Bound by Darkness

by Annette McCleave

  This time, no matter what it took, she was going to rescue her.

  “According to the Romany Council, the Pontius Pilate Linen and the Judas coins are two of five relics collectively known as the Ignobles,” MacGregor explained, as he sat down on the leather couch and studied the array of plastic bags on the coffee table. “Each one represents a moment during the Crucifixion when we humans were shown in our worst light.”

  “Let me guess,” Brian said grimly, “the cross is another.”

  “Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that.” MacGregor lifted one of the coins and peered at it. “The Ignobles are all relics unique to the Crucifixion but never handled by the Son of God. Thus, they were blackened by human shame but never blessed by his touch.”

  “And each one has a unique dark power—we know that already. Did the council mention any special connection among the five relics?”

  “Aye. They are stored separate and apart from one another because together they represent the darkest day of humanity and the blackest part of the human heart. The evil brewing within them expands as more of the relics come together, but it is the grouping of all five that has the most devastating effect—if they were ever brought together, they would display mankind’s perfidies against the Son of God as stark, undeniable truth and every soul on the middle plane would be instantly blackened with shame. We’d all be doomed to hell.”

  Pretty much the definition of horror.

  “Didn’t God and the angels plan for this? They must have known Satan would make a grab for the Ignobles. Why didn’t they take them to the upper plane?”

  “Touching the Ignobles is dangerous—for human, angel, and demon alike. To take them to the upper plane would risk widespread corruption. The angels will focus their efforts on trouncing demons and reinforcing the strength and courage of the human race.”

  “Wait a sec. The Ignobles affect demons, too?”

  MacGregor nodded. “The impact is directly related to the dark power the relic possesses. The Judas coins will cause betrayal, even among demons. But a relic like the Linen will have little or no impact, since it obliterates faith and demons are already faithless.”

  “So Satan’s taking a big risk gathering them all together. His army might turn on him.”

  “No doubt that’s why we’re seeing individual attacks and no’ an all-out war.”

  Brian snorted. “Thank God for small mercies.”

  “Don’t thank anyone just yet. Remember, fear is the devil’s greatest weapon. The Romany Council believes he intends to use the Ignobles to build upon the fear already arising over the coming end of the Mayan calendar and tip the scale of darkness in his favor. If he can get enough of the human race to forsake God in their frenzy of fear, the flow of souls into hell will become a torrent, and he will defeat God.”

  Brian scooped up one of the small decorator pillows from the sofa and tossed it at the chair. “So you’re saying he doesn’t need to get all of the relics to win.”

  MacGregor watched the pillow bounce off the chair arm and fall to the floor. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. The council was on the verge of panic when I arrived. It’s vital we keep the other relics from falling into his hands.” He waved the coin bag in his fingers. “This is an excellent start.”

  “Yeah, I guess. And you took care of the Linen.”

  MacGregor frowned. “There’s no guarantee the Linen will remain hidden—I gave it back to the Protectorate, and demon attacks against their priests continue. If we leave the Protectorate to its own devices, I believe it’s only a matter of time before Satan acquires another Ignoble.”

  “Did the council happen to mention what the three other relics were and where we might find them?”

  “A list, yes,” MacGregor said dryly. “Where to find them, no. The Proctectorate doesn’t share information with the Romany Council, either. Heathen magic, remember?”

  “Morons.” Brian crossed the room and collected the pillow off the floor. He stared at it, remembering a day not too long ago when it had cradled Lena’s lovely derriere. A day when life had seemed a little bit simpler. “What are the other relics?”

  “The mallet that hammered the nails into the cross, the sign that hung above Jesus on the cross, the—”

  A knock sounded at the door. “Lachlan?”

  “Aye.”

  The door creaked open and Emily’s face appeared around the edge. “Mom says lunch is almost ready and—” Her eyes widened as she spied the item in MacGregor’s hand. “Hey, that looks just like one of the coins.”

  Brian rolled his eyes. “That would be because it is one of the coins.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “What do you mean, ‘No, it’s not’ ? These are the coins Carlos gave me.” Brian reached down and scooped up a handful of the little bags. “I’ve got all of them right here.”

  Emily entered the room fully, walking toward them. She stared at the bags in his hand for a moment, then over at the one MacGregor held between his thumb and forefinger. “Are you sure those are the ones Carlos gave you?”

  Not liking the direction of the conversation, Brian took a deep breath, forced himself to stay calm, and said quietly, “Yes, I’m sure. Are you telling me you can’t sense any of these coins?”

  “Nope.”

  He blinked. “Maybe they just stopped talking to you?” he asked, hopeful.

  She shook her head. “They talk, but they don’t ooze. They were made by some skinny French guy with bad breath. About three weeks ago.”

  Air ceased to flow in his lungs and a chill stole over his extremities. “These are fakes?”

  “I guess so.”

  Brian closed his eyes. Fuck.

  “Webster,” MacGregor asked gently, “where is Lena?”

  “In the kitchen with Rachel.”

  “No, she’s not,” Emily said breezily. “I just came from there. Mom was on her own, tossing the salad. She’s putting walnuts in it. Totally gross.”

  Oh Christ.

  “She wouldn’t run,” he said. But even to himself his words sounded doubtful.

  “I know you like her.” MacGregor’s voice was soft. “But step back from your feelings for a moment, Webster. Look at the situation objectively. She’s a gifted thief, she had access to the coins, and now she’s missing. If it wasn’t Lena we were talking about, what conclusion would you reach?”

  Brian swallowed. “That she stole the coins and made a run for it.”

  MacGregor sighed. “There’s one other thing. Reed left a message for you while you were gone. That blood they found in the stairwell at Saks? They confirmed that it belongs to a female Gatherer. The odds of it being anyone other than Lena are extremely small. I think there’s a very real possibility she led O’Shaunessy into a trap, just like Reed suggested. That she sold out to Satan.”

  It all made perfect sense. She’d told him right from the start that she had a buyer. Why couldn’t the buyer be Satan? The devil was certainly capable of meeting the million-dollar price tag. The only problem was, he couldn’t see Lena killing an innocent man to get the coins. But what other explanation was there?

  “She wouldn’t kill O’Shaunessy.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  MacGregor heaved a sigh. “Maybe she didn’t mean to kill him. Maybe he just fought so hard she was left with no other choice.”

  “Maybe.” Brian gave himself full credit for not panicking. To sort this mess out, he needed to find Lena and convince her to open up. He turned to Emily. Calmly. “Is Lena on the ranch?”

  Em chewed her lip, thinking. “No.”

  “Can you tell me where she is?”

  The teen shook her head. “She’s nowhere close, or else I’d be able to sense her. Sorry.”

  Fearing it and hearing it confirmed as the truth were two completely different things. Brian found himself lost in the most irrelevant detail imaginable. “If you can’t sense people beyond a few miles, how do you ma
nage to pop halfway across the world and end up right next to us?”

  Emily’s face scrunched up. “Not really sure. I don’t try—I just go. It’s like I know where every beating heart on the planet is, but if I think too hard, I’ll lose the one I want in the crowd. So I just fold the universe up like an accordion, push myself through a couple of layers of material, and presto, I’m there. Unfortunately, the jumping thing has never worked except with Carlos.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Brian exited the room, closing the door behind him, unable to look at MacGregor, let alone address him with anything resembling coherence. Why was he so surprised? Yes, he and Lena had connected on a very intimate level over the last couple of days, and yes, she’d let her guard down a tiny bit. But she’d never really let him in, never shared anything truly personal. A few tears left on his shirt and a discussion over the photos she had hidden in that puzzle box hardly constituted defining moments.

  So why did he feel so freakin’ wounded?

  Because he could’ve sworn they shared more than passion, that was why. She’d come to his aid while battling the demons, for God’s sake. If she hated him and just wanted to get away, she could have let the bastards torch him. Instead, she’d saved him. So why was it so damned hard for her to reciprocate and ask for his help?

  He strode past Lena’s bedroom, refusing to glance inside, and entered his own.

  It wasn’t just hard. It was impossible. She would never ask for his help.

  She didn’t trust him.

  Shrugging out of his suit jacket, he rolled up his sleeves. If MacGregor was right about the Ignobles, the world was on the verge of spinning out of control. Lena could not be allowed to make that trade, no matter what was at stake for her personally. And no matter how much it would eat him alive to snatch away her victory.

  Enough was enough.

  It was time to drop the pansy-assed charade.

  17

  Lena didn’t attempt to go home. After the twin-engine puddle jumper she’d rented landed in Los Angeles, she went straight to the bank and opened her safety-deposit box.

  With a block of cash and a new identity, she was able to stay on the move, hiring one cab after another while she plotted out the rendezvous. Using a jailbreak app, she disabled the GPS tracker in her iPhone, but she couldn’t sit still, even for a few minutes, for fear that Brian would use a locator spell to track her. That much she’d learned from Tariq’s run. Sleep was a luxury she could do without and eating a decent meal could wait until this was over.

  Outsmarting Malumos was far more important.

  The demon’s goal would be twofold: acquire the coins and maintain his hold over Heather. That way, he could force Lena to hunt down other dark relics. Lena’s goals, naturally, were the opposite.

  Her phone vibrated, and Lena glanced at the screen.

  Not Brian, thank God.

  An e-mail from Kiyoko Ashida confirming everything was set. If she managed to extract Heather from Malumos’s clutches, the girl would be hastened away to begin a new life. Lena would never see her again. Small price to pay for her safety and security.

  If she succeeded.

  Finding the right spot for the rendezvous had been the hardest part, especially on short notice. She’d been mulling over it since they left Cairo. The optimal place would be private enough to permit negotiation, yet within shouting distance of a crowd in the event of trouble. It should also be a location she knew extremely well.

  The best answer she could come up with?

  The Farmers Market at Fairfax and Third.

  She’d been there numerous times, and so had Heather. The Gilmore Heritage Auto Show was over for another year, but there would still be good crowds on a Thursday evening, thanks to the Summer Music Series.

  Of course, she couldn’t just march up to the demons with the coins in her purse and demand a trade. That would never work. Not only would carrying all the coins on her person give the demons an opportunity to rob her, but Malumos would almost assuredly insist on taking possession of the coins before his brother vacated Heather’s body.

  A no-win situation if ever there was one.

  Succeeding would require a bit more finesse.

  Fortunately, she knew just how to make it happen.

  When Brian marched into the living room, everyone stared. Everyone except Stefan, that was. At Brian’s request, Emily had sent out a mental hail to collect everyone together, but the mage was a no-show.

  “Where’s Stefan?” he demanded. When no one volunteered a location, he pointed to Bale. “Check his caravan.”

  Bale hesitated.

  Brian lowered the warmth of his expression a solid ten degrees. “Now.”

  The Gatherer scurried from the room.

  MacGregor, reclining in his armchair in front of the fire, lifted a brow. “You’re looking unusually ... casual.”

  It was the shoes.

  The jeans he wore fairly often. Rough-and-tumble blue with a silver Polo Ralph Lauren logo slapped on the ass. He’d even worn the white cotton T-shirt a time or two. But the scuffed sneakers were a first. At least, a first for these guys. He’d dug them out of the very back of his closet, along with his high school yearbook—memorabilia from his early life in the not-so-thriving metropolis of Brick, New Jersey, where he still held the record for most incorrigible delinquent. Come to think of it, scuffed pretty much described the first eighteen years of his life.

  Years he’d worked damned hard to put behind him.

  But when chasing a delinquent, it helped to think like one. Ergo, the clothes.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said, speaking to the whole group. “Lena Sharpe disappeared from the ranch a little over two hours ago, and she took the Judas coins with her. She swapped the real coins for fakes.”

  “Lena took them? What a bitch.”

  “Emily,” her mother snapped.

  “Come on, Mom,” Emily said defensively. “She stole from people she was living with. Totally uncool.”

  “Calling her ugly names,” Brian interrupted, “won’t change the facts. She’s gone and we need to get those coins back before she sells them.”

  Almost in unison, the group frowned.

  “Rodriguez, I need you to do a locator spell. Multiple ones, if necessary. If you need to tag-team to keep your energy up, do it. The moment you get a read on her, I want to know. Chances are she’s headed to Los Angeles. Atheborne, you do your thing with the GPS and see if you can find her that way. I doubt it, but it’s worth a shot.”

  Brian turned to his nemesis. “Murdoch, I need you to go to Los Angeles. Search Lena’s house and the house across the street, the one with the crooked shutter and the overgrown wisteria. She had a snapshot of her neighbors in her purse, and I want to know why. We’re looking for any connection between Lena and that family, no matter how small.”

  To his immense surprise, Murdoch simply nodded and left the room. No fuss, no muss, no questions asked.

  The front door creaked open and Bale helped Stefan over the threshold. The plump mage did not look good. Green was definitely not his color. “He and Dika were sound asleep,” Bale said, as he lowered the older man onto the closest sofa. “I had to shake them hard to wake them up.”

  “Some kind of sleep spell?” Brian asked Stefan.

  “A very powerful one,” the mage responded, nodding.

  “The magic Lena’s using comes from an Egyptian entity named Sekhmet. Do you have voodoo that can combat that?”

  “Perhaps,” Stefan said, massaging his temples. “The pagan deities do have their own brand of charm. I’ll do some digging.”

  “Great. I’m also betting that when we track Lena down, we’ll find those damned thrall demons right in the thick of things, and they’re a giant pain in the ass. I need some kind of plan to deal with their triple-whammy magic.”

  “I found a spell that might weaken their shield,” the mage said, “but the incantations are in Sanskrit. Not my best language, I�
�m afraid. It will require some rehearsal.”

  “Grab a coffee and get to it.”

  “Want me to search her room for clues?” offered Emily.

  “No point,” Brian tossed at her. “Everything she cares about she carries in that purse of hers. There won’t be anything useful in her room.”

  “Oh.” Her shoulders slumped in disappointment.

  “There’s something else you could do, though,” he said. “Practice popping. Just like you popped to Egypt, only aim for Lena.”

  Emily grimaced. “I’m not sure that’ll work.”

  “I’d be surprised if any of this works,” MacGregor said quietly. “Lena knows everything there is to know about evading capture. Every time she pulls a job, she goes to ground.”

  “True,” Brian said. “But we need to cover all the bases in the hope she left a door open somewhere. Because our only other option is to anticipate her next move, and frankly, I’m not sure any of us knows her well enough to do that.”

  Least of all him.

  MacGregor nodded. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Give me the crash course. Everything you think I need to know in half an hour or less.” He met the other man’s eyes. “I know. If I had accepted the torch a few months ago, when you first tried to pass it to me, I’d be on top of all this by now. All I can say is, better late than never. I’m in. Give me everything I should have learned in the last six months.”

  The taxicab shuffle got tired very quickly.

  Each cab had its own unique smell, ranging from stale body odor to piña-colada air freshener. Drinking from water bottles and snacking on corner-store goodies lost their appeal after the first day, and mapping out her approach plan as the vehicle bounced over potholes and sewer grates became downright annoying. Lena daydreamed about stretching out on clean sheets and eating in a restaurant, slowly perusing the menu, savoring every bite of delicious food. She just wanted to stop and rest.

  But resting was out of the question.