Darkness Devours (Dark Angels 3)

It wasn’t just anyone calling me. It was Madeline Hunter. I was tempted to let it go to voice mail, but that would only result in pissing her off. Never a good thing to do when you were talking about one of the most powerful vampires in Australia.

I pressed the ANSWER button, and her image flashed onto the small screen. “Madeline, how lovely to hear from you.”

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” she said, her green eyes as cool as her voice. “But this is not a social call.”

“I didn’t think it was.”

“I imagine not.” She shifted, revealing the panoramic view out the window behind her. Surprise rippled through me. She was ringing from her office at the Directorate, so something serious must have happened, given that I was working for the vampire council, not the Directorate. If Uncle Rhoan—who was one of the Directorate’s top guardians and also something of a whiz at sniffing out unusual occurrences—got the slightest idea that I was, in any way, connected to Hunter or the Directorate, there’d be hell to pay. I had no doubt that both he and Aunt Riley—who was a consultant rather than an actual guardian these days—would even go as far as threatening Hunter herself. When it came to the safety of their pack—and they considered me one of theirs even if I wasn’t by birth—nothing and no one with any sense got in their way.

Of course, being in the employ of the vampire council was actually far worse than the Directorate ever could be. At least the Directorate was governed by rules and regulations. For all intents and purposes, the council was not. It was a shadowy organization at the best of times, and a rule unto itself at the worst.

Hunter added, “A problem has come to my attention that I believe might benefit from your expertise.”

“If it’s a Directorate investigation, why would you think you’d need my help?” Hell, they had witches on the payroll who’d probably forgotten more than I actually knew about the gray fields.

“This will not become a full Directorate investigation, although guardians have performed discreet preliminary inquiries.”

It wasn’t like I had a choice about getting involved, but still, curiosity stirred. “Why restrict the Directorate like that? Does it involve the council again?”

“No. But it does involve a certain aspect of the vampire world that we have no wish to make more generally known.”

“So vamps have secret lives? Who’d have guessed that?” I said, a tad more sarcastically than was wise.

Anger flashed across her expression, and something within me chilled. Don’t poke the bear, I reminded myself fiercely. Not if you want to avoid being executed by the high council.

“Vampires are hardly alone in keeping secrets,” she said, her voice crisp, holding little of the fire I’d seen only a heartbeat ago. That I’d even seen it suggested that whatever the problem was, it was big. Or at the very least, annoying. “And you would do well to remember that, considering how well your mother kept her own secrets.”

“My mother’s secrets were little more than an unorthodox birth and upbringing, and it’d be of little use to anyone now to reveal it.” As Jak would say, she was old news. “Speaking of my mother, just what is happening with the hunt for her killer? You did promise to put full resources behind the investigation if I helped you and the council.”

She paused, considering me for a moment, reminding me very much of a cat studying its prey and wondering whether to eat it or play with it. “The hunt is currently at a standstill.”

That much I’d gathered. “Why?”

“Because there are no leads. Whoever killed your mother did so without leaving any sort of trace evidence.”

“Given her battered state—” I paused, swallowing heavily as I tried to ignore the memories that rose. “How could the killer have left no evidence whatsoever? Even if he was wearing a full DNA containment suit, there must have at least been footprint smudges.”

There’d been too much of her blood, too much of her flesh and body parts, splattered around. No killer, no matter how careful, should have been able to get out of that kitchen without leaving some trace of himself. Unless he could fly. But even then, there should have been DNA evidence of a shape-shift—even if it was only feather fluff lost in the change.

“The Directorate is at a loss to explain it, and neither they nor the Cazadors have had any luck uncovering anyone who might have wanted your mother dead.”

So she had kept her word and thrown the resources of the council behind the hunt. She’d ordered a Cazador—who were basically the vampire council’s leashed killers—to look into it. It was actually more than I’d thought she would do, even though she had made the promise.

“So we’re looking for a ghost?”

“Or an Aedh.”

Her words hit like ice, chilling me to the bone. An Aedh could get in and out unseen, and they certainly had the capability to tear a body apart without leaving any trace of themselves behind. Hell, I could do it if I wanted to. It was the nastier side of my Aedh heritage, one I’d been reluctantly taught by Quinn, Riley’s vampire lover and a man who’d once trained to be an Aedh priest.

“But why would an Aedh want to tear my mom apart like that?”

I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud until Hunter answered. “For information, perhaps. Maybe they thought she had knowledge of the keys.”

I frowned. “Mom didn’t know much about the gray fields and, despite spending a night with an Aedh, she knew even less about them. Killing her for information about either makes no sense.”

“But neither does your mother’s death. It was brutal and deliberate, as if it were some kind of message.”

A message no one could understand. I rubbed my eyes for a moment, then said, “What is the problem you want me to investigate?”