Bound by Flame (37 page)

Above him, the chimes started a different staccato ring, matching her steps. Pipe to pipe, set to set, the sound flew around the room, turning circles just like Cynda.

Nick was careful to give her plenty of space, but he got as close as he could, and closer when she slowed to dance in front of the center mirror. Arm’s length, at her back, right where he belonged.

Nick stared at the black glass, waiting.

Cynda’s hands and arms went white-pale from her effort. Her shoulder muscles strained, and her energy fluctuated as she battled to finish what Nick figured was a complex bunch of energy transfers.

I’m right here, firebird.
He didn’t know how to give her elemental energy, but he sent the force of his feelings and hoped for the best.
Come on. You can do this.

She kept at it, not giving up. She’d never give up—he knew that for sure.

Seconds later, fog appeared in the mirror.

Nick drew his Glock and kept himself ready.

The fog brightened, as if someone had switched on a lamp at the mirror’s center. Then the smoke in the glass swirled.

More energy swept around the duplex. Chimes blasted and rang. For a split second, Nick imagined the pipes were screaming. The sound grated up and down his spine, and he tightened his grip on his weapon.

The scene in the mirror came clear.

Cynda’s breath caught.

The stone room Nick was used to seeing at Motherhouse Island—the walls had turned black.

Streaked by fire.

Pieces of mirror frames hung at odd angles. No furniture in sight. Women in charred green robes lay like broken dolls on the floor.

God.

Cynda shook all over.

Nick couldn’t see her face, but he could imagine her look of horror. He was about to reach for her when she said, “Harper. Get up here, hold open the channel, and come through last. Everyone else, follow me.”

Harper leaped onto the table right behind Nick. Flames licked over his shoulders as energy flowed between the two women.

Cynda stepped toward the glass.

Heat blasted around Nick, holding him back like a burning, shoving wall.

He squinted into the blast and saw Cynda shimmer. A second later, she lifted off the table and vanished.

Shit!

Nick half shifted and powered himself through the thick curtain of elemental force. Driving with all the power in his legs, he ran a step and hurled himself upward, toward the scene in the mirror.

The room went black.

Sound and air sucked out of his ears.

He roared from the pain, roared with Gideon punching at his ribs and spine, but heard nothing at all.

His skin jammed against his bones.

His gut yanked like somebody had tied a string to his middle, fastened the end to a rocket, and hit the go switch.

Nick pumped his legs once and tumbled through what felt like empty space.

25

Not even daring to breathe, Cynda landed on the charred wooden platform in the communications chamber at Motherhouse Ireland.

When she took her first breath, the stone room stank of blood and acrid fire and smoldering wood. Black and white smoke drifted around the chamber, and gray light and rain slanted through shattered, barred glass in windows above her head.

Too late.
A sob burst from her throat. Fire charged through her belly, but she held back the flames, had to. Had to get down and see what was left.

Goddess, was
anything
left?

Afternoon,
her brain automatically calculated.
Five-hour time difference. And it’s bad weather. No sounds of battle. No red traces. No demons. This room is clear. But—there on the floor.

Women in green robes. Obviously Mothers. Obviously dead.

“Noooo,” she moaned, as if her soul-deep grief might blaze out of her chest and bring the women back. Her limbs didn’t want to follow her commands, but she turned, and saw two nuns from Kylemore kneeling beside an injured Mother.

The right height. The right hair.

Please—

Cynda raced to Mother Keara’s stricken form and dropped to her knees, pulling the woman’s head into her lap. On either side of Mother Keara, two Kylemore Sisters worked to clean cuts and bandage wounds in Mother Keara’s arms. Mother Keara’s green robes lay in burned tatters. Her Chinese great sword had been snapped in half, the pieces rammed into the stone mortar at her feet.

Tears flowing, Cynda stroked Mother Keara’s small, frail cheek.

Behind them, Nick came through the mirror and half fell, half jumped off the communications platform into the devastated stone chamber at Motherhouse Ireland. Sibyls poured through the mirror behind him, landing on the table and jumping off, weapons drawn. The mirror shook on the wall. It was cracked at the top, and that crack was spidering out and down with each new arrival. Soon it would shatter the mirror completely.

Cynda didn’t want to think about it, couldn’t even begin to face that fact right this second. Mother Keara’s skin felt too cool beneath her fingertips. Where was the fire? The fight?

Goddess, she’s in trouble. I’m going to lose her!

“A chroí.”
Mother Keara coughed.

Cynda started to tell her not to speak, but Mother Keara blurted, “They caught us at trainin’ and chattin’ with Russia a few hours ago, but we purged our grounds and closed the tunnels after some sisters came through to help.” She managed a cackle. “The demons are outside our walls now, by the Goddess! Chased out and held off by what Sibyls we have, and those what showed up by foot and car.”

“Sssshhh.” One of the nuns stroked Mother Keara’s weathered hand. “Your
a chroí
has come to defend her Motherhouse, just as you knew she would. You need rest now, like you promised. Let us take you to the infirmary.”

“I’ll see to my own wounds, damn ya,” the old woman growled, but she didn’t give off even a puff of smoke. “And I’ll not be abandonin’ my house in its time of need!”

“Go with the nuns,” Cynda urged, wishing she could take Mother Keara’s wounds herself and bear them for her. “I
will
take care of the Motherhouse. I’ll take care of everyone.”

Mother Keara’s gaze brightened for a fraction of a second. Cynda thought she looked…proud.

Then her eyes fluttered closed.

Pain flared in Cynda’s center, as if somebody had torn her soul in half. Fire burned along the outsides of her hands, but she couldn’t give her heat to Mother Keara. The old woman simply couldn’t take it. She was barely hanging on.

Choking back a round of crippling sobs, Cynda cut her gaze to the nuns. “Take her to the healers. Do whatever you can, please!”

One of the nuns spoke in low, soothing tones to Mother Keara as they worked to lift her, but Cynda couldn’t hear what the woman was saying. Something in Irish. It sounded like a blessing.

A mind-scraping crack made Cynda shriek and jump to her feet. She whirled back to the platform, hand on the hilt of her sword.

Delilah Moses was hauling herself down from the table and swiveling her head, taking in her new surroundings. Harper Ellis had just come through the channels. Behind Harper, the mirror cracked again. Wood snapped.

It splintered completely.

The glass crashed to the floor and exploded to sand and fire with a loud
whump.

The channels behind the destroyed mirror slammed shut with the force of a small grenade, popping against Cynda’s eardrums.

She stared at the closed stone wall, at the still-smoldering sand on the floor. No more mirrors. That was it. They were completely cut off from rapid transport now.

Fucking wonderful.

She ran a hand through her hair.

“We’ll have to get reinforcements the old-fashioned way,” Bela Argos, the earth Sibyl from the South Bronx triad, said, sheathing her daggers. “Plane, train, boat, and automobile. Every projective mirror in a hundred miles probably broke when that mirror’s energy turned loose.”

“May the Goddess speed the fighters who can reach us,” said Harper, who was lining up the initiates beside the table.

“Wait a second.” Cynda gestured to the nuns, who bowed their heads and kept a firm grip on the now swearing, spitting Mother Keara. “Delilah, help the Sisters—and don’t argue with me, or I’ll melt your ass to the rock floor.”

The old woman didn’t even open her mouth. She just scooted toward the nuns like she had wheels under her feet.

One less problem.

Cynda needed victories where she could get them.

Eyes watering but focusing more easily now, Cynda glanced at Nick.

He had a tight grip on his gun, standing with his arms at his sides. The lines of his handsome face had hardened into a mask.

Fire rose and fell on her shoulders and arms, keeping time with her breathing. She could tell Nick wanted to hold her, protect her—but how could he save her from this?

The other Sibyls and the younger fighters stared at her, waiting for her to lead them.

And she had promised Mother Keara to do just that.

Was it possible? Cynda bit at her lip and tried to manage her fire, pull it inside her to shore up her failing energy.

Could she take charge of this unbelievable mess and make a difference?

“Right beside you,” Nick murmured. His expression softened just enough to communicate the full depth of his support.

He’s here beside me. He’ll do his best to stand in for my triad—and he’s a damned good fighter. We’re
all
good fighters.

After another few breaths, Cynda nodded. She steeled herself inside, then faced her troops, such as they were.

“See to the dead,” she told the initiates, sliding her sword from its sheath. “Mother Ailis, Mother Quinn, and Mother Murphy need their rites and ceremonies.”

To Nick and the Sibyls, she raised her blade. Flames licked along the steel. “East turret. We need to see what the hell’s going on.”

Fire trailed behind Cynda as she led the way out of the communications chamber and upward, through the underbelly of Motherhouse Ireland. Tears stung her eyes, and she couldn’t unlock her jaw. Didn’t even try.

My sanctuary.

My first home
.

Her raised sword blazed through the arched passages. Her thoughts darkened with each step. Even though her muscles knew the way, she barely recognized the soot-streaked hallways. Everything smelled like smoke and sulfur and blood. Broken torches hung limp in sconces. Bits of furniture, spears, and broken swords littered the stone floor.

And bodies…oh, Goddess.

Flames poured from her hands. Cynda gripped her sword with both fists, so hard the hilt dug into her palms, but she couldn’t begin to control her fire.

Two green-robed trainees lay sprawled at the foot of the winding stairs that led up to the east battlement.

She littered the air with bursts of heat. Her blade glowed brighter, pulling from her raging inner fire, until the center went stark white.

Thank God Nick was here. Without Riana and Merilee, with Mother Keara down and wounded and half the other Mothers dead, his presence was all that anchored her. She sensed him nearby, drew from him. Her legs felt like so much concrete, but she stepped over the dead girls and kept going.

My home.

My friends.

My
family.

“They’ll pay,” Nick rumbled from behind her.

“Damn straight,” somebody answered from farther back. Cynda couldn’t place the voice.

Fire spit and hissed and roared from other fire Sibyls and the initiates. Heat radiated from every stone, hung in the air, flowed around Cynda, feeding her energy, feeding her rage.

Body burning inside and out, she hefted her sword and took the stairs two at a time. The big east turret was just ahead.

Motherhouse Ireland was a mimic to Kylemore Abbey, built into the rock face of a small mountain, with two sides facing a stretch of the Dawros River. Only the east wall of the Motherhouse was vulnerable to breach. Otherwise, attackers would need to blast through the center of the mountain, or bash through solid stone pillars with boats.

Or fly.

Images of Astaroths flashed through Cynda’s mind as her legs pistoned up the tower steps.

Why hadn’t she killed every damned one of those monsters when she had the chance?

She didn’t even care about Jake at the moment.

She wanted all the double-winged demons toasted and drowned at the bottom of Connemara’s bogs.

Noises drifted toward her. Screaming. Shouting. Dull roars.

Shit.

Her heart punched against her ribs.

The closer she got to the battlement, the louder it got, and the more flames she shed on the stairs around her feet.

Think, damnit. Plan. You’ve got to keep it together. You promised. This is
your
fight.

Astaroths could absorb fire, but they couldn’t deflect arrows and bullets, right? And she had Nick. She had eight air Sibyls, all of whom wore intact goggles with demon-tracking lenses.

How many warriors got here before we came?

And what kind of army are we facing?

Her chest ached. Her gut burned worse than ever. She wanted to yell her head off and explode into a murdering, sky-sweeping fountain of fire.

Instead, Cynda reached the top of the steps and shoved through the battlement door.

Sword crackling, she stormed directly into hell itself.

Screams battered her ears. Battle cries echoed on stone. Women shouted directions and commands. It was hard to see the big turret. Fire jetted, huge gouts, forming trails of murky black smog. Wind blew the smog sideways, sucking it up and back. The afternoon reeked of copper and smoke and hot steel.

Sulfur, too. Strong. Choking.

Demons.

So much wrong energy.

Everywhere.

Nick reached her, Glock drawn, and brushed her free arm. Together, they jogged forward to let her fellow warriors onto the top of the turret. She squinted through the smoke and saw—only three Sibyls, weapons out and fighting.