Blood of the Wicked (23 page)

Silas stared at him. Was he serious? Was it a trick?

But as he met the man’s eyes, read the ongoing battle with the pain of his twisted legs, of the mess Silas himself had caused—

He caught the comm as it spun toward him.

“For the record,” Jonas said, a smile twitching inside his goatee, “you’re a shitty martyr. Quit it.”

Silas glanced at the comm. Pocketed it. “Jonas, I—”

“Fuck off,” Jonas said neatly, easily, and waved him on. “Go rescue her. Leave Nai her comm, though, she’s going to need it.”

“Right.” Silas dropped Naomi’s comm, ignored Jonas’s wince as it bounced on the pavement. “Jonas? Shut up,” he added tightly as the man’s mouth opened. “For one second. Just hear me out.”

Jonas closed his mouth again.

“I was stupid back then.” Silas raised a hand when the man’s eyes darkened behind his glasses. “We all were, but I was the one who made the call. So . . .” He mentally flailed. “So, just don’t let me be in charge here, all right? “

A smile quirked at the side of the tech’s mouth. “Loud and clear, sir.”

“I mean it,” Silas growled. “Don’t let me set any sort of example here. Don’t get any crazy ideas. Stick with the Mission. Just—” Silas frowned down at Naomi’s still body. “Christ, Jonas, just be smart about it.”

Jonas’s smile deepened. “Silas?”

“What?”

“Go save your girlfriend.”

For a moment, he met dark green eyes. Studied them. When the man raised his eyebrows, Silas shook his head, resigned, and awkwardly jogged away.

He’d find a car to steal. They weren’t hard to hotwire, especially down in lower New Seattle. As he scanned the streets, Jonas’s comm hummed. Silas cracked it open.

Saw the map.

“Thank you, Jonas,” he murmured in gratitude. “You idiot.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

J
essie couldn’t see or hear anything past the hood they’d draped over her head, unable to tell if she was coming or going. If she was surrounded or just escorted by the same two bastards. The grip at her upper arm throbbed painfully; she knew there’d be bruises if she survived to complain about them.

What the hell possessed her to talk into the damn comm? To say anything, do anything that gave herself away?

Except. . .

Except that she was an idiot, and knew exactly what. Why.

Silas
. He was supposed to have been her death, wasn’t he? All signs pointed to him. Caleb’s prophecies, Silas’s own duty as a witch hunter.

And she’d fallen in love with him.

Just so he could kill her.

Now it looked as if he wouldn’t even be the one to do that. Jessie stumbled as her feet caught on something rough and uneven. The hand at her arm jerked her upright, practically lifted her over whatever the obstacle was.

They hadn’t said a word since they’d jumped her, thrown the comm aside, and hooded her in the dark. Her breath turned the air in the confined space to something too thick and smothering.

If she didn’t get this thing off, she was going to keel over from lack of oxygen. Then wouldn’t they be sorry?

She’d be dead, but at least they’d be sorry.

Unless they only needed her corpse.

She sucked in a breath, trying hard to ignore the pressure squeezing in at her lungs. Her brain fought her. She needed air. She needed more air, fresh air.

She stumbled as they jerked her to a halt. There was muted conversation, a rustle of movement, and fingers pulled roughly at her wrists. Metal clanged, clicked. The handcuffs fell away.

She had no time to react. The hand yanked her forward again, guided her to the destination she couldn’t see. She nearly screamed from the fearful apprehension of it. The lack of conversation, of real direction.

Of air.

When her feet splashed into something thick and wet, she jumped. The hand tightened, shoved her forward. She splashed, water seeping into her boots, her jeans. Then another obstacle, this one jarring her as she barked her shins on it. Hands grabbed her by the waist, and before she could get enough air to protest, her feet landed on cement.

The hands at her hips let go only long enough to grab her shoulders and push. She hit the ground on her abused knees and swore. “Stop it,” she snarled, impatience and pain.

Only to blink in the sudden light tearing through her eye sockets as the hood whipped off her head.

She saw nothing but vague outlines at first, flickering light and silhouettes. She sucked in a breath, another, gulping down sweet, welcome oxygen.

And smelled incense. Something lush and green. That creeping, tomblike mustiness of Old Seattle.

Slowly her vision cleared. Coalesced into a full, colorful picture. The light was dim, she realized now, mostly coming from patches of torchlight scattered throughout the ruin. It picked out bits of the ruined park, the dried, twisted husks of dead trees. It glinted on the occasional flash of metal, traced the pale, hollow faces of the witches around her.

Jessie’s mouth tightened. Thirty of them, she figured, maybe as many as fifty. Some stood, some sat, but they all ringed the dark pond surrounding her.

Surrounding the island she knelt on.

Her gaze swung to a single stone pillar, its surface smudged with smoke and carved with symbols. She squinted, trying to read them, to read what the hell they intended, but they . . . moved. Like something oily in the dark, they refused to be read by her.

Her stomach turned, roiled uncomfortably.

This was bad magic.

She scanned the crowd again as she slowly got to her feet. The island, some sort of ruined patch of cement, was empty of everything but her.

The back of her neck prickled. Hell, her skin was doing its best to razor itself off her bones and crawl away. Her heart pounding, Jessie spun around and saw witches all around her.

Staring at her.

Her hands fisted at her sides. “Come on, then!” Her voice cracked in the odd, breathless silence. Some of them stirred, some looked at each other.

Some looked away.

Jessie turned, crossed the island in a few long, angry steps. Shaking her hair out of her eyes, she braced her hands against the pillar.

Then yelped as the stone heated beneath her fingers. She snatched her hands back so fast, her elbows popped. The stone flared, sizzled as red spots that matched her fingertips, her palms, completely faded back to rock.

“Holy shit,” she muttered. Seriously nasty magic.

She looked over her shoulder as the crowd stirred, as whispered words rustled through them like a growing wind. Tucking her stinging hands at her hips, she braced herself as a knot of people parted.

A tall, broad man approached the pond. His hair was graying, neatly combed, his build solid despite his noticeably older age. He walked with confidence, ignored the witches who clustered in behind him. Ignored the hands that reached out to touch his arms, his shoulders.

Ignored the tall, blond witch who walked at his left.

Underneath a tide of grief, of bone-deep anger, Jessie closed her eyes. “Caleb.” When she heard the water splash, she snapped them open again.

She couldn’t fall apart now.

Bracing herself, fists at her hips, she glared at them both with every ounce of fury, of disgust, she could muster.

Topside and bathed in sunlight, the Missionary director had all but pulsed with a palpable authority. Now, thousands of feet below those sunny skylights, the superior named Peterson surrounded himself with the witches he was supposed to hunt and all but glowed like some kind of god amid his flock.

Jessie whirled, searching wildly for something to use as a weapon, anything. The pedestal beside her was solid rock, too heavy to shift. The focus pillar behind her was drilled into the cement island. Fists clenched, she turned and sucked in a shaking breath.

Peterson’s feet pressed into the water, but they didn’t sink beneath it. He walked on the surface, his neat shoes and pressed slacks tidy and clean, and despite knowing that magic kept him afloat, goose bumps prickled to life over her skin.

Caleb trudged in the muck beside him, his face impassive. Not nearly as showy, and his gaze centered on the ground at her feet.

“I hate you,” she said tightly.

His blue eyes flicked to hers, narrowed, but he said nothing.

Ignoring her bitter greeting, Peterson stepped up on the island, his smile warm in his craggy features. His eyes were both welcoming and razor sharp. “Miss Leigh,” he intoned in a baritone so deep, it rumbled her chest.

She twisted her lips into a grim parody of a smile. “Gee. You must be the boss.”

Caleb circled the island.

The leader inclined his head, a courteous half bow. “Curio,” he said.

“Is that what you’re calling yourself down here?”

His eyes sharpened, razor intelligence. “Indeed,” he said slowly. “And you are my young friend’s eldest sister. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“I’m sure.” Jessie stepped to the side, knowing full well she had nowhere to run. She was trapped, surrounded by water and witches. With her heart in her throat, she squared her shoulders. “Let’s cut the crap,” she said crisply. The man’s thick eyebrows winged upward. “Why don’t you just tell me what you’re doing and why you need me so much?”

“Ah.” The man sighed. “Youth.”

“Yeah,” Jessie said tightly. “I’m sure you say that every time you recruit a new missio—” He struck like a snake, taking one step forward and backhanding her hard enough that she saw stars. Pain lanced through her cheek as she spun with it, blood welling on her tongue.

It wasn’t anything compared to the pain lodged in her chest. Sneering, Jessie spat on the island between them. Red droplets of her blood splattered on the hem of his neat pants. “I know who you are,
Peterson.
” She watched his eyes narrow. A flicker in ice blue depths. “And it’s only a matter of time before they do, too.”

But he didn’t respond with fear. Or surprise.

Peterson’s smile deepened the lines around his mouth. At his eyes. He looked up from the blood she’d left on his hem and took one step closer. Taking her face in his worn hands, he pressed a kiss to her temple and said gently, “In a matter of moments, my dear Miss Leigh, no one will care.”

Revulsion shot down her spine. She wrenched herself away, whirled and collided with Caleb.

He caught her by the arms, steadied her. For a split second, relief filled her with a terrible kind of hope. A hope that twisted deeply, sliced to the bone as she saw his face.

Controlled. Empty. His blue eyes, their mother’s eyes, looked into hers with nothing kind or gentle in them. No apology. No guilt.

Her lip quivered under the strain of biting back her tears. “Caleb,” she whispered. “Why?”

He pulled her toward the pillar. She dug her heels in, but he was stronger than she remembered. Determined.

To use her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish things could’ve been different.” She staggered as he wrenched her around, gasped when the pillar hit the small of her back. Stiffening, she bit back a cry as it prickled a line of heat down her back. She wouldn’t give them the benefit of seeing her flinch.

Over his shoulder, the man who masqueraded as a missionary beckoned two witches forward. Two women slogged through the water, faces set in reverent lines. Each carried something in hand. A candle, a book wrapped in a long sweep of black cloth. Her heart stuttered in fear.

A knife.

Jessie’s eyes wrenched back to Caleb’s. Her brother. “You realize your glorious leader is a witch hunter don’t you?”

“Of course. How else were we to gain the information we needed?”

His voice was so empty, so matter-of-fact that she flinched. Set her jaw. “Nervy,” she admitted, but her tone cracked with anger. “You’re in bed with the Church, you know.”

“No,” he corrected, one hand firmly on her shoulder as he moved around her. He grabbed one arm, looped a cord around her wrist and pulled it tight. She jerked it back, but the cord bit into her flesh. Burned. “Curio has made sure that the Church is ignorant of our deception.”

Deception. As if it were as simple as a few lies. She shook her head. “Why?” she demanded, shuddering. “Was it me? Did I do something wrong? To drive you away?”

“No.”

She fought back her tears, craning to watch his face over her shoulder. “Then tell me. What’s worth this?”

His deep ocean eyes met hers. Stabbed deep. “Power,” he said flatly. “Control. To shake off the chains the Church has put on us. Walk free the way we used to and dismantle the Order from the top down.”

Her mouth fell open. For a moment, no words would form in her mind as she struggled to put it together. To reconcile the brother she raised with the man who stood in front of her now.

They didn’t match. Nothing, his voice, his stance, his eyes, nothing matched.

Jessie bit back a surge of anger, of grief and denial. Through her teeth, she hissed, “You’re lying.”

Caleb’s hands jerked, pulled tight on the cord, but he said nothing. Behind him, Curio set the candle on a tall, smooth wooden pedestal. He raised one hand, and if Jessie thought the park was quiet before, it became deathly still now. Deathly silent.

The man put his fingers together, and with a quiet flare of magic, a flame gathered between them.

Parlor tricks. Any witch could do it.

Jessie looked past Caleb’s shoulder. Saw the sheer rapture on the faces that surrounded them. She wasn’t sure they knew it.

Slowly Curio lowered the flame to the single candle wick. There was a pop, a
whoosh
of heat and power, and suddenly Jessie’s mouth went dry in terror.

Flames sprang throughout the park. Bonfires kicked off in an explosion of orange flame, blue heat. The witches cheered, raucous and wild, while Curio clasped his hands in prayer. He’d put the robe on, she realized. Draped himself in black velvet and glitter.

All the trappings of an obvious ritual. It wasn’t necessary.

The leader, Jessie realized grimly, wrapped his coven up in lies.

“Caleb,” she said, her voice trembling. She bent her head, tried to see past the resolve. The iron will. The—goddamn it—the brainwash. “Caleb, listen to me.”

Wordlessly he pulled a black velvet cloth from his pocket and wrapped it around her head. She struggled, but he tied it tightly around her mouth. Gagged her.

When he turned away, she stared helplessly at his back.

She used to rub that back when they were younger. Stretch out beside him on whatever bed they’d managed to claim for the night and rub his back until the nightmares receded. As he’d gotten older, too proud to let her baby him, she’d only kept him company. Played cards, talked for hours.

Wasn’t it enough?

Hot tears slid down her cheeks as her heart shattered into jagged pieces at her feet.

“Bind the seer!”

Curio’s voice boomed over the crowd. The same two witches circled the island, two women with eyes like dolls in their thin heads. Sisters, Jessie thought. Blood was always thicker than water.

Skeletal hands gripped her hair, jerked her face to the flame-lit sky. Smoke drifted into her eyes, making her choke on the raw heat.

Making her gag on her own screams as the first knife cut a line over one cheek. Over the other. Pain ripped through her, waves of agony as another blade dug into her forearms. She struggled, lashed out, but the sisters worked in silence. Pulled up her shirt, drew a thin line over her waist. Her thighs. Razor sharp and shallow, one over each energy point.

When they finally each carved into her calves, Jessie sobbed, hysterical with pain and fear. With the knowledge that power flowed with the blood they used to leash her, keeping her from using any magic she had. Bound by her own blood.

They tore off the gag. She clenched her teeth, gasping, trying to breathe through the pain, to ride it. Her vision swimming, she saw Caleb standing beside the leader. Arms folded. Watching.