Captive Spirit (28 page)

(28)

Bela felt like her arms and legs weighed a few tons after using her terrasentience to track the poisoned energy, never mind the patrol and all that angst and violence during Walker Drake’s interview—but she was awake enough to appreciate Duncan’s reaction to seeing the communications platform used for the first time. When Camille climbed on the big wooden table in the brownstone’s living room and started to dance barefoot, she had to laugh at his bemused expression. Andy and Dio cracked up, too, then Dio took her leave and headed to the archives to see what, if anything, she could find on Rebecca Kincaid and Samuel Griffen.

“Work, work, work,” Andy griped at Dio as Dio took the stairs two at a time, but Dio ignored her. To Duncan, Andy said, “The first time I watched this communications thing happen, my entire vocabulary dwindled to ‘What the fuck.’ Here, sit on the end of the couch and keep your eyes on the projective mirrors. I’ll crash on the other end and give you splash if any fire gets away from her.”

Bela loosened the zipper on her leathers, then wiped down her sword and put it in the weapons closet. The energy in the room shifted a little more every minute, toward Camille, and Duncan appeared to be fascinated by the energy she stirred up by moving fire in patterns.

Flames broke out in the lead-lined trough that wound around the outside of the table. Duncan leaned back against the couch arm to spare his T-shirt, and Bela skirted the table to stand behind him. She let her earth energy flow across his clothes as she rubbed his big shoulders, deflecting stray sparks.

Each time Camille completed a circuit, the flames along the table flared higher. Chimes in the brownstone rang, one to the next, louder and louder, the sound moving in circles as Camille danced. She twisted, spun, and centered herself in front of the set of smaller mirrors, instead of the big ones they used to talk with the Motherhouses and to transport people and objects.

Andy grinned and scooted forward on the couch. “Watch the smaller glass, Duncan.”

The center of the little mirrors flared. Duncan’s muscles twitched beneath Bela’s hands. “I can feel that in the dinar.” He tapped his fingers against the coin. “A little buzz.”

Bela kissed the top of his head. “The coin’s metal has similar properties to the glass. Camille’s been trying to figure out how to make other metals projective—hence all the explosions in my lab.”

Duncan relaxed under her moving hands again, watching as light grew inside the glass. It swirled in circles like the sounds through the chimes, keeping time with Camille’s dance.

Camille raised her arms.

In one of the mirrors, Cynda’s face popped into view, with a backdrop Bela recognized from Headcase Quarters. More fire Sibyls appeared in the other pieces of glass, all key to the New York communications relay.

Duncan’s gaze fixed on the active pieces of glass. “That … looks like picturephones, or Internet chat with cameras, only clearer.”

On the table, Camille whirled, arms over her head, tapping rhythms with her feet. When the channels opened completely, she gave her fellow fire Sibyls all the information they had learned from tonight’s hunt and interrogation, leaving out how they had managed to track the poisoned energy in the first place.

“Got it,” Cynda said as the other fire Sibyls signed off, letting their glasses go dark. “I’ll get the OCU after financial and personal records for Samuel Griffen, and my triad will hunt this Rebecca kid on patrol, like the others—but I think we only have three groups out tonight. It may go slow. Get some sleep. We’ll call you when we’ve got her secured.”

A few seconds later, her glass went dark, too.

Duncan reached up and rubbed Bela’s wrist. “Why don’t you just use cell phones?”

Andy lounged back on her end of the couch, getting the cushions and the floor damp from her wet hair and leathers. “I’m the only one who can pull that off—if I haven’t drowned mine recently. The longer I’m a Sibyl, the harder it gets.”

Camille finished closing the channels and hopped off the table. “It’s like computers. Even with elemental grounding, cell phones are so sensitive that our elemental energy tends to kill them in a few days. Besides, you can’t send people and objects through cell phones.”

Duncan rolled his shoulders into Bela’s massage. “You send people through those mirrors?”

“Not through the mirrors, exactly.” Camille unbelted her scabbard and got out her oils to work her blade. Fire Sibyls had to take special care with their weapons, since they were always setting them on fire. “The mirrors are just gateways to channels of energy in the earth. We can put people or things in the channels, and they can travel through the adjoining mirror in seconds, or just a few minutes.”

“You could go to Ireland and be back before I got downstairs.” Bela kissed the top of Duncan’s head again, enjoying his clear, fresh scent. Icy mountain streams, fresh snow—it was perfect.

“A Sibyl could travel like that, fast and often.” Camille sat on a chair arm and ran her rag along her curved blade. “It’s harder on humans. And we found out with Jake Lowell a few years ago that it strips demons down to their demon form. Not something you need to try, Duncan.”

On the couch across from her, Andy started to snore. A steady stream of water dripped from her hand, which was hanging off the cushion. From upstairs in Dio’s rooms came the sound of swearing, wind, and big stacks of paper being shifted around. Camille drew a deep breath, then blew a whispery lick of fire against her blade, heating the oil until the whole room smelled like tangy mandarin oranges.

“It’s never boring around here, Angel. I’ll give you that.” Duncan got himself up from the couch and gave Bela a hug. “But what if I don’t want to visit Ireland while you go downstairs?”

When he pulled back, his gorgeous gray eyes teased her. Bela took both of his hands and pulled him out of the living room and into the kitchen, kissing him as soon as the door swung shut. Duncan took over then, grabbing her by the waist and lifting her up. He pulled her against his chest and carried her all the way down the stairs to her room. They made love hard and fast, and a few hours later, when Bela woke next to Duncan, she couldn’t help slipping her fingers around his delicious length.

He came out of sleep slowly as she kissed him, first on the mouth, then the throat, running her nails across him. Her lips moved lower, sampling the scars on his chest, and his rumble of pleasure woke up her whole body.

By the time she moved her mouth across his waist, he was hard, just like she wanted. His low growls at the touch of her fingertips became a groan when she pressed her lips against the tip of his shaft. When she tasted him, his back arched, and Bela wrapped her whole hand around his cock.

“I won’t last long like this.” Duncan’s hand made a fist in her hair, tugging it gently, the huskiness in his voice sending tingles all over her body.

His skin burned against her lips, and she drank in his salty taste. Fresh, like the rest of him. Ocean water after a cleansing storm. Delicious. She gripped him tight and brought him deeper into her mouth, moving down, down, until her fingers bumped her lips.

“Bela.” This time he barely got the word out. His hips moved, pumping even though she could tell he was trying to hold himself back. She moaned against his sensitive skin, and he pumped harder, and harder still when she trailed her tongue along the vein on the soft underside, squeezing and stroking with her hand.

He shuddered each time she made a sound, each time she flicked her tongue against the shaft, the base, the tip. Her fingers toyed with his sack, and that was all he could take.

He moved away from her, pulling himself free. In the same motion, he slipped his arms around her and lifted her up until her head rested on the pillows. Then he crushed his lips against hers, taking her breath, taking her thoughts, and setting her absolutely on fire.

His hands, everywhere, rubbing and stroking and touching.

His lips so demanding. His tongue against hers, hers against his. He spread her legs with his knee, and she opened to him. Wet. Ready. Yes. Just the way he squeezed her breasts nearly made her explode.

“I need you,” she whispered into his next kiss. “I need you now!”

The look he gave said,
I adore you
.

It said,
You’re mine now. Mine forever
.

Bela’s heart thrummed, so fast. She ached everywhere. She wanted him deep, and she wanted him now, and she wanted him always, always, always.

Duncan’s eyes gripped hers as he thrust himself inside her, one stroke, smooth and forceful, filling her up, then swallowing her scream with his mouth. Bela lifted her hips to meet him, over and over, clinging to his neck.

“More,” she kept whispering, out of control. Her insides shook. The bed shook. Let everything shake, she didn’t give a damn. “More. Please, Duncan. More!”

“I love you.” He drove himself deep, his voice a sensual rasp. “Everything. Every bit.”

Bela couldn’t breathe anymore. Her breasts rubbed back and forth against his chest, and every time his coin touched her, she felt its low, humming vibration. All she could do was rock, rock, rock, taking everything, all of Duncan. Her legs locked against his thighs.

So fast now. So hard.

Bela’s consciousness broke free and melted into him, into the earth itself. She moaned, and kept moaning. Heat mingled with chills and blended with shudders and shaking and rocking, more rocking, and she kept right on moaning.

Duncan’s lips claimed hers again, and Bela’s mind left her completely. She bucked and shoved against him, pleasure shaking her inside to out, and it wouldn’t stop, she couldn’t stand it, had to stand it, but she couldn’t. Duncan moved just right, drawing it out, winding her mind farther into the earth, into the power all around her and inside her, and when he came, she started moaning all over again.

“I love you,” she whispered when she could talk. “I love you.”

He was still inside her when she fell asleep, still holding her, still kissing her, and she dreamed about making love to him all over again.

   Bela opened her eyes, disoriented, thinking she heard something, but not sure.

Duncan pulled his muscled arm away from her belly, and they both sat up. The room was so dark, but then, it had no windows, so she couldn’t judge the time except by Sibyl instinct, which told her it was after midday but before nightfall.

Duncan picked up his watch from the floor and squinted at it. “It’s about three in the afternoon, I think.”

Somebody knocked, and smoke filtered under the door. “Bela?”

“What the—? That’s Cynda.” Bela yanked the sheet over Duncan’s waist and her breasts, then called, “It’s okay. You can come in.”

Cynda pushed the bedroom door open. The soft light of the basement hallway combined with Bela’s acute vision to reveal the depths of Cynda’s pallor and the size of her frown. She had her leathers on, and her hand was on her sword hilt. Flames played along Cynda’s fingers, everywhere she was touching that weapon.

At the same moment, Bela became aware of strange energies in the house. Her quad, angry and upset. Riana and Merilee upstairs—doing what? Containing them? Holding them back?

“What’s going on?” Bela blinked against the surge of anxiety ruining the absolute relaxation she’d been enjoying in Duncan’s arms. “Did you find Rebecca Kincaid?”

“No.” Cynda’s flames expanded, covering her shoulders. “We found Reese Patterson. We found him in pieces all over his office.”

Duncan went rigid beside Bela, and she turned to him immediately, getting more tense by the second.

“When I disappeared.” Anger worked across Duncan’s face, and worry, and disbelief. He stared at the ceiling the way he did when he was trying to get John Cole to speak to him. “Before the ambush in the alley.”

His voice trailed off, sharpening Bela’s anxiety to an acute sense of dread. He wasn’t making sense. This whole situation wasn’t making sense.

Bela turned back to the door. “Why are you here, Cynda? What does this have to do with Duncan?”

More flames erupted, until fire ringed Cynda’s body and a haze of smoke filled the bedroom. “Duncan needs to come with my triad to the townhouse—and I think he knows that.” Cynda’s frown shifted from determined to uncomfortable. “We don’t want to fight with you over this, Bela. Any of you. Please don’t make us.”

Duncan shoved the sheet off his hips. “Nobody’s fighting anybody. I’ll come with you.” He swung his legs off the bed, grabbed his jeans, and stepped into them.

Fear clawed Bela’s insides like she was the one with the demon inside. She scrambled out of the bed, but her mind wouldn’t tell her what to do next. She had no idea what was happening, but she didn’t want to be separated from Duncan—not like this. She wanted to grab him and push him up against the wall. Make an earth barrier he couldn’t cross. As for Cynda—

This time when Bela swung toward the door, fists clenched, Cynda stepped back.

“Close that damned door before I hurt you.” Earth energy shook Bela’s voice, and shook the room with it. “I mean it!”

A tiny crack opened in the floor tiles, arrowing toward Cynda.

The door slammed.

Smoke from Cynda’s fire let Bela know she was still right outside, but at least she and Duncan had a little privacy now. Bela hurried to pull on her own jeans and blouse, but Duncan was already in his T-shirt, getting his badge and gun off the dresser.

“Duncan, wait.” Bela left her shirt unbuttoned and grabbed his arm before he could stuff his badge in his pocket. “Stop! What are you doing?”

“The papers your friends and the OCU would have found on Patterson’s desk were dated, signed, and time-stamped.” Duncan’s frown looked enough like Cynda’s to really scare Bela about how bad this situation might get. “John Cole’s will would have been there, with me as his beneficiary—and my last will and testament. Patterson wrote it out for me before I got jumped in the alley.”

Last will and testament.

That wouldn’t register at all.

Duncan needing a will.

Bela couldn’t add it all up until he pried his arm out of her fingers, then slipped his hands under her shirt, pressing his palms against her bare waist. “When I disappeared on you, I told you, it wasn’t my call. I didn’t take myself out of your bed and over to Patterson’s office. It was John. I just woke up there.”