Guild Hunter 02 - Angels' Flight

benevolence.
     
    “After being alive for seven hundred years,” Nazarach mused, speaking of centuries as if they were mere decades, “I find I’m loath to lose one of the few men—his recent mistakes aside—I actually respect.”
     
    Returning the photo of the sultry brunette who was apparently making a very old vampire dance to her tune, Ashwini forced herself to meet Nazarach’s gaze—the amber acted as a lens, focusing the screams to piercing clarity. “How does this tie in with the kidnapping?” she asked, blocking the nightmare with everything she had.
     
    “Callan Fox,” Nazarach said, “intrigues me. I don’t want him dead yet. And Antoine will kill the young pup to retrieve his granddaughter. Get Monique out and bring her to me.”
     
    “You’re asking us to hand you a hostage to use against Antoine.” Ashwini shook her head, relief a cool brush down her spine. “The Guild doesn’t get involved in political disputes.”
     
    “Between angels,” Nazarach corrected. “This is a… problem between an angel and the vampires under his control.”
     
    “Even so,” she said, unable to stop her eyes from going to those wings of amber and light, unable to understand how such beauty could exist alongside the inhuman darkness that stained Nazarach from within, “if you want Monique, all you have to do is ask. Callan will hand her over.” The leader of the Fox kiss might be willing to take on Antoine Beaumont, butonly a very stupid vampire would stand against an angel. And Callan Fox was not stupid. “You don’t need me.”
     
    Nazarach gave her an inscrutable smile. “You will not mention my name to Callan. As for the rest—the Guild has already agreed to the terms.”
     
    “No offense,” she said, wondering if he’d look as brutally beautiful while he choked the life out of those who displeased him, “but I need to check that with my boss.”
     
    “Go ahead, Guild Hunter.” Smooth permission, no mercy in those eyes full of death.
     
    Stepping back until she was almost in the hallway, she put through the call on her cell phone, aware of Janvier and Nazarach talking in low voices about things long past, shadows of which experiences clung to Nazarach, but not to Janvier.
     
    Angel and vampire. Both touched by immortality, both compelling, but in vastly different ways. Nazarach was a being honed out of time, perfect, lethal, and utterly, absolutely inhuman. Janvier, in contrast, was earth and blood, deadly and a little rough… and still somehow of this world.
     
    “Ashwini?” Sara’s familiar tone. “What’s the problem?”
     
    She laid out Nazarach’s orders. “Has it been cleared?”

    “Yes.” The Guild Director sighed. “I wish to hell we didn’t have to get involved in what promises to turn into a giant clusterfuck, but there’s no way out.”
     
    “He’s playing games.”
     
    “He’s an angel,” Sara said, and it was an answer. “And technically Monique is in breach of her Contract, so Nazarach has the power to send out anyone and anything to retrieve her—even if he could achieve the same aim with a single phone call.”
     
    “Damn.” Ashwini liked working on the edges, but when angels got involved, those edges tended to cut bone deep, drawing the dark red of lifeblood. “You got my back?”
     
    “Always.” An unflinching response. “I’ve put Kenji and Baden on standby—give the signal and we’ll have you out of there in under an hour.”
     
    “Thanks, Sara.”
     
    “Hey, I don’t want to lose my main source of live entertainment.”A smile she could almost hear. “No new hunt order has come in for the Cajun. Just thought you’d want to know.”
     
    “Uh-huh.” Ashwini hung up with a quick good-bye, wondering what Sara would say if she knew exactly who Ashwini was consorting with at the moment.
     
    Janvier turned right at that instant—as if he’d sensed her attention. Shaking off the thought, she walked back to join vampire and angel. “Do you have any idea where Callan might be holding Monique?”
     
    The angel’s eyes dipped to her lips, and she had to fight the urge to run. Because while Nazarach might be agonizingly beautiful, she had the gut-wrenching sense that his idea of pleasure would mean only the most excruciating pain for her.
     
    “No,” he finally said, his gaze moving to her own. “But he’ll be at the Fisherman’s Daughter tomorrow night.” Amber lit with power. “Tonight, you will be my