Archangel's Heart (Guild Hunter 9)

The door cracked open in smooth silence.

So did Elena’s mouth. “Care to explain?”

“My mother has been around a long time,” he said, returning the knife to her. “I asked her if she’d seen such invisible doors before, with no indentations that could be pressure sensors.” Now we go silent.

Thank your mom for me.

Already done, Elena-mine.

And funny how you’re in the front all of a sudden.

A small smile over his shoulder but, to her surprise, he turned to back himself up against the wall. She squeezed past—and stole a kiss on the way. Thank you. For understanding that she needed to confront this evil head-on.

This is important to you.

Yes. Elena couldn’t tell him why it was so important—maybe because it was near certain that underneath Lumia lay the bones of her grandmother and grandfather. In a strange way, it was a connection to her mother, a chance for Elena to fight another piece of the evil that had destroyed Marguerite’s life.

This passageway was clean enough, but nowhere near as pristine as the other section. Cobwebs hung in the corners and the footprints on the floor had been created in new dust that sat over old, pressed-in dust. Only one set going and coming from what I can see. She bent down to examine the prints more closely. Soft shoes with boot soles like what so many of the Luminata wear. Large-ish but not huge.

Getting up, she followed the footsteps—not that there were any side passages to misdirect or distract her. The deeper they went, the less “finished” the passageway became. Exposed beams, the floor going from stone to wood that was rotten in places and had been inexpertly replaced in other areas. As if someone just patched up the holes when they got too bad.

The person who comes here, Raphael said, does not permit anyone else within, even to do cleanup and repairs.

Elena nodded as the passage began to slope downhill. Whoever he has trapped down here, he must’ve brought that person in long enough ago that the footprints have faded or been stood over.

Or he may have carried in his victim, Raphael replied.

And, Elena thought, it was possible that victim had been unconscious at the time, that they’d fought their captor and lost. I really want to kill someone today.

People will die. Raphael’s words were a chilly promise.

The temperature around them also dropped the deeper they went, until her breath was coming in bursts that seemed like they should be white. From the freshness of the air, it was clearly coming in from somewhere outside; she couldn’t see ventilation shafts, however. That didn’t mean they didn’t exist. As Raphael had just demonstrated with the “invisible” door, angels had been around a long time, had a number of tricks up their sleeves.

Cave system nearby? she asked Raphael. Natural ventilation channels through stone?

I know of none in this area, but it’s possible they exist. Or it’s possible a large pipe has been bored through to the surface some distance from Lumia, and hidden in the vegetation.

They’ve certainly got the privacy and time to do something like that. It’s not like anyone polices them.

That will change. If the Luminata even exist after today.

A harsh pleasure mixing with the anger inside her, Elena suddenly frowned. Where are they burying the bodies? I thought it’d be through this door, but if only one person is allowed here, that’s not likely.

Raphael took too long to reply. When he did, she realized why.

41

The pavings on which we landed after flying down the shaft aren’t sunken into the earth as they should be after hundreds of years of angelic landings. They’re being lifted up on a regular basis.

Gut churning, Elena fought back her horror. We walked over the victims.

We came with clean hearts. Raphael ran his hand down her back. The ones who did this, however, chose that location because it is a final insult. Whatever happens, the insult ends tonight.

Elena went to reply, paused midstep without consciously understanding why, hunkered down . . . and realized she could see. The lights came all the way through here, though they weren’t the seamlessly integrated ones she’d seen in the earlier section. These were lightbulbs strung along the side of the passageway, the burned-out ones creating pools of shadow. It was a glimmer of white in one of those shadows that had attracted her attention: a feather.

Picking it up, she passed it back to Raphael.

Many angels have feathers of pure white, even if there are other shades mingled in with the white.

Yes, not exactly a smoking gun. Elena had no white feathers in her wings, but Raphael had the odd few that had no metallic filaments of white gold. Caliane’s were the purest white Elena had ever seen, and even Favashi had the odd downy white feather scattered among the sleek ivory of her wings.

Gian, of course, had a lot of white feathers in his wings. But despite the fact Gervais was his best bud, she couldn’t assume it was Gian she’d be facing at the end of this journey. If he had been obsessed with her grandmother to the point of writing her love poetry, it didn’t make sense to Elena that he’d switch so quickly—in immortal terms—to someone else.

Then again, maybe he was a psychopath who fixated on mortal after mortal. Feather’s not dusty, though, which means he passed through very recently.

And, Raphael reminded her, he hasn’t come back.

Elena looked at her crossbow, assessed the increasingly narrow passage, and decided she needed a close combat weapon that wouldn’t pose a risk to innocent bystanders. Strapping on the crossbow, she dropped a knife into her hand. Let’s go get the bastard.