“I like it out here.”
Elena had no way of knowing what he’d survived, the reasons for his choices, so she made no judgment. “Are you here always?”
A nod.
“I’ll ask one of the Guild patrols to come by with some food.” They’d nudge him into better sleeping quarters, too, when the snow started to fall. “I can ask them to bring along a strong, basic tent for you.” Nothing that would make him a target for thieves. “Is that all right?”
A long pause, his eyes seeming to judge her before he said, “Long as they bring enough for two.” His gaze went to another cardboard enterprise a few feet over and across the narrow passageway. “Got to watch each other’s backs. It’s what we do.”
Elena nodded. “Stay safe.”
“Hunt well.”
Continuing down into the pitch-blackness of the passage until it spit her out the other end, Elena found herself in an enclosed parking lot behind an Asian restaurant; she’d hit the edge of Chinatown. A single yellow streetlamp doused the area in an anemic glow, creating pools of shadow as thick as liquid, the dark green Dumpsters a silent menace.
“Get a grip, Ellie.”
Following the suspicious scent to a broken part of the fence, she managed to get through the chain link without snagging her feathers. The scent was cleaner now, no longer overwhelmed by those of vampires, this area with its cheap and tasty restaurants a mortal haunt, though she knew a couple of angels who were regulars. The restaurants were closed up for the night, all except for a twenty-four-hour noodle place where a worker pushed a mop around while bopping to the music in his headphones.
A bedraggled mutt kept company with her for a block before being seduced by an overflowing Dumpster, though she saw the rotting carcass of more than one dead bird lying in the nooks and crannies. No one had bothered to clean them up here as they had in the restaurant area, and even the feral cats and dogs knew to steer clear of that festering meat.
When she looked around and saw the scaffolding, she realized the reason for the lack of care—no one was currently residing or doing business on this street, and from the looks of things, no construction workers had been by for a few days, either. Permit or money problems, probably.
A sudden end to the scent, there one second, gone the next.
Backing up, she realized the individual she was tracking had gone up the steps of one of the scaffolded buildings. Looks like our carrier is squatting. No security, so it wouldn’t be hard.
Is she present within?
Unless there’s a back entrance.
Wait. A pause before Raphael said, The back entrance is inaccessible.
Then she’s inside. I found one recent scent trail, with an older one beneath, so my take is, she went out to sell her blood and came straight back.
A sudden wind was the only sign that Raphael had landed on the street. Be careful on the steps, she said, having returned to the door. Looks like the target went through that window. Pushed up, the glass missing, it would’ve been just within reach if someone climbed up onto part of the scaffolding. We’ll need your manly muscles to get in. If that’s not beneath Your Archangelness.
His kiss took her by surprise, her mind scrambling to understand the fact that she was being deliciously taken by a man she couldn’t see. Releasing her before she’d gotten her head around it, he began to pry off the boards that barred the front door, doing so with an ease that made it appear the boards were just sitting there.
Thirty seconds later, the door was open.
18
Narrow, but we can get in if we angle our bodies. I’ll enter first.
I’m the hunter, Elena reminded him. I should go first.
Of course you may go first. When I am dead.
Scowling at that statement delivered in an eminently reasonable tone that had fooled her into thinking he was going to agree, she pulled out her crossbow. Go. We’ll argue about your autocratic tendencies later.
I look forward to it.
Since he’d dropped the glamour upon entering, his wings filled her vision until they came out into a more open area of what looked like a private residence, though it might well have been a combined business/home, the lower-floor open plan enough to have functioned as a retail shop.
Upstairs, she said, the scent trail a pulsing beacon.
You do not wish to clear this floor?
It’s only the dead down here. More than a few days, from the degradation of the disease smell. The bodies hadn’t rotted, likely because the house was as cold as a fridge, but it was no doubt the same vampire pox.
Her first victims?
Maybe her test subjects. Probably junkie vamps desperate for a honey feed—wouldn’t take much to seduce one if she looked strung out herself. Perfect meal.
Again, Raphael went ahead and, though they tried to be quiet, the stairs were old, creaked and groaned no matter what. However, there was no sign their target had heard anything, even when Elena almost fell through a weakened board and Raphael jerked her to safety. There was, in fact, no sign of life at all.
You’re certain she is here?
Yes. Her scent is rich and fresh. She met his eyes. I can’t tell if she’s dead or just sick, but the scent of the disease is very strong to my senses, especially considering her mortality.
Raphael stepped forward to look inside the doorway she indicated, while she swept quickly down to check the other room, make sure it was empty. His expression when she turned to face him told her all she needed to know.
“Damn it.” Walking into the room, she halted beside an old bed that looked like it had been forgotten when the house was stripped. In it lay their prey, her eyes wide open and unseeing, the exposed parts of her pasty skin bubbled with small sores that echoed the more virulent ones on the bodies of the other victims.
“A carrier who can only last a short time,” Raphael said, taking in the scene with a clinical eye. “Inefficient.”
“If we’re right and this is an attack against the city by one of the Cadre—”
“—then it could be he or she does not have the strength to immunize the carriers.” Raphael nodded. “All the Cascade-born abilities appear to be limited in terms of strength as yet.”
Elena eyeballed the body, but could find no signs that the woman had been a junkie who might herself have been somehow infected, perhaps by another individual who was the actual carrier. They’d have to wait till the autopsy to get a definitive answer. Certain that Raphael had already contacted Keir, she took a good look around the room.
“Nothing.” She restrained the urge to kick at a mildewed wall, the mildew an improvement on the giant floral wallpaper. “There is absolutely nothing here that tells us who she was or where she came from.”
“Unsurprising. Her archangel would not want her to give herself away.”
Elena had to agree with Raphael’s unspoken conclusion that the woman must’ve volunteered for her task, because, while she looked pitiful now, a broken doll, she’d carried and disseminated death, pumping poison from her body each time she sold her blood. The dead vampires Elena had sensed downstairs made it inarguable the woman had known exactly what it was she was selling.
• • •
Midday, and Keir confirmed the disease in the girl’s body was identical to that found in the other victims. “But she had it far longer,” the healer said, old eyes tired in that beautiful face that could’ve been of a boy on the brink of manhood. “At least two weeks—which makes her either the first victim or the carrier.”