No, Aramael would never protect a Naphil. He might use her as bait, perhaps, but he would never protect her.
Yet he’d done exactly that.
Caim wrestled the urge to rip the sink from its moorings and throw it through a wall. He glared at his reflection. Damnation, was she Nephilim or wasn’t she? Aramael would have no reason to protect her either way, so why had he? Why had he let himself be distracted, chosen a mortal over his prey, let Caim escape?
Caim groaned. He knew he should just let it go, move on, find a new hunting ground, continue his search. Should, but wouldn’t. Not when it meant turning his back on near certainty so he could continue a random, perhaps fruitless quest.
He set his jaw. It wouldn’t be easy. He would have to be patient. Cunning. He couldn’t risk another confrontation with his brother, so he’d have to find a way to separate Aramael from his charge. The risk would still be enormous, but if he was right—and he was certain he was—it would be worth it. More than worth it.
He’d watch them, he decided. He would see how close the Power stayed to the woman and try to figure out why he protected her in the first place. See how difficult it might be to distract him, to pull his attention from her long enough to strike.
Caim stripped off his soiled shirt and let it fall onto the corpse of its owner, still splayed across the bathroom floor where he’d left it three days ago. He eyed the mangled human whose life he’d appropriated. He’d have to do something with it soon. He could prevent mortals from seeing or smelling it as long as he was here, but he couldn’t guard the thing around the clock, and now that he’d decided to stay, its discovery would be hellishly inconvenient.
He bent to his ablutions. So many details. So many ways he could yet fail. He thought of the woman sheltered in his brother’s wings and smiled into his soapy hands.
And such good reason to persevere.
***
“Okay, let’s go over this one more time,” Roberts said wearily. His tone warned Alex he held onto his patience by a thread. He stopped pacing the perimeter of the mud puddle in front of the car and faced her. “You come down the alley after Trent. You think you see someone standing by the wall, but whoever it is disappears without a trace and you don’t get a good enough look for a description. Have I got that right?”
Alex shifted her weight on the car hood where she sat. She wrapped her hands around the Styrofoam cup of coffee someone had given her and tried to ignore the soaked knees of her pants. Tried harder not to think about the blood that had mingled with the water in the puddle. Or the other time in her life when she’d knelt in a pool of blood.
She felt the Styrofoam begin to buckle and eased her grip. “Yeah. That’s about right.”
“Trent didn’t see anyone.”
Alex scowled. “What the hell does that mean? You think I’m seeing things?”
“It means I think the stress is getting to all of us,” Roberts replied carefully, “and that you have more reason to be stressed than anyone.”
Cold settled in Alex’s gut. Not once in thirteen years had anyone intimated that her past might interfere with her ability to do her job, and now her supervisor questioned whether it might have turned her into a hysterical eyewitness? She couldn’t even come up with a response, let alone speak through teeth clenched so tight they made her head ache.
She glared across the alley to where Trent stood, watching the scene from the exact place he’d been when she’d seen him ten minutes ago. Looking as angry as he had ten minutes ago, too. The ice in her belly began to spread. She’d been fine up until this afternoon, she thought. Right up until Jacob Trent had entered her life with golden wings and electrical charges and a presence that reached into her center and twisted her very reality.
And he thought he had a reason to be angry?
She realized Roberts still watched her, concern etched into the dark lines between his brows. She slid off the car and tossed her cup, coffee and all, into a Dumpster. Then she met his gaze with a stony one of her own.
“Fine,” she said. “Maybe it was a trick of the light. Or the shadows. Or my fucking imagination. It was raining, it was cloudy, I saw whatever it was from the corner of my eye for a split second, and then all hell broke loose. I’m sorry I even mentioned it.”
Roberts’s lips thinned. Then he shook his head. “Look, let’s just forget it, all right? Like I said, we’re all under stress.”
Alex bit the inside of her cheek to keep further comment to herself. She changed the subject. “How’s the kid doing?”
“The rookie? He’s pretty shaken up, but he’ll survive. His trainer is apoplectic, however.”
Alex would be, too, if her partner had been that quick to fire. Or if he’d missed at that range.
Two shots, both buried harmlessly in the wall behind Trent, wide of their mark. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed it. She hugged her arms around herself.
She still wasn’t sure she did.
“Remedial firearms training?” she hazarded.
“Oh, yeah.”
They fell silent for a moment, watching their latest victim being zipped into a body bag and then loaded onto a gurney.
Roberts cleared his throat. “Whether you saw him or not, Alex, we came close this time. Any closer and we’d have had him.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Roberts looked down at her. “He’s getting cocky. Killing in broad daylight in an alley off a busy street—if he keeps up like that, we will get him.”
Alex’s palms turned clammy. She remembered Trent’s flat, cold expression; his colder words: “You’d better hope to heaven that you don’t, Alex Jarvis. Because you don’t stand a chance against him. Not you, and not your entire police force.”
She stared again at Trent. He didn’t look in her direction, but she felt his attention on her all the same. His awareness of her, echoing her own sensitivity to him. Her heart stuttered in her chest. Roberts had continued speaking, and now something he said snagged her attention.
“What did you just say?”
“I said, even with this rain, we got here soon enough that we might actually find some evidence.”
“Before that.”
“What? The part about Trent having such good hearing?”
“Is that what he told you? That he heard something?”
Her staff inspector’s forehead creased. “Is there a problem with that?”
Alex hesitated. Was Trent’s claimed sixth sense something she wanted to share? She glanced at her partner again and noted the tension that had crept into his posture, as if he knew what they discussed and didn’t want her to continue. Which gave her ample reason to do so. She straightened her shoulders.
“We were sitting in a coffee shop two blocks away,” she told Roberts. Trent turned his head, and Alex recoiled under his palpable fury. She lifted her chin, met his anger glare for glare, swallowed hard, and made herself continue. “He said he could feel the killer. Physically hauled me out and brought me here. Told me to wait while he went into the alley alone.”
Silence met her words. She saw a muscle flex in Trent’s jaw and she deliberately hardened her own expression. Then she turned her back on him and looked up at her staff inspector.
“It was raining,” she said harshly. “And thundering. There was traffic, and we were two blocks away, inside a building. Trent didn’t hear anything.”
Doubt mingled with outright skepticism on her supervisor’s face, and he looked in Trent’s direction. “You’re telling me you think the guy’s psychic?”
“I’m telling you what happened. What he told me. He said he could feel the killer. Feel him stalk the victim, feel him kill...” Alex trailed off and shivered. “You had to be there, Staff, it was downright weird.”
“You’re sure that’s what he meant.”
“We’re here, aren’t we?”
Roberts said nothing for a moment, then muttered, “Shit.”
Oh, she’d second t
hat, all right.
“Now can we ditch him?” she asked, her tone light but not entirely kidding.
“You know I don’t hold much stock in the whole woo-woo thing,” Roberts said.
She counted on it.
“But nothing about this case remotely resembles normal, and right now, I don’t care if the guy’s a card-carrying member of the fucking Magic Wand Society,” her staff inspector continued. “He came within a hair of nabbing our killer, and if there’s any chance he can get that close again—”
Alex swallowed bitter disappointment. She counted to three. “You’re serious.”
“With six bodies and counting? You bet your ass I’m serious.”
God damn it to hell.
“Well, then, can we at least put him with someone else?”
“I’m not going to start screwing around with partnerships in the middle of this, Alex. You’re a big girl. Figure out a way to work with the guy.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“Unless you need another direct order, yes. That’s all I have to say.”
***
Aramael watched the dozen or so people swarming over the scene, collecting every particle that hadn’t been swept away in the storm of Caim’s strike. Behind him, he felt the tug of Alex’s presence, sensed her every move as though a cord ran between them.
Between a Power and a Naphil.
With an effort, he restrained himself from putting a fist through the brick wall at his side. The very idea he could feel any connection to a descendant of the Grigori—worse, let that connection interfere in a hunt—was insupportable. Unforgivable.
It flew in the face of Heaven itself.
Aramael felt Alex’s approach and knew he’d become the subject of her attention again. The thought sent a tingle along his limbs. His breath locked in his lungs, denied exit by the heart lodged at the base of his throat. He couldn’t let this continue. Not if he wanted to catch Caim.
He heard her stop behind him and clear her throat. Hated himself for the sudden damp of his palms. He drew the shreds of defeat about himself, used them to rekindle the anger he needed to stand against her.
He turned on her. “I told you not to follow me. I told you to stay on the sidewalk.”
Aramael watched her flare of surprise give way to annoyance. Good. Anger was good. Familiar. Better by far than the vulnerability he had glimpsed following his survival of the shooting. A vulnerability that had, in turn, stirred in him a feeling that had taken several long minutes to identify. Because Powers didn’t feel compassion any more than they felt connections. Not for any mortal, but especially not for a Naphil.
Alex crossed her arms, responding to his challenge. “Are you telling me you actually expected me to let you go it alone? You’ve been watching too much television, Detective Trent. Real cops don’t work like that. You and I are partners. We work together. As a team.”
Aramael scowled at her. “You don’t understand.”
“Then enlighten me. You can start by explaining why the hell you told Roberts you didn’t see the suspect.”
Too late, Aramael tried to hide his surprise. She’d seen Caim? He’d been so caught up in the frustration of losing his brother, he hadn’t considered the possibility.
She nodded, as if she’d read his thoughts.
“I only caught a glimpse before you shoved me back, but yes, I saw him. But because you told Roberts you didn’t see anyone, he now thinks stress is interfering with my judgment. So I repeat: why did you lie to him?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Then fucking uncomplicate it.”
Aramael hesitated. Damn it to hell and back, it would be so much easier if she knew at least some of it. But what? The fact she was in danger and he’d been sent to protect her? He’d known her only a few hours and already knew she would never let him stop there. She would demand more, much more than he could reveal under the cardinal rule against interfering with a mortal.
“I can’t,” he said.
Alex’s face went dark with anger. In spite of himself, a small admiration glimmered in Aramael. He’d never dealt this closely with a mortal before, never come to know one this intimately. He couldn’t help but wonder if they all had Alex’s courage, her capacity to stand up to something she so obviously didn’t understand. To challenge it despite the underlying fear he sensed in her. Perhaps the One’s faith in her mortal children wasn’t entirely misguided after all. He watched her hands clench at her sides.
“Detective Jarvis?”
Aramael went still at the interruption. He knew that voice; it was as unmistakable as it was out of context. Impatience sparked from Alex as she turned to the woman in uniform who had joined them.
“What?”
“Staff Inspector Roberts wants to see you again.”
“Now? Can’t it wait?”
The uniform shrugged. “I’m just the messenger, Detective. Sorry.”
Alex closed her eyes for a second. “Fine,” she snarled. She leveled a ferocious look at Aramael. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said. “And just so we’re clear, you and I are nowhere near done.”
Aramael watched Alex stalk away, waiting until he was certain she was out of earshot before he rounded on the uniformed cop who had remained at his side. Glared into familiar, pale blue eyes.
“It’s about bloody time I got some help on this.”
Verchiel sighed. “I know it’s difficult, Aramael—”
“You know nothing, Dominion.”
The other angel’s expression clouded with what looked like guilt, but Aramael was unmoved. He spread his hands wide. His empty hands, because he had not captured Caim.
“Did either of you stop to consider how impossible this would be?” he demanded. “In your great wisdom, did you or Mittron spare a single thought for how I might hunt without leaving Alex’s side? How I could stay with her and not explain what the hell I’m doing? I had him, Verchiel. I had him, and I had to let him go.”
Verchiel quirked an eyebrow at that. “Had to?”
“You’re the one who sent me to protect her,” he pointed out, hearing his own evasiveness and hating it.
“That’s what you were doing? Protecting her?”
“What I’m doing,” Aramael enunciated between clenched teeth, “is the best I can. I told you I am not a Guardian, and shackled as I am by your lack of foresight, I’m not much of a bloody hunter, either.”
Verchiel glowered back at him, her own frustration evident in the crease between her brows. “What would you have us do then, leave the woman to Caim?”
The idea hit Aramael like a fist to the center of his chest. He struggled for air, and to keep his reaction from the Dominion. He had seen what his brother was capable of, and the thought of Caim wreaking that kind of damage on Alex—
“Wait,” his handler said, her frown deepening. “You called her Alex just now. When did you begin thinking of her by name?”
The sharp question delivered a second blow. Wrung a reply from him he’d rather have kept to himself. “I didn’t realize I had.”
But he knew the answer to her question, immediately and instinctively. It had been when Alex had answered her cell phone that afternoon, when she had reached out to him, irrevocably altering his entire universe. He met Verchiel’s too-perceptive gaze. Felt it reach into his very soul.
“Aramael, why didn’t you finish the hunt when you had the chance just now?”
“I told you.”
“I know what you told me. Now I want the truth.”
The truth? The truth was that the moment Caim’s attention rested on Alex, the hunt had ceased to matter. Everything had ceased to matter except protecting Alex. Shielding her from Caim’s very sight.
Verchiel almost certainly did not want that truth. Hell, he didn’t want that truth.
The Dominion seemed to reach the same decision. She cleared her throat. “Well. Never mind. The important thing is, what can we do to make th
is easier?”
Release me from the guardianship. Find someone else to protect Alex and let me hunt Caim.
It was the obvious solution, but try as he might, Aramael could not speak the words. No Guardian could stand up to Caim, and even if another Power consented to protect Alex, Aramael could not give over that protection to someone else. Neither could he examine his reasons.
“I don’t know.”
His handler sighed. “Think about it. I’ll see if Mittron has any ideas. And, Aramael—”
Down the alley, Alex had turned and was heading back in their direction again, her stride determined, her head held high. Aramael looked at the Dominion wearily.
“For what it’s worth, you’re right,” Verchiel said. “We didn’t think this through.”
Chapter Eleven
“What is it?” Alex peered at the thing resting in the stainless steel tray, seven to eight centimeters long, curved, black, and indisputably lethal. The light glinted from it as Jason Bartlett, the coroner, shifted his grip on the tray. Alex felt her skin crawl.
“It’s a claw.”
“A what?”
“A claw. At least, that’s what we think.” Bartlett dropped the tray onto the steel countertop with a loud clatter. “My best guess at this point is that it’s from some kind of big cat, or maybe a bear, but I haven’t been able to match it to any of the pictures I found. We’re still waiting for results on the DNA, but I know this is a rush, so I have someone coming in from the Toronto Zoo tomorrow to give us an expert opinion. You never know—we might get lucky.”
“A claw,” Alex echoed, staring down at the object. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Trent had remained by the door, showing no interest in their reason for coming to the coroner’s office. That figured. She turned her attention back to the coroner. “In one of the victims.”
“Victim number four.” Bartlett peered at a chart beside the tray. “Still a Jane Doe.”
The door beside Trent opened to admit an assistant medical examiner along with Raymond Joly and his partner. Alex flashed them a tight smile of acknowledgment and plucked two latex gloves from a box. She looked askance at Bartlett. “May I?”
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