The weight on her back was gone the next moment, and she didn’t have to look to know that Venom was dealing with the vampire who’d attacked. She took one glance to make sure he had the upper hand—oh, yeah—before leaving him to it and closing the distance to the door. She could hear the hard, thudding sounds of fighting now, as well as a wave of eerie laughter from within, which meant they’d ambushed Ransom as well.
Her hand tightened on the blade-bow.
“Wait.” Venom’s breath at her ear, his hand on her arm. “Go up, come in through the roof—from the state of this place, it’s probably half rotten anyway.”
That would be a huge advantage but—“Can’t do a vertical takeoff.”
Venom went down on one knee, his eyes preternaturally vivid in the rain, his sunglasses having been lost in the fight. When he cupped his hands, she realized what he intended and slung the blade-bow over her shoulder. “Ready?” She put one foot in his cupped hands, rested her hands on his muscled shoulders. At his nod, she said, “Go.”
He lowered his hands and then he pushed. Vampires were fast and strong, but she’d never have expected the power he put behind his assist. Twisting in midair, she managed to grip the lip of the roof, feeling the metal cut into her palms deep enough that blood gushed warm and thick. But that mattered nothing while Ransom was down there alone.
Using the muscle that made her hunter-born, she managed to get herself over and onto the roof—and though one of her wings complained a little, it didn’t appear broken. It was obvious Venom had been right about the condition of the roof. Knowing Ransom didn’t have much time, she retrieved her bow, then ran across the cracked and rotting structure until she came to a part that caved in, taking her with it.
She allowed herself to fall, spreading out her wings to slow her momentum as she hit the warmer air inside the warehouse. Startled bloodstained faces lifted up to hers, male and female both, red swirling in those eyes. Bloodlust. That confirmed, she didn’t give them any warning, just started firing. The little spinning blades cut through necks, sliced through brains, blew through hearts ... Jesus, she thought. Deacon was good.
Feet hitting the floor with a jarring thump, she yelled, “Ransom!”
“Not dead yet!” came the response from within a tangle of vampires.
That was when she saw the eyes in the walls, the vampires crouching up on ledges, ready to pounce. She turned just in time to take out two behind her. Christ, how many of them were there? Then there was no more time to think—her wings made her so vulnerable on the ground that she couldn’t afford to let them get close. Using the blade-bow one-handedly, she began firing the miniature flamethrower with the other. Not so useful a weapon when in flight, but it did a hell of a job in close combat.
Screams, high and shrill, filled the warehouse as flesh sizzled and charred, the smell nauseatingly akin to a backyard barbeque. And it wasn’t only her and Ransom doing the damage. She glimpsed Venom with the wicked curved knives he liked—where in the blazes had he pulled those from?—slicing off vampiric heads with that reptilian speed that both repelled and fascinated her. Blood fountained as he executed a stacked blonde vampire about to claw at his face, spraying his cinnamon skin with ruby red droplets.
“Ransom, look out!” she yelled as she saw one of the crouchers go for her friend.
Ransom lifted a gun, shot, even as she drilled one of her blades into the vampire’s skull. The male fell, his body twitching as if he was fighting to rise in spite of the fact his brains were leaking down his temples. But, he was damaged enough that they didn’t have to worry about him for a while.
Fingers, slick and cold on the tip of her wing.
No. Her wings were highly sensitive and she hated having them touched by evil. The urge to spin, to act without thought was almost blinding, but she fought it and instead turned Deacon’s blade-bow backward, calculating the location of the vamp from the scent of honey and marigolds so thick in her nose.
A gurgling sound, fingers spasming then slipping away told her she’d hit her mark. Firing the flamethrower at a vamp who was running toward her in a f**king four-legged lope, she fried the petite brunette midjump before swiveling on her heel to turn the flames on the vampire who’d touched her wing ... and who was trying to clamp his bloodstained teeth onto her feathers.
When he met her eyes, he smiled. “She wakes.” It was a near-sibilant whisper, his throat almost destroyed by her blade—and still his eyes, they gleamed with an unholy joy. “She wakes.”
Shaking off the shiver crawling up her spine, Elena said, “Yeah, well, it’s goodnight for you.” With that, she turned the flamethrower on the sucker.
When she swiveled back around, it was to a scene of carnage . . . with only two other people left upright. Ransom held two smoking big-ass guns, one on either side of his body, his legs spread as he stood checking to see if any of the vamps near him still breathed. His face was bloody with claw marks, his black T-shirt almost shredded off him, and his hair, having come loose in the struggle, ran a silky black rain down his back.
By the door near where she’d been attacked stood Venom, blades swiveling in his hands, his suit jacket and tie gone, his white shirt splattered with blood. His hair, for once, wasn’t GQ-perfect. Instead, it tumbled over his forehead, and paired with his feral smile, it turned him shockingly attractive in a very disturbing way.
His eyes, slitted and inhuman, met hers at that moment. “I can’t hear any pulses.”
“We’ll check one by one to be sure,” she said, chest rising and falling in short, sharp breaths like the two men. “This group was far too organized—we don’t want any of them waking up.”
Silently, they did exactly that, covering every inch of the warehouse. “I count fifteen,” Ransom said, when they met in the middle.
“Yeah, that’s what I got,” Venom added. “There’s one outside, too, so sixteen in total.”
Ransom really looked at the other man for the first time, shook his head, stared again. “Holy hell, your eyes are like a f**king viper’s.”
Venom raised an eyebrow. “You have hair prettier than one of Astaad’s concubines.”
Ransom gave the vampire the finger. Venom grinned.
Certain that all was now well in the male world, Elena reached into her pocket and pulled out a spare hair tie, throwing it to Ransom. “I’d say this was impossible if I wasn’t standing in the middle of it. We have what, maybe three rogue vamps in the state in a year?”
“Rogues, yes,” Ransom pointed out, pulling his hair back in that rough way men had of doing. “Bloodlust? We’d get maybe one that was totally whackjob.”
“The Sire keeps a tight control on his vampires,” Venom said, going down on his haunches to wipe off his bloody blades using the shirt of a fallen vamp. “This simply shouldn’t have happened.”
Remembering what that last vampire had said, Elena knew there was a high chance Caliane was behind this, but she kept her mouth shut. Much as it pained her to keep a secret from Ransom and the Guild, she’d agreed to be Raphael’s consort. He had her first loyalty. She wouldn’t betray that trust—more, she wouldn’t share the shreds of information she had when nothing could be done about it.
“We need to ID the vampires,” she said, bending to strap the blade-bow to one thigh and the miniature flamethrower to the other, “notify the authorities.”
“I’ll do the authorities,” Ransom said, pulling out his cell. “They know I was on this track.”
“I know at least two of the vampires from sight,” Venom said, disappearing his blades into the crisscrossing black sheaths on his back that she could see now that he wasn’t wearing his jacket. “Give me a few minutes to see how many others I can ID.”
As Venom did that, Elena went around checking for wallets where they hadn’t been fried by her flames or otherwise destroyed. She ended up finding seven pieces. Venom ID’ed four others from sight, which left them with five unknowns, most of them either charred beyond recognition or missing a face courtesy of Ransom’s gun.
“The angel in charge of this region is on his way with the authorities,” Ransom told them, closing his cell phone. “He’ll take care of the rest of the IDs. Looks like he’s going to need to break out the DNA kit for a few.”
Elena looked toward the hole in the roof where she’d entered the warehouse and found rain still pouring in. “I think we all need a shower.”
The men didn’t say anything as they followed her out of the warehouse and into the torrential downpour. The water around them turned to rust, then a pale orange, then sepia, until finally, it ran clear. Blinking the rain from her eyes, she walked back to the door.
“Ellie.” Ransom’s voice. “Our job is done. We just hold the scene until the cops arrive.”
Elena nodded. “I know, but I want to check their scents. This kind of a mass outbreak . . . for all we know, it could be a mutant virus.”
Of course both men fell into step beside her, though they’d already verified that every single one of the vampires was well and truly dead. Vampires weren’t true immortals. They could be killed not only by other vampires and angels, but also by humans—beheading and fire were the best methods, though removal of the heart also worked if you then cut or, in Ransom’s case, blew off the head to make certain.
Leaving the two men to talk in quiet tones near the doorway, she went from body to body, searching, searching . . .
Dark, lyrical, lush.
There it was again, that haunting, intricate scent beneath the more brash smells of the fallen vampires. She was almost certain she’d scented the same thing when the wind threatened to crash her into the Hudson . . . except something niggled at her, some “off” note she couldn’t quite identify. “Damn.” She knew for certain she’d be tracking down the essence of this particular black orchid as soon as she got back to the city.