Archangel's Shadows

“You still here?” he snarled. “I told you to git!” Fangs glinted in the sunlight. “Or do you want me to get nasty?”

A vicious guard dog, she decided, one who’d do anything for money. “I was just wondering,” she said, imitating the jerky, scratchy movements of a junkie. No one to worry about. No one important. No one who’d be missed. “Do you have, like, a dollar?” A jerk that made her coat half fall off her shoulder, drawing his attention to her body. “For coffee?”

His eyes gleamed red, dropping to her breasts. “I think we can work out a deal.”

He was reaching to maul her breasts when there was a shout from inside the warehouse. As he turned, Ashwini shot him straight through the temple. He dropped to the floor with a bone-cracking slam, but didn’t die, his shoulders and legs twitching and bloody froth gathering at the corners of his mouth.

Before she put in another bullet at the precise point in his spine that would paralyze him long enough to get this done, she looked inside to find Naasir and Janvier only a few feet away. It appeared the guards had been playing poker around a table close to the entrance. Naasir had ripped out the throat of a second guard with unusual care. The male was seriously damaged, but would survive to face Tower justice. Janvier, on the other hand, had a sweating vampire on his knees, one of his kukris held to the dark-skinned male’s throat.

Since they needed only one conscious and able to talk, she put the bullet in the first vampire’s spine, then contacted Illium. “We have this under control,” she said, stepping over the guard’s body to head to Janvier. “I think your squadron should clear the second warehouse before joining us.”

“Consider it done.”

In front of her, Janvier hauled his captive to his feet and slid away his blade. “See Naasir over there? He’s hungry. Don’t run unless you want him to chase you.”

Naasir obligingly smiled his most feral smile.

The whites of his eyes showing, the guard nodded.

Together, the three of them and their captive moved deeper into the warehouse via the clear aisle in the center, shelving and boxes on either side. Normal enough. Until they reached the center.

On the left were more goods, including several large crates situated a short distance from where the shelving ended. On the right, however, the shelving continued uninterrupted, but the goods went in only a few feet deep. Beyond floated gauzy hangings Naasir tore down to reveal a plush black carpet.

On the carpet sat a four-poster bed with rumpled satin sheets. It was fitted with leather restraints as well as heavy black-on-black damask curtains that had been tied to the sides with glossy gold ropes that ended in tassels. Two large armchairs upholstered in a deep red fabric sat nearby, at an angle that would provide the occupants with an uninterrupted view of the bed.

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.