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I took a slow, deep breath, but it really didn’t help ease the sense of dread or the sudden desire to just give it all the fuck away. To let fate deal her cards and accept whatever might come my way—be that death at Hunter’s hand or someone else’s.
I was sick of it. Sick of the threats, sick of the fighting, sick of a search that seemed to have no end and no possibility of our winning.
Death is not a solution of any kind, Azriel said, his mind voice sharp.
I looked up from the phone’s screen. He appeared in front of my desk, the heat of his presence playing gently through my being, a sensation as intimate as the caress of fingers against skin. Longing shivered through me.
Reapers, like the Aedh, weren’t actually flesh beings—although they could certainly attain that form whenever they wished—but rather beings made of energy who lived on the gray fields, the area that divided earth from heaven and hell. Or the light and dark portals, as they preferred to call them.
Although I had no idea whether his reaper form would be considered handsome—or even how reapers defined handsome—his human form certainly was. His face was chiseled, almost classical in its beauty, but possessed the hard edge of a man who’d fought many battles. His body held a similar hardness, though his build was more that of an athlete than a weight lifter. Distinctive black tats that resembled the left half of a wing swept around his ribs from underneath his arm, the tips brushing across the left side of his neck.
Only it wasn’t a tat. It was a Dušan—a darker, more stylized brother to the lilac one that resided on my left arm—and had been designed to protect us when we walked the gray fields. We had no idea who’d sent them to us, but Azriel suspected it was my father. He was apparently one of the few left in this world—or the next—who had the power to make them.
Of course, Azriel wasn’t just a reaper, but something far more. He was one of the Mijai, the dark angels who hunted and killed the things that broke free from hell. And they had more than their fair share of work now that the first gate had been opened.
If you ask me, death is looking more and more the perfect solution when it comes to the keys. My mental voice sounded as weary as my physical one. I wasn’t actually telepathic, but that didn’t matter when it came to my reaper. He could hear my thoughts as clearly as the spoken word.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t always a two-way street. Most of the time I heard his thoughts only when it was a deliberate act on his part. If I’m not here to find the damn things, then the world and my friends remain safe.
He crossed his arms, an action that only emphasized the muscles in his arms and shoulders. Death is no solution. Not for you. Not now.
And what the hell is that supposed to mean?
His gaze met mine, his blue eyes—one as vivid and bright as a sapphire, the other as dark as a storm-driven sea—giving little away. It means exactly what it says.
Great. More riddles. Another thing I really needed right now. I returned my attention to Hunter’s deathlike stare. “How did your friend die?”
“He was restrained, then drained.”
“Drained? As in, a vampire-style, all-the-blood-from-the-body draining, or something else?”
She hesitated, and just for a second I saw something close to grief in her eyes. Whoever her friend was, they’d been a lot closer than mere lovers.
“Have you ever seen the husk of a fly after a spider has finished with it?” she said. “That’s what he looked like. There was nothing left but the dried remains of outer skin. Everything else had been sucked away.”
I stared at her for a moment, wondering whether I’d heard her right, then swallowed heavily and said, “Everything? As in, blood, bone—”
“Blood, bone, muscle, intestines, brain. Everything.” Her voice was suddenly fierce. “As I said, all that remained was the shell of hardened outer skin.”
A shudder ran through me. I did not want to meet, let alone chase, something that could do that to a body.
“How can human skin be hardened into a shell? Or the entire innards of a body be sucked away? It had to be one hell of a wound.”
“On the contrary, the wound was quite small—two slashes on either side of his abdomen.” She hesitated. “He did not appear to die in agony. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
er 1
The office phone rang with a sharpness that jolted me instantly awake. I jerked upright, peeled a wayward bit of paper from my nose, and stared at the phone blankly. Then the caller ID registered and I groaned. The call was coming from Madeline Hunter, the bitch who was not only in charge of the Directorate of Other Races, but was a leading member of the high vampire council, too. She was also the very last person in this world—or the next—who I wanted to hear from right now.
Unfortunately, given that she was now my boss, she was not someone I could—or should—ignore.
I hit the vid-phone’s ANSWER button and said in a less-than-polite voice, “What?”
She paused, and something flashed in the green of her eyes. A darkness that spoke of anger. But all she said was, “I have a task for you.”
A curse rose in my throat, but I somehow managed to leash it. “What sort of task?”
But even as I asked the question, I knew. There was only one reason for her to be ringing me, and that was to track down an escapee from hell. She had not only the Directorate at her command, but a stableful of Cazadors—the high council’s elite killing force—and they dealt with all manner of murderers and madmen on an everyday basis.
