A wry smile touched my lips, although—sadly—his presumption was all too correct. Most of my calls to him of late had been about the dead or the about to be dead. Still, I couldn’t help saying, “Hey, I might just be ringing to say hello to my favorite uncle.”
He snorted softly, amusement crinkling the corners of his gray eyes. “We both know if you just wanted a chat, you’d ring my sister. Who, by the way, is a little peeved that you missed the weekly get-together.”
Damn, so I had. Mom and Riley had met for coffee and cake every week for as long as I could remember, and it was a tradition Riley and I were determined to continue.
While I did have a good excuse—I’d still been in the process of recovering from the fights with both my sword and the Rakshasa, the spirit who’d answered the call of ghosts desperate for revenge at one of the blood whore clubs run by the high vampire council—I couldn’t exactly tell Riley that because she didn’t know about my connection with the vampire council. If she ever did find out about it, she’d hit the roof, not to mention shove me somewhere safe while she confronted Hunter and her cronies. And as strong as Riley, Quinn, and Rhoan were, I had a suspicion it would take more than the three of them to outmaneuver Hunter.
“You need to ring her,” Rhoan continued. “She’s worried. We’re both worried.”
“Then you need to not tell her so much about what’s happening.”
He snorted again. “Yeah, like that’s going to work. You know she can smell trouble a mile away.” He paused. “Okay, I have your location and will be there in twenty. Don’t disturb any evidence.”
“itt LT StdI won’t. See you soon.”
I shoved the phone back into my pocket, my gaze on Dorothy’s body. Why on earth would anyone go to so much trouble to destroy someone who was, it seemed, totally harmless? It made no sense, and part of me—a small, insane part—wanted to unravel the puzzle.
“Let your uncle find whoever is responsible for this,” Azriel said. “It is not something we should get involved in.”
“No, it isn’t.” I couldn’t help but look again at the woman’s face, though, and there was an unpleasant suspicion in my heart that this was far from over. “We’ve enough on our plate as it is.”
Including, I thought, with a glance at my watch, a date with a locker at Southern Cross Station in just over an hour.
I rubbed my arms, then scanned the immediate area. Rhoan might have warned me not to disturb any evidence, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look. Besides, I needed to do something while I waited for him.
Water and trash lay everywhere, and the air was ripe with rotting rubbish and mold. The vaguest aroma of blood laced the thicker, more unpleasant scents in the room, but there was little else. If the stranger—or anyone else, for that matter—had been here, he had no distinct smell. Which went with his lack of a face, I guess.
“Someone was here,” Azriel commented. “The air still resonates with energy.”
I glanced at him. His blue eyes held echoes of the anger that burned within me. “Can you track it?”
He shook his head. “They used magic to leave.”
“And yet there’s no trace of magic on the ground.”
“Magic can take many forms. The charm around your neck, for example.”
“But this charm is minor magic compared to something that could transport a person.” My gaze went back to Dorothy and I studied the wounds on her wrists again. “How can there be no evidence of bleeding when she’s been bled out?”
“I do not know.”
I squatted next to the table. The concrete was thick with layers of grime and god knows what else, but the area underneath her hanging wrist bore a faint ring-shaped mark. The blood hadn’t been consumed—it had been collected.
Why would anyone want to do that? I glanced up at Azriel, but he merely shrugged. “I am not an expert on humans and all their eccentricities.”
“So the person behind this was human?”
“I would have sensed either a spirit or a demon.”
That the no-face stranger might be human somehow made him seem all the more creepy. I shivered, then rose and walked around the rest of the table. Other than a matching ring in the grime on the opposite side of the floor, there was little to see.
I retreated to a wall and sat down on the floor. God, if I didn’t get some food and rest soon, I was going to end up back in bed and sick as hell.
Azriel strolled around to my side of the table. “Shuffle forward.”
I raised an eyebrow, but did as ordered. He sat down behind me, then placed his fingers against my temples and began to gently massage them. Heat radiated from the epicenter of his touch, and the pain began to recede.
“Azriel,” I said, somewhat reluctantly, “I thought we agreed you shouldn’t be healing me. You’re the better fighter, so it’s more important that you keep your strength rather than sharing it with me—”
“If you can’t think and move, then me being the better fighter is irrelevant.” He paused, but his fingers continued to work their magic. “Besides, I can no longer fully heal you. I merely revive.”
“That’s splitting hairs and you know it.” Not that I wanted him to stop. It felt far too good—both his touch and the sense of reassurance it provided.
“Reviving does not require the same output of energy.”
I wasn’t believing that for an instant, but I let it slide, and asked instead, “I remember Tao saying something about your inability to heal—what’s gone wrong? You had no problems healing me previously.”
“I know.” He hesitated. “And I’m not exactly sure why this has happened.”
Liar. “It hasn’t got anything to do with Amaya’s presence, has it?”
“No. Your sword will never harm you.”
I snorted softly. “Then what do you call her attempt to gain control over my body?”
“An attempt to save your life. As she saw it, she was the stronger spirit, and therefore the logical choice to control your flesh.”
And I’d agreed to that control—temporarily. I wouldn’t have survived the onslaught of the Rakshasa otherwise. But once I was safe, Amaya had refused to leave my flesh, and it took every ounce of strength I’d had left to get her back into the sword. “Does that mean every time I’m feeling low she’s going to make a takeover bid?”
“Only if she believes your life would be in danger if she did not. And remember, you did invite the invasion.”
Something I will not be doing again. Not unless I’m at death’s door.
Ten minutes later, I sensed Rhoan’s approach. Azriel rose and held out a hand. I twined my fingers through the warmth of his, and he pulled me up. We ended up standing so close that my breasts touched his chest and his breath teased my mouth with possibilities. God, it would take only the slightest movement on either of our parts for our lips to meet, but as my eyes searched his, I knew he wouldn’t do it. Not this time, not yet. He was still fighting to delay the inevitable.
“Nothing is inevitable.” There was a huskiness in his voice that suggested his control was closer to the knife edge than I’d thought. “And you have no idea of the risk we run—”
Behind us someone cleared his throat, and I jumped as if stung. Rhoan walked toward us, amusement crinkling the corners of his gray eyes.
“Riley will be pleased,” he said.
No, she won’t, I thought grumpily. Not when I was having zero luck in getting Azriel back into bed—a problem she’d never had when it came to men, human or otherwise. I waved a hand at Dorothy’s body. “I haven’t touched her, and only went close enough to the table to check whether her blood had been collected or not.”
His gaze slipped to the woman on the table, and in the blink of an eye, he became the guardian rather than the uncle. It was a chilling change.
“What?” I said warily, knowing there had to be something more behind his reaction than merely this particular death.
“I’ve seen this before.”
I briefly closed my eyes. Of course he had. Why I’d thought this was a one-off murder I had no idea. “How many have there been?”
