"You sound very sure he'll head that way."
"Geraldine was wearing a diamond ring when I met her yesterday. It was missing today, and from the white band of skin on her finger, I don't think she ever took it off."
"It'll be easier if I carry you." Seeing the sense in that, she nodded and Raphael picked her up, one arm around her back, the other under her knees. Glamour spread like water across her skin.
"Did you do it?" she asked as he rose, holding on tight and keeping her eyes closed against the mind-bending sight of her bones disappearing into thin air. "Start the process of turning Geraldine into a vampire?"
"No."
"Why not? She probably won't survive otherwise. And she'd be happy to be one. A win-win situation." Wind laced with the whispered promise of more rain whipped through her hair, stroked her cheeks.
"You're asking for forbidden knowledge again."
"You put me in the path of a monster-not just me, but people even peripherally related to me-" Panic hit her. "Sara, my sister!"
"We've alerted everyone close to you that they might be targeted by a vampire."
She gripped him harder. "Won't do much good against an archangel, will it?"
"No. The only thing that'll stop him is death."
"How will you kill him?"
"Rip out his heart and shove my power through the hole in his torso, tearing him apart from the inside out."
She swallowed at the graphic description. "Can he do the same to you?"
"He is an archangel."
In other words, yes. Fear clawed at her heart, fear for a being who'd lived more lifetimes than she could imagine. "Why can an archangel only be killed by another archangel?"
"As we age, we gain power-including the power to end the life of an immortal." And perhaps, Raphael thought, recalling Lijuan's coy hints, the power to give life, too. But not a life that was anything close to what life should be. "It's one of the prerequisites of being in the Cadre of Ten. We must be able to destroy each other if the need arises."
"And that's not too much information?"
"You would've guessed." Her intelligence was strong, stubborn, relentless. In all his centuries of living, he'd never met a warrior who challenged him as she did. "The female we found, who is she?"
"Geraldine, my father's secretary."
"Your father employs a lover of vampires?"
"What, you didn't know?" She snorted. "I thought you knew every minute detail of my history."
"Assistants weren't of much interest."
"Yeah, well, Jeffrey doesn't know about her extracurricular activities."
"Illium said he's seen her at Erotique. She dances." Erotique was a by-invitation-only club that catered to upscale vampires who wanted to relax in the company of humans who'd been tutored as to what was acceptable and what was not.
"I've heard the dancers of Erotique described as the geishas of the West."
Raphael caught the edge in that question, wondered at it. "An apt comparison."
Her nails dug into his neck. "More like they know how to pander to men who can't be bothered to make an effort."
"Both male and female vampires frequent Erotique." He paused. "It holds less allure for angels."
Those nails withdrew slightly. "Those dancers-they make good money?"