Captive Spirit (29 page)

“John took you over and made you go to the lawyer’s office.” Bela pressed her cheek into his T-shirt and laced her fingers together behind his back. Squeezing. Wanting to keep him with her even as she started to grasp why he’d have to go with Cynda. “To see his will.”

Duncan’s embrace felt so warm, so alive and solid and permanent. “If I’d had any sense, I would have put myself in some kind of quarantine right then—but it’s been crazy. Everything moved so fast, and truth be told, Angel, I didn’t want to be away from you.”

Bela held on tighter, breathing him in, her eyes closed as she reached for any argument that might work. “But Patterson was alive if he did your will, right?”

Duncan kissed the top of her head, his hands rubbing her bare back under her shirt. “He was alive when I left, but I don’t know if I went back, and neither do you.”

She stared at him. “You’ve been with me every minute.”

“We can’t know that.”

Damn him for being so gentle. It kept her from getting as furious as she needed to get.

“I could have been out wandering while you were sleeping,” Duncan said.

“You weren’t.”

Duncan held her in silence for a few seconds, then gently pushed her back from him, enough to look her in the eyes. “I want the Mothers to have a go at John, and I don’t want you there. And not like last time. I mean nowhere near the townhouse.”

Bela’s chin dropped. The heat in her chest—anger? Disbelief? She couldn’t even tell, but this wasn’t happening. “You can’t be serious. If something goes wrong and the Mothers drive Cole out of your head, that’s it for you.” She shook her head. “No. We’ll clear this up some other way.”

It was getting hard to breathe, but he was talking again, those gray-blue eyes loving and rational, his tone so careful and measured she wanted to knee him in the nuts.

“I’m way past serious, and I know the risks, Angel. Besides, even if I know I wasn’t having blank time when Patterson got murdered, nobody else does. My papers are there, my prints. I was probably the last person to see him alive.”

Duncan pushed away from her then, with more force than she’d expected.

Bela stumbled backward as his eyes shifted to black, then back to gray again. “Shut up.” Duncan put his hand on the dinar. The veins in his temples stood out as his face turned red. “You don’t have a say in this, John. I’m going.”

Bela launched herself at Duncan, smacking his chest with her fists. “Give John his say! If you ask the Mothers to poke around in your head, they will, and they damn well might kill you!”

Duncan caught her pummeling hands and held them with just enough strength to keep her from hitting him again. “I have to do this.”

Bela tried to jerk free. “Why, damnit?” She moved into him hard, using leverage from his grip on her hands to shove them both backward, away from the door.

Duncan shifted his grasp to her shoulders and held them both upright. His fingers dug into her as he turned her around, putting himself closer to the door. “Did you
see
the pictures of what the Rakshasa did to Katrina Drake? And Patterson—what do you think he looked like? John could take me over. He could use me to lead the demons straight to you!”

Bela gasped from pain—her arms, her heart, her throat. She turned raw in his grip, and everything hurt.

Duncan’s face went soft and he turned her loose. “I’m—I’m sorry.” He stared at his hands for a second, then shut his eyes. The wounds along his neck, shoulder, and chest glowed like they were filling with blood, and the sight of that nearly scared her to death.

“What’s happening?” She reached for him, but he backed away from her, toward the door.

“Oh, no, you are not leaving like this.” Bela lunged toward Duncan and snatched hold of him again. She kissed him, fierce, possessive. Desperate.

He kissed her back, but she could still feel him leaving her.

No!

She moved her lips to his ear, wishing he’d hug her tighter. “You’d never betray us to the Rakshasa, even if John turns out to be a murdering bastard after all. My whole quad likes you—hell, they like you better than they like me, and they trust you.” She kissed his ear. “I trust you, Duncan.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t. I don’t trust John, and the bastard’s living in my head.” He moved her away from him again, gently this time, and what she saw on his face cut her heart in two. His force of will. His determination. The part of Duncan Sharp that wouldn’t stop, no matter what. He was going to do this, and nothing she could say would change his mind.

Bela wrapped her arms around herself, trying not to scream.

“Please do this for me, Angel.” His fingers caressed the tips of her elbows, and the pleading in his eyes made the scream rise higher in Bela’s chest. “If the Mothers can dig around enough to show I didn’t kill Patterson—and convince me that John’s not some time bomb that’ll get you and your quad killed—I’ll be right back.”

“I don’t want to be away from you,” she whispered, the screams breaking into tears she had to cry. “I’m not ready to lose you.”

Duncan lifted his hands to her cheeks, using his thumbs to wipe the tears away. He didn’t tell her she wouldn’t lose him, because he couldn’t. She knew that. Duncan was no liar, and he didn’t hand out false comfort. The pain in his eyes said he’d never leave her forever, not on purpose. But as the silence between them expanded, as Bela felt her own tears on her face, reality nudged harder at her than she’d allowed since she first fought to save his life.

I’m not going to win this one
.

She almost choked on the hurt.

Duncan’s beautiful eyes consumed her, and she felt the electric pressure of his fingers, so soft on her cheeks, her lips. “Promise me you won’t come to the townhouse,” he said. “I need that from you, Angel.”

This time Bela heard what he didn’t say, what she hadn’t let herself understand before when he asked her for the same concession.

Don’t come to the townhouse, because if I change and the Mothers have to put me down, I don’t want you to feel it. I don’t want you to see it
.

“I promise,” she said, too loud, almost shouting, hating the words, and hating herself for saying them. “But I’m sending Andy with you. She can heal better than anyone.”

Duncan considered this as he took his hands from Bela’s face. “If she’s willing, I’d be glad for her help.”

He didn’t kiss her again before he walked out of the bedroom.

If he had, Bela might have taken back her promise, and every vow she’d ever made. Cynda Flynn Lowell
damned
sure wouldn’t have lived to walk Duncan up the stairs to her triad, out of the brownstone, and away from Bela—and Bela might not have been coherent enough to speak to her quad when they came rushing into her room.

As it was, Bela was able to accept Camille’s hugs and Dio’s swearing, and Andy’s solemn promise that she’d do whatever it took to bring Duncan back to her.

Bela just wasn’t sure she could believe in any of it.

(29)

Time.

Bela slid her fingers along the waist of her jeans.

Her entire life had been taken over by a sense that some grand clock was ticking, and she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t smash the glass, the hands, the gears, and gain any reprieve.

She glanced at the clock hanging near the front door. “It’s been hours. They should be back by now.”

From behind her, in the brownstone’s living area, Camille and Dio didn’t answer, but Bela felt a surge of their energies, directed at supporting her.

Camille was sorting through tiny metal charms she’d made in the lab, using her laser-like fire to examine them. Dio was sketching at the big wooden table, drawing ways to take out Cynda and her triad the next time they came face-to-face. She’d come up with a few realistic, bloody scenarios, but Bela wouldn’t spend too much time looking at any of them. Riana, Cynda, and Merilee were probably the only women in New York City who could have walked into Bela’s home, hurt her like that, and walked out in one piece—save for her own quad and Mother Keara.
Cynda did what she had to do. That’s all
.

The front window offered a view of Fifth Avenue and Central Park. Lights from cars, buses, and taxis gleamed against the gray dusk, and the trees behind the stone wall across the street seemed shadowy and ominous.

Was he still alive?

Would she know if he wasn’t?

Were the Rakshasa close by?

Could she sense them if they were?

The questions came, endless, relentless, ticking like the clock in her head.

Bela wanted to believe that her Sibyl instincts would tell her if Duncan turned demon, if he died. That her mind would warn her if tiger-demons were sneaking toward the brownstone.

She couldn’t know any of that for certain.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, felt certain now.

She didn’t even know for sure that the Rakshasa could seek or find locations protected by elemental locks. It was just a suspicion.

Bela squinted at the trees, letting her enhanced vision give her the details. Walkers. Joggers. Bikers. Runners.

Dogs on leashes.

No monsters.

And no Duncan.

The leaves hadn’t started to turn yet, but Bela could almost taste the coolness that evening was bringing to the city.

“None of us are that good at healing, but maybe we’d be moral support,” Camille said from her usual perch on one of the overstuffed camel-colored chairs. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the townhouse?”

Damnit, of course I want to go
.

But she couldn’t do that to Duncan. Not after she’d promised.

“I’m sure.” Bela dug her teeth into her lip so she wouldn’t start crying again.

“He’ll be fine.” Dio’s voice carried a note of authority mingled with irritation, like she refused to even consider another alternative. “He has to be fine. The Mothers will be careful, and Andy’s there.”

Bela leaned her forehead against the cool window glass to calm herself down, staring at the endless lines of vehicles beginning to clog up in the early-evening rush.

Camille held up a single copper charm. Bela could see it in the window’s reflection. “This one’s the most similar to the metal in Duncan’s dinar, in terms of how it responds to my energy.”

“House nerd,” Dio muttered, leaning over the table to sketch more bloody murder.

“But now I’m thinking it can’t be in the treatment, like how we make the elementally locked bullets and knives for the OCU.” Camille turned the charm over in her fingers. “It’s got to happen in the forging. Some sort of elemental transformation that happens when the metal’s in its liquid form, or maybe cooling, with a glassy surface.”

Bela’s attention pulled away from the view out the window for a few seconds, and she looked at Camille. “So you’d need to start with basic ingredients and forge from scratch?”

“Exactly. Then I could make each of us a projective coin like the dinar.” Camille let the copper charm bounce on the pile of other charms, and Bela felt a tiny tingle in her earth energy when it made contact with the other metals. “I don’t think my charms could repel Rakshasa, but it would magnify our elemental sentience. We’d be able to track fainter traces in our elements, even over long distances.”

Bela studied Camille’s delicate features and the light, controlled fire energy playing in the air around her shoulders. “I can’t believe I’m saying this to a fire Sibyl, but you can keep using my lab whenever you want. We’ll all help you. Except maybe Andy. One flood, and all those machines would be history.”

“No, definitely not Andy.” Camille laughed.

Bela glanced at Dio, who swiped a red pencil across her page. “Don’t look at me. I wouldn’t know a beaker from a burner.”

The chimes all across the brownstone gave a faint jingle.

Bela startled, then looked at the door. Her chest tightened. “Please, let this be Andy, bringing Duncan back.”

Dio and Camille glanced at the chimes as Bela let her earth energy flow outward to find the source of the energy moving the chimes. Excitement drove her awareness faster than usual, out of the brownstone and over the sidewalk, then farther, across the street and into Central Park, toward the townhouse—

Oh, Goddess
.

Bela staggered back from the window and hit her knees.

Dark power.

Like a moving wall of horror.

It rolled over her. Terror. Nightmares. Little-girl fear.

She sucked air and tried to yell.

No sound but the chimes.

Ringing louder. Out of tune. The noise warped and hissed and flattened until the pipes sounded like bones banging in a graveyard wind.

“Unrighteous!” The word choked out of Bela’s throat like someone was strangling her, and she couldn’t control it. Pain. Pain everywhere in her body. Her head was exploding. Her awareness fractured like glass crushed under heavy boots.

Someone screamed.

Camille?

Dio?

Bela’s body went stiff as she fought to drag her earth power back to herself, and her eyes slammed closed. The ground shook from her panic, hard enough to make her teeth clatter together.

“Filthy,” her voice rasped. Nails on a chalkboard, even to her own ears. “Scrape it off, please, get it off me!”

But she couldn’t escape the creeping sense of putrid mold covering every inch of her.

The ground was poisoned.

The earth was hurting her.

Hands grabbed her shoulders. Cool metal pressed against her chest. Copper. Camille’s charm. A fresh blast of air power swept through Bela, and fire, hot and furious, hacking at the deadly earth energy trying to pull her down forever into its suffocating depths.

Bela focused on the copper, on its purity, on how the fire and wind touched it, and touched her. She let it move through her and join with her natural earth power to fend off the horrible, unnatural energy.

The darkness howled at her.

Bela howled right back, and tore herself away from the horrors trying to suck her dry. The stench of ammonia threatened to overwhelm her, but heat blasted into her and wind beat against her face, cleansing her, purging the awful sensations from her consciousness. Thunder roared right above her head, making her ears pop.

Bela’s eyes flew open just as the lights in the brownstone exploded into fragments of glass and sizzling, burning filaments. Darkness covered the room as Bela sucked in air and stood, shaking, with Dio and Camille supporting her.

“They’re coming,” Bela gasped. She pulled Camille’s charm off her chest and clenched it in her fist. “Here. Now.”

Dio swore and let her go, flinging herself toward the weapons closet. Less than a minute later, they were suited up and armed, but Bela was still shaking as she drew her sword.

“How many?” Camille asked, hefting her
shamshir
over her shoulder, ready to hack anything that came through the front door.

Dio shifted her African throwing knives into one hand and grabbed Bela’s free wrist. Bela felt the full strength of air and wind supporting her as she forced herself to reach out with her terrasentience, toward the advancing Rakshasa again.

There.

Still in the park, but closer now. She felt them like a sick, infected wave rolling across the grass. The perverted energy boiling outward from their advance left no question that the typical elemental locks on the brownstone wouldn’t repel them. Not with these numbers. Not with this strength.

“Three,” she said. “No, five. Seven. Damnit! Ten! At least ten. How could there be ten? Probably more. And humans with them, with elemental talent.”

“Death,” Dio whispered, tracking the filth by air, just as Bela was following their advance on the ground. “One purpose. Killing.”

The white Rakshasa Strada was leading this attack. Bela kept her distance from where the demon’s claws tore into the earth, but his intentions were palpable. He was coming to destroy anything that might pose a threat to him or his fellow demons. They would start with the brownstone, but they wouldn’t stop until every Sibyl in New York City—every Sibyl in the world—was dead.

“They’re going to slaughter us all,” Bela and Dio said at the same time as they pulled back from the tracking, and Dio let go of Bela’s wrist.

Camille’s
shamshir
burst into flames. At the same moment, she let loose a blast of fire energy into the communications system, cracking half the projective mirrors around the platform table and ringing some of the chimes so forcefully the pipes burst into flames, molten metal singing holes in the wood and carpet.

The tattoo on Bela’s forearm burned, mortar to pestle to broom, down its wavy connecting lines with an urgency and pain she hadn’t felt since the Legion wars. She knew every Sibyl in New York City, maybe even in the world, felt that same burn.

The message would be more than clear.

Help us!

But who could reach them in time?

“Bela.” Dio’s terrified, furious tone drew her back. “We can’t win. We’re going to lose this fight, and we’re going to die.”

Rage and dread burned through Bela like a wild surge of Camille’s power. “No. I won’t let it happen.”

“Bela—” Dio started, but Bela cut her off with a snarl.

“We can make it to the townhouse.” She pushed Dio toward the kitchen door. “Out the back, into the alley—you first, then Camille. I won’t let them kill you. Us.
Any
of us.”

Camille growled like a rabid animal, and Bela could feel how it ripped at the fire Sibyl to disengage from any battle, even a hopeless one, without a fight.

Dio was already hammering toward the kitchen.

Bela grabbed Camille’s elbow and got a defensive burn for her trouble.

“Camille!” She held on anyway, letting her fingers burn as she pulled the fire Sibyl toward the kitchen, her earth-enhanced voice rising above the roar of Camille’s expanding flames. “Get out of here! Run, Camille,
run!
”