Captive Soul (4 page)

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August

Asmodai in her dreams.

Asmodai in her daydreams.

Since Camille had been hunted by, then hunted, that thing in Central Park, her old nightmares about the Asmodai demons who’d slaughtered her sister Sibyl right before her eyes had come roaring back. There hadn’t been a single Asmodai reported anywhere in the world since the Legion fell, but the big, ugly, smelly bastards were alive and well in her twisted mind.

An omen?

A portent?

Stop it
.

The fact that Camille hadn’t found—or been found by—the thing in Central Park again was the only thing sparing her sanity, and now this ceremony-for-the-past shit was threatening to burn up her inner peace more brutally than any Asmodai could ever manage.

She stood on a stone battlement at Motherhouse Ireland with about twenty other women, hating the wind that stung her eyes and whipped her auburn hair into knots she’d never comb loose without yanking herself bald. Heavy clouds turned the landscape gray and damp and miserable, and any second the heavens would open and rain would wash them all away.

Sometimes the hidden valley near Connemara, Ireland, seemed to spread for miles, fresh and green and beautiful beyond words. Sometimes the castle grounds bustled with frenetic energy that couldn’t be equaled, that demanded enjoyment and excitement and smiles and wild, optimistic outlooks. Sometimes Motherhouse Ireland was a haven and a sanctuary, and the only place Camille wanted to be.

But sometimes the place just sucked.

Today the entire world sucked, as far as Camille was concerned.

At least she and her companions had on their battle leathers, though, being fire Sibyls, few of them were wearing the masks. Too confining. Though she figured she’d regret that choice when the rains came and froze her cheeks solid before she could get inside.

She frowned at the fields below the Motherhouse, which were covered with Sibyls about to experience an old-fashioned Irish gully washer. On her left stood the earth Sibyls and brown-robed Mothers from Motherhouse Russia, no doubt trying to be earthy and steady and helpful. In the center, green-robed Mothers and fire Sibyl adepts and warriors huddled together, giving off steady clouds of smoke. Air Sibyls from Motherhouse Greece occupied the field on her right, with their blue robes and windy, breezy gestures and expressions. Just about in the middle of the mix, in her glowing yellow robe, was Andy, the world’s only fully trained water Sibyl, who had arrived an hour ago from Motherhouse Kérkira, in the Ionian Sea. Andy was anything but breezy, and even at a distance, Camille’s keen Sibyl vision showed her Andy’s scowl and tightly folded arms.

Looking at so many Sibyls, Camille felt the absence of her first fighting group like a constant ache in her chest. The two women who had first made her their sister Sibyl were lost to her, gone forever. That was why she had to stand on this stupid wall once every three years, when it was Motherhouse Ireland’s turn to host the remembrance ceremony, and try to keep herself together. Her new fighting group, the only quad in existence, stared up at her from the crowd—Andy in her idiotic yellow robes, Bela in her brown robes, and Dio in her blue robes. They had been together just over a year, but so far they had managed not to kill one another.

What happens if I let them down again
?

Camille’s left eye twitched even as she tried to hold her face perfectly still.

What happens
when
I let them down again
?

Tears made Camille blink, worsening the twitch until she surrendered and closed her eyes. Couldn’t the worries leave her alone for just one day?

Heat prickled against her cheeks, and the pungent scent of wildfire and smoke forced her eyes open again. Mother Keara, one of the oldest Irish Mothers, reached the top of a set of steps leading up from the castle. Her unbelievable warmth came and went like an orange wave as she passed Camille on her way to the center of the battlement, without sparing Camille so much as a glance.

Typical.

Camille had never known deep relationships at Motherhouse Ireland after the Sibyl who gave birth to her had been killed in battle. There was one time, before she was even ten years old, when she’d met an old woman down in the tunnels, an old woman she thought might have been a Mother, no matter what she said. Camille had thought that woman might turn out to be a friend, especially after she somehow put a stop to the bullying that had plagued Camille in her early years. Yet Camille had never seen her again. She figured Ona had died or finished going insane, or simply lost interest when she saw Camille really wasn’t going to develop any definitive talent for pyrogenesis. Whatever happened, it didn’t matter, because what was done couldn’t be undone. Camille had finished her training with high accolades in everything but battle skills, and she had never bothered currying favor with her fellow fire Sibyls or the Mothers. She doubted she would ever experience their love or support, but that was old news, and not worth the time it took to cry about it. She needed to stay in the present, and the present was the ceremony, no matter how much she despised every moment of it.

Tiny and wrinkled but still spry, Mother Keara stepped onto a small raised area of stone so she could see the grounds and the Sibyls below. The ropes of gray hair spilling down her shoulders were too heavy to move in the wind, but her green robes snapped in the sharp gusts. Without preamble, she raised both gnarled hands and loosed two massive gouts of fire from her palms. Her orange flames shot toward the thunderous sky, rebellious, seeming powerful enough to part the clouds, but the sky didn’t stir.

“Aban, Angela,” Mother Keara shouted without looking at notes. “Abel, Victoria. Abhen, Westra.”

Her voice blasted against the clouds, as forceful as the flames she had released.

The names.

Goddess, the names.

All those lives. All those women.

Camille listened to the list with growing numbness as Mother Keara recited them all, any killed in battle all the way back to the time before Sibyls even called themselves Sibyls, and the numbness gave way to a slow burn in her gut when her mother’s name rang out in Mother Keara’s lyrical Irish brogue.

By the time the older woman’s recitation moved on to air Sibyls, Camille didn’t bother trying not to cry.

“Carmella, Bette,” Mother Keara said soon, too soon. Camille coughed from the blow, mostly to keep from sobbing out loud. Bette had died in battle, right beside Camille. They had been ambushed by Asmodai demons in Van Cortlandt Park, near the Old Croton Aqueduct. Nothing anyone could do.

Sure. Just keep telling yourself that, and you’ll get Dio killed, or maybe Bela or Andy
. Sibyls always worked in groups, with earth Sibyls serving as the mortars, responsible for picking the group and holding it together. As a fire Sibyl, the pestle of the group, it was Camille’s job to handle communications and close-quarters fighting. Simply put, she was supposed to keep her mortar alive at all costs. Air Sibyls served as the brooms, battling from a distance, charged with keeping perspective—and sweeping up messes. Water Sibyls were supposed to be in charge of flow, but Andy was the only water Sibyl in a fighting group in the world right now, and she wasn’t so good with regulating her own emotions, much less helping her fighting group regulate theirs. As for healing, the special talent of water Sibyls, Andy hadn’t quite figured out that skill, either.

Their quad was far from perfect.

Oh, hell
.

Their quad was a train wreck waiting to happen, but Camille loved her new sister Sibyls desperately. She’d die before she’d let any harm come to them.

“James, Alisa,” Mother Keara announced.

Camille’s heart lurched.

She hadn’t realized Mother Keara had moved on to the earth Sibyls lost in battle.

Hold it together. Hold on, hold on …

But she couldn’t. Not really. Alisa James had claimed Camille for a fighting partner and taken her away from Motherhouse Ireland. Then Alisa had been locked up at Rikers Island for a crime she didn’t commit and murdered in jail. Camille had never had the chance to protect her.

Her thoughts tore free and floated toward the rain-swollen sky, and for a few seconds nothing seemed true or concrete or tangible, not even her own body or the hard stone beneath her leather boots. She felt like crap. She felt like before, when she was a little girl who couldn’t find any safe place, or later, when she ran away from the deaths of her fighting group and hid for years inside the thick stone walls of Motherhouse Ireland.

Bela. Dio. Andy
. Camille recited the names to herself, imagining them like anchors pulling her down from the clouds.

They were still alive, and she had a responsibility to them. She absolutely couldn’t allow herself to go to pieces again, especially not on some frigging stone wall in front of just about every living Sibyl on Earth.

Bela. Dio. Andy
.

Camille’s emotional fog started to clear. She couldn’t let anything happen to this fighting group. She had to keep finding ways to be better at what she
could
do, to be stronger so she could do her part to keep her quad whole and safe.

The woman next to her elbowed her, and Camille raised her chin.

The reading of the names had ended, thank the universe. Mother Keara was talking about Sibyls and strength and determination, and about ridding the world of perverted energies and evil creatures who used the elements to do harm.

Camille realized she was shaking and weeping, and the sigh she released seemed to come all the way from her toes. Losing both of her first sister Sibyls within weeks of each other had shattered her, but some of the pieces had been glued back together. Bela had come for her, claimed her for a new fighting group, and challenged her to return to the land of the living. Bela had challenged her to fight.

“We fight,” Mother Keara announced, echoing Camille’s thoughts as she finished the remembrance. “We fight for fairness. We fight for honor. We fight for the world. Let our strength burn in your souls now and always, until we meet again.”

Once more she lifted her arms and fire blasted from her palms.

The Sibyls around Camille gave off dense smoke and let fly with their own flames. Camille raised her hands for Bette and Alisa, and for the bits of her own soul that had died with them. The fire energy around her glowed like the sun in her eyes. She could taste it, smell it, touch it, even glory in it, but no flames burst out of her body. She barely smoked and she didn’t drop so much as a trickle of sparks.

Her teeth clamped together, and she wanted to swear and cry and kick something. Her chilled fingers curled into fists. How was it possible that she was a fire Sibyl, born and trained in a Motherhouse, and she couldn’t create her own element with any reliability? Not even now, when she would give a body part to honor her dead fighting group with a show of her own strength.

The disgusted, pitying expressions of the other fire Sibyls around her made silent comments about that strength—or lack of it. Mother Keara was looking at her, too, and the old woman’s blazing green eyes held the same judgment.

Too little, too quiet, too weak
.

Camille
really
wished she had her scimitar, just to draw the blade and stare down each of the women on the battlement, Mother Keara included, until they moved away from her and went back down to the castle. Without her weapon, she had nothing but matted hair, wet eyes, and freezing fingers. Paltry heat rose in her cheeks—embarrassment, not power—and she felt nine years old again, failing in most of her lessons, shunted to the side as a reject who probably wouldn’t make the cut to fight, and running for her life down endless, dark stone corridors.

On the fields below, the crowd began to disperse and head into the keep before the storm struck. Camille spun away from Mother Keara and her glare, and elbowed past the Sibyls separating her from the steps.

Retreat.

Why did that always seem to be her best option?

Ah, screw it
.

She more or less ran down the steps before any of them could see her cry again and slammed open the door at the foot of the stairs. When she stormed into the dark, quiet hallway leading toward the main entrance, she almost crushed a tiny figure standing directly in the middle of the corridor.

The woman’s scarred, white face and puckered, empty left eye were as unmistakable as her pheasant-egg bald head. Camille almost cried out from the shock of seeing Ona standing there like a spirit straight from Camille’s past, from the childhood she didn’t really want to commemorate.

“Figured you would be the first one down, like all the times before.” Ona spoke as though no time had passed since their long-ago meeting near the tunnels under Motherhouse Ireland. She had no accent, and obviously, she still spoke so rarely that it left her voice sounding rough and hoarse.

“I hate that ceremony,” Camille muttered, processing what Ona meant—that the old woman had seen Camille fleeing from these ceremonies before.

“I hate those ceremonies, too, and most others, which is why I don’t attend.” Ona studied Camille with her good eye, which was a strange, shadowy shade of black. Her unlined face had no discernible expression. “Why do you put yourself through that torture?”

“It’s—I—” Camille fished for an explanation, but she was too rattled by Ona’s appearance and the question to find an answer. “It’s expected,” she said after a few seconds, then realized how lame that sounded.

“Expectations. Rules.” Ona raised a slender hand and gestured toward the stone walls and ceiling. Gold bracelets glittered along her arm. They seemed too still, fixed in place, not like bangles or normal jewelry. “The likes of us, we don’t do so well with edicts and pointless traditions. From this day forward, do what feels right instead of what you’re told is right.”

“Yeah, okay, like that’s so easy.” Camille’s shame and anger faded as she tried to absorb the sight of the barefoot enigma, who still wasn’t wearing the green robes of the Motherhouse. Today Ona had on a white tunic and black cotton breeches that made her look like a throwback to medieval times.