Page 5 of The Seeker
A shuffle and a break in the silence. The Grigori took a running leap from the top of the parking garage to the office building on the other side of the alley.
“Are you joking?” Rhys grumbled. He hated to jump, and he didn’t particularly like heights. “You fecking knob!” Rhys gritted his teeth and ran toward the edge, concentrating on the burst of magical energy as he leapt into the darkness.
A fall from four stories wouldn’t kill him, but it would hurt like hell.
He landed and rolled on the gravel roof of the office building just as the Grigori slipped over the side. Rhys needed to get to the ground fast. He spotted a drainpipe and ran toward it, shimmying down the dirty pipe until he was close enough to fall. He ran around the corner of the building and saw the man dangle from the fire escape before he dropped.
Rhys grabbed him by the neck while he was still catching his balance and shoved him face-first against the brick wall of the office building.
The man was smaller than he’d appeared on the run. Rhys was tall, over six foot, with a runner’s build and a long reach. The Grigori was far from bulky, but Rhys dwarfed him.
He gripped him by the neck. “Who do you belong to?”
The man’s shoulders slumped. “Bozidar.”
“The archangel?” Not likely. Bozidar’s sons would have more natural magic than this.
The Grigori began to laugh. “Our fathers are waking, scribe. The Fallen have only been sleeping, resting in their victory. Now you’ve roused them.”
“Have we?” Rhys leaned in. “I look forward to the fight.”
The man laughed harder. “You have no idea! How many of your women did we kill? How many of your men died of despair? The Irin are pathetically weak.”
Rhys curled his lip. “You call me weak? How many unsuspecting women have you fed from like that waitress?”
The man froze. “Not enough.” Then he turned and snapped his teeth at Rhys’s left wrist in a last-ditch effort to damage the scribe’s magic.
Without a second thought, Rhys plunged the silver stiletto into the base of the Grigori’s neck and waited. Within seconds, the body began to shimmer and disintegrate. Rhys stepped back and wiped the dust from his blade before he returned it to the sheath, watching silently as dust rose through the heavy night sky, disappearing into the darkness and mist.
Under his breath, Rhys said a prayer. He’d slain a son of the angels. Fallen angels, yes. But the same blood ran in his veins. The same magic fueled him. Grigori were the dark shadow of the Irin. Without knowledge and training, scribes could turn feral too.
The lone Grigori had been no challenge, and Rhys felt no satisfaction in the kill, no sense of righteous anger or vengeance.
Bozidar.
The archangel from Saint Louis. It hadn’t been the whole truth, but there had been a ring to it. Perhaps the young man had belonged to one of Bozidar’s lesser Fallen allies. He’d report the incident to his watcher and let Malachi decide if he wanted to pass the information along.
After all, Rhys was nothing more than a visiting scholar from Istanbul.
Rhys sleptuntil noon the next day, waking only when the housekeeper tapped on his door. He’d checked in with a Spanish passport, so Rhys called out in Spanish, asking for a few minutes more. He threw off the sheet that covered him and took a moment to enjoy the cool breeze on his bare chest. He rubbed the unmarked skin over his heart, wondering for the thousandth time what it would feel like to put a needle into it.
His first marks had been made at the age of thirteen by his father, a stern man who impressed on Rhys the importance of history and legacy and tradition. Thosetalesmran down his back, covering the magic his mother had spoken over him from the time of his birth.
“When you find your mate, then you will know true wisdom.”
His parents still lived, still tended the library in Glast as every scribe in his family had done since the beginning of time. Rhys was a direct descendant of Gabriel’s line in Glastonbury. His father had been the chief archivist as his grandfather had been. Rhys’s children—if he ever had any—would be expected to follow in that line.
In the early days, the scribes in his family only took trained Irina librarians as mates, so the Great Library at Glast had been one of the rare joined archives of their race. Rhys’s grandfather had met hisreshonand broken that tradition, but no one had blamed him for it. Areshonwas a rare and beautiful gift, the single perfect soul created by heaven to be your equal.
In his rare optimistic moments, Rhys hoped for a mate. Areshonwas likely too much to ask. Of course, it wasn’t easy finding any mate when eighty percent of the women in your race had been killed.
He hadn’t given up hope. Not… entirely. After all, his brothers in Istanbul had found mates. Malachi, his new watcher, had mated with Ava, an American with unique Grigori blood. Leo had mated with Kyra, and Rhys was fairly sure Max and Renata were finally together, though the cagey Irina had led his brother on a fifteen-year chase.
There was hope. Possibly. If those bastards could find women to put up with them, there had to be someone who could keep his interest for more than a single conversation.
Rhys groaned and rolled out of bed. He could feel the onerous heat pressing against the windows and creeping under the door. He showered and threw on his spare change of clothes, unconcerned about covering histalesmthat morning. Americans were easy about such things. Tattoos were so common now; he’d noticed professionals and grandmothers inked with them. The neat rows of intricate writing covering his arms were unlikely to raise more than casual interest.
He stood at the door of his motel room, enjoying the brief moment of being perspiration-free before he slid on his sunglasses and walked outside.
