by Anna Windsor
Griffen had his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt, and his dark, cloudy eyes seemed unfocused as he carefully read the energies slipping free of the townhouse’s protections. “There aren’t many humans, but the Sibyls are here in force tonight. And many of the demons and half-demons who work with them. I think the Mothers—the old ones—must be here, too. A lot of them. Something’s going on.”
Behind Strada and Griffen, Griffen’s Coven of twelve men reacted to his statement by closing ranks and increasing the energy they were feeding into their elemental shielding. Like Griffen, the men wore jeans and black hooded sweatshirts, a modern semblance of ceremonial garb. Griffen referred to it as “work clothes.” Strada preferred the soft silk and muted scent of suits, so he kept his true brothers outfitted in that fashion, though Tarek complained about it often.
Tarek shifted from foot to foot, scraping his leather shoes against the pavement. “Why would the old ones come to this place in such numbers? Are they gathering for an attack on us?”
“The Mothers don’t work like that.” Griffen kept his gaze on the townhouse. “They stay at the Motherhouses training adepts unless the Sibyls need their help with a problem.”
Tarek’s snarl made it clear that he was ill-satisfied with this reassurance. “So they’ve never joined in battle, except when their sanctuaries have been attacked?”
“Well, yes.” Griffen drew his attention away from the townhouse and focused on Tarek. “They fought the ancient demon who founded the Legion.”
Tarek’s lips twitched, and Strada caught a glimpse of fangs trying to emerge between human-form teeth. “Which broke your Legion’s ranks evermore. We should kill them all now.”
“Attacking a group of Mothers head-on is inadvisable.” Griffen’s voice remained even, though Strada heard the rising irritation. “Even surprised, one Mother is worth a dozen or more fighting men in combat.”
“Old women.” Tiger claws extended from the ends of Tarek’s human hands. “You have little faith in us, Griffen.”
Strada raised his own claw-free hand to stop the discussion. “This night, we’ll complete the mission we set for ourselves, and gain an even better measure of our foes.”
To Griffen, he said, “Loose your forces and see what havoc you can create—but make certain your Coven’s shields hold. I wouldn’t choose to lose even one valuable ally.”
Griffen dipped his head. “Culla.”
“And Griffen”—Strada made sure to lace his next words with enough authority to frighten the human—“if officers die tonight, my true brothers and I are prepared for the consequences. It’s time our two prides become acquainted, the Rakshasa and the NYPD.”
A shadow crossed Griffen’s face, but he offered no objections.
He turned, a little more slowly than Strada would have liked, and lifted his arms. Moments later, Griffen engaged with his Coven, murmuring instructions that quickly became the beginnings of an elemental chant.
Strada led Tarek away, to a metal ladder that reached up the side of a building, They both shifted to flame-form and followed the ladder’s path to a landing several stories above the Coven, to watch their festivities in safety and obscurity.
Exerting a light counterforce to prevailing winds, Strada positioned himself to look at both the townhouse and the brilliant blue flames comprising his true brother. Patience will restore our glory, Tarek.
The flame that was Tarek blazed a brighter blue, then calmed to a more temperate shade. As the chant below them became more steady and rhythmic, magnified by the strength of thirteen voices, Tarek said, I trust your wisdom, brother. For now.
(21)
Duncan shouted as his body burned.
His head smashed against the protective mat. Flames sizzled across every corner of his awareness, tearing his mind to shreds even though he knew the fire wasn’t eating him alive. Wind hammered into his mouth and face until his skin battered his teeth.
Blind. Blind and deaf. He couldn’t smell anything but the damned fire, and burning hair, and burning everything.
The dinar on his chest seemed to be eating its way through muscle and vessel and ribs. His wrists and ankles pulled so hard at tethers held by the Mothers that leather cut toward bone.
Water blasted through him until he sucked it into his lungs. His eyes bulged, seeing nothing. He hacked the water out of his body, then hacked it out again and collapsed to the mat.
The arm … make it straighter …
A lock there, on the top wound nearest his throat …
Is his heart still beating, Andrea?
Hold him. Hold him!
Old women yelled. Old women screeched. Old women chanted and touched him and rearranged his atoms and cells.
John’s voice came next. Killing … us … killing … killing …
The tiny bit of sanity Duncan had left knew the Mothers were trying to save him, but he couldn’t hold on to that.
Don’t fight, he told himself.
But he had to fight, had to keep going.
But how?
A blue-awful shock hit him low and deep, turning his gut to oatmeal.
The tenor of the Mothers’ voices shifted.
What the hell?
Tension.
Then fear.
Then rage.
Another terrible blue shock hit Duncan’s brain, scrambling what was left of his thoughts. He snapped into darkness. Snapped back. In and out. In and out.
Duncan Sharp knew only two things.
He was dying—and the Mothers were pissed.
“Did you feel that?” Dio pushed herself away from the round cannonball table that filled half the townhouse kitchen, rattling coffee mugs as she got to her feet.
Bela just stared at Dio.
Was Dio out of her mind?
All Bela could do was feel. Agony. Terror. Horror. The blood-chilling shouts from the basement beat against her mind and heart so hard she barely stayed upright in her seat.
“Steady.” Riana had her hands over Bela’s, holding Bela’s fingers against the table’s surface. The large hanging fixture above them swung back and forth, shadowing and brightening Camille’s face, and Cynda’s, and Merilee’s. The elemental workings from the basement grew stronger, and stronger, draining the color away from everyone in the room.
So much power.
Too much power.
Then a rib-cracking surge.
“There!” Dio turned a full circle and let loose a wide tendril of air energy. It shattered against the unrelenting power streaming up through the floor, and she swore and closed her eyes. Her muscles went rigid. Another tendril of wind left her, this time knifing across the Mothers’ energy and snaking quickly out of the townhouse.
Merilee stood. “Be careful, Dio. You’re draining yourself.” To Bela, she said, “I didn’t know she was ventsentient.”
Bela couldn’t answer. Steeped in Duncan’s misery, watching Dio fighting the excess energy from the Mothers’ healing and the townhouse’s barriers and starting to lose—her body went numb and dead to her will.
Dio started to shake, going paler by the second.
Camille shoved herself back from the table and ran to Dio. When she seized Dio’s hands, Riana, Merilee, and Cynda instinctively ducked under the table’s edge, dragging Bela down with them.
No major wind vortex opened, and no flames burst across the room.
What they got was a major steadying of power all through the kitchen.
Then Camille, in an eerie Dio-like voice, said, “Bela. We need you.”
Bela yanked free of Riana’s protective grip. Reality tilted and swayed as she pulled herself up, then staggered across a floor that seemed to be rippling and melting at the same time. The joining of Dio’s ventsentience to Camille’s pyrosentience—was that what was pitching the world sideways?
She didn’t think so.
It was something else, maybe something to do with those surges.
Duncan’s pain jerked at Bela’s soul, but s
he knew where she had to be. She reached Dio and Camille and didn’t even let herself think. She just grabbed hold of their wrists, threw her terrasentience into the mix, and—
The earth bellowed in its turning …
The sky howled with cloud-killing wind …
Molten fire erupted from the center of the world …
Bela’s mind and body crushed in on itself. She couldn’t breathe or think or sense anything past the blast of images that whirled through her awareness. Time. The planet. The universe. Everything that had touched the earth and air and fire seemed to smash against her mind, all at the same time. Human energy, animals, plants, machines—too much, too much, too much!
“You have to anchor us,” Camille whispered, her voice a crackle of fire on a match tip, burning from some distant point in the galaxy. “Something’s … interfering …”
I know, Bela tried to say, but she couldn’t spare that much energy and focus.
“Got a fix on it.” Dio spoke with the rage of the wind. “Unnatural energy. Perverted. Can’t—figure—what—”
Bela’s whole body rattled as she tried to contain and direct Camille and Dio’s elemental power and fend off interference from the Mothers’ healing. She wasn’t strong enough. She needed to let them go. This would rip her to pieces.
From the basement, Duncan roared like the Mothers were splitting him open, and Bela felt Dio and Camille react. Then she understood.
Some force or being was deliberately disrupting the healing. Some outside energy was interfering and beginning to distort the Mothers’ workings, and if Bela didn’t stop it now, right now, Duncan would die. Andy and the Mothers could be hurt or killed from the fallout. They could all be killed.
Bela shrieked with frustration, with desperation, and held tighter to Camille and Dio.
“What are you trying to find?” Merilee demanded again, from somewhere Bela couldn’t pinpoint.
As deep and angry as any storm, Dio shouted back, “I don’t know!”
Lightning blasted into the backyard. Thunder blistered the sky, and the windows in the kitchen shattered.
Bela saw her own reflection tumble by in slow motion, in a thousand shards of glass. Her consciousness moved through them, rendering them to nothing but bits of soda and lime.
I’m projecting myself with no mirrors. I’m moving through matter, absorbing its energy—I’m changing it.
That wasn’t possible, but she was doing it, just like Camille had projected herself through Duncan’s dinar and allowed John Cole to project through her. And Dio—Dio was projecting herself through the air in ways Bela had never experienced before.
Energy exchanges made sense to Bela in a whole new way.
Maybe she didn’t have to fight the energy boiling through the kitchen. She just had to take it through herself, pull it in and project it outward—changed, broken down to its natural components.
She let her muscles go limp, let her mind go clear, and let every bit of power in the room fly into her. Instead of crushing her skull to powder, it flowed, and she projected her earth energy across every line and pulse she encountered. Her consciousness moved through those bits of energy, like she had moved through the glass shards, and broke them down to components. Just as fast, she sent it back to the earth, the sky, the ocean, and the bits of ambient fire dancing across the air.
“The distortion’s coming from the alley,” Dio cried, and Bela knew Dio was seeing clearly now, riding her element and letting the wind be her eyes. Leaving her body behind her, Bela followed Dio’s wind energy with her own earth power, and saw the darkness shimmering at the edge of the alley, too.
“What is it?” Camille’s question was slowed, but Bela knew Camille was using a tiny, focused line of fire to examine the blackness and try to take its measure.
Dio’s consciousness shoved at the distortion. “No idea. Just stop it.”
Her wrist shook in Bela’s grip, but the wind energy she sent had no effect on the thick, menacing darkness. Camille’s laser-like fire broke apart at its edges.
“It’s a shield.” Bela’s voice sounded muffled to her own ears, like she was talking through cotton. Her thoughts worked quickly now, imagining how she’d protect her own quad, by wrapping them in a mortar of earth energy, bottom, top, and sides. If she tried to rise above it, she’d lose connection to the ground and lose strength. From the sides, and she’d lose focus.
There was only one thing to do.
“Wait for my mark,” she told Camille and Dio. “Build your focus, and follow me when I strike.”
Bela drove her awareness down, down to the ground, and under. Deeper, into the hard-packed layers of sand and silt and rock under New York City. Her mind dived until she sensed water a few feet in front of her. Then she turned, coiling her awareness like a great snake of dirt. Drawing more earth energy to her than she’d ever known she could manage, she hurtled upward through it and struck toward that dark patch of alley.
“Now, Camille!” This time her cry sounded like the devil rattle of a 9.0 quake. “Now, Dio!”
Air and fire laced into Bela’s power, ramming her higher and faster.
She didn’t have to move earth, any more than Dio had to move wind or Camille had to make fire. They just had to shift their awareness through the elements, and let the elements power them.
Bela’s awareness exploded through dirt and asphalt and air, displacing an area of ground as great as all the energy she had used to spring through the earth. The slats of the shield—the whole dark space in the alley—blew apart like she had thrown dynamite in a barrel. Thunder and lightning and rain pelted the ground, washing against men falling and scrambling and running away, their faces obscured by the black hoods of sweatshirts.
“I smell them,” Dio growled, steering Bela’s consciousness deeper into the alley. “Ammonia. The air stinks of it. Look there, on the fire escape!”
Two Rakshasa, one white, one black, leaned forward against the fire escape’s metal guard, bared massive tiger fangs, and roared.
Bela screeched right back at them, reached to snatch her sword from her scabbard—
And sat hard on her ass on the townhouse’s kitchen floor.
Dio smacked down beside her, and Camille hit right in front of the sink’s double-door cabinet.
The floor beneath them still tingled with the Mothers’ energy, but the exchange and flavor seemed completely different now, and natural. Bela sensed Duncan below her, still in pain, but not agony. Still fighting to survive, but winning. He was getting stronger, not weaker.
“Is he okay?” Camille asked.
Bela answered her with a smile and a gasp. She didn’t have anything left but that, and the wild, nervous laughter that poured out of her. She put her face in her hands to mute it as Camille and Dio started talking at the same time.
“It was projection—”
“I never thought about elemental sentience that way—”
“We moved through it instead of moving it through us—”
“—a lot more studying and experimenting. It could be dangerous—”
They chattered and chattered, but then their voices got softer and died away.
Bela lifted her head, still flush with the energy she had touched. She felt like she’d had two easy weeks with good nights’ sleeps, a bunch of good meals, and fourteen good workouts. Oh, yeah, baby. She felt strong enough to take on a horde of Sumo wrestlers.
Which was sort of apt, because Riana and Cynda and Merilee were staring at them. Behind them, in the doorway of the kitchen, a bunch of Mothers were staring at them, too.
Merilee caught Mother Anemone’s elbow, her gaze never leaving Dio for a second. “We need to talk,” she muttered to the Mother.
Bela was surprised to see Mother Anemone nod and look a little guilty.
A second or two later, Andy shoved through the crowd, and she stared at them as well. Water ran down the sides of her face in rivulets as she folded her arms, both cheeks blazing mad-Andy red.
“Okay, you bitches.” She misted a wider spray of droplets with each word, and the water in the sink behind Bela turned on with a clink and a rush. “What the fuck was that?”
(22)
The townhouse basement felt cool and comfortable to Duncan as he stretched out the kinks on his mat. He felt like himself again. Well, mostly, if he didn’t focus on the really old fire Sibyl trying to talk to him, the coin around his neck, or the ghost of his best friend, still lurking around in his brain.
John Cole had clamped down tight on the issue of the will, insisting that he’d just done what he had to do to keep Katrina happy, and he wasn’t going to discuss it any further. So Duncan was letting it be for now. He’d been asleep for a day, had a good meal, had a good shower, and won a good fight with Blackjack, who had a busted knee and black eye he refused to explain when Duncan asked. The bastard finally agreed that Duncan was still a cop, definitely assigned to the OCU, but classified “on special assignment.” No attending shift report, no official duties other than sticking with Bela’s quad until the Sibyls said he could work alone. Duncan could live with that. For now.
He was having more trouble living with Mother Keara standing next to him nonstop, stinging him with sparks even when he was trying to do his stretches and relax.
“A few weeks, a month, maybe two—it’s hard to say, cop.” The one Mother still playing fire-breathing babysitter actually looked sad as she explained what the Sibyls thought after the last round of blood drawing and analyzing skin scrapings. “You’ll keep yer health until then, so long as John Cole’s spirit keeps helping you out. And when death comes, you won’t suffer. The demon-change’ll happen fast, and we’ll take care of … putting you down.”
Duncan figured he didn’t want to ask how.
“Thank you,” he said to Mother Keara.
She pointed to the coin around his neck. “The dinar’s key to keeping John Cole close to you, and holding our blood and tissue wards in place. Don’t take it off, or you’ll hasten the process.”