by Nalini Singh
“He loves you,” Elena said, as the memories bruised her from within, hoping she wasn’t about to lie to her sister. “It might take him time, but he’ll accept your hunting.”
Dropping Eve back at school and taking responsibility for her absence, Elena flew straight to the tony brownstone Jeffrey used as a private office, only to find it closed, his assistant nowhere in evidence. Figuring her father would call her soon enough, Elena didn’t bother to slide a note under the door and headed toward Guild HQ. Once again, her phone rang before she made it there. Answering in the air, she found Sara on the other end.
“Ellie, I know you probably can’t take this with what happened yesterday, but—”
“I’m actually on my way to see you, wanted to ask if you had a hunt for me.”
“Good, because we have a serious problem.” Taking an audible breath, she said, “One of our hunters has gone off the rails. We might be talking murder if we don’t stop him.”
Elena landed on a nearby roof, her pulse suddenly in her mouth, her palms clammy, Sara’s words having unlocked a hidden vault: Bill James had been a celebrated hunter, Elena’s mentor . . . and a serial killer. One so good at hiding his crumbling psyche that none of his friends had realized what was happening until the first dead child. “Who?” she asked, throat raw.
“Darrell Vance.” Relief that it wasn’t a friend had Elena lifting a trembling hand to her face. Perhaps it wasn’t fair or right to feel this way, but she’d already had to execute one friend, would never forget the look of betrayal in Bill’s eyes as he died in her arms, his blood hot on her skin.
“Ellie.” Confusion in his voice. “Why, Ellie?”
Sara’s voice broke into a memory that still woke her up some nights, mouth full of cotton wool and the words “I’m sorry” on her lips.
“Darrell had a hunt go seriously bad,” Sara told her. “Vamp had second thoughts after being Made, went back to the mortal family he’d left, only to find his wife had remarried and another man was now raising his son.”
Elena had seen this script before. “He killed the husband.”
“No, that would’ve been bad, but—” When Sara had to pause as if girding herself for what was to come, dread began to crawl up Elena’s spine. “He tore out the husband’s throat, then tied up his son and wife, wrapped them in his arms, and set himself on fire.”
Oh, Jesus.
“Darrell found them while they were still burning, tried to put out the flames, but you know how vamps burn. It’s like they’re doused in petrol.”
Elena had once witnessed a vampire burn as a result of a hate crime. It had been horrific, the smell of roasting meat threatening to make her retch as she tried frantically to beat out the flames. But to find a woman and child in the mix? Her stomach twisted. “Darrell’s fallen off the radar?”
“Yes. The way this went down wasn’t his fault—he did the track in record time—but his head’s probably so messed up, he can’t see that. As it is, he attacked an innocent vampire and put him in the hospital two nights ago; a couple more punches and he’d have fatally damaged the heart. I found out a half hour ago when the vamp woke up.”
Vampires might be strong, but an average untrained one didn’t stand a chance against a member of the Guild. “Have you contacted the Slayer?” Elena asked, referring to the often anonymous hunter whose task it was to hunt those of the Guild gone bad.
“She took a bad injury in a recent situation, is out of commission. This one we’ll have to handle without her—Ransom is lead; he has the sketchy details we have so far, and I know he wants you as his backup.” An unspoken acknowledgment of the bond that had formed between them the day Bill died. “As it is, he’s just come across something that’ll probably need to be referred to the Tower, so you’ll be doing double duty.”
• • •
Raphael glanced at the mortal news channel running on one wall of his Tower office and smiled. It wasn’t a smile of humor, but of pride. His consort had done exactly as he’d asked, the media mystified by the apparent nonchalance with which she’d bought a cup of coffee that morning. Pundits who’d the previous day termed the Falling a catastrophic disaster were now beginning to question their judgment. More and more often, he heard it being termed an accident of some kind that had “fortunately not caused lasting harm.”
“Elena certainly knows how to leave an impression,” Dmitri said on the other end of the phone, having been watching the same news feed.
Raphael’s second and his consort had never seen eye to eye, for to Dmitri, Elena was a lethal chink in Raphael’s armor, but today he heard grim admiration in the vampire’s tone. “If we can continue to manipulate the media,” he said, switching the screen to silent, “and maintain a stranglehold on any news that leaves the Tower, we can convince the enemy that the five we lost represent the only real damage.” Those five would be halfway home by now, crossing over the blue-green span of a mercurial sea.
“Acknowledge a few serious injuries, or allow that information to leak.” Dmitri spoke with the icy intelligence that made him a master strategist. “It’ll take care of the images already out there of angels who fell into traffic or were otherwise publicly injured, and it’ll explain the healers. Illium’s very good at whispering the right words in the right ears.”
Raphael sent the instruction to the blue-winged angel as he continued to speak to Dmitri, his eyes on the glittering steel and glass metropolis that was Manhattan. “We need to quietly bring in troops from outlying areas.” No enemy who wanted to be taken seriously in the immortal world would launch an attack at any target but the Tower—in the game of archangels, to conquer was to strike at one another’s base of power.
“I need you to assist Aodhan in organizing that shift.” Aodhan was yet new to the territory, having previously been Galen’s right hand in the Refuge. “I have Illium focusing on creating new working squadrons.” With so many angels down, the current squadrons had become unbalanced in critical areas.
“Sire, do you wish me to return to the city?”
“No,” Raphael said, conscious Dmitri’s wife was still regaining her strength after her transformation from mortal to vampire. “Your continued absence serves my purpose for the time being.” Everyone knew Dmitri was the oldest of Raphael’s Seven, the one Raphael considered a friend. “When the war breaks, I’ll want you by my side, but that time isn’t now.”
Not quite yet.
• • •
Elena landed in front of an old-fashioned two-story villa set in the middle of a derelict street twenty minutes after her call from Sara and stared. Surrounded by tall weeds and smothered in ivy on one side, the building in front of her could’ve stood in as the prototypical haunted house; in point of fact, the entire street had escaped any attempt at modernization. Even the streetlamps were wrought iron, the frames rusted, the glass cracked to splinter the pavement, not a single electrical or telephone wire in sight.
That was hardly surprising in a city filled with angels and vampires, not all of whom embraced change. If, however, this place belonged to an immortal or almost-immortal, it had been permitted to fall into remarkable disrepair. The older ones who liked to keep things the way they’d been at some point in the past, took great pride in maintaining the historical detail and beauty of their properties.
It didn’t appear anyone had touched this house for decades.
The paint, which might’ve once been white, was peeling and blackened from the dust of the city streets, the windows shattered, the eaves hung with cobwebs thick and sticky, the curtains within rotten shreds from what she could see from her position on the street. The wood itself was warped out of shape, until the house couldn’t be in any way weather-tight—and an unusually tall tree had fallen onto part of the roof, caving in one side of the house.
“What the hell is this place?” she said to Ransom when he appeared from the other side of the porch.
Green eyes vivid against skin of copper-gold, he raised an eye
brow. “Are you talking about this multimillion-dollar piece of real estate?”
“Seriously?”
“When’s the last time land went for sale in Manhattan?” he asked, shrugging wide shoulders hugged by the battered black leather of his motorcycle jacket, his legs encased in old blue jeans over scuffed heavy-duty boots. “This entire street is one parcel. Developers have fucking public orgasms dreaming about getting their paws on it.”
Elena whistled. “Someone’s sitting on a gold mine.”
“He was. Now he’s dead.”
Heart slamming against her ribs, she jerked her attention from the rotting house next door. “Not—”
“No, it wasn’t Darrell, but it’s someone the Tower’s going to be interested in.” Ransom’s blade-sharp cheekbones cut against his skin as he said, “We need to clear this fast and continue with the hunt.”
Agreeing, she walked gingerly up the front steps, not trusting them not to collapse and dump her on her ass. “How do we get in?” Front door was boarded up, the nails corroded and the wood obscene with graffiti.
Angling his head to the left, the glossy black tail of his hair tied at the nape of his neck with a strip of rawhide, Ransom led her around the house. “Your angel friends okay? That young blond one who follows you around like a big, goofy puppy?”
Stabbing pains in her stomach, her mind rebelling against the brutal images of Izak’s torn-off legs, his flayed skin. “He’s hurt bad.”
“Shit. He’s just a kid.”
Elena’s throat knotted as she thought of the other young soldier who hadn’t survived, whose family even now held vigil for the return of his body. “The angel you rescued from in front of the truck?” she said, forcing herself not to give in to useless anger. “It’ll take time, but she’ll heal.”
Ransom blew out a jagged breath. “I didn’t think she’d make it. She was . . .” He shook his head. “I had to collect her arm from under the tires, Ellie.” Gesturing for her to take care over a broken board, he said, “What I found today? It’s going to add to the shitpile.”
Fuck. The city didn’t need any further problems. “You tracked Darrell here?”
“Darrell didn’t go loco right after that clusterfuck with the mother and the kid,” was the surprising answer. “He came in, had counseling, said all the right things, and was assigned a slam-dunk retrieval to ease him back into things.”
Reading between the lines, Elena realized the counselor had known something was off and asked for Darrell to be kept within reach.
“Vamp who owned this place was his assigned target.” Ransom drew his guns from the shoulder holsters he wore under his jacket, the action deadly silent. “I figured I might as well use him as a starting point for the track, since Darrell did send in a report to say he was on the guy’s trail.”
Elena had her throwing blades in hand when they turned the corner. Half of the back wall was just gone, leaving a gaping entrance filled with street detritus, dead leaves, discarded hypodermic needles, and other things she didn’t want to think about too deeply. Trying to keep her wings from trailing in the crap, she took a step inside . . . and a rat as big as a goddamn cat scurried over her boot.
Biting back her instinctive scream, she glared at Ransom—who was very conspicuously not grinning. “You couldn’t warn me?”
“You’re a tough-ass hunter who gets naked with a freaking archangel, has a miniature flamethrower—which, by the way, you should leave to me in your will—and a crossbow, all within easy reach.” His cheeks creased, eyes glinting. “Rats quiver at your presence.”
“Now I remember why you’re only an almost-friend.”
“Oh, Ellie, you wound me.” He paused. “Did you stop and get the masks?”
“Yeah.” Reaching into a side pocket of her pants, she passed him a collapsible mask. Like her, he was hunter-born, his sense of smell acute.
“Thanks.” He pulled it on over his mouth and nose, tightened the elastic band. “Smell’s worse upstairs.”
Since it reeked down here—a disgusting miasma of droppings, spoiled food, and urine—Elena didn’t waste any time following his lead. Tugging out a pair of latex gloves from another pocket as Ransom did the same, she nodded at him to lead, and they skirted past what looked like the mummified body of a feral cat, and out of the kitchen.
The hallway beyond was narrow enough that Elena had to lean slightly to the right to avoid scraping her wing over the dark brown thickness smeared on the wall, all her air coming in through her mouth now . . . because her brain had identified the major component of the putrid stink as that of a decomposing corpse.
6
Stopping at the foot of the narrow staircase that ran along one wall, Ransom murmured, “Keep to the left and wait till I’m at the top, then come up.”
The stairs creaked under his weight, again under Elena’s, but held.
Guns out, Ransom led her down the upstairs hallway and into a room so pungent with death her stomach would’ve revolted if she hadn’t steeled herself against the gag reflex. The second slap was of humidity, something about the way the room was built acting to trap what little heat there was . . . and accelerate the decomposition process.
Immediately identifying the filthy mattress below the boarded-up windows as the source of the scent of putrefaction, Elena walked across, trusting Ransom to watch her back. The body was bloated with the gases of death, skin a sickly green, but the head remained attached to the neck, and the shirt-clad chest was unmolested, judging from a surface glance. That meant his heart was likely still inside his body.
Going down on her knee, Elena blinked rapidly to dry out eyes that threatened to water from the pulsing waves of smell, ignored the maggots, and peeled back the corpse’s lip.
Canines, sharp and gleaming white.
“He isn’t a baby vamp,” she said through gritted teeth, “so this isn’t a Making gone bad.”
“Look at the throat.”
Wings rustling against God knew what on the dirty floor, she retrieved the slimline flashlight she kept tucked alongside the knife on her left thigh and pointed the beam at the victim’s neck. “Hell.” Thick pustules filled with bloody fluid covered the male’s throat, all the way to the open collar of his shirt . . . and down.
“Smell’s getting to me, Ellie,” Ransom said, just as her own stomach began to churn.
“Me, too.”
They both ripped off their masks to take deep gulps of the crisp winter air the instant they hit the street. Gloves went next, Elena’s skin itching to breathe. When Ransom retrieved a couple of bottles of water from the panther-black body of his motorcycle, throwing her one, she took it with a nod of thanks.
“Vampires aren’t supposed to get sick,” he said, after emptying half the bottle.
Splashing some water into one hand, Elena wiped it over her face, knowing it would take multiple showers to get that foul smell out of her nose. “No, they’re not.”
“Chop off their heads, they die,” Ransom continued. “Set them on fire, or cut out their hearts, they die unless they’re strong and old old. But soon as they’re Made, they don’t get sick. One thing’s for sure—Darrell definitely didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Elena agreed. “I’m going to have to bring in a consult from the Tower.” One of the more experienced angels or vampires; maybe there was a weird vamp virus that got a minority of them and she simply didn’t know about it. “Whoever it is will probably ask you to sign a nondisclosure agreement in blood.”
Ransom pretended to plump up a vein while she made the call to Aodhan. “I think this is serious,” she said to the angel, after describing the situation. “Ransom and I need to continue our hunt—can you spare someone to guard the body until it can be moved to a morgue?”
Aodhan asked her to give him five minutes but it was almost fifteen minutes later that he personally escorted another angel to the site. A bare five foot six and slender as a boy, the unexpected angel’s uptilted eyes were a gent
le brown, his lips lush in a face saved from near-feminine prettiness by the sense of sheer maleness that clung to Keir.
Her frustration at the wait dissolving into deep affection, she leaned down into Keir’s kiss on the cheek. “You must have left the Refuge as soon as it happened.” It. The Falling. An awful malice reduced to two simple words.
“Raphael had a jet prepared for me so I would not be tired upon my arrival,” he told her, eyes painfully wise. “It was strange to fly in the belly of a metal creature when I have wings of my own, but he was right.”
When Aodhan was unexpectedly recalled to the Tower a second later, Elena remained at the house to watch Keir’s back, while Ransom continued to circle out from the house, searching for any sign that Darrell had made it this far. Stomach muscles clenched against the noxious stink, Elena led Keir to the corpse, where the healer examined it in silence, not saying a word until they were back out on the deserted street.
“A true infection.” Troubled darkness in the lush brown of his eyes. “I must autopsy the body under better lighting, see if I can pinpoint how the infection was introduced into his body.”
“Ransom and I were talking before you arrived, and we thought maybe the victim drank from the wrong person.”
His expression grew darker, even more serious. “The bodies of our blood kin,” Keir said, “are built to filter out impurities in blood—that is why a vampire can feed from any donor, even the most diseased.” Strands of silky black hair fell across his dusky skin as he looked at the ground, lost in thought. “If that mechanism failed . . .”
A sudden brilliance of blue, Illium landing in front of her. Having contacted her while Keir looked over the body, he’d brought a body bag to transport the victim to the research labs underneath the Tower, a small biohazard container for her, as well as better masks and replacement gloves, and didn’t argue when she made him use the safety gear.