Archangel's Viper

• • •

Alas, for pudgy and bald Marlin, it appeared the fish had taken the bait. And gotten hungry when Marlin couldn’t produce the payoff. “Okay,” Holly said, staring down at the bloody, hacked-apart pieces of the vampire con artist and all-around slimy individual, “whoever is after me isn’t only serious, they’re deadly serious.”

Having crouched down to examine the butchered remains placed in a neat pile in the middle of Marlin’s living area, atop an unexpectedly tasteful Persian rug, Venom nodded. When strands of his hair slid forward, he pushed them back with an absent hand, his forearms flexing with casual power. She could see those forearms because he’d folded up his shirtsleeves to reveal skin she’d seen more than once already.

Today, however, the sight of that skin was doing strange things to her stomach.

“There’s little doubt now that the killings are connected.” He got up. “There hardly seems a point in checking the address of the third individual who tried to fool the buyer, but we should be thorough.”

He called a Tower cleanup and forensics team first, however, the two of them not leaving until the team had taken charge of the scene. As for Janvier and Ash’s snitches, they knew to scatter quick smart when someone of Venom’s lethal power came in the vicinity. Payment for their work would come directly from Ash or Janvier.

The third address was in a slightly nicer part of town—the graffiti was classier and there were even potted plants in a few windows, but the scene inside their target apartment was a repeat of Marlin’s. The only difference was that this time, the killer had piled the butchered pieces on top of the coffee table, the wooden floor below a mess of rust red streaks alongside larger coagulated pools of darker red.

This scene was also the oldest, the smell so putrid that even Venom stepped outside into the shared hallway to wait for the Tower team. “This isn’t anger—the cuts are too precise, the way the body parts are piled up too theatrical,” he said. “This is a message.”

“Try to swindle me and you’ll pay the price.” Folding her arms, Holly tried to stand a little closer to Venom so she could draw the scent of him into her nostrils—she needed it to wipe out the noxious stink from inside the apartment. “Someone doesn’t like having their time wasted.”

“And is strong enough to have killed the vampire inside—unlike Marlin Tucker, this vamp was big, muscled. I also saw no signs of drug use that would’ve slowed his responses.”

Holly scuffed her shoe on the floor. “I know I should focus on this psycho who’s put a bounty on me, but I can’t stop thinking about Daisy.” About what the other woman had suffered, the horror followed by abuse and cruelty. “Don’t let me near Kenasha unless you want him dead.”

Uram was out of her reach, but Kenasha was very much within it.

Venom ran her ponytail through his fingers. “For a woman with unicorn hair, you’re very bloodthirsty. I approve.”

Holly smiled grimly; she had the feeling he, too, was considering the value of Kenasha’s continued existence.

• • •

Dmitri looked them both up and down, a dark glint in his eyes that matched the night that had draped the city in black while they discovered two dead bodies, examined the locations, then waited for the Tower teams to arrive. The lights of Manhattan sparkled beyond the glass wall at Dmitri’s back, the city finally free of rain, though black clouds continued to obscure the stars.

It looked more like midnight than six in the evening.

Dmitri stood with his hands braced on top of his desk, his arm muscles bunched tight. “I put you in charge so you’d control her,” the leader of the Seven said to Venom.

Words shoved at Holly’s throat, but she bit her lip. Venom didn’t need her to fight his battles. As he proved right then.

“So you’d have patted Kenasha on the head and walked away after the piece of shit admitted to enslaving a half-drowned woman who didn’t have the strength to stop him?” A raised eyebrow.

Dmitri’s jaw clenched as he rose to his full height and folded his arms. “Keep the bastard out of my sight.” It was a dangerously quiet statement. “I’d be tempted to tear off his head and then Raphael will have to deal with angels who think I’m too powerful.”

“You are too powerful.” Venom smiled. “That’s why they’re all so scared of you.”

Dmitri’s responding smile was of a kind he never gave Holly—it was between friends, between equals. Yet she didn’t feel left out. Because her relationship with Dmitri was different. When he held out an arm, she went around and tucked herself under it. “I want to be in charge of finding out more about Daisy and what happened to her.”

Dmitri hugged her a little closer to the hard strength of his body. “You can’t lead yet, Holly. You haven’t earned the right.”

Again, because it was Dmitri who’d said those words, Holly could accept their truth. “Then give it to Venom and me together,” she said, her eyes connecting with those of viper green.

Dmitri looked at Venom. “You’re fine with handling this alongside the ongoing bounty situation?”

“Yes. Do you need me on security?”

His question reminded Holly that with Raphael gone, New York was vulnerable to an assault by another archangel.

It’s all about politics, Honor had told Holly. Successfully sacking the city that Raphael calls home and taking his Tower, his center of command, will have far more impact than an invasion of another part of the territory.

“Is there a risk that Charisemnon or another archangel will attack?” she asked, her mind overflowing with images of blood and death from the last battle, a battle that had forced a mass evacuation of Manhattan.

It was Dmitri who answered. “No. They’re all at the same meeting.”

“Wow.” Holly couldn’t imagine the entire Cadre in one place. “Even Lijuan? I read online that no one’s seen her for two years.”

“Zhou Lijuan is AWOL,” Dmitri confirmed.

That, Holly realized, was why the city was on high alert, why all the warrior angels and vampires had an edginess about them that wasn’t normal. If the Archangel of China wanted to take New York, now was the best possible time. Its citizens, mortal and immortal, would all fight to the very end, but Zhou Lijuan was one of the Cadre—and only an archangel could kill or defeat another archangel.

“Clear up this situation with Holly as fast as you can,” Dmitri told Venom. “We don’t need groups of bounty hunters thinking they can come after a woman under the Tower’s protection.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of Holly’s hair before releasing her. “As for Kenasha—he’s always been a lazy waste of space, but your report on the condition of his wings concerns me. We need to make sure the vampire you rescued isn’t a carrier of disease.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” Venom promised. “Let’s go, kitty.”

“I’d be delighted, Viper Face.”

Lips curving slightly, he slipped on his sunglasses as they left Dmitri’s office. “Daisy’s our first stop.”

“Why are you wearing your sunglasses in the Tower?”

“Because we’re going to the infirmary level and the junior healers there don’t often come into contact with me.” His fingers brushed her lower back. “I try not to scare baby healers.”

Her hand still itched to rip them off his face. “Do you think the healers will have a result on Daisy’s bloodwork by now?”

“They haven’t messaged me to say so, but that might be because they know I’m in the Tower and are expecting me to drop by.”

The two of them stepped into the elevator side by side, rode down in silence. Every hair on Holly’s body prickled, her skin suddenly acutely sensitive to Venom’s presence. His face was pristine in profile, his skin glowing with health even under the artificial light. She wanted to touch it, rub her cheek against his like the kitten he called her.

Viper Face, Viper Face, Viper Face, she repeated mentally to snap herself out of the startling desire. Yes, he’s pretty. But he’s also lethal, and I might yet become his prey if he discovers the mad, whispering voice inside me.