Archangel's Legion (Guild Hunter #6)(89)

Eve’s glare didn’t fade, but her response held an uncertainty that made her youth and innocence clear. “I thought you hated him, too. Don’t you?”

“I’m not sure what I feel for Jeffrey. I do know that you love him.”

Scuffing at the ground, Eve bit down on her lower lip. “He’s a good father except about the Guild.”

“Everyone has blind spots.”

“I guess.”

? ? ?


A half hour later, Elena left Eve in Montgomery’s capable hands, knowing the elegant vampire was lethal, would protect her with his life, as would the rest of the staff. She wouldn’t have made the same decision had Eve appeared the least scared or intimidated, but her youngest sister had settled in without a hitch. Having borrowed Elena’s laptop, she’d set herself up at the kitchen table and logged into her school account to do homework, was chatting to Sivya about her science problems when Elena left after receiving a hunt order from the Guild.

She could’ve asked to be replaced, but she needed some way to release the tension coiled up inside her, get her brain clear again. Checking the hunt details on her phone one more time, she took off at a run over the snow-dusted cliffs, the water glittering under the afternoon sunlight, as if a dip wouldn’t give you hypothermia within seconds. The hunt order was relatively simple: she was to retrieve a thirty-year-old vamp who thought he was too good to bow and scrape to the angel who was his master.

Nothing unusual about that. Seduced by the idea of immortality and the beauty it so often bestowed, people lined up to be Made, but found the reality of a hundred years of service to the angels hard to swallow. What made Sidney Geisman different was that he’d written a booklet denouncing the “slavery” into which he’d been “tricked,” a booklet that had gone viral among other young vampires.

Needless to say, his angel was beyond pissed. Elena knew Sidney’s punishment would be harsh, an example to others who might seek to follow his seditious path, but while she pitied him, it wouldn’t keep her from doing her job as a hunter. Because Sidney hadn’t been tricked, not in any way, shape, or form.

The angels made zero attempt to hide the consequences of being Made, of what was required of those who served them. Even forgetting general public knowledge, all Candidates who passed the first part of the selection process were given the euphemistically termed “Intake and Orientation” file and told they were free to walk out the door should the contents of the file not be to their liking.

As consort, Elena had seen a copy of that file firsthand: it went into extreme detail and included graphic images of the punishments that might be meted out to a vampire should he or she fail to please the angel who held his or her service. Smack bang in the center of the file was a four-page article detailing the vicious public sentence handed to one vampire, whom Raphael had left in Times Square after breaking every bone in his body.

Below the article were the words: Betrayal will not be tolerated.

Sidney Geisman, Elena thought as she landed on the roof of a skyscraper to the south of the Tower, appeared to be suffering from a case of buyer’s remorse. Too bad. You couldn’t return the gift of near-immortality, so you were stuck paying the price for it. Not that she thought Sidney would be rushing to return that particular gift, even if it was possible. Cynical, perhaps, but she bet every hunter in the Guild would say the same. Too many people wanted to do the whole “have your cake and eat it, too” thing.

A single knock on the glass door to the roof atrium and it slid aside to leave her face-to-face with a slim vampire dressed in a brown tunic with a mandarin collar and gold detailing, his pants the same brown shade. “Guild Hunter,” he said, then hesitated. “My humble apologies. I should’ve used ‘Consort.’”

“No, ‘Guild Hunter’ is fine.” All this polite deference made her skin itch, but it was part and parcel of being with Raphael and since she had no plans of ever changing that, she’d have to learn to deal. “Do you have what I need?”

“Yes.” Walking to the table just inside the atrium, he opened a flat black box to retrieve a neatly folded shirt. “Will this do?”

Elena took the item of clothing and tried to hone in on the scents trapped within the fabric.

Raspberry and ginger, with a hint of mint.

A pretty, refreshing scent but it wasn’t from the shirt. “If you’d step back past the doors.”

“Of course.”

Waiting until the wind swept away the raspberry and ginger, she took another deep breath.

An astringent chemical . . . disinfectant, softened by a delicate caress of lilies.

“I need the secondary sample,” she said. “You made sure to take it from a different location?”

“Yes, the shirt was from his washing basket, and this T-shirt is from his gym bag.”

The second test returned the same reading, the disinfectant not a taint but part of Sidney’s scent, as interpreted by her hunting abilities.

“Thank you.” Returning the T-shirt, she walked off the edge of the roof, snapping out her wings before she could even begin to fall. Her next destination was the home of Sidney’s mortal family, the address part of the background report attached to the hunt order. All vampires with living relatives eventually went home, the smart for a clandestine visit, the stupid to stay.