Captive Soul (3 page)

“You know who I am,” it said, and that intense voice curled across her body like she wasn’t even wearing her battle leathers. She felt the sound
everywhere
.

“I don’t.” Too fast. Like a lie, except it wasn’t.

I do
.

No, she didn’t.

I’ve sensed this man before
.

But she hadn’t.

She wished she could stop shaking. She wished her nerves weren’t shivering from the sound of that voice.

“The Rakshasa demon pride isn’t back in New York City yet,” the thing in the bushes told her, and Camille gave up on her plan to cut it to ribbons.

She surrendered to the confusion and uncertainty and lowered her scimitar. “How the hell do you know what I’m looking for?”

The thing let out a breath, actually sounding as tired as she felt. “Because I’m hunting them, too. When those assholes get back to New York, I’ll make sure you know, but don’t come looking for them alone again.”

“Fuck you.” Camille squinted at the big shadow. “You’re not my mother—but
who are you
?”

“You know who I am,” it said again, hot and devil-sexy, and before she could argue, it was gone. Park bushes rustled in its wake, and a soft fall breeze brought his scent back to Camille. Light, spicy, and masculine. The perfect aftershave.

“Not possible,” she said aloud to nobody as she jammed her scimitar into its sheath. Then, much louder, “Not possible!”

Her mind pulled away from her and she tried to snatch back her focus, her awareness, but it was too late. The memory from last year struck her with the force of a fist, making her stagger back and sit right down on the wet, dark grass.

Dio’s voice rang out through the cold, dark alley, strong as the wind. “Camille! Get the demon!”

Camille charged forward. Strada, a big white-furred monster with claws and fangs like a prehistoric saber-toothed tiger, was choking Duncan Sharp with a gold chain
.

Choking him
.

Choking him to death
.

Not happening.

Camille launched herself at Strada, swinging her scimitar as she jumped, right at the demon’s head
.

The blade came down in a perfect arc—

And hit something like electric concrete
.

“Shit!”

Her voice echoed in her own brain as her bones seemed to compact from the blow and white-hot agony seared every muscle she owned
.

The hilt tore out of her hands. She stumbled to the side, fighting for balance as she saw Duncan’s face go blood red and dark, his eyes closed
.

Dying
.

Seconds left
.

Since Camille had no real fire making to draw on, she knew what she had to do
.

Damnit, no choice
.

She had to!

Dio and Bela shouted at her, and Andy, too, but Camille got her balance, charged toward Duncan and the demon, and dropped to her knees beside Duncan and the Rakshasa. She pulled deep inside her own power, to her own well of elemental energy, and willed her awareness of fire to bring itself forward
.

Pyrosentience was all about channeling the fire energy, drawing it through her instead of into her. Simple. Different from fire making. Infinitely more powerful—and infinitely more dangerous. Her whole quad had a touch of sentient gifts with their elements, and the Mothers had all but forbidden them to use these powers, because nobody really knew what could happen
.

“I’m saving Duncan’s life,” she muttered to herself as she opened her senses and tiny lasers of firelight broke across her fingers. Fire energy, pulled through her, escaping to the world again in controlled bursts through her skin
.

She pushed at the demon, but his energy turned hers away
.

Strada tightened his grip on Duncan, who lost consciousness
.

Not strong enough!

More screaming from her quad—but Camille couldn’t listen to them or Duncan was a dead man and this demon bastard would have them all for dinner. Focusing every bit of her fire awareness into her hands, she grabbed the coin on the end of the chain Strada was using to choke Duncan
.

The dinar, she knew, had projective properties—it could take in energy and feed it out again in big, concentrated blasts. The coin would magnify her pyrosentience hundreds of times over
.

The second she made contact with the metal, it seemed
like every stray ounce of fire energy in the universe channeled itself through her
.

Hit by lightning
.

Blown apart
.

Camille screamed as the force of it seemed to tear her apart
.

A roar like a thousand volcanoes erupting crushed against her ears. Her skin—was it coming off?

All she could do was scream and try to shove back against the onslaught. Barely there. Barely able to focus on anything. She couldn’t possibly be in one piece, but somehow she knew she was, still screaming but making no sound now, eyes open but seeing nothing but a huge swirl of golden, pulsing fire energy going to war with the dark power pouring off the bellowing tiger-demon
.

This time when she hit Strada, she made contact. Enough to get her free hand on the chain. To take control of it and ease the pressure on Duncan’s neck
.

A stench—hot desert winds and fresh blood—

The connection, Duncan Sharp to her to Strada
.

The golden storm around them—

Duncan coughing himself back to awareness—

And then the ghost in Duncan’s head, the ghost of his dead best friend, starting to move, to set itself free and finally fling itself off this mortal coil—

Camille sat in Central Park, breathing slowly and steadily so that she wouldn’t cry, not wanting to think about what had happened next on that terrible night, but she couldn’t help herself.

The ghost that was inhabiting Duncan Sharp’s head, a man named John Cole, a man she’d never met before in her life, had suddenly been in that alley beside her. He was there, and then he was gone.

Only he wasn’t gone
.

Many, many times in Camille’s life, she’d been convinced she was losing her mind, but all of those times paled in comparison to that night, and now this one.

In that alley, John Cole
had
been there, with his green eyes and dark hair. She’d touched him inside and out for that one moment. She had seen him, heard him, and smelled that enticing, spicy aftershave she wouldn’t ever forget, and then he was gone.

He. Wasn’t. Gone
.

“Yes, he was.” Camille scrubbed her palms against her cheeks to keep herself in the now, in today, in the reality of middle-of-the-night and dangerous-as-hell Central Park.

John Cole was gone.

She’d told herself this every time she allowed herself to remember what she’d done that night, how she’d saved Duncan and set free the spirit of John Cole. Then how she’d gotten confused and let the demon Strada convince her that somehow the wandering spirit of John Cole had ended up in his body. That’s why she had let Strada escape.

Damn me
.

Strada had gotten away. Duncan had gotten better. John Cole was gone forever to wherever spirits went after their bodies died.

I looked in that demon’s eyes, and they were John Cole’s. The demon spoke to me in John Cole’s voice
.

And it had to have been a trick. A brilliant move on Strada’s part to save his demon ass.

But the way he looked, the way he smelled, that voice …

Camille wanted to pound her head on the ground.

The man who’d been following her tonight, she did know him. But she couldn’t, because he couldn’t possibly have been there. Camille was as sure of that as she was of the skyscraper lights, her earlier sense of being followed, and the fact that she shouldn’t be patrolling alone.

Camille didn’t have a clue what else to do, so she curled up on the grass and hugged her knees to her chest.

The man who’d been following her tonight couldn’t have been there, because that man—the one man she had ever really, truly, deeply touched, even if only for one literally shining moment inside a shimmering golden cloud of madness—had died a year ago.

And Camille had just let Strada, leader of the Rakshasa demons, play her all over again.

(
 2 
)

Jesus, but seeing that woman up close and personal again felt like torture.

He kept moving, through Central Park, around Central Park, because he didn’t know what else to do. John Cole—on the inside, even if the outside was not what anybody might expect—got far enough away from her that he thought he could keep himself from following her as she headed home. Then he dropped onto a bench on Balcony Bridge because one place was as good as another.

He leaned forward and let his head hang toward his knees, but that didn’t block his view of the darkened walkway at his feet. In the strange night lighting, it seemed like a cracked stone slab, and his mind flashed on the entrance to that godforsaken temple in the mountains of Afghanistan near Kabul, which he and others had explored during the war. The scorch marks. The heat fissures.

Looks like it got cooked
. That’s what he’d said to one of the ten men from Recon who went with him and the contingent of Vatican priests. Then, to his commander, Jack Blackmore, in lower tones,
What the hell are we doing here, Blackjack? What are all these high-level priests doing here? They won’t tell me anything, and I’m supposed to be one of them
.

Standing orders
. Blackjack had eyed the big stone door with its burn marks, top to bottom. Twilight made the rock look like it was still on fire. In the distance in the big valley around the temple, John saw shadows and more stones. The ruins of an ancient village? More like a city.

We’ve had a description of this place since we hit the ground
, Blackjack had added.
Straight from military intelligence. They left details on what to do if we found it
. After another few seconds, Blackjack said,
I think the orders are old. Like, passed down for decades. Maybe centuries
.

Great
. John remembered thinking that.
Old orders about some ancient temple. That can’t be good
.

Blackjack had pulled out then, taking half of Recon with him to seal the valley and deploying the rest to form a perimeter around the temple. John’s instructions were simple enough: get the priests into the temple, let them do whatever it was they had to do, then get them back out again. Recon would escort them back to the valley’s mouth, then they’d all beat it back to camp before they got their asses shot off.

Only it hadn’t quite worked out that way.

Stop
.

Leave it alone
.

John refused to let the tension in his neck and shoulders get worse. He wouldn’t let the memories roll over him again, not here, not now. Too many years and too many miles ago, not that he’d ever get the war or the Valley of the Gods out of his mind and heart, no matter how far and how fast he ran, and no matter how much he tried to atone.

Camille—she was like that, too. Lodged inside him, maybe forever.

She was as beautiful as he remembered.

“You don’t know anything about her,” he reminded himself, his voice seeming to echo across the deserted bridge. “She’s nothing but a fantasy to you.”

Only that wasn’t really true, was it? He’d spent some time with Camille Fitzgerald and all the Sibyls in the South Bronx fighting quad after his best buddy, Duncan Sharp, got himself attacked by Rakshasa demons. John had died trying to save Duncan from John’s worst enemies, the creatures he had been hunting every single day of his life since he accidentally helped set them free from their prison in the Valley of the Gods.

John’s body had died, but a strange paranormal accident involving the ancient dinar John had given to Duncan to shield him from the Rakshasa had left John’s spirit alive and well and hanging out in Duncan’s head—until Camille had done whatever it was she did in that alley.

Golden light.

John remembered that, and he remembered giving her the dinar she now wore around her neck, but more than anything, John remembered her. The light in her eyes. The rich tones of her auburn hair. The feel of her, not just physically but spiritually. It was like he had moved through everything that made her. Like he had connected with her on every level.

Yeah.

On his way to this new body, which she could never see. She or any of her Sibyl buddies.

That thought brought him more grief than he expected, the kind of grief he remembered from the war, when somebody had died right beside him—or when he’d seen the Rakshasa start to take down Duncan Sharp, the only person in the world he’d truly cared about saving until he touched Camille.

The possibility of never really seeing her again, except from a distance, of never getting to truly talk to her or know her or hold her—it kicked him in the gut so hard he wanted to roar.

And something
was
roaring.

That was the real bitch of this whole situation, wasn’t it?

John almost laughed out loud, but he was afraid it would be a madman’s lunatic braying, because something in his mind was definitely making a lot of noise. The thing in his mind, it wasn’t quite dead or alive, but he knew it was dangerous. And definitely, definitely evil.

Dark energy surged forward, wrong energy, perverted and twisted and nauseating. John slammed his head against his fists, letting the shock of pain help him focus. Bile surged in his throat, and the darkness around him swam in sickening, expanding, contracting ways.

In his days as a priest, before he lost his faith and his collar and his freedom, John had known true evil like the thing in his head, but he had never known insanity up close. Crazy had to feel like this, taste like this, smell like this. He was crazy now, and that’s all that was left of him.

He had to put this fantasy with Camille away and focus on his only purpose. John Cole knew his spirit and knowledge had survived for one reason, and that was to kill Rakshasa, to make sure every last one of the demon bastards got wiped off the face of the earth. Then and only then could he leave crazy behind, set himself free, and take the lingering soul and essence of the last demon with him.

The demon living in his own head.

“You’re fucked, Strada,” he whispered to the monstrosity trying to chew its way through his brain.

And the Rakshasa in his head howled, and howled, and howled.

The man stood on a path in Central Park near West Sixty-third, across from one of the park entrances and in front of the brownstone where his gods-cursed enemies chose to reside. A warm, comfortable breeze stirred leaves and branches in nearby trees, making the night crinkle and rattle around him like it had some secret duty and purpose, much as he did. Moonlight lit the few steps leading into the three-story dwelling he sought, but he sensed no powerful energy and saw no sign of activity from within. The plain white curtains in the windows remained still, and all the lights were off.

Too bad.

He had come here hoping to observe, to begin the long and arduous process of learning the Sibyls’ new patterns, and perhaps their new weaknesses.

Caution. Calculation. They won’t expect those things from me
.

The man—though he wasn’t a man at all—knew his enemies anticipated his loud and forceful return to the city. They believed he would make a show of strength and draw attention to himself, that he would behave impulsively, leaving himself and his pride vulnerable to attack.

The fools.

He would not put his true brothers, his Created brothers and sisters, or his allies at risk. He was the pride’s
culla
now, and he had much to learn and accomplish.

Such as remaining comfortable in human form.

Not an easy task for him. He felt confined in this flesh, but holding this strange shape was already becoming easier. Still, his senses seemed duller than they should, and he needed to learn more focus. If he directed his energies properly, he should suffer no loss of his acute hearing, vision, and sense of smell simply because he wore the skin and shape of a human male.

With tremendous force of will, the man concentrated all of his efforts on the brownstone, and slowly, slowly his eyes let him see the brilliant colors of the elemental barriers the Sibyls had constructed and reinforced to protect their lair. Earth, air, fire, and water energy had been layered together and locked so tightly that any paranormal creature attempting to enter the brownstone or any other house on their block without their consent would be repelled—and violently, perhaps stumbling into the traffic of the busy road in front. The barriers could be broken, of course, but at high cost to the invader’s energy and strength.

He closed his eyes and let the colors fade, then opened them again and gazed at the brownstone with only human skill and perception.

Just a quiet home in New York City, with all occupants apparently asleep.

After a time, the man determined that he would gain no useful information this night, and he walked silently and quickly into the nearby bushes. With a sigh of release, he stepped out of his human form, shifting to his natural state as easily as another creature might change positions during a fitful night’s sleep. Dark fur flowed over him as his teeth expanded to their fierce and proper length, and his claws curled out of his powerful paws as his muscles flexed and pulled into their true and superior form.

In his former life, Tarek would have roared, challenging the world to come to him, to try to defeat him and fail—but he had learned much in the last year. Challenge was best reserved for times when he was certain he could win the contests.

With his numbers few in comparison to his enemies, he had to plan carefully and strike with overwhelming advantage. To do that, he must increase his allies and the force he could bring to bear. More soldiers. More weapons. Which would of course entail more money to be spent, and garnering more power to be wielded.

“Soon,” he told the sleeping occupants of the brownstone, confident that they would find nothing, that they would have no hint of his plans before his trap was sprung. He’d throw them crumbs. He’d lead them this way and that, but in the end he would destroy them with a single, glorious move.

Bordering on excited and cheerful, Tarek turned to make his exit from the park.

He had taken only a few steps when a scent came to him—familiar, yet strange at the same time.

Demon? One of his own?

But no. How could that be?

Tarek was
culla
of the Rakshasa. He knew every member of his own demon ranks, and if this were some renegade Created—hybrids formed when humans were attacked but not killed by Rakshasa—he would be able to tell by the weak spoor.

This scent was too strong. Human, yet tiger. Ripe, but distant from his current location.

He crept toward the smell, making certain to keep to the overgrowth as he moved toward his quarry. He covered ground, crossed a path, and skirted some water—yes, there, just ahead. Perhaps atop the bridge looming in the lamplit city night.

Just as Tarek prepared to leave the relative safety of the plant cover to explore this situation more thoroughly, a woman ran past his location.

A woman dressed in leather.

The shock was so great he barely held back a roar.

One of the Sibyls here—now! He could leap out and take her down with a single swipe. He could tear out her throat before she had a chance to draw her weapon. His own blood thrummed in his ears as he imagined the taste of hers. The night painted itself red as battle lust seized him, and it took every ounce of his new knowledge and self-control to hold himself in check.

Killing her would weaken his enemy but also enrage them. It would announce his return to New York City before he and his allies were prepared, and before he gathered more soldiers to fight in their battles. Perhaps worst of all, he would reveal the fact that one of his allies had developed new but meager protections to make it more difficult for the Sibyls and other paranormals to sense his presence.

Tarek lifted his paw to a thin chain hanging around his thick, powerful neck. On the chain hung a bit of iron around a tooth forged and treated so that it dispersed elemental energy. Not much. Just enough to create confusion for anyone attempting to read his energy or understand what kind of creature he might be. They would perceive him as a flicker across their awareness, not human but not malevolent or threatening, perhaps nothing but a trick from an overactive and worried mind.

No.

He couldn’t do this thing.

He couldn’t go after the Sibyl no matter how desperately his baser instincts wanted to do just that.

He forced himself to breathe slowly, imagining calming vistas and comforting textures. He let himself take in the smells of dirt and grass and water and earth until the battle lust waned and at last set him free. For good measure, he slipped back into human form to place yet another obstacle between himself and impulsive self-destruction.

When he returned his attention to the bridge and found his strange quarry gone, he almost lost control all over again, but once more kept hold of himself.

“Not this night,” he said aloud, his voice more a snarl than human words. “But soon. I’ll find you both.”