Out of Sight (24 page)

A yell split the night, a curdling yell. Poppy searched for the source and found it too quickly. Ward lay, bleeding from his head and unmoving. Bart stood over him, an arm that now glinted like a cylinder of dull metal raised in the air. He smashed it down on Ward again and the man’s body would never, Poppy knew, move again.

She felt an odd distress. In a way Ward Bienville was a pitiable figure, destined for failure. But she didn’t think this should have been his end. He wasn’t a killer.

Zibock took one step forward and felled Bart with a single stroke of his gold-studded hand. Parts flew, metal and flesh, in all directions.

“This isn’t a good place to be,” Wazoo said.

Poppy was not in the mood to be flip. She feared for Sykes and the rest of them.
Sykes, go back. Take them all back. It’s too dangerous.

Only his eyes moved, but toward her. She knew without any doubt that they looked at each other.

We can’t go back yet but we will win, Poppy. Zibock is the one who keeps the rest of them together. Wait there.

He would be invisible to make his move, Poppy remembered with relief. And Ben could do the same. But not the others as far as she knew.

Gradually noise built again among the crowd.

Zibock held up his arms as if in triumph, and the Embran roared approval.

Then Poppy saw Sykes start forward. Around him, the blue-green light pulsed and he advanced until he stood within feet of the giant.

Poppy’s heart twisted so hard she felt pain in her throat. “Can you see Sykes?” she asked Wazoo.

“Yes,” Wazoo said quietly. “I fear for him.”

Which meant they could all see Sykes. She started forward but Wazoo threw her arms around her. “Don’t. You’ll only make it all worse. Can they be shot?”

It took Poppy a second to realize Wazoo meant the Embran. “I don’t know. I doubt it.” Then she realized what Wazoo was thinking. “It can’t hurt for Nat to have a gun with him.”

Sykes put his fists on his hips and the light around him went out. At once Poppy realized that Zibock saw him. The light alone had made him invisible to other than those with special sight so all the other members of the families must also be invisible.

But now Sykes stood before Zibock, legs spread and flexed, his hair lifted away from his strong neck by the warm wind and his chest and shoulders massive inside a black T-shirt.

“You can’t do it on your own,” Poppy moaned.

Wazoo continued to hold her although Poppy knew she could shake her off if she had to.

Zibock began a step toward Sykes and paused, re
turning his huge foot to the ground. Poppy saw how Sykes fastened the full force of his gaze on the other man’s eyes. Sykes, utterly still, seemed to grow larger as she watched him.

His arms fallen to his sides, Zibock made unintelligible noises.

All of his “subjects” had fallen silent.

Neither man moved but there was a change in Zibock’s presence. He began to sway, just slightly.

Sykes got closer, never breaking his eye contact.

“He’s killing him,” Poppy said under her breath. “Hypnosis.”

“Go hypnosis,” Wazoo said. “Kill the creep.”

“He will make his brain die,” Poppy whispered. “He must not feel he has done the wrong thing. Sykes is so principled.”

Zibock crumpled slowly. He twisted a little and gradually sank until his knees gave out and he dropped that far.

Sykes bent over him, never touching him, never looking away.

When Zibock fell, it was backward from the knees and Poppy saw his bulbous eyes, sightless and filmed with white, rolled back in his head.

The members of the other families burst forward, all of them bringing their concealing light with them. Only when they struck down the enemy did they show themselves, giving each opponent a chance to react to what was coming.

The Embran went down like stalks of wheat before a threshing machine. When they collapsed, they morphed into dozens of forms that gradually shriveled.

“There you are! Come out.” Nat reached Wazoo and hauled her into his arms. He kissed her and kissed her again and she wrapped her arms around his neck. When he swept her up into his arms she didn’t make a peep, and Poppy didn’t hear a single word about Wazoo’s independence or a demand that she be put down.

“It’s over.”

Poppy swung around and looked up at Sykes. He took hold of her right hand and held it up. “See.”

She looked and did see how a mind-numbing brilliance seeped out from the ring Pascal had given her. When she caught it in the door it must have snapped it partway open and now the power was free to shine upon them all.

“We’ve been blessed,” Sykes said. “But most of all, I’ve been blessed.” He locked his arms around her so tightly she could hardly breathe. “Let’s see if I can do this again,” he said.

S
ykes and Poppy clung together in his darkened bedroom in St. Peter Street, breathless, laughing and soaked—and racked by their reaction to one another.

And maybe they were a little hysterical, she thought.

“We came through a storm,” Poppy said, unnecessarily. “It wasn’t raining at that place.” Her hair hung wet over the shoulders of her sopping dress.

Sykes held her face in his big hands, looked into her eyes and listened. Rain pelted the window and thunder rolled in the distance. The night was warm, steamy. “It’s raining here,” he said. “Sounds good.” His lips parted and he stared at her mouth. He raised his head, gasping, his eyes closed and she pressed a hand to her own fiery mouth.

“Wow,” she said. “Ben is going to feel threatened when he finds out how well you’re doing with this traveling around.”

“I didn’t ask where you wanted to go,” Sykes said, serious again, indicating his house. “Tell me if you
want to be somewhere else and I’ll do my best to get you there. As long as I can come with you.”

“I love this place,” she said. “Sykes, the last couple of days have been hell.”

He muttered something she didn’t understand.

“What?”

“And heaven,” he said clearly. “I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that with all the fear—and, lady, you have frightened me—I’ve never been happier in my life. I think it had something to do with you.”

“I’ve been scared for you,” Poppy said. “Is it all over?”

He pushed her wet hair away from her face. “I think so. I think this was their last attempt but something went really wrong for them. And they asked for it.”

“Yes.” She couldn’t feel pity for the Embran. “Do you think there could be more humans they got over to their side? Other than Ward?” She lowered her eyes.

“It wouldn’t matter if there were, would it? They didn’t really change him. He was just doing what they told him to.”

“Because he wanted what he thought they’d give him. Power.”

“Try to forget all that.”

She didn’t think she would ever completely forget, but the memories would fade. “You’re really wet,” she told him. “You need to get into some dry clothes.”

“You, too. Take what you want.”

“I don’t want anything,” she said. “But you.”

Hugging again, not caring how sodden they were, they kissed. Sykes opened her mouth with his, kissed each of her lips, sucked on her tongue. Poppy met every move. She shook constantly but couldn’t stop and didn’t care.

“I think you’re shocky,” Sykes said.

“Uh-huh. It doesn’t matter. Are we Bonded?”

He held her by the shoulders and laughed. “How can you ask?”

“You never really told me.”

“Of course I did. From the first moment we were really together we were Bonded. But don’t think there won’t have to be more ceremony down the line—for those who expect such things.”

“My brothers will want it, and my parents, I suppose.”

She kissed his neck and he let his head fall back. She kissed the beard-rough skin on his throat again and again, reached to nip at the lobes of his ears.

“The ring,” she said, growing still.

He looked down at her and took her right hand from around his neck. “It’s quiet,” he said, as if it were alive and perhaps it was. “That’s because it’s done its job, don’t you think?”

She stared at it, still quietly glowing in the shady room. “I’ve damaged it. That’s why it broke open.”

“It was meant to. Everything fell into place.”

“Where can we put it?”

“We’ll put it back, but not tonight. Poppy, will you
sleep with me tonight, and every night—and maybe every morning and afternoon?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and felt hot shudders chase, one after another, through her body. “We are Bonded, Sykes.”

“Get out of those clothes,” he said, stepping away from her.

They separated, each stripping until they were naked. Poppy stood with her back to him but might as well have been pressed against him. At her core she was moist and aching. A subtle but sharp throbbing began.

When she turned around, Sykes stood on the other side of the room, the gray shadows through rain-spattered glass passing over him, the rises and dips where his muscles tensed. His eyes glinted. And she knew he must see her in much the same way.

“Come to me,” he whispered.

She took a step toward him and he matched it. They moved like that, small step by small step until she could feel the heat of his body.

A few more inches and her nipples brushed the hair on his chest. She sucked in a moan and Sykes turned his head aside, something close to exquisite pain on his face.

“Closer,” he said.

They both did what he said and fitted together as if they had been made as two halves of a whole.

Kissing her shoulder, Sykes stroked the backs of his fingers up and down the sides of her breasts. His flat
belly and hips rocked into her. He bent his knees and bounced subtly, once, twice, until she parted her legs and let him slide between the pulsing folds hidden there.

Poppy felt as if her nerves were stripped and raw. She longed for completion, yet dreaded it, too. Even knowing they were together, they hoped forever, she didn’t know how she would bear not being joined with him even for a few hours.

I feel the same way.

She jumped and forced his face up. His hands roaming over her back, her waist, her bottom, made it hard to concentrate but she was getting good at this now.
You didn’t ask permission to come in.

Yes, I did. You just weren’t aware of it.

Fibber. Oh—Sykes.

Here’s to a wonderful life.

“You’re teasing me,” she told him, returning his favor by molding her hands to his unyielding buttocks. With her thumbs, she traced the indent where they met his thighs, then ran her fingertips softly up the cleft in his rear. “I don’t want to move, but I want more.”

“Try and stop me.”

Catching her by the waist, he hoisted her a few inches and she wound her legs around him. Slowly he let her most tender parts slide down his belly until she gripped his shoulders, drove her nails in. Almost without warning a climax ripped through her.

Sykes sighed. “Perfect. Let go, darling.”

She had no choice. If he had taken his arms away she would have fallen. Her hips jerked helplessly against him and she absorbed wave after wave of searing release.

Sykes contrived to bend until he could suck a nipple into his mouth. He played the tip of his tongue over the hard flesh and the tension between her legs mounted again.

“I want you,” she said, almost desperate.

“I’m all yours, lady.” Once more he raised her a few inches and this time he drove her unerringly onto him, buried himself inside her. They began to move and each stroke was white hot.

Her back came in contact with the wall.

He entered her again and again, faster and harder and their bodies remained twined together until she dropped her legs and took her weight on her toes.

“You are my love forever,” he said. Holding her hips, he strained together with her and in the end they both sobbed out completion. With the final thrust, Sykes fell against her, pulled her to him and supported them both with one hand against the wall.

Seconds passed when their hearts hammered so hard that Poppy thought she could hear them. Sykes picked her up and put her on the bed. He lay on his side, his head supported on a hand, staring down at her.

“This is sort of a wedding night,” he said, and she saw his lips curve in a smile. “May we have many more. But do be prepared for Pascal’s ceremony. It’ll
be in the Court of Angels. He’s a stickler for these things.”

“I’ll like that. But I want to say whatever we say in front of the beautiful angel window. It will have to be treated with great care.”

“It will be.” He kissed her, planted dozens of small kisses on her face and body. When he moved lower she grabbed him and urged him back up where she could see him again.

“You don’t like that?” he said.

“I can only take so much amazing agony at one time. At least without a little break. Do you think all the others are safely at home?”

“I know they are.”

“Of course you do.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t say anything about…I thought it would make you afraid of me.”

“What happened to Zibock had to happen. I could never be afraid of you.”

In the darkness, they listened to the rain. Finally lightning shattered downward sending white light through the room, across Sykes’s almost savagely wild features. She only wanted to look at him forever.

“Do you hate poetry?” she said, a little self-conscious.

“I don’t go to poetry readings, if that’s what you mean. But I have my favorites.”

“‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.’”

Sykes took up one of her hands and kissed the base
of each finger before pressing her palm to his mouth. He watched her, his eyes full of waiting.

“Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” he said, rolling to his back and gathering her on top of him.

He must feel her tears on his neck.

“I do, you know,” he said. “I always will.”

“We always will.”

J. Clive Millet, Antiques
The Court of Angels
Royal Street
New Orleans