Captive Heart (39 page)

“That was in his chest before.” Andy ripped the blade free and tossed it to him. “My water must have knocked it loose. It’s treated, so it should work.”

It was messy business, beheading a tiger-demon with a small blade, but Jack managed it as fast as he could. “We’ll never get him dry enough to burn,” he said as he got off the carcass and tossed the head a few feet away from the body.

Tarek’s head burst into flames, and the demon’s body went up like a torch, too. Jack had to jump back a few steps to keep from immolating right along with what was left of his enemy. The blood on his dagger caught fire, and the blade burned clean in a matter of seconds.

Andy washed the ashes of the Rakshasa’s head and body in two different directions. Instead of looking relieved, she had gone wide-eyed. As she finished disposing of the demon, her mouth came open, her hands started to shake, and she turned a slow circle, squinting into the shadows.

Jack saw the little girl before she did.

Neala had wedged herself between some boards and bricks in the room’s far corner. She was sobbing like a kid who had seen way too many monsters. He crossed the patched floor in a hurry, gathered her up, and carried her back to Andy, who wrapped her in her arms.

“Scared,” the little girl said between big, gulping cries.

“It’s okay,” Andy told her. “I was scared, too. Scared’s okay. Scared’s just fine.”

The lab’s torn metal door rattled, and a thin blond girl stepped into the space. Drenched and bedraggled and obviously ten kinds of furious, she stared at him, then at Andy and Neala. At the same time, Coven members staggered in through the hole in the lab wall. They had their backs to Jack and Andy and Neala and the girl, but the supermobsters with the major weaponry didn’t.

Neala let out a squeak, and all the barrels of the MAC-10s started to glow red and melt. A few of the mobsters tried to fire and blew big holes in their own chests. Andy washed them back into the courtyard before they could get off any decent rounds, and she blasted the Coven members next, sending them flailing and swearing through the wall, riding the crests of a dozen small waves.

“That’s enough,” said the blond girl. From all the descriptions Jack had studied, this had to be Rebecca, half sister to Griffen—species and elemental powers unknown. She marched forward, doing something with her energy that made Andy move back as she approached. Neala lifted her hands and screwed up her face, but no fire left the little girl’s fingertips.

“You won’t be burning me,” Rebecca told Neala. To Andy, she said, “Hand her over before I crush you both. You know I can. You already feel your cells ripping. I’ll make you explode if I have to, but I’d rather keep the two of you alive.”

Andy said nothing, but she turned and used her body to shield the terrified, smoking, flame-spitting little girl. Jack started forward with the dagger. Whatever voodoo the girl had, it wouldn’t work on him, he was pretty sure.

He raised the dagger, positioning it in his palm. He didn’t want to stab a woman, even if she wasn’t really human.

“Hand me the girl,” Rebecca demanded, giving off what felt like a cloud of dark, bitter ugliness.

“I think not,” said a quiet, powerful voice from behind Jack.

The sound of it punched through all the ugly in the air, and instinct made Jack leap out of the way as a huge gout of flame blasted forward and scorched the floor all around the girl.

Rebecca whipped around, her hands up, but when she saw her opponent, she hesitated. Her eyes narrowed. “What … are you?”

“Your equal.” Mother Keara sprang forward, Irish hand-and-a-half sword drawn as she took a battle stance in her battered leathers. Her gray hair hung in wavy curtains around her wrinkled face, but Jack could see death in her bright green eyes as she said, “You’ll be leavin’ that baby alone now.”

Mother Yana, Mother Anemone, and Elana came through the lab door and surrounded Rebecca before the girl grasped that she’d been outplayed. Jack realized the Mothers had to be containing her with their elemental energies, blending their powers together to form some sort of binding.

He edged around the group of them and got to Andy as five winged guys Jack didn’t recognize came sailing through the hole in the lab wall. He put himself between Andy and Neala and the men, once more raising the dagger, but she put two fingers on his wrist and pushed it down.

“Fire men,” Neala whispered, sounding awed.

Andy shivered visibly as she corrected the little girl. “The Host. The tallest one, his name is Mikeal.”

The Host landed, squinting and obviously not enjoying the sunlight, but they never took their eyes off Rebecca. Their massive black wings cast shadows across the whole space, and a few black feathers drifted down to the mucky floor as Mikeal addressed Mother Keara in Gaelic.

She fired right back at him with words and sparks and smoke.

Jack had very little idea what they were saying, but he did catch the word
Sluagh
as Mikeal gestured to Rebecca.

“Oh, no way.” Andy shoved Neala into Jack’s arms and started forward. Jack barely managed to hold on to the little fire Sibyl and grab the shoulder of Andy’s wet robe to hold her back.

“Her?” Andy shouted, water and blood dripping down her arms.
“She’s
what the Host has been after?” She turned the full measure of her ire on Mikeal. “Host or not, you can’t seriously think you’re taking that murdering witch out of here alive. She and her pet monster nearly killed one of my best friends!”

Mikeal gave Andy a respectful bow. “Your friends the Astaroths and Bengals led me to believe you would be reasonable on this point, if we would only share with you what we had come to retrieve.”

“Which
Astaroths and Bengals?” Andy demanded, already plotting her own set of murders.

Mikeal turned back to Mother Keara instead of answering. The two of them bickered for a few moments, or maybe it was bargaining. Jack couldn’t tell. They must have reached agreement, because the Mothers backed away from Rebecca and four of the Host instantly moved in and took hold of her.

Rebecca seemed too stunned to resist.

It was all Jack could do to keep a grip on Andy’s robe, especially since Neala was busy burning holes in his wet clothes.

Mikeal took off and flew back out of the hole in the lab wall. Less than a minute later, he returned, this time through the lab door.

He had retracted his black feathery wings, and he looked mostly human now, like a normal guy. Well, a normal guy carrying a big, lumpy head under his arm and dribbling blood and gore behind him. Jack tried to turn Neala’s face away, but the little girl shrugged him off, pointed her finger at the head and caught it on fire.

Andy twisted out of Jack’s grip, but at least she didn’t charge forward and try to throttle Mikeal. Not yet, anyway.

Mikeal put the Seneca monster’s burning skull on the patched floor, right at Mother Keara’s feet. The stench of scorched flesh and hair and sulfur filled the room as Saul came limping through the door, bleeding from his nose and at least five other places. His gun arm dangled at a weird angle, but he pointed toward Mikeal and the burning head with his good hand and glared at Jack.

“Why’d you send him? I didn’t need any help. I had the bastard. I really did.” When Saul finished, he sat down on his ass. Then he sort of fell over. Mother Anemone and Elana went to him and started to work on all his cuts and bruises.

Mikeal’s lips twitched, but he didn’t smile. To Mother Keara, in careful English, he said, “The perversion of nature is dead and your man has been returned to you.” He turned his attention to Andy. “I ask your pardon, water Sibyl, but another one of our ranks was taken captive by the Coven—a female. Do you have knowledge of her?”

Andy lowered her head, and all the anger left her voice as she said, “Siobhán died saving Neala and me from Griffen.”

For the first time, Jack saw a flicker of emotion on Mikeal’s face. Dark pain. A moment of helpless rage. Jack had a sense that the man—the Host—whatever he was—was holding back a major amount of deadly elemental energy.

“Siobhán took my fire,” Neala told the Host leader solemnly, like she understood that Mikeal had to be addressed as royalty. “She burned Griffen until his bones broked.”

This seemed to give Mikeal what he needed. The tension left his face and fists, and he offered Neala a quick half-bow. “Then my sister met death well, little one, and you helped her achieve that greatest of honors. For that I thank you.”

Once more, Mikeal focused on Mother Keara. “Our bargain is fulfilled, though we still owe debts of honor to some of your ranks.”

Smoke puffed from the top of Mother Keara’s head as she sighed. “Do us all a favor and go about satisfyin’ those obligations some other time, hear me?”

Mikeal seemed surprised, but he said, “As you wish.”

“Ve vish,” Mother Yana confirmed.

Mother Keara twitched her gnarled fingers at Rebecca and the rest of the Host. “Go on with yer fighters now, and that—that whatever she is. Take her like we agreed, but we’d best not be seein’ her ever again.”

The Host didn’t seem to have anything further to say on the subject.

Mikeal’s wings reappeared, and on his signal, his fighters took off out of the hole in the wall in a rush of dark wings and feathers, dragging Rebecca into the bright New York sky and vanishing before Jack could wonder what would happen when people got a look at the bizarre human birds and their captive.

“What the hell did you just do?” Andy snarled at Mother Keara. “That little psychopath whacked a lot of people, and she let her monster tear off Dio’s arm—and she just tried to kill me and Neala to resurrect a Rakshasa and her Leviathan father!”

“She’s theirs.” Mother Keara faced Andy with her thin arms outstretched. “The queen’s daughter was stolen from them by that unholy Leviathan, and the girl Rebecca was the product of their union. August murdered the mother, but the Host has searched many years to find her offspring.”

Andy stared at Mother Keara. “And?”

“And we have treaties. Agreements.” Mother Keara sounded tired now. “She’ll be more stable and manageable amongst her own. Whatever justice she deserves, the Host will see that she receives it.”

“I don’t like it.” Andy dripped more water, but a little less blood. Jack knew her Sibyl healing had kicked into high gear, but he still wanted to check each wound himself, just to be sure she didn’t need medical attention.

“Ve don’t have many choices ven it comes to bargains with the older peoples of this earth.” Mother Yana’s soothing, earthy tones eased Jack’s nerves a fraction. “Ve all have ties—fire Sibyls vith the Host, air Sibyls vith the Keres—and there are others like them that you vill meet and come to know. You vill also come to know their power, and the visdom of the bargain ve made this day.”

“I hope so,” Andy muttered, glancing at Elana and Mother Anemone, who had managed to brace Saul’s arm and stop most of his bleeding. “And for the record, all of you look like freaks in those battle leathers.”

“I heard that,” Elana called as she tore a shirt off a dead Coven sorcerer to make a pillow for Saul until the medics could get to him.

“Fire men.” Neala stared out of the hole in the lab wall. Jack managed to move his face before her next little jet of fire singed off his eyebrows.

A glowing, golden Curson demon appeared in the opening to the courtyard, and Neala yelled, “Daddy!”

Jack put the little girl down and she went running to Nick, who shifted to full human before she reached him. He scooped her into his arms, and Cynda ran to both of them and wrapped herself around them, spitting sparks and flames as Riana, Creed, Merilee, and Jake arrived. Bela came in next, followed by Camille, Duncan, and John. Bela’s sword was streaked with blood.

“The Coven’s history,” she said. “We got them all and the supermobsters, too. Chopped them up and burned the pieces.” Bela glanced at the bodies scattered around the lab, and at the still-smoking monster skull. “Looks like you took out the Seneca thing and the under-Coven. We saw Rebecca leaving with the Host.”

Andy explained how Griffen died, and as she spoke, Jack felt her hand brush against his. He realized she was still shaking, no doubt exhausted, but also emotional from watching Cynda and Nick reunited with Neala, and seeing that Bela and Camille had come to her defense. Jack caught Andy’s fingers in his and held them, wanting to do more, wanting to grab her and tell her how sorry he was, how much he loved her, but he didn’t think now was the moment. She stared at him for a second, then went to her sister Sibyls and hugged them both for a long time. Jack couldn’t hear everything that was said, but he caught lots of apologies and a few tales of Coven ass kicking that made him smile.

He felt strange, standing back as Andy interacted with Bela, Camille, Duncan, and John, and even stranger when he realized they were all looking at him. Waiting for something. For—

For me to join them
.

Jack saw OCU officers and crime techs swarming into the courtyard, and he heard them moving through the broken halls of the infirmary.

The fight really was over, wasn’t it?

He made himself move, made himself take the steps that would lead him toward a future he didn’t have planned in any shape or form or fashion, save for hoping Andy would be its centerpiece.

Standing next to her in the family group seemed so natural it made his gut hurt, but it also made him happy in ways he wasn’t sure he deserved.

“Elana tried to tell me, tried to teach me, but there was so much I didn’t get. I think I get it now.” Andy eyed Cynda and Neala, then blew Neala a kiss. The look on Cynda’s face held a mixture of anger and gratitude that made sense to Jack, and seemed to make sense to Andy, too. Cynda and her triad left, demon husbands in tow, without looking back.

Andy watched them moving away for a time, then said, “If I had trusted all of you and reached out to you when you were in need—and if I had trusted myself and really stood up for what I knew inside—Neala never would have been at risk. She’s a child and she trusted me, and I almost let her down big-time.” Andy closed her eyes, then opened them again and Jack saw a sparkle in the rich brown and green depths. “Never again. So be warned, if we put this thing back together, all of us, I might not be so easy to live with.”