She rocked back on her heels, staring at the single blood-stain that didn't fit the timeline-the one on the carpet. It was too fresh. "You're right. The bastard came back to admire his handiwork!"
"I'll put watchers in place." He rose to his feet after her, his fingertips dusted with blood, his clothing stained where the bodies had brushed up against him. It made her remember the last time she'd seen him, a bloody fist, the panicked beat of a pulsing heart.
Somehow, it no longer seemed horrific. Not after this. Uram had played with his victims-like a cat with a mouse it doesn't want to eat but simply torment. Say what you would about the Archangel of New York-pitiless, hard, certainly lethal-he didn't torture for the sake of it. Everything Raphael did had a purpose. Even if that purpose was to scare people so badly that no one would dare betray him again.
She spoke as he walked to the kitchen area to wash his hands. "I don't think he'll come back-he returned after the warehouse kills, maybe to gloat, maybe to rest, but look at this." She pointed her foot at a bowl that had rolled under a table. "He threw this-probably after finding the blood he'd saved didn't satisfy him."
"This was his funhouse, but he's realized he prefers live playthings."
"Yes, he's going to want fresh meat." The words sounded cold but she had to stay on that level. If she allowed herself to feel . . .
Raphael nodded. "Do you think he'll rise to feed again tonight?"
"Even if he's continuously in bloodlust"-and that was a nightmare she didn't want to contemplate-"I'd say it's unlikely, given the way he glutted himself at the warehouse."
That was when rain thundered to earth outside, as if some great faucet had been turned.
"Shit!" She swiveled to the door. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"
Raphael just watched her have a fit, then calmly asked, "I thought you said Uram flew?"
"Scent markers like the ones that led me here are now all gone! He's been erased from the entire city." She gave a little scream. "Rain's the one thing that messes up the trail this bad-vampires who have any idea of what they're doing run to the wettest places on this earth." She wanted to kill the rain gods, settled for kicking the stone of the counter. "Fuck! That hurt!"
Raphael nodded at the doorway. "Take care of it."
She didn't have to turn around to know Dmitri had arrived. His scent wrapped around her like a damn coat. "Turn it off, vampire, or I swear to God, I'll stake you with your own leg."
"I'm not doing anything, Elena."
She glanced over, saw the tight lines of strain on his face, and knew he wasn't messing with her. "Double-shit. I'm wired, too much adrenaline, I'm going to crash soon." Her ability always spiked before a crash. "Might as well give in to it and catch a few hours' shut-eye." She hadn't slept much more than an hour or two last night, that damn chair had been so uncomfortable. "I won't be able to get anything now until Uram moves again."
Until he killed again.
"Are you keeping an eye on Michaela?" she asked Raphael. "She might be our best bet for catching him."
"She's an archangel," Raphael reminded her. "To augment her resources with my own would be to say I consider her weak."
"She's refusing?" Elena shook her head. "Then I hope to God she has good men and you have good spies." Pissed at the arrogance of angels, at the rain, at the whole fucking universe, she strode out without a backward look. Venom was at the gate. Damn man looked good wet. "I need a car."
To her surprise, he dropped keys into her palm and pointed across the road to the sedan she'd left double-parked somewhere. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
She decided the vamp was playing with her, couldn't be bothered to snipe at him. Pushing through the gate, she walked toward the car.
Go to my home, Elena. I'll meet you there.
She opened the door and got in, brushing rain from her face, tasting the freshness of it on her tongue. But no, that was Raphael. He was waiting for an answer. "You know what, Archangel? I think it's time I took you up on your offer."
Which particular offer?
"The one about fucking me into oblivion." She had to forget-the blood, the death, the viscera of evil sprayed on the walls of that innocuous-looking town house.
A better man wouldn't take advantage of you in your current emotional state.
"Good thing you're not a man."
Yes.
Her thighs clenched at the eroticism implicit in that single word. Sticking the key in the ignition, she started the car and pulled out. The scent of rain, of the sea, faded from her mind. Raphael had left. But she could still taste him on her tongue, as if he'd exuded some exotic pheromone that rewired her body to scent angel, not vampire.
Not that she cared.
The hanging bodies, the shadows on the wall-
No, there had been no shadows. Not today.
Her hands clenched on the steering wheel as she came to a stop at a red light, her vision hazed by rain, by memories. "Stuff it back," she ordered herself. "Don't remember."
But it was too late. A single, terrifying shadow took shape on the wall of her mind, swaying in the breeze from the open windows.
Her mother had always liked fresh air.
Someone honked and she realized the light had turned green. Mentally thanking the other driver for snapping her awake, she focused every part of herself on driving. The rain should've made it hell but the streets were eerily quiet. As if the gathering darkness was a malevolent force that had captured the population, taking them to earth, to death.
And that quickly, she was back in the huge entranceway to the Big House, the house Jeffrey had bought after . . . After. Such a Big House for a family of four. Above her was a mezzanine floor with a lovely white railing, so strong, metal not wood. Elegant, old, the perfect home for a man who planned to be mayor.
"Mom, I'm home!"
Quiet. So quiet.
Panic in her throat, pain in her eyes, blood in her mouth.
She'd bitten her tongue. In fear. In terror. But no, there was no trace of vampire.
"Mom?" A tremulous question.
Looking at the huge hallway, she'd wondered why her mother had left one high-heeled shoe in the middle of the tile. Maybe she'd forgotten. Marguerite was different. Beautiful, wild, artistic. Sometimes she forgot the days of the week, or wore two different shoes, but that was okay. Elena didn't care.
The shoe fooled her. Made her step inside.
A crash of noise and memory shattered under the heart-thudding reality of the present. She slammed the car to a shuddering halt, sickeningly aware that something had just ricocheted off her windshield. "Jesus." Unclipping her belt, she opened the door and got out. Had she hit someone?
The wind tore at her hair as the rain pelted down with bruising force. The storm had come out of nowhere, a freak blip on the radar of nature. Fighting against the wind, she walked around to the front of the car, eerily conscious that there was absolutely no one else on this stretch of road. Maybe people had decided to wait out the rain. Blinking water from her eyes, she figured it'd be a long wait.
There was a leaf on her windscreen, stuck to one of the still-running wipers. A solid branch lay a few feet in front of the car. Relief whispered through her, but she checked under and behind the vehicle to be sure. Nothing. Just a branch thrown by the wind. Getting out of the rain, she slammed the door shut and turned on the heater, chilled to the bone. Freezing from the inside out.
Wiping her face with an open palm, she drove the rest of the way to Raphael's with a steely focus on the here and now. The ghosts kept whispering in her ear but she refused to listen. If she didn't listen, they wouldn't be able to touch her, wouldn't be able to drag her back into the nightmare.
She was pulling up in front of the house when her cell phone rang. It had been in her pocket and was drenched, but seemed to function fine when she turned off the engine and flipped it open. She recognized the incoming number. "Ransom?"
"Who else?" Jazz in the background, the singer's voice smoky and low. "I've been hearing things, Ellie."
"I can't tell-" she began.
"No," he interrupted. "I'm hearing things I think you need to know."
"Go on." Ransom had contacts the rest of them didn't, having grown up on the streets. Most people who got out lost their street cred. He hadn't-being a hunter was considered an even better position in the hierarchy of the streets than being a gangbanger.
"There's been a lot of vamp and angel activity over the past few days. They're everywhere."
"Okay." That wasn't news. Raphael had his people looking for signs of Uram or his victims.
"Whispers of girls disappearing."
"Uh-huh."
"Should I be warning the pros?" His voice was tight.
She knew some of those streetwalkers and high-end call girls were his friends. "Let me think." She considered everything she'd picked up about the victims. "I think, for once, they're safe."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. The targets all looked . . . innocent."
"Virgins?"
Elena realized she hadn't thought to check. A mistake she'd rectify as soon as possible. "Yeah, probably. But still, it wouldn't hurt to tell your friends to look out for each other."
"Thanks." He blew out a breath. "That's not why I called, though. Word is, there's a hit out on you."
She froze. "What?"
"Yeah, it gets better." Anger vibrated through the wires. "Apparently an archangel wants you dead. What the hell did you do to him?"
Her forehead furrowed. "Not him. Her."
"Ah. I wouldn't worry about it, then." Pure snark. "According to the gossip, your head's wanted on a silver platter-literally, by the way-"
"Gee, thanks for clearing that up."
"-but the hunt's not authorized to begin yet."
Michaela, the bitch, was playing mind games. "Appreciate the warning."
"So what are you going to do? Get the hell out of Dodge or kill an archangel?"
"I do love your confidence in me."
A snort. "Hell, no. I just know I'm in your last will and testament."
"I'm too valuable alive right now."
"And when the job is done?"
The car door was pulled open from the outside, wings filling her vision. "Then I'll reconsider my options. Talk to you later." She closed the phone before he could say anything else, and looked up into eyes so blue they shouldn't have been possible. "Michaela really wants me dead."
Raphael's expression remained unchanged. "I don't let anyone break my toys."
It should've pissed her off, but she smiled. "Wow, I feel all mushy inside."
"Who were you speaking with?"
"Possessive much?"
He cupped her cheek, his hand wet, his hold uncompromising. "I don't share my toys either."
"Watch it," she murmured, twisting in her seat until her feet touched the sodden earth outside. "I might decide to be irritated. I have a question."
Silence.
"Were they virgins?"
"How did you know?"
"Evil is predictable." A lie. Because sometimes evil was an insidious thief that crept in and stole what you most treasured, leaving only echoes against a wall.
A thin shadow, swinging almost gently. Like on a swing.
Raphael rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. "I see nightmares in your eyes again."
"And I see sex in yours."
He rose, tugging her out of the car and trapping her with her back to the opening. Behind him, his wings flared out, gleaming with rain wetness. There was an edge to that sensual mouth, a touch of savagery in the way it curved.
Elena leaned forward and put her arms around his neck, letting herself luxuriate in the sheer strength of him. Today, she was going to break all the rules. Forget about sleeping with a vamp, she was going straight to the top and to hell with it. "So, how does an archangel do it?"
A gust of wind buffeted them, stealing away her words. But Raphael had heard. Leaning in, he brushed his lips over hers. "I haven't agreed yet."
She blinked. Then scowled as he drew back. "What, you're playing hard to get now?"
He turned. "Come, Elena. I need you healthy."
Cursing him under her breath, she shut the car door-the interior was already soaked-and walked toward the house, Raphael a quiet presence by her side. But not restful. No, he was quiet like a jaguar was quiet. Lethal danger momentarily contained. She was still scowling when they reached the door.
The butler held it open. "I've prepared the bath, sir." A glance at her, a hint of curiosity. "Madam."
Raphael dismissed Jeeves with a look and the butler melted away into the woodwork. "The bath is on the next floor."
She headed up the stairs, stomping more than stepping. He'd teased her to fever pitch, but now, today, when she actually needed the release, he was playing with her. Exactly as you did with a toy, she realized. Fine, if he wanted it that way, she'd focus on work. "Were you able to confirm if he had sex with the women?"
"Yes, but only at the town house. The warehouse victims were all untouched in that way-that's why we believe the others were also virgin before he took them." He was at her back, following close enough that his breath whispered over her nape as they reached the top. "Down the hall, third door to your left."
"Much obliged," she said sarcastically, noticing that there was nothing but air beyond the railing to her right-as if the core of the house was one huge, open space.
"Does it mean something-the sexual contact?"
"Could be. But there were no marks on the bodies aside from the death wounds, so that part may have been consensual." Archangels were charismatic, sexy, quite unbelievably compelling. Uram may have turned into a monster, but outside, he probably appeared just as attractive as the Archangel of New York. No, she thought immediately, Raphael was in a league of his own.
"Or it was after death."
She was too tired to be disgusted. "Possible." Reaching the third door, she put her hand on the doorknob. "He may have sublimated the feeding urge with sex for a small amount of time. But only blood's going to satisfy him now." Her hand tightened. "More women are going to die because I lost the scent."
"But less than if you'd never been born," he said, tone matter-of-fact. "I've lived centuries, Elena. Two or three hundred deaths is a small price to pay to stop one of the bloodborn."
Two or three hundred?!
"I won't let it get that far." She pushed open the door-and stepped into a fantasy. Her breath rushed out of her as she stood there, staring.
Flames leaped in the fireplace to her left, the golden glow surrounded by dark stone that shimmered with hidden threads of silver. In front of the fireplace was a huge white rug that looked so fluffy and comfortable she wanted to roll around on it-naked. Talk about pure indulgence.
On the opposite side of the room was a door that seemed to open into the bath. She could see the edge of white porcelain fittings, a counter made of the same marble as the fireplace. Inside, she knew a hot bath awaited, a bath her cold bones desperately needed. But still she stood there.
Because between the fireplace and the temptation of the bath was a bed. A bed bigger than any she'd ever seen. One that could've accommodated ten people without any of them touching the other. It sat high off the floor but there was no headboard or backboard, just a smooth expanse of bed covered by lush midnight-blue sheets that promised to stroke across her skin in an exotically delicious caress. The pillows sat on the opposite end to the door, but could as easily have been on this side.
"Why"-she coughed to clear her throat-"why so big?"
Hands on her hips, pushing her forward. "Wings, Elena." A rustling snap as Raphael extended his wings to their full length, then the click of the door locking behind them.
She was alone with the Archangel of New York. In front of a bed made to accommodate wings.