Bound by Flame (33 page)

He spoke then, sword or no sword, not caring what damage the blade did. “I would never hurt Cynda.” Once more, the steel cut him. This time, though, Mother Keara moved it away the second after it did damage. Nick part-shifted, just his throat, and healed himself before finishing his thought. “My
other
would never hurt Cynda. Ever.”

He heard a long, wavering sigh. “Will you meet my conditions or not, demon? Will you save this woman you love from a loss that would wound her forever?”

Inside Nick’s body, Gideon moved, restless. Concerned. Pulling away from him just enough to set off internal alarms.

Not too many options. Screw himself one way, or screw himself the other.

But it’s for Cynda.

And she was worth anything. Nick already knew that.

Still, he couldn’t afford to have his
other
worried or half-insane and uncooperative when they went after Downy. So, he compromised. “I’ll consider it and give you my answer after we take down the woman who’s been killing fire Sibyls.”

The sword didn’t move back against his skin.

“Fair enough.” Now the steel swept to his throat, stopping short of drawing more blood. “But don’t be thinkin’ you can play with us, Nick Lowell. If you run, we’ll chase you. If you hide, we’ll find you.”

I have no doubt…but she used my name
. He forced himself to keep his expression flat instead of triumphant just in case the old woman could read his face.

Aloud, with a touch of Gideon’s resonance in his voice, he said, “I won’t leave Cynda—and I don’t run from anything.”

Mother Keara laughed. Then she moved her sword an inch away from him again and gave him a number and a name. Nick recognized it immediately as an address in South Ozone Park, down in Queens, near Howard Beach, where all the mobsters used to live.

“Motherhouse Greece has traced Janeen Casey, once Sister Julia, through many East Coast cities to that location.” Mother Keara spoke quickly, as if she might be running out of time. “And you should know—the first contact made to her upon her discharge from the Abbey, it was the Legion. They telephoned her at her hotel, before she ever left Connemara. We raided the house where the call originated and confirmed that sad fact.”

Nick added up the rest. “They must have been monitoring the Abbey as a suspected Sibyl stronghold. So these Connemara assholes arranged for her to accidentally ‘find’ her first demon?”

A longer, louder snarl issued from Mother Keara. “And taught her to use that demon to hunt and capture more of its kind. Even the Legion house occupants in Connemara couldn’t tell us how many demons she’s amassed in her travels. If you truly love my
a chroí,
destroy this threat, and all her demon servants with her. Then you’ll have a fraction of my respect.”

Before Nick could respond, the Chinese great sword withdrew completely.

A wall of fire slammed into his back.

He let Gideon suck up the flames as he rolled over in the bed, the gold from his skin lighting the whole room.

All he saw was his door swinging shut.

He got to his feet, swearing as chimes jangled in the hallway, and jogged out of his room.

Mother Keara was nowhere in sight.

Cynda was coming down the hall, wearing singed jeans and a half-cooked white blouse. She glanced first at the chimes, obviously puzzled, then at Nick. “What the hell’s going on? The chimes sounded like the Mothers might be ringing—but not. I don’t get it.”

Nick frowned in the direction of Cynda’s bedroom. When he turned back to her, he said, “I finally got that chat with Mother Keara.”

Cynda’s mouth dropped open. “She was here? In
your room
?” Panic claimed her face, and she ran to him. As he caught her in his arms, she grabbed him around his neck, running her hands up and down his back and arms, like she might be checking for holes. “Are you okay? Did she hurt you? What did she say? Nick—”

“Slow it down, firebird.” He held her and kissed the top of her head, savoring her fresh, feminine scent. Relieved it was nothing like spaghetti and chewing gum. “I’m fine. She offered me a deal on your behalf.”

Cynda listened, squeezing him tighter with each word, as he told her how his conversation with the old hag went. When he got to the part about the deal to undergo the procedure that changed Creed, Cynda pushed back from him, smoking from ten different places at once.

“I told you, no way.” She shook her head and pointed her finger in his face. It was smoking, too. “No. You are not undergoing that procedure. You don’t need it, and I won’t have you taking a risk like that.”

He held up both hands to slow her down again. “I know how you feel about it.” Gideon thumped around in his mind as he spoke. “Believe me, I—we—feel the same way. But for now, we don’t have time to discuss it. She also gave me J. C. Downy’s real name and address. She’s got Legion contacts and a shitload of demons, and we need to mount a raid on a house in South Ozone Park. Right now. As fast as we can get there.”

In an instant, Cynda’s expression shifted from angry, frightened woman to solid, furious warrior. The smoke died away from her body and she lowered her hand. “I’ll suit up, get the adepts ready, and summon the Sibyls. You gather the OCU. We’ll meet you in the conference room.”

God, he loved her.

“Done,” he said, and gave her a quick kiss before he let her go, headed for her room.

He watched her as she ran down the hall, red curls bouncing against her shoulders.

Yeah, he loved everything about her. Just the sight of her got his blood roaring. And he was ready for this raid. Way past ready.

In a few hours, he’d bring in the psycho who wanted to kill Cynda, if it was the last thing he ever did. Screw what the Mothers wanted.

He was doing this for Cynda and no one else.

Nick turned for the stairs. He had lots of doors to bang on, and lots of phones to ring.

22

Cynda crouched in a makeshift doghouse on the opposite side of the street from the target front door, smoking even though she was trying not to. Her heart jumped as pieces of plastic flapped against leathers. The sheet of tin over her head rattled in the frigid March breeze.

It’s friggin’ freezing in here.
Her teeth clattered together.
Poor dog deserves better than this.

She tried to focus on the scents of baking dough, pepperoni, and Italian spices drifting out of neighborhood pizzerias and delis, but mostly, she smelled dog. Big, slobbering, ugly dog.

From nearby houses, music thumped and bumped and bumped and thumped. She had half a mind to send a blast of fire energy at the nearest sound systems, but that wouldn’t help. Too many of the damned things. How anybody lived with that kind of noise, she had no idea. Maybe people got used to it, the way dogs got used to plastic houses with tin roofs.

“Three minutes,” Nick rumbled from behind her, just outside the doghouse.

Cynda couldn’t see him, but his presence fueled her fire. She worked her jaw, drawing the energy back to her body before she melted the plastic.

A barely known enemy.

An unknown number of demons.

Probable Legion presence.

This raid felt like a huge disaster waiting to happen—but what else could they do?

Waste time, and they might lose Sister Julia again.

No fucking way.

But Delilah…and what about Jake?

She blew out a fog-laced breath and ground her teeth. At least she had Nick with her. If she couldn’t have her triad, Nick was definitely the man she’d choose to cover her flank. He had on his body armor, his raid jacket, and his battle face. When they took position, Nick had already drawn his Glock.

Cynda glanced to her left and right, visually accounting for the ten adepts she’d brought with her. The less experienced initiates had stayed behind at the townhouse with a squad of OCU officers to protect HCQ. Cynda’s trainees, also garbed in battle leathers, were all out of sight in clumps of bushes, or tucked behind walls and corners of the yard, or the house next door. Her goggles registered traces of sulfur left by the adepts’ fire. No way the younger women could avoid calling a little of the element to them, not with stress this high. Fire Sibyls, even experienced fighters like Cynda, had never been known for perfect control.

Her tattoo pulsed and throbbed, but she ignored the sensation for the same reason. The mark on her wrist had been vibrating since late last night, when the adepts found out about the raid.

Nick hadn’t wanted the initiates to come along on this throw-together, but the fact was, the numbers were too low without them. Even Sal Freeman had loaded up for the operation.

Cynda knew her trainees could perform. She just hated putting them in any danger.

But they’re Sibyls.

What am I, going soft?

Heart revving like a car engine, Cynda adjusted her face mask and squinted through her demon-hunting goggles at the squat gray two-story house near Hawtree Creek Road and 130th.

This place looked nothing like the other two spotless, lavish houses owned and used by Sister Julia. It was big all right, but with faux-stone porch columns, battered gray siding, rusted awnings over the three front windows—two down, one up. The Ozone house was a total dump. A decrepit fence pocked with gaps surrounded a bare yard, and an old, rambling shed seemed attached directly to the back door by makeshift planking.

Her hand stayed clamped on her sword hilt, but her fingers itched to call fire. Her body ached to get on with it. Now. Not later.

She wanted J. C. Downy—Janeen Casey. Whatever the hell name Sister Julia chose to hide behind, real or invented. Cynda envisioned the woman’s china-doll neck beneath her blade. She planned to be the one who brought the Sibyl-murdering bitch to the justice she so completely deserved. And she planned to do it without killing a certain demon, if there was any way to pull that off.

“Two minutes.” Nick’s voice cut beneath the neighborhood’s constant bass beat.

Cynda’s pulse surged. The OCU and almost all of New York City’s surviving Sibyls were positioning themselves across a one-mile section of southwest Queens. The 106th Precinct had called in its massive Auxiliary Police Force and cordoned off as much of the target area as manpower allowed. Traffic on the two crossing roads had been shut down. Cynda, Nick, the adepts, and Sibyls ringed the front of the area, while Sal Freeman and the OCU were advancing on the back. Warrants had been obtained. High-risk again, so no “knock and announce.”

At the appointed minute, Freeman and his men would storm the shed and the back windows and doors, while Nick and Cynda’s group would blast through the front entrances and the single side window.

Cynda hoped she could locate Jake in that trashy bunch of boards. And she hoped Delilah Moses was still in one piece.

With curtains and shutters drawn, the house was boxed up tighter than a postal package. They hadn’t been able to see anything through the windows, and no one had come or gone from the entrances.

Yet Cynda could sense…something…
wrong
.

Shimmering power flowed from her fire adepts, and from the Sibyls in position all around the neighboring yards. Every rooftop had an air Sibyl, distance weapons ready. Earth Sibyls crept through yards just like Cynda and Nick, and other fully trained fire Sibyls had key positions, poised to take medium-distance combat duties for their triads.

But there was other energy, too.

Cursons? Astaroths?

She couldn’t tell, and her goggles gave her no information.

All she knew for sure was the Ozone house wouldn’t be empty and spotless inside. Sister Julia was in there, with a boatload of her minions, too. Maybe alerted, maybe preparing, maybe even waiting for the assault.

Or maybe about to be caught completely off guard.

Either way, the good Sister was going down.

“One minute,” Nick murmured from behind her.

Cynda made a hand signal to her adepts to ready them.

Seconds ticked by in her mind, each one louder than the last.

It sucked that they hadn’t had more time to plan, but sometimes careful strikes were a luxury. Her breath came faster, more shallowly. She dug her gloved fingers into her palms.

“On my mark.” Nick slipped his hand under the doghouse’s back plastic wall and let his palm rest on her ankle. Heat flooded her body, and fire burst from all ten fingertips. “Five, four, three, two, one, go!”

Cynda burst from the plastic doghouse and drew her sword. She ran forward, jumped the small fence, and charged across the street, feet pounding pavement on her way to Sister Julia’s two-story dive.

Cold air slapped against her leathers.

Hard to breathe. Hard not to catch fire all over.

This is it. This is
finally
it!

Maura’s face danced in her mind, and Nori’s too. All the dead fire Sibyls.

This is it.

Her blade blazed as she and Nick led the adepts and the other Sibyls straight to the front door. The mean little nun’s face flared through her consciousness like a marked, glowing target.

Eat my steel.

Shouts erupted from the back of the house—Freeman and the OCU.

Yes. Go!

Glass shattered. The
bang-smash
of the battering ram blocked out the neighborhood’s
thump-thump-thump.

This was a wooden house.

Cynda didn’t
need
a friggin’ battering ram.

Snarling, pouring smoke from her legs and arms, she raised her sword and her free hand, summoned her fire energy, and blasted a gaping hole in the front door.

At the same moment, five of her adepts shattered the glass of the side window with a massive ball of flames.

Somebody screamed.

Shit!
Cynda moved again, this time faster, this time running as hard as she possibly could.
That came from upstairs. Was it Delilah?