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I studied him for a moment, wishing I could comfort him but not exactly sure he would welcome it. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be,” he interrupted. “This atrocity was not of your doing.”
No, but I was the reason he was here to witness it. I sighed. “I’m gathering the Rakshasa didn’t appear?”
“No. But Hunter is right—it is still in its feeding stage. It will appear sooner or later.”
Great, except I didn’t have much of a later, thanks to the council threatening to kill me if I didn’t catch this thing within the next seventy-two hours. And six of those hours had already slipped by. “What will we do if it doesn’t appear tomorrow night?”
“I don’t know.” He hesitated. “But the council will not kill you. I will ensure that.”
I smiled. “Because you need me alive to find the keys, right?”
I said it teasingly, but his only response was a flash of annoyance. He pushed away from the wall and said sharply, “Marshall comes.”
“Azriel—”
The door opened before I was entirely sure what I’d been about to say. Marshall appeared, smelling and looking a whole lot fresher than I did. “I take it our Rakshasa did not make an appearance?”
He said it testily, as if it were our fault. “If it had,” I retorted, standing up, “we wouldn’t still be fucking here.”
His eyebrows rose at my tone. “My, my, a little irritable this morning, aren’t we?”
“I’m stiff, sore, and tired, and I just want to get out of this house of horrors before I’m tempted to violence.”
Amusement touched his thin lips. “That would not be wise in this place. Not if you wish to leave it alive.”
“Marshall, you have no idea just what I’m capable of. Now, can we cut this dance and just get out of here?”
His gaze skimmed me before it slipped to Azriel. He might not be worried about me, but the same could not be said when it came to my reaper. He shrugged and said, “This way.”
The smell of antiseptic was stronger out in the main room, but it wasn’t fully cleaned. I tried to ignore the broken bits of humanity that still lay scattered about the floor, but I could hardly ignore the stench of blood and the horrified moaning of the ghosts. Not when I was forced to walk through them. It was a wall of misery and fierce anger, and it cloaked me like a shroud, suffocating me.
Somehow, I controlled the urge to run. Somehow, I got out of that hellhole without giving in to the desire to draw Amaya and shed some blood and body parts myself.
I glanced at my watch when we got to the street above. It was barely six, far too early to go get those tickets from Mike.
“I think I’ll go back to the hotel and grab a shower, and then I’ll need to shop for tonight.” I glanced at Azriel. “Do you need to visit Jak to assume his identity?”
“Yes.” His expression was back to giving little away. “But I can do that later, once you are safely back at the hotel.”
I nodded and dragged out my phone to call a cab. Amazingly, it arrived within a couple of minutes and in no time at all I was back at the hotel and washing the stink of death from my body.
The rest of the day went by quickly. I shopped for clothes and shoes, purchasing not only items for the gala, but enough to see me through several more days. Then I bought a new cell phone and headed to Mike’s to grab the tickets. He wasn’t in, so the stay wasn’t long. I rang Jak on the way back to the hotel.
“Okay, I have the tickets in hand,” I said.
“Good.” He hesitated. “I did a little more research on Mr. Elusive. It appears the real Nadler was married fifteen years ago. It only lasted a couple of months, but she might be the one person who can give us some decent information.”
“Meaning she’s still alive?”
“Surprisingly, yes. Obviously, if we are dealing with a face-shifter, then he either didn’t know about her or didn’t think she was enough of a threat to his takeover of Nadler’s life.”
“So she may not be able to tell us much.”
He snorted softly. “Are you kidding me? You’re a prime example of just how well you women can hold a grudge against a lover who has spurned you in some way.”
“If I was holding a grudge, I wouldn’t have come to you in the first place.”
