Blood of the Wicked (14 page)

Like how bone-achingly empty he’d be if she had died.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t yell at me.”

Silas jammed the key into the ignition, turned it hard. The engine sputtered, hitched, before turning over, and he gritted his teeth. “Leave it alone,” he repeated tightly, “
please
. And don’t touch my mirrors.” Grimacing, he twisted the rearview mirror back into place and knew it wasn’t the mirror riding his ass.

He hated this. Hated her being there, in danger again.

Jessie dropped her hands. “Sorry.” She didn’t sound it. “Distract me, then. Where are we going?”

Silas guided the truck out of the ruined parking lot. He left the nav system off as he worked his way down old blocks, past knots of street punks, bums, loiterers. There were more than he expected.

Or maybe just more than he remembered.

When he’d gone too long without answering, Jessie turned in her seat to frown questioningly at him. Her thin eyebrows knotted. “Is there,” she asked slowly, “I don’t know, a plan?”

“I’m working on it,” Silas muttered, and was relieved when she fell silent. This wasn’t going to be easy. Naomi was right. Damn it. The Coven of the Unbinding wanted Jessie, apparently for a ritual. There were a dozen offhand that came to his mind, but without more information, Silas didn’t have shit to go on.

Any number of rituals spiked in power when the blood of a relative got added to the mix. It had to be a big one. The witch bitch had said they’d been hunting for her. Specifically.

Silas glanced at Jessie, relieved to see color creeping back into her skin. Her drying hair waved gently around her face, strands of gold that made him remember how it looked spread over his chest. Clutched in his hands.

Shit.

“Okay,” he said. Jessie turned an expectant gaze to him. He had to ease into it. “All right, let’s go over our questions. See what stands out. What does the Coven of the Unbinding want?”

She shook her head, her expression wry. “Me, apparently. But why?”

He turned his attention fully to the road. The rain drizzled, a faint mist of water over the windshield, and he flicked on the wipers. “A ritual,” he replied. Too grim. Too damned anxious. “According to her. So what kind?”

Jessie spread her hands. “You got me. That’s your specialty.” She shifted. “Who’s the leader?”

“Caleb?”

A beat. Jessie spoke slowly, thoughtfully, “I’m not sure. That woman didn’t say he was. I—” She blew out a hard breath. “I still don’t think so, but I know he’ll tell us who is.”

Silas didn’t voice his skepticism. Instead he reached under the seat and hauled the duffel to the space between them. “Front side pocket,” he said. “There’s an extra comm there. My number’s keyed into it. Keep this on you from now on. We can track the frequencies, a kind of beacon to find each other when teams get separated.”

“Are you planning on leaving me?”

Silas frowned at her.
Yes
. “When I have to.”

“Have to?” She retrieved the unit, checked it over with quick, sure fingers before sliding it into her jacket pocket. She zipped it closed and slanted him a look designed to piss him off. “Good luck with that.”

“Come on, Jess,” he growled, too tired, suddenly too stretched to bother with nice. “Think smart for a second. You’re a civilian, these are killers we’re talking about here, and we don’t have the first clue of what they want or where to find them. I can’t drag you all over the city and hope God sends a neon sign, and I can’t protect you by myself.”

She twisted in her seat, slammed one foot up on the dash in a way guaranteed to make him cringe. “I’m not stupid,” she said, icily pointed. “Didn’t you listen to her? I’ll bet you they’re holed up in the ruins.”

“Well, that’s great,” he replied flatly, shifting up to a higher gear as they turned onto the carousel. The highway gleamed in the barrage of headlights, rain-washed and misted. “It’s only several dozen miles of ruins in any direction, complete with fifty-year-old death traps and canyons that drop to the center of the fucking earth. Where should we start?”

“I’m just saying—”

“Stop,” he snapped. “I can’t just drag you down there on a hook and wait for them to come biting!” He glanced at her, ignored how anger turned her eyes to molten gold.

Pretended to ignore it.

Damn it, she was hell on his concentration. “There’s too many factors at play here, and no one expected the coven to want you. So we need to know why.”

“I told you, my brother—”

He cut her off, slashing his hand in the air between them. “That witch almost killed you, Jessie. Doesn’t leave me feeling secure about Caleb’s intentions.”

She jerked her chin up. “You had a gun on her, what was she supposed to do? Ask nice?”

“Fuck!” Silas set his jaw, staring back at the road winding in front of them. “Look, I’m not going to just hand you to them. We’re partners. That means my number one priority is your safety. That’s it.”

She sucked in a breath hard enough, sharp enough, that he knew he’d struck something. A nerve? A soft spot?

And could he play on it again?

“Okay.” She straightened, slowly. Raised one hand to her neck, caught herself and deliberately lowered it again to her lap. “So you’re going to, what? Dump me somewhere? On some poor sap’s front porch? I appreciate the sentiment, Silas, but that’s bullshit.”

“It’s not someone’s front porch, Jessie, it’s topside and surrounded by more security than anywhere else in this city. You’ll be safe there, trust me.”

“You, I trust.” The thought warmed him in places he didn’t want to think about. “But what about your people?” Desperation crept into her voice. “What about the fire at your safe house?”

“It’s you.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“They’re dialed into you somehow,” Silas explained, watching the road closely. Traffic slowed, a sea of red brake lights as a flurry of police sirens suddenly split through the muted cacophony of rain and car horns. “Shit,” he muttered. “Look, maybe they’re using your brother’s blood, maybe it’s some kind of tail I can’t shake. Witches can do a hell of a lot, and you’re not protected by St. Andrew’s Seal like we are.”

“But leaving me alone with strangers—”

“If it keeps you safe,” he began, only to grip the wheel tighter when she cut him off with a barbed laugh.

“Christ, listen to you. You’re like some sort of martyr, wandering in to save the girl and wander right back out again to die.”

“I’m not going to die.”

“You don’t know that,” she retorted. “You’re the one who says witches are so nasty—”

“Says?” He reached out, caught a fistful of her hair in a grip designed to make her gasp. To force her to look at him. “Were you there when that bitch cut your throat?”

Jessie wrenched at his grip. Winced when it pulled at the fresh scabs just under her jaw. “You’re hurting me.”

“No, I’m not,” he said flatly, every word an angry, even tone. She had to understand. She had to get it. “But
they
will hurt you, Jess. They’ll kill you. When they want something, witches will stop at nothing. Do you need to be reminded?”

Because she wouldn’t be Jessie if she didn’t, she slammed her elbow into his arm. He let her go, cursing.

Proud, despite himself.

Annoyed as hell.

“I get it. I do, I see what you’re saying.” She rubbed at her elbow. “Some witches are bad. Fine. You want to abandon me to other people for my own protection, great, that’s very noble of you. But they want me, Silas. I could bring them to you, end this sooner that way.”

“The bitch said leverage.” Silas’s fingers tightened on the wheel. Cramped. “I’m not willing to lose you to whatever politics are eating that coven from the inside out.”

“But I could—”

“No, and that’s final.” Silas raised a hand, cut her off again. “I don’t care if I have to tie you up and drag your tattooed back screaming up the carousel, you’re topside and that’s the end of it.”

The downward curve of her mouth tightened. Without another word, she scooted as far away from him as she could on the seat. Every bone in her body telegraphed the fuck-off Silas knew he’d just earned.

Grimacing, he took his annoyance out on the road, jerked the truck neatly in between two cars and sped up to slide into the far right lane.

He glanced at Jessie’s face, found it drawn beneath a taut mask. She gripped her thighs, her skin clean and pale against the dirt and blood streaking her worn jeans, and stared grimly at the skyline spread out beside her. Strove for indifference.

Failed. A watery sheen of tears shimmered in her too-wide eyes. Whiskey and water. God
damned
son of a bitch.

When he got his hands on Caleb Leigh, Silas was going to make him pay for every tear Jessie had ever cried.

He clenched his teeth. “Look,” he began, only to bite his own tongue as her shoulders wrenched back in a violent, angry shrug.

“I don’t care.” She didn’t even look at him.

Damn it. What was he supposed to say? To do? Drag her along with him as he crawled the lower streets? Paint a neon sign on her back, wave her around like some sort of living bait? Make her watch while he executed the brother she was so stuck on?

Fuck, no.

She’d deal. He knew she was going be angry, but at least she’d be alive to have that luxury.

Chapter Fifteen

T
he engine thrummed as Silas pressed down on the gas. Cars around them roared and honked, a steady rumble of engines, tires on worn pavement, the rattle of old metal, old construction. Old city, all the way down.

The rusted guardrail sliding by the passenger window protected a drop that never failed to impress him.

Beside him, saying nothing, Jessie raised her fingertips to the glass and stared up at the ambient light brightening with every passing minute. The city thrust up proudly to the sky, a woven, tangled, layered maze of rock and metal, glass and the dull, ugly spread of humanity.

Too many humans. Too many grand ideas. He’d spent fourteen years staying away from the big cities for that very reason. The press of people on all sides made him antsy.

Naomi had found him on the sunny end of a Florida cooperative, investigating rumors of a small coven. He’d enjoyed the sun, surf, the good food grown by the community.

Maybe, when this was all over, he’d find a way to send Jessie there. Without him.

Under her fingers, on the other side of the rusted guardrail, the Old Sea-Trench yawned into view. “It’s so clear and bright up here. Down below, it’s easy to forget that the trench splits out from either side of the city. We just . . . get used to the dark.”

He glanced out her window, grimacing. What could he say? Half the city spent every day in the shadows of the looming towers above. They were only three-fourths of the way up, two levels below the first security checks, and the sunlight was already brighter. Warmer. The top levels sparkled, a crystal-clear beacon.

“Caleb was fifteen when he came up with this wild plan to fly.” Jessie’s voice seemed taut, strained as she stared out the window.

Silas opened his mouth, tasted the acid reply building on his tongue. Shut it again.

“He drew this thing.” A small laugh crept out of her throat, fragile and weary. “This . . . contraption, with wings. Feathers and everything. He said he planned to jump off the carousel and glide down to the heart of the Old Sea-Trench.”

Silas shook his head, firming his grip on the wheel as a double-trailer truck roared by. “Sounds like a hell of a fantasy.”

She nodded, but still didn’t look at him. He didn’t like that he wished she would. “He said there was something amazing down there, something full of adventure and treasure. He wanted to find it.”

“I guess if you like lava,” he said dryly.

Now, finally, she glanced at him, mouth curved into a smile. “Anything can be treasure when you’re fifteen years old.”

“Did you ever find treasure, Jessie?”

Silas could have bit off his own tongue when the light glimmering behind her features faded. Her smile died. “I didn’t have to look. I had Caleb.”

The brother who turned out to be a witch. Silas wished, for one wild moment, that he could have met that girl she tucked away so neatly into the past. Found her before the shadows had crept into her eyes, before the guilt and the grief. He shook his head. “Sunshine, I—”

Her eyes widened. A sudden sweep of urgency, tawny mirrors of alarm filled her face a nanosecond before the seal of St. Andrew sparked. Ignited.

Pain slashed through his wrist, crackled up his arm. Jessie reached for him, said something he couldn’t hear as every muscle in his body went rigid. Gray clouded his vision, muffled everything, but he didn’t need to see clearly to know that his arms had locked, that his hands clenched the wheel.

He struggled.
No
. Screamed it.
No!
Muscles bulging under his skin, he strained to reclaim control of the body that moved without him, but all he could do was watch the truck shudder, veer.

Listen to the denial in his own head as his mindless body yanked the wheel hard and rammed them into the guardrail.

Jessie lurched. She scrabbled at the steering wheel and choked as the seat belt locked against the impact, pinning her tight.

Sparks shot out over nothing as the truck slammed into the railing. Metal shrieked against metal, twisted and bent. The truck skidded around, planed hard across wet asphalt and listed violently to one side. The bottomless well of the Old Sea-Trench yawned below his window, pitch black where the light didn’t drip far enough. It ate at the city foundations, endless and empty under the south side carousel.

The bottom dropped out of his stomach.

“Fuck!” Suddenly Silas’s muscles unlocked. He exploded into action, grabbed the wheel and wrenched it back, but it was too late.

The guardrail bent, snapped hard and sheared through the door. His leg. Pain shattered shock, momentum thrust him against the wheel, slammed him face first into the twisted leather. Horns blared, tires squealed around them, but all he could hear was the blood in his own ears.

The fury of his own pulse.

And Jessie.

S
he would have given anything for Caleb’s wings now.

Jessie clung to the strap lashed tight across her chest, held on for dear life as the truck yawed back and forth like a seesaw. Metal bent until it shrieked with the effort, razor edges twanging back as it scraped through the truck’s thin siding. She screamed again as the whole damn thing lurched.

“Don’t move!” Silas flattened one hand against her chest, shoving her back against the seat. She froze, every muscle vibrating in terror.

Oh, God. Oh. God. What the hell was this? What the hell had happened? One minute, they’d been talking and the next—what?

The next, she’d watched power crawl over him like an inky, oily cloud. Watched magic roil over Silas’s skin, drown the protective flare of the tattoo, and sink in. Seize control.

Drive them into the guardrail.

And it had felt, tasted like Caleb.

Panic clawed at her throat. She locked her jaw.

Cars swirled behind them, horns blasted. All she could do was stare helplessly into Silas’s fog green eyes as the truck listed forward.

Her heart jumped into her throat, pounded wildly. “Silas,” she whispered. “What do we do?”

He removed his hand from her chest, moved it as if through molasses to control the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip. “Slowly,” he said. “Very slowly, unlock the door.”

Jessie nodded, a fraction of a jerky inch, and gradually, so carefully her arm shook with the effort of smothering the screaming urge to bolt, she reached for the lock.

White-faced, every angle a sharp edge of fury and grim resolve, Silas kept both hands clenched on the straining wheel. “Good,” he breathed. “Brake is solid. Keep goi— Shit, easy, sunshine.” Rain splattered over the windshield, and the truck shuddered.

Outside, framed in the passenger side mirror, Jessie saw cars circled around them. Others slowed. A knot of shocked people stood on the shoulder of the road, some talking into their comm units. Holding up cameras. Shouting. In the distance, the first sirens wailed.

Jessie heard none of it. As the lock pulled up, as she reached shakily for the latch, the spectacular view of New Seattle pitched. Jessie screamed as metal groaned, tore, and ripped free.

The spires slid out of sight, replaced by endless black.

Swearing, Silas jerked the wheel around but it wasn’t enough. Jagged claws of metal ripped at the underside as the truck tumbled off the byway and slid nose-first into nothing. Gravity slammed them both back against the rough seats, ground like a fist.

Jessie ran out of breath, thrashed wildly for purchase, and as the daylight gave out to nothing, as they fell too deep for the city lights to follow, her searching hands found warm skin, solid muscle.

Silas’s forearm locked hard against her chest, pushing her against the seat, and she clung to it. Wrapped both hands around it and thought that if she had to die now, here, she’d be holding on to a man she could have loved.

Could have?

Now that she was going to die?

Oh, no.

Fury hammered at panic. Pounded through her veins. Resolve and fiery anger shredded the restraints locking down her magic, and Jessie closed her eyes. She would not go out this way. Not now. Not when so much counted on her, waited on her.

Not when she had so much left to do.

So much left to
say
.

“Hold on!” Silas roared, and she held tightly to his corded muscles as the power surged free. She let it, let herself go, snapped to that place where the threads tangled.

Saw
the present, saw them plummet end over end in the veiled dark. She saw the bottom of the descent.

Deep water. Impact.

A chance
.

For the second time, Silas’s seal sizzled blue as her magic slipped around him, around them both. She pumped it full of everything she had, every iota of fear and determination, of the fragile thread of a feeling too uncertain to label as anything but a flimsy wish.

A tenuous cushion, but maybe it’d be enough.

She clenched her teeth. “Brace—!”

The truck hit icy water, the windshield shattered, and the muted shadows filling Jessie’s vision went bright white. Painful red.

And then endless, empty black.