by Anna Windsor
He pulled her closer, held her even tighter, murmuring his pleasure into her mouth as his tongue teased her bottom lip. So soft, its own kind of silk, and she let him in, lip to lip, tongue to tongue now, moving with each other like they had always known this particular dance. He tasted like his scent, spicy and clean. Just right. They were perfect. Matched despite the major difference in height, in size. The swell of emotion caught Camille off guard, relief and happiness and excitement and warmth and wanting—Goddess, yes, the wanting, so unforgiving and immediate she wouldn’t have cared if he’d slipped a hand between her legs to find the warmth and wetness waiting for him. His body was ready for hers, too. She could feel the proof hard against her belly, moving as she moved.
I can have him. I can have him right now.
Yes.
But—
She shivered in his embrace, letting the kiss deepen, letting herself fall further into the crazy waves of feeling and needing, until she stopped them, until she pulled back and sank to her heels, face against his chest, pressing both palms against the rock of his biceps.
“I don’t know you,” Camille whispered, barely aware of herself as a separate being from him. It was like a part of her was trying to pull away from her awareness to enter him and wrap around whatever he had inside, good or bad, right or wrong.
“You know more about what and who I really am than anyone on the planet.” John’s low, sexy voice did nothing to help her find her mental footing again.
“Not good enough. I need a lot more than that.” She pushed against him with her palms, but not with any force. She was just trying to keep herself whole and sane, which he seemed to understand.
The pressure of his embrace never changed, and he sounded honest and sincere when he said, “Ask me anything, beautiful. I’ll answer.”
Of all the things he could have offered, that scared her worse than anything. Her pulse raced, fear mixing with excitement and fascination.
Time to run.
But she didn’t want to run.
Oh, yes, she did.
No, yes, no, yes. Always the same contradiction with him.
A thousand questions wound up in her head. Where did you grow up? What kinds of grades did you get in school? List of girlfriends … list of secrets …
She wanted every detail and nuance, but right now she just wanted—needed—to run away. Not forever. Just long enough to breathe.
“I need—” she began, but couldn’t finish. She stayed where she was, in his arms, and almost wished he’d press the issue, maybe pick her up and carry her into her bedroom and let her give him a complete and detailed tour of her bed.
“Time,” he finished for her. No hint of disappointment. More like resignation, or maybe just acceptance. “You need time. You need proof. You need your chance to ask all those questions you dreamed up a second ago.”
He still had a Southern accent, not an outright drawl, but it was strong, and just as intoxicating as the rest of him. “I’ll give you all of that and more. Whatever you want and need.” His green eyes burned like he was trying to reach inside her, pass through her and touch her essence all over again. “Then I’m going to kiss you everywhere. I’m going to touch you everywhere. I’m going to make love to you in ways you can’t even imagine.”
Heat flooded her chest, her breasts, and lower, covering her like she’d finally set herself on fire like every other fire Sibyl in the universe could do. She was ready for him. She didn’t even know him, not even a little bit, but she could see herself spread out beneath him, legs wide, taking him deep and hard and never wanting to stop.
Help me …
But there was no help for her. There never had been. Camille felt lost even though she was only a few steps outside her own bedroom.
John let her go before she had to face the prospect of pulling away from him. The way he was looking at her almost made her melt right back into him and start kissing him, and if she did that, she’d forget all the reasons why she shouldn’t. A guy like this, soldier by trade, cop at heart, so big and powerful—things could get out of hand fast if she let them.
“We’ll see.” She moved away from him, thinking she definitely would see—see if he meant what he said.
Just as soon as she found her nerve.
Which wouldn’t be tonight.
When she got far enough toward the lab door to collect her wits and make sure she wasn’t about to rip her own clothes off and let him have whatever he wanted, she gave him a good, stern stare. “Just so we’re clear, you don’t have any claim on me, John Cole.”
He smiled at her, handsome and absolutely devilish. She caught a glimmer of her own fire in the green depths of his eyes as he said, “Yes, I do.”
Then he ran away before she could, going into her bedroom and closing her out with a quick push of the door.
Asshole.
Camille was getting ready to yell it, winding up, and—
“That man’s a smart one,” said Ona from behind her.
Camille startled so badly she almost shrieked out loud. She spun around to find Ona standing right outside the lab door, and she pointed a finger in the old woman’s face. “Don’t do that, okay? Quit sneaking up on me.”
“You’ll have to get up early in the morning to outstrip him.” Ona’s smile was as devilish as John’s, maybe twice again, plus a half. “But I think you already know that. Now come to the lab. I’ve made you some tea.”
No fair. With her quad upstairs, John in the bedroom, and Ona standing in the now open door of the lab, gesturing for her to follow, where was Camille supposed to run away and hide?
She had a flash of memory from childhood, from the day she met Ona.
That was the day everything changed.
So what was today, then?
The same, her mind informed her. Just like the day Bette died, and the day Bela came to get you at Motherhouse Ireland, and the alley a year ago, and the night John spoke to you in Central Park, and—
“Okay,” Camille said out loud, to make her brain shut up.
Ona’s smile got brighter and happier, or maybe just more mischievous. Camille couldn’t tell, and she figured it was probably better if she didn’t know.
( 15 )
Bela hadn’t given in to Camille’s begging to repaint the big laboratory with the small infirmary/treatment room in the far corner, so the entire space still radiated earth Sibyl calmness with its soft shades of sand and brown everywhere. The morning after John Cole came to the brownstone, Camille was sort of glad about that. The sedate colors helped soothe her jangly nerves.
Camille had been able to convince Bela to rearrange some of the machinery, though, so she didn’t get sleepy every time she walked in the door. There were six lab tables in the room, with counters and sinks on every wall and a couple of rolling chairs that went with each work area. On the tables closest to the door, Camille had positioned the biogenetic analyzing equipment and other machines used for crime scene analysis, largest to smallest. On the next two tables, the ones with the readiest access to the treatment room, she kept the medical stock—centrifuges, tabletop X-ray, covered surgical trays, and the like. On the back two tables and all across the countered sink, she had her stuff—the machines she used most often, even if technically everything still belonged to Bela.
There were shiny black metallurgical microscopes, an arc emission spectroscope, a big white-and-silver scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy system, and just about anything else she needed to extract, examine, analyze, construct, and resurface ores and metals. Sibyl technology far outstripped what was available in the mundane world, so Camille’s machines could do more in much less space—things that were only in the planning stages in traditional metallurgy. On the walls around her tables, she’d plastered colorful periodic tables, charts and graphs, and anything else to make the area less mind-numbingly drab.
Ona was definitely a unique addition to the space.
“He’s still sl
eeping,” Ona said from atop Camille’s back table, where she sat cross-legged in her standard black tunic and breeches, seeming to meditate, but apparently seeing and hearing everything in the universe.
Camille was already dressed, jeans and sweater, but she couldn’t do anything besides hover near the door and think about going down the hall. “He’s not sleeping as soundly this morning as he did last night. I can sense it.”
“Come here.” Ona gestured for her, her rough, scarred hand moving through the still, cool air. “Calm yourself.”
“I’m a fire Sibyl. I don’t do calm.”
“And I know better, because we’re of a kind.” Ona stopped beckoning and waved her hand in the air. “See? No smoke. No sparks. Only at the rarest moments do I actually make flame, and I can’t predict that or control it.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” Camille stared at the bracelets on Ona’s arms, the ones that didn’t move, and finally had to know more. She stepped over to Ona and looked at them more closely.
Ona held out her arm.
Camille couldn’t tell where the metal ended and Ona’s flesh began. She touched the top bracelet with one finger—and realized the truth.
The metal was part of Ona’s skin somehow. It had been imbedded, or sewn in, or lodged there. She glanced up at Ona, but Ona didn’t say a thing. She just pulled away from Camille’s touch and hung her head, obviously unwilling to discuss the bracelets for now.
Camille moved back between the door and the first table, a little freaked out, then doubly distracted because she sensed John’s disquiet all over again. “I’ve got … experiments to do. We’ve got demons to hunt.”
“You’ve been hunting for weeks and finding nothing,” Ona said, and she vanished.
Camille startled, raising her hand to her chest, but she almost had a heart attack when Ona said from behind her, right in front of the lab door, “Fire making isn’t everything, you know.”
Camille turned around. Slowly. She’d been pretty sure about Ona moving in what looked like unnatural ways before, but now—damn.
Ona’s expression was serious as she shook her damaged, bald head. “It’s not unnatural, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not even supernatural. You can learn it.”
“I’m—” Camille stopped herself despite the shock of hearing what Ona had just told her. She had almost said, I’m not sure I want to, but then she thought about fire making and battles and gaining an advantage, any advantage, no matter how bizarre it seemed. She had a duty to learn as much as she could about whatever she could, if it would help her quad.
Ona’s ancient and crazy. What she’s doing—who could possibly understand it, much less learn it?
“You can,” Ona repeated, like she might be reading Camille’s mind.
John’s energy turned more restless, and Camille glanced at the lab door. “Okay. I’ll try anything if it might be useful, and if it’s not instantly fatal.”
“Come over here.” Ona pulled her toward the center of the lab, away from the door and tables and away from the temptation of slipping down the hall and into her bedroom to check on John. “You understand basic Sibyl communications, and better than most, I’d wager?”
Camille nodded. “First in my class to open the old channels, to be able to move objects without help, and even transport people. It only takes me a few seconds of dancing to sweep the energy into motion, to grind open the doorways and barriers.” Her focus broke away from John and came fully to Ona. “At least in that respect, I’ve come to understand I’m a natural pestle.”
Ona’s good eye narrowed. “The channels are everywhere. Have you come to understand that?”
Camille had a rudimentary grasp of what Ona meant. She had studied the channel charts at Motherhouse Ireland until her eyes blurred, learning the crisscrossing patterns, trying to grasp the ways elemental energy flowed and the ways it got blocked. “I memorized as much as I could, and I can see the rest in my mind.”
Ona shook her head. Closed her eyes. “No, no. Not from all the drawings. Too limited.” She touched her chest. “From here. You can feel them if you try.”
Crazy, crazy, crazy, Camille thought, but she obliged, mostly to give herself something to do. She rested her palm on her chest, feeling her heart beat steadily beneath it. The rhythm was almost as soothing as the calming paints, and she closed her eyes.
“Now,” Ona said. “Try the dance.”
Camille opened one eye. “But I’m not on a communications platform. This is just a basement floor.”
“Platforms are tools for those with skills weaker than your own.” Ona stopped talking, then muttered to herself and rubbed her head like she was chastising herself for not getting around to this lesson years ago. “You don’t need them. Many do—but you don’t.”
Camille opened both eyes wide at this, then had to fight to keep her expression neutral even though she was listening to what amounted to heresy and maybe real madness, not just eccentricity. To humor Ona and to keep the peace, she held her hand over her heart and did a few tentative steps of the dance fire Sibyls used to grind open the old channels.
Of course, nothing happened.
Ona snorted and gave her a push from behind. “I didn’t say play at it, girl. Do it. Do the dance.”
Camille sighed. Keeping her hand in place, she moved her right foot north, south, east, west. Then her left foot north, south, east, and she stopped. It wasn’t working because it felt wrong, doing this on the basement floor instead of the platform upstairs. What if she did unleash some energy here in the lab? That could be a bad scene. Mrs. Knight might bang on the front door until she knocked it off the hinges.
Ona was starting to give her a look.
“Maybe if I close my eyes again,” Camille muttered.
This was met with a terse “Fine.”
Maybe if I pretend I’m where I’m supposed to be …
North, south, east, west.
North, south, east, west.
She said the words to herself, like she hadn’t needed to do since she was little, and with her eyes closed, her feet moved automatically. If she concentrated, really shut out reality, the lab’s smooth stone floor could feel like the petrified platforms in the communications chamber of Motherhouse Ireland, worn from centuries of movement and dancing and elemental storms of energy.
West, east, south, north, west, east, south, north.
Camille’s hand squeezed against her chest and she started to spin, once, twice, three times. Then she stopped short, her eyes flying open, her hand falling away from her chest, because the floor had—
What?
Rumbled?
Rippled?
She couldn’t describe it.
She looked down, and the rock beneath her didn’t seem completely solid. Then it did. Camille thought about the channels on the charts and diagrams. One connected with the platform upstairs, through all the main and minor projective mirrors, but there were no channels running underneath the brownstone, at least not right where she was standing.
Ona looked thrilled and disappointed and scared all at once. Her scarred hand trembled against her mouth, and Camille thought she might be smiling.
When Ona moved her fingers, she said, “That was fast, Camille. I didn’t reach that level for centuries, but then, I had no teacher.”
Camille’s heart sank a little at that. So Ona was giving her wisdom it would probably take decades to master. Nothing that would help her this week or this month, and nothing that would help her with killing demons or protecting her quad.
“The channels are everywhere,” Ona said. “More than what the charts say. More than what many remember or most know.”
“If you say so.” Camille glanced at the stone floor. She was willing to take Ona at her word on that part, since there was no real way for her to explore it right now. Nothing in her thought Ona was crazy now, and in fact, Camille was beginning to feel major determination to be patient and try to grasp whatever Ona was willing to teac
h her. Projective energy was so disregarded, there really wasn’t anything in the fire Sibyl archives about how to use it, except for managing the mirrors. Dio had checked through the main archives, too, at Motherhouse Greece—not much there, either.
“Where there is fire, there are channels,” Ona continued, sounding more excited with each word.
Camille kept her eyes on the floor. “There’s fire everywhere, Ona. Ambient fire all around us.”
“Exactly!” Ona clenched one small fist and pounded it in the air, like Camille really understood something. “Air Sibyls and earth Sibyls can travel through their elements, just as water Sibyls once did. Air Sibyls can even move with the speed of wind—but they cannot move with the speed that flames burn. Only fire opens the old channels. Only we can move that fast.”
Camille walked slowly back toward the front of the lab. What Ona was saying was fascinating, but it felt out of reach. “If it’s really that easy for fire Sibyls to zip all over the world, why don’t they teach us that at the Motherhouse? Why all the platforms and mirrors and charts?”
Ona’s excitement waned, then seem to drain completely. When Camille turned to face her, she watched her small features wilt for a moment before she picked herself up enough to say, “Because the Mothers gave that up, just as they gave us up.”
“Us.” Camille leaned against the first table, hoping Ona would give her more details.
“You and me and those like us.” Ona rubbed her hands together as if warming them. “What we can do.”
Camille got hold of the concept a little better. “So you’re saying that when the Mothers bred away from pyrosentience and focused more on pyrogenesis, they surrendered some of their ability to open the old channels without …” She fished through her brain for the right word, and while she was thinking, her fingers drifted to the dinar around her neck. The dinar that, when she wished it to, magnified her elemental abilities.
“Without help,” she said, feeling a dull, almost aching surprise. All of this lined up too well. Was it possible that platforms and projective mirrors weren’t just assumed tools of the trade, but props Motherhouse Ireland had developed to shore up their deliberately weakened pyrosentient abilities?
