Archangel’s Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(22)
Author: Nalini Singh

A week later, Ashwini had seen the same woman’s face in a Guild bulletin. She’d been found drained of blood, fanged all to hell. Saddened but unsurprised, Ashwini had told the hunter on the case about the vamps she’d seen with the victim. Turned out the two had been in San Francisco at the time, the junkie killed by another of her customers.

That was only the tip of the iceberg.

Certain parts of the Vampire Quarter were a meat market—for blood, for sex, for pain. Not all of it in the dives. Two of the most dangerous Quarter clubs were also the most sophisticated and exclusive, catering to a highly select clientele. Old, old vampires who no longer liked anything vanilla.

The Guild did its best to keep an eye on things, but the hunters weren’t anyone’s big brother, and if the meat walked in and wanted to be eaten, it wasn’t anyone’s business but that of the adults involved.

Minors were a whole other story.

Ashwini’s skin pebbled at the memory of the report that had been part of the file she’d been given when she entered the Academy at sixteen—the Guild had a policy of making sure all its students were fully aware of the world in which they’d be moving should they complete their training.

The younger students received redacted data, what their minds could handle at the time, with more to follow as they grew. Older entrants, in contrast, were given the hard facts with both barrels from the word go. In that never-forgotten case, the vampire in question had been sent to a special prison for near-immortals and sentenced to have his skin flayed off once every fourteen days, no anesthetic, the tool to be a whip or a scalpel.

Apparently, he had to choose which tool was used each and every time. If that wasn’t terrifying enough, once every month, the jailors cut off his tongue and genitals in specific punishment for the fact he’d preyed on children. The timing was calculated to be precisely long enough for everything to grow back, given his age, and for him to have two days of perfect health.

Forty-eight hours in which to dread what is to come, Janvier had said to her once while they’d been discussing punishment in the realm of immortals and almost-immortals. It’s a stupid man indeed who seeks to break a law when the penalty is in Dmitri’s hands.

Parole wasn’t even a possibility until the vampire had served a hundred years.

As far as Ashwini was concerned, it was the perfect goddamn punishment. The vamp had been fucking and sucking from a thirteen-year-old boy and a twelve-year-old girl, both of whom had been raised in his household, the children of servants. Instead of protecting the innocents who’d looked up to him, he’d used their trust and that of their parents to systemically abuse.

He’d even groomed his victims to the point that they believed the abuse to be a normal part of life.

The two children had been damaged on such a deep level, Ashwini knew the prognosis for their future psychological health had been bleak at best. She’d heard rumors that it was one of the rare times Raphael had personally involved himself in the lives of mortals—this was long before Elena became his consort.

According to the rumor mill, he’d done something to the children’s minds that allowed them to heal. Ashwini had always hoped the rumor was true, that the kids had made it, were living safe and happy lives as the adults they’d now be . . . and that no other monster had invaded their existence.

Like the one who had preyed on this victim.

The female—who wasn’t any longer in the Dumpster, but had been put on a tarp on the fresh-fallen snow beside it, a white tablecloth protecting her from exposure—wasn’t a child. That much was clear when Ashwini and Janvier lifted one edge of the tablecloth to look underneath with the help of the high-powered flashlight she’d borrowed from one of the two cops who’d responded to the report of a body.

“I knew it was a Guild case soon as I saw it,” the senior member of the duo had said, her gray hair worn in a neat bun at the back of her head and her breath frosting the air. “Things I’ve seen on this job, you’d think I’d be immune to surprise. Never come across anything like this before, though.”

The victim, her hair like straw stripped of color, wasn’t a total mummy, had some shape to her. Enough that Ashwini could tell her face had the bone structure of an adult and her breasts had developed beyond adolescence. Her height appeared to be near the five-four mark and, with the skin around her mouth having receded, her dentition was clear and testified to her humanity. No fangs, not even baby ones. The marks on her body were myriad. The light reflected off the shiny white of long-term scarring, sank into the fresh purple-green of new bruising, was torn up by the mess that had been her throat.

Someone had hurt this woman over a long period of time.

Anger throbbing in her gut, Ashwini knew any further examination would have to wait for the cold clarity of the Guild morgue. “Why did you move her?” she asked the senior patrol cop.

Her partner, young and buff and a touch green around the gills, was on guard at the entrance to the alley/drive that serviced the back of the businesses along this stretch.

“Wasn’t me, ma’am.” A subtle jerk of her head. “Restaurant owner, he had her out before we got here. Name’s Tony Rocco.”

Glancing behind the uniformed cop, Ashwini took in the short and solid-appearing man who stood red-eyed in the open back doorway of the restaurant. She rose, giving the waiting crime scene techs the go-ahead to process the scene. The two weren’t Guild, but had worked cases for and with them before and could be trusted not to leak anything to the media.

“Thanks for coming out so late, guys,” she said before walking over to Tony Rocco.

Janvier held back, talking quietly with the techs.

“Sir,” she said on reaching the restaurant owner. “My name is Ash. I’m with the Guild.”

He didn’t ask to see her ID, just shook his head, his thick hair the same deep black as his neatly groomed mustache, his skin pasty with shock. “I couldn’t leave her in there, like garbage. I know I’m not supposed to touch if I find something like that, but I just couldn’t.” His lower lip shook, his voice hoarse. “She’s someone’s little girl.”

At least, Ashwini thought, the victim had had this, a moment of care, of humanity after the horror. “I understand, Mr. Rocco,” she said, keeping her voice gentle. “But can you tell me how you found her? Was there rubbish on top of her?”

Instead of answering, he turned in the doorway to call out, “Coby!”