“Simon.”
The victim on the bed. The Don Juan.
“I’m hearing he had a weakness for women.”
Miuxu threw up hands gifted at the piano, the dark eyes she’d lined with black kohl flashing. “He was a handsome man and he knew it.” A shake of her head. “But handsome men are plentiful among immortals. You flew here with one of the prettiest of them all.”
“Simon Blakely thought himself beautiful enough to surpass others?”
“It wasn’t so much that.” Miuxu tightened pale brown wings threaded with delicate filaments of shimmering bronze. “I’m not one of those angels who believes in breaking down a vampire in order to shape him. I prefer to treat them as adults and give them choices.”
The angel sighed. “I’ve had brilliant successes, but I’ve also had more than one spectacular failure. Including with Simon.” She spread out her wings before folding them back in, her coloring unusual in that her left wing had a band of black primary feathers while her right didn’t. “He was intelligent, and he was vain, and he was a gifted enough lover that he was never short of bedmates.”
Eyebrows rising to her hairline, Elena glanced at the strong angel as handy with a war hammer as she was at the piano. “You?”
Miuxu angled her head closer to Elena’s, her contralto voice low as she said, “I was tempted, it’s true, but I knew the instant I entered into bedsport with him, he’d think he could breach his Contract with impunity. That was the thing with dear, imprudent Simon; he thought he could manipulate everyone with his body.”
Elena listened . . . and kept a furtive eye on her wings to make sure they weren’t dragging. In the good news department, her temple was no longer throbbing and, having eaten three energy bars on the flight over, she had her hunger under control.
“Simon’s sensuality could’ve held him in good stead in the immortal world.” Miuxu’s voice was contemplative. “I made sure he could support himself in a legitimate profession at the end of his Contract, but I thought it far more likely he’d find himself a wealthy mortal or immortal. You know how such things are.”
“Yes.” Plenty of the genetically blessed made their living as arm candy. Elena saw nothing wrong with that when it was an honest exchange and when both parties were adults in full control of their faculties. “How did he end up in a bad part of the Quarter? My friends working the case tell me he was sharing an apartment that was one step above a dump.”
“Simon didn’t seem to understand that once you make an agreement with an immortal, you stay loyal.” Miuxu’s gaze looked out beyond the blackness of the night. “He quickly gained a reputation for being untrustworthy and liable to cheat.” Another shake of her head. “Angels and vampires old enough to support lovers to the lifestyle to which Simon aspired are not forgiving. He was lucky that he escaped with his life.”
The hairs on Elena’s nape prickled. “Is it possible one of the people he cheated on decided to punish him with death?”
“It has been some years since he was active in the immortal world in that way.” Clasping her hands behind her back, Miuxu took a moment to consider her next words. “I would say he was punished with the most painful cut of all—he has been forgotten,” she said at last. “But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was a woman involved somewhere.”
A glance at Elena, Miuxu’s eyes a light brown with an unusual yellowish cast that reminded her of a tiger’s penetrating gaze. “He was firm in his tastes. Always women. Young, yes—but adults, you understand? He had no liking for children when it came to pleasures of the flesh, and I would not have him accused of that perversion.”
“I understand.”
“Nubile and lovely were also prerequisites—and many vampires as well as mortals fall into that group.”
“Do you know anything about the other vampire who was murdered? Eric Acosta.”
“No.” Miuxu nodded politely to an old vampire strolling in the opposite direction, before picking up the thread of their conversation. “I believe in giving my vampires true freedom when they’ve finished their Contract. I don’t keep them on any kind of a leash—but I am proud to say many of mine stay in touch. Even black sheep like Simon swing back into my orbit now and then.”
A sad smile. “He never told me of his cheating ways—I got that from the wronged angels who knew he had been one of mine. From Simon, I got grand plans and even grander promises of what he would one day become.”
“You’ve given me a far clearer picture of him.” Elena’d work with Ashwini and Janvier to see if they could dig up more about Simon’s love life, any jealousies or spurned lovers capable of ruthless, brutal payback.
The problem was that motive left too many gaping holes unfilled. Acosta she could explain away as collateral damage for having been there at the time, but Harrison had been stalked. Also, Simon had only liked women, but the possible killer Elena had seen was male. Jealous husband, boyfriend, maybe?
A wash of wind, tendrils of her hair flying back in it, before Illium landed in front of her and Miuxu. Bowing with old-world grace, his wings flaring out in a showy display, he said, “My lovely Miuxu, it has been too long since I’ve heard you weave fever dreams with your fingers.”
Husky laughter from Miuxu. “You are as playful and as wicked as ever, I see.”
Elena caught the glances shared between the two and wondered . . . If so, Illium had excellent taste. Yet when Illium joined her and Miuxu, the two spoke only as intimate friends who had a cherished history between them, but no present entanglement.
Stopping at one of the large glass windows that allowed the curious to peer in, Elena watched the lava bubble and spike, forming and reforming into strange unearthly patterns. In front of her eyes formed the molten image of an owl. “It’s alive,” she murmured, scratching at that spot on her chest again.
Child of mortals.
Elena froze at the ethereal feminine voice in her head. You’re awake again.
A whispering sigh that held such exquisite tiredness. Child of mortals, the voice repeated. I will not awaken in time to see you. You are destined to fall.
Screw that. Elena glared at the lava. I’ll write my own destiny.
This is not destiny. This is a birth. You must end for the other to live.
Cold in her blood now. Raphael? A stiff whisper. Do I need to die to save Raphael? She’d do that without thought, without hesitation.
No answer, no sense of a presence, the sounds of Miuxu and Illium’s conversation filtering in past senses that had been locked in silence while she spoke to the being who wasn’t there. Except it was. Feminine. Old. So achingly old. Barely awake.
That was the imprint in Elena’s head.
An imprint that forespoke her death.
You must end for the other to live.
What the hell was she supposed to do with that? How the hell was she supposed to process it?
Illium gave her a discreet boost into the air when it was time for them to head homeward. He made it seem that they were just playing a game, that Elena was being tugged along for fun. She wondered that he wasn’t anchored down by the weight of the stone in her abdomen, her blood like lead.