Not wasting time, they walked to one end of the warehouse to form a horizontal line across the huge space with others of the squadron. Not the Legion fighters, however—according to what Ashwini had picked up from talking to Tower personnel, while the Legion were skilled in the air, they weren’t very good at delicate tasks. Not yet.
Using high-powered torches flown in by the Legion to light shadowy areas and illuminate aisles between the shelving, the line was almost to the other end of the warehouse when Janvier called for them to stop.
Positioned only a couple of feet to his left, Ashwini watched him crouch down and pick up something from the ground. “Feather,” he said, fierce exultation in his tone. “Red.”
Red?
As far as she knew, there were no red-winged angels in the city, but she was no expert. Many angels also had delicate markings—one could have tiny red feathers on the inner curve of a wing, for example. “Do you recognize it?” Angelic colors tended to be highly distinctive. No one in New York would ever mistake one of Illium’s for one of Raphael’s, or one of Jason’s for one of Aodhan’s.
“No.” Janvier rose to his feet, handed the feather to Illium. “You know who this is?”
A chill iced Illium’s expression. “There are two options that make sense.”
“Red,” Naasir said, a growl in his voice, “is unusual among angels.” His eyes met Illium’s. “Xi and Cornelius.”
Ashwini’s mind filled with an image of wings of gray streaked by vivid red, her skin pebbling. “Wasn’t Xi—”
“—one of Lijuan’s generals?” Illium completed. “Yes.”
Naasir spoke again. “Not the oldest or the most powerful, but favored because of his intelligence.”
“Cornelius,” Illium added, “is a lower-ranked general. His wings are a heavy cream for the most part except for a scattering of red across the top arches.”
“Illium!”
Turning toward the doorway, Ashwini saw a slender black-haired vampire with a scarf around his neck walking toward them. He must’ve arrived in the area after them, she realized when Janvier introduced him as Trace.
His voice was hoarse as he said, “I had a hunch, with Giorgio being scientifically trained. Dug around in the other warehouse.” Trace opened his palm. On it sat a tiny ziplock bag with a few crystalline granules colored a reddish brown.
Ashwini recognized it from Janvier’s description of the new designer vampire drug that was the reason for Lacey’s horrific murder.
“Supply or creation?” Illium asked after taking the bag.
“Creation. There are tools. Nothing elaborate, but enough.” Trace glanced around. “Giorgio must’ve separated out his drug operation from his sadistic games”—utter distaste in his voice—“because the other warehouse already had the right setup for it.”
“See if you can discover anything else about the origins of the drug,” Illium said, his glance taking in all four of them. “I’ll alert Raphael that it appears either Cornelius or Xi somehow managed to remain behind in the city, or return to it after the rest of Lijuan’s forces retreated.”
The angel couldn’t technically give Ashwini an order, but this was one order with which she had no argument. First, however, they finished going over the warehouse. Ashwini found another tiny red feather, this one with a tip of rich cream. Xi, she remembered, had no cream in his wings. Still, she double-checked with Naasir and Janvier, received the same answer.
That narrowed their target down to a single angeclass="underline" Cornelius.
“They were careful,” Janvier said, his hand touching her lower back. “Must’ve picked up any larger feathers.”
“No.” She stared at the tiny feather as Naasir contacted Illium with the updated information. “They had no reason to be careful—Giorgio was so sure he couldn’t be tracked that he used a warehouse held under his own name. There’s something wrong with this feather.” Holding it cupped carefully in the palm of her hand, she walked outside into the light. “Do you see it?”
First Janvier, then Naasir examined the feather. Even Trace. None could see anything wrong, and when she looked at it in their hands, she couldn’t, either. But as soon as she took it, she felt it again, the wrongness. “There’s something wrong with Cornelius, then,” she said, skin crawling. “Very, very wrong.”
Sliding the disturbing thing into her pocket, after rooting around in there for something to act as a bag and finding a crushed plastic sleeve that had once held tissues, she walked with the men across to the other warehouse.
It was identical to the first one in size and shape, but the lighting was much better, most of the space filled with what appeared to be normal goods. They opened a few boxes to be sure, found the kinds of things a man who served the luxury market might acquire—exotic spices, antiques, rich bolts of silk.
The back right of the warehouse, however, was sectioned off into its own room with a single small window. It said Office on the door, and at first glance that was what it appeared to be. Tall filing cabinets, a desk, invoices, a phone. There was even a tiny sink behind the filing cabinets, as well as a camp stove.
It was under that sink that Trace had found a clear plastic box that held a steel bowl, a dirty syringe, a tiny spoon, and what looked like a bunch of ordinary sugar crystals alongside more ziplock bags. Putting everything on the sink, Trace said, “Either the foreman who ran this warehouse was oblivious to his master’s activities or he was the cook.
“The bag I found was crushed under the bowl, must’ve been missed when they made the last batch.” He held the syringe up to show them the brownish residue inside before putting it back down. “In all honesty I’m not sure how or what they were doing, but I believe they must’ve needed water and the stove. The actual raw materials are nowhere in evidence.”
Naasir sniffed the air. “I smell blood.”
Frowning, Ashwini, Janvier, and Trace spread out, looking for any evidence someone had been held or hurt in here. “I don’t see any blood,” she said. “Janvier?”
“Nothing.”
Trace’s response was the same.
Naasir sniffed the air again, walking closer and closer to the sink until he had his nose in the bowl. “Blood,” he said definitively. “Strong blood. Angel blood.”
“They made a drug out of the blood of an angel?” Ashwini just stared at the wild silver of Naasir’s gaze.
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“Yes.” Naasir sniffed again, his eyes going flat. “This blood is wrong.” He hissed, drawing away from the bowl. “Bad to drink.” He came to Ashwini. “Show me the feather again.”
Taking it out of her pocket, she removed it from the plastic sleeve. Naasir didn’t take it, just put his hand under hers and lowered his nose to the feather. The silver liquid of his hair slid forward to kiss her skin. “Yes,” he said, rising to his full height. “You were right—the feather smells wrong, too, but it’s much more subtle.”
Ashwini put it away in her pocket. “No question it’s the same angel?”
“None.”
The deep, deep green of Trace’s eyes glinted. “That explains why Umber is so exclusive—even an angel can’t donate blood every day without consequences.”
“It also,” Janvier said, “confirms the why of the drug.”
“A poison.” Naasir’s features set into piercingly intelligent lines, his feral nature taking a backseat. “The aim was always to kill or cause bloodlust.”
“Yes.” Trace stared at the wall, his mind clearly working. “Either they’re adding something to the blood or the angel’s blood is poison. Given what you said about the feather, my bet is the latter.”
That left the question of how the blood had been poisoned in the first place—but if their man was Cornelius, well, he was Lijuan’s protégé, and the Archangel of China had created infectious reborn. Not a stretch to say that one of her minions hadn’t been “blessed” with poisonous blood courtesy of his goddess.