“Indeed.” He bowed slightly. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you on this plane.”
“I wish it was in better circumstances,” I muttered, and pulled on my jacket.
“Indeed.” His gaze moved from me to the street. “I have done a brief reconnoiter. Number twenty bristles with hardware, some of which is cameras.”
The rest no doubt being the bombs Taylor had mentioned, as well as other nasty stuff. “How many people are inside the house?”
“Only one. I presume it is the guardian, Rhoan Jenson.”
I hesitated, then asked, “Is he still alive?”
Markel’s dark gaze returned to mine. “At this moment, yes.”
I released the breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding. “What about the other houses in the court? Have you checked those?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Of course. I am the professional here, remember.”
Yeah, he was. But it was my life on the line, not his. “So did you find anything unusual?”
“No. Taylor and his accomplice are not in this street as far as I was able to discern. That does not mean he is not nearby.”
“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—”
“Taylor is no fool.” Markel’s gaze met mine briefly. In the flare of the streetlights, red glinted deep in the dark depths. Not anger, not bloodlust, but something else. Something deeper—more remote and dangerous. I resisted the urge to step away from him as he added, “He undoubtedly has plans for your body once he thinks you are left unprotected. He will also have his people watching what is going on, and they will not react favorably when they realize you are not as unprotected as they thought.”
“I doubt they’ll react favorably to you coming back into the house, either.”
“That is a risk we must all take.” Thankfully, his gaze returned to the house. “I have my orders, Risa. I will obey them.”
Meaning it was pointless to argue. We reached the end of the court. Number twenty loomed in front of us, dark and silent. While the surrounding houses might be well cared for, it was obvious that this place had been left empty for a while. The grass in the front yard was long enough to brush my knees, and there were trees sprouting in the gutters. Metal shutters covered all the windows, making it impossible to steal a glimpse inside, but the front door stood slightly ajar.
It was an invitation to enter that I wished we could refuse.
I flared my nostrils, sucking in the air and sorting through the scents as Markel pressed his fingertips against the door and pushed it all the way open. The house smelled of age and damp, but underneath these ran teasing scents of humanity and wolf. The latter undoubtedly belonged to Rhoan, but did the other belong to Taylor or his assistant, or someone else?