Captive Soul (7 page)

(
 6 
)

“We—Duncan, with me in his head—we were down on the pavement in a dead-end alley,” John said, raking across every second of the night he took a demon’s body for his own as he tried to relate the experience to Elana. “No air. We couldn’t breathe, because the bastard was choking us.”

He told the story in as much detail as he could. He told it openly and honestly, and soon enough, no matter what he wanted, he fell into the past as he spoke, and he lived it again.

Duncan beat at Strada with both arms as the Rakshasa, still in human form, used the dinar’s chain to strangle the life out of him. Now that Duncan was changing into a Created Rakshasa from his wounds, the dinar no longer repelled the demons—not with its bearer sharing their essence
.

John poured all the energy left in his soul into Duncan’s fight
.

No use
.

Black spots danced at the edge of their vision
.

Everything faded—

Until fire exploded all around them
.

She came flying through the air like a leather-clad ninja, her red hair streaming behind her and her scimitar raised and flaming with the force of the elemental energy she commanded. Camille landed and swung her sword toward the demon’s neck in one smooth motion
.

Made contact
.

Elemental energy exploded in a crackling blast, knocking the sword from her grip. She stumbled. Almost fell
.

Duncan’s senses failed him and his eyes closed even as John bellowed for him to stay in the game, to find a way, but he knew it was hopeless. Duncan was history. Both of them were history
.

Then John saw her again, even though he was teetering with Duncan on the edge of unconsciousness
.

He smelled her. Lilies. Wild lilies
.

She knelt beside Duncan and John in the alley. Her touch—fiery heat, warming Duncan and John’s body, surging through John’s essence most of all
.

From somewhere else in the alley, people started yelling at Camille to stop—the other Sibyls from her fighting group, trying to save her life. John tried to move Duncan’s lips to tell her the same thing, but nothing worked
.

Camille grabbed the dinar with both hands
.

John felt the contact like lightning. Felt Duncan’s body jerk like it had been hit with a set of shock paddles. The demon jerked, too, and yanked the chain around Duncan’s neck harder
.

“Do something!” somebody screeched, but fire energy fed through the dinar and swept around them like a glimmering golden wall, cutting them off from the rest of the world
.

Hot wind beat against Duncan’s face and body. John tried, but they still couldn’t move. Strada seemed frozen, too, as was Camille. Fixed in position. The energy flowing out of Camille’s hands into the dinar wrapped around Duncan’s head and shoulders. It wrenched at John like a hot crowbar, ripping him loose, pulling him forward, hauling him out of Duncan so fast he thought he’d fly straight into the pavement, all the way to hell
.

Instead, he passed through something soft and warm, vibrating with a power he couldn’t begin to comprehend. Everything left him, past, present, and future. He was
nothing and everything, and he could smell the desert and New York City at the same time, and he never wanted to leave that perfect place, that perfect moment, and—

I’m out.

I’m out of Duncan’s body.

And I’m out of … her.

With a jolt, John realized he’d shared Camille’s body for a second, maybe two
.

He gazed at her without the filter of Duncan’s perceptions, seeing her, really seeing her for the first time. Gleaming waves of auburn hair tumbled down her shoulders. Freckles stood out against her cream-and-roses cheeks. Her big aquamarine eyes got even wider as she stared back at him
.

She’s perfect.

He had left the priesthood long ago, when his only mission in life became killing demons. Good thing. He had no doubt he’d have broken his vows over this woman
.

Reality slammed back to him then
.

The alley
.

With one hand Camille held the dinar against Duncan’s nearly lifeless chest. Her other hand gripped Strada’s wrist, pressing it down to take away the force of his pull on the dinar’s chain
.

Strada. Right here, in easy reach!

John lifted his hands—and saw nothing but a shimmering, silver image of himself
.

Camille stared at him, wide-eyed
.

He wasn’t supposed to be here
.

He couldn’t possibly be here
.

But he was, and she could see him, and John knew what had to happen. She was about to send his spirit to wherever spirits went. It was over
.

Yeah
.

If he had to finally die all the way and head to hell, this was the sight he’d take with him, and he’d thank the heavens for the gift
.

I understand,
he mouthed, hoping she knew he meant it
.

Her pretty eyes closed
.

Energy blasted into John. Another lightning strike, louder, stronger, hotter, this time pushing instead of pulling—

Shoving him straight into Strada’s body
.

For a split second, John’s senses swam, but the demon’s essence was weak and distant, damaged by repeated attacks and by contact with the dinar
.

Yes!

John flung his own energy into all available space and took Strada’s body for himself. The demon’s consciousness tried to rise against him, but no way was John turning it loose. He crushed Strada into a tiny speck of darkness in the back of his mind, and—

And he was looking at her again. At Camille, only from a different perspective
.

Duncan rolled away from them, coming to rest against the back alley wall—breathing. He was okay
.

Camille knelt beside John, the dinar still gripped tightly in her fingers
.

John looked at his own hands and realized he had hold of the chain
.

“Don’t let him fool her,” someone said. “He’ll kill her!”

But he could never do that. He would never allow
anyone
to do that
.

All John could do was look at Camille, and she looked back at him, searching his face, locking her eyes on his
.

“Who are you?” she whispered, so softly that only he could hear
.

John didn’t trust himself to speak. He pulled the dinar
out of Camille’s hands, shook out the chain, then slipped the necklace over her head. The coin crackled and sparked, then settled against her leathers
.

The coin had keyed itself to her. It would protect her from Rakshasa now, and John was glad
.

“You have to get out of here,” she murmured
.

John didn’t need to be told twice
.

He grasped that he was in Strada’s body, that he looked exactly like the Rakshasa that Camille and her sister Sibyls had come here to kill. Even Camille wasn’t certain what or who he was. He gently separated himself from her and got to his feet so that he could help her stand. Then both of them looked toward the back of the alley at Duncan, who had his eyes open now
.

Duncan’s breathing came shallow and fast, and John winced at the tiger fur beginning to spread across his best friend’s face and arms
.

“Can’t hide, sinner,” John said, quoting a line from their favorite gospel song, hoping Duncan would understand and know that John was still around, that he’d help Duncan any way he could
.

Then John turned and hauled ass out of that alley, without a single clue what he was supposed to do next
.

“I got sick after that,” John whispered. He’d have paid real money for a chair, or even a glass of water.

“I hid out in Central Park and came in and out of consciousness, but gradually I got my thoughts together. I accessed some emergency funds I had stashed in cash in a bus locker, and I got myself a flat in Harlem. I’ve been watching for the Rakshasa who survived these last few months. Tarek is
culla
now. I know he’ll bring his pride back to New York City any minute now, and they’ll be worse than ever.”

When John finished, he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, wishing he could make better sense of what he had said, of what he knew, the bits and pieces. He’d told the old woman everything, even the parts he’d wanted to leave out. That should have surprised him or at least made him angry, but all he felt was relief. Saying it all out loud made it feel real.

He was still here. He was still alive and on earth—and he was still John Cole, even if he was wearing a demon’s skin.

Elana seemed lost in her own thoughts for a time, and John waited, talking himself through a series of mental exercises he’d learned in the service to keep himself calm and steady.

“Camille used the medallion—the dinar—to enhance her own powers. You believe she channeled her fire energy into the metal and through it. You’re certain of that?” Elana gave him one of her spookily accurate glances. “
Through
the metal?”

“Yes.” John had no idea why that was important, but Elana seemed entranced by that detail.

She remained silent another long few seconds, her face captured by a wistfulness that seemed strange and sad to John. In his other life as a priest, he would have been offering her comfort or, if she was Catholic, the opportunity to take part in the sacrament of confession. As it was, he gave her time, and watched as she slowly collected herself.

When she finally spoke, it was to say, “You’re right about Tarek. Strada was a monster, but Tarek—that one knows nothing at all but blood and death. He’ll come back to this city and he’ll seek your Camille as soon as he can, since he believes she bested Strada. You should go to her right now. I fear time is short.”

“I’m watching her as often as I can, but I can’t approach her.” John’s chest tightened, feeling even more certain of that now, after learning that he could accidentally go all tiger and lose ground to Strada. “Not with a demon sharing my soul, if there’s any chance he could take over my awareness.”

Elana waved this off with an impatient gesture. “Your Camille can take care of herself, but she’ll be strongest with you at her side. I suspect the same is true for you—that you’ll be more firmly your better self in her company.”

“Have you worked with the Sibyls before?” John couldn’t help staring at her, already guessing at the answer. Still, Elana’s look of pain sent a ripple of shock up his spine.

“That was a long, long time ago, and it’s something best left at rest,” she said. “For the present, my people need your help, and you need our help exploring Strada’s essence and the abilities you can safely use. You’ll also find yourself wanting a people to call your own. All we ask is that you reveal our existence to no one who doesn’t already know about us.”

John knew he should consider her offer and weigh the pros and cons, but the relief he felt at telling his story still had hold of him. Relief … and reality … and a positive instinct about the old woman and her Bengal fighters, even the ones who had jacked him in the alley and forced him to come to the tunnel.

He extended his hand to Elana. “I’ll keep your secrets.”

She shook his offered hand, and she gave his fingers a squeeze. “I would like one other favor from you, one you’ve already taken as a personal mission, I think.” The look of pain he had seen before made another quick appearance. “Kill Tarek. Kill as many Eldest as you can—but keep Camille Fitzgerald safe.”

“That’s definitely a mission I plan to complete,” he told Elana as a fresh, new instinct seized him. He turned his gaze to the ceiling of the aqueduct, as if he could see through the stone straight to Camille, wherever she was—and whatever dangerous-as-hell thing he sensed she was doing. “But I’ve got a feeling Camille won’t make it easy.”

(
 7 
)

Camille heard whispering, tried to listen to it.

Roars?

What was roaring?

It sounded interesting somehow, like if she could just make out what the roars were saying, she’d finally understand something important. She strained to listen, then shook her head and realized the noises were in her mind.

She’d been lost in thought, examining the energy traces with her pyrosentience and trying to convince herself that this time she really would kill Strada.

Time tended to get away from her when she sank too far into fire energy or pulled too much into herself in order to use her pyrosentience. She shook her head again, this time to clear it, but it felt too heavy, like it might snap right off her neck just from the weight of its movement.

“Get a grip,” she mumbled, the sound muffled by the pavement all around her. She had to get herself together before she started imagining giant Asmodai lurching out of the shadows to cut her down.

There are no Asmodai. No Asmodai left in the world, and nobody left to create them. Let it go, Fitzgerald
.

If she crept to the end of the alley, if she looked into the next alley, or maybe the side streets that led east and west back toward main avenues, she might find stronger remnants of Strada’s trail. Camille checked the trace one more time, then eased her energy back into her body and stood, swaying from the fatigue of using the dinar to enhance her pyrosentience. The coin drained her, probably because it pumped so much power into her elemental skills. She gave herself a count of three to get her thoughts together, then gripped the hilt of her scimitar and headed toward the alley’s mouth.

A cold wind stabbed at her through her battle leathers, and her fear drove the chill into her arms, her legs, her chest.

Enough. I’m not some adept fresh out of training
.

She squeezed the scimitar’s hilt tighter.

She had to do this. She owed it to everyone she cared about.

She was almost to the alley mouth, and so far there was nothing out of the ordinary. Just brown fall leaves and fire escapes and dumpsters and the wooden gate at the end to close the alley off from traffic. The gate hung open with one hinge busted.

Maybe Strada had passed by this place and kept going.

Camille inched forward.

If Strada had friends with him, she didn’t plan to fight them all alone. She’d follow and stay close enough to track him to his lair. Then she’d alert her quad and the rest of the Sibyls in the city, they’d make a battle plan with the OCU, and they’d take down the Strada and the rest of his Rakshasa once and for all.

If he was alone, though—

At the end of the alley, Camille stopped and stared.

Fresh paw prints glistened on the far side of a puddle.

Big paw prints.

Then human prints, like the paws had slowly morphed into human feet, shoes and all.

Strada in his human form.

He had dark green eyes
.

Camille gripped the scimitar’s hilt so tightly the ivory patterns dug into her hand. No way. She wasn’t going there. Not now, damnit!

Those eyes should have been black. She was positive about that, based on what her own eyes had seen and the drawings one of her quad had made.

It didn’t matter.

Soon enough those eyes would be nothing but dust and ashes on the street, and it wouldn’t matter what color they were.

Camille eased out of the alley.

The dinar suddenly scalded the skin on her chest.

She yelped, grabbed for the coin—and powerful arms seized her and snatched her back into the alley’s cover.

Camille’s pulse rocketed. She rammed her elbows back and hit a hard wall of muscle as someone—something—hauled her behind one of the alley’s dumpsters. A massive hand clamped over her mouth, cutting off all sound, but leaving her able to breathe.

Human
, her instincts told her.
Sort of. Definitely male
.

Totally, completely male.

The coin around her neck felt like it might explode from the heat it was generating.

Camille tried to bite the hand over her mouth. Tried to stomp the man’s instep.

Nothing.

He had her tight and controlled, like he’d done this hundreds of times. She couldn’t move except to blink.

“Don’t fight me, beautiful,” said the voice of the thing from Central Park—the thing that was probably Strada. The sound was nothing but a masculine rasp against her ear, and the hand against her mouth felt hot enough to thaw glaciers. “You won’t win.”

Camille drew hard on her elemental fire, using the already overheated dinar to expand her pyrogenesis. Flames broke out along her neck and hissed down her arms, sizzling holes in her battle leathers and sending a shock of alarm through her Sibyl tattoo. Smoke poured around her, blurring her vision—but the asshole holding her managed not to let go.

“Keep it up,” the man murmured, so quiet no one else in New York could have heard him. “I like it hot.”

How the hell was he still holding her?

Camille couldn’t see him, couldn’t sense any elemental essence that would help him absorb her fire, but—

She shifted her energy into pyrosentience, stabbing at his flesh with focused beams of blue flame. He didn’t react to her probing, but he didn’t stop it, either. This time she got off a good blast, enough energy to finally tell her what she needed to know.

He wasn’t demon. Wasn’t Rakshasa. Not Strada, but he didn’t feel completely human, did he? Well, the muscled arms, the way-ripped pecs pressing into her shoulders—those were definitely all man.

His energy, though …

Before Camille could struggle again, the man’s grip tightened. “Watch—and knock off the fire, or we’re both dead.”

Something in the man’s tone made Camille react immediately, pulling her energy back so fast the effort nearly made her dizzy. The smoke around them drifted away, blending with the wet walls and fire escapes until Camille had a clear view of the end of the alley even though she was fairly certain no one on the other side of the dumpster could see her.

The dinar around her neck stayed red-hot, then seemed to get even hotter.

Just outside the alley’s walls, a dark-haired man in a camel-colored silk suit strode into view. Average height, decent build, light tan—he could have been of almost any heritage, and nothing about him stood out as unusual or memorable. He stopped near the alley’s mouth and glanced at his watch.

When he looked up, the pain from the hot coin on her skin made Camille yelp against the hand covering her mouth.

The man’s black eyes burned with an inhuman fire at the center, and the foul, perverted energy that rolled off him and hit her full in the face would have driven her to her knees if her captor hadn’t held her upright.

Rakshasa.

Eldest.

But Camille didn’t recognize him.

All she knew was, this one wasn’t Strada.

He’s so powerful. How could that be?

Another figure approached, human in appearance, likely male, wearing jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt. He came toward the demon waiting for him without a hint of fear, and didn’t hesitate or shrink back when the demon growled at him.

“Nice threads,” the human said.

The demon growled again, this time louder.

Again, the human didn’t seem to have any reaction to the threat. “Come with me,” he said. “They’re waiting for you.”

The demon kept growling, but it gave a quick, sharp nod. Then it followed the man in the sweatshirt away from the alley and down the long, darkened side street.

The heat in the dinar started to drain away, and Camille realized the coin had been reacting to the presence of Rakshasa—or maybe just to danger, or more likely to the presence of such concentrated perverted energy.

When the demon and its companion had been out of sight for a few seconds, Camille’s captor eased his grip—a little. “That was Tarek,” he whispered in her ear. “Eldest, and the pride’s
culla
now that Strada’s gone.”

Strada—gone?

If Camille could have turned around and challenged the asshole holding on to her, she would have. How could Strada be gone? She’d just been tracking him—but if Tarek was Rakshasa and Eldest, it might have been his trace she had been following.

“Tarek never valued taking human form before he took charge of the pride,” the man said. “Now he’s gotten good at it. Calls himself Corst Brevin, and stays away from fur and claws most of the time. Bad for business.”

Camille didn’t try to figure out how the man knew any of this, but her Sibyl instincts told her he was telling the truth. For reasons she couldn’t begin to explain, she not only believed everything he was saying but had no sense that he intended to hurt her. In fact, the whole time they’d been watching the Rakshasa, she’d felt safe with him. She had even felt protected.

Not that she needed protecting.

“I need to understand—are you hell-bent on feeding yourself to the Rakshasa?” The man’s voice sounded teasing yet serious, and Camille recognized the long vowels and rhythms of a Southern drawl. “Is that why you keep coming out here without your fighting group, playing with fire, and trying to sneak up on a
culla
? I’m beginning to think you’ve got a death wish, beautiful.”

The man took his hand off Camille’s mouth, and her words flew out in a rush. “Let me go, you son of a bitch—and who the hell are you, anyway?”

She tried to jerk herself free again, but he held her just as tightly. She caught his scent. Light, and spicy, and familiar. Her head started to swim.

“You know who I am,” he told her for the third time, and his bass rumble sent ripples of gooseflesh across her neck. “Tell me my name before I let you turn around.”

Camille shoved against his stone-strong arms.

“Tell me my name,” he said, his lips so close to her ears that his warm breath gave her crazy shivers as rain started falling again in tiny, tapping drops.

Golden light …

“John Cole.” The name spilled out of her even though she felt played all over again. Elemental energy blasted up from her depths, blazing through the dinar and covering her entire body with red-orange fire. “Now let me go before I burn you to the ground.”

The strong arms pinning her behind the dumpster turned her loose, and Camille sprang away from its metal wall. She drew her scimitar as she wheeled to finally, finally get a close-up look at the man who had captured her so easily and completely—and her blade burst into roaring flames, channeling her gut-level shock and disbelief.

The dark green eyes she remembered so well, too well. But the black hair, the tanned skin, the tall, muscled frame and that handsome, arrogant face—no more confusion.

Not now.

Not ever again
.

“Strada.” The snarl tore out of her as she lunged forward through the rain, but the bastard used the dumpster for cover to keep her from getting off a good swing.

“I’ve got Strada’s body.” Strada made no effort to fight back, but he looked loose and ready to get out of her way. “You gave it to me. You know I’m telling you the truth.”

Camille screamed with rage, wishing she could scrub off the feel of the demon’s arms around her and wash out the lingering tingle of his deep voice in her ear. She used her shoulder and her Sibyl’s strength to shove the dumpster sideways.

Strada kept pace with the dumpster’s movements, staying just out of her range. “Strada was dying. You’d have finished him off if you’d taken his head and cooked his remains, but you helped me out of Duncan’s head and gave me what was left of Strada—with the dinar.”

Golden light …

Camille shoved the dumpster again and got an angle on the smooth-talking jerk, but the thought of that golden light, of that explosive energy moving through her as she held the dinar … She hesitated.

Three other Sibyls came roaring into the alley from its other end.

Bela led the way. The earth Sibyl had her serrated blade drawn, and her wavy black hair streamed out from beneath her zipped leather face mask as she ran.

Andy wasn’t wearing her face mask, but she had her underwater dart pistol drawn. Puddle water and rivulets from the buildings around her swept into waves, soaking her red curls and washing grime off the alley walls.

Dio had her face mask off, too, and she was walking. Her wispy blond hair stirred and swirled around her shoulders as her wind did the running for her, building into towering funnels as she drew her deadly three-sided African throwing knives.

Camille’s heart surged at the sight of her quad, and she knew they were answering the distress call she’d sent them through her tattoo when Strada first grabbed her.

Strada kept the dumpster between him and her onrushing saviors, and his expression never changed. “Next time you take on Tarek, beautiful, make sure you bring your friends. They’re almost as dangerous as you.”

He moved so fast she barely saw him go, pivoting and leaping into the darkness of the side street.

“No!” Camille charged after him. “You are not getting away from me a third time.”

But he
was
getting away. The side street was still and quiet and absolutely empty.

Camille ran a couple of steps, then let out a fire-laced roar, magnified a hundredfold by the dinar around her neck. She spun back toward the alley, stormed into it, kicked the dumpster so hard it smashed into the wall, then hauled off and hacked a corner off the bin. The severed corner clattered against the wet pavement, still glowing red from the heat channeled through her blade, and the acrid smell of melting metal filled the air.

Bela got to her first and grabbed one of her arms before she could lay into the dumpster again. Bela had pulled her face mask off and sheathed her own sword, and her dark eyes were wide with concern. “Was that who I think it was? Were you just fighting with Strada?”

“Something like that.” Camille lowered her smoking scimitar and gently pulled herself free from Bela’s grip.