Archangel's Shadows (Guild Hunter 7)

“You teaching today?” she asked when she drew back.

Demarco flicked his finger at one of her earrings, the fall of bronze circles making a tiny metallic ping of sound. “Just finished doing a one-on-one strategy lesson with an older student.” He led her back to where he’d been seated with a cup of coffee and a half-demolished banana chocolate chip muffin, the two of them detouring to the counter so she could pick up a muffin and a chocolate milk for herself.

They’d just sat down when Honor walked in.

“I thought I saw your name on the board,” Demarco said. “Aren’t you meant to be in class?”

“I postponed it for fifteen minutes to give the students time to change and catch a breath after a combat session that ran overtime.” She slid into the chair next to Ashwini, nudging at Ash’s shoulder with hers in hello before sneaking a piece of chocolate off Demarco’s plate. “Mmm.” She sighed, eyes closing. “I don’t care how old I get, I’m never going to lose the taste for chocolate.”

“I thought Dmitri gave good blood?” Demarco smirked.

“I’m going to murder Ellie,” Honor said, her cheeks hot.

“Don’t blame Ellie.” Ashwini gave her friend a chunk of chocolate from her own muffin. “You start to stutter every time one of us asks about the blood drinking.” Honor was the first hunter they all knew who’d become a vampire, and, family being family, they were nosy as hell about the experience.

“Then,” Demarco added, “you go this amazing shade of red and seem to lose the ability to form words.”

“Shuddup.”

Laughing, Ashwini took a sip of her milk. She was happy to see her friend so alive and vibrant. Dmitri might be a bit of a bastard, but he’d brought Honor back from the bleak world in which she’d existed after the hell of her captivity, and for that, the vampire had a friend in Ashwini.

“Did Dmitri mention the case I’m working?” she asked her friend, feeling her way before she mentioned the details. The last thing she wanted to do was drag Honor back into the horror she’d survived.

“Yes.” Honor’s skin pulled taut over her bones, her voice vibrating with withheld emotion when she said, “I hope Raphael fries the evil bastard after you catch him.”

Demarco leaned forward, lowered his voice. “What’s the case?”

Reassured by Honor’s anger that her friend wasn’t in a bad headspace, Ashwini told him. She knew he wouldn’t speak to anyone else about it unless she gave him the go-ahead. “Have either one of you heard anything that might help?”

“I wish I had,” Honor said, her fury a thrum beneath her skin. “But I haven’t really been on the streets since I got back, mostly teaching and at the Tower, helping Dmitri deal with the Legion. Now and then, the Primary will talk to me in an ancient language I’ve studied but never expected to hear. It’s fascinating.”

Ashwini shivered at the thought of the winged army that had appeared out of nowhere. Most people assumed the fighters had arisen from a secret compound that belonged to Raphael. Ash knew that was wrong, very, very wrong. Even from a distance, they gave off such a sense of age that it was a crushing pressure against her senses.

Sometimes it felt as if the entire ocean lay on top of her, the weight of it at once vast and strangely freeing. The last time she’d woken breathless from that particular dream, she’d walked out to her little balcony to see a Legion fighter sitting on the railing.

He’d stared at her. She’d stared at him, the hairs rising on her arms.

An instant later, he’d flown off, his batlike wings silent in the night-draped sky.

Demarco tapped his finger on the table, the sound tugging her back from the memory of the surreal encounter. “Ransom was saying something about his street friends having noticed a weird vibe in the clubs. You should talk to him.”

“I was hoping he’d be here.” A former street kid, Ransom had contacts the rest of them couldn’t access, and with his leg currently in a cast that meant he couldn’t actively hunt, he’d been drafted in as an Academy instructor for the duration.

Demarco glanced away, staring through the casement windows at the snow that had begun to fall again, the flakes fatter and heavier than when Ashwini had come inside. “He took the day off.”

Ashwini caught Honor’s eye. Turning to Demarco, they said, “Spill,” in unison.

“Shit.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I can’t. He’ll skin me. You’ll know tonight.”

They trained their best “Talk or die” scowls on him, but he folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. Ashwini knew that look. He wasn’t going to budge. “Fine,” she muttered. “But you better have a damn good excuse for keeping it from us.”

“Trust me.” Grinning, he unfolded his arms, all open charm, but while she felt the affection of a friend for him, his smile did nothing for her as a woman.

Not like the smile of a certain vampire.

“Talking of secrets,” Demarco drawled, “you and the Cajun—”

Ashwini thumped a blade into the table in front of the other hunter, left it quivering in a vertical position.

“Watch it, Dem”—Honor laughed—“or you might end up dog food.”

The other hunter threw up his hands. “It was an innocent question.”

“Anyway,” Ashwini said pointedly, “if you hear anything that might be useful, pass it on.” She figured Ellie already had the info via Raphael.

“Will do.” Demarco glanced at his watch. “Gotta go. Have to pick up a vampire who decided to skip out on his Contract.”

Ashwini and Honor stared at him. “And you were sitting here eating a muffin?” Honor asked in a dumbfounded tone. “Isn’t a pickup a little more, I don’t know, important?”

“Genius booked a bus ticket. I swear to God,” Demarco said, doing up the buttons on his pale brown corduroy jacket with leather patches of darker brown at the elbows. “Under the name Bill Smith.”

Ashwini rolled her eyes. “I guess it’s better than John Smith.”

“No, that’s his real name. Plus, since he was good enough to provide photo ID when he booked, I know it’s my target.” He grabbed a deep blue woolen scarf and wrapped it around his neck twice. “I know what you’re thinking, that he’s throwing me off the scent—but I did my research. Bill Smith is an accountant who goes by the book.”