Archangel's Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(76)

“You’re welcome,” Janvier said, pulling his blade from the wall. He wiped it on his jeans leg, but didn’t put it back in the sheath. As Adele had said, bloodlust could spread with deadly speed. “Are you badly injured?” As far as he could tell, the glass had gone straight through Naasir, but hadn’t penetrated any major organs. It must’ve been the shock of the sudden injury that had kept him from reacting as fast as usual.

Naasir growled in reply. “My new shirt from Honor is torn and bloody.”

Figuring that meant the other vampire was fine, Janvier ran to Adele’s control room with Naasir at his back and scanned the feeds. Two of the vampires were pacing in an erratic pattern, but Khalil appeared in control, his women unharmed. Hitting the button that unlocked all the doors, Janvier glanced at Naasir.

“Go scare them out of incipient bloodlust. And get Trace to keep following Khalil if his wounds allow it—if not, can you do it?”

Naasir gave him a feral smile and a nod. “I wouldn’t mind eating Khalil’s liver. I hope he gives me an excuse.”

Knowing even Khalil wouldn’t mess with the silver-eyed vampire, Janvier returned to Rupert. “Damn it, what the f*ck happened to you?” The cultured art collector had been a good man, as Janvier had said last night, but when he examined the body, he saw Rupert had been wearing a necklace of intestines, the flesh slick and bloody.

Pressing his fist to his mouth to control the gorge that rose in him, Janvier forced himself to walk to the private room with the blood-soaked sheets he’d glimpsed on the surveillance feeds. At first, he couldn’t see Lacey. It was the glint of light off the ring on her finger that alerted him to the fact she was on the floor on the far side of the bed, her outflung hand the only part of her he could see.

When he came around, he wished he hadn’t. The sweet, giggling woman who’d blushed at him while proudly calling herself Rupert’s had been disemboweled. From the state of Rupert’s face, it appeared the bloodlust-ridden vampire had torn into her stomach with his fangs, then used his hands to pull out the ropes of her intestines. Her jaw was broken, her tongue ripped out.

It made no sense. None.

Until Janvier stepped on something that felt slippery beneath his boot. Frowning, he bent down and found it to be a tiny plastic ziplock bag. There was nothing inside, but he knew what tests would reveal. “Umber.”

? ? ?

Ashwini met up with Ransom at Guild Academy a half hour after Janvier left the apartment. Her fellow hunter had responded to her message about a meeting earlier than she’d expected, and now the two of them sat on the lowest row of the tiered seating that overlooked the outdoor training ground. Ransom’s leg, his cast covered with signatures, including her own, was perched on a piece of wood she’d found to ensure the cast was protected from the snow, his crutches beside him.

The training ground in front of them was a mess of dirty snow and crushed ice from the early morning session that had already occurred. The Guild never cleaned up this yard, never put up shields against the wind or the rain. Sessions occurred no matter what the weather. “I remember getting my ass kicked by Bracken one winter while hail pelted down on my head and face.” She winced at the memory. “Damn, but that hurt.”

“That’s nothing,” Ransom said. “One year, we had a category three storm hit—full-on rain, gale-force winds, flying debris—and he made my group come out here and complete our session.”

“Please. I once had to fight Bracken in a flood. The water was up to my thighs.”

Ransom snorted. “Dude, there was that time cats fell from the sky, claws out.”

They looked at each other and began to laugh. It was a ritual among all hunters who’d graduated from the Academy in the past twenty years, the attempt to one-up each other with Bracken training stories. The outdoor sessions were mandatory for every trainee, but the all-weather stuff was reserved for the final year—because vampires were tougher, more resistant to the weather.

“A hunter who melts at the sight of a little snow—” Ashwini began.

“—is a hunter who’ll soon be lying in a nice, quiet grave,” Ransom finished, and then, in a hysterical imitation of the weathered Academy trainer, added, “Is that what you want, princess? Is it? I didn’t think so. Now, move!”

They laughed again.

“If he came out here now,” Ransom said, “and told me I had detention and had to do a hundred rounds of the yard on my crutches, I’d say ‘yes, sir’ and start moving.”

“Me, too,” Ashwini admitted. “I think he’s one of the few people on the planet I’m actually scared of.”

“Only idiots aren’t scared of Bracken.”

“Saki seems to handle him fine.”

“They’re having sex on a regular basis. An option unavailable to us.” Ransom drank some of the coffee he’d brought out in a carry cup. “So, Felicity Johnson.”

“Were you able to find out anything about her? We know she was a club girl who disappeared after hooking up with a rich sugar daddy.”

Ransom took a doughnut from the box of four she’d managed to sneak past the other hunters who were here early—to prep for sessions they were teaching. Biting into it, he chewed and swallowed before answering. “That part is right,” he said. “A few of the working girls I know said Felicity used to be one of them for a couple of months, starting about a year back.”