Darkness Unbound (Dark Angels 1)

“We are responsible for tracking down anything that is guilty of destroying human lives,” she said eventually. “And if the rumors about what your father is attempting are true, then he could potentially destroy millions. That makes it our business.”

“Only if he’s doing what everyone thinks he’s doing.” Not that I particularly wanted to defend the man, but hey, I owed him my existence. No one had actually brought me any proof that he was up to no good. “And you could have sent any of your subordinates here to ask about my absent parent, so why are you really here?”

Again the sculpted eyebrow rose, but the green eyes underneath gave nothing away. Then again, this was a woman who’d seen over fifteen hundred years. She’d be more than a little practiced at containing her emotions.

“I merely wish to ask you to contact me the moment you hear from your father.”

Contact her. Not the Directorate. Did that mean this wasn’t an official Directorate meeting? Was she here for reasons of her own?

My heart skipped a beat. Madeline Hunter wasn’t just the woman in charge of the Directorate, but also a top-ranking member of the vampire high council. And it was a scary thought that they might be getting involved in this.

I swallowed to ease the sudden dryness in my throat, and said, “Why?”

“Because I wish to speak to him.”

Again, I rather than we. “The Directorate doesn’t usually talk to people intent on destroying millions.”

“Unless,” she drawled softly, “they are involved in research that has interesting possibilities.”

Dread rippled through me. I stared at her for a moment, then leaned back in my chair. “What sort of interesting possibilities?”

“It occurs to us that a device designed to permanently close the gates could be re-engineered and used to open or close them at will.” She tapped a purple-painted nail against the plastic tabletop. “The ability to do that would be useful, and it would also provide us an interesting alternative.”

Something cold settled into the pit of my stomach. I took a long drink of coffee, but it didn’t do much to dislodge the ice. I licked my lips, then said, somewhat incredulously, “You want to use hell as your own private jail?”

Yet again that eyebrow rose. “You sound surprised.”

“It’s hell. You know, the place where all manner of demons, devils, and bad souls hang out. Playing around with the gates that protect us all is not a good idea.”

And I could just imagine what the reapers would make of it. They certainly wouldn’t be thrilled about the prospect of someone else gaining contro

l over the light or dark pathways.

“Demons and devils enter this world all the time,” Hunter said, “so the gates are an insufficient means of protection.”

“The gates are not the problem. The magic that forces them open temporarily is. Stop the Charna, sorcerers, or Satanists responsible, and you’ll stop the dark ones from entering.”

She leaned forward a little, as if to convince me of her earnestness. All it did was make me suspect there was more to this than what she was saying. “But if we could learn what makes them work, then perhaps we can also make them stronger.”

“If it were possible for them to be strengthened, then I think the reapers would have done it by now.” I took another sip of coffee and tried to ignore the chills running down my spine. Tried to ignore the little voice in the back of my mind suggesting that Hunter’s plans involved me a whole lot more than she was admitting.

“Reapers?” A brief glimmer in her eyes suggested interest. Or maybe that was me reading far too much into the flicker of movement in her otherwise well-controlled features. “You can see them?”

“Whether I can or not is irrelevant to this conversation.”

“I disagree. If you can see the reapers, you can see the gates. And that is a talent we sorely lack.”

We as in the Directorate, or the high council? I wasn’t entirely certain which one she meant. “I’ve never seen the gates,” I said. “I’ve never walked the gray fields.”

Of course, the latter part of that statement was a total fabrication, but I was betting she really didn’t know what I was capable of. Mom certainly wouldn’t have told her, and the only other people who knew were those who’d been in the hospital room when I’d pulled Aunt Riley from those fields so long ago.

But one of those people had been Jack Parnell—Hunter’s brother and the man in charge of the guardian division. It was totally possible that he’d mentioned it in passing in his report.

And that could also explain why she hadn’t sent a lackey to talk to me. She’d wanted to examine me in person.

I finished my latte in one long gulp, then stood. “How do I contact you if I hear from my father?”

She drew a business card from her wallet and slid it across the table. “This conversation is not finished—”