Chapter One

THE HOUSE STILL SMELLED OF DEATH.

Two months had passed since Mom’s murder, but the air still echoed with her agony and I knew if I breathed deep enough, I’d catch the hint of old blood.

But at least there were no visible reminders. The Directorate’s cleanup team had done a good job of removing the evidence.

Bile rose up my throat, and I briefly closed my eyes. I’d seen her—had seen what had been done to her—and it haunted me every night in my dreams. But in many ways, those dreams were also responsible for me finally being able to walk through the front door today.

I’d done enough remembering, and shed enough tears. Now I wanted revenge, and that wasn’t going to happen if I waited for others to hunt down the killers. No, I needed to be a part of it. I needed to do something to help ease the ferocity of the dreams—dreams that came from the guilty knowledge that I should have been there for her. That if I had, I might have been able to prevent this.

I drew in a deep breath that did little to steady the almost automatic wash of fury, and discovered something else. Her scent still lingered.

And not just her scent. Everything she’d been, and everything she’d done—all her love and energy and compassion—filled this place with a warmth that still radiated from the very walls.

For the first time since I’d scattered her ashes in the hills that she’d loved, I smiled.

She would never entirely be gone from this world. She’d done too much, and helped too many people, for her memory to be erased completely.

And that was one hell of a legacy.

Still, despite the echoes of the warmth and love that had once filled these rooms, I had no intention of keeping the house. Not when all I had to do was step into the kitchen to be reminded of everything that had happened.

I walked along the hallway, my boots echoing on the polished marble floor. Aside from the few items of furniture placed to give prospective buyers an idea of each room’s size and purpose, the house was empty. Mike—who’d been Mom’s financial adviser and was still mine—had made all the arrangements, talking to the real estate people on my behalf and shifting most of the furniture into storage so I could deal with it later. Only the items in the two safes remained untouched, and that was a task only I could handle—although it was the one thing I’d been avoiding until now.

I drew in a shuddery breath, then slowly climbed the carpeted stairs. Once I reached the landing, I headed for Mom’s bedroom down at the far end of the hall. The air had a disused smell. Maybe the people employed to keep the house spotless until it sold hadn’t been as generous with the deodorizer up here.

But the soft hint of oranges and sunshine teased my nostrils as I walked into Mom’s bedroom, and just for a moment it felt like she was standing beside me.

Which was silly, because she’d long since moved on, but my fingers still twitched with the urge to reach for her.

I walked across the thick carpet and opened the double doors to her wardrobe. Her clothes had already been donated to charity, but somehow seeing this emptiness hit me in a way that the emptiness of the other rooms had not. I’d often played in here as a kid, dressing up in her silkiest gowns and smearing my face—and no doubt said gowns—with her makeup.

She’d never once been angry. She’d always laughed and joined the fun, even letting me do her face.

I swiped at the tear that appeared on my cheek and resolutely walked into the bathroom. Most people wouldn’t think of looking for a safe in an en suite, which is exactly why Mom had installed her second one here. This was where she’d stored her most precious jewelry.

I opened the double doors under the basin and ducked down. The safe was embedded in the wall and visible only because all of Mom’s makeup had been cleared away.

After typing in the code, I pressed my hand against the reader. Red light flickered across my fingertips; then there was a soft click as the safe opened.

I took a deep breath, then sat and pulled the door all the way open. Inside were all her favorite items, including the chunky jade bracelet she’d bought the last time she was in New Zealand, only a few weeks before her death. There was also a stack of micro-drive photo disks and, finally, an envelope.

There was nothing written on the front of the envelope, but faint wisps of orange teased my nostrils as I flipped it over and slid a nail along the edge to open it. Inside was a folded piece of paper that smelled of Mom. I took another, somewhat shaky breath and opened it.

I’m sorry that I had to leave you in the dark, my darling daughter, it said, and I could almost imagine her saying the words as I read them. Could almost feel her warm breath stirring the hair near my cheek. But I was given little other choice. Besides, I saw my death long ago and knew it was the price I had to pay for having you. I never regretted my choice—not then, and most certainly not now, when that death is at my doorstep. Don’t ever think I accepted my fate placidly. I didn’t. But the cosmos could show me no way out that didn’t also involve your death or Riley’s. Or worse, both of you. In the end, it just had to be.

Live long, love well, and I will see you in the next life. I love you always. Mom.

I closed my eyes against the sting of tears. Damn it, I wouldn’t cry again. I wouldn’t.

But my tear ducts weren’t taking any notice.

I swiped at the moisture, then sat back on my heels. Oddly enough, I almost felt better. At least now I knew why she’d refused to tell me what was going on. She’d seen my death—and Riley’s—if we’d intervened. And I would have intervened. I mean, she was my mother.

And as a result, I’d have died.

Her death still hurt—would always hurt—but a tiny weight seemed to have lifted from my soul.

I glanced down at the letter in my hand, smiling slightly as her scent spun around me, then folded it up again and tucked it into my pocket. That one piece of paper was worth more than anything else in her safe.

I scooped up the remainder of the jewels, but as I rose, awareness washed over me. Someone—or something—was in the house.

I was half werewolf, and my senses were keen. Though I hadn’t actually locked the front door, I doubted any humans could have entered without me hearing. Humans tended to walk heavily, even when they were trying to sneak, and with the house almost empty the sound would have echoed. But this invader was as silent as a ghost. And it wasn’t nonhuman, either, because in the midst of awareness came a wash of heat—not body heat, but rather the heat of a powerful presence.

An Aedh.

And he was in spirit form rather than physical.

My pulse skipped, then raced. The last time I’d felt something like this, I’d been in the presence of my father. Of course, that meeting had ended when two Aedh priests had gate-crashed the party in an effort to capture my father—who’d fled and left me to fight the priests off alone. Needless to say, the odds had been on their side, and I’d been taken and tortured for information. And while my father might not have led me into the trap, he still bore some responsibility for it. It was him they wanted, not me.

Hell, everyone wanted him. The Directorate of Other Races, the vampire council, and the reapers.

And they all were intent on using me to get to him.

Which pissed me off no end, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it. Especially given the deal I’d made with Madeline Hunter—the woman who was not only in charge of the Directorate, but also one of the highest-ranking members of the vampire council. Of course, she had managed to catch me at a vulnerable moment. She’d arrived uninvited as I said my final good-bye to Mom, had heard my vow for vengeance, and had all but blackmailed me into becoming an adviser to the council. In exchange, they would throw their full resources behind finding Mom’s killer.

I hadn’t walked away from the deal yet—not when finding Mom’s killer might well depend on the information the council could give me. They might be using me to get to my dad, but I sure as hell intended to return the favor.

Not that they’d given me a whole lot so far, but then I hadn’t done a whole lot for them, either.

Still, instinct said that would change quickly now that I’d set my sights on finding the killer.

Sometimes, having psychic skills like my mom totally sucked. Although I guess I had to be thankful that mine were nowhere near as strong as hers had been.

The sensation of power coming up from the floor below was growing stronger. Whoever it was, they were closing in fast. I needed help, and I needed it now. And the only person I could call on so quickly was the one person I was trying to avoid. Azriel—the reaper who was linked to my Chi. I hadn’t heard or seen him since Mom’s death, and part of me had been hoping to keep it that way.

I should have known fate would have other ideas.

Of course, Azriel wasn’t just a reaper. He was a Mijai, a dark angel who hunted and killed the things that returned from the depths of hell—or the dark path, as the reapers preferred to call it—to steal from this world.

But what he hunted now wasn’t a soul-stealer or even my soul.

He—like everyone else—was looking for my father.

And all because my father and his fellow Raziq—a secret subgroup of Aedh priests dedicated to finding a way of preventing demons from being summoned—had created three keys that would override the magic controlling the gates, allowing them to be permanently closed. And if the gates of hell were permanently locked, no souls would be able to move on and be reborn. A good percentage of the babies currently born into this world contained reborn souls, so it was a possibility that terrified me. Because without a soul, they would be little more than lumps of flesh, incapable of thought, emotion, or feeling.

Of course, what could be closed could also be permanently opened, and I had no doubt there were those who would also welcome the hordes of hell being set free.

The one good thing that had come out of this mess so far was the fact that my father had apparently come to his senses late in the development of the keys. He’d arranged for them to be stolen and hidden, but he’d been caught in the process and punished by his fellow Raziq, and the people who’d hidden the keys had offed themselves before they could tell anyone where they were.

Hence everyone’s interest in me. I was currently the only link to my father and—according to my father—the only person capable of not only finding the keys, but also destroying them.

Although he had yet to explain just how.

Azriel, I thought silently, not wanting to alert whoever was approaching that I was calling for help. I knew from past experience that Azriel could hear thoughts as well as spoken words. If you’re out there, come fast. There’s an Aedh in the house and it could be my father.

He didn’t answer; nor did the heat of his presence sting the air. Either he had given up following me or something else was going on.

Which was typical. There was never a fucking reaper around when you wanted one. I took a deep breath that did little to calm the sudden flare of nerves, and said, “Whoever you are, reveal yourself.”

“That, as I have said before, is impossible, as I can no longer attain flesh.” The reply was measured, cultured, and very familiar.

Because it sounded like me. A male version of me.

My father.

“The last time you and I met, the Raziq came running. And that was your fault, by the way, not mine.” I crossed my arms and leaned back against the wall. The pose might appear casual, but every muscle quivered, ready to launch into action should the need arise. Not that I’d have any hope against a full Aedh—I knew that from experience.

“I have taken precautions this time.” His cultured tones reverberated around the small room, and his presence—or rather the energy of it—was almost smothering. “They will not sense me in this house just yet.”

“Why not? What have you done this time that’s any different?”

He paused, as if considering his reply. “Because I was once a priest, I emit a certain type of energy. If I remain stationary for too long, they can trace me.”

Facts I knew, thanks to Azriel. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Wards have been set. They not only give misinformation as to my whereabouts, but they will prevent any beings such as myself from entering.”

Hence Azriel’s failure to appear. Reapers were energy beings, the same as the Aedh.

I didn’t bother asking how’d he’d actually set the wards when he couldn’t interact with this world, simply because he’d undoubtedly had his slaves do it. Or rather, his Razan, as the Aedh tended to call them. “And are you sure these wards will work?”

“Yes. I have no wish for you to be captured a second time.”

So he knew about that—and it meant he was keeping a closer eye on me than I’d assumed. “So why are you here? What do you want?”

“I want what I have always wanted—for you to find the keys.”

“And destroy them?”

“That goes without saying.”

Did it? I really wasn’t so sure. “You haven’t yet told me what will happen when the keys are destroyed, and I’d prefer to know that before I do anything rash.” Like endanger the very fabric of my world.

The heat of him drew closer. It spun around me—an almost threatening presence that made my skin crawl. And it wasn’t just the sheer sense of power he was exuding, but the lack of any sense of humanity. This was a being who’d worn flesh rarely even when he was capable of it, and who had no love or understanding for those of us who did.

Which made his desire to find and destroy the keys even more puzzling. Why would he care what would happen to this world if the keys were used? He wouldn’t. Which meant something else was going on. Something he wasn’t telling me.

Although I wasn’t surprised that he was keeping secrets. That seemed to be par for the course for everyone searching for these damn keys.

“I am sure that when the keys are destroyed, everything will remain as it currently is.”

“But aren’t the keys now tuned to the power of the gates?”

Or the portals, as the reapers preferred to call them. Apparently there was only one gate into heaven or hell, with each gate consisting of three interlocked portals. Each portal had to be locked behind a soul before the next one opened. It was a system that prevented those in hell from escaping—although it wasn’t infallible. Things still escaped when enough magic was used either in this world or the other.

“They are,” my father said. “Destroying them should sever the link, and the gates should remain intact.”

It was those shoulds that were worrying me. “You know,” I said slowly, “it seems that it would be a whole lot safer for everyone if these keys were to remain as they are—indefinitely hidden.”

Energy surged, making the hairs along my arms and the back of my neck rise. “Do you honestly think the Raziq will let matters lie?”

“Honestly? No. But they can’t kill me if they need me to find the keys.”

“Then what about your friends? Such a move could place them in peril.”

“Not if I let the Raziq grab me. Once they realize I can’t help them, I’m guessing they’ll forget me and start concentrating on you again.” After all, he might not know where the keys actually were, but he had some general knowledge of where they’d been sent, and he knew what they’d been disguised as.

Although admittedly, handing myself over to the Raziq wasn’t at the top of my list. I’d barely survived their interrogation the last time.

The threat in the air was growing stronger. My father’s energy was so sharp and strong that it hit with almost physical force. Part of me wanted to cower, but the more stubborn part refused to give in.

“You forget it is not just the Raziq who want the keys.”

“The reapers aren’t going to—”

“I am not talking about the reapers.” His cultured tones had become soft, deadly. “I am talking about me.”

The words were barely out of his nonexistent mouth when he hit me. Though he didn’t have a flesh form, and though he’d told me he couldn’t interact with things of this world, his energy wrapped around my body, thrusting me upward, squeezing so tightly it felt like every bone in my body would break. Then he flung me back to the floor, all but smothering me with the fierce, blanketing heat of his presence.

“How the hell did you—”

“You are my blood,” he cut in, his voice a mere whisper that reverberated through my entire being. “It is the reason you can find the keys, and it is the reason I can do to you what I cannot to others.”

Meaning he couldn’t do this to Ilianna and Tao. But even as relief surged, he added, “But do not think your friends are any safer. I have Razan to do my bidding.”

“If you touch them, you’ll get nothing from me.”

Amusement seemed to touch the fierce energy surrounding me. “Do you really think you have the strength and will to resist me? You might hold out for a little while, but in the end you will do what I want.”

Not if I’m dead, I thought. And therein lay the crux of the matter. I didn’t want to die. Not until I’d at least found Mom’s killers.

“You will find those keys for me,” he added.

“Go fuck—”

But I didn’t get the rest of the sentence out, because he flung me violently across the room. I hit the shower doors sideways, tearing them off their hinges, and we fell in a tangled heap of shattered glass, twisted metal, and bruised limbs.

“You will get those keys for me,” he said, “or what I do to you today I will have done to your friends tomorrow. Only my Razan will ensure they do not survive the experience.”

Bastard, I wanted to say, but the words stuck somewhere in my throat, caught up in the desperate struggle to breathe.

“The information you need to find the first key is in the Dušan’s book,” he continued as his essence continued to bear down on me. My lungs were beginning to burn and panic surged, making it even harder to breathe. “Only one of my blood can read it, and only from the gray fields while the book lies here. But it must be retrieved from the Raziq first. They have it concealed. And again, only one of my blood will be able to find or see it.”

“Why—” the words came out croaky, barely audible thanks to my lack of air. I licked my lips and tried again. “Why not simply tell me everything you know?”

“Because if I only feed you small pieces of the puzzle, you are still almost useless to the Raziq if they capture you.”

I guess that made sense, even if the rest of it didn’t.

“You still have the locker key,” he continued. “Go there today at one PM, and you will find further instructions.”

“Why not just give them to me now?”

“Because my Razan foolishly set the wards for a brief window, and I am out of time.” The smothering energy evaporated, and suddenly I could breathe again. “And the less I am close to you, the less likely the Raziq are to use you to come after me.”

Yeah, right. There was more to these fucking games of his than just a need to keep his distance.

“And what happens once I get the book?” I asked instead.

He didn’t answer immediately, and his retreating energy became more distant.

“I must go.”

“Wait!”

But he didn’t. I drew a shaky breath and slowly picked myself up from the shattered remains of the shower doors.

“Are you all right?”

The words emerged from the silence even as the heat of Azriel’s presence washed over me. Reapers, like the Aedh, were creatures of light and shadows, with an energy so fierce their mere presence burned the very air around them. And while they weren’t true flesh-and-blood beings, they could attain that form if they wished.

Which is how I’d come about. My father had spent one night in flesh form with my mother and, in the process, created me—a half-breed mix of werewolf and Aedh who was lucky enough to mostly get the best bits of both and few of the downsides.

“Do I look all right?” I said, trying to extract myself from the remains of the shower door.

Azriel appeared in front of me, taking my arm and holding me steady as my foot caught on an edge and I stumbled. His fingers were warm against my skin—warm and disturbing.

While reapers were basically shapeshifters, able to take on any form that would comfort the dying on their final journey, they did possess one “true” shape. And while the combination of my Aedh blood and my psychic skills usually allowed me to see whatever form they used to claim their soul, for some weird reason I saw Azriel’s real form rather than whatever shape he decided to take on. And that shape was compellingly attractive.

His face was chiseled, almost classical in its beauty, and yet possessing a hard edge that spoke of a man who’d won more than his fair share of battles. He was shirtless, his skin a warm, suntanned brown, and his abs well defined. The leather strap that held his sword in place seemed to emphasize the width of his shoulders, and faded jeans clung to his legs, accentuating their lean strength. A stylized black tatt that resembled the left half of a wing swept around his ribs from underneath his arm, the tips brushing across the left side of his neck.

Only it wasn’t a tatt. It was a Dušan—a darker, more stylized brother to the one that had crawled onto my left arm and now resided within my flesh. They were designed to protect us when we walked the gray fields. We’d been sent them by person or persons unknown, although Azriel suspected it was probably my father’s doing. He was one of the few left in this world—or the next—who had the power to make them.

Azriel’s gaze met mine, his blue eyes—one as vivid and bright as a sapphire, the other almost navy, and as dark as a storm-driven sea—giving little away.

“I have seen you in worse condition,” he commented. His voice was mellow and rich, and on any other man it would have been sexy. But this wasn’t a man. He merely held that form. And if I reminded myself of that enough, then maybe that tiny, insane part of me that was attracted to this reaper would move on. “What happened?”

“My fucking father.” I pulled my arm from his grip and tried to ignore the warmth lingering on my skin as I thrust a hand through my sweaty hair. “And his spell prevented you from answering my call, didn’t it?”

He nodded, and I leaned a shoulder against the nearest wall. My legs were as shaky as hell, and my stomach was still doing unsteady flip-flops.

“What did your father want?”

“Aside from beating me up and threatening to kill my friends, you mean? He wants me to find the keys, and he got rather irked when I suggested that the damn things would probably be better where they are.”

He frowned. “Why would you want to leave them as they are?”

“Because if no one can find them, then they can’t endanger the fabric of my world.”

“But that is foolishness. If they are out there, they will eventually be found. The Raziq will never give up looking.”

“And my father won’t let me give it up, either.” I sighed again and walked unsteadily across the room to scoop up the scattered jewelry and photo disks. “He’s directed me back to the locker at the railway station. Apparently, he’s had further instructions left there.”

“If he was here, why did he not simply tell you?”

“He claimed he was out of time,” I said irritably.

“But who knows? It’s not like anyone is actually confiding in me.”

Azriel studied me for a moment, expression neutral even if a faint hint of annoyance flickered through the heated energy of his presence. “I tell you what I can.”

“No, you tell me what you think I need to know. There is a difference.”

He didn’t dispute it. No surprise there, given it was the truth.

“The last time you followed your father’s instructions, you ended up being captured by the Raziq.”

“My father won’t be anywhere near me this time, so he claims it shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, if the Raziq wanted me, they could have come after me anytime they wished.”

“I doubt it. The wards that Ilianna has set around your apartment are as strong as those at the Brindle. They would make it difficult for the Raziq to enter.”

The Brindle was the witch depository, and few outside the covens even knew of its existence. “We were told that the magic surrounding the Brindle wouldn’t keep the Aedh out, so it’s unlikely to keep them out of our apartment.”

“Granted, but they also now know that I guard you, and they could not be certain whether there would be one or more Mijai waiting for them if they did attempt it. The Raziq are single-minded when it comes to their goals, but they are not stupid.”

“So why haven’t they snatched me outside the apartment? And why don’t the wards make it difficult for you?”

“I am attuned to your Chi, so any magic that allows you to pass should also allow me.”

“And yet the wards my father set up did stop you?”

“Because those particular wards were designed to reject energy forms. Human wards are not, so even the strongest will not prevent the Raziq—or a reaper—from getting through.”

“If the Raziq did come after me a second time,” I asked, suddenly curious, “would you actually stop them?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you think I wouldn’t?”

“To be honest, I have no idea what you’ll do in any situation.” Especially given how many times in the past he’d stated that he would not interfere in the daily events of my life. And in fact, he hadn’t—not when I’d been attacked by humans who could somehow attain half-animal form, and not when the Raziq had captured me. Although he had, at least, saved me and Tao—one of my best friends—from the hellhounds.

But once again he changed the subject. “You are fortunate the Aedh can only form a permanent telepathic connection through sex. Otherwise, your trip to the railway station would now be compromised.”

Did that mean that Lucian—the fallen Aedh who’d become my lover—had formed a telepathic connection with me? Or was that one of the skills that had been stripped from him when they’d ripped the wings from his flesh? I didn’t know, but I suspected it might be wise to find out—even if I was positive Lucian was on no one’s side but his own. Still, given what the priests had done to him, I had no doubt he’d kill them given the slightest opportunity. His punishment might have happened many centuries ago, but the anger still burned in him.

I frowned at Azriel. “The priests rifled through my thoughts when they held me captive, and they certainly didn’t do that via sex.”

He nodded. “Aedh—like reapers—can read thoughts when in the same room as a person, but unlike human telepaths we are incapable of doing so from any great distance.”

Thank God for small mercies. Although I did wish my rebellious hormones would remember more often that, when I was in his presence, he knew exactly what I was thinking. “Then you’d better be vigilant. If the Raziq get their hands on me, any information we get from the locker will be theirs.”

Because I certainly wouldn’t be able to resist them. I might be psychic, but my skills were on a more ethereal level. And as I’d already discovered, me fighting the Raziq was like a leaf fighting a gale.

“When it comes to you, I have learned to be very vigilant.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing more than it says.” But a glint in his eyes belied his words.

Despite the fact that reapers were generally about as emotional as a plank of wood, this one definitely had a sense of humor—even if it was a very odd one.

I headed back into Mom’s room. The main safe was in the study, just across from my old bedroom. As in all the other rooms, the furnishings here were minimal. A desk, a couple of chairs, and the colorful painting that hid the wall safe. But sunlight streamed in through the double windows, lending the space a warmth that many of the others lacked.

Azriel followed me in, a powerful presence who was quickly becoming a permanent—if often distant—fixture in my life.

“I’m not believing a word of that statement, Azriel.”

“Allowing you to fall into Raziq hands again would not be the wisest move. Not when they already have the book.” His soft voice held little inflection, but I still had the odd feeling that he was amused. “And especially when they are the very people we are trying to stop.”

“You could stop them by just killing them.”

“I cannot do that unless they actually succeed in this plan, simply because there is nothing concrete connecting them to the portal’s unauthorized opening.”

“You may not have proof, but you know they’ve made keys and you know my father was involved. I thought that would have been enough, given that life as we know it hangs in the balance.”

He shook his head. “It is not within the rules.”

“Whose rules?”

“The rules we must live by.”

I glanced over my shoulder. “And who made the rules?”

He shrugged—a small movement that was oddly elegant. “I do not know and I do not care. I just obey.”

“Because a world without rules is a world in chaos.”

“And that chaos is called earth,” he commented.

I swung around in surprise. “Did you just try to be funny?”

“Reapers are many things, but we are never funny.”

But that twinkle was stronger in his eyes, and I felt an answering smile tugging at my lips. “You lie, reaper.”

“I never lie.”

“You might not tell outright lies,” I said, walking around the desk to the wall safe, “but you certainly don’t always tell the absolute truth.”

“No, I just don’t always say everything I know. There is a difference.”

I snorted softly. “Only by a matter of degrees, Azriel, and you know it.”

“In my world, degrees can mean the difference between life and death.”

That was true in mine, too, but I resisted the comment and instead pressed my palm against the reader, then let it scan my retinas. When the scans had registered and the first lock released, I spun numbers on the old-fashioned dial and unlocked the safe. Inside was a stack of papers—nothing vital, I guessed, because Mike already had all the necessary legal stuff for Mom’s companies, insurance, and whatnot.

I left the door open and turned off the alarm. The new owners could reset it when the place finally sold. After gathering everything together, I turned around and faced Azriel, only he was no longer paying any attention to me. His head was cocked to one side, as if he was listening to something. And Valdis—the sword strapped to his back, which held a life force of her own—was beginning to flicker with blue fire.

Tension slammed into me and my pulse ratcheted up. Valdis only ever reacted to two things—evil and danger.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t my father; I would have felt his return. I licked suddenly dry lips and breathed deep, trying to keep the fear at bay as I listened. I couldn’t hear anything—couldn’t smell anything—and as a half-wolf, I would have. But there were things in both this world and the others that had neither scent nor smell nor form, and it wasn’t out of the question for one of those things to be hunting me. The Aedh could traverse the gray fields—the unseen lands that divide this world from the next—as easily as the reapers, and those who’d trained as priests could also control the magic of the gates. The Raziq were rogue priests. It wouldn’t be beyond them to free something from the dark path and fling it after me.

Although I couldn’t actually imagine them doing that when they still needed me to find the keys.

Valdis grew brighter, sending flashes of electric blue light across the pale walls. Azriel silently drew her from the sheath at his back and held her at the ready. The blade hummed with every movement. “Someone comes.”

“I gathered that.” I dropped the papers and the items I’d gathered from the two safes onto the desk, then looked around for some sort of weapon. But with the house cleaned for sale, there really wasn’t anything left. Not that Mom had ever had weapons in the house, anyway.

Which meant I’d have to rely on my own fighting skills, damn it. Because while I could fight, I preferred not to.

It wasn’t cowardice, merely practicality. I’d learned the hard way that I was never going to be as good as a guardian, despite the fact that I’d been trained by two of the best.

I flexed my fingers, then said, “What is it?”

“Vampire.”

I blinked in surprise. “A vampire? Really?”

He nodded, glancing at me. “You sound relieved.”

“I am. I mean, vampires can be nasty, but I wouldn’t put them in the same league as something that’s crawled from the gates of hell.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” an-all-too-familiar voice said from the hallway. “I could name quite a few people who would consider me far worse than any nightmare hell has ever produced.”

I closed my eyes and swore softly. This day was definitely going from bad to worse. Because the vampire out in the hall was the one and only Madeline Hunter, queen bee of the Directorate, major vampire supremo, and a woman deadlier than almost anything on the planet.

She sauntered through the doorway, her light steps leaving little trace in the thick carpet. She was a small, slender woman with longish dark hair and startling green eyes, but those eyes were as icy and as remote as her near perfect features.

“I never knew you and Mom were friends.” I crossed my arms and watched her warily. I might have agreed to work with this woman—or at least the council she represented—but that didn’t mean I had to trust her.

And Valdis’s reaction emphasized just how accurate my gut reaction was.

“We weren’t. But she, at least, had some manners.”

Which was a not-too-subtle dig at the fact that I’d refused her entry into my apartment a couple of months ago. “Mom gave up teaching me manners when I was a teenager. And I can tell you right now, they’re not about to improve anytime soon.”

Not where she was concerned, anyway. I had a bad feeling I was going to need my bolt-hole, and Hollywood had at least gotten the whole threshold-and-vampires thing right.

Amusement touched the corners of her lips but never cracked the ice in her eyes. Her gaze flicked to the warm presence beside me. “I gather this is your reaper?”

“This is Azriel, yes.” I didn’t bother pointing out that he wasn’t actually mine, simply because no one seemed to listen. “Azriel, this is—”

“Madeline Hunter,” he finished, and bowed slightly. “You walk a dark path, vampire. Beware of overstepping your own boundaries.”

She raised a dark eyebrow. “And would that be advice or warning, reaper?”

“Both.” He sheathed a still-glowing Valdis and glanced at me. “I shall leave.”

If you need me, call. The words were unsaid, but I heard them nonetheless. I nodded, and he winked out of existence.

Hunter’s gaze returned to mine. Her scent—a faint mix of jasmine, bergamot, and sandalwood—was surprisingly pleasant. But it sent a chill down my spine, because nothing about this woman was ever pleasant.

“Why would my mother invite you into her home?” She’d hated Hunter. Hated and feared her. I never really knew why, although maybe it was as simple as sensing that my destiny would be tied to hers.

“Because, technically, she was in my employ, just as you are.” Hunter pulled back one of the visitors chairs near the front of the desk and sat down, crossing her legs elegantly. “In fact, your mother and I had many a pleasant discussion in this very room.”

Yeah, I believed that about as much as I believed in the Easter bunny. “About what?”

Again that eyebrow winged upward. I suspected amusement, although it was hard to tell given her emotionless demeanor. “About you. About her debt to the Directorate and what she might do to repay it.”

“She helped the guardians bring down more than her fair share of criminals.”

Hunter picked a piece of lint off her pants with long pink fingernails and flicked it idly away. I had a sudden image of her doing the same to me, and a brief smile touched her lips, then drifted away.

The bitch was reading my thoughts.

“If you wish your thoughts to remain unheard, then kindly keep them to yourself,” she commented. “You’ve already asked your friend Stane to acquire some nanowires, have you not?”

Stane was Stane Neale, Tao’s cousin. He wasn’t only a computer whiz, but a major black-market trader. And if she’d overheard me asking Tao to get the wires, then she either had super-hearing or there were bugs in our apartment. “Yes, but I suspect even the strongest wire available won’t be able to stop you.”

“Oh, it won’t,” she acknowledged. “But they require a little more effort on my part, and therefore would afford you some of your much-relished privacy. It might even stop the reaper from following your thoughts.”

Given that the wires were designed to work against those who wore flesh on a permanent basis, I doubted it would affect Azriel. And I wasn’t as worried about him catching my thoughts anyway.

“You could show a little restraint in the meantime,” I said.

“I could,” she agreed, and flicked away another piece of lint.

An imaginary one this time, I suspected, because I certainly wasn’t seeing anything on her pants.

Again that ghostly smile crossed her pale lips before she added, “But I am not here to discuss your mother.”

I leaned back against the desk, my stance casual even though both of us knew that was far from the truth. “I never thought you were.”

She nodded and leaned back in her chair. “We have a problem.”

“We as in the Directorate, or the council?”

“The council, of course. You will never be on the Directorate’s books.”

“Odd, given that the Directorate approached me several years ago about becoming a guardian.”

“Yes, but my brother has since been informed of my plans for you.”

Meaning he’d made the approach without her approval? Somehow I doubted that. I knew enough about Jack and the guardian division to know that while he might have autonomy over the day-to-day running of the division, there weren’t many decisions that didn’t go through Hunter first.

“And just what, exactly, are your plans for me?”

She made a casual movement with her hand. “Nothing more than what you’ve already agreed to.”

What I’d agreed to was being a consultant to the council, but her statement had sounded a whole lot more comprehensive.

“Besides,” she added, “I believe you have an aunt and uncle who would strenuously object to you becoming a guardian. And right now, the Directorate can’t afford to lose either of them.”

Riley and Rhoan would do more than object—they’d lock me in a small room and throw away the key. And then they’d storm Hunter’s citadel and demand my release from Directorate duty.

Thankfully, they had no idea I’d agreed to work for someone even more dangerous than the Directorate, and I fully intended to keep it that way. Right now I didn’t need any more grief in my life.

“Why can’t the Cazadors handle your problem?” Cazadors were the council’s vampire assassins. They were highly trained, extremely deadly, and they got the job done no matter who or what got in their way.

Uncle Quinn—Riley’s mate, and the half-Aedh who’d taught me how to use my own Aedh skills—had been one many centuries ago. He was also one of the few Cazadors to not only survive the experience, but walk away virtually unscarred. And to me, that only emphasized just how deadly he could be.

“I have no doubt they could handle it—if we had any idea just who or what the problem is.”

“Then how do you know it’s a problem?”

“Because we have a councilor who is dying, and the cause seems to be a sudden onset of age.”

That surprised me. Vampires didn’t ever age—and when they turned from human to vampire, they stayed at whatever age they’d been when they’d undergone the vampire ceremony. Which meant that if they were twenty when the ceremony was performed, but ninety when they died, they reverted to how they’d looked at twenty. The human population had been trying to uncover the scientific reasons for this switchback for years, but so far with little success.

Of course, there were psychic vampires who could drain the life force of their victims, thereby causing the sudden onset of age or even death, but surely Hunter and the Cazadors would have been able to track one of those without my help. “How would one vampire get that close to another without alerting them to their presence?”

Vampires might not be entirely human, but they were still flesh-and-blood beings with a heart and circulatory system. And all vampires—even the freshly turned—were extremely sensitive to the sound of blood pumping through veins. Which was no surprise given that their survival depended on a regular supply of the stuff.

“It’s not another vampire.”

Which also suggested it was something other than a flesh being—hence Hunter’s sudden reappearance in my life. And while there were plenty of mythical creatures who existed by feeding off the energy of the living—whether that feeding consisted of blood, energy, or even souls—we certainly weren’t talking about an ordinary victim here. This was a councilor—although she hadn’t said whether it was the local vampire council or the high council that ruled them all—but you didn’t generally rise to that level without a few hundred years under your belt. Which meant most of them were not only extremely dangerous, but more than a little knowledgeable about the darker things that haunted this world.

“I can’t imagine anyone—human, nonhuman, or even a creature from hell itself—being able to feed from a councilor without him knowing about it.”

“You and me both.”

She tapped her bright fingernails against the desk, but it was a sign of anger rather than frustration. Those nails were almost long enough to be weapons, and I had an odd feeling she was imagining them ripping through someone’s neck. Possibly mine, if I didn’t come up with an answer.

“Whatever this is,” she continued, “it attacked during the day, when Pierre was asleep. It wasn’t a physical attack, as such. He would have been aware of that. This is more abstract. His energy was drained, but he remained unaware.”

My frown deepened. As much as I hated to admit it, I was intrigued. Of course, anything game enough to take on a councilor and get away with it wasn’t exactly something I wanted to get involved with.

But it wasn’t like I had a choice, and she wasn’t actually asking me to kill it. I was only the hunter, and I intended to do my damnedest to keep it that way.

“So if Pierre isn’t sensing anything or anyone, how can you be sure this is an actual attack?”

She reached into her purse—which I hadn’t actually noticed until now, and that said a whole lot about the state this woman got me into—and withdrew her phone. She pressed a button, then turned it around for me to see. “This was Pierre Boulanger two weeks ago.”

He had dark hair, dark eyes, an imposing nose, and seemed to possess the sort of distant arrogance often found in those of royal blood.

“And this,” Hunter continued, “was Boulanger when I saw him not two hours ago.”

It didn’t even look the same man. In this photo, he was stooped over and could barely manage to look at the camera. It was as if the weight of his head were too much for his neck. His black hair was shot with gray, and his unlined face was now seamed and littered with age spots. And his eyes were the eyes of a madman.

I met Hunter’s gaze again. Her green eyes were assessing. I wasn’t entirely sure why, because she was the one who’d all but blackmailed me into helping the vampire council hunt down the prey that eluded the Cazadors. If she didn’t think I was up to helping, why even come here? “So you’re dealing with some sort of succubus?”

Hunter shook her head. “I spoke to Pierre when this attack first happened, a week ago. He could not remember sexual dreams.”

“And now?”

“He is, as you guessed, lost to madness. He remembers nothing.”

“I think the key word here is remember. I don’t know much about succubi, but I imagine that if one decided to target a member of the vampire council, then maybe it’s also decided to cover its tracks.”

“A succubus would not have the strength to erase Pierre’s memories; nor do they drive their victims mad. A succubus is not at fault.”

“Then what do you think it is?”

“If I knew, the Cazadors would already be on the job.” She reached into her pocket and withdrew a business card. “You have an appointment with Catherine Alston at eleven o’clock.”

I accepted the business card. It was one of Hunter’s, and on the back she’d scrawled an address. It was a city address—a penthouse apartment in the Green Tower, which was the latest of the government backed eco-building projects, and it had a price tag to match its credentials. But most old vamps also tended to be obscenely rich. I suppose it was one of the benefits of living so long.

I shoved the card into my pocket. “So why am I going to see Catherine Alston when Pierre Boulanger was attacked?”

“Because Catherine woke up this morning with a head of gray hair and an old woman’s face. Whatever is attacking Pierre is now after Catherine.”

“And you wish to stop this before Alston goes the way of Boulanger?”

“Catherine can wither and die, for all I care.” Mirth briefly touched Hunter’s lips but did little to crack the ice in her eyes. “She is not the reason I wish to see this matter resolved quickly.”

“Then what is?”

She studied me in a way that had fear curling through my limbs. This wasn’t about the need to stop a killer finding more victims. This was about me.

And her next words confirmed that. “There are some on the high council who think it would be better for us all if you were dead. I am trying to convince them that you might be useful for more than just finding the keys.”

I swallowed heavily. “So this is a test?”

“And you had better pass if you value your life.”