Bound by Darkness

by Annette McCleave

  Eight against three should have been good odds.

  But another Gatherer failed to heed Brian’s warning in time, got swallowed in smoke, and became a human torch. They were down to six and several of the others were in shock, moving like they’d been encased in Jell-O. Only Brian, Carlos, and Murdoch sliced and thrust with their usual speed and strength.

  Brian advanced toward the three thralls, determined to split them up, as Lena had suggested. He dodged a writhing tendril of smoke and ducked under the mutilated limb of Rachel’s newly planted jacaranda tree. A fireball whizzed toward him, and he swung at it. The fine edge of his blade sliced the bomb in two, one piece falling harmlessly to the ground, the other spinning wildly off to the left.

  It sailed through the air and landed on the roof of MacGregor’s bungalow. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the cedar shingles burst into flames, and his heart fell into his shoes.

  Emily.

  Set to abandon the fight and circle around to rescue her, Brian took a step back. But Carlos was already on the move. Proving that great minds often thought alike, the young man dove down the gravel path and entered the now-burning house.

  Reassured, Brian focused on the attackers.

  It was amazing how much damage three demons could do. They worked in perfect concert, hitting targets in quick succession, ganging up at the first sign of weakness. It was as if they knew one another’s thoughts and anticipated one another’s moves. The rapid pace of their attack made it almost impossible to breach their defenses.

  And then there was that creepy blue smoke.

  Curls of mist constantly leached off the three and wove through the air in search of Gatherers. If not for the easterly breeze, more of the feathery wisps might have found their way to Brian and, judging by the way those who were brushed immediately lost their agility, that wouldn’t be a good thing.

  Ahead of him, Greg Hill went down under a blistering series of fireballs. Brian dashed to his aid, fending off a barrage himself. His timing was perfect—he stepped in front of Hill just as a flaming orb was lobbed at the prostrate Gatherer.

  Hill regained his feet, and Brian went on the offensive. It was hard to look in the eyes of a pimple-faced pizza delivery boy and know he was killing an innocent human, but losing more men to these bastards was worse. Too many people who depended on him had died already.

  He hacked and slashed at the wreckage of the porch until he gained ground on the crumpled car. He repelled every demon shot aimed his way, thankful once again for the swiftness of his blade. Murdoch spied his advance and, with a few strategic swings of his sword, pressed forward as well. The Scot’s face was red, his brow was furrowed, and his sword arm was displaying a level of power that gave Brian a moment’s pause. A full descent into berserker mode would make all those within reach of the man’s huge claymore possible targets. Including him.

  But dwelling on that wouldn’t win the battle.

  Brian renewed his attack. They were actually making headway when the demons suddenly changed tactics. Two of them left the relative protection of the vehicle and pounded the Gatherers with increased fury, while the third broke from the trio and raced toward MacGregor’s burning house.

  Its goal was obvious.

  The Judas coin.

  But he was knee-deep in the wreckage, waging a difficult battle against the two remaining demons. Chasing after the coin would expose his back to attack and leave the other Gatherers in a very bad spot.

  He had to pray that between Carlos and Stefan, the coin—and Emily—would be safe.

  Lena stood on the edge of the battle, desperately wanting to jump into the fray. The eager pump of her heart urged her to aid the others, to lend her support with all the spells she had at her disposal.

  But, fingers itching, she held back.

  Malumos would not hesitate to punish the girls for her rebellion, just as he had in the past. Amanda and Heather were beaten and starved for her every indiscretion—which in the beginning had been often. In a matter of weeks, they’d dwindled from healthy, smiling young women to sunken-eyed frames of skin and bone. Simply because Lena had dared to balk at Malumos’s orders.

  No, as satisfying as striking back would be, joining Brian and his colleagues in the fight was impossible.

  In fact, it made sense to use this distraction to her own ends. This was the perfect opportunity to go for the coin.

  Lena took a step back.

  Then another.

  No one noticed her retreat. Everyone was understandably focused on the demons—tossing binding spells, fending off fireballs, and trying to stay out of the smoky vapors snaking through the air.

  She slowly backed her way through the rubble, keeping an eye on Brian. Hoping he would remain safe, and at the same time praying he wouldn’t turn around and notice her.

  She had to go. Now. If the thralls were here, openly battling the Gatherers, they’d clearly grown too impatient to wait. They intended to take the coins by force. If she did not reinject herself into the deal, she would lose what little bargaining power she had left. Heather would become nothing more than a statistic in Malumos’s long history of corrupting souls. She needed to reach the coins before the demons did: first the coin in MacGregor’s safe, then the other thirteen.

  Tariq might wait a day for her. Beyond that, she couldn’t count on his fondness for her to contain his avarice. The value of the coins would eat at him, urging him to break his faith. If she didn’t leave now, there was a very real chance she’d lose everything.

  Lena took a deep breath, turned, and ran.

  The cuts Brian and Murdoch scored on the two demon-possessed pizza boys did nothing to aid them—their blood was human, so the demon-blood enhancement spell on their swords was useless. And despite increasingly serious wounds, the two demons continued to fight as if they were hale and hearty.

  The only way to break through the twin whirling dervishes was brute force.

  Brian glanced at Murdoch.

  The Scot had a glittery look in his eyes, but had not yet descended into a maniac frenzy. He nodded.

  Both Gatherers stormed the duo, Murdoch with a guttural roar that sounded almost bestial. Brian was silent, but equally effective, breaking through the shield with a well-aimed and powerful thrust. His sword was about to pierce the body of the nearest demon when a rippling wave of raw energy exploded through the yard. The air bent, the scenery wobbled, and everyone—demon and Gatherer alike—was knocked off their feet.

  Flattened in the dirt, his entire body tingling, Brian got a clear view of the purple plume that shot into the air above MacGregor’s house and billowed into a mushroom cloud. Not smoke from a fire. Bright, sparkling, mystically charged effluvium.

  A very peculiar shade of orange-purple, the cloud stood out against the blue sky like a beacon, but he couldn’t think about that right now. He leapt back to his feet, brandishing his sword. Only to discover that the demons were no longer interested in fighting. Two sizzling red crackles of electricity shot from the ground to the mangled car as they opened a portal and escaped into hell. The two pizza delivery boys sank limply to their knees, bruised and bleeding, but alive.

  The battle was over.

  Brian sheathed his sword and brushed the remaining bits of dirt and grass off his ass. Under any other circumstance, he’d rejoice that they’d beaten off the demons and survived. But as his gaze found the purple cloud still hovering over the bungalow, a heavy feeling of dread swirled in his gut. Something really bad had just happened.

  Guaranteed.

  8

  “My word, Emily, what did you do?”

  Em stared at the little leather pouch, then up at Stefan’s shocked face.

  Why did people think she had a clue about how any of this stuff worked? It wasn’t as if Archangel Michael had handed her the Trinity Soul instruction manual the day he branded her cheek. Lachlan had more knowledge than anyone, having read some dusty old book of ancient lore, and he admitted quite freely that tryin
g to define her talents was hit or miss.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  He entered the pantry, pushed past the open door of the safe, and snatched the pouch out of her hands. Opening the drawstring, he peered inside. And winced.

  “Oh dear.”

  “What?” She asked the question, but in all honesty, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

  “The Judas coin is no longer precisely what it used to be,” the Romany mage said. He lifted his gaze. “Can you tell me what you were trying to do?”

  “I was using my sensing skills to find the missing coins. I figured that all thirty coins would have ties to one another in the middle plane.”

  “I imagine they do,” Stefan said, giving her a weak smile. “It was an inspired idea. But something went wrong, I take it?”

  “I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch the coin directly, so I just felt for it in my head. Funny thing, Brian said it was silver, but in my mind it looked black. Sticky, bubbly black. Like tar.” Em chewed her lip. She remembered that black ooze all too well. It was the same dark slime that Drew had pulled her into seven months ago. “I was going to stop.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I heard the crash up at the main house and I guessed we were under attack. I thought maybe we’d lose the coin and then we’d never get another chance.”

  Stefan nodded. “Okay. What—”

  “Em,” breathed Carlos, as he half fell into the pantry, jarring a shelf and sending several cans rolling. “You’re all right.”

  Emily dashed to his side, spying the gray tint of his face and the scorch marks on his jacket. She grabbed his soot-blackened hand. “Of course I am. What happened to you?”

  “Had to put out a fire on the roof,” he said, coughing. “And then there was this demonic pizza guy in the living room.”

  “Pizza guy?” Em blinked. “What pizza guy?”

  Carlos looked away. “I screwed up. I felt bad about what happened, about what I did to you. So I ordered pizza. Meat Lover’s, just like you wanted.”

  “Brian’s going to kick your ass,” she said softly.

  “Yeah.”

  She bent and kissed him on the lips, ignoring Stefan. “I love you, you idiot.”

  His gaze lifted. Serious. Intense. “Me, too.”

  “Getting back to the coin,” Stefan said brusquely. “I’m still not clear on what happened.”

  “Honestly?” Emily tossed a grimace over her shoulder. “Neither am I. But when I tried to follow the threads linking it to the other coins, I felt like long, black tentacles were slithering all over me, clinging to my eyes, my face, my mouth. I couldn’t breathe and I got scared. I panicked.”

  “Panicked how?” Stefan asked.

  “It was like this bubble rose up inside me and then popped. Next thing I knew, I was on the floor, flat on my back, feeling like mashed potatoes.” Em looked at the tan leather pouch in Stefan’s hand. “What did I do to it?”

  The mage shook the tiny bag until the contents dropped out into his outstretched palm. Then he held it up for her to see.

  The coin twinkled in the light.

  “On the bright side, you’ve displayed a rather impressive new talent.” Stefan blew a long sigh out of his plump lips. “On the not-so-bright side, turning silver into gold has lost us our only connection to the other coins.”

  Brian surveyed the scorched yard with a tight swallow.

  At least two Gatherers were dead, probably more, assuming Erickson down at the gate hadn’t just opened the door and let the demons drive in. If only he’d ridden Emily harder about the pizza, none of this would have happened. And if only Lena had warned him earlier about the damned blue smoke, things would have been—

  Brian spun around.

  Lena.

  He scanned the faces before him, searching for the dark eyes and ivory skin that had become achingly familiar in three short days. No sign of her. Lifting his gaze, he swept the horizon, his heart sinking. Ten bucks said she’d taken advantage of the battle and made a run for it.

  His first thought should have been about the coins. With Lena gone, the trail of the missing thirteen coins would go cold. The risk that Satan would acquire them would increase exponentially and doom would hover that much closer to the horizon.

  But he didn’t think of the coins. Not right away.

  Instead, he felt a stab of emptiness—a genuine sense of lost opportunity. Crazy, really. They’d known each other only three days, but from the moment they’d met, something had clicked between them. Not something one-sided. Something mutual. Something hot. Something with staying power.

  But Lena wasn’t interested in exploring it.

  “Fan out,” he barked to the idle Gatherers as he leapt over the wreckage of the porch to the front door. “Find Lena Sharpe.”

  Inside, he raced up the stairs and flung open the door to her room. The dresser top was empty. Nervy woman. She’d actually taken the time to grab her purse.

  “Uh, Brian?”

  Brian spun around. Emily and Carlos. Emily looked healthy, thank heaven, but the young Hispanic looked awful. His face was gray and deep grooves bracketed his mouth, but it was the bleak, black stare that really completed the look. If he needed proof the purple cloud spelled disaster, here it was. “What the hell happened ?”

  Then he shook his head.

  “On second thought, no. I haven’t got time to hear the story, and I suspect it’s a doozy. You guys sit tight until I get back. Go nowhere. Got it?”

  They nodded, looking suitably chastened.

  Feeling as if the entire circus tent were collapsing around him, Brian bolted for the stairs. Lena hadn’t taken a car, so he still had a chance. In her shoes, he’d have run for the west wall, and from there, down the scrub-brushed hills, through the parceled lots of suburbia, and into downtown San Jose. For a Gatherer, the entire journey would take about ten minutes.

  To catch her, he’d have to make the trip in eight.

  Good thing he used to be a track star.

  Lena had been about to enter the bungalow when the shock wave knocked her to the ground. Although the specific cause of the mystical wave was unclear, the amulet had immediately ceased to vibrate, warning her that the coin was no longer in the bungalow. And when she tried to track it, no image came to mind at all. It didn’t seem to be anywhere. It had vanished.

  So she ran.

  Drawing deep on her Gatherer powers, she leapt the west wall and tore through the scrub at breakneck speed. Once she reached the relative cover of a posh garden community, she allowed herself to breathe easier. Just a little. Even as she sprinted through backyards and hopped over fences, she multitasked. She checked the map application on her iPhone, arranged a rendezvous with a cab, and booked a flight to L.A. Not a commercial flight, though, because Brian would have been onto her in seconds. A private jet would put a massive dent in her savings account, but failing to meet Tariq at the Manhattan Village mall could cost her much more.

  It could cost her Heather.

  Lena stumbled over a garden hose. Only a quick reflexive grab prevented her purse from sailing off her shoulder and into a boxwood hedge. She regained her balance and kept running.

  Veering left to avoid a small group of chatting mothers in a yard three hundred feet ahead, Lena darted down a quiet lane. In the old days, a residential neighborhood would have been tough to navigate without being seen. Today, almost every household had two working parents and the kids remained at school from morning to evening. Sad, perhaps, but simpler.

  The taxicab—assuming it was on time—should be less than a minute ahead.

  How long had it taken Brian to realize she was gone? Two minutes? Ten? She refused to contemplate his being injured, or worse. Not when she’d seen the way he handled that sword. Not when she now knew he’d defeated the very same martial demon who’d come within a hair’s breadth of slaying her. He had to be safe.

  Would he forgive her for running?


  At the corner, she turned left. This street was busier, forcing her to slow to a jog. A woman was unloading groceries from a car, two young children chalked designs on their driveway, and an elderly man trimmed his juniper hedge with a set of shears that threatened to overwhelm him.

  Lena’s palms sweated.

  Ten more houses, around the next corner, and she was free.

  She picked up the pace just a bit.

  A faint whiff of cologne blew by her on the breeze—the sharp trill of lime warmed by a hint of cedar. Lena’s heart stumbled. Oh my God. The sweet nostalgia of her feelings for Brian vanished. No.

  She broke into a run. Ignoring the Gatherer code, ignoring the witnesses, she put on an inhuman burst of speed. She could see the cab and smell the exhaust of its idling engine. Freedom was only twenty yards ahead. She was so close.

  White bands of magic sprouted out of thin air, roping around her body, pinning her arms to her sides, and encasing her legs. Suffering a sudden and catastrophic loss of control, she toppled. The pavement rose up to meet her, grabbing at her clothes, yanking her sharply to one side, lashing her cheek with an angry swipe. Momentum tumbled her several feet along the road before letting her flop to a halt.

  Although her chest was tight with loss and her heart was heavy with failure, it was rage that spilled from her lips the moment Brian Webster’s shoes appeared in her line of sight.

  “Let me go,” she snarled, thrashing against the binds. “How dare you sully me with Roma magic? Release me immediately.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.” The binds were powerful, and Lena had no weapon in her pitiable toolbox of Gatherer primals to sever them. “Just recant the restraining spell, you bloody wretch.”

  “Lena Sharpe,” he said, crouching beside her, “was that a curse?”

  “If I decide to curse you, you’ll know it.” She made one last attempt to break free, then sagged, accepting her defeat. “Please. Couldn’t you just look the other way? Just this once?”

  His gaze met hers. “No.”

  She closed her eyes to the regret in his. Just because he felt bad didn’t make it okay. It wasn’t all that long ago—less than a year ago—that she had burned with the same righteous fire, brazenly confident in her ability to do the right thing. But that fire had been doused by the blood of innocent people. Standing by your principles didn’t feel quite so honorable when other people died to uphold them.