Once I was free of the stinking confines of the container, I stopped and sucked in large breaths of the crisp, clean air. But it didn’t do a whole lot. The smell of death still clung to my skin and clothes.
With some reluctance, I tugged my vid-phone out of my pocket and rang Uncle Rhoan. “I found her,” I said the minute he answered.
“Fuck it, Risa, I told you to contact me when you found anything. This is a Directorate investigation—”
“And one that you dragged me into,” I snapped back, “so don’t get all snotty when I chase a lead that may or may not have gone anywhere.”
“You have definitely been hanging around my sister for far too long,” he muttered, and thrust a hand through his hair. “What have you found?”
“We followed the Hartwell name, and it led us to an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn. Dani’s here.”
“Dead, if your expression is any indication.”
“Very. There’s maggots, so she’s been here a while.”
He swore softly but vehemently. “Damn it, this bastard’s death will be neither quick nor pleasant when I get my hands on him.”
“Good.” I hesitated. “You might want to investigate the warehouse, too. I don’t think it’s connected in any way to these murders, but someone has electrified the fencing, so there’s obviously something here worth protecting.”
“What, you haven’t investigated? Color me shocked.”
I grinned. “See, there is some common sense left in me after all.”
“Apparently so.” He glanced away briefly as someone murmured something behind him, then said, “I’ll get another cleanup team out there. There’s no need for you to hang around.”
“Good, because I need to go home and shower.”
“Ring me if you happen to chase down either the club or the man Vonda mentioned,” he said. “Don’t go off investigating them by yourself. This bastard is too dangerous.”
I knew that. Not only had I seen the rotting evidence of it in the container behind me, but I’d confronted him on the astral fields. It was not an experience I wanted to repeat in real life.
“I won’t—don’t worry.”
“The more you say that, the more I will,” he muttered, and hung up.
I shoved the phone back into my pocket, then raised my face to the sky, letting the sun bathe the chill from my flesh. After a few minutes, I said, “This is not getting me home.”
“No.”
Azriel’s voice held a slight edge, and I glanced at him. “What?”
“I am just wondering if you’re going to be sensible enough to let me take you there or not.”
“Given your somewhat dour expression, I’d say you’ve already guessed that particular answer.”
He sighed. “There is no need to tax your strength when I can very easily—”
“Azriel, I can’t keep doing this. I can’t touch you, or be kissed by you, without wanting more. I understand the dangers you’ve mentioned—I do—but if you want resistance, then that has to mean complete distance.”
He studied me for a moment, then gave a quick, sharp nod. “Perhaps you are right. It is shortsighted of me to expect such control from you when I am not able to find it in myself.”
And with that, he disappeared again. And this time I couldn’t even feel him in the immediate vicinity. He had obviously gone back to watching from a distance.
Not what I’d wanted at all.
I made my way back through the containers to the main gate. In Aedh form, I slipped under the fence, but re-formed in human shape almost immediately. The pounding in my head was far worse the second time around, and I stumbled to the nature strip and lost everything I’d eaten that day.
Then I called a cab and went home.