Captive Soul (19 page)

It was Blackmore who got hold of himself first, responding to John’s comment about the demons seeking allies. “You talking about the crime lords?”

“The Balkans, the Russians, the Irish, the Vietnamese or Chinese—or somebody completely under our radar.” John slid his bag against a wall, laid his papers on top, and came through the living room. He skirted the chairs and communications platform and sat on the arm of the big leather sofa, as close to Camille as he could get without touching her. Then he folded his arms and openly studied the man who had been his commander for years.

The heat from John’s body seemed like a force to Camille, distracting her and soothing her at the same time. She was glad he was in the room. Relieved, even. Something about his presence made her feel so much more supported and so much less alone.

“I was thinking the same.” Blackmore’s tone shifted, and he focused on John more completely, like he might be seeing through to the real John, just like Camille thought she had been doing. “Tarek won’t use Strada’s methods, at least not in the same way. I half expected him to show back up with troops and guns blazing, but he’s going low-profile.”

“Gotta be collecting help,” Saul agreed, pressing one thumb into the tribal tattoos on the back of his hand. “The kind of help that doesn’t answer want ads.”

John stepped into his old Rakshasa-hunting role so smoothly Camille barely realized he was doing it. “Tarek’s probably busy making a truckload of Created to help him, too. So, you working some angle, Blackjack? What’s the plan?”

Blackmore almost started talking again, then shook his head, looked at his feet, and looked back at John. “Fuck, this is weird. I feel like I should shoot you.”

John’s grin came fast and natural. “I’ve felt like shooting you for years, so I guess that makes us even.”

Blackmore’s mouth crooked into a smile. “Nice bruise. Did Sharp kick your ass?”

John touched the dark spot already fading from his cheek. “Better than cutting off my head, right?”

“So far,” Blackmore said, “but don’t push your luck with us. With any of us.”

John glanced at Camille, and she made sure to shift her weight against his leg. A little contact never hurt anything, and it might make him feel better. If he’d been in the room when her quad was grilling her—hell, she might have tried to get in his lap.

“I’ll handle myself,” John said, though Camille would have put money on the fact that he wasn’t nearly as relaxed about that as he was trying to sound. “We were talking plans and angles to get at the Rakshasa?”

Saul started to say something, but Blackmore raised his hand. “You’ve got no official status in this city, John, even through our old special ops channels.”

“Then give me one.” John didn’t seem the least bit distressed by this, like it was just a small hurdle Blackmore needed to remove before they could jump to the real issues.

“That’d be a lot easier if you weren’t dead.” Blackmore’s voice stayed very, very calm, but Camille could tell he was trying to get reality across to John. “You have no legal identity, and I can’t just pull one out of my ass.”

“Yes, you can, and I know it.” John tapped his cheek with one finger. “The face is different, but this is me, Blackjack. I’m not asking for anything you haven’t done a hundred times. A thousand. Find me an official name and social, and don’t take too long. If I’m working, I expect a paycheck.”

Saul and Dio both laughed at the same time, looked at each other, and laughed harder. Dio covered her mouth with her hand.

Bela kept a passive expression, but Andy’s eyes danced with the same mirth Camille felt. If she’d known it was this easy to play serious cards with the famous “Blackjack” Blackmore, she’d have tried this approach when he first showed up on the scene last year.

“Busted,” Andy said, not very much under her breath.

Blackmore glanced in her direction, and a splash of color touched the top of his high cheekbones. It struck Camille that he was trying really, really hard not to tick Andy off, her more than any of the rest of them. The mirrors on the wall behind Andy swirled from the increasing energy in the room, but the clouds in the glass didn’t look dark or foreboding. Whatever Andy was feeling, it was closer to neutral—or maybe light, like she was laughing at the man inside, at least as hard as Dio and Saul had laughed on the outside.

“It’ll probably be through some OCU slush funds,” Blackmore said, not looking at anyone in particular now, but keeping his eyes off the mirrors and even the chimes above the communications table. “I don’t think I can sail this one past the Pentagon, not when they paid to put you in the ground months ago.”

When Camille looked up at John, he was grinning. “Fine by me. Money’s money, and demons are demons. It doesn’t really matter who’s paying me. I’ll kill Rakshasa just the same.”

If John cared that his military career was essentially over, he didn’t show it, at least not that Camille could see. Circumstances had forced him to abandon his chosen profession before, more than once. Maybe he was used to it?

“For now, we’ll make you … how does official advisor sound?” Blackmore seemed to be trying to be sincere, and Camille could tell John knew the man well enough to know that.

“Fine,” John said.

Dio coughed to strangle another fit of laughter, but she just had to say, “If you don’t consider the fact that some of our OCU and Sibyl advisors have wings and fangs.”

John’s warmth spilled through Camille as he pressed his thigh closer to her shoulder, getting really comfortable on the arm of the couch beside her. “As long as I get creds, a permit to carry, and you pay advisors with dollars and cents instead of raw steak or some other stupid crap, I’m in.”

“No raw steak.” Blackmore made like he was taking notes, and Camille restrained herself from pulling a fake faint. She’d never seen the man joke before—at all. She wouldn’t have bet a nickel that he was even capable of it.

This time John’s grin transformed his whole face. “And don’t get me any stupid names, either.”

To this, Blackmore said nothing, but his dark eyes seemed to dance with possibilities. He gestured to Saul, who unloaded a couple of big folded papers from inside his Giants jacket. As Saul spread maps of the city across the communications platform, Blackmore explained, “This is what we’ve put together so far.”

Camille leaned in to get a better look at the papers, and so did Bela, Dio, and Andy. The maps had been marked with colored grids. Most of the grids had been labeled, and Camille read the names over each of the main sections.

“Foucci, Divac, Seneca, Sekulovich.”

Dio ran a French-manicured nail over a few other sections, shaded gray, but they had been named, too. “Fitzsimmons, McBride, and Gordon to the north, and to the south, De Luca, Bianchi, and Tenace.”

There were more, longer names, difficult to pronounce, though Camille thought they might be Russian.

“Irish and Italians.” Saul pointed to the sections Dio had touched. “And over here, we’ve got the Russians and their territories, but really, the Russians claim everything is theirs. They’re all bad, but not our worst problem right now. These boys”—he tapped the colored sections with the Balkan names—“they’re a whole new kind of ruthless.”

Blackmore scooted the map closer to him and oriented it so Camille, Bela, Andy, and Dio could easily view all the areas. “The NYPD’s been tracking movement on the four main Balkan groups with the FBI. Mostly standard merchandising—drugs, human trafficking, counterfeit electronics, weaponry. Last week this group”—he put his index finger on the green section, marked
Foucci—
“did a one-eighty. Temporarily froze a lot of merchandise movements, brought in heavy-hitter higher-ups from overseas, and had some major conferences with all their cells and factions. The NYPD thinks they lost their major player in the States.”

“All they found was part of a leg bone near the docks,” Saul said. “Forensics aren’t back yet, but preliminary testing indicates everything matches up to Ioannis Foucci, and none of our guys on the ground have been able to make the old man.”

“The leg bone was chewed,” Blackmore added, sitting back on the couch. “According to the ME, some kind of large animal. My money’s on tiger.”

“Eating crime lords.” John let out a low whistle, and his hand drifted down to touch Camille’s shoulder. “That’s one way to make a lot of friends—and enemies. So which of our three competitors hired him?”

Saul shook his head. “That’s where we’re coming up short.”

“I don’t think we can assume it’s one of these three other Balkan families.” Bela got comfortable in her own chair again. “I was just a boarder at Motherhouse Russia. I grew up around here, and I can tell you when these crime lords start shooting it out, there’s no telling who might put guns in the fight—even bit players trying to get up the ladder. We could be looking at some unknowns, or maybe even the older groups—the Italians, the Irish. I don’t know much about the Russians.”

Blackmore focused on Bela, studiously keeping his gaze away from Andy. “I grew up in Jersey, and you’re right. We don’t think it’s the Russians because they just go in with overwhelming force and mow everybody down, after they break all their bones for show. As for the rest of these larger groups, it’s been business as usual for them, and the FBI doesn’t think they’re in good positions to start a war with the Balkans right now.”

“These guys are loose cannons, not playing by the rules,” Saul said, massaging the tattoos on his hand as if touching them gave him strength or focus. “When the older mobs hit them, it’ll be all-out attacks and for keeps, no little penny-ante assassination stuff—and that’s only if they think they can win.”

“The NYPD and the FBI think they can’t.” Blackmore’s tone darkened. “The Balkans are stronger than the Irish and Italians put together right now, at least in New York City.”

It was obvious to Camille that Jack Blackmore had a particular hatred for the traditional mobs, even if he was keeping it pretty tight to the vest. The edge in his voice was easy to hear, and the way his eyes smoldered as they passed over the Italian sector especially—that said a lot.

“We’re sending a team here tomorrow night to do a little recon after we check it out by daylight.” Blackmore jerked his thumb toward the Divac section, gazing up at John, then looking at Bela. “Want to be that team?”

“You’re on,” John said, then backed off with a quick nod to Bela. “If, ah, everyone’s in agreement.”

The excitement and relief in John’s voice registered instantly with Camille. This was familiar territory to him. Safe ground. He had to be more than thrilled to get back to normal operations, or what had served as normal for him since all his wars began. She kept her body pressed into his, still casual, not that apparent unless somebody really studied how they were sitting. She appreciated the contact, but a less generous part of her mind started wondering if this would be what she’d have if she matched up with John—strategy meetings and quick contacts as they constantly planned their attack on the next enemy.

He could worry about the same thing where you’re concerned, idiot
.

She wanted to smack herself in the forehead for putting the cart so far in front of the horse it wasn’t even funny.

“We’re in,” Bela said. “At least it’s a place to start.”

Camille shared John’s relief at her agreement, and she separated herself from him to head to the weapons closet and make sure all the gear was in order. Andy got to her feet, too, stretching to get herself limber for her afternoon workout.

Dio pointed at her. “That’s Sibyl for ‘Strategy session over, boys.’ ”

John and Saul and Blackmore nearly hurt themselves standing up so fast.

“No pig blood,” Andy said, sounding psychotically cheerful as she flopped into an ungraceful, unbalanced downward-dog position beside her leather chair. “I’m so there.”

Blackmore gave her a questioning look, but Saul waved him off. “Voodoo stuff. They got attacked by a god the other night.”

“Oh. Right.” Blackmore didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off Andy. “Karfour.”

“Kalfou,” Andy corrected, standing up straight again. “But you were close.”

She didn’t say she was impressed, but Camille could tell she was.

After Blackmore and Saul left, John came over to the weapons closet, but his eyes kept moving back to the front door. “Jack,” he said as Camille pulled out their cache of swords. “He’s—he seems a lot different than I remember. Did you give him a personality transplant while I wasn’t around?”

“Not really.” Camille lifted a blade and measured it against John’s stance. Too short. “Well, he spent a lot of time with the Mothers, so maybe that helped after all. I can’t put my finger on it, but he seems … better.”

Dio walked by on her way to the stairs. “I think it’s just that his demeanor doesn’t scream ‘arrogant asshole’ quite as loud as it did last year.”

Bela went in the other direction, heading for the kitchen, probably on her way downstairs to spend a little time in the lab she was now sharing with Camille to make some elementally treated bullets for John’s Glock. “What impresses me is that he was here for almost half an hour, and Andy didn’t try to drown him one single time.”

“Fuck all of you,” Andy said from her slightly pretzel-like yoga position beneath the Motherhouse Ireland mirror. “I may kill him yet. Just not today.”

Camille gave John a look and whispered her real interpretation of Blackmore’s visit. “Maybe there’s hope for the world after all.”

“I’ll buy that,” he whispered back, coming close enough that she wanted to touch him, and would have if she hadn’t been balancing three swords to measure against John’s height. “But let’s see what jackass new name and identity he tries to saddle me with before we go too far.”

(
 17 
)

She woke him the next morning, sitting on the edge of his bed, perched there like a delicate, tiny bird, just looking at him.

John thought he’d never experienced anything quite as sweet as opening his eyes to find Camille next to him in the bed, any bed, even if she hadn’t spent the night with him. The sight of her in her clingy white silk babydoll pajamas, gazing at him with those tropical blue-green eyes, made his blood rush. Her auburn hair looked wild and uncombed, a riot of dark red shades spilling over her shoulders and brushing her cream-colored cheeks. Her freckles seemed like the same shade of red-brown, and John wanted to touch each one, count each one, and memorize its location.

Her arm was … dusty.

He reached up and brushed grit off her elbow and gave her a questioning look.

“I’ve been practicing some stuff about dances and channels and the rock—never mind.” She wiped off her other elbow even though it wasn’t dusty. “Anyway, since we’re doing everything backward, I thought you should see me in the morning before I shower and get myself fixed up.” She pointed a slightly dusty finger at her hair. “Scary enough for you?”

John adjusted the sheets, aware of the feminine softness of the silk, and more than aware that Camille had slept in them before she loaned him her room. They smelled like her, like lilies and woman. He wanted more of that. More of everything.

“Come closer,” he told her, moving toward her just enough to get her attention. The huskiness in his voice was obvious to him, and he figured she noticed it, too. “Another few inches, and I’ll show you just how terrified I am.”

Her smile made him ache.

She didn’t move toward him, but he saw in her eyes that she wanted to.

That made him ache worse.

If he reached out, he’d be touching her. If she reached out, her hand would hit him midbelly, just above the sheet covering the fact he slept naked.

He had to shift his weight on the bed to make his erection less obvious.

Camille looked away from him at the pictures on her walls—buildings John assumed had to be the Motherhouses, drawn or painted by a pretty good artist.

“Why did you become a priest?” she asked.

The question brought him out of his desire-laden haze, though not completely, because the answer was easy enough. “I wanted to help people.”

He could have guessed her next question, but she asked it before he could do it for her. “Why did you give it up?”

“Same reason.” John wished she would look at him again, not so he could gauge her reaction and adjust his answers, but so he could see those eyes, see what she might be feeling about what he was saying. About him. “I couldn’t go after the demons with the church breathing down my neck. They had no problem with me being a military chaplain, but demon hunter probably wouldn’t have gone over well.”

Camille finished studying the pictures on her wall and gave him a fast, shy glance before she stared down at the tiny patch of cream-colored sheet between them. “Do you miss being with the church?”

“No.”

Her quick, twitching frown made him worry that she didn’t believe him, or that she thought he was being callous, so he tried to explain himself a little better. “Do I miss the peace and ceremony and prayer and the helping-people part? Yes, sometimes. But do I miss the demands and the restrictions and the limitations? No.”

Camille nodded. And waited.

Was she working up to another question about his time in the service of the church? If so, he had a good guess what this one might be, too—or at least what she needed to know.

“I’m not one of those angst-ridden ex-priests you read about in books or magazines, and I don’t get tempted to go back to that way of life. The way I see it, even though the circumstances sucked, I got a do-over about that choice, which is a good thing, because I made it when I was too young. Leaving the clergy was the right thing for me and the church, too. It was the right thing for everybody.”

Camille seemed to be listening to every word, and not just what he said but how he said it. She could probably read more into his answer than he could begin to guess, but that didn’t bother John. Whatever she needed to know or wanted to know, whatever she wanted from him, period, he’d give it to her.

She’s trying to weigh who I really am against who she thought I’d be
, he realized. He wondered how he was faring in that equation.

She didn’t seem inclined to let him ask.

“I was born in Motherhouse Ireland,” she said, combing through all that long hair with her fingers. “My mother got killed when I was eight, and I sucked as an adept. Never developed the fire talents the Mothers wanted, and what I could do—pyrosentience—they thought was stupid. The mortar of my first fighting group took me on anyway, and I would have died to save her if I had the chance. The same for our air Sibyl, Bette. She got killed by an Asmodai in Van Cortlandt Park, and there was nothing I could do to save her, either. Losing them nearly drove me crazy. Maybe it did. I still haven’t decided.” She finished with her hair and pushed it behind her ears. “That’s what I have nightmares about. Asmodai. Fire Asmodai.”

Okay. So, this is what we’re doing now—I talk, then she talks. An exchange
.

And it was his turn.

Fine.

He could do this.

“Only child, straight-A nerd in school, but too big for anybody to kick my ass over it. Duncan and I grew up in fields and woods, drinking Coke and eating Moon Pies. It went with the territory.” John watched Camille, alert for any sign of reaction, but she wasn’t judging or evaluating now. Just listening. “Duncan was like my brother, and he was the best, because most kids didn’t want anything to do with my family. We were Catholic, and in Georgia, Catholicism was something like Devil worship as far as most religions were concerned. Duncan lived with us the last few years we were in high school because his parents died. When he went to the University of Georgia, I headed for St. John Vianney College Seminary, in Miami. Then came the war, and Duncan and I joined up together. I have nightmares about stuff I saw in the war, and about the Valley of the Gods in the mountains near Kabul. That’s where a soldier I was with accidentally released the Rakshasa. What happened next—not pretty.”

Her soft, caring smile felt like a blessing. “There. Easy so far, right?”

“No.” John knew he was grinning back at her, and it made him feel like a teenager talking to the prettiest girl in school. “But doable.”

She stretched out her arm and touched his face, running four of her fingers along his jaw, then his chin. He felt the contact everywhere at once, and stayed completely bound by her eyes. “You’re used to doing everything alone, John.”

“You should talk.”

“Touché.” Camille smiled at him again, and John had to move his hand down to cover the tent in the silk sheet around his waist. He couldn’t stop his physical reaction to her, didn’t want to, but he didn’t want her to think that was everything. He didn’t want her to believe that all he was seeing was how she looked, or all he was imagining was how he wanted to touch her, and where, and for how long.

Every bit of that was happening—but this, this was so much more for him. He hadn’t imagined he could get this deep emotionally with any woman, much less before he ever got to make love to her.

“What do you think of me?” Camille murmured, as if she had heard every thought whirling through his mind.

John stared into those amazing eyes, wondering how it would feel to rock her underneath him, to see her gazing up at him with all the love and heat and passion he hoped he could give her.

I’m in so much trouble here, there aren’t any words
.

“What do I think of you?” He breathed her scent like a drug. “That’s a big question, beautiful.”

Her hand moved into his hair like she was sampling him, getting a basic feel for everything about him—or trying to see if her stray dog might bite her after all. “We got off to a strange start, John, more intimate than sex in some ways, so I think it’s important for us to get rid of myths and fantasies and start dealing with reality.”

It was taking all he had not to get lost in her touch. So slight, but so powerful. “Do you ever waste any words?”

“No. I don’t.” She gave his hair a soft tug. “As a rule, no fire Sibyl does. If talking and communicating scare you to death, you might as well walk away now.”

How could such a tiny little package carry such a big punch? “That sounded like a challenge.”

Another smile. Another tug on his hair. She had to be trying to kill him.

“Definitely,” she said.

“I don’t walk away from challenges.” He held her gaze. “Ever.”

“We’ll see.”

John knew he had a question to answer, so he answered it without censoring himself, letting the words come as they would. “I think you’re perfect—but not in some idealistic way. I think you might be perfect for me.”

Her gaze didn’t waiver, but her lips parted, and he could almost taste her tongue in his mouth.

“I think you’re beautiful,” he said, more a hoarse whisper than anything, because he was so far gone. “That’s no secret. I think you’re honest and direct and kind-hearted, and smarter than most people even know. Brilliant, even. I also think you’re wounded and unsure of yourself, and stronger than
you
know.”

Camille looked disconcerted, like he might have surprised her. Finally. Well, good, because he’d surprised himself, getting all of that out. He wasn’t sure he’d strung that many sentences together in a personal situation for what, years? Ever?

Her parted lips finally started moving, at least enough to say, “Was that an audition?”

“It’s the truth. It’s what I think so far, but I want to find out a lot more. I want to know everything about you. I want to know every taste. Every scent. Every whisper-soft inch of your skin. I want to lose myself in you.”

Her cheeks colored the prettiest red, making her freckles stand out and beg to be kissed.

“What do you want, Camille?”

“I don’t know,” she said, but her eyes had gone misty and wide, and he wanted his mouth on hers so badly he felt the fire in his chest, his fingers, his arms, just like she’d used her elemental energy to burn him. “Not yet. But I plan to figure it out. And figure you out.”

John cleared his throat, mostly to test his voice. “Fair enough.”

She moved her hand away from his face, and John wanted to catch her fingers and kiss them just to keep the contact.

“I feel like I’m responsible for all this,” she said. Her fingers drifted to the already scarred-over gash in his side, the one made by Maggie Cregan’s sword. “And this. For everything. For you still being here and having this body. Do you resent that?”

“Absolutely not. You didn’t do it on purpose—and I wouldn’t resent it even if you did. I got new skin and a fresh chance, Strada’s out of commission, and I can help wipe out the Rakshasa. Everybody wins.”

This time he got a frown instead of a smile, and he had a sense they were finally getting to the center of what was most on her mind. His gut tightened on instinct, because whatever this was, he’d better have the right answer, or this beautiful thing might die before it ever had a chance to bloom.

“And what happens after that, John?”

The tension in his gut got worse. “After what?”

“After all the Rakshasa are dead.” Camille’s gaze turned piercing, and John wondered if she could use her pyrosentience without him knowing it. “After your war is finally over. What then?”

John thought his gut might split in two. He hadn’t expected that question, not even a little bit. “After,” he echoed, because he had considered that, and he vaguely remembered that his plan had been to kill all the demons, then off himself and take Strada with him into the great beyond for good and all.

Then he’d spent time around Camille, and now …

Now that seemed like a pretty shitty plan.

But after?

Could he even believe there would be an after? A time when he wasn’t at war?

“Don’t even pretend you know what you’re going to do, or what you’ll want when this is over. You have no idea what
after
’s going to look like, because you’ve been at war forever.” She moved closer to him, so close that he really felt her heat now, sensed her fire, and wanted every spark and flame. “I’m saying that because I know. I understand. What I think about you—I think you’re a good soldier and a good man with no idea what life is like outside of a firefight. We’re not so different in how we’ve lived, or how we’ll have to live.”

The softness in her voice and eyes unwound him inside and left him without anything to say at all. John swallowed, trying to regroup, trying to take in the truth that she really did understand, that she and her fellow Sibyls had known endless battles, endless wars. They were always fighting, always watching their backs.

He had just charged in among them, doing his thing, intent on his mission of protecting her and killing demons in the meantime, because—what? He thought Camille and her quad needed him?

They were happy to have his help, but they didn’t need him.

He had no idea what to do with that.

She had gotten to the heart of his life—of him and the biggest part of his attitude toward life—that fast, and it made him feel disoriented and uncertain.

John didn’t do uncertain.

He looked away from her, and when he looked back, she leaned over and pressed her lips against his.

The jolt of touching her almost sucked his self-control to nothing. He gripped her forearm, holding on as he tasted her lips, her tongue, as he felt the soft brush of her breath across his face. Every muscle in his body strained to get closer to her, but he made himself be still, made himself take what she offered. Her skin heated his palm, his fingers. She still smelled like lilies, now with a dash of silk sheets.

Camille found his hand with hers and moved it off her arm, over, over until his palm brushed her hard nipple. Shock fired from his fingers straight to his cock. Back and forth she moved his hand, letting him feel her through that barely there silk shirt.