Bound by Light (54 page)

Definitely too big.

When he shifted his gaze to the right, Bethesda Terrace and the fountain with the Angel of the Waters came clear to Jake in one blazing rush. No humans close by. Jake sensed everyone involved in the political rally, security and spectators alike, running like hell, bailing out of Central Park like the end of the world had come to visit in that very spot.

Maybe it has.

Jake growled and analyzed the situation, his heart thudding and his blood boiling with anger and fear. Fear for the woman he loved.

Where is she?

One life sign close by grabbed hold of his senses.

He focused his mind on it, and his heart almost stopped its manic pounding when he saw Merilee’s broken body.

She was in the fountain, sagged against the lower basin.

Merilee looked like a sad, discarded, beautiful doll. Roaring, Jake flapped all four wings and lunged to grab her—

A heavy scaled talon bashed him sideways.

Jake flipped through the air and wheezed as he slammed into a set of concrete steps. His hip snapped and pain blasted through his leg and back. Fire-coated sticks stabbed in his chest, too, making him shout. Something tore inside him. Popped like a balloon full of scalding oil. He opened his mouth, but blood bubbled out on his chin.

He tried to get up, but doubled over and fell on his knees, barely able to lift his head as blood gushed past his lips and puddled on the bricks in front of him.

The sight of Merilee in that fountain, maybe drowning, drove Jake’s awareness deep inside his own body. Light blazed across the terrace darkness as his biosentient power grabbed his bones and jammed them back together.

Jake rolled forward as his hip and chest sizzled. But he could see the bones in his mind. Forced them to knit even though he felt like he was cramming his body in frothing acid.

Next, he sealed his lung tissue. Gasped as it inflated.

Lurched to his feet, throbbing everywhere.

Jake knew he had healed himself, but everything still burned like ever-loving hell. His chest ripped and ached like the ribs he had just fixed might burst right out of his white skin. He didn’t care. He just had to kill—whatever that thing was—and get to Merilee.

The thing with the scales shook a head the size of a brownstone and seemed to be trying to get its bearings. It had horns like thick, sharpened trees, and some kind of scarlet membrane flared out from its neck.

Shit
.

The fucker was as big as ten city buses, end to end and top to bottom. And it seemed like it was trying to get bigger. Long, clawed arms. No feet, but a massive spiked tail.

It bowed its immense body as if it intended to slither toward the fountain. It dwarfed the eight-foot angel like the fountain was no more than a child’s toy. If it got one of those man-sized claws on Merilee—

Blood hammering through his veins, Jake spread his wings and hurtled toward the Leviathan, fists out, clenched together like a club.

Remembering the battle with the Vodoun Loa at Fresh Kills, he aimed straight for one of the thing’s big red eyes.

The Leviathan might be big, but big meant slow.

It saw Jake coming. Tried to blink.

Not fast enough.

Jake bashed into the membrane, bounced sideways, and grabbed the thing’s leathery lid to swing himself back toward his target.

The beast raised its massive claws toward him—too slow again. Jake’s claws ripped through the membrane, plunging his hands into hot, viscous fluid. His sharp demon senses registered coal-black blood running out of the demon’s giant ear—like something had already stabbed it a good one, right in the brain.

Probably made it slower.

He flailed in the creature’s eye, then jerked himself out of the fluid, flying hard toward the stars, fighting against the heavy liquid. Below him, the creature swept its massive head back and forth, back and forth, roaring so loud it made Jake’s ears ring.

It turned away from the fountain, tracking Jake.

He sucked air, and flew farther, leading the thing past the fountain to the edge of the lake. As fast as he could he shook off more sticky, rotten liquid and turned in the sky, intending to drop at the thing’s other eye.

The Leviathan swept its claws across Jake’s chest, ripping him right out of the sky.

Jake slammed to the bricks behind the fountain and Merilee, breaking ribs all over again, and a shoulder, and an arm. Pain blinded him. He couldn’t do anything but yell and kick until blood spewed from his mouth again, and his chest, too.

He was burning alive.

Throbbing.

Blood pulsing out of him with each beat of his heart.

He lifted his clawed hand and pressed it against the torn, screaming flesh. His legs didn’t want to work, but he kicked anyhow, getting himself upright, forcing his tissue back together as fast as he could.

His light blazed out, but this time, he couldn’t do it, couldn’t make the bones in his ribs and arms and shoulder knit.

Not fast enough at all.

The Leviathan bellowed and turned its good eye on Jake. It opened its mouth. Drool pooled and dripped between pointed teeth bigger than cars.

Fuck! It’s coming back toward the fountain.

Jake dug his claws into the bricks and flapped the two wings that would still work. With his good arm, he dragged himself away from the basin, away from Merilee. A few inches. A foot.

Got to get farther.

More blood bubbled between his lips.

He tried to crawl and heal himself at the same time. Had to do it. Had to get himself back on his feet.

Not working.

Merilee—

He pulled himself with every bit of his strength, but his body collapsed even as he fought for one more foot, just another damned inch so the fucking thing wouldn’t get close to her when it ate him.

The Leviathan let out a bone-scraping roar, but it didn’t attack.

It was standing still at the edge of the lake, about ten yards from the fountain, its head swiveling around to turn its good eye in the direction of the bandshell.

Groaning, half-choking on his own blood, Jake rolled in that direction.

His wavy vision picked up movement.

He squinted.

Squinted a little harder.

A woman—a very angry-looking woman—decked out in an NYPD raid suit was storming down the path, a SIG gripped firmly in her right hand.

And she was leading what looked like every last one of the OCU officers still fit for duty. Thirty, maybe thirty-five, in full-dress riot gear.

They were coming hard and fast, weapons hot, deploying in a surround pattern Jake had seen Freeman diagram a thousand times.

Right behind the officers came almost as many Sibyls in battle leathers, all that was left of the New York triads, and a few extra Jake recognized from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, too. Like the OCU officers, the Sibyls had weapons drawn, faces sharp and tight, eyes focused on only one target.

The air Sibyls dropped back for vantage shots even as the fire Sibyls lit up swords and the earth Sibyls palmed shining daggers, all waiting for the woman in front to call the order to attack.

With pain blinding him, halfway to passing out, Jake almost didn’t recognize Andy with her red hair pulled back into a tight bun, moving with such authority. That, and Andy’s clothing was completely, spotlessly dry—though it looked oddly bulky on her slender frame.

"Now!" Andy shouted with a resonance just like a furious demon, louder, even, like the force of the sea itself flowed through her command. She aimed her SIG at the behemoth by the lake and squeezed the trigger.

Instantly, the night filled with gunshots and swinging arcs of fire, whistling arrows and flying daggers. The ground shook. The wind kicked up to hurricane level, sending trees and benches and rocks slamming across the grass.

A few yards from Jake, the one-eyed Leviathan bellowed and started swinging claws and its head and its tail—and Jake turned away.

Crawling toward the fountain now. The world bucked underneath him as he moved. Jets and blasts of fire scorched over his head. Water sloshed from the fountain as he got closer, chilling him with each splash.

He knitted what he could inside himself. A patch job. Enough to stop the bleeding. Enough to move.

The only thing that mattered to him now was Merilee.

As the battle for New York City and the world raged around the Bethesda Terrace and its fountain, Jake crawled over the lip of the bowl and fought through the tepid water to reach Merilee.

All other sights and sounds faded to background rumbles as he got to her and pulled her cold, wet body into his lap.

Motionless.

Totally still.

Jake felt like his chest was being torn open by the Leviathan all over again.

Desperation surged through him, waking every bit of his healing energy, drawing it together, focusing it into one massive beam. Even as he reached inside her essence to find all her wounds, his demon mind sucked in and spewed forth every vestigial memory available since the dawn of time about healing and medicine and human bodies.

Shit, so many places I need to fix!

Her neck. Her spine.

She wasn’t breathing. Her muscles had failed. Her heart was trying to fail, too.

Not happening.

Jake closed his eyes and willed air into her lungs. Willed the faint beat of her heart to continue, to strengthen. He focused into her essence until he could see each tiny fracture and tear and bruise.

The battle was nothing but a dull drone as Jake focused on bringing Merilee back to him. His chest ached as his healing light built, and he poured all that energy into her even as he felt himself start bleeding and breaking all over again.

She needed it all.

She would have it all.

Like working some infinite, intricate puzzle, he healed cell after cell after cell. Breathing for her.

Then breathing with her.

Merilee.

He felt himself fading like he had when he healed Cynda and Riana at the brownstone, but no way was he stopping now.

Her heart rate increased.

Warmth trickled back through her limp body as Jake meshed bone with bone and welded the marrow back into place. It was all so clear now, down to molecules and atoms and how they had to bond and move as one, and he thought it, and he made it so.

She moved in his grip. Turned her head. Her hands twitched.

Fierce joy seized Jake at the tiny signs of life.

"Come back to me," he shouted, tasting the copper of his own blood even as he made hers flow steadily through her veins. "You feel like the wind. I need you like air."

As his words drifted between them, Merilee opened her sea-blue eyes.

Jake was certain he had never seen anything more beautiful.

"What the fuck?" she whispered as a fire bolt slashed over their heads and blasted the Angel of Waters right off her moorings. The big bronze statue smashed to the bricks behind them, bringing Jake’s awareness back to the screeches and explosions of the fight against the Leviathan.

Jake flickered. He tried to keep himself present, tried to remain with Merilee, but he knew he was too far gone.

She reached up, pressed her hands against his cheeks and kissed him so deeply he didn’t dare move for fear his fangs would rip her freshly healed lips. He felt the contact everywhere even as his own pain came roaring back.

He flickered again, but stayed with her.

She pulled back and whispered, "Don’t you dare," and kissed him again, then said, "We’ve got less than two hours."

A massive, spiked tail slammed against the fountain, tearing her right out of his arms. Jake hissed and grabbed for her as the basin rocked sideways. Caught her arm as water spilled over the edges.

Merilee was scrambling, trying to force her body toward him. Jake braced his legs against the bottom of the tilted basin and held on to her, but the whole fountain pitched, and they rolled out onto the bricks of the terrace.

Jake’s bones and muscles howled with each flip and twist, but he managed not to let go of Merilee’s arm. As they came to a stop, he pulled her closer.

The dark forms of officers and Sibyls littered the ground.

The giant demon-beast stormed in a large circle, its scales deflecting most of the damage from the guns and knives and swords. It had some scorch marks, and it was limping, but the fucking thing was winning.

Jake snarled and tested his wings. Neither pair worked this time, and just moving the muscles attached to them made him feel like he was going to die.

Merilee tried to get up, but he held her tight and his essence shimmered.

"We have to," she said, pulling away from him more firmly. "We’re running out of time. Ninety minutes."