Bound by Light (14 page)

"Clear," he called to Merilee, who entered and came to stand beside him.

"Do you feel it?" she murmured, her fingertips fluttering against Jake’s knuckles, sending shocks of pleasure up his arm. "Those remnants of elemental workings? Phila’s abilities are
so
strong. A couple of years back, we had to break up a fight between her and one of her cousins. They were trying to sacrifice the same pig to feed Bosou Koblamin, a three-horned war god—well, god of protection. Phila almost got the better of Cynda before we got the situation defused. Sent Cynda home covered in pork blood."

Jake glanced down at the burned fringe of his shirt and remembered the sudden inferno during evening meeting a few hours ago. Anyone who could control fire elements enough to give Cynda a run for her money had his respect, no discussion needed.

Merilee showed him the stairs, and they climbed to the fourth floor, located the police-taped entrance, and greeted the officer on duty who had been guarding the possible crime scene. He opened the door for them, but didn’t seem at all interested in going inside.

"Watch your six," the officer muttered to Jake as he passed. "Wouldn’t catch me dead in that fucktrap."

Jake nodded at the officer, understanding why he was bugged. Even a non-sensitive would be rattled by the random flickers of elemental power bouncing around this place. Still, they had work to do, so Jake led Merilee into the small two-bedroom where Phila Gruyere had lived and practiced. He looked left and right, hands flexing, half convinced he’d have to draw and shoot
something
.

The air smelled wrong. The whole atmosphere felt wrong, and yet nothing seemed too freaky on the surface.

Jake immediately took note of the spotless, colorful kitchen and living area. Yellow walls. Bright blue highlights and fixtures. Red and green and white flags, strings of shells, painted coconuts—the place could have doubled as a full-page travel ad for Jamaica or one of the other Caribbean islands. A few markers and tabs let him know that the apartment had already been processed by crime scene technicians.

In the back of the apartment were two bedrooms, one an actual sleeping space with the bed, and the other—Jake whistled.

The other room was the source of the raw bursts of power. He drew his Glock and started for the tiled space on the back right.

Merilee stopped Jake with a hand on his free arm. "I need to go first. Wait here."

"Not happening." Jake edged forward, but she pulled hard at his elbow, and he stopped again—not because he wanted to.

A wind kicked up in front of his face, well controlled and circumscribed, enveloping him and only him like a personally designed hurricane. His cheeks pressed inward, his ears popped, and his bones jarred from sudden low air pressure and whistling gale-force currents—but the rest of the apartment remained completely still and unmoving.

Merilee let go of his elbow. Jake barely kept hold of his Glock. His eyes watered from the wind. His shoulders bunched against the force and his fingers tightened around the grip of the gun.

Damnit, he couldn’t get loose.

He’d have to shift to his full demon form to battle against Merilee’s wind-field.

No way.

He wouldn’t resort to that, no matter how much she pissed him off.

Her voice rose above the roar, magnified by her affinity with the air currents trying to smash him into a long, tall Jake popsicle stick. "Don’t make me shoot you in the nuts with an arrow, you stubborn asshole. That room’s full of free elemental energy. If you walk through that door before I contain it, it’ll cook you or rattle out your eyeballs, or maybe blow you to bits."

Jake squinted through the curtains of wind to see that she was standing right beside him, shawl off, bow in hand, arrow ready.

He eyed the polished olivewood.

Would she really shoot me with that thing?

"I’m not a stubborn asshole," he said, forcing the words into the dancing air.

The wind relented a little.

"Really?" Merilee sounded amused, and when he checked, she was smiling that sexy little smile that made him want to forget police work for the next, oh, three hours or so. Maybe four. Or five. Hell, a week or a month. "What kind of asshole are you then? Arrogant—or maybe just macho?"

"Stop the wind," he said as steadily as he could manage with his lips plastered to his teeth. "Now."

Merilee drew her air energy back to herself, stepped in front of him, and tapped his chest with her bow. "We need an understanding. You, Tarzan. Okay, fine—but me
Sibyl
."

He blinked at her, not comprehending, leafing through his mental files on old jungle movies and Rud-yard Kipling tales as quickly as he could, but coming up with nothing but character names like Cheetah and Jane and Boy and—

Merilee shouldered her bow, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed his cheek.

The shock of her warm, moist lips touching his body removed all capacity for logical speech.

Her palms rested on his chest.

Jake stood still, inches from her, seeing her naked in his mind, spread beneath him, lids heavy and half-closed, cheeks flushed, arms and legs open, ready, waiting to take him deep in her hot, wet depths. His cock went from zero to rigid in .03 seconds, and he lost all track of where they were and what they were supposed to be doing.

She was talking.

How the hell was he supposed to comprehend words right now?

But she was using syllable after syllable, gazing at him with a serious expression, using an earnest "You’ve got to understand this" tone.

"You’re honorable and strong and very, very sweet. I honestly believe all this guy-protectiveness bullshit comes from a sincere place inside you."

Jake got
guy, bullshit
—and did she say
sincere
?

He loved the sound of her voice. He gazed at her hands on his chest and imagined them stroking his cock and thanked all the gods he had no elemental energy to burn anything down around them or cause an earthquake or spawn a tornado.

"But I’m a Sibyl," Merilee continued. "What I mean is, you’re a cop and a demon, even if you don’t use the demon part too much. You’ve got your strengths and I’ve got mine. So I’ll handle diffusing elemental protections and energy, and you cover me, watch my back, and do the heavy lifting when I ask you to. Is that a deal?"

"Watch your back," Jake echoed.

Yeah, he could definitely do that.

His brain swam a little closer to reality again, but before he could recover, Merilee left him standing like an idiot and headed into the tiled room on the back right, skirting the intricate pattern painted on the floor in what looked like blood and the bits of melted candle strewn all over the place.

The sight of her walking into danger sobered him instantly, and he regained control of his faculties in a matter of seconds. He lunged toward the room’s doorway, but didn’t enter. He did what Merilee asked, examining the space for potential threats, backing her up as best he could.

Merilee had positioned herself in front of the design on the floor. Her arms were out, and Jake sensed the elemental energy radiating from her hands, her fingers, her entire body. Wind rushed through the space, totally controlled and directed. Merilee’s bow and quiver trembled against her back from the force of the air she was moving, and the roiling power Jake had been feeling since they entered the building began to calm almost immediately.

Jake noted statues filling the corners of the small area, towers of books leaned against the walls, and shelves stacked on shelves full of jars of different colored liquids and powder, pickled animal body parts, and, if he wasn’t much mistaken, a few human body parts, too. Nothing moved. Everything seemed . . . under control.

"You can come in," Merilee said as she lowered her arms, "but stay out of the vévé."

Yeah, no kidding.

Jake edged into the room. He studied the pattern on the floor, which he knew was used in the ritual practice of voodoo, and his sensitive vision and sense of smell told him the drawing had been created with chicken blood. Raw elemental energy radiated from each blackish-red line, malignant and waiting, like a carnivorous plant hoping to snap up a helpless fly.

In the center of the vévé lay a single open volume, which looked like an encyclopedia of ancient gods and goddesses. Jake’s gaze traveled from that book to the jar on the shelf beside his shoulder.

A lidless human eye floated in a murky solution, staring balefully at his nose.

"I wouldn’t touch anything either," Merilee said as she moved her hand a few inches above the nearest stack of books. "Not until I’ve checked it and released whatever protections I find. Phila might have put some nasty elemental traps on her tools."

Jake considered the eyeball. "No worries."

The officer in the hallway had been right. This was one freaky fucktrap of a place. Merilee had been right earlier, too, when she blocked him with that maelstrom. This was definitely her area of expertise, not his.

Jake thought about shifting to demon form and retracting his arms at the elbows to be
sure
he didn’t touch anything, but discarded the idea. Instead, he turned his attention to Merilee, to the books she was cleansing, to anything but the eye beside him. Like the bowl of chicken feet near Merilee’s left ankle.

Okay . . .

"Jake, this doesn’t look deliberate to me, like Phila staged a scene, then left." Merilee handed him an arm load of books. "Stack these in the living room. They’re clear."

He obliged and Merilee continued to talk as she worked. "I think Phila was performing a serious protection ritual and got interrupted."

Jake settled the books near the living room’s white wicker couch. "Maybe she got eaten by whatever horned war god she was trying to feed to gain its favor?"

"Funny. And eminently possible with voodoo—but, no. Not Phila." Merilee sounded definite as she picked up the rest of the first stack of books. "Once we’ve cleaned the room, I’ll risk getting into that vévé for a closer look at that book at the center—but that’s always tricky."

Jake grimaced as he relieved her of the next load of books. He didn’t like the sound of
tricky
. Too risky for her, as far he was concerned. "You deal with the protections. I’ll retrieve the book at the center, or do whatever’s necessary to break the pattern."

Merilee blew out a sigh as she turned away from him to the shelf with the eyeball, and the air in the room stirred from the touch of her elemental power. "You’re acting like a Lowell again."

Jake studied her supple shoulders and the way her leather jumpsuit hugged her curves. "Thanks," he muttered, then wondered if that might have been an insult. She didn’t say she didn’t need his protection, though. Maybe they did have a new understanding, to work to their strengths. Merilee could handle the, er, eyeballs, and Jake would watch her ass.

He coughed.

Figuratively. He meant that figuratively.

Sure
.

About an hour later, as evening began to dim the ambient light seeping through the windows, the room’s contents save for the book anchoring the vévé had all been cleansed, removed, and stacked in the living room for packing and storage. Jake had called Freeman and told him what cartons and boxes would be needed and what size truck to bring. Now he and Merilee were taking a much-deserved break at Phila Gruyere’s small kitchen table before delving into the chicken-blood design and what it contained.

Merilee sat back in the metal chair, clearly tired and worried. Her voice was distant as she said, "I wonder how many practitioners have left and how many might have disappeared like Phila. Do you think—do you think maybe
he
took her?"

"You’re talking about the Stone Man from your dreams." Jake clasped his hands together on the table, wishing he could crush everything that frightened Merilee in his two fists and dispose of it forever.

She looked at the floor between their chairs. "I think he’s real, Jake. I know he’s real. I haven’t had any nightmares for about three days, but the protections from Charlotte’s death just dissolved."

"He might be collecting practitioners with powerful abilities in hopes he can compel them to complete rituals." Jake made an effort to relax, but his fingers kept trying to curl into fists. "That would make sense, and the Legion has tried things like that before—though without much success. It’s very difficult to make someone perform spells and energy transfers against their will."

"I don’t think that’s it." Merilee glanced toward the back room and the intricate blood design still awaiting their attention. "He’d have to know if he turned Phila loose in some ritual, she’d set a flock of zombies on him or draw down some pissed-off god to kick his stone face to dust."

Jake reached for his talisman before he realized what he was doing, then lowered his hand, frowning. "Maybe he has some way to force her to cooperate."

"Possible." Merilee’s gaze lingered on Jake’s talisman. "But not likely."