“The bag I found was crushed under the bowl, must’ve been missed when they made the last batch.” He held the syringe up to show them the brownish residue inside before putting it back down. “In all honesty I’m not sure how or what they were doing, but I believe they must’ve needed water and the stove. The actual raw materials are nowhere in evidence.”
Naasir sniffed the air. “I smell blood.”
Frowning, Ashwini, Janvier, and Trace spread out, looking for any evidence someone had been held or hurt in here. “I don’t see any blood,” she said. “Janvier?”
“Nothing.”
Trace’s response was the same.
Naasir sniffed the air again, walking closer and closer to the sink until he had his nose in the bowl. “Blood,” he said definitively. “Strong blood. Angel blood.”
“They made a drug out of the blood of an angel?” Ashwini just stared at the wild silver of Naasir’s gaze.
37
“Yes.” Naasir sniffed again, his eyes going flat. “This blood is wrong.” He hissed, drawing away from the bowl. “Bad to drink.” He came to Ashwini. “Show me the feather again.”
Taking it out of her pocket, she removed it from the plastic sleeve. Naasir didn’t take it, just put his hand under hers and lowered his nose to the feather. The silver liquid of his hair slid forward to kiss her skin. “Yes,” he said, rising to his full height. “You were right—the feather smells wrong, too, but it’s much more subtle.”
Ashwini put it away in her pocket. “No question it’s the same angel?”
“None.”
The deep, deep green of Trace’s eyes glinted. “That explains why Umber is so exclusive—even an angel can’t donate blood every day without consequences.”
“It also,” Janvier said, “confirms the why of the drug.”
“A poison.” Naasir’s features set into piercingly intelligent lines, his feral nature taking a backseat. “The aim was always to kill or cause bloodlust.”
“Yes.” Trace stared at the wall, his mind clearly working. “Either they’re adding something to the blood or the angel’s blood is poison. Given what you said about the feather, my bet is the latter.”
That left the question of how the blood had been poisoned in the first place—but if their man was Cornelius, well, he was Lijuan’s protégé, and the Archangel of China had created infectious reborn. Not a stretch to say that one of her minions hadn’t been “blessed” with poisonous blood courtesy of his goddess.
“Can you track the scent?” she asked Naasir.
“Yes,” Naasir said. “But there is no fresh trail outside—the snow has buried what was there. We’ll need to narrow down the location.”
“We may as well start at Giorgio’s house,” Janvier said. “Ash and Naasir and I can do that. Trace, can you get this to the Tower”—his nod took in the drug paraphernalia—“and have it tested?”
“I’ll have it fast-tracked.”
Leaving the vampire in the warehouse, a number of the Legion on guard over both properties, the three of them went directly to Giorgio’s tony Vampire Quarter town house. Allowed in by the guards Dmitri had left at the door, they decided to start at the top and work their way down. The town house’s décor was, as she’d noticed on her first visit, far more modern than the velvet and lace Giorgio favored on himself and his cattle.
It was also sumptuous. Three-hundred-count Egyptian cotton sheets, designer curtains, granite counters in the bathroom, and fixtures polished to perfection. Ashwini found plenty of evidence that the women were welcome in the master bedroom—not the least of which was a crumpled pair of lace panties.
Not touching the panties and the discarded seamed stockings hung over the back of a chair, Ashwini tapped the walls to check for hidden compartments. She didn’t find anything, and neither did either of the two men. Naasir shook his head when they met again in the downstairs hallway, having split up during the search of the lower half of the house. “No scent.”
“Giorgio has other properties.” She scanned the information that had come through on her phone from the combined Guild/Tower team. “Small rental homes, shares in a hotel . . .”
“The desiccated dog,” Janvier reminded her, “was found in the Quarter, so our angel may be comfortable in this area. Even if he isn’t, the Quarter is Giorgio’s milieu. I can’t see him putting up his guest anywhere that would take him too far out of his way.”
Ashwini frowned. “None of the places on this list are anywhere near the Quarter.”
The three of them headed to the closest property regardless, with Dmitri and Sara having already dispatched teams to clear the others.
• • •
Eight hours of fruitless searching later, Ashwini kicked the punching bag in the Guild Academy gym. She’d been working out her frustration on the bag since the final possible location was cleared forty-five minutes past, but wasn’t having much success in calming herself down.
Not only had an angel with freaking red in his wings disappeared into thin air, to the point that no one they’d questioned in the Quarter recalled ever seeing him, but so had Giorgio, leaving behind only his bewildered and distraught showpiece cattle. All had seemed genuinely upset when Ashwini interviewed them.
Apparently, even psychopathic bastards had their fans.
As for the vampire guards from the warehouse, they were the vicious brutes Ashwini had tagged them; Giorgio had trusted none of the three with details of his plans. Their only task was to guard that sickening torture chamber while it wasn’t in use. When it was, they played guard dogs outside the warehouse.