Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter #1)(13)

"I want tickets." Hanging up to Sara's laughter, Elena rubbed her hands over her face and decided it was time to get to work. This hunt was going to go down no matter what-she might as well try to come out of it in one piece.

Untucking the white shirt, she changed her black pants for jeans and tied her hair up into a haphazard ponytail, then flipped open her computer a second time. Since she didn't like the idea of the Cadre looking over her shoulder-even if they were her employers-she pulled up an Internet browser and clicked through to a popular search engine rather than logging into the Guild's databases.

Then she typed in her query: Uram.

Raphael closed the door behind him and walked into the huge basement library hidden beneath the graceful beauty of a large cottage in Martha's Vineyard. A fire burned in the hearth, the only source of illumination other than the wall sconces, which created more shadows than light. There was a sense of age about this place, a quiet knowledge that it had been here far longer than the modern home above.

"It is done," he said, taking his seat in the semicircle of armchairs in front of the fire. It was too hot for him, but some of his brethren came from warmer climes and felt the promise of autumn in their bones.

"Tell us," Charisemnon said. "Tell us about the hunter."

Leaning back in his chair, Raphael glanced around at the others who sat with him. The Cadre of Ten was in session. But incomplete. "We'll need to replace Uram."

"Not yet. Not until after . . ." Michaela whispered, eyes tortured. "Is it really necessary to hunt him?"

Neha closed her hand on the other angel's shoulder. "You know we have no choice. He can't be left to indulge his new appetites. If the humans ever discover-" She shook her head, almond-shaped eyes full of dark knowledge. "They would fear us as monsters."

"They already do," Elijah said. "To hold power, we've all had to become a little bit the monster."

Raphael agreed. Elijah was one of the oldest among them. He'd ruled in one way or another for millennia, no sign of ennui in his eyes even now. Perhaps it was because Elijah had something the others didn't-a lover whose loyalty was unimpeachable. Elijah and Hannah had been together for over nine hundred years.

"But," Zhou Lijuan pointed out, "there is a difference between being feared, but looked upon with awe, and being totally abhorred."

Raphael wasn't so sure that line existed but Lijuan was an archangel cut from a different time. She held power in Asia through a matriarchal network that instilled respect for her in their children, and had been doing so for eons. If Elijah was old, then Lijuan was truly ancient-she'd become woven into the very fabric of her homeland, China, and of the lands around it. They told tales of Lijuan in whispered tones and looked upon her as a demigod. In comparison, Raphael had only ruled for five hundred years, a mere blink of time. But that could prove an asset.

Unlike Lijuan, Raphael hadn't ascended so high that he'd ceased to understand mortals. Even before his transformation from angel to archangel, he'd chosen the chaos of life over the elegant peace of his brethren. Now he lived in one of the world's busiest cities and, unbeknownst to its denizens, often watched them. As he'd watched Elena Deveraux today. "We have no need to debate secrecy," he said, cutting into Michaela's soft sobs. "No one can know of what Uram has become. It has been that way for as long as we've existed."

A slow round of nods. Even Michaela wiped away her tears and sat back, her eyes clear, her cheeks flushed. She was beautiful beyond compare. Even among angelkind, she'd always been the brightest of stars, never lacking for lovers or attention. Right then, her gaze met his and deep within them was a sensual question he chose not to answer. So. She didn't mourn Uram; she mourned herself. That fit far better with her personality.

"The hunter is female," she said a second later, her tone slightly edgy. "Is that why you chose her?"

"No." Raphael wondered if he'd have to warn Elena about this new threat. Michaela didn't like competition and she'd been Uram's lover for almost half a century, an incredible commitment for someone of her mercurial nature. "I chose her because she can scent what no one else can."

"Why, then, must we wait?" Titus asked, his soft tone at odds with the gleaming, muscular bulk of his body. He appeared a man carved from jet, as roughly hewn as the mountain stronghold he called home.

"Because," Raphael answered, "Uram has not crossed the final line."

A hush.

"You're certain?" Favashi asked, her words gentle. She was the youngest of them all, the most mortal in her thinking. Her heart and soul remained unscathed by the inexorable passage of time. "If he hasn't yet-"

"You hope too easily," Astaad interrupted in that harsh way of his. "He killed every one of his servants and retainers the night he left Europe."

"Why then did he not cross the line, do . . . what we must never do?" Favashi asked, unwilling to back down. That was why, despite her gentleness, she was the archangel who held sway over Persia. She bent, but Favashi did not break. Ever. "Surely he can be reclaimed?"

"No," Neha responded, as cool as Favashi was warm. In her homeland of India, snakes were worshipped as gods and Neha was worshipped as the Queen of Snakes. "I've made discreet inquiries with our doctors. It is too late. His blood is poison."