by Nalini Singh
“Oh, of course.” The neighbor shivered. “Terrible what’s happened. They’re such a lovely young family. We talk over the fence sometimes.”
“Imagine, that could’ve been you, Al!” interjected the neighbor’s wife.
A short Hispanic woman wearing a T-shirt bearing the logo of a local boutique bakery, she’d introduced herself as Anita, then asked Elena if she wanted a slice of fresh pie. Elena and her bottomless pit of a stomach—she probably had ringworms, immortal ringworms—had been tempted, but demurred. “Where’s the recorded footage stored?”
“It’s on my computer.” Al gestured for her to come inside, quickly realized her wings would make that awkward. “Hold on, I’ll bring the laptop out here.”
He returned just as the snow began to fall, the flakes soft and delicate.
“Pretty,” he said. “But I’m glad I’m not outside in it.”
“Al!” Anita glared at her husband.
Shoulders going up and head lowering, he said, “Sorry,” to Elena. “Just came out.”
“I’m not as vulnerable to cold as I used to be.” True enough, except that her teeth were threatening to chatter and her skin felt encased in ice where the snow kissed it.
Putting the laptop on a small hallway table his wife quickly cleared, a reassured Al angled the table so that Elena could see the screen. “I haven’t actually looked at the footage myself,” he said. “You never do, do you? Not unless something goes wrong.”
“We only got the entire setup to help out a friend who was selling them,” Anita confided. “Otherwise, who thinks of cameras? But Al’s good with computers, so we use all the features. Can even see through the cameras when we’re on vacation!”
Al pointed to a file icon on the screen. “That’s the recording from the past forty-eight hours.” He scratched his head. “We leave the cameras running on a loop, but I delete the files every few days, and this is the only one we’ve got right now.”
“It’s more than enough.” Elena clamped down on her excitement. “Can you pull up a specific time?” She gave him a time five minutes before Jeffrey and Eve’s arrival.
“Yes, I just type the time in here . . . and . . .”
Anita hovered beside him as he worked.
“There we are.” He hit play.
As expected, the relevant security camera was focused on their own backyard, but the angle meant the camera did also catch a relatively large section of Harrison and Beth’s property as well.
“Stop.” Elena leaned forward, breath hitching, as the image of a fleeing individual disappeared off the side of the screen.
“Oh, my goodness.” Anita pressed her fingers to her mouth; Al was already backing up the footage then setting it to run more slowly. “Well, gosh darn it.” Lines furrowed his brow. “You can hardly see him. He must’ve run down that left-hand part, where the camera can’t see.”
Nonetheless, Elena had seen enough to confirm their theory about intelligence and planning. The assailant had been dressed in a long coat, boots, and a brimmed hat, with a scarf wrapped around their face. From this distance, she could see no details of their features, but even their run was measured and purposeful rather than panicked. A person who moved as if they had a right to be there. A visitor in a rush.
Nothing to cause alarm.
“Can you copy the footage to me?” Elena caught Al’s gaze. “I’d also recommend you not try to do anything yourself. This individual is dangerous.”
“Oh no, don’t worry, dear,” he said while his wife gasped, “I leave the heroics to young people like you.” He took down her details. “I’ll put the files in the cloud and send you the access link.”
“Thank you.”
“You take care in the snow, honey!” Anita called after her. “And if you decide you want pie after all, come on back!”
Smile curving her lips, Elena continued to do the rounds, but no one else had anything to offer. Her back and shoulder muscles ached badly by the time she called things to a halt—all from just making sure her wings didn’t drag on the ground. The task hadn’t been this wearing since the weeks after she woke up with wings and was learning how to fly, her body unused to the exertion. Good wing posture had become second nature in the years since.
Her left wing threatened to drop again.
She was standing by Beth’s house fighting the urge to lie down flat to ease the strain on her back when the throaty purr of a motorcycle engine sounded down the street. She glanced over . . . and grinned.
“Why are you prowling these streets?” she said to the black-leather-garbed rider who stopped in front of her. “Sara said you were around earlier, too.”
Ransom pushed up the visor of his helmet to reveal gorgeous green eyes that had seduced more than one woman. “Coupla kids tagged a pic of you walking around the neighborhood. Showed up on my feed.”
When she raised an eyebrow, he sighed. “Nyree wants to move around here in preparation for when we start trying for a mini-me. I’m doing reconnaissance.”
Elena knew him well enough not to fall for his put-upon scowl. The hunter who’d avoided entanglements like the plague was delightfully entangled with a woman who took no bullshit and who loved Ransom with ferocious honesty.
Elena grinned. “How about a ride?”
“Any time.” He patted the back of the motorcycle he’d only recently bought, after his previous one fell down a cliff during a fight with a young vampire in bloodlust. He’d loved that bike, but he hadn’t sulked at the loss—he’d said it was worth it to stop a vampire who’d already murdered three innocents.
The vampire’s angel had paid for the new bike—and requested Ransom for all future hunts. Elena wondered how her friend would handle things when he did have children. Most people transitioned to teaching at the Academy or low-risk hunts for stupid vamps, but Ransom wasn’t the kind. Hunter-born rarely were.
“Hold still.” She straddled the bike behind him but didn’t sit—no way to do that safely with wings. Instead, she got her feet settled on the foot stands and put her hands on his shoulders. “Ready.” She lifted her face to the wind as they roared off and, yes, it was just as much fun as she remembered. Especially when they stopped at traffic lights and a bored driver glanced over . . . to do a serious double take.
Elena waved at him. He waved back, his eyes like small moons in his face.
“You should take a photo or no one will believe you!” she yelled over.
Scrambling for his phone, he managed a shot before the light changed and they roared off. She could feel Ransom’s shoulders shaking as he laughed. Whooping, she enjoyed the ride with a friend she’d known since she was sixteen. It was only as Ransom brought the bike to a stop by the Tower that she remembered the cuts on her arm.
Yeah, she probably shouldn’t be acting the hooligan on a motorcycle without a helmet. “Thanks.” Getting off, she exchanged high fives with Ransom before he roared off to pick up Nyree from a book club meeting.
Elena went directly to her and Raphael’s Tower suite to eat two loaded sandwiches and drink more of Nisia’s mix. After which she found the healer to ask her about immortal ringworms.
Though Nisia was seated while Elena was standing, she managed to look down her nose at Elena. “You don’t have worms.”
“Did you check?” Immortals had a way of assuming certain things, and what if she did have a very normal mortal problem? “I’m not fully immortal. They could survive in my gut.”
“Ringworm isn’t caused by worms. It’s a fungus. Which you also don’t have. Your skin didn’t fluoresce under black light when I ran it over you as part of my tests.”
Elena stared at her. “You keep up with modern medicine?”
“No, I prefer to treat my patients with bucketloads of leeches.” A stern pursing of the lips. “Now go away so I can continue to study the results of your variou
s tests. Though . . .”
That sounded ominous. “Though what?”
“I didn’t check for a parasite of another kind.”
19
Elena’s heart raced as Nisia walked over and put her hands on Elena’s abdomen. “Not a flicker of power,” she announced, “and considering the other genetic donor, it’d be a conflagration.”
“What?” Elena demanded again.
Raising an eyebrow, Nisia said, “If you were pregnant.”
“Christ, Nisia, you can’t just say things like that!”
Back at her chair now, Nisia waved off Elena’s shock. “You’re not with child, so stop panicking.”
“I’m not panicking,” she squeaked out; she was so not ready for a baby.
“Yes, of course not.” Dry words. “You’re far too young anyway. But with the Cascade”—Nisia shrugged—“I thought better to check.”
“Right.” Elena’s head spun madly at even the idea of it. “Wait a minute. Did you call the possible baby a parasite?”
“The basic definition of a parasite is an organism that lives on or inside a host and feeds off that host. Therefore, all fetuses are technically parasites. A fetus with DNA from an archangel will be a super-parasite,” she added cheerfully. “It’ll suck you dry of energy, so you’d better be really old and strong before you start thinking about the flitter-flutter of tiny wings.”
Elena slitted her eyes and pointed. “You’re having fun making my future offspring”—and jeez, she was never going to be ready for those—“sound like energy-draining horrors.”
Nisia smiled beatifically. “Strange how that happens when you question a four-thousand-year-old healer about immortal worms.”
“It was just a question!” Elena protested but decided to haul ass before Nisia got in the mood to put more nightmare images in her head. “Parasites,” she muttered under her breath. “No wonder she’s not in angelic obstetrics.” Keir was the expert in that, and she bet he didn’t take pleasure in terrifying poor hunters who had perfectly legitimate questions about ringworms.
And why was it called ringworm when there were no worms involved? That wasn’t playing fair.
Also, maybe she should talk to Keir about contraception. He’d said it was unnecessary because she could not fall pregnant. She wasn’t immortal enough yet, quite literally a different and biologically incompatible species from Raphael. But with the Cascade going on . . .
Then again, she appeared to be becoming even more mortal these days.
Chastened and ringworm-less, Elena made her way to Vivek’s domain. “Where’s V?” she asked a passing vamp when she couldn’t spot the other hunter.
“Being tortured by a physiotherapist. Sadists even check to make sure he’s not wearing an earpiece. Man’s totally cut off from comms.” A shudder at the idea.
“I guess he finally got on their last nerve.” Vivek had a way of interrupting sessions to follow up on incoming pieces of information.
“Whatever.” The vampire wasn’t buying it. “Anyway, he’s out for an hour. You need help?”
“No, I think I can handle it.” With that, she made her way to the area at the back that was set aside for Tower residents who needed computers but didn’t have an office. Elena could’ve had an office, but she preferred working here or in Raphael’s office. Today, bones heavy with missing her archangel, she wanted to be around the buzz of life in the tech center.
She’d just sat down when she sensed a current of power in the air. Turning, she scowled at Illium. “Are you following me?” She wouldn’t put it past Bluebell—he was very protective of his people.
“You wound me, Ellie.” A hand pressed to his chest, golden eyes wide in innocence. “I was visiting my friends.” He indicated a couple of angels hunched over the computers, their wings flowing gracefully to the carpet.
That sight always took her a moment or two to process even though she knew full well that part of the reason Raphael’s Tower ran so well was that he’d changed with the times—and he had Illium. The blue-winged angel handled a phone with the same ease he did the sword he wore in a spine sheath.
“What are you doing?” He leaned over the back of her chair, his scent familiar and as welcome as the heat coming off his body.
Elena was so cold deep inside.
Shrugging off the odd sensation and telling herself she’d be fine once she could wrap her arms around Raphael for a long embrace, she logged onto the computer. “Looking at security footage from near Beth’s place.”
Illium stayed where he was, watching along with her. “I heard about Harrison.”
First, she replayed the section she’d watched at Al and Anita’s house. But no matter how many times she ran the footage, the camera just hadn’t caught enough of the assailant.
“Now comes the boring part,” she murmured. “We have no idea how long Harrison’s attacker was lying in wait, so I’m going to cue it up to the time of the incident and go backward at speed from there. Even then, it’ll take time.” She dug out an energy bar to eat while they watched.
Illium’s stomach rumbled.
Elena blinked and paused the footage to look up at him. “Seriously? You haven’t eaten for so long that your stomach is actually rumbling?” Angels didn’t need to eat as often as mortals, which meant Illium had skipped a serious number of meals.
“I’ve been busy.” He rubbed his stomach, the blue-tipped black of his eyelashes lowered.
Rising from the chair, Elena thrust half the energy bar at him. “Proper food for both of us, I think.” Her body had already digested the sandwiches, and that wasn’t scary at all. “We can eat as we watch.”
Illium went with her to the suite, where the two of them got busy preparing more sandwiches, as well as rolls. “You’re missing Aodhan, aren’t you?”
“I have to set him free.” Illium’s answer was quiet. “I finally figured that out. He’s doing what he didn’t do for two hundred years.” Eyes of aged gold held Elena’s. “Those years when he buried himself in the Refuge, I had a chance to grow and become who I am today. Now it’s his time.”
Elena ran her hand over his wing with the intimacy of long friendship; though the silver filaments glittered, the texture of his feathers was incredibly soft and silken. “That doesn’t mean you can’t miss him—especially after you waited two hundred years for him to emerge from the shadows.”
“I’m scared all the time,” he admitted, bracing his hands on the counter. “I know he’s powerful, I’ve seen him in battle, and yet the fear crushes me.”
“Of course it does.” Elena let her wing overlap his. “That’s what it means to love someone.” She gave him a lopsided smile. “I worry about Raphael and he’s an archangel. I’ve been known to warn him that if he gets hurt, I’ll kill him dead.”
Illium’s laugh pierced the darkness around him to reveal her Bluebell who had so much light in his soul. “Let’s go watch your boring footage. I know how to program it to stop on movement, so we don’t have to keep it to a speed the eye can track.”
As it was, Illium had gone through half his sandwiches and she’d finished off her filled rolls and all they had was a big fat nothing. The only movement so far had come from a couple of prowling cats, two snowfalls, and a flying plastic bag. No indication of an intruder in Beth and Harrison’s yard.
“Assailant could’ve been hiding in a section the camera doesn’t cover.” Elena threw back more of Nisia’s mixture as the footage continued to run backward.
“He’d still have to enter the house,” Illium pointed out. “Only two options left if he didn’t use the back door. Either he was in the house for hours—and that doesn’t seem reasonable with how you’ve described the layout of your sister’s home—or he went in another way.”
Tapping her fingers on the table, Elena said, “They do have a large window on the other side of the h
ouse.” She rang the forensic team and asked if they’d picked up anything unusual near that window.
She groaned inwardly at the answer. “We could’ve saved ourselves the mind-numbing boredom,” she told Illium after she’d hung up. “The techs found shoe prints on the windowsill. Nothing in the snow outside, but depending on when it snowed, any footprints could’ve been buried.”
Illium dropped his wings in a dramatic slump. “Does this mean we can stop the visual torture?”
Elena went to nod then thought better of it. “No, let’s watch it through.” She scratched absently at the older cut on her forearm through the fabric of her long thermal tee; she’d long ago stripped off the jacket. “Harrison’s attacker must’ve scoped out the property at some point, and we’ve got two days of data.”
“I must really like you to subject myself to such punishment,” Illium said as they settled in to watch more of the same endless scene. Even at the speed they had it going, it seemed a static image.
The only break came when a giggling Maggie ran outside dressed up like a little polar bear—complete with bear ears on the hood of her snow jacket. Harrison stepped out after her, the two of them playing in the snow until Beth came to the doorway to call them back in. It was odd watching the entire scene in reverse, but one thing was clear.
“He’s a good dad.” For the first time, she saw a glimmer of what Beth must see in her husband. Saw the gentleness with which he swung Maggie up in his arms, the tenderness with which he stole a kiss from Beth while she tried to shoo husband and daughter out of the snow.
“Andreas likes him better these days,” Illium told her.
Had Elena not hauled Harrison back to his angel when she had, Andreas would’ve signed an execution order with Harrison’s name on it—a fact that Harrison hadn’t understood when he attempted to escape, or even in the aftermath of his punishment.
Angels didn’t play when it came to rogue young vampires.
After taking a drink of cola to swallow down another bite of sandwich, Illium said, “Last time I spoke to Andreas, he said your brother-in-law’s knuckled under and put his nose to the grindstone.”