Chapter Eighteen
Angel ran her hands one last time through her mass of locks and made her way down the hall to the briefing room at the end. She’d gone in that morning as instructed, but the meeting had been postponed due to emerging evidence.
After she’d stifled her grumbles that she could have slept in after all, Angel decided to make a coffee run, order lunch for the Vega wardens on duty, and catch up with some of the kids in training. The meeting was rescheduled for eight p.m., as they were apparently waiting for lab results on something.
Now she was just a little early for the second meeting, but she preferred to be early rather than late, so she’d foregone her third cup of shop coffee in favor of heading back to the safe house.
The door at the end of the hall was open and three other people were already inside. Gabriel was one of them. The other two were Hannah Peabody and Casey Graham, probably two of the best Vega wardens in the thirty-five man clan. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who wanted to get this meeting going.
“What’s up boss?” Angel asked as she entered.
Gabe looked up at the sound of her voice and nodded at her in greeting. “You’re early too, but it’s just as well,” said Gabe. “Close the door behind you.” The three of them watched her enter the room, Hannah and Casey nodding a greeting to her in turn.
At once, Angel had a strange feeling. She closed the door, then turned back to them, suddenly and inexplicably afraid of the impending meeting. She’d been through hundreds, if not thousands of job briefings, and she’d always faced them head-on. But now she found herself short of breath, of all things. It was like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room.
Gabriel was turning to a screen on the wall, the control in his hand, when he must have noticed something strange about her because he stopped, his arm mid-raise toward the screen. A furrow creased his brow. “Clemens. You okay?”
Angel opened her mouth to reply that she was fine when a fifth clan member ran into the briefing room, slamming the door open without knocking. The four of them looked over, and Gabriel turned a hard eye to the door. But it was Harold, the clan messenger, and Harold was allowed anywhere he needed to go at any given time, if the situation called for it.
Apparently the situation did call for it.
“Mr. Santiago!” Harold addressed Gabriel directly. “There’s been an update on the Apex case.”
“What?” Angel asked, her body tingling uncomfortably. “What Apex? What’s going on?”
“Apex?” Casey repeated, his expression dire. “Seriously?” He was questioning Gabriel. Clearly the briefing hadn’t yet begun, and they were all on the same empty page.
Angel fixed Gabriel with a questioning gaze and a raised brow.
The Apex was one of the most dangerous creatures the wardens were tasked in policing. Easily ranking in the top five worst creatures to face, the Apex was an improbable and highly catastrophic hybrid of werewolf and vampire. They were blessed with all of their breeds’ strengths and none of their weaknesses. Sun did not slow them or harm them, and neither did any precious or semi-precious metal. They possessed the impossible speed of the vampire, and could even heal wounds made by fire. The Apex could flash into wolf or vampire form at a moment’s notice. Worst of all, like their vampire counter-parts, they were able to manipulate the minds of those left unprotected.
Killing them was next to impossible. It required nothing less than complete decapitation or explosive destruction of the Apex body.
Thank the Storyteller, not all Apex were trouble. In fact, most were just the opposite. They were usually werewolves who’d become vampires in the moment of death in order to preserve their lives. Becoming a vampire didn’t make them any more evil than they’d been as werewolves. Contrary to Hollywood’s perceptions and insinuations, the good or bad that comprised a person’s soul almost always remained intact and unchanged during a transformation into something supernatural. Personalities, memories, everything that made an individual who and what they were was unaltered. Becoming a vampire didn’t make someone evil. It made them a vampire. And in the case of a werewolf, it made them an Apex.
Gabriel shot her a look that said he’d have preferred to fill her in on this one in private, but then turned to the others, addressing them all together. “Over the course of the last seven hours, five bodies turned up in the city, all Apex victims. However, three are approximately three days old and were weighted down in the bay to prevent their discovery. And now,” Gabriel nodded at Harold and sighed heavily, moving forward to take the file from Harold’s outstretched hand, “there appear to be new developments.”
Casey, Hannah, and Angel all exchanged unsettled glances. Angel watched Gabriel’s fingers close over the folder, and suddenly an image of something horrible flashed in her mind’s eye. There was blood. Lots of it. But the image was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and she quelled the sudden sweeping sickness that came with it. “Five victims in three days?” Her voice was tight and high-pitched. “What the hell?”
“Yeah,” said Casey. “Whoever this guy is, he’s going through humans like free cheesecake samples at a hookah party. Why are we only hearing about the murders now?”
Gabriel sighed as he flipped the folder open and began to read it. “Like I said,” he addressed Casey without looking up, “most of the bodies were weighted down. Every one of them was found this morning, within hours of each other.”
“It’s almost like we were meant to find them all at the same time,” said Hannah, who had visibly paled. She was echoing Angel’s thoughts exactly.
“Any DNA matches yet?” Angel asked, trying to focus.
Gabe shook his head, still not looking up. “Not according to this. The tests were rushed due to the severity of the case, and so far the results have come back negative. Doesn’t match any human, vampire, werewolf, or Apex on record.”
The problem with that was that records had only been kept for the last ten years. So DNA matching almost never worked. It was just another step they took, just in case.
“Anything else you need, sir?” Harold asked as he prepared to leave the room.
Gabriel looked up, clearly distracted by what he was reading. But then he slipped into warden leader mode and thought for a minute. “Madeline and Jonas are about to tend to a domestic dispute call in the Tenderloin. Warn them to take extra precaution. This Apex is on a rampage, and everything and anything could be a trap right now.”
Good thinking, thought Angel. The thing about being a warden was that wardens were the police of the supernatural realms. Which meant they were just as likely to have to respond to something like noise pollution or theft or even family squabbles as they were murders. The only difference was that wardens didn’t police humans. As far as Angel was concerned, that meant the cops in the mortal realm had the harder job.
Except when dealing with shit like this.
“Right away, sir.” Harold, or “Harry” Shanks, spun on his heel and left the briefing room, closing the door again behind him. He was a mere sixteen years old, short and lanky with light brown hair, hazel eyes, and glasses. Like most of the younger wardens, he was orphaned. Wardens started young, but there was a reason for that. Clan leaders and sovereigns alike felt it was best to reach orphaned or otherwise “lost” children before they turned to something irredeemable on the streets or were flat-out killed. They were taken in, cared for, and trained to defend themselves. They were given purpose and jobs that saw to that purpose. And no one could argue that the Kings and Queens of the Thirteen Realms didn’t take good care of their wardens.
Add a sentinel to the mix, and being chosen as a warden more often than not turned out to be a blessing. As long as the training was good enough. For the Vega clan, that was where Angel came in.
Harold was of course one of her pupils. But Harry was a quiet and shy kid, extremely intellectual, not nearly as physical as many of the other trainees. This made him a last choice for missions, especially any that could land a warden with injuries. Most importantly to Angel, Harry had a scythe-shaped birthmark on the inside of his wrist. It was something she’d noticed right away but that hadn’t insinuated itself as something important until just recently, when the clans had learned that a new breed of supernatural known as Withered was appearing across the globe. And each and every one of them had been born with that same birthmark.
They became Withered when they died, then returned to life. In this unexplained and mysterious resurrection, a Withered changed physically, becoming taller and stronger, which would probably have benefitted Harry. But a Withered changed mentally too. And Angel didn’t know enough about that change yet to want to chance it with Harry. She liked who he was right now. He was a good kid.
Angel had initially sent Harry on a few light-weight jobs to gather intel on rogue anime that had escaped from the Phantom Realm into the mortal realm. But when news of the Withered hit the streets, she pulled him right back out of the field and informed him that he’d been “promoted” to Vega clan’s messenger. It was a tasking job; a clan’s messenger had to be up-to-date on absolutely everything regarding the clan and its jobs, but Harry was capable of amazing mental feats and it meant a raise for him, so he didn’t mind. And it also meant Angel could keep him safe. Hopefully.
Once Harry was gone, Gabriel turned back to the other three in the room. “This Apex is obviously mobile, but he’s still sticking to a general area. Earlier, I pin-pointed the locations of the first five killings here.” He clicked the remote and the screen illuminated with a map of the general vicinity, highlighting five red circles.
While Angel, Hannah, and Casey studied the map, Gabriel looked one last time through the file containing the latest info on the Apex and lab results. Angel watched him. As he read the file, his expression became increasingly troubled. By the time he was finished, his hazelnut eyes were dark indeed.
He lifted his head to find Angel studying him. She didn’t like what she saw in his expression.
“There are six bodies now, aren’t there?” she asked quietly, somehow knowing the file contained more death.
Gabriel didn’t respond right away. He placed the closed file on the table and slowly unbuttoned, then rolled up his shirt sleeves. Angel had always found that particular move sexy. The way his watch glinted in the overhead light, the way his veins stood out on his well-built forearms – for some reason, it was a heady combination that always shot warmth into her belly. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but for her it felt like a power move, one made by someone in command of the situation.
Still, she could see that his fingers were tense, and the muscles of his forearms were flexed. She glanced at his face, but he avoided her gaze. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Angel sensed that he was fast building steam, like a pressure cooker, and that he was hiding it behind a professional façade that was almost as scary as the potential explosion.
Finally he went to the open laptop on the other end of the table and made a few entries. The map on the screen updated, flashing blank before reappearing. When it solidified, it revealed the locations of two more murders.
“Holy shit,” whispered Hannah.
“Not six,” said Gabriel. “There are now seven known Apex victims.”