"Yes?"
"One of the officers doesn"t have a Guardian."
"Every mortal has a Guardian."
"Actually, not every mortal has."
"Rejected his, has he?" Mittron shrugged. "Well, he has made his decision, then. He is of no concern to us."
"That"s what I thought at first, but I thought it prudent to make certain and-well, she is of concern. Great concern."
The Highest Seraph frowned. He sat up straighter and a shadow fell across his face, darkening the gold of his gaze to amber. Then the creases in his forehead smoothed over.
"She is Nephilim," he said.
"She is descended from their line, yes."
"That does complicate matters."
"Yes."
"What do you suggest we do?"
Verchiel shook her head, no closer to a solution now than she had been when she"d first heard the news herself. She moved into the study and settled into one of the enormous wing chairs across from him.
"I don"t know," she admitted.
"How pure is she?"
"We"re not sure. We"re attempting to trace her, but it will take time. Even if the lineage is faint, however-"
Mittron nodded even as Verchiel let her words die away. "There may still be a risk," he agreed.
"Yes."
Mittron levered himself out of his chair. He paced to the window overlooking the gardens. His hands, linked behind his back, kept up a rhythmic tapping against his crimson robe. Out in the corridor, the murmur of voices approached, another door opened and closed, and the voices disappeared.
"What about a.s.signing a Guardian to her?" he asked, his voice thoughtful.
"None of the Guardians would stand a chance against a Fallen Angel, especially one as determined as Caim."
Mittron shook his head. "Not that kind of Guardian."
"What other kind of Guardian is there?"
"A Power."
"A Power? One of my Powers? With all due respect, Mittron, there is no way a hunter would agree to act-"
"Not just any Power," Mittron interrupted. "Aramael."
Verchiel couldn"t help it. She snorted. "You can"t be serious."
Mittron turned from the window to face her, his eyes like chips of yellow ice, and Verchiel"s insides shriveled. She paused to formulate her objection with as much care as she could. She needed to be clear about the impossibility of Mittron"s suggestion. She had allowed him to sway her once before where Aramael and Caim were concerned, and could not do so again. And not just for Aramael"s sake.
"Hunting Caim very nearly destroyed him the first time," she said. "We cannot ask him again."
"He is a Power, Verchiel. The hunt is his purpose. He"ll recover."
"There must be some other way."
"Name one angel in all of Heaven who would risk a confrontation with a Fallen One to protect a Naphil, no matter how faint the lineage."
Verchiel fell silent. The Highest knew she could name no such an angel, because none existed. Not one of Heaven"s ranks had any love for the Nephilim, and Verchiel doubted she could find one who might feel even a stirring of pity for the race. The One herself had turned her back on the bloodline, a constant reminder of Lucifer"s downfall; had denied them the guidance of the Guardians who watched over other mortals, and left them to survive-or, in most cases, not- on their own.
But where this particular Naphil was concerned, surviving Caim was essential. For all their sakes. Verchiel felt herself waver. She rested her elbow on the chair"s arm.
"It will consume him," she said at last.
"Caim already consumes him, which is why we will ask him. The moment you mention Caim"s name, Aramael will do anything necessary to complete the hunt, even protect one of the Nephilim." Mittron left the window and returned to his desk. Apparently having decided the matter was closed, he lowered himself into the chair and picked up his pen. "See to it. And keep me informed."
Despite the obvious dismissal, Verchiel hesitated. The Highest"s logic made a certain kind of sense, but sending Aramael after Caim for a second time felt wrong. Very wrong. He was already the most volatile of all the Powers, barely acquiescing to any standard of control at the best of times. How much worse would he be after this?
The Highest Seraph lifted his head and looked at her. "You have a problem, Dominion?"
She did, but could think of no way to voice her elusive misgivings. At least, none that Mittron would take seriously. She rose from her chair.
"No, Highest. No problem."
Mittron"s voice stopped her again at the door. "Verchiel."
She looked back.
"We will keep this matter between us." He put pen to paper and began to write. "There is no need to alarm the others."
Mittron heard the door snap shut and laid aside his pen. Leaning back, he rested his head against the chair, closed his eyes, and willed the tension from his shoulders. He was becoming so very tired of Verchiel"s resistance. Every other angel under his authority obeyed without question, without comment. But not Verchiel. Never Verchiel.
Perhaps it was because of their former soulmate status, when, out of respect, he had treated her more as an equal. A mistake he"d realized too late and had paid for ever since. The Cleanse had been intended to provide a clean slate between them, between all the angels, but it hadn"t been as effective in every respect as he would have liked.
Not for the first time, he considered placing the Dominion elsewhere, where they wouldn"t need to be in such constant contact with one another. Also not for the first time, he discarded the idea. She was too valuable as a handler of the Powers, particularly where Aramael was concerned, and particularly now.
Mittron sighed, straightened, and reached again for his pen.
No, he"d keep her in place for the moment. As long as she followed orders, however grudgingly, it would be best that way. If she didn"t . . . well, former soulmate or not, he was able to discipline an uncooperative angel. More than able.
Two.
Alex studied the scene in detail for several long minutes before she admitted to herself that she avoided the inevitable. The admission wasn"t easy. In six years of homicide detail, she"d seen just about everything there was to see, and had witnessed far worse than what they dealt with now. But this one unnerved her. This one, and the three before it.
She eyed the tarp-covered corpse with distaste. She knew why slashings bothered her, of course. She didn"t need a shrink to tell her that what she"d seen twenty-three years ago had left its mark. She had learned to deal with it, however; learned how to shut off the memories and disregard the initial horror that threatened to swamp her whenever she viewed such a victim. She"d had no choice-not in this career.
But this case, with so many of them so close together, and the near certainty that there would be more . . .
Alex pulled up her thoughts sharply. After thirty-six straight hours on her feet, her resistance was bound to be a bit low. She"d just have to be careful. She swallowed, steeled herself, and then started toward the body, pulling on latex gloves to protect the scene from contamination, steadfastly placing one foot in front of the other. She paused at the tarp. Every time she had a case like this, the memories threatened. Sometimes she could hold them back. She crouched and lifted a corner of the plastic sheeting.
And sometimes she couldn"t.
Alex"s breath hissed from her lungs. Despite her best efforts, images bombarded her: vivid, horrifying, resisting all attempts to push them away. She squeezed her eyes closed and gritted her teeth. Made herself think only of her mental door, made her mind force it shut again on the past. Waited for the heave of her stomach to subside and the nausea to recede.
Seconds crept by. At last, her grasp on her dinner still precarious at best, she opened her eyes again, careful to focus beyond the victim. She wiped her sleeve across her forehead, removing moisture she couldn"t blame on the stifling air. Footsteps approached from behind. Mud-spattered black shoes entered her peripheral vision and stopped at the edge of a murky red puddle.
Alex looked up to find fellow detective Raymond Joly standing beside her. "Christ," she said softly, "do you ever get used to seeing this, do you think?"
"Some say they do." Joly shrugged, his face a closed mask as he viewed the remains. "I think they"re kidding themselves."
Alex tasted a faint metallic tang and realized she"d bitten her lip hard enough to draw blood. She licked away the droplet and, aware of Joly"s presence at her side, forced herself to do her job and lift the tarp clear of the lifeless, wrecked young woman on the pavement.
Under control once more, Alex examined the victim: the single, b.l.o.o.d.y gash that ran from ear to ear across the throat, and the other slices across the torso-in groups of four, equidistant from one another-that had gone through clothing, skin, and muscle alike to expose pale bone and now-bloodless organs.
Roberts had been right. It was exactly the same pattern as the three previous killings and, like the ones before it, it wasn"t an ordinary murder-if murder could ever be ordinary.
Alex chewed at the inside of her cheek as she studied the young woman"s waxen features and the way she had been posed on the pavement, arms outstretched perpendicular to the body, legs together, feet crossed at the ankles.
Simple death did not satisfy whoever had done this, whoever had done the same to the others. There was more here than mere disregard for human life, more than a desire to kill. This was . . . Alex paused in her thoughts, searching for the right word. Obscene. Depraved. Another word jolted through her mind, and she shuddered.
Evil.
She dropped the tarp and struggled to her feet. Then, to cover her discomposure, she flipped open her notebook and put pen to paper.
Joly plucked the pen from her grasp. "Go home."
"Excuse me?" Alex looked at him in surprise.
Six inches shorter than she was, but with an enormous handlebar mustache that somehow made up for his lack of stature, Joly waved his cell phone under her nose. "Roberts called and said that if you were still here, I was to kick your a.s.s for him." He stuck the cell phone back into its holster on his belt. "He also said that this was a limited-time offer. The task force meets at eleven."
Alex glanced at her watch. That gave her six hours including travel time, first to home and then to the office. Given the fact that she lived a good forty minutes from work-without traffic-the allotment wasn"t nearly as generous as it first seemed. "Lucky me," she muttered.
"Take it." Joly handed back her pen. "If this lunatic keeps up this pace, none of us will be going home again for a while."
Recognizing the truth of his words, Alex slid the pen into her pocket and closed the notebook cover. "Do we have enough people for the canva.s.s?"
"We"ll manage. We won"t exactly be tripping over witnesses around here at this hour." Joly stepped around the tarp-covered body with the unspoken respect they all gave the dead and strolled away to join his partner, tossing a last disheartening comment over his shoulder. "I hate to be the one to break it to you, Jarvis, but you won"t miss a thing. This is one I"ll guarantee we won"t solve today."
"No." Aramael didn"t turn around to deliver his refusal. Didn"t care that nothing had been asked yet. He"d sensed Verchiel"s approach long before her presence filled his doorway, and knew why she was there.
He wouldn"t do it.
"Warmest greetings to you, too," Verchiel said dryly. "May I come in?"
Aramael shrugged and selected a slim volume from the shelf in front of him. Poetry? The flowery verses might be just what he needed to soothe his battered soul. Or they might drive him over the edge into outright rebellion. Kill or cure, so to speak-and perhaps not the best choice in his current frame of mind. He slid the book back into place and, from the corner of his eye, saw Verchiel join him, her pale silver hair glowing against the rich purple of her gown. He ignored her.
"This is rude even for you," she commented at last, mild reproof in her voice.
Aramael reminded himself that she was only the messenger, and that snarling at her would serve no purpose other than to alienate one of the few angels with whom he shared any kind of civility. He gritted his teeth, looking down and sideways at her. "I"m sorry. And you"re right. I am being rude. But I"m still not doing it."
"You don"t even know why I"m here."
"There is only one reason a Dominion visits a Power, Verchiel. Why any of the others would visit us, either, if they bothered at all." Aramael ran his finger down the t.i.tle on the spine of a ma.s.sive volume, paused, and moved on.
Too heavy-in the literary, as well as the literal, sense. "So, yes, I do know why you"re here."
Verchiel fell silent for a moment, then admitted, "I"d never thought of it quite like that. I suppose it is rather obvious."
"Rather."
"You"re right, of course."
"Of course. And I"ve told you, I"m not doing it. I"ve only just come back from the last hunt. Find someone else."
"There is no one else."
Aramael met the other angel"s serene, pale blue gaze for a moment before he turned away. "Ezrael is in the garden. Send him."
"There"s more to it this time. Mittron wants you to go."
Aramael caught back an unangelic curse and pulled a book from the shelf. "I"m tired, Verchiel. Do you understand? I"m tired, and I"m empty, and I"ve just finished four consecutive hunts. I"m not doing it. Send Ezrael."
"There"s a woman-"
"A what?" He pushed the book back into place without glancing at its t.i.tle and eyed her narrowly. "What does a mortal have to do with this?"
"She-well, she-" Verchiel floundered, avoiding his eyes. Her hands fluttered in a way that reminded him of a trapped bird. Any hint of serenity had vanished. "She"s important to us," she finished.
"And?"
"We think the Fallen One might attack her."