Guild Hunter: Archangel's Shadows Part 2

"Exclusivity makes it more valuable." Dmitri put the vial back down. "Effects?"

"s.e.xual high and addictive with a single hit." Trace had reported seeing the woman from whom he'd seduced the sample quivering in carnal pleasure after she ate a sliver, her hands cupping her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and her eyes heavy lidded. "Long-term effects are unknown-Trace was able to confirm the drug only hit the streets two days past. We were lucky to pick up on it."

"No. We weren't lucky; we were prepared." Dmitri had begun to create a network of informants throughout the city during the lead-up to the battle, and it was those informants who had reported a rising excitement in the wealthy vampire populace. All of it related to a mysterious new high.

Many of these new informants were human and a number were blood donors, specifically genetically blessed donors who came into contact with older, more powerful vampires on a regular basis. The trick was that none of the informants knew they served the Tower. One set of exclusive donors, for example, reported to the woman who ran the city's top vampire club, in return for the cachet of being in her inner circle.

The idea of the subtle but powerful network had come from Raphael.

"Elena," the archangel had said, "has made me realize we're not fully utilizing all our a.s.sets."

They'd been standing on the Tower roof at the time, the wind a savage beast. When Raphael turned to Dmitri, midnight black strands of hair had whipped across his face. "The mortals see things we do not, pay attention to those we might otherwise dismiss." Facing the wind once again, Raphael had continued. "We need that information, but I will not drag Elena's friends too deeply into the immortal world." An instant of piercing eye contact. "Such can end only badly for them."

Dmitri knew Raphael was no longer talking about Elena's friends, but about the horror of Dmitri's own past. "I do not blame you, sire. I never have." He blamed the vicious angel who had tortured them both. "Without you, I would've carved out my heart and been lying dead in a distant grave an eon ago."

"I blame myself, Dmitri, and I would not have Elena feel the same. Set up the network using mortals who have freely chosen to linger on the fringes of the immortal world as the base."

"Raphael." When the archangel turned to look at him with those eyes that burned with power, Dmitri had extended his arm. "The past is past, and if there ever was a debt between us, it was wiped clean the day you Made Honor." Those vampires Made by an archangel were stronger from day one, harder to injure or kill. "You are my liege, but you will always first be my friend."

Raphael's hand had closed over his forearm, his over the archangel's. "I hope to hear the same words a thousand years hence."

"You will." Both Dmitri and Raphael had come close to losing themselves to the insidious cold of eternity, but that was no longer a threat.

Today, it was Illium who concerned Dmitri. The majority of people, mortal and immortal, saw charm and a vivid zest for life when they looked at the blue-winged angel. Dmitri saw increasing power and an increasing darkness. All that held the darkness at bay was Illium's tight-knit connection to Elena and Raphael, and to the Seven. But there would come a time when Illium became too much a power to remain in the city.

Then who would keep him . . . human?

"How long does the Umber high last?" Dmitri asked, making a mental note to speak to Raphael about Illium's slow and near-imperceptible descent into the icy abyss that had nearly consumed the two of them. Unlike the others in the Seven, Illium couldn't be seconded back to the Refuge to a.s.sist Galen and Venom; the distance from Elena and Aodhan, in particular, would indisputably hasten the ravages of the kind of power at Illium's command.

"Longer than the high from a honey feed," the blue-winged angel said in response to his question.

Dmitri frowned. A vampire's metabolism differed from a mortal's, meaning normal drugs, no matter how hard, metabolized too quickly to be worth the cost or the bother. A honey feed-drawing blood directly from the vein of a drug-addicted mortal who'd just shot up, snorted, or otherwise ingested their poison of choice, provided a trip that could last for up to ten minutes.

"How much better?"

"An hour per half gram of Umber."

Dmitri went motionless. "An hour." No other known drug on the planet had such an intense effect on the vampire population. "Unsurprising, then, that it's become so coveted so quickly."

"Trace has been able to pinpoint ten users so far, all gilded lilies."

Dmitri knew the type: pretty but useless. Older, wealthy vampires who existed only to discover new indulgences, new sins. Anything to break the ennui. Dmitri had once, during the worst of his pain, joined them-only to discover he couldn't spend his days doing nothing. It was a vapid, empty existence, and even as self-destructive as he'd been, he couldn't sink into it. "They're probably the only ones who can afford the drug."

"It's not all good times." Illium shoved his hair back with an impatient hand. "During the high, a percentage of the junkies are hit by the urge to feed voraciously. At least one of the lilies is currently going through a vicious detox because he refuses to touch the stuff again."

Dmitri raised an eyebrow. "Not much worries them in their pursuit of sensation." Numb inside from centuries of indulging their every whim, the lilies' need to grasp at the new, the bright, held a pitiable desperation.

"This lily is part of a long-term pair," Illium told him. "He fed on his partner during the high and he wasn't gentle-her neck was raw meat by the end, her spinal cord exposed. A few more minutes and he might've severed that, killed her."

Dmitri understood the depth of the male's horror. Such deeply loyal connections were rare among immortals, much less in the world of the lilies, and to be protected. Dmitri would end himself before laying a finger on Honor in violence. "Drop this downstairs," he said, tapping the vial. "Have it tested for everything."

Illium took the vial.

"Tell Trace he can report directly to me," Dmitri added. "I want you focusing on the men and women the healers have discharged." A significant percentage of the Tower's forces remained down, but enough injured fighters were now walking under their own steam that he needed Illium to take charge of their physical training. It would take skillful work to get them back to full strength in a short time frame.

"Talk to Galen, come up with a workable regimen." The weapons-master couldn't leave the Refuge, especially after the recent tensions there, but that didn't mean he wasn't available to the rest of the Seven. "He's already sent through his first set of orders, has people moving."

Illium bowed deeply, adding an elegant flourish with one hand. "Yes, O Dark Overlord."

Lips twitching, Dmitri hoped with every cell in his body that Illium would find his way through the crushing pressures of immortality and power, that he wouldn't lose the joie de vivre that had been a part of him since he was a fledgling. Dmitri had once witnessed a tiny blue-winged baby angel fall hard to the earth after tangling his wings, his flight path prior to the fall that of a drunken b.u.mblebee. Despite running full-tilt, Dmitri had been too far away to catch him.

When he'd reached the site of the accident, he'd expected to find a sobbing, hurt child. Hurt he had been, one wing crumpled, but Illium was already on his feet, his bruised and sc.r.a.ped arms thrust up and his hands fisted, face aglow. "I flew so far! Did you see?"

Dmitri had never forgotten that first meeting with a boy who'd reminded him of the irrepressible spirit of his own son. Illium's life had not always been painless, and it had left scars, but none of it had been as dangerous as the power now gathering inside him. However, the issue wasn't critical.

Not quite yet.

"Begone, Bluebell," he said, an image of the tiny boy he'd carried home to his frantic mother that day at the forefront of his mind. "The Dark Overlord needs to talk to a certain spymaster."

Walking backward to the door, Illium said, "Jason's back in the country?"

"He returned from China last night." From the territory of the insane archangel who thought herself a G.o.ddess. "Managed to get past the border and all the way to her innermost citadel." Dmitri had no idea how, but that was why Jason was Raphael's spymaster and Dmitri was his blade and his second.

A rustle of wings announced Jason's presence at the balcony door.

It was time to discuss the heart of enemy territory.

Ashwini and Janvier reached the veterinary clinic in a comparatively short time thanks to Janvier's skill at weaving through the traffic, the blue of the sky still edged with puffs of orange-pink that bathed everything in a forgiving light. Nothing, however, could soften the impact of seeing the body that awaited them at the run-down but clean clinic in Chinatown.

Sara had been right. This small, helpless animal victim needed a hunter's attention rather than the vet's. Not only was the c.o.c.ker spaniel shriveled and bloodless, its throat had been ravaged as if by a wild beast. "Setting aside the loss of blood," she said to the vet, "is it possible these wounds could've been made by another, bigger animal?"

The tall, mixed-race woman, her features sharp, striking, pushed her gla.s.ses farther up her nose and dragged her eyes off Janvier. "The dirty water in the drain where he was found did a good job of messing with the wound, and I'm pretty sure rats have been at this sweet boy, too." She touched her hand to the dog's emaciated head. "No telling how long he was down there. Could be days, could be weeks. Even if it was a vicious dog . . ."

"Yes, no animal sucked out every drop of blood in his body." A chill in her bones, Ashwini checked the c.o.c.ker spaniel's teeth, the dog's skin having tightly retracted to expose the gum line; the enamel was stained and cracked. Even if he had bitten his attacker, the evidence was already too contaminated to be of any forensic use. "Who found him?"

"A homeless man who hangs around the area. Poor thing was heartbroken over it." A sudden stiffening of the vet's body, her eyes flashing behind the clear lenses of her gla.s.ses. "He's harmless-I'm sure he had nothing to do with this."

"I'm not planning to hunt him down." What Ashwini was looking at wasn't a mortal crime. It had all the hallmarks of immortal involvement-though she'd dig up information on the subject of natural mummification, too, on the off chance that it was a possibility. "Can you autopsy the body?"

"It's called a necropsy when it's an animal-and sure. If someone's going to pay for it." Her gaze went from Ashwini to Janvier and back. "As you can see"-a wave around the shabby examination room, the paint peeling off the walls and the linoleum worn-"I don't exactly charge my clients a lot, so I need the money from those who can afford it."

"Guild will cover it. Look for anything strange-beyond the obvious."

"It'll have to be tomorrow. I promised my daughter I'd be home for dinner tonight." The vet took off her gla.s.ses to pinch the bridge of her nose between forefinger and thumb. "With the battle and all, she needs her mom."

Ashwini's throat grew thick; she knew all about needing her mom. Coughing slightly in an effort to clear the obstruction, she said, "Call me when you're done." She didn't really expect the vet to find anything significant, but better to check and make certain than miss a crucial fact. "You understand this is confidential?"

"I'm not about to mess with the Tower or the Guild by blabbing."

Exiting the clinic a few minutes later, Ashwini glanced at Janvier. "Has an animal ever become infected with vampirism?"

"It's not a disease, cher."

"You know what I mean."

"As far as I know," he said, pa.s.sing her a helmet, "no animal has ever become a vampire, but I'm comparatively young in immortal terms. Do you want me to check with Dmitri?"

"Yeah, I guess if anyone would know, it'd be him."

His thighs defined against the denim of his jeans as he straddled the bike, Janvier picked up his own helmet. "The body," he said, holding her gaze, "it reminds me of the atrocity we witnessed during the battle."

A shudder rippled through her. "Me, too."

Ashwini, Janvier, and Naasir had watched Lijuan bury her face in the neck of one of her soldiers, her mouth open and teeth glinting. When she lifted her face back up, the lower half was a macabre mask of red, and she was bloated with power, her wounds healed, while the soldier lay a dead husk at her feet, a willing sacrifice.

"But," Ashwini pointed out, "even if Lijuan has somehow resurrected herself since the battle"-though she couldn't imagine how, when Raphael had blown the crazy b.i.t.c.h to smithereens-"I can't see an archangel who believes herself a G.o.ddess feeding off animals. I think she'd rather starve."

Janvier slipped on his helmet. "The dog was also not desiccated enough for this to be Lijuan."

"You're right." The empty husks that evidenced Lijuan's feeds had been so fragile, Naasir had crumbled one into countless fragments when he tried to carry it off as proof. In the end, they'd had to leave the husks where they'd fallen-after Ashwini took multiple photographs using her phone.

When Janvier and Naasir returned to the site after Lijuan's defeat, it was to discover the reborn had stampeded through it, crushing the remains to dust. "What's the chance that Lijuan is fully dead?" Putting on her helmet, she got on the bike behind Janvier.

"Low," he said over the throaty rumble of the bike's engine. "Archangels don't die easily, and Lijuan is the oldest of the Cadre, if we don't include Raphael's mother."

It wasn't the news Ashwini wanted to hear. Because who the f.u.c.k knew what a half-dead archangel could do even after her body had been annihilated?

5.

Elena stretched her shoulders as she sat on the rooftop of the building given over to the Legion, her legs hanging over the side and her wings resting against the rough concrete surface. Her position gave her a direct view of the Tower, its windows blazing with the reflected glory of what promised to be a dazzling sunset.

Beside her crouched the Primary, in the Legion's distinctive gargoyle-like resting pose. Wings arched high and one arm braced on his knee, he was dressed in what had been unrelieved black, but was now dusty, the dark of his hair the same. He still wasn't "human" in any sense, but he no longer made the hairs rise on the back of her neck.

Most of the time.

"You are tired."

Elena reached up to fix her ponytail, her hair damp from the quick shower she'd grabbed, else she'd be as covered in dust and grit as the Primary. "Busy day." She'd spent it ferrying materials to facilitate the repair of one of the outlying high-rises that had been damaged during the battle. "How are the modifications to this building going?"

"It was not built for winged residents."

The eerie, risen-from-the-depths male was getting verbose on her, she thought dryly. "Yes, there's a lot of work to be done." Railingless balconies had to be added, internal walls knocked down, windows turned into doors-what was safe and comfortable for mortals and vampires was annoying and stifling for winged beings.

The overhaul would take time, but a technical a.s.sessment by a specialist team had shown it would still be faster and more efficient to modify an existing building to the Legion's requirements than to build a new one from the ground up.

"Are your people handling it all right for now?" One thing the Primary had told them was that while the Legion did not need sleep, his men didn't do well cut off from one another so soon after their rising.

"Yes. We gather on the roof."

Elena knew that. The first night she'd looked across from the Tower at midnight and seen their crouched forms, those hairs on the back of her neck had stood straight up. She wondered if the Legion had any idea how seriously other they could sometimes be. "If the snow's too cold, we can organize-"

"The roof is acceptable."

"Do you miss the sea?"

A long pause, the answer halting, as if she had asked him a question he hadn't considered until that instant. "Yes . . . there was peace . . . and wonder . . . more than mortal or immortal eyes . . . ever see."

Elena could do nothing but nod; she'd had but a glimpse of the Legion's domain, and it had been of haunting beauty in the endless dark. "I had another home, too, once," she told him, pointing past the Tower. "An apartment in that building with the serrated roof."

The Primary's response appeared a non sequitur, but she could almost see how he'd worked his way to it. "You are not mortal and yet you are."

"I guess that describes me pretty well." Angling her face to the caressing wind, she drew in the myriad scents of her city. A city made of spirit and grit and sheer b.l.o.o.d.y-mindedness.

Just like its people.

And then the fresh kiss of the rain, the crash of the sea was in her mind, Raphael's wings magnificent in flight as he took off from the Tower balcony where he'd been speaking with Dmitri and Jason. Breath in her throat at the power and skill of his flight, Elena didn't move. Five seconds later, he brought himself to a hover a few feet from her, making the maneuver look effortless when Elena knew from experience that holding a hover took brutal muscle control.

Dressed in sleeveless combat leathers similar to the Primary's, though his were a deep brown, he looked to the leader of the Legion. "My second wishes to speak to you." A ray of the setting sun struck the violent wildfire blue of the complex and extraordinary mark that ran from his right temple to the top of his cheekbone.

A stylized dragon, that was what Elena's mind had said of the mark the first time she'd seen it as a whole, but the truth was that it was difficult to clearly describe. The impact was visceral, as if the jagged lines held an impossible power.

"Sire." The Primary took off in silence.

Elena shivered. "I can't get used to the fact that their wings don't rustle." The Legion had wings more comparable to bats' than angelkind's, strong and webbed and frighteningly quiet.

"They are built for stealth," Raphael answered, the shattering hue of his eyes focused on her alone, the blue so pure it almost hurt. Homeward, hbeebti?

Everything in her resonated at the incredible power of that question, of the foundation that lay beneath it. Home was a truth for them both now. "Yes, unless the drug situation you mentioned means we have to stay at the Tower." She didn't like the sound of this Umber stuff.

"Dmitri has the matter in hand, and Illium will take the night watch over the Tower, with Aodhan for company." A glint of laughter in his eyes, her archangel who was no longer the glacial, inhuman being who'd made her close her hand over a blade, her blood dripping hot and red to the Tower roof. "Naasir is to arrive this eve."

Elena scowled. Raphael continued to refuse to tell her the truth about Naasir, the vampire who was unlike any other vampire she'd ever met. "Revenge will be mine," she threatened. "I'd sleep with one eye open if I were you."

The covetous wind pushed strands of the obsidian silk that was his hair across his cheek. "I remind you of your own conclusion that our butler would not be impressed with blood-drenched sheets."

His solemn words startled her into a grin. "I'm surprised Naasir was able to get back here so soon." The vampire had returned to Amanat, the territory held by Raphael's mother, Caliane, just over two and a half weeks past. "Don't we need him to keep an eye across the water at Lijuan's territory?" Jason went in and out, but the spymaster couldn't always be in one place.

"Venom has taken Naasir's place temporarily." This time, the amus.e.m.e.nt that shaped Raphael's lips was acute. "My mother called to ask what else I have in my menagerie."