I don’t care who you have to contact or what favors you have to pull in, I cut in fiercely. Please don’t let him become one of the lost ones.
I ran for the foyer. The light burning down Amaya’s sides made it easier to see the various cubicles, desks, and chairs, but it did little to rip the shadows away from the vampire. Nor could I detect his scent.
Burn brighter, I told Amaya. I need to see the bastard.
Fire erupted from her sides, filling the large room with her fierce light. On the opposite side of the room, far closer to the foyer doors than I was, a shadow found form. The vampire was long and lean, with dark hair and pale skin. Not someone I knew, I thought with relief. Not Markel Sanchez, who was one of the Cazadors assigned to follow me astrally. I’d only met him a couple of times, but I had a suspicion that – as far as Cazadors went – he was probably one of the more ethical ones. Not that being ethical would have prevented him from killing Jak had Hunter ordered it. From the little he’d said, even the Cazadors feared incurring Hunter’s wrath.
“Stop,” I shouted, “or you’re fucking dead.”
He made a short, sharp noise that sounded a hell of a lot like a laugh – even if a derisive one – and did the exact opposite, crashing through the doors and out into the foyer. I swore and sprinted after him. I hit the half-closed doors a second later, thrusting them back with such force that the top hinges tore free. Glass shattered, glittering with lilac fire as it fell all around me.
The vamp hadn’t stopped to call the elevators, but was instead racing for the fire exit. I had a bad feeling that if he made it there, he’d escape. And that meant I had one option, and very little time.
Don’t kill him, Amaya. I drew her back and threw her, as hard as I could. She flew like an arrow – albeit a flaming one – and thudded into the vampire’s back, her dark blade disappearing into his body, until only her hilt protruded from his flesh. The vampire made a gargled sound, then his legs went out from underneath him and he fell face-first onto the carpet.
I slowed and approached him cautiously. Lilac fire burned where shadowed steel met flesh, but blood crept out from underneath the flames, an ever-growing pool that stained his pristine white shirt. His face, which had borne the brunt of his fall, was also bloody, although I couldn’t see just how badly he’d been smashed up given he was still lying facedown. And I wasn’t about to go closer or move him, even if he did look dead. Looking dead was something vampires could do extremely well.
Dead not, Amaya said. Arrange can.
We need to question him first. I hesitated. Can he move, or do you have him pinned?
Move not.
Good. Keep it that way. I paused. Azriel, how is Jak?
He only has a few minutes left, Risa. Hurry if you wish to say good-bye.
I scrubbed a hand across stinging eyes, then spun and raced back into the main room. Blue flame flickered in the darkness, Azriel’s sword providing enough light to guide me through the office maze, just as Amaya had.
It wasn’t until I was near that I realized Azriel wasn’t alone. Standing several feet away from Jak’s prone body was a white-haired, white-winged female figure. A reaper waiting for Jak’s soul to rise. But her form surprised me. Reapers tended to wear the image of someone the soul was most likely to trust, as it made the transition easier. That this reaper had taken on the appearance of an angel meant either Jak was more of a traditionalist than I’d ever figured or that he simply didn’t have anyone in his life he ultimately trusted. And that was, in very many ways, sad.>“Okay.” I’d rather he hung up and left straightaway, but I was realistic enough to know that was never going to happen when he had news to share. Why he couldn’t leave and talk I had no idea – other than the fact it wasn’t legal to drive while on the phone.
Not that legalities had ever stopped him from doing something before.
“Right then,” he continued. “I went through public records, and discovered the company that owns that particular warehouse is a mob called Pénombre Manufacturing.”
I frowned. The name rang a distant bell – I’d seen or heard that name somewhere before. Where, though? “What do they manufacture?”
“I have no idea, because I can’t uncover much information about them or what they actually do. I suspect they might be a shelf company, except for the fact that they own that warehouse.”
“Can’t shelf companies own assets?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so, given they were initially designed for people wanting to start a new company without the hassle of all the paperwork required to create one.”
“When did they buy the warehouse? There has to be some records of that.”
“There is.” He glanced down, and I heard the clicking of a keyboard. Jak was the old-fashioned type – none of these fancy light screens and keyboards for him. Hell, he still jotted down most of his notes in an actual notebook, rather than using his smartphone. “It was purchased twenty-eight years ago.”
I frowned. I’d been born twenty-eight years ago. Which didn’t actually mean anything, beyond the suspicion that it wasn’t actually coincidental. “Who by?”
“A bloke by the name of Michael Greenfield is the registered owner of the company. Problem is, the only Michael Greenfield I can find is in the matches and dispatches database – he apparently died forty-odd years ago.”
I wondered if he was any relation to Adeline Greenfield, the witch who’d taught me to astral travel. “Meaning someone is either using his name, or the Michael Greenfield registered as the owner of that building was born overseas, not here.”
“Yep. I’ve just sent a request to an English mate to search the databases there, but I don’t know anyone in the U.S. or in Europe who could help us.”
“You could always join ancestry.com,” I said, only half joking.
He snorted. “That wouldn’t help us if he’s changed his name.”