Bound by Light (35 page)

She realized she was about to touch the talisman and jerked her hand back to her side.

Whatever was following Delilah, if there had ever been anything, vanished.

I’m losing my shit. Completely
.

Delilah hurried onward and Merilee watched her go. What kind of hell had Delilah faced as she struggled to reach the townhouse to take shelter with the Sibyls? Merilee kind of liked the old woman. Tonight, though, she was missing some of her usual fire. Unlike Cynda and Mother Keara.

Mother Keara blew air through her nose. "We must find this ancient menace and kill him—it—outright." She cut her gaze toward Mother Yana, then Mother Anemone. "Analyze, plan, implement. Now that would be implementing." She snorted again and her shoulders smoked.

The sprinkler over Mother Keara’s head started leaking water in big, sloppy drops. If Andy hadn’t damaged most of the sprinklers in the townhouse, it probably would have exploded into a fountain due to the heat rising off the little Irish woman.

Mother Keara glared upward and blasted the little faucet with a jet of fire so hot the metal turned red, then blue and melted shut as the ceiling all around it scorched a flaky, dark black.

Mother Yana sighed.

Merilee shook her head as Mother Anemone chastised Mother Keara for damaging the surroundings. A few bursts of wind energy later, and the Mothers settled down again. It would have been nice to have Andy around to occupy them, but as second in command of the OCU, Andy was leading a contingent of officers and techs to the Carter headquarters to make another attempt at evidence collection, and to find out where that tunnel went. They’d be gone all night and probably some of the morning, too. Freeman had also gone out with Bela Argos, leading all the Sibyls who had reached the townhouse on a hunt for the three missing warriors.

Cynda and Riana were helping Merilee patch up a young ranger triad from New Jersey. The Sibyls had been jumped by a bunch of teenagers, and they hadn’t wanted to draw weapons on children.

Like Merilee, her triad sisters kept looking at the main door and flinching each time it banged open.

"Where are they?" Cynda muttered, rubbing her hand over her belly as she smoked even harder than Mother Keara had done, and sparked, too. The shoulders of her maternity top and the legs of her maternity jeans smoldered in several places, and little scorch marks appeared in the fabric. The distress in Cynda’s voice was so palpable Merilee wanted to hug her, reassure her, but Merilee didn’t relish the thought of being melted like the sprinkler. She settled for letting some of her air energy flow around Cynda to join with Riana’s gift of subtle earth power.

As her triad’s support engulfed her, Cynda’s smoke eased to a few random puffs. Her hands moved from her belly to her back, massaging the muscles strained from bending, stooping, and working in the final days of her pregnancy. Her face relaxed a fraction, and Merilee and Riana made eye contact, sharing a look of relief.

"They’ll get here soon," Riana said to Cynda, but she was just as worried. Merilee could see it in Riana’s misty green eyes. "Any second now."

But seconds kept going by.

With each one that passed, Riana looked more fragile herself, and a little more desperate to know that Creed was safe.

Merilee’s hand wandered toward the talisman a dozen or more times as OCU officers and Sibyls flowed in and out, sharing information, bringing in wounded, and keeping a sharp lookout for any hint of a media assault. As far as anyone knew, Head Case Quarters hadn’t been compromised. This assumption was reinforced by the fact that OCU’s official location, an inconspicuous police annex on West Thirtieth in the old Fourteenth Precinct building, which housed the Traffic Task Force, had been overrun by reporters and curious citizens.

If anyone knew about the townhouse, they’d get swamped, Merilee had no doubt. It could happen any second.

"All the boroughs are this insane," said the next Sibyl that Merilee bandaged up. The young woman had been injured in a fight with placard-wielding God-is-coming fanatics near Trinity Church. "People think it’s the end of time or something."

Merilee ground her teeth as she sent healing wind through the redheaded fire Sibyl’s wound to cleanse it.

So that’s what the Stone Man wanted people to think, then. That all was lost, that everything was hopeless.

We’ve got to find that asshole and take him out. But how? Who the hell is he?

The redhead touched the clean gash on her forehead. "Thanks. That feels a lot better." She stood and picked up her sword, obviously ready to rejoin the search for the missing rangers. "That guy Bartholomew August, the candidate, he stopped a riot near the Carter headquarters, or we wouldn’t have made it here. His Peace Warriors are out trying to calm everybody down, but some of them are getting in fights, too."

"I don’t care who gets elected," Riana said as she helped an air Sibyl to her feet and handed the young woman her weapons—tiny throwing knives. "I just want all the campaigns and rallies over. Fewer gatherings, fewer people in the streets. And August is an idiot if he’s putting himself in the middle of this fray."

"An idiot or a hero," the redhead said as her triad sister joined her. They nodded to Cynda, Riana, Merilee, and the Mothers, then headed out the door, leaving the triage area in the entrance hall blissfully patient-free for the moment.

Merilee stared at the spot where the young Sibyls had been. Her fingers curled as she thought about what the young woman said.

"An idiot or a hero," she repeated.

"Hmm?" Cynda asked as she settled her pregnant bulk in a nearby chair.

"Do we have a television set in this place that works?" Merilee asked, something agitating her thoughts. Something she couldn’t quite grasp. She wanted to get another look at Bartholomew August. Hadn’t he seemed familiar to her before?

The dark horse candidate . . . maybe about to become a front-runner? Maybe secretly a horny ancient demon who doubles as a ravenous ibis in people’s dreams. . . . Oh, now, wouldn’t that be fucking perfect?

"Television." Riana shook her head. "Uh, no, sorry. I don’t think so. Way too much Sibyl energy for electronics lately. The last one blew a couple of days back, right after your latest computer."

Mother Keara gave yet another snort. Merilee knew most of the Mothers in Greece and Ireland thought modern technology was pointless and unreliable—and in the presence of so much elemental energy, yeah,
unreliable
would fit. Motherhouse Russia embraced technology more, but had their own, far advanced from anything available in the everyday world. Better shielding, better elemental balance, so it didn’t go on the fritz as often. Problem was, it didn’t work so well outside that Motherhouse.

Where the
hell
was Jake?

Damn it.

Merilee caught her right hand with her left and pulled her own wrist away from the talisman. When Jake got back, after she kicked the shit out of him for leaving like that and scaring her half to death, they’d have to make a run to the nearest sports bar or coffee shop to get a look at the news reports, or figure out where August was and get a look at him in person.

Tears snuck up on Merilee, flowing before she could stop them.

Jake. Please. Show up.

Had she ever cried over a man before?

And show up human.

I’m not calling you. No matter what, I won’t compel you—but you better come home to me.

Riana and Cynda were both resting now, and the Mothers were offering them a bit of healing energy and pain relief for their backs and feet. Merilee turned away from them so they wouldn’t see she was upset.

Could I love him if he stays an Astaroth all the time?

Oh, shit. Do I
love
him?

She wiped her eyes and stared at the door, willing it to open.

And it did.

So hard the hinges rattled.

Merilee jumped and readied herself for another disappointment—and a new influx of beat-up Sibyls or officers.

At first, her brain could barely accept what her eyes were seeing, or wouldn’t believe it, not until a rush of earth energy rattled the townhouse and Riana said, "Creed!"

It was Creed.

And behind Creed came Nick, with a limp, unconscious Jake slung over his shoulder.

Cynda let out a dragon-sigh, all hot air and fire, leaned back in her chair, and covered her face with relief.

Heart pounding so hard she could barely breathe, Merilee threw herself toward Jake, slammed into Creed, blew him sideways in Riana’s general direction, and reached Nick.

Nick held up his free hand and grumbled, "No fucking tornados. The trip here was enough fun for one night." He shifted Jake on his shoulder. "It’s calming down, though. One of those presidential candidates is on television asking everybody to be peaceful and go home. I swear you can feel the calmness spreading like a wave. Guy’s pretty charismatic. Bet he wins."

Merilee ignored Nick, keeping her back to Creed, her triad, the Mothers, the whole entire townhouse. Not caring who saw or what anybody thought, she touched Jake’s arms and ran her palm against his short blond hair. He was still warm and breathing. Still alive. And human. With one hell of a bruise on what she could see of his jaw.

The sight of it made Merilee wince. "What did you do? Try to kill him?"

She loosed a burst of wind that smacked against Nick so hard he had to shift his legs to glowing gold Curson-demon form and burn off his jeans to keep standing.

"Well, shit." Nick shifted back to human, now naked from the waist down. "Guess I’m taking loverboy here to your library, then getting myself some new pants."

Merilee spun to follow him, but froze when she caught sight of Cynda covering her mouth to hide a laugh even as tears coated her cheeks.

Hormones, or love?

Merilee touched the still-damp tears on her own face and gazed at Riana. Riana had her arms around Creed’s neck, and he was speaking softly to her, one arm around her waist and his other hand resting against her round stomach.

The sight filled Merilee with a rush of warm air, followed by a round of queasy nervousness.

Her duty was here helping the injured, or out in the streets searching for the missing rangers. But Jake—

She looked up to see Jake and Nick’s naked ass disappearing up the stairs.

All three Mothers looked from Cynda to Riana to Merilee, and then toward the steps. Mother Anemone smiled. "Things do seem to be slowing for the moment. See to Jake’s healing and get him back in shape so you two can join the hunt as soon as possible."

Merilee took off like an arrow fired from her own bow.

Her feet barely touched the stairs as she climbed, her heart beating faster with each movement. Her rational mind knew Jake was okay, that Creed and Nick had done what they had to do to keep him safe from himself, probably from his own stubbornness—but damn it, he was injured. He wasn’t conscious.

What if he didn’t wake up?

She tried to smother her anxiety and let the energy inside her build so she could help him heal, but all she wanted to do was get to the library and see him and touch him again, see him open those stormy eyes and gaze up at her.

When she hit the first step on her landing, Merilee was running so hard she almost ricocheted off half-dressed Nick coming downstairs, but he dodged her, mumbling about friggin’ unstable air elementals. It was all she could do not to blow him down the steps, but he did bring Jake home. For that, she’d let him live.

Merilee hurried into the library and closed and bolted the door behind her.

Nick had put Jake on her bed in the middle of a bunch of papers, chip wrappers, and soda cans.

He lay very, very still, his head on her pillow, his arms draped across his T-shirt and unzipped jacket.

She walked toward him, past her bow and quiver leaning against the edge of a bookcase, and she watched the rise and fall of his chest as she quickly cleaned all the junk off her bed to give him more room. She also checked his fingertips for claws, making sure she saw no signs of fangs creeping from his mouth.

But . . . if she did see those things, if Jake were lying on her bed with wings and pearl-pale skin and long, dangerous claws, would she be less worried about him?

Would she be less eager to touch him and heal him and wake him and talk to him?

"No," she whispered.

The frenetic pound of her heart slowed to something steadier, something deeper. Merilee breathed in rhythm with Jake as she eased herself onto the bed beside him and rested her palms against the cotton covering the hard muscle of his chest.

She wasn’t sure how they could relate if he assumed his demon form and kept it, but she would find a way.
They
would find a way. By all three faces of Hecate, she wouldn’t give him any choice about that.

Merilee closed her eyes and let her air energy flow out of her and into him, lending him all the strength she could spare, and then some. His pulse seemed fine, and his respiration. Nothing inside him sounded or felt wounded, other than his jaw. Merilee focused her healing on the bruise, hoping that when Jake did wake, he’d experience less pain for her efforts.