“Elena certainly knows how to leave an impression,” Dmitri said on the other end of the phone, having been watching the same news feed.
Raphael’s second and his consort had never seen eye to eye, for to Dmitri, Elena was a lethal chink in Raphael’s armor, but today he heard grim admiration in the vampire’s tone. “If we can continue to manipulate the media,” he said, switching the screen to silent, “and maintain a stranglehold on any news that leaves the Tower, we can convince the enemy that the five we lost represent the only real damage.” Those five would be halfway home by now, crossing over the blue-green span of a mercurial sea.
“Acknowledge a few serious injuries, or allow that information to leak.” Dmitri spoke with the icy intelligence that made him a master strategist. “It’ll take care of the images already out there of angels who fell into traffic or were otherwise publicly injured, and it’ll explain the healers. Illium’s very good at whispering the right words in the right ears.”
Raphael sent the instruction to the blue-winged angel as he continued to speak to Dmitri, his eyes on the glittering steel and glass metropolis that was Manhattan. “We need to quietly bring in troops from outlying areas.” No enemy who wanted to be taken seriously in the immortal world would launch an attack at any target but the Tower—in the game of archangels, to conquer was to strike at one another’s base of power.
“I need you to assist Aodhan in organizing that shift.” Aodhan was yet new to the territory, having previously been Galen’s right hand in the Refuge. “I have Illium focusing on creating new working squadrons.” With so many angels down, the current squadrons had become unbalanced in critical areas.
“Sire, do you wish me to return to the city?”
“No,” Raphael said, conscious Dmitri’s wife was still regaining her strength after her transformation from mortal to vampire. “Your continued absence serves my purpose for the time being.” Everyone knew Dmitri was the oldest of Raphael’s Seven, the one Raphael considered a friend. “When the war breaks, I’ll want you by my side, but that time isn’t now.”
Not quite yet.
• • •
Elena landed in front of an old-fashioned two-story villa set in the middle of a derelict street twenty minutes after her call from Sara and stared. Surrounded by tall weeds and smothered in ivy on one side, the building in front of her could’ve stood in as the prototypical haunted house; in point of fact, the entire street had escaped any attempt at modernization. Even the streetlamps were wrought iron, the frames rusted, the glass cracked to splinter the pavement, not a single electrical or telephone wire in sight.
That was hardly surprising in a city filled with angels and vampires, not all of whom embraced change. If, however, this place belonged to an immortal or almost-immortal, it had been permitted to fall into remarkable disrepair. The older ones who liked to keep things the way they’d been at some point in the past, took great pride in maintaining the historical detail and beauty of their properties.
It didn’t appear anyone had touched this house for decades.
The paint, which might’ve once been white, was peeling and blackened from the dust of the city streets, the windows shattered, the eaves hung with cobwebs thick and sticky, the curtains within rotten shreds from what she could see from her position on the street. The wood itself was warped out of shape, until the house couldn’t be in any way weather-tight—and an unusually tall tree had fallen onto part of the roof, caving in one side of the house.
“What the hell is this place?” she said to Ransom when he appeared from the other side of the porch.
Green eyes vivid against skin of copper-gold, he raised an eyebrow. “Are you talking about this multimillion-dollar piece of real estate?”
“Seriously?”
“When’s the last time land went for sale in Manhattan?” he asked, shrugging wide shoulders hugged by the battered black leather of his motorcycle jacket, his legs encased in old blue jeans over scuffed heavy-duty boots. “This entire street is one parcel. Developers have fucking public orgasms dreaming about getting their paws on it.”
Elena whistled. “Someone’s sitting on a gold mine.”
“He was. Now he’s dead.”
Heart slamming against her ribs, she jerked her attention from the rotting house next door. “Not—”
“No, it wasn’t Darrell, but it’s someone the Tower’s going to be interested in.” Ransom’s blade-sharp cheekbones cut against his skin as he said, “We need to clear this fast and continue with the hunt.”
Agreeing, she walked gingerly up the front steps, not trusting them not to collapse and dump her on her ass. “How do we get in?” Front door was boarded up, the nails corroded and the wood obscene with graffiti.
Angling his head to the left, the glossy black tail of his hair tied at the nape of his neck with a strip of rawhide, Ransom led her around the house. “Your angel friends okay? That young blond one who follows you around like a big, goofy puppy?”
Stabbing pains in her stomach, her mind rebelling against the brutal images of Izak’s torn-off legs, his flayed skin. “He’s hurt bad.”
“Shit. He’s just a kid.”
Elena’s throat knotted as she thought of the other young soldier who hadn’t survived, whose family even now held vigil for the return of his body. “The angel you rescued from in front of the truck?” she said, forcing herself not to give in to useless anger. “It’ll take time, but she’ll heal.”
Ransom blew out a jagged breath. “I didn’t think she’d make it. She was . . .” He shook his head. “I had to collect her arm from under the tires, Ellie.” Gesturing for her to take care over a broken board, he said, “What I found today? It’s going to add to the shitpile.”
Fuck. The city didn’t need any further problems. “You tracked Darrell here?”
“Darrell didn’t go loco right after that clusterfuck with the mother and the kid,” was the surprising answer. “He came in, had counseling, said all the right things, and was assigned a slam-dunk retrieval to ease him back into things.”
Reading between the lines, Elena realized the counselor had known something was off and asked for Darrell to be kept within reach.
“Vamp who owned this place was his assigned target.” Ransom drew his guns from the shoulder holsters he wore under his jacket, the action deadly silent. “I figured I might as well use him as a starting point for the track, since Darrell did send in a report to say he was on the guy’s trail.”
Elena had her throwing blades in hand when they turned the corner. Half of the back wall was just gone, leaving a gaping entrance filled with street detritus, dead leaves, discarded hypodermic needles, and other things she didn’t want to think about too deeply. Trying to keep her wings from trailing in the crap, she took a step inside . . . and a rat as big as a goddamn cat scurried over her boot.
Biting back her instinctive scream, she glared at Ransom—who was very conspicuously not grinning. “You couldn’t warn me?”
“You’re a tough-ass hunter who gets naked with a freaking archangel, has a miniature flamethrower—which, by the way, you should leave to me in your will—and a crossbow, all within easy reach.” His cheeks creased, eyes glinting. “Rats quiver at your presence.”
“Now I remember why you’re only an almost-friend.”
“Oh, Ellie, you wound me.” He paused. “Did you stop and get the masks?”
“Yeah.” Reaching into a side pocket of her pants, she passed him a collapsible mask. Like her, he was hunter-born, his sense of smell acute.
“Thanks.” He pulled it on over his mouth and nose, tightened the elastic band. “Smell’s worse upstairs.”
Since it reeked down here—a disgusting miasma of droppings, spoiled food, and urine—Elena didn’t waste any time following his lead. Tugging out a pair of latex gloves from another pocket as Ransom did the same, she nodded at him to lead, and they skirted past what looked like the mummified body of a feral cat, and out of the kitchen.
The hallway beyond was narrow enough that Elena had to lean slightly to the right to avoid scraping her wing over the dark brown thickness smeared on the wall, all her air coming in through her mouth now . . . because her brain had identified the major component of the putrid stink as that of a decomposing corpse.
6
Stopping at the foot of the narrow staircase that ran along one wall, Ransom murmured, “Keep to the left and wait till I’m at the top, then come up.”
The stairs creaked under his weight, again under Elena’s, but held.
Guns out, Ransom led her down the upstairs hallway and into a room so pungent with death her stomach would’ve revolted if she hadn’t steeled herself against the gag reflex. The second slap was of humidity, something about the way the room was built acting to trap what little heat there was . . . and accelerate the decomposition process.
Immediately identifying the filthy mattress below the boarded-up windows as the source of the scent of putrefaction, Elena walked across, trusting Ransom to watch her back. The body was bloated with the gases of death, skin a sickly green, but the head remained attached to the neck, and the shirt-clad chest was unmolested, judging from a surface glance. That meant his heart was likely still inside his body.
Going down on her knee, Elena blinked rapidly to dry out eyes that threatened to water from the pulsing waves of smell, ignored the maggots, and peeled back the corpse’s lip.
Canines, sharp and gleaming white.
“He isn’t a baby vamp,” she said through gritted teeth, “so this isn’t a Making gone bad.”
“Look at the throat.”
Wings rustling against God knew what on the dirty floor, she retrieved the slimline flashlight she kept tucked alongside the knife on her left thigh and pointed the beam at the victim’s neck. “Hell.” Thick pustules filled with bloody fluid covered the male’s throat, all the way to the open collar of his shirt . . . and down.