Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows) (38 page)

"What now?" Sio asked, drawing his last reserves to get the statement out.

"I can't create glamor, only draw up wards that amplify or channel it, and that kind of thing takes time. If we're out in the open and there's a scene, Eamon would be forced to kill us both over the exposure. At least this way we can catch the corner edge of Baba's spell."

"So I guess a car's out of the question."

He was really starting to lose it. Tian choked on a laugh that sounded more like she was about to start crying. He tried to comfort her, wanted to wrap his arms around her, but he couldn't move. Well, couldn't move any more than he already was. He was shaking from cold and blood loss, but managed to squeeze her thigh. It was the best he could do. Absolute shit for reassurance.

Tian reached over and grabbed the jacket from where they'd left it. She wrapped him in it, sliding her hands up the blood soaked contours of his torso; shoving hard against his chest to put pressure on the wound as if she could force the blood back into his body. Her touch was like being hit by 160 volts from a crash cart.

"Sio..."

I love you.

He would have sworn that this time the thought hadn't been his, but all she said was, "Focus."

"Love you too."

Had he just said that?

Before he had the chance to figure it out the world warped and turned over on its side. He must have blacked out because the next thing he saw coming to was Tian with her teeth buried so far into the design etched on her left wrist she'd drawn blood. He choked out her name, noticing the bite marks already embedded in the skin of her other wrist. The designs in both wrists sparked with molten silver fire; they traced themselves back into Tian's flesh like gun powder as Sio watched. She grimaced, locking her jaw as if she were in pain, but trying like hell to hide it. He mustered up enough energy to take her hand and her head shot up. She pinned him with a heart-stopping stare.

Before he could figure out how to respond, they were crowded by Lip Ring and Hamlet, who materialized out of thin air practically on top of them. Two bullets came screaming out of the darkness one after the other. The first slammed into Royal's shoulder, the second missed Xavier's skull as the bastard hit the deck. Royals jaw tightened in furious surprise.

"Touching," he said.

Another bullet came whining through the darkness. It flared as a bright spot of flame, burning itself out to nothing, not even getting close to where the guy stood.

"You know you could have called us," Xavier said. The guy seemed wholly unconcerned by the hail of bullets being lobbed at them. He was however, working like hell to look anywhere but at Tian.

"Baba Yaga's shadows have my phone," Tian said without breaking Sio's eye contact.

"How inconvenient for you," Royal mused. A molten stream of metal dripped down his arm, stinking like sulfur, and searing its way through the sleeve of his Versace.

Sio flinched, fighting the spins, fighting against the slip into oblivion. Tian's eyebrows drew down with worry.

"If you want our help later then get us the fuck out of here now."

Xavier dropped to his knees from where he'd been crouching. The guy grabbed Tian around the waist, heaving her against his body. Sio noted that she hadn't let go of his hand, which turned Xavier a little green. The realization gave him a big warm fuzzy, made it that much easier not to notice the next step off into oblivion. When he clawed his way back to consciousness Tian was gone. Most of his blood spatter was gone too, along with the shredded remains of Avery's shirt. The only thing left was Royal's looming mug as the male bent down and scooped him up.

"Let's go big boy," Royal grunted. Sio found himself slung none to gently over a pair of broad shoulders. "Don't worry," Royal told him. "I'm not going to let you die. You owe me a new suit."

Union Square was replaced by a hell fire inferno that stretched into eternity. The torture couldn't have lasted more than two seconds, but it had been long enough to never want to go there again. When it was over they were on the familiar dilapidated steps of Tian's place in the Haight. Royal glided toward the front gate as if the extra three hundred pounds he was toting was inconsequential. A crushing wave of relief screamed through his veins and Sio gave in to the sirens' call of the blood rushing into his skull. He passed out again.

Next thing he knew he was laid out in Tian's bed. He could still smell her on the sheets, but she wasn't next to him. She was in the room, though. He could hear her arguing with someone near the center. A male. Sio worked around the pain and struggled to track what they were saying.

"I've
told
you female, taking the kind of energy that I'd need to fix him will kill you. Mierda, it might kill me."

"Don't bullshit me, Virgil. You'd stop before you let it kill you and we both know it."

"That doesn't change the fact that you'd be just as dead."

"And I told you that I won't stay dead. Your argument is invalid."

Sio struggled to sit up, but his body refused to respond. He licked his lips. They were dry. So was his tongue.

"You don't know that. Healing is an energy exchange, not something physical that can be mended."

"No," Sio croaked. His voice had conviction, but no weight behind it. Tian and Virgil ignored him, if they'd heard him at all.

"Tian," Virgil said. His voice turned pleading. "He wouldn't want it this way. Goddess turned, I met him for thirty seconds and even I could see that he loves you. That male would endure anything to spare your suffering. Do. Not. Ask me for this."

There was a note of desperation in Virgil's voice that screamed of painful personal experience. Sio gritted his teeth and pried dry eyelids open to catch sight of the speaker in his periphery. He hadn't liked the hard-assed Mexican in the hallway, but the guy's words gave him serious incentive to rethink the initial impression.

"And I would endure anything to spare his life," Tian's voice was raw, and low, and as vulnerable as Sio had ever heard it. "Please, Virgil, for once, let me do something kind with this
curse
of mine." She swallowed hard, sounding as if she were on the verge of tears. "Let me have one death in the bitter thousands that holds meaning."

Virgil let out a tortured curse and punched the wall behind him. The hit was hard enough to splinter the multi-hued strips of weather-worn barn board, leaving an unsightly dent. He grabbed Tian around the neck, spinning her around, and shoving her into the wall. The cords strained under the skin of the bastard's neck, his tanned face was distorted by the effects of an astonishing level of self-loathing. Virgil's mouth dropped down onto Tian's and Sio fought in a cold fury to sit up.

Tian's skin had paled to the color of old newspaper by the time he'd managed to right himself. Vengeance and fear sent a searing deluge of adrenaline through his blood stream. Every breath he took kicked off an unbearable pain in his chest and only served to fuel the black rage as he staggered forward. Sio watched, unable to get to her in time as Tian went limp in Virgil's arms.

The other male collected her lifeless form gently, catching sight of Sio as he turned. Sio dropped to his knees, unable to support himself as his soul spiraled out into the abyss. He watched, mute, as Virgil walked across the room and laid Tian out on the chaise in the corner. Her hand slipped off the edge of the chair, dropping to the floor with a boneless thud. Sio dragged in a ragged breath and railed against the urge to start screaming by telling himself that she'd survive. If she didn't he'd go mad. Stark raving Ophelia all over the place. He closed his eyes and felt Virgil settle in front of him.

"If I survive and she doesn't I swear that I will tear you limb from limb before I beat you to death." Sio was surprised at how steady his voice sounded. It was clearer that it had been at any point since he'd been shot.

"If she doesn't survive I won't try to stop you." Virgil grabbed the back of Sio's skull and unceremoniously pushed Tian's life force past his lips.

She was adrift in frozen delirium, adrift and surfacing in the darkness for an eternity. It occurred to her that she was tied to her own flesh about the same time she realized she was shaking so hard that her teeth were rattling around in her jaw like dice. The inundating cold was in her bones, radiating blistering subzero tendrils to all of the major nerve bundles in her body. Tian's first instinct was to expect pain. She waited for the onslaught of brilliant agony to accompany the resurrection, but there was nothing save for a tightly spooled thread of panic.

Sio.

The desperate tide of his heartbreak spilled through her skin, battering against the already raw nerve it found there making it impossible not to crack wide open. His arms were around her. His touch seared her flesh, thawing her from the hypothermic daze from the outside in. He was still alive. Tian choked, fighting down the strangled mewling sounds escaping through her traitorous throat. She burrowed against Sio's body in an attempt to smother herself, biting her lips, hoping he wouldn't hear. Of course he did.

Sio brushed her hair back and pressed his lips against her clammy forehead on a shaken exhalation. His entire being flowed through that kiss and what she found there made her bawl in earnest. Tian was overcome by him, by the unexpected surge of gratitude that came on the heels of her own resurrection. Gratitude. Sweet Mother. She felt swollen with it.

Thank you.
A prayer. It was the first she'd ever made, silent or otherwise.

The resonant hum of the Goddess sung steadily in response, echoing against the rafters of her ribcage. Sio hadn't said a word since she'd come to. He'd sat there mute, still the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, arms wrapped around her as if he'd been in mourning, unable to let her go. His fear was still a tangible thing, receding yes, but the bitter aftertaste of it lingered on the back of her tongue.

Tian's vision flickered and dimmed in time with her heartbeat. She began to comprehend detail in sluggish bursts of clarity. Sio's face was drawn. He looked haggard for the first time since she'd laid eyes on him. Then there was Virgil, huddled over by the door, caught in the fractured web of her peripheral vision. The Mayan had a split lip which he continually worried at while staring at her with a devastated expression. His nose was ruined. An emotion that might have been guilt churned like battery acid in her gut. Just because you wouldn't change your choices didn't mean that they felt good when surveying the aftermath.

"Sio," she said through the shrapnel coating her throat.

"Yeah."

"I..."

He shook his head cutting her off. "Don't."

Tian struggled to sit up. That her body obeyed on the first attempt was a surprise.

Sio continued after clearing his throat twice. "Swear to me that you won't do it again."

Her chest hurt. "No." The expression on his face was devastating. "I can't," she said. "I'm sorry."

He wouldn't look at her as she struggled to her feet. She wished she knew how someone less ruined would handle this shit, but the irony was she didn't feel broken. No, she felt awake. Heartsick and terrified and wide fucking awake. Tian took a couple of loose staggering steps backward before working up the courage to speak.

"I can't promise what you're asking, Sio. I'd do it again." Another step back.

He raised those pale fire eyes up to her face and nearly put her back on the ground under the weight of that heartbroken gaze.

"Why?"

The itch for the kind of absolution that only physical pain would bring was suffocating. And didn't it figure that the resurrection would choose this once to cheat her. She almost laughed, even though there was nothing to find funny.

Why? What a stupid gods damned question.

Goddess turned; she didn't want to look at him right now, but she couldn't seem to focus anywhere else. All of the tidy compartments and safe barriers in her skull were rubble.

"Because I love you."

He was on his feet before the phrase had fully escaped. Tian fought the rising urge to be sick. The magnitude of what had come out of her mouth pressed in on her, stealing the air from the room. She couldn't stand it, nearly gave in to the desperate inclination to escape because it was too much. She backed up another step, looking for the space to think straight.

"Then stop running... Please."

The words came out softly, without a trace of accusation or anger. The naked vulnerability in his tone broke through the wall of panic. It cut straight to the core. She might have been willing to punish herself indefinitely, but not him. The thought was unbearable.

Claim him.

The desire to do so was too visceral for comfort. Hard to tell if the sentiment came from the Goddess or from her. Tian snuck a glance at Sio's face and the corresponding surge in her chest gave her all the answer she could handle. He was the only peace she would ever know, in this life or any other. Once he touched her she wouldn't unplug. Once he touched her he'd own her. She'd own him. The Goddess's will would be assuaged and there would be no going back. It was all way too damn intense for a Thursday afternoon. The Mayan coughed pointedly against the wall. She'd forgotten anyone else was in the room. Tian's mouth was dry as she opened it to speak.

"Get out, Virgil." Her voice was unrecognizable.

Virgil swore under his breath, too distraught to translate, and hauled ass out the door as if the room were on fire. The damage was done though. The erotic pressure had built to suffocating levels. Sio hadn't moved from where he stood bare chested in front of the chaise. A pair of black nylon track pants were slung low on his hips. The thin material made it impossible not to notice how the chemistry was affecting him. The Goddess spilled through Tian, testing the limits of their skin while the possession rode unchecked through her body. The honeyed whispers of cold fire fluttering were making it difficult to focus. The need nearly doubled her over.