Bound by Light (29 page)

"I can handle it," Merilee said, despite Riana’s sniff of disapproval.

Jake’s gut twisted, but Mother Anemone’s expression remained placid. Surely if Merilee was too tired to perform her duties, the head of Motherhouse Greece would step in to suggest she remain at the townhouse.

Merilee took Jake’s hand openly, obviously not caring who knew she was now involved with Jake, which pleased him and made him uncomfortable at the same time. He noticed the frowns on the faces of the OCU officers, men and women he had barely forged a working relationship with, who didn’t trust him much anyway because of what he was.

Now that he was clearly involved with a Sibyl, would those relationships get even more tenuous?

He hadn’t thought about that.

And even as he did now, he knew Merilee was worth that, and far, far more. He squeezed her fingers with his, and she smiled at him.

They started out of the conference room.

"Be careful of the press," Freeman called after them. "If reporters show up, get the hell out of Dodge—fast."

(22)

Jake’s blood hummed as he led the way into the basement of Alvin Carter’s Strength Now headquarters, instinctively keeping Merilee behind him as he sampled the air, the energy.

No active threat. Nothing immediate, but something harmful, something evil had been here, not long ago. He gazed around the basement, which was roughly the same size as the townhouse conference room. The space seemed smaller with Bela Argos and a small army of crime scene technicians—both regular and OCU-affiliated—revolving around Derek Holston’s mutilated body. If Jake wasn’t much mistaken, the techs seemed a little . . . surly. All tense and frowning.

Did the two groups not like working together?

He motioned for Merilee and she started forward. At the entrance, she stopped and gripped both sides of the steel doorframe with her gloved hands. Her leather-covered chest heaved, and her sudden pallor made Jake’s gut lurch.

"What is it?" he asked as quietly as he could, his gaze moving from one of her hands to the other, acutely aware that she might be disrupting trace evidence.

Merilee let her arms fall to her sides and shook her head, making the bow and quiver slung over her shoulders twitch back and forth. "I—I don’t really know. I’m sorry." She glanced at the spots on the door where she had touched the steel. "Shit. At least I have on gloves. Maybe I didn’t do too much damage?"

A small gust of wind stirred around her face, sending the sweat on her forehead toward her eyes. She wiped her brow with her leather-clad knuckles before it could drip.

"Probably no damage." Jake almost reached for her, but thought better of it. Not here. Not at work.

They both had to concentrate, and he had to allow Merilee to have her normal Sibyl reactions. Her instincts and Bela’s were as important as any trace they gathered. Jake trusted Merilee would sort out her impressions later and relay them to him, and until then—well, until then, he could worry like hell and watch her very, very closely.

Merilee strapped on her polycarbonate-lens goggles and they moved into the basement together. Regular technicians followed instructions from the OCU techs, collecting evidence all around them but avoiding any areas where the OCU techs dropped little orange evidence cones. Both sets of techs skirted the already-marked sulfur trails.

The red ribbons of lingering sulfur were obvious to Jake’s sensitive vision. Almost too bright to look at directly. They were so powerful Jake could actually
smell
them over the sweat of the technicians and the coppery, putrid scent of Holston’s blood and end-of-life waste.

Bela Argos, dressed in battle leathers and fully armed like Merilee, met them beside the chair containing Holston’s remains. She pulled up her polycarbonate goggles. "Poor bastard was mutilated before he died." She glanced at his body and grimaced. "And after."

"Since he got swiped by Asmodai, we’ve got to assume the Legion is behind this." Merilee was still papery-pale as she adjusted her goggles. "Did they want information about Sibyls—or about what he was doing at the university?"

Bela folded her arms. "Nothing exciting there. Derek studied biopolymer degradation."

Before Jake could retrieve the definition, Merilee said, "Eyeball stuff? You’re right. I can’t see any state secrets or national intrigue in collagen distortion and dystrophic corneas."

Bela’s serious expression darkened. "Then this was about Sibyls." She gestured to the sulfur traces. "And whatever did this, it’s some freaky new monster the Legion’s come up with."

"Derek was married to an air Sibyl, so maybe they needed specific info on us." Merilee studied the body. "But what information could he offer that the Legion doesn’t already know?"

Bela had no answer, and neither did Jake. However, he didn’t like the possibility that someone in the Legion wanted specific intel on air Sibyls. The last time the Legion targeted a specific group of Sibyls, Motherhouse Ireland almost got destroyed. "Perhaps they needed something subtle, some minor personal information that wouldn’t seem too important." He spoke quietly for Bela and Merilee’s benefit alone, below the range of the nearby technicians. "Something that might help the Legion with a specific plan or cause? Another attack on a Motherhouse, this time Greece?"

"Maybe," Bela said, moving to where she didn’t have to look at the gruesome sight of Holston’s body. Jake couldn’t blame her for that at all.

"So why did whoever—or whatever—did this," she continued, "go to the trouble of making this look like a sadistic sexual killing? And why do it here, of all places?"

Merilee let out a weak-sounding breath. "Sure does make a shitload of problems for Carter and his Strength Now campaign, doesn’t it?"

"Psychotic demons with political agendas." Bela offered a stream of colorful expletives about that combination while crime scene technicians stared at her and Jake’s thoughts shifted to the Stone Man.

If the Stone Man was real, and he was pretty sure it was, could it be Legion-affiliated? It would be just like the Legion to monkey with elections, to put their people in power. They had a long history of doing just that—his parents had been part of it.

Or was this some step in its plan to come after Merilee, and maybe other Sibyls?

Like the practitioners who keep disappearing. All people with very strong elemental talents
.

Maybe both aims had been in play.

As theories went, it hung together, but it was very speculative. They didn’t have any way of tying Charlotte’s suicide or the disappearances to this murder. Hell, they couldn’t even prove Phila and the rest
had
disappeared. Not yet, anyway.

Pain knifed through his temples, and he realized he was clenching his jaw.

Clusterfuck
.

That was one of Nick’s words, but Jake liked it.

Yep, bro. This is a clusterfuck.

Beside Jake, Merilee gazed through her goggles at the traces on the basement floor. "I’ve never seen anything like this," she said in a shaky voice.

Jake wasn’t certain if she meant the traces or Holston’s remains. Either way, he hadn’t expected her to have such a powerful reaction. The sharp pain in his temples flared again, and he made himself loosen his jaw. Merilee sounded so uncharacteristic, like something was dragging her down. Something beyond the obvious factor of this brutal murder scene. Her tired, listless sound dug at him down deep, along with the fact that he couldn’t do a damned thing about it.

"I’m picking up weird things," Merilee admitted, speaking louder to make herself heard over the rising conversations of the techs. "Smells. Images on the air, flashes of scenes . . . like under the ocean? And these traces, the sulfur’s so strong it’s reminding me of volcanic residue."

Bela stepped around a pair of kneeling techs and agreed immediately, but she clarified with, "It’s not rock, though. Not real rock, anyway, but yeah, the sulfur’s just as strong."

From the tight line of Merilee’s mouth and the way she kept avoiding his gaze, Jake figured there was something she wasn’t saying, or maybe wasn’t ready to say yet in front of Bela. He left it alone for the moment, but his jaw got tighter by the second.

Should I take her out of here, or would I be getting in her way? Disrespecting her as a professional? Fuck, this is complicated.

"Sulfur traces like this absolutely can’t be from As-modai." Bela smoothed her dark hair tighter against her head. "Curson either." Her eyes flicked toward Jake, then away. "Even Astaroths don’t leave behind that kind of trail."

"Could it be some sort of god?" Merilee scowled as she knelt near the widest and strongest of the traces, leading from Holston’s left ankle to the spot on the basement’s stone wall where the bright pulse of crimson seemed to evaporate. "Maybe something related to volcanoes? We dealt with a Vodoun god a couple of days ago. A Petro Loa—a fire being."

"I heard. And there’s still no sign of Phila Gruyere." Bela’s face darkened as her tone grew more stressed and disgusted. "Rumor says a new-age guru went missing the same night you had your showdown with Bosou Koblamin at Fresh Kills. That, and all of
this
mess—what the hell is going on, Merilee?"

A couple of crime scene technicians started to squabble in the far corner of the room, and Jake gave them a glare that stopped the confrontation. He noticed both techs were perspiring, much as Merilee had done when she first entered the basement. As she was still doing.

Jake sniffed the air. Did his best to resample the energy in the room, let it flow into him, through him—but he didn’t sense anything off or wrong beyond the sulfur stench and the lingering smells and sights of Derek’s violent death.

"I’ve got no idea what’s up in this city," Merilee muttered as she inched along the big sulfur trail, holding her hand above it without letting her glove touch the shimmering red. "Wish I had a clue."

Jake was seized with the impression that Merilee damn well did have a clue, but she was keeping it to herself. The whiter her skin got, the more her hands shook, the more certain he was that whatever had happened in this basement was related to the Stone Man. That was the one thing he had seen Merilee get upset about, and the more she got upset, the more he thought about yanking her the hell out of the basement. Maybe carrying her all the way back to the townhouse and locking her in the library. It was getting hard to keep his mind on the scene and gather those details Freeman expected him to bring back to the townhouse for discussion.

He followed her to the stone wall, facing away from the bulk of the evidence techs, who continued combing through the larger part of the room with sour expressions and jerky, frenetic motions. Merilee focused on the spot on the stone wall where the sulfur trace vanished, and Jake felt her outflow of elemental wind.

Watching her work made his blood surge with worry. It wouldn’t be good to interrupt her when she was this deep into a task, but damn it, he didn’t want her using up any more vital energy. Bela Argos obviously noticed her fellow Sibyl’s unusual reaction, maybe even Merilee’s growing weakness, and Bela came to stand beside Jake, right behind Merilee. "Air Sibyls are more sensitive than the rest of us," she told Jake, as if he might not know that. "Maybe she’s feeling something we’re too dense to notice."

Jake didn’t correct Bela about his level of sensitivity, or his awareness of Sibyl strengths and weaknesses. Better to appreciate her friendly tone, and the way she seemed to be trying to include him in her thoughts. From what he understood, Bela had never been an open, amicable Sibyl at the best of moments. He wondered what might have swayed her toward being nice to him, then remembered that it was her triad sister he had taken to Greece for burial.

Loyalty, then. Jake glanced at Bela’s stern, straightforward expression, and noticed the way she stood ready to grab Merilee and offer her physical support if necessary.

He decided he liked Bela.

Loyalty.

Yes. Loyalty was good.

Damn gorgeous woman, too, a lot like Riana, and scary-strong inside and out like so many of the earth Sibyls. It would take one hell of a man to tame Bela Argos. If Sal Freeman weren’t so totally wrapped up with Andy, Jake might have dared him to ask Bela out for dinner.

Merilee’s gloved hand drifted toward the wall and traced an invisible line in the stone. "Bela, can you sense the earth on the other side of this spot?"

Bela’s earth energy surged outward, catching Jake in the elbow as it moved. He stumbled sideways, but righted himself, then watched as the woman used her terrasentient abilities to explore the earth behind the wall.

"It’s . . . disturbed," Bela said quietly. "Freshly turned—and for quite some distance. One or two hundred yards, possibly three. A tunnel, maybe? Entrance and exit for the killer, unobserved by people in the Carter headquarters?"

Merilee nodded. "My air energy moves too freely around these lines." She traced without touching the stone again, this time indicating a rectangular shape wide enough and tall enough to have been a doorway. "I think the stone was recently sealed. Elemental energy—but, hasty. Not perfect."