Archangel's Legion (Guild Hunter #6)(23)

“Told ya.”

Bumping his fist to her own, he roared down the street.

I do believe that is the first time any angel has ridden a motorcycle.

Grinning at the kiss of the wind and the rain inside her mind as she climbed up the fire escape, she said, I bet that gets our would-be invader’s panties in a bunch.

An . . . interesting image, but as a distraction from the state of our defenses, it was inspired. If, however, I didn’t know Ransom was much in love with another, I’d now have to kill him.

No touching my friends, remember?

I wouldn’t have to touch him to kill him.

Very funny. Having made it to the roof, she flared her wings and, sweeping off the edge of the building, flew in the direction of the gun shop as Raphael returned to Tower business. She’d debated heading for the pro first, men being men, but according to Sara’s intel, Darrell hadn’t visited the woman in over two months. The gun shop, however, was one he went to every time he was in town.

The owner, bearded and with a serious beer gut, was happy to cooperate once she reassured him he hadn’t somehow earned the wrath of the Tower. “Darrell? He’s a good customer, nice guy, too, but I haven’t seen him for, let’s see . . . going on a week now.” A chuckle. “He really stocked up that last time.”

When Elena heard what Darrell had bought, her head almost exploded. He has an arsenal, she messaged Ransom and got #%&! as a reply, then a call.

“Indoor shooting range was a wash. Literally.” Ransom’s tone was taut. “Burst water pipe five days ago, but the owner says Darrell came in every day before the damage, was a crack shot with multiple guns.”

“Shit.” If Darrell had moved from fists to guns this fast, they could be talking massacre.

“I’m heading to check out his mother’s place. They’re not close, but if he was angry, he might’ve turned up there.”

Elena’s next stop, the resupply store, had her slamming up against an ex-cop who gave her a blank face and said he didn’t gossip about customers. Too f*cking worried to put up with bullshit, Elena laid her cards on the table, no sugarcoating. “Darrell is in trouble. The kind of trouble where he might pick up a gun”—not to mention the freaking assault rifle he’d bought—“and put it to his head or someone else’s.”

“And what?” Flat cop eyes. “The Tower cares?”

That was his problem? “The Guild cares.” She slapped down her license.

“I heard you were still hunting,” he said, after examining the badge, “but I guess I figured that was horseshit.”

“Yeah, well, it isn’t.” She slid away the license. “Now, Darrell?”

“Saw him three days ago.”

“What did he buy?”

“No, it wasn’t here. I saw him at the corner bar couple of blocks over with a stacked redhead. Legs up to her ears.” A shrug. “I figured the man was enjoying his time off, and who was I to bother him.”

The pro’s apartment, too, Elena realized, was only two blocks over.

People pointed and whispered the instant she stepped out of the store, this part of town busy, but no one crowded her. All it had taken for her to get her space was shooting a crossbow bolt into the boot of an idiot who wanted to get up close and personal. He’d lived, despite his whining, and now she had a rep. Exactly as she liked it.

“Ransom,” she said, cell phone to her ear as she walked, just like every other New Yorker on the street, “the pro. Redhead with long legs?” Curving around a businessman engrossed in his miniature tablet, she heard a crash and turned to find him staring openmouthed at her, his expensive gadget on the ground.

“Tourist,” sniffed a passing black-suited executive, her hair a sleek blonde bob and a cup of take-out coffee in her hand.

The acerbic comment made Elena grin, then they’d moved past one another.

“Wait,” Ransom said. “I was just looking up her photo—yes, that’s her. Double D chest, too.”

“Should’ve known you’d notice.”

“I’d have to be dead not to notice that. I got a nibble about a bar on—”

“I can see your bike.” Hanging up, she jerked up her head. “Bar staff know anything?”

“They saw him three days ago, that’s it.”

Crossing the street without a word, they made it to the pro’s apartment building in under a minute. Her doorman, his eyes bugging out at the weapons bristling from their bodies, didn’t put up a fight at their questions, divulging that the woman hadn’t left her apartment for forty-eight hours and counting.

“And Honey, she never misses her book club. That was last night.”

Elena’s eyes met Ransom’s at the doorman’s coda, the acrid taste of fear on her tongue. There was a very good chance that Honey Smith was no longer able to read a book, able to do anything, her decomposing body lying irreparably broken in her apartment.

Elena was so sick of being too late.





9





Having taken the stairs to the roof, Elena swept down, intending to look through the windows of the apartment, only to find the blinds shut. She returned to meet a gun-toting Ransom in front of one of the doors that lined the stylishly decorated and dimly lit penthouse floor. Her own gun out of its holster, she moved quietly to the other side of the door wide enough that her wings wouldn’t be a hindrance in a fight.