She frowned. Categorizing what they were to each other was something she’d never done. For her, their relationship just…was. She was an extension of him in many ways.
“I’m your right hand,” she decided, then she tossed him the object she held.
He caught it deftly, his reflexes quick and agile. “What is this?”
“Half of a charm I took off Asmodeus’s lackey. I left the other half on the pile of ashes she turned into when I killed her. When it was whole, it bore Asmodeus’s sigil.”
“You’re taunting him.”
Vash shook her head. “Three in two weeks? That’s not a coincidence. He’s allowing, maybe even encouraging, his underlings to toy with us. We’re a prize—angels who were thrown away like garbage.”
“We have enough enemies as it is.”
“No, we have jailers—the Sentinels and their lycan dogs. The demons are possible enemies,
if
we don’t correct them. We have to take a stand.”
“This isn’t the way I would see things handled.”
“Yes, it is. That’s why you put me in charge of dealing with demon annoyances.” She crossed her legs. “You can shake on a truce with your other hand. I’m the hand that flips them off.”
A commotion in the hallway pushed her swiftly to her feet. Vash moved to the open doorway with preternatural speed, beating Syre by a mere millisecond.
What she saw froze her blood.
Raze and Salem carried an all-too-familiar body into the house, making a beeline for the dining room, where they laid him on the long oval table.
“What the fuck happened?” she snapped, entering the room and staring at Ice’s motionless body. The minion’s skin was burned black in places and blistered all over. Blood soaked his T-shirt and stained his jeans to the knees. Tears in his clothing revealed the clawing marks of lupine paws.
His hand reached out lightning quick, caging her wrist. He opened bloodshot eyes. “Char…help…”
For a moment the room spun, then everything drew inward, coalescing in frigid clarity. “Where?”
“Old mill. Lycans…Help him…”
Yanking one of Raze’s blades free of the scabbard on his back, Vash spun on her heel and raced into the gloaming.
E
lijah Reynolds stood naked on a rock in the woods surrounding Navajo Lake and watched his dreams burn along with the decimated outpost below him. Acrid black smoke plumed into the air in wide, thick funnels that could be seen for miles.
The angels would know a rebellion had begun long before they reached the ruins.
Around him, lycans yipped with celebratory joy, but he felt none of it. He was cold and dead inside, his life as he’d known it scorched to embers in the smoldering devastation that had once been his home. He excelled at one thing: hunting vampires. Doing what he enjoyed came from working for the Sentinels—the most elite of all warrior angels. That indentured servitude, while chafing, was a small price to pay to do what he loved. But very few lycans felt the same, which had led to this result. Everything that mattered to him was gone, and what was left was a
battle for independence his heart wasn’t invested in waging.
But it was done and couldn’t be undone. He’d live with it.
“Alpha.”
Elijah’s jaw clenched at the designation he’d never wanted. He glanced at the nude woman who approached him. “Rachel.”
Her gaze lowered.
He waited for her to speak, then realized she was doing the same in reverse.
“Now
you want to follow orders?”
Her hands linked behind her back and her head dropped. Irritated by her lack of conviction, he turned away. He’d told her a revolt was suicide. The Sentinels would hunt them, exterminate them. The lycans’ one purpose for existence was to serve the angels; if they no longer did that, they no longer had a place in the world. But she wouldn’t listen. She and her mate, Micah—Elijah’s best friend—had incited the others to this act of sheer fucking stupidity.
He sensed the approaching male lycan before he heard him. Turning his head, Elijah watched a golden wolf step into view, then shift midstride into the form of a tall, blond man.
“I’ve rounded up those with self-preservation instincts, Alpha,” Stephan said.
Which confirmed Elijah’s suspicion that some had fled the battle without considering the brutal days certain to lie ahead. Or perhaps some of the smarter ones had returned to the Sentinels. He wouldn’t hold it against them.
“Montana?” Rachel asked hopefully.
He shook his head, reminding himself that he’d promised Micah on his deathbed that she’d be looked after. “We’d never make it that far. Sentinels will be breathing down our necks within hours.”
One of the Sentinels had flown away during the conflict, blue wings spread wide as she raced to report the uprising. The rest had stayed and fought, but the razor-sharp tips of their wings had offered too little protection against the size of the Navajo Lake pack, which had needed thinning for months. Seriously outnumbered, the Sentinels had fought to the death, knowing that’s what their captain, Adrian, would do and expect. During the weeks that Elijah had been a member of Adrian’s pack, he’d seen for himself how tenacious and committed the Sentinel leader was. Only one thing could split Adrian’s focus, and even she couldn’t dull the angel’s killer instinct.
“There’s a network of caves near Bryce Canyon.” Elijah turned his back to the Navajo Lake outpost for the last time. “We’ll hole up there until we’re organized.”
“Caves?” Rachel asked, scowling.
“This was no victory, Rachel.”
She flinched away from the undercurrent of anger in his tone. “We’re free.”
“We were hunters and now we’re prey. That’s not an improvement. We kicked the Sentinels when they were already down. They were outnumbered twenty-to-one, taken by surprise, and lacking Adrian, who’s dealing with so much shit right now his head isn’t fully in the game. This was a one-shot, one-kill deal.”
Rachel’s shoulders went back, thrusting her small breasts forward. Nudity was nothing to a lycan; flesh or fur, it was all the same. “And we took it.”
“Yes, you did. Now trust me to handle the rest.”
“This is what Micah wanted, El.”
Elijah sighed, his anger swallowed by a tide of regret and grief. “I know what he wanted—a home in the suburbs, a nine-to-five job, carpools, and play dates. I would do anything to give you that dream…to give it to any other lycan with a wish for the same…but it’s impossible. You’ve dumped a task in my lap that I failed before I began, because there’s no way for me to succeed.”
And they couldn’t know what that failure cost him. He would never say. He could only make the best of what he had to work with and try to keep those who were now dependent on him alive.
He looked at Stephan. “I want teams of two sent to the other outposts. Preferably mated pairs.”
Mates would protect each other to the death. In times like these, when they would be hunted while separated from their pack, they’d need all the support they could get.
“Notify as many lycans as possible,” he went on, rolling his shoulders back to ease the tension in his neck. “Adrian will cut off outside communication to and from all the outposts—cell phones, the Internet, snail mail. So the teams will need to tackle the task directly, face-to-face.”
Stephan nodded. “I’ll see to it.”
“Everyone needs to withdraw whatever money
they’ve got socked away before Adrian freezes their accounts.” As “employees” of Adrian’s aviation corporation, Mitchell Aeronautics, their stipends were deposited in an employee credit union that Adrian had complete access to.
“Most have already done that,” Rachel said quietly.
So, she’d thought that far ahead, at least. Elijah sent her off to gather the others; then he turned to Stephan. “I need the two lycans you trust the most for a special assignment: Find Lindsay Gibson. I want her whereabouts and status.”
Stephan’s eyes widened with surprise at the mention of Adrian’s mate.
Elijah struggled through the driving urge to find Lindsay himself, a mortal woman he considered a friend, the only one he had left now that Micah was dead. In so many ways, she was a mystery. She’d stumbled into their lives without warning, displaying skills no mere human should possess and garnering the Sentinel leader’s attention in ways Elijah had never witnessed or heard of.
Unlike the Fallen, who had lost their wings because they’d fraternized with mortals, the Sentinels were angels above reproach. The sins of the flesh and the vagaries of human emotion were far beneath their lofty stations. Elijah had never seen a Sentinel show even a flicker of desire or longing…until Adrian took one look at Lindsay Gibson and claimed her with a fierceness that surprised everyone. The Sentinel leader protected her life with more care than he did his own, putting Elijah in charge of her safety despite knowing
that he was one of the rare, anomalous Alphas that were swiftly weeded out of the lycan packs.
It was during the course of his protection of Lindsay that a friendship had developed between them. Their easy camaraderie ran deep enough that they would die for each other.
I’d take a bullet for you
, she had told him once. Not many people had friends like that and Elijah had none now but her. He may have become the lycan Alpha, but Lindsay’s safety wasn’t a concern he’d ever relinquish. She had gone missing under the Sentinels’ watch, and he wouldn’t rest easy until he knew she was okay.
“I want her found and safe,” Elijah said, “by whatever means necessary.”
Stephan nodded. The unchallenged acquiescence gave Elijah the first hope that they just might have a chance in hell of surviving after all.
“Fuckin’ A.” Vash eyed the hazmat suit she held in her hand and felt a shard of icy fear pierce her gut.
Dr. Grace Petersen rubbed at one bleary eye with a fist. “We’re not entirely sure how the disease is transmitted. Better to be safe than sick—trust me. Bad piece of business.”
Pulling on the suit, Vash forced her mind to clear out the rising panic. She focused on reviving the scholarly skills and mindset she’d been sent to earth with as a Watcher. It had been a long time since she’d approached anything without the warrior’s mindset she’d cultivated as a vampress, but this was a battle she couldn’t fight with her fangs or fists.
“You’ve got balls of steel, Gracie,” she said through the receiver in her headpiece.
“So says the woman who takes on opponents the size of a double-decker bus.”
Suited up, they entered the sealed antechamber of the quarantine room, then stepped through to the inner room once given the green light to do so. Inside, a man lay on an exam table as if sleeping, his features peaceful in repose. Only the intravenous lines in his arms and the rapid lift and fall of his chest betrayed his illness.
“What are you giving him?” Vash asked. “Is that blood?”
“We’re transfusing him, yes. We’re also keeping him in a medical coma.” Grace looked up at Vash through her face shield, her features weary and austere. “His name is King. When he was mortal, he went by the name of William King. He was my primary assistant until this morning, when he was bitten by one of the infected vamps we caught yesterday.”
“It takes hold that quickly?”
“Depends. According to preliminary reports from the field, some vamps are immune. Others take weeks to show symptoms. Still more are like King and succumb within a matter of hours.”
“And what are the symptoms, exactly?”
“Mindless hunger, unreasoned aggression, and an unnaturally high tolerance for pain. We’re calling them wraiths.”
“Why?”
“They’re shadows of their former selves. Lights on, no one home. Their minds and personalities are shot, but
their bodies are still cruising right along with the party. The ones I’ve managed to keep alive more than a handful of days lose pigment and melanin in their hair and skin. Even their irises turn gray. And check this.”
Grace brushed the bangs back from King’s forehead with a gentle, slightly trembling hand. “Sorry, buddy,” she whispered, before reaching for a corded, handheld device that looked like a retail checkout scanner. Holding his wrist, she aimed at his forearm and activated a pale bluish glow. Ultraviolet light.
Vash bent closer, examining the targeted skin. It rippled minutely, as if the muscle beneath it was having a spasm, but that was the only sign of irritation. “Holy shit. UV tolerance?”
“Not quite.” Turning off the device, Grace set it aside. “There’s no real immunity at work—the flesh is still burning; it’s just healing at an accelerated rate. The damaged skin cells are regenerating as quickly as they’re being destroyed. Ergo, no visible or lasting damage. I ran some tests on two of the other subjects we had in here. Same deal.”
Their gazes met.
“Don’t get excited,” Grace muttered. “That cellular renewal is what’s causing all the other symptoms. The insatiable hunger comes from the need to fuel the massive energy expenditure required for regeneration. The aggression comes from the hunger, which has to feel like starving to death—all the damn time. And the high pain tolerance comes from the fact that they can’t focus on anything else but the need to feed. They can’t seem to
think
, period. Have you seen a wraith in action?”
Vash shook head.
“They’re like frenzied zombies. Higher brain function is subverted by pure instinct.”
“So you’re transfusing him because he’ll die without a continuous intake of blood?”
“I learned that the hard way. I sedated two of the captures so I could study them—you can’t get near them when they’re fully functional—and they liquefied. Their metabolisms are so accelerated that their bodies pretty much digested themselves. Pile o’ mush. Not pretty.”
“Is it possible that Adrian cooked this up in a lab somewhere?” The Sentinel leader had been tasked with leading the elite unit of seraphim enforcers that had severed the wings from the Fallen. Using lycans as herding dogs, Adrian prevented the vampires from expanding into more widely populated areas. The result was both territorial and financial suppression.
“Anything is possible, but I wouldn’t have made that leap.” Grace gestured at King. “I can’t see Adrian doing this. Not his style.”