Whoever this woman had once been, she'd carry horror in her veins now.
Ashwini had never told Honor, never would, but after Honor's abduction, there'd been so many screams in her body that the noise had been deafening, a howling terror that swamped Ashwini. She'd thrown up from the pummeling force of it more than once, but she'd sat with Honor at the hospital night after night regardless, her hand locked tight with her best friend's.
Honor had survived that vile darkness, had needed Ashwini to be strong enough to fight its echoes, be at her side.
As this woman did now.
"I'm here," Ashwini said . . . and touched her fingertips to the back of the victim's hand.
33
The contact was a bruising punch to the stomach delivered by a fist of cold iron, one that knocked the breath right out of her. Then came the nausea, tied to an overwhelming and dread-laced panic that made her want to curl up into a ball in the corner and rock herself to oblivion. Breaking the contact, she braced her hands on the bed and sucked in desperate gulps of air.
"Cher."
She'd sensed Janvier walk inside, didn't startle at his worried tone. "I don't know how to do this." It came out like broken glass, rough and jagged. "I don't know how to get past her terror."
Moving in so close that his body heat licked over her skin, Janvier picked up one of her hands and lifted it to his mouth in the way that had so quickly become familiar. The kiss was soft, a lazy seduction, and it had nothing to do with the ugliness that had consumed their victim. The gentle pleasure of it made the nausea retreat, her heart rate calm.
Lifting their clasped hands, she rubbed her cheek against the back of his hand.
"What if I stay?" he asked. "Will the touch anchor you?"
"I don't know." This was uncharted territory. "All my life, I've tried to minimize this, what I can do. Very rarely, I sense good things, but too many times, it's cruelty and evil. So I don't look, don't want to look."
"It is nothing to be ashamed of. No one can live life mired in horror."
How did he do that? See her so easily? "Sometimes I think I became a hunter so that I could ease my shame," she whispered. "That I choose to face physical danger because I can't face this."
"Yet," Janvier said, "I've heard other hunters say you saved their lives by warning them to take extra weapons or backup when the intel suggested no need for either."
"That's different. I know things now and then."
"And there are no nightmares? You pay no price for this knowledge?"
Ashwini couldn't hold his gaze. Because there had been dreams before each of her warnings to fellow hunters, dreams that had left her soaked in sweat, her heart racing so hard and fast that it had caused physical pain. "Stay," she said, her trust in him so deep, it was a part of her soul. "If . . . if it looks like I might start screaming, haul me away." It was her secret horror, that the madness might suck her under before she even knew it was there.
"Have I ever left? Hmm?" A slow smile that made her heart ache. "Even when you wished me to perdition. Or was it to a bog infested with leeches?"
"No, I'm pretty sure it was a pit filled with fresh elephant dung."
"Ah, we must be clear." Another kiss to her knuckles.
Centered by the playful interaction, she clenched her fingers on his and then she reached out with her other hand and closed it with infinite care over the exposed part of the victim's arm.
Again, the impact shoved into her like an ice pick to the brain. Every second of the terror and the pain the victim had endured, all of it concentrated into this agonizing and brutalizing force. Feeling her hand clamp down on Janvier's while remaining gentle on the victim's arm, Ashwini tried to see through the shriek of it but it was too viscous, too loud.
A bead of sweat formed on her temple, started to roll down. Her stomach threatened to revolt. Stifling the urge with sheer effort of will, she shuddered and thought of Janvier, of the hunt through the bayou that had left her sticky and bad tempered and bitten by what felt like a thousand mosquitoes, forget about the other bugs.
The visceral memory cleared a pathway through the rage of screaming emotion, a thin ribbon of a road that was a verdant moss green. It didn't stop the panic, the horror, but the emotions formed a curving wall of terrible ugliness on either side of the road now, ready to smother her again should she falter in her will. Sucking in shallow breaths of air, Ashwini stepped on the road, followed it down . . . and then she was falling in a gut-churning spiral, the evil baying at her, mocking her.
Ashwini slid out one of her knives. No one was ever again going to imprison her. Slicing the howling darkness to shreds, she stepped out and . . . "Oh."
The woman who lay so motionless on the hospital bed was not as she was now, but as she must've been: that stunning face with its unique beauty, of medium height and curvy, with silky black hair down to her waist.
"Hello," Ashwini said. "I've been looking for you."
"We don't have much time. I'm going."
"No." Ashwini reached out, took her hand. "You'll make it."
The woman's smile was sad and resolute both, her shoulders firm. "No, I don't want to stay, don't want that life. I'm not what he made me."
Thinking of the shell on the bed, her bones as fragile as a bird's, her heart a flutter beneath Ashwini's touch, and her eyes hollow, Ashwini understood that this woman would never again live, even should her body survive. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." The victim's fingers grew thinner . . . No, they were fading. "Not enough time."
"Tell me his name." Ashwini fought to hold on to her for another heartbeat. "The one who hurt you."
"I don't remember." No distress, as if she'd traveled beyond that. "It's already gone. I know my name. Lilli Ying. I have a mother, a father. Please tell them I didn't suffer."
It was a lie, but a lie Ashwini would speak as if it were the truth. "I promise. Can you tell me anything about the person who hurt you?"
"The first monster wanted to cause us pain. It gave him sexual pleasure." A flicker of fear pierced the peace, was quickly erased. "But then . . . then the other one came, and it was worse." Her features faded, her voice a faraway whisper. "The other one had wings. And he drank my life from me."
"Wait, don't go!" Ashwini felt as if she were attempting to hold on to a wisp of air, a streamer of mist. "I need a trail to follow to find the monsters. Something. Anything!"
The echo of the victim tilted her head, looked at her a little blankly. But then she said, "It smelled like peanuts, where they kept me. Strange. Made me want peanut butter muffins. Peanuts. Such a big place that smelled of peanuts." The air dissipated, the words less than a memory of thought. "I have to go."
"Where?" Ashwini asked, the question one that haunted her after all the screams she'd touched in the world, all the pain she'd witnessed. "Is it a good place?"
Her only answer was a piercing beep that shattered the world into a million sharp, glittering shards.
*
Janvier easily took Ashwini's weight when she staggered back from the bed. Alarms sounded from all around them, the heart monitor showing a flat line. But the woman on the bed . . . she had a smile on her face, a final muscle movement made the instant before the alarms shrilled into high-pitched panic.
Holding Ash as the doctors rushed back in, he heard her whisper, "No, let her go," in a voice so hoarse, he only heard it because her breath kissed his jaw on the words. "She wants to go."
Janvier gave the order in a louder voice and, when the doctors hesitated, said, "I'll take full responsibility. Give her the peace she wants."
It was the mortal doctor who put her hand on the vampire physician. "He's right. She suffered too much trauma. We'd only prolong her pain if we managed to resuscitate her."
Shoulders falling, the vampire physician reached out and pressed several buttons.
The alarms went silent, the only sound Janvier could hear that of Ash's shallow breathing. Struggling to lift her lashes and failin
g, his Ashblade parted her lips, spoke again. "She said it smelled of p--" Her body became dead weight, her bruised mind losing the battle with consciousness.
Wrapping one arm around her waist, he held her upright so no one else would realize her condition. In the corridor, he didn't request that Illium fly her out. The blue-winged angel was a man Janvier would trust at his back anytime, but he was also an angel hundreds of years old, with memories Janvier couldn't hope to know and that might cause Ash further pain even in her unconscious state.
"Can you make sure the victim's body undergoes a thorough examination and autopsy?" he asked the other man instead. "Take her to the Guild morgue and to the pathologist who examined Felicity."
"I'll make sure it's done." Golden eyes took in Ash's lax body, the shimmer of perspiration on her skin. "Do you need a ride?"
Shaking his head, Janvier said, "Tell Dmitri I'm off the grid until I get back in touch."
A curt nod.
Thirty seconds later, Janvier had Ash in the elevator. Stabbing the button for the underground garage, he said, "Almost there, cher." For some unknown reason, he'd taken the car to his interviews when the bike would've been easier, the decision one he'd consider later. "Not that I'm complaining about having you pasted to me."
"Ha-ha." Her voice sounded weak and drugged, the words slurred. "Your hand . . ."
"You crushed it to pieces," he said against her temple, maintaining a rigid hold on his emotions. "Now you will have to kiss it better, inch by inch."
No sound, her body losing all tension again. Swinging her up into his arms, he stepped out of the elevator and strode straight to his car.
He'd never seen her like this, and he hated it. She wasn't meant to be so still, so lifeless. Ash was life and wickedness and wildness. Starting the engine after clipping in her seat belt, he drove not to his spacious Tower apartment but to her home. She'd be more comfortable in her nest, and, truth be told, he liked it, too. The Tower didn't have the scent of home for him.
It didn't have the scent of her.
At her building, he parked in the same space her doorman had used the previous night. It took him a bare two minutes to carry her to the elevator and get into her apartment after he dug out the key he knew she carried in her left jeans pocket. Placing her on the bed, he tugged off her boots and jacket, removed her weapons. "Not the way I want to undress you," he said to fill the silence that was vicious metal claws around his heart.
No, he'd never survive her loss.
Her skin was a little hot when he checked, but her breathing was steady.
Janvier wasn't about to risk anything; he called the Guild and a medic was at the door within seven minutes. Ripping off his motorcycle jacket and dropping his helmet on the carpet, the heavyset male checked her over. "Her vitals are within safe levels." A piercing look at Janvier after he made that pronouncement. "Sara sent me because I've stitched Ash up before. I know what she can do. If that's what's caused this, we'll have to monitor her and see what happens."
"I'll do it."
The medic didn't argue with Janvier, simply showed him what to do to check her vitals, then said, "I'm not far." He gave Janvier his direct line. "Call me the instant you think she's in distress."
Kicking off his boots after the other man left, Janvier stripped off his jacket and blade holster, as well as his belt to ensure the buckle wouldn't dig into her. An instant later, he was curled around her. Ashwini was so vivid in life that he forgot how fragile she was as a mortal--today, he couldn't help but notice that despite the toned muscle that made her so beautiful and dangerous in motion, her limbs were slender, her bones all too breakable under his vampiric strength.
And her mind . . .
Sliding one arm under her head and refusing point-blank to go into a future that wasn't yet written in stone, he undid her braid with his other to make her more comfortable, murmuring to her in the language he'd spoken as a boy, skinny and wild and often hungry. "The first time I saw you, you had a crossbow pointed at me and a seriously pissed-off look on your face."
The memory was one of his favorites: she'd had a streak of oil on her cheek, her olive green tank top smudged with dirt, and her combat boots planted a foot apart, black cargo pants hiding her long, long legs. He'd wanted to wrap his hand around her ponytail and pull back her head to arch her throat for a blood kiss that would ram erotic pleasure through both their bodies.
"Never had I felt such lust," he said, stroking his hand down her arm to lace his fingers with her own. "I could've devoured you, even had I to pay for it in crossbow wounds." He chuckled. "Imagine if you'd permitted me to seduce you then, cher."
No movement, her skin temperature clammy enough to make a ball of fear lodge in his gut. "Don't go." It was a harsh plea, his heart and soul laid at her feet. "Please don't go. It's not our time. Not yet. Not so soon."
34
Dmitri was briefing Raphael about the second victim when Elena appeared in the doorway to Raphael's Tower office.
Hello, hbeebti.
Hello, Archangel.
She leaned against the doorjamb and he watched as she and his second acknowledged each other with a glance. The two had come to an understanding that they both had the best interests of the city--and its archangel--at heart. Not that it stopped either one from sharpening their knives on each other.
Today, however, Dmitri had more critical matters on his plate. "A distraction won't work this time," the vampire said. "Too many people saw the victim, even with how quickly Illium picked her up, and while the media knows not to push the Tower, the talking heads are speculating on every channel."
"Shut it down." Raphael would permit no one to seed fear in his city. Not the enemy and not its own citizens.
"It won't cure the problem," Dmitri responded, proving why he was Raphael's second. Where many would've snapped to his command, Dmitri had the confidence and the intelligence to dispute Raphael's decisions when necessary. "The rumors will continue to circulate beneath the surface, doing worse damage."
"Suggestions?"
"Ahem."
"You have an idea, Consort?" Raphael asked the hunter who stood with her arms crossed and her wings held off the floor as per Galen's training--of course, Elena would say his weapons-master had beaten the habit into her, but the end result was that she had the posture of a warrior.
Her lips twitched at his formal address. "I was about to suggest we tell the truth."
Dmitri's expression was distinctly sardonic. "The Tower does not share its concerns."
Rolling her eyes, Elena sauntered into the room to stand with her hands on her hips at Raphael's side. "I wasn't suggesting we start doing a daily Tower broadcast. But what's the harm in pointing out that our enemies are attempting to use underhanded techniques to disrupt the city?"
Raphael had changed with the times. Unlike many of the older angels, he didn't look down his nose at the modern world, believing the old to be better. His Tower was fully integrated with current technology, with Illium in charge of ensuring that continued uninterrupted. The blue-winged angel was fascinated with both mortal and immortal ingenuity and had the kind of agile mind that could quickly process new concepts.
So Raphael wasn't stuck in the "stone age," as Illium had been heard to mutter about certain other vampires and angels. He had, however, long believed that mortals were safer in their ignorance of the bloody details of the immortal world. The irony of the fact that he was standing in the same room as two former mortals, one his heart, the other his closest friend, wasn't lost on him.
Neither was the cold truth that mortals could not play in their world.
Dmitri's friendship with Raphael had cost him his cherished family, the vampire spending a thousand years in purgatory. Elena had broken her back when Raphael had hauled her into an immortal problem, her body a bleeding, shattered doll in his arms. Without the kiss of immortality, his hunter's light would've been extinguished that violent day above Manhattan when he fought Uram. "Humans," he said
, "cannot become used to demanding an answer from the Tower and getting it."
Elena's eyes, the gray ringed by a luminous rim of silver that whispered of her growing immortality, were open, without shadows, when they met his. "I know."
The two of them had been negotiating their viewpoints--her mortal heart against his immortal mind--since the day they met, but it was no longer a pitched battle. "Then why suggest a response?" he asked, conscious his consort's ability to understand the people of this city was oftentimes better than his own.
"Because it can work if we do it right." She tapped her foot, her forehead creased in a frown. "I say Dmitri calls a couple of the reporters who stuck around during the battle, the ones who risked their lives to cover it--and who, incidentally, made the Tower look damn good."
Dmitri nodded slowly. "I'll have a quiet conversation with them, bring them into the inner circle, shape the story as we wish."
"I don't know that manipulation is necessary," Elena countered. "The city is on our side. Give them a sign that the Tower knows that, that's all--people just want to feel included, to feel as if they have a part to play."
"Try it," Raphael said to Dmitri. "The Cascade will bring many more such decisions our way, so we must begin to establish what works."
An hour later, news hit the networks that the tortured woman reported to have run out of Central Park had been the victim of a cowardly attempt by their enemies to disrupt the city's recovery. While no one from the Tower appeared to confirm the reports, the Legion made an impressive flyover across the city that night, accompanied by two full squadrons led by Illium.
A half hour after that, Raphael's second told him the mood in the media had altered from fear to proud outrage. "'No one has the guts to hit us head-on,'" Dmitri said, reading out a comment on an article. "That encapsulates the direction of the conversation." Sliding away his phone, he came to stand beside Raphael on the edge of a high Tower balcony. "Elena was right."
"There, Dmitri, you did not melt at admitting that."
His second laughed and the sound was one that was becoming familiar again after a thousand years of silence. It wasn't only his city that was healing, Raphael thought, his eyes catching the refracted light that betrayed Aodhan's presence in the sky; his people were, too. And it had all begun with a single, vulnerable mortal who did not accept that to be an archangel was to be always right.