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Azriel sheathed Valdis and walked toward me. “How is your back?”
I shrugged. It hurt like a bitch but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it, so there was little point in complaining. And hey, in comparison to what the Raziq had done, it was hardly more than a scratch.
He touched my bleeding chin, studying it for a moment, then motioned me to turn around. I stood my ground. “You can’t heal me, Azriel. Any use of energy might just warn the Rakshasa of our presence.”
“I’m well aware of that.” Though there was little in his expression, his tone was somewhat annoyed. “I merely wish to see how bad the wounds are.”
I grimaced, but turned around. He sucked in a breath, and, a minute later his fingers brushed my spine, the touch light, but nevertheless filled with a heat that sparked something deep inside me.
I shivered and crossed my arms, warding myself against the reaction as much as the instinct to turn around and reach for him.
“These are deep,” he said, “and I’m afraid they will scar.”
The first of many, if I continued to work for Hunter—and it’s not like I had another option. And to be honest, scars were the least of my worries right now.
“Just clean them up the best you can. There’s a medical kit near the sink.”
He walked across to the sink. It was then that I noticed the cuts up both of his arms and a nasty-looking wound that ran the length of his left thigh. It was bleeding quite badly, if the amount of blood gleaming wetly on his dark jeans was any indication.
“Blood loss does not present the same danger to me that it does to you.” He wet one of the towels, then opened the medical kit and pulled out an antiseptic sealer spray.
“Why not? I mean, you can find death in flesh form.”
“Yes, but my life force is energy, not blood. I may bleed, but it does not drain me.” He treated my chin, then said, “Take your shirt off.”
I did so, then turned my back to him, my eyes on the screen as he carefully cleaned the wounds. To say it hurt would be an understatement, but at least the pain gave me something to think about other than what was now happening on the TV. Another whore and customer had come into the room. The woman had to be in her mid-forties, with drawn features and scars littering her body—evidence that suggested a long history of feeding vampires. It was a history about to come to an end. Because the vampire who followed her into the room was long, lean, and vicious-looking.
And there was death in his flat brown eyes.
I rubbed my arms and wished I could stop what was about to happen. I didn’t want to watch it, either, but I forced myself to witness the unfolding brutality on the screen. She deserved acknowledgment of her death, at the very least, and I doubted the vampires would even care, much less give her any sort of funeral. After all, to them she was little more than another piece of meat. Cattle to be used and abused.
Again anger rose, but I thrust it aside and continued to watch the screen. There was nothing pleasant about this feeding, and certainly nothing that remotely resembled pleasure for the woman. The vampire battered her, fed on her, and tore at her, until her body was slick with blood and all that seemed to be holding her upright was the vampire’s brutal grasp. In my head, the keening of the ghosts echoed, getting stronger and more desperate with every sickening blow.
Yet the woman said nothing. Maybe she couldn’t. I wouldn’t put it past Marshall to somehow restrict the vocal capacity of those whores destined to die.
The feeding seemed to last forever, but in reality it took little more than ten minutes. The vampire ended the woman’s torment by driving his teeth into her neck and ripping it open. Blood sprayed across the white walls, and the spark of life in her odd green eyes slowly died as her head lolled back and she stared up at the camera.
And in my head, the ghosts grieved and wept and raged at a world that wasn’t capable of hearing.
Then it happened.
As the vampire sucked the last droplets of life from the woman, three bloody rents appeared on his back, stretching from his left shoulder to his right butt cheek. He snarled in fury and spun, but this foe was not one someone like him could see.
But the ghosts could, and they were screaming for murder, not just blood.
The Rakshasa obviously wasn’t about to change the pattern of her hunt just to appease the ghosts, though, and nothing further happened. After a few minutes of somewhat confused searching, the vampire stepped over the broken body at his feet and left the room.
“The Rakshasa has also left,” Azriel said. “But she waits outside for her victim.”
I frowned as I pulled my shirt back on. “Will she sense us leaving?”
“I do not know how sensitive the Rakshasa is to those of us who guide and guard, so I cannot answer that.”
It was a risk we would have to take if we were to have any chance of killing this thing. I walked over to the panel, found the intercom, and swiped my hand across it. “Marshall? You there?”
He didn’t answer immediately, which suggested he hadn’t been keeping an eye on us—although that didn’t mean the council wasn’t. When he finally came online, his blue eyes were bright and somewhat annoyed. I wondered what we’d interrupted. “What do you want?”
“I want the address of the vamp that’s just left the ghost’s room,” I said without preamble. “The Rakshasa just marked him.”
