Archangel's Kiss (Guild Hunter 2)

Sweat was pouring down her face by the time she ran out of knives - her own and the ones Galen had given her. Illium blew her a kiss from his perch on a rafter. "Poor Ellie.

Want a nap?"

"Shut up." Wiping her face, she shook her head at Galen. "How the hell can he move like that?"

"They call his mother the Hummingbird." Galen caught a knife Illium threw down, one of several that had lodged in various parts of the salle. "You have some skill - it'll make it easier to get you to a point where you can consistently hit the neck."

She rubbed her own throat. "Most vulnerable spot?"

A nod. "But that's going to take time. For now, if you can pin or shoot an angel coming at you, you'll disorient him long enough to run."

A pause, and she realized he was waiting for a response. "I'm not too proud to run. My legs have kept me alive more times than you know."

Those ice green eyes seemed to gleam with subtle approval, but that was probably wishful thinking on her part. "If you're trapped in a situation where you have no choice but to fight, a good aim will give you a slight advantage."

"Emphasis on 'slight.' "

Galen pulled a knife out of the wall, his biceps flexing. "You're playing with archangels. Slight is an improvement on certain death."

Chapter 25

Jason stood across from Raphael on the balcony off Raphael's office, the buildings of the Refuge spread out below.

"What have you learned?" Raphael asked his spymaster.

The tattoo on Jason's face appeared complete, but Raphael knew that while the chunk of flesh that had been ripped out by one of Lijuan's reborn had healed, the markings were only temporary, so as to betray no weakness. Jason was having the ink redone step by painful step. "She's keeping a secret."

Raphael waited. All archangels kept secrets, but for Jason to comment on it had to mean something.

"It's a secret she appears not to have shared with anyone, but I think the Shade knows,"

he said, referring to Phillip, the vampire who'd been with Lijuan longer than Raphael had been alive. "He's like a pet to her - she hasn't forbidden him from entering the sealed room as she has everyone else."

"Do you think you or one of the others can get a glimpse inside the room?"

Jason shook his head. "She has a ring of reborn around it night and day." He touched his face. "I'm fairly certain they'd tear any intruder limb from limb."

Total dismemberment was one of the very few ways thatmight lead to the death of an angel Jason's age. However, if the head was left whole, there was a chance of regeneration. "Have you been able to confirm how many of Lijuan's reborn eat flesh?"

"It's no longer the old ones alone - I saw a pack of younger reborn feast on the bodies of the newly dead," the angel replied. "They did it out in the open."

"So, she crosses another boundary." It was one more indicator that her mind was no longer functioning as it should. "Tell me about this sealed room."

"It's in the center of her mountain hold, hidden deep within the core. The reborn roam all the corridors around it, and the ones that roam are the ones with eyes that shine - the ones who eat of flesh."

"Do you have any idea what she might be hiding?" It could be nothing good, that much was certain.

"Not yet. But I'll find out." Jason resettled his wings. "I did as you asked and had Maya work her way into Dahariel's domain. Something is going on, but whether it relates to the events at the Refuge, it's impossible to say. There are rumors that Dahariel killed several of his vampires recently, but that could've been a legitimate punishment."

"Have Maya remain where she is. I have people inside Nazarach's and Anoushka's homes."

"If it does prove to be Nazarach?"

"I'll execute him." Nazarach ruled Atlanta, but only under Raphael's grace. "Dahariel is the strongest of them all." And the most coldly intelligent. Leaving that decapitated head in Anoushka's bed was the kind of calculated threat Dahariel might make.

"If it is him," Jason said, "he's begun to strike close to home - one of Astaad's favorite concubines was found eviscerated yesterday. She was branded inside. All indications are that she was alive at the time."

"So . . ." It seemed nothing less than death - brutal, merciless - would satisfy this would-be archangel now. "Astaad hasn't informed the Cadre."

Jason didn't comment except to say, "Pride."

"Yes." The archangel who ruled the Pacific Isles had to be enraged that someone had managed to breach the walls of his harem. "One more archangel bested." In the most cowardly of ways, but drunk on vicious pleasure, the angel behind the assassination wouldn't see it that way. He, or she, would, Raphael was certain, view it as a true victory.

"Sire - there is more."

"Yes?"

"They found another Guild dagger in her chest cavity."

"Little hunter, little hunter, where aaaaaarre you?" Playful, singsong, horrifying.

Wrapping her arms around her raised knees, she ducked her head, making herself even smaller. The cupboard smelled of blood. Ari and Belle's blood. On her feet, in her hair, on her clothes.

Go away, she thought, please go away. Please, please, please, please . . . It was a litany in her head, her voice small and weak. Where was Daddy? Why didn't he come home?

And why wasn't Mama in the kitchen like she was every morning? Why was there a monster there?

"Where are you hiding, little hunter?" The creeping footsteps stopped for a second. An instant later came an even more chilling sound - lips smacking together. "Your sisters are most delicious. Do excuse me while I go take another bite."

She didn't believe him, terror and a frustrated, clawing rage keeping her locked in position. The giggle came three seconds later.

"Smart little hunter." A deep breath, as if he was drawing in the freshest of air.

Her own nostrils burned with the pungent aroma of a spice for which she had no name, mixed with ginger . . . and a golden, pure light. It nauseated her that this foul creature, this monster, smelled like summer days and a mother's warm embrace. He should smell like rot and pus. It was another affront, another pain to add to the ones he'd already carved across her heart.

Ari. Belle. Gone.

She blocked her sobs with a fist, knowing her sisters would never dance with her across the kitchen floor again. Belle's legs, those beautiful, long legs had been broken until they twisted in a way that was simply impossible. And Ari . . . the monster had nuzzled into the nightmare that was her neck before Elena found the courage to follow her sister's dying command to run. But the blood, the blood would give her away.