Archangel's Prophecy

26

The two vampires looked at each other, then nodded in concert. A gold stud glinted in Tepe’s ear, catching the light and hitting Elena’s eyes for a flashing second.

“Jade’s not at the house anymore,” he said, his skin as dark as Vernon’s was pale. “Man was on a post-Contract job deal, but Andreas didn’t renew his employment after it expired, and I think it had to do with what Harrison told.”

“Well spit it out, then.” Phineas lightly slapped the back of Tepe’s head. “What did Harrison have on this Jade man?”

“Had to do with money.” Tepe leaned his hands on his shovel, dropping his voice as if afraid of being overhead. “Jade was stealing from Andreas.”

“Feckin’ idiot. I’m surprised boyo’s still alive.”

“He’s alive now.” Vernon shuddered. “I don’t think he was that alive the months he spent hanging in the woods with his flesh scraped from his bones on a regular basis with a fucking kitchen carving knife.” The vampire crossed himself with every evidence of true faith. “You couldn’t pay me enough to make Andreas that angry.”

That kind of torture, Elena thought, could very well make an enemy of a man. But, in her eyes, Harrison hadn’t snitched in telling his angel of fraud in his home; no, he’d been loyal despite the fear he must’ve had of the older and more powerful Jade. “What’s Jade’s full name?”

“You won’t say it was us that told you about him, will you?” Tepe whispered, his shoulders hunching in. “Jade’s mean.”

“Raphael has the best spymaster in the world. I’ll let Jade assume I got the information that way.” No one would dare threaten Jason.

Both vampires blew out relieved breaths before Vernon said, “He just uses the name Jade. Never had a last name the whole time I knew him.”

Tepe tugged at the lobe of his bejeweled ear. “I heard he hangs out in the Quarter a lot, but I think he might live outside it.” A glance at Vernon. “Remember that time Claire said she ran into him and he talked about moving out of the Quarter?”

“Oh yeah.” Vernon pulled off his knit cap to scratch at his bald head. “She was too scared to ask for details, though—and she’s in Prague on training now. You could call her. Her last name’s Vargas.”

Elena made a mental note of the detail. “Does he have money?” Wealth or lack of it would influence which areas the vampire could afford.

“Yes, I think so—I mean, he had to pay back what he stole, but I always figured he must’ve had more money stashed away. Jade’s pretty old.”

“Older than Phineas, for sure.”

Phineas pointed his shovel at the two. “I’m a young whippersnapper as far as you’re concerned.”

“Yes, Phineas.” The two grinned before Tepe returned his attention to Elena. “That’s all I can think of that could’ve gotten Harrison into serious trouble. Everyone else he snitched on only got a slap on the wrist. Andreas isn’t so bad if you’re just goofing off. He only cares about actual betrayal, like with Jade—or if you run.”

“I don’t think the money thing was snitching, to be honest,” Vernon added. “I mean I’d tell Andreas, too, if I thought someone was stealing from him. Not right to come into your angel’s home and be a thief.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I’d tell, too,” Tepe said after a thoughtful pause. “But Harry didn’t stop at the big stuff. Like, he told when I took off for a couple of hours to see a friend without getting official permission. I don’t think Andreas was too impressed with him for that.”

“Andreas is a warrior under all the elegant manners.” Phineas leaned on the top of his shovel. “He’d have seen that kind of telling as disloyalty between comrades.”

“Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it.” Tepe bit down on his lower lip, frowned. “Can’t think of anything else useful except that Harrison ran soon after the Jade thing, and you know the rest.”

“Do you think he ran because he was scared of Jade?” That would put a whole different slant on Harrison’s escape attempt.

“No way.” Tepe shook his head hard. “I mean, Jade’s a psycho, but Andreas is stone-cold terrifying. Harrison could’ve gone to Andreas if he was scared of Jade, and Andreas would’ve handled it. Harry just thought he could have the near-immortal life without paying the price.”

“We even felt sorry for him after he was brought back,” Vernon admitted. “Andreas was pissed.”

Tepe said a little prayer while his friend spoke.

“I kept my head down, never knew anyone could be that angry and that icily calm. But”—Vernon’s voice dropped—“it was hard to ignore the screaming.”

“Well, the lad shouldn’t have signed on the dotted line if he didn’t want to play by the rules. Near-immortality’s no feckin’ free lunch.”

Elena moved to steer the conversation away from any specifics on Harrison’s punishment. “Anyone—other than Claire—on Andreas’s staff who might know more?”

After a short discussion, the two offered her a couple of other names.

However, when she found those members of staff, they were cooperative but didn’t have much to give her.

“He does his work and he goes home,” the male said. “Doesn’t hang around to chat.”

“Harry knows his wife and baby are going to die before him,” the female added, her lips downturned. “Can’t blame the man for wanting to spend every minute he can with them.”

Her partner nodded. “He’s the only one of us who has a kid, so we all get why he doesn’t party with us when we have time off. Must be sad as fuck to think of outliving your little girl.”

Yes, “sad as fuck” described it perfectly.

The end result of Harrison’s devotion to Beth and Maggie was that he didn’t have any close friends among the staff. No one to whom he’d speak his secrets. But she had the Jade angle to follow.

Considering her next move, she walked to the front of the house without going inside then headed to the cliffs that edged Andreas’s property. Her takeoff was a smooth glide over the Hudson . . . and it took teeth-gritted concentration on her part to make that happen. Her wings felt heavier, less responsive to her control on takeoff. But once up, she felt no undue stress and decided to continue on rather than detouring to the infirmary.

She had to use her time wisely. She knew others would pick this up if she was grounded but, as long as she was mobile and could think, she couldn’t stop in the hunt. She needed to keep this monster from reaching the door, keep a little girl’s life untainted by torture and death.

The Legion flew with her on silent wings. When the Primary came close, she said, “Can you share your energy with me in other ways?” If they could, she might be able to extend her safe operating hours.

“We did not share energy,” the Primary said. “We pushed the other energy out.”

Elena considered that. “Could you do it again?”

“The other energy is of the Cascade. It is . . . deep.” In the pause that followed came hundreds of whispers at the back of Elena’s mind. “We can try again, but we may fail, should the power surge.”

“Better than nothing,” Elena said, then reached into a pocket to grab her phone. Calling Vivek, she asked for the addresses of the other two members of Andreas’s “trio of fools.”

“Sorry, Ellie,” Vivek said after running the search. “Terence Lee and Nishant Kumar used to live in the Quarter, but as of two months ago they’re permanently unavailable.”

Elena’s hand tightened on the phone. “Why didn’t this come up when Blakely and Acosta were found?”

“Because no one knows if these two were stabbed, decapitated, or mutilated. Lee and Kumar were turned into crispy critters so fried their bones cracked from the heat. Their shared apartment went up in flames.”