Guild Hunter: Archangel's Shadows Part 22

"I'm a hunter." Even then, it had taken her a minute-Sina's fangs were the smallest she'd ever seen, small enough to be mistaken for human canines.

"Fangs work fine, in case you were wondering," the lushly curved vampire said, opening the bottle to take a sip while the others picked up the unopened bottles of juice and twisted off the lids. "Just a weird genetic thing."

Ashwini didn't ask the other question she wanted to know the answer to, but she caught the understanding of it in Janvier's eyes, knew they'd discuss it later. For now, she showed the women the facial image created by Janvier's contact. "Is this your friend?"

"She never looked that flat, was always moving her hands when she talked. Used to drive me nuts." Her voice hard in an effort to hide the tremor beneath, Carys pushed away the photo. "Her hair was dark gold, not white-blonde, but yeah, that's Felicity. Big bluey-green eyes and all."

Ident.i.ty confirmed as far as possible, Ashwini asked the women to go over the details the three had shared with Ransom. Afterward, she said, "Do you remember exactly when she began talking about her new boyfriend?"

Sina frowned. "Eight months ago."

"You sound very sure," Ashwini said.

"She told me on my birthday, that's why. We'd gone out for a drink, the four of us, and she was bursting with news. Do you guys remember?"

The other two women backed up her recollection.

It was Aaliyah who spoke next. "Few weeks after that, Felicity was so happy because her guy had said he'd take her to Europe, buy her things in Paris, Milan, Rome. She was always into the fashion magazines."

Carys rubbed at the faux-fur collar of her thigh-length coat like it was a worry stone. "Girl used to blow too much money on the rags, but she said it made her happy to look at that stuff."

"Any idea when she was meant to go to Europe?" Ashwini leaned forward, forearms braced on her thighs.

All three women shook their heads. "She just said it'd be soon." Sina rolled her lips inside, bit down with her teeth. "That was the last time I saw her-about seven months ago. Does that help?"

"We'll check airline records." Ashwini would bet her entire year's income that Felicity had never left the country, the promise of Europe a lure designed to lay a false trail.

"Do you know where your friend lived before she found her lover?" Janvier nudged the cookies toward Aaliyah, received a small smile in return.

"Yeah." Carys told them an address in a not particularly nice part of Queens.

"And Felicity never mentioned her lover's name, where he lived, anything?" Ashwini asked, wanting to be certain. "Even the color of his hair."

Carys and Sina shook their heads, but Aaliyah suddenly sat up straight. "One time she said she'd be moving into a nice Quarter house like the rich b.i.t.c.hes, and that she was going to invite us for coffee and cakes, and we'd have to wear fancy hats and say 'oh, yes, my dear' and 'toodles.'" Blinking rapidly, Aaliyah whispered, "We laughed so hard."

It was a tenuous link, but it was a link directly to the Quarter. "Do you remember anything else?"

"No . . . but I did ask her why she didn't point out her rich john to us, you know, on the sly."

"Aaliyah!" Sina's mouth fell open. "You never told us that."

"I didn't want to make Felicity look bad, 'cause her man sounded like a first-cla.s.s d.i.c.khead." Rubbing off her tears using the sleeve of her black coat, she said, "Jerkoff told her that if she even hinted they were involved before he took her to Europe for a makeover so she'd 'fit his lifestyle,' the whole deal was off. Felicity wanted it so much, she didn't want to jinx it by telling even us."

A pause before Aaliyah added, "It was weird . . . Felicity never had a pimp, but, looking back, this guy, he got into her head like a pimp does, made her believe the whole 'daddy' shtick."

That he was omnipotent, Ashwini thought, gut boiling, that if he had to be cruel, it was because Felicity had let him down. b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

"We didn't give you enough, did we?" Carys asked, blunt and up-front.

"You gave us another point on the timeline." Ashwini didn't disrespect the women by sugarcoating reality. "Each step gets us closer to finding out what happened to her."

"Will you . . ." Sina took a deep breath, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s threatening to overflow the low-cut top she wore beneath her deep pink puffer jacket. "Will you tell us what you discover?"

"I promise."

"We don't have a lot"-Carys stuck her jaw out, shoulders held tight-"but we want to make sure she has a gravestone, a proper burial. Girl ain't got no family, grew up in foster care after her grandparents got swept away in a flood when she was a kid."

Ashwini felt no surprise that Felicity's murderer had zeroed in on wounded prey, on a woman so hungry for love and a stable life that she'd been willing to erase herself to achieve it. "The man whose son discovered the body also wants to help," she told the women as she took out her phone. "He's a good guy. Maybe you can work with him to organize Felicity's funeral once her ashes are released."

Five minutes later, the women left with Tony Rocco's contact number, and Ashwini was back in Janvier's car, having caught the subway to meet him at Blood-for-Less. As they pulled out, she asked what she hadn't inside. "How can a vampire be forced to work the streets? Is it part of her Contract?" Never before had she realized that might be a possibility.

"No," Janvier said. "Certain things are expressly prohibited under the Contract, by order of Cadres ongoing, including the selling of the body for profit. The punishment isn't worth the risk. Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't myriad other ways the Contracted can be used and abused."

Ashwini thought of what she'd seen in Nazarach's court, of the two women on their knees, one on either side of the angel, their faces white and muscles quivering beneath couture evening gowns. "Do you wonder sometimes, about Simone and Monique?"

"Non. They both made their beds-as Sina may have." He stopped behind a gleaming black town car that was attempting to parallel park in a minuscule s.p.a.ce. "She's around a hundred and fifty."

"That means she would've received a payment when she completed her Contract." Word was, even if a vamp were given only the minimum mandated amount, it was enough to support a person for a year.

Slipping around the town car, Janvier said, "Vampires aren't immune from bad decisions, or bad luck." His voice held dark memories of the carnage he'd witnessed that morning, of the bad decision that had ended two lives. "There's also the possibility that she chooses this existence-for some, even a hundred years is too much life and they become bored. It may be a rush for her to get into cars with strange men, to use the body to take control."

Every time Ashwini thought she understood people, she learned something that told her even her abilities couldn't predict everything. "The calculating b.a.s.t.a.r.d set Felicity up with the Europe trip."

"That's my take. He had to know she'd tell her friends, brag about it a little."

"She was excited to be so close to touching her dreams." In her mind's eye, Felicity was becoming fully formed, a vulnerable woman who was loyal to her friends, and who was driven by hope for a better future. "Then he took her and he hurt her."

"But she didn't die until recently." Janvier's words were ground out. "He kept her for months."

"When we find this son of a b.i.t.c.h, I will personally nail his nuts to the floor before slicing him to ribbons."

"I think you will have to get in line, cher." A grim smile. "But perhaps I will share."

Dmitri stood in the center of Masque and considered Janvier's earlier report. The Cajun had been in the Tower for a scarce fifteen minutes to shower and change before he'd left to meet his hunter, but it had been long enough.

"The bloodl.u.s.t situation wasn't at urgency last night," he'd said, his voice harder than Dmitri had ever heard it, "but this morning changes everything."

Dmitri agreed with the other male's a.s.sessment. He'd watched a recording of Adele's surveillance footage, seen crimson tinge the irises of two vampires trapped in the private rooms. He'd also sensed the ugly energy in the air when he'd deliberately walked along the block to reach the club: a vicious mix of scrabbling fear and stimulated excitement.

The swift actions Trace, Janvier, and Naasir had taken in dealing with Rupert that morning had added depth to that fear, but the violent thrill of bloodl.u.s.t was thick in the air and becoming thicker by the second. The fight against Lijuan had unleashed aggression in a large number of the Made, and now they wanted to surrender to those urges rather than deal with the aftermath of war.

"Dmitri." Adele's long red hair brushed her b.u.t.t as she walked toward him, her sophisticated features and dress not reflecting the pragmatic earthiness at the heart of her nature. "What do you plan to do about this?"

He half smiled; he'd always liked Adele, even more so now that she'd fought with grim fury to defeat Lijuan's vermin. "I saw you move like a warrior, Adele." Hair braided around her skull, her weapon of choice a war hammer, she'd annihilated the reborn in her sector. "Why do you run this den of iniquity rather than becoming part of the Tower?"

Adele snorted. "You forget, Dmitri. I've known you for five hundred years-sin and s.e.x and pain, you've enjoyed them all."

Enjoyed, Dmitri thought, wasn't the right word. He'd drowned himself in sensation in a futile effort to forget a loss that had beaten his heart to a pulp and left him dead on the inside. But Adele didn't know his past, had no right to it.

"I want you to contact every vampire leader in the Quarter." The ones outside it had been doing their jobs, the vampires who looked up to them in no danger of slipping the leash into carnage. "Tell them they are to be at the Tower on the stroke of six." It was a risk to push the meet to later in the day, but he was making a judgment call that news of the summons would have an immediate and permanent chilling effect on the rising bloodl.u.s.t. "Lateness is strongly discouraged."

Adele raised an eyebrow. "You plan to put the fear of Dmitri in them?"

Dmitri knew he could be ruthless; it was an a.s.set. The current situation, however, required stronger firepower. "The audience isn't with me, Adele. Raphael has requested their presence." He'd spoken to Raphael the previous night, when the reports first came in, received the go-ahead to take this action if he deemed it necessary-because the archangel who was his friend caused bone-deep fear in mortals and immortals both.

"It appears," Dmitri purred to a rapidly paling Adele, "that the Made need to be reminded that the Tower never stops watching."

Adele's swallow was audible. "Who will die tonight?" she asked on a whisper of sound.

"All those who have forgotten that they are not the apex predators in this city."

29.

Felicity's apartment building, blackened with the grit and smog of the city, had the downtrodden look of a woman who'd once been beautiful but had long since surrendered to the march of time. She didn't even bother with makeup: window coverings were absent or hanging in a lopsided way, and at least a third of the dirty panes of gla.s.s had cracks running through them. Two had given in to the pull of gravity and were totally missing, the holes covered up with black plastic.

A tenant on the third floor had made an effort-Ashwini could see greenery against the window, what looked like the curling tendrils of a luxuriant fern. The attempt at beauty only threw the decrepitude of the rest of the building into sharp focus. That lack of care was visible inside as well. Graffiti crawled across the walls just inside the entranceway, and the scuff marks on the linoleum floor had worn through to the concrete.

"I understand why she wanted out." The leaden despair soaked into the concrete and gla.s.s and wood of the building was powerful enough to brush against her senses, but far, far beneath, she could almost glimpse tiny, struggling seeds of hope.

Felicity had planted one of those seeds, would've given hope to her neighbors when she made it out. Seeing this, feeling the fragility that lay underneath the hardened surface, it made the cruelty of what had been done to the young woman even worse. Not only had the monster who'd killed her stolen her life, he'd made a mockery of her spirit. "The person responsible for Felicity's torture and death deserves every circle of h.e.l.l."

"We will ensure he-or she-ends up roasting for a long, long time." Janvier nodded to the left, to a sign that, judging from the richness of the ink, had been recently defaced by a blue marker that told the reader to "Fock of!" It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Below the misspelled profanity was the word Office and an arrow pointing down the corridor.

"I do not have high hopes of anyone actually being in the office," Janvier said, "but the world is full of surprises."

"Most of them b.l.o.o.d.y and nasty and deadly." Walking with him down the narrow corridor, Ashwini took the dimly lit stairs down to a bas.e.m.e.nt level. In front of her was a closed door plastered with advertising flyers, neighborhood promos by people struggling to create a sense of community in this hopeless place, and small posters asking for help in finding lost pets. Raising her hand, she rapped on the door with her knuckles.

To her astonishment, it opened almost immediately to reveal a big, bearded guy with skin so sallow it was clear soaking up the sun wasn't his favorite pastime.

"Yeah?" He scowled before Ashwini could identify herself and spoke again. "You're a hunter. Which schmuck vamp is hiding out here?"

Perceptive, she thought. He might actually be of some help. "No vamp," she said, "but we have questions about a former tenant."

The man, who appeared to be in his early thirties, scratched his belly, the size of it hinting at a love of beer and fast food. "Right. Come in." Backing away from the door, he waved them into an office that held a television set currently showing a rerun of a crime show, a sagging sofa with denim upholstery, a desk buried under paper, and several rickety chairs.

He switched off the TV and said, "You want to sit?"

Not sure the chairs would hold, Ashwini shook her head. "You're the super?" she asked to make certain-for all she knew, he could be the owner.

Reaching up, he scratched his jaw this time, the frizzy black curls of his beard rasping against his skin. "Ah, yep, had the gig going on ten years now," he said. "Name's Seth. I'm a student-on my second doctorate, so this job's great, especially since it comes with a room out back." He made a face. "I do what I can, fix what I can, but the owners don't give me much money, so I have to let the inessential stuff-like the endless f.u.c.king graffiti-go." Rubbing his hands over his face, he blew out a breath. "But you didn't come here to listen to me moan. Who's the tenant?"

"Felicity Johnson."

His animated face froze, then crumpled noticeably. "Aw, d.a.m.n, something happened to her, didn't it? I knew she'd never leave Taffy like that."

"I'm afraid she was murdered." Ashwini watched him for any signs of possible guilt as she delivered the news, saw only pain.

"Who'd do that?" A bewildered question. "She was no threat to anyone."

"You remember her," Janvier said, leaning against the door he'd closed.

"Yeah, she was sweet. Real nice." His sallow face even more pale and his previously steady body swaying a fraction, he took a seat behind his desk. "You sure it's her?"

"We haven't yet been able to run DNA or find a fingerprint match," Ashwini said more gently than she might have before witnessing his reaction, "but yes, we believe it's her." It was too much to hope that Felicity's room remained untenanted, but if Seth had kept her tenancy application, then fingerprints might be a possibility.

"Most tenants in a place like this," the super said, staring at his overflowing desk, "they get so hard, so angry with life that they just want someone to blame-I'm an easy target. But Felicity isn't . . . wasn't like that." A shaky smile. "When I fixed her door after it threatened to fall off its hinges, she baked me m.u.f.fins. I never had fresh-baked m.u.f.fins before."

Another glimpse of who Felicity had been, another stab of fury at the person who'd ended the life of a woman with stars in her eyes. "Who's Taffy?"

"Oh, Taffy . . . was her cat."

Deciding to risk it, Ashwini flipped around one of the chairs and sat with her arms along the back. "How long ago did Felicity leave?"

"Well, 'bout eight months ago she started going away for a day or two. She asked me to check in on Taffy, that's how come I know."

That fit with Sina's account of when Felicity had met her mysterious rich boyfriend. "Go on."

"Then she started staying away for longer and longer." He swallowed, his voice hoa.r.s.e. "I figured she'd give up her lease, but she didn't, popped in and out until about six months ago."

One more month, we're closer by one more month, Ashwini thought on a fierce wave of exultation, but didn't interrupt the desolate man.

"The last couple of times I saw her, maybe two weeks apart," Seth said, his eyes bleak, "she didn't look so good. See, the thing with Felicity was, no matter how bad it got, no matter how low she was on funds-" He broke off, started again. "I cut her a bit of slack now and then. Gave her a little extra time to get the rent to me; I knew she'd be good for it."

He shook his head. "Anyway, the thing was, she was always happy, you know? Like a bunny or something. All peppy and s.h.i.t." His shoulders began to shake, sudden tears rolling down his face. His sobs were loud, harsh, and real, a dam that had burst without warning.

Janvier ran his hand over her hair before she could reach out to the distraught man, then moved past her to squeeze Seth's shoulder. He returned to his previous position only when the other man began to calm.

"Sorry," the super gasped out, lifting the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe his face. "I kept hoping that she was living the high life on a yacht in the Mediterranean or something, but I knew, I knew she wouldn't leave Taffy."

A meow sounded right then. A small gray cat slid through the gap in the door behind the desk on its heels. Seth's face crumpled again at the sight of the cat, but he pulled himself together on a shuddering breath. "Come 'ere, Taffy," he said, and the cat jumped up into his lap. "She's as sweet as Felicity. I never was a cat guy, but then Felicity didn't come back . . ." Shoulders slumped, he petted the purring animal.

"I'm sorry." The words were inadequate, but they were all she had until they tracked down the person who'd hurt Felicity.

"I want to help," Seth said, wiping the back of his hand over his eyes and lifting his head. "Felicity, I never saw her down, you know? But those last two times, it was like she was . . . fading. As if someone was stealing her spirit." A vein pulsed along his temple. "I asked her if her boyfriend was. .h.i.tting her, but she said she'd just given too much blood."

"So," Ashwini said, thinking through what he'd shared, "she wasn't really living here those last months but she never took Taffy?"

"No, said her guy didn't like cats. I told her no man was worth giving up Taffy, but she just laughed." He petted the cat again, the repet.i.tive action easing the tension in his body. "I couldn't figure out why she kept the apartment, wasted her money. She knew I'd take care of Taffy if she really needed it . . . I hope she knew."