by Anna Windsor
Andy.
His eyes flew open. “Did I get her out?”
He grabbed the first arm he saw. Saul. Saul with his tattoos and his long ponytail and his dark, worried eyes. “You carried her out, man. She’s good. She’s cool. Better than you.”
Damn, this place stank like antiseptic and cleanser. Cotton sheets didn’t feel too bad, but the mattress felt like something from a cheap motel.
Hospital bed. Needles in one arm. Bandages—neck, arm, leg. Jack took stock of himself on autopilot, registering John Cole’s big square face and Duncan Sharp’s hometown-boy mug a few feet from him. Duncan and John were standing side by side at the foot of his bed.
“You got old,” he told them both. “And Saul, you got weird. I was …” He stopped himself, not sure what to call it, so he just said, “Dreaming.”
Saul waited until Jack let him go, then nodded once, gazing across Jack and out the hospital room’s only window. “We all go back to the Valley now and then.”
Jack’s awareness cranked around slowly, but wound itself tighter and tighter until everything lined itself up again and he could settle on the only thing that mattered. “Andy?”
He looked straight at John Cole, then at Duncan, who said, “You’ve been out three days, and she’s a Sibyl. Can’t even tell she got shot.”
Jack was beginning to realize he felt like he’d been chewed up by something with teeth the size of freight cars. “You shitting me? I know they heal fast, but—”
“She’s fine,” Saul said. “I swear on my brother’s life.”
“I lost track of—I thought I was—that we were back in—” Jack couldn’t say it. Closed his eyes and tried to erase Atlantic City and Afghanistan from his mind’s slate completely. He remembered seeing Andy had been shot. He remembered picking her up, trying to get her out of the alley. But it was a bloody, foggy haze. “Did I embarrass myself?”
“You got a little turned around about where was where and what war you were fighting,” Saul said, “but I think you did yourself proud by the lady.”
Jack opened his eyes, and the white of the hospital walls felt blinding.
“I know you did yourself proud,” John said. “Asshole. Always have to be the hero, don’t you?”
They were being too nice to him. Now Jack was positive he’d let everything go to shit. Everything he owned hurt like a bitch, and now he was getting sick to his stomach, wondering if Andy really was okay.
Motion at the door caught his eye, and he recognized Bela Sharp in street clothes—jeans and a stylish tank. Camille Cole was with her, also wearing jeans, red hair dusting the shoulders of her yellow shirt. Behind them came Dio Allard and a little bit of wind.
Bela and Camille went to their husbands and gave Jack friendly smiles, but Dio stopped at the hospital room door and just glared at him. She had pulled her blond hair back so severely that her gray eyes tilted up at the corners. Made her look twice as mean.
“Talk,” she said, and the wind in the room blew so hard Jack’s IV pole rattled. “Say something so I can go back to the townhouse and tell her you’re awake and fine. It’s the only way I’ll be able to keep her still and resting.”
“Awake and fine,” Jack reported even though he thought his right shoulder might bust off his body and crack into pieces. His chest, gut, and arms looked like somebody had covered him with bruise tattoos.
Dio gave him a once-over, then something that looked almost—but not quite—like a smile, and she left without saying a word to anybody. Air seemed to be sucked out of the room behind her, and Saul said, “That woman’s got amazing energy.”
“You have no idea.” Bela sounded like she wanted to groan, but Camille laughed a little, enough to loosen the mood in the room.
Jack had a flash of memory—Dio roaring into the alley, riding a tornado and dropping out of the sky like a knife-throwing Harpy. She might be the world’s meanest air Sibyl, like Andy kept saying, but she was damned useful in a fight. He wished he could pull off a trick like that tornado. He found himself glad she was the one heading back to check on Andy. Hell, it was probably taking five or six Sibyls just to keep Andy contained in the brownstone. She’d want to be out hunting the assholes who’d fired on the Jeep.
Maybe she’d want to come here. See me.
That was pushing his luck.
But he remembered kissing her, he remembered her kissing him back, a million years ago before all the bullets started flying.
“We had six big bastards shooting at us,” he told Duncan, John, Saul, Bela, and Camille. “MAC-10s. A planned attack. They took out our tires to be sure we crashed in an alley, then they came at us from both sides. Riana Lowell’s gonna be pissed about her Jeep. Looks like somebody took a can opener to it.”
“Riana’s out for blood,” Bela confirmed, “but not yours. Andy says the gunmen looked human?”
“Yeah, but off. Not quite right.” Jack tried to lift his arms to give proportions, but stopped when pain jagged through his chest. “Shoulders were too big, and they ate bullets like candy—heart, head, it didn’t matter. I slowed them down by aiming for their eyes.”
Camille pointed at the tiled floor. “Andy tried to shoot through their ankles. Low man wins and all that.”
“Is she really okay?” Jack addressed the question to Bela, because he figured that, as the head of the fighting group, she’d be most likely to tell him the truth.
Bela’s exotic face got tense, but her words came out gentle and kind. “She’s fine, even though she gave up a lot of energy to help you.”
Jack gazed at her, then at Camille. “You mean the waves in the alley? The water she pulled from all over New York City to try to drown them?”
“That, and she used her power to do some deep healing.” Camille pointed to his bruises and bandages. “It’s why you didn’t die and why you’re already awake and on the mend. Andy doesn’t know how to regulate her healing energy yet, or even how to call it on purpose, so it cost her.”
Jack wanted to smack something. He didn’t like the thought of Andy risking herself to make him feel better, not even a little bit. He’d taken bullets before and gotten better pretty quick on his own. They’d have to talk about this, he and Andy, as soon as he saw her.
And at the thought of seeing her, the rush of stubborn anger faded as fast as it had flared, and he just felt worried again. “After it was over—I’m sorry if I wasn’t … myself.”
Bela shrugged. Her expression seemed casual, but her dark eyes blazed into him, completely intense, like she wanted to be sure he knew she meant what she said. “No harm, no foul.”
Jack glanced at the door. “It was Dio I knocked past trying to get Andy out of there. I’ll apologize to her when I see her again.”
“Not necessary,” Camille said. “Dio didn’t hit you with a knife or a lightning bolt, so I’d say you’re good.”
Bela pointed toward the hospital room window, in the general direction of the brownstone. “We got some blood from the freaks in the alley—yours and Andy’s, too, but a good measure of theirs. They are mostly human, and the DNA matches files on Klopol Pashka, Ari Demelov, and Shada Nour.”
“Seneca’s clan. Ari Seneca, Foucci’s biggest rival.” Jack turned his attention to Saul, then to John and Duncan. “That should have been obvious, given their past association with the Rakshasa and Griffen’s sorcerers—and who they’ve been killing. But our sources and observations indicate there weren’t any Seneca people left in the city. Not after the slaughter in Central Park last year.”
Camille touched the crescent moon charm around her neck “The DNA matches those profiles, but those men have been enhanced. More like a gene splice than demon conversions.” She held the charm for a few seconds, her eyes unfocused. John slipped his arm around her waist, which seemed to help her say the rest of what she needed to tell him. “The demon essence looks like Rakshasa. Jack, it looks like it came from an Eldest.”
For a long moment Jack sat very still, fending of
f the sneaking tendrils of his war nightmare. The blood. The Valley of the Gods. “That’s not possible. The Eldest are dead.”
“Yet we’ve got an air Sibyl dreaming about Tarek coming back from the grave, and now we’ve got enhanced criminals with Eldest demon essence.” Bela’s no-nonsense voice seemed to fill up the hospital room and all of Jack’s mind. “The Coven’s upped their game. Who knows what they’re capable of doing? Until we’ve got a better explanation, I think we better assume that at least one Eldest made it out of Camille’s molten metal bath, and a few of Seneca’s men survived and were willing to get changed into something … other.”
Jack didn’t want to go there. Not yet. Not at all. His head started to ache because he was clenching his teeth, so he loosened his jaw enough to say, “Supermobsters. Just what the world fucking needs.”
“Supermobsters.” Duncan glanced at his wife, then at Jack. “Great. Look, we’ve got to take those bastards down in a big hurry, before they take over.”
Saul keyed on this, getting serious, which Saul rarely did. “A crime family with supernatural foot soldiers could consolidate enough power to pose a serious risk to the entire NYPD, not to mention the public.”
“Stop right now,” Dio hissed from somewhere in the hall outside Jack’s room, “or so help me, I’ll blow you all the way to Oz.”
“Don’t make me put a dart in your ass, sweetcheeks.” Andy’s voice rang clear and menacing in the hospital quiet, and the sound of it made Jack sit up straighter. He ground his teeth against the pain of shifting his weight and waited, watching the door. Hoping. He wanted a look at her. Needed to see her up and moving. Somehow that would make everything square again, at least for the moment.
From the corner of his eye, Jack noted that Bela was smiling. The expression seemed sincere even though she was also rubbing her temples. “I knew peace and sanity couldn’t last forever. Andy must have taken off from the brownstone and headed here before Dio ever got home—but obviously Dio tracked her down.”
Wind blasted down the hospital hallway, rattling carts and sending paper medication cups dancing past Jack’s door. A split second later came the unmistakable sounds of a sprinkler tearing loose, water splashing everywhere, and raised voices from the nurses’ station.
“Excuse me,” Bela said, hurrying out the door. Camille went right behind her. Jack had no elemental power, but he could have sworn he felt energy humming through him, buzzing all around him.
“Probably our cue to get the hell out, too,” Saul said, and he and John and Duncan followed the women into the hallway.
More raised voices shattered the hospital’s peace. Dio, followed by Bela. The guys said something. Then Andy spoke.
Jack kept his eyes fixed on the hospital room door.
She stormed into view a second later, her red hair and blousy white shirt damp and her freckled face red like a sunburn. Her jeans slung water with every step, and her sneakers squeaked like chalk on a blackboard.
“They’re fucking nuts,” she bellowed, pointing down the hallway. “There’s nothing wrong with me, and I am ready to work.”
“You look perfect to me,” Jack said, vaguely aware she might kill him, then have her regrets later. “And your accent gets thicker when you’re angry.”
More water trickled down from her shoulders, but the frenetic red eased out of her cheeks as she faced him. For a moment she just looked at him, like she might be counting toes and fingers and making sure all his body parts were where she expected them to be.
“You talk smooth yourself,” she said with normal volume. “But you’ll take their side.”
Jack had done his own limb counting, but he still couldn’t relax. “Anything broken? Everything moving like it should?”
“Good as new.” She walked toward him, raised her arms over his bed, and flexed her lean, well-toned muscles. Warm water rained all over his bedsheets. “Oh. Sorry.”
He examined her still-outstretched arms, the gentle curve of her neck, and the swell of her breasts. “I’m not sorry.”
“I was worried about you.” She lowered her arms. “I’d have been here sooner, but—”
“But you have good friends who look after you, one of whom makes a mean tornado.” Jack couldn’t keep his eyes off Andy, but he figured if a threat like Dio showed up in the doorway, Andy would react, so they could both duck in time.
“Something like that.” She kept looking at him, her gaze steady.
He gestured to the nearest chair. “You can sit, but it’s a hospital chair. Your butt might cramp.”
Andy’s expression changed several times in the next moment of silence, settling on concern and frustration. “I know you’re sore as hell. I wish I could do more for you. I could try, if you’ll let me.”
Jack wished he could push himself out of the hospital bed and take her in his arms to make sure everything still felt right. To make sure everything was still the same between them. “No. You need all your energy for yourself right now. I’ve taken my share of bullets and I bounce back, no magic required.”
“I’m not magic, Jack.”
“That’s debatable.”
Andy glanced down at her hands and curled her fingers into fists. “I should know more about the healing I’m supposed to do. Sometimes I think I’m getting it, or part of it, and the rest of the time, I don’t have a clue. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
Jack could tell the uncertainty and confusion ate at her, and he understood that. She was used to being on top of any job she tackled, used to competence and certainty. He understood that. He also understood that it felt like shit to be up against something you couldn’t even define, much less conquer.
He lifted the arm closest to her, the one free of needles and tubes, and reached for her hand.
She caught his fingers, then pressed both of her palms against his knuckles. So soft, but what a grip. Strong woman. He liked that, and the physical contact solidified the fact that she really had come through the shooting in one piece. He looked at her, surprised by the fact that being with her made him feel stronger even if she didn’t do anything special to enhance his healing.
“Practice on yourself and your fighting group.” Jack kept his hand still so she wouldn’t let him go. “I’ll be on my feet fast enough. Always am.”
She massaged his fingers, and Jack had no idea which kind of magic created the heat creeping up his arms. “You talk to Bela and Camille and the guys about what we saw? Did they tell you about the supermobsters?”
“Yeah. I think we came out pretty good, all things considered.”
Jack shifted his hand so that he caught hold of her fingers instead. He gave her a gentle squeeze, just enough to get her attention. “The rest of the OCU and the other Sibyl groups can handle hunting for them. I don’t want you back on the streets yet.”
“Told you you’d take their side.” Andy frowned, but she didn’t pull her hand away from him. “When I go on patrol again isn’t your call. I don’t work for you, remember?”
Jack knew he should step carefully, but he found himself worrying a little less about offending her. This was too important to him. “I was hoping you were working with me.”
She hesitated. Gave him a look probably designed to piss him off. It tickled him instead.
“You use that smile like a weapon, Blackmore. It’s not fair.”
“Is it working?”
“No.” She moved her eyes to the wall. Back to his. Showed him she had her own weapons-grade smile. “Yes, damn it. But you missed our date.”
Jack pulled her closer to his bed. She didn’t resist. “Yeah. I stood you up. Are you going to tell me what I have to do to earn a second chance, or do I have to guess?”
Andy leaned down and kissed him, her soft red curls brushing his cheeks as her lips tasted his, as her tongue slid easily across his mouth. Jack closed his eyes and let himself have the sensation, have every bit of her softness, her smell. Still so new but already familiar.
Mine.
When Andy lengthened the kiss, when she pressed closer to him, heated but careful of his wounds, he tried to tell himself not to get possessive, not to take a chance on scaring her away, but he gave it up fast. He rested his good arm across the small of her back, holding her to him, enjoying each warm second of the contact. She raised her fingers and stroked his cheeks. Electricity. More heat. Every part of him responded.
Jack thought he might have to take the damned IV out himself if she didn’t stop, because bullet holes or no, he couldn’t take this much longer.
A second shy of the point of no return, Andy moved back, trailing her fingers down the bare skin of his neck and chest, giving him a little push back against the bed. “Easy. I don’t want to set off any alarms.”
“Too late for that, sweetheart.”
She smiled again, and he watched her, enjoying her even as he felt her thoughts slip away from him again. Her gaze wandered, then she seemed to come back and pull her focus together. “You said I don’t have to censor with you, right?”
Jack raised his arm and managed to touch her cheek. “I meant that.”
“Then I have a question I want to ask you, not for public consumption.” Her eyes went clear and her features sharpened. Work stuff again. He could tell. That was fine with him—a relief, actually. He’d never met anybody else whose mind worked on two tracks all the time—life, sure, but also the job, always the job, whatever case seemed most pressing.
“Shoot,” he told her. “Ah, not literally, please.”
She moved out of range of his touch, folded her arms, and turned to look out the window. Jack figured she had to be hunting for words, trying to pull something together in her own head.
She didn’t sound tentative at all when she asked, “Did that attack feel personal to you?”
Jack’s eyebrows drew together, and pain flickered in his temples. “I hadn’t given that any thought. I assumed the assholes went after us because I’m OCU and you’re a Sibyl, and they were ready to show off their new muscle.”
