Archangels Consort

by Nalini Singh

Page 28

 

  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 torture 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. ”

  As they came nearer, trying not to stare at Raphael while doing exactly that, the Archangel of New York moved a small distance from the body, choosing to stand right on the water’s edge.

  “I can’
t pinpoint the scent of the killer here. ” Frustration churned through her as she followed him. “The area’s—”

  “It may not signify,” Raphael said. “Dmitri spoke to me earlier today of a vampire who, from the evidence, appears to have set himself alight last night then stood in place as he burned. That is not the act of a sane man. ”

  Elena blew out a breath. “Yeah, good chance it was him. If Dmitri has a name, I can check his apartment, get the scent there, see if he was in this area at least. ”

  “Identification may take weeks, depending on whether anyone reports him missing—the fire turned the body to ash. ” He flared out his wings and beyond them, the cops went motionless.

  Elena could well understand their fascination. She’d touched those wings, felt that powerful body hot and demanding above her own, and still her chest went tight.

  “I will speak to Jason,” Raphael said, not noticing the reaction of the humans, “have him check with his informants about other murders that may be connected. ” Wings spread to their breathtaking widest, he rose into the sky. Contact me the instant you sense any hint of her presence—she would crush you, Elena, and think nothing of it.

  I know. With that, she let him go. Some nightmares, she knew all too well, couldn’t be cured in a day or even a year.

  Given the viciousness of the girl’s murder, the grisly suicide of her probable killer, and the other outbreaks of violence that had been her welcome to the city, Elena was almost surprised four days later to discover that they’d passed in peace—though it was a peace strung taut as a bow as everyone waited for the other shoe to drop.

  Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, she’d spent a few hours one day placing several more plants in the solar, along with a selection of her other treasures—the delicately carved mask from Indonesia went on the wall beside the door, the tiny glass candy ornaments from Murano in a crystal bowl atop the small writing desk, and the swathe of hand-embroidered silk from Kashmir she hung up on the other wall like a tapestry. Midnight blue shot with gold, it glowed in the sunlight.

  “Setting up a nest, Guild Hunter?” Raphael had asked only last night as he stood leaning against the doorjamb.

  She’d looked up from where she was arranging her favorite books in a gorgeous little bookshelf made of reclaimed lumber that Montgomery had found for her, caught by how very male Raphael was—especially here, in a place she’d turned exquisitely feminine. “It’s what hunters do. ” She had a feeling that deep-rooted sense of home would be even more crucial in this new life. “But,” she’d added, “you’ve already created the nest. ” This house, for all its size, was nothing like the cold elegance of the Tower. Here was warmth and beauty, a place where she could collapse in bed and snuggle into the blankets.

  “Then what is this?”