Sins of the Angels (14 page)

“Dogs?”

“For all the good it will do in this rain. They just got here.”

“Where's Roberts?”

“Over there.”

Joly nodded in the direction of the taped-off crime scene and Alex saw her staff inspector in conversation with one of the dog handlers. She looked down at Joly, who was crouched to turn over a clump of soil with his pen.

“You okay here?”

Joly straightened again and wandered around the pillar. He waved her off. “Go,” he said. “Find clues. Catch the prick. Make sure he suffers in the catching thereof.”

Roberts was alone when Alex joined him. He looked up from his notes and jutted his chin toward Trent. “So how's it going?”

That would have to be his first question.
She thought about how she'd abandoned Trent earlier and averted her gaze. “Fine,” she lied.

Her staff inspector raised an eyebrow. “You are clear on the working it out part, right? I don't need a personality conflict getting in the way of this case, Alex. Especially not now.”

She nodded. “I know. We're good. So, where do you want me?” She saw his eyebrow lift again. “Us,” she corrected. “Where do you want
us
?”

“The dogs are trying to pick up a trail, but it's not looking good. We're working on compiling a description from the witnesses, but so far our perp is every color from black to green, could be anything from an elf to a giant—”

“Elf?” Alex interrupted. That was a new one.

“Don't ask. About the only thing anyone can agree on is how he left the scene.” Roberts scrubbed his hand over his short-cropped hair, a tension in his manner that she hadn't seen before. “Poof.”

“Poof?”

Her staff inspector's gaze slid past hers and his mouth pulled another fraction tighter. “According to seven eyewitnesses,” he said flatly, “our perp vanished into thin air.”

The day before, Alex would have responded to that kind of statement with complete contempt. After lightning bolts and wings, however, she swallowed and kept her attention on the scene and very carefully did not look in the direction of her new partner. “I see,” she murmured.

“I'm glad one of us does. Anyway, I put Bastion and Timmins in charge of the canvass—you and Trent can work with them. I'm heading back to the office to work on a press release. I don't want to see any of you until you've hit every door within ten blocks.”

Wonderful. A canvass of that magnitude should only take them the better part of the night, Alex thought. But one look at the strain in Roberts's face and she decided to keep her opinion to herself. If she and the others were feeling the demands of this case, it was a thousand times worse for their supervisor, who had to coordinate the investigation, keep a rein on the press, and answer to every higher-up and politician in the city, if not the province. If Roberts wanted a ten-block canvass, then that was what they'd give him. Besides, it would keep her and Trent occupied. Perhaps enough so that they wouldn't have to speak to one another. She shivered.

Or touch.

 

CAIM STOOD TO
one side of the group that had gathered roadside to stare down on the murder scene. A gray car had pulled up beside the police vehicles, and he watched first a woman emerge, and then a man. His heart skipped a beat, then began to race. It was him. It was Aramael—and the woman from the alley.

The Naphil.

Anticipation lanced through his veins and his breathing quickened. Beside him, a young woman looked at him uneasily. Caim glared at her, then caught himself.

He made his wings relax and formed his expression into one of concern and compassion—or as close as he could come, never having felt either—and then turned back to the scene in the underpass below. The woman beside him settled again.

Stupid bitch. Her Guardian would be doing backflips right now, screaming at her to move, to get as far away from Caim as she could possibly manage. But like most mortals, she would have been taught to value thought over internal voice, reason over instinct. Seeing no sign of the blood and gore on Caim that he hid from human eyes, she would decide no threat existed and shut out the immortal guide that might one day save her life. Perhaps from someone like Caim.

He snorted. Really, he almost did the One a favor, taking the lives he did. Useless, every one of them. A waste of energy, better off returned to her greater life force. So arrogant in their presumption of their superiority, their invincibility. Pathetic in their ignorance of the multiple layers of the world they inhabited, the role they would play in their own inevitable downfall.

Below, in the underpass lit now by floodlights, Caim watched Aramael move away from the Naphil and pace the taped-off police perimeter. Knew his brother searched for lingering traces of energy. A tremor ran through him. He thought again of the risks inherent in coming back to the scene like this. If Aramael sensed him, if he looked up here and saw him—

Caim stepped to the rear of the cluster of people and paused to steady himself. It would never occur to the Power that he might remain at a kill like this. Caim just needed to stay calm, remember why he was here, stay focused on his goal. He watched the woman stalk away from his brother. How much did she know? Had Aramael told her she was Nephilim? Did she know the Power protected her?

He studied the rigid, defensive lines of the woman's body and the way she didn't look in Aramael's direction. He gave a soft snort. Damned if she didn't look downright antagonistic toward his beloved brother. How intriguing.

Feeling a sudden shift in the energies around him, Caim cast a sharp look in Aramael's direction and saw that the Power had looked up toward the crowd with an expression too watchful by far. Without hesitation, Caim turned and walked away. He had more questions now than when he'd started, but if there was one thing he had learned, it was patience.

The thought made him smile. How ironic that the lessons from his years in Limbo should stand him in such good stead now. Even more ironic that Aramael had been responsible for him learning those lessons.

He strolled down the roadway, shifted his energy vibration upward, and, in a blink, continued along an entirely different sidewalk in the neighborhood of his residence. He'd have to give some thought to his next move, he decided. Random killings held limited benefit and, as he'd just discovered, even less satisfaction. He needed a strategy. A way to make things more fruitful, more interesting, and definitely more enjoyable.

Caim rounded the corner onto the street leading to his appropriated residence. His steps slowed and he frowned at a car parked in front of what he'd come to think of as his home. An umbrella-sheltered female stood on the sidewalk beneath a streetlamp, with the air of someone who had knocked and waited now for a response to her summons.

Wings tensing, Caim hesitated. He could just bypass whoever it was and let her wander off when no one answered, but then he risked having her return. He could also simply deal with her—another murder this soon after the last might even irritate Aramael into lowering his guard, giving Caim some of the answers he needed.

Even as he debated the possibility, however, the woman turned toward him, moving the umbrella so the light from the streetlamp fell across her face. An unexpected heat tightened his groin. Oh, my, but she was lovely. He ran his gaze over her, from the confident tilt of her head to the way her suit followed the lines of a body that invited a man's attention. Demanded it.

Relaxing his wings again, he resumed his stroll, giving himself time to observe her. Admire her. Appreciate her. And consider a third option. He smiled and took his hands from his pockets, and then stepped up to greet her with a warmth not entirely feigned.

She wasn't quite what he'd had in mind when he'd thought to make things more enjoyable, but she would do nicely.

Alex found Trent standing to the left of the cordoned-off scene, his attention on a group of people clustered behind a concrete barrier at the roadside above them. No, not just his attention. That weirdly intense focus he had.

He turned his head as she walked toward him and, for a moment, his gaze seemed to skewer her in place, making her heart flutter in her chest like a captured butterfly. Alex's steps faltered. Then, eyes hardening, Trent turned back to the onlookers.

Damn, but she hated how he could do that to her.

Alex took a moment to remember how to breathe, watching her partner study the crowd.
Personality conflict, my ass.
Whatever there was between her and Trent, it was no mere conflict. Not that it mattered, because regardless of the issue—and whether it was real or imagined—she was still going to have to suck it up and deal with it.

And somehow find a way to keep it separate from the chaos that had become her psyche.

She adjusted her gun where it pressed into her hip bone, gathered her resolve, and picked her way across the uneven ground to Trent's side. She looked up at the vultures watching them, as always a little sickened by the way her fellow humans were drawn by another's tragedy. They should do her job for a while and see how fascinating they found death then.

“See anything?” she asked.

Trent said nothing for a second, then turned from his study. “No.”

She hadn't thought he would. Their killer, if he had been in the crowd, would have caused a considerable stir, covered in blood as he had to be. Alex watched the cluster of people for another moment. Then, driven by a perversity new to her, she asked casually, “Feel anything?”

She sensed Trent's stiffening beside her.

“Are you making fun of me?” he asked.

The very quietness of his question sent a quiver down her spine. She swallowed.

“Of course not. I was curious, that's all.”

“Then yes, I feel him.”

“Ah.” Alex turned her attention to a nearby Forensics member planting a numbered flag beside a shoe print.

She jerked her head around to stare at Trent, startled at his boldness. “Pardon me?”

Trent's eyebrows twitched together. “I didn't say anything.”

“You said—I thought I heard you—” She stammered to a halt. She'd thought she'd heard his voice back at her sister's house, too, just before he'd jumped out from behind that tree. Shit. That was twice. Winged hallucinations were bad enough—but voices?

A sickness stirred in her belly.

“Detective?” Trent's voice held an edge that might have been concern, but his face remained distant and watchful.

“Nothing,” she said. “Roberts wants us to help canvass the neighborhood. I'll check in with Bastion and then we can get started.”

She ducked under the yellow tape and strode toward a closely shorn, rumpled detective standing over a body.
No voices,
she told herself.
You're not her. No way will you allow voices. Now, concentrate on the case and do your goddamned job.

She arrived at Bastion's side. “Roberts said you're running the canvass. Where do you want me?”

Bastion flashed her a surprised look, then went back to his notes. “Greetings to you, too,” he said dryly.

He was right; that had been pretty rude. Christ, she was tired of feeling so on edge that she couldn't function normally anymore. Alex grimaced. “Sorry. Long day.”

The older detective shook his head. “Don't worry about it. We're all in the same boat. I was just giving you a hard time.” He tucked his notebook into his inside jacket pocket and swiped his sleeve across his forehead. “This shitty weather isn't helping. Do you know that it was forty-three degrees Celsius with the humidity this afternoon? They're calling for even higher tomorrow.”

With surprise, Alex noted the sweat trickling down her neck beneath her hair. She'd been too caught up fretting over Trent to pay attention before. “Gotta love Toronto summers,” she agreed.

Bastion tugged a battered map from an outer pocket. “So. You and your partner want in on the canvass, huh?” He used his teeth to uncap a red felt pen. “I go' Penn an' Smiff workin' dish”—he slurred around the marker cap, stabbing at a circled area and leaving a red dot in its center—“an' Ab'ams and Joly ovah he'ah.” Another red dot. “An' Timmins an' I wi' take dish.” He dotted a third circle.

Lifting his left leg, Bastion braced the map against his knee and swiped a fourth circle, nearly toppling over in the process. He stood straight again, removed the cap from his mouth, and held the map out to Alex, his index finger hooked over it to point at another spot. “That leaves you and your partner with this neighborhood over here.”

Alex peered at the wobbly circle, noting the streets that formed the generous boundaries. “Great,” she said. “I'll see you back in the office in what, a week or so?”

“Now, now, Jarvis,” Bastion chided. “If you're letting this case get to you already, it's going to be a long haul.”

Alex forced a smile. He had no idea. “I know. I'm not nearly as bitchy as I sound, honest.”

“Uh-huh.” Bastion stuffed the crumpled map and the marker back into his pocket and ambled away.

Alex rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the tightness across her back. She knew without looking that Trent hadn't moved from where she'd left him. Nor had he once taken those intense gray eyes off her. She stretched until her shoulder blades almost met, feeling the crack and crinkle of things sliding back into—or perhaps out of—place.