by Nalini Singh
“Don’t thank me. Just keep Ellie safe from whatever monster you’ve let loose.”
Yes, Uram was a monster. With a monster’s strength. Raphael’s heart suddenly sped to a killing beat, though the air was still, the winds silent. “Give Dmitri the details.” Handing back the phone, he took off from the balcony. His wing ached but he pushed onward, attempting to contact Illium as he flew.
A dull silence was his only answer—not the blankness of death, but something close. He got a little more when he tried Elena. Pain and nausea and anger.
He arrowed a thought toward Dmitri. Forget the bodies for now. Find Elena.
I’m contacting my men.
Jason. The black-winged angel was a master at coordinating the wings of angels under Raphael’s command. Locate Illium. He’s down.
I’m on my way. I’ll brief the wings en route.
Raphael flew harder, cursing his own stupidity. Uram didn’t need to rest to heal, not when he could hasten the process through blood. Another advantage of the bloodborn, another thing that made them feel as if they’d made the right choice. At this point, Uram would believe himself sane—he’d begun to think, to make decisions, but his personality was warped on the deepest level, his brain swimming in the toxin.
The worst thing, Raphael thought as he pushed himself to reach Elena, was that such devolution didn’t happen overnight. Uram’s servants had to have known but, unlike Raphael’s powerful Seven, the other archangel had kept no one strong nearby. No one but Michaela. Raphael’s mouth twisted—he was sure the woman who’d once been called the Queen of Constantinople had helped her lover evade the protocols set in place to prevent exactly this type of thing. Perhaps she’d wanted Uram dead, but more likely, she’d wanted to see what would happen, ascertain if the rest of the Cadre was lying to her.
He reached the part of Manhattan directly across from Castle Point, the spot where Elena had last checked in. “I have a good feeling about this,” she’d said. “The scent’s been diffused by the moisture in the air, but I’m going to keep circling until I hit a stronger concentration.”
“I’ll send more angels your way.”
“No, don’t pull them off the grid searches yet. This could be a trick. I’ll get Illium to contact you if I think I have a bead on him.”
Elena had obviously been far closer to the Angel of Blood than she’d believed.
As he flew over the area, looking for her car, his eyes—sharp, like a raptor’s—found Illium instead. The angel’s blue wings stood out even as he lay half-submerged beneath a pier. Diving, Raphael ignored the onlookers who’d begun to gather on the pier as well as the rescue boat powering Illium’s way. Several humans had actually jumped in and were helping to keep Illium’s face out of the water, though they’d been unable to lift him given the weight of his waterlogged wings. They scattered at Raphael’s approach.
Scooping the unconscious angel out of the water, he rose to the sound of camera shutters and cries of wonder mixed with sorrow. Illium had become well-known in the city since his arrival from duties at the Refuge, his blue wings distinctive, his personality infectious. They thought him dead, forgetting that he was immortal.
Uram could have killed Illium, but he’d chosen the faster option and disabled, clearing the way to his real target. Illium, wake. Raphael held position high above the cloud layer, Illium’s shattered body cradled in his arms. The other angel’s wings were torn, his bones broken from the high-velocity impact with the water. Bruises and cuts marked his skin where he’d probably hit something in the river. He’d lost an eye.
It would all heal. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt. But his flamboyance aside, Illium was a soldier, a fighter. Which was why Raphael didn’t let him rest. Rather, he focused his mental abilities and slapped the angel awake from within his very mind. Illium came to with a gasp. But no scream.
A single perfect eye opened. “Bastard was waiting in the clouds,” he whispered, not wasting time with unnecessary apologies. “Glamour. Ellie . . .” He shuddered, fighting his body’s need to go into a healing sleep. “I think she saw me go down. C-c-close. He looked healed . . . but was weak.” The last word was almost soundless as his body literally kicked him into the deep comalike state from which no one and nothing would be able to wake him for at least a week.
Though he was far younger than Raphael, he might just be old enough to enter anshara itself. It would allow him to heal much quicker, dampening the agony and rebuilding his body before he woke. Otherwise, once the coma broke, he’d be in as much pain as any other being. With so many broken bones, it would be excruciating.
Raphael knew that too well. His mother’s last words to him had been said as he lay bleeding on the ground, his wings shredded so badly he’d had no chance to slow his descent. He’d hit the earth at a velocity that would’ve torn a mortal to pieces. His body hadn’t survived too well either. He’d lost pieces. Young as he’d been, it had taken years for everything to fully re-form. Those in anshara healed exponentially faster. But there was no magic cure.
Not unless you were a bloodborn angel bloated with toxin.
Jason’s black wings appeared through the clouds. He held out his arms, face drawn. “I’ll take him.”
Raphael handed over Illium’s body. “The rest of the wing?”
“I told them to search for the hunter.”
“Get Illium to a healer.” He dove back down to the pier, pulling glamour around himself before he came into view. What Illium had fought to tell him was very important. If Uram hadn’t healed on all levels, then he wouldn’t have been able to fly far with Elena’s body weighing him down.
Live, Elena, he said, willing her to fight, to break out of the darkness that cloaked her mind in a suffocating prison. Live. I have not given you permission to die.
Nothing. Silence. Such silence as he’d never before known.
Live, Elena. A warrior does not lie down for the enemy. Live!
37
“Be quiet,” Elena murmured, pulled out of blissful sleep by an arrogant voice that insisted she get up. “I wanna sleep.”
“You dare give me orders, mortal?” Ice-cold water splashed across her face, snapping her awake to a nightmare.
At first, she couldn’t quite assimilate what it was that she was seeing. Her mind simply refused to put the pieces together. And there were so many pieces. Torn, distorted, impossible pieces. Her stomach twisted, the nausea from the head injury she’d sustained when Uram smashed her face into the dash, merging with the horror of the here and now.
She fought it, refusing to reward the monster with her terror. But it was hard. They’d all been wrong—Sara, Ransom, even Raphael. Uram hadn’t taken fifteen victims. He’d taken others, people who wouldn’t be missed. Rotting limbs, a gleaming rib cage, evidence of his vicious madness littered the room. A room without light, without air. A cell. A crypt. A—
Snap out of it!
It was her hunter sense, the thing that had marked her from birth.
Swallowing her panic, she focused, and realized the room wasn’t, in fact, pitch-dark. Uram had blacked out the windows but some light—too sharp, too white to be natural, which meant she’d been out long enough for night to fall—seeped in around the edges. It was that light that had allowed her to see the sickening truth of the room. Torn bodies thrown about like so much garbage. But not all were in pieces. Against the opposite wall, chains locked around his wrists, she saw the withered body of someone who’d once been human.
Then that dried-out husk blinked and she realized he was still alive. “Jesus!” It came out before she could stop herself.
The monster in front of her, the thing that wore the shell of an archangel, followed her gaze. “I see you’ve made Robert’s acquaintance. He was a loyal one, followed me across the oceans without complaint. Did you not, Bobby?”
Elena watched the cruel humor on Uram’s face and realized she’d never understood true evil until this moment. Robert was a vampire, that much wa
s clear. No human that desiccated would still be alive—it looked as if the vampire had lost every ounce of moisture in him but for his large, glistening eyes. Eyes that pleaded with her for deliverance.
Uram turned back to her, his own eyes—a vivid, beautiful green—dancing with laughter. “He thought he was special because I took him with me. Unfortunately, I forgot about him for a while.” That power-filled gaze became angry, tinged with red. The sparkling green was suddenly putrid.
Elena stayed very, very still in the corner where he’d dumped her, wondering if he’d thought to take her weapons. She couldn’t feel anything on her body but maybe he’d missed one or two—like the ice pick-thin knife in her hair, or the flat blade that slid into a sheath built into her shoe. She flexed her toes and felt the reassuring firmness of her boots. Ransom had given her the boots as a gag gift—she’d never loved the idiot more than she did at that moment.
Uram’s eyes bored into her. “But my loyal Bobby did come in useful”—back to Robert—“didn’t you? He made a most appreciative audience for my little games.”
Elena saw the way the vampire’s hands curled in the chains, the way his wasted body flinched, and felt her fury ignite. Uram had to know what he was doing—vampires were almost immortal, but they needed blood to truly survive. By not allowing him to feed, he’d effectively caused Robert’s body to eat itself. The vampire would never actually die, not of starvation. But his every breath had to be agony by now. And if this went on much longer . . .
Elenas thoughts filled with the one and only case of vampiric starvation she’d ever encountered. It had been in a textbook she’d studied during her final year at Guild Academy. That vampire—S. Matheson—had been caught in a family feud involving his sire. Someone had locked him in a concrete coffin and buried him in the foundations of a building under construction.
He’d been found ten years later.
Alive.
If you could call it that. The contractor who’d unwittingly smashed open the coffin thought he’d found a skeleton, and called the authorities. The M.E. was excited by the prospect of mummified remains. He arrived at the site with a small crime scene crew and they began shooting photos, taking measurements as the workmen watched. Then one of the crime scene techs cut her finger while turning the head of the skeleton and before she knew it, she’d lost the finger, the bone sliced clean in half by one razor-sharp fang.
The paramedics had been called. S. Matheson’s body had regenerated under the constant flow of transfusions. But his brain had undergone some kind of an irreversible metamorphosis. S. Matheson didn’t speak, didn’t do anything but smile like a fool and wait for someone to come too close. Three doctors lost parts of their bodies to the flesh eater before S. Matheson disappeared without a trace. The general consensus was that the angels had taken care of him. Not good for business to have a vampire who ate people.
Robert hadn’t reached that stage yet. There was still something in those eyes, something that felt and understood humanity. She watched as Uram stalked to the vampire, blocking Elena’s view of his actions. Then Robert made an awful sound, and she barely stopped herself from screaming at Uram. Instead, she took the opportunity to slide her foot closer. Closer.
Uram turned, a slight smile on his lips. “What do you think of my work?”
She’d girded herself, knowing he’d done something monstrous. But nothing could’ve prepared her for the sight that met her—pity choked her throat, sent rage rocketing through her. Uram had taken Robert’s eyes. Now, holding her gaze, Uram took the slippery orbs to his mouth, as if about to bite in. She didn’t blink.
“You’re a strong one.” Chuckling, he threw the orbs to the floor, crushing them beneath the heel of his boot. “No nutrition.”
Dismissing a Robert who seemed to have stopped moving, he wiped his hands fastidiously on a handkerchief and came toward her. “You are very quiet, hunter. No heroics to save the poor vampire?” A raised brow that was incongruously regal.
“He’s only another bloodsucker,” she said, sick to her stomach. “I was hoping he’d keep you distracted long enough that I could escape.”
He smiled and the chill that crept up her spine felt like the crawling of a thousand spidery fingers. Then, still without speaking, he crouched down, put his hand on her ankle. Smiled wider. And twisted. The snap of the bone sent pain shrieking through her, so hot and vicious that she screamed.
Raphael!
She felt her vision blur as the smothering wings of unconsciousness closed around her once more. But something caught her mind before it could spiral down into darkness. Tell me where you are, Elena.
Sweat curled down the sides of her face, stuck her T-shirt to her back. But she held on to that voice, Raphael’s voice, and clawed her way back to full consciousness. Uram was still crouched in front of her, watching her with the well-pleased expression of someone who’d cornered his prey. “You smell like acid,” she whispered. “Jagged, bright, distinctive.”
His expression changed, became curious in an almost childish way. But it was the most distorted version of a child’s curiosity she’d ever seen. “What about Bobby?” Another smile even as his eyes turned red again. “He wants to know.”
She swallowed. Water, she said inside her mind, hoping like hell that Raphael was listening. I can smell water. “Bobby,” she whispered. “Bobby smells like dust and earth and death.” And there’s a noise. She concentrated. Cutting, chopping, a steady rhythm. I should know what it is.
Uram stroked a strand of hair off her face. She waited for him to snap her neck, but he drew back his hand a moment later. Even as relief whispered through her, she realized he was feeding on her terror, torturing her with uncertainty. The bastard was keeping her live for his pleasure . . . or was he?
“Why am I alive?” she asked him.
Be quiet, Elena.
Oh, shush. I’m cranky when I’m hurt.
Uram smiled again, his hand squeezing her ankle. The pain almost threw her into the void, but he knew exactly when to relax the pressure. “Because you’re his weakness. It made more sense not to kill you once I thought about it.”
It’s a trap. Don’t you dare let him hurt you.
I will deal with Uram. Your task is to remain alive.
The order almost made her smile, even in the depths of nightmare. “I’m a toy, nothing more.”
“Of course.” Releasing her ankle, Uram waved off her words.
His ready agreement shook her more than she liked. But hey, given her current projected life span, she figured she had the right to love idiotically. Love. Oh, hell. “If I’m so forget-table, what’s my value as a hostage?”
“Because, hunter,” he said with no hint of fang, as smooth as a vampire who’d been around for a few hundred years, “Raphael is possessive about his toys.”
Icicles grew in her heart at the certainty in that tone. “You sound very sure.”
“In the time of beauty, of kings and queens, we were in the same court for a century.” He tilted his head. “You did not know?”
“Toy, remember.” She gave him a close-lipped smile, figuring her real feelings would do for now. “He doesn’t talk to me much.”
“Raphael has never been a talker, not like Charisemnon.” He made a moue of distaste. “That one talks forever and says nothing. I’ve wished a thousand times that I could crush his voice box. Perhaps I’ll get the chance now.” He frowned, pushing aside the femur near his foot. “The smell in here is atrocious.” Anger filmed his eyes.
She decided not to point out that he’d caused the problem. “You were telling me about Raphael’s toys,” she said, sensing that topic would keep her alive longer than if he became enraged by the charnel house odor of the place.
His attention returned to her, and, for the first time, she noticed the strange striations on his skin, fine lines of white that ran down his face. It was almost as if she were seeing blood vessels, but they were the wrong color—filled with something other than bl
ood.
“We had our pick of slaves at court,” he told her, his voice so deep and true that she could understand how so many had once fallen under his spell. And might yet again if he wasn’t stopped. “They were there for our pleasure and we used them at will.”
Her throat tightened at the sheer disregard in his voice. “Humans?”
“Too weak for the most part, not lovely enough. No, our slaves were the vampires—then, as now, it was their duty to worship us.”
That wasn’t quite what it said in the Contract, but Elena played along. “So your slaves were the ones you Made?”
“No, that would have been tedious. They were traded. Oh, you feel sorry for them.” He laughed and it wasn’t an ugly sound. “They begged to come to our beds. There were fights in the harems if one was chosen over the other.”
She expected he was telling the truth. “A win-win situation.”
“There were favorites—”
She was only half listening, trying with all her might to figure out where they were. That whipping, cutting sound had faded into silence, but she could hear something else. Cars. Near a road and water. Uram’s injured wing looked fine, but from the way it dragged on the floor, she had a feeling it wasn’t yet fully functional. So they had to be close to where he’d attacked Illium. God, she hoped the blue-winged angel was okay—the way he’d hit the water would’ve torn a human apart.
Can’t be sure, but I think we’re on the banks of the Hudson, close to where Illium went down, she thought to Raphael, hoping like hell that he was somehow blocking Uram from intruding into her mind, in a room with blackened windows. The smell! It’s disgusting in here. Look for an abandoned building, warehouse, boathouse—or the neighbors would’ve called the authorities by now.
Unless, she thought, these corpses were the neighbors. But if that were the case, someone would’ve reported at least one of them missing. She was focusing so hard that she made a mistake. Her eyes wandered. A hard squeeze of her ankle and suddenly pain was all she was, every one of her nerve endings on fire. This time, she couldn’t fight the rising blackness, couldn’t hold on to the world.