Guild Hunter 01 - Angels' Blood

on Michaela?” she asked Raphael. “She might be our best bet for catching him.”
    “She’s an archangel,” Raphael reminded her. “To augment her resources with my own would be to say I consider her weak.”
    “She’s refusing?” Elena shook her head. “Then I hope to God she has good men and you have good spies.” Pissed at the arrogance of angels, at the rain, at the whole fucking universe, she strode out without a backward look. Venom was at the gate. Damn man looked good wet. “I need a car.”
    To her surprise, he dropped keys into her palm and pointed across the road to the sedan she’d left double-parked somewhere. “Thanks.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    She decided the vamp was playing with her, couldn’t be bothered to snipe at him. Pushing through the gate, she walked toward the car.
    Go to my home, Elena. I’ll meet you there.
    She opened the door and got in, brushing rain from her face, tasting the freshness of it on her tongue. But no, that was Raphael. He was waiting for an answer. “You know what, Archangel? I think it’s time I took you up on your offer.”
    Which particular offer?
    “The one about fucking me into oblivion.” She had to forget—the blood, the death, the viscera of evil sprayed on the walls of that innocuous-looking town house.
    A better man wouldn’t take advantage of you in your current emotional state.
    “Good thing you’re not a man.”
    Yes.
    Her thighs clenched at the eroticism implicit in that single word. Sticking the key in the ignition, she started the car and pulled out. The scent of rain, of the sea, faded from her mind. Raphael had left. But she could still taste him on her tongue, as if he’d exuded some exotic pheromone that rewired her body to scent angel, not vampire.
    Not that she cared.
    The hanging bodies, the shadows on the wall—
    No, there had been no shadows. Not today.
    Her hands clenched on the steering wheel as she came to a stop at a red light, her vision hazed by rain, by memories. “Stuff it back,” she ordered herself. “Don’t remember.”
    But it was too late. A single, terrifying shadow took shape on the wall of her mind, swaying in the breeze from the open windows.
    Her mother had always liked fresh air.
    Someone honked and she realized the light had turned green. Mentally thanking the other driver for snapping her awake, she focused every part of herself on driving. The rain should’ve made it hell but the streets were eerily quiet. As if the gathering darkness was a malevolent force that had captured the population, taking them to earth, to death.
    And that quickly, she was back in the huge entranceway to the Big House, the house Jeffrey had bought after . . . After. Such a Big House for a family of four. Above her was a mezzanine floor with a lovely white railing, so strong, metal not wood. Elegant, old, the perfect home for a man who planned to be mayor.
    “Mom, I’m home!”
    Quiet. So quiet.
    Panic in her throat, pain in her eyes, blood in her mouth.
    She’d bitten her tongue. In fear. In terror. But no, there was no trace of vampire.
    “Mom?” A tremulous question.
    Looking at the huge hallway, she’d wondered why her mother had left one high-heeled shoe in the middle of the tile. Maybe she’d forgotten. Marguerite was different. Beautiful, wild, artistic. Sometimes she forgot the days of the week, or wore two different shoes, but that was okay. Elena didn’t care.
    The shoe fooled her. Made her step inside.
    A crash of noise and memory shattered under the heart-thudding reality of the present. She slammed the car to a shuddering halt, sickeningly aware that something had just ricocheted off her windshield. “Jesus.” Unclipping her belt, she opened the door and got out. Had she hit someone?
    The wind tore at her hair as the rain pelted down with bruising force. The storm had come out of nowhere, a freak blip on the radar of nature. Fighting against the wind, she walked around to the front of the car, eerily conscious that there was absolutely no one else on this stretch of road. Maybe people had decided to wait out the rain. Blinking water from her eyes, she figured it’d be a long wait.
    There was a leaf on her windscreen, stuck to one of the still-running wipers. A solid branch lay a few feet in front of the car. Relief whispered through her, but she checked under and behind the vehicle to be sure. Nothing. Just a branch thrown by the wind. Getting out of the rain, she slammed the door shut and