All Things Wicked

by Karina Cooper

  Juliet’s mouth twisted. “I thought witches and missionaries just killed each other.”

  “Yeah, so did I. That’s the mission statement.” Her tone flattened, bone dry. “Somehow, Peterson didn’t have to sign the same dotted line.”

  “How?”

  “Told you,” Naomi said, only somewhat patiently. “We don’t know. He was killed before Silas and Jessie could expose him. I didn’t even know ’til I joined this merry band of outlaws, and I worked with the fucker.”

  Juliet’s fingers knotted under her chin, twisted so tight it barely registered as pain in the turmoil of her mind. Curio, the coven master. The man who had taken her in, laughed with her, been stern and firm and kind.

  A missionary?

  And a witch. . .

  Curio only used you for magic.

  And she’d let him. Every time. Even when it left her feeling empty and aching and cold, she came to his hand like a puppy starving for love and he—

  A shudder slid down her spine. “He was right,” she whispered, mostly to herself. Even she could hear the revulsion, the tears, thick in her voice.

  Naomi watched her uneasily from the dark. “You aren’t going to cry, are you?”

  She almost laughed. “You expect me to, don’t you?” The woman said nothing as Juliet wiped at her still-dry eyes with her bare arm. “Poor little orphan witch, taken in by a witch hunter.”

  “Wasn’t a hunter,” Naomi replied, her voice so even that Juliet almost missed the way it edged. Like a razor. “And I’ve got news for you, kiddo. Every missionary out there is an orphan.”

  That one gave her pause. “Really?”

  “We’re cultivated,” Naomi told her, drawing the word out scornfully. “At an orphanage. Yeah, even me,” she added before Juliet could ask. “Whether we lose our parents young or are one of hundreds of kids abandoned in some gutter, all missionaries come from the same pool.”

  “That’s . . .” Horrible? Efficient? Juliet shook her head, uncertain if the witch wanted her sympathy or just her attention.

  Naomi shrugged. “That’s the way they do it. Then a funny thing happened, and I ended up a witch.”

  “Ended up? You weren’t born with it?”

  “Not even a glimmer of a genetic anomaly.” Naomi sighed, a deep gust of something that could have been annoyance. Or relief. “About a year ago, I inherited some abracadabra and that was that.” She dropped her hands, fingers tapping an uneven rhythm against her stomach. “So, witchcraft and the seal of St. Andrew live harmoniously together, blah, blah, blah.”

  “Without . . .” That brought them back to how a witch could be a missionary, didn’t it? Juliet’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know, doesn’t your magic set off the seal?”

  “Mine? Nah. Other witchcraft does.”

  It was unheard of, as far as Juliet knew. She fidgeted, digging her toes into the hard stones of the patio. It was easier to concentrate on the subject at hand and the heat slowly warming her skin than the ache behind her heart.

  Caleb was right. Caleb was always right.

  Used.

  Juliet shook her head, hard enough to swing the damp ends of her hair out of her eyes. “You were a witch hunter, and now you’re a healer?”

  “Doesn’t matter how often I hear it,” Naomi said, snorting. “That word sounds wrong. Doctor, fine. Nurse? Whatever. Healer? I feel like I should have long white hair, flowing robes, and be chanting something.”

  “With bells?”

  The woman chuckled. “Yeah. With bells.” She sighed. “Then there’s the Leigh witches.”

  Juliet hesitated.

  “Relax, I’ve been working with Jessie for a while, now. I get that she sees the present, or whatever.”

  “What about Caleb?”

  “The other funny thing.” Naomi shifted, grabbing the edges of the plastic chair and hauling it closer. It scraped, like nails across glass. She kicked her feet out again, casually crossing them at the ankle as she sat back, this time fully bathed in the furnace’s warm glow. “Was a time I actually was hunting Caleb Leigh.” Her eyebrow arched again, silver winking wildly. “He was top of the list.”

  “The list?”

  “The Mission has a list. Most-wanted witches, usually the type that get executed on sight. Sometimes, though, they want ’em alive.”

  Juliet hugged her knees as a shudder rippled through her. “Why?”

  “Questioning, maybe. Usually, witches like that aren’t working alone. Don’t know, we just bring them in. Or kill them.” She tipped her head. “Caleb Leigh once topped that list, and so we hunted him. Mostly Silas.”

  “By himself?”

  Sparks leaped from the stove, showering the gleaming stone underneath with embers. It cast Naomi’s features into devilish angles as she grinned. “More or less. Always had a loner streak.”

  Juliet thought back to the way he’d forged through that water, all brick-house muscle and savage strength. Remembered, too, how stern he’d been as he entered the house. How careful as he’d sat beside Jessie’s unresponsive body.

  “He loves her,” she blurted, and Naomi’s overly full mouth quirked.

  “Went rogue for her.” She sighed again, even as her tongue flicked out to trace the silver hoop pierced through the center of her lower lip. “He turned his back on all of us . . .” She paused. “Them. Anyway, point is, both of them have nearly died more’n once for each other. This is something he can’t do anything about.”

  To know that kind of love, unconditional and more powerful than any magic. . .

  She couldn’t imagine it. Juliet stretched her legs out toward the stove, leaning back on her hands as she studied the tips of her toes. “So,” she said slowly, “what’s wrong with her?”

  “Same thing that’s wrong with you.”

  Juliet’s head jerked up, gaze snagging on a steady blue-violet scrutiny.

  “Not,” Naomi drawled, “that I know what that is, either. But you’re both showing the same signs.”

  “What signs?”

  “Breakdown.” Lightning cracked overhead, coloring the canvas a bright white for a breath. Naomi glanced up, lips moving, and then nodded with a faint smile as thunder rumbled a few seconds behind. “Acts like a disease, looks like nothing. Can’t pin it.”

  “I’m . . .” Juliet stared at her, her mind struggling to make sense of the words. She heard them. She knew what they meant. But it may as well have been another language. “I’m what?”

  “Dying, probably.”

  Juliet shot to her feet so fast, the canvas rippled overhead. “What?”

  “Relax,” Naomi said, shaking her head. “You’ve got some time. More than Jessie’s got. She’s . . . worse, you could say. If it were a disease, I’d say hers has progressed farther.”

  Fear gripped her throat. Locked into her knees and made them tremble, but Juliet clenched her hands into tight, white-knuckled fists. “Why? What is it?”

  “Don’t know,” Naomi said on a long, tired exhale. “I can’t fix it. But I’ll tell you a secret.”

  “What?”

  “You and Jessie have something else in common.”

  Juliet stared at her, uncomprehending.

  “Your tattoo,” Naomi clarified. “Jessie has one like it, on her back.”

  “No way.”

  “Yup. Too bad you can’t ask her about it, right? Where’s Leigh?” She paused, fine black eyebrows working together, and amended, “Caleb, I mean.”

  And she thought Caleb was cold. This witch watched her like someone would watch a bug; with lazy interest, some amusement, and the kind of wariness that suggested she was ready in case Juliet did anything rash.

  Like what? Cry?

  She shook her head. “Out there,” she said, somehow managing a calm that she didn’t feel.

  “He sees the future, right?”

  Juliet nodded, jerkily.

  “Go ask him what’s in store. Maybe he’ll have something for you.” She hooked one leg over the p
lastic arm of her chair, propping her chin up in her palm. “I spent a lot of energy healing him,” she added. “That man . . .” She hesitated, as if searching for the right words. Finally, she shrugged one shoulder wordlessly.

  “You sound impressed,” Juliet said, glancing over her shoulder at the rain-dark vista. He was out there, somewhere. Sitting by the water, maybe.

  “It takes a fuck ton of grit and guts to stay upright, as much pain as he was in,” Naomi replied simply. “Yeah. I’m impressed. I think anyone else would have long since keeled over.”

  “Anyone else?” She frowned. “What’s so special about him?”

  Besides the fact that his presence made her heart beat double-time. And the fact that one look from his impenetrable blue eyes was enough to make her forget every shred of common sense she claimed to have.

  “I don’t know,” Naomi was saying slowly, but her gaze rested on the furnace, thank God. Juliet jerked her attention firmly back to her.

  And not on the clever, manipulative fingers that he’d eased between her legs not half an hour before.

  “But something is special. Different. Something,” Naomi mused, “was keeping him upright long after he should have been put down. I’d be curious to find out what.”

  “He’s stubborn,” Juliet told her matter-of-factly.

  The woman’s lips curved into a crooked smile. “We all are, kiddo.”

  “Yeah, well.” Juliet got to her feet, shaking out clinging bits of grit from her skirt. “He wins.”

  Naomi’s laughter followed her as Juliet turned and stepped off the patio. Her bare feet splashed in a puddle forming between stepping-stones.

  “Hey. Before you go.”

  Rain dripped into her eyes. She flicked it away, glancing back at the witch. Something fluttered through the air, glinting. Juliet caught it out of reflex, fingers closing around hard plastic edges.

  “There’s no good time for mistakes,” Naomi told her.

  Flipping the small square around, Juliet’s eyes widened in horror at the words imprinted on the packet. Her grip clenched on the condom foil, embarrassment and shock and—God help her—lust tightening her throat.

  “I don’t—I mean, we aren’t . . .”

  “Oh-kay.” The word drawled out on a slow, obvious tide of disbelief. Naomi leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “Keep it anyway. Busty thing like you’ll find a use, I’m sure.”

  The witch’s husky, knowing chuckle followed her as Juliet turned and hurried into the darkness.

  The rain soaked her through before she’d managed ten steps out of the light. She held the packet in one tight fist, its stiff edges cutting into her palm, but that small, insignificant pain wasn’t what dogged her steps now.

  The first time she’d had sex with Caleb Leigh, she’d used protection. Delia had always insisted that she get physicals with the rest of the girls at Waxed. Because of her job, she had easy access to the birth control her employers provided for the girls. She’d set Juliet up.

  “Only one of us gets paid for it,” she’d said, “but both of us can enjoy sex.”

  And how. Sex with Caleb Leigh had blown everything that came before out of the running.

  But it’d been a year since her sister disappeared, and Juliet hadn’t even considered sex in the interim.

  Until today. With Caleb. Again.

  And she hadn’t been protected.

  Juliet’s footsteps faltered at the edge of the large frond barricade. Rain streamed into her eyes, slid through her T-shirt and plastered the brown skirt to her legs, and she dragged her forearm across her face to clear her vision.

  Could she be . . . pregnant now?

  Unbidden, the hand holding the condom packet pressed against her abdomen.

  Dying, probably.

  No. No possible way. Rapidly, Juliet counted back until her last period. Sighed in relief. The odds were in her favor. Not without some margin of error, but. . .

  Without warning, her knees gave out. She sank to the compressed ground, clutching the little plastic square with its little black words to her chest, and suddenly couldn’t breathe.

  A child.

  Family.

  Her throat closed on the word.

  Overhead, the thick bank of gray clouds turned into a purple-white sheet, and thunder swallowed her sudden, wild sob. Shoulders shaking with the effort, Juliet bent her head over her fisted hands and swallowed back a sudden, painful press of tears.

  She couldn’t think about it. How selfish would that be? To bring a child into a world bound and determined to hate him? To persecute him because of his parents’ witchcraft.

  Or worse, because he actually inherited magic.

  She’d never be able to survive it if her child died at the hands of a mob, or a missionary.

  Fear clutched at her throat. Fear and grief and a yearning so poignant, it hurt to breathe.

  The rain battered at her head, her skin, the ground around her. The fronds rustled, waving back and forth as the fat drops of water pushed them this way and that. Her heart hammered in her chest. In her ears. Too long, too loud.

  “Jules.” His voice. Quiet. Steady.

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Juliet?” Long fingers closed over her shoulders. “Juliet, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  Her eyes snapped open. Sudden and furious, she wrenched away from Caleb’s grip, pushing hard against his chest and sending him sprawling on his ass. His eyes flashed, wet features settled into surprised, angry lines.

  “You knew,” she seethed, somehow getting to her knees. The rocky soil dug into her skin, the condom wrapper bit into her fisted fingers, but she didn’t care. Didn’t feel it, didn’t feel anything but anger, white-hot and brilliantly edged.

  He didn’t move, staring at her as if she were crazy. His hands braced against the ground, heels dug in.

  She pointed at him. “Did you know about my tattoo? Do you know what it is?”

  “Is that what this is about?”

  “Do you know?”

  “No, I don’t know what it is,” he replied quietly. “All I know is that my sister has one like it.”

  She shook her head, hard enough to drown out the thoughts roiling in her own head. Sharp enough to make him reach out a hand, words ready on his lips. “Do you want me?” she demanded.

  His eyes widened. Narrowed just as fast. “What are you—”

  “Do you?” she cut in fiercely, voice taut. Trembling. “Do you want me, Caleb? Or do you want my magic? Are you just like Alicia? Like—” She flung it out like a curse. “Like Curio?”

  Fury banked behind his suddenly tight features. He lunged to his feet, knocked her hand away as she held it out in warning, and seized her T-shirt in his scarred fist. Wordlessly, savagely, he yanked her upright. Fabric stretched, popped as seams gave way.

  She gasped as his hand slid around the back of her head. Tangled through her dripping hair and gripped it tight, hard enough, strong enough that she couldn’t move. Couldn’t look away as his eyes blazed blue and white and wild in the searing display of light piercing the sky.

  “I’m not doing this,” he growled, each furious word a hot fan of breath across her cheek. “My sister is in that house, dying, and you—you . . .” He made a rough sound. “I never wanted you.”

  The bottom fell from her stomach. Heat swept through her cheeks; shock, mortification. Anger.

  She tried to turn away, to hide her face, but his fingers tightened painfully in her hair. His scarred hand gripped her wrist as she tried to push him away. Tucked it hard and fast at the small of her back, forcing her body against his. Her back arched under the pressure, her breasts pushed against his chest, and she realized then that he was shaking.

  Every muscle vibrated with an effort she couldn’t define.

  “Every time I turned around and you were there,” he gritted out, “with your spring green eyes and unguarded smile. I never wanted you, God damn it.”

  His eyes traced t
he downward line of her lower lip. Her throat, and lower. Anger gave way to something Juliet didn’t know how to read; something hotter than fury, sharper, even more visceral.

  Like desire, but starved.

  She swallowed. His eyes flicked to the motion of the fragile bones of her throat.

  “Then let me go,” she said, marveling at how calm it seemed in the fury of the rain. Of him. “If you don’t want me, let me walk away. Go back to Jessie, and I’ll go—go anywhere you want. Away from here.”

  His eyes flicked to hers. Breath rasping in his chest, Caleb inhaled deeply. Touched his tongue to his lower lip, gleaming with rainwater, and said huskily, “I can’t do that.”

  Juliet shook her head, sobbing out, “Why?”

  “I don’t want you,” he replied, his intensity folded into a hoarse whisper. “I can’t.” His blond hair dripped into his eyes, tangling in his spiky lashes.

  Juliet raised herself on the balls of her feet, forcing him to jerk back in surprise as more of her weight settled onto him. Against him. The hand in her hair loosened suddenly, fingers sliding around the curve of her neck. Palm at her cheek.

  He groaned, a sound filled with the agony of indecision. With an emotion that wrenched at her heart, her soul.

  Who was this man?

  Was this the reality that hid beneath the rigid mask?

  “You make it hurt less,” he said roughly. “God help me, I don’t know what else to do. I—I need you.”

  Juliet grabbed the back of his head, threw everything she’d ever known to the wind, and pulled his mouth to hers. His lips were wet and cool to the touch, but his mouth—God have mercy, his warm, greedy mouth opened under her assault and reversed the control so quickly, so thoroughly that she was left reeling.

  Suddenly, she was on the defensive, his arms banding around her waist and lifting her off the ground. She tunneled her fingers into his hair, seizing wet handfuls for balance as she matched his probing tongue with her own. Darted into his mouth, rasping against his tongue, tasting him.

  Craving him.

  His breath wrenched in his chest, sharp, short pants that only served to drive her higher, hotter; need coiled from her lips to her womb in a savage spring that begged release, and she moaned against his lips. Gasped as he caught her lower lip between his teeth and bit down, then swept the small ache away with his tongue.