Guild Hunter 01 - Angels' Blood

spreading out to shade her from the sun. She waved him down. She craved the heat—her soul was cold, so icy cold.
    She didn’t know how long she stood there bent in half, but when she rose, it was to the awareness of being watched. The vampires she’d sent from the warehouse? Illium? Watching the hunter lose her breakfast.
    Her mouth tasted disgusting as she used the edge of her T-shirt to wipe at her lips. She wasn’t the least bit embarrassed. To see that and not be affected . . . it would’ve made her a monster akin to the killer who’d anointed her in blood before she’d even been old enough to date.
    “Tell me why,” she said, voice husky.
    “Later.” A command. “Search for him.”
    He was right, of course. The scent would fade if she didn’t hurry. Not replying, she kicked some loose dirt over her recently lost breakfast and began to jog slowly around the warehouse, attempting to pick up Uram’s exit point. Most vampires used doors but you could never tell. And this killer had wings.
    A sharp bite of acid.
    She halted, finding herself in front of a small side entrance. From the outside, it looked normal, but when she tugged it open, she found the inside covered with bloody handprints. Too small to have been made by a man of Uram’s size. She followed the line of sight . . . and saw the hanging shadows deep in the warehouse.
    She slammed the door shut. “He let them run, let them think they had a chance to escape.”
    Raphael stayed silent as she zigzagged out from the doorway.
    “Nothing,” she said. “His scent is there because one of the girls managed to get out and he had to retrieve her.” She bent down to stare at the brown grass. “Dried blood,” she said, swallowing past the raw flesh of her throat. “Poor kid actually managed to crawl this far.” She frowned. “There’s too much blood.”
    Beside her, Raphael went very still. “You’re right. There’s a trail leading away from the door.”
    She knew his eyesight was keener than hers. Like raptors, angels could reputedly see the tiniest of details even during flight. “It can’t be Uram’s,” she murmured. “I’d have scented it.” She followed Raphael as he walked the trail—she could no longer see anything past the first few feet. “Did he drag a body out here, maybe?” They were at the chain-link fence. She went down, examined the small hole at the bottom. “There’s blood on the edges of the metal.” Excitement slammed into her, a two-fisted punch.
    “I’ll have to fly across.”
    As he winged over, Elena found another hole to push through. The blood was more obvious on the other side—there was no grass to hide it, just hard-packed dirt. Her excitement turned into an almost painful hope. “Someone crawled through that hole.” Rising to her feet, she found herself staring at the closed door of a small shed. It looked like it might once have been a guard station for the abandoned parking lot behind it.
    There was blood on the door.
    “Wait here,” Raphael ordered.
    She gripped the closest part of him—his wing. “No.”
    The look he shot her was not friendly. “Elena—”
    “If we have a survivor, seeing an angel is going to freak her out.” She let go of his wing. “I’ll check first. She’s probably dead, but just in case . . .”
    “She lives.” An absolute statement. “Go. Get her. We can’t waste time.”
    “A life is not a waste of time.” Her hand fisted hard enough that she knew she’d have crescent-shaped marks in the flesh of her palms.
    “Uram will kill thousands if we don’t stop him. And he’ll get more and more depraved with each kill.”
    Snapshots of the mutilated bodies inside the warehouse cascaded through her mind. “I’ll hurry.” Reaching the guard station, she took a deep breath. “I’m a hunter,” she said loudly. “I’m human.” Then she pulled open the door, making sure to stay out of the line of fire in case the person inside had a weapon.
    Pure silence.
    Using the utmost care, she looked around and . . . into the face of a small woman with darkly slanted eyes. The woman was naked but for the rust red stain of blood, her arms gripping her raised knees as she rocked soundlessly, blind to anything but the terrors of her mind.

24
     
    “My name is Elena,” she said softly, wondering if the woman even knew she was there. “You’re safe now.”
    No response.
    Backing out, she looked to Raphael. “She needs medical attention.”
    “Illium will take