Darkness Hunts (Dark Angels) - Softcover

Arthur, Keri

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451237129 ISBN 13: 9780451237125

Publisher: Berkley, 2012

Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Keri Arthur returns to the enthralling Guardian World—and a twilight realm of danger and desire...

Risa Jones, half-Aedh/half-werewolf, can enter the realm between life and death. She can speak to the dying and the dead, and she can see the reapers, collectors of souls. What she can not yet see is the identity of a stranger murdering women and draining their blood. Now Risa must summon her gifts to find him, even if it means putting her own life in danger. But Risa needn’t look far. The killer knows who she is.

He tells her his victims are infected by darkness and he’s fated to destroy them. Fascinated by Risa, he engages her in a sinister game: the chance to save the life of his next victim by deciphering his series of clues. In a race against time, she enlists the help of the reaper Azriel.

But as an attraction between them grows, so does the fear that the stranger’s motives are only part of a larger, more dangerous stratagem—one that that has lured Risa and Azriel into the dark.

About this title

About the Author:

Keri Arthur is the New York Times bestselling author of the Riley Jenson Guardian series, the Dark Angels series, the Outcast series, and the Lizzie Grace series. She’s been nominated in the Best Contemporary Paranormal category of the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards and has won the Romantic Times’ Career Achievement Award for urban fantasy. She lives with her daughter in Melbourne, Australia.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter 1

“I need to speak to a ghost.”

Adeline Greenfield paused in the middle of pouring tea into her expensive china cups and looked at me.

“I was under the impression you already could.” Her voice, like her appearance, was unremarkable. With her short gray hair, lined face, and generous curves, she reminded me of the grandmotherly types often seen on TV sitcoms. It was only her blue eyes— or rather, only the power that glowed within them— that gave the game away. Adeline Greenfield was a witch, a very powerful and successful one.

“No. I mean, I can hear them, and sometimes I can see them, but they don’t seem to hear or acknowledge me.” I grimaced. “I thought if I was on the same plane as they are— if I astral- traveled to them— it might help.”

“Possibly.” She set the teapot down and frowned. “But didn’t you help relocate a ghost that was causing all sorts of mischief at the Brindle?”

The Brindle was the witch depository located here in Melbourne, and it held within its walls centuries of knowledge, spells, and other witch- related parapher¬nalia. “Yes, but it wasn’t really a ghost. It was actually a mischievous soul who was undecided about moving on.”

“Souls are usually incapable of interaction with this world.”

“Yes, but the Brindle is a place of power, and that gave her the ability.”

She nodded sagely. “It is still odd that you cannot speak to them the same way as your mother, because I’m sure she said you had the skill.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You knew Mom?”

She smiled. “Those of us truly capable of hearing the dead are few and far between, so yes, I knew her. We had lunch occasionally.”

That was something I hadn’t known. But then, there was probably a whole lot of stuff I’d never known about my mother— and never would, given she’d been murdered. Grief swirled, briefly touching my voice as I said, “Well, no matter what she may have believed, the dead won’t speak to me.”

“Ghosts can be vexing creatures,” she agreed. “And they often have no desire to acknowledge their death.”

“So how is ignoring me helping them disregard the fact that they’re dead?”

She placed a couple of sugars in each cup, then gently stirred the tea. “We’re talking about the dead here. Their minds are not what they once were, especially those who have been murdered.”

“I didn’t say he’d been murdered.”

“You didn’t have to. Trouble, my dear, darkens your steps, and it’s not such a leap to think that if you want to speak to a ghost, it’s because he died before his time. Otherwise, your reaper would have been able to find out whatever you needed.” She handed me a cup of tea, then glanced over my right shoulder. “I would pre¬fer it, by the way, if you’d just show yourself. It’s impo¬lite to skulk on the edges of the gray fields like that.”

Heat shimmered across my skin as Azriel appeared. Of course, he wasn’t strictly a reaper, as they were soul guides. He was something much more— or, if you be¬lieved him, something much less— and that was a Mi¬jai, a dark angel who hunted and killed the things that broke free from hell.

But what he hunted now wasn’t an escapee demon, daemon, or even a spirit— although we certainly had been hunting one of those. We’d gotten it, too, but not before the fucking thing had almost killed me. Which was why I was moving like an old woman right now— everything still hurt. I might be half werewolf, but fast healing was one of the gifts I hadn’t inherited enough of. In fact, I couldn’t shift into wolf shape at all, and the full moon held no sway over me.

Of course, I could heal myself via my Aedh heritage, but shifting in and out of Aedh form required energy, and I didn’t have enough of that, either.

“That’s better,” Adeline said, satisfaction in her voice. “Now, would you like a cup of tea, young man?”

“No, thank you.”

There was a hint of amusement in Azriel’s mellow tones, and it played through my being like the caress of gentle fingers. Longing shivered through me.

Adeline picked up her own cup, a frown once again marring her homely features. “Why do you wear a sword, reaper? There is no threat in this house.”

“No, there is not,” he agreed.

When it became obvious he didn’t intend to say any¬thing else, Adeline turned her expectant gaze to me.

“He wears a sword because he’s helping me hunt down some—” I hesitated. For safety’s sake I couldn’t tell her everything, yet I couldn’t not explain, either. Not if I wanted her help. “— rogue priests who seek the keys to the gates of heaven and hell so they can perma¬nently close them.”

That raised her eyebrows. “Why on earth would anyone want that?”

“Because they’re not of earth.” They were Aedh, en¬ergy beings who lived on the gray fields— the area that divided earth from heaven and hell. Or the light and dark portals, as the reapers tended to say. While the reaper community had flourished, the Aedh had not. They’d all but died out, and only the Raziq— a break¬away group of priests— were left in any great numbers. “And they’ve decided it would be easier to perma¬nently shut the gates to all souls than to keep guarding against the occasional demon breakout.”

She frowned. “But that would mean no soul could move on and be reborn.”

“Yes, but they don’t care about that. They just see the bigger picture.”

“But surely the number of demons who break out of hell is minor when compared to the chaos that closing the gates permanently would cause.”

“As I said, I don’t think the priests care.” Not about the human race in general, and certainly not about ba¬bies being born without souls and ending up as little more than inanimate lumps of flesh. “They just want their life of servitude to the gates ended.”

Which is how I’d gotten involved in this whole mess in the first place. The Raziq had developed three keys that would permanently open or close the gates. The only trouble was, my father, who was one of the Raziq responsible for making the keys, had not only stolen the keys but had arranged to have them hidden— so well that even he knew only a general location. And as he could no longer take on flesh form, he now needed me to do his footwork, since only someone of his blood¬line could detect the hidden keys.

In fact, everyone needed me— the Raziq, the reapers, the high vampire council. And all of them wanted the keys for very different reasons.

Adeline said, “And this is why you wish to speak so urgently to this ghost? He knows of the keys?”

I hesitated. “No. But he might have some informa¬tion about a dark sorcerer who could be tied up in all this mess. We questioned our ghost when he was alive, but someone very powerful had blocked sections of his memories. We’re hoping death might have removed those blocks.”

“It’s a rather vague hope.”

“Which is still better than no hope.” I took a sip of tea, then shuddered at the almost bitter taste and put the cup down. Tea had never been a favorite beverage of mine.

“When do you wish to start?” Adeline asked.

“Now, if possible.”

She frowned again. “Your energy levels feel ex¬tremely low. It’s generally not considered a wise—”

“Adeline,” I interrupted softly, “I may not get an¬other chance to do this.”

Mainly because I’d been ordered by my father to re¬trieve a note from Southern Cross Station later this morning, and who the hell knew what would happen afterthat? But if past retrievals were any indication, then hell was likely to break loose— at least metaphysi¬cally speaking, if not physically.

She studied me for several minutes, then said, “If you insist, then I must help you, even if it is against my better judgment.”

“Must?” I raised my eyebrows. “That almost sounds like you’ve been ordered to help me.”

“Oh, I have, and by Kiandra herself, no less.” She eyed me thoughtfully. “You have some very powerful allies, young woman.”

Surprise rippled through me. Kiandra— who was head witch at the Brindle— had helped me on several occasions, but only after I’d approached her. That she was now anticipating my needs suggested she knew a lot more about what was going on than I’d guessed. “Did she say why?”

“She said only that your quest has grave implica¬tions for us all, and that it behooves us to provide as¬sistance where possible.”

Which suggested that Kiandra did know about the existence of the keys and our effort to retrieve them. And I guess that wasn’t really surprising— surely you couldn’t become the head of all witches without some working knowledge of the fields and the beings that inhabited them.

“Which is why I need to do this now, Adeline.”

She continued to study me, her expression con¬cerned. “What do you know of astral traveling?”

“Not a lot, though I suspect it won’t be that dissimi¬lar to traveling the gray fields.”

“It’s not. Astral travel is simply your consciousness or spirit traveling through earth’s realm, whereas the gray fields are merely the void through which your soul journeys on its way to heaven or hell. But there are a few rules and dangers you should be aware of before we attempt this.”

Having traveled through the gray fields many times, I knew they were hardly a void, as they were where the reapers lived. But I simply said, “There usually are when it comes to anything otherworldly.”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “Thought is both your magic carpet and your foe on the astral plane. If you want to go somewhere, think of the precise location and you will be projected there. By the same token, if you be¬come afraid, you can create an instant nightmare.”

I nodded. She continued. “Be aware that any thought related to your physical body will bring you back to your body. This includes the fear that your physical body may be hurt in some way.”

I frowned. “If I can’t speak or move, how am I going to question my ghost?”

“I didn’t say you can’t move, and you think the questions, the same as you think of the location. Clear?”

“As mud.”

She eyed me for a moment, the concern in her ex¬pression deepening. “The astral plane is inhabited by two types of spirits: those who cannot— for one reason or another— move on spiritually, and other astral trav¬elers. And just like walking down the street, you cannot control who’s on the astral fields. But youcan be certain that not all will be on the side of the angels.”

“So I should watch my metaphysical ass?”

“Yes. At your current energy levels, you could at¬tract energies who are darker in life, and they may cause you problems on the astral plane or follow you onto this one.”

“I can handle unpleasant energies on this plane. And if I can’t, Azriel can.” I paused. “What of the dangers?”

Her expression darkened. “While you cannot die on the fields themselves, it is possible to become trapped there. It is also possible to become so enraptured by whatever illusion surrounds you on the plane that what happens there can echo through your physical being.”

I frowned. “So if I somehow imagine getting whacked on the plane, my body can be bruised?”

“If the illusion is powerful enough, yes. And if you find yourself entrapped there, you risk death.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Azriel said, before Adeline could, “flesh cannot survive great lengths of time without its soul. And while the astral body is not the entirety of the soul, if you find death when your astral being is not present in your body, then your soul is not complete and can¬not move on. You would become one of the lost ones.”

“And here I was thinking it would be a walk in the park.” I swept a hand through my short hair and wished, just once, that something was. “Let’s get this done.”

She glanced past me briefly, then rose. “Come with me, then.”

I followed her out of the living room and down the long hall, my footsteps echoing softly on her wooden floors. Azriel made no sound, although the heat of his presence burned into my spine and chased away the chill of apprehension.

Adeline stopped at the last door on the right and opened it. “Please take your shoes off.”

I did so as she stepped to one side and motioned me to enter. The room was dark and smelled faintly of lav¬ender and chamomile, and my bare feet disappeared into a thick layer of mats and silk.

“Lie down and make yourself comfortable.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Azriel. Though his face was almost classical in its beauty, it possessed the hard edge of a man who’d won more than his fair share of battles. He was shirtless, his skin a warm, suntanned brown and his abs well defined. The worn leather strap that held his sword in place emphasized the width of his shoulders, and the dark jeans that clung to his legs hinted at their lean strength. His stance was that of a fighter, a warrior— one who not only protected me, but had saved me more than once. And would continue to do so, for as long as I was of use to him.

Still, I couldn’t help mentally asking, You’ll be here?

I’ll be here to protect your physical form, yes. His thought ran like sunshine through my mind. I wasn’t telepathic in any way, shape, or form, but that didn’t matter when it came to Azriel. He could hear my thoughts as clearly as the spoken word. Unfortunately, the only time I heard his thoughts was at times like now, when it was a deliberate act on his part. But not on the plane. Astral travelers are of this world, not mine, so you are basically little more than a ghost to me. I cannot interact with you in any way.

Reaper rules?

Reaper rules. He hesitated, and something flashed through the mismatched blue of his eyes. Something so bright and sharp it made my breath hitch. Be careful. It would be most . . . inconvenient . . . if you find death on the astral plane.

Inconvenient? I shucked off my jacket and tossed it to one side with a little more force than necessary. Yeah, I guess it would be. I mean, who else would find the damn keys for you if something happened to me?

That, he said, an edge riding his mental tone, is an unfair statement.

Yeah, it was. But goddamn it, if I was an inconve¬nience to him, then he was a vast source of frustration to me. And on more than one level. Was it any wonder that it occasionally got the better of me and resulted in a snippy remark?

That frustration is shared by us both, Risa.

I glanced at him sharply. His expression was its usual noncommittal self, but the slightest hint of a smile played about his lips. I snorted softly. If he wasimplying he was as sexually frustrated as me, then he had only himself to blame. After all, he was the one determined to keep our relationship strictly profes¬sional now that desire had been acknowledged and acted upon. Althoughhow he could ignore what still burned between us I had no idea. I was certainly strug¬gling with it.

“Risa,” Adeline said softly, “you must lie down be¬fore we can proceed.”

I did as she ordered, and the mats wrapped around me, warm and comforting. Adeline closed the door and the darkness engulfed us. The scents s...

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0451237129
• ISBN 13: 9780451237125
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 400