it flashed in his eyes like a powerful mirror, making his pupils contract.
Holy shit. He blinked a few times, wondering if it was just his imagination, but he angled the blade just so, the light flashed and his pupils tightened again.
Just as a real pearl could be distinguished from the fakes by the gritty feel of it against your teeth, only a few blades were so finely made that they’d cause an ocular reaction like this. Misery was one of them.
This was a Guardian’s weapon—Santiago was sure of it.
CHAPTER TWO
SANTIAGO WAS SURPRISED. And that didn’t happen often.
After listening to the voice mail Roxanne had left on his cell, he assumed he’d arrive on the scene to find chaos and a boatload of collateral damage: Darkbloods, screaming humans who’d need their memories wiped, maybe a few dead bodies. Instead, things looked relatively calm. Just two vehicles pulled off to the side of the road and Roxanne near the edge of the forest, standing over a pile of what probably used to be a Darkblood. From the looks of it, Misery wouldn’t be needed.
Although he’d heard of Roxanne Reynolds—Lily couldn’t say enough complimentary things about her—he’d never actually met her in person. What he did know, though, was that she was into some weird spiritual crap—meditation, mind-over-matter kind of shit. Sure, the touchy-feely stuff was popular with her students. Lily, for instance, gushed about her at every opportunity, but as far as he was concerned, anyone who practiced nonsense like that had to have a screw loose somewhere.
He exited his vintage Corvette and jogged toward the red Search and Rescue truck. Oddly enough, two men were slumped over, sleeping in the front, while their dog barked its head off in the back. How could they not wake up with that racket? His acute hearing picked up the regular sound of their heartbeats, so he didn’t bother to open the door. It was obvious they were both healthy and alive.
“It’s okay, boy,” Santiago said to the German shepherd as he passed the vehicle.
Before he got to Roxanne, the Capture Team’s panel van pulled up alongside him and a tinted window slid down.
“Where do you want us?” one of the capture team agents asked.
“I’ve got things handled here.” He motioned for them to continue. “But I want temporary roadblocks set up ahead and behind us. If anyone asks, say there’s been a rock slide.” This remote part of the highway wasn’t well traveled at night, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
“Yes, sir.” The vehicle drove away and the sound of its engine was soon swallowed by the night.
He quickly assessed the scene as he crossed the road, his boots crunching loudly on the pavement. Crickets chirped in the nearby bushes, apparently undisturbed by what had just happened. He didn’t detect any live Darkblood scent, just the scent of the sweetblood who was stowed safely in what he assumed to be Roxanne’s car about twenty feet away.
“Hola,” he said as he approached. “Roxanne, I presume?”
She straightened her spine at the sound of his voice and turned to face him. And for just a moment, he forgot entirely why he was here.
Since joining the Agency over a century ago, he’d been stationed in various parts of the world that most people only experienced by reading books and magazines, seeing pictures online or news clips on television. And he’d witnessed many astounding things. Tattooed pleasure workers in Thailand, secret Incan mating rituals, French courtesans well versed in the sexual arts. In short, he’d seen a lot, experienced a lot. There wasn’t much that could take his breath away.
Until now.
“And you must be Santiago.”
God, he even liked the sound of her voice.
She picked at a twig nestled in her dark blond hair, which fell past her shoulders in messy, tangled curls, but she wasn’t having much luck.
“Here, let me get that.” Without thinking, he reached over and had to use two hands to keep from pulling her hair too much. “There, got it.”
It was only after he was done that he realized how intimate an action it had been. He stepped away and folded his arms over his chest as he studied her.
Despite the frigid night air, she wore a cream-colored tank top with a surf shop logo that sported a few blood stains, dark brown yoga pants—the kind that felt different depending on whether you ran your hand up or down the fabric—and slip-on, once-turquoise tennis shoes that were now covered in mud. The juxtaposition between feminine perfection and scrappy street fighter was so utterly arresting that the world fell away for one brief moment.
Although none of her individual features stood out on their own—straight nose, golden eyes framed by dark lashes, and lips that were neither thin nor generous—when they were put together, she was striking. Her face was oval, her skin smooth and unblemished except for a smudge on one cheek. He had the sudden urge to brush his fingertips against her skin to see if it was dirt or blood. She wasn’t old, but the confidence reflected in her eyes indicated that her Time of Change, when a vampire youthling’s blood cravings began, was decades behind her.
“So what do we have here?” he asked, glancing at the charred remains. His tone was purposely sharp and businesslike as he attempted to shake off his lingering reaction to her. He didn’t like losing control of his thoughts like this.
She fingered her necklace. “Turned out I was able to handle the situation on my own.”
“And the human witnesses?”
“They’ll need to be dealt with. I didn’t have the energy to wipe their minds, only to insert a sleep suggestion.”
Very clever, he thought, noticing for the first time the weariness in her eyes. “What about the other Darkblood? You said there were two.”
“I took care of them both. Here—” she toed her sneaker against the pile of ash at her feet “—and over there about twelve to fifteen feet beyond that downed tree.”
“I don’t understand. You said on the phone you didn’t have any weapons.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then how—?”
“I used theirs,” she said matter-of-factly, as if disarming two Darkbloods who were probably high on Sweet was something a teacher dealt with every day.
It still didn’t make sense. His confusion must’ve been apparent because she continued.
“I pretended I was trying to get away from the sweetblood human, that I was concerned I might kill him, and needed their help.”
“So they knew you were a fellow vampire.”
“Yes, but they had no idea I knew they were Darkbloods. As soon as they didn’t consider me a threat and dropped their guard, it was a simple matter to strip their weapons and use them to my advantage.”
Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
This woman performed under
