Angels' Blood (14 page)

She strode out, a petite woman with skin the rich, melting color of cinnamon coffee and huge brown eyes set off by dark hair cut in thick, straight bangs and twisted up off her neck. Her tailored burgundy suit and white lace camisole screamed executive, but she had her feet perched on what looked like five-inch high heels. “You smell like you’ve been running a marathon,” was her greeting to Elena. “And you”—a glance at Ransom—“look like a reject from a biker show.”

“Hey!” Ransom took offense. “I’ll have you know I’m a certified biker dude.”

Sara ignored him to fix Elena with a gimlet eye. “Ellie, my darling, please explain to me why the office has been flooded with calls about, and I quote”—she crooked her fingers in the air—“a vicious vampire on the loose, a crazy knife-wielding maniac, and oh, this one’s my favorite—an assassin carrying a gun!”

“I can explain.”

Sara folded her arms and tapped one fashionably clad foot. “Explain why you flashed not only a knife but a gun? I hope to God you didn’t actually use either of them without authorization because if the VPA gets ahold of it, we’re screwed.”

Elena rubbed the back of her neck. “Exigent circumstances. He was trying to make me his bed buddy. I declined. He gave chase.”

Ransom choked back what sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Why did you say no? It’s been a dry spell of what, forever?”

She threw him a dirty look before returning her gaze to Sara. “You know I’d never have considered using the gun otherwise.”

Sara held up a hand. “How, exactly, did you ‘decline’ his offer?”

“By slitting his throat.”

The silence in the garage was broken only by the sound of water drip-dripping somewhere in the distance. Sara just stared. So did Ransom. Then the idiot male started laughing hysterically. He laughed so hard he fell off the bike and onto the scarred concrete of the garage floor. Even that didn’t stop him.

Elena would’ve kicked him, except he’d probably use the chance to pull her down with him. “Shut up before I do the same to you.”

He tried to stop laughing. Failed. “Jesus, Ellie. You are awesome!”

“What you are,” Sara muttered, “is a magnet for trouble.”

“I—” Elena started to defend herself.

Sara held up her hand again and started counting off on her fingers. “Because of you, I have messages on my phone from the governor
and
the freaking President of the United States of America.” Down went one finger. “Because of you, half of New York now thinks there’s a wild vampire on the loose.” Another finger. “Because of you, I got three more gray hairs!”

Elena grinned at the last. “I love you, too.”

Shaking her head, Sara finally bridged the distance between them and hugged her with ferocious strength. After this many years of friendship, they had the height thing figured out. Elena bent, Sara tiptoed, and they met in the middle. Breaking apart, they looked at each other. “Are you in trouble, Ellie?”

Elena bit her lower lip and glanced from Ransom’s suddenly sober face to Sara’s. “Sort of. Raphael and I had a slight . . . disagreement.” She wasn’t sure why she wasn’t serving him up on a platter. Maybe it was because she was terrified of what he’d do to her friends—hunters or not, they were no match for an archangel. Or maybe it was something far more dangerous. “And Dmitri apparently thinks that makes me fair game.”

“The vampire?” Sara clarified. “Raphael’s security chief?”

“Yep.” She shoved a hand through her hair. “You guys are not going to believe this—when I cut his throat, he got off on it. He thinks I’m the hottest thing since blood on a stick.”

“There’s no such thing as blood on a stick.” Of course, that was Ransom.

“Exactly!” She threw up her hands. “I’m not into weird vampire shit either!”

“Okay, this isn’t as bad as I thought,” Sara muttered. “Do you think he’ll lay a complaint with the VPA?”

Elena thought back to the air kiss. “No. He’s having too much fun.”

“Good for the Guild, not so good for you.” Sara tapped her foot again. “Right, you’ll go to ground in the Cellars until you can contact Raphael and get him to rein in Dmitri. In the meantime, Ransom will deal with lover boy—”

“No,” Elena interrupted.

Ransom stood, brushing off the seat of his pants. “You don’t think I can handle him?” There was an edge to his tone.

“Don’t be so male,” she snapped. “He has the scent thing happening.” And Ransom was hunter-born. Not as strong as Elena, but strong enough to be vulnerable.

Another silence. Sara glanced from Elena to Ransom. “Okay, new plan, I’ll get Hilda to deal with Mr. Vamp if he turns up.”

Hilda was human. She could also bench-press a car and was one of the few individuals immune to any and all vampiric powers.

“Fuck.” Ransom turned and gave them his back as he spit out a string of curses that would’ve stripped the paint off the walls had they actually been painted to begin with. “Since I’m useless here, I’m going to get drunk.”

Elena put a hand on the stiff muscle of his shoulder. “You’re not useless. You’re a hunky bite of sex and I’m not sure if Dmitri swings both ways. Cut me some slack for wanting to protect my friend. You’d do the same if the tables were turned.”

“You’re not the one who got scent-ambushed and woke up naked with bites all over his fucking body.”

She hadn’t actually expected him to bring up the incident. He never had before. Maybe this Nyree was even better for him than she’d thought. “True,” she murmured. “Yeah, it’s better you don’t go to Nyree in this mood. You might hurt her. Go get drunk.”

He hissed out a breath.

“She’s probably out anyway.” Elena mouthed “shut up” at Sara when it looked like her best friend was going to intervene. “Since she’s mad at you, she probably took some time off—what did you say she did?”

“Librarian.”

Ransom was dating a
librarian
? “I bet she took the chance to put on a sexy little—”

Ransom moved so fast she barely managed to jump out of the way as he peeled out of the garage. She dusted off her hands. “My work here is done.” And good thing, too, because she hadn’t been sure where she was going with the sexily dressed librarian.

“He serious about her?” Sara’s tone was astonished. “As in, he wants her for more than boinking?”

“Yep.” She put her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans and rocked back. “I don’t like the Cellars.”

“Tough titties.” Sara was pure Guild Director at that moment. “I’m not losing my best hunter—and don’t you dare tell Ransom I said that—to a lust-crazed vampire. Get in the elevator.”

Elena got in with Sara, then pulled off the panel that hid an auxiliary keypad. Inputting the code to the secret hideaway that existed in some form in every Guild building, she replaced the panel. “Is it true that in L.A. they’ve got the hidey-holes in the elevator shaft?”

Sara nodded. “Small cubbies—connected, but way too cramped. Ours is better.”

The doors opened to reveal a subterranean network so old, it dated to the time of the first American Guild—that history was part of the reason why New York functioned as the permanent home of the Guild Director, and consequently, as HQ for the entire United States Guild.

“Ours might be better,” Elena said, stepping out, “but I bet they don’t have to dodge carnivorous bugs with a taste for human flesh.” The building supports in front of her were massive, but only dirt lay beneath as far as the eye could see. Even if someone unauthorized did make it down here, they’d probably give up long before they discovered the truth.

“Badass vampire hunters eat bugs for breakfast.” Light words, but Sara’s expression was serious. “You good? I have to get upstairs to initiate damage control.”

Elena nodded, then put out a hand to stop the doors closing. “You said you had a message from the president?” It was an attempt to temper the icy tendril of fear that twisted into her mind without warning as a primal part of her reacted to something she didn’t yet understand.

Sara nodded. “He saw the news footage—wanted to know if he should be worrying about a wave of bloodlust-crazed vampires.”

“Nervous guy.”

Sara responded with a snort. “Do you realize exactly how
many
vamps were chasing you? Just stay under and make up with Raphael—I can’t believe I’m saying that—as soon as possible.”

As the doors closed, plunging Elena into pitch blackness, she wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to speak to Raphael again. She’d thought—The truth was, she didn’t know what she’d thought. Her hand flinched involuntarily as her body remembered how Raphael had forced her to hurt herself. From that to lusting after him in less than twenty-four hours. Her mouth tightened. Maybe the bastard had been messing with her mind from the start, letting her believe she was free when all the time, he was making her dance to his tune.

“Which makes him an archangel and me an idiot,” she said, walking ten paces left and feeling her way down to the base of the column there. A few minutes later, she unearthed—literally—the stash of weatherproof torches. After making sure hers worked, she spent several more minutes reburying the hoard for the next hunter, then began to make her way through the concrete, metal, and earth jungle.

It took her ten minutes to reach the doorway to the Cellars. It looked like some junkie’s idea of a door, all twisted up, graffitied, and shot full of holes. But she knew that that door was backed up by eight inches of pure steel. Shining the torch on what appeared to be a long-broken keypad, she coded in.

The message flashed across the tiny screen a second before a retinal scanner slid out of the slot. She dutifully put her eye to it and two minutes later, she was inside. But that only meant she’d passed the first hurdle. This shelter was designed to hold even if a hunter was forced or coerced into bringing an enemy inside.

Standing in the seemingly solid steel cubicle, she waited until Vivek cleared her through the second set of doors. She was scanned by several lasers the second she stepped out. All her weapons were noted, as was the lack of any biological or chemical weapon.

“
Barev
, Elena.”

The words came out of hidden speakers. “
Barev
, Vivek. How’s the weather in Armenia these days?” The Cellar Manager liked languages. Over time, it had become a game to guess the origin of the greetings he used.

“Cloudy, with a three percent chance of rain.”

Grinning, she headed down the main corridor. “So, what evil plans have you got for me today, O Great Knower of All Things?”

Vivek laughed, safe in the small, bomb-proof, flood-proof, earthquake-proof, probably end-of-the-world-proof room at the center of the Cellars. “Scrabble.”

“Bring it on. You still owe me three hundred bucks.”

“That’s because you cheated.” There was a slight pettiness to his tone but that was Vivek. He lived down here twenty-four /seven out of choice.

She couldn’t argue with him. Vivek controlled everything in the Cellars. “Give me a few minutes to shower.” Raphael wasn’t a vampire, but the rawly masculine essence of him was burned into her brain, her skin, her very pores. She wanted him gone!

“How did you lose her?” Raphael stared at Dmitri, impas
sive.

“She cut my throat.”

Raphael looked at the vampire’s clean shirt, his damp hair. “It occurred soon after she left if you’ve had time to clean up.”

“Yes. She didn’t want an escort home.”

“Did you provoke the attack?” he asked calmly, because the answer mattered nothing to him, except as a test of Dmitri’s loyalty.

“I wanted to taste her.”

Raphael struck out without warning, slamming Dmitri to the floor with a broken jaw. “I told you she was off-limits. Are you challenging my authority?”

The vampire stood, waiting for his jaw to heal enough that he could speak. “You fought.”

“Yes, but I didn’t rescind my order.”

A bow of Dmitri’s head. “My apologies, sire. I did not realize her blood was yours.” Disappointment in his eyes, but no hint of rebellion. “I’m surprised you only broke my jaw.”

With the dazzling clarity of absolute Quiet, Raphael could see that Dmitri was sincere. “I need you functional. We have work to do.”

“I can track her.”

That was a secret no mortal knew. Vampires like Dmitri, the ones who gained the ability to entrance hunters with the seduction of scent, could also sometimes turn the tables on their foes. “That’s not necessary.” This was his hunt—he knew where she’d go. If he was wrong, he knew who to ask. They would answer.

“What would you like me to do?” Dmitri asked, his voice almost normal. He was old enough that most injuries—especially those that involved little to no loss of blood—healed relatively quickly.

“Get me the Guild Director’s home address, as well as that of Ransom Winterwolf.”

Elena made the word “hide” then waited as Vivek thought.
“Anytime this century, V.”

“Patience.” He sat with absolute stillness, but it was no act of self-discipline. Vivek had lost all feeling below the shoulders in an accident as a child. If he hadn’t, he’d have been hunter-born. Instead, aside from his considerable duties as Cellar Manager, he functioned as the Guild’s eyes and ears in a connected world, his high-tech wheelchair built for wireless capability—he often knew what people were saying about the Guild before the words even passed their lips.

Now, he murmured something under his breath and on the computer board, the letters shifted to make home. “What next, Ellie?” It was clear he wasn’t talking about the game.

She tapped her fingers on her thigh. “I need to talk to Sara.”

“You’re under blackout orders.”

“Then you talk to her—tell her she’s in danger. Everyone knows she’s the one person certain to know my location.” And it wasn’t Dmitri she was worried about.