Soul Bound (32 page)

Blackness sucked what little light lingered in the house. “What’s happening?” Lia’s hand tightened around her makeshift weapon as they raced upstairs.

Regan dove into the attic, cocked the gun, and waited. “When there are so many Kleptopsychs together, they tend to affect the weather. They can cause hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, you name it.”

Rain suddenly fell to pummel the roof. “Damn,” Regan muttered. “I hate rain. The good news is, so do they.”

A small tremor shook the ground. Regan’s shoulders stiffened, her index finger secured on the trigger. “I see them.”

The woman’s low, ominous tone made ice crust along Lia’s spine, and she angled a glance out the window. “Where? I don’t see anything.”

Beside her, Jace growled. “I do. They’re circling the house, coming in from the back.”

Regan nodded approvingly. “So you’ve got the sight. Not all of us do, just the truly gifted ones.”

Lia was completely lost. They may as well have been speaking in a foreign tongue. “What sight?”

Jace pushed her behind him, his gaze trained on something she couldn’t see, his expression murderous. “I’ll explain later.”

An explosion struck, so powerful it made Lia stagger back. A cold draft instantly swept in to submerge them. Then they were upon them, hordes of giants draped in black leather, their vacant stares harsh and unforgiving. One by one, they spilled into the room, too big for two of them to pass through the entrance at once. Regan had been right; a small space helped contain the battle and even the odds a bit.

The sound of gunfire punctured the day, as shrill as the monsters’ startled cries when they began to go down. Regan was the gatekeeper, fierce at her task. Something told Lia she’d done this before. More than once.

Jace joined the fight. He, too, looked like he’d been born for battle, his movements both graceful and precise. Without mercy, he struck down as many of their attackers as he could. One of the creatures managed to slip past him and began closing in on Lia, his eyes wild and hungry, his face dark with determination.

Lia backed away, raised the knife, nausea rioting in her stomach. The creature lunged, and everything inside her froze. Acting on the most basic human instinct—survival—she ran him through. His agonized holler sent ice splinters shooting through her bloodstream as he crumpled to the ground. A black cloud rose from his body to dissolve in the air, after which all that remained of him was a shrunken carcass.

Jace flung a glance over his shoulder. “You okay?”

Lia couldn’t find her voice to reply.

The room was covered in tendrils of black, foul-smelling smoke, the floor littered with mummy-like corpses. Her rational mind rebelled, screamed that none of this could be real.

“Lia, snap out of it,” Jace cried. “More are coming. This was just their front line.”

Regan suddenly tossed the revolver Lia’s way. “I’m out of bullets,” she told her. “Reload.”

While Lia complied, Regan retrieved a dagger from her belt. Touching those bloody bullets again, feeling the burning metal sting the pads of her fingers, made Lia want to throw up. She hated this. Hated every second of it. And it was about to get much worse.

The second wave poured in. With their arrival came an earth-shaking storm. Light fixtures blinked and trembled, boxes lifted from the floor, items flew off shelves to catapult across the attic. It was as if a poltergeist had just awakened, and it was royally pissed off. Lia had trouble enough holding her ground, let alone fighting for her life.

“Shoot them!” Regan screamed, holding them back with nothing more than a blood-drenched blade. Lia hadn’t had a chance to return the gun to her before the creatures attacked again.

Her gut in a clench, she fired a few rounds, missed. Four Kleptopsychs closed in on her. She compressed the trigger again, managed to take one down, but the rest were too quick. Then she was out of bullets. All she had left was the butcher knife.

As if the creatures sensed her thoughts, the weapon suddenly flew from her grasp, leaving her defenseless. Fear snowballed inside her. The Kleptopsychs looked frighteningly intent. And hungry. Lia reached out to Jace with her mind.

In less than a heartbeat he rushed to her side and incapacitated them with his blades. Briefly, his gaze brushed hers, full of worry and tenderness and love.

Yes, love.

There was no doubt in her mind—Jace Cutler loved her. He might have no past and no soul, but he loved her. Despite the hellish bind they were in, she couldn’t help but rejoice.

“Uh, guys? I could use a little help here,” Regan, who was busy fighting off two burly Kleptopsychs, called out from across the small room. Jace leapt to her aid. Working back-to-back, they cleared the attic in minutes.

Regan pressed her back to the wall, panting. “If ever these guys get their hands on angel’s blood, we’re royally screwed. They fight like goddamn warriors.”

“Was that the last of them?” Jace scanned the room, peering beyond the confines of its walls again.

Regan’s brows puckered. “I’m not sure. I feel something.” Her gaze spun to Jace. “Do you feel that?”

Jace nodded. “A black energy. Thick, more concentrated than the others.”

All color drained from Regan’s face. “Shit. Kyros.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Before either Lia or Jace could ask her to elaborate, a rhythmic clapping filled the small space. “Bravo.”

All eyes turned to the man—or more precisely, monster—crossing the threshold of the attic. He was as big as the rest of them, square and broad, with olive-toned skin and irises so pale they were almost white.

Regan instantly lunged toward him, dagger poised for battle, but the Kleptopsych raised his hand and she went catapulting across the room. Jace, following his mother’s example, rushed the creature from behind, but again Kyros raised his hand and Jace flew in the opposite direction. He regained his ground, prepared to attack once more, but Kyros spun around and Jace hit the floor to writhe in agony.

“You worthless piece of vermin,” the creature spat. “Do you not know who I am? I am Kyros, the firstborn son of Athanatos himself. And you dare to challenge me?”

Jace’s face became a mask of pain.

Regan appeared behind the creature, but he sensed her and sent her flying out the attic window. A scream tore loose from Lia’s throat before she remembered that Regan couldn’t be killed by a mere fall.

Jace clambered to his knees, but Kyros twisted his hand and he doubled over again. Lia’s fingers clenched the gun she still held, even though it was empty and completely useless now.

“Stop it,” she screamed. Sweat dampened her cheeks. “I don’t care who the hell you are.”

The creature turned on her. “You should. You see, bloodlines are critical among our kind,” he explained in a smooth, mellifluous voice. “Ancients rank first, of course. Their power is incomparable. Then there’s me, the first to be born to an Ancient in the New World.” He gazed at Jace as if he were a giant rat, caged for his amusement. “Hybrids are at the bottom of the hierarchy, none worse than the Watchers. Watchers are weak because they refuse to ingest souls, traitors to the core.”

He clenched his fists, and Jace thrashed with anguish again. His pain tore through Lia like a knife wound. A wave of dizziness gripped her.

“Fascinating.” Kyros approached her. “Every time I incite pain in him, it echoes within you.”

“What, exactly, are you doing to him?” Lia struggled to hold herself together.

“Making him feel every painful experience of his miserable, forgotten life. A hundred times over. Despite how it appears, he’s not in physical pain. His distress is purely emotional. I’m impressed by how susceptible he is.”

He stroked her cheek with icy fingers. “His connection to his lost soul is very strong. It’s almost as though it’s right here in the room with us.”

She slapped his hand away. Kyros’s pale blue eyes morphed to silver, and Jace’s screams escalated. Lia’s blood congealed in her veins. She couldn’t stand it much longer. His agony reached out to her, snaked around her heart, made her gut gather in a tight snarl. Energy spiraled inside her, shot through her limbs, churned in her belly. Something exploded deep within her, spilling from her body to flood the room with light. Walls cracked, windows shattered, a fissure slithered across the hardwood floor. Regan materialized in the attic in time to see Kyros shoot backward and land in an unceremonious sprawl, knocked unconscious.

Jace’s suffering came to an abrupt end. Lia wanted to run to him, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. Her knees gave out from under her. With a miserable moan, she crashed to the floor, joining Kyros in the land of nightmares.

Marcus plowed across the unsightly grass and climbed the steps to the front door of the Cutler mansion, where Regan had summoned him. He still couldn’t wrap his brain around what the woman had just confessed. For some reason unbeknownst to him, she’d elected to help Jace on her own. For days she’d been lying to him and Cal, sneaking around behind their backs, all for the purpose of training Cutler and Benson on the sly.

A Watcher never acted alone. It was against the code. Why Regan had chosen to do so remained a mystery. One he’d like nothing better than to solve.

But first he had to deal with that son of a bitch Kyros.

The door swung open on creaking hinges, and Regan stood on the threshold. “He’s upstairs. Hurry,” she urged. “I’m not sure how long he’ll be out.”

He followed her to the attic, where the firstborn lay sprawled, still and defenseless. “How the hell did you manage this?”

Regan had told him what to expect, but seeing the all-powerful Kyros this way still delivered a jolt to his system.

“I didn’t. Lia did.”

Marcus shouldn’t have been surprised after what he’d witnessed at the Watchers’ complex, yet shock still rippled through him. “Where is she?”

“Downstairs, resting. Jace is with her.”

Studying the woman he’d been working side-by-side with for decades, he realized he didn’t know her at all. “Why did you decide to help Cutler on your own? You’re aware of the rules. No Watcher acts alone.”

“You’re not really standing here giving me a lecture on Cal’s famous code, are you? Not when I’ve seen you bend the rules more times than I can count.”

“Yeah, I’ve been known to break the rules a time or two. But you haven’t, which makes me curious.”

Something flickered in the depths of her eyes, a flash of emotion. As much as she tried to hide it, Regan felt more than most, and that was her one weakness. “Cal keeps saying Jace Cutler’s important, that he may be the one. If that’s true, we need him. Alive.”

She was hiding something. He could tell by the stiffness in her shoulders, by the way she kept averting her gaze.

“You brought the wire?” she asked, putting an end to the discussion.

He dug into his weapons bag and withdrew the braided copper snarl with a gloved hand, which he then secured around a slumbering Kyros.

“I hope it holds him.” Regan didn’t sound convinced.

“It’s covered in angel’s blood,” Marcus said. “And the copper should subdue him long enough for us to get him to the complex.” Copper had special properties that sapped the strength of all descendants of the Nephilim, temporarily robbing them of their powers.

With Regan’s help, Marcus hoisted Kyros over his shoulder, carried him to his black Escalade, and locked him in the trunk. Sliding behind the steering wheel, he positioned his foot on the gas pedal. “You coming?”

Regan shook her head, sending a tumble of red curls bouncing around her face. “Not yet. I need to check on Jace and Lia first.”

Marcus started the ignition, his gaze trained on the woman he’d known for over thirty years but still failed to understand. “Try to get the hard-headed mule to listen to reason. The complex is the safest place for him.”

Regan stared at the road ahead, her expression distant, her eyes sparkling like liquid amber.

“Did you hear what I said?”

She turned to him and mustered an emotionless smile. “I heard you. I’ll do my best.”

“I hope so, because all our fates are at stake.”

With that warning hanging in the air between them, he pressed on the accelerator and shot across the blacktop.

When Regan returned to the house, she found Jace rummaging through her weapons bag, a lethal expression on his face. One by one, he examined her meager supply of blades.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to decide which one of these fancy knives I’m gonna use to send Athanatos to hell.”

Regan didn’t like the determined tone in his voice. She’d seen too many Hybrids go down because they chose to act on impulse. Hybrids were unpredictable creatures, caught between two worlds. For the most part, they were calm and emotionless, but sometimes they grew impetuous and stubborn. The purebloods were much easier to read, ruled only by pride, greed and ruthless intellect. They didn’t suffer from guilt, fear, responsibility or remorse. Their only allegiance was to themselves and to their twisted leader.

“And how are you planning to find him?”

“You said the Kleptopsychs’ nest is in the catacombs. I’ll start there.”

Regan tamped down an echo of exasperation. Marcus was right. Her son was as mule-headed as they came. “If it were that easy, the Watchers would’ve unearthed them ages ago. The laws of physics don’t apply down there. Space is warped. You can travel great distances in mere seconds. There are exits everywhere, but only a few strategic entrance points. If you don’t know exactly where those entrances are, you’re basically looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Ignoring her, Jace hooked a couple of daggers to his belt and donned his leather jacket to hide them.

“And who’s going to look after Lia while you’re out hunting monsters?” Jace’s twin soul was not only the source of his strength but his most significant weakness, and Regan wasn’t above using that undisputable truth to her advantage.

“You are.”

Regan rolled her eyes. “If you think I’m going to let you invade the Kleptopsychs’ lair on your own, you’re stupider than I thought.”