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vampire wore recently. If you have a general location, even better. If not, I’ll get the Guild’s computer geniuses on tracking public transport and bank records, et cetera, while I hunt on the ground.” Her mind was already at work, considering and discarding options.
    “You mistake me, Elena. It’s not a vampire I want you to find.”
    That halted her in her tracks. “You’re looking for a human? Well, I can do it but I really don’t have any advantage over a good private investigator.”
    “Try again.”
    Not vampire. Not human. That left . . . “An angel?” she whispered. “No.”
    “No,” he agreed and, once again, she felt the cool brush of relief. It lasted until he said, “An archangel.”
    Elena stared at him. “You’re joking.”
    His cheekbones stood out starkly against the sun-kissed smoothness of his skin. “No. The Cadre of Ten does not joke.”
    Her stomach curdled at the reference to the Cadre—if Raphael was any example of their lethal power, she never wanted to meet that august body. “Why are you tracking an archangel?”
    “That, you do not need to know.” His tone was final. “What you do need to know is that if you succeed in finding him, you’ll be rewarded with more money than you can hope to spend in your lifetime.”
    Elena glanced at the bloodstained napkin. “And if I fail?”
    “Don’t fail, Elena.” His eyes were mild but his smile, it spoke of things better not said aloud. “You intrigue me—I’d hate to have to punish you.”
    Her mind flashed to the image of that vampire in Times Square, that broken mess that had once been a person . . . Raphael’s definition of punishment.

4
     
    Elena sat in Central Park, staring at the ducks swimming around in a pond. She’d come here to try to get her head on straight but it didn’t seem to be working. All she could think about was whether ducks had dreams.
    She figured not. What would a duck dream about? Fresh bread, a nice flight to wherever the hell it was ducks went. Flight. Her breath caught in her throat as her mind flashed with snapshots of memory—beautiful gold-streaked wings, eyes full of power, the shine of angel dust. She rubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes in an effort to erase the images. It didn’t work.
    It was as though Raphael had implanted a damn subliminal suggestion in her head that kept spewing out pictures of the very things she didn’t want to think about. She wouldn’t put it past him but he hadn’t had time to mess with her that deep. She’d taken off less than a minute after he’d told her not to fail. Oddly enough, he’d let her go.
    The ducks were fighting now, quacking at each other and diving with their beaks. Jeez, even the ducks couldn’t stay peaceful. How the hell was she supposed to think with all that racket? Sighing, she leaned back on the park bench and looked up at the clear spread of sky. It reminded her of Raphael’s eyes.
    She snorted.
    The color was about as close to the agonizingly vivid hue of his eyes as a cubic zirconia was to a diamond. A pale imitation. Still, it was pretty. Maybe if she stared hard enough, she’d forget about the wings that haunted her vision. Like now. They spread over her line of sight, turning blue into white-gold.
    Frowning, she tried to see past the illusion.
    Perfect gold-tipped filaments came into focus. Her heart was a hunted rabbit in her chest, but she didn’t have the energy to be startled. “You followed me.”
    “You seemed to need time alone.”
    “Could you put down the wing?” she asked politely. “You’re blocking the view.”
    The wing folded away with a soft susurration she knew she’d never associate with anything other than wings. Raphael’s wings. “Will you not look at me, Elena?”
    “No.” She continued to stare upward. “I look at you and things get confused.”
    A male chuckle, low, husky . . . and inside her mind. “Avoiding my gaze gains you nothing.”
    “Didn’t think so,” she said