Lure of the Wicked (22 page)

His hands fisted as Agatha slashed a gnarled hand through the air. “Ward this much of the room. Begin preparations.” Her tone was flat, so very different from the quiet demeanor of the woman he’d hired. “Kill the witnesses,” she added coldly.

Phin surged to his feet as the third witch started toward Jordana. “What the fuck is going on here?” he roared. The man stopped, hesitated.

His gaze flicked to Agatha.

Phin pointed at her. “Don’t you dare.”

“Christ, she’s going to bleed out,” Joel gritted out behind him.

Agatha spared Phin a piteous glance. “Don’t do anything stupid, boy. Right now we’re the only thing keeping your mother alive.”

“Bullshit—”

The second man flicked his fingers, and Gemma threw back her head on a scream of pain. Blood flecked Lillian’s cheek, a fine spatter that turned her green-gold eyes to molten fury in her sallow face.

Phin’s breath whooshed out on a wild rush of fear.

“Like I said,” Agatha said calmly, as if murder hadn’t etched itself onto Phin’s features. “Marco, there’s your blood. Leave them and get to it. Greg, the witnesses.”

The dark-eyed man called Marco stared at him. “Out of the way,” he said.

Phin fisted his hands. “Over my fucking dead body.”

Behind him, Gemma wheezed. “Let them,” she managed. Pain dulled her voice. Slurred her words. “Let them try. They . . . want it, too.”

For the first time, a flicker of surprise touched the worn planes of Agatha’s face. But she didn’t deny it. “Yes,” she said curtly. “And your time is running out, so you had better be quick.”

Gemma’s laugh raked over Phin’s ears. More pain, more anguish than humor. He turned back to her, met Lillian’s warning gaze, and didn’t move.

“I can’t,” Gemma whispered. “None of you . . . is right.”

“Not right?”

“It . . . chooses.”

Phin managed three steps before the blue-eyed dishwasher splayed his fingers in Phin’s direction. Every muscle in Phin’s body locked, tense as a bowstring. Vibrated so hard, so fast that it felt as if each tendon would tear itself from his bones. He locked his jaw on a scream, blood rushing through his ears.

Agatha narrowed her eyes at him. “Let me spell it out for you,” she said evenly. “We’ve been waiting for the opportunity to take the fountain. We thought it was a thing.” Her gaze flicked to Gemma. “Clearly we were wrong.”

“Clearly,” Phin bit out.

“It’s not going to stop us. We can carve the damn thing out ourselves.”

Phin wrenched at the magic, snarling a mangled curse as his body threatened to tear itself limb from limb.

The old woman shook her head slowly. “Stop struggling, you idiot boy. Miss Ishikawa was a problem. Then you got involved and we had to act.”

It clicked. Hard, sharp as a knife. Suddenly he was seeing red. “You tried to kill her!”

“Mark tried to kill her.” Her thin lips flattened into a hard, angry line. “Twice. She stuffed his body in the wardrobe, of all things, and we had to get rid of it before you saw it. We’d hoped to grab the fountain and go, but hey. No dice. This other guy’ll just have to be the distraction we need.” Agatha spun. “Marco, ward the room, I said. Greg!” Her voice cracked like a whip. “The
witnesses.
”

The blue-eyed dishwasher dropped his hand, and suddenly Phin slammed to the floor, his head spinning. The man turned determinedly toward Jordana, stalking across the hall. The pop star cringed, desperately trying to push her way through the tiled wall.

Marco knelt to rummage in a pack, muttering in a language Phin didn’t know.

Phin’s muscles bunched, fingers tight as he prepared to launch himself at the witches. It was now or never.

Michael Rook beat him to it.

Greg swore as the wiry, gaunt man threw himself into his back. They hit the ground hard, skidded over the edge and into the depths of the large blue pool. Water splashed over the marble siding. Gunfire echoed in the tiled acoustics, tearing through the humid air like a trapped thunderclap. The metal bullets pinged, and Phin reeled, staggering as the pain of the sound lanced through his ears.

Agatha turned, threw out a wrinkled hand, but Phin jumped at her with a wild sound of rage. He barely even noticed the aura of fire and scorching heat. His skin seared.

The old woman’s eyes clouded as she scratched at his wrists, his face. Phin barreled forward, fingers tight around her throat as he forced her back, back, farther until she hung out over the same blue water that trapped Rook and the other witch.

Phin shook the frail figure, his vision mottled with rage. “Can you heal her?” he demanded. “Can you keep her alive?”

The old woman choked. “No,” she croaked around the viselike grip locked around her skinny neck.

Phin’s vision flickered red. Fingers aching, he sucked in a long, hard breath.

Behind him, the secret door split open, and the flicker of motion in the corner of his vision jerked his head around. A copper-skinned teenager slipped through, his dark hair dusted with cobwebs and grime.

A slender hand curled around Phin’s wrist. He jerked. Agatha thrashed weakly in his grip, and the hand tightened. “Mr. Clarke.”

Phin’s lip curled.

“Mr. Clarke, let her go.” Liz’s masseuse-conditioned grip was strong, her hands gentle as she worked her fingers under Phin’s. “She’s harmless now, you leave her to us. Don’t murder her, Mr. Clarke.”

Agatha’s eyes bulged. Her tongue distended as he stared into her red face.

“Phin!” Lillian’s voice. His mother’s cry, desperate and scared.

Liz pried his hands apart. The old witch fell from his fingers, splashed into the water with a gasping shriek.

He whirled. Everything was chaos. He didn’t know what the hell was going on. Witches betraying him. Witches helping him. His mother—Jesus, help him, his mother.

The boy Phin recognized as Hep knelt by Gemma’s side. “I’m going to have to use this,” he said, frowning as he dipped his fingers in the pool of blood. “Sorry.”

“He’s protecting them,” Liz said behind him. She touched his shoulder. “Mr. Clarke—”

“I don’t understand.” Phin studied them, the mishmash group of temporaries and the sodden beauty floor attendant he’d sworn had been legit. He raked his gaze over the hall, took in the ruined tangle of wires hanging from the ceiling and Jordana’s too-still body sprawled on the tile. Rook was soaked and shaking, hovering over the temporary who bandaged the bullet furrow on Jordana’s scalp.

All of it. Hell without the handbasket.

Phin’s eyes lingered on Lillian’s too-pale, too-taut face. The lines carved deeply into her brow, beside her mouth as she held fast to the bloodstained towels wrapped around Gemma’s clammy body.

His jaw set. “Can you protect them?”

“For now,” Liz said softly. “But we need to get out of here. Mrs. Clarke needs a doctor, and Cally went for help.”

He couldn’t stand it. “Keep her alive,” he said roughly. “Please.”

Liz shifted. But she said nothing.

“I’m going to go end this,” he said, turning to pin Joel with a look that made the man flinch. “One way or another. I’ll provide the distraction, you get them out. Get them
all
out.”

Lillian shook her head. “Phin!”

He paused.

“Be careful. Please be careful, he’s—”

“A missionary,” Phin cut in. “Yeah, I know.” He hesitated. “I love you both. So much.” He turned his back as her eyes softened, as tears spilled over Lillian’s cheeks, and strode for the doors. He stopped only long enough to pick up a discarded gun and tuck it into the small of his back.

He knew this building. He’d grown up here, spent his life touring its maze of hidden passages and staff corridors.

All he had to do was find the bastard.

Joe Carson. A missionary. Off his rocker, but a missionary. He recognized the way Carson moved. The way he handled a gun.

The way he looked at blood and showed nothing.

It reminded him of Naomi.

Chapter Eighteen

B
y the time she stepped out of the apartment, her rage had simmered to something much more caustic. Naomi could feel it, all but taste it welling up in the back of her throat. Eating at her.

Fear.

Betrayal.

He’d never leave her? Right. He’d just look her in the eye and never talk about the witchcraft in his family. Or the witches he’d been hiding.

Or the attempts to fucking kill her.

Naomi zipped the shiny peacock blue jacket up to her throat. The plastic polymer repelled the worst of the rain, its high neck protecting her from the biting wind. Under her arm the Colt felt bulky, heavy.

Comforting.

Underneath the jacket and denim, she wore a black neoprene mesh suit. Standard combat gear for a missionary on the go. It’d protect her from the cold, offer some grip if she needed it. Its Teflon weave offered a measure of protection, but mostly?

It was familiar. She desperately needed familiar right now.

The streets turned darker farther below topside. As she paused on the landing, Naomi surveyed the rough, broken pavement, the pitted sidewalk and cracked foundations of the apartment building. In a short-lived bid for beautification, they’d planted trees along the street; scraggly, stumpy things. Naked of leaves, they thrust twisted fingers toward the layered city above.

Just enough sunlight made it through the upper layers of the city to let her know it was still daylight. That the sun still struggled to shine through the drizzling gray clouds. Below these streets, she’d need a watch to know the difference.

Cars didn’t come by often. Not here, this far from the carousel. The people who lived here struggled to stay living here.

Maybe that’s why Naomi stayed. She both liked and loathed the odd nonquiet of a city flush with electricity and life, and the streets that didn’t see either any more than they needed to.

Too fucking poor to know how to move.

Too stubborn to want to.

She rubbed the back of her neck, stepped off the landing, and picked her way across the broken path toward the sleek silver car half propped on the curb. The light darkened by increments as clouds rolled angry and fast into the layer cake that was the real heart of New Seattle.

Sliding behind the wheel, she found the wires she’d already pulled and touched them together until sparks caught, meshed. The engine turned over with a well-tuned purr of leashed power.

The rain thickened. It splattered the windshield, infected the air with the slightly acrid sting of acid.

She needed to tell the Mission. An investigation would have to be launched, they’d need to begin the proceedings.

But would it mess with her current job?

Would they pull her before she got the chance to put that bullet in Carson’s skull?

Her fingers hovered over the comm unit. Curled in.

Later. When she brought in the body, she’d give a full report. She’d tell them everything.

She’d . . . do what she was good at.

Shifting the car into reverse, Naomi eased back from the curb. She frowned at the dimming light pooling through the rear windshield, at the slide of water rippling across its surface. Another storm.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

She turned, flicking on the windshield wipers as she hit the gas. The car lurched forward.

A figure loomed dark and broad out of nowhere, leaped to the side in a flash of wet denim and white. Tires screeched as Naomi swore viciously, slamming the brakes. The car swerved, spun ninety degrees, and she struggled to keep her heart from pounding right the hell out of her chest.

Her fingers cramped on the steering wheel.

Silas
.

Impossible. Silas Smith had died three months ago. Her childhood training partner was nothing more than a greasy smear in the ruined underground.

The man was dead. She couldn’t have just seen him standing in front of her car, the man was
dead
.

And she didn’t goddamn believe in ghosts.

She threw open the door, tearing the zipper of her coat down for easy access to the Colt, but she didn’t draw it. She’d feel stupid, insane, if she drew a weapon on a hysteria-induced mirage.

With her pulse still too fast in her ears, she surveyed the street. The dark alleys on either side.

She spun when footsteps crunched on the broken sidewalk behind her.

He caught her by the back of the head, blocked her fist with one forearm. Her knuckles cracked against bone. Naomi yelped as he slammed her head to the top of the car. Swore as her skull reverberated, bone to metal.

Way too familiar.

He’d always been a hands-on kind of dick.

She lashed backward, snapped out a foot that found vulnerable flesh, but he twisted, trapped her, slid in behind her. Suddenly pinned to the wet hood of the car, she struggled against a man as solid as stone, his hips to her back and one hand flattening her face to wet metal.

“Don’t,” he warned, and Naomi’s chest tightened. She gasped for air. For sense.

For sanity to come back.

“Silas.” It barely croaked out of her too-swollen throat.

Silas Smith had been a good hunter. A good friend, until he’d fallen head over dick for a witch.

That witch led him to his death.

Now, with his callused hand pressing her face to the cold metal hood and the warmth of his body pinning her flat, Naomi couldn’t ignore the truth.

He wasn’t dead.

Clearly he wasn’t dead, and that meant he still worked for them. The other side.

He’d betrayed her.

“You’re hurting me,” she snapped.

His hand tightened over her head. “Like hell. If I let you go, you’re not—
Fuck me
.” It broke on a gasp, a thrash of mangled air as Naomi shifted, liquid quick, and rammed her elbow back into his sternum.

He staggered, opening the opportunity for her to hook a foot around one knee and jerk. Hard.

Silas hit the ground wheezing.

Naomi spun, weight on the balls of her feet, and backed away, fists clenched hard, ready. Waiting. There was no way in hell she’d roll around on the ground with a man twice her size.

His death had been good to him.

Silas had lost none of his muscle, none of his lethal grace as he sprang back to his feet, one big hand rubbing at his chest. His skin was oddly tan, healthy.

He watched her warily from gray-green eyes.

“You son of a bitch,” she said tightly. “You backstabbing turncoat shitfu—”

“God damn it, Nai.” It rumbled from his chest, impatience. Tension.

And . . . fear?

Good. He deserved to be afraid. To wonder if she’d put a bullet right between his fucking eyes. She circled him, watched him. “How’s the witch-bitch?” A flicker of fury, of menace in his eyes made her smile flatly. “Dead, then? Like you’re supposed to be?”

“Jesus.” Silas put his hands out to the side. “Shut up for one second and listen—”

“You made your choice.” Naomi pulled the gun from her coat, raised it fluidly, and cupped one hand under the other as he shifted hard. “Don’t move. I’m not going to stand here and listen to whatever lies that bitch put you up to.”

“Naomi—”

“I said no!” The words wrenched from her chest. Too hard. Too telling.

Silas froze, closing his eyes. Sympathy. Jesus Christ, she didn’t need his pity.

“Save it,” she said, quieter with effort. “I don’t have time to put you where the Mission can get you, so I’ll just have to shoot you and call it a day.”

“You think you can?”

“Honey,” she drawled, finger tightening on the trigger. “You’re the least of my problems.”

Or he should have been. She had so much more to do, so much more to be worried about, but her arms ached, shoulders too rigid as the lethal barrel centered on his chest. It shook, just enough.

Grimly she widened her stance, firmed her grip.

He’d betrayed her, betrayed the Mission. He was as much a heretic as the witch he’d decided to help.

Silas watched her.

She swallowed hard. In his eyes, in the smoky green depths of his steady gaze, she saw the boy he’d been years ago, the stocky kid who’d pulled her nine-year-old ass out of the tree when she’d tried to run away from the orphanage.

She saw the shape of his mouth, quick enough to smile before the severity of the Mission had beaten it out of him.

Out of them both.

He eased closer. “I’m not your enemy,” he said quietly. “I never have been.” A pause, and then a wry slash to his mouth. “Mostly.”

She raised her chin. “Don’t move.”

“You’re not going to shoot me, Nai.” Slowly he reached out a broad palm, wrapped his fingers around the barrel. “You would have if you could. I’m not here to fight with you.”

If he’d tried to take it, if he’d so much as pulled a fraction of an inch, Naomi wasn’t sure that she would have taken her finger off the trigger. But he didn’t. He just pushed, firmly, resolutely, until the muzzle pointed down. Safely tucked toward the ground at his feet.

Her arms jerked.

“I’m not dead, Naomi.”

A wash of tears all but knocked her on her ass. She buckled, righted herself, and threw her weight at him instead. He caught her, staggered.

“Oh, Christ.” Pure panic. He grunted in pain as she rammed her fist into the heavy muscle at his shoulder. Into his stomach, braced for the impact. Into his chest. She dropped the gun and hammered at him, sobbed incoherent words of rage and relief and frustration. She pounded against the rock-solid wall of muscle and flesh and witch-loving heretic and it wasn’t enough.

As he took the worst of it, as he turned his face away, taut with apology, with regret—with the innate inability of a man confronted by a hysterical woman—Naomi grabbed his collar and kissed him hard on the mouth.

His eyes widened.

Narrowed as she jerked her knee up into his groin. He wasn’t fast enough. Soft flesh gave way to bruising bone.

Silas buckled.

She let him go. Gasping for breath, she braced herself on her knees and watched him hit the ground, hunched over the balls she knew would be too fucking sore to play with for a while. Served him right.

“Fuck,” he swore, gasped it. “Why?”

“You’re supposed to be dead!” She threw it at him, her accusation rough and furious, sharp as a knife. “Why couldn’t you stay dead?”

He groaned. “I may as well be.”

“You’re fucking not, are you?”

“I thought,” he gritted out between bloodless lips, “that’s what the kiss was for.”

“In your dreams.” Naomi sniffed hard, wiping at her eyes impatiently. “What the hell are you thinking, Smith? You can’t talk to me. You can’t show me you’re alive and then just expect to walk away. I’m still a fucking missionary, even if you aren’t!”

Grunting with the effort, Silas pushed himself back to his feet. Stiffly, gingerly, he hunched over the crippling pain of his bruised groin, braced against his knees until Naomi could see his eyes begin to uncross.

He cleared his throat roughly. “That’s, uh . . . Christ, Naomi.”

Despite the pressure behind her eyes, too damn much emotion clawing at her, a smile caught at her mouth. “You’re welcome.”

“I’m here because— damn. Exactly because you’re a missionary.” He straightened by increments. Groaned. “Fuck me.”

“Good luck with that,” she bit out, but a wash of guilt slipped under the anger. The hurt. She turned away, retrieved the gun she’d dropped to the wet ground. “What do you want?”

“I want you to go back to Timeless. And you need to do it now.”

She jerked straight, spun to stare at him. At the intensity of his eyes, glittering in his still-pale face. “How the fuck—”

“They’re in trouble.”

“Homicidal maniac stalking the joint? Yeah, I’d say.” She rolled her eyes. “What’s new there?”

“There’s more than just the one,” he replied grimly.

“What?”

“Remnants of this city’s Coven of the Unbinding cell are in there, too,” Silas said, his voice hoarse with the effort.

“I knew it!”

“No, Nai,” he replied roughly. “They’re not there because Timeless let them. They’re rogue, too.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“I know you killed one,” he said, cupping himself as if it could take the pressure off. His mouth still pinched. “Jesus. But there’s more, and your rogue agent just locked down the building.”

Naomi stilled. Every nerve shimmered to sudden, complete attention. “Locked down,” she repeated. If it came out hoarse, breathless with fear, Silas didn’t ask.

He checked his comm. “Twenty minutes ago. He’s got the family, some staff, a couple of guests. One’s wounded.”

She paled. “Details?”

“Not many.” Gingerly Silas took a few steps. “I have someone on the inside, but contact’s sporadic. Do you trust me?”

Stiff with anger, with sudden biting terror, Naomi smiled flatly. “Not ever again.”

“How about for the next hour?”

“You have a plan?”

He nodded, face grim. “But you’re going to have to let me drive.”

Naomi glanced at the sleek, beautiful car. Back at his face, so steady. So hard. Missionary mode.

Except he wasn’t a missionary anymore.

“Not on your goddamn life,” Naomi said sweetly.

Silas chuckled. It strained. “Worth a shot. Get in. Time’s short.” He rounded the car, walking carefully. Wincing, he slid into the passenger seat.

The rain pounded the street, hammered at the car roof as Naomi pulled the door shut. She tucked the Colt back into its holster and slammed the car into drive.

“What’s the deal in there?”

“A woman down”—suddenly dizzy with relief, Naomi swallowed back a roll of nausea—“and there’s a handful of people all trying to save who they can. The killer’s been using secret corridors.”

Naomi glanced at him. “Are you fucking serious?”

“As a bullet.”

“Where are they?”

Silas reached across her lap and unhooked her comm, the gesture so wordlessly familiar that she gritted her teeth around a wave of bittersweet memory. He slotted a small chip into the jack. After a moment, he held it up. “Partial blueprints. It’s all she could map.”

“How the fuck do you know all this?”