One of those armchairs had a back meant to accommodate wings.
Beside each was a beautifully crafted round wooden table etched with designs in gold, its feet curved.
Fury a burn in her blood, Ashwini strode to the bed, touched the sheets. Cold. But though she couldn't see it against the black satin, she could smell the blood, feel the slight stickiness of it against her fingertips. Spinning to face the guard, she said, "Where are the women?"
When the man refused to speak, Janvier shoved him back to his knees and had the kukri at his throat before the guard had time to even draw breath.
"Oops," Janvier said, beads of dark red beginning to form on the sweating vampire's neck. "I'm a little shaky today." His smile was so chilly, she would've been surprised it came from him if she hadn't known how much he hated men who hurt women.
Ashwini knew the victims had to be here, but the warehouse was massive. Thick with shadows, it had shelving large enough to hold human-sized cages and could take considerable time to search. To judge from the bloodstained sheets on the bed, a woman could die in the interim.
"Where are they, you piece of shit?" She strode over to slam the muzzle of her gun to the guard's temple as wings of silver-blue appeared in her peripheral vision. "Talk."
"I would do as she says," Janvier drawled without removing the blade from the man's throat. "She can be trigger-happy."
"I'm more scared of him than of you," the guard said through his cowardly quivering.
Ashwini thought they could change that, her current mood without mercy, but Naasir suddenly froze, his nostrils flaring. "I have them." He took off in the direction where she'd noted the large wooden crates.
No, she thought and ran.
Janvier ran right beside her, leaving the gibbering guard to Illium. "Ash!"
Half turning without lessening her speed, she caught the crowbar Janvier looked to have picked up from the final--and mostly empty--shelves on the left. He grabbed a hammer that was lying there after throwing her the crowbar.
Naasir was already using his claws to wrench the slats off one box, his strength ferocious. She went to a second, while Janvier took a third. Three of the Legion arrived two seconds later and joined in.
Ashwini hoped with her every breath that Naasir was wrong, that they'd find nothing more interesting than schmaltzy souvenirs, but she could smell what Lilli had, understood now why the scent had made such a strong impression on the tortured woman. "These crates used to hold peanuts," she said, using the crowbar to wrench up a slat.
Naasir growled loud enough to raise every tiny hair on her body and, throwing aside a slat, picked up an emaciated woman from the crate he'd demolished. Thrusting her into the arms of one of the Legion, he said, "Fly!" Every member of the team had been briefed as to where to take any injured they might find.
Ashwini could see that her crate wasn't empty now and she renewed her efforts, Naasir coming over to help. It took another excruciating half second to get the slats off enough that she could see the woman. Pressing her fingers against the victim's throat, Ashwini prayed for a beat. Nothing. No, wait. There it was. A faint flutter. "She's alive!" she yelled at the same time that Janvier yelled the same.
Naasir lifted out the woman just as the victim Janvier had discovered began to scream, high-pitched and piercing. Ashwini ran over, guessing it was seeing a male that had set her off. Janvier backed out of view at the same time.
The shock of recognition was instant. "It's all right," she said to Brooke. "You're safe." Nude body bruised and bloodied, one of her eyes swollen half-shut and her lip split open, the auburn-haired woman was nonetheless still whole. "We're taking you to a hospital."
Brooke was already fading, eyes glazed by shock and face pale, but she struggled to speak. "Giorgio . . . hurt . . ."
"We'll get him," Ashwini promised. "Conserve your strength."
Ignoring the words, Brooke forced out, "M-monster w-watched . . ."
Lights, sirens on the doorstep.
"Janvier!" Ashwini called out. "Help me carry her to the ambulance." She could've done it in a fireman's carry but that might aggravate any internal injuries Brooke had sustained, and with the wounded woman having lost her battle with unconsciousness, she wouldn't be traumatized by the contact with a male.
Janvier lifted Brooke into his arms with utmost gentleness. "I have her, cher."
Knowing he'd be careful with her, Ashwini turned to make sure all the crates had been opened and there were no more victims.
When Janvier returned, he, Ashwini, Naasir, and Illium compared notes. Brooke wasn't the only one who'd been conscious. The girl Naasir had rescued first had also managed to speak.
"'Monster,'" Naasir repeated, his eyes gleaming so violently in the semidark of the warehouse that Ashwini realized they were actually reflective . . . like a tiger's. "She kept saying 'monster.' I thought she was confused, talking about me."
"The second armchair," Ashwini pointed out, "it had a back modified for wings."
"An angelic partner may explain the desiccation," Illium said, features grim. "The emergence of new abilities among our kind isn't always telegraphed ahead of time."
"We go over this warehouse inch by inch." Janvier's voice had lost its languid rhythm, become hard, ruthless. "Feathers at Giorgio's home could belong to innocent angelic guests, but anything here is near certain to belong to his partner."
Not wasting time, they walked to one end of the warehouse to form a horizontal line across the huge space with others of the squadron. Not the Legion fighters, however--according to what Ashwini had picked up from talking to Tower personnel, while the Legion were skilled in the air, they weren't very good at delicate tasks. Not yet.
Using high-powered torches flown in by the Legion to light shadowy areas and illuminate aisles between the shelving, the line was almost to the other end of the warehouse when Janvier called for them to stop.
Positioned only a couple of feet to his left, Ashwini watched him crouch down and pick up something from the ground. "Feather," he said, fierce exultation in his tone. "Red."
Red?
As far as she knew, there were no red-winged angels in the city, but she was no expert. Many angels also had delicate markings--one could have tiny red feathers on the inner curve of a wing, for example. "Do you recognize it?" Angelic colors tended to be highly distinctive. No one in New York would ever mistake one of Illium's for one of Raphael's, or one of Jason's for one of Aodhan's.
"No." Janvier rose to his feet, handed the feather to Illium. "You know who this is?"
A chill iced Illium's expression. "There are two options that make sense."
"Red," Naasir said, a growl in his voice, "is unusual among angels." His eyes met Illium's. "Xi and Cornelius."
Ashwini's mind filled with an image of wings of gray streaked by vivid red, her skin pebbling. "Wasn't Xi--"
"--one of Lijuan's generals?" Illium completed. "Yes."
Naasir spoke again. "Not the oldest or the most powerful, but favored because of his intelligence."
"Cornelius," Illium added, "is a lower-ranked general. His wings are a heavy cream for the most part except for a scattering of red across the top arches."
"Illium!"
Turning toward the doorway, Ashwini saw a slender black-haired vampire with a scarf around his neck walking toward them. He must've arrived in the area after them, she realized when Janvier introduced him as Trace.
His voice was hoarse as he said, "I had a hunch, with Giorgio being scientifically trained. Dug around in the other warehouse." Trace opened his palm. On it sat a tiny ziplock bag with a few crystalline granules colored a reddish brown.
Ashwini recognized it from Janvier's description of the new designer vampire drug that was the reason for Lacey's horrific murder.
"Supply or creation?" Illium asked after taking the bag.
"Creation. There are tools. Nothing elaborate, but enough." Trace glanced around. "Giorgio must've separated out his drug operation fr
om his sadistic games"--utter distaste in his voice--"because the other warehouse already had the right setup for it."
"See if you can discover anything else about the origins of the drug," Illium said, his glance taking in all four of them. "I'll alert Raphael that it appears either Cornelius or Xi somehow managed to remain behind in the city, or return to it after the rest of Lijuan's forces retreated."
The angel couldn't technically give Ashwini an order, but this was one order with which she had no argument. First, however, they finished going over the warehouse. Ashwini found another tiny red feather, this one with a tip of rich cream. Xi, she remembered, had no cream in his wings. Still, she double-checked with Naasir and Janvier, received the same answer.
That narrowed their target down to a single angel: Cornelius.
"They were careful," Janvier said, his hand touching her lower back. "Must've picked up any larger feathers."
"No." She stared at the tiny feather as Naasir contacted Illium with the updated information. "They had no reason to be careful--Giorgio was so sure he couldn't be tracked that he used a warehouse held under his own name. There's something wrong with this feather." Holding it cupped carefully in the palm of her hand, she walked outside into the light. "Do you see it?"
First Janvier, then Naasir examined the feather. Even Trace. None could see anything wrong, and when she looked at it in their hands, she couldn't, either. But as soon as she took it, she felt it again, the wrongness. "There's something wrong with Cornelius, then," she said, skin crawling. "Very, very wrong."
Sliding the disturbing thing into her pocket, after rooting around in there for something to act as a bag and finding a crushed plastic sleeve that had once held tissues, she walked with the men across to the other warehouse.
It was identical to the first one in size and shape, but the lighting was much better, most of the space filled with what appeared to be normal goods. They opened a few boxes to be sure, found the kinds of things a man who served the luxury market might acquire--exotic spices, antiques, rich bolts of silk.
The back right of the warehouse, however, was sectioned off into its own room with a single small window. It said Office on the door, and at first glance that was what it appeared to be. Tall filing cabinets, a desk, invoices, a phone. There was even a tiny sink behind the filing cabinets, as well as a camp stove.
It was under that sink that Trace had found a clear plastic box that held a steel bowl, a dirty syringe, a tiny spoon, and what looked like a bunch of ordinary sugar crystals alongside more ziplock bags. Putting everything on the sink, Trace said, "Either the foreman who ran this warehouse was oblivious to his master's activities or he was the cook.
"The bag I found was crushed under the bowl, must've been missed when they made the last batch." He held the syringe up to show them the brownish residue inside before putting it back down. "In all honesty I'm not sure how or what they were doing, but I believe they must've needed water and the stove. The actual raw materials are nowhere in evidence."
Naasir sniffed the air. "I smell blood."
Frowning, Ashwini, Janvier, and Trace spread out, looking for any evidence someone had been held or hurt in here. "I don't see any blood," she said. "Janvier?"
"Nothing."
Trace's response was the same.
Naasir sniffed the air again, walking closer and closer to the sink until he had his nose in the bowl. "Blood," he said definitively. "Strong blood. Angel blood."
"They made a drug out of the blood of an angel?" Ashwini just stared at the wild silver of Naasir's gaze.
37
"Yes." Naasir sniffed again, his eyes going flat. "This blood is wrong." He hissed, drawing away from the bowl. "Bad to drink." He came to Ashwini. "Show me the feather again."
Taking it out of her pocket, she removed it from the plastic sleeve. Naasir didn't take it, just put his hand under hers and lowered his nose to the feather. The silver liquid of his hair slid forward to kiss her skin. "Yes," he said, rising to his full height. "You were right--the feather smells wrong, too, but it's much more subtle."
Ashwini put it away in her pocket. "No question it's the same angel?"
"None."
The deep, deep green of Trace's eyes glinted. "That explains why Umber is so exclusive--even an angel can't donate blood every day without consequences."
"It also," Janvier said, "confirms the why of the drug."
"A poison." Naasir's features set into piercingly intelligent lines, his feral nature taking a backseat. "The aim was always to kill or cause bloodlust."
"Yes." Trace stared at the wall, his mind clearly working. "Either they're adding something to the blood or the angel's blood is poison. Given what you said about the feather, my bet is the latter."
That left the question of how the blood had been poisoned in the first place--but if their man was Cornelius, well, he was Lijuan's protege, and the Archangel of China had created infectious reborn. Not a stretch to say that one of her minions hadn't been "blessed" with poisonous blood courtesy of his goddess.
"Can you track the scent?" she asked Naasir.
"Yes," Naasir said. "But there is no fresh trail outside--the snow has buried what was there. We'll need to narrow down the location."
"We may as well start at Giorgio's house," Janvier said. "Ash and Naasir and I can do that. Trace, can you get this to the Tower"--his nod took in the drug paraphernalia--"and have it tested?"
"I'll have it fast-tracked."
Leaving the vampire in the warehouse, a number of the Legion on guard over both properties, the three of them went directly to Giorgio's tony Vampire Quarter town house. Allowed in by the guards Dmitri had left at the door, they decided to start at the top and work their way down. The town house's decor was, as she'd noticed on her first visit, far more modern than the velvet and lace Giorgio favored on himself and his cattle.
It was also sumptuous. Three-hundred-count Egyptian cotton sheets, designer curtains, granite counters in the bathroom, and fixtures polished to perfection. Ashwini found plenty of evidence that the women were welcome in the master bedroom--not the least of which was a crumpled pair of lace panties.
Not touching the panties and the discarded seamed stockings hung over the back of a chair, Ashwini tapped the walls to check for hidden compartments. She didn't find anything, and neither did either of the two men. Naasir shook his head when they met again in the downstairs hallway, having split up during the search of the lower half of the house. "No scent."
"Giorgio has other properties." She scanned the information that had come through on her phone from the combined Guild/Tower team. "Small rental homes, shares in a hotel . . ."
"The desiccated dog," Janvier reminded her, "was found in the Quarter, so our angel may be comfortable in this area. Even if he isn't, the Quarter is Giorgio's milieu. I can't see him putting up his guest anywhere that would take him too far out of his way."
Ashwini frowned. "None of the places on this list are anywhere near the Quarter."
The three of them headed to the closest property regardless, with Dmitri and Sara having already dispatched teams to clear the others.
*
Eight hours of fruitless searching later, Ashwini kicked the punching bag in the Guild Academy gym. She'd been working out her frustration on the bag since the final possible location was cleared forty-five minutes past, but wasn't having much success in calming herself down.
Not only had an angel with freaking red in his wings disappeared into thin air, to the point that no one they'd questioned in the Quarter recalled ever seeing him, but so had Giorgio, leaving behind only his bewildered and distraught showpiece cattle. All had seemed genuinely upset when Ashwini interviewed them.
Apparently, even psychopathic bastards had their fans.
As for the vampire guards from the warehouse, they were the vicious brutes Ashwini had tagged them; Giorgio had trusted none of the three with details of his plans. Their only task was to guard that sickening torture ch
amber while it wasn't in use. When it was, they played guard dogs outside the warehouse.
None had ever seen the angel's face--at least according to the one who could speak, Giorgio's partner had always arrived covered in a black cloak, the hood shadowing his features. The guard said they'd all assumed it was another vampire, because there was no indication of wings beneath the cloak. That, of course, should've been impossible. The guard had also admitted to taking advantage of a captive and said his partners had, too.
Punching the bag in renewed fury, her hands protected by boxing gloves, she swung out with a hard kick. The bag swung, exposing the lean form of the man who stood against the wall on the other side. Stilling the bag using her hands, her chest heaving, she said, "How did you get in here?" He was neither student nor instructor nor hunter. Right now, it was only the latter two in here, the students being at dinner.
"I am a teacher, cher," he said, strolling closer.
She raised an eyebrow.
"Truth." He held up his hands before taking hold of the bag and keeping it steady while she threw a few more punches. "I volunteered my services for your final-year students."
"You're playing prey?" Every student had to successfully complete a "hunt" before graduating. "Usually one of us does that."
"Not that you are not brilliant, my darling, devious Ash, but you aren't a vampire. We do have certain tricks."
"You have more than most." No vamp but Janvier had ever come close to outwitting her on a hunt. "How many have caught you so far?"
"All," he said. "I am not here to destroy their confidence, only to make them work hard and earn the collar, and each has done that."
At that instant, he could've been any hunter in the room, at once proud of the students and concerned with making sure they went out into the world with the right tools to survive. Tools Giorgio's victims had never had. "We've hit a dead end, haven't we?" She went through a rapid series of punches and kicks.
Moss green eyes shadowed, Janvier stopped the bag from spinning. "Yes, but every vampire and angel in the city has been alerted to be on the lookout. Neither Giorgio nor Cornelius will be able to show his face without being picked up. Need will draw them out."