Archangel’s Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(67)
Author: Nalini Singh

Adele snorted. “You forget, Dmitri. I’ve known you for five hundred years—sin and sex and pain, you’ve enjoyed them all.”

Enjoyed, Dmitri thought, wasn’t the right word. He’d drowned himself in sensation in a futile effort to forget a loss that had beaten his heart to a pulp and left him dead on the inside. But Adele didn’t know his past, had no right to it.

“I want you to contact every vampire leader in the Quarter.” The ones outside it had been doing their jobs, the vampires who looked up to them in no danger of slipping the leash into carnage. “Tell them they are to be at the Tower on the stroke of six.” It was a risk to push the meet to later in the day, but he was making a judgment call that news of the summons would have an immediate and permanent chilling effect on the rising bloodlust. “Lateness is strongly discouraged.”

Adele raised an eyebrow. “You plan to put the fear of Dmitri in them?”

Dmitri knew he could be ruthless; it was an asset. The current situation, however, required stronger firepower. “The audience isn’t with me, Adele. Raphael has requested their presence.” He’d spoken to Raphael the previous night, when the reports first came in, received the go-ahead to take this action if he deemed it necessary—because the archangel who was his friend caused bone-deep fear in mortals and immortals both.

“It appears,” Dmitri purred to a rapidly paling Adele, “that the Made need to be reminded that the Tower never stops watching.”

Adele’s swallow was audible. “Who will die tonight?” she asked on a whisper of sound.

“All those who have forgotten that they are not the apex predators in this city.”

29

Felicity’s apartment building, blackened with the grit and smog of the city, had the downtrodden look of a woman who’d once been beautiful but had long since surrendered to the march of time. She didn’t even bother with makeup: window coverings were absent or hanging in a lopsided way, and at least a third of the dirty panes of glass had cracks running through them. Two had given in to the pull of gravity and were totally missing, the holes covered up with black plastic.

A tenant on the third floor had made an effort—Ashwini could see greenery against the window, what looked like the curling tendrils of a luxuriant fern. The attempt at beauty only threw the decrepitude of the rest of the building into sharp focus. That lack of care was visible inside as well. Graffiti crawled across the walls just inside the entranceway, and the scuff marks on the linoleum floor had worn through to the concrete.

“I understand why she wanted out.” The leaden despair soaked into the concrete and glass and wood of the building was powerful enough to brush against her senses, but far, far beneath, she could almost glimpse tiny, struggling seeds of hope.

Felicity had planted one of those seeds, would’ve given hope to her neighbors when she made it out. Seeing this, feeling the fragility that lay underneath the hardened surface, it made the cruelty of what had been done to the young woman even worse. Not only had the monster who’d killed her stolen her life, he’d made a mockery of her spirit. “The person responsible for Felicity’s torture and death deserves every circle of hell.”

“We will ensure he—or she—ends up roasting for a long, long time.” Janvier nodded to the left, to a sign that, judging from the richness of the ink, had been recently defaced by a blue marker that told the reader to “Fock of!” It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Below the misspelled profanity was the word Office and an arrow pointing down the corridor.

“I do not have high hopes of anyone actually being in the office,” Janvier said, “but the world is full of surprises.”

“Most of them bloody and nasty and deadly.” Walking with him down the narrow corridor, Ashwini took the dimly lit stairs down to a basement level. In front of her was a closed door plastered with advertising flyers, neighborhood promos by people struggling to create a sense of community in this hopeless place, and small posters asking for help in finding lost pets. Raising her hand, she rapped on the door with her knuckles.

To her astonishment, it opened almost immediately to reveal a big, bearded guy with skin so sallow it was clear soaking up the sun wasn’t his favorite pastime.

“Yeah?” He scowled before Ashwini could identify herself and spoke again. “You’re a hunter. Which schmuck vamp is hiding out here?”

Perceptive, she thought. He might actually be of some help. “No vamp,” she said, “but we have questions about a former tenant.”

The man, who appeared to be in his early thirties, scratched his belly, the size of it hinting at a love of beer and fast food. “Right. Come in.” Backing away from the door, he waved them into an office that held a television set currently showing a rerun of a crime show, a sagging sofa with denim upholstery, a desk buried under paper, and several rickety chairs.

He switched off the TV and said, “You want to sit?”

Not sure the chairs would hold, Ashwini shook her head. “You’re the super?” she asked to make certain—for all she knew, he could be the owner.

Reaching up, he scratched his jaw this time, the frizzy black curls of his beard rasping against his skin. “Ah, yep, had the gig going on ten years now,” he said. “Name’s Seth. I’m a student—on my second doctorate, so this job’s great, especially since it comes with a room out back.” He made a face. “I do what I can, fix what I can, but the owners don’t give me much money, so I have to let the inessential stuff—like the endless fucking graffiti—go.” Rubbing his hands over his face, he blew out a breath. “But you didn’t come here to listen to me moan. Who’s the tenant?”

“Felicity Johnson.”

His animated face froze, then crumpled noticeably. “Aw, damn, something happened to her, didn’t it? I knew she’d never leave Taffy like that.”

“I’m afraid she was murdered.” Ashwini watched him for any signs of possible guilt as she delivered the news, saw only pain.

“Who’d do that?” A bewildered question. “She was no threat to anyone.”

“You remember her,” Janvier said, leaning against the door he’d closed.

“Yeah, she was sweet. Real nice.” His sallow face even more pale and his previously steady body swaying a fraction, he took a seat behind his desk. “You sure it’s her?”