Chapter One
Cynda knelt behind a dumpster in an alley near 65th and Lexington. Her teeth chattered. Smoke rose from her shoulders as she shivered and bumped her sheathed Celtic broadsword against the hulking cop crouched beside her.
Nick didn’t react.
Sleet clattered against dumpsters and fire escapes, pelting the top of Cynda’s tightly-zipped leather facemask. Her toes ached like she had a good case of frostbite, never mind her leather boots, gloves and bodysuit.
March in New York City so sucked.
First chance she got, she would kill Riana and Merilee for having “previous commitments,” best friends and sister-Sibyls or not. How could they strand her in a friggin’ sleet storm?
Nick, who in his heart-stopping human hunk form, was a cop, had dragged her into the frigid night to meet with his prize informant. Cynda adjusted the strap of her special glasses and peered through the over-large lenses. Stupid things reminded her of motorcycle racing goggles, in fetching shades of black rubber and yellow polycarbonate. Highly attractive.
Not.
But the treated lenses detected sulfur dioxide left behind by demons sent to do the bidding of their masters. So, the lenses had become standard-issue for Sibyls on patrol all over the world.
Of course, most Sibyls didn’t have far-too-sexy cops to baby-sit. Teaming up with law enforcement was a pain in the ass, even when law enforcement meant the OCU—New York City’s low-profile Occult Crimes Unit.
Cynda pulled at her ugly demon-hunting goggles again and wished she could see the sulfur traces without them, like Nick could.
“Maybe your informant was shining you on,” she muttered.
“He’s reliable. If Max says he knows something about Legion activity, then he does.”
Cynda cut Nick a sideways look, then had to turn her whole head to see him through the goggles.
“The Legion’s been quiet for too long.” Nick’s expression stayed distant, but tension bunched at his eyes. “They haven’t left New York like everyone thinks. That’s bullshit. I’ve been on the inside, Cynda. I know. We have to find out what the cult’s planning before it’s too late.”
She wanted to argue with Nick just to keep warm, but part of her knew he was right. In the four months she had worked with him, they had busted a slew of Legion houses before cult activity fell off the radar.
Nick knew his stuff. He had infiltrated the Legion, lived with the murdering maniacs for almost five years and paid a major price for that, and now even he couldn’t divine their next move.
Cynda glanced at him again. Even in the middle of an ice storm, she could smell his unusual scent of ocean and musk. His chiseled face looked almost exotic in the low light, with his black hair pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. A gold chain, the talisman that controlled his other, hung inside the open collar of his black shirt
The way the chain lay against his skin tempted her to kiss it—or grab it and twist. Hard.
Making Nick’s eyes bug out might give her a little satisfaction.
Kissing him—now, that would be satisfaction, too, but if she ever let herself kiss him once, she’d want to do it again. Maybe a lot.
Smoke poured out of her boots.
Not going there. Gotta stop.
But did Nick’s jeans ever fit him like a faded blue glove. No jackets, hats, mittens, or anything to guard against the cold. It’s a discipline, he had told Cynda more than once. Mind over matter. A mental thing.
Yeah.
He kept his powerful body in a ready stance, with one big hand on the ground like a football player ready to charge forward. The most striking feature, though, was the way her goggles made his muscular profile glow dark red about the edges.
Because he’s not completely human.
That little reminder sobered Cynda, but didn’t curb her tongue. “Couldn’t you at least get an informant who shows up on time?”
“Max does his best.” Nick didn’t twitch or shift. Totally still. Totally calm. “He’s Irish like you, so he follows his own rules.”
She let out a cloud of smoke and popped his hip with the flat tip of her broadsword. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nick didn’t answer. His dark eyes stayed focused on the alley’s icy darkness with characteristic intensity and single-minded concentration.
“Why would anybody tell you anything?” she mumbled more to herself than the big jerk beside her.
“Most people find me charming. Don’t know what’s the matter with you.”
Cynda flicked her fingers and showered his hair with sparks.
Nick rubbed his hand over the dark strands and snuffed the flames without so much as looking at her.
“You—” she started, but Nick shook his head and cut her off before she could say anything else.
His body tightened.
Cynda swiveled back toward the alley.
A tall, thin man made his way slowly through the darkness, fingers trailing along one grimy, icy brick wall. Obviously, he couldn’t see in the low light as well as Cynda or Nick, or at least he wanted them to think he couldn’t.
Cynda squinted at the man. Blond. About six feet tall, underfed, pock-faced—just like Nick had described him, except his face seemed badly bruised.
Max Moses, the informant.
Waves of heat rose from his body. Traces of red hung about his tattered overcoat, and his gait hitched and sputtered as he blundered down the alley. Cynda squinted at the red flecks clustered around Max’s shoulders and neck. Not enough sulfur traces to equal a demon, no, but weird. And wrong.
“Something’s off about him.” Cynda’s words came out soft against the curtain of smoke shrouding her head.
Nick hushed her with a sharp gesture. “Max drinks. He’s a sensitive. Has to block things out.”
Then Nick stood and strode away from Cynda’s hiding place.
Her hand tightened on the hilt of her sword. Those red streaks almost had a pattern. If they’d been on Max’s skin instead of his clothes, they might have been bruises, like someone—or something—had grabbed Max from behind.
And tried to choke him.
Nick reached Max at the same moment Cynda caught a darker flash of red to her left, farther down the alley, near the mouth. Her heart rate kicked up and she barely kept back her fire. She blinked, tried to fix on the signal, but couldn’t.
What was it?
Her eyes darted to the numerous dumpsters and fire escapes. All dark and quiet and still. All empty.
Screw this.
Cynda rose to her feet and drew her sword, making no sound. Whatever was out there, it could eat steel and explain itself later.
Max remained deep in conversation with Nick, not paying attention, but the red demon residue on his clothing blared at Cynda like a bullhorn.
Didn’t Nick feel something off in this situation?
She sensed it, stronger and stronger. Wrongness. Like darkness creeping through the alley, spreading into the city.
Her eyes strained inside the goggles, searching up, down, left, right.
Where was that streak of red residue?
There.
No wait, there!
On the fire escape nearest Nick, the one just above his left shoulder. A flicker of red. Just a hint, and then it was gone.
Cynda ground her teeth. Her Sibyl instincts told her this was a creature, some type of being her Sibyl triad hadn’t encountered before.
As if in response to her thoughts, malice radiated across the alley. It struck Cynda, pummeled against her like the cold. Now her instincts shouted wrongness, and not just in the alley. Everywhere.
Her muscles tightened. Her belly burned. A centering breath. . . .
The weight of her sword. . . .
Yes.
“Nick!” she shouted. “Heads up!”
His attention snapped to her at the same time she gave a battle cry and launched herself from behind the dumpster. Jerking warmth from the air, building sparks, breathing flames, Cynda ignited her sword. The fierce blaze flared orange, lighting up the end of the alley as she leapt past Nick and his informant. With her free hand, she grabbed the bottom rung of the fire escape. The metal was ice-cold and rough through her glove as she hoisted herself to hang off the edge.
Whatever was there, she’d take it down at the ankles.
She clenched her teeth as she swept her blazing sword low across the first platform.
Cynda’s blade connected with something solid. Something with powerful protections. Her swing stopped mid-arc, thrumming, vibrating. Like banging the blade into a stack of cement bricks. Pain ricocheted up her hand, wrist, and arm and the force of the blow ripped her sword from her hand. It clattered against metal as it fell to the fire escape platform, just out of her reach.
Shit!
Red flickered in the air above her head. Just as Cynda lost her grip on the platform, she saw a distinct man-shape wink into reality, and she heard its angry, dangerous howl.
She let out a shriek as she fell backward, fast and hard. Bolts of agony shot through her back and limbs as she slammed ass-first into the ice-crusted pavement. Nick shouted as the informant bolted down the alleyway, his footsteps pounding the asphalt as he ran. “Stay down.” Nick ordered Cynda as he drew his weapon.
“Bullshit.” She caught her breath and scrambled to her feet, fire blazing along her shoulders.
Where the hell was the thing she’d just hit?
Let’s see if it can eat fire.
She paused as her gaze followed the direction Nick had his weapon pointed.
Aimed at . . . Nothing?
Wait. He was training his gun on—
On a bucket of paint?
Thick, white fluid slopped over the side of the bucket that hovered in mid-air, right in front of Nick.
Cynda blinked. Smoke rose off her cheeks and chin.
The bucket floated in the alley. Red flecks covered the handle and bottom in a pattern just like hands. Nick kept his Glock trained on the paint, clearly intending to pump elementally locked bullets into whatever was holding the can.
The paint can didn’t stick around to be shot.
It flew upward, above Cynda’s head, to the fire escape platform.
“Shoot it,” she shouted.
“No.” Nick held fast. “We don’t know what it is.”
“Shoot it anyway!” she screeched over the pounding of her heart. Gouts of flame roared from her fingertips. “We’ll identify it later!”
Nick snarled something unintelligible, and Cynda hated, hated, hated his years of cop-training and judicious use of deadly force. If he had been a Sibyl, that paint can would have been so full of holes already.
When she caught sight of Nick’s face, his devastated expression struck her like a blow to her belly.
Nick never looked like that.
Nick didn’t want to shoot the creature.
The paint can jerked sideways. It soared upward, then turned itself upside down. White paint rained from the fire escape.
Cynda lunged sideways to avoid the bath, but paint splattered her leathers, and she barely kept to her feet. Her mind was still spinning from the look on Nick’s face. Holes opened in her bodysuit as fire spit forward, lashing out at nothing and everything.
Above her, the spilled paint coalesced on a man-shape frozen in defensive posture—and the man had wings. Two sets of them.
Big wings.
Cynda’s facemask burned straight off her face. Before she could finish processing what she was seeing, the empty can clattered to the fire escape, as if an invisible creature had dropped it from above the being now coated in paint.
We’re fighting invisible shit now?
A distinct sound, like wings pumping came from above paint-thing. Cold swirled down, blasting her face. Whatever had dumped the paint was leaving. She knew it in her gut.
Nick spoke to the winged paint-thing in firm cop-tones. “Come down slowly. My bullets are elementally locked, and I will shoot.”
The thing on the fire escape laughed.
A horrible, wicked, grating sound.
Cynda’s skin crawled. She drew a rush of fire energy to her, and flames flared in her palms.
“Come down.” Nick’s words carried a grim finality. “Last warning.”
Paint-thing turned its blank face toward Cynda, and it grinned like a horror-movie skeleton.
“Fire bitch.” It raised one hand and pointed at her. Like a prayer, it murmured. “Go maraí sibh.”
Her heart jerked. We will kill, it had said—in Irish.
