“Azriel isn’t at my beck and call,” I said, unable to hide the annoyance in my voice. “He just wants the keys, the same as you and the council.”
gate.2em">Not to mention the Raziq and my goddamn father.
“This takes priority over finding the keys.”
I snorted. “Since when?”
That darkness in her eyes got stronger. “Since I walked into my lover’s house and discovered his corpse.”
I stared at her for a moment, seeing little in the way of true emotion in either her expression or voice. And yet her need for revenge, to rend and tear, was so strong that even through the vid-phone I could almost taste it. That sort of fury, I thought with a shiver, was not something I ever wanted aimed my way.
Yet, despite knowing it wasn’t sensible, I couldn’t help saying, “I’m betting the rest of the council wouldn’t actually agree with that assessment.”
I think if she could have jumped through the phone line and throttled me, she would have. As it was, she bared her teeth, her canines elongating just a little, and said in a soft voice, “You should not be worried about what the rest of the council is thinking right now.”
The only time I’d stop worrying about the rest of the council was when she achieved her goal of supreme control over the lot of them. Until then, they were as big a threat to me as she was.
But I wasn’t stupid enough to actually come out and say that to her. “Hunting for your friend’s killer is going to steal precious time away from the search for—”
“And,” she cut in coolly, “just where, exactly, is your search for the keys?”
Nowhere—that’s where. My father might have given me clues for the next key’s location, but deciphering those was another matter entirely. We figured it was somewhere in the middle of Victoria’s famous golden triangle, but given that that particular region encompassed more than nine thousand square kilometers of land, it left us with a vast area to explore. It was fucking frustrating, but all Azriel and I could do was keep on searching and hope that sooner or later fate gave us a goddamn break.
“It’s probably in the same place as your search for my mother’s killer.”
The minute the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Hunter really wasn’t someone I needed to antagonize, and yet it was her damn promise to help find my mother’s killer that had made me agree to work for her and the council in the first place. And while I’d kept my end of the bargain, she hadn’t.
For several very long seconds, she didn’t reply. She simply stared at me, her expression remote and her eyes colder than the Antarctic. Then she said, her voice so soft it was barely audible, “Tread warily, Risa, dearest.”
I gulped. I couldn’t help it. Death glared at me through the phone’s screen, and she scared the hell out of me.
I took a slow, deep breath, but it really didn’t help ease the sense of dread or the sudden desire to just give it all the fuck away. To let fate deal her cards and accept whatever might come my way—be that death at Hunter’s hand or someone else’s.
I was sick of it. Sick of thet. wa threats, sick of the fighting, sick of a search that seemed to have no end and no possibility of our winning.
Death is not a solution of any kind, Azriel said, his mind voice sharp.
I looked up from the phone’s screen. He appeared in front of my desk, the heat of his presence playing gently through my being, a sensation as intimate as the caress of fingers against skin. Longing shivered through me.
Reapers, like the Aedh, weren’t actually flesh beings—although they could certainly attain that form whenever they wished—but rather beings made of energy who lived on the gray fields, the area that divided earth from heaven and hell. Or the light and dark portals, as they preferred to call them.
Although I had no idea whether his reaper form would be considered handsome—or even how reapers defined handsome—his human form certainly was. His face was chiseled, almost classical in its beauty, but possessed the hard edge of a man who’d fought many battles. His body held a similar hardness, though his build was more that of an athlete than of a weight lifter. Stylized black tats that resembled the left half of a wing swept around his ribs from underneath his arm, the tips brushing across the left side of his neck.
Only it wasn’t a tat. It was a Dušan—a darker, more stylized brother to the one that resided on my left arm—and had been designed to protect us when we walked the gray fields. We had no idea who’d sent them to us, but Azriel suspected it was my father, who apparently was one of the few left in this world—or the next—who had the power to make them.
Of course, Azriel wasn’t just a reaper, but something far more. He was one of the Mijai, the dark angels who hunted and killed the things that broke free from hell. And they had more than their fair share of work now that the first gate had been opened.
If you ask me, death is looking more and more like the perfect solution when it comes to the keys. My mental voice sounded as weary as my physical one. I wasn’t actually telepathic—not in any way, shape, or form—but that didn’t matter when it came to my reaper. He could hear my thoughts as clearly as the spoken word.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t always a two-way street. Most of the time I heard his thoughts only when it was a deliberate act on his part. If I’m not here to find the damn things, then the world and my friends remain safe.
He crossed his arms, an action that only emphasized the muscles in his arms and shoulders. Death is no solution. Not for you. Not now.
And what the hell is that supposed to mean?
His gaze met mine, his blue eyes—one as vivid and bright as a sapphire, the other as dark as a storm-driven sea—giving little away. It means exactly what it says.
Great. More riddles. Another thing I really needed right now. I returned my attention to Hunter’s deathlike stare. “How did your friend die?”
“He was restrained, then drained.”
“Drained? As in a vampire style, all-the-blood-from-the-body draining or something else?”
She hesitated,Shere and and for just a second I saw something close to grief in her eyes. Whoever her friend was, they’d been a lot closer than mere lovers.
“Have you ever seen the husk of a fly after a spider has finished with it?” she said. “That’s what he looked like. There was nothing left but the dried remains of outer skin. Everything else had been sucked away.”
I stared at her for a moment, wondering whether I’d heard her right, then swallowed heavily and said, “Everything? As in, blood, bone—”
“Blood, bone, muscle, intestines, brain. Everything.” Her voice was suddenly fierce. “As I said, all that remained was the shell of hardened outer skin.”
A shudder ran through me. I did not want to meet, let alone chase, something that could do that to a body.
“How can human skin be hardened into a shell? Or the entire innards of a body sucked away? It had to be one hell of a wound.”
“On the contrary, the wound was quite small—two slashes on either side of his abdomen.” She hesitated. “He did not appear to die in agony. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“I guess that’s some comfort—”
“He’s dead,” she cut in harshly. “How is that ever going to be a comfort?”
I should have known I’d get my head bitten off if I tried sympathy on the bitch. “Where is his body? And is the Directorate being called in on this?”