Blood of the Wicked (13 page)

Every word reeked of grief and bitterness.

God, she knew. Knew exactly what Bethany felt. How she lived.

“No more,” Bethany raged. “Now I’ve got leverage, I’ve got the girl we’ve been hunting, and they’ll have no choice but to see me now. No choice but to let me stand at that altar with Caleb and rip her mag—”

Instinct launched Jessie into action. She threw herself backward, deliberately tangled the witch up in her flailing limbs. It jerked Bethany off balance, shut her up on a curse as she struggled to maintain her own equilibrium without losing her shield.

Jessie cried out as the witch’s grip tore at her scalp. “Don’t move!” Bethany shrieked at the same time, and the door slammed open behind them.

Jessie didn’t know what hit her. One moment, the witch had manhandled her upright, the next she staggered under the woman’s weight. She sprawled, tasted carpet and dirt and pain.

Cold, wet air rushed over her back. Gunshots shattered the air over her head. Something warm and wet splattered over her shoulders. Over her back.

Jessie rolled to the side, her skin crawling, pushed herself to her feet. Wavered.

“No.” Bethany’s eyes gleamed brilliantly green in her shock-white face. They pinned on Jessie, stared at her, as the witch raised a trembling hand to the gaping, lurid hole at her chest.

Jessie’s stomach clenched. Turned over. Bile boiled into her throat and burned. Bethany pitched forward, sprawled gracelessly in the pool of blood and brain matter coating the carpet, and Jessie’s mouth worked soundlessly. A scream built somewhere in her chest, her throat, but nothing came. Crimson covered the living room, flecks and drops and streaks and smears.

The blood drained from her head. Her knees buckled.

“No, you don’t.” Silas moved. Hands like vises around her shoulders, rugged features pulled into a mask of fury and grim control, he shook her hard enough to rattle her teeth. “Jessie, don’t you dare faint.”

Her mental tether pulled taut. Twanged. Jessie snapped back into herself, back into the painful crawl of her own body, back into the smell of blood and death and fear.

Jessie smiled. Thin, wan. “I don’t faint.”

He yanked her into his arms. Pulled her hard against his chest and held her. Tight. Safe. “Jesus,” he said gruffly into her hair. “Shit.
Shit
.”

For a long moment, Jessie let herself soak him in. Let herself smell the musky scent of him, feel the warmth of his body against her.

She could forget that she wore someone else’s blood. That her throat ached, and that somewhere in that private back hole of her mind, she was screaming.

“Go get the kit,” Silas said over her head. His voice thrummed through his chest, reassuring and real.

Talking to someone else.

Jessie stiffened. She forced herself to stand alone, to push away from Silas’s warm, solid arms. “I’m fine.”

“Sit down.” He tugged her to the couch. Though she fought it, her rubbery knees collapsed out from under her. Silas knelt at her feet, tilted her head back with careful hands. “Jesus, Jessie.”

She laughed. It hurt. “It probably looks worse than it is.”

“Great.” She heard the familiar voice, recognized it moments before a memorable part-Asian beauty with blue-violet eyes stepped into her circle of vision. “Since you look like hell.”

Jessie’s smile faded.

“Easy,” Silas said, slanting the woman a hard, impatient glance. “Naomi’s safe.”

Safe.
Right
. More hunters.

Naomi’s full, lush mouth curved in edged, sardonic civility. “Oh-kay. So you found her.” She patted Silas on the head. His hands jerked, a leap of cracked control, and grimly he pressed rough gauze to Jessie’s neck. Mopped up the blood. “Congratulations. And the rest?”

“Samples are in the truck,” Silas said, his tone even. “Let me take care of Jessie, I’ll get it for you.”

“Take your time,” Naomi said lightly. She leaned against the couch and peered down at Jessie. Weighed her with eyes that didn’t reflect any lightness at all. “I’d rather be here babysitting you than topside kissing ass. So which one of you fucked up this time?”

Jessie sucked in a breath, hissed out a long, violent curse as the first spray of disinfectant burned it out of her.

“Easy,” Silas said again, as calmly as if he hadn’t heard Naomi’s barbed anger. “Almost done. I didn’t come back here to fight with you, Naomi.”

“Yeah? Too bad.” Naomi hooked her thumbs into the pockets of her snug jeans. “You should have checked in way before this. Peterson’s on
my
ass because
you’re
the one with the hero complex, so now you get to deal.”

Jessie closed her eyes, feeling battered from all directions. Pushed.

She snapped them open again when Silas stood. “Keep pushing, Naomi, and plans can change.”

Black humor darkened her eyes as Naomi continued to watch Jessie. “Yeah. I know. You’re good at changing plans. We count on it. You done with this poor girl?”

“I have a name,” Jessie said wearily.

Naomi patted her on the head, too, the same way she might have patted a small, annoying puppy. “Of course you do.”

Jessie flinched.

“That’s enough,” Silas growled.

“Oh, that’s cute.”

Jessie’s patience snapped. “Shut up.”

Naomi blinked at her, all lush eyelashes and tolerant smile. “Really?”

Jessie shoved herself to her feet. Met that razored edge of Naomi’s smile with raw temper. “I’m not going to sit here and eat your attitude because you woke up bitchy,” she said flatly. “Don’t treat me like I’m some kind of leashed dog.”

Naomi raised a double-pierced eyebrow, her arms folded over her cropped, shiny purple jacket. “And what’ll you do, princess?”

“You need me.” It was more than a guess. It was flat fact, and Jessie watched it register. Watched Naomi’s stance shift, in the same way Silas tensed when he sensed trouble.

Maybe it was a killer thing.

“You both need me, and you need each other,” Jessie said. “So shut
up
, sit
down
, and quit pushing each other’s buttons, or so help me, I’ll let the coven burn the city to the ground.”

So it was a bluff. A big one. But right at the moment, as she all but vibrated in place, she silently dared either one of them to call her on it.

The woman’s almond eyes narrowed. “Look who’s got balls.”

“Yeah.” Jessie’s fists clenched hard at her side as raw violence swept through her. “I’m hoping we can get something done while we’re waiting for yours to drop.”

Naomi’s bee-stung mouth quirked. “Jesus, Smith, maybe she’ll kill you yet.”

“Fuck you, Naomi.”

Jessie took a step forward. She didn’t know what she could do, not about the undercurrents of tension between the two hunters that crackled and sparked. She didn’t know what was wrong with her, only that she shook with rage, white-knuckled and tunneled in it.

Hitting one of them seemed like a start. Preferably both.

“Jessie.” Silas stepped in front of her. Caught her chin in one hand and forced her to look at him, at the warm glow of his gaze, and damn her to hell, her heart stuttered. Eased. “It’s okay,” he said.

“But she—”

“Forget it.” He touched her cheek. “Go finish your shower. I’ll deal with her.”

She frowned. “I’m not a child.”

“Sunshine.” The word, the goddamned name, made her tongue knot up. Silas grabbed her shoulders, turned her physically around. He pushed her firmly toward the hall. “You’re covered in blood. Go get clean.”

Because she didn’t know what else to do, Jessie obeyed. Step by step, she circled around the bodies. The blood. Stepped back into the bathroom, turned on the faucet.

She kicked aside the bloody towel and climbed into the tub. Very carefully she arranged the curtain until all she saw was its mottled color. The water spiraled red and brown into the drain at her feet, and she tried very hard not to look at it.

Not to smell it, thick and nauseatingly familiar.

Jessie lasted all of a minute beneath the hot, stinging spray before she broke down. The roar of the water drowned out her bitter sobs.

Chapter Fourteen

S
ilas turned his back on Naomi’s appraising stare and picked up his gun. He didn’t holster it, instead palming it neatly in both hands as he mapped a trail of blood back to the bedroom.

He didn’t expect to find anything but an open window. Still, annoyance bit deeply when he found exactly that.

Movement in the hall told him Naomi had followed. “Lose one?”

“Yeah.” He holstered the gun, pushed past her again.

She caught his arm. “What’s with the kid?”

Silas stared at her hand, mutely aware that it was the same look he’d seen Jessie give his hands when he forced them on her. Christ, she was rubbing off on him.

Or she liked to imagine breaking his wrists, the way he was picturing now with Naomi. His shoulder burned like a mother, his knee ached in tune with the drills boring through his temples, and Jessie and
kid
weren’t compatible in the same thought.

So he grunted wordlessly and shook her off.

Naomi had never been big on picking up cues. “Well?” She followed him into the bloody living room. Without any direction from him, she bent over the woman’s corpse and shouldered it up. Blood slid over her figure-hugging jacket, but she didn’t bat an eyelash.

She was one hell of a missionary. Shitty at just about everything else.

Reminded him of himself. “What do you want, Naomi?”

“She’s got something.” Naomi jerked a thumb back at the bathroom door. “Some sort of hold on you. I figure . . .” She paused, barely stooped under the dead woman’s weight across her shoulders, and slanted him a look that cut. “Fuck, Silas. Did you get stupid and bang her?”

A muscle in his cheek twitched. He hauled the other body into his arms, wrenched it up onto his shoulders in a mirrored fireman’s carry. “I’m here to kill a witch and make sure she doesn’t die,” he said when he was sure he had it under control. The body, his voice.

The angry, guilty kick in his chest.

She snorted, led the way out the door. “You still can’t lie worth shit.”

Silas glowered. Rather than answering, his gaze swept over the flooded courtyard. No one had wandered out to see what the gunshots were about.

He hadn’t expected the neighbors to risk it. Bonus for him.

And no one had gotten caught in a crossfire. Bonus for them.

“I don’t have to lie,” he finally said, sloshing through the ankle-deep water rippling under the rain. “It’s called honesty, Naomi, you should try it sometime.”

“Hey, I enjoy the hell out of honesty.” Naomi wiped the rain from her eyes with an impatient forearm. “You’re the one practically salivating after her.”

“Give it a rest.”

“No.” She tossed the body to the ground without any regard for care and keyed open the back of the Mission jeep. With the same cavalier sense of duty, she hauled Bethany’s corpse up by the collar and slammed her onto the seat. Limbs bounced against the taut upholstery, an awkward thud of dead weight.

Silas left the larger corpse on the ground beside her. He circled around the jeep to his own truck as she wrestled with the man’s dead weight. The hinges squealed as he yanked open the passenger door.

“Silas?”

“What do you
want
, Naomi?”

Naomi wiped at her forehead, her almond eyes intent over the hood of the jeep. “Seriously? Find out why they want her.”

Silas pulled out the old duffel, unzipped the pockets. Took his time answering. “Use her as bait, you mean.”

“Give the man a medal.”

He shook his head. “Not going to happen.”

Silence, filled only by the patter of the rain and the frenetic hum of electricity, city life. After she wrestled the corpse into place, she circled around, leaned against the truck. The old metal fender creaked faintly. “Look, they want her, you should find out why. What does she mean to them?”

“Her brother—”

“Bullshit easy answer, and you know it,” Naomi said. “Think with the brain you men pass around like a football and go deeper than that.”

“Jesus, Naomi.” Silas jerked the sealed plastic bag of bloody swabs from the duffel. Practically threw it at her.

She caught it easily. “You trust her, obviously.”

“The only family she’s got is going to get killed as soon as she leads the way to him.” Silas slammed the truck closed, locked it with stiff, sharp movements. “She knows that.”

“She what?” Shock twisted her features. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.” Light glittered at her studded ears as she scraped back sodden tendrils of purple-streaked hair. “I’m stranded topside, gearing up for some kind of surveillance operation—with Peterson for fucking company, let’s not forget—and you’re down here
telling
her how you’re going to ice her brother? And you think she’s just fine with that?”

Silas stared at her. She’d always been exotic, even as a kid. He had vague memories of her, lost and alone, too fucking serious at six years old. Too proud. But the fascination with piercings, or maybe with pain, wasn’t something he remembered.

He swallowed back a nasty surge of guilt. Pocketed his keys. “She’s not stupid, whatever you think. It amazes me how much of a bitch you are sometimes.”

She said nothing, worrying her lip ring as she followed him back to the apartment. Her stride splashed in the swampy water of the courtyard. Then, her voice sharp with the tone that said she wasn’t laying off, she said, “Silas, maybe—”

He rounded on her, one finger raised under her silver-ringed nose. “Look, no matter what, no matter where we go, they’ve been finding her. That makes her useful, right?” Naomi’s blue-violet eyes flickered. “It means that they want her bad. I get it. It also means that they’ll keep coming. That’s an in.”

The crease in her lower lip deepened as she twisted her mouth. Her eyes flicked to the door. Back again. “You’re going hunting.”

“Yeah.” Silas reached back, palmed the doorknob. “But not without more information, and I sure as hell am not going to drag her into the nest. So either you can ride my ass and point out everything I’m doing wrong, or you can call Jonas right now and put him to work.”

A flicker. Maybe worry? Maybe irritation. Naomi wiped the rain from her face with both hands. “Shit, Silas, you should do that.”

He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Jonas had enough to cope with without Silas’s input. “I’m out of here the instant that kid is dead,” he said, forcing down the guilt, the crushing press of responsibility. “You do what you need to, keep Peterson happy and off my ass. I’ll let you know where to be and when. That should be a nice promotion for you, right?”

Naomi’s eyes narrowed. “Typical. In alone and out alone.” She flicked her fingers through the air, a vicious slice through the hot swell of words in his throat. “What do you need?”

Silas gritted his teeth. What didn’t he need? “Painkillers,” he said, and didn’t smile when she snorted. “Test the blood, ID the bodies, and let me know what the hell we’re dealing with. Figure out what those tattoos are on the woman’s hands, and whether or not we can duplicate it.”

Naomi’s eyebrows shot up, winking more silver. “Duplicate it? The tattoo?”

“Yeah.” Silas pushed open the door. Grunted at the visual punch, the olfactory miasma, of crimson.

Red was a color that didn’t match anything.

The shower had stopped, which meant Jessie would be out any second, so he spoke fast. “If they can use tattoos as a focus, maybe you can crack it. Use it like, hell, some sort of signature or something. Isn’t my thing, so pull Vaughn out of wherever he is and get him on it.”

“Vaughn’s dead.”

He winced. “Shit. How?”

“Heart attack, four years ago. Silo’s our new librarian.”

“Well, then, get whomever that is on it,” he said grimly. “We’re ass-deep in alligators.”

“Oh-kay,” Naomi said, in that long, drawn out way of hers. It meant she didn’t agree. Or didn’t like it.

And he didn’t care.

He shot her a glance, found her picking up the stained cloth he’d used to mop the blood from Jessie’s neck. A curl of anger spiraled deep in his chest. Burned white-hot. “I’m not going to let her get killed,” he said tightly.

She shook her head, just once. A curt gesture. “I don’t want her dead, either.”

“
Her
appreciates it.”

Naomi’s eyes flicked beyond him. Banked. She folded the cloth neatly into a square. “Hello, Jessica,” she said, her voice an even slide of silk. “Feel better?”

Silas turned, had to keep himself from reaching out as Jessie walked out of the hall. She was pale, her hair freshly brushed back in its mass of dark gold. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but her gaze was steady and clear.

She’d been crying.

“Jessie,” Silas corrected, and when it earned him a faint smile, he mentally kicked his own ass. He had no business responding to that smile.

Basking in it.

“No time for arguing, so here’s how this will go,” he said crisply. “That witch hauled ass. If he survives, it’s a sure bet he’s going to report Jessie’s existence. Naomi, take the blood, get it labeled. Will you be able to be where you need to when I give the word?”

Naomi shrugged, pocketing the square cloth as she surveyed the remnants of carnage that stained the living room. “One way or another.”

Jessie frowned between them. “What?”

“Chin up, prin—” Naomi corrected herself. “Jessie. He’s going to dress you pretty and dangle you like a carrot. If he’s good, which he might be after all these years, you’ll survive. Any issue with that?”

“Jesus, Naomi!” Silas rounded on her fiercely, but Jessie didn’t rise to the bait. Didn’t argue. She simply shrugged her shoulders in that beat-up neoprene jacket that hugged every curve she had.

If he didn’t know better, he would have pegged her for a veteran hunter in that flinty, effortless movement.

And that wasn’t
right
.

“No problem,” Jessie said as she brushed by them both. “Let’s go.”

The fist of edgy worry in Silas’s chest flattened to annoyance as Naomi caught Jessie by the shoulder. She towered over Jessie’s shorter frame, but to Jessie’s credit, she stared back without flinching.

“Why do they want you?” the missionary asked. “What are you hiding?”

Jessie’s smile tightened. “One, your subtlety sucks. Two, my brother probably knows I’m in your hands and wants me out of them. Three, the witch mentioned some sort of ritual, but as I don’t have a black book of magic or a death wish, I can’t help you there. You tell me.”

Silas pushed between them, forced them apart with a hand on each shoulder. “Naomi, Christ, lay off already.”

“No,” Jessie said. “It’s fine. She’s just doing her job.” As if to prove she had nothing to hide, she leaned forward, rose up on her tiptoes until she was eye to eye with the woman.

Honey to violets.

“I don’t know why they want me, Miss West,” Jessica assured her. “I don’t know what they plan. As far as I know, I have nothing they want. Okay?”

For a long moment, Naomi stared at her. Then, a short, tight smile. “I’ll go see about those errands, then, shall I?”

She left without another word, sauntering out the door and into the rain. Silas closed his eyes before he did something rash.

Like punch something.

Or grab one hell of a stubborn blond in both hands and kiss her stupid. “Jessie.”

Her shoulders stiff, she whirled in a sudden fit of hot temper. “Don’t even. I don’t care.” Her eyes flashed at him, warned him off.

And he wanted her anyway.

Silas ignored every signal his brain sent him, every warning, and closed the distance between them. He grabbed her by the front of that damned jacket and hauled her mouth to his.

She resisted at first. Tried to move away. To disentangle her lips, his hands. Then she moaned fiercely, raggedly, and seized his hair in her fingers. Met his kiss, returned it.

Feeling her melt in his hands warmed him down to his goddamned rain-soaked toes.

As abruptly as he’d captured her, he let her go.

“Okay,” he said on a hard breath, unable to disentangle his fingers from her jacket. His forehead bumped hers, rested there. “That was one for the road.” One for the rest of this operation, and to sustain him when he left her somewhere safer.

It wasn’t enough.

Jessie licked her lips, color high in her cheeks. Her eyes gleamed, but with none of the anger they’d spat moments before. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to kiss an angry woman?”

His lips twitched. “I never knew my mother, and no, in my experience, angry women kiss like the world’s on fire.”

“You’re an ass,” she accused. It lacked any sting.

Silas nodded, tucked tendrils of her drying hair behind her ear. “Yeah. And I’m going to protect you.”

Her eyes widened. Darkened. “Don’t say that.”

“Save it, sunshine.” He touched her bottom lip with an index finger. “That’s the way it is.”

Whatever fear made her eyes cloud in nerves or trepidation, it faded under a smile that cocked one corner of her mouth into a teasing challenge. “We’ll see who’s protecting whom. So let’s get on with it before that guy comes back with help.”

He scraped back his hair as she strode out the door, rubbed both hands tiredly down his face. Tried not to think about how fucked he really was.

Jessie wasn’t going to like being left behind. He wasn’t going to give her a choice.

Hell. At least Naomi left the first-aid kit. He grabbed the dented metal box and his jacket, bit off a curse when denim hit the bullet graze carved shallowly into his shoulder. Wouldn’t be the first crease he’d ever earned.

He figured there’d be more, at least until the one that killed him. He’d bandage it later. Until then, aspirin would have to do. He swallowed two bitter pills on the way to the truck.

Jessie had already strapped herself in. She stared into the rearview mirror, prodding at the thin, crusted scabbed wounds at her neck. Seeing the raw, red lines crisscrossing her smooth skin was like a slap to his control. “Leave it alone,” he said, raw vehemence a low growl in his voice. He slammed the door, emphatic punctuation to all the gentler, frightening things he couldn’t say.