Free Captive Heart by Anna Windsor Page A

the creature had been built from genes up, I think it would be using water more naturally, more evenly.”
    “So we’ve got ourselves a New Age Dr. Frankenstein,” Jack said. “Or maybe a bunch of them.”
    Andy gestured at the body parts. “And their monster, the mobster ripper.”
    “Ripper? Gross.” Dio’s delicate features twisted in disgust and a faint breeze stirred the cloying smells of old blood and older warehouse. “Don’t you dare start calling it the Ripper.”
    “I’ll settle for Frank.” Andy held up the evidence bag. “Will you and Camille take this back to the brownstone so Camille can start figuring out how Frank’s built? Bela and I can handle seeing what we can track from the leftover projective energy.”
    Dio grabbed the bag, still looking disgusted. “Have it your way. But I’m not sure I want anybody to find Frankenstein the Ripper.”
    “Better we sneak up on it than it sneak up on us,” Bela said as Jack put in a call for additional OCU and Sibyl backup.
    Dio and Camille took their leave with Saul Brent and John Cole escorting them. Andy watched them go, then closed her eyes. She let her awareness sink into dozens of nearby water sources—puddles, condensation, water pipes, mains, wherever water stood or flowed around the warehouse. She gripped her crescent moon pendant, and as she had practiced so many times with Elana, she drew the water toward her.
    Not much. Just a little.
    Too much and the ocean will flow across Manhattan to say hello .
    She made herself breathe. Imagined being deep under the calming sea. The water’s energy touched her, caressed her, and—
    “There.” She pointed. The word she had spoken sounded like something out of a faraway dream, and she had to bring herself back to the real world enough to look at Bela and add, “The last water Frank touched in this building. We should go out that door.”

Jack and Duncan Sharp moved out behind Andy and Bela, leaving the warehouse behind as the two women took turns sampling water and earth with their elemental powers. To casual passersby, they no doubt looked like two women in leather getups, model-style, walking slowly down the sidewalk in the summer sun. Both of them had their smaller weapons concealed, and Bela’s sword looked like a movie prop. Nobody gave them a second glance even though it was hot outside and most everyone who passed them had on short sleeves or no sleeves at all.
    Andy hesitated at a corner, then gestured toward Canal Street. Bela stood still for a moment, then agreed. Something—some sort of power—made Jack’s neck prickle.
    “Feel that?” Duncan Sharp murmured, keeping a close eye on the earth Sibyl he had married. “They’ve really got the scent now.”
    Jack nodded and kept walking. This thing Andy and her group did with their elemental energy—projection—impressed him. It also disturbed him. The Mothers had made it clear that projective energy could be very difficult to control, and a Sibyl losing her grip on such power could cause natural disasters of global proportions.
    “Have they got this?” he asked Duncan, knowing he’d understand Jack’s concern. Duncan had been around for a lot of the bruises Jack had taken from elemental energy and pissed-off Sibyls. “They’re in total control of that kind of power?”
    Duncan’s grin still made him look like a fresh-faced Army recruit. “They’re fine. And if they’re not, we probably won’t live to give a damn.”
    Jack glanced in the general direction of the Hudson, wondering exactly how much water Andy could bring to bear if she really channeled that power of hers. A few seconds later, he saw an OCU van pull up, and a small squad of plainclothes officers got out, followed by the Sibyls in the East Ranger group—Sheila Gray, Maggie Cregan, and Karin Maros. He recognized Sheila easily enough from the no-hair-out-of-place ponytail and the creepy sort of calmness she seemed to radiate. Maggie’s short red hair was