She leaned to grab a small screwdriver, giving him a delicious side view of her curves outlined by form-fitting slacks and a white blouse. Her lab coat was missing. As for the lab, it smelled fresh and clean after a night of sucking in dirt and wind and that sulfur-stink from the fire Asmodai.
Creed forced himself to study the bars of his cell. He didn’t know if the elementally locked lead would really contain the
other,
but the
other
seemed to think it was trapped. It hadn’t stirred since Riana slammed the cell door. As for his cock, well, that was another story.
Above them, the brownstone seemed unnaturally quiet and still. No Andy yet, and Cynda and Merilee were still assisting with Bette, the Sibyl who had been killed.
“So, this Legion,” he said, more to avoid the weight of the silence than anything else, “what do they want?”
Riana put down the pistol-thing and seemed to consider her response. “Money. Power. Impunity. We’re not completely certain.” She tapped one of the pistol’s barrels with the tip of the slender screwdriver. “Best we can tell, the Legion considers its members a higher class of human being, physically and intellectually superior. We think they want a return to feudalism—lords and serfs—with themselves as the new-age nobles. The rest of us would be chattel.”
“That’s nuts.” Creed found himself shaking his head. “Something out of a
Batman
movie, or some old comic book. They can’t possibly expect to pull that off.”
“They’re patient and well funded, Creed, and the leaders are as brilliant as they think they are.” Riana sighed. “Never underestimate rich megalomaniacs with genius and persistence. They’ve been around a long time, and we still have no idea who they are—just Asmodai evidence that points toward their general locations and a vague sense of the group’s internal structure.”
She related that structure to him, using almost corporate terms—a council that controlled the flow of money and guided the overall plan. On the smaller, more local level, a director, assistants, and simple foot soldiers the Sibyls called “employees.”
At last, she glanced in his direction, the troubled look in her eyes digging at his insides and making him want to kiss her until she smiled again. “We don’t know if Legion members have innate abilities like the Sibyls do, or if they’ve found and handed down powerful ancient rituals. Maybe it’s both. But for the last couple of years, the game’s been steadily changing. We barely have time to attend to any other type of supernatural crime.”
That made Creed sit up. He yanked the sheet over his lap to cover his ever-present erection. “Other types of supernatural crimes?”
“Sure.” She turned back to the pistol-thing again, shifted on her stool, and picked up the device. “Like an out-of-control voodoo
houngan,
or idiots who get mixed up in perverted rituals.” She gave the screwdriver a final twist and placed the little tool back on the countertop. “Last year we had to contain a woman who found a way to turn cats into rabid bats and sic them on people she hated.”
Creed’s cop-alarms gave a faint ring in the back of his mind. “Define
contain,
” he said as lightly as he could manage.
“We took her cats away and sent her to Motherhouse Russia.” Riana’s tone was almost chilling. “The Mothers—especially Mother Yana—have ways of destroying perverted powers, or, if necessary, people who wield them.”
Not for the first time, Creed thought that he would prefer never to meet one of those Mothers, or set foot anywhere near a Motherhouse. He was particularly disinclined to deal with Riana’s Motherhouse, or that Mother Yana person he had heard about one too many times. She sounded pure evil, that old woman, and no doubt she’d be happy to wear his balls for a necklace.
Creed cleared his throat. “Andy and I have been working OCU all this time, and we haven’t seen a single real supernatural event…until you, that is. Until all of this.”
Riana’s fingers traveled over the pistol in a way that completely captured Creed’s attention. “You have to know where to look for power. You have to know how power smells, how it tastes, how it feels.”
God, but she was killing him, stroking that contraption and talking about power, and tasting and smelling and feeling…. Any second now, his aching cock would give up and just fall the hell right off his body.
“People always talk about
magic,
” she said, distracted, her voice dropping lower, into that range that made him want to throw her across one of those countertops and take her wild and hard. “What we deal with isn’t magic. It’s a connection to natural forces and awareness of energies that aren’t human. It’s ability—and knowing how to use that ability.”
Yep. Cock’s falling off.
He winked at her to save himself. “I’ve got to know this, then. Are vampires real?”
A half smile.
He smiled back at her.
Riana closed her eyes, and when she opened them, her face went serious again. “Creed, I like talking to you, but I have work to do.”
Shit.
At least she stopped caressing the pistol. Creed took a breath and tried to look relaxed. “Shouldn’t keep your jail in your lab, you know. Convicts get bored.”
“Mmmm.” Riana went back to whatever she was doing to the weird machine, but now and then, she cut her eyes toward him.
Every time she did it, he had to bite his tongue to keep from teasing her or trying to seduce her, or just talking to her. He liked talking to her, too, a lot. And he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that they were alone in the house.
Don’t go there.
But he couldn’t help going there.
After the crazy night and everything that had happened, he wanted to wrap his arms around her and make her his until morning. Maybe a lot longer. He wanted the relief. He wanted to give her the relief. And he wanted more than anything to keep her safe, to never see her in another battle like the Van Cortlandt Park fight. Seeing Bette crumpled on the ground, burned too badly to survive, it made his gut twist. That could have been Riana. He could have watched her die like that.
“What—uh—what will happen to Bette now?” The question came out before he could censor it. “How do you avoid all the attention from her death?”
Riana gave a little shrug and didn’t look at him. “She wasn’t a public figure, not like Alisa.”
Creed thought about the attitude of the other Sibyls toward the arrest and the NYPD in general, and he grimaced. Maybe Bette would be alive if Homicide hadn’t locked up the North Bronx earth Sibyl. Shit. Even if he didn’t have an
other
threatening to tear out of his skin, those women would have wanted his balls on a platter just for that.
“Cynda will help send Bette home to Motherhouse Greece.” Riana kept her attention focused on the two telescope barrels attached to her weird pistol. “Merilee and the other air Sibyls will go with her as an honor guard, but I don’t expect them to stay very long. The important part is getting Camille to her Motherhouse before she completely falls apart.”
“How will they send her home? Do you have to book passage on a plane?”
“What?” Riana put down the pistol, but still kept her face turned away from his. “Oh—oh, no. That would take days and cause questions. We have other ways. Older channels of transport that Sibyls like Cynda can open.”
Creed thought about the broken mirrors all over the brownstone’s main room. He figured the Sibyls had some fantastic, impossible-to-believe way of moving through the glass, but he didn’t press. The thin, tired sound of Riana’s voice had troubled him. He studied her, and realized she was holding her crescent pendant in both hands, keeping her pain to herself.
He got to his feet, tugging the sheet around his waist, and cursed his own stupidity for not really considering what she must be feeling, losing a friend like that. “You knew Bette pretty well, didn’t you?”
Riana nodded. “Cynda and Merilee are like my sisters. Sibyls in other triads so close by, they’re like cousins. We help each other. We look out for each other.” Her voice broke. “I didn’t do a good job of that tonight.”
“You did all you could.” Creed leaned into the bars. “If you hadn’t been there, that other one, Camille, probably would have died, too.”
Riana folded her arms and lowered her head, and looked so utterly fragile that Creed came undone. “Come here. Let me hold you, honey.”
Riana looked at him then. Her expression was startled, but soft. “I—I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Neither is hurting with no one to comfort you.” He wished he could pull the bars apart with his bare hands. He couldn’t stand to see her like that, needing him, but just out of reach. In the short amount of time he had known her, he had realized she was made of steel—but only partly. The rest of her was soft and wounded and absolutely giving. He wanted to be the one to give to her, heal her, protect her, and he wanted to do it now.
“Riana, let me out, or come in here with me.” His words came out in a husky growl, obvious and unmistakable, but he didn’t care. He knew she wanted him, and he wanted her just as much. He could see it in the way she stared at him, in the tense lines of her body, in the way her mouth opened just a fraction, as if to let him inside. She wanted him to take her and close her away from all the pain, to remind her how good it felt to be alive, even in grief, even with so much worry.
When she started toward the cell, Creed clenched his fists around the bars to hold himself in check. Riana was breathing fast, like a little bird trembling before a panther.
Am I so dangerous?
He had a fleeting thought about the
other,
but the beast had gone dead inside him. No stirring, no sign. Maybe being forward wore it out as much as it wore Creed out. He didn’t really care, so long as it stayed dead.
The sight of Riana walking toward him made blood pound through his body. She was so graceful, every step a glide. And the way her slacks molded to the curve of her hips—she was perfect. He could almost feel the silk of her hair in his fingers, taste the heat of her juices on his tongue.
Less than a foot from the door, she stopped and grabbed one of the bars as if to hold herself upright. She turned her back to him then, so he couldn’t see her face.
On impulse, he covered her fingers with his. So warm. So soft. Just making physical contact caused his jaw to clench with need. She gasped as if he had shocked her, and when she turned back to face him, the raw desire in her crystal green eyes made him groan. She leaned toward him—then pulled up short and touched her shining silver-and-gold pendant.
“This can’t happen,” she whispered.
Before he could argue with her, she slipped her hand from beneath his and stepped back.
“Riana,” he managed to say.
She shook her head, then turned and bolted from the lab.
Creed watched her go and wanted to shout.
He settled for slamming his hands against the bars and literally rattling his own cage. When that didn’t satisfy him, he spun toward the cell’s back wall and brought his fists down against the cold, smooth stones.
Pain flared through his fingers and wrists. His breath caught in his chest, and he swore until he felt better. Most of him. His cock would probably never recover. But it was more than that. Yeah, he wanted her. He wanted to be inside her right that very second, but he wanted to be holding her, too. He needed to be the one she turned to right now. The thought of her in her room or upstairs, upset and alone, it ripped him up inside.
She doesn’t need you, idiot.
Of course she didn’t. Besides, her triad clearly didn’t like the idea of them together in any way, not to mention the Sibyls he had met at the park.
If you still call it meeting people, when you’re a demon and they’re trying to stick a bunch of steel in your heart.
What had he been thinking?
Why in God’s name would Riana want to be in
his
arms?
His mind flipped to earlier years, to his grandmother, the only woman he had ever really loved. She was dead now, partly because of him.
Riana was smart. She was following her good instincts, and more power to her.
“You have the right of it, honey,” he said aloud, barely resisting the urge to break his hands against the stones. “Stay away from me.”
For a long time, Creed just stood there, his arms braced against the back of his cell and his head down. When he thought he could handle himself, he sat on the cot, then leaned against the wall and tried to think about work. Work always got his mind off everything. Crimes were like complex puzzles. It never hurt to spend time moving the pieces around in his head. Sometimes that’s when he made them all fit together.
For a minute or two at least, he was successful. He decided that with all they had learned in the last couple of days, he and Andy should go back over the transcripts of all the initial interviews on the Latch case. That assistant Frith Something-or-other, Senator Latch, Raven Latch, Corey James, and Alisa James, too—though her transcript wasn’t too coherent. If Sal Freeman, the captain in charge of OCU, wanted them on the case but off the grid, fine. But they’d get a little more “on” come Monday morning. And Creed wanted to talk to Riana’s friend himself, see what his gut told him about the earth Sibyl who had been arrested for slaughtering a child. That would probably be trickier, with lawyers involved and all the press coverage. That, and if the interview transcript was any indication, she might not have too much to say. Creed even wondered if her defense team might question her capacity to stand trial.
Something rustled and clanked just outside his cell.
Creed sat up in a hurry to find Riana standing in the open cell door, dressed in a white silk bathrobe that barely reached her knees. Her hair was damp and hung against her face and neck in dark ringlets. The way that robe clung to her, she might as well have been naked, and he wanted to run his mouth over every silk-clad inch of her.
Her fingers wrapped around the bars of the door on one side and the bars of the cell on the other. Her beautiful eyes were wide, and she was still breathing like a hunted bird. Her lips parted.