Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The blood, it was everywhere. She glanced down in fresh horror, terrified she was standing in it. Her relief was crushing when she saw the rivulets were sluggish, easy to avoid. But the bodies continued to drip, hanging from a tangle of rope like the most macabre of puzzles. Now that she'd looked down, she didn't want to look back up.
"Elena." The rustle of Raphael's wings.
"A minute," she whispered, her voice raw.
"You don't need to look," he told her. "Just follow the scent."
"I need an example of his scent before I can go anywhere," she reminded him. "What he gave Michaela-"
"Michaela destroyed the package. She was in hysterics. Do what you can here. We'll visit her afterward."
Nodding, she swallowed. "Tell your vampires to vacate the area around the warehouse-at least a hundred yards in every direction." There was too much sensory input, as if the sheer amount of blood was amplifying everything, even her own hunter abilities.
"It's being done."
"If any of them are like Dmitri, they need to get out completely."
"There are none. Do you wish to scent those who came inside, for elimination purposes?"
It was a good idea but she knew that if she turned her back on this madness, she'd never return. "Did any of them spend a lot of time near the bodies?"
A pause. "Illium took on the task of determining if any had survived."
"It's obvious they're dead."
"The ones on the floor-their fate wasn't immediately clear."
She'd been so horrified by the hanging bodies that she hadn't paid attention to the pile below. Or perhaps she hadn't wanted to see, to know. Now she did and wished she hadn't. Unlike the nightmare above, these bodies looked as if they were sleeping, one on top of another. "Were they arranged like that?"
"Yes." A new voice.
She didn't turn, guessing it to be Illium. "Are your wings blue?" she asked, coating her pity and sorrow in a casing of dark humor. These three girls below, they were so young, their bodies smooth, uncharted by age.
"Yes," Illium said. "But my c**k isn't, in case you were wondering."
She almost laughed. "Thank you." That comment had snapped through the nightmare, allowing her to think. "Your scent won't interfere with my senses." Her nose was ten times better than that of most humans, but when it came to tracking, she was a bloodhound attuned only to vampire. Or that was her normality. This . . .
The sound of footsteps retreating. She waited until she heard the door close. "You took his feathers and he remains with you?" Her eyes traced the bodies. A symphony of unbroken, tangled limbs and curved spines, unmarked but for the gray chill of death.
"Others would have taken his wings."
An angel without wings. It made her remember how she'd shot Raphael. "Why are they so washed out?" Their race was immaterial. Chalk white, dull mahogany, it mattered little. All three girls in the pile were pale in a way that screamed-"Vampire. A vampire fed from them. Drained them." She went to step forward, halted. "The M.E. hasn't been here. I can't touch them."
"Do what you must. Ours are the only eyes that'll see this."
She swallowed. "And their families?"
"Would you leave them with this image of suffering?" A cold blade of anger in every word. "Or a story of a sudden plane crash or car accident in which the body was destroyed beyond recognition?"
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Deluged with blood and death on every side, her brain struggled to fight the memories of old horrors, things no amount of time would wipe away. "He didn't drain the others. Just these three."
"The others were for play."
And somehow, she knew the evil that had butchered the ones above had done so in front of the living girls, shoving terror through them, feeding on their fear. She stepped nearer the drained girls, having skirted the dripping nightmare above. Going down on her haunches, she moved long black hair away from a slender neck. "In cases where a human dies, I usually get the strongest scent impression at the point where blood was taken," she said, talking to drown out the pervading, endless sound of blood hitting concrete. "Oh, Jesus."
Raphael was suddenly on the other side of the bodies, his wings flared out in a way that struck her as odd . . . until she realized he was attempting to keep them out of the blood. He hadn't been wholly successful. A bright red splash marked the tip of one wing. She looked away, forcing her gaze back down to the shredded neck of the girl who'd looked so peaceful from a distance. "This wasn't a feed," she said. "It's like he tore out her neck." Remembering Michaela's "delivery," her eyes dipped. The girl's heart, too, was gone, ripped out of her chest.
"A feed would've been too slow," Raphael said, continuing to keep his wings off the floor. "He must've been starving by this point. He needed a bigger hole than the fangs provide."
The clinical description actually helped calm her. "Let's see if I can pick up his scent." Tightening every muscle in her body, she leaned close to the dead girl's neck and breathed deep.
Cinnamon and apples.
Soft, sweet, body cream.
Blood.
Skin.
A jagged lash of acid. Sharp. A scent with bite. Interesting. Full of layers. Pungent but not putrid.
That was what always amazed her. When vampires went bad, they didn't magically gain an evil scent. They smelled the same as they always had. If Dmitri went bad, he'd retain his allure, his seductive chocolate cake and frosting and sex with all the toppings kind of smell. "I have it, I think." But she had to confirm.
Standing, she waited until Raphael had risen before gritting her teeth and stepping below the abattoir hanging from the ceiling. She took every step with slow deliberation, knowing she might just run screaming from this warehouse if touched by even a single drop of cold blood.
Drip.
A splash by her foot. Close, too close.
"Far enough," she whispered and then went absolutely still, sorting through the scent layers once more. It was harder here, much harder. Terror had a scent, too-sweat and urine and tears and darker fluids-and it overlaid everything in this area. Like a thick perfume that had been sprayed with wild abandon, cloaking anything more subtle.
She dug down, but the terror was a choking grip around her throat, a hand clamped over her mouth, stopping her from sensing anything else. "How long ago did they die?"