Blood of the Wicked (8 page)

“If she takes one more step,” the witch said cheerfully, “I’m going to shoot you.”

Jessie froze in the dim light outlined by Silas’s dropped flashlight.

Damn it
.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you magic doesn’t work on me?” Silas pitched his voice loudly, as mocking as he could.
Watch me, not her
. “Seems to me you’re a lousy shot and a bad listener.”

The witch’s lips twitched. “Big bad killer like you can’t tell the difference between a greeting and a threat, huh?”

“You’re one to talk,” Silas replied calmly. He stepped along a semicircle, put himself between Jessie and the gun-toting man.

“Tsk tsk.” The man jerked his head. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Behind him, Jessie screamed. No small sound of fear, it ripped out of her on an endless, throat-tearing note of panic, of pain. His stomach clenched as he whipped around.

What he saw didn’t match the bone white pallor of her skin, or the way she panted for breath as her screams faded into echoes. Another man stood behind her, one arm wrapped around her chest, the other hand encircling the wrist with the gun. An older witch, he met Silas’s gaze over the top of Jessie’s rain-darkened hair and waited.

Real pain etched deeply into the taut lines of her face as she stared at Silas. Real fury.

Her mouth curved up in a tight, reassuring smile.

His heart constricted.
Shit
.

“Fine,” he said. He turned back to the red-haired witch and took three steps forward.
Don’t turn around
. One witch at a time. “What do you want from me?”

“You? You, I want dead. She’s no hunter, though, am I right?”

Silas lowered his hands, smiling in slow, deliberate provocation. He showed a whole lot of teeth. “You want me? Come on, then.”

“Oh, man.” The witch cocked back the hammer on his gun, sighted down the barrel. “They’re gonna love this.”

Silas dropped to the ground, hit the pavement with a grunt of pain. The gun fired a split second later, capped on Jessie’s ragged scream.

Six!

He rolled, caught the barest glimpse of the other man struggling with an armful of Jessie, and pushed back to his feet as the gun-toting witch stormed forward.

“I hate hunters,” the man snarled, and threw the gun at him.

Silas flung up an arm, swore when it collided with the makeshift projectile. Searing pain numbed his arm from the elbow down.

Silas grunted, launched himself at the now defenseless witch and hoped to God he could drop this one and get to Jessie.

The witch raised both arms, ducked Silas’s fist to bring his shoulder up into Silas’s gut. All the breath whooshed out from his lungs. He hit the ground gasping.

The air crackled around him.

Fuck
. He rolled moments before a blue-white line of electricity lanced across the street where he’d been. A black path of seared ozone and glittering asphalt curled into an acrid stench.

He got to his feet, and it took too much effort this time.

“Funny thing about this kind of magic,” the witch said cheerfully. “Once I pull it out of thin air, it’s as real as a bullet.” He shot out a hand. “Wanna see if your little tattoo can suck it up?”

Another sizzle of sudden electricity in the air, another rift of reality and power. Silas jumped to the side. He felt the small hairs of his body curl as lightning jolted too close. Too hot.

Where was Jessie?

As if on cue, more gunshots rang out. One, two. Three. Sheer adrenaline propelled Silas forward, slammed him hard against the surprised witch. Power unleashed like a storm around them, backlashed against the seal of protection caught between both bodies as Silas bore him to the ground.

Goddamn, it hurt. Electrical energy and heat scored across his skin, raked deep and arced between them both. The witch screamed, lashed out like a cat, nails bared.

The pain of blood drawn didn’t even register next to the voltage that rocked them both. Silas gritted his teeth against it, fought back the white-hot lance of agony trying to fry every synapse he had. He rolled to pin the witch down, seized his head. Strained.

The witch screamed once as Silas pounded his head into the street. Again as his skull bounced off the broken pavement. Still, over and over, until bone cracked and oozed under Silas’s strength and his fingers sank into mush. The power around him crackled. Curled in and bled away to nothing but burned ozone.

The witch shook in his grasp, thrashed, until he also went still.

Deathly still.

Skin still sizzling, Silas toppled over, caught himself before his forehead bounced off the same pavement. No time. No time to hurt. He shoved himself to his feet. Enough adrenaline cured everything.

“Jessie!” he roared, and ran like hell.

Chapter Eight

R
un, run, run, run.

The refrain pounded in her head, keeping time with the slap of her wet boots against shattered streets. Jessie dodged creeping wires and the tangled vines of some forgotten garden plant, pushed through dark alleys in what she hoped was an unpredictable path guaranteed to lose her pursuer.

Who was she kidding? As her breath hitched into a cramping knot at her side, she just hoped Silas was still alive and she wouldn’t get killed before he found her.

Terror fueled every step. She stumbled over the scattered remains of a broken wall, caught herself against the opposite corner and tried not to panic as she looked right and left. Her shaking light swept over the back street, picked out hardy moss poking up from the crevices and cracks underfoot before it was swallowed by shadow. Pipe rain poured in a waterfall around her, shearing away blood and mud from her skin and—please, God—muffling her panting breaths.

She dragged her free hand back through her hair and trusted her gut. Her gut said left.

Her brain demanded to know why.

No time. She turned left. The street, no more than a one-lane path, didn’t lend itself well to running. Every other step clattered, shifted, twisted on roots and stones that seemed to get thicker with every minute. She battered away clinging strands of wet cobwebs as she ran into them, the light weaving wildly in front of her, and bit back a scream as a fat-bodied brown spider smacked into her cheek and rebounded away on a tensile thread.

Shuddering, she clenched her fists, ducked low, and tried not to think about eight grasping legs tangled in her hair.

She couldn’t stop to check, couldn’t give in to panic.

The man who’d tried to kill her didn’t seem to feel the kicks she’d aimed at him. He didn’t stop when she’d stomped on his foot, or when she’d jammed her stiff fingers into his neck.

But, oh, she’d felt every brush of his fingers. Like pins and needles, like fire ants marching over her flesh, he’d hurt her. Made her feel it. Made her fear it, all in the space of a second.

A hell of a power to claim.

She jammed Silas’s gun into the waistband of her jeans and wondered how many bullets she had left, if the pain witch had even cared when she’d shot wildly behind her as she ran. Wondered if she’d be able to pull the trigger when he caught up to her, looked him dead in the eyes.

She ran across the bisecting road without stopping to check the area. Her skin crawled, and she tried not to visualize the big man with a thatch of graying hair behind her. Stalking her.

Smiling
at her.

Rocks clattered somewhere nearby. Footsteps splashed, or at least she thought it was footsteps in the pounding rain. Maybe it was just water cascading from the ceiling, so far ahead. Maybe it was him.

Maybe he was right behind her.

Her breath sobbed in her lungs as she jumped over the low, rusted fence separating the ruined road from whatever lay behind it. Twisted metal snagged her flesh, tearing through her palm like so much shredded paper. She yelped, landed on the other side in awkward pain as the ground dipped much lower than she expected.

Cradling her injured hand to her chest, she staggered upright and limped for the stark stone building thrust toward the asphalt sky. If this were any sort of ghost story, she realized as she froze in place, lightning would spear through the ambient dark like a warning.

The artificial ceiling didn’t allow for lightning. And, damn it, this wasn’t a ghost story. This was real.

Jessie stared in horror at the giant, old-fashioned clock mounted to the small stone cathedral.

Its glass had been shattered, leaving jagged remnants of white to grin ominously through the dark and rain. The heavy iron hands had rusted in place, and whatever mechanism had kept it grinding before the earthquake had long since died. The light began to waver as her hands shook violently.

“Beware the tomb that time forgot,” she whispered. Her skin went clammy, colder than even the rain. She tightened her grip on the gun and didn’t know if she should scream or laugh.

Beware the tomb that time forgot. I don’t know what happens there, but if you find it, you can’t stay. Don’t stay, Jessie.

A shattered clock over a ruined church. Caleb’s prophecies had never been wrong. She turned, her heart hammering.

“Where are you?” The masculine voice slipped through the eerie silence of the Old Seattle streets. Fighting back a scream of terror, of violent frustration and fear, Jessie turned back toward the church and ran for her life.

The steps she jumped were crumbling, time and erosion wearing away the edges. They led down to a shallow moat of standing water, green and brown with algae and slime, and she slipped and splashed through it. Taking the stairs two at a time, she climbed toward the ruined shell of the abandoned church and pulled the gun from her waistband. Her grip was clammy.

Time had eaten any defenses the church once had. She pushed past the entry arch, staggered into what had maybe been a lobby before. Maybe a meeting room. Now it echoed and glimmered in faded, absentminded glory. Shadows filled it end to end, caught on broken remnants of statuary and fallen icons. Littered remains of rotted red carpet curled like forgotten paper in the rain.

She crossed the ground, searching wildly for another way out. Another exit, a window that didn’t have protective bars wrapped around them to save stained glass that no longer existed. A door that didn’t rot in the shadows of crumbled walls and fallen ceilings.

There was only the one.

She wasn’t safe here.

Don’t stay, Jessie.

Torn between pain and prophecy, she wavered.

“Jessie.”

She screamed, the flashlight clattered to the floor and sent echoes skittering from wall to wall. Whirling, she pointed Silas’s gun at the menacing silhouette in the doorway. Her arms shook beneath the weight of the cold metal, her eyes stung, but she couldn’t waver. She couldn’t let him see her flag.

Beware the tomb that time forgot
.

Her tomb?

No.
His
. She braced herself, cupped her gun hand with her wounded palm.

“Jessie,” he said again. He moved, detached from the shadows that clung to him. “Jessie, don’t shoot.”

She trembled. “Don’t move,” she warned. The wet stone ate at her too-high voice; bounced it back in a million echoes. “Don’t move. Don’t fucking touch me again.”

Silas spread his hands, slowly at his sides. “Easy,” he said, so gently she wasn’t sure she heard it over the hammering of her heart. “Easy, sunshine. Don’t shoot.”

“Stay back!”

“It’s me, Jessie.” His voice reached out across the small divide. Cut through the cold and sweat and the fear. He took another step, hands in plain sight.

She bit hard on her lower lip as tears began to blind her. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

“Jessie,” he said sharply. Harshly. Another step. “It’s me, it’s Silas. Everything is okay, you’re safe. You’re okay.”

“N-no,” she whispered, shuddering.

Silas closed the distance, step by infinitesimally slow step. “He’s dead, Jess. You got him. He’s dead, do you hear me?” He reached out, cautious. “Give me the gun. Let it go.”

Her arms shook. Her shoulders screamed at the deceptive weight of the gun. She took in a deep, shuddering breath as his hand closed over the barrel.

Shockingly fast, he pulled the pistol from her hands and tossed it to the side. It hit the wet floor, skidded. She sobbed in relief, sheer nerves, as she curled her fingers into his jacket and yanked his mouth to hers.

Maybe it wasn’t what he’d expected, or what she’d intended. He grunted in surprise, but she gave him no time to rationalize. To think.

She didn’t want to rationalize. She didn’t want to think of anything but the hot, hard, strong maleness of his body, the taste of his lips against hers. She pushed into him, against him, as if she could crawl inside his coat with him. She tried to climb him as she devoured his mouth and his warmth.

Surprise turned into a wildfire of wanting. Silas gripped her hips in both hands and dragged her closer, shoved them both back as he took over the kiss. Deepened it. His tongue plunged into her mouth, danced with hers as she tried desperately to reclaim possession of the moment.

He didn’t let her. He curled his fingers against the soft curves of her ass, lifted her hard against him. She gasped in surprise, in shock as cold stone hit her back, whimpered with absolute pleasure as she wrapped her legs around his hips and ground herself against the erection clearly fighting the prison of his jeans.

He didn’t waste any time. Fiercely, almost angrily, he shoved at her jacket until it slid off her shoulders. Yanked at the hem of her camisole until one fragile strap snapped and her breasts spilled into his hands. The barely controlled aggression simmering under every movement only drove her higher, burned hotter.

Silas tore his mouth away from hers with a muttered curse and dropped his lips to one nipple, a damp circle that had her crying out in wicked encouragement. He laved at the sensitive point, pinched the other with clever, callused fingers until she writhed beyond all thought or reason.

Their gasps and low sounds of pleasure reverberated back from the damp walls, whipped her up even higher as she heard raw, aching need in every sound he made. That she made.

Jessie dropped her fingers to her jeans, struggled to unbutton the wet denim and laughed when he forced her hands away to work on it himself.

His eyes burned into hers, wildly green in the shadows and glittering with impatient desire. Desire for her. For her body spread beneath him, for her cries against his skin. She knew it as clearly as she knew her own wants.

And she wanted this. Him.
Now.

Power shimmered. She ruthlessly stomped it down.

This was her time. Hers.

He seized her legs, uncurled them from around his waist and lowered her to the floor. Wordless, even rough, he spun her around, pushed her against the wall with one warm hand centered squarely over the tattoo inked across the middle of her back. She gasped as cold stone pressed into her sensitized flesh, groaned as her nipples scraped against it in a white-hot point of pleasure-pain. Cool air ghosted over her thighs as he peeled her rain-stubborn jeans down to her knees.

Jessie cried out in shock and torturous need as he found her wet and swollen beneath his questing fingers. His own encouraging murmur answered back, praise and curses both. She splayed her palms against the wall, pressed her fiery cheek to the cold stone. Reveled.

Wanted.

Silas was everything she had to have. Fire and hard demand, tumultuous need. Her body strained against him, her hips lifted in desperate, silent encouragement, and she gasped against the wall as his erection nudged at her swollen flesh. She whimpered, a gasping “Yes!” as he plunged deep, hard and thick and perfect.

Overloaded, oversensitized, it was all she could do to hang on to the wall and feel him fill her. Warm, solid,
real
. Hers.

For now.

He locked his arms against the wall, braced himself against her, every muscle in his body shaking as he tried to hold back. To wait. “Jessie,” he began, tortured control and, oh, God, concern.

She didn’t want concern.

She shoved back, rocked against the rough denim still covering his hips. He threw back his head, grabbing her waist in both hands. So controlled. She rocked again, harder. He swore.

She smiled through the flush of her building orgasm. Rode a wave of spiraling heat. He pushed inside her, withdrew, filled her again and again. He stroked her body with every thrust, took her higher, tighter, until she arched back with a wild cry and fragmented on the waves of a climax that rocked her down to her curling toes.

He was a breath, a guttural shout behind her, pulled into the same vortex of uncurling sensation by the shuddering clench of her own muscles around him.

She collapsed against the wall and gasped for breath to fill her aching, winded lungs. He fell over her, his hair dripping across her shoulder, his clothing wet and rough against her back.

It took her a moment to realize that his hand covered her own, their fingers entangled against the wet, cold wall. Polished wood gleamed.
Nina
.

Her heart slowed its frenetic beat.

“Jessie,” he murmured against her shoulder. “Jesus, sunshine. Are you hurt?”

She wasn’t sure she had an answer for that one.

Cursing, Silas withdrew, made her gasp as he spun her around. His eyes searched hers. “Jessie? Did I hurt you?”

Only since they’d met.

She shook her head. “No,” she said. She pulled up her jeans as an excuse to break his hold. “Quite the contrary,” she added, letting her lips curve into the smile that hovered over her confusion. Let him see the lazy, deeply spent satisfaction he’d left her with.

And none of the fear.

His brow cleared, but only marginally. Her poor missionary.

I don’t know what happens there
, Caleb had said, but Jessie knew. She shouldn’t have stayed.

Beware the tomb that time forgot. It would change everything.

And nothing at all.

“Fuck me.”

Jessie looked up from retrieving her jacket, languidly amused. “What, again?”

Silas didn’t laugh. Instead he reached for her, spread his palm over the ruins of her tank top. Her heart sped up again in her chest. Greedy heart.

“You’re bleeding.”

She looked down in mild confusion. “What? Oh,” she added as she held up her palm. The tear bisecting her lifeline oozed sluggishly. “I forgot. It’s just a scratch.”

Anger crackled around him as he encircled her wrist. “It needs a bandage.”

She frowned. “It needs a washing and it’ll be fine.”

Silas looked down at her in silence, waiting. Patient as all hell
now
. She rolled her eyes, defeated annoyance. “Okay, fine. Take me back to your safe house and out of this—” Blood. Rot. Golden beads in a room drowning in death. “This godforsaken place.” She blinked hard. “Please.”