Archangel's Consort (Guild Hunter #3)(8)

Fly over the first building and—

I can’t. I landed already. She wasn’t yet strong enough to achieve a vertical takeoff, something that required not only considerable muscle strength, but a great deal of skil .

Come in through the front door. You will find your way.

His certainty—knowing the only thing that could’ve caused it—made her stomach clench, her spine go stiff. It took conscious effort to sweep aside the sensations and narrow her focus to the upcoming hunt. Contracting her wings as close to her back as possible so they wouldn’t inadvertently brush against those huddled on the porch, she walked up the stairs and across aged but solid brick identical to that of the building itself.

Whispers surrounded her on every side.

“Thought she was dead—”

“—vampire—”

“I didn’t know they Made angels!”

Then came the secretive clicks that announced cel phone cameras in operation. Those pictures would hit the Web in minutes if not seconds, and the news media wouldn’t hesitate to pounce the instant after that. “Well ,” she muttered under her breath, “at least that takes care of announcing my presence.”

Now all she’d have to deal with was the media scrum that was sure to hit like a freaking tornado.

Whispers of iron in the air.

She jerked up her head, her senses honing in on that thread that spoke of blood and violence. Following it, she made her way down the deserted hall way carpeted in burgundy, its wall s lined with class photographs spanning decades past, the students starched and pressed, and to a staircase that curved sinuously up from her left.

In spite of the fact that the building was old, its bones heavy, the corridor was filled with light. She saw the reason why when she stopped on the first step, glanced up—a magnificent glass skylight, domed and gilded with gold, and caressed by a few errant strands of ivy. The leaves looked like emeralds scattered against the glass. But that wasn’t what caught her attention.

Iron again, so rich and potent and thick that it sighed of only one thing.

Death.

“Upstairs.”

Startled, Elena turned to find herself facing a skeletal-thin woman garbed in an elegant suit that straddled the border between pale olive and deep gray.

The color appeared almost harsh against skin of a pale, papery white. “I’m Adrienne Liscombe, the principal,” the stranger said at Elena’s questioning look. “I was checking to make sure all the girls got out.”

Having noticed the signs on the doors that opened off the right side of the corridor, Elena said, “This is the office building?”

“This floor,” Ms. Liscombe said, her words crisp, correct. “The second floor houses the library and work spaces for the girls. Above that are a number of dorm rooms, with further facilities on the fourth floor. We function as a home to many of our students—and the staff offices are set up as studies since a significant proportion of us also live in. A girl can come down from her room at any stage to talk to a member of the staff.”



Elena realized that notwithstanding her clear-cut enunciation, her immaculate suit, and her precise gold jewelry, the principal was rambling. Gut-wrenchingly conscious of what might have reduced a woman who gave every indication of having an almost austere toughness of spirit to such a state, she said, “Thank you, Ms. Liscombe.” Drowning as she was in the acrid scent of blood—and of thicker, more viscous fluids—it took conscious effort to make her voice gentle. “I think the girls could use your guidance outside.”

A sharp nod, light glinting off the sleek silver of her hair. “Yes, yes, I should go.”

“Wait.” The question had to be asked. “How many of your pupils are unaccounted for?”

“A ful roll cal hasn’t yet been taken. I’ll do it now.” Shoulders being squared, professional calm reasserting itself in response to the concrete task.

“Some of the girls are away on a field trip, and we have the usual number of absences, so I’ll have to cross-check the list.”

“Please get it to us as soon as you’re able.”

“Of course.” A pause. “Celia . . . she should be here.”

“I understand.” Walking up the varnished wooden stairs that spoke of another time to the muted sounds of the principal’s retreating footsteps, Elena reminded herself to keep her wings raised. It wasn’t quite second nature yet, but she was far more adept at it than when she’d first awakened. Her original motivation had come from not wanting to have them dragging through the dust and dirt of Manhattan’s streets.

Today, she needed the reminder for a far more sinister reason.

Entering the third-floor hall way, she ignored the exquisite oil paintings that spoke of money and class to follow the stench of iron and fear to the room at the very end, a room that held an archangel with eyes of pitiless blue. “Raphael.”

She hallted, tried to breathe. The cloying richness of the smell threatened to choke her as she took in the blood-drenched sheets, the pool of dark liquid edged with red on the floor, splattered on the wall s, the most unspeakable graffiti. “Where’s the body?” Because there would be a body. A human being couldn’t lose this much blood and survive.

“In the woods,” he said in a tone that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise, it was so very, very, very calm. “He dragged her there to feast on her, though he spilled most of her blood here.”