Blood of the Wicked (12 page)

Chapter Thirteen

S
ometime in the early hours of the morning, storm clouds rolled over the city. Lightning barely made it this deep into the mid-lows, but thunder jarred Silas out of the thoughts circling around and around inside his aching skull.

Mechanically he checked the time, saw he had an hour before the others showed up.

But he didn’t move.

He stared at the window over his steepled fingers and told himself he was just being watchful. Prepared. Protective. That his knee hurt like a bitch and he was just taking it easy, making sure he didn’t stress it any more than he already had.

Not that he was scared shitless to walk back into that room and feel the gut-wrenching need to curl in to that warm bed again. To wrap himself around Jessie’s sleepy, pliant body and fill his hands, his arms, his soul with her.

He grunted, scraped his hands over his face. Anger simmered low in his belly, right under the goddamned lust kicking his ass from here to Sunday Mass.

Operation Echo Location should have been called Operation Clusterfuck.

The Mission wouldn’t have agreed.

Then again, they weren’t screwing a witch’s sister. And didn’t know he was. And wouldn’t have approved if they did. And wouldn’t approve when they—

Hell, who was he kidding? He’d gotten her to help. If all it took was a little deep dicking to ensure they landed Caleb Leigh and his coven, they’d line up to do it and smile while they did.

Thunder rattled the glass, rain splattered in thick rivulets. Silas stared at the current of water and thought of a rain-slick wall deep beneath the city proper.

Terrified blue eyes were rapidly turning whiskey brown in his mind’s eye. Clutching at his head. His chest. Shit.

Shit
.

He needed to do something. Anything.

Make the rounds.

He surged to his feet in a sudden flurry of energy, ignored the angry twang of his knee. He rubbed at his wrist, unaware of it until he found wooden beads jammed under his thumb. The letter N, warm to the touch, gleamed in the pale light.

He’d be damned if he added another name to this cross.

Pacing the confines of the living room, it was barely four steps across in either direction. Window to wall to door to kitchen linoleum, and back again. He didn’t know how long he kept it up, working out the kinks in his thigh muscles, swearing silently.

He only stopped when he heard the pipes groan in the wall behind him. Silas glanced down the short hall, saw a corner of light spill from the bathroom door. Heard the rushing water from the shower.

She was awake.

And he had things to do.

He headed for that half-open door, ruthlessly throttling back the urge to join her in the water. To touch her skin. Arouse her, feel her come apart in his hands. To take the damned bottle of feminine lavender soap he’d found earlier and rub it over her body, into her hair.

Because he was
stupid
. And greedy.

Silas rapped on the fake wood, propped it wider. “Hey.”

Steam wafted around her as she stuck her head out of the battered curtain. Her hair dripped into her sleepy, sexy eyes. “Hey. Are we heading out?”

“Shortly.” He leaned against the doorjamb because it was safer than crossing the threshold. “There’s dry cereal on the counter. Only thing worth eating. You can take it with.”

“Mmm.” Jessie vanished back behind the curtain, and Silas found himself wishing the damn thing wasn’t opaque. “I’ll be done soon. God, this feels like heaven.”

Despite himself, his mouth quirked in amusement. After the day she’d had, he wouldn’t deny her the luxury of hot water. “Take your time, sunshine. Soon as you—”

The back of his neck prickled.

He jerked to the side, jammed an elbow backward, and collided with the man who’d sneaked too close behind. Both staggered, and Silas caught himself on the hallway wall before the man did.

The dark-haired man threw out a hand, grated out a word Silas didn’t understand.

Torture didn’t need a translator.

Silas dropped to his knees, croaked out something lost under a wave of excruciating pain. It burned, ate at him from the inside out. Maybe he screamed. Maybe he just tried to. Agony. Nerve-exposing, skin-peeling agony overloaded his mind until all he could see, all he could taste, was his own torment.

Light blazed blue, ice and fire, and the seal’s warning clawed up his arm. Too slow, it wrapped around him like latex. Silas’s muscles bunched, rigid with strain as he forced himself to breathe. To think through it.

Ride it.

“This is the one,” he heard as the pain dulled beneath the seal’s holy protection. “Went down like a— Well, damn.”

Silas surged to his feet. The walls rattled as he braced himself between them. Sweat clammy on his skin, he locked his eyes on both figures staring at him.

The dark-haired witch eyed him in surprise, maybe even wincing respect. The other, a woman, in speculative interest.

“Well, well.” The woman lifted a tattooed palm. “My turn.” Magic slammed into him again. Tight. Angry. Sharp as hell, and much more focused.

The skin under his right eye stung, but it was nothing compared to her partner’s attack. Nothing to the seal that burned diamond blue. Silas pushed forward. Step by step. “Come on,” he gritted out from between his clenched teeth.

“Silas!”

The magic faltered at Jessie’s scream, weakened enough so he could leap, collide with them both. The man staggered free but the woman hit the floor under his weight. Silas punched her twice, savagely snapped her head around with each impact. He caught a glimmer of movement in the corner of his eye and looked up just in time to catch a boot squarely in the face.

Reeling, he pitched off her. Grunted, swore, as the man took the advantage to kick him hard in the ribs. Silas’s world flashed red and white.

“Leave him alone!” Jessie leaped out of the bathroom, cleared Silas’s spot-ridden vision in one bare-legged stride. Wrapped in a towel, hair tangled and dripping, she clung like a monkey to the man’s back, clawed at his face.

Silas picked himself off the floor and returned the goddamned, bloody favor. The man’s eyes bulged as Silas’s boot caught him squarely in the balls, crunched. It took the big man a moment to find the breath. When he did, he let it out in a ragged scream.

Silas yanked Jessie away, both hands fisted in the towel at her waist. “Run!” he ordered, pushing her toward the front room. She made it three steps before she froze. Silas plowed into her back. “Keep—”

She clutched at him. “Get down!”

The first bullet shattered the plaster by his head. The second whined by his ear as Silas grabbed Jessie by the damp towel and threw her to the side. She hit the couch, yelped as she went over it in a tangle of bare limbs. She’d hurt for it later.

But the bullet that tagged him didn’t get her, and that’s what mattered. Pain seared white-hot through his shoulder as he lowered his head and charged the dark-skinned witch in the living room.

Behind him, one of the attackers spilled out of the hallway. Threw out that goddamned hand again. Pain skewered him squarely in the back as his shoulder rammed into the black-skinned witch’s stomach. Silas buckled.

“Get the bitch,” he heard behind him. “Bethany—”

“I’m on it.”

On Jessie?
Hell, no
. Over his dead, bloodless corpse.

Rage gave him strength. Muted his own injuries as he wrestled the gun out of the witch’s hand and turned it on him.

Dark, almost black eyes met his. Flickered. “Go to hell,” the witch spat.

Silas squeezed the trigger. Blood sprayed, an explosion of red and gray and pink that cut short the witch’s short, sharp scream.

The man went limp. Silas swung the gun around and squeezed off two more shots in quick succession. The other man yelped, vanished around the hallway corner in a puff of plaster.

“Drop it, cowboy.”

Silas snapped his head around, sighted down the barrel of the gun. Automatically his finger tightened on the trigger.

Honey brown eyes stared wildly back at him.

His heart stopped. He jerked the gun to the side. “Jessie.”

“Sorry,” she said lightly, but her voice came high and tight with fear. Pain. Her eyes were too-wide, skin too pale. Her throat convulsed behind the long, thin red line at her neck. Ear to ear. Shallow, and bloody.

The witch called Bethany stood behind her, one hand twisted in Jessie’s dripping hair. The other hovered, angular tattoo bared over her throat.

Bethany’s eyes glittered with barely leashed rage. Wild, malicious magic.

Silas lowered the gun to his side. Watched blood slide in a fine sheen along Jessie’s neck. It crept toward the edge of the towel she clutched over her chest.

And his own blood boiled.

“You with me?” he asked quietly.

Jessie’s mouth curved, a sickly sort of smile. Thin, petrified reassurance. “Too early to die. Get the bitch— Agh!”

Every muscle in Silas’s body went rigid as the witch’s hand splayed. As an inch of Jessie’s skin parted, just
split
along that thin red seam. Blood welled from the shocked wound, blossomed, and Silas’s vision narrowed. Tunneled.

Helplessness. Fury.

Fear.

“What do you want?” he heard himself ask, and dropped the gun.

“T
hat’s what I like,” Bethany said slowly, pleasantly. “Cooperation. The world needs more cooperation, don’t you think?”

Jessie’s fingers clenched tighter over the towel. Her mind flipped through images, thoughts, plans. None of them felt like success.

All of them would hurt.

She swallowed, cringed as her throat burned.

“Cooperation requires trust,” Silas said, his eyes blank and steady on her. Studying her. Telling her something?

What?

The witch laughed, her breath hot on Jessie’s cheek. “You’re a nice Church boy. Don’t you believe in faith?”

“No.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Jessie stumbled when the woman tugged on her hair. “Because me and this sweet girl, here, are going for a ride. You’re just going to have to take it on faith that I won’t kill her. Isn’t that right, Jessica?”

Silas’s eyes narrowed to slits.

Jessie stiffened. “How—?”

The witch’s fingers tightened in her hair, painfully sharp. “How do I know your name?” the witch asked brightly. Almost cheerfully. As if she hadn’t just watched two of her friends get shot.

Hadn’t just flexed her fingers and made Jessie bleed.

“I don’t know you,” Jessie said uncertainly. “Do I?” She couldn’t see past the woman’s arm, couldn’t make out anything more than the angular shape of one high cheekbone and a pointed chin.

“No, you don’t,” Bethany agreed. “But we all know you, Jessica Leigh. We’ve been looking for you for a long time. So, let’s go.”

“No.” Silas stood between them and the door. Immobile. Unmoving, save for a muscle that leaped near his temple. Jessie’s gaze flicked to him. Studied him.

Memorized his face, his steely gray-green eyes. The rigid line of his body. Would he let this woman carry her off? Carry her to Caleb?

Why the hell not? It was an opportunity. A way in. She frowned at him, rolled her eyes in the direction of the door. Tried to telegraph what she thought.

Come on, you idiot
.

He ignored her.

She set her jaw. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” Silas growled. Suddenly he wasn’t so stern anymore. So unyielding. Fury twisted his rugged features as he shifted stance, and Jessie had a split second to imagine him charging at them like a bull.

And the blood that would spray out of her magically sliced throat when he did.

“Silas, don’t,” she said quickly. It hurt to shake her head, but she did it anyway. Short, quick. “I’ll be fine.”

“Good girl,” Bethany praised. She tightened her grip in Jessie’s hair, wrapped it like a rope around her fist and pulled her sideways. Circling Silas.

Circling the corpse.

Jessie frantically tried to stay on her feet.

“If it’s any consolation,” Bethany said in her ear as they backed toward the door, “I don’t plan on killing you unless the hunter does something stupid.” The wattage on Bethany’s smile could have melted plastic. “So, you tell him to stay put.”

“Silas?”

He shifted his weight. Watched them. “Why her?” he demanded.

Bethany hesitated. She cocked a hip in a stance that kept Jessie squarely in front of her. Neatly between her and Silas. “You don’t know?” she asked thoughtfully. “Really?”

Jessie’s spine filled with ice. “I don’t—”

“Really,” Silas said flatly.

Bethany nodded. “All right. Since she looks an awful lot like her brother, she was easy to ID.” She patted Jessie’s cheek with her free hand. “Spitting image, really. And the reward on her delivery is pretty sweet. So—”

Silas moved. “Why?”

“Uh-uh.” The witch dug her thumb into Jessie’s wounded neck, and Jessie gasped. Swallowed back a scream as her mind detonated in pain.

Silas froze, mid-stride. Mid-fury. Through her watery, clouded vision, his jaw shifted as he stared at her, at the witch behind her.

“You want to know, you’ll have to find Caleb.” Bethany removed her thumb, and Jessie sobbed in a breath. “In fact, I kind of hope you do.”

“Is that why you’re leaving me alive?” Silas fisted his hands at his sides, all but vibrating with rage.

“Yeah, actually. I like the idea of you finding her body later.”

“Bitch.”

Bethany laughed. “Oh, I’m hurt. You remember that word when I use this pretty girl’s corpse as a stepping-stone to coven leadership, okay?” She yanked Jessie back, closer to the door. Jessie grabbed her arm with one hand, the grimy towel with the other, stumbled as the petite woman maneuvered her by her own hair.

Silas’s fists clenched. “Politics? You want her for heretic politics?”

“Shut the
fuck
up,” Bethany growled, so sudden and thick by Jessie’s ear that she felt the bitter blast of it straight through to her bones. Bethany pointed at him, a line of bloody accusation beside Jessie’s face. “You have no idea what it’s like down there. What it means to fight for food, to be hunted, scared.” Every word sprayed Jessie’s cheek with spittle.