Archangel's Consort gh-3

by Nalini Singh

  “Here we go,” she said twenty minutes later as she led her sister through the solid steel doors of Guild Academy, conscious of the tension in that small, sturdy body. “You’re too young to join as a full member, and no one expects you to live here, but you’ll be set a schedule of after-school classes to help you hone and control your abilities.”

  Evelyn glanced over her shoulder, to where Amethyst walked stiff-backed beside Gwendolyn. “Amy can come with me?”

  “Yes, if you want.” Unexpectedly, though it was Eve who was hunter-born, it was Amy with her fiercely nurtured anger and keen distrust who reminded Elena most of herself. Eve, she thought, was still young enough to see the world as she wanted to see it. Amy had had the rose-colored lenses ripped off long ago, likely understood the painful truth of the relationship that seemed to exist between Gwendolyn and Jeffrey.

  The ghost of Marguerite haunted them both.

  Shaking off that thought as they reached the glass door to the waiting area, Elena pushed through. To her surprise, the man who met them inside was in a high-tech wheelchair. That wasn’t the surprise, however. “Vivek!” Closing the distance between them, she cupped his face, kissed him on both cheeks, having not realized how much she’d missed him until this moment.

  He blushed but didn’t shove back his wheelchair. “Wow, look at those wings. I thought everyone was pulling my leg even after I saw the news reports.” Moving his chair using a pressure control, he ignored Evelyn, Amethyst, and Gwendolyn as he peered at her feathers. “Would you be willing to let me—”

  “Later,” she said, putting her hand gently between Eve’s shoulder blades, compelled by a sense of responsibility to get this right, to make sure her youngest sister would never ever think herself cursed rather than gifted. “I’ve brought the Guild a new student.”

  Vivek’s attention shifted at once, his brown eyes hard, incisive. “Hunter-born,” he said with curt assurance. “Nowhere near as strong as you, but strong enough to get herself in trouble if she’s not careful.”

  Evelyn shifted closer to Elena at that harsh, almost cold summation. Elena tugged on her ponytail. “Don’t mind him. Vivek talks to computers most of the time—humans are too much trouble as far as he’s concerned.” It was highly atypical to see him away from the subterranean tunnels that were his usual milieu.

  Now, grumbling, the Guild’s resident computer genius nodded toward the busy office area beyond. “Go over there; they’ll do the paperwork.”

  Elena went in with Evelyn, but when it became clear that Gwendolyn was capable and ready to shepherd her daughter through the process, she stepped out to talk to Vivek. “It’s good to see you, V.”

  “Did you get that gun I sent with Sara?” he asked, eyes touched with a trace of envy when they landed on her wings.

  She didn’t begrudge him that. He was hunter-born, too, but had been paralyzed in an accident as a child, losing all feeling below the shoulders. His wheelchair, built for wireless capability, was a cutting-edge piece of technology from which he ruled his domain—the Cellars.

  She’d always understood why he preferred to stay in the secret hideaway and information clearinghouse beneath the Guild’s main building—it had to be a sensory nightmare for him to be up in the world when he had no outlet for his hunting instincts. That he had managed not only to retain his sanity in the face of that pressure, but to become an invaluable part of the Guild, was a testament to his incredible will.

  “You mean this gun?” She retrieved it from an inner thigh holster, then put it back before she got told off for flashing a weapon.

  Vivek smiled, and it turned his face striking. He was too thin, his bones too sharp against skin a shade darker than Venom’s, but he was a handsome man. Yet he never made anything of it—as long as she’d known him, he’d been asexual. Intentionally so, she thought. “So what do you want to do with my wings?”

  Lines on his forehead. “I was going to ask you to come in for a scan so we could get a better idea of their internal structure, but . . . that might make you vulnerable.” Moving his wheelchair with a minute shift of his head, he rolled away from the office and out to the porch that ran the length of the front of the building.

  Following, she leaned against the railing. “Yeah.” She folded her arms, thought about loyalties. “He holds my heart, V. I’d never do anything to betray him.”

  Vivek stared at her for a long time. “I always wondered who’d break through that armor—figures it’d be a scary-ass archangel.” Crooked smile creasing his face, he angled his head toward the office. “So ...”

  “Yep.” Vivek knew more about her tangled relationship with her family than anyone else aside from Sara. Having been rejected by his own family after his accident, perhaps he understood even better.

  Now, he looked out over the paved drive and to the massive iron gates that guarded the entrance to Guild Academy. “I was watching the surveillance monitor before you landed. Your father drove your sisters here. He’s outside, sitting in his Mercedes.”

  Elena felt her shoulders lock, and it was an instinctive response, one she couldn’t fight. She understood without being told that Gwendolyn was the reason Jeffrey had come. Somehow, the beautiful woman who had always seemed nothing but a decorative fixture had found the will to force her intractable husband into supporting her children.

  “I’m not strong enough. Forgive me, my babies.”

  The memory of her own mother’s voice, so taut with pain, so lost, tangled through her mind, making her hand fist. Unlike Gwendolyn, Marguerite hadn’t been there to stand for her daughters against a Jeffrey who’d slowly turned into a stranger. But then Gwendolyn hadn’t been forced to listen to two of her daughters being tortured to death, hadn’t had her arms and legs broken so she couldn’t go to them, hadn’t suffered such degradation that she’d screamed for days afterward.

  “Ellie.”

  Blinking at Vivek’s sharp tone, she straightened and glanced back toward the office. “Will you watch over her, Vivek?” Paralyzed or not, he had eyes everywhere. “While she’s here at the Academy, will you watch over her—over them both?”

  “You know you don’t have to ask.” His gaze was liquid-dark with pain when she met it again. “Does it ever go away? The hurt?”

  Her immediate answer was to say no, but she hesitated, thought about it. “No,” she finally replied, gripping his shoulder with her hand. “But it can be . . . muted by the strength of other emotions.” Like the blinding fury that tied a hunter to an archangel.

  “Are you ever afraid? That it’ll all be taken way?” Again.

  “Yes,” she admitted, because he’d had the courage to ask the question. “But I’m not a helpless child anymore. If for some reason Raphael wants to leave me, I’ll fight for him to my last breath.” Because he was hers now.

  Vivek’s smile was small, solemn. “I hope you make it, Ellie. For all of us.”

  Her phone rang in the silence that followed the quiet, heart-felt wish. Checking the display, she said, “Sara,” to Vivek before answering. “Hey, boss.”

  “I just got a request for assistance from the police.” Sara’s tone was crisp, what Ransom liked to call “directorial.” Only once had he used the word “dictatorial”—and been assigned a hunt in the wilds of some boondock town where the locals took one look at his hair and leather jacket and termed him a “fancy boy.”

  Lips twitching at the memory of how he’d had to make a run for it after the hunt ended—to avoid the local beauties and their shotgun-toting daddies—she said, “Yeah?”

  “I know you had a tough day yesterday, but you’re the only one not on assignment today, so haul ass.”

  Elena was more than happy to get back into the rhythm of work, but—“Am I really the only one you’ve got?” Sara had access to a large network of hunters across the five boroughs.

  “I want to rest Ransom up after the spill he took,” Sara replied, as Vivek whispered that he was off. “Several others suffered similar inju
ries in the chaos yesterday. Ashwini’s around, but she dragged herself down to the Cellars at five this morning, so she’s out like a light.”

  Hunters slept in the Cellars for any number of reasons, but one of the biggest was that they needed a place to hide. “Do I need to ask?” She waved at Vivek as he headed down the ramp to his transport.

  “It involves Janvier, a handwritten sign, and large quantities of honey. That’s all I’m permitted to say.”

  Snickering at the images that sprang into her mind at the mention of the Cajun vamp Ashwini seemed to spend half her life hunting, Elena said, “So, where do you need me?”

  “Delancey Street, right under the Williamsburg Bridge. DB, might’ve been vampire-bit multiple times, but cops say there’s so much damage they can’t really tell. Should be a simple assignment.”

  Her spine turned into a steel rod. “I don’t need to be coddled, Sara.”

  “Don’t give me lip.” Snapped-out words. “You’re not back to full hunting strength, and if I’d had anyone else, I wouldn’t have sent you into Boston yesterday. Use the downtime you have to get back into shape, or I’ll be putting you on penny-ante assignments involving idiots who think they can break their Contracts after a measly year or two.”

  Elena winced. “Mean.”

  “That’s why I earn the big bucks.”

  Glancing into the office area, Elena saw that Gwendolyn and the girls seemed to be finishing up. “I’ll probably be about twenty-five minutes.”

  “Cops’ll hold the scene.”

  The cops had not only held the scene, they’d quarantined it behind so much yellow crime-scene tape it might as well have been a fence.

  “Fuck me.” The uniform closest to Elena shoved back his cap and stared as she landed on the lush green of the parklike area beneath the bridge. “They real?”

  She couldn’t help it. “Nah, costume-shop rejects.”

  He narrowed his eyes, stared some more before a big-shouldered plainclothes detective came between him and Elena. “Welcome back, Ms. Deveraux.”

  “Nice to be back, Detective Santiago.” Shooting the veteran cop a genuine smile, she nodded at the crime-scene tape. “Slight overkill don’t you think?”

  Santiago rubbed his jaw, solid as a boxer’s and bristly with salt-and-pepper stubble that was even more apparent against skin the color of dry tobacco leaves. “Rookie.” He lifted up a section that had enough leeway that she could duck under even with her wings. “He freaked—first DB. It’s not as bad as some I’ve seen though.”

  Elena had to fight not to let the detective’s words kick her into a past that refused to stay buried. She’d freaked at her first dead body, too. The only difference was, she’d been ten years old, and the body had been that of her sister Mirabelle. Long-legged Belle, who’d played ball and danced with the same athletic grace. Belle, whose legs Slater had shattered into so many pieces that she’d never have been able to do either again even if she’d lived.

  “Could be a human psycho”—Santiago’s deep voice jerked her back into the present—“but after the things I’ve seen in my career, I’ve learned to check.”

  Walking carefully down the slight slope, Elena followed the scent of blood almost to the water’s edge. She’d half expected the victim to be wet or semisubmerged, but the teenage girl lay dry in the long grasses in a shadowy corner beneath the bridge. Dry except for the blood. It coated her from head to toe, leaving bare glimpses of skin of such a pale hue, it appeared made of tissue.

  Santiago, having navigated the slope with a little less grace, his black loafers slipping on the grass, blew out a breath. “Just a kid.”

  Elena tried not to let the girl’s youth matter, tried not to see her sisters Belle and Ariel in the victim’s coltish form. It was hard. With her thick, dark hair and summer dress patterned with forget-me-nots, she looked like a pagan sacrifice lying there caressed by the waving strands of grass. Then the wind shifted, bringing with it the scent of death, and the illusion shattered. “Yeah.”

  “Ready to do your bloodhound thing?”

  “Yes.” Finding her footing in work, she took a deep breath. Frowned. “Unusual number of vampiric scents in the area.” The entire section was drenched in notes as diverse as cotton-wood and lime, to bitter black tea with sprinkles of sea salt, and sticky strands of taffy. Those weren’t the only things she caught in the air. Oh. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was a make out spot.”

  Santiago raised his head. “Hey, Brent! You owe me ten bucks!”

  “Aw, shit.”

  Elena felt her lips quirk. Guilt threatened. How dare she smile while a girl lay dead at her feet? Elena fought that voice—fact was, you had to distance yourself somehow at these scenes or they’d eat away at you until there was nothing left. “You betting on me now?”

  Santiago winked. “Another rookie. Like taking candy from a baby.” Putting his hands on his hips, he pushed back his jacket in that way men had of doing, and said, “Lot of the young vamps hang out here, along with their human partners. We keep an eye on things, but they’re harmless for the most part—like to party a bit and, yeah, make out.”

  “Huh.” Elena realized she hadn’t been around any vampires that young since she woke from the coma. “Well, that’s going to cause a problem unless the perpetrator—if he was a vampire—left enough of a trace behind on her that I can conclusively separate out his scent.”

  Pulling on the latex gloves she’d grabbed from a kit at Guild Academy—because while she might be immune to disease, she didn’t much enjoy dipping her fingers in blood and other bodily fluids—she hunkered down beside the body. Not a young girl who liked forget-me-nots and wore a pretty summer dress in spite of the nip in the air. Not someone with the long legs of a dancer. Just a body. “Can I touch?” she asked, fighting to maintain the emotional distance.

  “Go ahead. I cleared it with the crime-scene folks.”

  The grass prickling the underside of her wings, she placed one hand beside the dead girl’s head to brace herself, and bent down to sniff at her ravaged neck.

  Iron. Old. Dry.

  Soap.

  Synthetic perfume.

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  Lush, lyrical, sensual, a scent so extraordinary it was beyond unique. “Black orchids,” she whispered under her breath, but there was something ... She was sure she’d caught hints of a subtle underlying note when the wind smashed into her and Raphael outside the house, but this scent was pure, so, so pure. However, given the erratic nature of her angel-sensing abilities, that wasn’t conclusive of anything.

  “What?” Santiago came down beside her. “You think it might’ve been a pack of vamps?”

  Swallowing against the near-certain knowledge that this was much, much worse, Elena held up a finger, then—going to her knees—bent close enough to the body that she could examine some of the wounds that weren’t crusted over with blood. “Not bite marks,” she said in surprise. “Slices. Tiny, tiny slices.” All over the victim’s body. Done by someone holding a blade, but the real question was, what or who had driven that hand?

  “Yeah. Tortured.” The big detective rose to his feet with a groan. “Guild case or us?”

  “Guild.” It wasn’t quite the truth. “No human did this.” Stripping off her gloves and holding them in one hand, she took the one Santiago held out to pull herself to her feet. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Biohazard bin’s up there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  Walking back with him, she got rid of the gloves, then used her cell phone to call Raphael. “There’s something you need to see.”

  20

  Raphael took one look at the body and went very, very still. “It has been called the death of a thousand cuts.”

  Even as Elena’s rational mind considered the implications of that, her eye kept going to those pretty forget-me-nots, to the old-fashioned friendship bracelet on the girl’s slender wrist. It seemed obscene to talk of ancient methods of t
orture while she lay so strangely innocent in the grass—but that, of course, was a mirage. “Didn’t that involve dismemberment?”

  “Not when Caliane performed it.”

  A chill kiss on the back of her neck, that confirmation. “I can’t be certain about the origin of the scent,” she said, having told him of the presence of black orchids. “I’ve only brushed up against your mother’s scent a couple of times, and never in a situation where I had the opportunity to tease out the notes.”

  Raphael’s response wasn’t anything she might have expected. “I was speaking with Michaela when you called me.”

  Elena fisted her hand at the mention of the female archangel. Beautiful in the most sensual of ways, Michaela had taken an instant dislike to Elena. The feeling was mutual. Except . . . it was no longer so easy to treat Michaela as the “Bitch Queen” and nothing more, not now that Elena knew the archangel had once lost a child. Elena would never forget the heartbreak she’d witnessed that terrible night at Michaela’s gracious home in the Refuge. “What did she say?”

  “I hear compassion in your voice, Elena.” Raphael’s eyes were dark with warning when they met hers. “You must never make the mistake of weakening when it comes to Michaela. She chose the path she walks, and it is a path that may well have led to the death of another archangel.”

  He’d said that to her before, and despite the fact that her human heart wanted to see something better in Michaela, she knew he was right. “I won’t ever lower my guard around her, don’t worry.”

  Seemingly satisfied with her promise, he returned his attention to the body. “Another kill such as this was found in her territory last night.”

  And if there were two . . . “Damn.”

  “The killer was caught in that case, raving with madness.”

  “That seems to be the pattern.” She looked up at the sound of the forensic investigators, waved them down. “Body’s all yours.”