“This woman was regal-looking, with silver hair, a thin face, and a hooked nose,” I interrupted. “She might have appeared high on something.”
He grunted. “Yeah, I remember that one. She smelled funny—like old paper. I dropped her at some abandoned industrial building in Brooklyn. I did ask her if she had the right address, being a woman and alone and all, because it wasn’t a nice-looking place.” He looked suddenly worried. “Has something happened to her?”
“No,” Azriel said, in a reassuring voice. “We simply need to talk to her. Can you give us the address where you left her?”
“It was Cawley Road. I don’t know the actual number, but the place had a stack of old shipping containers on the premises. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you very much for your assistance, Mr. Tan.”
“My pleasure,” he said, and then the screen went blank.
Francis swiveled in her chair and gave Azriel a somewhat sultry look. “Anything else I can do for you, officer?”
I rolled my eyes and left him to it. I gave the woman at the desk a nod of thanks, but she was paying as little attention to me as the woman in the control room had. Which I could totally understand, but it still rankled.
I waited outside in the cool air, and Azriel appeared a few minutes later.
“So,” I muttered, “you all set for later tonight?”
He raised his eyebrows. “I do not understand what you mean.”
My ass he didn’t. That was obvious from the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. But I bit back my annoyance and my reply, and glanced at my watch. Even though he’d zapped us here, we’d still lost valuable time inside, and the clock was ticking down. Time to stop being so idiotic and start concentrating on what really mattered—saving a woman’s life. A reaper who was becoming more and more of a frustration could be dealt with later.
“We need to get moving.”
He nodded and stepped close, but this time he didn’t immediately wrap his arms around me and dissolve us into mist. Instead, he caught my chin between his fingertips and said softly, “You are an idiot, Risa Jones.”
Then he kissed me.
It was fierce yet gentle, everything and yet nothing. It was energy and spirit and desire, and it made me soar even as it made me hunger for things I knew could never be.
And it was insanely, infuriatingly brief.
His lips left mine and he wrapped his arms around my waist, but I barely even saw the gray fields as we zipped through them. My head was still dizzy from the power and the promise of the kiss. From the knowledge that it would never go any further unless he wanted it to.
What I wanted apparently didn’t matter.
We reappeared in the middle of a road. He released me and stepped back, his expression restored to its usual distant self. Like we hadn’t just kissed. Like the kiss meant nothing.
And yet I knew, deep down, that was far from the truth.
“Damn it, Azriel—”
“There is magic here,” he cut in, obviously not wanting to discuss his actions. He indicated the high wire fence to our right. Behind it stood dozens of old shipping containers in various states of repair. “Over there.”
Fine. Play your games. But don’t expect me to be happy or to play along.
Once again, he gave no indication that he’d heard the somewhat surly thought. I released a frustrated breath and reminded myself yet again that there was a life at stake here. “Can you sense anything behind it?”
“No life, if that’s what you mean.” His gaze met mine. “But no death, either.”
I frowned. “If you can’t sense any life, maybe she simply met our killer here and they went elsewhere.”
“No. There is something here. It is similar in feel to the magic near Dorothy.”
I swung around and studied the battered, abandoned containers. I couldn’t see anything that jumped up and screamed magic, but then, I wasn’t as sensitive to the stuff as he was.
“Where, exactly?”