Guild Hunter 03 - Archangel's Consort

eyes, they gleamed with an unholy joy. “She wakes.”
    Shaking off the shiver crawling up her spine, Elena said, “Yeah, well, it’s goodnight for you.” With that, she turned the flamethrower on the sucker.
    When she swiveled back around, it was to a scene of carnage . . . with only two other people left upright. Ransom held two smoking big-ass guns, one on either side of his body, his legs spread as he stood checking to see if any of the vamps near him still breathed. His face was bloody with claw marks, his black T-shirt almost shredded off him, and his hair, having come loose in the struggle, ran a silky black rain down his back.
    By the door near where she’d been attacked stood Venom, blades swiveling in his hands, his suit jacket and tie gone, his white shirt splattered with blood. His hair, for once, wasn’t GQ -perfect. Instead, it tumbled over his forehead, and paired with his feral smile, it turned him shockingly attractive in a very disturbing way.
    His eyes, slitted and inhuman, met hers at that moment. “I can’t hear any pulses.”
    “We’ll check one by one to be sure,” she said, chest rising and falling in short, sharp breaths like the two men. “This group was far too organized—we don’t want any of them waking up.”
    Silently, they did exactly that, covering every inch of the warehouse. “I count fifteen,” Ransom said, when they met in the middle.
    “Yeah, that’s what I got,” Venom added. “There’s one outside, too, so sixteen in total.”
    Ransom really looked at the other man for the first time, shook his head, stared again. “Holy hell, your eyes are like a fucking viper’s.”
    Venom raised an eyebrow. “You have hair prettier than one of Astaad’s concubines.”
    Ransom gave the vampire the finger. Venom grinned.
    Certain that all was now well in the male world, Elena reached into her pocket and pulled out a spare hair tie, throwing it to Ransom. “I’d say this was impossible if I wasn’t standing in the middle of it. We have what, maybe three rogue vamps in the state in a year?”
    “Rogues, yes,” Ransom pointed out, pulling his hair back in that rough way men had of doing. “Bloodlust? We’d get maybe one that was totally whackjob.”
    “The Sire keeps a tight control on his vampires,” Venom said, going down on his haunches to wipe off his bloody blades using the shirt of a fallen vamp. “This simply shouldn’t have happened.”
    Remembering what that last vampire had said, Elena knew there was a high chance Caliane was behind this, but she kept her mouth shut. Much as it pained her to keep a secret from Ransom and the Guild, she’d agreed to be Raphael’s consort. He had her first loyalty. She wouldn’t betray that trust—more, she wouldn’t share the shreds of information she had when nothing could be done about it.
    “We need to ID the vampires,” she said, bending to strap the blade-bow to one thigh and the miniature flamethrower to the other, “notify the authorities.”
    “I’ll do the authorities,” Ransom said, pulling out his cell. “They know I was on this track.”
    “I know at least two of the vampires from sight,” Venom said, disappearing his blades into the crisscrossing black sheaths on his back that she could see now that he wasn’t wearing his jacket. “Give me a few minutes to see how many others I can ID.”
    As Venom did that, Elena went around checking for wallets where they hadn’t been fried by her flames or otherwise destroyed. She ended up finding seven pieces. Venom ID’ed four others from sight, which left them with five unknowns, most of them either charred beyond recognition or missing a face courtesy of Ransom’s gun.
    “The angel in charge of this region is on his way with the authorities,” Ransom told them, closing his cell phone. “He’ll take care of the rest of the IDs. Looks like he’s going to need to break out the DNA kit for a few.”
    Elena looked toward the hole in the roof where she’d entered the warehouse and found rain still pouring in. “I think we all need a shower.”
    The men didn’t say anything as they followed her out of the warehouse and into the torrential downpour. The water around them turned to rust, then a pale orange, then sepia, until finally, it ran clear. Blinking the rain from her eyes, she walked back to the door.
    “Ellie.” Ransom’s voice. “Our job is done. We just hold the scene until the cops arrive.”
    Elena nodded. “I know, but I want to