Guild Hunter: Archangel's Shadows Part 13

"You look at her as a man only looks at one woman in his lifetime, be he mortal or immortal."

Janvier met the archangel's gaze, the power in it staggering. "There has never been, nor ever will be, anyone like her."

"Such gifts don't often appear," Raphael said, his attention on Ash. "In my lifetime, I've met three others like her: mortals who needed time beyond a human life span to allow their gifts to grow to their full potential."

"Do they live?" Janvier asked, knowing the angels liked to make sure the unique and the gifted survived into eternity.

Janvier had once been sent on a mission to locate a reclusive composer who resided in a castle deep in the Caucasus Mountains. The commission had come during his years as a free agent and it had carried the seal of Astaad, Favas.h.i.+, and, unexpectedly, t.i.tus. All three archangels had loved the composer's works with such pa.s.sion, they'd offered to Make him without need for a hundred-year Contract. All he'd have to do was continue to create his symphonies, fill the world with music.

A remarkable offer, yet the composer had refused it. "My music," he'd said, his eyes holding a spark Janvier had seen only in the gifted and the mad, "is precious because it is touched with my mortality. Should I become a man with eternal life, I will no longer be able to create that which brings the archangels such joy. I would become a shade, dead inside even as I lived forever."

So he wasn't surprised when Raphael said, "Two are gone, having chosen a mortal existence despite all the temptations laid at their feet. One resides in Nimra's territory, in a peaceful part of the bayou."

Janvier realized he knew exactly who Raphael meant. "Silvan." Five hundred years old, the vampire had a level of power that often eluded those twice his age. Despite that, he preferred a life of solitude over any position more lucrative and influential. "Those of my family who live in the area say he can walk in dreams."

"You'll have to ask Silvan if you wish the truth."

"Perhaps I will the next time we share chicory coffee on the dock off his home."

Raphael's lips curved. "It is true then, Cajun. You know everyone?"

"That's my job." To be the one no one feared and everyone welcomed. The task had once been Illium's, but Bluebell was now a power, a fact no amount of charm could conceal.

"You're very good at what you do." The words of an archangel to one of his men. "As to your hunter, I think you know the odds are not in your favor. Those born with deeper senses often turn down the chance at immortality for reasons we cannot understand."

Unfortunately, Janvier understood Ashwini's reasons all too well. She'd become stronger over the past twelve months, her reactions more intense. Already she lived on the edge of "normal." She feared what she'd become should she embrace immortality. Janvier knew she would be extraordinary then as she was extraordinary now, but she didn't see it that way.

"The pathologist called us earlier," he said, changing the subject to keep his mind from going around in circles. "He's completed his deep tissue a.n.a.lysis"-or as much as was possible given the state of the remains-"and says the victim shows conclusive signs of being a long-term donor."

If a vampire was careful, even an ongoing donor would carry no scars. Should Janvier ever taste Ash's blood, he'd lick over the wound to make sure it healed cleanly-unless he wanted her to bear his mark. His breath caught at the idea of it, his abdomen clenching. To have her not only offer him her vein but consent to wear the sign of his possession, it was a dream so big, he knew it might never come true.

Not every vampire, however, was careful with his donor. It led to the formation of scar tissue beneath the skin at the most utilized sites. Not only was that bad for the donor but, over time, it made it more difficult for the vampire to feed. The Little Italy victim's major fang sites had been so deeply scarred that the pathologist had noted it was possible she'd become useless as a donor. That could be the reason she'd been killed and thrown out with the garbage, but it still didn't explain the desiccation.

"Ash and I," he told Raphael, "are heading to the Quarter clubs after dinner to see if we can pin down the victim's ident.i.ty." While there was no guarantee she'd patronized the clubs, it was a good starting point, given how many vamps first met their long-term donors in the Quarter. "It'll also give me a chance to connect with those Made who prefer the night hours."

"Stay in regular contact with Dmitri." An order. "If Lijuan did leave a taint in our city, I don't want either of you falling victim to it."

Ash looked up then, the mysterious dark of her eyes going straight to Janvier. Her laughter faded, but the connection between them . . . it continued to pulse unabated.

"No," Janvier said. "I won't take any unnecessary risks."

18.

It took Elena a half hour into the dinner to realize that some of the wine at the table was blood red-as in real blood red, and that the s.h.i.+sh kebabs Naasir was snacking on beside her were made up of cubes of seasoned but raw meat.

She could live with that. Feral as he was, there was something both innocent and wildly charming about Naasir. He truly was like a wild tiger; he might bite her hand, but only if she threatened him. At least now that he'd decided not to make a meal of her.

At that instant, he nudged his plate toward Ash, who was seated on his other side. Elena watched, wondering what the other hunter would do. Not blinking, Ash reached out and took a piece of cooked meat Naasir had ignored in favor of the raw cubes. Naasir smiled and continued to eat.

Ash clearly knew the vampire's ways better than Elena did. Unsurprising, given that the team of three "shadows" had spent days behind enemy lines with only one another for company.

"Give me a clue," she said when Naasir glanced at her.

"To what?" He bit off a chunk of meat, chewed with relish.

"To what you are," she said, her curiosity as acute now as it had been the first instant she recognized he wasn't a normal vampire in any sense. She had trouble thinking of him as a vampire at all; he might drink blood but, as his diet showed, it was hardly enough to sustain him.

Naasir grinned and took a sip of the rich red liquid in his winegla.s.s. "You can ask me seven questions."

Catching Ash's grin on his other side, Elena considered how strongly he made her think of a big cat-an amused one right now-and decided to tie him down. "Will you answer?"

"Yes."

She wasn't about to fall for that. "Will you answer truthfully?"

Naasir flashed his fangs at her. "I'll give you at least two truthful answers."

Elena decided that was better than nothing. "Are you the only one of your kind?" she asked, conscious of not only Ash but others around them listening in.

"Yes."

She examined his extraordinary eyes, his sly half smile, his body posture-and had absolutely no idea if he was lying or not. d.a.m.n it. "Were you born or Made?"

"Both."

Angling her shoulders to face him as Illium's shook with laughter across the table, she said, "Are you part of the tiger family?" His scent, it was so wild she could almost taste the jungle, almost see the long gra.s.ses where a striped predator might hide.

Naasir leaned in so close his nose brushed hers. "No," he said with a playful snap of his teeth.

Elena wanted to strangle him. It was impossible to gauge his expression, separate truth from lie, but she wasn't about to give up. "Are you a vampire?"

He drank deeply of the blood in his gla.s.s, the dark ruby of it swirling with secrets. "No."

"I think I could be driven to bite you," she muttered. "Hard."

Naasir growled, but his eyes were laughing. "Enough?"

"No. I have three questions left." Shooting a death glare at Dmitri when he asked her if she needed a.s.sistance, all false solicitousness, she turned her attention back to Naasir. "Do you truly eat people?"

"Only if I dislike them, or if I'm very hungry." A solemn statement.

Remembering what he'd once told her about the angel who'd Made him-though she was certain he hadn't been Made in any ordinary way-as well as what he'd said about Lijuan smelling like bad meat, she figured that was a truth.

"Do you have claws?" All vampires could extend their nails, some more than others. It was part of what allowed them to climb so well. But during the battle, when she'd bandaged up Naasir's wounds, she'd thought she glimpsed a more dangerous ability out of the corner of her eye. "I don't mean normal vampire claws. Actual claws."

Putting down his gla.s.s, Naasir spread his hand between them. His fingers were long and strong, his skin that lush, rich brown with an undertone of gold . . . and where his nails had been, she suddenly saw wickedly curved claws as might appear on the paws of a tiger. They disappeared a heartbeat later, and she could almost imagine it had been an illusion.

"Truth," she whispered, taking his hand to examine his nail beds when he didn't seem to mind. She almost asked where his claws had gone, since there was no trace of them, but didn't want to waste a question.

"Do this, Ellie," Ash said from his other side, reaching out to playfully scratch the back of Naasir's neck, his hair brus.h.i.+ng over her skin.

He made a rumbling sound in the back of his throat, eyes closing.

Elena copied Ash's action on his hand, got another rumble before he lifted the gorgeous, true silver of his lashes to say, "Last question."

"Do you change shape?" Her words made Illium erupt in gales of laughter, but Elena wasn't put off. Legends had to start somewhere. Why not with Naasir?

"Of course," he answered, then turned his body to the right and curled his arm into his chest. "See, I have just changed shape."

Making a strangling motion with her hands that had him throwing back his head and laughing in unhidden glee, Elena felt the clean kiss of the sea, of the rain in her mind. I see you and Naasir are becoming friends.

What did I tell you about this new sense of humor of yours? She took a bite of her dinner, which she'd ignored while questioning Naasir.

I was speaking only the truth. Naasir is currently playing with your hair.

He probably wants to scalp me and use my hair as a trophy.

True.

Elena looked up, eyes narrowed at the far too amused archangel across the table. I am so going to get even with you for this. Tugs on her scalp at the same instant, as if Naasir were curling the strands around his finger, then letting go.

She turned, intending to tell him to knock it off, but then she saw his face. He looked . . . absorbed. Like a cat with a ball of yarn. She didn't care if he'd said no to the tiger question-there was something distinctly feline about him. Especially since he'd apparently talked Ash into scratching his nape again while he played his game with Elena's hair, his eyes heavy lidded in ecstasy.

She was going to unearth the truth of him, even if it took her the rest of eternity.

Janvier saw Ash run her nails affectionately over Naasir's neck and remembered the first time she'd done that. It had been about thirty minutes after meeting Naasir. Where he was standoffish and distant with most new people, Naasir had already decided he liked "Janvier's hunter," having kept track of their interactions over the years.

As a result, he'd been his normal self.

Instead of being startled by Naasir's behavior, Ash had taken to him from the start, making no effort to avoid the physical contact the other male liked to make. "He's different," she'd said with a mystified shrug when Janvier asked her about it. "It's hard to explain, but what I sense from him isn't anything that disturbs me. I'm not sure I understand most of it."

A few minutes after that, while the three of them had been crouched in a hidden access tunnel they'd been scoping out in the run-up to the battle, she'd reached out and absently scratched the back of Naasir's neck.

Janvier, having previously seen how ferociously Naasir could react to unwanted contact, had been ready to fight for her life, but the other man had bent his head for more. Ash's startled expression as she realized what she was doing had faded into affectionate puzzlement-and Janvier realized she'd reacted to an unvoiced need in the other male.

Her friends.h.i.+p with Naasir was as open and free of shadows as Janvier's relations.h.i.+p with her was not. So much lay unsaid between them, but saying it would fix nothing. Ash knew he loved her, would always love her. Anything she wanted, he'd give her . . . except for her mortality.

He'd waited more than two hundred years for her. How could she ask him to just let her go?

Feed

Her eyes were drenched in terror.

Raising a hand, the one-who-waited stroked her cheek as her throat worked, the scream swallowed up by the pungent miasma of her fear.

"Not tonight." A rasp, its throat a ruin. "I have fed." The hunger came often, but the one-who-waited had learned to discipline that voracious need, because without discipline it would become a slave to those urges rather than a master of them.

So it pressed its mouth to hers in a kiss that made her whimper, its lips cracked and papery against hers. Hers had been soft once, were no longer. A pity.

Releasing her jaw, the one-who-waited smiled and drew one last draft of fear-laced air before removing the temptation from view. "Soon," it promised as the wood obscured her face. "Soon."

19.

Janvier was leaning against the wall by the window finis.h.i.+ng off the last of the blood in his winegla.s.s when Ash found him around ten thirty that night. Dressed in those sleek black jeans paired with red ankle boots that had a spiked heel, her long-sleeved black s.h.i.+rt tucked into her jeans and opened at the throat just enough to hint at skin, she looked s.e.xy and dangerous and his.

The dangles at her ears were a cascade of hoops created with tiny beads of orange and yellow and red, the belt around her hips having a simple square buckle of gleaming silver. And her hair, that glorious hair, it was a waterfall down her back. He wanted to wrap his hand in it, arch her throat, sink his fangs into her.

Mark her.

"We should head out," she said, eating a forkful of the chocolate fudge cake on her plate.

Janvier put his possessive hunger in a stranglehold and stole a fingerlick of frosting. "Any more news from the computer teams?"

"No. They've struck out in terms of identifying her either through the tat or through missing persons reports." She stabbed her fork into the cake with unnecessary force. "Not surprising. With what we know from the signs of feeding on her body, she probably lived with her killer."

"We will find her, cher."

"Yes, we will." An absolute statement as she finished off the cake.

He couldn't help it. Leaning in, he caught a crumb clinging to her lower lip and brought it to his mouth. Sucking his thumb inside, he said, "Mmm, sweet."

Her body had gone stiff at the contact, and now she moved with an unusual jerkiness to place the fork and saucer on a side table. "Let's go."