Shoving away from the computer console, she strode out. "Hurry up." The door snapped shut behind her.
Sliding down to sit with her back against it, she didn't stop to consider that Ransom might also be in danger. She wasn't used to thinking of him as vulnerable. She wouldn't have worried so much about Sara either, before the baby. Not only could Sara take care of herself, but her husband, Deacon, was a lethal son of a bitch. But God, Zoe was so little.
The door slid open behind her. "Sara wants to talk to you." Vivek sounded peevish.
She walked in to find him sulking in the blackout booth, which meant Sara didn't want him listening in. Elena winced. When Vivek sulked, life in the Cellars got very uncomfortable-bone-melting temperature changes, odd smells in the air, food that tasted like sawdust. Once, she'd had to spend a whole torturous month down here after Vivek had had a fight with Sara. Talk about a shit storm. But Vivek's moods were nothing, not when Sara's life was on the line.
Elena picked up the old-fashioned phone. It was so old it was hackerproof. "Sara, you need to get down here with your family."
"The Guild Director doesn't turn tail and hide." Sara's tone was hard, revealing the steel backbone that had given her the strength to hold her position in a profession overrun with testosterone.
"Don't be an idiot!" Elena clenched her hand hard enough that her nails left half-moon crescents on her palms. "Dmitri isn't some baby vamp. He's Raphael's head of security!"
"And that's something else we need to discuss-just how big a 'disagreement' did you and Raphael have?"
Her soul chilled. "Why?"
"Because I came back to my office to find a new message waiting-he's looking for you, Ellie."
"I'll talk-"
"You're going nowhere near him," Sara snapped. "You didn't hear the message. If a naked blade could speak, that's what it would sound like."
Elena cursed under her breath. What the hell had happened between her leaving the Tower and the message? He'd let her go without a fight. So why was he hunting her now? "Are you sure he's that angry?"
"Angry isn't the word I'd use. Lethal would fit better." There was real concern in Sara's voice. "What did you do to piss off an archangel?"
Loyalty warred with the inexplicable need she had to keep what had happened in the office, private. "I hit him."
A long, indrawn breath. "You hit an archangel?"
She recalled the sense of danger that had blasted off him like heat radiation. "It was his own fault, so if he stops to think about it, he'll calm down."
"Archangels aren't exactly good at saying sorry." Sarcasm dripped from every syllable. "It doesn't matter what he did, you'll have to grovel or he'll grind you to dust."
"I won't grovel." Not for anyone. "You know that."
"Of course I know that, you moron. I was making a point."
"The point being that I'm dead meat." Because she wouldn't apologize to that bastard. Not even to save her own life.
"Pretty much."
"That proves my point."
"Which is?"
"That you need to get Zoe and Deacon to a safe house. If Raphael's gunning for me, he'll come after you and yours to get my location." She paused, swallowed bile. Her life was one thing, but . . . "I won't let my pride put your family in danger. I'll call him and-"
"Shut up." Quiet words. Furious words. "I'll get Zoe out of the city. Deacon and I can look after ourselves."
"Sara, I'm sorry."
"You really f*cking think I'd let you barter your soul so easily?" She hung up.
Elena felt like shit, but knew her best friend would forgive her. And Sara angry meant Sara in action. About to return the receiver to the cradle, she hesitated. A swift glance showed that Vivek had pointedly turned his back to her. Taking the chance, she pressed the cutoff button, then quickly dialed an outside line. "Hurry up," she muttered under her breath as the phone rang and rang on the other end.
"Beth Deveraux-Ling speaking."
At the sound of that familiar voice, moisture threatened to film Elena's vision. She cut it off with the ruthless ease of practice. "Beth, it's Elena."
"Why do you keep using that name?" Beth asked and Elena could almost see her frown. "You know Daddy prefers you use your full name, or Nell if you must shorten it."
"Beth, I don't have time for this. Is Harrison there?"
"Harry doesn't like talking to you." Her voice lowered. "I don't even know why I do-you turned my husband over to an angel."
"You know why," Elena reminded her. "If I hadn't brought him in, the next hunter would've had orders to execute him. Angels don't like losing their property."
"He's not property!" Beth sounded close to tears.
Elena rubbed at her temples with her fingers. "Please, Bethie, get Harrison. This is important." Her sister was high-strung at the best of times, and quite incredibly spoiled to boot. "He'll want to know."
A stubborn pause before Beth finally folded. Elena waited for several seconds, eyes trained on Vivek's back. He'd know she'd made an outside call the second he exited the cubicle but she had to do this. And there was no danger to the Guild-even if someone traced the call, it was set up to come back to a dummy account.
"Elena?"
She snapped to attention. "Harry, look, I need-"
"You need to listen," Harry interrupted.
"I don't have time for your-"
"I'm trying to help you." It was a sharp reproof. "I don't know why-maybe I don't want to be known as the brother-in-law of the hunter who was found spitted on a stick in Times Square! I can't believe you managed to insult someone of Dmitri's stature."
Elena froze. "You know?"
"Of course I know. Dmitri's the most senior vampire in the area and I report directly to him unless my master wants a face-to-face." His voice turned bitter. "I've been having quite a lot of chats with Andreas since you ended my hope of escape."
"Damn it, Harry, you signed a contract. In blood!"
"I wouldn't expect you to understand family loyalty," he said, slicing right through her heart. "But I suspect your life is important to you."
"I called to warn you," she gritted out, refusing to let her twerp of a brother-in-law hurt her. "You might be a vampire, but Beth is mortal."
"Not for long. We've petitioned for her to be Made."
Elena's soul went ice-cold. "You are not dragging her into that world. Does she have any idea of what she's signing on for or did you tell her it was all roses and fairy tales?"
"Oh, believe me, Elieanora, we know it's not perfection but it is immortality. And not that you'd have any comprehension of the concept, but I love Beth-I don't want to spend eternity without her."
That halted Elena, because, all his faults aside, Harrison Ling did actually seem to love his wife. "Look, Harry, we can fight about this later-hide from Dmitri until this blows over."
"Why should I hide?"
"He'll try to get my location out of you."
"He already asked and I told him I didn't have a clue," Harry replied. "Since he appears to know precisely how close you are to your family, he believed me."
"Just like that." Elena frowned. "No strong-arm tactics?"
"Of course not. We're civilized beings."
Elena's mind rebutted that with a memory of Dmitri's smile as his neck spurted blood. "Fine," she muttered. "As long as you're safe."
"Where are you?"
Every one of her instincts screamed in warning. "You don't need to know."
"Turn yourself in," he urged. "That's what I meant about your life-if you give yourself up, Dmitri might be swayed toward leniency. It'd also make our life easier if I brought you to him. Beth agrees with me."
That was all she was to him and Beth, Elena thought, refusing to consider the crushing hurt in her chest-a convenient way to curry favor. "Since when did you become Dmitri's pimp, Harry?"
The sharp hiss of an indrawn breath. "Fine, get yourself killed. Did I mention that Dmitri's looking for you on behalf of his sire?"
"What?"
"Word is that Raphael's gone cold."
Elena didn't know what that meant, but Harry's tone made it clear it wasn't anything good. "Thanks for the warning."
"It's more than you gave me."
Vivek began to bring his chair around.
"Gotta go." She hung up in the nick of time.
Exiting the blackout booth, Vivek headed immediately to his computers. She expected an explosion when he detected the unauthorized call, but he just sighed and shook his head before turning his chair to face her. "Why do you even bother, Ellie?"
That shook her, far more than anything else he could've done. Her legs folded and she collapsed into a chair. "They're family."
"They rejected you because you didn't fit the mold." His mouth twisted. "Believe me, I know all about that."
"I know, Vivek." His family had institutionalized him after the accident. "But I can't leave Beth vulnerable when there's a chance I can protect her."
"You know she'd hang you out to dry if it ever came to it?" His tone was as bitter as darkest coffee. "She's married to a vampire-he comes first."
Elena couldn't disagree, not with Harrison's words still ringing in her ears. Her family wanted to turn her in to a high-level vampire. Forget about what that vampire-and more importantly, his sire-might do to her. "That's who they are," she whispered, "but that's not who I am."
"Why not?" Vivek shifted his chair back around to face the computer. "Why bother? It's not like they'll ever love you."
Elena had no answer to that, so she left. But the words burrowed into her skull, and dug in. Painful. Clawing.
"Hey, Ellie!"
She jerked up her head to see another hunter lounging in the doorway to one of the sleep rooms. Tall, slender, with long, straight black hair and snapping brown eyes, Ashwini was one hell of a tracker. She was also all kinds of crazy. Which was why Elena liked her. "Hey, yourself," she said, glad for the chance to get her mind off things, if only for a few minutes. "I thought you were in Europe."
"Was. Got back a couple of days ago."
"You were already in the country when you called Sara?" God, had that been only yesterday?
Ashwini nodded. "Hunt took an unexpected turn."
"Yeah?" she said, forcing her thoughts back to the here and now.
"Damn Cajun."
"Uh-oh."
"I finally get within a block of him and all of a sudden, he's come to an 'understanding' with the angel who put out the track." Her eyes narrowed. "One of these days, I'm going to turn him into gator-bait."
Elena grinned. "Then where would the rest of us get our entertainment?"
"F*ck you." Said with a grin before she yawned, lifted up her arms, and stretched, sinuous as a cat. "I like sleeping down here."
"What, you like the ambience?" She rolled her eyes. "How was Europe anyway?"
"Sucked. I was in Uram's territory."
Elena's nape pricked. This wasn't coincidence-Ash was a little bit spooky in her prescience. "How's the situation there?"
The other hunter shrugged, the movement lithe and unconsciously graceful. According to the Guild rumor mill, she'd been a trained dancer with a prestigious company before deciding to take up hunting. Ransom had once asked her to perform. It had taken two weeks for his black eyes to fade.
"Uram's fallen off the grid," she now said. "The locals are scared of their own shadows-they think he's spying on them."
Elena caught the glint in the other hunter's eye. "But you don't think so?"
"Something's hinky. No one's seen his assistant, Robert Syles, for a while either. And Bobby likes the TV cameras." Ashwini shrugged. "My guess is that they're doing some hunting of their own. Maybe angels. We'll hear about it soon enough." Another yawn.
"You'd better get back to sleep."
"Nah, I'm all recharged now. But I do have to shower-got to head out again in an hour." She turned. "Oh, hey, El, one other thing I picked up-seems like they found more than a few decapitated bodies around the time Uram went AWOL. It looks like the poor buggers were his servants. Must've been some temper tantrum. Lucky we don't have to hunt these bastards."
Elena nodded, feeling weak. "Yeah, lucky."
Raphael stood outside the nondescript little house in a suburb of New Jersey, silently applauding the Guild Director's cleverness. The woman had left her beautifully restored brownstone for this little wooden house surrounded by a hundred other such houses. Her home looked utterly ordinary except that he knew it was a fortress. He also knew that the director and her husband, both extremely experienced hunters, were taking turns at keeping an eye out for vampires, weapons close at hand.
Of course, to shoot, they had to see. And he was simply not there to their senses-he'd wrapped the glamour around himself the second he dived off the balcony of his penthouse suite and into the fading light of Manhattan, his power almost completely restored. True darkness had fallen during his flight and now he looked through windows that shimmered gold.
Light. Warmth. Illusion.
The seemingly ordinary surburban yard in front of him was set with sensors, likely connected to booby traps that could be set off from inside the house. Raphael guessed there was a basement leading to a hidden exit-no hunter would ever allow her family to be trapped.
If he hadn't been in the Quiet, he might've been impressed. The security was brilliant, would hold perfectly well against a high-level vampire, though probably not Dmitri. He was far too experienced. But even Dmitri would have had to dodge the weapons. Raphael, on the other hand, didn't even have to step foot inside the house.
But you should, a primeval, reptilian part of his mind whispered, you should teach them a lesson, teach them that no one stands against an archangel and comes out the winner.
He considered the instruction with the chill reason of his current emotional state and disregarded it. The Guild Director was intelligent and good at her job. It made no sense for Raphael to kill her-such an action would throw the Guild into chaos, during which a considerable number of dissatisfied vampires would try to escape from their masters. Some might even succeed because the hunters would be too broken up by the death of their director to be effective. Humans were so weak.
None of yours will escape, that voice whispered again, a voice he only ever heard during the Quiet. They wouldn't dare. Nobody disobeys you, not after we made an example out of Germaine.
Germaine was now somewhere in Texas, but the vampire had never forgotten his hours in Times Square and he never would. They were branded into his memories, pain such as no one should survive. Raphael remembered taking care of Germaine during another time of Quiet. After the Quiet, he recalled that he'd been dissatisfied with what he'd done. Accessing his memories, he found that he'd felt . . . remorse. He'd gone too far.
What a ridiculous idea. What a ridiculous emotion. He was an archangel. Germaine had dared attempt a betrayal. His punishment had been just. As would the Guild Director's be if she stood in Raphael's way.
Kill her child, the voice murmured. Kill her child in front of her. In front of Elena.
An alarm blared next to Elena's bed, jerking her out of a fitful sleep. Already fully dressed, she got up and started running. Vivek was waiting for her, his door open. "Hurry! On the phone! Sara!"
Vaulting over his wheelchair when it got in her way, she picked up the receiver. "Sara?" Fear was a vile taste on her tongue, sharp and pungent.
"Run, Ellie," Sara whispered and there were tears in her voice. "Run!"
Ice turned her limbs useless. She stood there. "Zoe?"
"She's fine," Sara sobbed. "She wasn't here. Oh, God, Ellie. He knows where you are."
Not for a moment did Elena think Sara was talking about Dmitri. No vampire, however powerful, would reduce her friend to this. "How? What did he do to you?" Her fingers clenched on a knife handle and only then did she realize she'd drawn it.
"How?" Hysterical laughter cut off midstream. "I told him."
The shock immobilized her. "Sara?" If Sara had betrayed her, then she had nothing left.
"Oh, Ellie, he flew to the window and looked at me, told me to open it. I didn't even hesitate!" It was almost a scream. "Then he just asked me where you were and I answered. I answered! Why, Ellie? Why would I answer?"
Elena's breath rushed out of her. Trembling with relief, she put out a hand to brace herself against Vivek's computer panel. "It's okay, Sara."
"It's not f*cking okay! I ratted out my best friend! Don't you dare tell me it's okay!"
"Mind control," Elena said before Sara could really get into her tirade. "He plays with us like toys." He'd certainly played with her-her body, her emotions. "There was nothing you could've done."
"But I'm immune," Sara said. "I'm Guild Director partly because I have a natural immunity to vampire tricks, like Hilda."
"He's not a vampire," Elena reminded her distraught friend. "He's an archangel."
A deep, shaky indrawn breath. "Ellie, there was something seriously wrong with him tonight."
Elena frowned. "What do you mean? Did he do anything . . . evil?" She had to force out the word. Some stupid, deluded part of her didn't want to believe that Raphael could be evil.
"No-he didn't even mention Zoe or threaten her in any way. But then he didn't need to, did he? He could twist my mind like a pretzel."
"If it's any consolation," she said, remembering Erik's animal stare, Bernal's terrified compliance, "he can apparently do that to vampires as well."
A sniff. "Well, at least the bloodsuckers don't have anything on me. You have to get the hell out. He's on his way to you now and in his current mood, he might just destroy the Guild to get to you. He knows all the codes-I gave them to him." Another short scream. "Okay, I'm calm now. I told Vivek to change the codes but I don't think that'll stop Raphael. He wants you."
"I'm outa here. And I'll leave a message making sure he knows I'm in the wind so he doesn't come after Vivek."
"Go to the Blue safe house."
Blue was an unmarked delivery truck that would blend seamlessly into traffic, effectively disappearing the driver. "I will," Elena lied. "Thanks."
"What the hell for?" Sara spit out. "But I can give you this-he wasn't acting normal. I've spoken to him on the phone and you know how good I am with voices. It was different-flat, toneless . . . cold. Not angry, not anything, just cold."
Why did everyone keep using that word? Raphael was many things, but he'd never struck her as cold. However, she didn't have time to ask for details. "I'm heading out now. I'll check in when I can. And don't worry-no matter what, he won't kill me. He needs me to finish the job." She hung up before Sara could realize there were worse things than death. Some of them involved screaming and screaming and screaming until your voice broke.
"New codes." A piece of paper rested in the printer tray. "Use them to get out-I'll change them again the instant you exit the elevator."
She nodded. "Thanks, Vivek."
"Wait." He zipped his chair off to a small locker in the corner. She didn't know what he did, but the locker suddenly swung up. "Take that."
Elena picked up the small, sleek gun. "Won't do much good against an archangel but thanks anyway."
"Don't shoot his body," he told her. "Those rounds are meant to shred an angel's wings."
No! The idea of destroying the incredible beauty of those wings caused an almost physical pain in her heart. "They grow back, heal," she forced herself to say.
"Takes time. And we've been keeping records-it takes an angel longer to heal his wings than anything else. It'll cripple him long enough that you can get out of a tight spot. Unless . . ." Fear spiked his tone. "I heard what you said about mind control. If he can do that from a distance, I don't know if anything will help."
She tucked the gun into the back of her pants after making sure the safety was on. "He's not controlling me now, so there's a limit to his abilities." At least she hoped so. "I don't think he'll come down once he knows I'm gone but you need to be safe. Has Ashwini left?"
"Yes, and nobody else was down here." His eyes were scared but resolute. "I'll lock up behind you, then bunk down." He nodded at the entrance to the secret room hidden behind a wall. He could survive in there for days. "Be safe, Ellie. We need to finish our game."
Bending, she gave him an impulsive hug. "I'll beat your skinny ass when I come back." Now it was time to keep herself alive . . . and whole. Because there were lots of body parts a hunter didn't need in order to successfully track prey.
Raphael stood in front of the elevator he'd been told would transport him to the Cellars. But it appeared he had no need to go down below. His quarry had been flushed out.
The message was pinned to the side of the elevator doors, held up by a nail that had been driven in with enough force that concrete dust littered the ground.
You want to play, angel boy? Then let's play. Find me.
It was a challenge, clear and simple. A foolish thing for the hunter to do. In the Quiet, he couldn't be enraged, but he understood strategy very well. She wanted to draw him away from the Guild and her friends.
He considered that. That primeval part of him whispered, Will you let her lead you around on a leash? She insults you.
He ripped the note off the wall. "Angel boy," he read out loud, crumpling the paper in his hand. Yes, she needed to learn some respect. When he found her, she was going to beg for mercy.
I don't want her to beg.
The echo of his own words stopped him for several long seconds. He remembered that he was intrigued by the hunter's fire, that she relieved the boredom of centuries. Even in the Quiet, he understood the decision not to harm her. To prematurely break a new toy, one that promised such pleasure, was a foolish act. But there were ways to ensure respect without fully destroying the object of his search.
The Guild could wait. First, he had to teach Elena Deveraux not to play games with an archangel.
Elena drove to the Blue safe house through the streets with grim purpose. She wasn't going to hide-that would simply lead to more problems for those she cared about. She had every certainty that Raphael would go after them one by one until he found her. So she did the only thing she could to keep them all safe.
She went home.
And waited, gun in hand.
Raphael stood outside an apartment building, and even in the Quiet, he knew that he was dangerous. If Elena was inside those walls, then blood would spill. There was no room for flexibility in his mind. This was one place where he would not accept or permit her presence.
Wrapping the glamour around himself once more, he entered the apartment through the front door, breaking the dual deadlocks without effort.
Voices from the other room. Male and female.
"Come on, baby, just-"
"I'm through listening to you!"
"I admit I was an idio-"
"A giant, pigheaded imbecile would be more like it."
"F*ck this!"
The sound of rustling, then jagged breaths. Hot, deeply sexual.
Raphael entered the bedroom and pinned Ransom to the wall with a single hand around his throat before the hunter could say a word. But Ransom reacted fast, snapping out with his legs and screaming, "Get out, Nyree! Run, baby!"
Nyree?