Bound by Light (49 page)

"Shit," Jake managed between coughs. "No. Merilee, wait—"

But gagging, eyes watering from the stench, Merilee flung herself through the door Jake had shouldered open. She was sobbing as she threw herself toward the awful smell, past the living room, toward the back bedroom—

A dead woman tied to the bed.

Blond. Slight. Merilee couldn’t make out the features.

Not mine.

Oh, thank Olympus, not mine.

From behind her, she heard Jake getting on the telephone and Delilah calling out for her son.

Merilee stared at the dead woman and her gut wrenched another turn.

She despised herself for the relief she felt.

To make up for not grieving the lost life, Merilee rested a hand on the woman’s icy forehead and whispered a blessing for her loved ones as Jake finished his call and Delilah knocked open the last few doors in the place, hunting for Max.

"Did this girl not meet your standards?" Merilee whispered, her voice nearly gone. Her throat was so sore from holding back screams and sobs that she couldn’t even get the words to sound right, make sense. "Did she displease you somehow, you sick, psychotic bastard?"

They were running out of time—and Delilah was out of locations. Hope was draining away so quickly Merilee couldn’t capture it, couldn’t hold on to even a glimmer of it. Her tears dried up even as she stood there. Just stopped. She didn’t have any left, but by all the goddesses, she had rage.

No, not rage.

Pure hatred.

It seethed inside her like a brewing maelstrom, and Merilee wondered if she couldn’t take out August herself. No help at all.

An uprooted tree to the head—or maybe an F5 tornadic burst, right in the face.

She saw him crushed by flying cars, broken from being hurled off the Empire State Building. She even imagined what he might look like if she filled his groin full of elementally locked arrows, then fired one through his temple at close range.

No, wait. He was probably eternal. Wouldn’t it be better to lock him in a cell beneath one of the Mother-houses and make him suffer forever, across generations and generations of Sibyls?

She shook her head.

"A cell is way too fucking good for that monster." Her words sounded like hammer strikes in the silent, death-filled space.

Even the Keres might be too gentle.

Her hands flexed.

She
really
wanted to be the one to kill August. She’d take him back to Greece, to the death spirits, so the world would be protected from his dying energy—but she wanted to be the one who took his life, one fucking arrow at a time.

Her mind flexed along with her fingers at that thought, and all of her senses, too—and she caught something slipping through the nose-numbing odor of death all around her.

Slight.

Faint.

Almost . . . not there.

But it was.

Merilee’s eyes widened.

"You know the drill," Jake said as he came into the bedroom leading Delilah behind him. "The NYPD is laying down tracks to this address."

Merilee walked around Jake, trailing her fingers along his bare, pale side for a moment. She passed him up, and Delilah, too, not really hearing anything else he said—but she caught Delilah’s expression.

Startled. Then . . . satisfied.

Merilee’s chest clenched.

Has she done this on purpose? Led us on this friggin’ nightmare of a chase all over New York?

Only to bring us here last . . .

Why?

Merilee walked out in the hallway, to the stairs, to give herself a little distance from the dead woman and all the distracting smells.

She sucked in a deep breath of air, trying not to hack at the stench of rot still permeating the space.

And . . . there it was again!

So, so weak.

The barest hint of earth.

The slightest whiff of smoke.

Close—yet not close.

Her own words nudged into her thoughts as she hurried down the stairs, leaped down them, using her wind energy to keep her from breaking her legs.

A cell is way too fucking good for that monster.

Yeah, it was.

But it wasn’t too good to hold a couple of Sibyls. With the right reinforcements, the right modifications, they wouldn’t be able to use their power or call for help, not at all.

Something like fireworks exploded in Merilee’s brain. Her pulse exploded, too. She couldn’t quite get her breath.

Even two very powerful Sibyls could be contained in a cell of elementally locked lead, and Merilee knew exactly where such a jail cell was.

In Riana’s brownstone, at Sixty-third and Fifth.

"Jake!" she cried, blood rushing against her eardrums. "Keep hold of that bitch and don’t let her go!"

She didn’t wait for his response.

Merilee was already out of the remodeled apartment and on the street, running as fast as she could make her body move.

The scent of earth and fire was getting stronger.

Merilee poured on the wind and shot forward, turning the corner by Central Park, streaking past all the cars on the road. She dodged pedestrians who seemed to be moving no faster than fire hydrants and mailboxes.

Riana and Creed had been staying at the townhouse because of Riana’s pregnancy—but they still owned the brownstone where Riana, Cynda, and Merilee had begun their work as Sibyls in New York City. Riana had a lab downstairs in that brownstone.

And in that lab, a well-crafted elementally locked lead cell.

Son of a bitch.

You hid them in plain sight, right where we’d never look.

Merilee’s whole body hummed with certainty, and blood pounded in her ears with each step.

She was going to find her triad.

By all the goddesses of Olympus, she
would
save them, and she would do it right now.

Then she was going for August, and if it was the last thing Merilee ever managed to do, she would slay herself a Leviathan.

(36)

Merilee reached the door of Riana’s brownstone and blew it open so hard she ripped the wind chimes off the ceiling in the entryway.

The little pipes smashed to the floor as she ran through the otherwise undisturbed living room, aware of Jake touching down behind her and leading Delilah through the front door.

Oh, yeah.

Definite earth smell here. Definite fire. And not remnants. Fresh. Muted, yes—but current. Here. Now.

Joy flowed through her like wild spring winds.

No August—no, no trace of him yet, not that she could sense.

Hands out, Merilee smashed her way through the swinging door of the kitchen. She’d spent years here. The place was so well known she could navigate it in her sleep, so familiar it made her heart ache.

"Riana!" she yelled as she reached the step to the basement and leaped downward, riding a blast of wind straight to the floor.

Nobody answered.

Merilee’s heart was beating so loud she was afraid she wouldn’t hear her triad sisters call out even if they did. Nerves humming, she swept her ventsentience through the space as fast as she could.

No demon tang.

Some nasty-scented sweat.

And raw elemental power, her triad’s power,
everywhere
.

On her right, Riana’s bedroom door was closed. Down the hall and to the left, the lab door was closed, too.

Merilee’s wind acted almost without her conscious thought, blasting both doors to nails and splinters.

The bedroom was empty.

She ran into the lab, leaped through the ruined door—and came to a fast stop, face-to-face with Max Moses—

Holding a pistol leveled at her chest.

Merilee shrieked like one of the Keres, gathering her wind so fast, so strong the microscopes in the lab started to shake. She drew back her fist to fling a burst of wind at the pistol, but from the corner of her eye, she saw them.

Gods and goddesses.

Riana. Cynda. In the cell.

Both of them were down on the stone floor, covered with stained sheets.

Merilee lowered her fist.

If she hit that gun with a wind blast, it might go off—or Max might squeeze the trigger out of reflex. The bullet could fire anywhere, or ricochet—too risky.

Max’s entire lanky frame trembled. His face was badly bruised, new marks and the shadows of old beatings, too, and his gun hand was shaking. He used it to gesture to the far side of the lab. "I’m supposed to—but I don’t want to, not unless you make me. They had a rough time of it. I . . . I cleaned up. Gave them some water, but they need . . . more. Help them and we’ll go—but do it from here. I know you can send them energy."

Merilee risked turning away from Max.

They were right here, yes, right here, her triad sisters. Right in front of her in the cell. She had found them. Jolts of triumph racked her exhausted body, but she couldn’t even enjoy the victory, because Riana and Cynda definitely weren’t okay.

And, oh, sweet goddesses, Riana was holding babies. Two tiny, still little bundles rested in her arms, cradled tight against her chest.

Merilee almost shrieked again.

Riana and Cynda had delivered.

Merilee reached out with her ventsentience, and the coppery reek of blood filled her senses. Soiling and weakness. Muscle tissue, wasting.

Oh, sweet goddesses of Olympus, her triad sisters had given birth right in that jail cell. Somebody had done a shit-sloppy job of cleanup—yes, Max said that. And he gave them water.

But food? Medical care?

Was Cynda even breathing?

All of Olympus, let her be breathing.

And the babies . . . oh, the babies!

Merilee tried to speak, but her words hung in her throat. She choked. Coughed. Pushed out, "I’m here, Riana. Cynda, I’m right here."

It was all she could manage, along with a little cry as she took in the amount of blood on Cynda’s sheet—and the floor around her.

Riana didn’t seem to hear when Merilee called out. At least she didn’t change positions, or look toward the sound of Merilee’s voice. Cynda didn’t move, either—or the babies.

Fuck the little twit Max. Let him shoot me.

Merilee put her body between Max and her triad sisters, ran to the elementally locked bars, and grabbed them. Cold metal scraped her skin. Little humming currents shocked her fingers and palms, and the sticky-sweet scent of blood made her want to sob.

"Riana. Honey. Look at me. Where’s the key?"

Riana’s head didn’t move and her eyes stayed closed. She held the babies to her chest and murmured. "He has it. August. Saw the cell in my mind . . . brought us . . . and Max. . . . Supposed to cuff you. Shoot you, too . . . kill us, I think."

That little bit of talking appeared to exhaust her, and she sagged against the back cell wall. The babies in her arms stirred a fraction, then went still again.

Merilee smashed her fists against the bars. Pain echoed through her knuckles, to her elbows, through her neck—and the shocks from the elemental locks, too.

So close. Right here—and she couldn’t even reach her triad or their infants, touch them, offer them any real help!

She beat her fists against the bars again, absorbing each shock, and screamed her frustration.

"Back off!" Max bleated, but Merilee ignored him. She knew she was still between him and any shot at her triad, and he could cram that gun up his asshole for all she cared.

"Move, Merilee. Move
now
." Jake’s command filled the room, so intense and primal that Merilee literally jumped out of the way before she could second-guess her instincts.

Wings folded, fangs bared, Jake strode across the room holding Delilah in a headlock.

"I’ve called for help," he said, his voice still sounding beyond dangerous.

Max let out a little wail and raised his gun toward Jake, but he didn’t fire. Merilee knew he couldn’t, not without risking a hit to his mother. She was beginning to think Max didn’t want to shoot anyone anyway, that he didn’t have it in him.

Jake seemed to tower and glow in his Astaroth form, and Max lowered his gun altogether. He took out the clip and placed it on the floor at his feet.

As soon as the gun pointed at the floor, Jake shoved Delilah toward Merilee. She caught the woman, moved her up against the back wall, and motioned for Max to join his mother as Jake grabbed the cell door in both powerful hands.

The crackle-shock of elemental locks shook his arms. It shook the whole room—but Jake didn’t let go.