Angels of Darkness

by Singh, Nalini, Andrews, Ilona

She sent out her own soft probe, searching for any sign of life. “Nothing.”

  “They sleep in the basement.” He entered the hallway leading to the front of the home, passing a bathroom, an empty bedroom. He paused at the edge of the living room, vanished his sword. “God damn it.”

  Oh. Radha stopped next to him, her breath escaping on a long, heavy sigh. A woman lay between the end of a sofa and the low coffee table, eyes open, her features already locked in the waxy rigidity of death. Middle-aged, dressed in khaki pants, tennis shoes, and yellow latex gloves, she looked like a housewife going about her daily routine. Blood stained the beige carpet beneath her head, a dark pool that must have been congealing for at least a few hours.

  As Marc started toward the body, Radha glanced around the room. Nothing broken, nothing disturbed. The front door hadn’t been forced. The heavy drapes over the south-facing picture window were wide open. Strange, that. She didn’t know any vampires who weren’t careful about closing each curtain in the house every morning, even if they slept in a windowless room. Frowning, she walked around the sofa—stopped behind it. Oh, no.

  “Marc.”

  Crouched beside the woman, he looked up. “What did you find?”

  “Vampire ash. Two piles, I think. Jewelry.” She bent, sifted through the sandy remains, selected a man’s signet ring and showed it to him. “Did Bronner wear this?”

  Jaw clenching, Marc nodded.

  “A woman’s ring is here, too. A set of earrings. No clothes.” Sick to her stomach, she glanced toward the center of the living room again. Hairs and blood clung to the nearest corner of the coffee table. “What happened here? Did this woman drag them up here into the sun, and then . . . trip? Hit her head?”

  “I don’t think so.” He slid up the woman’s short sleeves, revealing the faint discoloration ringing her upper arms. “I think she was grabbed, pushed.”

  Pushed. Not the most efficient way of killing someone. Her gaze settled on the woman’s gloves, and she recalled the cleaning supplies in the kitchen. “Maybe she was here to work and surprised someone. But when? A demon couldn’t have done this to her, not without Deacon and Rosalia being called to slay him—and you’d have sensed them coming.”

  If not a demon, then a vampire or a human. Vampires didn’t have to follow the Rules forbidding demons from killing humans, though most knew better than to try. And in many vampire communities, leadership was determined by strength; Guardians didn’t interfere with vampire power struggles. If another vampire wanted to take Bronner’s place, no Guardian would slay the vampire for killing him. Marc and Radha would slay any vampire who killed a human, however.

  But if she’d been killed after the sun had risen, a vampire couldn’t have done it.

  Gently, Marc tested the woman’s joints. “She’s cold, and almost in full rigor. At least this morning, maybe earlier.”

  So maybe a vampire, maybe not.

  He rose to his feet. “Stay here, make sure no one sees anything through the windows. I’ll check out the basement.”

  It only took him a few moments. Radha had time to vanish all of the ash and jewelry into her psychic storage before he returned, his mouth a tight line of frustration.

  “Blood on the bed, the stairs. They were killed down there, dragged up here—the blood trail down the hall was ashed by the sun. The basement door locks from the inside. A reinforced door and lock, but it was bashed down. A human couldn’t have done that. Most vampires couldn’t. You or I could.”

  “And a demon could,” Radha finished for him. When he nodded, she said, “Do we contact the other vampires in the community, tell them about Bronner?”

  “Not yet. You vanished the ash?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I left the blood. There’s nothing in the DNA that looks different from a human’s, and if a human did this, maybe there’s a fingerprint, a hair, or something for the courts to nail them with. Did you touch anything?”

  She mentally reviewed her steps. “The jewelry, but that’s in my cache now.”

  “All right.” He called in a cell phone, began typing out a message. “I’m going through Special Investigations, asking them to leave an anonymous tip for the sheriff. I’ll call the county coroner myself. He knew Bronner, knew what he was and was able to keep quiet about it, so I’ll let him know I’ve got the ash, that I need to know the result of the exam as quickly as possible. The sheriff will probably list Bronner and his partner as missing, though.”

  “You think a human did it,” Radha realized. “Despite the bashed-in lock.”

  “I’m leaning that way. If he was awake, Bronner wouldn’t have still been in bed, naked, while someone broke into the basement. But we’ll have a better idea whether a vampire could have done it if the coroner can give us a time of death. That’ll take him a couple of hours tonight, so I’ll arrange to meet with him as soon as he’s done with the autopsy. The vampire community can wait until then.”

  “Do you know the coroner?”

  “No. But Bronner trusted him.”

  “Do you?”

  “No. I haven’t met him. And Bronner said he had the coroner in his pocket. That says‘payout’to me. How many demons with money have you known?”

  “All of them,” Radha said. “You think they got together and did this?”

  “No. But I do wonder about any man that can be bought, even if that money comes from a good man like Bronner.” He snapped the phone shut. “Ready? We can’t let anyone see us leave.”

  “I’ve got that covered. What are we doing until we meet with the coroner?”

  “We’re going to let the sheriff do his job. My place is a fifteen-minute flight away. We’ll wait there. I want to step back for a few hours, do a little research and see if anything anyone told me today doesn’t fit. Then take another look at everything, see if there’s anything I haven’t been seeing.”

  His gaze fell on the woman’s body, her sightless eyes. Finally, shaking his head, he turned away.

  “God damn it,” he said again.

  CHAPTER 4

  About a hundred miles north, Marc’s modest, cottage-style house sat atop a wooded rise overlooking the river. Though small, the two-level home had more space than many of the apartments Radha had shared with Mariko over the past century, but Marc apparently used it in exactly the same way they used theirs: as a private location where they could be themselves, no illusions or lies needed.

  They all had private quarters in Caelum—or they had before the city crumbled—but to Radha, those rooms had never felt like a home, had never felt like her space in the way that even a rented apartment on Earth could. Nor did Guardians need the space. They didn’t need to sleep, eat, or bathe, and they could carry everything they owned in their cache. Yet Radha liked to shower. She liked to curl up on a comfortable chair that hadn’t already been used by half the people in the city. She liked to display little items that she’d collected, rather than hide them away in her cache.

  She looked forward to seeing everything that Marc displayed, too.

  He vanished his wings immediately after landing on his front porch, then removed his jacket and tie. He led her inside, rolling his white sleeves up his forearms.

  “I’ll be upstairs at the computer.” Though they could see perfectly well in the dark, he switched on a lamp, casting a warm glow over the hardwood floors and sparse furniture. “I’m putting in a few requests for info from Special Investigations. They can access and compile data faster than I can—and I want a transcript of those texts the girls are sending to each other. Is there anything you need?”

  For Marc to keep taking off his clothing. That was rushing it, though. She needed to get to know him again first. She needed to learn all the ways he’d changed before she could risk her heart again.

  Then he unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, exposing the tanned skin of his throat, and she decided to speed up that learning part a bit.

  “I don’t need anything,” she said. Just a little time
to look around.

  “All right.” He headed for the narrow staircase leading to the second level. “I’ll be down soon.”

  She watched him take the creaking stairs two at a time before making a slow circle of the room. A blue sofa with clean, contemporary lines faced a brick fireplace. On the walls hung a few oil paintings—all pastorals in bold colors. No pastels for Marc.

  Radha wasn’t fond of them, either.

  In the corner, a recessed bookshelf held a mixture of histories and political thrillers in English, a smattering of works in other languages, and a large collection of essays and poetry in French. His native language, she remembered. He’d died in America, but he’d been born in a village in northern France. His family had joined a group of French emigrants who’d settled together in a small farming commune—and she supposed that even in America, French had been the language they’d primarily spoken and read.

  A hundred and forty years ago, his accent had still been strong. She barely heard it now and had only just realized that it was all but gone. She’d expected it when he played the federal agent—like the suit, the right accent became part of the role—but even now, while entering his home, his native France played only a faint note in his speech.

  Another change, but not a surprising one. How long had he looked over this territory? He would have to adopt a Midwestern accent more often than not. Eventually that would become more natural to him than the only language he’d spoken for sixteen years.

  She thumbed through a volume before replacing it. No little keepsakes or baubles cluttered the shelves. On a table at the end of the sofa, a glass bowl held a variety of coins. Odd. Why keep them here? It would be far more useful to keep them in his cache. She had all kinds in hers, in different denominations and currencies—and some old enough to hold more value than they’d started with.

  She picked through them. Euros, centavos, reals, rubles, yen, rupees . . . taka. He’d gone to Bangladesh? And recently. With few exceptions, all of the dates on the coins were recent. But why have them out? This wasn’t the carefully itemized and mounted display of a serious coin collector. Did he just like to look at them? Be reminded of his travels?

  If this bowl gave any indication, he’d traveled a lot recently—and he’d traveled widely, including her territory.

  And that was fine. It wasn’t as if Guardians had to let each other know where they went or ask permission. But he’d been so close . . . and she hadn’t known.

  Rubbing the coin between her fingers, knowing that he could easily hear her through the ceiling, she said, “When did you go to Bangladesh?”

  The tapping of a keyboard stopped. His answer came, as softly spoken as hers. “A year ago.”

  Why didn’t you let me know? But of course he wouldn’t have. And she wouldn’t have wanted him to. Not then. She’d thought he was still an asshole.

  “Were you by yourself?” Such a weenie question. What she really meant was, Were you with someone ?

  “I was alone.”

  Her throat closed. Of course he had been. One look at him a week ago, and she’d known that.

  She picked up a handful of coins, let them clink back into the bowl. “All of these places—New Zealand, Russia, the Congo—you went by yourself?”

  “Yes.” He paused. “Why is my going alone more interesting than where I went? Don’t you go anywhere by yourself?”

  “Of course.” All the time. But when she came back, Radha knew friends would be waiting for her. “But I thought you weren’t celibate anymore.”

  “Ah.”

  That was all? Ah?

  “So?” she pressed.

  He moved quickly. Across the floor above, down the stairs—within a moment, he stood at the bottom of the steps, regarding her with a penetrating stare. “So?” he repeated. “So . . . what? I don’t know what you’re getting at. You want the list? It’s not long.”

  Violent rejection speared through her. No, she didn’t want a list. She didn’t want to know.

  “I just don’t understand why you’re alone all the time. Working, okay, we all do that alone. But here? When you travel somewhere? Why then?”

  “I don’t mind my own company.”

  “That’s the point! Who would mind it? They’d have to be an idiot.”

  Some of the stiffness left his shoulders. “And you aren’t an idiot.”

  Sometimes. She sighed, lifted her hands. “I just don’t understand it.”

  “And I don’t understand who you think I’d be running around with. A human? There’s a town up the road where I’ll go have a drink sometimes, talk with some of the locals. I’ll play a game of pool now and then. But if I plan to stay in this area, and not go around shape-shifted most of the time, I can’t show my face too often or people begin to wonder why I’m not aging.”

  Okay, there was that. She’d had to move several times, too. No one truly minded a blue woman living in their neighborhood, because it wasn’t worth getting out the pitchforks and torches for an eccentric who dyed her skin with indigo. But an eternally young one? That would cause more concern. So moving to a new apartment every few decades was preferable to shape-shifting every time she went home.

  “And if you mean a woman. . . Hell, I’ll just show you why.” He crossed the room, pushed open the door separating the living area from the kitchen. At the refrigerator, he pulled a pint of ice cream from the freezer. “I bought this at the grocery a few months ago. There was a long checkout line, and a pretty woman in front of me who let me know she was interested in the dessert. Probably more.”

  Radha couldn’t blame the woman. “Were you?”

  “I was tempted. I’d just slain Basriel after chasing him for years, and I didn’t have a single person to share that with.” He set the ice cream on the table, met her eyes. “But I couldn’t share it with that woman. I couldn’t tell her anything unless I wanted to lie. So I wasn’t all that tempted anymore.”

  And that was why she didn’t want a list, Radha realized. Marc wouldn’t be tempted just by sex. There had to be more, and so every woman on that list had meant something more to him.

  Starting with her. “So what did you do, instead?”

  “I flew east and spent a day walking along the Great Wall.”

  “That was better than sex?”

  “It was better than feeling like shit afterward.”

  She’d had a few of those. “I suppose I’d rather have spent it walking along the Great Wall, too.”

  “Then you can go with me next time.”

  It wasn’t really an offer, she recognized. He was just trying to settle this issue, to give a solution to his solo travel that would satisfy her. She knew he didn’t expect her to take him up on it.

  “That’s a good idea.” She circled the table, stopped directly in front of him. “Next time, give me a call. I’ll join you wherever you decide to go.”

  Except for a slight clenching of his jaw that betrayed his doubt, he didn’t respond—but he didn’t back away or laugh in her face, either. In the silence, she reached for the ice-cream pint, pulled in a spoon from her cache, and scraped away the ice crystals that had formed at the top. Vanilla. She wasn’t surprised. Simple, not too sweet, with the rich vanilla bean adding such wonderful depth. The perfect flavor for him.

  She settled against the table’s edge and scooped out a bite. “Why not a Guardian, then?”

  He gave a tired laugh, rubbed the back of his neck. Done with this conversation—but she wasn’t.

  “Well?” she pushed.

  Frustration flattened his mouth. “Who? Who’s left after the Ascension?”

  After thousands of Guardians had gone all at once, choosing to move on to their afterlife? Not many.

  So he had a point there, too. “What about before?”

  “No. That was about the time I pulled my head out of my ass.”

  What? She swallowed the ice cream she’d been melting on her tongue. “With the ‘God’s celibate warrior’ thing? Only ten years
ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it because of the Ascension?”

  “Radha—” Now his frustration had an edge to it. “I don’t know what you want from me. Are you trying to set me up with another Guardian, couple me off? Because I’m sure as hell not interested in that.”

  Neither was she. That was the last thing that interested her.

  “I’m trying not to rush,” she said. “I don’t want to be hurt again, and I need to know what kind of man you are now. The problem is, I’m not good at going slow or at resisting something that I want. So I’m trying to find out as much as I can before I jump all over you.”

  His eyes lit like green flame. With a single step toward her, he leaned forward and flattened his hands on the table on either side of her hips, caging her between his arms.

  Bringing his lips within an inch of hers.

  The ice cream seemed to evaporate from her tongue. Oh, yes. This was what she wanted. This intensity, this focus, this heat—and Marc.

  Glowing brilliantly green, his gaze searched hers. “So you want answers first?”

  “Yes.” Though right now, waiting seemed a more foolish choice than rushing.

  “And it’s a test to see whether I’m good enough.”

  Oh. “When you put it that way, it’s not what I meant—”

  “I know it’s not. And I don’t want to hurt you, either. I’ll do everything I can to keep from doing it again.”

  And with that simple statement, uncertainty slipped away from her, as easily as a breath. I don’t want to hurt you. That was all the reassurance she needed, wasn’t it? Either she believed that he’d try not to hurt her or she didn’t.

  She didn’t know everything about him yet, but she believed that. Maybe he would hurt her, someday—but if he tried not to, if he made the effort, that mattered more.

  But he was already straightening, turning away. Fine. She’d lure him back. She reached for the knot tying the scarves at her hip.

  “So, you want to know what happened during the Ascension?” He repeated her question before facing her again. “I almost went with them.”

  Radha froze, her fingers suddenly nerveless with shock and disbelief. “What?”