Archangel's Kiss (Guild Hunter #2)(21)

The hallway—which led eventually to stairs cut into the side of the central core—was a symphony of clean lines broken up by the unexpected. A scimitar, ancient runes burned into the blade itself, was mounted on the left wall, the steel gleaming wicked sharp. She could see Dmitri holding that blade, wondered if it had been his once upon a time. Because Dmitri was old, one of the oldest vampires she’d ever met.

A few feet down, a handwoven tapestry covered most of the right wall. She’d spent almost half an hour staring at it yesterday, compelled by something she didn’t understand. Now, in spite of her need to get out, to combat the churning in her gut with raw physicality, her feet hesitated, then stopped. There was a story woven within those precise threads, a story she desperately wanted to understand.

The panel showed an angel silhouetted golden against the sun, his face obscured by shadow as he headed downward to a forest village engulfed in flames. Another angel rose up toward him, her hair a rippling fall of black down her back, her wings the purest white Elena had ever seen. The flying strands of her hair hid her face, until she, too, was a shadow. But the faces of the villagers as they writhed in agony . . . each had been woven in exquisite detail, down to the screaming horror in the eyes of a woman who stood trapped as flames licked at her skirts, began to blister the skin of her arm.

Who were the two angels? Were they trying to help the burning? Or were they the reason for the massacre? Most important of all, Elena thought, shivers trailing over her skin, why did Raphael have this disturbing image in a place where he couldn’t help but see it almost every single day?

Raphael looked down at the injured vampire, even more sharply conscious of the calculated nature of the insult, the care that had been taken to beat Noel so that his face was so much ground meat—but one eye remained undamaged, a dull blue visible around the swelling caused by his other injuries. His remaining eye was nothing but pulp. His nose was gone, but his lips untouched, perfect in their form.

Below the neck, he’d been all but crushed, his bones in so many pieces that some were dust. Raphael had broken a vampire not long ago—punishment for disloyalty. He’d snapped Germaine’s bones, each with a single move of his hands. It had been a brutal penalty, one Germaine would remember for the rest of his existence, but Raphael had taken no pleasure in it.

Noel’s attackers had most assuredly taken pleasure in what they’d done, continuing to savage him far beyond the point of sending a message. The brand lay a malignant cancer over the flesh of his breastbone, but their healer, Keir, had also found boot imprints on his back, his face. The dagger hadn’t been the sole thing they’d left inside the vampire, either. Shards of glass had been shoved deep into his wounds, where his flesh would grow over them. He’d been battered in other ways, too, his body assaulted by something that had cut and torn. The only mercy was it appeared to have been done after he lost consciousness.

Raphael would’ve liked to be absolutely certain that he wasn’t capable of such meaningless viciousness, but part of him wasn’t so sure. Nadiel, too, had once been considered the greatest of archangels.

However, one thing was certain—Raphael would not countenance the slaughter and torture of his people. “Who did this to you?” he asked.

The vampire’s good eye remained dull. He’d survive, but whether his mind would be the same . . . “I don’t know.” The answer was surprisingly clear, so clear that Raphael revised his opinion of Noel’s chances of a true recovery. “Was jumped.”

“You’re not young,” Raphael said, having gotten Noel’s history from Dmitri. It seemed the vampire was a trusted member of the team that operated below the Seven, a man Dmitri had been planning to bring to Raphael’s attention for his intelligence and loyalty. “You shouldn’t have been so easily taken.”

“More than one. Wings. Heard wings.”

Raphael had executed an archangel. He felt no compunction in taking out an angel who sought to make his name by brutalizing those who looked to Raphael. “Markings?”

“I couldn’t see.” His good eye shifted toward Raphael. “They took my eyes when the beating started.”

The dullness of the vampire’s gaze suddenly made sense. The eye hadn’t been left undamaged after all—it had simply begun to regenerate before its mate. “Did you sense anything about your attackers?”

“They said I was a message from Elijah.” A cough rasping out of his chest.

Raphael called no archangel friend, but he didn’t call Elijah an enemy either. “Male or female?”

“I was half insane by then.” Flat words. “To me it sounded like pure evil. But at least one of them got off on the pain. While they were branding me . . . someone laughed and laughed and laughed.”

Elena was on her way back to shower and change from the training session with Dmitri when something cut through the air with a chilling whistle. She hit the ground hard, smashing one elbow on the stone paving and scraping the palm of her other hand. Her wings escaped damage, but only because she’d remembered to fall to her side. The payoff would be a giant bruise on her left flank, a bone-deep pain in her arm.

She lifted her head with hunter cautiousness the instant after she hit the earth, knowing she’d be a sitting duck if she didn’t move. Sensing nothing, she made the decision to rise to her feet. Even then, all she heard was silence; this part of Raphael’s territory was filled with trees that seemed to thrive on the crisp mountain air, no angelic residences within a hundred feet.