Darkness Unmasked (DA 5) (2 page)

“A close friend of mine was murdered last night.” Her voice held very little emotion, and she was scarier because of it. “I want you to investigate.”

Hunter had friends. Imagine that. I scrubbed a hand across my eyes and said somewhat wearily, “Look, as much as I absolutely adore working for you, the reality is the Directorate is far better equipped to handle
this
sort of murderer.”

“The Directorate hasn’t your experience with the denizens of hell,” she snapped. “Nor do they have a reaper at their beck and call.”

So I’d been right—it
was
an escapee from hell. Not great news, but I guess it
was
my fault that these things were about in the world. It might have become my task to find the three lost keys that controlled the gates to heaven and hell, but the only one I’d managed to find so far had almost immediately been stolen from me. As a result, the first gate to hell had been permanently opened by person or persons unknown, and the stronger demons were now coming through. Not in great numbers—not yet—but that was thanks only to the fact that the remaining gates were still shut.

Of course, given the choice, I’d rather
not
find the other keys. After all, if no one knew where they were, then they couldn’t be used to either permanently open or close the gates. But it wasn’t like I had a choice, not anymore. It was either find them or die. Or, when it came to the choice given to me by my father—who was one of the Raziq, the rogue Aedh priests who’d helped create the keys, and also the man responsible for having them stolen—watch my friends die.

“Azriel isn’t at my beck and call,” I said, unable to hide the annoyance in my voice. “He just wants the keys, the same as you and the council.”

Not to mention the Raziq and my goddamn father.

“
This
takes priority over finding the keys.”

I snorted. “Since when?”

That darkness in her eyes got stronger. “Since I walked into my lover’s house and discovered his corpse.”

I stared at her for a moment, seeing little in the way of true emotion in either her expression or her voice. And yet her need for revenge, to rend and tear, was so strong that even through the vid-phone I could almost taste it. That sort of fury, I thought with a shiver, was not something I ever wanted aimed my way.

Yet, despite knowing it wasn’t sensible, I couldn’t help saying, “I’m betting the rest of the council wouldn’t actually agree with that assessment.”

I think if she could have jumped down the phone line and throttled me, she would have. As it was, she bared her teeth, her canines elongating just a little, and said in a soft voice, “You should not be worried about what the rest of the council is thinking right now.”

The only time I’d stop worrying about the rest of the council was when she achieved her goal of supreme control over the lot of them. Until then, they were as big a threat to me as she was.

But I wasn’t stupid enough to actually come out and say
that
to her. “Hunting for your friend’s killer is going to steal precious time away from the search for—”

“And,” she cut in coolly, “just where, exactly, is your search for the keys?”

Nowhere, that was where. My father might have given me clues for the next key’s location, but deciphering
those
was another matter entirely. We figured it was somewhere in the middle of Victoria’s famous golden triangle, but given
that
particular region encompassed more than nine thousand square kilometers of land, that left us with a vast area to explore. It was fucking frustrating, but all Azriel and I could do was keep on searching and hope that sooner or later fate gave us a goddamn break.

“It’s probably in the same place as your search for my mother’s killer.”

The minute the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Hunter really
wasn’t
someone I needed to antagonize, and yet it was her damn promise to help find my mother’s killer that had made me agree to work for her and the council in the first place. And while I’d kept my end of the bargain, she hadn’t.

For several very long seconds, she didn’t reply. She simply stared at me, her expression remote and her eyes colder than the Antarctic. Then she said, voice so soft it was barely audible, “Tread warily, Risa dearest.”

I gulped. I couldn’t help it. Death glared at me through the phone’s screen, and she scared the hell out of me.

I took a slow, deep breath, but it really didn’t help ease the sense of dread or the sudden desire to just give it all the fuck away. To let fate deal her cards and accept whatever might come my way—be that death at Hunter’s hand or someone else’s.

I was sick of it. Sick of the threats, sick of the fighting, sick of a search that seemed to have no end and no possibility of our winning.

Death is not a solution of
any
kind,
Azriel said, his mind voice sharp.

I looked up from the phone’s screen. He appeared in front of my desk, the heat of his presence playing gently through my being, a sensation as intimate as the caress of fingers against skin. Longing shivered through me.

Reapers, like the Aedh, weren’t actually flesh beings—although they could certainly attain that form whenever they wished—but rather beings made of energy who lived on the gray fields, the area that divided earth from heaven and hell. Or the light and dark portals, as they preferred to call them.

Although I had no idea whether his reaper form would be considered handsome—or even how reapers defined handsome—his human form certainly was. His face was chiseled, almost classical in its beauty, but possessed the hard edge of a man who’d fought many battles. His body held a similar hardness, though his build was more that of an athlete than a weight lifter. Distinctive black tats 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 tat. It was a Dušan—a darker, more stylized brother to the lilac one that resided on my left arm—and had been designed to protect us when we walked the gray fields. We had no idea who’d sent them to us, but Azriel suspected it was my father. He was apparently one of the few left in this world—or the next—who had the power to make them.

Of course, Azriel wasn’t
just
a reaper, but something far more. He was one of the Mijai, the dark angels who hunted and killed the things that broke free from hell. And they had more than their fair share of work now that the first gate had been opened.

If you ask me, death is looking more and more the perfect solution when it comes to the keys
. My mental voice sounded as weary as my physical one. I wasn’t actually telepathic, but that didn’t matter when it came to my reaper. He could hear my thoughts as clearly as the spoken word.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t always a two-way street. Most of the time I heard his thoughts only when it was a deliberate act on his part.
If I’m not here to find the damn things, then the world and my friends remain safe.

He crossed his arms, an action that only emphasized the muscles in his arms and shoulders.
Death is no solution.
Not for you. Not now.

And what the hell is that supposed to mean?

His gaze met mine, his blue eyes—one as vivid and bright as a sapphire, the other as dark as a storm-driven sea—giving little away.
It means exactly what it says
.

Great. More riddles. Another thing I really needed right now. I returned my attention to Hunter’s deathlike stare. “How did your friend die?”

“He was restrained, then drained.”

“Drained? As in, a vampire-style, all-the-blood-from-the-body draining, or something else?”

She hesitated, and just for a second I saw something close to grief in her eyes. Whoever her friend was, they’d been a lot closer than mere lovers.

“Have you ever seen the husk of a fly after a spider has finished with it?” she said. “That’s what he looked like. There was nothing left but the dried remains of outer skin.
Everything
else had been sucked away.”

I stared at her for a moment, wondering whether I’d heard her right, then swallowed heavily and said, “Everything? As in, blood, bone—”

“Blood, bone, muscle, intestines, brain.
Everything
.” Her voice was suddenly fierce. “As I said,
all
that remained was the shell of hardened outer skin.”

A shudder ran through me. I did
not
want to meet, let alone chase, something that could do
that
to a body.

“How can human skin be hardened into a shell? Or the entire innards of a body be sucked away? It had to be one
hell
of a wound.”

“On the contrary, the wound was quite small—two slashes on either side of his abdomen.” She hesitated. “He did not appear to die in agony. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“I guess that’s some comfort—”

“He’s
dead
,” she cut in harshly. “How is that ever going to be a comfort?”

I should have known I’d get my head bitten off if I tried sympathy on the bitch. “Where is his body? And is the Directorate being called in on this?”

If they were, it could get tricky. Uncle Rhoan worked for them—he was, in fact, second in charge of the guardian division these days—but he had no idea I was working for Hunter and the council. And I wanted to keep it that way, because the shit would really hit the fan if he and Aunt Riley ever found out. They’d always considered me one of their pack, but that protectiveness had increased when Mom had died. They’d kill me if they knew I’d agreed to work with Hunter—although I now suspected I couldn’t have actually
refused
to work with her—and once they’d dealt with me, they’d track her down and confront her. And
that
was a situation that could
never
end nicely.

I’d already endangered the lives of too many people I cared about by dragging them into this mad quest for the keys—I didn’t want to make the situation worse in any way.

“Yes, they are,” she said. “But Jack has been made aware of my wishes in this and will ensure you get first bite at the crime scene.”

Amusement briefly ran through me, although I doubted her pun had been intentional. “That really doesn’t help with the problem—”

“Rhoan Jenson will not get in the way of this. You are a consultant, nothing more, as far as he is concerned.”

I snorted. “A consultant you’re using to hunt and kill.”

“Yes. And you would do well to remember that you remain alive only as long as the council and I agree on your usefulness.”

“And,” Azriel said, suddenly standing behind me. His closeness had desire stirring, even though I had little enough energy to spare. “You would do well to remember that
any
attempt to harm her would be met with even more deadly force.”

Hunter smiled, but there was nothing pleasant about it. “We both know you cannot take a life without just cause, reaper, so do not make your meaningless threats to me.”

“What I have done once, I can do again,” he said, his voice stony. “And in this case, as in the last, I would revel in a death taken before its time.”

Azriel, stop poking the bear. I’ve already antagonized her enough.

That
is a somewhat absurd statement, given she is clearly vampire, not bear
.

Amusement slithered through me again, as he’d no doubt intended. He’d grown something of a sense of humor of late—which was, according to him, a consequence of spending far too much time in flesh form. Whether that was true or not, I had no idea, but I certainly preferred this more “human” version to the remote starchiness that had been present when he’d first appeared.
You know what I mean.

Surprisingly, I do.
He touched my shoulder, the contact light but somehow possessive.
But her threats grow tedious. She must be made aware it gains her nothing.

Hunter laughed. The sound was harsh and cold, and sent another round of chills down my spine. “Reaper, you amuse me. One of these days, when I’m tired of this life, I might just be tempted to take you on.”

And she was crazy enough to do it, too.

“However,” she continued, “that time is
not
now. I will send you my friend’s address, Risa. The Directorate will arrive at his home at four. Please be finished with your initial investigation before then, and report your impressions immediately.”

I glanced at my watch. She’d given me a whole hour. Whoop-de-do. “Where does he live, and what sort of security system has he got in place?”

“I’ve just sent you all his details.”

My cell phone beeped almost immediately. I picked it up and glanced at the message. Hunter’s friend—who went by the very German-sounding name of Wolfgang Schmidt—lived in Brighton, a very upmarket suburb near the beach. No surprise there, I guess—I certainly couldn’t imagine her slumming it with the regular folk in places like Broadmeadows or Dandenong.

I read the rest of the text, then looked up at the main phone’s screen again. “Is the security system just key coded?”

“Yes. Wolfgang is—
was
—a very old-fashioned vampire. He saw no need for anything more than a basic system.”

And maybe, just maybe, that had gotten him killed. While there was no electronic security system on earth that would actually
stop
a demon, it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that something other than a demon had killed her vampire friend.

I mean, no one could ever be one hundred percent right all the time. Not even Hunter—although I’m sure
she’d
claim otherwise. And really, what sane person would argue the point with her when she wasn’t?

Certainly not me.

And yet you do,
Azriel commented, a trace of amusement in his mental tone.

I think we’ve already established I’m not always sane.
To Hunter, I added, “You’re not going to be there?”