Bound by Flame (10 page)

“No,” she said out loud, but the sound didn’t change anything at all.

Her chest ached so hard she thought it might split from the weight of her own grief. In the dumpster.

The fragment of the burned hand protruding over the trash bin’s metal edge—

That’s Maura’s hand.

It’s Maura who died.

Flames roared from her hands even as she staggered from the realization.

Nick caught her and glowed, absorbing the heat. “Suck up that fire. You’ll contaminate evidence.”

Cynda wanted to beat the man to death. She wanted to beat something, and he was handy. If he kept his hands on her, she would have had an excuse—but he didn’t.

The second her fire eased, he let her go and went right back to his silent watch.

Clouds swirled around Cynda, inside and out. She could barely think. Waves of heat rose from all of her limbs, and it was all she could do to keep new fire from breaking out everywhere, everywhere, and burning forever.

She had just seen Maura, what, a week ago?

Maura, who was just like her. Big mouth. Bigger temper. Hell with that big African
shotel
she carried—the blade curved so harsh and sicklelike it seemed to want blood.

Drawing air and shoving it out again, Cynda stared at the burned hand. Her vision wavered.

Who got you, honey?

Blasphemy.

A fire Sibyl burned to death.

Maura.

Cynda whipped toward the bereaved members of Maura’s triad.

What did they do? What did they
not
do?

“Easy, firebird,” Nick said in a low, private tone. “Don’t say something you’ll regret.”

Nick’s voice jarred Cynda. Flames spiked from her ears and hips.

But through her buzzing, buzzing mind, sounds slowly penetrated.

“We were trying to look after her, but she wouldn’t stay, wouldn’t listen,” the little air Sibyl Tavis said to Merilee between rib-racking sobs.

“She went out by herself,” Serlena, the young earth Sibyl, added, hanging on to Riana. “Said she needed to clear her head, think, see what connections she could make or find.”

“We thought she might be heading to the brownstone to talk to you, or maybe the townhouse to find Cynda.” Serlena pointed north, toward the Reservoir. “It was daytime. Morning. We didn’t think—we followed, but not close enough. Not close enough! We didn’t even see what got her.”

Riana held the girl as she cried, stroking her dark hair.

Cynda’s fingers curled. She wanted to comfort the young Sibyl—and screech at her until the girl spilled how the triad could have been so close, yet too far away to save Maura’s life.

Does it matter? She’s dead. She’s gone forever.

Even though she didn’t want to, Cynda gazed at Serlena and Tavis. Somewhere in her angry, aching heart, she knew they’d never get over this. They’d move on, fight in some other triad. But Maura’s death would haunt them the way it would haunt Cynda. They would all carry an empty spot where Maura should have been, until they returned to Motherhouse Ireland for that final rest.

Captain Freeman gestured toward the Sibyls at the mouth of the alley. “Here comes the coroner and his people. Get the Sibyls out of here before the regulars and the press show up.” The tall officer’s handsome face tightened, and his voice dropped. “For now, this is just your garden-variety fucked-up slaughter. No supernatural elements. Got me?”

Assents from everyone, even Cynda.

Andy stayed next to Freeman, looking exhausted, but taking dictation as he barked other ideas and instructions. Creed headed for the Sibyls.

Cynda’s instinct was to follow him, help with Serlena and Tavis, but Nick grabbed her arm before she took a step. “No way you’re going anywhere without me. Especially not now.”

Rage welled in Cynda, sending sparks into the dumpster, which made Nick squeeze her arm all the harder. “Stop. Now.”

Hating him, despising his rationality, Cynda focused all her energy on yanking her fire power back inside her own skin.

Meanwhile, another group of Sibyls, dressed completely in black, emerged from the far end of the alley, walking slowly.

Cynda immediately recognized the earth Sibyl in the lead, with her exotic, slanted eyes and her dark hair pulled back in a severe bun, accentuating the aquiline nose and high cheekbones. Harder than steel, and just as deadly, Bela Argos made her approach to the bereaved triad, with her air Sibyl Devin close at her side.

Just the sight of Bela, the dignified Sibyl’s grief over the loss of her own fire Sibyl Nori, took Cynda’s breath. And all of her fight.

Bela looked so much like Riana. She
was
so much like the mortar of Cynda’s triad, it was like looking into a mirror showing the future.

If I died, Riana would look just like that
.

Riana’s heart would be broken. All that made her proud and brilliant and so incredibly powerful would be diminished for a long, long time. And Devin, the air Sibyl, the way she was frowning, the way the light in her eyes had gone dark and the wind wouldn’t even touch her hair—that would be Merilee.

The North Queens triad arrived, and North Brooklyn, plus the ranger group handling the north Bronx, too. Together with Bela Argos and Devin, they took Serlena and Tavis in hand. There were enough fire Sibyls to manage communications and transports, though it might be some time before Maura’s body could be taken home to be laid to rest in Ireland.

“Get me her blade,” Cynda said to Nick, who looked at her like she was a few cranks past overwound.

“It might have evidence—”

Flames hissed on Cynda’s fingertips. “The Motherhouses are just as capable of evaluating trace evidence as the NYPD. More so, if it’s blood evidence.” She gestured to the departing Sibyls, strewing smoke and sparks. “They need something to grieve, to have, to hold, until they can take Maura home. The Mothers will analyze everything twice as fast and send the results back to us. Give me that
shotel
—unless you and Freeman want to try to explain what it is to the medical examiner and the reporters.”

Nick gave her a long, frustrated look, but, keeping an eye on her with every step, he approached Sal Freeman, Creed, and Andy. For a few seconds, he spoke to them in a low voice.

Freeman glanced from Nick to Creed to Andy to Cynda, then to the dumpster, which, oddly enough, suddenly seemed to have a sheen of water running down its gray metal sides.

A few seconds later, Freeman spoke to the OCU crime-scene technicians.

One of the worker bees immediately dipped into the dumpster and reemerged with a wet plastic evidence bag. Handling the package very carefully, the technician transferred it to Freeman, who stepped over the increasing slick of water and gave it to Nick.

“Did somebody bash a spigot?” Freeman bellowed. “Find that tap—shut it the hell off before we wash away something important!”

More technicians scattered in different directions, examining the wall and the dumpster for the source of the water flow.

Nick gestured for Cynda to follow, and the two of them headed down the alley toward the slowly progressing parade of Sibyls.

Riana must have sensed their approach, because she held up her hand for the women to stop.

As Nick and Cynda reached the group, Bela Argos stiffened visibly. She pulled Serlena against her and gave Nick the kind of mistrustful, angry look most Sibyls used to give Creed before he won his acceptance and his position as Riana’s husband.

Cynda recognized that expression because she had worn it often enough herself, when Creed first came into their lives.

So now it was Nick, the odd man out, the one who had to prove himself?

After all he had done to save Sibyl lives?

Oh, no way. No way at all.

Cynda wound up to read Bela the riot act, but Nick stopped her with a single warning look.

Avoiding confrontation with Bela, he simply surrendered Maura’s curved African blade to Riana, saying, “Cynda wanted them to have this.”

Riana turned the evidence package over in her hands. “It needs to be analyzed.”

“Motherhouse Russia can do that,” Bela Argos said, her voice colder than the winter air. Her gaze raked across Nick, then Cynda. The hatred and suspicion wavered, shifting back to the flat, devastated sorrow that so wounded Cynda when she first saw it.

“Thank you,” Bela added, as Serlena and Tavis cried and reached to take Maura’s
shotel
.

At least the blade would be something.

For now, it would have to do.

Riana and Merilee stayed back as the group of Sibyls once more processed into the far reaches of the alley, moving until they turned the corner, and left Cynda’s line of sight.

She realized Riana and Merilee had her arms, that they were holding on to her so very tightly, as if they were afraid it would soon be them cradling Cynda’s Celtic broadsword as their last remnant of her.

“It won’t happen,” she assured them. “I’ve got you two. And I’ve got Nick.” She looked at him, at his surprised expression. “I promise on my oath as a Sibyl I’ll let you all watch my back. And I promise I’ll be careful.”

One at a time, Riana and Merilee hugged her, and thanked her, and made her feel like a total ass for ever resenting the protection they offered and arranged. It was for her, sure, of course—but more important, Cynda now realized, it was for them, too.

That’s what families did, right?

Families looked after their own.

She’d do well to remember that, about herself, and about Nick and Creed and Jake.

Over the top of Merilee’s blond head, as Cynda held her triad sister, she locked eyes with Nick and tried to let her gaze tell him everything.

I understand now.

A little more time—just a little, get a move on—but yes, a little more time for you and Jake.

Aloud, she said, “Families take care of their own.”

At that, a look of relief flickered across Nick’s dark, handsome features. He nodded once, then immediately went back to scanning the alley, up and down, back and forth, taking care of Cynda.

6

Tuesday morning, a day after Maura’s death, Nick stood in the corner of Cynda’s room, arms folded, eyes alert, watching the fire Sybil communicate with the Motherhouses in Greece, Ireland, and Russia.

Cynda’s dancing—the best part of the whole show, the part that blew open the ancient mystical channels linking the projective mirrors on her walls—was already over. Nick’s blood still thrummed from watching her whirl and leap. Every move made his cock ache.

He studied her in her sexy green shirt and those ass-hugging jeans. She had an athlete’s arms, delicate, yet solid, as she gestured and explained. Her red curls, wilder than ever, hung in ringlets against her pretty face and ears.

Beautiful.

Sexy.

And mine.

Soon.

Guarding her, watching her virtually every waking minute of every day—

Soon.

At least Cynda was seeing reason now, and not complaining about staying with him or with her triad at all times. He did not want to be digging her or any other fire Sibyl out of a dumpster ever again. The thought of it felt like hot spikes in his gut.

Cynda spoke in Irish dialect to an ancient-looking woman in green robes, reporting that Maura, the dead Sibyl, had apparently been staked through the heart, pitched into the dumpster, and set ablaze.

Staked. Old-martyr style.

That still bugged him.

Wasn’t that what some countries did to witches early in the last millennium? Witches and vampires, or other evil creatures.

Nick glanced at the mirror.

Was that wrinkled crone behind the glass studying him?

Yeah.

Like scientists studied diseases under a microscope.

Was this witch one of the ancient Sibyl leaders he had heard so much about? If so, meeting the Mothers just moved to the top spot on Nick’s I’ll-take-a-pass list.

To keep his mind off the old woman’s staring, Nick focused on Cynda and her room instead. He was glad that the fire-breathing redhead had chosen the L-shaped corner suite of the mansion-sized townhouse when she moved in, on the third floor overlooking the front entrance, near his own room.

Convenient.

In pretty good shape, too, if you didn’t count the water stains at the ceiling corners, and on the wall by the door. Plumbing in the entire townhouse had fallen apart in the last few months. Nick was working on that, but progress was slow. Damned leaks seemed to play hide-and-seek.

Cynda had installed a new four-poster bed with gauzy white drapes on one end, next to the refurbished stone fireplace big enough for a witch’s cauldron. The other side of the suite had been painted a light lavender, way too bright. That space was mostly consumed by the hanging mirrors anyway, and runes tacked to the walls, and in front of it all, that gigantic wooden table Cynda stood on to do her dance—similar to the table back at the brownstone the triad sisters had shared. The platform had big metal underpinnings, as well as a smooth, polished surface and a lead-lined trench carved around the edge. Stupid thing was big enough to hold half the Cirque du Soleil, if those freaks chose to show up and perform in a place now widely rumored to be haunted.

The OCU and the Sibyls had, of course, redecorated the place since they took possession of the dwelling owned by Nick and Creed on the Upper East Side near the Reservoir. The five-story Federal-style brick townhouse had, after all, belonged to their father and mother. The parents who died.

The mother I killed.

Nick tensed, remembering his earlier conversation with Cynda about Senator Davin Latch and his wife, Raven. Nick didn’t want to give them the honor of calling them parents, even though a big part of him remembered them that way. Sick, twisted—but parents, who took some pride in what they had created, and the potential Nick and Creed showed.

Those maniacs were
not
parents. More like donors. Yeah. Sperm and egg donors.