Bound by Shadow (24 page)

Cynda opened the door, and Merilee followed her out. Riana remained still and seemed to be waiting for something. When Creed didn’t give it to her, she said, “You’re a man of your word. Tell me you’ll stay here and keep Andy safe. Use the cell if you have to.”

Creed ground his teeth.
Maybe Corey James is a better man than me. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to let her walk out the door
. But he kept looking at her, at her daggers, at the lean line of her fit body and the way she almost leaned toward the door, as if she longed to play her assigned part in the world.

Finally, he sucked in his doubts and pride and said, “Yeah. Okay. Go do what you do.”

The door slammed behind her before the last word left his lips.

For a long time, Creed just stood there, staring at the spot where Riana had been only moments before.

“Not bad,” Andy murmured, the sound of her voice reattaching him to the real world, at least a little bit. “I didn’t think you could do it.”

“Do what?” Creed asked, more than a little irritable.

Andy patted his arm. “Let her be who she is. I’m impressed. If you can tame that beast inside you, you just might have a chance with Riana after all, partner.”

19

Riana let Cynda drive the Jeep. She was too distracted by her emotions to pay close attention to the road.

Creed had wanted to come with her. She sensed his frustration so powerfully she imagined it was following them down Broadway. Yet he put his feelings aside and gave his word not to interfere. This time, she knew he would keep it.

Her heart fluttered. She didn’t think she had ever known a man strong enough to let
her
be strong, too.

Is this what Alisa felt with Corey? Is that why she petitioned to marry?
Other Sibyls had married before, of course. A lot, in fact. Riana never understood that, never believed a man could give her the freedom she needed. She hadn’t had much luck with boyfriends. In fact, she’d never felt relaxed enough to explain who or what she was to any of the men she had dated. Plenty of Sibyls had active social lives outside the sisterhood, but Riana had never been too comfortable with that. Too much risk, too little benefit, and too little time.

Until now.

Cynda and Merilee chatted nonstop, discussing strategies for preserving Herbert’s balls once they caught him and took them for trophies. She had to agree that if Herbert didn’t stop soon, or if he figured out how to tap into his abilities any better, they would need to put him in irons and send him to the Mothers. Probably Motherhouse Ireland. Herbert liked to play with fire.

Merilee circled around the Financial District and parked the Jeep out of the flow of traffic on Wall Street—or rather, on a Wall Street sidewalk, far enough from the church to keep the vehicle safe if something exploded or stones fell from the walls. Unfortunately, that was a likelihood with Herbert sometimes.

When Riana got out, she took a deep breath of crisp fall air, catching a hint of cloves, cinnamon, and pepper from the restaurants of nearby Chinatown. There was something else in the air, too—a bitter, unnatural tang, and not just exhaust from the cars, cabs, and buses streaming past between her and the churchyard.

“Fire,” Cynda muttered. “I smell accelerant, but earth, too. Somebody’s put it out, I think.”

The South Manhattan triad, led by Dani Petrov who graduated Motherhouse Russia a few years after Riana, met them across the road, on the sidewalk in front of the preternaturally darkened church. Riana could sense the massive stone building with its peaceful, heavy energy of rock and mortar, looming ahead of her. City lights not affected by Herbert’s asinine shenanigans blazed from all directions, outlining Trinity in eerie blues and grays. The neo-Gothic spire, which reached a height of almost three hundred feet, probably wasn’t visible to anyone without the keen vision of a Sibyl.

“I can’t find the cockroach.” Dani gripped the hilt of her scimitar, and Riana imagined her dark-haired friend glaring into the pitch-black windows of the church. “I sent Maura and Shell to scout, but no luck. The lights have been off and on about ten times, and we’ve put out two fires in the churchyard. He lit one on Alexander Hamilton’s marble pyramid—with fire paste, the little shit. I’m surprised cops aren’t crawling all over the place.”

Riana settled her mind and reached into the nearby earth, letting her awareness run along the natural veins of the ground. Even beneath asphalt, even torn and split by subways and utilities, she could feel patterns in the dirt, find lines, and follow them along until she sensed life energies. All earth Sibyls had some terrasentience, or the ability to sense what was in or on nearby earth, but Riana’s senses were sharper than most.

She quickly found one human entity, then two, but recognized the unmistakable energy signatures of a fire Sibyl and an earth Sibyl. Dani’s triad sisters were returning to her empty-handed. They were moving through the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery now.

Riana carefully circled around the cemetery in their wake, not wishing to disturb any graves or spirits that might be lingering. She tasted the aberrant sourness of accelerant on her tongue as she passed the Hamilton monument, then she moved on to other vaults and finally back outside the fence again.

Nothing.

No dead chickens, even. No feathers, no blood, no shoddily constructed
vévé
made as if to summon a Loa—one of the god-figures from the astral plane who responded to true practitioners of Vodoun.

The absence of Herbert’s usual trademarks made Riana’s muscles tight. She didn’t like it when patterns changed. Assholes like Herbert changing their patterns—that was rarely a good sign.

Yet…wait.

There, somewhere near the Livingston vault, where engineer Robert Fulton was laid to rest…a disturbance. She couldn’t quite get a fix on it, but there was an energy that didn’t seem to belong. And another patch of bitter-tasting ground, this one not burned, right around the cenotaph bearing Robert Fulton’s name.

“Herbert’s hiding in the graveyard somehow.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, drawing her awareness out of the earth as Maura and Shell joined them outside the fence. “He might actually be underground, but for some reason I’m not getting a clear reading. Something’s interfering with his energy signature.”

Maura sheathed her intimidating African
shotel,
but not before Riana caught the gleam of fire running along its wicked sicklelike curve. Her leathers gave off smoke at both shoulders. A classmate of Cynda’s, Maura shared much with her in the way of personality. “We’ve been through that churchyard a dozen times now,” she said. “What the hell is going on?”

“He must have learned to use more of his abilities.” Shell, the air Sibyl in Dani’s triad, palmed the two tiny throwing knives—darts, in proper terminology, with orange-gold tassels that made them look like deadly goldfish—she had been keeping at the ready. The air Sibyl slid her stealth weapons back into one of the black bandoliers she wore on the insides of her forearms. “We need to catch him now and send him to the Mothers.”

“Agreed,” Cynda said, and Merilee nodded.

For a moment, the six of them stood quietly in front of the church, staring through the bars of the metal fence separating them from the cemetery. Riana kept her eyes on the churchyard. In the low, strange backlight, the old grave markers looked like people kneeling, heads bowed, over the graves of their loved ones.

“If he can block himself from us,” she said, “we don’t have much choice. Let’s move in again and surround the Livingston vault. Whatever’s happening, it’s centered on that spot.”

As if to confirm her statement, a small fire broke out on the grass very near the brownstone slab covering the Livingston vault.

Dani tensed, and Riana sensed earth energy moving as her South Manhattan counterpart prepared to douse the flames. She reached out and touched Dani’s arm, interrupting the other woman’s concentration.

“Don’t.” Riana nodded toward the fire. “I think he wants us to come to the flames, not put them out. The sooner we get into his game, the sooner we can get out of it.”

Merilee shook her head. “What if it’s some sort of trap?”

Riana’s heart skipped at the thought of Merilee or Cynda getting injured by one of Herbert’s nutcase schemes and tricks. She sucked in a breath and blew it out, frustrated with the limits of her terrasentience. “I didn’t sense any explosives. He doesn’t have the ground wired, at least. I don’t know what else to look for.”

“I didn’t pick up anything, either,” Merilee said, sounding far more tense than she usually did. “But you know my wind-sensing isn’t that sharp. Did you pick up anything, Shell?”

Shell, who was one of the most talented ventsentients in Sibyl history, said, “No. Just a hint of something…wrong. Too pungent. But it’s hard to tell with the fire and accelerants, and Chinatown nearby—and so many other restaurants still open. I can’t tell where it’s coming from.” She turned to her mortar. “Dani, I think one of us needs to stay back, just in case.”

“Keep a position outside this fence,” Dani instructed. “Stay in throwing range. Watch our backs, okay?”

Riana patted Merilee on the shoulder. “You’ve got the longest-range weapons. Find yourself a vantage point, and if we make a mess, clean it up.”

Merilee was running away into the darkness before Riana drew her next breath.

Dani glanced in her direction, eyes hidden behind the leather of her face mask. “Left or right?”

Riana gestured to the right, and she and Cynda moved out, down along the line of the fence. She noticed Cynda was walking as slowly as she was, wary, hands on her weapons. Something about this setup felt wrong to Cynda, too, but what choice did they have? It was go in, or wait all night for Herbert to tip his hand. By then, any number of passersby might be involved, not to mention the NYPD.

Cynda went first, gripping the black metal fence, putting her foot on the top railing, and vaulting over the spiked fence caps. She dropped to the cemetery’s grass almost without a sound. Riana followed, careful to clear the sharp metal points. Her heartbeat accelerated the moment she touched the ground. Cynda drew her sword. On instinct, Riana unsheathed her daggers. At the other end of the cemetery, Dani and Maura approached the flames near the Livingston vault with caution.

Riana tried to keep her senses open and her body alert, but the fatigue of the last couple of weeks weighted her, slowed her. She crept beside Cynda, both of them in a half crouch, ready to bolt, spring, or attack. Cool air made her eyes water, and her breath came too fast, too short.

“Something’s wrong,” Cynda murmured. “I feel it in my blood. I just don’t
see
it.”

The four Sibyls kept up their slow advance.

The dark churchyard seemed bizarrely empty and removed from the rest of the city, set apart in time. So many of the graves were very old, well kept, but with definitely weathered and worn markers. Even the slightest creak or crunch made the hair on Riana’s neck stand up.

Five feet away now, and still nothing.

Where the hell was Herbert?

What the hell was he up to?

Riana picked her way between headstones, staying to the left of Cynda so Cynda could swing a sword with her dominant hand if needed. The more nervous she got, the madder she got. It would almost be a pleasure to dispatch this wannabe shit to the Mothers, even though that punishment was harsh indeed. She felt the cool, steady pressure of her crescent pendant pressing between her breasts, and imagined what Mother Yana would do to the likes of Herbert—including, but not limited to, feeding him to one of her gigantic pet wolves if he didn’t do as he was told.

Three feet.

Two feet.

Riana, Cynda, Dani, and Maura encircled the flames.

Still, nothing happened.

With a wave of her hand, Riana summoned enough earth energy to douse the flames.

The ground all around them trembled—and burst open.

Dank graveyard dirt rained all over Riana and her companions.

Like corpses rising from the dead, six Asmodai exploded from the torn earth, cutting off all escape routes.

Six huge Asmodai.

Ambush!

And they were surrounded.

“Earth!” Riana shouted out the proper locking element. The demons had to be made of earth, or they couldn’t have hidden from her awareness.

One of the Asmodai had Herbert under its right arm.

Herbert’s red hair was matted. He was stark naked, and he was laughing.

“Got me some new friends!” His quavery, dramatic voice made Riana’s skin crawl as she locked her dagger blades with earth energy. “Bet you bitches won’t be bothering
me
again,
oui
?”

“Idiot,” Cynda yelled as she lunged forward and lopped off the head of the Asmodai holding Herbert. Before it even decayed, she kicked Herbert in the crotch and left him doubled over in the growing pile of Asmodai dirt. Herbert tried once to take his hands off his wounded genitals and then passed out.

The Asmodai on either side of the crumbling demon and the fallen Herbert turned on Cynda with their filthy, shifting hands stretched out to grab her. Riana had to hope Dani and Maura could handle the other three. She turned her back on them and rushed the Asmodai on the right, slashing with both blades.

It noticed her when she hacked off its arm.

Cynda engaged the other Asmodai, stepping over Herbert’s inert form to do it. The sound of her sword whistling through the air comforted Riana as she gave ground to the towering earth-demon charging her.

Too big. Too friggin’ big.

Its shape shifted from a walking black mountain to a burly priest to rugged biker to Wall Street businessman, then lost coherent form as it opened its mouth and roared.

Riana dodged the fetid stream of air and rocks blowing out of the thing’s mouth. The ground rumbled beneath Riana’s feet. She cried out and pitched forward, almost dropping her daggers as she shoulder-rolled rather than falling on her face.