Captive Soul (29 page)

Good
.

Aarif’s lips twitched, but he held back his mirth, and Tarek appreciated his youngest true brother for his restraint. He didn’t want Griffen afforded the slightest measure of comfort or reassurance. The sorcerer had become complacent in his dealings with Tarek and Aarif, perhaps even thinking of himself as equal in stature and status. To come face-to-face with the full measure of Rakshasa power—the strain showed instantly in the dulling of his blue eyes and the rubbery loosening of his arms.

Tarek gestured to his brothers to resume their festivities, and he and Aarif took Griffen by both arms, helping him walk back to Seneca’s mansion. Once they reached the massive kitchen with its polished stone countertops; its hanging racks of utensils, pots, and pans; and its steadily crackling fire on the hearth that also opened onto the main living area, Tarek let Aarif hold on to Griffen while he faced the sorcerer.

“You—you didn’t tell me,” Griffen said, still rattled, but having regained enough composure enough to try to meet Tarek’s gaze. “I didn’t know to expect … company.”

It took some doing, but Tarek calmed himself and chose his words with care and deliberation. “We haven’t been honest or open with each other of late, have we, my friend?”

Griffen’s eyes darted from Tarek to the back door and back to Tarek again. “I don’t know what you mean.”

It was a challenge to Tarek to keep his human form. Good practice, but difficult. “Did you truly believe I would allow you or your Coven to overshadow me?”

Griffen’s mouth came open in mock outrage. “I’m not trying to—”

Aarif remained in human form but for his fully extended claws, which he raised to Griffen’s throat with a none too gentle warning snarl.

Tarek lifted one finger to his lips, and Griffen fell silent, though his blue eyes now burned with an indignant rage.

When Tarek was certain he could speak without lunging at the sorcerer, he said, “It took me some time to understand that your brilliant charms to repel energy also repel my ability to track you and your sister, your thoughts, and your activities. I corrected that oversight some time ago.”

Griffen’s color turned pasty, though the rage didn’t leave his eyes. Tarek could tell he wanted to ask Tarek how he’d made that correction, but common sense likely gave him the answer before he voiced the question.

“I didn’t know about your encounter with the Sibyls until after it occurred,” Tarek said, “but I know where you’re keeping your Coven and I know the identity and location of each member of your under-Coven. I know all of your movements since the failed battle in Central Park, and I must say, I’m not pleased with the amount of contact you’ve had with the other Balkan families, or with the Russians or the Italians.”

Griffen fidgeted in Aarif’s grip. “I’m trying to build allies. Our human army. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“You’re trying to build
your
human army, held together by fear of
my
power.” Tarek let out a low, hungry snarl. “You have forgotten who serves whom.”

Somehow the sorcerer managed to go totally still and make his voice sound amazingly earnest. “I haven’t betrayed you,
culla
.”

“Not yet,” Tarek growled. “And you will not have the chance.”

Tarek nodded to Aarif, who released Griffen. Griffen rubbed his neck, clearly checking to see if Aarif had broken the skin on his throat.

Seneca is a wise man
, Tarek thought, though he hated that his human ally had noticed so much that Tarek himself had missed.

Griffen had feigned such interest in becoming Created to ensure his immortality and his power over the dominating army Tarek would one day build to do his bidding, once he had proper control of the human population. Tonight, his fear of infection put a lie to everything Tarek had believed about the man. Tarek’s lips curled away from his human teeth, and he longed to shift to tiger form and chew the human down to bones and gristle.

The sorcerer seemed to understand that he had given himself away, and his pale face went suddenly dark and sour. His fingers twitched like he might be considering drawing on some of his considerable elemental talents, but Tarek and his true brothers had worked some old magick of their own, making this kitchen and the wine cellar below it an elemental dead zone. Griffen would not be able to draw on his protections here.

Griffen glanced around, eyebrows pulling together as he realized his helplessness and his peril.

Oh, how Tarek longed to spill the sorcerer’s entrails on the smooth, modern stone floor—but unfortunately, he needed what Griffen could do, at least for a short time in the future.

“Since you no longer desire to keep our original bargain, I have a new incentive for your cooperation.” Tarek gestured to the door at the back of the kitchen that led down to the wine cellar.

When Griffen didn’t move, Aarif walked to the cellar door and opened it. He gave Griffen a sarcastic bow, and gestured to the darkened stairs winding down to the cold chamber beneath the earth.

When Griffen made no attempt to walk to the door, Tarek gave him a warning growl. “Will you use your own legs, or shall I assist you?”

Griffen’s eyes flared for a moment, his fingers curling to fists, but he made no response. After a few moments of breathing rapidly, he headed for Aarif, faced off with him for a moment, then turned and marched down the stairs. Aarif followed, and Tarek brought up the rear, fastening the cellar door behind them.

Before Tarek reached the final step, he heard Griffen cry out—a moment of high human emotion, true pain, and definite fury. He envied Aarif the pleasure of seeing Griffen’s unguarded expression.

Tarek stepped onto the cellar’s cobblestone floor, gratified to see the six Created he had selected for this duty facing him with silent dignity. They were each in full tiger form, golden eyes bright with intelligence and, thankfully, sanity. He had armed them with swords and rifles to complement their impressive fangs and claws, and once he and Aarif took Griffen from the cellar tonight, these loyal children would slaughter anyone who attempted to enter the space without Tarek’s leave.

Tarek turned to his right, where rows of wine racks filled the wall in front of Aarif and Griffen. The bottles had been removed to make room for the elementally treated shackles. She had been placed in a semiconscious state using an injection of Rakshasa venom balanced with metal extracts, opiates, and elemental fluids to keep the venom temporarily inert. The shackles fixed her limp, unconscious body to the wooden racks at the wrists and ankles. A flat, band-shaped clamp held her head back to prevent her from leaning forward until she slowly suffocated. In a gesture of mercy, Tarek had left the girl clothed, and he had hooded her so her slack-faced drooling didn’t offend him.

Still, Rebecca Kincaid was recognizable by her size and shape alone. Her slight frame seemed unnaturally small against the cuffs and chains.

Griffen didn’t take his eyes from Rebecca, and his words left him in a harsh rush. “Let my sister go, or I’ll kill you all.”

Tarek allowed himself a chuckle at the sorcerer’s expense, and the sound bounced through the little cellar. “If you had the power to do that, you would have acted by now. We both know you don’t.”

Griffen turned on Tarek so fast and fiercely that Tarek actually knew a moment’s startled doubt, but he quickly read the mix of abject rage and helplessness on the sorcerer’s face. He took a slow breath of the cellar’s air, which still held a hint of wine bouquet from bottles that had been broken in the removal, then he held up his hand in a calming gesture. “She is unharmed and safe for now.”

He explained about the stasis induced by the inert venom, and the simple injection it would take to activate that venom.

Griffen’s gaze whipped to his sister, and Tarek knew the sorcerer wanted to run to her and rip her chains free of the wine racks. Aarif tensed, ready to stop him if it came to that, but Griffen held himself in check.

“When the four Sibyls who concern me are dead,” Tarek said, “I’ll administer an injection that dissolves the venom and return her to you undamaged.”

Griffen took this in with another modicum of self-control, impressive for a human. Tarek knew better than to let him regain his emotional balance, so he moved closer to the sorcerer, violating the man’s sense of safety in the ways he knew Griffen would despise the most.

“If you betray me or disappoint me in any way, she’ll be turned and used as the Eldest see fit.” Tarek knew his own smile was cruel now, as it had to be. “When we tire of her, she’ll be put to death.”

“We will not spare her any pain,” Aarif said, gazing at the girl in a fashion that suggested he would very much like to have some time with Rebecca and inflict that pain himself. “Her suffering will be proportional to your failures.”

Griffen went an unpleasant shade of purple, but his mouth remained firmly closed.

Tarek understood the sorcerer’s feelings, though he felt no sympathy. Rebecca was Griffen’s only real companion, a pride of one, but Griffen’s pride nonetheless. If Tarek were in the sorcerer’s position, he would do all he could to retrieve his kin and protect her from pain.

After many long, silent seconds, the sorcerer spoke through his teeth. “What do you want?”

The enraged submission in Griffen’s tone pleased Tarek. Better. Things were already improving between them.

“I need your assistance in retrieving the lure I intend to use to hook the Sibyls, and when the Sibyls take the bait you will fight with us and help us to destroy the four witches with the old magicks.”

Griffen let out air through his nose, loudly, almost a snort. “And after that?”

“Rebecca is yours again, we part ways, and you will be free to pursue your own desires and aims. And I—” Tarek leaned into Griffen’s face, letting his claws extend before he put his hand on the back of Griffen’s neck and pulled him forward until they touched at the forehead. “I will be free of you. If you cross my path again in the future, I’ll rip out your throat and feed your carcass to the Created.”

He waited, his eyes inches from Griffen’s gleaming blue orbs.

“I’ll do it,” the sorcerer said, though Tarek knew Griffen would rather bring the mansion down around them than agree to surrender whatever it was he had been plotting outside of Tarek’s awareness. Whatever it was didn’t matter in the least to Tarek, not now that he had regained control of the servant he had once counted as his most valuable tool in the Rakshasa’s bid to regain their former glory and happiness.

Tarek let Griffen go. “Report to me daily by noon with reports of your Coven’s progress and the preparation of the Created for battle, or your sister will meet her fate.”

Griffen’s single nod was so stiff Tarek thought it a wonder the man’s neck didn’t crack at its base.

The sorcerer spent a few long seconds studying his chained sister, then made his way up the steps and out of the wine cellar.

“Should I follow?” asked Aarif, who unbeknownst to Griffen had been the sorcerer’s shadow since Tarek realized he needed more direct means of tracking the man’s activities.

“No. It no longer matter whether or not he complies.” Tarek patted Aarif on the shoulder, promising himself that he would never again lose sight of whom he could trust. “Either he reports to me and I see progress, or we kill the girl, slaughter his Covens, and have done with them.”

“But the battle—” Aarif began.

“The Coven is important to our aims, yes, but we could succeed without them.”

Aarif’s bow was graceful.
“Culla.”

Tarek’s heart swelled anew at his true brother’s loyalty. They had come so far since the days of Strada’s leadership, when Tarek had taken regular beatings for disagreeing with the older brother he now missed with a reasonable detachment.

“Come, brother.” Tarek patted Aarif again. “Let us rejoin our family and enjoy this reunion. In the morning our work resumes.”

Tarek turned for the stairs and climbed for the kitchen, hearing Aarif padding quietly in his wake. As Aarif closed the cellar door behind them, Tarek thought he heard a whimper from the chained girl below.

She was strong, that one, despite her appearance, to regain any sort of consciousness with the venom she’d received.

Tarek snarled as he left the door behind him and headed back toward the celebration in the mansion’s walled backyard. It was a pity, really, that he was so certain Griffen would keep his part of their new bargain, because Aarif was right about Rebecca.

She would be an interesting conquest.

(
 31 
)

Camille had been nervous more times in her life than she could count, but this about took the cake. She had put on her best jeans, a loose-fitting black shirt, and a long leather overcoat to cover her scimitar. He was dressed in like fashion, carrying his broadsword—but he didn’t have to deal with a blindfold.

“How does Central Park sound?” he asked as he walked her along, arm around her shoulder, holding her close to him so she could match his steps.

“Like it did five minutes ago, when you started turning me in circles.”

“Listen.” He stopped her, kissed her. They were two young lovers heading for a big surprise—part of which was true.

Camille kept her arms around John’s neck and did as he suggested, taking in the laughter of children, the rattle of wind through branches that had shed their leaves, and the distant rush of traffic on the main roads. If she really paid attention, she could spend hours detailing each nuance and hint of a noise—Sibyl hearing was as acute as Sibyl vision, just not accurate over long distances.

John kissed her again, warming her lips and finding her tongue with his.

“Mmm.” He tasted like mint again, this time from gum. She liked the sharper sensation, and it made the inside of her mouth tingle. “You’re into this role-playing, aren’t you?” she said against his rough cheek. “Maybe it’s the blindfold. Are you into blindfolds, John?”

“Let me tie you up one day and you’ll find out.”

Goddess, that voice.

And the invitation made her insides tingle as much as her mouth.

“Come on,” John said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

He took her hand again, pulling her along fast, making her laugh and stumble as she ran with him, trusting him more than she thought she could. Running blind. What a complete rush.

She knew he was taking her around and around, covering ground they had already covered, but she tried not to pay attention even though her Sibyl brain automatically traced the route and calculated their position and direction—steadily northeast. Sometime later, Camille estimated they were somewhere near 119th Street, and she had an idea where they were headed. Probably into the aqueduct, down into the earth, into one of the lost tunnels no longer in use under New York City.

She tried to keep her step light and her breathing normal, but she couldn’t help remembering that the Legion used to manufacture Asmodai demons in those tunnels. The demon who’d killed Bette had ambushed them from one of the old aqueduct gatehouses.

Then and now. Two different time periods, two different realities. There are no Asmodai here
.

“You okay, beautiful?” John’s voice echoed against stone because they were inside now. “If this is making you nervous—”

“I’m fine. Just keep us going. I—I trust you.”

He squeezed her arm and moved them ahead, just like she asked, taking a more direct route now, and Camille noticed the smells changing. City air shifted to something more stale. At first she picked up mold and rot, but that finally gave way to something more fertile. Old rock and moss. Her tenseness gave way at the familiarity, like the tunnels under Motherhouse Ireland. Maybe all stone places shared things in common. Camille had a flash of the channels of energy she had learned to work since she could first walk and talk. They were a lot like this—big, quiet, dark holes through the earth, through space and time. Passageways. There were so many, infinite directions, infinite possibilities. It would be like connecting every tunnel on the planet, hooking them all together. She could get anywhere if she just knew the way and held the destination firmly in her mind.

She stumbled from the image and the realization, from seeing communications channels in a new, simpler way. John steadied her, and before he could ask, she said, “Sorry. I was thinking about something too hard and not paying attention to my feet.”

“I could carry you,” he offered, talking close enough to her ear that chills rushed along her neck and shoulders.

“Don’t tempt me, hot stuff.”

From somewhere up ahead, Camille heard footsteps.

John slowed, and she immediately had trouble catching her breath.

Asmodai—

It’s not Asmodai. Get over it
.

The smell was all wrong for Asmodai.

Whatever was heading toward them, it had fur, and it walked with a measured, stealthy gait.

Cat
, her nose told her.
Tiger. Rakshasa—but different
.

It really did have to be different, because the dinar around her neck gave off little more than a faint buzz with an occasional tremble. That was interesting to her, since the coin reacted to Created, and biologically, as far as anyone knew, Bengals and Created were exactly the same creatures.

Cloth and leather scrubbed against stone. Weapons tapped in sheaths. Big weapons. The space around them seemed small and compressed, still a tunnel, not much room to maneuver. John’s grip on her arm tightened, and she knew he was ready to pull off her blindfold if he needed to.

A few moments of silence ensued, then a very deep voice, more snarl than speech, said, “She is the one?”

“Yes,” John said.

The other … man? Bengal? … made a noise like a long, slow sniff. Then they were moving again, walking at a fast pace seemingly straight toward the center of the earth.

When they stopped a minute or so later, a cool, steady breeze told Camille they had entered a much larger space, probably some sort of big chamber. Even though she sensed a lot of life around her, the place was so quiet she could almost hear the air stirring past her ears.

John pressed his hand against her back, encouraging her to lean over, so Camille bent at the waist, and her dinar came forward to dangle in the air below her neck. Somebody started loosening her blindfold, but she didn’t think it was John.

When the cloth fell away from her face, Camille found herself almost nose to nose with a silver-haired woman in a silver gown. She had white eyes and strange scars, she smelled like rosewood, and she felt like a Mother, though Camille couldn’t say which element dominated her energy signature.

Behind the woman, in a gigantic candlelit chamber, stood dozens of soldiers, silent and unmoving, dressed in jeans and T-shirts and armed with broadswords. Not anything like Sibyls, but an army all the same. Camille could tell they were elite fighters, well trained, the type that were always improving.

“Camille,” the woman said, as if she had known Camille her whole life. “I’m Elana,
taza
of the Bengals.” She touched the coin around Camille’s neck as if in greeting, and the freaky little piece of jewelry seemed to purr like it knew her or something.

“The dinar repels Rakshasa and Created,” Camille said. “But it doesn’t repel you. Why?”

“It knows me.” Elana touched the coin again and made it purr. “It’s keyed to demon essence. Those of us who have learned to be more human than demon won’t activate its protections.”

It knows me
.

Great. More riddles
.

Camille resisted the urge to ask Elana if she had ever met anyone named Ona. Her energy was as powerful as Ona’s, as limitless as any Mother’s, yet different. This was a woman who could see without seeing, know without being told, and find the answers to the world’s mysteries without ever whispering them to a soul.

Careful to be considerate and deliberate in all her movements, Camille stood.

“She asked to come,” John said.

“So I assumed.” Elana moved back and let Camille’s blindfold drop to the chamber’s stone floor. “You were right to bring her. I’m impressed that you’ve done so well with the Sibyls. You’re a man of many talents, John Cole.”

“I’m a man with a goal, Elana.” He smiled back at her, and Camille noticed how much more softly he spoke to Elana, like she might be his grandmother. That was fitting. Elana felt scary and powerful, for sure, but yeah, also grandmotherly.

“Camille is a fine purpose,” Elana said, bringing a fast rush of heat to Camille’s cheeks.

John cleared his throat. “I meant killing Rakshasa.”

“That’s on your list, I have no doubt. I think, however, that it’s been a while since you examined that list and checked the order of its items.”

Elana let Camille take in the magnitude and extent of her fighting force, then gestured for them to disperse. When the room had emptied except for six huge fighters Camille figured were her personal guards, Elana said, “I’m honored by your visit, Camille, but if you’ve come to ask us for our alliance in battle, I can’t grant that request—though we remain friendly to and supportive of your aims.”

Elana’s assumption took Camille by surprise. “That’s not my purpose, but if I might ask, why would you refuse a fighting agreement?”

“Like your own people, mine have seen too much of war.” Elana gestured to her warrior guard. “Most of these, even my own guards, never asked for what befell them, and they battle only to protect their own and their freedom. That’s all I can ask of them. We make no pact to defend the world.”

Camille studied the stone-faced Bengal guards, not even able to guess at their ages, but she knew the fatigue she saw in their eyes. “I understand.”

Elana watched Camille for a few moments, though Camille knew that interpretation was in her head, since Elana had no actual vision. “If alliance wasn’t the purpose for this visit, why have you come?”

“I want to learn better fighting skills.” Why did that sound so lame?

It was Elana’s turn to be surprised, because she said, “You? Of all Sibyls, why on earth would you feel deficient?”

She must not know
. Camille felt herself deflate. John had emphasized that Elana thought Camille was very important in the coming battle with the Rakshasa. “I’m not like my sister Sibyls. I can’t make fire on command, not easily or consistently at least, and—”

“Of course you can’t.” Elana waved this off with some impatience. “One talent gives in favor of the other.”

Camille stopped talking and she stopped trying to find the right words to plead her case. “Excuse me?”

“You’re a elemental sentient, not a generator. As one ability grows stronger, the other weakens, since they draw from the same source.”

The simplicity and certainty of Elana’s statement struck Camille like a slap, and her head snapped back. She found herself blinking, trying to grasp what Elana had said so easily, like this was something everyone had been taught in childhood, but confusion descended.

“You’re losing me,” John said. “Can I get a quick primer?”

“I’m wondering if I need one myself,” Camille muttered.

Elana’s expression moved from surprise to concern to anger. She made a motion to her guards, and they, too, cleared the chamber. As soon as they were completely alone, in barely controlled and shaky tones, Elana asked, “Why would you not know something so basic about your own abilities?”

Camille didn’t know what to say to this. Finally she explained, “Sentient talents aren’t given much value in the Motherhouses these days. There are no lessons about sentience, just basic definitions and explanations about how to use sentience in conjunction with pyrogenesis.”

Elana’s coloring darkened a shade. “I know the Sibyls chose to develop other skills, but they would have to expect some like yourself to be born with the full measure of older talents—especially when the universe understands the need.”

Camille knew she should be respectful to John’s friend, but she started pacing. “I think I’m the first in a long time with more than minimal pyrosentient talents.”

“So there was no one to teach you? No one at all?” Elana seemed to need to sit down.

Camille glanced around but saw nothing. John had been looking around the chamber, too, and once he realized nothing was there, he offered Elana his arm to steady her.

Elana favored him with a smile, giving her scarred face a gentler, more serene appearance, though her flat, white eyes had gone wide, and that made her seem unusually distant. Camille imagined she saw distraction in those eyes, and new worry, confusion, and concern.

“So you’re familiar with projective energy?” Camille asked. “You understand it?”

Elana’s fingers curled against John’s arm, and color rose in her scarred face. “I am, but until this moment, it wasn’t something I thought I’d ever have to discuss in much detail again.”

“I need to understand, Elana,” John said. “I’m living in a houseful of women who use this stuff every day—and even they don’t seem to fully know what they’re doing.” He stopped. Looked at Camille. “Sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”

“It’s true,” Camille said. “All we know is what we’ve found in our archives—which isn’t much—and what we’ve been able to teach ourselves.”

Elana’s complexion was too dark to turn pale, but her lips twitched toward frowning. She seemed to argue with herself for a nanosecond, then she gestured to a door in the chamber and led them to a smaller room with a stone table with seven stone chairs around it.

The first thing Camille noticed in the room was its smell. Elementally clean. Moist, well-kept stone—and all over the walls, paintings, only these paintings were maps. She moved closer to the nearest map and saw that mountains and other landmarks were raised and textured. She touched the tiny wooden and clay and plaster areas, noting the lines running from everything, faint but connected, like little threads tying the whole world together. Because of new structures left off the maps and old landmarks still visible, some of these works of art were old indeed. A few had jagged words painted in a few places, labeling them, and the center map, a wide desert landscape, had what looked like a child’s pencil scrawl near the center, saying,
Heaven
.

The maps had been signed simply
Elana
.

Camille glanced at the woman as she took a seat at the stone table. Elana might have lost her eyes, but not her art. That said a lot for her determination.

John took the seat across from Elana, and after Camille had settled herself next to him, Elana said, “And now for your primer, John. I believe you’re familiar with the more common Sibyl talents, such as elemental genesis.”