“Fuck.” Elena’s voice changed, became darker. “You’re hunting him?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m in New York, landed a few hours ago. I can be on the next flight.”
Sara was already shaking her head. “I don’t know what’s going on yet.”
“You can’t go after him alone.”
“I’m not. Deacon’s with me.”
“The Slayer?” Her relief was open. “Good. Look, Sara, I’m hearing things.”
“What?”
“All of us know you’ve got Simon’s position anytime you want. But I had a conversation with a high-level vamp on the plane home and he knew your name.”
Simon had warned her of this. “The Cadre takes an interest in the next Guild Director.”
Elena’s silence was long. “I know you can’t run and hide from this, so I’ll just say—be damn careful. The archangels aren’t anything close to human. I wouldn’t want to be within ten feet of one.”
“I don’t think any of them will bother to personally check me out—probably send some of their vampires to have a look.” And she knew how to handle vampires.
“Lucky you have the Slayer with you. Serious manpower when you need it.” A faint pinging sound came over the line. “Gotta go. I think the takeout’s arrived.”
Hanging up, Sara stared at the phone. Yes, it was lucky, wasn’t it, that Deacon had shown himself to her when he spent most of his time in the shadows. And how very convenient that she’d been posted on a hunt to the very city where the serial killings were taking place. Eyes narrowed, she waited.
3
Deacon walked out a couple of minutes later, dressed in nothing but a pair of jeans. Her hormones danced. Damn near did the foxtrot. She refused to join in. “Simon sent you.”
To his credit, he didn’t bother to deny it. “Two birds. One stone.” Grabbing a fresh T-shirt from his duffel, he pulled it over his head. “You know it’s the right decision.”
The fact that he sounded so coolly logical made her want to shoot him with the crossbow just to make a point. “The Guild Director can’t be seen as weak.”
“She also can’t be seen as stupid.” Intractable will in those midnight-forest eyes.
Putting down the cell she’d been squeezing half to death, she dug out a brush and began to pull it through her hair. “Tell me about the killer. Is there any chance it could be an impostor?”
He didn’t say anything for several seconds, as if not trusting her sudden capitulation. “Yes. But as of right now, I have three possibles—all hunters. We’ll visit them one by one.”
“Tonight?”
A small nod. “I figure we give it four hours, enough time for the killer to relax his guard.”
“Why didn’t you follow him after he hit Rodney?”
“There was no visible trail.”
She snorted. “And your job is to babysit me.”
“Babysitting you isn’t what I want to do.” Quiet, intense words, stroking over her skin like living velvet. “But since taking you to bed is out of bounds, I’m stuck with babysitting.”
Heat exploded across her skin, a raw, dark fire. “What makes you think I’d let you within a foot of me?” Her voice held the rough edge of desire, but it could as easily have been anger.
“What makes you think I’d ask nice?”
“Try anything and I’ll cheerfully gut you with your own knife.”
Deacon smiled. And it turned him from sexy to devastating. “This’ll be fun.”
But four hours of fitful sleep later, she was in no mood to play. Pulling on her gear before joining Deacon in the corridor, she adjusted her crossbow and set her jaw. “I don’t like the fact that we’re hunting one of our own.”
Silence.
She glanced at him as they began to walk down to the garage, and saw nothing. No expression. No emotion. No mercy. In that moment, he was the Slayer. “How many have you had to kill?”
“Five.”
She blew out a breath at the single precise word, and opened the door to the stairs. No point in making hotel security crazy by being caught on the elevator cameras armed to the teeth. “Why you?”
“It has to be someone.”
She understood all about that. “I never wanted to be Guild Director.”
“That’s why you were chosen—you’ll do what the director is meant to do.”
“As opposed to?”
He exited first, and she knew it was a gesture of protection. Annoying, but on the scale of annoyances, minor.
“You know about Paris. They had that director a few years ago who politicked himself into the position. Almost got all his hunters killed, he was so busy grandstanding.”
Sara nodded and headed to the bike, their chosen method of transport tonight. “I always wondered how that could’ve happened.” Hunters were a tough, forthright lot as a whole. Slick made them suspicious.
“Some people say he struck a deal with a powerful cabal of vampires, that they influenced the vote.”
Very old vampires were rumored to have mind-control abilities, and one of Sara’s more important qualifications for the position of Guild Director was that she had a natural immunity to all vampiric abilities. Like Ellie and the other hunter-born, she’d always been meant for the Guild. “I’m surprised he’s still alive.”
“Don’t be so sure—he hasn’t been seen since he was deposed.” Handing her a spare helmet, he watched as she put it on, then settled his own. “Can you hear me?”
She nodded, realizing the helmets were miked. “Where’re we going first?”
“Timothy Lee. He’s shorter than Rodney described, but Rod was traumatized. We can’t trust his recollection.”
She was about to reply when she suddenly knew they were no longer alone in the garage. Already straddling the bike behind Deacon, she looked across to the door they’d used to exit the stairs and saw a vampire. She had no need to ask if Deacon had made him, too—the Slayer had gone motionless the same instant she had.
Meeting the vampire’s gaze, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. He was an old one, his power so potent it thickened the air until she could barely breathe. When he didn’t say anything, she decided to remain silent, too. Deacon started the bike and backed out of the space. “Watch him,” he said into the mike.
As he turned the motorcycle, she twisted her head to keep the vamp in sight.
The tall, dark-haired male didn’t so much as blink as they drove out of the garage.
“Games,” she muttered. “They’re letting me know I’m being watched.”
“Testing your strength.”
“You know, I can see their point—can you imagine what would happen to the world if any of the major chapters had a weak director?”
“Paris,” Deacon said again.
She nodded, though he couldn’t see her. “What was his name—Jarvis?”
“Jervois.”
“Right.” Jervois’s weakness had led to a disorganized European Guild. Vampires had taken immediate advantage. Most had simply escaped, planning to lose themselves into the world. But a few . . . “Several vamps gave in to bloodlust. The news reports said the streets ran with blood.”
“They weren’t far wrong. Paris lost ten percent of its population within a month.”
Put in such finite terms, the horror of it was chilling. “Why didn’t the angels step in?” In her native New York, Raphael ran the show, and as far as Sara knew, no bloodlust-ridden vampire had ever set foot in the city. Since that was statistically impossible, obviously Raphael had taken care of any problems with such flawless efficiency no one had heard so much as a murmur.
“Word is”—Deacon’s voice turned cold—“Michaela decided the humans needed a lesson in humility.”
Michaela was one of the more visible archangels, a stunning beauty who enjoyed attention enough to pose for the human media on occasion. “I think that one,” Sara said, “would be happy to push us all back to a time where she’d be looked upon as a goddess.”