"He will be nearby." Watching, waiting. Anticipating.
I shivered again, then shoved shaking hands into my pockets and began walking toward the house.
Markel fell in step beside me. "What of the reaper, Azriel? Is he here?"
"I am," Azriel said, his voice coming from the opposite side of me to the vampire. Not that I needed to hear his voice to know exactly where he was.
Markel didn't seem altogether surprised, either. Maybe he'd asked the question simply to confirm what he'd already sensed.
"Good." He paused. "Do you really think this madman will allow us to rescue Jenson? I cannot see it myself."
"I don't think he'll expect it, but I don't think he'll stop it, either. Either Rhoan dies or I'm left unprotected, so he wins either way."
"But you are not unprotected."
"He doesn't know that."
Markel nodded and continued to study the house we were all too quickly approaching. It was almost as if he were trying to read the mind of an enemy who wasn't even present. His movements were fluid, easy, and there was absolutely no sense of danger emanating from him. It was oddly disturbing, but not entirely surprising. Cazadors might be the most efficient and deadly killers ever trained by the high council, but very few people knew they existed. And that, no doubt, was helped by the "wouldn't-hurt-a-fly" feeling Markel was currently emitting.
Which, in my estimation, only made him—and them—more scary.
Except, I'd bet, to people like Hunter. I don't think that woman feared anything, alive or dead.
"Jack's got an ambulance standing by," I said, my gut churning more and more the closer we got to the damn house. "It shouldn't be hard to—"
"I am aware of the ambulance's location," he cut in. "I will deposit Jenson into their care and come back."
"But Azriel—"