by Nalini Singh
A raised middle finger before he turned back to the screens that flowed with data. “Come back when you’re ready to get massacred on the Scrabble board.”
Leaving the Tower’s tech hub with a final “You made up that word!”—to which Vivek called out, “Illiterate Luddite!”—she read the details of the job on her way to her and Raphael’s Tower suite. All she had on her were knives, and she liked to take a weapon with distance reach when on a retrieval.
Droplet of immortal strength or not, arrogance was a good way to get dead.
Just last week, Ransom had barely escaped being disemboweled by an aggressive vampire’s disgusting dirty claws. Some people had no sense of good hygiene. As it was, Ransom’s treasured leather jacket hadn’t escaped the attempted mauling unscathed.
He’d still be sulking over it if his wife hadn’t managed to source a near-identical jacket from who-knew-where: Librarians obviously had stellar research skills. And librarians married to guild hunters had nerves of steel. Per Ransom, his wife had told him to hose himself clean of the vampire blood before he set foot in their home.
Demarco had snorted when Ransom relayed that story, the shaggy blond of his hair in serious need of a cut. “I wouldn’t obey my wife’s orders like that—you gotta be the man in the relationship, wear the pants.”
“Sure,” Ransom had drawled, unperturbed. “I’ll pass your words of wisdom on to Nyree the next time she talks about inviting your sorry ass over for dinner. Enjoy the moldy bread in your fridge.”
Laughing at the memory of how Demarco had clutched at his heart and fallen off his chair, Elena entered the suite. She grabbed her crossbow first and strapped it to her left thigh. Lightweight, with the extra bolts carried in a new flat quiver she would strap to her other thigh, she treasured and babied it like it was “her precious.”
Ransom’s words.
Also true.
She decided against a gun; she kept up her training, but the crossbow combined with blades was more her thing. Today, she slid a long blade into the sheath that ran down her back. The near-white of her hair was already in a tight braid, and she had her heavy-duty hunting knife in her boot, so all that was left for her to do was check that the knives she wore in her forearm sheaths were all snugly slotted in, and she was done.
Striding across the thick carpet of the living area, she opened the doors that led out to a railingless balcony and stepped into the crisp white of a winter’s day.
The cold slapped her. Hard.
She gritted her teeth, grateful for her long-sleeved thermal black top. It had been designed especially for her, to provide a measure of protection at high altitudes. She had nowhere near ordinary angelic levels of cold toleration. The squadron with whom Raphael had gone out in the pre-dawn darkness were probably in sleeveless tunics.
Her teeth threatened to chatter.
“Screw looking tough,” she said to the disinterested pigeon that had stopped on the balcony. “I’d rather be warm.” Going back inside, she pulled on a form-fitting black jacket designed with slits for her wings, and fancy straps that held it tight to her body. Then she tugged on gloves for good measure—after first moving the forearm knife sheaths on top of the jacket sleeves.
“Okay, now I’m ready.”
Shutting the balcony doors behind herself, because she had no desire to return to an arctic environment, she took a moment to enjoy the glittering spectacle of New York gearing up for the day after a long, cold night, then fell off the edge of the balcony, her wings spreading behind her in a snap of strength. Those wings were an extraordinary blend of colors, beginning as pure black on the inner curve, then flowing into indigo, deepest blue, and the whispered shade of dawn.
Her primaries were a shimmering white-gold.
Beautiful wings, but they could’ve been dishwater brown and she’d have loved them as much, for they took her to the skies.
The air was razored glass in her lungs, it was so cold, but a cool yellow sun rode the sky today. The distant star wasn’t strong enough to melt the snow that blanketed the city, but it made that snow ignite with light and turned the ice that dripped off the edges of buildings into iridescent diamonds.
Beneath her, the Legion building lay draped in pristine white.
The greenery that covered its outsides in spring and summer slept under winter’s kiss, but Elena knew that should she fly inside, she’d be met with a blast of heat and the rich, earthy humidity of growing things. Green was the color of the Legion building on the inside—living green.
The beings who’d risen from the sea in response to the turbulence of the Cascade, their age unknown and their origins lost in time, had worked with two of the Tower engineers to create a method of heating for their building that didn’t put undue pressure on the city’s systems, but that kept their plants alive through the coldest months. At least ten of the Legion sat with gargoyle-perfect immobility on the roof, their bat-like wings folded to their backs.
Snow had collected on their motionless bodies, a coat they didn’t shrug off and never seemed to feel.
Elena. Elena. Elena.
No movement from the gargoyles, but their whispers echoed inside her head, the Legion’s voice both singular and a multitude.
Waving a quick hello, she carried on toward the Hudson River. It had begun to freeze at the edges, shards of ice spearing across its surface in a jagged painting, but that ice was an illusion. It wouldn’t hold if she landed on it—a frigid truth two younger angels had learned yesterday.
Regardless, the beauty of it stole her breath.
Maybe that was why it took her a second to notice the sparrows.
2
Elena wasn’t strong enough to hold a proper hover, but she could do a short approximation using delicate wing movements. What she saw had her throat going dry. Raphael? It was instinct to reach out to her archangel even though she knew he was probably out of range—after completing a set of training maneuvers with the squadron, he’d left to meet with a senior angel in another state.
But the wind and the salt-lashed rain, it crashed into her mind in a welcome storm. Hunter-mine.
The birds are being weird again.
Describe it for me.
Elena swept around to watch the hypnotic mass movement again. They’re dancing all together. Thousands and thousands of them. This giant spiral that moves and sways and sweeps like a choreographed chorus line.
Storm winds in her mind, the scent of ozone sharp and unmistakable, Raphael’s presence powerful even at so far a distance. You are witnessing a murmuration. Are you close enough to recognize the birds?
Elena went to say “sparrows” then realized she was wrong. Starlings. She slapped a hand on her forehead. A starling murmuration. Unusual but a natural phenomenon. Blowing out a breath, she said, Go back to flying to your meeting. My paranoia and I are going to continue heading to the Enclave to track a rogue vamp—and if you tell anyone I nearly lost my mind over a bunch of birds doing bird things, I will spike your cognac with chili peppers.
His laughter was a feeling more than a sound. I will see you tonight, hbeebti.
Shaking her head at her jumpiness this morning—next, she’d start imagining heavily armed enemy angels in the sky—she reached the other side of the perfectly normal-colored Hudson River to sweep over her and Raphael’s home. No footsteps broke up the glimmering layer of fresh snow that had fallen after she left, but she knew that, inside, the house would be humming with quiet efficiency.
Montgomery, butler beyond compare, would permit nothing less.
Angling inward from the cliffs and trying not to listen to her yet-elevated heartbeat, she flew deeper into the exclusive neighborhood populated almost entirely with angelic homes. The only exceptions were a rare few old vampires—and Janvier. The comparatively young Cajun vampire had been given the house by an angel in thanks for a task where Janvier ha
d gone above and beyond.
He’d never lived in it until Ashwini and he became a pair.
No mortal called the Enclave home, and as an ex-mortal, Elena figured that was probably better for their health. Old immortals weren’t always rational in their behavior—they might be sorry for decapitating an annoying neighbor, but said neighbor would still be deader than dead.
Flying on, she considered the facts of this job. Vampire concerned was one Damian Hale. The easiest place to start would be his room at Imani’s residence; that he was suspected to have run the previous night, his disappearance not noticed until this morning, shouldn’t matter to her bloodhound nose.
Neither was the weather a problem.
After many winter hunts since she’d first joined the Guild, Elena could scent-track through snow so long as the scent wasn’t buried too deep. Since it had snowed only a little this morning, she should be fine.
Spotting the correct home—though “mansion” was the better word for the stately edifice that occupied its surroundings like a grand dame who had no time for anyone’s bullshit—Elena winged down to land on the snow-covered lawn.
It had been churned up by multiple pairs of feet.
Elena winced, her nose assaulted by a chaos of scents tangled together in a great big knot; if Damian Hale’s was in there, it’d be a pain in the posterior to dig it out.
“Consort.” The vampire waiting in the doorway wore a white bow tie and old-fashioned black tails over a pristine white shirt, his pants pressed to razor sharpness and his shoes polished to a shine. He bowed his stilt-tall body in her direction, the action as precise as the stiffly combed and pomaded strands of his black hair.
Elena nearly expected him to creak.
“Good morning, Taizaki,” she managed to say while squirming inside. This deference, it wasn’t earned; the old vampires and angels did it out of respect for Raphael while waiting for the former mortal to fall on her face.
It was enough to give any sensible woman a complex.
Since Elena had fallen madly in love with an archangel who could snap her spine without straining his pinky finger, she was clearly in no danger of being hit with the sensible stick.
“I need Damian Hale’s scent,” she said the instant Imani’s majordomo rose to his full height. “A piece of his clothing that hasn’t yet been washed would be best, but I can also pick it up from his living quarters.”
“I have prepared such an item of clothing.” Taizaki’s face was Japanese but his accent unbendingly French, as if he didn’t often lower himself to speak the barbaric language of English. “My mistress awaits you in the conservatory.”
Raphael, this is how much I love you, she muttered inside her mind.
The sea crashed into her again, the storm winds distant but present. How much?
Elena nearly jumped. You’re still in range?
Is that why you are muttering at me? Because you thought I would not hear? I am heartbroken.
Now the man was messing with her. Just pointing out hunting was faster when I was a nobody, she said darkly. None of this making nice with your angels.
Try not to stab anyone. It would be most difficult to attempt to explain that as an accident—especially given your stellar aim.
Her lips threatened to twitch. No promises.
Nodding at the majordomo to lead her inside, she stepped in behind him with a crisp stride. Taizaki picked up speed when he realized she wasn’t interested in strolling; she was sure she saw his spine go even stiffer in affront.
He was probably waiting for her uncivilized self to pee on the furniture.
Biting back a snort of laughter at the image, Elena walked on.
The conservatory was a large room at the very end of the building and to the right. Elena had been inside the crisply formal chamber with floor-to-ceiling windows once before, during an evening Imani had hosted to welcome Elena to her new position. The angel might be prickly and about as much fun as an undertaker at a funeral, but she was also scrupulous in following angelic social etiquette.
“Imani,” Elena said as she walked in, the majordomo fading away to leave them in privacy.
An angel who bore wings of white with scattered feathers of bronze and had glowing skin of tawny brown glanced over from her position at the window. “Consort.” Her hair was a mass of black curls braided fine and tight against the left side of her skull but otherwise left to fall in glossy perfection to her shoulders.
“I was not expecting the Guild to send you.” Imani’s gown of deep blue velvet moved like dark water as she shifted to fully face Elena.
“I like to keep my hand in, make sure my hunter skills don’t get rusty.”
Imani’s lush lips pressed into a thin line. She was stunning even for an angel: those lips that had no doubt spawned countless male fantasies, high cheekbones, skin so flawless it was ridiculous, that incredible hair, and eyes of cinnamon brown with a darker burst around the pupil. Add in her tall hourglass form, and the woman looked like an artist’s fever dream of regal but sensual angelic beauty.
The illusion held until she opened her mouth. Oh, her voice was as lovely as the rest of her—but like her mansion, Imani was a grande dame who had no time for anyone’s bullshit. She also had zero time for people who did not color between the lines. Needless to say, Elena was not her favorite person.
“I see,” she said now, in the tone of a woman who didn’t see at all. “It is most irregular to have to deal with a consort on such a matter.” A very pointed look. “However, I assume the Guild director has given you the details? I made certain to speak to her rather than her underlings—she is a most competent mortal.”
Making a note to pass on the compliment to Sara, Elena told herself to behave and act professionally—even though tweaking the noses of stuffy old angels by upending their expectations of how a consort should behave gave her a wicked kind of satisfaction. “I have everything but Damian’s scent,” she said with commendable cool.
“My majordomo has that for you.” Imani opened then shut her wings with unusual sharpness before beginning to pace the room.
Elena shifted to keep the angel in her line of sight, the snow-draped gardens beyond the conservatory windows now at her back.
“I cannot believe the boy was foolish enough to do this.”
Damian Hale was thirty-four years old—or that was the age he’d been at his Making. He’d now stay thirty-four for hundreds upon hundreds of years. The one thing he wouldn’t do was become a boy. Of course, Imani was somewhere around eight thousand years old and had the “crotchety grandmother” thing down pat.
She’d probably needed smelling salts after learning that Raphael had chosen a mortal as his consort. Though, to be fair to Imani, she was trying in her own way. Discreetly gifting Elena a book on angelic protocol that she’d written herself had probably been meant as a gesture of kindness.
Raphael, the fiend, had taken great pleasure in reading the text aloud to her every night for a week, as she attempted to hide her head under a pillow while calling down curses on his head. But he’d also said, “Be patient with Imani, Guild Hunter. She is not cruel or unkind. What she is, is a very old angel who finds modern existence jarring—and you do not fit any of the neat boxes she uses to make sense of the world.”
With that in mind, Elena said, “Do you have any idea why Damian ran?”
Imani pursed her lips again. “He chafes at the bit.” She flicked a hand devoid of rings, though a thin diamond bracelet glittered around her wrist. “He was a leader among men before his Making—a thing called a CEO—and he is aggrieved at not being permitted to run my home.”
Elena raised an eyebrow. “Arrogant?”
“A foolish child who believes himself a big man.” Imani compressed her lips until her mouth was a flattened prune. “I wished to talk to you prior to the hunt because we have just discov
ered that he took weapons.”
Snapping to full attention, Elena said, “Which ones?”
“Walk with me. I will have my majordomo report to us.” Despite her words, Imani paused in place. “How strange,” she said softly in a voice that was suddenly full of the dark and haunting potency that was age.
Elena didn’t want to follow Imani’s gaze out the window. Her blood was suddenly cold, her pulse staccato. And in her ears thundered a roar of sound.
Birds, she thought, she’d see birds out there doing inexplicable, unearthly things.
It wasn’t birds. It was worse.
3
Imani’s roses were blooming.
Roses that had been buried under two feet of snow when Elena walked into the conservatory.
Roses that should’ve stayed asleep until the green breath of spring.
Roses that were a fucking harbinger of fucking doom.
Elena cleared her throat. “Do you always only plant red roses?” An endless sea of crimson, like a certain river had once become.
What the hell was it with the Cascade and the shade of blood?
“A small indulgence,” Imani said softly. “More important, it appears change is coming once more.” A sigh. “I do so dislike change.”
Staring out at the roses, Elena decided not to bother Raphael again. It wasn’t as if the roses were going to grow legs and attack New York. It was only the Cascade screwing with the natural order of things. “You know, Imani,” she muttered, “I agree with you on the change thing.”
For once in harmony, the two of them turned their backs to the blooming that should not be and met Taizaki in Damian Hale’s room. It turned out the ex-CEO had taken two guns and a crossbow. Imani confirmed Hale had enough of a facility with both types of weapons that Elena would have to take care.
That done, the angel left to walk in her creepy rose garden. “Change is disruptive,” she said when Elena arched her eyebrows. “But such dark beauty will not long survive the ice. Not even an immortal can stop the rot of time.”
