Bound by Ink (A Living Ink Novel) (31 page)

Her heart skidded sideways in her chest. Murmur. Back in his own body? Daniel’s body? Was he still injured? Loath though she was to give up her hunt, Murmur mattered more.

Above her, the griffin cackled, a tender, entreating sound.

Isa extended a hand of magic to the griffin.

“Help him,” she said.

“I need no help.”

A grin split her muzzle. Her face. She had to look.

He wore his true shape, superimposed upon Daniel’s biology. Wings. Talons. Glowing emerald eyes, and ink black magic curling in his wake like a fluttering cape.

She drew herself upright and turned back to Uriel.

“He’s mine,” Murmur growled, coming to her side.

Almost as good as having him occupying her interior.

“You cannot kill him,” she said.

Burning emerald eyes fastened upon her.

Gold spiked through her. Her lip lifted. “Killing him severs your lifeline.”

“I have no lifeline.”

“You wear a body that does.”

He clenched his fists. His chest expanded. “I will not leave him to roam free.”

“I did not ask it,” she said. She glanced at the Infernals. “Bring him.”

The creatures jumped to obey.

Uriel yowled, lifting shaking hands to ward off the Infernals who snagged their claws in his robes and began dragging him through the mud.

“Who are you to command my legions now that I am whole?” Murmur demanded.

Isa sauntered close to him, her tail curving a sinuous S.
Tail?
She shook off the impression and looked up into those stunning eyes. “Add it up, Commander in Hell.”

He flashed a momentary grin.

“Your griffin didn’t kill me. Your legions obey me. My binding ink prevented Uriel from imprisoning you within me. I am part of you.”

His brow crinkled.

“You are part of me,” she said. “It is the hint of you lingering in me that they obey. It is strengthened since Uriel forced you into me. We’re no longer torn. The scar is—not gone entirely—but tiny. Healed. And by it, we are still sewn together in a way I don’t comprehend.”

His gaze turned inward. He frowned, then focused on her. He moved to touch her, lifting a clawed hand to trace the air beside her face, save he made no contact.

Still her nerves sparked.

“Yes,” he breathed. His gaze turned inward as if expecting to see her looking back out at him.

She turned to Nathalie.

“Allow me,” he said. “You—are a startling sight.”

Isa blinked. Before she could ask what he meant, he knelt beside Nathalie.

He dwindled, his true form sinking into Daniel’s body. Laying a hand on Nathalie’s trembling shoulder, he spoke to her.

Isa stalked up the slope behind the Infernals dragging Uriel. A glimmer of silver caught her eye. She slashed her claws through his line of desperate magic.

He shrieked.

“I bind thee,” she said, winding claws in the remnants of his robe.

Infernals fell over one another in their haste to abandon Uriel to her.

She hauled Uriel to the box he’d created for Murmur. Power filled her with inhuman strength. She lifted him overhead and hurled him into the depths of the prison he’d built.

“I bind thee,” she repeated, lacing her words with magic woven to the purpose, “by the hate that powers you, by the rage tainting your soul, by the evil weighing heavy upon your heart. I bind thee to the prison you wrought for another.”

She gestured. Magic hefted the stone lid of the sarcophagus.

“No. My cause is just!” Uriel screeched. “No!”

The lid slammed. The crash reverberated through the battlefield. Somewhere in the ruins, an avalanche of rubble answered.

His magic preceded Murmur’s presence at her side.

The griffin, whole, shining, landed atop the sarcophagus lid and chuckled at them.

Isa frowned at Murmur. “Nathalie?”

“Safe. Frightened.”

She followed his gaze to where Nathalie lay at one end of the sarcophagus.

“Thank you,” she said before nodding at the sarcophagus. “Will this hold him?”

Black power flooded past her, crawled up the sides of the box, and then spread thin, wiry legs over the lid until the golden stone was laced with fine black veins.

The griffin chirruped.

The black on gold looked so like the meshing of Murmur’s magic with hers that she smiled.

“Centuries ago, he bound me with the one power I couldn’t fight,” Murmur said. “Daylight. No shadows. Nowhere to hide. Not even from myself. Like being tattooed into you.”

She’d been a prison to him, too. Swallowing what felt like a strand of barbed wire, she lifted her chin at the crater. “What happened here? This world is . . .”

“Pride. Envy. They led to a war that destroyed everything worth fighting for. By that point, I’d forgotten everything but hate. Until I made a deal with Daniel for my freedom.”

“A deal with the devil,” she said. “That’s the expression.”

Murmur lifted one of Daniel’s shoulders. “Devil. Daniel. No difference.”

Isa met his troubled gaze.

“I was Uriel’s equal,” he said. “He had what I thought I wanted, so I took it from him.”

“Power?”

“The illusion of it.” He shifted and looked away. “Our final battle destroyed this place.”

“Your son died here?”

“Go,” he said. “Take Nathalie home.”

Avoiding the question? She shook her head.

“I can’t cross between the worlds,” he said. “Not without a sacrifice.”

She spun on him. “I came here for you. For your son. For your revenge. For . . .” She sucked the word back with a sharp breath. She couldn’t say it to herself. Much less to him.

Murmur canted his head to one side, interest crinkling the bridge of Daniel’s nose. His nose. “What?”

“For this,” she said, turning to face the crater. She poured restless magic out through the bottoms of her feet. It flowed into the blood-and-pain-soaked ground. The rocks and soil moaned, numb with shock.

Memories lodged in the bones of the world replayed eons of strife before her. Vast armies, rallied for the sake of anger, consumed first the shining green skies, and then the towering cities, the fields, the flowers, and finally, every living thing save those who’d set the struggle in motion. Murmur. Uriel. Their bloodthirsty minions.

She sank into the traumatized spirit of the place. Traces of lives interrupted lay dormant deep underground.

“Give me your hand?” she asked.

He wrapped warm fingers around hers. No. Flesh did not touch flesh. He wrapped warm fingers around her magic. His power crashed into hers, ricocheting down her insides. He gasped.

“Follow,” she said as she stepped, not into the etheric, but into the heart of his world.

His magic spread out, sinking, trailing shadowed fingers along the pathways of her power. When he hit bottom, his physical fingers convulsed.

“You started the destruction,” she said. “Start the recovery. Heal.”

“I—how?”

She stirred the slumbering traces of life contained in the soil, waking them. “Feed them energy. I will take care of light. Gently.”

He germinated seeds in the crunchy soil fertile with the blood and bones of the dead.

Isa reached high overhead and, coughing, tore great rents in the sooty haze. Orangey, alien sunlight spilled through.

Murmur’s breath went out in an audible rush.

She pulled her awareness into her body, leaving magic rooted where she stood.

Light from a sun not her own illuminated the bodies strewn across the plain. Infernals. Magic Eaters. It also touched the bluish tendrils of plant life springing up around them.

Isa sighed. Contentment eased through her. “It is small enough, but it is a start. Some wounds are long in healing.”

He let go and took two steps away, staring. His shoulders shook, then tensed. He nodded.

The griffin ruffled her hair.

Smiling, Isa rubbed his shoulder where feathers turned to fur.

He blinked his yellow eyes and chirped. His gaze moved past her.

She tasted Murmur on her lips and knew he stood at her back, though he made no move to touch her.

“Have I lost you?” She clamped her burning eyes and her stupid mouth shut. He hadn’t been hers to begin with.

Arms slid around her waist. “If what you say is true, that we are sewn together by our scars, then you are mine,” he said at her ear. “Even if this is not how I’d intended to possess you.”

He raised a hand to the griffin.

The creature settled his talon into Murmur’s hand.

“The whole of this world is yours,” Murmur said. Magic flowed between them with her in the middle. She made no attempt to decipher it. With a mighty sweep of wings, the griffin lifted off. He circled once, twice, and then flew away.

“It is his now,” Murmur said. “He is king. He and his kind will do a better job than we did.”

Isa put down a tiny shred of worry. It pleased her to know the griffin wasn’t the last of his kind.

Murmur released her and picked up Nathalie. Weariness shadowed his eyes. “Ground.”

She did, magic draining out of her in a rush. She felt diminished. But it seemed right, leaving power behind to nourish the new life of Murmur’s world.

“Let’s go home,” she said, putting a hand on his arm.

Master Masatoshi had kept his promise. He held the portal open. Clear spring water magic became a stairway she climbed into her own world.

“Isa!” Steve shouted, his voice thick with relief as she climbed through the metal deck of the fishing trawler.

“
Señora!
” Emanuel said.

Isa tugged the trembling, clammy hand clasped in hers, urging Nathalie across the threshold.

“Nathalie!” Troy cried. He rushed to the edge of the circle and snagged Nathalie from Isa’s grip. “Nat, come on. I got you.”

Oki helped him pull Nathalie out of the circle.

Isa spun back to the portal and stuck her hand and her magic into the void.

Murmur grabbed hold.

Smoke and caramel. Her heart stumbled over a surge of scalding hormones. She pulled.

He stepped through the portal already shaking his head.

“I don’t understand,” he and Steve said in unison.

“Master Masatoshi, thank you,” Isa said.

“No more?” he asked.

“No more.”

The shine of his magic went out. No flicker. No flash.

“I need a knife,” she said.

“No,” Murmur said.

“It has to be locked.”

“The sacrifice is mine to make,” he snapped.

Silence.

She surveyed the dingy ship’s hold. Normal yellow sunlight splashed a few feet through the open hold door. Two men sat on the floor, their hands clearly secured behind them.

Ria stood over them, arms crossed, Glock in hand, eyebrows raised.

Emanuel hefted a jack knife in one hand, his gaze going from Isa to Murmur and back.

Scowling, Troy cradled Nathalie against his chest. He’d wrapped her in his jacket.

Oki stood beside Troy, lines pressed into the corners of her eyes.

Steve hovered at the edge of the circle, worry puckering the skin between his brows, and though he paced, he didn’t put so much as a toe over the line etched into the floor.

Master Masatoshi strode into the center of the circle, offering the carved bone hilt of his knife to her. “Lock the door now. Argue later.”

Isa accepted the blade. “Lesson two? I’ll add it to my rule book.”

Oki snorted at the mention of the game they’d started playing how many days ago?

“Thank you, Master Masatoshi,” Isa said. “Again, I am honored.”

Masatoshi grinned.

Murmur muttered a curse.

Isa faced his glare. “The right is yours. Will you permit me?”

His expression softened. “Lock the door,” he commanded.

“Give me your hand.”

“Life is required.”

“Do you trust me?”

He put his hand, palm up, into hers.

“Shield,” she said, flinging gold out into a bubble around them.

His magic tangled with hers.

Isa slashed open his palm.

He grunted and drew away.

She set the blade, wet with his blood, to her own hand, closed her fingers, and cut open her palm. Blood and molten gold welled up between her fingers. “Together.”

He walked the circle clockwise, blood tainted with shadow dripping onto the spell written into the hull of the ship.

Isa dogged his footsteps, mingling her blood and her magic with his as he erased the portal from existence.

They reached the point where they’d started.

Nothing remained on the deck. No etched circles or symbols. Not even the sticky residue of their blood.

He opened his bloody palm for hers.

Blinking, cradling her aching hand against her chest, she met his gaze.

“Trust me.”

Offering up a crooked smile, she laid her palm atop his. Her breath hissed in between her teeth. Where their blood mingled, scalding black energy poured into her veins.

He shuddered and rasped, “Heal.”

Gold shot through with spreading ink stains answered her summons. She channeled the power between their hands. Summer midnight, bright with gold stars, flashed into the same tiny space.

Lightning struck the joining of their hands.

Isa gasped for air and found herself staring at the ceiling, her palm, hell, her entire body, inside and out, stinging. She heaved herself to sitting.

Steve landed on his knees beside her, his eyes wild. “What the hell was that? Are you all right?”

“No idea. On any count,” she said, looking for Murmur.

He’d landed on the opposite side of the boat. He sat up looking as shaky as she.

“What happened?” Steve demanded. “He’s on you. Why . . .”

“What?”

“The tattoo is back, but . . .” Steve shook his head and threw a glance across the boat to where Murmur sat. “Who’s that in Daniel’s body?”

“Murmur. I have Ink? I shouldn’t have Ink.” She jerked the sleeve of her sweatshirt up and froze, staring. She had ink, but it was flat. It didn’t shimmer or move as if breathing on its own.

Steve blew out an unsteady breath. “This complicates things.”

The pain in Steve’s voice registered as a second lightning strike. Isa winced. She lifted quaking fingers to brush his jawline. “I don’t know what it all means. Not yet.”

He clasped her fingers in his and turned his head to press his lips to her hand.

“I know,” he rasped. “I know. Time to get you out of here. The AMBI will be here shortly to take custody of their rogue agents.”

Isa glanced at the two men Ria guarded. “Rogue?”

“The local office has been trying to get the goods on those two for over a year. When you vanished, they made use of my suspension,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.”

“You were recruited by the AMBI?”

He smiled. “Temporary, interagency cooperation.”

He rose and tugged her hand. “Clear out.”

Before the AMBI came to arrest her. Or the man they knew as Daniel Alvarez. Of course, Steve had to stay.

“I don’t understand,” Isa said as she climbed to her feet. “How is this ‘the goods’ on these guys?”

“It isn’t,” Steve said. “The murder of the federal agents is.”

“They accused me.”

“It’s clear you had nothing to do with those deaths,” Steve said. “And that’s all I can say about that until after their trials.”

“What about the containment camps?” she asked.

“All hell is breaking loose about those,” Troy rumbled. “You got picked up on national news, darlin’.”

“With blood in my teeth and a rat’s nest for hair? Can I cede my second fifteen minutes of fame to someone else?”

Murmur climbed to his feet and came to her side.

Steve stood, holding her left hand.

Murmur took her right hand.

Isa relaxed. They were right where she needed them. She could make this work. Somehow.

“The governor is taking it in the shorts,” Troy said. “DOJ announced an investigation half an hour ago. Violation of civil rights.”

Masatoshi, his hands tucked behind his back, came to Troy’s side, his gaze locked on Nathalie.

“Your friend,” Masatoshi said.

“Nat’s had a really hard day,” Isa said. She pulled free of Steve and Murmur. She touched the back of Nathalie’s hand.

Nathalie cried out.

Isa jerked back. “Nat? What’s wrong?”

Masatoshi said something.

“Trauma,” Oki translated. “Magic injury inside.”

“Let me heal that,” Isa said.

“No!” Nathalie said. “Don’t touch me. Please. Don’t.”

Isa froze, staring at Nathalie’s gray face and wide, unfocused eyes.

“What are you?” Nathalie whispered. “You weren’t human. You weren’t. What are you?”

Isa recoiled. “I don’t understand. Nat. I’m me. What the hell did you see?” Memory kicked. She’d had a sinuous tail. Claws. Golden velvet paws.

Nathalie shook her head, shivering, her eyes wide and unfocused. “I saw you underneath, but Isa was gone.”

“A predator of this world,” Murmur said, “like Ikylla.”

“Like Ikylla?” Troy echoed. “You mean like a lion?”

“Jaguar,” Isa whispered.

Every eye in the room turned to her.

“Jaguar?” Steve prompted.

“I don’t know her name. She is a Mayan moon goddess. A woman wearing a jaguar’s face,” Isa said. “I—I had no idea I could or would take on her aspect.”

“What the hell were you guys doing here anyway?” Isa demanded, throwing her hands wide. “I needed to know you were out of harm’s way!”

“We wanted to help,” Oki said, voice wobbling. “We needed to help.”

Isa closed her eyes. She should be furious. Instead, regret dug a trench into her gut, took position, and hunkered down for a long siege. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Nathalie.”