"Do you need me to do anything?" Marshall asked.
If he could have done anything, I very much doubted we'd have been called in. But I just said, "No. Just ensure that he leaves, and we'll do the rest."
"Righto."
As the screen returned to the image of the bloodstained room, I swung around to face Azriel. "Will this work?"
He shrugged. "As I have said before, I've never hunted a Rakshasa. I'm told they can be extremely difficult kills."
And this one was killing people who deserved to die—a fact that didn't make going after her any easier. But since it was my life or hers, there was really no other choice.
"Then we'd better get over there and set our trap." And if the trap didn't work, then we hunted it back to its lair. I shivered, and hoped like hell it didn't come to that. Not if the Rakshasa was feeding more than just herself.
Azriel held out a hand. I placed my hand in his and let him pull me into his embrace. It felt so warm and safe that I wanted to cry. Or maybe that was just a reaction of the bitter anguish that still echoed inside my head.
His energy surged, and in an instant the room disappeared and we were zipping through the gray fields. The room we reappeared in was dark and smelled faintly of urine and booze. Obviously, vampire Jerry did not live in one of your more up-market boarding establishments.
Azriel immediately stepped away and moved to one corner of the room. He raised his hands and paced the walls, murmuring softly. The words were lyrical and easy on the ear, but there was a dark undercurrent to the energy that swirled around and through his voice, and foreboding crawled down my spine. It somehow seemed wrong for such darkness to be coming from beings who were warmth and light.
He continued walking around the room. Mist formed behind him, becoming luminous tendrils that crawled up the walls and across the ceiling, until the soft, glowing, ethereal net of silver covered every compass point as well as the floor and ceiling. When the circuit was complete, the net locked together, then faded. But the power of it remained, making the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
"Won't the Rakshasa feel the energy and run?" I asked, rubbing my arms and trying to ignore my growing sense of unease.
Azriel shook his head. "The vampire, however, will sense your presence in this room, so you cannot remain here."
I frowned. "I'm supposed to bring the Rakshasa down, not you."
He smiled and drew Valdis. She glowed with a fierceness that lit the sparse room. "The end result will be the same. Besides, how is the council to know who actually killed the creature? We don't have our follower when we shift via the fields, remember."