by Anna Windsor
Damn, she was hypnotic. The sound of her, the feel of her, made everything bad in the world leave his mind. He didn’t want to let go of her, couldn’t stop staring at her, and her threats only turned him on more. She was mother tiger to her quad. He could respect that. Maybe she was secretly one of those cat-demons, and he wasn’t sure he cared. When she looked up at him, her dark eyes serious and steaming, Duncan almost groaned.
“Don’t forget what I said,” Bela told him. Another quick kiss, and she turned him loose. “And you’re right about secrets dividing people. I won’t be keeping any secrets from my quad or from the Sibyl Mothers. Sibyl fighting units have to function like perfectly fitted machines, and—”
A huge thump and bang obliterated the rest of her words.
Duncan grabbed her and used his body to cover her as splinters and bigger chunks of white painted banister pelted his head and back. He turned, keeping Bela behind him, to see Camille and Dio crash off the stairs and hit the floor slugging it out. One second later, they were trying hard to choke each other to death. The redhead was wearing jeans and a tunic, but Dio was dressed in something that looked like two red handkerchiefs. Really, really little handkerchiefs. The fabric whipped in the wind that was starting to rip wind chimes off the ceiling.
“Angel,” Duncan said, doing his best to keep some of the wind off her, “I think your machine has … issues.”
Bela stayed behind him, and she started banging her head on his back. Slowly. Not too hard. But real steady.
Andy shot out of the kitchen, sloshing coffee everywhere. “What the hell? Oh, for shit’s sake.”
She slammed her mug down on the gigantic table in front of the couch, raised both hands, and hit the women with a blast of water as strong as any fire hose. The water’s force knocked them apart, and both of them smacked the wall beneath some of the big mirrors.
For a few long seconds, they lay there sputtering and shivering.
Andy looked at the ceiling like she might find God in the ornamental plaster. “And what do you think Mrs. Knight’s gonna say about all this noise? Christ on a crutch! She’ll call the cops, and I swear we should let them haul you both off. Go change clothes. Now. Obviously, this little field trip needs to wait a few days—or longer—until you two children get your shit together.”
Dio and Camille looked way pissed.
Dio started to argue, but shut up when Andy hit her in the mouth with another jet of water.
Camille watched that happen to Dio and reverted to her usual silence—but Duncan didn’t miss the spark of fury lingering in her odd-colored eyes. That had a little promise to it. Maybe this one was finally starting to find her voice in this set of powerful females.
Dio and Camille scooted up from the wall and took off back upstairs, leaving dark, moist footprints in the carpet as they went.
“Bela, quit banging your head on the hunk and let him sit down before he falls down. He just woke up from some kind of freak-ass coma, for God’s sake. Here.” Andy passed Bela a pad. “Go change into something comfortable, and make a list of what we need from the hardware store for you to fix the banister.”
Andy sat down on the couch, took a drink of coffee, then scooted a notebook to where she was sitting, and started working on her own to-do list.
Bela banged her head on Duncan’s back another few seconds, then let out a soft groan, slipped around him, and headed for the swinging door.
“You can fix banisters?” he asked as she retreated. He was intrigued by how many different layers she had, and the thought of her wearing nothing but a tool belt gave him a brand-new hard-on, even though she’d threatened to kill him a little while ago.
“My father was a carpenter.” Bela pushed the door open.
Duncan wanted to go after her, carry her down the steps, and lay her out on one of those lab tables. That would be sweet, her naked and gasping, wrapping her legs around his waist …
And me having a heart attack, or whatever these slash marks will do to me if I’m “too active.” Whatever the hell that means.
“I thought you said your father was a jarhead,” he called after Bela, his voice cracking a little after his fantasy of taking her hard and fast on a lab table, never mind the tool belt.
“He was a jarhead and a carpenter.” The kitchen door swung shut behind her.
“A Marine who was a craftsman? Sorry, Angel. That’s just against the laws of nature.”
Bela didn’t answer, and he heard the soft tread of her shoes on the stairs to the basement. He lifted his broken arm and rubbed the cast, just to have something to do with his hands that wouldn’t get him arrested. It was probably a good thing they were waiting a few days to go question that lawyer, Patterson, even if it slowed the investigation down. He needed a little more time to get steady on his feet. And in the brain. And, ah, other places.
“Angel.” Andy’s snorting laugh startled him, because he’d almost forgotten she was in the room. “I hate to break it to you, Sharp, but Bela Argos would give most angels nightmares, never mind the rest of us heathens.”
Her Southern twang made Duncan feel more at home, and less alone. He sat down in the chair opposite the couch. “Don’t hear many people this far north use that word, heathen. Where are you from?”
She tucked her pencil behind one ear. “Outside Atlanta. I came up here for college. You?”
“I got discharged near here and stayed, because I always wanted to live in New York City. I’m from farther south than you, though. Statesboro.”
“Wake up, mama,” Andy sang, sounding a lot like a slightly tone-deaf Janis Joplin. “Turn yo’ lamp down low. God, I can’t remember—wait, wait—it’s—I’m goin’ to the country, baby do you wanna go.” She grinned at him. “ ‘Statesboro Blues.’ The Allman Brothers, right?”
Duncan shook his head. “It’s Blind Willie McTell’s song. The Allman Brothers just covered it.”
Deep in his mind, Duncan heard John whisper, Can’t hide, sinner. Then a little more of their favorite spiritual. Where you runnin’, sinner, you can’t hide.
It was based on a verse from Revelation in the Bible, if he wasn’t mistaken.
“Ten points for Duncan Sharp. The man knows his music.” Andy downed another drink of coffee, then got to her feet. “Listen, Sibyls are allowed to date and get married and all that jazz, so I don’t care if you’re sweet on Bela—as long as you’re good to her, and as long as you don’t die.”
Her tone reminded Duncan of one police officer giving another permission to date her sister, and he treated it with that respect. “Thanks, and I will be good to her, and I’m not planning on croaking unless I have no other choice.” He scrubbed his palm across his chin, realizing he needed a shave in a big way. “If I blow any of that, are you going to threaten to kill me, too?”
Andy glanced over her shoulder at the kitchen door, then turned her attention back to Duncan. Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled. “Not yet, Sharp. And don’t give me any reason to regret that.”
(17)
Bela watched Duncan take a long, slow sip of the coffee she made. Morning sunlight through the brownstone’s single kitchen window played off the high line of his jaw, accenting his natural good looks. His color looked better than it had yesterday, during Dio and Camille’s fight, which gave her some relief.
The way he’d been staring at her since she got him up and brought him upstairs for breakfast—like he could eat her, with or without butter and the biscuits she was baking for him and her quad—didn’t do anything in the relief department.
“This is good.” He set the cup down on the room’s round table, leaned back, and draped his arm over one of the three empty chairs. Damn, but the man filled out his jeans and black T-shirt to perfection. “I thought anything that smelled that strong would have to be bitter, but it’s smooth as can be.”
Bela took her own drink of coffee, enjoying the rich, dark scent, powerful flavor, and the warmth on her tongue. “It’s Andy’s special
blend. She grows it on her island. Motherhouse Kérkira, I mean. About fifty acres of it.”
“I think I’ve got this Sibyls stuff straight, all but Andy.” Duncan kept his hand on his cup, but his eyes stayed on Bela, making it hard for her to think. “Water Sibyls were extinct before her, right?”
Breathe, Bela.
“Theoretically, yes.” She drank another swig of coffee, mostly to keep her sanity and take a break from the gray-blue power of Duncan’s gaze. “Since the accident that destroyed Motherhouse Antilla centuries ago. Then Andy got attacked by a Legion flunky with a minor skill with water, and it woke up her latent abilities. Since then, several hundred women of all ages have been discovered or come forward. It’s like the universe was waiting—then, boom.”
Bela set her cup down too hard, sloshing coffee on her hand and the sleeve of her white cotton robe, and felt like a clumsy sixteen-year-old. Her cheeks colored as she used her napkin to blot up the mess, but Duncan didn’t seem to notice. He was studying her face, like he might be searching for the key to the meaning of life or the workings of the universe, and it was almost enough to make her sweat even though her pajamas and robe were lightweight.
Duncan paused long enough to give her robe and pj’s another appreciative glance, then turned his attention back to her face. “If Andy’s a Mother like the older women who’ve been helping me, why does she get to fight in a group instead of hiding out in Motherhouse … wherever?”
“Kérkira.” Bela fought to keep her words together, then finally resorted to slow, even battle breathing, which helped her with her composure. “All Mothers fought, back in their younger days. Andy needs her fighting years, too, and she has a few adepts old enough and skilled enough that they’re almost ready to wear the yellow Mother’s robes on the island. Mother Anemone from Greece spends time there, and Andy will, too, when she’s needed.”
“That’s got to be a bitch, being pulled between two worlds.” Duncan looked toward the coffeemaker when he said this, his voice getting more quiet as he spoke, and Bela’s stomach clenched at the pain she sensed, pain from the heart, not his wounds.
He was pulled between two worlds, too—the one he knew before DUMBO, and the one he was learning now.
“I’m sure it’s hard.” She wanted to reach out and touch his hand, but kept herself in check. Did he want to talk about it, what he was going through—how strange it all felt to him? She waited, but he didn’t say anything else, and Bela thought he might be a little embarrassed.
“There aren’t any Mothers to train Andy,” she said, giving him an out in case he needed one. “All the Motherhouses have taken a turn with her fighting skills, and doing what they could to shore up her elemental control—but we really don’t even know the extent of her abilities yet.”
“Does she?” Duncan gave the coffeemaker a break, but wrecked Bela all over again with the mix of sadness and curiosity in his beautiful eyes. “Does Andy know all of what she can do?”
Bela gave herself another quick break with her mug of coffee. “I don’t think so.”
“But you took a risk on her. On all of them.” Duncan leaned toward her across the table, making the distance between them so much smaller that she thought she could feel heat from his hands, from his coffee mug—but maybe it was her heat, rising off her arms, her shoulders. Being close to him like this, just talking, it seemed right and crazy and relaxed and tense, all at the same time.
“My quad’s a crew of misfits,” she admitted.
“Nothing wrong with that. In Saudi, I pulled misfits for most of my unit’s assignments. They fight harder because they have something to prove.” His tone seemed wry, and Bela realized he must have considered himself a misfit, at least back then, in his Army days.
She finally let herself touch him, just her fingers on his hands, but oddly enough, it helped her relax. This time, when his eyes fixed on hers, she could think just fine. “And just what did you have to prove, Duncan Sharp?”
His response was immediate—almost emphatic. “That I was more than a Georgia redneck in sand-colored fatigues.”
She shook her head. “You so don’t strike me as a redneck.”
“I’ve been out of the cotton fields a long time.” His grin stole a fraction of her composure, never mind the fact that he shifted his hand to stroke her fingers.
Still, her thoughts and words stayed strangely calm and organized, and she was able to follow with, “Did your family farm for a living?”
“Yeah.” His grin shifted to something like a smile, distant and thoughtful—and a little sad again. “It killed my father. Literally. He flipped his tractor in a rut when I was ten. Broke his neck.”
Bela would have asked Duncan if he’d seen the accident, but his tight expression made the answer to that question all too obvious. He kept moving his fingers across hers, and she hoped the sensation calmed him as much as it comforted her.
“My mother didn’t make it long after that,” he said. “My dad could be a bastard, but he loved my mother, and she loved him back—fierce, total, like wild animals who mate for life.”
His eyes found hers again, unsettling her at deep, primal levels as he kept talking, his voice low but urgent, like he wanted to get the rest out before it slipped back to the vault in his heart, where he kept everything locked away. “When I was fourteen, Mom died of pneumonia, but I think her body was just waiting for a reason, since her heart died with my dad. I lived with John and his folks until I finished high school early, just turned seventeen, and John’s dad signed for us to go into the service. The rest—Army, Gulf War, police work—you know all that.”
Bela laced her fingers through his to keep their contact, needing it now, like she thought he might. “I think my dad grieved himself to death over my mother, too. He lived just long enough to raise me.”
“I’m sorry.” Duncan squeezed her knuckles gently, then lifted her hand and kissed the back of it before he lowered it to the table again. “How did she pass?”
Bela frowned, surprised at herself for bringing up something she usually kept buried in her own heart vault. “A Legion ambush. It was the cult’s first few attempts at making and using Asmodai. My mother’s patrol never knew what hit them. The demons tore them apart.”
Duncan kissed her hand again, and his gaze stayed gentle. “Is this where you grew up? This house?”
Bela almost laughed at that. “Are you kidding? No. My dad didn’t have that kind of money, and he never would have let the Sisterhood buy us a house. We had a little apartment in the Bronx. My first triad and I, we didn’t live together, because I wasn’t ready to give it up yet and leave behind most of the memories.” She glanced around the kitchen, easily three times the size of the kitchen where she ate breakfast with her father. “When another Sibyl gave me this brownstone, I knew it was time to let the old place go. I brought what was important, gave notice, turned the keys over—and here I am.”
Duncan kept up the gentle pressure on her knuckles, and his expression told Bela that he understood how hard that had been for her, that it was one of the many sacrifices she had decided to make to pull her little unit of misfits together. Tears tried to make it to her eyes, so she changed the subject. “We need to get you some clothes when we go out today. Where do you live?”
“I rent a room in Chinatown. Not much to clean out, honestly. Just some shirts and jeans, a few pairs of shoes and socks. I live pretty Zen, I guess.” He lifted his bad arm and ran the edge of his cast across his chin. “I’ve got some shaving cream in the bathroom at the end of the hall, too. I could probably use that.”
Bela toyed with his fingers and pinched his thumb. “What, no underwear?”
“Nah. Hardly ever wear it.”
This time Duncan’s grin made her want to pick up his fingers and bite them, one at a time. She didn’t—but only just.
“My truck’s in the lot next door to the building,” he added as she made herself turn his hand loose and sit back in her chair. “Can’t miss
it—huge, with running lights, and it’s red.”
She stared, and he shrugged. “It’s a Georgia thing.”
“I’ll have Camille pick it up and park it in our garage. We’ve got some extra spots—but no driving, okay?”
“Not a problem. I usually walk.”
Bela glanced at his legs before she could stop herself. Those thighs in those jeans … damn. “Better drink up. It’s time for your stress test.”
Somehow she managed not to pant.
Duncan wrapped his hand around his mug, running his thumb along the rim. “Stress test. Isn’t that all about pulse and breathing and metabolism?”
Stop staring at his hand.…
Stop imagining that thumb moving like that in other places.…
“We’ll use Andy’s treadmill,” she whispered like she hadn’t had water in a month or two.
“I can think of better ways to get my heart pounding, Angel.”
Bela wished she had ice water instead of coffee to drink, but it gave her enough time to catch her breath again. “Don’t make me pull out the handcuffs.”
His sexy smile nearly drove her straight nuts.
She thought he was about to come up with something devilish about beds and cuffs and heart-pounding activities, but what he said was, “I could get used to this, Angel.”
“Get used to what?” Bela heard the surprise in her own voice.
“Good coffee. Good conversation.” Duncan took a drink from his mug without ever breaking eye contact. “View’s not bad, either.”
* * *
A week went by so fast Bela barely had a chance to register it. She and her quad retrieved Duncan’s clothes, his shaving cream, and his big red Ford truck. And damnit, she did start getting used to having coffee with him every morning. And breakfast with her quad. Even all the medical testing took on a routine and rhythm that felt normal and soothing. Blood samples, hair samples, skin samples—and Camille did some experiments on Duncan’s ability to communicate with John Cole. Riana came by three times to examine Duncan’s dinar, too. She left the coin around his neck but ran it through a modified spectroscope that didn’t damage it, and tested its resistance to different chemicals.