Bound by Light (55 page)

They had no weapons. He couldn’t fly.

Merilee sent her wind outward, but Jake felt how weak it was. Nothing but a breeze.

An earth Sibyl shook the ground, and they both rocked back on their asses.

Merilee let out a blast of epithets and managed to get herself upright.

Jake could tell she knew it was hopeless, but he forced himself up to stand beside her and wait for the fucking monster to notice them.

She took his hand in hers and looked at him with those otherworldly beautiful eyes. "My fate is your fate, right?"

Jake coughed a little bit of blood and wondered if one of his ribs was ripping through his gut wall, but he nodded—and he stayed solid even though his healing energy was completely tapped out.

There was no way in hell he could go to that castle in the air to restore himself if it meant leaving her here to die. That realization anchored him even as his demon essence roared against that decision. The little bit of human in Jake kept him right where he was, standing beside his woman, where he belonged.

I’ve finally learned to be both, haven’t I? I’m Astaroth
and
human, right here, right now.
The thought struck him like a fresh blow, only this one almost made him laugh from the irony.
Perfect fucking timing
.

With his one good hand, he took off his talisman and slipped it over Merilee’s head again, glad for the rush of warmth when her fingers brushed against the gold.

She had time to smile at him just once before the Leviathan swung its great head around, and its single blazing eye fixed on the pair of them.

(41)

The ancient demon opened its massive maw and Merilee wondered if her heart would fly apart.

Those teeth were going to chew her to pieces, and Jake, too. She drew on her air, but felt almost no response. A spit of wind. Too soon after her injuries. Too weak.

The OCU officers still standing and the Sibyls still able to fight hit the beast with everything they had. Bullets ricocheted. Swords and daggers and arrows bounced against its scales and fell useless to the ground.

Nothing. No damage. No effect.

Merilee knew the Leviathan was coming for her and for Jake, and nothing could stop it.

She glanced at Jake, finally and completely registering how his right arm and wings hung useless. Dark, deep slashes marked his chest. His whole pale body seemed bruised and misshapen, like bones had been broken and badly healed. The sight of him made her ache all over, and brought reality banging home in her mind.

He can’t fight.

But Jake looked the Leviathan right in its blood-red eye, bared his fangs, and snarled.

Merilee snarled with him and dropped into a fighting stance.

What the hell am I going to do? Kick it in the nose?

But she couldn’t just stand still and let the demon kill them.

If they could reach one of the fallen Sibyls or officers, they could arm themselves, but Jake could barely walk—and the beast blocked their access to the battlefield. The reek coming off the thing made her eyes water, and every time she took a deeper breath, she coughed from the stench of stagnant water and rancid, murky salt.

The beast seemed to swallow the night and every aspect of the natural world.

"I can take him," Merilee muttered to herself, remembering her boast to Delilah even as her slack muscles went even weaker from fear and dread. "Yeah, right.
That
was mental."

The Leviathan swung its head once, knocking away another bunch of arrows—and it started toward her and Jake.

A tall figure in blood-streaked leathers leaped between the monster and Merilee and Jake.

"Bela!" Merilee cried as the Sibyl swung toward them, her black hair loose and wild around her cut, bleeding face. She hurled a bow toward Merilee, along with a quiver that still had a few arrows left.

Next came a dirt-crusted French bastard sword, tumbling blade over streamlined hilt. Jake snatched it one-handed out of the air and raised it awkwardly, still snarling, now louder than ever.

Bela drew her two hand-sized saw-toothed swords from her waist sheaths and seemed to dare the beast to come another step. Her earth energy roiled outward, making the ground between herself and the Leviathan buck and bubble.

As Merilee readied an arrow, the beast stumbled and let out a thunderous roar.

"Come on, you scaly fucker!" Bela yelled. "What are you waiting for?"

Dread chilled Merilee deep in the pit of her being as she tried to get a bead on the ancient demon’s remaining eyeball—but the loudest, scariest bunch of ululating cries she had ever heard fell out of the sky and rattled the cold straight out of her body.

She raised her head at the same second Bela lowered her hand swords and Jake’s blade wavered, then went tip-down toward the terrace. He turned his golden eyes toward Merilee. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Gods and goddesses—yes—but how?" She gulped in a breath as the piercing noises came again, climbing all over her nerve endings, setting off a primal urge to scream with them.

Bela did.

Merilee’s heart surged into her throat, then she screamed, too, the sound rippling through her body, stirring the air inside her, drawing it up, up, until she could almost feel it ready to flow from her skin and do real damage.

The Leviathan froze where it stood.

Other Sibyls on the battlefield joined the cry. Some who had fallen lurched to their feet and managed to raise their weapons.

OCU officers looked left and right, then backed away from the Dark Crescent Sisterhood, but Jake held his ground, shouting a welcome as Merilee and Bela and all the Sibyls screamed again.

Merilee turned her face to the night sky.

A hoard of Astaroths sank slowly toward the ground, wings spread wide, forming a circle around the Leviathan—and each was holding a wizened little woman dressed in brown, green, or blue robes. The robed women were packing a beautiful array of swords, bows, and daggers—and radiating enough elemental energy to topple every skyscraper in Manhattan.

"Shit," Jake whispered. "It
is
the Mothers. All of them." He raised his sword again, more of a salute than a battle stance.

The Astaroths deposited their passengers and backed away.

One of them turned toward Jake, and Merilee knew it was Darian.

Jake gestured to the fallen on the battlefield, and in seconds, just a few breaths, some of the winged demons surged outward, collected the wounded officers and Sibyls, and surged away into the dark reaches of Central Park.

Darian and the remaining Astaroths formed a second circle behind the Mothers, fangs bared, pale skin glowing like they had drawn the moon into their flesh.

The Leviathan twitched and snarled at its new challengers.

The Mothers raised their blades and nocked their arrows. Some of the swords caught fire, light playing off the beast’s filthy scales.

It lunged forward, almost caught a fire Sibyl Mother in its cavernous jaws, but the little woman didn’t so much as twitch. Her big Chinese sword spit a jet of flames into the air, and a shitload of earth, fire, and air energy coursed outward at the same moment, stealing Merilee’s breath and catching the Leviathan mid-leap.

It fell back on its clawed feet and swung its tail.

More elemental energy slammed against the movement, stopping the huge barbs as surely as if they had struck a wall of steel ten feet thick.

The night seemed to come alive with power. Chills fanned across Merilee’s neck and shoulders, and she knew her wind had come back to her, fed into her by the abundance of elemental energy flowing across the terrace.

"
Damn,
it’s about time," a woman yelled, and Jake saw Andy get to her feet on the other side of the fountain. She glanced in Jake’s direction. "Lowell! Get your human skin back on. You’re in charge until Nick and Creed show up. Let them slug out who gets my job."

She threw her SIG into the fountain, then stripped out of her raid suit, revealing the yellow robes she had on beneath her police gear. Her Mother’s robes—with a dart gun holstered at the waist.

Merilee squeezed her bow tighter as Andy whipped out her HKP-11, turned toward the paralyzed Leviathan, and approached it with long, confident strides.

"There’s more power now," Jake said. "New power."

And Merilee felt it with him, felt the water energy rising, stirring the lake, pulling it toward the shore. As Andy’s energy joined with the other elemental powers, Merilee’s mind rocked like the Earth had just jumped on its axis. As if the planet itself had just acknowledged its masters.

"Shit," Jake whispered.

The Leviathan managed to let out a long, low groan as Andy walked right up to its massive head. She raised her brutal dart pistol until the barrel touched its one good eye.

"All right, you murdering motherfucker," she said. "It’s
my
turn now."

She flung out her free hand, and the lake went still as glass. In fact, it looked just like glass.

Mother Keara barked a command, and half the fire Sibyl Mothers walked directly out onto the water, buoyed by Andy’s unbelievable energy, and they started to dance.

"It’s projective." Awe swam through Merilee. "Andy’s turned that lake into one giant projective mirror. Gods and goddesses, I wish Riana and Cynda were here to see this."

Jake let out a quiet sigh. "I kind of wish Freeman had lived to see it, too, but then, he just would have bitched about how the Parks Department was going to give him shit for the next hundred years."

As the ancient channels ground open under the insistence of the fire Sibyl Mothers, bells began to ring all over New York City.

"Come on." Merilee put up her arrow and slung her bow over her shoulder. "It’s time to go."

She gently took hold of Jake’s wounded arm. His fingers curled around hers even though it made him wince, and he had almost no grip strength at all.

As Andy reached outward in the general direction of New York Harbor, Merilee and Jake limped toward the lake. They both hesitated at the edge, then walked out on the solid glasslike surface with the Mothers. Bela and a few more Sibyls, any warrior who could move, hobbled into the circle, too.

Merilee led Jake to Mother Anemone, faced the Leviathan, and joined her air energy with the power binding the demon.

Mother Anemone nodded and broke away and moved to Andy’s side. Mother Keara left the fire Sibyls, and Mother Yana separated from the earth Sibyl Mothers to stand with Andy as well. They blended her water energy with their own power.

Merilee saw the fierce, hungry joy on the faces of her fellow Sibyls, and she knew she must look the same way. They were born for this. Trained for it.

Tonight, they
were
the masters of the Earth, and all its monumental power.

A moment or so later, a stream of water came slowly across the starlit sky, perfectly aligned, perfectly controlled.

Andy brought the flowing pillar down around the Leviathan, encasing the beast in its natural element.

"World’s largest fish tank," Jake muttered, and Merilee would have laughed if it wouldn’t have broken her concentration.

Damn, she loved his sense of humor.

Inch by inch and foot by foot, air, earth, fire, and water power floated the ancient demon off Bethesda Terrace and out over the solidified lake, hovering about five feet above its surface.

It twitched and struggled, but couldn’t so much as let out a roar.

All the Mothers followed, arms out, elemental energy pulsing out from their skin in almost visible waves. This time, the Astaroths stayed back, and Merilee realized Jake was waving them off.

Sibyl business.

Probably a new concept to them, but Merilee figured they would learn.

When the monster and the Mothers reached the center of the lake, Andy turned toward Jake and Merilee. "Greece, right? Káto Ólimbos. Wherever the fuck
that
is."

Merilee leaned against Jake a little bit—or maybe he was leaning against her, she couldn’t tell. They both nodded.

Andy pointed a finger at Jake, then at Merilee. "Y’all so owe me. When you can walk and shit, you’re going to be spending a lot of nights working this off in trade. Just so you know."

Without waiting for them to answer, she wheeled back to the Leviathan, raised her arms, and all the Mothers raised their arms—and Merilee’s mind and her body and the lake in Central Park exploded upward in one huge
whoosh
of swirling water and air and earth and fire.

Merilee held fast to Jake as the planet seemed to fire upward. Gravity pushed against her bones, racked her skeleton, shoving her skin backward so hard she was sure it would tear, but she felt no real pain. Just pressure. All the goddesses of Olympus, so much pressure!