“I’m going to quietly track down and talk to the servants who work in the houses of the angels and vampires who may be capable of such cruelty,” Janvier said, the strokable mahogany of his hair lifting in the breeze. “Often, they are aware of more than their masters know.”

It was a good idea. “I might be able to help with that. I generally come into contact with the younger vamps, and a lot of them are at the servant level.”

“We’ll make a list, start circulating.” He was quiet for a minute. “Cher, something Aaliyah said is gnawing at me.”

“About how the vamp ordered Felicity not to say anything about their being a couple until she had her ‘makeover’?” That had been niggling at her, a sharp barb in her gut.

“Yes, exactly. I don’t believe she was ever part of his official cattle, that he held that out as a lure—if she was good enough, pleased him enough, she’d become one of the chosen.” A punishing edge in every word. “In the interim, he must’ve arranged to meet her outside his usual haunts, where there would be little chance he’d be seen with her.”

The more Ashwini learned about the man who’d tortured and killed Felicity after suffocating her spirit, the more she hated him. “It puts all our suspects back in the pool.” And still there remained the question of how he was causing fatal injuries so eerily similar to the results of Lijuan’s feeding. “But the servant angle is still worth following—one may have noticed signs of a woman he or she never saw.”

Janvier shoved a hand through his hair. “I wish we didn’t have to tiptoe through this investigation. Someone had to have seen her with the bastard, if we could only ask!”

Even as he bit out the words, his eyes lingered on a giggling child who’d just tugged his mother to a window display, then took in a group of women clustered around a nearby café table, heads bent in laughing secrecy. “But to give Felicity justice, we would have to rip open the wounds of a city that has barely stopped bleeding.”

Ashwini had no answers, torn between the same competing forces.

•   •   •

Eight hours later, keeping the details of Felicity’s death under wraps was no longer an issue.

•   •   •

Having split from Janvier earlier to follow through with their plan of speaking to those who staffed the homes of the powerful and wealthy and cruel, Ashwini ran into the intensive care section of the hospital to find he’d beaten her there.

“Where is she?” It came out a gasp, her heart pumping; she’d received the call while at Guild HQ, giving Sara a progress report, had decided to leg it rather than try to negotiate the heavy traffic in a cab.

“In a room down the hall.” Janvier’s jacket was open over his black T-shirt, his scarf missing. “This way.”

She fell into step with him. “Have you spoken to her?”

A shake of his head. “The physicians are with her. I think she’ll react better to a woman, in any case.”

Painfully conscious of what Janvier didn’t say—the torture the woman may have suffered at male hands—Ashwini met the gaze of the angel who stood guard beside the closed door at the end of the hall, wings of silver-blue pressed against the wall. “You brought her here?”

“Yes,” Illium said, his golden eyes colder than she’d ever seen them. “She ran out of Central Park, naked and screaming, collapsed on the street.”

“Jesus.” Ashwini thought of the bitter cold, the ice. “Hypothermia?”

“A hint of frostbite—I picked her up almost as soon as she was spotted.”

Which meant she’d been dropped off somewhere nearby, abandoned close enough to traffic to get herself help and attention. Not, Ashwini thought, for her good, but because the sadistic monster behind this wanted it to be front-page news. It was eight now, so the victim had run out during the busy time when people were leaving work or heading out to dinner.

“The tracks circled back to another street entrance,” Janvier said, answering the question she’d been about to ask.

“Of course they did,” she muttered. “Security cameras?”

“I alerted the Tower and Guild teams to go through any feeds they could find,” Janvier said. “So far, nothing.”

Ashwini girded her stomach. “How bad?”

Illium had parted his lips to answer when the door was pulled open from the inside and a tall, thin vampire with sandy brown hair, and aristocratic features in a pale-skinned face stepped out. He was wearing green scrubs, held a chart in one hand. “She’s lost over half the blood in her body,” he said, shoving a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on its ends. “However, that doesn’t explain her appearance. I’ve never seen its like and I’ve been a physician for lifetimes.”

Ashwini could feel the vampire’s age pressing against her skin, knew he had to be at least seven hundred years old. “Is there anything you can tell us?”

“Nothing useful.”

Another doctor stepped out then, a mortal woman, her hair a silver cap vivid against the deep brown of her skin. “The poor girl.” Pressing the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, she met each of their intent looks in turn. “One of you can go in, but we had to sedate her to get her to stop screaming, so I’m not sure how much sense you’ll get out of her.”