Archangel's Shadows (Guild Hunter 7)

It was a tenuous link, but it was a link directly to the Quarter. “Do you remember anything else?”

“No . . . but I did ask her why she didn’t point out her rich john to us, you know, on the sly.”

“Aaliyah!” Sina’s mouth fell open. “You never told us that.”

“I didn’t want to make Felicity look bad, ’cause her man sounded like a first-class dickhead.” Rubbing off her tears using the sleeve of her black coat, she said, “Jerkoff told her that if she even hinted they were involved before he took her to Europe for a makeover so she’d ‘fit his lifestyle,’ the whole deal was off. Felicity wanted it so much, she didn’t want to jinx it by telling even us.”

A pause before Aaliyah added, “It was weird . . . Felicity never had a pimp, but, looking back, this guy, he got into her head like a pimp does, made her believe the whole ‘daddy’ shtick.”

That he was omnipotent, Ashwini thought, gut boiling, that if he had to be cruel, it was because Felicity had let him down. Bastard.

“We didn’t give you enough, did we?” Carys asked, blunt and up-front.

“You gave us another point on the timeline.” Ashwini didn’t disrespect the women by sugarcoating reality. “Each step gets us closer to finding out what happened to her.”

“Will you . . .” Sina took a deep breath, her breasts threatening to overflow the low-cut top she wore beneath her deep pink puffer jacket. “Will you tell us what you discover?”

“I promise.”

“We don’t have a lot”—Carys stuck her jaw out, shoulders held tight—“but we want to make sure she has a gravestone, a proper burial. Girl ain’t got no family, grew up in foster care after her grandparents got swept away in a flood when she was a kid.”

Ashwini felt no surprise that Felicity’s murderer had zeroed in on wounded prey, on a woman so hungry for love and a stable life that she’d been willing to erase herself to achieve it. “The man whose son discovered the body also wants to help,” she told the women as she took out her phone. “He’s a good guy. Maybe you can work with him to organize Felicity’s funeral once her ashes are released.”

Five minutes later, the women left with Tony Rocco’s contact number, and Ashwini was back in Janvier’s car, having caught the subway to meet him at Blood-for-Less. As they pulled out, she asked what she hadn’t inside. “How can a vampire be forced to work the streets? Is it part of her Contract?” Never before had she realized that might be a possibility.

“No,” Janvier said. “Certain things are expressly prohibited under the Contract, by order of Cadres ongoing, including the selling of the body for profit. The punishment isn’t worth the risk. Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t myriad other ways the Contracted can be used and abused.”

Ashwini thought of what she’d seen in Nazarach’s court, of the two women on their knees, one on either side of the angel, their faces white and muscles quivering beneath couture evening gowns. “Do you wonder sometimes, about Simone and Monique?”

“Non. They both made their beds—as Sina may have.” He stopped behind a gleaming black town car that was attempting to parallel park in a minuscule space. “She’s around a hundred and fifty.”

“That means she would’ve received a payment when she completed her Contract.” Word was, even if a vamp were given only the minimum mandated amount, it was enough to support a person for a year.

Slipping around the town car, Janvier said, “Vampires aren’t immune from bad decisions, or bad luck.” His voice held dark memories of the carnage he’d witnessed that morning, of the bad decision that had ended two lives. “There’s also the possibility that she chooses this existence—for some, even a hundred years is too much life and they become bored. It may be a rush for her to get into cars with strange men, to use the body to take control.”

Every time Ashwini thought she understood people, she learned something that told her even her abilities couldn’t predict everything. “The calculating bastard set Felicity up with the Europe trip.”

“That’s my take. He had to know she’d tell her friends, brag about it a little.”

“She was excited to be so close to touching her dreams.” In her mind’s eye, Felicity was becoming fully formed, a vulnerable woman who was loyal to her friends, and who was driven by hope for a better future. “Then he took her and he hurt her.”

“But she didn’t die until recently.” Janvier’s words were ground out. “He kept her for months.”

“When we find this son of a bitch, I will personally nail his nuts to the floor before slicing him to ribbons.”

“I think you will have to get in line, cher.” A grim smile. “But perhaps I will share.”

•   •   •

Dmitri stood in the center of Masque and considered Janvier’s earlier report. The Cajun had been in the Tower for a scarce fifteen minutes to shower and change before he’d left to meet his hunter, but it had been long enough.

“The bloodlust situation wasn’t at urgency last night,” he’d said, his voice harder than Dmitri had ever heard it, “but this morning changes everything.”

Dmitri agreed with the other male’s assessment. He’d watched a recording of Adele’s surveillance footage, seen crimson tinge the irises of two vampires trapped in the private rooms. He’d also sensed the ugly energy in the air when he’d deliberately walked along the block to reach the club: a vicious mix of scrabbling fear and stimulated excitement.

The swift actions Trace, Janvier, and Naasir had taken in dealing with Rupert that morning had added depth to that fear, but the violent thrill of bloodlust was thick in the air and becoming thicker by the second. The fight against Lijuan had unleashed aggression in a large number of the Made, and now they wanted to surrender to those urges rather than deal with the aftermath of war.

“Dmitri.” Adele’s long red hair brushed her butt as she walked toward him, her sophisticated features and dress not reflecting the pragmatic earthiness at the heart of her nature. “What do you plan to do about this?”

He half smiled; he’d always liked Adele, even more so now that she’d fought with grim fury to defeat Lijuan’s vermin. “I saw you move like a warrior, Adele.” Hair braided around her skull, her weapon of choice a war hammer, she’d annihilated the reborn in her sector. “Why do you run this den of iniquity rather than becoming part of the Tower?”