Archangel's Shadows (Guild Hunter series Book 7)

Cornelius fell forward but his head was whole. Good. He, too, needed to face immortal justice.

Janvier pulled the enemy angel’s body off the woman, while Ashwini checked her for a pulse. She had to use the wrist—the woman’s throat was too bloody a mess.

“Come on,” she whispered, seeing only the most minor signs of long-term damage on the victim—her skin was a touch drier than it should be, the sheen of her dyed hair dulled but not absent. It gave Ashwini hope that they weren’t too late. “Come on.”

Then there it was: a pulse, thready but present.

Hearing boots slamming up the stairs, she ran to the door, saw Trace. “Get the paramedics!”

He nodded and disappeared back down the way he’d come.

The paramedics were in the room a half minute later.

? ? ?

Fourteen hours after that, the city dark, Ashwini leaned against the wall of a large windowless room in the center of the Tower. Janvier stood beside her, one booted foot up against the wall, his arms folded. Elena was next to Ashwini, while Dmitri flanked Janvier. Naasir had growled when told of the capture and said he’d get the report from them. The idea of being closed up with “walking rancid meat” hadn’t appealed to the vampire.

Ashwini wasn’t exactly happy about it, either, but she had to see this through no matter what. Staying strong against the vortex of Raphael’s power was actually giving her a counterbalance to the bile-inducing horror of Cornelius’s evil . . . and Janvier’s shoulder touching her own was a physical anchor.

Raphael stood in the center facing Cornelius—who’d finally healed enough to speak, but not to stand for an extended period. It shouldn’t have taken an angel of his age anywhere near that long to shake off a bullet wound, but Cornelius wasn’t exactly a normal angel anymore. He sat in a chair that was the only piece of furniture in the room, his face wreathed in a grimace of a smile.

Ashwini ground her teeth against the urge to go for a gun again. Marta, the woman they’d rescued, was alive, but the damage done to her was more than skin-deep. Her bones had aged ten years, with her internal organs showing signs of the same. According to the doctors, she’d be fine with supplements, but her life span had been permanently shortened.

All so a monster could live another day.

“Cornelius,” Raphael said, his wings glowing in a way that no one ever wanted to see, because when an archangel glowed, people died. “You are not as you were.”

“My goddess gave me a gift.”

“She fed from you because you were disposable and strong.” A pitiless rejoinder. “My spymaster has confirmed that Xi retreated with the troops, as did Alastair and Philomena. Their injuries and the deaths of Lijuan’s other generals came at the hands of my people, not from Lijuan.”

Cornelius’s smile didn’t slip. “I offered myself to enhance her greatness, to become part of her.” He broke off into a rattling cough. “Alas, she could not complete the feeding in the midst of the final strike, could not take the fullness of my soul into herself.”

That explained Cornelius’s half-desiccated state.

“And the women?” Raphael asked in an ice-cold tone that had Ashwini’s heart freezing. As long as she lived, she would never understand how Ellie got into bed with him. Even more so now that Ashwini had personally experienced the shattering vulnerability that came with sex.

Janvier shot her a look at that instant, his eyes glittering, and it was as if he’d read her mind. She scowled. He grinned and closed his hand over her own. “I could tear off your head with a single wrench,” he said in a low tone that reached only her.

“Stop reading my thoughts.” She wasn’t worried in the least about his strength. If he’d wanted to hurt her, he’d have done it long ago. Instead, he’d put himself in the path of danger for her more than once.

Frowning, Janvier said, “But you spoke aloud.”

She blinked, leaned in to speak against his ear. “No, I didn’t.”

They stared at each other.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she finally whispered and they returned their attention to the interrogation.

Cornelius admitted to using the women to maintain his strength as he awaited his “goddess’s return,” but refused to admit he’d fed on animals before he tracked down Giorgio.

“Saving face,” Dmitri murmured. “To feed on animals makes him an animal himself.”

“What did animals ever do to you that you’d insult them like that?”

Ashwini’s muttered rejoinder made Dmitri’s lips curve. “My apologies. You are, of course, correct. He is an unnatural abomination.”

“What will Raphael do to him?” she asked.

“He’ll ask the surviving victims their will and then he’ll make sure it’s carried out, on both Cornelius and Giorgio.”