Archangel’s Shadows (Guild Hunter #7)(81)
Author: Nalini Singh

So she slouched along, just another street person looking for a place to get out of the cold, pitiful and not the least bit intimidating. When she reached the first warehouse, she made as if to see if she could get around the back and, when that proved impossible, tried the door, muttering nonsense under her breath for effect.

The door was wrenched open from within, the muscle-bound vampire on the other side dressed in a navy suit sans tie, his complexion so white it was eerie. “Git!” He shoved at her shoulder with bruising force, while another body moved in the shadows behind him. “Out! Pestilent vermin.”

Allowing herself to stumble and fall to the concrete frontage swept clean of snow, she held out hands clad in holey gloves. “S-sorry. Sorry. Didn’t know it was occupied.”

The door slammed shut.

Pushing up to her feet, hands over her ears as she rocked, she tried the same thing at the next warehouse, this time more furtively, giving the appearance that she was afraid of being caught again. No response this time, and she picked up not even a hint of sound.

Going with her gut, she said, “First warehouse,” into the tiny microphone attached to the collar of her coat. “Two vampire guards that I saw, armed with guns and possibly knives.” Retrieving her gun from a coat pocket, the silencer already on, she held it in one hand; the coat’s sleeves were long enough to conceal the weapon. “I didn’t hear or see anything to suggest a bigger contingent, but there could be more toward the back.”

Naasir’s voice came through the receiver in her ear. “I will listen.” A minute later. “I hear male laughter, movement, but it is small. No more than two or three.”

Another voice followed Naasir’s. “Giorgio,” Dmitri said, “is not at his home or at any of his known haunts. His cattle are accounted for except for the one named Brooke. She left with him around three a.m.”

Ashwini’s blood ran hot. There was a good chance the bastard was inside the warehouse and he probably had Brooke with him. Not only had she tarnished his name, but her actions had drawn Tower attention; it may have been enough to make Giorgio break pattern and attack a woman who could be linked back to him.

“Give us a minute,” she said to Dmitri and Illium both, then she signaled to Janvier and Naasir.

Quiet as ghosts, the two men whispered across the roof to jump down behind the target warehouse, while she shuffled her way back to the front. Hesitating and mumbling to give them enough time to get in position, she surreptitiously undid her coat to expose the thin T-shirt she wore underneath before knocking on the door.

36

It was pulled open by the same vampire who’d shoved her to the ground.

“You still here?” he snarled. “I told you to git!” Fangs glinted in the sunlight. “Or do you want me to get nasty?”

A vicious guard dog, she decided, one who’d do anything for money. “I was just wondering,” she said, imitating the jerky, scratchy movements of a junkie. No one to worry about. No one important. No one who’d be missed. “Do you have, like, a dollar?” A jerk that made her coat half fall off her shoulder, drawing his attention to her body. “For coffee?”

His eyes gleamed red, dropping to her breasts. “I think we can work out a deal.”

He was reaching to maul her breasts when there was a shout from inside the warehouse. As he turned, Ashwini shot him straight through the temple. He dropped to the floor with a bone-cracking slam, but didn’t die, his shoulders and legs twitching and bloody froth gathering at the corners of his mouth.

Before she put in another bullet at the precise point in his spine that would paralyze him long enough to get this done, she looked inside to find Naasir and Janvier only a few feet away. It appeared the guards had been playing poker around a table close to the entrance. Naasir had ripped out the throat of a second guard with unusual care. The male was seriously damaged, but would survive to face Tower justice. Janvier, on the other hand, had a sweating vampire on his knees, one of his kukris held to the dark-skinned male’s throat.

Since they needed only one conscious and able to talk, she put the bullet in the first vampire’s spine, then contacted Illium. “We have this under control,” she said, stepping over the guard’s body to head to Janvier. “I think your squadron should clear the second warehouse before joining us.”

“Consider it done.”

In front of her, Janvier hauled his captive to his feet and slid away his blade. “See Naasir over there? He’s hungry. Don’t run unless you want him to chase you.”

Naasir obligingly smiled his most feral smile.

The whites of his eyes showing, the guard nodded.

Together, the three of them and their captive moved deeper into the warehouse via the clear aisle in the center, shelving and boxes on either side. Normal enough. Until they reached the center.

On the left were more goods, including several large crates situated a short distance from where the shelving ended. On the right, however, the shelving continued uninterrupted, but the goods went in only a few feet deep. Beyond floated gauzy hangings Naasir tore down to reveal a plush black carpet.

On the carpet sat a four-poster bed with rumpled satin sheets. It was fitted with leather restraints as well as heavy black-on-black damask curtains that had been tied to the sides with glossy gold ropes that ended in tassels. Two large armchairs upholstered in a deep red fabric sat nearby, at an angle that would provide the occupants with an uninterrupted view of the bed.

One of those armchairs had a back meant to accommodate wings.

Beside each was a beautifully crafted round wooden table etched with designs in gold, its feet curved.

Fury a burn in her blood, Ashwini strode to the bed, touched the sheets. Cold. But though she couldn’t see it against the black satin, she could smell the blood, feel the slight stickiness of it against her fingertips. Spinning to face the guard, she said, “Where are the women?”

When the man refused to speak, Janvier shoved him back to his knees and had the kukri at his throat before the guard had time to even draw breath.

“Oops,” Janvier said, beads of dark red beginning to form on the sweating vampire’s neck. “I’m a little shaky today.” His smile was so chilly, she would’ve been surprised it came from him if she hadn’t known how much he hated men who hurt women.

Ashwini knew the victims had to be here, but the warehouse was massive. Thick with shadows, it had shelving large enough to hold human-sized cages and could take considerable time to search. To judge from the bloodstained sheets on the bed, a woman could die in the interim.