Bound by Flame (9 page)

“Long travels,” he repeated, then realized the old witch had insulted him by hoping he’d leave, that she wouldn’t see him, for a long, long time. His face went hot.

Before he could take her to task, Delilah slipped back inside and shut the apartment door. The design in the wood over the apartment number still glowed a faint red.

It gradually stopped smoking.

Nick stared at Cynda.

“It’s an Irish thing,” she said in low tones. “Older people know about fire Sibyls, and they treat us like fae, or nuns—well, more like priests, really. Druid style. It gets all mixed up in pagan rituals, saints and Catholicism.”

Nick had no idea what to say to that.

Cynda frowned and waved a hand. “Never mind. Look, she knew I was a Sibyl, and because of that, she put her life at risk to give us that information. That means I owe her certain things, like granting reasonable requests and offering protections. In turn, she’ll do whatever she can to help me in the future. That’s the way our world works, Nick. Rules. Just like cop-rules—only, lots older. You never know when old-school bargains might come in handy.”

Nick gestured to the still-glowing design on the door. “And that?”

“A Celtic symbol for birth, death, and infinity.” Cynda admired her handiwork. “It should keep away most minor demons and spells, but Captain Freeman should send a car over here. Downy might find out Delilah opened up to us, and I want her to have protection, at least for a while.”

Nick glared for a second, then realized she was right and he swore. The whole time he was making the call to HQ on his cell, he had to say inner mantras to calm himself and back down a notch before his skin glowed any brighter.

The amused look on Cynda’s face didn’t help one damned bit.

As they headed back for the stairwell, Nick asked, “What you promised Delilah about Max—could you clue me in?”

Cynda shrugged. “If Max needs to be shot, you’ll have to pull the trigger, not me. That’s all.”

Nick stopped at the stairwell door, blood pounding in his temples. “That’s
all
? You’re making ancient blood oaths or fire oaths or whatever the hell that was—about which perps you’ll defend yourself against and which ones you won’t—and that’s
all
?”

“Look, you’re the one who wanted to be my shadow,” Cynda snapped, shoulders smoking. “I only came because you made me. But—what? I was supposed to be demure and quiet while you played big bad cop? Sorry, I don’t work that way.”

She started down the steps.

Nick caught a whiff of smoke and glanced down at his boots.

The laces glowed red and dropped to the stairwell in little burning bits. He stamped out the embers and glared at the retreating fire Sibyl.

Swear to God, if I didn’t have to guard her, I’d handcuff her and lock her in a basement.

Instead, he hurried after her, shadowed her down the steps and out of the Jacob Riis Houses, and did his best to shield her on the way through the slush and snow, back to the Jeep. At least he got her inside it before more old Irish women tracked her down and asked for promises, incantations, or flame-coated handshakes.

No sooner did they get their belts fastened than his cell phone rang.

He checked the ID.

It was Creed.

“Hey, bro,” Nick said when he answered. “We found—”

“We’ve got another dead fire Sibyl,” Creed said through the speakerphone, loud enough for Cynda to hear.

She jerked her head up and gazed at Nick, horror and shock etched across her beautiful face.

Creed’s voice sounded furious, but oddly flat. “Her triad found her in a dumpster near the brownstone. OCU’s already on-scene.”

He gave the nearest cross streets.

Nick punched off the phone, cranked Riana’s Jeep, and rammed it into gear.

He didn’t have to look at Cynda to know what she felt.

The entire Jeep gave off sparks.

Flames belched off the windshield as he squealed tires getting back on the FDR.

A mile or so later, when he took Cynda’s hand, she was shaking.

Cynda didn’t say anything, but she didn’t let him go, and she didn’t blow up the Jeep, either.

5

Cynda felt completely numb except for the spot where her hand touched Nick’s. The world around her didn’t seem real at all.

Another dead Sibyl?

Another dead sister?

How could this be happening?

She tried to swallow, but her closed, tight throat wouldn’t cooperate.

As Manhattan raced by outside the Jeep’s windows, she couldn’t process anything past the unnaturally bright sunlight.

Who had died?

And how?

She had a brief mental image of finding one of
her
triad dead, and felt it like a gut-punch. Her hand drifted to her belly. That would tear out her soul. How could anyone survive such a loss?

Cynda glanced at Nick, suddenly more grateful than she ever thought she could be for his offer of protection. She was so damned stubborn. If it had been anybody but Riana, Merilee, and Nick trying to keep her under wraps—she could have been the fire Sibyl dead in that dumpster.

I’m an idiot. About that. And everything else.

“What if your brother Jake wasn’t trying to help us in that alley, Nick?” She squeezed his fingers, breathing in his ocean-musk scent to keep her mind clear. “What if he’s involved in these terrible things? We should tell Riana and Merilee what we saw.”

The pressure on her hand didn’t change, but Nick’s expression grew impossibly dark. “Whatever you think you have to do.”

“Don’t shut down on me.” She jerked her hand away from his. “I don’t want to see Jake hurt—or you. Talk to me.”

She got a look from him that said
Thanks, but I’d rather die.

Aloud, Nick said, “Some things don’t require discussion.”

Cynda yanked back her fire before it melted the rearview mirror. “What, like your parents’ deaths?”

Nick gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles went white. “They weren’t my parents.”

“Davin and Raven Latch created your biological material.” Cynda wished she hadn’t let go of his hand. The physical connection might have helped her get through to him. “You saw your father dead, and you killed your mother to save us all. That was only four months ago. It’s still fresh.”

Nick’s voice plunged so low it sounded like a growl. “Drop it, Cynda.”

“You have to face it. Clearing the air makes people sharper, Nick.” Heat moved around the Jeep, responding to the surge in Cynda’s energy. “You can’t separate Jake from what happened to your parents. The Latches made his genetic material, too. Do you think you owe Jake something because of how they died?”

“Off…limits.” Nick was talking through his teeth now.

The windshield cracked down the middle, black lines on either side of the split. Heat. Pure heat. Cynda barely kept herself from setting the seats on fire as she faced Nick. “Why is it off-limits?”

Nick glared straight ahead as they shot toward Central Park. His skin glowed a faint gold from head to toe, and when he spoke, his words echoed with the force of his very, very near
other.
“Not a damned thing I can do to change it, is there?” He gave Cynda a quick glance, and she didn’t miss the blaze of gold demon shining through his black eyes. “I’d kill the bitch again if I had to. What do you want from me?”

Cynda went still. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and she sucked in hot breaths of air and smoke, of flames and the tangy, alien energy of Nick’s
other
.

She bit her lip to keep her mouth shut as Nick turned his attention back to the road. As the blocks and minutes passed, his unnatural glow subsided. The miserable, thunderous look on his face did not.

Cynda felt as if a steel curtain had slammed down between them—or more specifically, wrapped itself around Nick. The sudden separation and distance hurt so badly it sat like a ton weight in her belly.

Nick had sealed himself behind a wall of pain, unreachable. Unapproachable. Every instinct, all her training, told Cynda to storm that wall, burn it down, blow it apart. That’s what fire Sibyls did. They communicated. They forced other Sibyls to communicate, even when they didn’t want to, even when it hurt.

She eyed Nick, imagining she could see the golden shape and form of the demon-half who shared his skin.

Yeah. I make other Sibyls communicate. Not other…
others.

But what was she going to do about Jake, and about talking to her triad?

It was clear Nick didn’t think his demon-brother was involved. That Nick wanted—
needed
—more time to find Jake, talk to him, try to understand where he stood in this battle between the Legion and the Sibyls.

Could she give him that?

What would it do to her triad, to her Sibyls, if she chose to let Nick have that time? What would it do to Nick if she didn’t?

She lurched in her seat as Nick hit the brakes at the end of an alley behind a building on Sixty-fourth, a few yards back from a collection of flashing lights, marked and unmarked vehicles, and police personnel. He parked the Jeep at a curb, repositioned the police placard, got out, and slammed the door.

Cynda expected him to go striding toward the crime scene, which was ribboned with police tape, but he waited, tapping his hand on the Jeep’s hood as she unfastened her seat belt, opened her door, and forced herself into the cold winter morning.

When she joined him in front of the vehicle, his stone face softened a fraction. He didn’t touch her, but he looked like he wanted to, at least a little bit, and that meant everything.

“I don’t want to fight with you, firebird,” he said.

Cynda held his gaze. “I know.”

“We’re built different, you and me.”

“I know that, too.”

Nick nodded.

For now, Cynda figured that would have to be enough.

“You ready?” Nick asked, inclining his head toward the chaos of the murder scene.

Cynda clamped her teeth together and set her jaw. Nausea rolled through her, washing back and forth, back and forth in her tight stomach, and she was already starting to smoke at the neck and elbows. Still, she knew she had to do this. She wanted to see the dead Sibyl, wanted to find out everything she could. Understand. Evaluate. Then track down the killers and fry them in the hottest fire ever made.

Nick took Cynda’s elbow. “Come on. I won’t let you go.”

He led her forward, and she didn’t resist. She tried to focus on his touch, on his towering presence beside her. Even when he was a total ass, he was supportive in his own way. No matter what, he was there. Right there.

Seconds later, he took her through a side barrier, after he flashed his shield and she showed her ancillary credentials, something the OCU had created just for the Sibyls, for situations where they might be needed…like this.

Crime-scene workers clogged the mouth of the alley, dropping numbered markers, sketching, photographing, and making notes. Cynda noticed the telltale stench of burned human flesh, charred bone, and incinerated hair. Her eyes began to water, and her throat clamped shut. Nothing in the world smelled so distinctive, or so gut-wrenchingly horrible.

Burned? How? How did someone—or something—burn a fire Sibyl?

Her stomach rebelled, but she warmed herself with all the heat energy she could draw, pushing the sick sensation down until she could breathe without vomiting.

She and Nick moved forward, toward Creed and Andy, who were standing with the OCU captain Sal Freeman by a taped-off dumpster.

Andy looked uncharacteristically miserable, so pale Cynda was worried that she’d puke, or just fall down.

Then Cynda saw why.

Crime-scene workers swarmed the dumpster like worker bees, processing, shifting, sifting, carefully moving and replacing items near what had to be the body. A scorched nub of a human hand protruded above the dumpster’s metal lip. Just a nub. All the fingers had been seared off.

And it’s one of my friends. One of my
family.

She stopped, yanking her elbow loose from Nick’s grip.

He stopped beside her and didn’t try to force her to keep walking. He just scanned the area around them once, twice, and again.

Cynda saw him from the corner of her eye, but she couldn’t rip her attention from the burned hand in the dumpster.

Dear, sweet Goddess.

Cynda felt the horrible reality in her mind, her heart, her bones.

She blinked back tears. Fire snapped and arced over her head as she battled rage and disbelief.

No being could kill a fire Sibyl with her own element unless she was unconscious, unrousable. She must have been taken by surprise, overwhelmed. More than one attacker—a lot more.

Like the ambush in the alley.

“Monsters,” Cynda muttered.

Nick put his hand on her shoulder and glanced down at her, eyebrows raised.

Cynda shook her head.
Not yet
. She told him with her eyes.
I can’t
.

He gave a single nod and went back to standing beside her, watching left, watching right. Guarding. Protecting.

Dimly, Cynda saw a car approaching, backing slowly toward the police barricades. That would be the coroner arriving. No one would move the deceased until he made his initial assessment and bagged everything to protect trace evidence.

When she turned her head toward the opposite end of the alley, she saw a contingent of Sibyls. Riana and Merilee held tight to Serlena and Tavis, the earth Sibyl and air Sibyl of the South Manhattan group. They were newer to New York City, having come from their Motherhouses a few months ago to replace members lost in the big Legion battle.

Poor Maura, the fire Sibyl in South Manhattan, had been left all alone, devastated by the loss of her triad sisters, and then she had to face the formidable task of accepting and training not one but two new and very green warriors.

Bit by bit, the meaning of the scene seeped into Cynda’s awareness even as she tried to shove it back out.