“Wait.” Santiago returned moments later with two water bottles as wel as a pack of tissues. “From the squad cars. Medics are on their way.”
Vampires didn’t need medics to heal, but during the regeneration process, their bodies hurt the same as a mortal’s. The paramedics could at least give them drugs, knock them out for a while. “Good.” Dampening a wad of tissue, she cleaned the male’s chest with quick, careful motions as Santiago went to check the other bodies.
Great gouges marked the vampire’s flesh beneath the clotted black of his blood, as if someone had tried to dig through his skin.
A flash of memory, Raphael’s hand punching through a vampire’s sternum to remove his still-beating heart.
“But that,” she muttered, trying to keep things practical, logical, “was a single strike.” Quick, brutal, efficient. This, by contrast, had been done by someone who didn’t have Raphael’s strength—because while the male’s chest looked as if it had been through the shredder, his heart beat safe behind his rib cage.
“They’re al alive.” Santiago sounded shaken. “Christ, it’s like someone fucking clawed this guy.”
That was what Elena was thinking. “The question is, who?”
A strange silence.
Fol owing the detective’s gaze as he came down on his haunches again, the wind flipping his tie over his shoulder, she watched as he put a gloved hand under the victim’s. The vampire’s fingers and nails were encrusted with blood and what might wel have been bits of flesh. “He did it to himself.” A cold far deeper than the winds that buffeted the bridge slid through her veins.
Santiago glanced at the row of bodies Il ium had laid out. “They al did.”
Elena knew from her lessons at the Refuge that very, very few angels had the power to compel a man to savage himself. To kil , yes. But to mutilate and torture? No, that power was reserved for the Cadre ... and the Sleepers who had once been Cadre.
24
Having been away from the city when he received Elena’s cal , Raphael now landed beside the Central Park pond where she stood watching the ducks. “We have been here before.” She’d been mortal then, a hunter he intended to bend to his wil .
No smile on that expressive face; the rustle of the leaves were secret whispers in the air. “I wondered if you’d remember.”
“Tel me what you found.”
Elena glanced around the quiet but not deserted area. “Not here.”
Taking her into his arms, he rose up into the sky. The flight across the Hudson took only minutes, and then he was landing near the house of glass his consort so loved, his gaze on her as she flared out her wings to descend. Your control is improving.
“I’m nowhere near the level I need to be if I’m going to be effective in a hunt.” Tucking her hair behind her ears, she walked into the warm humidity of the greenhouse. “I sensed black orchids. It’s such a unique scent, it’s impossible to mistake.” Touching her fingers to a blush pink bloom, she shook her head.
“The purity of it bothers me for some reason—my perfumes contact is trying to get me a sample so I can figure out why.” Gray eyes solemn with concern met his as he closed the door behind them.
Instinct and experience told him to reject her worry, her care. An archangel did not survive by being weak. He survived by being more lethal than any other. Come here, Elena.
When she shifted to stand bare inches from him, he curved his hand around the back of her neck, rubbing his thumb over her pulse. “Not many know of this particular punishment.” But he did. He’d been there, a young child who’d understood even then that justice had to be served. “My mother did not wish to be a goddess like Lijuan or Neha. Neither did she wish to rule empires like my father.”
Elena’s hair fel in a silken waterfal over his arm as she raised her head so she could watch him as he spoke. She didn’t ask questions, but every part of her stood with him, unflinching against the darkness coming inexorably closer.
“But she was treated as a goddess, and she did rule,” he murmured, “as I rule.” He had learned about ruling from his mother, learned that there was a way to do it that would inspire both respect and awe without the debilitating fear that surrounded so many archangels. “She ruled Sumeria, but there was one particular city she treated as home. It was cal ed Amanat.”
His hunter’s hand came to rest on his waist as lines formed on her brow. “I’ve heard about it. On a TV special about lost cities.”