Raphael looked up at the sliver of moon visible in the cloud-heavy sky. “My mother,” he said to one of the very few men he trusted, “was intelligent even in her final madness. She has not been found for over a thousand revolutions of the earth around the sun. Even if we do manage that, it will be no easy task to contain her.” But he must attempt it.
For she lived because he had failed.
“Shh, my darling, shh.”