Angels of Darkness (47 page)

“But that's not your only reason.”

“It's never my only reason,” she said. “But it feels good. Doesn't it?”

Marc glanced at the front counter, where the kid was behind the cash register again, one eye on the television. “It does.”

Though she'd gotten her way, once again, she didn't grin as he expected. Instead, her eyes filled.

Crying? Tension and uncertainty took a freezing grip on his gut. “Radha? You all right?”

She shook her head, pressed her lips together, and turned her face away. After a long moment, she looked back to him—tears gone.

Or were they? With her, it was impossible to know.

But her voice was even and light as she said, “So, what next? Do we wait for Miklia and friends to show?”

No point. They weren't more likely to talk now than they had been before. At least, not until he had something concrete to approach them with. “What do you make of the physical training, the books?”

“Probably the same thing that you make of it,” she said. “Miklia and her friends saw something the night Jason was killed—they probably saw the demon who killed him. Now they fancy themselves demon hunters. Maybe for revenge, maybe some other reason. So thank goodness for the Rules, yes?”

Yes. Those same rules that forbade Guardians from harming or killing humans also applied to demons, but with harsher consequences. Any Guardian who hurt a human or impeded a human's free will—even with an action as simple as shoving an unwilling human out of danger's path—would have to decide whether to ascend to the afterlife or become human again. A Guardian could break the Rules and live, but every demon would be slain. After a demon broke the Rules, there was no escaping the Guardian Rosalia and the powerful vampire Deacon; psychically bound to the demon from the moment it hurt or killed a human, the pair would find and slay the demon within minutes.

Even in the unlikely event that the girls did track down the demon, it couldn't hurt them. They probably wouldn't be able to hurt it, either, but Marc cared less about the demon's chances of surviving than the girls'.

He checked the sky. Ten minutes of daylight left. The vampires in the area would be waking up at sundown. “Let's talk to Bronner. If these girls looked for information about demons, and if they knew Jason was a part of the community, they might have tried getting it from him or another vampire first.”

“And they might have mentioned what they saw.”

Marc nodded. “Something sent them looking in the right direction. Maybe it was Jason himself, maybe he mentioned demons or Guardians to them. But if they saw something, the questions they asked might give us an indication of what happened that night.”

“How far away is Bronner?”

“Halfway between here and the next town over.”

With a grin, Radha formed her wings. They arched behind her, the white tips sweeping the floor. “So we fly?”

He usually waited for dark. “You can cover mine, too?”

Her hand flew to her chest, as if she'd been wounded. “Your doubt kills me. Oh, Marc. I can make you feel like you're wearing wings when you aren't. Of
course
I can cover them.”

“All right, then.”

He rose from his chair. She did the same, albeit more slowly, and with a glint in her eyes that could have been dangerous or mischievous. She dabbed her forefinger against her cake plate and brought it to her lips, her smile forming beneath the tip.

“You should ask what else I can make you feel.”

She didn't give him the chance. Her tongue swept across the pad of her finger—and he felt a warm lick against his. He
tasted
sweet coconut.

Need rushed through him, the ache of arousal. He stared at her, his fingers tightening on the back of the chair, using all of his control not to snap the wood in half—then crash through the table after her.

Her smile widened. “So?”

“It's good cake,” he said.

Her laugh was light—and so sweet. He'd suffer through any teasing for it.

“No.” She came around the table, letting her fingers trail across the surface, her gold-tipped claw dragging out a long, rough note. “I meant to find out earlier, but we were interrupted.
Can
a celibate warrior be worked up? Now I'm coming over to see whether one can be.”

To touch him—in the middle of a busy coffee shop, and yet hidden from them all. His fingers clenched on the wood as she stopped beside him. Her gaze dropped to the front of his pants, and he heard the catch of her breath.

“So. They can.”

“I don't know,” he said, voice rough.

Glowing again, her gaze lifted to his. He gritted his teeth to stifle his groan when she boldly cupped him through his trousers, then slid her palm up his hardened length.

“This is an illusion, too? I don't think so, Marc.”

His head fell forward. Though everything in him strained toward her, he struggled against the urge to thrust into her hand. “No,” he managed. “I meant: I'm not a celibate warrior. I gave up that idea a while ago.”

Her fingers stilled. Her eyes brightened, shining fiercely gold. “Truly?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

With a grin and a sharp rasp of her claw up his rigid length, she turned for the door, orange scarves swirling around her indigo legs. Marc watched her go, hurting in the best—and worst—possible way.

Good.
He had no idea what she meant by that.

He hoped to God he'd find out.

 

 

G
ood, because she'd hate to ask him to break his vows again.
If
that was where they were headed.

Radha didn't know if they were, or if she
should
. She wanted to.

But a hundred and forty years had passed, and he was a different man than she'd known. All good, it seemed, but a few hours couldn't really tell her. For all she knew, he might be shacked up with a vampire somewhere. He might be in love with someone. She might get hurt again. Or worse, throw herself at him, and discover that she'd been a fool.

Solid, unflappable—but under it all, he was just a man. And a man's cock hardened when a woman fake-licked coconut icing from his finger. His arousal didn't mean anything except that he was alive and possessed a healthy libido.

And even if he did want sex, that wasn't all
she
wanted. Not anymore. She'd done the pleasure-for-pleasure's-sake thing. It had been fun while it lasted. But she'd changed, too. Now she needed more . . . and it could never be
just
fun with Marc.

So rushing would be idiocy. And they were Guardians; they lived a long time. No need to rush anything.

Unfortunately, Radha knew that she was very,
very
bad at resisting something that she wanted.

At least searching for this demon provided a distraction. Bronner lived along one of the rural roads, and they followed it west, flying under the sliver of a moon. Gently rolling, snow-covered hills passed beneath them. In the distance, the Mississippi snaked southward. Pretty. When the bare trees dressed in their leaves for the summer and green covered the hills, it was probably gorgeous.

Maybe she'd have reason to come back again, and find out.

The vampire's one-level house was situated among a small scattering of homes—mostly humans, Marc told her. Best not to let them see two winged people landing in Bronner's backyard. To conceal their arrival, she concentrated on the illusion of complete invisibility: no sound, no evidence of their footsteps through the snow, no lingering scent of coconut from her mouth.

Another scent hit her almost immediately: blood. Not surprising, given that this was a vampire's home and that they usually fed from each other just after waking—but, given that it smelled like human blood, disturbing.

And a moment later, another scent: human death.

Marc smelled it, too. His jaw tightened, gaze searching the windows of the house. “Can anyone see us?”

“No.”

He vanished his wings. A sword appeared in his left hand, called in from his cache of weapons. Radha brought her crossbow in from her own psychic storage. Their tips poisoned with hellhound venom, the crossbow bolts wouldn't badly injure a demon, but the venom would paralyze one. It was a hell of a lot easier to decapitate a demon if it couldn't run away.

They reached the back door. Marc cocked his head, listening for noises from inside.

“I'm concealing our voices, our footsteps,” she said. “And I'll conceal the noise when you break open that door.”

He nodded, then glanced down at her feet. “Put your shoes on. Something that won't leave a mark.”

“What?”

“If a human is dead, I have to call in the sheriff. They'll look for prints. Unless your illusions can cover up real physical evidence, you can't go in with bare feet.”

That made sense. In her own territory, she didn't bother—but she also rarely worked with local law enforcement. This was Marc's territory, though, so she'd follow his lead. A pair of flip-flops wouldn't confine her toes. She hated shoes that did.

Marc picked the lock instead of breaking the door down. The scent of death intensified. Quietly, they slipped into a darkened mudroom, then a tiny, bare kitchen. A bucket of cleaning supplies sat on the counter. No plates, pans, or evidence of food. There never was in a vampire's house. Marc's psychic sweep pushed against her shields.

“Do you sense anyone?”

She sent out her own soft probe, searching for any sign of life. “Nothing.”

“They sleep in the basement.” He entered the hallway leading to the front of the home, passing a bathroom, an empty bedroom. He paused at the edge of the living room, vanished his sword. “God damn it.”

Oh.
Radha stopped next to him, her breath escaping on a long, heavy sigh. A woman lay between the end of a sofa and the low coffee table, eyes open, her features already locked in the waxy rigidity of death. Middle-aged, dressed in khaki pants, tennis shoes, and yellow latex gloves, she looked like a housewife going about her daily routine. Blood stained the beige carpet beneath her head, a dark pool that must have been congealing for at least a few hours.

As Marc started toward the body, Radha glanced around the room. Nothing broken, nothing disturbed. The front door hadn't been forced. The heavy drapes over the south-facing picture window were wide open. Strange, that. She didn't know any vampires who weren't careful about closing each curtain in the house every morning, even if they slept in a windowless room. Frowning, she walked around the sofa—stopped behind it. Oh, no.

“Marc.”

Crouched beside the woman, he looked up. “What did you find?”

“Vampire ash. Two piles, I think. Jewelry.” She bent, sifted through the sandy remains, selected a man's signet ring and showed it to him. “Did Bronner wear this?”

Jaw clenching, Marc nodded.

“A woman's ring is here, too. A set of earrings. No clothes.” Sick to her stomach, she glanced toward the center of the living room again. Hairs and blood clung to the nearest corner of the coffee table. “What happened here? Did this woman drag them up here into the sun, and then . . . trip? Hit her head?”

“I don't think so.” He slid up the woman's short sleeves, revealing the faint discoloration ringing her upper arms. “I think she was grabbed, pushed.”

Pushed.
Not the most efficient way of killing someone. Her gaze settled on the woman's gloves, and she recalled the cleaning supplies in the kitchen. “Maybe she was here to work and surprised someone. But when? A demon couldn't have done this to her, not without Deacon and Rosalia being called to slay him—and you'd have sensed them coming.”

If not a demon, then a vampire or a human. Vampires didn't
have
to follow the Rules forbidding demons from killing humans, though most knew better than to try. And in many vampire communities, leadership was determined by strength; Guardians didn't interfere with vampire power struggles. If another vampire wanted to take Bronner's place, no Guardian would slay the vampire for killing him. Marc and Radha
would
slay any vampire who killed a human, however.

But if she'd been killed after the sun had risen, a vampire couldn't have done it.

Gently, Marc tested the woman's joints. “She's cold, and almost in full rigor. At least this morning, maybe earlier.”

So maybe a vampire, maybe not.

He rose to his feet. “Stay here, make sure no one sees anything through the windows. I'll check out the basement.”

It only took him a few moments. Radha had time to vanish all of the ash and jewelry into her psychic storage before he returned, his mouth a tight line of frustration.

“Blood on the bed, the stairs. They were killed down there, dragged up here—the blood trail down the hall was ashed by the sun. The basement door locks from the inside. A reinforced door and lock, but it was bashed down. A human couldn't have done that. Most vampires couldn't. You or I could.”

“And a demon could,” Radha finished for him. When he nodded, she said, “Do we contact the other vampires in the community, tell them about Bronner?”

“Not yet. You vanished the ash?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I left the blood. There's nothing in the DNA that looks different from a human's, and if a human did this, maybe there's a fingerprint, a hair, or something for the courts to nail them with. Did you touch anything?”

She mentally reviewed her steps. “The jewelry, but that's in my cache now.”