Blood of the Wicked (24 page)

Watching them cut her. Bleed her.

The sisters moved away, knives gleaming crimson in the wash of firelight.

Curio raised his arms as they flanked him. Flanked Caleb.

“Bind the soothsayer!” he intoned, and Caleb’s face erupted into shock and anger. He whirled when the sisters laid hands on him. Furious, struggling, he managed to fling one from the cement island. She screamed as she flailed, hit the water and skidded into it.

Jessie sucked in a breath. What the hell was going on? Fighting back the nebulous cloud of her fading mind, struggling to stay focused, to ignore the lull of waiting oblivion, she watched Caleb thrust out a hand.

Power, sweet, oddly strong, lashed out. It whipped at Curio’s stalwart figure, at his ornate robes. Blood gleamed in the golden glow of the candle. The witches gasped.

Curio touched his throat. His fingers came away dark, gleaming red, and he chuckled. Rich, rolling. He flicked his crimson fingers, and Caleb staggered to his knees, face ashen. He hunched over his chest, clutching at his heart.

Jessie’s own seized. “No!”

The girl forged back through the water, joined her sister in wrestling Caleb to the pillar.

Jessie dropped her head as they wrenched him behind her. They tied him tightly, his hands at the small of her back and hers at his. When he cursed, when he thrashed against the bonds, Jessie knew they did to him what they’d done to her.

Bound. Bound in blood.

A witch was his own worst enemy.

“Now.” Curio’s voice, smooth and elegant. As if blood didn’t smear her skin, or Caleb’s. As if he hadn’t just swatted Caleb away like he was an inconsequential fly. Jessie whipped her gaze to him.

“You’re going to pay, you bastard,” she seethed. “I swear to God, if I have to haunt your every living day, I will see you in hell.”

He smiled. “Perhaps.” Then he ignored her to round the pillar. Jessie wrenched at her bonds, tried to see over her shoulder.

Froze when Caleb’s hands closed on the back of her shirt.

“I never expected you to betray me,” Caleb said. His voice sounded strained, but it was strong. “What did it?”

“My dear friend,” Curio said, and Jessie saw his fingers curl over Caleb’s shoulder. Squeeze gently. “I know you planned to kill me tonight.”

Jessie jerked. Caleb’s grip tightened.

“Oh?” Noncommittal. Smooth. Despite the pain leaching at her, her lips twitched. Wry, wan humor.

Yeah. She’d taught him well.

There was the sharp sound, flesh on flesh, and she bared her teeth as Curio said quietly, “Don’t ever mistake me for a fool, Caleb Leigh. This coven is
mine
. Every man and woman, every child, is mine. How dare you think otherwise?” Another crack. “I clothed you.” Again. “I fed you.” Another. Jessie flinched. “I took you in from your miserable existence.”

Caleb’s hands remained tight on her jacket, but tension vibrated through him. “You lie like a little girl, Curio,” he spat. “You’ve had this plan since the beginning.”

Jessie could almost hear Curio’s smile. “You are entirely too clever, Mr. Leigh. You always were. Yes.”

“You lying son of a bitch.”

“Pot,” Curio said lightly. “Kettle. Your mistake, my friend, was in assuming that I didn’t know about your little harvesting game. That you were safe in stealing the lifeblood of latent witchcraft. You,” he said in smug disapproval, “were wrong. And that kind of arrogance will never serve in a soothsayer.

“And so!” The expansive tone accompanied his stride as Curio returned to the candle. “Tonight, my brothers and sisters, you will all witness the transition of power from two witches! Traitors, both of them, but their powers can be used to help our cause.”

Jessie’s shoulders tensed as Caleb’s voice said softly, “Jessie?”

The witches cheered, drowning out the roar of fire and Jessie’s own sob. “Don’t you lie to me.”

“God, I’m sorry.” His fingers at her back shook. Vibrated with tension, fear. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I was supposed to kill the leader. End the problem before it happened.” Despair thick in his voice, Caleb added bitterly, “I was supposed to stop the things I saw in my visions.”

Jessie’s head snapped up. Slammed the pillar. She laughed at herself, but the edge of hysteria to it only served to sober her. “Fuck,” she bit out. “Fuck me. Caleb, Jesus Christ, listen to you.”

“Fire and death,” Caleb said softly. “Look at where we are. What’s happening around us.”

Jessie shook her head. “Why should I believe anything you say?”

“Brothers and sisters!” Curio raised his arms. Jessie glanced at him, stiffened. The man towered. Tricks of fire and shadow, witchy parlor tricks, but her heart suddenly pounded in her throat as supernatural terror worked to infect her thoughts. “Let us begin!”

Caleb rested his head against the pillar. It hissed. “Everything I did was for the best,” he said wearily. “Every bargain, every soul, every ritual. Every lie.” He turned his head, and in her peripheral, Jessie saw his strong, angled cheek. The outline of his profile. “You taught me that.”

She closed her eyes. “I taught you to make good choices,” she replied, but even as she said it, she sagged.

She’d taught him to lie. That the ends justified the means when they had to steal to eat. Lie to survive.

Her cheeks stung as salty tears slid into the shallow cuts. “Christ,” she managed on a sob. “I’m sorry, Cale. I’m so sorry. Momma would be so disappointed.”

“No.” Firmly, angrily, Caleb struggled against his bonds. Managed to touch his shoulder to hers. “No. You’re amazing, Jessie. And that stupid bastard of a witch hunter never should have let you go. If he hadn’t, you’d never be here. You’d still be safe, and I wouldn’t have had to— Damn it, Jessie, I told you to stay away.”

Jessie opened her mouth to argue. To ask how her baby brother knew about that. To defend Silas. And then shut it. Cold chills swept her body.

“You tried to kill him.”

Caleb was silent for a heartbeat. Then, quietly, “Yes. And no, I’m not sorry,” he added flatly. “But I didn’t know you were with him then.”

Her mouth twisted. “That doesn’t make it better.”

“Jesus, Jessie.” His tone roughened. “I swear to you, it was for a good cause. To stop him.
This.
”

“What is this?”

“Harvesting,” Caleb said flatly. “Remember when Momma died? Remember how I inherited her power? That’s what he wants. He wants our magic, he wants my prophecies and your ability to see. This is the start of a force that will bring this city to its knees, and in only a few years’ time, the Coven of the Unbinding will change
everything
.”

“Freedom,” she shot back. “It’s what you wanted, right?”

“It won’t be freedom, Jess,” he said wearily. “It’s just trading one tyrant for another. That book he’s got has more power bound in its pages than this entire coven combined. It’s . . . infected him. Infected all of them.”

Jessie’s mouth worked. She took in a deep breath, fought down the pain that muddied her head. “Would you have let me die here?”

“Don’t ask me that, Jessie.”

“Would you? To stop them?” She twisted, hissed when the magic in the pillar seared her arms. “God damn it, Caleb, was that your plan?”

“No!” Caleb closed his eyes. “Not at first. I tried everything to keep you away, I never wanted you in this. You should have left me alone. I told you to leave me alone.”

“Really?” The word tore out of her on a sob. “Really, Cale? Did you think I would? When you were killing people?”

“I had no choice! Without the extra power I was no match for Curio.”

“Peterson,” she corrected on a growl. “And congratulations. You just handed the combined power of present and future to the Church.”

“I didn’t intend— Christ,” he hissed. “It’s starting.” He jerked at her shirt, and Jessie realized that the witches spoke. All of them. The words rose like a howl, demons and devils.

Jessie closed her eyes as Curio’s deep, resonant voice led them all.

A wind, a sour, angry wind made of knives and skeletal fingers plucked at her. Swept through her hair. It made her feel ill. Wildly, wretchedly ill.

“What are they saying?” she asked tightly.

Caleb’s voice was grim. “You don’t want to know.” There was a pause, and then, quietly, “Jess?”

“If you’re going to pull out some bullshit sappy—” Jessie blinked as his fingers twisted at her back. She sucked in a breath of that foul wind. Gagged.

“Whatever happens, get the hell out.”

“Caleb—”

“Promise me,” he demanded. “Things are going to get crazy in about a minute, and I need you to promise me that you’re going to run.”

“What did you do?”

“Jessie. Please.”

She grimaced. “I promise,” she said, “for all the fat lot of good that does either of us. And if you die before me, I swear to God I’ll kick your ass in hell, you murderer.”

Caleb was silent as the wind swirled around them. And then, to her surprise, he chuckled. Strained, taut with pain, but there. “It’ll do, big sister. It’ll do fine.”

When the pillar sparked between them, Caleb and Jessie clung to each other. Even through the wild anger, the deep hurt of betrayal, she held his shirt in her hands. Felt his arms tightly bound around hers, and took some small comfort in it.

Even as the stone burned red hot. Even as the wind, that howling, demonic wind, wrenched cold fingers over her skin. Over her wounds. Wanting in.

Wanting out.

Feeding.

Jessie screamed first.

Chapter Twenty-Five

H
and over hand. Pipe over pipe. Silas clung to the twisted wreck of the foundation piping and tried not to think about the jump he’d be making in a few, short moments.

It was going to hurt.

But he’d go through worse if it meant saving the woman he loved.

And he would save her. God damn it, he’d save her from whatever godforsaken magic the man in the long robe was conjuring up.

The wind battered at him, plucking at his straining fingers as if it had a life of its own. Malicious. Cruel. Silas gritted his teeth, swung to another twisted pipe. Sharp edges tore at his palm, but he was long past feeling that pain.

She was screaming. He concentrated on that. Let it push him. Enrage him. His woman was screaming.

The blood trickling down his arms made his grip slippery as hell. Grunting with effort, he reached for the next pipe. The next. Below him, fires crackled. Witches, damn them all, chanted.

Muscles aching, shrieking in pain, he pushed his body harder. Faster. His heart pounded as he saw the little pond beneath his feet.

This was it.

He wouldn’t get another chance.

Silas twisted his shoulders. Slowly, achingly slowly, he rotated his wrists. Changed his grip on the pipe and eyed the distance between his feet and the frothing, murky water. It’d drop him right in front of the stone column Jessie sagged against.

Right in front of Caleb Leigh.

He didn’t have the luxury of a weapon.

If nothing fucking else in this nonplan worked, he needed to hit the ground in one piece. He’d figure out the rest when he landed. Sucking in a slow, steadying breath, Silas forced his fingers to unclamp. Forced himself to let go. His stomach rolled smartly into his throat as he dropped like a stone.

It hurt like a son of a bitch. His knees detonated on a shock of pain, the water sucked at him, kept him from rolling right, and he barked an elbow, a shoulder on the shallow ground.

He expected that. Silas forced himself to his feet, already prepared to fight back the witches who saw him tumble to the ground.

What he didn’t expect was the thunder.

Fire burst through the air, a blast that rolled over the crowd in a discharge of heat and furious force. Screams rang shrilly in the pounding echoes. The stench of burning flesh and chemical roiled through the shrouded park on a cloud of oily black smoke.

The blast pressure swept him off his feet. Silas slammed into the cement, hissed as the sharp edges of the makeshift island bit into his back. His ribs.

Christ on a stick, his ribs.

Another explosion, a blast of fire at another corner. More screams. But the witches who weren’t displaced, who weren’t scared, kept chanting. It rose. Shrill. Sharper.

“Silas!”

Jessie’s voice, high and scared. Raw.

Silas rolled over, painfully aware of every shred of bruised muscle, every abrasion and cut. Sodden, slimy with algae and God only knew what else, he dragged himself onto the island. Rolled onto his back and cleared stinging sweat from his eyes.

He found himself meeting dark blue eyes framed in a mask of blood.

“Silas Smith.” Caleb Leigh sounded tired. More than tired. Exhausted, drained.

Silas’s lip curled.

“There’s a knife in my left boot,” Caleb said, cutting him off. He jutted out one leg. “Spare the pathos and get Jessie out of here. Curio won’t be distracted for long.”

“Caleb, no—”

Silas grabbed the man’s foot, wrenched his pant leg up and left bloody smears as he found a silver dagger. It was too damned pretty to be called just a knife.

Witch’s athame. How many people had he killed with this? Carved up like so much meat?

Silas wrenched it free, surged to his feet. The silver blade glinted dully as he pressed it against Caleb’s throat. “Give me one goddamned reason,” he growled.

Caleb met his eyes, held them. Level, steady, they were so much like Jessie’s, aside from the color. So sure. “I’ll give you over forty,” he said quietly, nodding to the coven that screamed, ran in terror around them. Curio had vanished, lost somewhere in the sea of chaos and fire. “But only one should matter.”

Jessie stretched against the rope that held her. “Silas! Silas, don’t. Caleb, damn it, stop it.”

“
Shit
.” Silas lowered the blade.

“Get her out.” Caleb leaned away, baring her hands. The rope that bound her. Silas slashed at it until it gave, snapping loose. “I don’t know where they set all the bombs, but—”

This time, the explosion rocked the cement island. Water lashed over its surface and witches screamed in terror and pain.

Jessie staggered, battered to the ground. She wrapped her arms over her head, screamed Silas’s name, but the blast swept him off his feet. Sent him sprawling back into the water.

He surged back out of it, somehow managing to swipe the scum from his face and get back onto the ledge.

“Look out!”

Silas twisted, unable to see what, where, and rocked back into the water as a booted foot slammed into his wounded shoulder. He cursed, swallowed tepid water. The roar of the fires scattered over the ruined park, of stampeding people; the cacophony muted in and out as he thrashed to regain his footing.

When he came up, his hands were empty.

Silas whirled, only to slam into stillness, every muscle rigid with strain. The Seal of St. Andrew burned icy hot in the oppressive heat of the infernos separately ravaging the park around them.

David Peterson drew back his hood, revealed his graying hair. His flat, pale blue eyes. He said something Silas couldn’t hear.

Silas’s lips peeled back with effort. “You . . . son of . . .”

Peterson’s raised hand splayed wide. Silas grunted, heaved out an explosive breath as every muscle tried to rip itself off his bones. The seal sizzled around his wrist. “Silas Smith. Didn’t I tell you I’d be watching you?”

Silas’s gaze flicked to the man’s right. Jessie clung to the island, struggled to stand. Ash and blood smeared her skin, a gory mask, but her teeth were bared as she reached for the knife gleaming just out of reach.

His woman.

Fury whipped through him. Lashed at the unfocused restraints of magic. He moved. An inch, but he did it. “Fuck you,” he snarled. “You played—”

“Every single one of you,” Peterson said, self-satisfaction in every word. He moved closer, stepping off the island. Heedless of the fiery carnage around him.

Every step left Jessie behind.

Come on, sunshine.

Peterson smiled. “You surprise me,” he said. A witch ran toward them, a glimmer of motion in Silas’s fixed peripheral, but Peterson flicked his free hand. The tiny gesture sent the man screaming back into the fire.

Chaos had a smell, Silas realized, and it smelled like charred flesh. He strained against the bonds, felt them loosen. Then he collided into the opposite shore as Peterson slammed that magical force into him.

The world flickered violently.

A
booted foot came down next to her reaching fingers. Jessie jerked, collided with a man who jammed a raw, sooty palm over her mouth. “Shut up,” he hissed, seizing her collar with his free hand. His eyes, pale green in the wicked firelight, were ice cold. “Shut up, don’t move.”

Jessie nodded, frantic. Her gaze flicked left to right, struggled to find Silas in the smoke and chaos.

Over the man’s shoulder, a woman collected Caleb’s athame. Jessie saw nothing of her but a generously curved silhouette topped by a knit hat. The woman didn’t stop to look at Caleb, to speak to him. Didn’t stop to speak to the man who pinned Jessie, or to Jessie herself. She simply pressed the knife into Jessie’s hands.

From the pillar, Caleb jerked at his bonds. “The book—” he began.

“Done. Consider us even.” Another woman, a strong-featured brunette, hugged Curio’s heavy book to her chest. She spared Jessie a keen, dismissive glance. “Move!” She shouted. “Go!”

The man grinned down at her, despite the ice in his lime green eyes. “Maybe another time, sweet,” he said, patting her on the cheek. “Get out while you can.” He surged to his feet, following the two women into the water.

Jessie rolled over, shoved herself upright, but they were gone by the time she found her balance. Swallowed by flailing limbs, screaming witches. People.

Humans.

Jessie clutched at her throat. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. Holy shit. This was it. This was the prophecy. This was where she died.

No, this is where
somebody
died.

The premonition sent shivers racing down her spine. “Caleb?” She whirled, ran to his side and hacked at the rope tying him in place. “Caleb, what’s happening?”

“Easy.” Caleb slung a hard arm around her waist as the rope fell away. “You need to get out of here.” He plucked the knife from her nerveless fingers, shook her when she swayed. “Pull it together, Jessie!”

She shook her head hard, throat tightening. “I’m not—” A torrent of flame rose like an orange pillar mere yards away from them, and screams erupted as rubble spewed into the air. Caleb’s arm tensed around her as she pushed at his chest, struggling to turn. “Silas!” she gasped, choking on a current of smoke.

“Shit, no, Jessica,
go
!” He shoved her away from that fiery column, pushed her so hard that she stumbled over the edge of the island and hit the water. She staggered, found her balance, and turned, already knowing what she’d find.

Caleb shifted his grip on the knife and launched himself over the other side. He forged through the pond, through the water stained red by fire and blood. His jaw set, eyes fixed firmly on the mortal struggle between the coven leader and the witch hunter.

Caleb threw out a hand, barked something harsh and unforgiving. Peterson skidded, whirled as if he’d been pushed and fell into the slime. Wild rage contorted his features as he struggled to get back to his feet, wet robes tangling at his legs.

Silas’s face was taut with strain and coated with blood, with mud and the ash that rained from the suffocating cloud of smoke. He hesitated when Caleb seized him by the collar, glanced between Caleb and the leader. Caleb said something; she couldn’t hear anything but screams and the resonating echoes of wholesale destruction.

Silas turned his head, saw her. His mouth thinned.

And then he nodded.

“No,” Jessie whispered as Silas staggered back. Her fists clenched, throbbed painfully as the two men she loved in the world traded places. Traded her.

She knew it.

The leader’s smile gleamed devil-bright in the flame-wrecked air. “Come then,” he bellowed, barely a thread of sound under the rampant fury of hungry fire and the wailing voices of the dying.

Silas stumbled through the pond. His face was grim, stiff, as he forced his way through the water. He grabbed her as he passed, his fingers biting roughly into her arm.

She struggled. “No,” she repeated.

“Damn it, Jessie—”

“
No!
I’m not leaving him again!” Jessie swore as he bypassed her denial completely, looped an arm around her waist, and hauled her off her feet. Her shoulder rammed into his stomach, but he didn’t stop. She clawed at his shoulder, his arm.

Watched her baby brother leap through the smoke and fire and clash, blade to blade, with the witch called Curio. Watched his power flare like a damned comet as he unleashed it all. Wrapped them both in it.

Burned himself with it.

The water gleamed red. Overhead, the twisted, tangled pipes glittered back in reflected flame. Jessie reached desperately for the power bound inside her, struggled to summon it through the binding magic.

But all she could feel was fury. Soul-shattering grief.

And Caleb’s quiet strength.

“Caleb!” she sobbed. Silas’s arm tightened, bodily forced her across the standing moat and to the other side. Her feet dragged, slick with slime. “Let me go!”

Silent, grim as the death that surrounded them, Silas held on tight. “I’m not losing you again,” he yelled. “Damn it, Jessie,
move!
”

The fight left her. Exhaustion slapped over her like a shroud as she clutched Silas’s filthy shirt in both hands and let him guide her. As if through a fog, she followed as he found footing on the park floor and sprinted through the maze of flames and twisted ruins.

There was another blast, another flurry of heat and pressure and seismic shudders. The ground rolled beneath them. Silas staggered, flailed, and Jessie sprawled to the ground, jarred all the way to her bones. Pain licked at her, swamped her, but all she knew was the black emptiness that suddenly ate at her chest. “Caleb!” she screamed, half a ragged howl torn from her raw throat as she struggled to roll over, push herself up to her feet.

The carnage faded to a dull roar, and just like that, Caleb was gone.

Warm hands seized her shoulders. Smoothed over her arms, her waist. Strong arms lifted her bodily from the ground. She sobbed, clung to Silas’s broad strength, buried her face in his shoulder as he carried her out to safety.

As icy realization slid through her veins, as grief tore her resolve to shreds, the obsidian stone warmed against her heart.

“Come on, sunshine,” Silas murmured unsteadily into her hair. His arms tightened around her back, one long-fingered hand splayed in her hair as he cradled her weight. “Let’s get out of here.”