Because Rael worked only one floor above?
How many know? he asked her.
You , H & M. Hugh and Michael. Keep it that way.
He’d undoubtedly add an I to that list, but he needn’t tell Lilith that. He put away the phone, drawing a quick, inquiring glance from Preston. Alejandro shook his head.
“No new information,” he said softly.
After the debriefing—in which they learned no new helpful information—Alejandro and Preston climbed one flight of stairs, where the congressman’s offices took up one corner of the fourteenth floor. A garden of cut flowers overflowed the receptionist’s desk and spilled over to the conference table visible through a glass wall. The office had been decorated in blues and creams, the furniture and paintings both understated and expensive. Stafford walked a fine line. Unless he was different from every other demon, he preferred luxury, money, and power. But as a public servant, he couldn’t flaunt them without drawing the wrong kind of attention from his political opponents and risking his career.
Did hiding anger the demon? Or was concealing his nature just part of the game?
Though her eyes and nose were red from weeping, the receptionist greeted them with quiet dignity. Lynne Simmons was human—as was the entire staff, Alejandro discovered after a careful sweep of the office. Sounds of grief came from deeper within the office, and a great heaviness had settled over their psyches. Either Julia Stafford had been well liked—or Stafford was, and they grieved in sympathy.
Their sympathy would mean nothing to Rael.
Alejandro suppressed his anger. The demon didn’t deserve this. Perhaps Rael had earned it, through careful planning and advancement, by treating his staff well—but he did not deserve to be serving them. This position required putting the interests of his people foremost. Rael would only serve himself. His voting record wouldn’t reflect his beliefs, and Alejandro didn’t doubt that no matter where Rael lived, the demon would adopt the values of the majority for the sake of political expedience.
Alejandro let Preston take the lead and introduce them. The receptionist’s eyes welled up at the mention of Julia Stafford, though her confusion was evident.
“The FBI just left. They interviewed all of us.”
“We’re just following up, Mrs. Simmons. Did you know Mrs. Stafford well?”
And did she know what Rael was? Alejandro had difficultly imagining that anyone who willingly worked for a demon would grieve as genuinely as she did.
“Yes. No. We weren’t friends. But she was friendly.” She waved with her tissue. “She always asked how my daughters are doing.”
Faint praise, Alejandro thought. As if Mrs. Simmons had to dig for something kind to say about the deceased.
Preston picked out a round mint from the crystal bowl on the receptionist’s desk and began untwisting the plastic ends. “How long have you worked for the congressman?”
“Four years now.”
“How would you judge the relationship between the congressman and his wife?”
“Oh, very good.” With this response, the receptionist seemed to find firmer ground. “I never heard a cross or impatient word from either of them. And Congressman Stafford, he would always make certain he never forgot any date—her birthday, their anniversary. He would often tell me of tickets he’d gotten for a ballet or show that she’d wanted to see, or a trip that he’d planned for them.” She paused. “He didn’t buy the presents himself, of course. But he always told his personal assistant exactly what to get.”
Alejandro nodded. That sounded like a demon. If he was generous, he’d make certain that everyone knew it. “Is his assistant in?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” She glanced at the switchboard, brightly lit. “He’s on a call. I’ll slip him a note to tell him you’re here.”
“Thank you.” As soon as she stood and was out of hearing range, Alejandro turned to Preston. “I’ll return shortly. If I take longer than Mrs. Simmons does, I ask that you make an excuse for me.”
“Are you doing anything I should know about?”
“Not if you value the fourth amendment to the Constitution.”
“Considering it’s a demon, I’ll pretend I don’t.” Preston popped the mint into his mouth. “And if I happen to turn around, I can honestly say I didn’t see anything.”
He wouldn’t have seen it anyway. Less than a second after the detective looked away, Alejandro slipped through Stafford’s office doors. He took in the surroundings in an instant: the thick green carpet, the national and state flags against the wall, the leather sofa, the stately mahogany desk in front of the large windows. The desk held a computer monitor. Not a laptop, but Rael might carry one with him.
Alejandro would make do with what he had. Within moments, he’d disassembled the casing of the desktop computer and installed a transmitter. Every file that Rael looked at, every e-mail he sent would be collected and analyzed. The phone line was next. Savi already tracked the calls to and from Rael’s cell phone number—although he might have a phone they didn’t know about. Alejandro placed the last transmitter beneath the lip of a visitor’s chair to pick up any conversations within the room.
Something SI should have done at the beginning, Alejandro thought grimly. Though Rael wasn’t foolish enough to communicate with his demons here, he might be arrogant enough to.
Alejandro took a few more moments to search. No loose papers were spread around the room. Color-coded files had been neatly stacked on a low table in front of the sofa. A glance through them revealed pending legislation, drafts of bills. Alejandro was familiar with most of them. He found an additional folder full of correspondence.
He vanished them all into his cache. Copies could be made and the originals returned. If the shooter had been politically motivated, the answer might be in this pending legislation.
At least, that was what Alejandro would claim if he was asked. But another question had begun to form in his mind. A question . . . and a possible solution. One the detective, as far as he was willing to go, might not agree with.
Alejandro looked around the office. He could do this. He could slay Rael. He could take the demon’s place.
No, he decided. He would do this. Whether the demon was involved with Julia Stafford’s murder or not, he hadn’t long to live.
Alejandro left the office, determination and dread filling him in equal parts. Irena would applaud his slaying Rael. But taking over the demon’s position meant that Alejandro would become everything she hated.
And if he dreaded her reaction, that must mean that his heart had foolishly begun to hope for a future with her.
He was going to let it.
CHAPTER 12
Irena and Taylor had learned nothing from Julia Stafford’s friend except that Julia had suspected Rael was cheating on her about two years ago. He’d still been as attentive, her friend had said, but he hadn’t shown any interest in bed. But then, the sex got better, and Julia had stopped worrying.
Irena left the woman’s house in a dark mood.
Taylor didn’t speak until she’d started the car. “You don’t eat, so I’m choosing where we’re having lunch. And SI is paying.”
“I have the credit cards,” Irena said. “And I want meat.”
“Don’t we all?” Taylor glanced at her. “Rael having sex bothers you. Why? He can’t do it to her if she doesn’t want it.”
Irena struggled with her answer. She didn’t often pick apart her emotional reactions like she’d been required to today. “It would not be for his pleasure.” Demons could physically simulate arousal, but they didn’t feel sexual desire. “And not for hers, either—it’s only to keep her with him. To secure their marriage.”
“And if he’s making that effort, it sits on the side of ‘he wasn’t looking to kill her.’ ”
“Yes.” Irena heard the anger in her own voice. She’d hoped Rael was responsible for Julia’s murder, just so that she could slay him—but the guilt she felt for hoping that fru
strated her. There was no reason for guilt. She had not hoped Julia Stafford dead.
Perhaps the guilt came from not killing Rael before he’d arranged Julia’s death—if he’d arranged it.
“So you don’t have a problem with a demon having sex with a human.”
Irena had a problem with demons existing, not just fucking. “I do.”
“What about humans and Guardians?” Taylor laughed at Irena’s expression. “I’m not coming on to you. Just in general.”
“In general, I have no issue with it. I’ve done so myself.”
“Okay, this place looks like it has potential,” Taylor said as she pulled into the parking lot of a small restaurant with green and white striped awnings over the windows. “So you like humans?”
“Yes. I am always surprised by what you have accomplished. And what you continue to accomplish,” Irena said, then frowned, bothered by her own answer.
If she was always surprised, did that mean her expectations were low? Did she expect so little of humans? She hadn’t thought so.
And pulling apart her responses wasn’t good for her. She hadn’t doubted or questioned herself this much in centuries.
“You see the bad, don’t you?” Taylor broke into her thoughts.
“Like this job. If they aren’t scum, then they’re self-centered or just . . . out of control.”
“I see the worst of humanity, yes. But I also see the best.” And everything in between. Most of it was in between.
“Do you even consider yourself human anymore?”
“No.” She met Taylor’s surprised glance. “Because I am not. A human’s free will is always honored. A Guardian’s is not.”
“Is that the only distinction you make?”
“Distinctions?” Frustration rattled against her nerves like a knife against her teeth. “What good are distinctions? There is no comparison to be made. No humans train for a century as Guardians do. No humans live sixteen centuries. Or longer,” she added, thinking of Michael. “Are Guardians what humans would be if they had longer lives? Or have we been changed in an even deeper way by the transformation? It is impossible to know. But I do know that I must honor your free will, and I don’t have to honor a Guardian’s.”
“Or a demon’s? Doesn’t that make you more like them and less like us?”
Irena stared at her.
Taylor sucked in a slow breath between her teeth, as if preparing to run from a predator, but trying not to startle it first. “Forget I said that. Right now, I guess I’m grateful for those Rules.”
Irena forced herself to let go of her anger. Evenly, she said, “Do not compare us to them. We were human. If we Fall, we become human again. Demons never were, and never will be.”
“Fair enough.” Taylor nodded. “And when you were a human, what were you?”
When they were sitting at a small table by a window, Irena told Taylor about her mother, who’d come from a defeated tribe of people—Irena didn’t know who they’d been. Her memories of life before Rome were only brief flickers sparked by the scent of burning peat, or the gentleness in a father’s voice, or a dog’s sharp bark. Clearer were the years as a slave—and of watching her mother executed after she’d killed the Roman senator who’d raped her daughter.
“Jesus,” was Taylor’s reply, and then she said nothing for several seconds. “But I guess you don’t have to worry about that now.”
“Do you think there has never been a rape in Caelum? A murder?” Irena used her fingers to tear a chunk of bread from the coarse brown loaf between them, and dipped it into the small dish of sweetened butter. Taylor had barely eaten from her share. “They are infrequent, yes. But not everyone transformed has been worthy of their wings.”
“What do you do when that happens? It’s not against the Rules, is it?”
“It is against decency.” Some rules shouldn’t need to be spoken. “There is a trial. If the Guardian is found guilty, we are not forgiving.”
Irena paused, thinking back over several trials she’d witnessed. Michael had never seemed to enjoy administering the sentence—a Fall or an Ascension. Each time, Irena sensed that Michael thought he’d personally failed by transforming the Guardian who’d committed the offense.
But she didn’t know if he had a choice when transforming Guardians. If a human sacrificed himself to save another’s life or soul, Michael was called to offer that human a place in Caelum. He’d never said whether he could resist that call.
Quietly, she continued, “But of course, what you say is true. I do not have the same worry now.” And after her transformation, she’d have given anything to Michael, who’d given her the strength to prevent her body from being taken against her will. Who’d given her the ability to choose who and when. That had been power far greater than her physical strength.
A power that she’d still had with the demon. The demon hadn’t left her without a choice; her heart had. Irena couldn’t regret it—her body meant less to her than her heart—but she should never have had to decide between them. That was indecency.
And that was on the demon’s head.
His decapitated, charred, and roasted head. Invigorated by the image, Irena cut into her steak.
“So what did you do after your mom died?”
“I endured. I dreamed of killing them all, but when I finally got the opportunity, I escaped Rome, instead. We traveled—” She frowned, trying to remember how long it had taken. “More than two winters. We walked from Rome until we reached the Black Sea—what is now the Ukraine. There, we settled. Or attempted to. I don’t know if we remained after the nosferatu attacked us.”
“You killed one?”
Irena shook her head. “I died trying, but injured it badly enough that I saved the others. After Michael arrived, he finished what I’d started.”
“Yay, Michael,” Taylor said, then set her fork down next to her half-finished pasta.
Irena continued eating. Always, with food, she wanted to savor it—and also wanted to devour it as quickly as possible. She kept a steady pace as Taylor called Preston and left a message for him, updating their progress.
“They must still be in with Rael’s staff.” Taylor put away her phone. “You were pissed in Lilith’s office this morning. Why?”
Irena snorted. “Which time?”
“When they were going through Cordoba’s assignments. Do you think they’ve loaded too much on him?”
Irena had to laugh. At Taylor’s questioning look, she said, “No. And I wasn’t angry; I was envious. I have a territory, I check in on the vampire communities and slay any demons that I come across, but my numbers are nothing like Olek’s. Cordoba’s.”
Taylor’s brow creased. “So Lilith was just sticking it to you?”
Irena didn’t know if Lilith or Alejandro had thought of going over his assignments in front of her. It was something both would do. And it was both challenge and declaration, though a subtle one: If Irena would be visiting SI more frequently, then they would use her.
“They know I want more to do. But I am stubborn, and Lilith or Ol—Cordoba will give me assignments in another way.”
“You don’t seem the type to take orders from Lilith.”
Her stomach heaved at the thought. “Not orders. Information, which I choose to act upon.”
She wouldn’t ignore it, just as she wouldn’t have ignored Deacon’s request even if she hadn’t known the vampire.
“You won’t work for SI?”
“No.” Irena lost her humor. “Not with Rael behind it.”
Taylor nodded and her gaze fell to Irena’s empty plate. “The sniper rifle was a semiautomatic. No one knows we found the weapon; that info wasn’t released. And Wren might have said all that shit just to throw us off—to make it look like she’s trying to help us, when really she’s just covering her own ass—but there’s also another option: The guy only shot once because he didn’t miss. Then you’ve got the appearance of an attempted assassination on the congressman, which
I bet he can spin to the voters a million ways, but the wife was always the real target. No one looks at Rael because, well, he was shot, too. And even if someone does, no jury is going to buy that he put himself in the line of fire. Not unless everyone finds out he’s a demon . . . but if that happens it all goes to hell, doesn’t it?”
Irena regarded her quietly. “You would make a fine Guardian.”
“Oh, good. Even if we nail him on the evidence at some point, he’s not going down for it—but it’s all right because I’d look great with wings and leather garter belts and thigh-highs. Lifetime goal, achieved.”
Irena continued looking at her, wondering about the vampire Khavi had predicted—and if, instead of wings, fangs would be in Taylor’s future. Had Khavi mentioned death? Or had Michael—and Irena—just assumed it?
Not that it mattered. They would change whatever fate it was. No human should be transformed against their will.
The detective sighed. “Shit. No offense.”
“I took none.”
Taylor checked her watch. “We’re due at Rael’s place in twenty. How do I go after him?”
A demon who’d lived as a saint? Who had made creating the appearance of a good man the work of a human’s lifetime? Irena thought it over as she finished off the bread.
“Do not go after him,” she decided. “Question him as if it never occurred to you that he might be behind his wife’s assassination.”
“Why?”
“There is a demon beneath the man he shows to everyone. One who wants credit for what he did. If he did it. And even if he did not, he will at least expect that we suspect him. Or that you do. If I do not, he will suspect us.” Irena stopped, realizing that she was heading into a circle and confusing herself; planning a deception did not fit her well. She barged through on the course she wanted. “But when you do not do the same—act as if you suspect him—his ego and his pride will be damaged. It might lead him to act in a way where he exposes himself.”
“Do you think he’d be that careless?”
“No.”
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