Bound by Light (8 page)

And completely insane.

Her laughter once more tickled his senses. "Quit being so serious. If you aren’t interested in me, why didn’t you fight harder about us getting assigned together?"

"I wanted to." Jake’s words burst out like a bark. "This shouldn’t be happening."

Merilee’s next glance was wounded, highlighted in the multicolored glows of streetlamps and traffic lights.

Fuck!

Jake took a breath, tried to get himself together again. "I didn’t mean that in a bad way. Just . . . you’re a Sibyl, and I know you’d be more comfortable with your own—but I did promise Mother Anemone I’d look after you until your triad could fight again."

Merilee slowed down. "Mother Anemone. Yeah." Her expression grew distant for a moment. "I wondered what she—"She pursed her lips together and Jake waited, watching as she pressed her fingers against a small, faint white scar barely visible along her jaw.

"Sorry." She lowered her fingers and shook her head. "A while back, I got the impression Mother Anemone was up to something. Maybe this is it. You, I mean. You and me."

Jake felt his face get hot all over, and he had to rub the back of his neck to keep from staring at his feet. "Ah . . . yeah. That might be her plan."

Merilee snorted and folded her arms. "She never plans. She
arranges
. Just ask her."

Jake looked into her eyes—big mistake—and stood mesmerized for a moment before he got out, "Do you mind being arranged with me? For, um, work, I mean."

Merilee didn’t break their gaze, and the corners of her mouth turned upward. She made him wait a second, then two, heart beating so damned fast she could probably see his chest twitching.

Then she said, "No. I don’t mind at all."

He felt her smile somewhere in the center of his gut, not to mention a lot of other places.

Smile still at full blaze, she said, "Now tell the truth, Jake. Are you okay with being arranged with me?"

His gut and groin tightened so hard he almost groaned. "Fine with it."

Damn, he couldn’t stop staring at her. "How did you get that little scar? The one on your jaw."

Her smile faltered a little, then turned into a wicked little grin. "Jumped off a roof when I was six. Did I mention the psychosis thing? Don’t worry. It only hits me every now and then."

She started walking again and Jake trailed after her, shaking his head.

They turned another corner, and when Jake caught up, Merilee said, "I can’t believe you’ve spent so much time hanging out with the Mothers."

Talking to her was hard when he wanted to touch that little scar. Maybe kiss it. "Guess that’s not a typical choice for demons."

"Why did you do it?" she asked without looking at him this time, which spared him a tiny measure of discomfort. "

I’d rather not talk about it," he managed, wishing his lust would give him a break.

"But I want to know—that, and everything about you." She gazed at him briefly, and the sparkle in those blue eyes unraveled another section of Jake’s resolve. "Like, why you don’t turn invisible and fly the way Astaroths usually do."

Jake kept his mouth firmly closed.

"Come on," Merilee added with the little smile that drove him to the edge of his control. "I told you about jumping off a roof. You can tell me anything. Do you fly at all?"

"Not if I can avoid it." Jake was relieved that his answer didn’t sound sharp or irritable. He could tell she wasn’t just teasing about wanting to get to know him. She was trying to do just that. And she was putting out the invitation, telling him he could move forward with getting to know her, too—yet it didn’t come across as overpowering or annoying. She didn’t seem easy to offend, or insecure about her body, her sexuality, her allure.

She was bold. Aggressive.

Too desirable for words.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

No, damn it, that’s what you
want
to do, not what you’re
going
to do
.

He came back to earth enough to realize Merilee had stopped questioning him because she was pointing at a red townhouse on the right with a small, painted porch.

"It’s . . . that one," she said, her voice unusually quiet and hesitant as she slid her bow from beneath her shawl and off her shoulder.

In a single instant, Jake’s focus snapped back to the real world, to the streets of New York, and to the townhouse where Merilee expected to find Charlotte Heart. He scanned the house’s dark windows, and his muscles tightened. His senses expanded—and he took in what had given Merilee pause.

The energy around this house was . . . off. Jake couldn’t describe it, but the sensation poked at his gut like a burning stick. And the air smelled wrong.

Coppery. Strong.

He knew that stench.

Merilee nocked an arrow. "Somebody’s dead in that house, Jake."

Jake ran forward, squeezing the button on his radio, shouting for backup at the same time as he motioned for her to cover him—because his senses had told him the rest.

Yes, somebody was dead inside the red house.

But somebody was alive, too.

(5)

Merilee swept down the concrete walkway behind Jake, keeping up but giving enough ground to assess and guard, to have room to fire her arrows. Her breathing quickened. Her heart rate doubled. Despite her exhaustion from poor sleep, nightmares, and way too much work, she instinctively covered Jake just the way she would shadow Riana and Cynda as they charged into battle.

Please, great Hecate, don’t let anybody shoot. Let Charlotte be okay.

As Jake reached the porch and drew his Glock, a blast of unfocused energy swept over Merilee. Bad energy. Dark, like something awful had . . . slithered . . . too near the walkway. She gripped her bow tighter, pushed back the energy with a spray of wind, and held focus on Jake as he skirted the door.

Seconds later, Jake smashed his shoulder into the wood. The red boards split into three pieces. Splinters and hinges banged to the porch.

Lights flared inside, and the glow spilled into the night.

Merilee tensed, ready to shoot, but no one fired through the open door, and nobody charged outside. Voices rose and fell, and she heard what sounded like sobbing.

Jake shouted, "Police! On the floor!" as he took his stance and gazed through the door.

Merilee approached on his left as he entered the townhouse. She bounded up the porch steps, keeping Jake in view and her bow and arrow at the ready.

As she ran through the door, the stench of the place struck her like a blow. Blood and salt and some horrible, terrible
wrongness
—like bubbling acid, burning as she inhaled. Then, just as fast, some other and even more incredible power mowed over her like a wide, whirring blade.

Merilee pulled up and stood just inside the entrance. Her eyes watered from the smell, the awful feel of the room, and the cutting punch of that power. She swayed on her feet and her vision fractured. Sights flew at her in kaleidoscopic images. Broken people. Colors. Prisms of light. Shapes crowded together. More sobbing battered her ears.

For a moment she caught sight of the Keres from her nightmares. Or maybe from that awful night, back when she threw herself off the roof of Motherhouse Greece to escape them. Feathers tumbled off their wings like black rain. Their fangs flashed as they hovered and shrieked loud enough for the hair-prickling sound to reach into her mind and make her want to leap off something, anything to get away from them again.

Did the creatures sound gleeful?

Or were they frightened?

A man walking . . .

The new image came clear, blotting out the Keres and everything else.

A statue man, the one I’ve dreamed . . .

"He
is
made of stone," Merilee mumbled as negative energy flowed over her like rogue wind, covering her no matter how hard she tried to shrug it off. The other power—the one with those biting, gnawing teeth—seemed to enter her, flow through her like new blood, giving her just enough strength to stay alive.

The Stone Man was huge and endless and lethal, and he was coming. Here. Now.

He’s almost on top of us.

She had to go. Merilee knew she had to run, tried to turn back to the door, but her muscles wouldn’t work. The world dimmed. She couldn’t see a thing but the shadowy Stone Man striding forward, growing larger in her mind’s eye. Couldn’t hear a thing but the dreadful crunch of his footsteps on leaves and gravel. More wrongness pressed into her, crashed against her chest. Air wouldn’t enter her lungs.

A wraithlike touch slid over her skin, cold and wet and absolutely unwelcome. The new, snarling power in her blood snapped at the disgusting sensation, pierced it with a thousand fangs, not with the force of her will, or even under her control.

The cold touch drew back.

Merilee thought she felt a dark, angry wave of surprise, followed by resignation.

The horrible touch dug into Merilee’s being once more, fleeting, but scraping against the center of her existence. She tried to twist away from it, tried to cry out. Couldn’t. Her hands shook. Her grip on the bow faltered. She couldn’t breathe at all. Panic surged through her body even as the touch sucked away her energy, her essence. Her hands—where were her hands? Her feet?

Darkness.

I’m suffocating!

And the screaming of the Keres came back, this time definitely gleeful. Almost rabid. Starving.

"Merilee."

The new sound stabbed at the blackness around her. Familiar. Jake’s voice. It was, wasn’t it?

A sliver of hope arced through the fog of misery threatening to crush her to death.

The touch flickered and withdrew.

Images of the Stone Man faded as the dark energy moved away. Black to gray. Gray to white. The horrifying image blew into hazy fog, separated, and vanished.

With a wild pull on her air energy, Merilee reached for the sound of Jake’s voice and managed to get a breath. Her awareness searched for Jake’s presence, for reality.

His voice came again, more forceful. "Merilee. Open your eyes."

Were they closed?

Fuck. She didn’t remember closing her eyes. Her teeth chattered, and she was so cold her fingers and toes ached. Damn, but she needed a long, hot shower to thaw out, cleanse herself, and figure out what the hell was happening.

When she opened her eyes, she realized she was standing in the entryway of Charlotte Heart’s house, hands pressed against the sides of her head. Her bow and arrow lay useless on the wood floor in front of her. She was shaking all over and coughing. Jake had his gun holstered and his palm on her back, and he was speaking to her in low tones.

"Breathe. Again."

Merilee focused on the flow of his words and the warmth of his touch, and she did as he suggested, collecting a lungful of acidic, coppery air. Blood and . . . wormwood? Yes. Someone had burned a lot of it. Absinthe was for serious elemental protection, and only a few practitioners were strong enough to contain its energy and focus it for a purpose. It was probably responsible for that stubborn power Merilee had felt blending with her own to drive back—whatever that threat had been.

Remnants of her vision tugged at her consciousness, but the dark energy had evaporated with the image of the Stone Man from her nightmares.

What the hell
was
he?

And what did he have to do with Charlotte Heart and whatever happened in this house?

Merilee’s heartbeat eased back to normal as the room shifted into focus. A small space, lit by a single overhead fixture, crowded with silent people, staring at her and Jake. Twelve men and women. No, thirteen—the thirteenth was down. A woman with long, unruly red hair.

"Charlotte," Merilee whispered, but even as the name left her lips, she knew the pagan priestess was dead. Merilee’s stomach tightened, and tears muddled her perceptions all over again. No air moved over Charlotte’s body, and the priestess’s normally pale skin was chalk white and streaked with blood from deep gashes running the length of both arms. From her body emanated a thick wave of elemental protection, touching everyone in the room, infusing them with the temporary power of Charlotte’s lingering will and life force—the rest of the formidable protective power that had saved Merilee from the Stone Man. She recognized it and honored it immediately, though the cost of it seemed almost unbearable.

Charlotte’s coven moved to surround her in a ring, heads down. Many of them started crying. Merilee remembered hearing sobs before, too—probably theirs—while she was confused.

No. Not confused. Under attack.

From somewhere in the distance, sirens droned.

Merilee shivered even though the icy chill from that unearthly psychic touch was pushing its way out of her body. She grabbed her bow and arrow and let Jake help her walk toward Charlotte’s body and the grieving coven.