Bound by Light (50 page)

Max flat-out ran to get beside Delilah, and Merilee let loose enough wind to bind them tightly to the wall.

With a roar that might have been heard in New Jersey, Jake leaned backward, ripped the cell door off its hinges, and threw it across the lab. It smashed into the far wall, sending a spray of paint and rock and dust spattering across the floor.

Merilee tore into the open cell and dropped to her knees between Riana, the babies, Cynda, and the bars.

The babies made fretting, mewling sounds at all the noise and banging, and Merilee’s heart surged with relief.

Merilee reinforced her binding on Max and Delilah, but the rest of the room, the rest of the world faded to nothing as she touched each baby. Weak, dehydrated, but strong heartbeats. Riana must have been focusing all her healing power on maintaining the little ones.

Merilee gave the babies a burst of her own warm wind energy, then shifted one palm to Riana’s arm and the other to Cynda’s chest.

Riana’s breathing was shallow, but her heartbeat was steady.

As for Cynda . . .

Thready pulse.

Uneven respiration.

Her triad sister smelled wonderful and awful at the same time. Fire and smoke and ferocity—but it was muted. Cynda had lost too much blood. Merilee exhaled all the healing air energy she had left in her body, willing it into Cynda, leaving herself almost too dizzy to think.

She shook herself to stay upright, keep her focus on maintaining her binding on Max and Delilah, and concentrate on Cynda—but for all the energy Merilee poured into her triad sister, there wasn’t much change in return. Not much improvement at all.

"I don’t think she’s going to make it," Riana said in such a quiet voice Merilee barely heard her.

Riana’s eyes fluttered and came open, a dull green, totally not Riana, almost lifeless. "I can’t heal her. I’ve tried. I c-can’t." Her pale face grew even more ghostly white. The babies in her arms whimpered. One of them smoked.

Merilee let go of Cynda and steadied Riana and the infants. "We’ve got to get you out of here."

"No." Jake’s tone was firm as he came to stand at the open end of the cell. "They can’t be moved. Take the babies and get out of the cell."

Merilee’s mouth came open. She turned toward him. "Jake, you can’t—"

His golden eyes blazed, killing her words in her throat. He seemed to grow a foot. A terrible, angry, menacing foot that made her heart go absolutely still and quiet. Her eyes fixed on his talisman, as if to be sure somebody hadn’t snatched it and sent him on a murder mission to finish off her triad.

Jake growled, raising the fine hairs along Merilee’s arms. "If you don’t trust me, they’ll both die right here, right now. Get. Out."

Trust.

Merilee swallowed, her throat so dry she coughed with the effort.

It’s Jake.

But he’s a demon, and he’s pissed.

It’s . . . Jake.

And that decided it.

Merilee clenched her teeth to keep from saying anything else. Hands and arms shaking, she coaxed the infants out of Riana’s failing grip.

"Ethan," Riana whispered, reaching white, trembling fingers after the listless, dark-haired infant Merilee took first. The little boy’s life force flickered at the movement. Merilee was sure both Sibyls had tried to breast-feed, but without food, without enough to drink—

Gods and goddesses.

Her rage at August doubled, and swept wider to include Max and Delilah. Merilee wanted to kill them all.

When she got the second baby, the smoking one with the patch of red curls, Riana said, "Cynda wanted Neala, because it’s a champion’s name—tell—tell Creed and Nick."

Merilee gazed at the little girl, surprised at the energy in her thin, scowly little face.

A fire Sibyl born.

The girl gave a weak kick and wave, and more smoke rose from the pieces of her mother’s leathers covering her tiny body.

Was there anything stronger, even at this size, than a fire Sibyl?

Merilee’s jaw worked as she held back a new wave of emotion, and her wind energy spread over the two children in her arms. A second blanket. An extra cover.

"You’ll tell Nick and Creed their names yourself, Riana. You and Cynda." Somehow, despite the dried, used-up feeling trying to claim Merilee’s consciousness, she started to cry. "We
are
getting you out of here."

Riana smiled at her, then closed her cloudy green eyes and slipped into unconsciousness.

"Ri!" Merilee would have grabbed her triad sister’s arm, but she couldn’t, not while holding the babies.

"Merilee," Jake said, sounding so calm his tone bordered on cold. "Now."

Merilee stood on rubbery legs, eased herself out of the cell and past Jake, and carried the babies as far as the nearest lab table. She took two seconds to reinforce the wind prison holding Max and Delilah, and when she turned back toward the cell, Jake gazed at her briefly.

His inhuman golden eyes flickered with an emotion she couldn’t name.

Then he walked into the cell, knelt, and put one hand on each of her triad sisters.

The air in the lab buzzed and shifted, seemed to get thicker—and Jake started to chant. Words Merilee didn’t understand, but she could swear she had heard them before.

A while back.

When—

Jake started to glow. At first a soft yellow, then brighter and brighter, until he seemed to be made of white, glittering light.

His chant continued, and Merilee remembered times she thought she had felt Jake’s energy flowing into her. Times when she needed it, when he seemed to heal her with that light.

Her muscles tensed with each passing second. The infant in her left arm burned through her leathers and scorched the inside of Merilee’s forearm, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from Jake, or stop listening to that chant.

Two years ago. In the townhouse basement. I heard Jake’s mother chanting like that.

Right before she tried to explode our bodies and murder us all with her biosentient abilities.

Merilee almost dropped the babies.

"Jake." The word came out a strangled whisper, but Jake didn’t react. He kept chanting and kept glowing, and all that white light flowed out of him, covering Riana, washing Cynda, moving into both of her triad sisters like a glowing, brilliant wave.

Of all the improbable memories, Merilee fixed on August’s face when they had met the bastard at the Jensen headquarters.

Why is it you are so different from others of your kind?
he had asked Jake.
Do you know? Have you even bothered to explore that question?

Well, Merilee knew now.

She watched Jake’s light shine, watched it bind him to Riana and Cynda and her, too. Her more than ever. Deeper than ever.

He’s a biosentient.

Jake’s a biosentient.

Only, he doesn’t blow up living things like his mother did. He’s putting them back together.

Jake inherited his mother’s elemental talent. That must have been how he survived her abuse—all those scars.
Hecate help him
. He healed himself from what she did to him, as best he could.

No wonder he was so different from other Astaroths. He had almost healed himself from that perversion of his life force, too—but he couldn’t. Not all the way. Merilee doubted Jake understood what he was, what he was doing, even now. He was just following what he had seen and learned, going where his heart led him, and trying to do the next right thing.

Live.

Help.

Heal.

Merilee’s tears flowed freely now, and she hugged the babies tight to her chest even though little Neala was busy trying to set her on fire.

Riana moaned and opened her eyes. A second later, she sat up and pulled away from Jake and blinked. Shook her head like she was dazed or coming out of a stupor.

Even as Merilee watched, strength seemed to return to Riana’s body and color rose to her cheeks as she adjusted the sheet to cover herself.

Jake shifted both hands to Cynda, his light growing so bright Merilee had to squint, and Riana turned her face and shielded her eyes.

Jake’s essence shimmered.

Merilee squeezed the babies and gasped as he started winking in and out of visibility.

"Be careful!" Merilee’s heart pounded impossibly faster than it had over the last several hours. "It’s costing you, Jake. It’s got to—don’t go too far."

Jake faded slowly.

Came back.

"Jake," Merilee said, louder, making the babies shift in her grip. "Jake!"

Jake’s concentration remained fully on Cynda as he faded again.

"Stop!" Merilee clutched the babies and reached out with her wind, first snuffing Neala’s little blazes, then extending outward to brush against Jake’s face and get his attention. . . .

But Jake was gone.

Just like that.

He vanished to nothingness, his light shutting off so abruptly Merilee had to blink against the stars and streamers it left behind in her vision.

Cynda thrashed and cried out, then sat straight up and started to smoke from her bare shoulders. She looked around at Riana, then at Merilee and the babies. Relief claimed her features. She started trying to get to her feet, no doubt to come and claim her fiery little daughter.

Sirens wailed outside the brownstone, and a few seconds later, Merilee heard voices upstairs.

All of this played through Merilee’s head like a movie.

She couldn’t move.

She felt like her body had vanished right along with Jake’s.

She couldn’t feel anything or think anything coherent.

Jake had vanished.

He hadn’t just turned invisible, either, because her wind couldn’t find him.

No.

He had disappeared.

As in gone.

Used up?

Gods and goddesses, no.

That thought brought a wave of misery so strong that her wind energy faltered and died away. Delilah and Max moved immediately, but Merilee couldn’t bring herself to care.

Two OCU officers and some paramedics were in the basement now, rushing toward Riana, helping Cynda, gently prying the babies from Merilee’s grasp, and still she couldn’t move.

"I’m fine," she told a first responder trying to check her out, then said to the OCU officers trying to get through her wind to Delilah and Max, "They’re mine. I’ll take care of them."

She released her wind energy, and Max and Delilah sagged to the lab floor.

For a few seconds, Merilee just kept staring at the spot where Jake had been, whispering his name in her mind.

"He’s expectin’ you," said a marginally familiar voice.

She turned her head enough to see Max Moses standing beside her. Delilah was on her other side. "We know when we’re bested, don’t we, Max? It’s not shame, to make a change in plans."

Max’s right hand was covered with a jacket. In his left hand was a pair of handcuffs. Elementally locked, by the smell and feel of them, even at this distance. Max shook the cuffs. "I was supposed to kill them, shoot you in the leg, cuff you, and bring you to him."

Merilee processed the words, but they made very little sense to her, and didn’t loosen her limbs in the slightest.

Jake.

Where is he?

How do I get him back?

She had to find him, had to talk to him, touch him, hold him, give him her entire heart and all her gratitude for saving her, for bringing Riana and Cynda back from the brink of death—and just because. Because he was Jake, and he was hers, and she didn’t care if he had wings or fangs or claws, or ten heads.

Jake!

Max Moses was still talking, even as bedraggled Sibyls and more OCU officers began to crowd into the lab and take over. She waved everyone away from her, and away from Max and Delilah, wanting Cynda and Riana and the babies to have all the attention.

"Only I couldn’t hurt the women and the babies, see?" Max nodded toward Riana and Cynda as they passed by on stretchers, hooked to bags of fluids. "Babies. How could I do that, now? But he’s waitin’, and I’m supposed to bring you to the rally, and you have to do me this square, for letting them out of this alive."

When Merilee didn’t respond, Max said. "The rally. You gotta. At least make it look good or he’ll kill me. We’ll be—yeah. We’ll be your ticket in. You want to get at him, don’t you?"

Rally. Rally . . .

That word touched off recognition in Merilee’s exhausted brain.

Delilah tugged Max away. "She’s done for. Leave her. Let’s get as far away as we can."

Something about the rally, which should already be started now, shouldn’t it? Athena’s teeth, but every inch of her body ached, and she needed to sleep.