“Not if he made her weak from the start.” Holly’s nails cut into her palms as the rain thundered down again. “It sounds like he abused her from the get-go—she probably never had the chance to grow into her strength.”
Venom pulled onto the bridge. “Yes, and then there’s the fact her blood caused Kenasha’s feathers to rot. That’s in no way a normal reaction.”
“Jesus.” Holly shuddered in her seat. “That could have been me,” she said, horrified. “If it was a deviant like Kenasha who found me and not Elena and Raphael.”
“You gave me trouble from the first, kitty.” Venom’s power twined around her in a silken twist as he spoke. “Your relentless will is your greatest strength.”
The sinuous kiss of his power sliding across her, around her, it didn’t make her shiver. It felt normal; this was who Venom was, the increase in strength a part of his natural growth. As for the rest . . . “I just wish Daisy had had the same chance,” she said, her gut full of lead. “I wish I hadn’t forgotten her.”
“No one can fight an archangel determined to erase their memories,” Venom said with a cool pragmatism that was weirdly comforting. “If Daisy was there, he made you forget her for a reason.”
Mind clearing, Holly frowned. “Yes, why wipe her from my mind?” After all, he hadn’t touched the ugly memories of her friends’ torture and deaths.
“Right now, we can’t be certain she is connected to Uram. I’m going to tell the Tower to run her blood against yours, see what comes up.” After making the call, he said, “There’s no point in speculating until we get the results.”
Holly rubbed her face with one hand, then, gripping the energy drink bottle between her thighs, reached back to tighten her ponytail. “Damn it, if I have to say ‘you’re right’ again, the earth will crack open and spew forth banjo-playing three-headed demons.”
Venom’s laugh was open and startled and deeply masculine. The sound washed across her senses, sank into her skin, going deep, so deep. Breath a little shallow, she forced herself to take another gulp of the drink in an effort to find a distraction. “Marlin,” she said on a burst of inspiration. “Let’s go talk to Marlin and see if his attempt to hook a big fish got a response.”
Alas, for pudgy and bald Marlin, it appeared the fish had taken the bait. And gotten hungry when Marlin couldn’t produce the payoff. “Okay,” Holly said, staring down at the bloody, hacked-apart pieces of the vampire con artist and all-around slimy individual, “whoever is after me isn’t only serious, they’re deadly serious.”
Having crouched down to examine the butchered remains placed in a neat pile in the middle of Marlin’s living area, atop an unexpectedly tasteful Persian rug, Venom nodded. When strands of his hair slid forward, he pushed them back with an absent hand, his forearms flexing with casual power. She could see those forearms because he’d folded up his shirtsleeves to reveal skin she’d seen more than once already.
Today, however, the sight of that skin was doing strange things to her stomach.
“There’s little doubt now that the killings are connected.” He got up. “There hardly seems a point in checking the address of the third individual who tried to fool the buyer, but we should be thorough.”
He called a Tower cleanup and forensics team first, however, the two of them not leaving until the team had taken charge of the scene. As for Janvier and Ash’s snitches, they knew to scatter quick smart when someone of Venom’s lethal power came in the vicinity. Payment for their work would come directly from Ash or Janvier.
The third address was in a slightly nicer part of town—the graffiti was classier and there were even potted plants in a few windows, but the scene inside their target apartment was a repeat of Marlin’s. The only difference was that this time, the killer had piled the butchered pieces on top of the coffee table, the wooden floor below a mess of rust red streaks alongside larger coagulated pools of darker red.
This scene was also the oldest, the smell so putrid that even Venom stepped outside into the shared hallway to wait for the Tower team. “This isn’t anger—the cuts are too precise, the way the body parts are piled up too theatrical,” he said. “This is a message.”
“Try to swindle me and you’ll pay the price.” Folding her arms, Holly tried to stand a little closer to Venom so she could draw the scent of him into her nostrils—she needed it to wipe out the noxious stink from inside the apartment. “Someone doesn’t like having their time wasted.”
“And is strong enough to have killed the vampire inside—unlike Marlin Tucker, this vamp was big, muscled. I also saw no signs of drug use that would’ve slowed his responses.”
Holly scuffed her shoe on the floor. “I know I should focus on this psycho who’s put a bounty on me, but I can’t stop thinking about Daisy.” About what the other woman had suffered, the horror followed by abuse and cruelty. “Don’t let me near Kenasha unless you want him dead.”
Uram was out of her reach, but Kenasha was very much within it.
Venom ran her ponytail through his fingers. “For a woman with unicorn hair, you’re very bloodthirsty. I approve.”
Holly smiled grimly; she had the feeling he, too, was considering the value of Kenasha’s continued existence.
Dmitri looked them both up and down, a dark glint in his eyes that matched the night that had draped the city in black while they discovered two dead bodies, examined the locations, then waited for the Tower teams to arrive. The lights of Manhattan sparkled beyond the glass wall at Dmitri’s back, the city finally free of rain, though black clouds continued to obscure the stars.
It looked more like midnight than six in the evening.
Dmitri stood with his hands braced on top of his desk, his arm muscles bunched tight. “I put you in charge so you’d control her,” the leader of the Seven said to Venom.
Words shoved at Holly’s throat, but she bit her lip. Venom didn’t need her to fight his battles. As he proved right then.
“So you’d have patted Kenasha on the head and walked away after the piece of shit admitted to enslaving a half-drowned woman who didn’t have the strength to stop him?” A raised eyebrow.
Dmitri’s jaw clenched as he rose to his full height and folded his arms. “Keep the bastard out of my sight.” It was a dangerously quiet statement. “I’d be tempted to tear off his head and then Raphael will have to deal with angels who think I’m too powerful.”
“You are too powerful.” Venom smiled. “That’s why they’re all so scared of you.”
Dmitri’s responding smile was of a kind he never gave Holly—it was between friends, between equals. Yet she didn’t feel left out. Because her relationship with Dmitri was different. When he held out an arm, she went around and tucked herself under it. “I want to be in charge of finding out more about Daisy and what happened to her.”
Dmitri hugged her a little closer to the hard strength of his body. “You can’t lead yet, Holly. You haven’t earned the right.”
Again, because it was Dmitri who’d said those words, Holly could accept their truth. “Then give it to Venom and me together,” she said, her eyes connecting with those of viper green.
Dmitri looked at Venom. “You’re fine with handling this alongside the ongoing bounty situation?”
“Yes. Do you need me on security?”
His question reminded Holly that with Raphael gone, New York was vulnerable to an assault by another archangel.
It’s all about politics, Honor had told Holly. Successfully sacking the city that Raphael calls home and taking his Tower, his center of command, will have far more impact than an invasion of another part of the territory.