Bound by Light (15 page)

The longer her eyes stayed on the cursed thing, the more Jake wanted to rip it off or turn away from her and never turn back again, never allow her to see that awful part of him, that glaring weakness. The chain and ring felt heavy and hot around his neck, like the gold was digging into his essence and leaving a fresh, thick new scar. "Freeman will be here in half an hour with the packers and the truck." His voice was too loud, but he couldn’t help it.

Jake stood so suddenly he shoved the table away from himself without meaning to. The metal legs scrubbed against the floor and he missed catching the edge of the table. It slammed into the kitchen wall so hard the corner punched into the drywall.

Merilee sat for a second, her attention riveted to the spot where the table now dug into the wall.

Then she got to her feet.

Heat rose through Jake’s body, something like rage or humiliation, but he couldn’t sort it out. He expected her to lecture him or yell, or convey her disapproval in a gesture or expression.

Merilee didn’t say a word.

She also didn’t give him a strange look or seem upset by his behavior, which somehow made him feel worse. She just slipped around him, left the kitchen, went back into the tiled room, and stood at the edge of the vévé.

Jake moved into the room behind her.

I’m a shithead.

He needed to apologize for his loss of control, right now, but Merilee was already working, eyes closed, hands at her sides this time. Wind energy stirred against her hair and face, and spread out through the room. Slower this time, more deliberate, but no less intense in force and focus.

It wouldn’t be good to distract her, not when he already felt her elemental power flowing to meet the pulsing energy in the design.

Merilee would do whatever it took to get the job done in any situation. As she had reminded him, she was a Sibyl. The broom of her triad. This was a woman—a warrior—used to cleaning up big messes, and Jake better not forget that ever again. He owed her more respect than that. So he kept still, and he kept his mouth shut. Seconds went by, then a few minutes.

One branch and limb at a time, Merilee tackled and subdued the elemental workings of the blood-etched pattern, and Jake sensed its untamed elemental power dying away. She wasn’t so much breaking it as wrapping it in wind, redirecting it, calming it into nothingness.

It amazed him, how Merilee could stir up wild energy so quickly when she wanted to, yet just as quickly recapture it, absorb it, and soothe it completely away.

Earlier, she really
would
have shot me with that arrow
. He was pretty sure he was falling for her. How could anyone not fall for a woman like Merilee?

As he watched her work the vévé so completely and methodically, he had no doubt—about the arrow or about falling for her.

Another few minutes passed.

Merilee opened her eyes, glanced around the room, and took a breath.

"I think that’s got it," she said. When she shifted her attention to Jake, her expression was steel mixed with the sure confidence and forcefulness Jake had grown accustomed to seeing in the Sibyl Mothers. "I’ll get the book."

Jake tensed, but didn’t challenge her decision.

Merilee’s face softened a fraction, and she smiled at him, obviously pleased he had grasped what she said earlier about being a Sibyl—even if he still hadn’t figured out the Tarzan part of it. That might take more study.

She eased forward, skirting through the points of the vévé, until she reached the design’s center. There, she hesitated, and Jake realized she was checking the book for additional protections. After a few seconds, Merilee bent down and retrieved the leather-bound volume.

She held it up, studying the pages. "It’s open to an entry on the Egyptian god Thoth."

Jake called up facts and details about Thoth much more easily than he could about Tarzan. Thoth had been considered the tongue and heart of the sun god Ra, ruler of sky, earth, and underworld—the physical embodiment of a god’s mind. Thoth was usually portrayed with a man’s body, but the head of an ibis.

Merilee glanced at the entry again. Then she looked toward the ceiling, obviously confused. "Do you—do you hear anything, Jake?"

Jake tensed. He reached out with all his senses, but detected nothing beyond normal city noises and activity. "No. Nothing unusual."

Merilee shook her head. "The Keres—the death spirits from my dreams. I thought I heard them screaming just now."

Jake glanced at the ceiling, then back to the book in Merilee’s hands. "Maybe you should put that down." "Okay, but there’s one more thing." She touched the passage to read him something—and the moment her finger pressed against the page, the room started to shake.

She looked up, wide-eyed. "Oh, shit."

Adrenaline poured through Jake’s body, lighting up his senses, his nerves, his muscles.

Hands trembling, Merilee dropped the book.

Before the binding struck the floor, Jake shed his human form.

Wings unfurled, arms outstretched, he shot blindly forward, praying he’d get to her in time—and the walls and floor exploded.

(10)

The world around Merilee blew into bits of tile and wood and plaster.

Air punched from her lungs.

A bestial, vicious power crashed into her body and hurled her backward.

Merilee’s mind spun with her body as she sailed out of the Windermere building.

Energy grabbed at her, gripped her, held her in the air. Not an elemental trap. Shit. No!

A god.

The Vodoun Loa that Phila Gruyere had been summoning when she vanished or got taken.

Merilee sensed something huge and elemental with a lot of horns and teeth.

Something very, very,
very
pissed.

I’m so dead.

The energy holding her flung her toward the ground. Merilee’s heart caved against her ribs as her body tumbled into dark oblivion. Pain thundered through her joints, her bones. The god was smashing her as she fell. She felt like it was pulverizing her with its massive elemental energy.

Merilee screamed but heard nothing. She couldn’t see anything but sky and stars and streaks of light.

Down.

Her pulse shot up even as her body jetted downward. Faster now. Hurtling toward the sidewalk and street below.

No!

Mouth open, chest on fire as she fought for air, Merilee pushed against the ground with her wind. And pushed. And pushed even harder.

Not strong enough.

She felt stretched. Pressed. Too weak, too flat.

If she kept using her power to push upward, the god’s power would crush her—but if she stopped, she’d smash against the sidewalk in less than two seconds.

Images of Riana and Cynda flashed through her mind. This was it. She’d never see them again, or meet their babies, or find out what it was like to make love to Jake Lowell.

Jake . . .

He’d probably died when the apartment exploded. She had gotten him killed.

Hecate save him!

Something heavy slammed into her so hard she felt her ribs crunch. Pain fired through her whole body, making her teeth snap together.

She was flying again, only not downward. Sideways.

Strong arms cradled her and held her so, so tight. And that smell, that delicious, arousing, strangely comforting Caribbean mix . . .

"Jake," she whispered, sliding her arms around his neck despite the agony in her belly and sides. She held on with all her remaining strength.

Jake in his Astaroth form.

The chain of his talisman necklace pressed into her skin, and warmth coursed through her. Relief. Gratitude. Even after all he’d said about despising his demon nature, about intentionally keeping his human form, he had shifted to save her.

"Jake," she said again.

He didn’t answer. He just flew.

Something about the tension in his muscles let her know he was in significant pain. That, she could relate to. Her body throbbed as she pressed herself into the hard curves of Jake’s bare chest. His translucent pearly skin glowed in the moonlight and the radiance of the streetlamps. His huge wings, four of them, pumped against the dark sky, taking her away from the Winder-mere, then up toward the glittering stars.

Merilee did a mental check to be sure she was in one piece, noted the sharp, tearing pains emanating from her ribs, and sent what healing energy she could spare to soothe them. A flood of relief washed over her when she sensed her bow and quiver still intact, though pressed tight against her back by Jake’s unrelenting grip. Her leathers had a few tears and holes, and there was a mother of a splinter lodged in her left shin, but all in all, save for the cracked ribs, she was doing well for somebody who just got exploded out of a building by a pissed-off god, then rescued out of midair by a big, silent demon.

From somewhere in the distance, she heard a soft shrieking, as if the Keres were trying to call to her again, directly from the forbidden slopes of Káto Ólimbos. The sound made her shake for a moment before she got hold of herself and lifted her head to peek over Jake’s powerful shoulder.

Something red and glowing and snarling fired toward them across the New York City skyline.

Merilee went stiff.

Fucking wonderful.

She dug her fingers into Jake’s neck. "I think the mad horned voodoo god is chasing us." Talking hurt, but she could stand it with a little force of will, and she hoped he could hear her over the increasing rush of wind.

"Let it come." Jake’s normally calm, low voice was nothing but a resonant growl as he carried them out over open water. The Narrows, best she could tell, between Staten Island and Brooklyn. The dark expanse looked endless and menacing, like a pit of nothingness stretched between lighted shores.

"That thing doesn’t need to be loose in Manhattan," Jake added, still more growling than talking.

"Good point." Merilee eased her fingertips out of his flesh, then squeezed her arms against his neck even though the movement sent bolts of pain across her sore ribs.

Yeah, good point, great point, but
insane.

There was no way they could kill the god. They’d have to try to wound it badly enough that it would retreat back to its own plane of existence. About as likely as bringing down King Kong with one kick to the shins.

When the god caught them, it would no doubt eat them. The thing had to be hungry after being trapped in book pages for who knows how long, waiting for Phila to complete its release.

Cool wind whipped across Merilee’s cheeks as she raised her head again and glanced over Jake’s shoulder. The roiling cloud expanded and barreled closer. "The mad horned voodoo god is gaining on us, Jake."

The only answer she received was a rumbling, carnivorous snarl.

Before she could use her air energy to stir the wind and propel them faster, Jake cradled her closer to his chest and plunged out of the sky.

Merilee’s heart rate rocketed to full speed. She bit back a scream and dug her nails into the rippling muscles of Jake’s Astaroth-pale shoulders. Cold wind rushed past her, chilling her right through her leathers, and it was all she could do not to let loose a burst of elemental air to stop them cold.

The stench of rot met her senses, mingled with sour water, dirt, and chemicals she couldn’t quite sort out. Her nose seemed to go numb and quit smelling as she blinked at the expanse below them. Jake touched down abruptly yet gracefully, and he set her on her feet so gently that the vibration didn’t make her double over from pain.

A quick examination told Merilee they were standing on an unusually high swell of ground and debris, and she realized where they were.

The Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island.

Four square miles of New York City garbage, which were slowly being reclaimed and converted into a park.

Above them, the boiling red cloud came to a stop and churned in place, as if gathering menace and strength.

Okay. We’re at Fresh Kills. Plenty of legroom to do battle with a god and get cannibalized. And nobody knows where we are, so our remains—if there
are
any—won’t even be found. No problem. Fresh Kills. That’s just what we’ll be.

Her attention shifted to Jake as she got ready to tell him they were toast, but the lethal look on his face froze her words in her throat. Jake’s eyes looked like flat golden plates reflecting the crescent moon. His lips pulled back to show large, pointed fangs, top and bottom, and a mouthful of sharp teeth.

Teeth made for ripping and tearing.

Equally fearsome claws jutted from his long fingers as he curled his hands into fists.

He was an Astaroth, but bigger and fiercer than any Merilee had ever encountered. A fiery glow seemed to burn through his skin, lighting him from the inside like some terrifying alien creature.