It took a few minutes before the vampire stopped struggling.
The body went limp, arms and legs unmoving in the mist of frigid air that continued to pour out onto the floor in a rolling cloud of white.
After another long moment, Hunter lifted the lid. The assassin's head was frozen solid, slack-jawed, the blue lips and dull, unseeing eyes encrusted with ice crystals. Hunter pushed the corpse aside. It fell with a hard thud at his feet, the thick black collar circling his neck crackling as it broke into several pieces and fell away.
The interruption in his current task handled, Hunter went back to grab the last cryo container and load it into the truck.
Chapter Twenty-three
Corinne heard a noise in the guest bedroom as she toweled off from her bath at the safe house.
"Amelie?" she called from behind the partially open door. It had to be after midnight, but Corinne was too anxious for sleep. "Just a second. I'll be right out."
She unfolded the robe her hostess had given her and slipped it on, her hands quickly working the sash belt of the thick pink chenille garment that felt like velvet and smelled like sunwarmed, line-dried cotton. Certain her scarred body was covered, she drew the bathroom door open a bit wider and stepped out to the bedroom.
It wasn't Amelie.
It was Hunter, covered in blood. Bruises rode his sharp cheekbones. His hands were fisted at his sides, knuckles scraped and contused. She'd never seen him look so raw, so steeped in the violence of his profession.
"My God," she whispered, moving toward him in shock and concern. "Hunter ... are you all right?"
"Never mind the blood. It isn't mine," he said, unaffected, his deep voice calm as ever. When he started to take off his gore-stained leather coat, Corinne hurried over to help him. "The boots too," she said, eyeing the blood that covered them as well. While he bent to unlace one of them, she hunkered down to loosen the other. She felt him watching her in an odd silence - odder than his usual man-of-few-words way. He seemed to study her now, his hooded, dark gold gaze still enigmatic, but edged with a softness she hadn't seen in him before.
"I'll take those," she said, picking up his large black combat boots in one hand, the long leather coat in the other. "Come with me."
She turned to carry everything back into the bathroom, Hunter following behind her. She set the coat and boots in the tub, then reached for one of the clean washcloths that was folded on the back of the commode. She ran it under the faucet in the tub, wringing out the warm water as Hunter stood over the sink near the door.
She'd been upset with him all night, angry that he'd left without telling her. Worried that he'd gone off to do his dangerous work for the Order and might have gotten himself killed. Now she could only stare at him, relieved that he'd come back in one piece, even if he did look like he'd strode through a war zone to get there.
She sat on the edge of the tub and watched as he ran cold water into the basin and scrubbed his face. When he was done, he cupped several handfuls into his mouth, swished it around and spat it out. Over and over, like there was a taste he couldn't get rid of no matter how hard he tried. Water dripped off his chin as he looked over at her, the hard angles of his face seeming even more severe in the vanity's bright globe lights above his head.
"Your shirt is ruined," she said, noting still more blood soaked into the black knit fabric of his combat gear. She walked to him and set the damp washcloth down on the rim of the sink. He said nothing as she took the hem of his sticky, gore-soaked shirt and lifted it up, baring his glyph- covered torso and broad, muscular chest. He stood back as she filled the basin with cold water and put the shirt into it. While she did this, he picked up the washcloth and scrubbed himself clean. He dropped the soiled cloth into the sink with his shirt.
"You found Henry Vachon." It wasn't a question, because the evidence seemed clear enough as the water turned red in the basin. She glanced at Hunter and met his sober nod. "You killed him?"