Bound by Light (13 page)

He moved behind her, almost close enough to touch her, definitely close enough to feel the soft, warm breeze flowing off her perfect skin. Her scent filled his awareness as he studied the snapshot and let the image sink through his consciousness. At first, nothing resonated, but the troubled expression on Merilee’s face drove him to try harder. The caption identified the man as Bartholomew August, international evangelist and leader of the Peace Warriors, a man who had only recently begun allowing himself to be in the public eye.

The name wasn’t familiar to Jake, though he did remember something about the Peace Warriors. Sort of a new-age Peace Corps, building homes and community centers and opening food-and-clothing charities in more developed countries, to help the "working poor."
Teach a man to fish—and give him his first pole
. That was one of their slogans.

"I’m sorry, no." Jake eased a step away from Merilee, folded his arms to be sure he kept his hands to himself, and stared at the screen. "I don’t think I’ve seen him before."

Even as the words left his mouth, something stirred in his gut. An unease, a vague discomfort, like he
should
know the man.

But why?

And from where?

Jake frowned at the television image, which was already flickering through some other story about a small riot in the Garment District, and about how street violence seemed to be on the rise this month. The extensive files of information he had stored in his brain—was there some obscure detail in one of them that involved this Bartholomew August? He’d have to think about that during some quiet time away from Merilee, when he could focus.

"Maybe I’m just edgy," she said as her gaze traveled from the storefront to two elderly men shaking fists and canes at each other across the street. "Everything seems so upside down right now. So . . . I don’t know. Melancholy. Like there’s some agitation in the air itself, and the water and the earth."

She looked so troubled and sad Jake wanted to touch her all over again, this time to take her in his arms and hold her, offer her comfort. If he could shield her from any unhappiness, he would do so without hesitation.

Would she allow that?

She faced him and his eyes met hers and locked into place.

The air around Jake stirred against his skin, and his pulse beat in his ears. Even on this crowded sidewalk with a few feet of concrete separating them, he felt connected to her. She could make his body respond with a frown or a smile, with a twitch of those red, full lips—and she responded to him, too. He didn’t miss the tightening of her muscles, the ways she straightened and shivered and leaned toward him.

He didn’t take a breath, because if he smelled her arousal, he would lose his mind.

Merilee broke the spell by looking away, then reached out and brushed her hand against his before she started walking. Jake followed, trying not to get more distracted by the warm spot where she had touched him, or thoughts about where he’d like her fingers to go next.

"With so many people with paranormal ability leaving so suddenly," he said, his voice low and husky, "and your friend Charlotte’s death last week—it’s bound to have some effect on the city’s energy."

Jake offered his theory with some confidence despite his drunken thought process, because it made intuitive and scientific sense. New York City was enduring a sort of psychic displacement, leaving a vacuum that had to be filled with something—like the melancholy agitation plaguing Merilee. Jake felt it, too, but he figured not as acutely as she did. Demon senses tended to resonate to underlying designs and patterns to events, not so much fluctuations in energy or sensory phenomena.

"A lot of the paranormal groups tried to do positive elemental work." Merilee kept her gaze straight ahead, leaving Jake to study the exquisite lines of her profile. "They poured good into the city. Without them, it’s darker here, I guess. I wish we could figure out why they left—and what’s happening to those who stayed."

For a time, they walked in silence, flowing past people on the crowded sidewalks. Jake reviewed what they did know, which was next to nothing. Interviews conducted by Sibyls in other cities had turned up information from a few New York refugees, but all they could say was the city’s energy felt "wrong" or "very bad." That they had a vague but definite sense of danger, and fled on reflex rather than confronting the problem, whatever it was. A few practitioners with strong paranormal abilities had stayed behind, as the OCU was learning, but many of them were beginning to drop out of sight.

Taken?

Murdered?

Suicides, like Charlotte Heart?

As yet, they had no idea.

And even after reviewing dozens of texts on spirits, essences, and paranormal manifestations, Jake and Merilee had not been able to find any creature that resembled the Stone Man in her nightmares—though the legends of the Keres were clear enough. Vicious air spirits of death, motivated by the chaos and gore of battle. Sibyl archival documents held accounts of the Keres trying to trick air Sibyls to their doom, enticing them to Káto Ólimbos as suicides, but that was rare and mostly in ancient times.

The Mothers were concerned about the dreams, and the likelihood that Charlotte Heart had died to protect herself and her coven from this bizarre manifestation, but equally at a loss as to what the Stone Man might be. They also didn’t dare approach the Keres to obtain more information, because that would violate the ancient protective treaty with the creatures and place Motherhouse Greece at direct risk of attack. The Mothers shared Merilee’s opinion that she might not be seeing the actual Keres, but rather the Stone Man’s interpretation of them as he sought an image that would frighten Merilee.

Bastard
. Jake’s insides went rigid as he thought about the Stone Man attempting to find his way into Merilee’s head and weaken her with her own fears.
I don’t care what he is, or what he thinks he’s doing, he’s not getting near her, now or ever.

(9)

Car engines revved and buses and cabs barreled past. The entire city seemed to be getting off work at the same moment, but the crowd didn’t faze Jake or his errant thoughts. He kept glancing at Merilee and thinking about protecting her, then about kissing her. She had as much as invited him to touch her several times, but so far, he’d been able to resist.

Would it hurt to make love to her just once?

Would that make things easier—or twice as miserable?

Shit, he had to stop letting himself get lost in thoughts like that. Small talk. Conversation. Anything would be better.

"So, uh, was it easy when you got chosen for your triad?" He swallowed, hoping he didn’t sound too lame. "I mean, did Riana know you were her broom right away?"

Merilee kept a brisk pace and didn’t seem put off by his nosing around. "She spent days with my class of adepts, talking to all of us and watching us fight. There were twenty-three of us ready for assignment, but she kept coming back to me, and I was glad. I felt a connection with Riana right away. Now, Cynda—whoa."

Merilee laughed, and the sound flowed all over Jake just like her wind. "Cynda was another story. When Riana brought me to New York and I met Cynda, I wondered what I had done to offend Olympus. First day, she cooked part of my wardrobe and two of my books. The whole first month was kind of rough, but after I saved her ass from six Asmodai in a hand-fight near Strawberry Fields, it got better."

That made sense to Jake. Fire Sibyls might be in charge of communication, but at base, they were all about the fighting. "The two of you seem very close now."

"Absolutely. She’s my triad sister, my sister of the heart." Merilee pressed one hand against her chest, then lowered it. "Before she got married, we used to go to the gym together all the time and pick up hot—"Merilee slowed down and made a little choking noise. Turned purple-red. "We had a lot of fun together."

Okay, this is not working.

They kept walking, only now in silence.

Jake opened and closed his fists and did his ever-loving best not to imagine Merilee at a gym cruising men. Or worse yet, men cruising her. It made him want to kill things. Or take her straight back to the townhouse and make love to her, right now. Please her so intensely and completely she’d never think about any bastard from the gym again.

Sibyls aren’t nuns. What did you expect? Shit, Mother Anemone showed me their course schedule. They have
classes
in sexual techniques, for God’s sake. To prepare them for a healthy, active adult life once they leave the Motherhouse.

Merilee . . . has had . . .
classes
. . . in sexual techniques.

Fuck.

He should just find a damned bridge and jump off it. That was the only way he’d get any relief.

Jake tried to will himself back to here, now, the real world. This wasn’t happening, no matter how much he toyed with the idea.

He was what he was, and no amount of wanting a human woman would change that. He had to keep reminding himself of that maddening reality, or he’d cross the

lines he had drawn. He’d go back on his word to himself, and he’d complicate Merilee’s life and his own beyond all feasible limits.

As they turned onto West Fifty-seventh, he felt glad that she didn’t like to be cooped inside vehicles any more than he did. He didn’t think he could handle being in a small, closed space with her. Too easy to reach over and stroke her cheek, or her shoulder, or slide his hand lower—

"Here it is. One of the oldest large apartment buildings in New York City." Merilee’s silky voice slid against his senses as she brought them to a stop, fueling his fantasies instead of settling them into stasis. "It was built in 1881, I think—before the Gramercy, even. I used to think nobody lived here, but we came here to break up a paranormal fight a couple of years back."

She gestured to the building in front of them.

Jake barely registered the run-down brick façade, but his law enforcement mind finally took over, cataloguing details and specifics. About seven stories, old-style architecture, lots of boarded-up windows, some with fire department markings to let firefighters know which path was safe to take in case of a fire. He leafed through information in his head, bits and facts he had gathered scanning Merilee’s archives and roaming across the Internet. Yeah, he remembered this place. The Windermere. Designated a landmark in 2005, recently slapped with code violations and improper removals of fire escapes during early-stage renovation. So if they got in, it might be tricky getting out in a pinch.

"Only a few people live here now, right?" He looked at Merilee for confirmation.

She nodded. "Some who refused to move years ago, when building owners tried to force them out. Tenants were beaten and threatened and strong-armed out of here, but Phila Gruyere’s family endured. They stayed."

She pressed her lips together, and her expression told Jake she still didn’t want to believe that the Vodoun mambo, one of the most popular voodoo priestesses in the area, had just vanished or left like so many other paranormal practitioners. Especially not after standing fast with her family and refusing to be driven from her home.

But that apparently was the case.

A concerned friend had called the police to check on the small apartment after Phila didn’t show up to complete her usual duties at a Vodoun celebration. Then OCU had been asked to come to the apartment to assume custody of an archive of magical texts and writings, and "objects typical to the practice of the occult."
Translation: We sure as hell don’t want to touch this creepy shit. YOU take it.

He and Merilee had been dispatched to see what it would take to safely pack and store what might be some seriously dangerous materials.

"Was Phila your friend like Charlotte?" Jake asked quietly, hoping Merilee wouldn’t be handed another burden to bear on top of her friend’s death, the insanity in the city, and her triad’s incapacity.

Her pretty blue eyes seemed clear as she said, "Not really, no, but I hope nothing’s happened to her. At this point, we could use her strength, if she could be persuaded to be reasonable."

That was a relief, at least—Phila wasn’t someone close to Merilee. In the moment of silence that followed, Jake barely managed to avoid locking eyes with her again.

Merilee opened the main door of the antique apartment building and swept her hand toward the darkened entryway. "After you."

Jake entered, alert, arms relaxed but ready for action. Even though his pulse picked up, nothing seemed unusual. Just a poorly kept entrance, and badly maintained walls and windowframes, most of which were boarded shut. His keen vision allowed him to sort through each shadow and bit of floor debris, despite the low lighting.

Typical derelict building.

Well, almost.

He took a slow, deep breath of mildew and dust, and the tang of transformed elemental power lingered in his nose, on his tongue.

There’s power here, or there was.

But no immediate threat that he could discern.