Page 23 of A Touch of Crimson
7
“You’re going to teach her how to hunt her own family? Her friends?” Jason asked, following Adrian into his office.
“She’s already doing that.” Adrian rounded the desk. “And she’d continue with or without us. This way, I’m giving her a chance to survive.”
Jason whistled. “After all these years, you’re still an angel.”
“Did you doubt it?”
“No. But there are some who wonder if Syre’s daughter makes you…human.”
Not Shadoe herself, but his love for her. Mortal love was not for angels, whose objectivity must be absolute. “Those who have doubts should take them to the Creator. I need the trust of everyone in this unit. If I’ve lost it, I’ve lost my usefulness.”
“You’re well loved, Captain. I can’t think of one Sentinel who wouldn’t consider it an honor to die for you.”
Adrian settled into his chair. “As I consider it an honor to lead you all. It’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly.”
“It’s just hard not to feel restless.” Jason scrubbed a careless hand through his blond hair.“Our job is to babysit the Fallen forever. ‘They shall never obtain peace and remission of sin. They shall petition forever, but shall not obtain mercy.’ Sometimes the punishment seems as much ours as theirs.”
“So be it. We have our orders.”
“And that’s everything to you.”
“As it should be for you. What are we, if not Sentinels?”
Jason hesitated a moment, then smiled sheepishly. “Right.”
Adrian returned the conversation to his immediate concern. “I want Lindsay put into the training rotation as soon as possible.”
“How? She’s as fragile as an eggshell. She may hold her own with other mortals—maybe even a vampire or lycan with the element of surprise—but hand-to-hand with a Sentinel? Very few beings can survive that.”
“We all know our own strength. It’ll be good for us to pay more attention to how we use it.”
“At what cost?”
“She’ll be an asset.” Adrian swiveled his chair around, absently noting the lightening of the sky that signaled the coming dawn. “No one sees her coming. That stealth can be useful to us in a variety of ways.”
“Use her as bait?”
“As a distraction.”
“She’ll definitely be that.”
Adrian addressed the slightly mocking note he heard in his lieutenant’s tone. “Do you have a problem with your orders?”
The smile left Jason’s face. “No, Captain.”
“In the last forty-eight hours, the two highest-ranking Sentinels were attacked. You saw the minion on the helicopter—she was diseased—and Damien mentioned possible illness in his report on Phineas’s attack. I’ve ordered updates from all the Sentinels in the field. I want you to sift through them as they come in and see if there are similar mentions there.”
“What are you thinking?”
“One or more of the Fallen is giving their blood to enable these minions to come after us in daylight. Syre called me about the pilot, so he was aware of her location, but he sounded genuinely surprised by my assertion that I was attacked unprovoked. He suggested that it wasn’t in her nature to make such a move.”
“You know you can’t trust him. He jacked her up with some kind of drug, then called to see how you fared in your run-in with her. How else would he know she was with you?”
“Right. That was my thought from the beginning—that he was playing innocent to dodge the blame. We both know he wouldn’t call me about just any vamp, so his interest alone speaks to his guilt. But when I mentioned the attack on Phineas, he didn’t say a word. I didn’t expect him to take responsibility for it, but the lack of any acknowledgment whatsoever…? No denial, no questions to fake ignorance, nothing? I find that really fucking strange.”
“Syre does like needling you whenever he can,” Jason agreed, gaze narrowed with contemplation.
