Archangel's Legion (Guild Hunter #6)(16)

Aodhan asked her to give him five minutes but it was almost fifteen minutes later that he personally escorted another angel to the site. A bare five foot six and slender as a boy, the unexpected angel’s uptilted eyes were a gentle brown, his lips lush in a face saved from near-feminine prettiness by the sense of sheer maleness that clung to Keir.

Her frustration at the wait dissolving into deep affection, she leaned down into Keir’s kiss on the cheek. “You must have left the Refuge as soon as it happened.” It. The Falling. An awful malice reduced to two simple words.

“Raphael had a jet prepared for me so I would not be tired upon my arrival,” he told her, eyes painfully wise. “It was strange to fly in the belly of a metal creature when I have wings of my own, but he was right.”

When Aodhan was unexpectedly recalled to the Tower a second later, Elena remained at the house to watch Keir’s back, while Ransom continued to circle out from the house, searching for any sign that Darrell had made it this far. Stomach muscles clenched against the noxious stink, Elena led Keir to the corpse, where the healer examined it in silence, not saying a word until they were back out on the deserted street.

“A true infection.” Troubled darkness in the lush brown of his eyes. “I must autopsy the body under better lighting, see if I can pinpoint how the infection was introduced into his body.”

“Ransom and I were talking before you arrived, and we thought maybe the victim drank from the wrong person.”

His expression grew darker, even more serious. “The bodies of our blood kin,” Keir said, “are built to filter out impurities in blood—that is why a vampire can feed from any donor, even the most diseased.” Strands of silky black hair fell across his dusky skin as he looked at the ground, lost in thought. “If that mechanism failed . . .”

A sudden brilliance of blue, Illium landing in front of her. Having contacted her while Keir looked over the body, he’d brought a body bag to transport the victim to the research labs underneath the Tower, a small biohazard container for her, as well as better masks and replacement gloves, and didn’t argue when she made him use the safety gear.

“This house needs to be burned to the ground,” he said when he returned with the body, his expression harsher than most people ever saw. “We can’t take the risk that the cause of the infection might lie within.”

Sensing Keir was anxious to examine the body, and aware Raphael had to need Illium, she told the blue-winged angel she’d take care of the situation and made a call to Ransom as soon as they lifted off. “I’m going to do a final run through the house.” After which she had an idea about its destruction. “I need to finish this”—stop the disease here if it hadn’t already spread—“so if you want to—”

“No, it’s okay,” he interrupted. “I’ll join you. Trail’s so dead it’s in rigor—don’t think Darrell made it this far. Background report should come in soon, so we’ll have a better idea of other places he might frequent; may as well try to figure out what happened here in the meantime.”

Freshly gloved and masked, she and Ransom went through the entire place one more time, looking for anything that might provide a clue. “Why did you say this track was a slam-dunk?” she asked, placing the hypodermic needles she’d noticed earlier into the biohazard container.

“Vamp wasn’t a runner. He just got homesick every so often—his angel would give him three or four days, then send a hunter to pick him up.” The quiet pity in his tone resonated with the same emotion inside Elena. “Records say he never resisted, was always polite and apologetic and full of stories about his plans to renovate the house.”

It was a poignant image, of a harmless man who hadn’t deserved death. As the five angels Nimra’s squadron carried home in flower-strewn biers hadn’t deserved it. Embers of anger burning slow and dark inside her, she didn’t reply and the two of them finished the rest of the sweep in silence.

“I have to agree with the pretty boy—house needs to be toast,” Ransom said, once they were back out in front of the dilapidated villa.

“You’re calling Illium a pretty boy?” Elena snorted, glad to focus on something other than the heavy cloud of death that hung over the city. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

“I have scars, like any respectable male.”

“Tough guy.” Staring at the house where a vampire had died in what she hoped was a quick death, she put her hands on her hips. “Think Sara would be pissed if we just set it on fire and said ‘oops’ when the fire department arrived?”

“I don’t think she’s forgiven you for the whole being-chased-by-a-vampire-through-Manhattan incident.” He rubbed his jaw. “Arson would make a good cover story, though. It’s just the kind of place some firebug would light up.”

An hour later and thanks to Sara’s connection to every agency in the city, the house underwent a controlled burn initiated by the fire department. If only, Elena thought, they could as quickly erase the threat posed by a disease that had decimated the cells of a near-immortal.

? ? ?


Having flown to the Tower to drop off the biohazard con tainer, Elena took the chance to duck into her and Raphael’s private suite to shower and change. Ransom had roared off to do the same—not only were they stabbing blindly in the dark with the background report still MIA, neither one of them would be much good at sneaking up on a fellow hunter with the stink that clung to their clothes and skin.