Deep in the heart of Manhattan, Raphael snapped the neck of a bloodlust-ridden vampire after blazing through his mind to take what he needed to know. That information proved both sickening and . . . sad. Some would have said the Archangel of New York had no mercy in him, but he didn’t enjoy the waste of life. Most of these vampires had gone mad beyond any hope of recovery.
An insane vampire could not be allowed to continue to live, because driven by the urge to consume blood far beyond that which was necessary for life, that vampire would kill hundreds of innocents. “Under five decades old,” he said to Dmitri as the leader of his Seven came to stand beside him after dispatching his own prey. Around them, the city lay wrapped in a cloak of fear and danger, the lights in the high-rises fragile bulwarks against the dark that had fallen an hour earlier.
“Mine, too,” Dmitri replied, the edge of his long black coat lifting slightly in the breeze. “Venom just sent me a message—all the ones he recognized in Boston were young. No one over six decades old.”
“She is not yet conscious in truth, her strength weak,” Raphael said. “Yet she can do this.” Cause carnage on a scale unseen for centuries, turning formerly sane vampires into killing machines.
“Sire . . . Aodhan and Naasir, how close are they to finding her?”
Raphael looked up at the sliver of moon visible in the cloud-heavy sky. “My mother,” he said to one of the very few men he trusted, “was intelligent even in her final madness. She has not been found for over a thousand revolutions of the earth around the sun. Even if we do manage that, it will be no easy task to contain her.” But he must attempt it.
For she lived because he had failed.
“Shh, my darling, shh.”
The final words she’d spoken to him as she walked away, her delicate feet getting ever smaller as she almost danced over the dew-laden grass. Dew glimmering with droplets of crimson, a sudden burst of color that had sprayed the meadow when he fell from so high; his wings crumpled, his body hitting the earth at a velocity that had torn off parts, left his mouth overflowing with blood, his ribs crushed into his heart and lungs, the leg that had remained attached to his body smashed into at least fifteen different fragments.
As he’d lain there, vulnerable in a way he hadn’t been since childhood, she’d crouched down beside him, her fingers gentle and maternal as she pushed back blood-soaked strands of his hair.
“Oh, my poor darling. My poor Raphael. It hurts now, but it had to be done.” Her blue, blue eyes awash in tenderness. “You will not die, Raphael. You cannot die. You are immortal.” A kiss on his broken cheekbone, light as a butterfly. “You are the son of two archangels.”
He said nothing, couldn’t speak, his throat crushed. But she understood what was in his eyes—immortals could die. He’d watched his father die. At his mother’s hand.
“He had to die, my love. If he had not, hell would have reigned on earth.” A slow smile when he continued to stare up at her, saying a thousand things even in his silence. “And so must I—that is why you came to kill me, is it not?” Laughter, soft and full of a mother’s delight in her son. “You can’t kill me, my sweet Raphael. Only another of the Cadre of Ten can destroy an archangel. And they will never find me.”
Her feet moving light and graceful across the grass, the soles of her feet tinged with the red of his lifeblood. Angel-dust trailing from her wings, sparkling and glittering with a purity that mocked.
“Come, Dmitri,” he said, shoving the memories back into the shadows where they had remained for most of his adult life. “We must continue.” Not since he’d first taken the city as his own had he had to help run such a patrol—he was an archangel, his focus on larger matters.
But today, as evening turned to night, he needed to fly, to sweep across his city and clear it of the evil that Caliane had unleashed. His mother would not take his territory. And he would not fail again—even if it meant killing the woman who had once cradled him in her arms with such infinite love that the echo of it haunted him even now.
17
Elena and Venom helped Ransom sweep the rain-slick streets of Boston after the authorities cleared them to leave the warehouse site. They found only one other vampire—but he was so deep in bloodlust he didn’t even look up from nuzzling his victim’s mutilated neck when Ransom walked up behind him. His head rolled off his neck an instant later, spraying Ransom with blood once again.
“Fuck,” he muttered tiredly as the drizzle soaked the blood farther into his clothing, no longer strong enough to wash him clean. “Call the cops.” He threw her his phone, and she redialed the number he’d used earlier.
That done, she sat down on the steps of one of the gracious old homes that lined this quiet stretch. All of them were now locked, lights blazing through every window. The word had apparently gone out in the media about a surge of bloodlust-ridden vamps, and anyone with a brain had hunkered down to wait out the violence.
To her surprise, Venom sat down beside her, leaving enough of a gap between them that he wouldn’t brush her wings by accident. She was sure it wasn’t a courtesy directed at her, but habit, given how much time he spent around angels. Still, she was grateful.
From Ransom, she’d accept that kind of contact. But Venom? They might work together, and he’d proven he had a heart behind those disturbing eyes when he’d put his life on the line to protect the children in the Medica not long ago, but when it came to her, he held far less charitable views. “Pity about your suit,” she said, glancing at the rolled-up sleeves of his bloodstained white shirt.
“It was one of my favorites.” Slitted green eyes looking directly at her.
But she’d learned her lesson. She shifted her gaze forward to Ransom. Venom’s laugh was soft, taunting, but she didn’t fall for the bait. If he entranced her, she’d be easy prey—and she wasn’t sure the creature that lived in Venom would be able to resist taking advantage. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You can ask.” He leaned back with his elbows on the step behind him as they watched Ransom check the victim and her killer for ID.
“Those eyes,” she said, “how long did they take to develop after you were Made?” Every vampire had once been human, even Venom.
A rippling shrug that made her aware of the fluid, muscular grace that lurked beneath those fancy suits he liked to wear. “Jury’s out on that. Neha says it began the moment of my Making, that she glimpsed the pupils start to change shape.”
Every hair on Elena’s body stood up straight at the sound of that name. The Archangel of India had never been Miss Con-geniality, but as the murders of Celia and Betsy evidenced, she was now one scary nightmare intent only on vengeance for the death of her daughter. “You don’t agree?” she asked, shaking off the reaction.
Venom looked up at the cloudy night sky, fine droplets of rain shimmering on his lashes. “I noticed a change perhaps a year after my Making. It was slight, but I could see that my irises were no longer true brown at the edges but were shifting to a dark, dark green.”
Elena wondered how that had affected the young male Venom must’ve been—she wanted to ask if he’d been scared, but knew he wouldn’t answer that. “How many years did the entire process take?” she asked instead, figuring he’d be far more liable to answer that question.
“Ten,” he said, continuing to stare up at the sky, the rain having all but ceased. “I remain the only one of Neha’s Making to show such an extreme change—I think she was disappointed it stopped with the eyes.”
Remembering the way he’d moved the one and only time they’d sparred with each other, she shook her head. “But it didn’t, did it?”
A lazy smile that she caught out of the corner of her eye.
“Ellie,” Ransom said at that moment, coming to lean against the decorative metal railing that ran alongside the steps. “You need a place to stay tonight?”
“No. Venom’s going to fly us back to New York.” To her archangel. Argument or not, she couldn’t deny that she missed him. For the first time in her life, she had someone who was hers, and somewhat to her surprise, she was discovering she was possessive as hell.
Ransom’s face lit up with wicked glee. “Living the high life, Ellie. You’ll be forgetting your friends soon.”
“I’ve already crossed you off my party invite list.”
He laughed, throwing back his head. “I can’t wait to see you as the hostess with the mostess.”
“You’ll be waiting an eternity.” The idea of being a hostess of any kind gave her hives.
“You are consort to an archangel,” Venom said, rising to his feet with a sensual grace that came from the same place as his eyes. “You’ll have to learn at least the rudiments of civilized behavior.”
Gripping the wet iron of the railing, she pulled herself up just as two cop cars turned the corner. “Yeah? Being a dick doesn’t seem to have stopped you from working for Raphael.”
Venom grinned, flashing those canines she’d seen weep poison. “I can be charming. Didn’t seem worth the effort with you.”
“Oh, he’s just asking for an ass-kicking,” Ransom drawled. “Too bad the bloodbath’s going to have to wait.” Turning, he headed toward the police officers, with Elena and Venom following.
It took only fifteen minutes to get the formalities sorted—the cops were ready to give them medals after the night the city had had—and then they were away. Ransom had left his bike near where they’d landed the chopper, and she hugged him as they reached it. “How’s your librarian?” she whispered in his ear.
His lips curved against the skin of her neck. “She makes my brain melt.”
Continuing to be amazed by the fact that Ransom was in a stable relationship, she pulled back. “When do I get to meet her?”
“I don’t want to scare her off just yet.” Joking words, but they held a grain of truth—hunters often had trouble holding on to the men and women they loved for the same reason as cops. The endless fear of picking up the phone or opening the door to the worst kind of news wore away at emotional ties until they were burned through.