Darkness Hunts (DA 4) (6 page)

“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?”

“Three in three days.” His expression was as intense and cold as his voice. “He normally contacts the Directorate an hour after the death.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Why would he do that?”

“To taunt us.” His gaze centered on me. “How did you get involved?”

I told him about the gray fields and what I’d witnessed there.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t give us much to go on.” He paused, then added more severely, “You’re not intending to chase this one down yourself, are you?”

It was a warning more than a question, and I gave him a lopsided smile. “No. I’m not a guardian and have no desire to be.”

He grunted. “That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say in weeks.”

“I
can
do sensible.”

“Really?” Rhoan’s tone was disbelieving. “This is the first evidence of it that I’ve seen, and I’ve known you a very long time.”

I punched him lightly—though it was like hitting a brick wall—and he grinned. “Go home and get some rest, Ris. You look beat.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You don’t need a statement?”

“Yeah, but later will do.”

“Thank you.” I dropped a kiss on his cheek, then left. Once we were outside, I raised my face to the sky. Though it was barely ten, the promise of heat was in the air, and sunshine bathed my skin. But it wasn’t warm enough to burn away the uneasy fear that had first stirred on the astral plane. The no-face killer wasn’t my problem, but I still couldn’t escape the notion that he and I would meet again. I had to hope that notion was wrong, because I needed to get back to the business of chasing down portal keys and deadly sorcerers.

“Do you wish to return home now?” Azriel asked softly.

“I wish I could.” Wished he would just take me in his arms and hold me. Just hold me.

But he didn’t react in any way—even though he could follow my thoughts and knew my desires as clearly as if I’d spoken them—and I sighed softly. “But I need to collect my car from Adeline’s, and then we have that meeting at the rail station.”

“You should eat—”

I cut him off with an abrupt wave of the hand. “I’ll grab a burger and chips along the way.”

“That’s hardly what you need right now—”

“It’s food,” I cut in wearily. “And it’s better than nothing. You’re not my mom, so don’t nag me, Azriel.”

“Someone has to.” His blue eyes flashed with the annoyance he wasn’t quite containing. “Because you seem absurdly determined to run yourself into the ground.”

“And we can’t have that when there’s keys to be found, can we?”

“As I have said before,” he said coldly, “that is not a fair comment.”

I sighed. “Sorry.”

He once again accepted the apology with an almost regal incline of his head, then said, his tone still frosty, “You wish to go back to Adeline’s now?”

“Yes.”

He stepped close, and once more whisked us through the gray fields. Adeline jumped when we reappeared in her living room.

“Gracious,” she said, placing one hand on her heart. “You could at least give some warning before you pop into existence like that.”

“I thought you could sense reapers.” I stepped free from the warmth of Azriel’s arms, but distance did little to ease the fires his presence ignited. I picked up the cup of tea Adeline had poured earlier and gulped it down. I might not be fond of the stuff, but it was better than nothing.

“If they are on this plane, yes, but not before then.” She eyed me for a moment, then said, “You didn’t succeed in saving her.”

“No, but only because he didn’t keep his end of the bargain. He killed her too early.”

“He is a dark energy, so that can be expected.”

Stupid of me to expect otherwise, I suppose. “This isn’t his first kill, though. The Directorate is on the case.”

“At least you could provide a description—”

“No, I couldn’t,” I interrupted. Because he didn’t have a face on the fields.”

“That
is
unusual.” She frowned. “How indistinct were his features?”

“Totally—he had no facial features whatsoever. It was as if someone had completely erased them.”

“But that’s not possible.” She hesitated. “Well, obviously, it is, but it is extremely rare.”

“Why?” I asked curiously. “I mean, you can change your outward appearance, can’t you? Things like clothes, shoes, even hair color?”

“Yes, but it is almost impossible to change your actual features. Normally your spirit won’t allow it.”

“Well, this guy’s spirit
did
.” I paused, remembering the sensations that had rolled over me. “I actually felt him out there long before the woman screamed. It was as if the astral plane was rejecting his presence. It set up this really weird vibration.”

Adeline chewed her lip for a moment, then said, “And the woman? What was she actually doing?”

I described what I’d seen, then added, “The woman claimed they were having sex, but that sure as hell
wasn’t
what it looked like.” I paused. “Is it even possible to have sex on the astral plane?”

“It’s possible, but you have to be very careful about who and what you form such a connection with. Once you open that door, it may never close.”

I shivered. “Could this guy be some form of incubi?”

“Again, it’s possible, but both incubi and succubi tend to take physical advantage of us on
this
plane. It is rare for them to act on the astral plane.”

“Rare means it’s still possible.”

“Yes, but from what you described, he was not sexually interacting with the woman, despite what the woman believed.”

“Is there any way to stop him?”

“On the astral plane? Not that I’m aware of. I would think you’d have to find him in the real world.”

And that wasn’t going to be easy. Nor was it my job.
Leave it to Rhoan
, I reminded myself, and set the cup back down. “Thanks again for your help, Adeline.”

“No problem.” She escorted me to the door, then added, “I’m here if you need anything else.”

I gave her a smile and headed down the street to my SUV. The Toyota wasn’t my preferred mode of transport—that honor went to the silver Ducati I’d bought when RYT’s, the café I co-owned and ran with Ilianna and Tao, had made its first profit. Unfortunately, the Ducati and I had a serious parting of ways thanks to a pack of demons, and she was still in the shop getting repaired. She was an old bike, and her parts were hard to get, so I was going to be without her for a while. Which was why I was seriously considering buying another one. I preferred the feel and freedom of a bike as opposed to the sedate safety of a vehicle like the SUV. Even Tao’s Ferrari couldn’t give the high of the bike—not on Melbourne streets, anyway.

A breeze stirred the air, cooling the early-morning heat but doing little to ease the furnace-like intensity of the man who walked close behind me. Part of me wished I could ignore him, that we could just go back to the time when the attraction was muted and he was more antagonistic. More distant. But there was no way on earth to put
that
particular genie back in the bottle.

After a moment, I asked, “What did you mean before, when you said I had no idea of the risk we were running?”

“Just that. This attraction breaks all the rules—”

“Your rules, not mine.”

“Yes.” He paused. “I thought we had agreed that we should—”

“No,” I snapped back. “
You
decided we should attempt to ignore this.
I
had no choice.”

“Because of the danger—”

“To whom?” I swung around and stabbed a finger into his chest. It felt like I was hitting steel. “Not to me, buddy boy, and don’t pretend otherwise. You’re protecting your ass here, not mine.”

“True.” His expression was as enigmatic as ever, and yet there was an undercurrent in the air that was both frustration and anger. At himself, at me, at the situation. “But you have no idea of the dangers I face.”

“No, because you won’t fucking
explain
them to me.” I glared at him for a moment, then shook my head and walked on. “You know what? Forget it. It’s not important.”

“If it wasn’t important, you would not be this angry.”

I snorted softly and just kept moving. He was silent until we got to the SUV, then appeared in the passenger seat.

“As I said before,” he commented, as I pulled out into the traffic, “the longer I remain in flesh form, the more I take on certain human characteristics.”

“So? It’s not like a little human emotion is going to destroy you or anything, is it?”

“
That
,” he said, his voice holding an edge that suggested he was barely holding on to his patience, “is where you are very wrong.”

I glanced at him sharply. “How the fuck is that even possible? I mean, emotion
isn’t
a physical force. Being emotional
can’t
destroy you.” I paused, then remembered Jak, the man I’d thought I would marry one day, and all the heartbreak he’d caused me. “Although sometimes it does feel like it can.”

“While gaining the emotions that come with flesh form is, of itself, not dangerous to us, the fact that you and I are connected at a chi level
makes
it so.”

I slowed down as the lights ahead went to red, then said, “Why?”

He hesitated. “A chi connection is a connection of life forces—”

“I’m well aware what a chi connection is,” I snapped. “Just tell me why you believe it’s so damn dangerous.”

He released a breath that was more a hiss. “It’s dangerous because it can lead to assimilation.”

I blinked. “Assimilation?”

“It happens when a reaper becomes so attuned to a particular human that their life forces merge, and they become as one.”

“No—”

“Yes,” he spat back. His expression was as grim as I’d ever seen it. “If that happens, my reaper powers will become muted, and I will never again be able to function as a soul bearer.”