Bound by Flame (34 page)

If that maniac nun so much as bruised Delilah’s elbow, Cynda would slice off Sister Julia’s china-doll head and let the sucker roll.

She stormed through smoke and the door’s blazing boards with Nick beside her.

She had to find the stairs.
Now.

The scream came again.

Not pain. No.

Fury.

Bring it on, Sister. I’m on my way.

Nick edged ahead of Cynda as they pushed their way into the long, wide front room of the gray house. About the size of half a basketball court, doors to the left and back. Grime-smeared brown walls. No furniture, no lights. Oily curtains had been drawn, maybe nailed to the sills—and the floor was littered with food cartons, empty drink bottles, and crushed cases of Hostess cupcakes.

Cynda slowed near the room’s center, wary, glancing right and left, looking for stairs.

Nothing.

Was that a red trace? There, and there. And there! Her blood chilled colder than the outside air.

This place is jam-packed full of demons.

Heart beating so fast she could barely breathe, she raised her blade. Her sword lit the musty room as adepts poured through the smashed window, blades drawn, goggles trained on the flashes.

“Don’t swing.” Cynda gripped her hilt with both hands. “Not yet!”

“Astaroths—on the ground and visible,” Nick bellowed as they edged deeper into the room, side by side. “If we see you down, we won’t kill you.”

When he finished, he barked a three-count.

Before Nick reached
one,
the trash-strewn wooden floor shimmered and came to life with Astaroths, different shapes, different sizes, dropping to their knees. Eight of them. No, nine now. Ten.

So many!

Some covered their heads. Double sets of wings banged into walls and other demons. Fangs gnashed. Some of the demons took more human form, some didn’t. A few moaned, seemingly in terror.

Shock spread across Nick’s face.

Cynda felt it deep in her insides, too.

The sight of their frightened golden eyes turned her stomach. She didn’t want to kill anything that wasn’t fighting of its own will—especially not when the Astaroths seemed so clueless and helpless—but she had to keep going. She had to get to those stairs.

Kicking trash out of her way, she took another few steps toward the left-hand door.

As Cynda had been training them to do, half of the fire adepts directed surrendering demons to the far wall, and escorted them out the destroyed window. Outside, the adepts would cuff the demons and fasten their wings together.

We’ll worry about them later.

Yelling and crashing broke out at the back of the house.

“For Chrissake,” Captain Freeman yelled. “Don’t let anything get to that damned shed!”

Gunshots exploded.

Cynda jerked with each blast. Heart racing, she leaped far enough away from Nick to swing her blade. “Time’s up! Take ’em out!”

With a lung-emptying shout, she struck at the nearest flash of color.

Contact. Solid. Sickening.

Her whole essence vibrated with horror. The flat, musty room wavered as the dying demon flashed into view, then burst into elemental particles.

Dirt and fire and air swirled into her face, then hit the floor near the left-hand door.

She choked back a cry.

Goddess, don’t let that be Jake.

One of the adepts screamed. Cynda spun to help, but the adept was too far away. Something had the young woman’s hair, yanking her backward, but another adept ran the demon through.

Cynda’s stomach ached.

Not Jake. Please.

She made herself face the room’s side door and track red flashes with her goggles, but she didn’t see any.

Nick fired his Glock. Fired again. Kicked something.

Invisible claws slashed at Cynda and ripped her leathers. Her arm stung. Her shoulder burned. She dodged to the side, letting off a blast of smoke.

Before she could right herself, a fist slammed into her goggles.

Her head snapped back. Pain blasted through her face, her ears, and flames fired from both shoulders.

Now she couldn’t see a damned thing! Eyes tearing, nose running, she ripped off the smashed goggles and rammed her sword forward like a stave.

Bits of earth and fire dropped to the floor in front of the doorway, stirred by a gust of wind.

Not Jake,
she repeated to herself as she slashed backward, striking another demon and killing it, too.
Not Jake
.

Head pounding and swimming, she pushed ahead, thrusting her sword to clear the way. Another demon fell and reverted to the elements.

A snarl caught in her throat. She jabbed her sword harder.

Not Jake, not Jake, not Jake!

The house shook from unfettered earth energy as Sibyls poured into the big room behind Cynda. Plaster and nails and boards dropped in every direction. Flames roared even though she had warned everyone that Astaroths could absorb fire energy.

“Nobody gets by,” Freeman shouted from the back of the house.
“Hold that fucking door!”

Cynda’s tattoo burned. She lunged through the door into a long center hallway, using her sword like a battering ram. Blows bruised her arms, her back.

Where the hell are those stairs?

Nick made it into the hallway but went down with a heavy crunch and thud. He fired into the air above him. Dirt spattered his face.

Not Jake…

But Cynda smelled him!

Smoke rose off both hands. Her insides pinched and twisted as she turned a full circle, sword raised, cutting through the cloud she had just created.

That Caribbean spice. Yes. Definitely. But where?

As she faced the far end of the grimy hallway, hands struck Cynda in the back like a one-two knockout punch. Air whooshed from her lungs. She flew forward a few paces, and her chest seemed to crush in on itself. Cynda coughed and gasped and shrieked at the same time, pinwheeling her arms, almost stopping—

Another push.

Damnit!

This time she staggered down the center hallway like a flaming drunk. Every muscle tightened, way past ready to fight. Hands gripped her shoulders, righted her. She swept her sword forward, but pulled up short on her backswing.

Jake!

That’s his scent. His grip.

He
is
alive.

Thank Goddess she hadn’t just run him through.

“This way,” Jake whispered. He urged Cynda forward at a jog.

Breath shallow in her throat, she went where he directed her, straight past a door on the left, leading to Freeman and the OCU’s fight in the kitchen.

At the end of the hall, Jake pushed her through a door on the right.

Stairs!

Cynda slammed to a stop at the foot of a wide landing, barely keeping her balance and her grip on her sword. The smell of pine cleanser and bleach stung her eyes and nose—but in the low light of her wavering blade, she saw what she had come here to find.

Dread mingled with rage, and Cynda’s arms started to shake. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and her lips pulled back as she snarled like a wild animal.

Right in front of her a few steps above the lower landing, clinging to a flimsy-looking banister with one pale hand, waited Sister Julia.

Behind Sister Julia, one step up, with her hands shackled but her feet free, stood a bruised, furious Delilah Moses.

23

The ex-nun looked much as Cynda remembered, only without the habit. Sister Julia’s brown hair had been bound into a tight bun, directly on top of her head. In her simple black dress, with her stack of talisman necklaces weighing her down, the woman seemed even more petite, with her pale, fragile features and startling red cheeks. Her glassy brown eyes burned with hatred.

“Thank you, Jacob,” she said in the crisp, self-righteous tone Cynda had first heard all those years ago at Kylemore Abbey. “Good boy. That’s the one.” She didn’t try to come down those last steps to the landing. Instead, she placed her thin, ringed fingers on her necklaces. “If she touches me, harms me in any way, kill her instantly, and our hostage. If any Sibyl or police officer touches me or harms me, do the same.”

Bitch!

Cynda’s gut burned. Her skin burned brighter. White-orange flames. Smoke lifted from her elbows as she tested the heft of her sword.

That scrawny, pearl-white neck, only a few feet away. She could strike! But the thick, musty air around her twitched and shivered and Cynda sensed Astaroths at both her elbows, not to mention behind her, above her.

Damnit!
Astaroths all over the landing. Probably the stairs, too.

“You cannot allow her to reach the shed,” said a strained, quiet whisper very near Cynda’s ear. “If you have to die to prevent it, do so.”

“She’s not going anywhere,” Cynda growled, not caring who heard. She felt like she could eat straight through the landing and kill Sister Julia by spitting splinters, if it wouldn’t set the Astaroths on Delilah.

From behind Cynda, Nick roared her name and thundered down the hallway, firing his Glock at demons and shadows as he came.

“Knock it off!” Cynda shouted. “Stop shooting!”

Sweating, swearing repeatedly under her breath, Cynda held her position on the landing between Sister Julia and the kitchen, where Sal Freeman and the OCU defended the entrance to the shed. The tattoo on her wrist crawled with energy.

Sister Julia turned slightly, grabbed Delilah Moses’s handcuffs, and forced the old woman into a shielding position on the step in front of the nun.

Cynda bit her lip hard to keep from blasting Sister Julia with a wall of heat. “Leave Delilah alone.”

Delilah cursed Sister Julia and spit, but the ex-nun didn’t react at all except to gaze into the air beside Delilah and say, “Snap her neck if these people get any closer to me.”

Delilah gagged and tried to twist, then went still. Cynda could tell from the color on the old woman’s face that a demon had hold of her.

Cynda wanted to kill the winged bastard. She wanted to kill
something
. Her sword seemed to tug against her strength, wanting fire and blood and vengeance.
Now
.

Sister Julia shifted her attention to the empty space beside Cynda. She gestured toward Nick, who had reached the landing, Glock still in hand. “Kill him.”

Cynda’s heart skipped. Heat surged up her throat. “Jake.” She doubled the force of her grip on her sword. “Don’t do it. Fight her.”

Sibyls crowded toward the stairs, weapons drawn, but Cynda shook her head. “Get everyone out of here. Tell the air Sibyls to stay alert, but hold fire.” She tipped her blade toward Sister Julia’s necklaces. “If we touch her, the demons have orders to kill the hostage.”

“And you, dear.” Sister Julia’s smile took on a new dimension of hatefulness. “Let’s not forget that.”

Nick made a sound in his throat, low and menacing. Cynda knew his
other
had come forward, that he was moments from shifting into a furious Curson. She thought about telling him that he could solve Jake’s dilemma by getting out of the house, but she knew Nick would never leave her inside.

As instructed, the Sibyls withdrew—but Cynda noted that the fire Sibyls stayed close. Fighting distance. They formed a line between Sister Julia and the evacuation beginning behind them.

Goddess, I love my sisters, every one of them.

With them, with Nick, she wasn’t alone. She had a chance here, didn’t she?

“Hostage,” Nick called toward the kitchen, still gripping his Glock like it was part of his body. “Hold your fire. Hostage present!”

The commotion in the kitchen lessened. A few more shots were fired. Freeman barked orders, but Nick told him not to approach, to keep his officers away from the hallway, landing, and stairs. Freeman acknowledged with a string of four-letter words.

Cynda felt Nick’s presence beside her, the heat of his body inches from her own. He took in the scene, added up, assessed. Probably came up with the same answers she did.

Checkmate.

And,
This fucking sucks.

Her stomach ached twice as hard. Her sword felt heavier and heavier. It would be almost worth what would happen, to kill this bitch.

The demon beside her let out a low, anguished moan.

Jake’s doing his best, but it won’t last. If I coldcock the Astaroth, will she order Delilah killed for that?

Cynda eyed the stack of necklaces around Sister Julia’s neck, and the rings on her fingers. One of those rings controlled Jake. And the rest—shit. If Sister Julia died, would that cancel her commands?

How fast could I get to those talismans and give other orders?

“Did you hear me?” Sister Julia’s eyes narrowed at the empty air next to Cynda. “I said kill that man, Jacob. Kill Nick Lowell.”

“No.” Cynda cocked her sword another inch, arcing it above her head. She wanted to swing the blade so badly the muscles in her shoulders throbbed. “Leave Jake out of this.”

Sister Julia’s china-doll face cracked into a sick, twisted smile as she studied Cynda. “You fancy this godforsaken demon? That shouldn’t surprise me. Very well. I’ll release him to your friends. Delilah, too. For a price.”

Cynda didn’t lower her sword. “I don’t make deals with maniacs. You’re surrounded and outnumbered.” Smoke drifted around Sister Julia as Cynda spoke. “Half your demons surrendered or died in the living room—maybe more. Give it up.”

As if she didn’t hear a word Cynda said, Sister Julia kept smiling. “You and the other fire…Sibyls leave here with me. We walk out the back door together, and I give you the demon and the old woman.”

Out the back door. Where the shed is. Does she think we’re idiots?

Cynda said nothing in response. Sister Julia was obviously crazy. How the hell would they get her out of here without more people dying?